"Can you cure sorrow?" he asked grimly and with a touch of
sarcasm in his voice. "Can you cure heartache or fear?"
"I can do nothing of myself," she said, perceiving his mood.
"All things are possible to God, however. If you believe in a
Supreme Intelligence, He will cure you. St. Paul says 'I can do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me.' Have you read Mrs.
Eddy's book?"
"Most of it. I'm still reading it."
"Do you understand it?"
"No, not quite. It seems a bundle of contradictions to me."
"To those who are first coming into Science it nearly always
seems so. But don't let that worry you. You would like to be cured
of your troubles. St. Paul says, 'For the wisdom of this world is
foolishness with God.' 'The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the
wise—that they are vain.' Do not think of me as a woman, or as
having had anything to do with this. I would rather have you think
of me as St. Paul describes anyone who works for truth—'Now then we
are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we
pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.'"
"You know your Bible, don't you?" said Eugene.
"It is the only knowledge I have," she replied.
There followed one of those peculiar religious demonstrations so
common in Christian Science—so peculiar to the uninitiated—in which
she asked Eugene to fix his mind in meditation on the Lord's
prayer. "Never mind if it seems pointless to you now. You have come
here seeking aid. You are God's perfect image and likeness. He will
not send you away empty-handed. Let me read you first, though, this
one psalm, which I think is always so helpful to the beginner." She
opened her Bible, which was on the table near her, and began:
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall
abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my
God; in him will I trust.
"Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and
from the noisome pestilence.
"He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings
shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and thy
buckler.
"Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the
arrow that flieth by day. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in
the darkness; nor for destruction that wasteth at noonday.
"A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy
right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
"Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of
the wicked.
"Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the
most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither
shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
"For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in
all thy ways.
"They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot
against a stone.
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion
and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot.
"Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver
him. I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
"He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with
him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.
"With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my
salvation."
During this most exquisite pronunciamento of Divine favor Eugene
was sitting with his eyes closed, his thoughts wandering over all
his recent ills. For the first time in years, he was trying to fix
his mind upon an all-wise, omnipresent, omnipotent generosity. It
was hard and he could not reconcile the beauty of this expression
of Divine favor with the nature of the world as he knew it. What
was the use of saying, "They shall bear thee up in their hands lest
thou dash thy foot against a stone," when he had seen Angela and
himself suffering so much recently? Wasn't he dwelling in the
secret place of the Most High when he was alive? How could one get
out of it? Still—— "Because he hath set his love on me—therefore
will I deliver him." Was that the answer? Was Angela's love set on
him? Was his own? Might not all their woes have sprung from
that?
"He shall call upon me and I shall answer. I will deliver him in
trouble. I will deliver him and honor him."
Had he ever really called on
Him
? Had Angela? Hadn't
they been left in the slough of their own despond? Still Angela was
not suited to him. Why did not God straighten that out? He didn't
want to live with her.
He wandered through this philosophically, critically, until Mrs.
Johns stopped. What, he asked himself, if, in spite of all his
doubts, this seeming clamor and reality and pain and care were an
illusion? Angela was suffering. So were many other people. How
could this thing be true? Did not these facts exclude the
possibility of illusion? Could they possibly be a part of it?
"Now we are going to try to realize that we are God's perfect
children," she said, stopping and looking at him. "We think we are
so big and strong and real. We are real enough, but only as a
thought in God—that is all. No harm can happen to us there—no evil
can come nigh us. For God is infinite, all power, all life. Truth,
Love, over all, and all."
She closed her eyes and began, as she said, to try to realize
for him the perfectness of his spirit in God. Eugene sat there
trying to think of the Lord's prayer, but in reality thinking of
the room, the cheap prints, the homely furniture, her ugliness, the
curiousness of his being there. He, Eugene Witla, being prayed for!
