Olympian Nights Part 10

"Humph!" said I, incredulous. "I never knew that the operation for appendicitis was a mind cure."

"It is--frequently," observed the doctor. "There are more people, my friend, who have appendicitis on their minds than there are those who have it in their vermiforms. Don't forget that."

It was a revelation, and, to tell the truth, it has been a revelation of comfort ever since.

"I fancy, doctor," said I, after a pause, "that you are a Christian Scientist. All troubles are fanciful and indicative of a perverse soul."

aesculapius flushed.

"If one of the G.o.ds had said that," he replied, "I should have operated upon him. As a mortal, you are privileged to say unpleasant things, just as a child may say things to his elders with impunity which merit extreme punishment. Christian Science is all right when you are truly well--in good physical condition. It is a sure cure for imaginary troubles, but when you are really sick, it is not of Olympus, but of Hades."

aesculapius spoke with all the pa.s.sion of a mortal, and I was embarra.s.sed. "I did not mean to say anything unpleasant, doctor," said I.

"That's all right, my lad," said aesculapius, patting me on the back.

"I knew that. If I hadn't known it, you'd have been on the table by this time. And now, good-bye. Curb your imagination. Think about others. Don't worry about yourself without cause, and never send for a doctor unless you know there's something wrong. If I had my way you mortals would be deprived of imagination. That is your worst disease, and if at any time you wish yours amputated, come to me and I'll fix you out."

"Thanks, doctor," I replied; "but I don't think I'll accept your offer, because I need my imagination in my business."

And then, realizing that I had received my _conge_, I prepared to depart.

"How much do I owe you, doctor?" I asked, putting my hand into the pocket of my gown, confident of finding whatever I should need.

"Nothing," said he. "The real physician can never be paid. He either restores your health or he does not. If he restores your health, he saves your life, and he is ent.i.tled to what your life is worth. If he does not restore your health--he has failed, and is ent.i.tled to nothing. All you have will never pay your doctor for what he does for you. Therefore, go in peace."

I stood abashed in the presence of this wise man, and, as I went forth from his office, I realized the truth of what he had said. In our own world we place a value upon the service of the man who carries us over the hard and the dark places. Yet who can really repay him for all that he does for us when by his skill alone we are rescued from peril?

I re-entered my sedan-chair and set the blackies off again, with something potent in my mind--how much I truly owed to the good man who has taken at times the health of my children, of my wife, of myself, in his hands and has seen us safely through to port. I have not yet been able to estimate it, but if ever he reads these lines, he will know that I pay him in grat.i.tude that which the world with all its wealth cannot give.

"Now for the Zoo, boys," I cried. "aesculapius has fixed me up."

And we scampered on.

VIII

At the Zoo

We had not travelled far from the office of aesculapius when my little carriers turned from the broad and beautiful corridor into a narrow pa.s.sage, through which they proceeded with some difficulty until we reached the other side of this strangely constructed home of the G.o.ds.

As we emerged into the light of day, the view that presented itself was indescribably beautiful. I have looked from our own hills at home upon many a scene of grandeur. From the mountain peaks of New Hamps.h.i.+re, with the sun streaming down upon me, I have looked upon the valleys beneath through rifts in clouds that had not ventured so high, and were drenching the glorious green below with refres.h.i.+ng rains, and have stood awed in the presence of one of the simplest moods of nature. But the sight that greeted my eyes as I pa.s.sed along that exterior road of Olympus, under the genial auspices of those wonderful G.o.ds, appealed to something in my soul which had never before been awakened, and which I shall never be able adequately to describe. The mere act of seeing seemed to be uplifting, and, from the moment I looked downward upon the beloved earth, I ceased to wonder that G.o.ds were G.o.dlike--indeed, my real wonder was that they were not more so. It seemed difficult to believe that there was anything earthly about earth. The world was idealized even to myself, who had never held it to be a bad sort of place. There were rich pastures, green to the most soul-satisfying degree, upon which cattle fed and lived their lives of content; here and there were the great cities of earth seen through a haze that softened all their roughness; nothing sordid appeared; only the fair side of life was visible.

