Thrown into Nature

5. Driving away So-Called “Spirits”

Once, when we were in Utrera where we cured a man of aching joints, on the way back in the evening we passed by the church of St. Getafe there. A group of people had gathered in front of it, speaking over one another excitedly. They claimed that there was a spirit inside the church. And not a good spirit, but a bad one, who was making mischief and frightening people. They even said that it was inside at that moment.

This gave me a cold chill between my shoulder blades. I didn’t like this business one bit and suggested to the doctor that we get out of there as quickly as possible.

“Under no circumstances!” Dr. Monardes replied. I could, it seemed, even sense a certain gleeful excitement in his voice. “That’s just the peasants’ prejudices, Guimarães,” he said. “There are no spirits. You and I will go inside now to see what is really going on.”

This idea did not please me in the least. There are certain things I positively do not wish to have anything to do with. However, the doctor’s energetic, exhilarated look clearly told me that there was no way I could get out of going into the church. I sighed inwardly at the inescapable side effects of the scientific worldview and took the staff the doctor handed me — one of the three we carried in our carriage to defend ourselves against robbers or wild animals. The doctor twirled his staff in the air a few times, tapped it against his palm, and, visibly satisfied, strode forward. I followed after him, with Jesús behind me.

The church’s large wooden door creaked shrilly as we entered. We were met with darkness, scattered here and there by the candles burning in the candelabra and by a space in front of the altar lit up as bright as day, where a priest was kneeling. He turned his head towards us. Even from the entrance I could see how frightened he was. And almost at the same instant I understood why — the communion dishes, on a long table to the side, began rattling as if there were an earthquake. The doctor set off at a brisk pace down the aisle between the pews, heading toward the table. When he got there, he swung his staff with all his might over the dishes, lowering it abruptly to the sides from time to time, as if thrashing some unseen enemy in the air. His staff whistled through the air, but the dishes beneath it continued rattling. This only seemed to put the doctor on his mettle and he ceased to stand on ceremony. His staff rained blows in all directions, on the table, on the dishes, everywhere.

“Come on, Guimarães, go around to the other side,” the doctor shouted. I quickly grasped his meaning, and since it was impossible to pass by the doctor without — literally — risking my life, I jumped along the seats of the pews to the other side of the room and headed for the table with the dishes, swinging my staff above my head. The noise was indescribable — the doctor’s staff was crashing down on the table and the dishes, which went flying and fell to the floor with a crash, the padre was praying in a loud voice, and Jesús was lighting all the candelabra with a huge, hissing candle. I felt a rush of courage and absolute confidence in the success of our undertaking and brought my staff down on the right side of the table with all my might, while the doctor swung his on the left. A moment later our staffs crashed together and it was a true wonder they did not break. But ash is a hard wood. At that instant the candles on a candelabrum about a dozen yards from us went out, as if snuffed out by a gust of wind. Whatever had been rattling the dishes had now moved towards the right wall of the church.

“Over there, Guimarães,” the doctor yelled and ran towards that place.

We both rushed that way, our staffs swinging. But the thing reappeared on the other side of the church, close to a candelabrum near Jesús — several candles went out, while the flames of the others swayed to one side. Jesús, who, as I said, was nearby, leapt in that direction, swinging his staff, and knocked over a candelabrum, which fell noisily to the ground. The doctor quickly squeezed his way between the pews, while I rushed towards Jesús, leaping along the seats. The padre kept praying in a loud voice.

“Stop crossing yourself and grab a staff!” the doctor cried at him.

I had already reached Jesús and was swinging my staff between the candelabra, but the thing, it seemed, had gone into hiding.

“Wait!” the doctor cried, lifting his hand. “Stop!”

We began looking around. There was not a living soul in sight, so to speak, with the exception of the padre, who was standing a few paces in front of the altar, clutching a crosier.

“Let’s call an exorcist, señor,” the padre called out.

