Thrown into Nature

19. The Death of Dr. Monardes

Finally the doctor took to his bed, lying sick day after day, week after week — he could no longer do anything on his own. He was suffering terribly. His lungs wheezed like a blacksmith’s bellows; he was often seized with fits of a torturous, seemingly endless, dry cough, as if he would cough up his lungs; it was getting harder and harder for him to breathe; he never had enough air and his eyes bulged like a fish on dry land. His daughters took care of him during the day. At night or when they weren’t around, I stayed with him and helped him with whatever I could. That, however, changed. It is difficult to say whether his daughters’ care was more harmful or helpful. They constantly seemed on the verge of tears, and this created an oppressive mood. Besides, the doctor had been used to living alone for many years. This constant human presence seemed to weigh on him like a millstone around his neck. In my opinion, his daughters’ excessive solicitousness and their unhappy appearance wearied him and even annoyed him a bit. He refrained for some time, but finally told them, choosing his words carefully, that he would like to be left alone most of the time — it was easier for him to rest that way, he said — he preferred to see them getting on with their own lives, taking care of their own families, and so on; that he did not want to become a burden for them, and that for him it was absolutely sufficient to know that I was in the house and that he could call me at any moment. They understood what he was getting at and began coming less frequently. I went in to see him regularly, but unobtrusively and never staying for long.

At first I thought that it would perhaps be good for him to continue taking tobacco vapors, though under a stricter regimen — on an empty stomach, for example, or something like that — to see whether the tobacco couldn’t conquer the inflammation in his body. The doctor, however, categorically refused, arguing that he had already tried that treatment enough and that tobacco made him worse. After that, I came to the conclusion that he had poisoned himself with tobacco. Like every medicine taken in overly large doses, it, too, became poisonous and fatal. I suggested to the doctor that he take a laxative to cleanse his body of tobacco, as was done in every case of poisoning. The doctor, however, was sure that if we were to do such a thing, he would die that very day, and categorically refused. I didn’t know what else we could do for him besides making him cold compresses, giving him herbal tea during the day and mulled wine in the evening before going to sleep, keeping the air in the room fresh, and forcing him, despite his unwillingness, to eat regularly — the usual things associated with a healthy lifestyle, which in his case, however, no longer gave the desired results. Naturally, he was examined by the other doctors of Sevilla, even the royal physician Dr. Bernard came. Dr. Monardes resolutely refused to follow the prescriptions from the other doctors in Sevilla, since he claimed — and not without reason — that they had an interest in his death and had long since wondered how to get rid of his competition and to steal away his clientele. In one or two cases he found the prescriptions from the other doctors from Sevilla quite reasonable and tried them, but in smaller doses than they had prescribed (because he suspected them of perfidious duplicity and of attempting to trick him), but the treatments, perhaps for that reason, had no effect. He responded most favorably to Dr. Bernard’s recommendations and followed them strictly, but they did not produce results either. Dr. Bernard had the pleasant radiance of a plump man with kind manners, a calm smile and gentle eyes, with wrinkles beside his mouth, which hinted that he laughed often and easily, and he managed to inspire hope in Dr. Monardes’ daughters, but as I was seeing him off to his carriage along the garden path, he told me privately, as a colleague, that in his opinion Dr. Monardes’ case was hopeless. “Dr. da Silva,” he said, “in my opinion, Dr. Monardes’ case is hopeless. You shouldn’t cherish illusions, Dr. da Silva. Unless, of course, Nature works some wonder, which is always possible, as you very well know, Dr. da Silva.” A very pleasant man, very learned. I’m not the least bit surprised that he has risen to the rank of royal physician.

Yes, I had also recently begun suspecting what Dr. Bernard said. After all, Dr. Monardes was already an elderly man, and if he had poisoned himself with tobacco — which was and continues to be my conviction — I couldn’t see how a man of his years, his nature weakened from age, could fight off the firm grip of that omnipotent, yet dangerous medicine. We used tobacco to force Nature to mend her ways when she had gone astray, but how could we use the doctor’s already weakened nature against tobacco? We had never tried anything of the sort, we had always done the opposite, such that even if Nature were able to triumph in this clash — which I very highly doubt — we, frankly speaking, hadn’t the faintest idea of how to make that happen.

One very early morning, at dawn, when we were alone in the house, I said to the doctor: “Señor, perhaps we should renounce tobacco. Perhaps it is not a medicine. Perhaps we have made a mistake.”

