👑✨ ¡Descubre *La Isabelina*, una joya literaria de Pío Baroja que nos transporta al corazón del siglo XIX español! En esta apasionante novela, el autor despliega con maestría su aguda observación de la sociedad y su crítica a las estructuras políticas y morales de la época.
🔍 *La Isabelina* se desarrolla en una España convulsa, marcada por los conflictos entre liberales y absolutistas. Con personajes intensos y escenarios vibrantes, Baroja construye una narrativa cargada de ironía, pasión y reflexión. A través del retrato de una joven que se convierte en símbolo de una generación atrapada entre el deber y el deseo, la novela revela tensiones íntimas y sociales que siguen resonando hoy en día.
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– ✔️ Retrato fiel de la España isabelina
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– ✔️ Crítica social con tono sarcástico y directo
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In this work, entitled La Isabelina, Pío Baroja transports us to a turbulent Spain, where the echoes of politics and history intertwine with the daily lives of figures marked by their passions, ideals, and contradictions. With his direct style and critical eye, Baroja constructs a vibrant portrait of the Isabelline era, presenting a gallery of figures that reflect the complexity of a nation in transformation. Through sharp dialogue and scenes charged with tension, the author invites us to reflect on the struggle for power, identity, and justice. Chapter 1. A FORMER CLOISTER. In 1845, says Leguía, I was in Bordeaux finishing a diplomatic mission that the moderates had entrusted to me, when I met Father Venancio Chamizo. Chamizo was a former cloistered friar who worked in the mornings at a desk and in the afternoons gave Latin and rhetoric lessons to some boys, sons of Spanish parents and French legitimists. Chamizo was a man between forty-five and fifty years old, of medium height, with a heavy build and a large stomach. He had a large, bald head, gray eyes, a thick nose, and a pronounced chin. His appearance reflected the peasant, the friar, and the man of culture at the same time. In the conversation with Chamizo, we mentioned Aviraneta, and the former cloistered man told me: “I’ve had relations with that reprobate. ” “I think I’ve heard him speak of you. ” “Perhaps incorrectly? ” “No, no; I don’t think so. ” “Is he a friend of yours? ” “Yes. ” “I feel sorry for you. He’s a friend of mine, too. ” “I know him well, and not only has he not harmed me, but he’s protected me,” said Leguía. “I believe it, I believe it. Mr. Aviraneta knows how to protect. Perhaps you are also in his camp. ” “I am. I am a liberal, completely liberal; but that’s the least of it. You can speak of him with complete confidence. ” “Are you interested in Mr. Aviraneta? ” “Yes. Very much so.” Have you had any dealings with him? —Yes. —I’d like you to tell me that. —Well, I’ll tell you what I know about him, on one condition. —Let’s see. —That you invite me to dinner at a good inn in Bordeaux. —Very well. I accept. You’ll choose the place. Father Venancio hesitated; he didn’t know whether it would be better to go to the Inn of Peace, on the Cour de Chapeau Rouge, or to the Inn of the Americans, on the Rue du Esprit des Leyes. Finally, he decided on the latter and said he would come and get me at the Hotel de Rouen, where I was staying. We went to the Inn of the Americans, and I ordered dinner in a private room. Father Chamizo ate and drank like a Templar. After drinking coffee and a few glasses of liqueur, he said to me: —Now, to clear your throat, my dear Mr. Leguía, order one more bottle of wine. It’s a bad old habit I’ve had left. “From the convent? ” “No, no. It seems unbelievable that you should say that, Mr. Leguía. Are you also our enemy? Could you be a Voltairean? ” “Somewhat. ” “What a mistake, my friend! What a mistake! ” “And what do you want, another bottle of Bordeaux, Father Chamizo? ” “No; now, sherry…; yes, sherry…; I’ll drink it out of patriotism. Far from one’s homeland, these things are more highly valued. I drank the last one in the company of Mr. Usoz y Río, the Quaker. I don’t know if you know him. ” “Yes. And did he drink? ” “No, not him. Where are we going to end up? A Spanish Quaker! How absurd! He was speaking ill of the friars and of Spain. Speaking ill of a country that produces this wine!” he exclaimed, filling the glass with sherry, holding it up to the light, and emptying it in one gulp. –It really is meaningless. –None, Mr. Leguía, none. –Begin your story, Father Chamizo; I’m listening attentively. –My story refers to the years 1833 and 1834. I don’t know if it will interest you. –It interests me, yes, it interests me. –Well, here I go. Chapter 2. IN WHICH FATHER CHAMIZO BEGINS HIS STORY AND CAN’T FINISH IT Father Chamizo took a notebook out of his pocket, read it here and there, and, Leaving it ajar, he said: “Good; I’ll begin. First, allow me to tell you a few words about my life. I am from the province of Palencia, from a town near that of the Abbot Don Sebastián de Miñano y Bedoya, the celebrated author of the _Letters of the Lazy Poor Man_, which made so much noise and had so much influence against us poor clergymen. My father died young, leaving my mother a widow with several children, of whom I was the youngest. They thought me clever; I had no taste for manual labor, and through the friendship of a friar who used to come to my house to take whatever he could from the poor man, I was placed in a convent in Palencia. I was a servant for some time, suffering a thousand hardships, washing dirty clothes, running errands, and working as a kitchen boy, until a good man came as my superior who made me study, ordain, and profess. I had a taste for letters, and I believe I had some disposition. I thought my quiet life was already settled, dedicated to Greek, Latin, and history. I had been sent to a convent in Lerma, when in 1822 a column of the infernal Empecinado appeared there, seized the convent, and his soldiers dragged me along with them. In that column was the evil Aviraneta, that abortion of hell…; I didn’t follow because he’s your friend. They incorporated me into the liberal forces, they led me from the right to the left, they made me lose the peaceful customs of the convent, and, in 1823, at the time of the Duke of Angoulême’s arrival, they took me prisoner in Valladolid and brought me to France. “And you would immediately try to return to the convent in Lerma, Father Chamizo? ” “No; I didn’t try to return, Señor Leguía, and that was my mistake. I was already on the wrong path. Upon my release, I went to Bayonne, where I took refuge under Miñano’s protection.” I had been working with him for three years, and, my dear Mr. Leguía, our faith began to waver. We devoted ourselves to bad reading, we read the filthy works of Voltaire, Diderot , and other reprobates; we commented on the ignoble jokes in Gallardo’s Burlesque Critical Dictionary against the friars, in which we are called the plague of the Republic and filthy animals mired in vice… –And we drank a little too much, perhaps, Father Chamizo. –You are right; we drank a little too much and committed other immoral acts. Yes, yes… it is true. Me! A priest, though unworthy! Quantum mutatus ab illo! At that time, Don Sebastián Miñano proposed that I become a tutor in the home of a widow in Saint Palais. I accepted, and for a few months I lived a comfortable and pleasant life. Good food, good wines… At this point they begin to say that if I get along with the widow… the eternal gossip… I’m not saying I didn’t like it, no; the flesh is thin, and even if one has dressed, quite unworthily, in the glorious sackcloth, one is a man… No; I can affirm that no one saw me court the widow; but a cousin and suitor of hers picked up these slanders and challenged me… What was I to do? I, a priest! Naturally, I didn’t go to the field, because although one is a miserable sinner, one loves life… and the lady, upon learning that I hadn’t risen to the challenge, scorned me and dismissed me from her house… Frivolous sex! I return from Saint Palais to Bayonne, where I meet the wicked Aviraneta, and I go with him to Madrid. How many mistakes one makes in life! And here we are now, mastering Latin, Greek, English, literature, theology, ecclesiastical history, and canon law, and earning thirty duros a month in a rope warehouse on the dock and a few other odds and ends for the two or three lessons we give. And Spain, what does it do for us in the meantime? Nothing. Ungrateful country, you will not possess my bones! Pay no attention. It’s just talk. What do you want, Señor Leguía? I am a victim of fate… Not that I am, by any means, a supporter of predestination. Far be it from me to adopt such errors as those defended by some misguided disciples of Saint Augustine at the monastery of Adrumet in Africa, Lucidus, a priest in Gaul, Jansenius, and Primatius, the author of Proedestinatus. No, no. In this, As in many other things, we know the right path, even if we don’t always follow it. “Father Chamizo! ” “What?” “Let’s leave Primacio and go, if you don’t mind, with Aviraneta. ” “Well, let’s go with that reprobate, with that son of Satan. Let me consult my notes.” Father Chamizo read his little notebook again, concentrated his attention for a moment, and stopped rambling. As he read, his eyes closed involuntarily, and it was clear he was eager to go to sleep. “Given your age, Mr. Leguía,” said Father Chamizo, “you can’t possibly know the transformation that took place in France after the events of 1830. The Spanish royalists, who lived in the cities of the South like a fish in water, had to disappear from the surface and sink into the liquid abyss. The absolutist emigration was followed by the liberal emigration. In 1832, I was in Bayonne teaching Latin and Spanish at a school, living in a poor boarding house, when I fell gravely ill. My protector, Miñano, was away, my royalist friends had left, and my savings were nil. With all this, I hardly need to tell you that I was in the most miserable situation a man could be, alone, abandoned, sick, and with no other support than that of a greedy French couple who stole the rare books I had to sell. Suddenly, one afternoon, already thinking about the prospect of dying, your friend, Mr. Aviraneta, entered my room. I recognized him immediately. He was the assistant of the infernal Empecinado, the cause of my misfortunes. He didn’t remember me. He had heard of a sick liberal Spanish priest, and he came to see me. Your friend, that reprobate, looked after me and cared for me when I was so weak and miserable that I wouldn’t have given a farthing split in half for my life. When I was cured, we recognized each other as if we had fought together with El Empecinado. “I thought you were a liberal,” he told me. “No, no,” and I added, “always an enemy of your ideas. Always grateful for your kindness, too. I, Mr. Leguía, am a man who has practiced the cult of friendship. A friend of my friends. That has been my motto. I am not a fanatic. You are a Turk, a Protestant, a Jansenist, a revolutionary…; I abhor your ideas; but you are a friend of mine, and I will favor you if I can. Don’t talk to me about sacrificing myself for the Republic or the Monarchy; don’t tell me to make my friends succumb for the State or the country. This Catonian severity is not in my soul. ” You’ll say it’s a weakness. I admit it. I’m going to drink a little more wine. With my illness,” Father Chamizo continued, “I lost my place at the college and was left on the street. I had no other recourse than Aviraneta, and I joined him. Naturally, if he asked me for a service, to write a letter or draft a document, I did it. I also met some of his liberal friends, the auditor Don Canuto Aguado, Colonel Campillo, Don Juan Olavarría, and other supporters of the infamous Mina. I didn’t reveal my ideas among them; it didn’t seem appropriate. I considered myself a moderate. After a period of unemployment, I found a job as a proofreader at the Lamaignere printing house and began to earn a living again . On holidays, although I tried hard to stay home, I didn’t have enough willpower, and I went to look for Aviraneta. That reprobate friend of yours, as my friend knew, used to take me to an inn owned by a Navarrese, a certain Iturri, on the Calle de los Vascos, and treat me to a succulent dinner. How well the food was cooked in that place! What hake, what eels, what stuffed partridges I ate there! Faced with meals like that, what do you want, my friend? I was a man overboard. There are harmful, damaging perfections. A person with a very fine nose, little by little, unwittingly, becomes antisocial and an enemy of the common people; a gourmet, a man with a refined palate, sometimes loses his dignity and principles for a good meal… But I digress, and I don’t I want to digress. At this point, news of Ferdinand VII’s grave illness, the granting of powers in favor of the Masonic queen, and the decree of the general amnesty were known in Bayonne. At the beginning of 1833, all the liberals prepared to enter Spain. Since I had my acquaintances among them in Bayonne, I sadly saw their departure. In mid-February, I met Aviraneta on the street, and he asked me: “What are you going to do?” “I’m going to stay here. Here I have only the means of subsistence. I don’t have the money to go to Spain. ” “So don’t worry,” he told me. “If you want to enter Spain, come with me. I have some money, and I’m going with my cousin Joaquín Errazu, who is a Mexican millionaire. He will pay for your trip to Madrid, if you want. It’s a steal for him.” Aviraneta introduced me to Errazu. Errazu took me for a liberal and said that a man as enlightened and with such progressive ideas as myself was necessary in the homeland, and that he, for his part, would be happy to pay my expenses until I found a position in Spain. I was forced to pass myself off as a liberal. It was decided that I would go to Madrid with Errazu and Aviraneta. At that time, Asiatic cholera had broken out with a terrible force and wreaked havoc in Paris, Bordeaux, and all of France. If you have read that novel by Eugenio Sué entitled _Mysteries of Paris_, an absurd, cynical, immoral novel of terrible literature, you will have seen there a description of the horrors of cholera. At that time, a cordon sanitaire was established on the Spanish border , and travelers attempting to enter the Peninsula were forced into a rigorous quarantine in the lazaretto established on the Bidasoa bridge. We left Bayonne in the company of Errazu and his servant, and upon arriving in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Aviraneta arranged for us to board a patrol boat at the port of Socoa and head for San Sebastián. The four of us went aboard the boat, along with a sick gentleman traveling with his wife and nephew. This gentleman, Don Narciso Ruiz de Herrera, had been ambassador to Rome. He was accompanied by his wife, Doña Celia, who, given her age, could have been his daughter, and Don Narciso’s nephew, a cavalry captain, Francisco Ruiz de Gamboa, whom we later always called Paquito Gamboa. We arrived in San Sebastián, entered the lazaretto outside the walls, where no one was present. We spent a few very entertaining days, and, once the quarantine was over, we entered the city. Señor Errazu was summoned to Irún by his relatives, and since Aviraneta was in a hurry to get to Madrid, the two of us took the coach. Aviraneta claimed that his purpose at court was to make arrangements to rejoin the army; I wondered if he had other revolutionary plans. We arrived at court; Don Eugenio went to live at his sister’s house on Calle del Lobo, and I at a guest house on Calle Cervantes. Upon arriving in Madrid, I went to visit Don Sebastián Miñano, who provided me with several letters of recommendation to influential people, and all I found was a paltry job translating French novels by the Viscount of Arlincourt and other similar authors. Meanwhile, Aviraneta provided for my needs, and I, truthfully, felt at home. Madrid, a town I didn’t know, was a shabby and ugly place, but very picturesque and entertaining. I went to the cafés, browsed the secondhand bookstalls, chatted in the gatherings of Puerta del Sol and San Felipe, and learned a number of things I hadn’t known before. All those people, the most vocal, had their own political mystery and something to hide. Some had served King Joseph, others had been in America as a traitor against Spain; others could divide their lives into an absolutist period and a liberal one. That was a Carnival. Nowhere could the phrase of Goya, a deaf painter I met here in Bordeaux, who made a print of people with masks and added the legend at the bottom: “Nobody knows each other,” be more applicable. At that time, there was great uncertainty about the origins of most of the People I knew; it seemed you couldn’t dig very deep into people’s lives without finding something ugly. Everyone was a candidate for a position, a tobacco shop, a boarding house, and for each position there were hundreds applying; some would-be suitors were called in jest. I was a candidate too, because although Don Eugenio continued to pay my expenses, I wanted to become independent as soon as possible. At this point, Father Chamizo felt the cloud of sleep that was hanging over him growing larger and larger, and he stammered: “My dear… Mr. Leguía… I believe the truth is, I’ve drunk too much…; take this little notebook here, where my notes are… and do whatever you want with it… Give it back to me… or don’t give it back… Now I’m going to sleep… because I can’t take it anymore.” Leguía called the waiter and showed him Chamizo, who was sleeping. “What can be done with him?” he asked. “He can be taken up to the hotel and put on the bed. ” “That’s it.” Very well. Two young men picked Chamizo up like a sack and carried him away. Leguía paid the bill and went home. The former friar’s notes served as the basis for writing this book. Chapter 3. THE GARDEN HOUSE. In 1833, the Montaña del Príncipe Pío barracks in Madrid had not yet been built, and the hill it currently occupies, along with its surroundings, was part of the Royal Site of Florida. This property was very extensive; it was surrounded by a twelve- foot-high wall, built of mortar and stone, with brick buttresses interspersed, and had four gates leading to the town: one, the main one, facing the Stables; another, to the San Gil barracks; the third, to the Cuesta de San Vicente; and the farthest, leading to the open field of San Antonio de la Florida. Within the walls were several vegetable gardens with their wells and fountains, a working farm, a riding school, and a stable for the horses of Prince Don Francisco. There was also a fairly large building called the Garden House. The Garden House, built in the 18th century, bore the character of the rustic royal estates of that time. It was made of yellowish brick, with widely spaced balconies painted green, and a roof with skylights. Surrounding this farm were abandoned flowerbeds, in which parasitic plants had replaced the cultivated ones. Inside, the house had large halls with walls painted with landscapes and garlands, and ceilings filled with cupids, and a wooden gallery with bars eaten away by sun and rain. The Garden House had been abandoned for a long time, and its large rooms served as storage rooms and granaries. In a single pavilion, attached to one of the corners, lived a horse tamer with his wife and two children. In the spring of 1833, two gardeners entered the Garden House one morning, cleared out a room and a study that opened onto the gallery, carried the furniture piled there to the attic, and cleaned the floors. A few days later, a tenant moved into the rustic house. He was a gaunt young man, with the air of someone recovering from an illness, thin to the bone, with his ears that shone through in the light. This pale young man had blue eyes, blond hair, and an elegant build. The young man must have had influence over the Palace steward, for he had himself admitted to the locked rooms and selected several pieces of furniture, which he had brought to the room and study he had taken over. These were two beautiful rooms, one with a large window overlooking the Campo del Moro; The other, with a gallery, from where the Casa de Campo and El Pardo could be seen, with the blue mountains of Guadarrama in the background. The young man with the gaunt appearance soon improved in the Casa del Jardín. At first, he spent the whole day there contemplating the landscape: the Manzanares, with its slow current and the white clothes hanging out to dry, shining in the sun; the green plain of Carabancheles and of Getafe, the Royal Palace, which looked like marble at dusk, and the violet notes that the Guadarrama River took on as dusk approached. When the sick man recovered, he began to walk and ride. At first, only a young priest came to see him, and the two had long conversations. Soon after, another gentleman began to visit the young man, appearing very rarely. When he arrived, the young man and the priest would wait, then the three of them would shut themselves in and chat for a long time. Chapter 4. THE PROTECTION OF PRIEST MANSILLA. DON Francisco Mansilla was a priest from Valladolid who had emigrated to Paris in 1827. This priest, an enterprising, violent, and womanizing man, had caused several scandals in Valladolid by forging signatures, and finding himself in a difficult position, he escaped to Paris. Mansilla was intelligent and inexhaustible in his activity. He knew Latin perfectly and had specialized in casuistry. The study of morality had demoralized him and led him to view events with a criterion similar to that of the Jesuits of the 16th and 17th centuries. Mansilla halted his analysis and criticism in the face of religious dogmas , understanding that if he inwardly destroyed them, he would find himself without any foothold in practical life or in the life of thought, which could not be appropriate for a man of will. Upon arriving in Paris, Mansilla frequented absolutist centers and soon afterward became a chaplain in a house in the Faubourg Saint Germain, mingling with the most rancid and decorative of the French nobility. His frequent contact with the royalist aristocracy made Mansilla an inwardly exalted liberal. The Abbé Mansilla, who earned very little and had almost no means, spent his life reading in his room. Occasionally, he would visit his Spanish acquaintances to talk with them and obtain news of Spain. In 1832, one Christmas Eve, the abbot learned that a young Spaniard was dying, ill and abandoned in a miserable hotel on Dragon Street. This young man was a certain George Tilly, who, in the midst of a stormy life, had fallen ill with typhoid fever. Mansilla was not a man of tender feelings, yet he felt a surge of sympathy for the almost dying young man and decided to care for him until his death or recovery. In the aristocratic house where he was staying, he spoke of his plan, which was taken as a manifestation of the abbot’s Christian piety, and he was allowed to be absent days and nights to care for the young Spaniard. George Tilly recovered from typhoid fever; but after the illness, he was left powerless, bone-deep, and suffering from a terrible weakness. When Tilly began to rise, the abbot and he talked for a long time, recounting their respective lives, confessing their faults, and after a series of explanations, simultaneously swore a pact of friendship and mutual aid. Both were tired of life abroad and convinced that only in one’s own country could one prosper. With this in mind, they decided to move to Spain. The difficulty was a lack of money. They resolved to pool their resources in an offensive and defensive alliance and studied several projects. Their focus was Madrid. Tilly had the notes of two women who had served in the police force and lent them to Mansilla. Mansilla studied them, extracted them, and believed them to be useful. It was essential to go to Madrid. The two sold everything they owned, and Mansilla presented himself at court. The abbot met the members of the _Los Apostólicos_ society, visited Calomarde, intrigued at all hours, and soon managed to be appointed chaplain of the Convent of the Encarnación and librarian at the palace of the Countess of Benavente de la Puerta de la Vega. Mansilla visited Tilly’s relatives and assured them that he was not a scoundrel, but a young scholar who at that time was sick in a zaquizamí. Mansilla got Tilly’s family to give him some money for Jorge, but none of his relatives wanted him in their house. Mansilla sent the money to Paris in a letter and wrote to Tilly about what was happening. Since the abbot was a man of activity, he wanted to find a good spot for his friend where he could reestablish himself. Mansilla met a guard from the Plaza de Oriente, with whom he used to walk after leaving the Church of the Encarnación, and through this guard, a horse trainer from the stables that Infante Don Francisco had on Prince Pío Mountain. He went to see this place, and since it seemed excellent for Tilly, he proposed to the trainer that he accept a nephew of his, who was in poor health, as a guest. The horse trainer said he couldn’t do so until Infante Don Francisco’s steward gave him permission. Mansilla saw both, made friends, and obtained permission. When he arrived, Tilly was able to settle immediately into the Garden House. The trainer’s wife prepared his meals, and he himself, using a small stove, cooked breakfast and dinner. “You’ve made an admirable acquisition,” said Tilly. “It’s close by and outside the town. This observatory is magnificent. I ‘ll get better here, and then the two of us will accomplish great things. ” Tilly improved immediately; he walked, rode, and sunbathed. Almost every day Mansilla went to see his friend, and the two of them had long conversations. Mansilla knew everything that was happening; Tilly, living in solitude, could critique events better than the priest. Chapter 5. Three Ambitious Men. Shortly before the king’s death, Tilly learned that Aviraneta was in Madrid and wrote him a letter. Aviraneta appeared at the Garden House, and they spoke. Tilly told Don Eugenio about her life since they had stopped seeing each other; she spoke to him of her illness and of the protection of the priest Mansilla, to whom she was united by gratitude and interest. “What kind of bird is this Mansilla?” asked Aviraneta. “He is an intelligent, energetic, and liberal man.” as liberal as a priest can be. “Can you count on him? ” “Yes, not at all. You’ll see him in a little while and you’ll chat with him.”
