The Serapion Brethren, Vol. II

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

"Ah, ah! Yes, yes!" said the doctor, stroking his beard. Then he solemnly strode up as close to the patient as his long rapier, which banged against and entangled itself with the chairs and tables, admitted of his doing, took his hand and felt his pulse, sighing and groaning as he did so in a manner which sounded wonderful enough in the deep silence of reverential awe which prevailed. He then named a hundred and twenty diseases, in Latin and Greek, which Salvator had not, then about the same number which he might possibly have contracted, and ended by saying that although he could not just at that moment exactly name the malady which Salvator was suffering from, he would hit upon a name for it in a short time, and also the proper remedies and treatment for its cure. He then took his departure with the same amount of solemnity with which he had entered, leaving all hands in the due condition of anxiety and alarm. He asked to see Salvator's box downstairs, and Dame Caterina showed him a box, in which were some old clothes of her deceased husband's, and some old boots and shoes. He tapped the box with his hand here and there, saying, with a smile, "We shall see! We shall see!" In an hour or two he came back with a very grand name for what was the matter with Salvator, and several large bottles of a potion with an evil smell, which he directed that the patient should keep on swallowing. That was not such an easy matter, for the patient resisted with might and main, and expressed, as well as he could, his utter abhorrence of this stuff, which seemed to be a brew from the very pit of Acheron. But whether it was that the malady, now that it had got a name, exerted itself more powerfully, or that Splendiano and medicine were working too energetically--enough, with every day and nearly every hour, one might say, Salvator grew weaker and weaker, so that, although Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni asseverated that, the processes of life having come to a complete standstill, he had given the machine an impetus towards renewed activity (as if it had been the pendulum of a clock), all the by-standers doubted of Salvator's recovery, and were disposed to think that the Signor Dottore might, perhaps, have given the pendulum such a rough impulse that it was put out of gear.

But one day it happened that Salvator, who seemed scarcely able to move a muscle, suddenly got into a paroxysm of tremendous fever, and, regaining strength in an instant, jumped out of bed, seized all the bottles of medicine, and in a fury sent the whole collection flying out of the window. Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni was just in the act to come into the house to pay a visit, and, as Fate would have it, two or three of the phials hit him on the head, and breaking, sent the brown liquid within them flowing in dark streams over his face, his periwig, and his neckerchief. The doctor sprang nimbly into the house, and cried, like a man possessed, "Signor Salvator is off his head! Delirium has evidently set in--nothing can save him. He'll be a dead man in ten minutes. Here with the picture, Dame Caterina; it belongs to me--all I shall get for my services! Here with the picture, I tell you."

But when Dame Caterina opened the box, and Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni saw the old cloaks and the burst and tattered boots and shoes which it contained, his eyes rolled in his head like fire wheels, he gnashed his teeth, stamped with his feet, devoted Salvator, the widow, and all the inmates of the house, to the demons of hell, and bolted out of the door as if discharged from a cannon.

When the paroxysm of excitement was over, Salvator again fell into a deathlike condition, and Dame Caterina thought his last hour was certainly come. So she ran as quickly as she could to the convent, and brought Father Bonifazio to administer the sacraments to the dying man. When Father Bonifazio came, he looked at the patient, said he very well knew the peculiar signs which death imprints upon the face of one whom he is going to carry off; but there was nothing of the sort to be seen on the face of the unconscious Salvator in his faint, and that help was still possible, and he himself would procure or bestow; only Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni, with his Greek names and diabolical phials, must never cross the doorstep again. The good father set to work, and we shall find that he kept his word.

Salvator came to his senses, and it seemed to him that he was lying in a delightful, sweet-smelling arbour, for green branches and leaves were stretching over him. He felt a delightful salutary warmth of life permeating him, only, apparently, his left arm was fettered.

"Where am I?" he cried, in a faint voice. Then a young man of handsome appearance, whom he had not observed before, though he was standing by his bed, fell down on his knees, seized Salvator's right hand, bathing it in tears, and cried over and over again, "Oh, my beloved Signor, my grand master! all is well now! You are saved; you will recover!"

"Well," began Salvator, "but tell me----"

The young man interrupted him, begging him not to talk in his weak condition, and promising to tell him all that had been happening. "You must know, my dear and great master, that you must have been exceedingly ill when you arrived in Naples here; but your condition was not probably very dangerous, and moderate measures, considering the strength of your constitution, would doubtless have set you on your legs again in a short time, if it had not happened, through Carlo's well-meant mischance--as he ran for the nearest doctor at once--that you fell into the clutches of the abominable Pyramid Doctor, who did his very best to put you under the sod."

"The Pyramid Doctor?" said Salvator, laughing most heartily, weak as he was. "Yes, yes; ill as I was, I saw him well enough, the little damasky creature, who condemned me to swallow all that diabolical stuff--hell broth as it was--and had the obelisk of the Piazza San Pietro on the top of his head, which is the reason you call him the Pyramid Doctor."

"Oh, heavens!" cried the young man, laughing loudly too. "Yes, it was Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni who appeared to you in that mysterious high-pointed nightcap of his, in which he gleams out of his window in the Piazza di Spagna every morning like some meteor of evil omen. But it is not on account of the cap that he is called the Pyramid Doctor; there is a very different reason for that. Doctor Splendiano is very fond of pictures, and has a very fine collection, which he has got together through a peculiar piece of technical practice. He keeps a close and watchful eye upon painters and their illnesses, and particularly he manages to throw his nets over stranger masters. Suppose they have swallowed a little too much macaroni, or taken a cup or two more syracuse than is good for them, he succeeds in throwing his noose over them, and labels them with this or that disease, which he christens by some monstrous name, and then sets to work to cure. As fee he makes them promise him a picture, which, as it is only the strongest constitutions which can resist the powerful drugs he administers, he generally selects from the effects of the deceased, deposited at the Pyramid of Cestius. He takes the best of them, and others into the bargain. The refuse heap at the Pyramid of Cestius is the seedfield of Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni, and he cultivates, dresses, and manures it most assiduously. And that is why he is called the Pyramid Doctor. Now Dame Caterina, with the best intentions, had given the doctor to understand that you had brought a fine picture with you, and you can imagine the ardour with which he set to work to brew potions for you. It was lucky for you that in your paroxysm of fever you threw the stuff at his head, that he left you in a fury, that Dame Caterina sent for Father Bonifazio to administer the sacraments, believing you at death's door. Father Bonifazio knows a great deal about doctoring; he formed a correct opinion as to your condition, sent for me, and----"