§=•

1 09 906

THE STORY OF SAN MICHELE

THE STORY OF SAN MICHELE

BY

AXEL MUNTHE

AUTHOR OF "MEMORIES AND VAGARIES/* ETC.

WITH

A SPECIAL PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION

cX&M? there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels9 and prevailednot; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great

dragon was cast out f that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION

XEWYORK E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC.

THE STORY OF SAN MICHELE :: COPYRIGHT, 1929 BY AXEL MUNTHE :: :: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED :: PRINTED IN U. S. A.

First Edition July 1989

Reprinted ------- Oct. 1989

Third Printing ------ Dee. 1989

Fourth and Fifth Printing* - Mar. 19SO

Sixth and Seventh Printings - April 1930

Eighth and Ninth Printings - May 1930

Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Printings - June 1930

Thirteenth to Sixteenth Printing - - July 1930

Seventeenth to Twenty-fourth Printing - Aug. 1930

Twenty-fifth to Thirtieth Printing - - ffept. 1930

Thirty-first to Thirty-eighth Printing - Oct. 1930

Thirty-ninth to Sixty-third Printing - Nov. 1930

Sixty-fourth to Sixty-eighth Printing - Dec. 1930

Sixty-ninth to Seventy-third Printing - Feb. 1931 Seventy-fourth to Seventy-seventh

Printing ------ Jfar. 1931

Seventy-eighth to Eighty-first Printing - June 1931

Eighty-second to Eighty-eighth Printing - July 1931

Eighty-mnth to Ninety-second Printing - Dec. 1931

ENTIRELY RESET AND ELECTROTYPED, OCTOBER

Ninety-third to Ninety-sixth Printing - Oct. 1982

Ninety-seventh to One Hundred-First

Printing ------ tfcv. 19$$

One Hundred-Second to One Hundred- Sixth Printing ----- Jime 1934

One HundrecLSeventh to One Hundred- Thirteenth Printing - - - - July 1936

One Hundred-Fourteenth Printing - - Nov. 1945

TO MY OLD FRIEND

SIB ESME HOWABD

A SPECIAL PREFACE FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION

REVIEWERS of this book seem to have found considerable difficulty in attempting to clas- sify the Story of San Michele, and I do not won- der. Some have described the book as an Auto- biography, others have called it " The Memoirs of a Doctor." As far as I can understand, it is neither the one nor the other. Surely it could not have taken me five hundred pages to write down the story of my life, even had I not left out its saddest and most eventful chapters. All I can say is that I never meant to write a book about my- self; it was, on the contrary, my constant pre- occupation the whole time to try to shake off this vague personality. If anyhow this book has turned out to be an Autobiography, I begin to believe that, judging from the sale of it, the simplest way to write a book about oneself consists in trying as hard as one can to think of somebody else. All a man has to do is to sit still in a chair by himself, and look back upon his life with his blind eye. Bet- ter still would be to lie down in the grass and not to think at all, only to listen. Soon the distant roar of the world dies away, and the forests and fields begin to sing with clear bird voices, friendly animals come up to tell him their joys and sorrows in sounds and words that he can understand, and when all is

vii

V1U SPECIAL PREFACE FOE AMERICAN EDITION

silent even the lifeless things around him begin to whisper in their sleep.

To call this book " The Memoirs of a Doctor," as some reviewers have done, seems to me even less appropriate. Its boisterous simplicity, its un- blushing frankness, its very lucidity fit ill with such a pompous sub-title. Surely a medical man, like every other human being, has the right to laugh at himself now and then to keep up his spirits, maybe even to laugh at his colleagues if he is willing to stand the risk. But he has no right to laugh at his patients. To shed tears with them is even worse, a whimpering doctor is a bad doc- tor. An old physician should, besides, think twice before sitting down in his arm-chair to write his memoirs. Better keep to himself what he has seen of Life and Death. Better write no memoirs at all, and leave the dead in peace and the living to their illusions.

Somebody has called the Story of San Michele a story of Death. Maybe it is so, for Death is seldom out of my thoughts, "Non nasce in me pensier che non vi sia dentro scolpita la Morte" wrote Michel Angelo to Vasari. I have been wrestling so long with my grim colleague; always defeated, I have seen him slay one by one all those I have tried to save. I have had a few of them in mind in this book as I saw them live, as I saw them suffer, as I saw them lie down to die. It was all that I could do for them. They were all humble people, no marble crosses stand on their graves, many of them were already for- gotten long before they died. They are all right now. Old Maria Porta Lettere who climbed the

SPECIAL PEEP ACE FOB AMERICAN EDITION 13

777 Phoenician steps for thirty years on her naked feet with my letters, is now carrying the post in Heaven, where dear old Pacciale sits smoking his pipe of peace, still looking out over the infinite sea as he used to do from the pergola of San Michele, and where my friend Archangelo Fusco, the street-sweeper in Quartier Montparnasse, is still sweeping the star-dust from the golden floor. Down the stately peristyle of lapis-lazuli columns struts briskly little Monsieur Alphonse, the doyen of the Little Sisters of the Poor, in the Pittsburg millionaire's brand-new frock-coat, solemnly rais- ing his beloved top hat to every saint he meets, as he used to do to all my friends when he drove down the Corso in my victoria. John, the blue- eyed little boy who never smiled, is now playing lustily with lots of other happy children in the old nursery of the Bambino. He has learnt to smile at last. The whole room is full of flowers, singing birds are flying in and out through the open windows, now and then the Madonna looks in to see that the children have all they want. John's mother, who nursed Mm so tenderly in Avenue des Villiers, is still down here. I saw her the other day. Poor Flopette, the harlot, looks ten years younger than when I saw her in the night-cafe on the boulevard; very tidy and neat in her white dress, she is now second housemaid to Mary Magdalen.

In a humble corner of the Elysian Fields is the cemetery of the dogs. All my dead friends are there, their bodies are still where I laid them down under the cypresses by the old Tower, but their faithful hearts have been taken up here. Kind

X SPECIAL PREFACE FOR AMERICAN EDITION

St. Rocco, the little patron-saint of all dogs, is the custodian of the cemetery, and good old Miss Hall is a frequent visitor there. Even the rascal Billy, the drunkard Baboon, who set fire to II Canonico Don Giacinto's coffin, has been admitted on trial to the last row of graves in the monkey cemetery some way off, after a close scrutiny from St. Peter, who noticed he smelled of whisky and mistook him at first for a human being. Don Giacinto himself, the richest priest in Capri, who had never given a penny to the poor, is still roast- ing in his coffin, and the ex-butcher of Anacapri, who blinded the quails with a red-hot needle, has had his own eyes stung out by the Devil in person in a fit of professional jealousy.

One reviewer has discovered that "there is enough material in the Story of San Michele to furnish writers of short sensational stories with plots for the rest of their lives." They are quite welcome to this material for what it is worth. I have no further use for it. Having concen- trated my literary efforts during a lifetime on writing prescriptions, I am not likely to try my hand on short sensational stories so late in the day. Would that I had thought of it before, or I should not be where I am today! Surely it must be a more comfortable job to sit in an arm-chair and write short sensational stories than to toil through life to collect the material for them, to describe diseases and Death than to fight them, to concoct sinister plots than to be knocked down by them without warning! But why do not these professionals collect their material themselves? They seldom do. Novel

SPECIAL PREFACE FOR AMERICAN EDITION" XI

writers, who insist on taking their readers to the slums, seldom go there themselves. Specialists on disease and Death can seldom be persuaded to come with you to the hospital where they have just finished off their heroine. Poets and philoso- phers, who in sonorous verse and prose hail Death as the Deliverer, often grow pale at the very mention of the name of their best friend. It is an old story. Leopardi, the greatest poet of modern Italy, who longed for Death in exquisite rhymes ever since he was a boy, was the first to fly in abject terror from cholera-stricken Naples. Even the great Montaigne, whose calm medita- tions on Death are enough to make him immortal, bolted like a rabbit when the peste broke out in Bordeaux. Sulky old Schopenhauer, the greatest philosopher of modern times, who had made the negation of life the very keystone of his teaching, used to cut short all conversation about Death. The bloodiest war novels were written, I believe, by peaceful citizens well out of the range of the long-distance German guns. Authors who delight in making their readers assist at scenes of sexual orgies are generally very indifferent actors in such scenes. Personally I only know of one exception to this rule, Giiy de Maupassant, and I saw him die of it.

I am aware that some of the scenes in this book are laid on the ill-defined borderland between the real and the unreal, the dangerous No Man's Land between fact and fancy where so many writers of memoirs have come to grief and where Goethe himself was apt to lose his bearings in his "Dichtung und Wahrheit." I have tried my

Xii SPECIAL PBEFACE FOE AMERICAN EDITION

best by means of a few well-known technical tricks to make at least some of these episodes pass off as " short sensational stories." After all, it is only a question of form. It will be a great relief to me if I have succeeded, I do not ask for better than not to be believed. It is bad enough and sad enough anyhow. God knows I have a good deal to answer for as it is. I shall also take it as a compliment, for thfe greatest writer of short sen- sational stories I know is Life. But is Life always true?

Life is the same as it always was, unruffled by events, indifferent to the joys and sorrows of man, mute and incomprehensible as the sphinx. But the stage on which the everlasting tragedy is enacted changes constantly to avoid monotony. The world we lived in yesterday is not the same world as we live in to-day, inexorably it moves on through the infinite towards its doom, and so do we. No man bathes twice in the same river, said Heraclitus. Some of us crawl on our knees, some ride on horseback or in motor-cars, others fly past the carrier-pigeon in aeroplanes. There is no need for hurry, we are all sure to reach the journey's end.

No, the world I lived in when I was young is not the same world that I live in to-day, at least it does not seem so to me. Nor do I think it will seem so to those who read this book of rambles in search of adventure in the past. There are no more brigands with a record of eight homicides to offer you to sleep on their mattresses in tumble- down Messina. No more granite sphinxes are crouching under the ruins of Nero's villa in

SPECIAL PREFACE FOB AMERICAN* EDITION XU1

Calabria. The maddened rats in the cholera slums of Naples, who frightened me to death, have long ago retreated in safety to their Roman sewers. You can drive up to Anacapri in a motor-car, and to the top of the Jungfrau in a train, and climb the Matterhorn with rope-ladders. Up in Lap- land no pack of hungry wolves, their eyes blazing in the dark like burning coals, is likely *td gallop behind your sledge across the frozen lake. The gallant old bear, who barred my way in the lonely Suvla gorge, has long ago departed to the Happy Hunting Fields. The foaming torrent I swam across with Bistin, the Lap-girl, is spanned by a railway-bridge. The last stronghold of the terrible Stalo, the Troll, has been pierced by a tunnel. The Little People I heard patter about under the floor of the Lap tent, no more bring food to the sleeping bears in their winter quarters, that is why there are so few bears in Sweden to-day. You are welcome to laugh incredulously at these busy Little People as much as you like, at your own risk and peril. But I refuse to believe that any reader of this book will have the effrontery to deny that it was a real goblin I saw sitting on the table in Forsstugan and pull cautiously at my Watch-chain. Of course it was a real goblin. Who could it otherwise have been? I tell you I saw him distinctly with both my eyes when I sat up in my bed just as the tallow candle was flickering out. I am told to my surprise that there are people who have never seen a goblin. One cannot help feeling sorry for such people. I am sure there must be something wrong with their eyesight. Old uncle Lars Anders in Forsstugan, six feet six in his sheepskin-coat and wooden shoes,

XIV SPECIAL PBEFACE FOE AMERICAK EDITION

is dead long ago, and so is dear old Mother Ker- stin, his wife. But the little goblin I saw sitting cross-legged on the table in the attic over the cow- stall is alive. It is only we who die.

ST. JAMES'S CLUB, AXEL MUNTHE,

July, 1930.

PREFACE

I HAD rushed over to London from France to see about my naturalization, it looked as if my country was going to be dragged into the war by the side of Germany. Henry James was to be one of my sponsors, he had just been naturalized himself, " Civis Britannicus sum," he said in his deep voice. He knew that I had tried to do my bit and that I had failed because I had become too helpless myself to be of any help to others* He knew the fate that awaited me. He laid his hand on my shoulder and asked me what I was going to do with myself? I told him I was about to leave France for good to hide like a deserter in my old tower. It was the only place I was fit for. As he wished me good-bye he reminded me how years ago when he was staying with me at San Michele he had encouraged me to write a book about my island home, which he had called the most beautiful place in the world. Why not write the Story of San Michele now if it came to the worst and my cour- age began to flag? Who could write about San Michele better than I who had built it with my own hands? Who could describe better than I all these priceless fragments of marbles strewn over the gar- den where the villa of Tiberius once stood? And the sombre old Emperor himself whose weary foot had trod the very mosaic floor I had brought to light under the vines, what a fascinating study f at

XVI PREFACE

a man like me who was so interested in psychology! There was nothing like writing a book for a man who wanted to get away from his own misery, nothing like writing a book for a man who could not sleep.

These were his last words, I never saw my friend again.

I returned to my useless solitude in the old tower, humiliated and despondent. While every- body else was offering his life to his country, I spent my days wandering up and down in the dark tower, restless like a caged animal, while the never- ending tidings of suffering and woe were read to me. Now and then of an evening when the relent- less light of the day had ceased to torture my eyes, I used to wander up to San Michele in search of news. The flag of the British Red Cross was flying over San Michele where brave and disabled men were nursed back to health by the same sun that had driven me away from my beloved home. Alas for the news ! How long was the waiting for those who could do nothing but wait!

But how many of us dare to confess what so many have felt, that the burden of their own grief seemed easier to bear while all men and women around us were in mourning, that the wound in their own flanks seemed almost to heal while the blood was flowing from so many other wounds? Who dared to grumble over his own fate while the fate of the world was at stake? Who dared to whimper over his own pain while all these mutilated men were lying on their stretchers silent with set teeth? At last the storm abated. All was silent as be-

PREFACE XV11

fore in the old tower, I was alone wjih my fear. Man was built to carry his own cross, that is why he was given his strong shoulders. A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts and to the singing of a bird outside his window and to the far-away voice of the sea. I was told at St. Dunstan's that he can even live without light, but those who told me so were heroes.. But a man cannot live without sleep. When I ceased to sleep I began to write this book, all milder remedies having failed. It has been a great success, so far as I am concerned. Over and over again I have blessed Henry James for his advice. I have been sleeping much better of late. It has even, been a pleasure to me to write this book, I no* longer wonder why so many people are taking ta writing books in our days. Unfortunately I have been writing the Story of San Michele under pecu- liar difficulties. I was interrupted at the very be- ginning by an unexpected visitor who sat down opposite to me at the writing table and began to talk about himself and his own affairs in the most erratic manner, as if all this nonsense could interest anybody but himself. There was something very irritating and un-English in the way he kept on relating his various adventures where he always seemed to turn out to have been the hero — too much Ego in your Cosmos, young man, thought I. He seemed to think he knew everything, antique art, architecture, psychology, Death and Hereafter. Medicine seemed to be his special hobby, he said he was a nerve specialist and boasted of being a pupil

XVlii PBEFACE

of Charcot's as they all do. God help his patients, I said to myself. As he mentioned the name of the master of the Salpetriere I fancied for a moment that I had seen him before, long, long ago, but I soon dismissed the thought as absurd, for he looked so young and boisterous, and I felt so old and weary. His unceasing swagger, his very youth began to get on my nerves, and to make matters worse it soon dawned upon me that this young gentleman was making mild fun of me the whole time, as young people are apt to do with old people. He even tried to make me believe that it was he and not I who had built San Michele! He said he loved the place and was going to live there for ever. At last I told him to leave me alone and let me go on with my Story of San Michele and my descrip- tion of my precious marble fragments from the villa of Tiberius.

"Poor old man," said the young fellow with his patronizing smile, "you are talking through your hat! I fear you cannot even read your own handwriting! It is not about San Michele and your precious marble fragments from the villa of Tiberius you have been writing the whole time, it is only some fragments of clay from your own broken life that you have brought to light."

TOEKE DI MAIERITA. 1928.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

SPECIAL PREFACE FOE THE AMEBICAN EDITION vii PREFACE ...... xv

I YOUTH ....... 1

Gioia—The Phoenician Steps— Maria Porta-Lettere —La Bella Margherita— Don Dionisio's Wine— In Mastro Vincenzo's Garden— The Man in the Red Mantle— The Bargain.

II QUABTIEB, LATIN ..... 20

H&tel de TAvenir— The Implacable Foe — The Eter- nal Sleeping-Draught— Salle St. Claire — Work, Work, Work!

HE AVENUE DE VHXIEBS .... 31

Colitis— The Countess— Faubourg St. Germain— Loulou— The Salvatore Family

IV A FASHIONABLE DOCTOR .... 45

Monsieur PAbb6— Luck— Asile St. Anne— M6nag- erie Pezon — Jack

V PATIENTS ...... 57

Dogs^Hydrophobia— Pasteur— The Moujlks — The Norwegian Painter — An Error of Diagnosis — Vivi- section—The Monkey Doctor

VI CHATEAU RAMEAUX .... 81

Diphtheria— Walking Home— Holidays— The Bear Story— The Skylark— Vicomte Maurice— In the Smoking-room— The Village Doctor— Spratfs Bis- cuits— Romeo and Juliet — Le Vieux Marcheur — Back to Paris— The Ghost— The Pole Star

VII LAPLAND 120

Old Turi— The Little People— Lapland Dogs— The Healer— Ristin— The Birch-root Box— The Old Bear —Two Stately Travellers— Fog— Uncle Lars and Mother Kerstin— Those People they Call Thieves— In the Cow-stable— The Tallow Candle and the Gob- lin—Nursery Recollections— Six Hundred Years Old —The Gold Box— Night Visitors— 'The Times' xix

XX CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

VIII NAPLES ...... 157

Afraid— The Street Scavengers — Parmacia di San Gennaro— Doctor Villari— Osteria dell'Allegria— II Convento delle Sepolte Vive— The Patron Saint of the Eyes— Suora Ursula—The Abbess— Death's Love Philtre

IX BACK TO PAKIS ..... 179

My Friend Norstrom — On Women — More on Women— Mademoiselle Flopette

X THE CORPSE-CONDUCTOR . . .192 In Heidelberg— Off for a Holiday in Sweden— The Russian General— A Pleasant Journey— Between Colleagues— Visiting My Brother— My First Em- balmment—The Last Time I Ever Went to a Funeral

XI MADAME REauiN ..... 2ll The Diamond Brooch

XII THE GIANT ..... 215

A Wedding Party— Au Violon— Two Collectors of Watches

XIII MAMSELI, AGATA ..... 223

The Tyrant at Home-The Swedish Chaplain- Colonel Staaff— The Hero of Gravelotte

XIV VICOMTE MAURICE .... 238 Loulou Again— Talking with M. l'Abb<$— Moonlight

SLM?S^eSarlo™Bois 3e St' Cloud-Always Luck— ine Ola Hat

XV JOHN ......

Madame R^quin Again-The Blue-eyed Boy— Jo^. s6phrne-Dismissing6Mamsell Agata-The M*Lot- Consultation in London-Hie Beautiful Lady-. Johns Nurse— The Owner of the Diamond Brooch

XVI A JOTTENEY TO SWEDEN . . 269

The Night Express to Cologne-Hamlet in Lund

XVII DOCTOES ...... 276

On Writing Bills— Reforming Society— Fees— Some Famous Doctors-Rest Cure in SwitzeriSd- SpaUanzam's Experiment— Back in Paris

CONTENTS

CHAP.

