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Updated: May 14, 2025
A bitter smile hovered upon the lips of the third doctor, Maugredie, a man of acknowledged ability, but a Pyrrhonist and a scoffer, with the scalpel for his one article of faith. He would consider, as a concession to Brisset, that a man who, as a matter of fact, was perfectly well was dead, and recognize with Cameristus that a man might be living on after his apparent demise.
"Here is my recovery halting between a string of beads and a rosary of leeches, between Dupuytren's bistoury and Prince Hohenlohe's prayer. There is Maugredie suspending his judgment on the line that divides facts from words, mind from matter.
"There is his everlasting system of medicine, arbitrary, monarchical, and pious," muttered Brisset. "Gentlemen," Maugredie broke in hastily, to distract attention from Brisset's comment, "don't let us lose sight of the patient." "What is the good of science?" Raphael moaned.
"May I not be present during the discussion, gentlemen?" Valentin had asked them, but Brisset and Maugredie protested against this, and, in spite of their patient's entreaties, declined altogether to deliberate in his presence.
"And that is the cause of the milk in the cocoanut," said Raphael, with a smile, as he led Horace into his study to pay the fees for this useless consultation. "Their conclusions are logical," the young doctor replied. "Cameristus feels, Brisset examines, Maugredie doubts. Has not man a soul, a body, and an intelligence?
"I should very much like to be a witness of the coincidence of its retrenchment with your wish," he said to the Marquis. "Where is the use?" cried Brisset. "Where is the use?" echoed Cameristus. "Ah, you are both of the same mind," replied Maugredie. "The contraction is perfectly simple," Brisset went on. "It is supernatural," remarked Cameristus.
"In short," Maugredie made answer, with affected solemnity, and handing the piece of skin to Raphael as he spoke, "the shriveling faculty of the skin is a fact inexplicable, and yet quite natural, which, ever since the world began, has been the despair of medicine and of pretty women." All Valentin's observation could discover no trace of a feeling for his troubles in any of the three doctors.
From time to time Brisset, the sole speaker, remarked, "Good! just so!" as Bianchon pointed out the existence of each desperate symptom. Cameristus seemed to be deep in meditation; Maugredie looked like a comic author, studying two queer characters with a view to reproducing them faithfully upon the stage. There was deep, unconcealed distress, and grave compassion in Horace Bianchon's face.
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