That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
fellow-sufferers had Saxham not hauled reeking and squelching out of the
abysmal sludge, whose secrets shall only be revealed upon the Last Day.
Yet Saxham realised that the grand majority of these twentieth-century
men and women really wanted little more of the physician and surgeon
than the thirteenth-century patient desired of the apothecary or the
leech. A patient hearing given to their category of evils--a little
hocus-pocus, and a nostrum or so.
We scoff, thought Saxham, at the ignorance of those men of the Dark
Ages, yet in this enlightened era the eye of newt and toe of frog, the
salted earthworms, and the _Pulvis Bezoardicus Magistralis_ or _Pulvis
Sanctus_, dissolved in the liquor of herbs gathered under a propitious
conjunction of their ruling planets with the Moon--have but given place
to extract of the dried thyroid gland of the sheep, the ovaries of the
guinea-pig, the spinal cord and brain of rabbits and mice and other
small mammalia, with--instead of broth of vipers, liquor distilled from
the parotid secretion of the tropical toad; identical with the reptile
administered in boluses to Pagan patients by the Greek Hippocrates.
With other remedies hideously akin to the hell-brews that whipped the
sated desires of Tiberius and Nero.... Such as the pastelloids
frequently prescribed by bland-mannered, frock-coated, twentieth-century
physicians--professing Christians who pay West-End pew-rents, and
deplore the abnormal drop in the birth-rate--for the spurring of the
sense of debilitated Hedonists.
Thus, summed Saxham, we have rediscovered Organotherapy. We have
harnessed the bacillus to Hygeia's silver chariot. In Surgery the Short
Circuit is the latest word. It is wonderful to know how well one can get
on, at a pinch, without organs hitherto deemed indispensable to
existence. Radiology reveals to us the inner mysteries of the human
machine, alive and palpitating. The splintered bone, the bullet or the
shell-splinter embedded in the muscle or the osseous structure, can be
detected and photographed by the teleradiographic apparatus. The
electro-magnet automatically carried out the removal of such fragments,
provided only that they are of steel. Ah yes! We are very clever in
this twentieth century, reflected the Dop Doctor. Modern Science has
even weighed the Soul.
Could Dee and Lilly have bettered that? Debate--consider.... This
quenchless spark of Being, kindled in Saxham's breast and in yours and
mine by the Supreme Will of the Divine Creator--this Ego for whose
eternal salvation Christ died upon the bitter Cross, dips the scale at
precisely one-sixteenth of an ounce avoirdupois. The expiring man,
weighed a moment previously to dissolution, and again immediately
afterwards, was found to have lost so much and no more.
The dying world is in the scales to-day, thought Saxham, bitterly and
sorrowfully. Religious Faith being the soul of the world, one wonders,
when the last thin hymn shall have died upon the fierce irrespirable
air; when the last human sigh shall have exhaled from Earth, how much in
ponderability shall be lacking to the acorn-shaped lump of whirling
matter. Will the result proportionate with the moribund's sixteenth of
an ounce?
It seemed to Saxham, that without a moral and social upheaval upon a
vaster scale than historian ever recorded or visionary ever dreamed; a
cataclysmic cleansing, a purging as by fire; the regeneration of the
human race, the reconstitution of the human mind, the renaissance of the
Divine Ideal, could never be brought about. Unconsciously he sought for
the decadent world some such ordeal as he himself had passed through.
You looked at him and saw the scars of suffering. The soil of his
nature had been rent by volcanic convulsions and seared by the upburst
of fierce abysmal fires, before the green herb clothed the sides of the
frowning steeps, the jagged peaks were wreathed with gentle clouds; the
pure springs gathered and ran; the valleys became fruitful and the
plains carpeted themselves with flowers.
A miracle had been wrought for Saxham the Man, and he saw the need of
one for the World, and said in his heart that, though holy men might
pray, it would not, could not, ever be vouchsafed. And all the while
the miracle was ripening, the Day was coming, the Great Awakening was at
hand.
*CHAPTER XXI*
*MARGOT LOOKS IN*
It drew on to the luncheon hour. The last patient a very young, very
little, very pretty married woman, was summoned by the neat maid from
the waiting-room, in a remote corner of which a husband of military type
and ordinarily cheerful countenance, remained, maintaining with obvious
effort a fictitious interest in the pages of a remote issue of _Punch_.
The dainty little lady bore a name well known to Saxham. The fact that a
title was attached to it did not interest him, nor had it shortened her
term of waiting by a second of the clock. But her youth smote him with
a sense of pity as she took the chair upon his left hand facing the
window, and without overmuch embarrassment made clear her case.
She was going to have a baby. Franky, her husband, earnestly desired
the kiddie for family reasons, yet its advent was unwelcome to him, in
that it must inevitably involve physical pain and mental anxiety for the
little lady, Franky's wife.
The little lady had been frightfully downed by the prospect. She rather
cottoned to kiddies, she explained, than otherwise. It was the bother
of having them that didn't appeal. It put everything in the cart as
regarded the Autumn Season. Besides--there were family reasons on her
side, why the prospect should not be too rosy. She stated the reasons,
and Saxham's listening face grew grave. He realised the danger of a
Preconceived Idea.
