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Robert Bridges
The Evening Darkens Over
The evening darkens over
After a day so bright,
The windcapt waves discover
That wild will be the night.
There’s sound of distant thunder.
The latest sea-birds hover
Along the cliff’s sheer height;
As in the memory wander
Last flutterings of delight,
White wings lost on the white.
There’s not a ship in sight;
And as the sun goes under,
Thick clouds conspire to cover
The moon that should rise yonder.
Thou art alone, fond lover
Robert Seymour Bridges (1844 – 1930)
The Evening Darkens Over
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More in: Archive A-B, Bridges, Robert
De E. du Perronprijs 2016 is toegekend aan Stefan Hertmans voor zijn roman De bekeerlinge (Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij) vanwege de kracht om tegenstrijdigheden met elkaar te verbinden en de kunst om in alles het gelijke op te zoeken. De andere genomineerden waren Rodaan Al Galidi met Hoe ik talent voor het leven kreeg (Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas) en Carolijn Visser met Selma. Aan Hitler ontsnapt, gevangene van Mao (Uitgeverij Augustus).
De prijs bestaat uit een geldbedrag van €2500 euro en een textiel object, ontworpen door studio ‘by aaaa’ (Moyra Besjes en Natasja Lauwers) en vervaardigd bij het TextielMuseum in Tilburg.
De uitreiking vindt plaats op donderdag 13 april, aanvang 20.00 uur bij brabants kenniscentrum voor kunst en cultuur (bkkc), Spoorlaan 21 te Tilburg.
Voorafgaand aan de uitreiking houdt schrijver Arnon Grunberg de E. du Perronlezing met als titel ‘Het paradijs’.
De E. du Perronprijs is een initiatief van de gemeente Tilburg, de School of Humanities van Tilburg University en brabants kenniscentrum voor kunst en cultuur (bkkc). In 2015 won Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer de prijs voor zijn dichtbundel Idyllen (2015), zijn pamflet Asielzoekers en zijn columns in NRC Next. Andere laureaten waren onder meer Warna Oosterbaan en Theo Baart (2015), Mohammed Benzakour (2013), Koen Peeters (2012), Ramsey Nasr (2011), Alice Boot & Rob Woortman (2010), Abdelkader Benali (2009), Adriaan van Dis (2008) en Guus Kuijer (2007).
# meer info op website tilburg university
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More in: Abdelkader Benali, Art & Literature News, Eddy du Perron, Hertmans, Stefan, Literary Events
William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!”
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare 401 (1616 – 2017)
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More in: Archive S-T, Shakespeare, William
William Blake
A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I waterd it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole.
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.
William Blake (1757 – 1827)
Poem: A Poison Tree
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More in: Archive A-B, Blake, William, DRUGS & DISEASE & MEDICINE & LITERATURE
Op woensdag 5 april verschijnt het eerste nummer van 2017 van ‘Tilburg. Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, monumenten en cultuur’ met daarin uitgebreid aandacht voor Antony Kok, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondriaan en De Stijl.
Jef van Kempen en Hanneke van Kempen schrijven een ‘Geschiedenis van een biografie’ over hun op handen zijnde biografie van Antony Kok. Zij doen verslag van 35 jaar onderzoek naar het leven van Antony Kok, de dichter en spoorwegbeambte uit Tilburg die aan het begin van de Eerste Wereldoorlog vriendschap sloot met de Amsterdamse schrijver en schilder Theo van Doesburg. De omvangrijke briefwisseling tussen Van Doesburg en Kok is een van de belangrijkste bronnen met betrekking tot de geschiedenis van de beweging rond het tijdschrift De Stijl, dat een grote invloed had op de Nederlandse en internationale kunst.
Petra Robben gaat in haar artikel ‘Mijmering over een Mondriaan in Tilburg’ in op de Internationale Tentoonstelling van Nijverheid, Handel en Kunst in 1913. Niko de Wit vertelt over ‘Den Does’, een uitkijktoren voor Tilburg en een hommage aan Theo van Doesburg.
Losse nummers van Tijdschrift Tilburg zijn verkrijgbaar in de Tilburgse boekhandels Gianotten-Mutsaers en Livius de Zevensprong in Tilburg en bij boekhandel Buitelaar in Goirle.
