A Fantasy of Dr. Ox by Jules Verne

Author:Jules Verne [Verne, Jules]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781843910671
Goodreads: 1477299
Publisher: Hesperus Press
Published: 1872-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

In which the traditional, solemn German waltz changes into a whirlwind

But while it is true that the spectators, on leaving the theatre, had regained their habitual calm and peacefully made their way home with no trace of their experience other than a passing stupor, they had nonetheless been subjected to an extraordinary sense of intense excitement and, feeling exhausted, shattered, as if they had overindulged at table, they collapsed into their beds.

Now, the following day, each of them had, as it were, a flashback to what had happened to them the day before. One was missing his hat, lost in the brawl, another had lost a flap of his jacket, torn in the mêlée; one woman had lost her fine prunella shoe, another the cloak she wore on special occasions. Memory returned to these upstanding middle-class people and, with memory, a certain shame at their indescribable high spirits. It appeared to them as an orgy in which they had unconsciously played the part of the protagonists! They didn’t talk about it – they preferred not to think about it.

But the most dumbfounded person in the whole town was in fact Burgomaster van Tricasse. The following morning, when he awoke, he couldn’t find his wig. Lotchè had looked everywhere. Nothing. The wig had been left on the battlefield. As for having the town trumpeter, Jean Mistrol, advertise its loss – no: it was better to sacrifice one’s hairpiece than to make an exhibition of oneself, when one had the honour to be the principal magistrate in the community.

These were the worthy van Tricasse’s reflections as he lay stretched out under his blankets, his body tired and aching, his head heavy, his tongue furred, his lungs burning. He felt not the slightest desire to get up – quite the opposite – and his brain worked harder this whole morning than it had done for perhaps forty years. The honourable magistrate went over in his head every individual moment of that inexplicable performance. He compared it with the events which had recently occurred that evening at Dr Ox’s. He tried to find the reasons behind this bizarre excitability which, on two occasions, had manifested itself among the most dependable of the citizens under his charge.

“Whatever can be happening?” he kept asking himself. “What spirit of giddy delirium has taken hold of my peaceable town of Quiquendone? Are we all going off our heads, and will the town have to be turned into a huge asylum? After all, there we all were yesterday: notables, councillors, judges, barristers, doctors, academicians – and all of us, if my memory is correct, all of us fell prey to this attack of wild mania! Whatever could there have been in that infernal music? It’s inexplicable! And yet I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything which might have produced such a state of overexcitement in myself! No – yesterday all I had for dinner was a slice of overdone veal, a few spoonfuls of mashed spinach, a dish of floating

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