“By no means,” the doctor wheezed. He had become very weak, he could hardly draw breath. I was holding his hand to give him courage. The doctor, by the way, could only speak with great pain, often with long pauses between the words, although for the sake of convenience I will not transmit this here. Also, I couldn’t always hear what he was saying and had to lean over him, while he repeated the word or not — in the latter case I have taken the liberty of transmitting the general sense of his statements, guessing at what he had in mind. “My life has not passed in vain. That was my life’s work. And you will continue it. You will continue it, Guimarães!” The doctor squeezed my hand weakly.

“Very well, señor,” I replied. “You can count on that. Really and truly.”

“I have left a letter for you,” the doctor said. “In my writing desk, the second drawer from the left. Read it when I die.”

“Don’t talk like that, señor,” I objected. “You will get better and live for many years yet.”

“Yes, yes. .” he replied. “Tobacco is a mighty medicine”—the doctor continued—“you just have to be careful with it, as with every other medicine. To know when, how, and how much. . My memory will live on with it in future.”

“Of course, señor. That’s certain,” I replied. “But don’t think about that now. The future doesn’t matter. Think about the present moment. The future doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t repeat yourself. It’s a tiresome habit,” the doctor wheezed.

May I be struck dead, may Maria Immaculata curse me if those weren’t his final words! Yes, those were his final words! The doctor died a bit later and almost instantaneously. He tried to take a breath abruptly, his chest wheezed, and it was all over. Quick and, at least as far as his death was concerned, painless. The doctor was a disciplined man, in everything.

I had been sitting on his bed, so I reached out and closed his eyes. I had seen dead men before, so I wouldn’t say I was too taken aback. But the way they stare — if that’s the right word — has always struck me, and it continued to evoke some alarming discomfort within me. Those open eyes, that unmoving gaze, as if cut off from everything around them, seeming to stare off somewhere in the distance, a somehow glassy, inhuman gaze, it continued to upset me. It seemed to me that when I closed the doctor’s eyes, his expression changed, that his expression softened. This was the person whom I had known, although with a much thinner and yellowed face, a much sadder face. But it was Dr. Monardes. While that other thing was something else.

I stood up and shook out my legs, which had cramped up from my uncomfortable position. How pleasant it is to move, to stride back and forth, I thought to myself. I stayed by the bed for a bit, staring at the doctor — I wanted to remember him as he had been when I’d seen him for the last time, to give his features time to imprint themselves clearly and lastingly on my mind. Then I turned around, headed for the door, opened it, looked back at the doctor once again as I was leaving, and stopped for a moment, after which I closed the door and calmly headed for his study.

I went into the doctor’s study, opened the second drawer on the left in his writing desk, and quickly spotted a paper pouch with my name written on it in large crooked letters. Inside there were two pieces of paper, a small one and a large one. I opened the larger one. The doctor’s letter read:

Guimarães,

I’m not going to leave you anything, since I’ve never been particularly fond of you. Do you remember that day in front of the Five Wounds of Christ? Things have their consequences, my friend. No, I am not one to hold grudges. But to each his own. Each must receive that which he deserves. No more and no less. This is something I believe. To each his own.

I had thought to leave you my olive press, but decided against it. For the aforementioned reason, as well as for another: it is in bad shape and will not be of much use to you, and years from now you’ll start saying: “Look, Dr. Monardes did not leave me anything except a useless press.” I prefer to simply leave you nothing.

I will leave you my three pieces of advice, as I have promised you and which I owe you as my student. They are on the other, smaller sheet of paper.

Thank you for all the care you gave me while I was bedridden. That was useful to me.

Still, I will give you a chance you can take advantage of, if you wish and if you can manage it. Know that the notary Serega from the municipal council is open to bribes. Also know that my will does not mention this house anywhere. If you write up a fake will especially for this house and bribe Serega, he will notarize it and the house will be yours. This will be very expensive, however. Most likely you do not have the money needed for this. If you so desire, you can borrow it from my partner, the apothecary del Valle. He won’t make a note of what you need it for, but he will charge you heavy interest. If your practice goes well, you will be able to pay him back in a year or two, but if it doesn’t, then you will be hopelessly sunk. Think it over carefully. If you do not succeed in medicine, with such a debt you will either end up a beggar on the street or you will have to leave the country. Don’t imagine you can simply go to Madrid or Barcelona. Del Valle has apothecaries and lots of friends all over the country and he will find you.

As you know, my daughters are married to rich men, they have more than enough property, and besides, I will leave everything else to them. Moreover, this house was never mine. It belonged to my father-in-law Perez de Morales and I acquired it in a similar way many years ago. Many, many years ago. How time flies, Guimarães. It really flies.

