EVERY one in Madrid knew Doctor Santos. He was a little bit of a man, with his beard and hair clamoring for the use of the scissors, and his clothes for benzine and a more fashionable cut. Nevertheless, he had a universal reputation for great wisdom, and his popularity in the district of Chamberi, the principal scene of his work, was beyond everything.

Possibly the peculiarities of the doctor did more than his true merit to attract the attention of the people. Perhaps some presentiment made every one consider him physically of not much account, but mentally a diamond of the purest water. It was well known that in the exercise of his profession he was a true ministering angel, and without any pretence of being a specialist or a philanthropist. People said that he was half crazy over the subject of disease, and followed the development of a fever with the same interest that others listened to or read a dramatic work, but with this exception, that it was not always necessary to be a mere spectator, that by discreetly intervening sometimes, he prepared cheerful and unexpected comedy, where otherwise there would have been the deepest tragedy.

This might have been merely scientific curiosity—we will not discuss that point—but thanks to this keen interest, if a patient were very ill, and that happened frequently, he would remain to watch by the bedside, and again,—and this happened yet more frequently, for Doctor Santos devoted himself almost exclusively to poor people—there would not be money enough to buy supper for the family or broth or medicine for the sick one; then our doctor would pull out his purse and send for whatever was necessary. His patients never lacked for what was needed to restore them to health.

The doctor’s greatest pleasure, as he always declared, was to cure sick children. It seemed impossible that a man who had no family and who, according to all accounts, had never married, and who had been adopted himself by a barber who took him from an orphan asylum, should be able to feel such absolute tenderness of heart towards little ones.

A woman, whose son the doctor had restored to health, aptly expressed the sentiments of every one: “It seems as if Doctor Santos had been a mother himself.”

We will take it for granted that his life and good deeds are well known, for many a scientific work can testify to the merits of Doctor Santos; so we will not stop to give a detailed resumÉ or minute account of the arduous labor of many years spent in true performance of his profession.

I am now going to speak of an event in his life which, if it were not absolutely true, would seem to many people to be altogether improbable.

Doctor Santos always said that the elixir of long life was a very easy and simple thing to obtain, that it was not necessary to knock one’s head against the wall in order that the electric spark of an idea should spring out of the brain, and that even the most stupid could give a solution of the problem to those who discussed it learnedly, but that not even this elixir nor any other could be applied in every case, that it was just as difficult to unite a head to the body from which it had been severed as to repair the ravages of some illnesses. In eighty cases out of a hundred, however, he was sure that the elixir would give good results.

The strangest thing was that these were not merely affirmations, but positive proofs, for in his practice he had tried the remedy and, not only eighty to a hundred, but in even greater proportion, had produced good results. He never could be made to specify the remedy, and he put an end to all questions on the subject, by saying:

“Nothing, nothing, it is like, it is like Columbus’s egg, why prove it?”

It was long after twelve o’clock one night, when Doctor Santos entered a miserable garret in the Salle de Fuencarral. The door was partly open. A middle-aged man was stretched out on a rude cot. The rest of the furniture consisted of some broken, rush-bottomed chairs, and a pine table by the bedside. The sick man had no relatives in Madrid; he had arrived from CataluÑa a little more than a month before and had fallen ill with pneumonia. He refused, absolutely, to go to the hospital, so a charitable neighbor, who had attended to his simple wants for some time, called in Doctor Santos. The disease had already made inroads upon the man’s constitution. Although the pneumonia was helped, the doctor could not cure the quick consumption which followed and which would soon end the man’s life.

When the sick man saw the doctor enter, an expression of joy passed over his features, as if now black death had no terror for him; for, in the last sad moments, a warm hand would clasp his and a loving heart would be moved to sympathy. The doctor took the sick man’s hand.

“How are you, Jaime?” he asked.

“I am dying, I feel sure of it, but I wish to ask one more favor of you who have already done so many for me. Tell me how much longer I have to live. I know there is nothing that will help me, and I am almost glad that it is so, for I have suffered so much in my life. At least, I shall cease to suffer. It is true, is it not, that over there there is no more pain, all is quiet, dark, cold?”

Accustomed as Doctor Santos was to such scenes, he could scarcely keep back the tears—much to his own disgust, when he looked at the poor fellow—and he growled to himself: “A weeping doctor is a fool.” But he answered the dying man very gently:

“What can I do for you, Jaime? To whom shall I write? Let me know just what you wish to be done and I promise you to do it as far as I am able, and before it slips my memory. I don’t want to frighten you, but every one takes things differently. Judging from the state you are in, I am not the one just now to do you the most good, and we must soon send for one who can give you the only true consolation. After all, although this life means a great deal to us, we ought to be glad rather than sorry at the thought of leaving it, because we are all sure that God is good and will pardon us, and that he loves us. For this reason we call him Father, for if he is not better than the best on earth, what other conception can we have of him?

