XIX
How the Doctor Was Placed in a Terrible Dilemma
But just as the most beautiful summer days are sometimes abruptly spoilt by a fearful storm, so the Doctor’s happiness was suddenly marred by a most awful possibility. He had found the being for whom he had been searching, certainly: but alas! it was only a monkey. Without doubt they would be able to understand each other, but they could never converse. The Doctor fell back from heaven to earth. Farewell to those long interviews from which he had hoped to gain so much, farewell to that wonderful crusade which they were to have undertaken together—the crusade against superstition! For, battling alone, the Doctor would not possess weapons adequate to overthrow the hydra of ignorance. He needed a man, an apostle, a confessor, a martyr—a role which could scarcely be filled by a monkey! What was he to do? A menacing voice rang in his ears—“Kill him.” Heraclius trembled. In a second he realized that if he killed the monkey the soul thus freed would immediately enter the body of an infant on the point of birth, and that it would then be necessary to wait at least twenty years before that infant reached maturity, by which time the Doctor would be seventy. It was possible, certainly. But could he be sure of tracing the man? Moreover, his religion forbade him to do away with any living being under penalty of committing a murder: therefore, if he did this his soul would pass after death into the body of a ferocious animal, as was decreed for a murderer. What did it matter? Would he not be a victim of science—of his faith? He seized an enormous Turkish scimitar which was hanging against some tapestry and, like Abraham on the mountain, was about to strike, when a sudden thought restrained him. Supposing this man’s sins were not yet expiated, and supposing his soul returned for a second time into the body of a monkey instead of passing into that of a child? This was possible, probable even, nearly certain in fact. In thus committing a futile crime, the Doctor would condemn himself to a terrible punishment without benefiting his fellow-men. Worn out, he dropped back into his chair. Such long drawn out emotion had exhausted him, and he fainted.