‘Tilburg. Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, monumenten en cultuur’ verschijnt drie keer per jaar en kost € 5,50
DE STIJL in Tilburg: voorpublicatie biografie Antony Kok
# Zie ook: website tijdschrift Tilburg
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More in: - Book News, Antony Kok, Art & Literature News, BIOGRAPHY, Constuctivisme, Dada, Dadaïsme, De Stijl, Doesburg, Theo van, Essays about Van Doesburg, Kok, Mondriaan, Schwitters, Milius & Van Moorsel, Hanneke van Kempen, Jef van Kempen, Kok, Antony, Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondriaan, Piet Mondriaan, Schwitters, Kurt, Theo van Doesburg, Theo van Doesburg
De correspondentie tussen Theo van Doesburg en de broers Rinsema geeft een doorkijk in hun persoonlijke dilemma’s ten tijde van grote maatschappelijke veranderingen.
Het moest eerlijker, socialer en de kunst zakelijker zonder versierselen. Rechte lijnen, primaire kleuren en een duidelijke vlakverdeling.
Dat het lang niet altijd meeviel blijkt uit hun brieven, geschreven in de periode 1915-1931, waarin uitvoerig van gedachten werd gewisseld over kunst, De Stijl, het leven en de dood.
Auteur Thijs Rinsema (1944) leidde overeenkomstig zijn opa Thijs en oudoom Evert een soort ‘dubbelleven’. Waar Thijs en Evert zich naast hun schoenmakersvak in kunst en literatuur verdiepten, combineerde Thijs jr. zijn apothekersvak met de studie algemene cultuurwetenschappen. Na zijn afstuderen verbond hij beide vakgebieden in een uitgebreid onderzoek en promoveerde in 2000 aan de universiteit in Leiden. Hij zegde het apothekersvak vaarwel om zich volledig aan cultuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek te wijden.
Brieven over kunst, DE STIJL, het leven en de dood
De correspondentie tussen Theo van Doesburg en de broers Rinsema van 1915-1931
Auteur: Thijs Rinsema
Paperback
Pagina’s 424
€35,00
(verkrijgbaar vanaf 15-04-2017)
ISBN: 9789056154080
Uitgeverij Bornmeer
# Meer informatie website Uitgeverij Bornmeer
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More in: Antony Kok, Antony Kok, Art & Literature News, Constuctivisme, Dada, Dadaïsme, De Stijl, Doesburg, Theo van, Evert en Thijs Rinsema, Kok, Antony, Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondriaan, Schwitters, Kurt, Theo van Doesburg, Theo van Doesburg, Theo van Doesburg (I.K. Bonset)
Vanaf 16 april 2017 presenteert Museum Dr8888 de tentoonstelling De Stijl in Drachten: Theo van Doesburg, kleur in architectuur. Te zien zijn o.a. kleurontwerpen, glas-in-loodramen, schilderijen en poëzie van kunstenaars als Theo van Doesburg, Thijs Rinsema en Evert Rinsema. Bijna alle ontwerpen van Theo van Doesburg in Drachten zijn voor het eerst bij elkaar te zien.
Over de tentoonstelling
In een speciale tentoonstelling wordt De Stijl in Drachten belicht, in het bijzonder de relatie tussen Theo van Doesburg, Thijs en Evert Rinsema, Cees Rienks de Boer en de ontwerpen voor de zogenaamde Papegaaienbuurt in Drachten. Vanaf juni 2017 heeft Drachten er een nieuw Stijlicoon bij: het Van Doesburg-Rinsemahuis, met meubels en werken van Thijs Rinsema en ontwerpen van Theo van Doesburg. In Drachten realiseerde Theo van Doesburg zijn eerste grote opdracht: het kleurontwerp voor 16 middenstandswoningen in 1921. Beleef een echt driedimensionaal Stijlschilderij en ontdek dat een woning van 100 jaar geleden nog steeds hypermodern oogt.
Publicatie
Bij de tentoonstelling verschijnt bovendien het boek Brieven over kunst, De Stijl, het leven en de dood. De correspondentie tussen Theo van Doesburg en de broers Rinsema van 1915-1931, dat verkrijgbaar is in de museumwinkel.
Themajaar Mondriaan tot Dutch Design
De Stijl in Drachten: Theo van Doesburg, kleur in architectuur is de tweede tentoonstelling in het kader van de landelijke viering van 100 jaar De Stijl. Naast Museum Dr8888 doen ook Keramiekmuseum Princessehof Leeuwarden en de voormalig Rijksluchtvaartschool in Eelde als vertegenwoordigers van Noord-Nederland mee aan het themajaar Mondriaan tot Dutch Design.
