The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 48

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

professional emotion at the prospect of probing and nursing
a gash which he thought rare and extraordinary, that he
frantically jumped upon St. Denis, hugged him with enthu-
siasm, called him his best friend, passionately thanked him
for the most valuable case he had given him, and swore that
his Indian should be carried on, whatever impediment it might
be to their march, until he died or was cured. Who would
have thought that this man, when he was not wielding his
surgical instruments, was the most humane being in the world,
and concealed, under an appearance of crabbed malignity, the
tenderest sensibilities of the heart? Such are the mysteries
of human nature !16
And one other time Gayarre, in literary effervescence, presents
surgeon-hero Jalot. Here it must be explained that Governor
Gaspardo Anaya was also a suitor for the hand of fair Dofia Maria.
(The plot had already thickened when Maria exclaimed: "Tell
Anaya that I can not marry him as long as St. Denis lives, because
St. Denis I love; and tell him that if St. Denis dies, this little
Moorish dagger, which was my mother's gift, shall be planted,
either by myself or my agent's hand, in the middle of his dastardly
heart, wherever he may be." These words were spoken with a
gentle voice and calm mien and with such a gleam in the eye as
is nowhere to be seen except in Spain's or Arabia's daughters.)
The words of this imaginative historian glorify the supreme skill
of surgeon Jalot, his intense magnanimity and his burning scorn:
On the forced departure of St. Denis for the city of Mexico,
Jalot had been set at liberty, and had ever since remained at
Caouis waiting for the decision of the fate of St. Denis. He
was known to be a physician, and as he was the only one
within a radius of one hundred miles, he was soon in full
practice. In the course of a few months, he had performed
so many cures and rendered so many services, that he was
looked upon as something almost supernatural. One day, he
was summoned to the house of the governor, Don Gaspardo
Anaya, whither he went with such a grim smile as clearly
indicated that his feelings were in a violent state of excite-
ment. He examined with the most minute care the body of
that dignitary, and on his being asked his opinion on the
situation of his patient, he went into the most luminous expo-
sition of his disease, and declared that if a certain operation,
which he described with much apparent gusto, was not per-
16Gayarre, Charles. History of Louisiana. The French Domination,
2 Vols., New York, 1854, Vol. I, pp. 168-169.