XVII
Again they stood on the steps of the gloomy building—the three—Johannes, Marjon, and Keesje. It was a bleak day, and Keesje’s thin little black face peeped out from under a thick shawl.
“Just go into the doctor’s room, will you?” said the doorkeeper. “The doctor wishes to speak with you. The professor is there, also,” he added, importantly. And when Marjon would have gone with them, he extended his hand as if to stay her, saying, “Pardon, but the lady and the little one weren’t invited.”
Without replying, Marjon turned round to Johannes and said, “Then I’ll wait for you at the house. Will you come soon?”
In the tiresome, pompous quarters of the doctor, with its bookcases draped in green, its white gypsum busts of Galenus, Hippocrates, and other old physicians, sat two dark-coated gentlemen. They were vis-à-vis, each in an office-chair, and deep in conversation.
On the large writing-table lay several open books, and some shining white metal instruments for measuring and examining.
“Sit down, my friend,” said Professor Bommeldoos, in his loud voice and brusque manner. “We all know one another, do we not? We have already made an examination together.”
Johannes silently took a seat.
“Let me explain to you, Johannes,” said Dr. Cijfer, in more soft and moderate tones. “We—Professor Bommeldoos and I—have been charged by the judicial commission to make a medical investigation of the mental condition of your brother. He has committed a crime—not a heavy one, but yet not without significance, and one for which he ought to have been placed under arrest. Yet the clergyman thought him irresponsible, and summoned a physician from the asylum. Your brother simply would not reply to the latter. He was stubbornly silent.”
Johannes nodded. He knew it already.
“That was the reason for his being temporarily secluded here. Now I have seen the patient myself once, but I am sorry to have to say that I can get no further than the other physician. When I interrogate him he looks at me in a very peculiar way, and remains silent.”
“I do not understand, Colleague,” said Bommeldoos, “why you did not instantly diagnose this as a symptom of megalomania.”
“But, worthy Colleague,” replied Dr. Cijfer, “he does talk with the nurses and his fellow patients, and he is obliging and ready to help. They all wish him well—yes, they are even singularly fond of him.”
“All of which comports very well with my diagnosis,” said Bommeldoos.
“Does he often have those whims, Johannes,” asked Dr. Cijfer, “when he will not speak?”
“He has no whims,” said Johannes, stoutly.
“Why, then, will he not reply?”
“I think you would not answer me,” returned Johannes, “if I were to ask you if you were mad.”
The two learned men exchanged smiles.
“That is a somewhat different situation,” said Bommeldoos, haughtily.
“He was not questioned in such a blunt manner as that,” explained Doctor Cijfer. “I asked about his extraction, his age, the health of his father and mother, about his own youth, and so forth—the usual memory promptings. Will you not give us some further information concerning him? Remember, it is of real importance to your brother.”
“Mijnheer,” said Johannes, “I know as little as yourself about all that. And even if I knew more I would not tell you what he himself thought best not to tell.”
“Come, come, my boy,” said the professor, “are you trying to make sport of us? Do you not know whence you came? Nothing of your parents, nor of your youth?”
Johannes hesitatingly considered whether or not he should do as Markus had done, and answer no questions whatever. But still he might reply to those that concerned only himself.
“I do, indeed, know all that about myself, but not about him,” said he.
“Then you are not brothers?” asked the doctor.
“No, not in the sense you mean.”
Dr. Cijfer looked at Bommeldoos as if to see what he thought of this reply. Then he touched a bell-button, saying:
“It seems to me, Colleague, that we might better see him face to face. We can then, perhaps, get on better than when apart.”
Bommeldoos nodded solemnly, and passed his hand over his mighty forehead. A servant came in.
“Will you bring the patient Vis from the ward of the calm patients, working-class?”
“Very well, Doctor.”
