Mont Oriol or A Romance of Auvergne

In the minds of some invalids, indeed, he was the only person that understood the true properties of the waters; he possessed, so to speak, their secret, since he had officially administered them from the time the station was first established.

Doctor Honorat barely managed to retain his practice among the natives of Auvergne. With the moderate income he derived from this source he contented himself, keeping on good terms with everybody, and consoled himself by much preferring cards and wine to medicine. He did not, however, go quite so far as to love his professional brethren.

Doctor Latonne would, therefore, have continued to be the great soothsayer of Mont Oriol, if one morning there had not appeared a very small man, nearly a dwarf, whose big head sunk between his shoulders, big round eyes, and big hands combined to produce a very odd-looking individual. This new physician, M. Black, introduced into the district by Professor Remusot immediately excited attention by his excessive devotion. Nearly every morning, between two visits, he went into a church for a few minutes, and he received communion nearly every Sunday. The curé soon got him some patients, old maids, poor people whom he attended for nothing, pious ladies who asked the advice of their spiritual director before calling on a man of science, whose sentiments, reserve, and professional modesty, they wished to know before everything else.

Then, one day, the arrival of the Princess de Maldebourg, an old German Highness, was announced – a very fervent Catholic, who on the very evening when she first appeared in the district, sent for Doctor Black on the recommendation of a Roman cardinal. From that moment he was the fashion. It was good taste, good form, the correct thing, to be attended by him. He was the only doctor, it was said, who was a perfect gentleman – the only one in whom a woman could repose absolute confidence.

And from morning till evening this little man with the bulldog's head, who always spoke in a subdued tone in every corner with everybody, might be seen rushing from one hotel to the other. He appeared to have important secrets to confide or to receive, for he could constantly be met holding long mysterious conferences in the lobbies with the masters of the hotels, with his patients' chambermaids, with anyone who was brought into contact with the invalids. As soon as he saw any lady of his acquaintance in the street, he went straight up to her with his short, quick step, and immediately began to mumble fresh and minute directions, after the fashion of a priest at confession.

The old women especially adored him. He would listen to their stories to the end without interrupting them, took note of all their observations, all their questions, and all their wishes.

He increased or diminished each day the proportion of water to be consumed by his patients, which made them feel perfect confidence in the care taken of them by him.

"We stopped yesterday at two glasses and three-quarters," he would say; "well, to-day we shall only take two glasses and a half, and to-morrow three glasses. Don't forget! To-morrow, three glasses. I am very, very particular about it!"

And all the patients were convinced that he was very particular about it, indeed.

In order not to forget these figures and fractions of figures, he wrote them down in a memorandum-book, in order that he might never make a mistake. For the patient does not pardon a mistake of a single half-glass. He regulated and modified with equal minuteness the duration of the daily baths in virtue of principles known only to himself.

Doctor Latonne, jealous and exasperated, disdainfully shrugged his shoulders, and declared: "This is a swindler!" His hatred against Doctor Black had even led him occasionally to run down the mineral waters. "Since we can scarcely tell how they act, it is quite impossible to prescribe every day modifications of the dose, which any therapeutic law cannot regulate. Proceedings of this kind do the greatest injury to medicine."

Doctor Honorat contented himself with smiling. He always took care to forget, five minutes after a consultation, the number of glasses which he had ordered. "Two more or less," said he to Gontran in his hours of gaiety, "there is only the spring to take notice of it; and yet this scarcely incommodes it!" The only wicked pleasantry that he permitted himself on his religious brother-physician consisted in describing him as "the doctor of the Holy Sitting-Bath." His jealousy was of the prudent, sly, and tranquil kind.

He added sometimes: "Oh, as for him, he knows the patient thoroughly; and this is often better than to know the disease!"

But lo! there arrived one morning at the hotel of Mont Oriol a noble Spanish family, the Duke and Duchess of Ramas-Aldavarra, who brought with her her own physician, an Italian, Doctor Mazelli from Milan. He was a man of thirty, a tall, thin, very handsome young fellow, wearing only mustaches. From the first evening, he made a conquest of the table d'hôte, for the Duke, a melancholy man, attacked with monstrous obesity, had a horror of isolation, and desired to take his meals in the same dining-room as the other patients. Doctor Mazelli already knew by their names almost all the frequenters of the hotel; he had a kindly word for every man, a compliment for every woman, a smile even for every servant.

Placed at the right-hand side of the Duchess, a beautiful woman of between thirty-five and forty, with a pale complexion, black eyes, blue-black hair, he would say to her as each dish came round:

"Very little," or else, "No, not this," or else, "Yes, take some of that." And he would himself pour out the liquid which she was to drink with very great care, measuring exactly the proportions of wine and water which he mingled.

He also regulated the Duke's food, but with visible carelessness. The patient, however, took no heed of his advice, devoured everything with bestial voracity, drank at every meal two decanters of pure wine, then went tumbling about in a chaise for air in front of the hotel, and began whining with pain and groaning over his bad digestion.

After the first dinner, Doctor Mazelli, who had judged and weighed all around him with a single glance, went to join Gontran, who was smoking a cigar on the terrace of the Casino, told his name, and began to chat. At the end of an hour, they were on intimate terms. Next day, he got himself introduced to Christiane just as she was leaving the bath, won her good-will after ten minutes' conversation, and brought her that very day into contact with the Duchess, who no longer cared for solitude.

He kept watch over everything in the abode of the Spaniards, gave excellent advice to the chef about cooking, excellent hints to the chambermaid on the hygiene of the head in order to preserve in her mistress's hair its luster, its superb shade, and its abundance, very useful information to the coachman about veterinary medicine; and he knew how to make the hours swift and light, to invent distractions, and to pick up in the hotels casual acquaintances but always prudently chosen.

