As the two students were returning through Halsted Street, they passed an
Italian bank where shattered glass was lying on the pavement.
“Bank has busted,” remarked Saadi, dryly.
“It was a bomb,” explained Ameen. “The papers were full of it this
morning.”
Saadi stopped and scrutinised the building. “It was not money they
wanted?”
“No. Just a matter of intimidation. Such methods never accomplish
anything.”
Saadi slowly resumed his former gait. “That is big question, Mirza Ameen.
Just now it is fashion to say bombs do not accomplish. But nothing
accomplishes. It is no use to explode or talk.”
Ameen answered gently. “Your head is hurting you, Saadi. Sometime, when
it is well, I should like to discuss bombs with you.”
“Help, help!” groaned Saadi. “Baveddin belagerdan!”
Ameen laughed. “It is clear enough that you are a Bokharan. Nobody but a
Bokharan would call on St. Baveddin for help. What is so terrifying in
the thought of discussing bombs?”
“English, Ameen. Your beautiful English. You will not let me talk bombs
in Persian, and I cannot explain in English. I was in New York five
months and in Chicago one month, and I have studied English sixteen hours
every day, and I could read English when I left Vienna. But I cannot
explain about bombs in English.”
They reached the “Caravansery.” Ameen advanced to the third floor, and
flung open the door of Jaffer’s study.
“Ahlan wa-sahlan, Saadi! You are among your family.”
Saadi gazed. “Firdousi manend—it resembles paradise, but it cannot last.”
Ameen quoted a line from Omar—whom he personally abominated, but shrewdly
guessed that Saadi liked—and continued to play the host. He showed his
new friend that no appointment of comfort was missing, even to the
shaving mirror and the telephone. These rooms were such as an indulgent
father might have fitted up for a beloved son.
“What I pay for paradise?”
“The price is supposed to be three a week, but the doctor was never known
to take it. The chances are that your tuition will be refunded, if you
make good.”
“My tuition shall not be refunded. I will never take Dr. Trench’s money.”
“In that case,” smiled the Persian, “it will continue to be spent on such
things as Jersey cows. The doctor pays for cow after cow that he rules
out of inspected herds. Come now and meet the other boys.”
“First,”—said Saadi, throwing himself back and closing his eyes—“first
I would like to die here. But we may as well meet all animals.” And he
sprang up.
At Ameen’s knock, the punctilious Wu looked up from behind his
spectacles, came to open the door, and received his visitors with a bow.
On learning that Saadi had come to stay, he immediately invited him to
dinner.
“I will rather not, to-night, because my head is now so bad. But I
appreciate Chinaman’s salt. In Bokhara, best salt comes from China.”
“I believe so, sir. Karshi is on our side of the mountains.”
Saadi looked critically at Wu’s intelligent countenance. “Mr. Wu does not
seem like one of Chinese doctors who cure all diseases with long needle
stuck in.”
“I bow,” said Wu. “And Mr. Sereef would not exorcise filaria worms by an
amulet made of a gall stone from the stockyards in Halsted Street.”
“Mr. Wu, I like you. You have quick comeback. Best doctor in Bokhara is
big fat cook. He cuts out filaria with knife, and then cuts mutton. But
in Tashkent is man who can cure filaria with medicine he makes. I will be
good to you and tell you where he is living. It is Gospitalnaya numero
400a.”
“I will call on Mr. Sereef’s medical man when I visit in Tashkent,” said
Wu with infinite dryness, “and I will reciprocate by exhibiting the
stockyards to Mr. Sereef.”
Somewhat brightened by these international courtesies, Saadi cast an eye
about the room. There were several choice prints which Wu had brought
with him. These were not of distant chapels with the rising moon, or of
lonely reedbeds with flying fowl. Instead of the conventions, Wu had
selected studies of little children. Saadi noted the fact.
“Will you be pediatrician in China?”
“Yes, I have chosen. What is good enough for Dr. Trench is good enough
for me. I cannot hope to repeat all his successes, but repetition is the
secret of success.”
“Shaitan belade! Devil knows if it is worth while to save little
repeaters called babies.”
