But I digress. Now isn’t the time for that. I hopped over to the Alcazar Palace and pasted up several notices along the garden wall. Then I entered the garden from Santa Cruz and crossed it in the opposite direction. I came out at Puerta de Jerez and continued on down to Charity Hospital, where I posted one notice, crossed Temprado and went to the Golden Tower, next to which I also pasted up a notice. Arenal is a nice, wealthy neighborhood, so I pasted up notices on the fences, even though I knew that by tomorrow or the next day they would be taken down. I even put one on Don Miguel de Mañara’s wall. You see, Don Miguel had earned himself somewhat enviable fame, thanks first to local rumors, and later to writers and travelling gypsies and their songs. But not under his own name, but as Don Juan the Lover. By the way, they say that when he was up north to seduce women, he introduced himself like that — as Don Juan Tenorio. Well, he paid for his sins with Charity Hospital and even Dr. Monardes saw patients there.
From there I continued on past San Vicente and San Lorenzo, went down Imagen Street, which was packed with people as always, and then entered La Macarena. Here people were poorer, so I planned to be a bit more frugal with the notices. Of course, the poor in Sevilla aren’t like the poor in many other places. Rather, they are far better off — Cervantes was right. But they’re still poor. They never have enough money and live in something like half-slavery. Why? Because they consent to living like that — that’s the main reason. If, as Dr. Monardes used to say, they would quit crossing themselves and grab a staff, things would quickly start to change. But they have let themselves become enslaved by money to such an extent that it’s as though they’ve come to see money as part of Nature, as inevitable as she is. What nonsense! Nature may be all sorts of things, but at least she is all-powerful — oh, indeed! — enormous, omnipotent, and unbreakable, while money is a pathetic turd, a pathetic human fabrication, as fragile inside as all the others. But people are pathetic, too, which is why they give it such power. Since so many people consent to living that way, you’ve clearly come across some dung-hill. Perhaps they think that things can be done by fair means. But in this fallen world nothing can be done by fair means, absolutely nothing, at least not the important things. The important things are done by force or trickery, or by both, but not by fair means. Goodness only multiples the turds. And so the ordinary lives of ordinary people pass in goodness and much philosophizing, they live them out in poverty and privation, rejoicing over this and that, and afterwards they die the most ordinary deaths, and with that everything ends. Nothing special.
Since I was out of cigarellas, I stopped by Carmen la Cigarrera to get a few. She was standing on the corner near the barber shop, as usual, arguing loudly about something with the soldier José. José is very jealous. I thought about joking with her, saying something like “Carmen, in Paris the girls sell flowers, but you sell cigarellas,” but since José was there, I decided against it (and rightly so). After that, since I was right near the barber shop in any case, I decided to stop in for a shave. Don Figaro once again talked my head off with his salacious rumors and cock-and-bull stories, old and new — how thanks to him Count Almaviva was going to marry Rosina, Dr. Bartholo’s ward, how to that end they had bribed the Italian Basilio to pretend to be sick (as if there were anything remarkable at all in bribing an Italian for something), how afterwards Count Almaviva was going to make him, Figaro, his personal aide-de-camp, but he was already starting to have second thoughts about whether to help him, since the count had already started giving the eye to his fiancée, Susanna, how some Doña Elvira or other had arrived from Burgos to look for her lover who had dumped her, and he was sure that it was Don Miguel, and even how Don Pizarro, governor of the prison, had locked up some Florestan, an innocent martyr, completely illegally, and how the latter’s wife had dressed up as a man, joined the city guards under the name Fidelio, and would very soon set him free.
Here I could no longer contain myself and said: “Figaro, who would believe such cock-and-bull?!”
“Oh, they believe it, señor, they believe it,” he replied, laughing. “All kinds of people come through here all day, I find out all sorts of things,” he added and winked at me in the mirror as he whisked the towel off my neck.
“Yes, but still, that some woman would go so far as to dress up as a man and join the city guards, under the name Fidelio no less. . in Spain they would impale you on a spike if you were called Fidelio, for the name alone. . And you say she joined the city guard and so on. Enough already!”
“Oh, love is all-powerful, señor,” he replied. “Amor.”
“All-powerful, my eye!” I objected. “Only if you’re very young and quite foolish, which is usually one and the same thing. Dr. Monardes says, or rather, said, that they thought up love a century or two ago, and that before that, love didn’t exist at all. It’s just some sort of fashion.”
“Well, I am from the fashion business, señor,” Figaro replied.
This time we both laughed. At that moment, Susanna came in with a new bonnet on her head and several more in her hands and started asking him which one he liked best. I even thought about slipping out without paying in the small tumult that ensued, but decided against it. It wasn’t fitting for a Dr. da Silva to do such things. Guimarães would pull such a stunt without a second thought, but not Dr. da Silva. I had to get used to this now. Which reminded me to leave a notice with Figaro. I paid him double to leave it posted up — lots of people really did pass through the barbershop — and left.
By the way, Figaro is such a liar because he is actually Portuguese, his real name is Figueroa.
I headed down towards the river, intending to go to the island, to Triana, and more specifically to the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria, where I planned to paste up a notice or two — lots of people pass by there because of Columbus’ grave — but a happy coincidence saved me the effort. I met Rincon and Cortado on the street as they were on their way to the house of Don Monipodio, the thieves’ boss. In principle, it’s not such a good thing to meet Rincon and Cortado on a deserted street, but still, they were my friends from Don Pedro’s pub, the Three Horses. They agreed to paste up the notices in Triana for a completely modest sum. They said they would do it as a gesture of friendship. I know that when they say they will do something as a gesture of friendship, they usually have something else in mind, so I added that they could come to me for free treatment if they so desired; however, this didn’t seem to excite them too much. I also suggested that they tell Don Monipodio to send his people to me if he wished and I would treat them at a cut rate. Now there’s something, I thought to myself with a certain pride, that wouldn’t even have occurred to Dr. Monardes. To win over these people as clients is not a bad idea at all, the thieves’ guild has quite a lot of funds and plenty of members as well. Rincon said he would tell him, and he and Cortado continued on towards Triana.