The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-09-02


anguish, SO that for moment he held
on with clenched hands and bitten lips
to his table,, feeling that he must grip
hoid OF something. At the moment
his eye fell on the bottle Of laudanum
which stood by the looking glass, and
tho never before had he taken two
doses on the same day, yet never be-
fore had the pain been so agonizing and
: SO persistent, and next moment he had
poured full dose into his graduated
glass and drank it. But the beads Of
persplration from the pain were stand
suck with it,. and sat down for mo-
ment to wait for the blessed relief
That would so soon come. On his very
sensitive and excitable nerves the drug
exercised an almost instantaneous eff:
tiect, not soporific at all, but tranquilliz-
Inc pain faded like the melting away
OF the vapor Of breath on frosty
morning and as it faded a warm, ting
ing glow began to invade him. It was
as Il on some bitter, biting Arctic
night the sun Of the south poured it's
hMarMi, .praclng rays on to his brain;
happiness and content were unfolded
IKE map, the newborn sense Of we'll
beng stretched and summed itself in
this luminous peace. =. :.
He had not to wait long. Before the
seconds had licked themselves into a
minute this divine remission of pain
began, and, with it, the no less blessed
glow OF content. and a couple of min
.utes afterwards it was not so much in
the utter relief of pain that his body,
reveled as IN the ecstatic sense of SUI
,preme bodily harmony. And then. as
always, this well-b being Of the BODY
spread, like some warm, incoming tide,
TO his mind, the one reacting on the
otner' Inc horror and suffering of his
poor, fever-stricken village ceased to
weigh upon him and darken the soul
with Its anguish and his own helpless
ness; Instinctively his mind ceased to
dwell on the thought of the bedside of
the stalker whose life was despaired of.
PVT went to another bedside where a
he that had almost been despaired of
yesterday was coming back from the
entrance to the valley Of the shadow,
and had crawled out today from the
thorn-hedge of illness, so to speak, on
to the highroad Of recovery. This case
was that of a woman-the wife Of Dun
can Frazer, one Of his fshing-gillies.
And in this spirit he looked hopefully
forward, while the soothing, stimulat-
ing drug made it's benefcent way with
IN MIN, to further amelioration tomor-
row. ;, G...-.. > - : -
.!Thurso had sat down for moment to
recover from the faintness that had
seized him at that sudden onslaught Of
pain, but also in order to abandon him
SELF more entirely to the raptures of
these drug effects. Then, after few
minutes, he got up, remembering two
things, the first that he was keeping
Maud waiting, the second that for the
nfsE t1Ine ne was consciously revealing
ana dellghting in the bodily sensation
t 5 the opium produced. Up till to-.
day ne had taken it purely incidentally,
IN order to relieve pain when the pain
was lntolerable or paralyzing to exer-
lions that he was called upon to make
and having taken it like a medicine he
had done no more than take the me-
dlclnal advantage of it's restoring quail
tues: But tonight he knew deep down
IN himself that he had done somthing
d1fferent, had taken it in different
spirit. True, the pain had been very
acute, but as he drank he knew that
he had welcomed and waited for not
only the remission of pain and the re-
turn of energy, but for that glow of
seeming exquisite health and harmony
OF sensation that it gave him. Yet tho
ne no longer, as he got up, abandoned
himself to this, he was vividly con.
scious that he had done so. And as he
went downstairs third thought, laud-
anum born, occurred to him. He must
not let Maud know he had taken il
again; he must not let her see how sud
denly and completely the pain had gone,
for fear that she might guess Already
he was slightly ashamed of what
amounted to cowardice, yet
was impossible to be ashamed of anv-
thing. But if she asked? Well, in
that case it would be better to iput
the question by.' She had no bust
ness to ask; whether he had taken
laudanum again or not was his affair,
Perhaps---yes, that was the right plan.
He would be silent and quiet till din
ner was near y over, and then confess
had told him that it would, and indeed
the pain often left him as suddenly as
it came on, as if tap had been turned
on or off. -.,.,. *
All this flashed instantaneouslv thru
his head. Another thought flashed
there, too. There was Paradise in that