Here I figured out that one was a dramatic poet and the other an actor. The actor advised the poet to prune some of the cardinals if he didn’t want to make it impossible to stage the play. To which the poet said that the actor should be grateful he hadn’t put in the whole conclave that assembled for this memorable episode, which he was only trying to engrave in audiences’ memories with his brilliant play. The actor laughed and left him in this chore to go to his own, which was studying a role in another new drama. The poet, after writing some more stanzas of his magnificent play, unhurriedly and with great dignity removed from a sack some breadcrumbs and about twenty raisins, which I know because I counted them. I actually doubt there were that many, because the breadcrumbs mixed in made them look like more. He blew away the crumbs and, one by one, ate the raisins—and the stems, since I didn’t see him throw anything away. He helped it all down with some moldy crusts, fuzzy with the lint of his pockets, and so stale that though he tried to soften them, shifting them around in his mouth, their dryness was too much for him. All this worked to my advantage, since he threw them to me and said,
“Here, boy. Take this and enjoy it.”
Look what nectar or ambrosia this poet gives me, I said to myself, on which they say gods and Apollo feed in heaven!
In short, the neediness of poets is enormous, but my need was greater, because I had to eat what a poet threw away. The whole time he was working on his play, he never forgot to come to the orchard, nor did I want for crusts, since he shared them with me generously. Then we’d go to the well, where, he sipping from a bucket and me just snorfling away, we quenched our thirst like kings. So when the poet moved on and my hunger remained, I decided to leave the morisco and enter the city to seek adventure, since you always have to go out and meet your luck halfway.
On entering the city, I saw my playwright leaving the famous monastery of St. Geronimo. When he noticed me he rushed over with open arms, and I ran to him with redoubled affection. Right away he started to pull apart pieces of bread, softer than those he used to bring to the orchard, and put them in my mouth without putting them in his first—a gesture that soothed my hunger even more. The soft crumbs, and the sight of my poet leaving that soup kitchen, made me suspect that his muses, like so many others, were proud but poor.
He walked to the city and I followed him, determined to make him my master if he’d have it so, just knowing his table scraps would suffice to support me. There’s no purse better or deeper than charity’s, whose generous hands never hold back. I disagree with the saying “The hard-hearted give more than the poor,” —as if a hard-hearted, greedy man would ever give anything—but a generous but penniless man at least gives good wishes when they’re all he’s got.
After getting a little turned around, we stopped at an impresario’s house who, as I remember, went by Angulo the Bad to distinguish him from the other Angulo, who wasn’t a manager but the most gifted actor there ever was. The whole troupe had assembled to hear the work of my master—since that’s who he was to me by now. But halfway into the first act, in ones and twos, they all began to leave, with the exception of an audience consisting solely of the manager and me. Even to me, and I’m pretty much an ass where poetry is concerned, the play seemed as if Satan had written it to ensure the total rout and ruin of the poet, who by this time was swallowing hard as he realized his listeners had forsaken him.
This was bad enough, but his prophetic soul foretold yet another disgrace awaiting him. The actors returned, more than twelve of them, and without a word they took hold of this poet of mine and—if not for the intervention of the manager, who shouted and interposed himself—they doubtless would have pantsed him. I was speechless, the manager disgusted, the actors merry, the poet crestfallen. Patiently, wincing a bit, he took his script, clutched it to his breast and muttered, “It’s no use casting pearls before swine.” And with this, his great dignity intact, he was off.
I was so mortified, I couldn’t bring myself to follow him. And I was right not to, because the manager petted me and hugged me so much that I felt obliged to stay, and in less than a month I was a talented physical comedian and farceur. They put a braided muzzle on me and trained me to lunge for anyone in the theater whom they singled out. Since skits generally ended in a slapstick free-for-all, the sketches in this actor-manager’s troupe all wound up with me knocking everybody over and trampling them, which made the ignorant laugh, and my owner rich.
Oh Scipio, who could do justice to all I saw in this and the two other troupes I traveled in? Because the laws of good storytelling forbid me from reducing it to succinct narration, I’ll have to leave it for another day—if we can communicate another day.
You know how long my story has been, and how far-flung my adventures? You know how many roads I’ve traveled and how many masters I’ve had? Well, all you’ve heard is nothing compared to what I observed of these show people, their habits, their lives, customs, exercises, work, laziness, ignorance and cleverness, and countless other things. Some matters I noted are unfit for public consumption and others too good not to tell, but all are worth remembering, so as to disenchant those who worship matinee idols and artificially beautiful special effects.
Scipio: I understand completely, Berganza, that these new angles keep cropping up and extending your soliloquy, but it occurs to me that you might give it a rest and let it go for another time.
Berganza: Whatever you say, but listen. I fetched up with one troupe here in Valladolid, where in one skit I suffered a wound that almost killed me. I couldn’t avenge myself at the time because I was muzzled, and afterward, in cold blood, I didn’t want to. Premeditated vengeance smacks of cruelty and a nasty temperament.
