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Title: Not As A Stranger

Date of first publication: 1954

Author: Morton Thompson (1907-1953)

Date first posted: Sep. 11, 2022

Date last updated: Sep. 11, 2022

Faded Page eBook #20220922

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Pat McCoy & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net



NOT AS A

STRANGER

by Morton Thompson

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

New York


COPYRIGHT, 1954, IN THE ESTATE OF MORTON THOMPSON

 

 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


For frances pindyck thompson

to whom this book and this author

are dedicated


NOT AS A STRANGER


CONTENTS

PagePage
CHAPTER 11CHAPTER 22250
CHAPTER 23CHAPTER 23281
CHAPTER 314CHAPTER 24303
CHAPTER 422CHAPTER 25312
CHAPTER 533CHAPTER 26342
CHAPTER 652CHAPTER 27367
CHAPTER 763CHAPTER 28393
CHAPTER 873CHAPTER 29411
CHAPTER 977CHAPTER 30429
CHAPTER 1084CHAPTER 31448
CHAPTER 1194CHAPTER 32463
CHAPTER 12105CHAPTER 33490
CHAPTER 13109CHAPTER 34504
CHAPTER 14123CHAPTER 35523
CHAPTER 15137CHAPTER 36532
CHAPTER 16159CHAPTER 37554
CHAPTER 17170CHAPTER 38585
CHAPTER 18188CHAPTER 39607
CHAPTER 19200CHAPTER 40631
CHAPTER 20212CHAPTER 41653
CHAPTER 21225CHAPTER 42684

★ CHAPTER 1

The doctor came out of the house and he closed the door gently behind him. He looked up and there was a little boy.

“Hello, Luke,” he murmured.

The little boy lowered his eyes humbly and when the doctor reached the top step of the porch the little boy turned and put out his hand, the doctor relaxed his grip on his bag and they walked down the steps together and across the sidewalk to the buggy.

The doctor got in on the driving side. The little boy held the doctor’s bag with both hands. The doctor seated himself. He took up the reins. The little boy raised the bag and gently lowered it to the carriage floor.

“Thank you, Luke,” the doctor said. He smiled absently. He nodded.

The boy looked silently up at the doctor. The doctor flipped the reins. The buggy drove off at a smart trot.

The boy watched the carriage disappear. When it was gone he took to his heels. He ran across town, never slacking, always as fast as he could go. He came to an empty street. When he saw that it was empty he slowed instantly. He walked directly to a wooden house in the middle of the street. In a window of the house was a porcelain sign, a rectangle of white, three and one-half inches high and fourteen inches long. On the sign was lettered severely and blackly, “Chester Kellogg, M.D.”

The little boy sat down on the top step of the porch of this house. He waited a long time. He waited nearly two hours. He sat very still in the warm July afternoon, blinking a little sometimes and thinking his own thoughts. From far off, the air of the small town of Milletta brought to the porch occasional faint shouts of children at play. Once a door slammed. Once a trio of dogs burst into a hysterical shrill yapping and their yelps died in the distance. The little boy heard everything and he heard nothing. The sounds funnelled into his ears and drained away. He was listening for something else. The sound he was waiting for came at last. It was the sound of a horse clip-clopping. The carriage turned into the street. The little boy rose. He walked down the steps. When the carriage stopped in front of the house the little boy was at the horse’s head. His hand went up as the reins were dropped. He held the bridle. The doctor got slowly out of the carriage. As he straightened, his bag in his hand, the little boy was at his side. He put out his hand. The doctor surrendered his bag. They walked up the steps together. They walked across the porch. At the door the doctor put out his hand for his bag. The little boy held it up so that he could take it. His eyes never left the doctor’s face.

“Thanks, Luke,” said the doctor. He noticed the little boy staring. He shook his head. “Not today, Luke,” he said gently. Then he turned and went into the house.

The little boy walked gravely down the steps and into the street. He began to walk toward home. He had had high hopes, but tomorrow was another day. He had made seven calls this day. It was a good day. Tomorrow was another day. Great days did not come often. But they came. When they came Doctor Kellogg let him come right into the house, and the minute the door opened there was that wonderful smell, that smell, that smell, that wonderful smell, ether and iodine and alcohol and carbolic acid and salve, one smell. And through this smell, right into the office, and there the smell was strongest and there he could stand and gaze and gaze and gaze his never filling fill. He could stand quite still, his hands straight at his sides, hoping with a prayer that the doctor would never think he would touch anything—it would all end, then. It would never happen again. But once Dr. Kellogg had put his hand on his shoulder and led him to the white case, the shiny glass, the instruments, the curves, the glisten, the straight, sharp reach of the scissors, the thin, cold knives, the precise meaningless, meaningful, odd, direct, and incomprehensible shapes that were beautiful and nameless. And Dr. Kellogg had named them.

“This is a bistoury—”

A bistoury . . . a bistoury . . .

“And this is a tenaculum—”

Tenaculum . . . tenaculum . . .

“And here is a curette—”

Curette . . . curette . . . Bistoury. Tenaculum. Curette . . .

He would never touch anything. They all knew it. Dr. Kellogg, Dr. Dwyer, Dr. Alexander. He would never touch anything and he would seldom say anything. He didn’t have to. What was there to say?

The little boy’s name was Lucas Marsh. He was seven years old. There wasn’t anything he had to say.

Dr. Kellogg was the best call and always the most hope. But once Dr. Dwyer had sat down on his porch and opened his bag and rummaged and brought forth a bottle.

“That’s an appendix, Luke. Vermiform appendix. Appendix vermiformis.”

He offered Luke the bottle. Luke held it. The alcohol in the bottle tilted. The length of white tissue emerged, gleaming. Then Dr. Dwyer put out his hand. He took the bottle and put it back in his bag. He rose, patted Luke on the shoulder, and went into the house.

Once Dr. Dwyer let him ride many blocks beside him in the carriage. Dr. Alexander had been a long time letting him carry his bag, but he had always let him hold his horse. And then there was the day when Dr. Alexander trusted him. He let him carry the bag from the carriage right up to the front door. Now he thought nothing of it. Often as not he’d let Luke lift it right out of the carriage.

There was always hope. The little boy began to think about tomorrow. He thought about tomorrow all the long way home. After a time he decided his first call would be Dr. Dwyer. He quickened his steps. He would have to get up early.

He sighed contentedly. He ran into his house.


For all humans there is a common beginning in the known mechanics which provide their presence. And this beginning is the instant in which a single sperm of one hundred and fifty million, travelling a relative distance of more than a million miles, reaches the ovum to which its unbrained intelligence has directed it. A human begins then.

If any of the other hundred and fifty million sperms had reached the ovum instead, a different human would have begun, for in the universe man comprehends no two living things are alike and sperm are living things.

If man has a mundane destiny, it begins here. If man is mundane chance, it begins here. Man knows no more. But it is conjectured that there is no chance. In the year Lucas Marsh was conceived and began, twenty-nine million other humans began.

Some of these, by the choice of one sperm in a hundred and fifty million, were born with their viscera outside the body. Some were born without a head. Some began with two hearts, some with six fingers, some with three eyes, some with a penis and a vulva, some without lungs, some without any members whatever.

In most, the characteristics, visible and invisible, would fall within the limits of the majority or the normal.

But the body is not all, and in some there would be profound differences in the spirit, there would be emphasized pathways in the brain, there would be mutations of the mind. And scientists would begin from the loins of ditchdiggers, and mathematicians would begin from the sperm of savages, a violinist would be born to the deaf, a hunter to the sightless.

And for some of these their urges would be dim, troubling impulses and for some they would be strong and for some the impulses would be irresistible and their life, itself. Their very life.

Lucas Marsh was born in the town of Milletta in the early 1900’s, to Job Marsh, owner of a harness store, and Ouida Marsh, daughter of a druggist. He was to be a doctor. No more is known.

★ CHAPTER 2

At the kitchen table Ouida Marsh looked up, hearing him enter, smiled as he charged at her, and deftly turned her cheek to him an instant before his kiss would have landed on her mouth.

“Get washed, Lucas,” she said after a moment and he disengaged himself and went to the sink. Ouida Marsh removed her rimless glasses with the long black ribbon and put them carefully in a case. The glasses were without optical significance, she had bought them in a notions store and she wore them for reading as a costume suitable to the occasion. The magazine she had been reading was The Phrenologist’s Gazette, sent for from Chicago, and when Lucas had washed his hands she called him and when he had shown her his hands she sat him down in front of her and looked at him carefully.

Lucas looked back at her curiously.

“Where’s Papa?” he asked.

“Your father will be late,” Mrs. Marsh said briefly. “Let me look at you, Lucas.”

He sat obediently still.

She studied his slim, oval face, his high forehead, his dark eyes, his cheekbones, his thin neck, his thin hands, his lithe and wiry body. She studied him as a stranger, noting with inward surprise significances she saw now for the first time. According to this new and wonderful science Lucas, her boy, her property that she had made, was of a pronounced North American type, and she had not known this before, nor even known the existence of a classification. She opened the magazine. She glanced from it to Lucas, then back again. He was also dolichocephalic and dolichoprosopic and, in general, dolicho. In some excitement she opened her lips to tell him so. She recollected, as the thought formed, that she did not know how to pronounce these strange and wonderful words, and smiled instead, and clicked her tongue mysteriously.

“Come over here, Lucas. Sit down beside me. Pull your chair around so your back is to me.”

Lucas obediently did as he was bid. Mrs. Marsh turned a page and following the printed instructions placed her fingers on the little boy’s head.

“You’re very spiritual, Lucas,” she said almost instantly. “Very, very spiritual . . .” She moved her fingertips over his skull. “Great reasoning power . . .” she glanced at the book . . . “pronounced memory . . .” She came to a new bump, read, recoiled, frowned, felt again, compressed her lips. “Pronounced amativeness,” she said with cold emphasis. She bit her lips. “We will have to do something about that, Lucas.”

The little boy turned fearfully. He did not know what he had done but he knew he had done something. Guilt tightened his belly.

“That means our baser impulses, Lucas.” Mrs. Marsh leaned toward him. Her face was very serious and stern and it seemed to have swelled a little. “Do you understand, Lucas?”

He looked back at her, waiting, fearful, depressed.

“We will have to be very careful, Lucas. The bump is there. We will have to guard ourselves, all our life.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Do you know what ‘amativeness’ means, Lucas?”

“No, Mother.”

The little boy crimsoned. He turned his head away in an agony of embarrassment.

“Look at me, Lucas.”

He forced his head to turn.

“Yes, Mother.” He writhed.

“You’ll come straight to Mother and tell her?”

“Yes, Mother.” He put his hands on his head to feel the bumps she had felt and desperate to change the subject leaned over to look at the magazine.

“You wouldn’t understand it, dear. Mother will explain it to you. It’s a great new discovery, all based on scientific fact, and it tells how we can change our whole lives and become completely new human beings by understanding our own characters through the bumps the brain makes on the skull.”

He felt the bumps on his skull.

“Each one of them means something, Lucas.”

“Can we change them really?” To his fingers the bumps felt very hard and permanent.

“Oh, yes. We can change them completely.”

Lucas marvelled.

“Are we going to eat dinner, now?”

“Your father will be late. You don’t mind waiting, do you, Lucas? You don’t mind practicing with Mother subduing our baser animal impulses?”

“No, Mother.”

“Each time you fight it the battle is a little easier.”

In a sudden access of affection she leaned forward and stroked his face. Her fingers wandered over his chin and she frowned. She smiled sadly. She began to knead his chin outward.

“Your chin, Lucas. Have you been massaging your chin as Mother asked you?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“First thing in the morning? Last thing at night?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Always outward, over and over. More and more every day. You have a weak chin, Lucas. You must have a strong chin. The chin is the sign of character.”

Lucas sighed, ashamed. He tried to divert her attention from himself.

“Is that a spiritual magazine, Mother?”

“Oh, yes, dear. Very spiritual. Very, very spiritual. Tell Mother—what did you do today?”

“I made seven calls,” he said excitedly.

“You didn’t make any calls, Lucas. Only doctors make calls. You just played a game.”

“I ran around a lot,” he said carefully.

“Can’t you play more spiritual games, Lucas? Mother has such great dreams for you, darling. You’re Mother’s whole life, you know. Never forget that. Mother wants the little boy she suffered such agonies to bring into the world to be a great artist, a spiritual being the whole world will look up to.” Her dark, handsome face leaned to him earnestly. Both heard the sound of footsteps. Both started. Mrs. Marsh rose to put away the phrenology magazine.

The footsteps died away.

“Your father is very late.”

The little boy’s face fell.

“Are you hungry, Lucas?”

“No, Mother,” he said manfully.

“Take a drink of water.”

“I’m not thirsty, either,” he boasted.

Her heart warmed to his effort. Her eyes filled.

“Come here, darling.”

He went to her instantly. She pressed his head to her full and finely formed breasts.

“Do you love Mother?”

He buried his face in her neck.

“You’re all Mother has. Remember that. Remember, won’t you, darling? I carried you under my heart for nine long months—would you be lonely without Mother, Lucas?” She tried to draw him away to look at him, but he dug his face deeper into her neck and nodded his head fiercely. “Mother won’t be with you always, sweetheart. Mother will die, someday. Mother will be dead and gone.” His small body tensed. He began to sob. She pulled him free of her, still resisting, and examined his face hungrily down which the tears fell like gouts of clear blood. “Will you miss me, Lucas?” His eyes closed in an agony of grief, his face wrinkled helplessly. Now he sobbed uncontrollably.

“Oh, Mother’s darling.” She drew him to her again, she hugged him fiercely, hungrily. “Mother’s not going, darling. See? Mother’s right here. Mother’s not going to die.”

He cried a long time.

Afterward she dried his tears with her handkerchief.

“Aren’t you ashamed?” She smiled at him tenderly. “A big boy like you?”

He nodded obediently, not trusting his voice.

“You’re so short, Lucas.” She surveyed him. “I wish you’d grow taller.”

He looked down at his small length.

“We’ll think of a new exercise, shall we?”

He nodded vigorously.

“I know you can stretch yourself. I know you can if you try. If you really try. Will you try for Mother, Lucas?”

They looked up.

The footsteps were unmistakable now. An instant later the door opened and Job Marsh entered.

“Hi!” He grinned blithely. He ran the palms of both hands over his fine, straight blond hair, crossed the room to put his lips dutifully to the cheek Mrs. Marsh dutifully offered, straightened, reached out and pulled Lucas’ nose. Mrs. Marsh had already begun to set the dinner on the table.

“Have a good day today?” she asked mechanically.

“Absolutely,” he carolled. “And likewise palm de tare and likewise pross de toot.”

“Job!” Mrs. Marsh cried out. She looked at him furiously, with hate and contempt.

He chuckled and seated himself.

“In front of the child!”

Job Marsh winked at Lucas. He smiled deprecatively. Lucas smiled back.

“I’ve asked you before—” Mrs. Marsh said bitterly.

“I know it. Let’s eat.”

Mrs. Marsh looked at him witheringly. Her glance emphasized that he was seated and she was standing behind her chair. She made a small noise of contempt, slowly took her eyes from him, compressed her lips and lowered her head.

“Don’t you say grace,” Job broke in. “You take too long. I’ll say it.” He lowered his head. Mrs. Marsh and Lucas lowered their heads. Job waited a moment.

“Grace!” he cried suddenly, and instantly fell to eating.

Lucas laughed in delight.

“Lucas!” cried Mrs. Marsh.

Lucas guiltily bent his head and slowly began to eat. He ate, with the accompaniment of occasional sidelong looks at his mother, by raising placatively small forkfuls of food to his mouth and by keeping his mouth obediently closed until the fork was about to touch his lips. Job Marsh ate heartily, he put as much food on his fork as it would carry and he bent his head as he lifted the fork to receive the food as quickly as possible. Mrs. Marsh watched her husband deliberately and each spoonful he lifted was a frank avowal of lust and his appetite was a happiness in lust; there was lust, she could not expunge lust from things as they were, from the world, but there were manners concerning lust, manners making lust acceptable to the female. Job’s entire lack of concern with these glosses made of her days many small blazes of hatred and rebellion and an intense desire to escape the world and to begin again, to be cleanly reborn. She watched her husband. She ate more slowly and more reluctantly. Her movements became more mannered, her feeding became an exaggerated ritual of delicacy in which food was not food but an opportunity for delicacy. She exaggerated her movements to make her disgust plain. This never troubled Job. It made him laugh. And he laughed Mrs. Marsh into speechless fury.

Lucas ate with an eye to both his mother and father. He watched his mother fearfully, hoping not to incur her inexplicable wraths. He watched his father, trying to discover what the essential act was in his father’s habit of eating that so enraged his mother. He had become accustomed to scenes between them and he hoped dully that this time there would be no new scene.

“What’s the matter?” Job looked up suddenly. “Don’t you like your own food?” he grinned.

“You think that’s funny, don’t you,” Mrs. Marsh said coldly. “Lucas, put your fork on your plate! Well, I don’t think it’s funny at all.”

“Seems funny to me,” Job teased.

“What you do to my appetite doesn’t matter. The least you could do would be to set a good example. I know you think nothing of me.”

Job looked curiously at Lucas, who was plying his knife and fork clumsily but with determined delicacy.

“He’s doing all right, ain’t he?”

“Isn’t—if you don’t mind—”

“Isn’t he?”

“Finish your dinner, Lucas! It’s late. I want you to go right upstairs to bed.”

“I brought something home for him, first.”

“What did you bring, Daddy!” Lucas leaped from his chair and ran to his father. “Where is it!”

“Lucas!” cried Mrs. Marsh. He looked at her rebelliously. “Go back to your chair and sit down and ask permission to rise and leave the table!”

“There’s something out in the hall,” Job told the boy as he retreated to his chair. Lucas sat down. “You’ll find it on the table.”

“May I please be excused?” Lucas implored.

“Use your napkin.”

He dabbed at his face.

“Put your fork on your plate.”

He put his fork on his plate.

She nodded her head. “You may be excused.”

Lucas rushed to the next room. On the table was a small paper box, the lid perforated.

“Careful how you open it!” Job called from the kitchen.

In the box was a newly hatched chick. Astonished, wordless, Lucas bore the bird in his hands into the kitchen.

“It’s mine,” he said, helpless. He touched its softness with his fingers. He set it reverently on the table. The bird evacuated.

Mrs. Marsh leaped up, her face wried in disgust.

“Put him on the floor,” said Job gently.

“Take him off my table—where we eat—” cried Mrs. Marsh.

Hurriedly Lucas lifted the tiny chick and set it on the floor.

“I’m going to call him Chickie,” he said softly.

“You want to take care of him,” said Job. “Don’t go handling him too much, he’ll die.”

Lucas looked at his father, alarmed.

Mrs. Marsh returned to the table with a wet rag. She cleaned the bird’s droppings, angrily washed the cloth. The chick followed her, peeping. Lucas watched every movement of the downy yellowness with adoration.

“You’ve got to feed it regular,” said Job.

The little boy knelt on the floor and put out his hands.

“Here, Chickie,” he called, “come on, Chickie.”

“Where’s the box it came in?” Mrs. Marsh demanded. Without waiting for an answer she strode toward the next room. The little chick followed her. The little boy looked at his father with delight.

“Look, Dad! Look at the little dickens following Mother!”

They beamed at each other.

Mrs. Marsh pushed angrily through the swinging door. The chick followed. An instant later Mrs. Marsh pushed through the swinging door again, the box in her hand. The chick followed tardily, the door caught him. He was crushed. His bill opened wide. His legs fluttered. He peeped feebly and died.

The three watched. It was over. And still they watched. Suddenly Lucas gave a great shout:

“You killed him!” he screamed, incredulous. “You killed my Chickie!”

Job walked to the bird and stood looking down at it. As he watched, it stiffened, elongating one leg as if to push away death.

“That’s too bad,” he said, and shook his head. “That’s—that’s too bad . . .”

“I didn’t see it!” cried Mrs. Marsh. “Why didn’t it keep out of my way!”

Lucas rushed to the bird. He threw himself to the floor beside it. It was quite dead. He stroked it without hope. He looked up at Mrs. Marsh.

“Why did you kill it, Mother?”

“I didn’t mean to kill it, Lucas. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll get you another one,” promised Job.

“Of course if your father hadn’t brought this home it never would have happened—”

The little boy began to cry at last.

“I’m sorry, Lucas. Come to Mother, darling.”

Lucas cowered away. He wept uncontrollably. He could not stop. Job tried to raise him.

“Come, darling, come to Mother—Mother’s sorry—”

Lucas raised his face. It was very white.

“Why did you kill it?” he begged. “What did it ever do to you?”

“It’s time for bed, Lucas. Come on, darling. Mother will tell you a story. Mother’s sorry, darling—”

“It was an accident,” said Job.

Lucas rose, coffining the bird in his hands. He put the bird in the box. He walked to his father and put up his face to be kissed, he offered his mother his cold lips. Without another word he went up to bed carrying the chick with him.

“Getting a little headstrong,” said Mrs. Marsh.

“Too bad,” said Job. “It hit him hard.”

“If you hadn’t brought it home it never would have happened.”

“A boy needs a pet. He’s got a right to a pet. Any boy. I had one. I had a dog.”

“We’ve been over that. I’m not going to have any filthy, vile dog to clean up after—no animals of any kind.” She looked at him pointedly. “That’s what I’m trying to get away from—animals!”

“Oh, now, Ida—”

“My name happens to be Ouida.”

“Why don’t you just relax—you’re tensed up all the time and you’re getting him that way. Look how thin he is. Why don’t you just stop monkeying from one diet to another and let him grow up like a normal, healthy boy!”

“You make him stop running around like a maniac all day, running from doctor to doctor, and I’ll show you how thin he is.”

“Now, Ouida, a boy’s got to chase after something. Let him alone. That’s just a phase, that doctor chasing. All boys go through phases. When I was a boy—”

“Never mind telling me about when you were a boy. I know what you used to chase after and so does all the county. I’m not going to have my son growing up like that, if you don’t mind.”

“Just let him alone.”

“He’s my son and he’ll grow up decent. He’s got great things in him.” She looked at Job contemptuously. “The kind you’d never even know about.”

“She’s off again,” said Job and spread his hands resignedly.

“Perhaps you’d like to see him grow up a doctor? Perhaps his harness-maker father thinks that would be fine!”

“No, I don’t want to see him grow up to be a doctor. And I know he won’t. There’s no money in it. He’s got better sense. It’ll come out when he’s older. He’ll look back and laugh at it. But there’s nothing wrong with being a doctor—except he won’t be one—”

“I have nothing but contempt for doctors.”

“Notice you call one when you need one.”

“I don’t need them. I’ve got my own methods.”

“Well, keep them to yourself. And don’t go practicing them on anybody else—”

“Has it ever occurred to you for one moment what vile diseases he might pick up just being around them?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ouida!”

She looked quickly at the ceiling. Then she glared at Job.

“He can hear you, you know. If you’re going to be common you might at least think of the son you profess to love so much—”

“You make a man—”

“I don’t make you anything. You’re what you are, a filthy, disgusting beast, and nothing’ll ever change you.”

“I notice you don’t mind eating what your filthy, disgusting harness maker brings home, Miss Lahdeedah fine lady.”

“You actually don’t care whether he hears you or not, do you!”

Job studied her a moment, then turned and went upstairs to bed. On the way he stopped at Lucas’ room and opened the door gently. Lucas was on the floor at his bedside. He kneeled beside the box. He had a rag which he had soaked in water and with his free hand he held the chick’s beak open and was squeezing drops of water carefully and lovingly into the chick’s dead throat.

“Won’t do much good, son,” Job said quietly.

“It might,” said Lucas in a small voice. He did not look up nor interrupt himself.

“Your mother didn’t mean it,” Job said after a while.

“I know it,” Lucas said dully.

He squeezed out another drop of water, never taking his eyes from the dead bird.

“I’ll get you another one,” Job said.

Lucas looked up quickly. There was fright in his eyes.

“I don’t want another one,” he protested. “Please, Daddy!”

“All right, son.”

Lucas resumed his ministrations.

Job watched a while, then quietly left the room.

The door closed behind him. Lucas continued to drop water into the bird’s opened beak. He began to cry again, the tears fell on the bird and he wiped them tenderly away. He cried without sound. After a long time he crept into bed. He brought the dead bird with him. He put it on the pillow. He thought a long time, trying to forget the door closing. Finally he slept.

In the morning, instead of going out on his calls, Lucas tried again to revive the bird. The bird was by now cold and stiff. He tried to warm it by breathing on it, then by putting it inside his shirt against his bare belly. Mrs. Marsh, going about her household tasks, shuddered with disgust but said nothing. Lucas could not warm the chick and next he tried to make it supple, to dissolve its rigidity by exercise. He sat it on the floor and forced its stick-stiff legs into a walk. At noon Mrs. Marsh called him to lunch. He nibbled at the curious fare of beets and spinach with egg, a diet she was then committed to; he ate little and she did not coax him or threaten him. They ate silently.

“I think you’d better bury Chickie,” Mrs. Marsh said after the table was cleared.

Lucas looked at the dead bird he was trying again to resuscitate.

“He’s not doing any harm,” he said mildly.

“He’s dead, dear. He’s beginning to smell.”

Mrs. Marsh brought forth a pretty box she had been saving and they put the bird in it. Lucas held the lid and they went into the back yard.

“Here’s a beautiful place,” Mrs. Marsh said, narrowing her eyes as she had seen artists do, “right under this tree.”

She got a shovel and dug a shallow grave. It was very kind of her and Lucas watched her gratefully.

When the grave was dug they sat down a while at Mrs. Marsh’s bidding, and she used the opportunity to talk to him of life and death, trying to explain things to him beautifully. But Lucas watched the chick. When she ended talking he sighed. The chick had not moved. She took the lid from him and fitted it gently to the box. Then they buried it.

Lucas dug up the box three times during the afternoon, but the chick was still dead. In the evening he brought his father out to look at the grave. Mrs. Marsh, unbidden, followed them, and the three stood at the grave sadly. After they stood a while Lucas stopped suddenly and dug it up again. But the chick was quite dead. Reluctantly, he put it back in the box and covered it with earth again. He was not burying a bird, he was burying love.

“We’d better put a marker on it,” said Job.

He got a heavy stone, too heavy for a little boy to move, and set it over the grave.

“That’s his tombstone, Luke. Just like folks.”

Lucas had not gone on his calls at all that day. The next day he wandered off on a mission of his own. He hung about chicken pens. He watched chickens, alive, studying how they moved, wondering each time they moved at the difference between moving and not moving. In two of the chicken pens he saw dead chickens, they lay where they had fallen. He poked at them with a stick but they did not move. They were dead. The other chickens moved about them unconcernedly. They moved, it was nothing to them, they were living. He reached a conclusion on states of matter. Both types of chicken were alive, the living and the dead. Dead was just a name applied to a different status of living. His attention was now diverted to still another phase of living, an intermediate phase. In one coop he found a chicken with an injured leg. This chicken hopped as best it could, it moved, it was alive, but it could not move as much as the other chickens. He studied it minutely. When the chicken came close to the fence he seized it. He forced the retracted leg to the ground and tried to make the chicken walk on both legs. The bird pecked him and he let it go.

Late that afternoon he came upon a dog. The animal in an agony of bliss and pain was scratching itself endlessly with one hind leg. Lucas watched it a while. Then he moved in swiftly and held the dog’s leg. The dog promptly transferred his scratching to the other hind leg. Lucas sat on him. He held both legs. The dog yelped helplessly.

Dr. Alexander, driving by, stopped his carriage.

“Boy!” he shouted angrily. “You boy! Stop abusing that dog!”

Lucas, abashed, rose, still holding the dog’s legs.

“What are you trying to do to that dog?”

“He’s hurting himself,” Lucas said shyly.

“How is he hurting himself?”

“He kicks himself with his leg.”

Dr. Alexander blinked. He stared at Lucas thoughtfully.

“Get in, boy,” he said, moving over. “Come with me.”

Lucas lifted the wriggling dog into the carriage and got in after it. Dr. Alexander drove to the drugstore. He came out with flea powder.

“Now watch this, boy. Drag that dog out of the carriage and watch this.”

He sprinkled the dog liberally with flea powder. He stood up. The dog ran quickly off.

“Now that dog is cured, boy.”

Lucas, who had been watching the dog run off, turned to the doctor, open-mouthed.

“He’s cured. I sprinkled powder on him. Flea powder. Now he won’t kick himself any more. Do you understand? That’s flea powder, son. He wasn’t kicking himself. He was scratching. The fleas made him itch. The powder kills the fleas.”

Lucas stared in wonder at the box of flea powder. Dr. Alexander watched him a moment longer, then abruptly put the container into his hands, climbed into the carriage, and drove off.

For the rest of that day Lucas went about Milletta hunting for scratching dogs. He found dozens. In an hour the box was empty. He refilled it with sand.

The next day he went back to his rounds again. He arose especially early. He went first to Dr. Alexander’s home and office and he was in time to carry the doctor’s bag all the way from his front door to the carriage. Then he raced across town to Dr. Dwyer’s, but here he was too late, the doctor had gone. From Dr. Dwyer’s he went without much hope to Dr. Kellogg’s, but Dr. Kellogg also had gone. Thereafter he prowled the streets. Much of the doctors’ practice was in the outlying farm area but much of it was also in the town, and there were days when most of their travelling was in the country and then there were days when most of it was in the town, sometimes for all three and sometimes for two and sometimes only for one of them. Lucas prowled the streets looking for the doctors’ carriages. Whenever he saw one he sat down on the curb and took up his vigil. When the doctor emerged from the house Lucas was ready. Sometimes he carried the bag. Sometimes he had time only to hold the horse’s head. By noon he had made four calls.

It was time for lunch. Before going home he walked toward his father’s shop. The sign, “J. Marsh & Co., Harness,” hung flat against the false front of a small building on Main Street. Lucas stood in a corner in the semidarkness while his father sold a farmer a checkrein. When the farmer moved out Job walked eagerly across the shop to the boy.

“Hi, Luke!”

“Hi, Daddy.”

“What can I do for you that your mother hasn’t done twice as good already?”

“I’d like some money, Daddy.”

“Money! Good gracious, who ever heard of money!”

“Yes, sir.”

“How much money you want, Luke?” Job brought a handful of coins from his pocket and extended them to Lucas. Lucas looked at the coins, then up at his father.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

“Well, tell me. What do you want to get, Luke? Maybe I can help you.”

“Some flea powder.”

Job blinked.

“You want flea powder? What on earth do you want flea powder for? You gonna put it on me? You think I got lice?”

“I want to put it on dogs.”

Job stared at his son inquisitively. But the little boy volunteered no more and Job thereupon understood it was something to do with doctoring, a subject on which both knew the other’s views, and delicately forbore to question him further.

“All right, son,” he said gravely. “Here’s a dime. That’s for you. Go buy all the flea powder you want.”

Lucas stared at the dime then raised grateful eyes to his father.

“Time you had an allowance!” Job said loudly. “Boy your age needs pocket money. Ten cents a week. Every week, this time, Luke. Ten cents. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” Lucas said, dazed.

“You like leather some, son?” Job blurted.

Lucas looked about the dim shop.

“I like the smell,” he admitted.

“Like the way it curls? And supples?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, son. I’ll see you at dinner. Run along. Get your flea powder. Some day this summer maybe you’d like to spend a day with me. Here in the shop, maybe? How’d you like that?”

“Yes, sir,” Lucas said obediently.

“You’ll like it!”

“Yes, sir.”

Lucas walked sedately from the shop. Outside, he broke into a run, the hard, wiry run he used to get from doctor’s office to doctor’s office. He pelted into the drugstore, waited docilely for other customers, shyly tendered his dime, and was given a quantity of flea powder, put it carefully in his pocket and jogged home for lunch.

It was beets and spinach with eggs—“they contain all the minerals”—and he ate quietly and sparingly of this miracle health food.

This day somehow he was released. Unaccountably he was no longer part of the household tensions, a part of their machinery. He was a separate machine in himself, congruent with the other activities but no longer a shuttlecock between and among them. He was separate and distinct and contacting, but unconnected. Something had happened. He did not know what it was and he did not trouble himself with its origin. But he relished it tremendously, he felt free—a little furtive, but free. The death of a man or a god has done this for others. For Lucas it took only a chicken. Life and death are neither more nor less in quantity or quality for whatever is living or dead. It is not a deep nor a difficult truth. Lucas did not ponder. The effect of the truth had already become part of him. He had now allied himself with life and against death. His confused and anguished yearnings to be with doctors had now an identifiable part. The doctors, too, were aligned with life and against death. When he carried their bags or held their horses’ heads he was one with a part of them.

This afternoon perhaps he would encounter Dr. Alexander. Perhaps he would take him into his office. There wasn’t much chance of this. But it could happen.

“Bistoury—curette—tenaculum—” he said to himself.

He ran off to begin his afternoon rounds.

He ran furiously.

He never stopped.

★ CHAPTER 3

At the boundaries of Milletta a sign proclaims the community’s height above sea level: 785 feet; its population: 2,600; and its position: “Milletta—Hub of the World.”

Job Marsh had not been born in Milletta. He was an alien to the hub of the world. He accepted misfortune lightheartedly and he was almost always cheerful. These provocations to fortune, these flyings in the face of Providence, were enough to keep a man alien in a farming community in the early 1900’s. There were other ways in which he differed markedly, but the principal fact which made him bizarre and separate and talked about and forever wondered at was that he owned, not one store like the normal man, but four. They were small stores, three were located in communities near Milletta, and one store, the main store, was in Milletta.

Job Marsh had lived in Milletta since he was sixteen, he was a fixture of Milletta, but he was an addition to it rather than a member of it.

The years had not much aged him. He was of something less than medium height. He was thirty-four years old and as spare, as wiry, as agile as he had been when Milletta first saw him at sixteen. He had added a mustache, a thin line of blond hair, carefully trimmed. His face was long and oval, his lips were wide and thin, his eyes were light blue, his nose was thin and prominent. His hair, combed straight back, clung to his skull, and here the tiding years showed a slow recession of hair on either side of his high forehead.

He let his nails grow long and they were usually dirty. He was always scrupulously shaved. His face had character and distinction and he was handsome. When he was carefully dressed, and he liked to dress well, he was out of place in Milletta. He looked like a boulevardier.

Job viewed the other members of the community detachedly. He followed their rules with good humor.

Privately he lived in a simple world whose rules were things as he found them. In this world he moved surely, blithely, seriously. He was not bound by community rules but he observed them scrupulously and publicly. They never deflected him from the direction in which he moved.

Job Marsh intended some day to own a harness store in every principal city in America. He intended to own a tannery to supply these stores with leather. He intended to possess a mine to furnish ore for a steel mill he would own which would supply all the nails, bits, rivets, tongues, and other metal relating to harness.

Only a part of this dream was known to anyone else. His wife knew he planned to own more harness stores and that his ambition was to be the largest harness dealer in the county. Sometimes it seemed to her that he might have such mad dreams as being the largest harness dealer in the state. But she had no real basis for such suspicions and did not mention them.

Other merchants in Milletta, and particularly Banker Purvis Benjamin, realized vaguely that although Job owned four stores he might perhaps be thinking of one day acquiring another one.

To Milletta security was sufficiency. The future was what would occur within the next week. To Job Marsh there was no quantity, no substance he could name total security, and in his world it did not exist and because he was what he was he could not reasonably invent it. Insecurity was a fact, a cheerful, present fact. In all his life it never shook him, never made him fear. He was almost always affable; he joked easily and he preferred obscenity; he never forgot an expression that took his fancy and he never relinquished it and got the same enjoyment from it as when he first heard it. Adversity did not move him deeply. He was not surprised by it. The simplest food contented him and in small quantities. If he slept on the floor he did not marvel at its hardness. He was indifferent to unpleasant scents. He loved all the odors of a woman’s body, he loved them strong. He was never free of a craving to sleep with a woman, with any woman. He was unsuited to idleness. He loved work.

He regarded young Lucas’ life and young Lucas’ future with satisfaction. The boy’s life was softer than his own had been and Job wanted the boy’s whole life to be thus. He did not feel that life would be changed, for its fabric and its pattern were immutable and he knew this well. He intended the boy to see life as he saw it. But he meant Lucas’ living to be easier than his own youth had been.

Job Marsh had been one of five children. They had been orphaned while they were very young. Even if his parents had lived and continued to work the rocky Upper New York State farm, Job’s life would have been extremely hard. It would have been a life hungry with poverty and emaciated with need and shamed by lack. But when the parents died the children fell to the only living grandmother. Upon this one old woman and five small children fell the necessity of pecking from those barren acres what chance might surrender to them.

The children were invariably hungry. Their days began in exhaustion, were houred by exhaustion, and ended by exhaustion. Their sufferings produced in them a precocity for enduring. They attended school until need plucked them from school to defend their bellies against hunger and their skins against cold. Job quit in the sixth grade.

Despite their poverty and the improbability of their survival the grandmother from time to time clutched aside a few pennies. These she frantically hid. Invariably these minute sums disappeared in some new need. Stubbornly she began again. When she had collected a new hoard, seldom more than a quarter, she hid the coins behind a loose brick, the fourth brick in the corner of the fireplace.

The children quickly enough learned how things were ordered in the world in which they had been born and they accepted the world as they accepted the seasons. None of the Marsh children was ever ashamed of patched clothes, of broken boots, of uncut hair, never, as long as they lived. When other children mocked their raggedness they saw what the children mocked, and grinned, too.

As soon as they could, the children left the loose association of their group, the girls marrying quite young and the boys foraging quickly away from the miserable farm to seek easier survival.

At sixteen Job found his way to Milletta. He went from store to store along Main Street, looking for work. It was nearly dark when he came to the harness store, owned by Andreas Plenkin.

“I’ll clean up your shop, mister, sweep it all down nice, wash the windows, if you’ll let me sleep in the back.” He grinned at Plenkin.

Plenkin brooded.

“Just for tonight.”

That was the beginning. Plenkin did not really want him around, he wanted the shop to himself, and himself to himself; he was a foreigner and he lived alone and unspoken to, except in the course of trade. But the next morning his shop had been transformed and he looked about him incredulously and then at Job, a thin, weedy, blond boy, grinning at him in the midst of it.

“I’ll run errands, carry stuff, do whatever you tell me all the rest of today. And you give me breakfast.”

Plenkin, still staggered, blinked at him uncertainly.

“Just for today,” Job said confidently. “Tell me what to do. Want me to oil up some harness?”

Thereafter he worked for Plenkin. He could not be dislodged. Smiling, watchful, respectful, quick, obedient, and utterly tireless, he did what he was told earnestly and thoroughly and then looked for more.

In two months Job was earning a dollar a week, a noon meal Plenkin shared with him, and his lodging, the benches in the back of the shop. This was his salary, his end of childhood, his start in adult life. At seventeen Milletta summed him as a tireless worker with a perpetual hunger for girls, an odd youth who lived with that foreigner Plenkin. He received now three dollars a week.

And Job had summed and studied Milletta. He knew the history of each merchant. He knew all progress, who was fighting up, who was hanging on, who was falling to extinction. He weighed all opinions. He studied every least business deal.

He knew that for Blacksmith James Waters, who fashioned almost nothing now and who lived on horseshoeing and repairs—for Samuel Hasper, who owned a grist mill—for Edward Haines, whose defeated mill still wove a few textiles—for Saunders Hale, whose tannery seldom tanned—for all the other one-time factories of Milletta, survival was no longer in doubt. They were through. The railroads had come a few years before and they had by-passed Milletta. The railroads brought to other towns about Milletta everything that men in Milletta could make, produced faraway by cheaper labor, of material bought at quantity prices, fashioned into finished articles that sold for less than the artificers of Milletta paid for raw material.

And that was the story of these merchants and Job Marsh knew that story well. He knew the facts which pulled them down. He knew the history of those who still survived and he knew their survival was fortuitous and that they knew it was fortuitous. He was alien to all these, a man untribed. His kin of the human family was another group, a vague group, faraway, scattered men who saw things as they were, with neither liking nor resentment, saw things, saw what they meant, moved naturally to possess themselves of the railroads or to control the possibilities they offered, and who were now through the commerce of the nation attempting the ownership of everything necessary for man’s survival. In far-off Milletta, Job Marsh, at eighteen, followed their progress with the delight a man has for a joke which it is not polite to laugh at openly. He heard of their legal setbacks with incredulity. He waited with confidence for their rebound from defeat and followed their prompt, brisk conquests of the law with admiration. He read of their redoubled success with delight. He grinned happily over the inevitable.

When he turned to his own affairs he saw his situation with the same joy. Accident had given him a stake in life, a rich starting point. He was launched in the harness-making business. Farmers would always need harness. He was located in a farm area. Plenkin would fail, it was just a matter of time. Plenkin was doomed. Like the others, the railroads had doomed him. He had not the slightest inkling that he must use the railroads, that they could make him rich instead of putting him out of business.

It was obvious to Job that he must buy harness, not make it. The days of making were over. The days of little men were done. He planned happily. Plenkin would fail. Before the failure was complete he must somehow get the shop and start his fortune.

He had become indispensable. Plenkin had aged. He had worked a long time. The time was spent. The man was spent. He was obsolete. He was worn out.

This year Job received the first letter he had ever gotten in his life. It was from his eldest sister, Liza. The grandmother was dying. Job arrived too late. Liza greeted Job wordlessly. She put her arms clumsily around him. She began to cry. They went together to the old farmhouse in which he had been born and the grandmother had died and they talked for a while of their childhood, they talked dutifully, straining to remember how it had been, how they were to each other.

Liza rose finally. It was very late.

“I’ll stay here,” Job said diffidently.

Liza’s eyes filled.

“You can’t stay here, Job,” she said protectively. “You come with me. I’ve got your bed all ready for you. Come on, Job.”

“I’d better stay here.” Job shook his head. “One of us . . .” He let the sentence trail.

“I’ve got to go home,” Liza apologized. “I’ve got Tom to look after. . . . But Job—you shouldn’t—”

When she was gone Job took a lamp and went from room to room. Occasionally he opened a bare closet. He pulled out a few empty drawers. After a time he tired of this and found a bed to his liking. He sat on the edge of the bed and undressed, dropping his clothes where they fell. When he had stripped to his long underwear he reached for the lamp, raised the chimney, and blew out the flame. He put the lamp on the floor. He sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. His eyes became accustomed to the darkness. He rose and felt his way downstairs. He walked leisurely, without excitement and without any real hope. But when he reached the fireplace his pulse quickened. It was quite possible that Liza, despite her opportunity, had not been to the hiding brick at all. He removed the brick very carefully. He put his hand into the aperture. He started. His fingers contacted coins and paper. He removed everything. When he was sure no more remained he brought that which he had taken out up the stairs to his room, entered a closet, shut the door, struck a match, and counted it. His eyes glistened. There were one hundred and seventy-eight dollars. He pondered. He separated twelve dollars and a few coins. Then he left the closet, found his trousers, put all the rest in his pockets, and went downstairs again to the fireplace. He put the twelve dollars and the coins in the aperture. With the greatest care he replaced the brick so that all was as it had been. Any of the children could have done this as well. Over and over, times without number, they had explored the grandmother’s hiding place. It had been a deliciously frightening game to remove the brick, to count what few coins were in the hiding place, then to replace the brick so carefully that the grandmother had never been aware of their meddling.

Job remembered this as he replaced the brick affectionately, he smiled, remembering it, all the way upstairs. The grandmother was dead. The hiding place was anyone’s hiding place now. The money belonged to no one, it belonged to the first person who could arm himself with it. He fell asleep marvelling a little at Liza, that she had not thought to look.

Months later, when the old farm was sold and the money distributed, Job received a letter from Liza. It contained a draft for one hundred and sixty dollars, his share from the sale.

“You remember Grandma’s hiding place,” Liza wrote. “I opened it but there was only twelve dollars and a few cents in it, the poor soul I guess this was what all she could put by so it was used up in the funeral expenses no sense to divide it.”

Job waited a week, then took his hoard to the bank.

“Looks like quite a deposit,” Purvis Benjamin said, strolling to the teller’s window.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Benjamin.” Job grinned. He expunged the grin decorously. “My grandmother,” he said soberly. “God rest her.”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Benjamin said piously.

“Very old,” Job deprecated.

“We all have to go.”

“Yes, sir. All of us.”

“Ah, well.”

The teller pushed the deposit book through the window grille.

“Money belongs in the bank,” Job said virtuously.

“Drop in any time,” Benjamin said warmly. “Any time at all.”

He watched Job pass through the bank doors. “How much’d he put in?” he asked.

“Little over three hundred dollars.”

Benjamin licked his lips. He thought about three hundred dollars.

“That’s the way to do it,” he said aloud. He looked about the bank a moment. He turned and walked to the back, to his office.

Job, who had kept out twenty-five dollars, walked directly to Potter’s Furnishings. It was a large sum of money and he proposed to be extravagant. He bought two new shirts and four pairs of socks, three neckties and a pair of yellow shoes with mother-of-pearl buttons.

“I guess I’ll buy a suit,” he said diffidently. He looked up. The salesgirl was not listening. She was smoothing her hair back and looking over his shoulder. Job turned to see what male she was tidying herself for. It was not a man. Standing a few aisles away, looking discontentedly about her, was a brunette young woman, a beautiful woman, shapely, dressed as few Milletta girls ever managed to dress, even on Sundays.

Job stared respectfully.

The salesgirl left him and hurried to the young woman.

“I’ll be right with you, Miss Bushwah,” she stammered. “I’ll be with you in just a minute—”

The young woman looked about her languidly.

“I am in no hurry,” she pronounced carefully. She bent her head in a little nod, half bow, and turned away.

“Isn’t she wonderful?” the salesgirl whispered, flustered. “She must have just got in.”

“Who is it?” Job demanded.

“Who is it? Why, it’s Weeda Bushwah, that’s who! Francis Bushwah’s daughter.”

“Bushwah?”

“The druggist! That’s his daughter. Spends most of her time in Cleveland,” the girl said reverently. “Look at her. Look at her dress, look at her hair. That’s style! Nobody hardly dares talk to her. She knows everything. . . . Just look at that dress . . .”

Job stared.

“What do you call her Bushwah for?” he demanded. “Why don’t you call her—”

“Because that’s her name!” the girl whispered fiercely. “Don’t ever let her hear you pronounce it any other way!”

“Her pa’s name is Boor-goys. Everybody calls him Boor-goys—”

“You better not let her hear you! That’s all! It’s a French name. B-o-u-r-g-e-o-i-s. Bushwah. That’s how to pronounce it. She told me herself. She gets awful mad if you don’t. Isn’t it wonderful? Her first name is Ida. One day she put an Ou in front of it and changed it to Ouida. Weeda Bushwah! Isn’t that just like her? Isn’t she wonderful? What else did you say you wanted?” She looked apprehensively at the waiting Ouida Bourgeois’ back.

“I want a suit.” Job’s face brightened. He glanced covertly at the young woman. “I want a suit,” he said loudly.

They walked to the suit rack.

“Size thirty-six! That’s me! Perfect thirty-six!”

“Shh!” the girl hissed. She looked quickly toward Ouida Bourgeois.

“The only thing I can’t figure out is what color!” Job continued loudly. “What I need is somebody with a good idea in color. Somebody who really knows!”

Miss Bourgeois stirred slightly.

“We haven’t got but so many colors,” the girl said, looking at Job angrily.

He jogged the girl with his elbow.

“Ask her!” he whispered. “Go on!”

The girl stared at him, scandalized.

Job walked to Ouida Bourgeois.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Bushwah,” he addressed her back. She turned slowly. She looked through Job. “I want to beg a favor of you. Your taste—you understand. I want to ask you a favor . . .”

“This is Job Marsh.” The salesgirl came forward, crimson. “He moved here while you were away. Works for Plenkin.” She looked at Ouida, beseeching pardon for him, then glared at Job.

Ouida inclined her head slightly.

“I understand your name is Bushwah,” Job said ingratiatingly. “Glad to meet you. My name is Job Marsh. I work for Plenkin. I heard about you. I got to buy me a suit, I’d like to ask you a favor, no offense meant.”

Ouida raised her eyebrows, then raised her chin slowly, looked at Job and waited. One of her subjects, the female, stammered:

“He wants to ask you what color suit, Miss Bushwah.”

“That’s right.” Job looked at Ouida cheerfully. “I guess we need an expert.”

The salesgirl trembled. But without a word Ouida led the way to the suit rack. She eyed Job as though he were a post she intended to paint. She inspected the suits.

“This one,” she said slowly.

“That one?” asked Job.

“That one.”

“It’s gray—”

“You should wear gray. You should wear gray always. It’s in good taste. It is also a very spiritual color.”

“Won’t go with those yellow pointed shoes you bought,” the salesgirl said spitefully.

“No,” said Ouida. “No yellow shoes.”

“Anything you say, Miss Bushwah. Grateful for your opinion. Put myself right in your hands. Grateful for the chance.”

Ouida smiled reluctantly, she was so pleased she could not help herself, she smiled a full, warm smile of approval on him. And Job blinked and had the sense to be silent.

“It is my pleasure,” Ouida said gravely.

The clothes he bought were put back. She selected others. She was very happy.

Thus Job Marsh and Ouida Bourgeois encountered each other. In Milletta the encounter was mildly mouthed and briefly pondered among the minutiae of the day’s happenings. Ouida’s father mentioned it that evening, and her mother apologetically recalled all that was known of Job Marsh. The attention was minor and passing. But Ouida felt invaded. She was alarmed, then irritated. She desired to punish, to strike back and at the same time to amaze and be justified. She looked at Job Marsh with interest. As an instrument he was an unlikely human. This quickened her. She was bored. Her speculation, always quixotic, became resolve, and decision forthwith made her project reasonable. She decided to take up Job Marsh, to show Milletta’s clods what a being so superior as she could create of a thing so completely unlikely, so entirely and remotely inferior as Job Marsh.

Thereafter they met frequently. They took decorous walks. She talked extensively and Job listened. He was as obedient as possible. She corrected him endlessly. He admired her the more. Her culture amazed him. He considered her as valuable as a diamond ring. Her good looks and her appearance bemused him. He waited cheerfully for the day when he could begin by taking her hand. Meanwhile he kept scrupulously on his good behavior.

“You’re so different, Miss Bushwah,” Job said once. “How do you account for how different you are?”

She stopped walking then and turned and faced him.

“You couldn’t have said a nicer thing,” she said slowly.

“Well, it’s true,” he shrugged.

“All my life I’ve wanted to be different. I look about me and the humans I see disgust me.”

“Me too.”

“I believe there is a God in each of us. Do you believe in God, Mr. Marsh?”

“God? Oh, sure. I don’t go to church much—”

“Of course you do. Deep down there is something very spiritual in you. I can feel it . . . There’s a God in each of us, I believe that.” She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Opened her lips again: “I wonder, sometimes—perhaps some of us have a little more God in us than others . . .”

“I think so,” he said readily. “You bet! I ain’t saying—”

“I’m not saying—”

“I’m not—”

“So you see we must take care—we must be free—we must be secure—”

“Money!” Job brightened.

“Not money. I’ve never lacked for money, like you, poor boy! My father gives me what I want. It’s not money. It’s more.”

“I bet you read all the time. Day and night.”

“It’s not books. I don’t have to read. I know. It comes to me.” She pressed her chest. “It’s in me. In myself. I know. I don’t know how. I just know.”

This was the Ouida Bourgeois, the Ida Boorgoys who, Milletta women were sourly and happily sure, would never find a mate, and this was the Job Marsh from whom they kept their daughters.

For a long time they met thus and she reformed him and shaped him to her heart’s content and he proudly accepted her changes and cheerfully bore her contempt and was virtuous with her praises. She was happy to have her subject but she kept him carefully in his role, for all to see. Months later she let him hold her hand, she saw no harm in it. They did not profane their relationship with kisses.

Job waited.

★ CHAPTER 4

The town of Milletta watched, as it watched all movement, chewed, meditated, watched.

On the farms the days flowed slowly through the countryside and what had been planted grew to be harvested and flowed out in exchange for tokens to buy what had been worn or broken and for new seed to be planted, to be harvested. And in the town, along Main Street, the merchants sent tokens to New York and Chicago in exchange for things which were sent them and which they sold to each other and to the rest of Milletta, adding a sum to the sum they had paid, and thus they paid each other what they had earned from each other and thus they survived, and in the town the days flowed quietly also.

The life of Milletta was a day and then another day, a birth and a birth, a death and a death, and the mechanics of their survival was that each man bought of the other what he needed and sold the seller what he needed and ate and slept and was housed and procreated and this was each man’s purpose. The two lawyers of Milletta untangled the community’s quarrels, the doctors mended the sick, the priests of Milletta guarded the customs and once a week were vigilant to raise the question of an old fear.

One day in late fall Plenkin fell from his bench to the floor. He lay there unconscious, his lips blue, breathing the hard sounds of an old man. Job ran for Dr. Kellogg.

“He should never be working,” Dr. Kellogg said angrily, kneeling beside Plenkin.

“I’ve told him, I’ve begged him!” Job said eagerly. “Is he bad, Doctor? Is he real bad?”

“Got any relatives?” Dr. Kellogg opened his bag. He began to fit the parts of a syringe together.

“I don’t think so. I never heard of any. Maybe . . . Maybe in the old country.”

“Ever do this before? Fall over?”

“No, never. But he goes slower and slower. All of a sudden the last few months he’s almost come to a stop. He’s got rheumatism, he says. In his shoulder.”

“Yes—” Dr. Kellogg dissolved a pill and drew the fluid into the syringe—“I know that rheumatism. In the shoulder!”

“Gets so bad he can’t move. ‘Take it easy,’ I told him. ‘I’ll do the work. Stay home a few days a week.’ He’s got to work. That’s how he is. Every day. Pain so bad he can’t move his left arm.”

“Heart.” Dr. Kellogg jabbed the needle into Plenkin’s arm.

“In the shoulder?” Job queried, awed.

“In the shoulder. And he’s through. He’s through working.”

Plenkin opened his eyes. He peered at them dimly. He wondered where he was.

“There he is!” cried Job. “He’s awake!” He bent down. “You hear that, Mr. Plenkin? You’ve got to stop like I’ve been begging you. You’ve got to stop working! Here’s the doctor!”

The old man’s eyes had been dim. Fear cleared them. He grunted and tried to rise. Dr. Kellogg pushed him back.

“Can you get him home?” he asked Job. He turned to Plenkin. “You lie still, now. You’re all right. You’ve had a little attack.”

The going forth of Plenkin through the front door of his shop, supported into a buggy by Job and Dr. Kellogg, the driving home, all was watched by Milletta, by as many as could see, staring from their shops, peering from their windows, a working animal fallen, one of their number, felled by age, unable to battle for survival any longer, surviving still but his future not in his hands but in the hands of fortune and chance, the issue over, decided, the span ended, led forth from his shop, on his way home. They watched with pity and dread and excitement and fear and gratitude. Not them, not yet them, it was Plenkin, not them, not, not, not yet. They muttered uneasily, they went back to work harder at their task of exchanging with one another that which they needed for survival.

Plenkin was forced to bed and Dr. Kellogg gave him a sedative. He closed his eyes and slept.

“He’ll want to get up and work tomorrow,” Job warned.

“Not him. Not tomorrow. No relatives at all?”

“That close? Really that close, Doc?”

“You can’t tell. He’s an old man. He’s been going on habit, not body. The machine’s gone. One thing—he’s through.”

“I’ll take care of him.”

The doctor walked to the door.

“Just keep him quiet.”

“How you gonna keep him from getting up and going to work?”

“His body will keep him. If he wakes up give him one of those pills. I’ll be by tomorrow.”

He clucked to his horse and drove off.

Job walked to Plenkin’s bedside and stood for a while watching him curiously. Then he let himself quietly out and walked back through the late afternoon sunlight to the shop.

He entered by the back door. He stood for a moment in the gloom. He began a slow and methodical tour of the small premises. He inspected everything. At the cash drawer he took out the money, stacked it abstractedly, counted it, put it back. He looked about the shop again. He sighed. His time had come.

He put on his coat, left the shop, hired a rig. Two hours later he was in earnest conference with Eric Seltzer, proprietor of a harness shop in nearby Pocanic. Seltzer listened, blinking. Job finished. Seltzer shook his head.

“Why don’t I just wait until he dies and then step in and buy—and then buy?”

“Might be ten years.” Job grinned affably. “On the other hand if he died tomorrow there’s others want it. Maybe you’d get it—maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you wouldn’t like the price.”

“Hell!” Seltzer said with finality. “He won’t sell! He won’t sell to anybody! I’ve tried four times before ever you got here.”

“He’ll sell to me.”

“He won’t sell to anybody.”

“All I have to do is quit him.”

“I don’t think so.”

“To him it’d be different. Not like to a stranger.”

“I don’t like it.”

“What don’t you like?”

“It ain’t businesslike.”

“You want the business?”

“I don’t like the way I got to go out on a limb to get it.”

“Look, Mr. Seltzer. I come here with a fair proposition. I could have gone to Quarles at Roundtree, or Ames at Los Santos. They’d have jumped at what I’m trying to hand you on a silver platter. I’ve told you how things are and I’ve told you how you can get a prosperous, going harness business at less’n it’d cost you for the worst farm in the county. Now there it is, take it or leave it. Maybe it won’t work at all. Only remember—I came to you first.”

“Let me hear you tell it again.”

“All right. First you sign my note.”

“Why don’t you get the money from the bank yourself?” Seltzer cried suddenly.

“I’m too young,” Job said detachedly.

“I seen other fellows younger’n you get loans to go into business,” Seltzer said virtuously.

“Fellows known, maybe. Not fellows only been in town long as me. Maybe the bank knew their family. Anyway, I already sounded them out.”

“How?”

“Little ways. Words here and there.”

“Yup,” said Seltzer, satisfied. “All right, then. I sign your note.”

“You sign my note and the bank gives me the money and I buy the business—”

“In your name,” Seltzer said indignantly.

“That’s the only name Plenkin’s going to sell to. But it’ll be your business. On the quiet I turn over the profits to you. Out of the profits I take my salary, ten dollars a week, plus ten percent of the net—which is what I get for running the place and thinking up this arrangement and handing it to you on a silver platter. Someday the old man’ll die. Maybe it’ll be today, maybe it’ll be ten years from today. But when that happens we put a new sign over the store: ‘Seltzer & Co.’ And there’s where I got to rely on you. I got to rely on you not to fire me the minute you take over. All I got’s your word.”

“I’m not worrying about my word. What I want to know is what assurance have I got you’ll step out when the old man dies? My God, boy! I don’t know even what I’m sitting here talking to you for!”

“Make it a demand note—”

“What’s to prevent you turning around and selling the shop and paying off the note?”

“And suppose I did? What would you be out?”

Seltzer licked his lips.

“We could sign a paper,” he said. “We could do that.”

“What for would we sign a paper, Mr. Seltzer?” Job asked coldly.

“I need some protection!” Seltzer exploded. “What do you think I am! Anything could happen to you! Anything! Now, look. Let’s look at it this way. We could sign a paper—just between ourselves—absolutely secret—setting down all we talked about. That way you know, and I know, and we both know. That way we’re protected. You, as well as me.”

“A paper—” Job stared at him.

“Just a private agreement, a contract between you’n me nobody ever need hear of.”

“You know what that kind of paper would be, Mr. Seltzer?” Job said in a hushed voice. “You realize you’re asking me to set my name to a conspiracy to defraud? And you’re going to set your name to it too?”

“And who’d know about it?”

“No, sir, Mr. Seltzer! Not me! I don’t want anything illegal. I thought there was a chance here for both of us to make an honest dollar. A fellow has to look out for himself in this world. But no illegal business. No sir! I don’t go into anything like that!”

He rose. He forced a smile.

“Well,” he said, “it’s been a pleasure—”

“Where you off to?”

“I got to get back. I want to stop in Milford.”

Abel Smith owned a harness shop in Milford.

“Just take it easy,” Seltzer said irritably. “Sit down! You come in here like a clap of thunder, put a proposition, and run off before a man can think.”

Job did not sit down.

“You want the store, Mr. Seltzer?”

“Certain, I want the store!”

Job said nothing. He waited.

“What’s your proposition?” Seltzer demanded at last.

“I’ve just told you.”

“Well, tell me again.”

Job told him again. When he had finished, Seltzer fell to thinking.

“I got to have some kind of paper,” he said finally.

“What kind of paper?”

“Something that says the place is mine and not yours. Something that says in name only.”

“What the hell kind of paper can I give you! Excuse me, Mr. Seltzer, but just tell me that. What kind of paper wouldn’t be conspiracy to defraud?”

Seltzer gnawed his knuckles.

“Let’s go over it again,” he said.

“You think about it.” Job shook his head. “You just think about it,” he said wearily. “I’ve got to get back before I’m missed.” He turned toward the door.

“How about you giving me a note?”

“I’m already giving you a note.”

But Seltzer’s face had cleared.

“I’ve got it,” he cried. “Now I’ve got the way out.”

Job watched him warily.

“You give me a note, you understand—”

“I’m already giving you a note!”

“All right. That note. I mean another note. A note saying you owe me the shop.”

“Another demand note—?” Job parried.

But Seltzer swept on triumphantly. “You might drop dead after all. You might run away, you might—God knows what can’t happen to you. That’s what I’m trying to get at. But if you give me this second demand note doesn’t matter what happens. If anything happened to you or you just happened to change your mind or anything, I present the second note—and I’m protected.”

Long before he finished Job was waiting.

“Sounds all right,” he shrugged. He thought a moment. “All right with me, if that’s what you want . . .”

“Certain—that’s all I’ve been trying to make you see—now how about it?”

Job pretended to muse a moment.

“Right!” he decided. “All right, Mr. Seltzer! That’s the way we’ll do it, then!”

They shook hands happily.


Plenkin was conscious when Job returned. Job had brought with him the day’s receipts and the account books. He busied himself with these. Plenkin watched.

“Vant paper, pencil,” he said after a while.

In his bed Plenkin scrawled laboriously. Job watched him. He was tense with the day’s happenings.

“Vant envelope,” Plenkin said.

Plenkin addressed and sealed the envelope. He let it lie on the bed. He pondered. Finally he picked it up and handed it to Job.

“Go mail,” he said. “Mail in morning.”

In the morning men drifted in from other stores along Main Street to hear what had happened. With each Job shook his head wryly.

“Plenkin wants to work—Doc Kellogg says no. Plenkin’s bound to work. Doc says if he does—” Job paused, let the sentence drop delicately. He smiled ruefully. “Seems like a fellow’s got to know when to quit.” He sighed. He shook his head.

At noon the shop was empty and he took the letter to the back shop and examined the envelope. It was addressed to a Mrs. Thaddeus Mikulicz. Plenkin never wrote letters. Job weighed the letter. He struggled with temptation. He desired mightily to scan the pages, even though it was written in a foreign language. Virtuously he put the temptation from him. He opened the door of the stove and tossed the letter into the fire.

During the next week Plenkin tried twice to get out of bed to go to work. Each time Job had to summon the doctor. Plenkin now lay in bed and stared at the counterpane in silence. He was at bay and he knew that he was at bay. He knew that Job knew it. Job had been too polite, too anxious to serve him. Plenkin waited for the inevitable.

“About time you stopped work, ain’t it, Mr. Plenkin?” Job said diffidently one night.

He tried to get out of bed. Job held him back. Next morning, after Job had gone, Plenkin tried again. When Job returned from the shop at noon he found him lying on the floor. This time Dr. Kellogg offered no anger. He said only that if Plenkin did this again he must get another doctor. The door closed firmly behind him.

“What do you think we ought to do about the shop, Mr. Plenkin?” Job asked anxiously.

“Pretty soon voman come. Take care of me. I write granddaughter.”

“All right. Fine. Who takes care of me?”

“You young, strong fella.”

“Now’s the time I got to look out for myself. I got to do something, Mr. Plenkin.”

There was a silence.

“Vot you vant?” Plenkin asked finally.

“Sell me the shop.”

“Sell? You crazy!”

“Sell me the shop and I’ll run it and give you ten percent of what I make. You can live on that and rest and get back on your feet.”

“Don’t talk no more!”

There was silence again.

“Vair you get money buy shop?”

“The bank’ll lend me.”

“You crazy!”

“They’ll lend it.”

“I never sell shop. Never!”

“I know you’d never sell to anybody else. I’ve lived with you long enough. I know that.”

“I give you job—I give you place sleep—”

“Mr. Plenkin, I’m going to tell you something. Do you know what the doctor says?”

Plenkin tried to raise himself from the pillow. He failed, tried again, sank back.

“I never sell shop!” He said it with finality.

“That’s all right.” Job nodded. “I worked for you pretty hard, Mr. Plenkin. But that’s all right.”

“You vait. You vork shop, voman come take care for me, you vait.”

“I’m going to work for Seltzer, Mr. Plenkin. Over in Pocanic. I’m sorry. I wish you the best of luck. I’ll go over and see him tomorrow.”

Plenkin said nothing. Job returned to the shop.

That night he brought home a contract by which Plenkin agreed to sell him the shop for $1,500. He read it to Plenkin. He laid it on the bed. Next morning he dressed in his best clothes and packed his carpetbag.

“Here’s the keys, Mr. Plenkin.” Job put them on the bureau. “I hope you get someone to run the shop for you real soon. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” He smiled politely, picked up his carpetbag, and started for the door. He reached the door and opened it. He was over the threshold.

“I sign,” Plenkin muttered tiredly.


When Purvis Benjamin saw Job enter the bank and walk directly toward his office he smiled grimly. When a young man was sparking a girl he generally wanted a horse and carriage.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, trying to estimate how much of a horse and carriage a fellow like Job might want to court a girl like Ouida Bourgeois.

“I want to borrow fifteen hundred dollars.”

Benjamin blanched.

“Fifteen hundred dollars! What kind of a rig—you want to borrow fifteen hundred dollars?”

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Benjamin. Very confidentially. I want to buy out Mr. Plenkin.”

“You want to borrow fifteen hundred dollars to buy out Plenkin—how’s he feeling?”

“No better. Worse. I want fifteen hundred dollars.”

“Andreas Plenkin selling out—?”

“To me.”

“Never!”

Job opened the contract of sale, smoothed it, laid it on the desk between them.

“I never, I never. No sir, I never.”

“I’ll have to know, Mr. Benjamin.”

“And you want fifteen hundred dollars. No sir, I never . . . Well, let’s see. Got that much inventory?”

“Say about seven hundred. And there’s the good will.”

“The good will . . . Yes, of course . . . No . . . not fifteen hundred . . .”

“How much?”

“I’ll tell you. Let’s see now . . . Yes, that’s just about it—you can have seven hundred.”

Job picked up the agreement of sale, folded it carefully, put it carefully in his pocket.

“Going to Tyre won’t do you any good,” Benjamin said earnestly. “I don’t care, but I doubt they’d let you have that much. Local business. I’m stretching it. But an out-of-town bank—”

“That’s all right. That’s about how I figured. Forget that. Now suppose somebody signs my note for $1500. Seltzer, say, over in Pocanic.”

“All right! You got a contract of sale. Now, how you going to protect yourself from Seltzer? Do you know why he’s willing to sign your note?”

“He’s going to try to take the shop away from me.”

“That’s exactly what he’s gonna do. He’s been trying to get that shop for years.”

“I kind of figured maybe you’d give me a little protection . . .”

“Any deal you go into with him you need protection!”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can make a go of it, can’t you?”

Job grinned.

“That’s right. I don’t know what Plenkin would have done without you. If Seltzer figures to pick it off like a grape off the bush maybe this time he’s overreached himself. You’re young, you see. He figures on that . . . Think you can keep up your payments?”

Job grinned.

Benjamin nodded.

“No reason why not. I’ll back you. Personally. Here’s a form. Get it signed—”

Job produced a note, endorsed by Seltzer.

“Lend me your pen,” he said briefly.


Thus Job at eighteen became the owner of his own harness shop. Now his days were endless. He worked indefatigably. He cut prices. No labor was too small or too trivial for him, and what he did he did with enormous cheerfulness. The shop bustled. Business swelled. There was never any doubt of his success. He had not even a small failure. He never gave failure a chance.

A week after Job became the owner of the shop Seltzer drove over from Pocanic. He entered the shop victoriously, called Job, and scanning the interior, ordered changes. Job listened patiently.

“Now, where’s the books? Let’s see the books,” Seltzer commanded.

“You don’t care about that,” Job said diffidently.

“Let’s see the books!” Seltzer frowned.

“There’s something you’d better understand, Mr. Seltzer. This is my shop. Mine . . .”

Your shop—!”

“That’s right, Mr. Seltzer. I own it. You signed my note for $1500. And I bought the shop. The bank’ll get its money regular.”

Seltzer gasped. His face reddened.

“You told me—why, you know perfectly well what our deal was, you little thief! What are you trying to pull? Now you get the hell out of here! Go on! Git!”

“Maybe you got something says I got to get out of here? Says you own this shop? Is that it, Mr. Seltzer?”

“I don’t propose to argue with you. I’ve got a paper signed by you agreeing to turn this shop over to me, agreeing to pay me fifteen hundred—demand note—I demand it! I demand it, right now! Now don’t waste my time. Just get out.”

“That agreement, Mr. Seltzer—that demand note—it ain’t worth the paper it’s written on. I’m sorry. But that’s the way it goes. Business is business.”

“I’ve got your signature—”

“You’ve got my signature to an agreement. And not a dollar changed hands with that agreement and no agreement’s worth a cent unless both of us get something out of it. To say nothing about me being a minor.”

The bank note was slowly and regularly paid off. Job Marsh who at eighteen had forced Plenkin to sell him his beloved shop, who had forced the Milletta Bank to put up the money, who had outwitted Seltzer into signing a note which gave Job the shop Seltzer wanted was now and henceforth a Milletta prodigy. He was a prodigy and he was feared and his saga was wonder.

It was the way things were properly done in the world, the manner in which a man justified his parents and his upbringing and his schooling, the way he survived, the way his survival became a model for his community. It made true all the maxims man had invented and most of the reasons he had decided upon for his presence on the planet. It was an occasion for chattering.

That which followed happened obviously and logically and tribally. Plenkin grew stronger and able to care for himself, and Job moved to a boardinghouse. Another month passed and now the shop was running smoothly. As he sold harness Job replaced it with merchandise bought from the cities. He used his personal funds. He no longer made harness. He bought harness cheaper than he could make it. He sold service. He worked long hours at repairs, and in time the shop’s work product, always behind because new harness had to be made and repairs effected concurrently, became available very promptly. He began to draw trade from farmers waiting on other harness shops.

At this time, arriving at the shop early one morning, he found Plenkin there before him. Plenkin was waiting for the shop to be opened. He stood stolidly outside the back door. He had been thin before his attack, now he was emaciated and quite bent.

“Vant to vork,” he stated.

Job grinned a welcome.

“Why, sure, Mr. Plenkin! Come right on in! Guess you know your way around,” he chuckled.

He put his arm around the old man’s shoulders. He was Plenkin’s blood brother in one clear respect. They loved work, their days were modelled on it and shaped to it faithfully. Job understood completely. The old man wanted exactly what he stated. He wanted to work, he could not live without it. He was adrift in a lonely world, terrifying and crazing; with work between his hands, the thoughts of work all his thoughts, there came order and comfort and a morrow without chaos. In the shop Plenkin did not even look about him to see what Job had done, what changes he had made. He found his bench, he sat down, he pulled a hame strap to him, he began to work immediately. He worked silently, greedily, all that day. The day ended. They stood outside the shop as Job locked up. Then Plenkin lifted his head and peered at Job.

“Come tomorrow?” the old man asked hopefully.

It is true that Job was in many ways different from other men in Milletta, but he had one characteristic which made him different from most men, everywhere. He never in all his life hated those to whom he had done an injury. He treated them just as he treated everyone else.

He smiled at Plenkin, smiled fondly.

“You bet!” he said protectively. “You come tomorrow and next day—whenever you feel like it—”

“Feel good.”

“You work here all you please.”

When this month ended he paid Plenkin the very salary he used to receive from him. But when the next month came he shook his head.

“I want to keep you, but you’ll have to help me.”

Plenkin bowed his head to hide the fear in his eyes.

“Vant to vork,” he said humbly.

“I know it. But I got bank payments to make. I hadn’t figured on paying any salaries. And on top of that I got to keep paying you ten percent. Pretty soon it’ll be ten percent of nothing. We’re in this together. See what I mean?”

Plenkin looked up at Job, waiting.

“What am I going to do?” Job asked ruefully.

Thereafter, Plenkin signed a release foregoing the ten percent due him from the business. Job raised his wages a dollar a week. Plenkin worked on. He worked feebly. He now worked for Job.

Job was on a new footing with Ouida Bourgeois. To her he was no longer young-man clay to be shaped, but adult clay. He spoke with greater assurance.

“A poor old man like that, working,” she said one night.

“Plenkin? Why he likes to work! Honestly! He’d be lost if he didn’t work! I believe he’d pay me to let him work. I’m actually doing him a favor.”

“I have no illusions about you. You live in a jungle. You do no one any favors.”

Job grinned happily. He knew this was as far as Ouida could go in acknowledging his victory.

“You live in another world, Ouida,” he said mildly. “I’d like to live in the kind of world you live in, too. Somebody’s got to bring home the bacon.”

Ouida was mollified.

“Straighten your tie,” she said. “Why do you wear such ties?”

“Pretty, ain’t it?” Job grinned.

“Really, Job!”

“Isn’t.”

He moved closer to her on the porch swing.

“I’ve got a book I want you to read. I want you to study it from cover to cover.” She produced a slim volume.

“I read that book. You gave it to me two months ago. Ruskin, isn’t it? Hell. I can’t make out what he’s talking about!”

“This is not Ruskin, Job. And please don’t be a boor. I don’t tolerate profanity. This is Emerson. And I want you to read him.”

Job hefted the book.

“Like Ruskin?” he asked with distaste.

Ouida controlled her irritation.

“I’ll make it easy for you,” she said. “I’ll read you a little.”

She opened the book. She began to read melodramatically. She gestured. She paused frequently to peer at Job to see the effect of her reading and Emerson’s prose. She tried to make her tone thrilling. She endeavored to make her voice throb with impact. She became excited.

Job put his arm around her waist. He had never done this before. She did not notice.

“You see?” she cried. “You see?”

Job crossed his legs.

“I never realized—” he said unevenly.

She soared on. The words excited her. The spirituality of her enterprise swept her away. She was moved deeply. She was exalted. Her senses quivered. Job put his hand on her knee. Infinitely slowly he began to caress her thigh.

“Now, Job,” she said gently.

She looked at him, her eyes moist. His eyes met hers hungrily. Inexplicably, her lips raised and offered to him. He seized her. His mouth devoured her. His hands explored her greedily. Impatiently one hand was suddenly on the bare flesh of her thigh, caressing, moving upward. His body leaned upon her. He freed a hand for an instant to lift one leg in the hammock.

Dazed, her body clamoring, blood pounding thickly, she drew away and pulled herself upright.

“Job! Job, dear . . . don’t . . .”

Job forced his eyes to focus. They blurred again. His nostrils widened. There rose above them thickly the odor of her femininity, of her body. He reached for her tentatively, again.

“No . . . no, Job . . . no more . . .”

“We’ll get married,” he said thickly. “Let’s get married, Ouida. Come on.”

She pressed his hand. She bent and kissed his cheek.

“Go home now. Go home and let me think.”

He rose. He noticed the volume of Emerson on the seat. He put it in his pocket. It had served once and it might serve again.

For hours that night Ouida sifted what had happened. At the beginning of her thinking she trembled at the thought that her body had moved her, that she had surrendered to her body. The thought accused her. Suddenly it was plain. She sighed with relief. It was Emerson. Her body and Job’s body had been made incarnate with the spirit, lifted with the spirit, moved into the unknowable, soared into the apogee of spirituality. He must then be her soul mate. Their marriage, then, was inevitable. She knew it must be. He was a boor, a conventional Milletta bumpkin, uncouth, a grinning lecher, a ruthless and unscrupulous pillager, without any moral sense, blatant, loud, tasteless. These things he was, standing beside the dim and vague outlines of her ideal man, her ideal of that which was man.

But men were crude clay. And they were clay. And somewhere in this man was a great, a dizzying, a marvelling, an unsuspected ocean of the mighty spirit. Around that incredible fund, that greatest of funds, she could build, she could shape the clay. The world would bow before her in admiration. Given the spirit, everything was possible. Someday he would dream greatly. She would hold him by her side. She would comfort him. She would plan with him. She would direct him slowly, surely upward, ever upward, to the empty throne beside her, to reign with her. Her body shivered at the memory of his hands. She said her prayers with fervor. She slept deeply.

★ CHAPTER 5

When they were married it was almost, for Job, like winning another shop. He had now acquired Ouida, all of her. And all of her was of great worth, a prize. He knew she was passionate. He felt that her face and her figure would ornament any man living. He knew she was reckoned far above any woman in Milletta for her taste, her manners, her graces, her mind. It was a tremendous acquisition. And he was very fond of her.

He was not unkind, he was far from cruel, he was not unpracticed. But he had waited so long that on their wedding night, on his wedding night, he could not wait. He seized her cold, when they were alone, seized her without preliminary, smothered her mouth with kisses, bore her backward to the bed; her knees touched it and crumpled and he threw himself upon her, he flung up her dress, in an instant he had penetrated her, in another instant he was spent.

He stood and tidied himself abashedly. She smoothed her dress, sat up and looked at him coldly. Her cries of pain and disgust were still wet on her lips.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “You get me, Ouida.”

“You beast!” she cried. She hated him with all her heart. “You filthy boor! You beast!”

“Ah, now, Ouida,” he moved toward her, “don’t pay any attention to—”

“If you touch me,” she said levelly, “if you dare to touch me . . .”

She slept on a sofa that night. He shrugged and waited for time and the next morning and the morning after. And the months. And the years.

Occasionally in the months that followed and became years, when he could artfully exalt her, she opened her thighs to him, delirious as he. Afterward she always repented, he had taken her unawares, he had dragged her down to his level, he had aroused in her the body all men must put down, the body that filthied all that was best and noblest in man’s nature, in his holy spirit. She rose shamed, dirtied, angry, and deflowered.

There were not many such occasions, but from one of them Lucas was conceived after they had been married many years and after she had faced fully, large and small, all that Job was and all that he might do.

Her life was a fragmented chaos, an agony of imprecations to Heaven.

“Why me?” she would scream. “Why, why, why?”

Meantime, she refuged in whatever avenue of the spiritual presented itself. She explored Buddhism, and Bahai-Ullah, and Fletcherism, she spent hours over a crystal ball sent all the way from Chicago. She delved deeply into Spiritualism and tried to commune with the dead, the dead great, seldom her own parents. She read Emerson and Ruskin and Pater and tried china painting, using spiritual motifs only. She explored the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Talmud, she sought spiritual enlightenment on the unknown cipher of Francis Bacon. She had no friends. She kept to herself.

Her hope and her world were now Lucas. She was against meat at this time, with repugnance she cooked it and served it to Job, she fed Lucas and herself only vegetables. She believed in herself as she believed in the right. She believed that she possessed an instinct and an intuition for all knowledge and that what her mind owned was hers because of unshakable faith, pure thoughts, and indomitable will and that these things were so strong in her that she was superior to all life about her. She believed devoutly and humbly in God. It was impossible for her to distinguish between the God she worshipped and the God in her.

When Lucas was six weeks old Ouida brought him to Dr. Alexander.

“He keeps getting thinner,” she said reluctantly.

“What does he do, specially? Cry? Cry a lot?”

Asking me a lot of questions, she thought contemptuously to herself. If he’s so smart why doesn’t he know. Doctors!

“He throws up,” she said, looking at the doctor with hostility, the smoldering of one doctor compelled to go to another. “That’s what’s the matter with him. He gets the best milk. I get it from Potter’s, there’s nothing better.”

“Maybe that’s the trouble . . .”

This was idiocy. She forced herself to be patient.

“He won’t keep a thing on his stomach.” She tried putting it another way.

“Potter’s got Jerseys.”

The baby began crying thinly.

“Well, what about Jerseys! Look at him. Skin and bone. I thought you could help him. Don’t you even want to examine him?”

The doctor took Lucas from her, unwrapped him, patiently and idly went over the small body.

“I’ll tell you something about milk, Mrs. Marsh, it’s got butterfat and water in it and one thing and another, but—”

“There’s no chemicals in the milk I get from Potter’s. None. And no water. None. Whatsoever.”

“I don’t think you understand, Mrs. Marsh—”

“I understand perfectly well. I understand perfectly and completely.”

“Then you know Jersey milk is the richest—”

“Precisely!”

“And the fat globules are probably too big for his little stomach to digest—”

“There’s nothing the matter with his stomach. It’s perfect. I see it as perfect.”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t do much for you. My advice is to give him some downright poor milk, thin stuff, maybe Holstein. I think you’d better try that, Mrs. Marsh.”

Ouida silently swaddled Lucas, and silently left the office. Her eyes were bright with anger and her lips were thin. She went directly to Potter’s dairy.

“I want richer milk than you’ve been giving me. I want the richest milk you’ve got,” she said coldly.

“Richer?” Mrs. Potter straightened indignantly. “There just ain’t any richer! This here is the richest milk there is! Jersey cows don’t give down no richer! No cow does!”

Ouida controlled her anger.

“I just thought there was some you kept for yourselves,” she said carefully. “Something special—”

“There ain’t no special. We drink what you drink. Every mouthful.” A thought struck her. “You want more cream in it? We can add some cream . . .”

“That’s it! That’s it, exactly! From now on give me twice as much cream in every bottle!”

For a week Ouida fed the baby on the richer milk. He ate greedily, vomited, screamed. The next week Ouida fed Lucas almost pure cream. Now he vomited even while he sucked voraciously, screamed, sucked more, vomited, screamed until he was blue. She yearned over him, she hugged him to her fiercely, terror came to her. The child’s crying penetrated the house night and day.

“Take him to a doctor,” Job fretted. “You don’t know everything. Let a doctor see him.”

“For your information, I have had him to Dr. Alexander,” Ouida said coldly.

Next morning she pushed back an edge of her panic and deafening herself to his cries, holding back her fears, tried to think. She decided on a complete reversal. She skimmed the milk for his feeding. As usual, he fed voraciously. Then he threw up, but only half his feeding. He cried during the day, but now fitfully. He retained at least half of what he had been fed and next day he did not vomit at all. Reassured, Ouida now resumed command of the situation. She added cream. He began to throw up again. She went back to skimmed milk. He stopped throwing up. She added only a few drops of cream. At the end of ten days she had evolved a formula which was approximately that of Holstein milk. The crisis, the trouble, was over. Lucas began to gain weight.

“Looks good, don’t he!” Job chuckled.

“Doctors!” Ouida spat contemptuously. “Of course he looks good!”

She was haggard. She had lost weight with the child. Her nights had been sleepless. Her mouth was wried with torture, she held the child to her desperately, protectively. But in her fatigue-reddened, drawn black eyes was invincibility.

“Mrs. Marsh don’t hold much with doctors,” Job told Milletta proudly. “She’s a doctor all by herself. By God, you should have seen what she did with that kid of ours!”

He was very proud of Ouida. He admired her profoundly.

“Nothing she can’t do she sets her mind to. And not just do it, mind you—be in a class all by herself! Nothing, by God! Just nothing! Beats anything I ever saw!”

Ouida withdrew into her private world, which was peopled by herself and the baby, Lucas. She poured out upon the child love and hungry affection. While he slept she read to him from Emerson. He was housebroken at six months. His toys were picture books, not of kittens and red barns, but of great masterpieces of painting. When he was one year old she began to teach him table manners, holding his small hands in hers, guiding him resolutely through those digital maneuvers of replenishment which the primate had decided were prideworthy. Her patience was limitless. The child was her entire life. They inhabited a world of their own, removed from the world about them by the distance of their superiority and the spirituality of their aim. When he asked questions she was beside herself with joy. She spent hours answering a single question. She delighted in the sound of her voice, in the manner in which she was at all times ready to fill his slightest intellectual need. She loved him with all her heart. She would very cheerfully have died for him.

When he was three years old Lucas screamed sharply one afternoon and held his hand to his ear. His agony was beyond moral suasion and Ouida took him reluctantly to Dr. Dwyer.

“Mastoids,” Dr. Dwyer said briefly. “May have to operate.”

“You’ll not lay a finger on this child. He’s not going to be cut—”

“May have to. Looks bad. We’ll see. Get some rubber tubing with a small catheter and run hot water into his ear—at least once every hour. That means every hour. Night and day. Once an hour. Try it. We’ll see.”

“How hot?” Ouida’s face was white.

“Be very careful. Test it like his milk. Now, don’t let it be too hot. Because here’s where it’s going . . .”

He drew from his bookcase an anatomy book and opened a page to the anatomy of the ear.

Ouida looked impatiently at the maze of red and blue lines and colors.

“I know, I know!” she said curtly.

She rushed the child home. Faithfully, every hour of the day Ouida douched Lucas’ ear with hot water. Every hour during the night she rose, went to his bedside, ministered to him. On the fourth day she was stumbling with fatigue. She leaned against doorways, her eyes closed, sleeping for seconds. She would arouse herself as she stood at the stove, cooking, finding she had been asleep. At about two o’clock of the morning of the fifth day she failed to hear Lucas crying. This time she was in a near-coma. At three o’clock the cries penetrated her semiconsciousness, she lumbered groggily to her feet. She stumbled to the kitchen, reeled, boiled water. Dazedly she filled the hot-water bag. She lumbered into the room where he lay screaming.

“Now, darling, now . . . Mother’s here,” she said thickly.

She fumbled the tube into his ear. She held him so he could not move. She released the stopcock. The water, boiling hot, rushed upon the painfully inflamed membranes of the child’s inner ear. He emitted a prodigious scream, without pause a series of maniacal almost adult shrieks. His body convulsed out of her grasp. She held him tighter, forced the tube in deeper. The scalding water flowed on. Suddenly on the threshold of her numb brain black realization loomed, she shrieked, faint with horror. She jerked out the tube. Now he sobbed endlessly, his head rolled from side to side. Ouida wept helplessly. She crushed him to her breast, she crooned over him, she cried and could not stop. She writhed to tear herself, to kill herself.

Stumbling, barely able to see because of her tears, she ran with the child to her bedroom. Job was sleeping deeply. She roused him. He ran for Dr. Dwyer. She sat down on the edge of the bed, folding the child to herself, kissing his feet, sobbing, imploring.

Dr. Dwyer peered into Lucas’ ear. He injected slowly a little warm oil. Lucas continued to sob, occasionally to cry out, then to resume sobbing.

“I don’t know,” said Dr. Dwyer. “I can’t tell. He may be deaf for life.”

Ouida closed her eyes, her body leaned to oblivion. Job stepped to her side, put his arm about her.

“You can’t tell, though, can you?” he said determinedly. “Too soon to tell about a thing like that, could have happened to anyone . . .”

“Don’t know,” said Dr. Dwyer. “I was trying to avoid operating. One-in-a-hundred chance. Now—” He shrugged.

“Can’t tell!” insisted Job.

The doctor nodded cooperatively.

“We’ll see . . .”

“You did your best,” Job said when the doctor had gone. “Don’t worry. Get some sleep.”

Ouida wrenched free from his comforting arm.

“What do you know about it!”

“It’s all right, Ouida—”

“Sleep! That’s all an animal like you can think of! Sleep!”

She sat by Lucas’ bed the rest of the night. She stroked his forehead. Her touch was infinitely light. She talked to him in a barely audible voice.

“You’re going to be all right,” she said over and over. “Mother’s here, darling . . . mother’s right here . . .”

After a while Lucas slept. She crouched beside him, still. She stroked his forehead, gossamer-light, on and on. Her low monotone never ceased. Job got up, tiptoed from the room and went to bed.

Within forty-eight hours Lucas’ mastoid inflammation was mending. Two days later he was almost well. In a month it was as if he had never been troubled. In another month Ouida’s life had a new credo.

“He was at death’s door,” she was to say all the rest of her life, “and by mistake, by the sheerest accident, half dead for sleep, I poured boiling hot water—hotter than boiling—right—into—his—ear! The doctors gave him up. And two days later he was on the mend . . .”

“How do you account for it?” Job asked her once, privately.

She sighed. She shook her head over the immensity between them.

“Did it ever occur to you—can’t you possibly comprehend—that I was guided?”

She asked it sighing, a human alone, among strangers.

“You don’t have to get sore,” Job said, impressed. He looked at her warily, with admiration.


The First World War troubled Milletta only so deeply as had the Spanish-American War some fourteen years previously. For a time it seemed that Job would be drafted. He was at this time a member of the school board, a director of the Chamber of Commerce, and a pew holder in the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the possibility of his being drafted his misgivings became open fear. He was not afraid of fighting nor of privation nor of regimentation. The thought of being killed or wounded never occurred to him. But he had an empire growing, a thing so complex, even though small, that it would collapse the moment he ceased to manipulate it. He turned all his wits to evade the draft. Simultaneously he tried openly, vigorously to obtain a lieutenant’s commission.

The war ended before he could be called up. During the early part of the war he made a great deal of money selling harness through his four stores. His profits became enormous. But he never got out of debt. He did not permit this.

Much of the time Lucas felt himself a stranger to his mother and father. They were so unlike. He could be like neither without feeling a traitor to the other. Beyond this problem there was life as he knew it, the things in living that were exciting and important. And these things were entirely different from the important things in the lives of his parents. They were so different that he knew reluctantly he could never explain himself to them.

What he loved, what he needed, he had to seek in some secrecy. It was plain to Lucas that Job and Ouida, each for a different reason, housed a definite antagonism to doctors and the profession of Medicine. There was no doubt of this antagonism. There was no doubt they disapproved.

When he was eight, Dr. Dwyer loaned him an anatomy book, the doctor’s own anatomy book, from his own bookshelf. Lucas could not believe the glory of that day. He brought the book home. Holding it reverently he showed his mother the magnificent pages.

“It’s very kind of Dr. Dwyer to lend a little boy like you such a valuable book,” Ouida said shortly. “Mother could tell you all that,” she gestured at the charts. “Now, be very careful that you return it in the same condition you brought it. Put it away, now. It’s time for your lessons, Lucas.”

He put the book on the table on which his homework was spread. From time to time he glanced covertly at it. At bedtime he brought it to his bedroom, and slept with it. Next afternoon he came directly home and attacked his homework. He worked fiercely. When he was done he had more than a golden hour remaining until supper. He reached hungrily for the anatomy book. He drew it toward him savoring the moment. He opened it. He began to pore over the pages. He was lost, utterly lost.

Ouida watched in silence.

The hour passed.

“Put your book away!” she said sharply.

Job had come home.

Lucas looked up, dazed.

“See what your son is reading,” Ouida said shortly.

“What you got, boy?” Job leaned over him to read.

“Doctor Dwyer loaned it to me.” Lucas looked up fearfully, hopefully.

“He did, did he?” Job grinned. “Sure it wasn’t Dr. Alexander? Or Dr. Kellogg?”

“What do you mean?” Ouida started.

“Oh,” said Job, “you’ve got to watch this fella! He knows every doctor in town!”

“I just run errands for them, sometimes—”

“Say he does run errands! And holds their horses and carries their bags, runs from one to the next—anytime you want to find Luke you just call the doctor—any doctor!”

Ouida frowned.

That’s why you’re so thin—” she began uncertainly, using the first weapon that came into her mind.

“I don’t run much, honest!”

Job rumpled Lucas’ hair.

“Got to watch him!” he chuckled. “He’ll be a doctor before you know it! If you ain’t careful!”

Ouida sniffed.

Later that evening when she had put Lucas to bed, she sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his forehead.

“What is this?” she asked softly. “What have you been keeping from Mother?”

“It isn’t anything, Mother! Honest!”

“Chasing around after doctors—holding their horses—never telling Mother—”

“I thought you knew—”

“Lucas! Now, that’s an untruth! How could Mother know?”

“I don’t know. I thought you knew. I’ve always liked—” It was incredible to him that they were not aware.

“You promised never to keep anything from Mother,” Ouida said mechanically. She sensed the power of this claim on Lucas. She considered how to oppose it.

“I didn’t keep anything from you! Honest! I thought you knew!”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Ever since I can remember, Mother. When I was little.”

“And is this how you spend your days? When you should be studying? Or just being with Mother? Running after doctors?”

“I thought—”

“Answer me!”

“Yes, Mother.”

She looked at him, thinking.

“I don’t do any harm! Honest! I just—”

“Stop saying ‘Honest’!”

“I just like to be with them. And sometimes—”

“What?”

“Just now and then they teach me. When they’ve got time. Just a minute, now and then. The names of things. And why things happen. And—and—about Medicine—”

“Mother can teach you all those things,” Ouida said jealously.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Mother knows more than all the doctors!”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Why don’t you come to me, Lucas? Why don’t you ask me?”

“I like the smell around them, I like the instruments, I like the feeling around them—I don’t know what to ask you—I’d ask you if I knew . . .”

“You don’t want to be a public mock, do you?”

“No, Mother.”

“Well, just think what people will say about you—about your own mother—when they see you running after doctors all the time, waiting on them hand and foot—”

Nothing definite was said. He examined each sentence carefully. Nothing definite was said. For a while he carefully pruned the time spent lingering around the doctors’ offices. He came home earlier.

That night Ouida sought Job.

“How long have you known this was going on?” she demanded.

“God, the whole town knows it! Don’t tell me you’re just waking up?”

“I have enough to do running this house and wondering where our next cent is coming from and whether you’ve beggared us between breakfast and the time you come home to keep up with every breath a child draws!”

“Well, don’t get mad at me! I haven’t done anything. The kid’s just doctor-struck, that’s all!”

“What are we going to do?”

“What do you mean: ‘what are we going to do’?”

“You know exactly what I mean!”

“About him chasing the doctors?” He looked at her incredulously. “For Christ’s sake, we’re going to do nothing! What in the hell do you think we’re going to do? Bury him?”

“It may seem nothing to you—I know what comes first with his father, so you needn’t tell me—but I’m his mother! I’m interested in the child, strange as it may seem!”

“You ought to be proud of him, then! The docs say he has quite a head on his shoulders. What’s the matter with hanging around doctors? You want him hanging around poolrooms?”

“It so happens that my son isn’t going to be a doctor.”

“Who said he was? Look, Ouida! Kids go through all that. It’s a phase, y’understand? Just a phase. Forget it. Leave him alone. Pay no attention to him whatsoever. Let him go his own ways. I know what I’m talking about. Hell, he isn’t even in high school yet. By that time he’ll want to be an engineer, or a fireman, or Santa Claus! Forget it.”

Ouida wavered.

“Don’t let on to him, Ouida! I’m telling you! Laugh it off! A kid’s bullheaded. Just show him opposition and he’ll trick you! He’ll make a game of it! And before you know it, it’s deadly serious! I’m telling you, now, Ouida—!”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Ouida cried indignantly. “I guess I know children. I guess I know my own son!”

Gradually, Lucas resumed his day-long vigils. As often as not, nowadays, he would be invited into the buggy to accompany the doctor into the country. He said little on these trips. He listened greedily. And the doctors, knowing why he was with them, talking obediently about the case they were jogging toward, about Medicine in general, about studying Medicine, about the names of things.

All of this Lucas now kept to himself. Sometimes he was so full with that which he had learned that he trembled with the excitement. His mother noticed and understood, but she never mentioned it. His father looked at him kindly and winked. Lucas was full of love for both of them.

“Ever see a carbuncle, Lucas?” Dr. Alexander asked suddenly one day. He had just come out onto his porch and Lucas was waiting.

“No, sir!”

“Well, hop in.”

The doctor flopped the reins and they were off.

“Now, I’ll tell you the difference between a boil and a carbuncle. Git up! Now, do you know what a boil is?”

He waited expectantly.

“A boil is an abscess. It starts in the skin. Microbes get into a sweat gland. They eat a pocket under the skin. The pocket gets swollen with pus. You got to cut through the skin to the pocket to let it out.”

“That’s fine. That’s fine.”

“And the most dangerous place for a boil is on the end of the nose or in the nostrils. When you poke around the microbes can get spread into the blood stream and maybe into the brain. You can die from a boil.”

“That’s good. That’s fine. Now how about a carbuncle?”

Lucas looked at him helplessly, mortified.

“A carbuncle is another name for boil. The difference is, with a carbuncle the pus pocket spreads out into a lot of channels—like a starfish. See?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When a boil breaks—there’s one opening. When a carbuncle breaks there’s a lot of openings.”

“How do you open a carbuncle?”

“Same way. You cut the skin down to the pocket.”

“A cut shaped like an X. Two cuts.”

“Fine.”

“And people get boils from not eating the right foods, and from kidney trouble and diabetes and living in bad air.”

“Not all of them at once.”

“No, sir.”

They rode a while in silence.

“But you could have all of them at once!” Lucas burst out.

“You could. But not likely.”

“You wouldn’t be worrying about boils, then.”

“That’s right. Git up!”

Far down the road a house came into view. The doctor pointed.

“We’re going there. Got to see the woman of the house. While I’m there I’ll take a look at the man. He’s got a carbuncle. Now pay attention. I’m going to lance his carbuncle. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to paint the area with iodine. I’m going to lay wet gauze around where I’m going to cut. I’m going to cut. I’m going to poke in a drain. Then I’m going to put on a bandage. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve got it clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine.”

The buggy had reached the house. The doctor stopped the horse. He got out. He reached for his bag. He looked at Lucas.

“Well, come on, come on!”

Lucas stared at him, open-mouthed.

“Come on, Luke!”

Lucas scrambled over the side of the buggy. The doctor held his bag toward him. Lucas grabbed it gratefully.

They pushed past the gate, the front door opened immediately. The woman of the house smiled a wan greeting.

The doctor stepped over the threshold. He turned to Luke, who stood waiting, holding the bag toward him.

“Come on, son. Come on in,” Dr. Alexander said. There was no possible chance of a mistake. He had said it, he had really said it. Numb with delight, Lucas entered the house.

