listening to him, said aloud, "There is little or nothing that you can
say of us, Señor Phial, for we are people of great worth, and very
useful servants to the commonwealth." To which the man of glass replied,
"The honour of the master exalts the honour of the servant. You,
therefore, who call those who hire your mules your masters, see whom you
serve, and what honour you may borrow from them; for your employers are
some of the dirtiest rubbish that this earth endures.
"Once, when I was not a man of glass, I was travelling on a mule which I
had hired, and I counted in her master one hundred and twenty-one
defects, all capital ones, and all enemies to the human kind. All
muleteers have a touch of the ruffian, a spice of the thief, and a dash
of the mountebank. If their masters, as they call those they take on
their mules, be of the butter-mouthed kind, they play more pranks with
them than all the rogues of this city could perform in a year. If they
be strangers, the muleteers rob them; if students, they malign them; if
monks, they blaspheme them; but if soldiers, they tremble before them.
These men, with the sailors, the carters, and the arrieros or pack
carriers, lead a sort of life which is truly singular, and belongs to
themselves alone.
"The carter passes the greater part of his days in a space not more than
a yard and a half long, for there cannot be much more between the yoke
of his mules and the mouth of his cart. He is singing for one half of
his time, and blaspheming the other; and if he have to drag one of his
wheels out of a hole in the mire, he is more aided, as it might seem,
by two great oaths than by three strong mules.
"The mariners are a pleasant people, but little like those of the towns,
and they can speak no other language than that used in ships. When the
weather is fine they are very diligent, but very idle, when it is
stormy. During the tempest they order much and obey little. Their ship,
which is their mess-room, is also their god, and their pastime is the
torment endured by sea-sick passengers.
"As to the mule-carriers, they are a race which has taken out a divorce
from all sheets, and has married the pack-saddle. So diligent and
careful are these excellent men, that to save themselves from losing a
day, they will lose their souls. Their music is the tramp of a hoof;
their sauce is hunger; their matins are an exchange of abuse and bad
words; their mass is--to hear none at all."
While speaking thus, Rodaja stood at an apothecary's door, and turning
to the master of the shop, he said, "Your worship's occupation would be
a most salutary one if it were not so great an enemy to your lamps."
"Wherein is my trade an enemy to my lamps?" asked the apothecary.
"In this way," replied Rodaja; "whenever other oils fail you,
immediately you take that of the lamp, as being the one which most
readily comes to hand. But there is, indeed, another fault in your
trade, and one that would suffice to ruin the most accredited physician
in the world." Being asked what that was, he replied that an apothecary
never ventured to confess, or would admit, that any drug was absent from
his stock; and so, if he have not the medicine prescribed, he makes use
of some other which, in his opinion, has the same virtues and qualities;
but as that is very seldom the case, the medicine, being badly
compounded, produces an effect contrary to that expected by the
physician.
Rodaja was then asked what he though, of the physicians themselves, and
he replied as follows: "_Honora medicum propter necessitatem, etenim
creavit cum altissimus: à Deo enim est omnis medela, et a rege accipiet
donationem: disciplina medici exaltavit caput illius, et in conspectu
magnatum collaudabitur. Altissimus de terra creavit medicinam, et vir
prudens non abhorrebit illam._ Thus," he added, "speaketh the Book of
Ecclesiasticus, of Medicine, and good Physicians; but of the bad ones we
may safely affirm the very contrary, since there are no people more
injurious to the commonwealth than they are. The judge may distort or
delay the justice which he should render us; the lawyer may support an
unjust demand; the merchant may help us to squander our estate, and, in
a word, all those with whom we have to deal in common life may do us
more or less injury; but to kill us without fear and standing quietly at
his ease; unsheathing no other sword than that wrapped in the folds of a
recipe, and without being subject to any danger of punishment, that can
be done only by the physician; he alone can escape all fear of the
discovery of his crimes, because at the moment of committing them he
puts them under the earth. When I was a man of flesh, and not of glass,
as I now am, I saw many things that might be adduced in support of what
I have now said, but the relation of these I refer to some other time."
