However drab and dismal2 it may be, a physician’s consulting-room has much of the mystery that shadows the confessional of the priest. The uninitiated enter with a pleasurable sense of awe3. Wisdom seems to admonish4 them from her temple of text-books piled up solemnly in the professional bookcase. There is an air of suave5 confidence and quiet reserve about the room. Even the usual Turkey carpet suggests comfortable sympathy and the touch of the healing hand.
Even as it is unnatural6 to suspect a priest of the sins he rebukes7 in others, so to the lay mind the physician appears as a being above the diseases that he treats. There is always something illogical in a doctor needing his own physic. And yet of all men he is the last that can boast of the bliss8 of ignorance. He knows the curses that afflict9 man in the flesh, how grim and inevitable10 his own end may be. He is too well aware of the malignant11 significance of symptoms, and a month of dyspepsia may reduce him to a state of morbid12 and half hypocondriacal self-introspection. It is told of a great surgeon how he lay awake all through one night imagining that he had discovered an aneurism of his aorta13. It is dangerous to know too little, but on occasions it may be desperately14 unpleasant to know too much.
It was a serious and rather worried figure that moved to and fro in the lofty room, as the March day drew towards a dreary15 close. The house was silent, a depressing silence, suggestive of stagnation16 and cynical17 melancholy18. A fitful wind set the tops of the cypress-trees swaying and jerking in the garden. The only living thing visible from Dr. Steel’s window was a black cat stalking birds under the shadow of a bank of laurels19.
Parker Steel had taken off his coat and folded it carefully over the back of a chair. He stood by the window, fumbling20 at his cuff-links, a preoccupied21 frown pinching up the skin of his forehead above the thin, acquisitive nose. After turning up his shirt-sleeves, he picked up a pocket-lens from the table and focused the light upon the forefinger22 of his right hand.
The hand that held the lense trembled very perceptibly. On the right forefinger, immediately above the base of the nail, a dull red papule stood out upon the skin. It was clearly circumscribed24 in outline, and hard to the touch. Parker Steel noticed all these details with the strained air of a man scrutinizing25 an unpleasant statement of accounts.
Presently he laid the lens down on the flap of the bureau by the window, and, unbuttoning his waistcoat, passed his left hand under his shirt and vest. The deft26 fingers half buried themselves in the hollow of his right armpit. Parker Steel’s eyes had a peculiar27, hard, staring look, the expression seen in the eyes of the expert whose whole intelligence is concentrated for the moment in the sense of touch. His lower lip fell away slightly from his teeth. Sharp lines of strain were visible upon his forehead.
“Good Lord!”
The words escaped from him involuntarily as he drew his hand out from under his shirt. The smooth face had grown suddenly haggard and sallow, and there was a glint of ugly fear in the eyes. Parker Steel stood staring at his hand, his mouth open, the lips softening29 as the lips of a coward soften28 when his manhood melts before some physical ordeal30. The dapper figure has lost its alertness, its neat and confident symmetry, and had become the loose and slouching figure of a man suffering from shock.
Parker Steel roused himself at last, forced back his shoulders, and walked slowly towards the door. He turned the key in the lock, and stood listening a moment before picking up a hand-mirror from among the multifarious books and papers on the table. Returning to the window, he peered at the reflection of his own face, furtively31, as though dreading32 what he might discover. The sallow skin was blemishless as yet. Not a spot or blur33 showed from the line of the hair to the clean curve of the well-shaven chin.
In another minute Parker Steel was turning over the leaves of his journal with impetuous fingers. He worked back page by page, running a finger down each column of names, stopping ever and again to recollect34 and reconsider. It was on a page dated “February 12th” that he discovered an entry that gave him the final pause.
“Mrs. Rattan35, 10 Ford36 Street. Partus, 5 A.M.”
A foot-note had been added at the bottom of the page, a foot-note whose details were significant to the point of proof.
Parker Steel threw the book upon the table.
“Good Lord!”
He looked round him like a man who has taken poison unwittingly, and whose brain refuses to act under the paralyzing pressure of fear. He, Parker Steel, a—! Physician and egoist that he was, he could not bring himself to think the word, to brand himself with the poor fools who crowd the hospitals of great cities. The very vision, a hundred visions such as he had seen in the dingy38 “out-patient rooms” of old, made the instinct of cleanliness in him sicken and recoil39. For Parker Steel had much of the delicate niceness of a cat. This sense of unutterable pollution struck at his vanity and his self-respect.