“My helper,” Doctor Alexander said courteously. Lucas looked at her anxiously. But the woman did not laugh. She only smiled a welcome and nodded.

My helper! It rang in Lucas’ ears. It thundered. The hairs at the back of his neck prickled. Stiff with pride he followed the doctor into the kitchen of the farmhouse.

The doctor turned to the woman.

“Well,” he said, “guess we’ll go upstairs if you’re ready.”

“All ready.” The woman turned obediently.

The back door opened and the farmer clumped in. He held his neck stiffly bent away from his body.

“Hi, Doc,” he said, sideways.

“Be right with you,” Dr. Alexander said. He gestured to Luke. “Brought my helper along.”

The farmer promptly pulled out a chair and set it near Lucas.

“Sit down,” he said. “Glad to have you.” He, too, said it seriously, there was no mockery in it. There was in his manner that if the doctor saw fit to bring Lucas, the doctor knew what he was doing. All the tools of a doctor were mysterious. The boy was young, but the doctor had a reason for bringing him, and however it was the boy was going to help, the doctor knew best.

“Set,” he adjured Lucas, smiling a welcome. And there was even a little respect in his tone. It was unmistakable. There was definitely respect.

The farmer poured himself a cup of coffee, recollected, put the cup in front of Lucas, poured himself another cup. After a wild moment of indecision Lucas took the coffee resolutely, following the pattern of maturity the doctor had established for him.

“Got boils. Got ’em bad!” the farmer confided.

Lucas swelled with pride at the confidence.

“That so?” he said guardedly.

“Got ’em bad.”

“Boils can be pretty serious.”

“So I heard.”

Lucas nodded.

They drank their coffee in silence. The doctor came downstairs. He entered the kitchen briskly. The man stood up.

“Well, Charley, might as well get started!”

“Okay, Doc. How’s the missus?”

“She’ll be all right. Going to have to operate one of these days. I think that cyst’s getting bigger. Big as an orange, now.” He turned to Lucas. “Uterine cyst,” he said politely. “Probably quite a few adhesions.”

Right in front of the farmer.

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas.

“Guess we’ll get started.”

“What do you want me to do, Doc?”

“You just sit in a chair, any of these kitchen chairs’ll do nicely. Sit facing the back. Did you boil some water, Luke?”

Lucas’ world collapsed.

“No,” he said, ashamed to his depths. “I—”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll flame the knife.” He looked about him. “Now—my bag—”

Lucas rushed for it. He brought it to the table, opened it, stood aside. The farmer watched interestedly. But now Lucas was almost unconscious of the farmer’s presence. Now he was committed to do what the doctor required, to the job in hand. Now he and the doctor were one, a unit, speaking the same language, apart, and this man was a stranger. He was animate tissue which was to be treated thus and so, for which a part of one’s consciousness must be reserved, a small part, a part to deal with the direct cries, the supplications the tissue might utter, and this part would deal with these manifestations mechanically, making the conventional sounds of sympathy and reassurance.

The doctor unfolded a clean towel and put it on the table. Lucas watched intently. He was memorizing each action so that he might do it next time. When the towel was opened the doctor laid upon it a lancet. Then he brought from the bag an alcohol lamp and assembled it. Lucas quickly went to the stove and brought back a match. The doctor nodded. Lucas ritually lit the lamp. Next from the bag came a small vial and a long curved tweezers. In the vial were three twists of gauze covered with vaseline. Now came a vial of iodine, a small heap of snowy gauze squares. Now the doctor was ready. There was a pause. The doctor looked at the back of the farmer’s neck. Looked down at the array of material on the towel. He looked at Lucas. Lucas breathed quickly.

“All right, now,” the doctor addressed the farmer, “I’m going to open this carbuncle for you—it’s going to hurt a little.”

“Can’t hurt worse,” the farmer said stolidly.

“Maybe I better freeze it . . .” The doctor hesitated.

“Don’t worry about me,” the farmer assured him.

“Don’t want you jumping around—”

The farmer gripped his hands tighter.

“I’ll set!” he promised.

The doctor made up his mind. He returned to the open bag, brought forth a fat tube with a nozzle at one end.

“I’m going to freeze it,” he said to Lucas.

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas confidently. He did not know what was about to happen but he strove to put all the approval he possessed into his answer.

The doctor now carefully and slowly removed the soiled bandage which had concealed the carbuncle. For the first time Lucas saw that which they were to treat. His assurance left him. His fierce pride of being one with the doctor fled thinly, left him a small boy gaping at the back of a human neck on which an ugly inflamed lump the size of a monstrous marble presented itself. Lucas fought the shock of aversion which had made him look down at the towel as if there were something there which interested him more. He forced himself to look at the carbuncle again.

“That’s a bad one,” Dr. Alexander said. He swabbed the region with iodine. He looked at Lucas appraisingly. “You see—the infection entered a pore hereabouts, worked its way down to a sebaceous gland—and here’s the result.”

Lucas’ mind seized gratefully on this planned distraction. He now looked at the carbuncle steadfastly. It was really a neck, just like anybody else’s. The doctor placed wet gauze pads around the boil. Now everything looked better. A germ had gotten into a pore and the pus and inflammation beneath the surface had raised the skin on this part of the neck, forced it up, made a mound of it. And the red was blood, the same blood that made the man’s skin pink, only a lot of it, a lot of it in one place.

The doctor lifted the fat glass tube and held it two inches from the carbuncle. His thumb pressed down on the handle back of the nozzle. There was a hissing noise. A thin, fine stream sprayed the huge carbuncle. The inflamed red had become white. Soon the entire carbuncle was frosty white. The doctor put down the tube.

“Now it’s frozen,” he said.

He waited, picked up the tube again, resumed spraying.

“Light the lamp.”

Lucas hurriedly seized the match, struck it, held it to the lamp wick. Blue flame appeared. He stared at it, fascinated.

“Pick up the lancet.”

Lucas looked at the doctor, then obediently picked up the lancet.

“Hold it in the flame.”

Lucas held the knife uncertainly over the flame.

“Just the cutting end—hold it close—heat both sides—”

With infinite care, Lucas did as he was bid.

“Now hand it to me—hold it by the middle—don’t touch the end—put the handle in my fingers—”

With his other hand the doctor put down the tube.

“Ethyl chloride,” he said. He turned back to the man’s neck. “Now—you see—”

He cut down on the swelling. The white tissue parted promptly, gaped like a thin pair of white lips.

“And now—”

And he cut down at right angle, a cross of gaping white lips.

Lucas swallowed, his eyes glowed with excited admiration.

The doctor cut again, deepening each incision. Suddenly there boiled up in each slash thick, ropy, greenish-yellow pus. An instant later the white, the snowy carbuncle, no more human than snow, was red with dark blood, the blood and pus mixed, a thick, soupy blood coiling sluggishly out to the surface, spreading.

A gush of black-green-yellow followed. Lucas retched. Horror dazed him. He could not look away.

“Hand me the pads—”

Lucas stared on.

The doctor turned his head to look at him.

“The pads—” He pointed to the gauze squares.

Lucas looked numbly at the pads. He forced himself to take one, to put it in the doctor’s waiting hand.

“More! More pads!”

He seized more. He handed them up. The doctor was wiping away the exudate. It flowed on. Soon there were no more pads.

“There’s more in my bag. Hurry!”

Lucas wrenched his limbs into movement. He walked to the bag. He looked down into its black mouth. His head began to reel. A spasm of nausea sickened him. The bag blurred.

“In the left hand corner—”

The doctor’s voice was cold, commanding, his hand went automatically into the left corner, his fingers felt gauze, he brought up a handful of pads. The doctor took three. He placed them around the oozing carbuncle.

“Here! Hold them in place!”

Lucas looked at the doctor helplessly. The doctor took one of his limp hands. He placed it on the gauze. Gingerly, reluctantly, Lucas put up his other hand, pressed his fingers on the rest of the gauze. He waited, standing dizzily, averting his eyes.

“Feeling better?” The doctor had stepped around to face the farmer, peering up into his face.

“Fine,” the farmer said stolidly.

“Didn’t hurt much, did it?”

“Beginning to hurt a little now.”

“Almost done.”

The wife walked into the kitchen.

“Glad I had my assistant here,” the doctor said cheerfully. Lucas straightened. The appeal was irresistible. He began to endure what was to be endured, resolutely. Now he forced himself to look full upon the oozing carbuncle, the stained gauze, his own fingers. He felt the farmer’s neck beneath the gauze.

“All right—” The doctor was at his side again. He put his fingers on the gauze. Lucas stood aside. “Now we’ll see if we can get a little more out.” He pressed down as he said this. Another spoonful of the thick stuff squeezed out and overlaid the gauze. This time Lucas had three more pads waiting before the doctor removed those that were drenched. The doctor smiled at him.

“Hand me the drains—in that vial there—and the tweezers—”

The room was still spinning, but the woman had moved beside them to watch and Lucas kept his eyes on the carbuncle with such a surge of will that he felt the will and his own determination and not the impact of what his eyes were set upon. The doctor placed a drain in one of the apertures he had cut, thrusting it deep into the neck with the tweezers.

There was a small groan from the farmer.

Lucas started. The woman looked at him. He controlled himself.

“Almost done,” the doctor said abstractedly.

On a square of gauze he spread vaseline, quickly pressed it over the wound, took the two strips of adhesive, laid them over the gauze, pressed the ends on the man’s neck.

“Done!” he said.

The woman began to clean up.

The lancet and the tweezers, the unused gauze, the bottles and vials went quickly back into the bag. The farmer stood up. He still held his neck gingerly awry.

“Feels a lot better,” he said.

“I’ll be back in a few days, change the dressing.” The doctor snapped the bag shut, handed it to Lucas.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee? Piece of pie?”

“Not a thing,” said the doctor.

“Piece of pie for your helper?”

They all looked at Lucas.

“No—” the doctor smiled—“we’ve got to get on. Save a piece for him, for next time.”

They walked to the door, there was a small mirror in the hall and Lucas got a glimpse of his face. He noticed with dismay that it was quite pale.

Then they were in the buggy, homeward bound.

“Wasn’t so bad, was it?” the doctor said.

Lucas did not answer.

Around them the fields stretched, the world was a prosaic field, humdrum, meaningless, exasperating. That which really mattered, the most exciting stuff of which life could be fashioned, that which was all-absorbing and all-meaning, they were driving away from, it was in that farmhouse, in the kitchen, the bag opened, the instruments emerging, a carbuncle about to be opened.

Lucas looked adoringly at Dr. Alexander.

“I should have had the water hot,” he said humbly.

“Next time—”

Next time. . . . There was to be a next time . . . His eyes filled.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

Existence was cored by those two words. He said them quietly to himself, testing the sweet anguish. His heart beat faster. Next time. When he rose in the morning he began to hope excitedly. When school was over he burst into a world in which this day might be the day, he raced to Dr. Alexander’s, he sat on the steps. He waited day after day. Each day opened happier, more excited than the drab day fled. Next time.

Perhaps tomorrow.

There was another boil, soon, another carbuncle, there was a cut sewn, there was gunshot removed, a torn scalp, an amputated finger. There was next time. There was another next time. There were days and weeks and months of next times. And Lucas’ life was a patient waiting, a fulfillment, a waiting again.

This was the stuff on which his days were fed. This was his hunger. This was his necessity. This activity of Hominidae was for him its prime activity and all the rest were corollary, this was his meaning and his whole desire and his purpose. This had been so from his beginning. The minor surgeries neither awakened nor quickened him. They fed him. They fed the hunger which was Lucas Marsh, a named mechanism of cells in which by accident or design this hunger was the summed and ordered craving of the cells themselves.

On this day, riding through the countryside with his father, he groped for words to bridge the alien terrain between them, words with the reassurance and the bridging of love.

He sat thinking of what he should say, thrilled to be taken for a ride with his father, sensible that his father did not idly invite him for a ride but would sooner or later say something which would make the purpose of the invitation clear. And Job, for all his bland and breezy and confident dismissal of Luke’s excitement about Medicine, had determined to create, from time to time, prudent opportunities in which to point out the excellences of his own way of life, the charm of it, its excitement, its sterling worth.

“Looks like we’re going to have a good year,” he confided.

“That’s fine!” Lucas was hungry for Job’s approval.

“I just paid off the six-thousand-dollar mortgage on the Tyre store yesterday.” Job grinned.

Lucas belabored his small wits for a reply to show he understood.

“That’s wonderful.”

“I should so say,” Job chuckled.

“I should so say so,” chimed Lucas.

Job’s face sobered.

“Now I’m going to slap another mortgage on it.”

Lucas looked up, astonished.

“Yep! Gonna slap another right back on!” Job was pleased with the boy’s amazement.

“Doesn’t that mean going back into debt, Father?”

“That’s right, son!”

“But you just got out—!”

“And now I’m going right back in!”

They rode a while in silence. Lucas was troubled.

“Don’t get it, do you? Remember this all your life, Luke.” He put his hand on the boy’s knee. “When I get out of debt it means I’m free—free to borrow again. See?”

“Doesn’t everybody try to get out of debt?”

“We’re not everybody. We’re you and me. See? Now, I’m going to borrow six thousand dollars more from the bank. And I’ll have to pay them six percent for the use of it. Now if I can’t turn around and make eight percent on the six thousand, why, I better quit, see? I’m just no businessman.”

“Yes, father,” Lucas said dully. He had heard a lot about that six-thousand-dollar mortgage from his mother, he had heard her worry and fret over it, and here was his father, just as his mother had predicted, plunging in all over again.

“You can get eight percent and more on any good farm mortgage. Nothing safer than a farm mortgage.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Money’s just a thing, Luke. It’s only merchandise, like any other merchandise. Don’t save it. Make it! Keep making new money! I don’t save harness, do I? I put it out to sell. That’s all money is. Just like harness.”

“But everybody saves money!”

“No, no. Saving just means don’t waste it. Don’t throw it away any more’n you would harness. But don’t go sticking it away in a box down the cellar where it can’t do any good, like sticking it in a bank. Get it out where it can work—make more for you. Never forget that. Don’t pay any attention to people. People are stupid. Mob-stupid. When they do something long enough they make a rule about it and when they’ve got it all down pat and a lot of people do it then they call it smart and respectable.”

“How about the people that are always in debt and never have any money? Those people, Dad?”

“You can’t tell. Luck is what was bound to happen only you didn’t figure on it. I’ll tell you a funny thing, Luke. You listen to me. I’ll tell you the truth about people. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand are full of ambition and drive. Pay no attention to them. Those are sidewise people. They push out sidewise. Any human’s got just so much drive. These people got so many ambitions there isn’t drive enough to cover them. So all their efforts are little efforts. They whoosh out—sideways . . .”

They drove a while in silence.

“You see, Luke?”

“Yes, Dad.” Lucas wondered how he summed up to his father.

“They’ll never get anyplace. They just sit there like vegetables. Sideways people. The most of the human race. Salt of the earth. Voting for people on the chance who they vote for will lead them somewhere. Working for each other, talking, making rules which say the kind of life they lead is the right one.”

“They make the rules?”

“That’s their consolation prize.”

“How about the others?”

“Well, there’s not many of them. But you be one.”

“Yes, Father.”

“The one-track fellows. The Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies. The ones that’re born knowing. I mean—how things are. They see what to go after. Whatever it is—what a man—one of them—has to have. They put everything else out of mind. And they don’t think anything else. And they don’t sleep anything else. And they don’t eat anything else. Other people? They just hear them far off, dimly, a kind of bleat that don’t mean anything. They know what life is. They know!”

“They fail, though. Some of them do.”

“You’ve been listening to your mother, son. Your mother is a fine woman. But she don’t know much about life. She thinks she does. And we’ll never tell her different. But life is life, Luke. Don’t forget that. Don’t ever go pretending it’s something else, some game or something. Those people don’t fail. Not ever. What they’re working on fails. They keep right on a-going. They never stop. All the rest—the herd—are sideways. They’re straight up. Now there it is, Lucas. It’s plain. It’s simple. You’ve got to see it. You’ve got to see it now! You’ve got to forget the rest. You’ve got to get. That’s your only hope. People are nice. But they just don’t matter.”


Now Luke knew there was a world of the flesh and a world of the spirit. He knew this. He knew it well. There was his father’s world and there was his mother’s world. He wanted with all his heart to please them both, to be on their side, in their world, to be what they wanted him to be. He tried diligently to show them that he was trying. And all the time he knew he could never be what they wanted him to be, not if he tried forever. It was impossible. There was no doctor in their worlds. And in his world there was nothing else.

One day he would listen to Job, straining to appear beguiled while Job tried cunningly to enchant him with the fun of business, smiling brightly, hoping his father was happy with him. Or he would listen earnestly, in the same hour, to Ouida while she spoke and gestured lovingly to him of the future she knew was his.

“Mother’s got great dreams for you, Lucas. Great, great visions.” She half closed her eyes. “I see you a leader among men, a mighty leader, a leader of the spirit, upward, upward, ever upward.”

He would frown earnestly, so that she could see he was following every word.

“A great artist, perhaps—”

And he would nod quickly, hopefully . . .

“A great musician . . .”

He would cock his head as if to think, then nod more briskly than before . . .

“The world—the whole world bowing down to you . . .”

He would lower his head to show that despite this he was modest as Mother would have him be. And all the while, with Job or with Ouida, he knew, he knew himself, he knew what he was, he was sick with the sense of having failed them, of tricking them, of acting, of leading a secret life. He thought surely they must read his mind for the very weight and clearness of his guilt.

Sometimes they found him out.

He was eight when Ouida discovered his hoard of bottles and the fascinating refuse he collected back of the drugstore.

“Don’t you want me to tidy these up?” she asked evenly. She smiled at him sweetly with her eyes and mouth.

“No, thank you, Mother. No, don’t. Don’t bother.” His face flamed with shame and embarrassment. He hugged her and kissed her, hung over her all the rest of the day to show that he loved her, that she mustn’t be hurt. But he kept the rubbish. He moved the magic bottles, the empty boxes, to another place. And she did not look for them again.

When he was eleven Job opened by mistake a package addressed to Lucas and found a glorious, shining new book on anatomy for which he had saved nearly two years’ allowance.

“I didn’t mean to open it, Lucas,” he said apologetically, handing the book to the boy in its torn wrappings, “I never thought of anything being for you—in the mail—”

And Lucas had taken it quickly, burning with guilt, ashamed to look at his father. He fled with it, lest his mother come in and discover it also.

There were no reproaches. And he knew they looked at each other with understanding, patiently waiting, waiting for a change he knew would never, never come.

He was a lonely child. But he did not know this. He watched other children playing, bewildered at their raptures. He lived his life alone. It was another life. He read hungrily. The doctors saved for him the medical literature and advertisements that flooded their mail. These he read over and over, saving them lovingly, fingering them, deciphering them. In study periods he would stand at the big dictionary in the corner, hunting, hunting, reading absorbedly, now sidetracked by some new word, now consulting the list of medical words he had copied laboriously on a slip of paper, words in the pamphlets, in the medical bulletins. Sometimes when there would be a word the dictionary did not contain he would ask one of the doctors for the meaning. Sometimes he would be ashamed to ask, lest they remember suddenly that he was a child and withdraw their favor.

At the same time a new cosmos had enveloped him. His tastes had become suddenly keener. Foods he liked he became inordinately fond of. He discovered a strangeness, a sharp newness, in the sense of touch, his hands lingered caressingly over the bark of a tree, his fingers explored cloth, paper, iron, all the substances he encountered, for the feel they would reveal, and all these things were a great strangeness in the commonplace, a great newness, a new dimension. Then odors, the odors of cooking, his mother’s few scents, the smells of cloths, of leather, the smell of a skunk; he analyzed them, he weighed them, he worried them, why did they smell as they smelled, why did they feel as they felt? And he stared at them more sharply and brooded and looked long and hard. And they were different. Sights, smells, touches, tastes, these were the substances of the world about him, important and relevant and new. And as for sound, his heart beat to the sound of a doctor’s horse clip-clopping up the street to the porch on which he waited; and the miracle sound, the beatitude, the clink of an instrument.

He did well in school. He was liked. He played sometimes with other children. He was liked and pitied. Adults found him quiet, well behaved, abstracted.

“What are you going to be someday?” they would ask brightly.

And if his father was with him he would look at his father.

“He’s got a lot of time for that,” Job would say confidently. “I guess we won’t be too far apart, eh, son?” And he would put his arm about Lucas.

And if his mother was with him, Lucas would look down.

“He hasn’t made up his mind yet,” Ouida would smile. She would look at him serenely, confidently. She would smile. And Lucas would smile too.

And if he was with both of them, he would say nothing and they would say nothing, merely wait for him to reply. And in the silence the visitor would laugh heartily and delightedly, and clap him on the shoulder.

“Bet you’d like to be a fireman, wouldn’t you, sonny? Or a cowboy! How’s that, now! A cowboy!”

When the war ended, Job owned the four stores; there was, to be sure, a mortgage on each. But there was money in the bank, there was a new home, there was comfort and even the beginnings of luxury.

Job bought a shining Winton.

“Don’t worry you, Mr. Marsh?” a townsman would ask slyly.

“Me? Like cows worried when margarine was invented! This thing? People’ll buy ’em, of course. Like to sell me any your horses cheap?”

“I guess there’ll be horses a while.”

“I guess there will be. Not more’n a million years or so.”

“Yep.”

“Or as the Frenchman says: ‘Palm de tare—and likewise—pross de toot’! . . .”

★ CHAPTER 6

But there were times in school when he was lonely. There were times when he felt keenly the differences between himself and the mingling, babbling, and sharing groups about him. There was never a time when he would have exchanged his life and its meanings for theirs but now and again he wished that his mother was more like other mothers and that his father and mother were more like other paired members of the tribe about him.

It was during one of these lonely periods that Lucas came home from school very late one day, late and sweaty and dirty.

“They want me for track!” he cried. “I’m supposed to come out for the track team!”

“Well, good!” Job rose and clapped his shoulder.

“What track?” demanded Ouida, furious and bewildered.

“I want some track shoes! Good leather ones!” Lucas cried.

“Guess we shouldn’t have any trouble in the leather line,” Job said comfortably.

“Don’t be so intense, Lucas! You’re too intense!” Ouida frowned.

“I used to be quite a runner myself.” Job grinned. “What kind of race you gonna run?”

“The half-mile! Coach says I’ll make a quarter-miler. But I like the half.”

Ouida listened to this suddenly established rapport between Job and her son with dismay and alarm. She forced a set smile.

“When did you ever run!” she scoffed.

“Oh, I used to run around the farm. I ran faster than anybody. Every time there was a church ruckus I used to get in all the races. Won ’em all. Every one.”

“Every one!”

“That’s right.”

“Did you like to run distances, Dad?”

“Sprints or distances—it was all the same to me. Won ’em all.”

Later, Ouida came into the living room, where Lucas sat studying. She sat down beside him.

“I want to talk to you a while.”

He searched his mind guiltily.

“Yes, Mother . . .”

“I have been to see your principal, Mr. Prescott. He agrees with me. He says you have great aptitude, Lucas. But you won’t apply yourself—”

“I’m all right, Mother—”

“You’re a dreamer, Lucas. That’s what he says. When you should be studying you dream. You have no application.”

“I got 94 in Latin—I got 86 in—”

“You like those things! You like Latin, you’re like myself, I love languages! I could be a great language scholar, I would love to know them all—you like French, you like history. But you don’t even bother to study them.”

“Now, Mother! I got 94—”

“You could have gotten a hundred.”

“A hundred!”

“There’s absolutely no reason why you could not have gotten a hundred. The child I carried in my body, the little life I carried underneath my heart and bore in agony—”

Lucas twisted.

“Not under your heart, Mother. In your—your abdomen—you couldn’t carry me under your heart—”

“Under my heart, Lucas.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“You’re going away from me, Lucas. I feel it. You’re drifting farther and farther away.”

“Don’t say that—”

“I can feel it . . .”

“It’s not true! It’s just not true!”

“The little boy I knew and loved—”

“I’m here, Mother!”

“I have to tell you this, Lucas. I have to tell you the truth. I won’t always be here to guide you. I’ll be gone, someday, Lucas. I’ll be dead. Mother will be dead. You’ll be alone.”

Her face was lifted to his a little. Her lips were open. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Will you miss me, Lucas?”

He threw himself on his knees beside her, his arms tight around her, his face pressed against her bosom, his eyes shutting out her voice, tears involuntarily squeezing between the shut lids.

“Don’t—don’t, Mother! Don’t! Please . . . Please don’t! . . .”

She caressed his head gently, her hands passing over his hair. She gazed off into the distance.

“I’ve got to tell you, Lucas.” She began to sob a little, helplessly. “You’ve got to see . . .”

“I’ll try, Mother. Don’t die. Be with me . . .”

“You’re all I’ve got, Lucas.”

“I’ll be good. I’m sorry, please—”

“And now games, Lucas. Now it’s something else to take your mind off your studies. My Lucas! My boy playing children’s games. You—with your mind, your fine mind that I gave you . . .”

“I’ll stop—”

“Games are not for Lucas. Kangaroo shoes. And yelling. Leave those things for the clods. They don’t matter. You have Mother. You have the brain Mother gave you. I won’t always be here, Lucas. I’ll be dead and gone. I’ll be far away. You’ll be lonely. Then you’ll see. Then it’ll be too late—too late . . .”

He clung to her harder, the tears flowed faster, he could not stop them. He loved her, he knew what she was doing, and he could not stop. At length she forced a laugh.

“Look at us,” she cried. “Two boobies sitting here crying!”

She pressed him away to look at his face, to drink his tears. He averted his eyes. He put her hand to his cheek.

“What is it you want, Lucas? What do you really want to be?”

He hesitated.

“Whatever you say, Mother.”

“No, let’s talk! You and Mother! Tell me. Tell me truly. Tell me from your heart.”

He sighed.

“You know.”

“I don’t know!”

“I want to be a doctor.”

“A doctor! You really want to be a doctor, Lucas?”

He twisted helplessly.

“That’s what you still really want—in your heart of hearts?”

“I can’t help it. I’ll do whatever you say. But you asked me. You told me to say—”

“Have you sat by yourself and concentrated and let the Divine Light pour through you in all its great and mighty shining waves?”

“I’ve tried, Mother. I’ve tried and tried—”

“You’re a very old soul, Lucas. Mother is a very old soul too. We go back, back, back into time, we two, back to the Pyramids. . . . I was a priestess once, a Princess in Egypt—”

Lucas swallowed.

She turned her face slowly. Her eyes were grave. She smiled with her mouth.

“If that’s really what you want, Lucas . . .”

He looked at her, not breathing.

“If you have searched your soul and asked Almighty God for His guidance . . .”

She waited as if listening. She nodded.

“So be it. I do not know why or how, for their wisdom is beyond me. My guides have spoken. Now I know. You will be a doctor.”

He stared at her, white-faced, not believing, holding his breath.

“You will tell your father that you will not need those—track shoes!”

“Oh, yes, Mother! Yes! Yes!”

“And you will study? You will apply yourself? In the things you don’t like as well as the things you do?”

“I’ll make a hundred in math! Medicine’s full of math! They use it for everything! X-rays, physics, chemistry—everything!”

She rose, uplifting him with her. She kissed his cheek. He kissed her and she turned her head barely in time, for he would have kissed her on the mouth.

“You can go to bed now. You’ve studied long enough. Your face is tired.”

“No, no!” He sat down quickly. “Now I’ve got to study. Now I’ve got to really study. Now you’ll see.”

“There are no limits for you, Lucas. You can be the greatest man in the world.”

“Yes, Mother.”

He flung himself upon his books.

In the kitchen, after she had carefully closed the door, she stood still, her hands folded. After a time she twisted her shoulders stiffly, moved to the kitchen table, sat down. She picked up a book on reincarnation. She began to read.

When she looked up, hearing Job come home, an hour had passed. She heard him enter, heard Lucas call to him, heard his excited young voice telling his father the news. She heard Job exclaim. His voice was mechanical. Her face hardened. She heard them talk a while, heard Lucas go upstairs to bed.

Job entered the kitchen. His face was white with anger.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” he demanded furiously.

“Were you by chance referring to me?” Ouida asked icily. “It’s not necessary to shout.”

“Did you tell that boy he could be a doctor?”

“If you are referring to Lucas—my son—”

“Your son! A poor thing like you! You happened to have a belly to breed him in. I’m surprised you had that, I’m—”

“Moderate your voice,” Ouida said shakily.

“You’re a lunatic, that’s what you are. You ought to be put away! You and your crystal balls and your spirits. Now you leave that boy alone or I’ll—”

“You’ll what!”

“I’m warning you, now—”

“Who are you—a lout like you!—to say that fine boy shall or shall not study Medicine?”

“You’ve been as dead set against it as me. Where do you get off all of a sudden to—”

“He’s my son and I know him through and through. I know him as you can never hope to know him. I bore him. I know his every thought. He wants to be a doctor. I’ve looked into his eyes when he told me so. I don’t expect an animal like you to do anything but scoff at the fine things, the things you can never understand. And I say if he wants to be a doctor that’s what he’s going to be. Now just exactly what do you think you’re going to do about it?”

“You’ve got the world all doped out, haven’t you, Ouida. Do you know people laugh at you? They always have, you know. You’re a big joke. They snicker behind your back. Half the town thinks you’re crazy. They’re sorry for me. Because I’m married to a crazy woman. That’s what they think of you. I’m married to you. I’ve got to put up with a certain amount of your pretending you’re better than anyone else, and your crystal balls and your quarrelling with the very food a man eats. Because I have the damned bad luck to be married to you. That’s all right. I married you with my eyes open. You were a halfwit then, and nobody’d have you and I knew it and I married you. But don’t get the idea that because I let you get away with it that that gives you the right to say what a boy’s whole future is going to be. Don’t ever get that idea.”

“You married me! Oh, when I think what I’ve done, what I’ve done!”

“You’ve done pretty well, if you ask me!”

“Ask you! Why would anyone ever ask you anything? You’re a liar and every human that knows you knows you’re just a dirty liar. You’re a liar and a thief. You’re an animal. There isn’t a spark of human decency in you. You’re filth. Pure, human filth. You came from filth, you live in filth, and you’ll die in it. Don’t you ever tell me what people say. This whole town knows you, Job Marsh. And despises the ground you walk on.”

“That’s how everybody is to you. The whole human race. That’s that dreamworld you live in. Suit yourself. You live where you please. Just leave that boy alone.”

“So he can grow up like his father? And someday rip a decent girl like an animal on her wedding night? So he can steal a store from an honest old man that befriended him? So he can grow up an ignorant swine who can’t live unless he lies and steals from decent people? That’s your world, is it?”

“It’s kept a roof over your head and bought Ouija boards for you and kept him fed and clothed and not ashamed. You go ahead, go your own way. Just keep your nonsense to yourself. Don’t infect him. Don’t try to pull that stuff on him that this world is a spiritual place to live in. Because you’re all alone, Ida Boorgoys! The world knows better. And he’s going to amount to something in the world. Not your world. Not the lunatic asylum. Leave him alone, you bitch, you dumb excuse for a woman. Or I’ll have you locked up. Committed!”

You’ll have me locked up—!”

“I’m warning you—!”

“Do you know what would happen if I ever opened my mouth about you? Do you know?”

They were both shouting now, careless and alone. Ouida’s face was death-white. Her eyes glittered. Her voice had become hoarse. Job studied her, uncertain.

“I’m just telling you, now Ouida—I’m warning you—”

She walked to him. She gathered saliva in her mouth. She spat in his face.

You’ll warn me! You! You degenerate dog!”

Trembling, unnoticed, Lucas entered the kitchen.

“I’ve had enough!” Job roared. His fist crashed into Ouida’s mouth. She fell sprawling.

Her hand crept, dazed, to her lips. A bloody tooth dropped into her fingers.

“Father!” wailed Lucas. He rushed at Job to hold him. His father struck him out of his way with a sweep of his arm, without turning his head from Ouida.

“Lay there!” he snarled. He looked at her with raging satisfaction. Then he strode from the room.

Lucas knelt beside his mother.

“I’m glad you saw,” she said thickly. Blood poured from her lips. “Now you saw. Now you know what I’ve had to put up with. Now you saw for yourself.” He tried to help her rise. “Get away from me!”

She struggled clumsily upright. Lucas ran for a towel, wet it, rushed back to her. She struck it wildly from his hand.

“I’ve had enough!” she screamed. “I’ve had enough too! I’ve had enough of all of you.” She ran coughing to the sink. She began to vomit.

Lucas watched, desperate, withered, sick with pity, guilty, longing to escape, impotent, alone. There had never been anything like this. Always before he had had a secret sympathy for his father, a resentment for his own embarrassment at his mother’s naked rages. Sometimes he and his father had looked at each other covertly. But this, this was too unlooked for to be believed. He shrank from both of them, his bonds with them ripped, the breach stuffed with shame; adrift in a world which peered and listened and must know all.

In the days that followed Job did not speak to Ouida and only in rare monosyllables to Lucas. When he noticed them at all he looked at them remotely, coldly, and with contempt. He left the house quickly and came home late. He enveloped himself in the harness shops. He worked fiercely and resolutely. He devoted himself to repair the breach in his defenses, in the wall of his world, to thrust out his home, his wife and his son, these aliens and their alien problems. The revelation that they had somehow insensibly gathered power to penetrate his world, to influence and disrupt it, amazed and frightened him. He was aghast at himself and angry and he cursed bitterly the undefended highway in his life over which these intruders had marched to assault him.

He must never let this happen again.

As to Ouida, Job knew best how to retaliate. The quarrel had freed him. He was free with a new freedom. He was free, now, to plan as he chose, to maneuver, to consult no one. He wondered, alarmed, how many opportunities he had missed. The family fortunes were comparatively stable. Rather than risk scenes Job had contented himself with the management of the four stores. These, this career they represented, hardly taxed his capacities. He surveyed himself with disgust and anger. He unleashed himself, his thoughts leaped the safe ramparts and quested for spoil. It was at this time that he made plans to buy four other harness stores, one a very large establishment in the city of Meridian.

It was outrageous, it occurred to him a moment, and in another moment he was launched upon it.

The Meridian store was imposing. Its history was troubled. No one had been able to make it pay. This was almost the greatest challenge life could offer Job, and the best loved. He plunged into assaults on the owners.

Now he was himself again, and now the shy animal that had won the planet, whose cells had evolved in conquest and flight, was pure in him, simple and entire. And the planet was his prey and everything that existed upon it. And time and the moment were willows to weave in a trap. That was the simple business, there was nothing more, nothing except the delightful pretense that this was not so.

Job smiled happily.

He lived three days in Meridian. He fastened upon the Derickson brothers who owned the store, he whittled at them remorselessly. He lied tremendous lies, simple lies, confusing lies, exciting lies, and lies so complicated only he could unravel them. Also, sometimes he told the truth. It was all one. Late at night, when he reluctantly left them, he went out into the streets, still exhilarated, pent, and sleepless. In a bar was a street-walker, he was delighted, he made for her directly, he grinned obscenities in her ear and she smiled at him and he hugged her, exultant, the bartender frowned at him and Job grinned wider, he and the whore were wed by that frown, Job sighed and grinned wider. Now the drinking began.

Next morning he left her to go directly to the Dericksons. He was renewed. He plunged avidly into his unlikely battle to split the Dericksons, to twist them, to cajole them, bully them, to frighten them and entice them into surrendering their property to him at a price so low that Job himself smiled fiercely at the audacity and the possibility of it all.

In the evening his whore was waiting for him again. He wallowed with her gloriously and rose as before to return to the assault and the siege on the Dericksons.

Toward noon of the third day he resolved to return to Milletta. He was happy. He had spent a fulfilling time. He relaxed. He prepared to say his farewells. An hour later he very suddenly won. He was completely surprised. Once again he had won by his wits and his wits alone, but this time the stakes were larger and sobering. Relatively small as the purchase price was, the sum was still huge, the property involved was larger than anything he had ever owned. To raise the money he would have to put second mortgages on the four stores, borrow on everything he owned. Now a new battle began, in which he persuaded the owners to accept stock for a portion of the purchase sum. He gave them a check for the balance. He rushed home to raise the amount and deposit it before the check was presented for payment.

A few moments with Charley, his helper, borrowed the old man’s life savings—that was four hundred dollars, and from a salesman come on a regular selling visit he borrowed three hundred more. He was irresistible, his momentum hurled him faster, he went to merchants, to farmers; before the banking day ended he had raised within a thousand dollars of an amount large enough to encourage the bank to allow him an overdraft. For the final thousand dollars he forged Ouida’s name to a note secured by four vacant lots her father had left her.

Job walked out of the bank, stable and serene, out into the world, his world now, a new world, a new man. He paused briefly at the shop, it had dwindled, become in three days a little shabby, a poor thing. One of eight.

“Take the day off, Charley,” he said unexpectedly.

“Me? Oh, I don’t think I’d better do that. Thanks all the same—”

“Go on. Go ahead.”

“Well . . . I’d as soon not . . . I—”

“Got an interest in the business, now, eh?”

“I want to thank you again, Mr. Marsh. I don’t know how to put it, I guess it don’t mean much to a man like you—but letting me invest that four hundred dollars—”

“That’s all right, Charley. No need for thanks. You earned the privilege. Fair’s fair . . .”

Job Marsh went home. He had not changed his shirt, his socks, or his underwear in four days. He was beginning to feel grubby and uncomfortable.

While he had been gone Ouida had been happy. She was indifferent to his whereabouts. That he had simply dropped out of her world did not bother her at all. The respite gave her Lucas, she had Lucas all to herself, the house was free from tension, she was free, completely free, to do as she pleased. The possibility that Job might never return did not occur to her. He had become like an illness to which she was subject. She knew she would have it always. She assented to this illness. She knew how much of her life was sacrificed to it. She was determined only to preserve her spare life in the pursuit of that which kept her whole and which was the only world that really mattered.

Her first intimation of Job’s departure came a few hours after he left Milletta to go to Meridian. There was a knock at the door and Charley looked at her, troubled. She hid her still-bruised mouth with her hand.

“Fellow wants to see Mr. Marsh,” he said. “Thought he might be here.”

“Hasn’t he been to the shop at all?”

“Oh, sure. He up and left and I thought—”

“No, he’s not here, Charley—”

“Took the rig—”

He was gone, then. She relaxed. She smiled happily, gaily, keeping her face half averted to hide her bruises.

“Guess we’ll just have to expect him when we see him.”

“Guess so. Thought you might know . . . Got a toothache, Miz Marsh?”

“I’m afraid so. I was getting ready to go to the dentist.”

“Well . . .”

“He’ll be back, Charley.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She closed the door. She stood savoring her freedom. The freedom grew, swelled in her, she was intoxicated with happiness. She ran to the kitchen, put away the basin from which she had been putting hot cloths to her face. She rushed upstairs to change her clothes. In the midst of her dressing she smelled something burning. She rushed downstairs again, gazed wildly about the kitchen. Smoke was eddying slowly from the oven door. She wrenched it open. Smoke poured out, choking her. She had forgotten a bread pudding. A fit of coughing overcame her and she sank into a chair, gasping for breath, powerless. Recovering a little, she fumbled the back door open, leaned against the doorpost. The fresh air revived her. Still coughing, she turned back, snatched up one of the wet cloths she had been using, covered her mouth and nose and ran unsteadily to the open oven. She dragged forth the burning pudding, threw it in the sink. She turned on the water. She stumbled to the door again, rested a moment, sat down on the back steps.

The smoke cleared. She went upstairs and finished dressing. She continued to cough a little. Her throat felt raw. She mixed salt and water, gargled, put on a hat, muffled the lower part of her face in a scarf, and set out for the dentist’s office.

“I had a fall.” She laughed remorsefully.

“I see you did, Mrs. Marsh,” he said expressionlessly, who had treated hundreds of such falls. “We’ll have a new tooth for you in a jiffy.” He peered closer. “Got kind of a sore throat there, haven’t you!”

“I guess this was bound to be a bad day. Burned a bread pudding. The whole house was full of smoke. I must have swallowed enough for a county.”

“Pretty red, all right. . . . Now, there’s a root in there we’ll have to go after. I’m sorry, Mrs. Marsh, you’ll have to set yourself . . .”

She smiled at him brilliantly, confidently, proudly. She opened her mouth wider. Ouida Marsh knew how to stand pain.

A half-hour later he was finished. He shook his head at her admiringly. Not a sound had passed her lips.

“It’s all in the mind, Dr. Sorenson. The mind controls the body.”

She went home, she set her house in order and waited for Lucas. When he returned from school she took him for a long walk through the countryside.

They had the evening to themselves, a long evening. She sat quietly by while he studied, made him sandwiches after a while, insisted he drink warm milk, which he detested, and which he drank with a smile, to please her. They were marvellously close. The next day they were rich with themselves. Ouida laughed like a girl. Lucas’ eyes swam, adoring her.

On the third evening she drew out a Ouija board. She bade him sit with her at the kitchen table. She drew the blinds. She lowered the lights.

“Now we shall see,” she smiled, seating herself as at a feast. “Now we shall see what flows through you.”

He looked away embarrassed.

“Oh, no, Mother . . . not that stuff . . . please . . .”

“Not stuff, darling. You don’t really mean that. I want you to try this. Try it with Mother. Just for me.”

“But I don’t know—anything about it! Boogies and spirits and—”

“Do you remember fairies, darling? Do you remember how when you were a little boy they used to talk to you?”

“Yes,” he said, flushing and ashamed.

“Look at me, Lucas. And how you used to come to me and tell me about it? And how Mother explained to you? You weren’t afraid of fairies, were you, Lucas?”

He sighed.

“Well, they weren’t fairies, Lucas. They were spirits. Good spirits. They don’t come to every little boy. Only a few, a very few, a chosen few. But you—they hover about you always, Lucas. I see them hovering about you now.”

He looked about apprehensively.

“You mustn’t be afraid, son. This is one of God’s greatest gifts to us . . . for the spirit of man is mighty, Lucas. The spirit of man is God Himself . . . and these who have passed over are waiting, waiting about us, protecting us, waiting to tell us . . .”

She placed his hands on the planchette. She shut her eyes. Her face lifted in the gloom. He looked away from the bruise on her mouth.

“Lightly, Lucas . . . lightly . . . lightly . . .”

The silence gathered about them and seemed to solidify. The darkness contained movement. Fear prickled the back of his neck. He breathed faster. The planchette had moved.

“Ask it a question, Lucas.” Her whisper frightened him. “Ask . . . ask . . . ask to yourself . . .”

How soon will I be a doctor? he thought. He made it a sentence and said it silently. Will Dad help me? Must I run away?

The planchette moved under his fingers. He lifted his finger tips until they barely touched the wooden tripod and it drifted from beneath his hands. He followed it quickly. His mother’s eyes were shut. The planchette stopped. It rested upon the word “yes,” it drifted on, moved waveringly about the board. His eyes widened and tears of fright flooded them. Over and over the board the planchette moved, now dashing to a letter, now halting, irresolute. Could one believe? Could one really believe? The darkness pressed closer. In the silence there was only the sound of the tripod, moving on felt, sibilant, small. . . .

In the darkness Ouida spoke at last and her voice and her words caromed in the silence.

“They’re all about us,” she said tiredly. She cleared her throat. “Do you believe, Lucas? Do you believe, now?”

“Yes, Mother,” he whispered. He looked toward her with fear, trying to make out her face in the gloom.

“Did they tell you what you wanted to know, dear?” She took his hands.

“I think so,” he said uncertainly.

“They told me something too,” she said slowly. She waited a moment. She listened. “No,” she said, “No . . . we won’t talk about it . . .”

Lucas stirred.

She rose. She turned on a light.

“Well!” she said smiling. She coughed. “That was fun, wasn’t it! Wasn’t that wonderful, Lucas?”

“What did they tell you, Mother?” he asked eagerly.

Her mouth continued to smile but her eyes stopped smiling and became distant.

“We won’t discuss it,” she said brightly. She walked to him and kissed him. She hugged him to her. Her arms relaxed, stayed about him, began to rock him slightly.

“You must never be frightened, Lucas.”

“No, Mother.” His love for her hurt him, it was a mighty pain.

“The love of God surrounds you. It surrounds you, always. Peace and eternal love. Open your heart, Lucas. There is a part of you that knows this, always, that waits for you to know too. The body does not matter, Lucas. This, and only this, matters. Within you is a world, the only real world, my son. The rest is only illusion. The shell. Man is a part of Almighty God. Man is God. Man is spirit. Man is soul. Man is mind. The rest is animal.”

She rocked him slowly, gently, infinitely.

“Within you is truth, you have all power, power to command, power to rule, power to see, and understand . . . within you, Lucas . . . within you . . . nothing else matters. . . .”


They had never been so close.

When Job returned Lucas awaited him guiltily, wanting him, heavy with disloyalty.

Job was in excellent humor. His smile faded when he saw Ouida.

“I want to say something,” he said. Lucas turned to disappear from the room. “No, son, you stay. I want you to hear this too. Ouida, I’m sorry. I did a terrible thing and I’d give anything I’ve got not to have done it. You can say what you like to me, I deserve it, and I’d welcome it. I beg your pardon. I deeply beg your pardon. I apologize.”

Lucas stared at the floor, not daring to look at either of them.

“Well, it was a terrible thing,” Ouida said uncertainly.

“It was a terrible thing and I’d like to cut off my arm if it would do any good to undo it, and I apologize.”

Job appeared deeply and sincerely moved.

Ouida looked at him, amazed.

“Well . . .” she began. She faltered. “Well . . . we all make mistakes . . .”

Job walked forward and took her humbly in his arms.

“I missed you,” he said honestly. “You don’t know how I missed you.”

Ouida thought desperately, wildly.

“We’ve been walking in the country!” she cried. “In the beautiful, beautiful country—”

“Why don’t you run down to the shop, son!” Job called. “Your mother and I have something to talk about.”

Lucas started to the door.

“I’ll go right down,” he said eagerly.

“See how everything’s going!” Job called after him, grinning.

He turned to Ouida.

“What do you say, Ouida? Shall we make up for lost time?”

“Please, Job.” She twisted away. “Everything’s been so nice—so calm—so peaceful—”

“I came to you on my knees,” he said humbly. “Aren’t we man and wife? Do you despise me that much?”

“It isn’t that, Job. I just don’t—I never—Let’s sit down shall we? And you’ll tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve done, and I’ll tell you about the walks we took, do you know what Lucas said?”

“Ouida! Please! I’m your husband! I’ve come back to you! Is this how you’re going to treat me? I’m a man—must I go outside my own home—”

He put his arm around her waist. He drew her, unwilling, to the stairs.

She bit her lip, she closed her eyes, he led her upstairs.

Afterward he bathed and changed his clothes.

He could do anything now. Nothing could stop him. He had won everywhere. It was impossible—everything was impossible—and he had done it.

Lucas returned. There was dinner. The house was at peace again.

★ CHAPTER 7

Now this was the home and the community, the cave and the tribe, these were the drives that forged the gambits of survival, the rules and the customs that controlled what was basic in living.

And from these essentials and from this place, which was any place, Lucas Marsh had been dowered with reaction and living pattern and shaped and circumstanced, clothes hastily flung over him as his vector embarked him toward his heritage.

He was alone now, that which motivated him set him apart. The pattern of those who begot him differenced him, made him more separate. His apartness, his loneliness, catalyzed his hunger.

There was no doubt that Lucas was going to college. Job had set aside a fund for this, Lucas’ college fund. The harmony which marked his return lasted barely two days.

“He’ll come to, all right,” Job said confidently.

“He’s never wavered an instant. I wish you’d realize that, Job. He’s young. But part of him’s grown up. It’s beyond us.”

“There’s no hurry. No hurry at all. You’ll see.”

“I’ll see! What do you ever know about him! I was the way you are. I didn’t want him to be a doctor either. But he’s set! And if he wants it with all his heart—”

“I don’t care what he wants. I know what’s best for him.”

“How can you know what’s best for my boy!”

“Your boy!”

“Yes, my boy! He’s mine, not yours! I carried him under my heart—”

“Look, Ouida! Why don’t you just shut that big mouth of yours and mind your own goddamned business!”

“You’ll teach him! He’ll grow up to be a degenerate like his father! You miserable—”

But Job was gone.

“You’ll have to see your father, Lucas,” Ouida told him later. “I talked to him but it was no use.”

“But I thought it was all settled. He’ll just get mad—”

“He’s the one you’ll have to see.”

“But—”

“I’m tired of fighting your battles for you. I’m tired, tired, tired. Fight for yourself. . . .”


“I have to see my father about being a doctor,” Lucas told Professor Glenn, who taught him chemistry.

Professor Glenn looked at him wearily over the chemistry counters littered with glassware. From out-of-doors the sound of classes dismissed for the day rioted faintly back to the deserted classroom.

“There shouldn’t be any difficulty,” the professor considered. “Your marks are high—”

“I thought maybe you could tell me something I could say.”

“I think you’re setting up obstacles. If Medicine’s what you want to do, if you really think you’ve made up your mind—”

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas miserably.

“Would you like me to speak to him on your behalf? I don’t know your father but I’d be glad to speak to him—”

“No, no! Oh, no! Thanks, Mr. Glenn.”

“Yes . . . Well . . .”


“I guess my fatal time has come,” Lucas said to Henry Moffatt, who fought him point by point for scholarship.

“What’s the matter?” Henry thought in terms of decimal points of advantage, he thought coldly, school was grades, they were rivals but their distance from the remainder of the class placed them together in a perpetual guarded and armed truce.

“I got to have a talk with him.”

“Your grades are all right. What are you worried about?”

“It’s about being a doctor.”

“Well, doesn’t he know? Just tell him, that’s all.”

“Sure. Just tell him.”

“I’d tell him. I’d tell him, quick.”

“Yes-s-s—sure, you’d tell him.”

“What’s the worst he can do? Just tell me that. You tell him and what’s the worst he can do?”

“I don’t care what he can do—”

“He can beat the tar out of you!”

“He’s never laid a hand on me. No, that’s one thing about Dad. No, I’m not worried about that . . .”

“Well then tell him. What are you bothering about?”

“He’s just so dead set. I’d do anything to please him. But I don’t know how to want anything else. If I only knew I could—”

“Gosh! They must have got used to it by this time. Everybody knows you’re going to be a doctor! What’s the matter?”

“They think I’ll change. I just can’t make them see. They just don’t know. I hate it. I dread it. It’s gotten so I can’t study or anything . . .”

Henry looked at him watchfully, alerted.

“That’s a shame, Luke,” he said, trying to hide his satisfaction. “That’s a plain shame. . . .”


As he had when he was a boy, Lucas waited outside Dr. Alexander’s office, sitting on his front porch. The doctor, emerging, looked at him, surprised.

“I wanted to get your advice on something,” Lucas said to Dr. Alexander.

The doctor shifted his bag to his other hand and waited.

“I have to see my father about something . . .”

Girl in trouble? Gonorrhea? wondered Dr. Alexander. He scanned Lucas closely.

“I thought I’d come by and maybe you’d give me a little advice. Something you could tell me, maybe.”

“What’s the trouble, Lucas?”

“I want to be a doctor.”

“Well?”

“I have to tell him so.”

“But everybody knows you’re going to be a doctor!”

“Yes, sir. I thought there was something you could tell me I could tell him—”

“Tell him what?”

“Explain to him—”

“What is there to explain?”

“I have to kind of break it to him.”

“Oh, Lucas! He knows! How could he help but know?”

“I guess he knows, all right. How I feel. But he thinks how I feel will change. He’s sure of it.”

“Maybe you will change, Lucas. Ever thought of that?”

“Yes, sir. I tried to imagine. There wasn’t any way I could imagine.”

“Well . . . I’ve got a few calls to make, Lucas. Talk it over with him . . . I’m sure he’s reasonable . . . if you want I’ll drop by.”

“Oh, no! I’ll do it.”

“I don’t know why you’re so apprehensive. He’s never seemed to me particularly violent.”

“It isn’t that, I just want a way to make him understand. I have to see him, I have to talk to him and I thought maybe there was something you could tell me—”

“You’ll be a doctor, Lucas. Don’t worry about it.”

“Not without his help.”

“No . . . not without his help.”

“You can’t work your way through Medicine.”

“You know that, don’t you?”

“I know.”

“Not any more.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go see him. Just talk to him reasonably, don’t antagonize him . . .”

“Yes, sir . . .”

Doctor Alexander nodded and was gone.


After that there was nobody else.


The rest of the day he studied how to begin. He tried opening statements. He spoke them aloud, discarded them, selected new ones. There was a small sum of time remaining and the half-hours of this time alternately rushed panicky or dragged and would never end. His dread mounted. Desperately, desirously, he pondered escape. He would run away. Always, like a thing of granite was this, that he was of Medicine, that he must be a doctor. Around this granite his thoughts were mists and they eddied and swirled about this immovable fact, this stone, this upreared and unalterable and uncaring granite and in a flash they were gone and the excitement whirled him into eagerness for the interview. A moment later he was helpless with dread again.


“He’s going to talk to you tonight,” Ouida warned Job.

“I’ll take care of it,” Job said.

“Don’t be a fool, now. He loves you—”

“You just mind your business, Ouida. I’ll handle it.”


Job pushed back his dinner plate.

“Well—” he grinned—“got to take a drive tonight. Got to see Miller. What do you say, Luke? Like to take a little ride with me?”

Lucas rushed to get his hat and coat.

For a time they drove without speaking.

“Country looks nice this time of year, don’t it?” Job said after a while.

“Oh, yes! Yes, it does!”

“Wants a little more rain.” He clapped the boy on the knee. “What do you say, Luke? Got something on your mind?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Something you want to tell me about? About college, maybe?”

“That’s it. I wanted to ask you—”

“Well, you’re going to college. That’s all there is to that. Rest your mind easy. Your mother and I have made up our minds. You’re going to college.”

“Yes, sir. That’s wonderful! Thank you, Dad!”

“Never failed you yet, have I?”

“Oh, no! No, never!”

“Don’t worry your mother, Luke. She’s fretting, she’s losing weight over you. Everything’s going to be all right. You just go ahead and study and enjoy yourself all you can while you’re young and let me do the worrying.”

He clucked to the horse.

“And when you’re through—when you’ve had all the learning you want—why, there’ll be your place waiting for you. Right beside me. You and me together. How’s that strike you, Luke?”

There was a little silence.

“The point is, you’ll change, Lucas. You’ll look back on all this and laugh. You’ve got to remember, Luke, I know what’s best for you. That’s all I’m after. Not what I want. You’re like your mother in some ways. You don’t know the world. It isn’t what you think at all. The way you are it’s all plans and dreams and ambitions. It’s different. It isn’t that way by a damned sight. It’s what’s born in us and what we are. That’s what the world is.”

“I know. I know what you mean. At least I try to know. But it’s just the way you say. Everybody is different, Dad. Not everybody’s in the harness business.”

“I don’t care what business you go in, particularly, boy. I’d like to see you in with me. Any father would say that. But you’ve got to go into business. That’s the main business. That’s life. All the rest is hogwash. If you could corner the doctor business—but you see you can’t do that. They trade in knowledge and what kind of business is it when there isn’t enough knowledge to get the trade? And keep it? Sure you treat sick folk and maybe that makes you feel good. That’s kid stuff. Look at the farmer and look at the vet. The farmer needs the vet of course, one of his cows gets sick he calls the vet in a hurry. Pays him a good fee, too. But when the farmer goes home he’s got thirty cows and when the vet goes home he hasn’t even got one cow, all he’s got is a little money for treating one of the thirty cows the farmer’s got. Do you see what I mean? You be the farmer. Pay some other poor dog for his services. See? Now that’s the way it is, Luke. Nothing will ever change it.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You speak up. You speak right up and speak your mind. Don’t be afraid.”

“I am afraid.”

“What are you afraid of? Me? Why me?”

“I’m afraid you’ll think I’m stubborn. I don’t want you to get mad.”

“I’m not going to get mad. Not the slightest chance of it. That’s what we came out here for—to talk.”

“You see—it’s hard for me to explain to you—”

“Go right ahead, boy . . .”

“I—I don’t know anything else except being a doctor. That’s all I’ve ever thought of. I can’t imagine how it would be not to feel that way. Just like I’d say I am a boy—and can’t understand being anything else—it’s hard, it’s very hard to explain—”

“You get it off your chest. You go right ahead. Talk it out.”

“Well, that’s about all, Dad. I don’t really want to go into the harness business . . .”

“There’s lots of businesses—”

“I don’t want to go into any business. Even if I did want to—but I can’t want to. I’ve tried. I want you to believe that. There just isn’t anything else.”

“Well, you haven’t got any great problem there. You can always make it a second ambition. Make all the money you can first. Then, someday when you’re rich and can afford to amuse yourself any way you’re a mind to, cut loose and take a vacation and study to be a doctor, if you want to. You can always do that. Meanwhile, let me be your guide, Luke.”

“But you can’t do that, Dad! You can’t put it off!”

“Then make it your hobby. Take up some business you like and make a go of it and make Medicine your hobby. Lots of people do that. Any number of successful men—”

“Who?”

“Who? I don’t know who! They just do!”

“It’s different, Dad, with Medicine. You’ve got to throw your whole life into it—you’ve got to start and never stop—it’s your whole life—it’s—”

“All right, Lucas, you’ve talked long enough. I’ve heard everything you had to say, you’ve got it all off your chest, I’ve tried to be patient, I’ve tried to show you how things stand. It’s all right for a boy to dream, I can understand that. But you’re no boy any longer. You’re a young man. It’s high time you took stock of yourself and the world you’ve been born into and put these silly schoolgirl schemes and dreams behind you. You’ve had your fling and it’s time to settle down. When I was your age I was up at four o’clock every morning and I worked until I dropped and I was hungry and cold most of the time and ragged the rest. Now I’ll tell you this, Lucas. And it’s the last I’ll tell you. And I’ve had my say. If you want to be a doctor you can be a doctor. I’ll not lift a finger to stop you. You go right ahead and be whatever you want. But don’t expect me to help you do something I know is dead wrong. For I won’t do it. I won’t have any part in it. I’ve gone along, been reasonable. Waited for you to come to your senses. You talk like a child. Now do as you please. But don’t forget this. Tack it up in your memory and don’t forget it. I’m not sending you to college and paying my good money so you can learn to make a living telling some rich bitch why she has to take a shit once a day!”


Therefore Lucas made his plans to run away.

He did not plan with resentment or anger or indignation. He planned with fear. He was afraid that if he did not run away he would not become a doctor. He went to Dr. Alexander again. He asked for advice, where to go, what to do. He was humble, he was anxious, and he was inflexible. Dr. Alexander listened. When Lucas left he clapped on his hat and went to the harness shop.

“I’d like to have a talk with you and Mrs. Marsh,” he said shortly.

“Absolutely. Nothing we can’t straighten out, I guess. Wait a minute and we’ll go see Mrs. Marsh. Or would this evening do just as well?”

“I’ve got my calls. As you say, it won’t take long.”

Ouida opened the door. She stared from Job to the doctor.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Now, take it easy, Ouida, nothing’s happened, doctor feels there’s something we ought to know.” He pushed past her into the house.

“Is it Lucas?” Her hand flew to her throat. “Is something the matter with him?” Her voice had become husky. She coughed, swallowed hard.

“Nothing has happened, Mrs. Marsh.” Dr. Alexander sat down. “We are three adults and between us we can see that nothing does. Lucas is about to run away.”

“Now I think of it, it’s the best thing that could happen to him,” Job cried. “Make a man of him.”

“But he’s never given any sign—!” Ouida protested. She cleared her throat impatiently. “He’s happy in his home—his school life—he’s a good boy—is he in trouble?”

“He wants to study Medicine,” said Dr. Alexander.

“He wants to study Medicine?” Ouida echoed.

“He wants to study Medicine,” Job said impatiently. “And if we don’t let him study Medicine he’s going to run away.”

Ouida looked at the two men unbelievingly.

“That’s right,” said Job angrily. “So the doctor has to take time off from his work and I have to take time off from my work—I ought to be in Meridian right this very minute—”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “Well, there it is. Tell me, have you got anything against Medicine?”

“You know how it is, Doc. A man wants his kid to have the best. I’ve had to make my own way, I’ve had to work hard all my life. And you and I know that Medicine isn’t exactly, well—”

“It’s not a field a man goes into to make his fortune.”

“That’s what I say. That’s all I say.”

“I’ve known Lucas since he was a little boy. I’ve never known the time he didn’t want to be a doctor. Some men are born to be doctors. I shouldn’t be at all surprised but Lucas is one of those men.”

“But you’re not sure!”

“No, I’m not sure. I’m not really too sure of anything. But as sure as I can be of anything, I’m sure Lucas was meant to be a doctor.”

Ouida started to speak but was overwhelmed by a storm of coughing. They waited for her to subside.

“I’m not what you’d call a hard man, Doctor. Mostly, I’ve left the whole care of the boy to his mother. That’s right and proper. But this is a decision for men. It isn’t a choice left up to children and women. You know what the world is. And I know what the world is. It isn’t any dreamworld. I’d like it so, well as the next. But it isn’t. It’s what it is. You’ve got to have money. The world revolves around it. You’ve got to have it. There’s only one way to get it, you’ve got to get it from the next fellow. There’s folks think that isn’t a pretty picture. I don’t see anything wrong with it. And if I did, it wouldn’t matter a damn. For that’s the way it is. Right or wrong, that’s the world we’re born into, whether we’re born with a hankering for this or that or God knows what.”

“You mind your manners!” Ouida cried.

Job ignored her.

“Now, don’t go getting mad if I tread close to the bone.”

“You keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Ouida angrily.

“This is between Doc and me. You just sit back and keep your mouth shut. Now then, Doc! Can a man be a rich doctor?”

“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t—”

“No pussyfooting, now! The real truth. It’ll never go out of this house!”

“I’m going to answer what I think is in your mind. The highest ideal of a good doctor doesn’t includes riches. Many a doctor has invested the money he’s made through healing and become rich that way. In the purest sense of the word, if he’d been devoting every instant to his patients he wouldn’t have had time for investments. And if someone had made the investments for him he should, ideally, have plowed the money back into his practice to provide better equipment and care for his patients. There are also men who fight to establish a practice in a fashionable neighborhood, in a rich neighborhood, and who become rich that way. That conflicts with the highest ideal of Medicine, for healing is for all, and one should not aim to heal only the rich. I’m going to be entirely truthful with you; in the finest possible sense of the word there is no such thing as a rich doctor.”

“That’s enough for me.”

“That is the reason why you do not want your son to study Medicine?”

“That’s it, Doc. I could hem and haw and say a lot more. But that’s it.”

“And I’m his mother! And I say he has a right to follow what God has put in his heart.”

“God put in my heart an almighty yen to be a circus rider once,” Job said with a grin.

“I think Lucas will be a doctor, Mr. Marsh,” said Dr. Alexander. “I think you’d be wise to help him. I don’t think there’s anything else in life for him.”

“Over my dead body.”

“He can’t do it alone. That’s what I must tell you. He knows that.”

“I’ll tell you what. If he likes it bad enough he’ll work his way through.”

“Not Medicine.”

“He can’t work his way through college like any other boy?”

“Not medical college.”

“You mean to tell me nobody’s ever worked their way through medical college?”

“A few. It’s been done. It used to be easier. But the more we discover, the more there is to study. Today the chances of a boy going through medical school without help are hopeless. There isn’t time. He has eight hours of classroom work every day. He has to study at least five hours. He has to sleep seven hours. If he spends an hour a day to eat three meals and perform his natural functions, that leaves him three hours.”

“That’s three hours, though,” Job said stubbornly. “When I was a boy—”

“Those three hours are badly placed for a boy looking for work. They come after an ordinary man’s usual working hours. They offer part-time jobs, janitor work, dishwashing, maybe tutoring. And there’s hundreds competing in those three hours.”

“There’s Sundays.”

“Job!”

“Yes, there’s Sundays. And assuming he’s so very, very fortunate as to find work on Sunday, assuming he’s able to get ten hours work every Sunday, his total hours for a week add up to twenty-eight hours. If he’s most fortunate, he’ll get as high as thirty cents an hour. It isn’t likely. But even then his weekly earnings will amount to eight dollars and forty cents a week.”

“Look, Doc! When I was Luke’s age I was on my own. If I’d had eight whole dollars every week—”

“Eight dollars a week isn’t what it used to be, Mr. Marsh. The hame strap that used to cost me a dollar at your shop now costs me a dollar and sixty cents. But out of that eight dollars and forty cents a week, your son would have to clothe himself, feed himself, and provide a roof over his head.”

“Make a man of him!”

“And in addition, he’d have to pay his tuition.”

“How much is that?”

“Roughly, around three hundred dollars a term. Say six hundred a year. And add to that about seventy-five dollars for his books, all second-hand, his laboratory fees and supplies. The lowest you can possibly estimate—and I tell you frankly it cannot be done on that—is that the boy has to earn seventy dollars a month. And in the summer, completely untrained, he will somehow have to earn the unheard-of sum of a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, living at home, of course, and with no expenses. Can you think of some way he can earn in Milletta as much as a bank cashier?”

“It can’t be done,” said Job.

“I say nothing of what it would do to his health.”

“And how do you expect a boy to study with all that? What does Lucas know about working?” Ouida demanded indignantly.

“That’s what it means, Mr. Marsh.”

“Just to be a doctor.”

“That’s right.”

“And when he’s all through, when he’s graduated—”

“Then a year as intern at some hospital—the best one he can get into. And the best hospitals take the brightest boys—those who’ve had most time to study.”

“What does he get then?”

“He gets his meals, his uniforms, his laundry, and from ten to fifteen dollars a month.”

Job’s face darkened.

“That’s what it is to be a doctor! That’s the big reward, is it?”

“I’m not going to hold anything back. I’m going to give you the whole picture. When he’s through with his internship he has to set up in practice. It’s going to cost him at least three thousand dollars for his instruments, his office, his equipment. And when he’s done all that, probably gone into debt for it, like most of us, he’ll have to sit and wait for patients. It’ll be five years, all of five years, before he even begins to get out of the red. That’s what it is. That’s the whole picture. I haven’t tried to give you the bright side.”

He finished speaking and there was silence.

“Can you imagine yourself a doctor?”

“No offense—I frankly can’t!”

“Well, Lucas can’t any more imagine himself being a businessman. He just can’t imagine it. I don’t know you folks very well. I’m thinking of the little fellow who used to haunt my doorstep. He knows you know what’s best for him. He knows you love him and you’re wiser than he is. He would give anything to be what you want him to be. He doesn’t know how. He’s what he is. Nothing can change him. It doesn’t happen often. It happens once in ten million. He’s born to it. Rich or poor, Lucas Marsh was made by God Almighty to be a doctor. The rest is up to you. I can’t say more.”

“He’ll be a doctor,” Ouida said quietly.

“I only want to do what’s right for the boy,” Job said stubbornly. “I still say—”

Job wavered. He was confused. He was alone. It was as if he were losing the boy, as if Lucas were vanishing into another world. There was nothing to share with him. He was on his alien way. He was adrift in a world where he would invent phrases to cover his bare bones and maxims to fill his belly, adrift like millions around him, milling like cattle around the planet, lost and lost and lost and all the while with a father who knew the way, who could help him, who could share the truth with him, open his eyes to it, set him securely on the only way.

“Mr. Marsh and I want only what’s best for the boy,” Ouida said. “It’s just never been explained to us. None of us knew how deep it was with Lucas, it could have been only a child’s fancy . . .”

“I’ve got to be on my calls,” the doctor said. He looked at his watch. “I’m late.”

“Want to thank you.” Job rose numbly. “Glad to pay you for your time—”

“No need for that! I should have come sooner.”

“Man’s time is worth something—”

“You give that boy his chance and I’ll be more than paid.”

“I want to thank you, Doctor—” Ouida came toward him. “I want you to know—” A cough interrupted her. “I want—” The cough overwhelmed her, she was racked by a spasm, she groped back to her chair and bent over it, helpless.

“That’s a bad cough you’ve got there.” Dr. Alexander walked to her side.

“Got her lungs full of smoke,” Job shouted to be heard over the noise of Ouida’s coughing. “She’s been losing weight, too.” He was glad of the diversion. “Better look her over, Doc.”

The doctor pressed Ouida into the chair. He tilted her head back. A little blood showed at the corners of her mouth. She bent her head, swallowed, mastered the coughing, drew a deep breath.

“It’s nothing. I’m quite all right. Really.”

Doctor Alexander stooped, opened his bag, drew out a wooden depressor and a reflector.

“All right, now?”

Ouida nodded.

He opened her mouth. He peered at her throat. He looked a long time. He let her close her mouth. He drew back and waited. Then he opened her mouth again, bent over her and peered again.

He straightened. He removed the reflector from his forehead and put it back in the bag.

“Bad one, ain’t it, Doc? She’s been coughing like that for almost a month. I told her get it looked at—”

“Smoke—” Ouida swallowed. “Smoke got in my lungs. Burned a bread pudding. Whole kitchen full of smoke—” She waved her hand.

“I think you’d better come to the office,” the doctor said. He smiled.

“I rarely go to doctors. I’ll come in sometime if it isn’t better.”

“Yes. No hurry. Still—wouldn’t do any harm to come on back with me—get it over—”

“Go on, Ouida! Place sounds like a dog pound!”

“It really isn’t necessary—” Ouida searched the doctor’s face.

“Might as well catch it,” the doctor said indifferently and firmly. “Won’t take a minute . . .”

Job drove them to the doctor’s office and returned soberly to the shop. In the shop he stood sadly. The boy was not lost yet. He held to that thought. There were two years of premedical training. A lot could happen in those two years. In those two years lay the whole answer. If he couldn’t make the boy see reason in two years it would be his own fault. The truth was there, plain and easy. The boy would see it. The scales would drop from his eyes. He’d look up one day, he’d laugh at himself. And he and the boy would be together. Forever. The whole world their oyster. The world waiting for them. It was a lonely world. There wasn’t any doubt of that, the world was damned lonely. Ouida was all right but she had a world of her own, she lived in another world. Nobody lived in the right world. Only himself. It was lonely, all right. Sometimes it was damned lonely. Now there’d be the boy. He and the boy. And the boy’d have something to come to, by God! He remembered Meridian suddenly. He reckoned his small empire of eight stores. Eight was just the beginner. He’d been sitting still too long. Time was wasting. He had the store in Meridian now. And who’d ever have believed that? It was easy. The world was easy. The world was made up of fools who played games and mouthed pious noises at each other as they gulped at each other’s guts. Little nibbling gulps. Polite gulps. With their little fingers held out, just so. As if they weren’t feeding on each other at all, oh no, they weren’t doing what they seemed to be doing at all. They weren’t even seeming to be doing. Job grinned. The boy and he would have many a chuckle over it. He got together his papers and headed for Meridian.

★ CHAPTER 8

In the doctor’s office Ouida sat down gingerly in the examining chair and held her mouth open.

“I’m not going to look right now, Mrs. Marsh. I want to ask you some questions.”

“I’ve had quinsy a long time.”

“I see you have.”

“Caught it so badly last winter I’ve never been able to shake it off.”

“Made you lose weight, too? Dropped quite a bit?”

“Yes. I always stay the same. But lately—” She gathered a loose fold of her dress.

“What have you been doing for this quinsy?”

“I want you to know something, Doctor. I’m here because I’m grateful to you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. That’s why I came. I believe in mind over matter. I control my own body. Completely and absolutely. I’ve never been ill a moment in my life. My body doesn’t control me. When I let this quinsy take over I am being punished for my own weakness.”

“If everyone was like you where would my practice be?”

“You may laugh at me if you wish—”

“Not at all! Not at all, Mrs. Marsh—”

“I do not permit illness! I have been treating my throat by myself!”

“And you used—?”

“I do not expect you to believe this, Doctor, but there are forces, forces not of this earth, divine forces. I summon them. They cure me.”

“Those—ah—forces, they are all you have employed?”

She bent her head slightly.

“Once or twice, when the pain was particularly strong—when I was particularly weak, rather—I used a strong salt gargle. They rebuked me.”

He looked at her seriously, his eyebrows lifted inquiringly.

“My forces. They instructed me. They took away my salt water. They told me to use witch hazel.”

“You gargled with witch hazel?”

“With the pure infusion of the trees as God made them.”

“And did this give you relief?”

“I have been remiss. If I had continued I should be cured.”

“You used nothing else?”

“Nothing.”

“No strong acids, chemicals of any kind?”

“None. I did as I was told. They have never failed me.”

“Yes. Now, if you will open your mouth again . . .”

He searched her throat closely.

“I am going to do something that may cause you discomfort.”

She smiled contemptuously. She opened her mouth to him. He bent closer. In a little while she gagged, he continued nevertheless a moment longer.

He straightened at last, looked at her. She looked back at him serenely, questioningly. He sat down at his desk and began to write.

“I won’t need any medicine, Doctor,” she said firmly.

“No, I know. This is just something to ease that cough a little—”

“Is it witch hazel?” she demanded.

“Sort of witch hazel, something we made from witch hazel—”

“Well—” she said doubtfully.

“You could call it witch hazel, all right.”

“I’m not supposed to have anything but witch hazel—”

“This is just the essence of witch hazel, you might say, purified witch hazel—”

“You may think me odd, Doctor, but I assure you there are things not found in books—”

“I encounter those things every day,” he said gravely. “You have a perfect right to whatever is—revealed to you.”

“Do you think Lucas really would have run away?”

“He would have hated to, but he honestly saw no other course.”

“But I’m his mother! Why didn’t he come to me! I can’t imagine Lucas—”

“Would you have advised him to run away?”

“We could have talked it over. There would have been a way—”

“Tell me, Mrs. Marsh, what did your mother die of?”

“She had heart failure, poor soul. My father too.”

“Yes . . . Any throat weakness?”

“Not that I know of. Oh, the usual sore throats—”

“I understand. And you—?”

“I’ve always seemed to have a weakness here.” She put her hand to her throat. “Nothing to bother me, much. But when I caught colds they always seemed to lodge just here. They were the worst of the colds. Not that I’ve had many,” she said hastily. “And lately I’ve had lumps—these lumps on my shoulder.” She pulled her dress to show him. He fingered the lumps expressionlessly.

“And this particular sore throat—”

“I’ve had it ever since I burned the pudding, the whole kitchen was full of smoke and—”

“But not before?”

“Not that I know of. Oh, it was sore from time to time, little sorenesses, they passed, everything passes, you know, Doctor . . .”

“I admire your courage, Mrs. Marsh.”

“Thank you.” She flushed.

“I wish more of my patients were like you.”

“May I go home now?” She smiled.

He hesitated. He looked over his notes again swiftly.

“Yes. Have this filled.”

“Is it a gargle?”

“No, these are pills. You may gargle if you like. Take these pills. When your throat is sore, when you feel you should take them. That will be your best guide.”


Lucas, who had been home, then to the harness shop, was waiting for her when she returned home.

“Where have you been?” he asked anxiously.

“What have you been up to? What’s this I hear—from strangers—that you’re going to run away?”

“There’s nothing else for me to do,” he said in a low voice.

“There’s always something else for you to do. You could always come to the mother who loves you.”

“You don’t know, Mother. I had a talk with Father.”

“Tell me what he said. Tell me every word.”

“It’s no use.”

“Tell me, Lucas.”

“You’d only get mad at him and then there’d be fighting, and I’d be the cause of it. He’ll never understand. Never . . .”

“I don’t want to ever hear again as long as I live that you’re running away. Do you hear me, Lucas? If you feel you must run away you must come to me and tell me. Now listen! Now you are going to feel foolish.” She waited. He said nothing, his head down. “Did you think Dr. Alexander was going to help you? He came straight to us! Why do you do such things, Lucas? Why do you torment me? Going to strangers! Confiding in a stranger and not your own mother! What have I done to deserve such a thing from you! I know I must deserve it. But what have I done! Only tell me!”

He gaped at her. “You mean I can study Medicine now? You mean Dad said I could?”

“Now, Lucas! Don’t get excited! He hasn’t said so!”

“But there’s a chance? A chance?”

“Lucas! Now stop it!”

He groped toward her. She gathered him in hungrily.

“My own boy . . .” She rocked him in her arms. “My darling, my darling . . .” She coughed, held him closer, held back the cough swelling in her by sheer will. She did not understand why Lucas was so moved, the violence of it was beyond her understanding, but he was in her arms and he clung to her.

Dr. Alexander stopped at the harness shop next day.

“I’d like to speak to you for a moment.”

“Come in, Doc. Sit down. What’s on your mind?”

“I want you to prepare yourself. I have something to tell you, something you must face.”

“Ouida?” he asked blankly. Then a sudden thought came to him. “Oh, now, her tongue gets a little loose now and then. I don’t know what she’s said, Doc, but you mustn’t mind it. Why, Lord, she says things to me that—”

The doctor looked at him compassionately.

“It’s cancer, Mr. Marsh. Cancer of the throat.”

Job sat down. He swallowed. He stared at the doctor.

“Cancer of the throat?”

“There’s no possible doubt. I wish there were. I’m afraid it’s in the last stages.”

“You’re joking!”

“Would you like to take her to another doctor? I can understand. I wish there were room for doubt. By all means have someone else—”

“Ouida? You talking about Ouida?”

The doctor nodded sadly.

“But she’s still walking around—healthy—same as ever—”

“I know. It’s horrible. . . . She’ll be dead in six months.”

“Six months!” Job cried wildly.

“At the outside. Perhaps in two. It’s going very fast. It’s out of control now. I’m going to say something to you, Mr. Marsh: it would be the blessing if she died tonight!”

Job licked his lips.

“Haven’t you ever noticed she had trouble swallowing?”

“Never—no, by God, never! Wait! Last Christmas a piece of plum cake seemed to choke her. She’s been tetchy for soft foods ever since. That’s right! Trouble swallowing! Hell, she’s always had trouble with her throat, more or less, colds seemed to take her there, quinsy sort of, never gave it a thought, never babied herself any, so naturally I never thought—you can operate, can’t you? There’s bound to be some chance—!”

“There isn’t a chance, Mr. Marsh. I can operate. But I know before I start—there isn’t a chance.”

“Maybe she’ll want you to operate—”

“I don’t think she will. You know Mrs. Marsh. She might. I’ll do whatever you say. You’re going to have to face it. She’s going to have a bad time. And you’re going to have to watch it. At first I can give her pills. I gave her some today. I had to tell her they were witch hazel. She’s in considerable pain. She’s not the type that lets on. They weren’t witch hazel, of course. They were morphine. She’ll need more and more. In a little while morphine won’t help her.”

“There must be something—”

“There is. There’s one thing. Death.”


Toward the end, Ouida Marsh seemed to become younger, young as a young girl. Her body withered rapidly as the doctor had predicted, she complained of quinsy and when her remedies did not help her she turned apathetically to what comfort the doctor could provide. It was not possible to guess what agonies she bore, for she bore them silently, but they must have been very great and, for a lesser person, unendurable. Once, Lucas came home early from school to hear the low noise of her hoarse cries, but she heard the door open and close and an instant after he entered she was silent. She wrote long letters to Lucas and to Job, and toward the end it was evident from these letters that she must have had an inkling of her waiting death. Her throat closed rapidly, then sloughed open, then closed again; her sounds were thick and burbled and unintelligible. For a time she was lonely and frightened. However close Lucas pressed himself to her, however long into the night Job sat beside her watching, holding her hand, they did not seem able to reach her, to be with her, to be in place of the loneliness and the fear. Then the blessing of the morphine took her mind and greater and greater doses pushed back everything but the pain, pain too heavy to be moved, agony too deep to be reached. Toward the end they prayed for her to go. They loved her, a part of Lucas died with her, but it was too much. Too much, too much, greater than all of them, too much to bear, poor soul let her go, let her die, let it end. . . .

The doctor stayed with her very late one night.

Next morning she was dead.

She lay as a young girl might lie, curled, very small, cold, motionless, her haggard mouth a little open, her eyes closed. Where her body had rested the sheet was a little stained.

“No!” screamed Lucas, “you will not bury her! Never! Never! Never!”

“Son, son,” snuffled Job. “It’s all right, boy, they’ve got to do it . . .”

“Never! Please, please, never . . .”

Ouida Marsh was gone.

★ CHAPTER 9

She was buried.

The ritual noises were made. The earth was smoothed. The day ended. The sun rose. The day ended.

Day, day day, and then no more days. Now the weeks came, now a month. Time was a shattered window into the void. And into the void his tears fell. Into the blackness, the mouthing blackness, the tears fell, never stop, I swear it, never, never, never. And the tears stopped, slowly. They were a trickle. And then they stopped. And one day of one week of one month after the breast had healed, after the jags were lonely palisades peering the unknown, one day the glass was whole again. And time was a window. And beyond the window was Ouida, dead.

Beyond the window.

Not gone.

But gone, all the same.

Lucas sat by the grave long, still hours. He sat by the grave and looked into time and shivered and saw nothing. He sat and brooded and now and again he patted tenderly the earth mounded upon Ouida who lay far beneath, patted as if he patted Ouida herself, ran his fingers through the grasses. He brooded nothingness. He had no thoughts. Once he stepped upon a corner of the grave and shrank, cringing, and moaned. Over and over he patted her where he had stepped, where it had hurt.

After a while he returned to school. When the day’s study was over he went to the cemetery. He brought his books and there he studied, and sometimes he talked about his problems and sometimes he read aloud. You could not see his lips move. A few feet away and you could not even hear him. Her feet could not hear him. Only her head.

In the evening he would rise, he would walk reluctantly away from her, he would leave this other home, he would sigh and walk to the house, he would let himself in.

They had a servant, now, they had hired a girl who kept the house and looked after them. At first she had gone home nights. Now she slept there, in an unused room.

And Job would enter, after a while, and put on a sober, unsmiling, grave face and when the evening meal had ended he would rise and leave the house and go silently back to the shop. And Lucas would study dully, and the time coming, rise and go to bed.

Job entered the house reluctantly and left it with relief. For in the house and with Lucas the funeral had never ended. And for Job the funeral had ended on the day the first clod fell hollowly on Ouida’s coffin, within five minutes the grave was filled, the earth was flat except for the telltale mound, and with it, turning away, there was no help for it, Ouida was gone.

There fell to his lot now a time for sober face, for small speech, for gravity, for decorous acceptance of the tribal noises of sympathy. Work was the same, the demands of the day were the same, everything was to do, everything was to be done, nothing had happened to these things, there was no death here, no caring. But one did what was to be done unsmilingly, putting the smile away, decorous for the season of such things, sad for the time of sadness.

“I guess you’re going to college this fall, ain’t you?” he asked one night.

“Am I?” Lucas asked dully.

“That’s what your mother wanted,” Job said quietly. “You’ll go this fall.” His heart warmed. “Got the money all laid aside. Been saving it a long while. I’m always looking out for you, Lucas. Don’t forget that.”

“I know, Dad.”

“Sometimes it may seem as if I’m not. But I always am. Don’t forget that.”

Inwardly he groped for a new relationship.

“You all right?” he asked delicately.

“I’m fine,” Lucas said, faintly embarrassed.

“Don’t need anything?”

“I’m lonesome,” said Lucas simply.

“Same here,” said Job. He warmed at the confidence. There was, of course, nothing else to say.

Lucas, he confessed to himself next day, he did not understand. All other people were easy. He could almost always foretell unerringly what they would do; within a few moments of meeting them he sensed their limits, their weaknesses, their vulnerabilities.

But Lucas—He sighed.


“I tell you, Charley, if I hadn’t married Mrs. Marsh I could have been one of the Morgans.”

“Don’t doubt it.”

“I’ll bet I could.”

“I’ll say this for you, Job Marsh, there ain’t anybody in the world, and I worked in plenty of harness shops, there ain’t ever anybody knows harness like you do.”

“I’m glad I married her, you understand—”

“Naturally.”

“I’m only saying—”

“She was a good woman . . .”

“Finer woman never drew breath—”

“Pretty—smart—”

“You know something, Charley? I’ll tell you something. She was her own worst enemy.”

“I didn’t know her good—”

“Her own worst enemy.”

If I was a young fellow, Job thought with alarm, I’d be off in the cities right now. New York. I’d be in New York, nothing could stop me, look at me here! And do you know where I’d be? I missed a boat! That’s what I did! And never knew it! I’ve got to get going! While there’s still time!

“Hang on, Charley,” he said jubilantly, free.

And he departed for Meridian.

“What do you do all day?” he asked Lucas next morning.

“Nothing,” Lucas said defensively, “I take walks, I read—”

“Don’t want you hanging around the house—”

“I don’t—”

“Do you good to come down to the shop, help out a while, take your mind off things.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Instead of frowsting around.”

Lucas looked down at his plate.

“Might as well come down this morning.”

“Now?”

“If you’re through eating. That’s where I’m going.”

Thereafter for a week Lucas went to the harness shop with his father every morning. For a time Job and Charley set him to sorting harness, hoping to infect him with interest by the contagion of leather, and if he had shown any interest or even capacity they were leagued to put him to small repairs. But Lucas had no interest in harness, neither in the shape of leather nor in its odor, its repair or its purposes. He sorted badly.

“You blind or something?” Job asked incredulously. Charlie turned away, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” said Lucas.

“Don’t even know what you done wrong, do you! Mixing up check-reins and hame straps and things that don’t even look like each other.”

“I’m sorry. I can see it, now—”

“You’re a smart boy, Lucas. You’re not that dumb!”

“I’m not doing it deliberately—”

“He don’t do nothing else all day, Mr. Marsh. I’ll say that for him,” Charley seconded.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to you that you should do me that way,” Job said remindingly.

“I’ll try—I’ll do better,” Lucas promised anxiously.

“You better just wait on trade,” Job said. “Let him wait on the trade, Charley. The prices are marked on everything.”

“I’m sorry—I’m really sorry.”

Job nodded. He walked out of the shop.

In the next two weeks he was seldom at the shop. The store in Meridian claimed him. Usually he did not come home until late, sometimes not until the next day. Lucas went to Dr. Alexander’s house in the evenings after dinner, content to sit on the porch and read his anatomy book as long as there was daylight if the doctor was out, and sometimes he arrived on time to go out on late calls with him. In the beginning he sat silent.

“I want to tell you something,” Dr. Alexander said finally. “I know you’re grieving for your ma. And this is what I want to tell you. Save your pity for the living. The dead can’t use it. And it won’t save the dying. You’re wasting your time. Pity’s valuable. Don’t waste it.”

After that it was easier. Somehow the grave was dug deeper. Somehow Ouida no longer lay just below the raw mound. But she returned to the house one night. She returned abruptly.

It was on one of the nights Job returned from Meridian very late. This night Lucas heard him enter. He got out of bed. He opened his bedroom door, he was about to intercept Job and suggest a midnight raid on the icebox. His smile faded. Job was tiptoeing into the servant girl’s room. He watched, dumfounded, as the door closed. In another moment he heard his father’s voice, the servant’s giggle, a bed creaking. He returned to his room, leaving his door open. He sat on the edge of his bed. He tried to think but he could not. He felt Ouida present in the house, very strongly present, invincibly present. He choked with a distaste and shame. And then anger, and he sat on, rigidly, coldly committed, waiting, and when he heard the door open down the hall he rushed out to the landing. Job was leaving the servant’s room. He was barefoot. He had on only his trousers. He carried the rest of his clothing in his hand. He looked up, startled and then sheepish at the sight of Lucas. Lucas turned immediately and went back to his room, closing his door carefully behind him. He returned to bed. For a long time he tried to sleep. At last he rose with deliberation, turned on his light, picked up his anatomy book, and began to read. Daylight came. He blinked, stretched, regarded the light with satisfaction, read on, heard the house stir, opened his door a few inches so that it could be seen that his light was on. When he had heard the servant and Job go downstairs he dressed leisurely. He sat opposite his father during breakfast. He said nothing. Job read the paper.

Into the shop that afternoon came Dr. Alexander. Job hastened forward. Dr. Alexander shook his head.

“I see you’ve already got a job,” he said to Lucas.

“Not really,” Lucas said eagerly. “I’m just in the way here—”

“Thought I’d break him in,” said Job. “Got him selling. Had a little trouble at first but now he’s doing all right.”

“Glad to hear it,” Dr. Alexander nodded. “Well—I guess I’ll have to look for somebody else.”

“Sorry,” said Job.

“Wait!” said Lucas. They looked at him. “You don’t really need me, Dad.” He looked at Job meaningly.

“That so?” said Job, challenged.

“No,” said Lucas. “This is work our servant girl could do.” He looked steadily at his father. Job looked away. “I’ll be right with you,” Lucas cried to Dr. Alexander. He scrambled into his coat.

“If you’re sure it’s all right,” said Dr. Alexander.

“Guess he knows what he’s doing,” said Job. There was a faint smile on his reluctant lips.

The shop door shut behind them. They got into the carriage.

“You might as well start today,” said Dr. Alexander. “This is the sort of job that happens once in a lifetime to a fellow in your boots. You’re going to take care of a man by the name of Fellowes. Have you ever heard of the Reverend Fellowes?”

The carriage jogged on. Dr. Alexander talked steadily. The Reverend Stephen Fellowes was a retired minister. He lived on the outskirts of the town he had once served and he had a small income which kept a housekeeper for him. Lucas’ job was a simple one. He was to be the old man’s companion for the next two months, he was to sit with him, to read to him when he desired to be read to, and to be sure that he was served with a urinal every three hours.

“I don’t say you’ll get rich from the wages,” Dr. Alexander admitted. “But you’ll have a patient. In a sense this man will be your first patient, there’s that element. And being exposed to a man like that for two months is better than a year of college. You’ll get five dollars a week and your lunches.”

For the next two months Lucas adventured in a world completely different from Milletta. The Reverend Fellowes was a thin old man, given to long silences, to books, and to brooding. The first embarrassment of serving so remote a man with a urinal soon passed, Lucas learned to read aloud, and although much of what he read was incomprehensible to him, the Reverend Fellowes having a taste for religious quibbles of the eighteenth century, he read the whole of Homer that summer and a great deal of Virgil and Horace and Ovid and Suetonius and a history of the Greeks. At such times, and in such literary company, the thin old man’s parchment-like skin would acquire a faint rose hue, his eyes would become hard and bright, and the lines of his mouth would play with the letters of indomitable, he would be immortal in another century, he would be a dweller in another land, before another God, in a body that was flesh without mortality.

And some of this beauty was transmitted to Lucas also. Long before the two months were up he discovered why people could follow books so passionately and look at the world they lived in with a superior amusement from behind eyes that had travelled in many pages and in many worlds, and though it bred no hunger in him it bred respect, as a runner watching a weight thrower, or a king watching a president. And this respect became stronger on those nights when Job was home for dinner, although he did not respect Job’s accomplishments less for the contrast between the two adults.

But the day that was to remain longest in Lucas’ memory of that curious summer, and the image that would all his life be sharpest remembering the Reverend Fellowes and his own youth and his young manhood and the essence of mankind in whom he had recognized himself as a part, came two weeks before the summer ended, as they were reading Xenophon, as the Greeks were coming in sight of the sea.

“Can you see it, Lucas? Do you see those weary heroes, a single hero for all their number, a single hungry man who was all Hellas, all that Greece stood for, born and bred beside the sea’s white spume, cradled to its booming roar, the blood of the gods sluicing it wine-dark for the dreaming gaze of young men avid on the cliffs, gone to a far country, fighting among strange rocks, spent on alien sands, through forests and mountains and plains, the months passing, the years, and now come at last, come one day, come one opening of the eyelids of the gods, dumbstruck, disembodied, become eyes and soul, seeing it, seeing it—

“ ‘Thalassa!’ they cried. Their mouths opened. Their souls shouted. ‘Thalassa! The sea! The sea!’ ”

His face was transfigured. He was all that God could make of this man here in this time, in this place, his soul was clean, his mind was risen.

Thalassa,” he whispered.

And then his face altered. The lines flowed slowly back to plastic, parchment flesh. He licked his lips.

“I waited too long,” he said apologetically. Lucas, still dazed, smiled at him, uncomprehending.

“I’m sorry,” the old man said.

And suddenly Lucas noticed the wet stain on his trousers. He jumped to his feet guiltily.

“The flesh,” the old man murmured as Lucas changed him. “Always the flesh, the flesh. Do you see how we are tied?” he asked, suddenly peevish. “Don’t forget that, young man. Don’t ever forget it. You’ll never be free till you’re dead.”

“Will there be a Xenophon where we’re going?” Lucas asked shyly.

“I don’t know,” said the old minister. “If it weren’t so I would be afraid to die.”

The summer ended.

Lucas spent the last days in the small hills about Milletta, avoiding the house, avoiding Job, avoiding the servant, avoiding even Dr. Alexander, content to be unseen, to hatch what he had heard, what he had seen and lived, to watch the shimmering railroad tracks, to disappear with them, into the distance.

The day came and he said farewell to the house, he went to the station, he got into the train like a sleepwalker, while they were still seeking a seat the train moved on, it was over, he was on his way.


In the seat beside him, Job studied a newspaper picture of an automobile. The caption said America was on its way to seventeen million autos. Job grinned. There were more farms than there had ever been, as long as there were farms there would be horses, as long as there were horses there had to be harness.

He remembered, abruptly, gossip about a harness shop in Lankasville, a shop in trouble, a shop run down. He looked at his watch. Lankasville was larger than Meridian.

He patted Lucas’ knee.

“Guess we’re almost there,” he said.

Lucas looked at him warily. His father was smiling at him with friendliness and behind that friendliness was content.

“You be a good boy, Lucas.”

“I will, Father.”

“If you want anything, you just write me.”

“I don’t think I’ll need anything. I mean—I’ve got everything—”

“Don’t worry about anything.”

“I won’t.”

“That’s the main thing.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You’ll be thrown in with a lot of strange people. Well, you were when you were born. Remember that. Every place you go in this world you’ll be thrown in with a lot of strange people. So don’t think anything of it.”

“No, sir.”

“Yes . . . Well! . . . Now about women.”

“You don’t have to—I mean—”

“Don’t go getting any nice girl in trouble. That’s all you’ve got to worry about. Just don’t go getting any nice girl in trouble. Understand?”

“Yes, Father. But you don’t have to—”

“A man’s got to have a woman. And I’m not going to be goddamned fool enough to tell you otherwise. You’re going to have to have a woman and you’re going out looking for one. Just don’t go getting any nice girl in trouble. It costs money and trouble. Go get a chippie. Then you’ll be safe. Watch yourself. Pick a clean one. Because if you don’t you’ll find yourself wearing your whatsis in a Bull Durham sack. Clap. Disease. Hurts like hell. Now that’s all. I’ve said my say.”

He looked at Lucas and his features relaxed.

“When you’re in trouble, come to me. I’m your dad.”

The train began to slow.

Lucas rose. He reached for his bags in the rack overhead.

“Think you can find it, all right?” Job asked.

“The school? I—I guess so—Aren’t you coming with me?”

“Want me to? Sure! I’ll be glad to!”

“I thought—”

“I’ll tell you what, Luke, if you can find it yourself it’d be a help. Fact is, I have to get to Lankasville.”

“Oh . . . I didn’t know . . . Why, sure, Father! Sure I can find it! Don’t you worry for a minute! Everything’s swell!”

“Because if it isn’t—if you want me—”

“No, sir! Absolutely not! I’m glad—I mean—”

“Now you just tell me, Luke! It won’t take a minute! It’s just that I’ve just got time to make connections to Lankasville and if I go with you—”

“It’s silly, Father. There’s no need—”

“I guess you can find it, all right—”

“Of course I can!”

“Just get right into a cab—here!” Job’s hand dove into his pocket and emerged with a bill. He pressed it into Lucas’ hand.

“I don’t need it, Father! I’ve got plenty—”

“You just take that and pay the man out of it and he’ll set you right down at the door. There’s ten dollars.”

“But it’s too much! Honest, Father—”

“Keep it! There’s a little extra for you.”

The train was stopping. They made their way down the aisle. They stood on the platform.

“Well, Luke—”

They looked at each other uncertainly. They embraced awkwardly, quickly.

“Well, boy—”

Lucas got down from the train quickly.

“Goodbye, Father . . .”

“Take care, now!”

“I will, Father . . .”

“Be a good boy . . .”

“Don’t worry—”

“If you need anything—”

The train began to move.

“Goodbye, Father—”

“Goodbye, Luke—”

“Write me—”

Job waved. The car passed. Another car succeeded it. Lucas stood alone on the platform.

A cab driver picked up his bags.

“Take you there and set you down for a dollar’n a quarter.”

Lucas nodded. The man turned and slouched toward his cab. Lucas followed him. His home was behind him and he was on his way to school and life had evolved to this, this day, and this beginning. And he remembered where he was and walked more quickly.

★ CHAPTER 10

The enrollment he had so long desired and of which he had dreamed with such excitement and longing passed in a succession of clerical progressions through which he moved prosaically and at the end of which he found himself adrift again, trudging toward Saylor Hall and the roommate to whom he had been assigned.

As he walked, one of hundreds of young men swarming erratically over the lawns and gravelled walks of the campus, the severity and ominous exactness of the college buildings penetrated his loneliness. He was dimly aware of the long, the wide, green acres, the river beyond, and behind the campus buildings, the fields and the woods which bordered them. He was jostled many times by the excited youth about him and each time shyness suffocated him and he felt more alien.

He came to Saylor Hall, he mounted the stone steps, he passed inside, he climbed again, he walked down a corridor, scanning doors, he retraced his steps, he read the names on the door cards more carefully, he stiffened suddenly, his own name startled him and beneath his name Alfred Boone, his roommate, a stranger. He looked at the door uncertainly. He read the names again. Finally he opened the door of his home.

There were three persons in the small room. Two of them, adults, a man and a woman, sat on one of the narrow beds. The third, a young man his own age, looked at him from before one of two bureaus.

“I’m Alfred Boone,” the young man said after a moment. He came forward, his hand outstretched. Lucas put down his suitcases uncertainly. They shook hands. “This is my mother and father.” He gestured to the bed.

“He’s hogged the best bureau, he’s got the best bed, and if I were you I’d make him start all over again,” Mr. Boone said calmly.

“How do you do,” Lucas said, confused.

