“You could do it here, then?” said Galt, a weary look on his pale face.
“Easy enough; I’ve got my stethoscope in this satchel3. I’ve just been across the street to see a negro with a whiskey liver. He is a goner, I guess, but I have more hopes of you. Your trouble may be found in those cigar boxes your railroad friends are sending you. If it is that, I’ll cut you down to one a day, and smoke the rest myself.”
They had gone into the big library, the walls of which were hung with family portraits in oil, and lined with long, low cases filled with Galt’s favorite books.
“Take the big chair,” Dearing said, “and open your shirt in front.”
Galt tossed his half-smoked cigar through an open window and complied. The examination was made, and questions in regard to diet and habits were asked and answered. Dearing said nothing as he put his instrument into the satchel and closed it. He stood over his patient, eying him critically.
“It looks to me like you are fundamentally as sound as a dollar,” he said, his fine brow furrowed4, “but your case puzzles me a lot. To be frank, you are entirely5 too thin, your cheeks are sunken, your skin is dry, and your eye dull. You are very nervous, and are growing gray hairs as fast as crab-grass. Somehow, I don’t think you need any sort of medicine. Now, if you were not absolutely the luckiest man in Georgia, I’d think you had something to worry about. Worry has killed more men than all the plagues on earth; but that can’t be your trouble, for every good thing in life has come your way. You had a great ambition a few years ago, but you gratified it; surely you don’t want to own any more railroads.”
“No, one is enough,” Galt answered, with a faint, forced smile. “I can’t say that I am worrying over that.”
“Well, the condition of the minds of patients,” said Dearing, “is the biggest thing doctors have to tackle. We can hold our own with a disease of the body, because we can see it and, at least, experiment with it for good or bad; but when the seat of the thing is in a man’s soul, and he won’t uncover it, but keeps fooling himself and his doctor by looking for it under his hide or in his blood or bones, why, we are at a standstill. I had a patient once who certainly had me at my wit’s end. He was sound as you are physically6, but he was restless, dissatisfied, morbid7, lonely, and utterly8 miserable9. I exhausted10 every resource on him. I sent him to specialists all over America, but they were as helpless as I was. Finally, in sheer desperation, I took the bull by the horns and asked him if he had anything on his mind of a disagreeable nature. He hung his head, and I knew then that something was wrong. I pumped him adroitly11, assuring him that all private matters were held in confidence by a physician, and he finally made a clean breast of it. He was a rich man, but every dollar he owned had been accumulated from money stolen from another man, and a man who had failed in life and died in abject12 poverty.”
“Ah, I see!” Galt sat more erect13, his eyes fixed14 on Dearing’s face. “That was his trouble; and what did he do about it?”
“Died hugging the rotten thing to his breast,” the doctor said; “and that is the way with most of them. He couldn’t face the music—he couldn’t confess to the puny15 little world around him that he wasn’t what it had always thought him. Perhaps he had gone too far to believe in the cure that God has made possible for every poor devil in toils16 of that sort. That’s the trouble. Spirituality has to be practised to be a reality. Faith cures of all sorts have their place in the world, for a sick soul will certainly make a sick body.”
“So you believe in rubbish of that sort,” Galt said, contemptuously.
“To the extent I have indicated, yes,” Dearing replied. “I think I could demonstrate scientifically that health of body and faith in something higher than mere17 matter go hand in hand. Tell a weak man that his body is sound, and he will gain strength; convince a man that he is hopelessly old, and he will no longer be buoyed18 up by the hope of life. Show him his grave, and he will begin to measure himself for it. Therefore—and here is where I am going to hit you, you old atheist,” Dearing continued, half jestingly—“let a man constantly argue to himself that life ends here on earth, and he will wither19 away physically, as he already has spiritually; for what would be the incentive20 to live if death ends all? I meet all sorts of men and women, and the healthiest old codgers I run across are the old chaps who believe they are sanctified. They may be as close as the bark of a tree, absolutely proof against any sort of charitable impulse, but the belief of their immortality21 keeps them pink and rosy22 to their graves; half of them die only because they want a change of residence, and expect to own a corner lot on the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. The preachers teach us that we’ve got to go through a lot of red-tape to be saved, but I believe the time will come when immortality will be demonstrated as plainly as the fact that decayed matter will reproduce life in a plant.”
“Oh, life is too short to argue on these things,” Galt said, wearily. “You have always seen the thing one way, and I another. I am in good company. The greatest minds of the world have believed as I do. I can’t say that I want to live forever.”
“Well, I do—I do,” returned Dearing. “There was a time, thanks to my early association with you, by-the-way, when I doubted; but I always had a frightful23 pang24 at the thought that the wonderful mystery of life must continue to be a closed book to me. I fought it, Kenneth, old man—I fought that thought day and night, because my soul was so enamoured with the great secret that I could not give it up; and now—well, on my honor, the faith in it has become my very existence. Without that prospect25 I’d stop right here. I’d not care to move an inch. I’d as soon cut your throat as to treat you as a friend. But I didn’t come to preach. What is that you’ve got stacked up on the table—drawings for another trunk-line?”
“No.” Galt rose languidly and smiled. “I’ll show you something very pretty. You know I am fond of good pictures, and I flatter myself that I have discovered a genius. There is an art dealer26, F. B. Jenkins, in Atlanta, whom I know pretty well, and he called me in the other day to show me some water-color pictures by a young girl, who, it seems, is too modest to allow her name to be used. Then, too, I think he regards her as his find, and doesn’t want other dealers27 to know about her. I bought these.”
