The Man with the broken Ear by Edmond About (phonics books .TXT) 📕

religious question?"

"To tell you the truth, Monsieur (but this entirely between ourselves), what we have spoken of so far is purely accessory and we are now touching upon the delicate point. People have come to see me and have made some very judicious remarks to me. The mere announcement of your project has cast a good deal of trouble into certain consciences. They fear that the success of an undertaking of this kind may strike a blow at the faith, may, in a word, scandalize many tranquil spirits. For, if M. Fougas is dead, of course it is because God has so willed it. Aren't you afraid of acting contrary to the will of God, in resuscitating him?"

"No, Monsieur: for I am sure not to resuscitate Fougas if God has willed it otherwise; God permits a man to catch the fever, but God also permits a doctor to cure him. God permitted a brave soldier of the Emperor to be captured by four drunken Russians, condemned as a spy, frozen in a fortress and desiccated under an air-pump by an old German. But God also permitted me to find this unfortunate man in a junk-shop, to carry him to Fontainebleau, to examine him with certain men of science and to agree with them upon a method almost sure to restore him to life. All this proves one thing--which is that God is more just, more merciful and more inclined to pity than those who abuse his name in order to excite you."

"I assure you, Monsieur, that I am not in the least excited. I yield to your reasons because they are good ones and because you are a man of consideration in the community. I sincerely hope, moreover, that you will not think harshly of an act of zeal which I have been advised to perform. I am a functionary, Monsieur. Now, what is a functionary? A man who holds a place. Suppose now that functionaries were to expose themselves to the loss of their places, what would stand firm in France? Nothing, Monsieur, absolutely nothing. I have the honor to bid you good day!"

On the morning of the 15th of August, M. Karl Nibor presented himself at M. Renault's with Doctor Martont and the committee appointed by the Biological Society of Paris. As often happens in the rural districts the first appearance of our illustrious savant was a sort of disappointment. Mme. Renault expected to see, if not a magician in a velvet robe studded with gold, at least an old man of extraordinarily grave and impressive appearance. Karl Nibor is a man of middle height, very fair and very slight. Possibly he carries a good forty years, but one would not credit him with more than thirty-five. He wears a moustache and imperial; is lively, a good conversationist, agreeable and enough of a man of the world to amuse the ladies. But Clementine did not have the pleasure of his conversation. Her aunt had taken her to Moret in order to remove her from the pangs of fear as well as from the intoxications of victory.


CHAPTER X.

HALLELUJAH!


M. Nibor and his colleagues, after the usual compliments, requested to see the subject. They had no time to lose, as the experiment could hardly last less than three days. Leon hastened to conduct them to the laboratory and to open the three boxes containing the Colonel.

They found that the patient presented quite a favorable appearance. M. Nibor took off his clothes, which tore like tinder from having been too much dried in Father Meiser's furnace. The body, when naked, was pronounced entirely free from blemish and in a perfectly healthy condition. No one would yet have guaranteed success, but every one was full of hope.

After this preliminary examination, M. Renault put his laboratory at the service of his guests. He offered them all that he possessed, with a munificence which was not entirely free from vanity. In case the employment of electricity should appear necessary, he had a powerful battery of Leyden jars and forty of Bunsen's elements, which were entirely new. M. Nibor thanked him smilingly.

"Save your riches," said he. "With a bath-tub and caldron of boiling water, we will have everything we need. The Colonel needs nothing but humidity. The thing is to give him the quantity of water necessary to the play of the organs. If you have a small room where one can introduce a jet of vapor, we will be more than content."

M. Audret, the architect, had very wisely built a little bath-room near the laboratory, which was convenient and well lighted. The celebrated steam engine was not far off, and its boiler had not, up to this time, answered any other purpose than that of warming the baths of M. and Mme. Renault.

The Colonel was carried into this room, with all the care necessitated by his fragility. It was not intended to break his second ear in the hurry of moving. Leon ran to light the fire under the boiler, and M. Nibor created him Fireman, on the field of battle.

Soon a jet of tepid vapor streamed into the bath-room, creating around the Colonel a humid atmosphere which was elevated by degrees, and without any sudden increase, to the temperature of the human body. These conditions of heat and humidity were maintained with the greatest care for twenty-four hours. No one in the house went to sleep. The members of the Parisian Committee encamped in the laboratory. Leon kept up the fire; M. Nibor, M. Renault and M. Martout took turns in watching the thermometer. Madame Renault was making tea and coffee, and punch too. Gothon, who had taken communion in the morning, kept praying to God, in the corner of her kitchen, that this impious miracle might not succeed. A certain excitement already prevailed throughout the town, but one did not know whether it should be attributed to the fête of the 15th, or the famous undertaking of the seven wise men of Paris.

