The Doctor’s Dilemma · Act III (2/2) (2/3)

| Louis | I said all our money: hers and mine too. Her thirty pounds didn’t last three days. I had to borrow four times as much to spend on her. But I didn’t grudge it; and she didn’t grudge her few pounds either, the brave little lassie. When we were cleaned out, we’d had enough of it: you can hardly suppose that we were fit company for longer than that: I an artist, and she quite out of art and literature and refined living and everything else. There was no desertion, no misunderstanding, no police court or divorce court sensation for you moral chaps to lick your lips over at breakfast. We just said, Well, the money’s gone: we’ve had a good time that can never be taken from us; so kiss; part good friends; and she back to service, and I back to my studio and my Jennifer, both the better and happier for our holiday. | | Walpole | Quite a little poem, by George! | | B.B. | If you had been scientifically trained, Mr. Dubedat, you would know how very seldom an actual case bears out a principle. In medical practice a man may die when, scientifically speaking, he ought to have lived. I have actually known a man die of a disease from which he was, scientifically speaking, immune. But that does not affect the fundamental truth of science. In just the same way, in moral cases, a man’s behavior may be quite harmless and even beneficial, when he is morally behaving like a scoundrel. And he may do great harm when he is morally acting on the highest principles. But that does not affect the fundamental truth of morality. | | Sir Patrick | And it doesn’t affect the criminal law on the subject of bigamy. | | Louis | Oh bigamy! bigamy! bigamy! What a fascination anything connected with the police has for you all, you moralists! I’ve proved to you that you were utterly wrong on the moral point: now I’m going to show you that you’re utterly wrong on the legal point; and I hope it will be a lesson to you not to be so jolly cocksure next time. | | Walpole | Rot! You were married already when you married her; and that settles it. | | Louis | Does it! Why can’t you think? How do you know she wasn’t married already too? | | | All crying out together: | | B.B. | Walpole! Ridgeon! | | Ridgeon | This is beyond everything! | | Walpole | Well, damn me! | | Sir Patrick | You young rascal. | | Louis | Ignoring their outcry. She was married to the steward of a liner. He cleared out and left her; and she thought, poor girl, that it was the law that if you hadn’t heard of your husband for three years you might marry again. So as she was a thoroughly respectable girl and refused to have anything to say to me unless we were married I went through the ceremony to please her and to preserve her self-respect. | | Ridgeon | Did you tell her you were already married? | | Louis | Of course not. Don’t you see that if she had known, she wouldn’t have considered herself my wife? You don’t seem to understand, somehow. | | Sir Patrick | You let her risk imprisonment in her ignorance of the law? | | Louis | Well, I risked imprisonment for her sake. I could have been had up for it just as much as she. But when a man makes a sacrifice of that sort for a woman, he doesn’t go and brag about it to her; at least, not if he’s a gentleman. | | Walpole | What are we to do with this daisy? | | Louis | Impatiently. Oh, go and do whatever the devil you please. Put Minnie in prison. Put me in prison. Kill Jennifer with the disgrace of it all. And then, when you’ve done all the mischief you can, go to church and feel good about it. He sits down pettishly on the old chair at the easel, and takes up a sketching block, on which he begins to draw. | | Walpole | He’s got us. | | Sir Patrick | Grimly. He has. | | B.B. | But is he to be allowed to defy the criminal law of the land? | | Sir Patrick | The criminal law is no use to decent people. It only helps blackguards to blackmail their families. What are we family doctors doing half our time but conspiring with the family solicitor to keep some rascal out of jail and some family out of disgrace? | | B.B. | But at least it will punish him. | | Sir Patrick | Oh, yes: It’ll punish him. It’ll punish not only him but everybody connected with him, innocent and guilty alike. It’ll throw his board and lodging on our rates and taxes for a couple of years, and then turn him loose on us a more dangerous blackguard than ever. It’ll put the girl in prison and ruin her: It’ll lay his wife’s life waste. You may put the criminal law out of your head once for all: it’s only fit for fools and savages. | | Louis | Would you mind turning your face a little more this way, Sir Patrick. Sir Patrick turns indignantly and glares at him. Oh, that’s too much. | | Sir Patrick | Put down your foolish pencil, man; and think of your position. You can defy the laws made by men; but there are other laws to reckon with. Do you know that you’re going to die? | | Louis | We’re all going to die, aren’t we? | | Walpole | We’re not all going to die in six months. | | Louis | How do you know? | | | *This for B.B. is the last straw. He completely loses his temper and begins to walk excitedly about. | | B.B. | Upon my soul, I will not stand this. It is in questionable taste under any circumstances or in any company to harp on the subject of