Born Again Part 7

"No, this is the month of March," replied she.

"March!" exclaimed I. "Great heavens, how the time has flown! Why, that is about three months that I have known absolutely nothing. Let's see, it was December 5th that I was thrown overboard, and it must have been December 7th that Arletta died. That's right, December 7, 1881-I shall always remember that date and keep it holy. It must be now March, 1882."

"Why, Mr. Convert, you are certainly dreaming," responded she, "this the year 1903, not 1882. But how strange that you should get so mixed in the dates-December 7, 1881, was the day I was born. That was over twenty-one years ago, instead of three months, as you fancy."

At this juncture the red-whiskered individual came forward and said: "It seems to be a hopeless case, Miss. He has talked in that same strain ever since he came here. Perhaps after his fever abates somewhat he may regain his equanimity, but to me it looks as if his mind will always be unbalanced. He has a nasty scar right over the temporal region, which portends ill for his future reason. Perhaps it would be better not to talk to him any further at present. He is awfully weak, and appears more excited than usual. You have evidently made some impression upon him, however, and if you would visit him every few days he might eventually be able to recognize you, which would have a strong tendency to set him mentally straight again."

"Very well," said she, hesitatingly, as if not anxious to go. "May I call and see him tomorrow, Doctor?"

"There are only three visiting days here each week, Miss; Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, between the hours of three and four P. M. But any time you call, if you will ask at the office for Doctor Savage, that is my name, I shall consider it a pleasant duty to render you any service within my power," replied he, looking at her with unsuppressed admiration, of which she apparently took no notice. Then continuing, he said, "Would you kindly give me your card that I may know your full name in case you call at other times than the regular visiting hours?"

She opened her pocket book as if to take out a card, stopped and reflected a moment, and then said, "Well, never mind my last name; just remember me as Arletta," and before I could collect my wits sufficiently to voice my agitated thoughts they pa.s.sed from the room together.

CHAPTER XXIV

As I lay musing over the strange occurrences recorded in the previous chapter, and wondering whether my entire life was a reality or merely a peculiar dream, one of the white-capped nurses strode up to the side of my bed and without the slightest warning roughly pushed a little gla.s.s tube in my mouth. Not knowing whether she wanted me to swallow it or was merely trying to puncture a hole in my tongue, I put it out again and asked what she intended doing.

"Now look here," said she, in an irritated way, "I have about lost all patience with you, and unless you do as I tell you hereafter I shall have the orderly punish you again."

"But," said I, in amazement, "you have not mentioned yet what you would have me do."

"I have told you fully a hundred times to put this thermometer under your tongue and keep it there," replied she, exhibiting considerable temper, as she viciously jammed it once more into my mouth and twisted it under my tongue. "You are about the biggest chump that ever came into this hospital," continued she, grasping my wrist as though she intended breaking it and simultaneously taking my pulse and temperature.

A few moments later she jerked the thermometer from my mouth, glanced at it hurriedly and then entered a record upon a chart suspended from the head of my bed. Then calling one of the male attendants, she instructed him to fill the tub preparatory to giving me an ice bath. This attendant went to the corner of the room from whence he secured a bath tub on wheels, which he pushed over to the side of my bed. The tub was already partly filled with water, and I afterward learned that owing to the laziness and filthiness of the attendants, the same water was often used over and over again for the different typhoid patients. I observed that this attendant, who was otherwise called an orderly, was about as ignorant and degraded a specimen of humanity as a much boasted civilization could possibly breed.

He was about six feet tall, round-shouldered, knock-kneed, and weighed about two hundred pounds of flabby flesh, mostly covered by filthy garments. His head was pyramidal in shape, and covered by a ma.s.s of unkempt red hair. He had practically no forehead. His eyes were dull and bloodshot. His nose was flat and bent to one side, and his whole face was covered with pimples. His mouth was wide and beastly, and filled with tobacco. His mustache was irregular, and dyed almost to the roots by tobacco juice. His breath was odoriferous with fumes of whiskey, cigarettes, and foul stomach disorders, causing a poisonous stench to pollute the surrounding atmosphere. One could not look upon him without a feeling of sickening disgust. He was a twentieth century American civilized Christian. He was not, of course, the highest type of a civilized Christian, but nevertheless he was of a high enough order for a Christian community to breed, rear, and put in charge of its sick and unfortunate members. As he pushed the tub along he carelessly allowed it to strike the end of my bed, which gave me a shock as though I had been pierced by a thousand daggers, causing an involuntary groan to escape from my lips.

