The Cure.(Short Story)

Despite having bags of money, rich people sometimes still have to put up with all kinds of trials and illnesses which, thank God, are completely unknown to the poor man. There are illnesses which lurk, not in the air, but in filled plates and glasses, and in easy chairs and satin beds.

A particular rich man in Amsterdam could tell you a thing or two about that! He'd spend all morning in his armchair smoking tobacco, provided he wasn't too lazy to fill his pipe, or stand taking in the view from his window, but then at midday he'd eat like a peasant back from the fields, and sometimes the neighbours said: "Is that a wind coming up or is it the neighbour snoring?"

All afternoon he ate and drank too, a cold slice perhaps, and then something hot, not because he was hungry or had a craving for anything but just to while away the time till evening, so that you couldn't really tell when his midday meal finished and he sat down to supper. After supper, he slumped in his bed, weary as if he'd been shifting stones or chopping logs all day.

In the fullness of time his body became fat and as lumpy as a sack of corn. Eating and sleeping were tribulations, and for a long time, as often happens, he was neither very well nor very ill. If you'd spoken to him in person though, he would have told you he had 365 illnesses, a different one for every day of the year. All the doctors of Amsterdam were called upon to treat him. He swallowed whole fire-buckets full of mixtures, powders by the shovelful and pills as big as quail's eggs, and he was known to all and sundry as the chemist's-shop-on-two-legs.

But nothing the doctors prescribed for him helped, since he didn't follow their prescriptions, but said: "Damn it all, what's the good of being a rich man if I have to live a dog's life, and all my money can't pay for a doctor who'll make me better?"

Eventually he heard about a doctor who lived in the countryside, a hundred hours away by foot: he was said to be so adept that his patients got well as soon as he looked them in the face, and even Death slunk out of his way whenever he turned up. And so this rich man pinned his hopes on this doctor and wrote to him describing his condition.

It wasn't long before this doctor saw what the problem was, not one of medicines but of moderation and exercise, and said to himself: "Patience, I'll soon have you cured." So he sent him a letter which read as follows: "My friend, you are indeed in bad shape, but you can still be helped if you do as I say. You have a nasty creature in your stomach, a lindworm with seven mouths. I must deal with this lindworm personally, for which you'll have to visit me. But first, don't come by coach or on horseback, but on leather soles, otherwise you'll disturb the lindworm and it'll bite through your innards and cut to shreds all seven parts of your intestines. Second, eat no more than a plate of vegetables twice a day, with a sausage at midday and an egg in the evening, and ...