“No.”
As he said the word in a curt tone he was already at the door; Godefroid rejoined him on the staircase. The Jew, who was stifling with heat, said in his ear:
“Besides the three thousand francs, the cost will be fifteen francs a day, payable three months in advance.”
“Very good, monsieur. And,” continued Godefroid, putting one foot on the step of the cabriolet, into which the doctor had sprung, “you say you will answer for the cure?”
“I will answer for it,” said the Jewish doctor. “Are you in love with the lady?”
“No,” replied Godefroid.
“You must not repeat what I am about to say to you; I only say it to prove to you that I am certain of a cure. If you are guilty of the slightest indiscretion you will kill her.”
Godefroid replied with a gesture only.
“For the last seventeen years she has been a victim to the element in her system called plica polonica,[*] which has produced all these ravages. I have seen more terrible cases than this. Now, I alone in the present day know how to bring this disease to a crisis, and force it outward so as to obtain a chance to cure it—for it cannot always be cured. You see, monsieur, that I am disinterested. If this lady were of great importance, a Baronne de Nucingen, or any other wife or daughter of a modern Croesus, this cure would bring me one hundred—two hundred thousand francs; in short, anything I chose to ask for it. However, it is only a trifling loss to me.”
[*] Balzac’s description of plica polonica does not agree
with that given in English medical dictionaries and
cyclopedias. But as the book was written at Wierschovnia,
Poland, in 1847, when he was attended by a celebrated Polish
physician, and as, moreover, he was always so scrupulously
accurate in his descriptions, it is fair to suppose that he
knew of some form of the disease other than that given in
the books. His account probably applies to the period before
it takes the visible form described in the books.