Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis [48]
In the presence of a Napoleon like Clif and a Gladstone like George F. Babbitt, Martin perceived his own lack of power and business skill, and when he had returned to Mohalis he was restless. Of his poverty he had rarely thought, but now, in contrast to Clif’s rich ease, his own shabby clothes and his pinched room seemed shameful.
II
A long letter from Leora, hinting that she might not be able to return to Zenith, left him the more lonely. Nothing seemed worth doing. In that listless state he was mooning about the laboratory during elementary bacteriology demonstration hour, when Gottlieb sent him to the basement to bring up six male rabbits for inoculation. Gottlieb was working eighteen hours a day on new experiments; he was jumpy and testy; he gave orders like insults. When Martin came dreamily back with six females instead of males, Gottlieb shrieked at him, “You are the worst fool that was ever in this lab!”
The groundlings, second-year men who were not unmindful of Martin’s own scoldings, tittered like small animals, and jarred him into raging, “Well, I couldn’t make out what you said. And it’s the first time I ever fell down. I won’t stand your talking to me like that!”
“You will stand anything I say! Clumsy! You can take your hat and get out!”
“You mean I’m fired as assistant?”
“I am glad you haf enough intelligence to understand that, no matter how wretched I talk!”
Martin flung away. Gottlieb suddenly looked bewildered and took a step toward Martin’s retreating back. But the class, the small giggling animals, they stood delighted, hoping for more, and Gottlieb shrugged, glared them into terror, sent the least awkward of them for the rabbits, and went on, curiously quiet.
And Martin, at Barney’s dive, was hotly drinking the first of the whiskys which sent him wandering all night, by himself. With each drink he admitted that he had an excellent chance to become a drunkard, and with each he boasted that he did not care. Had Leora been nearer than Wheatsylvania twelve hundred miles away, he would have fled to her for salvation. He was still shaky next morning, and he had already taken a drink to make it possible to live through the morning when he received the note from Dean Silva bidding him report to the office at once.
The dean lectured:
“Arrowsmith, you’ve been discussed a good deal by the faculty council of late. Except in one or two courses — in my own I have no fault to find — you have been very inattentive. Your marks have been all right, but you could do still better. Recently you have also been drinking. You have been seen in places of very low repute, and you have been intimate with a man who took it upon himself to insult me, the Founder, our guests, and the University. Various faculty members have complained of your superior attitude — making fun of our courses right out in class! But Dr. Gottlieb has always warmly defended you. He insisted that you have a real flair for investigative science. Last night, however, he admitted that you had recently been impertinent to him. Now unless you immediately turn over a new leaf, young man, I shall have to suspend you for the rest of the year and, if that doesn’t do the work, I shall have to ask for your resignation. And I think it might be a good thing for your humility — you seem to have the pride of the devil, young man!— it might be a good idea for you to see Dr. Gottlieb and start off your reformation by apologizing —”
It was the whisky spoke, not Martin:
“I’m damned if I will! He can go to the devil! I’ve given him my life, and then he tattles on me —”
“That’s absolutely unfair to Dr. Gottlieb.