“Now, I will go myself to call a priest whom I know, and in the meantime, I will see if a neighbor will stay with you.”

“Oh, don’t go, I beg of you. I must talk to you.”

The doctor dared not say no, but he knew that the hour of death was swiftly approaching. A moment later he left the room, saying:—

“I’ll return directly.”

He sent a neighbor for the priest, then returned as he had promised, and sat down by the head of the bed.

Jaime asked the doctor to do him the favor to put his hand under the mattress and take out a packet which he would find there. After the doctor had pulled out the packet, Jaime began to speak:—

“Doctor, I ask you not to open this packet until after I am dead, and after that, with the help of your own conscience, you will decide what you think had best be done. I want you, if any personal advantage can come to you from it, to use it all for yourself. I have no affection for any one else, nor am I in debt to any one. If this were not my last hour on earth I should say that my soul held nothing but hatred for the evil received from those I most cherished.”

The sick man seemed fatigued and the doctor told him to rest a few moments, but now the man began to make those motions of the hands, so characteristic of those about to die, and to plait and unplait the bed clothing. He did not seem to know exactly what he was saying and his eyes wandered restlessly about the room:—

“She deceived me. How much I loved her! Her beautiful black eyes! How pretty she was! And he my best friend! It was infamous, shameful! I saw them! the truth is proof enough! Ah, how much blood flowed from the wound!—he did not mind dying because he knew she loved him. And I envied him after he was dead! Ah, how hard the punishment! How dark the cell, how heavy the shackles! It is shameful! I am an assassin! Every one has left me! How blue the sky is! How fresh and green the fields! I can’t get out with these horrible irons on my wrists!”

The priest came in time to administer the extreme unction. Jaime died shortly after and the doctor returned home with the packet under his arm. Once in his study, before going to bed, he decided to open the bundle which Jaime had give him with so much mystery. It was an easy task. He untied the paper and out fell what seemed to be a magazine. There were hundreds of leaves, but each leaf was a banknote of four thousand reals.

Daylight glimmered through the curtains. Doctor Santos had not closed his eyes. He was the owner, the rightful owner of more than four thousand pÉsÉtas (one hundred thousand dollars) and the donation was absolutely legitimate. Jaime’s mind, as no one knew better than he, was perfectly clear at the time he made the gift. What should he do with all that money! He would be happy, all his friends would be happy, in fact, everyone would be happy! What a library, what a laboratory, he would have!

Hours passed, but the doctor tossed and turned restlessly on his bed, unable to sleep for a moment. The clock struck seven. He could not stay in bed any longer; he arose, made his accustomed hasty toilet, drank his coffee and started off on his usual round of visits. He began with the very sick patients, but at ten o’clock he said to himself, he would get a friend to accompany him to the bank that he might deposit the money. He had never kept any money in a bank. The little box in his office had always held all he could spare, and he did not know exactly what legal forms were necessary in order to have it placed so that he could draw out certain sums when he wished.

His first patient lived several miles away, so he carried the precious package with him in order not to lose time in going and coming. He stopped at the patient’s house. The sick man was a cabinet maker who had been trying to work with an injured hand, consequently, blood poisoning had set in and the symptoms were such that amputation seemed necessary. The poor man, strong as an oak, cried like a child.

“The maintenance of my wife and family lies in the skill of my five fingers,” he said, “and now you are going to cut them off.”

But Doctor Santos, more of an optimist than ever that day, brought the bright light of hope into the sad hearts of the afflicted family. They might rely upon him for support and help as long as they needed it.

He then went to see a talented journalist who had not prospered since he began to have ideas and tastes of his own instead of praising those of other people. The journalist had lost his place because he had published, without first consulting the director, an article in which he said that what Marruecos most needed was some powerful nation to civilize it, that our position in the matter was like that of the gardener’s dog, keeping others from doing what we could not do ourselves; that it would be better to be annexed to a rich country than a poor one, to have a cultivated country instead of a semi-savage one; and a hundred other barbarities besides.

As one might well imagine, the journalist had trouble with his head, he was worn out by fatigue and had the beginning of softening of the brain. Doctor Santos had ordered rest, a quiet, regular life, early hours, and horseback riding.

