Let us leave Edouard and his wife for awhile, and return to Brother Jacques, with whom we must become better acquainted.
After his abrupt departure from the garden, Jacques had struck across the fields, and had walked for a long while without paying any heed to the road he was following; his only object was to get away from his brother, whose manners and language had wounded him to the heart. From time to time Jacques muttered a few words; he raised his eyes, stamped violently on the ground and seemed intensely excited. Having arrived in a lovely valley, shaded by ancient walnut trees, Jacques felt the need of rest; he looked about him as if to make sure that no one was following him; everything was calm and peaceful. The peasants working in the fields were the only living things that enlivened the landscape. Jacques lay down at the foot of a tree, and reviewed in his memory the conversation which he had just had with Edouard.
“Because I look as if I were unfortunate, he treats me with contempt! Because I wear moustaches, he dares not introduce me to his wife! He offers me money, and does not ask me to live with him! Is that the way a man should treat his brother? Why that contemptuous air? Have I dishonored my father’s name? If my manners are rough, my speech is frank and my conscience clear. I may be poor and unfortunate, but never, no, never, will I commit an action for which I would need to blush. I have done foolish things,—youthful escapades, it is true; but I have no shameful offences to reproach myself with, and this that I have here, on my breast, should guarantee me against all reproach, by commanding me never to deserve it.”
Thereupon Jacques opened his coat and gazed proudly at the cross of the Legion of Honor, pinned to an old military jacket which he wore underneath. That reward of his valor was his sole consolation; and yet Jacques had concealed the decoration, because he had been for several days past forced to seek hospitality from peasants, who were not always hospitable, and Jacques did not wish to show his cross at the risk of humiliation. He was right; a man who wears a symbol of merit should not be an object of compassion to other people.
Jacques had his eyes fixed upon his decoration; he was thinking of the day when his colonel had pinned it on his breast; he remembered the battles in which he had taken part, his mind returned to the battlefield, and he saw himself surrounded by his comrades, and marching eagerly against the enemy; the memory of those glorious days revived his depressed spirit, and he forgot his sorrows and his brother’s coldness.
At that moment, a young man, dressed very much like Jacques, but whose bright and animated face denoted neither depression nor poverty, came down a hill leading into the valley, whistling a military march, and marking time with a switch on the gooseberry bushes and lilacs which lined the road.
On arriving in the valley, the traveller stopped and looked about in all directions.
“What the deuce! not an inn! not a poor little wine-shop even! I wonder if I have gone astray? I don’t see any sign of a village, and I’m as thirsty as one possessed. But no matter! Forward!”
And he began to sing:
“Ah! there’s someone at last. I say, my friend!”
The traveller’s words were addressed to Jacques, who raised his eyes and recognized his faithful comrade; he ran toward him, exclaiming:
“Ah! it is you, is it, my dear Sans-Souci?”
“Why, it’s comrade Jacques! Pardieu! I couldn’t have better luck; wait till I lie down beside you in the shade of your walnut; I would rather be in the shade of a cask of burgundy; but however, one must accommodate oneself to everything.”
“Still the same, Sans-Souci! still cheerful, and fond of good living!”
“Oh! as for that, I shan’t change; cheerfulness is the wealth of poor devils like us. You know that I used to sing when we were going into battle! They—let me see—what do they call that?”
“Disbanded.”
“Yes, that’s it,—they disbanded us; and instead of being soldiers, here we are civilians again! Well, we must make the best of it; besides, we have always behaved well, and if there is any need to defend the country again some day, why then, forward march!”
“Yes, but how are we to live meanwhile?”
“Like other people, by working.”
“My poor Sans-Souci! there are some people that live on the fat of the land without ever turning their hand; and others, with the best will in the world to work, can’t find any way to earn their living.”
“Bah! you always look at the dark side. Didn’t your journey turn out well? You came into this region for some purpose.”
“Oh! I found more than I expected.”
“And you are not satisfied?”
“I have no reason to be. I just saw my brother, and he received me like a beggar.”
“Your brother is a wild Indian, whom I would beat with the flat of my sword if I still had one.”
“My dress, my face, and my long moustaches—he didn’t like any of them.”
“That’s a great pity! Didn’t he see that token of your valor?”
“No, it was out of sight, and I am very glad of it; my brother isn’t capable of appreciating what I have here, and I propose to make him blush for his treatment of me some day.”
“So your brother is a rich man?”
“Yes, yes.”
“A swell?”
“Yes.”
“So you have a family, have you?”
