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🔍 *La Incógnita* es una historia cargada de suspenso que nos invita a descubrir los secretos ocultos detrás de una misteriosa desaparición. A través de sus personajes profundos y situaciones complejas, Galdós nos lleva a un viaje emocional y psicológico en el que nada es lo que parece.
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👉 *La Incógnita* es una novela imprescindible para los amantes del misterio y la literatura clásica. Prepárate para un viaje literario inolvidable. 📚💭
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The Unknown by Benito Pérez Galdós is a work that immerses us in the complex dilemmas of the human soul, within a context of hidden passions and decisions that will determine the destinies of the characters. Through its pages, the author presents a story full of intrigue and reflection on desires and social restrictions. Join us on this literary journey where each page reveals profound secrets of life and love. Chapter 1. _Madrid, November 11._ Dear X: Here is my first letter. I begin by reminding you of the sine qua non condition of my epistolary commitment, which is that no one but you will read this. Only with the certainty that no human eyes, other than your mouse’s, will ever see the content of these letters can I be, as I intend, absolutely sincere in writing them. In exchange for the solemn promise of your discretion, I will hide nothing from you, not even that which we are hesitant to confide verbally to even the closest friend . Since, for your sins, which are best left unspoken, you find yourself confined to the prison-like confines of that place, where all the sorrows of the human soul have their seat, I wish to send you the salt of these letters so that you may season with it the tasteless bread of your forced or voluntary exile, for this is a different kettle of fish. In them, you will see people, events, gossip, and shenanigans of this rogue Court, whose confusion and bustle so delight you, like a good Madrid cat; and the society you have left with regret, this highly entertaining, varied, and stimulating life, will revive in your mind, described without panache, but truthfully, by your best friend. We have exchanged roles, as we have changed our residence. I lost sight of the great Orbajosa, much to my delight, to come here, and you abandon your intellectual homeland to confine yourself to what was my exile for five years of tasks as necessary as they were tedious: arranging two wills, measuring and dividing properties, litigating with half the town, unraveling entanglements of court officials and the plight of cunning locals, demarcating mining properties, along with many other toils and labors that allow me to hold my own with Hercules and to have the most temperate heroes of antiquity as my suckling children. I rise again, and you die; I come to light, and you fall into that pit of ignorance, malice, and savage baseness. And just as during my long captivity I amused myself by telling you about the tricks and foolishness of those locals, capable of making Christ dizzy, if Our Lord had the bad taste to meddle with them; Now that I am in Madrid, free, joyful, rich, with no other sorrow than not having you by my side; now that I am pampered and spoiled more than I deserve, and that life, with my independent position and the position of deputy obtained by my mother and because of my pretty face, is for me like a favorable streak, which I hope will not fall short; now, dear X, I am obliged to see that you do not become bored or despair, and I will write to you with true devotion, in order to brighten a few moments of your solitary existence. The worst part is that I will not know how to tell the story of my life in Madrid in a way that will interest and captivate you. I neither possess the art of dressing up the nakedness of reality with picturesque finery, nor will my conscience and my sterile wit, both in perfect harmony, allow me inventions that will entertain you with amusing lies. You know almost all the people I have to tell you about. I could hardly, even if I wanted to, distort them; and as for the events, which will certainly be commonplace and not at all surprising, the only interest they will have for you is that which results from my personal way of seeing and judging them. The last time we spoke, you gave me a preview of the opinion I was to form of certain people. I can now announce that you are right about some of them. There are others you know little about, or at least you have not seen them as closely as I do now. I want to begin with these, and I believe I will give you a pleasant surprise by debuting with my good uncle and godfather, Don Carlos María de Cisneros, whose reputation for eccentricity rightly arouses your curiosity. I know that you have wanted to meet him, and that you admire him, based on what is reported about him. as one of the most singular figures in our society and our race. I will introduce him to you. You will see his house and his customs; you will hear him expound his ideas, which are unlike those of any mortal, and he will be your friend as he is mine. I had known him in my childhood, when my mother came to Madrid, bringing me with her, to consult the doctors. I remembered the house, filled with paintings from the entrance hall to the kitchen, mostly blackened paintings, among which I felt more fear than admiration for those covering the walls of the reception room, depicting Carthusian monks, cadaverous faces, dead men rising from their coffins, and martyrs in the flesh or strangled, with half a foot of tongue hanging out of their mouths. I also remembered Don Carlos, a very refined, very amiable, tidy, and talkative gentleman, affectionate to my mother and me. I later saw him in Paris twice, but so quickly that he remained little more than a stranger to me. Until last month, when I settled at Court, the complete person and highly original character of this man, who did me the honor of holding me in his arms at the baptismal font, were not revealed to me. I don’t want to tell you about the kindness and consideration I have received from him since I came here. He values me at a much higher price than I ought to; he pampers me, flatters me, praises everything I say, slaps me on the back every now and then, and repeats, even when it’s irrelevant, this phrase: “Look, Manolito, you mustn’t let me down, because when I baptized you, I made the prophecy that the doll I held in my arms would become a great man.” He has introduced me to all his friends, of whom there are many, and among whom there are some I won’t forget . He invites me to lunch twice a week, doing me the incredible honor of discussing a thousand things with me and expounding on his delightful political and social theories. The first time I went to his house, he didn’t let me leave until midnight, and when I said goodbye, he made me promise to return the next day. The good gentleman’s restless, talkative joy was like the enthusiasm of a child given a new toy. We talked about family: about my mother, whom Cisneros admired so much; about my father, who was like a brother to him. We brought up episodes from the history of the Cisneros, the Calderones de la Barca, the Infantes, and all our relatives, back to I don’t know what generation. His extremely fortunate memory allows him to restore the most eroded family trees, most cruelly cut down by time, neglect, and democracy. The poor gentleman never stops recounting the adventures he had with my father, back in the 1940s and 1950s; love affairs and quarrels that are no longer in fashion, because young people, with the hypocritical upbringing of modern times, have traded petulant innocence for corrupted formality. In 1953, the two were married. My godfather had a daughter, Agustina Cisneros, wife of Tomás Orozco, whom you know better than I do; and my father had five children, of whom I am the only surviving example. My godfather’s wife and my mother were first cousins, from the Calderones family of Valladolid: they had grown up together and loved each other tenderly. Cisneros is also distantly related to the Infantes, which is why I call him “uncle.” I’ll stop the genealogical information here so as not to drive you mad. I will only tell you that both families ceased to be in close contact with each other frequently about fifteen years ago, due to my father residing almost constantly in a foreign country. I have had to give a detailed account of this long period of expatriation to my good Don Carlos, who could not get enough of me. I also spoke to him about you, and he knows you by your works, or rather, by the fame of your works, for he declares with somewhat shameful ingenuity that he has not read them. I have told him how our friendship was forged and strengthened in that accursed college of Beauvais, when your father was Spanish Consul in Le Havre and later in Paris. We conversed at length about the vicissitudes of my family, and the saintly man raves about me, admiring that I had enough virtue and firmness of character to bury myself in death. from my parents, in that sad Orbajosa, in order to seek justice and reason in the chaos of my inheritance. Is it true that I shouldn’t complain about my fate? Because, having completed that giant’s labor and finding myself richer than I believed, my friends and relatives present me one morning with a deputy’s certificate, which I take with my clean hands; I come to Madrid; my relative Cisneros, as well as his daughter, the Orozco daughter, welcome me with affectionate sympathy, and the poor orphan finds in both homes that warmth of family that makes his loneliness bearable. I enter Madrid on the right foot, and into politics with a certain thunder of notoriety. You already know about the noisy electoral incidents and the vicious war the defeated candidate waged against me in the Commission of Records. But I don’t know if you heard about the infamies in a certain newspaper, which claimed that I owed the Treasury large sums for late payments on the Esperanza mine. To defend myself, I published a letter that was reproduced last week by the entire press. It has been highly praised for its laconic dignity and for the malicious insinuations that, in just revenge, I was able to fit into it. I’m sending it to you so you can laugh a little. And now I’ll tell you something else that will make you laugh even more. You know I’m quite clumsy, and you can imagine that, upon coming to these circles, where life is so different from the crude disarray that prevails in the episcopal church of Orbajosa, I have had to face the hazards of social acclimatization. There is a certain roughness in me; a lack of familiarity with the conventionalities of form and language prevailing in each society; My inability to strike the right balance between etiquette and confidence here has made me appear somewhat disdained and self-conscious in my cousin’s drawing room. I routinely continue to give this name to the daughter of the celebrated Cisneros. You will easily understand that my assimilation has worked wonders in just a few days, and that I am shedding the shell of a local; but I have not been able to prevent, with such notable progress, the exquisite art of these people giving very salty nicknames from being exercised in my humble person . From my social rudeness and the momentary fame I acquired when they argued about my contract, they have derived this joke. They call me “the payo de la carta.” My cousin told me this yesterday at her father’s house, celebrating the witticism with laughter; and seeing that I, not only was not in the least angry, but actually applauded the joke, she added that this innocent jest does not diminish the esteem in which her friends hold me. We all agree to laugh at the joke, and for my part, I assure you I feel no discomfort. No doubt you laugh when you read this, just as I laugh when I write to you. But my good humor doesn’t free me, dear X, from the fatigue of this long letter. I’ve filled two small pages, and I’m more sleepy than embarrassed. Excuse me for tonight, and wait a day or two for the continuation, because if you’re furious that I tell you things about my godfather, I’ll be even more furious to spill them out. Boredom yourself as little as possible, and may God make the cross of your existence in the _garlic_ metropolis, _urbs augusta_, as the Romans said, if they ever said it, light. Here’s to our skeptical jokes. Do you believe there were Romans? Move over there, fool… Inventions of the wise to show off. Always yours, MANOLO INFANTE. Chapter 2. _November 13th._ Well, returning to the same topic, X of my sins, I’ll tell you that I find my godfather older than I imagined. But what a spark in that face, what lynx eyes, and what graceful diction he has! His face is lean, dark, and clean-shaven; his upper lip is strong and hairy, almost black from the thickness of his closely cropped hair; his nose is sharp, short, and close to his lip as if he wanted to make it his own; his jaw is robust and protruding; his eyes are lively, under eyebrows so thick they look like two strips of black velvet; his head is perfectly formed; without a bald spot; his hair is quite gray and cropped short. If I tell you that his profile resembles that of the illustrious cardinal of the same name and that he is perhaps a relative, I’m only telling you the truth. Don’t believe it if you don’t want to, a man without faith. He belongs to the most genuine. Castilian or Extremaduran stock; he is dry as the earth, sharp with all the keenness of the race, hard and flexible like the climate of that country; a mixture of sagacious villager and magnanimous lord, with I know not something of a friar who carries pistols under his habit. I cannot fully express my impressions of this eminently national figure. Bring to mind those shaven warriors who looked like priests, those lords who resembled peasants dressed in silk, the commoners with faces tanned by the sun and the ice of Castile; think of Bishop Acuña, the Count of Tendilla, Torquemada, San Pedro Alcántara, who only ate twice a week; reconstruct the stamp of the race and type of Mother Castile, and you will be able to say: “Come on, I ‘ve got him.” You will have heard that my godfather owns a fine collection of paintings and antiques, part inherited from his brother Don Diego, part bequeathed by him. And here, oh illustrious X! My sincerity makes me utter a heresy, which you will surely read with indignation. But I don’t care, and here it goes: _I hate antiquities_. I won’t go as far as the poet who, when he was dying, gathered his children and relatives around his bed of pain, to tell them with great mystery that _Dante_ hated him_. But I can assure you that I have no damned enthusiasm for _bric à brac_ collections, because while I recognize that some contain objects of extraordinary merit, most of them only have an agreed value. You will tell me, I can already hear it, that the history of art… and so on, and so on… We are in agreement: I will take, before you give it to me, the diploma of brute. I just don’t understand it, and I have the frankness to say so, while others, understanding it no more than I do, pretend to be enraptured by any shabby piece of junk or a faded and grimy rag. Needless to say, I’ll be very careful not to mention this to my friend Don Carlos, who, on the second day we met, spent I don’t know how many hours showing me his gallery. If you’re careless, he’ll make you believe, with his gestures and praise, that London’s Kensington is, compared to what he owns, a stall at the Rastro. Undoubtedly, the collection is large, and in my opinion, yours, very unselective. It barely fits in that enormous main house in the Plaza del Progreso, which has twenty-five balconies and overlooks three streets; a house of such spaciousness that I’ve seen few in Madrid with such light and space. I left the artistic visit with a mild headache, and if I’m to tell you the truth, apart from a few tapestries, half a dozen paintings, three or four pieces of armory and ironwork, everything bored me to death, and more than anything, the thing on which the antiquarian bases his pride, which is the copious collection of 15th-century panels. I repeat that I am very crude, and I declare that my antipathy toward such panels is no less than that inspired in me by codices in learned languages, the kind that no Christian understands anymore. Judge my embarrassment at having to be constantly amazed and enthusiastic when Cisneros incited me to do so by showing me the cursed panels, without sparing a single one, and explaining their purpose to me. I don’t know if my godfather’s passion for antiquities is genuine or affected. It could well be the latter, for I consider him one of those men who, driven by pride, impose a role on themselves in order to please or distinguish themselves, and who play it without hesitation, managing, with histrionic perfection, to create an artificial personality and subordinate all of life’s actions to it. To satisfy his archaeological greed, in which there is more dilettantism than artistic feeling, Cisneros has explored all the towns of Old Castile, where he owns his properties, looking for paintings, rags, and junk. He has long known the sacristies of the churches of Toro, Valoria la Buena, Villalón, Villalpando, and Bermillo de Sayago . He plundered palaces and convents with a generous hand. The nuns are grateful to him for exchanging for cash moth -eaten boards, a rusty bolt, or the plate in which the poor King, who was mad for them, must have been served porridge. Like any fanatic, the good Cisneros is a bit hesitant about the affiliation of the precious objects he owns. If there’s any doubt about an artist, he avoids tales and attributes the miracle to the most illustrious artists. Is it a work of silversmithing? Well, it’s surely by Arfe… ” Legal Arfe… don’t you see? I know the chisel mark as I would know the handwriting of a friend who wrote to me every week.” If it’s a locksmith’s work, he attributes it to Master Villalpando. If the dubious painting has athletic, fresh-faced figures, it’s by Rubens himself, or at least by Jordaens. If it’s some squalid, stern-faced portrait, it must necessarily be by El Greco, or at most, by Juan Bautista Mayno. In his artistic conversation—or rather, in all his conversations— he is extremely entertaining. What ideas he has, and with what wit he expresses them! I tell you, you have to get to know him closely to fully appreciate his originality. Whenever I talk to him, I think of you; I think you would enjoy his conversation immensely, and that you would get immense benefit from it. And everything about him, both inside and out, is worthy of observation. Inside the house, he wears a famous, rather archaeological, cherry-colored , flowered robe that seems to have come from one of those 15th-century panels that cover the walls. Would you believe that two days ago, with three of his close friends present, smoking and drinking coffee, he insisted on showing us how seguidillas are danced in the villages of Tierra de Campos, and he danced them in front of us, cutting the most graceful and bizarre figure you could imagine? Well, yesterday he was telling Villalonga, Federico Viera, and me about the adventures of his youth, interspersing very big lies with the finest wit, and he allowed himself to be told that in his time there was no woman of high or low class who could resist him. He is, moreover, a man you never hear speak well of anyone. If you tell him anything that exalts anyone, he either questions it or accepts it with malicious reservations and reticence. But if you bring him a story that denigrates or debases, he’ll quickly repeat, as if pounding it in a mortar, the famous phrase of that apothecary: “As if I could see it, as if I could see it!” Some say that despite these purely external malices, my godfather is what in common parlance we call “a wretch.” With the servants, he apparently acts like a hot-tempered man, playing the part of a stern and grumbling master. But I’ve been told, with reference to the same servants, that in domestic dealings, and when no strangers are present, he is kind and tolerant. It’s even whispered that the servants, if they are clever and know how to control their tempers, dominate them and do with them as they please. In the short time I’ve known this singular man, I have never heard him treat anyone in the family with kindness, except for his daughter and me. He truly idolizes Agustina, whom he calls Tinita and everyone else Augusta. Only before her does he subdue his haughtiness and put a stop to his despotic and sometimes childish temperament. But the son-in-law does not share this influence of the daughter on the father’s difficult character, for whom Cisneros feels an antipathy that he sometimes manages to conceal and sometimes openly reveals. How unjust this animosity of the old Castilian is, I need not demonstrate to you, since you know Orozco better than I do. And I will tell you in passing that the praise you have paid me of him does not seem exaggerated. The more I know him, the more I like this man, all rectitude, nobility, and truthfulness, and who, to such solid qualities, adds a most affable manner and other personal trappings. His father-in-law does not like him: I do not know the reason, and I can only attribute it to a feeling of envy, due to the consideration and ardent sympathy that the other deserves from all who know him. As far as I am concerned, my godfather seems to love me as much as he loves his daughter. Will this last? I presume not, because what I know of his character allows me to reconstruct him completely, inducing from the shape of some bones the whole skeleton. The man who has the aspects I have described to you, must also be versatile in his feelings, capricious in his passions; he must easily pass from love to hate, for hidden motives, the explanation of which is difficult to find in the recesses of his soul. Yesterday my cousin and I had lunch with him. What endearments he showered upon us, lavishing his affections on her and me equally! What endearing expressions for both of us, and what almost ridiculous praise of my person, appealing to the testimony of Augusta, who, laughing and joking, did not hesitate to assent to everything to keep him happy! When we said goodbye, he said to us with paternal benevolence: “My children, go with God, and enjoy yourselves.” And here I also take my leave, friend of my soul, inciting you to enjoy yourself as much as you can. Chapter 3. November 16.
