The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗

tone; it must produce

that effect, because it is a certain method of cure for all

distempers. Ask Signor Sangrado. At that rate, retorted he,

Celsus is altogether in the wrong; for he contends that the

readiest way to cure a dropsical subject is to let him almost die

of hunger and thirst. Oh! as for Celsus, interrupted I, he is no

oracle of mine, as fallible as the meanest of us; I often have

occasion to bless myself for going contrary to his dogmas. I

discover by your language, said Cuchillo, the safe and sure

method of practice Doctor Sangrado instils into his pupils.

Bleeding and drenching are the extent of his resources. No wonder

so many worthy people are cut off under his direction … . No

defamation! interrupted I with some acrimony; a member of the

faculty had better not begin throwing stones. Come, come, my

learned doctor, patients can get to the other world without

bleeding and warm water; and I question whether the most deadly

of us has ever signed more passports than yourself. If you have

any crow to pluck with Signor Sangrado, write against him, he

will answer you, and we shall soon see who will have the best of

the battle. By all the saints in the calendar! swore he, in a

transport of passion, you little know whom you are talking to. I

have a tongue and a fist, my friend; and am not afraid of

Sangrado, who, with all his arrogance and affectation, is but a

ninny. The size of the little death-dealer made me hold his anger

cheap. I gave him a sharp retort; he sent back as good as I

brought, till at last we came to cuffs. We had pulled a few

handfuls of hair from each other’s heads before the grocer and

his kinsman could part us. When they had brought this about, they

feed me for my attendance, and retained my antagonist, whom they

thought the more skilful of the two.

 

Another adventure succeeded close on the heels of this. I went to

see a huge chanter in a fever. As soon as he heard me talk of

warm water, he showed himself so averse to this specific, as to

fall into a fit of swearing. He abused me in all possible shapes,

and threatened to throw me out at window. I was in a greater

hurry to get out of his house than to get in. I did not choose to

see any more patients that day, and repaired to the inn where I

had agreed to meet Fabricio. He was there first. As we found

ourselves in a tippling humour, we drank hard, and returned to

our employers in a pretty pickle, that is to say, so-so in the

upper story. Signor Sangrado was not aware of my being drunk,

because he took the lively gestures which accompanied the

relation of my quarrel with the little doctor, for an effect of

the agitation not yet subsided after the battle. Besides, he came

in for his share in my report; and feeling himself nettled by

Cuchillo — You have done well, Gil Blas, said he, to defend the

character of our practice against this little abortion of the

faculty. So he takes upon him to set his face against watery

drenches in dropsical cases? An ignorant fellow! I maintain, I

do, in my own person, that the use of them may be reconciled to

the best theories. Yes, water is a cure for all sorts of

dropsies, just as it is good for rheumatisms and the green

sickness. It is excellent, too, in those fevers where the effect

is at once to parch and to chill, and even miraculous in those

disorders ascribed to cold, thin, phlegmatic, and pituitous

humours. This opinion may seem strange to young practitioners

like Cuchillo; but it is right orthodox in the best and soundest

systems: so that if persons of that description were capable of

taking a philosophical view, instead of crying me down, they

would become my most zealous advocates.

 

In his rage, he never suspected me of drinking: for, to

exasperate him still more against the little doctor, I had thrown

into my recital some circumstances of my own addition. Yet,

engrossed as he was by what I had told him, he could not help

taking notice that I drank more water than usual that evening.

 

In fact, the wine had made me very thirsty. Any one but Sangrado

would have distrusted my being so very dry, as to swallow down

glass after glass: but as for him, he took it for granted, in the

simplicity of his heart, that I began to acquire a relish for

aqueous potations. Apparently, Gil Blas, said he with a gracious

smile, you have no longer such a dislike to water. As heaven is

my judge! you quaff it off like nectar. It is no wonder, my

friend, I was certain you would take a liking to that liquor.

Sir, replied I, there is a tide in the affairs of men: with my

present lights, I would give all the wine in Valladolid for a

pint of water. This answer delighted the doctor, who would not

lose so fine an opportunity of expatiating on the excellence of

water. He undertook to ring the changes once more in its praise,

not like a hireling pleader, but as an enthusiast in the cause. A

thousand times, exclaimed he, a thousand and a thousand times of

greater value, as being more innocent than our modern taverns,

were those baths of ages past, whither the people went not

shamefully to squander their fortunes and expose their lives, by

swilling themselves with wine, but assembled there for the decent

and economical amusement of drinking warm water. It is difficult

enough to admire the patriotic forecast of those ancient

politicians, who established places of public resort, where water

was dealt out gratis to all comers, and who confined wine to the

shops of the apothecaries, that its use might be prohibited but

under the direction of physicians. What a stroke of wisdom! It is

doubtless to preserve the seeds of that antique frugality,

emblematic of the golden age, that persons are found to this day,

like you and me, who drink nothing but water, and are persuaded

they possess a prevention or a cure for every ailment, provided

our warm water has never boiled; for I have observed that water,

when it has boiled, is heavier, and sits less easily on the

stomach.

