Meanwhile, the boy had brought the pluck; a pleasant aromatic vapor hung over it. Since I wanted to try the sword trick for myself, I asked for Mr. Jonson’s sword, stuck a bit of pluck on the tip, reached past Dr. Monardes and said: “This is for you, Mr. Perky.”
Mr. Perky put his hand to his heart and gave a slight bow.
Señor Jonson, whose head was enveloped in vapor from his pipe, was talking about something with his neighbor on his other side and had been spitting on my feet for some time; inadvertently, of course. Pipes make you spit quite a bit, incidentally. After some hesitation (during which time he continued to spit on my feet), I gently tapped him on the shoulder and said: “My friend, you’re spitting on my shoes.”
“Really?” Señor Jonson said, very surprised. “A thousand apologies, mate.”
That’s what they say here—“a thousand apologies.” Who would apologize to you in Spain? If you asked for an apology, a Spaniard would take that as an insult.
“Now, listen here,” Señor Jonson said after a while, taking a drag on his pipe, “that’s a great phrase . . . That man Bill . . . he always does that . . . he puts one ingenious phrase . . . in a sea of nonsense.” He tossed two hazelnuts into his mouth. “Here is it.” Señor Jonson raised a finger. “Now!”
“What’s Hecuba to him,” the line resounded from the stage, “or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?”
“Marvelous!” I exclaimed, throwing up my hands.
“Isn’t it? Bravo! Bravo!” Señor Jonson cried out and broke into applause.
“Bravo!” I called out as well.
The gallants joined in. However, I suspect that our enthusiasm would soon have subsided unnoticed if that mighty voice from the stalls had not come to our aid.
“Bravo!” the Leviathan thundered and began applauding. His applause was also gargantuan, it echoed like cannon shots.
Who is that giant, who is that Gargantua? I wondered and turned to the stalls, but nothing could be seen there, since it was enveloped by smoke.
Soon everybody was crying Bravo! Bravo! and applauding. Then someone began whistling. Mr. Perky, Dr. Monardes, and Señor Jonson beat out the others, being the first to begin booing.
Naturally, I joined them immediately. Amidst the general heckling, a thunderous voice could again be heard from the pit: “Boo! Boo!”
“Boo!” we also began shouting.
Soon everybody was booing and stamping their feet.
That’s how things happen in reality, I suddenly thought, who knows why. All sorts of thoughts cross your mind in such a situation.
“With sorrow I embrace my fortune,” a spectacularly dressed man said from the stage. He approached us, grabbed Señor Jonson’s pipe, took two drags, and went back to the stage, showered by universal applause.
“That’s Fortinbras,” Señor Jonson yelled at me. “He’s one of a kind!”
“Take up the bodies,” the stylish man continued and kicked one of the men lying on the stage. “Such a sight as this becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.”
A moment later, the bodies got up and began bowing to the audience.
“What, it can’t be over so soon?” I cried out, extremely disappointed. An excellent play!
The audience got to its feet and began applauding wildly, accompanying that with salutatory cries.
While rising, I inadvertently overturned my plate of pluck. With almost superhuman dexterity, Dr. Monardes speared a chunk of it on his dagger in mid-air and brought it to his lips, without a word.
“Damnation!” I said, staring at the pluck scattered on the ground, clapping my hands all the while.
Well, that was all for tonight.
“What a marvelous play!” I said to Señor Jonson as we walked in the fresh, cool air of the London night.
“Yes. The audience here has good taste and is very hard to please. You can’t put on just any old play,” Mr. Jonson replied. “But this is nothing! You should see Every Man out of His Humor. Now there’s a true burlesque! Phenomenal! This was still a tragedy, after all.”
“Yes,” I said and, absorbed in the conversation, nearly bumped into the legs of some thief hanged on the Tower Bridge. “Why on earth do they have to put them here?” I exclaimed.
“Oh, nobody pays them any attention.” Señor Jonson waved dismissively. “Unless they begin to smell bad.” He pointed at his pipe and added: “But with the help of this, you almost don’t smell anything at all.”
[1] This is an untranslatable pun, as the name of the country Denmark sounds like a woman’s name in Bulgarian.
3b.
The Title Will Be Thought Up in December
People often seem wretched, and Nature—harsh and indifferent. Where to in such a world? you may ask yourself, eyebrows arched, extremely confused.
“Go to the cities,” Dr. Monardes says. “You should love cities, unless you are a fool, a rustic.” I am coming to love cities more and more. Cities and lights. Especially at night, when a light rain washes the dusty, empty streets, over which floats a transparent mist, while street lamps shed their light on the gutters running with gurgling droplets—it’s like a hot spring with steam above it—at such moments, cities are magnificent. Given my preferences—my love of cities and a deep interest in medicine—I wonder whether I’m not a Renaissance man and a humanist, too. In any case, I think it is not entirely out of the question. Not out of the question at all.
Then two phrases began intrusively running through my head: “Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father, Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father;” who knows why. I was heading for Ram Alley, near Fleet Street. I was bound for Louse & Barker’s tobacco shop, which was open at night. They sold not only tobacco but spirits as well, though the latter unofficially. Dr. Monardes was already there. While I was hopping over the puddles along the road, my cigarella kept going out in the drizzle. Since I was still far from Louse & Barker’s, it was quite quiet. Fitful gusts of wind were the only sound. It also seemed to me—although perhaps I was mistaken?—that in the distance I could hear the roar, the splash of the Thames, which, I thought, quite resembled the Guadalquivir. Urbi et Orbi, the Holy Father.
“Oh, there’s Guimarães,” Dr. Monardes cried when I arrived.
He was sitting at a table with the two proprietors, Timothy Louse and John Barker. Señor Jonson was also there, as well as Señor Frampton and two other men I didn’t know. One of them was dressed like something between an Italian and a jester, insofar as those are different things, and was constantly declaring that he was from Italy and that his name was Sogliardo. He lavishly accompanied these claims with Italian words and phrases.
Dr. Monardes has one gesture, which is as unforgettable
