"TO THE GREAT UNWHIMPERING!"
"Tell me some good stories about doctors," said Georgia; "I want to use
them in something I'm going to write."
"Isn't it dreadful?" said Mrs. McCormick, turning to Dr. Parkman, "she
even interviews people while they eat!" Mrs. McCormick had that manner of
some mothers of seeming to be constantly disapproving, while not in the
least concealing her unqualified admiration.
"I'm not interviewing them, Mother. Skillful interviewers never
interview. They just get people to talk."
"But what is it you're going to write," asked the doctor, "a eulogy or
denunciation?"
"Both; something characteristic."
"Meaning that something characteristic about doctors would include both
good and bad?"
"Well, they're pretty human, aren't they?" laughed Georgia.
"And think how grateful we should be," ventured Karl, "for the inference
of something good."
Dr. Parkman looked over at him with a hearty: "That's right," relieved
that his friend could enter into things at all.
In the library before they came in, things had gone badly. Mrs. McCormick
held persistently to the topic of Karl's eyes, putting forth all sorts of
"home remedies" which would cure them in a night. He had grown nervous
and irritable under it, and Mrs. Hubers several times had come to the
rescue with her graciousness. She was worried herself; the doctor could
see that in the way she looked from her husband to him, scenting
something not on the surface. He was just beginning to fear the dinner
was going to be miserable for them all, when Miss McCormick broke the
tension by asking for stories.
"Tell us what you're going to write, Georgia," said Ernestine, she too
seizing at it gratefully, "and then our doctors will have a better idea
of what you want."
"Well, I was talking to Judge Lee the other day, and he told me some good
stories about lawyers--characteristic stories, you know. So I thought I
would work up a little series--lawyers, doctors, ministers and so on,
and see how nearly I could reach the characteristics of the professions
through the stories I tell of them; not much of an idea, perhaps--but I
know a man who will buy the stuff."
Ernestine was smiling in a knowing little way. "Do you want to begin with
something really characteristic?" she asked.
"That's it. Something to strike the nail on the head, first blow."
"Then lead off with the story of Pasteur's forgetting to go to his own
wedding. There's the most characteristic doctor story I know of."
"That's a direct insult," laughed Karl.
"Why, not at all, Karl," protested Mrs. McCormick, "every one knows you
were on hand for _your_ wedding."
"Yes, and a good thing he was," declared Ernestine. "I don't think I
should have been as meek and gentle about it as the bride of Pasteur. I
fancy I would have said: 'Oh, really now--if it's so much trouble, we'll
just let it go.'"
"No, Ernestine," said Mrs. McCormick, seriously, after the laugh, "I
don't believe you would have said that,"--and then they laughed again.
"Well, it's a good story," she insisted; "and characteristic. I believe
after all that Pasteur was a chemist and not a doctor, but the doctors
have appropriated him, so the story will be all right."
"If you want to tell some stories about Pasteur," said Karl, "tell about
his refusing the royal decoration. He told the Emperor that the honour
and pleasure of doing such work as his was its own reward, and that no
decoration was needed. That story made a great hit in the scientific
world."
"But is it characteristic?" asked Georgia, slyly.
"Well," he laughed, "it ought to be."
"Another one of the independent kind," said Parkman, "is on Bilroth. He
was summoned to appear at a certain hour before the Emperor of Austria.
Bilroth was with a very sick patient until the eleventh hour and arrived
a little late in business clothes. The scandalised chamberlain protested,
telling him he could not go in like that. Whereupon Bilroth blustered
out: 'I have no time to spare. Tell His Majesty if he wishes to see me,
I am here. If he wants my dress suit, I will have a boy bring it
around.'"
"Did he get in?" asked Mrs. McCormick, anxiously.
"I think he did, although undoubtedly Miss McCormick will be too modern
to say so."
