Part 19 (2/2)

The time for the experiments to begin had arrived; and as effrontery is more readily imparted than magnetism, I was awaiting impatiently, in my easy-chair, an opportunity to display my skill.

Madame Jolicur came first, despite the representations of the Marquis de Vieux-Buissons, who maintained that a man of his rank should take precedence over everybody else. But the laundress was not the woman to give way to anyone; moreover, she was young and pretty, the marquis old, ugly and crabbed; so that Madame Jolicur had the first chance.

The great magnetizer took her by the hand and led her around the tub, then made her sit down, and magnetized her with the end of his wand. The young woman did not seem inclined to sleep.

”I will put you in communication with my somnambulist,” he said. The laundress looked at me and smiled; she did not seem to dislike the idea of being put in communication with me.

I knew my role; I had taken notes concerning Madame Jolicur.

”We must take the bull by the horns,” my companion whispered to me, ”for this woman is quite capable of making fun of us.”

The laundress was seated facing me; she was enjoined to be silent and to allow herself to be touched, which she did with much good humor; but she laughed slyly while I held her hand, and I heard her mutter while pretending to be asleep:

”Oh! mon Dieu! how stupid this is! The sapper told me that they'd try some flim-flam game on me!”

I at once proclaimed aloud all that Clairette had told us concerning the laundress's love-affairs. I forgot nothing, neither the drum-major, nor the waltz, nor the a.s.signation, nor its consequences. At my first words, the company began to laugh, Madame Jolicur was covered with confusion, and before I had finished my speech, the laundress had left her seat, elbowed her way through the crowd and rushed from the inn, swearing that we were sorcerers.

This first experiment left no doubt in anyone's mind concerning the virtue of magnetism; so that Monsieur le Marquis de Vieux-Buissons stalked solemnly toward us, and, in an almost courteous tone, requested my confrere to put him in communication with me at once.

The usual preliminaries concluded, the following dialogue took place between us two:

”Who am I?”

”A most high and mighty seigneur in your ancient chateau, of which but one wing remains; that is why you have recently purchased another small seigniory in the neighborhood.”

”That is true; but what do I wish to do now?”

”You wish that your va.s.sals should be submissive, trembling and fearful in your presence, like lambs before a lion; you wish to be the master of their destinies; you wish that they should give you their fairest and best--what they have earned by the sweat of their brow; and in addition to all that, you wish that they should pay you.”

”That is very true.”

”You would that maidens should not change their state without your permission.”

”That is the truth.”

”And as you are no longer capable of effecting this, you would, on the wedding day, put your old bare leg into the bed of the young virgin, who will shriek and weep at the sight of her lord's calf, a result which will do great honor to him, as he is very glad now to frighten his va.s.sals with that, since he can arouse no other sentiment. In short, you wish to revive the rights of _jambage_, _cuissage_, _marquette_ and _prelibation_, as they existed in the good old days of chivalry, when a knight always rode with lance in rest, fighting when neither would yield to the other, on a narrow road where two could not pa.s.s; fighting when the man whom he met refused to declare aloud that his lady was the fairest, although he had never seen her; fighting with dwarfs--there were dwarfs in those days--and with giants who carried off young maidens, and who, despite their enormous clubs--for a giant never went abroad without one--allowed themselves to be run through like manikins by the first knight who appeared on the scene!”

”That's it, that's it exactly! I mean to have a dwarf at the door of my dovecote, and to kill the first giant who appears on my land, where one has never yet been seen.”

”Very well, monsieur le marquis, buy some of Master Graograicus's pills, take them in large quant.i.ties and often; they will make you young, vigorous, active and l.u.s.ty; your white hair will turn black again, your figure will become straight, your wrinkles will disappear, your cheeks will fill out, your color will come back and your teeth will grow again.

I will guarantee that, when this transformation has taken place, your va.s.sals will do whatever you wish, and especially that the girls will no longer avoid you.”

The marquis, delighted by my replies, took twelve boxes of the pills and paid for them without haggling. He put some in every pocket; he swallowed half a dozen at once, and started for home, with head erect and a sparkling eye, and feeling ten years younger already.

After the marquis, Aline-Cunegonde Trouillard came forward; there was no need of preliminaries or of harangues to induce Madame Trouillard to believe in magnetism; the poor woman had such sensitive nerves that she fell into a trance as soon as my companion touched her with the end of his wand. In my interview with her I said recklessly whatever came into my head; she had all the diseases that I mentioned, she felt all the symptoms that I suggested to her. What a windfall to charlatans such weak-minded creatures are! Madame Trouillard filled her reticule with pills and went away, after subscribing to all our seances, public and private.

We were awaiting Estelle Guignard, whose name was on our list, when a st.u.r.dy fellow, in wooden shoes and a blue blouse, forced his way through the crowd and approached us. I had no answers prepared for this new arrival, so I let him address my companion, who looked about for Clairette, hoping to obtain from her some indispensable information; but the girl, thinking that we had no further need of her, had gone down to the kitchen; so that we had to proceed without a confederate. My colleague hoped to extricate himself from the difficulty easily, especially as he had to do with a peasant. He walked up to the man, who was staring with a surprised expression into the mysterious tub; and trying to a.s.sume a more imposing air than ever, he began to question him.

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