Heidelberg
11 March 1886
MY DEAR PARENTS AND BROTHERS,
As I announced to you in my previous letter, I’m now in this new house, in front of the University itself, and in which I intend to remain all the time I have to be in this city, until I can go to Berlin, which will be with a few months.
During last week and half of this it had been very cold and snow fell during that time in the mountain as well as in the city. The wind blows with great force, beats the tree branches, and makes the snow whirl, lashing and reddening the face. Despite the fact that I’m not sanguine, my cheeks are red and at that I’m not very stout. Despite the cold, the wind, and the snow, I continue going to the hospital and studying ophthalmology and German every day. I’m progressing fairly in German, for now I can make myself understood by everyone, only that I don’t understand everybody, for many here speak very fast or speak a patios or dialect which is not the classic German, or high German, that I study.
Although snow makes many suffer on account of the cold it causes, on the other hand it entertains children and the youth. The children make snowballs with which they attack one another. The young people ride in sledges or they slide from a height on a mountain path down to the valley below.
It is worth describing to you the Fackelzug or the torch festival which I mentioned to you in my previous letter. On the occasion of the election of the Rector, the students, numbering from 650 to 700, hold this celebration. All are dressed in the uniform of their corporations, usually preceded by two bearing duel swords. Each corporation selects its finest young men and highest official in a carriage and behind them march the students with bands of music. All carry lighted torches and walk at a light gait. The effect is beautiful and wonderful. After going through the streets of Heidelberg, they all gather at this square and form [a] big space in the middle. At a given signal all throw their torches up in the air — seven hundred torches fluttering in space. Those that fall are picked up and thrown up again, while all sing in chorus Gaudeamus igitur to the beat of the music and the clashing of the swords. Here it is the student who prevails; without students Heidelberg is a dead city. On Saturday there will be another Fackelzug as a farewell, for March and April are vacation months.
Carnival passed away with more gaiety, though very much less pomp and animation than in Madrid. Very few masks, 20 or 30 floats only, but as the German is serious during the whole year, on Shrove Tuesday he makes up and enjoys himself. The street where they stroll is moreover narrow, so that all the merry-making is concentrated and the people enliven with their presence what luxury and movement do in other places. In spite of the cold and the wind that makes the ears crack, there were some little jokes, throwing of peas from carriage to carriage, and…
The German language is becoming clearer to me. It no longer seems to me so obscure and difficult as at the beginning. I hope that within five months I’ll speak it like Spanish. I’m afraid that I may forget the latter language, for until the present, since I arrived in Germany, I haven’t found anyone who knows Spanish. On the other hand, I spoke Tagalog once with a German who stayed a long time at Singapore and who spoke Malay. Although we couldn’t understand each other very well, nevertheless I encountered many words similar to Tagalog.
Now I lead an entirely different life from what I had lately. I eat outside. The house with service costs me 28 marks—this is 7 pesos, each mark being worth 2 reales Fuertes. Breakfast served at the house costs me 40 pfennige, I lunch [at] the restaurant; for 2 reales 18 cuartos they give me soup, three dishes, dessert, and wine, besides potatoes, salad, cabbage and other vegetables, for it must be noted that German cooking is all full of vegetables and many things mixed together. At night I buy two small rolls which cost three cuartos, cheese, fruits, and a piece of sausage or butter. All in all, the heating, light, laundry, room, and food cost me some 30 pesos a month or a little less. Add to these expenses the cleaning… etc. so that for 40 pesos one can live well in Germany, if one doesn’t have to buy clothes and to travel from time to time.
At the hospital I practice and examine patients come every day. The professor corrects our mistakes in diagnosis; I help in the treatment and although I don’t see so many operations as I did at Paris, here I study more the practical side. If I receive sufficient money in April or May, I intend to enroll in a regular course in ophthalmology either in Leipzig, Halle, or Berlin. God willing, I don’t intend to remain in Germany longer than until November at most in order to go afterward to England in December and remain there during the spring of 1887 and go again to Paris to observe the operations of Dr. de Wecker who, as a surgeon, it seems to me, is very superior to anyone I have seen until the present. From there I can return to the Philippines and manage very suitably a clinic for eye diseases.
Until now I haven’t received a letter from you since the last that I received from my brother at the beginning of January. You may continue sending me your letters to Paris and send them through the French mail boat which departs from there every fortnight.
A German promised me one of these days…
[The rest of the letter is missing]
01-150 [Family]