by Robert Merle
“Of course,” our host continued, “the pharmacist’s science had not yet achieved the seriousness and effectiveness in my grandfather’s day that it has today. Back then there were many so-called remedies that had more to do with superstition and ceremony than with medical knowledge. For example, to stop a wound from bleeding, it was recommended to tie a red thread from the codpiece of a newly wedded man around the little finger of the patient. Or it was believed that a woman who had just weaned her baby and desired to stop her flow of milk should, on three successive mornings, jump over a sage bush in the priest’s garden. To cure jaundice, all one had to do was to find ribgrass growing from the side of a house and to piss on this ribgrass every morning and night until it died—so the jaundice would die as well.”
With both hands clasped on his paunch, Maître Sanche laughed uproariously at these silly and ritualistic remedies that credulity, the daughter of ignorance, had planted in people’s minds. We all laughed so much that even the two assistants, as thin and sweaty as they were, permitted themselves a quick smile, for they understood everything we were saying despite their own mute aspect.
Then, turning to me, Maître Sanche said with great pride, “As for the question you asked my assistants, young man, I am going to answer you. What they are preparing in this mortar is arthanita. It is derived from sap from the scrub pine and contains twenty-one vegetable substances, including saps, juices, resins, bark and seeds. It is an ointment that is effective for many different complaints.” And, forgetting that, not being a doctor, he had resolved not to reveal the uses of any of his drugs, he added, “Arthanita is rubbed on the patient and the results depend on the site where it’s applied: if on the bowels it’s a purge; on the stomach it’s an emetic; on the bladder it releases a great quantity of urine.”
To hear the miracles spawned by this universal remedy, I confess that I began to have my doubts about arthanita and wondered how much more effective it really was than the red thread of a newly married man’s codpiece. Overwhelmed, however, by the man’s bombast and careful to avoid arguing with such an amiable host, I said, feigning naivety, “But isn’t it a marvel, most illustrious master, that a single ointment can have so many different effects?”
“Such are the virtues,” Maître Sanche replied gravely, “of these ointments when mixed together. Used separately, they would produce none of these so happily diverse consequences.”
We were interrupted at this precise moment by the ringing of the dinner bell and Maître Sanche said: “Let’s go to dinner, my worthies! We must, if only to replenish our veins and arteries and to defend them by pumping them up against the air’s contagion. Of course, we must not overeat to the point of blocking them up entirely. In that case, the encumbered brain becomes lethargic and weak. Impletus venter non vult studere libenter.††
Seizing gentle Samson by the arm, evidencing the sudden affection he’d gained for him, he drew him towards the door, with me at their heels, as my brother was saying, “And when do your assistants get to eat, illustrious master?”
“When I’ve eaten my fill, I take their place here, ego ipse magister Gabrielus Sanchus Dominus Montoliveti,‡‡ in order to keep an eye on all the decoctions and sublimations in progress. And while I’m down here, they can wipe themselves clean of the sweat they accumulate in this terrible heat, change their shirts and don a doublet, and eat their soup in the little courtyard where Balsa has tied the dogs. And there for a full hour they can sun themselves and purify their lungs of the infection of the medicinal vapours they’ve inhaled. Thus have I arranged, in my paternal and humane concern, to keep them healthy and happy in my service.”
Assuredly, if one compared Maître Sanche’s behaviour towards his assistants with the way the burghers of Sarlat treat their workers and other servants, he was entitled to call himself “paternal and humane”. But as for the midday broth, God help us and them! There was absolutely no danger in devouring it that one would stop up any arteries or veins! This broth was no more soup than the watery concoction that greeted us in the morning. With nothing to eat before or after! A naked broth in which garlic and onion replaced pork and fat! Sometimes one could see tiny bits of boiled meat floating here or there in this gruel that had to be supplemented by the few crusts of bread we were allowed, but they’d go down our gullets before we could taste them. (A pretty weak defence against the air’s corruptions!) And to drink, a vinegary liquid, diluted with lots of water and served sparingly. “Ah, Fontanette! Fontanette!” I thought. “Why can’t I be a cannibal from the Barbary Coast and feast on your pretty flesh? That’s the only way I could ever be fully satisfied at table in this house, since civil and common usages are so completely lacking here. Ah, to be sure, there is much to be learnt here, for Maître Sanche’s lessons are full of choice morsels and gravied with knowledgeable sauces, but as for victuals, the sustenance and pleasure of our bodies, the meats are scanty and far between.”
