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ENCOMIUM ARTIS MEDICAE

Desiderio Erasmo Roterodamo Autore.

DE LOF DER GENEESKUNDE van Desiderius Erasmus.

Nuper dum bibliothecam recenseo, doctissime Afini, venit in manus oratio quaedam olim mihi nihil non experienti, in laudem artis medicae declamata; continuo visum est orationem non optimam optimo dicare medico, ut vel tui nominis lenocinio studiosorum centuriis commendetur.

Erit hoc interim mei in te animi qualecunque documentum, dum dabitur aliud nostra necessitudine dignius.

Bene vale.

DECLAMATIO ERASMI ROTERODAMI IN LAUDEM ARTIS MEDICAE.

Quo saepius est ars medicinae, meditatis et elaboratis orationibus, hoc ex loco, apud plerosque vestrum praedicata, idque a viris singulari facundia praeditis, auditores celeberrimi, hoc mihi sane minus est fiduciae, me vel tantae rei, vel aurium vestrarum expectationi satisfacturum. Neque enim rem prope divinam nostra facile assequetur infantia, neque vulgaris oratio de re toties audita taedium possit effugere.

Verumtamen ne salutari maiorum instituto videar deesse, qui solenni encomio juventutis animos ad huius praeclarae scientiae studium, admirationem, amorem, excitandos, accendendos, inflammandosque censuerunt, experiar et ipse pro mea virili medicae facultatis dignitatem, autoritatem, usum, necessitatem, non dicam explicare, quod prorsus infiniti fuerit negotii, sed summatim modo perstringere, ac veluti confertissimas locupletissimae cujuspiam reginae opes, per transennam studiosorum exhibere conspectibus.

Cuius quidem ea vel praecipua laus est, primum quod nullis omnino praeconiis indiget, ipsa abunde per se vel utilitate, vel necessitate commendata mortalibus. Deinde quod toties iam a tam praeclaris ingeniis praedicata, semper tamen novam laudum suarum materiam, ingeniis etiam parum foecundis ex sese suppeditat, ut nihil necesse sit, eam vulgato more invidiosis illis contentionibus, non sine caeterarum disciplinarum contumelia depraedicare. Quin illud magis metuendum, ne domesticas illius dotes, ne germanam ac nativam amplitudinem, ne majestatem humana conditione maiorem, mortalis oratio non assequatur. Tantum abest, ut vel aliena contumelia, vel asciticiis Rhetorum fucis, aut amplificationum praestigiis sit attollenda. Mediocrium est formarum, deformiorum comparatione, aut cultus lenociniis commendari; res per se vereque praeclaras, satis est vel nudas oculis ostendisse.

Iam primum enim reliquae artes quoniam nulla non magnam aliquam vitae commoditatem attulit, summo quidem in pretio fuere. Verum medicinae quondam tam admirabilis fuit humano generi inventio, tam dulcis experientia, ut eius autores, aut plane pro diis habiti sint, velut Apollo, et huius filius Aesculapius, imo singula quosdam inventa deorum numero addiderunt, aut certe divinis honoribus digni sint existimati, velut Asclepiades, quem Illyrici numinis instar receptum Herculi in honoribus aequarunt. Non equidem probo quod fecit antiquitas, affectum sane ac iudicium laudo, quippe quae recte et senserit et declararit, docto fidoque medico nullum satis dignum praemium persolvi posse.

Etenim si quis secum reputet, quam multiplex in corporibus humanis diversitas, quanta ex aetatibus, sexu, regionibus, coelo, educatione, studiis, usu varietas, quam infinita in tot milibus herbarum quae alibi aliae nascuntur, discrimina. Tum quot sint morborum genera, quae trecenta nominatim fuisse prodita scribit Plinius, exceptis generum partibus, quarum omnium quam nullus sit numerus, facile perpendet, qui tantum norit, quot formas in se febris vocabulum complectatur, ut ex uno caetera aestimentur; exceptis his, qui quotidie novi accrescunt, neque secus accrescunt, quam si de composito cum arte nostra bellum suscepisse videantur. Exceptis venenorum plus mille periculis, quorum quot species sunt, tot sunt mortis genera, totidem remediorum differentias flagitantia. Exceptis casibus quotidianis lapsuum, ruinarum, ruptionum, adustionum, luxationum, vulnerum, atque his consimilium, quae prope cum ipso morborum agmine ex aequo certant. Denique qui cogitet, quanta sit in corporum coelestium observatione difficultas, quae nisi cognoris, saepenumero venenum erit, quod in remedium datur. Ne quid interim commemorem saepe fallaces morborum notas, sive coloris habitum spectes, sive lotii signa rimeris, sive pulsus harmoniam observes, velut hoc agentibus malis, ut hostem medicum fallant et imponant. Tantum undique sese offundit difficultatum, ut mihi difficile sit omnes vel oratione prosequi.