Death fills even physicians with horror, when it is their own. I now realize that clearly. I meet it without any illusions and without any hopes. I know there is nothing after it. It is simply a black hole that you fall into and disappear. I will not pretend and lie to you, but rather will admit that this provokes horror within me. Life is absurd, yet death is very frightening.

Some time ago I had become reconciled with it and had calmed down, but the closer it gets, the more terrified I feel. However, if I truly know human nature well, in my final hours I will most likely again feel resigned and calm and perhaps will even begin to expect something. I will meet death calm and hopeful. Man is simply that kind of animal. Nature has arranged things this way, perhaps as a final gesture of mercy, or simply because it is more efficient like this.

(She is more merciful than you give her credit for, Guimarães, and is nowhere near as crazy as you think. But I know that I cannot change your mind about this.)

Continue using tobacco and proclaiming its healing power everywhere. For me, it was one of the greatest opportunities of my career, and for you it may turn out to be the only one.

Farewell.

Dr. N. M.

I set that sheet aside and unrolled the other with trembling fingers. I felt very strange — simultaneously very impatient and somehow drifting in a stupor, as if the world were slowly spinning around me as around its axis or center. The noise from the street reached my ears and seemed to move in a circle around me, somehow slowly and thoughtfully, along with the objects in the room and the pale pre-dawn light. I took a few steps towards the window so as to better see what was written.

My Three Pieces of Advice

They are not exactly advice, Guimarães, but rather deductions from which you can draw your own conclusions in turn. If you constantly keep these three deductions in mind, they will prompt you as to how to act in every concrete situation. Here they are:

1. There is no God. A pity, but that’s how it is.

2. People are foolish.

3. Money rules the world. The Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

The latter only applies to the human world, of course. If you are interested in medicine, if you decide to delve further into it and to understand how things stand in that world, there are, of course, completely different forces and laws at work. Everything I can tell you about them can be found in my works, which you already know well, thus I cannot add anything new for you.

Frankly speaking, I don’t see any particular point in delving any deeper into that; which, if I know you at all, is not among your intentions in any case.

One clarification: people are foolish, but dangerous. Don’t ever forget that. It is much better to trick them than to force them. It is also much easier, if you have the head for it. It is also far more effective and long-lasting. Contrary to that foolish proverb, a lie has infinitely long legs.

Live and enjoy life, Guimarães, insofar as that is possible.

Yours, etc.,

Dr. Nicolas Monardes

I rolled the pages back up and stuffed them, along with the pouch, into the pockets of my jacket. Then I lit a cigarella and thought hard. That letter was important. There have hardly been two times in my life when I’ve thought deeply, and this was one of them. The doctor’s advice didn’t particularly surprise me, but the other part of his letter — yes.

After I finished smoking the cigarella, I called Jesús and informed him that the doctor had died. He asked to see him, so I led him to Dr. Monardes’s bedroom. When he recovered from the shock, Jesús hastened to go to tell his daughters what had happened.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” I told him. “I want you to stay here while I go print out the obituary notices, then after that you’ll go and tell the doctor’s daughters about his death.”

“But they won’t be ready until this evening,” he objected, or rather wondered, since he didn’t understand what was going on.

“They will be ready earlier,” I said. “Perhaps shortly after lunch. Then you’ll go and tell his daughters.”

“But señor. .” he began.

“Listen, Jesús,” I told him, looking him straight in the eye. I had the disconcerting feeling that the doctor was listening to me and grinning from somewhere in the sky, or from wherever he was, so I grabbed Jesús by the sleeve, and when we got out into the hall, I told him: “Listen, Jesús. You want to keep your job as a coachman, right? Otherwise, now that the doctor is dead, what will you do?”

“I don’t know, señor,” he replied.

“Everything can stay as it was,” I continued, “with some small changes. You will keep your job. Your wife and children will be well fed. Everything will be as it was. Just listen to me and do what I tell you. Got it?”

“What should I do, señor?” he replied, confused.

“Just stay here until I tell you otherwise. I will go to print out the obituaries, and when I get back, you’ll go to tell the doctor’s daughters. That’ll be around noon, dusk at the very latest. Just stay here and don’t tell anyone about the doctor’s death.”

“Very well, señor,” he replied.

That’s how it goes, when something is meant to happen, it usually starts well, starts easily.

I went back to the doctor’s study and opened the bowl in which he had left the money for his burial. I took the amount he had set aside for his obituary. I also had the money I had prepared for my own advertisement with me. That’s it, everything was ready. I patted my pockets as if to make sure everything was in place, and left the study. Jesús was still standing in the hallway.

“I’m leaving,” I told him. “I will print up the obituaries. I will also print up a advertisement for myself. You stay here and don’t move.”