De Stijl in Drachten:
Theo van Doesburg, kleur in architectuur
16 april– 25 juni 2017
Museum Dr8888
Museumplein 2 – 9203 DD Drachten
Gemeente Smallingerland, Friesland
# Meer informatie website Museum Dr8888
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More in: Antony Kok, Antony Kok, Art & Literature News, Dada, De Stijl, Doesburg, Theo van, Evert en Thijs Rinsema, Gerrit Rietveld, Kurt Schwitters, Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondriaan, Schwitters, Kurt, Theo van Doesburg, Theo van Doesburg, Theo van Doesburg (I.K. Bonset)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Presence of Love
And in Life’s noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart’s Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro’ all my Being, thro’ my pulse’s beat;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)
Poem: The Presence of Love
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More in: Archive C-D, Coleridge, Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Vastenavend
Wij verjagen het boze en begroeten het licht
met deinende joelfeesten. Hardvochtige preken
laten we achterwege vandaag en verdriet evenzo.
Laat ons de nakende lente besprenkelen, vrienden:
Neem ruim, eerbiedige drinkers, neem ruim!
Voor huizen met grijnzende vensters bonkende
trommen. Pas op de plaats. Op dansen alle kans.
Bert Bevers
Bert Bevers gedichten
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More in: Archive A-B, Bevers, Bert
Oscar Wilde
(1854 – 1900)
The House of Judgement
And there was silence in the House of Judgment, and the Man came naked before God.
And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, ‘Thy life hath been evil, and thou hast shown cruelty to those who were in need of succour, and to those who lacked help thou hast been bitter and hard of heart. The poor called to thee and thou didst not hearken, and thine ears were closed to the cry of My afflicted. The inheritance of the fatherless thou didst take unto thyself and thou didst send the foxes into the vineyard of thy neighbour’s field. Thou didst take the bread of the children and give it to the dogs to eat, and My lepers who lived in the marshes, and were at peace and praised Me, thou didst drive forth on to the highways, and on Mine earth out of which I made thee thou didst spill innocent blood.’
And the Man made answer and said, ‘Even so did I.’
And again God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, ‘Thy life hath been evil, and the Beauty I have shown thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden thou didst pass by. The walls of thy chamber were painted with images, and from the bed of thine abominations thou didst rise up to the sound of flutes. Thou didst build seven altars to the sins I have suffered, and didst eat of the thing that may not be eaten, and the purple of thy raiment was broidered with the three signs of shame. Thine idols were neither of gold nor of silver that endure, but of flesh that dieth. Thou didst stain their hair with perfumes and put pomegranates in their hands. Thou didst stain their feet with saffron and spread carpets before them. With antimony thou didst stain their eyelids and their bodies thou didst smear with myrrh. Thou didst bow thyself to the ground before them, and the thrones of thine idols were set in the sun. Thou didst show to the sun thy shame and to the moon thy madness.’
And the Man made answer and said, ‘Even so did I.’
And a third time God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, ‘Evil hath been thy life, and with evil didst thou requite good, and with wrongdoing kindness. The hands that fed thee thou didst wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou didst despise. He who came to thee with water went away thirsting, and the outlawed men who hid thee in their tents at night thou didst betray before dawn. Thine enemy who spared thee thou didst snare in an ambush and the friend who walked with thee thou didst sell for a price, and to those who brought thee Love thou didst ever give Lust in thy turn.’
And the Man made answer and said, ‘Even so did I.’
And God closed the Book of the Life of the Man, and said, ‘Surely I will send thee into Hell. Even into Hell will I send thee.’
And the Man cried out, ‘Thou canst not.’
And God said to the Man, ‘Wherefore can I not send thee to Hell, and for what reason?’
‘Because in Hell have I always lived,’ answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment.
And after a space God spake, and said to the Man, ‘Seeing that I may not send thee into Hell, surely I will send thee unto Heaven. Even unto Heaven will I send thee.’
And the Man cried out, ‘Thou canst not.’
And God said to the Man, ‘Wherefore can I not send thee unto Heaven, and for what reason?’
‘Because never, and in no place, have I been able to imagine it,’ answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment.
