But that I do not believe.
You and your teachers--you are specialists, and consequently you
are driven to attribute everything to the disease you make the
subject of your studies. A tragic case, an exceptional case,
holds a kind of fascination for you; you think it can never be
talked about enough."
"I have heard that argument before," said the doctor, with an
effort at patience.
"Let me go on, I beg you," pleaded George. "You have told me
that out of every seven men there is one syphilitic. You have
told me that there are one hundred thousand in Paris, coming and
going, alert, and apparently well."
"It is true," said the doctor, "that there are one hundred
thousand who are actually at this moment not visibly under the
influence of the disease. But many thousands have passed into
our hospitals, victims of the most frightful ravages that our
poor bodies can support. These--you do not see them, and they do
not count for you. But again, if it concerned no one but
yourself, you might be able to argue thus. What I declare to
you, what I affirm with all the violence of my conviction, is
that you have not the right to expose a human creature to such
chances--rare, as I know, but terrible, as I know still better.
What have you to answer to that?"
"Nothing," stammered George, brought to his knees at last. "You
are right about that. I don't know what to think."
"And in forbidding you marriage," continued the doctor, "is it
the same as if I forbade it forever? Is it the same as if I told
you that you could never be cured? On the contrary, I hold out
to you every hope; but I demand of you a delay of three or four
years, because it will take me that time to find out if you are
among the number of those unfortunate ones whom I pity with all
my heart, for whom the disease is without mercy; because during
that time you will be dangerous to your wife and to your
children.
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