by Karel Čapek
“He hasn’t regained consciousness yet,” reported the sister of mercy, folding her hands on her bosom; apparently it should be like that when a nun stands to attention, an old amazon reporting; only her eyes blinked anxiously, with human feeling. The poet remembered the expressive eyes of the monkeys, and felt ashamed. Yes, but these eyes are so unexpectedly and strangely human!
And so this is him, this is the case! With a quivering heart he had prepared himself for a sight from which he would fly in terror, with his hands on his mouth and sobbing with fright; and instead everything was very clean, almost pleasant, nothing but a huge ball of white bandages skilfully applied. Upon my word, a clean job, cleverly done; and it has hands made of cotton-wool, gauze, and calico—big white paws lying on the cover. What a dummy they can make out of nothing but cotton-wool and bandage; you wouldn’t even say—
The poet knitted his brows, and gasped. But it breathes; just slightly, those folded white paws rise and fall a tiny bit as if it were alive. And that dark gap here between the bandages is perhaps its mouth; and those dark hollows in the tender little crown of cotton-wool—ah, Lord, no, thaiik God, they’re not blind eyes, they’re not human eyes, no, they’re only closed eyelids; it would be dreadful if he saw! The poet leaned over the clean bandaging; and suddenly the closed lids flickered. The poet started back, he felt faint and sick. “Doctor,” he gasped, “doctor, won’t he come round?”
“No, he won’t,” said the surgeon thoughtfully, while the sister of mercy blinked her eyes as regularly as water drips. The panic of compassion relaxed; these two were so calm. Be quiet, be quiet, everything is in order; as regularly as water drips the white sheet over the unconscious man rises and falls. Everything is in order, there is no confusion, or terror, no longer is there any disaster, nobody runs and wrings his hands; even pain is stilled when it becomes a part of order. On the next bed the patient groaned regularly and indifferendy.
“Poor fellow,” muttered the surgeon, “he’s maimed like the Saviour.” The sister of mercy crossed herself. The poet would have liked to make the sign of the cross over that bandaged head, but somehow he felt too shy even to do that; he glanced in embarrassment towards the doctor. The surgeon beckoned. “Let’s go.” And out on tiptoes. There’s nothing to talk about now; let the sheet of order and silence close over it, let not that unbroken stillness be disturbed; be quiet, be quiet, as if departing from something strangely and intensely venerable.
Not until they were at the gate of the hospital, where the confusion and noise of life began, did the surgeon remark thoughtfully: “It’s strange that so little is known about him. We must register him as Case X.” He waved his hand. “You’d better not think about him any longer.”
CHAPTER V
HE has already been unconscious for two days, his temperature is rising, and his pulse grows feebler. Without a doubt life is escaping somewhere; ah, God, what a nuisance! how are we to mend the tear of which we have no knowledge ? Well, then, we can do nothing but look at that dumb body with no face, or name, not even palms on which it would be possible to read traces of its past life. If he only had a name, if only, at least, he had some sort of a name, he would not be so—well, what ?—disturbing perhaps, or something. Yes, you call it a mystery.
The sister of mercy, it seems, has chosen this hopeless case for the object of her special personal attention; tired and weary she sits on the hard chair at the foot of the bed, which bears above it no written name of a man, but only the Latin names of his wounds, and she never lets her eyes wander from this white, feeble, and faintly breathing chrysalis; apparently she is praying. “Well,” mutters the surgeon, without a smile, “a quiet patient, eh ? You seem to have taken to him.”
The sister of mercy blinked rapidly as if she wanted to defend herself. “But he’s so lonely! He hasn’t even got a name—” As if a name were some support to a man. “I dream about him at night,” she said, passing her palm over her eyes. “If he should happen to come round, and wanted to say something—I know that he wants to say something.”
The surgeon was about to say: Sister, this man won’t even say good night to us, but he kept it to himself. Instead, he just lightly patted her shoulder. Here in the hospital one doesn’t squander words of appreciation. The aged nun fished out a big, stiff handkerchief, and blew her nose with emotion. “So that at least he has somebody,” she explained slightly confused—she seemed to fill out with all her care, sitting broader and more patiently than before. Yes, so that at least he’s not so lonely.
