The Doctor's Red Lamp. Various

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      EVERY one in Madrid knew Doctor Santos. He was a little bit of a man, with his beard and hair clamoring for the use of the scissors, and his clothes for benzine and a more fashionable cut. Nevertheless, he had a universal reputation for great wisdom, and his popularity in the district of Chamberi, the principal scene of his work, was beyond everything.

      Possibly the peculiarities of the doctor did more than his true merit to attract the attention of the people. Perhaps some presentiment made every one consider him physically of not much account, but mentally a diamond of the purest water. It was well known that in the exercise of his profession he was a true ministering angel, and without any pretence of being a specialist or a philanthropist. People said that he was half crazy over the subject of disease, and followed the development of a fever with the same interest that others listened to or read a dramatic work, but with this exception, that it was not always necessary to be a mere spectator, that by discreetly intervening sometimes, he prepared cheerful and unexpected comedy, where otherwise there would have been the deepest tragedy.

      This might have been merely scientific curiosity—we will not discuss that point—but thanks to this keen interest, if a patient were very ill, and that happened frequently, he would remain to watch by the bedside, and again,—and this happened yet more frequently, for Doctor Santos devoted himself almost exclusively to poor people—there would not be money enough to buy supper for the family or broth or medicine for the sick one; then our doctor would pull out his purse and send for whatever was necessary. His patients never lacked for what was needed to restore them to health.

      The doctor’s greatest pleasure, as he always declared, was to cure sick children. It seemed impossible that a man who had no family and who, according to all accounts, had never married, and who had been adopted himself by a barber who took him from an orphan asylum, should be able to feel such absolute tenderness of heart towards little ones.

      A woman, whose son the doctor had restored to health, aptly expressed the sentiments of every one: “It seems as if Doctor Santos had been a mother himself.”

      We will take it for granted that his life and good deeds are well known, for many a scientific work can testify to the merits of Doctor Santos; so we will not stop to give a detailed resumé or minute account of the arduous labor of many years spent in true performance of his profession.

      I am now going to speak of an event in his life which, if it were not absolutely true, would seem to many people to be altogether improbable.

      Doctor Santos always said that the elixir of long life was a very easy and simple thing to obtain, that it was not necessary to knock one’s head against the wall in order that the electric spark of an idea should spring out of the brain, and that even the most stupid could give a solution of the problem to those who discussed it learnedly, but that not even this elixir nor any other could be applied in every case, that it was just as difficult to unite a head to the body from which it had been severed as to repair the ravages of some illnesses. In eighty cases out of a hundred, however, he was sure that the elixir would give good results.

      The strangest thing was that these were not merely affirmations, but positive proofs, for in his practice he had tried the remedy and, not only eighty to a hundred, but in even greater proportion, had produced good results. He never could be made to specify the remedy, and he put an end to all questions on the subject, by saying:

      “Nothing, nothing, it is like, it is like Columbus’s egg, why prove it?”

      It was long after twelve o’clock one night, when Doctor Santos entered a miserable garret in the Salle de Fuencarral. The door was partly open. A middle-aged man was stretched out on a rude cot. The rest of the furniture consisted of some broken, rush-bottomed chairs, and a pine table by the bedside. The sick man had no relatives in Madrid; he had arrived from Cataluña a little more than a month before and had fallen ill with pneumonia. He refused, absolutely, to go to the hospital, so a charitable neighbor, who had attended to his simple wants for some time, called in Doctor Santos. The disease had already made inroads upon the man’s constitution. Although the pneumonia was helped, the doctor could not cure the quick consumption which followed and which would soon end the man’s life.

      When the sick man saw the doctor enter, an expression of joy passed over his features, as if now black death had no terror for him; for, in the last sad moments, a warm hand would clasp his and a loving heart would be moved to sympathy. The doctor took the sick man’s hand.

      “How are you, Jaime?” he asked.

      “I am dying, I feel sure of it, but I wish to ask one more favor of you who have already done so many for me. Tell me how much longer I have to live. I know there is nothing that will help me, and I am almost glad that it is so, for I have suffered so much in my life. At least, I shall cease to suffer. It is true, is it not, that over there there is no more pain, all is quiet, dark, cold?”

      Accustomed as Doctor Santos was to such scenes, he could scarcely keep back the tears—much to his own disgust, when he looked at the poor fellow—and he growled to himself: “A weeping doctor is a fool.” But he answered the dying man very gently:

      “What can I do for you, Jaime? To whom shall I write? Let me know just what you wish to be done and I promise you to do it as far as I am able, and before it slips my memory. I don’t want to frighten you, but every one takes things differently. Judging from the state you are in, I am not the one just now to do you the most good, and we must soon send for one who can give you the only true consolation. After all, although this life means a great deal to us, we ought to be glad rather than sorry at the thought of leaving it, because we are all sure that God is good and will pardon us, and that he loves us. For this reason we call him Father, for if he is not better than the best on earth, what other conception can we have of him?

      “Now, I will go myself to call a priest whom I know, and in the meantime, I will see if a neighbor will stay with you.”

      “Oh, don’t go, I beg of you. I must talk to you.”

      The doctor dared not say no, but he knew that the hour of death was swiftly approaching. A moment later he left the room, saying:—

      “I’ll return directly.”

      He sent a neighbor for the priest, then returned as he had promised, and sat down by the head of the bed.

      Jaime asked СКАЧАТЬ