“Eighteen a day, surely there is nothing supernatural about that! Once in a million! And I am supposing a healthy man, but you must certainly have observed pathological cases?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Bathybius testily: “priapism, satyriasis – but let’s not judge by illnesses.”

“And the influence of stimulants?”

“If we discount illnesses, let us discount aphrodisiacs.”

“What about reserve foods, then, like alcohol? For it is really a superfood, something like beef, boiled eggs, or Gruyère cheese.”

“You certainly do have your definitions,” replied Bathybius, brightening suddenly. “You sound like our friend Elson. I see now that you haven’t been serious for a minute. It’s better that way. And besides, alcohol provokes sclerosis of the tissues.”

“What?” asked the general.

“It hardens them,” said Bathybius. “The arteries of alcoholics develop sclerosis, which ages them prematurely.”

“Well then,” said Marcueil, “. . . don’t flinch, doctor: that ‘indispensable phenomenon’ you spoke of – could it be some form of sclerosis?”

“That’s funny,” said Bathybius, “but childish. Histologically speaking, it is idiotic. Experimentally, no one is less virile than an alcoholic. Alcohol may be handy for preserving children, but not, so far as I know, for begetting them!”

“What about someone under the influence of alcohol?” asked Marcueil.

“The effect doesn’t last, and the danger with alcohol is that the reaction it produces exceeds its stimulation.”

“You are a scientist, doctor, a great scientist, the greatest scientist of your time, which unfortunately implies that you are of your time. You are my venerable elder, doctor, but do you know that our young generation is just starting out, which means that its science is a fraction of a century older than yours? The depressing reaction of alcohol, for certain temperaments, actually precedes the stimulation!”

“It cannot precede,” said the doctor. “It is bound to follow a prior stimulation.”

“What you are saying, then, and I am flattered by it, is that I and others like me are the consequence of generations who have been overstimulated by the blood of meat and the force of wine. . . the explosion that follows compression! The fashion in definitions changes. A little nearer the stone age, back in the nineteenth century, for example, they would have called it ‘thoroughbred’! Doctor, it is time for the middle classes – I use the term for all the sons of stale water and unwhite bread – to begin drinking alcohol, if they want their posterity to equal us!”

“Are you against water?” asked the doctor, astonished.

“My dear Sangrado,3 don’t be alarmed: water isn’t particularly nauseating – not, at least, when you use it for footbaths and enemas! To keep it for such uses is to do it abundant honor! What would you think, then, of methodically increasing, in geometrical progression, I suppose, an alcoholic’s dose?” continued Marcueil, who seemed to be finding great pleasure in teasing the doctor. “What would you say to alcoholizing an alcoholic?”