The servant vanished, and for several minutes afterward it was as still as death in the study. The two learned men stared at the carpet quite absorbed in thought—not minding delay—after the manner of deep thinkers. Johannes heard the clock ticking on the mantel, the faint music from an out-of-doors band playing a merry march, the sound of hurrahs, and the clatter of horses’ hoofs on the cobblestone pavement. The royal wedding-festivities were still in progress, and Johannes could mentally see the two people who at that moment were bowing and waving as they sat in their carriage. There was a knock at the door. The nurse came and said, “Here is the patient.” Then he let Markus in, remaining himself to look on.
“I will ring for you,” said Dr. Cijfer, with a gesture. The nurse disappeared.
Markus had on a dark-blue linen blouse, such as all the patients of the working-class wear. He stood tall and erect, and Johannes observed that his face was less pale and sad than usual. The blue became his dark curling hair, and Johannes felt happy and confident as he looked at him—standing there so proud and calm and handsome.
“Take a seat,” said Dr. Cijfer.
But Markus seemed not to have heard, and remained standing, while he nodded kindly and reassuringly to Johannes.
“Observe his pride,” said Professor Bommeldoos, in Latin, to Dr. Cijfer.
“The proud find pride, and the gloomy, gloom; but the glad find gladness, and the lowly, humility,” said Markus.
Dr. Cijfer stood up, and took his measuring instrument from the table. Then, in a quiet, courteous tone, he said:
“Will you not permit us, Mijnheer, to take your head measure? It is for a scientific purpose.”
“It gives no pain,” added Bommeldoos.
“Not to the body,” said Markus.
“There is nothing in it to offend one,” said Dr. Cijfer. “I have had it done to myself many a time.”
“There is a kind of opinionativeness and denseness that offend.”
Bommeldoos flushed. “Opinionativeness and denseness! Mine, perchance? Am I such an ignoramus? Opinionated and stupid!”
“Colleague!” exclaimed Dr. Cijfer, in gentle expostulation. And then, as he enclosed Markus’s head with the shining craniometer, he gave the measurement figures. A considerable time passed, nothing being heard save the low voice of the doctor dictating the figures. Then, as if proceeding with his present occupation, taking advantage of what he considered a compliant mood of the patient, the crafty doctor fancied he saw his opportunity, and said:
“Your parents certainly dwelt in another country—one more southerly and more mountainous.”
But Markus removed the doctor’s hand, with the instrument, from his head, and looked at him piercingly.
“Why are you not sincere?” asked he then, with gentle stress. “How can truth be found through untruth?”
Dr. Cijfer hesitated, and then did exactly what Father Canisius had done—something which, later, he was of the opinion he ought not to have done: he argued with him.
“But if you will not give me a direct reply I am obliged to get the truth circuitously.”
Said Markus, “A curved sword will not go far into a straight scabbard.”
Professor Bommeldoos grew impatient, and snapped at the doctor aside in a smothered voice: “Do not argue, Colleague, do not argue! Megalomaniacs are smarter, and sometimes have subtler dialectic faculties, than you have. Just let me conduct the examination.”
And then, after a loud “h’m! h’m!” he said to Markus:
“Well, my friend, then I will talk straight out to you. It is better so, is it not? Then will you give me a direct reply?”
Markus looked at him for some time, and said: “You cannot.”
“I cannot! Cannot what?”
“Talk,” replied Markus.
“I cannot talk! Well, well! I cannot talk! Colleague, you will perhaps take note of that. You say I cannot talk. What am I now doing?”
“Stammering,” said Markus.
“Exactly—exactly! All men stammer. The doctor stammers, and I stammer, and Hegel stammers, and Kant stammers....”
“They do,” said Markus.
“Mijnheer Vis, then, is the only one who can talk. Is it not so?”
“Not with you,” replied Markus. “In order to talk one must have a hearer who can understand.”
Dr. Cijfer smiled, and whispered, not without a shade of irony, “Take care, Colleague! You also err in dialectics.” But Bommeldoos angrily shook his round head with its bulbous cheeks, and continued:
“That is to say that you consider yourself wiser than all other men? Note the reply, Colleague.”
