Brother Jacques Part 14

"When you put people to sleep?"

"No, but when I make sleep-walkers talk, and when I make them give remedies to sick people."

"One moment; I am willing to sleep, but I am not willing to give remedies or take them.--Indeed, I have been whipped at home for refusing."

"Oh! you don't understand; when I say remedies, I mean medicines to take----"

"Yes, with a syringe; I know all about that!"

"I tell you that you don't know what I am talking about. You will talk while pretending to be asleep; I will teach you your lesson beforehand, and you will answer the questions asked by invalids or curiosity seekers."

"Well, I don't understand at all."

"Pardieu! I can believe that; nor do those people who question the somnambulists; and that is just wherein the charm of it lies; if they knew what to think about it, it would no longer be possible to earn one's living with magnetism and somnambulism. But will you be my a.s.sistant and help me with my business, or not? I will feed you well, I will dress you suitably, and you will see the country, for I never stay long in the same place."

"And all I shall have to do for that is to make pills and sleep?"

"Not another thing!"

"Then, it's agreed, I will go with you."

So I became the little hunchback's a.s.sistant. We reached a village that night. My patron went to the best inn, and ordered a very good supper.

It seemed to me very pleasant to travel on horseback, without having to worry about my meals. Moreover, I was always at liberty to leave my companion when I chose, and that reason was enough to make me enjoy myself with him; the certainty of being free gives a charm to existence and makes the most trivial incidents enjoyable; bondage, on the contrary, throws a tinge of gloom over all our actions; it causes us to shun pleasure; it takes away all the joy of love, it deprives the heart of all its strength and the imagination of all its vivacity.

This that I am saying, Sans-Souci, is not my own; it is a sentence which my G.o.dfather repeated to me often, and which I remembered easily because it harmonized with my taste.

When I awoke the next morning, my hunchback, whose name was Graograicus--a name which he had probably manufactured for himself, and which no one could p.r.o.nounce without making a wry face, which made it altogether impressive--my little hunchback, as I said, suggested giving me a lesson in somnambulism, which we were to practise in the first place of any importance in which we might stop. I accepted his proposition. He made me sit down, told me to stare at vacancy as if I were looking at nothing, and taught me to sleep with my eyes open; but, as that tired my eyes, he allowed me to close them when we only had peasants or poor devils to cure.

Then came the matter of philters; my companion was out of them, and it was necessary to prepare more. While I was cleaning a dozen or more four-ounce phials, which were to contain the charms, Master Graograicus went out to purchase plants, roots, and such other ingredients as he needed in the manufacture of the philters. He lighted a fire, and borrowed from our host all the bowls that he had; and our bedroom, where everything was turned topsy-turvy, began, in my companion's language, to be a workshop of chemistry and magic.

"Look here," I said to my hunchback, while he was pulverizing burdock, and I was rolling cinnamon, "what are you going to use these things for that you are making? I am willing to be your a.s.sistant, but only on condition that you teach me your mysteries."

"You shall know, my boy; we must not have any secrets from each other. I am now making a philter to arouse love; it is not very difficult to make, for all I need is tonics, alcohol and stimulants. I boil cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, pepper, sugar and brandy together. When a person has swallowed that mixture, that person becomes very amorous; and as soon as he or she who has administered my philter is with the object of his or her love, he finds that the charm operates and has no doubt that I am a magician. Furthermore, this little drug has the property of ruining the teeth; teeth are not ruined without pain, and as the toothache is commonly called love-sickness, as soon as it is known that the person who takes the philter has pains in his teeth, it is presumed that he has fallen in love. I sell a great deal of this philter, especially to ladies; we will lay in a good stock of it.

"Let us go on to the next one, which arouses jealousy. Ah! I confess that it cost me long study and profound reflection, but I believe that I have solved the problem successfully. In the first place, what gives rise to jealousy? The suspicions which one conceives concerning the fidelity of the object of one's love. Now, these suspicions have a cause, for there is no effect without a cause; to be sure, a person is sometimes jealous without cause, but much more frequently with a cause; so I said to myself:

