The Thanatos Syndrome

Titel: The Thanatos Syndrome
Autoren: Walker Percy

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physician.
    But his remarks, though desultory and disconnected, are uttered in a calm, serious voice. During the pauses he seems to sink into thought.
    âThe Great Prince Satan, the Depriver, is here.â
    Pause.
    âIt is not your fault that he, the Great Prince, is here. But you must resist him.â
    Pause.
    âI hope you know what you are doing here,â he says.
    Pause.
    âThe fellows at Fedville know what they were doing.â
    Pause.
    The audience is trying to figure out whether the pauses are calculated, as some preachers will pause, even for long pauses, for purposes of emphasis. They listen intently, heads inclined, with even a tentative nod or two.
    âTrue, they were getting rid of people, but they were people nobody wanted to bother with.â
    Pause.
    âOld, young. Born, unborn.â
    Pause.
    âBut they, the doctors, were good fellows and they had their reasons.
    âThe reasons were quite plausible.
    âI observed some of you.
    âBut do you know what you are doing?
    âI observe a benevolent feeling here.
    âThere is also tenderness.
    âAt the bedside of some children this morning I observed you shed tears. On television.
    âDo you know where tenderness leads?â
    Pause.
    âTenderness leads to the gas chamber.â
    Pause.
    âThis is the feast day of my patron saint, Simeon the Stylite.
    âSimeon lived atop a pillar forty feet high and six feet in diameter for twenty years.
    âHe mortified himself and prayed for the forgiveness of his sins and the sins of the world below him, which was particularly wicked, being mainly occupied by the Great Prince Satan.
    âI donât see any sinners here.
    âEveryone looks justified. No guilt here!
    âSimeon came down to perform good works when his bishop asked him to, but when the bishop saw he was willing, he let him go back up.
    âIâd rather be back up in the tower, but I do know what Iâm doing here.
    âDo you think it is for the love of God, like Simeon? I am sorry to say it is not.
    âI like to talk to the patients here.
    âChildren and dying people do not lie.
    âOne need not lie to them.
    âEveryone else lies.
    âLook at you. Not a sinner in sight.
    âNo guilt here!
    âThe Great Prince has pulled off his masterpiece.
    âThese are strange times. There are now two kinds of people.
    âThis has never happened before.
    âOne are decent, tenderhearted, unbelieving, philanthropic people.
    âThe other are some preachers who tell the truth about the Lord but are themselves often rascals if not thieves.â
    During one of the pauses Chandra and the NewsTeam-7 crew turn off their lights, fold their cameras, and quietly creep out.
    âWhat a generation! Believing thieves and decent unbelievers!
    âThe Great Depriverâs finest hour!
    âNot a guilty face here!
    âEveryone here is creaming in his drawers from tenderness!â
    Long pause.
    âBut beware, tender hearts!
    âDonât you know where tenderness leads?â Silence. âTo the gas chambers.
    âNever in the history of the world have there been so many civilized tenderhearted souls as have lived in this century.
    âNever in the history of the world have so many people been killed.
    âMore people have been killed in this century by tenderhearted souls than by cruel barbarians in all other centuries put together.â
    Pause.
    âMy brothers, let me tell you where tenderness leads.â
    A longer pause.
    âTo the gas chambers! On with the jets!
    âListen to me, dear physicians, dear brothers, dear Qualitarians, abortionists, euthanasists! Do you know why you are going to listen to me? Because every last one of you is a better man than I and you know it! And yet you like me. Every last one of you knows me and what I am, a failed priest, an old drunk, who is only fit to do one thing and to tell you one thing. You are good, kind, hardworking doctors, but you like me nevertheless and I know that you will allow me to tell you one thingâno, ask one thingâno, beg one thing of you. Please do this one favor for me, dear doctors. If you have a patient, young or old, suffering, dying, afflicted, useless, born or unborn, whom you for the best of reasons wish to put out of his miseryâI beg only one thing of you, dear doctors! Please send him to us. Donât kill them! Weâll take themâall of them!

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