“We don’t need any exorcist.” The doctor shook his head and, upon brief reflection, added: “Here’s what we’ll do: the padre will go down the aisle between the pews; Guimarães, you go along the candelabra on the right side; Jesús, you walk along those there; and I’ll pass in front of the altar.”

And so we did. I again ran along the right wall of the church, swinging my staff over my head. Since I was being careful not to knock over some candelabrum, I didn’t see what was going on elsewhere, but I heard staffs whistling through the air, the clicking of the doctor’s heels on the stone slabs before the altar, the padre’s loud prayers, and, at one point, the crash of a toppled candelabrum as well — clearly, Jesús must have knocked one over. There was no trace of the thing, however — it either had left or was hiding. So that’s what I told the doctor: “Señor!” I shouted. “The thing has either disappeared or is hiding.”

“It hasn’t disappeared,” the doctor replied. “But this isn’t going to work.”

The four of us stopped in our tracks and began looking around in hopes of catching a glimpse of some movement somewhere. I thought I saw a candle flicker and took a swing in that direction, but no, it was the candle’s own doing.

“What is it?” cried the doctor.

“Nothing, señor,” I replied. “I was just seeing things.”

“Listen here,” the doctor said in a moment, stroking his beard. “Guimarães and I will light a cigarella each at either end of the aisle and will walk towards each other. Come on, Guimarães.”

I hopped over the pews to the far end of the aisle, took out a cigarella, and waited for the doctor to give the signal.

“Ready?” Dr. Monardes cried from the other end, a cigarella in his mouth and a candle in one hand. “Now!”

I lit the cigarella and slowly started walking towards the doctor.

“Here’s some for you as well,” he called out and tossed one cigarella each to Jesús and the padre.

“That’s more like it!” Jesús cried, while the padre reached for the cigarella with both hands, dropping the crosier, which fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Jesu Christe!” he exclaimed.

The tobacco smoke began wafting through the air between us and over our heads.

“Light another one, Guimarães,” Dr. Monardes cried from the other end of the aisle, his head swathed in smoke as if he were walking in his very own tiny cloud of fog. I lit another cigarella. I felt like I would take flight. I even had the feeling that my feet were leaving the ground and that if I looked down I would see that I had started levitating like Simon Magus. At that moment we heard something squeaking against one of the church’s stained glass windows, as if a wad of paper were being rubbed against it. The sound lasted only an instant, and when we looked over to where it was coming from, we heard it again, only this time from the other side.

“Jesús,” the doctor cried, “open the door!”

“Right away, señor,” he shouted in a raspy voice, and I turned around, wiping my watering eyes, to see what would happen.

Jesús opened the door, it once again creaked shrilly, and a rush of cold evening air burst into the church and made the candles’ flames flutter. But no, they fluttered in the other direction, towards the outside — as I realized shortly, seeing how some gust of wind raced through the candelabra on the other side, moving from the very back near the altar and along the left wall of the church toward the door. Then it disappeared. The candles’ flames straightened up, becoming almost still.

“Praise be to God!” the padre said, pressing his palms together.

The doctor snorted and came towards me, his heels clicking, two cigarellas in his mouth, a staff in one hand, a candle in the other and that cloud of fog above his head, which looked as if it were hurrying to catch up with him.

“Señores,” the doctor said after taking the cigarellas from his mouth, “our work here is finished. I don’t think this type of illusion will happen again in this church. But if it happens again,” he turned towards the padre, “you know what to do.” He took Jesús’ staff and gave it to the priest. “Don’t cross yourself, but take a staff.” Then the doctor extinguished the cigarellas with spittle and also gave them to the padre. “Here are two cigarellas for you as well,” he added, then turned around, passed by us with brisk steps, and went outside. “Come on, Jesús,” he called from outside without turning around, walking towards the carriage. “We’re not staying here for ages.”

“I’m coming, señor,” Jesús replied, holding the door to let me pass.

It was already completely dark outside. The group of people was still there, it had even grown, and they stared at us speechlessly.

