Chapter XXVI

 

 

Suddenly, Nadir rose to his feet urgently. “My dear Philosopher, you’re rendering me guilty of ingratitude. You were giving me so much pleasure, occupying me to such a degree, that I entirely forgot the object that interests you. My duty is to make you remember it. I promised to help you search for that electric metal, that fatal metal, whose discovery I am far from desiring. Tell me, I pray you, in what form it exists on your planet. Let us go on, let us penetrate into those crevasses not far distant from us. You shall see me expose myself willingly to the greatest dangers. However, you have become an essential being to me. If I lose you, I shall groan, I shall be unhappy, but no matter; I must sacrifice my happiness to gratitude.”

“My dear Nadir, my worthy friend, that generous trait would increase my attachment to you, if my heart were capable of receiving new sentiments…but it is full. Let us stay here for a moment longer.” He held out his hand. “Come and sit down again. You are now at the point that I desired; you have become curious about the most beautiful knowledge of Nature; it is time I told you the truth about my origin.

“My friend the story I have told you is entirely fabulous. I wanted to capture your attention by means of marvels; I have inspired a great deal of curiosity in you. That was the surest means of giving you the taste, and simultaneously sweetening, the most abstract dissertations. That was my only objective. Learn who I am.”

“My dear Philosopher,” Nadir interjected swiftly, “you delight me. What…you will always remain with me! Oh, my friend, we shall all be happy. How I forgive you with all my heart for that trickery.”

“My dear Nadir, my true origin might perhaps be no less interesting to you. Listen.”

 

Ormasis’ Story

 

My real name is Zirmen; that of Ormasis was given to me by good and honest savages; I keep it out of gratitude. I was born in Aden. That city, as you know, was always the most flourishing in fortunate Arabia. The arts and sciences were held is high consideration there. My father, a great philosopher, had justly acquire a considerable reputation there. He could have extended it further afield, but he never wanted to write, which caused him to be forgotten after his death. Geber, the famous chemist from the kingdom of Fez,30 and other chemists of the same land came to visit my father several times to instruct themselves, for he possessed sublime knowledge of every sort, especially in medicine. An enlightened physicist, a profound chemist, full of confidence in his ideas, his cures were innumerable. It is necessary to tell all; my father was very rich. The desire to make a fortune had never restricted his genius, and he only undertook to conserve the lives of his compatriots after being assured that he would never cause death.

As soon as my father became involved in healing the sick, people were quite astonished by his treatments. Often, he went to see patients who were thought to be moribund. He prescribed nothing but distilled water and rest. People looked at him in surprise, and if his disinterest had not shielded him from all reproach, he would have been accused of stealing money. However, the presumed moribunds recovered their health, and woe betide those who demanded more complicated remedies from other doctors. Sometimes, on the contrary, he prescribed violent remedies to patients apparently inflicted by slight indispositions; but in the end he developed a curative method that was helpful to humankind. I shall tell you about it.

That great man accustomed me to thinking early in life. A few agreeable talents that he made me acquire would only serve, he said, to make study unwearisome for me and to enable me to undertake it with more courage. Finally, when I had passed the age of adolescence, he explained his operations to me, making no mystery of any of his secrets. I wish to God that he had put more limits on that confidence.

One day, I was with him in his study. “Zirmen,” he said to me, “while all our doctors are busy introducing poisons into the blood of healthy people, let us try, on the contrary, to inoculate them with the antidotes to poisons and destroy the germ of maladies. Various balsamic essences of our plants, introduced directly into a vein, act on the blood with far more efficacy than remedies deteriorated by difficult digestion, which often augment the illness. We shall carry out a few experiments.”

Indeed, my father obtained a quantity of liquid plant extracts and numbered them according to the degree of fermentation to which they had been subjected. He obtained freshly-drawn animal blood. While he was making his preparations, he said to me:

“My son, do you know why repose is necessary to all animals? This is the reason. The more exercise a person does, the more his blood is rarefied by heat. The blood that is rarefied necessarily increases in volume. It thus occasions a pressure on the nervous system, and eventually hinders movement. Such is the physical principle that we call fatigue. That is the cause that necessarily obliges humans to rest, in order that their blood might condense again and no longer put pressure on the nervous system.

“Let us pass on now to the principle of maladies. I have demonstrated to you that all the various kinds are related. It is always the blood that becomes defective. Let us suppose a man who overindulges at the table. There is a considerable pressure in his stomach, so a gross lymph passes more easily through the pores, mingles with the blood and disturbs its circulation. That lymph varies in its acidity or alkalinity and its phlogistication, which occasions various accidents. Then diet and water are no longer sufficient to cure such a patient, but the remedies known until now are sometimes not prompt enough. It is therefore necessary, my dear son, to attack the blood directly.

