The Web of Life

The Web of Life

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Title: The Web of Life
Author: Robert Herrick
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THE WEB OF LIFE
BY
ROBERT HERRICK
AUTHOR OF "THE GOSPEL OF FREEDOM," "THE MAN WHO
WINS," "LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS AND OTHER STORIES"
TO G. R. C.
"_Hear from the spirit world this mystery: Creation is summed up, O
man, in thee; Angel and demon, man and beast, art thou, Yea, thou art
all thou dost appear to be!_"

THE WEB OF LIFE

CHAPTER I
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PART I


CHAPTER I
The young surgeon examined the man as he lay on the hospital chair in
which ward attendants had left him. The surgeon's fingers touched him
deftly, here and there, as if to test the endurance of the flesh he had to

deal with. The head nurse followed his swift movements, wearily
moving an incandescent light hither and thither, observing the surgeon
with languid interest. Another nurse, much younger, without the "black
band," watched the surgeon from the foot of the cot. Beads of
perspiration chased themselves down her pale face, caused less by
sympathy than by sheer weariness and heat. The small receiving room
of St. Isidore's was close and stuffy, surcharged with odors of iodoform
and ether. The Chicago spring, so long delayed, had blazed with a
sudden fury the last week in March, and now at ten o'clock not a capful
of air strayed into the room, even through the open windows that faced
the lake.
The patient groaned when the surgeon's fingers first touched him, then
relapsed into the spluttering, labored respiration of a man in liquor or in
heavy pain. A stolid young man who carried the case of instruments
freshly steaming from their antiseptic bath made an observation which
the surgeon apparently did not hear. He was thinking, now, his thin
face set in a frown, the upper teeth biting hard over the under lip and
drawing up the pointed beard. While he thought, he watched the man
extended on the chair, watched him like an alert cat, to extract from
him some hint as to what he should do. This absorption seemed to
ignore completely the other occupants of the room, of whom he was the
central, commanding figure. The head nurse held the lamp carelessly,
resting her hand over one hip thrown out, her figure drooping into an
ungainly pose. She gazed at the surgeon steadily, as if puzzled at his
intense preoccupation over the common case of a man "shot in a row."
Her eyes travelled over the surgeon's neat-fitting evening dress, which
was so bizarre here in the dingy receiving room, redolent of bloody
tasks. Evidently he had been out to some dinner or party, and when the
injured man was brought in had merely donned his rumpled linen
jacket with its right sleeve half torn from the socket. A spot of blood
had already spurted into the white bosom of his shirt, smearing its way
over the pearl button, and running under the crisp fold of the shirt. The
head nurse was too tired and listless to be impatient, but she had been
called out of hours on this emergency case, and she was not used to the
surgeon's preoccupation. Such things usually went off rapidly at St.
Isidore's, and she could hear the tinkle of the bell as the hall door

opened for another case. It would be midnight before she could get
back to bed! The hospital was short-handed, as usual.
The younger nurse