People Will Talk Page #4

or do the electrons do it to the neutrons?

Same time next week.

Thank you and good night, all.

You drive my car home.

I'll ride with Professor Barker.

Oh, and leave the knockwurst and the rest

on the kitchen table. I'll cook them.

I don't want you to wait up.

You'll make me very unhappy

if you don't go straight to bed.

He gets up before I do

and won't go to bed till I'm asleep.

I keep forgetting he can't stand

these long hours anymore.

Noah, there's something

I want to talk to you about.

Noah, there's something

I want to talk to you about.

- Here and now?

- While it's fresh on my mind.

Just for a minute.

Sit down.

You behave as if

you were about to propose.

Noah, one of the differences

between matter and mankind is...

that in matter

all relationships can be stated...

whereas between people they can

rarely be put into words.

- Granted.

- I want you to know that I am

your good and devoted friend.

I've been aware of that for some time.

And I am yours.

Therefore I have the right

to point out to you...

that there are occasions when you behave

like a cephalic idiot.

Also granted.

Any particular occasion?

Out of a universe

full of time and space...

only you could pick

Rodney Elwell's anatomy class.

Ah, the good word gets around,

doesn't it?

Don't take this lightly, Noah.

There's been trouble brewing.

- Talk of rummaging about in your past.

- Let them rummage.

- They're spitting into the wind.

- And all this talk about charges and whatnot...

of an investigation.

Noah, as a friend, tell me,

can Elwell dig up anything in your past...

that would conceivably

discredit you enough to justify...

say, a hearing before

a faculty committee?

How much discredit is enough?

I've known you intimately for 10 years,

and I can't even guess what you were up to...

- the day before I met you.

- Suppose I told you all.

- Could it affect our friendship?

- Of course not.

I'm glad to hear that. It's not much to have

a friend who knows all about you...

but one who's a friend

even though he's not quite sure...

that's worth having.

Then will you tell me

just this?

- About the Bat.

- The Bat?

I thought you knew

that's what they call him.

- Shunderson.

- Who calls him that?

Why, the students,

the faculty...

even the staff

at your own clinic.

No, I didn't know.

It's not a proper name for him.

- Noah, who is he?

- A man named Shunderson.

Where does he come from? Why is he with you

day and night, everywhere you go?

I have no right to tell even you

anything about Mr. Shunderson.

Can Elwell uncover something

about his past...

or yours or both that he can

use to make trouble?

That depends.

Drop me by the clinic first, will you?

I want to look in on a patient.

Don't turn the light on, please.

- You've been crying again.

- That doesn't necessarily follow.

Well, it's a pretty good guess

when a woman wants the light kept off.

Either that

or her face isn't on.

I don't mind being seen

without makeup.

I don't mind seeing you

without makeup.

You know all about women,

don't you?

- Not nearly enough.

- I don't mean just as a doctor.

Not even as a doctor.

Deborah, I, uh...

I've got something to tell you.

- And as a pompous know-it-all...

- I didn't mean that even when I said it.

As a pompous know-it-all,

it isn't going to be easy.

But do you remember the remote possibility

that I thought could never occur...

about the frog being wrong?

Well, the frog wasn't wrong,

but you got the wrong frog.

It seems the possibility of

a laboratory assistant making a mistake...

- is not remote at all.

- I don't understand.

Two tests were being run

at the same time.

One had a positive result,

and the other, negative.

Through unforgivable negligence,

your report read positive...

when it should've read negative.

Then... I'm not having

a baby after all?

You're not having a baby after all.

Sleep well. You've got

nothing to worry about.

That's what you think.

- Now what are you crying about?

- It's just awful.

What is?

To think I had to go and tell you

all about myself and what I did.

Now it turns out

I didn't really have to.

- Well, it did you good to

have someone to tell it to.

- But not to you.

Why not?

- I'll see you in the morning, Deborah.

- Dr. Praetorius.

- Hmm?

- Are all your patients women?

- Almost.

- I guess they all fall in love with you.

- Not all of them.

- Just most.

Not even most.

Good night.

What a mess.

Why'd you have to stop by the clinic?

Anything interesting?

A physician respects the confidence

of his patients...

and does not

discuss them with anyone.

How true, how true.

Was it the young girl

who tried to shoot herself?

- Mm-hmm.

- Why?

Because of

an unpremeditated baby.

Her condition pretty bad?

Better than yours on the whole.

Just a superficial flesh wound.

Then why drive all the way

up to the clinic to see her?

I wanted to tell her

she was not pregnant.

Lost the baby, eh?

Was it shock or when she fell?

She's as pregnant now

as she ever was.

Then why in the name of good sense

tell her that she isn't?

Pregnancy, my dear boy,

is not a state of the mind.

Here. Get me

some more knockwurst.

Two reasons.

One, to get her a good night's sleep...

and the second, to keep her

from trying it again...

until I can find her father

and talk with him.

What has her father

got to do with it?

She has an unshakable conviction that

the knowledge of what she's done will kill him.

And you intend to talk him into

clicking his heels with joy over the situation?

I intend to convince him

either to be compassionate about it...

or to convince her that her father

will survive her disgrace...

and that her chief responsibility

is to the baby.

- Noah.

- Yeah?

Has it ever occurred to you,

aside from certain medical considerations...

that most of this

is none of your business?

- Thanks.

- No? What is my business?

To diagnose the physical ailments

of human beings and to cure them.

Wrong. My business is

to make sick people well.

There's a vast difference between curing

an ailment and making a sick person well.

We won't go into that.

I'm too tired.

- Besides, doctors bore me.

- Just one little question.

What have you great men of science

done with atomic energy...

to make people well, hmm?

That's wonderful sauerkraut.

It tastes like sauerkraut used to taste.

Hmm. There's a German woman

who makes it in a barrel.

- I'll send you some. More beer?

- Yes, please.

Sauerkraut belongs

in a barrel, not a can.

Our American mania for sterile packages

has removed the flavor...

from most of our foods.

Butter is no longer sold

out of wooden tubs.

And a whole generation thinks

butter tastes like paper.

There was never a perfume

like an old-time grocery store.

Now they smell like drugstores, which

don't even smell like drugstores anymore.

You country doctors live

romantic lives.

Just think, it might be quintuplets.

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