"Shut up there, you old duffer," said he, looking at me in a stupid, expressionless sort of a way, "you are not hurt yet. I'll give you something to cry about if you don't quit making such a fuss over nothing. You're the biggest baby I ever saw."

Having fixed the tub in position, put some pieces of ice into the water, and adjusted a small portable part.i.tion around my bed, which obstructed the view of the other patients, he called for the a.s.sistance of another attendant, and began preparations to put me into the tub. As they uncovered me, I glanced down at my emaciated form and was astounded at my own appearance. Nothing now remained of the once muscular and powerful frame I had always felt so proud of, but sickly looking skin and bones. Raising my arm to the level of my eyes I discovered that it was shriveled, and ghastly to behold, and it fell back to my side with a sickening thud for the want of strength to remain erect. It seemed as if a great fiery furnace was located within me and that I was fairly burning alive. Ten thousand different pains were shooting back and forth in every part of my body, but the most excruciating of all was a terrible pain in the center of my back, which caused me to think that my spinal column had been dislocated. And then as if all of the tortures of a refined civilization had suddenly been thrust upon me, as though some supernatural h.e.l.lish agency was instrumental in causing me to go the full limit of human suffering, those two devilish orderlies took hold of me, one by the head and the other by the feet, and without any leverage whatever to break the strain upon my backbone, they raised and then dumped me into the tub of ice-water below. I had always considered myself invulnerable to bodily pain, and from early youth had schooled myself against outward manifestation of suffering, no matter what the circ.u.mstances might be, but on this occasion the power of resistance deserted me entirely and I gave vent to a howl, of rage like the bellowing of a maddened bull, and partly arising, endeavored to clutch the throat of the unfeeling beast at my head, but too weak to accomplish my purpose I fell back into the tub exhausted. At the same time the orderly took hold of my own throat and almost strangling me, beat my head against the tub several times cursing me under his breath in the vilest of language at the same time.

"Look out you don't kill him," cautioned the other orderly at the foot of the tub, "or we might have to go through another of those d.a.m.ned investigations."

Just then the doctor and nurse came within the inclosure, and inquired as to the cause of the commotion.

"This d.a.m.ned idiot has broken loose again, and I am teaching him how to behave himself," replied the orderly.

"Well, he certainly needs a lesson in good behavior," chimed in the nurse; "I cannot understand why he has not been sent over to the Island for more strenuous treatment long ago."

"Why don't you do as told?" inquired the be-whiskered Dr. Savage, in a harsh tone of voice, as he approached close to me, but I was too weak and exhausted to answer, and merely looked from one to the other with the utmost feeling of contempt. After censuring me sternly and advising me to behave myself in the future, the doctor strolled away as if such incidents were of trifling importance.

I was kept in that tub of ice-water, freezing, for fifteen minutes, while the nurse and orderlies lazily rubbed my arms, legs, and trunk, and poured pitcher after pitcher of ice-water over my head, in an effort to reduce the fever. It was a barbarous method of treatment, and seemed of several hours' duration, but it allayed that intense burning sensation, and put new life and vigor into me. As they were about to transfer me back to the bed again, I quietly informed the nurse that my back was in a terrible condition, and requested that the orderlies be instructed to handle me a little more carefully, and to take hold of my body instead of my head and feet when lifting me up, so that the strain would be less on the middle of my back.

"There is nothing the matter with your back," snapped she. "I have told you many times before that you only imagine your back hurts.

Furthermore, we understand our business without any advice from you."