“I think myself wiser than you,” said Markus. “Decide yourself whether this means wiser than all other men.”
“I have made a note of the reply,” said Dr. Cijfer, while a sound of satisfaction came from his pursed-up lips.
Yet the professor took no notice of these ironical remarks, and proceeded:
“Now just tell me, frankly, my friend, are you a prophet? An apostle? Are you perhaps the King? Or are you God himself?”
Markus was silent.
“Why do you not answer now?”
“Because I am not being questioned.”
“Not being questioned! What, then, am I now doing?”
“Raving,” said Markus.
Again Bommeldoos flushed, and lost his composure.
“Be careful, my friend. You must not be impertinent. Remember that we may decide your fate here.”
Markus lifted his head, with a questioning air, so earnest that the professor held his peace.
“With whom rests the decision of our fate?” asked Markus. Then, pointing with his finger: “Do you consider yourself the one to decide?”
Both of the learned ones were silent, being impressed for the moment. Markus continued:
“Why do not you now reply? And would you have decided otherwise had I not been what you term impertinent?”
Here Dr. Cijfer interposed:
“No, no, Mijnheer, you mistake. But it is not nice of you to offend a learned man like the professor here. We are performing a scientific task. You impress us as being a person of refinement and advancement, aside from the question of your being ill or not. For all that, it behooves you to have respect for science, and for those who are devoting all their efforts and even their lives to its development.”
“Do you know,” asked Bommeldoos, in a voice now near to breaking, “do you know what the man whom you have scoffed at as opinionated, stupid, and a ranter—what that man has written and accomplished?”
Then Markus’s stern features relaxed, assuming a softer, more companionable expression, and he took a chair and sat down close beside his two examiners.
“Look,” said he, showing both of his open palms, “your naked sensibilities protrude on all sides—from under the cloak of your wisdom. How otherwise could I have touched you?”
“Your wisdom—so much greater—does not, however, make you invulnerable to our opinion and stupidity,” said Professor Bommeldoos, still tartly, indeed, but yet with far more courtesy.
“The most high wisdom of God does not make Him invulnerable to our sorrows and sins,” returned Markus. “Wisdom is a covering which makes its wearer not insensible to suffering, but able to support it.”
“Forever that speaking in metaphor!” exclaimed Bommeldoos. “Figures of speech do not instruct. A weak and childish mind always makes use of metaphors. Science demands pure speech and logical argument.”
“Forgive me if I offend still further,” said Markus, gently now and kindly, as he laid his hand on the black cloth enveloping the arm of the professor, “but it is exactly your own weakness that you cannot question. Science is the light of the Father. Why should not I respect it? And I know also what you have written and accomplished. But the most you did was to question imperfectly, and then to assume the complete reply. That one should find it so difficult and unsatisfactory to reply amazes you, because you do not realize the imperfection of your questions. But the finest and clearest responses—those that are most satisfying and intelligible to all—await those who have learned better how to question. If I esteem myself wiser than you, it is solely because I realize that we have nothing but metaphors, and that we must patiently and unpretendingly decipher as a communication from the Father the meaning of all these metaphors. While you imagine that, from your words and documents, one may comprehend His living Being.”
“With your permission,” interrupted the professor. “You seem not to have read what I have written concerning the logical necessity of an incomprehensible basis for reality. Did you consider me such a dunce as not to have perceived that?”
“To speak of things is not necessarily to understand them,” replied Markus. “And so to speak of them is proof of not understanding.”
“I know very well what the human mind can compass, and what not; and in my last work, ‘On the Essence of Matter,’ I think I have defined the utmost to which the human mind can attain,” said Professor Bommeldoos.
