5 FROM A FAR

Al acercarse mayo, Andrés le dijo a su hermana que iba a Madrid a examinarse del Doctorado.
—¿Vas a volver? —le preguntó Margarita.
—No sé; creo que no.
—Qué antipatía le has tomado a esta casa y al pueblo. No me lo explico.

—No me encuentro bien aquí.
—Claro. ¡Haces lo posible por estar mal!

Andrés no quiso discutir y se fue a
Madrid, se examinó de las asignaturas del Doctorado, y leyó la tesis que había escrito en Valencia.
En Madrid se encontraba mal; su padre y él seguían tan hostiles como antes.
Alejandro se había casado y llevaba a su mujer, una pobre infeliz, a comer a su casa. Pedro hacía vida de mundano.
Andrés, si hubiese tenido dinero, se hubiera marchado a viajar por el mundo; pero no tenía un cuarto. Un día leyó en un periódico que el médico de un pueblo de la provincia de Burgos necesitaba un sustituto por dos meses.
Escribió; le aceptaron. Dijo en su casa que le había invitado un compañero a pasar
unas semanas en un pueblo. Tomó un billete de ida y vuelta, y se fue. El médico a quien tenía que sustituir era un hombre rico, viudo, dedicado a la numismática. Sabía poco de medicina, y no tenía afición más que por la historia y las cuestiones de monedas.

WHEN May was near Andres told his sister that he
was going to Madrid for his doctor's examination.
"Will you come back?" asked Margarita.
"I don't know; I think not."
"I can't understand why you dislike this house and
the town."
"I never feel at ease here."
"Of course you don't. You do everything to prevent
it!"
Andres was unwilling to discuss the matter, and went
to Madrid; he reviewed for his examination and read
the doctoral thesis that he had written at Valencia.
He felt uncomfortable at Madrid; his father and he
were as hostile as ever. Alejandro had married, and with
his wife, a poor creature, had meals with them. Pedro
was leading the life of a man of the world.
Andres, if he had had money, would have liked to
travel; but he had not a penny. One day he read in a
paper that the doctor in a village of the province of
Burgos required a locum tenens for two months. He wrnte
and was accepted. He told them at the house that he had
FROM AFAR 157
been invited by a friend to spend a few weeks in a village.
Andres bought a return ticket and set out. The doctor
whom he came to replace was a rich widower devoted to
numismatics. His knowledge of medicine was scanty and
his only interest was in the history and the questions of
coins.

—Aquí no podrá usted lucirse con su ciencia médica —le dijo a Andrés,
burlonamente—. Aquí, sobre todo en verano, no hay apenas enfermos, algunos cólicos, algunas enteritis, algún caso, poco frecuente, de fiebre tifoidea, nada.
El médico pasó rápidamente de esta cuestión profesional, que no le interesaba, a sus monedas, y enseñó a Andrés la colección; la segunda de la provincia. Al decir la segunda suspiraba, dando a entender lo triste que era para él hacer esta declaración.
Andrés y el médico se hicieron muy amigos. El numismático le dijo que si quería vivir en su casa se la ofrecía con mucho gusto, y Andrés se quedó allí en compañía de una criada vieja.

El verano fue para él delicioso; el día entero lo tenía libre para pasear y para leer; había cerca del pueblo un monte sin árboles, que llamaban el Teso, formado por pedrizas, en cuyas junturas nacían jaras, romeros y cantuesos. Al anochecer era aquello una delicia de olor y de frescura. Andrés pudo comprobar que el pesimismo y el optimismo son resultados orgánicos como las buenas o las malas digestiones. En aquella aldea se encontraba admirablemente, con una serenidad y una alegría desconocidas para él; sentía que el tiempo pasara demasiado pronto.
Llevaba mes y medio en este oasis, cuando un día el cartero le entregó un sobre manoseado, con letra de su padre. Sin duda, había andado la carta de pueblo en pueblo hasta llegar a aquél. ¿Qué vendría allí dentro? Andrés abrió la carta, la leyó y quedó atónito. Luisito acababa de morir en Valencia. Margarita había escrito dos cartas a su hermano, diciéndole que fuera, porque el niño preguntaba mucho por él; pero como don
Pedro no sabía el paradero de Andrés, no pudo remitírselas.