“To be sure.”
“Ah! that’s something I haven’t got. I never knew father or mother. I am a natural child; and it doesn’t prevent me from going my way with my head up, because my ancestors’ brats don’t look at me; and besides that, in the days of our first parents, there wasn’t any notaries, and that doesn’t prevent the descendants of Cain from being very well thought of in the world. In fact our sergeant, who could talk very well when he wasn’t tight, told me that love children made their way better than other children; and on that subject quoted a long list of names that I won’t undertake to repeat, because I’ve forgotten them.—But let’s return to your business. You never mentioned your family or your adventures to me; we knew each other in the regiment, and we made several campaigns together; we both had the jaundice in Spain, and frozen feet in Russia; and I say that such things are very good at cementing friendship; you won the cross and I didn’t—that’s the only difference between us; but you well earned it; you saved the colonel’s life. But, the excellent man! that didn’t prevent his being killed the next day; it was unlucky that you couldn’t always be on hand.—Well, after a great many things had happened, they disbanded us! That’s a pity, for perhaps we might have become marshals of France. In order to comfort each other, we stayed together, except that you came alone to this village, while I went to a place nearby to look after a little brunette, whom I courted long ago and who swore a bullet-proof fidelity to me!”
“Well, did you find your brunette?”
“Pardieu, yes! Oh! I tell you that there’s some analogy between our destinies: while your brother was receiving you so cordially, my sweetheart came to me with three children she had had during my absence, and another half way along. You can imagine that there was nothing to say to that. My first impulse was to give her a good thrashing, but I reflected that the poor child might well have thought me dead and that calmed me down. I kissed my faithless one, and while her children were splashing in the mud with the ducks, and her husband cutting wood, we made peace; in fact, we did better than that, for I mean to have something to do with the fourth, which she began while waiting for me; so we parted good friends and I came off!”
“Poor Sans-Souci! Women are no better than men, but men are simply less skilful at concealing their falseness! I have learned to know the world, I tell you, and I ought to have guessed what sort of welcome my brother would have given me. But one always hopes, and that is where one makes a mistake.”
“Come, tell me your adventures; we are in the open air, no one can hear us, and no one will disturb us; and while I listen to you, I will rest and smoke a cigar.”
“Well! all right; I will tell you what has happened to me since I was fifteen years old, for that was the time that I began my cruising.”
Jacques unbuttoned his coat, leaned back against the tree and made ready to relate his adventures to his comrade; while he, having taken a flint and steel from his pocket and lighted a cigar, gravely placed it in his mouth, in order to listen to his companion’s narrative with twofold enjoyment.
I left my father’s house at fifteen. My mother did not seem to care much for me, and she never mentioned my name except with repugnance. But I remember a stout old fellow with a pleasant face, who used to come to our house sometimes and who always called me Jacques with all the strength of his lungs. I believe indeed, that that old fellow was my godfather and that his name too was Jacques. This much is certain, that he seemed to be very fond of me and that whenever he came to see me he gave me toys or bonbons. But in spite of my godfather’s kindness, my father’s caresses and my love for my brother, I was horribly bored at home. I could not keep still a minute. I had no taste for study, and as I thought of nothing but travelling round the world and fighting, I did not see the necessity of learning Latin and mathematics. Ah! my dear Sans-Souci, I have paid already for those errors of my youth, and I have learned at my own expense that education is always of great service, no matter in what situation we may find ourselves. If I had had some education I should not have remained a simple private; and even if my good conduct had raised me to the rank of captain, it is always disagreeable when one goes into the society of one’s superiors never to be able to open one’s mouth without the fear of making some horrible slip, and of setting other people laughing at you. But let us return to our subject: I started off one fine morning without trumpet or drum, or without thinking in which direction I should go. I had one louis in my pocket, which I had received a few days before from my godfather, and I imagined that such a sum would never be exhausted.
After walking for a very long time, I stopped in a village in front of a wine shop. I went in and ordered dinner, with the assurance of a government messenger. I was well treated; I had an open, honest face, and I jingled my money as I hopped about the kitchen and uncovered all the dishes in order to select what I wanted. The host watched me laughingly and let me do as I chose. He served a good dinner and gave me white wine and red wine. A little hunchback, who was dining at a table near me, examined me closely. He tried to enter into conversation with me and find out where I came from and where I was going; but as I have never liked inquisitive people and as the little hunchback’s remarks displeased me, I looked at him without answering, or whistled and sang while he was talking.
