"Who Shall Decide when Doctors disagree?"
WE had certainly not been more than ten minutes in the garden, when we
were startled by an extraordinary outbreak of shouting in broken English,
proceeding from the window of the sitting-room. "Hi-hi-hoi! hoi-hi!
hoi-hi!" We looked up, and discovered Herr Grosse, frantically waving a
huge red silk handkerchief at the window. "Lonch! lonch!" cried the
German surgeon. "The consultations is done. Come begin-begin."
Obedient to this peremptory summons, Lucilla, Nugent, and I returned to
the sitting-room. We had, as I had foreseen, found Oscar wandering alone
in the garden. He had entreated me, by a sign, not to reveal our
discovery of him to Lucilla, and had hurried away to hide himself in one
of the side-walks. His agitation was pitiable to see. He was totally
unfit to be trusted in Lucilla's presence at that anxious moment.
When we had left the oculists together, I had sent Zillah with a little
written message to Reverend Finch; entreating him (if it was only for
form's sake) to reconsider his resolution, and be present on the
all-important occasion to his daughter of the delivery of the medical
opinions on her case. At the bottom of the stairs (on our return), my
answer was handed to me on a slip of sermon-paper. "Mr. Finch declined to
submit a question of principle to any considerations dictated by mere
expediency. He desired seriously to remind Madame Pratolungo of what he
had already told her. In other words, he would repeat, and he would beg
her to remember this time, that his Foot was down."
On re-entering the room, we found the eminent oculists seated as far
apart as possible one from the other. Both gentlemen were engaged in
reading. Mr. Sebright was reading a book. Herr Grosse was reading the
Mayonnaise.
I placed Lucilla close by me, and took her hand. It was as cold as ice.
My poor dear trembled pitiably. For her, what moments of unutterable
suffering were those moments of suspense, before the surgeons delivered
their sentence! I pressed her little cold hand in mine, and whispered
"Courage!" Truly I can say it (though I am not usually one of the
sentimental sort), my heart bled for her.
"Well, gentlemen," said Nugent, "what is the result? Are you both
agreed?"
"No," said Mr. Sebright, putting aside his book.
"No," said Herr Grosse, ogling the Mayonnaise. Lucilla turned her face
towards me; her color shifting and changing, her bosom rising and falling
more and more rapidly. I whispered to her to compose herself. "One of
them, at any rate," I said, "thinks you will recover your sight." She
understood me, and became quieter directly. Nugent went on with his
questions, addressed to the two oculists.
"What do you differ about?" he asked. "Will you let us hear your
opinions?"
The wearisome contest of courtesy was renewed between our medical
advisers. Mr. Sebright bowed to Herr Grosse:
"You first." Herr Grosse bowed to Mr. Sebright: "No--you!" My impatience
broke through this cruel and ridiculous professional restraint. "Speak
both together, gentlemen, if you like!" I said sharply. "Do anything, for
God's sake, but keep us in suspense. Is it, or is it not, possible to
restore her sight?"
"Yes," said Herr Grosse.
Lucilla sprang to her feet, with a cry of joy.
"No," said Mr. Sebright.
Lucilla dropped back again into her chair, and silently laid her head on
my shoulder.
"Are you agreed about the cause of her blindness?" asked Nugent.
"Cataracts is the cause," answered Herr Grosse.
"So far, I agree," said Mr. Sebright. "Cataract is the cause.
"Cataracts is curable," pursued the German.
"I agree again," continued the Englishman--"with a reservation. Cataract
is _sometimes_ curable."
"This cataracts is curable!" cried Herr Grosse.
"With all possible deference," said Mr. Sebright, "I dispute that
conclusion. The cataract, in Miss Finch's case, is _not_ curable."
"Can you give us your reasons, sir, for saying that?" I inquired.
"My reasons are based on surgical considerations which it requires a
professional training to understand," Mr. Sebright replied. "I can only
tell you that I am convinced--after the most minute and careful
examination--that Miss Finch's sight is irrevocably gone. Any attempt to
restore it by an operation, would be, in my opinion, an unwarrantable
proceeding. The young lady would not only have the operation to undergo,
she would be kept secluded afterwards, for at least six weeks or two
months, in a darkened room. During that time, it is needless for me to
remind you that she would inevitably form the most confident hope of her
restoration to sight. Remembering this, and believing as I do that the
sacrifice demanded of her would end in failure, I think it most
undesirable to expose our patient to the moral consequences of a
disappointment which must seriously try her. She has been resigned from
childhood to her blindness. As an honest man, who feels bound to speak
out and to speak strongly, I advise you not further to disturb that
resignation. I declare it to be, in my opinion, certainly useless, and
possibly dangerous, to allow her to be operated on for the restoration of
her sight."
