The Mesmerist's Victim

“Oh, doctor, why do you make a selection among the victims?”

“Because,” replied the surgeon, raising his head at this reproach, “no one would care for the poor if I did not, and the rich will always find plenty to look after them. Lower your light and look along the pavement and you will find a hundred poor to one rich or noble. In this catastrophe, with their luck which will in the end tire heaven itself, the aristocrats have paid their tax as usual, one per thousand.”

The gentleman held up his lantern to his own face.

“Am I only one of my class?” he queried, without irritation, “a nobleman who was lost in the throng, where a horse kicked me in the face and my arm was broken by my falling into a ditch. You say the rich and noble are looked after – have I had my wounds dressed?”

“You have your mansion and your family doctor; go home, for you are able to walk.”

“I am not asking your help, sir; I am seeking my sister, a fair girl of sixteen, no doubt killed, alas! albeit she is not of the lower classes. She wore a white dress and a necklace with a cross. Though she has a residence and a doctor, for pity’s sake! answer me if you have seen her?”

“Humanity guides me, my lord,” said the young surgeon with feverish vehemence proving that such ideas had long been seething within his bosom; “I devote myself to mankind, and I obey the law of her who is my goddess when I leave the aristocrat on his deathbed to run and relieve the suffering people. All the woes happened here are derived from the upper class; they come from your abuses, and usurpation; bear therefore the consequences. No lord, I have not seen your sister.”

With this blasting retort, the surgeon resumed his task. A poor woman was brought to him over whose both legs a carriage had rolled.

“Behold,” he pursued Philip with a shout, “is it the poor who drive their coaches about on holidays so as to smash the limbs of the rich?”

Philip, belonging to the new race who sided with Làfayette, had more than once professed the opinions which stung him from this youth: their application fell on him like chastisement. With breaking heart, he turned aloof on his mournful exploration, but soon they could hear his tearful voice calling:

“Andrea, Andrea!”

Near him hurried an elderly man, in grey coat, cloth stockings, and leaning on a cane, while with his left hand he held a cheap lantern made of a candle surrounded by oiled paper.

“Poor young man,” he sighed on hearing the gentleman’s wail and comprehending his anguish, “Forgive me,” he said, returning after letting him pass as though he could not let such great sorrow go by without endeavoring to give some alleviation, “forgive my mingling grief with yours, but those whom the same stroke strikes ought to support one another. Besides, you may be useful to me. As your candle is nearly burnt out you must have been seeking for some time, and so know a good many places. Where do they lie thickest?”

“In the great ditch more than fifty are heaped up.”

“So many victims during a festival?”

“So many? – I have looked upon a thousand dead – and have not yet come upon my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“She was lost in that direction. I have found the bench where we were parted. But of her not a trace. I began to search at the bastion. The mob moved towards the new buildings in Madeleine Street. There I hunted, but there were great fluctuations. The stream rushed thither, but a poor girl would wander anywhere, with her crazed head, seeking flight in any direction.”

“I can hardly think that she would have stemmed the current. We two may find her together at the corner of the streets.”

“But who are you after – your son?” questioned Philip.

“No, an adopted youth, only eighteen, who was master of his actions and would come to the festival. Besides, one was so far from imagining this horrid catastrophe. Your candle is going out – come with me and I will light you.”

“Thanks, you are very kind, but I shall obstruct you.”

“Fear nothing, for I must be seeking, too. Usually the lad comes home punctually,” continued the old man, “but I had a forerunner last evening. I was sitting up for him at eleven when my wife had the rumor from the neighbors of the miseries of this rejoicing. I waited a couple of hours in hopes that he would return, but then I felt it would be cowardly to go to sleep without news.”

“So we will hunt over by the houses,” said the nobleman.

“Yes, as you say the crowd went there and would certainly have carried him along. He is from the country and knows no more the way than the streets. This may be the first time he came to this place.”

“My sister is country-bred also.”

“Shocking sight,” said the old man, before a mound of the suffocated.

“Still we must search,” said the chevalier, resolutely holding out the lantern to the corpses. “Oh, here we are by the Wardrobe Stores – ha! white rags – my sister wore a white dress. Lend me your light, I entreat you, sir.”

“It is a piece of a white dress,” he continued, “but held in a young man’s hand. It is like that she wore. Oh, Andrea!” he sobbed as if it tore up his heart.

The old man came nearer.

“It is he,” he exclaimed, “Gilbert!”

“Gilbert? do you know our farmer’s son, Gilbert, and were you seeking him?”

The old man took the youth’s hand, it was icy cold. Philip opened his waistcoat and found that his heart was quiet. But the next instant he cried: “No, he breathes – he lives, I tell you.”

“Help! this way, to the surgeon,” said the old man.

“Nay, let us do what we can for him for I was refused help when I spoke to him just now.”

“He must take care of my dear boy,” said the old man.

And taking Gilbert between him and Taverney, they carried him towards the surgeon, who was still croaking:

“The poor first – bring in the poor, first.”

This maxim was sure to be hailed with admiration from a group of lookers-on.

“I bring a man of the people,” retorted the old man hotly, feeling a little piqued at this exclusiveness.

“And the women next, as men can bear their hurt better,” proceeded the character.

“The boy only wants bleeding,” said Gilbert’s friend.

“Ho, ho, so it is you, my lord, again?” sneered the surgeon, perceiving Taverney.

The old gentleman thought that the speech was addressed to him and he took it up warmly.

“I am not a lord – I am a man of the multitude – I am Jean Jacques Rousseau.”

The surgeon uttered an exclamation of surprise and said as he waved the crowd back imperiously:

“Way for the Man of Nature – the Emancipator of Humanity – the Citizen of Geneva! Has any harm befallen you?”

“No, but to this poor lad.”

“Ah, like me, you represent the cause of mankind,” said the surgeon.

Startled by this unexpected eulogy, the author of the “Social contract” could only stammer some unintelligible words, while Philip Taverney, seized with stupefaction at being in face of the famous philosopher, stepped aside.