“If, through the pores that serve for transpiration, the healthiest of men pump contagious vapors, which give them the principles of death, why should their lives not be conserved by inoculating them with salutary remedies? Has it not been demonstrated that the sole application of certain plants operates constant cures? For instance, is not a patient tormented by the most stubborn and inveterate fever cured in a matter of days when one applies to his wrists, at the place where the pulse beats, the plant named cariofilata,31 ground up with a pinch of marine salt? That cure is not radical, since it never results in accidents, and is it not evident that the remedy attacks the principle of the malady?

“Now, what might we hope to achieve by inoculating subtle extracts, appropriate to maintain in our liquors a stable fluidity perhaps capable of inhibiting the deposits that form in our joints and gradually impede our movements, leading us to decrepitude?”

At the same moment, my father began his experiments. Blood had been brought to him in a glass vessel with a double bottom. That double bottom only served to contain warm water and maintain the temperature. I soon saw things as surprising as they were instructive.

Sometimes, by means of mucous and alkaline principles, he vitiated the blood, to the point of being very thick and almost black. Suddenly, a drop of a plant extract restored the fluidity of that blood. Sometimes he made it become entirely yellow, divided into layers, and, so to speak, decomposed. Suddenly, another drop introduced into that blood spread swiftly through the mass, mingling those divisions again and restoring the color. Then I saw him put blood under a glass bell-jar, and combine it with phlogisticated emanations; then suddenly halt the agitation and inflation the liquid had experienced.

What astonished me was seeing that he always restored the blood to its natural state, without causing it the slightest effervescence. I told him how surprised I was.

“My son,” he said, “you can see that I am not employing simple acids and alkalis here. Their direct effect would be too active. It’s necessary that they be enchained in oily or mucilaginous principles, and that is what Nature provides for us in various plants, of which it is not only necessary to know the principles, but also the changes that those principles experience in the air when they are extracted. I will show you, however, the proportions in which one may add mineral acids to the different extracts.

“At present,” he continued, “you ought to understand that warmed blood is rarefied blood and that cooled blood is necessarily condensed. In that regard, here is a liquor whose property will seem singular to you. You’ll see the extent to which one can cool and condense blood.”

Indeed, my father poured a few drops of it into a quantity of blood that was in its natural state, into which he had plunged a thermometer. To my surprise, I saw that blood diminish considerably in volume, and at the same time, the thermometer went down by eight degrees. Finally, the blood congealed equally throughout its mass.

“That’s not all,” my father said. “You’ll see how subtle the effect of this liquor is on the circulation of a living animal.”

He had a bird brought in, and having impregnated a needle with the liquor, he pricked it lightly. Immediately, the bird went to sleep. Soon, it died, without giving any symptoms of pain. Promptly, I opened the little animal up. I found its blood coagulated and almost cold. Surprised by that effect, much more effective than that of non-fermented opium, I asked my father what the remedy was for such a puncture.

“There is one,” he told me, “and it always succeeds when it is administered in time. It is concentrated vinegar—but to avoid any accident, let us immediately pass this poisoned needle through the fire, in order that it loses its deadly virtue.”

I do not know, my dear Nadir, what fatal curiosity made me ask insistently where that prodigious liquor came from, which poisoned iron with so much subtlety. My father, always having my education and theoretical demonstrations in view, yielded to my insistence.

He told me that it was a mixture of ox-bile with the juice of a plant common in our country; he also indicated the necessary proportions to me. My curiosity, satisfied in that regard, eventually moved on to other objects. I did not doubt, after what I had seen, that my father could inoculate salutary remedies in the most dangerous circumstances.

The opportunity presented itself. Someone came to ask him to visit a patient whom two physicians had despaired of curing. My father, who thought it his duty to attempt to cure a person, in whatever condition he might be, proposed that I should go with him, and that we should take our new remedies. As was his custom, he took a small graduated aerometer, fitted with a thermometer. He also took a glass tube sealed at one end, into which the aerometer fitted easily.

We did not lose a minute. It was a question of a man’s life; we walked rapidly. We got there just in time. First, we saw an amiable woman who appeared to us to be overwhelmed by grief, and who had been taken away from the sick man’s apartment to spare her the awful spectacle of her dying husband. She held out her arms to my father.

“Alas,” she said to him, “man as respectable as knowledgeable, I fear that your cares...” She was unable to say any more.

My father’s only response was to hasten to the sick man. He was dying.

The two doctors were present. “Sir,” they said, “there is nothing more to be done.”

“In that case,” my father replied, “let us try a new treatment.”

Immediately, while the doctors explained to him the principal symptoms of the malady, he opened one of the dying man’s veins and drew into his glass tube about half an ounce of blood.

“What are you doing?” the doctors said. “It’s an eruption that can serve no purpose, it would be necessary to push from the center to the circumference, and, on the contrary, you’re going to refresh by bleeding. Oh, Sir, what a blunder!”

“One moment, gentlemen. I am not claiming that bleeding might be a remedy in this case.”

While speaking to them he had already dipped the aerometer in the blood that was in the tube. He had also exposed to the vapors of that blood and the transpiration of the patient pieces of cloth lightly tinted with a color whose changes indicated degrees of acidity or alkalinity to him.

