The Doctor’s Dilemma · Act I (2/2) (4/4)

| Ridgeon | Looking after him. Poor chap! Turning to Sir Patrick. So that’s why they made me a knight! And that’s the medical profession! | | Sir Patrick | And a very good profession, too, my lad. When you know as much as I know of the ignorance and superstition of the patients, you’ll wonder that we’re half as good as we are. | | Ridgeon | We’re not a profession: we’re a conspiracy. | | Sir Patrick | All professions are conspiracies against the laity. And we can’t all be geniuses like you. Every fool can get ill; but every fool can’t be a good doctor: there are not enough good ones to go round. And for all you know, Bloomfield Bonington kills less people than you do. | | Ridgeon | Oh, very likely. But he really ought to know the difference between a vaccine and an antitoxin. Stimulate the phagocytes! The vaccine doesn’t affect the phagocytes at all. He’s all wrong: hopelessly, dangerously wrong. To put a tube of serum into his hands is murder: simple murder. | | Emmy | Returning. Now, Sir Patrick. How long more are you going to keep them horses standing in the draught? | | Sir Patrick | What’s that to you, you old catamaran? | | Emmy | Come, come, now! none of your temper to me. And it’s time for Colly to get to his work. | | Ridgeon | Behave yourself, Emmy. Get out. | | Emmy | Oh, I learnt how to behave myself before I learnt you to do it. I know what doctors are: sitting talking together about themselves when they ought to be with their poor patients. And I know what horses are, Sir Patrick. I was brought up in the country. Now be good; and come along. | | Sir Patrick | Rising. Very well, very well, very well. Goodbye, Colly. He pats Ridgeon on the shoulder and goes out, turning for a moment at the door to look meditatively at Emmy and say, with grave conviction. You are an ugly old devil, and no mistake. | | Emmy | Highly indignant, calling after him. You’re no beauty yourself. To Ridgeon, much flustered. They’ve no manners: they think they can say what they like to me; and you set them on, you do. I’ll teach them their places. Here now: are you going to see that poor thing or are you not? | | Ridgeon | I tell you for the fiftieth time I won’t see anybody. Send her away. | | Emmy | Oh, I’m tired of being told to send her away. What good will that do her? | | Ridgeon | Must I get angry with you, Emmy? | | Emmy | Coaxing. Come now: just see her for a minute to please me: there’s a good boy. She’s given me half-a-crown. She thinks it’s life and death to her husband for her to see you. | | Ridgeon | Values her husband’s life at half-a-crown! | | Emmy | Well, it’s all she can afford, poor lamb. Them others think nothing of half-a-sovereign just to talk about themselves to you, the sluts! Besides, she’ll put you in a good temper for the day, because it’s a good deed to see her; and she’s the sort that gets round you. | | Ridgeon | Well, she hasn’t done so badly. For half-a-crown she’s had a consultation with Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington and Cutler Walpole. That’s six guineas’ worth to start with. I dare say she’s consulted Blenkinsop too: that’s another eighteenpence. | | Emmy | Then you’ll see her for me, won’t you? | | Ridgeon | Oh, send her up and be hanged. Emmy* trots out, satisfied. Ridgeon calls. Redpenny! | | Redpenny | Appearing at the door. What is it? | | Ridgeon | There’s a patient coming up. If she hasn’t gone in five minutes, come in with an urgent call from the hospital for me. You understand: she’s to have a strong hint to go. | | Redpenny | Right O! He vanishes. | | | Ridgeon goes to the glass, and arranges his tie a little. | | Emmy | Announcing. Mrs. Doobidad. Ridgeon leaves the glass and goes to the writing-table. | | | The lady comes in. Emmy goes out and shuts the door. Ridgeon, who has put on an impenetrable and rather distant professional manner, turns to the lady, and invites her, by a gesture, to sit down on the couch. | | | Mrs. Dubedat is beyond all demur an arrestingly good-looking young woman. She has something of the grace and romance of a wild creature, with a good deal of the elegance and dignity of a fine lady. Ridgeon, who is extremely susceptible to the beauty of women, instinctively assumes the defensive at once, and hardens his manner still more. He has an impression that she is very well dressed, but she has a figure on which any dress would look well, and carries herself with the unaffected distinction of a woman who has never in her life suffered from those doubts and fears as to her social position which spoil the manners of most middling people. She is tall, slender, and strong; has dark hair, dressed so as to look like hair and not like a bird’s nest or a pantaloon’s wig (fashion wavering just then between these two models); has unexpectedly narrow, subtle, dark-fringed eyes that alter her expression disturbingly when she is excited and flashes them wide open; is softly impetuous in her speech and swift in her movements; and is just now in mortal anxiety. She carries a portfolio. | | Mrs. Dubedat | In low urgent tones. Doctor⁠— | | Ridgeon | Curtly. Wait. Before you begin, let me tell you at once that I can do nothing for you. My hands are full. I sent you that message by my old servant. You would not take that answer. | | Mrs. Dubedat | How could I? | | Ridgeon | You bribed her. | | Mrs. Dubedat | I⁠— | | Ridgeon | That doesn’t matter. She coaxed me to see you. Well, you must take it from me now that with all the good will in the world, I cannot undertake another case. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Doctor: you must save my husband. You must. When I explain to you, you will see that you must. It is not an ordinary case, not like any other case. He is not like anybody else in the world: oh, believe me, he is not. I can prove it to you: fingering her portfolio I have brought some things to show you. And you can save him: the papers say you can. | | Ridgeon | What’s the matter? Tuberculosis? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Yes. His left lung⁠— | | Ridgeon | Yes: you needn’t tell me about that. | | Mrs. Dubedat | You can cure him, if only you will. It is true that you can, isn’t it? In great distress. Oh, tell me, please. | | Ridgeon | Warningly. You are going to be quiet and self-possessed, aren’t you? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Yes. I beg your pardon. I know I shouldn’t⁠—Giving way again. Oh, please, say that you can; and then I shall be all right. | | Ridgeon | Huffily. I am not a curemonger: if you want cures, you must go to the people who sell them. Recovering himself, ashamed of the tone of his own voice. But I have at the hospital ten tuberculous patients whose lives I believe I can save. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Thank God! | | Ridgeon | Wait a moment. Try to think of those ten patients as ten shipwrecked men on a raft⁠—a raft that is barely large enough to save them⁠—that will not support one more. Another head bobs up through the waves at the side. Another man begs to be taken aboard. He implores the captain of the raft to save him. But the captain can only do that by pushing one of his ten off the raft and drowning him to make room for the newcomer. That is what you are asking me to do. | | Mrs. Dubedat | But how can that be? I don’t understand. Surely⁠— | | Ridgeon | You must take my word for it that it is so. My laboratory, my staff, and myself are working at full pressure. We are doing our utmost. The treatment is a new one. It takes time, means, and skill; and there is not enough for another case. Our ten cases are already chosen cases. Do you understand what I mean by chosen? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Chosen. No: I can’t understand. | | Ridgeon | Sternly. You must understand. You’ve got to understand and to face it. In every single one of those ten cases I have had to consider, not only whether the man could be saved, but whether he was worth saving. There were fifty cases to choose from; and forty had to be condemned to death. Some of the forty had young wives and helpless children. If the hardness of their cases could have saved them they would have been saved ten times over. I’ve no doubt your case is a hard one: I can see the tears in your eyes she hastily wipes her eyes: I know that you have a torrent of entreaties ready for me the moment I stop speaking; but it’s no use. You must go to another doctor. | | Mrs. Dubedat | But can you give me the name of another doctor who understands your secret? | | Ridgeon | I have no secret: I am not a quack. | | Mrs. Dubedat | I beg your pardon: I didn’t mean to say anything wrong. I don’t understand how to speak to you. Oh, pray don’t be offended. | | Ridgeon | Again a little ashamed. There! there! never mind. He relaxes and sits down. After all, I’m talking nonsense: I daresay I am a quack, a quack with a qualification. But my discovery is not patented. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Then can any doctor cure my husband? Oh, why don’t they do it? I have tried so many: I have spent so much. If only you would give me the name of another doctor. | | Ridgeon | Every man in this street is a doctor. But outside myself and the handful of men I am training at St. Anne’s, there is nobody as yet who has mastered the opsonin treatment. And we are full up! I’m sorry; but that is all I can say. Rising. Good morning. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Suddenly and desperately taking some drawings from her portfolio. Doctor: look at these. You understand drawings: you have good ones in your waiting-room. Look at them. They are his work. | | Ridgeon | It’s no use my looking. He looks, all the same. Hallo! He takes one to the window and studies it. Yes: this is the real thing. Yes, yes. He looks at another and returns to her. These are very clever. They’re unfinished, aren’t they? | | Mrs. Dubedat | He gets tired so soon. But you see, don’t you, what a genius he is? You see that he is worth saving. Oh, doctor, I married him just to help him to begin: I had money enough to tide him over the hard years at the beginning⁠—to enable him to follow his inspiration until his genius was recognized. And I was useful to him as a model: his drawings of me sold quite quickly. | | Ridgeon | Have you got one? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Producing another. Only this one. It was the first. | | Ridgeon | Devouring it with his eyes. That’s a wonderful drawing. Why is it called Jennifer? | | Mrs. Dubedat | My name is Jennifer. | | Ridgeon | A strange name. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Not in Cornwall. I am Cornish. It’s only what you call Guinevere. | | Ridgeon | Repeating the names with a certain pleasure in them. Guinevere. Jennifer. Looking again at the drawing. Yes: it’s really a wonderful drawing. Excuse me; but may I ask is it for sale? I’ll buy it. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Oh, take it. It’s my own: he gave it to me. Take it. Take them all. Take everything; ask anything; but save him. You can: you will: you must. | | Redpenny | Entering with every sign of alarm. They’ve just telephoned from the hospital that you’re to come instantly⁠—a patient on the point of death. The carriage is waiting. | | Ridgeon | Intolerantly. Oh, nonsense: get out. Greatly annoyed. What do you mean by interrupting me like this? | | Redpenny | But⁠— | | Ridgeon | Chut! can’t you see I’m engaged? Be off. | | | Redpenny, bewildered, vanishes. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Rising. Doctor: one instant only before you go⁠— | | Ridgeon | Sit down. It’s nothing. | | Mrs. Dubedat | But the patient. He said he was dying. | | Ridgeon | Oh, he’s dead by this time. Never mind. Sit down. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Sitting down and breaking down. Oh, you none of you care. You see people die every day. | | Ridgeon | Petting her. Nonsense! it’s nothing: I told him to come in and say that. I thought I should want to get rid of you. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Shocked at the falsehood. Oh! | | Ridgeon | Continuing. Don’t look so bewildered: there’s nobody dying. | | Mrs. Dubedat | My husband is. | | Ridgeon | Pulling himself together. Ah, yes: I had forgotten your husband. Mrs. Dubedat: you are asking me to do a very serious thing. | | Mrs. Dubedat | I am asking you to save the life of a great man. | | Ridgeon | You are asking me to kill another man for his sake; for as surely as I undertake another case, I shall have to hand back one of the old ones to the ordinary treatment. Well, I don’t shrink from that. I have had to do it before; and I will do it again if you can convince me that his life is more important than the worst life I am now saving. But you must convince me first. | | Mrs. Dubedat | He made those drawings; and they are not the best⁠—nothing like the best; only I did not bring the really best: so few people like them. He is twenty-three: his whole life is before him. Won’t you let me bring him to you? won’t you speak to him? won’t you see for yourself? | | Ridgeon | Is he well enough to come to a dinner at the Star and Garter at Richmond? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Oh yes. Why? | | Ridgeon | I’ll tell you. I am inviting all my old friends to a dinner to celebrate my knighthood⁠—you’ve seen about it in the papers, haven’t you? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Yes, oh yes. That was how I found out about you. | | Ridgeon | It will be a doctors’ dinner; and it was to have been a bachelors’ dinner. I’m a bachelor. Now if you will entertain for me, and bring your husband, he will meet me; and he will meet some of the most eminent men in my profession: Sir Patrick Cullen, Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington, Cutler Walpole, and others. I can put the case to them; and your husband will have to stand or fall by what we think of him. Will you come? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Yes, of course I will come. Oh, thank you, thank you. And may I bring some of his drawings⁠—the really good ones? | | Ridgeon | Yes. I will let you know the date in the course of tomorrow. Leave me your address. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Thank you again and again. You have made me so happy: I know you will admire him and like him. This is my address. She gives him her card. | | Ridgeon | Thank you. He rings. | | Mrs. Dubedat | Embarrassed. May I⁠—is there⁠—should I⁠—I mean⁠—she blushes and stops in confusion. | | Ridgeon | What’s the matter? | | Mrs. Dubedat | Your fee for this consultation? | | Ridgeon | Oh, I forgot that. Shall we say a beautiful drawing of his favorite model for the whole treatment, including the cure? | | Mrs. Dubedat | You are very generous. Thank you. I know you will cure him. Goodbye. | | Ridgeon | I will. Goodbye. They shake hands. By the way, you know, don’t you, that tuberculosis is catching. You take every precaution, I hope. | | Mrs. Dubedat | I am not likely to forget it. They treat us like lepers at the hotels. | | Emmy | At the door. Well, deary: have you got round him? | | Ridgeon | Yes. Attend to the door and hold your tongue. | | Emmy | That’s a good boy. She goes out with Mrs. Dubedat*. | | Ridgeon | Alone. Consultation free. Cure guaranteed. He heaves a great sigh. |