













THE PARASITE

A Story


BY

A. CONAN DOYLE


AUTHOR OF "THE REFUGEES" "MICAH CLARKE" ETC.




1894




THE PARASITE

I

March 24.  The spring is fairly with us now.  Outside my laboratory
window the great chestnut-tree is all covered with the big, glutinous,
gummy buds, some of which have already begun to break into little green
shuttlecocks.  As you walk down the lanes you are conscious of the
rich, silent forces of nature working all around you.  The wet earth
smells fruitful and luscious.  Green shoots are peeping out everywhere.
The twigs are stiff with their sap; and the moist, heavy English air is
laden with a faintly resinous perfume.  Buds in the hedges, lambs
beneath them--everywhere the work of reproduction going forward!

I can see it without, and I can feel it within.  We also have our
spring when the little arterioles dilate, the lymph flows in a brisker
stream, the glands work harder, winnowing and straining.  Every year
nature readjusts the whole machine.  I can feel the ferment in my blood
at this very moment, and as the cool sunshine pours through my window I
could dance about in it like a gnat.  So I should, only that Charles
Sadler would rush upstairs to know what was the matter.  Besides, I
must remember that I am Professor Gilroy.  An old professor may afford
to be natural, but when fortune has given one of the first chairs in
the university to a man of four-and-thirty he must try and act the part
consistently.

What a fellow Wilson is!  If I could only throw the same enthusiasm
into physiology that he does into psychology, I should become a Claude
Bernard at the least.  His whole life and soul and energy work to one
end.  He drops to sleep collating his results of the past day, and he
wakes to plan his researches for the coming one.  And yet, outside the
narrow circle who follow his proceedings, he gets so little credit for
it.  Physiology is a recognized science.  If I add even a brick to the
edifice, every one sees and applauds it.  But Wilson is trying to dig
the foundations for a science of the future.  His work is underground
and does not show.  Yet he goes on uncomplainingly, corresponding with
a hundred semi-maniacs in the hope of finding one reliable witness,
sifting a hundred lies on the chance of gaining one little speck of
truth, collating old books, devouring new ones, experimenting,
lecturing, trying to light up in others the fiery interest which is
consuming him.  I am filled with wonder and admiration when I think of
him, and yet, when he asks me to associate myself with his researches,
I am compelled to tell him that, in their present state, they offer
little attraction to a man who is devoted to exact science.  If he
could show me something positive and objective, I might then be tempted
to approach the question from its physiological side.  So long as half
his subjects are tainted with charlatanerie and the other half with
hysteria we physiologists must content ourselves with the body and
leave the mind to our descendants.

No doubt I am a materialist.  Agatha says that I am a rank one.  I tell
her that is an excellent reason for shortening our engagement, since I
am in such urgent need of her spirituality.  And yet I may claim to be
a curious example of the effect of education upon temperament, for by
nature I am, unless I deceive myself, a highly psychic man.  I was a
nervous, sensitive boy, a dreamer, a somnambulist, full of impressions
and intuitions.  My black hair, my dark eyes, my thin, olive face, my
tapering fingers, are all characteristic of my real temperament, and
cause experts like Wilson to claim me as their own.  But my brain is
soaked with exact knowledge.  I have trained myself to deal only with
fact and with proof.  Surmise and fancy have no place in my scheme of
thought.  Show me what I can see with my microscope, cut with my
scalpel, weigh in my balance, and I will devote a lifetime to its
investigation.  But when you ask me to study feelings, impressions,
suggestions, you ask me to do what is distasteful and even
demoralizing.  A departure from pure reason affects me like an evil
smell or a musical discord.

Which is a very sufficient reason why I am a little loath to go to
Professor Wilson's tonight.  Still I feel that I could hardly get out