Sed ut dicere coeperam, has omnes rerum varietates studio persequi, obscuritates ingenio assequi, difficultates industria pervincere, ac penetratis terrae fibris, excussis undique totius naturae arcanis, ex omnibus herbis, fruticibus, arboribus, animantibus, gemmis, ex ipsis denique venenis, cunctis humanae vitae malis efficacia quaerere remedia, atque horum opportunum usum ex tot autoribus, tot disciplinis, imo et ab ipsis sideribus petere. Haec inquam, tam abdita rimari cura, tam ardua viribus animi adipisci, tam multa memoria complecti, tam necessaria ad salutem universi mortalium generis in commune proferre, nonne prorsus homine maius ac plane divinum quiddam fuisse videtur? Absit invidia verbis. Liceat id quod vero verius est ingenue praedicare. Non me jacto, sed artem ipsam effero. Etenim si dare vitam proprium dei munus est, certe datam tueri, jamque fugientem retinere, deo proximum fateamur oportet. Quamquam ne prius quidem illud, quod nos soli deo proprium esse volumus, medicorum arti detraxit antiquitas, ut credula, ita gratissima. Nam Aesculapii quidem ope Tyndaridam, et post eum complures ab Orco in lucem redisse credidit. Asclepiades hominem exanimatum, elatum, comploratumque ab rogo domum vivum reduxisse legitur. Xanthus historicus catulum leonis occisum, praeterea et hominem, quem Draco occiderat, vitae redditum fuisse, posteris prodidit, herba quam halin nominant. Ad haec Juba, in Africa quendam herba revocatum ad vitam, testis est. Neque vero laboraverim, si sint apud quos haec fide careant. Certe admirationem artis tanto magis implent, quanto magis supra fidem veri sunt, et immensum esse fateri cogunt id quod vero supersit. Quamquam quantum ad eum attinet, qui vitae redditur, quid refert utrum anima denuo in artus relictos divinitus reponatur, an penitus in corpore sepulta, morbique victoris oppressa viribus, arte curaque medici suscitetur atque eliciatur, iamque certo migratura retineatur? An non pene paria sunt mortuum restituere, et mox moriturum servare? Atqui permultos nominatim recenset Plinius libro historiae mundanae septimo, qui iam elati partim in ipso rogo, partim post dies complusculos revixerint.

Miraculum est, quod paucis dedit casus. Et non magis mirandum, quod quotidie multis largitur ars nostra? Etiamsi hanc deo Opt. Max. debemus, cui nihil non debemus, ne quis haec a me putet arrogantius dicta quam verius. Complurium morborum ea vis est, ut certa mors sint, nisi praesens adsit medicus, veluti stupor is, qui mulieribus potissimum solet accidere, veluti syncopis profunda, paralysis, apoplexia. Neque desunt ulli vel seculo, vel genti sua in hanc rem exempla. Hic qui mortem ingruentem arte sua depellit, qui vitam subito oppressam revocat, nonne ceu numen quoddam dextrum ac propitium semper habendus est? Quot censes homines ante diem sepultos fuisse priusquam medicorum solertia morborum vires, et remediorum naturas deprehenderat? Quot hodie mortalium milia vivunt, valentque, qui ne nati quidem essent, nisi eadem haec ars, et tot nascendi discriminibus remedia, et obstetricandi rationem reperisset? Adeo statim in ipso vitae limine, et pariens simul et nascens salutarem medicorum opem miserabili voce implorat. Horum arti vitam debet, et qui nondum vitam accepit, dum per eam prohibentur abortus, dum mulieri seminis recipiendi retinendique vis confertur, dum pariendi facultas datur. Quod si vere dictum est illud Deus est juvare mortalem, profecto mea sententia aut nusquam locum habebit illud nobile Graecorum adagium "anthr?pos anthr?pou daimonion", aut in medico fido proboque locum habebit, qui non juvat modo verum etiam servat. An non igitur ingratitudine ipsa videatur ingratior, ac ipse prope vita indignus, qui medicinam alteram secundum deum, vitae parentem, tutricem, servatricem, vindicem non amet, non honoret, non suspiciat, non veneretur? Cuius praesidiis nunquam ulli non est opus. Nam reliquis quidem artibus nec semper nec omnes egemus. Huius utilitate mortalium omnis vita constat. Nam fac abesse morbos, fac omnibus prosperam adesse valetudinem, tamen hanc qui poterimus tueri, nisi medicus ciborum salutarium ac noxiorum discrimen, nisi totius victus, quam Graeci diaetam vocant, rationem doceat?