death; but it is a dastardly advantage to take of a medical man. Thundering at Dubedat. I will not allow it, do you hear? | | Louis | Well, I didn’t begin it: you chaps did. It’s always the way with the inartistic professions: when they’re beaten in argument they fall back on intimidation. I never knew a lawyer who didn’t threaten to put me in prison sooner or later. I never knew a parson who didn’t threaten me with damnation. And now you threaten me with death. With all your talk you’ve only one real trump in your hand, and that’s Intimidation. Well, I’m not a coward; so it’s no use with me. | | B.B. | Advancing upon him. I’ll tell you what you are, sir. You’re a scoundrel. | | Louis | Oh, I don’t mind you calling me a scoundrel a bit. It’s only a word: a word that you don’t know the meaning of. What is a scoundrel? | | B.B. | You are a scoundrel, sir. | | Louis | Just so. What is a scoundrel? I am. What am I? A scoundrel. It’s just arguing in a circle. And you imagine you’re a man of science! | | B.B. | I⁠—I⁠—I⁠—I have a good mind to take you by the scruff of your neck, you infamous rascal, and give you a sound thrashing. | | Louis | I wish you would. You’d pay me something handsome to keep it out of court afterwards. B.B., baffled, flings away from him with a snort. Have you any more civilities to address to me in my own house? I should like to get them over before my wife comes back. He resumes his sketching. | | Ridgeon | My mind’s made up. When the law breaks down, honest men must find a remedy for themselves. I will not lift a finger to save this reptile. | | B.B. | That is the word I was trying to remember. Reptile. | | Walpole | I can’t help rather liking you, Dubedat. But you certainly are a thoroughgoing specimen. | | Sir Patrick | You know our opinion of you now, at all events. | | Louis | Patiently putting down his pencil. Look here. All this is no good. You don’t understand. You imagine that I’m simply an ordinary criminal. | | Walpole | Not an ordinary one, Dubedat. Do yourself justice. | | Louis | Well you’re on the wrong tack altogether. I’m not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I don’t believe in morality. I’m a disciple of Bernard Shaw. | | Sir Patrick | Puzzled. Eh? | | B.B. | Waving his hand as if the subject was now disposed of. That’s enough, I wish to hear no more. | | Louis | Of course I haven’t the ridiculous vanity to set up to be exactly a Superman; but still, it’s an ideal that I strive towards just as any other man strives towards his ideal. | | B.B. | Intolerant. Don’t trouble to explain. I now understand you perfectly. Say no more, please. When a man pretends to discuss science, morals, and religion, and then avows himself a follower of a notorious and avowed anti-vaccinationist, there is nothing more to be said. Suddenly putting in an effusive saving clause in parenthesis to Ridgeon. Not, my dear Ridgeon, that I believe in vaccination in the popular sense any more than you do: I needn’t tell you that. But there are things that place a man socially; and anti-vaccination is one of them. He resumes his seat on the dais. | | Sir Patrick | Bernard Shaw? I never heard of him. He’s a Methodist preacher, I suppose. | | Louis | Scandalized. No, no. He’s the most advanced man now living: he isn’t anything. | | Sir Patrick | I assure you, young man, my father learnt the doctrine of deliverance from sin from John Wesley’s own lips before you or Mr. Shaw were born. It used to be very popular as an excuse for putting sand in sugar and water in milk. You’re a sound Methodist, my lad; only you don’t know it. | | Louis | Seriously annoyed for the first time. It’s an intellectual insult. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as sin. | | Sir Patrick | Well, sir, there are people who don’t believe there’s such a thing as disease either. They call themselves Christian Scientists, I believe. They’ll just suit your complaint. We can do nothing for you. He rises. Good afternoon to you. | | Louis | Running to him piteously. Oh don’t get up, Sir Patrick. Don’t go. Please don’t. I didn’t mean to shock you, on my word. Do sit down again. Give me another chance. Two minutes more: that’s all I ask. | | Sir Patrick | Surprised by this sign of grace, and a little touched. Well⁠—He sits down. | | Louis | Gratefully. Thanks awfully. | | Sir Patrick | Continuing. I don’t mind giving you two minutes more. But don’t address yourself to me; for I’ve retired from practice; and I don’t pretend to be able to cure your complaint. Your life is in the hands of these gentlemen. | | Ridgeon | Not in mine. My hands are full. I have no time and no means available for this case. | | Sir Patrick | What do you say, Mr. Walpole? | | Walpole | Oh, I’ll take him in hand: I don’t mind. I feel perfectly convinced that this is not a moral case at all: it’s a physical one. There’s something abnormal about his brain. That means, probably, some morbid condition affecting the spinal cord. And that means the circulation. In short, it’s clear to me that he’s suffering from an obscure form of blood-poisoning, which is almost certainly due to an accumulation of ptomaines in the nuciform sac. I’ll remove the sac⁠— | | Louis | Changing color. Do you mean, operate on me? Ugh! No, thank you. | | Walpole | Never fear: you won’t feel