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The bell sounded a third time. Typhème and Luc, the latter followed by Fogacer, appeared in the common room just as we did. We all greeted each other, and Typhème, her Moorish beauty more resplendent than ever, told us in a hushed voice that only made my heart beat faster, that Dame Rachel begged to be excused from dining with us, and would remain in her room. Of course, we understood why. So Dame Rachel had a room after all (and one of the most beautiful rooms of the house, according to Fontanette), which made it all the more surprising that she should have had to give birth to her son in the common room, virtually in public.
With that certain pompous air that never left him, Maître Sanche, removing his silver belt, took off his silk robe and hung it on one of the antlers of the stag’s head that decorated the wall behind him. On the highest antler of all, he hung his tufted hat and, seizing a little black cap embroidered with silk that was perched on another prong, he pulled it over his thick, curly grey mane. All the while, we remained at quiet attention, watching his divestiture.
However meagre the fare was in this house, it was not lacking in ceremony, whose first act we had just observed in this royal and public undressing.
Secondly, whereas on the previous evening we had been seated in no particular order, now Maître Sanche, as soon as he’d seen to his sartorial needs, indicated to each of us our stool by tapping it with his pointer, requiring that we remember our place and always occupy the same one. Taking the seat at the centre of the long table, he placed Luc on his right and—what an honour he now bestowed!—my beloved Samson on his left. Opposite him, as though power was paired with power, I was seated, with Fogacer on my right and Typhème on my left, who after all was only a maiden and unmarried. At the high end of the table, Dame Rachel’s seat remained vacant, though her place was set for reasons of decorum, and at the low end were Balsa and Miroul. For the latter to be granted a place at table with us, I’d had to make a special request, but it was an arrangement that was displeasing and, indeed, heart-breaking for the cyclopean Balsa, whose pride suffered no end for having to share his end of the table with a simple valet. It’s true that Miroul sat on the side of his blind eye, so that if he didn’t actually turn to face his neighbour—which he never once did—his view wasn’t afflicted by him.
Thirdly, after our places were assigned, we had to remain standing for the entire time it took Fontanette to pass around the table with a basin and her sweet smile, and offer us water to wash our hands. This each of us did silently and with great seriousness, for Maître Sanche would look askance at anyone who breathed a word during these ablutions.
Fourthly, once our hands were washed, Maître Sanche, leaning his wand against the wall, intoned, without joining his hands, a sort of benedicite, which I didn’t understand a single word of, since it was spoken neither in French, nor Latin, nor Provençal, nor Spanish, nor even Greek (which I knew a smattering of). And what was even more mysterious was that, while he spoke this prayer, our very illustrious master turned towards the wall (in this he was imitated by Typh�
�me and Balsa but not by Luc) and began to rock back and forth, chanting his prayer more than speaking it.
Which done, he turned back to the table and said in French: “In the name of Lord Adonai, Amen!”
To which Luc added quietly, “And of the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen!”—words that his father appeared not to have heard, any more than he seemed to have seen the somewhat furtive sign of the cross that followed them. With a bit of a delay, I imitated Luc, and was imitated in turn by Samson and Miroul, but not by Fogacer, who, throughout this exercise, remained silent, eyes closed, lips curled in a sardonic smile.
“You may be seated,” said Maître Sanche, clapping his hands. And so we did as we were bid, I, for my part, still wondering about the strange benedicite in this unknown tongue, and pronounced in such a bizarre manner, facing the wall and calling the Lord Adonai, one of His biblical names. But no invocation of the Son and Holy Spirit or any sign of the cross.
In the midst of these marvels, Fontanette served each of us a ladle of soup, into which I dipped my spoon, hoping that this was the appetizer for the main meal.
“Illustrious master,” said Samson, who was looking at the apothecary with such awe that I would have been jealous if I were of so small-minded a nature to permit such a feeling. “What is the Montolivet that you are lord over?”
“Some lands that I acquired,” replied the master, with an air of immense modesty. “It’s large enough and beautiful enough to allow me to bear the title Monsieur de Montolivet—just as my friend, Dr Salomon, holds the title of Monsieur d’Assas, the name of his little fiefdom. I don’t blame him, but I myself am too proud of my name and my nation to want to disguise them more than is necessary to live in peace in this kingdom. It’s already enough to be among the converted, what they call anusim,” he whispered, a word which took me quite by surprise. “My lands, my house and my fields, my nephew,” he continued, turning towards Samson, “are situated to the west of the sad hanging ground that you saw on your way into Montpellier, and adjoin the lands of Monsieur Pécoul, the prosperous merchant on the rue de l’Espazerie, who sells the swords, daggers and knives with which our good countrymen slit each other’s throats during our civil wars.”
“I saw this man Pécoul,” I replied, “on our way here. He was out threshing his wheat, and I spoke to him.”
“I know,” replied our host, with the air of one who knew about this encounter even before it took place. “My land at Montolivet,” he continued, “produces enough wheat to bake my own bread, and olives aplenty to make my own oil and the brew that we drink. There’s also a small vineyard from which I get our grapes for the table and, when the time comes, I’ll take you and your brother to pick olives and the grapes for our wine.”
I was delighted with this promise since I so missed our own farmlands, little accustomed as I was to being shut up between four walls, forced to breathe the stale smells of the city and deprived of the view of the green hills and valleys where I’d spent my childhood. But Fogacer nudged my elbow while our host was speaking to his son and whispered, “Be sure to eat lots of bread. This soup is the only course in this meal.”
“What?” I answered, sotto voce. “No meat?”
“Other than the bits floating in this gruel, not a whit.”
’Sblood! I was going to dry up here, having nothing to consume but knowledge.
“Monsieur Fogacer,” broke in Maître Sanche, “tell us about Dr Rondelet’s patients you visited this morning in his stead.”
The reader should not imagine that the conversation at the dinner table was spontaneous and flowed freely between the various members of the party, involving quiet, tête-à-tête exchanges, asides or off-colour explosions of mirth or silliness apropos of nothing. Oh no! Maître Sanche was possessed of as great an appetite for learning as he was for teaching and thus could not imagine that we could employ our precious time together at table for any purpose other than sharing some new discovery with one another. So in his greedy and insatiable thirst for knowledge, casting his squinting but piercing eyes around him, and opening wide his enormous ears to receive any new fact, however seemingly insignificant, he would toss it, while still hot, into his bag of memories, from which he could withdraw it later to lend sauce to his teaching. And while thus passionately occupied, he was so oblivious to the meat or sauce that his spoon threw into his maw that, doubtless, he could not have told you what he’d just eaten.
He asked innumerable questions of Fogacer about each one of his patients and their specific complaints, descending happily into such truly disgusting details that, had I not myself been destined for medical practice, I would certainly have thrown my dinner back up into my soup.
“And his stool, Fogacer? His stool? What was the stool like?”
“Greenish in colour. Very liquid in consistency and, in odour, nauseating.”
“Aha! I would have sworn it!” cried Maître Sanche with great satisfaction, gleefully rubbing his hands together. “And what did you prescribe?”
“Fasting.”
“Bene! Bene!”
While lending an obedient ear to these discussions, as was appropriate for my future profession, I couldn’t help sneaking a look from time to time at Typhème, whose profile was half hidden by her luxuriantly abundant hair, which was as blue-black as a raven’s feathers. But what I could detect in her features was surpassing beauty, sweetness and natural distinction. Her eyes were large and liquid; her lips were so full and beautifully proportioned that I wanted to take their measure with my own. Her small, pointed teeth were as white as sea foam; her complexion was warm and ardent, with something suggestively sombre in which any mother’s son would have wanted to lose himself.
I observed that she ate very properly, taking a small amount of soup in her wooden spoon with its copper handle, and carrying it carefully to her mouth so that not a drop spilt on the table or on her bodice. Each time she drank, she wiped her lips gracefully with a small, embroidered napkin, never leaving a trace of grease on her glass, which was decorated with different coloured designs (she did not use a goblet as the rest of us did). Her plate was also very beautiful, fashioned of pewter and engraved with her initials. When she’d finished her soup, she wiped her plate carefully with a piece of bread, doubtless not because she didn’t want to miss any of the gruel, but more likely in order to return the pewter to its pristine brilliance. She wore no frills, just a simple morning dress of a beautiful pale blue, and sat very straight on her stool, cutting, as best I could observe, a trim figure deliciously endowed in just the right places.
And so I watched her out of the corner of my eye while seeming to pay close attention to the discussion between her father and Fogacer, proof that our eyes can carry out one task while our ears are occupied with another, my brain divided into two very divergent thoughts—one the unmatched beauty of the Sephardic demoiselle on my left and the other the talk of abscesses, swollen stomachs, high fevers, urinary blockage and unremitting vomiting.
Having pressed Fogacer on the patients he had visited that morning the way an oil press extracts juice from the olive, the very illustrious master turned to his nephews and began to test the knowledge we had—or were supposed to have, since we were of the reformed religion—of the Holy Bible. He asked various difficult and curious questions of each of us in turn, which we were hard-pressed to answer.
Thus, turning to Samson, he said, “Samson, what colour is David’s hair?”
To which Samson could answer nothing; he blushed as he replied, “I know not, very illustrious master.”
“And you, young master, student of medicine, do you know?”
“In truth, I have no idea.”
Maître Sanche looked us up and down, and, after a dramatic pause, which afforded us the time to reflect on our ignorance, he said, “His hair was red. We read in the first book of Samuel, chapter 16, verse 12: ‘His hair was red. He was a handsome man with beautiful eyes.’” And, looking at Samson, he said with grave authority: “A d
escription that applies to you, my good nephew. For you are handsome, with beautiful features, eyes of blue and hair as copper-coloured as my scales. That’s why you should have been named David and not Samson, for Samson allowed himself to be undone by a wicked and perfidious woman.”
To this, whether he was upset that anyone could doubt his father’s good judgement, or because he suddenly thought that Dame Gertrude du Luc might one day be his Delilah (a role that this good and sweet lady seemed poorly suited to), Samson blushed to the roots of his copper-coloured hair, and with tears in his eyes he looked at Maître Sanche with filial adoration, full of respect, admiration, love and, simultaneously, a sort of questioning, as though he were about to ask the master if it would be possible for him to be rebaptized to keep him from the clutches of evil women. As for me, while glancing at Samson, melting with tenderness for his dove-like innocence, I also managed to keep my left eye on Typhème, and noticed that under her half-closed lids—but how many things a young woman can see with her eyes shut!—she shot Samson a look—one single glance—but so rapid yet so penetrating that I wondered whether my eyes deceived me. Oh, Dr Saporta! Dr Saporta! Think about it while there’s still time: cave tibi a cane muto et aqua silenti.”§§
All the while, the master was pursuing his interrogation, and when he posed us a question that neither Samson nor I could answer, it was Miroul who spoke up.
“My my, Miroul,” cried Maître Sanche, prodigiously astonished, “you know that?”
“Oh, very illustrious master,” Miroul murmured, “I read the Holy Bible every day God has made.”
“You mean you know how to read?”
“When he took me in, the Baron de Mespech had me taught.”