Tilly gave Aviraneta all kinds of details regarding Mansilla. Aviraneta then explained to Tilly the political enterprise he found himself involved in. “I’ve organized the Isabelina Society, which is now going from strength to strength,” he said. “It’s made up mainly of military personnel and employees; but I thought that at the same time we could organize a series of triangles to help us. ” “Sounds very good to me. ” “You’re a man who suits me, determined, ambitious, and energetic. We’ll help each other and climb to the highest positions. ” “Nothing; count on me. ” “Would this priest Mansilla want to be part of our first triangle? ” “I certainly would. ” “An assistant in the Clergy would be very useful. We must keep all doors open. If we can’t use the key, we’ll use the crowbar. ” “We agree.” –So you think we can form the triangle? –Nothing, it’s formed. –Very well; then we’ll form it, you, him, and me. You number one, Mansilla number two, me number three. –Very well, I accept. Mansilla, whom I have summoned, will be coming soon . Tilly put Aviraneta in touch with the Abbé Mansilla, and the three promised to help and favor each other. From that day on, the first triangle of the Center was formed . Did they have any dogma? Did they have any doctrine? Apparently, neither dogma nor doctrine; their only goal was to help each other and prosper. BOOK TWO THE THUNDER Chapter 6. FATHER CHAMIZO IN MADRID. Father Chamizo went to live on the third floor of Cervantes Street. He found a room, a study with an alcove, quite spacious. This study had undoubtedly been furnished pretentiously a long time ago. It had greenish wallpaper, torn in many places, a console table, a dull mirror, a mahogany sofa, and six chairs. The alcove was hidden with green curtains, their folds faded, And the bed was made of wood and resembled a ship. Chamizo, to arrange the room to his liking, bought a table, a bookshelf, and a comfortable armchair at the Rastro. That house, owned by a pensioner, Doña Purificación Sánchez del Real, wasn’t a boarding house, but something very vague and Madrid-like. Doña Puri rented two rooms to regular gentlemen and fed them if they advanced her the money for the purchase in advance. Naturally, she fed them poorly, a terrible thing for Chamizo, and, in addition, she served the meals to the regular gentlemen in a corner she called the dining room, which was a dark place, between hallways, with a steamed-up window that looked out onto the kitchen, which in turn looked out onto the patio. Only at night could anyone see anything in that dining room, which according to Doña Puri was well -decorated. Doña Puri called the decor some simulated closets that the room had on the walls. Doña Puri was a stooped old woman with a suspicious look and a theatrical voice . This lady had a crooked nose, a sunken mouth, and moles like bristles on her lip. She was very conceited and very judgmental. Her son, Doroteo, a young man of about twenty, looked like one of those stupid and perplexed waders. By believing himself wise, he made mistakes and never did anything right. Many times, Don Venancio gave him assignments, which young Doroteo got completely wrong. “Forgive me, I had understood what you meant to say… ” “But why don’t you understand what is being said to you?” Chamizo asked him. Doroteo had a girlfriend in the attic across the street; the poor girl spent her time at the window embroidering, and Doroteo wrote poetry for her. Doña Puri spoke a lot to Father Chamizo about her son. “Because like you, Don Venancio, he’s as if he were part of the family,” she would tell him, overwhelming him with uninteresting stories. The other guest in the house was a certain Don Crisanto Pérez de Barradas, a tall, black-bearded gentleman with long hair and smoked glasses. Don Crisanto had the hollow, booming voice of a pedant. Chamizo, upon seeing him for the first time, declared that he must be a Freemason, and, indeed, it turned out that he was. During the first few days of his stay in Madrid, Don Venancio spent his time wandering the streets, browsing the cafés, and visiting second-hand bookstores. He almost always returned home with a few dusty volumes, which he would gladly place on the shelves. “My husband,” Doña Puri would say, “was also extremely fond of books. You wouldn’t believe what a cultured man he was. Don Venancio read a lot and read everything: religious and secular books, historical documents; he had his favorite works, which he reread frequently . ” His favorite authors among the laymen were Horace and Lucretius, and among the mystics, Malon de Chaide and Friar Luis de Granada. He was enthusiastic about Friar Luis de Granada’s _Guide for Sinners_ and _Symbol of Faith_ for their language, and Malon de Chaide’s _The Conversion of the Magdalene_ for its allusions and jokes. Chamizo, as a Catholic, was not very practicing; he often forgot Sunday Mass and did not attach much importance to prayers. To him, this was pure mechanics; probably, between the mechanical prayers of the Catholics, the prayer wheels of the Tibetans and Chinese, and the gourds filled with prayers that the Kalmyks turn in the wind, the ex-friar couldn’t find much difference. Father Chamizo traveled from one end of Madrid to the other, and he liked it. Madrid was then a curious town, more interesting than many important cities and many outwardly typical towns, because of its special character, the character of the tall, dry, hard town. It was difficult to find a capital in Europe at that time as unmixed, as uncosmopolitan as Madrid; it didn’t have the archaic life of old cities like Venice or Nuremberg; in Spain, like Toledo or Salamanca, cities all facades, cities that deceive and seem to exist to excite the foreigner eager for the picturesque; It had no great aspects. Moral Madrid was in keeping with material Madrid: poor, ramshackle, uncomfortable, with miserable shacks, with very bad cobblestones , and yet with admirable corners, not as sumptuous as those of Rome, but with a lighter grace. Jorge Borrow partly understood the character of Madrid like no other national or foreign writer and noted its absurd appeal. Borrow felt the strangeness of Madrid better than Larra, who made the somewhat petty criticism of the young gentleman who thinks he’s superior because he’s been to Paris; he felt Madrid much better than Mesonero Romanos, who painted the vulgar and shabby little picture of customs, imitating the French costumbrists of the anodyne type of Jouy. A town with little tradition, Madrid, like ancient cities, did not have the typical, monumental neighborhood that interests the archaeologist; its character lay in the lives of the people; There was no Gothic house there, nor the eaves with gargoyles and corbels, nor the grand Renaissance façade, but within the poverty of the construction, what a marked character everything had, the inanimate and the living, the houses and the streets, like the souls of men! Chamizo amused himself by seeking out contrasts, by seeing the elegant men of Calle de la Montera and the majos of Puerta de Moros, by listening to the politicians of Puerta del Sol and the yokels of Plaza de la Cebada , and he amused himself by looking at the shops, the drapers on Calle de Postas, the knife shops in the streets near the Plaza Mayor. He wanted to hurry and absorb the Castilian spirit, which was his; to identify with his people and sate himself with hearing their language. Although he understood it was absurd, he liked, more than the wide and sumptuous squares of the French capitals, those small squares of Madrid like Las Descalzas or La Paja, which didn’t seem like city squares to him, but rather like those of a La Mancha village. Chapter 7. AN OLD BOOKSHOP. The former cloistered man had a great time, very entertained in that Madrid environment, new and strange to him. Life glided from one discussion to another. He discussed politics with his friends from Aviraneta, who were all liberals; he discussed philosophy and religion, and he discussed, perhaps with more enthusiasm than anything else, the great literary question of the time, which divided people into classicists and romantics. Naturally, Chamizo was a classicist and contrasted the names of Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Victor Hugo with the illustrious figures of the poets of antiquity. Many of these discussions took place in a bookstore, where Chamizo became a regular regular. The small shop was at the beginning of Calle de la Paz, and its owner was an old man from Ayacucho, Mr. Martín. Mr. Martín was a man of about sixty, with a hard and grim face. He had been a sergeant in America and suffered from chronic rheumatism; he dragged one leg when he walked. Mr. Martín would often sit with his wife and a boy at the counter, gluing sheets of paper and pastry together with paste; on very cold days, he would wrap himself in his cape and light a brazier with kindling. Mr. Martín, who had started his business in a doorway selling a few old papers, had many books and was improving his offerings. His shop offered everything from incunabula to blind man’s romances. His wife, Mrs. Balbina, also knew quite a bit about the trade; but the one preparing to spread his wings and fly like an eagle from the bibliography was the apprentice Bartolillo. Bartolillo had a great love of books, and he learned everything and picked up on the fly what he heard. Señor Martín went back and forth from his stall to the houses where they sold books, always limping, and he brought cartloads of folios and dusty papers , which he would deposit in a nearby cellar and then take to the shop and examine them. Señor Martín sold old stamped paper, documents, parchments, choir books, hallelujahs, and stamp collections. Bartolo was the specialist in these. The little shop was often crowded: maids who bought the The story of the handsome Francisco Esteban, José María el Tempranillo, and Miguelito Caparrota; students selling textbooks; soldiers asking for a romance novel; and bibliophiles looking for the Salamanca edition of Celestina or the Lex Romana Visigothorum. The shop also held its social gatherings. In the early afternoon, people from the neighborhood would often come: a cobbler and an old memorialist who wrote letters to the water carriers and maids, a very dry man with the classic Spanish vulgarity, Mr. Isidro. Then, at dusk, writers, bibliophiles, and journalists would begin to arrive, and there were often long discussions. From time to time, Lista, Reinoso, Mesonero Romanos, and several other writers would come in. The most frequent visitor was Don Bartolomé José Gallardo. Gallardo spoke ill of everyone. He was an irascible and violent man, full of rage and anger toward other writers. His clipped Extremaduran accent made his words even harsher. He greatly hated the Frenchified abbots, and around this time he had written a pamphlet entitled “Four Well-Planned Slaps by Dómine Lucas to the Gazetteers of Bayonne” against Lista and Reinoso, and he was planning to write another, “Letters of Exchange or Literary Merchants,” to violently attack Hermosilla, Miñano, Lista, and Burgos. Gallardo asserted that that period was the lowest in the history of Spanish literature, and that no one knew anything, a fact that is asserted in all eras with the same degree of certainty. Gallardo was kind to people who could not be his rivals. He had seen the sagacity and curiosity of Bartolillo, the boy from the bookstore, and he would challenge and pester him with questions and then offer explanations, which Bartolillo grasped on the fly. One day, Father Chamizo met a soldier, Mac Crohon, who had recently returned from abroad, in Mr. Martín’s bookstore . This Mac Crohon had been a close friend of Abbot Marchena, and he wanted to recover some of the abbot’s history books, which he didn’t know where they had ended up after his death. Don Venancio was talking with Mac Crohon when Aviraneta approached with two men: one was Don Bartolomé José Gallardo; the other, the Burgos lawyer Don José de la Fuente Herrero. The three of them were discussing politics; they said that the liberals were in great danger because of the hard work of the apostolic party led by the secret Society of the Exterminating Angel. “Scottish Freemasonry, to which we all belong,” Gallardo said, ” is disorganized and without work, with its columns demolished. ” “This is the phraseology of the Freemasons,” Chamizo thought, and he paid little attention to it. He greeted Mac Crohon, who a few days later gave him a volume by Lucretius, which had belonged to Marchena, and he devoted himself to looking at the prints by Brambilla and Gálvez of the Siege of Zaragoza, and the lithographs that had been made a few years earlier of the Royal Sieges and the paintings in the Museum, under the direction of Madrazo, by some foreign draftsmen and lithographers such as Brambilla, Asselineau, and Pic de Leopold. When Aviraneta and his friends finished their conversation, they left the bookstore, and Chamizo began talking with Gallardo about bibliography and ecclesiastical history. They took a stroll along Calle de Alcalá, returned to Puerta del Sol, and there they all said goodbye. As Aviraneta and Chamizo walked home together along Calle del Príncipe, an old man rushed up to Aviraneta and hugged him … “Goodbye, Don Venancio!” Aviraneta said to the former friar. I’m going with this gentleman. “Who is he?” Chamizo asked him out of curiosity. “He is Don Lorenzo Calvo de Rozas, a man who distinguished himself at the Siege of Zaragoza and who was a minister in 1823. ” The following days Chamizo continued to go to Señor Martín’s secondhand bookstore , where he bought some odds and ends. He became very friendly with the house. Señor Martín’s son was a young man of about twenty-three, named Román, who was called the Terrible. Román was married to the daughter of a bookbinder. He was a vicious, impulsive, violent man, who did not like to be seen. He liked to work and plundered his father. Many times Chamizo witnessed tremendous disputes between father and son, which ended with insults and threats. Chapter 8. A JESUIT. One day Chamizo had just gotten out of bed and was reading an old edition of The Secret History of Procopius when there was a knock at his door and a young priest entered his room. He greeted the ex- friar and gave him a card that read: JACINTO JIMENEZ, SJ. “What do you mean?” Chamizo asked. “I have come to take information about your life and conduct. ” “My life? ” “Yes, sir; from the fathers of the Society of Jesus. ” “My lord,” replied Don Venancio, “the Community in which I professed has been extinguished, and I consider myself free to live independently and without having to answer to any other Order.” “But do you consider yourself part of the Church?” the priest asked. “Yes. ” “Then you must obey. ” “Depending on whom,” Chamizo replied. He countered the Jesuit’s observations with quotations from Saint Augustine, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Jerome, Origen, etc. Father Jacinto wasn’t very good at matters of ecclesiastical discipline, and said: “Let’s leave these theoretical questions aside, if you will, and get down to reality. It has been learned that you have relations with Freemasons and revolutionaries. You have frequently been seen in a secondhand bookstore in the company of Don Bartolomé José Gallardo, who is one of the most bitter enemies of religion. ” “I speak with him because he is a learned writer; but I don’t share his ideas. Some clergymen also go to that secondhand bookstore. ” “Good.” “Here we wish to know, Father Chamizo,” asked Father Jacinto , putting on the airs of a frank and down-to-earth man, “whether you are with us or with them. ” “I’m not with anyone. I’m only trying to find a way to earn an honest living, and nothing more. ” “We will provide it for you. ” “You? ” “Yes! On one condition. ” “And that is? ” “That you inform us of the work your liberal friends are doing. ” “But they don’t do any work! ” “Yes, yes; they do. ” “Good; even if they do, I don’t know about them, and if I did know about them because they had been communicated to me in confidence, I wouldn’t have told the first newcomer about it. ” “The thing is, I’m not the first newcomer,” said Father Jacinto, standing up; “I am the Church.” The ex-friar was astounded to hear the tone the Jesuit used when he said this. “Anyway,” Chamizo concluded, “I’m no good at spying. Give me any job and I’ll do it; but spying, no. ” “You’re too wrapped up in the ideas of the century, Father Chamizo,” the Jesuit replied. “Everything done for the greater glory of God is well done. I’ll come back another day, and I think I’ll convince you.” With this, the Jesuit smiled and left the room. Chapter 9. Silhouettes of Conspirators. The next afternoon, Don Venancio met Paquito Gamboa, the soldier with whom he had been at the San Sebastián lazaretto, on Atocha Street. They went for a walk, and on their way back, they went into the Café de Venecia on Prado Street. They sat near the window. That place was a dark, smoky place, with a peculiar smell that mixed the aroma of roasted coffee with tobacco smoke and a moth-like stench emanating from the worn velvet couches. “And are most of these people military?” Chamizo asked. “No,” Gamboa replied. “Many of these people are lazy, waiting for a good moment, chatting in a corner, smoking, and playing billiards. Some, who call themselves permanent and reserve military personnel, are adventurers, lost souls, if not swindlers. Gamboa later told Chamizo that there was an active conspiracy. He assumed Aviraneta was involved in the plot and that Calvo de Rozas, Romero Alpuente, Flórez Estrada, Gallardo, and others must be involved . Constitutional. Gamboa was planning to speak to Aviraneta and offer himself to him. He invited him to go to Chamizo, to Doña Celia’s house, and he left because he had to go on guard duty. The young soldier had just left when Calvo de Rozas entered the café with a fat, sideburned man, and then, forming another group, two old codgers, accompanied by Aviraneta and a man with a monkish air. They all sat at a table: the two codgers, Flórez Estrada and Romero Alpuente, sat on the couch, and the others sat on chairs around it. The conversation turned to general political matters. Calvo de Rozas, a man of ill disposition, with a sullen and somber appearance, spoke with an unpleasant dryness. It was said that during the Siege of Zaragoza he had ruled despotically like a pasha. He was considered Aragonese, but he had been born in Vizcaya. In France, during the Revolution, he would have been among the Jacobins. Romero Alpuente, a repulsive, sallow-faced old man with a cadaverous appearance and glassy eyes, spoke slowly and petulantly , interspersing his conversation with witty phrases, which he was the first to laugh at with such a cold and sad expression that it was horrifying. As for Flórez Estrada, he seemed like a shadow, a decrepit old man with one foot in the grave. The thick-set gentleman with sideburns was Don Juan Olavarría, a man who considered himself thoughtful and serious and who lived in a constant state of planning fever. Canals, ports, factories, turning mountains into plains and plains into mountains were his obsessions. The other figure was the Freemason Beraza. Beraza had a monkish air. He was clean-shaven, bald down to the nape of his neck, with a bulging forehead and a turned-up nose. His body was fat and flabby, and his gestures were somewhat feminine. He must have been a frenetic talker, because he was constantly seen holding forth with one finger in the air and smiling a placid, stolid smile. After some time, the liberal guests filed out of the café, all wearing capes and round hats. These conspirators in capes and top hats were very serious and grim. As they left, Aviraneta saw Chamizo and approached him. “Man! I’m going to introduce you to these gentlemen. ” “No, no. ” “Why not? ” “You’re off on your own revolutionary tangle, and it’s no good for me. ” “Bah! You’re one of us, Father Chamizo. ” “No; I’m not one of you. I’m Catholic, Apostolic, Roman , and monarchist, and you’re impious, anarchists, conspirators… ” “Fuck, man! Don’t pay any attention.” “Who put this on you ?” The ex-friar first told him what Gamboa had told him, and then he told him about the visit from the Jesuit he had had the day before. Aviraneta remained serious. “And you, what are you going to do?” he asked. “Nothing. I’m not going to spy on you, you’re a friend of mine. ” “Thank you, Don Venancio. What we’re going to do is one thing. I’ll give you some news I know from time to time, and you’ll pass it on to that priest. ” “I don’t like the procedure. I don’t know what they’re up to, and what you’re up to. ” “Us? Very little. Do you know what our objective is? Well, it’s to play a thunderous game to scare the royalists and convince the government to accept us all in the army and the ministries. ” “You’ve chosen a bad path. ” “What do you want? Young people. Crazy heads.” And speaking of something else, do you want me to tell Don Bartolomé José Gallardo to send you some rare books? He will send them to you, because I will vouch for you. “You will be responsible, Señor Aviraneta, if my soul is lost,” Chamizo said energetically. “Yes, that’s true.” The two left the café. They arrived at Calle del Lobo, where Don Eugenio lived. “Has Paquito Gamboa told you what day we should go to Celia’s house for dinner?” Aviraneta asked. “No; he said he will let us know.” Chamizo said goodbye to Don Eugenio, and they each went their own ways. The next day, in Señor Martín’s bookstore, Gallardo told the ex- friar that Aviraneta had told him about him, and added that he should ask him for any books he wanted, and he would gladly give them to him. “If I find something that suits you,” said Chamizo. “No, no. That’s too much for a friar,” Gallardo replied sarcastically . “A friar can’t be asked to give anything; you’re made to take whatever’s given to you. You know what Father Barletta, the preacher from Naples, used to say in his macaronic Latin: “You quoeritis á me, fratres carissimi quómodo itur ad paradisum? Hoc dicut vobis campanae monasteri, dando, dando, dando. ” “Bah, inventions!” “No, man, no.” Father Barletta is the same man who, recounting Christ’s interview with the Samaritan woman, said that she immediately knew Christ was Jewish because she saw that he was circumcised. Chapter 10. THE SONG OF THUNDER. Three days after this conversation, Father Jacinto visited the former cloistered priest’s house. Don Venancio was rather ambiguous with him, letting him know that he would do everything possible to coax information from his liberal friends, without formally committing himself to anything. The Jesuit provided some work, translations of Latin documents; but later, seeing that Chamizo’s confidences were of little use to him, he stopped visiting him. Chamizo often went to see Aviraneta; he wrote letters for him and translated others that reached him in French and English. Don Eugenio handled respectable sums and had means, although he did not spend them on himself. He gave Chamizo whatever he asked for, money the former friar spent on books and eating well, avoiding Doña Puri’s dining room for the stabled gentlemen like the plague. Once, letters were sent to him in his name to deliver to Aviraneta, which he didn’t like very much, because he understood that something suspicious was hidden there. Aviraneta assured him one day that nothing was hidden. “Well, to convince me,” Chamizo told him, “show me one of these letters and let me read it.” Aviraneta showed him the letter; nothing could be read, which made Chamizo think it was written in some kind of cipher. “Well, Don Eugenio,” said the former friar, “please tell them not to send me letters like that.” Aviraneta promised, and, indeed, they never sent him any more. Don Venancio was always curious to know what Aviraneta did, what people he associated with, and what houses he went to. One day, when the ex-friar was translating some passages from a work by Jeremiah Bentham at Aviraneta’s house for Flórez Estrada, he saw Don Eugenio sitting at the table in front of a piece of paper covered in cross-outs. “What on earth are you doing?” he said. “Aren’t you writing verses? ” “I’m writing verses. ” “You! ” “Yes. It seems you think me absolutely incapable of writing a couplet. ” “The truth is… That’s right. I consider you a man unfit for that. But who knows! Perhaps you’re a Lord Byron or a Quintana. Let’s see those verses! ” “I know they’ll sound bad to you,” said Don Eugenio. “They’re verses of circumstance, made to be sung to the tune of _Al tun, tun_, and for the exclusive use of the people of Trueno. ” “I don’t know either that _Al tun, tun_ or that trueno.” –“Al tun, tun” is a popular little tune that has nothing to do with Mozart or Rossini. As for the “Duel del Trueno” (Thunderclap), I was speaking to you about it the other day… –“I don’t remember. I’ve heard talk of the “Duel del Trueno” (Thunderclap), of “Nocturnal Students” and “Schoolchildren”; but I didn’t think it had any organization. ” –“It doesn’t, but it occurred to me to give it an air of organization, and from time to time one of these unlimited officers, with fifteen or twenty friends, goes on patrol through the Barrios Bajos (Lower Neighborhoods) and some craftsmen of our ideas join them, and, from Easter to Palm Sunday, they beat an enemy Carlist with a club and shout in the streets: “Death to the Carlists! Long live the Constitution!” When they do something like this, people say: “It’s the “Duel del Trueno” (Thunderclap). At the same time, When poets, journalists, former guardsmen, liberals, and indefinite military men gather in cafes , and talk loudly, and argue, and come out muffled in their cloaks up to their eyes, it’s said: “It’s Thunder’s party .” And this Thunder’s party makes a lot of noise and amounts to nothing. They claim they’re young, exalted liberals from the aristocracy and the middle class; it’s been said that Candelas, the thief, is among them… With this, the royalists get scared and believe they have a greater enemy. “You’re a fraud, my friend Aviraneta. ” “You can’t aspire to be a politician without being a bit of a scoundrel, Father Chamizo. Every politician begins by being a scoundrel. I accept the necessary scoundrelism, upright; I take a bath of mischief and move on. ” “Oh! You don’t need that. You have enough bile and enough bad intentions to defy the venom of scorpions and vipers .” “How do they know you’ve been a friar!” said Aviraneta. ” You have the spiteful way of speaking that they all do. ” “Thank you! Let’s look at your poems. ” “Not poems; they’re deplorable verses, variations on the slogan of the Thunder party. ” “I don’t know what that slogan is. ” “The slogan is this: A blow with a club and say they’re hitting us. ” “Very good, very Christian! ” “Now you’ll see the sublime hymn. Don’t praise me too much, Father Chamizo; I’m going to blush. Here it goes: At random, beating, beating; at random, saber blow, saber blow; at random, death to the royalists! At random, those who defend Carlos. In the alley, in the alley, give them a good beating, without hesitation. Don Carlos will reign with the Inquisition, when the orange turns into a lemon. ” “Is this the first verse?” –Yes. –Very Attic, very cultured. –Yes; I already imagined it would move you. Now comes the second one: Tune tune, club, club; tune tune, blow, blow; tune tune, down with the friars! Tune tune, they’re taking the money. Through the little door and through the gate, hard and stiff! Beat at will! Don Carlos will reign with the Inquisition, when the orange turns into a lemon. –What did you think of the little song, Father? –Foolish and savage. –You see? That shows me the song is good: whoever it outrages you with. You can’t deny that this refrain: Don Carlos will reign with the Inquisition… is very artistic. –Yes; it’s art for a guardhouse or a prison courtyard. The other day you assured me that it wasn’t true that the couplet that appeared in the Carlist newspaper was sung in Madrid: “Death to Christ! Long live Lucifer! Death to Don Carlos! Long live Isabel! ” And it’s true that this has never been sung. But that doesn’t prevent you from writing a couplet of that kind. No, man. Saying “Down with the friars!” is not the same as saying “Death to Christ!” There’s a difference. You are, as Gallardete rightly said , filthy animals mired in vice. You have nothing to do with Jesus Christ; what could you possibly have to do with him? Well, well. All right. Don’t talk any more nonsense. Anyway, since you accept “Al tun tun… ” as your program, I’ll accept this other one, from a song from 1923: ” Erase the infernal Constitution from memory , and let it only serve in history as eternal execration.” BOOK THIRD THE CENTER TRIANGLE Chapter 11. EXPLANATIONS. Aviraneta and Tilly had arranged to meet in front of the San Gil barracks at two in the afternoon , and together they entered Prince Pío Mountain and marched through the countryside until they reached the Garden House. They went into the small room where Tilly was staying and sat down in some wicker armchairs. “If you haven’t had coffee, I’ll bring you a cup,” Tilly said. “I’ve had it; but I have no problem having more,” replied Don Eugenio. Tilly left. Aviraneta began to contemplate the room and the paintings on the walls. The room was rectangular, the walls had gilded half-moons, and the floor was marble. The ceiling was covered with paintings of garlands, little angels, and fruits, and in the middle, a nymph ascended through the air among clouds, with an elegant and mannered gesture. There was little furniture for the size of the room: a console table and a sofa, both Rococo, heavily covered in shells and cracked all over; several gilded chairs and a few armchairs. On the two long walls were paintings: on one, a view of Naples, with Vesuvius in the background; on the other, the villa of Amalfi, taken from the depths of a cave. From the end walls, one could see the city of Capri, with the ruins of Tiberius’s palace rising above great stony hills, and on the other, the Abbey of Vallombrosa, with its ancient tower, at the foot of pine-covered mountains . These tempera paintings, quick, sketchy, flaking with time, had their own mannered grace. Tilly, bringing a coffee pot and a cup, which she placed on a side table, said: “Are you looking at the paintings in my drawing room? ” “Yes. ” “They’re not worth much, they say. ” “No, not as paintings; but as literature, yes. ” “I’m glad you tell me so. ” “Why? ” “Because I usually amuse myself enormously looking at these figures. Would you believe that sometimes I get tender thinking about this shepherdess here in Capri, and I go fishing with these sailors from Naples, and I walk with the friars on the terrace of this convent in Amalfi?” “I’m not surprised; that kind of sentimentality is very typical of a Terne man. ” Don Eugenio filled his coffee cup and lit a cigar. “Now, maestro and companion number three,” said Tilly, “let’s leave aside the sentimentality and the paintings, and tell me about the beginnings of your Society, so I can cover all the details. ” “Didn’t I tell you in Ustáriz,” asked Aviraneta, “about a plan I had, upon arriving in Spain, to form a secret Society that would unite Freemasons, Communards, and Carbonari to defend liberty? ” “You told me something, but very vaguely,” replied Tilly. ” I presented this project, which I then called the Society of the Triple Seal, to Mina in Bayonne, and Mina agreed. ” “Did you have a defined political program? ” “No. I left that to the notable men who joined the Society,” replied Aviraneta. My project was simply to found a secret society without any symbolism; no musings, no columns, no temples, no nonsense of that kind: a strong organization, high levels of vigilance among members, and a minimal program. “It’s giving the secret society the character of its time,” Tilly murmured. “That’s it,” and Aviraneta filled another cup of coffee. “As for my general orientation, it was to achieve the maximum degree of liberalism compatible with order, the extermination of Carlism by all possible means, and a Constitution of the year 12, partially modifiable if deemed necessary. ” “Good. Now, maestro, explain to me the arrangements you made upon arriving in Madrid. ” “The first person I spoke to was Don Bartolomé José Gallardo. ” “The writer? ” “The same one. Gallardo told me he’d had an idea similar to mine; but that it chilled him to see that there still remained hatred and rivalries between the Masons and the commoners from 1821 to 1823, and even more so, the memory of this commoner Society, whose foundation he had established, and which thanks to Regato’s maneuvers had served the absolutists. I tried to convince him that the experiences should be repeated, and he told me to try it myself. “A question: Did you have money? ” “Yes; I brought some from Mexico. ” “What did you do after that?” Tilly asked. “I met with several Masons and commoners, and some recommended that I consult with Calvo de Rozas, and others, with Flórez Estrada. I visited Calvo de Rozas, and he received me enthusiastically. He assured me that the Madrid youth were ardent liberals, that the young army officers could be counted on, and that all that was lacking was organization, and that it was necessary to begin the work. “Fine,” I said, “but I don’t have the resources. I’ll provide them for you,” he replied. “And have you provided them? ” “In part, yes. ” “And did you form the Society immediately? ” “No; I had thought of founding the Junta del Triple Sello with two delegates from each old society and a president, seven in total; but when we started, we only had one former member of the community, Calvo de Rozas; a Mason, Beraza; and myself, who joined a Carbonari Association in Paris. ” “Are there Carbonari here?” “Some, among the military. ” “What did you do first?” “I told Calvo de Rozas that he should take charge of forming the Junta and leave it to me to organize the officers and the liberal youth.” I needed money, carte blanche to do as I pleased, and a trustworthy man who could be entrusted with a difficult mission. These were my conditions. –And did you accept them? –Yes. –Where did you get the money? –A small loan was made, directed by Calvo y Mateo, a former agent of the Philippine Company and later a banker in Paris, who lent large sums to Mina and Torrijos. –And did you immediately find a trustworthy man? –Yes. –Who was he? –An indefinite captain, Antonio Nogueras, a man familiar with Madrid society. –Is he a man of worth? –He’s somewhat tedious, fond of making elaborate phrases. I asked this captain to provide me with ten commanders or captains of the unlimited or indefinite class, to whom I could entrust the military organization of the liberals of Madrid. –What organization have you used? –That of the Carbonari. The first core is made up of ten men, with a leader, called a decuria, and the leader is called a decurion; every ten decurias make up a century, with a centurion; every ten centuries, a legion, with its leader or praetor. “I don’t like the names,” Tilly murmured, “they have an archaic air. ” “Nor do I; but we have to leave a bit of the picturesqueness for the people, and they would have to be replaced by others, which isn’t easy. ” “Have you found your men quickly? ” “Very quickly. There’s enthusiasm. In a week, Nogueras brought me home a group of young officers, a bit noisy and boastful, who have taken charge of the work. They’ve recruited shop assistants, students, doctors, lawyers… ” “And are they an easily manageable group? ” “There’s a bit of everything.” Alongside these cheerful and boastful soldiers, the shop assistants and enthusiastic students, there are the lawyers, those who feel they have political aptitude, and these people are hungry and greedy, seeking a career, seeking advancement… “Guys like me,” Tilly said. “But they don’t have your qualifications. ” “And how many people have you gathered so far?” “In the time we’ve been here, the ten centuries have been completed, and each man has been assigned his number in the century to which he belongs. ” “So you have a thousand men, maestro? ” “Yes. I’m saying there are more of us. ” “And the military leader? The praetor, who will that be? ” “For now, me. Later, we have a prestigious leader. ” “Who? ” “Palafox. ” “Will he accept? ” “Yes. ” “But those men will have to be armed. And the weapons? ” “That’s what we’re working on.” From the report from the century commanders, we know there are many volunteers willing to buy their rifles and ammunition. For the needy, they will have to be given away, and a subscription will be made. “Very well: we will contribute to it with our modest means,” Tilly assured them. “There’s no need. You can give more than a few pesetas.” “Let’s see what our specialty is going to be,” Tilly suggested. “Father Mansilla should dedicate himself to seeking relations between courtiers and the royalist clergy; let him present himself to them as a supporter of enlightened absolutism… a bit of tradition… a bit of the century. ” “Very well. Understood. He’ll do it perfectly. He’s going in that direction. ” “Advise him to go to confession so he can learn everything. ” “It’s a delicate matter, but we’ll manage. ” “As for you, Tilly, if you’re ready to work… ” “Yes, yes.” “It would be a good idea for you to join the Cristino party. ” “Have you thought through the procedure? ” “Yes; you could write a small pamphlet about the reforms of Spain. You could defend Queen Cristina enthusiastically; a letter in the style of Louis XVIII’s, and other reforms. A few wise quotations, Montesquieu, Bentham, etc. ” “Nothing; I’ll do it. Mansilla will help me. And then? Then you print your pamphlet without a name, only with initials, and you send it to a number of people in the Cristino party. Good. All that will be done. Naturally, you are a nobleman. You will sign yourself Tilly and have a seal with the Tilly coat of arms. Do you think it’s indispensable? Yes, I think it’s convenient. Besides, in Madrid you will be a serious and religious young man. You will go to the fashionable church and make yourself seen . I find that a little boring. Serious, aristocratic, liberal, religious, a little melancholic, because you have had unhappy loves, a former rascal, you are admirably qualified to make your way. You want to turn me into a retired young Werther, Tilly said, laughing. No, apparently nothing more. Play the dove, and then, if you can, you will bring out the beak and claws of a vulture. Good. “Meanwhile, you’re studying a little politics and doing your best to meet as many people as possible. ” “Very well. ” “Each of us can create, if we find the opportunity, a new Triangle and keep it a secret. ” “For now, it will be difficult,” Tilly said. “Oh, of course! But when you get out more, it will be another matter. In any case, tell Mansilla. ” “He’ll be told. ” “Fine; I’m leaving. In a month, I’ll come back here again. ” “A month! Won’t that be too long? ” “No. If you need to tell me something important, let me know at my house, 13 Calle del Lobo, and I’ll come. If possible, write as little as possible, only if necessary. For this, we’ll use a code. ” “Very well.” ” After lunch, I’ll be at the Café de Venecia on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; at the Café Nuevo on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; at the Fonda de Genies on Sundays.” Now, dear One, good afternoon. “Wait a minute, friend Three. Mansilla will come at five o’clock; he’s very punctual. ” “Do you want me to talk to him? ” “No; I just want to explain your mission to you in a moment, in case you have any questions, so you can consult with me. ” Indeed: at five o’clock sharp, Mansilla appeared. He was a short, thickset man, with a broad face and energetic gaze. He had a commanding attitude and abrupt movements. Tilly spoke with him alone, and then the three of them chatted about current politics. Aviraneta said goodbye and, accompanied by Tilly, went down the terrace stairs and left through the door in the wall. A few days later, Aviraneta received a message from Tilly telling him that he and the priest had begun their campaign, and that the Central Triangle was starting its work auspiciously. Chapter 12. WORKS OF THE FIRST. CENTRAL TRIANGLE One month after this conversation, Aviraneta, wrapped in his cloak, entered through the wall of Prince Pío Mountain, through the door opposite the Stables, and advanced towards the Garden House. Don Eugenio crossed the entrance hall, went up the stairs and entered the living room, where Mansilla and Tilly were. “Good afternoon,” Aviraneta exclaimed upon entering. “How are we doing, gentlemen? ” “Very well; and you, Don Eugenio?” Tilly said. “Perfectly. And how is Reverend Father Mansilla, Number Two of our Triangle? ” “The Reverend Father is doing as well as Number Two,” the interested party murmured. “Shall we begin the session of the Central Triangle?” Aviraneta asked. “We shall,” Mansilla replied. “Are there things to report? ” “There are,” Tilly replied. “You begin, Number One. ” “As you may have noticed,” Tilly indicated, “my pamphlet has been published and distributed. I have received several letters in reply, which you have here, and I have been invited to a meeting, which was held two days ago at the home of Don Rufino García Carrasco.” “Well, very well! I didn’t think you’d leave so quickly. What happened at the meeting? ” Attending the meeting were Don Juan and Don Rufino Carrasco, the Duke of San Carlos, the official of the Secretariat of the Ministry of Grace and Justice, Don Juan Donoso Cortés; the Count of Parcent, with Captain Ríos, and some other aristocrats and courtiers. The founding of the new party was discussed , which will have as its principles the defense of the rights of Queen Isabella, the regency of her mother, and a vague liberalism. “Do they come to this?” asked Aviraneta. “Hmm! There are pros and cons on this last point; some believe that a modern Constitution should be established; others are in favor of the Charter and the two Chambers, and still others, finally, prefer enlightened absolutism. ” “Are there any supporters of Zea Bermúdez? ” “Supporters of Zea, no; rather of his doctrines.” Since the discussion of the constitutional problem was dragging on, President Rufino Carrasco decided to postpone it for later and move on to discussing whether or not the Cristinos should arm themselves to defend themselves against the Carlists. “It’s an important matter. And what has been decided?” asked Aviraneta. “It has been decided to begin arming immediately. The Carrascos will be in charge of doing it, and with their influence in the Palace, they believe they will not be hindered. Probably, the purchase of weapons will begin immediately . ” “This is a very important matter,” Aviraneta murmured. “We will do the same. And you, friend Mansilla, have you acquired any new information? ” “The information I have,” replied the priest, “is that a terrible absolutist movement is brewing . The majority in the Palace are Carlists. The Royalist Militia is seething; emissaries constantly come from the towns asking when they will take to the fields; Merino, Don Santos Ladrón, the Count of Spain, Maroto, González Moreno are preparing. “Who’s the leader here? The Duke of Infantado? ” “Yes; he and his son. The son is the one they say will lead the royalists in Madrid. ” “But, anyway, father and son are a pair of idiots,” said Aviraneta. “What does that matter?” replied Tilly. “They could be the standard-bearers. ” “Who’s with them?” asked Aviraneta. “The rector of the Jesuit convent of San Isidro, Father Puyal; the collector Zorrilla, the archivist of the Duke of Infantado… ” “These aren’t people of any repute. ” “No, of course, but they have a lot of influence. ” “And are there many military men?” “Not many: the leaders of the royalist volunteers, Colonel Rodea, Lieutenant Paulez, Captain Portas, who is Bessieres’s brother-in-law… Almost all of them are thinking of joining Merino if things go badly, because some are hoping that if the exalted Cristinos and Liberals oust Zea Bermúdez from the presidency, they will seize power for themselves. ” “It’s not a bad idea. It’s logical. We will defend Zea,” Aviraneta murmured, “and in the meantime, we will arm ourselves. At least we can count on Madrid. I will advise people not to hold the slightest demonstration against Zea. That it lasts as long as possible is what we “It ‘s convenient.
