"Is not he amusing?" cried Madame de Genlis.
"I was greatly surprised," the speaker went on, never heeding these interruptions, and stuffing his hands into his breeches pockets, "to find some one to talk to in that leg. I had the strange power of entering into my patient. When I first found myself in his skin, I discerned there an amazing number of tiny beings, moving, thinking, and arguing. Some lived in the man's body, and some in his mind. His ideas were creatures that were born, grew, and died; they were sick, gay, healthy, sad—and all had personal individuality. They fought or fondled. A few ideas flew forth and went to dwell in the world of intellect. Suddenly I understood that there are two worlds—the visible and the invisible universe; that the earth, like man, has a body and a soul. A new light was cast on nature, and I perceived its immensity when I saw the ocean of beings everywhere distributed in masses and in species, all of one and the same living matter, from marble rocks up to God. A magnificent sight! In short, there was a universe in my patient. When I inserted my lancet in his gangrened leg, I destroyed a thousand such beings.—You laugh, ladies, at the idea that you are a prey to a thousand creatures——"
"No personalities," said Monsieur de Colonne, "speak for yourself and your patient."
"My man, horrified at the outcry of his animalcules, wanted to stop the operation; but I persisted, telling him that malignant creatures were already gnawing at his bones. He made a motion to resist me, not understanding that what I was doing was for his good, and my lancet pierced me in the side——"
"He is too stupid," said Lavoisier.
"No, he is drunk," replied Beaumarchais.
"But, gentlemen, my dream has a meaning," cried the surgeon.
"Oh, oh!" cried Bodard, waking, "my leg is asleep!"
"Your animalcules are dead," said his wife.
"That man has a vocation," said my neighbor, who had imperturbably stared at the surgeon all the time he was talking.