Damaged Goods
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Upton Sinclair >> Damaged Goods
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This remark gave George something of a shock, for his father had
owned a little paper in the provinces, and he had a sudden vision
of the way subscribers would have fallen off, if he had printed
even so much as the name of this vile disease.
"And yet," pursued the doctor, "you publish romances about
adultery!"
"Yes," said George, "that's what the readers want."
"They don't want the truth about venereal diseases," exclaimed
the other. "If they knew the full truth, they would no longer
think that adultery was romantic and interesting."
He went on to give his advice as to the means of avoiding such
diseases. There was really but one rule. It was: To love but
one woman, to take her as a virgin, and to love her so much that
she would never deceive you. "Take that from me," added the
doctor, "and teach it to your son, when you have one."
George's attention was caught by this last sentence.
"You mean that I shall be able to have children?" he cried.
"Certainly," was the reply.
"Healthy children?"
"I repeat it to you; if you take care of yourself properly for a
long time, conscientiously, you have little to fear."
"That's certain?"
"Ninety-nine times out of a hundred."
George felt as if he had suddenly emerged from a dungeon. "Why,
then," he exclaimed, "I shall be able to marry!"
"You will be able to marry," was the reply.
"You are not deceiving me? You would not give me that hope, you
would not expose me? How soon will I be able to marry?"
"In three or four years," said the doctor.
"What!" cried George in consternation. "In three or four years?
Not before?"
"Not before."
"How is that? Am I going to be sick all that time? Why, you
told me just now--"
Said the doctor: "The disease will no longer be dangerous to
you, yourself--but you will be dangerous to others."
"But," the young man cried, in despair, "I am to be married a
month from now."
"That is impossible."
"But I cannot do any differently. The contract is ready! The
banns have been published! I have given my word!"
"Well, you are a great one!" the doctor laughed. "Just now you
were looking for your revolver! Now you want to be married
within the month."
"But, Doctor, it is necessary!"
"But I forbid it."
"As soon as I knew that the disease is not what I imagined, and
that I could be cured, naturally I didn't want to commit suicide.
And as soon as I make up my mind not to commit suicide, I have to
take up my regular life. I have to keep my engagements; I have
to get married."
"No," said the doctor.
"Yes, yes!" persisted George, with blind obstinacy. "Why,
Doctor, if I didn't marry it would be a disaster. You are
talking about something you don't understand. I, for my part--it
is not that I am anxious to be married. As I told you, I had
almost a second family. Lizette's little brothers adored me.
But it is my aunt, an old maid; and, also, my mother is crazy
about the idea. If I were to back out now, she would die of
chagrin. My aunt would disinherit me, and she is the one who has
the family fortune. Then, too, there is my father-in-law, a
regular dragoon for his principles--severe, violent. He never
makes a joke of serious things, and I tell you it would cost me
dear, terribly dear. And, besides, I have given my word."
"You must take back your word."
"You still insist?" exclaimed George, in despair. "But then,
suppose that it were possible, how could I take back my signature
which I put at the bottom of the deed? I have pledged myself to
pay in two months for the attorney's practice I have purchased!"
"Sir," said the doctor, "all these things--"
"You are going to tell me that I was lacking in prudence, that I
should never have disposed of my wife's dowry until after the
honeymoon!"
"Sir," said the doctor, again, "all these considerations are
foreign to me. I am a physician, and nothing but a physician,
and I can only tell you this: If you marry before three or four
years, you will be a criminal."
George broke out with a wild exclamation. "No sir, you are not
merely a physician! You are also a confessor! You are not
merely a scientist; and it is not enough for you that you observe
me as you would some lifeless thing in your laboratory, and say,
'You have this; science says that; now go along with you.' All
my existence depends upon you. It is your duty to listen to me,
because when you know everything you will understand me, and you
will find some way to cure me within a month."
"But," protested the doctor, "I wear myself out telling you that
such means do not exist. I shall not be certain of your cure, as
much as any one can be certain, in less than three or four
years."
George was almost beside himself. "I tell you you must find some
means! Listen to me, sir--if I don't get married I don't get the
dowry! And will you tell me how I can pay the notes I have
signed?"