"There was a story I always liked about a Vienna doctor," he continued;
he was anxious to guide the stories, for Karl had seemed suddenly to sink
within himself. He understood why--he might have foreseen where this
would lead. For there were other stories of medical men, stories which
fitted a little too closely just now; he was especially sorry he had
mentioned Bilroth. "This shows another side of the doctor," he went on,
after a minute, "and as you are going to give good as well as bad, this
may help out on the good side--there's where you will be short. A woman
came to see this doctor regarding her consumptive son. He told her there
was nothing he could do for him, adding: 'If you want him to live, you
must take him to Italy.' The woman broke down and told him she could not
do that, that she had no money. The doctor sat there thinking a moment,
and then sent over to the bank and got her a letter of credit covering
the amount involved. Another doctor, who happened to be near, asked why
he did that. 'You can't possibly support all your needy patients,' he
said; 'why did you choose this particular case? Of course,' he added, 'it
was very good of you.' 'No,' said the doctor, 'it was not good of me.
There was nothing good about it. But I was guilty of proposing to her
something I knew she could not do. After opening up that possibility it
was my obligation to see that she could fulfill it. I suggested what I
knew to be the impossible; after I suggested it, it was my business to
make it possible.' Don't you think that a pretty good sense of justice?"
he asked of Ernestine.
"What might be called an inner squareness," said Georgia, as Ernestine
responded only with the fine lights the story had brought to her eyes.
Karl did not seem to have heard the story. Ernestine looked toward him
anxiously.
"Now I'm going to tell a story," she said, with a gaiety thrown out for
rousing him, "a very fine story;--every one must listen." He looked over
at her and smiled at that, listening for her story.
"This man's name can't be printed, because he lives in Chicago and it
might embarrass him,"--Karl and Dr. Parkman exchanged glances with a
smile. "This is a characteristic story, as it shows a doctor's tyranny.
There was a boy taken ill at a little town near Chicago. The country
doctor telephoned up to the boy's father, and the father telephoned the
family physician who, from the meagre facts, scented appendicitis. I
don't know how he knew it was bad, but I believe a good doctor is a
pretty good guesser. At any rate he suspected this was serious, and told
the father they would have to go down there at once. The father said
there was no Sunday train. 'Then get a special,' said the doctor. 'We'll
probably have to bring him up to the hospital to operate, and can't do it
in the automobile.' The father protested against the special, saying it
would be very expensive and that he did not think it necessary. The
doctor said he did think it necessary or he would not have suggested it.
The father demurred still more and the doctor rang off. Then you called
up the railroad office, yourself--wasn't that it?" turning to Dr.
Parkman, who grew red and looked genuinely embarrassed. "Oh dear,"--in
mock dismay--"now I've mixed it up, haven't I? Well, this doctor--I'm not
saying anything about who he is--called up the railroad office and calmly
ordered the special. I must not forget to say that the man who did not
want to spend the money had an abundance of money to spend. Then he
called the boy's father and said, 'Be at the station in twenty minutes.
The special will be waiting. You will have nothing to do but sign the
check.'"
"Well," said Mrs. McCormick, when Ernestine stopped as though through,
"would the father pay for it, and did the boy have to have an operation,
and did he get well?"
"Mother doesn't like this new way of telling a story," said Georgia; "she
likes to hear the got-married-and-lived-happily-ever-after part."
"I'm sure no one said anything about getting married in this," said Mrs.
McCormick, serenely.
"But don't you think that a fine doctor story?" Ernestine asked smilingly
of Dr. Parkman.
"A very bad story to tell. Miss McCormick's general reader will
say--: 'Oh yes, of course, he was just bound to have an operation.'"
"Georgia,"--this was from the man at the head of the table, and there was
something in his voice to arrest them all--"if you are in earnest about
wanting stories of doctors, why don't you tell some of the big ones? Some
of the stories medical men have a right to be proud of?"
"What are they?" she asked, promptly. "Tell me some of them."
Dr. Parkman's eyes were on his plate. He was handling his fork a little
nervously.
"If I were going to tell any stories about medical men," Karl went on,
and in his quiet voice there was still that compelling note, "it seems to
me I should want to say something about the doctors who died game--just a
little something about the men who took their medicine and said nothing;
men with the nerve to face even their own understanding--cut off, you
see, from the refuge of fooling themselves. Ask Dr. Parkman about the
surgeons who lost their hands or their lives through infection. Those are
the stories he knows that are worth while. He's only giving you the
surface of it, Georgia. Tell him you'd like a little of the real thing.
Ask him about the men who died slow deaths, looking a fatal future in the
face from a long way off. He mentioned Bilroth just now, telling a funny
story about him. There's a better story than that to tell about Bilroth.