"'By making one lover unfaithful, I shall necessarily make the other one jealous; but how am I to make unfaithful the one who does not take my drugs?'--Ah! that, my little man, was where a stroke of genius was required. That is something a fool would never have discovered, and which I did discover, without the help of any treatises upon medicine. I compounded this philter of corrosive sublimate and herbs that have an effect upon the skin. This compound has the property of making the eyes dull, the complexion leaden and the nose drawn; it brings out a humor, and the skin is covered with pimples and pustules of all sizes,--while it makes the breath fit to kill flies at ten yards. So you see that the man or woman who frequents the person who has taken my philter readily becomes unfaithful, while the one who has taken it becomes as jealous as a demon; and the effect lasts through life; for, let him do what he pleases, he can never again succeed in making himself attractive and in inspiring love.--Well! what do you say to that? What deep thought, what a thorough acquaintance with the pa.s.sions and their effects! But see what the world is: I sell much less of this philter than of the others; indeed it rarely happens that the same person takes it twice.

"As for this last, for which I am pulverizing this burdock, it serves to arouse anger, hatred, ill-humor, and it never fails to produce its effect; it is a compound of manna, rhubarb, vinegar, turpentine, and cacao, to which I add this burdock to form a syrup. This little charm, at once emollient and astringent, produces the colic and sick headache; now, when one has a pain in the head and the stomach at the same time, he is certain not to be in a good humor; he easily loses his temper, and feels a grudge against the whole world, especially when the pains are constantly on the increase. It seems to me that that is rather prettily reasoned out, and that nothing less than my tact and my penetration would have sufficed to find the means of arousing so many different pa.s.sions."

I listened to my companion with attention, and when he had finished, I asked him if he expected to try his philters upon me; he said that he had no such purpose, and that a.s.surance restored my good humor, for I would not have consented at any price to taste Master Graograicus's charms.

"It only remains for me now," he said, "to teach you to make pills; that is very easy; I make them with the soft part of bread, and roll them in different powders to give them different colors."

"And what are they used for?"

"To cure all diseases."

"What! you cure diseases with bread?"

"I sometimes cure them, for many diseases exist in the imagination only, and when the patient believes that he is taking an infallible remedy, he is easily persuaded that it is doing him good, and it is that persuasion that cures him, and not my pills. But at all events they can't do any harm and that is always something. I sell large quant.i.ties of them to nurses and old women."

X

A LESSON IN MAGNETISM

Thus I was made acquainted with all my companion's secrets; he required me to promise not to betray him, and I solemnly swore. But I did not swear that I would not amuse myself at the expense of the idiots who might consult him; and that was what I secretly determined to do; for, although I was only fifteen years old, I was resolute, courageous, stubborn and reasonably mischievous.

The village in which we pa.s.sed the night seemed unlikely to afford my hunchback an opportunity to put forth his talents and sell his drugs, so we prepared to leave it. But my crafty companion succeeded none the less in inducing our host's wife to purchase secretly a box of pills to prevent her hair from turning white and her teeth from turning black.

We set out on our travels once more, carrying our fortune tied to our saddle. The weather was not propitious. We encountered a furious storm and when we reached the small town which was destined to ring with the fame of our talents, we were in such a pitiable condition that we were more likely to be taken for wretched mountebanks than for learned doctors.

However, we betook ourselves to the best inn in the place. At first the inn-keeper paid no attention to us, and did not put himself out to receive us; but when my companion ordered one of the finest suites and a splendid repast, he scrutinized us with a hesitating expression which was eloquent of his doubts concerning the state of our finances. My crafty hunchback tossed a number of crowns on the table, and requested the host to take out a week's rent of the apartment in advance.

This method of beginning operations completely changed the ideas of the inn-keeper, who concluded that he had to deal with n.o.blemen travelling incognito. We were given rooms on the first floor and served on the minute.

"Monsieur l'aubergiste," said my companion to our host, as we took our seats at the table, "you don't know who I am; I am going to make myself known to you for the good of this town. Be good enough to inform the inhabitants that they have the privilege of entertaining within their walls, but for only a week, the celebrated Graograicus, physician-in-chief to the Emperor of China, magnetizer to the favorite sultana of the Sultan of Damascus, physician by letters patent to the court of the King of Morocco, chemist to the Grand Vizier of Constantinople, and astrologer to the Hetman of the Cossacks. Tell them also that I have with me temporarily the little somnambulist, the most famous, the most extraordinary that has ever appeared on the face of the globe. He is a young man of thirty years, who looks less than fifteen, because he has pa.s.sed half of his life asleep. This strange young man, born on the banks of the Indus, knows all languages--not to speak them, it is true, but he understands them better than you and I do. In his sleep he discovers your disease, its cause, its effects, the pains that you feel, the periods of recurrence, and points out the remedies you should take, even for future sicknesses. He has had the honor of putting himself to sleep before counts, marquises, dukes, and even royal highnesses. He has effected, sleeping all the while, cures that would have pa.s.sed for miracles under the reign of the great Solomon, and even under that of King Dagobert. He has cured an Englishman of the spleen, a German baroness of a cutaneous disease, and her husband of the gout; a young dancer of hatred for men, and an old woman of her love for her dog; a courtier of the habit of bending his back, and a courtesan of a peculiar habit of wriggling; an annuitant of a weakness of the stomach, and a Prussian of indigestion; an author of a buzzing in his ears, and a musician of a weakness in his legs; a bailiff of rheumatism in the loins and an attorney of itching fingers; a lawyer of a defect in his speech, and a singer of defective respiration; a coquette of her vapors, and an old libertine of his asthma; a pacha with three tails, of his inability to secure offspring, and a muleteer of his too bountiful gifts in this direction; a dissolute husband of the habit of sowing good grain on stony ground, and an Italian of the habit of whipping small boys; and many other people, whom I will not name, because it would take too long, and also because we are not mere charlatans, who simply try to throw dust in people's eyes.--This little prospectus, which I will beg you to distribute, will suffice to give the inhabitants of this town an idea of our learning. Here, monsieur l'aubergiste, take these, and believe."

The host listened with wide-open eyes to this harangue of the little hunchback, delivered with extraordinary emphasis and a.s.surance; he took the prospectuses with a respectful bow, a.s.sured us of his devotion, tried to p.r.o.nounce my companion's name, failed, made a grimace, took off his cap, and backed out of our room.

When he had gone, I asked my companion if I was the somnambulist, thirty years old, who had cured so many people.

"Yes, my dear boy," he replied; "don't be surprised at anything; I will answer for everything. You told me to call you Jacques, but that name is too far within the reach of everybody; when we have visitors, I shall call you nothing but Tatouos--don't forget.--I am going to take a walk about the town and make a few memoranda; while I am gone, amuse yourself arranging my philters in this cupboard, and making a few boxes of pills; I will return very soon."

I was left alone, but, instead of making pills, I amused myself eating the cacao, cinnamon and other ingredients used in compounding the so-called charms. I also inspected the valise, which my companion had left open; I found a long, black gown, a false nose, a scratch wig and a flaxen beard. I was busily engaged in the examination of these different objects, when someone tapped softly at our door.

"Come in," I said, without moving. The door opened very gently and a young brunette of some twenty years entered our apartment. She was one of the servants of the inn, and, like most of her cla.s.s, she was very inquisitive and pa.s.sably wanton. She had heard her master exclaim on leaving our room that he had as guests in his inn the two most extraordinary men in the universe: a scholar, who treated Frenchmen like the Chinese, and a somnambulist thirty years old, who looked like a child of twelve, and who could put the widest awake people to sleep.

When she heard that, Clairette had resolved to be the first one to be put to sleep, to see what effect it would produce on her; and, presuming that when we became well known, it would be more difficult to obtain an audience, she had made haste to come up to our room, on the pretext of asking whether we wanted anything.

The girl came forward on tiptoe, like a person moved by fear and curiosity at the same time. She stopped within two steps of me and looked at me with close attention. I looked at her in my turn, and found her most attractive. I had never yet thought about women; indeed, I had never before been alone with a young girl. The presence of that one, her close scrutiny of me, and the pleasant expression of her face,--all those things excited me greatly, and I was conscious of a feeling which I had never known before.

We were both silent for some time; Clairette broke the silence:

"What, monsieur!" she said, staring with all her eyes, "what! are you thirty years old?"

"Yes, mademoiselle," I replied at once, recalling what my companion had told me, and thinking that that falsehood might lead to some amusing adventures. Moreover, as you must know, a young man of fifteen is always well pleased to appear older and more mature than he is; whereas at thirty, he regrets that he is not fifteen still.

"Bless my soul! why, I can't get over it! Thirty years old! You don't look half of it!"

And Clairette examined me more closely; I made no objection and tried to play the exquisite.

"You must have some secret, monsieur, to keep you from growing old?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; and I have many others too."