Grave mortalibus est onus senecta, quam non magis licet effugere quam mortem ipsam. Atque ea medicorum opera multis contingit, tum serius, tum multo etiam levior. Neque enim fabula est, quinta, quam vocant, essentia senio depulso hominem velut abjecto exuvio rejuvenescere, cum extent aliquot huius rei testes.

Neque vero corporis tantum, quae vilior hominis pars est, curam gerit, imo totius hominis curam agit, etiamsi Theologus ab animo, medicus a corpore sumat initium. Siquidem propter arctissimam amborum intet se cognationem et copulam, ut animi vitia redundant in corpus, ita vicissim corporis morbi animae vigorem aut impediunt, aut etiam extinguunt. Quis aeque pertinax suasor abstinentiae, sobrietatis, moderandae irae, fugiendae tristitiae, vitandae crapulae, amoris abjiciendi, temperandae Veneris, atque medicus? Quis efficacius suadet aegroto, ut si vivere velit, et salutarem experiri medici opem, prius animum a vitiorum colluvie repurget? Idem quoties vel diaetetica ratione, vel ope pharmaceutica bilem atram minuit, labantes cordis vires reficit, cerebri spiritus fulcit, mentis organa purgat, ingenium emendat, memoriae domicilium sarcit, totumque animi habitum commutat in melius, nonne per exteriorem, ut vocant, hominem, et interiorem servat? Qui phreneticum, lethargicum, maniacum, sideratum, lymphatum restituit, nonne totum restituit hominem? Theologus efficit ut homines a vitiis resipiscant, at medicus efficit, ut sit qui possit resipiscere. Frustra ille medicus sit animae, si jam fugerit anima, cui paratur antidotus. Cum impium hominem subito corripuit paralysis, apoplexia, aut alia quaedam praesentanea pestis, quae vitam prius adimat, quam the heat and strength and fury of that lust to slay.... And by-and-by de Moulny had a jagged bleeding scratch upon the forearm, and Hector a trickling scarlet prick above the collar-bone, and now they fought in earnest, as Man and other predatory animals will, each having tasted the other's blood.

De Moulny's wide, heavy parry, carried out time after time with the same stiff, sweeping pump-handle movement of the arm, had warded off the other's sudden savage attack in quinte. He disengaged, dallied in a clumsy feint, made a blundering opening, delivered one of his famous long-armed lunges. Hector, in act to riposte, trod upon a slug in the act of promenading over the dew-wet flagstones, reducing the land-mollusc of the rudimentary shell to a mere streak of sliminess; slipped on the streak, made an effort to recover his balance, and fell, in the seated position sacred to the Clown in the knockabout scenes of a Pantomime, but with the right wrist at the wrong angle for the ducal house of de Moulny.

Your schoolboy is invariably entertained by the mishap of the sitter-down without premeditation. At Hector's farcical slide and bump the spectators roared; the seconds grinned despite their official gravity. De Moulny laughed too, they said afterwards; even as the broken point of the foil pierced the abdominal bulge above the tightly-tied silk handkerchief that held up his thin, woolen drawers. A moment he hesitated, his heavy features flushing to crimson; then he said, with a queer kind of hiccough, staring down into Hector's horrified eyes:

"That spoils my breakfast!"

And with the scarlet flush dying out in livid deadly paleness, de Moulny collapsed and fell forwards on the blade of the sword.

The Penal Department of the Royal School of Technical Military Instruction, so soon to become an institution where the youth of the nation were taught to fight for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity under the banner of the Second Republic of France,--the Penal Department was a central passage in the basement of the Instructors' Building, with an iron-grated gate at either end, and a row of seven cool stone cells on either side, apartments favorable to salutary reflection, containing within a space of ten square feet a stool, and a window boarded to the upper panes.

