Chapter Eighteen
The lilac twilight suffused the air of Alexandria when Lucanus, exhausted, left the infirmary and mortuary. Here and there a streak of dead blood splashed his tunic, and his head throbbed. He encountered Joseph ben Gamliel, who had apparently been waiting for him.
Joseph said, “Greetings, Lucanus. I wish a favor of you. I have a dear friend who has been living in Alexandria for two months, not out of choice but because he is very ill and is close to death. His name is Elazar ben Solomon, a rich trader who travels all over the world. An exceedingly rich trader, and a good man. Will you see him?”
Lucanus said curtly, “I am sorry, Joseph, but I have no wish to treat any rich man, anywhere. I have made up my mind to travel to every port, on any ship, to treat the destitute and slaves in every city, and the galley slaves, for there are no sanitoria anywhere for them, except in Rome, which, therefore, does not need me.”
“We say in our Scriptures that wisdom with an inheritance is very good,” said Joseph, smiling. “Do not color so, my Lucanus. I am merely congratulating you on having a wealthy adopted father. Otherwise how would you live on your journeys to the ports? I have not heard,” added Joseph, “that rich men suffer less in their diseases than do the poor, nor that God has granted them any immunities. A cancer is as agonizing in a Caesar as it is in his lowliest slave.”
“Nevertheless, I do not wish to treat any rich man,” repeated Lucanus, coldly. Then he was curious. “I am a tyro as yet. Has not your friend consulted any of the competent physicians in Alexandria, those avid for fat fees? I could name you a dozen!”
Joseph gazed at him reflectively. “Lucanus, I believe you could help Elazar ben Solomon, and you alone. He is dying; it is probable you cannot save his life. He is also stricken in his soul, and you could comfort him.”
“I!” exclaimed Lucanus, and he smiled wearily. “I, the comfortless, give comfort?”
“You do so all the time,” said Joseph, with gravity. “Will you come as this favor to me, for I love Elazar ben Solomon. We were children together in Jerusalem, before I came to Alexandria.” His face changed, became subtly desolate. “My litter is waiting outside the garden.”
Lucanus hesitated. There was something mysterious in Joseph’s manner, he thought, and in spite of the young Greek’s repugnance to treating the rich and privileged his physician’s heart could not be denied. He said, “It is possible he may have a disease in which I am interested, so I will come.”
Joseph smiled in his beard. They approached the gates, which were opened for them by armed slaves. Joseph had no slaves himself, nor had his family; they employed only freedmen, whom they had bought as slaves and then freed. His litter bearers were strong young men who bowed affectionately to their master. The evening was very hot, and the sky was a burning amethyst now. Joseph and Lucanus seated themselves side by side in the litter, pushing aside the woolen curtains to catch any vagrant breeze. Suddenly, in this tropical land, the canopy of night fell over Alexandria, and the moon leaped in her place.
The city, as usual, was a welter of color, lamps, clamoring voices, animals, and men and women, for it was only in the evening that Alexandria became fully alive. The scarlet torches hissed in their sockets; beggars squeaked and pleaded every few feet. Chariots roared down the torturous streets. Men shouted, women laughed; music rose from behind white walls pouring with red and magenta and white flowers. Quickly the moonlight came, striking down on low white roofs, as flat as the earth. It was as pale water on those roofs, on which householders were gathering for coolness. Their dark forms and featureless faces moved about; they talked and laughed and clapped hands for slaves to bring their wine, and voices called in many strange tongues. Sometimes an arched door opened in a wall, and one could see illuminated gardens, sweet-smelling and full of fountains and statues on which the moonlight drifted like silver rain.
Joseph did not speak on the short journey. He seemed sunken in some melancholy of his own, and Lucanus did not disturb it. He was angry with himself; he wondered why it was always difficult for him to deny Joseph ben Gamliel anything. The voice and the scent of the sea were becoming more imminent, so Lucanus understood that the house to which they were going was near the water and, therefore, very desirable. The huge white moon stared down implacably on the hot and teeming city and brought no coolness to it. Now they reached a smooth, high white wall, and alighted, and a freedman knocked on an arched door. It opened, and beyond it slept the quiet moon-struck garden, full of flowers and trees and grass and fountains, but with no statues. A perfume of fig blossoms and jasmine wafted out into the street. The house at a little distance was large and white, with a wide colonnade and, at the side, balconies in the Eastern manner.
