inn-keeper paid no attention to us, and did not put himself out to
receive us; but when my companion ordered one of the finest suites and a
splendid repast, he scrutinized us with a hesitating expression which
was eloquent of his doubts concerning the state of our finances. My
crafty hunchback tossed a number of crowns on the table, and requested
the host to take out a week’s rent of the apartment in advance.
This method of beginning operations completely changed the ideas of the
inn-keeper, who concluded that he had to deal with noblemen travelling
incognito. We were given rooms on the first floor and served on the
minute.
“Monsieur l’aubergiste,” said my companion to our host, as we took our
seats at the table, “you don’t know who I am; I am going to make myself
known to you for the good of this town. Be good enough to inform the
inhabitants that they have the privilege of entertaining within their
walls, but for only a week, the celebrated Graograicus,
physician-in-chief to the Emperor of China, magnetizer to the favorite
sultana of the Sultan of Damascus, physician by letters patent to the
court of the King of Morocco, chemist to the Grand Vizier of
Constantinople, and astrologer to the Hetman of the Cossacks. Tell them
also that I have with me temporarily the little somnambulist, the most
famous, the most extraordinary that has ever appeared on the face of the
globe. He is a young man of thirty years, who looks less than fifteen,
because he has passed half of his life asleep. This strange young man,
born on the banks of the Indus, knows all languages--not to speak them,
it is true, but he understands them better than you and I do. In his
sleep he discovers your disease, its cause, its effects, the pains that
you feel, the periods of recurrence, and points out the remedies you
should take, even for future sicknesses. He has had the honor of putting
himself to sleep before counts, marquises, dukes, and even royal
highnesses. He has effected, sleeping all the while, cures that would
have passed for miracles under the reign of the great Solomon, and even
under that of King Dagobert. He has cured an Englishman of the spleen, a
German baroness of a cutaneous disease, and her husband of the gout; a
young dancer of hatred for men, and an old woman of her love for her
dog; a courtier of the habit of bending his back, and a courtesan of a
peculiar habit of wriggling; an annuitant of a weakness of the stomach,
and a Prussian of indigestion; an author of a buzzing in his ears, and a
musician of a weakness in his legs; a bailiff of rheumatism in the loins
and an attorney of itching fingers; a lawyer of a defect in his speech,
and a singer of defective respiration; a coquette of her vapors, and an
old libertine of his asthma; a pacha with three tails, of his inability
to secure offspring, and a muleteer of his too bountiful gifts in this
direction; a dissolute husband of the habit of sowing good grain on
stony ground, and an Italian of the habit of whipping small boys; and
many other people, whom I will not name, because it would take too long,
and also because we are not mere charlatans, who simply try to throw
dust in people’s eyes.--This little prospectus, which I will beg you to
distribute, will suffice to give the inhabitants of this town an idea of
our learning. Here, monsieur l’aubergiste, take these, and believe.”
The host listened with wide-open eyes to this harangue of the little
hunchback, delivered with extraordinary emphasis and assurance; he took
the prospectuses with a respectful bow, assured us of his devotion,
tried to pronounce my companion’s name, failed, made a grimace, took off
his cap, and backed out of our room.
When he had gone, I asked my companion if I was the somnambulist, thirty
years old, who had cured so many people.
“Yes, my dear boy,” he replied; “don’t be surprised at anything; I will
answer for everything. You told me to call you Jacques, but that name is
too far within the reach of everybody; when we have visitors, I shall
call you nothing but Tatouos--don’t forget.--I am going to take a walk
about the town and make a few memoranda; while I am gone, amuse yourself
arranging my philters in this cupboard, and making a few boxes of pills;
I will return very soon.”
I was left alone, but, instead of making pills, I amused myself eating
the cacao, cinnamon and other ingredients used in compounding the
so-called charms. I also inspected the valise, which my companion had
left open; I found a long, black gown, a false nose, a scratch wig and a
flaxen beard. I was busily engaged in the examination of these different
objects, when someone tapped softly at our door.
“Come in,” I said, without moving. The door opened very gently and a
young brunette of some twenty years entered our apartment. She was one
of the servants of the inn, and, like most of her class, she was very
inquisitive and passably wanton. She had heard her master exclaim on
leaving our room that he had as guests in his inn the two most
extraordinary men in the universe: a scholar, who treated Frenchmen like
the Chinese, and a somnambulist thirty years old, who looked like a
child of twelve, and who could put the widest awake people to sleep.
