Page 181 - The Grotesque Children's Book
P. 181
unto itself, a language which only the two of them understood. For instance, just now it wasn't
“Have you written to Dr. Gerolano Cardano yet?” that Santi had drawn in his notebook, but
rather: An ear with wings. Quill. Nearly-naked man hauling a sack up-some-stairs. “Ear with
wings” was Aurelio. “Quill” of course “the written word” and the Sackman was an inside joke
between the two of them:
“What’s in the sack?” asked Aurelio.
“All that ails Mankind.”
“Where's that naked man taking all the Ails?”
“To the doctor.”
“Will the doctor cure him of all the ails?” prodded Aurelio.
“Certainly, the man has all the Treasure in the World hidden in his pockets.”
“Pockets! But he's naked.”
“Oh dear,” scribbled Santi. “He must have forgotten his pants.”
“Then he won't be paying the doctor for a cure?”
“Quite the opposite. The doctor, when he finds out the naked man has asked to be cured
but has no money, he will, in fury, grab the man's sack and fling it against the wall. Letting
loose all the ills of the world.”
“What's the moral of that story, Santi del Meglio?”
“Moral? Ah, yes. The moral is, um, 'If you're the kind of man who absently forgets to
put on his pants, do not carry the ills of the world on your back.'“
They both laughed. Santi thought it was such a shame the world couldn’t understand this
brilliant man. He determined to do something about that.
Santi had once asked Dr. Valerius whether the doctor knew of a cure for deafness.
Valerius shook his head. “Nothing in the medical records, I'm afraid. It's never happened as far
as we know. There is a doctor in England, however,” Valerius had said one day, “who is
working with some deaf men and having some success getting them to speak. Not to hear, mind
you, but to make sounds such that we hearing folk can understand them.”
“In England, you say. And what's his name?”
“Cor-ano-something. Corlano? Cardano? He's awfully expensive. And I'm not sure he's
yet getting any true results.”
“How expensive?”
“Oh, I wouldn't know. Something on the order of forty or fifty thousand denari, I should
imagine. He can charge what he wishes; he's the only one who does what he does, working the
physical anatomy of his patients' neck, throat and lungs. An awful lot of things to go wrong, if
you ask me.”
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