But even here in this warm freshness the fetid and aromatic odor of the East was insistent. The odor was not unpleasant; it even had a hint of spice in it, and incense, and extraordinarily fecund earth.
“It is pleasant here,” said Lucanus, grudgingly, thinking of the infirmary at the university. “This man does not spare his money!”
“Why should he?” asked Joseph, in a reasonable voice. “Shall money be hoarded?”
“It could be used to good advantage in helping the helpless, in building sanitoria for the poor, in sheltering the homeless,” said Lucanus.
Joseph sighed. “Elazar ben Solomon is known for his many charities, and his kindness, for he has the greatest heart. He redeems every Jewish slave he finds; you will discover no slaves in this house, or in any of his many houses in many cities. The more he gives, the more God gives to him.”
The curtains of the windows were pulled aside, so any coolness could enter. It was very still here in the gardens as the two men approached the house. Nightingales sang to the moon, and the songs were both piercing and poignant. Crickets chattered. Somewhere parrots squawked. But there were no human voices. The big bronze doors stood apart, and the hall beyond was of snowy marble filled with high columns, and lighted by many silver lamps on tall standards. Flowers were everywhere in Grecian and Egyptian vases standing on the floor.
The most beautiful girl Lucanus had ever seen in his life hastened towards Joseph, her hands outstretched in loving greeting. She was more beautiful than Iris, the mother of Lucanus, whom the young man had considered unsurpassed even by the loveliest of statues. The girl appeared to be less than twenty, and probably closer to sixteen, and she was so slight, yet so shapely in her blue dress, that her height was not immediately apparent. She was like a queen, and she moved in a queenly fashion, gliding over the white marble. Her small and regal head floated with unbound dark tresses like billowing silk, and so fine was her hair that it appeared to be a blowing vapor. Her oval face was the color of a pearl, translucent and glowing as if with an inner light, and her lips were a bright soft red, her nose delicate and finely shaped, her eyes of a deep and shining violet. She wore a necklace, earrings, and bracelet of glittering blue stones set in elaborately fashioned gold. A delightful scent, as of roses, seemed to exude from her snowy flesh rather than from her garments or hair. Her blue garment was sweetly rounded over her maiden breasts, and her slender waist was encircled by a golden girdle also set with darker blue stones. The silk flowed over her smooth young hips, rustled about her exquisite ankles. Her sandals were of gold-brushed leather.
She was joyous at the sight of Joseph, and her luminous white throat palpitated as if she were also restraining herself from bursting into tears of relief and gratitude at Joseph’s presence. Joseph took her extended hands and held them warmly and looked into her eyes with the love of a father. “My dear Sara,” he said, gently. “I trust your father is better tonight?”
Sara took no immediate notice of Lucanus, hovering in the background and enchanted by the sight of this virginal beauty which had a springlike quality of pureness and adorable tints. Her smile left her face; her lips covered teeth like porcelain. “No, he is not better, Joseph,” she said, and her voice was as mournful and soft as a dove’s call. “Bu
t he will be so happy to see you.” She, like Joseph, spoke in Aramaic. Her long black lashes quivered, and her black brows, silken and shining, were like arrows against her white forehead. She had no need for artifice, for paint pots or kohl for her eyes or dye to tint the ends of her fingers rosy. Nature had endowed her with the most entrancing colors, alive as a flower.
Joseph turned to Lucanus. “Sara,” he said, “here is my favorite pupil, Lucanus, of whom I have spoken often to you. He is a mighty physician; I have persuaded him to see your father.”
Lucanus was so dazzled and bewitched and stunned by the sight of such young and supernal beauty that it was a moment or two before he could bow formally. His Greek blood leaped in adoration of this loveliness; he thought of a statue of the very young Hebe he had once seen in a temple in Alexandria, for Sara was born to serve in love and devotion. This was evident in her air of tenderness and solicitude and gentle humility.