“Don’t hit him too hard,” said Mrs. Boone, “just hit him once and get it over and we’ll all go out to supper together.”

The young man bent his head toward them briefly. “Jokers!” he explained. “You can have any bed you want. Any bureau appeals to you. We sat here for a while waiting and then—”

“It’s all right,” Lucas muttered in an agony of shyness. “I don’t care—”

“That’s no way to begin with him,” warned Mr. Boone. “If I’d beat him early enough I’d still have a tie left. And take this bed, the one we’re sitting on—it’s the softest.”

“Did you come alone?” Mrs. Boone asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucas said.

“I’ll tell you what you do, why don’t you just drop everything and let’s go out and eat?” Mr. Boone said quickly.

“Unpack!” cried Mrs. Boone. “Hurry up and unpack! Get it over!”

Flurried, Lucas hastened to open his suitcases, the room was quickly divided, the belongings of both young men were as quickly put away. Lucas covertly examined these strangers.

They were complete strangers. The mother and father did not behave as parents; their behavior was outside his experience. Their good humor and their joking were reminiscent of Job, but Ouida regarded levity suspiciously and rebuked it often. Here there was disconcerting poise and easiness.

And these people liked each other. This was evidently long habit and to them an unremarkable fixture in their relations. He observed them warily. Alfred Boone he could not classify at all.

As they ate together in the small university town Lucas’ confusion grew. They talked without preamble of anything, he could not anticipate their next thought. They included him in their intimacy and this equality and regard drew him mightily and at the same time surprised him and made him anxious. He responded timidly. He did his best to join them and to respond as they responded, but he did not know how.

They were very happy together. There was finally no doubt of that. And as it became evident that this was their normal condition he forgot his apprehensions. He saddened; he pitied them, he grew warmly fond of them and he wanted to protect them from the unsmiling world he knew lay about them, the harshness they ignored and the cruelties and the disappointments of which they seemed serenely unaware. Life had taught Lucas that laughter was a brief joy, unexpectedly come and always followed by some reciprocal sorrow or gravity and he was concerned for them because he thought all humans, and especially older humans, knew this.

He looked at the three he had just come to know and it touched him, their kindness, and his heart was wry with pity for what must come to such nice and such kind people. He coveted their affection, their ease, and their incomprehensible happiness.

“You’re going to be a doctor too?” Mrs. Boone asked.

“Yes,” said Luke eagerly, come to a world he knew. “Yes, I am going to be a doctor.”

“You and Alfred. But why?” she asked suddenly. “What is there about Medicine that attracts you, Luke?”

He looked at them shyly, as always nonplussed, unable to form a sentence which would explain clearly to himself how urgent the reason was and how watery the words, an ocean of words, each word a wave, the waves slipping one into another.

“Alfred’s a joiner,” Mrs. Boone said. “If there’s a club or a fraternity Alfred wants to join. Medicine’s a fraternity. So Alfred wants to join.”

“Listen to her!” said Alfred. They looked at Luke.

They saw a pale young man, the skin a little moist with nervousness, drably dressed, thin, peering at them nervously, anxiously, and uncertainly. There is in most young men the bloom of the year’s youth behind them and the mold and set of the year in which they find themselves. On Lucas there was set boy and young man, and the spirit between wavered, made no choice, remained still, waited for further instruction.

He is a handsome thing. Mrs. Boone looked at Luke searchingly. Lovely eyes. Girls are going to like that mouth, the curve of that lower lip, the little line of cruelty there—is it cruelty there at the corners? No mother, poor darling. Pity his father was too busy to come with him. So young. And something in him so old. Something hard, something far beyond Alfred. Force for himself? Or for what he wants? Poor stick! Those clothes! And she looked away then at Alfred.

He’s got to get out of himself, Mr. Boone decided. Alfred’ll take care of that. Otherwise he’ll sit in corners. That’s his type. Nice-looking kid. Too shy, though. Goes beyond shyness.

He isn’t what I had in mind, Alfred thought philosophically. Looks like a student. Oh, well! I’ll have fun elsewhere, and I’ll study with him. No trouble, though . . . that’s one thing. . . .

He won’t hurt me, Lucas thought, peering sidelong at Alfred’s face, his large nose, his short brown hair, his thin, angular and tall frame. The impact of these three friendly persons eddied warmly toward him and he abandoned an outpost of his reserve.

“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor,” he blurted.

There was a faint check in the flow of conviviality. It was as if he had shown an arm suddenly naked that ought by rights to be in a coat sleeve.

“Always?” echoed Mrs. Boone.

Luke nodded. He was alone, again. Somehow he had gone too far.


That night Lucas found the darkness comforting. It hid him, it protected him, it made all one. Again the feeling of strangeness, of being a stranger from an outer world, came over him as he thought of Mr. and Mrs. Boone, these parents, these parent quantities, these solid, warm, protecting and protected, these at-ease people.

His wondering slowed. He drowsed in the nearness of sleep. He roused abruptly. His belly was hard with sudden excitement. He was come to the beginning.

A wave of friendship for the creature in the other bed who would share this college living, this great adventure, who was himself, his own counterpart except that his manners were different, who now dreamed the same dreams, made him secure, made him not alone, and he drowsed and sleep washed him warmly onto the dark reaches of unconsciousness.

In the morning he registered for courses with Alfred.

“It’s going to be a long wait,” he said dubiously when registering was over.

“Two years?” said Alfred incredulously. “Why, it’ll be over like that! Then the real work begins!”

“Chemistry and physics and math and history and English—what do we need all that for?” Lucas despaired. “That’s what makes it so long. Why can’t we just take what we’ll need in Medicine—and that’s all. We could do it in eight months!”

“All I know is we’ve got two beautiful soft years to play.”

“Two years!”

“You act like you want to start Medicine right now!”

“I’ve been studying with doctors,” Lucas confided.

“The hell you have!”

“All that history and English and stuff—”

“That makes you a gentleman, my boy. A gentleman and a scholar and a college man.”

“All I want to be is a doctor.”

“You’re nuts, boy. I’m going to do like the man said—spend the next three days getting acquainted with our fellow convicts.”

“Let’s walk around, first.”

“Hell, the buildings will be there. We’ll see enough of them! Gotta make contacts, son!”

He walked with Lucas over the campus. Lucas consulted the small printed map of the university.

“Let’s go this way!”

“Wonder where that guy came from—looks like a South American. . . . There’s a guy dressed like a college man, that’s a sophomore, sure! . . . Boy, look at him! . . .” Alfred examined the humans about him with interest and absorption. Lucas pressed on. At the medical buildings Lucas stopped, open-mouthed. He drew a deep sigh. Alfred looked at him quickly.

“Is this what you wanted to see?”

“Look!”

“It looks just like the rest!”

The brick walls of the medical college rose before them, stiff and serene, and, to Lucas, remote as Carcassonne.

Alfred shifted embarrassedly.

“Look at those guys going in and out,” he said tactfully, hoping no one would notice Lucas staring thus. “Older fellows, aren’t they? Boy, they got a grind. And do they know it! Look at those faces.”

Lucas gaped at the privileged and ordained, passing quickly and silently in and out of the medical-college buildings. They talked to each other soberly, in low voices, their foreheads were creased anxiously. That older man, that adult, was surely a professor, and as he watched, the students divided respectfully to let him pass; at the other college buildings he would have been jostled unceremoniously.

“Two years!” Lucas murmured, shaken.

“Long enough! Come on! We’ve seen it! We got work to do. We got to get acquainted. Let’s go where we belong!”

Slowly and unwillingly Lucas moved away, looking to the last, hungering for the place where he belonged.

At Saylor Hall Alfred moved from room to room, making friends, selecting carefully, casting his lot among his own. Obediently, Lucas followed him. They found their eating hall, they moved leisurely about the athletic fields, strolled to the nearby town. On the way Alfred picked up a small covey of other young men. Gradually, Lucas drifted to the outside of the group.

Next day Lucas left Alfred to further acquaintance making. He walked about the entire university. In an hour he was loitering again outside the medical buildings. Late in the afternoon, emboldened by familiarity, he sat on the steps of one of the buildings, straining his ears to catch a stray word from the passing students, words in the Language. Later, he loitered about the hospital, watching patients enter, trying to guess their ailments, watching the doctors drive up at the rear, seeing the brisk, white hustling of nurses.

In the months to come he would linger and hunger often. Occasionally a medical student would greet him, and he would thrill and stiffen with embarrassment, and in a few moments the medical student would discover that he was an outlander and mumble awkwardly and walk on. And Lucas would stare after him, gratefully.

Two years.

But he was in college. Now he was here. Nothing would ever break his hold.

There were some of his fellows who in after life, triggered by certain memories, would leaf with thickened fingers through their recollections and, like a man pawing his pocketbook for a weathered snapshot, produce a happy memory of a happy college life, a single feeling that summed it all, an involuntary smile at the memory of play, of young being young among young. There would be a few, like Lucas, who in after years and as long as they lived would remember college as their home, the first loved home since their birth, the home they preferred to all homes, all caves, all parents, all rules, organizations, hearths, cradles, and hunting packs on the planet.

In this place, subject to a few simple rules, he was free. And he could spend his days, and his nights too, if he liked, it was all up to him, his mind a hone on which his vector sharpened, studying fiercely and endlessly and implacably, deliriously free to follow the direction of his force.

Alfred, who took the same subjects, studied little, threw his books impatiently aside, dressed himself with great care and fled. Once or twice during the first week, estimating guiltily that Lucas was either poor or shy, he was on the point of speaking, of inviting Lucas to go with him, he had almost lipped the words into the air. He checked himself each time. Lucas’ face, studying, was unconcealed pleasure. It was inconceivable, seeing him, that he could be happier.

They were very friendly. They liked each other. They were very cheerful together, they became good friends quickly. And Alfred waited patiently for the day when Lucas would be bored with study, when fatigue would provide him with an opportunity to show Lucas the world.

This day never came.

To Lucas, Alfred was incomprehensible. Alfred was a human without a visible plan and without any goal. He was not troubled by the differences between them. Long ago he had found that life as other boys lived it was not his.

In their first days together he was frightened for Alfred and amazed by him. To Alfred each hour of the day was an hour for play, each moment that could be borrowed or stolen or preempted. He played even in classes. He made the most of his freedom.

Little by little Lucas realized that most of the boys at college were like Alfred. The college went comfortably on, the days, the weeks passed. There was no day of reckoning. When Alfred fell behind, as he frequently did, Lucas was relieved to loan him his notes, to work with him. Helping Alfred made him part of the cosmogony of youth, of the youth around him, of the circle he contacted but inside whose circumference he did not live.

He felt no superiority. He felt a difference between himself and them. But as this difference had always existed he did not feel set apart by it; it was his relation to the group.

Little by little Alfred drifted out of his life and out of his considerations. They slept in the same room, they were warm and friendly to each other, they lost their sense of unease and difference. They went their separate ways.


All about him swarmed the life of the college, the young men garbed ritually, speaking ritually of prescribed things, laughing a prescribed laughter, frowning with a prescribed contempt, the young men of the family Hominidae, jealous of their ritual, chosen young men, proudly alert to preserve their difference from the unchosen and from the world from which they had come and from the world into which they were destined, tightly organized chauvinists of prescribed youth, warriors for a four-year custom, the traditionless given a tradition.

When he first came Lucas felt himself an outsider. He walked humbly and looked about him anxiously. He knew no rules and he was self-conscious with the constant fear of offending, of placing himself outside the pack. He soon became aware that almost all the other young men who had been admitted with him walked as gingerly as he walked and were as apprehensive. Alfred was never apprehensive. Alfred had no fears. Alfred was serene.

“It’s easy!” he comforted Lucas. “Do as the others do. That’s all there is to it. Just do as they do.”

The uniform was simple and it was within the reach of even the poorest students. It consisted simply of battered and dirty white shoes with very thick soles, a rumpled raincoat, shirts with buttoned-down collar tabs, trousers of one color and coats of another. No one wore hats.

In a short time he was dressed in this uniform, and now in classes, as he moved about the campus, as he attended the excited rallies of youth, he felt himself to be indistinguishable from the rest. He relaxed. He obeyed the rules youth made for youth.

But there were also ritual noises, ritual thoughts, ritual attitudes, and ritual subjects, ritual amounts of study and play and ritual forays into the terrain of the adult, into the privileges of adult warriors, which included drink, marriage practice, communal smoking, and tribal conference.

And in the vicinity of these things Lucas remained self-conscious, mindful of an audience and aware that while the population of the college presented to the outside world the appearance of a tribe there were little lonely islands in it. And these islands remained lonely and apart. And he knew forlornly that he was one of these islands. He was one of a few dozen such islands, a youth incapable of youth on the common terms of youth.

They saw each other in libraries, inspected each other furtively, spoke rarely and stiffly to each other, fearful of being identified for what they were. They came to know each other by sight, to be able to recognize themselves in occasional newcomers. They kept to themselves. They hoped not to be noticed.

Sometimes in the evenings Lucas thought of Ouida and wondered where she had gone. The impact of her living remained. Her condition was death, she was dead and he knew she was dead. But the impact of Ouida was so strong that he did not think of death seriously in connection with her. She was gone.

The mosaic of mother-days moved across his memory, the face of Ouida, the feel of her, the sound of her voice. But each time his memory was imperceptibly less keen, the sharp stone become rounded pebble.

He longed to be as other boys, to think their thoughts, to have their horizons, to be friends, to have friends, to be one with this enormous family. There was not a week when he was not hurt in some little way or some great way by being excluded, by a casual look, by a conversation made across him as though he were not there, by parties organized in his presence to which he was not invited.

At these times he would remember Dr. Kellogg, or Dr. Alexander, or Dr. Dwyer, and the long hours sitting on the steps, waiting for the sound of the doctor’s horse.

It was not difficult to re-enter that old and happy world. It was very real and to enter it was like turning a page in a worn and much read book. It was a place to which he could return at will, a place of need, a sanctuary.

One day, when he had been in college nearly five months, he put aside his studies early and walked to the town. He loitered from street to street inspecting shop windows. From time to time he saw other college boys. For the most part they were in groups or in pairs and they were obviously abroad on errands. They talked animatedly, an aura of excitement and pleasure in their very walk.

Lucas listened avidly. He tried to understand their excitement, to be excited himself. They were completely absorbed in their errand. They were delighted with what they were doing and they were one with each other. If he could just learn the secret, Lucas yearned, if he could overhear some word, see some action, some gesture, the whole structure of their society would be clear to him. He could be one with them. He did not seriously consider the possibility that total absorption in socks could ever root itself in his living and outlook and become part of him. He wanted only to perfect himself in the appearance of interest so that he could pass muster as one of them, be a unit in the organized army of youth about him, enjoy their games, have their fun, and, even not enjoying, still be part, undetected and unchallenged.

It was quickly over. The three went out, talking loudly, headed on some absorbing errand elsewhere. The clerk walked slowly to Lucas.

“Interested in some ties?”

“Some socks, maybe,” Lucas said hopefully. He felt bold.

“And what size?”

Lucas obediently balled his fist and held it out to the clerk. The clerk looked at it a moment, surprised, then picked up a pair of socks, wrapped it around the fist, tried another pair.

“That’ll be eleven. Any particular color?”

“Gray ones.”

“Six gray—that’ll be twelve dollars.” The clerk turned to wrap the socks. Lucas flinched. Then, resolute to pay the price of fellowship, he put his hand in his trouser watch pocket. The pocket was empty. He had lost his summer wages. He had somehow lost forty dollars. He stared at the clerk in horror. In the next instant he was sick with shame.

“Oh, wait a minute!” he faltered. The clerk turned. “I just thought of something . . .” He started edging toward the door. “I better look mine over . . . make sure I get the right color . . . I just remembered—I’ll be right back—”

He wrenched the door open. He smiled, red-faced. He nodded reassuringly. He was through the doorway, he was on the sidewalk, he was safe. He walked rapidly away. Not daring to look back he turned the first corner. Two blocks later he halted before another shop window. He glanced covertly about. He was not being observed. He sighed. He walked slowly on. He could still feel the clerk’s eyes. He heard a hail, his own name called. He looked around, startled. Alfred was striding toward him, beaming, trailed by three other young men, strangers.

“Where you been, boy? What you up to?” Alfred slapped the point of his shoulder.

“Just looking around.” A warm wave of companionship and gratitude stiffened Lucas.

“Looking ’em over, huh?” He turned to the three. “You see? A fellow doesn’t know his own roommate. Here he is out picking ’em over. Hell, boy! I figured you’d be back studying!”

“Seen anything! Any poontang?”

“No good just walking the streets, boy,” Latimer said kindly. “We’ve tried that.”

“Imagine old Luke out cruising with the best of ’em!” Alfred said proudly.

“You get much?” Latimer asked anxiously. “Maybe he’s tapped a lode! These deep, quiet boys you never know!”

“Not a thing,” Lucas said earnestly. “Not a one.”

“We’re organized,” Alfred said. “Travel in packs, that’s the only way. System. Latimer’s the sex fiend, old man experience. Ellways is the big broad athletic type.” Tall and rangy Ellways grinned self-consciously. “Travis is the clothes department.” Travis smiled serenely, beautifully and faultlessly dressed, careful and careless. “And I’m just a big-brother, joiner type. Can’t miss. One of us has to get in.”

“He could be the country-cousin type,” Ellways said earnestly, nodding at Lucas.

“The fellow a girl has to trust,” pondered Latimer.

“Come on in,” Alfred urged enthusiastically.

“I will!” Lucas said gratefully.

“Sure!” said Travis.

A pair of girls passed, talking animatedly, pretending to ignore the group.

“Hey!” called Latimer.

One of the girls turned her head and looked at the group coldly. Lucas shrank guiltily.

“How do you do, how do you do, how do you do!” called Ellways. The girl stared at them indignantly, tossed her head, said something to her companion. They giggled and walked on. Lucas looked about uncomfortably, agonizedly sure the whole street was watching.

“Well come on, come on!” cried Alfred. Latimer was already walking toward the retreating girls, followed by Travis. Lucas hung back. “Hey!” Alfred stopped. “Aren’t you coming, Luke?”

“Too many,” Lucas said. “You got enough—”

“Plenty for all!” Alfred protested, his head turned to Lucas, his body walking after Travis, Ellways, and Latimer.

“You go ahead,” Lucas said. “I’ll see you later.”

“Try the Goodhue Candy Shop!” Alfred admonished. “It’s always loaded—I’ll see you—I’ll see you back in the room—”

He hurried after the others. The girls rounded a corner. The boys followed. Lucas was alone again. He walked on. He lingered outside the windows of clothing stores looking at the clothes there, clothes that belonged uncompromisingly to young men of another world. Now with the loss of the forty dollars he was incomparably poorer. He sighed and walked on. Now he studied tobacconists’ shops, studied the pipes, looked curiously at the brown heaps of tobacco, read the exotic names. Then there were shoe shops and he peered at the smart shoes, hopelessly expensive, made to be scuffed to the college pattern. For as long as he could remember Ouida had made taking care of clothing an article of faith. He came to a book store. He felt at home, he had a right here. He looked at the books in the rack outside, fearlessly picked one up, examined it, casually set it back. He lingered here some time. No clerk came out. Reluctantly he walked on. It was getting late. He had missed dinner. He turned toward the campus. It was twilight when he reached the green, saw dimly the familiar buildings, the gravelled walks. In the gloom he began the long trudge toward Saylor Hall. The college streets were dark now, and deserted. He saw other figures only occasionally. He walked on into the night. To his right he heard suddenly the soft sound of music. He looked ahead. Lighted windows made a golden halo in the night. It was a fraternity house. Concealed in the darkness he walked toward it. He peered furtively at the windows. Inside a group of young men crowded about a piano. They were singing together, a hymn of youth, a hymn of being together, inarticulate with song, rapt, lost in happiness, their arms about each other’s shoulders.

Now the night was more lonely and he stood solitary, a small figure in the empty darkness.

A new song began. He walked on. The darkness of the campus enfolded him. The sound of singing dwindled. In a few more paces the light was gone. Then the sound was gone. Beneath his feet the gravel crackled. Ahead was the dark bulk of Saylor Hall. He climbed the granite stairway.

In his room a letter from Dr. Alexander was waiting:

“Hope you are getting along all right, but knowing how much this means to you I am sure you are. I don’t know whether this will help or not, at least not right now, but some time ago I promised you a letter of introduction to a former classmate and here it is. His name is Grover Aarons, and he is full professor of pathology at the medical college. Might drop in on him and make yourself known. You remember that farmer with the wen on the side of his neck? Finally took it out last week and found a needle embedded in the tissue alongside. Said he swallowed it when he was ten years old. All good wishes and we expect great things of you. Sincerely, George Alexander, M.D.”

★ CHAPTER 11

He came into the hospital, the first he had ever entered. He looked about him acolyte-hungry, and all about him was the incense of the temple, the smell of formaldehyde and alcohol, of mercury and iodine and a hundred other chemicals, all subtly blended, suspended, linked to tissue and blood and bone and the skin of man and his inmost fluids.

It was not a boy, not a young man standing there on stones the nameless had joined with cement, the forgotten had quarried. It was spirit, the inner drive of man, of this one man, spirit born and aged in the birth-instant, spirit without years and beyond time, and this stood waiting for the vessel of flesh in which it was contained to carry it forward to the world in which it could be God.

He stood inside the hospital for the first time and what he saw and what he felt, all of this took no second, no interval, but a soul’s time, a time without time, as brief as the instant before Creation and as long as all the lives of such as he that had ever been lived before him.

He found his way to the office of Grover Aarons. Grover Aarons, who began life as a Yeshiva student faraway in New York’s crowded Williamsburg section, studying Talmudic law, studying, arguing interminably the points some sharp Jew might one day throw at him and he a rabbi and unless he argued now unable to answer that black day. And in the middle of it, well on his way to become a rabbi, he was troubled for an inner speaking. It did not come all at once, but gradually, pushing hard against the vessel of himself until he had to listen. And more or less, a little here, a little now and a little then, so kill him for it, he had always kind of half wanted, maybe—oh, it was an impulse, probably, just an interest—he had always wanted to become a—let us say it—to fool around, to dabble in, to learn a little more about—well, to study Medicine.

And the day came, the middle of his becoming a rabbi, when gradually stopped and imperative began. And if he was an ocean the waves of him heaved, the storms tore, the typhoons reared, the tumult was like death, like a loved one dying that must be prevented, must be held back, shriek, pray, clutch, scream, weep, beg, grovel. And then let go. And he let go. And they let go. All about him let go. And he was dead. And he left the Yeshiva and went to school to become a doctor.

Well, and now he was a doctor, and all he had to do was become an intern, only Jews don’t just pick a hospital and at Jewish Hospital there were already too many Jews, and he got in anyway, and then he went away. He didn’t set up a practice. He wanted to practice Medicine, not to heal Jews, and he wanted to practice without let wherever and whatever Medicine he wanted, and to do that he had to find some spot on the planet, some spot in the country on the planet where he was nationed, where they seldom thought about Jews, where they thought about Jews just a little.

He came to this backwoods where few people had ever seen a Jew and didn’t really know one if they saw one and had only a tribe’s, a community’s, distrust of a newcomer. And after a year of practice, of no practice at all, he applied for a teaching job at the university. And now he had been there ten years. Now he was professor of pathology. Now he had nothing to do with patients. Now he had only to do with the tissues of patients, of what made them die. Now he had only to do with Medicine. With the books and the instruments and the tissues on which it practices. And what geist he had, what vector, urge, impulse, soul and spirit, funnelled itself here, into this pathway, and the pathway developed, and he became a pathologist, not just a name, not just a function, but all its eating, living, and breathing, thinking, dreaming, and aspiring entity.

He was forty-four. He was five feet four inches, he weighed one hundred and sixty-two pounds, he was small-boned, his hair was brown and crisp, his eyes were gray, his face was a pointed oval, his hands were pale again, his face was lined to laugh at himself, his eyes were lined to be rueful, to be wary, to be angry before the blow, to laugh in relief.

He looked at Lucas and his first thought was that here was a student who was about to fail and who had come to plead with him. And the second thought was that he would be easy on him, he was no enemy, he was harmless, he was plainly frightened, desperate, cornered, intense, and it mattered horribly. He would be easy on him.

And Lucas handed him the letter.

“Sit down, sit down.” Grover Aarons waved his hand, opening the envelope.

Lucas, sitting, watched him read. He came to the end, began halfway again and read to the end again. Then he studied the desk a moment, put down the letter, looked up at Lucas and smiled.

“Wanted to be a doctor long?”

“As long as I can remember.”

“Some doctors make a lot of money. Every man owes it to himself to get security, to lay it up for the day when he can do his own research. There’s money in Medicine . . . honest money . . . there’s no question of it . . .”

Lucas looked away in embarrassment.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Every man’s got his heart fixed on a sum. A certain sum. How much money do you think you’ll need?”

“I don’t know . . . I never thought of it . . . I guess I want to make money, all right . . . You have to make money . . .”

And Aarons thought, All right, he’s not in it to make money. It isn’t money he wants. All right, it’s not money.

“Kind of small place, Milletta . . .”

“Yes, sir.”

“No hospital?”

“No, none. Sometimes Dr. Alexander puts a patient up at his house. Not often. Children mostly, after a tonsillectomy—”

“Farmers make money too. They must make money or there wouldn’t be three doctors in such a small town. But a lot of fellows, me included, don’t like farming, never would make a farmer. I guess it’s easy to get bored in a small town. All farm kids seem to try to break loose, get away, go to the cities. Any profession must look glamorous to them.”

“Maybe so . . . I never thought of it quite like that—do many of them leave to be doctors?”

“I guess not many of them do at that.”

“Maybe veterinary doctors.”

All right, thanks for saving my face. All right, so it isn’t glamor, it isn’t let’s-get-away-from-a-small-town, it isn’t not-be-a-farmer. Whatever it is I’ll be easy on you, you tried to put me at ease, that was kind, “maybe veterinary doctors,” you were trying to help me out. It isn’t money, then, and it isn’t running away and it isn’t the lure of glamor and position.

“I guess a few of them do become vets, at that. That’s probably it. I wouldn’t have thought of it. You say this is the first hospital you’ve been in?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Kind of exciting, eh? What did you think of it?”

Lucas looked at him, his eyes shining. He smiled.

“Really liked it, eh? It does that to all of us. There’s something dramatic about a hospital—life and death under your hands—there’s something about a doctor, learned, wise, clad in white wisdom, the ancient robe of the seer—healing in his hands—intellect in his eyes, the eyes of the world on him, pleading, hoping against hope, and the doctor is the last resort, awful as Jove, the right hand of God, to give and to take, the last appeal.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Doesn’t it ever hit you that way?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Doesn’t the prospect of your being one of these doctors thrill you, exalt you? Isn’t it a great prospect?”

“Yes, sir,” Lucas said dutifully.

All right, so it’s not drama, it’s not money, not escape, not position. We’re coming to it, my boy. We’re narrowing it down. You haven’t got many left.

“Of course there’s some of us who just like to study. And when I say study I mean study Medicine. Many of the greatest discoveries that have ever been made have come from people like that—spending days and weeks and nights and years over a lonely table in a laboratory, failing, starting again, failing, starting again, never quitting, learning, always learning. Learning for the sheer sake of learning. That’s one of the things that grips any medical man through and through. You like to study?”

“I love it, sir. Medical study.”

“The more you study the more you’ll find that all study is medical study—all learning is learning, it’s an apple for every man’s bite. Engineers, farmers, doctors, musicians—they’re all nibbling at the same apple. That’s what you like, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s a good thing you do. Now let’s take something else. Now of them all which do you like best?”

“Which do I like best—”

“Which part about Medicine draws you hardest? Which of the ones I’ve mentioned?”

Lucas moved uncomfortably.

“All of them draw you equally? Come now!”

“Well, not money. I need money—but not money. Not to become a doctor just because of money. No, sir. But all the rest.” And those are just words that cover the surface. They tell something of what you feel about something but they’re just terms of agreement. So I feel all that. And I say yes. Because there isn’t any other word I know that says yes and means the whole iceberg and not just the tip that’s showing. And it’s all that, all you’ve said. “Only there’s something more,” he blurted.

“Some specialty—some special field—a brain surgeon, maybe—” Dr. Aarons said gently.

“No—I don’t know yet—maybe there would be a field. But I don’t think so. Not one field. That doesn’t feel right. It’s something else. It’s healing—”

“You feel pity, you can’t help yourself—”

I’ll say yes. But I don’t mean pity. “I’m going to be honest. I don’t feel much pity . . .”

“Well, you don’t cure patients with pity—”

“I want to heal, all right. That’s true. That’s pity, maybe. It’s more like seeing a picture hanging crooked on the wall and itching to straighten it and no matter what happens you must straighten it—”

“Whether it’s a chromo or a Rembrandt—”

“It doesn’t matter. And it’s something else. I used to feel it when I’d ride with the doctors on calls, Dr. Alexander, mostly, he took me more than the rest. It was interest, that’s an awful word, I don’t know the word, it’s something more, something you have to do—because—because—”

“A monkey climbs—a dog barks—a horse runs—a cow gives milk—”

“That’s right! That’s it! It’s for you. It is you! It’s your whole everything, it’s what you do because—”

He looked at Dr. Aarons helplessly.

“Because it comes from inside. Because all the rest comes from the outside to the inside—money, position, dramatics, study for the sake of study, all the rest are surface things to which you react. But this is reaction itself, produced of itself, produced when you start living and your genes tell you: ‘Go!’ ”

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas gratefully.

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir . . . and more . . .”

“Yes . . .”

So that’s it. One in ten million. One in a hundred million. That’s two I’ve seen. I’m forty-four, now, and that’s two. So that’s it. You poor, poor son of a bitch, you poor driven Thing, you nebulae of genes and God knows what, you’re for it, you bastard, you don’t know it, but you’re for it. Why didn’t you give it to me, God? Instead of only a piece of it? Just enough to recognize it in somebody else? What’ll he do with it? Look what I’ve suffered and I’ve only got a piece of it! Look at that lucky young, ignorant, shiny-eyed, look at that, look.

And in this silence Lucas looked at Dr. Aarons respectfully.

“That pre-med . . .” he ventured deprecatively.

“The pre-med? Yes, the pre-med. Yes. What you want to do is plunge right in. But you have to know how to talk, after all. A doctor is a gentleman. Culture is important. Two years isn’t much. You’re almost through your first, right now. Tell me—what did you say your father did?

“He’s a harness maker, sir.”

“A harness maker? Are they still making harness? In this day and age? Who would have believed it.”

“He doesn’t make it, sir. He sells it.”

“Enough to see a fellow through medical school anyway!”

“Oh yes, sir!”

“Harness stores! And all I see is automobiles! Tell me, is that a good business, harness? Hasn’t it fallen off? Surely it’s fallen off a little!”

“You never can tell with Dad. This time next week he may have a dozen of them!”

“He sounds like a clever man!”

“Oh, he is! There’s no stopping him.”

“And your mother? Ah! . . . I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.” It was recent. The eyes were still raw with it.

“Well, you’re all fixed then. I’m glad of that. To tell the truth I was worried about that. You can’t work your way through, you know. I did. But you can’t do it any more. And I only did part way. But you can’t even do that now. It was almost impossible then. But now—it’s impossible.”

Now I’m trying to frighten him. He’s frightened already. What do I want of his life? Can he help being what he is, what I remember? And with a father, God forbid, in the harness business.

“You say this is your first visit to a hospital? Come on. We won’t see everything, but I’ve got to go upstairs anyway.”

The first impact for Lucas was the first sight, the first floor, the first corridor, the first wheeled stretcher, the first glimpse into corridored rooms, the first white uniforms, the first wasted faces, the first smells, the first sense of another order, another system, another law. After that first impact the next corridors and the next rooms, the next patients, the next equipment, the next strangeness, were only successions upon an undigested first.

On the top floor there were no patients, only a long corridor and a corridor joining this at right angles, making a T. The bar of the T were the operating rooms.

“That’s where the mechanics work,” Dr. Aarons sniffed.

Lucas smiled obediently. He stared.

“That’s what the movies play up.” Dr. Aarons paused to let Lucas look. “In there is high drama, men in white fighting swiftly against death, flashing knives, blood flowing, mystery. In there is where little boys with pocket knives and thread do the same things over and over, by rote, like mechanics.”

Lucas smiled appreciatively, the smile covering a defensive feeling toward surgeons. He was troubled. Now he sensed that in the temple there were sects and that one sect rivalled another. He felt suddenly adult and self-conscious.

“Up to about a hundred years ago doctors ranked first and surgeons were barbers,” he said righteously.

“Hey!” Dr. Aarons stopped and stared at Lucas. “That’s right! Where did you learn that?” He was very pleased.

“I read it. I read it in some medical history.”

“How long have you been reading that kind of stuff?”

“Medical books? Since I was eight or nine. The doctors in Milletta used to loan me some. I read all I can get.”

“Anything special? Or whatever you can get your hands on?”

“It’s hard to get any kind of medical book. I just read what I can get.”

Dr. Aarons walked on again.

“I’ll see what I can do for you.” They reached the end of the corridor. Here there were two doors, one marked “Laboratory,” and the other “Pathologist.” “Here’s where I hang out.”

They entered a wonderland of gleaming glass, bent in fantastic shapes, crystal-thin, fat and swelling, incredibly complicated instruments, scales, fluids green, fluids red, fluids purple, bottles ranked formally, formally labelled, formally brown.

Lucas’ eyes rounded. He sucked in a quick breath. Dr. Aarons glanced at him sidelong.

“Full of junk,” he shrugged. “Everything’s a mess.”

Lucas looked at him incredulously.

“Got to be cleaned up,” Dr. Aarons grumbled. He walked to a table, picked up a tall beaker, glanced at the contents critically, set it down.

“What’s that, sir?”

“That?” Dr. Aarons turned back carelessly. He picked up a pronged instrument, fished in the graduate, brought up a dripping chunk of tissue. “Liver. Got to section it sometime tomorrow.” Lucas stared. Dr. Aarons dropped the tissue back into the graduate. “Make a slice of it—here—” he walked to the microtome and put a careless, loving hand on it—“freeze it with this—” he dropped his hand to the carbon-dioxide tanks—“mount the frozen section—” he picked up a box of microscope slides—“stain it—” he pointed to a row of bottles over a sink—“put it under the microscope.” The microscope, the research microscope, resembled no microscope Lucas had ever seen. It was a breathless beauty, the very light which served it was a unit as large as the brass tubes he had until this moment regarded so reverently in Dr. Alexander’s office back in Milletta and thought the final word in scientific wonder.

Dr. Aarons was watching him intently and casually.

“Ever seen a tissue slide?”

Lucas looked at him helplessly.

Deftly, Dr. Aarons slipped a slide into the graduated scale prongs, in almost the same motion flipped on the lights. Out of the black, crackled finish of the light box a cylinder of intense light bridged the two instruments. For a moment Dr. Aarons fiddled negligently with the adjustment knobs, peering through the microscope. He straightened abruptly.

“Here!”

Gingerly, Lucas bent to look.

“You’ll have to keep both eyes open. We won’t worry about that now. Someday you’ll have to learn.”

For a moment Lucas could see nothing. And then suddenly the field leaped out at him, a paralyzing wonder of purple, shading to red, an infinity of pattern, lines sharply defined, unmistakably cells. His head jerked up. He stared at Dr. Aarons.

“Cancer,” Dr. Aarons said briefly. “Those are kidney cells. Look like nails, don’t they?”

I’ve seen cancer. Lucas trembled with happiness. I’ve seen cancer and a human kidney. I’ve seen it! I’ve seen it! I’ve got to remember!

But Dr. Aarons was walking toward the door. Lucas followed reluctantly. “That’ll give you some idea. Here’s the stink lab.”

They entered a large room. Two women and a young man about three years older than Lucas looked up. The women were seated at microscopes. Nearby the young man was tending to distillation apparatus. Here too, wherever Lucas looked, was an unending wonder of bottles and glass tubing, strange and marvellous machinery, the pungent odor of bitter chemicals.

“This is Miss Dorchester—Miss Jeanette—Mr. Ahrlquist.” They smiled, waited, looking at Lucas. “This is Lucas Marsh, young fellow sent by an old classmate. Doing pre-med now. Expect to have him with us soon.” Ahrlquist turned back to work. The women waited.

“Pleased to know you,” Lucas mumbled.

“Been showing him the wonders of science,” Dr. Aarons said carelessly. “What did that blood picture show?”

“High eosinophile, fast sed rate.” Miss Dorchester smiled.

Lucas blinked. Her self-possession, the glibness with which she, a woman, a female, talked to Dr. Aarons on his own terms, was privy to the same knowledge, confused him. Her fine, reddish-blond hair wisped softly out of control about her triangular face, framed the prominent cheekbones, made her eyes more blue, her straight nose thinner, softened her wide, rather thin-lipped mouth. Lucas stared at her. Miss Dorchester colored, smiled friendlily, and turned back to her microscope.

“Going to have a late blood sugar for you today, Ruth,” Dr. Aarons said cheerily. And Ruth Dorchester looked up from the microscope, her shoulders sagged and she looked at Dr. Aarons in dismay.

“Oh, no!”

“That’s the third this week!” Miss Jeanette protested. “Why late? Why are they always late?”

Miss Dorchester was twenty-seven years old, but Miss Jeanette was thirty-six, and where Miss Dorchester was slim and as tall as Lucas, Miss Jeanette was of middle height and overweight. Her hair was black and her oval, kind, plain face had long ago given up the look a woman wears for suitors and the possible.

“We’ll never get home. Always at the last minute!”

“How about Ahrlquist giving you a hand—”

“I’m tied up on this alkaloid determination!” Ahrlquist said quickly and stubbornly. He was a thin and weedy youth, his face a little pimpled. At the hostility in his tone the women looked quickly away from him back to Dr. Aarons.

“Somehow you always manage to have some long-winded test under way when something like this comes up, don’t you?” Dr. Aarons said wearily.

“You want me to drop it?” There was a faint note of contempt in Ahrlquist’s voice.

“Get it over with,” Dr. Aarons sighed. “I’m sorry, girls.”

“Very glad to have met you!” Ruth Dorchester’s clear, high voice reached Lucas, who had turned with Dr. Aarons.

“And you, too.” Lucas whirled clumsily. But she had returned to her microscope and, belatedly, he turned again and followed Dr. Aarons out of the laboratory.

“Come back anytime,” Dr. Aarons said. “My liver is calling me. You can find your way out all right?”

“Oh, sure—I’ll be—”

“Wait! I forgot!” He turned the knob of the pathology-laboratory door. “I wanted to loan you some books.” Inside the room he looked at a bookshelf crowded with fat medical tomes. He paused in simulated vexation. “Pathology be all right?” he asked Lucas apologetically.

“Oh, fine, fine!” Lucas breathed.

“Well, I thought I had some others—but here’s two—you might look them over—should be a later edition—but you’ll get something out of them”—he handed them to Lucas and smiled full at him, friendlily—“with your background.”

Lucas’ eyes dimmed. “Thank you! I keep saying thank you, but—”

“Just bring them back when you’re through.”

The door closed. Lucas was alone in the corridor. He walked slowly, lingering. At the landing he looked back once at the laboratory door, then walked quickly to the floor beneath. An orderly moved swiftly and silently toward him, pushing a wheeled stretcher, on the stretcher a long, blanketed mound. Lucas stood aside to let him pass. From the mound came the odor of ether. At the point where the blanket ended there was a waxen, unconscious face, sexless, the head bound in a towel. This mounded being was in an unknown world. It had been sent there, it would be recalled, it had been opened, its dark secrets had been touched, its life had been handled and put back and sewed up. Now the blanket covered what had been done, and the smell of ether. Down the corridor two nurses bustled, their shoes white, their stockings white, their starched skirts moving crisply.

He turned to walk to the main floor. From the corridor in which he had just seen the nurses the crude clamor of shouting rose. He whirled.

Down the corridor an emaciated old man fled, shouting, his short gown flapping behind him. Down the corridor rushed an orderly, pursuing. From her desk in an alcove the charge nurse stepped out, her arms wide to stop the oncoming shouter. She turned to Lucas.

“Stop him!” she cried.

Lucas scrambled to sustain the impact of the escaping patient who charged into them blindly, never ceasing his wild shouts. An instant later the three were on the floor, Lucas’ books tumbling, and almost immediately the orderly had plunged atop the mass. The emaciated man struggled wildly and nakedly, then abruptly his hoarse shouts became low grunts. He subsided.

The charge nurse and the orderly led him back down the corridor.

“There’s nothing for you here,” the disarrayed nurse called angrily to the patients now standing openly gaping in their doorways. “Go back inside your rooms, please. Shut the door!”

They withdrew reluctantly. Lucas watched the trio enter a room far down the corridor. Panting a little he stooped to pick up his books. He picked up the nurse’s cap also. He brushed at it clumsily and gently. He held it, looking about him, at a loss what to do with it.

“Thank you very much.” The charge nurse had swiftly and soundlessly returned. She put out her hand, took her cap, and put it on quickly as if to cover a bit of nakedness.

“That’s all right.” Lucas brushed self-consciously at the top of one of the books, suddenly noticed blood smeared on the back of his left hand. He looked up at the nurse.

“He cut himself on a screen trying to get out of the window,” she said contemptuously. “You never know when they’re going to break out, good as gold days running and all of a sudden—They don’t belong here in the first place!” she said angrily. “Plus four! They’re mental cases—and that’s where they belong!”

She smoothed down her uniform indignantly.

“I’ll wipe that off for you—” she looked at the books—“Doctor . . .”

“That’s all right.” His voice came to him from a distance, he fumbled for a handkerchief, “I’ll get it.”

But she had magically produced a square of gauze and the hand he surrendered was clean and the pledget was out of sight.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said again, impersonally, and turned away.

Lucas walked shakily down the stairs. Plus four! That was syphilis! And plus four! That was the last stage, that was the stage where it attacked the spinal cord and central nervous system, syphilis, carried by the bloodstream, the blood fresh on his hand, seeking an entrance, blindly seeking, in the divine order of its unsinning, unmalicious, unalterable instinct, a scratch, a tiny scratch. Not infectious! he remembered clearly. It came back to him now. Not infectious in that stage. Almost not infectious at all. A danger to be thought about, to be treasured, and not a danger that could happen, but to treasure.

“It doesn’t pay to be morbid about such things,” Lucas said jubilantly. He said it aloud, walking. He looked about with concern. No one had heard him. It doesn’t pay at all, he reiterated proudly, silently, this time only in his thoughts. It doesn’t pay, Doctor. It won’t do. One can’t be morbid. One handles it, one grows careless. We all run into infection every day, Doctor. One can’t be morbid about such things!

He walked exultantly from the hospital. He walked down the steps. The odor of the hospital vanished. The fresh air was another world, but he was a doctor walking down the cement steps into this workaday world, and the place of mysteries, where every sound and every movement and every thought was ritual and concise, this enclosure shut from the world was behind him and the doctor walked away from it, the cord which bound him to it stretching thinner and thinner with each step he took, becoming evanescent, then invisible, then somewhere sundering, fading, gone.

He felt the weight of the books he was carrying. His spirits lifted, surged up as he looked at them, formal, blue, stamped with gold. And suddenly he could not wait to get to his room. He had to open them, to read them. He strode from the path and sat quickly under a tree. He opened the first book. The words ascended to his mind, incomprehensible, beautiful, more beautiful than any words that could be understood, he read with delight words that were old friends, medical words, medical meanings, medical language, and his fingers stroked lovingly the glossy paper, turned the pages tenderly, with reverent, dreaming care. . . .

And the man rushed down the corridor toward him, the old man, the thin gray hair flying, the wild, open mouth, the sparse hairs on his unshaven face, the gray lines, and they were on the floor, tumbling, and the thin body wrenching its bones incredibly. And there was blood smeared on the back of his hand. A thin smear of yellow-red blood.

“I’ll wipe it for you—Doctor!

He turned to the book hungrily.


The wad of bills that were his summer earnings had disappeared without trace. He quailed at the thought of writing to Job about the loss of a sum so great and determinedly budgeted the ten dollars that remained to him until the end of the month. In a few days he saw with despair that he had figured badly. Despite his sternest resolves he was spending a dollar a day for food. He was amazed at his lack of resistance and his self-indulgence but his amazement was of little practical use for it was never evoked when he was hungry.

It was apparent that the few dollars he had left would not carry him for the next sixteen days, when his allowance would arrive, and after classes on the day he had determined this he went into the town to look for a job.

There were no dishwasher jobs. There was a sign in the window of one shabby restaurant, but the proprietor peremptorily told him in the presence of a half-dozen disinterested customers that he wanted no college kids. Wherever he went, Lucas quickly saw, there was a prejudice against giving jobs to students. He bought a newspaper. At the beginning of his quest he had slunk from shop to restaurant. Now he studied the want-ad section boldly, standing on a street corner for all to see. There were very few employment ads.

Next day he went to the college administration building and asked for help. They looked at him in astonishment. They explained to him carefully that jobs were spoken for months ahead, that jobs were very scarce, that the town of Winthrop almost never had jobs for college students, having a chronic unemployment problem for its own non-collegiate employables.

He left the building dazed, enviously noting a student-janitor on his knees scrubbing a flight of steps. He walked toward town again. He counted his money. He had four dollars. He walked the streets of Winthrop, trying block after block. When the day ended he had canvassed even private homes. There were no jobs. There were no jobs anywhere. And his hunger was such, sharpened by the miles he had trudged and honed by his fear feeling the lonely four bills, that when he had done eating and turned back toward the campus he had only three dollars left.

The next day he had been looking less than an hour when he saw the sign. It stood in the window of an inconspicuous, small and dingy undertaking parlor. The sad-voiced man who opened the door to him nodded glumly when Lucas spoke of the sign in the window. He led Lucas to the display room and vanished in the gloom. Lucas looked cautiously about him. He was surrounded by caskets, their white-satin intestines blooming from sad openings where the polished lid would close, tilted, all of them, in a coquettish curtsy of the foot end so that their yellow, white, pink, and purple blandishment might be fully eyed in the covert glance they knew would be their portion.

“Sort of reproach you for being alive, don’t they?” a voice made Lucas whirl. A chubby man in his late twenties ran his hands lovingly over the soft pleated and ruffled comfort a corpse would never feel.

“You come for the job?” he said.

Lucas nodded.

“What kind of a job is it?” he whispered.

“What are you—apprentice? You know embalming?”

“Apprentice, I guess.”

“Gonna live in?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the job,” Lucas said rapidly. “I need a job—”

“It’s a beautiful line, isn’t it,” the chubby man admired the curtsying caskets and their spilth of foaming velvet. “You see that one over there? Nobody’ll ever buy that. Twelve hundred dollars. That’s too much. But it’s a show piece. Must have cost all of six hundred, just as she stands.”

“You’re an embalmer?” Lucas asked respectfully.

“But this is what I like,” the chubby man said. “Give me a salesman’s job—look at this stuff—how could you help but buy it. Do you know what the profit is on an item like this?” He dropped his hand reverently on a sleek brown casket. “That’s a seller. Costs two hundred. Sells for six. Just as fast as you can get them in.”

“They need a salesman?” Lucas asked hopefully.

“God, I don’t know what they need. Couple of Guineas running this place now, just bought in, God knows what they want. This is the one I want! Yes sir, when I go, brother, this is the one for me! Seven hundred and fifty smackeroos!” He patted the wooden friend respectfully. “Look at those handles!”

“You’d have that—knowing what they cost?”

“Somebody’s got to pay for them—and you can’t take it with you,” the chubby man said cheerfully. “You a salesman?” Then he looked past Lucas.

A dark woman stood in the doorway. She looked at Lucas searchingly. Then as wordlessly as she appeared she disappeared past the heavy drapes.

“Sizing you up,” said the chubby man. “I got to go. Good luck to you. If you want it.”

Lucas waited alone for a long ten minutes. The man who had admitted him reappeared abruptly.

“You an embalmer? Young fellow like you?”

“No, sir,” Lucas said. “Maybe I could be a salesman. I’m a student. I’m going to study Medicine. I need a job. I’d work real cheap—”

The man disappeared while Lucas was talking. This time he was gone only a few minutes.

“Missus says no,” he called out in a low tone.

“No chance at all?” begged Lucas.

The man stood silently aside. Lucas shivered. He passed through the drapes, he passed the silent man, he felt the black eyes of the woman boring from a recess of the dark hallway, there was no sound to his footsteps, the nape of his neck prickled, he opened the door with a jerk, he was outside and down the steps. A mud-stained newspaper floated down the sidewalk like a harlequin, a small breeze dropped it in the gutter. Lucas turned the corner. He walked quickly. He did not look back.

There were no jobs in Winthrop. There were no jobs at the college. For a man who wanted to work part time, and to select the hours he would work, the prospects were simply nonexistent. There were no jobs, at any price, anywhere.

Lucas borrowed five dollars from Alfred. Alfred gave him the money without comment. Lucas wrote Job. A few days later Job sent him ten dollars. A few days later he sent him twenty dollars more. Lucas repaid Alfred. Alfred accepted the payment without comment. After this he saw less of Alfred than ever. He walked about Winthrop by himself. He kept his money in his bureau drawer, never going out with more than two dollars in his pockets. Sometimes at nights he went into bars where no one spoke to him, he attended campus concerts, where people who did not know him nodded at him brightly and walked on, he browsed in book stores, he prowled the library, he lingered near the hospital. There was a drugstore near the campus and often he spent an idle hour there, surreptitiously watching the people who jangled in and out and wondering what they did and where they were going and whether they knew that he belonged to the college too, and perhaps they were classmates.

★ CHAPTER 12

The school term ended. The campus hived, swarmed, summer plans were buzzed, release was imminent, and youth busied itself deliriously with the coming explosion.

On the train bearing him home Lucas looked about him with a new self-possession and a new eagerness. When the train slowed he was waiting in the vestibule. He escaped down the train steps. He was home! The hot boards under his feet, the familiar station, the cinders, the sign, the shapes, sights, and odors, he embraced them with his senses, his hunger for them unslaked by the contact, made more keen by their promise of home. He looked about him, grinning. Behind him the train moved off. The station, the platform, were deserted. But home! he cried to himself silently. Home! he said fiercely. I’m home!

Hefting his bag he strode heartily toward the center of town and on all sides of him loved things fell into view, the dusty road, the town, the well-remembered stores—the harness shop. The door was closed. He looked through the window. The shop was empty. Charley’s off and Dad’s home, getting lunch—home. . . .

He made himself not run. He walked the remaining blocks with his head lowered. He looked up. The house was before him. He ran up the steps. He forced himself to walk slowly, he bit his lip for pain to compose his features. He rang the bell.

I’m a salesman, he rehearsed rapidly, got a fine line of leather goods, sir—

He could hear the bell ring. If Mother was here she’d say it’s a creditor, he grinned fondly. I’m a salesman, sir—and now he knocked, knocked loud, louder, banged confidently. The grin faded. He waited perplexedly. He shrugged good-humoredly. He tried the knob. The door did not open. It was locked.

He put his bag down. What the hell! he thought resentfully. He went to the back door. It was locked. He tried the windows, embarrassed. No one noticed him. Now he pushed at them, frankly tugged and pushed.

“By God!” he said aloud. “By God Almighty!”

He strode angrily to the shed, found an old table knife, returned to a window, tried to force the lock. The lock did not give. He jabbed harder, scarring the woodwork, careless, glad to be scarring it. The lock stayed fast.

He stood back, hands on hips, panting a little, surveying it.

“Well, I’m going to get in,” he said aloud. “I’m going to get in and that’s all there is to it!”

He picked up a stick. He weakened. I could go downtown. But what would I do there? I’m home! I want to get in!

He raised the stick and smashed a pane. He put in his hand and wrenched the lock open.

“There, by God!” he said grimly. He climbed over the sill. He walked through the house to the front door, opened it, retrieved his suitcase, looked inquiringly up and down the street. The street drowsed emptily. Far down a man slouched along slowly. He brought the suitcase inside the house. It was cool and smelled pleasant and musty. He shut the door. He dropped the suitcase. He looked about him. He drank it in. He was home.

He walked through all the rooms, treading the roses of homecoming, feeling the carpet here, the bare floor there, seeing the familiar doors, the woodwork, the rooms, the furniture, all dear to him, spoons, a nail, a table cover, a welcomer, a delight. For a while he sat in the kitchen, resting.

Slowly the emptiness of the house began to oppress him. Then faster and faster the oppression rushed in, the loneliness, the aloneness, the empty house. He leaped up. He went out quickly, strongly, the house behind him. He went to the harness shop.

“Your pa’s in Meridian,” said old Charley. “God, you’ve growed! Didn’t seem to know you was coming home today. Didn’t say nothin’!”

“I wrote him!” Lucas said resentfully.

“Didn’t say a word.”

Didn’t say a word! And he knew it! I wrote him over and over again. Not a word! Not to tell Charley, even!

“What time do you expect him back? I went to the house. I had to break a window!”

“By God!” Charley cackled delightedly. “Broke a window! Got in, did ya? No, he ain’t coming back today. Nope. Don’t look for him rightly, till day after t’morra! God, you’ve growed!”

In the quiet street Lucas fought down a sense of shame and resentment, a feeling of rejection, a feeling of being covertly observed and his rejection discussed. He looked about him for sanctuary. He remembered Dr. Alexander. He walked briskly in the direction of the doctor’s office. As he walked he noticed two new stores. Milletta had changed a little. There were more automobiles. There were few horse-drawn vehicles. Ahead of him, from the Milletta Bank building, stepped the familiar figure of Mr. Benjamin. Lucas slowed, hoping he was unnoticed. But Mr. Benjamin had seen him.

“Glad to see you, Lucas. Looking fine. Home for the holidays?”

“Yes, sir. About an hour ago. No, two hours—”

“How’s college?”

“I’m doing fine, Mr. Benjamin. Yes—”

“Glad to hear it. Just pay attention to your work and study. We all expect great things from you. That’s right.” He cleared his throat. “Your father about?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was just wondering if you’d seen your father. I was looking for him and—”

“He’s in Meridian.”

“In Meridian! I see. Yes, well . . .”

“Charley doesn’t expect him back today.”

“Not today, eh? How about tomorrow?”

“I think Charley said he’d be back tomorrow.”

“Yes, that’s probably so. Sure. Did he say what time tomorrow? I mean—about?”

“He just said sometime tomorrow.”

“I see. . . . Well, I’m glad to see you looking well, Lucas. Hope to hear fine things of you. Glad to see you home. Good day.”

Mr. Benjamin, whatever his errand was, turned and walked back to the bank. It must have been a busy day, Lucas reflected. The banker had been formal almost to the point of queerness. He had a brief moment of concern. He wondered at the banker’s transparent desire to see Job. But he had been reared in an atmosphere of concern; whatever it was, his father would maneuver out of it smoothly. People like Mr. Benjamin were his natural prey. He thought of his father as Ouida had thought of him, her outlook on Job was his, now. Out of sight, out of mind, he thought bitterly. I wonder what he’s up to now?

The white square of cardboard was on the doctor’s door. The arrow pointed to “Doctor Out.” Lucas sat on the steps. After a while he rose. There was Dr. Dwyer to visit and Dr. Kellogg.

As he had when he was a boy, Lucas strolled through the streets of Milletta seeking the doctors’ carriages. Dr. Dwyer was out. Dr. Kellogg was out. And on the streets of Milletta there were no doctors’ carriages to be seen. He walked a little further. He looked out over the ribbons of light brown, the empty roads leading into the countryside.

He gave up. Emptily, except for a sense of desolation, of loneliness, of rebellion, he turned back toward the center of town. He thought of the shop and began to walk faster. Perhaps his father had returned. He reached the shop, breathless. He peered inside. Except for Charley, working away on a long strip of leather, the shop was empty. He turned away. He stood uncertainly.

The street outside the shop was dusty, the grass died at its edge. He looked unseeingly at the remembered store fronts. This was home. He said it mechanically. I belong here. This is where I’m supposed to be. Here. He looked about him hopefully. There was neither welcome nor rejection. The day moved impersonally into time. I’ve got to go someplace, he said uncertainly. The town . . . the shop . . . the doctors . . . and then there was home.

Reluctantly, he walked homeward. He saw the empty house again. His steps echoed on the porch. He stood inside, in the hallway. The house was somehow stiller. It was emptier than before. It was a house, now. It was wood and plaster and wallpaper. It was a case of wood, full of rooms, smaller than he had remembered them, carpeted, furnished, inanimate, a picture here, a picture there, offering at no one, hanging, an empty house.

He looked about him awkwardly. He had a sudden sense of constraint, it was as if he had opened a door and walked into a stranger’s house, walked beyond the front door into forbidden territory, and stood now waiting for someone to appear, surprised to see him standing there. He felt a stranger.

“This is my home!” he said defensively, aloud.

He saw on a small table his mother’s picture, an old photograph, a picture of Ouida as a blooming and lovely girl. And at the sight of the stiff cardboard easel, the remembered face, longing and loneliness and yearning hollowed him, and the cemetery rushed into his mind and he turned gladly and fled the house.

He saw it at last, a small field, stone-fenced, on the edge of town. A breeze moved the quiet grasses and fanned his face. He had been walking very fast. He wiped his wet forehead on the sleeve of his jacket. He walked happily into the cemetery.

The cemetery seemed larger than he had remembered it. He walked confidently toward Ouida’s grave. He halted. The gravestones were unfamiliar. He must have taken a wrong turning. He had come to the wrong plot. He looked about him, alarmed. And then two plots away he saw it. A moment later he was standing by his mother’s grave. There was a gravestone there now. “Sacred to the memory of Ouida Marsh, Beloved Wife and Mother. Born 1880, Died 1921.” White stone, new-cut. The tumulus of earth that had pillowed over the form of Ouida was almost flat now. It mounded gently. It was no longer raw earth but sod. And grass had died and grass replaced it and there was no line of separation, nothing to show there had not been grass here always, the grass of the cemetery, as far as one could see.

Carefully, gently, Lucas sat beside the headstone.

He tried to think of what she would not know. There was nothing, actually. If she was right, she would know everything. She was here, she was everywhere. Tenderness flooded him at her nearness. After a while, feeling home with her, he raised his eyes, deliberately he forced himself to look at other graves, at the whole cemetery. He looked back at the small mound which covered Ouida. It was unchanged. And yet something had changed it. It was grass, now, part of the cemetery, the mound was identical with other mounds, that which was peculiar to Ouida, to dearness, to the personal, to privacy, to a place set apart, filled with presence, tangible with love, was suddenly impersonal. It was empty. Ouida was not there. He fought frantically to regain her. For a moment he succeeded, the place was alive with her, the instant was fragile, it broke, she was gone, he was sitting in an empty place, on earth, on sod, in a place used for a cemetery, beside a headstone, beside a hundred headstones, beside a hundred graves, and the wind, the curious, restless wind, rustled the grasses of all impersonally, the common wind, the common grass, the common sod.

He strained desperately to put this from his mind. He strained, aching, for the other feeling, the feeling of Ouida.

It was gone.

He left the cemetery. He walked back to the empty house.

Inside, he waited, looking about him, undecided. He picked up his suitcase. The day rushed through his mind. Step by step, incident by incident, frustration by frustration.

“No, by God!” he cried harshly. He shook with rage. He was blind with it. He smashed his fist against the stairway wall. “To hell with you!” he screamed. “To hell with the lot of you!”

He whirled, then, and walked out, slammed the door behind him, marched to the station, waited a fuming hour, boarded a train back to college.

He saw the buildings again with gratitude. He could not wait to be among them. For this was home now. This was all he needed. This was his. This could not be taken from him. This he had made. This was home.

★ CHAPTER 13

When the train stopped he had decided clearly what he must do. He alighted impatiently.

He faced the bursar confidently, smiling.

“I’m in a kind of pickle,” he confided. He smiled ruefully, a smile at himself, a smile to share with the bursar the way students were always getting into a pickle, always having to run to the bursar, the poor, long-suffering bursar, but what could a young fellow do?

The bursar permitted himself a half-smile, a movement of the lips, acknowledging the gambit.

“I was supposed to see Dad today—I went all the way home—and when I got there he’d been called out of town.” Lucas halted. He produced an embarrassed smile.

“What was it in reference to?” the bursar said warily, patiently.

“Why, you see we’d agreed on a summer term for me. I wanted to catch up on a lot of stuff we’ll have this fall—I’m taking a pre-med—and I’d—we’d talked it over and instead of wasting the summer he decided, sure, go ahead and take the summer course! It was only at the last minute—”

“We haven’t heard anything from him—” The bursar shook his head.

“I know! That was it! I was to go home, spend a day or so with him—you know how it is! He wanted to see me for at least forty-eight hours! After all, he doesn’t see me all year—and he was to give me a check and—”

“I’m afraid I don’t see what I can do—until—”

“My goodness! Can you imagine anyone in their right mind trying to get into summer school when he didn’t have to?”

“Yes,” said the bursar. “I can. As a matter of fact—”

“No! You’re joking! Actually conniving? When they don’t have to?”

“There have been cases—”

“Honestly!” Smiling, Luke shook his head in amazement, delighted, bemused, incredulous.

“I don’t say we run into it very often,” the bursar conceded, reluctantly accepting that Lucas was not one of these.

“It’s hard to believe . . .” Lucas shook his head, his voice trailed off. The bursar now believed him, and Lucas spoke with sympathy, helping the bursar to the next step.

“Yes . . . Well, now, in your case . . .” He tapped his teeth with a pencil. He frowned. “I don’t see what we can do . . . We’d have to have—”

“Gosh! Now I am in a pickle! You’ve been so understanding and kind, when I first came here—and I thought, well, it is a problem but if anybody can help you, that’s Mr. Johnson. So I came right to you. There’s nobody home and I came all the way back knowing matters were all arranged and here I am. And I—” He shook his head helplessly. He smiled a smile that was not a smile, that was just not tremulous.

The bursar cleared his throat.

“I appreciate your position. I’d like to help you. But you see—”

“Gosh!”

“If you had a letter, even, anything that would give us something to go by, some formal expression of intention—”

“A letter!” Lucas shook his head, hopelessly.

“Yes, some letter your father has written you, something in which he says—”

“Oh!” Lucas cried. “Oh, wait! His last letter—! Wait!” He searched his pockets feverishly. He looked at his suitcase. He bent as if to open it. “No!” He straightened. “No! I know where it is!” He grinned happily at the bursar, sharing his joy with him. “And it’s all there! How he wants me to go to summer school, how he’s glad I’ve agreed to go—it took a little persuading,” he confided sheepishly, “and how I’m to come home for two days and he’ll give me the check and I’m to have three dollars a week spending money—” He paused to get his breath, excited, relieved; a great sigh of relief swelled from him.

“Spending money?”

“Yes, he keeps me pretty short, doesn’t want me to have too much. I’ve got a couple of cousins, rich father, they’re pretty badly spoiled, he keeps pointing them out to me—but that’s enough. Goodness! I can do on that very well! Sure! As a matter of fact it took my last nickel for train fare—I’ll need the first week’s in advance—”

“You go get the letter—”

“I will!” He grabbed his suitcase. “I’ll be right back—thank you! Thank you, Mr. Johnson! I won’t be a minute—!”

He escaped from the bursar’s office. Still wearing the bright smile for all to see, he rushed out of the building, toward Saylor Hall. At a safe distance he discarded the smile. He licked his dry lips. Fear thickened in him. He forced himself to consider the next step, to do what must be done.

He went directly to his room. He unpacked, putting off the moment, holding off the fear. When his few clothes had been put away he turned to face the room. It was empty. The dormitory brooded in the stillness of summer. He had a sudden feeling that except for himself the campus was deserted. Alfred’s pennants and pictures were still on the wall. Fulboating, Lucas thought. And he remembered Alfred’s laughter, pictured him somewhere in a happy, lazy, intimate shouting group. He looked about the room again, now emptier, now more still, more alien.

And now determinedly he turned to his desk, rummaged there, found a few sheets of Job’s business stationery he frugally used for correspondence. He left the room. He walked down the corridor, knocking at doors, opening them, until he found a room still occupied, an occupied room and a typewriter.

He brought the typewriter back to his room. He inserted a sheet of his father’s business stationery. “Job Marsh,” it said across the top, “Harness of all Kinds, Repairs, Try the Shawnee Line, Only the Best Meets the Test. Branch Offices: Meridian, Tyre, Los Santos, Old Wetherly.” He read this carefully. He began to write.

“Dear son:”

He found the letters with care and difficulty.

“I’m glad to hear you’re making out so well.” How would Job put it? What were some of his expressions?

“Things have been looking up here steadily and business was never better. Have been thinking some of putting in a line over Sherwood way. More of that when I see you. Now in answer to your last letter—”

Lucas paused. He thought carefully. He proceeded with confidence. The die was cast.

“—I am glad you see things my way. I think taking the summer course is exactly what you need and as you know I have always wanted you to take it and been anxious that you see things my way. You make the necessary arrangements and I want you to have four dollars a week for spending money, I think that’s enough and as you know I don’t want you spoiled. When your term ends I want you to come straight home as I want to spend some time with you. I have been very busy but I am most anxious to see you and see how you’ve grown and talk over your plans and maybe have a little fun together, father and son. I’m very proud of you and the marks you’ve made and I don’t have to tell you I’ve missed you. Looking forward to seeing you when term ends and when I see you I’ll give you a check to cover your summer tuition and allowance, I remain, your loving Father.”

He took the letter carefully from the typewriter. He found Job’s last letter. On the back of the page, back of the sprawling signature, he rubbed a pencil. With a pencil he followed the loops of his father’s signature. He took the upper sheet away. On his letter beneath were the faint marks of the traced signature. He took a pen and carefully followed the marks. He let the ink dry. With an eraser he removed all pencil traces. He looked at the letter with satisfaction. He folded it, put it in the envelope which had contained his last letter from Job, pocketed it, brought the typewriter back to the room from which he had borrowed it, and walked quickly back to the bursar’s office.

“I’ve got it!” He came in waving the letter gleefully.

The bursar took the letter carefully from its envelope, unfolded it, smoothed it, read it. He pursed his lips.

“Yes,” he said, “yes, that will be all right.”

“Grand!”

“That’s what we needed.”

“For a while I thought I’d lost it!” Lucas closed his eyes in mock dismay.

“Now, what courses did you have in mind—”

“English, history, and German. Those three. I’m going to try and do them so I won’t have to do them this fall—”

The bursar prepared his papers.

“It certainly must be some job keeping a whole university in order. Boy! When I think of the records you have to keep—the problems—the whole university—”

“It never ends.” The bursar nodded. “Well, here you are.”

“I’m certainly grateful to you, Mr. Johnson. I was in a real pickle—”

“I’ve arranged your classes to cover the mornings. I expect you’ll have uses for the afternoons this fine weather—” He looked enviously toward the window. “Well—”

“Uh—Mr. Johnson—”

“Yes?”

“The allowance. I’m a bit short and—”

“Oh, yes. You wanted an advance.”

“If you could—”

“Four dollars, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right!”

“Sign this.”

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” Lucas said.

“Well, these things do happen. We’ll hear from your father shortly—”

“That’s right. Or—just send him a bill. That’ll remind him—”

“You’ll find the summer-session rules in your Student’s Guide.”

Lucas walked forth onto the campus. He looked over the empty, spreading acres. He possessed it all, now, it was all his, he had the university almost to himself. He walked about until the excitement subsided a little. He walked to his home, to Saylor Hall, he sat on the steps there and scanned the day, the summer, the fall.

Everything fitted, everything was provided, the future was full, tidy, made whole.

He turned his thought to face coldly that which would happen in Milletta. His father would hear of his arrival and learn of his abrupt departure. His father would have to be told what he was doing. There was no alternative. Job’s paternity was careless and he would not find his son’s absence disagreeable. But he would have to know what had happened and he would have to agree to the expenditure Lucas had forged.

A life with Job and Ouida had dowered Lucas with a sense of prosperity and a sense of uncertainty. There was little in Job’s demeanor to reflect accurately whether he was secure or on thin ice, whether money was plentiful or scarce. But Ouida’s vigilance was unceasing, her anxieties and her worries sharpened her perceptions, Job could seldom deceive her, and, in time, Lucas, closely tuned to his mother, came to have the same perceptions, the same unconscious habit of observation. He knew now from a score of impressions that matters were somewhat precarious with Job.

He went upstairs to write the letter which must be written. He was calm. He wrote confidently:

“Dear Dad: I was awfully sorry to have missed you, but it was just as well, because the way things have turned out I had to be back at school, anyway, if I wanted to be in time for a chance at summer session. One of the chief reasons I wanted to see you was to talk this over with you, it came up very suddenly so I hadn’t time to write before I was due home. I had to make a quick decision and I tried to do it the way you taught me, figuring out all the pros and cons from the other fellow’s viewpoint. First of all there is the matter of expense. It won’t cost much more to keep me here all summer than it would home, playing around and enjoying myself, which always takes money. And in the second place it shortens my college time considerably so there is a big saving on that. I knew you wouldn’t object too much to my being out of mischief all summer and I expect the way your plans are and the things you have afoot you wouldn’t have too much time for me and would be glad to have as much of your time as possible free to maneuver in.

“I’m awfully sorry I missed you. I hope you can get up someday this summer, or maybe I can get a ride home. I’m pretty strapped for money but I’m trying to get by on what I have, even though you always told me to come to you the minute I need help. You and I are alone now, and I’d like to spare you all the burden I can. Your loving son, Lucas.”

He read the letter detachedly and carefully. He put it in an envelope and addressed it. It had come out even better than he expected. By taking the problem point by point and addressing each point to Job’s viewpoint the letter now appeared unanswerable. In addition, he could probably expect from twenty to thirty additional dollars from Job during the summer. With his allowance this would sum slightly more than five dollars a week. But if he could find a spare-time job, if he was able to write Job that he was employed, he would be even more deeply rooted. It was impossible to find a job, but this was summer. Perhaps in summer—

He thought of Dr. Aarons. He stuffed the letter to his father in his pocket and rushed to the hospital.

“Have you seen the bursar? He’s a good man to help with jobs,” said Dr. Aarons.

“How about cleaning the labs?” Lucas asked abruptly. He sat back, relieved. Where he had felt tension he now felt warmth. It had been said.

“Cleaning the labs? You mean a job? As a job?”

“I streaked right over here to see you. It came to me—I remembered the time you took me through, how you said the labs always needed cleaning—”

“My God, boy! There’s no money for that! Why, it’s all I can do to keep the staff I’ve got together!”

“I wouldn’t need much money . . .”

“Much money! I can see you don’t know anything about money!”

“I’ll do all the labs. I’ll clean them so they shine. I’ll keep them spotless. The staff can get that much more work done. It’ll give you the effect of another technician. I’ll work every minute I’m not in class. Weekends, too. Nights, if you want me.”

“It can’t be done.”

“For twelve dollars and a half a week.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s no pay for a human. An orderly gets more, a cleaning woman—”

“That’s all I need.”

“I can’t let you do it.”

“Dr. Aarons, don’t you know what it means to me, just to be allowed to work in the laboratory?”

“I know, I know. My boy, there are certain basic realities which you have to face in life. Dreams, ideals, are one thing—but the world about you—”

“And your labs would be spotless. Always. Spotless. And think of the extra volume they’d turn out—freed from janitor work! Will you ask them? Will you? Please?”

Dr. Aarons looked away from the intense young face. If it was a dollar and a quarter a week it’d be just the same. So it won’t kill him. It’s not spittoons, after all. One dirt is another dirt, and this dirt has the mantle of science to make it respectable. He shrugged.

“It’ll be all right,” he sighed. “If I have to pay you out of my own pocket we’ll make it work, somehow.”

“Dr. Aarons—!”

“Now, don’t thank me! It’s criminal to work for that, I ought to be ashamed to let you, I am ashamed—”


Suffocated with happiness Lucas was helped into a white coat, he wore a white coat for the first time, now he wore part of the uniform. He nodded shyly as Dr. Aarons announced him carefully as the new lab helper. He beamed, wordless, during the pleasantries that followed, conscious of the white coat, impatient to begin.

“I leave him to your tender mercies,” Dr. Aarons said at last.

“He’ll be a shadow by the end of the week,” Miss Dorchester promised.

Dr. Aarons was gone. Ahrlquist, who had been working silently throughout, now came forward.

“You ever work in a lab before?”

“No, I haven’t—”

“Well, I’ll show you what you’ve got to do.” He turned and walked to the rear of the lab. Lucas followed. The women watched, exchanged outraged looks, shrugged and returned to their microscopes.

The laboratory was a long rectangle, divided into four small rooms and one large room. In the smaller rooms the laboratory animals were caged, there were two rooms for patients and a room for supplies. The larger room was shelved with reagents and chemical equipment which occupied three-fifths of its space. The remainder, the province of Miss Jeanette and Miss Dorchester, was equipped with clinical test apparatus.

Following Ahrlquist, Lucas walked in a narrow aisle on either side of which geometrical vines of glass tubing rose from squat, round, flat, cylindrical, brown, blue, clear, amber vessels, wax-stoppered, glass-stoppered, cork-stoppered, clear, cloudy, stained, colorless, petcocked, coiled, chambered, serene, remote, boundless with function, insistent with surmise, with drama, momentous with curiosity, the extension of his living, the machinery of his vector, the instruments of his mind, the branches for his hands.

“What’s the matter,” Ahrlquist asked indifferently. He had watched covertly.

“It excites me. I can’t help it.”

“This? This crap?”

“I mean the shapes of them, their complexity, what they do—”

“Lot of goddamned glass.”

“Do you think I’ll ever learn how to work that stuff?”

“Is that what he put you here for?”

“Oh, Lord, no! Just to clean up. I meant—”

“It’d be like him!”

“Look! I don’t know the simplest thing! It’s just that the sight of this stuff excites me. Always has.”

“When you’ve cleaned the five millionth piece of it let me know how much it excites you.”

“I guess you’re right,” Lucas said placatively.

“There’s nothing to it.”

“Nothing!” Lucas looked at Ahrlquist enviously, admiringly.

“You’ll get used to it.” Ahrlquist was mollified.

“What do you want me to tackle first?”

“That thing there, for instance.” He flicked a tall flask, one of a glittering row, shaped like a pear with a long, long neck, stoppered, the stopper receiving an inverted smaller flask, in turn tubed, leading to another invert, stoppered in a twin of the first flask. A row of these, precise, exactly the same, exactly aligned, all on a stand exactly machined to fit them, beneath each flask a burner, in one end of the stand a spigot. Lucas stared at it, his mouth open.

“That’s a Kjeldahl.”

“A Kjeldahl!”

“Distillation.”

Lucas swallowed.

“And that’s a Van Slyke amino-nitrogen deaminizing—”

Kjeldahl . . . Van Slyke . . .

“And that’s an inspissator—” He jerked his head irritably in the direction of the women—“I wish they’d learn to keep their goddamned stuff in their own department!”

Kjeldahl . . . Van Slyke . . . inspissator . . .

“That’s for titration, they’re too goddamned cheap to buy a Coleman—extraction and separatory condensers and tubes—Saybolts, Erlenmeyers, Hempels, Sokhlets with a Friedrichs condenser—junk, junk, junk—”

By the end of the first day Lucas had learned how to clean the animal cages. He had washed flasks, he had learned to ether-dry pipettes, to wash slides, to dust bottles, to sweep floors. He had mollified Ahrlquist, he had avoided the area where the women worked, he had waited sedulously on Ahrlquist.

“You got some fraternity meeting to go to—some college-boy stuff?” Ahrlquist asked as the day ended.

“No, no! I don’t go in for that kind of stuff! I don’t belong to anything—”

“Well, if you’re not doing anything and you don’t have to eat in any of those fancy places I eat in a lunch room. It’s good enough for me!”

“Me too!”

“Okay, then.” Ahrlquist looked sidelong at Lucas. “Ever bowl?” he blurted suddenly.

Lucas blinked. “Bowl?”

“Christ, you know what bowling is, don’t you. You been in bowling alleys!”

“Gosh—I haven’t—I live in a little town, and—”

“Well, for Christ’s sake. You don’t know anything about bowling!” But Ahrlquist was pleased.

“Do you bowl?”

Ahrlquist glanced at Lucas, twitched his lip elaborately.

“Yeah . . . Some . . .”

At the diner Ahrlquist fed avidly and silently, then pushed the plate away with disinterest. Lucas made haste to finish the sandwich which his budget allowed him. He rose, still hungry, the flat-tasting egg sandwich gave him a sense of virtue, of the better things disregarded.

Ahrlquist’s home was in a tattered boardinghouse, a single, narrow room, a strip of torn carpet, a bed with a thin mattress and a worn, patched spread, a second-hand bureau, a chair, a rattan table. On the bureau, on the rattan table were loving cups, bowling prizes, the two surfaces were covered with them. The walls were hung with photographs, pictures of bowling alleys, group pictures lettered in white: “Tacoma Champions, 1919,” “Missoula League, 1920 . . .” lettered Lexington and Susquehanna, St. Paul, Winnigatchee, Buffalo, Herkheim, Oneida, Harrison, Multnomah. Lettered towns heard of and unheard of, blaring faces, stern, reserved, proud, determined, diffident, and wild.

Lucas whistled dutifully.

“What—them? The cups? Christ!” He flung open a door. “Got a closetful!”

“And these—” moving to the wall to stare with feigned absorption at the anonymous faces—“these are all you? All winning teams?”

“I could be national champion if I had half a chance.” He bent, picked up tenderly a pair of bowling shoes and, sitting on the bed, began somberly to lace them on. “Cost me sixteen dollars,” he said briefly.

“Bowling stuff’s expensive?”

“I’ve got everything I need. It’s going around. It’s going from town to town, working up a reputation, meeting better and better. Until by God one day you’re in the big leagues, you’re playing champions, you’re in the runoffs. National!”

“Those are good-looking shoes. I mean—”

“But how the hell can you save enough on what they pay? How the hell you going to do it? Reminds me—what they paying you?”

“Well, it’s not much. But it’s not their fault. I get twelve-fifty a week. That’s all I asked for.”

“Twelve-fifty a week—!” Ahrlquist stopped lacing his shoe to stare at Lucas.

“That’s all I asked for. There wasn’t really any job—and I needed just that—twelve-fifty a week—it’s my own fault—”

“The sons of bitches! It’s not their money. It’s state money. There’s endowments. They got plenty. You’d think it was theirs! The dirty rats!”

They walked out of the dark and musty room, down the dim stairway, out into the somehow luxurious street.

“I’ll be free of them someday. And then by God. . . !”

“But you know so much!” Lucas protested. “Do you mean you’d actually throw it over—give it up—for bowling?”

“Look, kid! Don’t let the sight of a few twisted hunks of lab glass fool you. It’s just glass, see? And the job’s just a job. Like any other. You learn it, you do it, you draw your pay. Sure I know it. I ought to know it. I been doing it twelve years!”

They entered the bowling alley. Ahrlquist was greeted with deference. Hangers-on addressed him hopefully. He took it as his due. He went to the office, the manager hurried to produce a small canvas bag, hefted it carefully over the counter. Ahrlquist opened it, pulled out his special bowling ball, inspected it critically, turned away, now became almost jovial.

A small group of bystanders moved diffidently toward the alley, picked what seats they could find, leaned against the railing to watch.

“Gonna kill ’em tonight?” one called out brashly.

“I told my missus about that three hundred—I told her—” another began excitedly.

But Ahrlquist had turned his back and was now wiping his hands with care on a towel slung from the ball-return post.

“Get up!” he ordered one of the sitters. The man rose promptly. “Sit there,” Ahrlquist directed Lucas. Lucas sat apologetically in the seat the man had cheerfully quitted.

Ahrlquist now applied chalk to his hands. He inspected them critically. Then he walked to the edge of the alley and squinted down the shining expanse. He returned, picked up his ball. For a moment he stood, poised, lost to all else, looking far down the alley at the triangle of nine-pins. Seconds later, liquid seconds in which his motionlessness dissolved without break into smooth motion, he had moved forward, his arm swung back, his arm swung forward, the ball was spinning soundlessly down the alley, it struck the pins with a tremendous crash and the alley was empty.

Ahrlquist turned and walked back. His face was expressionless. A babble of triumph burst from the onlookers. They had been vindicated, their day had been given meaning, their existence had been given a triumph, they lived now, victoriously, on the crest of triumph, justified and alive. Lucas stared at Ahrlquist in amazement and respect.

“Get the idea?” Ahrlquist grinned, pleased, unable to conceal his pleasure.

“Boy!” said Lucas simply.

On the way home Ahrlquist turned to him suddenly.

“I’m gonna warn you again—stay away from those split-tails!”

“Split-tails?”

“The dames. The stupid dikes we got.”

“What’ll I do? I’ve got to answer them—I’ve got to be there—I’ve got to do what they ask me to—what’s the matter with them, anyway?”

“I’m just warning you, lay off. You’re either with me or with them.”

They walked a while in silence. Ahrlquist cried out suddenly:

“Art, that’s what they love, pictures and music and beautiful crap like that. That’s what they talk about. To hear them pretend—they could go on for hours if they think you’re listening—and as to that awful thing! Oh, my God. Oh, touchmenot. Ohwhatareyouthinking!”

“Did you—ah—did you—try—?”

“I took out the young one, spent two good dollars feeding her. Then she pretended she didn’t know what I wanted. All surprise. All amazement. That I would think of such a thing! I should have smacked her right in the puss.”

Lucas looked at him expectantly.

“I told her off. I told her just what I thought of her, her and any other split-tail like her. She knew what I meant, all right. Next morning I told them right then and there, I said, ‘You do your work and I’ll do mine,’ I said. ‘I don’t want anything to do with any goddamned split-tail trash.’ That’s what I told them. So now they let me alone. Two dollars, feeding her goddamned face, filet mignon she ordered! For nothing! And she knew it all the time.”

Lucas shook his head commiseratingly.

“You know something? I’ve got an idea they’re women lovers! Look how they stick together, like man and wife! For two dollars I could have had any nurse in the hospital! Give me a nurse, every time. Give me a girl that knows the score.”

“A nurse?”

“Why, boy, a nurse is the best lay you can get. Nurses first, then schoolteachers.”

“Don’t they get fired, I mean they have to be in by midnight—”

“How long do you think it takes to get a piece? Say, you’re not a virgin, are you?”

“Me? Heck, no! I just didn’t know about nurses—”

“Fired, hell! They got to catch them first. Wait until you’re an intern. You’ll see. Hell, they stand ’em up in linen closets, empty rooms, diet kitchens, just whip up their skirts and pour it to them. Those interns get the best. And you know why? Look at the life those nurses lead! Up at five o’clock, mucking in bedpans all day and then what? Squat together reading last month’s magazines they stole from some patient. You ever see the food they eat? Just give one of them the chance at a steak and a movie! Schoolteachers and nurses. They’re always ready. Boy, you’re going to have your eyes opened!”

“I sure didn’t know that!”

“What else have they got in life? The only other thing is someday maybe they can marry a doctor. That’s what they’re all out for.”

“She could help him—”

“What does he get he couldn’t get free? So he marries her and gets a free nurse and maybe she’s got a couple of hundred dollars saved. And all he’d have to do is wait a little and marry a rich girl! Maybe find one that comes to him in trouble. Lots of doctors do that! Plenty!”

He grinned suddenly. “Don’t be surprised if I’m a little late tomorrow. If they can afford to hire a helper they can afford to give me a raise.”


Next morning Lucas was at work when the two women arrived.

“Here so early?” Miss Dorchester’s brows lifted.

“Where’s the Ahrlquist?” Miss Jeanette glanced quickly around the laboratory.

“I think he had something he wanted to see the hospital about,” Lucas said lamely.

“Well, that’s something,” Miss Jeanette said, relieved. She carried a paper box. She walked with it to one of the metal-topped tables and from behind a row of tall bottles she brought forth a box of tea, a can of evaporated milk, and a small box of sugar.

Miss Jeanette, who had rinsed and filled a flask, set it on a ring and lit a Bunsen burner.

“So you’ve been out with the Ahrlquist. Now, you know all about us!”

“Leave him alone, Ann.”

“We’ve heard about his stories,” Miss Jeanette said grimly.

“Do you think you’ll like laboratory work?” Miss Dorchester asked.

“Oh, yes!” He looked about the room. “Yes! Yes, I—”

“He’s got that look in his eye, Ann!” Miss Dorchester cried. Miss Jeanette whirled to see. Lucas reddened, looked from one to the other. “I’m sorry!” Miss Dorchester apologized. “Dr. Aarons told us. We were talking about it. He said whenever you talked about Medicine you got a look in your eye—and you had it, then—”

Miss Jeanette pushed a muffin closer to him. “He filled you up about us, didn’t he? What did he say?”

“He can’t eat and talk too,” Miss Dorchester protested.

“He didn’t say much, Miss Jeanette,” Lucas began miserably.

“You can’t help but be sorry for him,” Ruth said.

“I’d as soon feel sorry for a snake!” Ann snorted.

Ruth smiled.

“All right, but even his bowling, the thing he loves, the art in his life, he does it without passion, I know he does, without feeling, without anything, without even wonder. Does it grudgingly, without delight. You’ve got to feel sorry for him,” Ruth sighed. “You can’t help it. You can’t help him, either.”

“I’d just like to stay out of trouble,” Lucas said quietly.

“You’ve got nothing to be afraid of,” Ruth said. Lucas stared at his cup. “He can’t do anything to you, really. Dr. Aarons has a very high opinion of you.”

“And he knows all about Ahrlquist.” Ann smiled grimly.

Ruth shrugged. “I’ve got twenty-two blood counts and a sed rate to do before noon!” she lamented. Lucas leaped up.

“I’ll help!”

“You put that dish down!” Ann cried. “If you want to do something go into pathology and get me a clean towel!”

Lucas sped out. The door closed behind him. Ann turned slowly.

“Ruth, that boy was hungry!”

“I know.”

“He hasn’t eaten!”

“Ann, I don’t think that boy had breakfast!”

“He’s starved!”

And all the while beneath the words, the looks, the woman looks, speaking rapidly, promising themselves, deciding, feed him, see he gets enough to eat, tactfully help him, draw him out, we’re needed, it’s done, then, agreed, it’s begun, it’s begun and he’s ours.

“Tomorrow—” Ruth began rapidly, but the door opened and Lucas burst in.

“I couldn’t find a towel! I looked and—”

“They’re all done, anyway—”

“Aren’t you free today?” Ruth asked. “No classes?”

“I thought I’d get a little familiar with the job—it won’t do me any harm—” Lucas recollected himself. He had work to do. He went hastily to the mop closet, found a dust rag, began dusting bottles.

“Is that what he asked you to do?” Ann demanded.

Before Lucas could answer, Ahrlquist entered. His face was grim. He walked directly to the closet, put on his white coat in the silence that had fallen when he came in, and without a look at the women or Lucas went to his test equipment and began his day’s work.

The rest of the morning passed in silence.

At noon Ruth and Ann rose, chatted easily a moment, left to eat lunch in the doctors’ and nurses’ dining room. When the door closed behind them Ahrlquist picked up a flask and hurled it across the room. It burst against the door. Lucas gaped.

“That bastard!” Ahrlquist turned slowly to Lucas. “That Jew son-of-a-bitch!”

Lucas stared at him, bewildered.

“That Aarons! That kike Jew pisspot!”

“What did he do?”

“What do you think a Jew would do?” He grimaced, hunching his shoulders, shoving his open palms forward. “No gelt!” he said harshly, “no money, got to save every nickel! So we can eat kosher food and grow a beard and buy a foreskin!” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “No raise! You got to be a Jew to get by around here!”

“A Jew—?”

“You know what a Jew is, for Christ’s sake, don’t you?”

“Sure—”

“Well, what do you think Aarons is? He’s a goddamned Jewboy, that’s what he is! You got any Jew blood in you?”

“No, but—”

“Well, that’s what you need around here! Jew blood. Don’t they have Jews in Milletta, in that jerk town you came from?”

“No! I don’t know! I’m sorry you didn’t get your raise, but you can’t talk about Dr. Aarons like that! I didn’t know he was a Jew, I don’t know what a Jew is, except it’s a religion, he doesn’t pay the salaries, he’s a nice guy and leave him alone!”

“Who the hell are you, talking to me like that! What are you—a Jew lover?”

“He’s my friend!”

“A Jew lover!”

“If that makes me a Jew lover, then I’m a Jew lover!”

“You’ll last a long time around here, boy,” Ahrlquist promised vengefully. “I’ll promise you that! You may last as long as a week. Then we’ll see what your Jew friends can do for you.”

“Just because a man is a Jew—”

“Just because a man is a Jew! Why you dumb little Jew lover, didn’t you know the medical profession hates their guts? Why, he’s almost been thrown out of here on his ass a dozen times, all they want is an excuse. And me taking you in—I’ll fix you! By God, you’ll see! You better quit now, while the quitting’s good.”

“Listen, Ahrlquist!” Lucas took a step toward him. “I’m not afraid of you. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not afraid of you. I need this job. And the day you put me off of it—” His eyes glinted with sudden rage. He balled his fists.

“Why, you Jew-loving son-of-a-bitch!” Ahrlquist seized a heavy pestle, his face swollen, red, contorted.

“Go on,” begged Lucas. “Just raise that! Just raise it—”

The laboratory door opened. Dr. Aarons entered, smiling.

“Not at lunch, gentlemen?”

Ahrlquist turned. He sniffed.

“I smell Jews,” he cried.

Dr. Aarons reddened. The scene registered slowly, the words last of all.

“I beg your pardon,” he said quietly.

“Don’t apologize!” Ahrlquist begged elaborately. “I was just telling our Jew-lover friend here how lucky he was to get twelve dollars and a half a week—a fine bargain!”—he leered—“when a skilled technician can’t get a five-dollar-a-week raise.” He smiled ingratiatingly. “And just at that point you walked in and I said ‘I smell Jews!’ ”

Lucas looked at Dr. Aarons. Tell me to do something, anything, his look begged.

Dr. Aarons stared at Ahrlquist coldly.

“You should be discharged,” he said. “You are an excellent worker. Your disappointment was not of my making. I am waiting for your apology.”

“Apology! I haven’t said anything! What have I said? I’ve just said I didn’t like Jews. I wouldn’t mean you, of course, Dr. Aarons. Not you!”

“You shut your mouth!” Lucas cried. His arm shot out, his open hand jarred stiffly against Ahrlquist’s bony shoulder, spinning him around. He clenched his other hand, waiting.

“That’ll be enough, Marsh!” Dr. Aarons said coldly. And to Ahrlquist, “You’re discharged.”

“Try and make it stick!” Ahrlquist cried mockingly.

“Come!” said Dr. Aarons to Lucas. He opened the door. Without another look at Ahrlquist he ushered Lucas out, shut the door behind them. They walked down the corridor. He exhaled a pent breath. He turned to Lucas and smiled with his mouth.

“You should have let me sock him!” Lucas said hotly.

“And would that have changed him?” Aarons asked quietly.

“All that stuff!—He must be crazy!”

“Thank you, anyway,” Dr. Aarons said gravely. “Now the sooner you forget it, the better.”

That was the thing to say. He had said it. And now his eyes were sick with an old pain, his stomach was a dull knot, now it had come again, he had been free, almost free, now it had come again. There was no place on earth, there was no sanctuary, there was no escape, there was a mingling, there was freedom, peace, and one day there was a line, there was a fence, there were Jews. And there were other people. And now, today, this moment, he was a Jew again, wincing, ashamed, and nothing to fight. Nothing to oppose. Nothing to protest. In the earth, in the whole earth, healed and whole, there was this chasm. He stared across it, tiredly.

“Get your lunch,” he said. They had come to the end of the corridor.

“I don’t feel like eating—”

“Go on. Nothing has happened. Go and eat.”

He turned abruptly aside and walked swiftly away down a corridor.

The dining room was almost empty. Lucas sat down, he looked about him fiercely, confused with a vague sense of shame, daring someone to call him Jew lover. No one paid any attention to him. A probationer, a pert brunette, crisp in her striped blue, came in and sat down beside him.

“Nice day.” She smiled briskly.

“Yes,” said Lucas soberly.

The young girl looked down in mock exasperation.

“Everybody’s so sober here! What is this—an operating room?”

Two interns eating silently at the far end of the table paused to eye her loftily. She stared back, unabashed.

“Where do you work?” she asked Lucas.

“I’m in the laboratory,” he said in a low voice. Leave me alone, he prayed, go away, leave me alone, let me think.

“Oh, a lab man! My name’s Bronson. Dorothy Bronson!”

“I’m glad to meet you,” Lucas sighed. “I’m Lucas Marsh.”

“Okay, now go ahead and eat your lunch. If you can’t be civil—this place is like a morgue. Go on! I won’t bother you any more. Go ahead and eat!”

“Yes,” said Lucas apologetically. He eyed the forkful of food he had lifted. He put down his fork. He sat a moment longer. Then he pushed away his plate, rose, and left the table.

“Goodbye!” called the pretty Miss Bronson.

But Lucas was gone.

“Goodbye,” Miss Bronson said aloud to herself, for Lucas. Then unconcernedly she went on with her lunch.

★ CHAPTER 14

Lucas spent a troubled weekend. His conscience goaded him. He was full of disgust for himself. His anger at Ahrlquist was cool now compared to the anger he directed against himself for having cravenly endured Ahrlquist’s venom and he regarded himself as partly responsible for the vicious attack on Dr. Aarons, as having tacitly encouraged it by not rebuking Ahrlquist the night before.

I could have prevented it, he told himself bitterly, if I’d shown him he couldn’t talk that way the night before.

And now if Dr. Aarons knows we were out together the night before, friendly, probably talking about him—

He went to Dr. Aarons’ office early Monday to make a clean breast of his shame and his guilt.

Dr. Aarons was not in his office. Lucas strode to the pathology lab. A group of students, some seated, the majority standing beside a table, were gathered about Dr. Aarons, who bent over a lump of tissue, scalpel in hand.

“I remind you that the two ducts often communicate within the substance of the pancreas. . . . We now open the duodenum by the usual longitudinal incision in the anterior wall of the descending portion and we study the interior. . . .”

He straightened. The students leaned closer. Dr. Aarons looked over their heads, oblivious to them, gazing toward a window.

“I see it!” a student cried.

And now they all crowded closer, peering and exclaiming, and Dr. Aarons slowly ended his stare at nothingness and lowered his head.

“Then an exploratory could include biopsy of the duodenal mucosa adjacent to the pancreas?” a student asked apologetically.

“It must! Carcinoma of the pancreas is frequently an extremely difficult diagnosis to make, it is often impossible to examine all the area involved and all the area must be examined before carcinoma may be excluded. . . . This patient—” he touched the patient, the lump of tissue, the death of the patient—“this patient—” he lifted the patient, the lump of tissue—“died of carcinoma of the pancreas. We have examined the pancreas. Now we have pancreatic tissue at some distance from the pancreas, and this tissue, too, was carcinomatous. Where there are symptoms of cancer of the pancreas, and where examination of the pancreas discloses no carcinoma, the duodenum must be searched for pancreatic tissue.”

Dr. Aarons waited. The babble of surgery and diagnosis died.

“This is pathology, gentlemen. This patient died of carcinoma of the pancreas. We have seen here this morning that cancer of the pancreas must be looked for outside the pancreas itself. . . . We will now prepare tissue mounts of the area for study tomorrow—”

He turned to pick up a paper and saw Lucas.

“Yes?” he said, startled.

“It’s nothing. I’m sorry, sir . . .” Dr. Aarons turned away. Lucas closed the door humbly. An Ahrlquist could prevail against this.

In the other laboratory, the women looked up.

“Good morning,” they chorused, smiling, then turned back to their work. Free of Ahrlquist the laboratory was a friendly place, the wincing terror of the unpleasant was gone, tyranny lifted. He walked toward them genially.

“My gosh!” he said, “I just walked in on Dr. Aarons! He was holding a class—”

He stopped, turning at the sound of movement, turned to see Ahrlquist, the same Ahrlquist, Ahrlquist moving unconcernedly, with studied disregard, among his testing apparatus, stooping, squinting distrustfully at a petcock.

Lucas looked incredulously at the women. Ruth turned. She nodded understandingly, confirmingly, shook her head, turned back to her work.

Ahrlquist said nothing. Lucas walked to the closet, put on his white jacket, went to a sink and began to wash a quantity of waiting flasks.

“Not those,” said Ahrlquist mildly. “I’m not done with those yet.” Lucas hurriedly left off washing the flasks and busied himself with other glassware. Now what? he asked himself, confused. What’s he doing here, still? He’s not supposed to be here! What’s that tone for, that soft tone?

He dropped a length of glass rod. It smashed noisily. Ahrlquist looked up indifferently. The women did not turn. More confused, Lucas cursed himself, mortified, swept up the fragments, returned to the sink and with exaggerated care resumed washing.

In a short time, noon approaching, the women rose, and still wordless, left for lunch. For a few moments longer Lucas and Ahrlquist worked in silence.

“You’re playing it dumb, boy.” Ahrlquist ceased work and looked at Lucas compassionately.

“I don’t understand,” Lucas said stiffly.

“You’re a green kid—It’s nothing to me—I’m just telling you for your own good.”

“Telling me what?”

“I’m still here, ain’t I?”

Lucas swallowed.

“I just went to the superintendent. That’s all. And here I am.”

“Did you tell him what happened?”

“I told him my side—hell, who do you think they’re going to get for what they pay me? Technicians are scarce. And I’m good. And they know it!”

“Look!” Lucas’ face hardened. “I don’t give a damn what you told him or didn’t tell him. And if you do it again one of us is going out of here feet first! Now you listen to me! Because I’m telling you!”

“You want to get straightened out, boy.”

“I’m just telling you, now! That’s all!”

“Look! I don’t know what Aarons is to you—”

“He’s been goddamned nice to me! And you, too, probably!”

“Well, it’s your funeral,” Ahrlquist shrugged. “I’ve told you how the rest of the human race feels, how the doctors feel about ’em, if you choose the Jews nobody can stop you. It’s a free country.”

