Desmonde, M.D.

Front matter

Chap.XZ3 Copyright No,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA rii c f m

k cc

Preface

A STORY without intent may be so much the more entertaining, temporarily, but if it reaches any lasting result it will be as a ship, without steering gear, haply, drifts into a harbor instead of upon rocks.

That this little tale is at least the outcome of earnest design must surely appear to some, and appeal to equally earnest consideration, though it confronts the deepest, sternest and most vindictive prejudices of humanity, and will be beaten and flayed from every door and window looking out on life whose occupant counts it worthy of even so much attention.

There is another danger, however, which those who are solicitous for it would have it avoid, though the result will be that it receive even better buffet^ ings, withal.

To wit : the cursory reader will see it in much the same position as the Christian, in the rather ancient hymn

PREFACE.

** Poised on a narrow neck of land,

'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand.”

and his cursory judgment, counting it a fragment of the recent fad in literature, will launch it, accordingly, upon the great flood of speculative extravaganza, on one side, instead of consigning it to the grand ocean of earnest reality, at the other side, for which it has been constructed. Therefore let it be clearly understood, at the outset, that the following tale is fully founded upon fact ; that the actors are living, breathing beings, to-day, even to the Doctor’s tailless Jack, whose vigorous bark is still upon the distant shore ; that the operations, experiments and results recounted have actually taken place ; that there is nothing speculative in the work which is not so indicated, at the time, while whatever is in advance of established facts follows, scrupulously, paths logically indicated by accomplished discoveries, paths which, even now, are being anxiously explored ; and, most emphatically, that the resulting views and opinions, in mental and physical morality, though antagonistic to all logics, savor neither of dream nor fancy, but are the deep-founded, most earnest and honest convictions of two men, than whom no one is better fitted to know and understand humanity and fully appreciate social, spiritual and anatomical humanitarianism.

The two men are known to each other only by name and repute ; but equally, for many years,

PREFACE.

their hearts and brains have been devoted to their fellow men ; by different channels, in widely separated spheres, bringing them to the same convictions.

One is a London M. D., M. R. C. P., the other an L. R. C. P., M. R. C. S., L. M. Each stands at the head of the profession, in his locality, in the accepted field of medicine and surgery. One has also devoted years of research and experiment to the mental and physical advantages derivable by man through the possibilities of electricity, while the other has carried the benefiting power of hypnotism farther, perhaps, than any contemporary.

At different times it was the writer's very good fortune to be thrown intimately into the labors and thoughts of each, and in Desmonde, M. D. a little, perhaps, has been borrowed, from one, to supplement and substantiate the other. The results of their researches, too, have been, to a limited extent combined, more clearly to establish the ground and emphasize the convictions common to both.

The conclusions are not new. The writer firmly believes that the very great majority of thinking men and women already hold them, with certain fear and trembling, and will, in heart, indorse every sentiment ; though for many reasons not one in a thousand, possibly, would be willing to admit it.

He lays no claim to any originality but with unflinching faith that the opinions expressed are the right and true theories of life he cheerfully looks forward to denunciations from ecclesiastic centers.

PREFACE.

trusting that here and there one who reads may be better convinced and strengthened ; sure that the world will be just so much the better for that one, and satisfied that at least he has, to some extent, paved the way for a more distinct delineation of the subject by a better fitted pen.

DESMONDE, M. D.

Chapter I

I SAW him, first, at a philharmonic concert, in a great town-hall, five years ago to-night.

It was my first night on shore affer a voyage nearly half way round the world. There was a return ticket in my pocket, and even’an angel could hardly have convinced me that a year — much less five — would pass before I should require it. I have just presented it to the purser, however, while watching the great revolving light at the Heads sink lower and lower into the sea; and that was five years ago to-night.

I remember it as if it were yesterday.

The pavement was crowded, though it was the broadest in the city. The hall was packed almost to suffocation. I took an admission ticket and drifted in, simply because a crowd was drifting ; it

DESMONDE, M. D.

was such a relief to wander on and on, seeing new faces, hearing new sounds, unaccompanied by the eternal grumble of machinery or restricted by the monotonous limitations of a steamer.

By an odd bit of luck one vacant place remained in the front row of the free seats, occupying the entire rear of the hall. The dividing line, in front of them, was a broad aisle crossing the hall and forming the main entrance for those holding checks for reserved chairs.

From directly in front of my seat a center aisle extended through the reserved portion to the stage. Thus I secured an unobstructed view of the performers, as well as of the people coming in, whose seats were on the center aisle.

