Dear and Glorious Physician (49 page)

“You will destroy me!” he shrieked, and he cursed Lucanus in language so vivid that Lucanus was full of admiration for its gusto and imagination. He waited patiently until Phlegon had exhausted himself, and had burst into genuine tears. Then he said, kindly, “I will not do this, I will not disillusion your sons about you, if you will obey me at once, and continue to obey me.”

“Curse you!” bellowed Phlegon. “May the ravens tear out your liver!” He paused when Lucanus appeared unimpressed and somewhat bored. Then he whimpered, “Tell me what I must do. But, good physician, have mercy on an old man! Would you send me back to that wretched patch of land, which is filled with stones and thorns, to live out my days in misery again?”

“I certainly will,” said Lucanus. “Unless you obey. The first step is to get out of that bed immediately, and dress yourself in your best, and hang a boss about your neck. And then you will go out into the garden with me and greet your sons like a loving father, embracing them. And you will swear an oath to me, here in secret, that never again will you lie about your sons, nor upbraid them falsely, and never again pretend to an illness in order to tear their hearts.” He paused, then added severely, “The oath I will ask of you is a most mysterious oath, for though you do not believe in the gods there is magic in the oath, and if you violate it some monstrous affliction will fall upon you.”

Phlegon glared at him in the utmost terror, and Lucanus smiled inwardly, and kept his lips tight in order to suppress a chuckle.

Phlegon tossed aside his rugs and coverlet and sprang out of bed, pale and trembling, naked and big as an elderly Hercules, his brown muscles flowing like silk. With shaking hands he dressed himself in a long tunic of the finest linen, clasped a golden belt about his narrow waist and circlets of gold around his upper arms. He hung a boss about his neck. He combed his long gray curls, and his beard. He was magnificent.

Then Lucanus administered a weird oath which he invented on the spot, calling upon the gods to listen, as Phlegon knelt before him. Lucanus finally sprinkled the old man with a few drops of wine, and admonished him sternly again. He would have helped the old man to rise, but Phlegon leaped to his feet like an athlete, and he pressed his great gnarled fists to his chest. “Am I a weakling?” he roared. “I may be old enough to be your grandfather, you conniving physician, but I could break your back with my own hands.”

“That I believe,” said Lucanus. “See, henceforth, that you do not break your sons’ hearts, for disaster will fall upon you immediately.” He gave the vial containing the white pills to Phlegon. “These will calm you for a few nights, during which,” said Lucanus, virtuously, “you will be able to reflect on your sins serenely.”

Phlegon strode through the house, Lucanus following him. The old man paused here and there to draw the physician’s attention proudly to some priceless object, which Lucanus duly admired. “You will observe,” said Phlegon, swelling his chest, “that my sons are not to be despised.” His broad face glowed, and he was suddenly released from envy and resentment, and Lucanus meditated how happy men can be when freed from baseness and hatred and malice.

They entered the garden, and the sons were amazed and overwhelmed when they saw their vigorous father hurrying toward them, and their eyes filled with tears, and they were unable to speak. They fell at his feet, humbly, and he raised them with large gestures, as if forgiving them, but he was in truth forgiving himself, as Lucanus understood, and he embraced each in turn, reveling in their embraces which pardoned him.

“What a physician is this!” exclaimed Phlegon, his arms about his sons. “What gift can we give him for restoring me immediately to health?”

Before Turbo could eagerly reply, Lucanus, with a straight face, said, “It is a blessing when he who has been relieved by his physician gives him a gift himself.”

Phlegon, grinning joyously, considered. But he was still a peasant, with a peasant’s closeness. Then, as if calling all to be witnesses to an act of supreme sacrifice, he drew a circlet from his arm which was heavily set with gems and thrust it into Lucanus’ hands. His eyes blinked with tears.

“May the gods bless you,” he said in a husky voice, and in all sincerity.

Lucanus was returned home in the litter of Turbo, and he found himself smiling, and pleased. He wondered how many of his stricken patients remained at his home for his ministrations; Ramus would do well; he had the tenderest compassion and the most skillful hands, and was loved in spite of his color, which the Greeks distrusted. Lucanus reflected on the modern Greeks; they lived on the past glory of their country, and exalted it, though they were producing no great men now of any consequence. Why was this? The poet Aeschylus had written: “Gold is never a bulwark. No defense to those who spurn God’s great altar of justice!”

He was surprised to hear a silence around his house when he dismissed the litter. The garden gate swung open, creaking in a dry, brisk wind, and it seemed to echo a certain and incomprehensible desolation about the house. The garden was empty, and no patients were waiting there. A voicelessness hung over everything, like an absence. Suddenly Lucanus felt his heart beating very fast, and he ran into the garden, calling for Ramus. He then saw that some evil had blighted his small and pretty garden: the little statue of Eros, which had graced the lily-decked pool, had been overturned in the water and smashed. The flower beds had been trampled ruthlessly; branches had been torn from the trees and the fruit scattered. The jasmine bushes were beaten to the ground, and now he saw a large black stain on the walls of his house as if a fire had been raised against it and then had died down.

He rushed into the house, his head roaring with an inner noise. Here too was destruction. His few chairs, his table, his bed and Ramus’, had been flung apart and broken. The pictures which he had painted himself and hung on the white walls had been wrenched down and trampled, the wood dismembered. His vessels and pots had been defiled. The cabinet where he kept his major surgical instruments had been opened, and there were no instruments there; his careful vials were broken, his pouches of herbs thrown open and scattered. And over all hung abandonment and desolation.

Stunned, Lucanus put the palms of his hands to his head and stood, stricken. He looked about him disbelievingly, blinking his eyes. Why this wantonness? And where was Ramus, his friend, his helper? He began to run about the house, crying aloud, his legs unsteady under him. He had a confused thought that the doctors of Athens, who had long been jealous of him, and contemptuous of him, had done this thing; but his thoughts ran apart in a raveling of despair. Ramus was not in the house. Once again he rushed into the garden, then to the walls, so desecrated. It was there, huddled and bleeding, that he finally found Ramus, who was unconscious. He knelt beside Ramus, weeping aloud, for he saw that Ramus had not only been beaten savagely, but that some sharp instrument had been slashed across the upper part of his face, and that blood poured from his eyes, which had been blinded. Unaware and bleeding, they were turned to the blazing sky.

At first Lucanus believed him dying. He raised him against his breast, and feverishly examined him, and felt for his pulse. It was very weak and erratic, but the dark man was still alive. Lucanus, his head spinning like one in a nightmare, gently laid his friend down again and ran into the house for his physician’s pouch, and returned with it. He administered restoratives to Ramus, holding a pungent bottle to his nose, forcing a stimulant between his parted lips. He worked feverishly, thinking of nothing but saving his friend. Over and over, he whispered to himself, “This is a dream! This has not happened! No one would injure so kind a soul! No one would do this to my house!”

He did not hear approaching footsteps, and he started violently when a rough and frightened voice spoke beside him. “Master, I ran away when they did this — I was afraid — they were so furious — Forgive me — Oh, what have they done to this poor man ... ?”

Lucanus looked up, and his blue eyes were wild and distended. He saw that his visitor was a poor peasant whose wife he had been treating successfully. “Siton!” he said, huskily. “What is it? Who did this?”

Siton squatted beside him, the tears running down his sunburned face. But as he answered he kept glancing fearfully over his shoulder. “Master, if they knew I had returned to tell you they would kill me also. They looked for you — they would have murdered you — it was the woman, Gata, who said Ramus had the evil eye — she had heard it long ago in this city — she miscarried, and her husband aroused the people against you . . .”

Now Lucanus, with gall in his throat, understood. The husband of Gata was a prosperous peasant, with many fine vineyards; an evil, sniveling, and lying man, who whined constantly that he was oppressed by the wealthy and powerful of Athens who would not pay him a just price for his grapes. Yet he was the richest of all the peasants for many miles around; his greed was notorious. He and his wife and children lived in quarters which pigs would have disdained, though his gold accounts in the city banks were the envy of lawyers and doctors and lawgivers and scribes. Two weeks ago he had brought his slovenly and swine-eyed wife to Lucanus, pleading absolute poverty and inability to pay a fee for the delivery of his fifth child. He had believed that, living so far from him, the physician would not know of his wealth, but a patient had whispered in Lucanus’ ear, and Lucanus had coldly told the man that he would either pay him a very modest fee or go to a regular physician, whose fee would be ten times as much. The two had departed, shrieking threats and shaking fists, and calling Lucanus a robber and oppressor.

“He came here today, in your absence, Master,” whimpered Siton, still glancing fearfully over his shoulder. “You know he has the peasants under his thumb; they owe him much money, for only his vineyards, last year, did well, and theirs were poor. He has apparently been watching for a time when you were not here . . . He came just after you departed, and he declared to the people waiting for you that you were using them for wicked experiments, that you were a sorcerer, that you were a very rich man desiring the death of the poor, for you know that the doctors of Athens have been advocating the control of births among the poverty-stricken. You realize how inflammable is the ignorant and stupid mind, how eager to believe evil and malice, though you have helped them over all these years, and have cured them. The husband of Gata said there was unjust gold in your house, which belonged to the people — ”

Siton looked at Ramus, who was beginning to groan with agony. The peasant sniffled, and wiped his nose and eyes with the back of his hand, while Lucanus knelt, stupefied. “I was here, Master, because of my boils, which you are causing to disappear. What could I do in that screaming mob, crying for your death, or your banishment? They attacked Ramus and left him for dead . . . Master, you must leave here at once; they will return, to kill you.”

Lucanus drew a deep breath. “Help me take Ramus within and set up his bed. I must think.”

“Master, you must leave at once!”

“Help me. And when I have Ramus in the house, run at once, if you have any mercy or gratitude, to the house of Turbo, the potter, and tell him that Lucanus, the physician, begs him to send a litter for my friend and give us shelter in his house.” Behind the roaring turmoil and anguish in his mind, a cold thought emerged. He had no friends among the wretched he had succored; he had not associated with the rich and educated and intelligent in Athens. Turbo was his only hope.

Siton hesitated. He stood up and wrung his hands. He whimpered, “Master, if I help you they will visit vengeance upon me!”

Lucanus rose. He stood over the peasant, and his eyes blazed with wrath and disgust. “I tell you that if you do not help me now, Siton, a great evil will come to you!”

Siton looked at him, half crouched before him, seeing the terrible light on the physician’s face, and he did not doubt him for a moment. Sobbing, he helped Lucanus lift Ramus and bear him into the house, then he fled. Lucanus fastened a sharp dagger to his belt, and clenched his fists, and he was full of hatred. He turned his attention to Ramus, sprawled on his bed. The dark man groaned over and over, and feebly threshed. Lucanus examined his eyes, and he wept again. The cornea was torn and bleeding; the pupils distorted and diminished. Ramus would now be blind as well as mute. The heart of Lucanus was wrenched and throbbing, but his cool physician’s hands ministered to the ruined eyes and bandaged them. Again he administered stimulants, though he thought, Better that he should die than to awaken to the knowledge that men are animals and deserve only death. The rich and privileged and powerful man is not greater in his evil than the oppressed and the enslaved and the homeless. I have been a child!

He felt deprived and empty and dry as dust. The hatred in him was like a yearning pit, waiting to devour the wickedness which was man and hide it forever. He sat beside Ramus and held his cold hand, and the tears ran down his face. Sara had written him joyously that his name was blessed in every port, and that the poor adored him. Lucanus laughed aloud, bitterly.

Ramus’ hand grew warm in his, and the mute lips stirred below the white bandages over the eyes. Lucanus bent over him, and said, gently, “Do you hear me, my dear friend?”

The head moved in answer; the hoarse groaning continued, and Lucanus noticed, for the first time, that Ramus could make some sound after all, if only a groan.

“Help is coming, Ramus. Lie quiet. We will be taken to a place of safety.”

He reached for his pouch and brought out a vial of syrup of opium. Ramus must sleep; he must not begin to think of what had happened to him and the people who had afflicted him. He held the vial to Ramus’ lips and said, “Take but a mouthful.” He wondered why he did not say, “Drink it all.” But his physician’s training admonished him even while his spirit was embittered beyond imagining. Though death was merciful, he was constrained not to give it. After Ramus had drunk and become drowsy, Lucanus still sat and held his hand, and finally Ramus slept, a faint smile of peace on his large lips.

It seemed to Lucanus that too long a time had passed. Had the cowardly and sniffling Siton been too afraid to obey him? I do not doubt it, thought Lucanus. These are dogs and sheep and ravening jackals by nature. I shall have mercy on them no more, and shall turn from them forever. My life is over. What is left I shall devote to my poor and loving friend, and be eyes and voice to him. He touched his dagger, and he longed to use it as some dagger had been used on Ramus.

The huge and shining silence enveloped the house. Lucanus put his fingers tenderly on the bandaged eyes, and whispered, “I have scorned and hated You because You afflicted men, and had no mercy for them, and left them in darkness. But now I know that You are sternly just, and that we deserve no more than what we have, and even less than that. If You have rejected man, it is because he is not worthy of acceptance. Give me some wisdom. Let my reason know why You created this world, for You are omniscient, and You must have known what the world would be, and how detestable. How can You, who throw the radiant constellations into darkness, forgive me for my blasphemies against You? Enlighten me! And do You have mercy on this good, dear friend, who has been seeking You and weeping for You, until his voice was lost. Have mercy. Mercy!”

His fingers, on the bandaged eyes, began mysteriously to vibrate. He wished to remove them, fearful that the trembling would cause Ramus fresh pain. But he was like one paralyzed; the gently shaking fingers remained on the bandages. Finally, after long moments, he could lift away his hands. There was a strange weakness in them, a numbness, which began to run over his body as if his blood were draining away.

There was a sudden commotion in the court and garden, the tramping of purposeful feet, and Lucanus sprang up and pulled his dagger from its sheath. He felt the longing to kill like a passionate hunger in his bowels. The torn curtain was pushed aside, and it was Turbo who entered, Turbo with a shaken and tear-stained face, and behind him stood armed slaves. At the sight of him Lucanus began to sob, dryly. He held out his arms and staggered to the potter, and Turbo caught him and held him to his breast.

“Do not be distressed, dear Master,” said the potter. “I am here to take you to my house, and your servant also. I am honored!”