“You can’t tell me that a man like Dr. Aarons—that there’s anything wrong with a man like that—a full professor—what would they ever hire him for in the first place? You can’t tell me that a man like Dr. Aarons—”

“Go dig your own grave. I’ve told you. I’m here still, ain’t I? He fired me—a full professor!—and I’m still here. So what do you think?” He turned away indifferently. “It’s all right with me. Just remember what you’re sticking up for. It’s your neck.”

“And it’s your mouth,” said Lucas. “And I’m going to bust it if you ever open your mouth about him again.”

Ahrlquist laughed shortly. He shrugged.

In the office of the superintendent Dr. Aarons faced Dr. Bellows.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” he said levelly.

“Oh, come on now, Aarons. You know what an ignorant mind is! When you came here I warned you this sort of thing might happen! If we had to discharge an entire hospital on the basis of their prejudices—why, you know about O’Connor! He’s a Catholic! And look at the trouble he has, occasionally. Come, man! Look at it professionally! You’re a doctor—he’s a laboratory technician! Almost a patient! It takes a sick mind to be intolerant—”

“I agree with you. Yes, the boy is really sick. I’m sorry for him. I really am. But he was insolent, unforgivably insulting, publicly, in the presence of—”

“I’ve told him!” Dr. Bellows said grimly. “Believe me! You’ll have no more trouble with that young man! He won’t forget in a hurry! I told him, I said—”

“If he doesn’t owe it to me, he owes it to the dignity of the profession to make as public an apology as he delivered his insult.”

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it right here!” Dr. Bellows triumphantly pushed a piece of paper across his desk.

“I am sorry if I said anything I shouldn’t have. I lost my head. Signed, Joseph Ahrlquist,” the note read.

Dr. Aarons looked up, flushing.

“I made him write it out! So he’d remember!”

It’s no go, Dr. Bellows knew, scanning Dr. Aarons’ face. He doesn’t believe it, well, I didn’t really think he would, I thought at least he’d take it for face saving, save the situation all around, what makes a Jew so stiff-necked, why do we have to have Jews, why do I always have to be the one on the spot! He heard Ahrlquist again, indignantly refusing to make a public apology, offering to leave then and there, he heard himself dealing firmly, cautiously, no love for Ahrlquist, technicians scarce, wages low, Ahrlquist reluctantly signing an apology, an apology that said nothing, half intimidated by a clear threat of being blackballed. And now after all this work, here was Aarons, here was the whole thing toppled, all a mess again, back where he started.

“He’s a good man, Doctor,” he tried again, controlling his irritation. “You’ve said so many times. Technicians—” he shrugged, spread his hands to show how scarce technicians were, how low the pay was at this hospital—“I guess you know our fix, Doctor.” He smiled ruefully. Help me, you son-of-a-bitch, help me! His face smiled man to man.

“I confess I’m a little amazed, Doctor,” Dr. Aarons said quietly. You, too. You, too, Bellows. For the love of God, you too. And I never dreamed it—I never so much as—

“Well!” Dr. Bellows rose with finality. “It’s your department, of course. If you say he has to go I’m bound to support you.”

“I’d hoped the way you felt—you, yourself—something more than mere protocol would have dictated your answer—”

“Of course! Of course! Don’t misunderstand me, Doctor! I beg of you!” He put a hand on Dr. Aarons’ shoulder and looked at him earnestly. “We don’t tolerate that sort of thing here! This is a state institution—quite apart from my own natural feelings on such matters—which you have reason to know”—I hired you, did you understand that? Yes, you understood—“I’m back of you to the limit!” Hiring a Jew means trouble. Sooner or later it means trouble. It’s going to come up and you can’t stop it. “So let there be no misunderstanding between us, Doctor! I beg of you!”

Dr. Aarons sighed. He’s not the worst, and he’s not the best. It’s not too bad. Really—it’s not too bad. . . .

“I confess I was more upset than I should have permitted myself to be.” He smiled wryly.

Now you’ve won, have you? Yes, you’ve won, now. All I have to do is find another technician. Just because of you. Well, you’ll bite the bullet a little bit.

“Ahrlquist will be gone by the end of the week.”

Dr. Aarons’ eyebrows raised. Now what? I fired him Saturday! Lingering on here for a week?

“Have to give them some sort of notice—takes that time to get a new man in—” Next time you won’t be so quick, my friend. Next time maybe you’ll work it out yourself.

His hand on Dr. Aarons’ shoulder he pushed him gently toward the door, walked with him.

“Shall we see what incredibility the diet kitchen has dreamed up today? I must tell you about Williamson—the new orthopod, he came in to see me the other day . . .”

They passed out of the office and walked gravely, decorously, the mantle of the medical profession thick upon their capable shoulders, toward the doctors’ dining room. Once, as they walked, Dr. Aarons laughed appreciatively. A passing nurse smiled respectfully.

“I want to tell you about yesterday,” Lucas said later that afternoon. “There’s something on my mind and I—”

“Yesterday?” Dr. Aarons wrinkled his brows.

“Saturday! I mean Saturday! I wanted to tell you—”

“No need,” Dr. Aarons said gently.

“It’s about Ahrlquist—”

“Mr. Ahrlquist will be leaving us at the end of the week. Simply do your work . . .”

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas. He left Dr. Aarons’ office. He walked back to the laboratory. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he’s too big, it hasn’t touched him, did you see him in front of that class? A louse like Ahrlquist couldn’t touch a man like that. . . . He’s a doctor, he may be a teacher, but by God! he’s a doctor! Yes! And Lucas strode into the laboratory.

It was deserted.

He halted, waiting, looking, to be sure. Ruth and Ann had left. Warily, he walked through the laboratory. Ahrlquist was gone.

He looked about exultantly. It was empty. It was his. He was alone in it, free to touch, to handle, to manipulate what he pleased. Like a penniless man, pockets suddenly filled, the fingers of his desire riffled the riches of his opportunity while his eyes crammed greedily the complexity, the glisten, the intoxicating array of equipment.

He walked slowly down an aisle of apparatus, in a forest of glass he touched the glittering branches tenderly, before a blood gas determinator he halted, his eyes raced over glass within glass, tubed, mazed, exact, and with sudden courage he turned at hazard a petcock on a volumetric burette. Measured drops began to fall. He closed the petcock hastily. But he had done it. And he walked on, touching here, handling reverently, touching again, things he had never touched.

In a little while he came to Ruth’s chair, her table, her microscope. He looked at it a moment, exultantly. From a tray he picked a stained slide. He considered it a moment. Then he put it back. He breathed quickly. He would make his own slide. As he had covertly observed, as he had memorized, he began the ritual. He took two clean slides. He washed the middle finger of his left hand with alcohol. Uncertainly, a little fearful of the quantity of pain, he pressed a blood lancet to the washed fingertip. He pressed the spring. He felt a sudden sharp jab. He snatched away the lancet. A gout of blood was welling on his finger tip. Excitedly, he touched the drop of blood to one of the slides and the drop was deposited on the glass. With the edge of the other slide he spread the drop as he had seen Ann and Ruth do, a quick movement and, where there had been a drop, a thin, even film. He looked at his slide disappointedly. The smear was irregular, thick here, thin there, wavy, blotched. He waved it impatiently until it was dry. He set it on a tray. Carefully, he poured stain upon it. Step by step he completed the staining process.

Now, shakily, he approached the microscope again. He turned on the microscope light. He inserted the slide in the stage. At the last moment he went to the door, opened it. The corridor was empty. He returned to the microscope. Happily, guiltily, tenderly, he bent over the eyepiece, his fingers touched the focusing knob.

In the things Hominidae has made from the familiar and the commonplace materials about him there are certain items which in their shapes, their color, their implicit function, are to certain men attraction sure as a lodestone; such an item grips him, flies to his hand, triggers an excitement objective, unreasoned, and oblivious, a thunderclap of first love, a hunger which with feeding becomes a stronger hunger, a fulfillment, an added function of the very body it inexorably and imperishably enchants.

In the grip of such a fascination Lucas now strove to glimpse that which he had made with one of the tools he was made for. He could see only a blue blur. Cautiously he turned the focussing knob. He saw nothing. He moved the knob the other way. He saw only a dim blue field. He moved the knob again, unconsciously faster, the blur cleared, he twisted the knob. There was resistance. He turned harder. There was a small, splintering crash.

His scalp prickled with horror. He had broken the slide. He had driven the eyepiece through the glass. He stared at it, unable to move.

“Having trouble?” Ruth’s voice came from behind him.

He jumped. He rose, keeping his back to her carefully. His face burned.

“I thought I’d have a look—I guess I wheeled it down too far—”

She bent quickly.

“You didn’t use the oil-immersion lens, did you?”

“I—ah—”

“No! You didn’t!” She straightened. “No harm done.”

He steeled himself.

She saw him brace, hesitated. There’s no use telling him no harm done because he won’t believe it. If I try to be reassuring he’ll only feel worse.

“Watch me!” She sat down.

On a stained slide she deftly dripped a drop of oil, an instant later the slide was in the stage, the nosepiece had flicked over, the oil-immersion lens had contacted the drop, lifted it a microscopic fraction.

“Look!”

Deprecatively he bent to look. His head jerked up.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

He stared at her.

“Now, here’s all you have to do . . .”

A half-hour later she rose.

“I’ll run along now,” she said. The bemusement faded quickly from his eyes.

“I only came to get this.” She leaned across him and picked up a novel.

Flustered by her nearness, Lucas scrambled awkwardly to get out of her way.

“I’d be glad to teach you smears and stains, if you’d like to learn—”

“Would I!”

“Yes . . . Well . . .” She turned to go. He watched her forlornly. She stopped. “Oh! By the way, if you’d care to have supper with us—just a snack, you understand—it just occurred to me that—”

“I’d love it!” He rushed for his coat, he was struggling into it as they left the laboratory.

All his life Lucas Marsh had heard from his mother phrases to frame the life beautiful.

The life beautiful was not the life lived. Upon the common animal necessity for feeding, Ouida embroidered a ritual of gesture, of movement, the fork so, the fingers thus, the napkin a serviette that hid by its grace the fact of food and the filthy doom of necessity.

Often, also, Ouida would describe to him the home of her dreams. But though she panted after beauty, or adornment of evil, which often was to her the same thing, her visions were opulent but indistinct.

“And music—!” she would exclaim. “Great music!” And often as not she would mention a musician, instancing a composer she did not know. “Fritz Kreisler! Ah, darling! There’s a great musician!”

And a fine building, oh, a very fine building, her eyes would gleam with the fineness of it, her being lift hungrily. “Gothic,” she would murmur, “Romanesque!” and she was not too sure of either. “And books! Rich books! In fine bindings!”

He had heard of fine books but had never held one in his hands. He had heard of music but not the music his mother respected even though she had never heard it. He would have said of painters, Well, Rosa Bonheur is a great painter, and he had seen “The Horse Fair,” and Rembrandt is a great painter, and Wagner is a great musician, and he would have said “Rembrant” and “Waggoner,” for he was not yet privy to the code his fellows had agreed upon, the phonetics of mode, the decrees of grunt, and the aristocracy of agreed-upon articulation.

He was reverent about art without knowing precisely what it was.

In this town of overstuffed jacquard sofas, an ornate frame containing a chromo of an Italian girl bending for a drink at a wall fountain, and the sober and respectable fumed oak, assassinated mahogany and slit and perforated gum fretwork, the apartment of Ruth Dorchester and Ann Jeanette contained a low English couch, two William and Mary tables, a worn but Khorassan rug, a quantity of excellent, dinted, unmatched pewter, two pictures by Van Gogh, a Pissarro, a Sisley, a Murillo Virgin, and half a dozen English poems printed on strips of fine paper and pinned to the wall. Also, there were books—paperbacks in French and German, books by Coppard, and all the Powys, by Humbert Wolfe and Sassoon and Blake and a set of The Bibelot, L’Uomo Finito and Valle Inclan cheek-a-jowl with Laurence Sterne and the Tale of a Tub.

Into this apartment came Lucas. For a long time he was too shy to notice much. When the strangeness of the apartment was borne in upon him he sat confused, respectful, and startled.

He had no standards by which to judge what he saw or experienced. Even on his second visit, he was uncertain what to praise, whether he was inwardly commending the right thing, what was to be noticed and what was commonplace.

Nevertheless this was a new ingredient, definitely added to his life, giving him new certain standards by which he reacted to the conditions of his living wherever he was to find himself. And his respect for the two women was implemented by awe, by a determination that they think well of him. He absorbed whatever they gave him, tried to see things as they saw them, hear sounds as they heard them, he wanted to be identified with them, to know what they knew.

And for their part they fed him pompano cooked in paper, they sang German lieder and off-the-beaten-path Italian songs, he learned what a villanelle was and that the poems hung on the wall Japanese fashion were called hokkus, he drank wine and did not like it and praised it obediently and hopefully. They opened a world of minor graces to him and caparisoned his thinking with possibility.

And they drew him out, they made him talk of Milletta and Ouida and Job and he was astonished that they both came from small Midwestern towns, he rebelled at this and never accepted it. And they were astonished that he could tell them so little of Milletta.

“Tell us about your mother,” said Ann.

“She’s dead,” he said, and stopped.

“What did she think about your being a doctor?”

“Well, she was against it, at first. She—had a different way of looking at things. She always wanted to be free, free of her body, live as spirit. So she was against me being a doctor. But then one day I told her I had to be.”

“And your father?”

Lucas’ eyes became wary.

“You’ll have to have his help,” Ruth said gravely.

He was silent a moment. I’ll have trouble with him, all right. He’ll never let me. This is all the rope he’ll give me. I don’t know what I can do. . . . But he’s going to have to let me. . . .

“Hey!” he cried suddenly.

He beamed.

“It’s a building lot! Mother left me a building lot. It was a couple of them, that’s what it was! Two of them!”

“Why, that’s wonderful,” said Ruth. “And now, with what your father can give you—”

“Tell us about Medicine, Luke,” Ann said abruptly.

“What shall I tell you?”

“What does being a doctor mean to you?”

“Mean?”

“Why not a writer, or a lawyer, or—anything?”

He thought a long while. He thought of all the things a doctor was. He thought of the hospital, he thought of the sick, of Medicine, of surgery, of the guardianship of the living, the shining fellowship of the robe. Of another world, another language, another thinking, another people.

He sighed. He shook his head helplessly.

“I don’t know . . .” he said.

They looked at him, waiting. But he said no more.

“I’ll get the cake,” said Ann. She rose. “It’s mocha.”

Once, later, the talk veered to Dr. Aarons.

“Does he know all this stuff, too?”

“Stuff?”

“What we’ve been talking about—poems and pictures and music and books . . .”

Ruth shook her head wryly. “Doctors don’t have time for books—only for the books that are essential to them.”

“Most of them don’t have time even for current medical literature,” Ann mourned.

The doctors they know, Lucas thought. It must be the doctors they know.

“But when it comes to pathology—!” Ruth cried.

“The university is lucky to have a man like that,” Ann said gravely.

“The papers he’s written!”

“He could head the pathology department in a university twice this size! I’ve often wondered what keeps him here.”

“Is it because—” Lucas checked himself, floundered. “I mean, has he been in any—trouble?”

“Trouble?” Ann looked at him anxiously.

“What kind of trouble?” demanded Ruth.

“Oh, I don’t know—I was just trying to figure out why he stays here—just at random—it just popped into my head.” They don’t even think of him being a Jew. It never occurs to them. So Ahrlquist is wrong. That was just Ahrlquist.

“He’s one of the finest men I’ve ever met,” Ruth said slowly.

“Don’t get any Foreign Legion romantic notions in your head,” Ann said severely.

“Just to make conversation,” Lucas shrugged, embarrassed.

“Of course you know he’s Jewish?” Ruth said suddenly.

“Oh, yes!”

“And what, exactly, does that mean to you?” demanded Ann quickly.

“Well, he has a different religion—”

“I don’t think Dr. Aarons thinks of religion very often, one way or the other.” Ruth shook her head. They looked at Lucas, waiting, expectant.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” he blurted, “I never ran up against this Jewish business—outside of the Bible I never heard the word Jew, even—until a few days ago.”

“Well, it isn’t a religion,” Ann said noncommittally. “Oh, it’s a religion, all right, I don’t mean it quite that way. Most people don’t know their own, let alone so complicated a business as Judaism. What people judge is a way of life. And the way of life of a person is brought about by the tensions and the restrictions and the opportunities of their past. The history of the Jews has been a very unhappy one and a long time ago, wondering why they were hated and feared I came to the conclusion that it was because they were tense, apprehensive, and insecure. People have a tendency to hate those who have not, even more than they hate those who have. Because those who have not make them uncomfortable, they are reminders of want who disturb the pleasures of the feast, like the poor pressing their noses against the windows where a banquet is eaten.”

“I think that’s oversimplifying,” said Ruth.

“I don’t,” said Ann. “I think it states the whole case. I think all the rest is just rationalization, case building.”

“But what have they done?” cried Lucas.

“No,” said Ruth, “I think fear is the basis of prejudice. I agree with you there. But I don’t think the fears you mention are all the fears. There’s fear of foreignness, too, fear of the stranger, fear of the human who is unknown . . .”

“Is it anything they do? Anything they’ve done?” demanded Lucas.

“It depends on the instance which makes up your mind. If you meet a stranger whose religion is different from yours, whose historical background is different, and who is under different tensions, and you do not like the shape of his nose, or his manner, you will form an opinion and a prejudice and extend this, in your mind, for future reference, to all people of the same group, to those you have not met, to the babies, to the dead and the unborn.”

“But what sense is there in that?”

“The sense is in reality—not the logic for a reality, but the reality. And that is how things are.”

“And that is how I will never be.”

“And that is how you must never be.”

“It was just Ahrlquist.”

“Whatever it was, it was just Ahrlquist.”

“There’s no problem, none, really none at all.”

“Not for you.”

“That’s right.” He sighed, relieved, reason and logic clear, science undefiled.

Next day Ann and Ruth stayed after hours at the laboratory while Ann taught him how to make a Gram stain. Each day thereafter they taught him some new procedure, carefully, patiently, absorbed and fulfilled.

There were other evenings. He embraced them. He absorbed new knowledge, new sensations, made them his own.

“Have you noticed?” Ruth fretted. “He’s begun to look at me—you know what I mean—he’s so sweet—I wouldn’t want him to think—”

“Poppycock!” Ann snorted. “What harm is there? What are you worrying about?”

“But I’m twice his age! And everything’s so nice . . .”

Stout, short, dumpy, hair-in-a-bun, doomed and uncomely Ann looked at her levelly.

“I wouldn’t worry,” she said wearily.

“I suppose not. No, I suppose you’re right. It’s only that—that I wish . . .”

“Yes,” said Ann. “Sure.”

A few evenings later, the supper dishes finished, Ann untied her apron, put on her hat and coat.

“Where are you going?” Ruth demanded, astonished.

“Is there something I can get for you?” Lucas rose.

“No, you sit down. Stay just where you are.” She opened the door of the apartment and stepped firmly over the threshold. “I’ve got an errand. I probably won’t be back until late.”

The door closed behind her.

“Oh, dear!” Ruth looked at Lucas. “Shall we go to a movie?”

He rose to help her with her coat. And then, almost without realizing it, he had put his arms about her, he was kissing her. He was amazed.

When she could free herself a little she put her cheek against his, holding it there, hard, keeping her mouth from him.

“Sit down,” she whispered gently. “Sit down, dear . . .” She freed herself. Unsteadily, he sat beside her, he tried to begin again. She held him off, she whispered to him, after a long time he quieted, he sat with his head resting on her shoulder, blood still pounding thickly in his body, her hand gentling him, caressing his forehead, his hair.

“You mustn’t, you know,” she murmured.

“Why not?”

“Because not. You’re a nice boy and we’re terribly fond of you, both of us. You just be your own sweet self—”

He reached for her but she turned deftly, she was free, she rose, she bent over, she kissed him quickly on the forehead, she trotted to a mirror.

“My hair!” she cried, she saw him in the mirror, walked to him, put her hands on his shoulders.

“There can’t be any more of this,” she said soberly and kindly.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“No, I don’t want you sorry, either. Just—no more.”

He lowered his head.

“Look at me! It’s all right, Luke. We’re not even going to pretend nothing happened. An hour from now you could be resenting me, being very male and indignant.”

“It isn’t that—”

“Well, it could be. And it probably would be. But it’s not going to be. You haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. I just don’t want any—anything further—and I’m complimented and I think you’re a dear, fine boy and tomorrow when I see you at the lab that’s what I’m going to think, looking at you. Do you understand? Is it all right with you? Do you consent?”

“I do. I do. I just wish—”

“And tomorrow night you be here for dinner.”

The door closed behind him. He walked down the corridor. In a little while he became conscious that the night air was cool on his face. He looked about. Somewhere on the left the college slept. On the right were a few lights in the town. He hesitated. He walked toward the campus a few steps. He stopped rebelliously. He was wide awake. He turned from the shadowed buildings impatiently. He walked toward the town.

In the town he found an all-night diner. He entered, thinking in another world, the lights, the rattle of crockery, roused him sharply. Guiltily, he avoided the eyes turned toward him, the browsing, half-incurious inspection of a half-dozen men at the counter. He ordered a cup of coffee. When it arrived, when he began to sip it, the other diners turned back to their own, a cycle completed. The scrutiny lifted, the censor gone, Lucas relaxed gratefully. He brooded, trying to think, summoning thought. But his thoughts would not be arranged. They leapfrogged, he could neither order them nor marshal them nor anticipate them. They were of Ruth, they were of himself, they were of the days that had passed, small things, great things, details and whole structures, of newness, of his own newness, of things becoming and things become.

Then memories of the hour just passed quickened his breath. It was the first time. It had come so very close. He finished the last of his coffee, fumbled for a coin. The counterman’s back was turned to him. On his left, three stools away, a pair of truck drivers sat motionless staring at their cups.

“What the hell’s happened to Eddie?” one asked suddenly, a small man, wiry, big-nosed.

“He got another run.” His companion was thickset, rumpled, his stout face deeply lined.

“Yeah?”

“You heard?”

“I heard something was doing. I heard he was fired, company mixup, something.”

“No . . . they put him on another run.”

“Good!”

“Yeah . . .”

“I heard he was fired.”

“No. That’s what happened . . . He wouldn’t go over the bridge.”

“You’re kiddin’.”

“Nope. One of the bridge guys told me. For months! Eddie’d drive up, the toll guy’d see him, he’d take his toll, close the gate, get into the truck and drive it across. Eddie’d just sit there, shaking. Toll guy used to wait for him. Minute he spotted him he’d close the gate or turn it over to another guy.”

“What got into him?”

“Don’t know.”

“Come on sudden?”

“The way I figure he’s had it for years, finally got so he couldn’t stand it any more.”

“Wouldn’t drive over a bridge!”

“Couldn’t!”

Any bridge?”

The thickset man nodded, wonderingly. “They give him another run.”

“For Christ’s sakes I was talking to him, close as you are, just a couple of weeks ago!”

“Trembling like a leaf, the toll guy said. Just sitting there.”

“He was just as normal, sitting right across from me—I tell you he didn’t look wild, he didn’t talk crazy—”

“He ain’t crazy!”

“No, huh? Jeeze!”

“He just can’t drive over a bridge.”

Any bridge, huh?”

“Not none.”

“Big ones? High ones? Certain kinds of bridge?”

“Not none.”

“I’m a son-of-a-bitch. I gotta tell my old lady.”

“Guy comes out to meet him. Eddie just moves over . . .”

The counterman turned, saw Lucas.

“Over here!” he called.

The truck drivers turned, looked at him somberly. Lucas walked to the counterman, paid him for the coffee, eyes followed him as he pocketed his change, as he left, turned away as the door closed behind him.

The streets were empty but now the impression people had made in the empty space, the space they had walked through, were like footprints and he was aware of their passing, of their wake, the streets were people’s streets, people who bowled and people who were afraid to cross bridges, they belonged to people, snug in their houses now, waiting to rise, sleeping all about him. He walked briskly home, less alone than he had been in years.

In the morning, his world again, and he progressed from class to class, impatiently. In the laboratory, nothing had changed, he searched their faces but there was nothing there, the night before might not have happened. He was relieved.

“What are you going to do tonight?” he asked casually.

“We’re going to get a good night’s sleep for a change,” Ruth said promptly.

“Oh!” he said, disconcerted. “I was going to—I was going to bring some books back—”

“Some other time,” Ruth said.

The door of the laboratory opened and Dr. Aarons entered.

“How about a little tissue mounting?” he smiled.

“Oh, no!” Ann and Ruth groaned in unison.

“I’ve just got a few—I fell behind yesterday, and—”

“Go on to lunch!” Ann turned to Lucas.

“Aren’t you going?”

“We’ll be down later.”

The door closed behind him.

“How’s he doing?” Dr. Aarons asked. “Everything all right?”

“Well,” said Ann, “he’s doing Gram stains—”

“Him?”

“And Wrights—and a few sed rates—oh, and Pappenheims, of course—”

“And hemoglobins—” said Ruth.

“And blood sugars, of course!” Dr. Aarons snorted. “No, but seriously! Is he keeping the place clean?”

“He does those things!” Ann protested.

“Honestly!” cried Ruth.

“I don’t believe it!”

“Well, he does.”

“Does he know what he’s doing?”

“Of course he does! As much as we do—”

“But when does he get time? How did he learn?”

“He comes early and he goes late. That’s how he gets time.”

“You mean it? You really mean it?” Dr. Aarons’ eyes were faraway. “What do I need you to do tissue mounts for? That’s pretty nice of you to teach him, give him your time,” he said soberly.

“I’ll bet you could teach him to do tissue mounts,” said Ann.

“It needn’t stop there, either!” Ruth said.

“No, it wouldn’t stop there. You’re right. I’d teach him tissue mounts, then I’d teach him something else, and in a month he’d be teaching pathology and I’d be out of a job!”

“You bet you would!”

Dr. Aarons’ face sobered. “Got one of his slides handy?” he asked.

“Here’s a sputum,” said Ann.

“I’d like to see it.” He walked quickly to the microscope. He looked. He raised his head. His eyes were faraway again. “Yes . . . That’s all right . . .” What did you expect, he asked himself. Did you expect anything else? Didn’t you know? Yes, I knew. Only—only I wish it was me! starting all over again! He turned to the two women.

“Quite a pair of little mothers, aren’t you?” He smiled. “Remind me to bring you my socks and buttonholes . . .”


In the dining room Lucas looked about for a seat, saw the brunette probationer-nurse, and a little amazed at his own courage walked to an empty chair beside her and sat down.

“Look who’s here!” she said happily.

“What’s good today?” He grinned, uncomfortable.

You’re good today. Going to take me out tonight?”

His face reddened. Then as he looked at her, groping for an airy return, his heart began to pound. She saw his look.

“Why not?” he said awkwardly, trying to be debonair.

“You going to take me to a movie? And cuddle?”

He looked down so that she could not read his eyes, it was all a joke, he mustn’t let on, she mustn’t think that he—

“You bet!” he said hoarsely.

“Nurses’ Home,” she said rapidly. “Seven o’clock.” Her face was expressionless. “Seven o’clock—handsome. . . .”

She looked tinier than ever in street clothes, Lucas thought, walking proudly with her from the Nurses’ Home that evening. She was very pretty.

“What picture?” she demanded.

“You pick it!”

“I look all right?” She stepped under a street light and turned slowly.

“You look beautiful!”

She took his arm again.

“Know something?”

“What?”

“You do too!”

“Me?—I—”

She turned him unceremoniously, she moved against him, she reached up, she pulled down his head, her lips were on his mouth. Abruptly she released him.

“Now let’s go to the movies.” She took his arm and turned him again.

“Wait!” protested Lucas. He tried to halt. She walked on.

“First let’s go to the movies,” she said.

When the darkness was around them, when they had settled themselves in the back row of the balcony to which she directed him, he waited, unsure. At last, the picture begun, she gave a little sigh. Next moment he felt her small hand. It groped toward his lap, found his hand, dragged it back to her lap. She pressed it gently to her body.

Later, eons later, he stumbled after her up the aisle, the lights blinded them, then they were in the dark streets and he lurched beside her, his head clearing only a little, she walked faster and his legs obediently followed, she turned aside, they were on the grass now, walking over grass, he stumbled, they were in a small park, they had come to a flight of steps, he was sitting beside her on the top step, his arms were about her, he was kissing her mouth, her lips opened, she leaned back.

★ CHAPTER 15

The basement dining room for the hospital staff had once been a pantry. A single long table crammed it, condiments clustered in four precise groups and between these, in a line down the middle of the table, were six small pitchers stuffed with upright knives, forks, and spoons.

Here, visiting physicians came with a jovial air of democracy, dutifully praising the food. Here came the interns, withdrawn, speaking to each other in low, mystic monosyllables full of portent and mutual understanding, eating deliberately, turning expressionless faces to an occasional outburst from one of their less dignified fellows. Here, the nurses sat primly, on their capped heads the curiously designed headdresses, banded in black, that were the symbols of the hospitals from which they had graduated. Here they spoke politely to each other, wary of manners, sitting upright, eating carefully, speaking carefully, knowing their place but allowing no one else in it, either.

Here sat the laboratory workers, eating quickly and silently, vastly outnumbered; here, somberly, ate the resident; the department heads, suddenly vivacious, prating the sacred language when lay executives were among them. Here sat the probationers, the young girls from farms and cities, from high school and department stores, penniless, regimented, rebellious, subdued, forever hungry, their youth bursting from the seams of the blue-and-white-striped cotton that distinguished them from the elite sisterhood, the ladies, the graduate nurses.

Here the language was the common language but each group spoke among themselves in the subsections of it peculiar to their occupations. From the doctors floated such phrases as “. . . caudad? Orad, I would say . . .” and from the interns, “. . . so I knew, once I saw the taeniae coli and the epiploic . . .” and from the nurses, “. . . wasn’t it warm today, I must get some new handkerchiefs . . .”

To this dining room Lucas came next day near the end of the noon hour. The table was almost deserted. Dorothy was there, dawdling over dessert, plainly waiting for him. Keeping her company another young probationer inspected Lucas steadily as he seated himself next to Dorothy.

“So this is the one!” She leaned forward to emphasize her stare.

“Oh, shut up, Jenny! Why so late, Luke?” Under the table Dorothy pressed her thigh against his.

“What I heard about you!” Jenny giggled.

“This is my roommate. She’s Jenny Ordway.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Lucas said, bewildered.

“Look at those eyelashes!” said Jenny.

“Quit!” Dorothy glanced sidelong toward the end of the table where two interns ate.

“Oh—oh!” called Jenny.

Lucas looked up.

A nurse was about to take her place opposite them.

“Nuts!” Dorothy muttered, shockingly loud. The newcomer appeared not to have heard. She was a young woman of twenty-two, of medium height, somewhat heavier than the two girls. Her hair was pale blonde, almost tow, her eyes were blue, her face was heavily boned, her chin was cleft.

“Har yu!” She smiled cordially. She spoke with an accent. “And wot’s gude?” she demanded. She reached for a bowl of stew and helped herself enthusiastically.

She did not notice that no one had answered her. She looked about the table genially and began to eat. She ate slowly and with relish. She appeared to be completely satisfied with the plain and tasteless fare.

“Skowhegan!” Dorothy snarled under her breath.

“What?” Lucas bent to hear better.

“I’ll tell you later.”

“What floor you working on, Dorothy?” the nurse asked, amiably, reaching across the table for a piece of bread.

“Third floor,” the probationer said sullenly.

“Anyway,” Jenny said, “there’s a dance the thirteenth, and—”

“Charge nurse is Miss Vinters,” the nurse interrupted imperturbably. “That’s gude. You be gude to her she treat you gude.”

“I got to be getting back.” Dorothy rose.

“Me too,” said Jenny.

“So! You don’t eat dessert, girls? You like to keep your figure, hah?” The nurse grinned amiably and significantly at Lucas. “You new orderly?” she asked Lucas.

“I work in the laboratory,” Lucas said.

“New janitor boy, hah? You go to college or just janitor?”

“College.”

“You coming?” Dorothy demanded.

“Let him finish!” the nurse protested. “He don’t have to watch his figure.”

“Come on, Dorothy,” Jenny said. “See you later, Luke.” They walked stiffly out.

“Nice girls,” the nurse said approvingly. “You know them long?”

“Not long, no.”

“Nice. Nice girls. Got two more years, then they get their caps. Then maybe marry some nice doctor, settle down, all fixed.”

She applied herself again to her stew. Lucas waited uncertainly. No nurse had ever spoken to him sociably before. She continued to eat. He took up his spoon and finished his dessert, pushed his plate away and rose. The nurse looked up.

“Goodbye.” She beamed hospitably.

“Goodbye,” said Lucas, startled.


“That pest!” Dorothy explained. “That dumb ox!”

“What does she do?”

“She’s operating-room nurse. She ought to stay there. Have you ever seen anything dumber? I mean, dumber?”

“She’s got kind of an accent—”

“Accent! She’s just Swede through and through! One hundred percent dumb Swede! Why, she’s the butt of the whole hospital! ‘Ay coomb fum Minny-Soe-Duh!’ ”

“What does she do?”

“What do you mean, ‘what does she do’?”

“I mean, what does she do that’s wrong? I mean—”

“What does she do that’s wrong? Why, she’s a Swede, Luke! She’s just a big dumb Swede! Where you been, Luke! Don’t you know what Swedes are?”

“What’s the matter with Swedes?” Luke asked defensively. He asked the question with a shade of belligerence to distract Dorothy from guessing his ignorance.

“Oh, Luke! Oh, I’m not saying all Swedes! Some Swedes are some of the finest people I know. But when you get a dumb one—why, they’re just like a hog, or a cow or something! No manners, no dignity—just dumb! Why, the whole hospital knows her!”

“I don’t know her,” Lucas explained. “I never saw her before,” he added apologetically.

“You must be deef, then! Deef, dumb, and blind!”

“What are you getting so mad about?”

“The whole lunch hour ruined just because she had to butt in—”

“Oh, come on, Dorothy!”

“And you! What are you going to be doing, all the rest of the month! Going around with those la-de-dah art lovers in the laboratory? Sure! I’ll bet you sleep with both of them, don’t you! Both of them! Right now!”

Lucas recoiled. Dorothy’s face was paler.

“Admit it!” she cried, triumphantly and cut to the heart at his flinch.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” he said angrily.

“No, I suppose not. Not them! Laboratory technicians!” She minced the words daintily, spitefully. “Much too good for any of us. Keep to themselves and read poetry and look at pictures. The fat lady and the titless wonder!” She stuck out her little finger, “Would you have tea or lemon?” she mimicked Ruth, pursing her lips.

“Cut it out!” Lucas cried. Ruth and Ann receded into another world, a rich, cultured, fine, secure world, and he joined them there without hesitation, looking with revulsion on Dorothy and a thousand Dorothys, on a world beneath.

“You are, aren’t you!”

“Listen here—!”

“You’re sleeping with her! With the thin one!”

He stared at Dorothy incredulous and furious. He saw in her angry eyes a flash of despair and pleading, grief and helplessness.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said earnestly. “You just don’t know, Dorothy.”

“No, they’re out of my class. I wouldn’t understand, would I! Girls like that never think of a man! Why, they wouldn’t know what to do with a man! And you’ve never kissed her. I suppose you’re going to tell me that!”

“What’s the matter with you? What’s happened?”

“I just don’t like to be two-timed!”

“Well, who’s two-timing you?”

“No, I suppose you’re just going to be sitting in your room with your hands folded the next thirty days—”

What next thirty days?”

“Oh, you! That’s what I was trying to tell you at lunch when that—that cow—butted in! I go on night duty tonight. I’ll be on night duty”—her voice rose, despairing—“for a whole damn month!”

“No!” He looked at her with real consternation.

“And you on the loose with that too-good-to-pee poetry reader,” she said, but his consternation had satisfied her.

“Honestly, Dorothy,” Lucas protested, “honestly, you’re wrong—you’re dead wrong—you—”

“Did you like Jenny?”

“Jenny—who’s Jenny?”

“My roommate Jenny! The girl who was with me at lunch—you sat right next to her!” she cried irritably.

“Oh! . . . Sure! sure, she’s all right—”

Dorothy’s face whitened.

“Well, you take her out! See? When you want to take somebody out, you take Jenny.”


After the movies they walked sedately along the sidewalk, heading automatically, tacitly, toward the park. On this first evening with Jenny, Lucas was self-conscious and polite. Jenny drew him to a halt outside a department-store window.

“That’s a pretty dress,” she said, staring.

“Yes, it’s nice. Not as nice as you’ve got on,” he said hastily.

She drew back, looked down at herself, smoothed her skirt.

“What, this? This old thing? I’ve had it a million years!” She looked up at him. “You really like this, Luke?”

He eyed her figure guardedly, turned hastily. “It looks swell! It really does!”

She took his arm. She had seen his look, she was satisfied.

“I’ve got a TL for you,” she said presently.

The park was just ahead.

“What’s a TL?”

“Oh, you! You know what a TL is!”

“If it’s got something to do with that dress—”

“Silly! That’s not a TL. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to afford dresses like that. Just walk right in and buy it and walk out. I wonder who does it? Just anything they want.”

“Wait until you’re a nurse. Nurses get good money—”

She looked down at her scuffed shoes. She wriggled her toes idly to see whether she could feel the pavement beneath the thin spot in her right sole. “I’m going to handle only private cases. Nothing but private.”

“That’s where the money is.” Lucas nodded wisely. He fingered the two worn bills in his pocket.

The street lights were dimmer here. The park had begun. At this hour the town was preparing for bed. The sidewalk echoed their steps.

“Don’t you honestly know what a TL is?”

“Honest.”

“It stands for trade last. When somebody says something nice about someone you tell them, but first they have to tell you something nice somebody said about you.”

“Oh, sure! Now I remember!”

“You knew it all the time!”

“I swear—”

“Well, first you have to think of something nice somebody said about me.”

He thought a moment. “Well, somebody said you had a pretty figure.”

“Oh, you made that up! Who said it? Who?”

They had ventured onto the grass. They walked slowly, aimlessly, always toward the small copse of trees somewhere in the night ahead.

Lucas tried to think of a name.

“One of the interns,” he said.

“I’ll tell you mine. One of the girls said you had the nicest—”

She broke off and turned her head, listening. They halted. From the darkness, from nearby, came a soft sound.

“It’s somebody crying.” They looked at each other, then turned and walked in the direction of the sound. Huddled against one end of a park bench sat a small, elderly woman. Her gray hair had loosened wispily. Her feet did not touch the ground. She was weeping quietly and tiredly, her hands over her face.

They looked down at her but she did not notice them.

Lucas cleared his throat.

“Is there anything we can do?”

The old woman started. She cringed. She peered at them fearfully.

“Would you help me?” she begged. “Would you please help me?”

“Of course!”

“Sure, honey!”

“I want to go home. Will you take me home? I’m lost . . .”

“You bet! You just tell us where it is!”

“I just went out for a little walk. I must have got confused. I’ve walked and walked. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a trouble.”

“No trouble at all!”

“Don’t you worry, dear—”

“I don’t know what happened—I’m just—lost . . .”

Lucas took her arm gently and helped her to her feet. In the dimness she trembled.

“I’ll be very glad to pay you,” she said. She opened a shabby purse. She felt in it a moment. “Here!” She extended a quarter to Lucas. Her purse dropped. He picked it up, flat, ravelled cloth, quite empty. “I can pay you for your trouble.”

He pushed the coin gently away.

She insisted. “I’ll be glad to pay—”

Lucas took one arm, Jenny the other, they led her toward the sidewalk.

“Where do you live, dear?” Jenny asked.

“It’s that big house . . .” she began. She darted a wary look at them. “It’s quite a big house,” she said quickly. “Harmon Street. I don’t know what happened . . .” She shivered. “I was lost . . .”

She was very small between them and over her head Jenny looked quickly at Lucas.

“Is it the—the Home, dear?”

The old woman lowered her head.

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

“Well, don’t you worry, honey! We’ll have you there in a jiffy!”

“I just came out for a walk. It’s not easy to be cooped up all the time—and I must have walked too far—taken a wrong turn—and all I wanted was a little walk—just to get away by myself—”

As they neared the Home for Aged and Indigent she tried again to give Lucas the quarter.

“Please! I’ve been such a trouble! Take it for all your trouble.”

The door of the Home opened. A tall matron peered at them. The old woman shrank. The matron promptly called over her shoulder:

“Mary!”

She stepped forward and seized the old woman’s arm.

“You!” she cried triumphantly.

“I’m sorry, matron—”

“You’ve had your last chance, Mrs. Duncan. You’ve been warned and warned—”

“I just went for a walk—”

“What’s the trouble?” Lucas flared.

A second matron hurried out.

“You! You, is it? And half the town turned upside down looking for you!”

“That’s who it is, all right,” the first matron sighed.

“Well, you know what’s going to happen to you, now!” the second matron said firmly.

“Please, matron—”

“We’ve had enough of it and that’s all. This is the last straw.”

She hustled the old woman inside, she hurried her along a hall, the slender, small woman docile, doing her obedient best to keep up with her, they disappeared. “Please!” The old woman was weeping.

“It’ll do you no good! You’ve been warned enough!” And they were gone.

“Wait a minute!” Lucas found his tongue.

“Yes!” echoed Jenny. “What—”

“What’s going to happen to her?” Lucas took a step in the direction in which the old woman had disappeared.

“She’s an inmate!” said the matron.

“I know, but—”

“She’s been told and told and told,” the matron said sadly. “And the minute you turn your back she wanders off and gets lost. Four times. Four times this month!”

“You mean to tell me you’re going to punish her?” Lucas breathed faster.

“How would you like to have a house full of them wandering off, and you responsible to the state—”

“She was trembling!” Jenny cried. She glared at the matron indignantly.

“And none of us knowing whether she’d been killed or laying hurt somewhere—the whole place topsy-turvy—she’s been warned and warned,” the matron said compassionately. “The poor soul knows the rules.” She sighed. “Tomorrow morning she’s going to Nortonville.”

“But that’s the insane asylum!”

“They get old. They go wandering around—”

“But she just went for a little walk! She felt cooped up and wanted to be alone and she went for a walk and—and got lost—”

“They’ll take care of her at Nortonville. There’s nothing the matter with Nortonville.”

“But she’s not insane!”

“The Home’s full, as it is. Pack-jammed—”

She looked at them with sudden interest.

“You relatives?” she asked hopefully.

“We just happened to find her—”

The matron grimaced. “Well, then . . . thanks for bringing her back. We’re obliged to you.”

“Us? Don’t thank us!” Lucas snorted.

“She’ll be all right.” The matron nodded. She closed the door.

They stood uncertainly. The looked at each other. They dropped their eyes. They looked again at the closed door. They walked into the darkness again and it was cool on their cheeks and it hid them and they were glad of it.

And slowly it became bearable, there was distance between them and the Home, distance and darkness and, a little with each step, they left it behind.

“That poor, poor old thing!” Jenny said at last. She turned to Lucas defensively. It’s not my fault, her look said. What could I do? Did I do wrong?

“There must be somebody you can report a thing like that to!” Lucas vowed.

“They get old, you know,” Jenny said apologetically.

“But the insane asylum! Why send her there? The last thing in the world that poor old thing wants is to be cooped up! There’s no reason to send her there! She’s not senile—”

“Yes, Luke. Yes, she was,” Jenny said softly.

“Jenny!”

“A little, Luke. A little senile.”

“Now, Jenny! My God!”

“Just the least little—when they get old—at first you don’t even notice it—my grandmother—”

“I didn’t notice,” Lucas said, uncertainly.

“Yes, Luke. Honest!”

“You’d know, I guess,” he said reluctantly.

“I see them in the wards. Honest! And you were fine, oh, you looked so brave standing there, standing up for the poor old thing—”

“Gosh! When she tried to make me take that quarter—”

“It’s all right, Luke. She’ll be well taken care of.” He turned to her anxiously. “They take awfully good care of them! And think of her wandering around in the cold, in the park all night—”

“That’s true . . . that would be terrible . . .”

“No, it’s the best thing, Luke. It’s really best . . .”

They came again to the park.

“I’m going to take nothing but private cases,” Jenny said. “Private, home cases, good homes, twenty-four-hour duty. Where I can eat in peace, all I want, the kind of food rich people have, and dress well and get paid. Convalescents . . .”

“Nurses make a lot of money, sometimes,” Luke said.

“When I came into it I never thought of money. I come from a farm.”

“Lots of farmers where I come from. You ever heard of Milletta?”

“Farmers!” Jenny shuddered. “At first all I wanted was to get away. But the day we were given our uniforms, when I did my first day—you know something? I wanted to be a nurse.”

“You’ll be a good one.”

“But it’s forever! It’s four whole years! And you’re poor, poor, you get up poor and you go to bed poor, your shoes get holes in them, the food is awful and you’re always hungry, when I pass a bakery and see those whipped-cream cakes I have to turn my head away, and candy, and a thick juicy steak—just once—and a new dress—or a hat—”

“Students don’t have much, either,” Lucas said awkwardly.

“Five dollars a month! That’s what a probationer gets! You just be a girl and young and—and—healthy—and try five dollars a month.”

They came to a small hill. They sat on the grass.

“Tomorrow we’ll see if I can scrape up enough for us to have a steak. Maybe a small one. What do you say?”

“It’s different with you! You’ll be a doctor someday. A doctor! Do you realize that?”

“I know,” Lucas said humbly. He put his arm around her shoulder.

“It’s late,” she said meditatively. “I’ll get killed. I’ll have to go through a window—”

“In a minute,” said Lucas. Her shoulder was soft and firm. Her body was warm against his chest.

“We’ve got to be true to Dorothy,” Jenny warned, smiling.

“We will.”

“I promised . . . Otherwise . . .” She snuggled closer. “You’re nice, Luke . . . You’re not rough and—and grabby—”

“Shhh,” he said. And then, “ ‘You cannot dream things lovelier, than the first love, I had of her.’ ” His voice was low, he tried to control its awkward shaking. She looked up, surprised. He hugged her closer. “ ‘Nor air is any, as magic-shaken, as her breath in, the first kiss taken . . .’ ”

“Why, Luke, darling . . . that’s poetry . . . Are you saying poetry to me, Luke?”

“It’s Humbert Wolfe,” he said. “Listen . . . ‘And who in dreaming, understands, her hands, stretched like a blind man’s hands . . .’ ” Jenny sighed. She closed her eyes. “ ‘Open, trembling, wise they were, you cannot dream things lovelier . . .’ ” His voice faded. They sat in silence. His heart was beating hard. Against his cheek her cheek was warm, a little moist. Her voice was drowsy.

“That’s lovely, Luke. . . . Do you like Edgar Guest? Home we had a whole book—”

He turned her to him. He stopped her mouth with a long kiss. Her hands tightened about him. She held her mouth on his. The night drifted slowly over them. He moved, he moved again. For an instant she wrenched her mouth away.

“No! No, don’t! Don’t, Luke . . . Luke!” And then, “Oh! . . . Oh! . . . Aaahh . . . That’s good . . . That’s—that’s . . .”

Then she was silent.


Now the days passed, and these were days of youth. It was the first time Lucas had been a youth and he studied hurriedly, he rushed from his morning classes impatiently, he cut classes. He studied little. The hospital enfolded him and he walked the crisp corridors reverently, each day he gained new courage, soon he walked boldly through the wards as if he were on some errand, once or twice he ventured into the maternity section. But best of all he loved to linger unobtrusively outside the wide swinging doors of the operating room. There, the white-clad interns entered, their faces abstracted, sometimes laughing casually, without merriment, conscious of their dangling masks, their other-worldly vestments. And the doctors, advancing to the double doors in clothes which were almost uniforms in themselves, the suits all vaguely similar, of hard, thin cloth, shoes black, round-tipped, and shining, dull ties, spotless linen, the doctors walking measured steps, ignoring the world to confer with mannered, intent smiles, chatting gravely on new instruments, making medical talks, passing obliviously thus through the swinging double doors. And sometimes an orderly and a nurse would swing silently along the corridor, pushing a wheeled stretcher bearing a human figure all silent, staring ceilingward, glancing wide-eyed sidelong, eyes closed, the head wrapped grotesquely in a ritual towel, fastened ritually, the body covered with a ritual blanket, ritually tucked in, and without pause or murmur or sound of any kind except a bump at the swinging doors, the stretcher, the patient, the nurse and the orderly would disappear, the doors would swing behind them.

And sometimes such stretchers would emerge from the swinging doors, and before they swung shut he could glimpse doctors, now robed in white, ritually gloved, masked, talking animatedly, and the patient, ritually swathed, breathing stertorously, would disappear in a twinkling down the corridor, leaving a strong and a delicious wake of ether.

And a few times a strange aura would fill the entryway, a sense of excitement and of boding, of something about to happen, something stern, something that must be punished, something of guilt. And in this oppressive aura Lucas could see as the stretcher passed him that a sheet had been pulled over the patient’s face, and that there was no breathing here, and the shape was human but there was nothing for it here, nothing in the hospital, it was without value and there was nothing to be done with it. There was a small ritual provided for it, but that was all. Then in a moment the doctors would emerge slowly, chatting as when he had first seen them, and the ominous aura faded and the life of the hospital, which had paused for a moment, ticked on imperturbably, ordered, serene, act upon act. And Lucas watched the doctors, and worshipped them with his eyes and went back to the laboratory disappointed in the body that had failed them and which now lay below, in the basement, in a basket, waiting silently for their goodness and their wisdom, waiting to be opened, this time utterly, to disclose to their good and other patient fingers how it had failed them.

He heard the cries of newborn babies. In a week he learned through the side-mouthed sotto-voces of the probationers with whom he was becoming fast acquainted the hoarse yells of women in labor and which was hard labor and which was yelling.

Daily he foraged through the hospital, daily he saw new sights, heard new sounds, daily he was intoxicated, and these sounds and these scenes were the weather and windows of the house in which he lived.

In the evenings there was Jenny, there were a furtive half-dozen other probationers, he went often to Ruth’s and Ann’s apartment.

There were such evenings and long days in the laboratory and the new things learned, and there were the evenings at which he was becoming more and more adept, when he adventured with probationers, and his body belonged to such evenings. Hunger swiftly became appetite. He learned the dark places of the parks, the hallways of apartment houses, the secrecy of cemeteries, the slope of riverbanks, what places were safe and which were thrillingly dangerous.

And these days, these things, all these days and all these things, this mosaic became a pattern of excitement and voracity, and the impact of Medicine, and body and love, and they were willful days, days without a reckoning, studies forgotten, in which he ruled himself and bade himself do as he craved and he kept no account but lived as a body and a mind would live, whichever voice was strongest, oblivious to the order to which he had bound himself.

In this fashion, in the space of a few weeks, the pleasures, the raptures, the new horizons, new conduct, new freedom ripened him, he passed from boy to uncertain man, he gained assurance, he was astounded at the success of duplicity and acquired confidence in it, he discovered that he was personable in the eyes of others and that he could trade heavily upon it and he was somewhat delivered from maternal rule by the discovery that by appealing to the maternal he could rule it. He became an entity. He became a person of his own.

“I understand from Miss Jeanette and Miss Dorchester that you’re picking up laboratory technique,” Dr. Aarons said to him one day.

“They’ve been teaching me—”

“So I understand. I may start you on a few tissue identifications.”

Lucas stiffened.

“Unless, of course, you haven’t time—”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of time—really! Plenty!”

“If you’re sure you have the time. I don’t want to encroach on your recreations—you should have some time for recreation—”

“Honestly!” Lucas protested.

“Because it may involve a little night work.”

“Not a thing! I haven’t got a thing to do!”

“That’s fine, then. Your nights are for study. I’ll bet you know.”

“Is there anything—anything, say, I could study in the meantime?” Lucas looked in the direction of a microscope.

“Slides, you mean?”

“I’ve never seen a tissue slide.”

Dr. Aarons opened a drawer. “Here’s healthy kidney tissue, here’s a diseased sample. Here’s healthy liver, here’s diseased liver. And here’s a spleen.” He put the glass slides in an envelope and handed it to Lucas.

“I’ll be very careful with them,” Lucas said reverently.

“Yes. Next time I see you perhaps you’ll be able to tell me the differences you observed. Would you like to see something? Tell me what you think of this.”

He flipped a light switch, bent briefly over a microscope, straightened, gestured to Lucas to look. Lucas stared through the tube. On a blue plain a host of small whitish circles loomed, and in the areas between the circles streamed a profusion of irregular dots, streaks, a river of small marks whose only plan was irregularity and profusion.

“Well?”

“I think—I think there’s some cells there.”

“Many cells. What sort of tissue would you say the cells formed?”

“I don’t know—not bone . . .”

“No, not bone. Anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“Look again. What you see is cancer, carcinoma. And the cells are gastric tissue. You’ve seen cancer before? Well, now you’ve seen it again. A particularly beautiful specimen. Cancer of the wall of the stomach. The wild material, the formless stuff, crowding the cells, absorbing some, spreading everywhere, that’s the cancer.”

“That’s the form, then.”

“It has no form.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“That’s true. But in its aggregate it can take form, very definite form—”

“Like in kidney cancer—”

“What do you know about kidney cancer?”

“I just read somewhere that in certain kinds of kidney cancer, or tumor, or something—”

“That the growth roughly resembles the kidney on which it feeds. That’s right. Where did you read that?”

“Do you know what I thought? I mean, I don’t know anything about it, of course, but I couldn’t help thinking . . .”

“What did you think?”

“Well, you know how Medicine has used the enemies of the body—like vaccines and deliberately giving fever for syphilis, and—burns for some kinds of treatment—well, I thought, I mean the idea just hit me when I saw that about that kind of kidney cancer, maybe someday that’s how they’ll cure cancer!”

“As a vaccine?”

“No, no sir! I mean deliberately implant cancer. Turn it against itself! Use it! I mean, it’s a growth, and the chief enemy of the body is worn-out organs and someday they’ll train cancer to do what I’ll bet it’s trying to do—grow new organs. Because look at the kidney form! It almost seems as if that’s what cancer is trying to do, it’s a kidney cancer and the cancer grows in a kidney shape and it’s just like a kidney except that it hasn’t any function and maybe it could be taught to have function!”

Dr. Aarons smiled and shook his head to cover his embarrassment.

“I don’t see why not!”

“Well—ah—cancer grows wild, you know—”

“But it grows.”

“Yes—that’s quite true—it grows. . . . Well, cancer is a big subject. You’ll understand more about it every year. Yes.”

“But it’s possible! Isn’t it possible, sir?”

“No.”

“Absolutely impossible?”

“Absolutely.”

“I don’t know the mechanics, of course. I don’t know how it could be done. But just to train it, say—use its growth potential—make it grow new organs, new bones, whatever you need—”

“I understand.”

“And it’s not possible?”

“No.”

“But I really mean it!”

“You have had civics? Yes. You know what anarchy is? Cancer is anarchy.”

“But—”

“It is simply not possible. When you study you will see why. It is not possible even to discuss it with you until you are better grounded. You must know physiology.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Aarons shrugged. “Take care of those slides. They’re excellent mounts. And study—when you have a chance—the fundamentals!”

The clinical laboratory was empty. He put the slides carefully in a desk drawer.

Ruth had bought a book on her way to work. It lay near the microscope, Three Plays by Brieux, slim, bound in a tapestried cover. He put his fingers tenderly on her microscope.

He bent closer to her desk. She had left a memorandum to herself. Ruth and Ann had been dividing the work Ahrlquist used to do. The note said: “Total nitrogen—Kjeldahl.”

Now he knew where to look, where to find out what things meant. He riffled pages impatiently. In one of the books lining the far wall he found Kjeldahl’s method for determining total nitrogen. It was a complicated formula. He brought the book to the long table and set out those things the test required. One by one he brought the seven chemicals. He inspected the digesting rack with its six curious flasks. Then he set up the distilling apparatus. All of this took time, the materials were unfamiliar to him and the equipment complex and delicate. Now he read the formula again. He had overlooked a pipette and an oxidizing flask. He found the catalogue of a chemical supply house and searched the illustrations for an oxidizing flask. Finding the picture he searched the laboratory until he found the flask, brought it to the long table. He found a hood and a Bunsen burner. He saw the words “Erlenmeyer flask” and he reasoned the size and brought it to the table, then litmus paper—he had overlooked that. The test suggested a Hopkins bulb, and he found a picture, but there were four varieties. He inspected the equipment minutely, traced down the bulb, found it already in place.

The door opened. He fled to another part of the laboratory, exultant.

He heard Ruth cry out:

“He’s set up the whole thing!”

“For Heaven’s sake!”

“The Kjeldahl I was dreading! He must have seen my memo. Look! The whole thing!”

“Luke!”

“Eh?” He pretended to be absorbed, disturbed in another task. “What do you want?”

“You come out here!”

He came out.

“Luke Marsh!”

“How did you know what to set out?”

“I looked it up.”

“You’re coming to dinner tonight! And I’m going to make you the best roast chicken this side of Iowa!” Ann cried.

“I really can’t,” he said wretchedly.

“Oho!” Ann cried.

“I’ve got to see one of my profs . . .”

“So it’s true! You little devil! We heard we had a Don Juan in the lab—Luke! You little devil. So it’s true!”

“Absolutely not!” he said hotly. “Whoever said it’s a damned liar!”

“And you don’t know any little dark-haired girl named Dorothy? Little probationer?”

“I never heard of her! Never!”

“Luke!”

“Wait a minute! You mean a little dark-haired probationer sits next to me in the dining room now and then? Is that what you mean? For Heaven’s sake! She just sits next to me!”

“But why shouldn’t you?”

“It makes me sick!” he said. “Lies! Gossip! What for? Why?” His eyes were desperate.

“It’s all right, Luke.”

“It’s not all right!” He strode out of the room. He walked rapidly down the hall.

“What did you do that for, Ann?” Ruth reproached.

“I thought he’d be pleased. Most men are if you tease them about their love life.”

“What’s going on here?” Dr. Aarons walked in, looked amiably at the two women.

They looked up, startled.

“Ann here—we were having a little fun.”

“I expect you were. Your helper passed me in the hall as if he was walking through a shadow! What did you do to him?”

“Oh, the poor kid! We were teasing him—”

“I was teasing him about girls.”

“Ah? You’ve heard too?”

Ruth shrugged. “You can hear anything at a hospital.”

“It’s easy enough to say about a boy like Luke,” said Ann. “Good-looking and all. We happen to know differently.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Dr. Aarons urbanely.

“He’s much too fine,” said Ann. “Too withdrawn, too sensitive, too far above such—” She shrugged contemptuously.

“He’s a very nice boy,” Ruth explained earnestly.

“Ah, yes.” You’re laboratory workers, he thought irritably. You’re a part of science. And you talk like that. What are you turning your back on?

“You can see how he reacted to the very thought,” Ann said more quietly.

Can you be moved? he wondered. Has living, your living, rotted the tendrils of all female reaction in you? Is there a gap now, a synapse, a nothingness between the evident and the response? Have you carried past the act of coitus, have you made it not exist and only the child, the result?

“Yes, I can see,” he said amiably. “He has reached the ripe, the bursting age. He has reached that period when he is fittest for procreation. Accordingly, the perfect and oblivious knowledge of his cells is bending every effort to see that this organism perform a cardinal function. He is at the age fittest to breed and he burns to breed.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Both women smiled politely.

“Alas, it’s a matter of cold science and not philosophy.”

“Of course,” said Ann, “there are certain community restrictions . . .”

“Oh, yes! The local ground rules. In Africa some communities decree he must first kill and then breed. In America he must first be joined to one woman and then breed. In Melanesia he must first be circumcised and then breed. There are ground rules and ground rules. There are all sorts of community restrictions. These elaborate gambits have become more important than breeding itself. We love our rules more than our purpose. It has nothing to do with reality, however. It is like a savage inventing a legend, and a whole set of laws to go with it, about an airplane engine.”

“There is something to be said about a certain amount of community order,” Ruth said dryly.

“Order is a woman’s institution,” said Dr. Aarons. “It was probably invented by the weak. Strength makes its own order.” You’re leading me off, now, he thought suddenly. That lovely female trick, off the trail, away from the ponderable, into the imponderable, away from sex—away—away—away—

“But that hasn’t much to do with our young friend. So far as the law of his cells is concerned he was born for this moment, this age, this time.”

“I wonder if he realizes?” Ruth smiled.

“I wonder what he’s been taught,” Dr. Aarons speculated. “Do you know that in Japan a Japanese woman thinks nothing of bathing nude in public, with a naked man, but she would die of modesty if anyone glimpsed the nape of her neck?”

“So that’s why they wear those buns covering the nape of their necks!”

“I see you have your Kjeldahl all set up for that nitrogen?”

“Luke did that,” Ruth said proudly.

“Luke? Set up a nitrogen determination?”

“Absolutely. He set it up all by himself. When we came back from lunch there it was, waiting!”

“He’s full of little things like that,” Ann said instantly. “Does them all the time. For both of us.”

“You’ve both been very kind to him,” Dr. Aarons said. “He has an excellent mind.” He told them Lucas’ theory about cancer.

“So reasonable? Yes . . . Not to you, of course.” He looked significantly at the microscope. “Apropos,” he said, “I had a letter yesterday from Dr. Weinstein—I’ve mentioned him to you? Yes. He’s doing an arbeit on steroids.”

“Did he get it?” Ruth asked. “The appointment?”

“He’s a fool,” Dr. Aarons said levelly, his eyes hard. “I told him what to expect. He went ahead and applied anyway.”

“But the position was open—he’s the senior man—it belonged to him—what could they possibly say!”

“He’s a Jew.”

“Even if they hated Jews—you can’t tell me they all hate them—”

“They turned him down.”

“No!”

“Of course!”

Dr. Aarons flushed.

“He brought it on himself. I warned him.”

Dr. Aarons compressed his lips to choke back further words. “Well!” he said, and forced a smile. “I mustn’t keep you any longer—”

He waved his hand vaguely toward the laboratory racks and left.


Lucas left the laboratory early that evening.

“Do you mind?” he asked anxiously.

“So that’s why you did the setup for me!” Ruth teased.

“I don’t have to go. I can get out of it. I’ll stay. We’ll have an evening together, the three of us.”

“You run on to your professor,” said Ruth. “We’ll get together later in the week.”

“Yes,” said Lucas humbly. “I’d better.”

He left. He hurried to the dormitory.

What’s got into me? He demanded angrily. What have I done? What am I doing? All of a sudden I want every woman I see! It’s got to stop! This is the last! This is positively the last! He thought of Jenny Ordway. He tingled suddenly. He bounded upstairs.

He opened the door.

Job sat on the bed, waiting for him.

Lucas stared, his mouth open, rooted.

“Hi!” said Job mildly.

Lucas licked dry lips. “Hello, Father,” he said warily.

“Been waiting for you.” He rose. “Had supper?”

“No—I wasn’t going to—I mean—”

“Well, get your hat, whatever, we’ll go out. I want to talk to you.”

Lucas thought of Jenny Ordway, waiting. His mouth opened, but he could not say any words.

“Yes, Father,” he said humbly.

“Well, let’s go, I guess.”

“I’m ready.”

“Aren’t you going to get your hat?”

“Uh, no, I guess I won’t.” Then as Job hesitated, “Fellows don’t wear hats much.”

“Ohhh! . . . College stuff, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well!” He nodded his head, took his hat off. “Guess I won’t wear one either. Maybe they’ll take me for one of those college fellas.”

“Yes, sir,” Lucas said eagerly.

“I guess there’s a little life in the old horse yet.”

He was thinner, Lucas saw now, there was a faintly seedy air about the usually sharply creased clothing he wore on trips.

“Nice place, here,” Job said soberly as they walked the campus.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well,” said Job, “that’s the way it goes.”

“How’s—uh—how’s Charley?”

“Gonna have to retire him pretty soon. Getting too old. Can’t seem to turn it out any more.”

“I’m—sorry I missed you. When I came home. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Some surprised me. One of the things I want to talk to you about.”

“Nobody was home. And I looked over the town and I wondered what I’d be doing there all summer.”

“Yep.”

“I wrote you. When you didn’t answer I guessed it was all right.”

They entered a modest restaurant. They ordered.

“Now I want to know first of all what’s going on,” Job said directly.

“I tried to explain in my letter. I told you. I wrote how it would save money and time for me to go to summer school and when you didn’t answer—”

“I want to know how you came to forge my name at the bursar’s office.”

“I didn’t forge it. I—”

“If you could do it any better you’d be in the penitentiary. You forged it, all right. You took a pen or something and traced it.”

“I watched you write. I wrote it the way I thought you’d write it.”

“You did better than that. You forged it, all right. Now, what else did you copy my name to?”

“Nothing! Not one thing! Look, Dad—”

“I want the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth. I just watched you write and I remembered how you sign and when the bursar said I had to have your signature I thought, all right, I’ll do it, I didn’t know when you’d be back and the way he said it I had to have your signature right then and I couldn’t for the life of me see any harm in it, so I just wrote it. The way you’d write Mother’s sometimes, when she wasn’t handy. Just a convenience, that’s all it was.”

Job pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He smoothed it out. It was the letter Lucas had signed in the bursar’s office. He studied it a moment.

“You traced that.” He pushed the paper to Lucas, who looked at it, white-faced. “You traced it, didn’t you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Well, I wanted it to look right—”

“You put a piece of paper over it and traced it.”

Lucas sat silent.

“Don’t lie to me, Luke.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You traced it out and then you ran back with it to the bursar. That’s how you managed it.”

Lucas said nothing.

“That’s forgery. You could be put in prison for that. Your mother’d feel pretty good if she knew that. Didn’t you think I’d find out?”

“I knew you’d find out. That’s why I thought it was all right! That’s why I did it!”

“But you didn’t write me, saying, ‘Dear Dad, I have forged your signature and I got money from it and paid my way through college doing it.’ ”

“No. And that was wrong, Dad. I’m sorry about that. To tell you the truth, at first I thought you wouldn’t mind, then I was afraid you might and got a little ashamed of doing it at all.”

“That’s what you did, all right.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s what you did. What’s happened to you? You knew I’d find out. You don’t get up early enough to put anything over on me. A dumb kid stunt like that! I thought college would make you smart. Is that all you’ve learned?”

“No, sir.”

A doom grew in Lucas, a fear so terrible he was unable to think at all.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” His lips moved thickly.

“Bringing me all the way up here, taking me away from my business, not knowing what I’d find when I got here. You’re going to be safer with me. Where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Please, Dad! I’ll never do it again!”

“No, you’ll never do it again. Because I won’t give you a chance to.”

“I just did it once.”

“Another thing—what are you doing around here? What are you up to?”

“Studying! My gosh, Dad, if you could see the stuff I’ve been studying—night and day!”

“You haven’t been studying. Whatever else you came here for, you haven’t been studying.”

“Dad! Not studying!”

“That’s what I said.”

“Not studying?”

“No, not studying. They tell me your grades have shot to hell.”

“Who said that!”

“The college office.”

“They said my grades are low?”

“Your name’s Lucas Marsh, isn’t it?”

“They must have got me confused. They read off the wrong grades—”

“They showed me. Lucas Marsh. Failing, failing, failing. Good for a month, good for a couple. Then failing right down the line.”

“Not me! No, sir! The forgery I’ll admit, but when it comes to grades! There’s been some mistake. No, sir! I’ll go there and see!”

“Been screwing around a little, ain’t you?”

Lucas licked his lips.

“No—I—ah . . .” His wits warned him in time, somehow flashed through the panic, the chaos. Don’t lie, now. Not about this. He’ll like this. He’ll approve. It’s man stuff. “Well, the fact is, I’ve got to be honest with you, Dad, there’s no use lying to you, I guess I’m a chip off the old block. I mean—”

“Understand you got a job?”

“Janitoring the laboratory at the hospital.”

“Pay anything?”

“About ten dollars a week. I thought that way I’d relieve some of the strain—”

“Well, there’s strain, all right. To tell you the truth I was going to take you home with me.”

“Oh, please, Dad!”

“Then I found out the rest of the term was paid for, anyway. I’ll tell you, Lucas, you couldn’t have picked a worse time.”

“Maybe I could send you some of mine,” Lucas said eagerly. “Some of what I earn—I’d be glad to, Dad.”

“You know what that would buy me? That wouldn’t buy me two round-trip tickets to Meridian. No, you’ve got your college money, the money I promised your mother I’d set aside. Else you wouldn’t be here. Working in a hospital!”

“I’ve got to go on with it, Dad! I’ve got to!”

“You don’t got to anything. I thought by now college would have straightened you out. I don’t see what good it’s doing you if all you’ve learned—”

“I promised Mother!”

“What do you mean you promised Mother?”

“I said I’d go through my pre-med and at least one year of Medicine. I gave her my sacred word. Dad, I’ll work nights, I’ll do anything, I’ll—Dad, Mother left me those two lots, I’ll sell them, I’ll—”

“Two lots? Where? Oh! . . . I see. . . . No need to do that. Don’t want to be foolish, selling when you ought to hang on. These are no times to sell. Why, you couldn’t get a fraction of what they’re worth. No. Forget it. I’ll see what I can do.” He shook his head, worried. He clicked his tongue. “I’ll raise the cash, some way. They take notes here?”

“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t think so—”

“Well, we’ll see, we’ll see.”

“If you knew what this means to me . . .”

“Now, I want an end of your foolishness. You buckle down and you study. Quit screwing your head off and stay in nights and study. At least if you’re going to stay here—study! And remember—that’s a jail offense. You’re lucky it was your father.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Now I got to get the next train back.”

They rose. Job took a step and turned.

“What you doing?”

“I was just going to leave a little tip,” Lucas said apologetically.

“Oh!” Job fumbled in his pocket. “Put your quarter back.” He dropped seventy-five cents on the table. They walked to the cashier. Job paid the bill. They headed toward the railroad station.

“Good evening!”

Luke looked up, startled. Ann and Ruth were approaching. He managed a small smile.

“Good evening,” he said formally. “Evening,” Job said mechanically. They slowed a moment, then smiled and walked on.

“Friends of yours?” Job asked.

“Them? Oh, no. Just some people work over at the hospital.”

“That blond one looked pretty good, that’s the kind of stuff you ought to stick to, older women.”

“I guess you’re right. I hardly know them.”

“If we meet any of your friends introduce me. I’d like to meet them.”

“I will! You bet! I want them to meet you too!”

“Might steal one from you if you don’t look out.”

“From now on—I study!”

“Well, don’t go overboard, either. A little now and then never did anyone any harm.”

“Not for me!”

At the station they waited awkwardly, talking aimlessly until the train arrived.

“So long, boy. You watch yourself, now. Have a good time.”

“I’ll be working hard, Dad.”

“Need any money?”

“Not a thing!”

“Here—”

“I don’t need it!”

“Take it anyway!”

“But I don’t want it!”

“Take it.”

The five-dollar bill dropped to the platform. Lucas picked it up.

In the train Job settled himself. He inspected his fellow passengers absently. He folded his arms and looked out the window.

Well, it was a bad business. No doubt of it, left a taste in the mouth. Well, it was over. It was a bad trip, altogether, and there wasn’t anything else he could have done. A girl in a meadow looked at the train, shading her eyes with her hand. Job smiled. She flashed away. His smile faded. He looked at the passing fields soberly. The boy was a world away. He sighed with pity for him. The ties were loosed, the contact gone, he had dropped behind, dropped away, alien, strange, receding like the field flashing past, like the last field here and then gone.

It was a little sad, it was like a death, somehow. A distance, a far, far departure. Lucas should be himself, Job, a younger Job, a partner, an extension of himself. Well, you can’t count on anything in this world. Still, I would have sworn it. Well, you can’t lose what you haven’t got. I would have sworn it, all the same. Kid stuff! He wants to be a doctor. He still wants to. And before he knows it he’ll be a doctor. And then it’ll be too late. The mind of a child. He’ll never grow up. He’s lost. It’s too late. He’s done for. He sighed again. He shook his head.

Well, Ouida!

You’ve got what you want!

I hope you’re satisfied . . .

A field flashed past. It was gone. Another took its place. It was gone. He’s ashamed of me, he thought suddenly.

Those two women.

The ones who said hello to him.

Job nodded at the landscape. He nodded on.

Yep!

There was no doubt of it. Lucas had known ’em both. He was scared to death for fear I’d meet ’em.

He pondered this a moment in mild surprise. That was Luke. That’s what had happened. He grinned privately. What a world! What a concourse of queerness! A planet swarming with unpredictable and frantic players. He beamed, he chuckled.

And now Luke.

Well . . .

Luke . . .

And how about the mother? He frowned suddenly. He turned from the window, wary. What lots was he talking about? What two lots? Were there two more? The kid was crazy. There couldn’t be. It’s the same ones. Sure. Only two. He remembered them a moment. Those. Yep. Those were the ones he meant. Wish there were two more . . .

He fell to considering where he could get money. He had to have four thousand dollars. He had to have it in a hurry. This time he simply had to have it, talk wouldn’t do, persuasion wouldn’t do, nothing would do but money.

Charley might have a little more tucked away. Some he hadn’t mentioned. Even if he got the four thousand it was staving off, it was a question of time, it was a question of a breathing space, anything could happen if he had it, it didn’t make any difference how bad things looked. The next step was four thousand dollars. Charley might have four hundred. Better not fire him until he found out. Who else was there? Was there anybody else? Was there somebody he hadn’t borrowed from? There was no one. Not a soul, Job conceded. He had borrowed from everybody. He was right up to the limit. Wait! There was Alexander! He was a doctor. Doctors had plenty of money! Doctors were always investing! He smiled cheerfully. Draw one breath at a time. The tangle of his empire was a single breath. Four thousand dollars. That was the next breath. Take it. There was leather in automobiles, he remembered suddenly. For the shock absorbers. For the springs. For—for—for probably a million things! One breath at a time. That’s all. And there you are.

“This seat taken?”

Job looked at the man, exhilarated. He took in the fat figure, the important face, the petulant mouth, the gold chain in a single glance.

“Not at all, brother. Sit right down make yourself to home. Job Marsh’s the name.” He extended a hearty hand. His fingers closed lovingly over the reluctant fleshy palm offered him.

“Sherman!” the man said heavily.

“Glad to know you, Sherman. Harness is mine.”

“Jewelry,” Sherman said ponderously.

“Four stores—Meridian, Tyre, Milletta, Wetherly. Just been to see my son at college.”

“That so?” Sherman thawed a little, impressed.

“Yes, sir! Fine boy—say, don’t have an opening for a good harness store out your way, do you?”

“Don’t know. . . . You looking for another one? Seems like four ought to be enough for any man—”

“You might think so.” He paused, considering this, then smiled appreciatively. “Fact is,” he explained apologetically, “I’m in kind of a spot. Just signed a contract with the Dodge people for twelve thousand dozen sets of spring covers, I’ve got the cash, I need the place—”

The fat man whistled. He licked his lips covertly, the lovely, furtive, naked licking Job loved so well.

“Sounds good,” he said covetously. He pretended caution. “Won’t that take a lot of capital?”

“Don’t think so.” Job frowned. “I mean a name like Dodge—they’re good for millions.” He spread his palms.

“Of course! Of course! I was just thinking.” The fat man licked his lips delicately.

“What did you have in mind?” Job asked benignly.


Lucas watched the train until it disappeared. He looked after it emptily. For a while the cramp of fear still held him, held him automatically, the incident was over, he was safe, his father was gone. But it had been close. It had been a near thing. And the train was gone. But the cramp held on.

Marks low? Marks failing? In so little time? This place turned treacherous, this sanctuary, this he had won?

He tried to remember the past weeks, even the past days, but they eluded him, they were a flow of time without distinction, a sum apart from the time that had preceded them, these days were made separate by his inletting, by belonging, by the feast of the flesh and the ritual of orgasm, by the emptied campus tilting beneath his weight, tilting him into the actual corridors of the hospital, into the communion of adult notice, and these days were a stolen time, they were swollen with guilt and blown with pleasure beyond any resemblance to days, they were time, time past, exploding now in a sudden horror and disappearing as they exploded.

And on the clear plain of time-being fear watched him, waiting, a figure far off, far as the distance to the bursar’s office, fear which had no face at this distance and was motionless, but had shouted and was still now, listening to the echoes between them, “you have failed,” saying, “failing right down the line, sliding out, going, going—”

“No!” Lucas cried aloud. “No!” he cried again for the sound of his voice, to drown out the echo. And again, “No!”

Only, No was not enough, No was only time to think, and he turned and walked back, walked from the railroad station, through the interrupting streets, onto the empty campus at last, lifeless, empty enough to think in.

And now the immediate past was an unrelated pattern, having no relevance to himself and to the accumulation of characteristics which he had become, and least of all a relevance to Medicine. It was a jumble of days, suspended, diffuse, having no objective nor struggle, a sort of chaos intersecting purpose.

And borne up in this chaos were humans, a taste of all humanity, bowling, reading hokkus, fleeing farms, frantically dedicated to excel, scrabbling for minutiae to king, Faustian, desperate, crying their eminence of the irrelevant, the contemptible, the fantastically useless, as a reason for surviving and for the deference of man and the protection of God, and the gift of life, and of a life’s time.

And there was no intersection, here. They were alien to him as he was alien to them, he was of a community complete in himself, wherever he found himself, a part of all the community of Medicine and so he must move and they must find their own, now and forever, and he fought no longer to become a part of anything, he walked rapidly to the administration building to learn the worst, to face it, to conquer it if there were minutes in the hours of the twenty-four in a day.

And when he had seen the worst he was frightened. And there was no time to lose. None. None at all.

None.


He studied all that night.

★ CHAPTER 16

Dr. Aarons surveyed him coolly. He leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve seen this coming,” he shrugged. Suddenly he was tired of Lucas, furious at the anxiety in his eyes, angry at the conjuring of old memories, now he wanted to be rid of him, to hurt him, to forget he ever lived.

“So you won’t get a scholarship. And you may even flunk out. That’s it, isn’t it? I’m not blind or deaf. I’ve heard rumors. And you aren’t the first and you aren’t the fiftieth—you—I’ve seen thousands like you—” He waved his hand and dismissed the problem.

“I just thought if you could see your way clear—”

“To let you work half-time? Sure! Where does that leave you?”

“Well, I could—”

“You could spend half your time unbuttoning your pants when you should be opening your books.”

Lucas flushed.

“I’m sorry, sir—”

“Hang your sorrow! Don’t be sorry to me! I’m not Medicine! I’m not what you came whining to me ready to give your life for. I’m not a boy’s dream about wanting to be a fireman! I’m a professor. And when the time comes—if you’re still here—I’ll give you grades. And I’ll flunk you if you fail without even wondering what your name is!”

“It was just a few classes! I just cut a couple of—”

“You just cut! What do you think this is, a rah-rah course?”

“I know—”

“Let me tell you something! You don’t know anything! This is something you’ve never imagined! There aren’t any rewards. There’s not enough money in all the world to buy you through. There isn’t any breathing space, there isn’t time to sleep, there isn’t time to eat, there’s eight hours of classes every day and six hours of study every night and every possible spare moment you can cram between. You don’t have to learn a lot. You don’t have to learn the most of it. You have to learn everything! Everything that’s put before you! In a language you never heard before.”

He stared at Lucas with a little hatred, waiting for a word, a chance to strike home. Lucas stayed silent, his head down.

“I’ll never do it again!”

“I’m afraid that doesn’t concern me. It’s Medicine you want to apologize to. I can’t grant you absolution.” He looked at his watch. “Take the job part time if you want to,” he said indifferently. He smiled with his mouth, brief and wintry. “I’m sorry—I have work to do.”

“I’ll make it up—you’ll see—”

Dr. Aarons rose, flared, slammed the desk, exasperated.

“Get it through your head! Once and for all! There’s no such thing as making up! This is Medicine, now! You’re going to have to remember the name of every bone, every nerve, every muscle, the name of every bump on every bone, you’re going to have to describe every process—”

All of it?”

“Six subjects at once. Every day, day after day. Get that Cunningham’s Anatomy from the case behind you. All right? Open it at any page. Got it? What page?”

“Page 1142. It’s about—”

“Never mind what it’s about. Start at the top of the page.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “ ‘Two. The helicis minor muscle covers the crus of the helix. Three. The tragicus muscle runs vertically over the greater part of the tragus. Some of its fibers are prolonged upward to the spine of the helix and constitute the pyramidalis muscle. Four. The antitragus muscle covers the antitragus and runs obliquely upward and backwards to the—’ ”

“But that’s exact! You’re quoting it verbatim!”

“That’s exactly what you’re going to have to do. You’re going to have to be able to do that to graduate in Medicine. That page—or any other page—in any of thirty-five books—few books with less than a thousand pages.”

He drew breath. He looked at Lucas somberly.

“And then, after four years of this, if you graduate—then you find that while you were studying new things were discovered they never taught you. And you master these new things. And in the meantime still other new things have been discovered, books full of new things. And you will be in practice by that time and then you will find that unless you read and study constantly each year you will know less and less, Medicine will have progressed and you will have been left farther and farther behind.”

He stopped, tiredly. He sat down.

“That’s all . . . You’ll really have to excuse me. . . . You can thank your Gods you’re not in Medicine, yet.”

“And yet some fellows manage to work their way through,” Lucas said mildly.

“In a city,” Dr. Aarons said briefly. “Where there are jobs. This is a small town. There’s no pay. And there’s no jobs. Is that brutal enough? Does it sink in? No jobs! None!”

He looked away from Lucas to hide a growing contempt. His mind went back to the days of bitterness, the days when he roamed the wilderness waiting for the Promised Land. He thought of being a Jew and the quota against Jews at medical schools, no more than ten percent admitted and the fight for marks to put you among the lucky ten percent and professors marking Jews low. The days of bitterness, the days of knowledge, the days when his life itself was a crippled thing because of his hunger. Work, and he groaned under it. Fatigue, and he fell asleep again in class the moment the lights went off and the slides were flashed on the screen. Hunger, and its acids cramped his belly. And one day, when he could struggle no longer, the high plateau reached at last. And he was a doctor. And the first thing to be seen was a sign, the letters, the burning letters of God. NJA. No Jews Allowed. And there was the wilderness again. That was all. Just a little wilderness. And a little work. And finally, reluctantly, there was this professorship. And now, in this backwater, his dreams clawing at him still, he watched while others soared.

“Yes,” he said dully, far away, remote, “it could be done.” He was tired. He had been through it all, again; four years of it. He had talked far too long. Actually, it didn’t matter. “Well,” he said indifferently, “that’s how it is. I know you’re interested in Medicine. You’d better start the habit of studying. Otherwise I’m afraid you won’t get through.”

“About the job . . .”

“That’s all right. You can work part time.”

“Thanks, sir. I really mean it. I—”

“That’s all right.” He turned back to the papers on his desk. Moments passed. He was aware that Lucas had not moved, did not know what to do next, how to take his leave. Then it left him. The contempt and the wish to escape dropped like a stone and he felt Lucas’ fear and uncertainty and misery. And abruptly, coldly, he hated himself. He rose. He looked at his watch.

“I’m late.” He looked at Lucas, then quickly away. “Have you ever seen an operation?”

Lucas started, stared at him, swallowed, collected himself.

“I—I’ve gone out on calls with Dr. Alexander—boils and things.”

Dr. Aarons nodded.

“Come along, if you like.” He walked toward the door.

His heart pounding with dread and eagerness, Lucas followed him to the very doors of the operating room. Dr. Aarons turned.

“Do exactly as I do,” he said slowly.

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas, pale.

“You understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

“This is an operation for ovarian cysts, and it will include a pelvic exploration. A former student of mine is operating.”

He looked at Lucas again. Lucas licked his lips. Abruptly Dr. Aarons turned.

The double doors swung open.

They were walking through them, they were walking down a short corridor. They entered a room. A nurse, her head turbaned in white gauze, smiled at Dr. Aarons, looked curiously at Lucas, handed each an identically folded bundle of white clothes. Dr. Aarons nodded and walked out. Lucas bobbed his head uncertainly at the nurse and hurried after him.

They entered the next room. Lockers lined the walls. A half-dozen interns lounged in wicker chairs, stripped to their undershirts, gauze masks rakishly and carelessly dangling around their necks, white skullcaps pushed back on their heads.

“Good morning, sir,” they said respectfully.

“Good morning, gentlemen.”

Then they stared coldly at Lucas. Lucas dropped his eyes. Abashed, he followed Dr. Aarons, found an empty locker, undressed as Dr. Aarons was doing, put his clothes in the locker, put on white ducks, from the corner of his eyes watched Dr. Aarons shake out the bundle, which became an ankle-length robe. The interns, who had been chatting as he and Dr. Aarons entered, were silent now, pretending not to watch. Dr. Aarons, without a glance at Lucas, put his arms through the long sleeves of his gown and turned his back to Lucas. Lucas shook out his own bundle and put his arms through the sleeves. An intern rose, walked to Dr. Aarons, tied the strings of the gown in back. Then he walked back to his chair.

“Thank you,” said Dr. Aarons.

Lucas reddened. Dr. Aarons put on his skullcap, and as Lucas copied him Dr. Aarons stepped behind him and tied the strings of Lucas’ gown.

“Thank you,” Lucas muttered. His voice was loud in his ears. Dr. Aarons picked up his mask, began to tie the top strings.

“Looks like a good one today,” one of the interns said politely.

“I thought Williams was going to be a pathologist,” said another.

“So did I,” said Dr. Aarons dryly, and at his tone the interns laughed politely, obediently.

“Too bad to see a good pathologist spoiled to make another mechanic.” Dr. Aarons shook his head.

“He was two classes ahead of me,” another intern ventured. “I thought he was going to be a pathologist, sure. One of your pets, wasn’t he, sir?”

“One of my best,” said Dr. Aarons. He smiled at the group, nodded, walked to the door. Lucas turned, stumbled, and followed him into the corridor.

As they walked Dr. Aarons glanced at him.

“You can wear your mask under your nose or over,” he observed mildly. Lucas quickly pulled the top of his mask down under his nose as Dr. Aarons wore his. “It doesn’t make much difference. Don’t touch anything. Don’t let your gown brush anything.” At their left a half-dozen men were scrubbing their hands and forearms at a row of sinks. Ahead was a sea of white tile, a wide archway, they were through the archway into a brilliantly lit room; in the center of the room, under a great bank of lights, was an operating table. On the table lay a patient.

Lucas followed Dr. Aarons, close on his heels. They skirted the room, there was a flight of steps, there were banked seats. Dr. Aarons sat down. Lucas sank down beside him.

For a few moments Lucas sat rigidly, seeing nothing.

“Anesthesia,” Dr. Aarons muttered.

Cautiously, Lucas turned his head. Wheeled apparatus had been brought to the head of the table.

“Comfortable?” asked the anesthetist.

The patient apparently mumbled an answer.

“I’m going to put this over your face—so. Now just get accustomed to it. No, don’t breathe deeply. Just relax. Breathe naturally. . . .”

Lucas became aware of nurses about the table. Amazed, he counted six of them. Two wore probationers’ gowns. Of the remainder, one made regular trips to the sterilizing room, bringing instruments and cloth-wrapped bundles. One stood beside the anesthetist. The third arranged instruments and gauze on a wheeled table. The fourth, her back to him, was apparently in charge.

The doctors, who had been scrubbing, now came one by one into the operating room, their shoes covered with white cloth slippers, their arms in front, elbows almost touching, their forearms bent sharply up, their hands dripping. The third nurse quickly picked a gown from a table, held it up, the doctor plunged his arms into the sleeves. She handed him a sterile towel. He wiped his hands. Another nurse tied the gown strings behind him. He walked to the second nurse, who shook powder over his hands. “Seven,” he said, and she gingerly uncased rubber gloves, held them while he lunged his hands in.

He walked to the table holding his hands up and stood silently. He was joined by another. Then they were all there, aligned on either side of the table, waiting.

As the last man stepped into place the fourth nurse turned, the third nurse pushed an instrument table over the patient’s knees, the fourth nurse removed the sterile towel that covered the instruments.

“Ready?” one of the men asked quietly.

The anesthetist nodded.

The fourth and third nurses had bared the patient’s belly and in almost the same movement covered it with a slitted sheet. Now of the draped patient all that was visible was a narrow strip of belly skin. The doctor, looking at the skin, put out his hand. In a movement too deft, too quick to follow, the fourth nurse had placed an instrument in the waiting hand, the doctor held it over a bucket which one of the probationers whisked beside the table, the fourth nurse was pouring antiseptic over gauze gripped in the instrument, still staring at the patch of skin the surgeon swabbed the area, he threw the instrument on another table, as his hand returned empty the fourth nurse had slapped a scalpel in it, another doctor’s hand reached and she had slapped a clamp in it, and another hand and another instrument, all wordless, too fast to follow, without falter, without pause, unerring and perfect.

Beneath his mask, Lucas’ mouth opened. He peered harder. Her hair was turbaned tightly in sterile gauze. She was gowned as the doctors were. A mask was tight over her face. But there could be no doubt of it. This automaton of perfection was Kristina Hedvigsen. Dorothy’s ‘dumb Swede’!

Lucas blinked, dumfounded, humble with admiration. He felt an elbow in his side.

“Skin,” said Dr. Aarons.

The surgeon had cut through the outer layer of skin. He was waiting. Across the table another doctor clamped small bleeders in the cut area. A third sponged the flesh dry. An instant before their hands had been empty, and in that instant Kristina had put the right instruments in each hand in almost the same movement with which they handed her a discarded one.

“Fat,” whispered Dr. Aarons.

Dimly, Lucas saw a layer of yellow in the red wound, then the scalpel cut down, blood followed, welled up as the blade drew the length of the cut, clamps, swabs, retractors, now, Kristina’s hands flashed, were never still, moved with a mind of their own, waiting with the right instrument as the doctor reached.

“Fascia—superficial . . .”

And Lucas, straining to see, saw muscle cut, then deeper muscle.

“Peritoneum . . .”

And there was a cut but nothing to see, nothing but more clamps, more swabs, and Kristina tireless, easy, unerring.

“Now they’ve come to it,” whispered Dr. Aarons. “There’s the tubes, there’s the uterus.” But Lucas could see nothing but vague red tissue and the dark, instrument-filled aperture. “Now clamps, these are large vessels, now he’s tying off . . .”

A doctor glanced up, turned his head, stared at a clock on the wall, glanced at the anesthetist, bent over the table again. Time passed.

“Are you seeing all right?” Dr. Aarons whispered.

“Yes, sir.” But suddenly Lucas had seen the whole patient, the form beneath the draped sheets, the upright feet beneath the cloth. His stomach heaved. This was not a segment of flesh. This was a whole human being. The impact shattered his objectivity, projected him onto the table. His head swam. He grew dizzy. Desperately he tried to command himself. Desperately he looked away, stared at the tiled wall, stared at the lights.

“Big one!” said Dr. Aarons.

Lucas turned his unwilling head. The surgeon was delivering carefully, cautiously, through the suddenly narrow slit a murky red balloon, large as a grapefruit, on either side his assistants retracted, the balloon was through, it was free, it lay atop the incision, an instant later there were clamps in the surgeon’s hands, the pedicle was snipped, the balloon sagged, towels covered it, the third nurse lifted it cautiously to another table.

“All over, now. All over but the shouting,” Dr. Aarons muttered. Lucas looked at the clock. It was a moment before the dial conveyed meaning to him. An hour had passed. He looked at Dr. Aarons, startled.

“Now the hard work . . .”

Lucas looked at the table. The human had withdrawn. The patient was once again a slit of flesh seven inches long and five inches wide into which sutures were passed and drawn tight and passed again and drawn tight, over and over.

The anesthetist removed the inhalator, peered at the patient, nodded to a nurse, who altered valve settings on two long cylinders. The inhalator was replaced.

Now for the first time Lucas became conscious of the odor of ether, he sniffed the incense keenly, savoring it, the group about the operating table had relaxed, the pace was slower, the doctors had begun desultorily to talk to each other. Kristina, silent, had relaxed, and the other nurses, observing her covertly, lost their tension.

The surgeon who had been in charge of the operation abruptly halted his stitching, glanced up at the clock, nodded to an assistant across the table, walked away, peeling off his gloves and dropping them. A probationer darted to pick them up. The assistant resumed stitching, the surgeon untied the top string of his mask and walked out of the doorway.

A few moments later it was over. The last stitch was in place. The drapes were whisked away. The instrument tables were pulled back. The skin was covered with a pad, taped, the body was a body again, gowned, blanketed, the inhalator was gone, the anesthetist’s hooped shield, the cylinders were being wheeled to a corner, the doctors were strolling from the room, peeling off gloves, untying masks, chatting easily.

And Kristina, Kristina watched as the two probationers cleaned the floor of bloody cloths, dropped instruments, watched the other nurses deftly wheeling equipment away, watched the stretcher wheel soundlessly in, the two probationers help the orderly lift the limp body to the stretcher, watched it start from the room, glanced about again, then slowly stripped her gloves, untied her mask. A probationer swiftly untied the strings of her gown, the bottom string of the mask. It was really Kristina. She glanced at the clock. She glanced at the archway. A new stretcher was being wheeled silently in. The last of the instruments were gone to the sink or the autoclave. The operating table was newly draped. The soiled linen had disappeared. The patient was being lifted on to the table. A new tray of instruments was being carried in. The second nurse followed with fresh linen, new rubber gloves neatly packaged. Kristina looked briefly at the patient, walked to the scrubbing room.

Dr. Aarons rose.

“Coming?”

Lucas looked up at him, started, rose hastily.

Carefully, they skirted the walls again. They were in the corridor.

“He did very well,” said Dr. Aarons.

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas.

They undressed in silence, put on their street clothes; when they were walking downstairs Dr. Aarons said:

“Time for lunch.”

Lucas looked at him blankly.

“Did you like it?”

Lucas nodded.


Next day Lucas arrived at the hospital dining room early. He waited eagerly. He ate slowly, drawing the meal out, interns, nurses came, ate, departed. Lucas sat on. Jenny came in. She took the seat next to him.

“I thought you’d be gone.”

“I got here late.”

She ate, digesting his abstraction.

“We’re not going to have much longer.”

He was silent.

“I mean Dorothy’s coming back.”

“That’s right, isn’t it.”

“I mean she’s off night duty.”

“Oh.”

“Next week.”

A nurse came in. Lucas looked up quickly, looked down, disappointed.

“I said she comes back next week.”

He looked at her blankly.

“So what are we going to do?”

“Do?”

“What’s the matter with you, Luke? Didn’t you hear a word I said? I said Dorothy was coming off night duty next week!”

“That’s all right.”

“Well, what about us! We’ve got a week left! And then what happens? Are you going to go back with Dorothy? Or how are we going to tell her? What are you keeping looking up for? Who do you expect?”

“I’m not expecting anybody.”

“Well you keep looking around and not listening. Honestly, Luke! Isn’t this important to you?”

“I can’t help it, Jenny. I’m not going to have the time. I won’t even be eating here after this week. I’ve had to give up my lab job except for an hour or so a day. Just clean-up work. My grades fell.”

“Your grades fell?”

“Yes, yes! That’s right! They fell!”

“Well, don’t get mad at me!”

“I’m not mad.”

“You can’t tell me you’re going to spend all your time studying!”

“That’s just exactly what I’m going to do! Exactly!”

“So you don’t want to see me any more.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“But that’s what you mean.”

“Look! Jenny! My grades are down! I haven’t got any choice!”

“I noticed the minute I came in you were different. It’s all right with me. If that’s the way you want it.”

“I don’t want anything!”

“It’s all right with me. You can go back to Dorothy if that’s what you want. But why don’t you just come out and tell me?”

“Look! . . . Jenny! . . .”

“I know! Your grades!”

“Well that’s what it is! Now, goddamn it—!”

“You don’t have to be mad with me, Luke.”

“I’m sorry, Jenny—honest . . .”

She ate a while, brooding.

“I just bought a new dress. I had six dollars and I took a week of another girl’s night duty for two dollars and it cost me eight dollars.”

“I bet it’s pretty.”

“It’s blue. It’s the one you liked, the one we saw in the window that night. I bet you forgot. You saw it there and you said you liked it.”

“I didn’t forget, I remember.”

“Maybe there’ll be time . . . Maybe you’ll find one evening, an hour or so . . . We have fun, Luke! Don’t we!”

She rose.

“We’re awful busy upstairs. I never saw anything like it! Honestly! It’s terrible. Maybe some night I’ll come around and throw stones at your window. I’ve got to rush. If you knew what I been through this morning! Well, so long, Luke . . . You’ll let me know, won’t you? I mean—don’t worry . . . I’ve got to run . . .”

He sat guilty and ashamed. The dining room was deserted. He stared at his empty plate.

It was not that he had loved Jenny. But he had used her and he discovered, a little desolately, that he had no common bond with what he used. This was the last of Jenny, this was the last hospital adventure. He walked on impulse to the women’s wards. The charge nurse scanned his uniform and nodded pleasantly.

“I’m from the laboratory,” he said deprecatively.

“Oh, yes—” she reached for her book—“we have a specimen for you, do we?”

“Oh, no. No—if you have, I’d be glad to take it back with me. But—yesterday Dr. Aarons took me to see an operation, a cyst—”

“Oh, yes! Dr. Williams’ case.”

“Yes, ma’am. And—” he shrugged apologetically—“I was just wondering how she was.”

“Well, sure! Well, aren’t you nice! She’s doing fine! Just fine! Would you like to see her? Come on—” she rose—“we’ll go see her. She’ll be tickled.”

This brief contact with yesterday’s glory was all Lucas had hoped for. To see the patient was completely unexpected. He followed eagerly.

They entered a large room, the walls lined with beds, in which young women, old women, fat women, thin women, middle-aged women became a community, in which even those who lay motionless followed the nurse and himself with the stare of cows halting their feeding. The nurse stopped beside a bed.

“Here’s a young man come to see you, Mrs. Sierker,” the nurse said, beaming. “He’s one of our laboratory men. He saw your operation and came to find out if you were all right. Now, isn’t that nice?”

The woman in the bed managed a weak smile. Lucas looked at her curiously. She had features, now, and an age, hair, a mouth, thin hands, a personality, an entity, where yesterday she had been the scene of an operation, a swathed, prepared, indexed, managed mass surrounding an area of operation seven inches long.