There was not a position in the hall for which I would have exchanged it ; and for a time I watched the people, entering, in keen but indolent enjoyment, after so long restriction to the familiar outlines of a rather limited passenger list.

Then my eyes were caught by a strange thing, occupying the second seat from the corner, in the rear row of reserved chairs. The seat on either side was vacant, and I didn’t wonder. The thing was alive — painfully alive — and clad in coat and trousers ; but it was not a man. It was a monstrosity. It had feet and legs, but they were of no normal use and were perpetually twisting and jumping. It had arms, terminating in shriveled hands and long, wriggling fingers, that squirmed and knotted about each other hideously.

DESMONDE, M. D.

With one fist he held a program to his kiiee and by patiently pawing at it, with the other, as a dog paws the ground, he succeeded in turning the pages. That he turned them properly and evidently followed the singers intelligently, was the more remarkable, as the opening selection was the Stabat Mater, and the lines were printed and sung in Latin. He followed them with eyes unusually large and brown, that might have been beautiful — even wonderful — but for the' way in which they rolled about and for the agony of pleading and despair in them. It was like a lost soul looking out through them ; out from the torments of hell.

The face was shriyeled, yellowish-brown, and a mass of convulsing wrinkles. Even the forehead and scalp were constantly twitching. The head rolled about in a ghastly way, as though no bone connected it with the body. The lips were drawn about in constant contortions, and incoherent grunts were audible when the music ceased abruptly.

It was brutal to thrust such a thing upon a philharmonic audience ; and yet the wretched being seemed to appreciate the music. Even the weird pawings at the program kept pace with each new theme and motion. I began to be glad, after all, that he was there. What did it matter, the temporary chills which it might cause the rest of us, if it relieved his life with a single thrill of diluted joy.

The second part of the program had begun when two gentlemen and a lady in elaborate even-

DESMONDE, M. D.

ing dress entered, by the middle door, closely followed by others of the same party. The ushers bowed as ushers seldom bow except to people of distinction, and as they crossed the hall it was evident that the lady and gentleman in advance occupied the attention of practically the entire audience.

I found myself, however, irresistibly fascinated by the man who entered with them, now walking between them and the rest of the party.

To describe him would be as difficult, to-night, as it would have been five years ago. I cannot so much as say, with assurance, what there was about him to attract a second glance. He was simply conventionally correct, without eccentricity.

He had black hair, touched with white, dark eye-brows and a heavy moustache, in a perfectly orthodox way presenting a face that was rather dark, rather strong, rather pleasant to look at.

It was more than a whim of my own, however, that something indefinable marked the man. I had good corroborative evidence, after the concert, when I asked one of the ushers who he was. He had only seen him as he saw thousands, but instantly he replied : “ He is a stranger in the city, sir. I never saw him but once before ; ten years or so ago, when he attended a function of some kind in this hall. He came, to-night, with Lord and Lady Roebert.”

It required not only an exceptional memory of

DESMONDE, M. D.

II faces for that assertion but that the face itself had made an exceptional impression.

The man did not lift his eyes from the floor as he came toward me ; to my regret, for I wanted to see them. But just as the two in advance turned up the center aisle he raised his head, in a startled way, and following his glance I was again caught by that human horror.

The head was thrown back as if the neck was dislocated. The lips were frightfully drawn and if ever a lost soul did look up from blistering torment, it looked up, then, through those great, brown, horribly rolling eyes. Human flesh could not have produed a more revolting picture ; yet the stranger deliberately appropriated that end seat, leaned back with the leisurely grace of one accustomed to being comfortable, and instantly devoted his entire attention to the stage.

Apparently it was a mistake, supposing him to be one of the party going up the aisle, and the evident shock was but the natural result of finding himself by such company. The two in advance, however, were surprised, on reaching their seats, to find themselves without him. One of the party was sent back ; but, after a whispered conversation, returned alone, much to my satisfaction.

Neither of the two could see that I was watching them, and I became interested even to the exclusion of the concert, though it frequently roused the enthusiasm of the vast audience.

The man only moved to readjust a hand or foot,

DESMONDE, M. D.

occasionally, and to applaud. He was thoroughly absorbed in the concert and did not pay the slightest attention to the being beside him. This was the more surprising since the wretched, writhing thing kept working nearer and nearer, till it was actually crowding against him ; nestling under the arm which he had thrown over the back of the next chair. Yet the only indication that he so much as realized even an obstruction to his freedom was in his applauding, now, with one hand on his knee, instead of with both hands, as at first.