The journalist sent out to a store for a pasteboard horse, and when the doctor called to see him, the sick man said:—

“This is the only horse I can afford.”

Of course, he plainly showed his insanity by this act, but Doctor Santos did not look upon it in that light. He begged the man’s pardon for having advised him to buy what he could not afford.

A little later, he visited a widow with three children. She was young and pretty; her husband had been a sculptor of some talent. He was not rich, but he had earned enough to support his family decently. He died and for the first year the wife managed to live fairly well, by dint of great economy. The second year, the widow sold her husband’s art treasures; the third year, she lived on the gifts of relatives and friends, which gave out before the fourth year, and the family went from the second floor to the garret, from wholesome food to scanty scraps, from warm clothing to rags. Last of all came sickness.

Doctor Santos felt inspired: “If this little woman goes to the bad, whose fault will it be? Her sewing brings in so little!” Pulling out a banknote, he handed it to the widow, telling her to live where she could have fresh air and sunlight, to buy nourishing food and look after the little ones.

The doctor left that poverty-stricken place, his plain face so radiant with happiness that it seemed almost beautiful. He thought to himself, as he went along, that if Jaime had used some of this money for himself and had lived properly, he would not have died of consumption. “That devilish avarice!” he muttered. “A millionaire living and dying like a beggar in order not to spend his money. What is the good of money if it is not to spend?”

Suddenly two ideas flashed into his head. “Suppose this is stolen money! What if the bills are false?”

He stopped. The package fell from his hand.

“Sir, you have dropped something,” said a poor woman who was passing. The doctor picked up the bundle and, turning around, went home.

“Stolen or false,” he muttered grimly. “There is no other solution.”

The words and the ideas sounded in his ears, they hurt him, as if some one had struck him on the head with a hammer.

He reached his home, told his old servant that he would see no one, then changed his mind, sent the woman off on an errand, and shut himself up in his office.

The doctor had in his house two banknotes of a thousand pÉsÉtas (two hundred and fifty dollars) each.

“We will begin with the hypothesis that I can prove them false,” he said. He took out his own banknotes and laid them on the table; took another out of the package and placed it between the first two.

“They must have been stolen,” he said, “for all three are alike, the same block, the same print.”

He turned them over, they were exactly alike. Well, there was nothing to be done but to advertise and await the rightful owner, and he would have to word the advertisement so that every Spaniard in the country should not appear to claim the money.

He took a magnifying glass and began to make methodical observations. First, the paper, its quality, its transparency; then the engravings; the letters, letter by letter, the signatures. But even with the help of the glass, which magnified the size six or eight times, he could detect no difference between the bills.

“From whom could Jaime have stolen them? Had blood been shed on account of those bits of paper? Had Jaime robbed the government or a bank?”

The doctor thought and thought. He studied, with the aid of a glass, every detail, even the smallest.

“Is it possible,” he exclaimed, “that each one can be so perfect? They have been stolen, undoubtedly stolen,” he said, at the end of a quarter of an hour of close observation. Ten times, already, he had compared the numeration, but he turned again to look at it.

“They all look alike,” he said again, but when he took away the crystal he doubted the certainty of his own vision. He brought out a delicate compass and measured the numbers of his old bills. He placed the compass on the new, there was absolutely no difference.

He was not satisfied with the length alone, but he even measured the width of the lines.

“They have been stolen,” he repeated mechanically. Then, as if answering himself, he spoke slowly:—

“Where could he have stolen them? No, they are counterfeit, false, false. Ah, thou Catalan rogue, who art in the infernal regions. I hope that thou art making false notes with thy skin of Barrabas!”

“I have learned the secret,” thought the doctor. “There is no doubt of it.”

He still looked exclusively at the numbers, the false ones looked larger, they really were not, but as the lines were more delicate, it made the ciphers look larger.

“Those poor people are now in prison,” said Doctor Santos sorrowfully. “They have denounced me and the police will shortly come to arrest me, and no one will believe they were ever given to me!”

He raised the stove cover. “No, that won’t do. The embers and ashes will remain. They can smell the smoke and burnt paper.”

The doctor had a dove-cot: a dove just then lighted on the window sill. A bright idea came to him. He took two tin boxes—such as are used for cut tobacco—and stuffed them both full with bank notes, climbed up to the dove-cot and looked through the garret window. No one could see him. He raised some tiles and hid the boxes, then covered them up, leaving all as it was before. Breathing heavily, his heart thumping furiously, he descended the staircase which led to the second floor and dropping into a chair, opened a huge volume which he held before his face, while he tried to recover his usual composure.

