Mademoiselle Bistouri

When I had reached the heart of the slums, under the gaslights, I
felt an arm which slid softly under mine, and I heard a voice which
whispered: "You are a doctor, sir?"

I looked: it was a big girl, robust, slightly rouged, her eyes wide
open, her hair floating in the wind with her bonnet strings.

"No, I am not a doctor. Let me pass."

"Oh yes! you are a doctor. I can see it well. Come to my house. You
will be quite satisfied, I assure you. I shall doubtless go to see you,
but later, after the doctor, goodness me!... Ha! Ha!" she exclaimed,
still clinging to my arm and bursting into laughter. "You are a
physician jokester. I have known several of that sort. Come."

I am passionately in love with mystery, because I always hope to
unravel it. So I let myself be led by my companion, or rather, by the
unlooked-for enigma.

I omit description of the hovel; it can be found in several well known
old French poets. Only, a detail unnoticed by Regnier, two or three
portraits of renowned physicians were hung upon the wall.

How I was pampered! A great fire, warm wine, cigars; and while offering
me these fine things and lighting a cigar for herself the comical
creature said to me: "Make yourself at home; be quite at ease. This
will bring back the hospital and the happy days of your youth.... Oh
look! where did you win those white hairs? You were not like that, not
so long ago, when you were interne at L----. I remember it was you that
helped at the major operations. There was a man that loved to cut, hew,
lop off! It was you that handed him the instruments, the threads and
the sponges.... And how proudly, the operation performed, he used to
say, looking at his watch, 'Five minutes, gentlemen!' Oh! I, I go
everywhere! I know these people well!"

A few moments later, in more familiar tone, harping on the same theme,
she said: "You are a doctor, aren't you, darling?"

That unintelligible refrain brought me to my feet "No!" I cried,
furious.

"Surgeon, then?"

"No! No! unless it be to cut off your head!"

"Wait," she continued, "you shall see."

And she drew from a closet a file of papers which was nothing else
than the collection of illustrious doctors of the day, lithographed by
Maurin, that was displayed for several years on the Quay Voltaire.

"Look, do you recognize this one?"

"Yes, it's X----. The name is at the bottom, besides; but I know him
personally."

"I should say so! Look! Here is Z----, the one who said in his course,
speaking of X----, 'this monster, bearing on his face the blackness of
his soul!' all because the other did not agree with him in a certain
case! How they laughed at that in the school, at the time! Do you
remember?... Look! here is K----, who denounced to the authorities the
rebels he was caring for at his hospital. That was at the time of the
riots. How is it possible so handsome a man can have so little heart?
... This one is W----, a famous Englishman; I captured him on his visit
to Paris. He looks like a girl, doesn't he?"

And as I touched a little tied-up parcel, also on the table: "Wait a
while," she said, "In this one are the internes; and that package has
the dressers."

And she spread out, fanlike, a mass of photographs, picturing much
younger faces.

"When we see each other again, you will give me your portrait, won't
you, deary?"

"But," I said to her, also following my fixed idea, "what makes you
think I am a doctor?"

"It's because you are so amiable and good to women!" "Peculiar logic,"
I said to myself.

"Oh! I am hardly ever mistaken; I have known quite a number. I love
them so much that, even though I am not sick, I sometimes go to see
them, only to see them. There are some who say coldly: 'You are not
sick at all!' But there are others who understand me, because I ogle
them."

"And when they do not understand?"

"Well, since I have disturbed them fruitlessly, I leave ten francs on
the mantel.... They are so good and so kind, these folk! I discovered
a little interne at the Piete, pretty as an angel, and so refined! and
a worker, the poor boy! His comrades told me he didn't have a sou,
because his parents were poor folks who couldn't send him anything.
That gave me confidence. After all, I am a fairly good looking woman,
although not too young. I said to him: 'Come to see me, come to see
me often. With me you needn't bother: I have no need of money.' But
you know that I made him understand that in a host of ways, I didn't
tell it to him bluntly; I was so afraid of humiliating him, the dear
child!... Oh well! would you believe that I had a queer fancy I didn't
dare to tell him?... I should have liked him to come to see me with
his instrument case and his apron, even with a little blood on it."

She said this in the most candid manner, as a feeling man would say to
an actress that he loved: "I want to see you dressed in the costume you
wore in this famous role that you created...."

I, persisting, continued: "Can you remember the time and the occasion
when this so special passion was born in you?"

I made her understand with difficulty; finally I succeeded. But then
she answered in a very sad tone, and even, as well as I can recall,
lowering her eyes: "I don't know..., I can't remember."

What oddities can be found in a great city, if one knows how to walk
about and watch. Life swarms with innocent monsters.--

Lord, my God! You, the Creator, You the Master, You who have created
Law and Liberty; You, the Sovereign that doth not interfere; You, the
Judge that pardoneth; You who are full of motives and causes, and who
perhaps have planted a taste for horror in my mind in order to convert
my soul, as the recovery after a sword; Lord, have pity, have pity on
madmen and mad women! O Creator, can monsters exist in the eyes of Him
who alone knows why they exist, how they are made, and how they need
not have been made?