anything. You’ll be under an anaesthetic, of course. And it will be extraordinarily interesting. | | Louis | Oh, well, if it would interest you, and if it won’t hurt, that’s another matter. How much will you give me to let you do it? | | Walpole | Rising indignantly. How much! What do you mean? | | Louis | Well, you don’t expect me to let you cut me up for nothing, do you? | | Walpole | Will you paint my portrait for nothing? | | Louis | No; but I’ll give you the portrait when it’s painted; and you can sell it afterwards for perhaps double the money. But I can’t sell my nuciform sac when you’ve cut it out. | | Walpole | Ridgeon: did you ever hear anything like this! To Louis. Well, you can keep your nuciform sac, and your tubercular lung, and your diseased brain: I’ve done with you. One would think I was not conferring a favor on the fellow! He returns to his stool in high dudgeon. | | Sir Patrick | That leaves only one medical man who has not withdrawn from your case, Mr. Dubedat. You have nobody left to appeal to now but Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington. | | Walpole | If I were you, B.B., I shouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs. Let him take his lungs to the Brompton Hospital. They won’t cure him; but they’ll teach him manners. | | B.B. | My weakness is that I have never been able to say No, even to the most thoroughly undeserving people. Besides, I am bound to say that I don’t think it is possible in medical practice to go into the question of the value of the lives we save. Just consider, Ridgeon. Let me put it to you, Paddy. Clear your mind of cant, Walpole. | | Walpole | Indignantly. My mind is clear of cant. | | B.B. | Quite so. Well now, look at my practice. It is what I suppose you would call a fashionable practice, a smart practice, a practice among the best people. You ask me to go into the question of whether my patients are of any use either to themselves or anyone else. Well, if you apply any scientific test known to me, you will achieve a reductio ad absurdum. You will be driven to the conclusion that the majority of them would be, as my friend Mr. J. M. Barrie has tersely phrased it, better dead. Better dead. There are exceptions, no doubt. For instance, there is the court, an essentially social-democratic institution, supported out of public funds by the public because the public wants it and likes it. My court patients are hardworking people who give satisfaction, undoubtedly. Then I have a duke or two whose estates are probably better managed than they would be in public hands. But as to most of the rest, if I once began to argue about them, unquestionably the verdict would be, Better dead. When they actually do die, I sometimes have to offer that consolation, thinly disguised, to the family. Lulled by the cadences of his own voice, he becomes drowsier and drowsier. The fact that they spend money so extravagantly on medical attendance really would not justify me in wasting my talents⁠—such as they are⁠—in keeping them alive. After all, if my fees are high, I have to spend heavily. My own tastes are simple: a camp bed, a couple of rooms, a crust, a bottle of wine; and I am happy and contented. My wife’s tastes are perhaps more luxurious; but even she deplores an expenditure the sole object of which is to maintain the state my patients require from their medical attendant. The⁠—er⁠—er⁠—er⁠—suddenly waking up I have lost the thread of these remarks. What was I talking about, Ridgeon? | | Ridgeon | About Dubedat. | | B.B. | Ah yes. Precisely. Thank you. Dubedat, of course. Well, what is our friend Dubedat? A vicious and ignorant young man with a talent for drawing. | | Louis | Thank you. Don’t mind me. | | B.B. | But then, what are many of my patients? Vicious and ignorant young men without a talent for anything. If I were to stop to argue about their merits I should have to give up three-quarters of my practice. Therefore I have made it a rule not so to argue. Now, as an honorable man, having made that rule as to paying patients, can I make an exception as to a patient who, far from being a paying patient, may more fitly be described as a borrowing patient? No. I say No. Mr. Dubedat: your moral character is nothing to me. I look at you from a purely scientific point of view. To me you are simply a field of battle in which an invading army of tubercle bacilli struggles with a patriotic force of phagocytes. Having made a promise to your wife, which my principles will not allow me to break, to stimulate those phagocytes, I will stimulate them. And I take no further responsibility. He digs himself back in his seat exhausted. | | Sir Patrick | Well, Mr. Dubedat, as Sir Ralph has very kindly offered to take charge of your case, and as the two minutes I promised you are up, I must ask you to excuse me. He rises. | | Louis | Oh, certainly. I’ve quite done with you. Rising and holding up the sketch block. There! While you’ve been talking, I’ve been doing. What is there left of your moralizing? Only a little carbonic acid gas which makes the room unhealthy. What is there left of my work? That. Look at it. Ridgeon* rises to look at it. | | Sir Patrick | Who has come down to him from the throne. You young rascal, was it drawing me you were? | | Louis | Of course. What else? |