“Very well, señor,” Jesús replied.

A minute later I was already out on the street.

The cold light of morning greeted me. The day had already fully dawned, the morning was clear and cool, and the cold air inspired cheerfulness in me, gave me courage. What luck, I thought to myself, that the doctor died at daybreak. It was as if he had purposely planned it that way. If he had died in the evening, for example, there would be no way of putting off telling his daughters all the way until the next evening; while in this way I had a certain chance, the whole day was before me.

Sevilla wakes up early, and there were already quite a few people on the streets, going about their business. Several carriages passed me, taking their goods to the market. A thin yellow strip of light stretched along the eastern horizon, foreshadowing a sunny day.

I was already on my way to the printing house owned by Señor Diaz — the publisher of Folk Wisdom and of Dr. Monardes’ works as well, of course — when it struck me that I could combine my advertisement and the obituary into one. That way I’d save a little money, too. I quickly composed the new notice in my mind. When I went to Señor Diaz and told him what I wanted, he immediately put himself at my service.

“Whatever you say, señor,” Señor Diaz nodded cheerfully. “You pay, we print.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” I said and patted him on the shoulder.

When something is meant to happen, it starts well. Seeming to sense my impatience, Señor Diaz led me over to the typesetter who would set my notice, gave him the sheet he had written it out on, telling me, “It won’t be ready immediately, señor, come back around noon,” and left. I began pacing impatiently between the typesetters and the presses at the other end of the shop. I felt like going over to my man and starting to line up the wooden letters on the tray in front of him myself, but I knew how annoying it was to have someone looking over your shoulder as you work. The machines thundered away loudly and the people who were talking looked strange — you see their gestures, but don’t hear anything. Like you’ve landed in a home for the mute. I couldn’t resist the temptation and glanced at my typesetter to see what he was doing. He was already setting the third line. He raised his head from the box of letters and nodded at me encouragingly, as if to say: “Relax, señor, things will work out fine.” I read the first two lines, with certain difficulty, given that the letters were reversed like a mirror reflection. Does everything look so strange when it is written like that? You get the feeling that it’s not yours, that you didn’t think it up, it looks so strange to you, so distant — and completely indifferent.

Be that as it may, there was nothing more for me to do here. It would take hours for the typesetter to set it and then to print it on some available press. In an instinctive gesture of fondness, I almost offered my man a cigarella, but then I realized that it could slow him down and decided against it. I went outside. More time seemed to have passed than I expected, since the sun was already shining brightly in the sky. I stood by the door of the printing house and lit a cigarella. The bright sun shone on my face, pleasantly warming my blood, I had the feeling that my body was softening up. I exhaled the smoke in the warm air and half-closed my eyes. Why am I so fired up about this, I asked myself, why have I grabbed at this opportunity like a drowning man clutching at the final straw? I could go back to Portugal, get married, and earn my daily bread some other way, even if that meant taking up farming — like my father, his father, and everyone before them. I could go to Madrid or Barcelona and find some kind of work there — they would take me, I was still young. I could become a sailor and cross the seas. The warm sun would always be above me, no matter what I did, it would shine on me benevolently just as now. The ancients are right — there is a place for everyone under it, indeed. Even if the sun disappears for a day, for a month, for some time, afterwards it will rise again. This is its nature. I could do so many other things, I was still young.

But was I? I thought to myself. Was I really still young? How young? The time always comes when you have to choose something, isn’t that right, Pelletier? To grab hold of it with all your might, to set off down a narrow path, from which hundreds of paths branch out through the broad field and wind enticingly off into the distance — through the field, through the hills, through the forests and mountains, far away towards the horizon and beyond. You can’t take all of them, the world is too large, and man is too small, he has only two legs and even they must walk side by side — perhaps contrary to unprejudiced expectations and even to common sense to a certain extent. In its disorderliness, Nature in most cases has created two things to do a particular job, and she has created them such that if only one remains, then usually the job can’t get done. Nature is very inefficient. Everything is done slapdash, willy-nilly. The whole world is made that way. But even made like that, it is unusually large, you cannot take all paths, and where they lead will remain forever unknown to you. This is perhaps even preferable at least half of the time. All paths look enticing at the beginning, but what lies there between those hills, where they disappear from sight — who knows? You’ll never find out.

I tossed my cigarella on the ground and set out for Señor del Valle’s.

