The Implacable Hunter by Gerald Kersh Page A

was not insensitive to fear. Now, I judged that, without unnecessary exercise of authority, I had frightened him no more and no less than enough to make him move promptly but without hurry – just as I wished him to act.
    I added: ‘To make assurance doubly sure, my dear Mnesicles, if you happen to meet Parnach when you go out, which I see you are prudently determined to do – show your magnanimity, greet him kindly, walk arm-in-arm with him for a few paces. A good doctor puts his hands into excrement without getting dirty, eh?’
    ‘I will do just as you advise, my kind friend Diomed,’ said Mnesicles. ‘I have not breathed a word, of course, but I know how people talk, and it is my one aim in life: to keep the peace.’
    ‘Good. I hear that the contractor Khuzis has pains in the bladder. I will advise him to call on you.’
    ‘I shall be eternally grateful! Your friends are my friends,’ cried Mnesicles.
    Khuzis was not my friend; I disliked Khuzis. There was no legal way of punishing him for his misdeeds – his bribes went high over my head – but Mnesicles would be, to him, something like an African torturer and a Sidonian extortioner combined.
    Now I went to Parnach’s house. He was one of the sack-cloth -and-ashes school, and when he saw the glint of the sunlight on Sergius’s armour, and caught sight of me, he fell into that irritatingly equivocal attitude of body and expression of face which says, at the same time: ‘That’s right – murder me because I am a Jew! But why do you want to murder me just because I am a Jew? It is a Jew’s honour and privilege to be murdered because he is a Jew. I shall be delighted to be murdered because I am a Jew, this being part of my proud heritage. But why should a fine young fellow like you want to risk the wrath of the Almighty by murdering an abject old wretch like me, just because I ama Jew? Murder me, by all means … but first let us talk things over …’
    I came to the point quickly.
    ‘You treated Lucius, I think,’ I said, politely.
    There came the usual torrent of rhetorical questions in reply: ‘Is it my fault if a gentleman sends to demand my services? Did I want to go to Mnesicles’s patient? Should I be held responsible if a gentleman drinks a cup or two too much on top of too much rich food? Did I curse Lucius? Am I Paulus? Do I send my sons out to eat unclean things at gentlemen’s tables and get drunk and curse people? Did I mistreat Lucius or did Lucius mistreat himself? Was it for me to say to Lucius: “Stop drinking unmixed wine”? And for the follies of a Pharisee, should all Israel be persecuted ? Should you not rather go with your soldiers to Paulus’s father with swords?’
    ‘Oh, please! I have come only to help you, Parnach,’ I said.
    ‘Don’t I do my duty? Don’t I pay my taxes? Don’t I –?’
    ‘Listen. Go for a walk. Take the air. And if you meet Mnesicles in the market-place, as you almost certainly will, don’t be surprised if he comes up to you and talks cordially. Don’t run to the other side of the street. Talk to him like a friend. Take his arm and walk with him. I tell you this for your own advantage.’
    ‘Mnesicles would take my arm ?He would spit in my face.’
    ‘Confidentially, he has hinted to me that he is wounded at the way you avoid him. You are fellow physicians, he says; and between doctors, what is a slight difference in religion, I ask.’
    Parnach’s professional gravity and dignity came back to him in an instant. ‘Very well, I will allow Mnesicles to take my arm. It is, as you say, just as well for physicians to be friends.’ Suddenly, he had become almost condescending.
    ‘Congratulate him on having cured Lucius,’ I said.
    ‘Oh really, my dear sir! My professional integrity –’
    ‘Oh, a great physician must be something of a philosopher, too, Parnach; he must pander a little to the vanity of his fellows, for the sake of peace and quiet. Think of the encouragement your gesture will