What would Angela think? Why was this woman old, if spirit could do
all these other things? Why didn't she make herself beautiful? What
was it she was doing now? Was this hypnotism, mesmerism, she was
practicing? He remembered where Mrs. Eddy had especially said that
these were not to be practiced—could not be in Science. No, she was
no doubt sincere. She looked it—talked it. She believed in this
beneficent spirit. Would it aid as the psalm said? Would it heal
this ache? Would it make him not want Suzanne ever any more?
Perhaps that was evil? Yes, no doubt it was. Still—— Perhaps he had
better fix his mind on the Lord's Prayer. Divinity could aid him if
it would. Certainly it could. No doubt of it. There was nothing
impossible to this vast force ruling the universe. Look at the
telephone, wireless telegraphy. How about the stars and sun? "He
shall give his angels charge over thee."
"Now," said Mrs. Johns, after some fifteen minutes of silent
meditation had passed and she opened her eyes smilingly—"we are
going to see whether we are not going to be better. We are going to
feel better, because we are going to do better, and because we are
going to realize that nothing can hurt an idea in God. All the rest
is illusions. It cannot hold us, for it is not real. Think
good—God—and you are good. Think evil and you are evil, but it has
no reality outside your own thought. Remember that." She talked to
him as though he was a little child.
He went out into the snowy night where the wind was whirling the
snow in picturesque whirls, buttoning his coat about him. The cars
were running up Broadway as usual. Taxicabs were scuttling by.
There were people forging their way through the snow, that
ever-present company of a great city. There were arc lights burning
clearly blue through the flying flakes. He wondered as he walked
whether this would do him any good. Mrs. Eddy insisted that all
these were unreal, he thought—that mortal mind had evolved
something which was not in accord with spirit—mortal mind "a liar
and the father of it," he recalled that quotation. Could it be so?
Was evil unreal? Was misery only a belief? Could he come out of his
sense of fear and shame and once more face the world? He boarded a
car to go north. At Kingsbridge he made his way thoughtfully to his
room. How could life ever be restored to him as it had been? He was
really forty years of age. He sat down in his chair near his lamp
and took up his book, "Science and Health," and opened it
aimlessly. Then he thought for curiosity's sake he would see where
he had opened it—what the particular page or paragraph his eye fell
on had to say to him. He was still intensely superstitious. He
looked, and here was this paragraph growing under his eyes:
"When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence with the
spiritual, and works only as God works, he will no longer grope in
the dark and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven.
Carnal beliefs defraud us. They make man an involuntary
hypocrite—producing evil when he would create good, forming
deformity when he would outline grace and beauty, injuring those
whom he would bless. He becomes a general mis-creator, who believes
he is a semi-God. His touch turns hope to dust, the dust we all
have trod. He might say in Bible language, 'The good that I would,
I do not, but evil, which I would not, I do.'"
He closed the book and meditated. He wished he might realize
this thing if this were so. Still he did not want to become a
religionist—a religious enthusiast. How silly they were. He picked
up his daily paper—the
Evening Post
—and there on an inside
page quoted in an obscure corner was a passage from a poem by the
late Francis Thompson, entitled "The Hound of Heaven." It
began:
"I fled Him, down the nights
and down the days;
I fled Him, down
the arches of the years …
The ending moved him strangely:
Still with unhurrying
chase,
And unperturbèd
face
Deliberate speed, majestic
instancy
Came on the following
Feet,
And a voice above their
beat—
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt
not shelter Me."
Did this man really believe this? Was it so?
He turned back to his book and read on, and by degrees he came
half to believe that sin and evil and sickness might possibly be
illusions—that they could be cured by aligning one's self
intellectually and spiritually with this Divine Principle. He
wasn't sure. This terrible sense of wrong. Could he give up
Suzanne? Did he want to? No!
He got up and went to the window and looked out. The snow was
still blowing.
"Give her up! Give her up!" And Angela in such a precarious
condition. What a devil of a hole he was in, anyway! Well, he would
go and see her in the morning. He would at least be kind. He would
see her through this thing. He lay down and tried to sleep, but
somehow sleep never came to him right any more. He was too wearied,
too distressed, too wrought up. Still he slept a little, and that
was all he could hope for in these days.
