by Robert Merle
Oh reader! You can well imagine that my heart was beating a fanfare of drums and trumpets to wake the dead when my doctor-father, Chancellor Saporta, commanded me to climb to the platform where the jury had just decided my fate, and then declared me doctor of medicine, with high honours, asked me to repeat the Hippocratic oath, and then handed me, one by one, and with the customary solemnity and gravity required for such occasions, the symbols of my new estate, to wit:
A square doctor’s bonnet, all black except for a crimson silk cord that hung from the top, and which I doffed immediately.
A golden sash, three inches wide, which I immediately fastened around my waist.
A heavy gold ring engraved with my initials that I put on the ring finger of my left hand, where it nestled with the little ring Angelina had given me.
An edition of Hippocrates’s Aphorisms beautifully bound in calfskin.
Thus hatted, sashed and ringed, and holding my copy of Hippocrates’s magnum opus, I gave a speech of thanks in seven different languages: in French (with a low bow to Madame de Joyeuse), in Latin (bowing to the ordinary doctors), in Greek (bowing to the royal professors, with a special reverence in the direction of Dr d’Assas, who had translated this speech for me), in Hebrew (with a bow to Maître Sanche, to whom I owed my knowledge of that language), in German (bowing to my fellow students from Basle), in Italian (simply because I knew a bit of this admirable language), and finally, to the surprise of all, given that it is an idiom that is considered rustic and uneducated, in the local Provençal dialect used in Montpellier. After a moment of surprise, there was a deafening roar of applause from the entire hall in appreciation of my friendship, in gratitude for the love I expressed for this city, its people and its language.
This done, Chancellor Saporta rose and embraced me warmly, rubbing his rough beard against my cheek, and bade me sit down at his right hand while the beadle Figairasse, striding out of the hall, went to ring peals of the college bells in my honour. He wasn’t stingy in his effort and I got my money’s worth out of those two écus and twenty sols. It was a din loud enough to deafen for ever those who heard it.
This racket finally over, the royal professors, the ordinary doctors and the assistants processed out through the streets of Montpellier to the Three Kings inn, where I hosted, as was the custom, a banquet which cost every sol I had. At least this was my last outlay but it was the most monstrous. Happily all those who stuffed and nearly drowned themselves at my expense didn’t share my financial worries.
Madame de Joyeuse was good enough to have her carriage bring her to the inn and, once there, had herself placed in a private room from which she sent for me. Managing to sneak away from the crowd, I hastened to her side and found her comfortably settled with Aglaé de Mérol at her side. Both of them were in their finest silks and satins, fully made-up with pearls in their hair and smelling of all the perfumes in Araby.
“Well now, my little cousin!” cried Madame de Joyeuse. “A kiss for you! You were perfect! Not that I understand a word of Latin, mind you, but you looked as beautiful and graceful as a cat, though a cat with sharp claws under its velvet paws. And best of all, there wasn’t a trace of the crusty old pedant in your tone or your appearance. Kiss me again! You were sublime! Aglaé, tell him how wonderful he was!”
“Monsieur,” Aglaé conceded with a glint in her eye and a trace of a pout, “you were admirable in every way!”
I bowed to Madame de Joyeuse and happily kissed her lips.
“Greet Aglaé as well!” she proclaimed when I’d finished my embrace—certainly a more pleasing one than Saporta’s rough beard.
“But Madame, I don’t believe I dare!”
“Monsieur!” she snorted. “Do you think I don’t know all the trouble you give her, virgin though she may be? Is there no end to your impertinence, you monster? So, since you’ve ordered the wine, drink it!”
“Madame! What a betrayal! You’ve repeated all my compliments?”
“Every one, Monsieur!” laughed Aglaé, while I obediently kissed her, though not with too much ardour, so that Madame de Joyeuse wouldn’t begin her usual refrain about her advanced age.
“So, my sweet,” said the lady, “come and see me tomorrow as soon as you’ve finished your triumphal procession though the city.”
“But Madame, I’ll be all sweaty and dusty!”
“Well, then! We’ll just have to clean you up in my bathtub!” At which they both giggled like schoolgirls and looked at me with so conspiratorial an air I didn’t know what to think. But I’ve learnt that when you don’t understand something, it’s best to treat it light-heartedly in the heat of the moment.