That he is not so lonely, yes; but has such a fuss like this with a patient ever been made before ? Twenty times a day the surgeon wanders aimlessly down the corridor to have a glance, as if only by the way—Nothing new, sister? No, nothing. Everybody sticks his head into number six; doctors, nurses—Isn’t so-and-so here?—but that’s only an excuse so that for a moment they can stand over that bed without a name, over that man without a face. Poor fellow, they say with their eyes, and go away on tiptoes; and the sister of mercy rocks slightly, almost imperceptibly at her important and silent post.
And now already it’s the third day; all the time deeply unconscious, but the patient’s temperature rises above a hundred and four; he is restless, his hands fidget above the cover, and he mutters incoherently. How his body fights for existence; consciousness and will are no longer present to defend themselves, only the heart beats like a weaver’s shuttle in a tangled warp; already it runs light, carrying no thread through the texture of life. The machine has ceased to weave, but it still runs on.
The sister of mercy never takes her eyes from that bed of coma; the surgeon would like to say to her, Well, sister, it’s no use, and God knows that it’s hopeless for you to sit here, better go and rest. Her eyes blink with apprehension, she certainly has something on the tip of her tongue, but discipline and fatigue close her lips; besides people say little, and talk in a low voice over this bed. “Come to see me afterwards, sister,” says the surgeon as he goes on his daily round.
Heavily, like a piece of wood, the sister sits down in the surgeon’s room, not knowing how to begin, she keeps her face averted, and emotion brings up red spots on her face. “What is it, sister?” inquires the surgeon to make it easier for the old woman, as if she were a little girl, and then she bursts out: “I dreamt of him again to-day for the second time.”
So now it’s out, and the doctor didn’t burst into laughter, or say anything that would have confused the sister; on the contrary, he looked at her with eyes full of interest, and waited for her to go on.
“Not that I believe in dreams,” she declared self-consciously, “but if on two nights you have a dream which keeps going on, there’s something behind it. It’s true that sometimes I try to interpret my dreams, but that’s only because I’m lonely; I’m not expecting a sign. None of my dreams ever came true, so it’s not because I’m superstitious that I’m interested in them. I know that dreams return and repeat themselves; but to keep going on, as reality does, is something different. If there is something in my dream which I ought not to divulge, Mother of God forgive me! I am more accustomed to doctors than to priests, and I will tell you everything as if it were a confession.”
The surgeon nodded with understanding.
“I shall tell you everything,” the sister continued, “because it concerns your patient; but it will be the main points which I have sorted out and arranged in my mind. When I dreamt it it was mostly in pictures which were continually changing; some were quite clear, but others were involved, discontinuous, sometimes crowding one on top of the other, sometimes as if several came all at once. At moments it was as if that man was really telling me something, and then again as if I myself were looking at something taking place; it was so confused and puzzling that even in my dream I wished that I could wake, but I couldn’t. That dream was so vivid and strong that it went on even in the daytime; but then I could get it into better shape and sequence without those pictures. That wasn’t a dream any longer.
All things would become mere dreams if there were not some order in them; order is something that only occurs in reality. That is why that dream moved me so much, because I found more order in it than dreams usually have; and I can only tell you what its meaning seems to me now.”
THE SISTER OF MERCY’S STORY
“Two nights ago he appeared to me for the first time. He was wearing a white suit with brass buttons, leather leggings, and a white helmet on his head; but the helmet was not like an army one, and I have never seen such a dress. His face was as yellow as a gipsy’s, and his eyes feverish, something like the eyes of a man with typhoid fever; he might have had a fever, for he rambled in his talk.
When you dream of someone, you don’t hear him speak, nor do you see him move his lips; you just KNOW what he is saying to you, and I never have been able to discover why it is like that. I only know that he spoke to me, that he talked very fast in some foreign language, which I could not understand; I remember that several times he addressed me as ‘Sor,’ but I don’t know what that means. He was agitated, and almost desperate, because I couldn’t understand him, and he talked for a long time. But afterwards, as if he had become conscious of where he was, he began to talk—1 was going to say, in our language, but that was only because I could suddenly understand it.