 

While he was holding forth thus eloquently, I was in danger more

than once of splitting my sides with laughing. But I contrived to

keep my countenance: nay, more; to chime in with the doctor’s

theory. I found fault with the use of wine, and pitied mankind

for having contracted an untoward relish to so pernicious a

beverage. Then, finding my thirst not sufficiently allayed, I

filled a large goblet with water, and after having swilled it

like a horse: Come, sir, said I to my master, let us drink

plentifully of this beneficial liquor. Let us make those early

establishments of dilution you so much regret, to live again in

your house. He clapped his hands in ecstacy at these words, and

preached to me for a whole hour about suffering no liquid but

water to pass my lips. To confirm the habit, I promised to drink

a large quantity every evening; and, to keep my word with less

violence to my private inclinations, I went to bed with a

determined purpose of going to the tavern every day.

 

The trouble I had got into at the grocer’s did not discourage me

from phlebotomizing and prescribing warm water in the usual

course. Coming out of a house where I had been visiting a poet in

a phrenzy, I was accosted in the street by an old woman who came

up and asked me if I was a physician. I said yes. As that is the

case, replied she, I entreat you with all humility to go along

with me. My niece has been ill since yesterday, and I cannot

conceive what is the matter with her. I followed the old lady to

her house, where I was shown into a very decent room, occupied by

a female who kept her bed. I went near, to consider her case. Her

features struck me from the first; and I discovered beyond the

possibility of a mistake, after having looked at her some little

time, the she-adventurer who had played the part of Camilla so

adroitly. For her part, she did not seem to recollect me at all,

whether from the oppression of her disorder, or from my dress as

a physician rendering me not easy to be known again. I took her

by the hand, to feel her pulse; and saw my ring upon her finger.

I was all in a twitter at the discovery of a valuable, on which I

had a claim both in law and equity. Great was my longing to make

a snatch at it; but considering that these fair ones would set up

a great scream, and that Don Raphael or some other defender of

injured innocence might rush in to their rescue, I laid an

embargo on my privateering. I thought it best to come by my own

in an honest way, and to consult Fabricio about the means. To

this last course I stuck. In the mean time the old woman urged me

to inform her with what disease her niece was troubled. I was not

fool enough to own my ignorance; on the contrary, I took upon

myself as a man of science, and after my master’s example,

pronounced solemnly that the disorder accrued to the patient from

the defect of natural perspiration; that consequently she must

lose blood as soon as possible, because if we could not open one

pore, we always open another: and I finished my prescription with

warm water, to do the thing methodically.

 

I shortened my visit as much as possible, and ran to the son of

Nunez, whom I met just as he was going out on an errand for his

master. I told him my new adventure, and asked his advice about

laying an information against Camilla. Pooh! Nonsense! replied

he; that would not be the way to get your ring again. Those

gentry think restitution double trouble. Call to mind your

imprisonment at Astorga; your horse, your money, your very

clothes, did not they all centre in the hands of justice? We must

rather set our wits to work for the recovery of your diamond. I

take on myself the charge of inventing some stratagem for that

purpose. I will deliberate it in my way to the hospital, where I

have to say but two words from my master to the purveyor. Do you

wait for me at our house of call, and do not be on the fret: I

will be with you shortly.

 

I had waited, however, more than three hours at the appointed

place, when he arrived. I did not know him again at first.

Besides that he had changed his dress and platted his hair, a

pair of false whiskers covered half his face. He wore an immense

sword with a hilt of at least three feet in circumference, and

marched at the head of five men of as swaggering an air as

himself, with bushy whiskers and long rapiers. Good day to you,

Signor Gil Blas, said he by way of salutation; behold an alguazil

upon a new construction, and marshalmen of like materials in

these brave fellows my companions. We have only to be shown where

the woman lodges who purloined the diamond, and we will obtain

restitution, take my word for it. I hugged Fabricio at this

discourse, which let me into the plot,