What a fickle thing is a man, no matter how settled in his ways. Simply arouse his curiosity, and he forgets his compunction, his seriousness, and soon thereafter even his duties. In my newcomer's eyes, I'd chanced upon an expression that so intrigued me I examined Mrs. BlancDubourg with appalling absentmindedness; the most unsuitable noises might have come from inside her without my so much as batting an eye. One sole question preoccupied me: in this time of peace at home and abroad, what could possibly have so badly frightened a boy of twenty years built, for all appearances, to live a hundred more? After seeing Mrs. Blanc-Dubourg all the way to the front steps in apology, I strode into the waiting room with the imperious air of someone about to abuse his power and pointed at the young man.
"You're next!" I said in a tone that brooked no rebuttal.
He rose. From all around came astonished sighs and a rebellious rustling of knees. In all fairness, he shouldn't have made it into my office for another two hours. Sweeping the room with an icy gaze, I silenced any inclination to revolt. Was I not the master of my house?
The party concerned, whose already ruddy cheeks had further reddened, gathered a canvas sack from beneath his seat. He held it close to him and preceded me into the office I'd pointed out with a movement of my chin.
I never begin an appointment before my patient and I have taken our respective places on opposite sides of my old leather-topped desk. This desk, as my patients are dimly aware-this desk is the gulf that separates sickness from health. I hold out my hand to them across this desk, and if my patients are obedient enough, and lucky-if I'm lucky-I pull them gently across to my side, to life… But what am I blathering on about? The young man was sitting across from me-that's all that matters. He remained silent, eyes lowered, chest canted forward, arms hanging between his knees, hands fiddling with the drawstrings of his sack. I used my most confident, jovial tone of voice. A doctor's voice is fully half of doctoring.
"Well, well, my boy! What can the matter be?"
He lifted his eyes, then dropped them again almost as quickly, coughed slightly, and spoke at last in the voice of a lost child.
"Aw, Doc, everything was going swell…" He stopped, not knowing how to continue.
"You felt the need to see me."
"Yeah…" He fell silent again. Timidity. Shame. Anxiety. A-ha! Often as not, shame + anxiety = venereal disease! I should have hit on it earlier, I thought; a lad like that surely leaves a trail of hearts in his wake. Hearts and everything else, too. I laid a clean sheet of Bristol on my blotter and uncapped my pen.
"Let's begin at the beginning. What's your name?"
"Bennett Riven, Doctor."
"Bennett Riven? R-I–V-?"
"E-N. Bennett."
"Date of birth?"
"November 22, 1885, Doctor."
"Why, you're only twenty! It's the springtime of your life! You're enjoying it to the hilt, I gather?"
"Excuse me?"
"I said I gather you're enjoying the springtime of your life to the hilt!"
"Uh, yes…"
"Good! So, you've enjoyed yourself so thoroughly that…"
I left the end of my sentence hanging. Would the young lion wind up taking the line I'd thrown? He did nothing. He was beginning to irk me. After all, I'd surely upset good and faithful patients to hear him out, and now he threatened to be a waste of time…
"You can tell your doctor everything, my boy. I'll even go so far as to sav: you must. This kind of affliction-"
He understood what I was getting at, and at the same moment, I understood, as he slowly shook his head, that I was barking up the wrong tree.
"No, Doc, it's not that-" Suddenly, his voice broke and he burst into tears. My heart is hardened, as it must be in my line of work, but his distress touched me all the more because I couldn't fathom its cause.
"Come, come! Are you a doctor? You're not the one who should decide if this is worth crying over. I'm here to help, but I can't do a thing if you won't tell me where and why it hurts."
"It's not me, Doc, it's him-"
"Him? Who?"
Bennett Riven kept right on sobbing as he placed his sack on my desk and undid the drawstrings. He reached in and pulled out the most horrifying thing I have ever seen. I leapt back so fast I knocked over my chair.
"Madman! Killer! Go! Get out of here now! Take that thing away!"
I groped about the desktop for the brass bell that would summon Edgar, my nurse-gardener-errand boy. My patient saw my hand, and his voice became pleading.
"Please, Doc, don't! I'm not a killer or a madman. I just came to get help! For him, Doc! For him! He's alive!"
And in a barely audible whisper, the thing he held aloft with fingers clenched around a lock of black and gleaming hair confirmed his words:
"It's true, Doctor. I'm alive… Have mercy, for the love of Christ, have mercy!"
At the time, I was a robust fifty years of age; should such a scene occur today it would surely kill me. As a student, then intern, I'd seen far worse than a severed head, but this wasn't the same. In such cases, context is everything. During my studies, anatomy was all parts and pieces. My friends and I examined and handled these in a university setting, under the supervision of our professors, and with their support. Besides, the body parts smelled of formalin, and that powerful, distinctive odor dehumanized them-"thingified" them, if I may… What my patient now thrust into my face was no anatomical part, but well and truly a man's head. I would have preferred a hundred times over for it to give off the wholesome odor of formaldehyde rather than a blend of rotting flesh and the cheap cologne it had been sprayed with. But above all-above all! The sliced-off head moved, wept, and spoke. Or rather, it shivered, sniveled, and whispered. The free play of its functions-facial mobility, lachrymal effusions, phonation-was considerably impaired. But the simple fact that these manifested themselves at all flew in the face of what the entire medical establishment took for granted. That said, I am a progressive and an optimist; if it's proven tomorrow that babies will henceforth be born from their mothers' ears, that's where I'll await them. The decapitated head spoke? So be it! "Who is it?"
"His name's Henri Languille, Doctor."
"Yes-I'm Henri Languille!" whispered the head.
"Languille? Never heard of him! Where did you get it?" I asked the young man.
"You called me a killer-well, he's the killer!" he replied. "As for me, I'm apprenticed-well I was, till recently-to Mr. Deibler, the executioner. Mr. Deibler and me chopped Languille's head off on the twelfth in Orleans."
"The twelfth? It's the twenty-fourth! That's almost two weeks-well, go on. What happened?"
"Dr. Beaurieu in Orleans and my boss agreed to try something out. Even Languille was on board with it. Weren't you, Languille?"
"I admit I was, I was," Languille mumbled.