Oscar Wilde 1894
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More in: Archive W-X, Wilde, Oscar, Wilde, Oscar
Franz Kafka
Eine alltägliche Verwirrung
Ein alltäglicher Vorfall: sein Ertragen eine alltägliche Verwirrung. A hat mit B aus H ein wichtiges Geschäft abzuschließen. Er geht zur Vorbesprechung nach H, legt den Hin- und Herweg in je zehn Minuten zurück und rühmt sich zu Hause dieser besonderen Schnelligkeit. Am nächsten Tag geht er wieder nach H, diesmal zum endgültigen Geschäftsabschluß. Da dieser voraussichtlich mehrere Stunden erfordern wird, geht A sehr früh morgens fort. Obwohl aber alle Nebenumstände, wenigstens nach A’s Meinung, völlig die gleichen sind wie im Vortag, braucht er diesmal zum Weg nach H zehn Stunden. Als er dort ermüdet abends ankommt, sagt man ihm, daß B, ärgerlich wegen A’s Ausbleiben, vor einer halben Stunden zu A in sein Dorf gegangen sei und sie sich eigentlich unterwegs hätten treffen müssen. Man rät A zu warten. A aber, in Angst wegen des Geschäftes, macht sich sofort auf und eilt nach Hause.
Diesmal legt er den Weg, ohne besonders darauf zu achten, geradezu in einem Augenblick zurück. Zu Hause erfährt er, B sei doch schon gleich früh gekommen – gleich nach dem Weggang A’s; ja, er habe A im Haustor getroffen, ihn an das Geschäft erinnert, aber A habe gesagt, er hätte jetzt keine Zeit, er müsse jetzt eilig fort.
Trotz diesem unverständlichen Verhalten A’s sei aber B doch hier geblieben, um auf A zu warten. Er habe zwar schon oft gefragt, ob A nicht schon wieder zurück sei, befinde sich aber noch oben in A’s Zimmer. Glücklich darüber, B jetzt noch zu sprechen und ihm alles erklären zu können, läuft A die Treppe hinauf. Schon ist er fast oben, da stolpert er, erleidet eine Sehnenzerrung und fast ohnmächtig vor Schmerz, unfähig sogar zu schreien, nur winselnd im Dunkel hört er, wie B – undeutlich ob in großer Ferne oder knapp neben ihm – wütend die Treppe hinunterstampft und endgültig verschwindet.
Franz Kafka
(1883-1924)
Eine alltägliche Verwirrung
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More in: Franz Kafka, Kafka, Franz, Kafka, Franz
The Doctors of Hoyland
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Dr. James Ripley was always looked upon as an exceedingly lucky dog by all of the profession who knew him. His father had preceded him in a practice in the village of Hoyland, in the north of Hampshire, and all was ready for him on the very first day that the law allowed him to put his name at the foot of a prescription. In a few years the old gentleman retired, and settled on the South Coast, leaving his son in undisputed possession of the whole country side. Save for Dr. Horton, near Basingstoke, the young surgeon had a clear run of six miles in every direction, and took his fifteen hundred pounds a year, though, as is usual in country practices, the stable swallowed up most of what the consulting-room earned.
Dr. James Ripley was two-and-thirty years of age, reserved, learned, unmarried, with set, rather stern features, and a thinning of the dark hair upon the top of his head, which was worth quite a hundred a year to him. He was particularly happy in his management of ladies. He had caught the tone of bland sternness and decisive suavity which dominates without offending. Ladies, however, were not equally happy in their management of him. Professionally, he was always at their service. Socially, he was a drop of quicksilver. In vain the country mammas spread out their simple lures in front of him. Dances and picnics were not to his taste, and he preferred during his scanty leisure to shut himself up in his study, and to bury himself in Virchow’s Archives and the professional journals.
Study was a passion with him, and he would have none of the rust which often gathers round a country practitioner. It was his ambition to keep his knowledge as fresh and bright as at the moment when he had stepped out of the examination hall. He prided himself on being able at a moment’s notice to rattle off the seven ramifications of some obscure artery, or to give the exact percentage of any physiological compound. After a long day’s work he would sit up half the night performing iridectomies and extractions upon the sheep’s eyes sent in by the village butcher, to the horror of his housekeeper, who had to remove the debris next morning. His love for his work was the one fanaticism which found a place in his dry, precise nature.