In those uncompromising words, the Englishman delivered his opinion.
Lucilla's hand closed fast on mine. "Cruel! cruel!" she whispered to
herself angrily. I gave her a little squeeze, recommending patience--and
looked in silent expectation (just as Nugent was looking too) at Herr
Grosse. The German rose deliberately to his feet, and waddled to the
place in which Lucilla and I were sitting together.
"Has goot Mr. Sebrights done?" he asked.
Mr. Sebright only replied by his everlasting never-changing bow.
"Goot! I have now my own word to put in," said Herr Grosse. "It shall be
one little word--no more. With my best compliments to Mr. Sebrights, I
set up against what he only thinks, what I--Grosse--with these hands of
mine have done. The cataracts of Miss there, is a cataracts that I have
cut into before, a cataracts that I have cured before. Now look!" He
suddenly wheeled round to Lucilla, tucked up his cuffs, laid a forefinger
of each hand on either side of her forehead, and softly turned down her
eyelids with his two big thumbs. "I pledge you my word as surgeon-optic,"
he resumed, "my knife shall let the light in here. This lofable-nice
girls shall be more lofable-nicer than ever. My pretty Feench must be
first in her best goot health. She must next gif me my own ways with
her--and then one, two, three--ping! my pretty Feench shall see!" He
lifted Lucilla's eyelids again as he said the last word--glared fiercely
at her through his spectacles--gave her the loudest kiss, on the
forehead, that I ever heard given in my life--laughed till the room rang
again--and returned to his post as sentinel on guard over the Mayonnaise.
"Now," cried Herr Grosse cheerfully, "the talkings is all done. Gott be
thanked, the eatings may begin!"
Lucilla left her chair for the second time.
"Herr Grosse," she said, "where are you?"
"Here, my dears!"
She crossed the room to the table at which he was sitting, already
occupied in carving his favorite dish.
"Did you say you must use a knife to make me see?" she asked quite
calmly.
"Yes, yes. Don't you be frightened of that. Not much pains to bear--not
much pains."
She tapped him smartly on the shoulder with her hand.
"Get up, Herr Grosse," she said. "If you have your knife about you, here
am I--do it at once!"
Nugent started. Mr. Sebright started. Her daring amazed them both. As for
me, I am the greatest coward living, in the matter of surgical operations
performed on myself or on others. Lucilla terrified me. I ran headlong
across the room to her. I was even fool enough to scream.
Before I could reach her, Herr Grosse had risen, obedient to command,
with a choice morsel of chicken on the end of his fork. "You charming
little fools," he said, "I don't cut into cataracts in such a hurry as
that. I perform but one operations on you to-day. It is this!" He
unceremoniously popped the morsel of chicken into Lucilla's mouth. "Aha!
Bite him well. He is nice-goot! Now then! Sit down all of you. Lonch!
lonch!"
He was irresistible. We all sat down at table.
The rest of us ate. Herr Grosse gobbled. From Mayonnaise to marmalade
tart. From marmalade tart back again to Mayonnaise. From Mayonnaise,
forward again to ham sandwiches and blancmange; and then back once more
(on the word of an honest woman) to Mayonnaise! His drinking was on the
same scale as his eating. Beer, wine, brandy--nothing came amiss to him;
he mixed them all. As for the lighter elements in the feast--the almonds
and raisins, the preserved ginger and the crystallized fruits, he ate
them as accompaniments to everything. A dish of olives especially won his
favor. He plunged both hands into it, and deposited his fists-full of
olives in the pockets of his trousers. "In this ways," he explained, "I
shall trouble nobody to pass the dish--I shall have by me continually all
the olives that I want." When he could eat and drink no more, he rolled
up his napkin into a ball, and became devoutly thankful. "How goot of
Gott," he remarked, "when he invented the worlds to invent eatings and
drinkings too! Ah!" sighed Herr Grosse, gently laying his outspread
fingers on the pit of his stomach, "what immense happiness there is in
This!"
Mr. Sebright looked at his watch.
"If there is anything more to be said on the question of the operation,"
he announced, "it must be said at once. We have barely five minutes more
to spare. You have heard my opinion. I hold to it."