When something is meant to happen, it starts well and continues well. I returned to Diaz’s printing house at noon with a full belly from lunch at Señor del Valle’s and a head slightly dazed from jerez. Of course, I was careful not to go overboard with the wine — right now was not the time for that at all. I had met the apothecary del Valle through Dr. Monardes, but only in passing. He turned out to be an even more sympathetic person than the doctor had made him out to be. At some point — our conversation had already gone on for quite some time, by the way — he asked me about the doctor:

“How is Señor Monardes?” he asked.

“Not well at all,” I replied.

“He’ll recover,” he said and changed the subject.

The notice was still not ready. I wandered here and there around Sevilla for perhaps another hour. When I returned, the job was done. I paid Señor Diaz, took the roll with the notices, and left. The notice read:

Dr. da Silva,

student of

the late Dr. Monardes,

whom we shall all remember

for his kind heart

and vast erudition,

may his memory live forever,

is accepting patients at his house

on Sierpes Street.

All are welcome!

Now I had to go back to the house to get the bone glue and paste up the notices. And first of all, of course, I had to see what Jesús was doing. He was the weakest link in the chain. During that whole time, a worrisome thought had been gnawing away at me: What was Jesús doing at that moment? If anyone were to botch the whole plan, it would be him.

The house looked quiet when I entered the yard. There were no people in sight, nor any carriages, no sound could be heard. This strongly raised my hopes.

Jesús had seen me and met me at the door, white as a sheet.

“Maria was here, señor,” he said.

This piece of news stunned me. How could that have slipped my mind — it stood perfectly to reason! Of course one of the doctor’s daughters would stop by to see him in the morning.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Thank God I heard her coming up the walk. . I told her the doctor was sleeping.”

“Didn’t she go in to see him?”

“She went in, señor. . But I had turned him on his side. And covered him up to his chin. She didn’t notice a thing. But she said she’d stop by again this afternoon.”

I ran up the stairs, Jesús at my heels. I opened the door to the bedroom. The doctor was lying with his back to us, wrapped in a blanket up to his chin. I went around to the other side. He really did look like he was sleeping. True, he was very yellow, but he was like that before, too. Well, well, Jesús! I raised my eyes and met his frightened gaze. Well, well, that Jesús!

“Well done, Jesús!” I told him and patted him on the shoulder. “You and I are going to go far. You’ve done well.”

“Well, I wasn’t born yesterday, señor,” he replied with a certain satisfaction.

I felt like laughing when I looked at his face, with his simultaneously self-satisfied and frightened expression, such an absurd combination of sorts. But I restrained myself and pulled him out into the hallway. I felt awkward speaking in the bedroom, because of the doctor’s body. I had the disconcerting feeling that he was listening to me; that he was watching me. I pictured his ghost hanging about somewhere in the air, invisible, his ghostly arms crossed, twiddling his ghostly thumbs and watching me with a slightly mocking smile, which combined a certain fondness and ridicule, an ironic smile. The curious thing is that when I went out into the hallway, I ceased to feel this concern, as if the ghost could not pass through the door.

As soon as we got out into the hallway, I showed Jesús the advertisement-obituary.

“But señor,” he said, visibly unpleasantly surprised, “weren’t you going to print up an obituary for the doctor? Don’t we have to announce that he has died?”

“Jesús, are you out of your mind?” I said. “Can’t you tell from this notice that Dr. Monardes is dead?”

“I can tell, señor, but. .”

“But what?”

“I don’t know,” Jesús replied, staring at the notice. “I’ve got the feeling that something isn’t quite right. But the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to say what exactly.”

“Oh, I’ve heard this nonsense before!” I waved dismissively and headed down the stairs. I had work to do. I couldn’t stand around listening to someone who didn’t know what he wanted to say. “Go and tell the doctor’s daughters,” I called over my shoulder. “In the meantime, I’ll go out and post up these notices.”

“Very well, señor,” he replied.

I had almost forgotten. Jesús was already going out the door when I called to him to stop and quickly ran over to him from the kitchen, with the bone glue in my hand.

“Tell them that his final wish was for them to carry him out of here and to hold his funeral at Maria’s house. Tell them,” I continued, “that the doctor hated this house and said that it had killed him.”

“So that’s it, señor?” Jesús replied. I could’ve sworn a sly twinkle flashed in his eyes.

“That’s it!” I said. “They surely will dawdle and get confused, and they may not do it, so I’m really counting on you to get the job done. Carry him out with the cart, on a stretcher. Have that blockhead de Brizuela help you.”

“Very well, señor,” he replied. Yes, without a doubt there was a sly glint in his eyes. One could simply see on his face how things were starting to become clear to him. Damn these sly peasants!

“If everything goes well, leave that red ribbon you tie around Pablito’s neck on the table in the kitchen.”

“Fine.”

“Go on, get going,” I said and patted him on the back.

He nodded and left. I went back to the kitchen, since in my haste I had taken the glue, but had forgotten the roll of notices. I had already opened the door when Jesús’ voice unexpectedly floated to me from the pathway outside: “It’ll work out, señor,” he cried.

Yes, it’ll work out! I could count on Jesús much more than I had expected. What a great thing common interest is, by the way. How it unites people! Yes, the doctor was right — money rules the world. It is the source of great friendships.

“Like a magic wand,” I thought to myself as I took the longish roll of notices from the table. “Señor del Valle, Señor Diaz, Jesús. . And the notary Serega will help, I’m sure of it. Money is like a magic wand. Just wave it — and poof! Just wave it — and poof! Just wave it — and poof! Whoever thought it up was a great conjuror indeed! A magician!”

The sun was beating down on the pathway. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

Yet how nice, I said to myself, that I’m on this side of the magic. If you’re on the other one, in the best case scenario you merely serve it, and in the worst case, it turns against you. What would happen if that magic were turned against you? I shudder to think. You’re in for it.

I stepped out onto the street and headed towards the market. I would post the notices there first.

The market on Feria Street was still full of people. I pasted up a few notices and returned to Sierpes. Of course, I had to put some notices up near the San Juan de Dios Hospital and on San Francisco Square. From there I set out for the stock exchange and the cathedral. The stock exchange was an important place — the retailers were on Feria, and the wholesalers were here. What better clientele than them? Intense liveliness reigned in the Square of Songs — not so much due to the merchants as to the workmen who were finishing building the stock exchange. The exchange was a large, ugly building, completely in the style of Juan de Herrera — but he did the Escorial, too, now didn’t he? Someone ought to ban him from building anything whatsoever, except for perhaps tombs. What luck that the cathedral was not built by him! When I came to Sevilla for the first time, I was thunderstruck. I had never seen such a large and such a beautiful, imposing structure. I put notices up next to two of the doors. I lifted my gaze towards Giralda Tower. The Statue of the Faith on top of it looked like a small cut in the sky. The sun reflected off the shining surface of Faith’s shield as if off a small crystal of glass, as if off a grain of sand, Pelletier. But whoever had the idea to make it a weathervane was truly an imaginative person. If you catch it at the moment when the wind picks up, you can see how the statue spins, as if gradually scanning the entire city — in the evening it is turned in one direction, in the morning in another. Faith. . This world is a complete failure, it is a rotten fruit, something to be thrown out, full of the worms of money, and a captive of Nature. Only Faith isn’t aware of this and continues to spin tirelessly with the wind in all directions, with a shield in one hand and a palm frond in the other. The palm frond shows where the wind is coming from.

But I digress. Now isn’t the time for that. I hopped over to the Alcazar Palace and pasted up several notices along the garden wall. Then I entered the garden from Santa Cruz and crossed it in the opposite direction. I came out at Puerta de Jerez and continued on down to Charity Hospital, where I posted one notice, crossed Temprado and went to the Golden Tower, next to which I also pasted up a notice. Arenal is a nice, wealthy neighborhood, so I pasted up notices on the fences, even though I knew that by tomorrow or the next day they would be taken down. I even put one on Don Miguel de Mañara’s wall. You see, Don Miguel had earned himself somewhat enviable fame, thanks first to local rumors, and later to writers and travelling gypsies and their songs. But not under his own name, but as Don Juan the Lover. By the way, they say that when he was up north to seduce women, he introduced himself like that — as Don Juan Tenorio. Well, he paid for his sins with Charity Hospital and even Dr. Monardes saw patients there.

From there I continued on past San Vicente and San Lorenzo, went down Imagen Street, which was packed with people as always, and then entered La Macarena. Here people were poorer, so I planned to be a bit more frugal with the notices. Of course, the poor in Sevilla aren’t like the poor in many other places. Rather, they are far better off — Cervantes was right. But they’re still poor. They never have enough money and live in something like half-slavery. Why? Because they consent to living like that — that’s the main reason. If, as Dr. Monardes used to say, they would quit crossing themselves and grab a staff, things would quickly start to change. But they have let themselves become enslaved by money to such an extent that it’s as though they’ve come to see money as part of Nature, as inevitable as she is. What nonsense! Nature may be all sorts of things, but at least she is all-powerful — oh, indeed! — enormous, omnipotent, and unbreakable, while money is a pathetic turd, a pathetic human fabrication, as fragile inside as all the others. But people are pathetic, too, which is why they give it such power. Since so many people consent to living that way, you’ve clearly come across some dung-hill. Perhaps they think that things can be done by fair means. But in this fallen world nothing can be done by fair means, absolutely nothing, at least not the important things. The important things are done by force or trickery, or by both, but not by fair means. Goodness only multiples the turds. And so the ordinary lives of ordinary people pass in goodness and much philosophizing, they live them out in poverty and privation, rejoicing over this and that, and afterwards they die the most ordinary deaths, and with that everything ends. Nothing special.