She smiled weakly, and her lips, parting, showed a gap in her teeth, and he looked hurriedly at her eyes.

“You’re looking fine,” Lucas said, embarrassed at the sound of his own voice.

“Oh, we’re doing fine, aren’t we,” the nurse nodded, beaming. “We had a little soup this noon and our doctor’s been to see us and we’re doing just fine. And isn’t this a nice young man to take time off to come to see you?”

The woman nodded. Her lips moved.

“What?” Lucas leaned closer.

“Did you see it?” she breathed.

“Yes—yes, I saw it.” He smiled encouragingly.

“Was—was . . . ?” her words trailed, her eyes questioned.

“It was a beautiful job! Beautiful!” I wish you had been there, Lucas thought. I wish you could have seen it. His mind quickened at the memory, the glitter, the flawless precision, the other world.

“You see?” beamed the nurse.

“It was a miracle,” the woman murmured.

Lucas smiled uncertainly.

“I know.” She blinked weakly. “I should never have lived . . .”

“Now, who told you that.” The nurse beamed imperturbably.

“I was given up for dead.” She looked at the ceiling, steadfast. “I’ve been saved by Almighty God. I know. . . . There must be something He wants me to do. . . . I’ll have to try and find out what it is. . . .”

“You go to sleep, now.” The nurse smoothed the coverlet, inspected the bedstand expertly. “We’ll let you rest and this evening we’ll have a nice, big dinner—”

The woman smiled and closed her eyes.

Lucas and the nurse moved off, walked down the aisle of beds, followed by the eyes.

“She’s all right,” the nurse said. “Be up and about in a few days.”

“What did she mean—what she said?”

“Oh, they all say something. For a day or so they’re the center of the universe. Then they settle down with the rest of us.”

“Maybe she’s religious . . .” Lucas nodded.

“Her? Good Lord no! I know all about her. There isn’t a religious bone in her body. Her name’s Sierker, husband runs a little bakery down on Swiner Street. Hope he brings some pies in. My, isn’t the food getting awful?”

“She certainly seemed convinced . . .”

“Yep . . . Oh, they’re all like that. My goodness, look at these charts!”

Lucas returned to the laboratory.

“What are you looking so down about?” Ann inquired presently.

He shook his head apologetically.

“Dr. Aarons took me to see an operation yesterday and I went to see the woman and she’s convinced that God saved her for some reason and she’s going to spend the rest of her life finding out what the reason is.” He looked at them defensively. “She believes it just as calmly and purely as she believes she’s alive.”

“Was it a good operation?” Ruth asked delicately, after a pause.

“Oh, it was a beauty!” He told them all he could remember of it. From time to time during the afternoon he remembered some new detail. Once he returned uneasily to the woman’s statement.

“It was like she had seen something completely true, something she could see even though we couldn’t, see and live for, look forward to—some reason . . .”

Ann looked at him noncommittally and turned back to her microscope.

They left the laboratory together some hours later. In the corridor they overtook Dr. Aarons.

“Through already?” He frowned playfully.

“Oh, yes,” said Ann, “we haven’t time to go gallivanting off to see cysts removed and strawberry festivals.”

“An old pupil of mine.” Dr. Aarons nodded.

“We know! That’s all we’ve been hearing all afternoon.” Ruth shook her head.

“Yes,” Dr. Aarons ruminated. “Harold Williams. He did quite well, I thought. Huge cyst. Very large. He was quite upset. Run-of-the-mill case. No complications. Patient suddenly began to haemorrhage. Died an hour ago.” He sighed. Then he turned to them, smiling. “Well, that’s one thing about pathology. None of your patients die on you.”

He nodded and turned off.

Ruth and Ann looked at each other, then at Lucas.

“Well,” said Ann, “so much for destiny.”

“Will we see you tomorrow night?” said Ruth at the door. “We’re having your favorite chicken.”

“And I’ve got that book you wanted. The Blake,” said Ann.

“I’m sorry,” said Luke, “I’ve got to study.”

They waved and sauntered homeward.

Lucas stood, trying to think, a woman big with child pushed past him, jolted he made haste to hold the door open for her, she entered the hospital, the door swung shut, he walked to his dormitory, he tried to think, the dormitory loomed before him.

A postcard from Alfred was waiting for him. “Drifted down past here yesterday. See you soon. Don’t study too hard,” it said. The other side bore a picture of a river flowing past a German town, a river and a town and the quaint houses of a strange people lining the banks. Lucas studied the postcard absorbedly. This was a German postcard. It had come through German hands. These small figures were German people, those were the windows in German houses. And Alfred was there. He studied the postcard again, alert for strangeness, the foreign, the bizarre, the difference, the something to be grasped.

When he rose he propped the postcard carefully on his bureau. He sat down to study. He remembered the operation again. He remembered the operating-room nurse. He remembered she was the same nurse Jenny and Dorothy spoke of contemptuously. He remembered how this nurse had tried to join their conversation. She would be open, she would be wide open to a little friendship, a little respect, she was a pariah, evidently. She must be lonely, then. And if he was nice to her—why, she was in charge of the operating room. Just in charge of the operating room, that’s all! Just in charge of that whole magnificent wonderland, glittering and gleaming and sacred and closed.

He shook his head to clear it of visions. He bent to his books. When he looked up it was past midnight. He studied until shortly after two o’clock in the morning, at which time he fell asleep. He was grateful when he wakened that he had fallen asleep over his desk, for if he had gone to bed he knew that he would never have wakened so early. It was half past six, and he had saved the time of dressing, he slapped his face with cold water, towelled his face and the back of his neck vigorously, sat down at the desk and bent over his books again.

He went to his professors and begged for makeup time. It was too late for mercy, the tasks they set him must have shown him immediately that they knew makeup was impossible as the assigned labor.

Sometimes he cleaned the laboratory late at night. Sometimes he whisked through it and fled in half an hour, and then prudently spent two hours next time, reading as he swept, reading as he emptied the cages. He set himself an absolute limit of six hours’ sleep every night, three days later changed this to five hours, then settled at four. The last two days he did not sleep at all.

He made up with three days to spare. But one of these was a Saturday. It had been a near thing. It was over now. It would never be nearer. Or as near. The youth part was over.

★ CHAPTER 17

The term ended. Lucas rode back to Milletta. Before him, like a Carcassonne, rose the towers, the bright sun, the shining rivers, the golden hours of his reverie and his tumult. And as this dreaming became intolerably sweet, inexorably his thoughts swung to Job and the interview that came nearer with each passing field, each revolution of the train’s wheels.

Geographically, his world was the known terrain of Milletta and the campus of the university and the shops and streets which surrounded it. The history of this world was his own history and the history of those whom he admired or among whom he had been born and brought up.

He was vaguely aware of the world of the newspapers, but this other world was a flat cosmos of words. His sphere was exterior to this larger sphere, touching the larger sphere, revolving about it, touching it as two circles touch at a single degree.

There had been a world war, but it had come to him as music and uniforms and excitement, his species had evolved certain sequent sounds which thrilled and excited or alarmed many other animals; hearing martial music, the scream of the great apes disciplined to cadence, the chest thump disciplined to drumbeats, Lucas prickled and exulted with the fervor of his heritage. This was war, this and the uniforms, the excitement of those around him. The issues between nations were words. They were not an emotional experience, there was no empathy here, only side taking. War was a jungle noise and the hysteria of those who heard it and the excitement of watching those who marched to it.

It ended Job Marsh’s life but not his living, although he did not know it and would have laughed his laughter accepting the proof. It ended the lingerers of this phase in American civilization and history, the overlaps, the carry-overs, the harness shops, the gas-mantle manufacturers, the buggy-whip makers, the stiff-collar and collar-button manufacturers, the Victrolas, the carriage stripers, the waggoners, the hundreds of occupations which had been superseded and now were cut off in the midst of their lingering, even while men went on learning these trades, cut off brusquely and with finality.

Here is Lucas Marsh, now, a part of this tide, loving no one, knowing he is alone and has always been alone, sighing, unnourished, for what his mother offered him as love, wincing at the thought of his father, alternately hating him and mawkish-fond for love hunger.

Here is Lucas Marsh who sees the world he lives in clearly, through his father’s eyes and his mother’s eyes and his own eyes, and knows that men are the dupes of his father, and potential beasts, the lip-curls of his mother. And that women are for coitus and cooking and home provenance, and sometimes, surprisingly, to teach, but always for use, and it is an agreed convention not to mention this nor the secret thing that is done or dreamed of at night.

There had been a war, and men had fought in it, but “fought” was a word, and men had died in it, but “died” was a word. And there had been issues, but issues were words too. And there had been soldiers, and these had been citizens one day, and uniformed and soldiers and different next day, and then they were citizens again, no longer uniformed, undistinguishable from the mass of humans habitually about him. There was a memory of uniforms, of men marching in formation, of intense popular interest, of unashamed excitement conjured by parades and music.

There had been a depression also. It was not a great depression. Historically, it was a single tear beside the misery of the age when the forests died and the glaciers came down and there was no food, and the shelters were somewhere buried under glacial tilt. It had no place in the company of depressions man had known on the planet before man was nationed. It had no place in the roster of depressions man had catalogued when first he began to write his own history, the great plagues, the great fires, the great floods. It was a small whimper in the awesome wail of even America’s depressions, the depressions that had moved the boulders of history as if they were pebbles. It was the shakedown depression, the after-war depression of 1922, it lasted two years, and it was gone, and almost it left no mark.

Here is Lucas Marsh now, charted among these things, adventuring from day to day, led by his vector, come to this time.

In the order of things, he had enrolled for medical school. He had written Job for the money and receiving no answer he had boarded a train and now he rode anxiously homeward.

As the train neared Milletta, Lucas brightened. He blinked at the hills with a glad sense of belonging and to the fields, to a remembered tree, a strip of fence. He grinned at them, happy presentments in a swift-passing throng of home things, impatient for the train to stop, to be among them. But when the train stopped, the moment he descended at the station his joy ended, he was home, the sense of going home, of coming home, the motion toward the adored, had ceased, it was the motion, and now that the kinesis ceased the emotion ceased, and as the train pulled slowly out he stood on the platform, and part of him went with it, yearning, melancholy, saying reluctant goodbye. He watched the train out of sight, then picked up his bag and strode off briskly. The going home was over.

He went directly to the shop. The front room was empty. He stood uncertainly. Then Job stepped into the room.

“Didn’t know who you were.” He grinned. “Thought you might be a bill collector.”

“Nope. Only me.” He smiled back at his father, embarrassed, trying, as usual, to pretend a common footing, this time trying to pretend that he, too, dodged bill collectors and knew all about them, he and Job.

“Got to watch the bastards.” Job shook his head. “Come on, time to close up anyway. No—this way. We’ll go out the back way. Quicker.”

He was older. He was thin. His fair hair was long. His clothes were baggy and rumpled. His nails were very long and very dirty.

“Hasn’t changed a bit.” Lucas spoke loudly to hide his embarrassment, his recoil from his father’s appearance. “Same old town,” he said. “Same old place.”

Job looked briefly at the town, at his familiar instrument.

“Goddamned place’d be the better for a couple sticks of dynamite,” Job said disinterestedly.

“I guess you’re right.”

“Place’s worn out. Picked over. Finished years ago.”

“How’s everything going? I mean in—Tyre, and around?”

“ ’Bout the same. Nothing new. School over?”

“Summer school.”

“Oh.”

“Yup . . . Summer school’s over . . .”

“All over, eh?”

“That’s right. And say, Dad—”

“Feel like something to eat?”

“Aren’t we going home?”

“I been taking my meals out. Over to Whelans.”

“The boardinghouse?”

“Not much of a hand for cooking myself. Easier this way.”

“Say, that’s right.”

“What are you figuring to do this winter?”

“That’s the point.”

“Figure to work in the shop?”

“That’s what I came home to see you about—”

“Certainly can use you.”

They mounted the steps of the boardinghouse and a few minutes later sat down with the boarders.

“My boy, Luke.” Job grinned proudly. “Just got in from college. One of these here college kids.”

And in the slow stares, the small babble of talk that followed, centering about Lucas, Lucas when he was a boy, Lucas now that he was grownup, Job basked, beamed, preened, glanced sidelong at Lucas, and Lucas wished himself invisible, inwardly he grimaced with dislike of everyone about the table, there was something contemptible to him in their vegetable faces, their earnest appraisal of the trivial, the obvious. He saw Job’s face, he heard him, with a sick sense of the indecent, a disgust that had to be borne because it was a fixed and immovable thing, a father, like a physical defect.

When the meal was finished they walked slowly toward the house. There was much dust inside. It was not a house Lucas would have been proud to bring his college friends to, it never had been, he realized, and any love he had ever had for it was a private thing, a matter private to a Lucas who was not alive now, a Lucas he understood but had almost forgotten. He had a small yearning to go to the cemetery to see his mother, but it was a yearning to be treasured for its poignancy and not for its performance, it could be put by and thought of and not acted upon.

“Well,” said Job, “I guess we better have a talk.”

“I’d like to, Father—”

Job nodded and waited.

“Well, it’s about college. Father . . .”

“Still college, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s what I thought.” Job grinned slyly.

“That’s right. About college. That and the money Mother had you set aside for my college education.”

“What money?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

Job’s face hardened. He looked at Lucas levelly. Lucas flushed.

“What are you talking about?” Job asked coldly.

Lucas stared at him. Who the hell is this? Job asked himself suddenly. And Lucas’ face stared back at him, a stranger, a young fellow sitting there, red-faced, having the effrontery to be angry, a young stranger, a young fellow demanding money. Abruptly he was indifferent, the play was over, the game of having a son, the play palled, it was all over and he was indifferent.

“I have to tell the bursar.”

“What do you have to tell him?”

“I have to tell him whether I am going through medical college.” Lucas’ tone was dogged but softer. His mind raced trying to remember legal possibilities, ways by which his father could be compelled to follow his mother’s wishes, to pay his way through, community property, last will and testament, bequest, he tried to remember . . .

“Well, you seem to have made up your mind,” said Job. “Why don’t you tell him?”

“You mean you don’t object any more?”

“That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

“Why, yes, yes—of course—” Lucas stammered.

He’s of no use to me, Job thought dispassionately. No use whatever. He’s moon-struck like his mother. Obstinate and childish, a complete child, worthless as a six-year-old. I can’t go any further. Tomorrow I’m going to have to raise six hundred dollars. That’ll keep me going for a week. When the week’s up I’ll need eighteen hundred. But by then—who knows? Stranger things have happened. Six hundred. Not in Milletta. No more. I’m done here. What the hell does he want? Oh, yes, he wants his college money. His college money.

“You wouldn’t let your old dad go to the wall, would you? When all you’d have to do is postpone it a year?”

“No,” Lucas said slowly. “No, of course not!” he said spiritedly, as the occasion demanded.

“I was just wondering, Luke. Just wondering, that’s all. I remember a little boy I used to dandle on my knee, used to come to me for pennies. You’re quite a stranger, these days. There’s just the two of us left, you know.”

“Of course, Dad! I must have sounded—I don’t know what I must have sounded like! You know how I feel. You ought to know. I didn’t realize—I didn’t think things were that bad—”

“Who said they were?” Job grinned.

“You mean they’re not?”

“I mean you go on back to college—go be a doctor—be whatever you’ve made up your mind. Hell, boy! I’ll not stand in your way. Go to it.”

“But if it cramps you—in any way—if you need it—”

“It’s not going to cramp me.”

“Oh, Dad, I’m so glad!”

“Because I haven’t got it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I haven’t got it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s gone. I needed it. And it’s gone.”

“You mean my college money?”

“Now, Luke, that wasn’t your college money, as you put it. That was just an idea of your mother’s. I don’t know where you got the idea it was something fixed, some fixed sum that was yours. I never told you it was.”

“But time after time—”

“Oh, I heard you, all right, I knew you had something in mind, it wasn’t doing any harm.”

“But it was a fund—a regular sum set aside—just for my college—Mother said so—you said so—”

“Just keep your shirt on. I don’t know what wild schemes you and your mother cooked up for the use of my money. All I’m trying to do is set you straight. There isn’t any fund and there never was any fund. Now if you want to go to college let’s start talking from there.”

Lucas stared at Job, fascinated, horrified, stricken, numb, waiting for the next words, not hoping, believing nothing, content to let him speak, content for speech to fill a vacuum.

“Now that we understand each other I don’t say I’m not willing to go along with you—for a year—until you get on your feet. A year, mind. And don’t be coming to me at the end of the year talking about funds. There’s nothing I approve of in this thing. I’m doing what I’m doing mostly because you had a misunderstanding. Someday you’ll wish you listened to me.” He shrugged. “You’ve got a year. Do what you please.”

“Yes, Dad,” said Lucas. Now he wanted only to escape.

“I thought someday I could be proud of you.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“You just haven’t grown up. You never grew up. And now you never will. I’m sorry for you.”


In the train back to college Lucas clung to what he had. He refused resolutely to think farther. He had Job’s permission to take his first year in medicine. He had Job’s promise to pay for it. It wasn’t a promise exactly. But it was an agreement. And yet it wasn’t an agreement either. Lucas tried desperately to recall what exactly his father had said. “I don’t say I’m not willing to go along with you—for a year—until you get on your feet.” He had said that. There was no mistake about what he had said. But that wasn’t saying, “I will go along with you.” On the other hand he knew Lucas was going back to college and he hadn’t stopped him.

And that’s all I have, Lucas thought. It’s the best I can do. I’m heading back to college. Every mile takes me farther from the chance that tomorrow he may change his mind. Once I get to college I’ll go straight to the bursar. I’ll put what he said on record. Then he can’t go back on it. He can, of course. He can change his mind and write and countermand the whole thing. But if I keep very still, and do nothing to anger him, and don’t even let him know I’m alive—he may forget. He’s in trouble, his mind’s on other things, he may forget. It’s all I can do. There’s nothing else I can do.

And the train fled on, the rails clacked past, the fear grew in his breast, long before they reached the college town his body was wet with sweat.

He stepped off the train while it was still in motion, raced to the bursar’s office, told the bursar he had just come back from a visit to his father, that his father approved his enrollment in medical school, and that he had instructed Lucas to say that his check would shortly be in the mail. The bursar frowned uncertainly, reluctantly nodded.

Now Lucas escaped from the bursar’s office. He went to the sanctuary that was left him, his dormitory room.

He entered, shut the door, leaned against it. Alfred rose from the bed. Lucas started, then stared at him, wordless.

“Hi! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Alfred!”

“What’s happened?”

“Happened? Nothing! I was just surprised—you gave me a start—when did you get back?”

“What are you so relieved about? Anybody after you?”

Lucas hesitated. It would be wonderful to tell him! Pour it all out, get it off my chest, lay bare everything, get free of the weight of it.

Lucas was sorely tempted. It was a great effort to resist. But he knew Alfred. Little by little, over the days ahead, when it didn’t count, when he wouldn’t need relief so urgently, he could drop a fact here and there, and Alfred would absorb it, and comment on it, and perhaps there would be a word of advice or comfort.

“No,” he said slowly, “couple of fellows I been ducking. I just came from the bursar’s office, signed up. How about you?”

“Long ago, son, long ago. Well, let’s take a look at you, you’ve grown, son, you’ve grown. Place agrees with you. I been waiting for you. I’ve taken rooms downtown, couple of nice rooms in a private home, what do you say?”

“Well, I don’t know—you know what I mean, Alfred, I’m thinking of the money—I mean I’m kind of limited—”

“I’m broke myself. Spent next term’s allowance on one last bang-ho in New York. This place’s cheap. I’ve taken the best room. Your share will be seven dollars a week.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Five, then.”

“What are you going to do, support me?”

“My boy, to a man like me you’re a jewel.”

“I’ll make it up to you, studying.”

“Sure you will,” said Alfred imperturbably. “That’s what I figured.”

“Okay, then, that’s fine.”

Alfred looked at him curiously.

“What’s happened to the mild and meek roommate I left behind? Whence all this briskness, clear thinking, and decision?”

“I don’t get it. Did I say something—”

“Never mind. I’m glad to see it. You want to see the room or take it sight unseen?”

“I’ll take it. It can’t be very bad if you picked it.” He forced a smile. His anxiety blurted a candidness. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to keep it, though.” Instantly he saw this was a mistake. Alfred’s face became expressionless.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“Oh, nothing! Nothing! God! I can afford five dollars a week, I hope.”

“I was wondering.” But Alfred’s face was still wary.

“No, I was just thinking, I fell behind once this summer, grades went to hell. That’s all.”

“You?”

“Me!”

“Fell behind?”

“Right into the cellar. Hell to pay.”

“My God. You finally did it. You don’t gamble. You don’t drink. You’re not out for anything. So it was dames. What’s her name?”

“Who?”

“The reason you quit studying.”

“No, no. It wasn’t that. Oh, I picked up with a couple of probationers over at the hospital—”

“Sure. You’re not kidding anybody. Wait till I tell you about the Fräuleins, chum. Come on! We’ve got all evening to talk. Let’s get you moved.” He strode to the bureau. “Where’s your suitcase? . . .”

Next day Lucas proudly took Alfred to the laboratory to introduce him to Ruth and Ann. That evening they dined in the women’s apartment. Lucas preened, walking homeward.

“Nice girls.” Alfred nodded. “Little old for you, son. Little old, aren’t they?”

“Maybe so. I wasn’t thinking about that. Nice apartment they’ve got.”

“Very nice.”

“Did it all themselves.”

“I don’t go much for that ultra-feminine stuff.”

“What do you mean, ‘feminine’! I suppose that isn’t class!”

“Class, all right. Almost self-conscious, if you get what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“All those whatchacallits—hokkus and stuff—I mean doesn’t it strike you as almost self-consciously arty? Sterile, kind of?”

“Those are two tremendously well-read people—”

“Oh, well read! Yes . . .”

“And they have taste—”

“Almost throw it at you.”

“And if they were a little younger you’d think they were terrific. You know what, Alfred? They’re just no use to you!”

Alfred digested this a moment.

“True,” he said equably. “True. But where does that leave you? They’re nice, nice people, couple of middle-aged girls trying desperately to substitute art and culture, like middle-aged spinsters always do, for a home in the suburbs with four kids and plans to take a trip to Europe once before they die like they always planned to do when they were at Smith, or Radcliffe, or South Scrotum or wherever. You’ve lived in a small town all your life, all that’s big stuff to you. Me, I’ve seen it.”

“You mean you’re used to better?”

“I didn’t say better—”

“You trying to tell me you move among people like that?”

“Hell, no! Sure, they’re well grounded. Everything you say. And they’ve done a fine job on that apartment. But there are others like them, son. Thousands and thousands of apartments like that one, thousands of people like that. Fine people. Swell people. No need to get sweated up. I’m not low-rating them. All I’m saying is: You’ve met them, they’ve given you something, they like you, you like them—now what?”

“What do you mean, ‘now what’?”

“I mean just that. Are you going to marry both of them?”

“Oh, come on, Al! Don’t be silly!”

“Well, that’s what I mean. You’ve got to learn to take things like this in your stride, son. This isn’t the beginning and end of the world. There’s a lot more where that came from. It’s a big world. And since when did a doctor need culture?”

“Are you kidding?”

“I don’t mean the wealthy ones, that suddenly go in for culture like a kid collecting arrowheads. I mean the run-of-the-mill doctor. The guy who probably hasn’t read six books in his life, thinks Landseer is hot stuff, and music makes him nervous.”

“Boy, what happened to you in Germany!”

“Why, I’ve always known that. Honestly, Luke! Haven’t you?”

“I don’t say what you say is true. But even if it is, which I know it isn’t, what chance do they get to read? Or go to the opera? Or an art gallery?”

“They don’t. And they haven’t any natural bent toward those things. Their cultural background is zero. And you might as well face it, son. They know their trade—we hope—and without their medical knowledge, stripped of it, they’re about where they were when they left high school. If there.”

Lucas grinned.

“Boy, you’ve got some surprises coming to you.”

“Not me, son! You!”

“How about you? What kind of doctor are you going to be?”

“Me? I’m going to be the most fashionable surgeon in Mamaroneck, Park Avenue, Rye, Newport—”

“Come on!”

“I mean it! Oh, I’m going to know my business! I’m going to be good! But I’ve got my choice of three classes of people to sell my services to. I’ve got the poor, the middle class, and the rich. The poor—let’s face it—will net me nothing. And I’m no philanthropist. There isn’t a philanthropical bone in my body.”

“Nobody can accuse you of that, Al!”

“No, that’s right. I’ve got just one life and I’m not throwing it into a slum practice. I’m going to work for the rewards and I want the rewards. It’s just as easy to get up at night for a five-thousand-dollar ulcer as a ten-dollar ulcer—and hate yourself for taking the ten dollars. And I don’t want the middle class. There’s too much of it and you kill yourself taking care of it, and in the end you split fifty percent of your business with a collection agency, and the best it gets you is a Cadillac every year, membership in a good country club, a middle-class wife, and a hobby of photography.”

“That’s not enough.”

“No, you’re damned tooting that’s not enough. You think you’re being sarcastic, but you’re not. You’re hitting the nail right on the head. I’m aiming for a Rolls-Royce every other year, and the yacht that goes with it. I’m aiming for every one of those wonderful, real things. And I’m aiming for the position and the dignity and the honors that go to the doctor for the rich.”

“I hope you get it.”

“Not for you, though.”

“No.”

“You’re going to be noble. Among the poor.”

“I’m going to practice Medicine.”

“So am I.”

“You think you’ve got it all figured out, Alfred. Everybody’s made up differently and maybe right now that’s right for you. The way you think. But one of these days I think it’s going to dawn on you all of a sudden that Medicine is the end itself. You’re thinking of it as the means. Well, it isn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know it. You’ve just got an opinion. I know. You’ve got a set of preferences. And I know that there aren’t any preferences. Medicine is the end. Becoming a doctor is just the means to that end.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Now, I see! You’re talking about research!”

“No, I’m not talking about research. I’m talking about Medicine.”

“Well, don’t let God hear you. He might get jealous.”

“I can always pick up extra money shining your Rolls-Royce.”

“That you can, lad, that you can. And it’ll be there for you to shine. Don’t worry about that.”

“Well, I’m sorry you didn’t like Ruth and Ann better. Personally, I want to see all I can of them.”

“And more power to you! Gosh! Why not? How about those probationers you were bragging about?”

“How would you like to see an operation?”

“You kidding?”

“No, I might be able to arrange it.”

You—?”

“That’s right. Working in the lab this summer I worked up quite an in, here and there. I even know the head operating-room nurse!”

“Well, by God, Luke! You’ve really taken hold! Politics and everything! I’m proud of you! Do you think you can?”

“Fix it up? Sure! Oh, I’m not that sure. But I think so. I think it could be arranged.”

“Well, you son of a gun!”

Lucas went to Kristina next day. She was glad to see him. Her eyes brightened and she talked animatedly of a party her friends were giving.

“You bring your friend!”

“I will. But—do you think . . .”

“Sure! I tell them a couple of students want to see an operation. I tell you what! Tonsils tomorrow. All right?”


“How would you like to see a tonsillectomy?” Lucas asked negligently.

“You got it fixed up already?”

“There’s a price tag. We’ve got to go to a party.”

Alfred frowned, puzzled.

“This operating-room nurse—I told her about you—she’s Swedish and she’s got a married girl friend and they’re having a party.”

“Why do we have to go?”

“She asked me. I said all right.”

“I wished you’d asked me too.”

“You want to see an operation, don’t you?”

“It can wait, you know. I’m going to see plenty.”

“I don’t see how I can call it off.”

“It’s all right. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. So long as we’re roommates I won’t make any dates for you and you won’t make any for me. Not blind. All right?”

“Fine, fine!” Lucas said heartily. He was embarrassed and ashamed. I never could have said that to him, he reflected. Nobody I know talks that way. It’s the rich. It’s the fabric of his life. It’s natural to him.

“You know something. Al? I don’t mean to hurt your feelings but deep down I bet the only people you really like are rich people.”

“You’re wrong. There’s nothing I need I can get from the rich.”

“I could never have said what you said just now.”

“Too brutal?”

“No, you’re right. But I never could have said it, all the same.”

“But you’d have wanted to.”

“Maybe.”

“The hell with it.”

“Sure.”

“We’re all made different.”

“Maybe I was too anxious to show you an operation. Now I’m worried about the party.”

“I’ll live . . .”


“I didn’t see much,” Alfred complained as they walked homeward after the operation.

“There isn’t much to see, actually. You have to be assisting, I guess, right on top of them.”

He said nothing more. He withdrew into himself and thought intimately of the setting, the panoply, the drama.

“That the girl you meant? The one ordering the others around?”

“That’s her.”

“Couldn’t see much of her. Nice figure.”

He’s trying to say something nice, Lucas realized.

“She’s from Minnesota,” he said negligently, “one of those Swedish places, Wisconsin, Minnesota, someplace.”

Alfred looked at him. Lucas found his look disturbing.

“Got to be Swedes, I guess,” he said lightly.

“Got to be lots of people,” Alfred said evenly. “You don’t think much of her, do you?”

“She’s a swell operating-room nurse!” Lucas protested.

“Sure. Well, just learn this way of the world. You’re a big guy now. You don’t have to trade with people like that.”

“Trade with them?”

“Swop. Go to their parties if they let you come to their operations. You just take what they have to give. That’s reward enough for them. Believe me. I know. Nothing pleases a poor person more than giving something to a rich person. Having it accepted. They just can’t give them enough.”

“You trying to be a cynic? A real old college cynic?”

“It’s a rule. I didn’t invent it. Remember it. It’ll save you trouble.”

“Look, Alfred, you don’t have to go to this party, you know. The way you feel, it’d be better not. I’ll make up some excuse.”

“You mean to say you want to go?”

“No, I don’t want to go. Not particularly. She’s nothing to me, God knows.” He paused, irresolute. “What the hell’s the use of hurting people!” he burst out.

“No use,” said Alfred equably. “No use at all. What time we due?”


At the Nurses’ Home Kristina was waiting for them. At first Lucas did not recognize her. She sat on one end of the waiting-room sofa, a magazine in her lap, unopened. She sat in an island, isolated, alone, and this was apparent. Through the waiting-room capped and caped nurses walked measuredly, erectly, remotely, clad in the panoply of their corps. Occasionally a passing nurse would call out to another. No one called out to Kristina. Lucas looked quickly at Alfred. Alfred had not noticed her. He was looking interestedly about him.

“There she is,” Lucas jogged him. But even when he turned and saw her, Alfred’s face remained imperturbable. Lucas’ heart sank.

Without her uniform Kristina had been divested of any possible allure. She seemed to have shrunk, to have grown younger. She looked out of place here, a maid the nurses might have hired. Her dress was dowdy. Her feet, in sensible shoes, looked large and clumsy. She sat like a farm woman, flatly, her knees apart. Her face, which in the hospital had been framed by the white turban of the operating room into a shining visage of science now seemed dull and bovine. They walked toward her and she looked up and seeing them rose instantly.

“Well, good evening!” she said, grinning. She stuck her hand out, there was no evading it, first Lucas then Alfred received a quick shake full of friendliness, neither looked at the other, quickly they steered her out of the room, past the doors, out onto the street.

“I look different, hah?”

“You look nice, though,” Luke said quickly. “Swell!”

“You like uniform better.” She turned to Alfred. “If I wore my OR turban he would be very happy. What do you think of a boy so stuck on Medicine?”

“I think he’s nuts,” said Alfred succinctly.

“Hides everything, the uniform. Every girl looks like every other girl. When I was little girl I cut pictures out of papers, nurses’ pictures. Then I think nurse’s uniform most beautiful dress possible.”

“He’s a nice boy,” said Alfred, “but he’s got no taste for the finer things. He wouldn’t appreciate the kind of dress you’re wearing.”

Lucas swallowed. He held his breath, frightened.

“Is good material.” Kristina looked at her skirt complacently. “I make it myself.”

“You did?” Lucas struck in swiftly. “Why, that’s beautiful! And you made it yourself? Really?”

“That’s the scientist in him coming out,” said Alfred. “He wants an affidavit.”

“Sure,” said Kristina, imperturbably, “I sew, I cook, I keep house since I was little girl. All good Swedish girls do this.”

“Now, Kristina! I hope you’re not too good!”

“Why?” she asked directly.

“He means too good to go out with a couple of medical students,” Lucas said desperately.

She laughed.

“Why should I look down on you? Soon you will be doctors and I will just be another OR. You boys hungry? Got big appetite? You Luke—you need put on a little fat!” She poked his ribs. Lucas winced.

“He gets thin thinking about struggling humanity,” Alfred said, delighted. “You going to feed him up, Kristina?”

“We going to have fine Swedish meal. Jesus! That Oley, that husband of hers, he’s lucky man! My girl friend. Bruni. You never eat Swedish food you gonna have a surprise!”

Over her head Alfred looked at him. Well, the look said, there it is, you can see for yourself, it’s no malice of mine, I’m not making it up, you see what she is and this is what you’re getting yourself into. And me, too.

“I had no idea you were so—so nationalistic,” he said to Kristina, as severely as he dared and yet with that in his tone which provided an instant retreat.

But she looked merely puzzled.

“So—so fond of Swedish things,” he said lamely.

“But I am a Swede! I get lonely! Swedish people are friendly people, not like people here, nice people but not friendly.”

“You should see her in the operating room—when there’s a big one on!” he said strenuously to Alfred.

“She looked fine the other day,” Alfred said politely.

“No, but you should see her when there’s, say, an ovarian cyst—”

“You see that?” Kristina asked.

“You bet I did. Dr. Aarons took me. Why, half the time I forgot to watch the operation, just watched her!”

“Just movements you learn after a while, isn’t it?” Alfred asked.

“That’s right. Just movements. Like a drill, like a soldier. To him everything in Medicine is wonderful. Show him the label on a bottle, he thinks it’s wonderful.”

“She’s got you pat!” Alfred cried, delighted.

“I was that way myself,” Kristina said quickly to Lucas. “You get over it. It’s all right.”

“We’re talking about three different things,” Lucas said angrily. “Alfred’s thinking about money to be made from a trade, you’re talking about escaping from a Minnesota farm to a nurse’s profession—and I’m talking about Medicine!”

“Which Medicine?” said Alfred coolly. “The art? The science? The profession? The what?”

“We here now,” Kristina said mildly.

They turned to face a small frame house, crowded by small frame houses on either side. Kristina knocked.

“Hey, Bruni!” she called out simultaneously.

The door flew open. A blond, stocky woman of about thirty confronted them grinning happily, exposing two gold front teeth.

Kristi and Bruni threw themselves into each other’s arms, then fell to belaboring each other’s backs in an access of good fellowship.

“Kristi!”

“Bruni!”

They spoke rapidly in Swedish, laughed uproariously.

“We late?”

“You chust in time!”

“Shake hands with friends of mine!”

“My name is Marsh, Mrs. Swenson. And this is my roommate, Alfred—”

“I know! I know all about you! Come in! Come in!” She pulled the door shut behind them. “Oley! Oley!” she bawled into the depths of the house.


So the evening began. It progressed through an excellent Swedish meal, through a period of digestion, through gusts of explosive talk, long pauses, the long, dull, incredibly boring evening ticked away its interminable minutes. In the early part of the evening, Lucas’ nerves were raw with embarrassment. From time to time he stared helplessly at Alfred, but Alfred stared back blandly, turned away to listen attentively to Oley, a painstaking and detailed account, punctuated with slow pauses, on the quality of modern pencils and the distaste for work of the city worker. Oley was a bookkeeper. And once Alfred caught Lucas’ eye to whistle appreciatively at ten small cups and saucers, fair souvenirs Bruni was collecting.

“I got more, even—back in Minnesota!” Kristina protested.

The embarrassment became a dull ache. Then Lucas joined defiantly with the laughter of Kristina and Bruni and Oley, slapping his thighs as Oley did, but always Alfred was imperturbable. And after a while defiance faded, too, and dullness succeeded it, it became an effort to smile, to hide a yawn, and finally the evening dragged to an end.

They were on their way home, Alfred talked animatedly with Kristina, occasionally they turned to Lucas, and Lucas plodded step after step, counting the blocks, and at last they were in front of the nurses’ quarters and then there was a wait while the evening was discussed again and then there was a great outpouring of good nights and Kristina was gone and the evening was ended and they turned homeward.

“You don’t have to say it,” Lucas said dully.

“You’ve got to learn sometime.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wouldn’t have sat there if I didn’t think it was reaching you.”

“I see what you mean, now.”

“Yup. And if I hadn’t been there you’d have put up with it, somehow. No one would have known. And somehow you’d have put up with it. And maybe you’d have gone back.”

“I’d have gone back.”

“Sure. The operating room would have taken you back.”

“I know it.”

“And if you had to, if you kept at it long enough, if there wasn’t any other way of getting it, you’d have made yourself like it. You’d have let down. You’d have fashioned yourself a little like them. So you could take it. And then more like them. Just so you could get what you want.”

“But why? Actually, what’s the matter with them? There’s nothing the matter with them. You’re a good guy, Alfred. You’re not like that, either. What is it?”

“You’re an awful kid about some things, Luke. I’m an awful kid too. Only I’ve been up against it and you haven’t. It’s a rule, boy. It’s a law. I don’t know a thing about it. About what makes it tick. All I know is, there it is. It’s the way the world goes.”

“You can’t just dismiss it like that.”

“Sometimes you have to. You’ve seen it work. I could have talked to you until I was blue in the face. It took an evening like this to make you see it. Now you’ve seen it. Now you know.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with them. They didn’t kill anybody. They laid themselves out to be nice to us, fed us, put out their best—”

“And you can’t just kick them in the teeth. And you hate yourself for the way you feel about them. I know. I’ve been through it. Once, a long time ago. We had a stableman. Nicest guy you ever saw. Smart, too. Well, what? He didn’t come to college with me. He didn’t go to prep school when I went. What are you going to do? You can’t take them with you.”

“But you can’t hurt them.”

“No, you can’t hurt them. You just stay away from them. Be polite to them, be kind, even. But stay away from them.”

“Take what you want from them—”

“That’s right. And they’re always glad to give it. I don’t know why. So don’t ask me. You don’t have to be bitter about it. It’s the way the world’s set up. I didn’t make it that way. This world’s made up of people who want a great deal and people who settle for anything. You know how it is, boy. If you want a thing so you can’t stop you’re going to get a piece of it. Maybe the others get a kick out of helping you, identifying themselves with someone who wants something that bad. All I know is you’ve got to travel with your own kind of people. That’s the only way you’ll ever get anywhere. Nothing else ever works. Take what you want and say thank you and keep going. Don’t get mixed up. Make it clear you’re not going to. Because once you do, you’re nothing. Nothing at all. Just tangled up.”

And Lucas thought of Kristina, and he thought of the operating room and how knowing her meant almost magic access to it.

“My God!” he blurted angrily. “What kind of a world is this! Isn’t there any kindness in it? Is everything cut and dried and take what you can get?”

“She can’t read your mind.” Alfred grinned. “If she’s your passport to the operating room, use it. Or, if you want to lay her—”

“My God, no!”

“Well,” Alfred shrugged. “You know what the score is. You know what she is, you know what you are, you know what you want, at least you’ve got things straight. And it only took one evening.”

“You’re a lot like my dad in some ways,” Lucas said resentfully.

Alfred looked at him levelly.

“I don’t know him. But so are you. Now forget it.”

“I know—but I don’t want to be—”

“That’s how it is, though. Now let’s drop it. Let’s go from here. . . .”


The first days of Medicine left no room for any kind of thinking, any speculation, any philosophy, anything but the first days of Medicine.

It began very briskly. He saw his first corpse and before he could assimilate the impact, the integrity of a dead unit, the ways in which it was his image, but differed from him, being dead before he was even sure that it was really dead and not apt to sit up and talk to him, he had been assigned a part of it. He drew a slip of paper and drew a lower left leg, he and Alfred, and they looked at it, confused and frightened and full of despair and behind them an instructor loomed suddenly and said:

“The first thing you’ve got to do is study the surface landmarks. Don’t use your knife until you’ve studied it. Notice that the broad, flat medial surface of the tibia is subcutaneous throughout its length and is continuous below with the medial malleolus, which is also subcutaneous.”

And he waited impatiently while they grabbed for their new notebooks and began scribbling furiously.

“If you’ll listen to what I’m trying to tell you you’ll see what I’m talking about and not have to take notes every time I open my mouth. Just look and understand.” But they took notes just the same, if only to keep themselves from looking.

It began with the very first day, there was no preamble, there was just a vast beginning and an hour after it began all of them were hopelessly behind, scrambling desperately to remain in school. It began without preamble, with an armload of books, with eight hours of classes, with words which were an entire new system of communication, with memorizing the incomprehensible, with despair, with panic, with resignation to the impossible.

There were no exceptions. The sons of doctors, previously confident and superior, stared with stupefaction at the stupidest and saw the same stupefaction reflected back at them. They were all in it together, this became apparent in the fourth hour, they must cling to their mutual ignorance or perish, they must cling to each other, each must somehow help the other.

In the anatomy class, when the first dissection began, when these young humans began cutting these dead humans, there was the sound of retching from a part of the room and Lucas and Alfred saw a student vomit on a cadaver, saw an instructor walk to him with a cloth extended in his hand, look at him coldly, stand over him coldly while he cleaned up his spew, warm on the cold but infinitely valuable cadaver, shared with him his insignificance, plain in the instructor’s look, beside that precious book, the cadaver. A little later one fainted, and then two more, and when they came to, one left. And this one was not heard from again.

“Don’t faint!” whispered Alfred. “Whatever you do, don’t faint. They say if you faint it’s curtains for you.”

They stared at each other, white and sick.

But they cut all the same, they cut, they all cut, they did what they had to do to lay bare the mystery of what was inside, and what was beneath that, and that, they cut and they hurried out when the hour ended, escaped to the corridors and the next class, knowing miserably that tomorrow their leg, their lower left leg, would be waiting for them, waiting for them to take up where they left off, to pry, to disclose, to note down, detail by infinite detail, structure by structure, muscle by muscle and nerve by nerve and bone by bone and day after day, until there was nothing more to be noted, and then the foot and then the upper leg and on and on until there was nothing left, until they had seen it all, felt it, traced it, noted it, found why it worked and how it worked.

And in three days, shakily, with bravado, they were calling the leg Joe, their Joe. Their boy. And in a week they found to their unbounded amazement they had actually remembered a few things, remembered them with their reason, and then the morass of things that could never be learned by reason, never until months or years after, overwhelmed them and they learned by rote, hearing each other, coaching each other, committing sentences, then paragraphs, and one day whole pages. For there was no other way.

“What do you think of it now?” Alfred asked bitterly, a man cheated, a man who hadn’t expected anything else.

“I’ll make it!” Lucas said, almost happily.

“Sure you’ll make it! We’ll all get through it, somehow. But what do you think of Medicine, boy? Medicine with a capital M and a halo?”

Lucas grinned fiercely, exultantly.

He was embarked at last.


Shortly before the middle of the term the bursar sent for him.

Job had paid no bills.

Job had paid nothing.

There was no word from Job.

There was no answer to any letters.

“I will have to have the money,” said the bursar.

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas dully.

“Or you will have to leave school.”

He stood, waiting.

“Do you think you can have it tomorrow?”

“This is Tuesday. Can you give me to the end of the week?”

“You’ve put me in a very difficult position. You understand you are now indebted to the university. You owe more than two hundred dollars right now. Two hundred and fourteen dollars and eighty-seven cents. I have trusted you. You are surely not asking for more time.”

“I know exactly how you feel. Everything you say is true. This is ridiculous.”

“We have written your father and have received not even the courtesy of a reply. The board has instructed me—”

“That’s exactly where I’m going. I’m going straight home. And when I come back I’m coming back with the money. In my hand.”

“We’ve acted in good faith—”

“There’s no excuse. Absolutely none. You can imagine how I feel. So by Saturday this will be over—one way or the other—and as to the two hundred dollars I want to assure you—you’ve been so nice to me—you don’t have to worry—”

“Until Saturday, then. . . .”


In Milletta the harness shop was closed.

The house was closed.

On the streets townspeople he knew spoke to him guardedly, reluctantly, their faces a little averted, as if there had been a death in the family.

At the bank he learned that Job was bankrupt.

“We’d like to contact him ourselves.”

“But you don’t know where he’s gone?”

“There’s a lot of people around here’d like to know that.”

“Thanks for your trouble.”

“Mean to say you don’t know where he is?”

“No, I don’t! What do you think I’d be asking you for?”

“Don’t know. Just seems strange, is all.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Can’t blame folks for being a mite upset. Took in an awful lot, he did. We’re holding his notes for nearly seven thousand. Did a lot for him. Can’t understand that fellow. Never any notice, even. Just packed up one night and the next morning there wasn’t hide nor hair of him. Just vanished. Even took in that old fellow Charley, worked for him. Took his life savings. Knew there wasn’t a chance of pulling out. Took them just the same, poured ’em down the rathole along with the rest. Poor old Charley’s on the town now. If you hear where he is, if he writes you or anything I’d appreciate—”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Just drop us a line.”

“I’ll do it. Don’t worry. The minute I hear from him.”

“Don’t think we hold it against you. It’s not your fault. Hope I didn’t put it that way, make you feel—”

“I know. You don’t know what he’s let me in for.”

“No! Here, now!”

“Oh, I’m in it, along with the rest. I may be his son, but I’m in it too. He’s got me stuck too. Supposed to have paid my college tuition. Bursar called me this morning. He never even answered any of his letters—told me I’d have to leave college—and all with never a word, never a syllable, never a thing to warn me, let me know.”

“Well, I’m sure sorry.”

“I suppose the house—”

“Nothing there. Mortgaged up to the hilt.”

“And the shop?”

“Boy, that man didn’t leave anything. It’s all picked over, bone-clean. There’s nothing. Not a penny. Funny, your own dad to do you that way. He’s a nice fellow, Job. I’d never have thought it of him. Knew your mother too. Fine, upstanding woman. Knew her when she was a little girl. Don’t know what got into him.”

“He wanted to own the earth, that’s what got into him. He wanted to own every harness store in the entire world, and every iron mine and the steel mills to run ’em, and every tannery and all the cattle. If you want to know. That’s what got into him. Mother had him pegged right. Mother knew. He took everything she had, too. Blew it down the drain. Even her jewelry . . .”

“You never know. I’m sure sorry. If there’s any way we can help you—”

“Well, that’s what got into him.”

“Well, you let us know.”

“And here I am broke with him. You don’t make college loans, do you? I mean, to help a fellow through college? I’d pay it back! Believe me, I’m not like him—!”

“Well, now I don’t see how—I’m afraid we don’t. ’Course I know you’d be good for it. It’s just we have to have certain forms, the way we do business we got to have collateral—”

“No chance?”

“I’m afraid not. Like to oblige you. But it’s not my money. The depositors—”

“Maybe a personal loan? I could work, this summer! I’d find work somewhere! Maybe he’ll be back, maybe there’s something still left—”

“Well, I’m afraid not. Things are pretty short, nowadays. Little depression, you know, little shakedown. What was it you wanted it for, to go on through college? Yes. Well, the way things are—”

“Thanks just the same.”

“Like to help you.”

“I know.”

“Got my hands tied. If there’s anything I can do, though—”

“I know. And I’ll let you know the minute I hear from him!”

“Sure would appreciate that—”

“The minute I hear! That you can be sure of!”

He left the bank, mortified, embarrassed but a little self-respect salvaged having stood on the side of the law, angry, heart-whipped, feeling the furtive looks of passing townsfolk like ants on his skin, desperate for a hole to swallow him, a darkness to cover him.

Like a child in trouble he returned to the empty house. He stood before it, walked around it, paced the porch, tried the locked doors, peered through the locked windows. But nothing happened, there was no help here, no hope, only emptiness and a feeling of strangers, of a house no longer his, of trespass. He went to the cemetery, to his mother’s grave, to the one spot truly his, the place where he had a right to be, the plot of ground beneath which she lay buried. And there he stayed a half-hour, pretending to arrange a rusted can that once had held flowers and into which he now thrust awkwardly a bit of branch he had broken off. But it was getting darker, he could not stay there forever, there was at last no help here either, and he knew this, despaired, went reluctantly with many a backward look, turned his back and walked to the station and boarded a train back to the university.

★ CHAPTER 18

As the train bore him back to the university he sat in a kind of stupor. Panic froze him. All his short life there had been problems, no day was pre-solved, he awoke to enigmas that might that day be settled by the decrees of chance or the solutions of the counsel life had appointed for him or his defiant will would somehow outface the problem or, the day passing, a new day’s problems would bury the old. And always there was hope, time and experience had taught him hope, taught him that even though the solution might be beyond his undertaking a solution existed, an answer for every problem.

For this problem there appeared no answer.

Job was gone, Ouida was gone, money was gone, the shops were gone, his home was gone, the house in which he had lived. He might have mourned the loss of these sincerely at another time; at another time he might have felt the collective loss as a crushing disaster. His fear was too great now. His mind was an empty well into which he shouted frantically do something, do something, hurry and do it. And from the emptiness echoed: Do what? What? What is there to do?

He rubbed his damp palms together between his knees. Well, he said to himself, let’s be calm, let’s think a moment, let’s be reasonable. How am I going to do it? How am I going to stay in med school? Now who is there? Who have I got? Who might help me?

Aarons?

All right.

Now there’s Aarons. How the hell can I go to Aarons for money?

Listen! he snarled at himself, do you want to go to med school? You’ll go to Aarons! And you’ll like it! And he knew he would go. His belly dwindled in shame, visioning it. And he knew how little hope was there. But he forced himself to think of Aarons.

He was saving his best hopes for last. Aarons, he thought scornfully, still holding off thought of the good ones, the possibles, not tested yet, still a chance until they were analyzed. Aarons . . .

All right, then, Ruth. Ruth and Ann. Ruth or Ann.

It could all be private, no one need ever know, just a little loan, just enough to tide him over. There was something horrible, something frightening about asking for money, he pictured the scene, he saw himself advancing: “There’s something I want to ask you about . . .” And then—

What did you say next? “I want to borrow some money from you. My father has skipped out, he promised to pay the bursar and he never paid a cent, they’re going to throw me out. Can you possibly loan me just enough—I mean, I’ll pay you back this summer—” And now he turned to them. He waited, for the expression on their faces, the sign of win or lose. He waited, he looked at them, waiting, he saw himself standing there. And there was no expression on their faces. It was as if they were waiting for him to finish. Try as he would he could not imagine an expression on their faces, the picture stayed agonizingly still.

He closed his eyes.

All right.

Then the kingpin. Then the ace in the hole.

Now, let’s go.

All right: “Alfred, I’m sorry, I know you hate this sort of thing but I haven’t got any choice. Wait a minute and listen to me, hear me out, here’s what happened and you’ll see what I mean.”

And the second thing—

And the second thing was they all said no.

The world stood still for a moment.

Then he smiled. He leaned back in the dusty coach seat.

And that was silly. Because they aren’t all going to say no, he told himself fiercely. What’s the matter with you, you fool. You’re in a jam, that’s all. Other people have been in jams before. It isn’t as though you’re asking somebody to give up every cent they have in the world. All you need is a couple of hundred lousy dollars. And everybody knows you have to keep going. You know, they know, they all know it.

When he got off the train his heart was thumping with fear. He went directly to Dr. Aarons.

“I’m in a jam, sir,” he said.

“I can help you with anything but money,” Dr. Aarons said lightly.

“Yes, sir.” He smiled tightly. “Only the thing is it is about money, sir.”

Dr. Aarons heard him through.

“I wish I could help you,” he said.

My God! thought Lucas. I’ve forgotten the doctors back in Milletta! He hardly heard Dr. Aarons for the flood of relief that filled him.

“I’m in the same spot as our mutual friends back in Milletta,” said Dr. Aarons. “Personally we have no funds. I suppose I have as much as three hundred dollars in the bank against this month’s bills. I suppose you’ve already heard, just having come from Milletta, that your father also managed to borrow a sizable sum from Dr. Alexander and Dr. Kellogg? No, Lucas, I’m sorry, I could borrow and lend you what I borrowed. But I already have obligations. And I wouldn’t really be helping you. I’d just be helping you, at best, through a single term. And then you’d be right back where you started. It’s a hard fact, you might as well face it, you’ll just have to lay your career aside for a year.”

“For a year!”

“Or as long as it takes you to earn enough money—”

“And then quit another year to earn more for the next—”

“That’s right. It’s not too bright a picture, is it? I wish I could help you. If you were further along there might be a chance for a scholarship, if your grades were good—have you exhausted all your resources? All of them?”

“No, sir.” Lucas rose. He sighed and smiled confidently at Dr. Aarons. “It was very good of you to hear my troubles,” he said, trying to sound grateful, “and I really had a nerve coming here—”

“Not at all! Not at all! I only wish—”

“I know. You don’t have to say it, sir.”

“I’ll be interested to hear what you finally decide—”

Lucas had reached the door.

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t leave here without telling me—”

“I’ve just thought of something,” Lucas said confidentially.


Lucas summoned the echo of that speech, made himself hear it over and over again as he walked up and down in front of the apartment house where Ann and Ruth lived. His mouth was dry. And when he entered to say what he must say, Good luck! he said, Good luck! Good luck, boy! over and over. And then he turned and made his swift walk to the door.


“Would twenty-five dollars help?” Ruth asked, when he had finished. She rose and walked to the desk, took three bills from an envelope and held them out to him. “Would this tide you over?”

He looked at the money blankly.

“It’s all I’ve got,” she apologized. “We both have to send money home every week—and the way we live . . .”

“We can’t even sign a note for you,” Ann said despairingly. “She’s already signed a note for me. Isn’t there anybody—?”

“Sure!” said Lucas. “It’s all right! I hate myself for even troubling you.” Now he wanted only to escape, he lowered his eyes to hide the resentment there, all his agony, all this for nothing.

“Anyway take this!” And Ruth bent and thrust the money into his coat pocket as he rose.

“No, no—it’s no good to me—”

“You take it! Take it anyway! I wish it were a million!”

“It’s a start.” Ann nodded.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. “Well . . .” he walked to the door.

“Where are you going? Stay and have dinner! What are you going to do?”

“It’s all right.”

“Yes, but how?”

“I just thought of something,” he mumbled. He managed a smile. “I’ll see you later . . . and thanks!” And before they could say more he had closed the door behind him.


Now there was Alfred.

He headed away from the dormitories. He walked in the park, trying to think, trying laboriously to put one thought ahead of another. His legs tired finally and he sank gratefully onto a bench. He made himself stop remembering the look on Dr. Aarons’ face, he made himself stop hearing himself talking to Dr. Aarons, stop hearing the doom in Dr. Aarons’ answers. He had not expected his quest here to be successful but he was staggered by the meagerness of an adult’s, a full professor’s, resources. While he thought of Dr. Aarons he could stave off the memory of the interview he had just fled. And yet after a while, after he had grovelled in the shame and the futility and the defeat and the lost self-respect of that scene, of the unforgettable, as long as he lived the unforgettable, he heard the campus clock toll, a pang of fear kicked him, time it was tolling, time, and he had so little time left, Alfred, he thought of Alfred, now it was time to think of Alfred.

He imagined a scene.

All right, Alfred, you’ve got the money. First of all, let’s get that straight. You’ve got it. You don’t need it, it’s just laying there. And they’re going to kick me out and all I need is small change. Just a couple of hundred dollars. How about it, Alfred? Just three hundred! Say four—and I can pay you back this summer!

All right, how about it?

What do you say, boy! If I had it you know you wouldn’t even have to ask!

What was there to say?

What could any man say?

It was going to be rough. Alfred was funny about money. He wasn’t stingy—Lucas cudgelled his memory—no, he wasn’t stingy. It was just—well, there was something nameless, something you couldn’t put your finger on, something about Alfred and money—

He was rich. He was probably wary about being victimized. Probably brought up that way.

Still . . .

It was going to be very, very difficult. It was going to be terrible.

But whatever it was he would have to bend his neck, take his beating.

And get the money.

There was no question about it—there was something . . .

I don’t care what it is. No matter what it is. He’s not going to just sit there and see you thrown out of school. Not his own roommate. Not when he’s got it. Not when all I need is just four hundred dollars. Three hundred. I can get by on two hundred—I’ll give them half. I’ll tell them I’ll give them the other half in a month. That’ll give me a month. Thirty whole days. Four weeks. Anything can happen in four weeks!

He rose almost jubilant.


Alfred was dressing to go out.

Lucas sat on his bed, watched him a moment.

“I’m in trouble,” he blurted abruptly.

You’re in trouble!” Alfred laughed shortly.

Lucas waited.

“Six shirts not back from the laundry and this goddamned thing two sizes too small and a roommate who doesn’t even wear the same size diapers—! And you’ve got trouble!”

“I need four hundred dollars. They’re going to kick me out.”

Now it was said. He had said it quite calmly. He relaxed, he had a sudden fierce happiness in their companionship, the two of them together.

“You what?” Alfred had turned. He was staring at him. Around the edges of his eyes and his mouth were those lines again, the remembered lines, the money.

But he wasn’t fooling anybody this time. Those lines were just on the surface along with the attitude. Everybody had an attitude about this or that, and this was Alfred’s. But he wasn’t fooling anybody. Lucas smiled at him confidently.

“Come on, Luke,” Alfred said, irritated at the smile, “what’d you say?”

“Dough, Alfred,” said Lucas gaily, even enjoying the pain the word must cause Alfred and the dutiful battle it meant Alfred was going to put up, was putting up right now, because they were brothers, after all, they were alone in their room together, outside was the world and here they were together.

“What do you mean, ‘dough,’ ” said Alfred quietly.

“I mean money. I’m not kidding, Alfred. I really mean it.”

Alfred looked at him carefully.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked awkwardly.

“What do you mean?”

“All right,” Alfred conceded, but now the money look was on his face strongly, his whole face was the money look. “Tell me about it.”

“I need four hundred dollars or I’ll have to leave school.” He said it defiantly, aggressively, he heard himself, abashed. “They’ve got me, Alfred,” he said in a low voice, “I’m afraid they’ve really got me.”

“I’d still like to hear about it,” Alfred said coolly.

And suddenly Lucas felt very tired and he was looking at the world, Alfred, the room and all, through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars and it was receding, drawing far off, getting smaller.

“My father’s gone,” he said slowly. Somehow that seemed the place to begin.

Alfred finished tying his tie. He smoothed down the front of his coat, inspected himself in the mirror. Then he turned to a chair and sat down facing Lucas.

“All right,” he said, “let’s have it.”

“That’s the size of it,” Lucas said. “Except here I am and you know what it means to me and that’s what I need.”

“You mean he skipped right out? Disappeared?”

“Nobody knows where he is. And I don’t care.”

“There isn’t any way you can track him down?”

“They’ve tried. The bank’s tried. Nobody knows. The only problem I’ve got is what I’m going to tell the bursar Saturday.”

“Nobody disappears without leaving even a trace! You can depend upon it! He had to go off somewhere, somewhere in a hurry. You’re getting all worked up for nothing. He’s probably back right now. I’ve seen these things happen before.

“Have you tried your relatives?” Alfred asked suddenly. “All your relatives? One of them ought to know. That’s it. That’s where he’d be, all right!”

“There wouldn’t be any. He wouldn’t go to his sister—she hates him. I don’t even know where she lives, any more. He had some brothers, too, I swear I don’t even remember all their names, where they live I don’t know at all. Mother,” he said carefully—“Mother’s folks are dead, Mother had some friends in Cleveland . . .”

“Christ! If my father disappeared—we’re not a big family—but my God!—really, Luke!”

“Would you know their addresses? The ones you hadn’t seen in years or maybe only heard of? If your father was gone and your mother wasn’t there to ask, and when you went home the house was empty, and his friends were looking for him, and the bank was looking for him?”

“Christ!” said Alfred. And then in a lower tone, this time embarrassed, “Christ!” again.

“Well, that’s what’s happened,” Lucas said, tired. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Will you help me, Alfred?”

“Didn’t he even pay your tuition?”

“I owe them two hundred dollars. I owe this term. He never paid a cent. Right now I owe them two hundred dollars.”

“My God, Luke!”

“I know.”

“Wait a minute. What do you need four hundred for?”

It was at this point that Lucas knew definitely that it was no use, that he was not going to get it, that Alfred was not going to give it to him. And even as this truth, this heavy truth plummeted to the bottom of his soul and made a sickening pain in the softness there with its weight and its foreign body, even so he knew he would have to ignore it and keep on fighting stubbornly, even though Alfred knew he knew it and everything said from now on was just said above the roar of the other, determined sentences, obstinately put together, because you had to keep on fighting, fighting and ignoring, there wasn’t anything else to do.

“What do you need four hundred for?” Alfred was repeating stubbornly.

“I have to go on, Al,” he said mildly.

“Oh,” said Alfred reluctantly.

“I already owe them two hundred. Naturally, after this experience, they’ll be worried about the rest. So if I give them two hundred more . . .”

“Okay . . . But that’ll only bring you to around April somewhere. What then?”

“By then I’ll have more.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll have it.”

“You’ll have it?”

“That’s right. I don’t know how. But I’ll have it.”

“That’s the trouble with you, Luke. You’re a nice kid but you’ve got your head up in the stars. You don’t know how but you’ll have it. How do you know you’ll have it?”

“I don’t know. But at least I won’t be taken by surprise—I’ll be able to plan ahead, to do something—to have a chance—”

“And what’ll you live on, in the meantime?”

“I’ll make out.”

“Off me?”

Lucas started, he straightened, his face reddened.

“Now don’t go off half-cocked. I’m trying to make you see things realistically for once.”

“What do you mean, off you?”

“Who else? Am I going to be treated to the spectacle of a roommate starving while I eat plenty, keeping a brave smile on his mouth and a look of endurance and resolution in his eyes, ignoring the plenty, grateful for crumbs—”

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Alfred!”

“Nothing’s the matter with me. I’m not in trouble.”

“Well, I am. I’m in trouble and I’m in bad trouble. I’m about to be thrown out of school. Because I need a few hundred dollars. And the money doesn’t mean any more to you than—what do you think I feel like, sitting here, having to ask you?”

“That’s the point, my friend. What do you think I feel like, being asked? Don’t you think I have to account for my money? Do you think it’s limitless, a sort of pool I stick my hand into and pull out whatever I want? Where do you think I’m going to get four hundred dollars from?”

“You?”

“Sure! Me! I know what you’re thinking. All I have to do is write home for it. In the first place I feel rotten doing that, because I know how I’ve been brought up about money. We don’t lend money. Not to friends. Not to anybody. It’s a rule. And it’s a damned good rule. Poor people buy approval. They loan money, all right. The poor help the poor. And they give to the rich. Nobody wants the poor. And they want to be wanted. So they loan money. Free and easy. Generous as hell. Maybe, like I said before, it buys them approval. Maybe it’s all they can afford. But we’ve got money. We don’t need approval. And there isn’t money enough in the whole world to buy everybody’s approval. You know I heard my Dad say a damned smart thing once. My sister came in and she said she’d overheard an acquaintance say something horrible about him, about Dad. It was quite a shock. All of us just sat there. And Dad thought a moment. And then he said, mildly, ‘I don’t know why. I’ve never done anything for him.’ I’ve never forgotten it.”

“Look, Alfred—”

“I know. You still need four hundred dollars. You need it to stay in college. And now I’m supposed to write home for four hundred dollars. What for? Why, to loan it to my roommate. And suppose I do? Suppose I were to sit right down this minute and start the letter? Could I start it knowing I was doing something wrong but everybody can do something wrong once in a while and stretch a point, give me the money and that’s that? You know damned well I couldn’t. That would be just the beginning. Aside from the way I feel about it myself, don’t you think I know my own father? What do we do come April? My roommate needs another two hundred dollars. Same reason. What have you let me in for, Alfred? Also, from time to time I’ll need a few bucks extra to pay my roommate’s room rent, buy him a meal.”

Lucas said nothing. He looked at the floor. There must be something to be said. He could not think of it. He just stared at the floor dully. All he knew was, now he had nobody. And now there wasn’t any peril any more. Now the suspense was over. Now he had nothing.

“You’ve got to be realistic,” Alfred said sympathetically. “That’s all I’m trying to tell you, boy. You’ve got to face things. You’ve got to see them as they are. You see, don’t you? You see how it is?”

“It’s all right,” said Lucas.

“I’ve got to go. I’m late.” He rose. Lucas nodded. “Listen, boy! You’re a swell roommate! Inch for inch you’re the best cock I’ve met on the campus. I like you, Luke! I really like you! I don’t want anything to happen! I want you right here in this room! I want to keep an eye on you and help you! And don’t think you don’t help me! And don’t worry. People have had blacker jams than this. He’ll turn up. I’ve got to go. Bunch down at the Nu Sig house. I’ve been telling them all about you.” He looked guiltily at his desk. “I know I shouldn’t be taking the time out—”

“Alfred.” Lucas’ face was white.

Alfred’s face became wary again.

“Alfred, can you loan me two hundred dollars?”

Alfred looked at him steadily and impersonally.

“I told you, Luke. I’m sorry. It’s a rule. That’s how it is—”

But Alfred didn’t matter now.

“Could you loan me one hundred dollars?”

Alfred looked at him steadily. He was silent a moment.

“Luke, old sport, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to loan you fifty dollars. I’m not going to loan it to you. I’m going to give it to you. That’s this month’s allowance. That’s all I have.”

Lucas nodded humbly.

“Thanks, Al.”

“I said that’s all,” Alfred said significantly. He looked hard at Lucas to see that he understood.

“I understand.”

Alfred took out his wallet, extracted some bills, held them out. Lucas walked to him and took them.

Alfred watched, standing there, the bills in his hand. The anger faded from his eyes. He dropped a hand on Lucas’ shoulder. He shook him affectionately.

“So long, kid. Make an extra set of notes for me on histology, will you? With those nice drawings of yours?”

Lucas nodded, not looking up.

“I’ll be in late,” Alfred said. He turned, the door closed upon him, he was gone.


Lucas sat on the edge of his bed a long time. He put all the money he had in a neat pile beside him and he counted it carefully as if every move counted. He had ninety-three dollars and he counted the bills again, then he sorted them by ones, fives, and tens, then he arranged them all face up, the faces on the bills all looking the same way, straight up, then he put the ones first, the fives second, and the tens last.

It was still Tuesday.

He put all the bills carefully into his billfold. They made quite a wad. Ninety-three dollars.

Tomorrow would be Wednesday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Four days. He went over them again, forcing himself, naming them.

Then he tried to think. His mind rebelled. No! There wasn’t anything more to think about. There wasn’t anything to remember. The thing to do was to keep from thinking. The thing was to keep the mind a perfect blank. Just for a minute. Just to rest. He rose quickly. To get out of this room. This still bloody, still quivering place. To get out in the air, to get outside, to be swallowed in the dark, the darkness, the biggest cave of all.

For nearly an hour the darkness was healing. The night was cold on his face. Then, like a tide receding from a shore and leaving naked those things it had covered, the covering darkness was open night, full of eyes, unwinking, watching and accusing.

And they were watching his shame, the shame of a man in a place in which he did not belong, a man who had promised to pay and had not paid, who had no right here. Look at him, his father has run away, bankrupt, half a county looking for him—the fellow who didn’t have a home, even, and no longer friends, not friends now, but people who knew him, alerted, wary, guarding what they had.

His head down, dreading encounter, he stole across the campus. He avoided buildings. He came to the street leading to the hospital and as he walked along it he defied his censor, the tears fell, his cheeks were wet with them. He heard a distant shout from a dormitory. He dashed his tears quickly away. He swallowed. He bit his lip. He halted.

“Please help me,” he said. He said it with his heart, a total appeal, to a god unknown.

“Help me,” he said again, waiting.

He walked on.

Outside the hospital he stared through the darkness at the dim outlines of the building, his eyes fondling the bricks. He looked intently at the lighted windows, hoping to see something, for a keepsake. His eyes roved the building, imaging it, to remember.

He walked on. As he passed the hospital he said goodbye to it. He paused occasionally to look back. He resumed walking, walking aimlessly. In a building ahead the doors swung open and a dozen chattering nurses emerged. He averted his head, put one foot ahead of the other, thought of nothing. The nurses’ voices grew fainter. He was safe again. The darkness was with him. He was jarred suddenly from behind. The blow made him stumble. He ducked, looking back, frightened.

“Oh, excuse me!” cried a girl’s voice, mocking.

“Oh, we’re so sorry!” cried another.

“Why, it’s Luke!” said the first in mock surprise.

“Oh, did we bump into you?”

We saw you skulking by!”

“Hello Dorothy, hello Jenny,” he said, trying to smile.

“What’s the matter? Gotten too high-hat for your friends?”

“He’s keeping company with a head operating-room nurse! The OR! What does he want to go bothering with a couple of probationers!”

He walked on.

“I could report you to the superintendent!” she yelled. “You and your dumb Swede!”

“Come on,” pleaded Jenny.

He walked on. He turned a corner. After a while he turned his head slowly. They were not following. The street was empty.

And as he walked away the echo of their voices in his mind, as he walked away the memory of the encounter, as it dimmed, sank into the welter of numbness, his mind nudged him, his intelligence was trying to say something, he stopped.

Kristina.

Kristina is a nurse.

The quick and the dead.

The quick, now.

I’ll say, Kristina, I’ll say, I don’t know whether I ought to tell you this or not . . . Kristina . . . I wonder if you could see your way clear . . . I wonder . . . well, it’s this way . . .

No . . . No! . . .

He walked faster, fearful of losing her when he had just found her, just discovered, just embraced the fact of her, the chance.

He licked his lips.

We could be engaged. Just engaged. And I’ll say to her, when people are engaged, I’ll say to her, I’ll say, Look, Kristina!


“What’s the score?” Alfred asked next morning.

“I don’t know. I don’t know yet.”

“It’ll be all right. You mark my words, boy. I know.”

“Alfred—what would you think if—”

“Got a plan?”

“No—I mean if I didn’t hear from him—”

“Look, Luke. Let’s be sensible. Medicine isn’t the only way to make a living. Oh, I know you like it. But face it.”

They dressed in silence.

On the way to classes Alfred smote his head.

“I knew I’d been trying to remember something! It was in Germany this summer! Fulboating! English fellow wandered into the same thing as you! Didn’t hear from home over a month! He was all ready to go to the English consul, work his way home, blow his brains out! And the next morning there was his letter.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not kidding!”

“Okay . . . Thanks . . .”


Dr. Aarons met him in a corridor between classes.

“Any news?’

“No, sir. Not a thing.”

“Wait a day or so. You’re bound to hear something.”

“I’ve got until Saturday.”

“I think you’ll hear before then.”

“I’d do anything to go on.”

“Yes.”

“I mean that, sir.”

“I know.”

“Anything.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“No, no! What I meant to say was—”

“I understand. Believe me. Nothing dishonorable.”

“No, sir. Nothing dishonorable.”

“Yes. Your confreres in the laboratory send word by me that they want to see you.”

“Could you tell them, sir? That there’s nothing new?”

“I think perhaps they want to see you in person.”

“I wish I had something to tell you. If you could just say—”

“No. I think you’d best go yourself. They’ve been very kind to you.”

“I know. It’s just that—”

“Fine girls. Very high standards.”

“Yes, sir.”


“Have you got any money? Any money at all?” cried Ann.

“I’ve got ninety-three dollars.”

“Why, that’s wonderful!” said Ruth.

“Certainly,” said Ann. “That’s something to work with!”

“But I need—”

“You go see the bursar! You tell him that—”

“It’s no use. He’s already told me—”

“No matter what he’s told you! If you go see him—and you show him ninety-three dollars in good faith—”

“It’s something, after all! Look at it from his side!”

“Don’t you see? The university would have something!”

“All right . . .”

“Don’t be reluctant! After all, next month maybe Ann or I can help. Just go right in! What else is there to do?”

“Do you mean you’ve thought of something? Lucas!”

“No, no! It’s nothing. No. I was just thinking how to go about it . . .”

“Well, you just go right down there this noon and walk right up to him and you say—”


“I’m sorry, Mr. Marsh,” the bursar said. “Our rules are very emphatic on this point. I’d like to help you, but the university is run on very definite rules. I made a mistake in the first place, one I’m afraid I’ll have to answer for—”

“Mr. Johnson,” said Lucas, cold now and uncaring and vengeful, “would you rather the university lost two hundred dollars or one hundred and seven dollars?”

“Mr. Marsh, it’s your duty, your plain and evident duty, to turn in whatever funds you have against this bill, this debt. I was accommodating, I went beyond the rules and now—”

“You’ll have to answer for it, won’t you. Well, I’m offering to reduce the bill by half. Practically half. I’m showing good faith. It’s not so bad to make a mistake for a hundred dollars as two hundred, is it?”

“Mr. Marsh, I don’t think your attitude does you credit. I want to tell you frankly that—”

“Look, Mr. Johnson, this isn’t my fault. All I’m trying to do is go to college. That’s not a terrible thing, is it?”

“But if I let you go on what assurance have I got—”

“You haven’t got any. And neither have I. This isn’t my doing. But I will cut the debt in half. And all I want is thirty days. If I don’t hear in thirty days you’re no worse off than you are now. And you’ve got ninety-three dollars to show the powers that be some reason why you let me continue. What have you got to lose?”

“It’s not a question of what I have to lose. It’s a question of method. All this is highly irregular. Highly.”

“Will you do it?”

“I don’t see that you leave me much choice.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“You’re sure that’s all you have?”

“I don’t even know what I’m going to eat on, Mr. Johnson.”

“Ah, yes! Well . . . These things are very unfortunate . . . I’m sorry, of course . . . You understand . . . Ninety-three. Correct . . .”

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

He knew what he had to do now.

And if it failed he must steal.

★ CHAPTER 19

He had a month now.

And that was all he possessed.

But he was rich in it.

And he hardened very swiftly, the catastrophe cupped him, bled him of abasement. The heat of his shame cooled and he viewed disgrace coldly and discredit, humiliation, and unrespectability with irritation. He appraised the rules in which he had clothed his outlook, the straps and belts, cinctures, bridles, knots, ties, clasps, reins, latchets, which, all fastened, all tied, laced and woven, made conscience and moral sense, ethics and conduct. And he appraised them coldly and the names left them and they were knots and bindings, a miscellany, accumulated, intricate, agreements with chaos.

He put them by. He stepped out of them, clad only in his necessity.

He appraised life as if he were a stranger to it, seeing it alertly, life being what he must have and what he must be, and the people in it.

He saw them in terms of his need. He assayed them against his need, measured them, saw them clearly in relation to himself, saw them clearly, what they had, what they thought, what they summed.

There were no longer any rules.

There was only necessity.

He sold a suitcase, a few books, a pair of cufflinks. Richer and poorer by eight dollars he went to the hospital dining room next day and waited for Kristina.

“Hallo, there!” she greeted him, and laughed.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, frightened.

She put a hand on his arm.

“Excuse me. I’m not laughing at you. No, no. Would you like to see something? Come! I will show you a hero!”

He smiled obediently, trailed her down the corridor.

“What is it, Kristina? What’s up?”

“I show you something you never see again in a million years!”

“But tell me!”

“If I tell you, you will never believe me! Come on!”

They entered a men’s ward. The probationer at the desk rose quickly, seeing Kristina.

“Could we see Mr. Carter, please?” her lips twitched. The probationer smiled.

“Certainly!” She walked down the aisle of beds. Kristina, with the composure of a graduate nurse and the head of a department and the diffidence of an official in another official’s bailiwick, followed close behind her.

The probationer turned briskly between two beds.

“Hello there, Mr. Carter,” she said.

Lucas, at the foot of the bed with Kristina, tried to smile ingratiatingly.

“Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!”

The man in the bed was a somewhat undernourished white male, single, aged seventy-three, well developed but showing obvious weight loss, chronic illness. His hair was jet-black, without any gray whatever, his face was wrinkled in a grin, he had small black eyes, set deeply in his skull, and an enormous, sweeping gray mustache, yellowed about the mouth. His hands rested quietly on the counterpane, they were pallid, streaked with blotches, and the fingers were clubbed.

“Hallo, yourself!” cried Kristina.

“I’ve brought you some visitors,” said the probationer brightly.

“You remember me?” asked Kristina.

“Sure, sure, sure, sure!”

The old man grinned at Lucas. Between him and the two nurses there was an air of expectancy which seemed to be focussed on Lucas, and Lucas smiled anxiously, trying to evince what was expected of him.

“This is a medical student,” said Kristina.

The old man nodded and grinned, waiting.

“He came to see you.”

The old man squeezed his eyes shut as if he could no longer bear the exquisite, the secret, his grinning jaws writhed and beneath the mustache a great hole opened, his toothless mouth.

The two nurses looked at each other and laughed happily.

“Now come on, Mr. Carter!” the probationer coaxed.

“This man was a great fighter!” Kristina said solemnly to Lucas and the old man watched to see the effect of this on Lucas.

“Is that so!”

The old man nodded blissfully.

“Fit Injins all m’life.” He nodded, and winked portentously. “Fit ’em in Albuquerque, fit ’em in Californy, fit the piss out of ’em!”

He tried to struggle to a sitting position, turned midway toward his nightstand.

“I’ll get it!” the probationer cried and pushed him back and opened the stand drawer. She took from it a faded and a yellowed sheet of thick paper and handed it to Lucas.

“Albert Eddler Carter,” the document said in flowing script. And above it, “The United States of America.” And beneath these, “For services above and beyond the call to duty, and for heroism which mirrors the finest tradition of the Army Scout Corps . . .”

Lucas read swiftly. The man in the bed was a hero. At the bottom of the paper was the award, the ribbon of the Congressional Medal of Honor. He examined this detail curiously. Then he looked up, looked at the old man with respect.

The old man cackled, gratified.

He tried to sit up, his breath came harsh and quick, he coughed a little blood, he never stopped grinning delightedly. The probationer pushed him back on the pillow, seized his hands.

“Now, now! We mustn’t get excited!”

“We have to leave you, now,” Kristina said.

“No, no!” the old man wheezed, looking from one to the other of the two women, his eyes hurt.

“All right,” said the probationer. “You can show him. But just once!”

The old man relaxed, grinning happily.

“Mr. Carter has something he wants to show you,” the probationer said.

Lucas leaned forward a little. The old man looked at him reflectively. When he was sure he had Lucas’ entire and devoted attention he raised one of his hands slowly, his eyes never leaving Lucas’, he put his hand slowly on top of his head, his mouth opened, he lifted his hand.

Lucas cried out.

For a moment he thought the man had lifted his head off.

In the lifted hand the old man held his hair, all of it. The skull beneath was dead white, crisscrossed with a patchwork of scars.

“It’s his own hair!” Kristina cried. The probationer beamed. The old man’s eyes never left Lucas’. He did not move. The orifice that was his mouth gaped in its widest grin.

“Scalped me!” he chortled at last. “Sons of bitches scalped me!”

“The Indians took his scalp right off!” Kristina explained.

“Waited till he turned his back to sculp another one, reached up and got him through the balls, belly and backbone. One shot.”

“Then he got his scalp back—”

“Had it tanned—”

“Worn it ever since!” The old man let his scalp fall back on his skull, where it hung askew.

“Isn’t he wonderful?” cried the probationer, straightening the hair lovingly. “Now, that’s enough. Thank you, Mr. Carter—”

The old man began to cough again. Kristina and Lucas walked from the ward.

The happy cackle followed them from the room.

“Look, Kristina—”

“So now! What do you think of that? Every day something else. My God! A hospital! I tell you! You ate dinner yet?”

“Dinner . . .”

“What I say, dinner? I always forget! Back in Minnesota at noon we eat dinner. At night eat supper. You eat lunch?”

“Yes, I have—”

“What you eat?”

“I had a sandwich—I have to get back to classes—”

“You’re watching your figure, hah?”

“Oh, no—say, Kristina, I had an idea—”

“Maybe I got to take off a few pounds. I think I’m too fat.”

Down this new avenue Lucas followed eagerly.

“You? Don’t you dare take off an ounce! You hear? Not one ounce!”

“Oh, no! I think I’m too fat!”

“Where! You just show me! Where?”

“You don’t see? My God! Pretty soon my clothes don’t fit me!” She slapped her thighs hard.

“There? You’re worrying about your hips?”

“Oh, no, no! You wrong! Much too fat!”

“Kristina! Will you believe me? Don’t you take off a single ounce!”

“I like to eat. I think I eat too much.”

“You know something, Kristina? I never noticed girls’ figures before—”

“Hoo! You never notice!”

“Oh, I don’t mean that! But there’s something about your figure—I mean, the way you look—I mean, so far as I’m concerned—”

“A girl shouldn’t let herself go—”

“You just let yourself alone!”

“What does a man know! How’s your classes? Why don’t you come around to see any more operations?”

“I haven’t had time! You know what those hours are! Every day, now! I’ve wanted to . . .” Now! Now if he could break in! “Look, Kristina . . .”

“I thought maybe too many girls, eh? I hear all about you! Oh, my!”

“What’d you hear!”

“Never mind!”

“No, tell me! What?”

“I hear!”

“It’s not true!”

“Hoo-hooo!”

“Kristina!”

“I hear about a certain young probationer—and another—and another—”

“But it’s not true, don’t you see? It’s just not true—”

“Those girls know what they’re doing! They catch a nice young doctor, pretty soon they got a doctor for a husband—why not?”

“Because I wouldn’t have them! That’s why not!” he cried angrily.

“You better be careful, then!”

“Don’t worry! Even if I had a chance when would I get to take a girl out, now! Eight hours’ study every day. Four hours, five, six, every night!”

“No, that’s right. You got to study. You got nothing left but Sundays. Sometimes Saturday night.”

Unaccountably his chance had come again.

“I guess you stay pretty close to home too?” he said warily.

“Me? Oh, is always something to do. I sew—I go see Bruni—I walk—is always something.”

He drew breath and plunged.

“Would you mind if I went along?”

“Sure! Why not? It’s a free country—”

“Come on, now! You know what I mean!”

“Who? Me, you’re thinking of taking out? Oh! Now I got to be careful!”

“What do you say, Kristina? Sunday? Is this Sunday all right?”

“Let me see . . . Yes, I think all right, Sunday. What time?”

“What time for you?”

“We go in the morning, eh? We have dinner at Bruni’s! This time I cook!”

They grinned and parted. He rushed away, full of relief.

“You hear something?” Alfred asked that night.

“Not yet, no.”

“Well, what are you so happy about? I thought you’d heard something.”

“No,” he sighed, “not a word . . . not a single, goddamned word . . .”

“Well, you will. Don’t worry.”

Lucas nodded.

Thereafter he was careful not to smile.


“So, Kristi, what you think?”

“What I think?”

“All right, all right! Is nice-looking poike. Is snels poike. But what you know about him? What you know?”

“Trude! You have seen him! You don’t like him?”

“Na, na! Of course he’s nice! But—I yoost say, that’s all.”

“We see . . .”

“Is anyway somebody to go out with . . .”

“You ask me, is some somebody.”

“I don’t ask you.”

Kristi grinned.


“So what is like where you live?” Kristi asked as they walked home from Bruni’s.

And Lucas told her earnestly about Milletta, that small place, that quiet place, miles away.

“You got girl there?”

“Girl? No. No girl.” And he looked at her saying, You see I am free, will you have me? “You got a fellow, Kristi?”

“Nobody will have me!” she said archly.

“We ought to get together.”

“Ah, no. You like probationers.”

“Now, look! Kristi—!”

“You never talk about your people!”

“My mother?”

“You mother and father, you sisters and brothers. You family.”

“My mother’s dead.”

“I’m sorry . . .”

“Yes . . . Someplace I guess I got a couple of uncles and aunts. I don’t know them. I never saw them. You know something? I don’t even know where they live! Could you believe that?”

“What happened?”

“It sounds funny to you, doesn’t it? Swedish people are great on family, aren’t they. I don’t know. My father’s people, these are. He never talked about them much. I guess they weren’t too close as a family. That’s the way it is, I guess. Some families are close, some not. Well, now you know all about me.”

“And your father?”

He gave her a long look.

“Kristi, I’m going to tell you something . . .”

And he told her about Job.

“So now you got nobody,” she said in a low voice, when he had finished.

He said nothing.

He drew a little away. He walked in silence.

She joined him. She put her arm through his. They walked in silence.

At the door of the Nurses’ Home they said only good night, there was nothing left to say, there had been too much said, they said simply good night, they looked at each other, they parted.


At noon next day he was waiting for her. He smiled at her shyly.

“Hello, Luke,” she said softly.

He put his hand swiftly under his coat, drew out a small box of candy, thrust it at her.

“Here!” he whispered.

She looked at it, her mouth open. He moved off.

“Luke—” she called after him. But he waved and was gone.


He was too much for her. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he had to do. He knew what he must have. He knew she liked him. He knew all about her. And he did not dislike her. She was, after all, the head operating-room nurse. That was not nothing in the social scale of the world in which he moved, not to a medical student, a mere student. She was not ugly, after all. She was downright attractive when you bothered to really look at her. She could be. When you came right down to it, what was the matter with her? She was damned nice, when you came right down to it! Too good for most of them around there. That’s what.


A fellow could do a hell of a lot worse.


Next day he waited for her and they had lunch together. During the meal he looked meaningly at her, saying, You and I, Kristi. You and I, eh? And her eyes softened and they looked quickly about to see if they had been observed.


“He’s got nobody, Bruni!”

“What do you mean, ‘he’s got nobody’?”

“Nobody!”

“Nobody?”

“No mother, no father, nobody!”

They looked at each other, silent.

“Kristi!” And Bruni put her hand on her friend’s hand.

Kristi nodded.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!” Bruni shook her head in pity.

Kristi nodded.

“Oh, Kristi! . . . Such a nice young feller . . . So good-looking . . . So polite . . .”

“He brought me candy,” Kristi said in a low voice.

“No, no, no . . .” That one who had so little should even then give.

“How much money has he got and he brings me candy. Not polite. But because he likes me. Yes, it’s true. He likes me, Bruni.” And she raised her head and nodded, saying, looking Bruni in the eye. “And I like him too.”

And Bruni digested this, and accepted it, and said simply,

“What you do, Kristi? What you do?”

And Kristi looked at her, the two women met in their eyes, in their looking, repeating, hearing again, affirming, accepting, saying everything.

“I don’t know, Bruni,” said Kristi, saying, I’m afraid so, Bruni. Yes, I know, yes, yes, it’s begun . . .


There was still something. There was still a way to bind her fast.

He was excited. He would have this, too. He had not thought of this. He had not even thought of it.

And he began to think of her kindly and lovingly, Kristina, for all the things she had, all she would give him.

He did not think of anyone else, he did not think of Ruth and Ann, nor of Alfred, nor of Dr. Aarons, he would not permit it, when the thought came to him he thrust it off, he recoiled, he struck the thought from his mind. He and Kristina. And he withdrew with her from all of them, into an uncensored world of their own, empty except for them, living their own life, dead and blind to all others.

And it would have to be soon.


“Are you taking a night off?” Alfred was startled.

“There’s something I’ve got to do.”

“In the middle of the week?”

“I’ll make up Saturday night.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’ll just work Saturday.”

“But what in the name of God—is it a girl?”

“Do you think I’d take a night off for a girl?”

“No, but what in the name of God—what’s come over you?”

“I’ll tell you sometime . . .”

“It’s your life, boy . . .” And he had returned to studying as Lucas left the room, he was gone, buried in his books.


And as Lucas hurried into the night, hurried toward the nurses’ quarters, he passed the lights of the rooms, the rooms where medical students studied, he did not know them, he could not distinguish them from the others where lights burned, too, but they were there, they would be burning long after the others, long, long after the lights for other courses were out. They had fallen into a pattern, all of them, all the eighty-eight of the first-year’s group. And in this pattern the day began at 8:30 in the morning with the first class. And it proceeded through anatomy, histology, embryology, biochemistry and physical chemistry, through physiology, neuro-anatomy, radiology and psychiatry and an hour of clinic, of correlation lectures, and there was an hour for lunch and then it was 5:30 and classes were over for the day. And then there was a quick meal and then study. And study began during the meal, an open book propped beside the plate. And study ended at midnight. And it was all strange, it was all new, even the language was different, a new language had to be learned, and for every waking hour there was despair and fear, alternating, and insecurity and desperate competition and hopelessness and hopelessness and hopelessness.

And that was the pattern for each day of the week. Each day except Saturday. On Saturday classes ended at one o’clock. In the afternoon there was sleep. In the evening some studied, some walked for an hour or so, one or two of the bravest or the most foolish went to the movies. Sunday there was study again. And that was the pattern.

And this was Tuesday.

It was eight o’clock.

And Lucas was on his way to the nurses’ quarters.


They walked for a while and then Lucas led Kristina into the park. It was always the park for there was no place else.

He led her to a bench and he put his arm on the back of the bench so that it fell upon her back and shoulders. And for a while he sat quietly. Kristina said nothing.

His heart was hammering.

“I’m glad I got you,” he said, looking straight ahead.

“How you know you got me?”

“You know what I mean, Kristina.”

“It’s nice here. You come here with plenty other girls, I bet.”

He turned to her and said sternly,

“You’ve got to stop talking that way, darling. You hear?”

It was the first time he had ever called her darling, he put the word in his mouth and his ears heard the sound of it. And Kristina, hearing the word, was elated and confused and her eyes tried to look at him searchingly.

“Hoo-hoo! So, it’s darling now!”

“Kristina!” He bit his lip. He forced the anger from him. He let his shoulders slump. “All right. All right if you want to make fun of me . . .” He made himself smile at her, Punish me, the smile said, go ahead, it’s all right, I’ll take it . . .

“Now you’re mad.”

“No. I’m not mad. Why should I be mad? Kristina, don’t you like me? Don’t you like me at all?”

“Sure I like you! You’re a nice boy—”

“Because the way you treat me—the way you’re always laughing at me—”

“I don’t laugh at you,” she said in a low voice.

“But you are! You were laughing just then—”

“I just say first thing comes into my head. What shall I say?”

“Because I like you, Kristina, you know that, don’t you?”

“I hope so—”

“You mustn’t hope so! You must know it! You must! Do you hear, Kristina?”

“I hear.”

“Because it’s important. Even if you don’t like me.”

“I didn’t say that . . .”

“You do like me, don’t you, Kristina? A little?”

“You’re a nice boy—”

“I don’t mean that. I don’t mean that way . . . Do you, Kristina?”

“Yes . . .” Her voice was almost inaudible. She looked intently at her hands in her lap, thumbing one finger.

He took her hand. He turned toward her.

“All I know is, I love you. Don’t laugh. Don’t make fun. That’s all. Now I’ve said it. Now you know. I love you, Kristina. I can’t help it. I love you.” He stared at her, waiting.

“Kristina . . .”

“I like you too,” she said shyly.

“Oh!” He dropped her hand. He turned from her and looked straight ahead. He slumped dejectedly.

“You’re young,” she said anxiously.

“That’s it! You’re right! I’m young . . .”

“My grandmother was married when she was sixteen. My grandfather was eighteen . . .”

“You see? You see? Ah, please, Kristina—”

“But what I got, tell me! What you see in me? I don’t speak good, I don’t know nice things, you read books, you go with different kind of people, what you want with a dumb Swede?”

“Kristina! You must never say that again, do you hear me? Never! I love you, Kristina. And it’s like a knife in me! You wouldn’t even think it!”

“But—”

“Never! Understand me? Why, you’re lovely, Kristina! And do you think it’s nothing to be head operating-room nurse? Nothing? Do you know what I’d give to know what you know? What you think is nothing?”

“That! Luke! You don’t ever think I’m—pretty!”

“Have you seen yourself, Kristina? Tell me that. Have you ever really, truly looked at yourself?”

“Oh, Luke . . .”

“It’s true! You don’t know! Why, we have everything in common! Everything! You’re everything I want!”

“Someday you’ll be a doctor. Then what!”

“No, Kristina . . . No . . . You’re wrong . . .”

“What’s happened! You are going to stop? You are not going to be a doctor?”

“I’m afraid not . . . No . . . I’m afraid all that’s over . . .”

You fail? Is not possible! Luke!”

“Of course I haven’t failed! I’d never fail!”

“Then what—?”

“It’s something—No! I guess I’d better not talk about it. Especially to you . . .”

“You got to tell me.”

“No, Kristina . . .”

“You got to!”

“You’ll hate me—”

“Why should I hate you? You did something?”

“No . . . That’s the trouble! I didn’t do anything! It’s—it was done to me—I can’t tell you. No! I’m sorry! No! No, Kristina! No . . . It has to do with my father . . .”

“Your father!”

“Yes.”

“Your father! You told me he’s gone! He’s left you! What—”

“He’s left me, all right! He’s left me ruined!”

“Ruined!” She echoed the word. Comprehension came. Her shoulders sagged. She laughed with relief.

“It’s money,” she cried. “I thought—I didn’t know what—I don’t laugh at you, darling—”

“I should never have told you!” He turned his hot face away.

“But I have money!”

“You?”

“Of course! You think I spend my money like the other girls? I save my money! Sure! How much you think I spend? I get fifty dollars every week, I pay my room, I get my laundry, I get my meals, how much you think I spend?”

“I don’t know. But that’s yours, Kristina! That’s not me!”

“But that’s my job! That’s only natural! Of course I help!”

“I couldn’t! Don’t talk about it! No, don’t!” He shook his head angrily. “I wanted to ask you something. Now, this spoils it.”

She was silent. She looked at him sidelong, as he brooded, she tried to think of something to say, she could not. She waited helplessly.

“Kristina! If I was to ask you, ‘Kristina, will you marry me’—”

She looked at him, pale.

“If I had asked you—tell me! Tell me honestly! What would you have said?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a low voice, for she was thinking of the need, now, and of how it had changed everything, and of the two suitors now, Lucas and his need, of everything that had changed and become serious, deadly serious, and no play, now, no gambits, not even lightness of boy and girl but something that was becoming irrevocable.

But in his ears it was a knell.

“Will you think, Kristina? Not now! Will you tell me?”

“I will think,” she said gravely.

“Because I love you, Kristina. It means the world to me.” He drew her to him roughly. “You’ve never even kissed me,” he said desperately. He tilted her chin. Her lips were surprisingly soft beneath his. He felt her arms about him, her lips parted, and now she twisted away, he felt her hand on his arm.

“No,” she said huskily. “No, darling . . .”

“I want you . . .” And he kissed her again, strained her to him. But her hand stayed on his arm.

“Are you afraid,” he whispered.

Kanske,” she said shyly.

“What does it mean? Tell me?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Tell me!”

“That’s what it means. Maybe . . .”

“Tell me, Kristina—!”

“We see . . .”


There was, finally, a letter from Job.

It was waiting for him next morning.

He ripped it open. There was only a folded sheet of notepaper. There was no check. He tore the envelope apart. There was nothing. There was only the folded sheet of notepaper and Job’s writing upon it.

Dear son,

No doubt you will be surprised to learn I have decided to settle here for a while, in this town. No doubt you have heard by this time a lot of stories, most of which are bound to be exaggerated, one way or the other and everything would have been fine if Kumper in South Wetherly hadn’t decided to be a hog and try for 90 cents on the dollar and if they’d let me alone I could have paid a hundred cents and now they’ll get nothing. That’s the whole story no matter what they tell you so of course there was nothing else for me to do they left me no choice. I am on here as manager [Lucas glanced at the letterhead: “Acme Reliable Harness and Leather Goods, Trusses for Male and Female.”] and am now thinking of buying an interest in this place as I feel something really could be done with it. So take care of yourself and drop me a line from time to time and if you need anything why just let me know.

With love, your father,

Job Marsh. Please burn this.

The envelope was postmarked Chillicothe, Ohio.

He waited for Alfred to comment. But Alfred behaved as if he had not seen a letter handed to Lucas. Was it politeness? Was he waiting tactfully for Lucas to mention it? He’s afraid! Lucas thought suddenly. He’s going to ignore the whole thing. If it’s bad news he thinks I’m going to ask him for money again. He was safe, now, he was safe from Alfred, safe from them all. And a spasm of hatred for Alfred, for all of them, twisted his viscera.

Worried, are you? he said, he almost said it aloud.

“Here, look at this,” he said roughly. He forced the letter on Alfred.

Alfred read it without change of expression.

“He’ll have something before long,” he nodded.

“Sure!” said Lucas, as if the matter no longer interested him.

“That’s the way to look at it!” Alfred said uncertainly.

“Why not?”

“Just like I told you.”

Lucas shrugged.

“He’d better!” Alfred said, nettled at Lucas’ calm.

“That’s right! That’s absolutely right!”

“What’s up?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s up’?”

“You’re not worried, or anything.”

“Do I have to act worried, old boy? What is it you want me to do, grow pale and faint and grovel on the floor and kiss your ass and beg for fifty more nervous dollars?”

“Don’t get smart.”

“Oh, I’m not smart. I know that. Just smart enough so you’d flunk without me.” He looked aside elaborately, inwardly trembling, almost over the brink of rage, waiting for the next word.

But Alfred at that moment saw the letter again, he lowered his eyes, and gathering his books walked from the room. Lucas followed. They walked in silence toward the School of Medicine.


In Chillicothe, in the small harness store that had reluctantly taken him on as a substitute clerk during the illness of a regular employee, Job Marsh, unscarred, unshaken, unperturbed, keen on the scent as any hunting animal in a new place, among familiar quarry, evaluated his locale with bright and steadfast eyes, ready for man.


When they were still some distance from the medical-school buildings Lucas’ anger left him. He was indifferent to Alfred, walking at his side. With each stride he could see the buildings more clearly, at last he was able to distinguish the memorial stones from the brick about them and a few steps later he could read the nearest names, Sydenham, Galen, Hippocrates, and then Vesalius and Koch and Pasteur and Paré, and then they were at the steps of the building and he lowered his eyes humbly and contrived to brush against the stone entry.