And with this rejoinder, the orderlies once more took hold of my head and heels, and after much tugging and twisting, managed to lift me up into the bed. This time the pain seemed even greater to bear than before, but, summoning all my will power, I managed to take the brutal treatment in silence, and said no more. Back upon the bed again, s.h.i.+vering and shaking with cold as though my bones would break, I was covered with heavy blankets, and shortly afterwards fell asleep, thoroughly exhausted, and feeling a.s.sured beyond a doubt that I had once more returned to civilization.

CHAPTER XXV

It is not my intention to give a full description of hospital life as it came under my personal observation, nor to recount the many cruel acts or cases of stupid negligence on the part of the house staff as perpetrated upon myself and other patients, during my stay in the Ruff Hospital as a ward patient, as to do the subject justice would require at least a volume in itself. Neither is it my desire to hold responsible any particular person or persons for the existence of such a barbarous state of affairs, in which degraded wretches inflict punishment upon the sick, knowing that this is but one of the logical results bred from the debasing system kept in force by a semi-intelligent cla.s.s of selfish brutes, who are crafty enough to gain control of others by teaching the cruel and savage doctrine known as the "survival of the fittest." I have nothing but a feeling of compa.s.sion and sorrow for those abject creatures who mistreated me when I was sick, knowing that they, as well as those whom they mistreated, were but the victims of this pernicious system.

In the desperate struggle for a mere existence, most men and women are forced into employment for which they are entirely unfitted, and consequently take no other interest in their work than that of receiving their weekly or monthly stipend. This fact was thoroughly demonstrated to me by the action of several nurses who appeared to look upon their work as tasks to be executed mechanically, instead of duties to be performed with pleasure. Then again, others who really preferred the work were either kept away from it entirely, or else made dull, peevish and irritable by the great number of hours they were forced to be on duty each day, thus turning what should have been pleasant employment into a drudgery. And like the nurses, so were the orderlies; their daily work hours were so long and their pay so small that only the least intelligent and most stupid moral idiots could be secured to take positions that should be filled by men of the very highest intelligence, character and sympathy.

The physicians themselves I found to be inexperienced youths, generally masquerading under a set of whiskers, which some people are foolish enough to mistake for brains and ability. Coming direct from the medical colleges, they accepted these positions in order to gain some practical experience at the expense of the lives of the hospital patients.

The bricklayer, who devotes his life to the honorable work of building the edifice; the hod carrier, who gives his best services to the community in an equally honorable employment; the locomotive engineer, who safely carries from city to city a train load of human beings each day for many years, are only fit to be practiced upon by inexperienced physicians, and abused by irritable nurses and cruel orderlies, if they are finally overcome by sickness and enter a charity hospital for treatment.

For several days I lay upon my little ward cot in the Ruff Hospital, with my life hanging in the balance, and obliged to accept for succor the abuse and mistreatment of an inferior house staff. And worse still, I had to be an eye witness to cruelties imposed upon other and less fortunate sufferers than myself. I feel sure that many a poor fellow that I saw carried away upon a stretcher, a lifeless corpse, had given up all hope of recovery and died, for the want of a few cheering words and kindly sympathy from sonic one, instead of the constant abuse and brutality he was subjected to.

I fully believe that I myself must have inevitably succ.u.mbed to my pitiless treatment, had it not been for the fact that the young girl, Arletta, visited me each day for a half hour, bestowing upon me a tender sympathy, and manifesting the greatest concern for my welfare and recovery.

I was placed in a most peculiar position. I could get no information whatsoever from the doctors, nurses, or orderlies, and even Arletta said very little, and cautioned me against talking or exciting myself in any manner. I learned enough, however, to know that twenty-one years had actually elapsed since my wonderful experience with Arletta of Sageland, and felt convinced beyond a doubt that the beautiful young girl, who took such an interest in my welfare, was impelled by the same soul as my n.o.ble instructress in Natural Law. But I was intensely mystified and unable to conceive what had become of the time between the going of the one and the coming of the other Arletta.

