Brother Jacques (Novels of Paul de Kock, Volume XVII)Kock, Paul de
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Brother Jacques (Novels of Paul de Kock, Volume XVII)
Kock, Paul de
Brothers -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English; Paris (France) -- Fiction
However, we betook ourselves to the best inn in the place. At first the
inn-keeper paid no attention to us, and did not put himself out to
receive us; but when my companion ordered one of the finest suites and a
splendid repast, he scrutinized us with a hesitating expression which
was eloquent of his doubts concerning the state of our finances. My
crafty hunchback tossed a number of crowns on the table, and requested
the host to take out a week’s rent of the apartment in advance.
This method of beginning operations completely changed the ideas of the
inn-keeper, who concluded that he had to deal with noblemen travelling
incognito. We were given rooms on the first floor and served on the
minute.
“Monsieur l’aubergiste,” said my companion to our host, as we took our
seats at the table, “you don’t know who I am; I am going to make myself
known to you for the good of this town. Be good enough to inform the
inhabitants that they have the privilege of entertaining within their
walls, but for only a week, the celebrated Graograicus,
physician-in-chief to the Emperor of China, magnetizer to the favorite
sultana of the Sultan of Damascus, physician by letters patent to the
court of the King of Morocco, chemist to the Grand Vizier of
Constantinople, and astrologer to the Hetman of the Cossacks. Tell them
also that I have with me temporarily the little somnambulist, the most
famous, the most extraordinary that has ever appeared on the face of the
globe. He is a young man of thirty years, who looks less than fifteen,
because he has passed half of his life asleep. This strange young man,
born on the banks of the Indus, knows all languages--not to speak them,
it is true, but he understands them better than you and I do. In his
sleep he discovers your disease, its cause, its effects, the pains that
you feel, the periods of recurrence, and points out the remedies you
should take, even for future sicknesses. He has had the honor of putting
himself to sleep before counts, marquises, dukes, and even royal
highnesses. He has effected, sleeping all the while, cures that would
have passed for miracles under the reign of the great Solomon, and even
under that of King Dagobert. He has cured an Englishman of the spleen, a
German baroness of a cutaneous disease, and her husband of the gout; a
young dancer of hatred for men, and an old woman of her love for her
dog; a courtier of the habit of bending his back, and a courtesan of a
peculiar habit of wriggling; an annuitant of a weakness of the stomach,
and a Prussian of indigestion; an author of a buzzing in his ears, and a
musician of a weakness in his legs; a bailiff of rheumatism in the loins
and an attorney of itching fingers; a lawyer of a defect in his speech,
and a singer of defective respiration; a coquette of her vapors, and an
old libertine of his asthma; a pacha with three tails, of his inability
to secure offspring, and a muleteer of his too bountiful gifts in this
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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