He walked down the corridors with Alfred on the way to the cadaver and the leg they had now christened Zebedee. They passed a student oblivious to them, murmuring aloud, over and over to himself. “Never Lower Tillie’s Pants, Mother Might Come Home,” and responding automatically Lucas silently told the rosary of the wrist bones, navicular, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, multangulum majus, multangulum minus, capitate, hamate. As they approached Zebedee they passed the cadaver of a middle-aged woman on which four students were already working. They stripped the cloth from Zebedee, all but his face, and as they bared the muscle, its body, its origin, its insertion, and all the time Zebedee’s face carefully covered like the faces of all the cadavers in the large room, Lucas unaccountably saw himself in this place, the middle-aged woman had made him think of Ouida, he remembered who he was and what he was. It was a bad moment for him, a spasm of envying every boy his boyhood, coveting the family, their togetherness, and himself alone, himself about to be more than ever alone in this marriage and in what he had become. He wondered what he could have done to make things different, to keep the rules of which he had divested himself, the pattern which united the others, what he could have done not to be alien, knowing he had met each circumstance as it arose and that he had done the only things he could have done and the only things no boy here would have done. Recollecting, he drifted farther from them. He did not hate them. He knew the separation was irrevocable. He hoped merely not to be found out. He hoped to be as much part of other humans as they now permitted him to be, not to lose what he had, knowing what chap it was they accepted, knowing it was not the Lucas Marsh he slept with.

An instructor approached. He bent hurriedly to work on Zebedee. He cut lovingly. There, Zebedee, he said, silently, there, there. It’s all right, old fellow.

A great fondness for Zebedee welled in him. He felt a bond between them, the more real for its silence, for this matter in the shape of a human which was familiar and known and stable and forgiving and tolerant and kindly.

There, Zebedee, he said silently. There you are, old fellow. It’s me. It’s Lucas.

And he cut tenderly. And with love.

This friend.

★ CHAPTER 20

Alfred and Lucas found a truce zone in their study, they fashioned of study a whole new social structure and their talk was of their books and resolutely ignored all else. In this truce they managed well. In a few days they were able to smile again over careful jokes, to protect each other in the unending warfare of classwork and to share again their common fears.

For the class had by now resolved into a daily battleground of competition. A ruthlessness, born of panic, nourished by fright, jostled by despair, was the daily classroom pattern. When one man was able to describe a muscle or a process the class had not studied there was a frantic scramble to discover how he had come by this information. There was the constant fear that in the next class, or on the next day, someone would offer information not common to all of them. There was unending, ruthless competition.

In this battle of the students against the apparently invincible jungles of the new language in which was written the towering complex of material they were required to compass every day, untangle, map and absorb totally and never forget a detail travelled a month before, there were arrayed eighty-eight determined to become doctors, and these noosed eighty-eight, despairing on their trapfall at day’s end, each day their last, waited resignedly for the signal they had been dropped from the course. Nakedly vying, stripped of all niceties and all pretense, they competed openly not to be the first to be dropped, not to be noticed, if possible, but not to be first, fought a delaying action, always exhausted, always speared on by the panic nearness of execution.

There was also a paradoxical convention of self-defense in which all members of the class were somehow bound to help the falling or the about-to-fall. Outside of class the strongest helped the weakest, groups of three or four, neglecting their own study for an hour or so, would surround some helpless member and pound at him, swear and curse and scream at him, drill into him what he had not memorized, what he could not understand. A brisk trade in books sprang up, books supposed to cover questions in some future examination; magic lists of questions went secretly from hand to hand. Outside of class it became an inviolable rule to give help when asked.

But the group was never entirely stable. Pressure produced sudden exceptions. The class had its marked failure, its sealed, walking doom, his name was Erskine and from the first Erskine was the obvious choice to be dropped, he was avoided in class, his very presence brought fear. He was the first to be helped. The group discovered group aid with Erskine as its first exemplar. Everyone had helped Erskine by the end of the first month. An examination was posted. It became known that Erskine had a list of questions and answers.

Jubilantly, three of the class cornered him.

And then, amazingly,

“No sir!” he cried. “No! You’re not going to see these questions!”

And while they looked at him, stupefied, he hid the list under his coat and ran to a corner, cowering defiantly.

And with Erskine were three members of the class who were always looking for nuggets, items of boiled-down information, three who quickly gave up, ignored the prodigy of study and memorizing, and devoted themselves to sidling up to other students and furtively begging for the fragments, for the essence of books digested endlessly by the others, for the few words that really mattered, the magic words that would pass examinations.

There was always fear. Unending fear.

There was the day during the first fortnight when Lucas and Alfred and the two other students assigned to Zebedee, looking at Zebedee dubiously, about to start a fresh exploration, were surprised by a silent, feared instructor who appeared suddenly beside them. He looked at their frightened faces gravely, he bent over Zebedee, he straightened.

“Gentlemen,” he said slowly, “next year one of you will not be here.”

They were always in panic, panic for an intonation, panic for a fancied look, panic for everything. Now they stared at him, stupefied.

He watched them a moment, expressionless. Then he pointed a bony finger at Zebedee.

“Him,” he said quietly, and walked on.


On the fifth day it came to Lucas that the course appeared impossible because it was designed to appear impossible, that no one actually expected them to learn all that was set before them but only as much as possible, that those who learned most would continue and those who were unable to accumulate a predetermined minimum would be dropped.

“I’ve got it figured out,” he told Alfred, his excitement and relief expunging the last reserve lingering from their estrangement. “Alfred, old boy, the light has finally dawned.”

He cried out his conclusions.

“Maybe so,” said Alfred. Then, because he, too, wished to believe, “You’re probably right. By God, you are!”

Three days later there was a minor examination.

“I am going to discuss these results with you informally,” the instructor said next day. “Hereafter, the only discussion you may expect will be the official notifications of your failure. The results of this test may be called fair. There is some evidence that the majority of this class is attempting to assimilate about seventy percent of what we are studying. There may be some who feel that is all we require. Those who do so will fail. You will learn everything that is set before you. This is your first and your final warning. Not half of it—not seventy percent of it—not most of it—but all of it! In other scholastic halls”—he waved vaguely toward the rest of the university—“college is a contest—a contest for good marks, a contest to outwit instructors, a game. Here, there is no contest. Here, we deal with something that cannot be talked of in the same breath with scores, diplomas, and marks. We are dealing with human life, with the lives of those who will put themselves at the mercy of your judgment and knowledge. We have no alternative but to insist that you learn everything set before you—not a commendable percentage, but everything. You will need everything. Everything, everything we know, everything is little enough.”

Here and there in the classroom shoulders slumped, despairing. Some were frightened, some stared at him incredulous. Abruptly, perversely. Lucas’ ambition was nothing less than the impossibility just demanded. Now there were no more doubts, now the demands of the course were clear, unequivocal, bracingly perilous. In a seat beside him Alfred rallied from the shock, considered a moment, glanced sidelong at Lucas, leaned imperceptibly closer.


“You need money, now?” Kristina asked when they met at noon.

“No, no,” said Lucas, knowing he needed it, savoring his new security, putting off the inevitable. “Not now, Kristi. Probably hear from Dad any day. Might hear tomorrow.”

“You seen the bursar? They let you go on like this?”

“It’s all right. Don’t let’s talk about it.”

“You feel better paid up. You got enough to worry you.”

“Let’s talk about us.”

“I got plenty. What do you say? Only take a minute to get it—”

“Not now,” he said, confused, “someday, maybe, thanks, though, thanks a lot, Kristi, I’ll be all right, but thanks, I’ll go see him, don’t worry, it’ll be all right.” He put his hand on her wrist. “You know what happened in class today? Fellow fainted for the third time, nobody knows what’s the matter with him, he ought to be used to it by this time, they sent him to the dean’s office. We think he’s through.”

“Poor feller,” Kristina said, wondering at the satisfaction in Lucas’ voice, studying his face.

“Yes,” said Lucas vehemently and without pity, “it’s a damned shame. Yes,” he said, with relief that the hand of death had passed over him for another victim but might return if he sided with the victim, “yes,” he said carefully, “a damned nice fellow, too. . . .”


“He’s ashamed to take my money,” Kristina told Bruni.

“That’s good!” Bruni nodded vigorously.

“I know!” They looked at each other triumphantly.

“That’s the way it should be.”

“But I got to make him, though. He hasn’t paid his tuition. That father of his! He’s got enough to worry about without tuition. Leaving a feller like that right in the middle!”

“Maybe if you loan him—”

“He won’t take it.”

They sat brooding the same thought, each waiting for the other to speak it.

“I guess I got to marry him right away!” Kristina smiled as if the thought were a pleasant joke between them.

“I guess so.” Bruni smiled an appreciative return.

“Well, I guess that’s what I’ll do.”

“That’s right.”

“You think it’s all right, Bruni?”

“All right? What else?”

“Sooner or later—”

“Certainly—”

“One time’s the same as another—”

“What you even talk about it for?” Bruni asked severely.

Kristina looked at her with love.

“Where you go? Why don’t we see you? Why you don’t come here?”

“We walk.”

“Just walk?”

“Sometimes we walk in the park.”

“You should come here! You could sit here!”

Kristina smoothed her skirt.

“You know something?” she asked shyly. “Sometimes that man of mine—sometimes he’s pretty fresh . . .”

Bruni looked at Kristina’s downcast head, narrowed her eyes. Abruptly, she rose.

“I think you get married right away!” she said firmly.

Kristina pleated her skirt with a slow thumb and forefinger.

“I think so,” she said in a low voice.

“I give you a big party. We have Jussi and Sven and Marta—maybe Oley’s boss—everybody!”

“What you think—my man is like yours? Can take a day off for a party to get married? We got no time, Bruni. Like Luke says, the class goes right on without him. He can’t lose a day. Not even one day!”

“But you got to have a party! Kristi!”

“Sure! Someday we have a party. Someday we have a honeymoon, too. Trudi! We don’t even have time to look for a place to live!”

“That I can do.”

“Will you look, Trudi?”

“Who else? I buy you a ring, even.”

“I got my mother’s—”

“But a girl’s got to shop—she got to get things—!”

“What I need! I got to work, too, Bruni!”

Bruni looked at Kristina for a long moment. Her friend was alone, they had been together, their thoughts were simple, intersecting patterns, they were one with each other, their odors, colors, garments, their hopes and their pasts, intermingled, a common fund, fluid, diffusing through the tissues of communication. Now Kristina was alone. She was another person. She was Kristina about to be married. It would always be good. It would never be the same.

She looked at the different Kristina, she sighed imperceptibly, she wove her thoughts to the new thinking. Lucas was a nice boy. He was good-looking, he was quiet, he worked hard, and someday he would be a doctor. And Kristina was crazy about him. Kristina had found her man. This had come to her friend, her fellow, her fellow female. A girl must be married. Now it had come to her Kristina.

“What does he say?” she asked. “Does he want to get married right away?” And her look said, I tell you, Kristi, men are funny, first they can’t wait, then they hold back, remember Oley, remember my own Oley.

“This one will not wait at all! Snabt! Genast! Igår! Yesterday! That’s when he wants to get married! And he’s right. My feller’s right, Bruni. What are we waiting for?” And her look had suddenly remembered Oley, Oley incomprehensibly holding back. And Lucas. This prize.


Two days later Lucas walked with Kristina and Bruni, walked quickly, wasting no time, for this was the noon hour and there were two apartments to look at. They were to be married Saturday. They were to be married in four days.

Kristina walked sedately, a sereneness, almost a complacency on her features. On the other side of Lucas walked the friend of the bride, the almost bride, and Bruni this day was circumspect, deferential, for this man was unknown and now, at this point, a careless word might rob her friend of her man.

“I think it’s very nice of Bruni,” Kristina said after a while.

“It certainly is! It’s darned nice of you, Bruni,” Lucas said quickly.

“I got lots of time. It ain’t like I had a house full of kids,” Bruni shrugged.

“That’s one thing I’m not going to have!” Kristina said firmly.

“Who said anything about kids!” Lucas cried.

They looked at him quickly.

“Kristi didn’t mean anything.” Bruni smiled disarmingly. “She just meant—”

“What I say? I only said—”

“All right, all right!”

“What’s the matter, Luke? What you so jumpy about?”

“We’re getting close?” Bruni exclaimed. Lucas looked up.

They were very near the street in which Ruth and Ann lived.

“Not here, surely!” Lucas protested. “This is too expensive,” he exclaimed.

“One of them’s around here,” Bruni said uncertainly.

“Let’s look, after all,” said Kristina.

“No, I know this neighborhood—”

“You do?”

“One of the fellows told me. Told me all about it. Very expensive.”

“Not so very. Not really.”

“Let’s see, anyway,” said Kristina.

Each step was bringing them closer and as they drew nearer the perilous place, perilous with the possibility of exposure to Ruth and Ann, to the awful chance of this is my wife, I’m married now, the surprise, the shock, the sizing-up, the contempt, the pity, the accusation, the inevitable meeting if they lived nearby—

“Wait!” said Lucas. And he stopped. He made them stop too. But it was too late.

Around a corner came Ann. She was walking directly at them.

“Let’s go this way,” Lucas cried and would have pulled them away. But Ann had seen them. And even then he pulled them anew.

“Hi!” she called out and walked faster. And now there was no escape, now she was here, and he looked up guiltily,

“Hi! Hi, there!” he cried and tried to smile, tried to make a smile of understanding, he and Ann, they two, the rest not counting.

Now Kristina and Bruni put on their company faces. And back of these faces was the wary female face, wary of a possible adversary, wary of a possible adverse comparison.

“Where have you been?” Ann demanded. “What in the world’s happened to you?” She turned to the two girls where they stood a little aside, decorously, blankly smiling. “We haven’t seen hide nor hair of him!” she said aggrievedly.

“I haven’t had a second!” he cried before they could speak. “Not one earthly second! We’re just out right now, just in the lunch period—just came out—you can imagine—”

“That’s all very well, but you’ve got a minute! You could stop by for a second—just to let us know—” She recollected herself, turned to Kristina and Bruni. They shifted uncertainly, still smiling. “How do you do,” she laughed apologetically. “Pleased I’m sure,” said Kristina, said Bruni, there was the hesitant shadow of a bow, Lucas winced at the Swedishness, the accent, the clumsiness.

But Ann did not seem to have noticed. She hesitated.

“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, fine, fine!” he said, trying to head her off.

“They haven’t—they aren’t going to—”

“No, no! Everything’s all right! Something’s happened! I’ll tell you later! It’s nothing—I’ve got to run, now—”

“Well for Heaven’s sakes, drop in! Let a person know! We thought you’d—”

“No, no! You’ll see—you’ll see—very unexpected—you know—”

“You be there Saturday!” Ann ordered. “Now be there! We’re expecting you!” She turned to Bruni. “This boy! You see that he gets there!”

“Right! Right!” Lucas retreated. “Saturday, sure!”

“Saturday!” Ann warned. She smiled cordially at the girls again. “Bring your friends.”

“Okay,” said Lucas. “We’ll see you—”

Kristina smiled friendlily, stood firm.

“What do you think of my feller?” she asked casually.

Lucas shuddered, quickly managed a begging grin at Ann. You and I, the grin said, that’s the way they are, you understand, don’t you? Nice girls, that’s the way they are, real characters, I just happened to be out with them, you know the type . . .

“I think he’s very nice,” Ann smiled back, ignoring Lucas after a brief look. “But I won’t think he’s very nice if he isn’t there Saturday—”

“Don’t worry—I’ll be there. Well, I’ll see you, then—”

“We can’t Saturday,” Kristina shook her head, always smiling.

“Not Saturday—” Bruni cut in, archly.

“Saturday we gonna be—”

“We’re going to be out on a date!” Lucas said loudly, desperately.

“Well, then—”

“Monday!” Lucas shouted, drawing the girls off forcibly. “See you Monday!” he called over his shoulder, nodding his head vigorously, walking hard, drawing the girls with him.

“Monday!” Ann admonished, waved, a little puzzled, and walked on.

And then, before questions, before the barrage he knew was coming.

“Thank God!” he said. “Thank God, that’s over!”

“What was the matter?” Kristina asked blankly.

“Matter? Why, she’d just stand there and talk your arm off! That’s all that’s the matter! Where is this place, Bruni? We haven’t got much time left.”

“She spoke like a friend of yours,” Kristina said.

“We’re almost there,” Bruni said meekly.

“Friend of mine—!”

“I thought you were going to introduce us.”

“Introduce you!”

They both looked at him, waiting.

“Why, she works in the hospital! She works in the lab, there! Why, I thought you knew her sure! Why you know her—”

“I don’t think so,” Kristina said uncertainly.

“Sure you do! She works in the lab! I thought all you people knew each other! She lives right around here! Why—if I’d known that . . . !” He looked angrily over his shoulder, stopping, turning to face the street he knew would be empty, as if to say that if Ann were there he would repair the oversight instantly, it was ridiculous. . . .

“I’ll bet you’ve told every nurse in the hospital!”

“No, no!”

“Sure you have!”

“Luke! I said I wouldn’t! I haven’t!” She turned to Bruni. “You never know how they’re gonna be about first-year students getting married,” she explained.

“That’s what some of the fellows say,” Luke defended.

“So when he told me that—”

“Sure!” said Bruni. “Why take a chance? What business is it of theirs?”

“Only when I saw she was a friend of yours—”

“Hey!” cried Bruni. “We here. You can see from here! The third house! Upstairs!”

“Upstairs?” Lucas echoed. “Upstairs?”

“How about the other place?” Kristina asked quietly.

“We’re here!” Bruni said, startled. “We’re here, Kristi!”

“I don’t know,” Kristina said slowly. They had halted now and Kristina stared at the house, her face expressionless.

And Bruni, slowly sensing something was wrong, that within her Kristina was revolving some slow thought, some negation, Bruni stood with her friend, her fellow woman, said, nodding,

“Well, maybe it would be expensive here—come on! I think you like the other place much better!”

“Wait a minute!” Lucas protested, feeling no protest, anxious to go on. “What’s the matter with this place? We’re here, at least—”

But the girls had already begun to walk on.

Something I done, Kristina said to herself. Something I said. He’s ashamed of me. Maybe Bruni—maybe Bruni said something . . . Such an educated woman, that friend of his . . . all his friends, I think . . . And me! A dumb Swede! . . . The poor boy . . . Trying to be so nice . . . But I’ll learn! You bet! He’ll be proud of me!

And Bruni thought,

Kristi knows. That woman looked old, but Kristi knows. She knows what I don’t know. There’s something here. Something between them. Is not good to live so close, then. Kristi knows.

“What are you so quiet about all of a sudden?” Lucas smiled at them affectionately, safe now, altogether safe.

“Quiet?” echoed Kristina. “What’s the matter with you, Bruni! You worse than Oley!” She hugged Lucas’ arm fondly. “That’s the Swede!” she cried. “I guess you stuck, Lukey! I guess you got a dumb, sit-in-the-corner Swede! Det tror jag!

“Hah!” Bruni giggled.

“What’s that! Tell me! That was Swedish, wasn’t it?”

Lordag . . .” Kristina said softly. And instantly Bruni swept into gales of laughter. “Lordag!” she echoed helplessly.

“What is it? What’s Lerr-da? Tell me!”

But they were convulsed, they turned blushing faces from him, Lordag, Saturday, and they would not, could not, tell him.

And laughing helplessly, ignoring his protests, ignoring him until, protestingly, he laughed too, they came to the other apartment Bruni had found, and still laughing found it good, the landlord smiling at them, puzzled, a little wary of their laughter, their quick acceptance, and Lucas bounced on the bed to try the mattress and asked,

“Lerr-da?”

And at this they fell helplessly into each other’s arms, the landlord laughed with them, not knowing why,

“Does it mean bed? Is that what it means? Is that why you’re laughing—?”

“No, no, no!”

“Yes!” screamed Bruni, nodding at Kristina, “that, too—!”

And while they screamed louder, coupling Saturday with bed, Lucas shrugged, smiling, told the landlord the place would do, the man waited, smiling . . .

“Kristi,” Lucas said deprecatively.

“We take it?” she asked, trying to master her laughter.

He nodded.

“Excuse me!” Suddenly she understood. She fumbled in her pocketbook. The landlord, still smiling, looked discreetly away.


The secret was almost too much to contain. He longed for someone in whom to confide, someone to talk to, talk to about everything, the world, the state of a man, of marriage, of women, of what to know, what was known, what to do, to receive envy, to bask, to be elated.

“What’s wrong with you?” Alfred asked once, catching him staring into space.

“It’s this—this anconeus business—”

“But you’re studying physiology!” Alfred peered closer at the open book before Lucas.

“I know it! It’s this damned electricity stuff! I’ll never get it!”

“What!” Alfred looked at Lucas, startled.

“Oh, I’ll get it, all right! Don’t mind me! It’s just—Alfred! Can I tell you something?”

“It’s your business, understand. Only if what they say is right we’re going to have a test Friday and—”

“I’ll get it! Don’t worry!”

“Is there anything I can help you with? I mean, sure, you know it better than I do, hell! You explained it to me! But maybe if you say aloud what’s got you stumped, sometimes just saying it aloud will—”

“I got it! I got it, now!”

“Sure?”

“Absolutely!”

Alfred watched him. But Lucas was now reading steadily. The thought of the possible test released him, redirected him, now absorbed him completely. He read, he stored, grimly, lovingly, exultant,

“. . . the resting heat production rate of frog nerve in oxygen at 20° C. is 4.14 times 10-3 cal. per gm. per min . . .”

Read it three times, happily, fiercely, committed it,

“When oxygen is replaced by nitrogen . . .”

“I’ll tell you how it is,” he said. “This is what it means. The nerve’s got an oxygen reserve. See?”

“No.”

“I’ll show you . . .”


On the next day he passed Dr. Aarons in a corridor.

“Hello,” he said filtering his voice of all expression. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”

“What? Oh, hello there!” Dr. Aarons nodded absently, smiled amiably, walked on.

If you knew, Lucas thought, bursting, if you only knew. I’m safe! I’m safe from all of you!

Next day, when evening came, Lucas could bear it no longer. He must speak to Alfred, he must tell him, the past was pardoned, he looked at him fondly, he would ask him to be his best man!

“Alfred,” he said, trying to restrain his voice, and Alfred looked slowly up from his book, “Alfred, I’ve got to tell you something!”

“What’s up?”

“All right, now . . . Prepare yourself . . .”

Alfred looked at him patiently.

“I’m going to get married!”

Alfred eyed him blankly.

“That’s right!”

“Married?” Alfred drew away.

“Tomorrow.”

“But you can’t—!”

“We’re going across the line. To Elkham.”

“Who’s ‘we’? What are you talking about, Luke? Start again!”

And Lucas, who had been refuging in syllables, in the grudged necessities of speech-answers, who had been breathlessly enjoying Alfred’s consternation, wincing at it, grinning the while, savoring the burst gates, the relief, now anxiously, now faced the necessity of presenting Kristina as winningly as possible.

“You know her.”

“Who?”

“Kristina.” The word was out now.

“Who in the world is Kristina! Are you kidding me, Luke?”

“You know! Think!”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know any Kristina.”

“That girl in the operating room! My God! You were over to her house!”

That girl! That’s Kristina?”

“Certainly! The head operating-room nurse.”

He looked at Alfred eagerly. Alfred tried to orient himself.

“You’re crazy!”

Lucas winced. He continued to smile.

“Why?”

“Why, you can’t, that’s all!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you can’t! I don’t know what jam you’ve gotten yourself into—”

“There’s no jam—”

“You mean that—that Swedish girl—?”

“That’s the one.” They looked at each other without smiling now. “I’ll tell you what, Al. I was kind of hoping you’d be best man . . .”

“Me?”

Lucas lowered his head. Disappointment sickened him, his viscera coiled with it. Rejection and shame sagged his shoulders, he turned away.

“That’s all right, Alfred,” he said thickly. “I just thought I’d ask. Forget it.”

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

“That’s all right.”

“You can’t get married now! Why do you have to get married so quick for? Why tomorrow?”

“We’ve been planning it for some time. Don’t worry about it. It’s all right.”

“Have you any idea what you’re letting yourself in for?”

“What do you think I’m letting myself in for? What’s this terrible doom you seem to think is about to fall on me?”

“She’s older than you! She’s—why, she’s a nurse, Luke! She’ll always be a nurse. You’ll be a doctor.”

“Oh, come on, now, Al!”

Under his contemptuous look Alfred flushed.

“You think I’m a snob, don’t you! Maybe I am. All right, say I am.”

“Look, Al, I don’t need any lecture—and no matter what you’re thinking of saying you’d better keep it to yourself.”

“I don’t know what you’ve done—I don’t know what’s happened—all I know is you can’t get married. We’ve had our differences. But this is something else. Forget the fact that she’s on a lower social level. Forget that she can’t speak a simple sentence, that there’s not one thing in common between you, that year after year the difference is going to widen, that you’re doing something on the spur of the moment, throwing yourself away—”

“I know what you’re going to say—”

“You haven’t got a dime. You’ve got all you can handle, right now! You don’t know where your next month’s food or rent is coming from! You only want one thing in the world, really, and that’s to become a doctor! And you don’t even know whether you can do that! And you’re taking on a wife! Have you gone crazy? Are you nuts, or what?”

“Look, Alfred! Just skip it, will you? Don’t start playing my guardian all of a sudden. Just skip it. Don’t say any more.”

But Alfred was staring at him. There was sudden comprehension in his eyes.

“You’re marrying her for her money!”

“I said skip it, Alfred!”

“That’s what you’re up to! You couldn’t get dough any other way! And she’s probably got money saved up! And she gets a regular salary!” His voice hushed, awed. “You’d do that! You’d actually marry that—that—”

“It’s none of your business! Just remember that!” He rose. “You’re full of help, now, aren’t you! Now you’re full of help. All ready to save your poor roommate from a terrible mistake!”

“That’s what it is, isn’t it! That’s what you’re doing!”

“You know right from wrong all of a sudden and let’s be suave, let’s be men of the world, we’ll laugh at all of this someday, put him straight, manage him easy—”

“It’s true! Isn’t it!”

“Good old Al! But you weren’t so calm and collected when I came to you desperate for just enough to keep going and you knew what it meant to me—”

“I told you how I felt about money—”

“Sure! You weren’t calm and collected then! No sir, I touched you right where you lived, didn’t I! Money! It means that much to you, doesn’t it! You and the rest! Money’s different! It’s better than human beings. It’s metal and it’s paper and you’ve got more than you’ll ever spend as long as you live and you could have helped me and never felt it as much as a paper clip—”

“Nasty money, isn’t it! Look who’s marrying for it—”

“You dirty bastard—”

“I don’t have to take that—”

“You know why I’m doing this! You know whether I’m marrying for money or not! You know—nobody better—”

“Just watch your mouth. I know you’re in a jam. But this girl—all I’m trying to show you is—”

“They don’t marry for money your side of the tracks, eh? And you’re just trying to help me! I’m about to marry a Swede! God forbid, eh, Al? The one human being who’ll help me!”

“Feel better?”

“You’re goddamned right I feel better!”

“Forget me—”

“I can’t get over it! Not one son-of-a-bitch will raise a finger to help me and this girl comes along and all of a sudden everybody’s full of pious noises! All of a sudden everybody knows right from wrong!”

“Will you wait?”

“Don’t bother—”

“Somebody’s got to tell you—”

“Doesn’t cost you a dime, does it?”

“She’s a bohunk! She’s a dumb Swede that’s got her claws hooked onto you and my mother wouldn’t hire her as a maid—”

“You no-good son-of-a-bitch!”

“But if you want to throw yourself away on a servant—”

“You’re a whore! You and your whole family! You do what you do for money—”

“At least my father’s not bankrupt—”

“You and your father can kiss my ass—”

“Remind me of that next time you come begging for some of his money!”

“You’re cheap, Al. You’ve got a price. I’ll take Kristina to the lot of you—”

“You have her! You can take your two-bit Swede and pimp your head off—”

Lucas knocked him down. Swiftly he seized a lamp and threw himself on Alfred smashing at him with the lamp base. They rolled about the floor, floundering, kicking, slamming their fists at each other, Lucas’ straining fingers found Alfred’s throat, exultantly he began to strangle him. He had known no such physical joy since he was born. Suddenly aware, suddenly frightened, Alfred wrestled desperately, cleared his body an instant, raised his knee, shot it upward, slammed it into Lucas’ abdomen. Stunned, Lucas relaxed his grip. Alfred rolled sidewise. Quickly he pulled himself erect, stood warily, panting.

“I’ll kill you,” Lucas promised between heaves. “I’m going to kill you!”

“You’re going to get the hell out of here! Right now! Tonight!”

“I’ll go when I please. But I’m going to kill you first! You and all you’ve ever meant to me! The whole world of people like you!”

He struggled to his feet and sat on the edge of his bed, hunched over, fighting for breath, waiting.

Alfred watched him, saying nothing, breathing hard. He picked up the lamp, put it on the desk, picked up the scattered books.

He studied Lucas’ bent head.

“I put it wrong,” he said rustily. “I’m not begging your pardon. I don’t like you any more. But I said it wrong. I’m sorry about that.”

“You stay with your kind—you and your kids’ games! Just stay away from me. Just keep to yourself! Because if you ever say one more word about her—about the one human who’s making this possible—”

He rose and peered at Alfred, murder again in his eyes, the insanity of the cornered.

Alfred backed away.

“That’s the way you want it—”

“That’s the way I want it!”

“I’ve said all I’m going to say.”

“You’d better.”

“We’re stuck through this course. Alphabetically, we’re stuck together. That’s something we can’t change. We’re stuck together in classrooms, anyway, for at least four years. You’ve paid your rent on the room and we’re stuck here too. I could move out—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to be here long!”

“That’s right, isn’t it. You’ll be moving.”

“Monday.”

“Well, I’ll go it alone . . . I’m sorry this had to happen . . .”

“So am I.”

“You hear what I’m trying to tell you? I’m sorry it happened.”

Lucas went to the mirror and examined his cut face. Suddenly it was as if he was alone in the room. He had a desire to seek Kristina, to be alone with her. For Alfred he felt only a dull hate, a hate uncovered, but their potentials were reversed now, he was dominant, the authority, the value of Alfred was gone, he was a familiar stranger, coped with and past. There was no longer peril here. There was no longer anxiety. He felt Alfred waiting for him, waiting for the next word. He felt relief. He felt the initiative.

He turned from the mirror, averting his eyes, walked to the desk, sat down, and picked up a book.

“That’s the way it goes, I guess,” he said. Determinedly he began to read, read the first sentence again and again, finally found it, read on, read the second.

Alfred waited a moment. Then, seeing there was no more, he sat down, looked up once at Lucas, then gave up, pulled a book toward him, began to study.

★ CHAPTER 21

They were married in Elkham, next day, over the border, in the next state. There was a great rush to be there before the license bureau closed and Lucas cut his last class and with Kristina, heavily powdered, stiff, even her shoes new, with Bruni who was her bridesmaid, with Oley, her husband, who would give the bride away and act as best man, they arrived at the Elkham City Hall with only minutes to spare.

Lucas was wholly surrendered to the adventure. This was a game of the world about him, and he enjoyed its novelty, enjoyed himself as chief actor, enjoyed the garments of estate, maturity, and role, was fascinated by these things and puffed up by them. Of Kristina and her nearness he was ponderously conscious, the bride symbol, waiting the rites. The women shifted nervously, spoke in high-pitched voices, babbled, shrieked, rebuked themselves to prim gravity, broke anew into laughter that drew the eyes of their fellow passengers. Oley grinned at Lucas and his eyes apologized for them. Lucas did not care. Determinedly, he was one of them.

As they neared Elkham the women became grave and decorous again.

“It’s a shame—your mother at least—” Kristina said.

“Yes,” said Lucas, frowning obediently, “Mother would have loved this.”

“She look like you?” Bruni asked respectfully.

“She look yoost like him,” Kristina answered promptly.

Oley clucked his tongue in the noise humans make when grief is new. Lucas tried to accept it becomingly. Uncomfortably he explored himself for an appropriate emotion.

Kristina was staring at him.

“Don’t look so bad,” she said.

Lucas fingered the bruises on his cheek, a cut beside one eye.

“They think you did it! They think you beat him up already!” Bruni laughed helplessly.

“A bad thing—a fall!” Oley clucked again.

“I ought to have known better! I know those stairs! I know every inch of them!” Lucas protested.

“If I didn’t know better I would say you been fighting,” Kristina marvelled.

“You could say you were fighting for Kris,” Bruni giggled. “You could say you were protecting her—” She hit Kristina violently in the side with her elbow. “You need protection, eh, Kris? Tonight I bet you need protection!”

“Bruni!”

“You never have to fight for Swedish girls.” Oley nodded sagely, passing on momentous advice. “They take care of themselves . . .”

“Would you fight for me, Lukey?” Kristina asked, prodding his embarrassment, “tell me, Lukey! You fight for me someday?”

“I might,” he said airily. “You never can tell.”

When the train stopped they rushed straight for the license bureau.

But outside, for a moment, on the threshold of the office, standing in the corridor, halting a moment, letting Oley and Bruni through first,

“Are you all right, Luke?” She asked it in a low voice, urgent.

“Sure,” he said gruffly, and his heart swelled, offering him freedom even at the last, waiting his word.

“Luke?”

“I love you, Kristina!” he whispered fiercely. Her face softened, her eyes lowered submissively, he had a sudden presentiment that she knew him, knew everything, consented, accepted what there was.

“Come on!” he said, mock-fiercely, and drew her into the room up to the long counter where the clerk waited, Bruni and Oley grinning at them. They walked to the counter, to the waiting forms, he reached for a pen, dipped it, they gathered about him, pressing on him, to watch.

He wrote the date. He wrote his name. Place of birth. . . . Date of birth. . . . Mother’s name. . . . Father’s name. . . . He came to the bride’s name. He stopped. His stomach lumped. The name of the bride. He could not move. He dared not raise his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Bruni cried suddenly. They stirred beside him.

“Kristi!” he begged.

“What, dear? What’s the matter?”

He licked dry lips.

“Your name,” he managed, not remembering, thick with embarrassment.

“Here!” she said, relieved, she shouldered him aside, took up the pen, “here, let me—!”

“Kristina! You know how to spell that! And then H and E and D, V and I and G—S-E-N!” she scrawled triumphantly.

Hedvigsen! Kristina Hedvigsen, he must have known it once, all this Kristina, Kristina all the time—

“Only a Svede can spell Svede names!” Oley assured him portentously.

It was done.

The form was filled. The arms were raised. The oath taken. The fee paid.

“I pay it,” said Oley, pushing them aside. “This is my pleasure!” he announced formally.

“I keep the paper,” Kristina folded the license carefully, the ink still damp, held it in her hand.

They rushed out into the streets of Elkham to find a man to marry them.

There was no lack of these. In this town there were more marriers than merchants, the chief wealth and industry rising from laws permitting quick and uncomplicated unions of humans. On almost any street in Elkham, as they soon found, there were from two to a dozen signs advertising justices of the peace or ministers prepared for a small fee to recite the ritual of union according to the whim or belief of the union seekers.

They wandered among these signs hilariously for a time, wealthy with choice. Kristina watched Lucas for a sign of preference. When Lucas at length began to look questioningly at her she knew the time had come to end the sightseeing.

“Well, come on,” she said, “I guess we get it over.”

They stopped on the sidewalk and in the nearest houses curtains drew unobtrusively back and watchers waited. Lucas, Bruni, and Oley looked to Kristina.

“Does it matter to you, Luke?” she asked diffidently.

“What do you mean? Matter which one? No, I don’t care.”

“You got some church, eh?”

“I was raised Methodist Episcopal. You pick the one you want.”

“You don’t care?”

“Not a bit,” he said loudly.

Kristina turned uncertainly to Bruni.

“Well, then I guess—I guess Lutheran, eh?”

“Sure! Lutheran!” Bruni said stoutly.

They found a Lutheran minister. The service was brief. They were married in less time than it had taken to obtain a license. The words were spoken, the ritual completed as Lucas was trying vainly to feel it all, all that should be felt, this high moment, as Kristina sought to draw it out, to dwell in the process of change a while longer.

The minister smiled at them and put his book down, watching them. They stirred uneasily, they realized the rite was ended. They waited, there was nothing more. They turned to Bruni and Oley.

“Kiss her!” cried Bruni. And as Lucas awkwardly leaned to Kristina and she blushed and obediently leaned to him, “Lycka Till!” shouted Oley, “Good luck!”


So they began, there was nothing more, really, when they went over it in their minds later, to recapture it, to relive it, to remember entirely, to recall details overlooked, insisting that there must have been more, there must have been, this could not have been all, but it was all, there was nothing more.

No trumpets blew. In their persons there was no change. They tested and felt no closer to each other. They had the legal and the religious assurance of union, all that society could give them it had given, and this was the assurance that their union was socially perfect.

They spent their first night in their recently rented apartment. And Lucas, still gripping the fact of marriage, recalling the rite, the formula, the setting, hearing the clerk again, watching Kristina fold the license, climbing the steps of the minister’s house, reliving the tension, the impending, the about-to-be, stubbornly holding it, waiting for more, began at last to see that the great, the dreaded, the waited, the pondered, the infinite moment had passed, and that like crossing a longitude, a date line, a boundary, nothing had perceptibly changed. Magic had been invoked. Rite had been carefully articulated. Heaven had been supplicated. Now they were married. Now he was married. Now the moment and the humans passed as two streams merging and where they had merged there was no sign, there was only the evidence of slowly onward passing, of time.

It had grown dark, Bruni and Oley had gone shouting homeward. He was alone with Kristina. They were married. And he was alone with her.

“You kind of quiet,” she said shyly.

He sat down near the window, holding this moment, seeking a new self in it.

“It’s funny,” he brooded. “Do you feel married, Kris?” He waved an arm helplessly.

She considered this, he was her man and he wanted something and she tried to imagine what he wanted so that she could give it to him.

“How did you think you’d feel?” she smiled, cautiously.

He looked up quickly.

“Do you feel married?”

“Sure, I feel married!”

She began to bustle about the apartment, opening drawers, smoothing clothing already smooth, rearranging toilet articles. He watched her, envying, trying to feel what she felt.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking, well, now it’s done. I’m trying to feel what it feels like.”

“Now it’s done,” she echoed, testing this, continuing to arrange their clothing, absently making near-surgical supply bundles of them. “Yes . . . For a man this comes after marriage. For a woman it comes before.”

“Before?”

“That’s the difference. When a woman decides, when she thinks if he asks her she’ll say all right, when she thinks that, then it’s over, then she’s married, it’s done, all the rest is just a celebration, parties, laughing, whatever.”

“Then you knew long before, didn’t you? That we were going to be married?” He smiled, disbelieving.

“Maybe.”

“Oh, come on, now, Kris!”

“I don’t know . . . I think so. What are we talking about? Is everything all right?”

“No, no! It’s all right, Kris. I was just trying to feel how it was, it was all over so quickly, I ought to feel different, changed—”

“You think too much. Wait a while.”

“Anyway, we’re married!” He rose, excited suddenly by the realization, by the implications that followed, he was alone in this room, with this woman. “I’m tired,” he said, stretching elaborately.

“Yes,” said Kristina without looking up, without looking at him, and she stopped immediately fussing with the clothes, she brushed past him to the window and drew the shade down, he looked past her and saw that she had put his pajamas, folded carefully, on the bed. Her head lowered she took up her nightgown and walked to the bathroom. The door closed behind her.

Lucas undressed rapidly, racing to get into his pajamas before she came out. He was in bed in a twinkling. And there he lay, waiting for her. After a long time she came out. She looked quite different. She was smaller, curiously fragile. She was in her nightgown. She got quickly into bed. They averted their eyes from each other, each overwhelmed by this novelty, neither moving.

“Well,” he said to the waiting room, “well, we’re married.”

She turned, awkwardly she threw an arm over him, put her face in his neck.

“Hello, Lukey,” she breathed in his ear.

And instantly he felt the warmth of her body, he was swallowed up, she lay passive, breathing fast, waiting. His hands found her, he caressed her exultantly, she hesitated, resisting, then remembering, no longer resisting, she cried out once, then she was still.

Later, spent, as she nestled softly against him, exploring, sifting, seeking the essence of union.

“Did you . . . ?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” she parried.

“You know . . .”

“Sure!”

“I mean—did you have fun?”

“Sure!”

“It was wonderful, wasn’t it!”

“Shhhh . . .”

“What’s it like? For a girl?”

“Like for you!” She moved restlessly.

“Tell me, Kris!”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Come on!”

“I don’t know how to tell you—it feels all nice, and—and—”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked anxiously.

“No,” she lied. “Hey! I’m cold!” For he had pulled the covers down.

“I want to see you!” She huddled, stiffening against his eyes, grudging, and then abruptly his eyes were like a feeling on her, she breathed faster watching him, feeling the shamelessness, feeling him look, her eyes were half closed, her mouth was open, she felt his body.

And a moment later,

“Now!” she cried out.

He lay thereafter, thinking, brooding. She was his, now. This was what it would be like. Had he done something wrong? Had he failed? He winced, sensing half-surrender, ministration. Forever? Forever and ever? He moved his head to look at her. She was nearly asleep.

“Did you then, Kris . . . ?” he murmured.

“Shhhh . . . Go sleep . . .” And she turned and threw her arm around him. He lay still, feeling the weight of her arm. After a while, when she began to breathe evenly, he drew reluctantly away. He turned on his side. He slept to himself.

In the morning they dressed, and for both it was an adventure, it was elating to dress with a man, with a woman, it was a newness to be savored and they went out smiling, the day was sunny, the air was crisp on their cheeks.

“Like Sunday!” Kristina exclaimed.

“It is Sunday!” he cried, laughing at her.

“Say! Maybe we go to church, hey?”

“What for? On a nice day like this?”

“Lukey!”

“Do you always go to church, Sunday?”

She looked up at him guiltily, bashfully.

“We just married, Lukey . . .”

“You! A girl that’s seen as many human beings opened as you have!”

“What’s that got to do with it! You believe in God, don’t you, Lukey?”

“Sure, I believe in God! Kristina, I’m going to ask you something. Don’t be hurt, now. But I wish you’d stop calling me Lukey!”

“I’m sorry—”

“It’s nothing. I don’t know why. I just don’t like it.”

“What do they call you? Your mama and papa—what do the boys call you?”

“Just Luke.”

“Nothing else?”

“That’s all. It’s just something—just the sound of the other—”

“Maybe I call you Mister. That’s what my mother called my father.”

“Always?”

“Always. And he called her Missus.”

He laughed.

“All right, Missus!” he mocked. “No, I believe in God, all right—”

She looked at him intently and saw this was so. She was reassured. Inside, this made her at peace and serene and already much, much more married.

“We don’t have to go to church.”

“I’ll go if you want to. If you really want to.”

“We don’t have to. I’m happy yoost like this.” She hugged his arm hard. Her eyes were fierce with delight. “I’m hungry!”

And promptly Lucas’ stomach clamored. They walked eagerly toward town. In the clear air the sound of church bells, that unlooked-for music, startled them. They laughed, delighted.

“It’s a good thing my mother didn’t hear you say church,” he chuckled.

“She was against church, Luke?”

“She sure was! Oh, she was religious, all right! She believed in God and all! But she thought services were empty forms, some kind of hypocrisy—she could explain it all to you—”

“Not mine! Mine went to church every Sunday, rain or shine, storm, snow, no matter what! Once they went, they took me, too, I was little girl, and it was such a blizzard! And they got there, they were all alone, there was nobody in the church, not even the minister!”

“What did they do?”

“Oh, they yoost sat there. By and by the minister came, by and by a couple more.” She sighed. “They never missed. Never!”

“I don’t do that,” she ventured, noting his silence.

“I think God’s there if you need Him,” he said hesitantly.

“There’s a restaurant!” she cried, to end it. “I’m dying!”

They ate hugely, they watched each other select, they found in what ways they were different there and in what ways the same, they watched each other eat. And after, they walked. And when they were tired they sat in the park a while and Kristina lifted a foot and massaged it, grimacing, and he watched like a husband, indulgently.

“You’re on them all day,” he nodded.

“It’s the worst of it,” she confided. “It’s a good job—but it’s the worst of it!”

“Which is the worst of them all?”

“Thoracoplasty—anything on the chest—!”

“How about brain?”

“Ah, that we don’t see much. Once in a long, long while. That’s bad, too. Takes forever. But the chest. . . !”

“You’ve got them all figured out by how hard it is on the feet.”

“After a while you get used to them,” she said uncertainly, defensively.

“One thing puzzles me. I always wanted to ask it. Here you are, you like Medicine, you’re the head operating-room nurse—tell me! Why haven’t you ever tried to go farther?”

“What else?”

“Well, you could study, you know! You could try to become a doctor! With your background—with what you already know—”

“I’ve got no head to study—”

“You’ve got money—you could do it little by little—it’s a funny damned thing! The people with money never seem to want to do anything—”

“They already done it. That’s how they got the money.”

“Anything worth while. Anything that counts. And the people who want to do something never have the money.”

“Because people who want money make it and then there’s not enough to go round.”

“Being around it so much—haven’t you ever wanted to go on?

“You go on for me, Luke.”

“But you don’t want to go on? You don’t want to? For yourself?”

“You think everybody’s like you? I like my job, I do my job, that’s all I want.”

“But why weren’t you a clerk, then? Any of a thousand things?”

“You mean why did I go for a nurse?”

“Why did you pick Medicine? It must have pulled you somehow. Why did you pick it?”

“You know what it is like in Minnesota? You been there? No? Well, it’s a good place but not for a girl. Maybe for a wife. Not many people, the farms far apart. And there is nothing but farmers. When you talk you talk always the same thing, something about the farm. Well, that’s all right, and to tell the truth I didn’t mind it so much, and then one day a girl two farms away comes home in white uniform, white cap, white cape. Comes home from graduating. Oh! That cape! I’ll never forget it! From that time on nothing will do. I must be a nurse. And finally one day my father says all right, he gives me some money—” She shrugged.

“And that’s all? You saw a pretty cape.”

“That’s it. Oh, I’m not sorry—”

“And once you saw that cape—”

“That’s it.”

“I like to know what pulls people on. I like to know what makes them tick. What they want, where they’re going.”

“Maybe you want too much from people—”

“I don’t want anything from them!”

“I mean you give them too much, you think they’ve got more than they have. You think everybody’s like you?”

“Everybody’s got something that’s pulling them!”

“Ahh, I don’t know, I don’t know—you, maybe. You got it so strong you think everybody’s got it.”

“No,” he said automatically. “No, you’re wrong—”

“When I first met you I thought I never saw such a lonely boy. So lonely. So wrapped up—”

“I’m not lonely—!”

“Doesn’t know other people live—the world goes on around him and he goes his own way. And he’s so lonely. And he doesn’t know why.”

“That’s how it seems to you?” He smiled tolerantly. But he was confused, a terror that was always there rose grinning for a moment before he could thrust it back.

“Yes,” she said gently, “that’s how it seems. You don’t know whether is spring, autumn, or summer. All you know is what you want. All you see is what you need. Everybody is a little lonely. It is not new to be homesick. But you are homesick for where you are.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand, Kris. It’s true. Sometimes I just don’t understand. I want to be like other people, I want to want to be with them, to be of them—”

“Yes,” Kristina nodded sagely. “That I know. Why should you try, after all? You’re the way you are, we’ll work it out together, you and me. You got something they haven’t got. You got what you got. Not everybody’s got that. You can’t have everything.”

“It’s got me. Do you know that, Kris? That’s what the trouble is. That’s all I think about. That’s all I can think about!”

“Yes,” she said gravely, “it’s got you. Now it’s got me, too.”

“There it is, it’s the greatest thing a human can know. It’s the best knowledge there is, it’s all by itself. As long as I can remember I’ve known that.”

“I know . . . even when you were a little boy . . .”

“That’s right!” He looked at her, startled, pleased.

“And how about doctors?”

“That’s what I want to be, Kris. All the doctors I’ve ever seen.”

Her smile faded.

“You’re going to be the best of them all!” she cried. “Wait until they see you, Luke! Just wait! Tell me, Luke: has he asked you anything? The bursar? Don’t you have to—”

“I wish you didn’t have to help me, Kris. I wish I could do this myself—I feel rotten—nothing can make me feel good about it!”

“What you think! You married a poor girl? A husband’s got a right to a dowry! What kind of a wife doesn’t help her husband! What you think I am?”

“You’re wonderful, Kris,” he said uncomfortably.

“How much you need? Don’t tell me! I know how much you need! You need six hundred fifty-four dollars, eighty-one cents! You want it now?”

“You’ve got it? You’ve got that much?”

“I got more, even! I get it for you first thing Monday. We get it tonight. You pay him Monday!”

“All of it,” he said, awed.

“All of it! Then you don’t have to worry! We give them every penny!”

“Oh, Kris! Oh, my God, Kris!”

“You see what it’s like to have a wife? Now you’re not alone any more, eh? Now you know I’m with you!”


Now peace filled him. It was perhaps the first peace he had ever known. In the living, in the world in which he moved, a stranger even to himself, lonely not knowing himself, lonely not knowing others, moving alone, and thinking alone, peering anxiously at the people around him as through the windows of houses and himself outside, this woman had come to his portion, this fellow human, this Kristina who was not alien, who was as others were, and who knew him, and wanted him, and was even proud of him, and who was unalterably his, married a thousand years in this one day.

And she had brought him what he needed, this great thing, this money which he must have, naked of it, hopeless for it, a stranger to it except through fear. And now life was easy, it was all over, the nightmare was gone, he was safe, he looked at her, yearning to give her what he felt, this greatness, this gratitude.

This is my wife! he cried to himself, swelling, look at her! She knows me! She knows my innerness, and I’m not afraid. See her! That nurse’s walk. If a probationer came along how her face would become serious with respect, Good afternoon, Miss Hedvigsen, and she would nod her head pleasantly, just so. And the woman part of her, the body, the blond hair, the blue eyes, the pretty Swedish face, the trim figure, ah, but I know what those swellings are where the dress, the material, peaks, those are breasts, my breasts. We will be together, apart, away from everyone. And he winced, thinking of Alfred—let them think what they want. We will keep to ourselves. Away from them. Away from them all. Safe.

The day was bright. He looked at it with joy. He noticed things he had never seen before.

For he was safe, now. It was safe to look.


They returned to the furnished rooms late in the afternoon. Unfamiliar with each other, with their new roles, a little shy, they walked homeward.

“I’m way behind,” Lucas fretted. “Two whole days.”

“Tonight you can study.”

“No, I’ve lost it. I’ll have to get it from the others. The gist of it, anyway. There’s no time to memorize it all.”

But when they came into their own rooms again it was strange and exciting to both of them how quickly this place had become home. They looked about them with satisfaction, they smiled at each other broadly, swelling at what they possessed. I have a man of my own. Kristina grinned and her bosom raised, this is our place, I’m sorry for the girls at the nurses’ quarters, all girls, no man to look out for, no place to be a wife. And Lucas fondly smiled as he picked up a lanky, overdressed doll figure Kristina had brought from her former room, the only thing really she had brought except her clothes and the only other home possessions she had accumulated.

“This looks like a whore,” he said, amazed. “Look at the painted cheeks, this hair—”

“That’s real hair!” Kristina protested.

She took the doll from Lucas, smoothed its dress, patted it fondly, propped it against the mirror on the oak bureau.

“I got to write home,” she said proudly. “I got lovely stuff there from my mother! We fix this place up, eh? Don’t you got anything you can bring?”

“I don’t know.” The memory of the house sobered him. “Last time I was there the door was locked.”

“Your mother’s picture, anyhow. You want I should come with you?”

“No, no! Maybe we’ll write. I don’t want to go back. Not now. Maybe later.”

“It’s a nice place.” He leaned against the bureau admiring the sad wallpaper, the thin carpet, the five framed chromos, the bed, the bureau, the two chairs, the table.

“It’s got a good kitchen,” she said sagely. They walked eagerly into the next room. “We save a lot of money here.”

He opened a drawer and his fingers played curiously and possessively among the knives and forks, the six knives, the six forks, the apple corer, the can opener, the bread knife, the strainer.

“Sure got a lot of stuff here.”

“Furnished so-so. I get lots more.” But she beamed proudly.

“Our place!” He looked about him, grinning.

She walked to him and took his arm, viewing it with him, standing at his side.

“We pretty lucky,” she said soberly.


In almost any other academic course the sudden marriage of a classmate would have been a week-long diversion, an occasion for chattering, examination, speculation, gaping observation. And for weeks afterward Lucas would have been notable, for all his academic years he would have been the fellow who married in the first semester of his freshman year. Kristina’s fellow nurses buzzed about the happening for a week, the routine, the progress of hospital work buried the sudden marriage and all that could be discussed about it as inexorably as death is forgotten in a hospital, for in a week in a hospital there are many deaths and many recoveries and many births and many sudden emergencies to contend for attention with the infrequent breaks in living pattern of those who, ministering, absorb each hour’s pressing problems. Among the members of his class Lucas was pointed out for a single day. In that day many students he did not know took a few minutes to wish him well and under cover of the perfunctory and customary noises of well-wishing prescribed for this happening hopefully listened for some new gift, some detail which would add to the bizarre fact that he had married. And when there was none they returned to routine without complaint and without further interest.

His instructors severely made no mention of it with the exception of Professor Fletcher, who observed during an anatomy lecture that he understood one of his students had progressed rather further in blunt dissection than he had expected at this time. This information was gratefully received by the students after he had paused long enough to allow them to dissect it, and their gratitude was further augmented by the fact that seven members of the class were discovered automatically taking his words down in their anatomy notes, verbatim, as matter for study.

“What sort of a chap is this?” Professor Fletcher asked Dr. Aarons at luncheon. “I understand he’s one of your protégés.”

“Oh, not exactly a protégé,” Dr. Aarons protested. “He came to me for advice once or twice and during his pre-med I used him as laboratory janitor. I rather wish he’d come to me for this.”

“Oh, I don’t know what difference it makes, really. Have we an official attitude toward it?”

“No, no, no! I do think he has enough to worry about without—”

“She’s a nurse, after all. She knows what the score is. I dare say she’ll help.”

“We have a lot of nurses. I’m rather surprised to see him pick this one.”

“That means you regarded him rather more than most.”

“I’m not altogether sure whether it’s a boyish dream, a fixation on an ideal, like wanting to be a fireman or a cowboy, carried on past puberty, or whether he’s that very rare thing, that solecism, an organism born with a single purpose, a single avenue of organic expression.”

“I think you could say that of any of them. Nobody studies Medicine unless they want to. He seems a nice enough chap, quiet, studies well, seems to be keeping up. I should say,” he said, surprised, “he’s keeping up rather better than most.”

“Do you find him outstanding?”

“No, I think he might be if he didn’t try so hard to understand all he studies. He wastes too much time on that. None of them know—you can’t teach them—that it’s a waste of time, right now, trying to understand everything. Simply to possess it is enough, one day understanding dawns and then they have it. No, if he spent all his time just possessing, memorizing, getting it any way he could so that he’d have it examination time why then—”

He shrugged.

“He’s an odd fish.” Dr. Aarons nodded. “His mother’s dead, his father was against his studying Medicine, went bankrupt a few weeks ago and skipped out, the boy hasn’t any money, he came to me to borrow some to go on with—”

“And now he gets married!”

“And he married a nurse. . . .”

“Proper conduct for any young medical man. That’s been done before.”

“And for the same reason. Not quite—but the same reason, basically the same.”

“Well, he’s settled now. He didn’t flounder, he didn’t wander off to try something else, he knew what he wanted, evidently, and he did what apparently had to be done. Quite a ruthless character, your young man.”

“Or maybe driven. I don’t think he reasons quite so cold-bloodedly. Humans are the sum of their drives. Some of these drives are basic. Some are artificial, responses to culture, environment, or history.”

“And you don’t really know whether his is basic or artificial. And if it’s basic, whether Medicine is basically a drive of his—”

“Or something he’s made into a drive. And in the final analysis that’s our basis of judging conduct, isn’t it. If it’s a basic drive, and it’s opposed, the human is going to survive at any price and there aren’t any ethics and there aren’t any laws. And we understand, and understanding of course is pardon.”

“Well, in any case, you can’t help him and I can’t help him. It’s nice to have something happen out of the ordinary, though, isn’t it. Something to talk about. Something to break this numbered page, on a numbered day, numbered faces, numbered hours, year after year . . .”

And he rose from luncheon, walked down the corridor toward his classroom, his one o’clock classroom, and on the way, spying an anxious student walking to class, oblivious, desperately cramming from a book, he went to him, took the book from him, saying, “What have you got there?” and before the student could close his mouth to answer began ripping pages out of the book, saying severely, “You don’t want to read that! That’s crap! He’s all wrong there!” and passed on, the pages fluttering to the floor behind him.

“A fifteen-dollar book!” the student murmured, awed, to the group that quickly and anxiously collected about him. And they all trooped to class, adoring Professor Fletcher, bound to know what should have been written on those ripped pages.

I have all I can do to teach pathology, Dr. Aarons frowned. I’ve helped him. I’ve done what I could. I happened to take a fancy. I wonder what you’d have done, Fletcher—if he’d come to you—if he was a Jewish boy! Hah! You don’t have to tell me! I know where I am. I know how I got here. Well, and it’s not forever. And he went back to himself, lonely and a little angry on this island. And that evening he thought again that if he wanted he could always go to Vienna, and in any case he owed it to himself. And right up to the day of his death he might go, that was his story, that was freedom, that was tomorrow.


Miss Samuels, the probationer, saw her first.

“She’s coming!” She ran into the main operating theater, her blue uniform belling about her.

The instrument nurse, the first dirty surgical, the two assistants crowded to the operating-room entrance.

Kristina, turbaned and ready for the day, grinned broadly.

“Miss Hedvigsen!” gasped Miss O’Neill, first dirty surgical, “we just heard!”

Miss Moore and Mrs. Brady, the two assistants, smiled, waited. Mrs. Ames, instrument nurse, put her hands on her hips.

“Well! Why didn’t you tell us!”

“Nothing to tell you.”

“Oh, listen to her! ‘Nothing to tell you.’ Never saying a word. What do we call you now?”

“Just Miss Hedvigsen,” said Kristina serenely. She began to scrub.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” sighed Miss Samuels.

“Do we know him?” asked Miss Moore.

“His name is Marsh,” said Kristina. “Lucas Marsh. He’s a medical student. I guess you saw him.”

“When?”

“What does he look like?”

“How did it happen?”

“All right,” Kristina smiled. “What’s first this morning, Miss Moore?”

“Ovariotomy—then amputation of the cervix—”

“Are we ready?”

The first and second dirty surgicals dashed off.

“Ready, Miss Hedvigsen,” said Mrs. Ames.

“Get the extra-size retractors for Dr. Paine, get plenty of Allises, in case they want it, get that new kit for Dr. Romberg—”

“Yes, Miss Hedvigsen—”

The first intern came in, a second followed almost immediately. They began silently to scrub. Kristina, scrubbed, ready, walked slowly through her domain, took up her station.

“Lunch,” she said briefly through her mask. “Plenty time to talk at lunch . . .”

“Yes, Miss Hedvigsen.”

“Put that bucket farther under the table—”

The operating-room crew fell silent. The first doctor had arrived.


But in the laboratory words floundered in the debris of dismay and in this debris they saw the shards of broken faith and half-shaped designs now gone for nothing, and shock and horror and protest and hurt dried their mouths and moistened their eyes and made a death for them, a sigh, a headshake and a lost sheep’s death.

“But if he’d come to us. . . !”

“If he’d told us, at least. . . !”

“If he’d just given us a chance . . .”

“We’d have found some way—we could have done something—”

“Not even to say a word—”

“If we hadn’t helped him it’d be one thing—”

“Just for a handful of silver he left us . . .”

“Just for a ribbon to wear in his coat.”

“Well, one thing, we’ll have to have them over—”

“We’ll wait for them! Let him make the first move!”

“Luke! Our Luke! I—I just can’t get over it!”

“I never will. . . .”


And his classmates said,

“Hear you got married, Buster?”

“That’s right!”

“That’s what we heard. Well, what do you know!”

“The head operating-room nurse, at that!”

“Kind of sudden, wasn’t it?”

“How the hell do you get time! Say, what did you do about the mechanism of referred pain? What did you get on that?”

“I just memorized it—”

“So did I! I met a sophomore yesterday said it didn’t matter a goddam whether you understand it or not just so you could answer it exam time—”

“A lot of this stuff—”

“Hey! Didja hear what Fletcher did? Did you see that apparatus with string and wax and the skeleton—”

“Here he comes!”

“Yeah, well good luck, fella—”

“Yeah, good luck—”


In a week Lucas and Alfred addressed each other with restraint. In two weeks, irreconcilable, they had bridged the past dividing them and they sat together and studied together in classrooms, neither more nor less than they were before, now knowing it; and in a month Lucas had begun to go to Alfred’s room to study there with Alfred and another student who now slept in Lucas’ bed.


Besides Professor Fletcher there were Professor Rautner and Professor Willie, these three in anatomy. Where Fletcher was brilliant, Professor Rautner was precise, was indefatigable, was purest science. He was a perfectionist. What he knew he recited diffidently and remotely, thinking aloud, and they made their notes hastily and silent. Their awe of him began the day he launched a lecture on the pharynx. The class moved restlessly. There were murmurs at last and Professor Rautner paused, astonished.

“It’s not the pharynx—it’s the eye, today!” cried Alfred.

And Professor Rautner, who had been lecturing without notes, taking them ever deeper into details of anatomy not in their textbooks, stared at them unbelievingly, then rushed into the hallway to the bulletin board, sure enough today’s lecture was on the eye, they had filed out behind him silently, he looked at them open-mouthed, he shook his head, dropped his eyes, walked quickly back into the classroom, followed by the class, and, as the last man reached his seat, began immediately to lecture without notes or text upon the eye, taking them even deeper than he had with the pharynx.

They were very proud of Professor Rautner, they were very proud of Professor Fletcher, when they cried admiringly of these men and others Lucas dropped his eyes modestly as if he, too, were being praised, so proud he was of them all, so reverent, so worshipful.

But in this year there was also Professor Willie who drew nasal septums laterally, fat Professor Willie who sometimes came to class in suspenders, shirtless, who brooded at them, picking his nose, who must, Lucas was very sure in the beginning, be gifted rarely in some undisclosed stratum, who would one day startle them all.

He and Alfred were working on a fat cadaver one day trying to find in the gross, lumpish buttocks the fine, white posterior gluteal nerve. They were working nervously and carefully. In their textbook, plainly printed, consulted by both that morning, burned the sentence, “The careless dissector will soon reveal himself by cutting the posterior gluteal nerve.” They explored slowly. Finally they paused, helpless, defeated.

“What’s the matter?”

They turned apprehensively. Professor Willie stood there, rolling a toothpick in his mouth.

“We’re having a little trouble, sir,” Lucas said humbly.

“Can’t find it, eh? Gimme that!” He snatched Lucas’ scalpel. He bent over the cadaver and slashed through the fat buttock. He deepened the slash. Then he slashed again. He dropped the scalpel, fumbled in the gashes, spread them to show the ends of the white nerve, cut through. “There it is!” he shrugged, sucked his teeth reflectively and walked away.

Lucas avoided Alfred’s eyes.

He looked at Professor Willie unwillingly, at this stranger in this cosmos, this freak, despicable and alien.

And thus he came in time to regard Professor Wallace, whose histology lectures were finally, one had to admit, worthless. And thus he looked at Professor Dietrick, that pompous man, that instructor of the young in the mysteries of the ancients, that man who kept the company of Professor Rautner and Professor Fletcher and the other great wardens of the faith, Professor Dietrick of the thin mouth, the thin hair, the yellow teeth, who crunched a dog’s tail with an ordinary pliers to demonstrate in the animal’s agony that it was not completely anesthetized, who used a wrench to kill laboratory rabbits, smashing them with thinly concealed pleasure.

They did not disillusion, these interlopers. They removed themselves, automatically, from the true, the ineffably good, the nobility whose patent they ludicrously wore. The ranks closed. And Lucas stood in the ranks, disdaining them.

In that first year twenty-two were dropped and one committed suicide. Marvellously, two of the nuggeteers were not dropped, continued with the class.

It was in that first year, when the load was so great that after a week’s despair he crept one day to Professor Rautner’s office to beg for time, even to resign and begin the year again, Professor Rautner uncurtained the solidarity of Medicine.

“Look about you at the class, think of your fellows,” he said somberly. Then, after a pause to let Lucas think,

“Have you done that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now pick ten men who are dumber than yourself. Think! . . . Pick ten.”

Lucas pondered.

“Yes, sir.”

Professor Rautner studied Lucas. He paused dramatically, then,

“Those ten are passing,” he said quietly.


The year ended.

Lucas had passed. Of the eighty-eight only twenty-two were dropped.

“It was the same in nursing,” Kristina said imperturbably. Lucas smiled. And this night, for once, he forbore to be rude to Bruni, to deride Oley, to estrange, to corrode implacably and consciously the bonds of their loyalty to Kristina.

And that night, elated with victory, he seized Kristina, she hid her face in his neck, he carried her to the bed.

“My clothes, my dress, Lucas—wait—” He ripped her underclothing, and uncontrollably, “Now!” he cried, “NOW!

“Yes, Lucas.”

And even through the near-deafness of his frenzy he heard that dimly, heard speech and not exclamation, heard a word and not a cry.

When she returned from the bathroom, ready for bed, she spoke to him happily. He answered shortly.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, dismayed.

“You don’t feel a thing!”

“I do! I do! I feel what you do!”

“All right, tell me! Tell me what you feel!”

“Oh, Lucas—”

“Tell me!” He pushed her away. “Tell me what you feel!”

“Lucas, what do you want of me? What is it? I’m trying! I’m trying so hard—”

“I don’t want your trying! I want—I want—” he looked at her helplessly.

She looked back at him, yearning, speechless.

“Oh, come on,” he said, sad for her, guilty, moved, “the hell with it, Kristina. I guess we’re stuck with each other.” And he put his arms around her and he felt her flesh beneath the thin nightgown, slowly, deliberately, he caressed her, her breath came quickly, he continued on and on, his hands never still, artful, gentle, secret, her eyes grew blind, he moved backward, slowly sat in a straight chair, holding her, stumbling to follow him, he pulled her on his lap, gentling her awkwardness, his hands moving her, her body inert, slack to his will, mindless with desire, she moaned softly.

“Now?”

“Now,” she whispered. A flutter trembled through her muscles. And again, “Now,” she whispered, and there was another flutter, and “Now,” she said again.

And this time, caught up involuntarily, his senses exploded, he cried out, he soared above her, transported beyond her whisper, her body and her being.

That night he comforted her. She snuggled to him gratefully. She slept peacefully in a little while. He lay awake, thinking.

“I feel as much as I can,” he heard her say again. That is as much as she can feel, he sighed. He heard her whisper again, “Now,” he felt again the tremor of her muscles. “Now.” And it was shallow, it was deep for her, it was all she had. And I’m stuck with her, he said, and his heart sank, he fell asleep.


And for the rest they had the law’s permission to tenant jointly. There was time for almost nothing more. In the morning Kristina, waking, would often find Lucas already at his books. She would make a hurried breakfast for them and while they ate he would read on, or he would hand her the book and recite to her what he had memorized. Leaving their rooms they would walk a short way together, soon their paths separated and she would walk on taking with her the fragments unsaid of her days past or her day ahead with which she had been making contact with him. And he, having heard little, as little as he could, walked quickly on, the lighter for her absence, free now to think, to frown, and to remember.

Occasionally at noon they would eat hurriedly together in the hospital dining room; she looked forward eagerly to these occasions for a chance to be a wife contacting her husband, nourished more by the meeting than by the food. But Lucas knew that his presence was permitted because his wife was a hospital functionary, he was ill at ease and he came only when the prospects of free food, hot food, dulled his embarrassment. The meal ended he rushed back, anxious to cram before the first class of the afternoon began.

When the day ended she might come home to find him already studying. Then she made dinner unobtrusively and while they ate he studied. Sometimes, rarely, he would put by studying, interrupted by his own excitement over some happening in class. At such a time she might manage to bring to him a happening in her world; they were always the same, a new nurse had turned out badly or well, a new doctor, the obsolescence of instruments, the occasional inefficiency of the autoclave. After a time he listened without hearing, and she listened without hearing, also, for his talk was of people she did not know but whose lives and habits and thoughts she knew completely, knowing Lucas’.

When the meal was over he began to study almost before she had the table cleared. And for the rest of the evening, until midnight, he studied on and on and on. Then she would perform the offices of womankind, as she had performed them at the Nurses’ Home, she would wash her hair, wash her underwear, attend her nails, repair her clothing; there was this change that now she washed and mended Lucas’ few clothes also. At times she would leave quietly and walk to Bruni’s, but after an hour or two she would rise guiltily, apprehensive lest he needed her while she was gone. But when she let herself in, a little breathless, he would be where she had left him, reading on, he would look up without interest and, if she entered quietly enough, he would not notice.

This was the pattern of their joint tenantry of these rooms, broken only by the occasions when he left immediately after dinner to go to Alfred’s or some other student’s rooms and study there, or around examination times when he looked at her or at his books unseeingly, haggard and distrait. Or on such Sundays as could be extorted, perhaps once a month, when he might walk out with her nervously and reluctantly, walk a while, talk aimlessly, look in the windows of an instrument supply house, sit in the park; and what they had to tell each other was soon told, there was nothing new to talk about except once, Professor Aarons’ new car, bought through investments everyone was making in this era so opulent that times and not history were measured by it and even professors in small towns were fearlessly and exultantly winding and setting their lives to its golden hours.

But it meant little to them, except incurious, surface wonder, for Kristina’s salary was unchanged and their lives were limited, era or no era, by what she earned and what his tuition took of it, and what their living took of what remained. Sometimes, when Lucas bought few books, Kristina managed to save in that month as much as twenty dollars.

After Sunday dinner Lucas usually slept the entire afternoon. But he always woke in time to study for an hour before supper as preparation for the evening’s study that followed.

Monday, there were classes again.


In the first year there was insecurity and competition and these were the rule of the pack, and outside the classroom desperate buttressing of the weak, as if the weak, failing, might blood the faculty and make them thirst for more.

In the second year there were seventy-two in the class, six dropped sophomores winning a chance to take the course again. And here the insecurity eased and some of the competition also. For they had passed the first year, those survivors, they had passed, they had done their utmost and knew they had failed and incredibly their best had been enough, they had not been dropped, after all. No year could be as bad as that first. There was still competition, but now there was also competition among the faculty. For when a momentous examination in chemistry impended, physiology professors then jumped in jealously, stiffening their demands, promising an even more searching examination in physiology. And they observed this. The survivors had become battle-hardened. They were able to lift their heads and observe it.

There was as much and more to study. But the language was mastered now. The habit of assailing the impossible was a firm and fixed habit. Where they had despaired they were sardonic. They attacked pharmacology, parasitology, pathology, clinical pathology, public health, neuro-anatomy, ward medicine, physical diagnosis, these new names. And in the last quarter, unperturbed but groaning, they went also to lectures in surgery, medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, gynecology, psychiatry, urology, anesthesiology, even oncology neurology, and twice, thoracic surgery.

They were a group now. They stood together. They had learned something they were to carry through Medicine and all through their lives as doctors. They had learned what was not known and this ignorance they shared that with each other and with their masters. They had learned each other’s weaknesses and they had learned that others knew theirs too. And they were a group. They were in the fold. They had a secret. And little by little it became borne in on them that they, and only they, members of this craft, this art, this science, this profession, knew this secret. Amazingly, this ignorance was not apparent to the world. It was apparent only to those who had studied what they had studied, who knew what they knew. And when the realization that this was known only to themselves, that they were protected from the outside world by the outside world’s not knowing or caring, when this wonder became conviction, then fact, then the bonds which united them became lifelong. And in a little while what they did know and what the lay world did not know was a factor too, and in time, for the sake of their faith, this superiority became as strong and secure a bond as their shared ignorance.

It was in the second year that Lucas as an official acolyte of Medicine saw his first patient. He ventured to the edge of the gulf that separated them, prepared to retreat the instant the patient discovered that this was all a game of the professors, that Lucas was just a human like himself.

But the patient, an old man, humble with the anxious humility of a lifetime in which one did not go to doctors but to clinics, stoic in well-learned clinic patience, lowered his faded eyes and answered the form questions so meekly that Lucas rallied.

“Married?” Lucas demanded finally.

The old man hesitated. Lucas looked up impatiently.

“Yes, married,” the old man decided.

“Wife living?”

“She just died . . .”

“I see! What did she die of?”

The old man gazed across a lifetime, considering.

“I said—what did she die of!”

The old man looked at him anxiously.

“Nothing serious,” he said apologetically.

Lucas lowered his eyes.

“I see,” he said gently. And that night, brooding on this, he perceived humanity, saw the silent mass waiting outside the hospital, uncomplaining, humble, waiting for the awful absolute of eyes that knew, dumbly waiting for relief, that chance, that indifferent chance. Thereafter, for a week, he kept his eyes averted, feeling the censor, feeling exposed, knowing what he did not know.


“There’s an awful lot here we’ll never use,” Alfred said one day. He shrugged.

“But we’ve learned an awful lot, Al.”

“Knowledge we’ll never use.”

“Oh, I don’t know—” But Lucas did know. He knew that he would use everything he had ever learned.

“I was talking to a senior. He said the same thing. Memory, he said. Memory’s the thing. Sometimes I wonder—what is a doctor? Is a doctor a man who remembers?”

“I don’t get it.” Lucas tried to imagine what Alfred meant.

“You’ll wind up in a lab! That’s where you’re headed. Some goddamned research institute.”

“Why? Why do you say that, Al? What is there about me makes you say that?”

“Well, it isn’t envy, boy. That I can tell you.”

“You’re still going ahead the way you planned? I mean a good practice and—and—”

“Don’t worry! You won’t hurt my feelings—”

“You know what I mean? What we used to talk about?”

“No. Not quite. Now my ideas are bigger . . .”

“Bigger?”

“Bigger and better. Say, I been meaning to ask you: Hear from your father, ever?”

“Just the second letter. He wanted money. Kristina sent it to him.” He looked up guiltily. The name had slipped out.

“And how is your wife?” Alfred asked formally.

“Fine, just fine. You’ll have to come over sometime.”

“Yes, I will. When this damned work lets up a little—”

“That’s right.”

“Well, what do you say we hit this radiology crap—”

The chairs grated over the floor.


During the first summer he had worked in the laboratory again.

He greeted Ruth and Ann and they greeted him as if they had just met, or met after a single, long past introduction. Once, Kristina and he went to the women’s apartment, they chatted stiffly, anxiously. And once, dutifully, they came to his home and there Kristina cooked a dinner and behaved as anxiously as they had behaved.

Intimacy had long since died. Lucas forgot them and did his work. After the visit to Ruth and Ann’s house there were few visits to Bruni. Kristina went occasionally, but Lucas seldom knew.

When the second year ended they celebrated again. A week later Lucas came home jubilantly.

“It’s true!” he shouted. “Everything they told us is true! The main worry’s over!” Kristina waited, smiling, bewildered, delighted he was kind again.

“You’re on your own,” he cried. “Don’t you see? It’s terrific! You don’t have to sit in lectures! You don’t have to sit in labs—we had our first exam and it wasn’t paralyzing—it’s great! All they told us is true!”

“I’m glad!” she grinned. “I’m so glad for you!”

“You’re glad? What do you mean, you’re glad?”

“I’m glad, Luke. I’m awful glad—”

“Now you can help me! Now, you can really help me! Come on! We’re going out and celebrate . . .”

“We don’t have so much money,” she began dubiously, then seeing the look on his face, “No, no! Come on! We got plenty! I—I just remember!”

“Now you can tell me about the operating room.”

“What will I tell you?”

“The mechanics, this time! How you put on a gown, how you scrub, every detail. Let’s start at the door . . .”

And though she told him all she could think of, though she answered a hundred questions and then a hundred more, talking all through dinner, all the way home, far into the night until at last he let her go to sleep, he forgot it all the moment he walked through the wide swinging doors to scrub for the first time.

He looked about in panic. Four doctors and two seniors were scrubbing at a line of sinks, paying no attention to each other. Hesitantly, Lucas went to a vacant sink. From a shelf he took a mask and cap and donned them. And there he stood. He was paralyzed with horror. There were no faucets. A passing probationer tapped him on the back, pointed beneath the sink. Lucas looked, saw a pedal, stepped on it. Water flowed into the sink. He looked about. Not a head had turned. They were oblivious to him. He picked up a brush and soap. Carefully he washed his hands, his forearms, scrubbing until the skin reddened, then he did the ritual of fingers, inside each, then the other side, then front, then back, then the whole hand again. He left the sink with his hands dripping, his forearms dripping, held stiffly in front of him, his hands on a level with his eyes, and went to the basins, dipped hands and forearms in the first, dipped hands and forearms in the second, passed dripping into the operating room. And there was Kristina. Their eyes met only for an instant. Then she turned briskly away, she would have helped him if she could, but here protocol dictated what she should do, what she should say, even, and the head operating-room nurse nodded, gestured, almost never spoke. Of the four nurses subordinate to Kristina, one held out a square cloth bundle to Lucas as she had held it out to each of the others. They were all gowned. They ignored him. He opened the gown, holding one end. It fell, upside down, the sleeves nearly touching the floor.

“Drop it!” A voice cried sharply.

Lucas dropped the gown instantly, frightened, bewildered.

The gowned and masked figure which had spoken from beside the operating table nodded almost imperceptibly. A nurse bent swiftly and the gown was gone from the floor. Another nurse held out a second package, held it so that it opened, he put his hands through the sleeves, she tied the strings behind him, motioned with her head for him to walk to the wall at the foot of the operating table. If there was expression on any face it was hidden by the masks. He passed Kristina, standing impassively beside a tray of instruments. Against the wall stood a nurse beside an array of cloth packets.

“What size?” she demanded, she looked at his hands.

He tried frantically to remember what size gloves he wore.

“Nine!” he blurted, finally.

She hesitated.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, he should know!” came the sharp voice from the table.

Promptly, the nurse unpinned a packet labelled “Nine,” she reached for a can of talc, he held out his hands, she sprinkled them, held up a glove. His hand plunged in. It was two sizes too large. Then the second hand.

Praying they would not fall off, he walked to the table. One of the white figures moved slightly, and he stood obediently beside him.

“Are we ready finally?” the sharp voice asked. And without waiting for a reply he stuck out his hand. Kristina slapped an instrument into it. He bent. The instrument cut. The operation had begun.

Sometime during the operation, he was never sure when, someone handed Lucas a retractor, guided his hand over the incision, dipped the retractor in, pulled his hand to show the pressure he was to exert. Sometime later he was told to pull the instrument out. The rest was a haze, a blind prayer not to do the wrong thing, not to move, not to be noticed.

Then it was over.

“Well!” said the sharp voice, and untied his mask, “Well, well!” He said it pleasantly, smiling. He smiled at all of them. Then he turned and walked out, untying himself as he went, a nurse fluttering near him, helping with the strings, catching what dropped.

Now the other masks were untied, the faces were smiling soberly over work accomplished, the patient was being lifted onto a stretcher, the operating table was suddenly empty, Lucas looked at Kristina. She nodded once, shortly. She winked. He walked out of the operating room drawing and expelling a deep, deep breath.

“What did you think?” she asked that night, securely and a little proudly.

“He was warm!” Lucas said. “That’s the first shock I got. That guy was warm!”

“It wasn’t a he,” Kristina laughed. “That was a she!”

“Well, she was warm,” Lucas said stubbornly, “that’s all I know. That’s what gave me a shock. I was sure surprised! You’ve got no idea how cold a corpse can be!”


There was surgery the first twelve weeks including all the specialties, there was public health, medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, there were all the secondary courses, there were no more clinics, it was ward work now, the work still began at 8:30 every morning and ended at 5:30 that night, but there were afternoons off occasionally, spent, invariably spent, in sleep, Lucas, all of them, went straight home to sleep, even if only for an hour. There was never enough sleep. But now in this third year it was possible to go out on Sundays, to work sometimes only five nights a week until midnight and one night until nine and the other night perhaps not at all. But in the third year, with the wards, there was weekend duty that came to all of them in turn, and this was not bad, except that you could not sleep.

In this year they had a professor who asked, as he asked every class,

“Which would you rather have—syphilis or TB?”

They pondered, grave and anxious.

“Syphilis!” said Lucas at last. And waited, fearful.

“That’s right!” he cried happily as he cried to every class. “It’s easier to cure—and you have more fun getting it!”

The class laughed obediently.

In this year there was a lecturer in a high purple collar, a stickpin, pointed shoes, a man of destiny, a man who had once in the arc of a lifetime grazed immortality. He had discovered a strange substance, he was excitedly at work on it, a few more experiments and he would publish, then in Canada Banting published, the world exploded, the man looked up, dazed. He had almost discovered insulin.

He spent one lecture a year telling a class about it, he relived each agonized step, he looked at them, unbelieving still, and always, at the end, as he mounted the cross, his eyes filled, he turned away abruptly, strode from the room, his cheeks wet with what remained in the squeezed and nearly dry fruit of his life.

In this year there were jubilant and expansive discussions in odd corners: “How about prostigmine and physostigmine—sympathomimetic or sympatholytic?” And they swelled happily, challenging, arguing, disputing, sure in the answer, propounding for the sheer luxury of foreknown answer. “Ah, but how about epinephrine—look at epinephrine! In large doses it’s vasoconstrictor!”

And again,

“Yes, but if a woman claims on her deathbed-on her deathbed, mind!—that some MD did an abortion on her—her evidence is acceptable! Don’t forget that! She can be lying, just to kill the guy! And the court’ll take her word!”

“And you’re full of shit, you know that, don’t you?”

“Am I? I am, eh? Well, just ask Professor Knox!”

“You’ve got fecaliths in the circle of Willis—”

“All right! Just ask him!”

In this year the fear of failure was almost gone. The harshness almost disappeared. There were no more sudden drops, no seats emptied wordlessly overnight, no unaccountably missing faces. There would be, instead, decorously, silently, secretly in the mailbox, in a student’s personal mailbox, a blank, white envelope. And within there would be a card: “The Department of Pharmacology regrets to inform you that you have failed to meet the department’s standards in the last exam.”

In this year one of the three nugget men was caught and dropped.

He was on obstetric duty, he was required to sit at the bedside. He nuggeted a staff man for procedural information, confidently wrote his name on a likely case, went to dinner and left the patient in labor.

Twenty minutes after he left the patient went into hard labor. The resident was summoned.

“Didn’t he know?” he snarled, shocked.

“I thought he was all right, I just left him here,” the staff man stammered, “he asked enough questions—”

He was gone next day. This was Erskine, the man to whom the class supplied notes all the freshman year, who somehow obtained a neuro-anatomy nugget book on the eve of a neuro-anatomy examination and when they came to him, excited, refused flatly to loan it.

“Remember?” Alfred nodded. “We told him next day no more notes—”

“And he came to us begging, one after the other of us—‘Please! Please take the book—’ Can you imagine? Leaving her in labor like that? Not even knowing?”

“Well, there’s still two left,” Alfred said significantly.

“Yes, but they’d know! They’d know at least . . .”

In this year it was discovered to the amazement and joy of the class that one member, aged twenty-three years, had never seen a naked, living girl and had absolutely never kissed one.

“A medical student?”

“Yes, by God, a medical student!”

“What’s he gonna specialize—gynecology?”

“Brester! You ought to know him!”

“By God, I sit right next to him and never dreamed!”

“Let’s go find him. Maybe we can take him to a whorehouse! Come on!”

In this year Lucas, taking the history of a sixty-five-year-old patient, asked her gently how often she had relations with her husband and whether she enjoyed congress.

The nurses howled with delight.

“Sixty-five years old, mind you!”

But the patient smiled happily. And thereafter, though he smiled sheepishly when his question was echoed at him, Lucas made it a point, remembering the look in the old woman’s eyes, to ask all elderly females the same question. And when he came into their ward they could not have enough of him, they mothered him, one began to crochet him a sweater with fingers that would never finish a sleeve, they loved him, he was their doctor, their young man.

In this year it was said to him for the first time,

“You’re a doctor now. Go over to that patient and find out what’s wrong with him.” It was a queer feeling and unforgettable, he would always remember it.

In this year he knew that Medicine was really all that he had ever studied.


Then it was magically the fourth year, so remote a distance lay suddenly behind him the mind could not bridge it, it was the fourth year and the load was like the third year, except that now ophthalmology and otolaryngology were added, and now he made his own decisions, now in surgery he sutured, in medicine he prescribed, the staff man signing the prescription.

“Now,” said the staff, “now you practice Medicine as you would in your own office!”

Now, amazingly, no patients died, not from malpractice, no stitches gave suddenly in the middle of the night, deep, internal stitches to bring the resident running, the operating room hastily crewed and lit; now in the challenge confidence was slowly born, nourished by repetition, made secure by example, and they were closer than before, the group was solid now, they smiled at each other easily, the end was in sight. They had done the impossible. They had done it together. They knew their worth now; they knew what they knew. And they knew best of all that flesh was not fragile but would endure many mistakes, yes, and perhaps, unaccountably, be the better for it. And that there was a force beyond that which they brought to the bedside—“Medicine is the application of physical forces to the alleviation of disease”—a force in the patient himself, something incredibly durable, something—you could only call it Life.

And that fought on your side, too.

Every time.

Almost every time.

And now there was more talk of specialties.

“I think GYN,” said Alfred. “But there’s pediatrics too—”

“People always pay for their kids,” another said sagely.

“What’s that old crap about Skin? Your patients never die, they never get well, and they never get you up at night—”

“I want OB!”

“You’re a chump! You’ll never sleep!”

“What are you going to do, Luke?” asked Alfred.

“GP,” said Lucas. And there was no doubt in his voice.


There was more time this year.

Saturday afternoons, while Kristina worked in the operating room, he could go to movies. Sometimes he could go out with her Friday evening. And there was all day Sunday. Now, there was always Sunday. Alfred was absent every other weekend, home with his parents or taking long trips to football games or parties.

And one weekend, Kristina working late, Lucas met Dorothy again, met her at the movies. And suddenly, looking at her, speaking to her awkwardly, he was surprised by a great hunger. It was a hunger to hear someone cry in passion as loudly as he cried, a hunger for fellowship in passion, and for confirmation in his maleness and his ardor.

“I’ve got a place by myself now,” Dorothy said. “Oh, but you wouldn’t know! Yup! I live all by myself now.”

And on the way there: If she asks me to come up I’ll say I have to meet Kristina, I’ll say I’ve got to be on duty, I’ll tell her frankly, Look, Dorothy, I like you and all that, but the fact is I haven’t been well, lately, I’ll say . . .

She struggled a little at first, pretended outrage. Then abruptly it began, she bit a pillow to keep from crying out, she cried out anyway. And then it was over.

He rose, dazed. He was empty. And into the emptiness guilt rushed, filled him, distended him, he could not wait to escape. He left her mumbling indignantly, crying out angrily to him as he stumbled down the stairs. He felt the night air on his face. He walked until he was tired.

When he reached home Kristina was there, waiting.

“Hello there,” he said awkwardly, wincing for the blow, sure she must read his day written on him.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she turned from the stove. “They held me up—a girl got sick—”

“It’s all right. I just took a walk.”

“That’s what I figure. I bet you’re hungry.”

“Maybe,” he said hesitantly, “maybe you’d like to go over and see Bruni tonight—I mean you and me?”

“Why, Luke!”

“Come on! We’ll eat and go. Bruni’s all right, when you come right down to it. And so’s Oley. I—I guess I just got tired of them . . .”

“They like you, Luke.”

“I know. What do you say? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

She came to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

“I got the best husband in the whole world!” she said solemnly.

“I stink!” he cried angrily.

“No, you don’t stink! You’re good! You belong to me!” He lowered his eyes. She gave him a push and went back to cooking.

He stood uncertainly in the doorway.

“I got you something today,” she said casually, squinting at a skillet.

“Good,” he said mechanically.

“It’s on the dresser . . .”

And he went obediently to the dresser. There was a package there, long and narrow, flat. He opened it idly. It lay bare. For a moment he looked at it almost without seeing it, his eyes seeing, his mind refusing to interpret. He put his fingers on its surface, slowly, against illusion. It was real. His fingers stroked it, shaking. His eyes filled.

It was a wooden sign. There were two hooks by which it might swing. On it, in regulation letters, it read,

Lucas Marsh, M.D.

★ CHAPTER 22

The sign stayed upon his dresser throughout his internship.

His existence now divided; like an amoeba his entity drew out, divided, became two, and he inhabited either demesne with the ease of use.

By day he was an intern. He was a student and he was treated as a student. “Doctor” was a word used to describe his status, a word to differentiate between student and the revered beings to whom had been entrusted Medicine’s full responsibility, it was a staff word, an adjective, a classification, an epithet of convenience. He was a supernurse, regarded by registered nurses with barely concealed contempt because he did not know how to give an enema, administer a ward, or care for the sick with practice and ease, reluctantly deferred to because of hospital protocol. And the doctor absent, he was the doctor, the young man left in charge, instructed, rigidly limited, chiefly a watchman, chiefly expected to surrender his charge no worse than it was given to him.

In this part of his divided existence the essence was never-ending indoctrination. He learned hourly. The hospital was a giant classroom. The books he had studied came to life. The humans were paragraphs or pages or whole chapters, made animate. He and his fellows could be taught methods of reasoning, but not reason. They could be furnished with examples of judgment, but not judgment. Their memories had been trained so that this function was now a prodigy.

It was about four months after his internship began that he learned about time. He learned that it was part of every prescription and the basic sum of any prognosis. Willy-nilly, time was dispensed while the physician stood by.

Time was an ally. Or, when it was measurable, it could be an antagonist, a limit, which, since it was beyond control, had to be opposed with what drugs, measures or knowledge could be summoned; in such a circumstance time was most significant.

Time was a function. Time was an essence. Time was a measured interval, a pulse record, a respiration chart, a sedimentation rate.

And then time was a medicine in itself, fighting usually on the patient’s side, another doctor, another nurse, a sort of lesser God.

And then one day time came to him as life itself, part of life, seen that way, all of life, seen another way, time as tenure, time as essence, time as the representation of being, time as the living, death as the dead.

He learned to fight for time. And one day, out of habit, fighting automatically for time, he began to fight for life. On that day life became immutably the one thing to fight for, to fight all out for and time became an assistant in that fight or occasionally an antagonist. The phase when success was a well-graded paper, success in curing a disease, success in carrying out that which had been taught him, that phase was ended. Now the only goal of life was Medicine and the only goal of Medicine was the fight for time, for life.

And in this new world centuries remote from the boy he had been, although he moved in a world of Medicine, moved among doctors, was called doctor himself, it was not complete. It was a time of waiting. He was not yet a doctor.

The remaining part of his existence was his home. It had acquired new power, and this had happened since the sign Lucas Marsh, M.D., first appeared on his bureau. Home was a place to dream, now home contained that sign. It was apparent to Kristina how much he valued it, when she touched it to dust it she lifted it self-consciously, handled it with conscious care. But she was unaware that around this symbol Lucas had built a cave and that this was for him the whole symbol of home. Home was an address where there was a room where the sign stood. Beside this sign he dreamed his dreams, hoped his hopes; he sat in the amphitheater of his own life, clutching the sign which was his ticket, dreaming his dreams of the game to come, waiting for the game to begin.

The fortunate in his class had obtained the internships they coveted. Their reasons for yearning for the hospitals of their choice were as varied as the men themselves and they were based upon the opinions fixed by talking among themselves or heard from their seniors. The majority sought appointments to large city hospitals, and for the most part they were indifferent to the city or its location.

One of the most authoritative at such senior sessions had been Brundage, one of the two nuggeteers who succeeded in graduating. He was listened to with respect for in his role as a nuggeteer he had time to gather information when others were studying and because it was tacitly agreed that anyone who could get through Medicine on his wits had proved the validity of his wits and was accordingly a person to heed.

“Everybody’s going to the cities,” he nodded sagely.

“Everybody’s been going to the city for twenty years,” said Avery, the class rebel.

“Yeah, but the stuff we’re taught today is so high-standard that you’ve got to have hospitals to practice it. And the cities are where the hospitals are.”

“It wouldn’t be the dough in it,” Avery deprecated.

“Sure, the dough’s there.”

“What’s the matter with money?” demanded Alfred.

“If you like money that much what’s the matter with banking?” asked Avery. “Although I suppose I shouldn’t ask you—a real poor fellow like you—”

“You’re all damned smart and full of holy crap when the word ‘money’ is mentioned. I’d just like to know one thing—where’s the money coming from to support this high grade of Medicine? Where are we going to get our high-standard equipment? How about the upkeep of those high standards? Who’s going to pay that little thing called the bill?”

“Why, we’re going to get a cushy practice, Al, like you.”

“Sure, we’re going to make the patient pay for what we buy, whether he needs it or not!”

“How do you know when he’ll need it? I’m not so sure Al’s wrong.”

“Every doctor his own hospital—”

“That’s right! We’re taught the finest! We deserve every gadget, every toy, everything we want! And the public’s got to pay for it—”

“I didn’t say that. I just want to know where you’re going to get the money from to run your office the way you’d want to after what you’ve been taught—”

“And anyway,” said Avery with finality, “the practice Al wants—well, so far as his patients’ pocketbooks are concerned they just won’t care!”

“Well, what of it? The rich get sick too, don’t they?”

“A man can do clinic work,” Lucas offered.

“Silent Sam! Look who’s come to!”

“Where you gonna practice, Luke?”

“Who said he’s gonna practice! Nothing so sordid as patients—or money—eh, Luke?”

“That’s the trouble with you guys,” said Brundage. “You start an intelligent discussion, first thing you know you’re arguing like a bunch of kids.”

“Will you for Christ’s sake listen to who’s talking,” said Avery, awed. “God help your patients, Brundage!”

“Oh, they’ll get by,” Brundage said imperturbably.

“What are you going to do—nugget them?”

“You want to listen to what I got—or do you want to play!”

The room fell silent.

“I got it cold. I got it taped—right from the source. And here it is—here’s your bread and butter! The national average is about 750 patients per doctor. In the South they got 900 to every doctor. In the West, 650. In the Northeast they got 700 and in the Central States they got 750.”

“All right,” said Avery after a moment, “break it down.”

“The South pays least. The best pay is the West. Next comes the East. That’s for towns of 2,500 or less.”

“What’s ‘South’ mean?”

“Where’s the North?”

Brundage consulted a notebook.

“ ‘South’ means all the South Atlantic, East-South-Central and West-South-Central States,” he recited. “And ‘East’ means New England, Middle Atlantic and East-North-Central. And ‘West’ means West-North-Central, Mountain and Pacific.”

He paused impressively.

“That’s for small towns. Remember this, men: the small town is out! It’s getting worse every year. You work in a small town—I don’t care where—and your average gross income is gonna be $6,500 tops—and it can go as low as $4,000. That’s gross.”

“That’s for fellows just beginning practice?” asked Alfred.

“I got it all subdivided. Wait—yeah! That’s for fellows just beginning—that’s for fellows in practice less than 13 years. The next group, 13 to 27 years in practice, they make the highest—at least a thousand a year more. The lowest group is the grandpappies, guys in practice more than 27 years. They make a thousand a year less than the beginners.”

“So how about cities?”

“So now we come to towns from 2,500 to 100,000. The South grosses $7,000, the West $8,000 and the East $6,800. But the big cities, the ones with over 100,000 population, every one of them except in the South they make less than the small towns! You know why?”

“Sure—everybody rushing off to practice in the big cities!”

“Exactly!”

“What’s the over-all average for the whole country—the net, now, not the gross?”

“Wait a minute—you got to take in specialists too—here it is!—$4,270.”

“That’s not bad,” one said soberly.

“And times are getting better all the time—”

“I got more! I even got the kind of calls!”

They leaned forward, admiring.

“By God, Brundage, where’d you get it all?”

“You just keep nuggeting me. I knew there’d be a time when I’d nugget back. You protect me, by God I’ve been protecting you! Got it all out of official statistics!” He looked around the room challengingly. There was no challenge. He flipped the pages of his notebook. He looked up.

“What kind of case you think you’ll get most?”

There was no answer. They looked at him expectantly.

“Go on—guess!”

“Heart—”

“No, female probably—”

“Accident—”

“You’re wrong. You’re all wrong.” He leaned forward impressively. “It’s minor respiratory!”

The room buzzed with interest.

“One-third of all your cases and one-fifth of all your calls—minor respiratory! Accidents are ten percent. Communicable diseases, ten percent. Say you make $4,500 a year, $1,500 is going to come from minor respiratory!”

“What about GYN—”

“Way down the list! Six percent! Including OB!”

“How about digestive—”

“Minor’s seven, major’s four—and you Skin guys: four and a half percent—and you Otos: two!”

“And those are facts, Brundage?” said Alfred.

Brundage thumped his notebook.

“Those, by God, are facts!”

“And there you are,” said Alfred. “Whether you like it or not, gentlemen, you’ll pay for your X-ray machines, you’ll pay for your equipment, you’ll function as doctors on the broad base of the cough and the common cold.”

“And we mustn’t forget,” said Avery quietly, “that, as Dr. Fletcher says, of 100 patients 80 would have gotten well without any medical assistance whatever—and of the remaining 20 the illness of 10 will be psychosomatic.”

“To hell with all that,” said Brundage. “At least now you know where your bread’s buttered.”


“Where you going, Al?” Lucas asked, troubled, when the gathering broke up.

“Me? Same place I always was—New York, the Cabot Hospital. Oldest, richest, most genteel in the city. The biggest city in the world.”

“You really mean it?” Lucas asked uncertainly.

“Of course I mean it! Why? Where you going?”

“I don’t know—wherever I can get in, I guess—”

“Why don’t you try for a big one? You’ve got the grades—”

“I don’t know—”

“What don’t you know? I’m not talking about money—I’m talking about internationally famous places—Boston, Maryland, Illinois—where you can learn something—where you can specialize—”

“I guess so,” said Lucas.

“You better be making up your mind. You’re going to need drag, for one thing. . . .”


“What’s the matter with you?” Kristina asked.

“Nothing,” he said automatically.