"Oh," said the doctor, dryly, "if that is the question, it is
very simple--I will give you a plan to get out of the affair.
You will go and get acquainted with some rich man; you will do
everything you can to gain his confidence; and when you have
succeeded, you will plunder him."
George shook his head. "I am not in any mood for joking."
"I am not joking," replied his adviser. "Rob that man,
assassinate him even--that would be no worse crime than you would
commit in taking a young girl in good health in order to get a
portion of her dowry, when at the same time you would have to
expose her to the frightful consequences of the disease which you
would give her."
"Frightful consequences?" echoed George.
"Consequences of which death would not be the most frightful."
"But, sir, you were saying to me just now--"
"Just now I did not tell you everything. Even reduced,
suppressed a little by our remedies, the disease remains
mysterious, menacing, and in its sum, sufficiently grave. So it
would be an infamy to expose your fiancee in order to avoid an
inconvenience, however great that might be."
But George was still not to be convinced. Was it certain that
this misfortune would befall Henriette, even with the best
attention?
Said the other: "I do not wish to lie to you. No, it is not
absolutely certain, it is probable. And there is another truth
which I wish to tell you now: our remedies are not infallible.
In a certain number of cases--a very small number, scarcely five
per cent--they have remained without effect. You might be one of
those exceptions, your wife might be one. What then?"
"I will employ a word you used just now, yourself. We should
have to expect the worst catastrophes."
George sat in a state of complete despair.
"Tell me what to do, then," he said.
"I can tell you only one thing: don't marry. You have a most
serious blemish. It is as if you owed a debt. Perhaps no one
will ever come to claim it; on the other hand, perhaps a pitiless
creditor will come all at once, presenting a brutal demand for
immediate payment. Come now--you are a business man. Marriage
is a contract; to marry without saying anything--that means to
enter into a bargain by means of passive dissimulation. That's
the term, is it not? It is dishonesty, and it ought to come
under the law."
George, being a lawyer, could appreciate the argument, and could
think of nothing to say to it.
"What shall I do?" he asked.
The other answered, "Go to your father-in-law and tell him
frankly the truth."
"But," cried the young man, wildly, "there will be no question
then of three or four years' delay. He will refuse his consent
altogether."
"If that is the case," said the doctor, "don't tell him anything."
"But I have to give him a reason, or I don't know what he will
do. He is the sort of man to give himself to the worst violence,
and again my fiancee would be lost to me. Listen, doctor. From
everything I have said to you, you may perhaps think I am a
mercenary man. It is true that I want to get along in the world,
that is only natural. But Henriette has such qualities; she is
so much better than I, that I love her, really, as people love in
novels. My greatest grief--it is not to give up the practice I
have bought--although, indeed, it would be a bitter blow to me;
my greatest grief would be to lose Henriette. If you could only
see her, if you only knew her--then you would understand. I have
her picture here--"
The young fellow took out his card-case. And offered a photograph
to the doctor, who gently refused it. The other blushed with
embarrassment.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "I am ridiculous. That happens to
me, sometimes. Only, put yourself in my place--I love her so!"
His voice broke.
"My dear boy," said the doctor, feelingly, "that is exactly why
you ought not to marry her."
"But," he cried, "if I back out without saying anything they will
guess the truth, and I shall be dishonored."
"One is not dishonored because one is ill."
"But with such a disease! People are so stupid. I myself,
yesterday--I should have laughed at anyone who had got into such
a plight; I should have avoided him, I should have despised him!"
And suddenly George broke down again. "Oh!" he cried, "if I were
the only one to suffer; but she--she is in love with me. I swear
it to you! She is so good; and she will be so unhappy!"
The doctor answered, "She would be unhappier later on."
"It will be a scandal!" George exclaimed.
"You will avoid one far greater," the other replied.
Suddenly George set his lips with resolution. He rose from his
seat. He took several twenty-franc pieces from his pocket and
laid them quietly upon the doctor's desk--paying the fee in cash,
so that he would not have to give his name and address. He took
up his gloves, his cane and his hat, and rose.
"I will think it over," he said. "I thank you, Doctor. I will
come back next week as you have told me. That is--probably I
will."