A certain person asked him what he should do to avoid envying another,
and Rodaja bade him go to sleep, for, said he, "While you sleep you will
be the equal of him whom you envy."
It happened on a certain occasion that the Criminal Judge passed before
the place where Rodaja stood. There was a great crowd of people, and two
alguazils attended the magistrate, who was proceeding to his court, when
Rodaja inquired his name. Being told, he replied, "Now, I would lay a
wager that this judge has vipers in his bosom, pistols in his inkhorn,
and flashes of lightning in his hands, to destroy all that shall come
within his commission. I once had a friend who inflicted so exorbitant a
sentence in respect to a criminal commission which he held, that it
exceeded by many carats the amount of guilt incurred by the crime of the
delinquents. I inquired of him wherefore he had uttered so cruel a
sentence, and committed so manifest an injustice? To which he replied
that he intended to grant permission of appeal, and that in this way he
left the field open for the Lords of the Council to show their mercy by
moderating and reducing that too rigorous punishment to its due
proportions. But I told him it would have been still better for him to
have given such a sentence as would have rendered their labour
unnecessary, by which means he would also have merited and obtained the
reputation of being a wise and exact judge."
Among the number of those by whom Rodaja, as I have said, was constantly
surrounded, was an acquaintance of his own, who permitted himself to be
saluted as the Señor Doctor, although Thomas knew well that he had not
taken even the degree of bachelor. To him, therefore, he one day said,
"Take care, gossip mine, that you and your title do not meet with the
Fathers of the Redemption, for they will certainly take possession of
your doctorship as being a creature unrighteously detained captive."
"Let us behave well to each other, Señor Glasscase," said the other,
"since you know that I am a man of high and profound learning."
"I know you rather to be a Tantalus in the same," replied Rodaja; "for
if learning reach high to you, you are never able to plunge into its
depths."
He was one day leaning against the stall of a tailor, who was seated
with his hands before him, and to whom he said--
"Without doubt, Señor Maeso,[56] you are in the way to salvation."
[56] Master.
"From what symptom do you judge me to be so, Señor Doctor?" inquired the
tailor.
"From the fact that, as you have nothing to do, so you have nothing to
lie about, and may cease lying, which is a great step."
Of the shoemakers he said, that not one of that trade ever performed his
office badly; seeing that if the shoe be too narrow, and pinches the
foot, the shoemaker says, "In two hours it will be as wide as an
alpargate;" or he declares it right that it should be narrow, since the
shoe of a gentleman must needs fit closely; and if it be too wide, he
maintains that it still ought to be so, for the ease of the foot, and
lest a man should have the gout.
Seeing the waiting-maid of an actress attending her mistress, he said
she was much to be pitied who had to serve so many women, to say nothing
of the men whom she also had to wait on; and the bystanders requiring to
know how the damsel, who had but to serve one, could be said to wait on
so many, he replied, "Is she not the waiting-maid of a queen, a nymph,
a goddess, a scullery-maid, and a shepherdess? besides that she is also
the servant of a page and a lackey? for all these, and many more, are in
the person of an actress."
Some one asked Rodaja, who had been the happiest man in the world? To
which he answered--"_Nemo_, seeing that _Nemo novit patrem--Nemo sine
crimine vivit--Nemo sua sorte contentus--Nemo ascendit in coelum_," &c.
&c.
Of the fencing masters he said, that they were professors of an art
which was never to be known when it was most wanted, since they
pretended to reduce to mathematical demonstrations, which are
infallible, the angry thoughts and movements of a man's adversaries.
To such men as dyed their beards, Rodaja always exhibited a particular
enmity; and one day observing a Portuguese, whose beard he knew to be
dyed, in dispute with a Spaniard, to whom he said, "I swear by the beard
that I wear on my face," Rodaja called out to him, "Halt there, friend;
you should not say that you _wear_ on your face, but that you dye on
your face."[57] To another, whose beard had been streaked by an
imperfect dye, Doctor Glasscase said, "Your beard is of the true
dust-coloured pieball." He related, on another occasion, that a certain
damsel, discreetly conforming to the will of her parents, had agreed to
marry an old man with a white beard, who, on the evening before his
marriage was to take place, thought fit to have his beard dyed, and
whereas he had taken it from the sight of his betrothed as white as
snow, he presented it at the altar with a colour blacker than that of
pitch.