When she heard that, Clairette had resolved to be the first one to be
put to sleep, to see what effect it would produce on her; and, presuming
that when we became well known, it would be more difficult to obtain an
audience, she had made haste to come up to our room, on the pretext of
asking whether we wanted anything.
The girl came forward on tiptoe, like a person moved by fear and
curiosity at the same time. She stopped within two steps of me and
looked at me with close attention. I looked at her in my turn, and found
her most attractive. I had never yet thought about women; indeed, I had
never before been alone with a young girl. The presence of that one, her
close scrutiny of me, and the pleasant expression of her face,--all
those things excited me greatly, and I was conscious of a feeling which
I had never known before.
We were both silent for some time; Clairette broke the silence:
“What, monsieur!” she said, staring with all her eyes, “what! are you
thirty years old?”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” I replied at once, recalling what my companion had
told me, and thinking that that falsehood might lead to some amusing
adventures. Moreover, as you must know, a young man of fifteen is always
well pleased to appear older and more mature than he is; whereas at
thirty, he regrets that he is not fifteen still.
“Bless my soul! why, I can’t get over it! Thirty years old! You don’t
look half of it!”
And Clairette examined me more closely; I made no objection and tried to
play the exquisite.
“You must have some secret, monsieur, to keep you from growing old?”
“Yes, mademoiselle; and I have many others too.”
“Oh! if you could only tell me that one, monsieur! I’d be so pleased, so
happy--to look young forever! Ah! how delightful that would be! I
promise you that I won’t tell your secret. You see, I wouldn’t want the
other girls in town to stay young too! ’twould take away all the
pleasure.--Monsieur, will you be kind enough to--I say--if you will, you
can ask me for all you choose!”
The young servant seemed, in very truth, predisposed in my favor; I
already felt innumerable desires surging in my heart; but I dared not
make them known as yet; I was very green, but I felt a longing to cease
to be, and I wished to receive my first instructions from Clairette.
However, when you pretend to be thirty years old, you don’t want to
appear to be an ignoramus; and, in order to avoid talking and acting
awkwardly, I held my peace and did nothing but look at Clairette.
The girl, amazed by my silence, was afraid that she had said too much;
however, the desire to remain young tormented her so that she soon
renewed her questions.
“They say you’re a somnambulist, monsieur?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And that you put everybody to sleep?”
“I put those people to sleep who believe in my skill.”
“Oh! I believe in it absolutely, monsieur! and if you would put me to
sleep--Perhaps that is what gives the young look?”
“Why, yes, that’s the beginning of it.”
“Oh! begin me, monsieur, please! it will be so much done! Please, while
we’re alone and you’ve got time----”
“What do you want?”
“To be put to sleep, monsieur. See, I’m all ready.”
I was terribly embarrassed; I didn’t know how to go to work to play the
sorcerer, and I bitterly regretted that I had not asked my little
hunchback for fuller details as to that matter. However, as I did not
desire to be cruel any longer to young Clairette, who appeared to me in
such charming fashion, I said to myself: “Parbleu! I’m not any more
stupid than my hunchback; he hasn’t taught me his way of putting people
to sleep, so I’ll invent a way of my own, and perhaps mine will be just
as good as his.”
“All right, I consent,” I said to Clairette, “I’ll give you a lesson;
but it will only be just to give you a little bit of an idea; we’ll do
more another time.”
“Oh! just as you say, monsieur.”
The young woman was so pleased with what I had agreed to do for her,
that she jumped about the room like a mad girl.
“First of all, sit down,” I said, trying to assume a very serious
expression.
“Where shall I sit, monsieur?”
“Why, here--on a chair by my side.”
“Here I am, monsieur.”
“Give me your hand.”
“Oh! both of ’em, if you want.”
I took both her hands and squeezed them hard; I felt a pleasant warmth
run through my whole being; I was so happy that I dared not stir for
fear of breaking the charm that intoxicated my senses; my eyes were
fixed on Clairette’s, and their tender languor aroused my first love.
