The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de Maupassant
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also regulated the Duke’s food, but with visible carelessness. The patient, however, took no heed of his advice, devoured everything with bestial voracity, drank at every meal two decanters of pure wine, then went tumbling about in a chaise for air in front of the hotel, and began whining with pain and groaning over his bad digestion.
After the first dinner, Doctor Mazelli, who had judged and weighed all around him with a single glance, went to join Gontran, who was smoking a cigar on the terrace of the Casino, told his name, and began to chat. At the end of an hour, they were on intimate terms. Next day, he got himself introduced to Christiane just as she was leaving the bath, won her goodwill after ten minutes’ conversation, and brought her that very day into contact with the Duchess, who no longer cared for solitude.
He kept watch over everything in the abode of the Spaniards, gave excellent advice to the chef about cooking, excellent hints to the chambermaid on the hygiene of the head in order to preserve in her mistress’s hair its luster, its superb shade, and its abundance, very useful information to the coachman about veterinary medicine; and he knew how to make the hours swift and light, to invent distractions, and to pick up in the hotels casual acquaintances but always prudently chosen.
The Duchess said to Christiane, when speaking of him: “He is a wonderful man, dear Madame. He knows everything; he does everything. It is to him that I owe my figure.”
“How, your figure?”
“Yes, I was beginning to grow fat, and he saved me with his regimen and his liqueurs.”
Moreover, Mazelli knew how to make medicine itself interesting; he spoke about it with such ease, with such gaiety, and with a sort of light scepticism which helped to convince his listeners of his superiority.
“’Tis very simple,” said he; “I don’t believe in remedies — or rather I hardly believe in them. The old-fashioned medicine started with this principle — that there is a remedy for everything. God, they believe, in His divine bounty, has created drugs for all maladies, only He has left to men, through malice, perhaps, the trouble of discovering these drugs. Now, men have discovered an incalculable number of them without ever knowing exactly what disease each of them is suited for. In reality there are no remedies; there are only maladies. When a malady declares itself, it is necessary to interrupt its course, according to some, to precipitate it, according to others, by some means or another. Each school extols its own method. In the same case, we see the most antagonistic systems employed, and the most opposed kinds of medicine — ice by one and extreme heat by the other, dieting by this doctor and forced nourishment by that. I am not speaking of the innumerable poisonous products extracted from minerals or vegetables, which chemistry procures for us. All this acts, ’tis true, but nobody knows how. Sometimes it succeeds, and sometimes it kills.”
And, with much liveliness, he pointed out the impossibility of certainty, the absence of all scientific basis as long as organic chemistry, biological chemistry had not become the starting-point of a new medicine. He related anecdotes, monstrous errors of the greatest physicians, and proved the insanity and the falsity of their pretended science.
“Make the body discharge its functions,” said he. “Make the skin, the muscles, all the organs, and, above all, the stomach, which is the foster-father of the entire machine, its regulator and life-warehouse, discharge their functions.”
He asserted that, if he liked, by nothing save regimen, he could make people gay or sad, capable of physical work or intellectual work, according to the nature of the diet which he imposed on them. He could even act on the faculties of the brain, on the memory, the imagination, on all the manifestations of intelligence. And he ended jocosely with these words:
“For my part, I nurse my patients with massage and curaçoa.”
He attributed marvelous results to massage, and spoke of the Dutchman Hamstrang as of a god performing miracles. Then, showing his delicate white hands:
“With those, you might resuscitate the dead.” And the Duchess added: “The fact is that he performs massage to perfection.”
He also lauded alcoholic beverages, in small proportions to excite the stomach at certain moments; and he composed mixtures, cleverly prepared, which the Duchess had to drink, at fixed hours, either before or after her meals.
He might have been seen each morning entering the Casino Café about half past nine and asking for his bottles. They were brought to him fastened with little silver locks of which he had the key. He would pour out a little of one, a little of another, slowly into a very pretty blue glass, which a very correct footman held up respectfully.
Then the doctor would give directions: “See! Bring this to the Duchess in her bath, to drink it, before she dresses herself, when coming out of the water.”
And when anyone asked him through curiosity: “What have you put into it?” he would answer: “Nothing but refined aniseed-cordial, very pure curaçoa, and excellent bitters,”
This handsome doctor, in a few days, became the center of attraction for all the invalids. And every sort of device was resorted to, in order to attract a few opinions from him.
When he was passing along through the walks in the park, at the hour of promenade, one heard nothing but that exclamation of “Doctor” on all the chairs where sat the beautiful women, the young women, who were resting themselves a little between two glasses of the Christiane Spring. Then, when he stopped with a smile on his lip, they would draw him aside for some minutes into the little path beside the river. At first, they talked about one thing or another; then discreetly, skillfully, coquettishly, they came to the question of health, but in an indifferent fashion as if they were touching on sundry topics.
For this medical man was not at the disposal of the public. He was not paid by them, and people could not get him to visit them at their own houses. He belonged to the Duchess, only to the Duchess. This situation even stimulated people’s efforts, and provoked their desires. And, as it was whispered positively that the Duchess was jealous, very jealous, there was a desperate struggle between all these ladies to get advice from the handsome Italian doctor. He gave it without forcing them to entreat him very strenuously.
Then, among the women whom he had favored with his advice arose an interchange of intimate confidences, in order to give clear proof of nis solicitude.
“Oh! my dear, he asked me questions — but such questions!”
“Very indiscreet?”
“Oh! indiscreet! Say frightful. I actually did not know what answers to give him. He wanted to know things — but such things!”
“It was the same way with me. He questioned me a great deal about my husband!”
“And me, also — together with details so — so personal! These questions are very embarrassing. However, we understand perfectly well that it is necessary to ask them.”
“Oh! of course. Health depends on these minute details. As for me, he promised to perform massage on me at Paris this winter. I have great need of it to supplement the treatment here.”
“Tell me, my dear, what do you intend to do in return? He cannot take fees.”
“Good heavens! my idea was to present him with a scarf-pin. He must be fond of them, for he has already two or three very nice ones.”
“Oh! how you embarrass me! The same notion was in my head. In that case I’ll give him a ring.” And they concocted surprises in order to please him, thought of ingenious presents in order to touch him, graceful pleasantries in order to fascinate him. He became the “talk of the day,” the great subject of conversation, the sole object of public attention, till the news spread that Count Gontran de Ravenel was paying his addresses to Charlotte Oriol with a view to marrying her. And this at once led to a fresh outburst of deafening clamor in Enval.
Since the evening when he had opened with her the inaugural ball at the Casino, Gontran had tied himself to the young girl’s skirts. He publicly showed her all those little attentions of men who want to please