“Thank God they didn’t steal anything!” the doctor cried, already inside the carriage, leaning out through the door as he propped it open with his hand.

“What happened, what happened?” the people started asking.

“Inside there was something which. .” I began to answer.

“Science triumphed, fools, that’s what happened,” the doctor cut me off. “Science triumphed.”

I got into the carriage, the doctor shut the door on his side, I did the same on mine, then we felt the carriage sway slightly — Jesús had jumped up onto the coachbox. “Gee! Gee!” he cried and in a moment we set out.

The road from Utrera to Sevilla is long, and for lack of anything better to do, the doctor and I began discussing what had happened.

“That thing was unbelievably quick, señor,” I said. “It went from one end of the church to the other like the wind.”

“That’s true,” the doctor replied. “Spirits are like that.”

“But didn’t you say that there are no spirits?”

“In principle, that’s true. But misunderstandings always occur. There are no spirits,” Dr. Monardes nodded in assent. “But there are misunderstandings. Just as in science, Guimarães: There’s a rule, but there are also exceptions.”

“So it turns out that there are spirits after all,” I said, after a certain amount of reflection.

“How’s that?” the doctor replied. “There are no spirits! There are some confused, not-quite-fully-dead idiots, the result of a misunderstanding in the functioning of Nature, and even these are exceptionally rare. Have you seen flies that disappear?”

“No,” I admitted.

“From time to time, especially in Spain, since it is in the south,” the doctor raised his finger admonishingly, “some fly, as it is buzzing around your room, disappears. If you are in the habit, as I am, of immediately killing every fly which enters your room, sooner or later you will notice this. It’s not that it has hidden or landed somewhere out of sight. That happens, too, but that’s a different case altogether. Instead, it simply disappears. It’s flying along and it disappears. Sometimes it reappears again afterwards, other times not. This is simply a mistake in the functioning of Nature, functia erronea. It’s the same thing with these so-called spirits.” The doctor fell silent and we travelled in silence for some time, our bodies swaying from the juddering of the carriage along the rocky road. Forward and backward, left and right; forward and backward, left and right. “In principle, five is more than three,” the doctor began again. “If you don’t believe me, give me five ducats, and I’ll give you three. However, three watermelons are bigger than five apples, and sometimes even three apples can be bigger than five other apples.”

“That’s true,” I nodded, somewhat surprised. “Three apples from Pedestra are usually bigger than five apples from Roquelme. Those are places in Portugal,” I explained.

“See! But you wouldn’t say, I hope, that three is more than five. It is simply a misunderstanding. Misunderstandings are resolved when you add certain clarifications to your rule. Sometimes lots of clarifications. There are no spirits, but sometimes clarifications are necessary. This need for clarifications is what we call a ‘misunderstanding.’”

“I see,” I said.

“In any case, it is not, as the ignorant peasants think, some immortal soul which flies hither and thither through the air and which can think and perhaps even feel, which has a memory and could communicate something to you. It is simply some incorporeal animal mass, some not quite fully dead thing, which can rattle the dishes or some such nonsense, but hardly anything more. It is an exceptionally rare error on the part of Nature, something like a freak with three arms, which is best destroyed immediately, otherwise it will only cause needless problems.”

“But we don’t know how to destroy it,” I noted.

“We don’t know,” the doctor agreed, “but we can guess. With a staff. With fire. Like any other animal. I’m willing to bet that they can’t stand fire.”

“You hate spirits, señor,” I said. “You hate misunderstandings,” I quickly corrected myself.

“I hate them,” the doctor confirmed. “I hate everything that does not exist.”

I was about to say something, misled by my tongue, but managed to stop myself at the last moment, thank God. The tongue can lead you terribly astray. You have to be very careful with it.