When I was well filled, I asked the host how much he wanted; the rascal asked me fifteen francs for my dinner. I made a wry face; but I paid the bill and left the inn, reflecting that my louis, which was to last forever, would not suffice to pay for a second meal, if I chose to continue to play the nobleman.
The place where I had dined and which I had taken for a village was Saint-Germain; I asked the way to the forest and resumed my journey, stopping only to jump ditches, and to belabor donkeys that I happened to pass.
As I was entering Poissy, I heard a horse trotting behind me; I stopped and recognized my hunchback, who was riding a raw-boned little horse, which he was obliged to strike constantly with the spur and the whip; else the animal would have stopped every few steps. He ceased to crack his whip when he was beside me, and contented himself with a walk, in order to remain at my side. He tried to enter into conversation, and as I was beginning to be tired then, and the croup of a horse, however thin the beast might be, seemed to me a very agreeable seat, I displayed less pride, and talked with the hunchback.
“Where are you going at this rate, my dear boy?” he asked me.
“Why, I don’t exactly know. I mean to travel, to see the country and enjoy myself.”
“Have you no parents?”
“Oh, yes! But they are in Paris and want me to pass my time in reading and writing; I got tired of that and I came away.”
“I understand; a piece of folly! a youthful escapade! Oh! I know what it is. That’s about all one sees now.—But have you much money for your travels?”
“I have nine francs.”
“Nine francs! Hum! you’ll have to eat wild cow.”[A]
[A] Manger de la vache enragée: i.e., to endure hunger and privation.
“What do you mean with your cow? I ate chicken and eels and pigeons and ducks.”
“Yes, but you spent fifteen francs, and with the nine you’ve left, you can’t eat three more meals like that.”
I made no reply, but I realized that the hunchback was right; and yet, as I had a will of my own, and as I was accustomed to make up my mind quickly, I looked at the little man with a decided air, and said to him after a moment:
“All right! I will eat cow.”
“I see that you have pluck,” he said; “but still, when a man can find a chance to live well while travelling, it isn’t to be despised; and I can supply you with the means.”
“You can?”
“Yes, myself.”
“How so?”
“I will tell you. But so that you can listen to me at your ease and not get more tired, wouldn’t you like to get up here behind me?”
“Oh! I ask nothing better.”
Delighted by my new travelling companion’s proposition, I jumped recklessly on the poor horse’s back; I slipped, grasped the little man’s hump, fell, and dragged him with me, and we both rolled in the road; but luckily his placid steed did not stir.
My new acquaintance rose good-humoredly enough, and simply advised me to be less eager in the future, because we might not always fall so softly. I promised. My hunchback put his foot in the stirrup. I too mounted, but with more precaution; and when we were firmly seated on our saddle and he had, by dint of blows, induced his nag to walk on, he resumed his discourse, which I had interrupted so abruptly.
“My dear boy, everyone in this world tries to make money and earn a fortune, that is, unless he is born rich; and still, we see millionaires thinking of nothing but speculation, capitalists engaged in large undertakings in order to double their wealth; and nobles seeking alliances which may add to the splendor of their family. I, who am neither a noble nor a capitalist nor even a merchant, and have no hope of becoming any one of them, I tried for a long time to think of some means by which I could, if not make a fortune, at least live at my ease. I soon found that means. With intelligence one soon learns to know men. I travelled; I studied men’s tastes and characters. I saw that, with a little address, poor mortals are easily deceived; all that is necessary is to take them on their weak side, which one can easily divine when one has tact and penetration, as I have.”
“Ah! so you have tact and penetration?” I said to my companion, as I buried in the flanks of our steed some pins which I had discovered on the portmanteau that was between us.
“Yes, my dear boy, I flatter myself that I have.”
“Then, why is your horse going so fast now?”
“Because I keep my whip snapping, and he knows that he is soon going to have his supper.”
“That is true; I see that you have tact.—Well, go on, I am listening.”
“So then, it was by flattering men’s passions that I found a way to live at my ease; moreover, I instructed myself in botany, medicine, chemistry, and even in anatomy too; and with my knowledge I have not only composed remedies for all diseases but also philters to arouse love, hatred, jealousy, and to make well people sick; it is in this last art that I am particularly proficient.”
“Ah! I understand now. No doubt you sell vulneraries too, like that tall, red man that I used to see in Paris on the squares and street-corners. People called him a charlatan, I believe.”
At the name charlatan, my companion leaped in the saddle in such a way that he nearly threw us both off; luckily I clung firmly to him, and we got off with merely a fright.
