University of Virginia Library

32. XXXII.
DR. VANDYKE'S DISCOVERY.

Innis was going along Duke-of-Gloucester
Street, walking like a somnambulist,
wholly unconscious of the world
around him, when suddenly he was arrested
by a material obstacle: he had
stumbled all at once against another
somnambulist, as far away from the
real world of Gloucester Street as himself.

He raised his eyes, and saw that the
obstacle was a human being, and this
human being Dr. Vandyke.

The eccentric physician was as
strange a spectacle as ever. His squat
and powerful form was arrayed as before
in the long overcoat whose skirts beat
his heels; his feet were encased in enormous
buckled shoes, into which descended
his old shrunken legs clad in splatter-dashes,
and from under his wide hat
flowed the long gray elf-locks, framing
the thin face, with its sardonic lips, and
piercing eyes burning like coals beneath
the bushy gray eyebrows.

“Well met, my young sir!” said Dr.
Vandyke, whose countenance was full
of joy; “you walk over old friends, it
seems, without deigning to notice their
existence.”

“Your pardon, doctor,” said Innis in
a low, hopeless voice; “I was thinking
—did not see you—”

“Thinking? — a villanous habit! —
What has youth to do with thinking?
Act! enjoy! and leave the rascally
thinking to the graybeards!”

There was a species of tonic in the
rough, unceremonious voice—commonplace
consolation would have disgusted
Innis; this man's talk was a stimulant,
making him lose sight of his woe. He
nodded, therefore; unconsciously permitted
the cut-off giant to link an arm
in his own, and drag him along with
him, and said:

“So youth is the time of enjoyment,
is it? And yet I am young, and I do not
enjoy.”

Dr. Vandyke looked sidewise at him.

“You do not enjoy?”

“I do not.”

“A love-disappointment?”

Innis groaned.

“Let us not speak of it.”

“So be it,” said Dr. Vandyke, “but
suffering brings strength. True, I'd

rather not have strength at that price,
and go, even at my age, for enjoyment—
which I have at last secured.”

Innis looked at him, and simply nodded.

“Ah! ah!” chuckled the physician,
“you do not comprehend. You don't
see how an old mummy like myself can
enjoy. But I have discovered the elixir
vitœ.”

And Dr. Vandyke's face grew radiant
with joy and pride.

“The elixir vitœ?” said Innis.

“I so style it, since it combats pain,
suffering, perhaps death itself.”

The young man gazed at the speaker
in astonishment.

“Your meaning, doctor?”

“Come with me to my laboratory,
and I will show you.”

“To your laboratory?”

“In the next street. You are disengaged?”

“Yes.”

“Come, then!”

And with huge strides, his long great-coat
flapping against his thin legs, Dr.
Vandyke went onward, dragging Innis
with him.

“I have not seen you for some weeks
now,” he said—“scarcely since my visit
to Rivanna.”

“I have lived much retired, engaged
in study.”

“One of the joys of life. And the Rivanna
family are well? They have
brought with them, I see, that strange
child Meta, who played so tragic a part
in the `dumb-cake' business. I saw
her at his excellency's ball looking at
you.”

“She is with the family.”

“And still insane?”

“The word is strong, doctor. She is
deaf, dumb, and weak in mind, from an
accident—a fall from horseback which
drove, it is supposed, a portion of bone
into the brain.”

“Ah? But why was no operation
ever performed? I mean no surgical
operation.”

“The attempt was made, I believe,
but the child struggled so violently that
'twas impossible.”

An expression of extreme joy and
triumph overspread the countenance of
Dr. Vandyke.

“I was not mistaken, then,” he muttered;
“but for my grand discovery—”

He stopped suddenly, and said:

“When did you last see our friend
Lord Ruthven?”

“This morning.”

The words were forced from the lips,
and a suppressed groan came out with
them. The marvellously acute ears of
the physician caught the sound.

“Enough—I know all now,” he muttered;
“they are rivals for the love of my
little patient, and it is Ruthven who will
win.”

Innis turned his gloomy eyes upon
his companion. He had caught the
word Ruthven.

“You are speaking of his lordship?”
he said.

“Was I? Well, this soliloquizing is
a bad habit. Ruthven, however, makes
one think. Mad—mad as a March hare!”

“Lord Ruthven?”

“Himself. Do you doubt it? What
else explains his fits and starts—his visions
—his terrible look at times as he glances
over his shoulder? He is mad—and yet
as sane a man too as I ever encountered.”
The doctor chuckled. “Science tells of
such cases,” he said.

