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The First Vision1
Dr. DALE exceeded the bishop`s worst apprehensions. He was a lean, lank, dark young man with long black hair and irregular, rather prolonged features; his chin was right over to the left; he looked constantly at the bishop`s face with a distinctly sceptical grey eye; he could not have looked harder if he had been a photographer or a portrait painter. And his voice was harsh, and the bishop was particularly sensitive to voices.
He began by understanding far too much of the bishop`s illness, and he insisted on various familiarities with the bishop`s heart and tongue and eye and knee that ruffled the bishop`s soul.
"Brighton-Pomfrey talked of neurasthenia?" he asked. "That was his diagnosis," said the bishop. "Neurasthenia," said the young man as though he despised the word.
The bishop went on buttoning up his coat.
"You don`t of course want to break your vows about drinking and smoking," said the young man with the very faintest suggestion of derision in his voice.
"Not if it can possibly be avoided," the bishop asserted. "Without a loss, that is, of practical efficiency," he added. "For I have much to do."
"I think that it is possible to keep your vow," said the young man, and the bishop could have sworn at him. "I think we can manage that all right."
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