It was while he was in this state, some two months later, that
the great event, so far as Angela was concerned, came about, and in
it, of necessity, he was compelled to take part. Angela was in her
room, cosily and hygienically furnished, overlooking the cathedral
grounds at Morningside Heights, and speculating hourly what her
fate was to be. She had never wholly recovered from the severe
attack of rheumatism which she had endured the preceding summer
and, because of her worries since, in her present condition was
pale and weak though she was not ill. The head visiting obstetrical
surgeon, Dr. Lambert, a lean, gray man of sixty-five years of age,
with grizzled cheeks, whose curly gray hair, wide, humped nose and
keen gray eyes told of the energy and insight and ability that had
placed him where he was, took a slight passing fancy to her, for
she seemed to him one of those plain, patient little women whose
lives are laid in sacrificial lines. He liked her brisk, practical,
cheery disposition in the face of her condition, which was serious,
and which was so noticeable to strangers. Angela had naturally a
bright, cheery face, when she was not depressed or quarrelsome. It
was the outward sign of her ability to say witty and clever things,
and she had never lost the desire to have things done efficiently
and intelligently about her wherever she was. The nurse, Miss De
Sale, a solid, phlegmatic person of thirty-five, admired her spunk
and courage and took a great fancy to her also because she was
lightsome, buoyant and hopeful in the face of what was really a
very serious situation. The general impression of the head
operating surgeon, the house surgeon and the nurse was that her
heart was weak and that her kidneys might be affected by her
condition. Angela had somehow concluded after talks with Myrtle
that Christian Science, as demonstrated by its practitioners, might
help her through this crisis, though she had no real faith in it.
Eugene would come round, she thought, also, for Myrtle was having
him treated absently, and he was trying to read the book, she said.
There would be a reconciliation between them when the baby
came—because—because—— Well, because children were so winning!
Eugene was really not hard-hearted—he was just infatuated. He had
been ensnared by a siren. He would get over it.
Miss De Sale let her hair down in braids, Gretchen style, and
fastened great pink bows of ribbon in them. As her condition became
more involved, only the lightest morning gowns were given her—soft,
comfortable things in which she sat about speculating practically
about the future. She had changed from a lean shapeliness to a
swollen, somewhat uncomely object, but she made the best of a bad
situation. Eugene saw her and felt sorry. It was the end of winter
now, with snow blowing gaily or fiercely about the windows, and the
park grounds opposite were snow-white. She could see the leafless
line of sentinel poplars that bordered the upper edges of
Morningside. She was calm, patient, hopeful, while the old
obstetrician shook his head gravely to the house surgeon.
"We shall have to be very careful. I shall take charge of the
actual birth myself. See if you can't build up her strength. We can
only hope that the head is small."
Angela's littleness and courage appealed to him. For once in a
great many cases he really felt sorry.
The house surgeon did as directed. Angela was given specially
prepared food and drink. She was fed frequently. She was made to
keep perfectly quiet.
"Her heart," the house surgeon reported to his superior, "I
don't like that. It's weak and irregular. I think there's a slight
lesion."
"We can only hope for the best," said the other solemnly. "We'll
try and do without ether."
Eugene in his peculiar mental state was not capable of realizing
the pathos of all this. He was alienated temperamentally and
emotionally. Thinking that he cared for his wife dearly, the nurse
and the house surgeon were for not warning him. They did not want
to frighten him. He asked several times whether he could be present
during the delivery, but they stated that it would be dangerous and
trying. The nurse asked Angela if she had not better advise him to
stay away. Angela did, but Eugene felt that in spite of his
alienation, she needed him. Besides, he was curious. He thought
Angela would stand it better if he were near, and now that the
ordeal was drawing nigh, he was beginning to understand how
desperate it might be and to think it was only fair that he should
assist her. Some of the old pathetic charm of her littleness was
coming back to him. She might not live. She would have to suffer
much. She had meant no real evil to him—only to hold him. Oh, the
bitterness and the pathos of this welter of earthly emotions. Why
should they be so tangled?