He was about to leave.
The doctor rose, and he spoke in a voice of furious anger. "No,"
he said, "I shan't see you next week, and you won't even think it
over. You came here knowing what you had; you came to ask advice
of me, with the intention of paying no heed to it, unless it
conformed to your wishes. A superficial honesty has driven you
to take that chance in order to satisfy your conscience. You
wanted to have somebody upon whom you could put off, bye and bye,
the consequences of an act whose culpability you understand! No,
don't protest! Many of those who come here think and act as you
think, and as you wish to act; but the marriage made against my
will has generally been the source of such calamities that now I
am always afraid of not having been persuasive enough, and it
even seems to me that I am a little to blame for these
misfortunes. I should have been able to prevent them; they would
not have happened if those who are the authors of them knew what
I know and had seen what I have seen. Swear to me, sir, that you
are going to break off that marriage!"
George was greatly embarrassed, and unwilling to reply. "I
cannot swear to you at all, Doctor; I can only tell you again
that I will think it over."
"That WHAT over?"
"What you have told me."
"What I have told you is true! You cannot bring any new
objections; and I have answered those which you have presented to
me; therefore, your mind ought to be made up."
Groping for a reply, George hesitated. He could not deny that he
had made inquiry about these matters before he had come to the
doctor. But he said that he was not al all certain that he had
this disease. The doctor declared it, and perhaps it was true,
but the most learned physicians were sometimes deceived.
He remembered something he had read in one of the medical books.
"Dr. Ricord maintains that after a certain period the disease is
no longer contagious. He has proven his contentions by examples.
Today you produce new examples to show that he is wrong! Now, I
want to do what's right, but surely I have the right to think it
over. And when I think it over, I realize that all the evils
with which you threaten me are only probable evils. In spite of
your desire to terrify me, you have been forced to admit that
possibly my marriage would not have any troublesome consequence
for my wife."
The doctor found difficulty in restraining himself. But he said,
"Go on. I will answer you afterwards."
And George blundered ahead in his desperation. "Your remedies
are powerful, you tell me; and for the calamities of which you
speak to befall me, I would have to be among the rare
exceptions--also my wife would have to be among the number of
those rare exceptions. If a mathematician were to apply the law
of chance to these facts, the result of his operation would show
but slight chance of a catastrophe, as compared with the absolute
certainty of a series of misfortunes, sufferings, troubles,
tears, and perhaps tragic accidents which the breaking of my
engagement would cause. So I say that the mathematician--who is,
even more than you, a man of science, a man of a more infallible
science--the mathematician would conclude that wisdom was not
with you doctors, but with me."
"You believe it, sir!" exclaimed the other. "But you deceive
yourself." And he continued, driving home his point with a
finger which seemed to George to pierce his very soul. "Twenty
cases identical with your own have been patiently observed, from
the beginning to the end. Nineteen times the woman was infected
by her husband; you hear me, sir, nineteen times out of twenty!
You believe that the disease is without danger, and you take to
yourself the right to expose your wife to what you call the
chance of your being one of those exceptions, for whom our
remedies are without effect. Very well; it is necessary that you
should know the disease which your wife, without being consulted,
will run a chance of contracting. Take that book, sir; it is the
work of my teacher. Read it yourself. Here, I have marked the
passage."
He held out the open book; but George could not lift a hand to
take it.
"You do not wish to read it?" the other continued. "Listen to
me." And in a voice trembling with passion, he read: "'I have
watched the spectacle of an unfortunate young woman, turned into
a veritable monster by means of a syphilitic infection. Her
face, or rather let me say what was left of her face, was nothing
but a flat surface seamed with scars.'"
George covered his face, exclaiming, "Enough, sir! Have mercy!"
But the other cried, "No, no! I will go to the very end. I have
a duty to perform, and I will not be stopped by the sensibility
of your nerves."
