[1] This is an untranslatable pun, as the name of the country Denmark sounds like a woman’s name in Bulgarian.
3b.
The Title Will Be Thought Up in December
People often seem wretched, and Nature—harsh and indifferent. Where to in such a world? you may ask yourself, eyebrows arched, extremely confused.
“Go to the cities,” Dr. Monardes says. “You should love cities, unless you are a fool, a rustic.” I am coming to love cities more and more. Cities and lights. Especially at night, when a light rain washes the dusty, empty streets, over which floats a transparent mist, while street lamps shed their light on the gutters running with gurgling droplets—it’s like a hot spring with steam above it—at such moments, cities are magnificent. Given my preferences—my love of cities and a deep interest in medicine—I wonder whether I’m not a Renaissance man and a humanist, too. In any case, I think it is not entirely out of the question. Not out of the question at all.
Then two phrases began intrusively running through my head: “Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father, Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father;” who knows why. I was heading for Ram Alley, near Fleet Street. I was bound for Louse & Barker’s tobacco shop, which was open at night. They sold not only tobacco but spirits as well, though the latter unofficially. Dr. Monardes was already there. While I was hopping over the puddles along the road, my cigarella kept going out in the drizzle. Since I was still far from Louse & Barker’s, it was quite quiet. Fitful gusts of wind were the only sound. It also seemed to me—although perhaps I was mistaken?—that in the distance I could hear the roar, the splash of the Thames, which, I thought, quite resembled the Guadalquivir. Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father.
“Oh, there’s Guimarães,” Dr. Monardes cried when I arrived.
He was sitting at a table with the two proprietors, Timothy Louse and John Barker. Señor Jonson was also there, as well as Señor Frampton and two other men I didn’t know. One of them was dressed like something between an Italian and a jester, insofar as those are different things, and was constantly declaring that he was from Italy and that his name was Sogliardo. He lavishly accompanied these claims with Italian words and phrases.
Dr. Monardes has one gesture, which is as unforgettable as it is indescribable—hence this description will not do it justice!—which roughly involves half-closing his right eye and opening only the left half of his mouth. This gesture categorically means “bullshit.” That was exactly the gesture he made then in reference to the so-called Sogliardo’s chatter. Being of Genoese descent, the doctor can always tell by someone’s speech whether he is Italian or not.
The said Sogliardo had come with another gentleman called Shift, who made his living by giving lessons in elegant smoking to young gentlemen, mostly from the countryside, who wished to become gallants. He and Sogliardo, who was his disciple, had just come back from St. Paul’s Cathedral on the doors of which, as was the custom here, they had posted Señor Shift’s handbills. They even showed us one they had left over. The bill read:
Dr. SHIFT of Oxford
Will teach every young man
In the art of smoking as a perfect
GENTLEMAN & GALLANT,
As well as in the rare skill
Of making corollas of smoke,
The practice of the Cuban ebullition,
Euripus, & whiff
Which he shall take in here in London,
And evaporate at Uxbridge, or farther,
If it pleases him.
“As far as Uxbridge?” I asked, truly amazed.
“If it pleases him,” Dr. Shift nodded. “If not, he can do it even farther.” And as if to prove his words, at that moment he opened his mouth and let out a large puff of smoke which, frankly, I had failed to notice him inhaling.
Then he and Sogliardo began demonstrating their, in my opinion, rather dull abilities. Sogliardo made large smoke rings, through which Mr. Shift, slightly bent forward, blew thick round puffs. Then Sogliardo demonstrated euripus, which means exhaling fumes in perfectly straight lines, equally wide at both ends. He left the Cuban ebullition to Dr. Shift, however, as a particularly difficult number, or so they thought. In this trick, you exhale out your nose and inhale from your pipe very quickly, almost simultaneously, so that puffs of smoke come from your nostrils and the bowl of the pipe, alternating rapidly. I must admit that Mr. Shift had mastered that skill quite well, and soon his head began to resemble a volcano belching out steam. “Just like Vesuvius!” as Señor Louse exclaimed. Everybody was very impressed by Shift and Sogliardo’s skills. Except me, of course.
“That’s nothing special, señores,” I turned to Shift and Sogliardo.
“Nothing special?” Sogliardo exclaimed. “Madre mia! This is the art of smoking in its most perfect form, sir. You can hardly do half of these things, I daresay.”
Everybody at the table looked at me with a mix of pity and contempt, probably imagining that I was overcome with envy. With the exception of Dr. Monardes, of course, who knew the truth. These two fellows and their pathetic tricks would not make a splash in Sevilla at all. You can see a dozen men like them in every pub. But that’s the way it is—Spain is fifty years ahead where tobacco is concerned.
I, for one, have devoted one year, eight months, and three days of my life to the art of smoking, thanks to a small inheritance left to me by my deceased uncle. I made my living with that skill in the last seven months of this period, until Dr. Monardes saw me in a pub and invited me to become his assistant. These English fools never knew—indeed, they could not even imagine—what it means to make your living with this art in a city like Sevilla. They would most likely have been thrashed for showing off tricks such as theirs, because the audience would think their time had been wasted. I myself had been thrown out of the Holy Anchor and two or three other places several times at the beginning of my career. Making those sailors and other vagabonds who puff all day long, from morning till night, pay out of their pockets to see your tricks—well, it was a beastly difficult thing to do, and if you didn’t do it well, it could be very dangerous, too. Seven months. I made my living with that skill, and that skill alone, for seven months. Had it not been for Dr. Monardes, I’d probably still be doing it even now. And I made a pretty penny, by the way. Felipe Rojas and I divided the pubs in Sevilla between ourselves so as not to interfere with each other, and I performed in some of them, he in the others. And don’t think I just waltzed into the spot. I did not. A certain Pedro de Almeida worked there before me, but I ran him out. I still don’t know what happened to him after that. My apologies, but that’s how it goes; this craft is ruthless, as they all are.
“Watch my lips,” I turned to Sogliardo. “You can read, can’t you?”
“Of course,” he replied, a little offended.
My question was indeed inappropriate. But old habits die hard: you always need to ask that question in the taverns of Sevilla.
“All right,” I said. “Watch carefully.”
Then I took a deep drag on the cigarella, held the smoke in my mouth—you must feel that it is under your control, that it obeys to you—rolled it between my cheeks and exhaled: G.
I took another drag on the cigarella and exhaled a vertical line, followed quickly by a dot above it: i.
The next letter was one of the most difficult. I inhaled deeply and half-closed my eyes in concentration. If you have talent for this job and, I would immodestly add, perfect facial muscles, something will speak up in your head at the right moment and say: “Now!”
“Now!” I heard the thing say and exhaled: m.
Then