” “And what have you done?” Tilly asked. “We’ve organized our Isabelina Junta, which is now composed of Flórez Estrada, Calvo de Rozas, Romero Alpuente, Beraza, Olavarría, and me. Palafox has been appointed military leader, with a vote in the Directory . ” “Are they worth anything?” Tilly asked. “Nothing; tired old men, serious and honorable men, but useless for a conspiracy. People who have a beautiful epitaph, nothing more. I ‘d prefer crooks, ambitious, scoundrels… uneducated, but with more drive. ” “But, anyway, since crooks can’t be found, we have to use honorable people,” Tilly said seriously. “Yes. ” “What misery! ” “And have you spent all that time organizing the Junta ?” Mansilla asked. “Not only on this,” Aviraneta replied. A few days ago, I ran into a certain Francisco Maestre, former administrator of the Avila Revenue Service, on the street. I know this gentleman because, in 1823, he joined the Empecinado column with the meager funds from that administration’s holdings . Maestre told me about his misfortunes and the hardships he endured during ten years of unemployment, relying on the meager earnings he earned at a solicitor’s office. Despite his hardship and difficulties, he has conspired these past years against the absolutist government in the company of Marcoartú, Miyar, Torrecilla, etc., being in charge of correspondence in the provinces until the conspiracy was discovered. “And has he given you his notes?” Tilly asked. “Yes; he gave me the lists of those involved in Catalonia, Valencia, Valladolid, and Zamora. ” “And why haven’t you taken Maestre himself?” “Because he doesn’t want to. He says he’s tired, sick, and has a large family to support.” “And the data has value?” “Great. ” “So the Isabelina Society is going well?” Tilly asked. “It’s going well. ” “And what are our objectives from now on?” Tilly asked. “For now, wait; tell everyone that Zea is indispensable and irreplaceable. We’ll support whatever the Cristinos do behind the scenes, and in the meantime, we’ll prepare and buy weapons. You, friend One, visit everyone you can. ” “And me?” Mansilla asked. “You, friend Two, find a way to find out what the royalists are up to. We’re not prepared; but neither are they. The Carlists will probably take over half of Spain; but as long as we have the capitals, we’ll triumph.” Mansilla and Tilly thought the same. These considerations led them to discuss political principles, which they weren’t entirely happy about. “Couldn’t we talk a little about the purpose of our Society?” Mansilla asked. How far do we want to go? It seems pointless to me, but we’ll discuss whatever you think. I believe that no matter how hard we try, in Spain we’ll always fall short,’ Aviraneta replied. ‘I believe the same,’ Tilly said. ‘You’re bad liberals,’ Mansilla replied. ‘You don’t like to reason. ‘ ‘The thing is, I believe we need a certain amount of freedom to be able to move freely, and that, in my opinion, must be won at all costs,’ Aviraneta replied. ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ Tilly said. ‘But do you think we in Spain haven’t had freedom?’ Mansilla asked. ‘How wrong! We’ve had it in our own way. Do you suppose that Fray Luis de Granada and Saint Teresa didn’t write freely and without restraint? Do you think that Mariana, Suárez, Molina Soto, weren’t daring thinkers? ‘ ‘I don’t know,’ Aviraneta said. I don’t know if you’re right or not. Each era poses its own problem in a special way. To say that the problem that arose before is the same as today’s is worthless. We are referring to modern freedom in its two aspects: freedom of “Think and freedom to act. ” “Of course,” exclaimed Tilly, “the rest is theological quibbles that don’t interest us! ” “I see you want the freedom to think, so as not to think,” Mansilla replied ironically. “Let’s move on to another question, since you don’t like doctrinal matters. Are we going to work for the freedom of others, without reward? ” “No, no! You’ll quickly find the position you deserve as a result of politics. With our data, you rely on the royalists, and with the royalists’, on us, and since we know you’re on our side, that’s enough. ” “And you, Aviraneta, are you going to work without hope of achieving anything?” asked Mansilla. “At least for now, I don’t have a specific ambitious plan. ” “So you want to go down in history? Do you have aspirations for immortality? ” “No, I don’t; none. And you, Tilly? ” “Nor.” All my plans are included in life. “What’s more,” Aviraneta affirmed, “to me this business of immortality seems like a petty aspiration.” The priest grimaced. “Don’t you think the same? ” “I don’t. To me, the aspiration toward eternity seems a natural sentiment. ” “You’re a priest,” Tilly said coldly. “You yourselves, who don’t believe in the immortality of the soul, aspire to that of history. ” “No, no. I don’t,” Tilly replied. “Nor do I,” Aviraneta replied. “I don’t care, I don’t mind the thought that a hundred years from now there’s a good man who’ll discover my name and start studying my adventures. That doesn’t worry me at all. ” “I don’t believe you. ” “As you wish. Right now my concern is what I have to do when I leave here, what I’ll do tonight, tomorrow, the day after. Next year already has very distant prospects, it almost doesn’t exist for me.” After discussing this point, which, naturally, was not clarified, Tilly proposed the use of a special vocabulary for the Triangle, with fifty or sixty agreed-upon words, which would allow them to speak among themselves without anyone noticing. The idea was accepted, and since Tilly had already made the list of words and their substitutions, this code was examined, some words were rejected, and the rest were accepted. It was decided that when one wanted to move from ordinary conversation to conversation with a code, he would ask: “And the conclave, how’s it going?” The other should reply: “Good, very good. We’re cheating.” They made some tests of the new method and were satisfied. Shortly after, Aviraneta left the Garden House and left Príncipe Pío Mountain through the San Gil Gate, while Father Mansilla left through the San Vicente Gate. Chapter 13. POPULAR UNREST. MEANWHILE, popular unrest was growing, the Cristinos and Carlists were coming to blows in the Barrios Bajos, and every night there was revelry and gunfire, and cheers for Charles V and the Constitution. The cafés had become political centers; each had its own flavor: the Fontana de Oro, Lorencini, and Cruz de Malta were almost entirely Twelve-Year-Old Liberals; the Dos Amigos, the Estrella, and the Café Nuevo were exalted Liberals; the San Sebastián had a Republican gathering; the San Vicente, on Barrionuevo Street , and the Aduana, were Royalist; the Solís, on Alcalá Street, was moderate. The literary men went to the Café del Príncipe and the Café de Solito; the undefined military men to the Café de Venecia; the old chess and domino enthusiasts went to the Levante, and the lettuce-eaters to the Santa Catalina. In general, the center of Madrid favored a mild liberalism; the Barrios Bajos were absolutist. The two liberal factions of Cristinos and Isabelinos maneuvered in tandem. The Isabelinos collaborated with the Cristinos, without the latter noticing that other elements in their shadow formed a separate group. Everything carried out by the Cristinos came from the Carrascos group, without that Aviraneta and his followers would have contact with those leaders. Aviraneta distrusted the Cristino faction friendly to Zea Bermúdez; the Cristinos knew that the extremists were stirring beneath them and feared their demagogic tendencies; but they did not consider them dangerous, because they believed they lacked organization. Both sides, and with them the Carlists, affirmed that Zea’s ministry was irreplaceable. Naturally, everyone needed time to prepare. Aviraneta and Tilly, to understand each other and come to an agreement, sought intermediaries. Aviraneta arranged for an old friend of his, Fidalgo, an employee at the Palace, to be one of them. When Tilly had something to say to Aviraneta, he would inform Fidalgo, who would send word to Don Eugenio at Aspiroz’s hat shop on Calle de la Montera, at the corner of Puerta del Sol. As for Father Mansilla, he was not suspected of liberalism, and one could write to him without fear. Mansilla usually responded in code, sometimes addressing letters to Father Chamizo. Despite the discreet manner in which the Cristinos and Isabelinos were armed, the minister must have been aware of their maneuvering and suspected that beneath the Carrascos people there might be other elements more dangerous to the peace. One day, in a report from the police superintendent, it was reported that in the Plaza de San Ildefonso, above a pharmacy, enlistments of Cristinos were taking place, forming the sixth and seventh companies of the second battalion. It was added that several of the enlisted men, including a playing card manufacturer from Toledo Street, opposite San Isidro, and two undefined officers, had held a conference with other suspicious individuals at the Café de la Estrella. With this information, Zea distributed his patrol throughout Madrid and, at dawn, arrested a civilian armed with a rifle, bayonet, cartridge belt, and ten rounds of ammunition. He was a member of the Isabelina Army, but kept quiet about it. When questioned, he said he was a Christian and had enlisted in a carpenter’s house on Postigo de San Martín Street, at the corner of Sartén Street. He added that it was said that an officer from Farnesio’s regiment named García Ampudia and a certain Arroyo distributed weapons in the Plaza de San Ildefonso, and that Domingo Gallego, a servant of Don Rufino García Carrasco, and a captain from the undefined class named Tominaiza traveled to other places. The civilian found with weapons was released. Thus, beneath the Cristinos, the Isabelinos were working. June 30, 1833, arrived, the date set for the princess’s swearing-in. For this reason, it was feared that there would be riots that day and the following ones. Aviraneta and Tilly communicated their party agreements to each other, and the Cristino and Isabelino Juntas remained in permanent session. Palafox attempted to mobilize the Isabelinos through trial and error, sending centuries with their commanders to different strategic points and wherever festivities were taking place, so that the royalists would not try to overshadow them and make them fail. As the groups returned to Puerta del Sol and entered the cafés, there were shouts and cheers. “Long live the queen!” shouted the Cristinos and Isabelinos. “Long live!” And later, when there were no police nearby, the Isabelinos shouted: “Long live the Constitution!” Death to the friars! Death to the Carlists!! BOOK FOUR THE DEATH OF THE KING Chapter 14. THE FIRST NEWS. As time passed, the political situation became more grim. Aviraneta’s friends claimed that revolts would not be long in coming. On the other hand, the royalists took it for granted that Saint Joseph’s Day would be the day of thunder for the beheading of liberals, masons, and Christians. In Vistillas and Puerta de Moros and in the Lavapiés neighborhood, the townspeople acclaimed Charles V. Every day, pamphlets appeared, most of them poorly written, ending with cheers for Don Carlos or Isabel, and with a “Death to the Masons!” or a “Down with the flaires!” The royalist volunteers were already discharged and were not allowed to go out in uniform. Zea Bermúdez, the head of the government, wanted to control the situation and considered taking the weapons away from the Cristinos, who were said to be training militarily, and disarming the royalist volunteers. The project was excellent, but difficult to implement. Every day there were clubs in the streets. The royalists, when they attacked the Cristinos, said they had shouted “Long live the Constitution!” and the liberals, when they beat the royalists, said they had burst into cheers for Charles V. It was said that there would be a great popular upheaval, and that the signal would be given by the ascension of a balloon. These balloon signals were associated, for some unknown reason, with Carbonari. A few days after the princess’s swearing-in ceremony, while passing through the Puerta del Sol, Father Chamizo met Aviraneta, who was marching in the company of some friends. There were unkind people in the plaza, armed with clubs and batons. “Long live the queen!” shouted the Cristinos. “Long live!” everyone shouted. “Death to the Carlists! Death to the friars! ” “You’re giving us a hard time,” Chamizo said to Aviraneta. “This is a joke.” The truth was that nothing special happened. In September, the king’s illness worsened, and at times, there were fears for his life. On the 29th of the same month, the court physicians declared his condition very serious. Aviraneta had a friend in the Palace who gave him news of the monarch’s illness. This friend was Fidalgo, brother of two of the queen’s chamberlains, named Blanca and Estrella, who had relations with two officers, Captain Messina and Lieutenant Pierrard. One morning, Aviraneta received a message from Fidalgo, telling him that the king was in his death throes. “I’m going to my friends’ house to give them the news,” he said to Chamizo, and then asked him, “Do you know Captain Nogueras? ” “Yes.” “Then go to his house, on Toledo Street, on the corner of Maldonadas Street, and tell him what’s going on. He’s very interested, since he’s awaiting fate…” Father Venancio went to Toledo Street and entered Nogueras’s house. He was received by his landlady, Señora Nieves, a poor woman, who told him that the captain, her pupil, was leading a very bad life. He was involved with a pawnbroker from Estudios Street, who was called Concha the Lizard, a woman worse than a pain, according to her. When Don Venancio told Señora Nieves to wake the captain to give him some news, she objected; she claimed that her pupil had gone to bed that morning; But when he assured him it was important news , on which his fate depended, he went into the bedroom to call Nogueras. Nogueras came out wearing shirtsleeves and slippers. The captain was a skinny, sallow-faced little man with a pointy nose and very thick glasses . Aviraneta had described him by saying: “Nogueras is a cynic, a bug, a louse, wise and bureaucratic.” The former cloistered man told the captain what was happening and then went home to work on his translations. That afternoon, Chamizo was on the balcony taking in the fresh air when Aviraneta appeared on the street. “While you’re here peacefully,” he said, “the town is burning from one end to the other. Come down. ” Chamizo went down to the street and asked: “What happened? ” “The king died at five in the afternoon. At ten minutes past five, I had the news at Aspiroz’s hat shop. My friends are out on the lookout.” For now, the royalists are diminished and shrunken. Do you want us to go around and take the pulse of the people? —Let’s go. At six o’clock, the news of the king’s death was widespread. People walked through the streets, surprised and perplexed, gathering in groups, talking and speculating; everyone believed that something was going to happen, although they couldn’t imagine what. The ex-friar and the conspirator passed by Lorenzini and Fontana, and Then they went to the cafes on Calle Alcalá, Calle de la Estrella, Calle de Los Dos Amigos, and the Café Nuevo. In this one, people shouted against the dead king. Chapter 15. BIBIANA’S TAVERN. Aviraneta and Chamizo went to dinner at an eating house on Calle de las Tres Cruces, the house of Bibiana. Gathered there were Nogueras, del Brío, Gamundi, and some other young men from the Isabelina, almost all of them undefined and boisterous military men. Among them stood a man of over forty, who seemed made of wire, dry as tinder, black, dried, with shining eyes and violent movements. He was one of the few carbonari in the Isabelina Society. At his side was a hungry, long-haired, bearded journalist dressed in an old militiaman’s frock coat. The whole liberal crowd entered a large room that communicated with the kitchen. Two kerosene lamps lit this dining room, which had a long pine table and a cabinet of bottles. Gamundi and del Brío left and returned a short while later with two girls, Pinta and Cascarrabias, with whom they had been in a relationship and whom they had taken to dinner. They were two manolas, each more shameless than the other. They wore mantillas with a velvet border, a large comb, a colored scarf around their chest, and footcloths. Pinta was blonde, and Cascarrabias was brunette, half-gypsy. Del Brío made a good match for his manola because he was an Andalusian jerk, boastful and boastful; but Gamundi was no longer so comfortable in this environment. Gamundi was the son of a guerrilla from Mina and had lived, in his youth, in England. He was small, blond, and a bit bowlegged, with a large golden mustache and short sideburns. Aviraneta called him Zambete. “Hello, Zambete!” he would say to him. “Hello, Vinagrete!” he would reply jokingly. Gamundi had blue, watery eyes, the whites streaked with red; his nose was large and full of purple veins; and his face was bloodshot. He was an inveterate drunkard, a good, brave, and daring man. With women, he displayed a harmless yet showy gallantry. The cult of Bacchus had made him forget other pagan cults. La Cascarrabias, his mistress, insulted him constantly. “Blameless! Scruffy! Scruffy!” she would say to him. Gamundi listened to this like someone listening to rain. At dinner, they talked about women and gambling, and joked about the manolas. “As you may have noticed,” Gamundi suddenly said confidentially to Father Chamizo, “I am a man without any talent. ” “No, no. ” “Yes, I have no talent. Heart, yes; Here is a firm heart, capable of sacrificing myself for a friend. Don’t ask me for more. Don’t expect me to do the math or to know how to decline: _Musa musae_. No, that. It’s against my abilities. At the end of dinner, Gamundi stood up and, assuming a gallant attitude, said, with a sentimental and oratorical burst, that for him there were only two religions: that of the homeland and that of women. “You’ve forgotten the bottle,” someone told him. “I haven’t forgotten it,” Gamundi shouted, grabbing one by the neck and filling the glass. “Squadrons! Forward! Long live Spain! Who said retreat? Shoot him in the back. No… There is no quarter for the royalists. Blood and extermination. Not a bottle should remain, not a royalist should remain. ” “You have spoken well,” said Nogueras, the wise louse, “but you are drunk. ” “That is why I have spoken well.” Well, let’s sing the _Hymn of Riego_. I’m overflowing with liberalism. Soldiers, the homeland calls us to battle! —Gamundi, be quiet!— shouted Aviraneta. Aviraneta had great influence over those soldiers. Gamundi made a gesture of comical resignation, pressing one lip against the other with his fingers , as if he wanted to keep them from coming apart. Aviraneta and Nogueras decided what had to be done the next day. Chamizo got up to leave. Those devilish rascals continued drinking and making noise. The journalist brought a guitar and began to sing. The others carried the beat by clapping and banging his fist on the table. “Arza there… Olé!” Del Brío stood up and invited the _Cascarrabias_ to dance the fandango. They both did very well, and since del Brío was undoubtedly a master, he climbed onto the table and danced a tap dance to the beat of his clapping and banging his fist. Meanwhile, Gamundi slept for a moment, his beard resting on a bottle and his eyes open. They left Bibiana’s house around eight at night and headed toward Puerta del Sol. “Do you want to come, Don Venancio?” said Aviraneta. “Where?” “To a liberal meeting we’re going to have here at a house on Arenal Street . ” “I have to go to work.” “Bah! For a day. ” “I’d go if I were a liberal, but I’m not. ” “Fine; whatever you want.” At this point, a man in his fifties approached them, whom Aviraneta introduced to the former cloistered man. He was Don Martín Puigdullés, a colonel of the Carabineros, who had emigrated, a fool, whom the government was pursuing to send him to a prison in Africa. Mr. Puigdullés was accompanied by a woman in a rather shabby shawl. “What’s new, Aviraneta?” asked Puigdullés. “You know: the death of the king. ” “Are you going to the meeting? ” “Yes. How do you know there’s a meeting? ” “The idea came from our group at the Café de la Fontana. Gallardo, Fuente Herrero, and I were with other patriots when Gallardo came up with the idea. Everyone has been notified; a message has been sent to the Carrascos, and they have replied that they are in agreement, and that the meeting will take place in a house on Arenal Street , near the Oñate Palace.” “Are you going, Puigdullés? ” “No, because they’d arrest me immediately. We have to restrain the Cristinos. Be very careful with them, Aviraneta. Goodbye, gentlemen! ” “Goodbye!” Aviraneta and his companion entered Aspiroz’s hat shop. The night seemed to be peaceful. The groups were still stationed at the Puerta del Sol. At this point, Gallardo passed by with a friend and stopped. He said that the absolutists were as worried as the liberals about the king’s death, and that it was clear no one had anything prepared. They left the hat shop in the direction of Arenal Street and crossed paths with Calvo de Rozas, and then with Donoso Cortés and his friends, who were going to the meeting. “You’re definitely not coming?” Aviraneta said to the ex-friar. ” I’m definitely not going.” Chapter 16. THE LIBERAL MEETING. Mansilla and Tilly had an appointment at eight-thirty in the evening at Puerta del Sol, in front of Aspiroz’s hat shop. Aviraneta said goodbye to Chamizo and joined his companions from the Triangle, and the three of them headed together towards Calle del Arenal. They entered the house next to the Count of Oñate’s; they climbed a narrow staircase to the main floor and went into a room where forty to fifty people were gathered in various groups. It was a large, empty hall with balconies and square windows above them. Little by little, more people were arriving. Up to a hundred individuals of all stripes and backgrounds gathered; there were very elegant ones, shabby-looking men with a show-stopping air, and poorly dressed, slovenly, and dirty types . Tilly and Mansilla met Donoso Cortés, the two Carrascos, Cambronero, the doctor Torrecilla, Valero and Arteta, and Martínez Montaos. For his part, Aviraneta found half of Isabelina there; there were Gallardo, Calvo de Rozas, Fuente Herrero, Calvo Mateo, Beraza, and a number of senior military officers, officers of the Royal Guard, and young, swarthy men with mustaches and goatee beards. Aviraneta surreptitiously approached Tilly. “Friend One. How’s the conclave going? ” “Good, very good. We’re cheating. ” “And the Christian cuckoos, why don’t they get started? ” “There seems to be some disappointment among them. ” “Well, why?” “There are more young Isabelino dreamers here than Christian cuckoos. ” “And that scares you?” “They say Romero Alpuente is here, a dangerous man, and that he’s going to ruin everything. ” “Romero Alpuente! He’s a jerk. ” “Well, our people consider him a terrible man.” “On the other hand, among the young Isabelino dreamers, it is said that this meeting is being held at the initiative of Pastor Zea Bermúdez. ” “I don’t believe it. ” “That’s what Calvo de Rozas asserted. ” “It seems like a fantasy to me, friend Tres. Well, our people are alarmed. They’ve told me that Flórez Estrada, Palafox, and Olavarría are going to spend the night without food, and that the danger for the liberal dreamers is imminent. ” “Bah! ” “However. It’s better to say that we’re in danger. ” “That’s something else. People will say it,” Tilly murmured. “You know they’re inviting me to speak on behalf of the young, deluded Isabelinos. ” “And you, what are you going to do? ” “I don’t know. What do you think? ” “Well, that has to depend on the strength you have. Do you have the strength and people around you, and can you speak clearly and decisively? Speak up. Don’t you have the confidence? Don’t say anything.” At ten o’clock, the Christian initiators of the meeting, after much lobbying, declared the proceedings to be underway. A table with two candlesticks was brought to the middle of the room, and seated at the head of the table were Cambronero and Donoso Cortés, both very handsome, very currutasco, and well-dressed, and Don Rufino García Carrasco, who was a more vulgar fellow, thickset, ponderous, with a black beard, one of those Extremadurans, as Quevedo says, with a narrow beard and brains. The audience, those who could, took chairs to sit, and about thirty or forty people remained standing. Then the lawyer Cambronero took the floor and explained the purpose of the meeting. He said in a florid manner that it was necessary to support the Government, the Queen Regent, and the innocent Isabella, and that everyone gathered there should collaborate toward this holy goal. Two lawyers spoke next, saying more or less the same thing; Gallardo spoke, with his Extremaduran accent and mordant intentions; then the Carrascos, and finally Donoso Cortés, in a pompous manner. Aviraneta was very restless. “What’s the matter with you?” Mansilla told him. “This is stupid,” he exclaimed. “You’re rambling on in a ridiculous way without clarifying the main issue. ” “Speak up,” Calvo de Rozas told him. “I don’t think you should speak,” Mansilla warned him; “you’re excited and you’re going to compromise yourself.” Other members of the lesser class invited Aviraneta to speak. He stood up and shouted, “I request the floor!” “The floor is open to Mr…. Mr. Aviraneta,” said Carrasco. There was a movement of surprise in the audience. “Who is he? What last name did he say?” they asked one another. Aviraneta advanced to the center of the room with a bitter expression on his face and began to speak in a dry, harsh, and cutting manner. That sour voice, that sinister look, that eccentric appearance aroused a certain expectation. It was a Robespierre, but an old Robespierre, without success, without dogmatism, without Rousseau’s flabby utopia in his head. He was a Robespierre without social support, without supporters, bitter, sour, after having traveled the world and having known misery and unrest in all their forms. He was a Robespierre of Spain, from a poor, harsh, dull, cold, and socially unenthusiastic country. Aviraneta replaced the logical fury of the somber Maximilian with rage, spite, anger, and, above all, contempt for men. “The situation has changed in twenty-four hours, since the death of the king,” Aviraneta said in a muffled voice. “Liberals and royalists have been defending President Zea Bermúdez for a long time. The reason was clear; neither they nor we were prepared for the fight, and the king’s life meant, for everyone, primarily a truce. Ferdinand VII has died; the truce no longer exists, and tomorrow the Carlists will take to the field. For us, the presidency of Zea Bermúdez serves no purpose today; it does not defend us from the advances of Carlism, which is being organized hastily; it serves as no guarantee for our liberal aspirations. Any delay, anything short of devising a plan and carrying it out, is not only a waste of time, it is a retreat. At this moment, our enemies do not have trained forces, but tomorrow they will have them, and they will be large, formidable, enough to keep the government in check. I believe, gentlemen, that the prudent and practical thing to do today is to seize power, dominate the uncertain situation in which we find ourselves, proclaim a liberal Constitution, and seize the trenches to defend ourselves against Carlism, which is a formidable enemy. This is my plan: immediate change of government and a liberal dictatorship. There is no one facing us today. If we decide and all go, the task seems easy to me. If this plan is accepted, I will outline my project in detail, which can be discussed; if it is not accepted, as I consider inaction at this moment to be stupid and a crime against the homeland, if it is not accepted, I will withdraw. I have said.” When Aviraneta finished his speech, there was some applause and some whistles. “Who is this man?” they asked one another. “What kind of talk is this? How dare he? He is an anarchist! He is a Carbonari! ” To calm the crowd, Don Rufino Carrasco stood up and said hastily and artlessly: “Gentlemen: These do not seem to me the most appropriate or favorable moments to discuss a matter as dangerous as the one raised by the speaker who preceded me. To impose violent resolutions on a widowed queen before the body of her royal consort has yet cooled is cruel and inhuman, and even more so when it concerns a kindly queen like the exalted Cristina, who, prostrate as she is on her bed of death, has from there expressed to the Marquis of Miraflores that her greatest desire is to ensure the happiness of Spain. The truce is imposed, gentlemen, before the body of the king.” Aviraneta rose as if moved by a spring, and advancing into the hall said in a harsh and cutting voice: “If the king who has just died had not been one of the most abominable figures in contemporary history, if he had had even the slightest bit of a man in him, all Spaniards would now be in a moment of grief; but the king who has died was simply a wretch, a cruel and bloodthirsty man who filled Spain with gallows, where he hanged those who defended him with their blood. Let us not speak of a truce brought about by grief. It would be a farce.” Deep down, we’re all satisfied with the thought that the common enemy is dead and that his corpse stinks. Let’s not talk about sentiment; the most anyone can ask of us is forgetfulness, and forgiveness from the august shadows of Lacy, Riego, Empecinado, and other martyrs. Let’s not talk about yesterday, let’s think about tomorrow. Aviraneta’s reply produced a terrible uproar of shouts, protests, and applause in the room. In light of this, Cambronero stood up again and delivered a highly skilled speech to bring everyone together. He shared the same sentiments as his dear friend, Mr. Aviraneta, whom he considered a fervent patriot and a liberal at heart; but he believed that not all occasions were propitious for a radical movement; he admired Mr. García Carrasco’s support for the sublime Cristina… Thus, with a series of balances and however…, although it is true…, Cambronero continued his speech. No more was said on the matter. It was agreed to write and publish an apocryphal page, pretending to be a Gazette of a Carlist junta, in which the uprising of the party was reported to have taken place, listing false facts in support of the fabrication. Gallardo, Oliver, and two others drafted it, discussed it, and it was approved. The session ended at twelve-thirty, and everyone began to leave. from the hall in a tumultuous manner, arguing and shouting. Chapter 17. THE MILITARY. Upon going out into the street, Calvo de Rozas, Aviraneta, Tilly, Mansilla, Captain Del Brío, Gamboa, Gamundi, who had slept off his libations from Bibiana’s house, and other officers in civilian clothes formed a group. “Aviraneta,” said Gamboa, “do you want to come to the Café de Levante, on Puerta del Sol? A few friends of ours have to talk to you. ” “Let’s all go.” “But not like this; in a group we’ll attract attention.” Calvo de Rozas said goodbye to Aviraneta, saying: “Don’t commit yourself to anything. ” “Don’t worry.” Tilly, Aviraneta, and Gamundi entered the Café de Levante, which was now empty and empty of the public; Gamboa, Del Brío, and other young officers in civilian clothes arrived. There were handshakes and Masonic signs of recognition. They all sat down, and Gamboa said to one of the officers: “You speak.” The one indicated was a young man named Urbina, son of the Marquis of Aravaca, an Artillery Lieutenant. “Mr. Aviraneta,” said Urbina. “We liked your speech at the meeting very much, and we identify with your ideas. We have many officers who share our views; we have the sergeants and soldiers of the Royal Guard regiment on our side. Give us your revolutionary plan, and we’ll carry it out tomorrow. We’ll arrest Zea Bermúdez and the entire Ministry; if necessary, we’ll shoot them and completely change Spain. ” “What guarantees would you need?” asked Aviraneta. “For now, the complete list of the new government that will assume responsibility for the movement. ” “I’ll have to consult that.” “Consult it with your friends as soon as possible. ” “I will. ” “When will you give us your answer?” asked Urbina. “Tomorrow at noon. ” “Where?” “At the Café de Venecia.” “Fine.” There was little talk, because they were about to close the café. They all went out onto the sidewalk in front of Puerta del Sol, where they continued chatting. Two or three said goodbye and left. The group was still on the sidewalk when Gamundi and another young man ran back toward the café. “What’s going on?” Aviraneta asked them. “We found Nebot, the police officer from Isabelina, at the entrance to Calle del Arenal. He told us that Zea Bermúdez drove to the Palace an hour ago and should be back shortly. Don’t you think this is a magnificent opportunity to catch him ? ” “Yes. Magnificent.” Urbina and the others were told what was going on, and they thought it was a perfect opportunity. “Come on!” Aviraneta exclaimed. “How many of us are there, nine? Four of us go down that sidewalk and four down this one; we’ll stand in front of the house where we were. One of us should go right now and stand in front of Plaza de Celenque.” Go ahead, Gamundi. The moment the carriage passes, shout: ‘Sereno! ‘ ‘Very well.’ And Gamundi disappeared, wrapped in his cloak. ‘Those with canes, stand in the middle and push the horses until the carriage stops,’ exclaimed Aviraneta. ‘Is there anything to say? ‘ ‘Nothing. ‘ ‘Then let’s go.’ The two groups headed toward Arenal Street. When they reached the corner, they heard the sound of a carriage hurrying down Calle Mayor. Aviraneta and Tilly ran back toward it. The coachman, seeing the two men approaching, whipped the horses, and the carriage sped by. ‘She’s changed course. Zea Bermúdez was escaping from them. ‘ The two groups were notified, and everyone went their separate ways. Chapter 18. AT THE BUÑOLERÍA. IT WAS drizzling; Aviraneta and Tilly walked down Esparteros Street to take shelter at the portals of Provincia, and from there, to the arches of the Plaza Mayor. Aviraneta spoke comfortably with Tilly. The two understood each other perfectly. They strolled around the darkened plaza. At one end of the plaza, on the corner of the street In Ciudad Rodrigo, there was a buñolería open. “Do you want us to go in here?” asked Aviraneta. They went in. The place was a dark place, filled with a sullen and ragged crowd. In one corner, there was a smoky kitchen with a white tiled base, and inside the fireplace, two large cauldrons, where the buñolero, a fat, blond man wearing a jersey that should have been white, but was black, appeared sweaty amidst the flames, frying churros and buñuelos. An acrid smell of frying oil irritated the throat. Aviraneta and Tilly sat down at a table and ordered hot chocolate with buñuelos. “What did you think of all this?” asked Aviraneta. “I still don’t have an opinion. Your outburst could be a good thing or a bad thing. If you can get your people to accept the collaboration of these young officers…” “I won’t succeed. ” “So you’ve compromised yourself uselessly. ” “That’s what I suppose, too. And what effect did my speech have? ” “A tremendous effect of surprise. Everyone was asking: ‘Who is that man?’ And some courtiers said that you must be a Carbonari and that people like that shouldn’t be allowed into places where discreet people gather. ” “So I’ve been thought of as a fool? ” “A complete fool. ” “And you? ” “Well, you know that I believe that fortune is _donna_ and that it must be violated. Often a madman or a deluded person goes much further than the first Machiavellian.” This question, raised by Tilly, was the only one that at that moment could distract Aviraneta from his worries, and the two became entangled in a long discussion. Tilly had come to think that Machiavellianism was illusory. “Machiavellianism fails because it is not practical either,” he said. “It is practical in theory, and nothing more.” “No, no, my friend Uno.” “Machiavelli is deceiving; he seems like a practical genius, but he’s more of a practical theorist. I believe that the art of conspiring, the art of creating peoples and inciting them to rebellion, has no rules, just as the art of sculpting, writing, or painting doesn’t. ” “However… ” “I don’t believe it. Rules can’t be given for impulse, for intuition, as there are for the making of watches. In politics, you need genius, the opportunity, the moment, and a host of other conditions that are beyond the reach of man.” Aviraneta wasn’t satisfied and presented arguments. These mechanics of politics fascinated them both, and they discussed Caesar, Catiline, Charles V, Catherine de Medici, Robespierre, Napoleon, and Talleyrand. They were deep in conversation when a ragged man, completely drunk, approached them . “Cheers, gentlemen!” he said in a rum-soaked voice. I see that you are smooth-talking people who are not ashamed to associate with the poor. “Nor with the rich either,” Aviraneta replied mockingly. “That’s how I like people. Terne!” exclaimed the drunk. “Because what’s needed here, you know, is that there be men… that’s it… and not messing around with andromynas or picky eaters… Is it true or not true, you, Manco? ” “Yes, it’s true! Like the Bible,” exclaimed a citizen as shabby as the first, who was missing a hand. –Come on, we need resolution here… so you can understand me…, and I’m saying this here, in this little cafe, or donut shop, or gang, or whatever you want to call it…, and I’ll say it in Parliament…, and in France too if the time comes…, and in this case the good guys will always have me on their side… otherwise they won’t find Señora Petra’s son in her shop on Bastero Street…, but if there’s resolution… –Which there won’t be…–said One-Armed Man with sarcasm. –Shut up, One-Armed Man, I’m the one talking, and just because you invited me to a soldier from Pavía in the tavern next door you have no right to interrupt me… because I say and maintain that if there is resolution… well, there is _everything_… Constitution… and Chambers… and long live the Angelica! Because, what is needed in Spain? “I think many things are needed,” said Tilly indifferently. Señora Petra’s son shook his head violently from side to side, as if he had heard the greatest stupidity in the world. “No, sir… no, sir,” he said. “I see that you don’t really understand the meaning, or the allegory, that I am expounding…; what is needed here, do you understand?, is that there be a resolution… that there be a resolution. ” “Good, man, good. We’ve heard it from you many times,” said Tilly. “Resolution, for what?” “Take it, for what! Resolution for _everything_.” Tilly turned her back on the drunkard and the man went to sit down on his bench, hesitating. “What strange pedantry these people have!” exclaimed Tilly. “Yes, they want to be wise; “But it must be admitted that the advice of Mrs. Petra’s son from Bastero Street seems like an indication of Destiny,” exclaimed Aviraneta. “Resolution! Resolution! It wouldn’t be bad if there was one.” Tilly took out her watch. It was four in the morning. “I’m going to see my people,” said Aviraneta. “What are you going to do? ” “I’m going to sleep. If your people approve the move, let me know. ” “If it’s accepted, I’ll let you know; but I have no hope.” Aviraneta and Tilly shook hands, and one set off toward Prince Pío Mountain and the other toward Calvo de Rozas’s house. Chapter 19. HESITATION. AVIRANETA, upon leaving the buñolería, went to Calvo de Rozas’s house and explained what Urbina and the young officers had proposed. He said nothing about the night’s attempt. “That is very serious,” exclaimed Calvo de Rozas, alarmed. That’s very serious. A meeting must be held immediately. Calvo de Rozas and Aviraneta examined and discussed the proposal. Aviraneta wanted to convince his companion. Calvo was undecided. Aviraneta presented several plans for seizing Madrid; they consulted the map of the city, the list of legionaries affiliated with the Isabelina Legion, and the military yearbook to see which leaders could be friends and which were declared enemies. They could count on 1,500 armed men, in addition to the military who would follow Urbina and the other officers. Aviraneta worked to get Calvo de Rozas on his side, because he didn’t count on much with Romero Alpuente, Flórez Estrada, and Olavarría; nor did he expect anything from Palafox. Calvo de Rozas wasn’t convinced and wouldn’t break his refrain that the Junta had to be held. “We’re going to waste a lot of time,” Aviraneta said. “No; Romero Alpuente, Flórez Estrada, and Olavarría are sleeping here at my house today. They’ll be called at eight. “Good. Then I’m going to sleep a while on this sofa,” said Aviraneta. “Yes; sleep if you can.” Aviraneta left his top hat on the floor, took off his boots, wrapped himself in his cape, and five minutes later he was fast asleep. The lion or cat in him hid its claws, and the vulpeja dreamed of new adventures. Calvo de Rozas spent the early morning hours pacing in front of Aviraneta and gazing at him in amazement. “What a man!” he murmured. “How peaceful!” At eight, Romero Alpuente, Flórez Estrada, and Olavarría were summoned. Romero and Flórez appeared in their dressing gowns with their white nightcaps , both coughing and with wet noses. Aviraneta was awakened, and he found himself with the two old men and burst out laughing. “I thought I was dreaming,” he said, and added to himself, ” Nothing can be done with people like that.” They discussed the meeting from the previous night, and the military’s offer was brought up for discussion. “I believe the idea is very feasible,” said Aviraneta, “and that it has all the guarantees of success that a plan of this kind can offer. The Royal Guard wants to take the initiative. We, with our fifteen hundred men from the centuries, dominate Madrid. Among the Cristinos, there are people who support us.” When Aviraneta presented the project, Olavarría supported it. He had witnessed the Brussels revolution in 1830, and, he said, there were fewer troops there than in Madrid at that time. Calvo de Rozas stated that he considered the plan viable; Flórez Estrada and Romero Alpuente were alarmed. “This is extremely serious,” Romero Alpuente said with the air of an old vulture, pacing around the room in his dressing gown and nightcap; “extremely serious. ” “This cannot be attempted without consulting Palafox!” Flórez Estrada exclaimed several times. After a long discussion, it was agreed that Calvo de Rozas and Flórez Estrada would go and consult with Palafox. They all had lunch there at the house, and after lunch, Calvo and Flórez Estrada took a sedan, placed at the conspirators’ disposal by a wealthy, very liberal man from Bilbao who was also named Olavarría and who was a distant relative of the man who was in the Isabelina. “I’ll be here until one,” Aviraneta told the commissioners. “At one I’ll go to the Café de Venecia so as not to keep Urbina and his friends waiting. You can send me the answer there, if you can’t bring it here before then. ” “Good. Fine.” Calvo de Rozas and Flórez Estrada got into the carriage, and half an hour later they returned with Palafox and Beraza, the Freemason. Palafox, who was a man of no talent but who liked to put on the airs of a great politician, gave a short speech. “Gentlemen,” he said, “my worthy colleagues, Messrs. Calvo de Rozas and Flórez Estrada, have informed me of the proposal made yesterday by some military men to a member of our Society. I understand, gentlemen, that heeding this proposal constitutes great imprudence and great stupidity. First, by disturbing order, it would be believed that we were working for the Carlists, and our heads would roll on the gallows; then we would provoke a reaction in the Government, precisely at this moment when they are trying to advance Spanish political institutions. In short, gentlemen, I do not lend myself in any way or under any circumstances to taking part in this sedition, and if the Directory decides to do it, to attempt it, I am not to be counted on for anything.” Flórez Estrada and Romero Alpuente immediately joined the Duke of Zaragoza’s opinion, and the others remained silent without comment. The Duke, triumphant, returned home. Olavarría and Aviraneta went together to the Puerta del Sol. “What did you think of Palafox’s reasons?” Olavarría asked. “Terrible,” Aviraneta replied. “He’s a fool in trouble with a courtier. Thinking ahead to the consequences of a movement, as if it had already failed, is foolish. ” “We’re not going anywhere with these people.” “Revolutions with drawing-room generals and gentlemen in nightcaps are impossible,” Aviraneta replied. “Well, I’m off to see those military men. ” “Goodbye, Aviraneta! ” “Goodbye!” Aviraneta entered the Café de Venecia, which was crowded and smoky; there were two tables occupied by young military men, and Tilly was sitting in a corner. The Aviraneta issue wasn’t the only one being debated. There was another issue that was more passionate among a group of young officers: a challenge arranged between Gamundi and Lieutenant Pierrard, along with a sergeant and a second lieutenant from the royalist volunteers. The challenge was to take place at noon on the upper floors of the Observatory, on the old Cerrillo de San Blas. Dominoes were being played at other tables with great noise, and the sound of balls hitting each other came from the billiard room. Aviraneta sat down with the group that included Urbina and his friends and quickly recounted what had happened at Calvo de Rozas’s house and what Palafox had said. “It’s nonsense,” Urbina interjected. “They’re missing the best opportunity. ” “It’s true,” replied Lieutenant Pierrard, who rose with his sponsors to go and fight. “Now was the time to strike a revolutionary blow and restore liberty forever.” “I think so too,” Aviraneta assured. “But I don’t have the means.” “You be the leader,” Urbina exclaimed. “We’ll follow you. ” “Until death,” Gamundi shouted. Other soldiers gathered around the table to offer their services. “Thank you very much, gentlemen,” Aviraneta replied, “but I don’t have the prestige for that. Our organized forces are under the command of General Palafox. Would you follow me if I tried to supplant the general? It’s very doubtful. ” “In any case, you can count on us. You speak, you see. If there’s any possibility, we’ll do whatever we can. ” “Yes: you can count on us, on all of us.” The soldiers shook Aviraneta’s hand and left. Don Eugenio sat down at the same table as Tilly and explained what had happened. “What an admirable opportunity this is missing!” Tilly exclaimed. “It shouldn’t be missed. ” “What do you want? Palafox’s refusal makes it impossible for us to do anything.” “Why don’t you speak to the century commanders? ” “I don’t know where they are! Don’t you see that we’ve given military command to Palafox? Today Palafox has devised a mobilization whose plan only he has. ” “What a shame!” Tilly murmured again. “Friend, what do you want? This cult of prestige, of tradition, is killing us. I organized the Isabelina forces, and when I finished organizing them, I had to hand this force over to Palafox, who will do nothing but foolish things or do something practical for his own personal interests. Let’s go to lunch. I’ll invite you to Genies’ inn… Then we’ll make all the arrangements we can.” Tilly and Aviraneta had lunch and took a carriage. They went to see Nogueras, but he wasn’t there. They didn’t find any of the century commanders. They only saw a few Isabelina soldiers at the Café Nuevo. “Where are our people?” Aviraneta asked them. “Some are in the cafes. General Palafox has sent others to the cloisters of Soledad, Buen Suceso, La Victoria, and the Customs House. They are waiting in case a royalist movement breaks out so they can prepare immediately. The rest are in their houses with weapons in hand, ready to take to the streets. ” “In what case? ” “In case the Carlists declare themselves in favor of Don Carlos. ” “You see?” Aviraneta said to Tilly. “There’s no way to command the people. If I were to become the master of the centuries today! ” “And your Carbonari?” Tilly asked. “There are so few of them ! And they’ll probably be on the streets. We’re going to the house of a friend, a chispero from the Maravillas neighborhood. Perhaps there’s one there.” They went to the workshop of the _Majo_. Those who were having a social gathering were Cobianchi, the jeweler; Antonio Farigola, a former officer; Ramón Adán, and Román, the Terrible, the son of Mr. Martín the bookseller. All of these men were passionate republicans and considered their leader to be the lawyer González Brabo, whom they considered a Danton. One of them had proposed getting rid of Zea Bermúdez and the absolutists by sending them explosive letters, like the one sent years before to General Eguía that had left him one-handed. Aviraneta explained the situation, and the Carbonari didn’t seem to care much. A liberal revolution no longer interested them; they wanted the Republic, at least. “You see?” Aviraneta said to Tilly as they left the Majo’s workshop. ” You can’t do anything with these people.” They returned to Puerta del Sol, approached Aspiroz’s hat shop , and met Olavarría and the Freemason Beraza, the one with the monkish air. “We will regret today’s blunder,” Olavarría exclaimed. The people are determined. That Palafox is an idiot. Several groups passed by on the street. Aviraneta didn’t recognize any of the members. “Who are they?” he asked the hatter. “They’re the Cristinos, who must have a military organization, because from time to time colonels and soldiers in uniform appear and talk to them. These Cristinos,” he added, “are very rebellious and say that if Zea doesn’t keep the Carlists on a tight leash, they’ll overthrow Zea.” It seemed that all of Madrid had decided for Queen Christina. Aviraneta and Tilly pressed into the crowd and overheard their conversations. “What a fool your friends have done!” exclaimed Tilly. “With this agitation of the masses, a regiment and the fifteen hundred Isabelinos, the thing was done.” Aviraneta made a resigned gesture. At that moment, at the Puerta del Sol, they ran into Gamundi. “What have you done?” Aviraneta asked him. “Great day,” said the soldier. “Pierrard and I have delivered two beautiful thrusts at the Cerrillo de San Blas. Great day. First, a duel; now, a brawl; then, at night, an orgy. That’s life. Now our people are coming here after leaving their weapons at home.” Sure enough, groups of young people began to arrive along Calle de Alcalá, Calle de la Montera, Calle de Carretas, and Carrera de San Jerónimo, most of them well-dressed, many in frock coats and top hats. “Long live the Queen!” “Long live Isabel II!” could be heard at every step, and the occasional shout of “Down with the Ministry!” Among the people, they pointed at Espronceda, Larra, Patricio de la Escosura, and a few other writers who were making a name for themselves in the crowd. Tilly and Aviraneta were about to say goodbye when a boy ran up to them . It was the one from the bookstore on Calle de la Paz. “Don Eugenio! ” “Hello, Bartolillo!” Aviraneta exclaimed. “What’s going on?” “Captain Nogueras is asking you to escape and not go home. ” “Well? ” “Because the police are looking for you. ” “Good.” “Take this top hat,” said Aviraneta, taking it off his head and giving it to the boy. “Keep it in the tent.” At the same time, he took out a small cap and placed it on his head. “Would you like to come to my corner?” asked Tilly. “No, no, thank you. I have another place closer. Well, goodbye, friend One! I’ll be by soon. ” “Goodbye, friend Three!” And the friends parted. Chapter 20. Dinner at Celia’s House. One week after the king’s death, Chamizo met Paquito Gamboa, who invited him to dinner at his uncle’s house. He invited him to the Café del Príncipe at eight o’clock in the evening. The ex-friar was waiting when Gamboa and Aviraneta showed up. “What are you doing?” Chamizo asked Don Eugenio, because he hadn’t seen him for days. “I don’t live with my sister anymore. ” “No? Why?” “I had to leave because Zea Bermúdez’s police started bothering me. ” “And where do you live now? ” “I’m with a friend’s family. I’ll tell you how I communicate with people, because I rarely go out.” They spent a while at the café and then went to a large house on Trujillos Street, in the Descalzas neighborhood, where Doña Celia lived. Don Narciso and Celia had settled in Madrid in true luxury. From their stay abroad, they had brought back comfortable habits, hardly known at court except by very wealthy people. The house had several carpeted parlors with tapestries, sumptuous furniture, and some works of art. Chamizo, Aviraneta, and Gamboa went into a small parlor where Celia was with her guests, and after a while of chatting, they entered the dining room. There were fifteen or twenty people gathered. The host, Don Narciso Ruiz de Herrera; his wife, Doña Celia; Paquito Gamboa, the Marchioness of Albalate, Aviraneta, Fidalgo, with his sister Estrella; Colonel Rivero, Nogueras, a Neapolitan named Ronchi, director of the Lottery; the secretary of the English ambassador, Lord Williers; Tilly, Father Mansilla, Father Chamizo, Captain Messina, Captain Del Brío, and Lieutenant Gamundi. The dining room presented a beautiful appearance. It was lit by a large crystal chandelier and two candle-filled candelabras placed on the table. Celia was very elegant, wearing a pale green dress that highlighted her fine head, adorned with dark blond hair; the Marchioness of Albalate wore white, and Estrella Fidalgo, a plump and lively little woman, was in a _jeune fille en rose_. The men wore tailcoats, except for the military men, who were in uniform, and Mansilla, who wore a cassock. The host, pale, gaunt, with salt-and-pepper hair, lively black eyes, and a mustache covered in cosmetics, looked like a rat. Gamboa glanced surreptitiously at Celia, and she spoke with Colonel Rivero and Tilly; Captain Messina flirted with Estrella; Aviraneta and Ronchi entertained the Marchioness of Albalate; Father Chamizo chatted with Gamundi, and Mansilla with Lord Williers’s secretary and two military men. Everyone was on the Cristino side. The dinner was splendid and very well served. They congratulated the lady of the house and talked endlessly. At the table, Don Narciso told a melodramatic story about the Carbonari of Rome, in which he had participated, with many details; Aviraneta was extremely entertaining and sparkling; Messina explained his escape from the Citadel of Barcelona, and the Neapolitan Ronchi spoke of his life and his adventures in Algiers and Morocco, in his broken language, with great grace. Ronchi was a stout, dark-skinned man with a round face and black hair standing on end on his forehead. He had something of a Punch and Judy look about him, and such comical gestures that he made people laugh even when he was serious. Gentleman Ronchi said he didn’t believe in medicine, which he considered baseless empiricism; but on the other hand, he considered Dr. Gall’s cranioscopy to be a science. “The old saying, ‘Tell me who you hang around with and I’ll tell you who you are,’ I replace it with this cranioscopic phrase: ‘Show me your head and I’ll tell you who you are.'” Father Chamizo and Father Mansilla denied the truth of this maxim, and Ronchi shouted: “Proof, proof. Which of you wants me to examine your head? I won’t make the offer to the ladies. It would be a bit difficult for me to find the prominence of physical love or infidelity, and denounce it to the public. ” “Let’s see,” said Gamboa. “There goes my head.” Ronchi felt the officer’s head and said: “Prominence of the cerebellum, large…; there is a sense of love and reproduction; the organ of affection and friendship, well developed; that of courage and pride, also… This is not a philosophical head…, but there is an artistic sense. ” “All right,” they all said. Gamboa laughed, because Ronchi knew him and was acting on a sure thing. “Let’s see, Aviraneta. Aviraneta must have a curious head for a phrenologist,” Gamboa indicated. “Aviraneta!” “Aviraneta!” they all said. “Well, gentlemen, there’s no need to be impatient,” replied Don Eugenio, and he approached Ronchi. Ronchi greeted him and took the head in his two hands. “Gentlemen,” said the Neapolitan, “this is a head.” Everyone burst out laughing. “There’s no need to laugh,” he replied with the gesture of a charlatan speaking in a public square. “I beg the respectable public to examine it carefully. What do we see in this skull, gentlemen? First, look at this bulging of the temples. What does this sign mean? This sign signifies, gentlemen, courage, personal valor, which is very pronounced in this skull. Now, notice this prominence above the ear. This sign is the sign of cruelty and a bloodthirsty inclination. This gentleman who possesses this skull is a cruel and bloodthirsty man.” Now look at the swelling in front of the ear: it is a sign of cunning and malice; observe how high the head is: an indication of firmness of character, and how marked the line of pride is. Otherwise, it is vulgar, completely vulgar; the sense of love, friendship, and affection is without relief; the poetic and religious sense is null. This is not a philosophical head, it is not an artistic head, this is a condottiere… In short, sir,” concluded the Neapolitan, bowing in a ceremonious and clownish manner before Aviraneta, “cranioscopically you are a dangerous man. ” Aviraneta reciprocated the bow and said: “That’s what Zea Bermúdez also says, but I don’t believe it.” They looked at each other, laughing at Aviraneta’s political allusion, as it was known he was being persecuted. The cranioscopy, which some didn’t find funny, no doubt because it suggested anti-religious overtones, was abandoned, and the focus shifted to current affairs. “Do you know the epitaph that has been written for Ferdinand VII?” asked Father Mansilla. “No.” “Well, listen to it yourselves. It’s brief and concise: The king died, and they buried him. ” “Of what illness? Of apoplexy. ” “Will he one day rise from the dead , saying he was tricked? ” “Not that; that they took out his guts and his heart. If that beautiful operation had been performed before he was crowned, it would have been better for the nation!” This epitaph, recited by a clergyman, was thunderously applauded and scandalized Chamizo. Days before, something like this would have made everyone tremble. They had just recited these verses when two young officers, Ramón Narváez, dressed in civilian clothes, and Fernandito Muñoz, in a Corps of Guard uniform, entered the dining room of Doña Celia’s house. The lady of the house was very kind to them both, especially the latter. They all went into a small sitting room to smoke and chat, and at one o’clock in the morning the guests went outside. It was a magnificent night, and Aviraneta, Gamboa, Tilly, Captain Del Brío, and Chamizo were talking together. “Do you know about Fernandito Muñoz?” Gamboa asked. “No. What’s going on? ” “The queen is crazy about him.” Del Brío uttered a blasphemy. “What luck!” he exclaimed with his Andalusian accent. “Eze will become a general. ” “If not, he will become king,” Tilly replied. “And here, in confidence.” “What kind of woman is María Cristina? Do you know her well?” asked Aviraneta. “I’ve spoken with her once,” said Tilly. “And what did you think of her? ” “Well, she’s a beautiful woman, but she has no majesty. She speaks in an affected manner, thinking a lot about what she says, and it seems as if she’s playing a role. ” “To me, she seemed like a coarse, ordinary woman,” Gamboa asserted with a certain malice, “one of those women who like handsome men. ” “A warm-hearted woman,” added Tilly. “Yes, she’s the type of the fat, plump, slightly abandoned Italian woman who would spend most of her life at the table and in bed. ” “But at least she’s intelligent?” asked Aviraneta. “Not much. ” “And a liberal? ” “Not at all, absolutely not. She’s a liberal by force. ” “Well, our exalted Cristina is quite the delight,” said Aviraneta. “It suits us liberals to paint her as an ideal woman,” said Tilly, “if she isn’t, so much the worse for her. ” “And her sister Luisa Carlota? ” “I think she’s similar,” replied Tilly, “perhaps more energetic, more ambitious. ” “And the Infante Don Francisco? ” “That’s a calsonasos,” said Del Brío. “I don’t think so,” replied Gamboa. “It seems to me he’s not as stupid as they say, and I believe, moreover, that he’s a true liberal. ” The dinner party was reviewed. “Is it true that Colonel Rivero has a case for azezinato?” asked Del Brío. “I’m not aware of it,” replied Gamboa. “I know he’s had a case, but I thought it was something military. ” “Don’t you know the story?” asked Aviraneta. “No?” Well, the thing happened in Cádiz, in 1831. Rivero was the commander there and had the entire regiment committed to rebelling against Torrijos. The conspirators met in the lodge. On the appointed day, at dusk, Rivero went to the lodge and met with several committed officers, who told him that Brigadier Don Antonio del Hierro y Oliver, with his aide, had appeared there and would return that night. Rivero and his friends conferred and prepared an ambush, and the next morning the Brigadier appeared in the street. dead from four gunshot wounds, and a few steps away, a local shoemaker also dead. Justice takes the matter coldly, and Hierro’s wife, who was a woman with a hairy chest, swears to denounce her husband’s conspirators, enemies of her husband, raises a ruckus in the barracks, has five or six arrested, and, meanwhile, a compromised sergeant escapes with the brigadier’s maid, the regiment’s coffers, and a suitcase full of compromising documents. “And they didn’t catch him?” one asked. ” Wow! Now he’s in Paris, a real character, a theater manager , on the way to making millions. ” “What luck!” Del Brío repeated. “And what about Narváez? What do we know?” Aviraneta asked. “He was awaiting purification. ” “They’ve named him captain of the Princess Regiment, of the fourth line,” Gamboa said. “He’s a man of promise,” exclaimed Aviraneta, “he’s got a lot of nerve and he’s an enthusiastic liberal. ” “I don’t want anything to do with him,” replied Del Brío. “Well? ” “He’s a barbarian of no standing. I was on a garrison in Granada and we liked to go gambling in a casino, a bunch of officers and some countrymen, among them one of the leaders of the realiztaz. One night I was running the banks and Narváez was at my side. I was losing one hundred and twenty duros, and Narváez was losing approximately that much. The leader of the realiztaz of the city came in, came up to him, took out a full green bag and put it on the table. Narváez grabs the green bag, throws it in the air, and says: “Where I am, the royalists are not aiming.” He beat it with a stick. You see. What does gambling have to do with politics? Narváez is a savage. Reviewing the other diners, they mentioned the Neapolitan Ronchi. Tilly knew his story. “That fellow’s life is a novel,” she said. “He’s a lazzaroni from Naples, the son of a pawnbroker, I think Jewish. He left his homeland and went to Algiers as a peddler. Here he became a charlatan and became the physician of the Chamber and of the harem of Her Algerian Majesty. The Bey apparently once wanted to impale him because he broke the tooth of his favorite sultana. From Algiers, he went to Tangier, still as a doctor, and came to Madrid eight or nine years ago, where he opened a money-changing shop.” Who brought him into the Palace is unknown; the fact is that Ronchi accompanied the Princess of Naples, the Infante Don Sebastián’s fiancée, to Madrid, and from that time on, he has had an ever-increasing influence with Queen Christina. They say he managed to supplant Baron Antonini, Chargé d’ Affaires of the Kingdom of Naples, in her confidence. Ronchi protects a dressmaker, Teresita Valcárcel, as fine as coral, who enters the Palace every day. Between them and Muñoz, they are currently in charge of Queen Christina . Aviraneta, who was undoubtedly deeply interested in all this, asked Tilly more questions. Gamboa listened to the story with marked displeasure. They arrived at Puerta del Sol. It was late for Chamizo, and he went home thinking about the motley and strange society that was appearing in Madrid. BOOK FIVE: INTRIGUES AND OBSCURITIES: Chapter 21: THE THEOSOPHIAN MIDWIFE. Chamizo used to go long periods without seeing Aviraneta. He didn’t go out with him because he didn’t want to make a commitment. Don Eugenio would occasionally send him a book, a bottle of wine, or something to eat, with a mocking letter. He also tried to play two or three practical jokes on him. One afternoon, after lunch, the ex-friar was reading in his room when the landlady, Doña Puri, came in and said: “Don Venancio. ” “What’s up? ” “Mr. Bordoncillo is here with his secretary. ” “I don’t know that gentleman; tell him I’m not here. ” “He says he has a letter from a friend of yours and that he has important things to talk to you about. ” “Good; then let him come in.” Mr. Bordoncillo was a short man, about fifty years old, with long hair, a gray mustache and goatee, with slightly crossed eyes and very brilliant, his skull narrow and pear-shaped, his mouth toothless. He was dressed in perfect tatters, trousers covered in fringes, a grease-covered vest, and a dandruff-covered black overcoat; he wore a large, grimy shirt collar, a red tie, battered boots, and a straw-shaped top hat. The secretary was similar to him, but even more threadbare and somewhat hunchbacked. Mr. Bordoncillo entered Chamizo’s room, followed by his secretary. He sat down in the only armchair with the utmost familiarity and unwound his scarf, leaving a strong smell of tobacco in the air. “Read,” he said to the ex-friar, and handed him a letter. It was from Aviraneta, and it read as follows: “My dear friend Don Venancio: The giver of the enclosed letter is Mr. Bordoncillo, professor of obstetrics and occult sciences. Mr. Bordoncillo is an eminent man, with great depth of ideas, and with whom I, due to my lack of culture, cannot properly associate. You, with your philosophical and historical knowledge, will know how to understand this illustrious man, today persecuted by powerful enemies, and rise to the height of his lucubrations. Very yours, AVIRANETA. At first, the ex-friar did not understand that the thing was a joke; but after speaking with Mr. Bordoncillo for a short time, he saw that he was dealing with a dreamer, a madman. “Have you read the letter?” the man asked, looking at him attentively. “Yes. ” “And what do you say? ” “Nothing. What do you want me to say? Why does Mr. Aviraneta say you are a professor of obstetrics? ” “Because I am. ” “Ah! You assist in births. ” “Yes, sir.” I have that noble profession, which some try to ridicule by calling us midwives, birth attendants, and other equally absurd terms. My secretary, González, is a herbalist. “And do you work? ” “A little, very little; but let’s leave that question aside. It’s not as a professor of obstetrics that I come to visit you, nor to offer you my services. ” “Oh! I suppose so, I suppose so,” said Chamizo. Mr. Bordoncillo warned him that he knew the former friar had abandoned the dens of superstition, for which he congratulated him; then he approached him and said with great mystery: “I am a persecuted person. See how they treat me,” and he opened his waistcoat and showed him that he was not wearing a shirt. “What’s the matter with you? ” “It’s a very long story; another day when I’m in a better mood, I’ll tell you. There are powers, my lord, that want to take away my freedom, take away my free will, to make me an advisor to the Crown against my will. Let my secretary tell me.” “That’s true, that’s true,” the secretary murmured. “But man, that’s not so bad!” Chamizo told him. “You don’t understand me,” said Bordoncillo. “And my work? How do I finish my work if they kidnap me, if they monopolize me? ” “And what work do you want to do? Some obstetric work? ” “A treatise on obstetrics of the world. ” “And do you think you wouldn’t have a little time?” “I need my whole life, sir, and it’s still not enough. They want to distract me. They want to prevent me from working. I live poorly, sir. I live poorly. I’m at the mercy of a Tubal Cain. ” “Who is Tubal Cain?” Chamizo asked, astonished. “He’s a blacksmith from Ronda de Atocha, who is a Mason and who despises me. Me! A Tubal Cain! What a shame for the world!” His wife, whom I call Citizen Minerva, makes me a miserable stew ; just what you hear; and his servant, whom I call Ierophilus, sticks out his tongue at me when he sees me… That’s how I live. What irony! They’re murdering me. Gonzalez, my secretary, knows it. The secretary nodded his head gravely and closed his eyes in assent . “They’ve made me burn more than ten pounds of paper,” the Theosophist midwife continued . “Ten pounds of paper! ” “Yes; ten pounds of paper written by me. By me! A Gnosis, a Mysticism, and my great work on the Adelphi and the Philadelphus. ” “And why have you burned that?” “So as not to produce more victims. There have already been enough. More than a dozen men have died from that matter. ” Mr. González closed his eyes gravely again and nodded . “Is it so important?” Chamizo asked. “Important! It is the synthesis of all spiritualist philosophy. The discoveries of the Templars, the Illuminati, the Philaletas , the Masons, the Martinists, the Theophilanthropists, the Rosicrucians, the Knights Kadosch, all these branches of the occult sciences are condensed into my philosophical, religious, social, anthropological, obstetrical system . And what do I need to develop it? Paper and a little food and a reliable person who will reject the offers of monarchs who want to recruit me. Nothing more. You can be this person. You can join me in my glory. Mr. Aviraneta told me that you would lend me your house. This room is fine. González could live there. It seems you have some books.” “Ugh!” he said disdainfully. “Latin literature! Paganism, paganism!” Chamizo told him that Señor Aviraneta had been mistaken in referring to him, that he was incapable of rejecting the monarch’s offers because he was engaged to the queen. “Tell me no more, I understand everything,” said Señor Bordoncillo with a sardonic laugh. “You’re also sold to the Golden Calf. Tell me no more, I understand everything; but so you can see who I am, look and tremble. ” And Señor Bordoncillo took a cardboard sign from under his coat, with some letters that said “VGMCK,” and hung it around his neck. Then he took out a tri-colored ribbon, blue, yellow, and green, and placed it on his chest. “You understand me now,” he said, touching the ribbon with his index finger, adorned with a nail trimmed in perfect black; The sky was blue, the sun was yellow, the earth was green—then the theosophical midwife put her hand to her throat and said, “Ah, ah, ah!”