It was the more to his credit that he should keep up to date in his knowledge, since he had no competition to force him to exertion. In the seven years during which he had practised in Hoyland three rivals had pitted themselves against him, two in the village itself and one in the neighbouring hamlet of Lower Hoyland. Of these one had sickened and wasted, being, as it was said, himself the only patient whom he had treated during his eighteen months of ruralising. A second had bought a fourth share of a Basingstoke practice, and had departed honourably, while a third had vanished one September night, leaving a gutted house and an unpaid drug bill behind him. Since then the district had become a monopoly, and no one had dared to measure himself against the established fame of the Hoyland doctor.
It was, then, with a feeling of some surprise and considerable curiosity that on driving through Lower Hoyland one morning he perceived that the new house at the end of the village was occupied, and that a virgin brass plate glistened upon the swinging gate which faced the high road. He pulled up his fifty guinea chestnut mare and took a good look at it. “Verrinder Smith, M. D.,” was printed across it in very neat, small lettering. The last man had had letters half a foot long, with a lamp like a fire-station. Dr. James Ripley noted the difference, and deduced from it that the new-comer might possibly prove a more formidable opponent. He was convinced of it that evening when he came to consult the current medical directory. By it he learned that Dr. Verrinder Smith was the holder of superb degrees, that he had studied with distinction at Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, and finally that he had been awarded a gold medal and the Lee Hopkins scholarship for original research, in recognition of an exhaustive inquiry into the functions of the anterior spinal nerve roots. Dr. Ripley passed his fingers through his thin hair in bewilderment as he read his rival’s record. What on earth could so brilliant a man mean by putting up his plate in a little Hampshire hamlet.
But Dr. Ripley furnished himself with an explanation to the riddle. No doubt Dr. Verrinder Smith had simply come down there in order to pursue some scientific research in peace and quiet. The plate was up as an address rather than as an invitation to patients. Of course, that must be the true explanation. In that case the presence of this brilliant neighbour would be a splendid thing for his own studies. He had often longed for some kindred mind, some steel on which he might strike his flint. Chance had brought it to him, and he rejoiced exceedingly.
And this joy it was which led him to take a step which was quite at variance with his usual habits. It is the custom for a new-comer among medical men to call first upon the older, and the etiquette upon the subject is strict. Dr. Ripley was pedantically exact on such points, and yet he deliberately drove over next day and called upon Dr. Verrinder Smith. Such a waiving of ceremony was, he felt, a gracious act upon his part, and a fit prelude to the intimate relations which he hoped to establish with his neighbour.
The house was neat and well appointed, and Dr. Ripley was shown by a smart maid into a dapper little consulting room. As he passed in he noticed two or three parasols and a lady’s sun bonnet hanging in the hall. It was a pity that his colleague should be a married man. It would put them upon a different footing, and interfere with those long evenings of high scientific talk which he had pictured to himself. On the other hand, there was much in the consulting room to please him. Elaborate instruments, seen more often in hospitals than in the houses of private practitioners, were scattered about. A sphygmograph stood upon the table and a gasometer-like engine, which was new to Dr. Ripley, in the corner. A book-case full of ponderous volumes in French and German, paper-covered for the most part, and varying in tint from the shell to the yoke of a duck’s egg, caught his wandering eyes, and he was deeply absorbed in their titles when the door opened suddenly behind him. Turning round, he found himself facing a little woman, whose plain, palish face was remarkable only for a pair of shrewd, humorous eyes of a blue which had two shades too much green in it. She held a pince-nez in her left hand, and the doctor’s card in her right.
“How do you do, Dr. Ripley?” said she.
“How do you do, madam?” returned the visitor. “Your husband is perhaps out?”
“I am not married,” said she simply.
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I meant the doctor—Dr. Verrinder Smith.”
“I am Dr. Verrinder Smith.”
Dr. Ripley was so surprised that he dropped his hat and forgot to pick it up again.
“What!” he grasped, “the Lee Hopkins prizeman! You!”
He had never seen a woman doctor before, and his whole conservative soul rose up in revolt at the idea. He could not recall any Biblical injunction that the man should remain ever the doctor and the woman the nurse, and yet he felt as if a blasphemy had been committed. His face betrayed his feelings only too clearly.
“I am sorry to disappoint you,” said the lady drily.
“You certainly have surprised me,” he answered, picking up his hat.
“You are not among our champions, then?”
“I cannot say that the movement has my approval.”
“And why?”
“I should much prefer not to discuss it.”
“But I am sure you will answer a lady’s question.”
“Ladies are in danger of losing their privileges when they usurp the place of the other sex. They cannot claim both.”