Then I discovered that those painful contortions were surely subsiding. And at last my astonished eyes beheld a picture as clearly before them now, as it was five years ago to-night : A poor limp body, motionless from toes to finger-tips, lay pathetically against the stalwart form. Two thin, white hands and shapely fingers, one upon each knee, were stretched out as if offering up a silent thanks for rest. The last quivering wrinkle had left the face and the lips were parted in what might have been the beginning of a smile but that they were so white and tired looking that it seemed more the shadow of a happy sigh.

The forehead was white and smooth, over two beautiful brown eyes that were resting on the prima donna, as she sang the closing strains of the second part. The head sank gradually lower, too, till it rested on the strong, motionless shoulder ; but the man made no sign. The fingers of the

DESMONDE, M. D.

hand that was thrown over the back of the chair were gently tapping in time with the orchestra.

No one in the audience could have been more absorbed than he, and when the singing ceased he applauded as he had not before during the evening.

Everyone applauded. Even the thin, white hands, that an hour before were working like dog’s paws on the programme, rose, slowly, and gently touched each other, palm to palm ; then fell again to the knees, to be once more at rest and mutely offer up more thanks for it.

The recall was imperative. Returning, the prima donna sang a song that was new then, I think, to all of us ; but which has since lost the best of its beauty in its own fatal popularity. I am sure, too, that in all its later publicity, “ The Holy City ” has never been better rendered.

My eyes were still upon the two, but my heart beat faster as the clear contralto swelled and rang in the grand refrain : “ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing ! Hosanna in the highest ! Hosanna to your ”

Suddenly every thought was riveted again upon the man I was watching. A shudder, not faint and quick, like a nerve tremor, but fierce and strong had clutched him. It seemed to crush him, strangle him ; like the last, convulsing shudder of men whom I have seen stretched, dying on the battlefield.

Only then did he betray a consciousness of his

DESMONDE, M. D.

strange companion. Every other motion was strained and desperate, but no mother ever touched a dead baby’s curl more tenderly than he lifted that head from his shoulder and placed it so that it would rest on the back of the chair instead.

Then he staggered toward the door, like an old man struggling against a gale.

As he passed me I looked for an instant full into his face. Great God ! that anything in heaven, earth or hell, could have accomplished such a transformation. It was haggard and old. It was lined and seamed by torture. It was distorted and shrunken with agony. And his eyes, fixed straight before him in a desperate glare, had in them all the horror which an hour before I had seen in the eyes of the wretched creature looking up to him.

I watched him till he reached the door, while my thoughts were wildly conjuring theories of mindcure and vicarious ministrations — even to the old story of one possessed of devils — to possibly or impossibly account for what I had seen.

The creature opposite, remained for a moment just as the stranger had left him. I doubt if he knew that anyone had been there. His eyes were fixed in a vacant stare, as one in waking from an ideal dream looks longingly back into the fading mists. Then the sharp lines reappeared ; first about his eyes. A cringe contracted his face. His head fell helplessly to one side. A groan escaped his lips. A spasm twisted his feet and gathered his fingers into ghastly knots again.

DESMONDS, M. D.

The lost soul, devil or what, was there once more ; and the great hall was resounding with the last strains of “ The Holy City,” in the grand refrain which is repeated in the closing lines :

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, sing, for the night is o’er! Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna forever more.”

Chapter II

It was easy to obtain information concerning the monstrosity ; people are ever so ready to elaborate the threadbare details of an exhausted horror to the stranger who is capable of a few fresh shudders. He was a harmless creature, well known and considered almost a necessary adjunct to musical events. Something had gone wrong with his brain, the doctors said, and long before had given him up as hopelessly beyond the reach of science.

One conclusion compassed my interest in the case : It was not beyond the reach of the man who took the vacant seat that night. But what the earthly or unearthly influence was, which recoiled with such vindictive fury, was enough to excite a much less aggressive curiosity than mine.

Imagination ran wild with me, till I was actually ready to wonder if he had not, indeed, come upon some real, malignant incarnation there, which had actively resented his intrusion.

i6

DESMONDE, M. D.

The concert was on Thursday night. Good Friday and Saturday I wandered about the streets, vainly looking for his face. I was determined to find him and satisfy my curiosity ; and my only other resource was to secure a presentation to Lord Roebert, for the sublime purpose of asking his lordship who he was who attended the Philharmonic concert with their excellencies, on Thursday night.

Even to this the madness possessing me was slowly adjusting what little common sense remained, when I caught sight of him, some distance ahead of me, upon the street, on Sunday morning.