XVIII LA SALP&TBXEBE ....

Guy de Maupassant — In the Coulisses of the Opera — St. Lazare and Maison Blanche — Char- cot's Tuesday Lectures — Genevieve — Post-hyp- notic Suggestion — Failure

XIX HYPNOTISM ..... Hypnotic Suggestion — Dangers of Hypnotism

XX. INSOMNIA .....

Massage— Going to Pieces—The Doppelganger

XXI THE MIBACLE or SANT'ANTONIO .

The Architect of San Michele — The Overseer — The Telegram— -Good Friday— The Swedish Minister

XXII PIAZZA DI SPAGNA ....

In Keats' House— Some of My Colleagues— Billy and his Master

XXITT MO&E DOCTOBS

Mrs. Jonathan — Signor Cornacchia's Dilemma — The Perambulator — Another Fashionable Doctor — Death and Thereafter—The Nursing Home by Porta Pia — A Dangerous Rival

XXIV GRAND HOTEL

The New Serum— The Cheque for £1,000— The Protestant Cemetery— The Pittsburgh Millionaire —Mrs. Charles Washington Perkins, Jr.

THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR

Monsieur Alphonse — La Mere G&ierale — The Gargoyle of Notre Dame

XXV

XXVI

Miss HALL .....

Giovannina and Rosina — In Villa Borghese — From Miss Hall's Diary— On Decorations— Mes- sina—My Kind Host— The Mafia— Magna Graecia — Demeter — Mrs. Charles Washington Perkins, Jr., Again — Fraulein Frida and Aunt Sally — The Owl of Minerva— The Finest View in Rome

XXI

PAGE

296

314 323 335

350 362

877

389 402

XXVH SUMMER

Home Again — Inspecting San Michele — The Banquet — The Dream — The Great Adventures — While I Was Away— Billy— Don Giacinto Lying in State — The Secular Enemy — A Futurist Painter — II Demonio

434

xxu

CONTENTS

CHAP.

xxvm

THE BIBD SANCTITABY

Hie Protestants— The Devil's Discovery— The Nets— The Wings of the Angels

XXIX THE BAMBINO

The Nursery in San Michele— That Night on Golgotha

XXX. THE PESTA Di SANT'ANTONIO

Ewiva il Santo! Ewiva la MusicaJ— The Pro- cession—Reception in San Michele— Serenata d'Addio

XXXI THE REGATTA .

The Blue Grotto— Tiberius— Damecuta— Lord Dufferin's Relation— The "Lady Victoria "—The Saaroom— The First of MJay— Old Pacciale

XXXII THE BEGINNING OF THE END Schubert — Spring

IN THE OLD TOWER .

The Last Stand— The Golden Light— II Canto del Sole-^Wolf— The Eternal Sleeping Draught — Thanatos— Onwards ! Upwards !— The Aged Archangel— The War— II Poverello— Botticelli's Madonna— Arcangelo Fusco's Sunday Clothes— The Hall of Osiris— Habakkuk— The Bells of Assisi

PAGE

458

466

470

478

497

503

YOUTH

I SPRANG from the Sorrento sailing-boat on to the little beach. Swarms of boys were playing about among the upturned boats or bath- ing their shining bronze bodies in the surf, and old fishermen in red Phrygian caps sat mending their nets outside their boat-houses. Opposite the landing-place stood half-a-dozen donkeys with sad- dles on their backs and bunches of flowers in their bridles, and around them chattered and sang as many girls with the silver spadella stuck through their black tresses and a red handkerchief tied across their shoulders. The little donkey who was to take me up to Capri was called Rosina, and the name of the girl was Gioia. Her black, lustrous eyes spar- kled with fiery youth, her lips were red like the string of corals round her neck, her strong white teeth glistened like a row of pearls in her merry laughter. She said she was fifteen and I said that I was younger than I had ever been. But Rosina was old, " e antica," said Gioia. So I slipped off the saddle and climbed leisurely up the winding path to the village. In front of me danced Gioia on naked feet, a wreath of flowers round her head, like a young Bacchante, and behind me staggered old Rosina in her dainty black shoes, with bent head and drooping ears, deep in thought. I had no time

1

2 YOUTH

to think, my head was full of rapturous wonder, my heart full of the joy of life, the world was beautiful .and I was eighteen. We wound our way through bushes of ginestra and myrtle in full bloom, and here and there among the sweet-scented grass many small flowers I had never seen before in the land of Linnaeus, lifted their graceful heads to look at us as we passed.

" What is the name of this flower? " said I to Gioia. She took the flower from my hand, looked At it lovingly and said: " Fiorel "

" And what is the name of this one? " She looked at it with the same tender attention and said"fiore!"

" And how do you call this one? "

"Fiore! Bellol Bello!"

She picked a bunch of fragrant myrtle, but would not give it to me. She said the flowers were for S. Costanzo, the patron saint of Capri who was -all of solid silver and had done so many miracles, S. Costanzo, bello! bello!

A long file of girls with tufa stones on their heads slowly advanced towards us in a stately procession like the caryatides from the Erechtheum. One of the girls gave me a friendly smile and put an orange into my hand. She was a sister of Gioia's and even more beautiful, thought I. Yes, they were eight sisters and brothers at home, and two were in Para- dise. Their father was away coral-fishing in " Bar- baria," look at the beautiful string of corals he had just sent her, "che bella collana! Bella! Bella!"

" And you also are bella, Gioia, bella, bella! "

"Yes," said she.

My foot stumbled against a broken column of

GIOIA 3

marble, "Roba di Timberio 1" explained Gioia. " Timberio cattivo, Timberio marocchio, Timberio camorrista! " * and she spat on the marble.

" Yes," said I, my memory fresh from Tacitus and Suetonius, " Tiberio cattivo! "

We emerged on the high road and reached the Piazza with a couple of sailors standing by the parapet overlooking the Marina, a few drowsy Capriotes seated in front of Don Antonio's osteria, and half-a-dozen priests on the steps leading to the church, gesticulating wildly in animated conversa- tion: "Moneta I Moneta! Molta moneta; Niente moneta! " Gioia ran up to kiss the hand of Don Giacinto who was her father confessor and un vero santo, though he did not look like one. She went to confession twice a month, how often did I go to confession?

Not at all!

Cattivo! Cattivo!

Would she tell Don Giacinto that I had kissed her cheeks under the lemon trees?

Of course not.

We passed through the village and halted at Punta Tragara.

" I am going to climb to the top of that rock," said I, pointing to the most precipitous of the three Faraglioni glistening like amethysts at our feet. But Gioia was sure I could not do it. A fisherman who had tried to climb up there in search of sea- gulls' eggs had been hurled back into the sea by an evil spirit, who lived there in the shape of a blue

1 The old emperor who lived the last eleven years of his life on the island of Capri and is still very much .alive on the lips of its inhabitants, is always spoken of as Timberio.

4 YOUTH

lizard, as blue as the Blue Grotto, to keep watch over a golden treasure hidden there by Timberio himself.

Towering over the friendly little village the som- bre outline of Monte Solaro stood out against the Western sky with its stern crags and inaccessible cliffs.

" I want to climb that mountain at once," said L

But Gioia did not like the idea at all. A steep path, seven hundred and seventy-seven steps, cut in the rock by Timberio himself led up the flank of the mountain, and half-way up in a dark cave lived a ferocious werewolf who had already eaten several cristiani. On the top of the stairs was Anacapri, but only gente di montagna lived there, all very bad people; no forestieri ever went there and she her- self had never been there. Much better climb to the Villa Timberio, or the Arco Naturale or the Grotta Matromania!

" No, I had no time, I must climb that mountain at once."

Back to the Piazza, just as the rusty bells of the old campanile were ringing 12 o'clock to announce that the macaroni was ready. Wouldn't I at least have luncheon first under the big palm-tree of the Albergo Pagano. Tre piatti, vino a volont&, prezzo una lira. No, I had no time, I had to climb the mountain at once. "Addio, Gioia bella, bella! Addio Rosinal " " Addio, addio e presto ritorno! " Alas! for the presto ritorno!

"E un pazzo inglese," were the last words I heard from Gioia's red lips as, driven by my fate, I sprang up the Phoenician steps to Anacapri. Half-way up I overtook an old woman with a huge

THE PHOENICIAN STEPS 5

basket full of oranges on her head. " Buon giorno, signorino." .She put down her basket and handed me an orange. On the top of the oranges lay a bundle of newspapers and letters tied up in a red handkerchief. It was old Maria Porta-Lettere who carried the post twice a week to Anacapri, later on my life-long friend, I saw her die at the age of ninety-five. She fumbled among the letters, selected the biggest envelope and begged me to tell her if it was not for Nannina la Crapara 1 who was eagerly expecting la lettera from her husband in America. No, it was not. Perhaps this one? No, it was for Signora Desdemona Vacca.

" Signora Desdemona Vacca," repeated old Maria, incredulously. " Perhaps they mean la moglie dello Scarteluzzo," 2 she said meditatively. The next letter was for Signor Ulisse Desiderio. " I think they mean Capolimone," 3 said old Maria, " he had a letter just like this a month ago." The next letter was for Gentilissima Signorina Rosina Mazzarella. This lady seemed more difficult to trace. Was it la Cacciacavallara? 4 or la Zop- parella?5 Or la Capatosta?6 Or la Femmina Antica?7 Or Rosinella Pane Asciutto?8 Or perhaps la Fesseria?9 suggested another woman who had just overtaken us with a huge basket of fish on her head. Yes, it might be for la Fesseria if it was not for la moglie di Pane e Cipolla.10 But was there no letter for Peppinella Vcoppo u cam-

1 " The Goat-woman." fl " The wife of the Hunchback."

* " Lemonhead." * " The Cheese-woman."

* " The lame Woman." ' " The Hardhead." 7 " The Ancient Woman." * " Stale Bread."

' Not for ears polite. M " The wife of Bread and Onions."

6 YOUTH

posanto * or for Mariucella Caparossa * or for Gio- vannina Ammazzacane 3 who were all expecting la letter a from America? No, I was sorry there was not. The two newspapers were for II reverendo parroco Don Antonio di Giuseppe and II canonico Don Natale di Tommaso, she knew it well, for they were the only newspaper-subscribers in the village. The parroco was a very learned man and it was he who always found out who the letters were for, but to-day he was away in Sorrento on a visit to the Archbishop, and that was why she had asked me to read the envelopes. Old Maria did not know how old she was, but she knew that she had carried the post since she was fifteen when her mother had to give it up. Of course she could not read. When I had told her that I had sailed over that very morn- ing with the post-boat from Sorrento and had had nothing to eat since then, she gave me another orange which I devoured skin and all, and the other woman offered me at once from her basket some f rutta di mare which made me frightfully thirsty. Was there an inn in Anacapri? No, but Annar- ella, la moglie del sagrestano could supply me with excellent goat-cheese and a glass of excellent wine from the vineyard of the priest Don Dionisio, her uncle, un vino meraviglioso. Besides there was La Bella Margherita, of course I knew her by name and that her aunt had married " un lord inglese." No, I did not, but I was most anxious to know La Bella Margherita.

We reached at last the top of the seven-hundred and seventy-seven steps, and passed through a

1 " Above the Cemetery."

'"Carrots." '"Kill-dog."

MARIA PORTA-LETTERE 7

vaulted gate with the huge iron hinges of its for- mer draw-bridge still fastened to the rock. We were in Anacapri. The whole bay of Naples lay at our feet encircled by Ischia, Procida, the pine- clad Posilipo, the glittering white line of Naples, Vesuvius with its rosy cloud of smoke, the Sor- rento plain sheltered under Monte Sant'Angelo and further away the Apennine mountains, still covered with snow. Just over our heads, riveted to the steep rock like an eagle's nest, stood a little ruined chapel. Its vaulted roof had fallen in, but huge blocks of masonry shaped into an unknown pattern of symmetrical network, still supported its crumbling walls.

" Roba di Timberio," explained old Maria.

"What is the name of the little chapel?" I asked eagerly.

" San Michele."

"San Michele, San Michele!" echoed in my heart. In the vineyard below the chapel stood an old man digging deep furrows in the soil for the new vines. " Buon giorno, Mastro Vincenzo ! " The vineyard was his and so was the little house close by, he had built it all with his own hands, mostly with stones and bricks of the Roba di Tim- berio that was strewn all over the garden. Maria Porta-Lettere told him all she knew about me and Mastro Vincenzo invited me to sit down in his gar- den and have a glass of wine. I looked at the little house and the chapel. My heart began to beat so violently that I could hardly speak.

" I must climb there at once," said I to Maria Porta-Lettere! But old Maria said I had better come with her first to get something to eat or I

8 YOUTH

would not find anything and driven by hunger and thirst I reluctantly decided to follow her advice. I waved my hand to Mastro Vincenzo and said I would come back soon. We walked through some empty lanes and stopped in a piazzetta. " Ecco La Bella Margherita! "

La Bella Margherita put a flask of rose-coloured wine and a bunch of flowers on the table in her garden and announced that the " macaroni " would be ready in five minutes. She was fair like Titian's Flora, the modelling of her face exquisite, her pro- file pure Greek. She put an enormous plate of macaroni before me, and sat herself by my side watching me with smiling curiosity. "Vino del parroco," she announced proudly, each time she filled my glass. I drank the parroco's health, her health and that of her dark-eyed sister, la bella Giulia, who had joined the party, with a handful of oranges I had watched her picking from a tree in the garden. Their parents were dead and the brother Andrea was a sailor and God knows where he was but her aunt was living in her own villa in Capri, of course I knew that she had married im lord inglese? Yes, of course I knew, but I did

not remember her name. " Lady G ," said La

Bella Margherita proudly, I just remembered in time to drink her health, but after that I did not remember anything except that the sky overhead was blue like a sapphire, that the parroco's wine was red like a ruby, that La Bella Margherita. sat by my side with golden hair and smiling lips.

"San Michele!" suddenly rang through my ears. " San Michele! " echoed deep down in my heart!

LA BELLA MARGHEBITA 9

" Addio, BeUa Margherita! " " Addio e presto ritorno! " Alas for the presto ritorno!

I walked back through the empty lanes steering as straight as I could for my goal. It was the sacred hour of the siesta, the whole little village was asleep. The piazza, all ablaze with sun, was deserted. The church was closed, only from the half -open door of the municipal school the sten- torian voice of the Rev. Canonico Don Natale trumpeted in sleepy monotony through the silence: " lo mi ammazzo, tu ti amazzi, egli si ammazza, noi ci ammazziamo, voi vi ammazzate, loro si am- mazzano," repeated in rhythmic chorus by a dozen barelegged boys, in a circle on the floor at the feet of their school master.

Further down the lane stood a stately Roman matron. It was Annarella herself, beckoning me with a friendly waving of the hand to come in. WTiy had I gone to La Bella Margherita instead of to her? Did I not know that her cacciacavallo was the best cheese in all the village? And as for the wine, everybody knew that the parroco's wine was no match for that of the Rev. Don Dionisio. " Altro che il vino del parroco! " she added with a significant shrug of her strong shoulders. As I sat under her pergola in front of a flask of Don Dionisio's vino bianco it began to dawn upon me that maybe she was right, but I wanted to be fair and had to empty the whole flask before giving my final opinion. But when Gioconda, her smiling daughter, helped me to a second glass from the new flask I had made up my mind. Yes, Don Dionisio's vino bianco was the best! It looked like liquid sun- shine, it tasted like the nectar of the Gods, and

10 YOUTH

Gioconda looked like? a young Hebe as she filled my empty glass. " Altro che il vino del parrocol Did I not tell you so," laughed Annarella. " E un vino miracoloso!" Miraculous indeed, for suddenly I began to speak fluent Italian with vertiginous volubility amid roars of laughter from mother and daughter. I was beginning to feel very friendly toward Don Dionisio; I liked his name, I liked his wine, I thought I would like to make his acquaintance. Nothing was easier, for he was to preach that evening to " le Figlie di Maria " in the church.

" He is a very learned man," said Annarella. He knew by heart the names of all the martyrs and all the saints and had even been to Rome to kiss the hand of the Pope. Had she been to Rome? No. And to Naples? No. She had been to Capri once, it was on her wedding day, but Gioconda had never been there, Capri was full of " gente malainente." I told Annarella I knew of course all about their patron saint, how many miracles he had done and how beautiful he was, all of solid silver. There was an uncomfortable silence.

" Yes, they say their San Costanzo is of solid silver," ejaculated Annarella with a contemptible shrug of her broad shoulders, "but who knows, chi lo sa? " As to his miracles you could count them 'on the top of your fingers, while Sant* Antonio, the patron saint of Anacapri had already done over a hundred. Altro che San Costanzo! I was at once all for Sant' Antonio, hoping with all my heart for a new miracle of his to bring me back as soon as possible to his enchanting village.

-DON DIONISIO'S WINE 11

Kind Annarella's confidence in the miraculous power of Sant' Antonio was so great that she re- fused point-blank to accept any money.

" Pagherete un'altra volta, you will pay me an- other time."

" Addio Annarella, addio Gioconda! "

" Arrividerla, presto ritorno, Sant' Antonio vi benedical La Madonna vi accompagnil "

Old Mastro Vincenzo was still hard at work in his vineyard, digging deep furrows in the sweet-scented soil for the new vines. Now and then he picked up a slab of coloured marble or a piece of red stucco and threw it over the wall, *Roba di Timberio,' said he. I sat down on a broken column of red granite by the side of my new friend. Era molto duro, it was very hard to break, said Mastro Vincenzo. At my feet a chicken was scratching in the earth in search of a worm and before my very nose appeared a coin. I picked it up and recognized at a glance the noble head of Augustus, c Divus Augustus Pater/ Mastro Vincenzo said it was not worth a baiocco, I have it still. He had made the garden all by himself and had planted all the vines and fig- trees with his own hands. Hard work, said Mastro Vincenzo showing me his large, horny hands, for the whole ground was full of roba di Timberio, columns, capitals, fragments of statues and teste di cristiani, and he had to dig up and carry away all this rubbish before he could plant his vines. The columns he had split into garden steps and of course he had been able to utilize many of the marbles when he was building his house and the rest he had thrown over the

12 YOUTH

precipice. A piece of real good luck had been when quite unexpectedly he had come upon a large subterranean room just under his house, with red walls just like that piece there under the peach tree all painted with lots of stark naked cristiani, tutti spogliati, ballando come dei pazzi,1 with their hands full of flowers and bunches of grapes. It took him several days to scrape off all these paintings and cover the wall with cement, but this was small labour compared to what it would have meant to blast the rock and build a new cistern, said Mastro Vincenzo with a cunning smile. Now he was getting old and hardly able to look after his vineyard any more, and his son who lived on the mainland with twelve children and three cows wanted him to sell the house and come and live with him. Again my heart began to beat. Was the chapel also his? No, it belonged to nobody and people said it was haunted by ghosts. He himself had seen when he was a boy a tall monk leaning over the parapet and some sailors coming up the steps late one night had heard bells ringing in the chapel. The reason for this, explained Mastro Vincenzo, was that when Timberio had his palace there he had fatto ammazzare Gesu Cristo, put Jesus Christ to death, and since then his damned soul came back now and then to ask forgiveness from the monks who were buried under the floor in the chapel. People also said that he used to come there in the shape of a big black snake. The monks had been ammazzati by a brigand called Barbarossa, who had boarded

1 All naked, dancing like mad people.

IN MASTED VINCENZO'S GAKDEK 13

the island with his ships and carried away into slavery all the women who had taken refuge up there in the castle overhead, that is why it was called Castello Barbarossa. Padre Anselmo, the hermit, who was a learned man and besides a rela- tion of his, had told him all this and also about the English who had turned the chapel into a for- tress and who in their turn had been ammazzati by the French.

