The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de MaupassantЧитать онлайн книгу.
of the body, whence arise the most serious disturbances.
“Now, the exercise is, along with the shower-bath and the thermal treatment, one of the most powerful means of restoring the equilibrium and bringing back the encroaching parts to their normal proportions.
“But how are we to determine the man to make the exercise? There is not merely the act of walking, of mounting on horseback, of swimming or rowing — a considerable physical effort. There is also and above all a moral effort. It is the mind which determines, draws along, and sustains the body. The men of energy are men of movement. Now energy is in the soul and not in the muscles. The body obeys the vigorous will.
“It is not necessary to think, my dear friend, of giving courage to the cowardly or resolution to the weak. But we can do something else, we can do more — we can suppress mental energy, suppress moral effort and leave only physical subsisting. This moral effort, I replace with advantage by a foreign and purely mechanical force. Do you understand? No, not very well. Let us go in.”
He opened a door leading into a large apartment, in which were ranged fantastic looking instruments, big armchairs with wooden legs, horses made of rough deal, articulated boards, and movable bars stretched in front of chairs fixed in the ground. And all these objects were connected with complicated machinery, which was set in motion by turning handles.
The doctor went on: “Look here. We have four principal kinds of exercise. These are walking, equitation, swimming, and rowing. Each of these exercises develops different members, acts in a special fashion. Now, we have them here — the entire four —— produced by artificial means. All you have to do is to let yourself act, while thinking of nothing, and you can run, mount on horseback, swim, or row for an hour, without the mind taking any part — the slightest part in the world — in this entirely muscular work.”
At that moment, M. Aubry-Pasteur entered, followed by a man whose tucked-up sleeves displayed the vigorous biceps on each arm. The engineer was as fat as ever. He was walking with his legs spread Wide apart and his arms held out from his body, While he panted for breath.
The doctor said: “You will understand by looking on at it yourself.”
And addressing his patient: “Well, my dear Monsieur, what are we going to do to-day? Walking or equitation?”
M. Aubry-Pasteur, who pressed Paul’s hand, replied: “I would like a little walking seated; that fatigues me less.”
M. Latonne continued: “We have, in fact, walking seated and walking erect. Walking erect, while more efficacious, is rather painful. I procure it by means of pedals on which you mount and which set your legs in motion while you maintain your equilibrium by clinging to rings fastened to the wall. But here is an example of walking while seated.”
The engineer had fallen back into a rocking armchair, and he placed his legs in the wooden legs with movable joints attached to this seat. His thighs, calves, and ankles were strapped down in such a way that he was unable to make any voluntary movement; then, the man with the tucked-up sleeves, seizing the handle, turned it round with all his strength. The armchair, at first, swayed to and fro like a hammock; then, suddenly, the patient’s legs went out, stretching forward and bending back, advancing and returning, with extreme speed.
“He is running,” said the doctor, who then gave the order: “Quietly! Go at a walking pace.”
The man, turning the handle more slowly, caused the fat engineer to do the sitting walk in a more moderate fashion, which ludicrously distorted all the movements of his body.
Two other patients next made their appearance, both of them enormous, and followed also by two attendants with naked arms.
They were hoisted upon wooden horses, which, set in motion, began immediately to jump along the room, shaking their riders in an abominable manner.
“Gallop!” cried the doctor. And the artificial animals, rushing like waves and capsizing like ships, fatigued the two patients so much that they began to scream out together in a panting and pitiful tone:
“Enough! enough! I can’t stand it any longer! Enough!”
The physician said in a tone of command: “Stop!” He then added: “Take breath for a little while. You will go on again in five minutes.”
Paul Bretigny, who was choking with suppressed laughter, drew attention to the fact that the riders were not warm, while the handle-turners were perspiring.
“If you inverted the rôles,” said he, “would it not be better?”
The doctor gravely replied: “Oh! not at all, my dear friend. We must not confound exercise and fatigue. The movement of the man who is turning the wheel is injurious, while the movement of the walker or the rider is beneficial.”
But Paul noticed a lady’s saddle.
“Yes,” said the physician; “the evening is reserved for the other sex. The men are no longer admitted after twelve o’clock. Come, then, and look at the dry swimming.”
A system of movable little boards screwed together at their ends and at their centers, stretched out in lozenge-shape or closing into squares, like that children’s game which carries along soldiers who are spurred on, permitted three swimmers to be garroted and mangled at the same time.
The doctor said: “I need not extol to you the benefits of dry swimming, which does not moisten the body except by perspiration, and consequently does not expose our imaginary bather to any danger of rheumatism.”
But a waiter, with a card in his hand, came to look for the doctor.
“The Duc de Ramas, my dear friend. I must leave you. Excuse me.”
Paul, left there alone, turned round. The two cavaliers were trotting afresh. M. Aubry-Pasteur was walking still; and the three natives of Auvergne, with their arms all but broken and their backs cracking with thus shaking the patients on whom they were operating, were quite out of breath. They looked as if they were grinding coffee.
When he had reached the open air, Bretigny saw Doctor Honorât watching, along with his wife, the preparations for the fête. They began to chat, gazing at the flags which crowned the hill with a kind of halo.
“Is it at the church the procession is to be formed?” the physician asked his wife.
“It is at the church.”
“At three o’clock?”
“At three o’clock.”
“The professors will be there?”
“Yes, they will accompany the lady-sponsors.” The next persons to stop were the ladies Paille. Then, came the Monecus, father and daughter. But as he was going to breakfast alone with his friend Gontran at the Casino Café, he slowly made his way up to it. Paul, who had arrived the night before, had not had an interview with his comrade for the past month; and he was longing to tell him many boulevard stories — stories about gay women and houses of pleasure.
They remained chattering away till half past two when Petrus Martel came to inform them that people were on their way to the church.
“Let us go and look for Christiane,” said Gontran.
“Let us go,” returned Paul.
They found her standing on the steps of the new hotel. She had the hollow cheeks and the swarthy complexion of pregnant women; and her figure indicated a near accouchement.
“I was waiting for you,” she said. “William is gone on before us. He has so many things to do to-day.”
She cast toward Paul Bretigny a glance full of tenderness, and took his arm. They went quietly on their way, avoiding the stones.
She kept repeating: “How heavy I am! How heavy I am! I am no longer able to walk. I am so much afraid of falling!”
He did not reply, and carefully held her up,