Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician

"Oh, yes, I have seen him."

"He is looked at as he passes along – they point to him as the benefactor of humanity?"

"No; the children follow him, and, encouraged by their parents, throw stones at him."

"Gracious! still he has the consolation of being rich," said Gilbert, with painful stupefaction.

"Like yourself, he often wonders where the next meal is coming from."

"But, though poor, he is powerful, respected and well considered?"

"He does not know of a night, in lying down, that he will not wake in the Bastille."

"How he must hate men!"

"He neither loves not hates them: they fill him with disgust, that is all."

"I do not understand how he can not hate those who ill use him," exclaimed Gilbert.

"Rousseau has always been free, and strong enough to rely on himself. Strength and liberty make men meek and good; it is only weakness and slavery which create the wicked."

"I guessed this as you explain it; and that is why I wished to be free." I see that we agree on one point, our liking for Rousseau.

"Speak for yourself, young man: youth is the season for illusions."

"Nay; one may be deceived upon things, but not on men."

"Alas, you will learn by and by, that it is men particularly about whom deception is easiest. Perhaps Rousseau is a little fairer than other men; but he has his faults, and great ones."

Gilbert shook his head, but the stranger continued to treat him with the same favor, though he was so uncivil.

"You said you had no master?"

"None, though it dwelt with me to have a most illustrious one; but I refused on the condition that I should make the amusement of noble idlers. Being young, able to study and make my way, I ought not to lose the precious time of youth and compromise in my person the dignity of man."

"This was right," said the stranger gravely; "but have you determined on a career?"

"I should like to be a physician."

"A grand and noble career, where one may decide between true science, modest and martyr-like, and quackery, impudent, rich and bloated. If you love truth, young man, be a doctor. If you love popular applause, be a doctor."

"I am afraid it will cost a lot of money to study, although Rousseau learned for nothing."

"Nothing? oh, young man," said the plant-collector, with a mournful smile, "do you call nothing the most precious of heavenly blessings – candor, health and sleep? That was the price the Genevian seeker of wisdom paid for the little he knows."

"Little! when he is a great musical composer!"

"Pooh, because the king sings 'I have lost my servant,' that does not prove 'The Village Sorcerer' to be a good opera."

"He is a noted botanist!"

"An herb-gatherer, very humble and ignorant amid the marvels known as plants and flowers."

"He is a Latin scholar, for I read that he had translated Tacitus."

"Bah, because in his conceit he wanted to be master of all crafts. But Tacitus, who is a rough antagonist to wrestle with, tired him. No, no, my good young man, in spite of your admiration, there are no more Admirable Crichtons, and what man gains in breadth he loses in depth. Rousseau is a superficial man whose surface is a trifle wider than most men's, that is all."

"Many would like to attain his mark," said the youth.

"Do you slur at me?" asked the stranger with a good nature disarming Gilbert.

"God forbid, for it is too much pleasure to chat for me to disoblige you. You draw me out and I am amazed at the language I am using, for I only picked it out of books, which I did not clearly follow. I have read too much, but I will read again with care. But I forget that while your talk is valuable to me, mine only wastes your time, for you are herb-gathering."

"No," said the botanist, fixing his gray eyes on the youth, who made a move to go but wanted to be detained. "My box is clearly full and I only want certain mosses; I heard that capillary grows round here."

"Stay, I saw some yonder."

"How do you know capillarys?"

"I was born on the woodland; the daughter of the nobleman on whose estate I was reared, liked botany; she had a collection and the objects had their names on labels attached. I noticed that what she called capillary was called by us rustics maidenhair fern."

"So you took a taste for botany?"

"It was this way. I sometimes heard Nicole – she is the maid to Mademoiselle Andrea de Taverney – say that her mistress wanted such and such a plant for her herbarium, so I asked her to get a sketch of them, and I searched in the woods till I raked them up. Then I transplanted them where she must find them, and used to hear the lady, in taking her walk, cry out: 'How odd! here is the very thing I was looking for!'"

The old gentleman looked with more heed and it made Gilbert lower his eyes blushing, for the interest had tenderness in it.