You know he was the man who knew so much about the heart; he probably
understood the heart better than any other man. And by one of those
leering tricks of fate, he had heart disease himself. He watched his own
case and made notes on it, that his profession might profit by his
destruction. There you have something worth writing about! In his last
letter home, he said he had ten days to live--and he missed it by just
one; he lived eleven. If you're going to tell any stories about Bilroth,
tell that one, Georgia. And then a story or two showing that while many
men take chances, it's the doctor who takes them most understandingly.
Why medical science is full of an almost grotesque courage! Don't you
begin to see how the doctor's been trifling with you, Georgia?"
He paused, but no one felt the impulse to speak. His eyes were hidden by
the dark glasses he was wearing because of that cold, or whatever it was,
in his eyes, but his face told the story of an alert mind, a heart
responsive to the things of which he spoke. Then he went on and talked a
little, quietly enough, but with a passionateness, a high note of
understanding, of the men who had had the nerve--eyes open--to face the
things fate handed them. It was as if he were looking back over the whole
sweep of the world and picking from many times and many places the men
whose souls had not flinched to the death. And at the last he said,
smiling--the kind of smile one meets with a tear--"Let's have a little
toast." He raised his glass of claret and for a minute looked at it in
silence. And then he said slowly, his very quiet voice and that little
smile tempering the words:
"Here's to all those fellows who went down without the banners or
the trumpets!--To the boys who took the starch out of their own
tragedies!--To those first class sports who made no fuss about their own
funerals! Here's to the Great Unwhimpering!"
Dr. Parkman choked a little over his wine, the tightening in Ernestine's
throat made it hard for her with hers, Georgia's cheeks were burning with
enthusiasm for the story she saw now she could write, and even Mrs.
McCormick had no questions as to just what men had died that way. Then it
was Karl himself who abruptly turned the conversation to the more shallow
channels of dinner talk.
After that he was not unlike a man who had had a little too much
champagne. He startled them with the nimbleness of his wit, the light
play of his fancy. It was as though he had a new vocabulary, a lighter
one than was commonly his. There was a sort of delicate frolicsomeness in
his thought.
For a reason unknown to her, it troubled Ernestine. She looked from Karl
to Dr. Parkman, but the doctor had that impenetrable look of his. What
was the matter with him? He had talked so freely during the early part of
the dinner, and now he seemed to have dropped out of it entirely. She
caught him looking at Karl once; the keen, narrow gaze of physician to
patient. Then she saw, distinctly, that his face darkened, and after
that, when he smiled at the things which were being tossed back and forth
between Karl and Georgia, it was what she called to herself a "made-up
smile"; and once or twice when Karl said something especially funny, she
was quite sure she saw Dr. Parkman wince.
A lump rose in Ernestine's throat; Karl seemed to have slipped away from
her. This was a mood to which she could not respond and it seemed he did
not expect her to. Almost all of his talk was directed to Georgia, who,
with her quick wit and inherent high spirits, was enjoying the pace he
set her. It seemed to resolve itself into a duel of quick, easy play of
thought and words between those two. But the things they said did not
make Ernestine laugh. She smiled, as Dr. Parkman did, a "made-up" smile.
She had always enjoyed Karl's humour immensely, but now, though she had
never seen him as brilliant, something about him pulled at her heart. She
could not restrain a resentfulness at Georgia for encouraging him. For
she could not get away from the feeling that all of this was not grounded
on the thing which was Karl himself. It was like nothing in the world so
much as the breeziness of a mind which had let itself go. She was glad
when at last she could rise from the table.
In the library it was as though he were holding on to Georgia, determined
not to let her out of the mood into which he had brought her. The things
of which he talked were things having no bearing whatever upon himself.
If she had not been there, had simply heard of the things said, she
would not have recognised Karl at all. For the first time since they had
known one another, Ernestine felt left out,--alone.
Mrs. McCormick said that they must go, but Karl protested. "We're having
such a good time," he said, "don't think of going."
But Georgia had an engagement. She insisted at last that they must go.
Dr. Parkman had remained too, although Ernestine was satisfied he was not
enjoying things.
"Why, what in the world have you done to Karl?" laughed Georgia, pinning
on her hat. "I haven't had such good fun for months. I had no idea he was
such a gem of a dinner man."
"I do not think Karl is very well," said Ernestine, a little coolly.