Instead of giving the girl a lesson, I felt that she could teach me a
thousand things. I trembled, I blushed and turned pale in quick
succession; never was a sorcerer so timid; but I had forgotten my rôle,
and Clairette had unconsciously assumed it.
“It’s mighty funny,” said the girl when I had been squeezing her hand
for five minutes, “it don’t make me a bit sleepy.”
“Wait, wait. It doesn’t work at once. Now you must shut your eyes.”
“Bless me! shut ’em tight?”
“Yes, that is absolutely necessary.”
“All right--now I can’t see a thing.”
As Clairette was no longer looking at me, I became less timid, and after
contemplating at leisure a lovely bosom, from which I had put the
neckerchief partly aside, I ventured to steal a kiss from the lips of my
pretty pupil. Instantly an unknown flame set my heart on fire, I found
in those kisses an unfamiliar sensation of bliss, I could not take
enough of them, and Clairette made no objection, but murmured brokenly:
“Ah! why--this is funny--it don’t make me sleepy--a single bit.”
I don’t know how that first lesson would have ended, had not my
companion suddenly entered the room, just as I embraced Clairette. His
presence confused me so that I reached the other end of the room in one
bound. Clairette seemed less embarrassed than I was; she remained in her
chair, glancing from me to the little hunchback, like a person awaiting
the result of an experiment.
“What are you doing, my dear Tatouos?” said the crafty hunchback with a
smile, for he easily guessed the cause of my confusion.
“Why, I--I was trying to put this girl to sleep.”
“Ah! you were going on to that, were you?--But, as you know, there are
some indispensable preliminaries, and besides this is not a propitious
hour. Take my advice, and postpone your lesson in magnetism until
another time.”
As he said this, my companion made signs to me which I understood
perfectly; then he went to Clairette, who was still sitting quietly in
her chair.
“My dear child, I am glad to see that you desire to obtain instruction,
and that you have faith in our skill. Never fear, we will teach you much
more than you imagine--especially Signor Tatouos, who is extremely well
versed in his art, and whose one aim is to make proselytes. But the
moment has not arrived. Your master wants you in the kitchen; your
fricassees may burn; our supper would be the worse for it, and I should
be very sorry; for I have a good appetite, and I don’t like curdled
sauces and overdone meat. Go, my dear girl,--to-morrow we shall begin
our grand experiments! And if you are the sort of person that I hope you
shall be initiated into our mysteries! In a word, to-morrow you shall
sleep and you shall see the light.”
I am not sure that Clairette fully understood my companion’s meaning,
but she made a profound reverence and left the room. As she passed me,
she shot a glance at me that completely turned my head. Unable longer to
resist my feeling for her, and heedless of what my companion might say,
I followed her into the corridor.
“If you want me to teach you all I know,” I said to her in an undertone,
“tell me where your room is; I will come to see you to-night.”
“Oh! I don’t ask anything better. Look--you go up these stairs, and up
at the very top, the small door to the right; anyway, I’ll leave it open
a little.”
“Good!”
“But you will show me how to keep young?”
“Never fear.”
Clairette left me and I returned to my companion. As you see, love had
already made me inventive; I was determined to leave no stone unturned
to possess Clairette, and yet I was only fifteen and a few months; but a
resolute will, an ardent temperament and robust health impelled me to
embark upon an adventurous career before the usual age.
XI
JACQUES PUTS CLAIRETTE TO SLEEP AND ACCOMPLISHES MARVELS
When I returned to my travelling companion, I expected a severe
reprimand for my inconsiderate conduct with the young maid-servant, and
I had determined to reply that I would remain with him only on condition
of doing as I chose; but I was agreeably surprised to see him laugh and
come forward gayly to meet me.
“It seems to me, my young friend,” he said slyly, “that you are already
disposed to work on your own account. Peste! you are beginning rather
young! However, I do not propose to interfere with you in anything;
indeed, I am neither your father nor your guardian, and you wouldn’t
listen to me if I should preach virtue to you. Allow me simply to give
you some advice dictated by prudence and by our mutual interest.”
“I am listening.”
“I am a man of great tact; and I believe that you are in love with the
girl who was here just now.”
“Indeed? you didn’t need any great tact to discover that.”
“But it’s essential to find out whether she likes you.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“You are so young!”
“She thinks I am thirty.”
