In truth, it was no time for such jests. Between hope and fear several more days passed away; with him the latter grew, the former waned, and, at last, vanished altogether; the eyes of the good patient man had become inflamed, and there remained no doubt that the operation had failed.
The state of mind to which our friend was reduced hereby, is not to be described; he was struggling against the deepest and worst kind of despair. For what was there now that he had not lost! In the first place, the warm thanks of one restored to sight—the noblest reward which a physician can enjoy; then the confidence of others similarly needing help; then his worldly credit, while the interruption of his peculiar practice would reduce his family to a helpless state. In short, we played the mournful drama of Job through from beginning to end, since the faithful Jung took himself the part of the reproving friends. He chose to regard this calamity as the punishment of his former faults; it seemed to him that in taking his accidental discovery of an eye-cure as a divine call to that business, he had acted wickedly and profanely; he reproached himself for not having thoroughly studied this highly important department, instead of lightly trusting his cures to good fortune; what his enemies had said of him recurred again to his mind; he began to doubt whether perhaps it was not all true? and it pained him the more deeply when he found that in the course of his life he had been guilty of that levity which is so dangerous to pious men, and also of presumption and vanity. In such moments he lost himself, and in whatever light we might endeavour to set the matter, we, at last, elicited from him only the rational and necessary conclusion that the ways of God are unsearchable.
My unceasing efforts to be cheerful, would have been more checked by Jung's visit, if I had not, according to my usual habit, subjected his state of mind to an earnest friendly examination, and explained it after my own fashion. It vexed me not a little to see my good mother so poorly rewarded for her domestic care and pains-taking, though she did not herself perceive it, with her usual equanimity and ever bustling activity. I was most pained for my father. On my account he, with a good grace, had enlarged what hitherto had been a strictly close and private circle, and at table especially, where the presence of strangers attracted familiar friends and even passing visitors, he liked to indulge in a merry, even paradoxical conversation, in which I put him in good humor and drew from him many an approving smile, by all sorts of dialectic pugilism: for I had an ungodly way of disputing everything, which, however, I pertinaciously kept up in every case so long only as he, who maintained the right, was not yet made perfectly ridiculous. During the last few weeks, however, this procedure was not to be thought of; for many very happy and most cheering incidents, occasioned by some successful secondary cures on the part of our friend, who had been made so miserable by the failure of his principal attempt, did not affect him, much less did they give his gloomy mood another turn.
Stilling's Jew Patient.
One incident in particular was most amusing. Among Jung's patients there was a blind old Jewish beggar, who had come from Isenburg to Frankfort, where in the extremity of wretchedness, he scarcely found a shelter, scarcely the meanest food and attendance; nevertheless his tough oriental nature helped him through and he was in raptures to find himself healed perfectly and without the least suffering. When asked if the operation pained him, he said, in his hyperbolical manner, "If I had a million eyes, I would let them all be operated upon, one after the other, for half a Kopfstück."[1] On his departure he acted quite as eccentrically in the Fahrgasse (or main thoroughfare); he thanked God, and in good old testament style, praised the Lord and the wondrous man whom He had sent. Shouting this he walked, slowly on through the long busy street towards the bridge. Buyers and sellers ran out of the shops, surprised by this singular exhibition of pious enthusiasm, passionately venting itself before all the world, and he excited their sympathy to such a degree, that, without asking anything, he was amply furnished with gifts for his travelling expenses.
This lively incident, however, could hardly be mentioned in our circle; for though the poor wretch, with all his domestic misery, in his sandy home beyond the Main, could still be counted extremely happy; the man of wealth and dignity on this side of the river, for whom we were most interested, had missed the priceless relief so confidently expected.
It was sickening, therefore, to our good Jung to receive the thousand guilders, which, being stipulated in any case, were honorably paid by the high-minded sufferer. This ready money was destined to liquidate, on his return, a portion of the debts, which added their burden to other sad and unhappy circumstances.
And so he went off inconsolable, for he could not help thinking of his meeting with his care-worn wife, the changed manner of her parents, who, as sureties for so many debts of this too confiding man, might, however well-wishing, consider they had made a great mistake in the choice of a partner for their daughter. In this and that house, from this and that window, he could already see the scornful and contemptuous looks of those who even when he was prospering, had wished him no good; while the thought of a practice interrupted by his absence, and likely to be materially damaged by his failure, troubled him extremely.
And so we took our leave of him, not without all hope on our parts; for his strong nature, sustained by faith in supernatural aid, could not but inspire his friends with a quiet and moderate confidence.