The Doctor Stories

by William Carlos Williams

  I bless the muscles

  of their legs, their

  necks that are

  limber, their hair

  that is like new

  grass, their eyes

  that are not

  always dancing

  their postures

  so naive and

  graceful, their

  voices that are

  full of fright &

  other passions

  their transparent

  shams & their

  mimicry of adults

  —the softness of

  their bodies—

  As I read through, once more, these medical stories, these medical poems, and the autobiographical account, “The Practice,” all so touching and blunt, both, I kept returning to the words just quoted, to which I’d once heard him allude, and which I remember him trying to remember, to speak—the powerful, compelling, sensuousness of his mind, with its offering of a hymn of love to those children, those patients, those fellow human beings. On a few occasions physicians invited him to come speak at their conferences, their grand rounds, but he was shy, modest—afraid he had little to say directly to his colleagues, no matter how much he’d offered the world in general through his many and varied writings. But he was dead wrong; he had everything to say to us. He opens up the whole world, our world, to us—and so, once again, as many in New Jersey had occasion to say during the first half of this century, say and say again: thank you, Doctor Williams.

  Robert Coles, M.D.

  March 1984

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  THE DOCTOR STORIES

  Mind and Body

  FOR OURSELVES are we not each of us the center of the universe? It must be so, it is so for me, she said. It has always been so. I am the only one in my family who has had the courage to live for himself. Naturally, she added, we know that the rest of the world exists, but what has that to do with ourselves? Because someone says Sigrid Undset is a great writer, what of it? I don’t think so. I will not read her books. To me they are dull. I am not a musician but writing must have some music in it to be readable and she has no music. I hate her. That is what I think and that is what I say.

  I know people think I am a nut. I was an epileptic as a child. I know I am a manic depressive. But doctors are mostly fools. I have been very sick. They say it is my imagination. What is that? I know when I am sick and I have seen them. I saw a woman the same type as myself. The day before she died she was excited, as I am now, she would talk with you, argue as well as I am doing now. And the next day she was dead.

  I have pains here, in my stomach. It has been terrible. For nine days I have been stopped. I feel it in my heart, like a cramp. It must be something. How can they say it is my imagination? They don’t know. They’re fools. Last night I got desperate and I cured myself with some soapy water. But I was worried. Can you blame me? So my husband says, Go on out and see an honest man. I have only ten dollars in my pocket, but I would pay fifty, if I had it, to find out. What is the matter with me?

  They always get mad at me because I manage to find out what they are thinking. I got hold of the chart and I saw that it said “Neo-plasm.” I knew from my Greek what that meant, new growth. That means a tumor. But I don’t think the Doc himself knew when he read the report.

  He examined me a dozen times and his theory was (I could overhear him talking to his assistant): I try this and then if it doesn’t work I try that, then I try something else. When something works that is the way I find out what is the matter with the patient. I knew from his questions that he wanted to give me the filthiest diseases. He put everything on me. I could taste the carbolic in my mouth, and the mercury. I know that he painted me with silver nitrate because I heard the assistant say, “My God what has she been doing to herself?” But it was he who did it. I got sick of him finally and went home.

  And what do you think he said to me? He said that what I needed was a man. What do you think of that? I told him I had a man at home, and a very good one. What do you think I have, a cancer? I bleed every once in a while. Tell me what you think. I don’t care if I die. Nothing frightens me. But I am tired of dealing with fools.

  I ventured to ask her if she had tried Atropin and Luminal for her colitis. They’re no good for me, she said. Everything works the opposite from what it does in anyone else. I take Atropin for a few days then it dries my mouth, makes me worse than I was before. Luminal does not quiet me, it keeps me awake. No, there is nothing in that, nothing in that.

  Tell me more of the history, I said. You have been operated on?

  Yes, eighteen years ago, they took out the appendix, they said it was all tied up with the right ovary. A doctor had examined me and said there was something wrong on the left side. When I was opened up they found nothing there at all. Perhaps it is that, perhaps it is the adhesions, bands that pull sometimes. Anyhow it is not imagination.

  I knew the story of her past. Her father had been a Norwegian sea captain, one of the better known of the old sailing families, powerful physique, a man who would be away for months, seldom at home. Her mother, also a Norse woman, had been frail, dying when Ingrid and her sister and two brothers were still children. On the father’s side there had been several who had spent their last days in an asylum.

  I am compensating for my childhood now, she continued. I do not believe in being repressed. I am the only one of my family that lets go. If I tire you, you must forgive me. When I have talked it out I feel better. I have to spit it out on someone. I do not believe in being good, in holding back. You’re not too good, are you? People like that make me tired. Martyrs too, they’re perverted, I detest them. I tell them they’re the most selfish people on earth. Nobody wants them to be martyrs but themselves. They do it because it gives them pleasure. I say to them, all right, you are good. What does that mean? It means that goodness is its own reward. Don’t expect to get paid for it. You have chosen that selfishly, just the same as I choose to do as I please. They are hypocrites if they want more. Everyone must choose for himself. Is it not so? I do not expect people to thank me if I do what I please.

  She turned and said to my wife Emily who was sitting near her, your hair would look better if you took more care of it. You should do it. Look at my hair. Her hair was bobbed rather long and was of a reddish chestnut, a great flamelike mane which stood up almost flickeringly above her right ear. I think the hair can reflect the way we are. I can will my hair to be glossy and a better color. Of course you must brush it. But even if I am sick I can make it look well. I remember once I saw your mother, she turned again to Emily, and I saw she was not careful with herself, so I told her: You should take more care of your hair. You look like a servant girl.

  People should speak out what is in their minds. Don’t you think so? We should believe in ourselves. When I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church … How do you think I look?

  Marvelous, I said, I never saw you looking better.

  She laughed. It is because I do not worry. I am nervous, yes, but I do not worry. I simply want to know what is the matter with me. I have no inhibitions. That is why my face is smooth. In the hospital they were kidding me. They said, What is that girl doing here? They said I looked nineteen years old. And I do, sometimes.

  It was true. I knew she was in her forties, but she looked clear-eyed, her complexion was ruddy, her skin smooth. Her bearing was alert, her movements perhaps too quick but not pathological.

  People should speak out what is in their minds. Don’t you think so? We should believe in ourselves. It took me a long time to learn that. It first came to me in college. My mother always wanted us to learn, to get up in the world.

  She had won a scholarship from a Brooklyn high school to Cornell where she had majored in Latin, Greek and Logic, and again won a fellowship in Logic. The instructors retreated in disorder before her attacks till she quit the game and, needing money, went to teach Latin in a high school from which, after a month, she ran away. The slowness
of the pupils drove her mad. From there she went to a New York business school, graduated in no time and became private secretary to one of New York’s leading merchants—managing his affairs single handed when he was absent, a huge organization, a lieutenant in whom he had implicit confidence till he died.

  What is book learning? she went on. Nothing at all. College ruins everything that is original in the young. It comes just in their formative years and if they have anything original in them by teaching them to copy, copy, copy, we ruin it all.

  It may be true for some, I broke in, but to me it is the attitude which is taken toward it that counts. To me, what I intend for my boys, if they wish to go, is that it is a ticket. If they go in there, without reverence for the knowledge of their instructors but take it all just as a means for something which they need, I don’t think it will hurt them.

  Maybe you are right, she agreed, it is the attitude—if they can take it properly—which counts. But I ate it up out of books. Finally it turned me cold. Those men know nothing at all. It is life, what we see and decide for ourselves, that counts.

  When I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church—to please my mother—when I was learning the catechism, I asked the preacher if I had to believe everything he said was true. And if I didn’t believe it would I go to Hell? And if all the others in the other churches would go to Hell because they didn’t believe it? For that was something that I didn’t believe at all. All the others say the same thing to their people. How ridiculous that is? I told him.

  He was shocked, she went on, and told me it was wicked for me to talk that way. So I perjured myself and joined the church to please my mother.

  It is all fear. When we were children my mother would lie on the bed and pray to God to spare us from the lightning. I thought that was ridiculous. I said to her, How foolish. If God wants to strike me down, is it for me to ask him to spare me? I never felt afraid. If I am hit, what of it?

  But Yates is afraid. Yates is her husband. He does not like lightning.

  That’s odd, I commented. For I knew him to be a steady Catholic.

  Yes, he is afraid of it.

  Did you not become a Catholic when you married him? asked Emily.

  Yes, I did, said she. Why not? This is the way I felt. Yates was brought up by the Jesuits. His old father and mother are still in Ireland. He offered to join my church but I knew what that would mean. They might even say we were not married at all, and I knew how that would hurt his family.

  Yates, she had met, incredibly, in an asylum where she had been confined after her breakdown. She had gone there of her own will to be cured and there she had decided to remain, to become a nurse to attend the insane. She thought that her life work at the time. And there she had encountered little, lame Yates, the gentle-voiced and kindly nurse—employed in the care of male patients, as she was in the care of females. It had been a most happy marriage, she with her erratic voluble disposition, he with his placid mind.

  What should I do? she continued. I saw that he was not the kind to question himself intimately.

  How is he? asked Emily who greatly admired the little Irishman. Why didn’t you bring him out with you today?

  Oh, I told him I didn’t need him, said she. After last night when I thought I was going to die I felt so much better today that I told him I wanted to come alone. He’s working and I didn’t want to take him away from his work. What was I saying, oh yes, she continued, you remember what Caesar says in his Commentaries about the barbarians. It is better for them to have their barbaric worship than no religion at all. Let them cling to it.

  Yes, what was the use of my asking him to give up his religion? He believes in his dogma and it is a comfort to him. He feels a part of it. That is what makes the Irish whole as a nation, their religion. They feel something solid under their feet and so they have courage to go ahead.

  Like the Jews, I said.

  Yes, exactly. It is their religion. So I said to myself, to keep that for him I won’t ask him to join my church but I will join his. He has that and his nursing and it makes him happy. If I take that away what could I give him in return? He would be lost. When I was talking to the Jesuit, who came to teach me what the church meant, I told him I could not believe that. He said, I should. I asked him, Do you? But he did not answer me.

  And I’m a little superstitious too, she went on. When I was in the hospital I stopped breathing. I said to myself, Why go on any more? Next time my breath stops I will not breathe again and then it will be done. I didn’t care. They asked me where I wanted to be sent. At first I didn’t know what they meant. Then I caught it. They meant after I was dead. So I gave them all the details.

  But Yates got nervous, so without telling me anything about it he had the priest come up to me to give me the sacrament. I was surprised but, I tell you something came over me and I felt happy. I felt that I wanted to live. I do not believe all the stuff they tell you. But I must say that I was glad.

  Yes, I agree with you, it is a comfort, no doubt. But what about Socrates? He took the cup quietly—without religion.

  Oh, you have read that too, she said and seemed pleased.

  Yes, I went on. It is good to feel a solidarity with a group but do not forget that that kindly old priest by telling you that there is just one way to be saved, by excluding all the other people of the earth represents a cruelty of the most inhuman sort. For myself, I went on, if I were dying in Africa and the chief of the tribe who was my friend asked the chief medicine man to do a ceremonial dance for me, with beating of torn toms to conduct me into the other world, I should feel a real comfort which I believe would be a greater solace to me than the formula of some kindly priest.

  I suppose so, she added, but it is the same: Someone to tell our troubles to is what we need. I suppose I bore you with all I am saying today but I must talk. You must think I’m crazy. When I go away for two or three days Nuffie stays in my chair till I come back.

  What is that? I said.

  She laughed. Nuffie is my little dog. It is a Spaniel. She stays in my chair till I come home. Would you believe it, when I have bronchitis or anything she will come up to me and smell around my chest until she finds the place where I have a pain. Then she will lick that place and the pain goes right away.

  I laughed.

  You don’t believe it, but it is true.

  You mean she can smell a pain?

  Well, I don’t know. Dogs have a special sense. I think they know more than we do at times. Anyhow it is so. Perhaps she hears the little râles, with her sharp ears. You do not believe me, do you?

  How can I doubt you? I said.

  I believe in such things as second sight, said she. Sometimes I quarrel with my sister. And the dog does not like that. She goes away. We both have hard heads. We take opposite sides and neither one wants to give in. But this time Nuffie went to my sister and consoled her first. I was furious. So I stopped talking. I thought if Nuffie did that she was right. And then she came over to console me. But she went to my sister first. I said no more.

  Yes, I believe in second sight. You know how I am. I say what is in my mind and people don’t like that. So I had a quarrel with my brother-in-law. We didn’t speak to each other for a year. Then one day I saw a tall fellow carrying two cans of paint on the street and I knew it was he. I went past him and we did not say anything to each other. But when I got past I turned around and so did he. We each did that three times. But we did not speak. It scared me. I said to myself, he is going to die and he is calling me to go with him. Would you believe that?

  He was perfectly well, mind you, but that is what I thought. Then within a month he caught pneumonia and he sent for me. I was so glad to have a chance to talk to him and to comfort him. I saw at once that he was a dead man but my sister could not see it. She cannot see those things in people’s faces. She thought he was going to get well. He asked me what I thought about it, and I could see that it exhausted him even to talk that much. But I said of course he would
recover; to rest and it would be all right. I had to say that and I could see that he was easier. But he died next day. I was frightened then, perhaps that is what is the matter with me now. My parents died at forty-five and fifty-two. Add them together and divide by two and you will get the age at which you yourself will die. That is this year. Don’t you think you’d better go upstairs and get your clothes off if you want me to examine you? I asked her.

  Yes, she said, it’s getting late. I know I’m an awful nuisance. Where shall I go? In the office? Upstairs. All right. You won’t see anything much, she added, with a wry face. I am nothing at all now. Just like a man. My legs are hairy like my husband’s. I have often wondered what sex I am, she laughed. I used to wonder as a child with my flat chest and my narrow hips if I was not more a man than a woman. I am sure I am more a man than Yates is, she commented.

  Yes, I put in, aren’t we all more or less that way—fortunately.

  Certainly it is so.

  Perhaps your trouble is that you need some woman to love.

  I have always loved women more than men, she agreed. Always. It amuses me. In the hospital the nurses used to kid me. They used to say, Look out for her, she’s that way. I enjoyed it.

  When she was lying on the bed half-bared she spoke again of her physique:

  I have no lung trouble, of that I am sure for I have a good chest like my father. But I have nothing else to show you to thrill you. When I was being examined the old fool of a doctor—it is always an old man who thinks you are trying to flirt with him—the young ones know better. The old fool tried to tickle me. I felt nothing at all. I asked him what he was trying to do, so he stopped.

  I carefully palpated her abdomen but could find nothing at all. Truly she was built like a man, narrow hips, broad deep chest and barely any breasts to speak of. Her heart action was even and regular. Only flushed cheeks, the suggestively maniacal eyes, the quiver of the small muscles of the face, her trembling fingers told her stress. She awaited my verdict with silence at last. I could find nothing.