“The non-existent is truly revolting, Guimarães,” the doctor continued. “It constantly presses towards life. It wants to come here, to this planet, which is dirty enough as it is, and to foul it with its body, to buzz about with its trifling soul, to multiply and impose itself on other existing things such as you and me. The world would be clean, simple and clear, it would be shining and sterile like a surgical knife, just like on the other planets as far as we know, if only Nature here were a little more sensible, a little more restrained. But she is not. She constantly makes mistakes. And she must constantly be watched over and assisted, which is precisely the job of medicine. Nature is female in spirit, she has feminine urges. She always wants to give birth, to multiply, to give life. To preserve all living things. She wants to preserve both the lion and the antelope; both the pig and the acorn. This is a huge misunderstanding and it gives rise to many problems, my friend. Many more than we realize,” the doctor raised his finger. “If it were up to her, she would even preserve the freaks. Because she does not differentiate between good and evil, beautiful and ugly, useful and useless. All of that means nothing to her. If it were up to her, she would give life to everything non-existent. The non-existent is enormous, Guimarães,” the doctor turned to me. “It would inundate us like an ocean, like a flood. Remember this one thing: Never give the non-existent any chance whatsoever.”

“But if we were guided by that principle, señor,” I objected, “we would never have discovered the Indies, we would never have discovered tobacco, that great medicine.”

The doctor shook his head, but merely said: “Remember what I told you.”

“All right,” I nodded.

We rode in silence for some time. And then who knows what came over my tongue — boredom probably — and I said: “Perhaps things are not that simple, señor.”

I could hardly have picked a worse thing to say. Telling the doctor that what he is saying is simple is practically a mortal insult to him.

“So you think that I speak about rather simple things, is that it?” the doctor replied, keeping his face deceptively calm. I’ve learned to recognize that expression. “You think that I talk about superficial things?”

I had expected something like that and had even come up with what to say. I meant to say, “What I mean is that perhaps science has not yet understood certain things completely. What’s more, they go beyond the sphere of medicine and in that sense do not concern us greatly.” But instead I said: “No, señor. I only wanted to say that we cannot close our eyes to the obvious. There was something in that church that was rattling the dishes. Isn’t that so? To call it a misunderstanding means to pretend that we didn’t see it. It may not be a spirit, like the ignorant peasants think, but it is hardly just a misunderstanding. It could be something else, something more complicated. What’s more, I know that when a cat crosses my path, I really do have bad luck. By God, señor, that’s the truth. And old Agrippa was right, too, when he said that if a bird flies overhead from your left, from behind your back when you step outside, it’s a bad sign. But if it passes to your right side, from front to back, then it’s good. I’ve noticed that, too, señor, and if I see a bird to the left, I always go back inside.”

“Guimarães, do you hear what you’re saying?” the doctor exclaimed. “I can’t believe my ears! Is this why I’ve been teaching you all these years? What is this nonsense? And by the way, Agrippa didn’t say that, but Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, the said Pliny being the biggest fool in the world and his books a load of cock-and-bull. What have I come to — you citing Pliny to me! It appears I have been wasting my time with you.”

“But how should we call such things?” I insisted.

“I told you: misunderstandings,” the doctor replied categorically. “You don’t understand the meaning of the word, since you only see as far as your nose, like all ignoramuses.”

“I understand it, señor,” I objected. “Three apples, five apples. . But it seems too simple to me.”

The doctor smacked himself hard on the forehead, then rapped twice on the ceiling of the carriage with his cane — a sign to Jesús to stop — reached past me, opened the door, and said: “Get out! Get out, get out!” he repeated, seeing my disbelieving stare.

“But señor, that’s absurd!” I exclaimed.

“Which means it’s just like nearly everything else,” the doctor replied. “Now you’ll have something to think over as you walk back to Sevilla. Get out! Your head needs a little airing out as it is.”

I toyed with the idea of taking slightly tougher measures. But at that moment I heard the voice of Jesús, who was standing near the door: “Come on, amigo, you heard what the señor doctor said.”

The two of them would have been too much for me. So I simply got out and stood motionless, watching the carriage drive away from me. I will not describe here the thoughts that were running through my head. They cannot even be called “thoughts” exactly.