I grew tired of the whole calling. It wasn’t so much the work as all the things in it, which cried out for both attention and punishment. Since these matters were easier to deplore than to correct, I decided to avoid the sight of them altogether.
So, like those who give up their vices when they can no longer exercise them, I sought sanctuary—though of course, better late than never. Seeing you one night carrying the lantern with that pious fellow Mahudes, I recognized you as content, and justly employed. Filled with an honorable sort of envy, I resolved to follow your path and, with this good intention, presented myself to Mahudes, who promptly assigned me to this hospital and made me your comrade. What’s happened to me here isn’t too trivial to be worth telling either—especially what I heard from four patients whom fortune and need brought to the hospital in adjacent beds.
Bear with me, for the story is brief. It won’t keep, and it fits here like a glove.
Scipio: I forgive you, but wind it up. It’s almost daylight.
Berganza: As I was saying, the four beds at the end of the infirmary held an alchemist, a poet, a geometer, and an economist.
Scipio: I remember seeing these characters.
Berganza: Anyway, one afternoon last summer, with the shutters closed and me lolling under one of their beds, the poet started to complain piteously about his fortune, and when the geometer asked him what the matter was, said it was his bad luck.
“Don’t I have a reason to complain?” he went on. “After keeping to the rule Horace laid down in his Arse Poetica, not to publish anything that hasn’t spent ten years in a drawer, I now have one twenty years in preparation and a dozen in editing, great in subject, admirable and new in invention, stately in meter, entertaining in its episodes, the stanza breaks marvelous—all because the beginning echoes the middle and the end in a way that makes the poem high-flown, sonorous, heroic, tasteful, and substantial. And yet, despite all this, I can’t find a prince to dedicate it to! A prince I say, intelligent, liberal, and generous. What a miserable and depraved age ours is!”
“What’s it about?” asked the alchemist.
“It deals with everything that Archbishop Turpín didn’t say about King Arthur of England, with a continuation of the story about the quest for the Holy Grail. It’s in heroic verse, part in
octaves and part in free verse, but all dactylic—that is, in dactylic proper nouns, and without a single verb.”
“Me,” answered the alchemist, “I understand little of poetry, so I won’t know how to judge the misfortune you complain of, save that, were it greater, it still wouldn’t equal mine. If only I had the proper instruments, or a prince to support me with the necessities required by alchemy, I’d be lousy with gold, with more riches than Midas, than Crassus or Croesus.”
“Mr. Alchemist,” asked the geometer, “has your Excellency ever experimented with transmuting base metals into silver?”
“I …” the alchemist began, “I haven’t done it yet, but really, I know that it can be done, and inside two months I’ll have the philosopher’s stone. With that, I can produce silver and gold even from rocks.”
“Your Excellencies have exaggerated your woes,” said the geometer, “because in the end, at least one of you has a book to dedicate, and the other is on the point of discovering the philosopher’s stone.
“But what about my problem, which is so singular that I have nowhere to turn? Twenty-two years I’ve been trying to find the fixed point, the Aleph. I look for it high and low. Just when it seems I’ve found it at last, and it can’t escape me, before I know it I find myself so far away from it that I’m amazed. The same thing goes for the squaring of the circle. I’ve come so close to finding it that I can’t understand, can’t even think how it’s not in my pocket. My anguish puts me in mind of Tantalus, who was right next to the fruit but dying of hunger, and close to the water yet perishing of thirst. One minute I think I’ve found the very heart of truth, and the next I’m so far from it that I have to trudge back up the mountain I’ve just climbed down—with the boulder of my work on my back, like some latter-day Sisyphus.”
Up till then the economist had held his tongue, but here he unleashed it and said, “The four of us are kvetching as if we’d been hounded by the Grand Caliph. But we only wound up at this hospital because we’re poor, so to hell with our trades, which neither feed nor amuse their practitioners. I, sirs, am an economist, and I’ve given His Majesty various advice—all to his gain, and without disadvantage. Now I’ve petitioned him to grant me an audience for a new scheme I have that will erase the national debt. Unfortunately, to go by what’s happened to me with other petitions, I daresay this one will wind up in the wastebasket too. But so you won’t take me for a dolt, and though my proposal will now become public knowledge, I want to share it with you: The court should decree that on an appointed day every month, all vassals from ages fourteen to sixty should fast on bread and water, and swear to give His Majesty everything they’d otherwise spend that day on fruit, meat, fish, wine, eggs, and vegetables.
“In twenty years he’ll be out of debt, and the treasury won’t need to borrow a penny. If you add it up, as I’ve done, in Spain there are more than three million people in that age range, not including the sick. None of these can help spending a real and a half a day, but let’s limit it to one real, which you can’t live on even if you eat only millet. Now, does it seem to you gentlemen that it would be a small thing to have three million reales a month, free and clear? Even those fasting would see an advantage, because they would both please heaven and serve the King. For some, fasting might even be conducive to their health. This is my idea in a nutshell, and it could be carried out in the parishes without employing any tax-collectors, who are destroying the republic.”
