LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1761, 11 October 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN INVISIBLE WOUND. BY MAURUS JOKAI. One of the most celebrated practitioners of Pesth, Dr. K.. was called upon one morning to receive at an early hour a visitor in great haste, who, while waiting in the ante-chamber, Bent in word by the footman that delay for him was danger. He must be received immediately. The doctor threw on his dressing-gown hastily, and had his patient shown in. He found himself in the presence of a man utterly unknown to him, but who, to judge by his dress and manner*, evidently belonged to the best society. His pale face bore traces of great physical and moral suffering. He carried bis right hand in a sling; and, In spite of hia efforts to restrain himself, from time to time a stifled sigh escaped him. ' You are Dr. K. ?' he said in a weak and hollow voice. 'I am sir.'

*As I live in the country I have the honor of knowing yon only by reputation. But I cannot say that I am charmed to make your acquaintance, for my visit to you is by no means an agreeable one,' Seeing the poor man stagger, the doctor invited him to sit down. *I am tired. I have not slept for a week. There is something the matter with _my right hand—l do not know what. la it a carbuncle? Is it a cancer?_ At first the suffering was slight, but now it is a burning, horrible, confined pain, increasing in intensity day by day. I can bear it no longer. I jumped into my carriage, and here I am. I have come to beg you to cauterize it or to out out the painful part, for one more hour of this dreadful torture would drive me to perdition.' The doctor asked to see the hand, which the patient put into his, gnashing his teeth meanwhile from the intensity of pain, whilst the physician proceeded to undo the bandage with every possible precaution. * Above all, doctor, I beg of you not to attach any importance to what you will see. My complaint is so strange that you will be surprised; but I beseech you to take no notice of that.' K. reassured the stranger. As a doctor he was accustomed to all sorts of sights. Nothing could astonish him. Nevertheless, he was stupefied by what he saw when the hand was freed from the bandages. Nothing remarkable could be perceived, neither wound nor injury. It was a hand like any other hand. Astounded, he let it fall The stranger's cry of pain, who raised the injured member with the left hand, showed the doctor that he had not come with the intention of mystifying him, but that his suffering was a reality. ' Where is the painful spot ?' •Here, sir,' said the stranger, pointing to a place on the back of his hand where two great veins met; and his whole frame trembled when the doctor lightly touched it, with his fing6r. •You feel the pain burning here ?

' Intensely.' ' Does thia pressure hurt you ? The man did not answer; but his eyes filled with tears from his excess of suffering. 'lt is surprising. I see nothing.' •Nor I either; and yet the pain there is so dreadful, that I feel tempted to knock my head against the wall.' The doctor took a magnifying glass, examined, and shook his head. •The Bkin is full of life. The blood circulates here regularly. Underneath there is neither inflammation nor oancer. It is as healthy as any other part of your body.' ' And yet, It seems to me that it is rather more red there than elsewhere.'

•Where?' ««.«.! The stranger took a pencil from his pocket book and traced on his hand a circle as large as a ten-cent bit, with the remark, 'Just there.' The doctor looked. He began to think that his patient was orazy. ' Remain here,' he said. •In a few days I will oure you.' . • I cannot wait. Do not think me a madman, a maniac You will not cure me in that way. I feel infernal tirture within the little circle that I have traced with the pencil, and I have come in order that you may make an incision there.' «That I shall not do.'

'Why!' IV , . , •Because your hand shows no pathological disorder. I see no more signs of disease in the place that you indicate than in my own hand.' • You seem to think that I have lost my mind, or that I am laughing at you,' resumed the patient, as he drew from his pocket book a bill of a thousand florins which he had placed on the table. 'You see now, sir, that thia is no child's play, and that the service which I expect of yon is as urgent as it is important. I beg of you to cut out that part of my hand.' ' Sir, I repeat to yon that not for all the treasures of the world will yon make me regard as diseased a member which is perfectly healthy ; and still less will I cut it with one of my instruments.' • And why not ?' •Because suoh an act would make the world doubt my professional knowledge, ind would compromise my reputation. Every one would say that you were mad, and that I had been sufficiently dishonest to take advantage of your madneßs, oi eUe sufficiently ignorant not to perceive it." 'Very well. Then I only demand of you the smallest possible service. I am myself capable of making the excision. My left hand may perhaps be a little unskillful, but never mind. I only beg of you to undertake to bind up the wound after the operation." The doctor saw to his astonishment that his strange visitor spoke seriously. He took off his coat, turned up his shirt sleeveß, and took a bistoury in his left hand. A second more and the steel would have made a deep incision in the flesh. ' Stop I' cried the dootor, who was afraid that his patient, through unskilfullness, might open some important vein. ' Since you judge the operation indispensable, so bo it!' He took the bistoury, and, holding In his left hand the right hand of the patient, he begged him to turn away his head, some people not being abie to bear the sight of their own blood. •It is unnecessary ! On the contrary, it is I who will indicate how deep down you must cut.' In faot, he watched the operation to the end with the greatest possible composure, indicating how far it had to go. The open hand did not even tremble In the doctor's hand, and when the little pieoe of round flesh was cut out, he heaved a deep sigh, like one who expeiiences a feeling of immense relief. • The burning pain has ceased ?' «It haa quite gone,' said the stranger, with a smile. 'The pain has entirely ceased, as if It had taken away with it the part cut out. The slight pain occasioned by the bleeding is, as compared with the other, like a refreshing breeze after an infernal heat. It does me really good to see my blood flow. Only let it flow; it does me bo much good,'

The stranger looked ■with delight at the streaming blood. The doctor was obliged to insist npon dressing the wound. While he was binding it np, the patient's face changed completely. The expression of pain passed away ; he smiled on the doctor with a look full of good humor, and there was no longer any contraction of the features, any look of despair. He seemed to have taken a new lease of life. _ His brow cleared ; the color returned to his face ; his whole person underwent a visible t'ansformatlon.

