Villiers de l'Isle-Adam è autore della seconda metà dell'800 (notare la critica attualissima al progresso e alla mentalità moderna); il racconto che pubblico è una versione abbreviata e tradotta da me de Le traitement du Docteur Tristan , pubblicato nei Racconti crudeli ( Contes Cruels, 1883 ).
IL TRATTAMENTO DEL DOTTOR TRISTAN
A Jules de Brayer
Credi forse che queste ossa vivano , Figlio di Dio?
Isaia
Urrà! E’ fatta! Evviva! Forever !!! Il Progresso ci trascina nella sua corrente. Lanciati come siamo, ogni tentativo di frenata sarebbe un suicidio. Vittoria! Vittoria! La velocità incredibile del nostro slancio rende tanto nebuloso quel che ci circonda, che a stento abbiamo modo di distinguere altra cosa che la punta del nostro naso.
Per sfuggire all’orribile ipnotismo che porrebbe derivarne, c’è altro mezzo che chiudere definitivamente gli occhi? No. Nessun altro. Abbassiamo dunque le palpebre e – lasciamoci andare.
Quante scoperte! Quante invenzioni per tutti e per ogni evenienza! – L’umanità diventa, tra due diluvi, un fatto positivamente divino!
- Ma shhh! Ecco una novità! – Ecco ancora una novità!...Sempre!...Stavolta, sarà la medicina a illuminarci. Ascoltiamo! Uno stupefacente praticante, il Dr. T. Chavassus, has just discovered a radical treatment for buzzing, and any other discomfort in the ear canal. Even heal people who hurt understand, become contagious disease today. - Chavassus, finally, master of every mechanism of the human ear, turns, so intellectual, to those individuals who feel nervous now, as they say, the flea ear! - Calm the motions, for example, receive the "offenses" is still a headset behind the appendix of arrears and some humans too likely! But his triumph, his specialty is the care of those who "hear voices", the Joan of Arc so to speak - and 'this is why most of his public esteem. The treatment of Dr.
Chavassus is entirely rational, and its motto is "Everything for common sense and common sense!" No more heroic inspiration to fear him. This prince of knowledge, if needed, a patient would not feel even the voice of his conscience. It provides, for remuneration, that every Joan of Arc, to pass under the enlightened hands, never hear any kind of item (not his), and that the ear drums will be, in her, like all muffled another drum should be serious and rational today. No more reckless impulses
due, for example, that the old excitement arouse patriotic songs, morbidly, in the heart of some enthusiastic last! No more childish! We no longer fear to win back the provinces without criteria! The Doctor is here. Some distant call of the sirens of Glory torments you? Chavassus you kill these drones - sublime accents heard in silence, as if the soul of your country you speak? ... Try the tremors of honor rebel, when the feeling of indomitable courage and hope of winning big tomorrow lights in your heart, and inflame the lobes of your ears? ... - Presto! Presto! From Doctor: you take away those troubles! His
sessions are two to four. And affable man! Fascinating! Irresistible! - You will enter the studio, room decor that adorns the stern of the stature of Science. Single luxury item, a braid of onions hanging by a bust of Hippocrates, to indicate to the sentimental who are ready to provide, if necessary, after the success, tears of gratitude.
Chavassus shows you a chair fixed to the floor. As soon as we sit comfortably, the sharp hooks, claws like a tiger, capture all your slightest movement. - The Doctor then looks at you straight in the face for a while, 'arching his eyebrows, clicking his tongue with a toothpick in his hand, thus showing the deep interest aroused in him.
And suddenly, falling on your ears, your mouth will apply. Then with a slow start and low intonation, but that does not take long to swell like the thunder of lightning, we divided this single word: 'HUMANITY'. " With eyes on the clock, can, after 20 minutes, to give 17 times per second, without crossing the syllables: the result with countless vigils! The result of many and dangerous exercises!
then repeats this word, like that amazing, your ears, not that this word has a particular meaning for him! On the contrary! (He uses it, he, just as some singers use certain words in their warbling, to clear his throat, that's all). But he gives him magical powers and that, after having lulled, mutton and caught the cerebellum of a patient with that word, the healing is near.
done this, switch to the other ear and whispers, with a pitch by singing Tyrolean a sequence of formulas of his own creation. These formulas play on the endings of certain words, now outmoded and that it is virtually impossible to find the meaning - for example, words such as: Generosity! ... Faith! ... Disinterest! ... !..., Immortal soul and other imaginative expressions of the genre. In the end, you listen, nodding gently, in a sort of blissful ecstasy.
Within half an hour, so filled the vessel of your intellect, it should plug it, do not you? ... do not ensure that its precious contents to evaporate. Chavassus, therefore, come when it deems appropriate, introduces you to two electrical wires in his ears treated specially, prepared and saturated with a fluid positive in which it holds the secret. - Sssh! Stop! ... He presses the switch to a battery, the spark fires in your ear. Thirty thousand cymbals resonate in your skull. The hooks and armchair shooting terrible of which you enjoy, inwardly, the momentum content.
Crac! E 'enough. Victory! ... The eardrum is broken - that this mysterious, this patient, this disturbing, in the ear drum of your miserable, went to those hum your spirit of glory, honor and courage. - You are healed. You do not hear anything. Miracle! The Abstraction and the formulas used to cover, you, every cry of rage murdered in front of the Ideal! The exclusive love for your health and convenience inspires you lit a contempt of any offense! Here, now, as a test of 10000 slaps - FINALLY! You can breathe. Chavassus gives you a pat on the nose as a sign of healing, you get up - you are free ... If you have some childish
return of dignity, if, in a nutshell, still doubt, Dr. Tristan, chewing his toothpick, settle in the direction your loins a football decision, you will receive with my heart overflowing with gratitude, looking at the braid of onions. Here are reassured. Leaving after having covered the gold. Fresh out of there, rested a great hurry - in the spirit of all those free from all voices vain and confused, yet the day before you and persecute you. You will hear the Good Sense particular, as a balm in your being. Your indifference ... knows no borders. You are consecrated by an argument that makes you superior to any shame. You become a man of humanity.