She looked at him uncertainly, then went on to the kitchen.

In a little while she returned.

“Something happened today?”

He looked at her irritably.

“What’s the matter?”

“You just sit there so quiet,” she said apologetically.

He jerked his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

“Maybe I could help.”

“It’s nothing for you.”

She stood a moment longer, watching him, hopeful he would say something else. He sat, thinking. She returned to the kitchen.

She came to him again. He had not moved.

She cleared her throat.

“Is it the microscope?” she asked timidly.

He sighed. He frowned up at her.

“What is it? What is it, Kristina?”

“It will only be a couple of months! Then—you’ll see!—we can maybe pick up a good one!”

“Oh, Kristina!”

“Used. Good as new. But right now—well, the bag, the emergency kit, the ophthalmoscope, the blood pressure, the stethoscope—you know yourself—cost one hundred eighteen dollars—”

“Oh, Kris! Go away, will you? Will you please go away?”

“Don’t be mad—”

“I’m not mad—”

“I can’t help it—”

“I know you can’t help it—”

“I only want to help you—”

“You can’t help me!” he shouted. “Will you understand that, Kris?”

“Maybe if you told me—”

“This is something you don’t know anything about.”

“I might know—”

“You don’t know. What you know you know well. This is completely outside your experience.”

“I only try to help.”

“Kris! Will you leave me alone? Will you?”

“You don’t live by yourself, you know, Luke. I live here too. I married you. I come home, I see you sitting there, I think maybe I can help. Why do you shut me out?”

“It’s just that—all right! All right, goddamn it! I’ll tell you!”

“Don’t be mad—”

“Will you for Christ’s sake let me tell you?”

“Just don’t be mad—”

“Well, shut up and listen, then.”

“I shut up.”

He rose and looked out the window.

“A group of the fellows was talking—”

“I don’t see you, all day—when you got night duty I don’t see you at all—weeks at a time—”

“Do you want to hear this, Kris? Or don’t you?”

“It’s only natural—it’s my own husband—we should talk together—sure, I don’t know so much as you—still—”

He sat down resignedly.

“All right, Kris. You have it your own way.”

“I heard you. When I get a chance to talk? Tell me? When I get a chance to tell you the home I want, where you going to practice, what plans we got for us? I heard you. A bunch of the fellas was talking—”

“Never mind—”

“No, no—”

“Forget it—”

“Please, Luke—I shut up—you was talking—”

“We were talking about Medicine . . .”

Kristina nodded sagely.

“Well, not about Medicine, exactly—about where to practice. And, and—how much income—”

“That’s good!”

“What’s good about it? That’s the whole point! This damned Brundage we nuggeted all through school, damned if he hasn’t got statistics somewhere to show exactly where to go and what to practice to make the most money—”

“That’s too bad,” Kristina said insincerely. “Still—”

“Still, hell! That’s all right for fellows like Alfred. He thinks that way automatically. But the rest of the fellows, by God they listened too! I tell you they listened damned seriously. They didn’t miss a word!”

“Maybe you practice in Minnesota, hey? You like Minnesota, once you see it! I gots lots of friends there—”

“Minnesota! I don’t even know where I’m going to intern yet! You ought to hear them! They’d got it all mapped out!”

“Why not, Luke?”

“Why not? Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying? Is Minnesota all you can think of?”

“It’s pretty cold in the winter. People there pretty healthy. I got to admit that.”

“Oh, goddamn it, Kristina, don’t you ever understand anything? Anything I try to tell you? You want me to talk to you, you want to know all my problems, I try to tell you—”

“I’m listening! I heard every word—”

“You don’t hear a goddamned thing—”

“Don’t shout, Luke—”

“I might as well be talking to a bedpost—”

“What are you so mad about? It’s only natural they should talk about how to make a living. When Bruni and Oley were married and Oley wanted to be a bookkeeper they asked lots of people—”

“Kris!”

“It’s only natural—”

“Kris! I said—Kris!”

“What did I do now?”

“Just shut up! Will you do that? Just shut up!”

“Maybe I don’t understand.”

“I’m talking about Medicine. Not bookkeeping! And what do you know about either! Why will I never learn! Why do I open my mouth, even! Go away, Kris! Leave me alone! Go out in the kitchen and do your dishes!”

“We haven’t even had supper yet—”

“Fine!”

“Where you going?”

“I’m going out.”

“But you haven’t eaten—”

“I’m not hungry—”

“Look, Luke—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to make you mad—”

“Just leave me alone, Kris—”

“A cup of coffee, only—”

“Will you leave me alone?”

“Let me go with you—”

“I don’t want you with me. I want to think. And if you lived a million years you’d never know what I’m thinking about. I know that, now. I guess I’ve always known it. You’re dumb, Kristina. You’re dumber than hell. How you ever got to be head operating-room nurse I’ll never know. You talk about being alone. How the hell do you think I like living alone?”

“I’m sorry, Luke. Maybe I try too hard. I’ll be quiet, now—I’ll listen—Luke! You coming back?”

“Oh, sure . . . Sure . . . I’ll be back . . .”

He was gone.

She waited at the open door. When she was sure he would not return she waited longer. Then she closed the door. She leaned against it a while. Bethinking herself she ran to the window to glimpse him. But he was gone, out of sight. She sighed. She went to the kitchen. She turned off the flame. She put the dinner dishes away. And when that was done, when her kitchen was ordered, she went methodically over the small rooms tidying them. Every so often she licked her lips nervously.

When there was at last no more to do she looked at the clock. It was past ten. She sat in the chair by the window where he had been sitting. She tried to imagine where he was. She went over their talk, trying to see what had angered him, what he had been brooding about, what he had tried to tell her. She shook her head at her obtuseness. Still puzzled, she let her thoughts slide to the house they would one day own, her linens, her silver, her dishes, the closet space, the kitchen. She looked up guiltily. It was nearly eleven. She rose, went to the bureau, took out all his socks, examined them minutely, put them carefully back. She inspected her face in the mirror. She frowned at a small blemish on her cheek. She squeezed it tentatively. She looked at it again. Her eyes fell to the sign, Lucas Marsh, M.D. She picked it up gingerly. She brushed it on her sleeve. She put it softly down. She stared at it a long moment. She went back to the chair. She sat down. She waited.


“You are always disturbed about something,” Dr. Aarons said. “One would think you had invented Medicine.”

“I’ve come to you for advice.”

“Yes, but what you want is reassurance. That’s what you really want. You want me to tell you they were wrong to discuss Medicine on such a basis. That the Medicine you idealize is the right Medicine, the true, the good. You’ve had a shock and you want me to tell you it isn’t so, it was just a bunch of foolish seniors—”

“I know what’s right and wrong.”

“I’m sure you do. You know as much as Aristotle, then, and more than Pontius Pilate. I didn’t know you had time to study more than Medicine.”

“I would like to know your opinion of where I should serve my internship.”

“Have you got a previously formed opinion you want me to confirm?”

“I haven’t got any opinion whatever.”

“Where do you want to practice?”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“Find out. Whatever state you want to practice in, look up the hospitals there. That’s your first step. Then select the hospital you think you’d be happiest at—and apply.”

Lucas hesitated.

“I don’t know what state I’d be happiest in.” He tried not to think of Brundage.

“A man usually establishes practice in some community where he is known. Unless he can buy a practice or is known to some doctor who will take him on as an assistant.”

“There are already three doctors in Milletta—”

“There won’t always be. Doctors, you will find, die as briskly as less sacred folk.”

“I’d prefer not to go back to Milletta.”

“Oh, yes! There’s the affair of your father . . .”

Lucas waited.

“I don’t know what state you’d rather practice in! How do you expect me to know that?”

“I wanted you to tell me what kind of a hospital I’d learn most at, have most opportunities to learn. That’s all I want.”

“Do you know what specialty you want?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t know whether you’ll practice a specialty, you don’t have any geographical preferences, you are nauseated by what we may call the yardstick of Brundage. It is very clear that what you want is a shrine, some great and famous Lourdes where you can worship, tended by priests world-known for their piety, their integrity, and their glory.” That is what I want, he told himself savagely, and that is what he must want too. God kill us both.

“I am sorry to have taken up your time—”

“No, no! Wait. If you know right from wrong you know I am speaking the truth. You are not looking for flesh and blood but for the representatives of flesh and blood. You want the wafer and not the sweating apostle. Well, there’s Johns Hopkins, and I don’t have to tell you who’s there. And there’s Rush and Massachusetts General and Adams and Cushing and Cleveland and Crile and Minnesota, and the Mayo brothers, and Presbyterian—”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ve provoked you in some way and I don’t know how and I’m sorry for it. But there’s no use going on. You’ve been my professor and you’ve been kind to me. I thought, knowing me, you could sum up my fitness and direct me to some place where I could extend what I know and remedy my weaknesses—some place you’d know where I’d fit—I wanted advice.”

“You want advice about a Medicine that doesn’t exist. I can’t grope through the maps of your dreamworld.”

“All I want to do is practice Medicine. I just want to know where to go so I can practice the best Medicine I know how, where I can learn the most of what I love the best.”

“Some place where Medicine is practiced for the sake of Medicine—”

“All right—”

“Where you can drink in vast draughts of it at the feet of the mighty—”

“All right. Put it that way.”

“And from whence you can sally forth to—oh, what’s the use! Medicine. . . ! You haven’t even met the human race, yet! You haven’t—I can’t begin! There’s no place to start. What does it matter where you intern? Go to Presbyterian! You’ve got everything there!”

“Thank you very much. I’m very grateful—”

Dr. Aarons waved wearily.

Lucas escaped.


“Unless you’re going to practice some specialty,” Dr. Fletcher said dubiously.

“I’m not. I’m sure I’m not. What I want is general practice.”

“Yes . . . Well—if you haven’t got your heart set anywhere—”

“No, sir!”

“You know, all over the country fine doctors-to-be are interning at small hospitals—”

Lucas relaxed, nodded gratefully.

“The mighty in Medicine are a passing lot. Yesterday’s great names, most of them, the names I wanted to study under, those are names you’ve never heard of.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you want to practice in a city?”

“I don’t think so. No, sir.”

“I’ll tell you something. There are still frontiers of Medicine. I don’t mean research. That’s only a field of Medicine. I mean areas where medical care is scanty. Areas where there aren’t any doctors at all. Areas where a man can practice all Medicine—”

“Away from specialists—”

“That’s right. We’re in an age of specialization. There’s not much doubt about that. From the patient’s point of view that’s either a blessing or a curse. When I was graduated a patient complaining of indigestion would go to a GP and be diagnosed and treated in two visits. Today, he gets a gastro-intestinal X-ray series, a chemical analysis of his gastric secretions, and probably a couple of gall-bladder series. And that’s money. And the more diagnostic tests, the more specialists are called in. And that’s more money. Do you know the greatest disease a man can have? The most frequent? The one you’ll be called on to treat most often?”

“Well sir, Brundage said respiratory tract made up thirty percent—”

“Well, it’s not. It’s not respiratory tract and it isn’t heart and it isn’t cancer. It’s poverty. That’s your enemy. That’s your disease. That’s your prime foe. Poverty. That’s where the stress is. That’s the enemy humanity’s battling against every conscious moment. That’s the stress that’s stacked against every cell. The pressure never lets up. And the weakest cells give. There’s your enemy—and you’ll run back and forth along the levee, shoring here, shoveling there, and you’ll never stop, from morning to night, you’ll never stop. And you’ll never do more than check—‘Take it easy,’ you’ll tell the patient. ‘Doc, I can’t take it easy. I got to work. My family’ll starve . . .’ ‘Well, then take this medicine . . .’ ‘Will it help, Doc?’ . . . ‘It won’t take the place of what you need—you’ve got to rest—you’ve got to take it easy . . .’ ‘Doc, a man’s got to live!’

“Or else: ‘What you need is an operation. Understand? . . .’ ‘And how long will I be in the hospital? . . .’ ‘About three weeks . . .’ ‘And—how much?’ ‘About three hundred ought to cover it—my fee, well you can owe me, we can arrange payments . . .’ ‘I can’t afford it, Doc . . .’ ‘But you’ve got to have it! . . . ‘I can’t—I can’t afford it.’ And you know it. You know now he or she can’t afford it. And there isn’t any medicine in the world to help him. Nothing but money. I tell you eighty percent of the sick today, eighty percent could be cured in sixty days with paper. Paper and metal. Money.

“And they’ll bring their kids in. And it’ll be a girl, maybe, with a harelip, strabismic, bowlegged, a girl needing plastic surgery. And you’ll know, looking at her, watching her trying to hide herself behind her mother, that someday that kid’s growing up to a twisted, maladjusted human. You know the stress from that. And you know that when it comes to earning a living, surviving, the handicap’s going to wring its terrible toll there also. And you will see her, if you put your mind to it, you’ll hear her in a doctor’s office thirty years later, twenty years later. ‘I’m sick,’ she’s saying, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ and the weakest organ, the weakest aggregate of cells has broken down. ‘You’ve got to have the kidney fixed, those lungs, that stomach, whatever. And most of all you need a plastic . . .’ ‘How much will it cost?’ ‘Well, it may run five hundred . . .’ ‘I can’t. I haven’t got the money . . .’ That’s what you’re going to see when you look at that ten-year-old kid.”

“I’m going into small-town practice. That’s where I’m going. I’ve made up my mind.”

“Intern where you want. Pick some place with big names. See if you can get in. You’ve got the grades.”

And within Lucas a warning knelled, it was the first warning. A name was only the man back of it. And the dream was better. It was better to worship from afar. Better—

“I wonder if it would be possible—I wonder if you’d say a word for me—”

“Yes? You’ve got some place picked out?”

“I wonder if I could intern here—”

“It’s as good as done.” He rose and extended his hand. “I think you’ve made a very sensible choice!”


“It’s the only thing for a chap like him,” Dr. Fletcher told Dr. Aarons.

“Even if he isn’t the chap he seems to be.”

“It sticks out all over him.”

“Well, it worked.”

“Yes, it worked. I feel as if I’d deliberately condemned him to poverty.”

“Well, don’t. It’s what he had to have. We just saved him five years finding out. And we got a doctor out of it.”

“Thanks to Brundage—”

“Thanks to Brundage.”

“They’re right, too, in their way. There’s nothing wrong with earning a living. Brundage aside, the rest have got their illusions—”

“That’s something I didn’t tell him. Poverty’s the sickness of doctors, too. . . .”


“You’re a fool to stick here,” Alfred said. “You’ve always been a fool. But this caps it.”

“I’ll be all right. How’s your appointment coming?”

“It’s all but fixed. I got a letter from Dad just yesterday. We’ve got Sturmdorff himself in our corner. I’m just waiting for the letter . . . It took some drag, I’ll tell you that . . .”

“God! It must have. Three vacancies!”

“It did. It took all we had.”

That afternoon, flushed with security, swollen with success, feeling this small place smaller, seeing it already from an eminence, Alfred quarrelled with Professor Dietrick, the pompous man, the cruel one,

“. . . due to pathological amyloid substances in venules of the kidney,” he concluded firmly.

“There are no such things as venules, there,” Professor Dietrick announced.

“Would you like to see a textbook on the subject?”

“How dare you!”

“Because I’ll be glad to read it to you.”

“Let it lay, let it lay,” Masters hissed, tugging at Alfred’s sleeve. Lucas listened open-mouthed, paralyzed.

“Your reading requires an interpreter, I see. I don’t know what Medicine you intend to practice but I should like to inform the rest of the class that the interpretations of this, ah, gentleman, will find short shrift in either oral or written examinations conducted by me.”

“We’ve all had to listen to you. And we’ve kept our mouths shut. You teach your own particular brand of Medicine. Which are we going to believe—you, or any textbook you can name? There are venules in the kidney. It states so plainly. It doesn’t even take a lecturer to know that! You want me to read it?”

The class was absolutely silent. Most kept their eyes down.

Professor Dietrick stared icily at Alfred. Then without a word he left the room.


The letter of appointment was not in the evening’s mail nor the next. A week passed. Alfred called his father. The next day brought the answer.

Alfred made his apology before the class.

Professor Dietrick listened in silence. At the end, he nodded his head slightly. Alfred sat down. Professor Dietrick proceeded with the lecture.

A week later the confirming letter arrived.


“But a pompous, ignorant ass like Dietrick—a nothing stuck away in a little jerkwater school!” raged Brundage.

Alfred sighed, smiled wryly.

“The long, long arm of Medicine,” said Avery. “A voice in the wilderness calls—the ranks close—Medicine, my boys—Medicine—!”

“I’ll tell you something,” Alfred said soberly. “He was right.”

“The side of the angels,” said Avery. “If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em!”

Alfred flushed.

“Lay off,” said Lucas.

“He doesn’t bother me,” Alfred said serenely.

But when Avery left, Lucas left with him.

“It’s a long arm, all right,” he said tentatively, after they had walked a while in silence.

“It’s Medicine, boy! It’s the old closed-corporation! The ranks close. The old guard stands firm. Even for a swine like Dietrick!”

“For you and me too!”

“Yes, even for you and me. Well, tell me, Luke! How do you like it?”

Lucas said nothing. He would have said, “It doesn’t have to be true, it’s just an interpretation.” And then they would have talked, dissected, restated, analyzed, talked, talked endlessly. And all the same, the feeling wouldn’t have gone. It would still be there. Still frowning. Not proven. He said nothing.


“I’m going to intern right here,” he told Kristina.

“Yes?” Kristina sparred.

“Right here!”

“You talk it over? You talk to the professors?”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I just ask you.”

“What have you got against here?”

“Nothing—”

“Then why did you ask me like that?”

“I didn’t ask you like anything. I just—”

“You just talk too goddamned much!”

“I’m sorry.”

“If you’ve got something to say—say it. If you haven’t, just keep your mouth shut.”

“What’s the matter, Luke? What’s the matter?”

“Oh, for Christ’s dear sake!”

“I’m your wife—”

“You don’t have to remind me—”

“I just wanted to know—I don’t know how to talk to you—I didn’t mean anything—”

“You never do!” And he stalked angrily out, hunted in vain for Avery, walked to the park, sat there, brooding.

When he got home the room was in darkness. He stumbled over an object in the middle of the floor. He turned on the lights. Kristina was in bed, her back to him, her head partly covered.

Shamming, he decided.

He bent angrily to pick up the object over which he had stumbled. The light revealed a sizable package. He lifted it. Something rattled inside. It was quite heavy. He stripped away the wrapping paper. He uncovered a mahogany box. His breath came faster. He opened the gleaming box. Gently, slowly, he drew out the microscope, new, glorious with three stages, complex and beautiful, with an adjustable field, three eyepieces, a thirty power.

He gazed at it. His eyes filled.

“Kris,” he breathed.

There was no answer.

He turned. He walked to the bed. He sat down and shook her shoulder, gently.

“Kris—”

She turned hesitantly. She had not been sleeping.

“Oh, Kris!” And he threw his arms about her, hugging her, kissing her—

“What you want?”

“Oh, Kris—”

“Zeiss, like you said?”

“Kris, darling—”

“Is a good one!”

“I’m sorry, darling. I’m so sorry. I’m so ashamed. I talk to you like you were a dog, or something. And then you do something like that . . .”

“You got lots of strain. I know. It’s hard for you, too. You’re a good man, Lucas. I don’t worry. I know it’s hard—”

“And all the time I was talking to you like that it was right here—why didn’t you stop me—oh, Kris—Kris—”

“I borrowed on my salary—”

“Oh, no! You’re my girl, Kris! You’re my girl!”

“You need a light. A light I couldn’t get—”

“Never mind—what’s a light!”

“Next month, maybe—”

But his mouth stopped hers, he cradled her, her lips warmed, in a moment he stripped the covers back, he drew her to him.

“It’s been so long,” she sighed.

Then he stopped her mouth again. The room was alive with them. They were heavy with hunger.


He began his internship a month later.

Avery was one of the few members of his class who stayed on and Lucas gravitated to him.

“Sometimes,” he said one day, “it sounds like you were almost sorry you ever started Medicine. Sorry to be in it!”

They were waiting to make rounds.

“I talk a lot, don’t I.”

“The same thing, over and over.”

“I wonder if you ever hear me?”

“I see the same things you do—”

“No, you don’t. You see and you hear. But you—”

“I wince at the same things you wince at—Brundage—all the rest—”

“No, it’s just the behavior you see. And that’s what you wince at. To you they’re just naughty boys, profaning solemn moments. So far as you’re concerned they’ll come around in time and be part of the greatness, decorous, dedicated, and unearthly. To you any other eventuality is incomprehensible. You’ve never even thought of it, have you?”

“Why does it always come back to me? What have I got to do with it?”

“What you don’t seem to realize is that they are exactly what they are, they’ll never be any different. That’s all the concept they have. They’re Medicine as it really is. They’re ninety percent of all doctors.”

“You know you don’t really think that way. No one goes into Medicine unless he really wants to—”

“They’re merchants of service. They have a service to sell. They’ve learned how to take care of people. They’re licensed. For a fee they’ll help people who never learned how to help themselves. They’ve paid their money and their time to learn all there is to know of the human body and the medicines for it. They’ll sell that knowledge at a price. So many dollars per problem.”

“You’re talking about Brundage now. Brundage and the few fellows like him—”

“And do you know what holds us together? Our union? It’s fear and ignorance. To the average human his body is a great and a sacred mystery. And the man who knows the riddle of the mystery is a god. That’s what we are—gods. And the thing that holds us together as a group is our realization of this. We know how the public feels about us. And we know what we don’t know. We know a lot. But we don’t know the simple, basic things. We’ve got a rough idea but we still don’t know positively where blood is manufactured. We don’t know how the kidney secretes urine. We don’t know why we wake up. We don’t know why we sleep. We don’t know why the heart beats. We don’t know what triggers cells to regenerate. What we don’t know about a cell itself, the very basis of life, would fill more volumes than all the theories we’ve ever studied. We don’t know why a woman menstruates. We don’t know how the fertilized ovum crosses the space between ovary and tube. We don’t know why a child is born—what triggers birth—what shock is—”

“We don’t know anything, do we?”

“Oh, yes! We know a hell of a lot more than the people who pay us to take care of them! That we do! We know eight medicines—eight specifics out of all the tens of thousands known to man—which medicines will specifically cure the disease for which they are administered. Eight—and only eight! We can set bones. Mechanically, we get better all the time.”

“Why blame Medicine? It’s not our fault that laymen think of us as witch doctors!”

“Because we trade on it! And you know goddamned well we trade on it!”

“You’re thinking of Brundage, again—”

“Thinking of Brundage? My God Almighty! What happens when any of us makes a mistake? We’re a solid front! Nobody can make a mistake in Medicine, don’t you know that? Who the hell can testify but another doctor? And who’s going to testify for him when he makes a mistake? What do you think those lines mean on your diploma—‘privileges and immunities’! What do you think immunity means! The right not to be prosecuted when a patient dies! That’s what it means! The right to get away with murder. Do you think privileges means only the right to park overtime because you’re tending to a patient?”

“And just exactly how would you practice Medicine if the law were a gun aimed at your head while you cut or dosed? How would you like to be McDowell doing the first ovariotomy without anesthetic and without antiseptic while a mob howled outside waiting to lynch you if the patient died?”

“He was quite a guy, wasn’t he!”

“You’re damned right he was! And that woman would have died if he hadn’t had the guts to go ahead!”

“I know it. The best of us have guts. That’s true. The best of us are unselfish, dedicated, kind of. The best of us know what we know, all the worst of it, and go ahead, anyway. But there aren’t many. And the thing that gets me is the closed-corporation business. The way humans look at us. And the way we trade on it. Not the fact that they think we’re reverend witch doctors. That’s terrible enough. But the way we encourage them to think that way. The tacit knowledge, when we look at each other over a patient, of what we don’t know—the trusting ignorance of the poor slob—”

“It’s time to go look at the poor slobs.”

“Goddamn it! I guess it is!”

“You’re all right, Avery. I know that—”

“I still haven’t touched you, have I!”

“Sure! I understand what you mean—”

“But you think it’ll all pass, don’t you! It’ll all smooth out. Because the Lord our God is one God. And it’ll all come out in the wash. And all I’ve said is just stuff on the surface—a nice guy talking a little wild—good old Avery—”

Lucas shrugged and smiled. They walked down the corridor to the first ward.

“Here they are!” Avery said in a low voice. Lucas smiled absently. His eyes lighted in anticipation. “You know what they are, don’t you, Luke? They’re not human beings. To you they’re just one of the materials of Medicine.”

The smile faded from Lucas’ eyes. He looked at Avery uncertainly, startled.

“Just reagents, boy,” Avery smiled happily. “Let’s see how they’ve reacted. . . .”


In the first ward they went from bed to bed, checking charts, checking dressings. As when he had first entered a ward Lucas was aware of the eyes of the patients, watching him. Avery’s last remark had done this, Lucas discovered resentfully. The flesh beneath the dressings now belonged to people, the dressings were on people and not on wounds, and the detachment of procedure vanished. There was in the ward room a sense of waiting, the room was furnished with it, it canopied each bed with an aura evident as the bed itself.

Lucas, familiar with the injury, was surprised to see that the fracture case in the first bed was quite young. He had treated him, he had seen him on rounds for more than a week. He looked at the chart. They were almost the same age.

“How’m I doing, Doc?”

“You’re doing fine,” Lucas smiled automatically.

“Harness bothering you?” asked Avery.

“My foot goes to sleep. Hung up that way—it kinda goes to sleep—”

“Well, well, let’s take a look—”

Avoiding Avery’s eyes Lucas checked the suspending harness gravely, made an infinite minor adjustment, frowning, then stepped back.

“You’ll be all right now,” he said cheerily.

“Thanks, Doc. I’ll be out of here soon?”

“Absolutely.”

“In a week?”

“We’ll see . . .”

They passed on to the next bed.

“ ‘I dressed the wound and God healed him,’ ” Avery said, expressionless.

Lucas flushed. At the next bed he stood back, deliberately.

“Well,” said Avery going forward, “and how are we, today?”

“I don’t know how you are, but I’m in pain!”

“Gas troubling you?”

“You’re goddamned right it’s troubling me! Or whatever it is!”

There was hate and fear in the man’s eyes. Clarence Jones, aged thirty-nine, mechanic, appendectomy, third day. No fever, pulse, respiration normal, medication delivered, no bowel movement.

“Let’s have a look!” Avery’s voice was cold, his features set. “Miss Berkley—” The nurse pushed the dressing tray close.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” the man yelled suddenly.

“It’s not necessary to yell—” Avery straightened.

“It isn’t hurting you!”

“Nor use profanity!”

“You just take it easy!”

The three tending him settled into a chilly silence.

“Ow!”

“It’s all over, now—”

“God damn it!”

“I’m going to have to ask you again, Mr. Jones—”

“If I was rich you wouldn’t be yanking me like that!”

“Now, that’s hardly the attitude for a sick man we’ve just done our best to help—”

“I got gas pain enough without you monkeying where I was cut—”

Avery wrote “prostigmine” on the chart. The nurse deftly filled a syringe, Avery bared the man’s thigh, slipped the needle home.

“You’ll feel better now,” he said coldly.

The ward listened, watched, waited.

“By God, I’d better!”

Avery nodded. They walked to the next bed.

“ ‘The physician is practitioner as well as scientist,’ ” Lucas murmured “ ‘A bedside manner is the way doctors handle their patients as personalities and has an important effect on the functioning of their physiological systems.’ ”

“Snotty bastard!”

Lucas looked at him blandly.

“Give you much trouble, Miss Berkley?”

“I don’t know what got into him, Dr. Avery—”

There was an old man in the next bed. He looked up at them placative, apologetic.

“How are we doing today, Mr. Barnes?”

“Oh, fine, never better, Doctor. You fellas are whizzes—”

The kidney basin beneath the covers was partly full of pus. A length of rubber catheter meandered through a maze of tape and safety pins to a hole in the abdomen over the bladder.

Lucas picked up the chart. It was the same as it had been yesterday, the same as it had been a month ago.

“You’re doing fine, Mr. Barnes—”

“I’m sure grateful. I sure am.” He lifted his head, glanced fearfully at the next bed. “Fellas like that shouldn’t ought to be allowed in a hospital!” he wheezed vehemently. “The way he talked to you fellas! Doctors and all! Swearing right out in front of a nurse!”

“Don’t you worry about those things!” Lucas smiled cheerily. “You just take care of yourself.” He nodded. They walked to the next bed.

People were the noises they made. People were faces and expressions on them. People were personalities but the personalities were ailments too. There was no norm. There was just an arbitrary line, marks on paper. People were their illnesses, their adjustments to living, to illness.

The sixth bed was interesting. It was Thomas Bretton, truck driver, thirty-four, colored, accident, observation. Miss Berkley looked at them significantly as she drew back the sheet.

“Well, well,” said Avery. “What have we here?” He smiled reassuringly at Thomas Bretton, colored.

“Probably Dr. Swander will want to look at this,” Lucas nodded brightly.

Miss Berkley left immediately to call the resident.

Thomas Bretton, colored, had a ruptured bladder. The urine which normally filled it had emptied under the skin and now swelled in a long blister eight inches down the inside of his left thigh.

“Give you much trouble?” Lucas smiled noncommittally, making conversation until Dr. Swander arrived.

“Don’t feel a thing,” the Negro answered apprehensively. “What’s wrong?”

“What Dr. Marsh means is, do you have much pain from your accident?” Avery cut in.

“Pain? Sure I got pain! I got plenty pain! I can’t piss, for one thing—”

“We’ll take care of your urination problems—”

“Sure funny when a man can’t piss—”

Dr. Swander arrived at the bedside, close behind him Miss Berkley.

“Well, well! What have we got here?”

“Patient complains of difficulty urinating.” Lucas pressed the sac of urine. The patient raised his head to look. “Now, now,” said Miss Berkley, “you lie back, now. This doesn’t concern you—”

The three looked at each other swiftly. This man has a ruptured bladder, said Dr. Swander’s look. I know, said Avery’s look. I concur, said Lucas’ look.

“Aspirating needle,” said Dr. Swander, straightening. Miss Berkley departed.

“Hit him right head on, did you?” Lucas asked, to cover the waiting.

“God, man! He hit me! Right on the corner of Currant and Oxford—I was comin’ round the corner and—”

“I don’t know what gets into people driving these days,” Avery commiserated.

“Seems like everybody’s got a car,” Dr. Swander complained.

“Good times like these people driving ain’t no business driving, man gets a hundred dollars first thing he got to have a car—ain’t nothin’ wrong with me, is there, Doc? Nothin’ serious, I ain’t hurt bad’m I, Doc, it’s all right, ain’t it—?”

“Now, now—” said Dr. Swander. Miss Berkley handed him the aspirating syringe, he turned his body to hide it.

“You’ll be right as rain in no time!” Lucas said cheerily.

The patient glimpsed the long needle and rose upright.

“Whatcha gonna do! Man, you ain’t gonna stick that thing into me? Doc, you wouldn’t do that—?”

“Lie down!” ordered Dr. Swander.

Avery, who was nearest, helped Miss Berkley force his shoulders back to the pillow. “For God’s sake, Doc!” Then he screamed.

The sac was empty, at last, a catheter inserted, a basin to catch the flow. They moved on to the next bed. Midway they stopped.

“Schedule him tomorrow,” Dr. Swander ordered. “Keep him quiet.” He walked on. Thomas Bretton, colored, next day would be opened, his torn bladder repaired. They considered whether to go and watch. They walked on to the next bed.


“You figuring to practice around here?” Lucas asked, as they slumped in the dressing room, rounds over.

“I don’t know. I don’t know whether I’ll practice at all.”

“What?” Lucas sat upright.

“I mean it.”

“You mean just stick here? Stay at the hospital?”

“Maybe. Here or someplace else. Maybe I’ll even—teach . . .”

“Oh, no!”

“Why not?”

“Nothing, I guess. I mean there’s nothing wrong with it. I guess—I guess I was just surprised.”

“Oh, if you want money—sure! A fellow that starts practice today is lucky. His practice is all made for him. Everybody’s rich—everybody’s rolling in money—there’s a fortune to be made—a doctor I know put four thousand into stock a year ago and he’s worth over a hundred thousand today—”

“It’s not that, altogether. All I meant was, if that’s what was worrying you—”

“You practice for me. Where you going to set up shop?”

“I don’t know, yet. Some small place. But Avery—”

“Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry, I haven’t made up my mind yet . . .”

But both knew he had.

And Lucas, walking home, was sad.

“He’ll probably end up a teacher,” he told Kristina.

“Too bad for his wife.” Kristina shook her head, commiserating.

“His wife! Doesn’t it occur to you he’s doing what he wants to do?”

“How does he know? Young fella like that?”

“Christ, Kristina! How does anybody know? But you can’t judge everything on the basis of how it’s going to turn out for his wife!”

“Got to have teachers. Sure. Got to have them. Only when I think what the poor woman’s got to go through—”

“He isn’t even married yet!”

“Don’t get mad—”

“I’m not mad! But just once I’d like to discuss even the least, the most trivial thing with you—”

“You think like a fella thinks. That’s all. A woman thinks like a woman.”

“She thinks! She thinks with her uterus!”

“Maybe—maybe that’s the way things are—she thinks different—that don’t make her wrong, Luke—somebody’s got to think of such things—”

But Lucas was no longer listening. He walked to the bureau and picked up a letter there.

“When’d this come?”

“It was already here.” She walked from the room carefully. The letter was from Job. It was postmarked Chillicothe.

“He hasn’t moved, then,” Lucas said sourly. He tore off the envelope and read warily.

Dear son,

Hope this finds you well and everything going all right and studying hard etc. Well, I must say things turned out on schedule as it was easy to see this place was a gold mine if worked right and the former owner I tried to tell him but he wouldn’t listen to what he had. Anyway I am all set, now, as you can see

Lucas glanced swiftly at the letterhead. “Job Marsh,” it read, “Finest Harness, Repairs.”

and the fact is this is better than Milletta, Tyre, and all the rest no matter what would have happened. Maybe your mother was right when she used to say everything happened for a reason because if those fellows hadn’t been so greedy would never have come here and never have known. Have my eye on a place just about to go out of business, can be picked up for a song, couple of places, matter of fact, all run like this fellow used to run this one which I’m glad to say I now own, lock, stock, and barrel as the saying goes and things have just begun. Hope you are all right as things are fine here but money is tight at present although just temporary because of expansion making funds tied up to some extent, but if you should need anything let me know and maybe I can do something although not convenient right now.

Write when you get the chance.

And his sprawling signature followed with a flourish.

Beneath,

P.S. Doctors ought to be making a mint these days, what with wages out of sight, etc., we’re off to the races as the saying goes, so if you want a chance to double and triple your money I’ll be glad to cut you in for a slice, or if you know any rich doctor friends would like an investment guaranteed to triple in a year would appreciate letting me know.

He sat with the letter in his lap. Kristina returned. She ignored the letter elaborately.

“You want to eat?” she asked gently.

“Come on! I’ll take you out—”

“I got it all fixed—”

“I want to go out.” He rose. She took her apron off. “He’s done it again. He’s got another shop! God knows how he swindled the poor chump—but he’s got it. Went to work for him and took the shop away! He’s off again!”

“He’s all right?”

“Him? He’s made of the leather he sells! You couldn’t kill him with dynamite.”

“He’s started business again—”

“Yes, by God, he has! I got to give him that!”

“He’ll be all right. Nowadays everybody makes money. Even Oley. You couldn’t lose money if you tried.”

“I’m just tickled to death he didn’t ask me to send him some!”

“Lucas! Your father—!”

“The son-of-a-bitch! And I wrote him we were married. And he didn’t say a word about it. Not even God bless you. Come on! Come on, Kris! Let’s get out of here!”


Out of it,

Out!

Out of the room where he’d opened the letter.

And the letter was dead now, paper, the true memento, a link with the room, not what it was at all, but paper, and he tore it as he walked, ripped it and tore it, mazing the shame into meaningless shredded words, good to no one, unconnected, and dropped them little by little into the gutter.

“Maybe he meant to. Maybe he thought he did,” Kristina said when the last of the paper had fluttered from his hand, when they had walked a while in silence.

“The hell with him.”

“It’s your father, that’s all,” she said deprecatively.

“Even your folks wrote us—corny cards, sure—but something, at least!”

There was nothing she could say. And looking covertly at his face, stormy and disillusioned and hurt, his eyes rolling as if he were looking for a stick to bite at, she knew it was a time to be very carefully silent.

His own father, she thought, it’s not right. He could have written, at least. I’m his daughter, now. That’s not right. And she tried to understand what kind of people these were, the mother and father who had raised her man, they were foreigners, speaking another language, having different aims, thinking different thoughts. They were outside her experience. Her heart ached suddenly for Lucas, for the shame he must be feeling. For the twilit loneliness his vague youth must have been. But one thing was clear, her duty was clear, it was not a pleasant duty, nor, as far as she could see, even fair, but it was her duty not to let Lucas hate his father, and somehow, somehow gently, to prevent his speaking disparagingly of him. It was tribal duty which one did not analyze, an instinct and an obligation.

“Everybody’s different, Luke. Everybody shows their love a different way,” she murmured at last.

He looked at her, hurt and astonished.

“Whose side are you on?”

“I’m on your side, Luke! It wasn’t the right thing to do! I don’t say it was! You got a right to be mad! Only—it’s your father.”

“Father, mother, what are you trying to do—sanctify them? Those are words, not people. They’re not sacred and they haven’t haloes and they’re just the people you see all around you. They’re biological partners and they do it to each other because they like to do it and a child comes of it, and they don’t even know which time they did it makes the child and then they raise the child because the community requires them to and they’d be arrested if they didn’t, and maybe they even like children. That’s what a father and mother is!”

“Oh, Luke!”

“ ‘Oh, Luke!’ You going to tell me about love? How sacred and unvarying is the love of a parent for a child? How about that six-year-old in Ward J—with a fractured skull and a broken right humerus where its loving father beat it with a poker—for nothing?”

“He was drunk, Luke! He was an animal—”

“All right, how about the little girl with the burnt hands her mother held on the hot stove—she’ll lose one hand, you know—how about the dozen that come in every month, the thousands who don’t use a poker or a hot stove and cripple them for life just the same, the tens of thousands we never see—”

“Not all parents are good parents—”

“You’re damned right they’re not—and none of them are holy or sacred because they took care of a helpless young thing and did what they were expected to do!”

“There’s a lot of parents, Luke, you don’t know anything about, men and women who sacrifice, who go without, just to make a kid happy, parents like mine who worried all the time about raising me right, did without lots of times—”

“They did it because they wanted to. It made them happy.

“Parents have died for their children—”

“Two years ago there was a flood—and mothers were throwing their own kids in so there’d be room for themselves, in the boats—”

“I know, Luke . . . You got to try to see the whole picture . . .”

“I don’t think you’ve heard a word I’ve said!”

“I have. I know. I know what’s going through your mind. I know. Wherever you look you’re going to see something to prove your point. Wherever I look I’m going to see something to prove mine. And when I see it, I’ll be happy. And when you see—what you see—how about you?”

He looked at her sharply, surprised.

“At least I won’t be disappointed, I won’t have the rug pulled from under me . . .”

And there was another thing. Papa’s getting pretty old, she thought. She thought of it often, nowadays. I should be back there, somebody’s going to have to take care of him, tend the house. If I could just get Luke to go to Minnesota, if we could live nearby, if I could drop in every day . . . If I could say it right . . . If I knew how . . . So he wouldn’t be mad . . .

“What are you thinking about?” Lucas asked irritably.

“I was thinking about Minnesota,” she said a little desperately, seeing his lips tighten.

“We’ve gone all over that—”

“I was thinking about my father—”

“Well? What about him?”

“He’s getting old, Luke—Somebody’s got to look out for him.”

“You’ve got folks! You’ve got aunts and uncles! He’s got brothers and sisters!”

But I’m his daughter! she wanted to say. I’m the one! You don’t understand! And she knew he did not understand and that there was no use at all, no use floundering further, going deeper, more helplessly, more hopelessly into the morass of individual experiences. Maybe there would be a time, maybe he would mellow, maybe she could work on him, maybe he would soften, maybe there would be a time . . . later . . . soon . . .

“I guess so,” she said quietly.

“They’re bound to look out for him . . . Look, Kris! I won’t go to Minnesota, understand? Now get that clear! Get it straight! Because I’m not going! Ever!”

“I didn’t say anything about Minnesota. Did I? You don’t have to get all excited. I don’t know what’s so terrible about Minnesota. You’ve never even been there. You’ve got a down on it. You must have heard something—”

“Kris!”

His face was whitening with anger, in his eyes, behind the rage, there was the faint look of pain and betrayal, she saw this with fear, then a pang of loneliness, of protest, then the embarrassment of love.

“No more!” she cried. “I stop! Come on, Luke. We eat . . .”

They found a workingman’s diner. They sat in a booth.

“Ham hocks and lima beans,” he read the soiled menu. “That’s for me!”

She looked automatically at the price. She read the top item.

“Why don’t you try the steak, Luke?” The steak cost much more.

“No, no.” For he had seen the price too.

“A good piece of meat will make you feel better—”

“I like it! I like ham hocks and lima beans!”

“I think I have the omelet—”

“Why don’t you have the steak!”

“I’m not hungry. Not for steak—”

“The stew, then?”

“Ah, no! You never know what they put in a stew! I take the omelet.” The omelet cost less than ham hocks.

She picked up her empty glass and looked intently at it. She picked up a fork, squinted at it, began to rub it with a napkin. From the corner of his eye he could see the waiter approaching.

“What’s the matter, Kris? Quit it!” he said urgently, his voice low.

“These places—they never wash anything clean—”

The waiter stood beside their table. Lucas looked up at him, hoping to catch his eyes, to divert it from Kris, smiling friendlily to hide his embarrassment, to mollify the waiter.

“I’m going to have the ham hocks!” he said loudly.

And when the waiter had taken their orders and gone on,

“What did I do!” Kris was confused.

“For Christ’s sake! When you go to a restaurant do you have to pick up everything on the table and inspect it? How do you think they feel when they see you do that!”

“I don’t want to eat with a dirty fork—”

“Well, look at it. Just glance at it. If it’s not clean—tell him so—quietly.”

Her face reddened.

“I’m sorry.”

“For Christ’s sake, Kris!” He was angry now for having to tell her, for pitying her because he had embarrassed her, because she had embarrassed him, because the waiter might have been—

“I heard a TL about you today,” she forestalled the remainder of the outburst, made a smile. “Something upstairs.”

“What?” he asked, still frowning.

“Something nice. Something one of the surgeons said—Dr. Lawrence. You know Dr. Lawrence?” She smiled at him significantly. Dr. Lawrence’s least words were not heard lightly.

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“Yes, he does. Oh, yes.”

“I’ve never said two words to him,” he said hopefully.

“Oh, yes! But he knows you, all the same. He said to Dr. Turner he’d rather have you as first assistant than anybody at the hospital!”

“No! No fooling, Kris?”

“That’s what he said. Resident and all.”

“No kidding!”

“Well, why not? It’s true. They know who’s good, Luke. I see them all. And I tell you this, there isn’t one can hold a candle to you! No, sir! When you’re good, I got to tell you! And Dr. Turner said you better be careful that’s his wife right there, and he looked around, and Dr. Turner said, ‘Kris! You know Kris!’ And his mouth opened, and then he remembered and he said, ‘That’s right! By God, I forgot! How are you, Kris? How’s marriage?’ And I said, ‘I’ll tell him, it’ll make him feel good you bet to hear Dr. Lawrence said that,’ and he said, ‘You tell him, Kris, he deserves it, just don’t give him a swelled head—’ ”

“How did he happen to say it? Which one was it—”

“It was a hernia. A repeat. Gordon botched it. One of Gordon’s jobs—”

“He just had hard luck,” Lucas said automatically.

And Kristina, about to contradict, knowing she was right, recalled herself in time, remembering her man.

“You think we don’t know—we nurses?—me, who’s seen so many—”

“You ought to—if anybody does—”

“I know, all right. I’m not only head operating-room nurse. Once, I was ward nurse and took care of them after they’d been operated on. I know. Believe me.”

“That’s the truth. What you know you really know, Kris. You work like clockwork.”

She flushed.

“Sure! Just last week a doctor came in—I’m not saying who—he’s a big man—he’s no fool—abscessed appendix. All right. First thing he makes a big, long incision—”

“He had to because—”

“Sure. I know. He wants to make it long enough so he can pack around with gauze to keep the pus from getting on the peritoneum!”

“That’s right.”

“Then he blunt-dissects a big mass of blackish, swollen omentum, here and there spotted with lymph fluid. So what does he do? ‘Looks gangrenous,’ he says. And he cuts it out.”

Lucas frowned, thinking.

“Maybe it was gangrenous . . .”

“It was protection. It was swollen with what it was working on, because it was working. What he cut out was full, loaded with protective material. Not only that—he spent time taking it out. More shock for the patient. And naturally where he cut left a long, raw surface—just asking for post-op bowel adhesions. Then he took out the abscess and the appendix. And then he inverted the stump of the appendix—”

“But you’re supposed to—”

“I don’t know, Luke,” she leaned back, reflecting. “I don’t know . . . Where you sew, there—”

“The caecum—”

“Yes—it’s pretty frail—it’s swollen—the stitches are almost certain to tear out if the caecum balloons and then the least you get is a secondary abscess—”

“But, Kris! You’re all wrong! Everybody does it that way,” he said mechanically, thinking hard meanwhile, seeing a grain of wisdom, hearing the faint tone of truth, remembering precedent at last. “You ever see anybody do it any other way?”

“Few fellers,” she remembered. “They just tied it off. Didn’t invert it. Never had any trouble. But anyway! Next he cleans out the abscess cavity, rubbing and swashing around—this, that, the other. And finally he doesn’t suture all the muscle planes separately. Just asking for a hernia!”

“Who was it?”

“No, I won’t tell you. Fellow from out of state,” she lied. “But there—aseptically everything okay! Operating style—beautiful!”

“And what happened?”

“I don’t know,” she lied again. The patient had died a week later, it had been the whole point, having reached that point she knew that telling him would only hurt him.

“Probably got along all right,” Lucas frowned. “But you fellows really watch, don’t you?”

“We don’t miss much.”

And you understand what you’re seeing, too, he thought. By God, Kris, I didn’t know that about you. I really didn’t. My God, how many operations have you seen! And we just take you for granted. You’re a hand. That’s always there with an instrument. He looked at her, analyzing, thinking on a new plane, with new ingredients. You’ve been a nurse. That’s all you’ve ever been. That’s what you know and that’s all the detail of life you know. Except when you were a girl. You learned how to keep house. You never learned to handle a knife and fork, you don’t know how to dress, your voice gets too loud, in everything else you’re rudimentary. But you sure know nursing. And when you see something—nobody’s fooling you! But there’s a touch of treason in what you say. I’ve got to set you right, there . . .

“An omentum will fool you,” he said gently. “Fool the best of us.”

“If you’d seen it—”

“You may have a point about the damage, though.” She was right and he knew she was right. “About the appendicial stump—”

“What do you think, Luke?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Stands to reason.”

“I’d like to try it, sometime . . .”

“Hey! Look at me! I keep on talking! Eat, Luke! Eat your dinner!”

“Yes . . . So Lawrence said that . . .”

“They all say it! They know all about you! You ought to hear them . . . Steady . . . Smart as a whip . . . Good man . . . Damned good man . . . Ought to go far . . . And their faces say even more! Eat, Luke! Eat!”

He bent to his food, absent-mindedly. He looked up, surprised.

“Say! This is good!”

Quickly she took a forkful from his plate. He looked around to make sure no one had seen her. She tasted the food and looked at him, expressionless.

“You like that?”

“It’s wonderful!”

She tried what was left on her fork again, to make sure. It was bad. It was tasteless, the texture was stringy, it was bad.

“It’s terrific!” he said, trying more.

He doesn’t know good food from bad, she sighed. All this time I’ve been making him the best I know, I’m a good cook, making fine food out of twenty cents, and all this time it hasn’t meant anything to him.

“What did he do about the transversus abdominis?” he asked suddenly.

“About what? Oh, about the—I didn’t see that, I had to turn away for something and—”

“Kris!”

“No, I just had my head turned.” She spoke rapidly. “Sometimes I’ll make you ham hocks and lima beans! When I make them—!”

“Kris!”

“What is it?” She smiled brightly, defensively.

“You don’t know the transversus abdominis?”

“Sure—”

“You don’t, Kris! You haven’t got the least idea! With all you know!”

“But Luke! It’s so many years ago—”

“By God! And for a minute—”

“It’s years, Luke! When I was a student! You forget, Luke. My goodness, the anesthesiologist stands just three feet from me—I can’t give anesthetic. Sure! I know how! I could make out! But you only remember what you have to. I’ve got my four or five girls, I’ve got to see that every doctor has laid out for him what he wants—one wants this instrument, the other something different—all for the same operation, I got to know what each one wants, remember it. Some like to have an instrument slapped hard in their hand. Some curse at you unless you just hand it to them, gentle. Some like to tell you, some like never to say a word. You have to have spare trays in case of accident, you got to be sure there’s plenty of dressings, that the autoclave’s right, enough gloves, the right sizes, check every suture, check every needle—my God, Luke!”

“But the transversus abdominis—!”

“And Luke, how many doctors you think can name the nerves of the leg? Anatomy of the liver? Do you think Lawrence himself can do it as well as a first-year, a second-year student? New equipment, new methods, new operations—it’s all I can do to keep up with operating-room technique!”

He shook his head.

“I guess it’s possible,” he conceded. He thought a moment longer. “You’re probably right. But this—God, Kris! Don’t ever let anybody know you don’t know where the transversus abdominis is! Look! The first muscle cut through—”

“That’s the external oblique!”

“That’s right! That’s what I mean! You see them every day, after all! And under that is the internal oblique—”

“Aha! And then comes the transversus!”

“See?”

“I forgot.”

“But Kris—!”

“I’ll remember! Eat now! You want dessert? Pie?”

Waiting for Kristina to finish, he looked about him. Kristina was the only woman present. All the men were workingmen, dressed in the jackets and caps that were a workingman’s uniform, that dressed them all alike, plumber, carpenter, mason, truck driver, that made this place their place, with whom the counterman was interchangeable, let him drop his apron, put on a jacket and cap.

And he was Dr. Marsh, he was a doctor, eating with them, if they only knew, he inspected them hurriedly, but they were all eating, placidly eating, their eyes would never see a white coat on him, a stethoscope dangling from the pocket, a white uniform on Kristina, a doctor and the head operating-room nurse.

Kristina had finished and was looking at him curiously.

“Going to have dessert?”

“Maybe I try the pie,” she said decorously. “We see how the pie is. You looking at those men? Look how many are eating steak!”

“Shhh!”

“Count ’em!” She lowered her voice. “Can you imagine? That’s how much money a workman makes nowadays. All of them eating steak. And the poor doctor has ham hocks and lima beans.”

“They were good, though.” He would not have ordered the steaks, anyway. They were thin and overcooked, poor-grade meat. But he would have liked the choice.

“First fellow on the left, far end—heart.”

“How do you know?”

“Blue lips—third fellow sebaceous cyst—”

“How—”

“Look at it! Under his ear—and the fifth one’s nephritis, see how puffy his face is—”

“It’s wonderful!”

“You can tell when a patient’s cyanotic, can’t you? You do it often enough. Well, these are just some of the rest of the signs. People are books if you can read them. I do it all the time.” He shrugged. “I wonder how often I’m right.”

Suddenly the small diner oppressed him, the faces, the crowded stools, the food congealing on the plates. He wanted to be at the hospital, feeling the white, the shining, the order, he thought of the familiar interior sensually, he longed to be there, he rejected the thought of going there at this time of night, off duty, he frowned, balked, irritated.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

Kristina rose obediently.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Finish your pie—”

“No, I’m done. It’s all right. Not so good, anyway.”

And they walked out. And in the night, walking, they were alone together. Their concerns were their own. The world’s life moved about them, these two small figures were adrift in that dry sea, particles incurious of other incurious particles, animate, purposeful and purposeless. And in the vast bulk of the happenings of this world, among the myriad happenings time would classify, underline, pass over, mark for a moment, mark for an hour, mark for an era, funnelling upward in a twisting time-wind bearing millions of pages and millions of words and voices bearing words, Domegk was beginning the experiments which would produce the sulfa drugs from the trash pile of German dye factories, setting down the day precisely in his notebook.

The world was shouting exultantly the greatest wealth that Hominidae had ever accumulated, the greatest number of things he had ever owned. Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rakovsky and Radek were exiled. The screams of 124 dying went upward from the Cleveland Clinic Hospital of Dr. George W. Crile, where fire, explosion, and chemical fumes from X-ray films bathed the vowels of this discovery for them.

And the Papal state was revived, and a revolution began in Mexico, and President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand anti-war treaty under which sixty-two leading powers pledged themselves to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.

And all about them the affairs of men as nations locked and interlocked, in a timeless pavane, a grave and endless dance, full of the music of treaties, crackling with paper, smiling with wax, smiling and jubilant with function, merry with peace, dancing a new dance, old as Hominidae, over and over.

And in the nations, in the cities, in the towns, this generation and this genus resolved into units, busy with gain, delighted with hope, gained and set by, praised its proverbs, thanked its God for those things it had resolved were thankworthy, asked for more, praised its God for the rules of life it had determined God had given it, set out upon the full course of the year of man’s presence nineteen hundred and twenty-nine,

A penny saved is a penny earned,

Put your money in the bank and you’ll always have it,

The old folks knew best,

Man is essentially decent and well-meaning,

Thrift is the bulwark of the wise and the protection of the weak,

Step on a crack,

And you break your mother’s back.

Secure.

They moved off into the night toward their home, their small rooms, lonely in themselves, lonely among all others, part of the whole, separate as different species. They saw the people about them incuriously, they were the well-worn, well-noted furniture of their home, the place where they abode. They found their home and went up to it and slept with those who slept.


He rode the ambulance the next afternoon, he and Avery, and they had just come in from a call. In the accident ward a nurse waved to them frantically. They ran to her. On the bed lay a four-year-old boy. His face was white. His clothing was bloody.

“His penis!” the nurse cried.

Lucas bent quickly, opened the boy’s clothes, straightened, stared, startled.

“Clamps!”

He noticed the woman standing at the bedside.

“His penis’s gone! Cut off!” he said to Avery.

“For the love of God!”

They felt for pulse.

“Transfusion—”

And Avery sped off. Lucas grasped the small stump of penis, squeezed tight, there was little blood left to flow.

“He cut it off,” the woman said dully. She spoke like a sleepwalker.

“How did that happen!”

The woman was about twenty-eight. Her face was gray. She was dressed in a cheap housedress. She wore a wet apron, bloodstained. In her right hand she held a washrag.

“I was bathing the baby,” she said. She recited it, listening. “I had the little girl in the bathtub. I was kneeling down, I was bathing her, all of a sudden I didn’t hear him, I tiptoed into the living room, he was sitting there, playing with himself, I scolded him I said, ‘I told you what I’d do, I’ll get your daddy’s razor and cut it off,’ he cried and said he wouldn’t, I gave him a cookie and went back to the baby.”

The nurse rushed up with clamps.

The child’s breathing was very slow.

“Adrenalin, quick!” And she sped away again.

“I was washing her and all of a sudden I heard behind me, ‘Look, Mama!’ and I turned around and there he was. He was sitting in the corner. All over the tiles, all over everything. Blood. Blood everywhere. And between his knees his daddy’s razor . . .”

Avery rushed in with the transfusion equipment and a donor. Lucas hurriedly, frantically assembled the tubing, fitted on the needle, bent over the boy.

“It’s too late,” said Avery. He dropped the child’s wrist. Lucas stared at him stupidly. Avery shook his head. “No use,” said Avery. Lucas felt a lifeless wrist. He turned to the mother. Through the hospital windows a sunny morning streamed. The warm and friendly light blinded her and her eyes blinked.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I tried to get them to stop,” she recited. “I ran out in the road carrying him. They wouldn’t stop—”

The nurse covered the child with a sheet. Avery put away the apparatus. Lucas stepped to the woman and put a hand on her shoulder.

“If you’d got him here just a few minutes earlier—”

“Now he’s gone. He’s gone, hasn’t he? He’s gone.”

“Yes . . . He’s gone . . . You must try to—”

“Little Tommy. I took him, I ran with him, I tried to get them to stop—”

“It’s not your fault. Try to pull yourself together. Remember, you’re young, you’ve got another child—”

“My baby!” the woman whispered. “My baby!” she screamed suddenly. “My little baby! In the bathtub! In the water!”

And she ran from the room, slipping over the polished floor, falling as she reached the door, Lucas scrambling to help her up, fighting free from him—

“We’ll go in the ambulance,” he cried to her, following. “I’ll take it, Avery,” he called back over his shoulder. His words vanished, far below there was the quick sound of the ambulance gone, in the silence of the room Avery and the nurse looked at the small sheeted body. They drew a long breath.

“You won’t need me, Doc?” the donor asked awkwardly.

“No, no you can go.” Avery turned, surprised.

The man lumbered off the bed and walked out. The nurse pushed the wheeled tray down the aisle between the beds.

Avery was in the dressing room waiting when Lucas returned. He looked up inquiringly.

Lucas shook his head.

“No kidding!”

“Gone,” said Lucas. “Dead a half-hour. Eighteen months old. Little girl. In a bathtub half full of water.”

There was nothing to say and their silence said it. The silence grew longer and each was thinking but no thoughts came.

“How in the hell!” Avery said angrily.

“Nice little home, husband’s an electrician, everything clean, bright morning, peaceful, everything okay, she did the house, she was washing the baby . . .”

“And out of nowhere . . . !”

“Out of nowhere . . .”

“Now, she’s got to tell the husband . . .”

Lucas shook his head, trying to think.

“Just in a twinkling—the home emptied—both kids gone—for nothing! For nothing! Just like that!” Avery raged.

“I hope the man’s not the ugly kind—the poor thing’s had all she can take. She was just dazed. She couldn’t even cry. I gave her a shot. I called him . . .”

“He’ll come home—she’ll tell him what happened—they’ll sit there—meat!—just meat the cleaver’s landed on. . . . And they should be up on a mountain!” Avery cried suddenly. He rose. “They should be on a mountain, on a high mountain, casting a shadow long as the steeple of a church! That’s tragedy! That’s the perfect tragos of the Greeks! . . . They should be gods to fit such tragedy! And he’ll come home. And she’ll tell him. And they’ll call the undertaker. And after a while they’ll eat, because they have to eat, and they’ll go to the toilet because they have to go to the toilet and there’s nothing, there’s nothing they can do . . . nothing. . . .”

“They’ve got to go on,” said Lucas mechanically.

“Two little figures. Two specks in the cosmos—”

An intern burst in excitedly.

“Hey! Hear some little kid cut his pecker off!”

Down the hall a bell clanged.

Lucas and Avery rushed out to answer it.

★ CHAPTER 23

The weeks passed, the months passed, and their passage was the slow addition of techniques, of things learned, of learned things practiced and repracticed. And through these days, these weeks, these months marched the faceless, the aggregate cells having human shape and function, colloids responding to electrical stimulation, the human race. They had voices, they had histories, they were cases, they were the material each day furnished for application of the learning Lucas accumulated.

And he was third assistant, and then second assistant and in the end senior house surgeon.

And as the weeks passed, as repetition grooved the gyri of memory deeper, as his senses and his hands behaved automatically, his conscious brain was little by little freed from the burden of remembering. He began to think, to observe independently. The humans became people, distant entities, removed from him by a wide gulf, for their living was not his living, their thinking was not his thinking, the link between himself and them was their pain and what he could summon to relieve that pain.

But they became people, all the same, and no longer aggregations of tissue. And for some of them, either because they represented a triumph, or because being chronic cases he became accustomed to their faces he acquired a fondness not unlike that attachment he once cherished for the leg of the cadaver, for old Zebedee.

And as Time made memory deeper, held memory fast, as he became a compendium of things learned, of movements performed automatically, he acquired the leisure for pride and for independent thought.

The hospital staff regarded him with respect. Of this he was only vaguely conscious, knowing in himself how much he knew and how much was known that he did not know and how much was unknown and perhaps unknowable.

“He knows more than he’ll ever have any use for,” a young intern said authoritatively.

The other interns shifted uneasily, pondering this.

“He goes around in a dream,” the young intern added.

“What makes him tick, Avery?” asked another. “Doesn’t he ever have any fun? Was he like that when he was a student?”

“What do you mean?” Avery fenced.

“Doesn’t he ever think about anything but Medicine?”

“He’s been on his own a long time,” said Avery. “You fellows have got homes, all sorts of attachments. Old Luke’s only got Medicine. Why? What’s the harm?”

“Old! We’ve all got so we think he’s old. He’s no older than you, Avery. He’s no old man. He’s just an old young man.”

“He’s married, after all—”

“To that doughhead Kris! How the hell did he ever happen to marry her? And he never talks to her, when he’s in the operating room she might be any other nurse, I’ve watched him, even when they meet, when they’re ready to go home or something—he barely talks to her, not cold or anything but not like a wife at all, like a thing—”

“That’s his business. And as to doughhead, she knows more operating-room technique than you’ll learn in ten years—”

“I’m not saying that—”

“You’re talking about things you don’t know anything about. I don’t know anything about.”

“What good’s it going to do him to know all he knows—all he keeps on learning?” the young intern asked warily. Then as the other sighed, or smiled condescendingly, “All right! But will he ever use it? That’s what I want to know!”

“And he treats patients the same as he treats his wife,” said another. “The same damned way. They’re not people at all. They’re just things. Just—material.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” said Avery irritably.

“Christ! I’ve worked with him two years now! And I hardly know him!” the third assistant burst out. “I know him just about long enough to ask him the time of day!”

“He’s following a line,” said Avery slowly. His forehead wrinkled. He tried to shape words about a formlessness he barely saw but saw definitely for all it was dim. “He’s—he’s a doctor—”

“Well, what the hell do you think we are?”

“He’s a doctor. You’re doctors too. We all are. But he was born one.”

“Were his grades especially high?”

“They would have been higher if he hadn’t been a born doctor. Because then all he would have to do would be to remember, like Ergenbright, who remembered everything and was top man in the class. It’s like Keats not being top man in English. The trouble with Luke was he had to understand why and then when he understood he had to drive a little farther and all the time the rest of us were just remembering and going on to the next thing and there were some fellows, like Ergenbright, who had memories, who were all memory, and of course they got the grades . . . But Ergenbright now, right now, wherever he is—”

“He went to Johns Hopkins—”

“That’s right. But whatever he’s doing he doesn’t know one-fifth what Luke knows about the same thing. And he never will. And that’s what he is. It’s all he knows. He’s a functioning organism that rises each day to a world which is a world of Medicine. That’s what he is. And that’s what he’s stuck with. He’s not a bad fellow. He really isn’t.”

“But what good’s it all going to do?” the young intern persisted.

They looked at him gravely.

Lucas entered. He looked about the room.

“Perkins,” he said quietly. The young intern stood up. “You removed a growth from the foot of a patient in Ward B.”

“Just a wart,” said Perkins. “I noticed it, making rounds, and I told the old fellow I’d snip it off for him.” He reddened. “I charted it. Why?”

“The charge nurse kept it. You removed an epithelioma.”

The room stilled.

“It was bothering the old guy. He said he’d had it for years. I just cut it out and—”

“It was an epithelioma. When you cut it you liberated malignant cells and they are now adrift in his bloodstream.”

“It looked just like a wart—”

“It was an epithelioma.”

Lucas stared at Perkins helplessly. What can I tell him? What is there to say? He looked about the room.

“Saunders?” he challenged the third assistant.

“I was in charge,” Saunders assented. “I saw it on the chart.” He turned to Perkins. “Don’t you know the difference between a wart and an epithelioma?”

“Sure, but—”

“Describe an epithelioma.”

Now the room ringed Perkins and he became an enclave, a substance surrounded by a foreign tissue, and he stammered through a description of epithelioma.

“You know, then, what an epithelioma is?” asked Avery.

“Yes.”

“Then how do you justify the removal of an epithelioma under the circumstances in which you charted it?” asked Saunders impersonally.

“It seemed to me—”

“You have described an epithelioma. Are you able to recognize one?”

“Sure, but—”

“Then if you are familiar with epitheliomas how do you account for the fact that you cut into this one?”

“I thought—”

“Describe the operation for the removal of an epithelioma,” Avery cut in.

Perkins began. The room listened silently.

“Did you perform this operation?”

“No.”

“What are the consequences of the removal of an epithelioma in the manner in which you removed it?”

“Malignant cells are liberated into the general circulation.”

“Is there the possibility that the patient may now die of cancer?”

“But—”

“Is there that possibility?”

“There is.”

“How strong would you say that possibility is?” asked Saunders.

“Quite strong.”

“In your judgment is the removal of a growth without first conferring with your seniors consonant with sound medical practice?”

“No. But it looked just like—”

“You are familiar with epitheliomas?”

“I am.”

“Describe an epithelioma, please.”

“Again?”

“Please.”

And when he had finished,

“Now describe in what manner a wart, as you call it, differs from an epithelioma . . .”

And through it all Lucas stood by the door through which he had entered, coming no farther into the room, looked and listened anxiously, spoke only at the end, when Saunders turned inquiringly to him, and Perkins stared humbly at the floor and the rest stared at Perkins or stared elsewhere.

“I will have to report this,” said Lucas uncomfortably. “As you know, I will be blamed for it. They will be quite right. In future no growths will be removed without conference, no surgery attempted without conference.”

“I’m sorry,” said Perkins.

“I’m sorry too,” said Lucas. “We all make mistakes,” he said mechanically. He turned to the door.

“Going to eat?” Avery rose.

“Might as well,” said Lucas.

They walked out together.

“Reminds me of your little girl with the blank cartridge,” Avery smiled.

“I wish they didn’t have to be so hard on him,” Lucas assented. “I don’t know what else they could do, though. I hate to see it. It’s not a patch on what I’ll get, though. And Saunders. And you too!”

“He’ll learn. I can see that kid just like it was yesterday. You putting the ointment on her palm and old McCrea coming by and taking over and giving the kid gas and making a long cut in the palm and out pops a big felt wad—”

“And never saying a word—”

“No, not a word. All he asked you was one question: ‘Under your dressing would the patient have developed septicemia? Or lockjaw?’ ”

“Then he walked on . . . But it wasn’t an epithelioma . . .”

Not with you, thought Avery. Not with you. Your mistakes were always with the little things of life, the things you could always have controlled, mistake or not. No—not an epithelioma. . . .

“Anything up today?”

“I’m dissecting.”

“Dissecting!”

“I’ve got kind of an idea. . . . I’ll be down in the morgue. You’ve got that gall bladder—”

“Three o’clock. And then an amputation of the cervix—”

“I loosened that splint on your fracture case, that elbow, Ward C,” Lucas said apologetically.

“It was loose when he came in. I tightened it—”

“I know. A splint that long,” Lucas said deprecatively—“it’s so long—pressing on the elbow that way, almost sure to cause ischemic paralysis—”

Avery flushed.

“No kidding!”

“I just loosened it a little—”

“Thanks! Thanks a lot!”

“Sure,” said Lucas gently.

As they entered the dining hall the noisy room quieted.


Dr. Aarons sat at a desk in a corner of the morgue. He looked up absently as Lucas entered.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Lucas.

Dr. Aarons nodded briefly and returned to his notebook. Lucas passed the cadaver on which Dr. Aarons had been working. His eyes summed the opened figure, the hemisphere of skull removed, a complete post-mortem, his eyes reported, he had a moment’s curiosity, in the next instant he saw the sheeted figure beyond and moved forward, oblivious.

He reached the sheeted cadaver. He removed the sheet. The body, which, living, had been a woman of middle age, spare, white, pauper, coronary thrombosis, and now was dead, not white, not pauper, not thrombosis but tissue, pattern, inanimate, all these things, and, as he looked, treasure, treasure belonging to him, rare treasure, for the time his instruments penetrated and questioned and disclosed, his property, rare property, and his.

He arranged his instruments with scrupulous precision. He made an incision in the abdomen. Slowly, carefully, he began to work. He closed his eyes. He worked on, his eyes closed.

“Working without gloves?” a voice said suddenly.

He opened his eyes. He looked confusedly at Dr. Aarons.

“I said: Are you working without gloves?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lucas. He looked at Dr. Aarons resentfully.

“Yes—well, that’s a good way to go like Kolletschka.”

“I’m using a scissors.”

“What are you working like that for? With your eyes shut? With a scissors? If I may be allowed to ask? And without gloves?”

“I can feel better, sir.”

“What difference does it make what you feel? If you know your anatomical landmarks? Or is that really what you’re brushing up on?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then what do you feel?”

“I’ll tell you what I feel!” He thrust his hand deeper into the abdominal cavity. “Right now I feel adhesions! And I’d never feel them with a rubber glove! And right now I feel rebound from a buried ovary that I’m nowheres near! That’s what I feel!”

“So you’re thinking of doing away with rubber gloves?”

“No, sir. I didn’t say that!”

“What are you going to do if you get a hernia case?”

“I’m going to use rubber gloves. Because if I don’t I run the risk of infection—the area’s that much bigger. But when it comes to an appendectomy, or any other incision that ought to be small—”

“Ah, so! And now I see you’re going to use small incisions, eh? You’re going to limit your view as much as possible—”

“I don’t have to see if I can feel—”

“You don’t have to see, eh?”

“The sense of touch is far more accurate than the sense of sight—”

“So you’re going to revolutionize surgery by making small incisions and operating barehanded!”

“I didn’t say that—”

“Then what are you wasting your time for?”

“I don’t agree with you that I’m wasting my time. It’s my time, I’m on my own time and—”

“And now that science has finally discovered asepsis and rubber gloves you’re determined to discover how to go back twenty years.”

Lucas shrugged. He drew a deep breath. He looked away, his lips hard, shut tight against the anger pushing against them.

“Well, maybe you’re right . . . Let’s see . . .” Dr. Aarons’ tone was abruptly mild. “Have you an appendix there?”

“Yes, sir. Buried in adhesions.”

“I see.” He took out his watch. “Suppose you take it out.”

“Now?”

“Right now!”

Lucas’ fingers promptly plunged into the small incision. He felt the end of the large intestine, he tugged the mass upward, his fingers gripped the tangle of tissues. He felt the appendicial finger, he stripped the adhesions, his scissors snipped, his fingers emerged, he laid the appendix, cleanly stripped, on the table.

Dr. Aarons looked at his watch. He looked up.

“Forty-five seconds,” he said, expressionless. “Not bad . . .”

“And if I was working by sight I would have run the risk of damaging a ureter or an iliac vein—and all the time I could feel them easily with my bare hand!”

“And if your appendix was adherent to the posterior surface—?”

“Then I’d have to make a larger incision. But as to infection, no sir!”

“Why do you say ‘no sir’?”

“Because I’ve seen it! I’ve taken culture after culture of pus from the peritoneum and with the exception of saprophytes and an occasional pus cell they were sterile!”

“So you’ve found something out?”

“I’ve found out this! That the patient is nine times out of ten his best antiseptic. That the fluids you get out of the peritoneum smell like hell but the smell only means sulphur alcohols or sulphurated hydrogen caused by microbes most of which are saprophytes. I’ve watched it happen time after time! The careless operators who don’t take the trouble to mop up the peritoneum thoroughly get the best results. And now I know why! They don’t damage the peritoneum with rubbing and sponging. And Daw’s proved that you can’t get all the fluid out of a peritoneum anyway! He took some milk and poured it into an open cadaver and no matter how much he sponged—”

“I’m familiar with Dr. Daw’s work.”

“And once or twice when I inadvertently spread purulent fluid—trying to separate adhesions—spread it right onto healthy peritoneal tissue—I saw that I hadn’t started a new peritonitis at all.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“Yes, sir. The purulent material excited the peritoneum it touched to a sort of hyper-leucocytosis—thousands more white cells marched in and took over.”

“And to whom have you spoken about all this?”

“No one, sir.”

“And how much dissecting have you been doing.”

“All I can, sir.”

“Roughly . . .”

“About—about a hundred and fifty—”

“A hundred and fifty, eh?”

“All told . . .”

“I see . . . And your conclusions are?”

“That the best surgery is to get in and get out. That modern asepsis and other aids have made the surgeon’s detail work more important than the patient’s physiology. That’s one thing. Before anesthesia and antiseptics they’d take minutes to do what we take half-hours to do—”

“And look at their mortality records—”

“Yes, but those who lived, lived because they took minutes—”

“It’s possible,” Dr. Aarons said serenely. “And what else? What about the gloves?”

“That ties in with the time sequence. You can work faster and more accurately without gloves. You can feel better than you can see. So wherever it’s possible not to use gloves—don’t use them!”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. Except leave the peritoneum alone. Handle it gingerly. Don’t pack, because the pack damages tissue that’s already well prepared to take care of almost any abscess. And in the worst cases use a small drain instead.”

“And how about haemorrhage?”

“Isn’t that practically blood in circulation, sir?”

“Free blood—in the peritoneal cavity?”

“Well, don’t the tissues start absorbing lymph from it the moment it’s free? In that sense, isn’t it circulating? And for the rest—”

“And you haven’t spoken of this to anyone.”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I did mention it to Dr. Eddleston one day and he looked at me as if he thought I was crazy—”

“I see. You don’t, of course, practice it here.”

“I do what I’m told. But when I get out—when I’m in practice for myself—”

He looked away. He looked at the far wall, thinking.

Dr. Aarons put his watch back in his pocket. One hundred and fifty dissections, one hundred and fifty and not a word said! Working it out himself! And he’s right. He’s just as right as they are! But—by himself! All to himself! Well, it was true, then. It was all true. It was true when I first saw him.

He cleared his throat.

“There’s a point I’d like you to remember,” he said mildly. Lucas started.

“When you work blind, when you separate an adherent mesentery, you may make a small hole in it. You must always close that hole. Your eyes will serve your fingers, there. That’s one danger. The patient comes out of ether, coughs and explodes a loop of bowel into the hole and you’ve got a bowel obstruction. Nobody knows what’s happened until the patient comes to me. And when the patient comes to the pathologist the question is academic.”

Lucas nodded, listened intently.

“That’s about all. I find nothing grossly erroneous in what you have discovered. Unless you are under the impression that the discovery is yours alone—”

“No, sir. I’m sure others must have found this too. I haven’t read of any, but I’m sure—”

“Yes . . . Well,” he looked at the cadaver, “have you done what you came for?”

“I thought—I half intended to do a little more—”

“You go ahead.” He walked away a few steps then halted abruptly. “Tell me! Is it possible you intend to specialize in surgery?”

“Oh, no, sir! No indeed! General practice!”

“That’s what I understood.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Yes . . . Well . . .” He waved vaguely and walked on. Lucas returned to work exuberantly. At the door Dr. Aarons looked back. But Lucas had forgotten him. His fingers were at work in a new incision. His eyes were closed. His hands were bare. He was frowning. Dr. Aarons walked on. He sighed. He was lonely. Vienna, he thought. Just give me six months . . . Just six. . . .


As he left the hospital that evening Avery fell in step with him.

“Some day,” said Avery briefly.

“We haven’t got many left.”

“Today makes up for all of them. One gall bladder through eight inches of fat, a frank breech, two T and A’s, they had to call me in on that amputation of the cervix, what do you make of Saunders?”

“What did he do?”

“I swear I don’t believe he knows his landmarks. I came in, there were five of them sweating it out, Saunders had taken over, they had the cervix half dissected out, they were holding up the operating room, standing there, milling around, Saunders was dabbing around getting nowhere, the minute he saw me he started throwing instruments around—‘Why the hell don’t they give us some decent clamps? These goddamned superannuated things!’—and he pitched four of them against the wall, one after the other. I just stood there and he picked up a scalpel and the next thing I knew he was within an ace of the bladder!”

“What did you do?”

“I said there was a D and C in the other OR and would he mind . . . He was tickled to death. Went right out. The cervix wasn’t much. He had it just about right. He didn’t seem to know how to go on . . . Funny! You work right alongside of a guy, he sees everything you see, and you never know how much he knows . . .”

“He’s going in for GYN, too . . .”

“Then that damned breech—”

“Freedman was handling that—”

“What are you going to do? He’s going to specialize in ophthalmology. What the hell does he care about OB? I wouldn’t care myself! What good’s it going to do him?”

“That’s so . . . Only thing, they give a degree in Medicine. Not ophthalmology. And they’ve got to stamp him fit—for Medicine, not ophthalmology. He ought to know that—”

“He does. But he still knows he’s going to be an ophthalmologist. And he keeps right on asking himself what the hell he’s doing delivering babies.”

“I’m going to catch hell for Perkins—”

“You sure are. You know something? It couldn’t have happened in a private room.”

“What do you mean?”

“It couldn’t even have happened in a double room—or a room for four!”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”

“You understand, all right. I’m just chipping away at the citadel and you’re reconnoitering, scenting a possible attack right from inside the lines. Look at you! Look at your face!”

“Well, I can’t do that very well, can I, Avery?”

“Aha! Now you’ve decided to be tolerant. Now you’ll deal with this as with Avery the radical. Let’s listen with good humor to what the fellow has to say. He’s a nice guy, Avery. Just a little radical sometimes. Doesn’t mean anything, though. Basically sound. One of the team.”

Lucas tried to think of something to say. He grinned helplessly.

“Nobody’s touching your citadel. You can live in it. It’s not going to be demolished. Just see it as it is. It couldn’t have happened in a private room because Perkins wouldn’t have dared to operate on a private-room patient without direct orders.”

“I don’t see your point—”

“You mean you hadn’t thought of it before—”

“No, honestly—”

“Would Perkins have taken the responsibility of removing a growth from a private-room patient? Just walked in and said, ‘Here! That growth’s got to come out!’ and removed it—just on a whim?”

There was no way out.

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? You knew what I meant! Why stall around so I have to pull it out of you shred by shred!”

“I just—”

“You’re so goddamned afraid somebody’s going to say something to deface this holy church you’ve built up inside yourself—worship all you want to, Luke! But don’t go blind!”

“Why do you have to always be looking for crevices to chip at and enlarge and find something wrong?”

“It’s a defect of my character. It’s called being able to see with your eyes wide open. Maybe I want it to be perfect as much as you do. Maybe that’s why I fret at it. You ever happen to think of that? Maybe I love it for what it can be—not because I haven’t anything else to love.”

“It isn’t altogether that.”

“The point is—some patients are protected. What protects them?”

He waited.

“I suppose it’s money,” Lucas grudged at last.

“Of course it’s money. You don’t have to be afraid to say it. It isn’t our fault. We didn’t make things that way. But the more I thought of it, the more I thought of other things. Do you know what? If two patients—if X and Y were both down with the same illness, identical patients, identical illness—and one was rich and one was charity we’d regard the rich man’s illness as far more grave than the charity case’s. We’d look at each other more soberly, we’d think more slowly, the man’s illness somehow would get to be as important as the man!”

“They’d both get the same care,” Lucas said mechanically.

“They’d shit get the same care! Poor man would have appendicitis. Rich man would have Appendicitis. With a capital A.”

“Whatever the frailties of human attitude, the specifications of Medicine are exact. They’d be treated alike.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe to it!”

“Oh, come on, now, Luke! You’ve made rounds! How does a doctor act in a private room and how does he act in a charity ward?”

“Successful men have a right to a certain amount of respect! Whose money keeps the hospital going? Who pays for the charity patient’s bed? What difference does it make how two patients are treated so far as approach is concerned—so long as they both get the same Medicine?”

“Are you going to treat rich and poor alike, Luke?”

“You’re damned right I am!”

“How are you going to keep an office going? An office is just like a hospital, you know. The rich pay for the poor.”

“I treat disease—not people!”

“That’s right. That’s your answer, Luke. That’s what protects you. You don’t even think of people as people. You don’t know anything about them. The only person whose problems you know is yourself. All the rest is a vague blur, with voices.”

“Oh—it’s me, now!”

“And never get the idea that they both get the same Medicine. Never get the idea that a poor man’s treated—as a man, as a whole organ—like a rich man. Just remember Perkins.”

“To you apparently all Medicine is venal, just a service that’s bought and paid for, so much an ounce—”

“No . . . I don’t say that . . . But there’s a thing that flaws a man, makes the ape peep through pure science—a thing that comes between a man’s best hope and what he is . . .”

They walked a while in silence.

“Not for me and you, boy,” Lucas said awkwardly, at last.

“No.” Avery stopped. The trouble faded from his eyes. “Not for me and you. You, because you’re what you are—and me, because I’m going to teach!” He smiled, friendlily.

“You’re kidding!”

“That’s how I’m going to hold on to what I have!”

“But don’t you want to—”

“I want to hang on to what I have. I don’t want to be diluted by compromise, by clear thinking, by sick seeing, by adjustment to reality. Let’s put it that way. So the way to do it is to teach. And the goose hangs high. I’ve already spoken for it. I’ve got a place right here. Now—what are you going to do?”

“General practice—”

“I know—but where?”

“I haven’t figured it out—”

“You going to set up your own office?”

“I—I don’t know.” Because if you don’t think about it, if you know how much it takes and you haven’t got it, and you just don’t think about it—it might happen, anyway. But once you face it—

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Look, Avery! Will you help me figure it out? Will you?”

“You got a copy of the A.M.A. home?”

“Dozens of them! Come on! We’ll all eat—”

“We’ll eat on me!” He felt in his pockets. “God! We can’t do that, either!”

“Kris’ll have enough! She’s always got some tucked away!”

“Ten dollars a month! Boy! It doesn’t go very far!”

They walked on, talking animatedly.

“I wanted to get some place in the country—”

“You’d better pick some spot with a hospital—”

“That’s right! Some place with a hospital—town of about five thousand—”

“Your own empire. Five thousand patients and just practice Medicine.”

“General Medicine!”

“All the Medicine there is!”

They were seized by an identical thought. They looked at each other, startled. Then Avery slowly shook his head.

“You know something, if I had the money I’d go in with you—”

“We could set up an office together—!”

“We haven’t got the money. We’d need seven, ten thousand dollars. You haven’t got it. I haven’t got it either.”

“We could start small—”

“We’d need instruments—we’d need equipment, we’d need X-ray, lab, a million things. The kind of Medicine we practice that’s the equipment we’d need . . . We couldn’t practice with less. Not and give the patient what we know he has to have . . . And the first year or two—with maybe no patients at all—”

“How much money—no kidding, now!—what’s the barest minimum!”

“Five thousand!”

“All right, five thousand!”

“You say it like it was a nickel—” but Avery looked at Lucas behind a hard-leashed hope.

“How much can you lay your hands on?”

Avery reddened. He hesitated.

“I’ve got eight hundred dollars,” he blurted. “Eight hundred dollars in a lot my father left me!”

“That’s almost a fifth! And I’ve got—wait a minute! What about that lot! Man! You’ve made me think of something!” He turned slowly to Avery. His mouth hung a little open. “Why—I’ve got lots, too!” He remembered Job. “I think.” He blinked. “My mother left them. . . . Sure! Sure, she did!” He lifted his eyes, his mouth still a little open. “Hey!”

“I suppose we could get credit from instrument and supply houses. That’s one thing, Luke. Everybody else does—”

“Those vultures!”

“They still give credit! And nowadays everybody’s rich!”

“Just get what we absolutely need—”

“I don’t mind eating light—”

“I’ll go back to Milletta tomorrow! I’ll find out about lots—at today’s prices—why, they might bring—a thousand dollars—”

“It isn’t as if we had anyone depending on us—whoa!”

“What’s the matter?”

“You’re married!”

“What of it?”

Lucas looked at Avery, bewildered. Then he understood.

“My God, boy! I’d never have got through med school if Kris hadn’t worked! Kris is no liability! Christ! She can be our office nurse! Save us fifteen hundred, two thousand dollars a year!”

“But if there’s no money coming in—a wife’s got to eat—”

“Why, she could even get a job! If there’s a hospital she could be head OR—”

“And if they’ve already got one—”

“She could be a nurse—anything—!”

Avery was silent.

“What’s the matter?”

“For a minute there you talked as if she was a chattel or something—this where you live?”

“Come on up. It’s not that. Maybe I do get to thinking of her—I guess it sounded funny, at that—”

He opened the door and stood aside.

“Hey! This is all right!”

Lucas beamed.

“You got a lot of room—Boy! Look at that!”

“I salvaged that test-tube rack—”

“Look at the mike, though!”

“Kris gave me that!”

“The hell!”

“Yep! And those slides—I guess you know where they came from—”

“But you got a whole miniature lab laid out here!”

“I tried to use the oven for an incubator—come on, I’ll show you the kitchen, see what we got—”

“This is a swell layout!” Avery looked about the tiny kitchen. Lucas opened the icebox. There was a large cake of ice and two small packages, a bottle of milk.

“I guess we got to go out,” he said.

They heard the door shut.

“Hey! Kris!” Lucas walked into the living-room-bedroom, Avery following him. He looked at Kristina, beaming. Kristina smiled.

“You know Avery—”

“Hi, Kris!”

“Good evening, Doctor—”

“Avery, Avery!”

“We got an idea, Kris! We’re going to have dinner and the three of us are going to talk over the biggest thing since iodine.—Hey, Kris! There’s nothing in the icebox!”

“I know! I’m sorry! I got to shop—”

“Let’s go out! We got enough money?”

“I’m right between paydays—” Avery apologized.

“Sure! Sure!” Kristina said heartily. “Sure! We got enough! I guess we don’t starve, do we?”

“That’s right! Kris has always got it! I don’t know how she does it, but when you need it—”

Kristina grinned. “I’ll get some money!” She walked hastily to the closet.

“That the bank in there?” grinned Avery as Kristina bent and began to rummage in the closet.

“That’s Kris’ bank.”

“It’s safe place—” Kristina’s voice came out muffled.

“Sure!” Avery snorted. “No robber would ever dream of looking in a closet for money!”

“Not where Kris keeps it! It’s safe as the Bank of England!” Lucas paused, watched Avery’s face. “You know where she keeps it? She hides it in a box of Kotex!”

“No!” Avery roared delight.

“Right between the napkins!”

Kristina emerged, red-faced.

“Don’t you, Kris!”

“That’s right,” she smiled, blushing.

“Can you imagine a thief—?” Lucas demanded.

“No!”

“We go?” grinned Kristina.

“We’ll find some little place—”

“Take along a couple of copies of the A.M.A.,” Avery reminded.

“What for? What do we need them now for?”

“Look! Let’s cover all bets! Take ’em along!”

Lucas shrugged. He walked to the bureau, opened a drawer, picked out three copies of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Avery picked up the wooden sign from the bureau top.

“Got it all set up and ready, eh?”

“Kris bought it,” Lucas said hurriedly.

“It’s a beauty! You get everything for this boy, don’t you?” He put the sign down and looked around. “Nice home, you keep everything spotless, Kris—by God! To look at you in the operating room nobody’d ever know you ran a love nest like this—”

“You never been here before.” Kris made this as a sound, it had no meaning, she knew he had never been here before, it was the first time Lucas had ever brought any guest home. She was overwhelmed by this. And in addition an outsider’s admiration and praise were a joyous din in her brain stirring all thought into confusion.

“You can’t beat her!” Lucas said proudly.

“I see you every day and I’d never have guessed it!” Avery shook his head.

“Oh, I’m a good Swedish girl! When a Swedish girl takes care of her man—you know any Swedish girls, Avery?”

“Come on,” said Lucas. “We can talk on the way! Kris, listen! We’ve got an idea, Avery and I, just an idea, mind, but when I tell you what it is . . .”

They walked downstairs and out into the street. Kris’ head turned from one to the other, trying to absorb, to sort out, to examine what they had to say. From time to time she thought of something. But she was not quick enough, and the tide rolled on. It was only after they had eaten and had begun to riffle through the pages of the medical journal that Kristina managed to get their attention.

“You know for sure, Luke, you remember right, you sure your mama leaves you lots? You never mention it, maybe something’s changed, something’s happened—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Kris!”

“No, she’s got a point there, Luke—”

“The both of you! I tell you I’m sure!”

“Because—I hate to tell you—”

“Well, don’t tell me, then.”

“Don’t be mad, Luke . . .”

“I’m not mad. I know we haven’t got anything—I know where it went, you don’t have to remind me—I know Mother left me that lot. That’s all. And I’m going back to sell it and—”

“She just doesn’t want you to get your hopes too high.”

“Both of you,” amended Kristina.

“But it might work out, Kris,” said Avery.

“We could go to Minnesota,” Kristina said daringly, reopening a long-dead issue, feeling safe before company. “I got lots of friends in that place. Where I live is many know me—I would bring you plenty patients! You bet!”

“For the love of Christ! Are we going into that again?”

“Is a nice place, Minnesota.” She turned to Avery. “You would like it, I bet. You would like it fine! Plenty of pretty Swedish girls, plenty of money, plenty of farms—”

“I’ve heard a lot about Minnesota. Nice state . . .”

“Do you realize I’d have to take state boards to practice there? Both of us?”

“Don’t they have reciprocity?” asked Avery mildly.

“I don’t think so. Anyway—” he reddened, pausing—“anyway, just get this straight! Get it straight—and forget it! I’m—not—going—to—Minnesota! Understand? Now—or ever! Understand?” Not where you come from, not ever, a million miles away from you, from everybody like you, from the essence of you, from people who talk like you, think like you, admire what you admire.

And he looked this at her, directly.

“Here’s one!” cried Avery. They turned to him. He read from the medical journal:

“ ‘General practitioner—no major surgery; to work with a group of three men doing general practice; large city in Iowa; must work hard; good salary to begin, associateship later.’ ”

“Big city.” Lucas shook his head.

“Maybe you’d like Maryland? ‘Young physician, full-time assistant general practice; Baltimore, Maryland; willing to work, contract, guarantee and percentage. Excellent opportunity. Enclose photograph, age, education, references.’ ”

“But that’s for one. And a big city, too. Get one for both of us—”

“Let’s just see what they are. If I find one for both of us I’ll read it—here’s one near you, Kris! ‘Practice for sale—Michigan; in rural, virtually unopposed, essential location, modern, completely equipped; gross approximately $40,000; price $65,000. Low down payment if references satisfactory.’ ”

Avery and Lucas looked at each other.

“It’s right here! I read it word for word!”

Lucas bent to look.

“You see?” Kristina exclaimed. “There’s money there! Like I say! Plenty money! Rich farmers!”

“Just like a business, isn’t it!” Avery and Lucas ignored Kristina, looked at each other. Avery dipped his head. “Here’s another,” he said implacably. “Here’s one for both of us: ‘Opening for two young doctors who wish to do general practice together; in New England country town; yearly combined income $20,000 net: $35,000.’ ”

“New England people are poor,” said Kristina.

“That’s right, Kris,” said Avery. “But listen to this: ‘Here is your opportunity to have a large and rich clientele; in one of Cleveland’s largest suburbs on a main road with ample parking. We can consider those who care to make an investment of $10,000 for an office; the investment will make you part owner and draw a dividend and it may be paid off by a sinking fund if desired.’ How’s that, Kris?”

She looked at them, bewildered.

“Well, Kris, what do you say? What’s the matter?”

“That’s in the magazine?” she asked doubtfully.

“Right here in the official journal of the American Medical Association. One right after another!” Lucas said tightly.

“Doctors advertise like that?” she asked dubiously.

“Show it to her!” Lucas urged.

“Here you are, Kris—” Avery handed her the open journal. And as she began to read, “You’ve been married to Luke too long. He must have infected you. Why should you be surprised?”

But his eyes were a little sick behind the raillery.

“Didn’t you ever read these, Luke?”

“Have you?”

“Why, it’s just putting Hippocrates on a business basis, that’s all. No harm in that, is there? Why? Did you think it was a sacred calling, or something? What was it Brundage used to say? ‘Doctors got to live, too, boys, don’t forget that!’ ”

“But right out in the open like this—” Kristina looked up, shocked.

“Nobody sees that! The public doesn’t see that! That’s a medical journal,” Avery expostulated.

“It isn’t the jobs so much, it’s the practices for sale,” Lucas had opened another copy of the Journal. “My God, listen to this: ‘Colorado; established growing practice grosses over $20,000 and can be doubled.’ ‘Georgia; Lucrative unopposed general practice.’ ‘Michigan; will make money the first month.’ ‘Florida; practice for rent.’ ‘Kansas; practice averages over $1,000 a month—’ ”

“ ‘New York—upstate,’ ” interrupted Avery, reading from another copy, “ ‘lucrative, unopposed, $15,000. Will introduce. Has to be seen to be appreciated. Should net $12,500 first year—’ ”

“One right after the other,” Lucas threw down his copy.

“What do they ask you to send photographs for?” Kristina looked up from her copy.

“So they can see whether you’re a Jew or a Negro,” Avery said quietly. “Science doesn’t distinguish. Only scientists.”

Lucas swept the journals aside.

“What good is it? What did you want me to bring these for?”

“Don’t get sore at me. I just thought there might be something to give us an idea . . .”

“That’s the way it is,” Kristina said pacifically. “You can’t change it—”

“That’s not the way it is, at all! I’m surprised they take such advertisements! A reputable journal like this—”

The reputable journal—” said Avery.

“There’s others here, though, don’t forget! There’s column after column of ads with jobs that pay $3,000 and $4,000 a year, serious jobs, where a man can practice Medicine—”

“In hospitals. That’s right. And mostly specialties. But that isn’t all, Luke.”

“It’s awful! Seeing it in cold print that way—”

“There’s agencies, boy. Here’s one, old established, reputable—we can write them, find out what we want—”

“First you sell your lot. Find out how much you can put up.” Kristina folded her arms and nodded.

“How about it, Kris? What do you think!” Avery looked at her gravely.

“I think it’s fine.”

“How does it strike you, being our nurse?”

“She’ll do it—” Lucas protested.

“I’ll be glad.”

“Swell!”

“But first we find out . . .”

Lucas looked nervously at Avery. To him the speech sounded too flat, too much like cold water, too much as if Kristina was making a noise to say that she and he belonged together, they were in one group and Avery hadn’t been admitted to it yet.

“It’ll be all right,” he pronounced harshly, “and Avery and I are going in this together.”

“We hope—”

“No, we don’t hope. It’s what we’re going to do.”

He looked at Kristina with dislike. He resented having to wince every time she spoke in front of someone else, he never knew what she would say, but it was always something that made him anxious how the other person was going to take it, or else it was something stupid that made him ashamed. Now she was throwing cold water on this.

“Put your foot in it, didn’t you, Kris?” Avery grinned.

“That’s something nurses get used to. A nurse is always putting her foot in it,” Kristina smiled philosophically.

Now she was calling attention to the fact that she was a nurse. Lucas’ shoulders slumped.

“Especially an operating-room nurse—”

“Oh, my God, yes!” Kristina nodded.

“Doctors never notice the head operating-room nurse. When he’s brought off a rough one he’s generous, he’s enthusiastic about her, she’s terrific. When he hasn’t brought it off her cut-and-dried efficiency is a reproach to him.”

Kristina nodded.

“You fellows’d be good together. You’d make a good team.”

“That’s right. I’d handle the people and Luke’d handle their bodies.”

“I suppose that’s meant for me,” Luke said. “Sometimes I wonder how you people ever put up with such an eccentric.”

Avery looked quickly at Lucas. Then he looked at Kristina.

“You’re a very lucky eccentric, Luke,” Avery said. “Not every eccentric has a girl like Kris.”

Lucas’ head lifted sharply. But Avery was smiling at him steadily, with his mouth, and there was no derision in his eyes, and he meant what he was saying.

“Well,” he said awkwardly, “I guess tomorrow we’ll know one way or the other . . .”

“We’ll do it!” Avery prophesied confidently.

On a sudden impulse the three shook hands across the table.


The rule of Brundage, Lucas thought in the train going toward Milletta, the rule of Brundage, the rule of Perkins, the rule of Saunders. Things acquired perspective when you were travelling, when you were in motion. Now the hospital was a stage and he was receding from it and all the figures on it were clear and took their proper size. And Brundage and Perkins and Saunders and Alfred, who was somewhere in New York making the moments count and the contacts and the money, and Avery, who wanted to be a teacher just because a handful of students in a little college town weren’t Medicine as he saw it, why all these weren’t Medicine at all, they were just people who didn’t really have anything to do with Medicine when they turned out like that, they were just fellows who had been given every advantage and passed their tests and hadn’t fallen in line yet.

They weren’t doctors. When it came to doctors there was Aarons; all right, say what you wanted about Aarons but there was a man who was a doctor, who knew, who was implicit with knowledge. And there was Townsend and Graves and Turner and Gordon, and when you came right down to it these were the settled men, these were what Medicine really was, these and the rest. These were the Elder Statesmen, the true representatives, and if it was courage you were looking for, why there it was, just taken for granted, look at any one of them. And if it was honor, the same, and if it was purity and ethics and science and all that was best and purest and most singingly high in this otherwise expendable world, why there it was, like a rock, like a cathedral, like all that he was living for.

All you had to do was look at it.

He sniffed contemptuously, turning his thoughts from the university world, from the figures who didn’t matter.

The man across the aisle almost certainly had an intracranial disorder. Probably a tumor. He had a tic, his left eye twitched. When his eye twitched he scratched the base of his left thumb. It was the—the palmo-mental reflex. Down the aisle a man walked draggingly, syphilis without much question, there was a woman at the end of the car with myasthenia gravis. All about him there were walking, sitting signs of this or that, the car was peopled with animate clinical evidence, walking symptoms, living evidence of disease, wearing their frailties plain to the initiate, hid from each other.

Avery was a fool to think he was distant from humanity. He was never unaware of it for a moment. He knew humanity as Avery would never know it. Knowing humanity wasn’t some damned attitude or other. It was really knowing it, what made it tick, what ailed it, diagnosing it, knowing how it could be cured, always being polite, trying to make them feel you were one of them. Helping them, never letting them down, making them live whether they wanted to or not.