" Look! " said Mastro Vincenzo, pointing to a heap of bullets near the garden wall and " look " he added, picking up an English soldier's brass button. The French, he continued, had placed a big gun near the chapel, and had opened fire on the village of Capri held by the English. "Well done," he chuckled. "The Capresi are all bad people/' Then the French had turned the chapel into a powder magazine, that was why it was still called La Polveriera. Now it was nothing but a ruin, but it had proved very useful to him, for he had taken most of his stones for his garden walls from there.

I climbed over the wall and walked up the narrow lane to the chapel. The floor was covered to a man's height with the debris of the fallen vault, the walls were covered with ivy and wild honeysuckle and hundreds of lizards played mer- rily about among big bushes of myrtle and rose- mary stopping now and then in their game to look at me with lustrous eyes and panting breasts. An owl rose on noiseless wings from a dark corner, and a large snake asleep on the sunlit mosaic floor of the terrace, unfolded slowly his black coils and glided back into the chapel with a warning hiss at

14 YOUTH

the intruder. Was it the ghost of the sombre old Emperor still haunting the ruins where his imperial villa once stood?

I looked down at the beautiful island at my feet. How could he live in such a place and be so cruel! thought I. How could his soul be so dark with such a glorious light on Heaven and Earth! How could he ever leave this place, to retire to that other even more inaccessible villa of his on the eastern cliffs, which still bears his name and where he spent the last three years of his life?

To live in such a place as this, to die in such a place, if ever death could conquer the everlasting joy of such a life! What daring dream had made my heart beat so violently a moment ago when Mastro Vincenzo had told me that he was getting old and tired, and that his son wanted him to sell his house? What wild thoughts had flashed through my boisterous brain when he had said that the chapel belonged to nobody? Why not to me? Why should I not buy Mastro Vincenzo's house, and join the chapel and the house with garlands of vines and avenues of cypresses and columns sup- porting white loggias, peopled with marble statues of gods and bronzes of emperors and . * . I closed my eyes, lest the beautiful vision should vanish, and gradually realities faded away into the twilight of dreamland.

A tall figure wrapped in a rich mantle stood by my side.

" It shall all be yours," he said in a melodious voice, waving his hand across the horizon. " The chapel, the garden, the house, the mountain with

THE MAN IN THE RED MANTLE 15

its castle, all shall be yours, if you are willing to pay the price! "

" Who are you, phantom from the unseen? "

" I am the immortal spirit of this place. Time has no meaning for me. Two thousand years ago I stood here where we now stand by the side of another man, led here by his destiny as you have been led here by yours. He did not ask for happiness as you do, he only asked for f orget- f ulness and peace, and he believed he could find it here on this lonely island. I told him the price he would have to pay: the branding of an untar- nished name with infamy through all ages.

" He accepted the bargain, he paid the price. For eleven years he lived here surrounded by a few trusty friends, all men of honour and integrity. Twice he started on his way to return to his palace on the Palatine Hill. Twice his courage failed him, Rome never saw him again. He died on his homeward journey in the villa of his friend Lucul- lus on the promontory over there. His last words were that he should be carried down in his litter to the boat that was to take him to his island home."

" What is the price you ask of me? "

"The renunciation of your ambition to make yourself a name in your profession, the sacrifice of your future."

" What then am I to become? "

" A Might-Have-Been, a failure."

" You take away from me all that is worth liv- ing for."

" You are mistaken, I give you all that is worth living for."

"Will you at least leave me pity. I cannot

16 YOUTH

live without pity if I am to become a doctor."

" Yes, I will leave you pity, but you would have fared much better without it."

" Do you ask for anything more? "

" Before you die, you will have to pay another price as well, a heavy price. But before this price is due, you will have watched for many years from this place the sun set over cloudless days of happiness and the moon rise over starlit nights of dreams."

"Shall I die here?"

"Beware of searching for the answer to your question, man could not endure life if he was aware of -the hour of his death."

He laid his hand on my shoulder, I felt a slight shiver run through my body. " I shall be with you once more at this place when the sun has set to-morrow; you may think it over till then."

" It is no good thinking it over, my holiday is at an end, this very night I have to return to my every day's toil far away from this beautiful land. Besides I am no good at thinking. I accept the bargain, I will pay the price, be it what it may. But how am I to buy this house, my hands are empty."

" Your hands are empty but they are strong, your brain is boisterous but clear, your will is sound, you will succeed."

" How am I to build my house? I know nothing about architecture."

"I will help you. What style do you want? Why not Gothic? I rather like the Gothic with its subdued light and its haunting mystery."

" I am going to invent a style of my own, such

THE MAN IN THE RED MANTLE 17

that not even you shall be able to give it a name. No mediaeval twilight for me! I want my house open to sun and wind and the voice of the sea, like a Greek temple, and light, light, light every- where!"

"Beware of the light! Beware of the light I Too much light is not good for the eyes of mortal

man."

" I want columns of priceless marble, support- ing loggias and arcades, beautiful fragments from past ages strewn all over my garden, the chapel turned into a silent library with cloister stalls round the walls and sweet sounding bells ringing Ave Maria over each happy day."

" I do not like bells."

" And here where we stand with this beautiful island rising like a sphinx out of the sea below our feet, here I want a granite sphinx from the land of the Pharaohs. But where shall I find it all! "

" You stand upon the site of one of Tiberio's villas. Priceless treasures of bygone ages lie buried under the vines, under the chapel, under the house. The old emperor's foot has trod upon the slabs of coloured marble you saw the old peasant throw over the wall of his garden, the ruined fresco with its dancing fawns and the flower-crowned bac- chantes once adorned the walls of his palace. Look," said he, pointing down to the clear depths of the sea a thousand feet below. " Didn't your Tacitus tell you at school that when the news of the Emperor's death had reached the island, his palaces were hurled into the sea? "

I wanted to leap down the precipitous cliffs at once and plunge into the sea in search of my

18 YOUTH

columns. " No need for such a hurry/' he laughed, " for two thousand years the corals have been spin- ning their cobwebs round them and the waves have buried them deeper and deeper in the sand, they will wait for you till your time comes."

"And the sphinx? Where shall I find the sphinx? "

" On a lonely plain, far away from the life of to-day, stood once the sumptuous villa of another Emperor, who had brought the sphinx from the banks of the Nile to adorn his garden. Of the palace nothing remains but a heap of stones, but deep in the bowels of the earth still lies the sphinx. Search and you will find her. It will nearly cost you your life to bring it here, but you will do it."

" You seem to know the future as well as you know the past."

" The past and the future are all the same to me. I know everything."

" I do not envy you your knowledge."

" Your words are older than your years, where did you get that saying from? "

" From what I have learned on this island to- day, for I have learned that this friendly folk who can neither read nor write are far happier than I, who ever since I was a child have been straining my eyes to gain knowledge. And so have you, I gather from your speech. You are a great scholar, you know your Tacitus by heart."

" I am a philosopher."

" You know Latin well? "

" I am a doctor of theology from the university of Jena."

"Ah! that is why I fancied I detected a slight

THE BARGAIN 19

German twang in your voice. You know Ger- many? "

"Rather," he chuckled.

I looked at him attentively. His manners and bearings were those of a gentleman, I noticed for the first time that he carried a sword under his red mantle and there was a harsh sound in his voice I seemed to have heard before.

" Pardon me, sir, I think we have already met in the Auerbach Keller in Leipzig, isn't your name? . . ," As I spoke the words, the church bells from Capri began to ring Ave Maria. I turned my head to look at him. He was gone.

II

QUAKTIER LATIN

OUARTIER, LATIN. A student's room in the Hotel de 1'Avenir, piles of books every- where, on tables, chairs and in heaps on the floor, and on the wall a faded photograph of Capri. Mornings in the wards of La Salpetriere, Hotel- Dieu and La Pitie, going from bed to bed to read chapter after chapter in the book of human suf- fering, written with blood and tears. Afternoons in the dissecting rooms and amphitheatres of TlScole de Medecine.or in the laboratories of the Institut Pasteur, watching in the microscope with wondrous eyes the mystery of the unseen world, the infinitely small beings, arbiters of the life and death of man. Nights of vigil in the Hotel de TAvenir, precious nights of toil to master the hard facts, the classical signs of disorder and disease collected and sifted by observers from all lands, so necessary and so insufficient for the making of a doctor. Work, work, work! Summer holidays with empty cafes in Boulevard St. Michel, iScole de Medecine closed, laboratories and amphi- theatres deserted, clinics half-empty. But no holiday for suffering in the hospital wards, no holiday for Death. No holiday in the H6tel de TAvenir. No distraction but an occasional stroll under the lime-trees of the Luxembourg Gardens,

20

HOTEL DE I/AVENIR 21

or a greedily enjoyed hour of leisure in the Louvre Museum. No friends. No dog. Not even a mis- tress. Henri Murger's "Vie de BoMme" was gone, but his Mimi was still there, very much so, smilingly strolling down the Boulevard St. Michel on the arm of almost every student, when the hour for the aperitif was approaching, or mending his coat or washing his linen in his garret while he was reading for his exam.

No Mimi for me! Yes, they could afford to take it easy, these happy comrades of mine, to spend their evenings in idle gossip at the tables of their cafes, to laugh, to live, to love. Their subtle Latin brain was far quicker than mine, and they had no faded photograph of Capri on the wall of their garret to spur them on, no columns of precious marble waiting for them under the sand at Palazzo al Mare. Often during the long wake- ful nights, as I sat there in the Hotel de FAvenir, my head bent over Charcot's * Maladies du Sys- teme Nerveux/ or Trousseaux's c Clinique de THotel Dieu,' a terrible thought flashed suddenly through my brain: Mastro Vincenzo is old, fancy if he should die while I am sitting here or sell to somebody else the little house on the cliff, which holds the key to my future home I An ice-cold perspiration burst out on my forehead and my heart stood almost still with fear. I stared at the faded photograph of Capri on the wall, I thought I saw it fade away more and more into dimness, mysterious and sphinx-like till noth- ing remained but the outline of a sarcophagus, under which lay buried a dream. . . . Then rub- bing my aching eyes, I plunged into my book

22 QUABTIEE LATIN

again with frantic fury, like a race-horse spurred on towards his goal with bleeding flanks. Yes, it became a race, a race for prizes and trophies. My comrades began to bet on me as an easy winner, and even the Master with the head of a Caesar and the eye of an eagle mistook me for a rising man — the only error of diagnosis I ever knew Professor Charcot commit during years of watchful observation of his unerring judgment in the wards of his Salpetriere or in his consulting- room at Boulevard St. Germain, thronged with patients from all the world. It cost me dearly this mistake of his. It cost me my sleep, and it nearly cost me the sight of my eyes. This ques- tion is not settled yet for the matter of that. Such was my faith in the infallibility of Charcot who knew more than, any living man about the human brain that for a short time I believed he was right. Spurred by ambition to fulfil his prophecy, in- sensible to fatigue, to sleep, even to hunger, I strained every fibre of mind and body to breaking- point in an effort to win at all costs. No more walks under the lime-trees of the Luxembourg Gardens, no more strolls in the Louvre. From morning till night my lungs filled with the foul air of the hospital wards and the amphitheatres, from night till morning with the smoke of endless cigarettes in my stuffy room at the H6tel de TAvenir. Exam after exam in rapid succession, far too rapid, alas, to be of any value, success after success. Work, work, work! I was to take my degree in the spring. Luck in everything my hand touched, never failing, amazing, almost uncanny luck. Already I had learned to know the struc-

THE IMPLACABLE, FOE 23

ture of the marvellous machinery which is the human body, the harmonious working of its cogs and wheels in health, its disorders in disease and its final breaking-down in death. Already I had become familiar with most of the afflictions which chained the sufferers in the wards to their beds. Already I had learned to handle the sharp edged weapons of surgery, to fight on more equal terms the implacable Foe, who, scythe in hand, wandered His rounds in the wards, always ready to slay, always at hand any hour of the day or of the night. In fact He seemed to have taken up His abode there for good in the grim old hospital, which for centuries had sheltered so much suffering and woe. Sometimes He came rushing through the ward, striking right and left, young and old, in blind fury like a madman, throttling one victim with the slow grip of His hand, and tearing away the bandage from the gaping wound of another till his last drop of blood had oozed away. Some- times He came on tiptoe, silent and still, closing with an almost gentle touch of His finger the eyes of another sufferer, who lay there almost smiling after He had gone. Often, I who was there to hinder His approach did not even know He was coming. Only small children at their mother's breast knew of His presence and started in their sleep with a sharp cry of distress as He passed by. And as often as not one of the old nuns, who had spent a lifetime in the wards, saw Him coming just in time to put a crucifix on the bed. At first, when He stood there, victorious,' on one side of the bed and I, helpless, on the other, I used to take little notice of Him. Life was every-

24 QUARTIER LATIN

thing to me then, I knew that my mission was at an end when His had begun, and I only used to turn my face away from my sinister colleague in resentment at my defeat. But as I became more familiar with Him, I began to watch Him with increasing attention, and the more I saw of Him, the more I wanted to know Him, to understand Him. I began to realize that He had his share in the work, as well as I had mine, His mission to fulfil just as I had mine, that we were com- rades after all, that when the wrestling over a life was over and He had won, it was far better to look each other fearlessly in the face and be friends. Later on, there even came a time when I thought He was my only friend, when I longed for Him and almost loved Him, though He never seemed to take any notice of me. What could He not teach me if I only could learn to read His sombre face! What gaps in my scanty knowledge of human suffering could He not fill, He who alone had read the last missing chapter in my medical handbooks, where everything is explained, the so- lution offered to every riddle, the answer given to every question!

But how could He be so cruel, He who could be so gentle? How could He take away so much of youth and life with one hand, when He could give so much peace and happiness with the other? Why was the grip pf His hand round the throat of one of His victims so slow and the blow He dealt to another so swift? Why did He struggle so long with the life of the little child, while He suffered the life of the old to ebb away in merciful sleep? Was it His mission to punish as well as

THE ETEJLNTAL SLEEPING-DRAUGHT 25

to slay? Was He the Judge as well as the Exe- cutioner? What did He do with those He had slain? Had they ceased to exist or were they only asleep? Whither did He take them? Was He the Supreme Ruler of the Kingdom of Death or was He only a vassal, a mere tool in the hands of a far mightier ruler, the Ruler of Life? He had won to-day, but was His victory to be final? Who would conquer in the end, He or Life?

But was it really so that my mission was at an end when His was to begin? Was I to be an impassive spectator of the last unequal battle, to stand by helpless and insensible, while He was doing His work of destruction? Was I to turn my face away from those eyes who implored my help, long after the power of speech had gone? Was I to loosen my hand from those quivering fingers who clung to mine like a drowning man to a straw? I was defeated, but I was not dis- armed, I had still in my hands a powerful weapon. Tie had his eternal sleeping-draught but I had also mine entrusted to me by benevolent Mother Nature. When he was slow in dealing out His remedy, why should not I deal out mine with its merciful power to change anguish into peace, agony into sleep? Was it not my mission to help those to die I could not help to live?

The old nun had told me that I was committing a terrible sin, that Almighty God in His inscru- table wisdom had willed it so, that the more suffer- ing He inflicted at the hour of death, the more forgiving would He be on the Day of Judgment. Even sweet Soeur Philomene had looked at me disapprovingly when, alone among my comrades,

26 QTJARTIER LATIN

I had come with my morphia syringe after the old padre had left the bed with his Last Sacra- ment.

They were still there in their big white cornets, in all the hospitals of Paris, the gentle, all-sacri- ficing sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. The crucifix was still hanging on the wall of every ward, the padre still read mass every morning before the little altar in Salle St. Claire. The Mother Su- perior, Ma Mere as they all called her, still went her round from bed to bed every evening after the Ave Maria had rung.

La Laicisation des Hopitaux was not yet the burning question of the day, the raucous cry of: "away with the priests! away with the crucifix! a la porte les soeursl" had not yet been raised. Alas! I saw them all go ere long and a pity it was. No doubt they had their faults, these nuns. No doubt they were more familiar with handling their rosaries than the nail-brush, more used to dip their fingers in holy water than in carbolic acid solution, then the all-powerful panacea in our surgical wards, soon to be replaced by another. But their thoughts were so clean, their hearts so pure, they gave their whole life to their work and asked for nothing in return but to be allowed to pray for those under their care. Even their worst enemies have never dared to belittle their all-sacri- ficing devotion and their all-enduring patience. People used to say that the sisters went about their work with sad, sullen faces, their thoughts more occupied with the salvation of the soul than that of the body, with more words of resignation than of hope on their lips. Indeed, they were greatly

SAIXE ST. CLAIEE 27

mistaken. On the contrary, these nuns, young and old, were invariably cheerful and happy, almost gay and full of childish fun and laughter, and it was wonderful to watch the way they knew how to communicate their happiness to others. They were also tolerant. Those who believed and those who did not, were all the same to them. If any- thing they seemed even more anxious to help the latter, for they felt so sorry for them and showed no signs of resentment even for their curses and blasphemies. To me they were all wonderfully kind and friendly. They well knew that I did not belong to their creed, that I did not go to con- fession and that I did not make the sign of the cross when I passed before the little altar. At first the Mother Superior had made some timid attempts to convert me to the faith which had made her sacrifice her life for others, but she had soon given it up with a compassionate shaking of her old head. Even the dear old padre had lost all hope of my salvation since I told him I was willing to discuss with him the possibility of a pur- gatory, but point-blank refused to believe in hell, and that in any case I was determined to give morphia in full dose to the dying when their agony was too cruel and too long. The old padre was a saint but argumentation was not his strong point and we soon abandoned these controversial ques- tions altogether* He knew the life of all the saints, and it was he who told me for the first time the sweet legend of St. Claire, who had given her name to the ward. It was also he who made me behold for the first time the wonderful features of her beloved St. Francis of Assisi, the friend

28 QUABTDEB LATIN"

of all humble and forlorn creatures of sky and earth, who was to become my lifelong friend as well. But it was Soeur Philomene, so young and fair in her white robe of novice of Soeur St. Augus- tin, who taught me most, for she taught me to love her Madonna, whose features she wore. Sweet Soeur Philomene! I saw her die of cholera a couple of years later in Naples. Not even Death dared disfigure her. She went to Heaven just as she was.

The Frere Antoine who came to the hospital every Sunday to play the organ in the little chapel was a particular friend of mine. It was the only chance I had those days to hear any music and I seldom missed being there, I who am so fond of music! Although I could not see the sisters where they sat singing near the altar, I recognized quite well the clear, pure voice of Soeur Philo- mene. The very day before Christmas Frere Antoine caught a bad chill, and a great secret was whispered from bed to bed in the Salle St. Claire that after a long consultation between the Mother Superior and the old padre I had been allowed to replace him at the organ to save the situation.