—as if a thorn had stuck in her throat and she couldn’t get it out. “Yes, yes; I suppose I understand you, but I can’t do anything for you,” Chamizo repeated. “Nothing? ” “ Nothing. ” “Oh Jacob Boeme! Oh Cagliostro! Oh Swedenborg! Oh Martinez Pascualis! Oh Saint Martin, the unknown philosopher! See how they treat the greatest philosopher of all time! Gonzalez, you will bear witness to this offense. ” “Man! I don’t believe I have offended you in any way,” Chamizo exclaimed. “This false brother has not offended me. How can he offend me? He offends me! Impossible. Me, initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis, into the mysteries of Isis!” No, González, a Chamizo cannot offend me. No, González. A Chamizo cannot offend me. I am a Knight of the Order of the Apocalypse, Grand Master of the Diamond, Venerable of the Invisibles, Knight of the Lion and the Serpent. I belong to the rite of the Perfect Initiates of Egypt, to the Alpha and Omega Society, to the Order of the Medusa and Melusina, to the Knights of the Pure Truth and the Green Apple. I am of the Sophistical rite, of the Blue Scorpion, of the Pink Crocodile, of the White Serpent; I am one of the worshippers of Mithras, of the Knights of Astarte, of the Magi of the astronomical tower of Babylon, of the chosen ones of Hiram and of the mouth of the Nile. And you ask me if you have offended me, González? No. González, no. Ordinary people cannot offend me. “That’s fine. You’re bothering me with your nonsense.” “Go away! ” “Are you throwing me out? ” “Yes: go away. ” “I am a sublime perfection,” exclaimed the midwife, rising on tiptoe. “You seem like a perfect fool to me. Out into the street! ” “Out into the street? You say to me, out into the street, Gonzalez! ” “Yes; I say to you, out into the street. ” “I will have my revenge, Gonzalez. I will have my revenge,” cried Mr. Bordoncillo. ” I will brandish the clump and the lever. I will take the compass and administer justice. Tremble, Mr. Chamizo! Tremble! I have in my hands the hidden forces of Nature… While Mr. Bordoncillo continued to tell fantasies, Chamizo led him and his secretary through the corridor of Doña Puri’s house to the stairwell door; he opened it and threw them out. When Chamizo saw Aviraneta for the first time, he told him not to send him people like the Theosophist midwife, because they would upset the whole house and discredit him. “Why, man, such a picturesque character! I thought he would amuse you. ” Aviraneta laughed a lot when you told him what had happened and promised not to send him any other such characters. Chapter 22. PASSIONS BOIL. The summer of 1833 was one of great popular unrest and commotion. Aviraneta, he said, was pursued by the police; Don Bartolomé José Gallardo and his friends also went into hiding; there were many cries of “Down with the Ministry!” The Carlists and Cristinos exchanged blows , and news of the uprisings in support of Don Carlos, led by Father Merino, Locho, Don Santos Ladrón, and a thousand others, began to spread. All of Spain was burning from one side to the other. In the autumn of that same year, the people of Madrid witnessed the disarmament of the royalist volunteers in the Plaza de la Leña, where Colonel Bassa and Captain Narváez stood out. The one who, according to popular rumor, took part in the disarmament of the volunteers was Luis Candelas, the thief, who had recently escaped from prison in Segovia. Candelas had been replacing José María, El Tempranillo, in the curiosity and admiration of the townspeople since the Andalusian bandit had been pardoned . Aviraneta knew Candelas and one day showed him to Chamizo on the street. Don Eugenio must have been involved in some maneuvering with the Zea police around that time, because he began to appear in public again. He had returned to his home on Calle del Lobo, and no one bothered him. Chamizo continued with his translations and other work. In mid-November, the political uproar intensified; every day there were gunshots, beatings, and cries of “Long live the Constitution!” “Death to Zea!” “Death to the friars!” The Carlists said they considered victory assured, that all the aristocrats, the palace employees, and the halberdiers were theirs; that Louis Philippe was going to recognize Don Carlos; in short, they were declaring victory. The liberals asserted that the Constitution of 1812 would be proclaimed any day now ; that Lord Villiers, the new English ambassador, a staunch supporter of the liberals, was supporting the government, and that Mina, Méndez Vigo, Don Francisco Valdés, Mendizábal… could soon enter Spain. There were comical details. In the taverns of the Barrios Bajos, there was talk of the ghost of Ferdinand VII appearing in El Escorial in his underwear , and everyone made light of the news and used the farce to denigrate the deceased king. The Café Nuevo, on Calle Alcalá, was a hive of activity; it was usually white-hot. One day in mid-November, Gallardo invited Chamizo to lunch at Perona’s inn, in gratitude for the former friar having found him a rare volume that the bibliophile had been searching for for some time. Upon entering the inn, they found Paquito Gamboa, Captain Nogueras, and Aviraneta, eating in the company of a young stranger. “Hello, Viborilla; no, Aviranetilla!” Gallardo said to him. “Hello, Gallardete!” Aviraneta replied, “how’s that bibliophile bile? ” “Good.” And how does that schemer’s poison work? “Like that, like that.” Aviraneta and Gallardo frequently engaged in insults and biting at each other. Gallardo resorted to erudition in his satires; but it was a resource that did not always work, because his allusions were frequently misunderstood. After eating, Gallardo and Chamizo approached Aviraneta’s table and drank coffee together. Gallardo spoke with the fireworks of his conversation. The unknown young man who was with them was a man of about Twenty-five years old, short-faced, with a black beard, and a strange, determined air. The young man didn’t speak from the moment Gallardo and Chamizo approached, and shortly afterward he stood up and left, shaking hands with the soldiers and Aviraneta and bowing slightly to Gallardo and Chamizo . “Who is he?” Gallardo asked. “He’s a friar. ” “Bah! ” “As you heard. He’s a liberal friar who has come to see us on behalf of our Isabelline friends in Barcelona. ” “And how do you trust friars?” asked the bibliophile. “Friend Don Bartolo. This proves to me that you’ve been nothing more than a conspirator,” said Aviraneta. “Aviranetilla! Aviraneta! How wicked is this damned fellow! Why do you say that? ” “Because if you had really conspired, you would know that there are no better elements for conspiracy than friars.” In the War of Independence, almost all the movements were prepared by the friars; before the revolution of Cabezas de San Juan, one of the most active liberal agents was a Carmelite friar, Father Mata, who had been in London with Mina and toured all the Spanish cities where there were lodges, riding a Norman horse. The restoration of 1823 was carried out by the friars; in Mexico I conspired with their help, and here I still see that they are still the most courageous people. “Well, I wouldn’t trust them. This one has a sly air and a false look. ” “The friar, like everything else, has his specialty,” Aviraneta replied sarcastically . “I wouldn’t trust this one with a beautiful woman, or even a widow, no; but for a conspiracy, these people are irreplaceable. ” “Yes, yes; trust me.” The bibliophile spoke this way mainly out of spite, seeing that the friar hadn’t listened to his talk. At this point, a few young writers, led by Espronceda and Larra, entered the inn. They arrived talking loudly. A bald, bearded journalist, who wasted his acerbic wit chatting in cafes, greeted Aviraneta and Gallardo. “Is there any romantic talk?” Gallardo said sarcastically. “Yes; we plan to eat, instead of pig’s head, the head of a classic.” Chapter 23. A PROPOSAL FROM PAQUITO GAMBOA. They left the inn, and Paquito Gamboa accompanied Chamizo to his house. When they reached the doorway, he said: “Can I consider you an ally, my friend Don Venancio? ” “Ally? It depends on what you’re for. ” “For a political enterprise. ” “Well, you know I’m not a politician. ” “It doesn’t matter. I’ll explain the matter to you. If you accept, you’re part of the deal, and if not, you give me your word that you’ll keep it a secret for at least a month.” “It’s a given, and if you wish, for a year. Let’s go up to my room and we’ll talk freely. ” They went up to the former cloistered room, which was full of old books, prints, and papers. “You can really see the wise Don Venancio in here,” said Gamboa. “Bah! Laugh. A wise man doesn’t need so much paper. This is a vice. ” Chamizo vacated the armchair, full of books, so Gamboa could sit down, and he sat down on the bed. “Haven’t you heard of a palace intrigue centered on the Infante Don Francisco?” asked Gamboa. “No.” “Well, several gentlemen and ladies of the Palace have had the idea of associating the Infanta Luisa Carlota and her husband, Don Francisco, with the regency of Spain. ” “And for what? For what purpose?” asked Chamizo. “The main reason is that the queen is in love with Muñoz.” ” So they say.” “It’s said, and it’s true.” For this case, a triple regency has been considered . There’s nothing absurd about it. “No, no. ” “Infanta Luisa Carlota and her husband, who know from Celia and me the influence Aviraneta is having among the youth, are going to call him one of these days to speak with him. ” “But does Aviraneta have real influence?” Chamizo asked. “Yes; yes, she does. Now she’s planning a society of supporters of Isabella II, I don’t know in what form. I would like you to try to convince Don Eugenio that the solution of the triple regency, the queen with the two infants, is not as illogical as it seems at first glance. ” “Well, I’ll try. ” “We’ll keep it in mind. Come and dine with us tomorrow at Celia’s house. You can go there whenever you want. It’s necessary for us discreet people to join together. I’ll speak to the Infante Don Francisco to see if he can give you a job.” Leaving him flattered by this sweet hope, Gamboa left. The next day, Chamizo went to dine at Celia’s house, and she won him over and made him promise to follow her advice, which would not hurt him. Chapter 24. THE COUNT OF TORENO IN CAT ALLEY A few days after the king’s death, Father Mansilla appeared at the Garden House to visit his friend Tilly. “A doctor, Dr. Torrecilla, has come to my house with a rather strange request,” he said. “What is it? ” “This gentleman is an acquaintance of Doña Celia and wants to know where Aviraneta lives, so he can speak with him. ” “And how did he address you? ” “Through Doña Celia. This Torrecilla told me that there is an important person, who has come from abroad, who wants to confer with Aviraneta. Do you know where Don Eugenio lives? ” “No; but I will find out immediately. ” “So you will take charge of the arrangements? ” “Yes; I will take charge, without any problem.” Tilly went to find Captain Nogueras and found out that Aviraneta was living in a guesthouse on Segovia Street. She immediately went to see Dr. Torrecilla at his house. “I have been informed that you want to see Aviraneta,” she said. “Since Aviraneta is being sought today, if you want to tell me what it is about… ” “We’ll waste time,” interrupted Dr. Torrecilla. I’m a friend of Eugenio’s, I’m aware of his work, and I have an urgent errand for him. “Don’t you want me to tell him specifically what it’s about?” “Yes; it’s better if you tell him, otherwise we’ll be going back and forth for a long time. The Count of Toreno is in Madrid. I visited him because he’s sick with tertian fever. The Count wants to see Aviraneta and speak with him. ” “Well, I’ll tell him. Where should I bring him the answer? Here, to his house? ” “Look, because of my profession, I don’t have time. The Count is in a humble guesthouse at Callejón del Gato, number 6, second floor; he calls himself by his first name and surname, José Queipo. If Aviraneta wants to see him, let him go; if he puts up any objections, you introduce yourself to the Count and say: ‘I’ve come from Doctor Torrecilla with this message from Aviraneta.’ Are we? ” “Very well.” Tilly went to Segovia Street and found Aviraneta on the fifth floor, making lists of Isabelina members from Madrid and the provinces. She told him what had happened and how Toreno wanted to meet with him. “Are you going to be in charge of the negotiations, dear One? ” “Yes.” “Well, tell the Count that I, personally, can’t make a pact with him, because I’m connected to six other people who make up the Isabelina Directory. Ask Toreno if he’ll authorize me to mention your name to our Board, and send me the answer right away. If he does, go to the secondhand bookstore on Paz Street , and tell the bookstore boy: ‘Go to Don Eugenio’s house and tell him yes.’ If not, nothing.” “All right, friend Three.” Tilly went to Gato Alley and entered a dark, damp doorway. She went up a gloomy staircase and knocked on the second floor. She asked for Mr. Queipo and was shown to a small office, which had an alcove with curtained doors at the back. Tilly thought she was being watched from there. Sure enough, those doors opened. and the Count of Toreno, Dr. Torrecilla, and a friend of both, Don Mariano Valero Arteta, appeared. The count was a man who was rather ugly than handsome, puffy and reddish. He had a brilliant, bold gaze; he dressed very elegantly, like a complete dandy, and spoke a Castilian that tinged with Asturian and the Castilian one accustomed to living in France. “This gentleman,” Dr. Torrecilla said to the count, “is the one who has been charged with meeting with Aviraneta. ” “What did he tell you?” the count asked briskly. “He has indicated to me,” Tilly said, “that he cannot do anything alone and that he wants to know if you authorize him to communicate his offers to the Isabelino Directory. ” “Fine; I have no objection to my presenting my offers to the other members of your Society, but without any obligation to them . I would have liked to have a conference with one of the Isabelino leaders.” “I’ll tell Aviraneta,” Tilly indicated. “My purpose in this conference was limited to offering my services to the association, while I could enlighten them with the information I acquired in Paris regarding the absolutist direction the Zea Ministry intends to follow. ” Don Mariano Valero urged Tilly to tell Aviraneta that the Count of Toreno was animated by the best of sentiments and determined to face all kinds of dangers in order to achieve the most liberal Constitution possible for the country. When Tilly left, the Count of Toreno asked Valero about him with great interest . “Who is this young man?” he said. “I hardly know him,” Valero replied. “What a distinguished fellow! This man will make a career.” Tilly left the Callejón del Gato, went to Calle de la Paz, to Señor Martín’s second-hand bookstore, and said to Bartolillo: “Go to Don Eugenio’s house and tell him yes.” A few days later, Aviraneta told Tilly the outcome of the negotiations, which had been negative. Aviraneta gathered his advisors, and apparently everyone was happy to reject Toreno. Olavarría assured him that the count had returned from Paris, ruined by stock market transactions, and that he had no other plan than to find any foothold. “If he were a trustworthy man,” he apparently said, “he would make a revolution with the resources we have; but we run the risk of serving as his footstool to reach the ministry, and when he no longer needs us, he’ll kick us out. Toreno is a cunning man and will dominate us.” Romero Alpuente stated that if the count’s offers were accepted , he would withdraw from the Junta. According to him, Toreno had come to Spain as an envoy of Louis Philippe to muddle Spanish politics, since the French monarch had lost, with Ferdinand VII, his closest ally , and feared that a radical revolution might break out in Spain that would reignite the fire from the ashes of French republicanism, which he had just stifled in his own country. Flórez Estrada expressed himself in a similar way. Aviraneta was the only one who said he believed it unwise to reject the offers of a man of such importance. Aviraneta wrote to Torrecilla refusing him . Toreno did not dismiss the offer and held a great grudge against Aviraneta. That same day, Toreno was exiled to Asturias by order of Zea Bermúdez. Chapter 25. THE REASONS FOR THE TRIPLE REGENCY. Father Mansilla was rising in his relationships and climbing the high society ladder. The confessional was of great use to him. He also did not neglect his oratory. He had adopted an insinuating, casuistic manner in his sermons, which gave him great success. Almost every day, Mansilla held long conferences with Tilly and introduced his friend to the most important houses, especially those with a liberal bent. One morning, Aviraneta sent word that he would visit them at the Garden House that afternoon. Mansilla and Tilly received him kindly, and jokingly formed the first Triangle of the Center. “What’s up, Tres?” Tilly said. “I’ve come to see if you can clear up a doubt for me, you who frequent high society. ” “Let’s see…” “I think I told you a while ago that a certain Master brought us to the Isabelina some lists of those involved in a previous liberal movement . ” “Yes. ” “Well then; because of these lists, we’ve come to get in touch in Catalonia with a friar, Father Puch or Puig, who is known by the name of the Dominican of Vich. This Dominican, it seems, enjoys great prestige, and has very quickly organized an Isabelline Directory in Barcelona. It already has five or six thousand men affiliated. ” “That many? ” ” Yes; that’s what he says. The Barcelona Directory is showing itself to be full of impatience, and wants the liberal uprising to be hastened.” He has already written several communications, and yesterday we received a coded letter from the Directory, in which we are told that we are taking a long time in Madrid to organize our work, and that they have contacted a member of the royal family, a Bourbon who promises to march at the head of the revolutionaries and put an end to the Carlist schemes. The letter adds that in the first mail a commissioner from the Directory leaves from Barcelona to contact us. I was astonished to think what kind of royal person it could be… I read the letter to the others, and they were all in a state of shock, like me. “No one has suspected anything?” Tilly asked, smiling. “No one. Do you know something? ” “Yes; I think Dos knows too. Isn’t that right? ” “Yes, too,” Mansilla said. “And who is this person who is going to ally himself with the revolutionaries? ” “The Infante Don Francisco. ” “Are you sure?” ” Absolutely sure. ” “But isn’t he a hopeless man? ” “Well, what does that matter?” Charles III was a good king, and he was a fool. And what does Don Francisco intend to do? “To be regent. Many Cristinos already know this, starting with Zea Bermúdez, who suspects his intention. ” “You astonish me. What bad reports we have! It’s the misfortune of Spain, that nothing can be done except with old fogies. If I could have done the Isabelina alone, I would have done something else with young people… ” “We’ve done the Central Triangle,” said Tilly, “and this will work.” “Numbers One and Two will soon leave Number Three behind,” replied Aviraneta. “But we won’t abandon him,” replied Mansilla. “And what do you think the Isabelina should have done with regard to the Infante Don Francisco? ” “I, like you, would come to an agreement with the Infante,” said Tilly. “I believe the same,” added Mansilla. “It won’t be possible,” replied Aviraneta. “My people won’t accept it.” It will seem like a conspiracy to them, and from the moment they find one of these words, they won’t get out of it. They don’t reason. Romero Alpuente will say a few phrases in the style of Robespierre, and that’s it… “I would try to convince them. If that’s not possible, I would establish underground relationships. ” “They’ll find out. ” “No; you’re intelligent enough to sugarcoat it for them. ” “Hmm! What do I know! ” “You already know what Madame Pompadour used to say. ” “I don’t know what she said. ” “That the whole secret of politics consists in lying at the right time. ” “It’s just that the environment is so small…” “Well, I’m leaning that way,” said Tilly. “The Count of Parcent, who is the head of that party, is trying to win me over to his side, and I’m letting myself be won over. I don’t think I’m violating my pact with the Central Triangle. ” “Not at all,” replied Aviraneta; “you’re within your rights. And you, Mansilla?” “My policy is to be a personal friend of these gentlemen and not to favor any of them. ” “Very well,” Aviraneta murmured. “If you find out anything, will you tell me at once? ” “Yes. Don’t worry. ” “I will tell them what my people agree on.” Two days later, Aviraneta returned to the Garden House and found himself alone with Tilly. “Do you know anything?” asked Aviraneta. “That’s who they are. Parcent has relations with the Isabelinos of Barcelona. His secretary, a captain named De los Ríos, is recruiting people. ” “What are they up to? ” “The intention is very simple, and even logical. They want to establish a Triple Regency with María Cristina, the Infanta Luisa Carlota, and Don Francisco. ” “But with what objective? For what reason? ” “Well, there are many reasons; but the main one is that Queen Cristina is head over heels in love with Muñoz. She’s no longer a queen or a distinguished lady; she’s an unbridled woman, a female in heat. ” “I thought it was a dalliance typical of this Bourbon family, which is somewhat quarrelsome. ” “Oh! It’s serious business… It’s the love of a thirty-year-old woman, ardent and Neapolitan, who has been married to an old, impotent, gouty man.” “As you point out, friend Uno. ” “If things go as they seem, everything suggests that María Cristina’s discredit will be enormous. The son of the tobacconist from Tarancón and Aunt Eusebia in the queen’s bedroom! Things are serious. To prevent discredit, this solution of the Triple Regency has been devised, and if Cristina were to become so corrupt that she lost all personal prestige, then an attempt would be made to completely replace her in the Regency with the Infanta Luisa Carlota. ” “All this you’re telling me is new to me,” Aviraneta said. ” Do you really believe in Cristina’s love? ” “Yes, yes; it’s a fact. Ask Fidalgo. All the chambermaids know it. The other day they saw Muñoz with a large diamond on his breastplate; it was one worn by Ferdinand VII. ” “And did this begin before or after her husband’s death? ” “I think before.” There’s the dressmaker Teresita Valcárcel, Ronchi’s lover, and another young chambermaid, Mari Juana, who’s involved with Colasito Franco, a Corpsman and a friend of Muñoz. The queen has been stalking Muñoz. “We’ve returned to the times of María Luisa. ” “Yes; we’ll be governed, as then, by an Italian queen and a Corpsman . We’ll see what comes of it. ” “You, Tilly, don’t let go of the thread of intrigue. We’re in a very interesting moment. ” “Don’t worry.” Chapter 26. THE INFANTS. Six or seven days later, Father Chamizo was at Doña Celia’s house when a courtier friend of Don Narciso Ruiz de Herrera, a certain García Alonso, appeared and said: “I’ve just dropped Eugenio Aviraneta off, after taking him to the Palace to see the Infantes. ” “What happened?” “Well, following Their Highnesses’ instructions, I met with Captain Nogueras and told him I needed to see Aviraneta. The captain put up some obstacles, but finally, he told me I would meet him at his house at three in the afternoon. I returned around this time, explained what was going on; he asked me for twenty-four hours to consult with his friends, and today I was again at Nogueras’s house and took Don Eugenio to the Palace in a private carriage. ” “And what happened there? ” “Nothing extraordinary. Aviraneta and I were ushered into the small, gilded drawing room. Doña Carlota and Don Francisco were leaning against the fireplace, where a beautiful flame burned. After the appropriate introductions and closing remarks, the Infante, with his simple and frank air, asked him: “So you are Aviraneta? ” “At the service of His Highness. ” “You have a reputation as a terrible conspirator.” “That’s just hearsay.” “I know you work hard for my niece Isabel. ” “I do what I can, as a subject of Her Majesty. ” “Do you have many companions who help you? ” “Quite a few. ” “They are determined people, from what I’ve been told. ” “Yes. They are people of heart. ” The Infanta mingled here with her energetic and determined air. “How many of you are there in Madrid? More than a thousand?” –More than a thousand… We’ll soon reach five thousand. –Are you also working in Barcelona? –In Barcelona and other cities in Spain. –Why do you work and for whom? –We work to ensure freedom in Spain and in favor of Queen Isabella. –And for no one else? –For no one else. From the Queen down, for no one. –I had been misinformed. Are you satisfied with Zea Bermúdez? –No, madam; we consider him an absolutist. –You know, –said the Infanta, –that in Catalonia a large party is forming against Zea to overthrow him from power and establish a Regency to govern the monarchy during my niece Isabella’s minority. Do your friends in Barcelona intend to support this plan? –Madam: my friends in Barcelona have organized and prepared to thwart the Carlist intrigues. I don’t believe there is anyone among them who would try to work in favor of a Regency. “Well, don’t doubt it,” the Infanta replied briskly. “Your friends will perhaps be the first to proclaim it.” Afterwards, they spoke in low voices, and their conversation did not reach me. Then I heard the Infanta say again: “We would like you to go to Barcelona and, with your influence , activate the plans and desires of those people, and that the matter be accomplished without much fuss or bloodshed. ” “I thank Your Highness,” Aviraneta replied, “for the confidence you have in me; but I must tell you that I am in contact with other people and that I must consult with them. ” “We said goodbye to the Infantes,” García Alonso concluded, ” we went down to the Plaza de Oriente, took the carriage, and I left Aviraneta at the Puerta del Sol. ” “And that was all? ” “That was all.” This account gave Chamizo, Doña Celia, and Gamboa a wealth of unknown information. Aviraneta had formed a Society with more than five thousand members in Madrid and branches in the provinces. He and several directors were also involved. Comments were made about Aviraneta’s attitude, fearing that he and his friends would try to approach María Cristina to instruct her about the insidious Regency plan advocated by the Infantes, a plan that probably wouldn’t please the Queen. Three or four days later, Paquito Gamboa told Chamizo that the mystery of Aviraneta’s Society had been solved. It was called the Confederation of Isabelinos or Isabelina, and had a Directory made up of Calvo de Rozas, Palafox, Flórez Estrada, Romero Alpuente, Beraza, Juan Olavarría, and Aviraneta. Each one was the head of a special section. The military organization was not well known. It was known that the force was led by General Palafox and had its legions and centuries. Judging by its structure, the Isabelina was a Carbonari Society. “The matter is more serious than it seems,” said Gamboa. “The government knows of the Society’s existence and fears it. Two individuals from the Isabelina Society went this morning to visit Minister Don Javier de Burgos to negotiate with him, but they were unable to reach an agreement. A few days later, Gamboa himself told the former cloistered member that he had been told that the Isabelina Society had a mysterious Action Committee called the Junta del Triple Sello, made up of a Freemason, a commoner, and a Carbonari. This Junta was in charge of secret works, murders, and executions. ” Chapter 27. THE THREADS OF INTRIGUE. A few weeks later, Aviraneta was in his upper apartment on Segovia Street , in the company of Captain Nogueras, when a very well-behaved gentleman in his thirties showed up . He knocked and asked the landlady: “Don Eugenio de Aviraneta?” “I don’t know if he’ll be there. Who should I announce to him?” “Tell Mr. Aviraneta that there’s someone here who wants to speak to him on behalf of a Dominican from Vich. ” “A friar? ” “Yes.” “Don Eugenio isn’t very fond of friars,” the landlady murmured to herself, “nor am I.” He gave the message to Aviraneta, who exclaimed, “Send that gentleman in at once.” The envoy from Barcelona walked down a long corridor and entered a room where Aviraneta and Nogueras were. It was a large, whitewashed room with a red-hot iron stove. It had paneled doors and shutters, and a balcony so high above Segovia Street that leaning out was dizzying. The newcomer greeted Aviraneta and Nogueras with a nod . “I come from Barcelona,” he said, “with a password from the Dominican of Vich. ” “Sit down,” Aviraneta instructed him. The man saw the door that had been left open, closed it himself, and