that. “I will not pretend to misunderstand you,” he said. “And I will not be such a hypocrite as to pretend that I am not brimming over with curiosity: the family have been filling me with strange tales these six months past.”
“As long as that? You surprise me. I will not embarrass you by asking what they have said.” There was a pause, and then Xavier said, “Shall we sit in the garden? It is stifling in here.”
The garden was older than the house: its present form dated from the time when the Roussillon was a part of Spain. Spaniards had built the high, secret, enclosing wall; Spaniards had planted the enormous fig tree that filled the night with its animal scent and that was heaving the flagstones of the patio with a slow, desperate effort that had begun a hundred years before.
Alain and Xavier settled in long chairs on the second of the three descending terraces of the garden; they had brought the decanter, their glasses, the cigars, and the tourron by the light of the lamp, for it was black velvet night already; but now Alain had put it out for fear of the moths, and they sat in the starlight. He had thought of slipping upstairs for his dressing gown; but it would be madness to risk an interruption like that. Anyhow, it was not necessary: the heat rose still from the stones; the faint breeze was warm on his forehead; and from every tree the cicadas, drunk with warmth, strummed in a choir so uniform and unceasing that in five minutes it was inaudible.
“I have always envied you your profession, Alain,” he said, after a long pause. “It must be a very real satisfaction to a man to know that what he is doing is good: to be able to say at the end of his life that he has spent his time accountably.”
“It is a profession that can be easily idealized,” said Alain, feeling disappointed and let down.
“But even so, surely there must be a deep—not exactly contentment, a sense of fulfillment rather, in using all the knowledge that a doctor has nowadays for unselfish ends? After all, there are so many activities, innumerable activities that a man can engage in and hardly know at the end of the count whether the balance is this way or that: negative trades, to say the best. With medicine at least you know that what you do is right.”
“Yes, there is that aspect. And perhaps it would count for a great deal in the life of a man in general practice: he has opportunities enough, God knows. Though I have a strong feeling that once he starts pluming himself on his moral worth all his merit has left him. For myself, I don’t know. The satisfaction in research is little more than the satisfaction of puzzle-solving raised to its highest degree. No: it is more than that. Just before I came away I finished a long series of experiments—brought them to a firm, distinct conclusion. The conclusion was that the vaccine on which I had been working was useless. But that in itself was an addition to the sum of knowledge: no other bacteriologist will ever have to spend a year of his life to solve that particular question again, and I remember the kind of self-approbation I experienced as I recorded my findings—a little priggish, perhaps, but a feeling that nothing else in the world could give you.” He took a sip of his cognac, let it run slowly down his throat, and went on.
“Still, I think it is certainly a mistake to attribute very high motives or very high merit to researchers: it is true that the work is unselfish in that no immediate personal gain is in prospect (though the idea of personal glory is there quite often), but it is undertaken from interest in the subject, from a desire to know , regardless of values, and it is persisted in from obstinacy; laudable obstinacy, no doubt: but that is not the same thing as a clear-cut desire to serve one’s fellow men.
“I don’t wish to be extreme: I dare say that bacteriologists as a class do think very kindly of mankind as a whole when it occurs to them to
“As long as that? You surprise me. I will not embarrass you by asking what they have said.” There was a pause, and then Xavier said, “Shall we sit in the garden? It is stifling in here.”
The garden was older than the house: its present form dated from the time when the Roussillon was a part of Spain. Spaniards had built the high, secret, enclosing wall; Spaniards had planted the enormous fig tree that filled the night with its animal scent and that was heaving the flagstones of the patio with a slow, desperate effort that had begun a hundred years before.
Alain and Xavier settled in long chairs on the second of the three descending terraces of the garden; they had brought the decanter, their glasses, the cigars, and the tourron by the light of the lamp, for it was black velvet night already; but now Alain had put it out for fear of the moths, and they sat in the starlight. He had thought of slipping upstairs for his dressing gown; but it would be madness to risk an interruption like that. Anyhow, it was not necessary: the heat rose still from the stones; the faint breeze was warm on his forehead; and from every tree the cicadas, drunk with warmth, strummed in a choir so uniform and unceasing that in five minutes it was inaudible.
“I have always envied you your profession, Alain,” he said, after a long pause. “It must be a very real satisfaction to a man to know that what he is doing is good: to be able to say at the end of his life that he has spent his time accountably.”
“It is a profession that can be easily idealized,” said Alain, feeling disappointed and let down.
“But even so, surely there must be a deep—not exactly contentment, a sense of fulfillment rather, in using all the knowledge that a doctor has nowadays for unselfish ends? After all, there are so many activities, innumerable activities that a man can engage in and hardly know at the end of the count whether the balance is this way or that: negative trades, to say the best. With medicine at least you know that what you do is right.”
“Yes, there is that aspect. And perhaps it would count for a great deal in the life of a man in general practice: he has opportunities enough, God knows. Though I have a strong feeling that once he starts pluming himself on his moral worth all his merit has left him. For myself, I don’t know. The satisfaction in research is little more than the satisfaction of puzzle-solving raised to its highest degree. No: it is more than that. Just before I came away I finished a long series of experiments—brought them to a firm, distinct conclusion. The conclusion was that the vaccine on which I had been working was useless. But that in itself was an addition to the sum of knowledge: no other bacteriologist will ever have to spend a year of his life to solve that particular question again, and I remember the kind of self-approbation I experienced as I recorded my findings—a little priggish, perhaps, but a feeling that nothing else in the world could give you.” He took a sip of his cognac, let it run slowly down his throat, and went on.
“Still, I think it is certainly a mistake to attribute very high motives or very high merit to researchers: it is true that the work is unselfish in that no immediate personal gain is in prospect (though the idea of personal glory is there quite often), but it is undertaken from interest in the subject, from a desire to know , regardless of values, and it is persisted in from obstinacy; laudable obstinacy, no doubt: but that is not the same thing as a clear-cut desire to serve one’s fellow men.
“I don’t wish to be extreme: I dare say that bacteriologists as a class do think very kindly of mankind as a whole when it occurs to them to
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