Master of His Fate | Page 9

room was dark, save for the light of the fire and of a shaded lamp, by which, within a screen, the night-nurse sat conning her list of night-duties. The evening was just beginning out of doors,--shop-fronts were flaring, taverns were becoming noisy, and brilliantly-lit theatres and music-halls were settling down to business,--but here night and darkness had set in more than an hour before. Indeed, in these beds of languishing, which stretched away down either side of the ward, night was hardly to be distinguished from day, save for the sunlight and the occasional excitement of the doctor's visit; and many there were who cried to themselves in the morning, "Would God it were evening!" and in the evening, "Would God it were morning!" But there was yet this other difference, that disease and doctor, fear and hope, gossip and grumbling, newspaper and Bible and tract, were all forgotten in the night, for some time at least, and Nature's kind restorer, sleep, went softly round among the beds and soothed the weary spirits into peace.
Lefevre and the house-physician passed silently up the ward between the rows of silent blue-quilted beds, while the nurse came silently to meet them with her lamp. Lefevre turned aside a moment to look at a man whose breathing was laboured and stertorous. The shaded light was turned upon him: an opiate had been given him to induce sleep; it had performed its function, but, as if resenting its bondage, it was impishly twitching the man's muscles and catching him by the throat, so that he choked and started. Dr Lefevre raised the man's eyelid to look at his eye: the upturned eye stared out upon him, but the man slept on. He put his hand on the man's forehead (he had a beautiful hand--the hand of a born surgeon and healer--fine but firm, the expression of nervous force), and with thumb and finger stroked first his temples and then his neck. The spasmodic twitching ceased, and his breath came easy and regular. The house-doctor and the nurse looked at each other in admiration of this subtle skill, while Lefevre turned away and passed on.
"Where is the man?" said he.
"Number Thirteen," answered the house-doctor, leading the way.
The lamp was set on the locker beside the bed of Thirteen, screens were placed round to create a seclusion amid the living, breathing silence of the ward, and Lefevre proceeded to examine the unconscious patient who had so strangely put himself in his hands.
He was young and well-favoured, and, it was evident from the firmness of his flesh, well-fed. Lefevre considered his features a moment, shook his head, and murmured, "No; I don't think I've seen him before." He turned to the nurse and inquired concerning the young man's clothes: they were evidently those of a gentleman, she said,--of one, at least, who had plenty of money. He turned again to the young man. He raised the left arm to feel the heart, but, contrary to his experience in such cases, the arm did not remain as he bent it, nor did the eyes open in obedience to the summons of the disturbed nerves. The breathing was scarcely perceptible, and the beating of the heart was faint.
"A strange case," said Lefevre in a low voice to his young comrade--"the strangest I've seen. He does not look a subject for this kind of thing, and yet he is in the extreme stage of hypnotism. You see." And the doctor, by sundry tests and applications, showed the peculiar exhausted and contractive condition of the muscles. "It is very curious."
"Perhaps," said the other, "he has been--" and he hesitated.
"Been what?" asked Lefevre, turning on him his keen look.
"Enjoying himself."
"Having a debauch, you mean? No; I think not. There would then have probably been some reflex action of the nerves. This is not that kind of exhaustion; and it is more than mere trance or catalepsy; it seems the extremest suspensory condition,--and that in a young man of such apparent health is very remarkable. It will take a long time for him to recover in the ordinary way with food and sleep," he continued, rather to himself than to his subordinates. "He needs rousing,--a strong stimulant."
"Shall I get some brandy, sir?" asked the nurse.
"Brandy? No. That's not the stimulant he needs."
He was silent for a little, moving the young man's limbs, and touching certain muscles which his exact anatomical knowledge taught him to lay his finger on with unerring accuracy. The effect was startling and grotesque. As a galvanic current applied to the proper nerves and muscles of a dead body will produce expressions and actions resembling those of life, so the touch of Lefevre's finger made the unconscious young man scowl or smile or clench his fist according to the muscles impressed.
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