The only other music I ever heard those days was when poor old Don Gaetano came to play to me twice a week on his worn-out barrel-organ under my balcony in the Hotel de TAvenir. The " Miserere " from the " Trovatore " was his show- piece, and the melancholy old tune suited him well, both him and his half -frozen little mon* key, who crouched on the barrel-organ in her red Garibaldi:

WORK, WORK, WORK! 29

Ah che la morte ogn'ora £ tarda nel venir 1

It suited equally well poor old Monsieur Alfredo who wandered about the snow-covered streets in his threadbare frockcoat, with the manuscript of his last tragedy under his arms. Equally well my friends in the Italian poor quarter huddled together round their half -extinguished bradero with no money to buy a half -penny worth of char- coal to keep themselves warm. There caine days too, when the sad melody seemed just the right accompaniment to my own thoughts as well; when I sat before my books in the Hotel de I'Avenir with no courage left to face a new day, when everything seemed so black and hopeless and the faded old photograph of Capri so far away. Then I used to throw myself on the bed and close my aching eyes, and soon Sant' Antonio set to work to perform another miracle. Soon I was sailing away from all my worries to the enchanting island of my dreams. Gioconda handed me smilingly a glass of Don Dionisio's wine, and once more the blood began to flow, rich and strong, through my tired brain. The world was beautiful and I was young, ready to fight, sure to win. Mastro Vin- cenzo, still hard at work amongst his vines, waved his hand at me as I walked up the little lane behind his garden to the chapel. I sat for a while on the terrace and looked down spellbound on the fair island at my feet, just wondering how on earth I should manage to drag up my sphinx of red granite to the top of the cliff. Indeed, it would be a difficult job, but of course I would do it quite

30 QUARTIEE LATIN

easily, all by myself! "Addio bella Gioconda! Addio e presto ritorno! " Yes, of course I would come back soon, very soon, in my next dream! The new day came and looked hard at the dreamer through the window. I opened my eyes and sprang to my feet, and greeting the new-comer with a smile I sat down again at my table, book in hand. Then came spring and dropped the first twig of chestnut flowers on my balcony from the budding trees of the avenue. It was the signal. I went up for my exam and left the Hotel de 1'Avenir with the hard-won diploma in my pocket, the youngest M.D. ever created in France*

Ill

AVENUE DE VILLIERS

AVENUE DE VILLIERS. Dr. Mun4he 2\ from 2 till 3.

Door-bell ringing and messages coming day and night with urgent letters and calls. Telephone, that deadly weapon in the hands of idle women, not yet started on its nerve-racking campaign against every hour of well-earned rest. Consul- tation-room rapidly filling up with patients of all sorts and descriptions, mostly nervous cases, the fair sex in the majority. Many were ill, seriously ill. I listened gravely to what they had to say and examined them as carefully as I could, quite sure I could help them, whatever was the matter. Of these cases I do not feel inclined to speak here. A day may come when I may have some- thing to say about them. Many were not ill at all, 'and might never have become so, had they not consulted me. . Many imagined they were ill. They had the longest tale to tell, talked about their grandmother, their aunt or mother-in-law, or pro- duced from their pockets a little paper and began to read out an interminable list of symptoms and complaints — le malade au petit papier, as Charcot used to say. All this was new to me, who had no experience outside the hospitals, where there was no time for any nonsense, and I made many

31

32 AVENUE DE VILLIERS

blunders. Later on, when I began to know more of human nature, I learned to handle these pa- tients a little better, but we never got on very well together. They seemed quite upset when I told them that they looked rather well and their complexion was good, but they rallied rapidly when I added that their tongue looked rather bad — as seemed generally to be the case. My diagnosis, in most of these cases was over-eating, too many cakes or sweets during the day or too heavy din- ners at night. It was probably the most correct diagnosis I ever made in those days, but it met with no success. Nobody wanted to hear anything more about it, nobody liked it. What they .all liked was appendicitis. Appendicitis was just then much in demand among better-class people on the look-out for a complaint. All the nervous ladies had got it on the brain if not in the abdo- men, thrived on it beautifully, and so did their medical advisers. So I drifted gradually into appendicitis and treated a great number of such cases with varied success. But when the rumour began to circulate that the American surgeons had started on a campaign to cut out every appendix in the United States, my cases of appendicitis be- gan to fall off in an alarming way. Consterna- tion:

"Take away the appendix! my appendix!" said the fashionable ladies, clinging desperately to their processus vermicularis, like a mother to her infant. " What shall I do without it! "

" Take away their appendices, my appendices! " said the doctors, consulting gloomily the list of their patients. "I never heard such nonsense!

COLITIS 33

Why, there is nothing wrong with their appen- dices, I ought to know, I who have to examine them twice a week. I am dead against it! "

It soon became evident that appendicitis was on its last legs, and that a new complaint had to be discovered to meet the general demand. The Faculty was up to the mark, a new disease was dumped on the market, a new word was coined, a gold coin indeed, COLITIS 1 It was a neat complaint, safe from the surgeon's knife, always at hand when wanted, suitable to everybody's taste. Nobody knew when it came, nobody knew when it went away. I knew that several of my far- sighted colleagues had already tried it on their patients with great success, but so far my luck had been against me.1

One of my last cases of appendicitis was, I think, the Countess who came to consult me, on the recommendation of Charcot, as she said. He used to send me patients now and then and I was of course most anxious to do my very best for her, even had she not been as pretty as she was. She looked at the young oracle with ill-concealed disappointment in her large, languid eyes and said she wished to speak to "Monsieur le Docteur lui-meme " and not to his assistant, a first greet- ing I was accustomed to from a new patient. At first she did not know if she had appendicitis, nor did Monsieur le Docteur lui-meme, but soon she

1 Colitis, as this word is used now, was not known in those days. -Many sins have been committed both by doctors and patients in the name of colitis during the early stage of its brilliant career. Even to-day there is not seldom something vague and unsatisfactory about this diagnosis.

34 AVENUE DE VIIXIERS

was sure that she had it, and I that she had not. When I told her so with unwise abruptness she became very agitated. Professor Charcot had told her I was sure to find out what was the matter with her and that I would help her, and instead of that , . . she burst into tears and I felt very sorry for her.

"What is the matter with me?" she sobbed, stretching out her two empty hands towards me with a gesture of despair.

" I will tell you if you promise to be calm." She ceased to cry instantly. Wiping the last tears from her big eyes she said bravely:

" I can stand anything, I have already stood so much, don't be afraid, I am not going to cry any more. What is the matter with me? " " Colitis."

Her eyes grew even larger than before, though I would have thought that to be impossible.

"Colitis! That is exactly what I always thought! I am sure you are right! Colitis! Tell me what is Colitis? " I took good care to avoid that question, for I did not know it myself, nor did anybody else in those days. But I told her it lasted long and was difficult to cure, and I was right there. The Countess smiled amiably at me. And her husband who said it was nothing but nerves! She said there was no time to lose and wanted to begin the cure at once, so it was arranged she should come to Avenue de Villiers twice a week. She returned the very next day, and even I who was already getting accustomed to sudden changes in my patients could not help being struck by her cheerful appearance and bright

THE COUNTESS 35

face, so much so that I asked her how old she was.

She was just twenty-five. She only came to ask me if colitis was catching.

Yes, very. The word was hardly out of my mouth before I discovered that this young person was far cleverer than I.

Wouldn't I tell the Count it was safer they shouldn't sleep in the same room?

I assured her it was not at all safer, that although I had not the honour to know Monsieur le Comte, I felt sure he would not catch it It was only catching with impressionable and highly-strung people like herself.

Surely I would not call her highly-strung, she objected, her big eyes wandering restlessly round the room? . . .

Yes, decidedly.

Could I not cure her of that?

No.

" MY DEAREST ANN,

Fancy my dear, I have got colitis ! I am so glad ... so glad you recommended me this Suedois, or was it Charcot? In any case I told him it was Charcot, to make sure he would give me more time and attention. You are right, he is very clever, though he does not look like it. I am already recommending Tifrn to all my friends, I am sure he can do any amount of good to my sister-in-law who is still on her back after her nasty fall at your cotillon, I am sure she has got colitis ! Sorry, my dear, we shall not meet at Josephine's dinner to-morrow, I have already written to her I have got colitis, and can't possibly come. I wish she could put it off till after to-morrow.

Your loving JUIJETTE.

P.S. It just struck me that the Suedois ought to have a look at your mother-in-law, who is so worried about her deafness, of course I know the Marquise doesn't want to see any more do—

36 AVENUE DE VILLIEES

tors, and who does ! but could it not be arranged that he saw her in some sort of unofficial way? I would not at all be sur- prised if the root of it all was colitis.

P.S. I would not mind asking the doctor to dinner here one day if you could persuade the Marquise to dine here, en petit comite", of course. Do you know he discovered I had colitis only by looking at me through his spectacles ? Besides, I want my husband to make his acquaintance, though he does not like doctors more than does your mother-in-law. I am sure he will like this one."

A week later I had the unexpected honour to be invited to dinner at the Countess' hotel in Fau- bourg St. Germain, and to sit next to the Dowager Marquise, respectfully watching her with my eagle eye while she devoured an enormous plate of pate de foie gras in majestic aloofness. She never said a word to me, and my timid attempts to open a conversation came to a standstill when I discovered that she was stone-deaf. After dinner Monsieur le Comte took me to the smoking-room. He was a most polite little man, very fat, with a placid, almost shy face, at least twice the age of his wife, every inch a gentleman. Offering me a cigarette, he said with great effusion:

" I cannot thank you enough for having cured my wife of appendicitis — the very word is hateful to me. I frankly confess I have taken a great dislike to doctors. I have seen so many of them and so far none seems to have been able to do my wife any good, though I must add she never gave any of them a fair chance before she was off to another. I had better warn you, I am sure it will be the same with you."

" I am not so sure of that."

" So much the better. She has evidently great

THE COUNTESS 37

confidence in you, which is a strong point in your favour."

" It is everything."

"As far as I am concerned, I frankly admit not having taken to you very kindly at first, but now, since we have met I am anxious to correct my first impression and," he added politely, "I believe we are en bonne voie. A propos, what is colitis?"

I got out of my difficulties by his adding good- humour edly:

" Whatever it may be, it cannot be worse than appendicitis, and, depend upon it, I shall soon know as much about it as you do."

He did not ask for much. I liked so much his frank, polite manners that I ventured to put bfrn a question in return.

"No," he answered with a slight embarrass- ment in his voice, " I wish to God we had! We have now been married for five years and so far no sign of it. I wish to God we had! You know, I was born in this old house and so was my father, and my country-seat in Touraine has belonged to us for three centuries, I am the last of my family, and it is very hard, and . . . can nothing be doiie for these confounded nerves? Have you nothing to suggest?"

" I am sure this enervating air of Paris is not good for the Countess, why don't you go for a change to your castle in Touraine? " '

His whole face lit up :

" You are my man," said the Count, stretching his hands towards me, " I do not ask for better! I have my shooting there, and my big estate to

38 AVENUE DE VILLIERS

look after, I love to be there, but it bores the Countess to death and of course it is rather lonely for her who likes to see her friends every day and go to parties or to the theatre every night. But how she can have the strength to go on like this from month to month, she who says she is always tired, is more than I can understand. It would kill me outright. Now she says she must remain in Paris to have her colitis attended to, it was appendicitis before. But I do not want you to think her selfish, on the contrary she is always thinking of me and even wants me to go to the Chateau Rameaux alone, she knows how happy I am there. But how can I leave her alone in Paris. She is so young and inexperienced."

" How old is the Countess? "

" Only twenty-nine. She looks even younger."

"Yes. She looks almost like a young girl."

He was silent a moment. " A propos, when are you going to take your holiday? "

" I have not had a holiday for three years."

" So much the more reason for taking one this year. Are you a good shot? "

" I do not kill animals if I can help it. Why did you ask me this question? "

"Because we have excellent shooting at Cha- teau Rameaux and I am sure a week's thorough rest would do you any amount of good. That is at least what my wife says, she says you are awfully overworked and you look it besides."

" You are very kind, Monsieur le Comte, but I am all right, there is nothing the matter with me except that I cannot sleep."

" Sleep 1 I wish I could give you some of mine!

FAUBOURG ST. GEEMAUST 39

I have more than I need of it, and to spare. Do you know, I have hardly time to put my head on the pillow before I am fast asleep and nothing can wake me up. My wife is an early riser, but never once have I heard her get up, and my valet, who brings me my coffee at nine has to shake me before I wake up. I pity you indeed. A propos, I suppose you do not know of any remedy against snoring? "

It was a clear case. We joined the ladies in the drawing-room. I was made to sit down by the side of the venerable Marquise for the unofficial consultation so skilfully arranged by the Countess. After another attempt to open a conversation with the old lady, I roared into her ear-trumpet that she had not got colitis, but that I was sure she would get it if she did not give up her pate de foi gras.

" I told you so,'* whispered the Countess, " isn't he clever? "

The Marquise wished to know at once all the symptoms of colitis and smiled cheerfully at me while I dripped the subtle poison down the ear- trumpet. When I stood up to go, I had lost my voice, but had found a new patient.

A week later an elegant coupe stopped at the Avenue de Villiers and a footman rushed upstairs with a hurriedly scribbled note from the Countess to come at once to the Marquise who had been taken ill in the night with evident symptoms of colitis. I had made my entree in Paris society.

Colitis spread like wildfire all over Paris. My waiting-room was soon so full of people that I had to arrange my dining-room as a sort of extra

40 AVENUE DE YILLIEBS

waiting-room. It was always a mystery to me how all these people could have time and patience to sit and wait there so long, often for hours. The Countess came regularly twice a week, but occasionally she felt seedy and had to come on extra days as well. It was evident that colitis suited her far better than appendicitis, her face had lost its languid pallour and her big eyes sparkled with youth.

One day, as I was coming out of the hotel of the Marquise, she was leaving for the country, I had been there to bid her good-bye, I found the Countess standing by my carriage in friendly conversation with Tom, who was sitting on a huge parcel, half-hidden under the carriage-rug. The Countess was on her way to the Magasins du Louvre to buy a little present for the Marquise for her birthday to-morrow, and did not know in the least what to give her. I suggested a dog.

" A dog! What a capital idea! " She remem- bered that when as a child she was taken to see the Marquise, she always found her with a pug on her lap, a pug who was so fat that he could hardly walk and who snored so terribly that one could hear him all over the house. Her aunt had been in tears for weeks when he died. A capital idea indeed. We walked down the street to the corner of Rue Cambon, where was the shop of a well-known dog-dealer. There, amongst half-a- dozen mongrels of all sorts and descriptions sat the very dog I wanted, an aristocratic little pug, who snored desperately at us to draw our attention to his sad plight and implored us with his blood-shot eyes to take him away from this mixed society

LOULOU 41

into which he had been thrown by sheer misfortune and by no fault of his. He nearly suffocated with emotion when he realized his luck and was put into a cab and sent to the hotel in Faubourg St. Ger- main. The Countess was going anyhow to the Magasins du Louvre to try on a new hat. She said she wanted to go on foot. Then she said she wanted a cab and I volunteered to take her there in my carriage. She hesitated a moment — what will people say if they see me driving about in his carriage? — and then accepted with bonne grace. But was it not out of my way to drive her to the Louvre; not in the least, for I had noth- ing to do just then. What is in that parcel, asked the Countess with feminine curiosity. I was just going to tell her another lie when Tom, his mission as sole guardian of the precious parcel being at an end, jumped to his usual place on the seat by my side. The parcel split open and the head of a doll popped out.

" Why on earth do you drive about with dolls, who are they for? "

" For the children."

She did not know I had any children and seemed almost offended at my reticence about my private affairs. How many children had I got? About a dozen. There was no way of getting out of it, the whole secret had to come out.

" Come along with me," I said boldly, " and on the way back I will take you to see my friend Jack, the gorilla in the Jardin des Plantes. It is just on our way." The Countess was evidently in her very best mood that day and up to any- thing, she said she was delighted. After passing

42 AVENUE DE VILLEERS

Gare Montparnasse she began to lose her bearings and soon she did not know at all where she was« We drove through some sombre, evil-smelling slums. Dozens of ragged children were playing about in the gutter, choked with filth and refuse of all sorts, and almost before every door sat a woman with a baby at her breast and other small children at her side, huddled around the brazier.

"Is this Paris?" asked the Countess with an almost frightened look in her eyes.

Yes, this is Paris, la Ville Lumiere! And this is Tlmpasse Rousselle, I added, as we stopped before a blind alley, damp and dark like the bottom of a well. Salvatore's wife was sitting on the family's only chair with Petruccio, her child of sorrow, on her lap, stirring the polenta for the family dinner, eagerly watched by Petruccio's two eldest sisters, while the youngest child was crawl- ing about on the floor in pursuit of a kitten. I told Salvatore's wife I had brought a kind lady who wanted to give the children a present. I understood by her shyness it was the first time the Countess had ever entered the house of the very poor. She. blushed scarlet as she handed the first doll to Petruccio's mother, for Petruccio him- self could not hold anything in his withered hand, he had been paralyzed ever since he was born. Petruccio showed no sign of being pleased, for his brain was as numb as his limbs, but his mother was sure that he liked the doll very much. His two sisters received each a doll in their turn and ran away in delight to hide themselves behind the bed to play at little mothers. When did I think Salvatore would come out of the hospital? It

THE SALVATOBE FAMILY 43

was now nearly six weeks since he had fallen from the scaffold and broken his leg. Yes, I had just seen him at the Hopital Lariboisiere, he was doing pretty well and I hoped he would come out soon. How was she getting on with her new landlord? Thank God, very well, he was very kind, he had even promised to put in a fireplace for next winter. And wasn't it nice of him to have opened that little window under the ceiling, didn't I remember how dark the room was before?

" Look how bright and cheerful it is here now, siamo in Paradiso," said Salvatore's wife. Was it true what Arcangelo Fusco told her that I had said to the old landlord, the day he had turned her out in the street and seized all her belongings, that the hour would come when God would punish him for his cruelty to all of us poor people and that I had cursed him so terribly that he had to hang himself a couple of hours later? Yes, it was quite true and I did not regret what I had done. As we were going away, my friend Arcan- gelo Fusco, who shared the room with the Salvatore family, was just returning from his day's work, his big broom on his shoulder. His profession was to fare la scopa — in "those days most of the street- sweepers in Paris were Italians. I was glad to introduce him to the Countess, it was the least I could do for him in return for the invaluable service he had done to me when he had gone with me to the police-station to corroborate my evidence concerning the death of the old landlord. God knows in what awkward entanglements I might have been involved had it not been for Arcangelo Fusco. Even so, it was a close shave. I was very

44 AVENUE DE YILLIEBS

nearly arrested for murder.1 Arcangelo Fusco who had a rose tucked over his ear, Italian fashion, presented his flower with southern gallantry to the Countess who looked as if she had never re- ceived a more graceful tribute to her fair youth. It was too late to go to the Jardin des Plantes, so I drove the Countess straight to her hotel. She was very silent, so I tried to cheer her up by telling her the funny story about the kind lady who had by accident read a little paper of mine about dolls in *Blackwood's Magazine* and had taken to making dolls by the dozen for the poor childrep I was speaking about. Hadn't she noticed how beautifully some of the dolls were dressed up? Yes, she had noticed it. Was the lady pretty? Yes, very. Was she in Paris? No, I had had to stop her making more dolls, as I had ended by having more dolls than patients, and I had sent the lady to St. Moritz for a change of air. On saying good-bye to the Countess before her hotel I expressed my regrets that there had been no time to visit the gorilla in the Jardin des Plantes but I hoped that anyhow she had not been sorry to have come with me.

"I am not sorry, I am so grateful, but, but, but ... I am so ashamed," she sobbed as she sprang in through the gate of her h6tel.

1 1 have related this strange story elsewhere.

