Authors: Robert Merle
“Venerable doctor, for heaven’s sake, tell me!”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking me over with his dark eyes, so mild yet so cunning. “Should I tell you?”
“Tell me, I beg you!”
“Promise me you’ll tell no one.”
“I swear!”
“It’s my belief, Pierre, that to pose a series of insidious questions to the candidate—questions on the most difficult, debatable and obscure points—is a nasty trick. Do you agree?”
“Of course!”
“Then, Pierre, the best defence against a ruse is a better one, yes?”
“Naturally!”
“Pierre, listen up! The man in question pretends to know Greek, but in fact never mastered it. He quotes things but all awry. So, my friend, between now and tomorrow you must memorize the passages from Hippocrates and Galen in your text, and when this so-and-so asks you a trick question, just answer calmly in Greek and with the casual air of a player taking a pawn.”
“But what if the Greek text has no relation to the question?”
“Ah, but that’s the beauty of it! Rabelais used this same trick with his most sticky debaters! And if they knew Greek, he’d stump them with his Hebrew!”
“Aha!” I laughed. “What an excellent trick and hilarious joke!”
And, looking at each other knowingly over our goblets of his delicious wine, we suddenly burst out in an uncontrollable belly laugh.
Later that same day I visited the doctors Pinarelle, Pennedepié and La Vérune, who were not members of the Royal College of Medicine, but ordinary doctors who gave occasional lectures at the school and were admitted to judging panels as a courtesy by Dr Saporta, though I would happily have done without their attendance, since they cost me six écus, thirty sols, which brought the honoraria paid to my judges to forty-three écus.
But that was not sufficient. On the eve of my
triduanes
I had gifts brought to the lodgings of each of the seven doctors that had been prescribed by an immemorial custom as to both quantity and quality:
These offerings were delivered to the seven lodgings by the beadle Figairasse, to whom I paid a commission of two écus, twenty sols, both for the delivery and for his role in introducing and seating the visitors at my exams—as well as for, to my greater glory, sounding the college’s bells when I had been proclaimed a doctor, and finally for preceding me through the streets of Montpellier, dressed in full armour, to announce throughout the city my triumph.
And in further obedience to ancient customs, I hired four musicians to play the fife, drum, trumpet and viol, and I brought them at sundown on the eve of my
triduanes
to serenade the doctors I’ve mentioned. Almost all of them condescended to open their windows and throw a few sols to the musicians (whom I’d paid handsomely), and acknowledge my deep bow while their wives clapped courteously. However, at Saporta’s house, Typhème, no doubt on orders from her husband, did not show herself. And as for the lodgings of Dean Bazin, they remained as closed as the heart of a miser, the dean no doubt wishing to make it clear just how detestable he found me. As I took my leave of the musicians, I reminded them to be at my parade three days thence, for when the beadle went before me, they were supposed to precede him playing happy tunes as would befit a triumph.
You must not imagine, dear reader, that with these offerings I’d completed my expenses, no matter how hard my heart ached at having to waste so much on these sumptuous superfluities. And isn’t it a great pity and a scandalous abuse that so much money
was necessary when all that should have been required was knowledge? Well now, listen to this! During the three days that my exams lasted, custom required that I serve wine and cakes not just to the judging panel but to all the assistants who crowded into the examination hall to hear me, and who were rewarded with food and drink for having to sit through so many hours of tedium. And so I had to ask the innkeeper at the Three Kings to help me out during my
triduanes
, to which she consented graciously on condition that she be paid handsomely. Throughout the three days, she circulated through the hall with pitchers of wine, goblets, little pies and marzipans, aided by two sprightly chambermaids, who were pawed at by more than one member of the audience, including even the ordinary doctors, as these girls passed by, their two hands burdened with refreshments.
These expenses were heavy, but, sadly, necessary to keep my judges and assistants in good and benign humour, failing which the first would have turned me on the spit and the second would have jeered and taunted instead of applauding me as they did vociferously at every response I made, given how full their stomachs were and their spleens well doused and dilated with wine.