"_Well_? Why, bless you, I never saw him in such exuberant mood."
"Didn't they make the words fly?" laughed Mrs. McCormick. "My dear, you
and the doctor and I were quite left behind."
"It seemed that way," said Ernestine, trying to keep her chin from
quivering.
When she returned to the library, Dr. Parkman and Karl were evidently
just closing a discussion for Karl was saying, heatedly: "Now just let me
manage things in my own way!"
The doctor seemed reluctant to leave. Ernestine was alone with him for a
minute in the hall, and she was sure he started to say something once and
then changed it to something else. But when he did leave, it was with
merely the conventional goodbye.
She walked slowly back to the library. Karl was sitting in the Morris
chair, his elbow upon one arm of it, his hand to his forehead. His whole
bearing had changed; it was as though he had let down. Again it seemed as
though in the last hour he had been intoxicated, and this the depression
to follow that kind of exuberance. But he looked up as he heard her, and
smiled a little, a wan, tired smile. She was beside him in an instant.
"You seemed so happy this afternoon, dear," she said, stroking his hair,
"and now you seem so tired. Aren't you well, Karl?" she asked, a little
timidly.
His face then mirrored a dissatisfaction, a sort of resentment.
"I talked like a fool this afternoon!" he said gruffly.
"Why, no, dear, only--not quite like yourself."
"Well, the fact of the matter is"--this after a minute's thought--"I have
a frightful headache. I suppose it comes from this trouble with my eyes.
I thought I wasn't going to be able to keep up, and in my efforts to do
it, I"--he paused and then laughed rather harshly--"overdid it."
He seemed anxious for her reply to that.
"I knew it was something like that," she said simply. Then, after a
minute: "Is there anything I can do for the head?"
He told her no, but that he believed he would turn the chair around with
his back to the light.
"And I won't talk, dear," he said gently; "I'll just rest a little."
She helped him with the chair and for a minute sat there on a low seat
beside him.
"You know, sweetheart," resting her cheek upon his hand, "I don't like
those dark glasses at all. I'll be so glad when you don't have to wear
them."
"Why?" he asked, his voice a little muffled.
"Because they shut me out. I always seem closer to you when I can look
into your eyes.--Oh--does it pain so?" as he drew sharply away.
"That did hurt," he admitted, his voice low. "I--I'd better not talk for
a little, dear."
So she said if there was nothing she could do for his head, she would
leave him while she wrote a couple of letters.
For a long time he sat there without moving. It was the exhaustion which
follows intoxication, for he had indeed intoxicated himself that
afternoon, and with an idea. It had come about so strangely. After they
sat down to dinner, he had been on the point a half a dozen times, of
excusing himself on the plea of a bad headache. Then when they began to
talk about doctors, those other things had come to him, and it was as
though the spirit of all those men who had gone down that way entered
into him, came so close, possessed him so completely, that he could not
hold back those words about them. A spirit quite beyond his control had
moved him to that little toast. After that, something--perhaps a spark
from the nerve of those men of whom he had spoken--brought his mind
firmly into possession of the feeling that everything was all right. It
was not that he argued himself out of his fears, but rather that
something brought the assurance of its being all right, and after that
there came a number of arguments sustaining the conviction. Just before
dinner he had gone over to the laboratory and looked at the culture. It
had not shown anything at all. At the time he accepted that as a matter
of course--it was not time for it to show anything. But looking back on
it after this conviction came to him, he took the very fact of its not
showing anything as proof that there was nothing there to show. His mind
only grasped one side of it--that it showed nothing at all. Brightening
under that he began to talk lightly, to joke with Georgia, and talking
that way seemed to enable him to keep hold of the conviction that
everything was all right. The more he talked, the more sure he was of it,
the gayer he felt, the more disposed to let his mind run wild. He was a
little afraid if he stopped talking, this beautiful conviction of its
being all right would leave him. So he made Georgia keep at it, Georgia
was the one could play that sort of game.
