NotNormativelyHuman 317
poordoes,however, notremain uncontested,butgenerates an exchange
on charity and its rightful objects which in the end gets so acrimonious
thatafightisonlynarrowlyavoided.
In episodic fashion, the narrative presents character upon character,
allofthemwithcolorfulbutalsooftenmercurialidentities,amongthem
yet another disabled person, introduced as "A Soldier of Fortune" (87).
Almostimmediatelyafterbeingsightedbyanothercharacter,theshape-
shifting herb-doctor, and before the former gets to speak, the focus is
placed straightforwardly on the soldier's physical impairment which is
represented in detail and with a notable investment in metaphors:
"interwoven paralyzed legs, stiff as icicles, suspended between rude
crutches, while the whole rigid body, like a ship's long barometer on
gimbals, swung to and fro, mechanically faithful to the motion of the
boat"(93).Intheensuingrencontre,thesoldier,addressedas"oneofthe
noblechildrenofwar,...aglorioussufferer"(93),doesnottakewellto
this as to other conversational pleasantries offered by the doctor.
Instead, the soldier, formerly known as Happy Tom, but now "the
cripple...toughenedanddefiantinmisery"(94),refusestolookatthe
bright side of his fate, as the doctor advises him to do. In the end,
however, the veteran succumbs to the doctor's soothing rhetoric and
accepts a bottle of the latter's patent medicine as a gift: "will this really
domegood?Honorbright,now;willit? Don'tdeceiveapoorfellow..
." (99). Whereupon the doctor withdraws, and the soldier is also
withdrawn from the narrative, leaving the reader with the sense that the
"cripple,"agraduateof"thegreatSorbonneofhardtimes"(asthedoctor
putsit[97])andthusdeeplysuspicious,hasnonethelessbeenduped,not
only by society at large but also by the doctor. At one point in their
conversation, the narrative inserts a moment of doubt, not only in the
fictional doctor but also in the reader, concerning the soldier's "real"
identity as a disabled veteran. When the doctor remarks that he cannot
fully believe the soldier's tale of misfortunes, "I grew sick of lying in a
grated iron bed alongside of groaning thieves and mouldering burglars"
(96), the soldier admits that the factual basis of his story is uncertain:
"Hardlyanybodybelievesmystory,andsotomostItelladifferentone"
(97).Whetherthisconfessionamountstohisconninghisdisability,thus
makingtheencounterbetweenhimandthedoctoracontestbetweentwo
conmen,is,intheend,leftopen.