It was before they began ticketing stiffs and just after they changed from the hook system and the vat was a slimy mass of bodies, under which they were pushing, sliding, hiding....
Then that vile job of cleaning up the cupola. That blotch of blood Ted's back had left and which wouldn't come off and Ted's saying:
"Sterling, every sunset the sky will reflect that I've broken my Oath and murdered...."
And the next day Longstreet had committed suicide.
He had never been back to that cupola! Nobody had been there. The only key remained upon his ring day and night. Since he was famous, he had tried to believe that the blotch was faded, but there came spells still where he'd lose the key in his dreams and hunt and hunt; when he couldn't make himself enter the hospital by the main entrance; when he would be unable to look at the cupola.
It took ten years of dissecting medical students to finish Flossie; even then her legs were perfect enough to carry over to the new pathology building. They had a curve, even to the last ... an irresistible curve....
Why couldn't he ever learn that he must not look backward? If he had looked backward _then_, he could never have married old Dr. Jemison's daughter and been the proud father of Cub and honorary this and that.
The only people who had ever known were dead. Long dead....
Dr. Sterling was cut back into the tense antagonism which was rising between his son and Hoffbein, when Hoffbein remarked:
"Have you no private conclusions, Ethridge?"
"This is no psychiatric examination, Hoffbein," said Bear. Bear's eyes also knew the hypodermic trick.
"My son has told you the facts, and asked the staff's aid. He suspects an unnatural situation in his department, and asks, in relation to the hospital, how our experience would lead us to handle it. That's simple, and like all simple things, complex enough, isn't it?"
Dr. Harrison took his eyes from the leaves, looked at his watch and rose. He had said nothing for minutes. His action had the effect of a seine upon minnows.
"What is being done with the bed now, Ethridge?"
"It is in use, sir. A patient of Father's."
Then with the steady stroke of a masseur, he went on:
"I see nothing the staff collectively can contribute which Ethridge and Dr. MacArthur have not already covered. Mysteries in medicine are more frequent than recoveries and Ethridge has my profound respect for acknowledging himself up against one. When one has toyed with homo sapiens as long as Bear and I have, one realizes that they are so damn full of mystery ... after all, people will die!"