Poor women, he thought, but some of them, especially the maniacs, prided themselves on a familiarity with the saints that went beyond the intent of church dogma.
Another patient, ‘standing stiffly with her arms at her sides, began to speak. “Menin aeide thea…” She was reciting the Iliad, accenting the hexameters properly.’ She turned out, incidentally, to be an ex-doctor of philosophy. However, Stefan was most impressed by the poet Sekułowski, an anarchic decadent or even nihilist. In a discussion with him, Sekułowski could not be matched by any of the doctors, who – in his uncompromising opinion – tried to ‘mend the works of the Creator, who has botched more than one immortal soul’.
Sekułowski’s pertinent observations or retorts (‘Critics—or critins, as I sometimes call them—are the physicians of literature: they make wrong diagnoses just like you, and in just the same way they know how things ought to be but they can’t do anything.’, ‘ Politicians are too stupid for us to be able to predict their actions through reason’) incidentally seem to mirror the diagnoses made by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy). Stefan Trzyniecki, as Sekułowski’s patient disciple, also created his own observations: ‘I think there are times when even God could compromise Himself.’.
Stanisław Lem, who had many hospital internships during his studies, perfectly studied the arcana of medical initiations. With impressive knowledge, he gave in Hospital of the Transfiguration one of the most outstanding literary descriptions of an operation to remove a brain tumour – which, incidentally, failed, because it was probably undertaken too late. However, he showed his real prose mastery in the description of doctors’ attempts to save the patients after the visit of German military representatives in the hospital.
According to the orders of the occupying superior authorities, in the name of the imposed ideology, they intended to carry out a ‘surgical procedure’ to rid the nation of its ‘sick members’. This euphemism was meant to justify the actions of the new rulers, winning (so far) on all fronts. It is always easier to dictate terms from a position of strength, as arrogance, pride, a sense of infallibility and a growing belief in one’s convictions all flourish.
As happens in such extreme situations, not all medics coped with the challenge. There were individual cases of sudden enlightenment: somebody remembered his German ancestors, somebody else left, carrying with him the fruits of his controversial research. On the battlefield, there remained the most steadfast doctors, dedicated to remedying the situation, that is, to protecting at all costs at least the most promising patients.
The greatest fortitude was shown by the retired, indolent hospital chief, Pajączkowski, who was almost invisible and distanced from his dynamic subordinates. An old-fashioned humanist, in the hour of trial he gathered around him faithful medical staff in order to come out of the inconceivable situation with the fewest possible losses. Unfortunately, the procedures did not provide for any exceptions. The orders were given... and executed.