The time drew very near, and Angela was beginning to suffer
severe pains. Those wonderful processes of the all-mother, which
bind the coming life in a cradle of muscles and ligaments were
practically completed and were now relaxing their tendencies in one
direction to enforce them in another. Angela suffered at times
severely from straining ligaments. Her hands were clenched
desperately, her face would become deathly pale. She would cry.
Eugene was with her on a number of these occasions and it drove
home to his consciousness the subtlety and terror of this great
scheme of reproduction, which took all women to the door of the
grave, in order that this mortal scheme of things might be
continued. He began to think that there might be something in the
assertion of the Christian Science leaders that it was a lie and an
illusion, a terrible fitful fever outside the rational
consciousness of God. He went to the library one day and got down a
book on obstetrics, which covered the principles and practice of
surgical delivery. He saw there scores of pictures drawn very
carefully of the child in various positions in the womb—all the
strange, peculiar, flower-like positions it could take, folded in
upon itself like a little half-formed petal. The pictures were
attractive, some of them beautiful, practical as they were. They
appealed to his fancy. They showed the coming baby perfect, but so
small, its head now in one position, now in another, its little
arms twisted about in odd places, but always delightfully,
suggestively appealing. From reading here and there in the volume,
he learned that the great difficulty was the head—the delivery of
that. It appeared that no other difficulty really confronted the
obstetrician. How was that to be got out? If the head were large,
the mother old, the walls of the peritoneal cavity tight or hard, a
natural delivery might be impossible. There were whole chapters on
Craniotomy, Cephalotripsy, which in plain English means crushing
the head with an instrument… .
One chapter was devoted to the Cæsarian operation, with a
description of its tremendous difficulties and a long disquisition
on the ethics of killing the child to save the mother, or the
mother to save the child with their relative values to society
indicated. Think of it—a surgeon sitting in the seat of judge and
executioner at the critical moment! Ah, life with its petty laws
did not extend here. Here we came back to the conscience of man
which Mrs. Eddy maintained was a reflection of immanent mind. If
God were good, He would speak through that—He was speaking through
it. This surgeon referred to that inmost consciousness of supreme
moral law, which alone could guide the practitioner in this
dreadful hour.
Then he told of what implements were necessary, how many
assistants (two), how many nurses (four), the kinds of bandages,
needles, silk and catgut thread, knives, clamp dilators, rubber
gloves. He showed how the cut was to be made—when, where. Eugene
closed the book, frightened. He got up and walked out in the air, a
desire to hurry up to Angela impelling him. She was weak, he knew
that. She had complained of her heart. Her muscles were probably
set. Supposing these problems, any one of them, should come in
connection with her. He did not wish her to die.
He had said he had—yes, but he did not want to be a murderer.
No, no! Angela had been good to him. She had worked for him. Why,
God damn it, she had actually suffered for him in times past. He
had treated her badly, very badly, and now in her pathetic little
way she had put herself in this terrific position. It was her
fault, to be sure it was. She had been trying as she always had to
hold him against his will, but then could he really blame her? It
wasn't a crime for her to want him to love her. They were just
mis-mated. He had tried to be kind in marrying her, and he hadn't
been kind at all. It had merely produced unrest, dissatisfaction,
unhappiness for him and for her, and now this—this danger of death
through pain, a weak heart, defective kidneys, a Cæsarian
operation. Why, she couldn't stand anything like that. There was no
use talking about it. She wasn't strong enough—she was too old.
He thought of Christian Science practitioners, of how they might
save her—of some eminent surgeon who would know how without the
knife. How? How? If these Christian Scientists could only
think
her through a thing like this—he wouldn't be sorry.
He would be glad, for her sake, if not his own. He might give up
Suzanne—he might—he might. Oh, why should that thought intrude on
him now?