In one of these Pupil 130, guilty of an offense of homicidal violence against the person of a schoolfellow, was subjected to cold storage, pending the Military Court Martial of Inquiry which would follow the sentence pronounced by the Civil Director-in-Chief of Studies. Pending both, the offender, deprived of his brass-handled hanger and the esteem of his instructors, nourished upon bread and water--Seine water in those unenlightened days, and Seine water but grudgingly dashed with the thin red vinegary ration-wine--had nothing to do but sit astraddle on the three-legged stool, gripping the wooden edge between his thighs, and remember--and remember....

And see, painted on the semi-obscurity of the dimly-lighted cell, de Moulny's plume of drab-colored fair hair crowning the high, knobbed, reflective forehead; the stony-blue eyes looking watchfully, intolerantly, from their narrow eye-orbits; the heavy blockish nose; the pouting underlip; the long, obstinate, projecting chin; the ugly, powerful, attractive young face moving watchfully from side to side on the column of the muscular neck, in the hollow at the base of which the first light curly hairs began to grow and mass together, spreading downwards over the broad chest and fleshy pectorals in a luxuriance envied by other boys, for to them hirsuteness meant strength, and to be strong, for a man, meant everything....

He would hear de Moulny grunt as he lunged. He would straighten his own arm for the riposte--tread on that thrice-accursed slug: feel the thing squelch under his foot and slip: land in the ridiculous sitting posture, bump! upon those inhospitable paving-stones, shaken, inclined to laugh, but horribly conscious that the point of the foil he still mechanically gripped had entered human flesh....

That bulge of the big sallow body over the edge of the tightly-tied white silk handkerchief! Just there the steel had entered.... There was a little trickle of the dark red blood....

"That spoils my breakfast," he would hear de Moulny say.... He would see him leaning forward with the forlorn schoolboy grin fixed upon his scarlet face.... And then--there would be the facial change, from painful red to ghastly bluish-yellow, and the limp heavy body would descend upon him, a crushing, overwhelming weight. The foil had broken under it.... Oh, God! And de Moulny would die.... And he, Hector Dunoisse, his friend, who loved him, as Jonathan, David, would be his murderer....

He leaped up in frenzy, oversetting the stool.... Came podgy P?delaborde in the twenty-ninth hour of a confinement that seemed to the prisoner to have endured for weeks, in the character of one whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains. Undeterred by the fact that he possessed not the vestige of a voice, the dentist's nephew had recourse to the method of communicating intelligence to one in durance vile, traditionally hit upon by the Sieur Blondel. A free translation of the lay is appended:

Upon the captive Coeur-de-Lion the song of the Troubadour could hardly have had a more tonic effect. Hector sang out joyfully in answer:

"A thousand thanks, old boy!" and a savage access of appetite following on the revulsion from black despair to immense relief, he promptly plumped down on his stiff knees, and began to rummage in the semi-obscurity for one of the stale bread-rations previously pitched away in disgust. And had found the farinaceous brickbat, and got his sharp young teeth in it even as P?delaborde was collared by the curly-whiskered, red-faced, purple-nosed ex-Sergeant of the Municipal Guard in charge of the Penal Department, and handed over to the School Police, as one arrested in the act of clandestinely communicating with a prisoner in the cells.

The civil ordeal beneath the shining spectacles of the Director-in-Chief, assisted by the six Professors, the School Administrator, and the Treasurer, proved less awful than the culprit had reason to expect.

An imposition; Plutarch's "Life of Marcus Crassus" to be written out fairly without blots or erasures, three times, was inflicted. The address of the Director-in-Chief moved five out of the six Professors to tears, so stately was it, so paternal, so moving in its expressions. The sixth Professor would have wept also, had he not, with his chin wedged in his stock and his hands folded upon his ample waistcoat, been soundly, peacefully, sleeping in his chair.

The verdict of the Military Tribunal was in favor of the prisoner. It was decided that Pupil No. 130, roused to choler by an expression injurious to his family honor, had challenged Pupil No. 127 with justification. Having already undergone three days' imprisonment, no further punishment than a reprimand for leaving the dormitory before beat of drum would be administered by the Court, which rose as M. the General gave the signal. And Hector was free.