“Before you see my father, Joseph,” she said, her eyes suddenly fixed with fascination on Lucanus, “you must both dine and drink some wine.”
“Wine we will drink,” said Joseph, following the girl into a room beyond the hall which was furnished richly yet simply, and full of many-colored flowers. Here again there were no statues. The walls were of brilliantly hued mosaic depicting blossoms, twining leaves, and stylized Oriental forms. The columns were of yellow marble, the lamps of Corinthian bronze, the floor of white and black marble squares, on which were scattered Persian rugs like woven jewels. “But we must return to our homes to dine. Otherwise our families will be concerned about us.”
“Ah, yes, it is so,” said Sara, unable to take her eyes from Lucanus, who stood uneasily in the center of the large cool room, as tall and handsome as a god. After a moment Sara started, and blushed, and cast down her eyes. Her pretty breast rose quickly, then fell. She clapped her hands, and a servant entered carrying a silver tray on which goblets rested, studded with many different gems. Sara herself poured the excellent wine, which smelled of warm vineyards in the sun. As if bemused, she gave Lucanus a goblet first rather than the older Joseph. He took it; their fingers touched, and Lucanus, in spite of himself, felt an electric thrill. Accustomed as he was to the retiring ways of Aurelia and Iris and ‘old’ Roman women, he wondered a little at the freedom and artless ease of this young girl.
He drank the wine, which had an alluring aroma and taste, and he was annoyed with himself that he enjoyed it. Joseph, drinking also, questioned the maiden about her father in a low voice, and she answered with notes of distress. Lucanus delighted in the sound of the girl’s tones, so dulcet, so varied, so eloquent. From time to time, as she spoke, she glanced shyly at Lucanus, and when his eyes met hers she colored deeply.
Finally the two men followed the girl through an open colonnade whose columns were argent and gleaming in the moonlight. She pushed aside a curtain of heavy Oriental lace, and they entered a large bedchamber, shining softly with silver lamps and filled with the scent of blossoms and spice. On a large carved bed of ivory, silver, and gilt lay a man of middle age, raised high on silken cushions and with a light colorful rug over his feet. Before Lucanus saw his face he could hear the man’s desperate, changeful breathing, and his physician’s spirit forgot everything but its dedication.
“Greetings, my dear Elazar,” said Joseph, approaching the bed, and followed by Lucanus. Joseph took his friend’s hands and bent over him, smiling with tender concern, and Sara stood at the foot of the bed anxiously smiling at her father.
Elazar tried to speak, but his voice, between his loud breaths, was hurried and faint. He coughed repeatedly.
“Rest,” said Joseph. “I have brought the young physician, Lucanus.” And he raised himself and looked at the Greek, beckoning him with his eyes. Lucanus approached, all his alertness fixed on the sick man. Immediately, without speaking, he saw that Elazar was in extremis. The Jewish trader and merchant was an emaciated dark man, leaden of complexion, and possessing large and mournful eyes still glowing with life in spite of his moribund condition. His features reminded Lucanus of Diodorus, for Elazar had that eagle contour and sharpness of face and expression, and Lucanus thought again of the strange resemblance between Jews and Romans.
Elazar tried to smile politely at Lucanus, but he was extremely restless despite his prostration. His lips and ear lobes and the tips of his fingers were cyanotic. A look of profound melancholy lay on his face. His mouth stood open as he attempted to gulp air, and the râles in his lungs made his breath rasping and wheezing. Lucanus, without speaking, lifted the man’s tunic from his chest, and bent his head and applied his ear to the region of the heart. Yes, there were the extrasystoles and auricular fibrillation; the heart sounds were muffled, short, and weak, interspersed with an erratic and bounding rhythm. The displaced apex beat was there, the small rapid pulse, the feeble but well-defined first sound with muffled second sound. The patient was in severe heart failure. Lifting his head, Lucanus silently studied the face again, and the mortal color of the flesh, and listened to the cough and saw the tinge of blood in the corners of the dying lips and the enlarged toxic swelling of the gland in the throat. Then the young physician lifted a vial from the golden marble table at the head of the bed and sniffed and examined the contents. He frowned; the heart stimulant here was much too strong. Nevertheless, little could be done for this sufferer now, and immediately the soul of Lucanus was moved, and he forgot that Elazar ben Solomon was a rich man. He was only a man who was tormented.
