The Atheists Mass | Page 3

than they give. Most of his

friends felt for him that deeply-seated respect which is inspired by
unostentatious virtue, and many of them dreaded his censure. But
Horace made no pedantic display of his qualities. He was neither a
puritan nor a preacher; he could swear with a grace as he gave his
advice, and was always ready for a jollification when occasion offered.
A jolly companion, not more prudish than a trooper, as frank and
outspoken--not as a sailor, for nowadays sailors are wily
diplomates--but as an honest man who has nothing in his life to hide, he
walked with his head erect, and a mind content. In short, to put the
facts into a word, Horace was the Pylades of more than one
Orestes--creditors being regarded as the nearest modern equivalent to
the Furies of the ancients.
He carried his poverty with the cheerfulness which is perhaps one of
the chief elements of courage, and, like all people who have nothing, he
made very few debts. As sober as a camel and active as a stag, he was
steadfast in his ideas and his conduct.
The happy phase of Bianchon's life began on the day when the famous
surgeon had proof of the qualities and the defects which, these no less
than those, make Doctor Horace Bianchon doubly dear to his friends.
When a leading clinical practitioner takes a young man to his bosom,
that young man has, as they say, his foot in the stirrup. Desplein did not
fail to take Bianchon as his assistant to wealthy houses, where some
complimentary fee almost always found its way into the student's
pocket, and where the mysteries of Paris life were insensibly revealed
to the young provincial; he kept him at his side when a consultation
was to be held, and gave him occupation; sometimes he would send
him to a watering-place with a rich patient; in fact, he was making a
practice for him. The consequence was that in the course of time the
Tyrant of surgery had a devoted ally. These two men--one at the
summit of honor and of his science, enjoying an immense fortune and
an immense reputation; the other a humble Omega, having neither
fortune nor fame --became intimate friends.
The great Desplein told his house surgeon everything; the disciple
knew whether such or such a woman had sat on a chair near the master,

or on the famous couch in Desplein's surgery, on which he slept.
Bianchon knew the mysteries of that temperament, a compound of the
lion and the bull, which at last expanded and enlarged beyond measure
the great man's torso, and caused his death by degeneration of the heart.
He studied the eccentricities of that busy life, the schemes of that
sordid avarice, the hopes of the politician who lurked behind the man
of science; he was able to foresee the mortifications that awaited the
only sentiment that lay hid in a heart that was steeled, but not of steel.
One day Bianchon spoke to Desplein of a poor water-carrier of the
Saint-Jacques district, who had a horrible disease caused by fatigue and
want; this wretched Auvergnat had had nothing but potatoes to eat
during the dreadful winter of 1821. Desplein left all his visits, and at
the risk of killing his horse, he rushed off, followed by Bianchon, to the
poor man's dwelling, and saw, himself, to his being removed to a sick
house, founded by the famous Dubois in the Faubourg Saint-Denis.
Then he went to attend the man, and when he had cured him he gave
him the necessary sum to buy a horse and a water-barrel. This
Auvergnat distinguished himself by an amusing action. One of his
friends fell ill, and he took him at once to Desplein, saying to his
benefactor, "I could not have borne to let him go to any one else!"
Rough customer as he was, Desplein grasped the water-carrier's hand,
and said, "Bring them all to me."
He got the native of Cantal into the Hotel-Dieu, where he took the
greatest care of him. Bianchon had already observed in his chief a
predilection for Auvergnats, and especially for water carriers; but as
Desplein took a sort of pride in his cures at the Hotel-Dieu, the pupil
saw nothing very strange in that.
One day, as he crossed the Place Saint-Sulpice, Bianchon caught sight
of his master going into the church at about nine in the morning.
Desplein, who at that time never went a step without his cab, was on
foot, and slipped in by the door in the Rue du Petit-Lion, as if he were
stealing into some house of ill fame. The house surgeon, naturally
possessed by curiosity, knowing his master's opinions, and being
himself a rabid follower of Cabanis (Cabaniste