THE SEPARATION
“We fell out, my wife and I.”
Dr. Beckbissinger had been separated from his wife. Everyone knew about it.
The wrong was on his side; such, the men’s verdict. She was entirely to blame; so spoke the women. We may therefore take it that no one knew much either way regarding the true merits of the case. The fact of the separation, however, lay beyond dispute.
He had remained in Hamburg on account of his practice. On account of her art—she was a sculptress—she had returned to South Germany, their common home.
The affair had aged Dr. Beckbissinger by at least ten years. That, too, was well established.
People thought it came of his having never unbosomed himself to anyone, and by palpable maneuvers they tried to induce a reopening of the wound. That it must thereby find relief and heal they made no doubt. But the patient stubbornly resisted this mode of treatment, and little by little their prying concern for his heart’s cure died out.
The interesting melancholy of his face furnished a fruitful topic of conversation; his slightly grizzled beard was held to contrast delightfully with the black eyebrows; and never surely did man boast so skillful or so finely shaped a hand. There would have been depths of satisfaction in discovering whether he was likely to think of a second marriage. But, alas! this proved impracticable; and as the doctor ignored the questioning glances that were directed at him, and as languishing eyes failed wholly of their purpose, he gradually sank to the level which formed, it would seem, his sole ambition, and grew to be regarded as an excellent doctor and nothing more deservedly so regarded.
This estimate of him, and his own individual leaning, brought about that he became almost exclusively a children’s doctor, achieving notable success in that fruitful field of labor. He was “Uncle” to more than a hundred children, and with the little nephews and nieces of his affinity, showed himself just as talkative and merry as with their elders he was taciturn and unresponsive. Gratitude he thus earned in goodly measure, but he won few friends, unless his big tawny comrade, the St. Bernard dog, Leo, be excepted. A strange atmosphere of isolation hung about the man and his dog; unobservant people even hardly failed to be conscious of it.
“He has such an anxious mind,” said Frau Sturken, his old housekeeper. “From the very first he was set on being a doctor. And all his troubles come to him along of his doctoring, for to be sure the womenfolk ran after him no end, and that was more than she could stand. It were natural enough, to my thinking, her feeling as she did ; it’s but human nature for folks to want to stick to their own and not see it took away by others, and all the more when it’s a matter of a doctor as must be forever on the move like any cab horse. Neither am I for blaming them other folks, for he’s that sort of man well, if I’d but knowed him in time—Ah, what am I talking about! You needn’t be staring at me like that. Why, I’m seventy-six, and my doctor there he’ll be seven-and- forty. That wouldn’t exactly fit; we’re a sight too far apart. See yonder, there he goes down Bush Street, him as has the big Inverness and the big dog and the gray hat. Don’t he look the gentleman?”
The object of her laudation stood talking to the postman, on whom Christmas burdens weighed heavily, and who, in addition to his bag, now carried an armful of seasonable sendings.
“Ay, doctor, there’s one for you today. Half a minute while I look. Right, ain’t it?” And he placed a large envelope in the doctor’s hand. “Compliments of the season to you, sir.”
“From Holland!” exclaimed the doctor, taken by surprise, and opening the letter as he walked along. His brow cleared at sight of a smiling face that greeted him from within the folds of the letter. The envelope contained the portrait of a little boy of about three years old. With his tiny Christmas tree upon his arm, he looked as roguish, as merry, as jolly as a plump little Santa Claus. And when in pleased astonishment the doctor had uncovered the small effigy, the best part was still to come. At the foot of the mount in the funniest of scrawls stood the words, “A merry Christmas to the preserver of my life.” It was meant to look as if the three-year-old baby fingers themselves had traced the characters. What a quaint idea!
Then uprose before the doctor’s inward eye a vision of those dainty little fingers tightening themselves around his own in a deadly spasm, and once more he seemed to gaze into the agonized, despairing face of the young Dutch lady, the child’s mother, as she besought him not to tear the rigid hands forcibly away, and not to desert her and her dying treasure that stormy night in lonely Heligoland. And there came back to him every incident of the night and the half day following, spent mainly in a crouched position at the bedside, until the child’s fingers suddenly relaxed, and sleep brought healing. He remembered having to take his food in that attitude, to eat whatever the sick child’s mother thrust into his mouth. He could not help smiling at the recollection of it. To neither of them had the comic aspect of the situation then occurred; he had shared the grave anxiety of the moment; it was as if he were watching his own child’s deathbed for the second time. In this picture a presentment of perfect health he was more than ever struck by a likeness between the two children, which during the boy’s illness had impressed him so painfully. A merry Christmas! The wish was well intended, but he had done with seasons of rejoicing. To the preserver of my life! A sweet sound, and possibly no mere idle form of words. But ah! his own child he had not found means to save; his only child, and he had lost him. And then the tormenting reflection that everything might have turned out differently if the boy had lived! Thus even from this chance wayside blossom, meant to give only pleasure, he pressed out a bitter drop. Sighing he thrust the picture into his breast pocket.