[57] Here Rodaja spoke mockingly, an impure Portuguese, and not Spanish
(_olhay_, _homen_, _naon_, _digais_, _teno_, _sino tino_). The spirit of
the remark (as in some other passages omitted for that reason) consists
in a play on words resembling each other in sound, though not in sense,
and is necessarily lost in translation.
Seeing this, the damsel turned to her parents and requested them to give
her the spouse they had promised, saying that she would have him, and no
other.
They assured her, that he whom she there saw was the person they had
before shewn her, and given her for her spouse: but she refused to
believe it, maintaining, that he whom her parents had given her was a
grave person, with a white beard: nor was she, by any means, to be
persuaded that the dyed man before her was her betrothed, and the
marriage was broken off.
Towards Duennas he entertained as great a dislike as towards those who
dyed their beards--uttering wonderful things respecting their falsehood
and affectation, their tricks and pretences, their simulated scruples
and their real wickedness,--reproaching them with their fancied maladies
of stomach, and the frequent giddiness with which they were afflicted in
the head; nay, even their mode of speaking, was made the subject of his
censure; and he declared that there were more turns in their speech than
folds in their great togas and wide gowns; finally, he declared them
altogether useless, if not much worse.
Being one day much tormented by a hornet which settled on his neck, he
nevertheless refused to take it off, lest in seeking to catch the insect
he should break himself; but he still complained woefully of the sting.
Some one then remarked to him, that it was scarcely to be supposed he
would feel it much, since his whole person was of glass. But Rodaja
replied, that the hornet in question must needs be a slanderer, seeing
that slanderers were of a race whose tongues were capable of penetrating
bodies of bronze, to say nothing of glass.
A monk, who was enormously fat, one day passed near where Rodaja was
sitting, when one who stood by ironically remarked, that the father was
so reduced and consumptive, as scarcely to be capable of walking.
Offended by this, Rodaja exclaimed, "Let none forget the words of Holy
Scripture, '_Nolite tangere Christos meos_;' and, becoming still more
heated, he bade those around him reflect a little, when they would see,
that of the many saints canonised, and placed among the number of the
blessed by the Church within a few years in those parts, none had been
called the Captain Don Such a one, or the Lawyer Don So and So, or the
Count Marquis, or Duke of Such a Place; but all were brother Diego,
brother Jacinto, or brother Raimundo: all monks and friars, proceeding,
that is to say, from the monastic orders." "These," he added, "are the
orange-trees of heaven, whose fruits are placed on the table of God." Of
evil-speakers Rodaja said, that they were like the feathers of the eagle
which gnaw, wear away, and reduce to nothing, whatever feathers of
other birds are mingled with them in beds or cushions, how good soever
those feathers may be.
Concerning the keepers of gaming-houses he uttered wonders, and many
more than can here be repeated--commending highly the patience of a
certain gamester, who would remain all night playing and losing; yea,
though of choleric disposition by nature, he would never open his mouth
to complain, although he was suffering the martyrdom of Barabbas,
provided only his adversary did not cut the cards. At a word, Rodaja
uttered so many sage remarks, that, had it not been for the cries he
sent forth when any one approached near enough to touch him, for his
peculiar dress, slight food, strange manner of eating, and sleeping in
the air, or buried in straw, as we have related, no one could have
supposed but that he was one of the most acute persons in the world.
