Middlemarch
Page 73
CHAPTER LXXIII.
Pity the laden one; this wandering woe May visit you and me.
When Lydgate had allayed Mrs. Bulstrode's anxiety by telling her thather husband had been seized with faintness at the meeting, but that hetrusted soon to see him better and would call again the next day,unless she sent for him earlier, he went directly home, got on hishorse, and rode three miles out of the town for the sake of being outof reach.
He felt himself becoming violent and unreasonable as if raging underthe pain of stings: he was ready to curse the day on which he had cometo Middlemarch. Everything that bad happened to him there seemed amere preparation for this hateful fatality, which had come as a blighton his honorable ambition, and must make even people who had onlyvulgar standards regard his reputation as irrevocably damaged. In suchmoments a man can hardly escape being unloving. Lydgate thought ofhimself as the sufferer, and of others as the agents who had injuredhis lot. He had meant everything to turn out differently; and othershad thrust themselves into his life and thwarted his purposes. Hismarriage seemed an unmitigated calamity; and he was afraid of going toRosamond before he had vented himself in this solitary rage, lest themere sight of her should exasperate him and make him behaveunwarrantably. There are episodes in most men's lives in which theirhighest qualities can only cast a deterring shadow over the objectsthat fill their inward vision: Lydgate's tenderheartedness was presentjust then only as a dread lest he should offend against it, not as anemotion that swayed him to tenderness. For he was very miserable.Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life--the lifewhich has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it--canunderstand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity intothe absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.
How was he to live on without vindicating himself among people whosuspected him of baseness? How could he go silently away fromMiddlemarch as if he were retreating before a just condemnation? Andyet how was he to set about vindicating himself?
For that scene at the meeting, which he had just witnessed, although ithad told him no particulars, had been enough to make his own situationthoroughly clear to him. Bulstrode had been in dread of scandalousdisclosures on the part of Raffles. Lydgate could now construct allthe probabilities of the case. "He was afraid of some betrayal in myhearing: all he wanted was to bind me to him by a strong obligation:that was why he passed on a sudden from hardness to liberality. And hemay have tampered with the patient--he may have disobeyed my orders. Ifear he did. But whether he did or not, the world believes that hesomehow or other poisoned the man and that I winked at the crime, if Ididn't help in it. And yet--and yet he may not be guilty of the lastoffence; and it is just possible that the change towards me may havebeen a genuine relenting--the effect of second thoughts such as healleged. What we call the 'just possible' is sometimes true and thething we find it easier to believe is grossly false. In his lastdealings with this man Bulstrode may have kept his hands pure, in spiteof my suspicion to the contrary."
There was a benumbing cruelty in his position. Even if he renouncedevery other consideration than that of justifying himself--if he metshrugs, cold glances, and avoidance as an accusation, and made a publicstatement of all the facts as he knew them, who would be convinced? Itwould be playing the part of a fool to offer his own testimony onbehalf of himself, and say, "I did not take the money as a bribe." Thecircumstances would always be stronger than his assertion. Andbesides, to come forward and tell everything about himself must includedeclarations about Bulstrode which would darken the suspicions ofothers against him. He must tell that he had not known of Raffles'sexistence when he first mentioned his pressing need of money toBulstrode, and that he took the money innocently as a result of thatcommunication, not knowing that a new motive for the loan might havearisen on his being called in to this man. And after all, thesuspicion of Bulstrode's motives might be unjust.
But then came the question whether he should have acted in preciselythe same way if he had not taken the money? Certainly, if Raffles hadcontinued alive and susceptible of further treatment when he arrived,and he had then imagined any disobedience to his orders on the part ofBulstrode, he would have made a strict inquiry, and if his conjecturehad been verified he would have thrown up the case, in spite of hisrecent heavy obligation. But if he had not received any money--ifBulstrode had never revoked his cold recommendation of bankruptcy--wouldhe, Lydgate, have abstained from all inquiry even on finding theman dead?--would the shrinking from an insult to Bulstrode--would thedubiousness of all medical treatment and the argument that his owntreatment would pass for the wrong with most members of hisprofession--have had just the same force or significance with him?
That was the uneasy corner of Lydgate's consciousness while he wasreviewing the facts and resisting all reproach. If he had beenindependent, this matter of a patient's treatment and the distinct rulethat he must do or see done that which he believed best for the lifecommitted to him, would have been the point on which he would have beenthe sturdiest. As it was, he had rested in the consideration thatdisobedience to his orders, however it might have arisen, could not beconsidered a crime, that in the dominant opinion obedience to hisorders was just as likely to be fatal, and that the affair was simplyone of etiquette. Whereas, again and again, in his time of freedom, hehad denounced the perversion of pathological doubt into moral doubt andhad said--"the purest experiment in treatment may still beconscientious: my business is to take care of life, and to do the bestI can think of for it. Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma.Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is acontest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive." Alas! thescientific conscience had got into the debasing company of moneyobligation and selfish respects.
"Is there a medical man of them all in Middlemarch who would questionhimself as I do?" said poor Lydgate, with a renewed outburst ofrebellion against the oppression of his lot. "And yet they will allfeel warranted in making a wide space between me and them, as if I werea leper! My practice and my reputation are utterly damned--I can seethat. Even if I could be cleared by valid evidence, it would makelittle difference to the blessed world here. I have been set down astainted and should be cheapened to them all the same."
Already there had been abundant signs which had hitherto puzzled him,that just when he had been paying off his debts and getting cheerfullyon his feet, the townsmen were avoiding him or looking strangely athim, and in two instances it came to his knowledge that patients of hishad called in another practitioner. The reasons were too plain now.The general black-balling had begun.
No wonder that in Lydgate's energetic nature the sense of a hopelessmisconstruction easily turned into a dogged resistance. The scowlwhich occasionally showed itself on his square brow was not ameaningless accident. Already when he was re-entering the town afterthat ride taken in the first hours of stinging pain, he was setting hismind on remaining in Middlemarch in spite of the worst that could bedone against him. He would not retreat before calumny, as if hesubmitted to it. He would face it to the utmost, and no act of hisshould show that he was afraid. It belonged to the generosity as wellas defiant force of his nature that he resolved not to shrink fromshowing to the full his sense of obligation to Bulstrode. It was truethat the association with this man had been fatal to him--true that ifhe had had the thousand pounds still in his hands with all his debtsunpaid he would have returned the money to Bulstrode, and taken beggaryrather than the rescue which had been sullied with the suspicion of abribe (for, remember, he was one of the proudest among the sons ofmen)--nevertheless, he would not turn away from this crushedfellow-mortal whose aid he had used, and make a pitiful effort to getacquittal for himself by howling against another. "I shall do as Ithink right, and explain to nobody. They will try to starve me out,but--" he was going on with an obstinate resolve, but he was gettingnear home, and the thought of Rosamond urged itself again into thatchief place from which it had
been thrust by the agonized struggles ofwounded honor and pride.
How would Rosamond take it all? Here was another weight of chain todrag, and poor Lydgate was in a bad mood for bearing her dumb mastery.He had no impulse to tell her the trouble which must soon be common tothem both. He preferred waiting for the incidental disclosure whichevents must soon bring about.