“True! I had forgotten that. Then you must try to enlist her in our
interest; you understand, my dear Jacques, that to have a great success
in a town, I must make, or find, accomplices.”
“What! can’t you do without them? You are not very clever, so far as I
can see.”
“My little Jacques, you are just beginning your pranks and your travels;
you don’t know the world as yet; if you had studied it as I have, you
would know that even the most cunning people often require the help of
others to succeed; and that is what I call complicity. The tradesmen
enter into agreements with one another, in order to get better prices
for their wares; the steward makes a bargain with the tradesmen about
paying their bills; the courtiers put their heads together to flatter
the prince and conceal the truth from him; the young dandy plots with a
dancer at the Opéra to ruin a farmer-general; the doctor has an
understanding with the druggist, the tailor with the dealer in cloth,
the dressmaker with the lady’s maid, the author with the _claqueurs_,
who also have an understanding with one another about selling the
tickets they receive for applauding; stockbrokers make agreements to
raise and lower quotations, cabals to ruin the sale of a work by a man
who is not of their coteries, musicians to play badly the music of a
confrère, actors to prevent the production of a play in which they do
not act; and wives have a most excellent understanding with their
husbands’ friends. All this, my dear boy, is complicity. Need you be
surprised then, that a sleight-of-hand man, a manipulator of goblets,
requires accomplices?--So much the worse for the idiots who allow
themselves to be tricked! or rather, so much the better; for if there
were no illusion, there would be very little enjoyment.--As for myself,
I require to know beforehand who the people are who come to consult me;
for you understand that I am no more of a sorcerer than other men. In
order that you, while playing the somnambulist, may divine the pains
that people are feeling, as well as those that they have felt, I must
teach you your lesson in advance. That won’t prevent our making cures,
please God! but we must impose on the multitude; and men are so
constituted that the marvelous delights and always will delight them.
Now then, this little servant seems to me very sly and very wide awake,
and we must make her our accomplice; you will give her love, and I
money. With the two, we shall be very unlucky or very bungling if we do
not enlist her in our cause.”
I was overjoyed by my companion’s proposition; to give love to Clairette
was my only thought, my only desire! But, as the little hunchback
constantly enjoined prudence upon me, and requested me to do nothing
without consulting him, I did not mention my appointment with the young
servant; he might have considered it too abrupt, too sudden, and not for
anything in the world would I have missed my first rendezvous.
Master Graograicus proceeded to tell me the result of his walk about the
town; he was already familiar with the gossip, the intrigues, recent
events, the appointments about to be made, the diseases most in vogue,
the persons to be treated with consideration, the marriages soon to take
place and those which were broken off,--in a word, everything of present
interest to the bigwigs of the place. Give me a small town for a place
to learn all the news in a short time! to be informed, all one needs to
do is to stop a moment at the baker’s, the hair-dresser’s and the
fruit-woman’s.
My companion had a great knack at remembering everything that could
possibly be useful to him; his memory was almost always accurate; it
supplied the place of learning, as in many people it supplies the place
of wit.
Our supper was served. The host came first himself, to lay the cloth and
take our orders. Clairette appeared finally; she seemed less confident
than on the occasion of her first visit; she kept her eyes on the floor,
and paid no heed to my meaning glances and the little hunchback’s sly
smile. I was on pins and needles; I was afraid that she had changed her
mind and her determination. I was a novice in amorous intrigue, and I
did not know that a woman never conceals her wishes so effectively as at
the moment that they are about to be fulfilled.
She left the room, and I did what I could to hasten the supper; but my
companion, who was not in love, abandoned himself with keen delight to
the pleasures of the table. I had no choice but to watch him linger over
each dish, and to listen to his jests concerning my lack of appetite. He
was very far, however, from suspecting the real cause of my
preoccupation.
The supper came to an end at last, and we went into our bedroom, where
there were two beds side by side. I made haste to jump into mine,
placing my trousers at my feet, that I might find them more readily.
After making the tour of the room a dozen times, and arranging his
philters and pill boxes, until my nerves fairly tingled with impatience,
my companion finally decided to go to bed. I awaited that moment as the
signal for my happiness, for I knew that he would be sound asleep as
soon as he was in bed.