Finally, after having carefully but rapidly observed the results, he selected one of the little bottles we had brought; he dipped a piece of lint in the liquid it contained. He reopened the patient’s vein slightly and applied the lint with a compress.

The doctors, who had not expected that operation, then maintained the most profound silence.

My father, who was observing the patient pulse continuously, perceived that it was becoming less intermittent. “My son,” he said to me, “go fetch that woman whose affliction touched us. Tell her not to lose hope and to come back here; I want to show her something interesting.”

Imagine, my dear Nadir, how flattering that commission was for me. I went out with a surge of pleasure. A female slave guided me, at a run, although it seemed to me that she was not going fast enough. I reached the room where the woman was, and found her fainted. People were busy trying to bring her round. But what did I see beside her? A young woman—a charming girl—who was lavishing the most urgent care on her mother. She was caressing her, and calling her by the most tender names.

That voice was so agreeable, so touching…my dear Nadir, I cannot describe the commotion I experienced on seeing that young beauty in tears. There are, in life, certain shocks that one can only experience once. Her mother’s accident was very minor. I immediately opened a flask full of ether32 that I always carried on me. You know that no remedy that acts as swiftly and as successfully on the nervous system. I got her to drink it and she immediately recovered consciousness.

“Come, Madame,” I said to her, excitedly. My father is hopeful, and he is never hopeful in vain. He sent me to you. The patient, who is doubtless your husband, is not in a desperate state.”

“Oh, can it be?” she cried. “Oh, Sir, how grateful I am! How shall I ever be able to thank you? My dear daughter, my tender Azéma, come see your father.”

Young Azéma, having recovered from the initial surprise that I had caused, embraced her mother and followed her.

What did we see as soon as we reached the patient’s apartment? The doctors on their knees before my father. “You’re embarrassing me,” he said to them. “These enthusiastic insistences on your part reveal a great humanitarian zeal, and raises you in my estimation. Many of your peers would attribute what I have just done to chance. Get up, then, Sirs; I swear to you that I shall shortly inform you completely regarding this curative method.”

Scarcely had I heard these last words than I took Azéma by the hand. “Charming being,” I exclaimed, “your father is entirely cured.”

The divine Azéma listened to me in shock. She was unable to reply; pleasure prevented her from doing so. She squeezed my hand. She looked at me. Gods, what a gaze! My existence seemed to me to be too feeble for the sentiments I was experiencing. Yes, I wanted the Divinity to multiply my being.

Finally, we advanced toward the patient’s bed. He was sleeping peacefully; his wife, his dear Zélis, was contemplating him with tears of joy. She was enjoying, as my father had announced, a truly interesting spectacle. Cador’s face—Cador was the patient’s name—advertised all the freshness of health.

My father looked at me in silence. He testified his joy to me, and also rejoiced in mine, but he did not know how intoxicated I was. I possessed a delightful sentiment that I had never known before. He looked, however, at the young beauty who was there, examined us, and soon suspected the love in my gaze.

Suddenly, Zélis advanced toward him. “Divine man,” she said to him, “how can I testify my gratitude toward you? Your delicate generosity often prevents people from repaying your generosity, which they fear abusing. That is why I only dared to address myself to you as a last resort.”

My father replied to Zélis with kind reproaches. “Perhaps,” he said, “you will have an opportunity to render a service to one of my friends.” At the same time he darted a sly glance at me. He had seen through me.

That conversation might have embarrassed Azéma, and my father too, whom Zélis pressed to explain, but she was interrupted by a no less agreeable scene.

Cador opened his eyes and looked with an astonished expression at Zélis, who went toward him. “What, my dear Zélis, you here! You have, therefore, followed me to this peaceful abode, where…but what do I see? My Azéma…these gentlemen. So I’m still here…I’m alive…and I’m no longer suffering. Tell me, Zélis, to what guardian angel do I owe this change?”

Immediately, Zélis pointed to my father. He recognized him. “You are,” he said, “my second Creator…permit me.” He took one of my father’s hands and squeezed it in his own.

What a scene, my dear Nadir, what a scene of tender humanity! My father embraced Cador. They both experienced the enthusiasm of the benefit. With every movement, Cador felt his strength reborn; he employed it to express what he owed to his liberator. We all had tears in our eyes; they were tears of sentiment. I moved closer to him.

“Who is this young man,” he asked my father, in a more assured voice, “Who seems to be interested in my fate?”

“He’s my son.”

“Oh, the worthy young man; he already has his father’s virtues. I want him always to be happy. Perhaps he lacks something?”

“My greatest happiness,” I replied, “is to see the change that you have just experienced, and the joy of Zélis, and that of Azéma.”

“Worthy young man, if I can ever do anything...”

My father interrupted him, to order him to take some nourishment; he prepared it himself.

The doctors withdrew, very satisfied with the promise made to them, which my father renewed. In the end, we stayed with our convalescent for more than four hours, and only left with a promise to return early the next day. I realized, upon that temporary separation, how much my heart was engaged.