The physician, however, judged the moment propitious to beat a retreat, and took his leave of Madame Bise, who did not even think of asking about Madeleine.
Georges accompanied him to the door and offered him his hand fraternally.
“Well, what do you think?” he said.
“Nothing, for the moment,” Bordier replied. “It’s necessary to wait. There are curious accidents. Another opinion than mine might be indispensable. In any case, we can wait. I’ll be back in a week. Don’t attempt anything without my advice. Do you hear me, Georges? Nothing at all.”
“But you can assure me,” the other said, “that you’re not anxious, that there’s no danger for the future?”
“No—from the point of view of health, there’s no danger for the future.”
He had a second impulse toward a confidence that would terminate the affair, but the surroundings—the cold vestibule, the excited voices of the two women, who were continuing their lamentations in the drawing room—scarcely lent themselves to it. Then again, he had to go away, would not be there to sustain his friend’s dolor during the few days that were to follow, to attenuate the worst resolutions, to assist him with the acceptance of a sage philosophy.
He shook Georges’ hand more vigorously and added: “No don’t do anything for a week. Bonsoir, old man.”
“Bonsoir, Jean.”
When the door closed he went along the façade of the house. At the windows of the drawing room, the shadows of Madame Bise and Miss Pisword were coming and going, agitating like the marionettes of a magic lantern.
Were they not a thousand times justified, those two mad old crones, to abominate man, the monster, capable of profiting from the unconsciousness of a creature to abuse her, and to extend by that abomination the icy veil of anguish and misfortune over other simple and loving hearts?
CHAPTER XV
For a few minutes, in the common room of the luxurious restaurant in which he had reserved a table for two, Dr. Savre had been waiting for a guest—a young student, one of his friends, who was on the point of presenting his doctoral thesis in medicine. He had invited him to dinner in order to ask him to substitute for him in his practice during a fortnight’s absence, which he intended to employ in traveling. The young man had not yet arrived.
He asked for the menu and selected a few dishes, while the clean-shaven maître d’hôtel, discreet and ceremonious, standing next to the table, his torso slightly inclined, noted down his client’s choices. Then it was the turn of the sommelier, who came to take his order.
“Beer, Chablis and a bottle of Corton,” Savre ordered.
Then, rid of the cares of selection, he abandoned the menu, ornamented with an engraving, and sat back in the velvet-upholstered banquette, interesting himself in the luxury of the room, the golden flames dancing in the wood-paneling and the mirrors, the comings and goings of busy waiters, and the faces of the diners, the individuals and couples coming in, warmly wrapped up, and subsequently blossoming in the warmth of the air, perfumed by the odor of sauces and truffles.
The women, some dressed up and bejeweled for the theater, in an amusing flutter of bright and shiny fabrics, took off their gloves with precious and supple gestures. The men, mostly in evening suits with flowers in the buttonholes, shiny in their immaculate shirt-fronts with lustrous hair sat down with a stretch of sleeves and waistcoats, or rectified the symmetry of a triumphant moustache with a slight torsion.
Savre, with a slightly hard gaze and angular features, followed the various movements and efforts of decorum made by the futile puppets with a certain irony. The women were costly objects of luxury for which he had a profound scorn, on account of a perversion and a prostitution to which he had several times fallen victim. In every face, by ferocious analysis, he tried to discover a vice, a passion, a habit. In accordance with theories of physiognomy, by the facial tics, the form of the nose and the expression in the eyes, he reconstituted a race and a profession.
The people, sensing that they were being studied, discomfited by the persistence of his gaze, turned their heads away, fleeing the investigation, starting conversations that soon concluded, killed by the ceremonial of the restaurant, the urgency of the waiters, the brief orders discreetly whispered and rapidly executed.
The young student came in. His name was Berger, and he had a very mild, blonde head, brightened by admirable brown eyes. A little surprised at first, embarrassed by the sight of the high-class restaurant, whose like he was not accustomed to frequent, he circled the room with his gaze, searching for Savre, his complexion reddened by the awareness of being noticed. Then, when he had perceived his friend, he recovered his self-assurance and headed rapidly toward him.