Moderate your impatience, willful and idle X. Do you wish to know soon what I think of my cousin? I had intended to leave this interesting treatise for when my observations had gathered sufficient data to support a good critique. But I yield to your demands, a boring and pampered outcast, and I begin by telling you that Augusta did not seem to me, the first time I saw her, as beautiful as I imagined her to be. I cannot forget that you never gave me a definitive opinion about her, you who must know her, although not as well as you know her husband. In your expressions when speaking to me about this woman, I have always sensed a veiled reticence. Believe me not: the memory of your vagueness on such a matter puts me on my guard. I observe, observe , and scrutinize her, suspecting that I might discover something that will astonish me, and although I see nothing, absolutely nothing but pure conduct and an impeccable reputation, the scales persist in me and I suspend my judgment. Curb your insane curiosity, O depraved man, for when I know exactly what I am up to, I will not stop at nothing to tell you. For now, you’ll only get a brief and superficial glimpse out of me . I have no reason to tell you that Augusta is elegant. You’ll no doubt laugh at my discovery. As to whether or not she’s beautiful, there’s room for a wider variety of opinions. Beautiful, what ‘s called beautiful, may not be so for those who believe, like you, in aesthetic rules and proportions. For me, who finds no grace in the small mouth of Greek Venuses and Raphael’s Virgins, one of my cousin’s greatest attractions is her mouth, which a friend of mine calls the “temple of laughter.” Wow, it’s big! But how salty and bewitching! Tell me, have you ever seen her laugh, but with gusto, making fun of someone or telling a funny story? And haven’t you been enraptured by that double string of white, hard, identical teeth, which you would let her bite if her owner so desired? Doesn’t it amuse you, doesn’t it enchant you to hear the cascade of that laughter, which floods the world and its suburbs with joy, like the trill of birds celebrating the dawn? Take poetry… Also, dear X, my cousin has black eyes that make you dizzy if they look at you fixedly; eyes that carry within them the vertigo of the heights and the mystery of the depths. Bear with that image, eyes that… I won’t go on for fear of my rhetoric and your little jokes. Apart from her eyes, which are, as a friend of ours says, “a branch of heaven,” if you look at Augusta’s features in isolation, you will find them imperfect; but then they are composed and arranged in their own way, and the result is an enchanting ensemble that drives you crazy; I mean, not you; but for others, if it hasn’t driven them crazy, it will. And what can you say about her figure? Have you ever seen a more arrogant one? Say no, man, say no, or I’ll hit you. Good size, without being excessive; good flesh, without fat; beautiful curves… I imagine her scantily clad, and I am enraptured, as you would be, chastely aesthetic, before the living statue, considering with the greatest formality how the beauty of the lines transforms the warm flesh into the most honest of marbles… I suppress the images because you are laughing at me, and surely you will say when you read me: “Look at that fool…” Ah! I fix the age at thirty years; and the most, the most I add, if you insist on it, is Two or three at the most. And you’ll also think, brightening up with one of those professional grimaces that are the result of the habit of criticism: ” Beautiful woman, but uneducated.” We’ve already got the educational problem in the works. Well, to that I tell you that, indeed, Augusta lacks education, if by this you mean anything more than the so-called “tinctures” of things; but she has such grace and ease in tackling any serious or light question that, listening to her, we can’t help but rejoice that she isn’t truly educated. If she were; if the dullness of sensible opinion were to show in those eyes and that mouth, she believes they would lose a lot. You should have heard her when she begins to sink her little fangs into human ridiculousness or to defend a paradoxical thesis. If you weren’t drooling then, I don’t know when you will. For no one can beat her when it comes to bestowing nicknames. When he had enough confidence in me, he confessed, crying with laughter, that his ingenuity had given him the nickname “the payo de la carta,” and I assure you I have never forgiven an insult more willingly. Enough, enough: you mustn’t get another word out of me about this interesting person. The only thing left for me to tell you is that last night I was at the theater with her and her husband. He is a distinguished gentleman, worthy of possessing such a jewel. He seems to me to be in somewhat delicate health. His wife pampers him, takes care of him, and is only deeply serious when she fears that his health might deteriorate further. I find perfect harmony in this marriage. I may be wrong; but… What’s that? Are you laughing? You don’t upset me with your giggles… Have I said something absurd? Your opinion of Orozco, isn’t it mine? Aren’t you the one who made me see in him an exception in today’s society? Ah! I know why you’re laughing, you incredulous and malicious man. It’s because, ever since I started this letter, I’ve been saying that I don’t want to talk about Augusta, and I’ve already written three pages without occupying myself with anything else. Period, period here, by God. Put a full stop, indiscreet pen, or I’ll smash you against the paper. Let’s talk about Cisneros again, that mirror of godfathers, that critical power of the first order, who alone represents a systematic school of social satire, to which he conforms his bloody judgments. You don’t really know what this man is and how much his thoughts lend themselves to admiration and analysis. And I, fool that I am, who in the early days, judging by the surface of his ideas, took him for a Carlist or at least a supporter of absolute power! Imagine, X of my soul, how I would feel today when he expounded to me the ideas most contrary to absolutism… Little by little: perhaps not; perhaps that is absolutism itself in its most concentrated form. Let’s take it one step at a time, and tell me if these oddities don’t deserve an observer like you to study them. My godfather lives, as you know, in the Plaza del Progreso. He hates the central and eastern neighborhoods of Madrid, which are the healthiest. Tradition ties him to old Madrid and to that part where he smells the stench of the rabble, crowded in the streets of the south. He has always lived on the edge of the abyss, he says, and doesn’t want to leave it. He detests the press, which in his opinion is the clamor, the deceit, the instrument of corruption with which our age debases characters and falsifies all matters. Despite this, I don’t know anyone who reads more newspapers. In the mornings, at home, he reads three or four, and at night, at the Casino, half a dozen. He searches in them for gossip, ill-intentioned information, the convulsive throb of a society he considers sick. Politics, as it is practiced here, inspires him merciless ridicule. He attends to it, he says, like someone attending an extravagant farce. For him, there is no honorable minister, no person who does not deserve the gallows… And yet, many of these are his friends, they sit at his table and celebrate his graces. When a scandal breaks out in the press, he adopts and accepts the most unfavorable versions as valid. Complacency and pride illuminate his face when he has to give his pessimistic opinion on any matter that captivates and excites the public. Every sentence of his is a hot pin that penetrates to the bone and makes the flesh sizzle. Regarding my entry into politics, I hear from him opinions and advice that, truth be told, sadden me. Today, after lunch, we went to the study where he usually reads and writes, and after Federico Viera and I, the guests, offered us a couple of dry, hard, bitter cigars that he keeps in the drawer of one of the wastebaskets, and which, due to their age, must be the first ones that came to Spain as a sample at the dawn of vice, he gave Viera a folder of prints to amuse himself, and gave me this little sermon, from which I give you an extract, which, thanks to my excellent memory, would not be more true even if taken by shorthand writers: “Look, son, all matters that refer to political freedom, to the guarantee of rights, or to laws that strengthen the Constitution and the highest powers, are pure nonsense. Hear these things like that country bumpkin who said, “It comes out one ear and out the other”; that is, it didn’t enter either ear. Be very careful that these empty bombasts don’t enter your brain, because if they do, something always remains in the brain that can upset you. Another very common toss is the organization of political parties, the imperative need for there to be parties, and for them to be well-disciplined… Oh! The sheer simplicity of it! Well, well-disciplined. You hear this and keep quiet, like one keeps quiet when they hear a cricket sing. Are we going to argue with a cricket and refute what it sings? No. Well, you’ll do the same when they throw that registry of political parties and discipline at you. This follows the standard of conduct I followed when they took me to the Senate or Congress. Look, son: to the fools who spoke to me of cohesion, of supporting the government, I would answer yes, very saintly and very good; and then I did whatever I damn well pleased. Whenever I saw the government compromised in the Sections, I voted with the enemy. In the hall, I swear to you, no one has ever had the grace to abstain in time. And no one ever knew whether I was saying yes or no until it left my lips. I see you furrow your brow and extend your snout, as if what I’m telling you were a great immorality that scandalizes your conscience. Calm down, I’ll give you convincing reasons to silence your scruples. My system is inspired by the universal good, not by the interests of a few charlatans and exploiters of the nation. You’ll get to know it; you’ll come to my camp, the camp of negations, of all negations combined, where the sovereign affirmation rests. »They’ll also try to drum into your head that nonsense about peace… that we need peace to prosper and enrich ourselves with… with… industry, agriculture… and on and on you go. This, kid, is like telling someone who has nothing to eat to sit and wait for hams and partridges to fall from the sky, instead of going out and running in search of a piece of bread. Peace!… Calling boredom, the drowsiness of nations, a languor produced by intellectual and physical starvation, by the lack of ideas and bread, peace is very silly. And what do we want this peace for? What good is this image of death to us, this stupid dream, in whose bosom the nation is annihilated, like typhoid fever that wastes away in the stupor of fever? At the bottom of this dream beats the revolution, not that childish revolution because those who don’t have the budget between their teeth work, but the true one, that is, death, the one that must confuse everything and turn it into dust and ashes, so that from the decomposed matter a new life may emerge, something else, another world, dear Manolo; another society, modeled on the principles of justice. When I arrived here, I couldn’t help but be amazed that such ideas could be professed by a man who lives quietly off the income extracted from real estate and personal property, that is, a very strong pillar of the edifice of the State, as it exists today. Out of respect for Cisneros’s gray hair, I didn’t laugh at them. Is this man crazy? I said to myself. And I teased him, asking what social form this is in which he wants us to resurrect after being dead and putrefied. Don’t think he flinches when you press him and ask him to concretize his ideas. On the contrary, this stimulates him to wring his brains out for new ideas. “It’s,” he said, “as if you were ordering me to write history before the events that will compose it occur. What is to come? What form will the catastrophe bring, and in what position will the stones of the edifice be left once they fall? How am I to know that, fool? What I know is that I must do everything in my power to aid the suicidal principle that beats in our society, and hasten its destruction, helping to foster everything negative and dissolving. They talk to me about civil liberties and the rights of man. Music, drums, and cymbals. I answer that the people have no aspiration but political indifference, no right but the right to wait, arms crossed, for the upheaval of the present society, which must be brought about by a phenomenon of social physics. They talk to me about parties and discipline, and I pay as much attention as I do to the disputes of street kids playing buttons, tops, and one-legged games. They emphasize to me the need to support these sham governments so they last a long time, and I become even more convinced of the urgency of fighting them so they last as little as possible. Haven’t you noticed that, when there’s talk of crisis, society as a whole seems to swell, throbbing with hope and joy? It’s because it’s aware that the remedy for its ills must come from its destruction. Let those gangs of freeloaders who call themselves parties and groups become increasingly divided; let governments be weekly, and let us have commotion and shenanigans day in and day out. This mobility, this vertigo, contains a great educational principle, and the country is gradually extracting order from confusion, affirmation from the negative, and truth from absurdity. I, who feel this racial itch within me, rejoice when winds of crisis blow, and even if there isn’t one, I say and maintain that there is or that there should be one… so that it may spread… When my barber comes in to shave me in the morning, I always ask him two things: “How’s the weather, Ramón?… Ramón, are we facing a crisis?” You’ll be there for a while with this one, my beloved son. While you digest it, I ‘ll prepare the continuation, which will be out, God willing, tomorrow. Chapter 4. November 17. He listens and trembles. After laughing heartily at the observations I made to him, children, according to him, of the stupid eclecticism of these vulgar, bourgeois, insignificant times; After calling me naive and a wood pigeon, the great Cisneros said: “But have you considered carefully what anarchy means? Meditate carefully on it, and you will see that a people without government of any kind, left to themselves, a people without laws, are in a position to make the true laws, the immortal ones, effective. There are upheavals, tyrannies, abuses! Leave it, fool, leave it. This is precisely what is needed for true law to be born… For my part, I detest these controlled societies, true agglomerations of Quakers, where the police and official justice prevent the flowering of human faculties. Do you conceive that great art and noble science can exist in any society where there are more laws than citizens, and where the Gazette comes out every day with its jumble of provisions, which are so many ties placed on the action of the individual? These are sterile societies; And don’t talk to me about industry and inventions, because most of these so-called conquests have only served to make men more unhappy and increase horrible social inequalities; to establish hunger where plenty once reigned, to establish the tyranny of clothing, to take away the charm of travel, and to destroy the mystery of things; mystery, yes, a source that once flowed with delight, and is now dry, dry, with so much science and so much machinery, and so much foolishness of advancement. materials. Don’t tell me you’re enthusiastic about this Iron Age, more arid than any other age, and more unpleasant and pedestrian. “And what little clothes we wear! It seems we dress not to dress up, but to hide the deformity and weakness of our shriveled bodies! And what foolish customs; and what idiocy in the relations of the sexes; and what desperate monotony in all of life ; what boredom in this immense jungle of laws, which foresee even our slightest movements; what immense tedium in this system of delving into everything in order to kill everything unknown; the unknown, Manolo of my entrails, the unknown, which is the joy of souls, the salt of existence! No, no: I want all that jumble of artifices and slavery, formed by English Puritanism and Protestant prudishness, to disappear into the abyss of that tiresome history that no one will ever read. I want freedom, not those freedoms that are like barracks discipline, which force one to march in step, to wear a uniform, and to be unable to cough without the corporal’s permission, but true freedom, founded on Nature. I want society to flourish and produce great art, sublime virtues , holiness; I want that which doesn’t exist today to be possible in it: artistic inspiration and heroic actions. I want all this grotesque, police-like correctness to go with a thousand devils, as it kills personality, initiative, the idea, the holy idea, the product of understanding, and suffocates the product of fantasy, the image… There, that’s the end of it. I think I’ve said enough. “I’m suffocating…” I couldn’t help praising his eloquence and applauding his wit, adding that, as I listened to him, I felt like exchanging my clothes for some theater costume, or for the green mops of the Golden Age, and taking to the hills to become a citizen of some republic of shepherds. Cisneros got up from his chair and paced around the room four or five times, restless and nervous, as if he wanted to wrap the thread of the speech he had just strung around me in a ball. I approached Federico Viera, who was still examining prints, and suddenly my godfather stopped before us, rolled up his robe, and showed us his leg, dressed in rather tight, not-so-new trousers. “Let’s see, what do you have to say about that leg?” he asked us with childish pride. “Touch it, touch it so you can see there’s no padding here. ” I challenge you to present me with another one so well formed, not even with these curves of the calf… touch, look… so elegant and so… Doesn’t this extremity deserve to be dressed in those red and black striped hose that were worn in Italy in the 15th century? Without waiting for our response, he continued pacing. Federico and I looked at each other, holding back laughter. What will you think when you read this? The same thing I thought when I saw it. My good godfather, if he’s not finished, has moments when he almost completely unhinges. Our friend Viera, who has known him for a long time and knows how to take him in liberties that I wouldn’t, joked with him about the Italian hose; but Cisneros shook him off like a fly, saying: “You are weaklings in body and spirit, and no great idea can fit in your hydrocephalic brains. You are incapable of understanding life except as a rule, written so that all humanity should conform to the size of fools… I have argued with you in a parabolic way, the only way you can understand me, candid souls. Let’s see… He put one hand on Viera’s shoulder and the other on mine, and with an authoritarian tone he said to us: “Do you believe that Dante would have written the Divine Comedy if he had been a bachelor of arts, a law graduate, later a member of the Athenaeum, achieving fame as an enlightened person, living amidst the tumult of what they call criticism, and exposed to being an academic, a deputy , or perhaps, perhaps a Minister of Public Works?… Do you believe, my children, that the author of the Song of Songs would have composed this delightful little poem if, instead of walking with his legs in the air, he had spent pants?… I don’t admit distinctions: answer yes or no… Do you think Michelangelo would have made the _Moses_ and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel if top hats, Academy reports, aesthetic studies and umbrellas had been in use in his time?… Yes or no… Don’t go off on a tangent… What there is… saying this he shook us violently as if he wanted to throw us to the ground, what there is is that you are poor idiots, educated in the nonsense of official education, of that education which, if it continues, will end up taking humanity back to the time of monkeys, educated monkeys if you will, but monkeys nonetheless. Federico and I made him see that such ideas are admissible as an element of entertainment in that literature without printing that is called conversation, and that it influences general opinion as much or more than printed literature ; but that they cannot be admitted with pretensions of forming doctrine. Furthermore, we showed him that his thoughts contradicted his actions. The point was quite clear. “You,” we told him, “are thundering against public education as a means of creating fools and of achieving the spread of culture at the expense of intensity. Isn’t that it? ” “Yes,” he replied, “I abhor this stupidly leveling education. Do you think that if Homer had received an outstanding grade in the exams, he would have composed the Iliad? ” “Of course,” my friend assured him, “and for it he would have won second prize in any competition… But let me complete my argument. If you are such an enemy of public education, why have you founded two schools in Tordehumos, equipping them with lavish equipment? And if you believe that the current organization of society and property is so poor, why do you defend your income so tenaciously?” “Because they’ve told me , Don Carlos—and don’t get angry about this—they’ve told me that you don’t spare a cent, and that you’ll kill the unfortunate tenant who isn’t punctual without mincing words… ”
Federico continued; but my godfather, angry and distraught, cut him off , and stamping his feet, _alterna pede_, like a rearing horse, he said to us: “Know, you scamps, that I founded the schools because I felt like it, and that my motives will never fit into those heads full of the chaff of official learning. Know also that if I collect my rents, all I do is take what’s mine and defend myself from scoundrels and thieves… What did you want? For me to feel sorry for those who spend my money in the taverns and gambling dens of the villages? Poor souls!” When they come to me crying about bad harvests, I would beat them up for being cheats, messers, and for that ugly habit of blaming Heaven and Earth for what is only the fault of their own vices… What do these brats want, for me to let my colonists laugh at me and eat up my income?… —No; that’s not what we want… We’ve pointed out a contradiction and nothing more… —There is no contradiction… But what do you understand about this? These idiots are trying to confuse me… You’re too young to mess with me… Come on, I don’t want to pay any attention to you, I won’t lower myself to argue with this conceited, pedantic childhood… I have gray hair, gentlemen, and I don’t want to dirty it by messing with kids…» We shook his hand; He insulted us, half in jest, half in earnest, and our dispute would have been interminable if it had not been abruptly cut short by the arrival of a friend of Cisneros, a former minister who had let go of his portfolio during the last crisis, a man well versed in politics, and who was deeply involved in that house , as well as in Orozco’s. My godfather welcomed him with exclamations of joy, and the visitor wasted no preamble in telling him why he had come. Simply to ask for his vote for the partial election in some district of Castile. Don Carlos, owner of large lands in Tordehumos, Magaz, and Valoria la Buena, has influence in the country, and if he throws himself into the electoral struggle with all his might, he will easily wipe out his opponents. No sooner had this man explained his desire to help his friend’s candidate succeed than Cisneros told him He hugged him, saying: “Well, of course… I’ll write today. Does the government support you? You know I’m a minister of all ministries, a furious minister… ” “Dear Don Carlos, don’t support us so much or hug us so tightly,” said the other, laughing. “I fear your caresses and your ministerialism. ” “And with good reason. It’s the best way to be dissolute. You already know my system: I support all governments so they don’t last long. ” “You’re one of those who don’t fear the flood because you’ve already made your ark. If I had it… ” “You don’t have your ark! I thought you did. Well, that business of the subsidy for narrow-gauge railways, didn’t it provide you with some plans for your rescue on the day they drown? ” “Don Carlos, Don Carlos,” replied the man, in a bittersweet tone. “It’s not proper for such a respectable person to welcome the gossip of the common people.” —But I don’t withdraw my esteem for you… —Well, I should withdraw it. —No… the bad thing is that when the waters rise, there won’t be a chest that can withstand them. Tell me, what about all this talk that’s causing so much talk? Is it true that two ministers are arguing, and that a high-ranking official is resigning because of a case of love? —Absurd, nonsense…! Don Carlos, my love, how do you believe such things? —Come on, unburden that little heart of yours. We’re all ministerial here, and it’s good to say that dirty laundry should be washed at home. You, like all those who are convalescing from ministerial duties, have what doctors call fever carnis: disgust, a bad body and a worse palate, sadness, alternating between listlessness and canine hunger… Come on, don’t deny that you’re crooked about the Government. I know it by face. I’m already an old dog; I’ve been around the political fray for a few years , and I’ve always seen that all those who step out become nightingales, that is, they trill. So, if you’re not a hypocrite, let’s all trill now; that is, let’s bite. The former minister wittily denied Cisneros’s malice, declaring himself possessed of that inner satisfaction so necessary to the discipline of armies, both in the military and in politics. But then, in the course of the conversation the four of us engaged in about current affairs, my man let his bad mood show. Things for the party aren’t going well, and on the best day a disaster could strike; that if this happens, he washes his hands of it… My godfather, with refined irony, contradicted him; And finally, discussing the upcoming by-election, he took advantage of the opportunity to further his own advantage, for he is a man who, amidst his paradoxical argumentative outbursts, knows how to maintain his composure and practical sense, like those drunks who, even though they drink a lot and become unhinged, never do anything foolish that could compromise them. This judgment of Don Carlos’s character is the fruit of my observation in the short time we have known each other. I have seen that, even on the occasions when he seems most delirious and most affected by the mania for originality, he always files things inwardly if the matter he is discussing leads to some positive end that affects his interests. The
