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Page 34
By and by, persisting, gently questioning, helping by his quick
understanding of a situation almost before Leaver had unwillingly
pictured it, he had the whole story. It was almost precisely the story
he had guessed,--an old story, repeated by many such sufferers from
overwork and heavy responsibility, but new to each in its entirety of
torture, even to this man, who, still in his youthful prime, had himself
heard many such a tale from the unhappy lips of his patients, yet to whom
his own case seemed unique in its suffering and hopelessness.
The recital culminated in an incident so painful to the subject of it
that he could recount it only in the barest outlines. His listener,
however, by the power of his experience and his sympathy, could fill in
every detail. A day had come, some six weeks before, when Leaver, though
thoroughly worn out by severe and long continued strain, had attempted
to operate. The case was an important one, the issue doubtful. Friends of
the patient had insisted that no one else should take the eminent young
surgeon's place, and, although he had had more than one inner warning, in
recent operations, that his nerve was not what it had been, his pride had
bid him see the thing through. He had given himself an energizing
hypodermic,--he had never done that before,--and had gone into it. There
had come a terrible moment.... Leaver's lips grew white as he tried to
tell it.
He felt his friend's warm, firm hand upon his own as he faltered.
"Steady, old fellow," said Burns's quiet voice. "We've got this nearly
over. You'll be better afterward."
After a little Leaver went on.
He had come upon an unexpected complication--one undreamed of by himself
or the consulting surgeons. "You know--" said Leaver. Burns nodded,
emphatically. "You bet I know," said he, and his hand came again upon
Leaver's, and stayed there. Leaver went on again, slowly.
Instant decision had been necessary, instant action. It was such a moment
as he had faced hundreds of times before, and his quick wit, his
surgeon's power of resource, his iron nerve, had always come to the
support of his skill, and together these attributes had won the day for
him. Fear, at such crises, had never possessed him, however much,
afterward, reviewing the experience, he had wondered that it had not. But
this time, fear--fear--a throttling, life-destroying fear had sprung upon
him and gripped him by the throat. Standing there, entirely himself,
except for that horrible consciousness that he could not proceed, he had
had to beckon to the most experienced of the surgeons present who
surrounded him as onlookers, and say to him: "Get ready--and take this
case. I can't go on."
There had been no apparent physical collapse on his part, no fainting nor
attack of vertigo, nothing to help him out in the eyes of that wondering,
startled company of observers. He had been able to direct his assistants
how to hold the operation in suspension until the astonished, unwilling
colleague could make ready to step into the breach, cursing under his
breath that such an undesired honour should have been thrust upon him.
Then Leaver had walked out of the room, quite without assistance, only
replying wanly to those who questioned, "There's nothing to say. I
couldn't go on with it. Yes, I am perfectly well."
It had not got into the papers. They had been kind enough to see to
that, those pitying professional colleagues who had witnessed his
dispossession. The patient had lived. If he had died the thing must have
come out. But he had lived. The situation could not have been as
desperate a one as it had seemed. The other man had handled it,--and he
was by no means a man eminent in his profession. There had been no
excuse, then, for such a seizure,--no excuse. It meant--the end.
Well, it was certainly the end of recounting it, for when he had reached
this point Leaver's power to endure the thought of it all failed him, and
he lay back upon his pillows, his brow damp and his breath short.
Burns silently ministered to him, pain in his eyes, his lips drawn tight
together. His sympathy for his friend was intense.
It seemed to him incredible that this shaken spirit before him could be
John Leaver--Leaver, whom, as he had told his wife, he had often envied
his perfect self-command, his supposed steadiness of pulse, his whole
strong, cool personality, unaffected by issues such as always keyed Burns
himself up to a tremendous tension, making him pale with the strain.
"Leaver's made of steel wires," had been his description of his friend to
Ellen. Well, the steel wires were stretched and broken, now, no doubt of
that. The question was whether they could ever be mended and restrung.
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