He went on reading: "'Of the upper lip not a trace was left; the
ridge of the upper gums appeared perfectly bare.'" But then at
the young man's protests, his resolution failed him. "Come," he
said, "I will stop. I am sorry for you--you who accept for
another person, for the woman you say you love, the chance of a
disease which you cannot even endure to hear described. Now,
from whom did that woman get syphilis? It is not I who am
speaking, it is the book. 'From a miserable scoundrel who was
not afraid to enter into matrimony when he had a secondary
eruption.' All that was established later on--'and who,
moreover, had thought it best not to let his wife be treated for
fear of awakening her suspicions!'"
The doctor closed the book with a bang. "What that man has done,
sir, is what you want to do."
George was edging toward the door; he could no longer look the
doctor in the eye. "I should deserve all those epithets and
still more brutal ones if I should marry, knowing that my
marriage would cause such horrors. But that I do not believe.
You and your teachers--you are specialists, and consequently you
are driven to attribute everything to the disease you make the
subject of your studies. A tragic case, an exceptional case,
holds a kind of fascination for you; you think it can never be
talked about enough."
"I have heard that argument before," said the doctor, with an
effort at patience.
"Let me go on, I beg you," pleaded George. "You have told me
that out of every seven men there is one syphilitic. You have
told me that there are one hundred thousand in Paris, coming and
going, alert, and apparently well."
"It is true," said the doctor, "that there are one hundred
thousand who are actually at this moment not visibly under the
influence of the disease. But many thousands have passed into
our hospitals, victims of the most frightful ravages that our
poor bodies can support. These--you do not see them, and they do
not count for you. But again, if it concerned no one but
yourself, you might be able to argue thus. What I declare to
you, what I affirm with all the violence of my conviction, is
that you have not the right to expose a human creature to such
chances--rare, as I know, but terrible, as I know still better.
What have you to answer to that?"
"Nothing," stammered George, brought to his knees at last. "You
are right about that. I don't know what to think."
"And in forbidding you marriage," continued the doctor, "is it
the same as if I forbade it forever? Is it the same as if I told
you that you could never be cured? On the contrary, I hold out
to you every hope; but I demand of you a delay of three or four
years, because it will take me that time to find out if you are
among the number of those unfortunate ones whom I pity with all
my heart, for whom the disease is without mercy; because during
that time you will be dangerous to your wife and to your
children. The children I have not yet mentioned to you."
Here the doctor's voice trembled slightly. He spoke with moving
eloquence. "Come, sir, you are an honest man; you are too young
for such things not to move you; you are not insensible to duty.
It is impossible that I shan't be able to find a way to your
heart, that I shan't be able to make you obey me. My emotion in
speaking to you proves that I appreciate your suffering, that I
suffer with you. It is in the name of my sincerity that I
implore you. You have admitted it--that you have not the right
to expose your wife to such miseries. But it is not only your
wife that you strike; you may attack in her your own children. I
exclude you for a moment from my thought--you and her. It is in
the name of these innocents that I implore you; it is the future,
it is the race that I defend. Listen to me, listen to me! Out
of the twenty households of which I spoke, only fifteen had
children; these fifteen had twenty-eight. Do you know how many
out of these twenty-eight survived? Three, sir! Three out of
twenty-eight! Syphilis is above everything a murderer of
children. Herod reigns in France, and over all the earth, and
begins each year his massacre of the innocents; and if it be not
blasphemy against the sacredness of life, I say that the most
happy are those who have disappeared. Visit our children's
hospitals! We know too well the child of syphilitic parents; the
type is classical; the doctors can pick it out anywhere. Those
little old creatures who have the appearance of having already
lived, and who have kept the stigmata of all out infirmities, of
all our decay. They are the victims of fathers who have married,
being ignorant of what you know--things which I should like to go
and cry out in the public places."
The doctor paused, and then in a solemn voice continued: "I have
told you all, without exaggeration. Think it over. Consider the
pros and cons; sum up the possible misfortunes and the certain
miseries. But disregard yourself, and consider that there are in
one side of the scales the misfortunes of others, and in the
other your own. Take care that you are just."
George was at last overcome. "Very well," he said, "I give way.
I won't get married. I will invent some excuse; I will get a
delay of six months. More than that, I cannot do."
The doctor exclaimed, "I need three years--I need four years!"
"No, Doctor!" persisted George. "You can cure me in less time
than that."
The other answered, "No! No! No!"
George caught him by the hand, imploringly. "Yes! Science in
all powerful!"
"Science is not God," was the reply. "There are no longer any
miracles."
"If only you wanted to do it!" cried the young man, hysterically.
"You are a learned man; seek, invent, find something! Try some
new plan with me; give me double the dose, ten times the does;
make me suffer. I give myself up to you; I will endure
everything--I swear it! There ought to be some way to cure me
within six months. Listen to me! I tell you I can't answer for
myself with that delay. Come; it is in the name of my wife, in
the name of my children, that I implore you. Do something for
them!"
The doctor had reached the limit of his patience. "Enough, sir!"
he cried. "Enough!"
But nothing could stop the wretched man. "On my knees!" he
cried. "I put myself on my knees before you! Oh! If only
you would do it! I would bless you; I would adore you, as one
adores a god! All my gratitude, all my life--half my fortune!
For mercy's sake, Doctor, do something; invent something; make
some discovery--have pity!"
The doctor answered gravely, "Do you wish me to do more for you
than for the others?"
George answered, unblushingly, 'answered, unblushingly, "Yes!"
He was beside himself with terror and distress.
The other's reply was delivered in a solemn tone. "Understand,
sir, for every one of out patients we do all that we can,
whether it be the greatest personage, or the last comer to out
hospital clinic. We have no secrets in reserve for those who are
more fortunate, or less fortunate than the others, and who are in
a hurry to be cured."
George gazed at him for a moment in bewilderment and despair, and
then suddenly bowed his head. "Good-by, Doctor," he answered.
"Au revoir, sir," the other corrected--with what proved to be
prophetic understanding. For George was destined to see him
again--even though he had made up his mind to the contrary!
CHAPTER III
George Dupont had the most important decision of his life to
make; but there was never very much doubt what his decision would
be. One the one hand was the definite certainty that if he took
the doctor's advice, he would wreck his business prospects, and
perhaps also lose the woman he loved. On the other hand were
vague and uncertain possibilities which it was difficult for him
to make real to himself. It was all very well to wait a while to
be cured of the dread disease; but to wait three or four years--
that was simply preposterous!
He decided to consult another physician. He would find one this
time who would not be so particular, who would be willing to take
some trouble to cure him quickly. He began to notice the
advertisements which were scattered over the pages of the
newspapers he read. There were apparently plenty of doctors in
Paris who could cure him, who were willing to guarantee to cure
him. After much hesitation, he picked out one whose
advertisement sounded the most convincing.
The office was located in a cheap quarter. It was a dingy place,
not encumbered with works of art, but with a few books covered
with dust. The doctor himself was stout and greasy, and he
rubbed his hands with anticipation at the sight of so
prosperous-looking a patient. But he was evidently a man of
experience, for he knew exactly what was the matter with George,
almost without the formality of an examination. Yes, he could
cure him, quickly, he said. There had recently been great
discoveries made--new methods which had not reached the bulk of
the profession. He laughed at the idea of three or four years.
That was the way with those specialists! When one got forty
francs for a consultation, naturally, one was glad to drag out
the case. There were tricks in the medical trade, as in all
others. A doctor had to live; when he had a big name, he had to
live expensively.
The new physician wrote out two prescriptions, and patted George
on the shoulder as he went away. There was no need for him to
worry; he would surely be well in three months. If he would put
off his marriage for six months, he would be doing everything
within reason. And meantime, there was no need for him to worry
himself--things would come out all right. So George went away,
feeling as if a mountain had been lifted from his shoulders.
He went to see Henriette that same evening, to get the matter
settled. "Henriette," he said, "I have to tell you something
very important--something rather painful. I hope you won't let
it disturb you too much."
She was gazing at him in alarm. "What is it?"
"Why," he said, blushing in spite of himself, and regretting that
he had begun the matter so precipitately, "for some time I've not
been feeling quite well. I've been having a slight cough. Have
you noticed it?"
"Why no!" exclaimed Henriette, anxiously.
"Well, today I went to see a doctor, and he says that there is a
possibility--you understand it is nothing very serious--but it
might be--I might possibly have lung trouble."
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