Brother Jacques (Novels of Paul de Kock, Volume XVII)Kock, Paul de
General
Brother Jacques (Novels of Paul de Kock, Volume XVII)
Kock, Paul de
Brothers -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English; Paris (France) -- Fiction
“You shall know, my boy; we must not have any secrets from each other. I
am now making a philter to arouse love; it is not very difficult to
make, for all I need is tonics, alcohol and stimulants. I boil cinnamon,
cloves, vanilla, pepper, sugar and brandy together. When a person has
swallowed that mixture, that person becomes very amorous; and as soon as
he or she who has administered my philter is with the object of his or
her love, he finds that the charm operates and has no doubt that I am a
magician. Furthermore, this little drug has the property of ruining the
teeth; teeth are not ruined without pain, and as the toothache is
commonly called love-sickness, as soon as it is known that the person
who takes the philter has pains in his teeth, it is presumed that he has
fallen in love. I sell a great deal of this philter, especially to
ladies; we will lay in a good stock of it.
“Let us go on to the next one, which arouses jealousy. Ah! I confess
that it cost me long study and profound reflection, but I believe that I
have solved the problem successfully. In the first place, what gives
rise to jealousy? The suspicions which one conceives concerning the
fidelity of the object of one’s love. Now, these suspicions have a
cause, for there is no effect without a cause; to be sure, a person is
sometimes jealous without cause, but much more frequently with a cause;
so I said to myself:
“‘By making one lover unfaithful, I shall necessarily make the other one
jealous; but how am I to make unfaithful the one who does not take my
drugs?’--Ah! that, my little man, was where a stroke of genius was
required. That is something a fool would never have discovered, and
which I did discover, without the help of any treatises upon medicine. I
compounded this philter of corrosive sublimate and herbs that have an
effect upon the skin. This compound has the property of making the eyes
dull, the complexion leaden and the nose drawn; it brings out a humor,
and the skin is covered with pimples and pustules of all sizes,--while
it makes the breath fit to kill flies at ten yards. So you see that the
man or woman who frequents the person who has taken my philter readily
becomes unfaithful, while the one who has taken it becomes as jealous as
a demon; and the effect lasts through life; for, let him do what he
pleases, he can never again succeed in making himself attractive and in
inspiring love.--Well! what do you say to that? What deep thought, what
a thorough acquaintance with the passions and their effects! But see
what the world is: I sell much less of this philter than of the others;
indeed it rarely happens that the same person takes it twice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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