former minister displayed a great deal of wit against the wit of Old Castilian, and the latter, never one to be outdone, offered his votes on the following conditions: That the Tordehumos City Council be dismissed without delay, where there is a councilor who has stuck like a fly in the nose of my good godfather. He is a revolutionary who uses the money from consumption to raise funds, and recently he is disputing with Cisneros a property that had been his own and passed into his hands through legal means. That the file for possession information initiated by Cisneros, regarding the aforementioned Tordehumos pasture, be promptly dealt with. And, finally, that the head of Properties or Taxes of the Treasury Delegation of Palencia, the uncle of the unfortunate councilor and the cover-up of his scams, be cleaned out, and that the vacancy be given to the son of the administrator my godfather has in Valoria. Good, a clever lad, who is now a second-in-command in Santander. The former minister took the note of these errands, promising to recommend them, and Federico and I left with him, bringing such an interesting session to a close. Along the street, we were writing a monograph on Don Carlos, of whom the former minister said he is one of the most entertaining men he knows, explaining why, with his talent, wealth, and extensive connections, he is not a figure in active politics. The fact is that no party has been able to make a career out of him, and they have had to throw him out of all of them for being a troublemaker and a troublemaker. Now, consider something else, dear X, and that is that while this man is a calamity in politics, in the private sphere you will not find a more formal person. Aside from certain womanly dalliances, which gradually come to an end with age, Cisneros is what you would call a perfect citizen: he pays his taxes punctually, faithfully fulfills all his duties, and the purest honesty shines in his dealings. They say that, in any business venture with him , his word is worth as much as the best writing. And in politics, you can’t trust a man like that with the value of a pin! How do you explain this to me, you sociologist and psychologist; you who know so much, and who, with so much knowledge, can’t be tolerated? How do you explain the opposite phenomenon, no less real: that so many useful, even necessary, cogs in the political machine are untrustworthy in the private sector ? When the former minister parted ways with us, Federico Viera and I kept talking about the same thing, without finding a halfway satisfactory solution. And by the way: you’ve asked me several times in your letters about your friend Viera. I’ve told you little about him; but I mention him frequently, which will be enough for you to know that he’s alive and well. Of all the young men of our time, with whom I’ve rekindled my friendship, this one is the most agreeable and the most likeable to me. I have come to love him very much and to be indulgent, very indulgent, with his serious defects. Last night he told me he had written to you; but I don’t know why I feel like doubting him. I don’t distrust his veracity, but the firmness of his ideas, and I fear he is convinced he has written to you without having done so. Goodbye. Chapter 5. November 23rd. Yesterday Augusta was on the platform of Congress. She went with those from Trujillo, the Marchioness of Monte Cármenes, and other illustrious ladies. Certainly, the unfortunate women spent a cruel afternoon, crushed, squeezed, and what is worse, bored like someone who goes to a ball and finds themselves in a duel. From the benches, several friends and I looked at them with pity, regretting not being able to give the debates an entertaining and farcical quality to alleviate the very sad situation of those unfortunate women. We, at least, could comfort our flagging spirits by gazing at that array of women, some of whom were very pretty. But what did they gain by looking at bald women, witnessing a vote, the bustle of those entering and leaving, and the act of lighting the gas? Imagine how they went to hear Castelar, Cánovas, and all the leading figures, attracted by that day’s parliamentary poster, published in the morning papers . Since they had gotten up early to get ahead, when the session opened at 2:15, the poor women were already half-cooked. The portion of the session devoted to questions amused them a bit and even made them laugh, because we had a speech of jokes. There was also a man who, when he asked his little question, seemed to be offering it to the ladies in the gallery, looking at them, as if the defense of the Valderrediles de Abajo City Council were nothing more than an enigmatic formula for a declaration of love. All this alleviated the anguish of the sit-in, and the rest was handled patiently while awaiting the agenda. But our President had the bad idea, no doubt suggested by some evil spirit, to sneak in a pending amendment, with whose discussion he believed he would quickly dispatch the final article of the Law on Administrative Jurisdictions. In short, the discussion got into a frenzy when it was least expected, and here comes my good X, amidst the general consternation, standing up, determined to explain his attitude on the matter, a tall tale of an orator, an excellent person to boot, but who has the misfortune of not being able to explain even the simplest thing without taking up a couple of hours, or rather more than less. Upon close examination, everything my man said was of no interest to anyone. Whether in 1870 he had or had no opinion on this or that; that if, in signing such a proposal, he did so simply to authorize its reading, with everything else that is obvious, and that of – if I may recall what I had the honor of presenting before Congress yesterday afternoon, it will be easy for me to demonstrate that in pointing out the deficiencies of the project under discussion this afternoon , I said nothing, I expounded nothing, and I expressed nothing, neither remotely nor remotely, that was not in perfect agreement, in perfect consonance, in perfect conformity with what came from my lips the afternoon before yesterday. An hour passed, two hours, two and a half hours, and the chanting was endless . The coughs and murmurs seemed to encourage him as if they were applause, and his toneless voice fell upon the audience’s mind like a fine, persistent rain upon a glass roof. At times it was annoying, like the sound of a clock ticking isochronously when we are fighting insomnia, tossing and turning in bed; At times, it seemed to me like one of those cantorillos (chantries) used by nannies to put children to sleep. The red pews were emptying, like a country impoverished by poor harvests, where emigration fever is spreading at an alarming rate. People went to smoke and gossip in the corridors or the cafeteria, and in the living room there remained only a few friends of the speaker, and those who were entertaining themselves by swindling with the ladies upstairs. These poor little martyrs of curiosity inspired me with such pity that I went up to console them. I observed the consternation and discouragement on each and every one of their faces . They chatted , bitterly criticizing the regime and praising the President for having altered the program, playing that insufferable nonsense before the great classical quintet they had hoped to hear and enjoy. I brought them sweets and candies, and gave them hope that the terrible bore that good patrician was giving us all would soon be over. “Yes, it looks like it’s about to end,” my cousin told me. “Now he’s said that this is serious, very serious, and that he’s brought the data to prove it. Look, look at the pile of papers he has in the bank. Do you see? He’s getting ready to read us half a dozen Gazettes.” Another hour passed, one of those black, tedious hours that drag on, languishing, and as they stretch, they join head and tail, imitating the emblem of eternity. Then the orator said: “I’m going to conclude, gentlemen.” The galleries gave him an ovation; and the rascal, would you believe he appreciated it? Instead of shortening the epilogue, he stretched it out for another half hour, giving us, by way of summary, a new paraphrase of what he had already said. It was about five-thirty when the Board decided that the main debate would be postponed until the following Monday. I went up to share the news with the poor martyrs, already half dead from the heat, the cramped conditions, and the immobility. Some didn’t even have the strength to get up; others were about to leave, and all of them were cursing the Administrative Jurisdictions and the dog that invented them. Augusta came out with a headache, and as I took her off my arm, she told me she wouldn’t return to the platform until I spoke. I think it will rain quite a bit between now and then, because I feel completely unfit for oratory, and when I think about having to speak and getting up and beginning, it seems to me that terror will suspend my thoughts and paralyze my tongue. Augusta’s eagerness to have me speak has become a real mania, and whenever she catches me in the act, she drives me mad. Last night she told me that if I don’t start soon, she will even refuse to greet me, and that all my progress in the art of Courtesies are worthless if I don’t shed the last bit of country hair by rushing into public speaking. And since between you and me there will never be any mysteries, as agreed, I will tell you bluntly that I like my cousin more and more every day, and that I feel an inclination toward her that has caused me many hours of sadness. I hadn’t wanted to tell you, hoping this would pass, which seemed to me like a fleeting indisposition of the soul, similar to a cold in the physical order. But for days now I have found myself surprised by an invincible tendency to think about her, to imagine her before me, to remember her gestures and words, and to suppose and anticipate what she will say to me the first time we meet. At the same time, an unreflective admiration for her is born in my spirit , and I surprise myself in the ideal task of adorning her with the most excellent qualities that ever graced any creature. From this arises my greatest sorrow, for the very qualities I attribute to her place a moral barrier between her and me. To imagine that this uncertain and timid aspiration of mine can ever be fulfilled, I must destroy my own work and exonerate the lady from my thoughts, depriving her of those very perfections I had assumed. Here is the struggle I have been carrying around in my mind these days, which is like an illness that has suddenly seized me. I bet you’ll laugh at me when you read this, for the amorous mysticism of a Petrarch, nor the fever of a Werther, do not sit well with men of our unbelieving age . No: I am still far from reaching such extremes. What I tell you is of no value except as a presage. I will also tell you that it has occurred to me to visit her as little as possible, to avoid her company, to hide from my eyes her incomparable beauty and grace, her grace and supreme elegance… Yes, don’t laugh. I see you making a fuss and doubting these honorable dispositions of mine. Well, yes, dear X: delicacy inspires me to avoid his company, and I assure you that I have been able to fulfill it, refraining from going repeatedly to his box and his house. But the devil, who interferes in everything, has undoubtedly sworn to thwart your friend’s virtuous plans; the devil, marvel! He takes the form of my good godfather to persecute me and steal my soul, for Cisneros forces me to dine with him almost every day, and his daughter has taken the liberty of going as well, and there he drives me mad with his chatter, his charms, his kindness, and other seductions. So that the ground I gain at night by moving away from the mountain, I lose during the day by seeing the mountain coming toward me; and it’s no use fleeing the abyss, because it appears before me when I least expect it. From all of which I deduce that… Go to hell, I have no desire to make deductions or to continue this rambling epistle. I’m tired and in a very bad mood. Is this not enough for you? Does it leave you hanging? Well, suck it up, and suck it up, and burst. Chapter 6. November 25. I continue, Mr. X, under the influence of this nonsense, this stupid boredom that makes me equal to the most candid of schoolchildren. My disordered mental work continues to give me a lot of trouble, and at night the hyperemia of my brain keeps me awake. The great sympathetic responds immediately to pressure from above, and now you’ve turned me into a burning ball, from sheer nervousness, alternating between anguish and feverish excitement. I won’t tell you the things that occur to me in the dark hours of insomnia, because, surely, my nonsense and daring ideas would seem to you the most outlandish you’ve ever heard in your life. I’ll tell you what I think in broad daylight, when my mind clears from those fogs and the contact of the world restores me to reason. You see: now I’ve hit the nail on the head that Augusta is not even close to the archetype of perfections that I imagined, driven by that itch of idealization, which seized me as one might seize a neuralgic pain. This cursed illness has taken another turn, and now I reason that the beautiful one for whom I yearn, the little phrase may be as corny as you like, but I maintain that she is not an angel, that she is endowed with the seductive imperfections that Nature has wisely poured into all of humanity, and perhaps, perhaps, these defects come together and unite in her with greater prominence than in others of her age and class. Don’t go deducing from this that I consider her evil, no. The fact is that on earth we don’t have angels, nor do we really need them much. My inclination toward Augusta, whom I have just erased from the ranks of seraphim, is no less vehement in this new stage of my illness; and if there is no absolute purity in her, neither is there absolute impurity, for human passions always commonly include all the stimuli that correspond to the different regions that make up our nature. To say love of the heart, love of the imagination, love of the senses, is to say nothing, or to express abstractions without any value in reality. Everything works in an organic way, and no part of our being is emancipated from the others that constitute it. But enough of philosophizing, and continue paying due attention to your friend’s confidences. Can’t you guess how I’m now employing my idealizing powers? Well, in imagining my cousin’s husband, Tomás Orozco, as the most complete man imaginable, and in this I am merely responding with my ideas to your opinion of him. Orozco is, according to you, the greatest moral perfection that can be achieved in our times ; Orozco would deserve, according to you, the title of “saint,” if our age would permit it to apply this name properly. He is the person we should take as a model for fulfilling our human and social duties. If anyone exists in whom loyal observation cannot point out a single flaw, it is Orozco. Your ardent praises of this man are fixed in my mind , and believe me, they hurt me as if they were thorns from a crown of martyrdom nailed to my head. For you must know, beloved Theotimus, that this man, comparable to no other, in your opinion, and also in my understanding, shows me the most intense affection, surrounds me with delicate attentions when I go to his house, reminds me of the esteem his family always had for mine and his father for my father, and with this he has brought upon my soul a disturbance and a restlessness that I cannot exaggerate. Now there is one more aspect of the equation that I cannot resolve, and here it is for you to take charge of everything. You ask me if I believe that my pretensions regarding Augusta can be favorably received, and very quietly, very quietly, so that no one understands it but you, I answer yes. Am I perhaps basing my argument on something definitive and affirmative? No: it is an idea, a premonition, a hunch. These things are known without knowing why they are known. It is something that is seen in the mists of the horizon with the eyes of foresight and, if you will, of fear. Well then, my friend: I hope, and I consider myself a wretch if what I hope for comes to pass. There is and always will be something in me that keeps me from falling into the depravity and laxity of conscience of my contemporaries. At least, I believe I will be one of the last to do so. Certain betrayals, which are easily excused in our times, are beyond my control. And I won’t say more, because you easily understand my confusion and the tremendous uproar I carry in my conscience. I’ll put a stop to this here, because if I were to let myself be carried away by my thoughts and open all the taps to continue pouring onto paper everything that occurs to me on this subject, I would bore you; and if I try to write about something else, I won’t be able to, because the oven bakes no more buns than it has inside. Follow the advice I’m going to give you. Don’t come back to this Madrid, where candor is lost, and the flower of our honest dreams crumbles at the slightest breath . Little fool of my sins, stay in that rude Orbajosa, among clerics and peasants; find yourself an honorable local woman, with a good dowry and ten or twelve pairs of mules, for there are some, I assure you there are some. Look for a pretty one, I won’t say plump, because you’ll never see plump and fresh ones. Choose the one that’s the least yellow and flabby, the one that seems the least filthy to you inside the bloated hulk of green and yellow petticoats; marry her, become a farmer, have many children, healthy and very stupid, live a patriarchal and bucolic life, and do not aspire to any other pleasures than those offered by that city and those countryside, producers of the best garlic in the world. Form a family in which no one with ideals can emerge; eat soup, and do not even aspire to be the chieftain of a bell tower. Blessed is he who manages to emancipate himself from this slavery of ideas, and learns to live in the school of true wisdom, which has animals as its model, dear X, the very animals themselves. Chapter 7. _December 1st._ Come those five, X of my inner workings. The spirit of your friend will not allow himself to be dominated by the stupid undergrowth that threatened him, and whose first manifestations you could gather from my preceding letters. A healing energy has sprung up within me, regenerating me overnight , stiffening my will, my entire being, and giving me a certain notion of the ridiculousness of my illness. It happened suddenly: I woke up one day with a terrible desire to laugh at my amorous folly, and I laughed, greatly surprised to find myself the object of my own mockery. Moral nature, like physical nature, has these sudden remissions, rapid victories that life achieves over death, and reason over the principle of foolishness that we carry within us. It was enough for me to apply a little mental effort to this internal action to see it grow and finally take over the entire field. It wasn’t long before I saw things clearly and noticed the inconvenience of breaking the harmonious relationship that each individual should maintain with his time. Augusta never ceased to seem as interesting and beautiful to me as before; But at the same time, I understood that I shouldn’t be impassioned like a cadet, nor rack my brains like a wayward seminarian, but rather stand there, awaiting events with a cool, worldly attitude. Anyone who takes this society seriously is liable to crash when they least expect it. The phenomenon I’m describing to you didn’t come about in isolation. It appeared among various accidents, which, in the space of a day, perhaps hours, distracted my spirit, moved my ideas like the wind moves a weather vane. Politics, the child of my soul, with the incredible vehemence it determines in us, has played no small part in this change, from which I deduce that the res publica is a very good thing, an emollient, a most effective antiphlogistic for certain morbid ardors of life. And the irritations one develops in this blessed Congress also act as a revulsive, transferring the organic disorder to the skin, or if you prefer, to the tongue, through which the evil or pernicious fluid escapes. And apropos of this, I’m beginning to see how true what you’ve told me so many times is, based on your long experience. Here, one must speak or condemn oneself to perpetual nullity and insignificance. Those who keep silent are ignored . Suppose you are, like me, an accomplished grammarian of the language of silence, and that in such circumstances you ask a small favor of any minister. Since he doesn’t fear you, nor do you lend him your services on the Commission bench, nor do you occasionally burden his face with tiresome questions, he smiles at you very affably when you greet him; but he doesn’t give you anything, believe me; he only says good morning; rest assured, he doesn’t give you anything of substance. Don’t think I’m bothered by this: I recognize that ministerial favor is a driving force of the system, and we shouldn’t criticize its use to silence the discontented and reward the servants, because if we eliminate that driving force, goodbye to the system. This is part of human nature, and is a result of the eternal imperfection with which we struggle from the roof down. Either we declare ourselves seraphim with legs, or we must recognize that the regime, good or bad, has its own morality, its own Decalogue, handed down from I don’t know which Sinai, and which differs quite a bit from current morality; and if not, let Moses come forth and put it right. Today I’m inspired, my friend, and if I don’t write about politics, I’ll burst, because this subject amuses me, it makes my thoughts drift from the center. congestive pain that torments me, and it swells me, believe me, it swells me, it refreshes my body and soul… Well, you see. I’ve come to realize that this silence of mine is foolish, this passivity, this inertia of an unconscious grain in the famous parliamentary heap that makes laws, sustains governments, and strengthens institutions. There’s very little fun in wasting the influence and favor with which the friendly State must reciprocate our services. No way, I speak or I burst, I rant on the best day; and although I have a terrible fear of myself as an orator, and although, when I consider myself speaking, I feel like arresting myself and sending myself to jail, human logic and a certain little ambition that gnaws at my heart, drive me to overcome my clumsiness and cowardice. I already began the day before yesterday, like someone spelling, presenting first thing in the morning a little exposition of Orbajosa’s to get his taxes lowered; I’ll soon continue my apprenticeship in the Sections, giving brief explanations, in agreement with anyone who asks me; and, finally, involved in a commission on an easy subject, rest assured I’ll study it well, and I’ll deliver my little speech like a gentleman. It’s all a matter of getting started. Once shame is lost, the rest follows its measured steps. And ceasing to be passive in politics, one gives employment and outlet to a thousand evil things that boil within. If politics is a vice, with this innocent harm one can kill other vicious diatheses that upset our minds. What do you think? Are you laughing? Give me your serious advice, you idiot; empty that sack of dumb philosophies and spiritual chicanery. I await your exequatur or a sprinkling of insults, because I know you, and whoever doesn’t know you should consult you. So, do I speak or not speak? Is it appropriate to speak, even if it means barking? Chapter 8. _December 3rd._ Without waiting for your reply, I send you this one. See how it digs deep into my mind, and even more so into my will, the prodigious prayer that is to free me from the dull sphere of parliamentary nullity; see how I ‘ll shoot myself on the best day and shame you, because they know you are my mentor, and the disciple’s follies will fall upon the master. I consulted with my godfather about what I consulted you about, and he gave me a very tight embrace, congratulating me on my wise resolution. He incited me to speak out against the Government, without noticing that it supported me wholeheartedly in the election, pulling me by the hair out of that mysterious ballot box. He told me that by doing so I was rendering a service to society and favoring eternal principles over the transitory and accidental; that nothing is as useful as changing mandarins, so that the curtain on this comedy can rise and fall many times, until we see if the audience gets bored and bursts out at the grand finale. Augusta, hearing such things, was indignant and had a strong argument with her father, saying: “You would have been a minister, you would at least be a senator for life if you had more sense, Papa.” He took it in stride, emphasizing the extravagance as he always does when he is contradicted. Word by word, in the after-dinner conversation, the conversation turned from politics to art, and Cisneros spoke freely, maintaining in front of his daughter, of Villalonga the famous Villalonga, what a guy! and of me, that true art cannot exist in organized countries, where there is Justice and Police, institutions essentially hostile to the artistic spirit. Pay attention to this : “Shakespeare’s genius flourished amidst the dramatic English barbarism of the 16th century, as the Italian arts amidst the elegant confusion of the Florentine and Genoese republics, and of the civil wars from the 14th to the 16th, in those picturesque, anarchic times of unbridled passions, equally conducive to sanctity and crime, to asceticism and homicide; times in which public law came to have poison and the noose as its law, and the diplomacy of treason was created. The frequency of murder fostered in the people the idea of the nude; the Church protected the humanities, and paganism was resurrected in the very bosom of the Popes. Cesare Borgia personifies that glorious age, and closes the period of artistic flowering, which accommodates all the active ideas that can inflame the minds of the people. Between the austere morality of Dante and the liberties of Boccaccio, there is an expanse, an immense and fertile field in which the most beautiful flowers of human life are born. Between the mystic Giotto and the adventurer Benvenuto Cellini, are enclosed all the developments of bodily beauty, the basis of pictorial art. And in this way he continued to dazzle and confound us. His daughter rebutted him, so to speak, with handfuls, and although she was not very well versed in the history of Cesare Borgia, she maintained that he was a scoundrel. Then he spouted various heresies, speaking ill of Giotto, Fra Angelico, and all the Pre-Raphaelites, and saying he wouldn’t give two pesetas for any of the fifteenth-century panels or for most of the religious quadrangles that fill that house. Cisneros called his daughter a fool and ignorant and showered her with kisses. That’s how their quarrels always end. Malibrán intervened. If this were a novel, it would say: _Appearance of a New Character._ I can guess your expression of surprise when you read that name. You don’t know who he is; or rather, you don’t recognize him by his last name, although you’ve seen him and spoken to him. I’ll help you remember. Do you remember that one afternoon, as we were both going from Paris to Enghien, we met a gentleman whom we thought was a foreigner, and he suddenly spoke to us in correct Spanish, and was very polite and obsequious to us when we said goodbye, offering us his house, which he indicated by extending his hand towards a gray roof near the station? Do you remember that, while visiting the Salon some time later, we met him accompanying a friend of ours, Pepe Diez, and he introduced us to him? Soon after, he was accompanying us in examining some paintings, acting as critic, and being very severe with most of the works we saw. You don’t have as good a memory as I do; you won’t remember that on leaving, we took a walk through the Champs-Élysées, and he spoke ill of Spain and the Spanish; He told us that his habitual residence was Italy, that he had collected some old paintings of the greatest merit, and that he was in Paris negotiating the sale of a splendid Mantegna, for which the Louvre was offering him 100,000 francs and Rothschild a little