“You’re late, my friend,” said Savre, with a forgiving smile.
“Oh, if you knew where I’ve come from!” said Berger. And he recounted that he had been invited the day before by Armand Caresco to assist him in his operations, replacing Bordier.
“What!” said Savre. “Bordier is no longer with Caresco?”
“Yes, still, but he’s gone to the Midi to see a patient, with whom he’s staying for a few days. I’m filling in. I began my service his morning. What a man, that Caresco! What a Surgeon!”
“What a dentist,” Savre added.
Berger uttered an exclamation of disapproval and astonishment. “What do you mean, what a dentist? Caresco, the foremost surgeon in the world, you call a dentist! But you’ve worked with him, you’ve seen him at work. This very morning, he was admirable!”
“Come on, my lad,” Savre put in. “You’ll get over it.”
“I tell you,” the young man went on, energetically, “that he was admirable, and I don’t understand, Savre, why you call him a dentist, you who are generally so just!”
He rummaged in his fob-pocket and brought out a kind of little stone, brown in color and faceted, about the size of a hazelnut, which he deposited on the tablecloth with a triumphant expression.
“Here—do you know what that is?”
“That,” said Savre, picking up the object, “is a calculus, most probably a gallstone.”
“It is, indeed, a gallstone, which I saw Caresco remove this morning.”
“Which you saw him remove this morning?” Savre repeated, stressing the words.
“When I saw that I saw it,” the young man went on, “no, I didn’t see it. He goes so quickly, that devil of a man, that in the space of a minute, which I was washing my hands on his instruction, he removed six similar calculi, and only showed them to me at the end of the operation, when he showed them to the parents of the young woman on whom he was operating, a Mademoiselle Romé. But what rapidity, what sureness of hand! How, with a single stroke of the scalpel, he arrives exactly at the fault! I’m still amazed! And if you had seen the joy of the family, especially an aunt, who was waiting in a nearby room! Truly, it’s marvelous!”
With increasing astonishment, Savre examined the calculus, turning it over in his fingers. He looked at Berger with pitying sadness—for he understood the entire deception himself, at the sight of the old foreign body, which had not been extracted recently, but which the naïve young man, as well as the relatives, had accepted as a fresh calculus. And he reconstituted the fraud: the unnecessary operation, justified by the presentation on old calculi.
In spite of everything, until then, he had not believed Caresco capable of such baseness. To be sure, he recalled the legendary words of a celebrated surgeon who said: “When one attempts to remove a bullet, it’s necessary to take two vital precautions before beginning the operation: firstly, to enquire about the weapon that fired the shot; and secondly, not to neglect to have a bullet in one’s pocket that one can show to the family—and try to make sure that it’s the right caliber!” That anecdote ran around guardrooms and the student amphitheaters, justified by the necessity of reassuring the patient and the entourage as to the consequences of an operation that might have been useful, honestly and sincerely attempted. Alas, in the
present case, with regard to the man’s banditry, he understood the full infamy of the procedure.
To support his conviction, he asked: “Were there many people present?”
“No,” Berger replied. “Because of the social situation of the patient, Caresco didn’t want spectators. There were only the sisters and the two of us.”
That was that. Colleagues kept out, the sisters accomplices, the attention of the assistant deflected.
Savre, revolted was about to explain everything to the young man, to take the scales from his eyes, when the latter continued, increasing inflamed by his enthusiasm. “That damned Caresco! If you had seen him rebuke an old physician, Dr. Varon, who wanted to watch a following operation, a laparotomy for peritonitis, on a young boy—his client, it appears! Dr. Varon had opposed to the operation with all his might, and had the audacity to present himself in order to watch it! I can assure you that Caresco didn’t mince his words! He sent him away, called him an old cretin! The poor man left, furious. It was a consummate comedy, and Caresco was still laughing at it when he opened his patient’s belly.”
And Berger laughed at the incident too, with the pitilessness of youth. But Savre became serious, and with a soft sadness in his voice, he said: “Dr. Varon was right, my friend, and you’re wrong to mock the old man, who wanted to do his duty until the end.”
The student, surprised, interrogated Savre’s face, searching for a sign that he was joking—but the latter remained serious, with a calmness that denied humor. The waiter had deposited eggs scrambled with truffles on the table; the delicate aroma rose toward their mucus membranes, incensing their appetite—and in the first satisfaction of their hunger, they did not talk for a few minutes, eating the first-rate food.
“By the way,” Savre said, “don’t be astonished to be eating scrambled eggs at dinner. I chose what I liked. If it doesn’t suit you, change it. I’ve ordered Ostend oysters to follow, and a good slice of English roast beef. Is that to your liking, my boy?”
“Is it to my liking? If you knew how I eat in my local soup-kitchen!”
Having finished the eggs they went on to the oysters. Savre washed them down with an amiable Chablis, complacently refilling Berger’s glass. The latter, his complexion pink and his eyes gleaming under the contentment of the expertly-prepared dishes, the generous wine and the warm and caressant luxury of the ambience, was in a mood for chat, disposed to part with and receive confidences.
“My dear Savre,” he said, “you seem to be holding a grudge against Caresco? Didn’t you spend a year in his employ? I thought you’d separated on good terms. What do you have against him?”
Savre paused momentarily, his oyster-fork in mid-air, just as he was about to engulf a mollusk. “My dear Berger,” he said, “If you don’t mind, let’s not talk about Caresco this evening. If you knew how full my head is of the deeds and actions of my former collaborator, how much he haunts me! I can’t take a step in the street, go to a restaurant, go into theater or even visit a brothel without hearing someone say to me: ‘Oh, you’ve been with Caresco? What an interesting individual! Tell me about him!’ I’m so weary, so sick of that repetition, to which I always reply with formulae so invariable that I know them by heart—and if I go home and, in order to get away from the obsession, I pick up a political newspaper, I find the name I abominate on the first page! A scientific textbook will also talk to me about him. I’m finally driven, completely mad, to reread my old Classical and Roman texts, and I’m still not sure that I won’t find the word Caresco at the end of a verse or at the climax of a dramatic situation.16 No, enough, Berger, enough!”
He swallowed the oyster.
Amused, Berger smiled at Savre’s wit. There was, however, an acrimony in the fluency and the grave tone of voice that surprised him. Perhaps, after all, he had had his difficulties with the surgeon. He judged it wiser and more prudent to let the subject drop. By way of conclusion, however, he added: “Yes, it’s said that he does a great deal of advertising.”
That last word, however, had the effect of causing Savre to remount his favorite hobby-horse. He abandoned his plate, moistened his lips with the pale wine, and then, with his elbows on the table, in a sudden rush, without searching for words, he let fly with the ideas that often haunted his mind.
“Advertising, my friend, is already something bad in itself, in the sense that it is one of the manifestations of the power of capital, that it kills the efforts of the small. One can, however, understand its employment in commerce, in industry, for it aids the development of labor and can, by virtue of that, be considered as a force useful to the general good—but where it’s a truly abominable thing is in our profession.
“I’m not talking about the particular case of Caresco, who redeems by a real value the guilty aspect of the method. Besides, since you’ll be called upon sooner or later to join his staff, you’ll be able to judge the case for yourself; I prefer to say nothing about it. But look at the infamy to which medical advertising leads in the lower classes of society, where it’s all the more effective because it’s more stupid, and hence within the range of general intelligence.
“How many poor devils attained by a malady that a reasonable medication could alleviate, if not cure, throw themselves head first into the traps set by the host of bandits who lay out their bait on the back pages of newspapers? And what bait! Imagine the most inferior, the most ludicrous things. It seems that the more ridiculous it is, the more readily people will be taken in.
“I know one man—and he’s founding a school!—who claims to cure cancer with brewer’s yeast. I’ve seen him sell bottles of that yeast to unfortunate domestics, for twenty francs—half their monthly pay—which can be bought from a brewer for six sous. He assures them that ten bottles will cure them. Some buy two or three; then, weary, and not seeing any improvement, finally understand the fraud; others go on to the end, and their last gasp of life is extinguished in their final bottle of yeast!