The carriage stopped unexpectedly, perhaps fifty yards from me. Jesús climbed down and came towards me with a staff in his hand.

Has it really come to this? I looked around and saw a serviceable rock by my right foot. It would do the trick nicely if need be. But there was still time. Jesús stretched the staff out in front of him, shook it, and yelled: “This is for you.”

In what sense? I waited for Jesús to get closer. He stopped two or three yards away, held the staff out to me, and said: “The doctor sent me to give this to you. You might need it.”

Then he turned around and went back to the carriage with quick steps. It took off again shortly and sank into the night, only the clattering of the wheels and the horses on the road could be heard.

I could hear it getting farther away from me for a long time. At night these roads are completely deserted and the sound carried long and far in the silence. The dark mass of the trees rustled along the road. The moon was in its second quarter and lit up the road in front of me well enough, but the woods on either side sank into the darkness. I again fell to thinking about that misunderstanding, that so-called “spirit.” I imagined it floating over the trees, watching me from behind. It seemed that I could feel some presence behind me with absolute certainty. The carriage could still be heard in the distance, very faintly, very far away. Yes, I could’ve sworn there was someone behind me. I grasped the staff firmly, counted to ten, and suddenly turned around by enormous effort of will. My heart seemed to leap to my throat. Nothing. Of course, there was nothing there, no one. Some sort of apprehension had wormed its way deep into my mind, however. If I can only reach the bend above Borsetto, where the forests end and bare hills begin. I lit a cigarella. The crackling thundered in the night like a musket — which the Spaniards discovered some time ago and which is now very much the fashion — sparks flew from the far end. I felt my tranquility starting to return. I felt certainty taking hold of me with every subsequent step. What a silly thing superstition is! You are a fool, Guimarães, I thought to myself. Here you are, supposedly a doctor, supposedly a man of medicine, yet deep in your mind lurks the most rustic, ignorant superstition. The cigarella crackled again, as if to confirm my thoughts. I felt my so-called “soul” growing light, my bodily fluids settling in their proper places, steadily taking up their preordained paths. You must be fearless — that is the most important thing in life, I said to myself. Nothing and no one notices you, it is only your fears which frighten you. Everything calmly follows its path, and as long as you don’t get in the way too much or you don’t accidentally end up crossing it at the wrong time, nothing will happen to you. It happens only very rarely, very rarely, but you are constantly consumed by apprehensions and fears, since your fears envelop you like a cocoon. “You scatter their wrapping/ and before the shimmering l’Amour/ fear flies away toujours.” Eh, Pelletier? I wonder whether anything like this ever happened to him? I doubt it. Such things only happen to fools who don’t have the good sense to hold their tongues.

I lifted my gaze. During the day it’s not so, but at night the sky looks huge, strangely deep, high and remote, filled with huge voids, with vast distances. This is the true sky — the day lies. It’s because of the stars, scattered on its black background at night. How many times would the road to Sevilla fit into the distance to the closest of them? I imagined someone who had to travel to, say, Andromeda. This thought filled me with a certain amount of courage. Compared to him, I was in a far better situation. Far better. What would I do in his place? What would I do if they told me: “Guimarães, here’s food, water, everything you need, you have to go to Andromeda,” for example? What if there were no way to get out of it? I think I would fall into despair. Perhaps I would simply lie down by the road and wait to die. Or else I would set out and endlessly trudge along the roads like the Wandering Jew. What a terrible fate the Wandering Jew had! Only now do I realize that. And these people, these pilgrims, who shuffle along the roads for years to get to Jerusalem or somewhere — what kind of people are they? Or else in the opposite direction, like Jesús’ father. . But they know how long the way is — from Spain it will take them about two years. Besides, they seem to find it interesting to go from city to city, from country to country, to see the world. They walk for two years and afterwards talk about it their whole lives. But that wouldn’t be interesting for me. Compared to them as well, I am in a much better situation. And what about Francisco Rodrigues? What to say about Francisco Rodrigues? He travelled for not two but three years, surrounded by water most of the time, no less — the monotonous blue ocean, where you can’t see much of anything except water from one end to the other and some waves, say, which could swallow you up at any moment. Boring and terrifying. And when he got back, he pricked himself on a nail and died. Compared to him, I am in a much better, infinitely better situation, without any doubt whatsoever. Francisco Rodrigues had just made up his mind to get married when he died. He strung a lass along for two or three years, but kept putting off marrying her. I would often tell him: “Francisco, you’ve strung the girl along long enough. Marry her.” But he would say: “Nothing of the kind! She’d only gobble up all my money. Womenfolk, brats, now there’s the expense of a lifetime!” But in the end he’d made up his mind and kept saying: “When I get back from this voyage and bring home a little money, then I’ll get married.” I told him that the girl wasn’t so wild as to wait for him another two years while he sailed, and we argued about that quite a bit — would she wait for him or not? And afterwards he pricked himself on that nail and suddenly died.