"Continue to study botany, which leads as a flowery path to medicine. Paris has free schools, and I suppose your folks will supply your maintenance."

"I have no relations, but I can earn my living at some trade."

"Yes, Rousseau says in his 'Emile,' that every one should learn a trade even though he were a prince's son."

"I have not read that book, but I have heard Baron Taverney mock at the maxim, and pretend grief at not having made his son a joiner. Instead, he made him a soldier, so that he will dismember instead of joining."

"Yes, these nobles bring their sons up to kill and not to nourish. When revolution comes, they will be forced to beg their bread abroad or sell their sword to the foreigners, which is more shameful. But you are not noble, and you have a craft?"

"No, I have a horror for rough toil; but give me a study and see how I will wear out night and day in my tasks."

"You have been to school, if not to college?"

"I know but to read and write," said Gilbert, shaking his head. "My mother taught me to read, for seeing me slight in physique, she said, 'You will never be a good workman, but must try to be priest or scholar. Learn to read, Gilbert, and you will not have to split wood, guide the plow or hew stone.' Unhappily my mother died before I could more than read, so I taught myself writing. First I traced letters on sand with a sharp stick till I found that the letters used in writing were not those of print, which I was copying. Hence I hope to meet some one who will need my pen, a blind man who will need my eyes, or a dumby who needs my tongue."

"You appear to have willingness and courage; but do you know what it will cost you to live in town? – at least three times what it did in the country."

"Well, suppose I have shelter and for rest after toil, I can shift on six cents a day."

"That is the right talk. I like this kind of man," said the plant collector. "Come with me to Paris and I will find you an independent profession by which you may live."

"Oh, my friend," exclaimed Gilbert, intoxicated with delight. "I accept your offer and I am grateful. But what will I have to do in your company?"

"Nothing but toil. But you will mete out the amount of your work. You will exercise your right of youth, freedom, happiness and even of idleness after you earn the right to be at leisure," added the unnamed benefactor, smiling as though in spite of his will.

Then, raising his eyes to heaven, he ejaculated: "Oh, youth, vigor and liberty!" with an inexpressibly poetical melancholy spreading over his fine, pure lineaments.

"Now, lead me to the spot where the maidenhair is to be found," he said.

Gilbert stepped out before the old gentleman and the pair disappeared in the underwood.

CHAPTER XXVII

MASTER JACQUES

Before the day was over the pair could enter the capital. The young man's heart beat as he perceived Notre Dame Cathedral towers and the ocean of housetops.

"Oh, Paris!" he cried with rapture.

"Yes, Paris, a mass of buildings, a gulf of evils," said the old gentleman. "On each stone yonder you would see a drop of blood or a tear, if the miseries within those abodes could show themselves without."

Gilbert repressed his enthusiasm, which cooled of itself.

They entered by a poor district and the sights were hideous.

"It is going on eight," said the conductor, "let us be quick, young man, for goodness' sake."

Gilbert hurried on.

"I forget to say that I am a married man," said the stranger, after a cold silence which began to worry the youth. "And my wife, who is a genuine Parisian, will probably grumble at our coming home late. Besides, she does not like strangers. Still, I have invited you; so, come along. Or, rather, here we are."

By the last sunbeams, Gilbert, looking up, saw the name-plate of Plastrière Street at a corner.

The other paused before an alley door with iron bars to the upper portion. He pulled a leather thong hanging out of a hole, and this opened the door.

"Come quickly," he called to the youth, who hesitated on the threshold, and he closed the alley door after them.

At the end of a few steps up the dark passage, Gilbert stumbled on the lower step of a black, steep flight of stairs. Used to the locality, the old gentleman had gone up a dozen steps. Gilbert rejoined him and stopped only when he did, on a landing worn by feet, on which opened two doors. The stranger pulled a hare's foot hanging at one, and a shrill bell tinkled inside the room.

A woman some fifty years of age appeared, and she and the man spoke together:

"Is it very late, Therese?" asked the latter timidly.

"A nice hour to come to supper, Jacques!" snarled the woman.

"Come, come, we will make up for the delay," said the one called Jacques, shutting the door and taking the collecting case from Gilbert's hands.