He remained more than two years in this condition; but, at the end of
that time, a monk of the order of St. Jerome, who had extraordinary
powers in the cure of lunacy, nay, who even made deaf and dumb people
hear and speak in a certain manner; this monk, I say, undertook the care
and cure of Rodaja, being moved thereto by the charity of his
disposition. Nor was it long before the lunatic was restored to his
original state of judgment and understanding. When the cure was
effected, the monk presented his patient with his previous dress of a
doctor of laws, exhorting him to return to his earlier mode of life, and
assuring him that he might now render himself as remarkable for the
force of his intellect, as he had before done for his singular folly.
Thomas returned accordingly to his past pursuits; but, instead of
calling himself Rodaja, as before, he assumed the name of Rueda. He had
scarcely appeared in the street, before he was recognised by the boys;
but seeing him in a dress so different from that he had before worn and
been known by, they dared not cry after him or ask him questions, but
contented themselves with saying, one to another, "Is not this the
madman, Doctor Glasscase? It is certainly he; and though he now looks so
discreet, he may be just as mad in this handsome dress as he was in that
other. Let us ask him some questions, and get rid of our doubts."
All this was heard by Thomas, who maintained silence, but felt much
confused, and hurried along more hastily than he had been wont to do
before he regained his senses. The men at length made the same remarks
as the boys and before he had arrived at the courts he had a train of
more than two hundred persons of all classes following him, being more
amply attended than the most popular professor of the university.
Having gained the first court, which is that of the entrance, these
people ended by surrounding him completely; when, perceiving that he was
so crowded on as no longer to have the power of proceeding, he finally
raised his voice, and said--
"Señores, it is true that I am Doctor Glass-case, but not he whom you
formerly knew. I am now Doctor Rueda. Misfortunes such as not
unfrequently happen in this world, by the permission of heaven, had
deprived me of my senses, but the mercy of God has restored them; and by
those things which you have heard me say when I was mad, you may judge
of what I shall say now that I am become sane. I am a doctor in laws of
the university of Salamanca, where I studied in much poverty, but raised
myself through all the degrees to that I now hold; but my poverty may
serve to assure you that I owe my rank to industry and not to favour. I
have come to this great sea of the Court, hoping to swim and get forward
and gain the bread of my life; but if you do not leave me I shall be
more likely to sink and find my death. For the love of God, I entreat
that you follow me no further, since, in doing so, you persecute and
injure me. What you formerly enquired of me in the streets, I beg you
now to come and ask me at my house, when you shall see that the
questions to which I before replied, impromptu, shall be more perfectly
answered now that I shall take time to consider."
All listened to him, many left him as he desired, and he returned to his
abode with a much smaller train. But it was every day the same: his
exhortations availed nothing; and Thomas finally resolved to repair to
Flanders, there to support himself by the strength of his arm, since he
could no longer profit by that of his intellect.
This resolution he executed accordingly, exclaiming as he departed--"Oh,
city and court! you by whom the expectations of the bold pretender are
fulfilled, while the hopes of the modest labourer are destroyed; you who
abundantly sustain the shameless Buffoon, while the worthy sage is left
to die of hunger; I bid you farewell." That said, he proceeded to
Flanders, where he finished in arms the life which he might have
rendered immortal by letters, and died in the company of his friend the
Captain Don Diego, leaving behind him the reputation of a most valiant
soldier and upright man.
THE DECEITFUL MARRIAGE
From the Hospital of the Resurrection, which stands just beyond the
Puerta del Campo, in Valladolid, there issued one day a soldier, who, by
the excessive paleness of his countenance, and the weakness of his
limbs, which obliged him to lean upon his sword, showed clearly to all
who set eyes on him that, though the weather was not very warm, he must
have sweated a good deal in the last few weeks. He had scarcely entered
the gate of the city, with tottering steps, when he was accosted by an
old friend who had not seen him for the last six months, and who
approached the invalid, making signs of the cross as if he had seen a
ghost. "What; is all this?" he cried; "do I, indeed, behold the Señor
Alferez[58] Campuzano? Is it possible that I really see you in this
country? Why, I thought you were in Flanders trailing a pike, instead of
hobbling along with your sword for a walking-stick. How pale--how
emaciated you look!"
[58] Alferez, Ensign.