more; but that he did not intend to give it for less than 200,000. Has that detail about the Mantegna not stayed with you ? After parting from him and the friend with whom he was, we remarked that he seemed to us to be one of those types of equivocal nationality so often found in Paris. His physiognomy, like his surname and the facility with which he expressed himself in different languages, led one to believe that he was a native of all the frontiers of Europe. At the same time, we noted his fine education, his refinement, the elegance of his dress. Well then: this fellow, who then passed before our eyes like a comet, and of whom we speak as one speaks of something one hopes never to see again, is called Cornelio Malibrán y Orsini. He is Spanish and was born in Madrid, the son of a former employee of the Palace and the grandson of a colonel of the Walloon Guards. His mother is Italian, the daughter of some foreign soldier in the service of Spain. So in our Don Cornelio all European bloodlines mingle and mingle, and in his offspring on both lines, as he explained to us the other night, there is a Dutch lady from the Riperdá family, a Portuguese gentleman, a Polish émigré, and who knows what else. I present this fellow to you in such detail because I suspect I will have to deal with him more than I would like. He has served in diplomacy; he was unemployed for some time, residing in Italy and France, and now he has managed to get into the Ministry. He is celibate and lives with his mother, an elderly lady, I’ve heard, quite educated and who knows many good stories about the inner workings of the court and aristocracy… A little patience, dear X, and I’ll finish the portrait. The origin of this Don Cornelio’s friendship with my godfather It must be sought in the contagious madness of both when it comes to matters of pictorial art. Cisneros is intelligent, at least he says so, and I take his word for it, regarding Spanish panels of the 15th century; but in Italian painting, it seems to me he’s completely off the mark, and it is precisely the Italian schools prior to Raphael that are Malibrán’s forte. In any black and smoky shadow, where we barely see some indefinable torso, he points out a Botticelli, a Sodoma, a Signorelli, or a Fra Bartolomeo, names that have rarely sounded to my profane ears. My uncle and he spend long hours arguing about the uncertain characteristics that separate the Paduan school from the Venetian, or about some other pictorial problem as obscure as this one. From my intimacy with Cisneros came Malibrán’s introduction to Orozco’s house, where you have him every night. His exquisite manners and knowledge of the world put him at the forefront of every society, without him needing to strive for that position. He stands out naturally and by the very virtue of his manners, which are perfection itself, for they contain the exact degree of rigidity compatible with ease. He knows how to combine respectful courtesy like no one else with those liberties so pleasing today, used discreetly, like salt and spice in cooking. I know no one else who knows how to entertain and amuse ladies as he does; he is the only person I have ever heard hold long conversations about dresses, displaying the spiritual erudition that befits the subject. Ladies consult him about their outfits, the decoration of their homes, and, above all, he advises them masterfully. At the same time, if you talk to him about foreign politics, you are astonished to hear him, dear X, because he knows it like the back of his hand, as well as we could appreciate our own. Well then: having presented his persona, I need to express to you, in conclusion, one of my feelings about him. There you go, and don’t be alarmed. This man is profoundly antipathetic to me, so much so that my antipathy crosses the boundaries that separate this feeling from true hatred. I hear you ask me: “Why?” You will be surprised if I tell you that it is not easy for me to define the cause. Malibrán thinks highly of me; he seems to esteem me, and even love me. He has never had a word or act toward me that could upset me. He even deigns to praise what I say and to listen to me with affable attention. But the fact is that I cannot see him. I show you this phenomenon of my soul, as I would show the doctor a wound that no one has seen and that only the doctor should see. I myself am surprised to carry within me a depressive affect that does not favor me; I probe myself and try to analyze it to find its origin. Is it envy, or is it rather intuition? Do I penetrate, without realizing it, the character of this individual, and guess that he is a bad person dressed in glittering social trappings? Is it that…? But I’m tired, dazed, and I presume that in my next letter, after giving this strange case some thought, I’ll be able to tell you something more concrete. Chapter 9. December 6. I’m back to my old ways, comrade, and that serenity of spirit I acquired by taking a dip in the murky waters of politics, pardoning the extravagant nature of the figure, has been taken by the trap. Today I’m very nervous, and despite myself, bitter concepts and assessments that may not correspond to reality will surface in my letter. I’ve had a bad night, struggling with the absurd, trying to chase away my thoughts without success, because they attacked me with dazzling logic, disarming me and defeating me. Don’t be surprised, then, that I’m unbearable today. That Malibrán has gotten in my way in such a way that I can’t stomach him. You’ve probably forgotten his physiognomy, and I want to remind you. He looks about forty, but I think he’s older. A good figure: he’s what is commonly called a handsome man. Once seen, one will never forget his expressive face, which I compare, in relation to painting, to something that abounds in my uncle’s varied collection. That sharp face, that penetrating gaze, those perfectly correct features, the blond beard tapering to a point, the ivory forehead, the anemic complexion, remind you of those votive paintings in Italian art that have the Virgin in the center, and on either side of her two saints, Saint George or Saint Francis, Saint Jerome or Saint Peter. Cornelius sometimes reminds me of Saint George, with his effeminate warrior air, and sometimes, marvel at this, of Saint Francis of Assisi, with his seraphic and feverish beauty. You’re going to say I’m going off the deep end. The fact is, I’m quite excited, and I get even more excited writing these things to you, instead of studying the little speech I’ll give in two days, combating the ruling on the “Bill for the Rectification of Electoral Lists.” Now, let’s tell it all. Well, as I told you, Malibrán came in, hurriedly summoned by my godfather to consult him about a painting he had just acquired. He told us that he had seen it in the sacristy of the Descalzas de Villalón for some time, without being able to get his hands on it. Finally, the administrator at Cisneros managed to snatch the jewel and sent it to him. It’s a panel about fifty centimeters by forty, and it depicts the baptism of Jesus. The two nude figures, yellow and stiff, stand out against the blackened background, with whose gloomy ink the shading of their bodies blends . In the upper part, a pair of angels can be seen in elegantly pleated garments, holding a sign with the sacramental words of Baptism. As soon as Malibrán arrived, the discussions began in front of the work of art. “Either this is a Massaccio,” said Cisneros with triumphant smugness, “or I don’t understand any of this nonsense.” To which the diplomat replied, after examining the panel at length, both up close and from a distance, and rubbing it in different places: “What do I know, what do I know… I’m inclined to believe it’s more like a Pinturrichio. The figure of the Baptist bears a striking resemblance to those in Araceli’s frescoes in Rome.” And after this expert explanation, he went on to give others, which must have been very compelling. I felt like contradicting him, even though I didn’t understand a word of these matters, and I supported Cisneros’s opinion, which he passionately upheld , based on a reference from Ceán Bermúdez. Then he ran to his archives and brought back an unpublished handwritten letter in which the celebrated Fine Arts scholar recounts having seen a list of the paintings brought from Italy by a certain Don Alonso Núñez de Villalpando, founder of the Descalzas de Villalón. The note mentions a panel by Massaccio, valued at I don’t know how many thousand scudi, and considered a highly marvelous work. Regarding dimensions and subject matter, the note says: “It is about a foot and a half high, and represents the baptism of Our Redeemer.” Malibrán shook his head, smiling, and, with the greatest civility, downplayed the critical sources from which my uncle drew his specious arguments. Finally, the stubborn Castilian became irritated, and nothing… they must be earwigs… “Oh! A Massaccio, the father of the Renaissance… I have the rarest painting that exists in the private galleries of Europe, and even in the official ones. This panel is worthless. It’s a treasure. Look at it: I’ll let you touch it; but… with the utmost respect. You, Señor Malibrán, are very intelligent; but for once, admit that you’ve fallen.” And no matter how hard he tries, he will not succeed in discrediting my collection or distorting the glory of this great discovery.” The argument never ended. Villalonga and I sided with my uncle, and Augusta voted with Cornelio, which I felt very bad about. There we went, she and I, informed of such a matter, and we gave our opinions on a whim, or perhaps out of personal sympathies, as usually happens in most controversies. It is almost certain that both of us were then hearing the name Massaccio for the first time. And yet, I ardently supported the Cisneros or Massaccio side, and she openly and resolutely declared herself a Pinturrichista. Dear X, laugh all you like at this simplicity; but in that point and hour, and while we were arguing about something we understood as if we were being made to decipher Chinese writing, a suspicion assailed my mind that brought me to the state of anxiety in which I still find myself. My heart, rather than my understanding, eagerly launched itself into the field of divination, starting from an insignificant, perhaps uncertain fact. But how many stupid things there are, revealing serious facts ! How many trivialities leap before our eyes, uncovering mysteries and opening horizons of investigation that caution would close! My suspicion and the instinctive hatred that that sticky diplomat inspired in me, a hatred that was also revealing, led me to believe that everything my cousin and Malibrán spoke of that day contained a double meaning, and that his words were formulas of intelligence agreed upon, like a cipher. Augusta left, saying she was going to pick up some friends to take them for a walk, and shortly after, Malibrán also left, leaving my godfather alone with his painting and his tenacious opinion that Massaccio was the legitimate one, above all the cabals of envy. Since I seemed rather cold and in no mood to cheer him on, all the fuss he gave afterward was directed at our friend Villalonga, who endured him with stoic patience. I withdrew to a corner of that study, so beautiful, so different from what we see in other houses, and for a long time I examined the roses on the floor one by one. I need to explain this to you. There’s a magnificent Santa Barbara carpet there, sister to those in the Palace and Royal Palaces, soft, thick, and loving beneath our footsteps. It has a white background, yellow vines, and garlands of roses, in the style of Charles IV, which, in the eyes of mainstream critics, is now considered old-fashioned. It doesn’t seem that way to me… But, be that as it may, the colors are admirably preserved; the fabric is of a solidity that would shame all modern industry; and as for the roses, I’ll tell you that I stripped them of their petals with my eyes, while at the other end of the room Villalonga and Cisneros were working on their subject. The latter, extremely restless, came and went, bringing papers and books with some reference to support his opinion, and also paintings to look for comparative arguments. I saw a wastepaper basket open before me, in whose compartments gleamed antique and sterling gold with the elegant yellowness of the peluconas ounces. From those golden drawers my uncle took out a paper, which he read as one might read a proclamation. It was the inventory cited by Ceán Bermúdez; And in the commotion the good gentleman was creating, a full suit of Milanese armor suddenly tottered and fell to the floor with a crash and the creaking of metal joints, like a warrior badly wounded in combat. Then I heard Cisneros’s voice in the next room, arguing with the servants, calling them idiots, liars, and troublemakers. He was demanding his clothes, not these ones, but those. Not the fur coat, you idiot!… but the other one… He threatened to fire the coachman for being a drunk, the footman for being dirty, the manager for being a meddler, the cook for being a talker, the scullery girl for being a snooper, the valet for being indecent. All this was a fleeting stroke of genius, for soon he would be treating them with the most revolutionary familiarity. Villalonga left, telling me that he never left that house without feeling a screw loose in his brain, and when I was alone with my godfather and went into his room, while he was dressing, he said to me: “That Malibrán, what an envious wreck he is, wants to deprive me of the glory of owning the rarest painting in the world. But he’ll be damned, damned. The fault lies with those who give him wings, consulting him about things he doesn’t understand. Have you seen what fatuity? Isn’t it obvious that my panel is Massaccio, but so clearly that denying it is like denying the light of the sun? So, is Ceán Bermúdez some kind of gossip columnist? You’ve given reasons that can’t be refuted… Come on, let’s go get some fresh air.” He took me to the Retiro Park in his carriage, and we walked from the Casa de Fieras to the Ángel Caído. We greeted many friends, and of all the people we knew who passed by on foot or in cars, Cisneros had something to say. His fortunate memory, sometimes supplemented by ingenious inventiveness, gifted me that afternoon with a thousand anecdotes, some piquant, others merciless and terrible, none innocent, all with that singular accent that lends plausibility or the probability of human errors. That was history, composed and embellished à la Titus Livius, like true art; a history no inferior in its transcendence and exemplary nature to that which recounts in tedious pages the weddings of kings, and the battles that were won or lost for the slightest hint of a straw. My uncle also enlightened me with some particularities of his life, in which I could not help but see that cat’s touch with which some chroniclers disfigure and embellish whatever suits them; and finally he gave me this advice: “Look, Manolo, don’t be a fool. Make love to the wives of all your friends, and win them over if you can.” Don’t waste a single step out of modesty, or scruples, or social considerations of little value before the great laws of Nature. The neighbors who inspire you the most respect are perhaps those who most desire you to advance: don’t stop, then, halfway. Be daring, maintaining appearances, and you will always win. Take the world as it is, and passions and desires as the phenomena that constitute life. The only rule that should never be forgotten is good manners, that respect, that _coram vobis_ that we all owe to the world. He told me something else; but I stopped listening, because my whole soul went after Augusta, whom I saw from afar in her landau, with another lady, her friend, perhaps her concealer. That’s what I thought at that moment, and with them, stiff and amiable in the lead, the most tiresome man that the sun shines on: Malibrán. Yes, I saw him, and I don’t want to tell you any more. What was so strange about me accompanying her, as I had done a thousand times before? What could such a simple thing possibly mean? Nothing, strictly speaking. It was a simplicity that tormented me, like a grain of dirt that falls in one’s eye torments us… I must have even thought that the circumstance of accompanying her publicly revealed the utmost innocence, for if there were any, they would have avoided appearing together on the walk… But none of this, which I thought later, occurred to me then. You will have understood that that afternoon I was an idiot, a sentimentalist of the worst kind, worthy of being taken in by the lame novelists. Now I see that you, with your usual sarcasm, are going to tell me that I deserve a straitjacket. But I remain firm: the idea is the mother of facts. What does it matter if the facts don’t appear, if it’s clear that the idea, by the bulge it makes, is pregnant with them? No, don’t cross yourself … Look, go to hell and don’t bother me anymore. Chapter 10. _December 13th._ I have let eight days pass since my last letter, and I have calmed down so much in this time that if I could take back what I wrote in it, as these orators take back and annul the offensive words that escape from their imprudent lips in the heat of discussion, I would do it, O X of my sins! Because, finding myself in those days under the influence of an insane exaltation, I am almost not responsible for the nonsense I thought and wrote to you. Blessed be politics a thousand times over, I say again, that supreme art of collective life; blessed be Sagasta, Cánovas, Castelar, and the other priests of this consoling religion, whose worship produces in our soul the effect of rubbing the organism, calling forth internal irritation from the epidermis! You must know that the parliamentary revelry of these past few days, the fear that the Cabinet might collapse and the situation with it, the alarms, the bickering, the terrible clash of defending ambitions with attacking ambitions, have produced in me a restorative dizziness, an intoxication that has done me much good. If I tell you that these eventful days have been entertaining for me, I am not speaking the truth, for I have also become passionate and taken with fervor to a matter that I never understood. When we find ourselves within an active community, A feeling similar to a military spirit drags us along, and we run blindly toward folly and unreason, like platoons rushing into the trench where they will meet their death. Anyway, dear friend, I’m happy again, and I think I hear you say: “Welcome peace if it lasts.” Because since I have these sudden intermittent periods, you’ll fear that tomorrow I’ll jump out again with gloom and whining. And speaking of intermittent periods: not only do I not deny them, but I must present to you other versatile characteristics of my spirit, which until now I haven’t told you about, so that you can study them and explain them to me if you can, because you certainly won’t be able to. Since I’ve been in Madrid, the mobility of my ideas is such that it alarms me. I remember that you laughed a lot at me when I told you that in Orbajosa I woke up sometimes religious and other times unbelieving. Well, here, there are days when I wake up with the most cheerful and angelic democratic illusions you can imagine, and the next day I’m struck by such authoritarian sentiments that I feel like looking at the stick of absolutism as a blessing. I have my mornings of popular enthusiasm, in which I believe we should give the plebs all rights so they can govern themselves and do their holy will, and mornings when my fellow citizens appear to me to be the most ungovernable and devious troop in the world. This lack of self-possession undoubtedly stems from the atmosphere of feverish controversy in which we live, from the rapidity with which events and phenomena of a contrasting nature follow one another. Our society is in the making. We are in the midst of a state of geological formation. The masses of the political planet are partly soft, partly entirely liquid; here there are too many currents of water, there too much fire. Well, listen to another observation: I have mornings, and if you like, afternoons or nights, when I feel a real desire to read a lot and educate myself, and expand the sphere of my knowledge as much as possible. The sun sets, or the sun rises, and you already have me thinking that the greatest folly is to become addicted to books, and the most bothersome of indigestions is erudition. It occurs to me that the only science worthy of the human soul is to live, love, socialize, observe the facts, leaf through and review the great book of existence. Anything else is a waste of time, the task of professors whose paid job is to extract previous knowledge to give it to children in digestible doses. I don’t want to tell you anything about my intermittent religiosity or disbelief, which borders on atheism. We’re at it again as before. But there’s more, dear X, and it’s that even in matters of morality I have my whims. There are days when I fall like a fool for principles, and I can’t conceive that we can even breathe without them, and other times I see and feel that principles are superfluous, that only forms have value. Nothing, nothing: we live in a world that’s either undone or in the making; that we are either the great demolishers or the great architects of a society. For on the emotional level, that impressionability that has earned me so much censure and mockery about you has also worsened instead of being corrected. I won’t forget how much it made you laugh at this facility of mine to fall madly in love with some random woman, barely seen and met. True, the excitement doesn’t last long; but I recognize that it’s extremely dangerous. The case has repeated itself these days, not only with regard to my cousin—here, the matter is somewhat more serious—but with lesser-known people . I omit the account of my sudden conflagrations to avoid your mockery. Some time ago you recommended mental work to me, not exactly erudition, but literary labor, and I see that in your last letter you insist on the prescription, as a rule of discipline against versatility and suddenness. No one can dislodge you from this, and you maintain that I am above all a man of imagination, and that only in the field of artistic work can I establish anything. What nonsense you come up with! I imagine, I who have spent five years doing accounts, ordering papers, destroying lies and clarifying rights! The aptitude I revealed then for practical arithmetic and for the vulgar details of life; the patience of a laborious insect that I then displayed, prove my ineptitude for higher enterprises. He who works in the dark like a woodworm, does not know how to soar to the clouds like an eagle. If I were to attempt what you recommend, you would see what miserable and sickly offspring would come from such a sterile father. And on to something else. Two nights ago I had a very interesting conversation with Augusta. It seemed to me that she herself had sought it out, with the utmost skill, as one seeks and provokes an explanation. She asked me I don’t know what… we were alone in her house… I answered her what seemed appropriate to me, and she discreetly passed around a sort of review of almost all the people who usually make up her circle. When we arrived at Malibrán, she lowered her voice, as if revealing a secret, and said to me: “I must warn you that Cornelio is a very devious and secretive person, and we must be careful with him.” When I told her I felt the same way, she added: “Personally, he hasn’t played any tricks on me; but I know things about him, through hearsay, that paint a picture of him in my own eyes.” This brief monograph, delivered with an accent of profound truth, consoled me greatly. It was like a satisfaction, and I was grateful for it with all my heart. At that moment, the little phrases I had prepared days before to throw in his face if a favorable opportunity presented itself, vanished from my mind . And even if I had remembered them, I wouldn’t have uttered them. What was it? You’ll guess. A skillful and gallant declaration, with a touch of hypocrisy. I had thought of saying to her: “Augusta, I aspire to be the first of your friends, nothing more than a friend; but the first. And if one day God wants you to love someone, even a little, I ask for immediate promotion, that is, to move from the first place of friendship to the rank of love.” I was very satisfied with this subtlety. For you must know that after the conversation I have described, that woman inspired such respect in me that I would not have dared to cross the line for anything related to this position. And there was even something that kept me further within the realm of propriety, because she spoke to me about her husband, apropos of a matter I will discuss in due course; and she praised him with such sincerity and extolled his great qualities that I unashamedly admired this exalted demonstration of conjugal affection. She ended by saying to me: “Neither you nor anyone who does not treat him with the greatest intimacy can know how good Thomas is. He is like an inexhaustible mine, and the deeper one delves into it, the more gold one finds.” You see her reputation for honesty, and what is said about her nobility of character, how she practices charity and all the virtues. Well, fame falls short. Believe it or not, she has no equal, and this society does not deserve it.” She said it with such enthusiasm that it astonished me, my friend X. The impression I gained from this conversation was highly favorable to Cisneros’s daughter . She presented herself to me as a being who is offended only by the suspicion of impurity, and toward whom we should not and cannot feel anything but a delicate and chivalrous deference. And how pretty she was that afternoon! It then turned into night, for if I saw her at first in the light of twilight, soon her face and elegant dress appeared vividly illuminated by the artificial light. The dress was silk, white striped on turquoise, and I will never forget her indolent posture on one of those soft pieces of furniture called poufs, her body twisted so that at times she presented her face, side, and knees toward me. She bent her arms in a way that seemed to twist them around her body, and in a change of attitude I saw a hand, with a bracelet on the wrist, sticking out from behind her back. I’m not exaggerating. Don’t think that this loose flexibility I’m painting to you betrays a lack of elegance or dignity. It’s just that… you see… I don’t know how to tell you. There is no woman who, like my cousin, sometimes seems so made of pieces badly joined together. nor a figure that is further dismantled, to be composed and adjusted later in terms that are extremely graceful. The task you asked me to describe Orozco’s house to you, with everything in it, form and substance, adding a sketch of the various types who frequent it, I cannot fulfill in this letter. Do you know what time it is, my son? Midnight. Six pages are already filled with my scribbles, and I am saving the remaining two so as not to spoil you and cure you of bad habits. Sleep if you can, for I am going to bed and go dream of the spiritual beauties of the _Rectification of Electoral Lists_. Happy amendment, and who could have persuaded me to propose and support you!