He wore a light top-coat, and high hat, but I recognized him instantly, through a slight halt on his left foot, which I must have noticed without realizing it, in the concert hall.

I found him following a woman, poorly clad, who was dragging along beside her a boy of ten or thereabout. At the cathedral she turned and entered. The man hesitated, glancing at a cigarette he was smoking, as though a bit reluctant to leave it.

At first I was inclined to wait outside for him, in case he decided to follow them, but second thought suggested that having found him it was folly to lose sight of him. Presently he threw the cigarette away and glanced up at the gloomy arch with a peculiar smile, as though there was something amusing in a comibination of incidents beguiling him inside the confines of a church.

DESMONDE, M. D.

Finding him sitting on a bench, not far from the pulpit, with the boy between him and the mother, I selected a place for myself behind a pillar near by. It hid from me the altar and pulpit but, from comparative seclusion, gave me a fair view of the only object in the church which interested me.

One glimpse of the boy’s face betrayed an idiot, quite as I expected. He was wholly unlike the other, however. There was no sign of intelligence or, indeed, of anything but congenital imbecility. The body was well enough developed but obviously there was insufficient volition even for reflex action. The head was small in bone and overburdened with expressionless fat. The tongue protruded and deep imbedded in the fat were two useless opportunities for eyes. The lids were but partially lifted and under them the eyeballs appeared so painfully drawn together that the pupils were entirely obscured.

This instigated the only voluntary motion of which the child seem capable. It was a grotesque dropping of the head, a little to one side, accompanied by a quick jerk upward, doubtless shading an atom of retina into exposure for an instant.

Had his mother dragged him out to the grand Easter services in the cathedral thinking that for him, too, there might be a blessing? It seemed so, for in her silent prayer her hand involuntarily moved toward him, as though she were trying to point him out to the Omniscient One who is supposed to see the sparrow fall.

i8

DESMONDE, M. D.

If the boy were capable of being blessed at all, however, it seemed to me that his hope lay more in the impassive man beside him but appreciating, by this^ that I was much more interested in the man himself, than in his manipulation pf idiots, I practically forgot about the boy.

It was evident that he found his surroundings oppressive and irritating ; but his face betrayed none of the boastful bravado of the most bigoted of all men, the professional infidel, nor the arrogant antagonism of one who is wedged between the narrow ruts of some other highway to the throne. Indeed his face betrayed absolutely nothing ; not even nationality or profession. He might have been English, French or German, American or Australian. He might have been anything from a cobbler to an emperor incognito. There was not a prevailing characteristic, even, but honesty.

Honesty stood in bas-relief in every facial curve. Honesty was in every motion.

Beyond all this a singular charm and a tremendous force was easy to appreciate, but I could not discover the source of either.

I was far from alone in feeling that force. Many about him shivered, as if a cold wind were cutting them ; shivered and moved, restlessly, with expressions of fear. Twice the seat next him was vacated, in spite of its advantageous position and the crowded condition of the church ; vacated by strong men, whose faces I saw grew livid there and who pushed their way out with the nervous energy of people taken suddenly ill in a crowd.

Verily there was no one in the cathedral who was less conspicuous or obtrusive, and yet, when the procession came down the aisle, each priest and singer, as he passed, turned and looked at him, over the intervening heads. Their eyes opened wider, in a startled way, and remained, for a moment, fixed and staring. For that moment each one forgot to chant, so that the singing ceased entirely in that part of the procession passing through the circle of influence ; and even to the ear there was a space of silence moving along the moving line of song.

The mother was chafing her hands and glanced toward the boy as if crediting the condition to him. But his face was turned away from her and toward the stranger, upon whom she too cast one quick glance, shivered, crossed herself, and kneeling hid her face in her hard, cold hands, upon her book and beads.

In a moment came a signal for all to kneel — all but the stranger, who appeared wholly oblivious, watching the head of his cane, as he turned it half way round and back.

It gave me a good opportunity to glance at the boy again, and though I fully expected all I saw, the shock caught my breath and for an instant stopped my heart. His tongue had disappeared. His lips were parted in an expression of glad surprise. One hand was timidly touching the stran-

DESMONDE, M. D.

ger’s knee and two eyes, not very wide open, but as straight as yours or mine, looked wonderingly up into that strange and unresponsive face.

The sermon which followed was from the words : “ I am the resurrection and the life,” and as it progressed I could see no change in the positions of the two. The cane kept up its motion as regular as the revolving light on the Heads. The man seemed utterly unconscious that two eyes had opened at his bidding and turned to him in one long look of gratiti^de ; that timid fingers, in their first intelligent volition, stretched out to him. The only thing which appeared worthy of his attenticfn was the knotted head of his uneasy cane. Never was mortal more earnestly intent upon nothing ; more oblivious to everything.