The girl married someone else and now she’s got a wife and kids. That is, a husband and kids. . That dark and winding wide line down there must be the Guadalquivir.

I took a rock and chucked it over there. I was starting to think I’d missed when I heard it plunk into the water. Deep water, there’s something that always gives it away immediately. You can’t ever mistake it. Guadalquivir.

This stupid staff has done nothing but tripped me up. I just about killed myself. It made me so mad that I felt like chucking it down into the river after the rock. I refrained, however.

Urbi et Orbi.

Hey, that girl wasn’t named Maria, by the way. An unusual girl, her name was Juana. I pondered the human female. How different Nature has made the male and the female! (Here I must make a clarification for the reader. Despite not being as long as the road to Jerusalem, of course, the road to Sevilla was still by no means short. Hence I had time to think, or rather to run through my mind various things for which I otherwise wouldn’t have given a brass farthing.) The female is smaller, different in every possible way. Would she be able to build the Escorial Palace, for example? I highly doubt it. I try to image a group of women carrying the enormous stones necessary for its construction, but I cannot. Not that I think much of the Escorial. On the contrary, like I said, it is the biggest ugly building in the world. Or the ugliest big building. But anyway — I don’t see how the human female could build the biggest ugly building in the world. If Nature consisted solely of females, such a building would simply not exist. What does that mean? That means Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father. The Roman Epictetus, L’Amour des amours. I wonder whether Magellan could have been a woman? Would the human female have discovered America at all? What does the woman have in common with seafaring, with crossing the oceans? She will tell you that it is utter nonsense. How would you get her to board some reeking, rolling deck and to set out “onward toward the horizon,” as Francisco Rodrigues used to say? There’s no way you can get her on board! Francisco Rodrigues even tried to write a poem on that topic (seafaring), inspired by a poem of Lope’s. This took place in the Pedro’s Three Horses Pub on San Francisco Square. But he only managed to come up with two lines, or rather, a line and a half:

We’ll chase the sun a-racing, onward o’er the wilding sea,

It’s gold we are a-chasing. .

That was it. I told him, “Francisco, you’re not cut out for this, give it up!” But he kept struggling and straining, and in the end got mad and yelled: “What more do you want? To hell with these poets, they’re complete idiots!” And I, driven from my right mind by the Jerez, started arguing with him and telling him about Pelletier du Mans. This was the second time I got thrown out of a pub. And not by Francisco Rodrigues or some such thing, but by Don Pedro himself. Pedro is built like a rock, by the way. He could lift those three horses, so to speak, with one hand. “I,” he said, “don’t want any French dogs in here.” “What does that have to do with me?” I said. “I am Guimarães the Portuguese from Portugal, the most beautiful country in the world” (like I said, I was not in my right mind). “I,” he said, “don’t want any Portuguese dogs in here either.” And so it was. No, I don’t think that females would have discovered America. “Woman,” says Pelletier du Mans, “loves the home hearth.” That Pelletier du Mans is awesome. But then they wouldn’t have discovered tobacco, either. This thought startled me so much that I stopped in my tracks. I lit a cigarella. Then I continued on my way. How cleverly Nature has done things, I thought to myself. She made both the male and the female. If she had made only one, the world would be different. . Ah, Sevilla. Sevilla is so far. Infinitely far. If I were a female, I surely would have shat myself from fear. Alone on the road at night, darkness all around, the trees rustling, and who knows what out there. But if I were a woman, I wouldn’t have found myself in this situation in the first place. If I were a woman, I would never have set foot anywhere near Dr. Monardes, that much is certain.