Wu smiled, while the western sun lighted his forehead and made it look
like weathered ivory. “I am agnostic on that point. But in China we say,
‘Szifoo bot ok siz—even the tiger does not kill its babies’—and I will
try to prevent the repetition of what I saw in Yunnan. I saw fifty girl
babies dead in one field. Famine was not the cause. They were not wanted.”
Saadi merely nodded. “It is so everywhere, but in Bokhara and Chicago it
is not custom to use open field. Saadi prefers plenty of kids. It does
not hurt them much to die with steel-jacket bullet.”
Wu bowed. “I prefer much offspring and much peace, Mr. Sereef. I trust
that your descendants will not quarrel with mine over pink salt.”
“Mr. Wu, you trust too much. You are damn fool.”
Wu bowed. “Your judgment is approximately correct.”
Saadi stared, and for the first time laughed. “Jivio! Well, Mr. Wu will
be pediatrician. What is worst disease of yellow babies?”
“A certain lung trouble found only in China, Mr. Sereef. Perhaps my
grandson will be the Kitazato who discovers a remedy for it.”
Saadi smiled wearily. “If Kitazato had not helped Behring, it would be no
diphtheria antitoxin. Well, it has saved million boys. In one year more,
Behring kids will operate Kitazato kids with bayonets. That is progress.”
Wu bowed. “We cannot turn back, Mr. Sereef. There will be no absorption
of perspiration. And when I have plucked the Kwei flower at Lister, I
will go back and sweat with the rest.”
He showed them out, and went downstairs to start dinner, while the
visitors proceeded to Chatterjee’s room. They found him in his native
clothes, into which he often slipped when the weather was warm.
“A Bengali knows nothing whatsoever about Bokhara,” he said, shyly, “but
if Jaffer were here he would be aware. He lives in Peshawar. He has
probably intervisited and interdined with Bokhara.”
“There are many Punjabis in Bokhara,” answered Saadi. “Some are bringing
tea by Persian Gulf, and little bit comes by Kabul.”
“I am glad you like tea in Bokhara. We do not drink it in Bengal. In
good sooth, however, the British drink much tea.”
“It is good enough drink for British. You hate British?”
“No. But many do.”
“I hear you when you say so, Mr. Chatterjee. But you are three hundred
millions with Ehrlich’s sleeping sickness. If you would what you say swat
the fly—just seventy-five thousand little flies—you would get well. But I
don’t care. You are only damfool Kali-worshippers.”
“I am a Brahmo, like Dr. Trench,” said Chat quietly.
“What is Brahmo?”
“A sort of Unitarian.”
“How you know Dr. Trench is sort of Unitarian?”
“Because like Rama he is the friend of living creatures. You will find
that the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is his credo, or
some such thing.”
“Well, if God is like my father, he is barbarian. Now I will go and
insult other animals and then go to sleep. It is better to walk than to
run, better to sleep than to wake. You know rest—?”
“Better to be dead than to sleep,” finished Chatterjee. “I hope you will
rest well in Jaffer’s room. I hope too that you will breakfast with us.”
Ameen took Saadi to Deland’s room and left him there. Deland had yelled a
careless “Come in,” and removed his long legs from the table.
“Proud to meet you, Sereef. Do you know this little old burg pretty well?”
“No, Mr. Deland. I have had nose in book all summer.”
“Sit down in chairs and ask me questions. Here’s the map by wards.
Highest infant death-rate is in the first and seventeenth, followed by
the twenty-ninth and sixteenth. Nineteenth used to be the worst, but
Hull-House yanked the death-rate down. Miss Addams got herself appointed
garbage inspector. What do you know about that?”
“Well, I saw Miss Addams in Hull-House, and what I know about that is if
Miss Addams has garbaged she has garbaged with dignity and distinction. I
wish Franz Joseph would let her clean up diplomat garbage in Vienna.”
“What I want to be is a health officer,” continued Deland. “Dr. Putnam of
Boston sent me out here to be next to Isham.”
“Eyesham?”
“Yes, that’s Dr. Trench. And Dr. Trench gives me the right steer about
it all the time. Funny he never went in for public medicine himself.
But dear me suz!—look what he does in his own township. Internist _and_
surgeon—that’s what Isham is, and he’s got the neatest hand in Chicago,
and as for a clinical eye—he’ll just look at a kid and see right through
the exterior integument down into the gizzard.”
Saadi listened with gloomy admiration.
“I will come and you will give me lessons in American. What you do in
summer?”
“I was counsellor in a boys’ camp. That’s the kind of thing I like—games,
athletics, canoeing. And I planted a cross in our camp. Made it of birch.”
Saadi scowled. “I do not wish to hear. It is all damn foolishness.”
Deland opened his blue eyes wide. “You’ve got another guess coming. If it
weren’t for religion, life wouldn’t be worth living.”
“Life is not worth living. I cannot explain to you. You are boy. I am old
man.”
Deland flushed, and sat down on the table directly before his visitor.
“Say, old man, I wish you were a Christian.”
“Mr. Deland, you are damn fool. You don’t know that Christianity is damn
failure. Dr. Trench could put you next.”
“Dr. Trench is a Christian,” said Deland stoutly. “He’s the kind of man I
want to be.”
“Did you once ask Dr. Trench is he Christian?”
“I don’t need to ask him.”
“Well, I will ask him myself is he Christian, and I bet you one million
microbes he says no.”
Saadi rose, and Deland slapped him kindly on the shoulder. “Say, old man,
you’re a kidder from Kidderville. Come on now and kid Becker by your
lonesome, for I’ve got to run over to the Juvenile Court building.”
Becker proved to be big and rosy cheeked. He might have passed for a
Teuton, but the visitor was not deceived. As soon as they were alone,
Saadi folded his arms.
“Pig of Jew,” he said, gloomily.
“Dog of a Moslem,” retorted Becker promptly.
“How old are you, Mr. Beckerovitch?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Well, it is same here. We are two old men. Where were you in 1905?”
“Moscow.”
“And where were you in 1906?”
“In prison nine months. Then a year near Archangel, with nothing to do
but think about it. I got away all the same. And I brought my mother’s
best pillow with me.”
“We will shake hands, Beckerovitch. But—you will please not mention
mothers.” Saadi’s voice was trembling.
Becker nodded slightly, and resumed. “Were you ever locked up?”
Saadi controlled himself. “Suremike. I was guest of Nicky six months.”
“We knew in Moscow that there was fighting in Tashkent, but we did not
know much about our comrades there. Well, it is all over now.”
“Yes, it is all over. Too—bad, oh, too—bad. It was no use. Nothing is of
use, except maybe body. Oh, you beautiful white human body. Maybe I will
what you say bust loose in Chicago.”
“That’s a rotten thing to say, my friend. That won’t go with the doctor.”
Saadi scowled. “Doctor won’t know.”
“Make no mistake about that. He will look at you some morning and you
will feel like an interne who failed to wash before operating.”
“I don’t care. Always I have kept clean, and Bokhara is not clean. But
revolution has failed, and always revolution will fail. I don’t care one
micrococcus.”
“Well, I care. Come and have supper with me.”
“No supper for me to-night. Only nice soft pillow like Becker’s mother
gave him. I wish it was pillow in dead-room. I was in hospital corps last
year in Old Servia. Dead-room was only room with ventilation.”
“So! Do you think they are through their troubles for a while?”
“Shaitan belade! devil knows. Soon Austria will jump on Servia. Then
Russian intelligentzia will march with mujiks.”
“Stuff and nonsense, Mr. Sereef! We socialists will never sacrifice our
ideals like that.”
“Mr. Beckerovitch, you are damn fool. How began all massacres in world?
With ideals, by golly. French revolution began with ideal, ended with
hæmoglobin. Turk revolution began same way, ended same way. In 1908 Turk
and Christian did kiss each other in streets of Stamboul, then Turks
murdered thirty thousand Armenians and ten thousand Macedonians. All you
socialists need is one little excuse of body—just these fool words:
‘Defence of homes.’ Spokoine noche—_good_ night!”
And having called each man a fool without disturbing any, Saadi went to
Jaffer’s rooms, threw himself on Jaffer’s bed, and burst into deep sobs
that no man heard.
X
It was eleven o’clock that evening when Trench got away from his last
consultation. Having no car of his own, he dropped off the trolley-car at
his corner, and stood fanning himself with his straw hat. Theatre crowds
were going home, and Halsted was alive with young folks. Opposite his
house a screaming woman was being put into the patrol wagon. Down the
side streets everybody was out of doors. Babies were sleeping on steps
and pavements, and passersby were careful not to tread on them. On the
porch of a synagogue men were lying like the dead on a battlefield.
Halsted Street runs for thirty miles north and south over the level bed
of an ancient lake. Trench thought of the St. Mary’s, that stream of
melted glacier, and wished that such waters once more rested here. If the
lake were back again, it would reach to the top of his house. His eye
travelled upward, and he saw a light in Jaffer’s room.
Burglars? No. Ameen had probably found a tenant. He would go up and see.
He let himself in by the side door, ascended wearily to the third story,
and knocked. There was no answer. He turned the knob, and was driven back
by a burst of gas. The light he had seen came from an electric bulb in
the study. He groped his way to the hall window, pushed it up, and stood
gasping. Then he took a long breath and went through the rooms, turning
off the gas and opening windows.
In a few minutes the rooms cleared, and he switched on the light at the
head of the bed. What greeted him was apparently the body of a young and
oriental Bonaparte, dead before he had won a victory. The shaded white
ray fell on both their faces when Trench bent above the body, as some
pitying Girondist might have bent above the Corsican, had he died as a
cadet. Then down on his knees went the doctor, with ear pressed to the
boy’s chest. What he heard reassured him.
He took the pulse now at the wrist. As he sat on the edge of the bed he
loosened the high collar, for the stranger was fully dressed, and in so
doing noticed at the nape of the neck a long scar, faintly flushed, and
apparently the work of a sword. Still holding the wrist, Trench shifted
the shade of the electric bulb till the ray fell squarely on the closed
eyes. In a few seconds the stimulus was effective. The eyelids quivered,
opened, and closed again. Trench shifted the shade back, and took his
seat at some distance from the bed.
In a few minutes Bonaparte stirred, moaned, and began to mutter
incoherent words of some stock unknown to Trench. The incoherence passed,
and the boy lay still. Presently a low voice began to speak English.
“Is it Dr. Trench?”
“Yes. I apologise for interrupting the experiment.”
“I am damn fool configuration of energy called Saadi Sereef, and I am
sick in solar plexus.”
“Your stomach will be all right in a little while, and you will find me
in the next room.” So saying, Trench went into the study and began to
consider his appointments for the next day.
By and by the low musical voice called to him. “It is better now, but my
head will split.”
“In a minute,” said Trench, and slipped downstairs for a sedative. When
this was administered, Saadi lifted himself in bed, and the doctor
propped him with pillows.
“Before I died I was going to ask you, doctor? Are you Christian?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in Bog?”
“What is ‘Bogue’?”
“Excuse me. I mean gaseous vertebrate called Allah. Do you believe?”
“No.”
“That is good. Do you believe Saadi has ghost?”
“No.”
“That is good again. It is bad enough to die with Dr. Trench’s perfectly
good gas, but it would be too much if perfectly good gaseous vertebrate
should lecture ghost. Half hour ago I was happy nothing. But now I am
same old fool something. Too—bad! Why you wake me up?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do not care if I should die?”
“No.”
“If I would have typhus, would you nurse me?”
“Of course.”
The low pleasant voice summed up conclusions. “You care not one damn if I
die, but you would die for me.”
Trench smiled. “It does sound rather absurd.”
“It is not absurd, doctor. It is deep.”
Trench was silent.
“Doctor does not ask questions, and Saadi is much obliged. What is in
medicine?”
“Only bromides and codein.”
“Of course. It does business. By and by I will sleep.”
“You can’t begin too soon, Mr. Sereef.”
“You will call me Saadi. You have saved my damn fool configuration of
energy. It is kismet to be grateful. When you call I will answer.”
“Thank you,” said Trench dryly. “Meanwhile, what assurance have I that
you will be alive to answer?”
“Well, I could go down and sleep on divan in doctor’s office.”
“Are you afraid of yourself?”
“Yes, doctor.”
For answer, Trench gently pulled a pillow from under his patient’s
head, and settled him in bed. He let a light hand rest for a moment on
the boy’s temples. Then he darkened the room, and lay down on Jaffer’s
leather couch.