Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (learn to read books txt) 📕

window; he seemed to be avoiding Martin’s eyes. He sighed, “Something sort of bad⁠—perhaps not altogether bad⁠—has happened.”

“What is it, sir? Anything I can do?”

“It does not apply to me. To you.”

Irritably Martin thought, “Is he going into all this danger-of-rapid-success stuff again? I’m getting tired of it!”

Gottlieb ambled toward him. “It iss a pity, Martin, but you are not the discoverer of the X Principle.”

“Wh-what⁠—”

“Someone else has done it.”

“They have not! I’ve searched all the literature, and except for Twort, not one person has even hinted at anticipating⁠—Why, good Lord, Dr. Gottlieb, it would mean that all I’ve done, all these weeks, has just been waste, and I’m a fool⁠—”

“Vell. Anyvay. D’Herelle of the Pasteur Institute has just now published in the Comptes Rendus, Academie des Sciences, a report⁠—it is your X Principle, absolute. Only he calls it ‘bacteriophage.’ So.”

“Then I’m⁠—”

In his mind Martin finished it, “Then I’m not going to be a department-head or famous or anything else. I’m back in the gutter.” All strength went out of him and all purpose, and the light of creation faded to dirty gray.

“Now of course,” said Gottlieb, “you could claim to be co-discoverer and spend the rest of your life fighting to get recognized. Or you could forget it, and write a nice letter congratulating D’Herelle, and go back to work.”

Martin mourned, “Oh, I’ll go back to work. Nothing else to do. I guess Tubbs’ll chuck the new department now. I’ll have time to really finish my research⁠—maybe I’ve got some points that D’Herelle hasn’t hit on⁠—and I’ll publish it to corroborate him⁠ ⁠… Damn him!⁠ ⁠… Where is his report?⁠ ⁠… I suppose you’re glad that I’m saved from being a Holabird.”

“I ought to be. It is a sin against my religion that I am not. But I am getting old. And you are my friend. I am sorry you are not to have the fun of being pretentious and successful⁠—for a while⁠ ⁠… Martin, it iss nice that you will corroborate D’Herelle. That is science: to work and not to care⁠—too much⁠—if somebody else gets the credit⁠ ⁠… Shall I tell Tubbs about D’Herelle’s priority, or will you?”

Gottlieb straggled away, looking back a little sadly.

Tubbs came in to wail, “If you had only published earlier, as I told you, Dr. Arrowsmith! You have really put me in a most embarrassing position before the Board of Trustees. Of course there can be no question now of a new department.”

“Yes,” said Martin vacantly.

He carefully filed away the beginnings of his paper and turned to his bench. He stared at a shining flask till it fascinated him like a crystal ball. He pondered:

“Wouldn’t have been so bad if Tubbs had let me alone. Damn these old men, damn these Men of Measured Merriment, these Important Men that come and offer you honors. Money. Decorations. Titles. Want to make you windy with authority. Honors! If you get ’em, you become pompous, and then when you’re used to ’em, if you lose ’em you feel foolish.

“So I’m not going to be rich. Leora, poor kid, she won’t have her new dresses and flat and everything. We⁠—Won’t be so much fun in the lil old flat, now. Oh, quit whining!

“I wish Terry were here.

“I love that man Gottlieb. He might have gloated⁠—

“Bacteriophage, the Frenchman calls it. Too long. Better just call it ‘phage.’ Even got to take his name for it, for my own X Principle! Well, I had a lot of fun, working all those nights. Working⁠—”

He was coming out of his trance. He imagined the flask filled with staph-clouded broth. He plodded into Gottlieb’s office to secure the journal containing D’Herelle’s report, and read it minutely, enthusiastically.

“There’s a man, there’s a scientist!” he chuckled.

On his way home he was planning to experiment on the Shiga dysentery bacillus with phage (as henceforth he called the X Principle), planning to volley questions and criticisms at D’Herelle, hoping that Tubbs would not discharge him for a while, and expanding with relief that he would not have to do his absurd premature paper on phage, that he could be lewd and soft-collared and easy, not judicious and spied-on and weighty.

He grinned, “Gosh, I’ll bet Tubbs was disappointed! He’d figured on signing all my papers with me and getting the credit. Now for this Shiga experiment⁠—Poor Lee, she’ll have to get used to my working nights, I guess.”

Leora kept to herself what she felt about it⁠—or at least most of what she felt.

XXX I

For a year broken only by Terry Wickett’s return after the Armistice, and by the mockeries of that rowdy intelligence, Martin was in a grind of drudgery. Week on week he toiled at complicated phage experiments. His work⁠—his hands, his technique⁠—became more adept, and his days more steady, less fretful.

He returned to his evening studying. He went from mathematics into physical chemistry; began to understand the mass action law; became as sarcastic as Terry about what he called the “bedside manner” of Tubbs and Holabird; read much French and German; went canoeing on the Hudson on Sunday afternoons; and had a bawdy party with Leora and Terry to celebrate the day when the Institute was purified by the sale of Holabird’s pride, Gladys the Centrifuge.

He suspected that Dr. Tubbs, now magnificent with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, had retained him in the Institute only because of Gottlieb’s intervention. But it may be that Tubbs and Holabird hoped he would again blunder into publicity-bringing miracles, for they were both polite to him at lunch⁠—polite and wistfully rebuking, and full of meaty remarks about publishing one’s discoveries early instead of dawdling.

It was more than a year after Martin’s anticipation by D’Herelle when Tubbs appeared in the laboratory with suggestions:

“I’ve been thinking, Arrowsmith,” said Tubbs.

He looked it.

“D’Herelle’s discovery hasn’t aroused the popular interest I thought it would. If he’d only been here with us, I’d have seen to it that he got the proper attention. Practically no newspaper comment at all.