Two men of his acquaintance came by.
“The doctor begins to age,” remarked the one, “seems in the dumps today. It’s a pity, such a good chap as he is.”
The speaker drew himself up erect, with a consciousness of his own exemption from other men’s disabilities, and both lifted their hats airily.
“Here child, Angela,” said one of them, “run across to Uncle, and ask him if he will join our Christmas party tonight.” Then, turning to his companion, “We live under one roof, you know. Liberty don’t seem to agree with him over well, ’pon my soul. Could scarcely believe it when the thing happened. An affair of jealousy, wasn’t it? Should never have credited the old boy with that sort of feeling.” And he stroked his smooth banking house face complacently and winked with his small pig’s eyes at the doctor across the road. “Ah, he won’t, won’t he? Too busy? Well, we must console ourselves. Maybe he prefers to spend the evening with countryfolk of his own.”
The doctor’s tall, spare form threaded its way slowly through the throng of Christmas buyers in the goose market, his gray hat seeming to float upon the human stream. Then he turned into the Dammthor Street, of which one end, stretching from the ramparts as far as the Botanical Gardens, had been converted into a veritable fir-tree plantation. The Christmas tree dealers have a fixed place here. It was a sight to see. The biggest trees were built up on each side of the pavement, and behind, extending as far as the town moat, stood innumerable others of smaller growth. The yellow gravel walk crackled with light frost; a scent of pinewoods filled the crisp air. Saleswomen with their hands thrust under their blue aprons tramped up and down to warm their feet. The space behind served as a workshop where men were now busy hacking and sawing and drilling holes. Trees do not always grow as shapely as they appear to the beholder on Christmas Eve. But the salesman’s motto is, “Fraternity and Equality!” He lops a few branches off the body of an overgrown little trunk, and grafts them upon that of an ill-favored comrade: “Share and share alike!” A great heap of twigs these are in request for purposes of household decoration lay strewn around the charcoal fire at which from time to time men and women would come to warm their frost-nipped, resin-stained hands. The doctor stood still and watched. “Anything for you, sir?” asked a stout market woman, pushing her way up to him. Business was naturally brisk this evening, small trees especially being in great demand. But a big, splendid one had just then been disposed of. The buyer, a young and handsomely dressed girl, caught hold of it with her own hands; it overtopped her by a good length.
“The boy will carry it for you, miss,” said the woman, pointing to him; “he’ll be glad to earn a trifle.”
“The boy? Well, he may carry my muff,” cried the girl, and tossed it over like a ball, “but as for the tree, I must have that myself. Heavy? What matter? It’s such fun to carry it.”
And she shouldered it triumphantly and marched off, the boy at her heels, his hands stuck in the soft silk lining of the muff, and trying with a grin on his face to copy her tripping gait. Bystanders laughed, the doctor with them. Then a longing to buy something overcame him too. The aroma of childhood had been conjured up by those prickly shrubs; his soul became filled with an indefinable longing. His mind travelled back to the Swabian gingerbread and the tasty homemade cake that, as a lad, he had many a time been privileged to help knead into shape. Then he bethought him of the fir tree, fetched from the far depths of the forest for his sweetheart; the ranger had let him fell it with his own hands. Beneath that selfsame tree they had plighted their mutual troth. They were sitting under it, too, when suddenly a gay shower of golden nuts and apples and sugar dainties fell down about their heads. For he had chosen a pitch pine instead of a fir tree, and the heat of the room had caused its branches to droop. But they had somehow contrived to read only a glad meaning in this omen. And twice after that had they decked a tree for their boy, marking two happy years. Then the child had died, and his wife had left his house for ever, and henceforth no trees would bear their greenery for him. Yes, the people were right. His life was futile; even in his toil-filled hours he was still consumed by a burning unhealed wound.
He was moving on.
CA. 1890