“I had not thought thus of his lordship,”
said Innis. “He is calm, courteous,
an official of acknowledged efficiency, I
am assured, and, if mad, mad on one
subject only.”

“You have hit it. There is one
chamber in his brain full of cobwebs,
but otherwise vacant—or, if not vacant,
inhabited by spectres called Edmund
Innis and Honoria Brand.”

Innis started.

“Your meaning, doctor?”

“I saw him at the assembly when
she entered, and his face wore the same
look as on that day when he saw you
first.”

“Doctor, your penetration is frightful,
terrible.”

“Why not? 'Tis my trade—this
diagnosis of body and mind. To dismiss
Ruthven. He is a mystery still to me,
despite my theories—and a mystery from
which I anticipate something fearful.
But here we are at my house. Come in.
I will make you, first of all the world,
partaker of my triumph!”

Innis suffered himself to be led by the
singular personage up the steps of the
small house which we have described in
the beginning of this history; a huge
key opened the door; and, throwing
open another door on the right, the doctor
ushered his guest into his study,
where a fire was burning—a yellow cat
stretched on the rug before it. Dr. Vandyke's
first proceeding was to pause and
listen.

“Good!” he then said, with an air of
relief. “Snuffers, that venerable female,
is reposing on her virtuous couch!—methinks
I hear the noise of distant thunder,
long reverberating, and unmistakably
proceeding from her ancient nose!
Sweet music!—dulcet harmony! Everybody,
friend, is afraid of something or
somebody—I am afraid of Snuffers! Her
tongue is caustic, her head-dress a nightmare!—but
I philosophize! Sit down,
my guest; you are in domo mea, or rather
tua. See, even Felina, my favorite, welcomes
us—my cat—though her frontleg
has sustained a compound fracture,
doubtless the result of night-prowling
and the encounter of dogs.”

Felina from her rug uttered a low cry
of pain or response. Dr. Vandyke enthroned
himself in a great arm-chair; his
thin legs spread out; his hands extended
toward the blaze; his face joyful.

“The moment approaches,” he said,
“when the great arcanum is to be revealed
to one of the elect! But I jest in
an unseemly manner over so serious a
topic. Let me speak gravely.”

The eccentric countenance suddenly
lost its joyful and careless expression.

“I am about to exhibit before you,
my young friend,” he said, “what will
prove one of the greatest and most
blessed discoveries which God has ever
permitted the poor, narrow brain of
humanity to reach. But first let me ask
you what is the greatest of human ills?”

“Despair,” said Innis, with an expression
of immovable gloom.

“Suffering, that is to say.”

“Yes.”

“Of the mind?”

“Yes.”

“You reply justly; and yet, my young
friend, there is reason to question whether
the capacity of suffering possessed by
the body is not greater than that possessed
by the mind. I say that there is a
question—I assert positively nothing.
But remember the warnings of the Holy
Book. The `wrath to come,' is typified
by fire—the continuous burning of
the flesh, and the gnawing of a worm
upon the vitals. Thus 'tis bodily pain
that is held up as the chief woe—the utmost
penalty.”

“Yes, but—”

“The soul, you would say, suffers remorse,
despair, and these are worst of
all. So let it be—let us only say, then,
that bodily pain is terrible; that there is
reason to doubt whether medicines affect
the body as they affect the soul.
You are in despair—well, a year afterward
you are joyful. You love your
wife, your child, your sweetheart, and—
you forget them. Time, the great physician,
has cured your mental malady,
and yet time has not cured yonder victim
of consumption, as it did not cure
the leper.”

Innis nodded.

“I understand. You would say

that there are many anodynes for the
soul—fewer for the body.”

“Yes! yes! yes!—Until yesterday.”

“Until yesterday?”

Dr. Vandyke seized the cat lying upon
the rug.

“Look at this animal,” he said. “She
is in pain—is she not?”

“Doubtless. Her leg is broken, and
hanging down. When you only touch
it, she utters a cry of suffering.”

“Good!”

And, filled again with his overflowing
joy, Dr. Vandyke took a phial, uncorked
it, poured some of the contents of a
liquid which it contained upon his handkerchief,
and applied it to the mouth of
the animal.

The liquid exhaled a penetrating odor,
which seemed as repulsive to the cat as
it was to Innis. But Dr. Vandyke continued
to press the handkerchief upon
the mouth of the animal; gradually its
head drooped sidewise, and in a few
minutes it exhibited every indication of
death.

