But the Patient Lived — A Closer Reading

But did you realize that I'll have my 190th birthday before those three months are up? When a person gets to be that old, she looks forward to seeing the doctor more than she used to look forward for Santa to arrive back in the old days."

"No symptoms since your last visit?" Dr. Needzak spoke more loudly than usual in deference to her failing hearing, and turned up the light to aid weak, old eyes.

"None." She spat out the word. "I'm going to change doctors, if this keeps up. I've heard of a couple of doctors who aren't as scrupulous as you are. After living all this time, I think that I could be permitted one little crime, lying to them about a symptom. Then I know that I'd be made happy. What's the use being moral when you're too frail and tottery to enjoy life?"

Dr. Needzak shook his head, disapprovingly. "I don't think you're quite as miserable as you think you are. Don't go to those quack doctors. Suppose you're caught, halfway through a crime? You might linger for decades, half-well, half-sick, from the effects of what they'd give you. Even the quacks won't supply you with strychnine, you know."

"I know. I shouldn't have suggested it. But I get so tired of living."

"Well, I can't see any physical trouble that could have developed enough to warrant a complete exam since your last one. Maybe those arteries will start hardening by the time you have that 190th birthday. Or you could take up chemistry as a hobby. Just think what a fine explosion you might get mixed up in!"

"I thought of that." A couple of tears trickled down the wrinkled cheeks of Mrs. Watkins. "But the thrice-great-grandchildren watch me like a hawk. They don't let me do anything that might hurt me. I suppose I'll just have to wait, and hope, and wait, and pray."

She rose, very suddenly. Then she shook her head disgustedly. "I don't even get dizzy when I do that, like most people my age. Thank you, anyway, doctor." Mrs. Watkins walked out with dignity.

Dr. Needzak noticed that his waiting room was filling rapidly, during the two seconds that Mrs. Watkins opened the door to leave. He fumed inwardly at his patience in dealing at length with cases like the last two, whom he couldn't possibly be sure of helping.

But his ill-humor was replaced by astonishment. The receptionist introduced a woman even younger than he. She was very pale, but Dr. Needzak guessed that that pallor derived from tension, not some rare organic disturbance.

"Are you sure that you haven't made a mistake, Miss Tillett?" He asked the question quietly, trying to catch her eyes. She kept them resolutely on her hands, which were folding and unfolding in her lap.

"I talked with several good friends before coming to you, doctor," the girl said. Her voice was very low. "You had been a good doctor for their grandparents or great-grandparents. They told me that you could help me, if anybody could."

"But your preliminary examination shows nothing whatsoever wrong with you," the doctor said. "It'll be another century before you would normally develop the slightest symptom on which I'd be allowed to work. And people of your age just don't go to doctors. It's only when you're past the century mark, and know that decade after decade stretches out ahead of you, that you start feeling that a doctor might--"

"Please," she interrupted, almost inaudibly. "I don't think that a physician should allow the consideration of a patient's age to enter into his course of action. For personal reasons, I may need a doctor more than the average person six times my age."

"Will you tell me something about yourself? I'm not curious, except as far as knowledge might affect my recommendations."

"I don't care to discuss personal problems. Now, doctor, your assistant who gave the preliminary examination overlooked the reason for my coming to you. Right here," and she carefully touched a spot on the well-tailored dress. "I think that it might be a tumor."

"What good does it do to come to a doctor for that?" Dr. Needzak said. "Tumors are so rare that there's very little chance that it's more than your imagination. And the best physician can't speed up the growth of a tumor, or change it from benign to malign."

"A physician can diagnose," she answered. "If it's malign, I'll be able to have patience. I won't need to break the law." Unexpectedly, grotesquely, she drew one finger across her throat in a cutting gesture, and looked squarely at him for the first time.