Lucanus said to him gently, in Aramaic, “You have had the best physicians? Do not try to speak; merely indicate the answers with your head. I judge you were stricken a few weeks ago. You have had indigestion, vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea.” He paused, and said with more gentleness, “You understand your condition?”
Elazar lay on his pillows and studied the face of Lucanus intently, the carved and full but ascetic lips, the long and chiseled Grecian nose, the sloping brow, the eloquent blue eyes now filled with pity and sympathy and kindness. An eagerness came over the dying man’s face, a striving for a last strength. His fixed regard penetrated into Lucanus’ soul with the peculiar intensity of the dying, and he smiled. He whispered harshly, and with difficulty, “Yes, that I understand, and there is no regret in me, except for the child I must leave.” He gave Sara a deeply loving glance, and she burst into tears. She knelt beside the bed and placed her head against her father’s shoulder.
“As a physician I can do nothing for you,” said Lucanus, for he understood that here was a heroic man who should not be insulted by soothing lies. “You are beyond human help, Elazar.”
“But not beyond God’s help, blessed be His Name,” said Elazar.
“Blessed be His Name,” said Joseph, with great emotion.
Lucanus’ face became cold and remote again. He turned to Joseph and said, “I do not know why I was called. Was it only to repeat what other, and better, physicians have already told Elazar ben Solomon?”
“No,” said Joseph. “It was to hear his story, and to give your promise to help him. Why I believed you could extend this help I do not know. We Jews frequently have mysterious spiritual intuitions, beyond rational reason, beyond explaining.” His eyes dwelt on Lucanus gravely, and he touched his beard.
“Raise me,” pleaded the sick man, and Sara and Joseph lifted him on his pillows. During this he did not remove his pleading gaze from Lucanus; it was as if he knew that his last hope was there. Lucanus said, “He should rest. He should not be permitted to speak.” He was greatly vexed with Joseph for his cryptic words, his logical Greek mind rejecting the sonorous mysticism of the Jews. “Nevertheless, if I can help Elazar I shall do it, though how I can help is unknown to me.”
“Perhaps it is not unknown to God,” said Joseph, and Lucanus ignored this remark. He mixed a little of the elixir in the vial with some wine and held it to Elazar’s lips, and the merchant swallowed painfully. The huge gland in his throat seemed about to burst his tight and leaden skin. Lucanus
could feel the pain in his own throat, and the difficulty of swallowing, and his head suddenly ached.
Elazar said, “I must speak, for I have little time, and I have listened to Joseph ben Gamliel and have never known him to make a foolish remark. And there is something in me also which assures me, young Master, that you can help me. Harken unto me.” He paused to struggle for breath again, and Lucanus’ face tightened with distress at the piteous sound.
“Two years ago,” said Elazar, panting, “my beloved wife, Rebecca, gave birth to our first and only son, in this very house. She died in childbed.” His eyes filled with tears like blood. “I gave the name of Arieh, the lion, to the child, and he comforted me, for indeed he resembled a young lion and was strong and beautiful. He was my heart’s joy, for never in all Israel was there so lovely a child, and I gave him to God.”
He pressed his thin and livid palms together in a convulsive gesture of agonized sorrow. “My time grows short,” he gasped. “Sara, do not weep. I must speak. Young Master, I have no slaves, only freedmen and women who are devoted to me and my family. One day two nurse girls played with Arieh, my son, in this enclosed courtyard and garden, and from my library I heard his child’s laughter. Then I became aware of no more voices, and no more mirth. I left the library to discover the reason why. The girls lay among the flowers, their heads crushed and bleeding, and my son was gone.”
Dear and Glorious Physician Page 28