Madrid
He would like to serve physician in Spanish towns infested with cholera or travel in France, Switzerland, or Holland — Awaiting parental consent.
* * *
30 July 1885
MY DEAR PARENTS,
I have not received any letter from you or from anybody of the family and in the complete absence of news, I venture to make you a proposition.
As, after all, there is cholera in Spain and also at Madrid, where fortunately cases don’t exceed 34 daily, if I don’t receive by the next mail a letter from you or instruction, I’m going to enlist to take care of cholera patients in the towns where there are no physicians, for they say that they give 12 pesos daily, though without board and lodging, and if this is true, I can earn in one month some 250 pesos, sufficient to support me for five months, which is not a little saving. At any rate, if the cholera gets me at Madrid, it is better that if I have to die, I die doing some good, and it is not a little thing to earn 250 pesos, because in those infected towns everything is now dear and in case I go, my board and lodging will not cost me less than 4 pesos a month. I believe this suits me. In this way I can begin earning my livelihood and helping the family a little. I don’t believe there is much danger of contagion because, of the physicians who had gone to those towns very few got sick, and those who died don’t go beyond four. I’m in good health, I’m young, and I’m not afraid of cholera, which matters a great deal.[1]
I could leave Spain and go abroad. Several friends have proposed it to me, offering to pay for the round trip and my stay in France, Switzerland, or Holland, everything gratis; but I haven’t accepted and I have told them so — P. Paterno, Luna, and others. First, because I don’t want to owe this kind of favor, being able to owe it to my parents, and secondly, because I don’t want to happen to me again what occurred to me when I went to Paris without waiting for your consent — a trip that, though it yielded me very great benefits, on the other hand caused me so many troubles that I have decided not to take any step that may hurt you, unless there is a very powerful reason or urgent necessity for it.
One of my house companions, Julio Llorente, has married and now lives with his wife. The other one, Ceferino de Leon, went to Galicia…
[The rest of the letter is missing]
04-124 [Misc.]
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