“To cure all diseases.”
“What! you cure diseases with bread?”
“I sometimes cure them, for many diseases exist in the imagination only, and when the patient believes that he is taking an infallible remedy, he is easily persuaded that it is doing him good, and it is that persuasion that cures him, and not my pills. But at all events they can’t do any harm and that is always something. I sell large quantities of them to nurses and old women.”
X
A LESSON IN MAGNETISM
Thus I was made acquainted with all my companion’s secrets; he required me to promise not to betray him, and I solemnly swore. But I did not swear that I would not amuse myself at the expense of the idiots who might consult him; and that was what I secretly determined to do; for, although I was only fifteen years old, I was resolute, courageous, stubborn and reasonably mischievous.
The village in which we passed the night seemed unlikely to afford my hunchback an opportunity to put forth his talents and sell his drugs, so we prepared to leave it. But my crafty companion succeeded none the less in inducing our host’s wife to purchase secretly a box of pills to prevent her hair from turning white and her teeth from turning black.
We set out on our travels once more, carrying our fortune tied to our saddle. The weather was not propitious. We encountered a furious storm and when we reached the small town which was destined to ring with the fame of our talents, we were in such a pitiable condition that we were more likely to be taken for wretched mountebanks than for learned doctors.
However, we betook ourselves to the best inn in the place. At first the inn-keeper paid no attention to us, and did not put himself out to receive us; but when my companion ordered one of the finest suites and a splendid repast, he scrutinized us with a hesitating expression which was eloquent of his doubts concerning the state of our finances. My crafty hunchback tossed a number of crowns on the table, and requested the host to take out a week’s rent of the apartment in advance.
This method of beginning operations completely changed the ideas of the inn-keeper, who concluded that he had to deal with noblemen travelling incognito. We were given rooms on the first floor and served on the minute.
“Monsieur l’aubergiste,” said my companion to our host, as we took our seats at the table, “you don’t know who I am; I am going to make myself known to you for the good of this town. Be good enough to inform the inhabitants that they have the privilege of entertaining within their walls, but for only a week, the celebrated Graograicus, physician-in-chief to the Emperor of China, magnetizer to the favorite sultana of the Sultan of Damascus, physician by letters patent to the court of the King of Morocco, chemist to the Grand Vizier of Constantinople, and astrologer to the Hetman of the Cossacks. Tell them also that I have with me temporarily the little somnambulist, the most famous, the most extraordinary that has ever appeared on the face of the globe. He is a young man of thirty years, who looks less than fifteen, because he has passed half of his life asleep. This strange young man, born on the banks of the Indus, knows all languages—not to speak them, it is true, but he understands them better than you and I do. In his sleep he discovers your disease, its cause, its effects, the pains that you feel, the periods of recurrence, and points out the remedies you should take, even for future sicknesses. He has had the honor of putting himself to sleep before counts, marquises, dukes, and even royal highnesses. He has effected, sleeping all the while, cures that would have passed for miracles under the reign of the great Solomon, and even under that of King Dagobert. He has cured an Englishman of the spleen, a German baroness of a cutaneous disease, and her husband of the gout; a young dancer of hatred for men, and an old woman of her love for her dog; a courtier of the habit of bending his back, and a courtesan of a peculiar habit of wriggling; an annuitant of a weakness of the stomach, and a Prussian of indigestion; an author of a buzzing in his ears, and a musician of a weakness in his legs; a bailiff of rheumatism in the loins and an attorney of itching fingers; a lawyer of a defect in his speech, and a singer of defective respiration; a coquette of her vapors, and an old libertine of his asthma; a pacha with three tails, of his inability to secure offspring, and a muleteer of his too bountiful gifts in this direction; a dissolute husband of the habit of sowing good grain on stony ground, and an Italian of the habit of whipping small boys; and many other people, whom I will not name, because it would take too long, and also because we are not mere charlatans, who simply try to throw dust in people’s eyes.—This little prospectus, which I will beg you to distribute, will suffice to give the inhabitants of this town an idea of our learning. Here, monsieur l’aubergiste, take these, and believe.”