The Second Generation | Page 7

a certain
suggestion of Satan-got intelligence, that attracted Saint X to him in
serious illnesses--somewhat as the Christian princes of mediaeval
Europe tolerated and believed in the Jew physicians. Saint X was only
just reaching the stage at which it could listen to "higher criticism"
without dread lest the talk should be interrupted by a bolt from "special
Providence"; the fact that Schulze lived on, believing and talking as he
did, could be explained only as miraculous and mysterious forbearance
in which Satan must somehow have direct part.
"I didn't expect to see you for many a year yet," said Schulze, as Hiram,
standing, faced him sitting at his desk.
The master workman grew still more pallid as he heard the thought that
weighted him in secret thus put into words. "I have never had a doctor
before in my life," said he. "My prescription has been, when you feel
badly stop eating and work harder."
"Starve and sweat--none better," said Schulze. "Well, why do you come
here to-day?"
"This morning I lifted a rather heavy weight. I've felt a kind of
tiredness ever since, and a pain in the lower part of my back--pretty bad.
I can't understand it."
"But I can--that's my business. Take off your clothes and stretch
yourself on this chair. Call me when you're ready."
Schulze withdrew into what smelled like a laboratory. Hiram could
hear him rattling glass against glass and metal, could smell the fumes
of uncorked bottles of acids. When he called, Schulze reappeared,
disposed instruments and tubes upon a table. "I never ask my patients
questions," he said, as he began to examine Hiram's chest. "I lay 'em
out here and go over 'em inch by inch. I find all the weak spots, both
those that are crying out and those worse ones that don't. I never ask a
man what's the matter; I tell him. And my patients, and all the fools in
this town, think I'm in league with the devil. A doctor who finds out

what's the matter with a man Providence is trying to lay in the
grave--what can it be but the devil?"
He had reached his subject; as he worked he talked it--religion, its folly,
its silliness, its cruelty, its ignorance, its viciousness. Hiram listened
without hearing; he was absorbed in observing the diagnosis. He knew
nothing of medicine, but he did know good workmanship. As the
physician worked, his admiration and confidence grew. He began to
feel better--not physically better, but that mental relief which a
courageous man feels when the peril he is facing is stripped of the
mystery that made it a terror. After perhaps three quarters of an hour,
Schulze withdrew to the laboratory, saying: "That's all. You may
dress."
Hiram dressed, seated himself. By chance he was opposite a huge
image from the Orient, a hideous, twisted thing with a countenance of
sardonic sagacity. As he looked he began to see perverse, insidious
resemblances to the physician himself. When Schulze reappeared and
busied himself writing, he looked from the stone face to the face of
flesh with fascinated repulsion--the man and the "familiar" were so
ghastly alike. Then he suddenly understood that this was a quaint
double jest of the eccentric physician's--his grim fling at his lack of
physical charm, his ironic jeer at the superstitions of Saint X.
"There!" said Schulze, looking up. "That's the best I can do for you."
"What's the matter with me?"
"You wouldn't know if I told you."
"Is it serious?"
"In this world everything is serious--and nothing."
"Will I die?"
Schulze slowly surveyed all Hiram's outward signs of majesty that had
been denied his own majestic intellect, noted the tremendous figure, the

shoulders, the forehead, the massive brow and nose and chin--an
ensemble of unabused power, the handiwork of Nature at her best, a
creation worth while, worth preserving intact and immortal.
"Yes," he answered, with satiric bitterness; "you will have to die, and
rot, just like the rest of us."
"Tell me!" Hiram commanded. "Will I die soon?"
Schulze reflected, rubbing his red-button nose with his stubby fingers.
When he spoke, his voice had a sad gentleness. "You can bear hearing
it. You have the right to know." He leaned back, paused, said in a low
tone: "Put your house in order, Mr. Ranger."
Hiram's steadfast gray eyes met bravely the eyes of the man who had
just read him his death warrant. A long pause; then Hiram said "Thank
you," in his quiet, calm way.
He took the prescriptions, went out into the street. It looked strange to
him; he felt like a stranger in that town where he had spent half a
century--felt like a temporary tenant of that vast, strong body of his
which until now had seemed himself. And he--or