Twenty-one years had been swallowed up as completely as if they had never been. Nearly one-half of my life had pa.s.sed away, of which I could give absolutely no account. A look into the mirror was a convincing proof of this fact, for therein I saw a white-haired and premature old man, with a thin, haggard and drawn countenance, which plainly showed the results of having lived a life of hards.h.i.+p, and almost unrecognizable as my own face. My heavy black mustache was gone, and in its place nothing but white stubble remained. The more I endeavored to reach some tangible solution of the mystery, the more confused I became.

According to the girl, Arletta's story, I had been introduced to her at a reception in Paris three years previously, had apparently fallen desperately in love with her, and made myself obnoxious by following her everywhere she went for several months. But as neither she nor her parents liked me, I was finally eluded, and had not been seen for over two years. According to her account, I was generally looked upon as a rich gentleman of leisure and bad habits, who did nothing but travel and spend money recklessly. This being the case, the foremost questions of my mind were: Where had I gotten the money to spend so extravagantly?

Had I lived those twenty-one years as a rational being, earning and acc.u.mulating wealth and still not knowing anything about it? Arletta of Sageland had told me that there was no such thing as a freak of nature, and that everything worked according to Natural Law, but my case certainly seemed to be an exception to the general run of things. What would be the final outcome of my mysterious career, was a question to be answered that was entirely beyond the limits of my imagination. It gave me a severe pain in the head to contemplate beyond the surface of the subject, and I finally allowed the whole matter to slip from my attention and bent my efforts toward recovery from the effects of my physical ailments.

One day Arletta said to me in as kindly a manner as possible: "Mr.

Convert, the doctor informs me that the reason you do not get well is because you lack the will power to do so."

"Will power," exclaimed I, "my dear sweet girl, that is all I have left.

It is the only force that is keeping me alive in the face of the cruelest treatment man could possibly receive at the hands of his fellow beings. Without will power I should have been killed long ago by these people, but through that agency alone I have been enabled to defy death and I promise you that I shall get well in spite of them."

"Why, Mr. Convert, how can you talk so harshly against these kind people? I am sure they are doing everything within their power to make you well."

"You think so because you know nothing of the case," answered I. "You simply visit this place for a half hour each day, at a time that everything is moving along smoothly, and merely get a surface view of matters. It is my earnest hope that you may never get a practical insight into these things by being placed in the same position as myself or these other poor fellows all around me. If all the poor unfortunates I have seen carried out of this ward, corpses, have died for want of the same kind of will power I require, then all I can say is that the doctors here should be held responsible for a great many cases of actual murder."

"Why, Mr. Convert, what do you mean by talking in this way?" inquired she.

"Just this," replied I, "these doctors are treating me for the wrong ailment. I am suffering no more from the effects of typhoid fever than you are, but still these doctors are trying to cure me of a malady which does not exist. Since recovering my memory I have observed that the many typhoid patients all around me have been bathed from five to ten times daily, while my fever rises to a point which necessitates an ice bath to reduce it but once each day, and always at the same hour, five o'clock in the afternoon. In any part of the world where malaria is prevalent these symptoms indicate nothing more nor less than chills and fever and should be cured within a day or two by a few doses of quinine. I have explained this to the doctors several times, but with a wisdom born of book learning they have contemptuously disregarded my advice and still continue to treat me for enteric fever, and then lay the blame upon me for not getting well. Do not doubt me, my dear girl, I know what I am talking about. Up to a few days ago my memory was obscured, but now I am in my right senses and fully capable of using all of my reasoning faculties to their fullest extent. Some day I shall explain many strange things to you, of which you know nothing. But now I must devote all of my thoughts and forces toward regaining my former physical strength, and likewise increase my moral and mental vigor for a future great work."

