Chapter IV

Eight days after the abduction of Dolores Salcedo by Captain Horace, Abbé Ledoux, in bed, received the visit of his physician.

The invalid, lying in a soft bed standing in the alcove of a comfortable apartment, had always a fat and ruddy face; his triple chin descended to the collar of a fine shirt made of Holland cloth, and the purple brilliancy of the holy man's complexion contrasted with the immaculate whiteness of his cotton cap, bound, according to the ancient custom, with an orange-coloured ribbon. Notwithstanding these indications of plethoric health, the abbé, his head propped on his pillow in a doleful manner, uttered from time to time the most plaintive groans, while his hand, small and effeminate, was given to his physician, who was gravely feeling his pulse.

Doctor Gasterini,--such was the name of the physician,--although seventy-five years old, did not look sixty. Tall and erect, as well as lean and nervous, with a clear complexion and rosy lips, the doctor, when he smiled with his pleasant, elegant air, disclosed thirty-two teeth of irreproachable whiteness, which seemed to combine the polish of ivory with the sharp durability of steel; a forest of white hair, naturally curled, encircled the amiable and intelligent face of the doctor. Dressed always in black, with a certain affectation, he remained faithful to the tradition of small-clothes made of silk cloth, with shoe buckles of gold, and silk stockings, which clearly delineated his strong, sinewy legs.

Doctor Gasterini was holding delicately between his thumb and his index finger--whose rosy polished nails might have been the envy of a pretty woman--the wrist of his patient, who religiously awaited the decision of his physician.

"My dear abbé," said the doctor, "you are not at all sick."

"But, doctor--"

"You have a soft, pliant skin, and sixty-five pulsations to the minute. It would be impossible to find conditions of better health."

"But, again, doctor, I--"

"But, again, abbé, you are not sick. I am a good judge, perhaps."

"And I tell you, doctor, that I have not closed my eyes the whole night. Madame Siboulet, my housekeeper, has been on her feet constantly,--she gave me several times some drops made by the good sisters."

"Stuff!"

"And orange flower distilled at the Sacred Heart."

"The devil!"

"Yes, doctor, you may laugh; none of these remedies have given me relief. I have done nothing but turn over and over all night long in my bed. Alas, alas! I am not well. I have an excitement, an insupportable weariness."

"Perhaps, my dear abbé, you experienced yesterday some annoyance, some contradiction, and as you are very obstinate, very conceited, very spiteful--"

"I?"

"You."

"Doctor, I assure you--"

"This annoyance, I tell you, might have put you in a diabolical humour; for I know no remedy which can prevent these vexations. As to being ill, or even indisposed, you are not the least so in the world, my dear abbé."

"Then why did I ask you to come to see me this morning?"

"You ought to know that better than I, my dear abbé; nevertheless, I suspect the unusual motive which has made you desire my visit."

"That is rather hard."

"No, not very hard, for we are old acquaintances, and I know all your tricks, my dear abbé."

"My tricks!--you know my tricks?"

"You contrive excellent ones, sometimes,--but to return to our subject, I believe that, under a pretext of sickness which really does not exist, you have sent for me to learn from me, directly or indirectly, something which is of interest to you."

"Come, doctor, that is rather a disagreeable pleasantry."

"Wait, my dear abbé. In my youth I was physician to the Duke d'Otrante, when he was minister of police. He enjoyed, like you, perfect health, yet there was scarcely a day that he did not exact a visit from me. I was unsophisticated then, and, although well equipped in my profession, I had need of patrons, so, notwithstanding my visits to his Excellency seemed unnecessary, I went to his house regularly every day, about the hour he made his toilet, and we conversed. The minister was very inquisitive, and as I was professionally thrown with persons of all conditions, he, with charming good nature, plied me with questions concerning my patients. I responded with all the sincerity of my soul. One day I arrived, as I have told you, at the minister's house, when he had just completed his toilet, the very moment when a journeyman barber, the most uncleanly-looking knave I had ever seen in my life, had finished shaving him.

"'M. duke,' said I to the minister, after the barber had departed, 'how is it that, instead of being shaved by one of your valets, you prefer the services of these frightful journeyman barbers whom you change almost every fortnight?'

"'My dear,' replied the duke in a confidential tone, "'you cannot imagine how much one can learn about all sorts of people and things, when one knows how to set such fellows as that prattling.' Was this confession an amusement or a blunder on the part of this great man, or, rather, did he think me too silly to comprehend the full significance of his words? I do not know; but I do know that this avowal enlightened me as to the real intention of his Excellency in having me chat with him so freely every morning. After that, I responded with much circumspection to the questions of the cunning chief, who knew so well how to put in practice the transcendent maxim, 'The best spies are those who are spies without knowing it.'"

"The anecdote is interesting, as are all that you tell, my dear doctor," replied the abbé, with repressed anger, "but I swear to you that your allusion is entirely inapplicable, and that, alas! I am very sick."

"Forty years yet of such illness, and you will become a centenarian, my dear abbé," said the doctor, rising and preparing to take his leave.

"Oh, what a man! what a man!" cried the abbé. "Do listen to me, doctor, you have a heart of bronze; can you abandon a poor sick man in this manner? Give me five minutes!"

"So be it; let us chat if you wish it, my dear abbé. I have a quarter of an hour at your disposal; you are a man of mind, I cannot better employ the time given to this visit."

"Ah, doctor, you are cruel!"

"If you wish a more agreeable physician, address some others of my fraternity. You will find them eager to give their attention to the celebrated preacher, Abbé Ledoux, the most fashionable director of the Faubourg St. Germain--for, in spite of the Republic, or, for reason of the Republic, there is more than ever a Faubourg St. Germain, and, under every possible administration, the protection of Abbé Ledoux would be a lofty one."

