“Who are you?” I asked. Although for many years I had spoken English, and Spanish only for a few weeks, it was mechanically that I used Spanish now.
“Your good friend,” came from under the capucha, while there was a glitter of eyes through the two slanting slits in the black silk.
“If you're my friend, you'll let me out of this place, wherever it is,” I said.
“But I am your doctor as well, and you are too weak to go out. This is the first time you have spoken sensible words, and now they are not wise.”
“I'm not too weak to hear how I came here, how long I have been, and—” He cut me short, with a wave of a yellow old hand. Under the capucha he wore an ordinary black coat, such as elderly Spaniards of the middle class wear every day.
“You must not excite yourself,” he said. “As for your coming here, I found you lying in the road one dark night, with your head cut open, and out of compassion I brought you into my house.”
“If you are a doctor, and have no reason to hide your face from me, why do you cover it up with a capucha?” I went on incredulously.
[pg 321] “It is the capucha of the cofradìa to which I belong,” explained the man. “I wear it at certain hours because of a vow which will not expire till Corpus Christi. If I were a wicked person, who wished you harm, why need I trouble to hide my face so that you should not know it again? I live alone in this house, and if I wished you evil, I need never let you leave these rooms. But instead, I have taken care of you, and you have repaid some experiments I have made, for now I think you are getting well. You have only to be patient.”
“Tell me how long since you played good Samaritan and picked me up by the roadside,” said I. “Then perhaps I shall try to be patient.”
“How long?” he echoed. “I can't tell you that. To a philosopher like me days and weeks are much the same.”