“My dear boy,” he said when he had become a little calmer, “I forgive you the name of charlatan. You don’t know me yet; indeed I admit that there is a little charlatanism in my business, and that three-quarters of my remedies and my philters do not produce the effect that is expected of them; but we make mistakes in medicine as we do in everything else. We take cathartics and make ourselves sick; we have a toothache, and we take an elixir which spoils all our teeth; we try to obtain a position which we are not able to fill; we go into maritime speculations which a sudden storm destroys; we think that we have intelligence when we have not the intelligence to succeed, which is the most important of all; we determine to be prudent and we make fools of ourselves; we desire happiness, and we marry and have a wife and children who often cause us untold anxiety!—In short, my little man, people have made mistakes in all lines, and it is great luck when things turn out as we had anticipated, or hoped.”
“Look here, monsieur,” I said to my little hunchback, whose chatter was beginning to weary me, “what do you expect to do with me, after all is said and done?”
“This: when I stop in a village or small town, I cannot make myself sufficiently well known alone; I need an assistant, to go about the town to deliver prospectuses, and to answer for me when I am busy, and make a memorandum of the questions that people want to ask me.”
“But I don’t choose to be your assistant, as I don’t want to learn anything.”
“I understand that very well, my friend. Oh! I don’t propose to drive you crazy with fatiguing work. I will have you make pills, that’s all.”
“Pills?”
“Yes, pills of all sizes and of all colors. Never fear, it won’t be hard; but that isn’t all.”
“What else shall I do?”
“You must be able to sleep when you choose, and to play the sleep-walker when you please.”
“Oh! as to sleeping, I can do that all right!”
“When you are asleep, you must answer the questions that are asked you.”
“How do you expect me to answer questions when I am asleep?”
“Why, you will pretend to be asleep, my boy; I will explain all that to you. Oh! that is one of the principal branches of my business.”
“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 assistant 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 assistant. 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 godfather 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 pronounce 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 assistant, 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 passions 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 passions.”
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 assurance 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 quantities of them to nurses and old women.”
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 passed 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 noblemen 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 passed 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 passed 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 assurance; he took the prospectuses with a respectful bow, assured us of his devotion, tried to pronounce 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 class, she was very inquisitive and passably 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.”
“Oh! if you could only tell me that one, monsieur! I’d be so pleased, so happy—to look young forever! Ah! how delightful that would be! I promise you that I won’t tell your secret. You see, I wouldn’t want the other girls in town to stay young too! ’twould take away all the pleasure.—Monsieur, will you be kind enough to—I say—if you will, you can ask me for all you choose!”
The young servant seemed, in very truth, predisposed in my favor; I already felt innumerable desires surging in my heart; but I dared not make them known as yet; I was very green, but I felt a longing to cease to be, and I wished to receive my first instructions from Clairette.
However, when you pretend to be thirty years old, you don’t want to appear to be an ignoramus; and, in order to avoid talking and acting awkwardly, I held my peace and did nothing but look at Clairette.
The girl, amazed by my silence, was afraid that she had said too much; however, the desire to remain young tormented her so that she soon renewed her questions.
“They say you’re a somnambulist, monsieur?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And that you put everybody to sleep?”
“I put those people to sleep who believe in my skill.”
“Oh! I believe in it absolutely, monsieur! and if you would put me to sleep—Perhaps that is what gives the young look?”
“Why, yes, that’s the beginning of it.”
“Oh! begin me, monsieur, please! it will be so much done! Please, while we’re alone and you’ve got time——”
“What do you want?”
“To be put to sleep, monsieur. See, I’m all ready.”
I was terribly embarrassed; I didn’t know how to go to work to play the sorcerer, and I bitterly regretted that I had not asked my little hunchback for fuller details as to that matter. However, as I did not desire to be cruel any longer to young Clairette, who appeared to me in such charming fashion, I said to myself: “Parbleu! I’m not any more stupid than my hunchback; he hasn’t taught me his way of putting people to sleep, so I’ll invent a way of my own, and perhaps mine will be just as good as his.”
“All right, I consent,” I said to Clairette, “I’ll give you a lesson; but it will only be just to give you a little bit of an idea; we’ll do more another time.”
“Oh! just as you say, monsieur.”
The young woman was so pleased with what I had agreed to do for her, that she jumped about the room like a mad girl.
“First of all, sit down,” I said, trying to assume a very serious expression.
“Where shall I sit, monsieur?”
“Why, here—on a chair by my side.”