sat down immediately. “I take it we’re in a house you trust?” he asked. “A house you trust completely. This gentleman is Captain Nogueras, a friend of mine and a member of the Isabelina family. ” “My name is Salvador, and I have this password from Father Puig, which should correspond to the other half he must have sent you, and which together make up a card.” Nogueras went to the filing cabinet and took out a piece of cardboard cut in a whimsical way, which he compared with the one Salvador had brought. They matched well. The envoy from Barcelona was a pale man with a thin black mustache, dressed in dark clothes, with cold, humble, and insinuating manners, and a reserved and mysterious air. At first glance, one might have taken him for a sick man; but upon closer inspection, one could see that he wasn’t. He had the pallor of a man who doesn’t see the sun; he was a type of darkness, of a hovel, a church, or a convent. His smile unmasked him; it was a cynical smile, of a weak, servile, and base man. “You may speak, Mr. Salvador,” Aviraneta instructed the envoy. “The Dominican of Vich,” he said, “is a man who, like you, has organized the advanced elements of Catalonia. The Dominican made contact with us, the Reformed Europeans, who formed a Carbonari Association in Barcelona, and he made us join him. ” “Does he have a lot of prestige, apparently? ” “Yes, a lot; he has the prestige of the habit and that of having been a guerrilla in the War of Independence. ” “Have you been a guerrilla? ” “Yes. ” “And are there many members of the Isabelina of Barcelona? ” “Many. Influential people, almost all liberals, starting with General Llauder. We have three or four thousand men in the capital , trained and armed, and as many or more in the province. ” “You have gone early. ” “And we will go far, because we Carbonari have no intention of being content with this silly idea of Isabella II’s government. We will go to the Republic. ” “If anyone follows you. That’s wanting to move too quickly,” Aviraneta replied. “Things are done more quickly there than here. Now it turns out that the Directory, presided over by the Dominican, which has contacted you, has received offers from another liberal group in Madrid. ” “Another liberal group in Madrid? It’s not possible,” Aviraneta exclaimed. “There is no other Isabelino group but ours,” Nogueras affirmed. “There is another,” Salvador replied, “and it is led by the Count of Parcent. ” “Bah! That’s nothing,” Aviraneta replied. “No, no, not so quickly, sir. That group is already very powerful; it has in its ranks a number of young military personnel from the Royal Guard and the Corps of Guards, it has many courtiers and aristocrats, and it is, furthermore, sponsored by the Infanta Luisa Carlota and the Infante Don Francisco. ” “And what is the purpose of that group? What is it proposing?” Aviraneta said, pretending to ignore him. “This group aims to overthrow Zea Bermúdez from power and establish a Triple Regency made up of María Cristina, Infanta Luisa Carlota, and Infante Don Francisco de Paula. The Dominican of Vich has heard the proposals of this new group, and for now has not decided anything. The Dominican wishes to meet with you so that you may guide him in the politics of Madrid, and, above all, he wishes to reach an agreement with you on this serious matter of the Regency.” “I, honestly,” said Aviraneta, “don’t see the point of modifying the Regency. This new idea seems disturbing to me. ” “It seems the same to me,” assured Nogueras. “But, even so, we will consult with the Directory,” added Aviraneta. “It’s possible that the idea is not opportune,” replied Salvador. “Since we had doubts, that’s why they sent me here. What the Dominican wants to know is whether the offer of these courtiers who follow the Infante Don Francisco and the Count of Parcent is worthwhile or not. ” “Your attitude is very logical,” exclaimed Aviraneta. “I don’t blame you. I hope we will reach an agreement on everything. ” “I doubt it,” replied Salvador. “Why?” asked Aviraneta. “The main issue here,” said Salvador, “is that you seem willing to wait, and in Barcelona you can’t wait.” The patriots there are harassing the Directory and are ready to elect new leaders and abandon the old ones if they don’t give the order to march and immediately overthrow Zea Bermúdez. “That’s what we would like to do as quickly as possible,” Aviraneta replied. “The issue is power. ” “Naturally,” Nogueras said. “Fine; but there is growing unrest there. The Dominican wants to calm the people by giving them hope that, if they wait for what’s necessary, the movement will be supported in the other capitals; but people tire of waiting. ” “That is an irresolvable issue,” Aviraneta murmured. “In these matters, the impatient have no choice but to leave it. ” “I believe, Señor Aviraneta,” Salvador said, “that it would be best for you to go to Barcelona yourself to see if you can calm the agitation and counsel calm to the impatient by explaining to them what’s happening here. ” “I will consult with the Directory and see what they decide.” “We would also like you to meet with General Llauder in Barcelona, and, in exchange for protection here in Madrid, extract a promise from him to keep the Carlists under control. Llauder, as you know, is fickle; they call him the Meteor there. ” “I’ll consult that with the Directory as well.” They spoke of indifferent things afterward, and Salvador left home. “What did you think of this citizen?” Nogueras asked. “I don’t like this guy. That pallor, those thin lips. ” “What does that matter!” “To me, he seems like a vile, serpentine man, who would be dangerous if he were intelligent and brave; but I think he is neither.” Aviraneta was left with the impression that Salvador was an enigmatic man, full of duplicity and mystery. Aviraneta hadn’t been to Barcelona, didn’t know the Catalan politicians , couldn’t compare the envoy’s manner and attitude with other acquaintances. Salvador’s proposal and the matter of the Triple Regency upset the Isabelline Directory. No one wanted the collaboration of the Infanta Luisa Carlota, nor that of her husband. She was considered an ambitious and scheming Italian; he, a fool. Regarding the matter of sending a delegate to Barcelona, the proposal was accepted and it was arranged that it would be Aviraneta. BOOK SIX: A FAILED JOURNEY. Chapter 28: PREPARATIONS. The next day, Don Venancio was on his way to the Rastro when he ran into Aviraneta. “Hello, Father! What’s up?” he asked. “You’re not seen now,” Chamizo told him. “Of course, since you frequent the palaces!” “How do you know? ” “Friend, everything is known around here. Everyone knows where you’ve gone, who you’ve spoken to…” Aviraneta wanted to find out where the news had reached the former cloistered man, and soon guessed it was from Celia’s house. Then he recounted in his own way the interview he had had with the infants, and said that they and the friends of Isabelina wanted him to go to Barcelona at all costs, a trip he was not very keen on. “Why don’t you entrust the commission to someone else?” Chamizo asked him. “It’s impossible; I have no choice but to say like Machiavelli when His Republic wanted to send him as a commissioner to Rome: “If I go, who stays? If I stay, who goes?” “You’re vain, Señor Don Eugenio. ” “You have reasons for it. ” “Yes; I know you’re scheming; but on the best day this will turn out to be very bad for you. You’re getting yourself into a lot of trouble. Besides, with your arrogance, you’re capable of anything when you’re stirred up by vanity, by boasting. ” “Do you want to come with me, Don Venancio? ” “Where? ” “To Barcelona. ” “Why would I go to Barcelona? ” “You can find old books there. ” “No, I don’t want to go, and yet there’s someone who would be very happy if I went with you. ” “Who? ” “Doña Celia, the lady married to Gamboa’s uncle. ” “She’s more than just the wife of Paquito’s uncle. ” “A viperous tongue. ” “And why would this lady be happy if you came with me?” “Don’t you see that she’s a friend of the Infantes? Well, she wants me to make observations to you, to persuade you… I told you: ‘Aviraneta is impertinent, she’s too vain for that.’ ” “So you’re scheming too… Oh, oh! ” “No, I don’t. Everything I do is out in the open. ” “Yes; but you already have your party, the Celista or Celiac party. Celia will give you good meals… ” “Excellent. ” “Oh, idealistic saint who sells himself for a good roast or a perfectly cooked sauce!” “I don’t sell myself. That’s for you politicians. I’m a friend of my friends… ” “I know. It’s a joke. I want you to have a chance of triumph with Celia. Come with me to Barcelona. I’ll treat you. When you tell her you’ve come with me to watch my every move, she ‘ll be giving you Balthazar’s feast. ” “Are you serious? ” “Yes, sir.” –Wouldn’t the trip cost me anything? –Nothing. –Well, if I go, I’ll go without any solidarity. If they take you to jail and want to garrote you for being a Freemason or a conspirator, I’ll say I have nothing to do with it. –Oh, of course. We’re not friends; at most, acquaintances. –So, I accept. –All right. As long as you want to prepare yourself, go ahead. It’s possible that in Barcelona you’ll find rare editions that will make Don Bartolo Gallardete’s teeth tingle . –Good. And what’s your purpose in taking me? –None at all utilitarian. To have a traveling companion on the stagecoach and in Barcelona to chat with. You’re a pleasant man. –Good; but I’m only in Barcelona for a week. –We won’t go that far. Aviraneta said he was leaving for the Café del Príncipe, where he had an appointment with a courtier to return to the Palace to meet again with Don Francisco de Paula. “I can tell you’re proud,” Chamizo told him. “That’s how revolutionaries are, vain and foolish. ” “Well, imagine how I’d feel if I were a friar,” Aviraneta replied. They both went to the Café del Príncipe and sat down in front of the glass window. A short time later, Señor García Alonso appeared. They drank coffee, and the courtier and Aviraneta stood up. “Wait here for me for an hour, Don Venancio,” said Don Eugenio. The two went out to the street and got into an elegant sedan. Chamizo waited for him, reading a copy of Lucian’s Dream in Greek. After an hour or an hour and a quarter, Aviraneta appeared. Chamizo and he left the café and walked down Calle del Príncipe, Puerta del Sol, and Calle Mayor. Aviraneta had a message to leave at a large house near Almudena Street. They passed through the old, broken wicket gate, the only thing left of the original Puerta de la Vega of old Madrid, and sat on some stones. They gazed at the hills of the Casa de Campo, the shacks near the Manzanares, the clothes hanging out to dry, and the vast plain, which was beginning to turn green. The sky was very blue, with a few white clouds. “What happened to the infantrymen?” asked the former friar. “We had a conference. There’s one detail that bothered me. When I entered the princes’ room, there were two gentlemen in the antechamber who seemed to be awaiting an audience; one old, very elegant; the other, younger; but they gave me the impression they were watching me closely. When I finished my visit and went out to the antechamber, the two gentlemen were no longer there, which surprised me, because if they were expecting an audience, it’s illogical that they would leave so soon. ” “Yes, it’s strange. Perhaps they were going to see a chambermaid. ” “It’s also possible; but they wouldn’t have had an antechamber there. ” “And what happened with the princes? ” “The princes greeted me just as they had the first time, standing in front of the fireplace. It happened like this. Don Francisco, with his foolish air, said to me: “Hello, Aviraneta! I suppose you have everything ready for the trip to Barcelona?” “Your Highness, not yet. I await your orders.” “Well, you must hurry, because your presence there is urgent. ” “My arrangements are made in twenty-four hours. The only thing that will take a little while is the passport. ” The Infanta then asked me with a harsh intonation and a foreign accent: “Do you know the Count of Pagcent? ” “I have no honor of knowing him except by name. ” “I would like you to have an interview with him. I could give you some inquiries .” “My friends might not look kindly on my dealings directly with him. In political parties there is jealousy, and it is necessary to tread very carefully so as not to arouse envy. ” “You are right, you are right. We will communicate the information about the count to you . I see that you are clear. I think that you are carrying out our undertaking successfully.” “If there’s no force majeure, I hope, madam, to achieve my goals.” The infantryman asked me if I knew Colonel Obregón. “Yes; I have a military friend by that name, and he lives on the same street as my sister, across the street from her house. ” “What street does your sister live on? ” “Wolf Street. ” “Well, that’s it. This Obregón is my secretary and my agent. Tomorrow morning , he’ll come see you. You give him this card, and he’ll give you the money you need for the trip. I’ll speak to him tonight when he comes to take the order. As soon as you arrive in Barcelona, write to me.” I greeted the infantrymen and left. “So tomorrow you’ll receive the money for the trip?” the former cloistered man asked Aviraneta. “Yes. ” “And you’ll be leaving right away? ” “We’re leaving, friend Chamizo. We’re leaving. ” “Good; then I’ll make my preparations.” Chapter 29. INTENTIONS. CHAMIZO was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Now, would you like to explain to me, friend Aviraneta, what each of the people involved in this mess wants; at least, what the princes want, what Celia wants, and what you want? ” “Friend Chamizo, you are very impolitic… Do you think people have such a clear plan? No. The princes are trying to get their hands on the Regency, and if they could, the Throne… Celia would like to be lady-in-waiting to the queen and elevate Gamboa, like María Cristina elevates Muñoz. I would like to start the Revolution and be president of the Council of Ministers. ” “Bah! You’re not up to that. You’re not cultured.” Don Eugenio laughed and continued fantasizing. They returned to the center and stopped in front of Aspiroz’s hat shop. “Well,” Aviraneta said to Chamizo, “you take care of the passports, tickets, luggage, etc. Tomorrow, at noon, I’ll go to your house.” “All right; I’ll be right there.” Meanwhile, Aviraneta went to see Tilly and told her about the conference he’d had with the Infante Don Francisco. “More or less, he knew about what had happened,” Tilly said. “Really? ” “Yes. The bad thing is that it seems to me Zea knows about it too. ” “Do you think so? ” “I think so. Just in case you don’t take any compromising papers on your trip to Barcelona. ” “I don’t plan on taking anything.” “And what are you going there for? To work for or against? ” “I’m against. The Isabelina people won’t accept the Triple Regency solution for anything in the world. ” “Fine. We’ll apparently be in enemy territory; I’ll work for them. ” “That’s why we won’t argue.” They said goodbye, and Aviraneta returned home. Since his memory wasn’t completely secure, he made a mnemonic combination with the names of the people he had to meet and their addresses, and invented a system of dashes and dots that he asked his employer to embroider on a handkerchief with red thread, like an ornamental Greek pattern. Meanwhile, Chamizo finished his travel preparations, and at dusk he went to Celia’s house to tell her what was happening and how he was going to get to Barcelona. She congratulated Don Venancio on his supposed skill and insisted that he influence Aviraneta and dissuade him from any idea of abandoning the infantry. Celia painted a very bright picture of the future for the former cloistered man. The next morning, before the appointed time, Aviraneta appeared at Chamizo’s house. He had just spoken with Colonel Obregón, the agent of the Infante Don Francisco, and with a certain Ríos, who was accompanying him, Captain of Urbanos, who was tutor to the children of the Count of Parcent. This Ríos stated in front of Don Eugenio that Queen María Cristina was fundamentally a Carlist, that she believed her brother-in-law Carlos was the one who was right and just in the dynastic matter, and that she was willing to come to an understanding with him. Hence, Infanta Luisa Carlota and Infante Don Francisco wanted to share the Regency with her to prevent her from betraying the liberals. Aviraneta told this version to Chamizo. “What do you think? ” “I don’t know how much truth there is in that!” Aviraneta brought five thousand pesetas: four thousand that Colonel Obregón had given him on behalf of the infantry, and one thousand from Calvo de Rozas. They put three thousand pesetas in a corner of Don Venancio’s bookcase and went to lunch at Genies’ inn, accompanied by Captain Nogueras and Salvador. Salvador explained to Don Eugenio what he should do in Barcelona and who he should see. At noon, they marched to the post house on Carretas Street and waited for the coach. Olavarría and Calvo de Rozas were there. Aviraneta spoke with them. Then he met with Chamizo. “Do you know?” he said. “This invention of the Triune Regency is said to have originated in Paris, among those close to Louis Philippe. ” “So you’re going to work against it?” the former friar asked him. “Oh! Of course. My friends have told me that I must go to Barcelona as soon as possible, not to support the movement, but to prevent it.” –And yesterday we told the story of the milkmaid, Doña Celia, and I! –Bah! If one thing doesn’t go well, something else will. The coach was ready, and Don Eugenio and Chamizo got into it. Then a canon, a fat woman with a very thin daughter, a couple going to Zaragoza, a young man in a frock coat, and some grain dealers got into the carriage. Aviraneta wrapped himself in his cloak and closed his eyes. Chamizo took out a book and began to read. It was January 10, 1834. Chapter 30. AVIRANETA, ARRESTED. As evening fell, they arrived in Guadalajara. The coach stopped at the Las Animas inn, outside the town. Chamizo got out, and as Don Eugenio did the same, a tall man wearing a top hat and a cape, with a black mustache, raised his cane and shouted: –Señor Aviraneta. By order of the Queen, you are hereby arrested. It was Police Commissioner Don Nicolás de Luna. Beside him were two constables and four cavalry soldiers. Chamizo trembled, wondering if Aviraneta’s arrest would be followed by his own; but they paid no attention to him at all. They ordered Aviraneta to be taken up to the main room of the inn, a room with an alcove; there they searched his suitcase and pockets, took his papers, counted the money he was carrying, and the chief of police returned it to him. Police. He suggested that Don Eugenio lie down in bed for a couple of hours if he wanted to rest, as it would take them to leave for another destination. Aviraneta entered the bedroom and lay down on the bed, while the police commissioner took out a horn inkwell and began to write a letter on a nightstand in the living room. He folded Don Eugenio’s papers, sealed the letter, and called one of the officers and handed it to him, giving him verbal instructions. The officer notified the two cavalry orderlies and said: “For the Police Superintendent of Madrid.” Chamizo, reassured, seeing that they weren’t paying attention to him, wondered if he could do Aviraneta some service without compromising himself, and went into the living room ready to tell the commissioner that he wanted to say goodbye to the prisoner. When he entered, he saw Don Eugenio and the commissioner exchanging addresses and shaking hands. The former prisoner thought they were Masonic symbols. “Hello, Father Chamizo!” Don Eugenio said when he saw him. “What are you planning to do? Are you going to continue on to Barcelona or are you going to return to Madrid? ” “I’ll return to Madrid. ” “Unless you want to come with me? ” “Voluntarily imprisoned? No, no; I have nothing to do with your schemes.” The commissioner laughed. “You can come if you want, accompanying Don Eugenio,” he said, “and leave whenever you please. For now, there’s nothing serious against Señor Aviraneta. ” “Nothing, Don Venancio,” said Don Eugenio, “you’ll follow my fate as an eyewitness. ” One of the agents was asked to find a car, and shortly after, a horse-drawn carriage stopped in front of the inn. The commissioner, Aviraneta, and Chamizo got into the car; they packed their suitcases and were escorted for an hour by three armed men. Commissioner Don Nicolás de Luna had, as Chamizo suspected, made Masonic signs of recognition to Aviraneta, and the two immediately understood each other. Luna said he was a permanent lieutenant colonel, without pay, who had accepted the police position to support a large family. It was clear that being a police officer seemed to him to be an ugly thing. The commissioner had sixteen children, and since his wife couldn’t raise them all, this terrible man, who caught conspirators and thieves, would get up in the middle of the night to give a bottle to one child or a cup of milk to another. “And how did you find out about me so quickly?” Aviraneta asked him, for whom family details held little interest. “I just got off in front of the Guadalajara inn, and you came to me. ” “I knew you before,” Luna replied. “Me? ” “Yes. ” “Where did you see me? I hardly ever leave the house.” “In the antechamber of the Infante Don Francisco, in the company of Señor García Alonso. ” “Now I realize. You are one of the two gentlemen who were in the antechamber. ” “The same one. ” “And the other, who was he? The old, dapper gentleman with white hair? ” “The other was the minister Don Javier de Burgos. ” “And what were you doing there? ” “Well, we had simply come to meet you. ” “I don’t understand why. ” “With the aim of arresting you now,” said Chamizo. Luna laughed. “This gentleman is right,” he replied. “I don’t see the point in arresting me,” replied Aviraneta. “Things, friend Aviraneta, are very murky,” said Luna. “You seem to have an association, which I suppose has relations with Freemasonry. Isn’t that true? ” “Yes, that’s true; but it will be a legal association, and the Statutes will be published shortly . ” “Good; That association has sent two delegates to hold a meeting with Don Javier de Burgos. “I think you’re mistaken, Luna. ” “I’m not mistaken, because I’ve seen those gentlemen myself. ” “Who were they? ” “Don Lorenzo Calvo de Rozas and Romero Alpuente. ” “It must be true, but I swear I didn’t know. And what was the purpose of these gentlemen visiting Burgos? ” “Well, the purpose was to make a pact with Burgos to overthrow Zea Bermúdez.” They haven’t come to an agreement; they’ve threatened Burgos, and he has communicated the news to Zea, and the two ministers have established, for the moment, an alliance and have summoned me. They learned that a delegate from the Liberal Association was going to visit the Infantes… “And how did they find out? ” “I don’t know; but you will understand that walls have ears in the Palace. Upon hearing this news, we went to the Infante’s antechamber and recognized you, and that’s why I arrested you immediately.” Aviraneta remained silent, no doubt absorbed in his reflections; the commissioner remained silent, and Chamizo remained silent as well. They marched like this, in the middle of the night, until they reached Perales de Tajuña. Here they got off at an inn, and the commissioner ordered a good luncheon to be prepared; they ate, chatted, and shortly afterward, got back into the carriage. “Where are you taking me?” Aviraneta asked. “For now, to Aranjuez. There I will be given new orders.” They arrived in Aranjuez at noon, and Commissioner Luna led the prisoner and Don Venancio to an inn. The former friar thought the food was very good there. The three of them discussed politics at the table, and then went for a walk to Lake Ontígola. On their way back, they went into a café, Aviraneta and the commissioner played billiards, and after a while of chatting, they went to bed. The next morning , a cavalry soldier brought a document for the commissioner. Luna opened it and read it, giving it to Aviraneta to read. The superintendent said that, having examined the prisoner’s papers, no indication of guilt had been found; But despite this, it wasn’t prudent to leave Aviraneta free, so the commissioner was ordered to transfer him to the outskirts of Madrid, to one of the inns on the Puente de Toledo Bridge, treating him with due consideration and respect during the journey. “What do you think of this office?” Aviraneta asked Luna. “That they’ll leave you free. ” “It’s possible; but it must be said, as these friars used to say, that the opposite is also probable. ” “Are you coming up with probabilism now?” exclaimed Don Venancio. ” I thought I saw something Jesuitical about you. I’m not a probabilist; I believe they’ll take you to some fortified stronghold, which is where you should be to cure yourself of your mania for meddling where you’re not wanted.” The commissioner laughed, and Aviraneta said that evil intent had always been peculiar to churchmen. Don Nicolás de Luna rented a carriage, the three of them got in, and set off for Madrid. The carriage driver’s nickname was Lynx, although he had nothing in his physical or morale to justify the nickname. The animal pulling the carriage was a mare. Lynx called out to her at every step: “Bandit! Bandit! Damn your figure! You keep getting into potholes! Ouch! If I get off… if I get off… Bandit!” When the mare was going well, Lynx would start singing a song that was very popular at the time, which began: ” A sad carriage driver was going along a road singing…” And he bored even the mare with the refrain of “Ouch! Tyrant, tyrant, tyrant.” They left Aranjuez after lunch. The travelers soon noticed that the carriage was moving slowly and that, despite the whipping and the shouts and the “Ouch!” “Tyrant, tyrant, tyrant,” the Lynx said, the Bandit was going very badly. She was already tired, and there was a lot of mud on the road. Chapter 31. CANDLES AT THE CUCKOO’S INN. The carriage headed towards Valdemoro and the travelers arrived at this town with great difficulty, because the road was a mud puddle. Between Pinto and Valdemoro they had great difficulties and had to jump to the ground many times to free the wheels. In Pinto they had dinner and headed to Villaverde. They crossed the village and continued on to Madrid. It already seemed that they were finishing the trip safely when the cart stopped . “What’s the matter?” said Luna. “No way, our straps have broken,” said the Lynx. “Do we have to fix them? ” “Not even God can fix this! Damn my appearance! It looks like it ‘s never rained! I’m going to put the mare and the barouche in this shed. ” “And what do we do?” “I have a large umbrella. I’ll lend it to you. You can go to Madrid. ” “How far away will we be? ” “Half a league or three-quarters of a league from the Puente de Toledo.” Luna opened the umbrella, which was one of those large red ones, and Aviraneta on one side and the former inmate on the other, walked along the road. When they arrived in front of a corral with a white shack, they stopped. The strumming of a guitar could be heard. Luna and her companions listened. A voice sang: ” No camelo ser erai, que es caló mi nasimiento. No camelo ser erai, con ser caló me contento. ” “What is this?” said Chamizo. “He’s a gypsy,” Luna answered. “What does _erai_ mean? ” “I think it means something like a gentleman.” The singer sang another couplet: “The filimicha is set up, and on it a chindobaró “to” mulabar a lendris that they have enchanted estardó. ” “The gallows are set up, and on it the executioner to kill a quail that they have taken prisoner,” Luna translated. Aviraneta had knocked. It took a long time to open the door. “Who is it?” a voice asked. “Some travelers. ” A boy came out with a lantern. “There is no _posá_ here,” he said. “A little farther on is the Cuckoo’s Inn. ” “This house must be a den of thieves and gypsies,” Luna said. “I have to come and search it.” They continued walking, getting into the mud, sometimes unable to get their feet out, until they reached the Cuckoo’s Inn. They pushed open the shutter, crossed the doorway and the courtyard, and entered a ground-floor kitchen filled with muleteers, coachmen, water carriers, and other ragged and untidy people. The innkeeper came quickly when she saw Inspector Luna and ordered the waitress to take them to the first floor. They took off their trousers and boots, dined in a room on the main floor, and since Chamizo was unattended, he went down to the inn’s large, black kitchen, where fifteen or twenty muleteers were waiting for their meal. Don Venancio contemplated the picturesque scene: the innkeeper, cooking on the stove; the young women, coming and going with great grace, waving their bell-shaped petticoats; the muleteers from Andalusia, with their calañeses; those from Toledo, with their wide-brimmed hats; and the occasional ragged scoundrel in a top hat. The ex-friar took a corner by the fire and warmed his feet. He took out an old edition of *The Life of a Conspirator*, which Gallardo had lent him for the trip, and began to read it. He was in the midst of those atrocious and barbaric scenes described by Quevedo in the executioner’s house when he was struck on the sleeve. “You’re enjoying yourself a lot with your reading, gentleman,” said a young man at his side. “Yes; that’s true.” The young man was about twenty years old, dressed in a manolo, with a bullfighter’s jacket, a red sash, and a handkerchief on his head. Chamizo thought he recognized him. “Shh!” said the young man. “What’s going on?” asked the ex-cloistered man. “Are you coming with Don Eugenio? ” “Yes. ” “Watching him? ” “No, no. ” “Are you going to prison? ” “No. ” “Are you a friend of his? ” “Yes. ” “Why did they grab you?” Has anyone _belreao_? Chamizo understood that he meant if anyone had reported him, and said he didn’t know, and quickly told what had happened. He thought he shouldn’t do it, but the young man had an imposing air of authority. After listening to the story, the young man said: “Now you’re going to go up and talk to Don Eugenio, okay? ” “Good. There’s no problem. ” “And you’re going to tell him that Luis and his friend are here with their kids. Have you found out? ” “Yes. ” “And that’s all. He’ll give the instructions.” Chamizo went up to Aviraneta’s room. Luna wasn’t there, and he told Don Eugenio, the young man’s errand. “Tell him there’s nothing he can do,” Aviraneta replied. He went downstairs and told the boy. “It’s better that way,” he replied, “because Don Nicolás de Luna is a good man. ” “And what were you thinking of doing?” the ex-friar asked. “We would have tied up the commissioner and left Don Eugenio free. That’s how we behave. ” “You? Who are you? ” “I’m Candelas, and that guy up ahead is Balseiro. I don’t want to bother you any further, gentleman. I’m leaving. Boys, let’s go. And go sonsoniche, my friend.” And the thief made him a friendly grimace and a meaningful wink. Chamizo was still absorbed when Candelas and Balseiro disappeared. He went up to the room assigned to him, and as he went to say goodnight to Aviraneta and the commissioner, a guard entered with a document for Luna. Luna opened it and read it. It told him that the next day, at dawn, Aviraneta was to be taken through the patrols to the Iron Gate, where he was to wait for the departure of the stagecoach for Valladolid, which would arrive at eight in the morning. There would be an interior seat on the stagecoach, paid for by the government. Aviraneta would be put in the carriage, given a passport for Santiago de Compostela, and the foreman would be instructed not to allow the exile to leave until they reached Valladolid. “You’re as good as free,” Luna said. “No one is stopping you from returning from Valladolid to Madrid.” They each slept in their own rooms, and in the morning they left the Cuco Inn. In a carriage, they traveled along the Paseo de los Melancólicos and La Florida to the Iron Gate. They arrived at seven, an hour before the stagecoach, and had to wait for the carriage to arrive. They entered a small inn, the Sordo’s Inn, as Commissioner Luna had said it was called. This inn had a shed with a fritter stall, which at that moment was overflowing with people: egg vendors, milkmen, game sellers, and greengrocers who were having breakfast with fritters or churros and were preparing to enter Madrid. They sat in the inn next to a window; Luna asked for hot chocolate, and they brought clean cups with biscuits and fritters, and glasses of water with sugar. The three of them ate breakfast heartily. The innkeeper’s daughter was a very pretty, but very feisty young woman, and Aviraneta and Luna made some advances toward her, to which she responded with great anguish. “Could we know your name, girl?” Aviraneta asked her. “What for?” she answered. “To keep your name in my heart. ” “Bah! It’s not worth it. ” “It won’t be worth it for you; for me, it is. ” “Aren’t you the one who has to leave in the coach? ” “Yes; because they force me to; but on the way back… ” “On the way back they’ll sell it red,” said the girl, turning her back. At eight o’clock the coach arrived. Luna ordered it to stop, spoke to the foreman, and had the exile get into the carriage. “Good. Goodbye, Señor Luna! Goodbye, Don Venancio!” Aviraneta said happily.
