Thrown into Nature

2. Intestinal Worms, Enemas

Is it even necessary to continue after such a strong example? Yes and no. No, because the previous example was extraordinarily and definitively illustrative — such a powerful substance, which can raise someone from the dead, obviously needs no further arguments in its defense. And yes, for two reasons: first, if I do not continue, this composition would become impossible, which I personally would find very upsetting. My career path clearly passes through it. And second, it is advisable to indicate other, more mundane examples, which nevertheless will be of use to the reader so that he may learn how to employ the powerful substance of tobacco in his everyday life, and not only when he dies. After all, a man doesn’t die every day, he’s not a fly. Rather, he struggles with other, often tiresome and shameful, yet nevertheless vexing, problems and indispositions. And ceaselessly at that, I would say.

In his young years, when he was still trying to build his practice and thus save himself from the terrifying and deadly trap of poverty, from which perhaps even tobacco cannot save you and which usually hangs like the Sword of Damocles over every young person’s head, Dr. Monardes specialized in a particularly widespread illness — intestinal worms. A huge number of children in Spain suffer from worms. More even than in Portugal. Here worms afflict both the rich and the poor, absolutely everyone. This, of course, is due to poor hygiene. No one washes his hands except before prayer. Some, by the way, also wash them after prayer, it must be admitted.

My point is that Dr. Monardes was exceptionally specialized in the healing of worms and hence became an exceptional specialist. His name as a master in curing this illness became known far and wide in Sevilla, all of Andalusia, certain regions of Portugal, and even in the north all the way to Asturias and the Basque country, where it spread, albeit in a changed form and was known as Masañas, transforming as it was passed by word of mouth. Rely on what people say and look what happens! But to return to our topic:

And so, Dr. Monardes made his name in worms and established a prospering practice. Actually, prosperity is often founded on some such thing. His wealth dates back to that time, and even to this day it is based on the curing of that illness, and not the doctor’s numerous, far more serious medical achievements. It could be said that Dr. Monardes’ wealth is shored up by worms, that he has turned worms to gold. And since there are many worms in this country, the doctor’s gold is also abundant. “If you want to get rich,” the doctor says, “take up something small that everyone uses or which everyone suffers from, but which few produce or cure. Worms, spices, and the like. Only fools throw themselves into grand undertakings and call their foolishness pluck.”

Petty things for a petty world, so to speak. But getting back to my original thought.

Many years later, when I was already studying with the doctor, he was called by the king himself, Don Felipe II, whose son, the future Felipe III, had come down with a case of worms. It was then that I saw the Escorial Palace for the first time. Some say it is the ugliest large building in the world, while others argue the opposite, i.e. that it is the largest ugly building in the world. In my opinion, both sides are right. As soon as I saw it from a distance, my soul felt oppressed and cringed like a wet cat. I had never seen anything like it — it resembled a giant prison with a parade entrance. And to complete the absurdity, statues of the Jewish kings had been erected over the entrance, with David and Solomon in the middle. And this by the same man who so cruelly persecuted the Jews, which only confirms my conviction that we have a madman as king. His appearance strengthened this impression — with the Bible which he supposedly never lets slip from his hand, with a huge gold cross around his neck, and in his royal robes, he looked like the embodiment of un-combinable things, like a cross between fish and fowl. And just as dangerous, in a certain sense.

Although the palace looked quite severe on the outside, inside it was luxuriously furnished and its walls frescoed. The Catholic rulers lived well.

They sent us to the boy. When we entered little Felipe’s chambers, we caught him scratching his backside. Many believe that he later went mad, and if this is the case, I suspect it might be due to some extent to our encounter. Dr. Monardes decided to use not the usual, but instead an elite, tobacco treatment on him, one fit for a kingly personage. To this end, we made an infusion from tobacco leaves, as well as tobacco syrup. We smeared Felipe’s navel with the syrup and gave him the infusion to drink. He vomited, but Dr. Monardes said this was a good sign, as the tobacco had obviously begun cleansing his organism, and made him drink some more. After that, in order for the treatment to be both maximally effective and quick, he decided to give the boy an enema. For this purpose I had to insert a small glass tube into his backside.

