Schweitzer Day by Day

by ROBERT G. McGREGOR

DR. SCHWEITZER put his pen down on the blotter, slapped his hand palm-down on the table, rose, and said, “Now we will go for a walk. We can talk.” He went into an adjoining room, came back quickly with a small cloth bag, picked up his sun helmet, and jerked away his walking stick from its leaning position. He moved to the screen door, pulled it open, issued forth, and swung easily into his slow, deliberate, but determined pace. We followed.

A hundred yards down the gentle slope he stopped. To the left some Africans were clustered, reaching down, picking up and tossing small stones into a wheelbarrow. One fellow with back turned took no interest in the activity about him until the Doctor shouted, “To work, to work.” The man turned his head about, gazed at the Doctor, but remained unconcerned, the words apparently having little meaning for him. “You,” the Doctor shouted in a shriller voice and pointing with his stick, “you, there, get on with your work.” The fellow seemed slowly to comprehend, but it took a third and more emphatic prompting to enlist his energy. He stooped, picked up a stone, tossed it into the barrow. The Doctor resumed his walk.

A few paces farther on the first cluster of chickens came fluttering and scampering in the direction of the Doctor. He paused until the little chicks caught up with their bullying elders. He reached into his bag and threw grains of rice in a shower among the excited, scampering, cheeping, and clucking mass. With his stick he stoutly slapped the older ones aside, letting the little ones pick up the grounded grains. This was repeated several times on our perambulation. Once the Doctor remarked with evident satisfaction, “They know me. You see they come running.” In fact they did, and his passing left little clusters of excited chicks in the wake.

There is a stretch of dense tropical growth between the hospital area and the leprosarium. The path starts narrow and raised, threading through swampy ground. There is barely room to pass oncoming pedestrians. One of these, a tattered, emaciated African whose regard made it evident he was unaware of the Doctor’s identity, said he was sick. He extended his palm upward in supplication. The Doctor scarcely broke his stride and, half turning, pointed backward along the path saying, “Go to the hospital. They will look after you.”

We entered the forest. The morning light fillered through the heat-engendered mist —although this was one of the cooler months, the temperature was still above 80° — and fell on broad-bladed palms and on blue-green fronds of banana plants, rendering them transparent. Occasionally a streak of pure brilliant light started from a waterdrop causing the eye momentary distraction. The Doctor moved on ahead, saying nothing. We climbed behind. On the edge of the forest we heard hammer on nail and the babble of voices. We neared the outbuilding of the leprosarium. Twenty or thirty Africans, seated on anything convenient, were engaged in wrapping and unwrapping leprosy-infected limbs. One at a time received the ministrations of the white nurse who, in complete disregard of the malodorous stench emanating from gaping sores, swabbed and daubed with cotton held in bare hands. Turning my gaze away, I was aware the Doctor was not in sight. Then I heard his voice raised in command.

It was the alignment of the corrugated roof that now demanded his attention. Great sheets of laminated steel were being overlapped along a rough wood skeleton. The Doctor reached up to hold the edge of one of these plates. He pushed while another pulled, asking, “Ça va, ça va?" The answer came from an African on a ladder sighting along the edge of the roof, “À gauche, un peu a droite. Maintenant ça va.”At this signal a hammer drove a nail. One more section was in place. According to his helpers, the Doctor feels a special sense of responsibility for seeing that this work is well done. It was his decision in 1952 to devote the Nobel Peace Prize funds to build accommodations for two hundred and fifty lepers and families. Fifteen of the twenty buildings are now completed.

Stories gained currency that the Doctor’s sight is failing. Yet his vision is keen enough to read without glasses labels on a bunch of keys that give access to storerooms in a part of the leper village. He does not fumble. His fingers run easily and quickly as he seeks the number of the key corresponding to a door. He enters with an African foreman, who also doubles as a boatman. With his stick he counts up the neat row of sheets, calls the foreman to leave, goes out, pulls the door shut, inserts the key, and snaps the lock. Another daily chore is done.

