THE MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN (Complete Edition: Volumes 1-5) - Alexandre Dumas

Скачать книгу

no, no, and you are a true logician. No, my dear Acharat, such accidents cannot be avoided; the wounds will still be made, but I can stop the vital spirit issuing by the hole. Look!"

      Before the other could interfere he drove the lancet into his arm. The old man had so little blood that it was some time flowing to the cut; but when it came it was abundantly.

      "Great God! you have hurt yourself!" cried the younger man.

      "We must convince you."

      Taking up a phial of colorless fluid, he poured a few drops on the wound; instantly the liquid congealed, or rather threw out fibres materializing, and, soon a plaster of a yellow hue covered in the gash and stanched the flow. Balsamo had never seen collodion, and he gazed in stupefaction at the old sage.

      "You are the wisest of men, father!"

      "At least if I have not dealt Death a death-blow, I have given him a thrust under which he will find it hard to rise. You see, my son, that the human frame has brittle bones—I will harden and yet supple them like steel. It has blood which, in flowing out, carries life with it—I will stop the flow. The skin and flesh are soft—I will tan them so that they will turn the edge of steel and blunt the points of spears, while bullets will flatten against it. Only let an Althotas live three hundred years. Well, give me what I want, and I shall live a thousand. Oh, my dear Acharat, all depends on you. Bring me the child."

      "I will think it over, and do you likewise reflect."

      The sage darted a look of withering scorn on his adept.

      "Go!" he snarled, "I will convince you later. Besides, human blood is not so precious that I cannot use a substitute. Go, and let me seek—and I shall find. I have no need of you. Begone!"

      Balsamo walked over to the elevator, and with a stamp of the foot, caused it to carry him down to the other floor. Mute, crushed by the genius of this wizard, he was forced to believe in impossible things by his doing them.

      Chapter XLII.

       The King's New Amour.

       Table of Contents

      This same long night had been employed by Countess Dubarry in trying to mold the king's mind to a new policy according to her views.

      Above all she had dwelt upon the necessity of not letting the Choiseul party win possession of the dauphiness. The king had answered carelessly that the princess was a girl and Choiseul an old statesman, so that there was no danger, since one only wanted to sport and the other to labor. Enchanted at what he thought a witticism, he cut short further dry talk.

      But Jeanne did not stay stopped, for she fancied the royal lover was thinking of another.

      He was fickle. His great pleasure was in making his lady-loves jealous, as long as they did not sulk too long or become too riotous in their jealous fits.

      Jeanne Dubarry was jealous naturally, and from fear of a fall. Her position had cost her too much pains to conquer and was too far from the starting-point for her to tolerate rivals as Lady Pompadour had done.

      Hence she wanted to know what was on the royal mind.

      He answered by these memorable words, of which he did not mean a jot:

      "I intend to make my daughter-in-law very happy and I am afraid that my son will not make her so."

      "Why not, sire?"

      "Because he looks at other women a good deal, and very seldom at her."

      "If any but your majesty said that, I should disbelieve them, for the archduchess is sweetly pretty."

      "She might be rounded out more; that Mademoiselle de Taverney is the same age and she has a finer figure. She is perfectly lovely."

      Fire flashed in the favorite's eyes and warned the speaker of his blunder.

      "Why, I wager that you were plump as Watteau's shepherdesses at sixteen," said he quickly, which adulation improved matters a little, but the mischief was done.

      "Humph," said she, bridling up under the pleased smile, "is the young lady of the Taverney family so very, very fair?"

      "I only noticed that she was not a bag of bones. You know I am short-sighted and the general outline alone strikes me. I saw that the new-comer from Austria was not plump, that is all."

      "Yes, you must only see generally, for the Austrian is a stylish beauty, and the provincial lady a vulgar one."

      "According to this, Jeanne, you would be the vulgar kind," said the monarch. "You are joking, I think."

      "That is a compliment, but it is wrapped up in a compliment to another," thought the favorite, and aloud she said: "Faith, I should like the dauphiness to choose a bevy of beauties for maids of honor. A court of old tabbies is frightful."

      "You are talking over one won to your side, for I was saying the same thing to the dauphin; but he is indifferent."

      "However, she begins well, you think, to take this Taverney girl. She has no money?"

      "No, but she has blood. The Taverney Redcastles are a good old house and long-time servants of the realm."

      "Who is backing them?"

      "Not the Choiseuls, for they would be overfeasted with pensions in that case."

      "I beg you not to bring in politics, countess!"

      "Is it bringing in politics to say the Choiseuls are blood-sucking the realm?"

      "Certainly." And he arose.

      An hour after he regained the Grand Trianon palace, happy at having inspired jealousy, though he said to himself, as a Richelieu might do at thirty:

      "What a bother these jealous women are!"

      Dubarry went into her boudoir, where Chon was impatiently waiting for the news.

      "You are having fine success," she exclaimed; "day before yesterday presented to the dauphiness, you dined at her table yesterday."

      "That's so—but much good in such nonsense."

      "Nonsense, when a hundred fashionable carriages are racing to bring you courtiers?"

      "I am vexed, sorry for them, as they will not have any smiles from me this morning. Let me have my chocolate."

      "Stormy weather, eh?"

      Chon rang and Zamore came in to get the order. He started off so slowly, and humping up his back, that the mistress cried:

      "Is that slowcoach going to make me perish of hunger? If he plays the camel and does not hurry, he'll get a hundred lashes on his back."

      "Me no hurry—me gubbernor," replied the black boy, majestically.

      "You a governor?" screamed the lady, flourishing a fancy riding whip kept to maintain order among the spaniels. "I'll give you a lesson in governing."

      But the negro ran out yelling.

      "You are quite ferocious, Jeanne," remarked her sister.

      "Surely I have the right to be ferocious in my own house?"

      "Certainly; but I am going to elope, for fear I may be devoured alive."

      Three knocks on the door came to interrupt the outbreak.

      "Hang it all—who is bothering now?" cried the countess, stamping her foot.

      "He is in for a nice welcome," muttered Chon.

      "It will be a good thing if I am badly received," said Jean, as he pushed open the door as widely as though he were a king, "for then I should take myself off and not come again. And you would be the greater loser of the two."

      "Saucebox——"

      "Because I am not a flatterer.

Скачать книгу