“Mesdames,” I laughed, “is this not strange? Now that I’m a doctor, it’s you who wish to cure me!”
Whereupon I kissed their smooth cheeks and tender hands. Oh, the gentler sex can be so sweet and enveloping! How I would have missed them if God had forgotten to create them! And with what ardour I watched them as they departed, laughing and babbling in their gold-embroidered bodices.
The crowd was so dense in the main dining room of the Three Kings and everyone so busy gorging themselves at my expense—while our hostess went from one person to the next, her eyes shining as she calculated how much their sharp teeth and dry throats would come to on her slate, which I’d have to settle tomorrow—that no one noticed my brief absence. When I caught sight of my beloved Samson, with Miroul at his side, I noticed that he was deep in conversation with a well-proportioned lass wearing a black mask that completely covered her face, but whom I nevertheless immediately identified thanks to a particular trait, which I’ll explain. She only appeared to be a lady for, despite her rich attire, she was but a commoner, as her Provençal dialect and Cévennes accent made all to evident. She now lived discreetly in comfortable profligacy, very highly esteemed by a few wealthy bourgeois, a handsome canon of Notre-Dame des Tables and Captain Cossolat, for among her other qualities (such as an expertise in frolicking and lewd games) she was faithful in her friendships, more of a good girl than an angel, although her sex, unlike that of angels, was absolutely indubitable.
Making my way through the crowds, I approached her and whispered in her ear, “Ah, my good Thomassine, here you are! If you weren’t wearing a mask, I’d give you a kiss!”
“What!” she gasped. “You recognized me?”
“Of course!”
“But how?”
“By your figure! There’s not a more shapely or fetching body in all of Provence!”
“You rascal!” she laughed. “You have such a way with words! And not just with the ladies, it seems, but also with these bigwig doctors!”
“My dear Thomassine, what on earth were you doing at my boring triduanes?”
“By m’faith! What gibberish! Was that French you were speaking?”
“No, it was Latin.”
“Oh, mercy! What strange twaddle! I couldn’t understand a word of it! But I could easily see that you’re as silver-tongued as they come and there wasn’t one among those berobed bigwigs that could get the better of you!”
I took leave of her to fetch a goblet of wine and a Bigorre sausage, and holding the latter between my thumb and my index finger as Barberine had taught me—rather than, as that pig the Baron de Caudebec did, in my fist—I used my left hand to fill my goblet, and was returning to Thomassine’s side when I heard a great commotion over by the door, and headed that way. There I beheld Captain Cossolat struggling with a tall, thin, dark-haired devil, quite badly dressed in a ragged doublet but wearing at his side both sword and dagger. Cossolat was attempting to arrest this fellow because he was not a doctor, a student or a known citizen of the town, and so he’d collared him and was accusing him of having come in to gorge himself at my expense and, who knows, pick a few pockets.
“Monthieur,” lisped this great spindleshanks with an offended air, “how dare you lay a hand on me! I am a perthon of quality. My name is Giacomi and I’m a mathter-at-armth.”
“A likely fable!” cried Cossolat. “There’s not a master-at-arms in Montpellier that I haven’t met, since arms are my profession! Tell me, knave, who knows you here?”
“I do!” I replied, stepping forward, since I liked this fellow’s demeanour and his lisp, which reminded me of my beloved Samson.
“What, Pierre? You know this rascal?”
“I do!” I lied, my cheeks swelling with this happy falsehood. “His name is Giacomi, and I invited him here.”
“I’ve only been here three days,” said our guest quickly, “which is why the captain here hadn’t met me yet.”
“Pierre,” growled Cossolat, releasing him, but looking askance at me, “do you really answer for this fellow?”
“Indeed I do,” I laughed, “as much as I answer for myself!”
At this, Cossolat, who was a full head shorter than Giacomi, but very stocky, with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, looked the man up and down with a most unfriendly air and said, “Italian, remember this well: I don’t like it when a fellow of your aspect walks around my town wearing a sword and dagger when he’s not got a sol in his purse.” Having said which, he turned on his heels and marched off stiffly, clearly irritated.