The narrow rail track, over which thousands of cartloads of earth have descended for terracing the leper village, occupies the high ground that dominates the Schweitzer hospital area. Off this path are village streets. Sunk in the ground at intersections are open-ended tin cans about three inches in diameter. The Doctor called a name. An African materialized. “Water,” the Doctor said. “Fill these with water for the chickens.” Turning to us with all the weariness of his African experience, he said, “Every day it is the same. The heat dries the tins. It is a rule to keep them filled. But they forget .” This observation brought us into the circle of his thought. As we resumed our upward walk,

I asked if there had not been a vegetable garden in the area. I could see pineapple plants growing in the tangled mass of vegetation along the side of the path.

“We grew vegetables here,” the Doctor said. “We moved the garden nearer the house and fenced and padlocked it. Africans would take our produce and sell it back to us in the market.”

Farther on my wife pointed to a wooden cross at the side of the path, marking a recent grave. The Doctor overheard her aside to me and said, “The cross will be firewood when it is seasoned. None here lasts long.”These forest folk consider all nature their own and wreak upon it the vengeance of their indolence, neither thanking nor praising the Giver.

Such is the African primitive — the soul that hardens patience, challenges charity, and answers the deep probings of the disciplined, chiseled mind of Albert Schweitzer. Is it possible that because of this Schweitzer feels no compelling need to match his wits and brain with the casuistry and sophistry of more enlightened men? Would he rather contend with the groping, stumbling brain of the primitive African, his animal appetites, his unpremeditated satiation. his greed, his turbulent emotions? Is it with these tools thut Schweitzer formulates his thinking? Is it here that he tests the meaning of others against the profound knowledge born of his African experience? I believe so. For, just as the Bible must be read against its Oriental backdrop, so one must see Schweitzer at work in his African setting for an understanding of the man.

2

ONE never knows when one will be called to converse with him. He may suddenly appear at your doorway, amble in, sit on the edge of the bed or at the table, and start immediately in at the point of his thinking. Or else one of his helpers will say simply, “The Doctor is expecting you,” or “Tonight after supper you should follow the Doctor to his room.”The latter was my cue.

It is in awe that one raps at the outside of the screen door. Through it can be seen the figure of the Doctor seated, leaning forward over his work table, the pressure lamp casting the near side of his body in shadow. In answer to the knock there comes a scarcely audible “Entrez.” The Doctor without raising or turning his head indicates with an arm gesture a stool at the side of the table. Only the scratching of pen on paper breaks the stillness of the room. In his presence the feeling is akin to the Monday morning stillness of the great cathedral. The light within erects its wall of deep blackness at window openings; it throws shadows floorwise that run on up the wall. One shadow cleaves in two a cabinet made of packing cases housing a piano. On the wall hang a small framed etching of Charles Darwin and a photograph of the family home in Gunsbach. On the top of the cabinet is the sun helmet. The walking stick leans again. Across is the Doctor’s bed, scarcely seeming large enough for the great frame. Mosquito net envelops the iron bedstead and the white linen. At the head is a rough night table with a glass, a bottle of water, and a small lamp. Behind the Doctor, enveloped in his shadow, are several shelves containing a miscellaneous assortment of oddments — sheaves of paper stuck on nails, bottles of medicines, pins, catalogues, string, hooks, an oil can—nothing of any seeming consequence.

I contemplated the massive head, the slow movement of the hand that continued to scratch away at the white paper. The blackish-gray hair tumbled in confusion, locks of it falling over the forehead.

In profile the nose protruded, the mouth line was obscured by the thick mustache, the chin was firm, receding into the softer skin folds of the neck. The eye was hidden under a bushy, black brow. The yellow lamplight gleamed from glasses that bridged the nose. A thin line of metal held the glasses behind the ear. The shirt was open at the neck. It had short sleeves from which the writing arm extended. The pen was held between index and middle finger, braced against the thumb; the hand action was labored, bold, slow, and precise. Occasionally the left hand reached forward, pulled one paper from a heap, pressed it firmly down on the stack. The night was warm but not stifling.

