Gram Negative Diplococci

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

(The laboratory of an American Base Hospital in France)

I WAS working intently over my microscope, searching amid the débris of a stained slide for lurking cocci. Back and forth, through a labyrinth of red and blue fibres, I wandered: here a cell — here another; red-stained leucocytes, these. No organisms here. Good. More cells — a group this time; still nothing suspicious. I lifted my focus a trifle: two tiny red spots—

A knock at the door interrupted me, and I looked up, calling, ‘Come in.’

No one entered. It was very quiet in the laboratory that afternoon — Christmas afternoon. A fire hummed in the iron stove; a coal settled quietly down into place. Over in the far corner a mouse had discovered my precious cake of chocolate, and was gnawing away at the paper wrapper. Rain poured down in a dismal patter on the roof and swished against the windows. No one was stirring. Probably I had been mistaken: it was only the wind rattling the paper windows in the door. I bent again to my red spots. Intra-cellular Gram negative cocci, when found in the spinal fluid, could mean only one thing —

The knock again, — tap, tap, — more distinct this time.

‘Come in!’ Who on earth would stand out in the rain and knock on the door so timidly? No one had ever entered so ceremoniously before. Still no one came in. Strange. No sound now save the fire and the rain: the mouse had stopped when I spoke. I sat a moment, listening. Faint voices reached me from the wards across the street; someone passed, slushing through the deep mud; someone laughed. Then, quite unmistakably, I heard a sob. I sat very still. Seconds passed; another sob; then another followed it in quick succession. Silence again. The mouse was at work once more; it was working on the chocolate now.

Crossing to the door, I threw it open.

A strange figure stood there in the twilight — a strange little old man, stoop-shouldered, bare-headed, the rain streaming down on the few matted gray hairs. He was dressed in the nondescript garb of the Spanish laborer — great wooden shoes, baggy patched trousers, and ragged coat. A great olive-drab muffler was wound several times around his neck, yet the two ends hung nearly to the ground. In his hands — dirty, black-nailed, workworn hands — he fidgeted an old cap. His face was deeply lined and overgrown with a gray stubbly beard of several days’ growth — a thin, starved face, with deep-set, bleary eyes.

A great sob shook him from head to foot. I stood there in the doorway and waited, knowing neither French nor Spanish, and knowing full well that English was useless.

‘ Monsieur,’ he sobbed.

‘Monsieur,’ I repeated, not knowing what else to say.

Sob after sob ran through his bent frame, but there were no tears: he was very old. Puzzled, I awaited further developments, while the old man fingered his cap and sobbed.

‘Monsieur,’ he repeated, but seemed unable to go on.

‘Oui, monsieur.’ Then, plucking up courage, I adventured further: ‘Entrez-vous?’

The ancient did not move. Finally, ‘Christoval—ici?’ he sobbed.

Christoval! I began to understand in spite of myself.

‘Oui; Christoval ici,’ I replied.

A sob a little deeper than the others was the only reply. Then, quite suddenly, his cap crushed in his palm, he raised his face, and both arms shot toward me.

‘Christoval — mon fils!’ he cried.

Ah, the anguish of it! So that was it. Yes, I understood. Christoval, the Spanish laborer who had died that Christmas morning of spinal meningitis; Christoval, who lay in the adjoining room wrapped in a white sheet; Christoval, for whom we had fought a losing fight for days.

‘Entrez-vous, monsieur,’ I repeated; and helped the tottering old man to a seat by the stove. What a picture of utter misery he made, sitting there, sobbing. I hardly knew what to do. If only he could cry a tear!

I patted him gently on the shoulder, with a vague idea of quieting him. The effect was quite unexpected. He looked up at me, then reached for and took my hand in both his calloused palms.

‘Mon fils,’ he repeated.

I hesitated no longer; contagion or no contagion, I could not send him away unsatisfied. His sacrifice was enough: he had the right to see his boy. Taking him gently by the arm, I led him to the door of the adjoining room. There I paused for just a moment: the sobbing had stopped — in fact, he seemed scarcely to breathe. It was very quiet: only the rain on the roof. I looked at the old man: he was very calm. I opened the door.

Then, in the twilight, father and son met for the last time.

Kneeling near the body of his boy, his head buried in his poor old hands, the ancient prayed — half to himself, half aloud — prayed with all the strength of his body and the power of his soul — prayed over the body of his dead son. Surely, if ever prayer ascended, that one did. And then the sobbing began again, but deeper, slower. In fear that he might get too close to the body, I led him gently — very gently—from the room. And as he passed out into the rain again, — childless, crushed, convinced, — he turned and faced me. A great tear sparkled in the corner of each eye! So Nature relented at the last moment and granted him the blessed relief of tears!

‘Merci, monsieur; merci, merci!’ was all he whispered. And touching his finger to his forehead, he turned and plodded off through the mud and rain.

I closed the door, and with a very deep sigh, returned to my microscope and the little red spots. Long I studied over that field and others. More and more tiny red spots revealed themselves where no spots should be. Intra-cellular Gram negative diplococci, when found in fluid taken from the spine, could mean only one thing. And I knew even without further culture, that up in our ‘contagious ward’ one of Uncle Sam’s boys was well started along the same path that the younger Christoval had so lately followed.