I was not particularly convinced, but preferred to stay silent. I was beginning to feel seasick in any case.
“When you vomit, be careful here,” Dr. Monardes said, pointing at the deck beside him. “This is the nail Francisco Rodrigues pricked himself on years ago.”
“Why, haven’t they gotten rid of it?” I exclaimed.
“Nothing ever disappears in Spain, my friend,” the doctor replied and headed for his cabin.
The English are nice chaps, although perhaps a bit foolish. They definitely seem more foolish than the Spaniards, perhaps even more so than the Portuguese; why, they even seem more foolish than those sorry potatoes stuck in the ground — meaning the Bulgarians, of course — although I’m not sure I would be willing to swear to this last statement. The English constantly act witty in order to look smart; although their wit is usually rather trivial. They radiate certain white-bread mediocrity. But I prefer them to the Spaniards. Spain is singed by the sun, supposedly suffused with light, but is, in fact, somehow a dark and bitter country, while England, supposedly veiled in mist and rain, looks somehow green and cheerful; more cheerful, in any case, and gentler. You can say many things to an Englishman and he will keep trying to be smart and witty, while a Spaniard will simply jump up to cut your throat. He calls it pride, but I’m a foreigner and I see it for what it really is: a morbid self-respect, enormous self-love, and an unrestrained nature. You can’t be too careful with a Spaniard. He’s dangerous. And even when he’s warmhearted, he is not cheerful.
The Englishman, on the other hand, is cheerful. I like this very much because I’m a fan of burlesque. As Dr. Monardes says, “What passes for a burlesque in Spain is considered a tragedy in England.” This is indeed the case! You can see nothing resembling English burlesque in Spain. Theater is flourishing here, and burlesques are onstage everywhere. In Spain, they call Lope a comedian! What kind of comedian is he?! Come here if you want to see what burlesque means, what a true farce is!
Señor Frampton introduced us to a remarkable man called Ben, a great connoisseur of theatre and comedy, who was also devoted to burlesques, and he showed us round the theaters. Yesterday, for example, we went to the Globe Theatre to watch a tragedy, which I didn’t mind, since, like I said, English tragedies are like Spanish burlesques. You always have a wonderful time no matter what you’re watching.
Being gallants and beaus, we took seats on the stage itself, on the stools to the side of it. According to local notions, the gallant, generally speaking, is a man who (as Señor Jonson, our friend who took us to the Globe, put it) has nice clothes, shapely legs, white hands, Persian locks, a tolerable beard, a sword, and six pence to pay for the stool. We met almost all the requirements, and certainly the most important of them — the last one.
All the local gallants smoked, though they smoked pipes, a vulgar habit imposed on them by those Anabaptist crooks, the Dutch. Dr. Monardes and I were the only ones smoking cigarellas. The very moment we sat down, the serving-boys gave us a candle each, setting them down on the tables in front of us, and everyone began lighting his pipe; the doctor and I lit our cigarellas. In the meantime, the play had begun. A cloud of tobacco smoke swirled over us and also over the stalls, because many people down there had lit their pipes as well. I heard the actors rather than saw them, because of the aromatic smoke wafting through the air.
“Our valiant Hamlet did slay this Fortinbras,” I heard somebody say at one point, so I squinted to see what was going on, but there were just two men talking about something, wrapped in smoke like angels descending from heaven.
Meanwhile, someone tapped me on the back. When I turned around, I saw a serving-boy. “Hazelnuts, sir? Apples? Walnuts?”
Señor Jonson, who was sitting next to me, said, “I want apples and hazelnuts.”
“The same for me,” I said.
“Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.”
However, I couldn’t see any woman on the stage.[1]
“Who is this Denmark?” I said, turning to Mr. Jonson.
“Well, Denmark is. . never mind.” He waved his hand dismissively as he lit his pipe and, sucking at it with delight, said: “By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here — they do act like so many wrens — not the fifth part of a good face amongst them all.” But he always spoke like that, wherever we went. “At least they don’t sing here,” he added. “Their music is abominable — able to stretch a man’s ears worse than ten pillories, and their ditties — most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that make them — poets. By this vapor — an’t were not for tobacco — I think — the very smell of them would poison me, I should not dare to come in at their gates.” He took the pipe from his mouth and munched a few hazelnuts. “A man were better visit fifteen jails — or a dozen or two hospitals — than once adventure to come near them. . Hazelnuts, sir?”
“No, thanks. I have my own,” I answered.
“Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember’d,” a voice from the smoke reached my ear.
I stared and in the mist made out the vague outlines of a female figure hesitantly stepping towards the man who was speaking. At the next moment, I nearly lost my life! I spat and turned to say something to Señor Jonson and was nearly impaled by a sword whose point, fortunately, was topped with a chunk of apple. As far as I could see, some chap had leaned over and was stretching his sword in front of Señor Jonson and another man, trying to pass the apple to some other bloke sitting on the other side of Dr. Monardes.
“Hey, amigo,” I cried out, “you almost skewered me!”
“A thousand apologies, sir,” he cried out in reply. “That’s for Mr. Perky next to you.”
I drew back, and Mr. Perky in return extended to his friend his own sword, on whose point there seemed to be a piece of pluck. At the first moment, I thought that my eyes, teary from tobacco vapors, were deceiving me, but as the sword passed just under my nose, I caught a certain unmistakable aroma, and then I saw that Dr. Monardes next to me had taken a cigarella in one hand and his Spanish dagger in the other, with a piece of pluck stuck on top of it, and was eating most happily without saying a word to me.
I turned to Ben and said, “Where is this pluck from?”
“From the servants. Two pence. Would you like some?”
“That wouldn’t be half bad,” I answered.
“Hey, boy,” Señor Jonson called out and raised his hand.
“Who’s calling me?” a voice came from behind the vapors.
“Over here, over here,” Ben cried.
“That is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?”
“Don’t suffer! Take arms!” Mr. Perky cried out. Señor Jonson gave a piercing whistle. In a short while, everyone was whistling. I began whistling, too. The chaps in the stalls also began whistling. The man on the stage continued speaking, but nothing could be heard. Then boos were heard from somewhere. We all began booing. Someone with the voice of the Leviathan itself cried out from the stalls, “Boo! Boo!”
A few people from the stalls joined him. Then all the groundlings followed suit. One of us gallants also cried out: “Boo! Boo!”
“Boo! Boo!” I began yelling, too.
“Who called me?” My ears barely caught question. It was as if Fate itself had made me look in that direction because the boy had already turned around to leave.