"No, doctor, I want no other physician than you, terrible man that you are! Just see the confidence you inspire in me. It seems to me your presence has already done me good,--it calms me."

"Poor dear abbé, what confidence! It is touching; that certainly proves that it is only faith which saves."

"Do not speak of faith," said the abbé, affecting anger pleasantly. "Be silent, you pagan, materialist, atheist, republican, for you are and have been all, at your pleasure."

"Oh, oh, abbé, what an array of fine words!"

"You deserve them, wicked man; you will be damned, do you hear?--more than damned!"

"God may will it that we may meet each other some day, my poor abbé."

"I, damned?"

"Eh, eh."

"Do I abandon myself as you do to the brutality of all my appetites? Go,--you are a perfect Sardanapalus!"

"Flatterer! but then it is your manner. You reproach an old Lovelace for the enormities of which he would like to be guilty, and in the meantime you know that he has none of them; but it is all the same, your reproaches delight him, they render him cheerful; then he confesses all sorts of sins, of which, alas! he is incapable, poor man, and you have the air of giving a last pretext to his decaying imbecility."

"Fie! fie! doctor, the serpent had no more malignity than you."

"You reproach the broken-down politician, the powerless man of state, not less furiously, for his dark intrigues to overthrow the political world,--Europe, perhaps. Then with what unction the poor man relishes your reproaches! Everybody flies him like a pest when he opens his mouth to bore them with his politics; but what good fortune for him to unveil to you his Machiavellian projects for the advantage of the destinies of Europe, and to find a patient listener to the ravings of his old age."

"Yes, yes, jest, jeer, ridicule, you rascally doctor! You wish to excuse yourself by reviling others."

"Let us see, abbé, let us make an examination of conscience. Our professions will be inverted; I, the physician for the body, am going to ask a consultation with you, the physician for the soul."

"And you will have precious need of this consultation."

"Of what do you accuse me, abbé?"

"In the first place, you are a glutton, like Vitellius, Lucullus, the Prince of Soubise, Talleyrand, D'Aigrefeuille, Cambacérès, and Brillat-Savarin all together."

"A flatterer always! You reproach me for my only great and lofty quality."

"Ah, come now, doctor, do you take me for an oyster with your frivolous talk?"

"Take you for an oyster? How conceited you are! Unfortunately, I cannot make a comparison so advantageous to you, abbé. It would be a heresy, an anachronism. Good oysters (and others are not counted as existing) do not give the right to discuss them until about the middle of November, and we are by no means there."

"This, doctor, may be very witty, but it does not convince me in the least that gluttony is, in you or any other person, a quality."

"I will convince you of it."

"You?"

"I, my dear abbé."

"That would be rather difficult. And how?"

"Give me your evening on the twentieth of November and I will prove that--"

But interrupting himself, the doctor added:

"Come now, my dear abbé, what are you constantly looking at there by the side of that door?"

The holy man, thus taken unawares, blushed to his ears, for he had listened to the doctor with distraction, impatiently turning his eyes toward the door as if he expected a person who had not arrived; but after the first moment of surprise the abbé did not seem disconcerted, and replied:

"What door do you speak of, doctor? I do not know what you mean."

"I mean that you frequently look on this side as if you expected the appearance of some one."

"There is no one in the world, dear doctor, except you, who could have such ideas. I was entirely absorbed in your sophistical but intelligent conversation."

"Ah, abbé, abbé, you overwhelm me!"

"You wish, in a word, doctor, to prove to me that gluttony is a noble, sublime passion, do you not?"

"Sublime, abbé, that is the word, sublime,--if not in itself at least in its consequences; above all, in the interest of agriculture and commerce."

"Come, doctor, that is a paradox. Agriculture and commerce are sustained as other things are."

"It is not a paradox, it is a fact, yes, a fact, and if it is demonstrated to you positively, mathematically, practically, and economically, what can you say? Will you still doubt it?"

"I will doubt, or rather I will believe this abomination less than ever."

"How, in spite of evidence, abbé?"

"Because of evidence, if so be that this evidence can ever exist, for it is by just such means of these pretended evidences, these perfidious appearances, that the bad spirit leads us into the most dangerous snares."

"What, abbé, the devil! I am not a seminarian whom you are preparing to take the bands. You are a man of mind and of knowledge. When I talk reason to you, talk reason to me, and not of the devil and his horns."

"But, pagan, idolater that you are, do you not know that gluttony is perhaps the most abominable of the seven capital sins?"

"In the first place, abbé, I pray you do not calumninate like that the seven capital sins, but speak of them with the deference which is their due. I have found them profoundly respected in general and in particular."

"Indeed, it is not only gluttony that he glorifies,--he pushes his paradox to the glorification of the seven capital sins!"

"Yes, dear abbé, all the seven, considered from a certain point of view."

"That is monomania."

"Will you be convinced, abbé?"

"Of what?"

"Of the possible excellence,--of the conditional existence of the worldly and philosophical excellence of the seven capital sins."

"Really, doctor, do you take me for a child?"

"Give me your evening on the twentieth of November; you will be convinced."

"Come now, doctor, why always the twentieth of November?"

"That is for me a prophetic day, and more, it is the anniversary of my birth, my dear abbé, so give me your evening on that day and you will not regret having come."

"Very well, then, the twentieth of November, if my health--"

"Permits you,--well understood, my dear abbé; but my experience tells me that you will be able to drag yourself to see me on that day."

"What a man. He is capable of giving me a perfect example, in his big own damned person, of the seven capital sins."

At this moment the door opened.

It was on this door, more than once, that the glances of Abbé Ledoux had been turned with secret and growing impatience, during his conversation with the doctor.