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 junctio of 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