Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1920-04-09


packages freighted with magical de-
light. But to those who pitied him in
all his loneliness he was utterly con-
temptuous; he even went so far as to
flip sidelong to the floor a religious
post card rendered him by devout
and sentimental passer-by, and he did
it in her presence. unashamed. Later,
when smiling orderly picked UP that
post card and tucked it under his pill
low he was no less contemptuous in
permitting it to remain. But the one
stupendous fact which, more than all
else combined, made him an object of
bewildered curiosity was this-that of
the scores and scores of men with
head-wounds who were reborn at Neu-
lily that spring and summer, he was
the only one who had never asked for
a mirror.
This, of itself, wouldn't have been
astonishing as long as he delayed In
the preliminary stages of recovery, for
now and then man with head-wOunds
proves to be representative but in
the second stage it was remarkable,
and in the third stage 1t was unique.
The staff held it to be extraordinary
from social as well as from a path
illogical viewpoint, that man so ter
ribly disdgured should have no inter-
est-not even morbid lnterest-in
his own appearance. And 1t wasn't
that the Individual was simply indif-
ferent to the mirror; on the contrary,
his aversion to 1t was active and eneg-
getic; he flinched, and moti0Eed 1t
frantically away as though the mere
conception Of seeing himself as others
saw him was too repellant, and too
unthi1ikable to endure.
There came a day in April when a
photograph was requested of him.
Surely he knew where there was a
likeness of himself, didn't he? His
old passport photograph, which had
mysteriously disappeared, or
The Individual glanced up from his
present task; the wound in his arm
was still annoying and he was alb
sorbed in learning to write with his
left hand.
'What for?" he muttered.
"Why," said the nurse, cheerfully,
''for a model. To help the surgeons.
They'll take your picture for a guide
and make you look almost exactly the
way you did before"
The Individual from America sat up
straight, so that the nurse was startled
by his animation, which was without
a parallel in his local history.
sWhat !" he said.
Certainly !" The nurse spoke in
the tone one uses to an aiIing child.
you've known that, haven't you"
The Individuals voice was queerly
manageable and strained. you
mean to say they're going to make me
look the way Could they do that
Could they? Even now?"
s'Why, of course" she assured him.
''You never told me that" he said,
passionately. "Why didn't you? Why
couldn't you have told me-! And here
I've been :" He put his hands to
his bandaged face and seemed to
shrink within himself Then all at once
he burst out: "Well, there's nothing
to prevent Then they could make
me not look like it, if they wanted to
Isn't that SOP"
She regarded him in vast perpleXity,
and thought of summoning a surgeon.
for the man had begun to culver as
though from shell shock-which he
hadn't undergone.
"Why, l don't understand what you
mean" she said soothingly. "But if
you'll just be calm and"
The Individual gestured with fierce
Impotence.
IF they can do what you say, and
make me look like any old thing they
choose to, then what in the devil are
they asking for photograph for?"
"Why, to go BY" she said helplessly.
"You want to look like your old self,
don't your"
mo, don'tw
The nurse gasped. His tone had been
churlish, but the echo of it vaguely
suggested triumph and relief. His
symptoms had subsidized could
it be that he actually was relieved ?
Dumfounded she made another effort
to convince him.
"But you want to look just as near
ly like"