At last that instant so ardently desired arrived. My comrade was in bed;
I made certain that he was snoring. I rose, slipped into my trousers,
and, not taking the time to put on my shoes, I hurried to the door,
opened it very softly, and stood on the landing.
I felt my way upstairs, making no noise, in my bare feet, and holding my
breath, I was so afraid of giving the alarm to the people in the house,
and of seeing that unfamiliar felicity which I burned to know elude my
grasp. At last I reached the appointed place at the top of the stairs; I
heard a faint cough and my heart told me that I was near Clairette. I
found a door ajar, and by the light of a night lamp, I saw the little
servant awaiting me.
The girl wore nothing but a short petticoat and a jacket, evidently
assuming that an elaborate toilet was not necessary in the mysteries of
somnambulism; but no woman had ever seemed to me so bewitching, nor had
I ever seen a woman look at me in such an expressive fashion.
“I was waiting for you,” she said; “let’s go right on with the lesson
your companion interrupted so unpleasantly; I am anxious to know how you
are going to make me young!”
“You don’t need to be made young,” I said; “all you need is to stay just
as you are now.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant. Let’s make haste. See, I’ll sit down and shut
my eyes as I did before.”
And without waiting for my reply, Clairette sat down on the foot of her
bed, doubtless because the only chair in the room did not seem to her
strong enough to stand our experiment in magnetism. I was careful not to
urge my pupil to do otherwise, and I went at once and took my place by
her side. I was too excited then to be timid; and Clairette, with her
eyes still closed, contented herself with saying:
“Oh! is that the way? is that what makes a person young? Why, Pierre and
Jérôme have taught me as much already!”
I had repeated my experiment several times and had fallen asleep in
Clairette’s arms, when a great noise woke us both. The uproar seemed to
come from the room beneath; we distinguished a confused murmur of
voices, among others that of the inn-keeper, calling Clairette and
shouting for a light.
What was I to do? If the inn-keeper himself should come upstairs, where
was I to hide? There was nothing in Clairette’s room large enough to
hide me from her master’s eyes. The young woman pushed me from the room
and begged me to save her from the anger of her employer, who did not
propose that the servants in his inn should have weaknesses for others
than himself.
While she blew out her lamp and made a pretence of striking a light, I
went downstairs with no very clear idea what I was going to say. I had
no sooner reached the floor below than someone came to me, grasped my
arm and whispered in my ear:
“Play the sleep-walker; I had an attack of indigestion, I took our
host’s bedroom for the cabinet, and a tureen containing soup-stock for a
night vessel. Don’t be alarmed, I will get you out of the scrape.”
I recognized the voice of my companion, and I at once recovered my
courage. The inn-keeper, irritated because no light was brought, went up
himself to Clairette’s room, where she was still striking the flint
without using tinder--an infallible method of striking fire without
striking a light. At last our host came down again with two lighted
candles; he was on the point of entering his room, when he saw me
walking about the corridor, in my shirt, with solemn tread, carrying my
trousers under my arm, as I had not had time to put them on.
“What does this mean?” he demanded, gazing at me with an expression of
surprise mingled with alarm; “what are you doing here, monsieur? who are
you looking for, at this time of night? Was it you who came into my room
and woke me up, with a dull noise that sounded like a drum, and filled
the room with an infernal smell? Answer me!”
I was careful not to reply and continued to walk slowly along the
corridor; the inn-keeper followed me with his two candles, and Pierre
and Jérôme, the two men-servants, attracted by the noise, awaited with
curiosity the upshot of the adventure. At last a groan came from the
inn-keeper’s bedroom.
“Ah! there’s someone in my room!” he cried, turning pale; “come here,
you fellows, and go on ahead.”
He pushed Pierre and Jérôme before him, and they entered the room where
my companion was, leaving me in the corridor. Soon I heard our host’s
voice, who seemed very wroth with Master Graograicus. I concluded that
it was time to make peace between them, and with that end in view I
stalked solemnly into the room where they were quarrelling.
At my appearance the hubbub ceased.
“Hush! silence! attention!” said my companion in a low tone; “it’s
Tatouos, in a somnambulistic state. I will put him in communication with
myself, and you’ll see that he will tell you all I have done to-night.”
The little hunchback came to me at once. He passed his hands in front of
my face several times, put his forefinger on the end of my nose, in
order, he said, to establish communication, and began his questions: