-Xii-

Doctor Celipín

Señor Centeno, having refreshed his spirit in the blurred columns of the Diario, and Señana, having tasted the most intoxicating delight in weighing the contents of the stocking, went to bed. The children had also gone to rest upon their respective mattresses. In the parlor a droning murmur was heard that sounded like a prayer or a blind man’s ballad; yawns were heard, over which a lazy finger traced the sign of the cross.... The family of stone was asleep.

When the house had become Limbo itself, a faint rustle was heard in the kitchen like that of vermin coming out of their holes to forage for a living. The baskets opened, and Celipín heard these words:

“Celipín, tonight indeed I bring you a fine present; look here.”

Celipín could distinguish nothing; but putting out his hand, he took from María’s two silver duros as bright as two suns, of whose genuineness he satisfied himself by touch, since he could scarcely do so by sight, remaining struck dumb with amazement.

“Don Teodoro gave them to me,” added Nela, “to buy myself some shoes. Since I have no need of shoes for anything, I give them to you, so that you may soon scrape together that sum.”

“By jove! You are better than Holy Mary herself!... Very little is wanting now, Nela, and as soon as I lay hands on half a dozen reales... they will see what Celipín can do.”

“Listen, my boy, he who gave me that money used to wander through the streets begging alms when he was a child, and afterwards....”

“By jove! Who would have thought it!... Don Teodoro.... And now he has more money!... They say what he possesses could not be carried by six mules.”

“And he slept in the streets, and was a servant, and had no breeches... in short, he was as poor as a church mouse. His brother Don Carlos lived in an old-rag warehouse.”

“Good heavens! By jove! What strange things happen in this world.... I too will find myself an old-rag house.”

“And afterwards he had to be a barber to earn his living and be able to study.”

“Look at that... I had it in mind to go straight to a barber’s shop.... I am a dab hand at shaving.... I have no small share of wit, by God’s grace! Once I reach Madrid, shaving on one side and studying on the other, I shall learn all human knowledge in two months. Look you, it has just struck me that I ought to go in for medicine.... Yes, a doctor; for clapping one hand on this pulse and another on that, one fills one’s pockets with gold.”

“Don Teodoro,” said Nela, “had less than you, for you will have five duros, and with five duros it seems everything must fall into your hands. Now for brave men! Don Teodoro and Don Carlos were like birds wandering alone through the world. By their own good management they became learned men. Don Teodoro read in the dead and Don Carlos read in the rocks, and so the two learned how to make complete men of themselves. That is why Don Teodoro is so great a friend to the poor. Celipín, if you had only seen me this afternoon when he carried me on his shoulder.... Afterwards he gave me a glass of milk and looked at me just as people look at ladies.”

“All of us clever men are of that stamp,” observed Celipín with pert self-conceit. “You will see how fine and gallant I shall be when I put on my frock coat and my tall hat a span high. And I shall case my hands too in those things they call gloves, which I never mean to take off except to feel a pulse.... I will have a cane with a gold knob and dress... yes indeed, nothing but fine broadcloth shall touch my skin... By jove! You will laugh when you see me.”

“Do not think yet of soaring so high, for you are barer than an egg,” she told him. “Go step by step: today I learn this, tomorrow that. I advise you, before learning to cure the sick, to learn to write, so that you may send a letter to your mother asking her forgiveness and telling her you left home to improve yourself, to make yourself like Don Teodoro, and to be a right-minded physician.”

“Hold your tongue, woman.... Did you fancy that writing was not the very first thing?... Just let me get a pen in my hand, and you will see what flourishes of letters and what fine up-strokes and down-strokes, like the signature of Don Francisco Penáguilas!... Writing, indeed! Tell me about that... in four days you will see what letters I shall indite.... You will hear them read, and see what conceits of mine and what a flow of rhetoric to strike you all dumb! Confound it, Nela, you do not know what great talents I have. I feel it here inside my skull, going thump-thump, thump-thump, like the water in a steam boiler.... It will scarcely let me sleep, and I think it must be that all the sciences are getting in here, fluttering about in the dark like bats and telling me to study them. All, all the sciences I will learn, and not a single one will I leave out.... You will see...”

“Well, there must be a great many of them. Pablo Penáguilas, who knows them all, has told me there are many, and that a man’s whole lifetime is not enough for a single one.”

“Laugh at that!... You will see me...”

“And the prettiest of all is that of Don Carlos.... For just think of taking a stone and making brass out of it! Others say they make silver and gold too. Turn your mind to that, little Celipín.”

“Undeceive yourself: there is no learning like taking a man by the wrist and looking at his tongue, and telling in a trice in what corner of his body the mischief is lodged.... They say Don Teodoro takes a man’s eye out and puts in a new one, with which he sees as well as if he had been born with it.... Think of seeing a man who is dying, and by ordering him to take, say, half a dozen mosquitoes stewed on a Monday with willow twigs gathered by a maiden named Joan, leaving him sound and healthy—that is something like! You will see, you will see how Don Celipín of Socartes will carry himself. I tell you people will talk of me as far off as Havana.”

“Good, good,” said Nela with joy; “but mind you must be a good son, for if your parents do not wish to teach you, it is because they have no wits; and since you have them, pray to the Most Holy Virgin for them, and do not fail to send them something out of all you are going to earn.”

“That I will do. Look you, though I am leaving home, it is not that I wish my parents ill, and you will see before long a porter coming from the station loaded down ready to burst with huge parcels; and what will they be? Why, petticoats for my mother and sisters and a tall hat for my father. For you I may send a pair of earrings too.”

“You are in a great hurry with your gifts,” said Nela, stifling a laugh. “Earrings for me!...”

“But a thought has just struck me. Would you have me tell it to you? It is that you ought to come along with me, and being two, we would help each other to earn and to learn. You have wits too, for I am not the one to miss sharpness when I see it, and you might well come to be a lady, just as I a gentleman. How I should laugh to see you playing the piano like Doña Sofía!”

“How silly you are! I am good for nothing. If I went with you, I should only be a hindrance to you.”

“Now they say they are going to give sight to Don Pablo, and once he has his sight you have nothing more to do at Socartes. What do you think of my notion?... Do you not answer?”

Some time passed without Nela making any reply. Celipín asked again, without obtaining an answer.

“Go to sleep, Celipín,” said she of the baskets at last. “I am very sleepy.”

“If my genius will let me sleep, in God’s name.”

A minute later he saw himself in a shape like that of Don Teodoro Golfín, fitting new eyes into old sockets, riveting broken legs, and snatching souls from the jaws of death by means of copious drafts of mosquitoes stewed on a Monday with willow twigs gathered by a maiden. He saw himself clad in rich broadcloth, his hands imprisoned in scented gloves, drawn in a carriage by swans instead of horses, summoned by kings or solicited by queens, courted by honorable ladies, praised by grandees, and borne in triumph by all the nations of the earth.