“Ouch!” Felipe groaned.

“That’s enough ouching!” I said, rather peeved with a view to the following procedure I had to perform, which I will describe presently. But then a quick thought flashed through my mind, so I continued: “Your majesty, the ruler of the largest empire in the world cannot be moaning and groaning. He must be brave and strong.”

The boy looked at me and nodded. “What a fool!” I thought to myself. I am not particularly fond of children. Still less I like the spoiled little monsters from royal courts. And still less if they have worms. And especially if I must insert a glass tube into their backsides and blow tobacco smoke into it, so as to cleanse their bowels from the inside, as was required for the procedure I was faced with. The persistent thought that some worm might crawl through the tube and into my mouth kept running through my head. Yet loyal to my duties, I lit a cigarella and began exhaling tobacco fumes into the tube, blowing as hard as I could so they would not come back out. At the same time, the doctor gave young Felipe a bit more of the infusion, so as to attack the worms from both ends. This raised my misgivings to the level of acute alarm, as I imagined what would happen if he were to get the runs while I was blowing tobacco fumes into the tube. In Sevilla there is a man everyone calls Shit Mouth, thanks to his habit of constantly making gloomy prophecies (which incidentally never come true, except with respect to Shit Mouth himself), but, of course, this expression could also have a literal meaning. I imagined what Francisco Rodrigues would say in the pubs, if such a thing were to occur. He would say: “Hey, there’s our friend Guimarães, who ate royal shit.”

“But what if he. .” I said, unable to fully suppress my misgivings.

Dr. Monardes shrugged, as if reading my thoughts. “This is medicine! It is a difficult profession, Señor da Silva,” he added, standing by my side and looking down at me.

Difficult, yes, but sometimes you get lucky. The whole procedure went smoothly, we gave him the enema and the doctor left the boy, who looked completely dazed at that point, to sleep. We would wake him after two hours to give him some food and a mild laxative and with that, the doctor reckoned, his treatment would be successfully completed.

As we paced back and forth in the hallway, a priest appeared, sent to help us in case the need arose. I forgot to mention that this outwardly freakish building is also freakish in content, combining as it does a royal palace and a monastery. The priests here are either hypocrites or fanatics, so you cannot hope to have a worldly conversation with them, and indeed, this one soon began prattling on about the soul. Dr. Monardes is in principle a calm man in his fifties, of average height with a well-trimmed, grayish beard, which he strokes with his hand when he portrays pensiveness. He is calm, as I said, yet the word “soul” is something that can infuriate him. I noticed how, as the priest kept talking and talking, Dr. Monardes stroked his beard tensely, trying to restrain himself. But the priest wouldn’t shut up. “Why not?” I asked myself. “Is he simply a windbag who, now that he has found an audience, cannot shut up? Or is he a fanatic who has taken it upon himself to preach to us? Or is he a hypocrite who is counting on us to praise his righteousness and zealous faith to high-ranking personages?” Who knows? In any case, at a certain point the doctor could not stand listening to any more of his slimy, somehow sing-song voice and said: “The soul, father? What exactly are you calling the soul? There is no such concept in medicine, señor. In medicine, the soul is a functio of your corporality. Your body has four fluids, four humors, warm and cold and two others; it also has organs, between which these fluids move. Your body is eight-tenths water. Water, padre. And while these things interact according to the laws of nature, something else appears, which you call the soul. But it is merely a kind of functio of the humors and organs.”

“That is not so, señor,” the priest objected. “The soul is immortal. How could that which you describe be immortal? The body decays, yet the soul remains.”

