Free Heretic Dawn by Robert Merle Page B

offerings I’d completed my expenses, no matter how hard my heart ached at having to waste so much on these sumptuous superfluities. And isn’t it a great pity and a scandalous abuse that so much moneywas necessary when all that should have been required was knowledge? Well now, listen to this! During the three days that my exams lasted, custom required that I serve wine and cakes not just to the judging panel but to all the assistants who crowded into the examination hall to hear me, and who were rewarded with food and drink for having to sit through so many hours of tedium. And so I had to ask the innkeeper at the Three Kings to help me out during my triduanes , to which she consented graciously on condition that she be paid handsomely. Throughout the three days, she circulated through the hall with pitchers of wine, goblets, little pies and marzipans, aided by two sprightly chambermaids, who were pawed at by more than one member of the audience, including even the ordinary doctors, as these girls passed by, their two hands burdened with refreshments.
    These expenses were heavy, but, sadly, necessary to keep my judges and assistants in good and benign humour, failing which the first would have turned me on the spit and the second would have jeered and taunted instead of applauding me as they did vociferously at every response I made, given how full their stomachs were and their spleens well doused and dilated with wine.
    As expected, Bazin did his best to throw me to the winds, hog-tied, but at the first insidious question he posed, I answered with a long citation in Greek from Hippocrates, delivered distinctly and proudly, head held high and chest puffed out, and the audience, believing that I had turned the tables on the dean and put a stake through his heart, applauded wildly. At this, Dr d’Assas, bobbing his head, and baritoning from his nether parts, smiled angelically, while Chancellor Saporta, who knew Greek far too well to be a dupe to my hypocritical ruse, nevertheless remained mute and even stared scornfully at his dean, who sat down crestfallen, abashed and undone, and nearly choking on his own venom. To see the dean so thoroughly annihilated, theordinary doctors thought twice before attempting to set any traps for me. However, Dr Pennedepié, who nourished a mortal hatred of Dr Pinarelle because he’d stolen one of his patients, wanted to use me to get revenge on his enemy, and asked me whether, in my opinion, a woman’s uterus was simple or bifurcated. The question couldn’t fail to embarrass me since I knew that Dr Pinarelle held, against all reason and evidence, Galen’s authority on this to be absolute and that his statement on St Luke’s day that he preferred “to be mistaken with Galen than be right with Vesalius” had made him the laughing stock of the entire town. So of course, Pennedepié was using me to embarrass his enemy. But since Bazin’s hatred was enough for a lifetime, I did not want to have either of these two doctors on my back. So I resolved to test the waters with the prudence of a cat, and replied in Latin very quietly and modestly:
    “Venerable Dr Pennedepié, haec est vexata questio . * On the one hand, the great Galen, having dissected the uterus of a rabbit and found it bifurcated, asserted that the uterus of a woman must also be so constructed. And, no doubt, his opinion has considerable weight, given the authority of the doctor, who is universally venerated as one of the masters of Greek medicine. But, on the other hand, our contemporary Vesalius, a bold and able medical doctor, who was a student in our college, dissected a woman, and not a rabbit, and found that her uterus was univalve.”
    Having said this, I remained silent.
    “And you yourself, what do you believe? Univalve or bifurcated?” insisted the good Dr Pennedepié, pressing his advantage.
    “Venerable Dr Pennedepié,” I replied, my face glowing with humility. “There are in this hall so many people more