As he talked, new arguments came to him. The oculist! At first he had
thought it a bad thing that the oculist could not tell what was the
matter. Now he seized upon that as proving there was nothing the matter
at all. And Dr. Parkman had said, at the last, that it did not amount to
anything. At the time that had been a mere conventional phrase, but now,
in his exhilaration, he seized upon it as indisputable truth. But always
there was the feeling that he must keep on feeling this way, or the
conviction, and all that it meant, would go. That was why he clung to
Georgia. Finally he reached the point where he could distinctly remember
getting the other stuff--the stuff which did not make any difference--on
his hands. He could fairly see it on his hands, could remember distinctly
getting it in his eye. And then Georgia had said something about going,
and he had begged her not to go. But she insisted, and he began to feel
then that the exhilaration was wearing off, that he was coming back to
face things; to the doubt, the uncertainty, the suffering. And now that
he had come back to things as they were, he felt inexpressibly tired.
He went over it again and again, trying to gain something now, not from
any form of excitement, but from things as they were. Suddenly his face
brightened. He sat there in deep thought, and then at last he smiled a
little. Whatever happened must have occurred Friday afternoon. But he had
never in all his life felt as happy about his work as he did before he
left the laboratory Friday afternoon. Could a man feel like that, would
it be in the heart of things to let a man feel that way, if he had
already entered upon the road of his destruction? It had been more than a
happiness of the mind; it was a happiness of the soul, and would not a
man's soul send out some note of warning? And then that same evening when
he and Ernestine sat before the fire! If already this grim fate had
entered into their lives, would not their love, would not _her_ love, all
intuition, deep-seeing, feeling that which it could not understand, have
felt in that moment of supreme happiness, some token of what was ahead?
It could not be that the world jeered at men like that. Their love would
have told them something was wrong.
Ernestine came in just then and he called her to him.
"Liebchen," he said, "I've been thinking about that evening of your
birthday, about how beautiful it was. Weren't you happy, dear, as we sat
there before the fire?"
"So happy, Karl," she murmured, warmly glad to have her own Karl again.
"Everything seemed so beautiful; everything seemed so perfectly right."
He drew her to him with a passion she did not understand. His Ernestine!
His wife! She who communed with love, whose harmony with the great soul
of things was perfect--they could not have deceived her like that!
Ernestine and love dwelt too closely together. She would have received
some sign.
For a time that calmed and sustained him; he believed in it; it was his
weapon to use against the doubts and terrors which preyed upon him. But
the gloom of his soul seemed to thicken with the deepening of the night.
His heart grew cold with the coming of the shadows. The passing of day
inspired in him fears not to be reasoned away.
He grew very nervous during the evening and finally said he must go over
to the laboratory and arrange some things for morning. Ernestine
protested against it--and if he must go would he not let her go with him?
But he told her he believed it would be better for his head if he walked
alone for just a little while. He did not have a headache more than once
in five years, he assured her, laughing a little, and when he did, it was
apt to upset him.
When he came back at last--it seemed to her a very long time--she saw,
watching from the window, that he was walking very slowly, almost as if
exhausted She could not hold back her alarm at his white, worn face.
Something in it gripped at her heart.
"Is it worse, dear?" she asked anxiously.
"It's a little bad--just now. I'll go to bed. It will be better then." He
spoke slowly, as though very tired.
"Won't you take something for it, Karl?" she persisted. "Won't you?"
"I do not know of anything to take that would do any good,
Ernestine,"--and he could not quite keep the quiver out of those words.
"But other people take things. There _are_ things. Let me go out and get
you something."
He shook his head.
"Doctors don't take much stock in medicine," he said, with a touch of his
usual humour.
She wanted to stay with him until he went to sleep. She wanted to put
cold cloths on his head. It was hard to avoid Ernestine's tenderness.
"It did not show anything," he assured himself, pleadingly, when alone.
"It only showed that it was going to show in the morning. I knew that. I
knew all the time I was going to know in the morning. I'll not go to
pieces. I'll not be a fool about it," he kept repeating.
But a little later Ernestine was sure she heard him groan. She could not
keep away from that.
"Oh, sweetheart," she murmured, kneeling by his bed, "I can't bear it not
to help you. Let me do just some little thing," she pleaded.
He put his hand over in hers. "Hold it, dear; if you aren't too tired. I
don't want to talk,--but hold on to my hand."
His grip grew very tight after a minute. She was sure his head must be
paining terribly. If only he would take something for it!
In a little while he grew very quiet. Soon she was sure that he was
asleep. But after she had at last stolen away he turned and buried his
face in his arms.