Arletta said no more at that time, but to my great surprise, the next day I was transferred from the charity ward to a paid private room in another part of the hospital. The furnis.h.i.+ngs of this room were of the most luxurious description, and the nurse informed me that it was the very best and highest priced apartment in the building. I afterwards learned that the cost of renting this room, including attendance, was one hundred dollars per week. Arletta had secured it for me. It was really remarkable how quickly the value of my life increased in the eyes of those hospital attendants, by the expenditure of a little money. From a worthless proletariat I was suddenly transformed into a man of great importance. There were two private nurses to wait on me, and they moved with the celerity of antelopes in response to my slightest bidding. They appeared to be bubbling over with kindness and attention, and seemed to antic.i.p.ate my every want. The orderlies treated me as if I were the crowned ruler of the universe, while the doctors displayed an unnatural politeness that was almost amusing. I found out later that Arletta was to fee them all handsomely in case of my early recovery. My new nurses were always ready to answer questions and give me any information I wanted.

Upon arriving at my new and sumptuous quarters, one of the nurses informed me that I was to receive a personal visit from the great Doctor Know-all that day. She further informed me that he was considered to be the leading physician of America and that he never made a professional call for less than one thousand dollars. As if by appointment Arletta and this doctor arrived at almost the same moment. Several of the house physicians also followed him into the room anxious to learn what diagnosis this celebrated pract.i.tioner would make of a case which had so baffled them. He lost no time in unnecessary talk but got down to work immediately, first looking over the charts which recorded my condition since my entrance to the hospital. Then he examined me carefully, with various instruments, from the tip of my head to the sole of my foot, meanwhile asking me many questions on widely different subjects.

At last he turned to the house physicians and said: "It is my opinion that when this man first entered the hospital he was merely suffering from a simple case of malaria and not enteric fever, as you have diagnosed. Since then his kidneys have become affected, and he now suffers from both malaria and lumbago. For the fever, give him ten grains of quinine three times a day for two days and gradually diminish the quant.i.ty until the fever abates entirely. Begin to feed him after the second day. For the lumbago, give him at least two quarts of lithia water to drink each day. Now as to the man's mental calibre, I find him perfectly sane and normal. But owing to a fracture of the skull sustained by him some time in the past, the two sides of his brain have become separated, causing two distinct personalities to exist. When one side of the brain works, the other side remains dormant, and vice versa.

He likewise possesses a dual memory, and is only capable of recollecting events as they happen separately and distinctly, according to the side of the brain which takes the impression. Consequently, this man may have lived a perfectly sane life during the past twenty-one years, of which he claims to have no recollection. He may at any time in the future resume either personality by some slight mental disturbance, but his two personalities will always remain as strangers to each other."

Having thus delivered himself, the doctor, who apparently was bent upon making a few more thousand dollar calls that day, hurriedly, but with great dignity, strode out of the room, closely followed by the other physicians.

After they had departed, and we were alone, Arletta pulled a chair up close to the head of my bed, and, looking steadily and earnestly into my eyes, said: "I sincerely hope, Mr. Convert, that you may never again resume your other personality."

CHAPTER XXVI

The change from a charity patient to the highest paid patient in the Ruff Hospital bore magical results, and I was soon on the road to recovery. The quinine knocked all the fever out of me within two days.

The food I was given to eat after fasting two months, began to strengthen me at once and within ten days I was able to walk about the room. Arletta never failed to visit me at least once each day, and on some days, two and three times. With each visit she brought flowers, fruit, or some little delicacy, and I was not long in discovering that she was taking more than an ordinary interest in me. As the days flew by, her visits became more frequent and of longer duration, until finally it seemed as if she almost lived in my apartment. Many times she came in the morning and remained all day, taking her lunch with me in the meantime. As my health improved, and I became more vigorous in bodily strength, those same feelings of admiration and love I bore for the first Arletta took a firm hold of me until it seemed that she was a part of my very life. Ah! those were happy and heavenly days indeed. The happiness I enjoyed there, was of that kind which can only exist between two souls fore-ordained and mated to each other for all eternity. As the time went by-all too rapidly-we had much to talk about. Arletta described the many progressive strides made by science and invention during the twenty-one years in which my mind was a blank, and I told her hair-raising stories of my early travels and adventures in all parts of the world. We said very little regarding my other personality. That subject appeared distasteful, and caused her to shudder whenever it was brought up. She seemed to think that in my other character I was all that was low, mean and contemptible, while she openly avowed that my present self was n.o.ble, honorable, and manly.