IV A FASHIONABLE DOCTOR

1HAD a standing invitation to dine at the hotel in Faubourg St. Germain every Sunday. The Count had long ago withdrawn his objections to doctors, in fact he was charming to me. Family dinner, only M. 1'Abbe and occasionally the cousin of the Countess, the Vicomte Maurice, who treated me with an almost insolent nonchalance. I dis- liked him from the first time I saw him, and I soon discovered I was not the only one. It was evident that the Count and he had very little to say to each other. The Abbe was a priest of the old school and a man of the world who knew far more of life and human nature than I did. He was at first very reserved towards me and often, when I noticed his shrewd eyes fixed on me, I felt as if he knew more about colitis than I did. I felt almost ashamed before this old man and would have liked to talk openly to hfrn and lay my cards on the table. But I never had the chance, I never had an opportunity of seeing him alone. One day, as I entered my dining-room to snatch a rapid luncheon before beginning my con- sultation, I was surprised to find him there wait- ing for me. He said he had come of his own accord, in his quality of an old friend of the family and wished I should not mention his visit. " You have been remarkably successful with the

45

46 A FASHIONABLE DOCTOE

Countess/' he began, " and we are all very grate- ful to you. I must also compliment you about the Marquise. I have just come from her, I am her confessor, and I must say I am astonished to see how much better she is in every way. But it is about the Count that I have come to speak to you to-day, I am greatly worried about him, I am sure il file un mauvais coton. He hardly ever leaves the house, spends most of his days in his room smoking his big cigars, he sleeps for hours after luncheon and I often find him any time of the day asleep in his arm-chair with his cigar in his mouth. In the country he is quite a different man, he takes his morning-ride every day after Mass, is active and bright and takes much interest in the management of his big estates. His only wish is to go to his chateau in Touraine and if the Countess cannot be persuaded to leave Paris, as I fear is the case, I have reluctantly* come to the conclusion that he should go alone. He has great confidence in you and if you tell him it is necessary for his health to leave Paris, he will do so. This is precisely what I have come to ask you to do." " I am sorry, M. 1'Abbe, but I cannot." He lobked at me with undisguised surprise, al- most suspicion.

" May I ask you the reason for your refusal? " " The Countess cannot leave Paris now and it is only natural that she should accompany the Count."

" Why cannot she be treated for her colitis in the country, there is a very good and safe doctor at the Castle who has often looked after her before, when she suffered from appendicitis."

MONSEEUE L'ABBE 47

"With what result?"

He did not answer.

" May I in return," I said, " ask you this ques- tion? Suppose the Countess could be suddenly cured of her colitis, could you make her leave Paris?"

" Honestly speaking, no. But why this supposi- tion, since I understand that this disease is of long duration and difficult to cure? "

" I could cure the Countess of her colitis in a day."

He looked at me stupefied.

" And why, in the name of All the Saints, don't you? You are incurring a tremendous responsi- bility."

" I am not afraid of responsibility, I would not be here if I were. Now let us speak openly. Yes, I could cure the Countess in a day, she no more has colitis than you or I, nor has she ever had appendicitis. It is all in her head, in her nerves. If I took away her colitis from her too rapidly, she might lose her mental balance alto- gether, or take to something far worse, say, morphia, or a lover. Whether I shall be able to be of any use to the Countess remains to be seen. To order the Countess to leave Paris now would be a psychological error. She would probably refuse and, once having dared to disobey me, her confidence in me would be at an end. Give me a fortnight and she will leave Paris by her own wish — or at least she will think so. It is all a question of tactics. To make the Count go alone would be an error of another order, and you, M. PAbbe, know this as well as I do."

48 A FASHIONABLE DOCTOE

He looked at me attentively but said nothing. "Now as to the Marquise. You were kind enough to compliment me for what I have done for her and I accept the compliment. Medically speaking I have done nothing nor could anybody else do anything. Deaf people suffer considerably from their inf orced isolation from others, specially those who have no mental resources of their own and they are in the majority. To distract their attention from their misfortune is the only thing one can do for them. The Marquise's thoughts are occupied with colitis instead of with deafness and you have yourself seen with what result. I myself am beginning to have quite enough of colitis, and now since the Marquise is going to the country, I am replacing it with a lap-dog, more suitable to country-life."

As he was going away, the Abbe turned in the door and looked at me attentively.

" How old are you? "

" Twenty-six."

" Vous irez loin, mon fils! Vous irez loin! "

" Yes," thought I. " I am going far, far away, away from this humiliating life of humbug and deceit, from all these artificial people, back to the enchanting island, back to old Maria Porta-Lettere, to Mastro Vincenzo and to Gioconda, to clean my soul in the little white house high up on the top of the cliff. How much longer am I going to waste my time in this horrible town? When is Sant'- Antonio going to work his new miracle?

On my table lay a letter of good-bye, not good- bye, but au revoir, from the Marquise, full of gratitude and praise. It contained a big bank-

LUCK 49

note. I looked at the faded photograph of Capri in the corner of my room and put the money in my pocket. What has become of all the money I made in those days of prosperity and luck? I was supposed to save it all for Mastro Vincenzo's house, but the fact remains, I never had any money to save. Wages of sin? Maybe, but if so, the whole faculty ought to have gone bank- rupt, for we were all in the same boat, the pro- fessors as well as my colleagues, with the same sort of clientele as I. Luckily for me I had other patients as well, plenty of them and enough to save me from becoming a charlatan altogether. There were in those days far fewer specialists than now. I was supposed to know everything, even surgery. It took me two years to realize that I was not fit to be a surgeon, I fear it took my patients less time. Although I was supposed to be a nerve-doctor, I did everything a doctor can be asked to do, even obstetrics, and God helped mother and child. In fact it was surpris- ing how well the great majority of my patients resisted the treatment. When Napoleon's eagle eye flashed down the list of officers proposed for promotion to generals, he used to scribble in the margin of a name: " Is he lucky? " I had luck, amazing, almost uncanny luck with everything I laid my hands on, with every patient I saw. I was not a good doctor, my studies had been too rapid, my hospital training too short, but there is not the slightest doubt that I was a successful doctor. What is the secret of success? To in- spire confidence. What is confidence? Where does it come from, from the head or from the

50 A FASHIONABLE DOCTOE

heart? Does it derive from the upper strata of our mentality or is it a mighty tree of knowledge of good and evil with roots springing from the very depths of our being? Through what chan- nels does it communicate with others? Is it visible in the eye, is it audible in the spoken word? I do not know, I only know that it cannot be acquired by book-reading, nor by the bed-side of our patients. It is a magic gift granted by birth-right to one man and denied to another. The doctor who possesses this gift can almost raise the dead. The doctor who does not possess it will have to submit to the calling-in of a colleague for consultation in a case of measles. I soon discovered that this invaluable gift had been granted to me by no merit of mine. I discovered it in the nick of time, for I was begin- ning to become conceited and very pleased with myself. It made me understand how little I knew and made me turn more and more to Mother Nature, the wise old nurse, for advice and help. It might even have made me become a good doctor in the end, had I stuck to my hospital work and to my poor patients. But I lost all my chances, for I became a fashionable doctor instead. If you come across a fashionable doctor, watch him care- fully at a safe distance before handing yourself over to him. He may be a good doctor, but in very many cases he is not. First, because as a rule he is far too busy to listen with patience to your long story. Secondly, because he is inevitably liable to become a snob, if he is not one already, to let the Countess pass in before you, to examine the liver of the Count with more attention than that of his valet, to go to the garden-party at the Brit-

ASILE ST. ANNE 51

ish Embassy instead of to your last-born, whose whooping-cough is getting worse. Thirdly, unless his heart is very sound he will soon show unmistak- able signs of precocious hardening of that organ; he will become indifferent and insensible to the suffering of others, like the pleasure-seeking people around him. You cannot be a good doctor without Pity- Often, when a long day's work was over, I, who have always been interested in psychology, used to ask myself why all these silly people sat and waited for me for hours in my consulting-room. Why did they all obey me, why could I so often make them feel better, even by a mere touch of my hand? Why, even after the power of speech had gone and the terror of death was staring out of their eyes, did they become so peaceful and still when I laid my hand on their forehead? Why did the lunatics in the Asile St. Anne, foaming with rage and screaming like wild animals, become calm and docile when I loosened their strait- jackets and held their hand in mine? It was a common trick of mine, all the warders knew it and many of my comrades and even the professor used to say of me: Ce garpon-la a le didble au corps! I have always had a sneak- ing liking for lunatics, I used to wander about quite unconcerned in the Salle des Agites as among friends. I had been warned more than once that it would end badly, but of course I knew better. One day, one of my best friends hit me on the back of the head with a hammer he had got hold of in some inexplicable way, and I was carried uncon- scious to the infirmary. It was a terrible blow, my

52 A FASHIONABLE DOCTOR

friend was an ex-blacksmith who knew his business. They thought at first I had a fracture of the skull. Not I! It was only a commotion cerebrale and my misadventure brought me a flattering compli- ment from the chef de clinique: " Ce sacre Suedois a le crane d'un ours, faut voir s'il n'a pas casse le marteau!"

" After all it may be in the head and not in the hand," said I to myself when my mental machinery set to work after a standstill of forty-eight hours. As I lay there in the infirmary a whole week with an ice-bag on my " head of a bear " and.no visitors or books to keep me company, I began to think hard on the subject, and not even the blacksmith's hammer could make me abandon my theory that it was all in the hand.

Why could I put my hand between the bars of the black panther's cage in Menagerie Pezon and, if nobody came near to irritate him, make the big cat roll over on his back, purring amiably at me, with my hand between his paws and yawning at me with his big mouth wide open? Why could I lance the abscess in L6onie's foot and pull out the splinter of wood that had made the big lioness tramp about restlessly on three legs for a week in agonizing pain? The local anaesthetic had proved a failure, and poor Leonie moaned like a child when I pressed the pus out of her paw. Only when I disinfected the wound she got somewhat impatient, but there was no wrath in the subdued thunder of her voice, only disappointment that she was not allowed to lick it herself with her sharp tongue. When the operation was over and I was leaving the menagerie with the baby baboon under my arm M.

MENAGERIE PEZON 53

Pezon had presented to me as my fee, the famous lion-tamer said to me:

"Monsieur le Docteur, vous avez manque votre profession, vous auriez du etre dompteur d'animaux! "

And Ivan, the big Polar Bear at the Jardin des Plantes, did he not clamber out of his tub of water as soon as he saw me, to come to the bars of his prison and standing erect on his hind legs put his black nose just in front of mine and take the fish from my hand in the most friendly manner? The keeper said he did it with nobody else, no doubt he looked upon me as a sort of compatriot. Don't say it was the fish and not the hand, for when I had nothing to offer him he still stood there in the same position as long as I had time to remain, looking steadfastly at me with his shining black eyes under their white eye-lashes and sniffing at my hand. Of course we spoke in Swedish, with a sort of Polar accent I picked up from fa'm. I am sure he under- stood every word I said when I told him in a low monotonous voice how sorry I was for him and that when I was a boy I had seen two of his kinsmen swimming close to our boat amongst floating ice- blocks in the land of our birth.

And poor Jacques, the famous gorilla of the Zoo, so far the only one of his tribe who had been taken prisoner and brought to the sunless land of his enemies ! Didn't he confidentially put his horny hand in mine as soon as he saw me? Didn't he like me to pat him gently on his back? He would sit quite still for minutes holding on to my hand with- out saying anything. Often he would look at the

04 A FASHIONABLE DOCTOE

palm of my hand with great attention, as if he knew something about palmistry, bend my fingers one after another as if to see how the joints were work- ing, then he would drop my hand and look with the same attention at his own hand with a chuckle, as if to say that he saw no great difference between the two and he was quite right there. Most of the time he used to sit quite still fingering a straw, in the corner of the cage where his visitors could not see him, seldom using the swing provided for him in the clumsy hope that he might take it for the swinging branch of the sycamore-tree where he used to take his siesta in the days of his freedom. He used to sleep on a low couch made of bamboo, like the s£rir of the Arabs, but he was an early riser and I never saw him in bed until he was taken ill. He had been taught by his keeper to eat his midday- meal seated before a low table, a napkin stuck under his chin. He had even been provided with a knife and fork of hard wood, but had never taken to them, he much preferred to eat with his fingers, as did our forefathers up till a couple of hundred years ago and still does the majority of the human race. But he drank his milk with great gusto out of his own cup and also his morning coffee with much sugar in it. It is true that he blew his nose with his fingers, but so did Petrarca's Laura, Mary Queen of Scots and Le Hoi Soleil. Poor Jack! Our friendship lasted to the end. He had been ail- ing ever since Christmas, his complexion became ashy grey, his cheeks hollow and his eyes sank deeper and deeper into their sockets. He became restless and fretful, was losing flesh rapidly, and soon a dry, ominous cough set in. I took his tern-

JACK 55

perature several times but had to be very careful for, like children, he was apt to break the thermom- eter to see what was moving inside. One day as he sat on my lap holding on to my hand, he had a violent fit of coughing which brought on a slight haemorrhage of the lungs. The sight of the blood terrified him, as is the case with most people. I often noticed during the war how even the bravest Tommies who looked quite unconcerned at their gaping wounds could grow pale at the sight of a few drops of fresh blood. He lost more and more his appetite and could only with great difficulty be coaxed to eat a banana or a fig. One morning I found him lying on his bed with the blanket pulled over his head, just as my patients in the Salle St. Claire used to lie, when they were tired to death and sick of everything. He must have heard me coming for he stretched out his hand from under the blanket and got hold of mine. I didn't want to disturb him and sat there for a long while with his hand in mine, listening to his heavy irregular respiration and to the phlegm rattling in his throat. Presently a sharp fit of coughing shook his whole body. He sat up in his bed and put his two hands to his temples in a gesture of despair. The whole expression of his face had changed. He had cast off his animal dis- guise and become a dying human being. So near had he come to me that he was deprived of the only privilege our Mighty God has granted to the animals in compensation for the sufferings man inflicts upon them — that of an easy death. His agony was terrible, he died slowly strangled by the same Executioner I had so often seen at work in

56 A FASHIONABLE DOCTOR

Salle St. Claire. I recognized him well by the slow grip of his hand.

And after? What became of my poor friend Jack? I know well that his emaciated body went to the Anatomical Institution and that his skeleton, with its large brain-pan, still stands erect in the Musee Dupuytren. But is that all?

PATIENTS

I MISSED very much my Sunday dinners in Faubourg St. Germain. About a fortnight after my interview with the Abbe the Countess, with her impulsive nature, had suddenly felt the need of a change of air and decided to accompany the Count to their chateau in Touraine. It came as a surprise to us all, only the Abbe must have had some inkling of it, for I noticed a merry twinkling in his shrewd old eye the last Sunday I dined there. The Countess was kind enough to send me a weekly report to say how she was get- ting on and I also heard now and then from the Abbe. Everything was going on well. The Count had his ride every morning, never slept during the day and smoked much less. The Countess had taken up her music again, occupied herself diligently with the poor of the village and never complained about her colitis. The Abbe also gave me good news about the Marquise, whose country-seat was a short hour's drive from the chateau. She was doing very well. Instead of sitting in her arm-chair in mournful seclusion the whole day, worrying about her deafness, she now took a long walk twice a day in the garden for the sake of her beloved Loulou who was getting too fat and greatly in need of exercise.

. 57

58 PATIENTS

" He is a horrible little brute," wrote the Abbe, "who sits in her lap and snarls and growls at everybody; he has even bitten the maid twice. Everybody hates him, but the Marquise adores him and fusses about him the whole day. Yes- terday in the midst of the confession he was suddenly sick all over her beautiful teagown and his mistress was in such a state of alarm that I had to interrupt the function. Now the Mar- quise wants me to ask you if you think it might possibly develop into colitis and asks you to be so kind as to prescribe something for him, she says she feels sure you will understand his case better than anybody."

The Marquise was not far from the truth there, for I was already then beginning to be known as a good dog-doctor, though I had not reached the eminent position I occupied later in my life, when I became a consulting dog-doctor famous among all dog-lovers of my clientele. I am aware that the opinions as to my skill as a doctor to my fellow-creatures have been somewhat divided, but I dare to maintain that my reputation as a reliable dog-doctor has never been seriously challenged. I am not conceited enough to wish to deny that this may partly depend upon the absence of jalousie de metier I met with in the exercise of this branch of my profession — I got plenty of it in the other branches, I can assure you.

To become a good dog-doctor it is necessary to love dogs, but it is also necessary to understand them — the same as with us, with the difference that it is easier to understand a dog than a man and easier to love him. Never forget that the

DOGS 5»

mentality of one dog is totally different from that of another. The sharp wit that sparkles in the quick eye of a fox-terrier, for instance, reflects a mental activity totally different from the serene wisdom which shines in the calm eye of a St. Bernard or an old sheep-dog. The intelligence of dogs is proverbial, but there is a great differ- ence of degree, already apparent in the puppies as soon as they open their eyes. There are even stupid dogs, though the percentage is much smaller than in man. On the whole it is easy to understand the dog and to learn to read his thoughts. The dog cannot dissimulate, cannot deceive, cannot lie because he cannot speak. The dog is a saint. He is straightforward and honest by nature. If in exceptional cases there appear in a dog some stigmas of hereditary sin traceable to his wild ancestors, who had to rely on cunning in their fight for existence, these stigmas will disappear when his experience has taught him that he can rely upon straight and just dealings from us. If these stigmas should remain in a dog who is well treated, these cases are extremely rare, this dog is not normal, he is suffering from moral insanity and should be given a painless death. A dog gladly admits the superiority of his master over himself, accepts his judgment as final, but, contrary to what many dog-lovers believe, he does not consider himself as a slave. His submission is voluntary and he expects his own small rights to be respected. He looks upon his master as his king, almost as his god, he expects his god to be severe if need be, but he expects him to be just. He knows that his god can read

60 PATIENTS

his thoughts and he knows it is no good to try to conceal them. Can he read the thoughts of his god? Most certainly he can. The Society for Psychical Research may say what they like, but telepathy between man and man has so far not been proved. But telepathy between dog and man has been proved over and over again. The dog can read his master's thoughts, can under- stand his varying moods, and foretell his decisions. He knows by instinct when he is not wanted, lies quite still for hours when his king is hard at work as kings often are, or at least ought to be. But when his king is sad and worried he knows that his time has come and he creeps- up and lays his head on his lap. Don't worry! Never mind if they all abandon you, I am here to replace all your friends and to fight all your enemies! Come along and let us go for a walk and forget all about it!