‘Sister,’ he said, ‘on my knees, I beg you please, do something for me if you can; for you know what a state I’m in. God. What a misfortune, what a misfortune! I don’t even know how it happened; it was as if the earth suddenly flew up against us. If only I could write on the cover with my finger, I’d make it all clear; but you see what I look like.’ He showed me his hands, they were not bandaged; but I don’t know now why they seemed so dreadful. ‘I can’t, I can’t,’ he moaned, ‘look at these hands! I’ll tell you everything; but for God’s sake help me just to get this one thing done. I flew like mad to get everything setded; but suddenly the earth tilted violendy, and began to fall on us. I know that something happened; a flame sprang out towards us, such as I have never seen before, and I saw many things; I saw a ship burning, people burning, I saw a whole mountain burning, but I shall not tell you about that; nothing matters any more but just one thing.’
‘Just one thing,’ he repeated; ‘but now I see that it is the whole of life. Ah, sister, didn’t they tell you what happened to me ? Haven’t I been injured in my head ? For I’ve forgotten everything. I only remember my life. I’ve forgotten everything that I ever did; I can’t remember anywhere where I’ve been, or people’s names, and I don’t know what my own name is; all that is accidental and of secondary importance. I certainly must have had concussion of the brain if I can’t remember anything but what really took place. If they told you my name, you can be certain that it’s not my real one; and if I begin to babble something about islands and adventures put it down to my derangement; I do not know to what these ruins belong, and it’s no longer possible to make out of them the story of the man. The whole of man is in what is left for him to accomplish; all the rest is made of bits and fragments which can’t be compassed with a glance. Yes, yes, yes, sometimes you dig up something that is past, and think; this is what I am. Only my case is more difficult, sister; something happened that shattered my memory; nothing intact was left in me but what I still wanted to do.’ ”
CHAPTER VI
THE sister of mercy swayed slightly as she told her story, with her eyes fixed on the floor, as if she were reciting something that she had learned by heart. “It is strange how such a dream is clear and hazy at the same time, I don’t know where we were; he was sitting on some wooden steps, which led up to some kind of a straw hut—” She hesitated for a moment. “Yes, that hut was supported on posts, like the legs of a table; and he was sitting with his legs apart on the lowest step, and he knocked out his pipe on the palm of his hand. His face was lowered, you could only see his white helmet; it looked as if he had his head bandaged.
‘You know, sister,’ he said, ‘I can’t remember my mother. Strange, although I never knew her, in my mind something has remained like an empty and blind spot where something ought to be. So you see, my memory was never complete, for there was no mother in it.’ He nodded his head as he spoke. ‘It was always like an empty spot on the map of my life; I never knew myself completely because I never knew my mother.’
‘As for my father,’ he went on, ‘I must say that our mutual relations were never very good, or intimate. As a matter of fact there even was between us a silent and unreconcilable hostility. That is, my father was an exceedingly righteous man; he held an important position in his business, and he considered his life fulfilled because in every respect he did his duty. The duty of a man then is to be devoted to his work, to get rich, and on top of that to be respected by his fellow citizens; these are all such big undertakings that they can only be ended by death. He died pompous and tranquil, as if content that that task he had accomplished too. With me he never talked except to admonish, giving himself as an example; most probably he thought of human life as something already complete, like a house that one inherits, or a firm taken over by a successor. He had a very high opinion of himself, his principles, and his virtues, and to him his life seemed to be something worth handing on like a legacy. Perhaps he cared for me in his way, and thought about my future; but he could not imagine a future except as a repetition of his own experiences. For that I hated him so that with all my might I tried to thwart, mischievously and secretly, everything he might have expected from a good and sensible child; I was lazy, obstinate, and wicked, and even as a boy I slept with the servants—I still remember the roughness of their hands; in secret I filled his house with unruly elements, and I think that I often shook the confidence of the old man; for in me life itself must have appeared as something prodigal and wild over which he had no power.’
‘I am not going to describe to you, sister, the life of a young adolescent. Ah, yes, it was all as one would expect; except for this and that I have nothing to feel ashamed of. It’s true that I was a naughty and depraved child, but as a youth I was not much different from the rest; just like them I was chiefly full of myself: my loves, my experiences, my views, anything that was mine. Only later a man realizes that these were all not so much his, and his alone, but that they are common experiences through which he had to pass, while all the time he feels that he was the first to discover them. From childhood more stays in one than from adolescence; childhood, yes, that is complete and fresh reality, while youth—God knows where it gets so much of its conceit and unreality; that is why usually it is forgotten and lost. No, thank goodness, it isn’t everyone who finds out how he was cheated, and how stupidly he was taken in by life. I have nothing to remember; and when something comes back to me, I feel that it is no longer myself, and that it doesn’t concern me.’
‘By then I was no longer living with my father; he was something alien and remote, like no one else, and when I stood by his coffin it was awful and impossible for me to have sprung from this alien body already changed by putrefaction; in no way, in no way could I any longer communicate with the departed, and the tears which rose to my eyes only came from the realization that I was alone.’
‘I have perhaps already told you that from my father I inherited quite a large fortune; but even that seemed strange and alien to me, as if it still carried some of the respectability and sense of duty of my father. He built up his estate as something in which he would still live; his money was to have been a continuation of his life and status. I did not like it, and I took my revenge by making use of it only for my laziness and self-indulgence. I did nothing because I was not driven to do anything through necessity; but, please tell me, what reality is it that is not hard and stubborn like stone ? I could indulge in all my whims; it is a dreadful bore, sister, and to think out how to kill time is harder work than breaking stones. I was good for nothing, and believe me, a capricious man gets less from life than a beggar.’
He paused a moment, and then said: ‘As you see, I ce
rtainly have no reason to lament my early life. If I refer to it now, it is not to drink from the well of youth. I am ashamed that I was young, for through it I wasted my life. It was the silliest and most senseless period of my life; and yet just towards its end I met with an event, of which the import escaped me then. I call it an event, although it was nothing like an adventure; I got to know a girl, and I made up my mind that I would make use of her; it’s true that I was in love with her, but even that in youth is nothing extraordinary. God knows she was not my first love, not even the strongest of my passions, the names of which I have already forgotten.’ ”
CHAPTER VII
THE sister of mercy shook her head anxiously. “He said all that as if he had something to confess, and it was clear that he did not want to keep anything back from me. He is certainly preparing for death; but for me nothing is left but to pray that God by a miracle, or by grace, will accept this confession made in the dream, and to an unworthy person, as valid; perhaps he will also bear in mind that a man who is unconscious cannot bring himself to the due repentance necessary for perfect penance.
‘I must describe to you/he said later, ‘what she was like. Strange: I can’t picture her face any longer; she had grey eyes, and a voice rather harsh, like a boy. She also had lost her mother when she was a child; she lived with her father whom she adored because he was a fine old gentleman, and a very noble engineer. To please him, and at her own wish, she studied engineering, and went into a factory; sister, dear sister, I wish that you could imagine her in that workshop of machinery among the steam-hammers, lathes, and half-naked men who pounded at the glowing metal. At that time she was a little girl, an elf, a brave little creature, and the mechanics adored her; she moved in a world of a strange gentility because she lived among men. Once, yes, once she took me into the workshop, and then I fell in love with her; she was so fragile, so bravely sweet among those strong male backs glistening with sweat, with that small, rather harsh little voice of hers, and with her technical authority over fire, iron, and labour. You might say that this was not a place for a girl; God pardon me for my sins, but it was in that very place that I first felt a desire for her in a tormented and absurd way, in a moment when she was examining her work, scrutinizing it with her long knotted brows. Or again, as she stood with her big father, and he laid his hand on her shoulder as if she were a son of whom he was proud, and upon whom he bestows his work. The workmen called her Mister, and I fixed my eyes on her girlish shoulders tormented by a desire which almost disconcerted me as if there were something unnatural in it.’