… Chapter 11. _December 15._ What do you want me to write to you about today, animal? Come on, make up your mind quickly, because if you insist I send you the photograph of Orozco’s house, you’ll deprive yourself of another gift I have prepared for you, a real treat that will taste like heaven. Can’t you guess what it is? Fool, my speech supporting the famous amendment. Come on, I’ll bet my head that, between recounting that great parliamentary event and painting a family, you’ll have to opt for the former, since a speech like mine is something new in the history of the world, and God knows when we’ll see another one. You already know the meaning of the amendment, which was only a pretext for my launch. Nothing could be more convenient for a facile little essay. You prepare well; you reach an agreement with the individual on the Commission who will respond, and this connivance allows for a lucid rectification. Despite my well-disposed attitude, my fear was such that minutes before beginning I would have given my investiture as a deputy to be free of such agonizing uncertainty. The thought that I would soon have to stand up in front of so many joking people and start speaking gave me goosebumps. “How will my voice sound here,” I said to myself, filled with perplexity, “and how will I move these cursed arms, I don’t know what use they’re going to be?” In vain did I try to console myself, thinking that most of those who speak there do so quite badly, without anyone being shocked by their lack of oratorical skills, and that it is necessary to go to the height of extravagance and buffoonery to stand out and provoke laughter. When the fatal moment arrived and I heard the President’s voice granting me the floor, I felt like running away, saying: “I haven’t asked for a word, and I don’t need one at all.” Nevertheless, I stood up with a burst of firmness, sustained by the idea of honor, like someone about to fight; And looking I don’t know where, and moving my arms I don’t know how, I said that my situation at that moment was extremely difficult, and then I don’t know what else, and… another thing! that I wasn’t going to make a speech. After an anguished moment, during which I thought I noticed a certain curiosity on the faces of those near me, it seemed to me that my introduction fell upon the Chamber amidst the greatest indifference. It was everything I could have hoped for; and this, far from discouraging me, gave me a certain poise. But the word rebelled against me. The concepts I had studied became tangled, and the thread of syntax became so tangled that I had to cut it repeatedly in order to continue. I noticed that many of the founding fathers took up their hats and left. So much the better: the fewer who came to hear me, the more freely I would be able to move about. There I strung together my arguments as God had given me to understand. See the lecture: “I do not bring any new ideas to this debate; I bring a profound conviction, I bring the rectitude of my intentions, I bring a firm desire for the general good, I bring… I do not remember well what else I brought. If I do not bring conviction to your mind, blame it on my lack of oratorical skills, not on the idea I support; a patriotic idea, gentlemen; a just idea, a practical idea.” But, no matter how much I tried to give warmth to my accent, I did not detect any signs of conviction on any face, nor even that they gave importance to what I said. My voice could not have been heard from a regular distance, Because at first they told me to be louder, and I had to strain my voice. Since my worthy companions, except for the friends who surrounded me, preferred to hear me from the corridors, I turned to the stenographers so that they could get the speech straight and not miss a syllable. I also occasionally slapped my hand on the desk to express my indignation at the rogue article I wanted to amend. During breaks, and when I refreshed my throat with a sip of water and wine, the friends behind me would say: “You’re doing very well, very well.” And I, wanting to finish, would turn around surreptitiously to consult them. “How badly I’m doing! What a pain I’m putting myself through!” The kindness of those loyal colleagues enveloped me, for comfort, in clouds of incense. Behind me, this phrase echoed incessantly: “Admirable… but very good…” Finally, my friends showered me with kindness by saying: “Just finish now; round it off, round it off… Enough, enough now…” Indeed, I had already said the whole point and was repeating myself. But I couldn’t come up with a graceful conclusion. The one I had thought of escaped from my mind and climbed onto the ceiling, and no matter how hard I looked up, I couldn’t grasp it. Finally, X in my soul, stumbling and confusedly remembering that my forgotten end was a matter for the homeland, seized on this idea, like a swimmer who, enveloped in waves, seizes on a pole to hold on to, and I came out… I came out saying that the amendment could not be rejected without giving the homeland a slap in the face. No, it wasn’t like that: I said that… well, I don’t know what I said; I only know that I sat down and that everyone at my side and behind me congratulated me effusively, shaking my hand. “Very well, very well. If you practice a little, you’ll be a great orator. You were deliberate, very deliberate, and forceful.” The member of the Commission who answered me made his introduction by congratulating me and congratulating Congress on the gallant demonstration I had made of my oratorical abilities, and immediately afterward refuted my extremely eloquent speech, saying that I had expounded with extraordinary talent and astonishing erudition an inadmissible theory. He showered me with praise, calling me his “particular friend” and “one of the most conspicuous personalities in the Chamber.” I corrected myself, as agreed, and was much more serene and alert in my correction than in my speech; I returned his praises with interest. We exchanged incense for a long time, both agreeing that we were very great orators and that we were inflamed with the most ardent patriotism. I withdrew my amendment and went back to life. In the corridors, everyone congratulated me warmly, even those who had left their seats as soon as I began to speak. “You were very good… I didn’t hear your whole speech because I had to leave… Gosh, some good explanations…! You have great talents, and it’s a shame you don’t exercise them… Very well, my friend Infante… Come, give me a hug. They’ve told me you were absolutely right and very logical, above all, very logical.” » Without paying much attention to this praise, which I have lavished a thousand times on various fake Demosthenes, I went to the Diario de las Sesiones to correct my speech, or rather, to rewrite it, and I left it as smooth as silk, so clear and with such rounded syntax that if one day I feel like reading it, I will have to say: “Mascarita, I don’t know you.” In all the ministerial newspapers, and even in those of the opposition, you will read that I have revealed uncommon oratorical skills. The news has taken me by complete surprise; but I assure you that I will not fall into this trap that flattery sets for my vanity. I still believe that I did very badly, and that the only eloquence I should cultivate is that of silence. My cousin did not go to the podium because I was careful to deceive her regarding the date of my debut. Under no circumstances did I want her to hear me, fearful that her presence would make me lose my footing. But he has taken the insult I gave to his curiosity so badly that he refuses to forgive me. Last night, when everyone in his house was congratulating me, he insisted on spoiling my success, claiming to know, through a ministerial, that I did not say anything. more than vulgarities; that my movements were clumsy and awkward, and that the few who were willing to listen to me fell asleep… With these jokes she bombarded me all night, and I noticed in her something of anger or spite for not having heard my speech. Since I have her back in the pen of my pen, I am going to relate to you some of her particularities so that, from this hiding place where you are, you may know her and see her as clearly as I see and know her . I don’t know if I have already told you, and if I have, I will repeat it now, because it is very important, that my cousin is quite different from the ideas and tastes of her blessed father. She resembles him in that she always tends to sacrifice truth to wit and to scorn the dictates of common sense, preferring originality to certainty, and placing humor above all ideas of justice. But beyond this, there is nothing in common between daughter and father. Augusta professes an almost African hatred for fifteenth-century paintings , and makes amusing spoken and even drawn caricatures of them. When the mood strikes her, she takes a pencil and, with a few strokes, parodies those rigid saints, with their afflicted faces, their hands like palmettes, their impossible postures, their hard cloths, those architectural backgrounds lacking perspective or proportion, those crude animals like those painted by children. She says that she would set aside two dozen paintings from her father’s collection, and would tear the rest to bits, if human stupidity didn’t give her a conventional price. Even when it comes to good painting, she allows herself bold exceptions: she maintains, without fear of Malibrán’s fuss, that she is bored by paintings of saints, by the lack of variety in the subjects, the affectation of the idea, the conventionalism of the compositions, which are like a refrain that has been heard hundreds of times. She flaunts, whenever appropriate, her iconoclastic doctrines on matters of art; she likes to be seen alone defending the originality of her opinions against all comers, and she declares herself an ardent supporter of modern painting, asserting that she prefers a good, vivid, and intentional little genre painting, a good, realistic and juicy study, to the vaunted masterpieces of religious painting. Of what we call classic, she likes a portrait by Moro more than all the celestial visions of Fra Angelico, and a glimpse of any figure by Velázquez more than all of Raphael. This somewhat affected independence of taste would have caused her some trouble with her father, had she not taken care to tone it down with him. She conceals it, therefore, out of respect and affection; but with her friends she lectures on heterodoxy—and what a lecture, Equisillo! In Orozco’s house, the ideas of its ingenious owner are clearly represented, and apart from two or three anonymous portraits attributed to Pantoja, and a Murillo Malibrán said to be Tobar, there isn’t a single antique painting in it, not even enough to spare a remedy. There you’ll see nothing but fresh, brand-new paintings by good hands, signed by García Ramos, Jiménez Aranda, Mélida, Martín Rico, Domínguez, Román Ribera, Sala, Beruete, Plasencia, and many others; Andalusian or Madrid scenes, gypsy types, military and maritime scenes, very elegant heads, Parisian groups, majas, and also very beautiful landscapes, exact images of Nature. Having previously declared myself without any authority, and acknowledging my ignorance, I declare to you, with the rudeness of a brute, that I am much more entertained by my cousin’s collection than by Cisneros’s. I must add a profile to the figure, telling you that she is very passionate about the Louis XV style and Baroque as a decorative art. She owns countless expensive pots and pans, cornucopias, and very beautiful gilt-carved frames. It is true that Louis XV has no possible substitute for the decoration of elegant salons; but Augusta goes to extremes in her preference, pretending not to understand the beauty of Arabic ornamentation , detesting Gothic, and maintaining that everything Greek is very good for cemeteries. I have something else to tell you, which would be like an extension of these ideas and tastes of my cousin in a field very far from the artistic; but the I’ll save this for a better occasion, and I’ll finish this by saying goodnight to you. Ah! I forgot a profile; but I promise to start my next one with it. Chapter 12. December 16. I’ll get to what I left off yesterday. Another of the great differences between father and daughter is that Cisneros has a great fondness for Castile, and loves the classical country, where the secular tree of the race to which it belongs takes root , the motherland author of the language we speak, teacher and nurturer of our true nature, while Augusta professes a mortal hatred for that land and its countrymen. They say that when she was a child and her father took her to Tordehumos, she became so sad that they took her away from there with the beginnings of jaundice. If you even try to stretch her tongue, she’ll give you caricature-like descriptions of that venerable and exhausted land ; of the adobe villages, more suitable for inhabitation by vermin than men; of the fields that are frozen in winter and seem like tinder in summer; of the food that reeks of linseed oil; of the houses heated with straw smoke; of the sadness of the race, which is reflected even in popular entertainment. And you must note that in that so hated and despised country, the criticizing woman has part of her property. There are hundreds of men there who, burdened by usury, taxes, and poverty, and heroically struggling with an impoverished soil and a hellish climate, work like slaves so that she can live comfortably in Madrid, without caring about the cost of wresting her treasures from the earth. She claims that when she goes on trips, she is glad that the Northern Express passes through that unpleasant region at night, to escape the sorrow of seeing her. My uncle is not like that. He always speaks of Castile with great praise, and assures me that everything good we have comes from there; but this love for his native soil is purely platonic, for the good Cisneros has not contributed anything there for many years, and his relations with his country are purely administrative and epistolary, directed toward punctually collecting his income and buying up all the properties that are sold, their owners having succumbed to the clutches of usury. Frankly, this lack of communication between the proprietor and the land gives me a very bad feeling. I have spoken with Cisneros about this, and he agrees with me that the flood must come; “only,” he adds, “since I believe it is still quite far off and will not catch me, I am not bothering myself about it, and I am living as best I can, gathering the materials so that my successors can make an ark, if they can and know how to make one.” Come with me now, daring youth, into Augusta’s house. Do you want me to tell you about Orozco? He’s a man of great worth, yes; but acknowledging his merits, I haven’t fully understood him yet. And I warn you that opinion about him isn’t as unanimous as you think. It’s true that unanimous opinions, in the favorable sense, never exist here . In a society so gossipy, so polemical, and where everyone feels humiliated if they don’t hold, both in public and private conversation, a different opinion from everyone else, reputations are very rare, and they always tend to falter and collapse like contracted bridges built without a solid foundation. There’s a lack of great unity. The independence of judgment, widespread throughout the race like a perpetual fashion, and the individualism of thought, lead to great insecurity in various walks of life. There’s a lack of intellectual and moral discipline. We’re too free, we tend to be autonomous, and thus we can’t create anything stable. For nations to function well, there must be many who sacrifice their ideas to the ideas of others, and here no one sacrifices himself: each one of us thinks he knows everything. From this derives the great illness, friend X, that is, the invincible antipathy of the race towards reputations. It does not like them because they tend to create unity, and here unity is like a cursed plant, which we all trample underfoot so that it does not prosper. Whenever the phenomenon of a reputation appears, when the facts and opinions that are beginning to take shape, we are all already restless, looking for the buts we must put in it so that it does not take root. In the moral, literary, and political spheres, reputations grow with difficulty, like a stunted tree covered in warts and eaten by insects. If you walk through the world, you will hear the incessant noise of the laborious Termes, which drills and devours the strongest trunks. Malice, seasoned with wit, is pleasing and tasty to our palates, and you will never hear a person praised for being honest, intelligent, or for any other quality, without that immortal and traditional Uncle Paco immediately coming along with his implacable put-downs. The put-downs are sometimes cruelly funny. Many dispute them or deny them; But almost everyone laughs at them, and even if someone questions them, the fact is that they are given free rein and circulate, like well-secured fiduciary currency. And you might say: what’s all this about, Mr. Nutcase? And I answer that he’s even nuttier, and that this is just reasoning to support what I told you about Orozco, that man so praised by various apologists, including you. Well, just so you know, at the Casino and at the Peña de los Ingenieros, where I spend some time at night, I’ve heard that much-vaunted honesty and rectitude put to the test. It’s true that what ‘s said there no one would sustain in a serious discussion. They speak, as is customary here, for the luxury and sybaritism of conversation, for the pleasure of producing astonishment in their listeners, to throw a spicy delicacy into the mouths of spoiled curiosity, without believing what is being reported, and with the intention of taking it back and denying it, if necessary. Needless to say, what I heard has not changed my opinion about your idol. In Augusta’s social gathering, truth be told, we are no better than in other centers of entertainment and pleasant sociability. We talk our heads off and criticize everything that exists. Only from the master of the house have I never heard any unfavorable opinion about anyone. His prudence is a dissonance there. On the other hand, Cisneros, who comes almost every night to play his tresillo, has promulgated a law to which all of us who are more or less politically inclined are subject. “Here, it is not permitted, under any circumstances or pretext, to speak well of the government, regardless of its status.” That house is one of the few in the social order characterized by reasonable and entirely unfettered opulence. A discreet luxury reigns there , never crossing the line between comfort and the pleasure of friends; a luxury that, once it reaches the borders of dissipation, stops and never goes any further. You know Orozco from the superficial interaction he establishes on the street or in meeting places. You don’t know his house; you’ve never entered that magnificent main house on Santo Domingo Hill, and I’m glad, because I can introduce you and guide you, pointing out whatever suits me best. There you will admire the highest degree of development of the wealthy and well-educated bourgeoisie, which has known how to assimilate that part of aristocratic customs convenient to its interests, and demanded by its political or economic position. There you will find all the foreign element recently introduced into the way of eating, speaking, and dressing, and you will be surprised to see it harmonized with the Spanish sobriety, the order and calm of our old middle class, prior to the confiscation of church property. Going back to the origins, we find that the lineage of our friend Orozco is not very illustrious. His grandfather made a moderate fortune in petty commerce. His father got rich, they say, with shady businesses, among them that insurance company, La Humanitaria, which in its collapse left behind a trail of misfortunes, tears, and despair. The current Orozco is not responsible for his father’s actions; but it seems to me that his fortune, given the quality of the materials that formed it twenty years ago, weighs heavily on his conscience. I base my belief on the face he makes when people talk to him about La Humanitaria. I won’t say that It may be annoying to be so rich; but it seems to me that he would be very pleased if they proved to him now, something a little difficult, that Don José Orozco had forged his wealth in purer molds. Husband and wife abhor ostentation, and he has never been given to such nonsense as sport. Balls—as far as I’ve heard, there have only been two there in the six years they’ve been married. Dinners— there are usually two or three solemn ones a year. Ordinarily, they don’t exceed six or eight covers. Carriages—with a hired landau and a sedan— are very well spent. Trips—the routine summer ones, with the occasional stretch to Germany, Belgium, or Switzerland. My cousin spends a lot on rags , but never as much as she could; so that not even this item, so dangerous elsewhere, upsets the order of such a well-run house . There aren’t really any receptions there; but quite a few friends, almost all of them trusted, come to the house at night. Shortly after attending the gathering, I noticed that there exists within it a faction or party in which politicking is practiced, and gossip is made lightly, sometimes viciously, about any person who has the misfortune to tire the public voice by repeating their name. Needless to say, my godfather Cisneros is the leader of this fearsome faction. Jacinto Villalonga, whom you know perhaps better than I do, is a pleasant man, a professional debater, completely lacking in moral compass when it comes to politics, which is his passion and his way of life. Otherwise , he is very ordinary, very helpful, a great friend to his friends, always in disagreement, and always pretending and scheming. He is the type of the “friendly scoundrel” who is so abundant here. He considers the State as his own, and if he can deprive it of anything, he does so without hesitation, with a conscience as clear as a child’s. At the same time, incapable of taking away the value of a pin from the individual. The poor State is the eternal victim. And he says that if the day after Villalonga has done one of his things, you go to him and ask for a favor, he ‘ll give you everything he has, even his shirt if he has nothing else. Do you see his morals? We’re like that in Spain. He’s getting old now, and it seems he wants to settle down. He’s eager to be noticed, after having stopped in every tent in the camp and served in every army. Now he’s eager to be made a senator for life, as a retirement from his campaigns and a rest from his odysseys. I assure you, he’s incredibly funny when he tells us about the senate and the hardships he endures. On the same side, you have the former minister I introduced you to in one of my previous letters, and a high-ranking Cuban employee, now out of work, who talks nothing but shady dealings overseas. They say a good tailor is one who knows his stuff. Aguado, that’s his name, seems to me to be an old teacher, and his desire to return there doesn’t fit well with the horrors he tells us about. Augusta calls him the “Ultramarine Cato.” His Catonism is of such quality that when I hear it, I feel like putting a couple of Civil Guards in his hands and my pocket. I’ll tell you about others who tend to join the slanderous party if they excel in what I’m telling you. There you’ll see the girl from San Salomó some nights, already quite worn out, but always pretty, slashing with her tongue anyone she meets. She boasts of understanding politics; but from her explanations you can’t deduce whether she’s a furious Carlist or a frenzied anarchist. Leaving aside the gang of devourers, I’ll keep track of those who attend with more or less assiduity. The noble Marquis of Cicero never misses a night , a serious and detached man, of a modesty that I will never tire of praising. He practices the _nosce te ipsum_ so literally that he never allows himself the attempt to formulate an idea of his own. He always speaks with the ideas of others, the only way to make himself tolerable. The Count of Monte Cármenes is also quite punctual, a pleasant and peaceful man, very rich. From his wealth and his good money has come the optimistic philosophy that he professes with such wit. No one He has never seen him restless or anxious about anything: he finds everything fine, perfectly fine. You might believe that friend Pangloss, compared to him, is a gloomy character. Go ahead. Do you know Trujillo, the banker, and his wife, Teresita Trujillo? Surely you don’t. She comes every other night , accompanied by her husband, or by her son Pepe, an artillery officer, very handsome, who plays tresillo divinely. She is a most amiable lady, cheerful as few, talkative to the point of hoarseness, and has a true passion for famous crimes. Another who is never missing is Don Manuel Pez, who is accustomed to speaking thoughtfully and pompously about public affairs. I go almost every night. Less assiduous, but also constant, is your friend Federico Viera, of whose amenity, grace, and conversational talents I won’t tell you anything because you know him very well. And the most punctual, the infallible, is my hated rival Malibrán, an expert in the fine arts, in fashion, in foreign politics, and above all in women, for he pretends to be a Tenorio, and when he brings up the famous list of his triumphs, no one can stand him. I swear that if I ever convince myself that this brilliant fool is succeeding, as it seems his intention is, in stealing the free will of my beloved cousin, we’re going to have a tragedy here. I still need to point out another of my fixed points: Calderón de la Barca, a relative, I don’t know to what degree, of Mrs. Cisneros, and I even believe he’s mine as well. Orozco and his wife regard him as family. He is a widower, with few means of fortune, and the father of a very pretty little girl, who is almost always at home, and with whom my cousin, lacking children of her own, mothers him daily until she has left him with plenty to spare. Calderón ‘s trust in the Orozco household has something of a parasitic quality about it: he almost always eats there, and I believe Tomás employs him in his administration so as not to see him idle and to give him an appearance of dignity. He’s a very simple man, a good-natured fellow, but with such a wild and boastful imagination that he might tell you the most stupendous lies with the utmost formality, and… Look, kid, I’m really tired; I’m sending you this one to keep you entertained, and I’ll continue tomorrow. You mustn’t overdo it, and my burning my eyebrows to amuse you has its limits. Good night. Chapter 13. December 17. Well, I was saying that this Calderón deals you the biggest loads human imagination can muster, and he’s still so fresh. The best thing is that he doesn’t knowingly lie , because he wholeheartedly believes everything he says. I laugh with him more than you can imagine. The other day he insisted to me that a mysterious industrialist from Madrid has established, under the secret patronage of high-ranking figures, the strangest business imaginable. Ca n’t you guess? Well, the business consists of large-scale racketeering by means of hearses, a few men dressed as priests, and some big women disguised as Sisters of Charity. He gave such details that he seemed to be in on the act and in the know. I warn you that in all the extravaganzas Calderón tells you , there is always a high-ranking figure: this cannot be lacking. An aunt of this type, and also of Augusta’s on her mother’s side, is Doña Serafina Calderón, a respectable lady, much loved by the whole family, and especially by the Orozco couple. I never saw her in the house at night, and for a month now she hasn’t been there during the day either, because she is suffering from a very serious chest condition, and they say she will die soon. Since Augusta has taken to spending the afternoons with her sick aunt, I feel very alone at Retiro and Castellana streets, and I offer a humble prayer to the Almighty that the lady may recover, or at least be relieved. But the Almighty pays no attention to me, and my cousin doesn’t go for a walk. You will understand that, apart from the tantrums I have as if I were in unrequited love, I regularly spend time at Orozco’s house. There we have billiards, tresillo, bezigue, and some nights music, to my great joy. Augusta plays the piano very well, and would be an accomplished teacher if she studied something more. I assure you that when I hear her, I am transported. to seventh heaven. The devourers of the famous faction led by my godfather, although they pretend to humanize themselves with the acquaintances of Beethoven, Liszt, and Chopin, do not leave their victims alone. There, they dissect the issues that emerge, brought to us by the press, or by that other spoken journalism (sotto voce) that dares not express itself in print. There are benign nights when the axes only tip the branches; but on other occasions, dear X, the sturdiest trunks fall with a roar and fury. You would think they were all possessed by an egalitarian vertigo, a terroristic and guillotining fury, eager to establish the level of level ground for moral matters. For several nights the mysterious crime on Baño Street was discussed. You’ve probably read something about this in the press, and I needn’t tell you that the popular rumor that very high influences ensured the murderers’ impunity prevailed, with a wealth of logical foundations . Then came the issue of the scandalous embezzlement of the Debt. The innocence of the unfortunates in prison was proven , and the guilt of So-and-so and So-and-so, very well-known people. You’ll also hear there that in a very prominent social circle, Cuban credentials are valued as if they were amortizable 4-note bonds. This matter of overseas immorality, Holy Mary! is the longest leash of all. There are some stories that are undoubtedly accurate; but they add such horrors that I refuse to believe them. In the criticism of colonial affairs, the leading voice is that Aguado I told you about before, who spent three years there and brought back, they say, half the island. Well, the things this guy spills are more to be heard and kept quiet than reported. You’ll understand that there, considering the situation, it’s commonplace to say _this is going to go away, this won’t last three months, this is falling apart from pure corruption_, etc. And perhaps some very silly questions are asked. “Hey, addressing me, what about that minister who wants to leave because the Council won’t approve his appointment as director in favor of X?