“Monsieur doctor,” said Giacomi greeting me, “what thanks and good wishes I owe—”
“Bah,” I said, interrupting him, “forget it! It’s nothing. I simply didn’t want you to be locked up for stealing a sausage on the day I received my promotion.”
“Especially, honoured doctor,” he replied squinting with such a piteous and dainty air at the sausage I was holding in my right hand, “since I haven’t eaten anything yet.”
At this, I burst out laughing.
“Well then, eat, my friend!” I said, handing him goblet and sausage. “Eat your fill and drink up. It’s not going to empty my wallet on a day like this!” And shoving him into the little room that Madame de Joyeuse and Aglaé had just vacated, I had our hostess feed him his fill and promised him I’d come back to talk to him as soon as my guests had left.
Scarcely, however, had I entered the grand hall before one of the pretty chambermaids who had been so pawed over during my triduanes approached me with a mysterious smile and told me that there was a masked and veiled “woman of noble bearing” asking for me at the entrance to the inn.
I hurried out and found a tall, very well-dressed and bejewelled woman wearing a mask, and, over the mask, a black lace veil, which she removed when she saw me, revealing a head of strawberry-blonde hair. She was none other than Dame Gertrude du Luc.
“Ah, Madame! You, here! So far from your beloved Normandy! How happy Samson will be to see you!”
“And what about you, my brother,” cooed Dame Gertrude, in her Norman French, “aren’t you happy as well?”
“But of course, Madame,” I answered, already impatient with her coquetry and suddenly remembering her affair with Cossolat; and, without missing a beat, but with a sudden coldness, I went on: “…if indeed you are as faithful to him as he is to you.”
“What? Could you doubt it?” cried the little hypocrite, happy that her mask could hide her shame, if shame she could feel. “But my brother,” she continued, “aren’t you surprised to see me here?”
“Of course!”
“I am,” she said placing her hand on my arm so that I could see the large ring on her gloved finger, “on a second pilgrimage to Rome, having derived such great spiritual profit from the first one.”
“Ah, Madame,” I replied with honeyed piety, “this is very edifying indeed, as long as you don’t use up all the indulgences you earned in the papal city just getting there.”
“You wicked Huguenot,” she hissed with feigned anger, “you’re making sport of me! Do you feel so little pity for the foibles of a poor papist?” And so saying, she threw her arms around me and held me tightly, pressing the full length of her body against mine; and, I confess, she was so soft, so mellow, so undulating, that I felt my mouth suddenly turn dry and words fail me—though these certainly wouldn’t have been necessary if we’d followed the path down which this Circe was leading me. Nor could I withhold pity for her weaknesses when she was exposing my own with such art! What a lesson for me—and one that reminded me I should never judge my neighbour!
And yet I didn’t want to give in any further when I thought about my beloved Samson; so, taking Dame Gertrude by the shoulders and pushing her back from me, I whispered in her ear:
“Madame, this time I will serve you, but no Cossolat! Or I’ll lose my temper!”
Breathing very hard behind her mask, she remained as mute as a carp, giving sufficient proof of her bewitching power to retreat, if indeed that was what she was doing, for I clearly understood, as I watched her pant, that this Norman ogress had appetite enough to cast the three of us together into the furnace of her desire—Samson, Cossolat and me—and the Devil knows who else.
“My brother,” she said in a dying voice, as if she were out of breath, “I know Thomassine is here—and Samson. Go, I beg you, and summon them. I’ve got a carriage waiting outside the door to take them to the needle shop where I hope the good Thomassine will give me a room, but please! Hurry! I can’t wait any longer! I feel like I’m on fire!”
Oh Lord! The power of a woman! What a hold it has on us! How men grovel before it—men who in their pride and pomp are stupid enough to think they control everything! The minx had so overwhelmed, troubled and mollified me that I hurried to obey her, crazed as I was! But not as crazed as Samson, who almost fainted when he beheld her suddenly standing there, lifting her mask to reveal her irresistible smile.
In a trice, he was hers, and he stepped, as if tied hand and foot, into her carriage, throwing his Huguenot conscience to the winds, while at his side Thomassine was secretly lamenting that such a great love was planted in such risky terrain. I remained standing there in the doorway of the inn, feeling sorry for Samson’s simplicity, at the same time thinking—and knowing exactly why I was having such a thought—how much I would have enjoyed being in his place.