But for many days after the completion of those three unblotted copies of "Marcus Crassus" he did not see de Moulny.... He hung about the Infirmary, waiting for scraps of intelligence as a hungry cat was wont to hang about the kitchen quarters, wistful-eyed, hollow-flanked, waiting for eleemosynary scraps. One of the two Sisters of Charity in charge took pity on him, perhaps both of them did.... A day came when he was admitted into the long bare sunshiny ward.... At the end nearest the high west window that commanded a view of the flowery garden-beds and neat green grass-plats surrounding the house of Monsieur the Director-in-Chief, upon a low iron bedstead from which the curtains had been stripped away, lay stretched a long body, to which an unpleasant effect of bloated corpulence was imparted by the wicker cage that held the bedclothes up.... The long face that topped the body was very white, a lock of ashen blonde hair drooped over the knobby forehead; the pouting underlip hung lax; the blue eyes, less stony than of old, looked out of hollowed orbits; a sparse and scattered growth of fluffy reddish hairs had started on the lank jaws and long, powerful chin. Hector, conscious of his own egg-smooth cheeks, knew a momentary pang of envy of that incipient beard.... And then as de Moulny grinned in the old cheerful boyish way, holding out a long attenuated arm and bony hand in welcome, something strangling seemed to grip him by the throat....

Only de Moulny saw his tears. The Sister, considerately busy at the other end of a long avenue of tenantless beds with checked side-curtains, assiduously folded bandages at a little table, as the sobbing cry broke forth:

"Oh, Alain, I always loved you!--I would rather you had killed me than have lived to see you lie here! Oh! Alain!--Alain!"

"Pupil 127 must not excite himself or elevate his voice above a whisper in speaking. The orders of the Surgeon attending are stringent. It is my duty to see that they are obeyed."

"They shall be obeyed, my Sister," said de Moulny in an elaborate whisper. The Sister smiled and nodded, and went back to her work. Hector, on a rush-bottomed chair by the low bed, holding the hot, thin, bony hand, began to say:

"I went out yesterday--being Wednesday. Paris is looking as she always looks--always will look, until England and Russia and Germany join forces to invade France, and batter down her forts and spike her batteries, and pound her churches and towers and palaces to powder with newly-invented projectiles, bigger than any shell the world has ever yet seen, filled with some fulminate of a thousand times the explosive power of gunpowder...."

"Do not excite yourself!" begged Hector, "or the Sister will turn me out."

De Moulny went on: "I shall pursue the thing no further, for how shall one who is to be a Catholic priest spend his time inventing explosives to destroy men? But--one day you may take up the thread of discovery where I left off."

"Or where the discovery went off!" suggested Hector.

De Moulny grinned, though his eyes were serious.

"Ps'st! Br'roum! Boum!" Hector nodded. "I heard, most certainly! But let me now tell you of Wednesday." He leaned forwards, gripping the seat of the rush-bottomed chair between his knees with his strong supple red hands as he had gripped the edge of the prison stool, and his bright black eyes were eager on de Moulny's.

A faint pink flush forced its way to the surface of de Moulny's thick sallow skin. He whispered, averting his eyes:

"You have spoken to him about...?"

"When he heard of our--difference of opinion, he naturally inquired its cause."

Hector's small square white teeth showed in a silent mocking laugh that was not good to see. "He thought I fought in defense of my father's honor. He said so. He may say so again--but he will not think it now!"

The boyish face changed and hardened at the recollection of that interview. Terrible words must have been exchanged between the father and the son. De Moulny, cadet of a family whose strongest hereditary principle, next to piety towards the Church, was respect towards parents, shuddered under his wicker-basket and patchwork coverlet. There was a cautious tap at the black swing-doors leading out upon the tile-paved passage. They parted, Madame Gaubert appeared looking for the Sister, caught her mild eye as she glanced round from her work, beckoned with an urgent finger and the whole of her vivacious face.... The Sister rose, and the face vanished. As the doors closed behind the nun's noiseless black draperies, Hector took up his tale:

"I know!" de Moulny nodded.

"Then he reproached me for unfilial ingratitude. He said it was to endow his only son with riches that he demanded return of the dowry--the surrender of the three-hundred-thousand silver thalers.... 'You are a child now,' he told me, 'but when you are a man, when you need money for play, dress, amusements, pleasure, women, you will come to me hat in hand.' I said: 'Never in my life!...' He told me: 'Wait until you are a man!'"

Hector pondered and rubbed his ear. De Moulny cackled faintly:

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