It is strange and very pathetic to watch the behaviour of a dog when his master is ill. The dog warned by his infallible instinct is afraid of disease, afraid of death. A dog accustomed for years to sleep on his master's bed is reluctant to remain there when his master is ill. Even in the rare exceptions to this rule, he leaves his master at the approach of death, hiding in a corner of the room and whining pitifully. It has even hap- pened to me to be warned by the behaviour of a dog of the approach of death. What does he know about death? At least as much as we do, probably a good deal more. As I write this I am reminded of a poor woman in Anacapri, a stranger to the village, slowly dying of consumption, so

BOGS 61

slowly that one after another of the few comari who used to go and see her had got tired of her and left her to her fate. Her only friend was a mongrel dog, who, an exception to the rule I have just mentioned, never left his place at the foot of her bed. It was besides the only place to lie on, except on the damp earthen floor of the wretched hole the poor woman lived and died in. One day, as I happened to pass by, I found Don Salvatore there, the only one of the twelve priests of our little village who took the slightest interest in the poor and the sick. Don Salvatore asked me if I did not think the time had come to bring her the Last Sacraments. The woman looked about as usual, her pulse was not worse, she even told us she had felt a little better these last days — la miglioria della morte, said Don Salvatore. I had often marvelled at the amazing tenacity with which she clung to life and I told the priest she might quite well last for another week or two. So we agreed to wait with the Last Sacraments. Just as we were leaving the room the dog jumped down from the bed with a howl of distress and crouched in the corner of the room whining piti- fully. I could see no change in the woman's looks, but noticed with surprise that her pulse was now almost imperceptible. She made a desperate effort to say something, but I could not understand at first what she meant. She looked at me with wide-open eyes and raised her emaci- ated arm several times pointing to the dog. This time I understood and I believe she also under- stood me when I bent over her and said I would take care of the dog. She nodded contentedly,

62 PATIENTS

her eyes closed and the peace of death spread over her face. She drew a deep breath, a few drops of blood oozed out between her lips and it was all over. The immediate cause of this woman's death was evidently an internal haemmorhage. How did the dog know before I knew? When they came in the evening to take her away the dog followed his mistress to the camposanto, the only mourner. Next day old Pacciale, the grave-digger, already then my special friend, told me that the dog was still lying on her grave. It rained torrents the whole day and the following night, but in the morning the dog was still there. In the evening I sent Pacciale with a leash to try to coax him away and take him to San Michele, but the dog growled savagely at him and refused to move. On the third day I went to the ceme- tery myself and succeeded with great difficulty in making him follow me home, he knew me besides quite well. There were eight dogs in San Michele in those days and I felt very uneasy as to the reception awaiting the new-comer. But all went well, thanks to Billy, the baboon, for he, for some inexplicable reason, at first sight took a great fancy to the stranger, who, once recovered from his stupefaction, soon became his inseparable friend. All my dogs hated and feared the huge monkey who ruled supreme in the garden of San Michele and soon even Barbarossa, the fierce Maremma dog, ceased to growl at the new-comer. He lived there happily for two years and is buried there under the ivy with my other dogs.

A dog can be taught to do almost anything with friendly encouragement, patience and a biscuit

DOGS 63

when he has learned his lesson with right good will. Never lose your temper or use violence of any sort. Corporal punishment inflicted on an intelligent dog is an indignity which reflects upon his master. It is besides a psychological error. This being said, let me add that naughty puppies as well as very small children before the age of reason, but not after, are quite welcome to a little spanking now and then when too recalcitrant to learn the fundamental rules of good manners. Personally, I have never taught my dogs any sort of tricks, although I admit that many dogs, their lesson once learned, take great pleasure in show- ing off their tricks. To perform in a circus is quite another matter and a degradation to an intelligent dog. Anyhow these performing dogs are as a rule well looked after on account of the money they bring in and are infinitely better off than their wretched wild comrades in the menag- erie. When a dog is ill, he will submit to almost anything, even a painful operation, if it is ex- plained to him in a kind but firm voice that it must be done and why it must be done. Never coax a sick dog to eat, he often does so only to oblige you, even if his instinct warns him to abstain from food, which is as often as not his salvation. Don't worry, dogs like very small children can be without food for several days with- out further inconvenience. A dog can stand pain with great courage, but of course he likes you to tell him how sorry you are for him. Maybe it will be a comfort to some dog-lovers to be told that I do believe that on the whole their sensitive- ness to pain is less acute than we think. Never

64 PATIENTS

disturb a sick dog when not absolutely necessary. As often as not your untimely interference only distracts nature in her effort to assist him to get well. All animals wish to be left alone when they are ill and also when they are about to die. Alas! the life of a dog is so short and there are none of us who have not been in mourning for a lost friend. Your first impulse and your first words after you have laid him to rest under a tree in the park, are that you never, never wish to have another dog; no other dog could ever replace him, no other dog xjould ever be to you what he has been. You are mistaken. It is not a dog we love, it is the dog. They are all more or less the same, they are all ready to love you and be loved by you. They are all representatives of the most lovable and, morally speaking, most perfect creation of God. If you loved your dead friend in the right way, you cannot do without another. Alas! he also will have to part from you, for those beloved by the gods die young. Remember when his time Hcomes what I am going to tell you now. Do not send him to the lethal chamber or ask your kind- hearted doctor to see that he is given a painless death under an anaesthetic. It is not a painless death, it is a distressing death. Dogs often resist the deadly effect of these gases and drugs in the most heartrending way. The dose which would kill a full-grown man often leaves a dog alive for long minutes of mental and bodily suffer- ing. I have been present several times at these massacres in lethal chambers and I have myself killed many dogs under anaesthetics, and I know vrhat I am talking about. I shall never do it

HYDEOPHOBIA 65

again. Ask any man you can trust, who is fond of dogs, this condition is necessary, to take your old dog in the park, to give him a bone and while he is eating it to shoot him with a revolver through the ear. It is an instantaneous and painless death, life is extinguished like the candle you blow out. Many of my old dogs have died so by my own hand. They all lie buried under the cypresses in Materita and over their graves stands an antique marble column. There also lies an- other dog, for twelve years the faithful friend of a gracious lady who, although she has to be the mother of a whole country, my own country, has enough room left in her heart to bring a bunch of flowers to his grave every time she comes to Capri.

Fate has willed that the most lovable of aJI animals should be the bearer of the most terrible of all diseases — hydrophobia. I witnessed at the Institut Pasteur the early stages of the long- drawn battle between science and the dreaded foe and I also witnessed the final victory. It was dearly won. Hecatombs of dogs had to be sacri- ficed and maybe some human lives as well. I used to visit the doomed animals and give them what little comfort I could, but it became so painful to me that for some time I gave up going* to the Institut Pasteur altogether. Still I never doubted it was right, that what was done had to be done. I was present at many failures, saw many people die both before and after treatment with < the new method. Pasteur was violently attacked not only by all sorts of ignorant and well-meaning dog-lovers but also by many of his

66 PATIENTS

own colleagues, he was even accused of having caused the death of several of his patients with his serum. He himself went on his way un- daunted by failure, but those who saw him in those days knew well how much he suffered from the tortures he had to inflict upon the dogs, for he was himself a great lover of dogs. He was the most kind-hearted of men. I once heard him say that he could never have the courage to shoot a bird. Everything that could possibly be done to minimize the sufferings of the laboratory dogs was done, even the keeper of the kennel at Villeneuve de TEtang, an ex-gendarme called Pernier, had been chosen for his post by Pasteur himself be- cause he was known as a great lover of dogs. These kennels contained sixty dogs inoculated with serum and regularly taken to the kennels in the old Lycee Rollin for bite tests. In these kennels were kept forty rabid dogs. The han- dling of these dogs, all foaming with rage, was a very dangerous affair, and I often marvelled at the courage displayed by everybody. Pasteur himself was absolutely fearless. Anxious to se- cure a sample of saliva straight from the jaws of a rabid dog, I once saw him with the glass' tube held between his lips draw a few drops of the deadly saliva from the mouth of a rabid bull-dog, held on the table by two assistants, their hands protected by leather gloves. Most of these lab- oratory dogs were homeless stray dogs picked up by the police in the streets of Paris, but many of them looked as if they had seen better ^days. Here they suffered and died in obscurity, Un- known Soldiers in the battle of the human mind

PASTEUR 67

against disease and death* Close by, at La Baga- telle, in the elegant dog-cemetery founded by Sir Richard Wallace, lay buried hundreds of lap-dogs and drawing-room dogs, with the records of their useless and luxurious lives inscribed by loving hands on the marble crosses over their graves.

Then came the terrible episode of the six Russian peasants bitten by a pack of mad wolves and sent to the Institut Pasteur at the expenses of the Tzar. They were all horribly mauled in the face and hands and their chances from the outset were almost nil. Moreover it was known even then that hydrophobia in wolves was far more dangerous than in dogs and that those bitten in the face were almost certain to die. Pasteur knew this better than anybody, and hadn't he been the man he was, he would no doubt have declined to take them in hand. They were placed in a separate ward in the Hotel Dieu in the charge of Professor Tillaux, the most eminent and the most humane surgeon in Paris in those days and a staunch supporter and great friend of Pasteur's. Pasteur came himself every morn- ing with Tillaux to inoculate them, watching them anxiously from day to day. Nobody could understand a word they said. One afternoon, it was on the ninth day, I was trying to pour a drop of milk down the lacerated throat of one of the moujiks, a giant whose whole face had almost been torn away, when suddenly something wild and uncanny flashed in his eyes, the muscles of the jaws contracted and opened spasmodically with a snapping sound and a ghastly cry I had never heard before either from man or animal

68 PATIENTS

rang out from his foaming mouth. He made a violent effort to spring out of bed and nearly knocked me down, as I tried to hold him back. His arms, strong as the paws of a bear, closed on me in a clasp, holding me tight as in a vice. I felt the foul breath from his foaming mouth close to mine and the poisonous saliva dripping down my face. I gripped at his throat, the bandage slipped off his ghastly wound and as I drew back my hands from his snapping jaws, they were red with blood. A convulsive trembling passed over his whole body, his arms relaxed their grasp and fell back inert at his side. I staggered to the door in search of the strongest disinfectant I could get hold of. In the corridor sat Soeur Marthe, drinking her afternoon coffee. She looked at me terrified and I gulped down her cup of coffee just as I was going to faint. By God's mercy there was not a scratch on my face nor hands. Scaur Marthe was a great friend of mine. She kept her word; so far as I know, the secret never leaked out. I had good reason to keep it secret, strict orders had been given not to approach any of these men unless it was absolutely necessary and if so, only with the hands protected by thick gloves. I told it later to the Professor himself, he was quite rightly very angry with me, but he had a sneaking weakness for me and he soon forgave me, as he had so often done before for many short- comings.

"Sacre Suedois," he muttered, "tu es aussi enrage que le moujik!" In the evening the moujik, tied hand and foot to the iron bars of the bed, was carried to a separate pavilion isolated

THE MOUJIKS 69

from the others. I went to see him next morning with Soeur Marthe. The room was semi-dark. The bandage covered his whole face and I could see nothing but his eyes. I shall never forget the expression of those eyes, they used to haunt me for years afterwards. His breathing was short and irregular, with intervals like the Cheyne- Stokes respiration — the well-known precursory symptom of death. He talked with vertiginous rapidity in a hoarse voice, now and then interrupted by a wild cry of distress or a hooting moan which made me shudder. I listened for a while to the rush of unknown words half -drowned in the flow of saliva, and soon I thought I distinguished one same word repeated incessantly, with an almost desperate accent:

"Crestitsa! Crestitsa! Crestitsal " I looked attentively at his eyes, kind, humble, imploring eyes.

" He is conscious," I whispered to Soeur Marthe, " he wants something. I wish I knew what it is. Listen!"

" Crestitsa! Crestitsa! Crestitsa! " he called out incessantly,

" Run and fetch a crucifix," I said to the nun.

We laid the crucifix on the bed. The flow of words ceased instantly. He lay there quite silent, his eyes fixed on the crucifix. His breathing grew fainter and fainter. Suddenly the muscles of his giant body stiffened in a last violent contraction and the heart stood still.

The next day another moujik showed unmis- takable signs of hydrophobia, and soon another, and three days later they were all raving mad.

70 PATIENTS

Their screams and howls could be heard all over the Hotel Dieu, people said even below in Place Notre Dame. The whole hospital was in emo- tion. Nobody wanted to go near the ward, even the courageous sisters fled in terror. I can see now the white face of Pasteur as he passed in silence from bed to bed, looking at the doomed men with infinite compassion in his eyes- He sank down on a chair, his head between his hands. Ac- customed as I was to see him every day I had not noticed till then how ill and worn he looked, though I knew from an almost imperceptible hesitation in his speech and a slight embarrassment in the grip of his hand that he had already then received the first warning of the fate that was to overtake him ere long. Tillaux who had been sent for in the midst of an operation rushed into the ward, his apron stained with blood. He went up to Pasteur and laid his hand on his shoulder. The two men looked at each other in silence. The kind blue eyes of the great surgeon, who had seen so much horror and suffering, glanced round the ward and his face grew white like a sheet.

"I cannot stand it," he said in a broken voice and sprang out of the room.

The same evening a consultation took place be- tween these two men. They are few who know the decision they arrived at, but it was the only right one and an honour to them both. The next morn- ing all was silent in the ward. During the night the doomed men had been helped to a painless death.

The impression in Paris was enormous. All the newspapers were full of the most ghastly descrip-

THE NORWEGIAN PAINTER 71

tions of the death of the Russian moujiks and for days nobody spoke of anything else.

Late one night the following week a well- known Norwegian animal painter came rushing to Avenue de Villiers in a state of fearful agitation. He had been bitten in the hand by his beloved dog, an enormous bull-dog, most ferocious-look- ing, but hitherto most amiable and a great friend of mine — his portrait painted by his master had besides been in the Salon the year before. We drove at once to the studio in Avenue des Termes. The dog was locked up in the bedroom and his master wanted me to shoot him at once, he said he had not the courage to do it himself. . The dog was running to and fro, now and then hiding under the bed with a savage growl. The room was so dark that I put the key in my pocket and decided to wait till next morning. « I disinfected and dressed the wound and gave the Norwegian a sleeping-draught for the night. I watched the dog attentively the next morning and decided to postpone shooting him till the following day as I was not quite certain he really had hydrophobia, notwithstanding all the appearances. Errors of diagnosis in the early stages of rabies are very common. Even the classical symptom which has given its name to the dreaded disease — hydro- phobia means horror of water — is not to be relied upon. The rabid dog does not abhor water. I have often seen a rabid dog drink with avidity from a bowl of water I had put in his cage. It is only with human beings affected with rabies that this symptom holds good. A great number, if

72 PATIENTS

not the majority of dogs killed suspected of hydro- phobia, are suffering from other relatively harm- less diseases. But even if this can be proved by post-mortem examination — not one in a dozen of ordinary doctors and vets is competent to do it — it is as a rule most difficult to convince the person who has been bitten by the dog. The dread of the terrible disease remains, and to be haunted by the fear of hydrophobia is as dangerous as the disease itself. The right thing to do is to have the suspected dog safely locked up and provided with food and drink. If he is alive after ten days it is certain that it is not rabies and all is well.

Next morning when I watched the dog through the half -open door he wagged his stump of a tail and looked at me with a quite friendly expression in his blood-shot eyes. But just as I stretched out my hand to pat him, he retired under the bed with a growl. I did not know what to think. Anyhow I told his master I did not believe he was rabid. He would not hear of it and again begged me to shoot the dog at once. I refused and said I wanted to wait another day. His master had spent the night walking to and fro in the studio and on the table lay a medical handbook with the symptoms of hydrophobia in man and dog marked with a pencil. I threw the book in the fire. His neighbour, a Russian sculptor, who had promised me to remain with him the whole day, told me in the evening he had refused all food and drink, was constantly wiping .saliva from his lips and talked about nothing but hydro- phobia. I insisted upon his drinking a cup of coffee. He looked at me desperately and said he

AN ERROR OP DIAGNOSIS T3

could not swallow and as I handed hi™ the cup I was horrified to see the muscles of his jaw stiffen with «a convulsive cramp, his whole body began to tremble and he sank down in his chair with a ter- rible cry of distress. I gave him a strong injection of morphia and told him I was so sure that the dog was all right that I was willing to go into the room again, but I don't believe I would have had the courage to do it. The morphia began to act and I left him half -asleep in his chair. When I returned late at night, the Russian sculptor told me that the whole house had been in an uproar, that the landlord had sent the concierge to say that the dog must be killed at once and that he had just shot him through the window. The dog had crawled to the door, where he had finished him off with another bullet. He was lying there still in a pool of blood. His master was sitting in his chair staring straight before him without saying a word. I did not like the look in his eyes, I took his revolver from the table and put it in my pqcket, there was still one bullet left. I lit the candle and asked the Russian sculptor to help me to carry the dead dog down to my carriage, I wanted to take him straight to the Institut Pasteur for a post-mortem. There was a large pool of blood near the door, the dog was not there.

" Shut the door," shouted the sculptor behind me as the dog sprang at me from under the bed with a horrible growl, his wide-open mouth streaming with blood. The candlestick dropped from my hand, I fired at random in the dark and the dog fell dead at my very feet. We put him in my carriage and I drove to the Institut Pas-

74 PATIENTS

teur. Doctor Roux, Pasteur's right-hand man, and later on his successor, saying it looked very bad indeed, promised to make a post-mortem immediately and to let me know as soon as pos- sible. When I came to Avenue des Ternes next day, I found the Russiapt standing outside the studio floor. He had spent the night with his friend who had been walking up and down the whole time in great agitation, till at last he had fallen asleep in his chair an hour ago. The Russian had gone to his own room to wash and on coming back a moment ago had found the studio door locked from the inside.

"Listen," he said, as if to excuse himself for having disobeyed the orders not to leave him a second, " it is all right, he is still asleep, don't you hear his snoring? "

" Help me to break open the door," I shouted, " it is not snoring, it is the stertorous breathing, of ..."

The door gave way and we rushed in the studio. He was lying on the couch breathing heayily, a revolver still clutched in his hand. He had shot himself through the eye. We carried him to my carriage. I drove full speed to the Hopital Beau- jon where he was operated on at once by Professor Labbe. The revolver he had shot himself with was of smaller calibre than the one I had taken from him, the bullet was extracted. He was still unconscious when I left. The same evening I received a letter from Doctor Roux that the result of the post-mortem examination was nega- tive, the dog had not had hydrophobia. I drove at once to the Hopital Beaujon. The Norwegian

VIVISECTION" 75

was delirious — prognosis pessima, said the famous surgeon. On the third day hrain-fever set in. He did not die, he left the hospital a month later, blind. The last I heard of him, was that he was in a lunatic asylum in Norway.

My own role in this lamentable affair was not satisfactory. I did my best, but it was not enough. If it had happened a couple of years later, this man would not have shot himself. I would have known how to master his fear, and would have been the stronger of the two as I have been in later years more than once, when I have stayed a hand clutch- ing a revolver in fear of life,

When will the anti-vivisectionists realize that when they are asking for total prohibition of experiments on living animals they are asking for what it is impossible to grant them? Pas- teur's vaccination against rabies has reduced the mortality in this terrible disease to a

and Behring's anti-diphtheric serum saves the lives of over a hundred thousand children every year. Are not these two facts alone sufficient to make these well-meaning lovers of animals under- stand that discoverers of new worlds like Pasteur, of new remedies against hitherto incurable dis- eases like Koch, Ehrlich and Behring must be left to pursue their researches unhampered by restrictions and undisturbed by interference from outsiders. Those to be left a free hand are besides so few that they can be counted on one's fingers. For the rest no doubt most severe restrictions should be insisted upon, perhaps even total prohibition. But I go further. One of the most weighty arguments against several of

76 PATIENTS

these experiments on living animals is that their practical value is much reduced, owing to the fundamental difference from a pathological and physiological point of view between the bodies of men and the bodies of animals. But why should these experiments be limited to the bodies of animals, why should they not be carried out on the living body of man as well? Why should not the born criminals, the chronic evil-doers,, condemned to waste their remaining life in prison, useless and often dangerous to others and to themselves, why should not these inveterate offenders against our laws be offered a reduction of their penal servitude if they were willing to- submit under anaesthetics to certain experiments on their living bodies for the benefit of man- kind? If the judge, before putting on the black cap, had in his power to offer the murderer the alternative between the gallows and penal ser- vitude for so and so many years, I have little doubt there would be no lack of candidates. Why should not Doctor Woronoff, the practical value of his invention be it what it may, be allowed to open up an enlisting office in the prisons for those willing to enroll themselves as substitutes for his wretched monkeys? Why do not these well-meaning lovers of animals begin by concentrating their efforts on putting a stop to the exhibition of wild animals in circuses and menageries? As long as this scandal is tolerated by our laws there is little chance for us to be looked upon as civilized by a future generation. If you want to realize what a set of barbarians we really are, you have only to enter the tent of a

THE MONKEY DOCTOR 77

travelling menagerie. The cruel wild beast is not behind the bars of the cage, he stands in front of it.