…” Throw in a very discredited name here . Rare is the night when someone in the group doesn’t bring news of this kind: “At today’s Council, they threw things at each other… They say they’re shooting in this or that place… The revolutionaries are thrilled.” Every controversy God can muster is started there. Villalonga, putting on airs of being a man of order and a minister, although it may seem untrue, sometimes defends the Government; But Aguado, furious that they won’t send him back, rushes into battle, sword in hand. His tongue is horribly deadly. “The President of the Council tells nothing but lies, and he deceives anyone he catches like a Chinese.” Another day he assures us he has reliable information that two ministers have quarreled over a matter of skirts; that those two are at each other’s throats… Cisneros bathes in rose-colored waters, and although he always treats these matters in a spiritual manner, and complains about Villalonga’s accommodating ministerialism, as well as Aguado’s furious and blind opposition , he is no less caustic in his conclusions. When he drops by there, Augusta usually defends the Government for setting them against each other, and also stings Cato Ultramarine to see him become a basilisk, venom spewing from his tongue and eyes. As for the ex-minister, he pretends to take it as a joke; But he puts his two cents in, throwing out little jabs, for he is uneasy about the situation, although he hides it. He says he goes to the group to find out news. Sometimes he denies them lukewarmly, sometimes with a warmth that actually reinforces them. Returning to my cousin, I’ll tell you something that will make you laugh. She has great natural talent, not well cultivated. You already know that she was educated in France, that she lost her mother when she was very young, and that she was married off very young. Her intelligence has cultivated itself; she displays, as I have already told you, a haughty and reckless independence in her judgments, and nothing displeases her more than to find herself with an opinion that others accept. A few nights ago she declared that she cannot bear Spanish literature, from Moratín inclusive backward, and she told us that, apart from Don Quixote, she has never been able to read three consecutive pages of any author in prose or verse, mystic or secular; that she finds cloak-and-dagger theater atrociously antipathetic, whether read or seen; that the much-vaunted mystics, not excluding Saint Teresa, are only good as narcotics in cases of rebellious insomnia; that she tried several times to read the story of Mariana, and that it has always given her a migraine; that the ballads and poems of ancient fable remind her too much of her bleak and austere homeland of Campos, since they are the same thing put into words, the icy, dry climate and the sterile soil… In short, in literature she is also a rabid iconoclast, and that she should be given nothing but modern Spanish literature, and even more so French. Regarding French, she likes everything from the last century; But it doesn’t go any further, and even the pimps Molière and Racine strike her as intolerably insipid. From this radical opinion arose a very lively dispute between her and Federico Viera. You already know Federico’s character; his wit, which would be most fruitful if he cultivated it; you know that he never settles for half measures; that in his likes and dislikes he verges on fury, and that his boundless pride replaces, in him as in many others, the energy of conviction to sustain any idea. I’ll add that of Orozco’s friends, not counting Calderón and me, Federico is the one he trusts most in the house, since his friendship with Tomás goes back a long way. Augusta quarrels with him whenever there is an opportunity, contradicting him with a certain emphasis, looking for ways to turn him around, and mercilessly sneering at his quixotic tendencies. He takes his friend’s iconoclastic furies seriously , and she exaggerates them to exalt him. I don’t know how long that delightful discussion lasted, during which my cousin allowed himself the liberty to say to him: “But what a fool you are…! You want us to believe you’ve read the poem of the Cid. You wouldn’t have such a bright complexion.” And he: “Yes: you say that out of a desire for originality, and I don’t deny that you look very pretty sustaining such nonsense…” I sympathize more and more with this poor Viera every day; and if I didn’t like him so much for being good and loyal, I would like him for being unlucky. Speaking of him, I have something to tell you that will interest you. Boring, you simpleton. God save you from falling into the camp of the devourers or the blanket-wasters. Chapter 14. December 20. The opinion you give me in your letter regarding my cousin does not seem to me to be true. Is it perhaps based on information of mine given rashly and when I had not made the appropriate observations? Well, I retract it, dear Equis. I swallow everything you’ve written, and now, knowing things and people better, I want to remove those malicious judgments from your mind. Believe it: Agustina is good; she loves her husband with the utmost tenderness. Her emotional aspirations are fulfilled, and nothing in her reveals that she suffers from restlessness of the soul, nor from curiosity comparable to that of navigating geographers who seek worlds better than those they know. I notice in her the tranquility of someone content in their own world and who doesn’t search with anxious gaze for what lies beyond the horizon. I can already hear you say: “This fool comes to me every day with a different refrain… and the worst part is that he expects all these ideas to be accepted , the varied fruit of his fertile impressionability.” I admit, Master, that I vary my tune too often. The thing is that I don’t cling to opinions, nor do I have the stupid vanity of consistent judgment. I observe loyally, I rectify when necessary, I remove and replace what reality commands me to remove and replace, gradually revealing itself, and I pursue objective truth, sacrificing subjective truth, which is usually a false idol fabricated by our thoughts to be worshipped in effigy. Laugh at me; but accept the version I send you today, which is the official one, the true one. I tell you it is honest, and if you deny it, man of little faith, we will see each other face to face. And yet, X of a thousand demons, here I am, sinning, here I am. Unable to overcome the diabolical intention that has been born within me, and which, after long hesitation, has manifested itself positively. See if I am dominated by the infernal influence, and believing it is not a breeding ground for evil, I am inclined to follow your satanic advice. Obstacles instill in us temerity, and dangers excite us more than confidence. No, there is no easy victory there, as you maintain; but counting on resistance, perhaps prompted by resistance itself, I will soon break the ice. We, the descendants of Adam’s lord, are very cunning. We carry evil in our nature, and culture has given us a perfidious and pharisaical philosophy to justify it. Society, with daily and persuasive examples, encourages us to pursue this philosophy, and if you don’t believe it, there ‘s my godfather, the traditional Cisneros, who constantly repeats to me his famous prescription, the result of profound sociological knowledge: “Manolo, don’t be an idiot. Make love without any hesitation to the wives of all your friends.” The affection of the honorable and loyal Orozco still gives me some trouble in this infernal campaign, which has not yet left the nebulous sphere of my intention. Ah! In my own will, I have already outraged the peerless man, model of nobility and rectitude. But, as I told you before, the fertile century in which we live gives us a very convenient philosophy with which to remedy these disasters of conscience. There are so many similar cases! If I were the first to alter the moral law! If I were to introduce this fashion of honorable husbands, mocked and scorned! Not a thousand times. I haven’t restored society to what it is today; I haven’t reformed the Decalogue, reducing gross sins to the category of venial sins; I haven’t accepted the amendments to the fundamental law, which turn it into a dead letter. I arrive and find things as others left them, and I’m not supposed to be a reformer or a Protestant. You tell me something that puts me even more on the line. You say I should knock and I ‘ll get an answer. I’ll knock, my son, even though I seriously doubt they’ll answer. I’m like the one who, without knowing a word of the subject, went to the exam, saying: “I’m going to run the risk of being passed.” That’s what I say: “I’ll knock: I’m going to run the risk of being opened.” And if they don’t open it? For now, I won’t tell you anything about that. I’ll save it for when I have to tell you about success or failure. And let’s get to the information you’ve asked me for so many times about poor Federico Viera. He told me again yesterday that he had written to you, and now I really believe he has. Don’t bear him ill will for his delay in answering your letters. It doesn’t mean he’s forgotten you, but rather that he’s half-deranged with the thousand things swirling around in his head. The problem of life for him, due to his mischievous fate and the constant obstacles of his character, is very difficult to solve. I believe he will reach old age turning over this problem without ever resolving it. I know some such people, and I consider them the most pitiable beings. Federico Viera is one of the most intelligent men I believe exists in Spain. Perhaps because he has such a great and somewhat incomplete understanding, as well as because of the quixotic emphasis on some moral qualities and the lack of others, he is bound to constantly fail. What a pity! I know few men here more sympathetic and with such charming demeanor. I can tell you for myself that I truly esteem him and that I am trying to improve his adverse fate. But it seems to me that we will not make a career out of him. He complains of fate, the joker of all those who make a mistake in life! But I am beginning to believe that in this case fate exists, and that Federico does not advance because he is hindered by some insurmountable inner force, and also by external circumstances beyond his control. He is past thirty, and finds himself without a career, without the means of fortune, incapable of fulfilling a position, since he lacks the legal qualifications to obtain it, and it is not a matter of him starting as a fifth officer. He abhors politics, without considering that it is the only a practicable door that opens before him. We have had lively arguments about this. “Politics, I tell him, may be as immoral as you like. It will have its flaws like all things; but it is a means, and it must be accepted as such when there are no others. It is a kind of protectionism, a system of charity that the country exercises to provide employment for those who have been left without a place in the distribution of social positions. It is like a branch of Providence; and if it did not exist, the disasters that would be caused would be much greater than the much vaunted and evident damage now attributed to it.” In the end, it seemed to me that I had convinced him; but the difficulty lies in getting him into politics. If we succeeded, imagine how he would shine. I know no one with greater oratorical powers. His few journalistic essays also reveal an extraordinary aptitude for the case. He possesses, like no one else, that rapid insight, that precious faculty of seeing the convenient and opportune side of issues, abandoning all others. Well, none of this will help him unless he has the passion, the ambitious itch that others, lacking in aptitude, have in abundance. For my part, I’m trying to push him, and I’ve been desperate these past few days to get him a seat in some partial election; but I haven’t been able to. Our friend is harmed by his father’s name, which is the greatest of his misfortunes. The same goes for Viera, who gives rise to the image of that most solemn scoundrel, whose sad reputation remains in Madrid, even though he himself lives outside of Spain. This is Federico’s fate, the perverse destiny that will make him miserable and unhappy his entire life; for even if he were to overcome the drawbacks of the dishonorable name he bears, he will never shake off the evil shadow his father cast over him with the perverse upbringing he gave him. This boy has ruined himself because his father never knew how to be one, nor did he have the authority over him to guide him and make him a man. Federico’s childhood and youth coincided with the era in which Joaquín Viera was spending his own and others’ money, caring nothing for his son. He was raised to be an aristocrat; he acquired needs, the kind with which humankind is identified, and which become part of humankind itself; he became accustomed to indulgence, dissipation, luxury, generosity, and the vices that splendor breeds and that cannot be separated from it. Although his lively imagination did not disdain reading, he never studied anything formally, nor did he apply himself to any scientific or literary career. Disaster struck, and the man who had been raised a gentleman found himself a laborer. It was too late to stem the consequences of this neglect. The poor boy was still harboring illusions for some time, aspiring to launch I know not what industrial ventures. Smoke and nonsense. What he and his poor sister have endured cannot be briefly described. You know full well that he bears his misfortune with admirable stoicism and conceals his misery with exquisite art. No one who sees and deals with him will suspect the processions that go on within. He dresses well and with that easy elegance that is a quality more than a habit. Out of habit and spiritual necessity, he frequents what we barbarously call ” the great world,” and knows how to distinguish himself in it, being well received everywhere and greatly missed in his absences. It seems to me that at the present time, despite the fact that you have known him quite a bit, you do not know him as well as I do. With you, he was always reserved; with me, he displays spontaneous attitudes that no one has yet deserved . From friendship, we have gradually become familiar, and he tells me some details of his past life, and even of his present, that are extremely interesting. I remember hearing you say that you never entered his house; I have, and I know his sister. There is much to discuss on this subject; we will go slowly so as not to confuse each other. If I have deserved from Viera invaluable confidences and revelations, there are still hidden secrets in his life that I have not been able to unfold. He is a man who never opens up completely. I respect his little secrets, and I do not consider it prudent or delicate to force the treasure chest of discretion in which he lives. He keeps them. His fondness for gambling is no secret, nor is it that this vice is his only practical way of getting by in life… an extremely eventful life, imagine! But I warn you that it’s not possible to walk with more dignity in such vile dealings. His degradations are not visible to those of us who deal with him publicly. He gets by there with his vice and makes what he can, without anything being revealed in ordinary life. I have allowed myself to speak to him about this, urging him to live differently, and he replies with bitter sadness that it cannot be, that he is already accustomed to this agonizing system, and that he finds no way to abandon it. I have tried to plumb the abyss of his financial situation, even going so far as to propose a decent way to regularize his budget; but he refuses to accept it. He has confessed to me that his debts are enormous, and that only with a stroke of luck, with one of those favorable gusts of wind that amass capital in brief moments, could he get back on his feet. And no one can erase this fixed and monomaniacal idea from his head. He is so delicate that outside of the more or less decent dens where fortune prevails, you will see nothing in him that indicates moral degradation. No one, absolutely no one, among our many friends, can boast that Viera has ripped him off, big or small. He’d rather burst than beg. I don’t know how he manages, or what breed of usurious marten supplies him with what he needs when times are tough. I assure you, this man inspires me with compassion, and sometimes I start to wonder what I could do to help him without hurting him. There must be a lot of his paper out there, in black and rapacious hands, which must surely be constantly declining in value. But no matter how hard I press him for information on this, I get nothing but vagueness and evasions from him. He is a friend of Cisneros, who greatly appreciates him and often invites him to dinner to have him as a listener and admirer; he is also a friend of Orozco, who, I know, would protect him if he allowed himself to be protected, and he devises, like me, delicate and indirect methods to favor him. Federico’s father was, in his prosperous days, a crony of Orozco’s father, and the two of them, so people say, hatched that trap of La Humanitaria that swept away the savings of a generation. Don José Orozco is no more; Joaquín Viera is on the run abroad, engaged in shady dealings; and if he ever shows up here, he will come sword in hand against his son’s friends. Consider, Christian soul , this racial anomaly, and see how such worthy children have been born to perverse parents, each in his own way. I must add that Orozco, whether due to traditions of friendship or for some other reason I cannot fathom, has incredible deference for that Viera, Sr., scion; and not only has he allowed himself to be wounded more than once by the tremendous smackdown of the great petardist, but on one occasion he saved him from a shameful trial. Federico is very grateful to Orozco and holds him in as much esteem as the most enthusiastic, like you, for example. And in reciprocation of these feelings, Augusta and her husband consider and entertain him, although she spares no thought, above all, to benevolently censure his incorrect way of life. More than once they have asked me to devise a way to improve the situation of Viera and his sister by negotiating diplomatically with him, without hurting his fragile sensibilities. We have discussed the means without finding a practical solution. Both have naively deplored the fact that a man of such good character, such a gentleman, so well-suited to a dignified and honorable life, should debase himself by seeking an infamous wage in the crime rooms . I regret it too; we all grieve; but I see no way to avoid it. And that’s enough for today. About that, good impressions. I’ll tell you about them another day. Chapter 15. December 22. About that, good impressions, boy; but only impressions, suspicions, hunches. I warn you that I am very distracted from my parliamentary duties, and surely the offended country will ask I’m fully aware of this neglect her father has left her with. Days go by without me setting foot in that stuffy, turbulent house, and I don’t care whether they call us to vote or not. They call the sections, they send me the candidacies, and they matter to me as much as the fleas that are currently biting the Emperor of China. I pretend that one vote less or more won’t change the hazardous course of the little boat of politics. Some afternoons, just so they don’t tell, I stick my nose in there, I’m amazed at what’s happened during my absence, I assure you that I had already planned everything, I pretend to be keenly interested in the day’s issue and the intrigues boiling in the corridors; and at the hour when the atmosphere begins to heat up, I glance back at the living room from behind the back barrier; I learn in the blink of an eye the state of the struggle, so I can answer the questions with which they will shoot me that night at Orozco’s house, and I slip away beautifully. A secretary tries to cut me off: “Hey, there’s going to be a vote!” And I say: “I’ll be back.” I grab my coat and hit the street. I go to the Retiro or Castellana, lovingly following my ungrateful Filis. In the tumult of the promenade, I think I hear the big bell of the Chamber calling for a vote, and my conscience is slightly disturbed by the abandonment of my mandate. What can we do? The countless matters of the district also await better times, and you should have seen the piles of letters I have here, already open and half-read, but unanswered. I haven’t even been able to compose the list of nonsense that these greedy beggars have heaped on me in recent weeks. It’ll be done, and let the devil take the fall. By all means, the little angels ask for nothing . If you run into those impertinent brutes, and they complain that I don’t write to them, tell them whatever comes to mind, for example, that I don’t write because, of course, I need it all the time to manage. That’s what they want, for one to burn one’s guts and work one’s guts out, from ministry to ministry, becoming the servant of their ambitions and the instrument of their vile envies. You’ll tell them that, according to your authentic information, I live without living in myself to serve them and please them, that I’m their slave, and they can go to hell . Let’s agree that there are good impressions, and then quit. You won’t get another syllable out of me, and if you insist that I sing before my time, I’ll treat you like my constituents. And I’ll continue with Federico. His house, his private life, his unknown sister, have aroused your curiosity, and I am going to satisfy it. Few have penetrated the lion’s cave until today, and I believe Viera has given me the greatest proof of friendship and trust by allowing me to visit him. I have been there five times. He lives at the bottom of Lope de Vega Street, near Fúcar Street, a hidden and eccentric place, where one does not go without having to go. The house is good; the second floor has a mezzanine. You arrive, pull the bell, and it doesn’t make any sense; you keep pulling it harder and harder, until finally you hear the lazy echo of a bell or a doorbell that rings reluctantly inside. Then you hear footsteps, and the creaking of the copper plate on the window tells you that someone is watching you through the gaps. A voice asks you: “Who is it?” and you answer; they tell you he’s not there; you insist, saying that the gentleman is waiting for you, and you give your name. Don’t think they’ll let you in right away. There’s a pause. You hear the women whispering inside. They’re coming and going as if in a consulting room. Meanwhile, if you look closely at the gaps in the little window, you see some dark eyes gleaming between them, examining you. The consulting room continues inside. You hear footsteps moving away, footsteps approaching the door. Finally , the bolt clicks, _trucu trucu_, and the door opens tentatively. A poorly dressed and even more poorly combed young woman says to you: “Come in.” You take her for a maid; but later you learn that she is Clotilde, Federico’s sister . This visit to the beast’s cave can only be made between It’s 3:05 in the afternoon, the hour our friend gets up, with rare exceptions. I went one day at 2:00 and saw him having lunch between the sheets, in front of him a legless table, appropriate for the extravagant practice of eating in bed. On it and on the nightstand were two or three French volumes, some with pages torn out by a finger. Lunch was served by that young woman and a lanky, large woman who came and went carrying a child in her arms. The bedroom is a beautiful room with a fireplace, which you’ll always see lit when it’s not too hot. In this room, as in the study and sitting room that precede it, you can see some fine furniture, remnants of Joaquín Viera’s former home, and others of the most ordinary and vulgar kind. Cleanliness is not lacking; but the lack of resources shines more than the tidiness. You can imagine the appearance of a dwelling where nothing that breaks is fixed, where repairing objects has never been known. A nail that falls, or a leg that breaks, or a corner that comes loose, or a splinter that rises, or metal that tarnishes, or porcelain that chips—thus they remain _per sæcula sæculorum_. I have said that there are some good pieces of furniture; but anything of value for sale, be it a painting, a vase, a tapestry, or a bronze, you will not see it. Clotilde Viera is pretty, although, beauty for beauty, her brother has a great advantage. Well dressed, she would look like so many others. Federico introduced her to me timidly, as if ashamed of the servant-like appearance her shabby clothes give her. The girl is refined and discreet; but she seems overwhelmed, and in her timidity, her awareness of her social degradation is immediately evident . She fears making herself ridiculous by playing a role unbecoming of the obscure position she currently occupies in the world. The poor thing must be dressed just like