"Have we a messenger boy here?" exclaimed the old woman: "We only wanted him to complete the merry company. So you can no longer do so much as carry your heap of weeds and grass? Master Jacques does the grand with a boy to carry his trash – I beg his pardon, he is becoming quite a great nobleman."

"Be a little quiet, Therese."

"Pay the boy and get rid of him; we want no spies here."

Pale as death, Gilbert sprang toward the door, but Jacques stopped him, saying with some firmness:

"This is not a messenger-boy or a spy. He is a guest whom I bring home."

"A guest?" and the hag let her hands drop along her hips. "This is the last straw."

"Light up, Therese," said the host, still kindly, but showing more will; "I am warm, and we are hungry."

The vixen's grumbling diminished in loudness. She drew fire with flint and steel, while Gilbert stood still by the sill which he regretted he had crossed. Jacques perceived what he suffered, and begged him to come forward.

Gilbert saw the hag's yellow and morose face by the first glimmer of the thin candle stuck in a brass candlestick. It inspired him with dislike. On her part the virago was far from liking the pale, fine countenance, circumspect silence and rigidity of the youth.

"I do not wonder at your being heated and hungry," she growled. "It must be tiresome to go browsing in the woods, and it is awful hard work to stoop from time to time to pick up a root. For I suppose this person gathers leaves and buds, too, for herb-collecting is the trade for those who do not any work."

"This is a good and honest young man," said Jacques, in a still firmer voice, "who has honored me with his company all day, and whom my good Therese will greet as a friend, I am sure."

"Enough for two is scant for three," she grumbled.

"We are both frugal."

"I know your kind of frugality. I declare that there is not enough bread in the house for such abstemiousness, and that I am not going down three flights of stairs for more. Anyway, the baker's is shut up."

"Then, I will go," said Jacques, frowning. "Open the door, for I mean it."

"Oh, in that case, I suppose I must do it," said the scold.

"What am I for but to carry out your freaks? Come and have supper."

A table was set in the next room, small and square, with cherry wood chairs, having straw bottoms, and a bureau full of darned hose.

Gilbert took a chair; the old woman placed a plate and the appurtenances, all worn with hard use, before him, with a pewter goblet.

"I thought you were going after bread?" said Jacques.

"Never mind; I found a roll in the cupboard, and you ought to manage on a pound and a half of bread, eh?"

So saying, she put the soup on the board. All three had good appetites, but Gilbert held in his, but he was the first to get through.

"Who has called to-day?" inquired the host, to change the termagant's ideas.

"The whole world, as usual. You promised Lady Boufflers four quires of music, Lady Escars two arias, and Lady Penthievre a quartet with accompaniment. They came or sent. But the ladies must go without their music because our lord was out plucking dandelions."

Jacques did not show anger, though Gilbert expected him to do so, for he was used to this manner. The soup was followed by a chunk of boiled beef, on a delft plate grooved with knife points. The host served Gilbert scantily, as Therese was watching, took the same sized piece and passed the plate to his Xantippe.

She handed a slice of bread to the guest. It was so small that Jacques blushed, but he waited until she had helped him and herself, when he took the loaf from her. He handed it to Gilbert and bade him cut off according to his wants.

"Thank you," said Gilbert, as some beans in butter were served, "but I have no longer any hunger. I never eat but one dish. And I drink only water."

Jacques had a little wine for himself.

"You must see about the young man's bed," said the latter, putting down the bottle. "He must be tired."

Therese dropped her fork and stared at the speaker.

"Sleep here? you must be mad. Bring people home to sleep – I expect you want to give up your own bed to them. You must be off your head. Is it keeping a lodging-house you are about? If this is so, don't look to me! get a cook and servants. It is bad enough to be yours, without waiting on Tom, Dick and Harry."

"Therese, listen to me," replied Jacques, with his grave, even voice; "it is for one night only. This young man has never set foot in Paris, and comes under my safe-conduct. I am not going to have him go to an inn, though he has to have my own bed, look you."

Therese understood that struggle was out of the question for the present and she changed her tactics by fighting for Gilbert, but as an ally who would stab him in the back at the first chance.