The carriage left, and the commissioner and Chamizo returned to Madrid in their carriage . The commissioner asked the former cloistered man how he knew Aviraneta, and he told him. He, in turn, questioned the policeman about the Isabelinos Society. Did he believe it was really a strong Society? Were there, in fact, many members? Luna answered vaguely and circumlocuously. He believed that the Isabelina Society was a political society, from which ministers and deputies would probably emerge. When Chamizo spoke to him about the Junta del Triple Sello, he laughed. He said that Freemasonry was powerless; that the Society of the Comuneros was extinct, and that, adding up all the Carbonari in Madrid, there wouldn’t be three. “I find you’re rather easy on the conspirators,” Chamizo told him later. “What do you want?” Luna replied with a certain amount of sarcasm. “Conspirators are an element of success for politicians. So, from time to time, can our ministers save humanity? They arrived in Madrid and Chamizo said goodbye to Commissioner Luna. Chapter 32. LA LAGARTA. Chamizo did not go out for three days, busy with his work. On the fourth day he went to Captain Nogueras’s house on Toledo Street. He asked for the captain, and his landlady told him that he had just left with a fool from the village, and that she believed he would find him in the shop of Concha la Lagarta, the pawnshop on Studies Street, involved with Nogueras. Chamizo went in search of the pawnshop; he recognized it because it had, as a sample, a wire brazier covered with a small skirt, which looked like a small crinoline. He entered the shop, and Concha’s maid, Señora Ramona, told him that the captain was not there. He was about to leave when Nogueras came out of the back room and exclaimed: “Hello, Don Venancio! Come in.” There’s a villager here who says he knows him. “Me? What a strange thing!” He went into the back room and found La Lagarta and a peasant. The latter was wearing a brown cloth jacket, blue cloth shorts, a flounced waistcoat, and a catite hat. The back room was in semidarkness. “Doesn’t your father know me?” Aviraneta asked. “Is that you? ” “Yes. ” “Where are you from? Valladolid? ” “Yes, sir. Have you eaten? ” “No. ” “Well, let’s go eat. Then we’ll have to think about finding a quiet house where I can hide.” The table was set in the back room and they waited for the dinner to be brought, which they ordered from the Café de San Vicente on Barrionuevo Street. La Lagarta’s shop was a good one and very full of valuables . There was antique furniture, weapons of all kinds, swords, blunderbusses, colored prints, large bunches of keys, piles of trunks, copper jugs, choir books, clothes, embroidery, Talavera pottery, and Chinese porcelain, the kind that makes your head bob. There were also several Empire clocks with gilded brass ladies, sailors, and dogs inside lanterns. The best thing in the entire store, according to La Lagarta, and what Chamizo found most unpleasant, was a head of Christ, with real hair, kept in a glass case and placed on a cabinet. It looked like a dead man’s head. Concha La Lagarta was a short, dark-haired woman with black hair and a face adorned with curls, rings, and birthmarks. She would have been amusing, except for her aggressive and indifferent air, which Chamizo found extremely unpleasant, and for her harsh and harsh way of speaking. La Lagarta had a maid and a clerk who went shopping in stores and dressed like a gentleman. He was a man in his fifties, thin, wiry, with a gray mustache, whom she treated very roughly. La Lagarta ordered her clerk to stay in the store while she ate, and the gentleman sat in a chair and wrapped himself in his cloak because it was cold. The food was brought, and La Lagarta and the three men sat down. Señora Ramona set the table. Politics were discussed. Concha was an ardent liberal, in favor of slaughtering friars and Carlists . Señora Ramona, her maid, interrupted her, saying, “Shut up, shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The less fuss, the better; what’s necessary is for everyone to live in peace.” After eating, they discussed a place where Aviraneta could hide, and Señora Ramona said she knew a house on Embajadores Street where a soldier who had been in America lived, the one they called El Aguilucho. “El Ayacucho,” Nogueras said. “That’s right. ” “And are you going to go around like that in that new country-boy costume ?” Chamizo asked. “They’ll know you’re in disguise. ” “You’re right,” Aviraneta murmured, “and there’s no better place to disguise yourself than here. ” “Do you want a priest’s costume, Don Eugenio?” La Lagarta asked. “Come on.” La Lagarta took a hairpin and took a habit down from a hanger. Aviraneta, despite some protest from Chamizo, dressed in his cassock, threw on his cloak, and laid down his tile, and was in such good spirits that Chamizo himself admitted he couldn’t have been better. A gig was brought from the Plaza de la Cebada, and Chamizo accompanied Aviraneta to his new address. Four or five days later, he found Nogueras. “What about Don Eugenio?” he asked. “Is he still in his corner? ” “Oh, man! He’s had some great misfortunes. ” “So? What happened to him? ” The day after he arrived at Embajadores Street, he found the police at the house. They were going to arrest a man from Ayacucho who seems to be a scoundrel. They sneak into Don Eugenio’s room at night while he was in bed and said: “Don’t be afraid, sir. Nothing’s against you. We’re going to arrest the scoundrel who lives next door.” Aviraneta hears Commissioner Luna’s voice shouting, “No one should leave the house.” Aviraneta thinks angrily that Luna is going to laugh at him, and a completely absurd idea occurs to him. He dresses in his habits, grabs his suitcase, opens the window, and, via a beam at the height of a fourth floor, crosses a courtyard; at the end, he finds an open balcony, jumps over it, and finds himself in a strange, closed house. Don Eugenio must have had a very bad time. In the morning, he tries to leave and bumps into a woman who tells him, “It’s not here, Father. It’s upstairs.” Without a doubt, there was someone seriously ill on the floor above . Aviraneta runs down the stairs and presents himself at my house. “And now, where is he?” asked Chamizo. “We found him a magnificent house belonging to a fellow countryman of mine, Ambrosio de Hazas, on Cedaceros Street, number three and five. Hazas is in his village, and Doña Lorenza Caveda, the housekeeper , and his sister now live in his room.” Don’t tell anyone where you’re hiding. ‘ ‘Don’t worry.’ Leaving the Aviraneta issue aside, Nogueras spoke of politics with the air of a wise insect: ‘Things are very dark and looking bad,’ he said; ‘there must be differences between the Infanta Carlota and Queen Cristina; both have wanted to get their hands on Zea and Javier de Burgos, and they’re at each other’s throats; these divisions have been exaggerated by the letters published by Generals Quesada and Llauder, and a crisis is bound to come. BOOK SEVEN OLD INTRIGUES AND NEW INTRIGUERS Chapter 33. MARTÍNEZ DE LA ROSA. A few days after Aviraneta and Father Chamizo’s failed trip, Mansilla appeared at Tilly’s house and said: ‘Get dressed immediately, young number one. ‘ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘We’re having a meeting at the Carrascos’ house. ‘ ‘So, what’s going on again?’ “Queen Cristina seems ready to dispense with Zea Bermúdez and withdraw her confidence in him. There’s going to be a discussion at the Carrascos’ house about who will be Zea’s replacement, a discussion of pure formula, because we’re all in on the secret that it will be Martínez de la Rosa. ” “Are you on good terms with him? ” “Excellent. Don Francisco is a very good friend of mine. I tell him he shouldn’t stop being a poet, that he is a poet above all else, and this flatters him greatly. In the first vacancy, he’ll make me bishop. ” “And haven’t you spoken to him about friends?” “Yes, I’ve spoken to him about you; he knows you. ‘He’s a young man with a very refined air; we’ll make him diplomatic,’ he says. “Thank you very much! ” “I’ve even spoken to him about Aviraneta himself! About numbers One, Two, and Three of the first Triangle of the Center. ” “And what has he said? ” “That he has no qualms about meeting with him. That in Spain it’s essential to lay hands on a man of talent wherever he can be found. ” “Very well. ” Let’s see if our Triangle rises in stature. Father Mansilla and Tilly went to the Carrascos brothers’ house, which was filled with friends of Queen Christina and a few less intransigent Isabelinos. There were as many as twenty or thirty people in the living room. Donoso Cortés said, in an eloquent speech, that the queen, convinced of Zea Bermúdez’s unpopularity, had considered replacing him as President of the Council of Ministers with another politician more sympathetic to liberal elements. He added that he, the Carrascos brothers, and some others, when consulted by Her Majesty, had said that the most suitable candidate seemed to them to be Don Francisco Martínez de la Rosa. The Cristinos, upon hearing this name, applauded enthusiastically, and one of the Isabelinos present, the Count of las Navas, said that it was essential that Martínez de la Rosa offer to restore the Constitution of 1812 and convene the Cortes. The proposal caused some perplexity; Mansilla then asked to speak , and in a very diplomatic manner, showing off his liberalism, said that, like all contemporary works, the Constitution of Cadiz had its errors of perspective, and that it did not seem prudent to demand that the Constitution of 1812 be proclaimed in full, since it could be modified and a more opportune, progressive, and liberal Code be drafted . The majority of the Cristinos were of the same opinion, and Don Francisco Martínez de la Rosa was then called from another room . Upon entering the room, he was acclaimed. Martínez de la Rosa promised that he would fulfill the patriots’ wishes. At that moment, Donoso Cortés and one of the Carrascos deputies marched to the Palace by carriage and brought to the meeting the Queen’s word that she accepted Zea’s dismissal and the appointment of Martínez de la Rosa. Mansilla and Tilly congratulated him, and the poet from Granada made it clear that he would not forget them. Martínez de la Rosa’s entry into power initially produced great satisfaction among the liberals, who believed their time had finally come. It soon became clear that no such thing existed; the policy, naturally, did not change, and the ministers’ procedures remained the same as always. A cloud of police began to spy, not precisely on the Carlists, but on the liberals. Those of the Isabelina Party decided to help consolidate the old secret societies. Brother Beraza took up the symbolic palette and set about erecting the columns of the Masonic temple; Pérez de Tudela was appointed Grand Master of the Order, and Calatrava, San Miguel, and several others were appointed leaders of the Grand Orient. Calvo de Rozas took over the leadership of the Comuneros, and Aviraneta, along with González Bravo, attempted to boost the Carbonari sales of the European Reformed. Martínez de la Rosa, like previous rulers, unintentionally drifted toward reaction , not because he wanted to be reactionary, but because all Power is. It was said that his policy was discussed and decreed in a great consistory of pro-French abbots, such as Miñano, Lista, Hermosilla, and Reinoso; that after the issues were resolved, they crossed the Pyrenees, arrived in Paris, and there received the supreme sanction of Guizot, the king of doctrinaires. From this consistory of abbots, according to some, arose the idea of drafting a sort of charter like that of Louis XVIII in France, a constitution in miniature. Two or three months after Martínez de la Rosa came to power, the liberals were as much his enemies as they were Zea Bermúdez. Chapter 34. THE ENVOY’S SECRET. FROM BARCELONA . A few days after his arrival, Father Chamizo went to Celia’s house; he told her about his trip and Aviraneta’s arrest, although he did not tell her that Don Eugenio had returned and was hiding in a house on Cedaceros Street . Since it was not convenient for Aviraneta to have anyone visit him, since the visitors might discover his hiding place, Chamizo did not go to see him at his new house. A short time later, he took the three thousand pesetas that Aviraneta had left in the library of the former cloister and gave them to his sister. Don Eugenio wrote him a letter thanking him, acknowledging receipt of the sum, and sent him a box of nougat. One very cold day at the end of January, Chamizo found himself Nogueras at the Puerta del Sol and stopped him. “Are you in a hurry?” the captain asked. “No.” “Do you want to come with me to the Café Nuevo? ” “Come on.” They went there, tucked into a corner, and Nogueras said to him: “Do you know that they’ve just arrested Salvador, the envoy from Barcelona? ” “Where? ” “In the Post Office courtyard. ” “And why? Is it known? ” “No. I was with him in the Post Office courtyard, and while I was looking at the lists and he was collecting a bunch of letters, a police commissioner with two officers arrested him. He called the guard, who came with four soldiers, and they took him away. I went after them. They crossed the Puerta del Sol and entered a house on Preciados Street, near Rompelanzas Alley. Salvador lives in this house, which is a guesthouse . I passed by the door, where there was an officer. This officer was one of ours, a man named Nebot, affiliated with the Isabelina. “Captain, don’t stop,” he told me. “Go to the Café Nuevo and wait there. When the service is over, I’ll go and tell you what happened.” And I’m waiting for him to come. The former prisoner and the captain waited in the café for a couple of hours until the officer came in. Nogueras stood up, and the policeman approached him. “What happened?” “Well, nothing,” said Nebot, the officer. “We arrived at Preciados Street guarding Salvador; the troops stayed on the street, and Commissioner Don Nicolás de Luna, Salvador, four guards, and I went up to the main floor. Don Nicolás arrested the mistress of the house and the maid. He also gave orders that if anyone rang the bell, they would be arrested. Our commander asked Salvador for the key to a large trunk he had in his bedroom, took out a multitude of papers, made an inventory, and he, Salvador, and the two of us signed it. The room, the books, and the clothes were then searched , and since nothing was found, the housekeeper and maid were released , both of whom were given their names. Then the commissioner ordered Salvador to be taken down to the street, and escorted by us, the four guards, and the troops, we took him to the Court Jail. Don Nicolás gave the order to the warden to place the prisoner in solitary confinement, and when the task was completed, I came here. “How did Salvador behave?” Nogueras asked. “Was he calm? ” “No; not at all. He was very pale, and in the Court Jail, when they told him they were taking him to the cell, he turned so yellow that we thought he might have something. Nogueras congratulated the officer on his efforts, and when he left, he said to Chamizo, with his grave and self-sufficient air: “I’m going to visit the party leaders to see if we can do something for that poor Salvador.” They must have taken some compromising documents from him . He’s a terrible revolutionary. Nogueras grabbed his cape and his hat and left the café. “The next day, the former cloistered man was at Celia’s house, where there was talk about Salvador. It was said there that he was a republican, a Carbonari, a blood drinker, who had come on a secret mission from Barcelona to the clubs of Madrid, and that he was going to have a very bad time. Chamizo remembered the Junta del Triple Sello, which some spoke about with great secrecy. Out of curiosity and to know what was going on, Chamizo went to Nogueras’s house and to La Lagarta’s shop; but he didn’t find him. A week later, he saw the captain, who was at the Café Nuevo, and approached him. “What about Salvador?” he said. “Shut up, man! Shut up!” exclaimed Nogueras. “What a disappointment!” “So, what’s going on?” “Do n’t you know?” “Nothing.” “Well, it turns out he was a spy, an agent of Zea Bermúdez. He’s now free. ” “That’s extraordinary! And how did they find that out? ” “You see. When I broke the news that Salvador had been arrested, the Board of Directors of the Isabelina met and discussed ways to protect him, and it was decided that it would be advisable to go see Police Superintendent Don Fermín Gil de Linares.” Romero Alpuente, who knew him, went to visit Linares and spoke to him about the matter. Linares appeared at the Court Jail, had Salvador summoned, and took his statement. Salvador declared that he was an agent of Zea Bermúdez, who was at court to thwart a revolutionary plan being hatched simultaneously in Madrid and Barcelona by the Isabelinos, in which the Infanta Luisa Carlota and her husband, the Count of Parcent, General Llauder, General Palafox, Calvo de Rozas, Aviraneta, and all of us were implicated. Linares was astonished. He immediately consulted with the minister, and Martínez de la Rosa ordered Salvador to be released. Imagine Romero Alpuente’s astonishment when he went like a good man and found himself accused. The good man came back, more ashen and uglier than ever, to recount what had happened. “What a mess!” exclaimed Chamizo. “Yes!” Everything is so mixed up that no one will be able to trust even their own shadow. “One day it’s going to turn out that all of you are agents of Don Carlos. ” “No; not that,” said Nogueras, who didn’t understand the jokes. “Fine, but something like that. ” “Look at the paper our people have published.” And Nogueras gave the former cloistered man a written sheet of paper. In this paper, Salvador’s story was told; a story of espionage and betrayal. It was said that in 1823, while an officer in the Lusitania Regiment, he went over to the rebels with part of his company; that shortly afterward he was an emissary of the royalist government with the aim of spying on the patriots in Gibraltar and the prisoners on the pontoons in Lisbon, Barcelona, and Marseille. It was also claimed that he had been a friend of Regato; an agent of Calomarde for his stock market games and political intrigues, and one of González Moreno’s spies during the execution of Torrijos. He had recently entered Zea’s employ as an informant to learn about the liberals’ projects and expose them. It was also alleged that he had a secret society in Barcelona, where he maneuvered with his agents provocateurs. Behind this service record were Salvador’s personal details and the house where he lived in Madrid. The reading of the record at the Café Nuevo prompted some fanatics to punish the spy by beating him, and other scumbags had the idea of hiring a street band and going to sing the funeral service in front of Salvador’s balconies. The police learned of the plan and sent a cavalry detachment to Preciados Street to disperse the crowd, which was already beginning to gather at the corner of Rompelanzas Alley. A month later, Chamizo saw Salvador leaving the Montserrat Church on Ancha Street with a woman on his arm, both of them possessing a very mystical air. Chamizo recognized him and pretended not to see him. Through the investigations of Nogueras and his friends, it was discovered that he lived on Silva Street, entering through the Plaza de Santo Domingo, on the right, near the Callejón del Perro, at number 12, the house that belonged to the Royal Seal of the Court, where Regato had lived for a long time. From Madrid, Salvador left for Cádiz, and from Cádiz he was sent to the Philippines on a government mission. Chapter 35. BAD OMENS. The spring of 1834 was not very pleasant for Chamizo. Since the Isabelina Society, directed by Aviraneta and other friends, was already so well known, the former friar did not dare visit Nogueras and his other friends. He began to give Latin and French lessons, but he did not earn enough to live on. Gallardo provided him with some other odd jobs; with all his budget, he was unbalanced. Doña Puri, the landlady, told him not to worry. He began to stop going to Celia’s house. There was a serious disagreement in the family , which the former prisoner believed stemmed from the relationship between Celia and Gamboa. He asked about Gamboa several times, and from the ambiguous answers he received, he understood that he was the cause of the unrest. The last day Chamizo ate comfortably in Madrid was the day of Carnival. Chamizo met Gamboa, Nogueras, and Gamundi in the company of a fellow countryman. He was introduced to him as an aide to General Mina, named Francisco Civat. Civat was Catalan, a Carbonari, and a former guardsman. He was a big man, with a prominent chest, a bit coarse, with an exaggerated frankness, to be honest. He had a thick nose, a buckskin face, light eyes, and reddish hair. He was a spendthrift, a lavish, and an expeditious man who brooked no difficulties or delays in his projects. Civat was a gambler and had a thirst for money and pleasure. This whole group was going to eat at Genies’ inn, and they invited Chamizo to accompany him. The young officers were leaving for Navarre the next day to fight the Carlists. Gamboa assured them that he would soon join them. The former cloistered officer envied them, because they were happy with their lot and predicted great fortunes. At lunch, Nogueras and Gamboa had the bad idea to discuss politics. Martínez de la Rosa’s rise to power hadn’t satisfied the Isabelinos. Before the Granada poet’s Ministry could do anything, everyone was already saying he was a pastry chef and would give them a monkey. Nogueras exaggerated his malevolence toward the new president, calling him with his usual pedantry the coplero, the poetaster, Rosita the pastry chef… Gamboa, who was irritated and nervous, asserted that the Isabelinos shouldn’t hold their inaction against anyone, because they were the most useless and incapable of everything. “You can’t say that,” exclaimed Nogueras. “We’re still organizing the people; we already have five legions in Madrid and branches all over Spain. ” “Don’t tell me stories,” Gamboa retorted. “You Isabelinos are nothing more than ambitious people like all the others who long to be ministers.” Just when we thought absolutism was coming, like Calomarde’s, we offered to revolt, to take to the streets, and they said, “No, no; we must temporize, wait…” ” When was that?” Nogueras asked. “When? During the liberal meeting on Arenal Street. Urbina and I spoke to Aviraneta at the Café de Levante, and he was ready. We waited, because that’s what the saints said, and now it turns out we shouldn’t wait or temporize… All because they don’t want to make that barbarian Calvo de Rozas a minister, nor that ridiculous mummy Romero Alpuente… ” “You’re excited,” Nogueras said. “No, I’m not excited; I’m tired of intrigue and nonsense. So when they call me to war, I’m going to go there happier than a clam.” The former Corps guard, Civat, with a Catalan accent, said that things couldn’t be done as quickly as they were intended; that one had to be patient and persevere in everything. They finished eating; the two young officers went one way; Nogueras and Civat went another, and Chamizo accompanied Gamboa for a while. “This Nogueras is a poor fool,” said Gamboa. “The wise louse, as Aviraneta calls him. ” “Yes; now he thinks that Civat is going to solve everything. For him, Civat is a Robespierre. The same thing happened to him with Salvador. ” “Don’t you live with your uncle anymore?” Chamizo asked him. “No; I don’t live with him anymore. At the last minute, he’s become jealous. Crazy old man’s nonsense. ” “Where do you live? ” “At the house of a very nice lady, who’s somewhat related to my uncle. This lady has a young niece, and we have our concerts; We usually play: she, the guitar, and I, the flute. Go sometime . I live on San Justo Street, above a candle shop across from the church. Chamizo went to the shop once and returned often. The candle shop was in a small, one-story house with overhanging eaves , two balconies with small, leaded glass panes, and a display window full of candles, colored candles, red and yellow; others decorated with curled paper, matches, and chocolate bars. The owner of the candle shop was a thin, stiff woman; her niece Pilar was a pleasant girl. The first day he went to the candle shop, Chamizo heard Pilar and Gamboa talking, and realized that the soldier was very enthusiastic about the girl and that she was flirting with him. Chamizo was invited to have hot chocolate, and he returned mainly to stave off his hunger. BOOK EIGHT: CELIA’S DISILLUSIONS Chapter 36. A ROMANTIC WOMAN. In the spring of 1834, Margarita Tilly and her husband Sampau arrived in Madrid to spend some time. She had three small children. Margarita invited her brother Jorge, Fidalgo, Blanca, the chambermaid, and Aviraneta to dinner at her husband’s parents’ house.
After dinner, there was much talk about Celia, who had been somewhat ill and withdrawn for days. “I think she’s, more than anything, unhappy,” Tilly said. “And why?” asked her sister Margarita. “Isn’t she living well?” Don’t you have a small circle of adorers? Yes; but she has that egocentrism that all women have, which makes them want the whole world to revolve around them. My brother is already defining it, Margarita exclaimed ironically. It’s the truth. All of you demand to be the center of the world, at least of your world, and you don’t want anyone to be distracted by the surroundings. Bah! And you? asked Blanca Fidalgo. Not so much. At least we accept that the central point of life is an idea: Politics, Literature, Science… You don’t; you have the love of your small circle, and Celia more than anyone. Our friend wishes that we, her intimates, could only be happy through her, and she would distribute happiness to us. She would like to be the focal point of her gathering, the brain or the spinal cord. I don’t understand why Celia is so unhappy, said Margarita. She lives well, her husband pampers her, she maintains pleasant company…. “All that doesn’t stop her from being bored,” interrupted Tilly. “She must never have had any enthusiasm for her husband,” said Aviraneta. “Never. It’s only now that Don Narciso is ill that she takes interest in him,” said Fidalgo. “It used to be a well-known fact. You had Celia with her husband, and she would yawn, become sad; Gamboa or one of you would come, and Celia would be reborn, she would be alive, witty, perceptive; but everyone would leave, and then Celia would decline and begin to yawn, and a veil would come over her eyes. ” “She’s a romantic,” said Fidalgo. “That’s what these women are called today,” Aviraneta interjected. “Tomorrow it will be found that temperaments of this kind have brains with more phosphorus or nerves with more electricity than normal. ” “How materialistic Don Eugenio is!” exclaimed Margarita. I don’t think Celia is a passionate woman. “Oh!” said Blanca Fidalgo. ” Celia is a cold woman, without passions, with a purely intellectual coquetry; she wants to have Gamboa at her side without giving away anything, and this is very difficult. ” “Second edition of Madame Recamier,” said Tilly. “I think Celia is waiting for her husband to die to marry her nephew,” said Blanca, with the natural ill will of one woman toward another. “She’s very sly. ” “And what is he like?” asked Margarita. “Gamboa? He’s a handsome young man,” said Blanca. “He’s an impulsive man… not very intelligent,” added Tilly. “A man full of exaggerated ideas about honor,” added Aviraneta, ” an enemy of everything foreign, an enemy of anything irregular, serious, formal, in short, a vulgar man like everyone else. ” “And he loves Celia?” “Yes, he loves her in his own way, in the ordinary way,” said Blanca Fidalgo, laughing. “He thinks love is love,” affirmed Tilly, “and he won’t accept Madame Celia’s sentimental quibbles. ” “Would you accept them? ” “I don’t know! I guess. ” “Some people say you’re already accepting them,” replied the chambermaid maliciously, “and that you and Lord Villiers’s secretary are rivals. ” “Well, those who say that are mistaken,” replied Tilly. “Between Celia and I’m just a good friend; I understand her, and she understands me. Don Eugenio is also your friend here. “There’s always a certain reserve between us,” replied Aviraneta. ” Not between you and her.” “Well, we see each other more like two siblings than a man and a woman who might become lovers for any reason,” replied Tilly. “Now we do, because you’re so thin,” said Aviraneta sarcastically; “we’ll see later. ” “There you go with your terrible materialism, Don Eugenio,” exclaimed Margarita. “I don’t think we should pay much attention to Jorge,” replied Blanca. ” He’s a Jesuit, a hypocrite, he wants to mislead us. ” “Oh! If my brother is now in love,” said Margarita, “with a modest, somewhat naive girl… ” “Oh! Of course. She’s the type that repentant rascals like ,” interjected Blanca. Tilly shrugged. “And have you known Celia for a long time?” Aviraneta asked Tilly’s sister. “Since childhood. Celia is the daughter of a diplomat from the time of Joseph Bonaparte and Ferdinand VII. Her father was a royalist. Celia was educated with me in Paris, at a school. She was then a very religious girl: she had met Vendeans and Chouans. When I knew her, she had a cult of Joan of Arc and Marie Antoinette. The thought of the child of the Temple made her weep wildly. Dying for the Pope and the King was her golden dream. Fighting against the impious would have been her glory. As a child, Celia, very pretty, very pampered, very spirited, took part in royalist gatherings. The nuns exalted in us mysticism and monarchical sentiment. When the Duke of Angoulême intervened, Celia embroidered a banner for the Dragons of the Faith, with fleurs- de-lis. Celia was very intelligent and won prizes in every class.” At sixteen, when I was eight, her father took her out of school. Some time later I saw her again; she had had an unhappy love affair with a young man and was about to marry the man who is now her husband. Then she had changed her mind: she was a poet, writing verses and learning to play the harp. Now I see her in your company, involved in liberalism and, I don’t know, in a Carbonari. “She is an interesting and talented woman. There’s no doubt about it,” said Aviraneta. “She deeply despises this cold and somewhat monotonous world we all live in, ” added Marguerite. “That’s why I like her,” said Tilly. “That contempt for common vulgarity is very good. ” “You don’t understand, my poor Celia,” continued Marguerite, “that those things she disdains are the most essential, and for most women, doing the same thing every day has great charms. She aspires to extraordinary things and would like to live like a heroine; I think she would be capable of bravely ascending the gallows.” “And I thought you were the candidate for heroine!” exclaimed Aviraneta. “And you say it like someone is reproaching me!” Margarita jumped in, laughing. “And you’re right,” said Tilly. “Yes; I seemed a bit crazy as a single woman,” added Margarita, “but my hobby has been the house. The somewhat strange life I’d led had given me some extravagant tastes; but my inclinations were different. The character and temperament of Celia and Gamboa were discussed at length at the meal . The men found Celia more intelligent and more spiritual than Gamboa; but Gamboa’s attitude seemed logical to them ; Blanca Fidalgo, on the other hand, found Gamboa more kind than Celia and supposed that Celia was right to always keep Gamboa at a distance . Chapter 37. CELIA’S LOVES. PAQUITO Gamboa was a good young man, without malice, motherless and of excellent character. Coming from a family of position and influence, he would have prospered immediately; but chance brought him, in 1823, when he was a lieutenant and twenty-one years old, to the corps commanded by Colonel De Pablo in Alicante, and after the capitulation of that city he was taken to France. Had he been in Spain, it would have been easy for him to obtain purification by a junta. military; but since his father was a fanatical royalist and an authoritarian and despotic man, he believed him to be a liberal, and instead of favoring him, he told him that he would not interfere with his influence as long as he did not renounce his ideas. Gamboa promised himself not to ask for protection from his father or his family. He went from France to England, because for no reason at all, he felt more sympathy for the English than for the French. He had some money from his mother, found a position in London, and dedicated himself to living and dressing elegantly. Five or six years into London life and becoming a sportsman, he met his uncle, Don Narciso Ruiz de Heredia, a diplomat, who was going as secretary to the London Embassy. Don Narciso had just married Celia a few years earlier and was a man of a certain age, very amiable and helpful. Upon arriving in London, he feared that his nephew would appear before him, whom he expected to find defeated, dirty, and excited. But seeing him neat, tidy, indifferent to political matters, and a dandy, she received him with great affection. Celia welcomed her husband’s nephew with an affability and a disguised coquetry that made Gamboa her slave. Celia captivated the Spanish colony in London, where she had great admirers. Teresa Mancha, Espronceda’s lover and later wife, rivaled her in the Spanish colony; but most people recognized that Celia was superior. Celia was very intelligent. She was enthusiastic about all things noble and always ready to achieve something great. With her brilliant gaze and determined attitude, she captivated everyone. From London, Don Narciso Ruiz de Heredia was sent as ambassador to the Vatican, and Celia had Paquito purified, promoted to captain, and appointed as an attaché to the Embassy staff . In Rome, Celia and Gamboa led a splendid life of walks and parties. He was the ambassador’s honorary gentleman, a servant, because he didn’t go any further. Celia was a woman of medium height and as slender as an unmarried girl. She had light, silky eyes, very human eyes, and brown hair; there was no solemnity in her manner; she always appeared natural and spontaneous. Celia charmed people; she had a voice that wasn’t clear in timbre, but that captivated with its sympathetic accent. Those who knew her reproached her for her versatility. She forgot her captives with remarkable speed . She grew weary of her friendships. Gamboa was accustomed to seeing her friendly and affectionate with someone and, two or three days later, hearing her say of the same person: “What a tiresome, annoying fellow!” She didn’t remember that many times she was the one who had begged the importunate man to come to her house. Upon arriving in Spain, Paquito Gamboa was about to be promoted to commander. In Madrid, he was promoted and assigned to the Ministry of State. Paquito Gamboa, while living abroad, did not feel the false position he found himself in regarding Celia as strongly as he did in Spain. Here, somewhat humiliated, he tried to clear the air. Celia tried to treat him like a child, stall him, and endear him; Gamboa was convinced; but when he realized that she was playing with him, his offended pride was exacerbated, he became furious , and decided to break up with Celia by any means necessary. Chapter 38. DON NARCISO’S NIECE. One day, Don Narciso Ruiz de Heredia received an anonymous letter. It told him that his wife was the lover of his nephew, Paquito Gamboa, and that Celia was keeping his correspondence in a cabinet in the living room. Don Narciso searched the cabinet and found nothing, but this result did not reassure him; on the contrary, thinking and thinking about the same thing, he came to believe that what they reported was true. Don Narciso was ill and did not have the energy to provoke a categorical explanation from his wife; what he did was watch her and set traps to see if she would discover him. Shortly after, she began to calm down and realized that if she had The sympathy between the two had not reached the point of reality. Then he undertook the task of removing his nephew from his side. He did not want to quarrel with Celia, because if he did, he would have no one to take care of him; he constantly asked her not to leave his side and to read to him. Celia looked after her husband; but since she did not have a strong nature, she soon began to languish and become ill. There were days when she was distraught, nervous, impertinent; when her face turned red from indigestion and she suffered severe headaches. In view of Celia’s languid state, Don Narciso said that a distant niece of his from Burgos could be brought to look after them both. Celia accepted the entry of a young woman into her house, not without some concern. Pilar Heredia, her husband’s niece, showed up at the house a few days later . She was a helpful, friendly girl, without any pretensions of superiority, tireless in her role as a nurse. The personalities of Celia and Pilar contrasted sharply. Celia was distinguished, aristocratic, kind to everyone, but with an undertone of disdain. Pilar was popular, outspoken, not at all aristocratic. She couldn’t be called pretty, but she was fresh and healthy; her face was a bit coarse, vulgar, and her eyes were black. This girl had other relatives in Madrid, owners of a candle shop on Sacramento Street, across from the Church of San Justo. From the moment she arrived in Madrid, Pilar was prepared to fight Celia and decided to take Gamboa from her. Celia, confident in her superiority, didn’t notice the maneuver at first. Her husband was getting worse, and this caused her a lot of worry. Celia became increasingly depressed, increasingly worried. Gamboa had come to feel detached and tired toward her. One day, upon entering the dining room, Celia saw Gamboa kissing Pilar. Celia looked at them almost without realizing it and said nothing. Pilar and Gamboa regarded Celia as if she were an intruder, feeling neither inhibited nor ashamed. Her impudence even reached the point of laughter. Celia had an explanation with Pilar and warned her that she had to return to Burgos. Pilar apparently agreed; but instead of going back to her hometown, she stayed at her aunt and uncle’s candle shop on Sacramento Street. A week later, Gamboa told Celia that the police were looking for her and that she was going to hide at Captain Nogueras’s house. “Good; go,” Celia exclaimed. “I’ll be alone.” Don Narciso’s condition continued to worsen. Celia was the only one looking after him. Friends came to see her. One day, when Margarita Tilly came, Celia said to her: “I’m afraid!” “Afraid of what? ” “Afraid of everything.” I can’t sleep , I don’t feel like eating. Don Narciso worsened and died. The same day, Celia received a letter from Gamboa telling her that he still couldn’t leave his hiding place. A week later, Celia learned from Blanca Fidalgo that Gamboa had married Pilar in the Church of San Justo. “It’s impossible!” she exclaimed. The thing was not only possible, but true. Celia seemed not to regret it as much as she herself had thought. Fifteen days after her husband’s death, Celia went to Cádiz, and from Cádiz, to Naples. Two months later, from there, she wrote a letter to Gamboa reminding him of her past life, telling him to come and join her. Pilar received the letter ; her husband had gone to war and had just died in the battle of Muez. Pilar wrote to Celia giving her many details about Gamboa’s death, and a year later, she remarried. Celia returned to Madrid soon after and devoted herself completely to the church. BOOK NINE THE TRAGIC MOMENT Chapter 39. AVIRANETA’S SPITE. SOME spring and summer mornings, Father Chamizo used to go for a walk at the Retiro Park and sit on a bench reading a book, usually in Greek. One