Fortunately, the doctor got a hold of himself and let the argument drop. The last thing I needed was for some ecclesiastical idiots to clamp my feet in an iron boot. Because their faith and love for their fellow man does not hinder them from torturing him like beasts in God’s name. Thus the cruel madness that nature has instilled in all her creation comes out in them. Fortunately, many things are forgiven to the members of the medical profession. For a long time now we haven’t heard of a medical man being persecuted by the Inquisition. This is so because our very profession is thought to make us quite absorbed by the body, hence some of our convictions are benevolently ignored as a type of occupational illness or mental injury. Otherwise they would have to burn up more or less all the medical men, yet even priests fall ill now and then and need a doctor, since pain is difficult to cure with prayer, no matter what they might say. Despite this, however, a doctor still may not say everything he thinks without risking a wealth of troubles, and big ones, at that. Dr. Monardes knew that far better than me and prudently fell silent. “To risk making yourself dependent on other people’s benevolence is a serious form of madness or idiocy, which every intelligent person should avoid,” Dr. Monardes says. Of course, he says that in a different context, referring to medicine itself, having in mind how important it is to lead a healthy life, lest you have to resort to the benevolence and intellect of doctors, who could easily be both malevolent and stupid — such examples abound. However, that statement is admittedly true in a much wider sense as well.

The time finally came to wake up young Felipe. As soon as we entered the room, something in his look unambiguously suggested to me that the boy was not well at all. He had not fallen asleep, but had passed out, as the doctor soon found.

“Complications have arisen,” Dr. Monardes said. “Quick, Guimarães, get the citronella.”

Citronella is a substance discovered by Dr. Monardes, which is made up of citrus fruits, glycerin, and rose dust, and in the form of a tincture it is used for coming to after a faint. Most of our medications, however, were in a bundle we had left — due to its great weight — in an area near the entrance to the palace. We had taken only the cigarellas, tobacco infusions, and one or two other items. Now here’s an opportunity, I thought to myself, for this monk to make himself useful.

“How is our regal lad, señor?” He asked me when I came out.

“Very well,” I replied. “He’s recovering.”

And then I sent him to bring the bundle of medicines.

“You should have gone yourself,” Dr. Monardes reproached me, as I came back into young Felipe’s chambers.

“I don’t know the way, I would get lost in the hallways,” I replied, which (in and of itself) was true.

“Listen here, Guimarães,” the doctor said, handing me a cigarella. “If something happens to this little fool, I have money stashed in Sierra Morena and more left in trust in Cadiz. We’ll go there, get it, and flee to France.”

“But how will we get out of here?” I asked. “We don’t know the way.”

“I remember it,” Dr. Monardes assured me. “That’s the first thing I notice when I go anywhere.”

“But how will we flee to France? They will be looking for us everywhere!”

“Don’t worry about that,” the doctor replied. “No one who has money and knows how to use it is ever found, as long as he knows they are looking for him. All the Italians know that. And my father was Italian. . Remember our friend Frampton? We’ll sneak out the same way.”

Frampton was that Englishman engaged in wholesale trade in Spain who was locked up in Cadiz by the Inquisition, but he escaped and later translated Dr. Monardes’ book in England. Of course I remembered him, how could I not! I must admit, as strange as it may seem, at that moment I felt a joyful excitement. The thought of fleeing to France with Dr. Monardes’ gold aroused in me an unexpected surge of strength. Not that I meant him any harm, God forbid! but fate works in mysterious ways: What would happen if, when we went to France, some calamity befell Dr. Monardes? I would be left with all the money. How much was it? Certainly quite a lot — the doctor was a celebrated personage with a huge practice, famous throughout the entirety of Spain, under one name or another. And how nice it is to live without working! I would even say that is the meaning of life. No work, no responsibilities, just your heap of gold and the pleasurable life! Not such a great meaning, I agree. But, then again, it’s all you really have in the world of Nature, and you should be real, shouldn’t you? You are either real or a fool.

At that moment my thoughts and our tense conversation were interrupted by a weak cough. It came from the young Felipe.

“Cigarella!” Dr. Monardes cried.

At the next moment, both of us huffed and puffed with all our might like a stove in the Pyrenees in January. My lucky intuition again called and I stood close to the patient’s bed, so as to administer to him at closer range. Dr. Monardes instantly followed me. The young Felipe, in a half-stupefied state, opened his eyes slightly and, despite his weakened condition, raised himself up on his elbows and continued coughing painfully, as if coughing up his entrails.