Was it healing? It wasn’t, exactly. Healing was just one of the things that happened. Relieving pain? Relieving suffering? Well, that was important too. But that wasn’t it either. Those were just incidents. Repair? Well, that was another item. What it all boiled down to was life, when you came right down to it, there was really nothing else, just life. That was the main thing, the thing that summed them all. To fight for life even though the man’s last breath was fading and you knew it. To keep right on fighting. And when he was dead to keep right on fighting still. Until he was really dead. And there wasn’t any use fighting any longer. And then to the next one. Fiercer than ever.

Yes sir, it answered all the questions. All you could bring up was answered right there. All you had to do was apply it. The fact that out of a hundred patients eighty would get well without ever going to the doctor was just typical cynicism, somebody trying to be bright. A doctor’s concern wasn’t with people who didn’t need him, no matter what the people thought. His concern was with their life. And if they got well anyway, well, good luck to them. That was all a doctor was after. To keep them living. He couldn’t live their lives for them. The mistakes they made were their own mistakes. It hadn’t anything to do with keeping people living. And it certainly wasn’t any appraisal of Medicine. Healing was an incident, and repair was an incident, and cure was an incident, and relief was an incident. The main thing was to keep them living. Because life was the most precious thing on earth. It was the most precious thing on the planet. The other items were a silly race for specialists, furniture to sharpen their claws on. But life was the house of Medicine itself.

The train stopped. The porter was calling Milletta. He rose, his thoughts dispersed, his heart beating oddly fast, feeling a little fright, a great apprehension, as he always had when he was a boy returning to this place, there was always something riding, something about to be decided, something he had his heart set on and knew he wasn’t going to get.

“He seems to have made a clean sweep,” Mr. Benjamin said. He shook his head. He looked at Lucas.

“But—but do you mean he signed my name to this—to these papers?

“That’s what he seems to have done,” the banker said.

“There’s nothing here? Nothing at all?”

“He signed your name, and he put it up for collateral and borrowed money on it and went broke. And the money’s gone. That’s what he’s done, all right.”

He looked at Lucas a little eagerly. Do you want us to nab him? the look said, we can do that, you know, here it is, his signature in plain sight, I wouldn’t mind doing it, he’s got it coming to him, say the word—

“Here’s your name—right here—”

“But I didn’t sign it—”

“I know. It’s a very serious offense. Would you like us to—” He let the sentence dangle.

“No, no.” Lucas roused himself. “No, never mind. Let it go. There’s nothing left? Nothing at all?”

“Nothing.”

“The house? The furniture?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing left over from the sale? The shop—the shops in Tyre, in Meridian, in—”

“Nothing. Not a cent. Not a dime. As a matter of fact if you could give us his whereabouts—there’s quite a good sum left unpaid—”

“Nothing,” Lucas echoed.

“Absolutely nothing. . . . Some new people have bought the house, if you’d care to go over and look at it—they’ll understand—people name of Evans, right nice, got three children—”

“Oh, no!”

“They’d be glad to let you see it, I’m sure, if you told them—I could give them a ring—”

“No. No! That’s all right. That’s fine. Thanks very much for your trouble, the inconvenience, and all . . .”

“Well, good luck to you—”

“Thanks very much. Ah—I’ve got to get back. Well, goodbye, then—”

“Any time we can help you—”

“Thanks again . . .”

He escaped to the street. He walked quickly around a corner. His train would not be in for an hour. He thought of Dr. Alexander, he walked swiftly to the old, remembered house, he mounted the steps where he used to sit waiting to carry the bag from the door to the carriage.

Dr. Alexander’s office was much smaller than he remembered it. The consulting room was dowdy, jumbled, the instruments were scant, the examining table shabby with long use.

“You going to the city?” Dr. Alexander asked at last.

“No, sir. General practice. Just like you.”

“That’s the spirit. Glad to hear it. Ever look up my old classmate, Aarons?”

“Yes, sir. I attended all his lectures.”

“Quite a fellow, Aarons . . .”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir, he really is.”

“Wasted there—”

“I don’t know, sir. You’re a pretty big man yourself. I wouldn’t say you were wasted here—”

“No, no. Not in a class with Aarons.” He shook his head. “Had to take what he could get, you know. He was a whiz, Aarons. And when you got to know him, a really fine fellow. I was surprised, myself. He was damned nice to me. Had to take what he could get.”

“Too bad.”

“He’s a Jew, you know. That never bothered me any. Three or four Jew families have moved here since you left. Seem to be all right.”

“I never could understand what all the fuss was about, myself.”

“Yes. Well, there it is. . . . Going to practice—ah—somewhere near? I don’t say Milletta, already got a young fellow setting up. Makes four of us-glad to have you, of course—”

“No. No, I thought I’d try the northern part of the state—if I could. I wanted to set up with a classmate, fellow named Avery. . . . Yes, well I I’ve written to Aznoes—”

“It’s a fine service. They’ll find something for you! Down here just for a visit?”

“Business,” Lucas laughed wryly.

“Well . . .” Dr. Alexander rose. “Stop in again, when you’re around here. Anything I can do to help . . .”

“It was good to see you again.” Lucas looked at the years of service on the man’s face, the quiet, controlled eyes.

“Come in anytime, Luke. The other fellows’d be glad to see you . . .”

“I wish I could. I’ve got to get back—”

“Yes . . . well . . . You ever hear from your father?”

“Not often.” Lucas flushed.

“Well if he should happen to write you—” Dr. Alexander saw Lucas’ face stricken, broke off instantly. “Never mind,” he said. “Send him my regards.”

Lucas stumbled down the steps, fled the steps he used to sit on, dreaming, waiting, fled the street he knew by heart, fled toward the station.

Dr. Alexander too. He’d gotten into Dr. Alexander. He’d taken some of Dr. Alexander’s few poor dollars. Even Dr. Alexander. To take a doctor’s money. Even a doctor . . .

For a moment, waiting for his train in the depot, Lucas was tempted to go to the cemetery where his mother lay. But there was a chance he might be seen, recognized, there was every chance. His mind recoiled from the prospect. He made himself as small as possible. He waited for the train. He did not look out the window until they were long, long past Milletta. Until three stations had gone by.


“So that’s the story. That’s the whole of it.”

“You didn’t have to tell me all that,” said Avery.

“I wanted you to know. I wanted you to understand.”

“Things like that could happen to anybody. He might have been under pressure. Nobody knows what kind of a crack he was in at the time. You can’t be bitter about it.”

“It was all set. I was so sure about it—”

“Well, what the hell.” Avery leaned back. “It was a pretty dream—”

“If there was only some way—some way—”

“I was going to teach, anyway.”

“We would have made a swell team.”

“What are you going to do? What’s the next step?”

Lucas lowered his eyes guiltily. He drew a letter from his coat pocket, passed it wordlessly to Avery.

“Aznoes?” Avery looked up from the letter, surprised.

“Kris gave it to me last night.”

“But this is for you!” Avery looked up. “This is right down your alley! Dr. Runkleman—sounds German. This is just what you wanted!”

“Or you! How about the other one—Dr. Pond?”

“I’m going to teach.”

“But the two places are practically next door—I looked it up on the map—Greenville and Lepton—ten miles apart—we’d practically be practicing together—in no time we could set up our own office—”

“Nope. I’m going to teach. I’ve made up my mind. I’ll tell you something—I’m just as glad, in a way, things turned out as they did—no, don’t look hurt, it’s nothing to do with you. I’d just rather teach. I honestly would. What does Kris say?”

“She wants me to write to Aznoes to see if they could place me in Minnesota.”

“Are you going to?”

“Man, I wouldn’t go to Minnesota unless it was the last state on earth!”

Avery looked at him carefully.

“She’s a fine girl, Kris. You know that, of course. She loves you, Luke. She really loves you.”

“You bet. Oh, I know—”

“I wouldn’t let the fact she’s not so quick on the social trigger blind me to what you got there, I mean the way she holds her fork, and all . . .”

Lucas shook his head ruefully, smiling. “A doctor’s wife—”

“I know. But don’t let it get you.”

“I won’t. She’s a grand girl. She’s really stuck through thick and thin.”

“I’m going to miss you . . .”

“You old radical, you—”

“Where you going to set up your altar? Greenville or Lepton?”

“What do you think?”

“I’d say Greenville.”

“It’s got a hospital. County seat. Got a small private hospital, too.”

“You look up Runkleman?”

“He’s all right. Creighton Medical College, Nebraska, 1889, GP, member of the American Medical Association, born Decatur, Nebraska 1864—”

“Whew! Sixty-six?”

“Chief surgeon, Greenville County Hospital—”

“Three hundred a month. And arrangement. Well, it’s what you wanted. Maybe in a few years he’ll want to retire.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“And you can buy him out.”

Lucas laughed.

“With what?”

“Well, you’ve got your hospital, you’ve got your town of five thousand, you’ve got general practice and probably all the county surgery you want to keep you brushed up. You’re all set.”

“I wish we could have had it our way . . .”

“Forget it! I’m tickled to death, Luke! . . . Well, you’ve got a month, yet. Better hurry and write—”

“See you tomorrow, Avery—”

“Bright and early—”

“You understand about that other?”

“Forget it! I mean it!”

“Well—”

“Say hello to Kris for me—”

On the way home Lucas passed a jewelry store. He stopped. He looked for a long time at a heavy silver bracelet. It was set with one large turquoise. After a while he made up his mind and went in.

The clerk went to the window.

“It’s fourteen dollars, sir.”

“I see.” Lucas knew to a penny that he had six dollars left from the money Kristina had given him to go to Milletta. Six dollars and forty-two cents.

“Something less expensive, sir?”

“No, no thanks. I was just passing . . .” Maybe they sold such things on time. Everybody was buying on time, nowadays.

“We can extend liberal credit arrangements—”

But not for fourteen dollars! My God! If a fellow didn’t have fourteen dollars, if you had to go on the installment plan to get something that cost fourteen dollars!

“No,” Lucas smiled tolerantly. “I guess I don’t have to buy anything on installment that costs fourteen dollars. Not yet! Not yet, that is.”

“Drop in again, sir.”

But he had started, he looked in other windows now, he began to hunt, in a department store, in the midst of a display of novelty jewelry he saw a pair of earrings.

“Five dollars,” said the salesgirl.

“I’ll take them,” he said instantly.

When he gave them to her, Kristina opened the package self-consciously. When she saw them, when they lay in her hand winking up at her, earrings that she never wore, earrings she wouldn’t dream of buying, first because they were too expensive, she bit her lip. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Thanks,” she said. She nodded her head hard.

“It’s nothing. Hope you like them, Kris.” He turned awkwardly away.

“I love them,” she said simply.

He nodded. He walked to the table and picked a test tube from the rack, looked at it intently as if it were something he had suddenly remembered.

She took the package to the kitchen. When she was out of sight she put up her hands to her face and cried. She cried silently. In a moment she brushed the tears away. She began to fold the wrappings the present had come in, she folded the paper carefully, she put the earrings in one apron pocket, the wrappings in another. It was the first present he had ever given her.

★ CHAPTER 24

The train to Greenville bore Lucas Marsh through space and time, behind him the years of his youth dissolved, the years of study, of living feinted with desperation, stratagems, machinations, the places in which he had struggled dissolved, discarded themselves, the train was an instrument, a process, a plucking up, a bearing onward, and before him the fields gleamed, stainless, a new land, boundless with newness, racing beside the train, shouting what lay ahead, and behind him slipped the past, into shadow, into darkness, into oblivion.

All his living had anticipated this moment, had moved inexorably toward this moment, had fashioned of him, oblivious to him, the embodiment of the force which had come into his beginning, an entity strong as existence, growing equally with flesh, a life of itself growing besides life, complete, apart, having its own needs, seizing what it would, directing his soul as life directed his body, implacable, inexorable, a force having magnitude and direction, undeviating and unconquerable.

He was a child again, he was a small boy standing on a dusty street in the place where he had occurred, waiting for the greatest man, to be near him, to be fulfilled in his aura, to put his small presence to suckle and be nourished by it, standing reverent, intoxicated, grateful, waiting to carry his bag, waiting to look into his eyes, to serve him, to be one with him.

All this was his again. It rose in him clean and fresh, newborn, as if the weeping, anxious, stained and hampered intervening years had never been.

Before him waited the demesne of his soul, the realm of his vector, the infinity in which his mind and soul would stride, hungering and fed and never filled, and his body follow, he had won to what his life willed, he had come into his own. The dream was made flesh, the force was made man. The hope rose and drew breath and looked wondering and smiled and was made life. The child who knew no other hope, whose world had no other meaning, stood now, fulfilled, on the threshold of Heaven.

Ahead was Greenville.

Lucas Marsh had become a doctor.

Now he looked upon its environs, on the countryside, committing it to memory, seeing the rolling hillsides where feldspar had once been discovered, the scars of old mines, the timbered hills, the peaks crossing endlessly into the distance over dense forest, craning excitedly with Kristina to glimpse the town where it lay cupped in a rolling valley, buttered with farms, striped with fields, yellow and green and black, gliding beside them, racing to meet them, waiting.

And beside him, Kristina, in her own world, dimly but nonetheless powerfully aware of the force within Lucas, that was greater than her husband, that moved him irresistibly, that shaped and presented him, knew of her own knowing, living with it, that this force was greater than the humans on whom it would be expended and that the hour of this knowledge would yawn one day before Lucas. Fended the thought, thrust it away, buried it, stood upon it, a fortress to protect her Lucas.

The train stopped.

They alighted, dazed, smiling endlessly.

Dr. Runkleman was waiting for them. He beamed down at them, a tall man, broad, burly, his hat set squarely on his head, his stiffly pressed mail-order clothes bulging a little beneath his weight, his brown eyes delighted, his bushy brows frowning with pleasure, the unmistakable bathed, laundered, pressed, shined, neat, plain look of a doctor on him. They liked him instantly. They glanced at one another happily. He saw with satisfaction a young doctor, soberly dressed, his eyes saw the careful mend on the coat’s breast pocket, the anxious, eager eyes, the thin, handsome, serious face, the student’s look, the shy, boyish smile, the look of pleasure for himself. And he saw his wife, this well-looking, sturdy, slim, blond young woman with the look of a Swede about her, saw her simple clothes, saw her easy, competent hands, saw the respect and pleasure in her eyes. And he smiled again. He was delighted. He was amazed at his good fortune. He was content.

“Well, I expect you’re tired after your trip, want to wash up a bit before I take you around, I thought I’d take you around a bit, show you the town when you’re ready—”

“Not a bit, Doctor,” cried Lucas. “I mean—you’re all right, aren’t you, Kris? The trip was nothing, we just sat there and enjoyed ourselves—”

“I’m fine, Doctor,” said Kristina. “You do just what you want!”

“Well . . . If you’re sure, Doctor—”

“Absolutely,” said Lucas, tingling.

“We can see it as we go.” The car left the station behind, headed away from the town into the countryside. “You saw the mines I expect—”

“That’s what they were, then! Mines!”

“Old feldspar mines. Yes. This is one of those towns. Just another piece of the earth, all woods and trees, and then one day some feller, just wandering along, kicked up a piece of this feldspar stuff and you know how it is, it glittered and there was a little mica with it, too, and first thing you know it’s worth a little and there’s a regular rush.”

He beamed at them. They were listening intently.

“Well, that’s about how it was. That was about eighty years ago and pretty soon the deposits gave out or the demand got thin, probably a little of both and the something-for-nothing boys moved on and the stores that came in stayed on, and the land was pretty good and that’s your Greenville. Quite a bit of lumbering, got one factory, a tile plant on the edge of town that makes vitreous pipe and they’re starting to try out a line of dishes, pottery and stuff. Outside of that the rest of town makes a living taking in each other’s washing. They work in the stores—we’re a crossroads town and Greenville’s the county seat, back in the hills there’s little villages do all their trading here, come for miles—and there’s quite a few wealthy farms scattered around. But in the town the man who sells tires takes his money and buys groceries and the grocery man buys hardware with the tire man’s money and the hardware man buys tires—and they all come to the doctor.” He laughed and a moment later they joined him.

“There, now! How’s that for a chamber of commerce?”

“Perfect!” said Lucas.

“They should hire you!” Kristina cried.

Lucas looked apprehensively at Dr. Runkleman, but he was beaming happily and undisturbed at Kristina.

“And there’s two hospitals, Doctor—”

“That’s right, Doctor. We got the County and the Valley. The Valley’s a little private place, nothing like you been used to, started about five years ago in an old private house, an old mansion, really, they’ve got it fixed pretty good, I do quite a bit of work there. And the county keeps up the other one—I’m the chief surgeon, you’ll be my assistant.”

“Fine!”

“You like surgery?”

“Indeed I do!”

“He likes everything!” Kristina cried. “Whatever there is—he likes it—so long as it’s Medicine!”

Lucas smiled and licked his lips.

“Well,” he shrugged, “I guess that’s as good a reason as any for being a doctor . . .”

“You’re right!” said Dr. Runkleman heartily. “Well, you’ll get plenty Medicine here. We’re snowed under. We got four other doctors—you’ll meet them—” He looked at the watch on his thick, hairy wrist, then quickly at a spot in the countryside.

“Call?” Lucas interpreted eagerly.

“You go right ahead!” protested Kristina. “Don’t let us stop you—you got work to do, why, you forget us—”

“Well . . . If you don’t mind . . .”

“Not a bit!”

“That’s Oakum over there . . . I might just make a call here, long as we’re passing—just for a minute . . .”

The car turned off the macadam, bumped along a dirt road past a tiny, ramshackle store, a clot of five weather-beaten houses. Before the last house the car stopped.

“Here we are,” he said apologetically. “I won’t be but a minute.” He opened the door, got out, pulled his bag from the rear seat.

“Oakum!” echoed Kristina. She looked about her, settling herself.

Lucas swallowed.

“Mind if I come with you?”

“Come right ahead! Glad to have you! Not that you have to start right in today, you know . . .”

“They’re sick today as well as any other day! I’m glad to start, Doctor. I don’t mind it a bit. You just lead the way.”

“Want me to come, too? Need a nurse?” Kristina called hopefully.

“Well, I guess we better not overwhelm them. I tell you what—we’ll be right out, how’ll that be?”

“You’re the doctor.”

They turned and walked toward the house.

“This is a little girl,” Dr. Runkleman said in an undertone. “They asked me to stop in if I was going by—”

“If you were going by!”

“Yes, they always say if I am going by. Well, one of the neighbors called in, she’s got a bad cut, they say, ripped her scalp on a nail.”

Two hounds materialized, snarling. Dr. Runkleman glanced at them absently, hefted his bag. He knocked at the door.

An old woman, toothless, a few sparse hairs blown whitely over her pink scalp, opened the door, gestured them in with a knotted stick of a forearm.

They entered.

“Well, now,” said Dr. Runkleman, “hear you’ve had a little trouble.”

The old woman gestured to a murky corner.

“Danged nigh sculp h’self,” she reported.

Lucas stumbled over a broken chair. The room had a foul, sour odor, in a corner he made out a wood stove; one side legless, propped with a chunk of wood, there was a dirty table, a cupboard, three chairs offering burst springs and ripped entrails of hair and rotted burlap webbing. On the floor was a soiled straw mattress. On a drunken bed he made out a tiny form.

“This is Dr. Marsh,” Dr. Runkleman said.

The old woman looked at Lucas, nodded awkwardly.

“How do,” she creaked.

Dr. Runkleman looked down at the bed. A small and very dirty four-year-old girl stared up silently. Her head was wrapped in a soiled rag.

“Yes,” said Dr. Runkleman. “Well, now. Let’s see, what have we here . . .”

“How did it happen?” Lucas asked the old woman.

“Playin’ round, three o’clock in the mornin’, ripped it on a nail.”

“Three o’clock!” echoed Lucas.

“Oh, some of the kids stay up pretty late around here,” Dr. Runkleman said impersonally.

Lucas, who had looked away for a moment, looked back at the little girl. He started. The five stitches were in, Dr. Runkleman was fishing in his bag with his free hand for dressings. Lucas blinked.

“Now you’ll be all right,” Dr. Runkleman smiled down. “I tell you what. Next time you come by my place, I’ll tell you what! I’ll give you—an apple! How’s that! Would you like an apple?”

The old woman fumbled beneath the slack of her dress bosom, from a tobacco sack brought out two coins, looked up at him warily.

“Se’nty-fi’ cents?”

“That’s right,” Dr. Runkleman said heartily.

It was good to be in the air again.

“Kind of close in there,” Dr. Runkleman said apologetically. Lucas grinned amiably.

“Didn’t take you long,” Kristina called from the car.

“Just a cut—a little tear,” Dr. Runkleman wedged heavily in the driver’s seat.

“I turned my head for a moment—and he had five stitches in,” Lucas announced.

Dr. Runkleman gave Lucas a grateful, shy look.

“Thirty-five years—I guess I’ve done enough stitches,” he deprecated.

They drove back to his office on Greenville’s main street. They entered the office, at one side he unlocked a door. He stood aside. They walked through.

“What do you think, eh?”

“There’s five rooms!” Kristina said, surprised.

“That’s right. You like it?”

Lucas saw a pipe protruding from the floor. He turned inquiringly.

“A dentist used to have this,” Dr. Runkleman said. “Yes . . . he hasn’t been here for a year. I tell you what! I can let you have this place for fifteen dollars a month!”

“But that’s wonderful!”

“Five rooms!”

“That’s right,” Dr. Runkleman chuckled. “You can fix yourselves up right here—”

“Right next to the office!” Lucas exulted.

“Of course we take it!” Kristina cried. She looked greedily about the five rooms.

“I’ll bet you make it look all real nice and pretty. I’ll bet you’re just the girl can do it!”

Lucas and Kristina looked at each other.

“We haven’t got much furniture just now,” Lucas admitted.

“We got nothing!” said Kristina. “But in Minnesota—”

“We figured on staying at the hotel until we could pick some up, or rent a place furnished—”

“You did? Well now, look here! You come with me. I got an idea.” He crooked his finger archly, they walked through the office corridors, out the back door. A few feet away loomed a huge house.

“That yours?” Lucas asked, awed.

Dr. Runkleman, smiling, unlocked the door and they followed him in.

“My goodness,” Kristina breathed.

They were in a large living room. It was crammed with mail-order furniture, the most expensive in the catalogues. Lucas winced.

“It’s beautiful!” he said stoutly.

“Doctor! Doctor!” murmured Kristina. “A beautiful home like this and you never married!”

“It’s comfortable,” Dr. Runkleman nodded, delighted.

“Comfortable!” Kristina echoed.

“I should think so,” Lucas mumbled.

Upstairs Dr. Runkleman stood in the doorway while Kristina admired a new, unused bedroom, its new oak bureau, its new oak bed, its new mail-order rug, its curtains.

“This will be your room until you move into your own place. In the meantime I got plenty of furniture out back—stored away”—he waved his arm vaguely. “Maybe I can help out, piece what you’ve got, you don’t have to buy so much. Anyway—no good staying at a hotel, spending money. Now that’s the way we’ll do it.” He looked at his worn wrist watch again. “My housekeeper’s off today. . . . How do you like fried chicken with French-fried potatoes? Then we’ll drive around a little more.”

“It’s a shame to use up your Sunday like this,” Kristina grimaced. “The one day you got off.”

“We’ve got to see about getting you a car.”

Lucas looked quickly at Kristina. They had one hundred and twelve dollars.

“I’ve got an old one—” Dr. Runkleman locked the front door carefully behind them—“you won’t like it much, it’s pretty bad, I use it sometimes when this one is laid up. You can use it until you get one of your own.”

“I learned a little on the ambulance—”

“Oh, yes. Got to have a car here. Long distance between places. That’s the Catholic church.”

“I was wondering—”

“Yes. We’re neighbors.” He looked at the low stone wall separating his driveway from the church. “They stay on their side of the fence and I stay on mine. You Catholic, by any chance?”

“Oh, no. Mrs. Marsh is Lutheran. I guess I’m Methodist Episcopal.”

“I don’t get much time for church. No. Now over there,” and he pointed to his neighbor on the other side, “is Ben Cosgrove. He’s a lawyer. Now, I wonder what you’re going to think of him.”

“I don’t know many lawyers.”

“We got two, three of them. And afterward I want you to meet Dr. Castle, Dr. Henry Castle. And then maybe, later this evening, if you feel like it, we’ll go over to the County.”

In a dozen blocks the sidewalks ended, the houses were farther apart, a dozen more and they were on the highway and the town was behind them folded from sight in the hills.

“This Dr. Castle—we do quite a bit of work together. He’s a Canadian. Getting old—like I am. I help him out with surgery, now and then.”

“In Minnesota,” Kristina said politely, “there’s quite a few Canadians. They’re French, aren’t they?”

“Well, now, this one, I’m pretty sure he’s English. Yes. English descent. He’s a very well-educated man. Then we’ve got Dr. Kauffman, and Dr. Binyon and Dr. Blake, they run an office together, sort of clinic.”

“The three of them?”

“No,” said Dr. Runkleman carefully. “Dr. Kauffman is a Jew.”

When they had finished eating the waitress who had served them, a thin, blond girl not quite thirty, held a five-dollar bill toward Dr. Runkleman.

“What? What’s this for?”

“It’s on account, Doctor. I’ve already paid ten dollars. Now I owe fifteen more. I’d have paid in sooner, only—”

“Do you owe me money?”

“Dr. Snider said it would be thirty dollars.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“When I was leaving the County. I paid in ten.”

“He did? I see . . . Well, now you just keep that and I’ll see if I can’t straighten it out . . .” His eyes were hard. Carefully, he put down a ten-cent tip.

He managed a smile as they got back in the car.

“I don’t know what they’re doing over in the County. That’s Dr. Snider—you’ll meet him tomorrow, he’s in charge of the County—somebody over there must have got things mixed up. I took out her appendix and I guess somebody got things mixed up.”

“It’s free at the County, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.” He was silent.


They were in bed at nine o’clock.

“What do you think?” Lucas whispered, “living right next to the office—! You can’t beat that. I can just roll out of bed in the morning and open the door and I’m there. Kris! Did you see that old woman where we stopped for that call? Do you know what she paid him? Seventy-five cents! That’s what he charges for a call!”

“Maybe just poor people.”

“Everybody. Seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half. Thirty dollars for an appendectomy, fifteen dollars for tonsils and adenoids, seventy-five dollars for a delivery and six months postnatal care—”

“And he’s got all this! That seven-room office, all that equipment, that brand-new X-ray, the five-room wing we’re going to have, this big house, two cars, all that furniture—”

“And sixty office calls a day! Sixty! Sixty calls between one o’clock and six-thirty! Is it possible? In the mornings he operates at the County from eight until eleven—then the Valley, that’s the private hospital, if he’s got any scheduled there—then back to the office—then there’s his rounds—and the calls in between—and the night calls—”

“He’s a nice man. You like him, Luke?”

“There’s a man who’s practicing Medicine! And to hell with the money!”

“Giving us this room until we get settled . . .”

“You should have seen him! He picked up that needle, I turned my head for a minute, I turned back—and he had five stitches in and reaching for the dressings!”

“What was it?”

“Little girl, four-year-old, big gash in her scalp, caught it on a nail. At three o’clock in the morning! Playing!”

“We gonna have a nice house, Luke. I’m gonna fix it up real good. Do you think maybe he might take me on?”

“I don’t know. Let’s see his staff,” Lucas twisted uncomfortably. “He knows you’re a nurse. He didn’t say anything. He’s probably got all the help he wants.”

“We could use the money. Tomorrow I clean that place from top to bottom. . . . Was it a pretty little girl, Luke?”

“I wonder what happened to the dentist.”

“I’m going to put up curtains—”

“We’ve got to get a stove—”

“I’ll look in the stores. Second hand is just as good—”

“Now remember, Kris, you’re a doctor’s wife—”

“They don’t know me—”

“Maybe you better get it in Lepton, somewheres down the line—anything second hand like that—it’ll reflect on him, too . . .”

“Oh, Luke! A place of our own. Our first place! Our first home! . . . And you’ve been on your first case, already! . . . That poor little girl! . . . Do you like children, Luke?”

“You bet I do. Cute little thing. Never said a word. Big black eyes watching—Now, wait a minute, Kris! You’re not getting any ideas, are you?”

“About what? I didn’t say anything—”

“About kids! That’s what!”

“Someday we’re going to have kids—”

“Someday!”

“I was just thinking—”

“But this isn’t someday! Understand? Now get it straight! And don’t get any ideas in your head! Now, you listen to me. Kris!”

“All right, all right—”

“I’m deadly serious!”

“We be all right.”

“Well, just don’t forget!”

In the night the phone rang and Lucas, rousing groggily, dressed and stumbled downstairs and found Dr. Runkleman with his hand on the knob and his bag in his other hand, ready to go out.

Dr. Runkleman grinned friendlily, surprised and pleased.

“You don’t have to get up.”

Lucas smiled. He picked up his bag. “I hope I’ve got what we’ll need, here. I didn’t know what to pack—I’ve just got the straight run-of-the-mill hospital kit—”

“I got plenty here. Everything. Hope Mrs. Marsh didn’t get waked up—”

“She’s used to it.”

“If she wants to we can use an operating-room nurse at the County now and then. Think she’d mind?”

“She was head OR when she married me—just quit to come up here—”

“Wonderful! She’ll show us up!”

They drove a long way into the dark countryside, through the farm country, past the far-apart farms.

When they stopped Lucas sensed rather than saw a house set some distance back from the road.

“They might at least have left a light on,” he protested.

“Yes,” said Dr. Runkleman.

At their footsteps dogs came roaring. They tripped and stumbled toward the house. The din grew. Still no light appeared. Finally they reached the front door. Dr. Runkleman pounded. They waited. There was no answer.

“And this is the house which called a doctor up in the middle of the night?” Lucas cried incredulously.

“I’ll just try the back door,” said Dr. Runkleman.

He pounded at the back door. The dogs roared louder. He pounded again and again. Finally a light came on. A moment later the door opened.

The sleep-swollen face of a hulking farmer peered at them resentfully, he saw their bags, pointed wordlessly to a bedroom, carried his kerosene lamp ahead. A woman lay sleeping. They roused her. This was the patient.

“You called us, didn’t you?” Lucas asked the farmer uncertainly.

“Had a bad spell a while back.” He grunted.

“Something’s the matter’th my chest,” she said soberly.

Dr. Runkleman shook some pills out of a vial.

“You’re all right,” he said.

The woman nodded. The farmer lit their way to the door. They stumbled back toward their car. When they were halfway there the lights were extinguished in the house. They reached the car in darkness. They drove off.

“Seventy-five cents?” Lucas asked tonelessly.

“That’s a dollar,” Dr. Runkleman said apologetically. “Night call.”

“And they called you up in the middle of the night—got you all the way out here—for a mild cold?”

“They don’t know. They know she’s got cancer, carcinoma of the spleen, already metastasized. So any symptom she gets—”

“But not even to have a light on for you!”

“Yes . . . That’s the way they are,” Dr. Runkleman said cheerily. He smiled at Lucas reassuringly. I know why you’re saying that, you’re saying it because you’re indignant for my sake, I appreciate it, it warms me, I like you; but don’t get mad, it’s a waste of time, you’ll see after a while, that’s how they are, it doesn’t matter, I’m not insulted, that’s what I treat.

Lucas’ heart ached suddenly with affection for this burly, shy man, trying awkwardly with the punctilio of a grandee to be kind, to give him ease. A wave of fierce protectiveness for him, for his battered bag, his expensive cheap shoes, his mail-order clothes.

They returned to the house. They went to bed, they fell asleep again. It was a good night. They were awakened twice more before dawn. At the second awakening Lucas’ body, incredulous and outraged as it always had been on night duty, stumbled to the waiting car, his numb mind rousing last. At the next call he rose resignedly, rose from habit, moved and thought more easily.

And at the last awakening the rebellion, ripped untimely from the womb of slumber, the wrench, the maimed upswimming, threshing climb to consciousness, this normal mechanism of man was tamed, led docilely by discipline, and abruptly the abnormal became normal, he awakened undazed, his mind began to function almost instantly, and then, its work done, the alarm met, function performed, he fell lightly and thoroughly and easily asleep again, unresenting and controlled. The groundwork for this transition had been prepared during his internship. Now the structure in a single night became absolute and permanent and the fixed future of his days.

Before he fell asleep after the last call he mused drowsily on this community which was his, now, his laboratory, his hospital, his field. He explored the data of the day, the details, the faint notes, the signs, and he sighed happily for the man’s, David Runkleman’s, skill, his grasp and his silent knowledge. He would work with him obliviously, hand to hand, these two knowing what they knew, intent, forever ready, impersonal units of the great game, the greatest force that man possessed, that possessed man, these two, lonely and together. He gave a fierce sigh of happiness and fell asleep.

★ CHAPTER 25

In the morning sunlight the County Hospital’s low, rigid lines elated Lucas with anticipation, he did not notice the countryside in which it was set, he alighted from the car with Dr. Runkleman and holding his gaze on the squat structure he walked to it, savoring the moment, savoring this first sight of it, possessing it.

Shaped in a square U, the wings at the rear, the length of the building was divided by a corridor, on either side of which were the wards. In one wing was the X-ray room, the operating room, the emergency room, and a surgeon’s dressing room. In the other wing was kept the county’s poor and those too infirm for work but not yet sick enough for hospitalization.

Dr. Runkleman was showing Lucas the hospital’s seldom used laboratory when the door opened and a short, thin, elderly, tousled figure precipitated itself into the room.

“Told me you were here!” the man cried, accusingly. “God damn ’em! Never get ’em to tell you anything!”

Startled, Lucas looked at Dr. Runkleman.

“This is Dr. Snider,” said Dr. Runkleman.

Lucas took his limp hand and surveyed the man thus lifted into brotherhood by the mention of the single word “doctor.” There was a stain of tobacco juice at the corner of his thin lips.

“Dr. Marsh,” said Dr. Runkleman. “He’s going to help us out.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Dr. Snider. He swallowed and his bony Adam’s apple bobbed beneath a patent bow tie. “See you found the lab, all right—”

“I’ve been showing him around.”

“Like to fool around in the lab?”

“A sort of sentimental attachment. I worked my way through school doing lab work,” Lucas confided.

“Anything you want, you just sing out. That right, Dave? We’re kind of shorthanded here, I guess Dave’s told you, sort of use this place for a supply room—”

“Well,” said Dr. Runkleman, walking to the door, “I guess we got a little job this morning—”

“Need me?”

Dr. Runkleman nodded. The three walked down the corridor toward the operating room.

“Well, you won’t find us much,” said Dr. Snider. “Just a little old backwoods hospital after what you been accustomed to. Used to have a hospital of my own over the state line—”

“I told him,” said Dr. Runkleman.

“Guess you got enough OB to keep him busy, anyway, eh, Dave?” Dr. Snider asked slyly.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Lucas said promptly. “All the work I can get.”

“Oh, you’ll get enough work, all right. Dave’ll find work enough for you. He’ll keep you busy. Eh, Dave?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Runkleman evenly. “There’s plenty of work.”

As they entered through the wide swinging doors of the operating room three nurses looked up quickly, curiously and nervously.

“Good morning, girls! Brought you a nice, new doctor! A young one!” Dr. Snider announced loudly.

Lucas flushed. The nurses smiled uncertainly.

“This is Dr. Marsh,” said Dr. Runkleman. “Miss Adams, Mrs. Pomfret, Miss Punce.”

“New man!” cried Dr. Snider. “Came straight from the state university! Now you girls get the lead out of your ass this morning! Don’t disgrace us!” He turned to Dr. Runkleman. “I’ll be right with you.” He turned and walked out.

“I guess we’re about ready,” Dr. Runkleman smiled amiably at the nurses. “Sorry to be a little late this morning—”

They walked toward the dressing room. Speech means nothing, Lucas told himself sternly. Neither speech, nor chewing tobacco, nor small, mean eyes, nor all the marks of a bumpkin. Beneath these things which do not count is a doctor. Deal with the doctor. Forget the rest.

“What do you think of him?” Dr. Runkleman asked impersonally. In the tiny dressing room he had pulled off his shirt, his undershirt, revealing a great hairy chest, a hairy belly, he folded his clothes carefully.

“Must be quite a job handling this whole hospital,” Lucas said evenly.

“The girls do all the work!” Dr. Runkleman snorted. “Old Al’s got a good thing just being administrator. Used to have a small sanitarium, I guess it got too much for him. He’s getting old. I don’t use him any more than I have to. Now—those girls—I don’t know whether you noticed—only one of them’s an RN, we have to do the best we can—Miss Otis, for instance, she’ll be the operating-room nurse this morning, she comes when she can, she’s got a crippled husband to take care of—”

“Can’t they afford a regular OR?”

“Well, you see, old Al keeps bills down to a minimum. That way he stays on the good side of the board. I don’t think we’ve got three RN’s on the whole staff.”

They dressed, scrubbed, took their places.

The patient was wheeled in.

“Meat on the table!” Dr. Snider sang out happily, following the stretcher. He had removed his coat and now wore a short white jacket.

Dr. Runkleman glanced at the patient, a slim girl of fifteen, her dark eyes wide with fright.

“This will be an appendectomy,” he told Lucas. “And I think we might have something else.” And then, in a louder voice, smiling at the girl. “Well! How are you this morning! Next time you see me your troubles are going to be all over.”

The girl stared up at their masked faces and tried to smile. Dr. Snider sat down at the head of the table, by his side a tray with a mask and a can of ether. He reached forward abruptly and jerked the girl’s chin up.

“All right, now,” he said irritably, “don’t try to take it all, just start breathing. Breathe easy.” And he clapped the mask over her greased face and immediately saturated the mask. The girl jerked her head.

“Hey!” Dr. Snider protested indignantly. “What are you trying to do, there? Lay quiet! Now just take it easy!” He looked up at them, injured.

Lucas looked quickly away. Dr. Runkleman said nothing. He looked once at the ether mask, then steadily down at the table. The room fell silent. The girl began to breathe stertorously.

“All right, I guess,” Dr. Snider said at last.

Dr. Runkleman took a step to the head of the table. Dr. Snider removed the mask and looked up at him. Dr. Runkleman jerked his head. Dr. Snider obediently opened one of the girl’s eyelids, Dr. Runkleman peered at it briefly, nodded, took his place again. The girl was swiftly draped. As they uncovered her shaven mons veneris Dr. Runkleman quickly pulled the laparotomy sheet back in place, quickly and almost roughly. She breathed deeply and slowly now. All that could be seen of her was her umbilicus and the skin over her appendicial region.

Lucas thrust out his hand, Dr. Runkleman thrust out his hand. Miss Otis turned her head from one to the other uncertainly, ready with the long forceps holding the wad of gauze.

“That’s right!” Dr. Runkleman said loudly. “That’s your job!” He withdrew his hand.

“However you want to do it,” Lucas said humbly.

“No, no! You’re right! Absolutely!”

Miss Otis slapped the forceps gently into Lucas’ palm. He held the gauze over a pail. One of the other nurses poured antiseptic over it, soaking it. He swabbed the bared skin. He threw the forceps on the waiting tray. Dr. Runkleman put out his hand. Miss Otis slapped a scalpel gently into the palm. Lucas put out his hand. Miss Otis put a square of gauze in it.

“Harder,” said Lucas.

Miss Otis nodded.

Dr. Runkleman looked up at the clock.

Dr. Runkleman cut down on the skin. He made a small incision. Lucas mopped, put out his hand for haemostats. The clamps slapped hard into his hand. He nodded. Dr. Runkleman had already cut through the first layer of muscle. Two small arteries began to spurt. Lucas clamped them. Dr. Runkleman was cutting through the second layer. He waited while Lucas clamped again. Waited a moment after Lucas mopped, waited to be sure. Then he was cutting again, now he was pushing muscle out of his way, Lucas was retracting, clamping, mopping, Dr. Runkleman’s fingers disappeared, they emerged, delivering the appendix, he seemed to be working slowly, carefully, hand out, instrument, cut, inspect, wait, put down the used instrument, look, hand out, instrument . . .

The appendix, and the clamp holding one end of it, dropped with a clink into a waiting kidney basin. Lucas looked involuntarily at the clock. Eight minutes. He looked at Dr. Runkleman, incredulous. Dr. Runkleman was everting the stump. Lucas glanced at Dr. Snider. Dr. Snider peered at him, a sardonic smile on his face. Surprised, are you? Figured you might be. That’s the way we do it here.

“You assist fine, just fine!” Dr. Runkleman said cordially, holding the tied suture while Lucas snipped.

Lucas shook his head.

“Eight minutes!” he murmured.

Dr. Runkleman looked at the clock. The nurses shifted, pleased.

“That’s what it was, wasn’t it!” Dr. Runkleman said, as if surprised. If you’re going to be surprised, I am, too. You and I. What one does, the other one does. We stand together.

Lucas swallowed.

“I think—we’ll just take a look at those ovaries while we’re here. Might as well have a look at them. Long as we’ve got her open. What do you think? I guess we better look.” He turned to Dr. Snider. “Is she all right?” Dr. Snider removed the mask a moment, glanced at the still face carelessly, clapped the mask back on. He nodded, indifferently.

Dr. Runkleman’s fingers disappeared into the incision, stuffing the end of intestine with it, he groped a moment, his fingers emerged delivering the right ovary, part of the tube, slender in a young girl, slender as childhood, angry-red.

“Yes sir!” said Dr. Runkleman.

“Chocolate cysts!”

“Pretty young, isn’t she?” Dr. Runkleman agreed.

“What do you think?”

“Been hittin’ it up,” offered Dr. Snider from the head of the table. “Probably had a little more’n her belly’n she was born with!”

Lucas looked at Dr. Runkleman. Dr. Runkleman looked steadfastly at the tissue he was clamping off. GC, thought Lucas. It was the face that had fooled him. He would have to stop paying any attention to faces. Fifteen. And wearing that scapular medal. And gonorrhea. Long-standing enough to get to the tubes.

When he reached for a retractor, when he turned back, the area was cleaned of cysts. Dr. Runkleman had found a single small cyst on the left ovary. He called for sutures. He began to sew. He seemed to work slowly. His heavy hands moved deliberately, his thick, stubby fingers closed and opened ponderously. He worked without any perceptible change of rhythm. And Lucas, who from the beginning had concentrated with every nerve on having ready whatever Dr. Runkleman wanted, on being beforehand at every step, on mopping up the blood which obscured the field where Dr. Runkleman was working, and clamping and retracting, and snipping and holding sutures tight, Lucas suddenly followed the rhythm of Dr. Runkleman, adjusted to it like a dancer following a new partner’s steps, watched it rigidly, and at the end they were working in unison, in that smooth, flowing move and countermove of partners, a complete, fierce, happy joy to both of them. They looked up and smiled boyishly at each other. They looked at the clock.

“Eighteen minutes!” cried Lucas. He spoke louder than he intended.

“So it is!” Dr. Runkleman nodded, as if he were surprised too.

“In and out in eighteen minutes! Ovarian cysts and an appendix!” No, his tone said stubbornly. No! You’re not going to pretend surprise as if this was the first time you did it! This is incredible!

“About the way they did it down at State?” Dr. Runkleman asked diffidently.

“Oh, yes!” Lucas said fiercely, mockingly. “Oh, yes! That’s the way they did it!” You know better! You know how fast that was! You know what you did—neat, strong, perfect, hardly a wineglass of blood spilled, you know—you know . . .

This was a craftsman.

Here in these backwoods, this bulky man, apologetic, clumsy-looking, dressed in mail-order clothes, this was a Doctor. This, this was Medicine. He grinned exultantly.

“Seems to be having trouble with her breathing,” Dr. Snider said irritably.

Dr. Runkleman moved swiftly to the girl’s head. Lucas moved with him. Her lips were blue. She was breathing very slowly.

Dr. Runkleman moved to the space occupied by Dr. Snider as if Dr. Snider weren’t there. He put his bulk there and Dr. Snider got out of the way, knocking over his stool as he moved backward.

“Oxygen!” said Lucas.

He looked at the nurses. They looked back at him helplessly. He walked quickly to the tank.

“Where’s the mask?”

“Where’s the mask?” Dr. Runkleman echoed, his voice hard. The nurses bumped into each other scurrying to find the oxygen mask. They pawed through the instrument case.

“Hurry!” called Dr. Runkleman in the same voice.

A nurse dashed back with a mask. The oxygen began to hiss.

“Epinephrine?” Lucas queried.

Dr. Runkleman nodded.

The head operating-room nurse already had the syringe filled, needled, waiting. The oxygen hissed. The girl’s breathing quickened a little.

“Eight . . .” called Lucas. Dr. Runkleman nodded. “Ten . . .” Dr. Runkleman nodded.

“Got blue all of a sudden,” Dr. Snider said equably.

There was silence a moment.

“It didn’t just happen,” Dr. Runkleman said coldly.

“Looked down and damned if she wasn’t blue!”

The girl breathed normally at length.

Lucas turned off the oxygen.

“Well,” said Dr. Snider, “looks like she’s all right, now.”

Dr. Runkleman said nothing. He watched the girl a moment longer. Then he nodded, turned on his heel, and stripping off his gloves and mask walked to the dressing room. Lucas followed. Dr. Snider paid no attention to either of them. The door closed behind them.

They undressed. The silence was awkward.

“I’ve told him a million times,” Dr. Runkleman said.

“He could have told us long before,” said Lucas, he said it carefully, Dr. Snider was his senior.

“He’s a goddamned old fool!” Dr. Runkleman burst out.

“Does he ever operate?”

“He hasn’t operated in years. Every so often I use ether. Mostly I give spinals.”

So there was a whole story there, plain to be read, a vista clear and unalterable behind the plain, the unextended, the simple words, the embarrassed tone.

“We’ll look in at the Valley a minute, got a hernia there, Dr. Castle’s patient, I said I’d help him.”

And they showered, they dressed, they walked through the wards quickly.

“This is Dr. Marsh,” and the faces of the indigent looking up expressionless, wary a little, “What do you think of this, Doctor?” Or, “I’d like you to look at this, Doctor.” And a blur of nurses’ faces, a blur of patients, some very young, most very old, a small sea of human life. “This is Dr. Marsh. Would you care to look at this, Doctor?” All with the deference, the intentness, most of all the deference as if a great surgeon, a great doctor were visiting and he, Dr. Runkleman, valued and studied his opinion, valued his stature. So that afterward, and Lucas knew it well, this would be Dr. Marsh, the new doctor, Dr. Marsh, young perhaps but of whom Dr. Runkleman asked things, whom he listened to intently, Dr. Marsh whom their own Dr. Runkleman treated as an equal. Or better.

On the way out they passed the X-ray room, which lay in the operating-room corridor. Outside the door there were two beds. They were occupied by two old men. Lucas turned to Dr. Runkleman inquiringly.

“That’s the X-ray room,” Dr. Runkleman said. “Yes. I guess they’re kind of crowded.” Lucas looked at him again. His tone had changed slightly. There was some significance here. But Dr. Runkleman said nothing further. They left the County, they drove on to the Valley.

“Wonder what Kris is doing,” Lucas speculated.

“Would you like to stop? Shall I drive by? Won’t take a minute—”

“Oh, Heavens no! No, no!”

“I could stop just as easy as not—”

“She’s housecleaning. She’s all right.”

“That’s a nice little woman. Yes. Very nice. I’ll tell you what, I think we’ll stop by there . . .”

“No, no, Doctor! Really!”

“Sure?”

“She’ll be all right. She’ll be fine.”

“Well, I’ve got a couple of T and A’s to do—might as well get them over, I guess. Then we’ll help Castle . . .”

An hour later Lucas and Dr. Runkleman had removed three sets of tonsils and adenoids, a trained crew moving swiftly and surely with them.

They disrobed in the dressing room. Dr. Runkleman sat down on a cot there and leaned back against the wall, lacing his hands behind his head for a moment. Dr. Castle stooped his head automatically, coming through the doorway, a man in his sixties, his thin hair brown and gray, his face square, his eyes slow and intent, his mouth deeply carved, his nose jutting sharply, a heavy man, a man who looked like an old athlete, dressed indefinably better than Dr. Runkleman, not dressed fastidiously, but beside him Dr. Runkleman looked a little rustic.

“Ah,” he said, “you got here early. You beat me.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Runkleman. He pulled himself up, smiling. “Yes. Now, this is Dr. Marsh.”

“Glad to meet you, sir,” said Lucas. And after a time Dr. Castle let go his hand.

“What do you think of us here?” Dr. Castle lit a cigarette. There were spots on his vest. Lucas looked up at his face swiftly. Hardening of the arteries. Essential hypertension.

“I think I’m pretty lucky!” Lucas said evenly.

“Oh ho! You’ve seen him work! What do you think of it?”

“I think I’m pretty lucky,” Lucas said simply. There was nothing else to say.

“Now—” said Dr. Runkleman.

“It’s the truth,” Dr. Castle nodded. “He’s all right, old Dave . . .”

“I guess I’ve seen a few,” said Lucas.

“I’ll have to buy you lunch,” said Dr. Runkleman. “Yes. That’s what you’re after. All right. I’ll have to buy you lunch.”

The operation began.

Dr. Castle made the first incision. Dr. Runkleman, watching intently, stood politely by. He clamped. The OR mopped. Lucas stood by.

“Time for you in a minute,” Dr. Castle said. He cut slowly, very slowly. His cuts were uneven. He cut badly.

“Getting old,” he said, not looking up. And unobtrusively, little by little, Lucas could not say when, Dr. Runkleman took over, Dr. Castle was somehow assisting, Lucas was holding the large retractors in place, the repair was beginning.

Toward the end, the repair completed, closure begun,

“I’ll do it,” said Dr. Castle gruffly.

And Dr. Runkleman instantly doffed the invisible robe of charge, Dr. Castle began his slow, laborious, repeated moves again, Dr. Runkleman assisting, Lucas assisting both, the OR watching Lucas jealously.

Dr. Castle stopped.

“No,” he said. He looked at what he had done. “No. I should have—”

“It’s just right,” said Dr. Runkleman, “I don’t know—maybe if we—” and his hands moved in deftly, apologetically he snipped a few stitches, restitched, it was all done swiftly—“maybe like that—although your way—no difference. Just as good.”

“No,” said Dr. Castle watching as Lucas began to sew, “No, I did it wrong,” he said it quietly and with dignity.

And in the dressing room before he left,

“Come around and see me when you get settled.”

“I’ll bring him around,” Dr. Runkleman promised.

And Dr. Castle nodded and was gone.

“He’s getting a little old now,” Dr. Runkleman said carefully, knotting his tie. “That arthritis bothered him.”

“I noticed. His hands. He’s got a touch of hypertension, hasn’t he?”

“Henry? He shouldn’t be practicing, at all. He’s got a presystolic murmur sounds like a waterfall—”

“Mitral—”

“Yes. Notice the flush? Pretty bad.”

“He knows, of course.”

“Oh, I’ve told him! You’ll see. Knocks him out. He won’t quit, though. Just as well. He’s all right, Henry. He knows what he’s doing. He knows enough to call for help—he was a damned fine man, once. Not so long ago. Made me look silly.”

“He knows what he’s doing, all right—”

“Just old. That’s all.”

You’re not so young yourself, Lucas mused, troubled, as they drove back to the office. I’ve got to spare you, I’ve got to help you all I can. I’ve got to hold on to myself. Not go rushing in. These people do things delicately. I’ve got to keep quiet. Be restrained. Like him. Like he is. Be like him.

They ate quickly. When they had finished, Dr. Runkleman looked at his watch. “Well,” he said elaborately, “guess it’s about time to be getting to work.”

And in the office, after he had met Miss Snow, who was the nurse, and Miss Ables, who kept the books and took X-rays, and found the rooms next door washed from ceiling to floor and empty, Kristina having gone out shopping,

“You sit over here,” Dr. Runkleman gently indicated a chair beside his desk. And when Lucas was seated, Miss Snow handed Dr. Runkleman two clipped sheets, a case report, he looked at it, handed it to Lucas.

“All right,” he said, “might as well start sending them in.”

Miss Snow opened the door.

A woman of forty entered. And he sat in an office, a doctor in a doctor’s office, and as she came through the door, as his eyes summed her, read the book of her face, scanned the shape of her, studied her motion, roamed her for signs, Lucas’ self-consciousness vanished, he was all that he had learned, he was an instrument.

“Well, how are you today, Mrs. Funston?” Dr. Runkleman was heavily cordial, stilted. It was a polite manner, his notion of a social gambit, and in the question there was only the studied and self-conscious sound with which David Runkleman, who began life on a farm, now greeted his kind, as a doctor, and Lucas heard this in spite of himself, as a forever analyzing part of himself heard everything.

Mrs. Funston shook her head, troubled.

“Now—this is my assistant—Dr. Marsh. Yes . . . Now, how’s the pain in your belly? Mrs. Funston’s the wife of one of our cashiers, Dr. Marsh.”

A fat woman, she was too fat, her complexion and conjunctivae had the muddiness of chronic gastritis.

“I still got it.” The woman sat down stolidly.

And as she did so she smoothed her dress, she looked at them defensively and with the moment, with the look, Lucas expertly stripped the speaker of personality, clothing, status in the tribe. His eyes saw only the gesturing of the flesh, the mute language of a thousand tiny tissue fingers shaping a wrinkle here, pulling a line taut there, pitting a surface, smoothing it, roughing it, heaping it, gesturing endlessly. His ears heard only the dumb tongues of the body, the unworded sounds, the rustle of breath, the flub-dup of heart, the dull sound, the sharp sound, the hollow sound, the grating, creaking, crackling, blowing infinity of messages clearly spoken by these dumb tongues.

He looked at Addie Funston, his ears heard Dr. Runkleman unobtrusively drawing her out for his benefit, he sifted these things for the sounds and signs of neurosis, he explored her clothing for telltale disorder, stains, apathy.

Here was simply a woman who was eating too much. Now he ceased to analyze, the problem was over, and he reverted to the social noises indispensable between physician and patient, the polite, the tactful, the gambit.

The door closed behind Addie Funston. They walked out of a private door down a corridor lined with eight rooms. In each of these rooms Miss Snow had by now established a waiting patient.

“Seemed to show a little gastritis,” Lucas said, his tone politely serious.

“She’s in every week.” Dr. Runkleman smiled. “There was a sort of puffiness to her skin—a little muddy . . .”

“Yes, and the conjunctivae—”

“She’ll be in again next week. . . . Now, let’s see.” He looked down the corridor, picked a door at random. He opened it. A thin blond girl rose uncertainly in the narrow cubicle. Miss Snow came to them swiftly, handed him a card.

“Oh, yes! Miss Peterson, isn’t it?” Dr. Runkleman smiled. Miss Snow closed the door quietly and hurried off. “This is Dr. Marsh, Miss Peterson. Miss Peterson is a bookkeeper—” he consulted the card—“down at the Acme Garage. Now, what seems to be your chief complaint?”

Miss Peterson flushed. She licked her lips, her lips opened, but she closed them again. She was a willowy, long-legged young woman of twenty-four, her skin slightly erupted, eyelids reddened, hands cold and somewhat moist. She looked hesitantly at Lucas.

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “it’s—well—it’s my flowers.”

Lucas blinked.

Dr. Runkleman nodded.

“When you have your flowers—when your period comes—do you flow a lot more than you used to?”

“No, sir. I—ah—well, I’m always just miserable, the pains come on so bad, I use hot-water bags but it doesn’t help, somebody told me a hot bag of salt but nobody can swallow a whole bag of salt—every month it’s the same thing, four days gone, two days in bed, I just can’t stand it any longer.”

“Yes. Well—you can’t stop, you know.”

“Sometimes I think I’d be better off dead. And all those men in the shop, every time my flowers comes around they know, I can see them snickering, they pass remarks—”

Nothing here. Lucas had stopped analyzing two minutes after the girl began to speak. He heard the rest with his hearing faculties, he did not need his reason, he stood patiently until it was over. Here was just another human being, granted life, given the miracle of function, of potential, granted life and function and potential and the mechanism to express these things. There was nothing gravely wrong with the mechanism.

A thought, which had first come to him during his last year at the hospital, seeing hundreds of such humans, came again to him unresolved and vague and persistent. He put it away.

Dr. Runkleman looked at his watch. Miss Snow materialized, handed Dr. Runkleman a card, disappeared to tidy the room they had just quitted.

In the room they entered there were two people, the man was fifty years old and looked seventy, he was emaciated, a carpenter angular as his folding rule. He looked at them, spoke only when questioned, his wife volubly rattled off her husband’s symptoms. Her features wrinkled with distaste as she described the taste of the last medicine Dr. Runkleman had prescribed. Dr. Runkleman prescribed a new medicine.

The door closed behind them. They walked down the corridor to the next room.

“He’s never going to get well if she keeps on taking his medicine,” Dr. Runkleman chuckled helplessly. “Whatever I prescribe for him—she takes it. Well . . .”

As they entered, Miss Snow winked at them knowingly.

“Well, hello there, boy!” Dr. Runkleman said heartily. “How are you? How would you like a nice apple, eh? I tell you what, the minute they’re ripe you come by and I’ll give you a nice apple, how would you like that? Now, let’s see how we’re coming along . . .”

The six-year-old stared at them silently.

“Said it hurt last time,” his eighteen-year-old brother grinned.

“Well, this won’t hurt, just drop your pants, now, this won’t hurt a bit . . .”

Lucas looked and automatically moved to help set up the apparatus.

The six-year-old silently submitted to treatment, and, his brother leading the way, silently marched out again. He walked spraddled. The injection burned raw tissues in a urethra inflamed by gonorrhea contracted from his twelve-year-old sister.

The door opened.

The door closed.

They moved to the next room.

A new face, a new body, a new shape, a man, a woman, old, young, middle-aged, a baby, a heart, a stomach, a splinter, a boil, a bowel, a growth, a liver, a kidney, all hidden by the clothes, hidden behind the face, behind the expression, behind the voice, behind the speech and what was said every day and what was replied, and what was worn, and what was pretended, all stripped here, startlingly bare, looked at, viewed, listened to, treated, prescribed for, then robed, dressed, hidden again, walking to the door, gone, mingling with the mass as before entered.

Room after room, case after case, the quick look, the quick question, the rip of the prescription pad, the corridor, the next room, the next case.

And in an hour they had completed the circuit twice, they were back in the office, a little guiltily Lucas had adapted himself to the pace, missing a great deal, knowing he was missing a great deal, shrugging inwardly, guiltily, trusting Dr. Runkleman.

“Getting the hang of it.”

“Going pretty fast,” Lucas admitted.

“You’ll get used to it. There’s nothing wrong with most of them—you found that out at the hospital, I expect—I tell you what I do, if they can sleep nights, if the pain doesn’t wake them up—I just like to make them comfortable till it gets better or we can see what we’re dealing with—if it gets worse—they’ll be back!”

“Sort of keep them at bay,” Lucas murmured, his voice impersonal.

“About all we can do—Yes, Miss Snow? Oh! I wonder if you’d mind taking this one, Doctor—”

“The second door on your left,” Miss Snow called. She ushered a new patient into the office. She hurried after Lucas. “I’ll introduce you . . .”

But this was his own. This was his first in private practice. He looked at the young woman keenly. He resolved to miss nothing. He checked her silently, he listened as he looked, as his fingers probed. Miss Snow hovered a moment uncertainly, saw him absorbed, was gone.

The pelvis was normal.

He listened to her heart sounds. He moved to her chest. He palpated her abdomen.

“. . . and my roommate, she teaches phys ed, she thought I’d better drop in, we room together, you know, and being as she teaches phys ed—but even so, one day last week I could hardly correct my English papers—yes, that’s it! Right there! Right over the stomach!”

“And it pains you before breakfast?”

“Ever so badly! And I feel much worse after I eat—”

“But it doesn’t wake you at night—”

“No, not the pain—”

“What does wake you?”

“It’s been a nightmare . . . I’ve got to tell somebody or go crazy! I don’t know where to turn. There’s something I’ve got to know—my roommate . . . Doctor, listen! I’m almost sure she’s having—relations—with a man! Tell me! Have I got syphilis? We both use the same toilet seat—I touch whatever she touches—I can’t stand it! For God’s sake, Doctor! Tell me!”

She pressed her hand against her abdomen as a sudden spasm knifed her. Her eyes never left his face.

“There’s absolutely no sign of syphilis,” Lucas said evenly. “I’m sure you’ve nothing to worry about. But we’ll do a blood check just to make sure—and I’d like to do an X-ray on your stomach—”

“Oh, please, Doctor! Anything! Anything!”

He took a syringe of blood. He made an appointment with her for X-rays. He walked out of the room with her. He smiled pleasantly, leisurely, confidently, wishing her goodbye. Miss Snow hurried past him, tidying a freed wisp of hair. Dr. Runkleman opened the door of an examining room, walked quickly to the next door, saw Lucas and stopped.

“Everything all right?”

“Fine,” said Lucas. They paused a moment in the corridor. Lucas told him the story. Dr. Runkleman nodded through a half-smile.

“Have to send that blood to the city,” he said, consideringly. “We send all our Wassermanns there—what we send.”

“I’m sure it’ll be negative—”

“Negative as yours or mine—yes . . . same as the X-rays . . .”

“I thought we’d better be sure—”

“Oh, absolutely . . . yes . . . of course she’s going to kick like a steer when she gets the bill . . .”

“But it’s just routine, I—”

“Oh, you’re right! Absolutely! . . . Eight dollars for the Wassermann, ten dollars for the X-rays, say a dollar for the visit, that’s more than half a week’s salary for her . . . and everything negative . . . nothing to show for it . . .”

“But I don’t see how she can complain—”

“Oh, she won’t say anything to us! Not a word. But after a while, when the fear’s all gone, little stories’ll trickle back—‘They certainly overcharge you for nothing—they certainly don’t care how they get their money . . .’ ”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I guess I thought I was still at the hospital—routine—”

“Don’t you worry about it!” Dr. Runkleman clapped him on the shoulder. “I guess we can stand it—you and I . . .”

Crestfallen, swelling with new affection for Dr. Runkleman, sternly bidding his training to be silent, to think as Dr. Runkleman thought, straightening his shoulders a little from fatigue, he followed Dr. Runkleman into the next room. A pregnant woman awaited them stolidly, she got up on the table without being told, they worked in silence, she got down again, they smiled at her cheerfully, spoke to her briefly, she was gone, they were in the corridor again. Miss Snow was before them, she handed them a card, she walked to the next door.

“That was fast,” Dr. Runkleman beamed four cases later. “I don’t know how I managed without you! That’s what I call teamwork!”

And Lucas glowed, he grinned self-consciously, he resolved to work even faster. All else was forgotten. The doors opened. The doors closed. New faces appeared, became known, in a twinkling became intimate, disappeared. Strangers took their place. They walked from room to room, up and down the corridor, in and out of the rooms, back to the office, into the corridor again, room to room, four doors down, cross over, four doors up, the office, the corridor, begin the circuit again.

And always Miss Snow was before them, tidying a room with a few pats, a fresh towel, filling the rooms as quickly as they were emptied, filling them from her apparently endless stock in her endlessly crowded waiting room.

And the door opened. And a new face, impatient:

“I’ve been waiting a long time—”

And, smoothly,

“I’m sorry. A little rushed today. What seems to be the trouble? . . .”

And the door closed.

And the next one waiting apathetically,

The next one impatiently,

The next one impatiently,

After a while Lucas automatically took one side of the hall while Dr. Runkleman took the other. When they met they smiled briefly, passed quickly on. They met in the office again and Lucas was sure the day was over. He relaxed, slumped.

Dr. Runkleman looked at his watch.

“Three o’clock . . . Still coming, Miss Snow?”

“Still coming.”

The door opened.

The door closed.

The faces blurred.

Occasionally a face sharpened.

The two men, the deacon saying worriedly they’d all be a lot happier if Dr. Runkleman would just have a look, and the reverend smiled gently, and the deacon flushing, well, for one thing right in the middle of the sermon, just up and leaving the pulpit! There’s nothing to be ashamed of, if a man’s sick—that’s what doctors are for . . .

And then, quietly, Dr. Runkleman told them, they looked at him in astonishment, he told them again, they left finally, the deacon went out stricken, the minister gently dazed, they would let him know, they would tell him what they wanted to do about the small brain tumor next day or so.

And they were glad to have met Dr. Marsh—very glad to have met him. . . .

The doors opened.

The doors closed.

“Still coming,” said Miss Snow . . .

Seven respiratory complaints, three more prenatals, a gall bladder, a postnatal, two boils, a splinter, a mending rib, a soft mass in the breast, an itching scalp, four infants, a diet, an impetigo.

The doors opened and closed.

“Still coming,” said Miss Snow.

. . . and all the woman wanted to know was if she did it. She was her mother and she had a right to know. She’d worried as long as she was going to, you tried to bring them up right—and look at her. Won’t open her mouth.

“Did you do it, Betty? What your mother says?”

The girl sat, stubbornly silent.

Dr. Runkleman rose. The mother pulled the girl to her feet, pushed her ahead of her, stumbling from the push, toward the examining room.

No, she had not done it. Lucas straightened. She was still intact. Virgo intacta. He looked at the mother coldly.

“Three dollars,” Dr. Runkleman smiled with his mouth.

“But you usually charge—! You! You just wait till your father comes home,” the mother fumbled angrily in her pocketbook. The girl was silent. She hid the hatred in her eyes by staring resolutely at the floor.

The door opened. The door closed. Miss Snow ushered in the foreign body in the eye, ushered out the tongue ulcer, ushered in the heart, the sinus, the kidney, the bone marrow, the migraine,

. . . and she thanked him kindly, she smoothed her ragged dress, her shoes were gaping strips of rotting leather, her watery blue eyes brimmed, she laid on his desk two dead chickens, she just stopped by to thank him kindly. No, she had plenty of medicine, plenty still left, her old, bony, blotched, veined hands trembled, she looked at the chickens, she licked her thin blue lips, she tore her eyes away, she looked up at him happily.

“They’re just fine! Aren’t they beautiful, Dr. Marsh?”

She stumbled out. She looked around the waiting-room proudly. The door closed behind her.

“You know she’s stolen them!” cried Miss Snow. “You know perfectly well, Doctor. Can you imagine, Dr. Marsh? At her age?”

“Well,” Lucas said evenly, “when you come right down to it I guess there aren’t many patients who’d steal to pay their doctor bills . . .”

Dr. Runkleman looked at him admiringly.

“Feeling tired?”

“No, no!” lied Lucas. “I’m right at home. This is just a busy day at the hospital.”

“Still coming, Miss Snow?”

“Still coming.”

It was like the hospital, really. But not so many. Not so many that you couldn’t keep track. Not so many that you could hardly remember the last, the one before, too fast to store away.

And the thought came again. It was not so vague, now . . . It was not clear but it was becoming stronger. There was pity in it. And a curious terror.

What a man wanted . . . what his life was for. . . .

And what he spent it on.

And the faces, the blurred faces, the bodies, rose as at a window, heaped up, immobile, staring, seeing nothing, and between himself and them a sense of waiting, wary waiting . . .

The unshaped thought weighed more heavily, more demandingly, eluded him. He was tired, he brushed it aside impatiently. He walked quickly down the corridor. Miss Snow beckoned.

The door opened.

The door closed.

Patient after patient after patient . . .

The young man’s face had the anxious lines of the hopelessly ill, his eyes were dull, his look was blank, in the wheelchair his frame was bare and sharp, the lineaments of his face giving way sullenly to the Hippocratic facies, tissue outlining the Presence. Dr. Runkleman leaned over him and smelled the smell, the breath of the dying. Dr. Runkleman patted his shoulder noncommittally. He was wheeled out, incurious, uncaring, barely noticing them, remote, gone deep into himself, a pebble sinking in the soft ooze of his corrupting cells, finding no bottom, out of sight, out of hearing, finding nothing.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here, have I?” Dr. Runkleman asked politely.

She said no.

She was twenty-six. Her clothes, her hair, expensively groomed, her voice was cultured.

“I heard about you,” she said carefully. “I live in Amelot. I was just driving by—”

“Anybody recommend you?”

“No . . . I heard some friends talk about you . . . I was just driving by.”

“I see . . . Well, now, what seems to be the trouble?”

“I don’t know, Doctor. It’s in my genital area. An itching, a sort of burning itching—and I keep staining—”

“Have to wear a pad all the time—”

“That’s right! What is it? Do you know what it is?”

The young woman lay on the table, draped, her knees arched apart, her heels in the table stirrups.

“Now, let’s just see,” said Dr. Runkleman. Her genitals were clean. At the bottom of her vulva there was a small whitish-yellow leakage.

“Everybody always wears their very best underwear when they go to the doctors,” the woman said mock-tragically, her voice tight, trying to make talk. “And the doctor tells them to undress and leaves the room and he never sees it.”

“That’s right,” Dr. Runkleman said genially. He slipped a speculum in the vagina gently, turned it, opened its jaws, the vaginal tract was reddened, at the end the cervix looked tender, swollen, a trickle of yellow-white was oozing from the cervical opening. The woman winced.

“Might as well come in a barrel,” said Lucas.

“That’s right,” the woman said gratefully. “It would be a lot easier.”

Lucas swabbed some of the yellow-white material from the cervix. He rolled the swab expertly over the glass slide. He walked toward the door.

“I often wonder why women bother to wear any underwear at all when they come to the doctor,” he said.

“Oh, Doctor! A woman has to wear underwear! Especially then!”

“Morale,” Dr. Runkleman grinned. “That’s it, isn’t it? I’ll bet that’s it! Morale!”

“You men! You’d never know the difference!”

“That’s the truth!” Lucas laughed.

“Is it tender here?” Dr. Runkleman probed gently. The woman winced. The door closed behind Lucas. He took the slide into the small laboratory room, started the first stain, reached for the second solution, washed, dried, waited, reached for the counterstain.

Under the oil-immersion lens the field glowed color, blurred a moment, leaped up, spread out clear and sharp. Inside the white cells were pink, coffee-bean-shaped organisms, plants, plants without chlorophyll, plants growing in the tender soil of human tissue. And these healthy plants were round, clumped in pairs, and from their shape and their disposition their name was as plain as the shape and disposition of an oak or a rose, and the name of these plants was gonococcus.

Lucas returned, laid a slip of paper before Dr. Runkleman.

They looked up at him.

Dr. Runkleman glanced at the paper. “Yes . . . Well . . .” The woman’s face was strained.

“What’s the bad news, precisely?” she asked carelessly, smiling, her eyes anxious above the curve of her mouth, her fine white teeth.

“I’m afraid we’ve got a little bad news here,” Dr. Runkleman fingered the paper gently.

“I’ve heard my friends talk about it,” the woman said, as if the three of them had heard the same thing. “What do they call it? Luke—Luke something . . .”

“Leucorrhea? Yes, that’s right. That’s what they probably call it.”

“I take douches for it, don’t I? Some kind of douches?”

“Yes . . . Now, what you have here—I’m afraid you have gonorrhea . . .”

The woman looked at him woodenly, ignoring the dropped spoon, the butler’s clumsiness, the passed wind, the accidentally dropped cup.

“Gonorrhea?” she said. And they were talking about someone else.

“I’m afraid so . . . I thought when I first examined you—”

“But that’s impossible,” the woman smiled evenly.

“Yes, I know how you feel, and I wish it were, but that’s how it is, don’t worry about it, it’s just an organism.”

“But—wait a minute! How do you—how do you pick up such things—I’ve heard of toilet seats! That would probably be it, wouldn’t it! Toilet seats! I was in a department store about two weeks ago and—it was very careless of me, I really know better, but—”

“When did you last have relations with a man?”

“Relations! With a man? Never! I’ve never had relations with a man in my life!”

“Intercourse. Sexual intercourse—”

“I know what you mean—”

“I don’t know how that toilet-seat business got spread around. . . . You don’t get it there.”

“I never had relations with a man in my entire life!”

“Yes . . . Well . . . we’ll treat you for it, but that’s how you get it. Maybe you know the man. Better stay away from him. And be careful of your discharges. It doesn’t matter to us. It’s all right. We’re doctors. That’s what we’re for—to take care of you—”

“You’re very insulting to say the least!” The woman had risen.

“I’ll tell you what. So you’ll know,” Dr. Runkleman said diffidently. “Dr. Marsh can tell you. Those little devils, those bugs are mighty hard to keep alive. Even under the best conditions, even in a laboratory where you try to keep them alive. So on a toilet seat—they die in a few minutes. And they won’t live just anywhere, they won’t live on the skin, that’s not their medium. No. . . . We’re not judges, it’s nothing to us, there’s only one way to get it, you’re an intelligent woman—”

“My bill, please,” said the woman steadily.

Dr. Runkleman nodded. He began to write.

“I tell you now, as I told you before! I have never had relations with any man in my entire life. I’m sorry that isn’t enough for you. That, and my word of honor!”

“Here you are,” said Dr. Runkleman. She took the bill, opened her expensive purse, put a bill with his statement, placed them on the corner of his desk.

“Just a moment! This is too much! I’ll get you change!”

She looked at him contemptuously.

“I should have known better than to come to an ignorant hick doctor!” She shut the door quietly behind her. For a moment they did not look at each other. Miss Snow opened the door. Dr. Runkleman nodded. The door closed behind her.

“She didn’t get it off any fence paling!” Dr. Runkleman chuckled.

“Why do they do it? Why do they just stand there and tell you black is white?”

“Didn’t go to any doctor in Amelot. No. Drove clear out here. Wonder if that’s her name? Cultured woman, wasn’t she?”

“ ‘I never had relations with any man in my entire life.’ ” Lucas echoed.

“Stood right there and looked us right in the eye—”

The door opened.

The little boy had an earache. His neck was thin, like his mother’s. Their tissues, mother and son tissues, were thin, needy, half-good at their best. They were never at their best. They were average. The little boy screamed thinly. Dr. Runkleman injected some warm oil. The door closed behind them.

The door opened.

“Four o’clock,” Dr. Runkleman smiled.

The man was forty-five, appeared fifty, his grayish-brown face was deeply lined, he was short, poorly dressed, he fumbled his thick, callused, scarred hands, the dirt ingrained in their cuts and creases under the short, curved, broken nails.

“And this is Oscar Glaimer, you’ve seen his shoemaking shop—the one next to the bank—”

“Oh, yes,” said Lucas. “Oh, yes! Nice little shop.”

“Yes . . . Well, now . . . What can we do for you?”

“I got—” The man squirmed.

“Got a pain? Got a pain somewhere?”

“I got a pain in my ass,” the man said humbly.

“That so! Well, now! Well let’s have a look at it. How long have you had it,” and they were on the way to the examining room, “bleed much?”

And when the man was upended, kneeling, his face resting on the table,

“Feel that prostate,” Dr. Runkleman said interestedly, he looked significantly at Lucas, he withdrew his finger, Lucas donned a glove.

As his middle finger probed upward Lucas was aware that something was badly wrong, it was as if his finger had thrust into a cavern, there was slack, relaxation, the walls did not clasp closely as in a normal rectum. There was mass. There was almost certainly cancer here.

He withdrew his finger and their eyes met above the kneeling man.

“You’ve got some bad piles there, did you know that?” Dr. Runkleman asked mildly.

“Got something wrong.” The man’s voice was muffled.

“Yes—” Dr. Runkleman began assembling the long tube of the proctoscope—“well, let’s just have a little look, let’s see . . .”

Then they were back in the office. The seated man looked at them, Oscar Glaimer who had run the shoe-repair shop in Greenville for twenty-two years. And he was a stranger, now. There was a secret that was no longer a secret, a thing between the dead and the living, a barrier, a reclassification.

“You’ve got a trouble there,” Dr. Runkleman said, and he spoke to Glaimer through a presence between them, “I’ve got some bad news for you.”

The man looked from Dr. Runkleman to Lucas, then back to Dr. Runkleman.

“Oscar,” said Dr. Runkleman, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m afraid you’ve got cancer.”

“Cancer!” And now the man had the secret, and now they were not three men discussing illness but two, two against one, two telling, one hearing, now the barrier was complete.

“You sure?” Now he struggled, now he tried to come toward them, back to the world of the living.

“I’m going to fix you up at the County,” Dr. Runkleman said. “No use your wasting a lot of money.” He wrote in his book.

“Got to operate?” The man licked his lips. He was adjusting himself to the feel of his bell, listening to the bell tinkle, feeling the bell around his neck, the belled man, the dying-living, a few moments before a man, now a man with cancer.

“Yes,” said Dr. Runkleman. “Yes, it’s your only chance, Oscar. I think it’s gone pretty far.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. The biopsy’ll tell us. But there isn’t much doubt. We’ll have to go in and see.”

“Am I going to die?” There were three choices in the question, am I going to die, am I going to live, am I going to live and be man-cancer, tubed and cut and rotting and wary.

“Wouldn’t do any harm to get your affairs in order. Like the rest of us. Yes. I’d do that, Oscar. I’ve got you down—I’ve got you down for the middle of next week.”

“Well . . .” The man rose. He twisted his hat gently. “Well. I guess that’s that . . .” He waited hopefully.

“I’ll tell you something, Oscar. I’m not going to get your hopes up. But you can’t tell. Not till you see. I’ve seen some pretty bad ones get well. . . . Now, you just take these—for pain . . . I’ll have Miss Snow tell you what to bring to the County . . .”

The door closed behind him.

“They wait and they wait!” Dr. Runkleman cried indignantly. “What does he expect me to do about it?”

Lucas shook his head. His mind pictured again what the proctoscope had revealed.

“You going to operate?”

“We’ll see!” Dr. Runkleman said shortly. “Come to me at the last minute! This isn’t the first he’s felt something wrong! What do they expect me to do?”

Lucas peered up, startled. Dr. Runkleman’s face was red with anger, resentment. Lucas looked quickly away.

The door opened.

. . . forty-two, thin, her face wrinkled with suffering, her eyes dull, her thin hair hanging lankly and lifeless.

“Got to do something,” she said. “I’m goin’ out of my mind. Got to do somethin’, Doc.”

“Don’t feel any better, eh?”

“Worse. Jist—jist—worse . . .”

Her fingers twitched nervously. One eye had developed a heavy tic. Dr. Runkleman sifted the papers of her case record. He studied them silently.

“Figure it’s my lungs? I get to gasping, sometimes, I don’t know whether it’s my last breath—then my gut hurts, I keep throwin’ up, nothin’ sets, nothin’! Seems like all day I’m afire, my nerves janglin’, an’ the pain in my bowels, my joints is afire—”

“Your lungs came out all right,” Dr. Runkleman laid down an X-ray.

“Nothin’ wrong?” the woman was incredulous. “Worked all my life, worked myself to the bone, worked night and day, never sick a minute—”

“We’ve checked everything,” Dr. Runkleman nodded. “Now here’s what I think. Shall I tell you what I think? I’ll tell you. I think your nerves are gone. I think you’re a nervous wreck.”

“You mean all these pains I got—you trying to tell me ain’t nothin’ but nerves? You tryin’ to tell me that?”

“I’ll tell you this. I’d rather have a broken leg. Because in two months I’d mend.”

The woman looked at the prescription distrustfully. She stood a moment, digesting this slowly, telling her body what she had heard, hearking inwardly for an answer.

The door closed behind her.

The door opened.

“Ain’t gonna be deformed, is he?” the woman asked anxiously.

“It’s almost impossible to set this break without deformity. The amazing thing is that he’ll have so little,” Lucas said.

“I did want him to play the violin. We just bought him a violin.”

She stared at the boy malevolently.

“Come on, you!” She pushed him out.

The aged Chinese had an ulcer covering his right ankle. The bones could be seen clearly. There was little suppuration. His young son and daughter removed the bandages, the gauze packs which covered it. They looked quietly at Dr. Runkleman. The father beamed jovially.

“I’m afraid this is going to hurt again, Sing,” Dr. Runkleman said in a low voice. The old man nodded agreeably.

With a scissors Dr. Runkleman debrided the dead tissue, snipped the edges raw, with forceps he picked at the crater, plucking up chunks of dead and living flesh until reluctantly the gaping tissues bled. The Chinese, his head bent forward, watched intently.

“Hurts, doesn’t it!” Dr. Runkleman jerked his head commiserating. Lucas’ lips drew back over his set teeth.

“Oh, yes! Yes!” The old man grinned, nodded in quick agreement.

And then it was finished, the ankle wrapped again, the son and daughter had lifted their father and held him, his arms about their shoulders, his good foot on the floor, they thanked Dr. Runkleman gratefully, they were gone. Next time they would cut deeper. Next year there would be no foot, no ankle. Sing would smile.

The young high-school girl and her mother entered smiling and Dr. Runkleman rose to meet them.

“Worked, did it?” He beamed.

“Worked fine!” said the mother. “Look at her!”

The girl tilted her chin, offering her face. Dr. Runkleman peered at the face closely.

“You should have seen her a month ago!” the mother cried to Lucas.

“Glasses all right?” Dr. Runkleman asked.

“Fine!” said the girl. “Just fine, Doctor!”

The door closed behind them.

“Well,” said Dr. Runkleman happily. “There’s one! There’s one for the book!”

“What was it?”

“Well, sir, that girl, her whole face was just covered with little abscesses, yes sir, abscesses and acne and pimples and I don’t know what all. She was a mess. I tried everything. Her stomach was always upset and nothing worked, I even sent her to a skin man. No good. Finally—what do you think I did?”

“Hormones?”

“I sent her to get her eyes checked! She needed glasses. That’s what! Whatever it was set up a whole train of phenomena. Put on a pair of glasses. There went the stomach trouble! There went the skin trouble! My goodness! Look at the time!”

“Thinning out, now,” said Miss Snow. “Starting to dwindle down.”

Two haemorrhoids. A gashed knee. A black vomit. An appendix. A measles. An X-ray. Four hearts. Lucas plodded on.

The door—

“Are you the doctor?”

“That’s right. Have you got any pains?”

“I went to Dr. Binyon, Dr. Binyon put me on a soft diet.”

“I see. And when do your pains come?”

“Sometimes I get running at the bowels.”

“Suppose you tell us all about it. First about the pains. Do you have pains?”

“I get specks floating before my eyes. Then my skin breaks out in little brown spots. Sometimes little blisters between my fingers—”

“Do you have a pain now?”

“My tongue gets coated. My ankles swell.”

She looked at him anxiously.

The door closed behind her.

The door opened.

A fat, blond sixteen-year-old boy came in hesitantly, behind him waddled his mother, pink-cheeked, obese, her eyes hard and wary.

“Show the doctor!”

“Aw, mom—!”

“Drop your pants. Hurry up! This is costing money!”

The boy’s trousers came down reluctantly. Dr. Runkleman walked to him. As he crossed the room Lucas could see the sac in which the boy’s testicles hung swollen grotesquely. Dr. Runkleman put a finger tip in the boy’s inguinal ring.

“Cough, please. Cough for me, son . . .”

Dr. Runkleman withdrew his finger and stood aside for Lucas. As Lucas put out his hand, the woman laid a fat hand on his forearm, turning to Dr. Runkleman.

“Does he have to do it, too?”

“Why, yes. I’d like him to.”

“Same price?”

“That’s right!”

“All right. I just didn’t want any double examination charges. I don’t mind him learning, only not at my expense.”

Dr. Runkleman ignored her. He looked at Lucas, waiting, his lips tightened. Lucas withdrew his finger and nodded.

“Give you much trouble?” Lucas asked sympathetically.

“Some,” the boy admitted. He looked guiltily at his mother.

“Some!” she echoed contemptuously. “If you didn’t try to run around like a wild man with the rest of those wild kids you’d be perfectly comfortable! Some! You go on out, go on, now! Go on outside and wait for me!”

And when the boy had gone silently out of the room:

“What’s he got?”

“Hernia and hydrocele.”

“What’s that?”

“Rupture. His gut’s ruptured and his testicles—you saw his testicles.”

“What do you have to do?”

“You have to operate, madam. That’s what you have to do. You have to operate.”

“How much?”

“Depends on what we find. Somewheres around seventy-five dollars.”

“I never heard of such a thing! Forty, now—forty’s my best price. That’s all!”

Dr. Runkleman rose and walked to the door.

“What harm will it do? What’s the danger in it? He’s walking around healthy as the next—eats enough, God knows!”

“A rupture may gangrene. People die of gangrene. The hydrocele may permanently injure him sexually.”

She thought a moment.

“I guess he’s all right,” she decided. “We’ll let it go awhile. Maybe he can earn some to pay it off.”

The door closed behind her.

“Is she poor? Does it mean that much to her?”

“Her? Poor? They’ve got a farm—why that farm of theirs is one of the best in the whole county! And the father’s worse than she is! You ought to see the daughter! Kid goes to school in rags! Ashamed to lift her head.”

The door opened. Miss Snow pursed her lips.

A woman in her forties, gay, nervous, her hair a little disordered, a tiny tear in her dress, her skin the velvety skin of an alcoholic.

“I’ve got no patience with them,” said Dr. Runkleman. “None whatsoever. Her father went the same way.”

“Who have you got no patience with, Dave?”

They looked up, startled. Dr. Runkleman jumped up, he walked to the tall, burly man behind whom Miss Snow stood beaming in the open doorway.

“Henry!” he cried, and began to pump the big man’s hand vigorously. “What are you doing here? Henry, I want you to meet my new assistant, Dr. Marsh, just came here!”

Lucas, who had risen with Dr. Runkleman, now came tiredly forward. The man held his hand in a firm grip, looked at him keenly.

“Well, well!” He smiled cordially.

“Yep! Got myself an assistant!”

“Business gets any better we’ll have to raise your taxes!”

“Henry’s the mayor!” Dr. Runkleman explained. “A vote for Henry Granite is a vote for Henry Granite! Watch out for him, Dr. Marsh. What brings you here, Henry? What’s on your mind?”

“Oh, I just thought I’d come in for a little check-over—if you’ve got the time . . .”

“Time! We’ve got nothing but time!” Dr. Runkleman winked broadly at Lucas.

“I should have made an appointment—I told Miss Snow no need to shove me in ahead of all those good folks out there waiting—”

“Oh, we’ve always got time for the mayor, I guess,” said Dr. Runkleman. “That right, Dr. Marsh?”

“Absolutely!” Lucas exclaimed dutifully.

“Well, I don’t like to ask for any special privileges—”

“Come on in here! Let’s have a look at you!”

In the examination room Henry Granite hung up his expensive suit carelessly, draped his handmade shirt over a treatment table.

“Don’t bother to take your shoes and socks off,” said Dr. Runkleman. “Where do you get such clothes, Henry?”

“I’ve been trying to wean him away from the mail-order catalogue for ten years,” the mayor said to Lucas. “He just doesn’t seem to understand that a tailor-made suit lasts longer, takes more abuse—to say nothing of the looks of it.”

He took off his underwear and stood before them naked.

“Haven’t got the time. My Lord, in the time it takes a tailor to measure me and fit me I could make six calls and a breech delivery—let’s see you, Henry. Let’s take a look at you . . .”

The body before them, now that the clothes had been removed, was anonymous, it revealed nothing of its wearer, it might have been worn by a logger, a miner, or an athlete. It was a well-muscled body, carried erect, and now that the clothes had been removed it was not so impressive and it stooped a little.

“Hold still, Henry,” said Dr. Runkleman.

“You know I often wonder what goes through you fellows’ minds when you look at a person—I mean beyond the cardinal signs you study—”

“I’ve tried over and over and I never can tell,” Lucas said. “In the hospital, in the clinics, coming into a room full of stripped humans I’ve looked at them, I’ve singled them out, I’ve tried to guess—this one’s rich, this one’s poor, this one’s mean, this one’s proud, this one’s skilled, this one’s smart—you just can’t tell. When they’re naked they’re just the living. The survivors. It’ll fool you, every time.”

“ ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’ . . .”

“That’s right. But it’s more than just social status—”

“So that the true and false reside not in things but in the intellect—and we mustn’t judge a thing by what is in it accidentally but by what is in it essentially—and a man is false not because he knows false opinions but because he loves them—”

Lucas stared at the naked man, startled.

“Say ‘ninety-nine,’ Henry,” said Dr. Runkleman. . . . “Again . . . again . . . breathe through your mouth . . .”

The examination ended.

“I guess you’ll do. You ought to be good for another fifty years. You’ve got a good body, there, Henry. You take care of it.”

“It’s the best I’ve got. I guess I have been given a little more than most. I like to take care of it. I guess you know why I came . . .”

“Kicking up again?”

“Just a little . . .”

“Sure! I figured it was about time for another little finger wave—”

He donned a rubber glove, anointed the index finger with lubricant.

The mayor grimaced. Lucas looked sympathetically aside.

“What do you think of our village? What you’ve seen?”

“Over here, Henry . . .”

“It’s a wonderful little place, it seems to be run so well, so orderly—”

“Just bend over the table . . . That’s right . . . Bend way over . . .”

“It’s coming along. It’s come a long way—”

“We’ve got about as solid a town as you’ll find in the state,” said Dr. Runkleman. “You’re doing a fine job, Henry. Really fine.” He inserted his finger in the mayor’s rectum. He began to massage the mayor’s prostate with his finger tip.

The mayor grunted, twitched.

“I’m doing my best,” he said, his voice muffled. “I don’t always know what ‘best’ is. Sometimes I have to remember that every man pursues good without knowing the nature of it—I try to be—Oh!” he cried, wincing.

“Sorry, Henry—it won’t be much longer—you’ll feel a lot better . . .”

He withdrew his finger. He peeled off the rubber glove. The mayor straightened. He grinned at Lucas.

“Isn’t that typical? Plato coming out of one end and a doctor’s finger coming out of the other!”

“There’s going to be more than a doctor’s finger coming out of a lot of people again this year,” Dr. Runkleman said meaningly.

“It’ll come, Dave,” the mayor smiled indulgently, “it’ll come—in time. Just be patient—”

“I’m really serious, Henry.”

“I know you are, Dave.” The mayor dressed leisurely. “But you know how much money it’ll take, too. Overhauling the whole water system—” He shook his head.

“Typhoid?” Lucas asked, incredulous.

Dr. Runkleman looked steadily at the mayor.

“Oh, we get a little of it,” the mayor shrugged. “Most of the town’s wells are shallow, I guess they could have been better placed, and those open ditches leading in—”

“It’s going to be worse this year, Henry. We’ve got money enough to build a new fair grounds—”

“I know, I know. But look at it my way. I’m a doctor too. I treat the body politic. And like you, I wait in my office, when I’m being mayor and not running my lumber yard, for people to come to me and tell me their troubles and when they present their ills I make sure the ill isn’t imaginary. And then I try to cure it. But like you—I’ve got to wait until they come to me . . .”

“It’s a shame, Henry. It’s really a disgrace!”

“I’ve pointed it out, Dave. You know that. Once a year, regular as clockwork—I can’t change people and the way they think, I can’t make them prefer clean water to a fair grounds—it’s the way people are, bread and the circus—”

“I thought typhoid was just about nonexistent,” Lucas interrupted. “The only case I’ve ever seen was in a textbook!”

“Seventy died of it last year,” Dr. Runkleman said without inflection. “Right here in Greenville. I’m just waiting for that school well, Henry. I’m just waiting for it to explode.”

“Dave, you know these people as well as I do. It just isn’t possible to sell them on a new water system when it would mean going without a fair grounds—”

“They’ll think of it when their kids get hit! When that school well starts—”

“I’ll probably try again, Dave. You’re going to make me a mighty unpopular man. . . . I’m glad to have met you, Dr. Marsh. Glad to welcome you to Greenville. Drop by some night, when you find time . . .”

“I will,” said Lucas gratefully, “and perhaps when you tell them about the children—”

The mayor paused. He thought a moment and smiled sadly. He looked up at them.

“It isn’t children that reaches them, you know . . . not children . . . It’s dead children . . .”

The door closed behind him.

“Well . . .” Dr. Runkleman shrugged. He picked up the rubber glove, its finger still glistening with lubricant, and dropped it in the sink.

“How long?” Lucas demanded.

“Ten years, now. I’ve been telling them ten years.” He looked at his watch. “My goodness!” he said, startled. “Miss Snow will have a fit!”

They walked quickly out. The four rooms swallowed them, the procession began again,

a gray-haired man, expressionless, slow speech, tardy moves, lethargic,

and Lucas’ mind, peering through the grime of fatigue, considering, remembering, demanding, and then sight, clear and positive, item, item, and answer: the lethargy of the postencephalitic,

two feeding schedules, two teethings, and he plodded conscientiously, trying to neglect nothing, trying to be fast and to be perfect, seeing in the nick of time the unbalanced facial movements, the signs of a recent stroke,

then an eye, an itch, a burn, a cut, a burn, a dropsy, a menopause, a cold, a cold but,

and his intelligence rang a warning, his senses extended, the hand was hot, the eyes frightened, he saw the sweat stains at the armpits, through his fatigue he tensed a little with excitement, he might have missed this, he must be careful, he peered closer at her neck, there it was, small, unmistakable, beginning exophthalmic goiter.

The doors opened.

The doors closed.

He rubbed the back of his neck covertly, wearily. A doubt furrowed his brows. He considered worriedly. He tried to think. Had he missed anything? Had one gotten away from him? He tried irritably to think. He could not think. He looked at the man warily. His clothes hung loosely. Therefore he had lost weight. The two top buttons of his trousers were unbuttoned.

Think, now.

Think . . .

Remember . . .

Gallstones?

Cirrhosis of the liver?

Cancer of the peritoneum?

Talk to him . . . Listen carefully . . . Feel . . . Prod . . . Speak to me, disease, speak to me, feel, fingers, look, eyes, listen, ears,

one of you knows,

one of you speaks its language,

Be ready, mind. Be ready!

The door opened.

The door closed.

The silent, voluble, noisy, frightened, greedy, guilty, venal, wary, cunning, wily, stupid, apathetic, uncaring, insane, trembling in agony, going deaf, going blind, just born and doomed, screaming for no pain, wincing, cowardly, stoic, shabby, shameless, overpowered with modesty, hating, tangled, hysterical, smiling, dishonest, thieving, lying, helpless, filthy, shambling, racing, young, old, middle-aged, always the eyes, the eyes frightened and waiting, dissimulating, begging, secret and naked, the stream, the shuffling stream passed into the office, showed their tissues, exhibited their sores, voice after voice, face after face, body after body, cavity and cavity, lump and hollow, body and soul,

And then the day ended.

It was dark.

The first day was over.

The door shut upon this day for the last time.

“Go home. Miss Snow.”

“Some day, eh Doctor?”

“That’s right. What have we got tomorrow?”

“County called. Gall bladder and appendix. Eight and nine. You’ve got an inquest at 1:30. Two new OB cases. Miss Doherty ought to deliver tonight—and Mrs. Swanson.”

“Well,” he turned to Lucas, “how do you feel? How did you like it?”

The day was ended. Dr. Runkleman did not appear particularly tired.

“Fine! Just fine, sir!” Lucas said carefully.

His weary mind considered uneasily. He’s not tired. They had passed over Dr. Runkleman like water.

R-r-rip! And a prescription.

“What’s your complaint?”

The flash of an instrument.

A quick look.

R-r-rip! And a prescription.

He tried to emphasize. He tried to see what Dr. Runkleman saw, to feel for his attitude, for what he had learned, for his truth.

The human sea rose before him.

He caught his breath. His eyes darkened. He felt very old. He had sensed a thing. He sensed the vague, black edges of it, of a cave, of a darkness, of the cave’s end. He shivered. His mind fled from it in panic.

“Somebody walk over your grave?” Dr. Runkleman smiled.

“Sixty-two cases!” Lucas said rapidly, flustered. “I was just thinking of what we did today. I can see where I can take a lot of it off your shoulders—”

“That’s right. Believe me, I’m glad to have you. This will work out just fine. Yes, sir! Just fine! Say! I wonder what that wife of yours is doing?”

“Kris!”

They laughed.

“I’d forgotten her!”

They walked quickly to the door separating his wing from the offices.

Kristina, on her hands and knees on the floor, looked up tiredly, pushed hair back from her forehead, tried to scramble to her feet.

“Here, here!” Dr. Runkleman seized her elbow, helped her.

“Oh, that’s all right, Doctor!”

“What you been doing, Kris?” Lucas smiled through his frown, looked about the rooms curiously. “What did you do? Don’t tell me you scrubbed them all over again!”

“She likes things clean! You can see that!”

“How did it go, Luke? Was he all right, Doctor?”

“I never saw so many patients in my life—”

“We hit him pretty hard, today. It was just one of those days. I don’t like to handle more than sixty patients—”

“You must be dead!” She looked at Lucas, pitying.

“Me! How about Dr. Runkleman!”

“Don’t worry about me! Say! I think we ought to celebrate! What do you say—how about a real Chinese dinner?”

He frowned, seeing something in a corner.

“What’s this? Have you bought something already?”

“I got a refrigerator!” Kristina beamed.

“I see. Well, well! Now, that’s a beauty, isn’t it! Where did you get it?”

“A little store—Claring’s, up by the post office, you know where you turn right to go to—”

“I know Claring. Sure. Let me see, now. How much did you say you paid for it?”

“Thirty dollars!” Kristina cried proudly.

“That seems cheap enough,” Lucas said sagely.

“That’s right. That’s right. It’s a good piece. Well, now. I’ll tell you. Suppose I just give him a ring—”

They followed him, wondering.

“Hello, Claring? Hello. This is Dr. Runkleman. How are you? That’s fine. Say, now, I’ve got Mrs. Marsh here with me, you know Mrs. Marsh, the wife of my new assistant . . . Yes . . . About that refrigerator she bought . . . Yes, it’s a dandy . . . I wonder if you could come by and pick it up tomorrow? . . . Oh, no! It’s fine. I just think she can maybe do a little better . . . No, Claring, I think you’d better pick it up. . . . I see. Well, I’ll tell her and see what she says. . . .” He covered the mouthpiece. “He says twenty dollars. I think that’s all right. I think you better get it, as long as he says that—Hello, Claring? Mrs. Marsh says it’s all right, then. . . . Sure. . . . sure, I’ll tell her. . . . Well, if you don’t take it, you know, it won’t do you any good. . . . That’s right. . . . You take it and let me know when the bottle’s gone. . . .”

He hung up.

“There, now! Now let’s go and eat!”

“How did you do it?”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, Claring’s all right. He just didn’t know you. He thought you were new. He’s a patient of mine. Luetic.”

They ate in the small Chinese restaurant next to the pool hal