He medicated some of the animals, took readings of vital signs, brought the lab book up to date. It was very late when he finished, and he was tempted to put off reading the manuscript, but he knew if he did not at least start it while he had the chance he might never read it. He called in and told the paging operator he would be in the lab. Then he sat behind the old oak desk and took the manuscript out of the box. The coffee bubbled on the Bunsen burner, the old building creaked. In the cages some of the dogs bit for fleas; others moaned and yipped in their sleep, perhaps chasing slow dream rabbits or mounting the heated bitches who in the cold wakeful past had driven them off with bared fang. The noise awakened some of the animals, and in a moment their barking had aroused the others. The laboratory rang with the canine protest.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Quiet down now. Go to sleep, go to sleep.” Absurdly, talking to them as though they were human patients and could understand the soothing tones.

But they quieted.

He poured himself a cup of hot black coffee, sat again, sipped gingerly, began to read.

Most of the chapters filled him with awe. The writing style was trenchant and deceptively simple, the kind of easy scientific reading that is hard writing. Longwood had distilled a lifetime of first-class surgical experience and had not hesitated to call upon the work of many other surgical leaders. When Adam was one hundred pages into the manuscript the telephone rang and he was filled with regret at the thought that he might be called away. Fortunately it was Spurgeon with a request for advice that he could give without leaving; he returned to the manuscript eagerly.

He read through the night.

When he had finished the last three chapters the windows of the laboratory had lightened to a murky gray.

Perhaps, he thought, it was because he was tired. He rubbed his eyes, heated the coffee and drank another cup, and slowly reread the three chapters.

It was as if they had been written by another person.

With his limited experience, he still was able to find glaring errors. The writing was murky, the construction tortuous and difficult to follow. Great gaps appeared in the material.

He read the pages still another time, and now a kind of grim progression became obvious to him, a picture of the dwindling of a formidable intellectual capacity.

The disintegration of a mind, he realized, shaken.

He tried to catnap but for once he couldn’t fall asleep. He left the laboratory and, Maxie’s first customer, ate an early breakfast, then he walked back to the animal laboratory through the ruined dawn and carefully replaced the manuscript in its box.

He was waiting, three hours later, when Kender came into his office.