When I went back into the inn, I was congratulated on all sides for the superb way in which I’d defended myself on my triduanes: compliments that I listened to politely and happily enough, and yet my mind was elsewhere, as if in a fog of that melancholy that often follows our greatest joys and successes. To tell the truth, I was also feeling the immense fatigue that three days of aggressive disputations had produced, and, since night had long since fallen and one by one my guests were taking their leave, my responses became less and less effusive. The only exception was d’Assas, whom I held back for last in order to express my great thanks. Ah, what a good man he was! And so fat! And so lively! And so benign!
“Pierre,” he said as he embraced me warmly (as much as he was able, for his great paunch prevented him from hugging me), “here you are, a doctor at the tender age of twenty-one. Now that you have your plumage, you must leave the nest! You know how much I shall miss your zeal for knowledge and your zest for life! Of all the students I’ve had in the last five years, you were the one I loved best and I would have given you anything—except,” he said with a wicked smile, “my chambermaid Zara and my Frontignan vineyard, both of which attracted you—if not the first, then most certainly the second. Now a word about medicine, Pierre. As you depart from the Royal College, you must also leave behind this scholarly rubbish: the contentious disputations, the pompous pedantries, the Latin and”—he smiled broadly—“even the Greek, which you haven’t learnt! All this silliness! This hollowness! Crede mihi experto Roberto!† Three-quarters of what you were taught here isn’t worth a dead horse’s fart! Practise your dissections! There’s where the truth lies! Under the knife! Before your eyes! Under your fingers! And read only those teachers who have experience with cutting! Michael Servetus! The great Vesalius! Ambroise Paré! Throw away into the deepest dungeon the Pinarelles and Pennedepiés and all the pompous asses who worship Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen as if they were gods and daily exclaim: Veter
a extollimus recentium incuriosi.”‡ Just remember, Pierre, that he who speaks by the authority of the ancients offers only unprofitable dust. We Huguenots, who reject the authority of the Pope, popular superstitions, the saints and all the golden idols, must also be Huguenots in medicine! We must rediscover the naked truth of nature beneath all the age-old errors! An ass wearing a doctor’s bonnet is still an ass! Let it bray for its ancient oats! Let Pinarelle believe in his bifurcated uterus! And let Pennedepié enjoy his nasty tricks! Pinarelle and Pennedepié! Pennedepié and Pinarelle! Pierre, my friend, remember these two ridiculous and senile pedants as the alpha and omega of ignorance. And don’t they just look the part?—as long and unhappy as two days in Lent! Oh, Pierre! The truth is naked and science is gay!”
Whereupon, choking down a sob, I thought, he embraced me warmly. I walked him to the door, where his cart was waiting, and as he leapt into it with an agility that I wouldn’t have expected of someone so portly, I watched him whip his horse into a lively trot, and was surprised to feel suddenly small and sombre, as though, somehow, he were taking with him my youthful years of study in Montpellier. And indeed, they had come to an end! The straw beaten, the grains in the sack, all that remained on the field was the stubble of harvests reaped. Certain it is that we must harvest food for the winter, but who doesn’t shed a tear to see the beautiful standing wheat fall before the scythe?
I returned to the great hall, where the tables were now piled with the remains of my repast. From the other side of the room, the hostess bustled over with a huge smile on her face to tell me that she’d present me with the bill the next morning. Hardly able to answer, my heart suddenly heavy, I called to Miroul, who was sitting on a stool chatting with one of the chambermaids. According to which side of his face he turned her way, he gazed at her either with his blue or with his brown eye, and under such an assault the lass was melting like butter in the sun, but then it was her job to melt, since the poor girl was but one of the commodities offered by the inn. I ordered Miroul to fetch me my sword, dagger and pistols—which I’d left at the inn that morning since it was forbidden to carry arms at the Royal College of Medicine—and while waiting for them I began to think about my large bed, when all of a sudden I remembered that I’d left Giacomi in the little room off the hall. And it was a very lucky thing, as we will see, that I didn’t forget him.