Then, just as he had in the morning, the Doctor slapped the pen on the table, ripped his glasses from his face, looked at me full, and said quietly,

“ Young people do not like to keep records. Anyway it is better they should do the work of the hospital. So I keep the books.”When he moves from a reflective to active mood the Doctor’s face imparls a sense of the activity of his mind. His deep-set eyes sparkle with the many-faceted reflections of which his thoughts are composed.

“Do you find time now,” I asked, “for your writing?”

“Scarcely,” he replied. Then he told me that Dr. Percy, who runs the hospital, is in Europe; that Miss Emma died in April. She was one of his most experienced helpers. She is known to those Americans who have heard her lecture in this country while raising funds for the work of the hospital. For thirty years she served unselfishly. It was she who recruited younger volunteer helpers from among the dozens who apply annually. At the time of her departure in February she was accustomed to spending many hours each day supervising construction work at the leprosarium. So the Doctor explained that on her death he assumed this task and in consequence has little time left for the concentrated thought necessary to creative work. “Besides,” he added, “I work very slowly. I write and rewrite, all in longhand.” I remarked his pen and how he paused occasionally to dip it in ink. “This,”he demonstrated by holding the pen toward me, “is the only pen I like. One dip in the pot supplies enough ink for several minutes of writing. It is made in a small factory in America. I have a supply in case the factory shuts down.” We were interrupted then by a nurse from the hospital who came with two bottles of medicine. She described the patient and the illness, and as she talked I noticed that the Doctor was drumming with his fingers on the blotter. Then I was aware that from the nearby community hall the sound of Bach piano music was coming. The notes seemed to vibrate within the man and find expression from his practiced finger tips. The helper finished. The Doctor gave his answer briefly in German. The helper withdrew.

“When I take up writing again,” he continued as though there had been no interruption, “when my work permits, I have three tasks. I must finish the third volume of my History of Civilization, I must write another book on theology, and I must review my basic study of Bach so that I give my last thought on the subject.”While there is no doubt that the details of management absorb much time and preoccupy the Doctor to the exclusion of almost all else, nevertheless he does enjoy moments of unplanned relaxation.

3

A MECHANIC and a radio operator — both Americans and crew members of the plane that had brought me to Lambarene—had spent the day trying to fix the complex, homemade contraption that serves as a record player in the community hall, and which worked only intermittently. As I supplied the names of my companions, the Doctor wrote a brief dedication to each on a map of the hospital area. I told him that these two had tinkered with the record player.

He asked, “Do you think they would tell me what is wrong with it ? My staff tries to protect me from worry over such details and the record player is their only evening distraction.”He smiled mischievously as he saw an opportunity to outwit his staff. I went down and routed the two men out of bed. For the next hour the Doctor relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed the salty savor of real enlisted-man language and just as much the real strain translation of it put upon my knowledge of French.

During the time I was there I had a feeling the Doctor was going through a period of gestation. At the supper table he would sit completely ignoring the company only to emerge suddenly into an awareness of his surroundings and break into crackling good humor. On one supper occasion military visitors were present. One of them had told the Doctor in my presence during the afternoon that his career as a soldier often caused him uncertainty as to its ultimate value. The Doctor in his great simplicity (he talks in conclusions) said of the military career, “It is necessary. You are doing your duty.” During the devotional period that follows supper the Doctor read the passage from The Acts in which the centurion releases Paul contrary to orders and on his own responsibility. Laying aside the Bible, the Doctor lost himself in thought while conversation resumed all along the table. Suddenly he lifted his great head, his eyes took on a twinkle, his mouth smiled. Turning to the startled officer, the Doctor said, “That centurion was a soldier with a proper sense of duty. What is more, he was not afraid to take responsibility.”

Responsibility is a respected word with the Doctor. When I asked him about a troubled area of the world, he remarked: “Everyone today feels obliged to hold opinions. These opinions or attitudes are usually not based on facts. The results or confused babel is called public opinion. Such is its force that leaders are obliged sometimes to make decisions which because they are not themselves based on facts are occasionally not even in the public interest. What is more, the leaders who make the decisions do not survive long enough to be held responsible for them.”

Of colonialism the Doctor only said: “The African cannot be cut adrift without culture. He has need of discipline. He cannot be expected to stand on his own feet until he understands that to survive, society depends upon the voluntary acceptance of the principle of self-denial. Who denies his responsibility for his brother is devoid of selfdiscipline.”

The glimpses one gets of the inner workings of Dr. Schweitzer’s mind in a short stay at Lambarene depend of course upon one’s particular interests and experiences. Many others have come away with a much more profound understanding of the gigantic stature of the man. My own appreciation is certainly more earth-bound, more in reverence. Yet the more I reflect upon the time I have been privileged to share with Dr. Schweitzer, the less I wonder at the respect he commands throughout the world. As his fame increases, Lambarene becomes a mecca. Hardly a day passes without arrivals and departures. Each visitor is given his audience. The Doctor is continually and genuinely surprised at all this interest, He is truly flattered that anyone should seek his autograph. He takes time for all guests alike, and the strain on him sometimes worries his staff.

The reception of visitors requires organization. So unobtrusive, so casual, so genuine is the welcome that the visitor can stay and leave without being aware that his presence has placed a heavy burden on the staff and facilities. Everything is done to protect the Doctor from unnecessary interruption and distraction. But somehow knowledge seeps through to him and he often does little things that surprise even his own staff. The morning I left we were idly watching the operations of the little African food market that is daily set up directly in front of the Doctor’s quarters. Firewood, palm nuts, bananas, manioc were offered and bought, and the transactions were entered in a ledger. There was the usual cacophony as the range between offer and acceptance narrowed. Suddenly Miss Mathilde, the senior among the helpers, spoke. “The Doctor is playing the piano. Come.” We tiptoed along the veranda, stopped within hearing. He was exercising his fingers on a piano so out of tune that the quality of the touch was all that was remarkable.

Later that morning we were busy packing our bags when a message was handed in. It was written in the Doctor’s hand. It reminded us that Schweitzer hospital time is twenty minutes slower than airport time. He expressed concern lest we fail to make the proper connections. He invited us to take tea in the community hall. Here we were thanked for our visit, when surely in our minds the shoe should have been on the other foot. An African came to say the boat waited at the water’s edge. Our little procession left the hall, descended past the Schweitzer workroom, the deer enclosure, and down to the landing.

As the little boat pulled away from the shore, we were struck by the magnificent simplicity of the man. We understood why Africa is his home; what Africa has contributed to his stature, to his experience of life. For in this savage, primitive Africa nothing artificial long survives. False values shrivel up. The man standing there in his soft shoes, his loose cotton trousers, his open-neck shirt, and sun helmet, looking out over the ever-widening watery distance, is working out his destiny with as much assurance as God vouchsafes to man. The sadness of humanity that pulsates through life and against which real joy is measured is revealed incessantly and vividly in the land at the Doctor’s back. An essence of this sadness and the crying need for ministrations grip the visitor as he moves away. The last view is of the Doctor — a small figure measured against the gigantic trees of the forest, slowly climbing the way back, moving again to the multitude of his tasks.

In the mind’s eye one sees him still in the lamplight, enveloped in the muggy heat. Evening will follow evening in that small work-bedroom. The pen will scratch out methodically the trivial and the momentous word thoughts. The heavy stillness of the tropical night will be accentuated by the occasional flutter of a page turned as Mrs. Schweitzer reads, sharing the light with her husband. Sometime in the night the work will stop. The light will go out. The morning light will show the tasks that lie ahead.