“So did the Egyptians place the farthest reaches of the earth at the first falls of the Nile, to which the river was said to have flowed from heaven. And thousands and thousands of years passed away before they ventured to step beyond that boundary. And now the world is beginning to fraternize, and men to co-operate—now the barriers of the world are being removed to infinite distance. Who then shall term that which the human intellect can grasp, the extreme limit?”
“There remains a barrier, constituted by our material structure, just as there is a barrier because of our confinement to this terrestrial ball which we cannot leave,” declared Professor Bommeldoos, loudly and oracularly, encircling his chin with his hand, as was his habit when in learned discussions. He seemed to have quite forgotten that he had before him a patient for examination.
“You read the book of life from the end toward the beginning,” said Markus, “and see the world upside down. Why do you babble of a dead dust which would establish a limit to the life of the soul? But all matter is made of living thought, and nothing is lifeless, or formed without life. Mountains and seas are thoughts of the earth; and planets and suns, and all life, are the thoughts of God. The stone at your feet seems to you dead; but neither does the ant that creeps over your hand perceive the life of it. You have built up your own body—”
“Out of existent material,” cried the professor.
“There is nothing existent as the effect of other life, that you cannot search into. And the operations of your life meet on all sides the counter-influences of other lives. But all is spirit and life. Shall, then, a builder say that the house he has built defines the boundary outside of which he cannot go?”
“But a race like the human race preserves its permanent characteristics,” interpolated Dr. Cijfer.
“Why do we term permanent the creatures of one day? There is nothing permanent, and there are no persistent races. Life is a flowing water, a flaming fire—never the same from one second to another. But in your ignorance you make fixed definitions, write dead words and dead books, and imagine that you understand the things that live.”
There was an instant of silence. Then Markus added:
“You have yourselves created death, and placed the barriers. Your words are diseased and rotten; and with those words you would analyze life. Would you perform an operation with unclean knives? But with your dead words you cut into life, and thus spread death.”
Another silence, and then:
“Purify your thoughts and your words. Put away that which is impure—that is, the superfluous. Make a science of words, as you have made a science of the stars—as exact and as sacred.
“Through co-operation and fellowship among scholars you have created a system of relations called mathematics. Make also such a system of significations, for you miss your mark with words, and fail to find that life which is the most beautiful and exquisite, as children miss the moths they would catch with their caps and with bags. And through co-operation and fellowship you shall create a demand, the response to which shall ring out like a revelation and an evangel—full, joyous, marvelous.”
Markus ceased speaking, and gazed as though into the far distance. For a while they all waited, respectfully, to see if he was going to say more, for they had been listening eagerly.
Then Dr. Cijfer said, in a gentle tone: “Your views are surely worthy of consideration. Neither did I make a mistake when I thought you a person of advancement and refinement. But let me remind you that we are here for the purpose of making a medical examination. Without doubt you will now indeed reply to the simple questions that I shall put to you.”
Markus, throwing a glance and a smile to Johannes, who had been listening with breathless attention, said to the learned men:
“I spoke not for you; that were fruitless. I spoke for him.”
After that he uttered not a word. Dr. Cijfer questioned with gentle stress, Professor Bommeldoos with vehement energy; but Markus was silent, and seemed not to notice that there were others in the room.
“I adhere to my diagnosis, Colleague,” said Bommeldoos.
Dr. Cijfer rang, and ordered the nurse to come.
“Take the patient to his ward again. He will remain, for the present, under observation.”
Markus went, after making a short but kindly inclination of the head to Johannes.
“Will you not tell us now, Johannes, what you know of this person?” asked Dr. Cijfer.
“Mijnheer,” replied Johannes, “I know but little more of him than you do yourself. I met him two years ago, and he is my dearest friend; but I have seen him rarely, and have never inquired about his life nor his origin.”
“Remarkable!” exclaimed Dr. Cijfer.
“Once again, Colleague, I stand by my diagnosis,” said Bommeldoos. “Initial paranoia, with megalomaniacal symptoms, on the basis of hereditary inferiority, with vicarious genius.”