It is a delicate business, this adjustment,
sometimes an impossible business. Half of the Harley Street patients came
saying, "Make me well." What they really meant was, "Make me happy." Yet
the most of them would have resented a valuable mixed prescription,
advice for the hook, and advice for the eye. Such prescriptions had to
be very deftly, sometimes very furtively, made up. Often the doctor felt
an intense exhaustion steal over him towards the close of day. This
tremendous and eternal procession passing onwards through his life,
filing before him like a march-past of sick soldiers, saluting him
with cries, and with questions, and with entreaties; this never-ceasing
progress fatigued him. There were moments when he longed to hide his
face, to turn away, to shut his ears to the murmuring voices, and his
eyes to the pale, expressive faces, to put his great profession from
him, as one puts a beggar into the night. But these were only moments,
and they passed quickly. And the little doctor was always bitterly
ashamed of them, as a brave man is ashamed of a secret tug of cowardice
at his heart. For it seemed to him the greatest thing in all the world to
help to make the unhappy rightly happier.
And this was, and had always been, his tireless endeavour.
Pages:
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448