“I know another, a son of Israel, who, without any special training, imagined that he could set up a surgical clinic. Do you think that he carries out abortions there? Not at all. He’s too clever. He only does major surgery. His advertisements in the newspapers bring clients in, and he does a great many operations—a great many.”
“How does he do it, then?” asked Berger.
“How does he do it? It’s quite simple. If, for instance, he’s dealing with one of those fibrous tumors that our Caresco removes so brilliantly, he has the patient come to his establishment, puts her to sleep and makes an incision in her abdomen. Then he sews up the incision. A week later, the patient is cured, and he collects a big fee.”
“But after all, the lady might well perceive that she still has her tumor.”
“Naturally. Then he declares that it was inoperable, that removing it would have posed a risk to her life. And as a last resort, he sends the patient to be treated electrically by an accomplice, who shared the payments he receives with him.”
“But that’s frightful!” exclaimed Berger, revolted. “And he finds aides for these simulated operations?”
“Yes, he has one. And then, there’s also his father, a manufacturer of lorgnettes, decorated as such with a fine rosette of the Légion d’honneur, who takes the pulse during the operation, and who is remunerated as an eminent colleague.”
“Oh, that’s abominable!” said Berger, again.
“You find that revolting, my lad, and I’m not surprised. But be prepared to see many others during your career. I’m talking about gross things—so gross that they seem farcical—but you’ll surprise many other ignominies, and you’ll sometimes experience yourself the temptation of certain base actions. You’ll resist them because you’re honest, and because you have a certain fortune...”
“Even without that,” affirmed the young man.
“Yes, even without that,” Savre continued, “and you’d be all the more virtuous because, for the crimes we can commit, there’s no sanction. A physician is
above the law. Sell someone two sous’ worth of bread of poor quality, and you won’t be long in seeing a policeman put his hand on your collar. Promise him, thanks to improbable medicines, an impossible cure, make a fool of him, suck him dry of his last penny for that cure without result, and no one will have the right to get in your way. That’s the way things are, and it’s truly painful to think that our profession, as noble and as beneficent as it might be, is, at the same time, thanks to the faults of a few black sheep, susceptible to so much scorn and shame!”
The waiter had put two succulent slices of roast beef on the table, surrounded by boiled potatoes and a dusty bottle of Corton lying in a wicker basket. Around them, people were still coming in, filling the tables, sitting down, eating and drinking, with polite manners and drawing-room reserve. A few bursts of laughter were already rising, however, less discreetly than in the beginning, under the influence of good cheer and sparkling champagne. Savre and Berger, deep in their conversation, did not take part in that blossoming of bon viveurs and girls with price tags, who come to display a corner of Parisian prostitution in restaurants. The question they were discussing seemed much more grave than the study of the pleasurable flesh set out along the banquettes with a joyful flutter of bright fabrics and gemstones.
Savre refilled the student’s plate.
“But how do you expect anything to change?” said the latter. “Doesn’t the diploma give us the right to practice as we wish? It’s up to the public to distinguish between the good and the bad.”
“No,” said Savre, “it’s not up to the public, who don’t know anything. Society needs to protect itself from bad physicians, just at it puts ramparts on the banks of the Seine to prevent people from falling in the water.”
“But how? It’s not possible, as you know full well.”
“Yes, my boy, it’s quite possible. Imagine an Order of physicians, a sort of Bar, not only recruited from among the high lamas of the professional you understand, but from among all the members and all the steps of the medical ladder. For a start, that order would be obligatory. Everyone, to obtain the right to practice, would be obliged to swear an oath before it. It would also be disciplinary—which is to say that it would strike with penalties varying from simple warnings to complete expulsion those who commit offences against the principles of honor and ethical duty. I promise you that that would suppress, at a stroke, the base advertising that ornaments public urinals and the shameful angling practiced by way of the newspapers.”
The Necessary Evil Page 24
