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Eyes without a trace of warmth or hate or any emotion that Carl had ever experienced in himsef or seen in another, at once cold and intense, predatory and impersonal. Carl suddenly felt trapped in this silent underwater cave of a room, cut off from all sources of warmth and certainty. His picture of himself sitting there calm, alert with a trace of well mannered con- tempt went dim, as if vitality were draining out of him to mix with the milky grey medium of the room. "Treatment of these disorders is, at the present time, hurmph symptomatic." The doctor suddenly threw him- self back in his chair and burst into peals of metallic laughter. Carl watched him appalled.... "The man is insane," he thought. The doctor's face went blank as a gambler's. Carl felt an odd sensation in his stomach like the sudden stopping of an elevator. The doctor was studying the file in front of him. He spoke in a tone of slightly condescending amusement: "Don't look so frightened, young man. Just a profes- sional joke. To say treatment is symptomatic means there is none, except to make the patient feel as com- fortable as possible. And that is precisely what we attempt to do in these cases." Once again Carl felt the impact of that cold interest on his face. "That is to say reassurance when reassurance is necessary... and, of course, suitable outlets with other individuals of similar tendencies. No isolation is indicated... the condition is no more directly contagious than cancer. Cancer, my Brst love," the doctor's voice receded. He seemed actu- ally to have gone away through an invisible door leav- ing his empty body sitting there at the desk. Suddenly he spoke again in a crisp voice. "And so you may well wonder why we concern ourselves with the matter at all?" He flashed a smile bright and cold as snow in sunlight. Carl shrugged: "That is not my business... what I am wondering is why you have asked me to come here and why you tell me all this... this..." "Nonsense?" Carl was annoyed to find himself blushing. The doctor leaned back and placed the ends of his fingers together: "The young," he said indulgently. "Always they are in a hurry. One day perhaps you will learn the meaning of patience. No, Carl... I may call you Carl'? I am not evading your question. In cases of suspected tubercu- losis we -- that is the appropriate department -- may ask, even request, someone to appear for a fluoroscopic examination. |
