"The story is rather too mystical to build a diagnosis upon," the doctor remarked, in a kind voice, drawing still nearer, and, as he could not take my hand, laying his own familiarly upon my knee.
"Then listen to this: A youth of nineteen loved a beautiful girl of about the same age--loved her passionately, as one loves at those years, especially, when solitude and romantic associations heighten the charm. He was deceived by the girl, and finally shamefully betrayed; and yet he never could forget her, and in the eight or nine years that follows his heart palpitated in his breast whenever he thought of her. And then an accident brought her to him again--just as he had expected to find her--a lost girl, who had been the mistress of I know not how many men. He cannot doubt it--indeed she tells him so herself--and yet while she tells him his heart throbs violently, and in his soul he longs to join the long train of his predecessors. And when she opens her arms he hastened to sink upon her breast in which there beats no heart. He plainly feels that no heart beats there; but a childish, an insane pity seizes him: he will warm this chilled heart again with the glow of his burning kisses, with his own heart's blood. And the phantom drinks his heart's blood--one, two, three nights; and when he wakes in the third, she has vanished as witches vanish, and the next night he sees her at the theatre coquetting with a young dandy, who drives home with her, while outside----"
"Stands the poor man, and beats his head with his fist, and tears out his hair by handfuls; we know all about that!" said Doctor Snellius, and softly patted my knee. "We know all about that," he repeated, touching me still more softly; "it is painful; but when a jaw-tooth with three long roots is pulled out, that is painful too, and so is the setting a broken arm. And I think the poor man whom I have just left is not in a frame of mind to be envied. It is a poor workman in your establishment; you doubtless know him; his name is Jacob Kraft, and he works, if I am not mistaken, in your shop. Well, his wife, a dear good woman, whom the young fellow had courted for many a long day, nine days ago bore a dead child, and now she lies dead herself, and by her bedside kneels poor Jacob and wishes that he had never been born. I do not think the poor fellow's feelings are to be envied. And young Frau Müller is not particularly happy either. Her husband left home this morning, well and cheerful, to go to his work on the new tramway, had his breast crushed in between two wagons, and will die to-night. Besides, my friend, we must all die, and 'after nine it will all be over,' as the manager of the theatre said when the pit hissed."
"Dying is not so much," I said; "I have more than once in my life wished to die, and thought it rather a greater thing that I did not, but kept on living this cursed life."
"And you did right, my friend," said the doctor.
"I am not sure," I replied, "if those Romans of whom I heard at school did not act both nobler and wiselier when they fell upon their swords so soon as the game was lost."
"Every one to his taste," said the doctor. "When a horse breaks his leg we shoot him; but with a man, we set it again; or, if it cannot be saved, cut it off and buckle on a leg of wood or cork, with which he hobbles on the remainder of his earthly pilgrimage. You have no idea, my friend, how little is really necessary to life: hardly more than head and heart. Yes, scarcely even that. You have, no doubt, yourself observed how many a man goes through life without a head; and that one can live with half a heart, or a quarter, I can testify from personal experience."
The doctor said this in a low, dejected tone of voice, as if talking to himself And he went on still, as if talking to himself, softly stroking my knee, and looking into the fire.
"Yes! with half a heart. It is not very easy or very pleasant living; one sometimes feels as if the breast would be crushed, or as if we must lie down just where we happen to be, and never rise up again. But we do get up again, and do some good, if not to ourselves to another whose shoe pinches him somewhere, and whom with our experience and our cobbler's skill we may possibly help. For, my friend, there are very few who are able to pull off their shoes, which in truth is not merely the best but the only way to be rid of all pain. So these people must be helped; and my life for many years has been but a pondering and study how this may be done on a large scale; for in a smaller sphere, as far as very limited private means can reach, I very well know what is to be done, and do all I can. Au revoir, my dear George: I still have a pair of old shoes to patch and a corn or two to trim."
Doctor Snellius gave me a friendly slap on the knee, clapped his worn hat on his bald head, turned in the door to give me an amicable nod, and left me alone.