Galt opened a big portfolio28, and began taking out the pictures one by one. “Where has any one ever seen a child more lifelike than that one? Why, it is actually walking away from the paper; and look at that one on the fence, and this boy with the top and string!”
“Why, good gracious!” Dearing cried out, impulsively29, as he stood transfixed by surprise, “I know who did that work—I—” But he checked himself suddenly.
“You know who did it?” Galt said, facing him in surprise. “What do you mean, Wynn. Do you really know anything about it?”
“I spoke30 without thinking,” Dearing said, awkwardly. “You know, a physician sometimes runs across matters which he is obliged to regard as confidential31, and, since the—the lady doesn’t want to be known, I could not feel free to mention her name; besides, you know, I might be mistaken.”
Dearing turned from the pictures and moved toward the door.
“I am satisfied that you could tell more about it if you would,” Galt said. “I really would like to know, for I have never run across pictures I liked so well. And to think they are done by some young woman who may not know how good her work really is!”
“I know nothing—absolutely nothing,” Wynn said, with a non-committal smile. “But, if I did, I wouldn’t trust it to you or any other man, so there you are. Why haven’t you been over? Uncle Tom and Madge look for you every afternoon to join them at tea. You’d better come soon; they are off for New York in a few days.”
“New York!” Galt exclaimed, in surprise.
“Yes; you know they go up there every summer for a ten days’ stay, visiting the Marstons. Old Marston was a colonel under my uncle in the war. He went to New York after peace was declared and invested all he had left. He is now a big tea-and-coffee importer, and worth a lot of money. Mrs. Marston likes Madge, and gives her a big time once a year. It is always a picnic for uncle and her. They start off like jolly school-children. They have the time of their lives from the moment they leave till they get back all tired out and coated with dust. Now, you look after your health, Kenneth. Lie around this quiet old house and take a good rest. Keep those bookcases with their lying contents closed, and read sound, hopeful literature, and I’ll see that you stay above ground for a good many years to come.”
“If I could only get you to read those books, instead of the namby-pamby stuff issued by the Sunday-schools for the edification of children who still believe in Santa Claus, you’d be a wiser man,” Galt said, good-naturedly, as he accompanied Dearing to the door. “But, then, I’d not have the fun of arguing with you.”
“I could put up as good an argument, even on your own side, as you can,” Dearing said, half seriously. “I could give one illustration which would prove to men like you, at least, that the whole world is topsy-turvy, and the Creator, if there is such a thing, more heartless than any man alive.”
“You could? Well, that’s interesting—coming from you, at least.”
“It was this,” Dearing went on, now quite serious, as he stood facing Galt, swinging his satchel in his hand: “As I came in just now I saw about thirty children—little boys and girls—over on Lewis Weston’s lawn. They were all rigged out in their Sunday clothes and playing games, just as you and I did on the same spot when we were kids. It was little Grover Weston’s birthday, and his daddy, being our Congressman32, the undersized ‘four hundred’ were doing honors to the occasion. Even from where I stood I could see the toys, wagons33, tricycles, and hobby-horses which had been presented to the little Georgia lord, and he was strutting34 about thoroughly35 enjoying the limelight that was on him. That was one side of the picture. The other side was this: Down at the lower end of our place stood a solitary36 little figure. Not one among them all could hold a candle to him in looks or brightness of mind. You know who I mean; it was the little chap you took a fancy to the other day when he jumped into your arms from that tree. There he stood, his bat and ball idle at his feet, watching every movement of the gay little crowd across the way. I couldn’t know what his thoughts were, but, as I stood looking at him, I wondered what I should have thought at his age. Was his growing and supersensitive mind already struggling with the question of inequality? I remember that I, at his age, felt a slight keenly, and if I did, with my many advantages as a child, what must he feel? There is an argument for you, Kenneth. The next time you want to prove the utter heartlessness and aimlessness of God and His universe, just paint that picture.”
Galt made no response. His blood seemed to turn cold in his veins37 as the grimly accusing words fell from his friend’s lips.
“But that is not the way I’m going to let the story end, in my fancy, at least,” Dearing continued, after a pause. “Kenneth, old chap, I see a silver lining38 peeping out from beneath even that poor child’s cloud. I see the hidden hand of God following the father who deserted39 his duty to flee to some far-off hiding-place. I see that man hungering for spiritual rest; I see his very crime humbling40 and sweetening his soul and causing him to long for what he has left behind him. I see the fortune that avarice41 is piling up in his father’s coffers being turned to good account. In short, I see that boy and his beautiful child-mother, who never had a fault but that of blindly trusting, taken away somewhere to ultimate happiness.”
“You think—you think—” Galt stammered42, unable to formulate43 an adequate reply.
“I think the man does not live who could have been loved and trusted by Dora Barry and ever forget her. The man does not live who could be the father of such a child by such a mother—such as she has grown to be since her great misfortune—and not fight for her and her child with his last breath.”
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jovially
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| adv.愉快地，高兴地 | |
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veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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satchel
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| n.(皮或帆布的)书包 | |
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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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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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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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adroitly
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| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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toils
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| 网 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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buoyed
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| v.使浮起( buoy的过去式和过去分词 )；支持；为…设浮标；振奋…的精神 | |
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wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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portfolio
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| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
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impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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Congressman
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| n.（美）国会议员 | |
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wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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strutting
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| 加固，支撑物 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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humbling
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| adj.令人羞辱的v.使谦恭( humble的现在分词 )；轻松打败（尤指强大的对手）；低声下气 | |
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avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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formulate
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| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
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