"Avram Davidson - Kings Evil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

King's Evil
<2>by Avram Davidson
When I first saw the copy of The Memoirs of Dr. Mainauduc, the Mesmerist (bound in flaking leather,
the spine in shreds, and half the title page missing: which is why I was able to buy it cheap), I assumed it
to be a work of fiction. There is something extremely Gothick about "Mainauduc, the Mesmerist." It sets
one in mind at once of Melmoth, the Wanderer. No one today would venture to invent such a name for
such a person. (Unless, of course, he were writing for television or the movies, in which case he migjit
venture anything.) But the times bring forth the man, and the man bears the name. Consider, for example,
"the Jesuit Hell." This is not a theological conception, it was a man, a Jesuit, whose family name was Hell.
Father Hell devised a system or theory of healing based on "metallic magnetism"; he passed it on to Franz
Anton Mesmer, who almost at once quarreled with him, produced the countertheory of "animal
magnetism." Mesmer begat (so to speak) DT2slon, D'Eslon begat Mainauduc. Full of enthusiasm,
Mainauduc came to England, and settled in, of all places, Bristol All this, I admit, sounds most
improbable. Truth so often does. Who is not familiar with the bewildered cry of the novice writer, "But
that's the way it happened!"? Not altogether trusting to my own ability to convince the reader that there
really was such a person as the Jesuit Hell or such a person as Mainauduc, the Mesmerist, I refer him to
Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds; but should he (the reader) not
be able to credit that this work exists either, then I must throw up my hands. Mackay, in my opinion, was
really too hard on "The Magnetisers," as he called them. Himself so great a sceptic, he could have little
cause for complaint if other, later, sceptics should not care to believe that any book bearing such a title
ever existed. In a way, it would serve him right....
In Bristol Dr. Mainauduc flourished to the degree that his reputation went on ahead of him to London.
In a short time London was coming to him; he cured dukes of the dropsy and generals of the gout, he
magnetized countesses into convulsions and they emerged from them free of the phthysic, while
vicountesses left their vapors behind them or so he says. At any rate he determined upon going to
London and setting up practice there. He recounts in detail his plans for setting up something called "the
Hygienickal Society... for Females of high Position... the fees, Fifteen Guineas" at his house in the capital
And he describes, amongst many other cases, one where he cured a longseated complaint ("pronounced
beyond help") entirely by proxy.
It may be that Dr. Mainauduc's success in Bristol was perhaps not quite so dazzling as his memory in
later years led him to fancy. He had come up to London, to discuss his setting up practice there, at the
invitation of a Mr. Wentworth, "a Bachelor of Physick," who lived in Rosemary Lane; and despite its
pretty name, Rosemary Lane was not located iri a pretty district We might consider it a depressed area.
And Mr. Wentworth had arranged to meet him, not in his own quarters, but at an inn called the Mulberry
Tree, where they were to dine. Mr. Wentworth had made the necessary arrangements, but Mr.
Wentworth was late.
"Dr. Mainauduc? To meet Mr. Wentworth? Certainly, sir," the waiter said. "If the Doctor will only
please to step in here, Mr. Wentworth will be along presently." And he led him along to a medium-sized
room, with paneled walls, and a fire which seemed to beckon pleasantly from the grate, for it was the first
of October, and the air was chill. He had scarcely had the time to give his full attention to the flames
licking greedily at the greasy black slabs of coal when he noticed that there was someone already in the
room. This person came forward from his corner, where he had been engaged in softening the nether end
of one candle in the flame of another so that it might hold fast in its sconce and not wobble, with his hand
extended.
"Have I, sir," he asked, with the slightest of smiles, and an air of deference and courtesy, "the honor of
beholding the author of the great treatise on the magnetical fluid?"
"You are too kind, sir," said Mainauduc, indicating to the waiter with but a flick of his eye that there
was no objection taken to the stranger's presence and that the waiter might leave. "I am sensible of the
complaint you pay me merely by having heard of my little pamphlet." And he bowed.
"Heard of it, Doctor?" cries the other, a smallish, slender man, clad in dark garments. He holds up his