After that, we daubed Don Pedro’s sore spots with the tobacco juice, then placed the heated leaves on top of them, binding them in place with strips of cloth soaked in the tobacco juice. This turned out to be a long and difficult job, since Don Pedro had to keep turning over from his back to his stomach and vice-versa, yet he couldn’t manage this on his own and we had to help him, meanwhile the leaves on his back would fall off and I had to keep them in place, worrying all the while about what would happen if Don Pedro didn’t manage to turn over and accidentally rolled back the other way — I did not discount the possibility of him breaking my arms, to tell you the truth — in short, the whole business dragged on much longer than usual, and at one point I even had to reheat the tobacco juice, as it had cooled off. After we had finally bound him up, with tobacco leaves under his bandages, we went back to Dr. Monardes’ house. We would return two hours later to repeat the procedure. It would be done three whole times the first day.
When we returned for the second round of bandaging, we found Don Pedro in a slightly better state, as he was able to roll about in bed far more easily. We repeated everything — the daubing, the leaves, the hot bandages on top.
When we returned the third time, we found Don Pedro already sitting up in bed.
“I’m hot,” he said and tugged at the collars of his undershirt, which had a slit down to the chest. “I’m really hot. But I feel a lot better, doctor. I can barely feel the pain anymore.”
“Now we’ll get rid of it entirely!” the doctor replied decisively, visibly enheartened by this turn of events. Dr. Monardes’ face always glows when a treatment is going well, he starts to look downright happy. And knowing how much he loves people, my only explanation for this is that he experiences deep professional satisfaction in such cases. Surely he says to himself something like: “Look, I was right again. Once again, I did exactly what needed to be done.” In any case, his satisfaction is enormous and his face takes on a kinder, somehow even cheerful expression. It is pleasant to work with Dr. Monardes at such moments. He starts to seem even more decisive, even more confident, his mind grows sharper than ever, his movements become lighter and more exact, his compact, agile figure itself begins to exude some lightness, even gracefulness, I daresay.
This time the procedure went much more easily, incomparably so. As we were placing the hot leaves on his knees, Don Pedro even stood up to make it easier for us.
“How are you?” Dr. Monardes asked him.
“Much better,” Don Pedro replied. “Except that I’m really hot.”
As we tied on his bandages, he kept panting and tugging aside the collar of his shirt, which was already completely open. “Really hot, really hot,” he said over and over. Finally, he simply grasped the bottom of his shirt with his bandaged hands, with the tobacco leaves sticking out over his fingers, and slipped it off over his head.
“He mustn’t catch cold,” I turned to the doctor, since the day was a cool, autumn day. The doctor himself looked shaken.
“You mustn’t catch cold, Don Pedro,” he turned to the tavern keeper.
“Then you’ll cure my cold, doctor,” Don Pedro laughed. “I can’t take it anymore. I’m really hot.”
Without a doubt, he looked far better.
The doctor decided to complement the procedure with something we had not done until then — or, at least, something I had not seen him do since I had been his student.
“We’ll strike the iron while it’s hot,” he said and patted Don Pedro on the shoulder, making his flesh jiggle like jelly.
Don Pedro laughed in response. The doctor asked the servant Maria to bring a tin dish and did the following: he reached into his bag of tobacco leaves, pulled one out, which, however, did not please him, so he dropped it back in and pulled out another medium-sized leaf, which was not remarkable in any way at first glance, then he went over to the half-extinguished fire, took out two glowing coals with a pair of tongs, put them in the brazier, brought it over to the table, lit the leaf, dropped it into the dish, bent down, waved his hand over it twice, directing the smoke towards his nose, and, looking visibly satisfied, turned to me and said: “Guimarães, come here and help move this table over to the bed.”
“Step back, boy,” Don Pedro said to me. “I’ll grab it from this end.”
“Don’t, Pedro,” the doctor tried to stop him. “You mustn’t strain yourself.”
“Don’t worry,” Don Pedro replied.
The doctor did not object, but rather stepped back from his end of the table and gave me a telling look. Yes, of course. I went over and grabbed that end. Then Don Pedro and I moved the table several feet, next to the bed. The table was not heavy.
“Now sit on the bed, Don Pedro, and inhale the tobacco vapors.”
Don Pedro sat on the bed, pulled the plate with the slightly burning leaf towards himself, bent over it, and began inhaling the vapors. Here I must clarify, so as not to leave the reader with an incorrect impression, that, of course, the leaf was not burning with a flame, but was simply smoldering in the dish. The vapor it exuded was thick and strong.
While Don Pedro inhaled the tobacco vapors and nodded his head, Dr. Monardes explained to him how the treatment would proceed henceforth. For a week, we would come to change Don Pedro’s bandages twice a day, and after that once every three days as long as was necessary — but it would hardly last longer than a month, the doctor said — and we would no longer apply the tobacco leaves, but would just bind him in the bandages soaked in tobacco juice.
But man proposes, God disposes, as the superstitious peasants say. In fact, all of our plans got muddled up, although “muddled” is hardly the right word for it.
For just as he was leaning over the dish with the tobacco leaf, inhaling and nodding his head, his two huge palms planted on the table to either side of the dish, at a certain point Don Pedro stood up abruptly, with a simultaneously glowing, hazy, and somehow dazed look — an unforgettable look, which seemed to pass right over our heads — and strode decisively to the door, clomped down the stairs, and went out into the yard, naked to the waist, in the cold evening air.
“Oh ho hoooo, some cool air!” he said and flung open his arms, his hands squeezed into fists which he swung left and right, as if they had been cramped up, while the flesh on his elbows and shoulders shook mightily. “It’s hot. Hot!”
Afterwards, under our astonished gaze, he went over to the grindstone he used to sharpen knives for the tavern, grabbed it with both hands and simply tore it out of the ground. Yes, he literally tore it out, as if pulling a cork from a bottle. Then he tossed it aside and shouted: “I feel reborn!”
The doctor and I exchanged glances, but only for the briefest of moments, since our attention was once again drawn to Don Pedro, who went over to two grindstones that were stacked one on top of the other off to the right and first lifted the one and threw it aside, then the other.
“Ughhhh!” Don Pedro said.
He set off for the other end of the yard, which was strewn with old tables and other smashed up things from the tavern, passing by a large jug on his way, which he lifted and hurled off to the side, where it fell and shattered on the ground with a crash, water spilling from it. Don Pedro laughed and continued on his way. He reached the end of the yard and began tossing the smashed up tables and chairs into a pile in the very corner near the fence.
“This place hasn’t been cleaned up in years, doctor,” he yelled and hurled a broken three-legged stool onto the pile.
“Don Pedro,” the doctor called in response, “that’s enough now, don’t strain yourself, you need to take care.”