day, as he entered through the flowerbed, he found Aviraneta talking to a woman, who looked old by now. Aviraneta was elegant: she dressed dark frock coat, velvet waistcoat, and black tie. Father Chamizo pretended not to see him and continued walking down an avenue; but a little later he ran into him again and had to stop. “My friend Don Eugenio,” Chamizo told him, “it seems we’re dedicated to love. ” “Well, no. This lady is an old employer of mine; besides, I’m a little old for that,” Aviraneta replied. “Not yet. You can still get married. ” “Bah! With the life you lead, what woman would want to be burdened with you? ” “Yes, that’s true; you’d have to give up your conspiratorial ways. ” “Do you think a conspirator has habits? ” “I don’t know; I have no experience in that. And how’s Isabelina doing?” Chamizo asked. “Now we’re in the company of a certain Civat, a friend of Palafox,” Aviraneta said sarcastically. “What this gentleman says sounds like the Bible to the general and his friends.” They’re all bluffing through those streets and talking more than they should. Aviraneta asserted that the liberals’ policy was headed in the wrong direction. “We have a large organization,” he said, “but we don’t have men of action: a lot of chatter and nothing more. There’s no sense of heroism or sacrifice. These people are incapable of putting their name and life behind an enterprise. There are no true revolutionary. I offered to be one; a difficult task: it first required a vote of confidence and absolute powers, sole responsibility for success or failure. I soon saw that with these gentlemen, you’re not going to get anywhere. Is this a measure of prudence? Everyone says: “Why these precautions?” Is this an attempt at a measure of energy? “That’s madness.” There’s the suspicion of foolishness. We’re not going to do anything; I feel it, I see it. The military wants civil war to advance, and some to enrich themselves; The orators are looking for a platform where they can show off, and the people, whom we have been exciting and prodding, will one day commit an outrage, which will be stupid, but it will be something. “What confidence you have in the people! ” “The people need a head, and we don’t have a head, there isn’t a man. All these gentlemen of the Isabelina are worthless. ” “Except for you, Don Eugenio. ” “You are the only exception; that is why they fear me, why they don’t want to let me truly direct affairs. They say I’m a madman, a Don Quixote. ” “But besides the Isabelinos, there are other liberals,” said Chamizo. “Mendizábal… ” “Bah! Mendizábal is an intelligent man, it seems, very knowledgeable in financial matters, but nothing more. ” “And Alcalá Galiano? ” “He is a pedant and a reactionary at heart. ” “And Argüelles? ” “He is a respectable figure. ” “And Don Fermín Caballero?” “A very good writer, so they say, very clever, who has become a proprietor thanks to Calomarde, a man capable of writing a very traditional and very cutting article, but he’s no good at sticking his chest out. ” “And Toreno? ” “Also reactionary and talkative. ” “And among the military? ” “Among the military, there are brave young men, but fickle; you can’t count on them. Mina is very old and sick; Palarea is no good; Valdés, neither. ” “So you lack the man? ” “We lack the man. ” “Well, I’m glad. ” “No, well, you shouldn’t be happy, friend Chamizo. A directed revolution might perhaps not be very bloodthirsty. A revolutionary tendency without leadership or organization will be much worse. As I tell you, one day the people will commit a great atrocity. ” “You will be to blame. ” “As much as you and as everyone else. We are not going to live forever like minors, sewn into the Church’s skirts.” –At least it would be more comfortable, Don Eugenio. –Yes, more comfortable; but it would be vile and disorganized. Because you too have lost your qualifications for command, convince yourselves. You are no longer useful… Another thing: Couldn’t you keep some papers for me, Don Venancio? –If you want, yes; but I don’t think my house is a safe place; because the police, starting with Commissioner Luna, know we’re friends. “That’s true. You’re right.” They continued walking for a while, until Aviraneta saw Tilly approaching in the distance. “Here comes Tilly, whom I summoned. ” “Oh, yes, Tilly. I know him. ” “I have an errand to give you.” Chamizo said goodbye to Aviraneta, and the latter joined Tilly. “What’s up, Don Eugenio?” Tilly asked. “The thing is, on the twenty-fourth of this month we’re going to have a celebration, started by the Isabelinos. ” “So they say.” “Everyone knows. There’s a ministry in the works. Hmm! I’m afraid the government knows about it and they’re going to arrest me. ” “And what did you think?” “Since I can’t leave the house where I’m staying without being accused of being a traitor, I thought I’d put some papers in a safe place.” I would like you to keep them, and if they arrest me, I will tell you what to do with them. Very well. You have no objection? None. Then this lady, who lives on Segovia Street, will give you my papers when you go for them. I have had both of you come here so that you may meet each other. Will you remember this gentleman’s face by now, Doña Nacimiento? Yes, yes; this young man’s face is not one you forget. Tilly leaned forward, smiling. When are you going to go to Doña Nacimiento’s house? Aviraneta asked. Whenever you want. Tomorrow, if you want. Well, that’s fine by me. Aviraneta’s former employer left, and he and Tilly were left alone. What is Mansilla doing? Aviraneta asked. It seems they’ve given him a high position in the Tribunal of the Rota, and when there’s a vacancy, they’ll make him a bishop. Devil! Number Two is going swimmingly. And you? They want to send me as a secretary to the Embassy in Vienna, but I prefer to stay here and see about being a deputy. What are you doing? I’ll stay at home. The government has unleashed a swarm of police officers who are spying everywhere, and we have to hide. I think you’re doing the right thing. They say your friends, the Cristinos, are against Martínez de la Rosa. Yes, Tilly replied, laughing. Rosita, the pastry chef, seems to have played a dirty trick on the party. They say she ‘s shut Donoso Cortés and the Carrascos out of the queen’s chamber. They’re probably in a bad mood! Snorting. Ready to take to the streets. It looks like we’re going to have trouble. Yes, I suspect it too; that’s why I want you to keep those documents for me. I’m afraid they’ll arrest me in a few days. If they catch me, I’ll warn you so you can publish some of them in France, if not in Spain . Don’t lose them. Put them in a safe place; that’s my defense. “Don’t worry. ” “Where are you going to keep them? ” “I’ll study it. That House in the Garden doesn’t seem convenient. There must already be someone who knows about our friendship. ” “Yes. It’s very likely. ” “Not at my sister’s house either. I’ll study the place and tell you. ” “Goodbye, Number One! ” “Goodbye, Number Three!” The next day, Tilly collected Don Eugenio’s papers from the house on Segovia Street . Chapter 40. JULY 17. At the beginning of July, cholera began to spread in Madrid. Chamizo assumed that in an unclean town the disease would cause great havoc, and, indeed, it did. The ex-friar decided not to leave the house except when necessary so as not to witness horrible scenes. As his means of support were dwindling, he wrote to Bayonne and Bordeaux to see if he could return, and they replied, giving him hope. In Madrid, the epidemic had developed a terrible individualism; those who could escaped; those who couldn’t, retreated into a corner. The rich were gradually abandoning the city. Only the politicians. They seemed unconcerned about the epidemic and continued scheming as if nothing had happened. Chamizo often went to the San Isidro library to copy documents. He was a friend of the rector of the Jesuit College, Father Puyal. One day in July, the 17th, when it was horribly hot, Chamizo left home and headed toward San Isidro in the middle of the afternoon, planning to spend a few hours in the college library. He passed several times priests carrying viaticum, which they sent to the homes of the dying, and carts loaded with corpses, since there weren’t enough hearses in the city; there were so many deaths. At the Puerta del Sol, Chamizo saw ill-looking people standing in groups, talking and shouting. He approached the small groups and heard them say that many had died from cholera that morning. Others were talking about the Carlist insurrection, which was spreading through Spain like wildfire. The former friar assumed this news would be the cause of the crowd’s agitation and advanced toward the Plaza Mayor. From here, down Toledo Street, there was a battalion of militiamen. “What’s going on?” the former friar asked a sergeant of the city police. “People slaughtered friars in San Isidro,” the sergeant replied petulantly, stroking his mustache. “They deserve it. ” “And why? ” “Because they’re promoting Carlism. The Carlists, who were hiding in the convents, have come out, disguised as friars, to meet with Merino. ” “If only it weren’t more than that!” said another militiaman. “Well? Is there something else? ” “They’re putting bad things in the water. ” “Bah! ” “They’ve been seen poisoning the fountains with some powder.” Chamizo was horrified by the news. “What absurdities can one believe,” he thought, “when one has the idea of one’s own inferiority that the people do! Why would anyone poison the fountains? What purpose could there possibly have in killing others ? What madness! What absurdity!” Pushed by the curious, Chamizo advanced down Toledo Street . A group of ragged men, women, and children, covered in blood, with sullen faces, frenzied, screaming, foaming at the mouth, came up in the opposite direction. Among them were painted hustlers and brothel owners with sacks full of loot. Some men were armed with rifles, bayonets fixed; others with knives, clubs, and hammers, and dragged church ornaments as trophies . At the front marched a young, strong, red-faced man with curly hair, sweaty, stained with blood, holding a pistol. There was something of a wolf about him. One of the crowd was Román the Terrible, the son of Señor Martín the bookseller, and he carried a bayonet tied to a pole with a fierce air. At the corner of Toledo Street and Studies Street, there was a pile of clothes, furniture, books, and paintings thrown from the Colegio de San Isidro, all blackened by fire. The militiamen stood guard as if their only mission was to watch over these objects, and meanwhile, the killings continued, and a number of things were thrown from the windows into the street and set on fire, amid great uproar and applause. A little while later, the strong, red-faced young man appeared, shouting and giving orders. “Who is there?” asked Chamizo. No one recognized him. At the door of the pawnshop on Studies Street, Concha the Lizard stood in the middle of a group of people. “You did well,” she shouted in a shrill voice. “Kill them all. Scoundrels! Poisoners!” Not a single one should be left alive. It’s because of them that what’s happening is happening; it’s because of them that all of Spain is full of Carlists. Until all the convents are burned and all the friars are skinned, there will be no peace here. Chamizo listened to her, rapt. La Lagarta’s maid, Señora Ramona, approached the ex-friar. “Do you see that beast? She’s crazy. Jesus! Jesus! My God! What things we have to see!” Señora Ramona told Chamizo that in the cloisters of San Isidro There were dead friars, murdered, in the strangest positions. The people showed not the slightest compassion. Days before, they would have confessed to them like good Catholics; days later, they would kneel before a procession. At that moment, they were being killed mercilessly. Seventy-odd had been beheaded. That’s how the people are, cruel and fickle like a child. At dusk, Chamizo saw a cart entering the college gate; according to what people said, they were going to fill it with corpses of friars. When the cart appeared again and started moving, the crowd began to howl and dance around it, shouting furiously: “Death to the friars!” The red-haired man with the curly mane was also there, pistol in hand and bearing the air of a fierce thug. Chamizo saw, or thought he saw, the hand of a dead man coming out of the cart. The former cloistered man was completely distraught. He went up Toledo Street and turned onto Concepción Jerónima Street. Some boys had made a straw puppet, and after wrapping it in a friar’s habit, they dragged it along the ground singing the _Riego Hymn_. Some street urchins, carrying lit torches, preceded them. Like the tide that enters a muddy estuary and pushes to the surface all the rotten detritus, the dead dogs and cats with swollen bellies, so these waters, overflowing with popular hatred, had brought to the surface the poorest, most wretched, and most despicable members of the city. “Where did such fury come from?” Chamizo wondered. “Weren’t these people mostly believers? Did they have any idea? None. Their plan was to kill, destroy, burn, out of rage, out of desperation. In these moments of tumult, confusion, and bloodthirsty hysteria, who among the masses has a conscience? The former cloistered man would have liked to speak to someone. He entered the Café de la Fontana de Oro. There the orators were holding forth; at every step, ragged children and pale, elegant, blood-stained young men arrived, and they were applauded and their hands shaken in congratulations. The night was horribly hot and restless. Bells, gunshots, shouts, and complaints were heard in the neighborhood … Chamizo could not sleep. Those horrid phantoms he had seen during the day danced a terrible saraband before his eyes, and the man with his curly red mane, his mastiff-like air, and his pistol in his hand, appeared before him at every step, and it even seemed to him that he could hear him speak. Chapter 41. THE JESUIT’S ACCUSATION. The next day, Don Venancio was so exhausted that he decided to stay in bed. A week later, he was dozing in the morning when he heard someone enter his room. “Who is it?” he asked. “It’s me.” It was the Jesuit, Father Jacinto, who had frequently visited him at the beginning of his stay in Madrid. He came dressed in civilian clothes. Without further ado, he began to harangue and tell him that the horrible massacre of the previous days had been committed because of him. “What, because of me?” said Chamizo. “You’re crazy! ” “Yes; because of them. Because you knew the criminals who directed this horrific plot, and you were obliged to watch over them. These abominable crimes will fall on your head. ” The Jesuit spoke in a distraught manner. Chamizo’s serenity reassured him. He told him that he didn’t believe it was true that his old friends had ordered the massacre, and explained his reasons. Even if that were true, he couldn’t have known the liberals’ plans because he hadn’t had any dealings with them for a long time. Father Jacinto affirmed that it was indeed the Isabelinos and the Carbonari who had instigated the massacre, and that he had the proof, thanks to the confession of a nationalist. It was also known that some people had gone to the Ministry of the Interior and informed Captain Narváez, who was on duty, about what was happening in the convents. Narváez had said: “As long as you don’t send me, I won’t go. ” “It’s because they’re killing them,” they replied. “Well, let them kill them; for all I care, they can’t spare a single one.” Other Isabelline soldiers had, according to the Jesuit, taken the same attitude. “But if you want to convince yourself, come with me to the home of that Nationalist I know,” Father Jacinto concluded. “Very well. I’ll go with you.” Chamizo dressed and they marched together. On the way, the Jesuit told him several things. According to him, the massacre of the friars had been decided by the Junta of the Triple Seal, a Satanic association formed by Masons, Isabelline monks, and Carbonari, but directed primarily by the latter. To give the signal for the massacre, they raised a meteor, a globe of light that shone mysteriously in the air for some time the night before the day of the looting and killing. This story of the meteor seemed to Chamizo a ridiculous and absurd fantasy, but he said nothing. Chapter 42. AUNT SINFO AND GASPARITO. The Jesuit and the former cloistered priest crossed the Puerta del Sol, and from here, via Calle Mayor and Calle de Toledo, they went to the Barrios Bajos. Father Jacinto wanted to go to Calle del Carnero, but he couldn’t quite remember the way. They entered Calle de la Ruda, which was literally packed with a ragged crowd stopping at the vegetable and fish stalls. From here, they went to Calle de las Velas and stopped at a shop selling tortoises. The Jesuit asked for Calle del Carnero, and was told to go down another narrow street, called Calle de la Chopa. They turned into this street and encountered some fat, old prostitutes, their skins hanging off, painted, and with cigarette butts in their mouths, who came out of the doorways and tried to drag them back to their holes. One of the old women had a wooden leg and was smoking a cigar. The Jesuit and Don Venancio shook off such horrible furies and went out onto Carnero Street. The entire neighborhood was vile and miserable; it had the air of an African village, dirty and sunburned . The cobblestones, dotted with sharp stones, were riddled with holes and potholes, and these were filled with garbage. Beggars, cripples, swollen and ragged children, and ragged women with swollen eyes wandered about . There were two or three dormitories on the street, and on a balcony of a ground floor, a woman’s head, made of cardboard, with shining eyes and disheveled hair, which was the work of a hairdresser. The house Father Jacinto was looking for was a miserable, leprous hovel, with peeling walls and adorned with all kinds of rags. “You have to ask across the street,” said the Jesuit, pointing to a china shop. The shop was a corner with a glass window made up of a thousand patches of grimy paper. All the merchandise on offer was reduced to a few casseroles, jugs, nuts, fruit, colored candies, and paper kites. “Will Mrs. Sinforosa be there?” asked Father Jacinto. “The fortune teller? Yes. She came in a moment ago. ” “Well, let’s go.” They entered a very long and very bad-smelling corridor, through which ran an open sewer; at the end of the corridor was a courtyard full of dirty things, and in this courtyard, a staircase led to a half-ruined gallery with five or six doors black with grime and covered with signs. The last door, originally painted red, was Mrs. Sinforosa’s. They went up to the gallery; the priest knocked, and the old woman appeared. She was a hideous woman, with a yellowish, warty complexion, light-colored eyes, a drooping lower lip, and a beak-like nose, red as if it had been skinned. Aunt Sinfo had a very short neck, her head tucked deep into her shoulders, a two-colored wig, and a brilliant gaze, full of sagacity and malice, which she cast from bottom to top. That sharp, cynical gaze from her light eyes seemed to be going straight to discover the quantity of pig essence that each person keeps in their soul. Aunt Sinfo had such a false and obsequious smile that it gave Fear. The Jesuit explained to the old woman that he wanted to see his son, Gasparito, Nacional. “Gasparito!” said Aunt Sinfo. “He’s sick. ” “That won’t be an obstacle to speaking with him for a moment. ” “I’ll see,” said Aunt Sinfo. “I’ll go in to see him, to ask him if he wants to talk to you. Wait for me here. ” She went in and came back a little while later with a hypocritical and resigned air. “What does he say?” asked the Jesuit. “He says he’s very weak. Now, of course, he’s not working, because the shop where he worked is closed because of cholera, and we’re starving . If you could give us some money to buy medicine and a little meat! ” The Jesuit reluctantly took out a duro, and Chamizo, a peseta. “And we won’t be able to see him? ” “Yes; if he has an accident and starts talking, you’ll come in with me; but don’t say anything to him.” The doctor said not to speak to him. Father Jacinto and the ex-friar waited a moment, and during one of these moments Aunt Sinfo said to them: “Come here. He’s talking.” They went to a small room where a young man was lying on a bed. His eyes were blank and he was delirious under his breath. Chamizo heard him say: “One!… Two!… Three!… Onward, Nationalists!… Onward!… To Balseiro’s tavern… Here are Candelas… Paco the Tailor… Aunt Matafrailes… We must kill all the friars… Not me… Not me… Who ordered it?… The Board of the Triple Seal… There’s the document… Not me… Not me… Come on! Come on!… The meteor has appeared… The meteor… How it shines!… They’re killing them… How horrible!” “How horrible! They’re cutting off their heads… Ha… ha… ha…” After this violent laugh, Gasparito stopped thrashing in bed and seemed to be at rest. Then he began to rave again. At first, Chamizo noticed only the sick man; but when he stopped raving, he glanced at the small room where he was lying. It was, grotesquely, a corner of medieval witchcraft. At that moment, the stage was unset. Aunt Sinfo’s clients would undoubtedly arrive later. A murky light entered through a small window, its leaded panes patched together with scraps of newspaper . The room had black hangings. In one corner, a small table with a black rug on it, and on top of it, a skull, a book, and some cards; on the window, a reed cage with a black hen, and beside it, in a pot, a large toad with glowing eyes. A small stuffed alligator hung from the ceiling, undoubtedly purchased at the Rastro, and a bottle of aguardiente sat on a sideboard. Chamizo took in everything. Amidst the neglect, there was a sense of well-being. The blankets on the bed were good. “These spells must bring in money,” he said to himself. “Do you want me to read your cards?” asked Aunt Sinfo. The Jesuit jumped. “No, no; thank you very much.” They said goodbye to Aunt Sinfo and went out onto the veranda. “You’re not going to doubt it?” the Jesuit said to Chamizo. “This boy, in his current state, doesn’t speak with malice. ” “Yes, that’s true.” They went down the stairs and came out onto Carnero Street. Chamizo was very upset. “What are you going to do?” said Father Jacinto. “I’ll see.” At this point, a shoe sole soaked in mud whizzed past the heads of the two clergymen and struck a wall, showering them with mud. They turned around and heard laughter, and saw several boys and women picking up stones. “They’re friars in disguise. Out! Out!” they shouted. Chamizo and the Jesuit ran off, each in his own direction… Chamizo spent several days thinking about what truth there was in Gasparito’s confession, and since the matter worried him and prevented him from having a free mind to think about other things, he decided to clear up the mystery. He went to see the policeman Don Nicolás de Luna and explained the doubt he was experiencing . “It’s false, completely false,” said the commissioner. “There has been no such thing.” Triple Seal Council. Legends that the royalists have set afloat. What has happened, quite simply, is that the majority of those who have gone to loot the convents and kill friars have been Christians and Isabelinos who were armed. –But don’t you believe there were express orders from the Isabelinos or some others? –Come on! Don’t you see that this movement doesn’t suit them; on the contrary, it’s damaging them? If there are hidden instigators, which I don’t believe, they will be royalists rather than liberals. –Royalists? –Yes, that they are lurking and want to discredit Madrid liberalism . –And that meteor? What’s true about it? –What meteor? –What they say there was; a balloon or a kite with a light that gave the signal for the massacre of friars. –All that is nothing more than fantasy…; it’s as true as the fact that the soul of Ferdinand VII appears in El Escorial; as if the Jesuits were poisoning the fountains, and as if a Virgin Mary had appeared on a rooftop in Lavapiés—a popular fantasy. —So you don’t believe the Carbonari were involved? —They’re just a bunch of guys that nobody knows! You’d see that on the day of the massacre, the entire town was in the streets. —Yes, that’s true. Chamizo thanked the commissioner, and as they said goodbye, Luna said: —I think we’re going to get our hands on Don Eugenio one of these days. —Well, why? —They have a movement prepared for the twenty-fourth. Their draft Constitution is circulating somewhere, which Flórez Estrada and Olavarría worked out , and everyone knows the list of those who will be ministers . That’s why I’m telling you that I don’t believe they were the instigators of the massacre of the friars. This must have gone very badly for them. Chapter 43. THE BLACK SAINT. Commissioner Luna’s words made Chamizo hesitate. He left the police office and returned home. He was in a sea of doubts. He was examining the matter from every angle and couldn’t seem to escape his confusion. “I’m going to try something new,” he said to himself. That night, wrapped in an old cloak, he resolutely went to the tavern owned by Balseiro’s brother, the thief, on Imperial Street, the meeting place where, according to public opinion, many of the perpetrators of the massacres had gathered before the attack on the convents. Chamizo approached fearfully. By the light of a dim oil lamp, through red curtains, one could see the tavern, its torn wallpaper, shelves full of bottles, and a display case with dishes of potatoes and beans in paprika sauce. Chamizo entered, ordered dinner, and struck up a conversation with some scoundrels, whom he invited for drinks. They openly confessed that they had taken part in the massacre of the friars. They were the Boy and the Anublado. Chamizo asked them about Aviraneta. They didn’t know him, they had never heard of him. “Well, he’s an Isabelino. ” “Perhaps the Black Saint knows him,” said the Anublado. “If you want to come with me… ” “Where? ” “To Ruda Street. He’s usually in a tavern there. ” “And this Black Saint took part in the friars’ business? ” “He was one of the leaders.” Chamizo made up his mind and went with the Anublado to Ruda Street. The street was dark, the ground covered with the remains of fruit and vegetables, like a Moroccan souk. They stopped in front of a tall, black, and dirty house, entered a doorway, and walked down a passageway filled with baskets, piles of rotten fruit, and boxes. The air inside was foul, sour, and redolent of fermented organic matter. From here they went to the tavern; there was a horrible mixture of oil, smoke, tallow, and tobacco odors. The tavern’s crowd consisted of ragpickers with sacks on their shoulders; bent, bearded old women with human faces; thin, crooked old women with the air of vermin and yellowish white hair covered in rags; with square, broad, red faces, congested by alcohol; pale, withered girls with very black hair, some with blond hair, and men with a brutal air. Chamizo had seen all those people on the day of the massacre of the friars scattering through the city. In the midst of that vitiated atmosphere, this crowd of wretches was almost silent; some spoke in low voices, others played, and others slept with their heads in their hands, stretched out on the table. The Cloudy One approached a corner where four men were playing brisca . One of them was the Black Saint, a short, plump, sallow-faced man , with bright, deep-set eyes like a wild boar’s, a long, thick, black beard, and a large silver chain on his waistcoat. His companions were a brutalized drunkard: Matías the Bloodsucker; a pale, thin old man, Raspa, and an effeminate young man, Mandita. Señor Matías had one bulging, languid eye, a drooping eyelid, a hanging lip, the air of a sly, malicious drunk, and a hoarse, snorting way of speaking. Anublado called the Black Saint and asked him if he knew Aviraneta. “Biranete!” said the Black Saint. “I don’t know who he is. ” “The other day,” murmured Chamizo, “during the massacre of the friars, didn’t you receive some orders from Aviraneta? ” “From Biranete! None. We did everything on our own.” The Black Saint was more interested in the brisca than in the conversation with the former cloistered man, and he paid no attention. Chamizo left that hovel without having resolved the problem. Thinking about the question that obsessed him so much, the thought occurred to him, whether this Gasparito was a fool, and that he should go see him. He didn’t dare go alone, and one Sunday, with the boy from Mr. Martín’s bookstore, he went to the Rastro to rummage through old books, and from there they went to Carnero Street and broke into Gasparito’s house. They went up to the gallery, and Chamizo saw Aunt Sinfo’s room closed. “And Gasparito, the one who was sick?” he asked a neighbor. “I don’t know where he is. He’s probably at the tavern. ” “Is he recovered now? ” “Recovered? He’s never been sick. Just the occasional drunk, he catches from time to time. ” “Well, I came here one day when he was having an accident. ” “Accident!” “Oh! He fakes it. He’s a jerk. Since he’s been a chorus boy and goes to the theater a lot, he knows how to do all those comedies. ” “So his delirium was a comedy? ” “Of course! He’s a wise guy, Gasparito.” That reassured Chamizo, and he was inclined to believe that the order from the Triple Seal Board was an invention of Aunt Sinfo’s son, the fortune teller. Contento returned home with Bartolillo, the boy from the bookstore, pretending to be his protector, although on that day he had been the one he protected. Chapter 44. THE ISABELLINES. On July 24, the Estates opened. The political community was very worried. That same day, Chamizo learned that hours before the opening of the Chambers, Aviraneta had been arrested in his house on Cedaceros Street. He had been denounced by Civat, the former Corps Guard, the terrible revolutionary who, like Salvador, turned out to be an agent of the royalists who had come from Barcelona. According to Gamundi, the arrest was carried out a few days later by Commissioner Don Nicolás de Luna. Civat carried his cynicism to the point of accompanying the commissioner with eight soldiers to the door of the house on Cedaceros Street and staying on the corner of Alcalá Street to watch Aviraneta pass by on his way to prison, surrounded by soldiers armed with bayonets. A few hours later, like Isabelinos, they arrested Generals Palafox and Van Halen, as well as Calvo de Rozas, Olavarría, Romero Alpuente, Villalta, Espronceda, Orense, Nogueras, Beraza, etc. All these arrests were made based on denunciations by the former guard of the Corps Civat. It was said among the liberals that this Civat was a spy for the Jesuits involved in a Carbonari society in Barcelona, and that since He had been working for the royalists for some time. Someone suggested he might be one of the instigators of the massacre of the friars. Others said he was an agent used by Martínez de la Rosa, just as Zea Bermúdez had used Salvador. It was difficult to know how much truth there was to all this. Like squid, politicians and conspirators muddied the waters to save themselves. The fact was that Civat, as a reward for his denunciation, was appointed customs inspector in Barcelona, and then took refuge among the Carlists. Once the main members of the Isabelina Society were arrested in Madrid and the provinces, a thousand speculations arose about them. Espronceda and Villalta immediately sang the palinode in a somewhat shameful manner. The ministers and their agents asserted that the purpose of the Isabelina Society was to dethrone the queen and establish the Republic. According to the government, the revolutionaries of Paris were involved in this terrible plot , and the intention was to massacre royalists. According to others, more sympathetic to the Isabelina movement, the Society intended, on the day of the opening of the Estate of Procurators, to have it constituted as a Constituent Cortes. Several procurators, members of the association, were committed to demanding that the Estate declare itself a National Assembly. The tribunes would be occupied by the conspirators, who would loudly demand the restoration of the Cádiz Constitution. Meanwhile, the leaders of the centuries would seize the bell towers, sound the alarm, occupy the Principal Palace, the Customs House, the Plaza Mayor, and the convents looted in the previous days, and set up barricades in the streets. Some people constantly speculated that the Isabelinos were trying to raise a meteor to serve as a signal. The fable of the meteor was becoming popular. From the moment the conspirators were arrested, everyone began to talk about them. Some claimed they were republicans; others, Masons; still others, Carbonari. Fear of the Isabelinos grew greater than that of cholera. “By adding that you have a pact with the Isabelinos in the house… you are arresting an enemy,” Larra said in one of his political articles. In a _Palo de Ciego_, published a week after Aviraneta’s imprisonment, a conversation between a lettuce-eater and a captain included the following: “I suppose you are an Isabelino and a Cristino, a guardian of innocence and an enemy of Calismo? ” “If someone loyal to Isabel is called an Isabelino, I am one like the former, and I place my honor on that; but anyone who thinks I’ll fall into the trap of praetors, decurions, centurions, or triumvirs is mistaken .” The police came to Chamizo’s house to ask about him, and Doña Puri had the good sense to say that the former cloistered man had been in a convent for some time. Chamizo had to eat a miserable stew in Doña Puri’s dark dining room for the stable gentlemen; he had to visit taverns and the Hell’s tavern, and other meeting places for water carriers and porters . Persecuted and without resources as he was, he had a very bad time. He didn’t even have clothes to wear, since the ones he was wearing were covered in chafing. One day he decided to ask Celia for protection. He took an old black overcoat and painted all its cracks with ink; he did the same with his boots, and went to see Don Narciso’s widow. She looked after him, gave him money, obtained a passport for him, and Chamizo entered Bayonne after his eventful period in Madrid. From that time he had two worries: one, not having been able to pick up his books from Doña Puri’s house; the other, not having been able to clarify the reality of the Triple Seal Board. Chapter 45. AVIRANETA IN JAIL. A week after being arrested, Aviraneta was pacing back and forth in his room at the Corte Jail, like a caged wolf. He had news of Tilly, but he didn’t know what Tilly had done with his papers. Sometimes he feared his friend had betrayed him; but then he thought: Why? With what objective? Aviraneta didn’t want to call anyone, nor compromise anyone. He considered himself strong enough to remedy his misfortune in solitude, just digest it. Aviraneta was an obedient, disciplined prisoner. His case had been initiated by the lieutenant mayor, Don Pedro Balsera, with great activity. The judge was a certain Regio, and the prosecutor, Don Laureano Jado, a long-time French supporter and absolutist, who sided with Aviraneta from the beginning. The clerk in charge of the case, Don Juan José García, had shown himself to be a bitter enemy to Don Eugenio. Finally, the warden of the Corte Prison was, in addition to being a complete scoundrel, a fanatic of Don Carlos, and had been assigned by Martínez de la Rosa to keep a constant watch over Aviraneta so that he wouldn’t do anything of his own. The minister had thought there was no one better to guard a liberal conspirator than a staunch royalist. Don Eugenio, in his statements, was creating such a tangle that the judge and the prosecutor felt that, as the case progressed, they were treading on more false ground. Don Eugenio had declared that it was true that he had conspired against the Statute; but that he had no accomplices; that Infante Don Francisco and Infanta Luisa Carlota had instigated him to work for the Triune Regency; but that this solution was not in his convictions. Regarding Palafox, he said he didn’t know him, and affirmed that he didn’t know the Count of Parcent either, although one might suppose he did, because he had been living in hiding in the house on Cedaceros Street, which belonged to the count. Each new statement was another tangle. Don Eugenio gave details and details, mixing countless characters into the plot, leaving everything in shadows. The appearance of a respectable figure, mixed up in the prisoner’s story, made the judge flinch. Aviraneta lived in prison in a dark and unpleasant room, and to walk around, he would go to the politicians’ room, where everyone, or almost everyone at that time, were Carlists, Catalan and Valencian riflemen, priests, friars, lawyers, and guerrillas from La Mancha. There were also thieves involved in the massacres and the robbery of the convents. Added to these miseries was the scourge of cholera, which was rampant in the Corte Prison. Don Eugenio’s only entertainment was listening to Romero Alpuente, who, through his fear of cholera and the government, became picturesque and entertaining. One day, Aviraneta was told that Father Mansilla wanted to speak with him. Filled with emotion, he went to the parlor. The warden was there, and despite the respect a priest might inspire in him, a priest who had come in a private carriage like Mansilla, told the warden that he would not allow him to have a conversation alone with Aviraneta. “Even if I had to hear his confession?” the priest asked proudly. “I have orders from the Prime Minister not to let the prisoner speak to anyone without me being there. ” “Very well,” said Mansilla; “I will speak to him in your presence.” The conspirator arrived at the parlor gate. “How are you, Father Mansilla? How are you?” he asked. “Well, and you, Mr. Aviraneta? ” “Very well. ” “I offer you my most sincere thanks for coming to visit a poor prisoner in these dire times. ” “Friends are for misfortune. And you know, Aviraneta, how much I esteem you.” Aviraneta, changing his voice, asked: “And the conclave, how is it going? ” “Well, very well,” Mansilla answered. “We’re cheating. ” “And Number One, where is he? ” “Number One died of cholera,” the priest said in a sad voice. “Hey! Is that possible? ” “Yes; almost lightning-like. ” “And did you speak to him? ” “No; he immediately lost consciousness. ” Mansilla gave him details about Tilly’s death. The warden was listening. This story was distracting, because it was part of everyday conversation . Aviraneta was tortured, in the press, trying to remember how to say it using the code invented by Tilly and the word document. Since he couldn’t find it, he made up his mind and said to the priest in French: “Hasn’t a suitcase of papers been found in your house? ” “Nothing has been found. Did you have any papers? ” “Yes; some I gave you for safekeeping. ” The warden approached: “What are you talking about?” “Nothing; he was wondering about a Frenchman we both knew.” They continued a vulgar conversation of clichés, and after a while, Father Mansilla said goodbye to Aviraneta and left for the street. The prisoner returned, head down to his cell. “I’m lost, defenseless,” he murmured, “they’re going to crush me.” Thus concludes La Isabelina, a novel in which Pío Baroja manages to masterfully intertwine history and fiction, immersing us in a time of intrigue, aspirations, and disenchantment. Through its characters, we observe the moral dilemmas of a society torn between the past and the future, between tradition and modernity. This work not only offers an immersive narrative but also a profound critique of the vices and virtues of a crucial era in Spanish history. Thank you for joining us on this literary journey in Ahora de Cuentos.
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