It can’t be! It can’t be, yet it is: that is the Maria Immaculata hill. As soon as I come out around it, I will see Sevilla. I ran up ahead. There it is. The lights, the river, the bridges, the cathedral. . With leaps, I rushed down the road. Soon I entered the city. A drunk or a tramp was lying on the road, and since the streets are narrow in this part of town, he was blocking it completely. I nudged him with my staff: “Hey, morisco,” I said, “great spot you picked to sleep, perfect for tripping people!”

He mumbled something and turned over. I jumped over him, very carefully, however, since some tramps just pretend to be drunk, and when you go to jump over them they suddenly reach out and grab you you-know-where and start squeezing and twisting until you give them your purse. This latter happens very quickly, incidentally. After that, they give you one hard, final squeeze and as you’re doubled over, they jump up and run away. I’ve also heard of one such scoundrel, who had really bad luck and was killed on the spot by a eunuch. But I’ll tell that story some other time. What I want to say is that I jumped over that good-for-nothing’s feet, very carefully, and then yelled over my shoulder: “It’s truly a miracle that Jesús didn’t run you over.”

This incident, however, reminded me, that I was in perhaps the most dangerous part of the entire journey. At night, Sevilla is a terribly dangerous city. That’s all I need, I thought, to have walked all this way through field and forest in the middle of the night, unmolested, only to have something happen to me at the end in Sevilla. But it could happen as easy as anything. At night, Sevilla is far more dangerous than Nature. This is the case because Nature is frequently deserted, while Sevilla is full of people. It began to drizzle. I ran ahead through the streets. Luckily, nothing happened to me. When I reached Dr. Monardes’ house, I saw Jesús walking a mare in front of the barn.

“It’s about time, señor,” he called, “we thought that you’d gotten lost somewhere.”

“I’ll give you what for. . What’s wrong with her?” I nodded at the mare.

“She’s sad,” Jesús replied and stroked her on the neck.

Jesús is crazy.

I walked past him and went into the barn. Clearly, I would have to sleep here tonight. Pablito snorted when he heard me come in.

“Hey, Pablito,” I said and tapped him lightly on the forehead with my staff. He was here even before me, for five or six years now, and he’s as good as gold.

I found a dry, level place at the far end of the barn and blissfully relaxed onto the straw. The straw is old, it’s been rained on, it’s slightly rotted and has a peculiar smell. I lit a cigarella, inhaled the smoke with pleasure, and listened to the raindrops murmuring softly on the roof beams. I felt the exhaustion draining out of my limbs along with the soft murmur of the rain, with the smoke of the cigarella. In Sevilla, it almost never really rains, it merely sprinkles like now. “La lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla,” as they say. Yes, a pure marvel! Some hazy female face emerged in my consciousness, leaned over me, and said “Good night, good night” several times. Who was she? I didn’t recognize her. I tried to discern her features more clearly, but could not. I went over to the window and drew the curtain so as to see her more clearly. At that moment the door opened and Francisco Rodrigues entered the room, bathed in light. “Womenfolk, brats. .” he said and shook his head. I turned toward the window and looked outside. But it was not Sevilla. There were fields, low hills scattered with olive groves and a dirt road which wound between them off into the distance, lit up by the bright sun. “How hot it is,” I said and wiped the sweat from my brow.