Since I was out of cigarellas, I stopped by Carmen la Cigarrera to get a few. She was standing on the corner near the barber shop, as usual, arguing loudly about something with the soldier José. José is very jealous. I thought about joking with her, saying something like “Carmen, in Paris the girls sell flowers, but you sell cigarellas,” but since José was there, I decided against it (and rightly so). After that, since I was right near the barber shop in any case, I decided to stop in for a shave. Don Figaro once again talked my head off with his salacious rumors and cock-and-bull stories, old and new — how thanks to him Count Almaviva was going to marry Rosina, Dr. Bartholo’s ward, how to that end they had bribed the Italian Basilio to pretend to be sick (as if there were anything remarkable at all in bribing an Italian for something), how afterwards Count Almaviva was going to make him, Figaro, his personal aide-de-camp, but he was already starting to have second thoughts about whether to help him, since the count had already started giving the eye to his fiancée, Susanna, how some Doña Elvira or other had arrived from Burgos to look for her lover who had dumped her, and he was sure that it was Don Miguel, and even how Don Pizarro, governor of the prison, had locked up some Florestan, an innocent martyr, completely illegally, and how the latter’s wife had dressed up as a man, joined the city guards under the name Fidelio, and would very soon set him free.

Here I could no longer contain myself and said: “Figaro, who would believe such cock-and-bull?!”

“Oh, they believe it, señor, they believe it,” he replied, laughing. “All kinds of people come through here all day, I find out all sorts of things,” he added and winked at me in the mirror as he whisked the towel off my neck.

“Yes, but still, that some woman would go so far as to dress up as a man and join the city guards, under the name Fidelio no less. . in Spain they would impale you on a spike if you were called Fidelio, for the name alone. . And you say she joined the city guard and so on. Enough already!”

“Oh, love is all-powerful, señor,” he replied. “Amor.”

“All-powerful, my eye!” I objected. “Only if you’re very young and quite foolish, which is usually one and the same thing. Dr. Monardes says, or rather, said, that they thought up love a century or two ago, and that before that, love didn’t exist at all. It’s just some sort of fashion.”

“Well, I am from the fashion business, señor,” Figaro replied.

This time we both laughed. At that moment, Susanna came in with a new bonnet on her head and several more in her hands and started asking him which one he liked best. I even thought about slipping out without paying in the small tumult that ensued, but decided against it. It wasn’t fitting for a Dr. da Silva to do such things. Guimarães would pull such a stunt without a second thought, but not Dr. da Silva. I had to get used to this now. Which reminded me to leave a notice with Figaro. I paid him double to leave it posted up — lots of people really did pass through the barbershop — and left.

By the way, Figaro is such a liar because he is actually Portuguese, his real name is Figueroa.

I headed down towards the river, intending to go to the island, to Triana, and more specifically to the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria, where I planned to paste up a notice or two — lots of people pass by there because of Columbus’ grave — but a happy coincidence saved me the effort. I met Rincon and Cortado on the street as they were on their way to the house of Don Monipodio, the thieves’ boss. In principle, it’s not such a good thing to meet Rincon and Cortado on a deserted street, but still, they were my friends from Don Pedro’s pub, the Three Horses. They agreed to paste up the notices in Triana for a completely modest sum. They said they would do it as a gesture of friendship. I know that when they say they will do something as a gesture of friendship, they usually have something else in mind, so I added that they could come to me for free treatment if they so desired; however, this didn’t seem to excite them too much. I also suggested that they tell Don Monipodio to send his people to me if he wished and I would treat them at a cut rate. Now there’s something, I thought to myself with a certain pride, that wouldn’t even have occurred to Dr. Monardes. To win over these people as clients is not a bad idea at all, the thieves’ guild has quite a lot of funds and plenty of members as well. Rincon said he would tell him, and he and Cortado continued on towards Triana.

Suddenly it turned out that I had nothing more to do. Yet something was pulling me towards the Guadalquivir Gardens, so I saved three notices and set off in that direction. I pasted two of them up on the Roman columns along Hercules Avenue, under the statue of Caesar. Several people were carrying and laying Roman tiles along the length of the avenue, on both sides. They chipped them out of the other side of the city and carried them over to this one. Human madness.

I posted the final notice on Calatrava Street. I felt a certain relief, as one always does after finishing some job, even though I knew that many more things still awaited me. Many, many more things yet. But still.

I continued on ahead, now at a slower pace, crossed the bridge and entered the Gardens of the Guadalquivir. What gardens! Pelletier would have praised them in immortal verses. Medusa could hide here and disappear amidst the palms and orange trees, living in oblivion, left in peace among the rose bushes and rays of sun filtering through the tree branches. I went down to the banks of the river, which from there looked gigantic, gleaming in the sun, seemingly walled in by masts in the distance where the Port of the Indies lay. The bank there was strewn with tiny pebbles, like the seashore. I bent down and picked a few up, rolling them between my fingers — they were cold little stones, damp from the water, rattling against one another — and afterwards I gently threw them back into the river. That’s where they came from, after all. I climbed back up the bank and set off between the trees. I reached that enormous tree with the peculiar name — ombey, ombu, something like that — which Don Fernando Columbus had brought back from America in memory of his father. I leaned against its trunk and lit a cigarella. The soft sunlight of the late afternoon trickled through its leaves and covered my legs with light and dark patches like. . Like what? Like enormous lady-bugs. Even though Pelletier wouldn’t put it that way. But to hell with Pelletier! Pelletier would prattle something about the soul. But the soul is nothing, nada, niente. Even if it exists, it isn’t here. Take a look at Nature! Open your eyes wide, turn around in a circle, and take a good, long, slow look at her! See all the tiny movements behind the seeming stillness! Like a big cat in hiding, like a darting shadow beyond the bushes. Only she will live eternally. Only her ensnaring wheel will turn forever. Endlessly. While Dr. Monardes will disappear, back into the river. Perhaps at this moment he is halfway there, perhaps he is still descending to the bottom, falling slowly through the murky water, rolling on his sides worn smooth by the current, cold and cool once again, before quietly settling down on the bottom. Or perhaps the water will lift him again and carry him onward, who knows? In any case, I had to get going.

My heart was pounding wildly as I neared Dr. Monardes’ house. I had the feeling that the crowd would swallow me up as I shouldered my way down Sierpes. I had the feeling they didn’t notice me and that’s why they were walking right towards me.

I opened the front door and entered the doctor’s garden. Silence reigned, I didn’t see any carriages in the courtyard, no people in the house, no movement at all. I headed down the pathway. I heard my shoes crunching on the dried, sandy ground. My mind seemed stuck on it — crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch. I knew the noisy street was somewhere behind me, but I didn’t hear it. At the end of the pathway I suddenly came to my senses, as if jolted awake. I ran up the steps. I opened the door. Yes, the house was empty. I quickly went to the kitchen. I opened that door as well. Pablito’s red ribbon was lying on the table — it seemed so bright to me, such a deep red, as if glowing there like an ember. I laughed. I went over and tossed it over my arm, stomping with my heels on the wooden floorboards, as in flamenco. But this wasn’t the end, either. Far from it. Everything is only just beginning, I said to myself. But still.

I went back outside, sprawled out on the high steps in front of the doctor’s house, propped on my elbows. I crossed my legs, lit a cigarella, and looked through the fence at pitiful humanity.

“I will heal you,” I thought to myself. “I will heal you all.”

They look so tiny from far away.

I closed my eyes. The doctor’s image emerged in my consciousness, multiplied into dozens of shards like a rhinestone necklace, floating before my mind in a disorderly stream of scenes — I saw him in profile, head-on, from the back, how he bends over towards something on the ground, how he lights a cigarella, then standing up straight with his cane in his hand, lying on his deathbed, striding down some path, how he lights a cigarella, how he opens some door and looks back to see if I’m coming, how he, leaning in close, tells me something that I cannot hear, how he lights a cigarella, how he throws a book overboard the Hyguiene, how he smiles at me from the steps I am now sitting on. Dr. Monardes. Someday everyone will forget about him, not even a trace of him will remain, he will be washed away, he will sink and disappear forever into the dark swamp of Nature, into the deep night of Andalusia. Everything will fade away, Pelletier. Perhaps only tobacco, that great medicine, will carry the memory of Dr. Monardes on its mighty shoulders somewhere far ahead in the distance like a fleeting, useless shadow. It is so powerful that it can carry thousands of useless things wherever it wants to, without even noticing.

Well, well, I thought to myself, if I live long enough, I might end up the only person on earth who remembers Dr. Monardes.

But the doctor was truly an unusual man. Dr. Monardes of Sevilla, don’t forget him.