And I began to see how it came about that these Olympian G.o.ds had lost control over man. If the world, with all its joys and all its miseries, presents to the controlling power merely its joyous side, what sympathy can one look for in one's deity? There was Paris and Notre Dame in the sunlight. But the Morgue at the back of Notre Dame--in the shadow of its sunlit towers--that was not visible to the eye of the casual G.o.d who drove his blackamoors along that entrancing roadway. There was London and the inspiring pile of Westminster showing up its majestic top, lit by the wondrous light of the sun--but still undiscovered of the G.o.ds there rolled on its farther side the Thames, dark as the Styx, a very grave of ambition, yet the last solace of many a despairing soul. London Bridge may tell the G.o.ds of much that may not be seen from that glorious driveway along the exterior of Olympus.

I found myself growing maudlin, and I pulled myself together.

"Magnificent view, Sammy," said I.

"Ya.s.sir," he replied, trotting along faithfully. "Da.s.s what dey all says. _I_ 'ain't nebber seen it. 'Ain't got time to look at it."

"Well, stop a moment and look," said I. "Isn't it magnificent?"

The blackies stopped and looked.

"Putty good," said Sammy, "but I doan' care fo' views," he added. "Dey makes me dizzy."

I gave Sammy up from that moment. He was well carved, a work of art, in fact, but he was essentially modern, and I was living in the antique.

"Hustle along to the Zoo," I cried, with some impatience, and I was truly "hustled."

"Here we is," said Sammy, settling down on his haunches at the end of a five-mile trot. "Dis is it."

We had stopped before a gate not entirely unlike those the j.a.panese erect before popular places of amus.e.m.e.nt they frequent.

I descended from the chair and was greeted by an attendant who demanded to know what I wished to see.

"The animals," said I.

He laughed. "Well," he said, "I'll show you what I've got, but truly most of them have gone off on vacation."

"Is the Trojan Horse here?" I demanded.

"No," said he. "He's in the repair shop. One of his girders is loose, and the hinges on his door rusted and broke last week. His interior needs painting, and his left hind-leg has been wobbly for a long time.

It was really dangerous to keep him longer without repairs."

I was much disappointed. In visiting the Olympian Zoo I was largely impelled by a desire to see the Trojan Horse and compare him with the Coney Island Elephant, which, with the summer hotels of New Jersey and the Statue of Liberty, at that time dominated the minor natural glories of the American coast in the eyes of pa.s.sengers on in-coming steams.h.i.+ps. I think I should even have ventured a ride in his capacious interior despite what Sammy had said of his friskiness and the peril of his action to persons susceptible to sea-sickness.

"Too bad," said I, swallowing my disappointment as best I could.

"Still, you have other attractions. How about the Promethean vulture?

Is he still living?"

"Unfortunately, no," said the attendant. "He was taken out last year and killed. Got too proud to live. He put in a complaint about his food. Said Prometheus was a very interesting man, but as a diet he was monotonous and demanded a more diversified _menu_. Said he'd like to try Apollo and a Muse or two, for a little while, and preferred Cupids on toast for Sunday-night tea."

"What a vulturian vulture!" said I.

"Wasn't he?" laughed the attendant. "We replied by wringing his neck, and served him up in a chicken salad to a party of tourists from Hades."

This struck me as reasonable, and I said so.

"Well, whatever you happen to have on hand will satisfy me," I added.

"Just let me see what animals you have and I'll be content."

"Very well," replied the attendant. "Step this way."

He took me along a charming pathway bordered with many a beautiful tree and adorned with numerous flowers of wondrous fragrance.

"This path is not without interest," he said; "all the trees and shrubs have a history. That laurel over there, for instance, used to be a Daphne. She and Jupiter had a row and he planted her over there.