“Finally I was discharged from my office of district physician. I appealed to the National Medical Association, which in its turn appealed to the highest authorities. The town council and the sanitary commission were both dissolved by the governor of the province, the mayor was removed from office, my own dismissal revoked, and an escort of gendarmes despatched to the town to protect me and mine from violence. The trouble was that my situation was as bad as ever. The government could protect me from bodily hurt, but it could neither give me back my practice nor force my old patients to pay what they owed me. I was ruined. In the course of five months I brought twenty-one suits of slander and won every case. But I was more discouraged each time. It became clear that I could not stay at Riedberg. But where was I to go—a country doctor without private means, with a wife and children and, a feeble, aged mother to support? How was I to silence the slanderers, wash off the stain, and heal the inner hurt? I had no friend there who could lend me support; from the consolations of my wife there came to me only the voice of her own despair.
“I broke down completely. For eleven months I lay in a hospital. With unexampled energy my wife was busy during this period founding a new home for us and finding a new field of activity for me. I received permission to practise in Germany, and began life anew. Although I had lost faith both in my own powers and in mankind, my soul gradually grew calm again. Our circumstances are the most modest; but in this great city it is possible to be alone and to prevent the interference of strangers. For a long time I could practise my profession only if I forgot that my patients were human. I had to regard them as mechanisms that were to be repaired. Their pain and sorrow I passed over, and I hated to notice either. Do you understand that? Do you understand my coldness and contempt?”
“After all your experiences I can well understand it,” Christian answered. “But I believe your standpoint is no longer the same. Am I right? It seems to me that a change has taken place in you.”
“Yes, a change has taken place,” Dr. Voltolini admitted. “And it began——” He stopped and cast an unobtrusive glance at his companion. After a pause he said timidly: “Why did you smile that day when the Schirmacher girl showed you her ring? Do you remember? You may, of course, reply: it was natural to smile, for the stone which delighted her so was quite worthless, and yet to disillusion her would have been cruel. And yet your smile didn’t express that. It expressed something else.”
Christian said: “I really don’t remember precisely. I do remember the ring and the girl’s pleasure in it, but I can’t tell you to-day just why I smiled. It would have been better, by the way, if the girl had been less happy. A few days later she lost the ring, and the poor thing cried for hours. It would have been better if I had said to her: ‘Neither the ring nor the stone is worth anything.’ I should have told her to throw it away. On such occasions it is almost always better to say to people, ‘Throw it away.’ Perhaps I smiled because that is what I wanted to say and didn’t have the courage.”
“That’s how it looked,” Dr. Voltolini said quickly and with a touch of excitement. “That’s the impression I had.”
“Why speak of it?” Christian said.
They had reached the house on Stolpische Street. Niels Heinrich, who had followed them, disappeared among the vehicles on the street.
Dr. Voltolini looked at the pavement, and said with embarrassment and hesitation: “You could do a great deal for me in the sense you suggested, if I might call on you every now and then. It sounds strange and like a confession of weakness, coming from a man of my years to one of yours. I can’t justify my request, but I know I should be helped. I would get on and be more reconciled to my fate and work harder at the re-establishment of my life.” His eyes were turned tensely to Christian’s face.
Christian lowered his head, and after some reflection answered: “Your request is very flattering. I should be glad to serve you; I hope I may. But in order not to put you off with empty phrases, I should tell you that I shall be deeply preoccupied in the immediate future—not only inwardly, I am always that, but outwardly too. I am confronted with a difficult task—a terribly difficult task.”