He said nothing. Margot went on talking. Her beautiful deer-eyes were
alternately wistful and coaxing. They entreated sympathy. They begged
for gentleness. They grew brilliant with enthusiasm as she explained
that after a lot of chinning, she and Franky had hit upon a perfectly
ripping plan.
A friend, recently encountered in Paris, had thrown a ray of hope upon
the doubtful prospect. No doubt Dr. Saxham was in sympathy with the
pioneers of the New Crusade against Unnecessary Pain.... Of course, Dr.
Saxham knew all about the wonderful experiments of German
gynaewhatdoyoucall'ems. The right term was frightfully crack-jaw.
Perhaps Dr. Saxham knew what was meant?
Saxham reassured the little lady.
"You refer of course to the experiments of Professors von Wolfenbuchel
of Vienna, and Krauss of the Berlin _Fraueenklinik_, resulting in the
method of treatment now known throughout the Continent as 'Purple
Dreams.' Wolfenbuchel and Krauss have published a pamphlet on the
subject. Perhaps you have read the pamphlet?"
"Yes--I've read it. A wonderful book that has been translated into
every language. A German officer, friend of a friend I met in Paris,
told her about it. His sister had tried the treatment, and found it A1.
So I bought a French translation of the book in Paris, and an English
one at a shop in the Haymarket. It's bound in rose-coloured vellum
stamped with a rising sun in gold. 'Weep No More, Mothers!' it's
called. Isn't that a charming title? And the subject is: 'Pangless
Childbirth, Produced through Purple Dreams.'"
In a sweet, coaxing voice that trembled a little, she began to tell the
Doctor about the wonderful results obtained by hypodermics of Krauss and
Wolfenbuechel's marvellous combination of drugs. And Saxham hearkened
with stern patience, while the table-clock ticked and the luncheon hour
drew near, and Franky chewed the cud of suspense in the Doctor's
waiting-room.
Thousands of peasant women, and others of the lower middle-class in
Germany had become mothers under the Purple Dreams treatment. Maternity
Hospitals in Paris, Brussels, and New York had adopted the method after
controversy and hesitation. It had triumphed over every doubt. An
American woman whose brother's wife had had a "Purple Dreams" baby at
the Berlin Institute had told the little narrator only yesterday how
quite too wonderful was the discovery of the enlightened Krauss and the
gifted Wolfenbuchel. Everything was made easy. When your ordeal drew
near you simply went to the place, and signed your name in a book, and
put yourself in the hands of skilled persons. You felt no pain--not a
twinge. Only the prick and throb of the hypodermic needle-syringe, and
most people were used to the _pique_ nowadays--administering the first
subcutaneous injections of the wonderful new drug.... Under its mild
sedative influence you dozed off to sleep presently. And when you woke
up--there was the baby--beautifully dressed, and lying on a lace pillow
in the arms of a smartly dressed, fresh-cheeked nurse.
This had been the experience of the sister of the German officer, as of
the wife of the brother of the American lady. The same thing happening
to thousands everywhere. The philanthropic Wolfenbuchel and the
benevolent Krauss had made of the stony Via Dolorosa by which Womanhood
attains maternity--a path of soft green turf bordered with fragrant
lilies and bestrewn with the perfumed petals of the rose.
She ended. Saxham had kept his keen blue eyes steadily upon her during
the eloquent recital. Not a hair of his black brows had twitched, not a
muscle of his pale face had moved--betraying his urgent inclination to
smile. His fine hand, lying upon the blotter near the small black
case-book, might have been carved out of ancient Spanish ivory, or
yellow-white lava. Now he said:
"There is nothing new nor marvellous about the 'Dreams' method. It
is--persistent narcosis obtained from the subcutaneous injections of
morphine with the hydrobromide of hyoscine, another alkaloid obtained
from henbane. I have visited not only the Institute at Berlin, but the
Rottburg Fraueenklinik--and an establishment of the same type in Paris,
and another in Brussels. It is a fact that when a patient awakens from
the anaesthesia there is no recollection of anything that has taken
place subsequently to the injection of the drug."
"There has been no pain. Absolutely--none whatever!" She spoke with a
little, joyful catch in her breath.
"Pardon me," said Saxham. "You labour under a delusion which the
rose-coloured pamphlet was not written to dispel. There must have been
pain--if there has been childbirth. Perhaps there has been overwhelming
pain. Pain manifested by outcries and convulsions--violent
struggles--subdued by the attendants and nurses--for the friends and
relatives of the patient are rigidly excluded--the patient enters and
leaves the Home alone. Two or three days may have vanished in that
vacuum which has been created in her memory. Days in which she has been
lying--it may be--strapped to the bed in the private ward of the nursing
home--her purple, congested face and staring eyes concealed by a mask of
wetted linen--her agonies only witnessed by paid attendants whose
interests are best served by denial or concealment--supposing anything
to have gone wrong?"
The relentless surgeon's hand had torn away the painted curtain. Margot
contemplated the grim truth in silence for a moment. Then she found
words:
"But nothing ever _does_ go wrong. The pink pamphlet says so. My
American friend's sister-in-law says so.... Thousands of women have had
children under scopolo--what's its name? And none of them felt
pain--not the slightest. And in every case--in _every_ case--there was
the baby when they woke up!"
The sweet bird-voice quivered. She had entered the room so full of hope
and enthusiasm, and this man with the piercing eyes and the brusque,