"I daresay you know all about him, or you would not have brought him home, and he ought to stay here. I will shake up some kind of a bed in your study among the papers."

"No, no, a study is not fit for a sleeping-room; a light might set fire to the writings."

"Which would be no loss," sneered Therese.

"There is the garret; the room with a fine outlook over such gardens as are scarce in Paris. Have no anxiety, Therese; the young man will not be a burden; he will earn his own living. Take a candle and follow me."

Therese sighed, but she was mastered. Gilbert gravely rose and followed his benefactor. On the landing Gilbert saw drinking water in a tank.

"Is water dear in town?" he inquired.

"They charge for it; but any way, bread and water are two things which man has no right to refuse to his fellow-man."

"But at Taverney, water ran freely, and the luxury of the poor is cleanliness."

"Take as much as you like, my friend," said Master Jacques.

Gilbert filled a crock and followed the host, who was astonished at so young a man allying the firmness of the people with the instinct of the aristocratic.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE LOFT

To tell the truth, the loft where Jacques stowed his guest was not fit for habitation. The mattress was on the floor and the chief article of furniture. Rats had pulled about and gnawed a heap of yellowed papers. On clotheslines across the attic were paper bags in which were drying beans, herbs and household linen.

"It is not nice to look upon," apologized the host, "but sleep and darkness make the sumptuous palace and the meanest cottage much alike. Sleep as youth can do, and nothing will prevent you thinking you slept in the royal palace. But mind you do not set the house afire. We will talk over matters in the morning."

"Good-night and hearty thanks," said Gilbert, left alone in the garret.

With all the precaution recommended, he took up the light and made the rounds of the room. As the newspapers and pamphlets were tied in bales he did not open them; but the bean bags were made of printed pages of a book, which caught his eye with the lines. One sack, knocked off the line by his head, burst on the floor, and in trying to replace the beans, he fell to reading the wrappers. It was a page from the love of a poor youth for a lovely and fashionable lady named Lady Warrens. Gilbert was congratulating himself on having the whole night to read this love story on the wrappers when the candle went out and left him in gloom. He was ready to weep with rage. He dropped the papers on the heap of beans and flung himself on his couch where he slept deeply in spite of his disappointment.

He was roused only by the grating of the lock. It was bright day; Gilbert saw his host gently enter.

"Good-morning," he muttered, with the red of shame on his cheeks as he saw Jacques staring at the beans and emptied bags.

"Did you sleep soundly?"

"Ye-es."

"Nay, are you not a sleep-walker?"

"Alas, I see why you say that. I sat up reading till the candle was burnt out, from the first sheet on which my eyes fell so greatly interesting me. Do you, who know so much, know to what lovely novel those pages belong?"

"I do not know, but as I notice the word 'Confessions' on the headline, I should think it was Memoirs."

"Oh, no, the man so speaking is not doing so of himself; the avowals are too frank – the opinions too impartial."

"I think you are wrong," said the old gentleman quickly. "The author wanted to set an example of showing himself to his fellows as heaven created him."

"Do you know the author?"

"The writer is Jean Jacques Rousseau. These are stray pages out of his 'Confessions.'"

"So this unknown, poor, obscure youth, almost begging his way afoot on the highroads, was the man who was to write 'Emile' and the 'Social Contract?'"

"Yes – or, rather no!" said the other with unspeakable sadness. "This author is the man disenchanted with life, glory, society and almost with heaven; but the other Rousseau, Lady Warrens', was the youth entering life by the same door as Aurora comes into the world; youth with his joys and hopes. An abyss divides the two Rousseaus thirty years wide."

The old gentleman shook his head, let his arms sadly droop, and appeared to sink into deep musing.

"So," went on Gilbert, "it is possible for the meanly born like Rousseau to win the love of a mighty and beautiful lady? This is calculated to drive those mad who have lifted their eyes to those above their sphere."

"Are you in love and do you see some likeness between your case and Rousseau's?" asked the old gentleman.

Gilbert blushed without answering the question.

"But he won, because he was Rousseau," he observed. "Yet, were I to feel a spark of his flame of genius, I should aspire to the star, and seek to wear it even though – "

"You had to commit a crime?"

