Thrown into Nature

3c. The Following Summer

“Look what I just read in a book by a northern philosopher,” Dr. Monardes turned to me. “‘He who is not ready to die for a cause is not ready to live, either!’ Can you imagine?”

“That can’t be!” I said.

“See for yourself,” the doctor replied and turned the book towards me.

It really did say that.

“What nonsense!” I exclaimed. “He who is ready to die for something is a total idiot!”

“Yes, unless that thing is medicine, but in that case it is usually someone else who dies,” Dr. Monardes noted somewhat ambiguously. “If there truly is a Creator, just imagine how furious he must be every time someone dies for the latest bombastic nonsense, or rather, bombastic madness.”

“Although some people die for money, inadvertently. .” I said a bit hesitantly.

“Which is the height of idiocy!” Dr. Monardes snapped. “Do they think their dead arses will shit gold ducats? Take it from me, Guimarães,” the doctor continued. “The rich are the same eat-to-shits as everybody else — if not even bigger eat-to-shits.” Eat-to-shit is a complex concept invented by Dr. Monardes and made up of two words. According to the definition Dr. Monardes offers in one of his treatises, “it describes man from one end to the other as a natural machine and almost fully exhausts his significance as a creature in the wider framework of Nature.”

“To tell you the truth,” the doctor went on, “when I hear of some fat cat getting killed in a pub or on the street, it always fills me with a certain satisfaction. The son of a bitch, I say to myself. He merely got what he long deserved. Go on back to Nature, your mother! Of course, I myself am rich,” the doctor added, “but my case is entirely different.”

“These northern people really are crazy, it seems,” I said, returning to the previous topic. “They’re absolutely fanatical!”

“The Spaniards are even more so.” Dr. Monardes shook his head. “You and I are not typical in that respect. You are simply Portuguese. As for me, you mustn’t forget that my father was Genoese, while my mother was a Jewess.”

“I never forget that for a minute,” I thought to myself. However, I said: “But didn’t you say the Spaniards don’t exist, señor?”

“That doesn’t prevent them from having certain qualities,” the doctor replied and once again took up his book.

Looking out over the ocean, I thought about everyone who had died for one thing or another. The martyrs, for example. Torn apart by lions, pierced by spears. . What madmen! Then the heretics burned at the stake. The patriots. A whole ladder of madness. Each one going a step higher than those before him. And what about those who died for some idea? One doesn’t know whether to pity or despise them.

“I wonder whether anyone has died for the Renaissance or humanism, señor.” I turned to Dr. Monardes.

“Oh yes,” he replied. “I’ve heard of such cases in Italy. Which are most likely due to exceptional stubbornness, rather than anything else.”

“But you wouldn’t do that, would you?”

“Do what?” Dr. Monardes asked, puzzled.

“Die for the Renaissance and humanism.”

“Me? Die for the Renaissance and humanism? Do you even hear what you’re saying?” the doctor cried, a bit outraged even. “I wouldn’t give my little toe for the Renaissance and humanism. Look here, Guimarães,” he continued, after calming down, “there are two types of fashion. You must learn to tell them apart. The first. .”

“I know, señor. You already told me that.”

“Did I?” the doctor said, taken aback. “Very well then. So you know. But this book is truly insufferable!” he said and threw it into the ocean with a flourish, then rummaged in his bag and took out another one. The doctor has a lot of books.

He began reading once again, and I turned back towards the ocean. I imagined the fish eating those books and going crazy. I imagined all the fish swimming to the surface to sacrifice themselves for something. But there are no fishermen in sight. They flail around helplessly, the water is frothing and foaming with them, everything is teeming with fish unable to do anything. “What is success to you?” one cries out. “Success,” replies another, “is filling good people’s bellies and winning their respect, having them like you; making them drool when they see you.” Afterwards the fish disappear back down into the depths — suddenly sobered up, perhaps — while I remain on deck as before. The ocean is endless, flat, gray, and cold under the cloudy sky. This time I don’t think about anything. But when I don’t think about anything, that “Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father, Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father” starts up in my head again. What a nuisance! How can you get rid of your mind? A tricky task. Has anyone ever died to get rid of his mind? The martyrs, for example. The heretics burned at the stake. Did they die to get rid of their minds? Some of them, perhaps. This is something I’m more inclined to accept. After all, “Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father” isn’t the worst thing to have stuck in your head.

“Guimarães,” the doctor said suddenly, raising his head from the book, “do you think I talk too much?”

“On the contrary, señor,” I assured him. “I think you don’t talk enough.”

The doctor nodded and went back to his reading.

Yes, that is what I truly think. The doctor is certainly no chatterbox. Nor am I. This, I feel, makes both of us good company. Although I would perhaps prefer to be with Francisco Rodrigues, who was constantly telling all sorts of cock-and-bull stories. And who pricked himself on that nail, which I, in my carelessness, have placed my hand next to and from which I immediately pull it away. Dear God, one’s life is always hanging by a thread. And they think they are risking it. .

“How is the book, señor?” I asked Dr. Monardes as I passed by him.

“Oh, this one is better,” he replied. “By the Roman Epictetus.”

“I can’t stand anyone who complains. There is always a door open, you can always leave, if you don’t like it.”

“Those aren’t his exact words, but that’s the general meaning,” the doctor replied, rather surprised. “A door and so on. . Well, well.”

He thinks I am practically illiterate, but he is mistaken. He thinks I am foolish and ignorant like all Portuguese, but that is not true. I am much smarter than most Portuguese. It’s true, it’s true. Smiles here are unwarranted.

I nodded at the doctor and headed back to our cabin.