“He’ll faint from the cigarella!” I said.

“Come on, come on,” Dr. Monardes replied. “Strike the iron while it’s hot!”

With these words he blew a thick, enormous stream of smoke, which looked impossible for the human mouth to contain, toward young Felipe’s face.

Did I say cough out his entrails before? No, I should have said that now. For a moment I thought that the boy would disintegrate before my very eyes.

“I can pulpate!” I suggested, led once again by my intuition.

“Under no circumstances!” Dr. Monardes restrained me with his hand. “His stomach is completely empty.”

Clearly, my lucky intuition had led me astray this time.

At that moment we heard panting and the sound of a heavy object being dragged down the hallway — it was our bundle, along with the padre.

“Bring the citronella,” the doctor said.

I readied myself, and when I opened the door I exhaled a thick stream of smoke right in the padre’s face. He stepped back as if hit by a pear or some such thing.

“Thank you!” I said, but then thought to add: “Drag it inside.”

The padre, bent double with coughing as well, pulled the bundle into the room. When I turned towards Felipe, he was already sitting up in bed and trying to look at us through his coughing fit. The doctor handed the padre the cigarellas and told him to carry them out, while he himself took the tincture of citronella, wetted a sponge with it, and held it under the boy’s nose. I opened the barred window. A cold autumn breeze wafted over me. What a wonder Nature is, nonetheless! The cigarellas had an effect, of course, but with their help alone I doubt we would have succeeded. No matter what the doctor might say, I think that Nature within this boy had awakened and, led by her indestructible instinct for survival, had urged him to come to. Something in her gears had rattled, some lever was pulled and the whole mechanism began turning, clattering, roaring, inaudible to us, since it was happening somewhere in the depths of his body, in that lower abyss, unlike the heavenly one, in that microcosm, and now there he was, wide awake, with a cleansed stomach, trembling from weakness and the cold autumn wind. Yes, the young Felipe was sitting turned to one side amidst the rumpled silk sheets of his bed, next to which Dr. Monardes was squatting, staring at his backside, and if I did not shut the window the boy would certainly catch a chill in no time in such a state, but in any case he did not have worms anymore, as Dr. Monardes announced with a gleeful ring to his voice. Well, if he does catch cold, most likely someone else will treat him. We were here for the worms. Yet chills seized me so I quickly shut the window. That’s the last thing I needed right then, some cold. After that we ate rounds of beef and drank Madeira in the company of Don Felipe II himself, king of this failed empire — the only one in the world that has gone bankrupt, even as galleons loaded with gold from the New World and spices from the Indies arrive in its ports daily. Why is it bankrupt? Because of the armies of thugs defending Catholicism in the Netherlands, in Italy, against the Turks or in the Indies? They do matter, but not much. It’s all because of theft, what else? But how is it possible to steal so much?, someone might ask. Someone who is poorly acquainted with human nature. Oh, it’s possible, I would reply, and how! In principle, if something is bad, it’s possible. And there was one person here, in particular, who could explain exactly how it all happens, although he would surely take that secret with him to the grave. There he was, Señor Vazquez de Leca — a Corsican by birth, who grew up a slave of Algerian pirates, and later became a citizen of Sevilla and now first minister. Yes, fate is all-powerful! They say he has made some people richer than the Spanish treasury. Sandoval. Espinosa. Not himself directly, he’s not that stupid. They say the whole network starts right from the ports. He has an attentive and intelligent gaze, refined manners, deferential language. They also say that he has an iron fist, but that doesn’t show from his folded white fingers, upon which there is only one — but what a one it is! — ruby ring. Spain is bankrupt, because the money has passed into someone’s private possession. If the country needs money for something, they turn to Señor de Leca. He usually finds it. That’s why he is first minister.

Meanwhile, Don Felipe was saying something about God and the Catholic Church. Señor de Leca was nodding his head gravely. Dr. Monardes was eating a beef round. I was drinking Madeira. The boy was asleep in his chambers, healthy — or at least worm-free. Everything was fine.

Travelling back home in our carriage, I shared some of my thoughts regarding Señor de Leca with Dr. Monardes. “A strange fellow, that Señor de Leca,” I said. “If everything I’ve heard about him is true, he’s made some people very rich, but not himself.”

“What’s so strange about that?” Dr. Monardes replied. “Power is what tempts him, not riches. People are different. Those like him are the most refined examples of the human animal species. He wants to rule, to make decisions and to govern. Through wealth he has made many people dependent on him. He has bound them with a golden chain, which no one breaks, and now they are loyal to him, literally to the grave. In all cases and on every occasion. He can always count on them, as long as he diverts what they want their way. Everyone at court owes something or other to the merchant Espinosa. Espinosa fills his own pockets thanks to de Leca. If someone at court does what de Leca wants, he’ll keep his possessions. If he doesn’t, Espinosa will call in his debts. A fine system, works flawlessly.”

“But why does he bother with all that?” I asked, even though I understood very well. I simply wanted to hear the doctor’s opinion. “He could make himself very wealthy and sit back and enjoy the good life.”

“He doesn’t want to sit back and enjoy the good life, Guimarães,” the doctor replied. “Like I just said, people are different. He is not like you. One man wants wealth, the other wants power. There are even some who want yet a third thing, but let’s leave them aside. As far as our question is concerned, the difference is clear: Wealth makes you free, while power gives you the opportunity to rule everyone else. Sometimes the two are mutually exclusive and you must choose one at the expense of the other.”

“But why are they mutually exclusive?” I objected. “If I have a trading company, then I rule everyone in it.”

“Don’t be stupid, Guimarães,” the doctor replied, slightly irritated. “That’s not the same at all. I’m imagining what Señor de Leca must feel about all those who own trading companies and surely even about people like Cristobal de Sandoval and Espinosa as well. He feels a deep contempt for them. And I think he is precisely right. As long as he wields power, he will have everything he needs, in exactly the quantity he requires. Thus, he is de facto and in functio in the same situation as the rich, but with one serious advantage over them — he can destroy them at any moment. He can make it such that they lose their wealth and even their lives. But they cannot do the same to him.”

“Who knows?” I objected, now utterly serious. “If he starts persecuting some of these people, they could still say plenty of things about him.”

“But they can’t prove them,” the doctor replied. “If he has not diverted funds towards himself, then no tracks lead back to him. The worst that could happen to him is that he could lose his post due to suspicions. But the worst that could happen to them is that they could swing from the gallows. By the way, he has surely taken care of himself,” the doctor continued after a pause, “and if they really started digging things up, they would find evidence against him. But first, they would really have to start digging things up, and that wouldn’t be easy and usually doesn’t happen. Besides, who would do the digging? The one assigned the task may have dipped his paws in the honey as well, so guess whose side he’ll be on in such a case — Señor de Leca’s or the person accusing him? The more you think about, the more difficult the whole business looks.”

“Ye-s-s-s, indeed,” I drawled and fell silent.

We travelled in silence for some time. Then the doctor took out two cigarellas and gave me one. We kindled them.

“What’s going on, señores?” The coachman Jesús yelled from his box. “Did something break?”

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “It’s just the cigarellas crackling.”

The doctor blew a few smoke rings and said, “Many try to be like Señor de Leca, but very few succeed. As the Bible says: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’ Most come to ruin for want of sufficient intelligence, discipline, or simply luck.”

“Yet isn’t it strange,” I said, exhaling a stream of smoke towards the ceiling of the carriage, “that all these Spaniards are so loyal to a Corsican? Not that it matters. I’m simply pointing it out as a curiosity, as a bit of folk wisdom.”

“Well, whom should they be loyal to? To Don Felipe? What kind of Spaniard is Don Felipe? All of his relatives are in Vienna. No one here is a Spaniard, Guimarães. You are not a Spaniard, de Leca is not a Spaniard, Don Felipe is not a Spaniard, even I am not a Spaniard. Like I’ve told you, my father was Italian and my mother was a Jewess. In any case, there are no Spaniards in Spain. At one time the Moors lived here, but they’ve been chased out and no longer do. Now there are Castilians, Andalusians, Catalonians, and so forth who have come from Lord knows where, but there are no Spaniards in Spain. Perhaps only the stablemen are Spaniards.”

“The stablemen are usually Portuguese,” I said.

“So there’s not a single one,” Dr. Monardes replied.

“But if that’s the case,” I said after a short pause, “then there are no Portuguese in Portugal, either, according to the same principles.”

“Not surprising,” the doctor replied.

“Yes, but I’m Portuguese.”

“Or at least that’s what you think,” Dr. Monardes nodded. “People are constantly thinking all sorts of things, which in most cases make no difference whatsoever, and your case is just such a one.”

“Señor,” I said, changing the subject. “You are not patriotic in the least.”

“Oh, on the contrary! I am very patriotic!” Dr. Monardes exclaimed. “At least in every practical sense that does not contradict sound reason,” he added after a short pause.

“But how could the two things possibly fit together?” The question was on the tip of my tongue when I remembered that it was not at all necessary for them to fit together, but since I had already opened my mouth, I changed the subject to the first thing that came to mind: “It’s amazing how you managed to build such a career, señor, being the son of a foreigner.”

The doctor studied me for a long time with an astonished and reproachful gaze.

“Guimarães,” he replied, “I’ve told you a hundred times. Don’t make me think you’ve lost your mind.”

“Yes, I know about the worms, but I still can’t believe things happened just like that, that from such a lowly thing such magnificent results could follow. Such a solid practice. .”

“I’ve never said that things happened just like that, Guimarães. . Do you even listen to me at all?”

“Yes, señor, of course. I just feel like chatting,” I admitted. “To make the time go faster. .”

“Ah, so that’s it. . Worms are worms, my friend, and I really did work hard, but if I hadn’t married the daughter of Dr. Perez de Morales, I might still be rummaging through the bums of poor little brats for a pittance to this very day. But Dr. Morales left me a fine practice. And three thousand ducats. I was his assistant, just as you are mine now. But unfortunately, all of my daughters are already married. .”

“Don’t worry, señor,” I said, raising my hand. “Once I master the trade, everything else will fall into place on its own.”

“If you say so,” Dr. Monardes replied. “I’m glad you think so. That’s for the best in your situation. You know, of course, that my surgery is in the house on Calle da la Sierpes. But you don’t know that the house belonged to Dr. Morales.”

“Really?” I replied in sincere amazement.

“Yes. I took over his practice and inherited his surgery, and since then things have taken off in a whole new way. I now have a completely different clientele, in most cases.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “Sandoval. Espinosa. The king himself, obviously.”

“Precisely. Yet despite this I would not have achieved any particular financial prosperity if I were not also involved in trade. I inherited this trait from my father, along with my interest in books. My father had a keen flair for business.”

“Yes, but you’ve achieved far more than he ever did.”

“That’s true,” Dr. Monardes concurred. “But he dealt in books, not in slaves. The slave trade is far more lucrative. And I must admit that in this respect, too, I have been lucky. Back in the day, Nuñez de Herrera suggested we form a partnership for slave trading in the New World. You’ve seen Nuñez de Herrera, right?”

“Once,” I said. “He had returned from Panama.”

“Ah, yes. May he rest in peace. Although it’s hard to believe about a person like him, the truth is that homesickness for the motherland tormented him. He suffered from nostalgia. If you ask me, it shortened his life, since he lived without any joy. He only seemed truly happy when he returned to Spain. Which happened only rarely. But he had no choice. Back then, when the trade was expanding, he had to move to Panama, which made things much easier. It was obvious that I could not go. I had my practice here. He was the one who had to go. Besides, he was the real businessman of the two of us. He started off with slaves, then expanded into gold and other goods. Believe what you will, Guimarães, but I could drop my practice tomorrow and still make enough from trade to feed a hundred beggars in Sevilla. And I owe this in large part to Señor Herrera. To you, I will leave my olive press, to remember me fondly by. It can easily feed four or five people.”

“I’m more interested in your real estate business, señor,” I replied.

The doctor shook his head.

“That may be the case,” he said. “But that business is more risky. Back when Don Felipe declared Sevilla the central customs house for all goods from the New World, the city expanded greatly and one could make lots of quick money in real estate, but now things have quieted down and the market is slower, if there’s even a market at all. People have changed. Before, when someone arrived, he looked to buy a house or land where he could build one, whereas now they come and sleep on the streets or wherever they happen to land. Just look at what’s happened. Sevilla has filled up with beggars. They roam the streets practically in droves. The ones who came first were civil servants, merchants, those kinds of people. But now they’re ne’er-do-wells from the villages and riffraff of every stripe.”

“But your friend Cervantes says that Sevilla is a beggar’s paradise. Here we have the fattest, best-fed beggars in the world, according to him.”

“Ah,” Dr. Monardes waved dismissively. “Don’t go believing everything he says. . The things he says surely landed him in prison — where he is now for theft.”

“And petty theft, at that,” I added.

“And petty theft, at that, precisely,” Dr. Monardes nodded in agreement. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s. .”

At that moment we heard the voice of Jesús the coachman, who always knew the way.

“Señores, Sevilla.” I looked out the window — indeed, the lights of Sevilla were visible in the distance, heaped into several piles in the night, surrounded by gloom like coals in a dark room. Whose room? And for what reason? Nature’s room, señor. For no apparent reason. Indeed, it would be strange for anything at all to appear in such a pitch-dark night.

“Hey, Jesús,” Dr. Monardes yelled suddenly. “Are you a Spaniard?”

“Of course!” Jesús replied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Where are you from originally?”

“Where am I from originally? I guess I’ve got to be from Sevilla. I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“And where is your father from?”

“Well, my father is a different story! He came from the Holy Lands, señor. Hence the name. If I’d been a girl, I would’ve been called Maria Immaculata.”

Dr. Monardes turned to me. “See? Not one. Not a single one.”

My sincerest thanks to Señor Dr. da Silva for granting me the opportunity to sincerely express and so forth, etc.

What do these various churchmen, these so-called philosophers and other clever windbags, mean when they use the word “soul”? What is the soul, in their view? In response to this question they offer some complex and entirely unfathomable answers, some conundrums and other such mind-bogglers, which depend entirely on their unfathomableness, combined with a profuse stream of words, to convince you of their correctness. The intelligent person, however, quickly notes their vacuity and even their naiveté, as well as their utter lack of familiarity with and understanding of human nature. Dr. da Silva has informed me that earlier in his work he has revealed the true medical opinions on the so-called “soul,” how it is a type of interaction and actio pro functio et junctioof the four bodily humors with the numerous organs and so forth. Thus, I will not expound on these arguments. I will merely note the utter indefensibility of belief in the soul from the point of view of everyday common sense. Let’s take as an example that whole rabble one sees in the streets of Sevilla — all those drunkards, bandits, Portuguese vagrants, streetwalkers, laborers, beggars, crooks, murderers, out-of-work sailors, hayseeds, and so on and so forth. All of them, we are told, have souls. Very well, let us assume that I am willing to accept this. But then they tell us, on top of everything, that these souls of theirs are immortal! That is just too much! Even by the windbags’ own logic, this is clearly nonsense. However, I am a Renaissance man, a humanist. Such things cannot fool me. From their words it appears that God is some dustman who collects and preserves everything. What a concept! But no, they say, he does not collect them, but rather sends them to hell, where they burn for eternity. For eternity? First, I would venture to say that this is one and the same thing, i.e. those utterly useless, vacuous, ugly, and sometimes even terrifying souls are still being preserved. If this were the case, the whole Universe would soon be filled with a mob of such souls, it would start to resemble a spiritual junkyard. Second. . Etc.

