Characters:

Place—The surgical amphitheatre in a hospital.

Time—Noon of a fair day.

Seats rising in curved tiers. The operating pit paved with white tiles. The usual operating table has been pushed to one side, and in place of it there is a small glass-topped bedside table. On it, a large roll of aseptic cotton, several pads of gauze, a basin of bichloride, a pair of clinical thermometers in a little glass of alcohol, a dish of green soap, a beaker of two per cent. carbolic acid, and a microscope. In one corner stands a sterilizer, steaming pleasantly like a tea kettle. There are no decorations—no flowers, no white ribbons, no satin cushions. To the left a door leads into the Anesthetic Room. A pungent smell of ether, nitrous oxide, iodine, chlorine, wet laundry and scorched gauze. Temperature: 98.6 degrees Fahr.

The Clergyman is discovered standing behind the table in an expectant attitude. He is in the long white coat of a surgeon, with his head wrapped in white gauze and a gauze respirator over his mouth. His chunkiness suggests a fat, middle-aged Episcopal rector, but it is impossible to see either his face or his vestments. He wears rubber gloves of a dirty orange color, evidently much used. The Bridegroom and The Best Man have just emerged from the Anesthetic Room and are standing before him. Both are dressed exactly as he is, save that The Bridegroom’s rubber gloves are white. The benches running up the amphitheatre are filled with spectators, chiefly women. They are in dingy oilskins, and most of them also wear respirators.

After a long and uneasy pause The Bride comes in from the Anesthetic Room on the arm of her Father, with the Four Bridesmaids following by twos. She is dressed in what appears to be white linen, with a long veil of aseptic gauze. The gauze testifies to its late and careful sterilization by yellowish scorches. There is a white rubber glove upon the Bride’s right hand, but that belonging to her left hand has been removed. Her Father is dressed like the Best Man. The Four Bridesmaids are in the garb of surgical nurses, with their hair completely concealed by turbans of gauze. As the Bride takes her place before the Clergyman, with the Bridegroom at her right, there is a faint, snuffling murmur among the spectators. It hushes suddenly as the Clergyman clears his throat.

The Clergyman

(In sonorous, booming tones, somewhat muffled by his respirator.) Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together in the face of this company to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is commended by God to be honorable among men, and therefore is not to be entered into inadvisedly or carelessly, or without due surgical precautions, but reverently, cleanly, sterilely, soberly, scientifically, and with the nearest practicable approach to bacteriological purity. Into this laudable and non-infectious state these two persons present come now to be joined and quarantined. If any man can show just cause, either clinically or microscopically, why they may not be safely sutured together, let him now come forward with his charts, slides and cultures, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.