"As to whether I am in this country or elsewhere, Sigñor Licentiate
Peralta, the fact that you now see me is a sufficient answer," replied
Campuzano; "as for your other questions, all I can tell you is, that I
have just come out of that hospital, where I have been confined for a
long time in a dreadful state of health, brought upon me by the conduct
of a woman I was indiscreet enough to make my wife."
"You have been married, then?" said Peralta.
"Yes, Señor."
"Married without benefit of clergy, I presume. Marriages of that sort
bring their own penance with them."
"Whether it was without benefit of clergy I cannot say," replied the
Alferez; "but I can safely aver that it was not without benefit of
physic. Such were the torments of body and soul which my marriage
brought upon me, that those of the body cost me forty sudations to cure
them, and, as for those of the soul, there is no remedy at all that can
relieve them. But excuse me, if I cannot hold a long conversation in the
street; another day I will, with more convenience, relate to you my
adventures, which are the strangest and most singular you ever heard in
all the days of your life."
"That will not do," said the licentiate; "I must have you come to my
lodgings, and there we will do penance together.[59] You will have an
olla, very fit for a sick man; and though it is scantly enough for two,
we will make up the deficiency with a pie and a few slices of Rute ham,
and, above all, with a hearty welcome, not only now, but whenever you
choose to claim it."
[59] A common form of invitation, meaning we will partake of a poor
repast.
Campuzano accepted the polite invitation. They turned into the church of
San Lorente and heard mass, and then Peralta took his friend home,
treated him as he had promised, repeated his courteous offers, and
requested him after dinner to relate his adventures. Campuzano, without
more ado, began as follows:--
You remember, Señor Licentiate Peralta, how intimate I was in this city
with Captain Pedro de Herrera, who is now in Flanders. "I remember it
very well," replied Peralta. Well, one day when we had done dinner in
the Posada della Solana, where we lived, there came in two ladies of
genteel appearance, with two waiting women: one of the ladies entered
into conversation with the Captain, both leaning against a window; the
other sat down in a chair beside me, with her veil low down, so that I
could not see her face, except so far as the thinness of the texture
allowed. I entreated her to do me the favour to unveil, but I could not
prevail, which the more inflamed my desire to have sight of her; but
what especially increased my curiosity was that, whether on purpose, or
by chance, the lady displayed a very white hand, with very handsome
rings.
At that time I made a very gallant appearance with that great chain you
have seen me wear, my hat with plumes and bands, my flame-coloured
military garments, and, in the eyes of my own folly, I seemed so
engaging that I imagined all the women must fall in love with me! Well,
I implored her to unveil. "Be not importunate," she replied; "I have a
house; let a servant follow me; for though I am of more honourable
condition than this reply of mine would indicate, yet for the sake of
seeing whether your discretion corresponds to your gallant appearance, I
will allow you to see me with less reserve." I kissed her hand for the
favour she granted me, in return for which I promised mountains of gold.
The captain ended his conversation, the ladies went away, and a servant
of mine followed them. The captain told me that what the lady had been
asking of him was to take some letters to Flanders to another captain,
who she said was her cousin, though he knew he was nothing but her
gallant.
For my part I was all on fire for the snow-white hands I had seen, and
dying for a peep at the face; so I presented myself next day at the door
which my servant pointed out to me, and was freely admitted. I found
myself in a house very handsomely decorated and furnished, in presence
of a lady about thirty years of age, whom I recognised by her hands. Her
beauty was not extraordinary, but of a nature well suited to fascinate
in conversation; for she talked with a sweetness of tone that won its
way through the ears to the soul. I had long _tête-à-têtes_ with her, in
which I made love with all my might: I bragged, bounced, swaggered,
offered, promised, and made all the demonstrations I thought necessary
to work myself into her good graces; but as she was accustomed to such
offers and protestations, she listened to them with an attentive, but
apparently far from credulous ear. In short, during the four days I
continued to visit her, our intercourse amounted only to talking soft
nonsense, without my being able to gather the tempting fruit.