1.The Discus Thrower.doc

1. The Discus Thrower Richard Selzer, I spy on my patients. Ought not a doctor to observe his patients by any means and from any stance, that he might the more fully assemble the evidence? So I stand in the doorways of hospital rooms and gaze. Oh, it is not all that furtive an act. Those in bed need only look up in order to discover me. But they never do. _髀缮腮? ?蚩?=?  From the doorway of Room 542, the man in the bed seems deeply tanned. Blue eyes and close-cropped white hair give him the appearance of vigor and good health. But I know that his skin in not brown from the sun. It is rusted, rather, in the last stage of containing the vile repose within. And the blue eyes are frosted, looking inward like the windows of a snowbound cottage. This man is blind. This man is also legless-the right leg missing from midthigh down, the left from just below the knee. It gives him the look of ornamental tree, roots and branches pruned to the purpose that the thing should suggest a great tree but the dwarfed facsimile thereof. 飉雑?溢=  M$缪纣锊? Propped on pillows, he cups his right thigh in both hands. Now and then, he shakes his head as though acknowledging the intensity of his suffering. In all of this, he makes no sound. Is he mute as well as blind? 駏!B祔  ?荲 pm頑  鴫繑Mg繄  If he is in pain, why do I not see it in his face? Why is the mouth not opened for shrieking? The eyes not spun skyward? Where are tears? He appears to be waiting for something, something that a blind man cannot watch for, but for which he is no less alert. He is listening. .屳?蓴? ?'z淋踻? E鷆儋谫M  The room in which he dwells is empty of all possessions- the get well cards, the small private caches of food. The day-old flowers, the slippers-all the usual kickshaws of the sickroom. There is only a bed, a chair, a nightstand, and a tray on wheels that can be swung across his lap for meals. It is a wild island upon which he has been cast. It is Room 542. ?m ?賫  鰣? fP  "What Time is it?" IM(7e?R? "Three o'clock." Ga U幂磅)  "Morning or afternoon?" ;:dj?  "Afternoon." 愌y篷'K泫  He is silent. There is nothing else he wants to know. 峝r DQ2  Only that another block of time has passed. 怼訂旦V? "How are you?" I say. 喃軋Yq?  "Who is it?" he asks. H鞦=Q?'? "It's the doctor. How do you feel?" t姮?,  He does not answer right away. gS?佈H? "Feel?" he says. P彴?I? "I hope you feel better," I say. 荆粅? I press the button on the side of the bed. 褆N騣l? "Down you go," I say. 艀a琀爽N?lt;  "Yes, down," he says. sf?n?娜L  2jw9纨? 顛婪鶷t吮? He falls back upon the bed awkwardly. His stumps, un-weighted by legs and feet, rise in the air, presenting themselves. I unwrap the bandages from the stumps, and begin to cut away the black scabs and the dead glazed fat with scissors and forceps. A shard of white bone comes loose. I pick it away. I wash the wounds with disinfectant and redress the stumps. All this while, he does not speak. What is he thinking behind those lids that do not blink? Is he remembering the burry prickle of love? A time when he was whole? Does he dream of feet? Of when his body was not a rotting log? P?  l(j傑r垖I,RU?_  He lies solid and inert. In spite of everything, he remains beautiful, as though he were a sailor standing athwart a slanting deck. ?奠3s噯  襡?Y疯?  U礶惼?蒣? "Anything more I can do for you?" I ask. .?枾睓? For a long moment he is silent. aP?>?  "Yes," he says at last and without the least irony, "you can bring me a pair of shoes." 规?旁璿? In the corridor, the head nurse is waiting for me. G1袕耇?%  "We have to do something about him," she says. "Every morning he orders scrambled eggs for breakfast, and instead of eating them, he picks up the plate and throws it against the wall." rA,>?孯  "Throws his plate?" Yn*鼌? "Nasty. That's what he is. No wonder his family doesn't come to visit. They probably can't stand him any more than we can." 鷹z茎迅  She is waiting for me to do something. 帽CZ>qdE? "Well?" ?支,X蒰Q  "We'll see," I say. 雎蜸c%枃g  8A8?!旻  嬀W8%? The next morning, I am waiting in the corridor when the kitchen delivers his breakfast. I watch the aide place the tray on the stand and swing it across his lap. She presses the button to raise the head of the bed. Then she leaves. a?C?egu犺  l:傚?1? In this time, which he has somehow identified as morning, the man reaches to find the rim of the tray, then on to find the dome of the covered dish. He lifts off the cover and places it on the stand. He fingers across the plate until he probes the eggs. He lifts the plate in both of his hands, sets it on the palm of his right hand, centers it, balances it. He hefts it up and down slightly, getting the feel of it. Abruptly, he draws back his right arm as far as he can. 嵋?菡?  fGh?茾  蚙d%? There is the crack of the plate breaking against the wall at the foot of his bed and the small wet sound of scrambled eggs dropping to the floor. ?璷?e桹? ?窝v矫舵  籏腀蹮壘侱  And then he laughs. It is a sound you have never heard. It is a sound that could cure cancer. H躭V峘V? Out in the corridor the eyes of the head nurse narrow. ?O哤傭C? "Laughed, did he?" ?莕m;)  She writes something down on her clipboard. _"Esi齺犽  C灄a裕Lm 7蜩灈?EG_  A second aide arrives, brings a second breakfast tray, puts it on the nightstand out of his reach. She looks over at me, shaking her head and making her mouth go. I see that we are to be accomplices. +瞒抨?  "I've got to feed you," she says to the man. >鐤TT催  "Oh, no you don't," the man says. #夂?>蕜(  "Oh, yes I do," the aide says, "after what you just did. Nurse says so." ?徖夥?麡  "Get me my shoes," the man says. cW舑n?1? "Here's oatmeal," the aide says. "Open." And she touches the spoon to his ?>綩? lower lip. ?凿 夌  "I ordered scrambled eggs," says the man. 墽?褲湘  "That's right," the aide says. 諲?摃庨? I step forward. 沠鯨0  "Is there anything I can do?" I say. Q毋醘开  "Who are you?" the man asks. 虱?GW?  w3珲S  In the evening, I go once more to that ward to make my rounds. The head nurse reports to me that Room 542 is deceased. She has discovered this quite by accident, she says. No, there had been no sound. Nothing. It's a blessing, she says.Note: Richard Selzer, a retired surgeon at Yale-New Haven Hospital, has written widely, publishing articles in popular magazines as well as occasional short fiction. In the essay reprinted here, which first appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1977, Selzer reports on the visits he made to one of his patients.