If he had been surprised and arrested, the inspector would have noticed that the book was upside down, the two old bills, with the magnifying glass and compass, were still on the table, and that the lappels and sleeves of his coat were covered with earth and whitewash.

After several hours had passed, the old servant had returned, and as no one else had appeared, the doctor began to think that perhaps the bills had not yet been changed and, by virtue of such a supposition, he hurried to the widow’s house with the pious intention of substituting one of his old bank notes in place of the supposed false one. The bill had been changed; the widow and her children were having a little party in honor of their great good luck. They were not alone, as they generally were, but had asked several of their friends to share their joy. They were so profuse in their expressions of gratitude that the good old doctor did not know what to say nor how to explain his sudden return.

“Now be sure you take a room where you can have sunlight and give the children a dose of castor oil,” he said as he hurried away.

Doctor Santos did not recover his usual composure for a long time. He seemed taciturn although he continued in his accustomed mode of living. After a while, however, he became more like himself.

The cabinet maker, for whom the doctor had obtained a lucrative position, wished to make a public manifestation of his gratitude, but the doctor forbade him to even mention that he had received help. Nevertheless, it was murmured continually, that Doctor Santos, on account of his relations with persons of high rank, had given many a one a modest pension, while he had restored others to health by giving to them the money to procure a change of climate and a much needed rest.

Notwithstanding his friends of high rank, the doctor still lived in his modest apartment and had moreover, dismissed his only servant. He now took his meals at a neighboring tavern. He still kept the dove-cot, and he had bought an expensive therapeutical apparatus and costly instruments. He had a laboratory and a fine medical library.

He earned enough and he had innumerable friends who gave him money to help cases of true necessity, owing to his fame of discerning where help was really needed. Happily society is not so completely decayed that it does not produce, with frequent spontaneity, the flower of Christian charity.

When Doctor Santos changed his habits of living, his character also changed. Formerly, he had been cheerful and lively, fond of an occasional visit to the theatre, and especially fond of a good table. But when he might have had all this he became gloomy and moody, and reduced his personal expenses, in spite of his large earnings, to an extent almost miserly.

The years rolled by, the doctor’s hair was snowy white, and he scarcely spoke. As he was no longer young and paid so little attention to his own comfort, his health began to fail. The cold was intense that winter and Doctor Santos, in spite of himself, had to keep his bed many a day.

His medical confrÈres visited him, and one, in particular, earnestly urged him to go to a warm climate.

“Must I go away, leave my work and occupations to die, not of sickness, but of ennui?” “But,” argued his friend, “no one likes better than you to send people off for a change of air during the winter.”

The doctor did not reply, but he remained in Madrid, passing sleepless nights and coughing ceaselessly.

His friends, the only family he possessed, took turns, for a long time in caring for him, but, as the days lengthened into weeks, the weeks into months and each one gradually began to find that his own cares absorbed his time, it was agreed upon that the best thing to do was to have a sister of charity come and nurse the doctor.

Henceforth, his friends’ visits grew less frequent, and there were days at a time when his door bell did not ring once.

Sor Luz, as the sister of charity was called, proved to be a perfect substitute for all his other attendants. Although the doctor had never cared for women’s society, he found Sor Luz such a charming companion that he refused to receive other people, if it were possible.

Her white head-dress and the undulations of her soft gown, seemed to him like the motions of a dove’s wings.

Doctor Santos followed her with an affectionate and grateful glance, thus repaying the tender and solicitous care which only maternal and Christian love could give with such absolute abnegation and perseverance.

About the last of November, that harvest time of death, when a few golden leaves still clung to the trees, when the mountain tops were covered with silver and the cold, northerly wind penetrated the crevices of doors and windows, Doctor Santos began to grow worse.

He declared in his will, dated years before, that he had no property and that whatever was found in the house belonged, by right, to the poor. That he wished to have a humble funeral and be buried in the public cemetery.

In looking over his papers and effects, a tin box was found containing forty banknotes of one thousand pÉsÉtas each.

His friends declared that he had died of avarice. Sor Luz said that she had never known any one who had passed away with more tranquil, resigned Christian spirit than Doctor Santos.

Nevertheless, she often spoke of some phrases of the doctor’s which were utterly incomprehensible to her and for which she could not account.

“When there was yet time,” he said, “I had the means to cure myself. It would have been so easy, that if it had been any one else I should have done so. I did not do it because I wished to preserve my own self-respect and to have some merit when God called me to a better life.”

—From the Spanish of Gustavo Morales, by

Jean Raymond Bidwell.