The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway - Ernest Hemingway [151]
“Good-bye,” said Alice. She certainly had a nice voice.
“Good-bye,” I said.
“Which way are you boys going?” asked the cook.
“The other way from you,” Tom told him.
God Rest You Merry,
Gentlemen
IN THOSE DAYS THE DISTANCES WERE ALL very different, the dirt blew off the hills that now have been cut down, and Kansas City was very like Constantinople. You may not believe this. No one believes this; but it is true. On this afternoon it was snowing and inside an automobile dealer’s show window, lighted against the early dark, there was a racing motor car finished entirely in silver with Dans Argent lettered on the hood. This I believed to mean the silver dance or the silver dancer, and, slightly puzzled which it meant but happy in the sight of the car and pleased by my knowledge of a foreign language, I went along the street in the snow. I was walking from the Woolf Brothers’ saloon where, on Christmas and Thanksgiving Day, a free turkey dinner was served, toward the city hospital which was on a high hill that overlooked the smoke, the buildings and the streets of the town. In the reception room of the hospital were the two ambulance surgeons Doc Fischer and Doctor Wilcox, sitting, the one before a desk, the other in a chair against the wall.
Doc Fischer was thin, sand-blond, with a thin mouth, amused eyes and gambler’s hands. Doctor Wilcox was short, dark and carried an indexed book. The Young Doctor’s Friend and Guide, which, being consulted on any given subject, told symptoms and treatment. It was also cross-indexed so that being consulted on symptoms it gave diagnoses. Doc Fischer had suggested that any future editions should be further cross-indexed so that if consulted as to the treatments being given, it would reveal ailments and symptoms. “As an aid to memory,” he said.
Doctor Wilcox was sensitive about this book but could not get along without it. It was bound in limp leather and fitted his coat pocket and he had bought it at the advice of one of his professors who had said, “Wilcox, you have no business being a physician and I have done everything in my power to prevent you from being certified as one. Since you are now a member of this learned profession I advise you, in the name of humanity, to obtain a copy of The Young Doctor’s Friend and Guide, and use it. Doctor Wilcox. Learn to use it.”
Doctor Wilcox had said nothing but he had bought the leather-bound guide that same day.
“Well, Horace,” Doc Fischer said as I came in the receiving room which smelt of cigarettes, iodoform, carbolic and an overheated radiator.
“Gentlemen,” I said.
“What news along the rialto?” Doc Fischer asked. He affected a certain extravagance of speech which seemed to me to be of the utmost elegance.
“The free turkey at Woolf’s,” I answered.
“You partook?”
“Copiously.”
“Many of the confrères present?”
“All of them. The whole staff.”
“Much Yuletide cheer?”
“Not much.”
“Doctor Wilcox here has partaken slightly,” Doc Fischer said. Doctor Wilcox looked up at him, then at me.
“Want a drink?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“That’s all right,” Doctor Wilcox said.
“Horace,” Doc Fischer said, “you don’t mind me calling you Horace, do you?”
“No.”
“Good old Horace. We’ve had an extremely interesting case.”
“I’ll say,” said Doctor Wilcox.
“You know the lad who was in here yesterday?”
“Which one?”
“The lad who sought eunuch-hood.”
“Yes.” I had been there when he came in. He was a boy about sixteen. He came in with no hat on and was very excited and frightened but determined. He was curly haired and well built and his lips were prominent.
“What’s the matter with you, son?” Doctor Wilcox asked him.
“I want to be castrated,” the boy said.
“Why?” Doc Fischer asked.
“I’ve prayed and I’ve done everything and nothing helps.”
“Helps what?”
“That awful lust.”
“What awful lust?”
“The way I get. The way I can’t stop getting. I pray all night about it.”
“Just