When I awoke the next morning, my hunchback, whose name was Graograicus—a name which he had probably manufactured for himself, and which no one could pronounce without making a wry face, which made it altogether impressive—my little hunchback, as I said, suggested giving me a lesson in somnambulism, which we were to practise in the first place of any importance in which we might stop. I accepted his proposition. He made me sit down, told me to stare at vacancy as if I were looking at nothing, and taught me to sleep with my eyes open; but, as that tired my eyes, he allowed me to close them when we only had peasants or poor devils to cure.
Then came the matter of philters; my companion was out of them, and it was necessary to prepare more. While I was cleaning a dozen or more four-ounce phials, which were to contain the charms, Master Graograicus went out to purchase plants, roots, and such other ingredients as he needed in the manufacture of the philters. He lighted a fire, and borrowed from our host all the bowls that he had; and our bedroom, where everything was turned topsy-turvy, began, in my companion’s language, to be a workshop of chemistry and magic.
“Look here,” I said to my hunchback, while he was pulverizing burdock, and I was rolling cinnamon, “what are you going to use these things for that you are making? I am willing to be your assistant, but only on condition that you teach me your mysteries.”
“You shall know, my boy; we must not have any secrets from each other. I am now making a philter to arouse love; it is not very difficult to make, for all I need is tonics, alcohol and stimulants. I boil cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, pepper, sugar and brandy together. When a person has swallowed that mixture, that person becomes very amorous; and as soon as he or she who has administered my philter is with the object of his or her love, he finds that the charm operates and has no doubt that I am a magician. Furthermore, this little drug has the property of ruining the teeth; teeth are not ruined without pain, and as the toothache is commonly called love-sickness, as soon as it is known that the person who takes the philter has pains in his teeth, it is presumed that he has fallen in love. I sell a great deal of this philter, especially to ladies; we will lay in a good stock of it.
“Let us go on to the next one, which arouses jealousy. Ah! I confess that it cost me long study and profound reflection, but I believe that I have solved the problem successfully. In the first place, what gives rise to jealousy? The suspicions which one conceives concerning the fidelity of the object of one’s love. Now, these suspicions have a cause, for there is no effect without a cause; to be sure, a person is sometimes jealous without cause, but much more frequently with a cause; so I said to myself:
“‘By making one lover unfaithful, I shall necessarily make the other one jealous; but how am I to make unfaithful the one who does not take my drugs?’—Ah! that, my little man, was where a stroke of genius was required. That is something a fool would never have discovered, and which I did discover, without the help of any treatises upon medicine. I compounded this philter of corrosive sublimate and herbs that have an effect upon the skin. This compound has the property of making the eyes dull, the complexion leaden and the nose drawn; it brings out a humor, and the skin is covered with pimples and pustules of all sizes,—while it makes the breath fit to kill flies at ten yards. So you see that the man or woman who frequents the person who has taken my philter readily becomes unfaithful, while the one who has taken it becomes as jealous as a demon; and the effect lasts through life; for, let him do what he pleases, he can never again succeed in making himself attractive and in inspiring love.—Well! what do you say to that? What deep thought, what a thorough acquaintance with the passions and their effects! But see what the world is: I sell much less of this philter than of the others; indeed it rarely happens that the same person takes it twice.
“As for this last, for which I am pulverizing this burdock, it serves to arouse anger, hatred, ill-humor, and it never fails to produce its effect; it is a compound of manna, rhubarb, vinegar, turpentine, and cacao, to which I add this burdock to form a syrup. This little charm, at once emollient and astringent, produces the colic and sick headache; now, when one has a pain in the head and the stomach at the same time, he is certain not to be in a good humor; he easily loses his temper, and feels a grudge against the whole world, especially when the pains are constantly on the increase. It seems to me that that is rather prettily reasoned out, and that nothing less than my tact and my penetration would have sufficed to find the means of arousing so many different passions.”
I listened to my companion with attention, and when he had finished, I asked him if he expected to try his philters upon me; he said that he had no such purpose, and that assurance restored my good humor, for I would not have consented at any price to taste Master Graograicus’s charms.
“It only remains for me now,” he said, “to teach you to make pills; that is very easy; I make them with the soft part of bread, and roll them in different powders to give them different colors.”
“And what are they used for?”