By two o'clock on the 16th, encouraging results were obtained. The skin and muscles had recovered nearly all their suppleness, but the joints were still hard to bend. The collapsed condition of the walls of the abdomen and the interval between the ribs, still indicated that the viscera were far from having reabsorbed the quantity of water which they had previously lost with Herr Meiser. A bath was prepared and kept at a temperature of thirty-seven degrees and a half.[3] They left the Colonel in it two hours and a half, taking care to frequently pass over his head a fine sponge soaked with water.

M. Nibor removed him from the bath as soon as the skin, which was filled out sooner than the other tissues, began to assume a whitish tinge and wrinkle slightly. They kept him until the evening of the 16th in this humid room, where they arranged an apparatus which, from time to time, occasioned a fine rain of a temperature of thirty-seven and a half degrees. A new bath was given in the evening. During the night, the body was enveloped in flannel, but kept constantly in the same steaming atmosphere.

On the morning of the 17th, after a third bath of an hour and a half, the general characteristics of the figure and the proportions of the body presented their natural aspect: one would have called it a sleeping man. Five or six curious persons were admitted to see it, among others the colonel of the 23d. In the presence of these witnesses, M. Nibor moved successively all the joints, and demonstrated that they had recovered their flexibility. He gently kneaded the limbs, trunk and abdomen. He partly opened the lips, and separated the jaws, which were quite firmly closed, and saw that the tongue had returned to its ordinary size and consistency. He also partly opened the eyelids: the eye-balls were firm and bright.

"Gentlemen," said the philosopher, "these are indications which do not deceive; I prophesy success. In a few hours you shall witness the first manifestations of life."

"But," interrupted one of the bystanders, "why not immediately?"

"Because the conjunctivæ are still a little paler than they ought to be. But the little veins traversing the whites of the eyes have already assumed a very encouraging appearance. The blood is almost entirely restored. What is the blood? Red globules floating in serum, or a sort of whey. The serum in poor Fougas was dried up in his veins; the water which we have gradually introduced by a slow endosmose has saturated the albumen and fibrin of the serum, which is returned to the liquid state. The red globules which desiccation had agglutinated, had become motionless like ships stranded in shoal water. Now behold them afloat again: they thicken, swell, round out their edges, detach themselves from each other and prepare to circulate in their proper channels at the first impulse which shall be given them by the contractions of the heart."

"It remains to see," said M. Renault, "whether the heart will put itself in motion. In a living man, the heart moves under the impulse of the brain, transmitted by the nerves. The brain acts under the impulse of the heart, transmitted by the arteries. The whole forms a perfectly exact circle, without which there is no well-being. And when neither heart nor brain acts, as in the Colonel's case, I don't see which of the two can set the other in motion. You remember the scene in the ' Ecole des femmes ,' where Arnolphe knocks at his door? The valet and the maid, Alain and Georgette, are both in the house. 'Georgette!' cries Alain.--'Well?' replies Georgette.--'Open the door down there!'--'Go yourself! Go yourself!'--'Gracious me! I shan't go!'--'I shan't go either!'--'Open it right away!'--'Open it yourself!' And nobody opens it. I am inclined to think, Monsieur, that we are attending a performance of this comedy. The house is the body of the Colonel; Arnolphe, who wants to get in, is the Vital Principle. The heart and brain act the parts of Alain and Georgette. 'Open the door!' says one.--'Open it yourself!' says the other. And the Vital Principle waits outside."

"Monsieur," replied Doctor Nibor smiling, "you forget the ending of the scene. Arnolphe gets angry, and cries out: 'Whichever of you two doesn't open the door, shan't have anything to eat for four days!' And forthwith Alain hurries himself, Georgette runs and the door is opened. Now bear in mind that I speak in this way only in order to conform to your own course of reasoning, for the term 'Vital Principle' is at variance with the actual assertions of science. Life will manifest itself as soon as the brain, or the heart, or any one of the organs which have the capacity of working spontaneously, shall have absorbed the quantity of water it needs. Organized matter has inherent properties which manifest themselves without the assistance of any foreign principle, whenever they are surrounded by certain conditions. Why do not M. Fougas' muscles contract yet? Why does not the tissue of the brain enter into action? Because they have not yet the amount of moisture necessary to them. In the fountain of life there is lacking, perhaps, a pint of water. But I shall be in no hurry to refill it: I am too much afraid of breaking it. Before giving this gallant fellow a final bath, it will be necessary to knead all his organs again, to subject his abdomen to regular compressions, in order that the serous membranes of the stomach, chest and heart may be perfectly disagglutinated and capable of slipping on each other. You are aware that the slightest tear in these parts, or the