It must have arisen, I suppose, from the mental confusion under which I laboured that I can give no very lucid account of what immediately followed. I cannot tell at what period of the evening the silent current of our several thoughts flowed into a stream of conversation. But I reproduce here the substance of Dr. Wygram’s narrative, in his own words, as far as possible, omitting some details not germane to the narrative.
“My son,” commenced Dr. Wygram, “inherited his mother’s malady, that which in her case proved fatal, pulmonary consumption. The unmistakable symptoms developed themselves in him at an early age. All the so-called remedies had been tried without avail. Humanly speaking, my boy was doomed, my house was apparently to be left unto me desolate. At first I was in despair, a despair lightened to me at last, however, by a gleam of hope. You are aware that I have devoted my life to the study rather than the practice of medicine. Being untrammelled with regular avocations, I have been enabled to explore, more fully than many of my professional brethren, what may be called the by-paths of study—those less explored tracks which are open to the medical scientist who is, by training, a chemist as well. The practice of scientific medicine, among us in this country, at all events, is in its infancy, although many, whose interest it is to conceal the fact, will assure you to the contrary. If any proof were needed of my assertion, the lame and halting methods in use at the present day would suffice. The insufferable greed for money so shamelessly manifested renders the modern practitioner only a better-class charlatan. Their failures are so gross, their expedients to conceal these failures so unblushing, that I have long recommended an adoption by the public of the Chinese system. The far-seeing Celestials only pay their medical adviser when they are perfectly well. When they fall sick his pay stops till he can restore them to health.
“But there is a second, and a higher path, known only to a few, and these enthusiasts, careless of the rewards of the crowd. It is but a dim and perilous way at the best—it is easier to deride those who attempt to traverse it than to follow them. The herd of the profession eschew it for the most part. Present-day materialists will have nothing, accept nothing, which cannot be seen, tasted, handled, brayed in a mortar, fitting fate for themselves as purblind fools! See how reluctantly, how incredulously, the results of even such a coarsely unmistakable remedy as electricity are received by the profession. Yet electrical energy, in medicine, is a clumsy weapon compared with others in the armoury of transcendentalism. There are blades infinitely keener for the expert—viewless brands, wielded by few—the peerless Excalibur itself, known to still fewer—for its point of a truth turneth every way, to guard the path to the Tree of Life.” Here he shuddered, but after a pause went on: “These higher methods have their risks, their inseparable dangers. Remember that experiment must at last be made upon the living, human, subject. Demonstration upon a score of tortured puppies will not avail. Is it a wonder that the crude experimentalist, great at the torture trough, and brave in its cruelties, recoils when the higher issue is at stake? But as I said, my boy was doomed, save, as I hoped, in the last resort of transcendentalism. That last resort I tried, but not until numberless trials in the laboratory had convinced me that my method must avail. I had discounted every possibility of failure. So long did I delay that the lamp of life had almost, with him, burned to the socket. But I was wary; I knew well that the step I was about to take was an irrevocable one, and my chief anxiety was to prevent a possible miscarriage of consequences. My plan, in short, promised to secure for one, already within sight of death’s portal, a lease of life prolonged—by how many months or years I could not tell—that question lay in darkness, but at least prolonged beyond what I could reasonably expect considering his condition. A growth of new vital force—which yet was not a growth—everything pointed the other way, let me say a stock, was to be grafted into the decaying and wasting organism, permanent in its character, constant, without flux or reflux. But (ah! that but which mars all that blooms and hopes!), like all gifts added from without, unlike all properties resident within, it, the gift, had an imperfection, a strange, deadly, and irremediable fault. It grew not, progressed not, aged not (do not start!); and this, its thrice-accursed property, was so malignantly, so devilishly potent, beyond hope of elimination or reduction, that it subdued unto itself whatsoever it touched or joined. Life preserved under its influence would be preserved, not in activity but as it were in arrestment, in default of needed repair, or rather with a subtle supply and repair of its own so elusive as to evade detection.
“Thus,” continued Dr. Wygram—”thus, with all my caution, I erred—erred as all do, misled by some devil’s wile, who work against the gods. Fool that I was, my own caution deceived me, and that lying legend of him who sought for immortality, but forgot the advent of old age. But it is past now; others would have slipped on that insuperable threshold where I fell. I exulted in the thought that my boy would drink of the water of life and so defy the killing years—but I forgot that he was not yet a man—knew not that I was condemning him to a life of immaturity. Hurry misled me at the last. Before I knew it, he was almost gone—then I took the irrevocable step. It was well that I worked in secret. No eye but mine saw him as (oh, wondrous change!) he rose from his sick-bed with an assured gift of life in every limb and pulse, so sudden and startling that I dreaded the coming of life’s angel almost as much as I had the advent of him of death. For a time, I say, I would almost, unknowing, have undone that which had been done—but that stage passed, and I only watched and waited.”
Dr. Wygram paused. Was it fancy that as he did so I thought I heard a light footstep in the room above us? The speaker did not seem to notice it, but went on:—
“For a time I knew no fear, that I had erred I did not know, as yet. For months he advanced in growth towards manhood. Then the spell began to work its hellish will. As he was then, as he is now, so will he ever be. A blight fell upon him, a chill mildew rained itself upon the issues of his life. A true death in life is his, for life hasteth to fruition and then falls; but this existence, with which I have dowered him, continues changeless, dateless, ageless, as the years of the Everlasting. I tell thee,” screamed the father, as he sprang to his feet in a frenzy of uncontrollable horror—”I tell thee my boy will never die!”
Overmastered by the contagion of his excitement, I too had risen from my seat. As we faced each other in silence, a breathing murmur rose on the air, formless at first, then died away. Again a hushed murmur, then a crash of chords from an instrument in the room above. He of whom we spoke was playing Chopin’s “Marche Funèbre.”