As expected, Bazin did his best to throw me to the winds, hog-tied, but at the first insidious question he posed, I answered with a long citation in Greek from Hippocrates, delivered distinctly and proudly, head held high and chest puffed out, and the audience, believing that I had turned the tables on the dean and put a stake through his heart, applauded wildly. At this, Dr d’Assas, bobbing his head, and baritoning from his nether parts, smiled angelically, while Chancellor Saporta, who knew Greek far too well to be a dupe to my hypocritical ruse, nevertheless remained mute and even stared scornfully at his dean, who sat down crestfallen, abashed and undone, and nearly choking on his own venom. To see the dean so thoroughly annihilated, the
ordinary doctors thought twice before attempting to set any traps for me. However, Dr Pennedepié, who nourished a mortal hatred of Dr Pinarelle because he’d stolen one of his patients, wanted to use me to get revenge on his enemy, and asked me whether, in my opinion, a woman’s uterus was simple or bifurcated. The question couldn’t fail to embarrass me since I knew that Dr Pinarelle held, against all reason and evidence, Galen’s authority on this to be absolute and that his statement on St Luke’s day that he preferred “to be mistaken with Galen than be right with Vesalius” had made him the laughing stock of the entire town. So of course, Pennedepié was using me to embarrass his enemy. But since Bazin’s hatred was enough for a lifetime, I did not want to have either of these two doctors on my back. So I resolved to test the waters with the prudence of a cat, and replied in Latin very quietly and modestly:
“Venerable Dr Pennedepié,
haec est vexata questio
.
*
On the one hand, the great Galen, having dissected the uterus of a rabbit and found it bifurcated, asserted that the uterus of a woman must also be so constructed. And, no doubt, his opinion has considerable weight, given the authority of the doctor, who is universally venerated as one of the masters of Greek medicine. But, on the other hand, our contemporary Vesalius, a bold and able medical doctor, who was a student in our college, dissected a woman, and not a rabbit, and found that her uterus was univalve.”
Having said this, I remained silent.
“And you yourself, what do
you
believe? Univalve or bifurcated?” insisted the good Dr Pennedepié, pressing his advantage.
“Venerable Dr Pennedepié,” I replied, my face glowing with humility. “There are in this hall so many people more knowledgeable than I, and I would rather they decide this question.”
“And yet,” said Dr Pennedepié, “we must attempt to cure the illnesses of our women patients. So if you had a patient who had pain in her uterus, you would have to decide what to do.”
“In which case, venerable doctor, having always found the uterus in my dissections to be one, I would decide in favour of unicity, without in any way deprecating the great and venerable Galen, who judged according to the evidence available to him in his time.”
A dreadful silence fell on the assembly which would have done me in had not d’Assas suddenly raised his hands and cried in a loud voice:
“He has answered well and with enviable modesty for a candidate of his age!”
I thought I’d escaped relatively well from this ambush, but, as it turned out, not as well as I’d hoped. When the jury came to deliberate, Dr Pinarelle was opposed to awarding me the highest honours since I had, “in my presumptuous insolence, dared to confront the authority of the divine Galen”. As luck would have it, since he was but an ordinary doctor, he could voice his opinion but had no vote. What considerably surprised me was that Dr Bazin, who, as a royal professor, did have a deliberative vote, immediately voted for high honours, being too intelligent not to mask his defeat with the appearance of benevolence. He was a man who, even in the face of imminent death, put his career above all, so when he saw Madame de Joyeuse and her ladies-in-waiting appear at the final session of my
triduanes
and, all decked out in their most seductive finery, take up seats in the first row, the venomous looks he’d darted at me throughout the proceedings became quite suddenly and surprisingly benign.