“Here I am, monsieur.”
“Give me your hand.”
“Oh! both of ’em, if you want.”
I took both her hands and squeezed them hard; I felt a pleasant warmth run through my whole being; I was so happy that I dared not stir for fear of breaking the charm that intoxicated my senses; my eyes were fixed on Clairette’s, and their tender languor aroused my first love. Instead of giving the girl a lesson, I felt that she could teach me a thousand things. I trembled, I blushed and turned pale in quick succession; never was a sorcerer so timid; but I had forgotten my rôle, and Clairette had unconsciously assumed it.
“It’s mighty funny,” said the girl when I had been squeezing her hand for five minutes, “it don’t make me a bit sleepy.”
“Wait, wait. It doesn’t work at once. Now you must shut your eyes.”
“Bless me! shut ’em tight?”
“Yes, that is absolutely necessary.”
“All right—now I can’t see a thing.”
As Clairette was no longer looking at me, I became less timid, and after contemplating at leisure a lovely bosom, from which I had put the neckerchief partly aside, I ventured to steal a kiss from the lips of my pretty pupil. Instantly an unknown flame set my heart on fire, I found in those kisses an unfamiliar sensation of bliss, I could not take enough of them, and Clairette made no objection, but murmured brokenly:
“Ah! why—this is funny—it don’t make me sleepy—a single bit.”
I don’t know how that first lesson would have ended, had not my companion suddenly entered the room, just as I embraced Clairette. His presence confused me so that I reached the other end of the room in one bound. Clairette seemed less embarrassed than I was; she remained in her chair, glancing from me to the little hunchback, like a person awaiting the result of an experiment.
“What are you doing, my dear Tatouos?” said the crafty hunchback with a smile, for he easily guessed the cause of my confusion.
“Why, I—I was trying to put this girl to sleep.”
“Ah! you were going on to that, were you?—But, as you know, there are some indispensable preliminaries, and besides this is not a propitious hour. Take my advice, and postpone your lesson in magnetism until another time.”
As he said this, my companion made signs to me which I understood perfectly; then he went to Clairette, who was still sitting quietly in her chair.
“My dear child, I am glad to see that you desire to obtain instruction, and that you have faith in our skill. Never fear, we will teach you much more than you imagine—especially Signor Tatouos, who is extremely well versed in his art, and whose one aim is to make proselytes. But the moment has not arrived. Your master wants you in the kitchen; your fricassees may burn; our supper would be the worse for it, and I should be very sorry; for I have a good appetite, and I don’t like curdled sauces and overdone meat. Go, my dear girl,—to-morrow we shall begin our grand experiments! And if you are the sort of person that I hope you shall be initiated into our mysteries! In a word, to-morrow you shall sleep and you shall see the light.”
I am not sure that Clairette fully understood my companion’s meaning, but she made a profound reverence and left the room. As she passed me, she shot a glance at me that completely turned my head. Unable longer to resist my feeling for her, and heedless of what my companion might say, I followed her into the corridor.
“If you want me to teach you all I know,” I said to her in an undertone, “tell me where your room is; I will come to see you to-night.”
“Oh! I don’t ask anything better. Look—you go up these stairs, and up at the very top, the small door to the right; anyway, I’ll leave it open a little.”
“Good!”
“But you will show me how to keep young?”
“Never fear.”
Clairette left me and I returned to my companion. As you see, love had already made me inventive; I was determined to leave no stone unturned to possess Clairette, and yet I was only fifteen and a few months; but a resolute will, an ardent temperament and robust health impelled me to embark upon an adventurous career before the usual age.
When I returned to my travelling companion, I expected a severe reprimand for my inconsiderate conduct with the young maid-servant, and I had determined to reply that I would remain with him only on condition of doing as I chose; but I was agreeably surprised to see him laugh and come forward gayly to meet me.
“It seems to me, my young friend,” he said slyly, “that you are already disposed to work on your own account. Peste! you are beginning rather young! However, I do not propose to interfere with you in anything; indeed, I am neither your father nor your guardian, and you wouldn’t listen to me if I should preach virtue to you. Allow me simply to give you some advice dictated by prudence and by our mutual interest.”
“I am listening.”
“I am a man of great tact; and I believe that you are in love with the girl who was here just now.”
“Indeed? you didn’t need any great tact to discover that.”
“But it’s essential to find out whether she likes you.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“You are so young!”
“She thinks I am thirty.”
