A Medicine for Melancholy
烟台商务职业学院-渤海石油职业技术学院
A Medicine for Melancholy
( or: THE
SOVEREIGN REMEDY REVEALED! )
.
ou but tell us as
you go out what we told you when
you came
in!
sovereign remedy!
Whereupon
the physician, wheezing, taking snuff, sneezing,
stamped down into the swarming
streets of
London on a sloppy morn in the spring of 1762.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes turned to the bed where
their sweet Camillia lay pale, thin, yes, but far
from
unlovely, with large wet lilac eyes, her
hair a creek of gold upon her pillow.
a
ghost in my mirror; I frighten me. To think I'll
die without seeing my twentieth birthday.
-
six? - have turned me like a beef
on a spit.
No more. Please, let me pass away
untouched.
-
and Amen to that! -
they've wrung me dry! Shall I run in the street
then and bring the Dustman
up?
They
had quite forgotten her younger brother, Jamie,
who stood picking his teeth at a far window,
gazing serenely down into the drizzle and the
loud rumbling of the town.
no, no. But let
us hoist Camillia, cot and all, maneuver her
downstairs, and set her up outside our
door.
twenty thousand people run,
hobble, or ride by. Each might eye my swooning
sister, each count
her teeth, pull her ear
lobes, and all, all, mind you, would have a
sovereign remedy to offer! One
of them would
just have to be right!
said Jamie
breathlessly. you ever known one single man who
didn't think he
personally wrote Materia
Medica? This green ointment for sour throat, that
ox-salve for miasma or
bloat? Right
now, ten thousand self-appointed apothecaries
sneak off down there, their wisdom
lost to
us!
hot room? Come, Jamie, lift the
bed!
ou'll not die. Jamie, heave! Ha!
There! Out of the way, wife! Up, boy,
higher!
.
Quite suddenly a blue sky
opened over London. The population, surprised by
the weather, hurried
out into the streets,
panicking for something to see, to do, to buy.
Blind men sang, dogs jigged,
clowns shuffled
and tumbled, children chalked games and threw
balls as if it were carnival time.
Down into
all this, tottering, their veins bursting from
their brows, Jamie and Mr. Wilkes carried
Camillia like a lady Pope sailing high in her
sedan-chair cot, eyes clenched shut, praying.
And at last the bed was tilted against the
house front so that the River of Humanity surging
by
could see Camillia, a large pale Bartolemy
Doll put out like a prize in the sun.
a quill,
ink, paper, lad,said the father. make notes as to
symptoms spoken of and
remedies offered this
day. Tonight we'll average them out. Now-
Bijt
already a man in the passing crowd had fixed
Camillia with a sharp eye.
But the man
hastened off, cursing, mightily exasperated.
For now a woman, tall and gaunt as a
specter fresh risen from the tomb, was pointing a
finger at
Camillia Wilkes.
apors,
apors,
medicine for
melancholy is needed,said the woman palely. there
mummy ground to
medicine in your house? The
best mummies are: Egyptian, Arabian, Hirasphatos,
Libyan, all of
great use in magnetic
disorders. Ask for me, the Gypsy, at the Flodden
Road. I sell stone parsley,
male
frankincense-
But the woman,
naming medicines, glided on.
A girl, no more
than seventeen, walked up now and stared at
Camillia Wilkes.
moment!Mr. Wilkes
scribbled feverishly. disorders - pontic valerian
- drat!
Well, young girl, now. What do you see
in my daughter's face? You fix her with your gaze,
you
hardly breathe. So?
from . . . from
. . .
And the girl, with a last look of
deepest sympathy, darted off through the crowd.
her, make her tell!
, see her
list!
Someone cleared his throat.
A
butcher, his apron a scarlet battleground, stood
bristling his fierce mustaches there.
winter I have saved myself with the same
elixir-
daughter is no cow, sir!Mr. Wilkes
threw down his quill. is she a butcher, nor is it
January! Step back, sir, others wait!
And
indeed, now a vast crowd clamored, drawn by the
others, aching to advise their favorite swig,
recommend some country site where it rained
less and shone more sun than in all England or
your
South of France. Old men and women,
especial doctors as all the aged are, clashed by
each other
in bristles of canes, in phalanxes
of crutches and hobble sticks.
to go
seek their missing members.
us their
mind on this ailment!
line! Tuppence to
speak your piece! Get your money out, yes! That's
it. You, sir. You, madame.
And you, sir. Now,
my quill! Begin!