A propos of monkeys and menageries I venture with due modesty to pride myself on having been in the days of my strength a good monkey-doctor as well. This is an extremely difficult specialty, hampered by all sorts of unexpected complications and pitfalls, and where rapidity of judgment and profound knowledge of human nature are es- sential conditions for success. It is sheer nonsense to say that as with children the chief difficulty lies in the fact that the patient cannot speak. Mon- keys can speak quite well if they choose to. The chief difficulty is that they are far too clever for our slow brains. You can deceive a human patient — deception, alas, forms a necessary part of our profession, the truth is so often too sad to be told. You can deceive a dog who believes blindly every- thing you say, but you cannot deceive a monkey, for he sees through you at once. The monkey can deceive you whenever he chooses and he loves to do it, often for sheer fun. My friend Jules, the aged baboon in the Jardin des Plantes, puts his hands on his tummy with the most pitiful air of dejection, and shows me his tongue — it is much easier to make a monkey show you his tongue than a small child — says he has completely lost his appe- tite and has only eaten my apple to oblige me. Before I have time to open my mouth to say how sorry I am, he has snatched my last banana from me, eaten it, and thrown the skin at me from the top of the cage.

" Kindly look at this red spot on my back,"

78 PATIENTS

says Edward. " I thought at first it was only a flea-bite, but now it burns like a blister. I can- not stand it any longer, cannot you give me some- thing to take away the pain? — no, not there, higher up, come closer, I know you are somewhat short- sighted, let me show you the exact spot I" The same instant he sits in his trapeze grinning ma- liciously at me through my spectacles before breaking them to pieces to be presented as souvenirs to admiring comrades. Monkeys love to make fun of us. But the slightest suspicion that we are making fun of them irritates them profoundly. You must never laugh at a monkey, he cannot stand it. Their whole nervous system is extraor- dinarily sensitive. A sudden fright can bring them almost into hysterics, convulsions are not very rare amongst them, I have even attended a monkey who suffered from epilepsy. An unexpected noise can make them turn pale. They blush very easily, not from modesty, for God knows they are not modest, but from anger. To observe this phe- nomenon, however, you must not look only at the monkey's face, he often blushes in another, unex- pected place. Why their Maker, for reasons of his own, should have chosen this very place for such a rich and sensitive carnation, such a prodigal display of vivid colours, crimson, blue and orange, remains a mystery to our uneducated eyes. Many startled spectators do not even hesitate to pro- nounce it at first sight to be very ugly. But we must not forget that opinions as to what is beau- tiful or not are much at variance in different ages and countries. The Greeks, arbiters of beauty if there ever were any, painted the hair of their

THE MONKEY DOCTOR 79

Aphrodite blue, how do you like blue hair? Amongst the monkeys themselves this rich car- nation is evidently a sign of beauty, irresistible to the ladies' eye, and the happy possessor of such a glow of colours a posteriori is often seen with uplifted tail turning his back upon the spectators in order to be admired. The monkeys are excellent mothers, but you must never attempt to have any- thing to do with their children, for like the Arab women folk and even Neapolitan women, they believe that you have got the evil eye. The stronger sex is somewhat inclined to flirtation and terrible " drames passionels " are constantly enacted in the big monkey-house at the Zoo, where even the tiniest little ouistiti becomes an infuriated Othello, ready to fight the biggest baboon. The ladies watch the tournament with sympathetic side- glances at their various champions and with furious quarrels amongst themselves. Imprisoned mon- keys, as long as they are in company, live on the whole a supportable life. They are so busy in finding out all that is going on inside and out- side their cage, so full of intrigue and gossip that they have hardly time to be unhappy. The life of an imprisoned big ape, gorilla, chimpanzee, or orang-outang, is of course the life of a martyr, pure and simple. They all fall into profound hypochondria if tuberculosis is too slow to kill them. Consumption is, as everybody knows, the cause of the death of most imprisoned monkeys, big and small. The symptoms, evolution and ending of the disease, are exactly the same as with us. It is not the cold air, but the lack of air that starts the disease. Most of the monkeys stand

80 PATIENTS

the cold surprisingly well, if provided with ample accommodation for exercise and snug sleeping quarters for the night, shared with a rabbit as bed companion for the sake of warmth. As soon as autumn begins, ever vigilant Mother Nature who watches over the monkeys as well as over us, sets to work to provide their shivering bodies with extra fur-coats, suitable for northern winters. This applies to most tropical animals imprisoned in northern climates, who would all live much longer if allowed to live in the open air. Most Zoological Gardens seem to ignore this fact. Perhaps it is better so. Whether the prolongation of the lives of these un- happy animals is a thing to be desired I leave to you to ponder over. My answer is in the negative. Death is more merciful than we are.

VI CHATEAU RAMEAUX '

PARIS in summer-time is a very pleasant place for those who belong to the Paris qui s'amuse, "but if you happen to belong to the Paris qui travaille, it becomes another matter. Especially so if you have to cope with an epidemic of typhoid at the Villette among the hundreds of Scandinavian workmen, and an epidemic of diphtheria in the Quartier Montpamasse among your Italian friends and their innumerable children. Indeed, there was no lack of Scandinavian children either in the Villette; and the few families who hadn't got any seemed to have chosen this very time to bring them to the world, as often as not with no other assistance, sage-femme included, than myself. Most of the children too small to catch typhoid started scarlet fever and the rest whooping-cough. Of course there was no money to pay for a French doctor, so it fell upon me to look after them as well as I could. It was no joke, there were over thirty cases of typhoid among the Scandinavian workmen in the Villette alone. Anyhow I man- aged to go to the Swedish church in Boulevard Ornano every Sunday to please my friend the Swedish chaplain, who said it was to set a good example to others. The congregation had dwindled down to half its usual number, the other half was

81

82 CHATEAU EAMEAUX

in bed or nursing somebody in bed. The chaplain was on his legs from morning till night, assisting and helping the sick and the poor, a more kind- hearted man I have never set eyes on, and he was. penniless too. The only reward he ever got was that he brought the infection to his own home. The two eldest of his eight children caught typhoid,, five had scarlet fever, and his last born swallowed a two-franc piece and nearly died of intestinal occlusion. Then the Swedish Consul, a most peaceful and quiet little man, suddenly became a raving lunatic, and, for the matter of that, nearly killed me; but I will tell you this story another time.

Up in Quartier Montparnasse it was a far more- serious business, although in many ways it seemecj almost easier work to me. I am ashamed to say that I got on much better with these poor Italians than with my own compatriots, who were often difficult to handle, sullen, dissatisfied and rather exacting and selfish. .The Italians on the other hand, who had brought nothing with them from their own country but their small means, their all-enduring patience and cheerfulness and their charming manners, were always satisfied and grate- ful and extraordinarily helpful to each other. When diphtheria broke out in the Salvatore family, Arcangelo Fusco, the street-sweeper, stopped work at once and became a most devoted nurse to them all. All three little girls caught diphtheria, the eldest girl died and the following day the worn- out mother caught the terrible disease. Only the child of sorrow, Petruccio, the helpless idiot, was- spared by the inscrutable will of God Almighty..

DIPHTHERIA 83

The whole Impasse Rousselle became infected, there was diphtheria in every house and not a family without several small children. Both the hospitals for children were over-crowded. Even had there been a vacant bed the chances of getting admission for these foreign children would have been next to none. So they had to be at- tended by Arcangelo Fusco and myself, and those we had no time to see, and they were many, had to live or die as best they could. No doctor who has gone through the ordeal of fighting single- handed an epidemic of diphtheria amongst the very poor with no means of disinfection either for others or for himself, can think of such an ex- perience without a shudder, however callous he may be. I had to sit there for hours, painting and scraping the throat of one child after another, there was not much more to be done in those days. And then when it was no longer possible to detach the poisonous membranes obstructing the air pas- sages, when the child became livid and on the point of suffocation and the urgent indication for tracheotomy presented itself, with lightning ra- pidity! Must I operate at once, with not even a table to put the child on, on this low bed or on its mother's lap, by the light of this wretched oil-lamp and no other assistant than a street- sweeper! Can't I wait till to-morrow and try to get hold of somebody who is more of a surgeon than I am? Can I wait, dare I wait? Alas! I have waited till to-morrow when it was too late and seen the child die before my eyes. I have also operated at once and no doubt saved the life of a child, but I have also operated at once and

84 CHATEAU BAMEAUX

seen the child die under my knife. My case was even worse than that of many other doctors in a similar plight, for I was myself in deadly fear of diphtheria, a fear I have never been able to overcome. But Arcangelo Fusco was not afraid. He knew the danger as well as I did, for he had seen the terrible infection spreading from one to another, but he had never a single thought for his own safety, he only thought of the others. When all was over, I was complimented right and left, even by the Assistance Publique, but no- body ever said a word to Arcangelo Fusco who had sold his Sunday clothes to pay the undertaker who took away the body of the little girl.

Yes, there came a time when all was over, when Arcangelo Fusco returned to his street sweeping and I to my fashionable patients. While I had been spending my days at the Villette and Mont- parnasse, the Parisians had been hard at work packing their trunks and departing to their cha- teaux or their favourite seaside watering-places. The Boulevards - were in the hands of pleasure- seeking foreigners who had crowded to Paris from all parts of the civilized and uncivilized world to spend their surplus money. Many were sitting in my waiting-room, impatiently reading their Baedekers, always insisting on passing in first, seldom asking for anything more than a pick- me-up, from a man much more in need of it than they were. Others, comfortably established on their chaises-longue in their smartest tea-gowns, derniere creation Worth, sent for me from their fashionable hotels at the most awkward hours of the day and the night, expecting me to "fix them

WALKING HOME 85

up" for the Bal Masque de 1' Opera to-morrow. They did not send for me twice and I was not surprised.

What a waste of time! thought I as I walked home, dragging my tired legs along the burning asphalt of the Boulevards under the dust-covered chestnut-trees gasping with drooping leaves for a breath of fresh air.

" I know what is the matter with you and me," said I to the chestnut-trees, "we need a change of air, to get out of the atmosphere of the big city. But how are we to get away from this inferno, you with your aching roots imprisoned under the asphalt and with that iron ring round your feet, and I with all these rich Americans in my waiting- room and lots of other patients in their beds? And if I were to go away, who would look after the monkeys in the Jardin des Plantes? Who would cheer up the panting Polar Bear, now that his worst time was about to come? He won't under- stand a single word other kind people may say to him, he who only understands Swedish! And what about Quartier Montparnasse? Montpar- nasse! I shuddered as the word flew through my brain, I saw the livid face of a child in the dim light of a little oil-lamp, I saw the blood oozing from the cut I had just made in the child's throat, and I heard the cry of terror from the heart of the mother* What would the Countess say? . . . The Countess! No, there was decidedly some- thing wrong with me, it was high time to look after my own nerves instead of the nerves of others, if such things could be seen and heard on the Boulevard Malesherbes. And what the devil had

86 CHATEAtT RAMEAUX

I to do with the Countess? She was getting on splendidly in her chateau in Touraine, according to Monsieur 1' Abbe's last letter, and I was getting on splendidly in Paris, the most beautiful city in the world. All I was in need of was a little sleep. But what would the Count say if I wrote him a letter to-night that I gladly accepted his kind in- vitation and was starting to-morrow? If I could only sleep to-night! Why shouldn't I take myself one of those excellent sleeping-draughts I used to concoct for my patients, a strong sleeping-draught that would send me to sleep for twenty-four hours and make me forget everything, Montparnasse, the chateau in Touraine, the Countess and all the rest? I lay down on my bed without taking off my clothes, I was so tired. But I did not take the sleeping-draught, les cuisiniers n'ont pas faim, as they say in Paris. On entering my consulting- room next morning, I found a letter on the table. It was from Monsieur 1'Abbe with a P.S. in the handwriting of the Count:

" You said you liked the song of the skylark the best. He is singing still, but it will not be for long, so you had better come soon."

The skylark! And I who had not heard any other birds for two years but the sparrows in the

Tuileries Gardens!

* * #

The horses which took me from the station were beautiful, the chateau dating from the time of Richelieu, in its vast park of secular lime-trees, was beautiful, the Louis XVI furniture in my sumptuous room was beautiful, the big St. Bernard dog who followed me upstairs was beautiful — •

HOLIDAYS 87

everything was beautiful. So was the Countess in her simple white frock with a single La France rose in her waistband. I thought her eyes had grown bigger than ever. The Count was alto- gether another man, with his rosy cheeks and wide- awake eyes. His charming welcome took away at once my shyness, I was still a barbarian from Ultima Thule, I had never been in such sumptuous surroundings before. M. TAbbe greeted me as an old friend. The Count said there was just time for a stroll in the garden before tea, or would I prefer to have a look at the stables? I was given a basket full of carrots to give one to each of a dozen magnificent horses who stood there in their well-groomed coats aligned in their boxes of pol- ished oak.

" You had better give him an extra carrot to make friends at once," said the Count. " He be- longs to you as long as you are here, and this is your groom," he added, pointing to an English boy who lifted his hand to his cap to salute me.

Yes, the Countess was wonderfully well, said the Count as we strolled back through the garden. She hardly ever spoke about her colitis, went to visit her poor in the village every morning and was discussing with the village doctor the turning of an old farm into an infirmary for sick children. On her birthday all the poor children of the village had been invited to the Castle for coffee and cake and before they left she had presented a doll to every child. Wasn't it a charming idea of hers?

"If she speaks to you about her dolls, don't forget to say something nice to her."

" No, I won't forget, je ne demande pas mieux."

88 CHATEAU BAMEAUX

Tea was served under the big lime-tree in front of the house.

" Here is a friend of yours, my dear Ann," said the Countess to the lady sitting by her side, as we walked up to the table. " I am sorry to say he seems to prefer the company of horses to ours; so far he hasn't had time to say a single word to me, but has been talking half-an-hour to the horses in the stables."

" And they seemed to have liked the conversa- tion immensely," laughed the Count, " even my old hunter, you know how ill-tempered he is with strangers, put his nose to the doctor's face and sniffed at him in the most friendly manner."

The Baroness Ann said she was glad to see me and gave me excellent news about her mother-in- law, the Marquise Douairiere.

" She even thinks she can hear better, but of that I am not sure, for she cannot hear Loulou's snoring and gets quite angry when my husband says he can hear it down in the smoking-room. Anyhow, her beloved Loulou has been a blessing to us all, she could never stand being alone before and it was so fatiguing to talk to her the whole time through her ear-trumpet. Now she sits quite alone for hours with her Loulou on her lap and if you could see her cantering about in the garden every morning to exercise Loulou, you would hardly believe your eyes, she who never left her arm-chair. I remember how you spid that she must walk a little every day and how angry you looked when she said she hadn't got the strength. It is indeed a marvellous change. Of course you say it is all the nasty medicine you have given her,

HOLIDAYS 89

but I say it is Loulou, bless him, he is welcome to snore as much as he likes I "

"Look at Leo," said the Count changing the conversation, " look at him with his head on the doctor's lap, as if he had known him ever since he was born. He has even forgotten to come and beg for his biscuit."

" What is the matter with you, Leo? " said the Countess. "You had better look out, old boy, or the doctor will hypnotize you. He has been working with Charcot at the Salpetriere and he can make people do anything he likes only by looking at them. Why don't you make Leo speak Swedish with you? "

" Certainly not, there is no language so sym- pathetic to my ears as his silence. I am not a hypnotizer, I am only a great lover of animals, and all animals understand this at once and love you in return."

" I suppose you are just trying to mesmerize that squirrel on the branch over your head," said the Baroness, "you have been sitting staring at him the whole time without paying the slightest attention to us. Why don't you make him climb >4own from his tree and come and sit on your lap beside Leo? "

" If you will give me a nut and all go away, I think I can make bin* come down and take it out of my hand."

" You are polite, Monsieur le Suedois," laughed the Countess, "come along, Ann dear, he wants us all to go away and leave him alone with his squirrel."

" Don't make fun of me, I am the last to wish

90 CHATEAU RAMEAUX

you to go away, I am so glad to see you again."

" Vous etes tres galant, Monsieur le Docteur, it is the first compliment you have ever paid me, and I like compliments."

" I am not a doctor here, I am your guest."

"And cannot your doctor pay you a compli- ment? "

" Not if the patient looks like you and the doctor is under the age of your father, not even if he wants to badly."

"Well, all I can say is that if ever you wanted to, you have jolly well resisted the temptation. You have bullied me almost every time I have seen you. The first time I set eyes on you, you were so rude to me that I nearly went away, don't you remember? Ann dear, do you know what he said to me? He looked sternly at me and said with his most atrocious Swedish accent: * Madame la Comtesse, you are more in need of discipline than of drugs!* Discipline! Is that the way a Swedish doctor speaks to a young lady the first time she comes to consult him? "

" I am not a Swedish doctor, I have taken my degree in Paris."

"Well, I have consulted dozens of Paris doc* tors, but no one has ever dared to speak to me about discipline."

" That is the very reason why you have been obliged to consult so many."

"Do you know what he said to my mother- in-law? " rejoined the Baroness. " He said in a very angry voice that if she didn't obey him, he would go away and never come back, even if she had colitis! I heard it myself from the drawing-

THE BEAB STORY 91

room and when I rushed in I thought the Mar- quise was going to have a fit. You know I am recommending you to all my friends, but don't take it amiss if I tell you that you Swedes are much too rough-handed for us Latin people. I have been told by more than one of your patients that your bed-side manners are deplorable. We are not accustomed to be ordered about like school- children."

"Why don't you try to be a little more amiable? " smiled the Countess enjoying the fun immensely.

" I wiU try."

"Tell us a story/* said the Baroness, as we were sitting in the drawing-room after dinner. " You doctors come across so many odd people and are mixed up in so many strange situations. You know more of real life than anybody else, I am sure you have a lot to tell us if you want to."

"Perhaps you are right, but we are not sup- posed to talk about our patients, and as to real life, I am afraid I am too young to know much about it."

" Tell us at least what you do know," insisted the Baroness.

" I know that life is beautiful, but I also know that we often make a mess of it and turn it into a silly farce or a heart-rending tragedy, or both, so much so that one ends by not knowing whether to cry or to laugh. It is easier to cry, but far better to laugh, so long as one doesn't laugh aloud."

