I’d really done it this time. I don’t think I’ve ever found myself in more a serious situation in terms of the risk of losing my position with the doctor. Even when the barn burned down, I wasn’t in such a serious situation. Besides that, I also felt like a bit of a traitor. At the first sign of truly serious danger, I had abandoned the doctor. But I could not force myself to go into that hospital. The things I heard coming from there were not inviting in the least. I wondered how the Drs. Gómez and León could put up with such groaning all day. They gave them anesthetizing substances, of course, but still. .
I started pacing back and forth along the street, my head now entirely empty, or more precisely so mixed up that no one single thought could forge a path and formulate itself clearly. I was simply awaiting my fate, like some helpless animal.
The doctor was very slow to return, unusually slow. He finally came out and got into the carriage. I also got in. Jesús drove off. The doctor did not say anything. He acted as if nothing had happened, yet I sensed a certain change in him. I figured that with time this, too, would pass, like everything else. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to test the effect of time — I kept my place. On the following day, we once again went to the hospital, but this time the doctor did not ask me to go in. He didn’t say anything, but simply entered the courtyard and continued on his way. I remained outside. If he had asked me to go in again, this time I would’ve done it. But he didn’t ask.
“You saved your skin, señor!” Jesús said with that obnoxious little laugh of his.
This time, after he came out of the hospital, the doctor nevertheless spoke about yesterday’s incident, as we were on our way home in the carriage. An awkward silence had reigned between us, awkward for me, at least. I felt like asking him what was going on inside, but of course I didn’t dare. I could just imagine what his answer would be.
The doctor began coughing violently; I handed him my handkerchief, he shook his head, took out his own, and spit into it. Then he cleared his throat and said: “You need will to be a doctor, my friend. You need will to be anything whatsoever, if you’re really going to do it, if you’re really going to be it. Otherwise you’ll remain like that crowd, which is constantly reeling hither and thither, not seeing anything through to its end nor doing it as it should be done, and not getting anywhere in life, unless they’re from a rich or aristocratic family. The world is also full of heaps of those types, nobodies with pedigrees. They owe everything to chance, they are the toys of chance.”
“I am sorry, señor,” I said. “This illness fills me with terror. It is stronger than I am. But next time I will go in with you.”
“There’s no need,” the doctor replied, to my huge relief. “When all is said and done, you won’t gain anything from this. I’ll get fifty thousand maravedis for it, Gómez and León will earn many times that amount, but you won’t earn a thing. Why should you risk your hide? Nor am I the sort of person who would demand such a thing of you. I wouldn’t go so far as to make you risk your life, since you that’s how you see it. But you should know one thing: if you want to become a doctor, if you want to practice this profession, you need will. Not only knowledge, but will. If not in this case, then in another. That’s how it is with everything. Some say that people are by nature good, while others say that people are by nature evil. Both sides are wrong. People, of course, purely and simply come in all sorts. Some are more likely good, while others are more likely evil. And so you, too, are more likely a doctor than anything else. But to change from more likely something into that very something itself, you need will. Most people lack the necessary will and bob between one and the other like orange peels in the river. They go wherever chance and circumstances take them. They do not have the will to be good or evil. Or they lose it over the course of the years,” the doctor clarified. “I’m giving you this example because it is the most widely known. But it is the same with everything else. It’s the same with all professions, with all undertakings. If you want to be successful. There is one thing all losers have in common: a lack of will. Sometimes fate itself, as it is customarily called, can also turn against you and a long string of unfortunate circumstances can ruin anyone, but this happens much, much more rarely. Usually everything comes down to ability and will. Will, Guimarães.”
His words echoed within me, as Pelletier would put it, as in an empty church. I was deeply impressed. Despite this, on the following day I did not go into the hospital. Because I also remembered very well the part about the fifty thousand maravedis and the Drs. Gómez and León. So. .
So as not to detain the readers on this topic any longer, I will quickly add that in any case I did not enter the Five Wounds of Christ at all during the entire epidemic, which ended after several months with the onset of winter. Many people from the other side of the river were stricken, as well as a few from this side. Dr. Monardes, myself, Jesús, and his whole populous family remained unscathed. The Drs. Gómez and León, too. Only two doctors out of the 120 fell ill and died. Jesús once again returned to Triana — unwillingly, of course: the house near Jerez was far nicer than his own. The doctor’s attitude towards me did not change, or at the very least it soon resumed its previous course. On the whole, the plague epidemic turned out to be nowhere near as terrifying as I had imagined. Unlike in the past, we now have at hand the great disinfecting power of tobacco. That changes everything. I even expressed my surprise to the doctor that they did not take advantage of the miraculous medicine’s properties in Italy and France.
“I don’t know why that is.” The doctor shrugged. “Especially in France. Many years have already passed since Jean Nicot from Languedoc introduced tobacco there after serving as ambassador in Spain.”
“He was ambassador in Portugal, señor,” I noted, entirely in passing, simply as a point of clarification.
“Jean Nicot was ambassador in Spain,” repeated the doctor. “Where are you getting this Portugal nonsense?”
“But señor, he was ambassador in Lisbon. Lisbon is in Portugal,” I gently objected.
“Lisbon was in Portugal, before Duke de Alba captured it,” replied the doctor.
Yes, actually he was right. But not entirely. Because Jean Nicot had been ambassador in Portugal before Duke de Alba captured it — which, incidentally, did not have a favorable effect on the duke, since he died there, in Lisbon. . But be that as it may, I kept silent.
Overall, I could say that I came away with several lessons from this whole story of the plague epidemic. First, that tobacco truly is a much stronger medicine than even I had thought. Second, that in certain rarely occurring circumstances, normally connected with some disaster, one must act quickly and decisively and must be able to extract from them benefits for many years to come, which would otherwise be unimaginable. Third — yes, will is necessary; it is more important than we think. I’ve forgotten the other lessons.
By the way, Countess Béjar sent the doctor six hundred ducats for curing her headaches. She calculated that she had suffered from headaches for twenty-four years and sent him twenty-five ducats for each one of them (two ducats a month, plus one extra to round out the sum). This was four times more than he received from the municipality for treating the sick during the plague, since during the epidemic the maravedi lost value and fifty thousand became equivalent to 150 ducats, or even less. The municipality, however, paid only in maravedis. Only royal officials and merchants paid in ducats. Of course, Dr. Monardes’ main income in this case came from the fumigation of the city. I don’t know what the exact figure in question is, but I would guess that it is very large.
After he received this gift from the countess — because it was a gift — the doctor dedicated the new edition of his book Historia medicinal to her. That’s what it says on the title page: “To Countess Béjar.” This latter amused him greatly. He considered it one of his cleverest jokes. From time to time he would laugh for no reason and this was because at that moment he was thinking of how he had dedicated his book to Countess Béjar. I also find it an excellent joke, which few can appreciate. “A historical joke,” as Pelletier would say.