Thrown into Nature

17. Against Headaches

The Countess Béjar had suffered from headaches for twenty whole years. As she told us herself, she had gotten used to and resigned herself to them; what’s more, she had tried in vain to cure them with several doctors, including the royal physician Dr. Bernard, but lately, after she had entered her fortieth year, when women, on the whole, go mad — this is me talking now — as a result of Nature’s bad influence, her headaches became worse than before, almost unbearable — she woke up with one every morning, and it had poisoned all the joy in her life. Migraines — as we physicians call this ailment — can indeed be a great torment. In a certain sense, if a person has a migraine, he doesn’t have anything else — he has no husband (or wife), no children, no profession, no post, no money, no satisfaction, no joy, no life. He is, one could say, completely busy with his head.

Countess Béjar finally turned to Dr. Monardes for help.

“Why did you not call me earlier, señora?” Dr. Monardes asked after we had arrived at her estate and listened to her complaints, for which, by the way, it became clear, she had not sought medical help for several years.

“Oh, señor, I had resigned myself to them and given up,” she replied. “I had gotten used to my headaches. They would come back once every few days, usually in the evening. Only recently have they begun to appear every morning.”

The countess looked terrible. Her figure was relatively well-preserved — as far as that could be discerned beneath her wide dresses and tightened corsets — a woman of around forty-five years of age, of average height, with black hair and very well-kept, delicate, soft white hands with long fingers. But her face was a waxy white, her eyes had a dulled expression, they seemed to me to be constantly narrowed, just like her pursed lips; perhaps the headache was the reason that long fans of wrinkles stretched from the corners of her eyes and mouth. No, she didn’t look good.

“I heard,” she said, “that you cure many sicknesses with the help of new medicines brought from the Indies. Miraculous things are said about you, señor. That’s why I decided to seek your help.”

“You’ve done the right thing, señora,” the doctor assured her. “The new things brought from the Indies are above all tobacco and bezoars. You can read about them here,” the doctor said and took a copy of his book Historia medicinal (the complete edition) out of his bag.

“Thank you, señor,” replied the countess. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to read anything lately because of the headaches.”

“We’ll fix that, dearest señora, or at least we’ll do everything in our power,” the doctor assured her, and we set to work.

The doctor took out a leaf of tobacco and began to warm it on a brazier which the servants had brought in.

“Ugh, it smells awful!” the countess wrinkled her nose. There is something in human females which instinctively predisposes them against tobacco. It is as if Nature, which speaks more strongly within them, senses the danger and reacts hostilely.

“It may smell bad, but it works miracles,” replied the doctor. “Now please don’t move, señora.”

He placed the hot leaf on her head, and I bound it in place with a white strip of cloth tied under her chin.

“You can’t possibly expect me to wear this?” the countess asked.

“I’m afraid so,” the doctor answered.

She looked at herself in the mirror, gave a nervous laugh, and exclaimed, “Oh no, it’s absurd!”

Whereupon she called in the maid and ordered her to bring a blue ribbon for a bow, one that matched her dress, with which I then bound the leaf again, removing our white bandage. The maid also brought incense sticks, which she lit at the ends of the countess’ large room to dispel the unpleasant — in her opinion — smell of tobacco.

“Señores, I would love to show you around the palace, but how could I do so looking so absurd?!” the countess exclaimed.

The doctor assured her that this wasn’t necessary and recommended that she lie down and rest without moving. We would come back in two hours to change the leaf.

And so we did. That day, and the following two as well. The first day we changed the leaf every two hours. The second day we changed it three times, and on the third day twice — in the morning and the evening, before the countess went to sleep. In the meantime, something happened which bears noting: Once, as we were arriving to change the leaves, we met a maid at the garden gate, who was carrying in her hand nothing but the Historia medicinal itself, Dr. Monardes’ book. I was so surprised that I surely would have let the girl walk right past us before managing to ask her what was going on, but the doctor reacted more quickly than me.

“Girl, what are you carrying there?” he asked.

“A libel, señor,” replied the girl, giving a quick curtsy.

I smiled inwardly, but tried not to let it show outwardly. The doctor also maintained an impassive expression, although I’d be willing to bet that he wasn’t the least bit pleased — a libel is a small booklet, usually unsigned and filled with slanderous accusations against someone, told in the most ridiculous manner possible. The printer Señor Diaz regularly prints libels in Sevilla — although he, of course, categorically denies this — which mock various members of the city council (or sometimes the whole council) or Señor Espinosa, the merchant. There is also a slanderous rumor going around that Juan Amarillo and I are the authors of a libel against the father of his former fiancée, with an appendix attacking Lope de Vega, which came out shortly after Lope’s visit to Sevilla — a perfectly timed release. This, of course, is not true, but in any case I know very well what libels are. Dr. Monardes may be many things, but he is not an author of libels. But this girl surely thought that every book was called that.

“And where are you taking this book?” asked the doctor.

“To the caballero Señor Fuente,” the girl replied. “As a present from the countess.”

“Wonderful, my girl,” the doctor said with a wide smile, and he even took two small coins out of his pocket and dropped them into the girl’s palm, at which she curtsied, her face beaming. “Wonderful!” the doctor repeated. “And why are you taking him the book? Did the countess read it?”

“Oh, señor, she can’t read,” the girl replied quickly.

I knew that the doctor was up to something. Whereas girls are so foolish. All girls are very foolish. The clever ones, too.

“Why was she taking it to Caballero Fuente?” I turned to the doctor a bit later, as we walked along the path.

“Why do you think?” the doctor replied with a sour expression.

“Perhaps she meant that the countess cannot read because of the migraines. Perhaps things are a bit more complicated,” I suggested.

“There are complicated things in my book. And in some others as well. Here”—the doctor made a sweeping gesture with his hand—“there is nothing complicated!”

Yet when we went in to see the countess, the doctor’s face lit up in a wide smile. She, incidentally, was feeling slightly better.

Count Béjar was absent, by the way. He was in the army, one of those duffers who occupied a post in Duke de Alba’s staff by virtue of his provenance alone and mainly in order to be able to puff himself up like a peacock. The true wonder is that all these fools still do not manage to screw up Duke de Alba’s campaigns. Duke de Alba is a great commander. Despite the fact that those idiots are constantly getting in his way, he always manages to bring things to a victorious conclusion. I suspect he does not listen to them about anything. This is surely the reason he reaps victory upon victory and yet has simultaneously earned almost everyone’s hatred. They hate him, but they are afraid of him. And since he reaps victory upon victory, they can’t get rid of him.

When we went to see the countess on the morning of the fourth day, she met us with a happy expression. She looked almost unrecognizable.

“Oh, Señor Monardes,” she said, grasping his hand in both of hers, “for the first time in months I’ve woken up without a headache. How nice! I feel like a girl.”

She really did look rejuvenated. Good health and especially happiness rejuvenate people. This is a fact of life!

Her good mood was not contagious, however, at least not for Dr. Monardes, and, alongside him, not for me, either. Not since we met that maid, I mean. But of course, we did not show this in any way whatsoever.

The countess was very happy, indeed. She played the harp for us, singing some song I hadn’t heard before. Yet she didn’t seem very content with it.

“The harp is not suitable for happy melodies, which are surely what this young man would like to hear,” she said, meaning me. Then she called in the maid and had her bring a lute. It turned out that she could play that instrument as well. And after that she requested they bring a lyra, and she played that, too. She played very well. The lyra especially, being a bowed instrument, is very difficult in my opinion, and I was truly impressed. The doctor, too, it seemed to me.

“Señora, I am astonished,” he said, getting up from the armchair he had been sitting in and bowing with his hand to his breast after her performance. “You play wonderfully on all these instruments.”

“Oh, thank you, señor,” the countess replied. “Although my parents deserve the credit, not me. They strove to give me a very good education. Well, not like yours in the sciences, which are very, very difficult”—she waved her hand coquettishly—“but in the arts and literature.”

The doctor and I quickly exchanged glances.

“I can also play the cornicher, the erpsicher, the rancocher and the regalia-violus,” said the countess.

“Bravo!” the doctor exclaimed.

He made a few more compliments, after which the countess showed us around the palace. She walked in front of us in her wide, rustling skirts and led us from salon to salon. We entered them through wide openings in the walls, without doors, with various arches above them. Indeed, I thought to myself, in such a wide gown she simply could not pass through a normal door. At the risk of exaggerating, I would say that her gown was as wide as Jesús’ whole house.

“What is an erpsicher, señor?” I asked the doctor quietly as we walked a dozen yards behind the countess.

“What is an erpsicher, you ask?” he replied. “You truly are a fool, Guimarães! What a question! Who cares what it is. Just say ‘bravo’ and don’t ask!”

We toured the palace. A palace like any other — big and beautiful. From there we went out into the garden which occupied part of the Béjar estate. Not that it would impress anyone who had been to the Alcazar Gardens, but still it was a very beautiful garden, covered with different colored flowers arranged into geometric figures — red, yellow, blue, and white, with palms and orange trees, as well as all manner of bushes, one of which looked familiar to me.

“What was that plant, señor?” I asked the doctor.

“Coca, a medicine from Peru,” he replied. “I have it in my garden. You should plant some tobacco, señora,” he turned to the countess. “Many now grow it as a decorative plant. I can give you seeds, if you wish.”

“Oh, most definitely, señor,” replied the countess. “I would love to repay that miraculous, healing plant. Let the young Señor da Silva bring me the seedlings,” she said and smiled at me.

The countess was clearly flirting with me. At first I could not believe it, but she did it quite obviously, and the examples multiplied, such that in the end I was left with no doubts whatsoever — the countess was flirting with me. The human female! Whichever way you look at her, she is what she is.

The doctor looked worried. He was surely afraid that I would get up to some mischief.

“Don’t worry, señor,” I told him. “I’m not that wet behind the ears.”

As we walked through the garden, the doctor was seized with a long and violent coughing fit, so bad that the countess grew concerned. He pressed his thick gray kerchief to his lips. Much matter and rottenness had been coming up from his lungs recently.

“Are you all right, señor?” the countess asked.

“There’s no need to worry. It’s from the cigarellas,” he said and lit a cigarella. “Oh, excuse me, señora,” the doctor added and quickly put it out. “You don’t like the smell. .”

“And can’t that illness also be cured with your wondrous tobacco?” the countess asked, without realizing what she was saying, I’m sure.

“Of course it can,” Dr, Monardes replied. “But it takes a long time.”

We left shortly thereafter. Our carriage was waiting in front of the gate to the estate. Jesús was sleeping, stretched out on the coachbox in the bright sun, his face covered by his wide-brimmed hat.

The doctor lifted the hat and waved his hand an inch from Jesús’ face. Jesús opened his mouth to curse, but caught himself in time and stopped. The doctor looked at him for a long time in silence, his index finger lifted in warning.

“Nice weather, eh, señor?” Jesús said, righting himself on the coachbox.

“Drive home,” the doctor replied and climbed into the carriage.

We set off. As we drove down the road, I turned around to look at the estate. It was hidden behind the park’s high hedge, only the wide entrance portal with a bronze coat of arms on its double doors was visible.

“And to think, señor, that that pack rules Spain,” I said practically to myself, almost unwittingly.

“That pack rules the world!” replied the doctor. “Not just Spain alone.”

And yet they get sick, too, they suffer physically, one migraine can darken their lives, I thought to myself. But not with sympathy. Oh not, not at all. That only makes them more pathetic, all the more irritating. They are slaves to Nature, just the same as everyone else. Examples of the human species. I’ve read that once upon a time, the Egyptian kings claimed to be immortal. That is to say — that’s why they were kings. You are mortal, but they are immortal. Immortal some other time. The Romans understood this best of all. I, he says, am the Divine Augustus. Oh really? one of the praetorians says. Let’s just slit your throat, and then we’ll see whether you are immortal or not. And so they slit your throat, and it turns out that you’re not immortal at all. They knock down your statues in the squares. And you’re no longer worth a straw, you’re nothing. It’s no wonder if later the praetorians also kill your wife, your children, and your whole immortal family. The praetorians are the people with the weapons. They quickly dispel any immortality and the fog of all sorts of ideas and ideals. There’s no fog, no clouds. The world is laid bare in the bright light. Yes, the Romans were clear on this. Nobody has ever been clearer on things than they were. But Nature. . Could she have made you immortal? I mean really immortal. Oh, of course she could’ve! At the very least she could have made it so you’d live a thousand years. Why didn’t she do this? Well, just because. She didn’t feel like it. She is your all-powerful master. Just look around: you’ll see that master everywhere around you. Featureless, hushed, the Master of Species. Endless and enormous, from horizon to horizon, it fills everything. And when you look inside, into your own body, you see it there, too. Your master has gotten inside as well, it owns the machine which works without stopping, which you look at from the outside and wonder what could be going on inside. It owns the humors, the organs, the bones, and the tendons, the blood and the veins through which it flows. Your master is all around, outside and inside, everywhere. There is no escape, no getting away, you belong to it entirely. A slave of Nature. This is why they’ve come up with the soul, books, religion, philosophy — to make it look like there’s another path as well, that there is a way around the fence, through the narrow gate of the chosen, through which you can escape, wrench yourself away, be free. But you can’t. No, you can’t. Nature is your master and possesses you entirely. Only here and there, like small islands in the ocean, are there perhaps things which are truly yours and not hers. Perhaps there are, but perhaps not. Man is too small to measure himself against her. Too small to call her to account. Why did she do things that way, and not otherwise? Well, just because. She doesn’t even hear what you’re saying. She doesn’t notice you at all. She moves somewhere like a vast flood, roaring, thundering, rushing onward. And someone perhaps might even say: How nice that I’m not in her path, she would sweep me away. Oh, don’t worry. You are drifting along with her, you are part of the wave, you are a droplet, a fleck of the foam. To find yourself in her path, you’d first have to wrench yourself free of her somehow. So there’s nothing to be afraid of.

You, too, are somehow spinning inside that wide and slow whirlwind. Thrown into nature, Pelletier would say. She could have made you differently. As well as all the pathetic, self-loving creatures around you — she could have made them differently, too. But she didn’t feel like it. She is the root of all things, the beginning and the end, the secret course of things, their secret meaning, and everything that truly has meaning. Or perhaps not, after all? Could there possibly be something else? Hardly. But still, on the other hand, who really understands Nature? Who can truly say what exists within her? What torments her, what delights her, what goes on in her head and where that head is at all? Even the physicians do not understand her. Nobody knows her completely. They don’t even know her halfway. They stumble around, speculating at the foot of the mountain, trying to measure it with two fingers.

“Señores, Sevilla,” Jesús cried.

Yes, Sevilla. A nice city. I was right to come here. Cities, buildings, they seem to have a life of their own. It seems unbelievable that all of this was made by people, I thought to myself, as we passed by the cathedral — enormous, a mountain of stone, with intricate stone decorations on the walls, with towers and turrets, with elongated arches hanging like bridges in the air, with the Giralda Tower above us and the statue of the faith on top of it, high, high, high in the sky, lit up by the sun, which was reflected in its shield. How is it possible that all this was made by creatures such as people? I thought to myself, as I looked up, shading my eyes from the sun with my hand. People. . People are strange, Pelletier.

Not strange, I hear Pelletier du Mans answer me in a dream, but different. Some are one way, while others are another. Like that parable, like pearls and swine.

Thank you, I say. I’ll keep that in mind.