And another thing. They say, or rather de facto presuppose as nativum givenum, that each soul is valuable in and of itself. This is the height of inanity! What value could the soul of a killer have? If you find this example extreme, how much value could there really be in the soul of that whole multitude inhabiting the cities as well as the villages, and even in the so-called “ordinary person”—what value could his soul really have? None, I say. Even if the soul really existed, it would resemble everything else we see in nature and the world, which is either well or poorly made, either precious or worthless, with all the levels between them, as between gold and charcoal. The soul of a fool would be exactly as he is — i.e. a foolish soul, while the soul of a thief would be a thieving soul, the soul of a beggar a beggarly soul, and so on and so forth, etc. Ergo, the world would be full of foolish, mediocre, useless, evil souls, which no one has any need or use for and which are simply trash, things to be thrown away. They would be a huge majority, just like the people who have them. Could those clever windbags possibly imagine that all this rabble was created by the God they speak of? This only goes to show what foolish — or perhaps hypocritical and deceitful — souls they themselves have. And just as nature throws away bodies after they die, assimilating them and turning them to dust, so should God throw away those souls, turning them into nothing, as they have no value whatsoever. So nature will reject their bodies and God reject their souls, and that circle in the middle is what they call their life. The rejected ones are bold enough to claim they are God’s creation. It’s laughable! They hardly deserve the majesty of Nature, let alone the God they speak of. In Spain you’ll often hear it said: “I swear on my immortal soul!” Your immortal soul, did you say? It is most likely not worth a thing, my friend, and is entirely superfluous. The whole mistake begins here — they think that the soul is of value, and from there follows an entire series of mistaken conclusions. Whereas in reality, the soul, if it exists, could not possibly be anything particularly special — it would be something like the leaves on the trees, like drops of rain, the stones on the road or the grass in the field. In other words, it would simply be a part and functio of nature, something right alongside the rest, which in no way occupies any special place within the system of nature — as the churchmen and all philosophers since that madman Plato would have you believe — something of no particular significance at all, simply a part of the great natural cycle of creation and destruction as an end in itself. Incidentally, despite the fact that this cycle is repetitive, nothing ever returns, any such claims are empty gibberish. Once you’re gone, that’s the end, it’s over. There is no second time. Because Nature really does revolve, but not around your so-called “soul.” She revolves around her own self.

And Plato really is a madman. A reader need only read his description of life in Athens during the Age of Atlantis to realize that he filled his writings with every more or less coherent fable that occurs to him and that taking his absurdities and ravings seriously constitutes a grave and laughable mistake. If all of his works were to disappear in an instant, this would be no loss whatsoever to humanity. Incidentally, I would argue that it would be no loss whatsoever to humanity even if it itself were to disappear. Humanity is unbreakable, in other words, and that’s precisely what humanism is. Yet Plato did it great harm. He is the source of that utterly mistaken conception of man and his nature, which is also to blame for these meaningless formulations about the soul. I will not enter into detailed discussion of this, etc., suffice to say that from the medical point of view, man is simply a biological species, one of many, with certain abilities that differentiate him from the other animals, yet in general outlines and in his fundamental principles fully sharing their nature, which, by the way, is far more varied than we tend to realize. Although not every humanist would admit it, the truth is that man is simply a pipe — as are all biological species in their essence, with the exception of plants and minerals. Man is one of these creatures. A pipe, through which nature passes — it goes in through one side and out through the other. This is one of the ways Nature keeps herself in circulation, in eternal motion. (I hasten to add, however, that the tempting opposite suggestion, namely that Nature is a pipe through which man passes — going in through one side and out through the other — is not true! In principle, tempting things are not true. The most pitiful things are usually the closest to the truth, etc.) What soul? What immortality? Do they realize what they are saying? Does the pig that they gobble up on Christmas — as if to show through the connection of these two things what profound nonsense has pierced their minds — does the pig, I say, have a soul, and is it immortal? But no, they consider themselves something far more special, something entirely different. Although they themselves may live like swine, and frequently do far more revolting, terrible, and preposterous things than those good-natured animals. And of course, they are far more gluttonous. And incomparably more vain. This is the most terrifying of all the animals, I say, and it is no accident that it rules.