Oh reader! You can well imagine that my heart was beating a fanfare of drums and trumpets to wake the dead when my doctor-father, Chancellor Saporta, commanded me to climb to the platform where the jury had just decided my fate, and then declared me doctor of medicine, with high honours, asked me to repeat the Hippocratic
oath, and then handed me, one by one, and with the customary solemnity and gravity required for such occasions, the symbols of my new estate, to wit:
Thus hatted, sashed and ringed, and holding my copy of Hippocrates’s magnum opus, I gave a speech of thanks in seven different languages: in French (with a low bow to Madame de Joyeuse), in Latin (bowing to the ordinary doctors), in Greek (bowing to the royal professors, with a special reverence in the direction of Dr d’Assas, who had translated this speech for me), in Hebrew (with a bow to Maître Sanche, to whom I owed my knowledge of that language), in German (bowing to my fellow students from Basle), in Italian (simply because I knew a bit of this admirable language), and finally, to the surprise of all, given that it is an idiom that is considered rustic and uneducated, in the local Provençal dialect used in Montpellier. After a moment of surprise, there was a deafening roar of applause from the entire hall in appreciation of my friendship, in gratitude for the love I expressed for this city, its people and its language.
This done, Chancellor Saporta rose and embraced me warmly, rubbing his rough beard against my cheek, and bade me sit down at
his right hand while the beadle Figairasse, striding out of the hall, went to ring peals of the college bells in my honour. He wasn’t stingy in his effort and I got my money’s worth out of those two écus and twenty sols. It was a din loud enough to deafen for ever those who heard it.
This racket finally over, the royal professors, the ordinary doctors and the assistants processed out through the streets of Montpellier to the Three Kings inn, where I hosted, as was the custom, a banquet which cost every sol I had. At least this was my last outlay but it was the most monstrous. Happily all those who stuffed and nearly drowned themselves at my expense didn’t share my financial worries.
Madame de Joyeuse was good enough to have her carriage bring her to the inn and, once there, had herself placed in a private room from which she sent for me. Managing to sneak away from the crowd, I hastened to her side and found her comfortably settled with Aglaé de Mérol at her side. Both of them were in their finest silks and satins, fully made-up with pearls in their hair and smelling of all the perfumes in Araby.
“Well now, my little cousin!” cried Madame de Joyeuse. “A kiss for you! You were perfect! Not that I understand a word of Latin, mind you, but you looked as beautiful and graceful as a cat, though a cat with sharp claws under its velvet paws. And best of all, there wasn’t a trace of the crusty old pedant in your tone or your appearance. Kiss me again! You were sublime! Aglaé, tell him how wonderful he was!”
“Monsieur,” Aglaé conceded with a glint in her eye and a trace of a pout, “you were admirable in every way!”
I bowed to Madame de Joyeuse and happily kissed her lips.
“Greet Aglaé as well!” she proclaimed when I’d finished my embrace—certainly a more pleasing one than Saporta’s rough beard.
“But Madame, I don’t believe I dare!”
“Monsieur!” she snorted. “Do you think I don’t know all the trouble you give her, virgin though she may be? Is there no end to
your impertinence, you monster? So, since you’ve ordered the wine, drink it!”
“Madame! What a betrayal! You’ve repeated all my compliments?”
“Every one, Monsieur!” laughed Aglaé, while I obediently kissed her, though not with too much ardour, so that Madame de Joyeuse wouldn’t begin her usual refrain about her advanced age.
“So, my sweet,” said the lady, “come and see me tomorrow as soon as you’ve finished your triumphal procession though the city.”
“But Madame, I’ll be all sweaty and dusty!”
“Well, then! We’ll just have to clean you up in my bathtub!” At which they both giggled like schoolgirls and looked at me with so conspiratorial an air I didn’t know what to think. But I’ve learnt that when you don’t understand something, it’s best to treat it light-heartedly in the heat of the moment.
“Mesdames,” I laughed, “is this not strange? Now that I’m a doctor, it’s you who wish to cure me!”
Whereupon I kissed their smooth cheeks and tender hands. Oh, the gentler sex can be so sweet and enveloping! How I would have missed them if God had forgotten to create them! And with what ardour I watched them as they departed, laughing and babbling in their gold-embroidered bodices.