The mob boiled in like a dark
sea.
Camlia opened one eye and swooned again.
.
Sundown, the streets almost empty, only
a few strollers now. Camillia moth-fluttered her
eyelids
at a famiiar clinking jingle.
bag held by his grinning son.
Did you imagine, family, so many
people, two hundred, would pay to give us their
opinion?
to have someone listen. Poor
things, each today thought he and he alone knew
quinsy, dropsy,
glanders, could tell the
slaver from the hives. So tonight we are rich and
two hundred people are
happy, having unloaded
their full medical kit at our
door.
the names! May I be taken
upstairs?
Half-bent, the men looked up.
There stood a Dustman of no particular size or
shape, his face masked with soot from which shone
water-blue eyes and a white slot of an ivory
smile. Dust sifted from his sleeves and his pants
as he
moved, as he talked quietly, nodding.
home, here I am. Must I pay?
But Camillia gave him a soft look and he
grew silent.
you, ma' Dustman's smile flashed
like warm sunlight in the growing dusk.
have
but one advice.
He gazed at Camillia. She gazed
at him.
Bosco's Eve, sir. Also, it is
the night of the Full Moon. So,
humbly, unable
to take his eyes from the lovely haunted girl,
the light of that rising
moon.
or plain field beast. There
is a serenity of color, a quietude of touch, a
sweet sculpturing of mind
and body in full
moonlight.
like a potted lily out one
spring night with the moon. She lives today in
Sussex, the soul of
reconstituted
health!
day, Mother, Jamie,
Camillia.
She looked earnestly at the
Dustman.
From his grimed face the Dustman
gazed back, his smile like a little scimitar in
the dark.
The mother sighed.
And the mother went upstairs.
Now the
Dustman backed off, bowing courteously to all.
young lady. Dream, and dream the best.
Good night.
Soot was lost in soot; the man was
gone.
Mr. Wilkes and Jamie kissed Camillia's
brow.
And she was left alone to stare off
where at a great distance she thought she saw a
smile hung by
itself in the dark blink off and
on, then go round a corner, vanishing.
She
waited for the rising of the moon.
.
Night
in London, the voices growing drowsier in the
inns, the slamming of doors, drunken
farewells, clocks chiming. Camillia saw a cat
like a woman stroll by in her furs, saw a woman
like
a cat stroll by, both wise, both
Egyptian, both smelling of spice. Every quarter
hour or so a voice
drifted down from above:
ou all right, child?
And at
last.
The last lights out. London asleep.
The moon rose.
And the higher the moon,
the larger grew Camillia's eyes as she watched the
alleys, the courts, the
streets, until at
last, at midnight, the moon moved over her to show
her like a marble figure atop an
ancient tomb.
A motion in darkness.
Camillia pricked her
ears.
A faint melody sprang out on the air.
A man stood in the shadows of the court.
Camillia gasped.
The man stepped forth
into moonlight, carrying a lute which he strummed
softly.
He was a man well-dressed, whose face
was handsome and, now anyway, solemn.
troubadour,
The man, his finger on his lips,
moved slowly forward and soon stood by her cot.
friend sent me to make you
well.
indeed handsome there in the silver
light.
the
symptoms: raging temperatures, sudden cold, heart
fast then slow, storms of temper,
then sweet
calms, drunkenness from having sipped only well
water, dizziness from being touched
only
thus-
He touched her wrist, saw her melt toward
delicious oblivion, drew back.
ou know me
to the letter. Now, name my ailment!
shivered, her eyes glinting lilac fires. I then my
own affliction? How
sick I make myself! Even
now, feel my
heart!
girl who
would have named it but ran off in the
crowd.
blanket!
our
name?
Swiftly above her, his head shadowed
hers. From it his merry clear-water eyes glowed as
did his
white ivory slot of a smile.
His head bent closer. Thus sooted
in shadow, she cried with joyous recognition to
welcome her
Dustman back.
Somewhere, cats sang. A shoe, shot
from a window, tipped them off a fence. Then all
was silence
and the moon . . .
.
Dawn. Tiptoeing downstairs, Mr. and Mrs.
Wilkes peered into their courtyard.
wife,
look! Alive! Roses in her cheeks! No, more!
Peaches, persimmons! She glows all
rosy-milky!
Sweet Camillia, alive and well, made whole
again!
They bent by the slumbering girl.
The girl smiled again, a
white smile, in her sleep.
medicine,
She
opened her eyes.
They did
not want to dance.
But, celebrating they knew
not what, they did.