The Web of Life | Page 5

A nurse was giving the patient an iced
drink. After swallowing feebly, the man relapsed into a semi-stupor, his
eyes opening and closing vacantly.
As he lay under the covering of a sheet, his arms thrust out bare from

the short-sleeved hospital shirt, his unshaven flushed face contrasting
with the pallid and puffy flesh of neck and arms, he gave an impression
of sensuality emphasized by undress. The head was massive and well
formed, and beneath the bloat of fever and dissipation there showed
traces of refinement. The soft hands and neat finger-nails, the carefully
trimmed hair, were sufficient indications of a kind of luxury. The
animalism of the man, however, had developed so early in life that it
had obliterated all strong markings of character. The flaccid, rather
fleshy features were those of the sensual, prodigal young American,
who haunts hotels. Clean shaven and well dressed, the fellow would be
indistinguishable from the thousands of overfed and overdrunk young
business men, to be seen every day in the vulgar luxury of Pullman cars,
hotel lobbies, and large bar-rooms.
The young surgeon studied the patient thoughtfully. He explained the
case briefly to his successor, as he had all the others, and before leaving
the bed, he had the nurse take the patient's temperature. "Only two
degrees of fever," he commented mechanically; "that is very good. Has
his wife--has any one been in to see him?" The head nurse, who stood
like an automaton at the foot of the bed, replied that she had seen no
one; in any case, the doorkeeper would have refused permission unless
explicit orders had been given.
Then the doctors continued their rounds, followed by the correct head
nurse. When they reached the end of the ward, Dr. Sommers remarked
disconnectedly: "No. 8 there, the man with the gun-shot wounds, will
get well, I think; but I shouldn't wonder if mental complications
followed. I have seen cases like that at the Bicetre, where operations on
an alcoholic patient produced paresis. The man got well," he added
harshly, as if kicking aside some dull formula; "but he was a hopeless
idiot."
The new surgeon stared politely without replying. Such an
unprofessional and uncalled-for expression of opinion was a new
experience to him. In the Boston hospital resident surgeons did not
make unguarded confidences even to their colleagues.
The two men finished their inspection without further incident, and

went to the office to examine the system of records. After Sommers had
left his successor, he learned from the clerk that "No. 8" had been
entered as, "Commercial traveller; shot three times in a saloon row."
Mrs. Preston had called,--from her and the police this information
came,--had been informed that her husband was doing well, but had not
asked to see him. She had left an address at some unknown place a
dozen miles south.
The surgeon's knowledge of the case ended there. As in so many
instances, he knew solely the point of tragedy: the before and the after
went on outside the hospital walls, beyond his ken. While he was busy
in getting away from the hospital, in packing up the few things left in
his room, he thought no more about Preston's case or any case. But the
last thing he did before leaving St. Isidore's was to visit the surgical
ward once more and glance at No. 8's chart. The patient was resting
quietly; there was every promise of recovery.
He left the grimy brick hospital, and made his way toward the rooms he
had engaged in a neighborhood farther south. The weather was
unseasonably warm and enervating, and he walked slowly, taking the
broad boulevard in preference to the more noisome avenues, which
were thick with slush and mud. It was early in the afternoon, and the
few carriages on the boulevard were standing in front of the fashionable
garment shops that occupied the city end of the drive. He had an
unusual, oppressive feeling of idleness; it was the first time since he
had left the little Ohio college, where he had spent his undergraduate
years, that he had known this emptiness of purpose. There was nothing
for him to do now, except to dine at the Hitchcocks' to-night. There
would be little definite occupation probably for weeks, months, until he
found some practice. Always hitherto, there had been a succession of
duties, tasks, ends that he set himself one on the heels of another,
occupying his mind, relieving his will of all responsibility.
He was cast out now from his youth, as it were, at thirty-two, to find his
place in the city, to create his little world. And for the first time since
he had entered Chicago, seven months before, the city wore a face of
strangeness, of complete indifference. It hummed on,