When he reached the hospital it was three o'clock in the
afternoon, and he had been there for a little while in the morning
when she was comparatively all right. She was much worse. The
straining pains in her side which she had complained of were worse
and her face was alternately flushed and pale, sometimes convulsed
a little. Myrtle was there talking with her, and Eugene stood about
nervously, wondering what he should do—what he could do. Angela saw
his worry. In spite of her own condition she was sorry for him. She
knew that this would cause him pain, for he was not hard-hearted,
and it was his first sign of relenting. She smiled at him, thinking
that maybe he would come round and change his attitude entirely.
Myrtle kept reassuring her that all would be well with her. The
nurse said to her and to the house doctor who came in, a young man
of twenty-eight, with keen, quizzical eyes, whose sandy hair and
ruddy complexion bespoke a fighting disposition, that she was doing
nicely.
"No bearing down pains?" he asked, smiling at Angela, his even
white teeth showing in two gleaming rows.
"I don't know what kind they are, doctor," she replied. "I've
had all kinds."
"You'll know them fast enough," he replied, mock cheerfully.
"They're not like any other kind."
He went away and Eugene followed him.
"How is she doing?" he asked, when they were out in the
hall.
"Well enough, considering. She's not very strong, you know. I
have an idea she is going to be all right. Dr. Lambert will be here
in a little while. You had better talk to him."
The house surgeon did not want to lie. He thought Eugene ought
to be told. Dr. Lambert was of the same opinion, but he wanted to
wait until the last, until he could judge approximately
correctly.
He came at five, when it was already dark outside, and looked at
Angela with his grave, kindly eyes. He felt her pulse, listened to
her heart with his stethoscope.
"Do you think I shall be all right, doctor?" asked Angela
faintly.
"To be sure, to be sure," he replied softly. "Little woman, big
courage." He smoothed her hand.
He walked out and Eugene followed him.
"Well, doctor," he said. For the first time for months Eugene
was thinking of something besides his lost fortune and Suzanne.
"I think it advisable to tell you, Mr. Witla," said the old
surgeon, "that your wife is in a serious condition. I don't want to
alarm you unnecessarily—it may all come out very satisfactorily. I
have no positive reason to be sure that it will not. She is pretty
old to have a child. Her muscles are set. The principal thing we
have to fear in her case is some untoward complication with her
kidneys. There is always difficulty in the delivery of the head in
women of her age. It may be necessary to sacrifice the child. I
can't be sure. The Cæsarian operation is something I never care to
think about. It is rarely used, and it isn't always successful.
Every care that can be taken will be taken. I should like to have
you understand the conditions. Your consent will be asked before
any serious steps are taken. Your decision will have to be quick,
however, when the time comes."
"I can tell you now, doctor, what my decision will be," said
Eugene realizing fully the gravity of the situation. For the time
being, his old force and dignity were restored. "Save her life if
you can by any means that you can. I have no other wish."
"Thanks," said the surgeon. "We will do the best we can."
There were hours after that when Eugene, sitting by Angela, saw
her endure pain which he never dreamed it was possible for any
human being to endure. He saw her draw herself up rigid time and
again, the color leaving her face, the perspiration breaking out on
her forehead only to relax and flush and groan without really
crying out. He saw, strange to relate, that she was no baby like
himself, whimpering over every little ill, but a representative of
some great creative force which gave her power at once to suffer
greatly and to endure greatly. She could not smile any more. That
was not possible. She was in a welter of suffering, unbroken,
astonishing. Myrtle had gone home to her dinner, but promised to
return later. Miss De Sale came, bringing another nurse, and while
Eugene was out of the room, Angela was prepared for the final
ordeal. She was arrayed in the usual open back hospital slip and
white linen leggings. Under Doctor Lambert's orders an operating
table was got ready in the operating room on the top floor and a
wheel table stationed outside the door, ready to remove her if
necessary. He had left word that at the first evidence of the
genuine childbearing pain, which the nurse understood so well, he
was to be called. The house surgeon was to be in immediate charge
of the case.