“Why should a woman not earn her bread by her brains?”
Dr. Ripley felt irritated by the quiet manner in which the lady cross-questioned him.
“I should much prefer not to be led into a discussion, Miss Smith.”
“Dr. Smith,” she interrupted.
“Well, Dr. Smith! But if you insist upon an answer, I must say that I do not think medicine a suitable profession for women and that I have a personal objection to masculine ladies.”
It was an exceedingly rude speech, and he was ashamed of it the instant after he had made it. The lady, however, simply raised her eyebrows and smiled.
“It seems to me that you are begging the question,” said she. “Of course, if it makes women masculine that WOULD be a considerable deterioration.”
It was a neat little counter, and Dr. Ripley, like a pinked fencer, bowed his acknowledgment.
“I must go,” said he.
“I am sorry that we cannot come to some more friendly conclusion since we are to be neighbours,” she remarked.
He bowed again, and took a step towards the door.
“It was a singular coincidence,” she continued, “that at the instant that you called I was reading your paper on ‘Locomotor Ataxia,’ in the Lancet.”
“Indeed,” said he drily.
“I thought it was a very able monograph.”
“You are very good.”
“But the views which you attribute to Professor Pitres, of Bordeaux, have been repudiated by him.”
“I have his pamphlet of 1890,” said Dr. Ripley angrily.
“Here is his pamphlet of 1891.” She picked it from among a litter of periodicals. “If you have time to glance your eye down this passage——”
Dr. Ripley took it from her and shot rapidly through the paragraph which she indicated. There was no denying that it completely knocked the bottom out of his own article. He threw it down, and with another frigid bow he made for the door. As he took the reins from the groom he glanced round and saw that the lady was standing at her window, and it seemed to him that she was laughing heartily.
All day the memory of this interview haunted him. He felt that he had come very badly out of it. She had showed herself to be his superior on his own pet subject. She had been courteous while he had been rude, self-possessed when he had been angry. And then, above all, there was her presence, her monstrous intrusion to rankle in his mind. A woman doctor had been an abstract thing before, repugnant but distant. Now she was there in actual practice, with a brass plate up just like his own, competing for the same patients. Not that he feared competition, but he objected to this lowering of his ideal of womanhood. She could not be more than thirty, and had a bright, mobile face, too. He thought of her humorous eyes, and of her strong, well-turned chin. It revolted him the more to recall the details of her education. A man, of course, could come through such an ordeal with all his purity, but it was nothing short of shameless in a woman.
But it was not long before he learned that even her competition was a thing to be feared. The novelty of her presence had brought a few curious invalids into her consulting rooms, and, once there, they had been so impressed by the firmness of her manner and by the singular, new-fashioned instruments with which she tapped, and peered, and sounded, that it formed the core of their conversation for weeks afterwards. And soon there were tangible proofs of her powers upon the country side. Farmer Eyton, whose callous ulcer had been quietly spreading over his shin for years back under a gentle regime of zinc ointment, was painted round with blistering fluid, and found, after three blasphemous nights, that his sore was stimulated into healing. Mrs. Crowder, who had always regarded the birthmark upon her second daughter Eliza as a sign of the indignation of the Creator at a third helping of raspberry tart which she had partaken of during a critical period, learned that, with the help of two galvanic needles, the mischief was not irreparable. In a month Dr. Verrinder Smith was known, and in two she was famous.
Occasionally, Dr. Ripley met her as he drove upon his rounds. She had started a high dogcart, taking the reins herself, with a little tiger behind. When they met he invariably raised his hat with punctilious politeness, but the grim severity of his face showed how formal was the courtesy. In fact, his dislike was rapidly deepening into absolute detestation. “The unsexed woman,” was the description of her which he permitted himself to give to those of his patients who still remained staunch. But, indeed, they were a rapidly-decreasing body, and every day his pride was galled by the news of some fresh defection. The lady had somehow impressed the country folk with almost superstitious belief in her power, and from far and near they flocked to her consulting room.
But what galled him most of all was, when she did something which he had pronounced to be impracticable. For all his knowledge he lacked nerve as an operator, and usually sent his worst cases up to London. The lady, however, had no weakness of the sort, and took everything that came in her way. It was agony to him to hear that she was about to straighten little Alec Turner’s club foot, and right at the fringe of the rumour came a note from his mother, the rector’s wife, asking him if he would be so good as to act as chloroformist. It would be inhumanity to refuse, as there was no other who could take the place, but it was gall and wormwood to his sensitive nature. Yet, in spite of his vexation, he could not but admire the dexterity with which the thing was done. She handled the little wax-like foot so gently, and held the tiny tenotomy knife as an artist holds his pencil. One straight insertion, one snick of a tendon, and it was all over without a stain upon the white towel which lay beneath. He had never seen anything more masterly, and he had the honesty to say so, though her skill increased his dislike of her. The operation spread her fame still further at his expense, and self-preservation was added to his other grounds for detesting her. And this very detestation it was which brought matters to a curious climax.
One winter’s night, just as he was rising from his lonely dinner, a groom came riding down from Squire Faircastle’s, the richest man in the district, to say that his daughter had scalded her hand, and that medical help was needed on the instant. The coachman had ridden for the lady doctor, for it mattered nothing to the Squire who came as long as it were speedily. Dr. Ripley rushed from his surgery with the determination that she should not effect an entrance into this stronghold of his if hard driving on his part could prevent it. He did not even wait to light his lamps, but sprang into his gig and flew off as fast as hoof could rattle. He lived rather nearer to the Squire’s than she did, and was convinced that he could get there well before her.
And so he would but for that whimsical element of chance, which will for ever muddle up the affairs of this world and dumbfound the prophets. Whether it came from the want of his lights, or from his mind being full of the thoughts of his rival, he allowed too little by half a foot in taking the sharp turn upon the Basingstoke road. The empty trap and the frightened horse clattered away into the darkness, while the Squire’s groom crawled out of the ditch into which he had been shot. He struck a match, looked down at his groaning companion, and then, after the fashion of rough, strong men when they see what they have not seen before, he was very sick.
The doctor raised himself a little on his elbow in the glint of the match. He caught a glimpse of something white and sharp bristling through his trouser leg half way down the shin.
“Compound!” he groaned. “A three months’ job,” and fainted.
When he came to himself the groom was gone, for he had scudded off to the Squire’s house for help, but a small page was holding a gig-lamp in front of his injured leg, and a woman, with an open case of polished instruments gleaming in the yellow light, was deftly slitting up his trouser with a crooked pair of scissors.
“It’s all right, doctor,” said she soothingly. “I am so sorry about it. You can have Dr. Horton to-morrow, but I am sure you will allow me to help you to-night. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you by the roadside.”
“The groom has gone for help,” groaned the sufferer.
“When it comes we can move you into the gig. A little more light, John! So! Ah, dear, dear, we shall have laceration unless we reduce this before we move you. Allow me to give you a whiff of chloroform, and I have no doubt that I can secure it sufficiently to——”
Dr. Ripley never heard the end of that sentence. He tried to raise a hand and to murmur something in protest, but a sweet smell was in his nostrils, and a sense of rich peace and lethargy stole over his jangled nerves. Down he sank, through clear, cool water, ever down and down into the green shadows beneath, gently, without effort, while the pleasant chiming of a great belfry rose and fell in his ears. Then he rose again, up and up, and ever up, with a terrible tightness about his temples, until at last he shot out of those green shadows and was in the light once more. Two bright, shining, golden spots gleamed before his dazed eyes. He blinked and blinked before he could give a name to them. They were only the two brass balls at the end posts of his bed, and he was lying in his own little room, with a head like a cannon ball, and a leg like an iron bar. Turning his eyes, he saw the calm face of Dr. Verrinder Smith looking down at him.
“Ah, at last!” said she. “I kept you under all the way home, for I knew how painful the jolting would be. It is in good position now with a strong side splint. I have ordered a morphia draught for you. Shall I tell your groom to ride for Dr. Horton in the morning?”
“I should prefer that you should continue the case,” said Dr. Ripley feebly, and then, with a half hysterical laugh,—“You have all the rest of the parish as patients, you know, so you may as well make the thing complete by having me also.”
It was not a very gracious speech, but it was a look of pity and not of anger which shone in her eyes as she turned away from his bedside.
Dr. Ripley had a brother, William, who was assistant surgeon at a London hospital, and who was down in Hampshire within a few hours of his hearing of the accident. He raised his brows when he heard the details.
“What! You are pestered with one of those!” he cried.
“I don’t know what I should have done without her.”
“I’ve no doubt she’s an excellent nurse.”
“She knows her work as well as you or I.”
“Speak for yourself, James,” said the London man with a sniff. “But apart from that, you know that the principle of the thing is all wrong.”
“You think there is nothing to be said on the other side?”
“Good heavens! do you?”
“Well, I don’t know. It struck me during the night that we may have been a little narrow in our views.”
“Nonsense, James. It’s all very fine for women to win prizes in the lecture room, but you know as well as I do that they are no use in an emergency. Now I warrant that this woman was all nerves when she was setting your leg. That reminds me that I had better just take a look at it and see that it is all right.”
“I would rather that you did not undo it,” said the patient. “I have her assurance that it is all right.”
Brother William was deeply shocked.
“Of course, if a woman’s assurance is of more value than the opinion of the assistant surgeon of a London hospital, there is nothing more to be said,” he remarked.
“I should prefer that you did not touch it,” said the patient firmly, and Dr. William went back to London that evening in a huff.
The lady, who had heard of his coming, was much surprised on learning his departure.
“We had a difference upon a point of professional etiquette,” said Dr. James, and it was all the explanation he would vouchsafe.
For two long months Dr. Ripley was brought in contact with his rival every day, and he learned many things which he had not known before. She was a charming companion, as well as a most assiduous doctor. Her short presence during the long, weary day was like a flower in a sand waste. What interested him was precisely what interested her, and she could meet him at every point upon equal terms. And yet under all her learning and her firmness ran a sweet, womanly nature, peeping out in her talk, shining in her greenish eyes, showing itself in a thousand subtle ways which the dullest of men could read. And he, though a bit of a prig and a pedant, was by no means dull, and had honesty enough to confess when he was in the wrong.
“I don’t know how to apologise to you,” he said in his shame-faced fashion one day, when he had progressed so far as to be able to sit in an arm-chair with his leg upon another one; “I feel that I have been quite in the wrong.”
“Why, then?”
“Over this woman question. I used to think that a woman must inevitably lose something of her charm if she took up such studies.”
“Oh, you don’t think they are necessarily unsexed, then?” she cried, with a mischievous smile.
“Please don’t recall my idiotic expression.”
“I feel so pleased that I should have helped in changing your views. I think that it is the most sincere compliment that I have ever had paid me.”
“At any rate, it is the truth,” said he, and was happy all night at the remembrance of the flush of pleasure which made her pale face look quite comely for the instant.
For, indeed, he was already far past the stage when he would acknowledge her as the equal of any other woman. Already he could not disguise from himself that she had become the one woman. Her dainty skill, her gentle touch, her sweet presence, the community of their tastes, had all united to hopelessly upset his previous opinions. It was a dark day for him now when his convalescence allowed her to miss a visit, and darker still that other one which he saw approaching when all occasion for her visits would be at an end. It came round at last, however, and he felt that his whole life’s fortune would hang upon the issue of that final interview. He was a direct man by nature, so he laid his hand upon hers as it felt for his pulse, and he asked her if she would be his wife.
“What, and unite the practices?” said she.
He started in pain and anger.
“Surely you do not attribute any such base motive to me!” he cried. “I love you as unselfishly as ever a woman was loved.”
“No, I was wrong. It was a foolish speech,” said she, moving her chair a little back, and tapping her stethoscope upon her knee. “Forget that I ever said it. I am so sorry to cause you any disappointment, and I appreciate most highly the honour which you do me, but what you ask is quite impossible.”
With another woman he might have urged the point, but his instincts told him that it was quite useless with this one. Her tone of voice was conclusive. He said nothing, but leaned back in his chair a stricken man.
“I am so sorry,” she said again. “If I had known what was passing in your mind I should have told you earlier that I intended to devote my life entirely to science. There are many women with a capacity for marriage, but few with a taste for biology. I will remain true to my own line, then. I came down here while waiting for an opening in the Paris Physiological Laboratory. I have just heard that there is a vacancy for me there, and so you will be troubled no more by my intrusion upon your practice. I have done you an injustice just as you did me one. I thought you narrow and pedantic, with no good quality. I have learned during your illness to appreciate you better, and the recollection of our friendship will always be a very pleasant one to me.”
And so it came about that in a very few weeks there was only one doctor in Hoyland. But folks noticed that the one had aged many years in a few months, that a weary sadness lurked always in the depths of his blue eyes, and that he was less concerned than ever with the eligible young ladies whom chance, or their careful country mammas, placed in his way.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930)
Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life
The Doctors of Hoyland (#14)
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