These words he accompanied with the same glance of intense fear. I saw at once where the secret lay; but the poor wife stared with glaring eyes, as if she had seen a spectre. She understood nothing; but she watched her husband's eye, and she had never seen there such a wild light before. Argument in such cases is altogether hors d'œuvre, or rather it does much injury, and my course lay in a direction entirely opposite. I had first the precise vitreous locality to discover, which could be done only by an expression of belief of his extraordinary condition.
"Calm yourself," said I; "we will deal with you quietly. Which is the dangerous part?"
I laid my hand between his shoulders, and the bedclothes shook with the tremor of his limbs.
"I never can sit more upon this earth,"[1] he cried, and then paused and sighed. "My occupation's gone," he continued, in the same trembling, choking voice. "Merciful powers, what is to become of one of my profession, if he cannot sit without a crash? Do I not make my bread sitting? and yet, sir, I put it to you—I put it to you who know the strength of a window pane—how can I sit? how can I ever earn a livelihood for that weeping wife? Terrible! terrible!"
His wife, still at a loss for an explanation, looked into my face, where she saw the gravity of a philosophic doctor contemplating one of the miseries of his fellow-creatures, and, besides, interested scientifically in the case before me—one of partial vitrification, where the seat of the fancied transmutation was curiously connected with the prior habits of the individual. The case was serious; and, though I did not wish, by an expression of my real apprehensions, to frighten the poor woman, I could not belie my feelings, by assuming any appearance of carelessness, far less of levity, which I did not in sincerity feel. I could do nothing for the invalid in the position in which he now was, and left him, to consider what plan I should fall upon to dispossess him of this false belief, which, with all the determination and perversity of his complaint, had taken a firm hold of his mind.
Next morning, the patient's wife called upon me, and stated that she had got alarmed at the state of her husband, in consequence of his extraordinary conduct when she endeavoured to get his couch spread up for their night's repose. On taking hold of him, though she did it in the gentlest manner possible, with a view to assist him out of the bed, he screamed out that she was breaking him to fragments, with such vociferation that the neighbours flocked in, to ascertain what was the cause. She could give no proper explanation; for, although she had already got some insight into the nature of the disease, she felt ashamed to exhibit the weakness of her husband; but he, who felt no delicacy on the subject, accused her, with tears in his eyes, of an intention to break him into pieces; called her a cruel woman, and appealed to several of those present whether it was reasonable to suppose that a person who had a part of his body made of glass could be safely handled in the rough manner in which the careless and temerarious woman had begun to touch and move him from the only safe position he could ever enjoy on earth. The poor woman wept as she told me that his speech was received by the neighbours with a loud laugh. I sympathised with her, and told her, with much grave and real sincerity, that I would do everything I could for her husband; and in the meantime recommended her again to try to get him out of bed by the hour of twelve, when I would call and see him, and try some remedy for him.
I called accordingly, but found that the wife's efforts had proved unavailing; he was still in bed on his face, and murmuring strong and bitter reproaches against his helpmate, whom he eyed with an expression of mixed anger and terror.
"Is it not horrible, sir," he vociferated, "that a woman should attempt to take the life of her husband? Say, as a Christian and a man, if I ought not to be handled in a manner suitable to the nature of the substance of which a part of my body is composed? Heavens! 'tis dreadful to be damaged irretrievably by the hands of one who should treat me more softly than others. Ha! my queen, you wish to get quit of me!—but I shall guard the vital and brittle parts from your evil intention. My hands and arms are still of flesh and blood."
I tried to convince him that his wife had no evil intention towards him; but he continued to throw at her wild glances, in which there was apparent, however, much more terror than anger. I tried him on the question of rising; but he fixed his eye upon my face with a piteous expression, and said, in a calm, serious tone—
"Would you, sir, rise if you were in my position, with the danger staring you in the face of being crushed or broken by the first hard substance you came against. What would be my consolation in having the most important part of the body—at least to men of my profession—picked up in fragments, and laid in my coffin?"