"You won't have much scope for your medical science
here," he said to Andres mockingly. "Here, especially
in summer, there are scarcely any illnesses: a few
cases of colic and enteritis and more rarely of typhoid
fever, that's all."
He turned quickly from this professional matter, which
did not interest him, to his coins and showed Andres
his collection, the second finest in the province. In saying
this he sighed and betrayed how much he felt having
to admit the existence of a superior collection.
They became great friends and the numismatist suggested
that he should live in his house, so Andres remained
there with an aged servant.
That summer was delightful; he had the whole day
free to roam about and read. Near the village was a
treeless hill formed of rock, in the cracks of which
grew cistus, rosemary, and lavender. At nightfall it was
a deliciously cool and scented place.
There Andres realized that pessimism and optimism
are matters as physical as a good or bad digestion. That
village suited him admirably and he felt an exhilaration
and serenity unknown to him; the hours sped only too
quickly.
He had been a month and a half in this oasis when
one day the postman handed him a crumpled envelope
addressed in his father's handwriting. The letter had
evidently gone from village to village in search of him.
What could be its contents?
Andres opened the letter, read it, and stood paralysed.
Luisito had just died at Valencia. Margarita had twice
written to him telling him to come, as the child frequently
asked for him; but as his father did not know
Andres's address the letters could not be forwarded.

Andrés pensó en marcharse inmediatamente; pero al leer de nuevo la carta, echó de ver que hacía ya ocho días que el niño había muerto y estaba enterrado. La noticia le produjo un gran estupor. El alejamiento, el haber dejado a su marcha a Luisito sano y fuerte, le impedía experimentar la pena que hubiese sentido cerca del enfermo.

Aquella indiferencia suya, aquella falta de dolor, le parecía algo malo. El niño había
muerto; él no experimentaba ninguna desesperación. ¿Para qué provocar en sí mismo un sufrimiento inútil? Este punto lo debatió largas horas en la soledad.
Andrés escribió a su padre y a Margarita. Cuando recibió la carta de su hermana,
pudo seguir la marcha de la enfermedad de Luisito. Había tenido una meningitis
tuberculosa, con dos o tres días de un período prodrómico, y luego una fiebre alta que hizo perder al niño el conocimiento; así había estado una semana gritando, delirando, hasta morir en un sueño.
En la carta de Margarita se traslucía que estaba destrozada por las emociones.
Andrés recordaba haber visto en el hospital a un niño, de seis a siete años, con meningitis; recordaba que en unos días quedó tan delgado que parecía translúcido, con la cabeza enorme, la frente abultada, los lóbulos frontales como si la fiebre los desuniera, un ojo bizco, los labios blancos, las sienes hundidas y la sonrisa de alucinado. Este chiquillo gritaba como un pájaro, y su sudor tenía un olor especial, como a ratón, del sudor del tuberculoso.

Andres's first thought was to set out immediately, but
on rereading the letter he saw that the child had died
a week ago and was buried. He was stunned by the news.
Distance and the fact that he had left Luisito strong and
well prevented him from feeling it so keenly as he would
have by his bedside.
This indifference and absence of sorrow seem.ed to
him wicked; but the child was dead. And if he was not
filled with despair, why excite in himself useless suffering?
He debated this point alone for hours.
Andres wrote to his father and to Margarita. His sister's
letter enabled him to follow the course of the illness.
Luisito had died of tubercular meningitis, two or
three days' illness and then a high fever which rendered him unconscious; for a week he was delirious and
then died in his sleep.
Margarita's letter showed that she was overcome with
grief. Andres remembered having seen a child of six or
seven with meningitis at the hospital. He remembered that
in a few days it had become so thin as to seem transparent,
with enormous head and projecting forehead, its
lobules appearing rent by the fever; one eye squinting,
white lips, sunken temples, and a wandering smile. This
child twittered like a bird, and his perspiration had a
peculiar odor, like a rat.

A pesar de que Andrés pretendía representarse el aspecto de Luisito enfermo, no se lo figuraba nunca atacado con la terrible enfermedad, sino alegre y sonriente como le había visto la última vez, el día de la marcha.

Although Andres tried to think of Luisito in his illness,
he could never imagine him the subject of this
terrible aflliction, but always thought of him gay and
smiling as when he had last seen him.