that, because the only time I saw her in the street, she was excessively modest, although it is evident that she would know how to be elegant if she could. I remember now that Augusta was surprised that Federico did not present his sister to society. When this is mentioned to our friend, he puts on a pitiful face, and dissimulation is of no use to him to conceal his bitterness. The first day I entered his house, the sadness of his face revealed to me that he knew the negative effect his sister had had on me; and to dispel this bad impression, I praised her highly when he was not present. But my hyperbole, instead of lessening Federico’s grief, seemed to increase it, and I changed the conversation. The day I saw him eating breakfast in bed, I observed that he carried himself well. The unfortunate man cannot do without certain gifts to which he has been accustomed since childhood. He made some revelations to me about those women . The one who came and went with the brat in her arms bears the burden of domestic management. Her name is Claudia and she is married to the tobacconist on the Rue de Fúcar. She served for many years in the house of Federico’s parents, and she is so devoted to the two young gentlemen that she refused to abandon them in their misfortune. She cooks very well, knows how to manage a house, and if she hadn’t burdened herself with a family, she would be invaluable as a housekeeper. Another of the domestics, sister of the previous one, is called Barbara, and is the wife of a postal worker. When her husband is away, she stays at Federico’s house and helps her sister with the kitchen chores and the care of the children. The third is a cousin of both of them and has come from the village in search of accommodation. At night, according to what Viera told me, the tobacconist and all his offspring, the street vendor, and two or three other people gather there to eat . I told him that this system of charity would be very nice as an act of mercy, but that it could not help but unsettle his budget; and he replied that he did not have the heart to expel anyone who took refuge in it; that his house, in the good days of the Vieras, had been a sheltered shop; that preserving this tradition was one of the few pleasures of his life, and, finally, that his finances would not be improved by the miserable economy of taking food away from those unfortunate people. “I feel strong enough,” he added, “for any disproportionate or even heroic action; but I don’t have the strength to break a routine.” I saw him wash and dress. He spends a considerable amount of time doing this, and he is careful with his person to the point of prolixity, habits of a rich man that are also incorrigible. Witnessing this complex operation one of these evenings, I thought of his poor sister. At least he lives in the evenings in the environment that corresponds to him, frequents society, where the affection of friends compensates to a certain extent for the sadness of his private life. Society, by this means, gives him something of what he deserves, in exchange for what fate and his perverse education have taken from him; but that poor young woman, what compensation has she for her miserable state? Is it not a pain for her to live among servants and common people, debasing her manners and degrading her tastes? I imagined the unhappy girl contenting herself with that kind of vulgar life, no longer desiring a better one; I pictured her on friendly terms with the tobacconist and the street vendor’s wife, eating with them and with that whole crowd of low-class freeloaders who invaded the house. And when I thought about this, I remembered what I’d heard Cisneros and Orozco say about Federico’s mother. She was a lady of exemplary virtue, born into a noble family of the Trastamaras and Gravelinas, very dignified, very strict in her morals, very refined in her tastes and manners. Her exquisite education cloaked the rigidity of her immense pride in seductive ways. She suffered the greatest humiliation with the wicked conduct and the debasement of her husband, whom she loved. She became ill with grief and perhaps shame. She adored her two children and made the mistake of not raising them for poverty, which she didn’t even understand. As I tell you, I thought of the unfortunate lady and the face she would make if she were to rise again and see her daughter in that state, with that indecorous, miserable, and vulgar life. But I didn’t dare say anything about this to Federico, and I saved it for a more appropriate time. Come, you’re satisfied now. Here are the reports you wanted from your friend and that you’ve asked me for so many times. This letter will make you sad; but what can I do? The truth rarely has a sunny face! Chapter 16. December 26. How tiresome you are with your demand that I tell you something about my campaign, and how I set up the parallels to surrender a fortress so well armed and defended! Since I don’t like to impress myself with feigned feats, I’ll tell you that I followed the vulgar tactics, because I couldn’t think of any other. that my infatuation has gone through and continues to go through the usual procedures of gallantry within reach of all hearts, and that I am what the rules accredited by success advise for these cases: discreetly obsequious, punctual in encounters, tender in my gaze, deliberate in my speech, sad to the point of jaundice when the case requires it, and skillful enough to pass myself off on certain occasions as the most unfortunate being under the sun. These preliminaries must end soon, under penalty of falling into ridicule. I see an untenable situation coming if I do not soon exchange the weapons of sentimentality for those of daring. Regarding her, what shall I tell you? You already know the general thesis that no woman, even if she is the very embodiment of honesty and chastity, dislikes being gossiped about. So, the differences consist in whether or not you reciprocate, or, to use a figure, the boundaries that separate Heaven from Hell. I dare not boast of victory, nor give up prematurely. There are days when I seem to sense in the square an excessive pleasure at seeing itself worthy of such a determined siege; other times I believe the opposite, and I suspect that it is feigning indifference with the mischievous idea of letting me approach its sturdy walls and burst into flames in a sudden and vigorous sally. Anyway, my boy, allow me to be reserved and not show my cards. Frankly, I am starting to fear you. And you won’t deny that you are frightened by the moral degradation that these attacks imply. My attempts. It’s just that one does everything, friend X, and one’s conscience, lulled by social pleasures, which overlap so beautifully that they give us no respite, grows drowsy and ends up falling asleep. No more. Hush. I will tell you, yes, about someone related to this, about the good Orozco, because certain things I’ve heard about him have restored my spirits and silenced my scruples. Ah! The society in which we live offers us at every moment an abundance of narcotic material to chloroform the conscience and be able to operate on it without pain. I’ll tell you: these past few nights I’ve heard people speak of your idol in terms very different from that flattering opinion you and I have of him. It seemed as if so many different tongues had conspired to strip that man of his credit, the brilliant halo that is the principal obstacle to my campaign, something like a tutelary deity that protects the plaza more than the strength of its walls. I don’t know if I’ve told you that I hang around the Casino some afternoons and evenings. I amuse myself listening to anecdotes told by two or three experts in other people’s lives who hold their offices there, the most delightful and entertaining social circle you can imagine. I had never heard of the family with whom I have so many ties. Two nights ago, I don’t know how the conversation turned to Orozco, and someone who paints himself as only the one who is called there, “bringing spirits,” said of our friend that he is the greatest hypocrite God has ever given to the world. “He doesn’t fool anyone anymore,” he added, “with that cape of perfection he wears. Son of such and such a father, of the famous founder and liquidator of La Humanitaria, he couldn’t turn out to be good.” Another person began to defend Orozco, asserting that in his treatise on honesty he was not and could not be challenged; that what the previous speaker had said had no basis; but… These buts are formidable, and upon hearing it, I began to tremble. That foul-mouthed man came to say that Orozco has no merit whatsoever. “I deny the hypocrisy, and I affirm that he is a man of good faith and very limited means. I have been assured that every night, after the social gathering ends, Tomás locks himself in his room and spends a couple of hours on his knees, praying and beating himself with some kind of whip.” General laughter erupted. I immediately went to confront this nonsense, flatly denying it, without even realizing its falsity; for what do I know about what Orozco does in the privacy of his home, after we friends have retired? Someone sided with me, and a very lively argument ensued , without crossing the boundaries of civility. As in these cases everyone enjoys rolling the snowball so that it grows larger, someone jumped in saying that while Tomás is rolling his back raw, his wife is crying from loneliness and despair. Another one blurted out that marriage is a major hubbub because he wants his wife to avoid opening her salons to anyone, or giving meals, or entertaining, or dressing elegantly. On this subject, the other guy painted a terrifying picture of jealousy and domestic squabbles. In short, from absurdity to absurdity, the conclusion was reached that nothing is known, and that such things are said simply to please the scumbag. What would casinos be like if there weren’t gambling and gossip in them? The most talkative ones acknowledged that if something strange happens in marital intimacy , it can’t be known, since neither partner has to tell the tale. I denied it completely; some agreed with me, and the gentlemen moved on to another matter: they took the whole skin off Saint Solomon’s head , like Saint Bartholomew’s, and then they kept chipping away at it until the time came for the parade. Strictly speaking, I didn’t believe the nonsense I heard; but I confess that I left there feeling badly impressed and thoughtful. But it wasn’t just sorrow I felt, no. I’m opening my conscience to show you everything that’s in it. Seeing Orozco’s figure degraded and mocked gave me a certain perverse pleasure. His reputation and respectability bothered me, just as a thief who intends to rob the monstrance is bothered by the consecrated Form that shines in its center. I wasn’t going against the form, but against gold and stones. I was glad, then, that someone had taken away my fear of the host, making me believe it wasn’t God or anything worth it. Well, there’s more . These things never happen in isolation. Some nights, late in the day, I drop by the Peña de los Ingenieros, a very modest and pleasant circle, located in a main building on Cedaceros Street . I have a number of friends there who are also yours: the boys from Minas, with whom I lived in Orbajosa, and others from Caminos, all very well-behaved people. This gathering originates from a corner of Suizo Street, where it was located years ago, and having grown considerably, it had to settle into its own premises. There’s no luxury there, no gambling, no billiards, no games other than tresillo, newspapers and politics, lots of politics. Naturally, from time to time a private, juicy, and lively matter comes up, and you can imagine how eagerly they indulge in it. Well, last night, with what I heard at the Casino barely out of my mind , I was talking with two engineers about the Albarracín railroad, and I heard a nearby group mention Augusta. I paid attention, and look, brunette, what I feared… They were discussing whether she was honorable or not. The majority, more out of skepticism than anything else, were leaning toward the negative. I approached, throwing my opinion into the middle of the group, and recommending prudence in judgments about women. At this point, a rather elderly gentleman, very respectable to me, allowed himself to be told that he voted resolutely with the accusers, and that he had proof to support him. Prompted to expound, he went off on a tangent and twisted the issue, talking about women in general, about how fond they are of practicing their devotions in two-door churches, with many other amusing and gossipy things that I won’t share with you so as not to make this letter too long. That, as you can understand, tasted like hell to me, and I couldn’t rest until I found a way to exchange a short paragraph with the slanderous fellow; who, without beating around the bush or making a secret of his information, told me what I’m copying here almost verbatim: “Well, yes, my friend: I saw her two or three nights, early in the morning, around my neighborhood, leaving a house that I won’t say is bad, but it’s not one that people of such quality honestly frequent. Her reserved bearing, her way of walking and looking for a siren, gave me the whiff of crime in my nose. I’m an old dog, and through my long experience I’ve acquired a very keen nose for tracking down certain burrows. We boys aren’t scared of anything, my friend Infante, and it’s good that you get used to viewing the most common social phenomena with serenity, losing the childish habit of “it can’t be.” Erase those three words from your books, they are the most foolish and useless we use… I mean, I never use them for anything that’s physically possible. I replied that my cousin’s visits to that house could very well be innocent, and he argued with me, smiling: “My darling, there’s no seamstress, no lacemaker, no fine ironer living on that estate. And this isn’t to say that bad people live there. I know the doormen, and they’re the quietest couple in the world… But I see you’re a little uneasy. No, I won’t say another word that might hurt you.” On the contrary, I will reverse the course I had given to your suspicions, telling you that perhaps your cousin is making these visits for charitable purposes. Well, look here: now I realize that this may very well be the case, and that I was mistaken in the judgment I formed at first… It is unlikely that these charitable visits are made in a carriage, even though she has her own; but let’s admit it… Why shouldn’t we admit it, determined as we are to prevent a reputation from being unfoundedly tarnished? Above all, let’s establish the hypothesis of a charitable purpose, and thus we will relieve our conscience of the responsibility of a rash judgment… The man’s sarcastic reservations bothered me almost more than his instructions. accusing, and I didn’t insist; but I felt the wave of anger rising within me, and I was afraid of making myself ridiculous by coming to the quixotic defense of a woman who was neither my wife nor my sister. I contented myself with stating sternly that the motive for those visits couldn’t be bad, and the old man, recognizing this, told me very apt things about the danger of putting one’s hand in the fire for any troublesome fact; and the rascal did it with such grace, such paternal sweetness, and handling me so gallantly, that he disarmed me, and I ended by noticing in his words a sudden radiance that allowed me to see… But what, was it perhaps true? I was so stunned when I left him that I didn’t ask him what neighborhoods those were, or on what street he had seen my cousin. I try hard to distort the revelation, but I can’t succeed. The importance and gravity of the case grow ever greater in my eyes, when I try to narrow them down with the resources of that forensic logic that serves to defend lawsuits, but not to calm the anxieties and suspicions of our minds. I can’t stop thinking about this, Equisillo. What do you think? Are you of the school of my godfather Cisneros, and you say: “As if I saw it, as if I saw it?” Do you think I should ask her herself, begging her to remove this cruel doubt? Ah! Not that: I would deny it, if it were true; and if it weren’t, I would seriously offend her. Should I follow her steps and stalk her, looking for ways to turn her around? No, you won’t advise me to do such spying, unworthy of a gentleman… Console me, man; tell me that all this is my own rumination, malice, or the mistake of the elderly informer. Tell me that, you brute, standing there looking at me like a statue of cold reason… But instead of consoling me, you ask me if I love her or despise her, if this discovery extinguishes the furnaces of my passion or ignites them more. What does logic order? Logic, that great, meddlesome, boastful twerp, will order whatever it wants; but the fact is that as soon as doubts have arisen, and since I erased that woman from the list of earthly angels… look at how things are… it seems to me that I’m even more crazy about her. Chapter 17. January 2. Arnica, come on, arnica, dear X, because I haven’t received a setback like this since I’ve had a skull. And thank goodness that, with the force of the blow, I didn’t lose consciousness and can tell you about the terrible accident, and describe my confusion, my sorrow, my spite, my rage… I can already see you dying of laughter, and saying that I ‘ve well deserved it for my depravity, for my immorality, for my… The devil be upon you. I accept the reprimand. We are, indeed, scoundrels, the men of this little century, although, if we examine the damned history, we will see that our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were just as rascals as we are, right up to the Lord of Adam; and if what they say about transformism is true, I will add that the ape-man and the ape-woman were just as much as we were . For ape women, this one. And how much that very cunning, underhanded, ungrateful woman has made me suffer !… But let’s take it one step at a time. Have I told you that on Christmas Eve we had dinner at the home of Orozco, Malibrán, Calderón, Villalonga, Viera, Cicero, and I? Well, look, I won’t tell you about it now either, because, although some details of that dinner are connected with my catastrophe, they are long to relate, and their importance is not in relation to the great space they would take up. Let’s get to the main point. I proposed yesterday, January 1st: I thought I was inaugurating a year of delights, and it worked… or rather, I left with my hands on my head. You see… We were alone in his house, in the most propitious situation in the world. Don’t think I was swayed or that I did or said anything of those things that make one look ridiculous in the event of a refusal. I took every kind of precaution against the excesses of sentimentality; I guarded against brutality, without depriving the weapon of daring of the important role it plays in such battles; I was pathetic and daring, oh, X of my entrails! chivalrous and reckless, all in the a rational and just measure… And yet, she rejected me across the board, and I had to capitulate ignominiously. I confide the disaster to you without any hesitation, and I demand that you throw all the compassion your great soul is capable of at me, because… Look, your friend has a hole in his helmet through which his brains can be seen… This is called falling flat on his face. My dear child, it was of no use to me how well-prepared my plan of attack was, nor how clearly my passion was visible on my face… Still, when I remember that firmness, that dry austerity of my little cousin, my flesh trembles. I have never seen myself in any other position. There was her regretting having paid attention to my flirtations, believing them to be innocent and purely formulaic, just as the world and the tolerant morality of our days authorize; there was her expressing her mistake about me; There she accuses me of gravely insulting her and her husband, who showers me with attention and favors; and I’ll tell you no more. Ah! She did not invoke the so-called eternal principles; but, although she did not invoke them, she proceeded in accordance with those very great hi de tal… In short, she left me glued to the wall, and, what is worse, without hope of later obtaining the success that I have not been able to achieve now. Here I am, then, staunching with one hand the blood that trickles from my forehead, and pressing my heart with the other… because, I’ll tell you everything to make you laugh more… after the blow with the blow, and upon returning from the dizziness it produced in me, she found my desire to possess her and to be her lover more lively and poignant. Her beauty, her talent, her large mouth, which is the source from which all the wealth of human grace flows; Her persuasive eyes, which look at you penetratingly, now darting toward you, now withdrawing into I know not what mysterious distrust; her supple figure, her elegant dress, seem to me now even more enchanting. And if you could see with what grace she herself healed my terrible wound, praising to me the sweetness of respectful friendship! This is a joke. What remedy is there but to conform and accept the slovenly principles! But our infamous nature rebels against them whenever they do not lend themselves to satisfying its whims, from which I deduce, in accordance with the Holy Fathers, my lords, that we humans are an indecent race, and that it was well deserved to be thrown into the uncontrolled boxes of Paradise, handed over to the very filthy Satan, so that he could tempt and ruin us, and drag us down to the depths of hell. And now the great question arises again: Is she honorable or not? Laugh at my impressionability all you want; but listen to what I’m thinking. Once again, she appears to me to possess the characteristics of the purest virtue, and everything I suspected of her seems unworthy, and what I heard told me is malicious and absurd nonsense. I’m telling you all the phenomena that are happening in my soul, because you are my confessor and I must hide nothing from you. Allow me to analyze a little. Could it be that now, because of the slight, I’m truly in love, and see nothing in the being who fascinates me but perfections? Before, perhaps I didn’t truly love her; I was driven toward her by a whim, the willfulness of a young man of the century, who, out of routine or fashion, doesn’t want to be less depraved than his contemporaries of his class. It was like a rehearsal for life, conforming to the current canon. But now… now… It seems to me you’re bursting with laughter, and I don’t want to go on. Well, even if you laugh: here is your friend, a haggard romantic, idealizing the object of his passion, and soaring, with her in his arms, to infinite spaces; seeing her reflected in himself, with all the attributes of supernatural beauty, and adorned with the most sublime qualities. I won’t hide from you that I’m making futile efforts to return to reality. The idea has planted itself in my mind that she is purity itself; and remembering that I thoughtlessly erased her from the template of earthly seraphim, I hasten to inscribe her again in very bold letters: “She’s an angel!” Yes, I can see from here. Your skeptical little smile; but I don’t care. What I will tell you is that her celestial hierarchy is precisely what most encourages me to solicit her. And since I feel no vocation to become an angel myself , my wickedness aspires to take a place in the Satanic ranks and harass the cherub once again with my pretensions, until I tire her out, surrender her, conquer her, and make her my lady. Nothing flatters human instincts as keenly as bringing an angel from heaven to earth, which is equivalent to stealing the celestial essence. We are all a bit of Prometheus, my friend X, or we try to be. Do you understand what I’m saying? For the same reason that my beloved cousin has placed herself on a pedestal of virtue, I want to tear her from it, lose her, and lose myself, both of us lowering ourselves, arm in arm, into the hollows of that hell where true lovers, whatever one may say, must have a wonderful time, burning inside and out. Anyway, I’m excited, and you’re starting to get worried about this illness of mine. Calm down, man, and listen to me otherwise. Politics is a balm for minor spiritual disturbances. Is it also a balm for serious disorders? I don’t know; we’ll test it: I must seek in politics the exhaustion of this superabundance of spiritual vitality. Starting tomorrow, I’ll plant myself in the red seats, and I’ll talk about whatever comes to mind, turning Rome and Santiago into a mess, and I ‘ll stand up to the government, to the institutions, and… everyone on their heads: I intend to undermine the social foundations, as they say in ministerial language. I’m furious; I need revenge. On whom? On the great principles… may the worm eat them away… You’ll see, you’ll see the brawls I’ll start there every day. My reputation as an anarchist, a demolition man, and an oil man will soon reach you. The pickaxe, the famous pickaxe and the incendiary torch are the gadgets I’ll be using… Incidentally, today I had lunch with Cisneros, and although I didn’t pay much attention to him because all my thoughts were focused on my bitter sorrow, I seemed to agree with all the atrocities he spewed from that charming mouth. He’s the most talented man in Spain. We’ve agreed to transform society and turn everything upside down. Let there be other laws, another form of property ownership, another morality, another religion, other customs, another race, another way of dressing, even if it’s naked, another language, and let there be, finally, another planet, this one no longer serves us. You’ll think I’m signing this in Leganés; but no: I’m signing and dating it in my room at the Hotel de Roma, at four in the morning, after a terrible night, and determined not to go to bed because I know I won’t sleep. The beautiful, austere image never leaves my mind, with all her divine and human grace, crowned with that honesty I admire and long to shatter. I look at her like an altar saint, not dressed in severe cloths, but in the elegant attire of the latest fashion. She is an angel who has given herself to the dressmakers. Oh, what a tempting virtue! Not being able to crush her in an embrace, not being able to squeeze her like one squeezes a flower… If I don’t restrain myself, my friend, I’ll be out throwing stones through those streets. Don’t fall in love, Xs, don’t fall in love; dedicate yourself in that land, with evil intentions, to the Galateas in yellow slips. And if someone tells you that beneath all those rags lies honesty, renounce the vanities of the world and become a priest. Chapter 18. January 6. Well
