Chapter Twenty-Two
Lewis gathered the morning’s mail out of the box let into the office door, and passing through the reception room, shut himself into his own office. He had let Petra out at the street entrance and then driven on to find a parking place for his car. She had come up ahead of him and would be in the dressing room now. He put the mail down on his desk and settled himself into his chair.
This was Tuesday, the morning Lewis gave to the clinic. But he must sort his mail first. He could not hear Petra come out of the dressing room and move around in the reception-office, but he was as conscious of all her motions out there beyond his shut door as if she were making them in his heart. He saw her looking down, glancing up, picking up the telephone. She must stop moving about in his consciousness....
He was here, alone, with the day’s work before him. Why, he needn’t even think about Petra if he didn’t want to, still less let her move about, looking up, looking down, picking up the telephone, through the very tissues of his heart.
But what was it Petra had said to McCloud that day of the miracle? Lewis knew it by heart, it was often in his mind; yet now he was groping for it confusedly! He put his head into his hands. Was this it?—“Love is the word. You must say that. Try to say ‘I love.’”
And McCloud had said it—while the shackles of hate and rebellion fell away and left him a free man—free in love. If Lewis’ shackles could only fall, as had Neil’s! If he could only love Petra and not hate her, then he would be able to bear, perhaps, not having her. And hatred of Petra seemed to make him hate everything else. What was even his work to him now! He was bored by the sight of this pile of letters. He was unnerved, paralyzed. But love does not unnerve and paralyze. It isn’t in its nature. Hate does that. Yes, if only he could say, as Neil had said, “I love!”
But how could he say it? How could an ordinary person like himself love as the saints love? Well, Neil was no saint and he had said it. But the Little Flower herself had helped Neil. She wasn’t helping Lewis. And why should she? Lord have mercy on him, a sinner!
Lewis lifted his head from his hands. He must get to work, anyway. That meant he must begin to use his mind—stop writhing! That was all his mind had done ever since he had seen that hot blush spread over Petra’s face. He and Petra had scarcely spoken to each other on the twenty-mile drive which had been made in less time than Lewis cared to remember now. What had he thought speed would do for the situation? But here was this bunch of mail. He’d got to concentrate. This was his life, his job, here under his hand. His plain duty.
Lewis tore open an envelope. Inside was a scrawl from Nelson, the brain surgeon, giving the hour set for a certain Eric Larsen’s operation. Nine-thirty, this morning. The chances of the man’s recovering were slim, Lewis knew, but there was no choice; an operation there must be. Lewis’ responsibility had ended, once he had passed the man on to Nelson, of course. But he had promised Eric Larsen to go with him to the operating room and stand by until the affair was over. Lewis had been at the hospital yesterday just before driving out to Meadowbrook; had spent the better part of an hour beside Larsen’s bed in the midst of the ward. That Larsen did not once rouse to the point of recognizing him had not made Lewis feel the time wasted. Who was he to say that the man’s consciousness—at some incommunicable level—was not aware of his friend at hand, sympathetic and hopeful for him. And when Larsen came out of ether this morning, if he did come out, it would be no strange, chance nurse whom his glance should meet, but the one person who knew all about his failures, his crimes,—and his hopes of regeneration: the only friend he laid claim to, Lewis himself.