Читать книгу Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis - Страница 7

III

The boy raised his head, cocked his inquisitive brow. On the stairway was the cumbersome step of Doc Vickerson. The Doc was sober! Martin would not have to help him into bed.

But it was a bad sign that the Doc should first go down the hall to his bedroom. The boy listened sharply. He heard the Doc open the lower part of the washstand, where he kept his bottle of Jamaica rum. After a long gurgle the invisible Doc put away the bottle and decisively kicked the doors shut. Still good. Only one drink. If he came into the consultation-room at once, he would be safe. But he was still standing in the bedroom. Martin sighed as the washstand doors were hastily opened again, as he heard another gurgle and a third.

The Doc’s step was much livelier when he loomed into the office, a gray mass of a man with a gray mass of mustache, a form vast and unreal and undefined, like a cloud taking for the moment a likeness of humanity. With the brisk attack of one who wishes to escape the discussion of his guilt, the Doc rumbled while he waddled toward his desk-chair:

“What you doing here, young fella? What you doing here? I knew the cat would drag in something if I left the door unlocked.” He gulped slightly; he smiled to show that he was being humorous—people had been known to misconstrue the Doc’s humor.

He spoke more seriously, occasionally forgetting what he was talking about:

“Reading old Gray? That’s right. Physician’s library just three books: ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ and Bible and Shakespeare. Study. You may become great doctor. Locate in Zenith and make five thousand dollars year—much as United States Senator! Set a high goal. Don’t let things slide. Get training. Go college before go medical school. Study. Chemistry. Latin. Knowledge! I’m plug doc—got chick nor child—nobody—old drunk. But you—leadin’ physician. Make five thousand dollars year.

“Murray woman’s got endocarditis. Not thing I can do for her. Wants somebody hold her hand. Road’s damn’ disgrace. Culvert’s out, beyond the grove. ’Sgrace.

“Endocarditis and—

“Training, that’s what you got t’ get. Fundamentals. Know chemistry. Biology. I nev’ did. Mrs. Reverend Jones thinks she’s got gastric ulcer. Wants to go city for operation. Ulcer, hell! She and the Reverend both eat too much.

“Why they don’t repair that culvert—And don’t be a booze-hoister like me, either. And get your basic science. I’ll splain.”

The boy, normal village youngster though he was, given to stoning cats and to playing pom-pom-pullaway, gained something of the intoxication of treasure-hunting as the Doc struggled to convey his vision of the pride of learning, the universality of biology, the triumphant exactness of chemistry. A fat old man and dirty and unvirtuous was the Doc; his grammar was doubtful, his vocabulary alarming, and his references to his rival, good Dr. Needham, were scandalous; yet he invoked in Martin a vision of making chemicals explode with much noise and stink and of seeing animalcules that no boy in Elk Mills had ever beheld.

The Doc’s voice was thickening; he was sunk in his chair, blurry of eye and lax of mouth. Martin begged him to go to bed, but the Doc insisted:

“Don’t need nap. No. Now you lissen. You don’t appreciate but—Old man now. Giving you all I’ve learned. Show you collection. Only museum in whole county. Scientif’ pioneer.”

A hundred times had Martin obediently looked at the specimens in the brown, crackly-varnished bookcase: the beetles and chunks of mica; the embryo of a two-headed calf, the gallstones removed from a respectable lady whom the Doc enthusiastically named to all visitors. The Doc stood before the case, waving an enormous but shaky forefinger.

“Looka that butterfly. Name is porthesia chrysorrhoea. Doc Needham couldn’t tell you that! He don’t know what butterflies are called! He don’t care if you get trained. Remember that name now?” He turned on Martin. “You payin’ attention? You interested? Huh? Oh, the devil! Nobody wants to know about my museum—not a person. Only one in county but—I’m an old failure.”

Martin asserted, “Honest, it’s slick!”

“Look here! Look here! See that? In the bottle? It’s an appendix. First one ever took out ’round here. I did it! Old Doc Vickerson, he did the first ’pendectomy in this neck of the woods, you bet! And first museum. It ain’t—so big—but it’s start. I haven’t put away money like Doc Needham, but I started first c’lection—I started it!”

He collapsed in a chair, groaning, “You’re right. Got to sleep. All in.” But as Martin helped him to his feet he broke away, scrabbled about on his desk, and looked back doubtfully. “Want to give you something—start your training. And remember the old man. Will anybody remember the old man?”

He was holding out the beloved magnifying glass which for years he had used in botanizing. He watched Martin slip the lens into his pocket, he sighed, he struggled for something else to say, and silently he lumbered into his bedroom.