I’ve got it. Yes, I see.”
“What is it that you see?”
“Oh, I meant I see the reason for this stream of schoolboys coming to collect lost balls,”
“That’s the sixteenth time today.”
“Don’t you find it a nuisance? Why don’t you keep them out?”
“Keep them out? How can I keep them out when their ball keeps flying in? They’d come in anyway.”
“Well, if you say you can’t help it, I suppose you can’t. But why get so tense and stiff-necked about it? A man with jagged edges is permanently handicapped: he can never roll smoothly along in this rough world. Anything rounded and easy going can easily go anywhere, but angular things not only find it hard to roll but, when they do roll, get their corners snagged and chipped and blunted, which hurts. You see, old chap, the world’s not made simply and solely for you. You can’t always have things your way. In a nutshell, it doesn’t pay to defy the wealthy. All you’ll achieve are strained nerves, damaged health, and an ill name from everyone. Whatever you do and however much you suffer, those with money won’t care a damn. All they have to do is to sit back and hire others to work for them, including whatever dirty work they happen to want done. It’s obvious that you can’t stand up to people like that. Dogged adherence to high moral principle is all very well in its way, but it seems to me that the price you might have to pay, indeed the price you are apparently paying, is a total disruption of both your private studies and your daily employment. You’ll finish up completely worn out for no gain whatsoever.”
“Excuse me, but another ball’s come in. May I go around to the back and get it?”
“Look,” said Suzuki with a knowing laugh, “here they are again.”
“The impudent brats,” my master shouted from a face stung red with rage.
The purpose of his mission now achieved, Suzuki made polite excuses and, as he left the house, invited my master to call upon him sometime.
No sooner had Suzuki gone but we had another visitor, the family physician, Dr. Amaki. The record of history since the most ancient times shows very few persons describing themselves as frenzied, and it’s obvious that when they can recognize themselves as a bit odd, they’ve passed the peak of their derangement. My master reached and passed that peak during yesterday’s major incident, and, though he started off all flame and fury only to settle down in dust and ashes, the fact remains that he did achieve a settlement. Yesterday evening, as he ruminated over the business of that busy day, he recognized there had been something odd about it. Whether the oddness lay with himself or with the inmates of the Hall—that, naturally, remained in doubt. But there was no doubt at all that something very odd was going on. In the course of his rumina-tions, he even realized that, despite the constant provocation that having a middle school for a neighbor must inevitably generate, it was nevertheless a bit peculiar to have lost his temper, to have been dispossessed of his self-possession, day in day out, for weeks on end. If the oddity lay in himself something must be done about it. But what, he wondered, what? In the end he concluded he had no choice but to seek some drug or medicine which would suppress or tranquilize his irritation at its internal source. Having reasoned thus far, my master decided that he’d call in Dr. Amaki and ask for a physical checkup. We need not concern ourselves with the wisdom or folly of that decision, but my master’s determination to cope with his frenzy once he’d noticed it commands, unquestionably, respect and praise.
Dr. Amaki is his usual smiling self as he serenely asks, “And how are we today ?” Most physicians ask that curious question in the plural, and I wouldn’t trust a doctor who didn’t.
“Doctor, I’m sure my end is near.”
“What? Nonsense. That’s impossible.”
“Tell me frankly, do doctors’ medicines ever do one good?”
Dr. Amaki was naturally taken aback by the form of that question but, being a man of courteous disposition, he answered gently without showing any annoyance: “Medicines usually do some good.”
“Take my stomach trouble for instance. No amount of medicine produces the least improvement.”
“That’s not quite true.”
“No? Do you think my medicine is making me feel better?” He’s off again about his blessed stomach, inviting external opinions on an internal condition about which his nervous system sends him regular on-site reports.
“Well,” says the doctor, “no cure comes in the twinkling of an eye. These things take time. But you’re already better now than you used to be.”
“Really? Do you think so?”
“Are you still easily irritated?”
“Of course I am. I fly off the handle even in my dreams.”
“Perhaps you’d better take more exercise.”
“If I do that, I’ll lose my temper yet more quickly.”
Dr. Amaki must have felt exasperated, for he said, “Let’s take a look at you,” and began examining my master. As soon as the examination was over, my master suddenly asked in a very loud voice, “Doctor, the other day I was reading a book about hypnotism which claimed that all sorts of ailments, including kleptomania and other strange disorders, respond well to hypnotic treatment. Do yon think it’s true?”
“Yes, that treatment has been known to effect cures.”
“Is it still practiced today?”
“Yes.”
“Is it difficult to hypnotize a person?”
“No, quite easy. I often do it.”
“What? You do it?”
“Yes, shall I try it on you? Anyone can be hypnotized, at least in theory. Would you like me to try?”
“Very interesting! Yes, please do try. I’ve always wanted to be hypnotized, but I wouldn’t care to remain in a permanent trance, never to wake up.”
“You needn’t worry about that. Right then, shall we start?”
Knowing my master, I was surprised at the speed with which he had agreed to this somewhat unusual form of treatment. I’ve never seen a hypnotist in action, so, thrilled by this exciting chance to witness a wonder for myself, I settled to watch from a corner of the room. Dr. Amaki began by stroking my master’s upper eyelids in a downward direction.
Though my master kept his eyes shut tight, the doctor continued his downward stroking as though endeavoring to close the lids. After a while, the doctor asks, “As I stroke your eyelids down, like this, you feel the eyes are getting heavy, don’t you?”
“True, they are becoming heavy,” answers my master.
The doctor continues stroking and stroking, and eventually says,
“Heavier and heavier, your eyes feel heavier and heavier, you feel that heaviness, don’t you?”
My master, no doubt feeling just as the doctor suggests, is silent. The stroking continues for a further three or four minutes, and then the doctor murmurs, “Now you can’t open your eyes.”
My wretched master! Blinded by his own physician!
“You mean my eyes won’t open.”
“That’s right. You can’t open them.”
My master, his eyes closed, makes no reply. And I watch this fearful scene in the compassionate conviction that he has now become blind.
After a while the doctor says, “Just try to open them—I bet you can’t.”
“No,” replies my master. No sooner had he spoken than both his eyes pop open, and, with a happy smirk, he comments, “You didn’t do me, did you?”
“No,” says Dr. Amaki, laughing in reply, “it seems I couldn’t.” So the experiment with hypnotic healing proved a flop, and Dr. Amaki left on some other mission of medical mercy.