Jacques started and cut short the interview by saying:

"I think my wife must be up. We will go down stairs. Besides, a working day never begins too soon. Come, young man, come."

On going forth, Jacques secured the garret door with a padlock.

This time he guided his ward into what Therese called the study. The furniture of this little room was composed of glazed cases of butterflies, herbs and minerals, framed in ebonized wood; books in a walnut case, a long, narrow table, covered with a worn and blackened cloth; with manuscripts orderly arranged on it, and four wooden chairs covered in horsehair. All was glossy, lustrous, irreproachable in order and cleanness, but cold to sight and heart, from the light through the gauze curtains being gray and weak, and luxury, or comfort itself, being far from this cold, ashy and black fireside.

A small rosewood piano stood on four legs, and a clock on the mantel-piece alone showed any life in this domestic tomb.

Gilbert walked in respectfully, for it was grand in his eyes; almost as rich as Taverney, and the waxed floor imposed on him.

"I am going to show you the nature of your work," said the old gentleman. "This is music paper. When I copy a page I earn ten cents, the price I myself fix. Do you know music?"

"I know the names of the notes but not their value, as well as these signs. In the house where I lived was a young lady who played the harpsichord – " and Gilbert hung his head, coloring.

"Oh, the same who studied botany," queried Jacques.

"Precisely; and she played very well."

"This does not account for your learning music."

"Rousseau says that the man is incomplete who enjoys a result without seeking the cause."

"Yes; but, also, that man in perfecting himself by the discovery, loses his happiness, freshness and instincts."

"What matter if what he gains compensates him for the losses?"

"Gad! you are not only a botanist and a musician, but a logician. At present we only require a copyist. While copying, you will train your hand to write more easily when you compose for yourself. Meanwhile, with a couple of hours' copy work at night, you may earn the wherewithal to follow the courses in the colleges of medicine, surgery and botany."

"I understand you," exclaimed Gilbert, "and I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

He settled himself to begin work on the sheet of paper held out by the kind gentleman.

CHAPTER XXIX

WHO MASTER JACQUES WAS

While the novice was covering the paper with his first attempts, the old gentleman set to reading printer's proofs – long leaves blank on one side like the paper of which was made the bean bags.

At nine Therese rushed in.

"Quick, quick!" she cried to Jacques, who raised his head. "Come out. It is a prince who calls. Goodness me! when will this procession of high-cockalorums cease? I hope this one will not take it into his head to have breakfast with us, like the Duke of Chartres the other day."

"Which prince is this one?" asked Jacques in an undertone.

"His Highness the Prince of Conti."

Gilbert let a blob of ink fall on the paper much more resembling a blot than a full note.

Jacques went out, smiling behind Therese, who shut the door after them.

"Princes here!" thought Gilbert. "Dukes calling on a copier of music!"

With his heart singularly beating, he went up to the door to listen.

"I want to take you with me," said a strange voice.

"For what purpose, prince?" inquired Jacques.

"To present you to the dauphiness. A new era opens for philosophers in her coming reign."

"I am a thousand times thankful to your highness; but my infirmities keep me indoors."

"And your misanthropy?"

"Suppose it were that? Is it so curious a thing that I should put myself out for it?"

"Come, and I will spare you the grand reception at the celebration at St. Denis, and take you on to Muette, where her royal highness will pass the night in a couple of days."

"Does she get to St. Denis the day after to-morrow?"

"With her whole retinue. Come! the princess is a pupil of Gluck and an excellent musician."

Gilbert did not listen to any more after hearing that the dauphiness' retinue would be at St. Denis, only a few miles out, in a day or two. He might soon be within view of Andrea. This idea dazzled him like a flash from a looking-glass in his face. When he opened his eyes after this giddiness they fell on a book which happened to be open on the sideboard; it was Rousseau's Confessions, "adorned with a portrait of the author."

"The very thing I was looking for. I had never seen what he was like."

He quickly turned over the tissue paper on the steel plate and as he looked, the door opened and the living original of the portrait returned. With extended hands, dropping the volume, and trembling all over, he muttered: