The mind associates the pronouncing of a verdict and a sentence of death with a court of justice, a solemn judge in his robes, the ministers of the law, the dock, a pallid9 and almost breathless audience. Such a spectacle, with its elaborate dignity, is impressive enough, but it is hardly less moving when the scene is changed to a plain room, hushed almost to silence and occupied by two persons only, the one who speaks and the one who listens—the latter with bowed head and with knotted hands clenched10 between his knees.
The manner in which ill-news is received depends upon its gravity, upon the degree to which the announcement is unexpected and upon the emotional bearing of the recipient11. There may be an intense outburst of feeling. There may be none. The most pitiable cases are those in which the sentence is received in silence, or when from the trembling lips there merely escapes the words, “It has come.”
The most vivid displays of feeling that occur203 to my mind have been exhibited by mothers when the fate of a child is concerned. If her child be threatened a mother may become a tigress. I remember one such instance. I was quietly interviewing a patient in my consulting room when the door suddenly flew open and there burst in—as if blown in by a gust12 of wind—a gasping13, wild-eyed woman with a little girl tucked up under her arm like a puppy. Without a word of introduction she exclaimed in a hoarse14 whisper, “He wants to take her foot off.” This sudden, unexplained lady was a total stranger to me. She had no appointment. I knew nothing of her. She might have dropped from the clouds. However, the elements of violence, confusion and terror that she introduced into my placid15 room were so explosive and disturbing that I begged my patient to excuse me and conducted, or rather impelled16, the distraught lady into another room. Incidentally I may remark that she was young and very pretty; but she was evidently quite oblivious17 of her looks, her complexion18, her dress or her many attractions. I had before noticed that when a good-looking woman is unconscious of being good-looking there is a crisis in progress.
The story, which was told me in gasps19 and at white heat, was as follow. The child was a204 little girl of about three, almost as pretty as her mother. She was the only child and had developed tuberculous disease in one foot. The mother had taken the little thing to a young surgeon who appears to have let fall some rash remark as to taking the foot off. This was enough for the mother. She would not listen to another syllable20. She, whom I came to know later as one of the sweetest and gentlest of women, changed at the moment to a wild animal—a tigress.
Without a word she snatched up the baby and bolted from the house, leaving the child’s sock and shoe on the consulting-room floor. She had been given my name as a possible person to consult and had dashed off to my house, carrying the child through the streets with its bare foot and leg dangling21 in the air. On being admitted she asked which was my room. It was pointed22 out to her, and without more ado she flung herself in as I have described. The child, I may say, was beaming with delight. This dashing in and out of other people’s houses and being carried through the streets without a sock or a shoe on her foot struck her as a delicious and exciting game.
The mother’s fury against my surgical23 colleague was almost inexpressible. If the poor man had suggested cutting off the child’s head he could205 not have done worse. “How dare he!” she gasped24. “How dare he talk of cutting off her foot! If he had proposed to cut off my foot I should not have minded. It would be nothing. But to cut off her little foot, this beautiful little foot, is a horror beyond words, and then look at the child, how sweet and wonderful she is! What wickedness!” It was a marvellous display of one of the primitive25 emotions of mankind, a picture, in human guise26, of a tigress defending her cub27. By a happy good fortune, after many months and after not a few minor28 operations, the foot got well so that the glare in the eyes of the tigress died away and she remembered again that she was a pretty woman.
It is well known that the abrupt29 reception of ill-tidings may have a disastrous30 effect upon the hearer. The medical man is aware that, if he would avoid shock, the announcement of unpleasant facts or of unhappy news must be made slowly and with a tactful caution. In this method of procedure I learnt my lesson very early and in a way that impressed my memory.
I was a house-surgeon and it was Christmas time. In my day each house-surgeon was on what was called “full duty” for one entire week in the month. During these seven days all accident206 cases came into his surgeon’s wards31. He was said to be “taking in.” On this particular Christmas week I was “taking in.” Two of my brother house-surgeons had obtained short leave for Christmas and I had undertaken their duties. It was a busy time; so busy indeed that I had not been to bed for two nights. On the eve of the third night I was waiting for my dressers in the main corridor at the foot of the stair. I was leaning against the wall and, for the first and the last time in my life, I fell asleep standing33 up. The nap was short, for I was soon awakened34, “rudely awakened” as novelists would put it.
I found myself clutched by a heated and panting woman who, as she clung to me, said in a hollow voice, “Where have they took him?” The question needed some amplification35. I inquired who “he” was. She replied, “The bad accident case just took in.” Now the term “accident” implies, in hospital language, a man ridden over in the street, or fallen from a scaffold, or broken up by a railway collision. I told her I had admitted no such case of accident. In fact the docks and the great works were closed, and men and women were celebrating the birth of Christ by eating too much, by getting drunk and by street rioting, which acts involved only minor207 casualties. She was, however, convinced he was “took in.” He was her husband. She gave me his name, but that conveyed nothing, as it was the dresser’s business to take names. With a happy inspiration I asked, “What is he?” “A butler,” she replied. Now a butler is one of the rarest varieties of mankind ever to be seen in Whitechapel, and it did so happen that I had, a few hours before, admitted an undoubted butler. I told her so, with the effusion of one eager to give useful information. She said, “What is the matter with him?” I replied cheerily, “He has cut his throat.”
The effect of this unwise readiness on my part was astonishing. The poor woman, letting go of my coat, collapsed37 vertically38 to the floor. She seemed to shut up within herself like a telescope. She just went down like a dress dropping from a peg39. When she was as small a heap as was possible in a human being she rolled over on to her head on the ground. A more sudden collapse36 I have never seen. Had I been fully40 awake it would never have happened. We placed her on a couch and soon restored her to consciousness.
Her story was simple. She and her husband had met. The two being “full of supper and distempering draughts” (as Brabantio would say)208 had had a savage41 quarrel. At the end he banged out of the house, exclaiming, “I will put an end to this.” She had bawled42 after him, “I hope to God you will.” He had wandered to Whitechapel and, creeping into a stable, had cut his throat there and then. The friend who hastened to inform the wife told her, with a tactfulness I so grievously lacked, that her husband had met with an accident and had been taken to the hospital. This lesson I never forgot and in the future based my method of announcing disaster upon that adopted by the butler’s discreet43 friend.
Although a digression from the present subject I am reminded of the confusion that occasionally took place in the identity of cases. All patients in the hospital who are seriously ill, whether they have been long in the wards or have been only just admitted, are placed on “the dangerous list” and have their names posted at the gate so that their relatives might be admitted at any time of the day or night.
A man very gravely injured had been taken into the accident ward32. He was insensible and his condition such that he was at once put on the dangerous list, or, in the language of the time, was “gated.” During the course of the evening a youngish woman, dressed obviously in her best,209 bustled44 into the ward with an air of importance and with a handkerchief to her lips. She demanded to see the man who had been brought in seriously injured. She was directed by the sister to a bed behind a screen where lay the man, still insensible and with his head and much of his face enveloped45 in bandages. The woman at once dropped on her knees by the bedside and, throwing her arms about the neck of the unconscious man, wept with extreme profusion46 and with such demonstrations47 of grief as are observed at an Oriental funeral. When she had exhausted48 herself she rose to her feet and, staring at the man on the bed, exclaimed suddenly, “This is not Jim. This is not my husband. Where is he?”
Now, in the next bed to the one with the screen, and in full view of it, was a staring man sitting bolt upright. He had been admitted with an injury to the knee. This was Jim. He was almost overcome by amazement49. He had seen his wife, dressed in her best, enter the ward, clap her hand to her forehead, fall on her knees and throw her arms round the neck of a total stranger and proceed to smother50 him with kisses. Jim’s name had been “gated” by mistake.
When she came to the bedside of her real210 husband she was annoyed and hurt, so hurt, indeed, that she dealt with him rudely. She had worked herself up for a really moving theatrical51 display in the wards, had rehearsed what she should say as she rode along in the omnibus and considered herself rather a heroine or, at least, a lady of intense and beautiful feeling which she had now a chance of showing off. All this was wasted and thrown away. An injured knee, caused by falling over a bucket, was not a subject for fine emotional treatment. She was disgusted with Jim. He had taken her in. “Bah!” she exclaimed. “Come in with water on the knee! You might as well have come in with water on the brain! You are a fraud, you are! What do you mean by dragging me all the way here for nothing? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” With this reproof52 she sailed out of the room with great dignity—a deeply injured woman.
To return to the original topic. In all my experience the most curious manner in which a painful announcement was received was manifested under the following circumstances. A gentleman brought his daughter to see me—a charming girl of eighteen. He was a widower53 and she was his only child. A swelling54 had appeared in the upper part of her arm and was increasing ominously55. It211 became evident on examination that the growth was of the kind known as a sarcoma and that the only measure to save life was an amputation56 of the limb at the shoulder joint57, after, of course, the needful confirmatory exploration had been made.
A more distressing58 position could hardly be imagined. The girl appeared to be in good health and was certainly in the best of spirits. Her father was absolutely devoted59 to her. She was his ever-delightful companion and the joy and comfort of his life. Terrible as the situation was it was essential not only that the truth should be told but told at once. Everything depended upon an immediate60 operation and, therefore, there was not a day to be lost. To break the news seemed for a moment almost impossible. The poor father had no suspicion of the gravity of the case. He imagined that the trouble would probably be dealt with by a course of medicine and a potent61 liniment. I approached the revelation of the dreadful truth in an obscure manner. I discussed generalities, things that were possible, difficulties that might be, threw out hints, mentioned vague cases, and finally made known to him the bare and ghastly truth with as much gentleness as I could command.
The wretched man listened to my discourse212 with apparent apathy62, as if wondering what all this talk could mean and what it had to do with him. When I had finished he said nothing, but, rising quietly from his chair, walked over to one side of the room and looked at a picture hanging on the wall. He looked at it closely and then, stepping back and with his head on one side, viewed it at a few feet distant. Finally he examined it through his hand screwed up like a tube. While so doing he said, “That is a nice picture. I rather like it. Who is the artist? Ah! I see his name in the corner. I like the way in which he has treated the clouds, don’t you? The foreground too, with those sheep, is very cleverly managed.” Then turning suddenly to me he burst out, “What were you talking about just now? You said something. What was it? For God’s sake say that it is not true! It is not true! It cannot be true!”
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1
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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3
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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4
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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illusive
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| adj.迷惑人的，错觉的 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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enumerating
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的现在分词 ) | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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14
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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22
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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31
wards
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| 区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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amplification
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| n.扩大，发挥 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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vertically
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| adv.垂直地 | |
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peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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42
bawled
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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43
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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44
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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45
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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47
demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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48
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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50
smother
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| vt./vi.使窒息；抑制；闷死；n.浓烟；窒息 | |
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51
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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52
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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53
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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54
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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56
amputation
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| n.截肢 | |
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57
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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60
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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