I won’t relate the rest, though there was a great deal of it. Not only did he know how to praise and think, he also knew how to calculate, speedily and accurately. He was one of Holmes’ arithmetical types (2 + 2 = 4).* You can’t imagine the ease with which he added and multiplied in his head. Division, which was always a difficult operation for me, was no trouble to him: he would shut his eyes a little, raise them, and mutter the numbers—and that was it! This, with as many as seven, thirteen, twenty digits. His vocation was such that he loved the very signs for the numbers, and was of the opinion that the digits, since there were only ten of them, were much more efficient than the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.
“There are useless, unnecessary letters,” he would say. “What different uses do d and t have? They have almost the same sound. You can say the same of b and p, of s, c and z, of k and g, etc. They’re just calligraphic nonsense. Look at the digits: no two have the same function: 4 is 4, and 7 is 7. And look how beautifully a 4 and a 7 make something else, which is written 11. Now, double 11 and you have 22; multiply it by an equal number, that’s 484, and so forth. But the greatest perfection is in the use of zero. The value of zero is nothing, of itself; but the function of this negative sign is, precisely, to increase. A 5 on its own is 5; put two zeros on to it, and it’s 500. So, what is worth nothing can add on a great deal of value, which you can’t say of double letters, for I can approve just as well with one or two ps.”
Brought up with the spelling of my forefathers, I disliked hearing such blasphemies, but I didn’t dare argue. Still, one day, I did proffer some words in my defense, to which he replied that it was a prejudice, and added that arithmetical ideas could go up to infinity, with the advantage that they were easier to handle. Thus, I could not resolve a philosophical or linguistic problem in a moment, whereas he could add up any quantity of numbers in three minutes.
“For example … give me a case, give me some numbers I don’t know, and cannot know beforehand … look, give me the number of houses your mother has and the rents on each of them, and if I can’t tell you the total sum in two minutes—in one—you can hang me!”
I accepted the wager, and the following week, I gave him, on a sheet of paper, the figures for the houses and their rents. Escobar took the paper, cast his eyes over it to memorize the figures, and while I was looking at my watch, he lifted his eyes up, shut his lids, and muttered: Oh! the wind itself is not so swift! No sooner said than done; in half a minute he shouted:
“1,070 milreis a month in all!”*
I was astounded. Just think that there were no less than nine houses, and that the rents varied from 70 to 180 milreis. Well, all this that I would have spent three or four minutes doing—and on paper—Escobar did in his head, with no trouble at all. He looked at me in triumph, and asked if it wasn’t right. Just to prove the point, I took the piece of paper with the total sum out of my pocket, and showed it to him: exactly right, not the smallest mistake: 1,070.
“This proves that arithmetical ideas are simpler, and so more natural. Nature is simple. Art is complicated.”
I was so taken with my friend’s mental agility, that I could not refrain from embracing him. It was in the courtyard; other seminarists noticed our exuberance; a priest who was with them did not approve.
“Modesty,” he said to us, “does not permit such effusive gestures; your esteem can be expressed with moderation.”
Escobar remarked that the priest and the others were speaking out of envy, and said that we should perhaps keep apart from one another. I interrupted him to say no; if it was envy, so much the worse for them.
“Let’s cock a snook at them!”
“But …”
“Let’s be even firmer friends than we have been up to now.”
Escobar grasped my hand in secret, so hard that my fingers still hurt from it. An illusion, no doubt, perhaps the effect of the long hours I’ve been writing without a break. I’ll put down the pen for a while …