He moved close to the window, and stood staring over the wire blind into the garden.
Was it not possible that he might be mistaken? He could consult an expert. And yet in the inmost corners of his heart he knew that the truth was merciless towards him.
What then?
The question threw him into a more desperate dilemma40. He remembered his wife.
Again, his profession? He would have to abandon it for one year, perhaps for two. And Parker Steel knew that success in professional life is largely a matter of personality. Withdraw that individual power, and the whole structure, like the city of an Eastern fable41, may melt abruptly42 into mist.
Baffled and irritated, a man with no great moral hold on the deeper truths of life, he moved aimlessly about the room, holding his right hand a little from him like one with bleeding fingers, who fears the blood may stain his clothes. The leather-padded consulting-chair stood empty before the table. Parker Steel dropped into it by the casual chance of habit, and sat staring dully at the patterning of the paper on the wall.
It was the ordeal of an egoist unlightened by a signal sense of self-abnegation or of public duty. Mercenary motives43 and professional ambition prompted a compromise at any hazard. The temptation to procrastinate44 is ever with us, and the man of the polite world is the most ingenious of sophists. For more than half an hour Parker Steel sat silent and almost motionless in his chair. When he at last left it, it was with the air of a man to whom sanity45, the sanity of the self-centred ego37, had returned after the hideous46 doubt and discord47 of a dream.
The wisest course was for him to temporize48, seeing that it was possible that he might be mistaken.
He recognized no immediate23 need for trusting any one with mere49 suspicions.
Was he not a physician, and therefore wise as to all precautions?
As for his wife? That was a problem that might have to be considered.
The sound of the front door closing roused him to the needs of the impending50 present. He noticed to his surprise that it was growing dark, and that the room was full of deepening shadows.
“Is Dr. Steel in, Symons?”
It was his wife’s voice, and Parker Steel slipped into his coat and unlocked the door.
“Tea nearly ready, dear?”
“Parker, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Any one with you?”
“No. I will be with you in a minute.”
He groped for a box of matches on the mantel-shelf and lit the gas. Turning, he was startled by the reflection of his own white face staring at him mistrustfully from the mirror over the fire. It was as though Parker Steel shirked the glance of his own eyes. He had a sense of unflattering discomfort51 and deceit as he walked to a glass-fronted cabinet fitted with drawers that stood in one corner of the room.
They were in the middle of tea when Betty Steel glanced at her husband’s hand.
“Have you hurt yourself, Parker?”
“I?”
“Yes. Ah, the bathotic chilblain, of course! Has it broken?”
Her husband felt afraid behind his mask of casual indifference52.
“I must have rasped the skin and got some dirt into the place,” he said. “A mere nothing. I have just put on this finger-stall. So you have heard that the De la Mottes are leaving, eh? They were not much good in the town, so far as the practice was concerned?”
Parker Steel’s reply to his wife’s question had flashed a suggestive gleam across his mind. Very probably it was too late for him to defend her against himself. And even if his fears proved true, he could swear absolute ignorance as to the presence of the disease. No guilt53 attached to him. He was merely striving to neutralize54 the effects of a damnable and undeserved misfortune.
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1
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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admonish
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| v.训戒；警告；劝告 | |
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suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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7
rebukes
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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afflict
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| vt.使身体或精神受痛苦，折磨 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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aorta
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| n.主动脉 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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16
stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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19
laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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20
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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21
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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22
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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23
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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24
circumscribed
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| adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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25
scrutinizing
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的现在分词 ) | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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28
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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29
softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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30
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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31
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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32
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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33
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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34
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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rattan
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| n.藤条，藤杖 | |
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36
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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37
ego
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| n.自我，自己，自尊 | |
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38
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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39
recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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40
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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41
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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42
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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43
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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44
procrastinate
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| v.耽搁，拖延 | |
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45
sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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46
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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47
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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48
temporize
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| v.顺应时势；拖延 | |
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49
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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50
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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51
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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52
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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53
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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54
neutralize
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| v.使失效、抵消，使中和 | |
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