The Duchess said to Christiane, when speaking of him: "He is a wonderful man, dear Madame. He knows everything; he does everything. It is to him that I owe my figure."

"How, your figure?"

"Yes, I was beginning to grow fat, and he saved me with his regimen and his liqueurs."

Moreover, Mazelli knew how to make medicine itself interesting; he spoke about it with such ease, with such gaiety, and with a sort of light scepticism which helped to convince his listeners of his superiority.

"'Tis very simple," said he; "I don't believe in remedies – or rather I hardly believe in them. The old-fashioned medicine started with this principle – that there is a remedy for everything. God, they believe, in His divine bounty, has created drugs for all maladies, only He has left to men, through malice, perhaps, the trouble of discovering these drugs. Now, men have discovered an incalculable number of them without ever knowing exactly what disease each of them is suited for. In reality there are no remedies; there are only maladies. When a malady declares itself, it is necessary to interrupt its course, according to some, to precipitate it, according to others, by some means or another. Each school extols its own method. In the same case, we see the most antagonistic systems employed, and the most opposed kinds of medicine – ice by one and extreme heat by the other, dieting by this doctor and forced nourishment by that. I am not speaking of the innumerable poisonous products extracted from minerals or vegetables, which chemistry procures for us. All this acts, 'tis true, but nobody knows how. Sometimes it succeeds, and sometimes it kills."

And, with much liveliness, he pointed out the impossibility of certainty, the absence of all scientific basis as long as organic chemistry, biological chemistry had not become the starting-point of a new medicine. He related anecdotes, monstrous errors of the greatest physicians, and proved the insanity and the falsity of their pretended science.

"Make the body discharge its functions," said he. "Make the skin, the muscles, all the organs, and, above all, the stomach, which is the foster-father of the entire machine, its regulator and life-warehouse, discharge their functions."

He asserted that, if he liked, by nothing save regimen, he could make people gay or sad, capable of physical work or intellectual work, according to the nature of the diet which he imposed on them. He could even act on the faculties of the brain, on the memory, the imagination, on all the manifestations of intelligence. And he ended jocosely with these words:

"For my part, I nurse my patients with massage and curaçoa."

He attributed marvelous results to massage, and spoke of the Dutchman Hamstrang as of a god performing miracles. Then, showing his delicate white hands:

"With those, you might resuscitate the dead."

And the Duchess added: "The fact is that he performs massage to perfection."

He also lauded alcoholic beverages, in small proportions to excite the stomach at certain moments; and he composed mixtures, cleverly prepared, which the Duchess had to drink, at fixed hours, either before or after her meals.

He might have been seen each morning entering the Casino Café about half past nine and asking for his bottles. They were brought to him fastened with little silver locks of which he had the key. He would pour out a little of one, a little of another, slowly into a very pretty blue glass, which a very correct footman held up respectfully.

Then the doctor would give directions: "See! Bring this to the Duchess in her bath, to drink it, before she dresses herself, when coming out of the water."

And when anyone asked him through curiosity: "What have you put into it?" he would answer: "Nothing but refined aniseed-cordial, very pure curaçoa, and excellent bitters."

This handsome doctor, in a few days, became the center of attraction for all the invalids. And every sort of device was resorted to, in order to attract a few opinions from him.

When he was passing along through the walks in the park, at the hour of promenade, one heard nothing but that exclamation of "Doctor" on all the chairs where sat the beautiful women, the young women, who were resting themselves a little between two glasses of the Christiane Spring. Then, when he stopped with a smile on his lip, they would draw him aside for some minutes into the little path beside the river. At first, they talked about one thing or another; then discreetly, skillfully, coquettishly, they came to the question of health, but in an indifferent fashion as if they were touching on sundry topics.

For this medical man was not at the disposal of the public. He was not paid by them, and people could not get him to visit them at their own houses. He belonged to the Duchess, only to the Duchess. This situation even stimulated people's efforts, and provoked their desires. And, as it was whispered positively that the Duchess was jealous, very jealous, there was a desperate struggle between all these ladies to get advice from the handsome Italian doctor. He gave it without forcing them to entreat him very strenuously.

Then, among the women whom he had favored with his advice arose an interchange of intimate confidences, in order to give clear proof of his solicitude.

"Oh! my dear, he asked me questions – but such questions!"

"Very indiscreet?"

"Oh! indiscreet! Say frightful. I actually did not know what answers to give him. He wanted to know things – but such things!"

"It was the same way with me. He questioned me a great deal about my husband!"

"And me, also – together with details so – so personal! These questions are very embarrassing. However, we understand perfectly well that it is necessary to ask them."

"Oh! of course. Health depends on these minute details. As for me, he promised to perform massage on me at Paris this winter. I have great need of it to supplement the treatment here."

"Tell me, my dear, what do you intend to do in return? He cannot take fees."

"Good heavens! my idea was to present him with a scarf-pin. He must be fond of them, for he has already two or three very nice ones."

"Oh! how you embarrass me! The same notion was in my head. In that case I'll give him a ring."

And they concocted surprises in order to please him, thought of ingenious presents in order to touch him, graceful pleasantries in order to fascinate him. He became the "talk of the day," the great subject of conversation, the sole object of public attention, till the news spread that Count Gontran de Ravenel was paying his addresses to Charlotte Oriol with a view to marrying her. And this at once led to a fresh outburst of deafening clamor in Enval.

Since the evening when he had opened with her the inaugural ball at the Casino, Gontran had tied himself to the young girl's skirts. He publicly showed her all those little attentions of men who want to please without hiding their object; and their ordinary relations assumed at the same time a character of gallantry, playful and natural, which seemed likely to lead to love.