I wondered if he could be listening to the sermon, and listened myself, for a time ; but it was too hackneyed to receive such close attention.

In rounded periods, properly appropriate to the occasion, it repeated the assertions which, with a little vamping to the age and location, have echoed under sacerdotal arches for fifteen hundred years. What they have lost in sincerity they have gained in audacity, and from having been so much repeated we are expected, of necessity, to receive them, now, whether the preacher any longer believes what he is saying, or not.

In that delightfully stupefying, rythmic way, the very quintessence of insincerity, the priest was declaring : All things are in the hands of God,

DESMONDE, M. D.

whether to break in pieces or to make whole. In his inscrutable judgments he visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. In his ways, which are not our ways, and his thoughts which are not our thoughts, those whom he loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son in whom his soul delighteth. Dearly beloved brethren, are you afflicted ? Remember it is by God’s kind hand and by his loving will. Behold no affliction for the time seemeth joyous but grievous ; but be ye comforted, for on this glad Easter morning I bring you divine assurance that your affliction is only an evidence of the kind father’s eternal love. It is the means which he is taking to call you from the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, and draw you nearer to his blessed son our Lord, who died for you and rose again this Easter morning, to be your resurrection and your life, saving you from all sin and suffering here and hereafter.”

For the inelegance of it I confess with shame that, at this juncture, applying the words to the mother and imbecile I had most in mind, I muttered : “ What rot ! I wish that that fellow who seems able to work such miracles would take his eyes from his cane for an instant and fix them on the priest. I believe it would hammer a bit of common sense into his sermon.”

Then as I listened again the harangue went on : “ Human hands and brains are powerless to help you. Science can never bring relief. Christ is

DESMONDE, M. D.

your resurrection and your life, and whatever be your affliction I charge you put your faith in — ”

A death-like silence broke the unfinished sentence. There was a startled glance toward the pulpit from all over the vast congregation, while instinct rather than intuition turned my eyes toward the man I had 'been watching. The cane was still. He was apparently looking up at the priest.

Then the word “ science ” sounded from the pulpit as if it were the closing word of the last sentence, and the sermon went on, again ; but not in the stilted swing of pulpit oratory. The words were now haltingly spoken and the sentences hesitatingly rounded ; and they came to me with a curious sense of familiarity, as though I almost knew, in advance, what each word would be.

“ Science is omnipotent ; science is god. By it man breaks the bonds that torture, and lifts the cloak of suffering from his afflicted fellow man. By it the curses of heredity are conquered and victims rescued from the vengeance of broken law. Nature’s imperfect work is perfected, her blunders are rectified. Science speaks and the blind can see ; the deaf hear, and the sick and halt take up their beds and walk ; lepers are cleansed ; dead are raised up, and the poor have true salvation brought to them.

“ Science depends upon no reported miracle or theory of an unknown god, but, standing on the firm foundation of inexorable necessity and eternal

DESMONDS, M. D.

^3 law, it works its wonders by placing error, ignorance and all evil in harmony with that which has been, is and ever shall be the resurrection and the life — intelligence and truth. It redeemeth our lives from destruction, saying. Return, ye children of men.

“ He that hath ears to hear let him hear.”

The preacher left the pulpit in the stillness of death. I wondered if he realized whose sermon he had preached. I wondered if the man whom I was watching knew — knew any more than he seemed to know of the boy beside him and of the miracle. His eyes were again upon his cane.

He roused himself, for a moment, leaned over the boy and whispered something to the mother. It was such a shock to her that her first response was simply to cross herself, and the question was evidently three times repeated before it was properly answered. The stranger was writing the answer on his cuff, with a gold pencil, before she gathered her scattered senses sufficiently to realize something of the import of what had been said. Then she bent forward, with a quick, startled motion, turned the boy’s face toward her and peered into it. She uttered a faint cry, caught the child in her arms, and fell upon her knees, pressing her lips to her book and beads.

She evidently lacked the boy’s first instinct to turn her eyes or stretch her hand toward him who had done it. She was devoutly thanking God for his great Easter blessing, which was the one and

DESMONDE, M. D.

only thing for her to do ; but unfortunately it was the worst thing she could possibly have done for the boy. In the sudden shock, for which the child was unprepared, the expression vanished from his face, his tongue protruded, his eyes drew together and helpless and unresponsive as before he hung upon his mother’s arm.