AT THE HOSPITAL at Maréville, the flatulent man moves his finger lightly over the anatomical diagrams, noting: They will open me here. And here. They will make their way past the duodenum. The twisting jejunum. And then my gifts will be exposed!
A shadow passes over the page. M. Pujol looks up from his diagrams and sees that an enormous woman with very small wings is hovering outside the window and obscuring the light. He stands and raps upon the pane.
Madame, he says. I must beg you to move.
One moment! One moment! the woman gasps.
She shakes at him a handful of broadsheets: I have agreed to distribute these!
With a little kick against the window, the woman pushes off, and agitating her wings, maneuvers herself until she is hanging directly above the walled garden. Here, the hospital's inmates are taking their daily exercise. The matron marches in their midst, instructing them to lift their faces to the sunlight, to inhale deeply the smell of daffodils. The patients would very much like an excuse to lie down in the grass and loll about. So when a flurry of paper comes floating down from above, and the matron begins excitedly blowing upon her whistle, the inmates take this opportunity to stretch out on their backs, cross their ankles, and examine at their leisure the curious broadsheets, just as a Parisian would idle in the park with his morning paper. But rather than reading the news of the day, they read about the arrival of an astonishing phenomenon. They see, in tall red capitals, the letters of his name. They gaze at his picture: a man delicately parting the tails of his coat.
His light restored, M. Pujol takes up where he left off. His finger finds again its place on the elegant diagram. This display of seriousness prompts the director to pause in the doorway and smile. Never before has a patient demonstrated the same eagerness he himself feels when undertaking an operation. It touches him, strangely. And in order not to dampen the subject's enthusiasm, he has restrained himself from mentioning certain risks.