“True! I had forgotten that. Then you must try to enlist her in our interest; you understand, my dear Jacques, that to have a great success in a town, I must make, or find, accomplices.”
“What! can’t you do without them? You are not very clever, so far as I can see.”
“My little Jacques, you are just beginning your pranks and your travels; you don’t know the world as yet; if you had studied it as I have, you would know that even the most cunning people often require the help of others to succeed; and that is what I call complicity. The tradesmen enter into agreements with one another, in order to get better prices for their wares; the steward makes a bargain with the tradesmen about paying their bills; the courtiers put their heads together to flatter the prince and conceal the truth from him; the young dandy plots with a dancer at the Opéra to ruin a farmer-general; the doctor has an understanding with the druggist, the tailor with the dealer in cloth, the dressmaker with the lady’s maid, the author with the claqueurs, who also have an understanding with one another about selling the tickets they receive for applauding; stockbrokers make agreements to raise and lower quotations, cabals to ruin the sale of a work by a man who is not of their coteries, musicians to play badly the music of a confrère, actors to prevent the production of a play in which they do not act; and wives have a most excellent understanding with their husbands’ friends. All this, my dear boy, is complicity. Need you be surprised then, that a sleight-of-hand man, a manipulator of goblets, requires accomplices?—So much the worse for the idiots who allow themselves to be tricked! or rather, so much the better; for if there were no illusion, there would be very little enjoyment.—As for myself, I require to know beforehand who the people are who come to consult me; for you understand that I am no more of a sorcerer than other men. In order that you, while playing the somnambulist, may divine the pains that people are feeling, as well as those that they have felt, I must teach you your lesson in advance. That won’t prevent our making cures, please God! but we must impose on the multitude; and men are so constituted that the marvelous delights and always will delight them. Now then, this little servant seems to me very sly and very wide awake, and we must make her our accomplice; you will give her love, and I money. With the two, we shall be very unlucky or very bungling if we do not enlist her in our cause.”
I was overjoyed by my companion’s proposition; to give love to Clairette was my only thought, my only desire! But, as the little hunchback constantly enjoined prudence upon me, and requested me to do nothing without consulting him, I did not mention my appointment with the young servant; he might have considered it too abrupt, too sudden, and not for anything in the world would I have missed my first rendezvous.
Master Graograicus proceeded to tell me the result of his walk about the town; he was already familiar with the gossip, the intrigues, recent events, the appointments about to be made, the diseases most in vogue, the persons to be treated with consideration, the marriages soon to take place and those which were broken off,—in a word, everything of present interest to the bigwigs of the place. Give me a small town for a place to learn all the news in a short time! to be informed, all one needs to do is to stop a moment at the baker’s, the hair-dresser’s and the fruit-woman’s.
My companion had a great knack at remembering everything that could possibly be useful to him; his memory was almost always accurate; it supplied the place of learning, as in many people it supplies the place of wit.
Our supper was served. The host came first himself, to lay the cloth and take our orders. Clairette appeared finally; she seemed less confident than on the occasion of her first visit; she kept her eyes on the floor, and paid no heed to my meaning glances and the little hunchback’s sly smile. I was on pins and needles; I was afraid that she had changed her mind and her determination. I was a novice in amorous intrigue, and I did not know that a woman never conceals her wishes so effectively as at the moment that they are about to be fulfilled.
She left the room, and I did what I could to hasten the supper; but my companion, who was not in love, abandoned himself with keen delight to the pleasures of the table. I had no choice but to watch him linger over each dish, and to listen to his jests concerning my lack of appetite. He was very far, however, from suspecting the real cause of my preoccupation.
The supper came to an end at last, and we went into our bedroom, where there were two beds side by side. I made haste to jump into mine, placing my trousers at my feet, that I might find them more readily. After making the tour of the room a dozen times, and arranging his philters and pill boxes, until my nerves fairly tingled with impatience, my companion finally decided to go to bed. I awaited that moment as the signal for my happiness, for I knew that he would be sound asleep as soon as he was in bed.
At last that instant so ardently desired arrived. My comrade was in bed; I made certain that he was snoring. I rose, slipped into my trousers, and, not taking the time to put on my shoes, I hurried to the door, opened it very softly, and stood on the landing.
I felt my way upstairs, making no noise, in my bare feet, and holding my breath, I was so afraid of giving the alarm to the people in the house, and of seeing that unfamiliar felicity which I burned to know elude my grasp. At last I reached the appointed place at the top of the stairs; I heard a faint cough and my heart told me that I was near Clairette. I found a door ajar, and by the light of a night lamp, I saw the little servant awaiting me.
The girl wore nothing but a short petticoat and a jacket, evidently assuming that an elaborate toilet was not necessary in the mysteries of somnambulism; but no woman had ever seemed to me so bewitching, nor had I ever seen a woman look at me in such an expressive fashion.
“I was waiting for you,” she said; “let’s go right on with the lesson your companion interrupted so unpleasantly; I am anxious to know how you are going to make me young!”
“You don’t need to be made young,” I said; “all you need is to stay just as you are now.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant. Let’s make haste. See, I’ll sit down and shut my eyes as I did before.”
And without waiting for my reply, Clairette sat down on the foot of her bed, doubtless because the only chair in the room did not seem to her strong enough to stand our experiment in magnetism. I was careful not to urge my pupil to do otherwise, and I went at once and took my place by her side. I was too excited then to be timid; and Clairette, with her eyes still closed, contented herself with saying:
“Oh! is that the way? is that what makes a person young? Why, Pierre and Jérôme have taught me as much already!”
I had repeated my experiment several times and had fallen asleep in Clairette’s arms, when a great noise woke us both. The uproar seemed to come from the room beneath; we distinguished a confused murmur of voices, among others that of the inn-keeper, calling Clairette and shouting for a light.
What was I to do? If the inn-keeper himself should come upstairs, where was I to hide? There was nothing in Clairette’s room large enough to hide me from her master’s eyes. The young woman pushed me from the room and begged me to save her from the anger of her employer, who did not propose that the servants in his inn should have weaknesses for others than himself.
While she blew out her lamp and made a pretence of striking a light, I went downstairs with no very clear idea what I was going to say. I had no sooner reached the floor below than someone came to me, grasped my arm and whispered in my ear:
“Play the sleep-walker; I had an attack of indigestion, I took our host’s bedroom for the cabinet, and a tureen containing soup-stock for a night vessel. Don’t be alarmed, I will get you out of the scrape.”
I recognized the voice of my companion, and I at once recovered my courage. The inn-keeper, irritated because no light was brought, went up himself to Clairette’s room, where she was still striking the flint without using tinder—an infallible method of striking fire without striking a light. At last our host came down again with two lighted candles; he was on the point of entering his room, when he saw me walking about the corridor, in my shirt, with solemn tread, carrying my trousers under my arm, as I had not had time to put them on.
“What does this mean?” he demanded, gazing at me with an expression of surprise mingled with alarm; “what are you doing here, monsieur? who are you looking for, at this time of night? Was it you who came into my room and woke me up, with a dull noise that sounded like a drum, and filled the room with an infernal smell? Answer me!”
I was careful not to reply and continued to walk slowly along the corridor; the inn-keeper followed me with his two candles, and Pierre and Jérôme, the two men-servants, attracted by the noise, awaited with curiosity the upshot of the adventure. At last a groan came from the inn-keeper’s bedroom.
“Ah! there’s someone in my room!” he cried, turning pale; “come here, you fellows, and go on ahead.”
He pushed Pierre and Jérôme before him, and they entered the room where my companion was, leaving me in the corridor. Soon I heard our host’s voice, who seemed very wroth with Master Graograicus. I concluded that it was time to make peace between them, and with that end in view I stalked solemnly into the room where they were quarrelling.
At my appearance the hubbub ceased.
“Hush! silence! attention!” said my companion in a low tone; “it’s Tatouos, in a somnambulistic state. I will put him in communication with myself, and you’ll see that he will tell you all I have done to-night.”
The little hunchback came to me at once. He passed his hands in front of my face several times, put his forefinger on the end of my nose, in order, he said, to establish communication, and began his questions:
“What have I had to-night?”
“Pains in the stomach.”
“And then?”
“Nausea.”
“And then?”
“Colic.”
“There! what did I tell you just now?” cried my companion, turning toward the stupefied audience. “But let’s go on; this is nothing; I’ll wager that he will tell you everything I did.—What caused my trouble?”
“Indigestion.”
“And the indigestion?”
“From eating too much supper.”
“Surprising! prodigious!” said the host, crowding between his two servants.
“Hush!” said my companion; “don’t break the spell.—Then what did I do?”
“You got up.”
“With what purpose?”
“With the purpose of going to a certain place.”
“Did I take a light?”
“No, you had none.”
“How did I walk?”
“Feeling your way.”
“You hear him, messieurs; I felt my way because I had no light; he doesn’t make a mistake as to a single detail.—Let’s go on: where did I go?”
“Out into the corridor; you forgot that you had been told that it was the door at the left; you turned to the right and came into this room.”
“Exactly,—and then?”
“You found a soup-tureen, and you used it for——”
“Better and better!”
“The noise woke our host; he yelled and went out to get out a light, and meanwhile you hid the tureen under the bed.”
“Exactly. Look and see if he is mistaken in a single point!”
The servants did in fact find the tureen, which they soon returned to its place, holding their noses. The host was stupefied; but his spoiled soup-stock made him rather sulky, for he expected to make soup with it for a whole week. My companion, seeing what disturbed him, came back to me.
“What has it been my intention to do, since I discovered my mistake?”
“To give our host twelve francs as compensation for this accident.”
“Parbleu! exactly! Twelve francs! I told you so a moment ago, my dear host, to appease your wrath.”
“No, monsieur, I assure you that you never mentioned it.”
“No? Well, I had it on the tip of my tongue. Now you are satisfied, I hope, and I can wake our young man.”
He came to me and pinched the end of my little finger. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, like a person just waking, and naturally asked what I was doing there.
My companion glanced at the people of the inn; they were so surprised by all that they had seen and heard, that they stared at me as at a supernatural being.
“Now let’s go back to bed,” said the crafty hunchback. “Until to-morrow, messieurs; I promise you that you will see many more wonderful things, if you allow us to make our experiments in peace.”
My companion took my arm and we returned to our room, leaving the inn-keeper and his servants assuring one another that all that they had just seen had really happened.
When we were closeted in our room, my companion threw himself into my arms and embraced me joyfully.
“My boy, I am delighted with you,” he said; “you played your rôle like an angel! You are an invaluable fellow, and our fortune is made. To-night’s adventure will create a sensation.”
We went to bed well pleased with the way in which we had extricated ourselves from a bad scrape. I fell asleep thinking of Clairette, of her charms, of the pleasure I owed to her, of those I hoped still to enjoy; and my companion, reckoning what his first séance would be worth to him in a town where his reputation had obtained such a favorable start.
The little hunchback was not mistaken in his belief that the adventure of the night would bring us a crowd of curiosity seekers. The servants of the inn had risen early, in order to lose no time in telling all that they had seen and heard. The hair-dressers, the bakers, the grocers were the first to be informed; but that was quite enough to make it certain that the whole town would soon know what we were capable of doing. An adventure becomes so magnified by passing from mouth to mouth that we sometimes have difficulty in recognizing things that have happened to ourselves, when we hear others tell them. Everyone takes delight in adding some strange or marvelous detail, in outbidding his neighbor; thus it is that a brook becomes a rushing torrent, that a child who recites a complimentary poem without a mistake is a prodigy, that a juggler is a magician, that a man who has a soprano voice is a eunuch, that the man whose love is all for his country is a suspicious person in the eyes of him who loves only his own interest, and that a comet announces the end of the world.
The maid-servant, when she went to buy her ounce of coffee, learned from the grocer’s clerk that there were two most extraordinary men at the Tête-Noire inn, who were endowed with the power to tell you what you had done and what you meant to do.
“Pardieu! I must go and tell my mistress that,” said the maid as she left the shop; “she went to walk with her cousin the other night, and she don’t want her husband to know it; I’ll tell her not to go and let those sorcerers get scent of it.”
“What’s the news?” the old bachelor asked the barber, as he took his seat in the chair and put on his towel.
“What news, Monsieur Sauvageon! Peste! we have some very peculiar, very interesting people in town!”
“Tell me about them, my friend; go on!”
“Those two strangers, those doctors who arrived at the Tête-Noire last night, have been making experiments already.”
“Indeed?”
“It’s an absolute fact; I got it from Jérôme, the servant at the inn, who saw it and heard it.”
“The devil.”
“The somnambulist began his nocturnal expeditions last night.”
“Nocturnal expeditions at night! Are these somnambulists nyctalopes?”
“Yes, monsieur, they’re nycta—What do you call it, Monsieur Sauvageon?”
“Nyctalopes, my friend.”
“They’re nyctalopes, for sure.—What does nyctalopes mean?”
“It means that they see in the dark.”
“Oh! I understand! they’re like cats; in fact, somnambulists are as smart as cats in the dark.—But to return to this one at the Tête-Noire, you must know that he tells everything anybody’s done; and last night he discovered something that was hidden from all eyes!”
“I understand! he discovered some intrigue.”[B]