When his hand was replaced in the sling, he made use of the one that remained free to shake the doctor's hand warmly, saying to him with cordiality. ' Accept my most sincere thanks. Ton have positively cured me. The small remuneration that I offer you is in no wise proportioned to the service you have rendered me. During the rest of my life. T will try by what means I can discharge my obligation.' The doctor, however, would not consent to accept the thousand florins plaoed on the table. The stranger on his side refused to take them back 5 but seeing that the doctor was beginning to grow angry, he begged that he wonld bestow them on come hospital, and so took his leave.

K. paid him a visit a few days later at his hotel, where he remained nntil the wound had completely healed. During that time the doctor had the opportunity of convincing himself thut he had to do with a man of extensive learning, of Bound common sense, and of very decided opinions. Besides being rich, he held an official position of considerable importance. Since the cure_ of his invisible pain, no trace could be discovered in him of any weakness either moral or physical.

His cure finished, he returned quietly to his country residence. About three weeks passed, when one morning, at an hour as early as the time of his first visit, the valet announced to the doctor the return of his strange patient. The stranger whom K. hastened to receive entered the drawing-room with his lacerated hand in a sling, his features distorted and rendered unrecognisable from pain. Without waiting for a seat to be offered to him, he threw himself into an armchair. Unable to oontrol himself, and groaning aloud, he held out his hand to the doctor without speaking. 'What has happened?' asked the astounded doctor.

*We did not cut deep enough,' returned he in a broken voice. ' The pain baa come back, It burns more terribly than ever. I am worn out; my arm is stiff with pain. I tried to endure it, in the hope that little by little the mysterious inflammation would mount to my head or descend to my heart, and so put an end to my miserable existence. But my desire has not been fulfilled. The pain does not extend beyond the circle I circumscribed, but the torture is so great, so inexpressibly dreadfnl. Look at my face, that will tell you what to believe.' His face was as white as marble, his brow covered with a cold perspiration. The doctor undid the bandage from his hand. The wound had closed, and a new skin had formed over it. It presented nothing extraordinary in its appearance. The patient's pulse beat calmly; there was no fever, yet the poor man was trembling in every limb. ' But this is almost supernatural,' exclaimed the doctor, who was more and more surprised. ' I have never met with such a case before.'

'lt is a phenomenon, a horrible phenomenon. Put me out of this torture without endeavoring to discover what causes it. Take your instrument, cut deeper, enlarging the circle. That will save me.'

The doctor was obliged to yield to his patient's prayers. He went through the operation again, cutting deeper with the scalpel, and again on his patient's face the same strange relief, the same joyful curiosity on seeing the blood flow that ne had observed on the first occasion. When the wound was dressed the deadly pallor disappeared from bis face, the color of health returned, but he did not smile. This time he uttered his thanks sadly. * I thank you, dootor. The pain has once more disappeared; in a few days the wound will have healed. Nevertheless, you must not be surprised if you see me make my appearance in a month's time.' 'My dear sir, dismiss such thoughts from your mind.' ' I know that the pain will return in a month's time," said the stranger, dejectedly. ' But be it as fate has decreed. Au revoir.' The doctor informed several of his colleagues of this singular case, and each formed a different opinion on the subject, without, however, any of them being able to give a plausible explanation. Toward the end of the month K. awaited his mysterious visitor with anxiety. But the mouth passed and no one came. Several more weeks elapsed, and at last the doctor received a letter dated from his patient's resi dence. He opened it. It was closely written, and he saw by the signature that his patient had written it with his hand, from which he concluded that the pain had not returned, for if it had he could hardly have held the pen. The letter ran as follows : •My Dear Doctor—

' I do not wish that either yon or medical science should be left in donbt as to the strange disease which will soon bring me to my grave—and even elsewhere. * I am about to describe to you the origin of this terrible malady. It broke out a week ago for the third time, and I cannot struggle against it any longer. At the present moment I can only manage to trace these lines by placing on the sensitive part a piece of lighted tinder to Berve as a cataplasm. As long as the tinder burns, I do not feel the other pain—and it is nothing in comparison. ' Six months ago I was still a very happy man. I lived without care, on my income. I wss on friendly terms with all the world, and I took pleasure in everything that can interest a man of thirty-five. I had married, a year ago—married for love—a most beautiful young girl of cultivated mind and with the best heart in the world, who had been companion to a certain Countess, my neighbour. My wife had no fortune, and the love she had for me was not only gratitude bat also the genuine affection of a child. Six months passed in such a way that the morrow always seemed to me happier than the eve. If sometimes I was obliged to go to Pesth and leave my home for a day, my wife had not a moment's peace. She would come two miles on the road to meet me. If I was belated, she would stay awake all night waiting for me, and if by dint of entreaty she was prevailed upon to go and see her former mistress, who was still very fond of her, no power on earth could keep her there more than half a day, and even then her regrets for my absence put the others out of temper. Her fondness for me went so far as to make her give up dancing, so as not to be obliged to put her hand into a stranger's; and nothing caused her such grave displeasure as the compliments she was apt to receive. In a word, I had for my wife an innocent child, who had no thought but for me, and who would confess her dreams to me as enormous crimes if she had not dreamt of me. {To oe continued.')