92 CHATEAU EAMEAUX

" Tell us an animal story," said the Countess to help me on to safer ground. " They say your country is full of bears, fell us something about them, tell us a Bear-story! "

"There was once a lady who lived in an old manor-house on the border of a big forest, high up in the North. This lady had a pet bear she was very fond of. It had been found in the forest half -dead of hunger, so small and helpless that it had to be brought up on the bottle by the lady and the old cook. This was several years ago and now it had grown up to a big bear, so big and strong that he could have slain a cow and carried it away between his two paws if he had wanted to. But he did not want to, he was a most amiable bear who did not dream of harm- ing anybody, man or beast. He used to sit out- side his kennel and look with his small intelligent eyes most amicably at the cattle grazing in the field near by. The three shaggy mountain ponies in the stable knew him well and did not mind in the least when he shuffled into the stable with his mistress. The children used to ride on his back and had more than once been found asleep in his kennel between his two paws. The three Lap- land dogs loved to play all sorts of games with liim, pull his ears and his stump of a tail and tease him in every way, but he did not mind it in the least. He had never tasted meat, he ate the same food as the dogs and often out of the same plate, bread, porridge, potatoes, cabbages, turnips. He had a fine appetite, but his friend the cook saw to it that he got his fill. Bears are

THE BEAB STORY 93

vegetarians if they have a chance, fruit is what they like the best. In the autumn he used to sit and look with wistful eyes at the ripening apples in the orchard and in his young days he had been sometimes unable to resist the temptation to climb the tree and help himself to a handful of them. Bears look clumsy and slow in their movements, but try a bear with an apple-tree and you will soon find out that he can easily beat any school- boy at that game. Now he had learnt that it was against the law, but he kept his small eyes wide-open for any apples that fell to the ground. There had also been some difficulties about the beehives; he had been punished for this by being put on the chain for two days with a bleeding nose and he had never done it again. Otherwise he was never put on the chain except for the night and quite rightly so, for a bear, like a dog, is apt to get somewhat ill-tempered if kept on the chain, and no wonder. He was also put on the chain on Sundays when his mistress went to spend the afternoon with her married sister who lived in a solitary house on the other side of the moun- tain-lake, a good hour's walk through the dense forest. It was not supposed to be good for him to wander about in the forest with all its temptations, it was better to be on the safe side. He was also a bad sailor and had once taken such a fright at a sudden gust of wind that he had upset the boat and he and his mis- tress had had to swim to the shore. Now he knew quite well what it meant when his mistress put him on the chain on Sundays, with a friendly tap on his head and the promise of an apple on

94 CHATEAU EAMEAUX

her return if he had been good during her absence. He was sorry but resigned, like a good dog when his mistress tells him he cannot come with her for a walk. One Sunday when the lady had chained him up as usual and was about half-way through the forest, she suddenly thought she heard the cracking of a tree-branch on the winding foot-path behind her. She looked back and was horrified to see the bear coming along full-speed. Bears look as if they move along quite slowly but they shuffle along much faster than a trotting horse. In a minute he had joined her, panting and sniffing, to take up his usual place, dog-fashion, at her heels. The lady was very angry, she was already late for luncheon, there was no time to take him back home, she did not want him to come with her, and it was besides very naughty of him to have disobeyed her and broken away from his chain. She ordered him in her severest voice to go back at once, men- acing him with her parasol. He stopped a mo- ment and looked at her with his cunning eyes, but did not want to go back and kept on sniffing at her. When the lady saw that he had even lost his new collar, she got still more angry and hit him on the nose with her parasol so hard that it broke in two. He stopped again, shook his head and opened his big mouth several times as if he wanted to say something. Then he turned round and began to shuffle back the way he had come, stopping now and then to look at the lady tifl at last she lost sight of him. When the lady came home in the evening, he was sitting in his usual place outside his kennel looking very sorry

THE BEAR STOB.Y 95

for himself. The lady was still very angry, and went up to him and began to scold him most severely and said he would have no apple and no supper and that he would have to be chained for two days as well. The old cook who loved the bear as if he had been her son rushed out from the kitchen very angry:

* What are you scolding him for, missus! * said the cook, *he has been as good as gold the whole day, bless him! He has been sitting here quite still on his haunches as meek as an angel, looking the whole time towards the gate for you to come back/

It was another bear."

The clock in the tower struck eleven.

" Time to go to bed," said the Count. " I have ordered our horses for seven o'clock to-morrow morning."

" Sleep well and pleasant dreams," said the Countess as I went up to my room.

I did not sleep much, but I dreamt a lot.

Leo scratched at my door at six next morning and punctually at seven the Count and I rode down the avenue of splendid old lime-trees lead- ing to the woods. Soon we were in a real forest of elms and beeches with here and there a mag- nificent oak. The woods were silent, only now and then we heard the rhythmic tapping of the wood-pecker or the cooing of a wild pigeon, the sharp cry of a nut-hatch or the deep alto of a blackbird singing the last stropihes of his ballad. Soon we emerged on a vast open stretch

96 CHATEAU EAMEAUX

of fields and meadows in full sunlight. There he was, the beloved skylark, quivering on invisible wings high up in the sky, pouring out his very heart to heaven and earth with thrills of joy of life. I looked at the little bird and blessed him again as I had so often done before in the frozen North when as a child I used to sit and watch with grateful eyes the grey little messen- ger of summer, sure at last that the long winter was over.

" It is his last concert," said the Count. " His time is up, he will soon have to set to work to help to feed his children and there will be no more time for singing and skylarking. You are right, he is the greatest artist of them all, he sings from his very heart."

" To think that there are men capable of kill- ing this harmless little songster! You have only to go to Les Halles to find them in hundreds and hundreds for sale to other men who have the stomach to eat them. Their voices fill the whole sky overhead with gladness but their poor little dead bodies are so small that a child can clasp them in the palm of his hand, and yet we eat them with gluttony as though there was nothing else to eat. We shudder at the very word of canni- balism and we hang the savage who wants to in- dulge in this habit of his ancestors, but the murdering and eating of little birds remains un- punished."

" You are an idealist, my dear doctor."

" No, they call it sentimentality and only sneer at it. Let them sneer as much as they like, I do not care. But mark my words I The time will

THE SKYLASK 97

come when they will cease to sneer, when they will understand that the animal world was placed by the Creator under our protection, and not at our mercy: that animals have as much right to live as we have, and that our right to take their lives is strictly limited to our right of defence and our right of existence. The time will come when the mere pleasure of killing will die out in man. As long as it is there, man has no claim to call himself civilized, he is a mere bar- barian, a missing link between his wild ancestors who slew each other with stone axes for a piece of raw flesh and the man of the future. The necessity of killing wild animals is indisputable, but their executioners, the proud hunters of to-day, will sink down to the same level as the butchers of domestic animals."

** Perhaps you are right," said the Count look- ing up in the sky once more as we turned our horses and rode back to the Castle.

While we were at luncheon, a valet brought the Countess a telegram which she handed to the Count who read it without saying a word.

"I think you have already met my cousin Maurice," said the Countess. "He wiH be here for dinner if he can catch the four o'clock train, he is in garrison in Tours."

Yes, the Vicomte Maurice was with us for dinner, very much so. He was a tall, handsome young fellow with a narrow, sloping forehead, enormous ears, a cruel jaw and a moustache a la general Gallif et.

" Quel plaisir inattendu, Monsieur le Suedois,

98 CHATEAU BAMEAUX

to meet you here, very unexpected I am sure! " This time he condescended to give me his hand, a small, flabby hand with a particularly un- pleasant grip which facilitated my classification of the man. Remained only to hear him laugh and he lost no time to offer me this opportunity. His loud monotonous giggle echoed through the room during the whole of dinner. He began at once to tell the Countess a very risky story of the misadventure which had just happened to one of his comrades who had found his mistress in the bed of his orderly. Monsieur 1'Abbe was beginning to look very uncomfortable when the Count cut him short by telling his wife across the table about our morning-ride, that the wheat was in excellent condition, the clover abundant and that we heard a belated skylark singing his last concert.

" Nonsense," said the Vicomte. " There are still plenty of them on the wing, I shot one yesterday and a finer shot I never made, the little beast did not look bigger than a butter- fly."

I got red in my face -to the roots of my hair but the Abbe stopped me in time by putting his hand on my knee.

" You are a brute, Maurice," said the Countess, "to kill a skylark."

"And why shouldn't I shoot a skylark? There are plenty of them and they are besides an excellent target for practising, I know of none better unless it be a swallow. You know, my dear Juliette, I am the crack shot of my regiment and unless I keep on practising I shall soon get

VICOMTE MAURICE 99

rusty. Luckily there are any amount of swal- lows round our barracks, hundreds and hundreds are nesting under the eaves of the stables, they are busy feeding their young just now and darting to and fro the whole time just before my window. It is great fun, I have a go at them every morn- ing without even leaving my room. Yesterday I made a bet of a thousand francs with Gaston that I would drop six out of ten and, would you believe it, I dropped eight 1 I know nothing better for daily practice than swallows. I always say it ought to be made compulsory in all ficoles de Tir." He stopped a moment carefully counting the drops he was pouring in his wine-glass from a little bottle of medicine.

" Now, Juliette dear, don't be silly, come along with me to Paris to-morrow, you need a little spree after having been here all alone for weeks in this out-of-the-way place. It will be a splen- did sight, the finest tournament there has ever been, all the best shots of France will be there, and as sure as my name is Maurice, you will see the gold medal offered by the President of the Republic handed over to your cousin. We will have a jolly dinner at the Cafe Anglais and then I will take you to the Palais Royal to see * Une nuit de noces/ It is a' most charming play, very rigolo indeed, I have seen it already four times but I should love to see it again with you at my side. The bed stands in the middle of the stage with the lover hidden under it and the bridegroom who is an old . . ."

The Count, visibly annoyed, made a sign to his wife and we stood up from the table.

100 CHATEAU EAMEAUX

" I could never kill a skylark," said the Count drily.

" No, my dear Robert," roared the Vicomte, " I know you couldn't, you would miss it! "

I went up to my room almost in tears with suppressed rage and shame of having suppressed it. While I was packing my bag, the Abbe entered the room. I begged him to tell the Count I had been summoned to Paris and was obliged to take the midnight train.

"I never want to set my eyes upon this con- founded brute any more or I will smash his insolent monocle out of his empty head! "

" You had better not attempt anything of the sort or he would kill you outright. It is quite true he is a famous shot, I do not know how many duels he has fought, he is always quarrelling with people, he has a very nasty tongue. All I ask of you is to keep your nerves in hand for thirty-six hours. He is going away to-morrow night for the tournament in Paris, and let me tell you, entre nous, that I shall be as glad to see him go as you are."

"Why?"

The Abbe remained silent.

"Well, Monsieur 1'Abbe, I will tell you why. Because he is in love with his cousin and you dislike and distrust him."

" Since you have guessed the truth, and God knows how, I had better tell you, he wanted to marry her, but she refused him. Luckily she doesn't like him."

" But she fears him, which is almost worse."

VICOMTE MAUBICE 101

" The Count dislikes very much his friend- ship with the Countess and that is why he didn't want her to remain alone in Paris where he was always taking her out to parties and theatres."

" I do not believe he is going away to-mor-

row."

" He is sure to go, he is much too keen on getting his Gold Medal as he very likely will, it is quite true he is a crack shot."

" I wish I was, I would like to shoot down this brute to avenge the swallows. Do you know anything about his parents? I guess there is some- thing wrong there."

" His mother was a German Countess and very beautiful, he gets his good looks from her, but I understand it was a very unhappy marriage. His father was a heavy drinker and was known as an irascible and queer man. He got almost mad in the end. There are people who say he com* mitted suicide."

" I earnestly hope his son will follow his example, the sooner the better. As to being mad, he is not far from it."

" You are right, it is true that the Vicomte is very odd in many ways. For instance he, who as you can see is as strong as a horse, is always fussing about his health and in con- stant fear of catching all sorts of illnesses. Last time he was staying here, the son of the gar- dener caught typhoid and he left at once. He is always taking drugs, you may have noticed he even helped himself to some medicine during dinner."

102 CHATEAU EAMEAUX

"Yes, it was the only moment he held his tongue/'

"He is always consulting new doctors, it is unfortunate that he does not like you, otherwise I am sure you would get a new patient. . . . What on earth are you laughing at? "

" I am laughing at something very funny that has just passed through my head. There is nothing better than a good laugh for a man who is angry! You saw in what a state I was when you came into my room. You will be glad to hear that I am all right again now and in the best of tempers. I have changed my mind, I am not going away to-night. Do let us go down and join the others in the smok- ing-room. I promise you to be on my very best behaviour."

The Vicomte, red in the face, was standing in front of the big mirror nervously twitch- ing his moustache a la general Gallifet. The Count was sitting near the window reading his ' Figaro/

" Quel plaisir inattendu to meet you here, Monsieur le Suedois! " giggled the Vicomte, screw- ing in his monocle as if to see better how much I would stand. " I hope no new case of colitis has brought you here."

" No, not so far, but one never knows."

" I understand you specialize in colitis, what a pity nobody else seems to know anything about this most interesting disease, you evidently keep it all to yourself. Will you oblige me by telling me what is colitis? Is it catching? "

" No, not in the ordinary sense of the word."

" Is it dangerous? "

VICOMTE MAURICE 103

"No, not if taken in hand immediately, and properly attended to."

" By you, I suppose? "

" I am not a doctor here, the Count has been kind enough to invite me here as his guest."

"Really! But what will happen to all your patients in Paris while you are away? "

" I suppose they will recover."

" I am sure they will," roared the Vicomte.

I had to go and sit down beside the Abbe and get hold of a paper to steady myself. The Vicomte looked nervously at the clock over the mantelpiece.

" I am going up to fetch Juliette for a stroll in the park, it is a pity to remain indoors in this beautiful moonlight."

"My wife has gone to bed," said the Count drily from his chair, " she was not feeling very well."

" Why the devil didn't you tell me? " retorted the Vicomte angrily, helping himself to another glass of brandy and soda.

The Abbe was reading the * Journal des Debats/ but I noticed that his sly old eye never stopped watching us.

" Any news, Monsieur TAbb6? "

" I was just reading about the tournament of ' La Societ6 du Tir de France ' the day after to- morrow and that the President has offered a gold medal to the winner."

" I will bet you a thousand francs that it will be mine," shouted the Vicomte, banging his fist on his broad chest, "unless there is a railway smash on the Paris night-express to-morrow or*

104 CHATEAU RAMEAUX

he added with a malicious grin at me, " unless I get colitis!"

" Stop that brandy, Maurice," said the Count from his corner, " you have had more than is good for you, tu es saoul comme un Polonais ! "

" Cheer up, Doctor Colitis," giggled the Vicomte, " don't look so dejected. Have a brandy and soda, there may still be a chance for you! I am sorry I cannot oblige you, but why don't you have a go at the Abbe who is always complaining about his liver and his digestion. Monsieur 1'Abbe, won't you oblige Doctor Colitis, can't you see he is longing to have a look at your tongue? "

The Abbe kept reading his c Journal des Debats ' in silence.

"You won't! And what about you, Robert? You looked sulky enough during dinner. Why don't you show your tongue to the Suedois? I am sure you have got colitis! Won't you oblige the doctor? No? Well, Doctor Colitis, you have no luck. But to put you in better spirits I will show you mine, have a good look at it."

He put out his tongue to me with a diabolical grin. He looked like one of the gargoyles of Notre Dame.

I stood up and examined his tongue atten- tively.

"You have a very nasty tongue," said I gravely, after a moment's silence, " a very nasty tongue!" He turned round immediately to examine his tongue in the mirror — the ugly, coated tongue of the inveterate smoker. I took his hand and felt his pulse, slashed to fever speed

IN THE SMOKING-ROOM 105

by a bottle of champagne and three brandies and sodas.

" Your pulse is very quick," said I.

I put my hand on his sloping forehead.

"Any headache?"

" No."

" You will have it when you wake up to-morrow morning, no doubt."

The Abbe dropped his * Journal des Debats/

" Unbutton your trousers," I said sternly.

He obeyed automatically, docile like a lamb.

I gave him a rapid tap over his diaphragm, which started a hiccup.

" Ah! " said I. Looking him fixedly in the eyes, I said slowly: " Thank you, that is enough."

The Count dropped his e Figaro.5

The Abbe raised his arms to Heaven, his mouth wide open.

The Vicomte stood speechless before me.

" Button your trousers," I commanded, " and have a brandy and soda, you will need it." He buttoned his trousers mechanically and gulped down the brandy and soda I handed him.

" To your health, Monsieur le Vicomte," said I, raising my glass to my lips, "to your healthl"

He wiped the perspiration from his forehead and turned again to look at his tongue in the mirror. He made a desperate effort to laugh, which however did not succeed.

" Do you mean to say that, do you think, do you mean to say . . ."

"I do not mean to say anything, I have not said anything, I am not your doctor/*

106 CHATEAU BAMEAUX

" But what am I to do? " he stammered.

" You are to go to bed, the sooner the better, or you will have to be carried there." I went to the mantelpiece and rang the bell.

" Take the Vicomte to his room," I said to the footman, " and tell his valet to put him to bed at once."

Leaning heavily on the arm of the footman, the Vicomte reeled to the door.

I went for a beautiful ride next morning all by myself, and there was the lark again high up in the sky, singing his morning hymn to the sun.

" I have avenged the murder of your brothers," said I to the skylark, "We will see about the swallows later on."

While I was sitting in my room having break- fast with Leo, there was a knock at the door and in came a timid-looking little man who saluted me most politely. It was the village doctor who said he had come to pay his respects to his Paris colleague. I was much flattered and begged him to sit down and have a cigarette. He told me about some interesting cases he had had of late, the conversation began to languish and he stood up to go.

"By-the-by, I was sent for last night to Vicomte Maurice and have just called on him again."

I said I was sorry to hear the Vicomte was unwell, knit hoped it was nothing serious, I had the pleasure to see him last night at dinner in splendid health and spirits.

THE TILLAGE DOCTOB 107

" I don't know," said the Doctor, " the case is somewhat obscure, I think it is safer to postpone a definite opinion."

"You are a wise man, mon cher confrere, of course you keep hi™ in bed? "

" Of course. It is unfortunate the Vicomte was to leave for Paris to-day, but that is of course out of the question."

" Of course. Is he lucid? "

"Fairly so."

" As much as can be expected from him, I sup- pose? "

" To tell you the truth I took it at first for a simple embarras gastrique, but he woke up with a violent headache and now a persistent hiccup has set in. He looks wretched, he himself is con- vinced he has got colitis. I confess I have never attended a case of colitis, I wanted to give him a dose of castor-oil, he has a very nasty tongue, but if colitis is anything like appendicitis, I suppose it is better to beware of the castor-oil. What do you think? He is feeling his pulse the whole time when he is not looking at his tongue. Strange to say he feels very hungry, he was furious when I did not allow him his breakfast."

" You were quite right, you had better be firm and keep on the safe side, nothing but water for the next forty-eight hours."

" Quite so."

" It is not for me to give you any advice, it is dear you know your business, but I do not share your hesitation about the castor-oil. If I were you, I would give him a stiff dose, no good mincing it, three table spoon-fulls would do him a lot of good."

108 CHATEAU BAMEAUX

" Did you really mean to say three table spoon- fulls?"

" Yes, at least, and above all no food whatsoever, only water."

" Quite so/'

I liked the village doctor very much and we parted great friends.

In the afternoon the Countess drove me to pay my respects to the Marquise Douairiere. A beautiful drive through shadowy lanes full of bird-twitter and humming insects. The Countess had got tired of teasing me, but she was in excellent spirits and seemed not to worry in the least about the sudden illness of her cousin. The Marquise was going on splendidly, she said, but had been terribly upset a week ago by the sudden disappearance of Loulou, the whole household had been on their legs during the night in search of him. The Marquise had not closed her eyes and was still prostrated in her bed when Loulou had turned up in the afternoon with an ear split in two and an eye nearly out of its socket. His mistress had wired at once for the vet from Tours, and Loulou was all right again. Loulou