Everyone laughed at the consultant and his proposal, and he himself laughed at his own nonsense. Me, I marveled to discover that, for the most part, it’s a certain kind of person who dies in a hospital, and similar people come to similar ends.
Scipio: You have a point, Berganza. Is there more to it?
Berganza: Just two more things and there’s an end to it, since day seems to be coming.
One night when my master Mahudes was going to beg alms at the house of this city’s mayor, who is a great upstanding gentleman, we found him alone. It struck me that I should take advantage of our privacy to pass along some advice I’d once heard given by an old patient at the hospital, all about how to remedy the notorious condition of vagabond girls. By not entering household service, they fall into evil ways—so evil that hospitals fill up every summer with the profligates who consort with them, an intolerable plague that begs for a quick and effective cure. Anyway, I wanted to say all this to the mayor and I raised my voice, thinking I already had one. But of course, instead of pronouncing some well-reasoned argument, I barked so fast and so loud that I annoyed him, and he ordered his servants to chase me out and beat me senseless. Ah, if only one lackey in particular had been without his senses. But instead he heard his master’s command, rushed in and grabbed a copper amphora that came to hand, walloping me about the ribs so hard that I bear the scars of those blows yet.
Scipio: And is this all you’re grousing about, Berganza?
Berganza: Well, don’t I have a right to complain if it still hurts, as I’ve said, and if I didn’t do anything to deserve this punishment?
Scipio: Look, Berganza, nobody should meddle where he isn’t welcome, or butt into matters that have nothing to do with him. And you should remember that, no matter how good, the advice of the poor is never taken. The lowly should know better than to try and advise bigshots and know-it-alls. The wisdom of the poor is hard to make out—the shadows of need and misery obscure it, and even if it’s noticed, people write it off as stupid and treat it with contempt.
Berganza: You’re right, and as a champion meddler, from here on in I’ll follow your advice.
Another night I entered the house of a lady who had in her arms a lapdog so small, she could have hidden it in her bosom. The creature saw me and jumped from its mistress’s arms, chasing me with a great barking fury, and didn’t stop till it bit me in the leg. I turned around and marveled at it, with anger and not a little respect, muttering, “If I were to catch you in the street, you wretched little beast, I’d either ignore you completely or tear you to pieces.” It struck me that even lily-livered cowards are brave and reckless while in favor, and they have no scruples about offending their betters.
Scipio: You can see it in those little men who let fly with their insolence—all the while basking in the shade of their masters. If death or misfortune fells the oak that protects them, their paltry courage is revealed. In effect, their good qualities have just as much value as their owners and protectors lend them. Naked or clothed, alone or in company, virtue and good sense are ever always the same. Sure, these qualities can take a beating in other people’s opinions, but not in the true measure they deserve.
And with this, let’s close the book on our chat. The light showing through these cracks means that morning is here. And tonight, if this great boon of speech hasn’t deserted us, it’ll fall to me to tell my story.
Berganza: So be it. See that you come to this same place …
At the same time, the scholar finished reading the dialogue and the ensign woke up. The scholar said, “Though this conversation was made up and never really happened, it strikes me as so well-crafted that your mercy may as well go on with the second one.”
“If that’s how it looks to you,” answered the ensign, “I’ll get cracking and buckle down to write it, and not busy myself any more arguing with you about whether the dogs actually talked or not.”
To which the scholar said, “My good ensign, by all means let’s not go back over all that again. I get how cunning and imaginative this colloquy is, and that’s enough. Let’s go the riverfront and feast our eyes, since I’ve already nourished my imagination.”
“Let’s,” said the ensign.
And, with this, they were off.
OTHER TITLES IN THE ART OF THE NOVELLA SERIES
BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER
HERMAN MELVILLE
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
HENRY JAMES
MY LIFE
ANTON CHEKHOV
THE DEVIL
LEO
TOLSTOY
THE TOUCHSTONE
EDITH WHARTON
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
THE DEAD
JAMES JOYCE
FIRST LOVE
IVAN TURGENEV
A SIMPLE HEART
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
RUDYARD KIPLING
MICHAEL KOHLHAAS
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
THE BEACH OF FALESÁ
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
THE HORLA
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
THE ETERNAL HUSBAND
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG
MARK TWAIN
THE LIFTED VEIL
GEORGE ELIOT
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
BENITO CERENO
HERMAN MELVILLE
MATHILDA
MARY SHELLEY
STEMPENYU: A JEWISH ROMANCE
SHOLEM ALEICHEM
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES
JOSEPH CONRAD
HOW THE TWO IVANS QUARRELLED
NIKOLAI GOGOL
MAY DAY
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
RASSELAS, PRINCE ABYSSINIA
SAMUEL JOHNSON
THE DIALOGUE OF THE DOGS
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
THE LEMOINE AFFAIR
MARCEL PROUST
THE COXON FUND
HENRY JAMES
THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH
LEO TOLSTOY
TALES OF BELKIN
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN
THE AWAKENING
The Dialogue of the Dogs Page 8