“What now!” said the physician,
whose face was radiant; “what is the
condition of this animal?”

“I should say that you had poisoned
her, doctor—that she is dead.”

“You shall see.”

And, stretching the apparently inanimate
form upon the table, Dr. Vandyke
opened a drawer and took out a long,
sharp instrument, whose point he tried
upon his palm.

“If she is dead,” he said, “there can
be no harm in probing the wound which
she had the misfortune to sustain during
her late life—for the benefit of science!
I may be called in by some wealthy
dowager to set or amputate the leg of
her pet Angola: then, my young friend,
a knowledge of cat-anatomy may result
in guineas.”

The doctor raised the broken leg and
felt it.

“A bad compound fracture,” he said,
“and scarce such as to admit of setting.
She would die of it.”

“Then the cat is not dead?” said
Innis, absorbed in spite of himself in
the singular proceeding of his companion.

“Wait, and see.”

And Dr. Vandyke carefully probed
the wound, extracting some fragments
of bone. The cat did not stir.

“Useless,” he said; “the limb must
be amputated.”

And, returning the probe to its
drawer, he took out an exceedingly
sharp knife, a minute saw, and some
thread.

“Now, for the surgical operation,” he
exclaimed.

And, with a sure and rapid hand, he
made a circular incision, dividing the
flesh to the bone; sawed the bone asunder;
threw away the remnant, gathered
up and confined the bleeding arteries,
and exclaimed—

“The operation is over!”

The cat had not moved a muscle, or
uttered a sound indicating pain, or even
consciousness.

“What say you now?” cried Dr.
Vandyke.

“I say that it was useless to perform
so skilful an operation upon a dead animal.”

“Look!”

At the same instant the body of the
cat was agitated with a species of tremor;
the eyes opened, and the animal
looked at its master without indications
of any pain. Innis gazed at the spectacle
with profound astonishment, and
then his eyes passed to the face of Dr.
Vandyke.

“I now understand your meaning,”
he said; “you have discovered the
antidote to pain. You are immortal!”

“If some other human being does
not secure the fame of my discovery.
I have found what the most eminent

[ILLUSTRATION]

"'Now for the surgical operation.'" p. 76.

[Description: 505EAF. Image of a scary looking man with stringy gray hair, sunken face, and hooked nose, standing over a cat, which is laid out on its back on a table, with a scalpel in his hand about to make a cut. There are a variety of jars on the table and on the mantlepiece of a nearby fireplace and a book with metal clasps at his feet. In a chair to the right of the man sits an apathetic looking man. He is holding his tri-cornered hat in one hand, while the other holds up his head, as he stares up at the other man.]

doctors have been seeking for in vain.[1]
Yes! a poor physician of the colonies
has revolutionized medical science! For
what I have here performed upon this
poor animal may be performed with the
same ease upon men and women! Pain
under the surgeon's knife has had its day
—the study of a lifetime is rewarded
supremely by this blessed triumph! O
humanity! — humanity, that perchance
will never hear my name—I am your
supreme benefactor — to me you owe
statues!”

A species of furious triumph possessed
the eccentric personage. He
gesticulated, strode about the room, and
seemed wild with joy and triumph.
Suddenly he stopped.

“You now know, do you not, friend,
why I asked you the condition of the
young girl Meta?”

“Of Meta, doctor?”

“She has had a fall from horseback;
it has paralyzed alike brain, and tongue,
and hearing, for a fragment of bone has
impinged upon the brain, and this little
fragment has dethroned language, and
reason, and education, since education
is through the ear. This poor creature
is thus a pagan and a lunatic. No
operation can be performed, from the
wild struggling with which she resists it.
Well, see that small phial!—with one-fourth
of its contents, I paralyze, in my
turn, this rebellious bundle of nerves—I
cut with the knife and saw into the
child's very brain, and she feels no pain!
I remove the obstacle to the action of
her reason—she hears, speaks, thinks, is
taught—I have performed—I, the poor
worm—what the world calls a miracle;
and have I not the right to demand my
statue?”

An hour afterward Innis was returning
to his lodging, full of an astonishment
which, for the moment, dissipated his
misery; and Dr. Vandyke, on the same
evening, was closeted with Lady Brand,
and speaking of Meta.

Leaving the sequel of the consultation
to its proper place, we return to the
main current of our narrative.