A case of curiosities Read Online Free Page A

A case of curiosities
Book: A case of curiosities Read Online Free
Author: Allen Kurzweil
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bolstered by gin and herbal mixtures, calculating such an effect is next to impossible. Claude slept for a night and a day, and a night again. He awoke in his mother's curtained box bed to the sight of the Abbe, whose kindly disposition provided a pleasant contrast to the surgical nightmare he had carried into sleep. Claude gave his eyes full-fisted rubs with his unbandaged hand, then moaned.
    The surgeon ignored his suffering. "Good. He is awake. We must leave now."
    The Abbe would have none of it. "What we must do is wait until the boy is out of danger."
    "You have been checking him hourly."
    "And I will go on doing so." As if on cue, the chime of the Abbe's montre a sonnerie announced that it was time for another inspection. The Abbe brushed the hair out of Claude's eyes and encouraged him to talk. He was still too groggy.
    The surgeon said, "It is imperative that I return to Geneva. Obligations."
    "Your obligations are here. I might remind you that it was you who wished to perform the operation, despite the weather. You were the one who insisted it be done immediately."
    "And it has been done."
    "The weather and the boy's mien preclude departure. We will wait." The Abbe spoke with surprising insistence.
    The surgeon returned to a stiff rush chair suited to his temperament and feigned reading a medical treatise in quarto. The Abbe gave the patient a wink, as if to say, "Don't pay heed to that spiritless fool. He's an insufferable citizen of the Republic." (Perhaps the wink transmitted slightly less information, but that is the interpretation that should be applied to the conjunction of the upper and lower lid of the Abbe's twinkling eye.) He sensed Claude was cranky and so moved closer to the bed. Raising Claude's bandaged hand, he said, "Fine work. It belongs on the head of some wealthy Oriental merchant." He enhanced this attempt at good humor by providing the sweets he had promised before the operation. From a pocket he pulled a piece of demi-royal and surreptitiously gave it to Claude so that his sisters would not notice.
    Using his good hand, Claude fumbled with the violet paper.
    "Allow me." The Abbe popped the sugar into the boy's mouth. It was a treat for a child raised on roots and tubers and pinecones.
    "I see you can smile," the Abbe said. "A most noteworthy feature." He turned to Madame Page and said, "Your son's smile emanates not from the lips but from the eyes, the source of all truly great smiles."
    He looked back at Claude. "Well, that's half the bargain. I suppose I should fulfill the other half by telling you a story. What if I tell you of the sugar you seem so pleased to consume?"
    After a drink of water to slake the thirst brought on by the opiates, Claude settled under the covers, ready for a tale.
    It should be mentioned that tales were a lot more brutal then. The brothers Grimm hadn't yet tidied up the fireside accounts of rape, incest, cannibalism, and greed, nor had Per-rault's elevated courtly renderings infected the oral traditions of Tournay. The Sandman, who is now portrayed as a likable fellow, in Claude's day ripped out children's eyes. Happily, the Abbe represented this ancient and violent tradition.
    "Do you know where sugar comes from?" the storyteller queried.
    Claude shook his head. Beyond the Abbe's pockets and the Carnival stalls, he was ignorant of its origins.
    The Abbe, a man who traced the origins of all matter, expounded. "Most mambu juice (that's what it's called in certain parts of the world) is shipped from Hispaniola. It arrives here in two forms: loaves that sit like conical caps in the confectioner's window, and the rougher palm sugar wrapped in leaves that evoke the texture of the tropics. But the finest sugars—the demi-royal that now travels to your gut, and the royal I cannot afford—are furnished by the slavers of the Pompelmoose Atoll." The Abbe traced a map on Claude's stomach, with his nipples serving as Paris and London and the Pompelmoose Atoll rising out of
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