, man, well: I’ll vary the tune. I believe, like you, that this will reassure me. This afternoon I went to see Federico. I had the intention of confiding my sorrow to him; but then I recovered from this weakness and left. I certainly observed things there that amused me. When I came in around two o’clock, our friend had just woken up and had asked for lunch. To function more freely, Claudia, after breastfeeding the baby, placed him well covered in Federico’s bed. He threw back the covers and said to me: “Look what I have here.” We both laughed a lot, and even more when the little one woke up and turned into a Viera. to play with him, tickling him, and letting his beard be tugged by the tender infant’s delicate hands. But you should have seen it when they placed the legless table on the bed, and Claudia and Clotilde began to serve lunch. No sooner had they smelled it than four bedroom canaries, Claudia’s children, came bounding in, the eldest about six years old, the youngest about two, and twittering and chirping, gathered around the edges of the bed. One hopped up onto the pillows, touching Federico’s head with its paws; another perched on his feet. Their mother scolded them, calling them insolent and scoundrels; but she didn’t take them away. Federico, taking turns to eat everything he was eating, handed them out with a fork, saying: “Now you… No more… Formality, and everyone will try.” The nursing baby, who was between the sheets, began to howl with all that commotion, and Clotilde had to pick him up in her arms. The little angel, red-faced and apoplectic, his fists clenched and his tears streaming down his face, screamed so loudly that he had to be carried out. His brothers were more amiable. Federico had to thrash them around, but they didn’t take offense. By the end of lunch, the bed was as if a cavalry regiment had passed over it. Viera couldn’t stop them from taking the books he had there, nor from the eldest examining them, spelling out the titles, nor from the youngest tearing out some pages casually . Claudia carried them away with no small effort, and they went back inside, and it was a triumph to get them out again. All afternoon we heard the sound of their uproar in the kitchen. To my observations about the patience with which he tolerates easily avoided annoyances, Federico replied with the “what does it matter?” he always uses to excuse himself for his neglect. I notice in him an indifference akin to resignation. His melancholy surrounds a certain intellectual laziness, as if, cowed by his bad luck and feeling incapable of fighting it, he surrendered to it without complaint. The conversation we had about this while he was dressing led us to discuss his sister, who has inspired me with such pity since I saw her. I risked criticizing, with the tact necessary to avoid hurting him, the neglect in which he has her. Why doesn’t he introduce her to society? Why doesn’t he incline her to the company of her equals, freeing her from the contact of uneducated people, ennobling her life, and trying to provide her with a good match? To this he replied, with cold bitterness, that such had been his intentions; but that he had renounced them because of his own sister’s resistance. The family’s ruin caught Clotilde in her transition from girl to womanhood. Terrible days of hardship began, and the poor young woman, raised in luxurious schools, found herself deprived of even the bare necessities, unable to meet with her closest friends. From those days date her sullen withdrawal and her taste for insignificance and obscurity. It wasn’t long before she adjusted to the boredom her misfortune imposed , devoting herself to caring for her brother. And although he made incredible efforts to place her, at least apparently, in different living conditions, he encountered greater resistance every day. Little by little, the poor girl grew attached to the maids in whose company she was constantly; she eventually lost all interest in dressing well, and her delicate tastes became dulled until they ended in slovenliness. Her brother’s “whatever” infected her like a family diathesis; She was unable to maintain the refined and meticulous personal care that he retains amidst his indolence. She grew accustomed to the untidy manners and uncultivated language of those Tarascas, and has ended up eating with them, looking after Claudia’s children, and only feeling good in such company. These familiarities with low-class people have influenced her character to such an extent that she is hardly aware of her personal merit. She is somewhat savage: when I go there, she flees like a doe, avoids my conversation as much as she can, and if she must speak to me, I notice that she is inhibited and as if afraid of not speaking to me. express herself well. Poor child! I assure you she inspires compassion in me. Her intelligent and timid look is one of those you never forget. To my suggestions on this subject, Frederick replied thus: “Today, to forcibly separate her from these women would be cruel, because she holds them in immense affection. It is true that she has lost her manners; it is true that her tastes have become coarse, and that her person has been debased; but what can I do? I am poor. I cannot struggle with my infamous destiny. Onward, and to the end, if this has any end. ”
I pointed out to him that his sister is at the age when love springs forth from the least expected place, and it was well worth his while to look with interest at such a delicate matter. He shrugged his shoulders and told me that he did not even suspect that Clotilde had a sweetheart or a suitor. I did not press the matter further, so as not to appear more papist than the Pope; And since we were talking about love, I don’t know why I once again felt the desire to confide my affairs, or rather, my dashed hopes, to Federico. But I also knew how to contain that second temptation of spontaneity. I was able to observe that day that this unfortunate man’s house is a dizzying jubilee. He is right in saying that the ringing of the bell produces a nervous and cardiac state in him that already constitutes a true illness. Creditors and beggars follow one another without interruption, and one of the greatest difficulties in managing that house is what we would call “door duty.” Clotilde has become accustomed to this ignoble service, and she performs it skillfully, with all the diplomatic lies that the case demands. She deceives some, sends others back next week, and cajoles most with pretty promises. There are serious usurers who always pass by and come to an understanding with Federico, who receives them in a bad mood, with a sour and harsh expression. “These fellows,” he told me one day, “must be treated like a pig’s ear, and have no consideration. That’s the way to make them serve us well. If you get enough of them, you’ll be eaten alive.” As for rip-offs, I’ve never seen such weakness as our friend’s, allowing them to be dealt. There are whiners who tell him a thousand lies, and if they catch him with money, they’ll cheat him. I advised him to be careful who he helped, and he replied: “What does it matter? These wretches have to live too. Everyone gets by as best they can. ” And the damned people are so clever that they even seem to know when he has money, so they can pounce on him like flies. He says the only pleasure in life is to give. The expressions on the faces of the beggars, the sparkle in their eyes when they get a slice of the pie, are like a vision of joy, a celestial ray that cannot be renounced by anyone who lives amidst darkness, seeing nothing but those dead faces, those masks of cultured society, which never reflect the soul’s great joys. What do you think of this? What do you think of poor Viera? It must be admitted that even if some of his faculties slumber, if his conscience slumbers, he always has a spark of dignity and self-respect wide awake, and with this kind of virtue he conceals the disasters of his private life in society. I repeat to you that I have tried to help him out of trouble, and that he covers up every breach I try to open in his susceptibility, in order to delicately smuggle in my help. Other friends who attempted the same thing have failed to subdue his pride. What a sickening impression it gives me to see him at night at Orozco’s house, at San Salomó’s, or at Trujillo’s, and to recall, while I see and hear him, the sadness of his way of life, and the pitiful sights I have seen in his house! His many friends, both men and women, although they know something of his financial difficulties, are ignorant of what I know and have seen. Some, alas! admire him. There are those who envy him. Federico is one of those men who endear themselves as soon as one comes into contact with them. His perfect education in regard to manners and outward appearances; that air of modesty, certainly not incompatible with his pride, which rather tempers it, ennobles it, transforming it from a defect into a quality; His melancholic grace in conversation; that same moral abandonment, so similar to fatigue, captivates and disarms, predisposing us to indulgence. Physically, I also have something to tell you. His face, which is a marvel of expression and mobility, is beginning to deteriorate. He seems quite anemic to me, and he will age soon. Already, some silver threads can be seen in his black beard and at his temples, and his poor color reveals an unhealthy habit of turning night into day. He assures me that he will not live long, and I believe he is not mistaken. And now it occurs to me to speak to you about Peri. You will say: “And who is Peri? And why does this fool link the name Federico with that of that woman, I don’t know if she is a woman, or a cat, or a mare?” Don’t act all virtuous and modest, saying you don’t know Peri, and don’t let anyone talk to you about any of those girls they call party girls. Hypocrite, you want me to believe that with that cloak of a seminarian or a prudish philosopher, you don’t sometimes play the fool in the bowers of Venus’s garden! But, anyway, I’ll grant you, if your prudishness persists in it, that the exalted name of Peri hasn’t reached you. Wise men are usually very far behind on news, and you certainly know more about Semiramis or Aspasia than about this contemporary of ours. I’m going to clear up your doubts and enrich your erudition regarding modern heroines. Peri… I don’t know where the hell this Peri comes from. Perhaps some ancient etymologist can explain it to you. What I know is that her name is Leonor, and that the origin of the nickname is found in the mysterious lexicon of the bronze people. I also know, without having to resort to libraries, that Leonor is gorgeous, elegant, depraved, and with a very good shadow to make one forget her laziness; a woman with exceptional talents for stunning men, and that, had she been born in France, she would have been a celebrity. Here she is not so except in purely Madrid circles and in a low voice; but her fame, without ever reaching the diffusion that print media can provide, touches the limits of popularity. She has devoured half a dozen children of families, and has devoured two or three dirty old men. She is nice, as nice as a snake with spotted skin, a flat head, and a poisonous tooth can be. And on my knees now before the confessional, I beat my chest and tell you that I too have allowed myself to be tempted by this little sister of Satan; But if I fell ill from its instantaneous poison, the cure quickly followed the sting. The fact is that we young people of this generation are purely fragile. Give me a little sermon, man; give it to me, for the love of God. By telling you that we’re young, and that there’s no greater folly than reaching old age without tasting every apple, every peach, and every fig that life’s fruit trees provide, I think I’ve answered you well, and even left you speechless. Well then: for several nights my friends and I spent some very pleasant moments at Peri’s house… Don’t be alarmed; this isn’t about sins against honesty. We were simply going to have our cards read. You’d die laughing if you came with us, because the truth is… to hell with your morality and all the tiresome packaging of your philosophy! That woman has the salt of God at reading cards, and no one more mountainous has ever been born into the world. The funny thing is that she believes all that gypsy nonsense, as if it were the Gospel. And if you could see: it seems that she really can read one’s thoughts, and that, like a fortune teller of our age of reality, she lifts the veil of the future and refutes the laws of reason. I would like to see you there, thundering severely against the cabal, and surrendering to the endearments of the pretty witch, like any other son of a neighbor. But you say: “What does that she-devil have to do with my friend Federico?” I’m going there, man; I’m going there, and don’t be so quick-tempered. Well, if appearances are to be believed, they are not lovers today; but they were when Peri entered the fray. At the present historical moment, they treat each other with familiar and honest friendship, although she has her more or less serious entanglements. Less temporary with people who support her. This I’ve heard, this I’m telling you. It’s said, and it may be true, that Federico helps her in times of hardship; it’s also said, and I doubt this, that Leonor lends her friend a helping hand when she sees him up to his neck in water. Do you believe it? Does it seem plausible to you that such a delicate and sensitive man, rebellious to the help of his friends, would accept that of a woman of such class? I reject the malignant version, which seems to me to be forged by envy or the pessimism of this society. But I’ll tell you one thing, for your government. Federico, at least with me, makes no secret of his honorable friendship with that fine girl. Yesterday we spoke about her on the street, going to Orozco’s house, where we had lunch, and he told me what I’m quoting verbatim so you can put the pieces together: “I assure you that poor Leonor is a good woman, and I don’t know a heart more noble than hers.” And enough of Fritz. You see how I’ve pleased you, writing you a letter absolutely free of all Wertherian spite. I’ve had to force myself and put dams and floodgates on the flow of my amorous troubles. Say now that I don’t know how to show due consideration to my friends, sparing them the nausea of a strong attack of sentimentality. But someday I must have to talk about my own affairs. Prepare yourself for the next one. Chapter 19. January 8. But are you joking, or what are you? You say you’re going to give my letters to the serial El Impulsor Orbajosense, hurray! the illustrated newspaper of that town, the organ of material and moral interests, etc. Do you know how funny that would be? But even if we changed the names, the joke would be so heavy that there would be no choice but to challenge you to a duel, and put the bets on that lame man who runs the stationery, who has had such a bad temper against me ever since I took the Lottery Office from him to give it to the husband of the housekeeper who raised me at her chaste breast. Enough of your teasing, Equisín; don’t irritate me, don’t tickle me with your mischievous antics; look, I’m fuming, and if I happen to explode… My God, how I’ve felt! If a flea bites me, I think I’ve been bitten by a rabid dog; if I have to close a door, I slam it so hard the whole hotel shakes; if the pen I’m writing to you pulls out a hair, bang! I smash it on the table; if I have to knock, I pull down the bell and four wire rods will get wrapped around my neck. In short, I’m a beast. I bite myself, and because I can’t stand it, I kick myself . And what happens to me is no small feat. You, with that phlegm God has given you, would be so cool. Don’t thunder against my suddenness: each one is each one. My affections tend toward amplification, and when I enjoy or suffer, it seems to me that in all the breadth of the world there’s no room for my pleasure or my martyrdom. I never get angry halfway. If I quarrel with a friend, I say goodbye to him forever. I feel like a child in my sorrows and in my joys. A slight offense becomes a mortal insult. I’m afraid of falling in love, because my will lacks balance, and I’m like a ship without ballast on a rough sea: with every tumble I seem to see the abyss yawning at my feet. Why wouldn’t I have been born in the time of the friars to join the motilón and live in sweet uniformity, without passions, without incentives, an honest little marble and an unconscious hand! If this continues, you can commend me to God. That cruel Nereid, pardon the classicism, is going to finish off your unfortunate friend. She continues with her severity, throwing every day on what she calls my whim, jugs and more jugs of frappe water, pure morality of the most tiresome and outdated kind, the kind that comes with catechism questions and answers. Sometimes I think she’s taken me as a scapegoat, to test the strength and drive of her virtue, and to show it off to the world. These virtuous women annoy me. It seems to me that they are not virtuous for the satisfaction of being so, but to win a prize in the Derby of honesty. Resistance has redoubled my desires to a point you have no idea . idea. I act excited, and nothing: bigger rejections than the first time. I act disdainful, and he immediately knows my game: rejections as big as a pine tree. I beg him to allow me to kiss his hand, a kiss of friendship, pure as a child’s caress, and he dismisses me with a disdain that stuns me. When he makes light of my pretensions, thank goodness: I bear it patiently. But when he gives me the snout of virtue, believe me, I’d hit him… Dismissed, I leave and come back with any pretext, and then he presents me with the beautiful Estefanía, like a santero presents a relic for the pious to adore. This girl is Calderón’s daughter, and Augusta almost always has her at home, and pampers and treats her as if she were her own. The little girl is very cute: husband and wife console each other with her for the pain of not having an offspring. Well, as I’m telling you, he places her in front of me, seating her on his knees, and with the most savage cruelty in the world, he says: “Kiss this one, kiss her all you want.” And I gobble her up; I kiss her so much I make her cry. I adore the saint; but what I like is the pedestal. Oh, what a pedestal! I don’t feel like writing any more tonight. Go to hell, you fool, you idiot, whom, because I live in Orbajosa, I must call “fed up with garlic.” I’m continuing what I started. There’s news, friend X, but great news. It concerns a very strange case, which, because of its quality and significance, deserves your examination. Last night I had a revelation. Do you believe in revelations? Do you believe that when we sleep, or when we find ourselves in that psychological state bordering on the borderline between sleep and wakefulness, a state in which stupidity and insight merge, a spirit can come and ingest an idea into our brain, or whisper words in our ear that are the cipher of a mysterious enigma? You certainly don’t believe it. I didn’t believe it either, but now I do: I believe in the Guardian Angel, that kind, invisible friend who watched over our cradle when we were children, and who, as men, visits us from time to time to resolve a serious problem in life, to show us a path in the intricate jungle where our uncertain will has strayed. Have you never received that supernatural breath, a revelation that, because of how clearly it appears to you, you cannot take to be the work of your own spirit, but rather the warning of someone superior and external? Well, you see: I went to bed thoughtful, with my brain full of fog. I slept I don’t know how long without dreaming anything. I woke suddenly, as if pricked by a sting; I woke with an idea that had sprung up in my mind like a lightning bolt exploding. The idea was this: “Augusta is dishonorable; Augusta has a lover.” Alas! I felt it beneath my skull, not as if thought, but as if suggested, almost heard. It amazed me to the point of believing someone was there, and of feeling the warmth of a face next to mine. I lit the light; trembling, I cast my gaze about the room. Needless to say, there was not a living soul. Call this, if you will, a cerebral phenomenon; but confess to me that the idea it produced is not my own idea, but a particle of total knowledge, come to me by means beyond my reach. We must distinguish when our brain functions _in itself_, and when it is engaged in the immense machine of universal knowledge. What? Does this seem like a subtlety to you? You cannot judge it, because you have not experienced, as I have, the indescribable shock of the celestial ray piercing the bone that encloses our mind. The reception of truth can never be confused with the emission of one’s own idea. You are unaware of the lucid enthusiasm that the phenomenon produces, the tenacious faith it ignites in our souls. I can assure you that from that moment on, my conviction was such that evidence and verification could not have produced greater results. Nor do I need testimony to believe and sustain what I maintain and believe wholeheartedly , as we affirm our own existence. Needless to say, I did not close my eyes again all night. I spent the time remembering details and bringing them to corroborate the fact, not because, in my opinion, it needed proof, but for the pure entertainment of the mind, which revels in logic as eyes revel in the clarity of a beautiful day. Oh, Equisillo! What bitter satisfaction it is to find agreement between the revealed fact and the details that came to my memory, like witnesses impatient to testify in a trial! Things that once seemed strange to me now seem the most natural thing in the world. I know you well, and because I know you, I fear that my psychologies may not make sense to you; but I don’t care. You think I’m feverish when I write this, and it’s not true. I was feverish this morning, and also part of the day, and a good part of tonight; but I have calmed down as if by magic, and I write now with relative calm. I will tell you everything that happened to me today, so that you can see how much is accomplished in a day’s time. Let’s take it slow. I had lunch alone; before and after lunch, I avoided dealing with district matters. A commission was here, having come from that filthy village to negotiate the usual reduction in taxes, and I refused to meet with them, pleading illness. I didn’t go to the Government Office, where I was called by a matter of enormous interest… for the people of Orbajosa. Imagine what it matters to me or anyone else if Don Juan Tafetán is appointed clerk of the municipal court, instead of Don Paco Cebollino, of the noble Lycurgus family ! Do you think the harmony of the cosmos will be disturbed because the Chorrillos fountain runs or stops running, or because the Valdegañanes road passes or stops passing through Don Cayetano Polentinos’s estate? Amid the disdain these local problems inspired in me, it occurred to me to pay a visit to Cisneros. I hadn’t been there for three days , and the good gentleman isn’t content to go so long without seeing me. I, too, was already missing the respite of his conversation, the healthy expansion that always inspires my spirits at home, with those quirky and original theories. Wrapped in his red dressing gown, my godfather was busy that day with his administration, working with the clerk, pulling his ears at every lapse, and always finding everything the poor boy did to be very wrong. He told me how much he enjoys organizing his accounts; he complained about the taxes; he criticized the government for not reducing them; he told me that few property owners pay the treasury as punctually as he does, and that the most painful thing is that, even though he pays so much, the state services are so awful. There’s no need to mention the municipal services. He grieves that he pays enormous taxes for his urban property, and… “Look at those streets, what bad gas, what detestable police! Do you believe that because I’m not satisfied with the security detail, I have a night watchman guarding the property?” If it weren’t so, I wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully in this neighborhood so close to the southern ones, infested with thieves.” You might ask, “What’s the point of this?” You might think it’s to point out the contradiction between Don Carlos’s eminently conservative conduct and his dissolving ideas. No, it’s not that: we’ve already agreed that my uncle’s political palingenesis is pure fanfare, a role to be recited and applauded in society. I’m telling you these things for another reason. You’ll see where the ingenious Cisneros ended up. “The happiest man,” he told me at last, “and I’m about to say the wisest in Spain, is our friend Federico Viera, who pays no taxes and lives like a prince; who has nothing to administer, never does a number, and by simply looking at a chart and seeing what comes out, he has managed to arrange his way of life. He doesn’t need any morality for the world to appreciate and pamper him, because his talent, his good looks, his education make up for everything. He eats at the tables of this man and that man, who are still grateful for accepting a position there. His creditors don’t dare bother him because they know they’d end up with worse off. He goes to every theater without buying a seat; and to top it all off, his number of wives doesn’t cost him a penny, because there will always be one among his friends who will offer him a tasty, free meal at the feast of love. Friend Viera is quite the man. I always tell him: “You are a citizen of the 21st century, of that century in which everything will be common, even women.” I heard my godfather say this, and I was stunned, like someone who has received a hard blow to the head. We had another revelation! You can laugh at me all you want, but I won’t go back on what I said. That was a superior message, a complement to the one I received at dawn, upon awakening from a deep sleep. To hear it and believe, as I believe in light, that my friend Viera is… You will have understood: the idea repels me so much that I even resist writing it down. Yes, it was quite clear. How stupid not to have understood it before! But thus, through sudden, unexpected references, the truths hidden from general knowledge are revealed to us. Chance, a voice, a quote, a name, are the ray of light that clarifies all mysteries. I was so worried that I couldn’t even find a pretext for abruptly saying goodbye to my godfather and running away. I don’t quite remember what I said, and I took off like a bat out of hell. A sudden resolution inflamed my spirit, and I had to put it into action immediately . I took a cab and drove to Federico’s house. I didn’t know how to tell him; but I did know that I had to tell him, and if I didn’t tell him, I’d burst. I found him in bed and attacked him unprepared, saying: “Federico, I have an idea to share with you; I have a question to ask you… I’ve come to you to clear up a certain doubt… No, it’s not a doubt, it’s evidence: I need you to corroborate… corroborate…” He looked at me with astonishment and fear. He had never seen me upset and agitated as I was today. His surprise made him silent for a while. I explained myself better. I’ll tell you in a few words about that conversation, which would be well worth writing down, because, frankly, it was dramatic to a fault. I didn’t mince words when I confided in him the passion that made me unhappy and the failure of my desires. He doubted that the passion was as deep as I said, and as for the fiasco, he didn’t hesitate to consider it natural. When I expressed my conviction against Augusta’s integrity , it seemed to me that his brow clouded, that my words offended him, and that he was struggling not to force me to retract it. “Your blindness,” he told me, “monomania, reasoning madness.” I couldn’t prove what I so deeply believed, and lacking arguments based on facts, I had to resort to those of my faith, which was undoubtedly incommunicable. Our conversation was getting heated, and suddenly I squeezed his arm, saying in a broken voice: “You are, you are…” And I don’t know what else I said, I don’t know what string of words came out of my mouth; violent phrases, perhaps insulting, inflamed by conviction. But I couldn’t help feeling cut short by the coldness with which Federico listened to me. I observed his perfectly calm, immutable face, and in his eyes there wasn’t even the slightest glimmer that betrayed a troubled conscience. Then, giving rise to a frank laugh, not entirely mocking, rather compassionate, he said these affectionate words to me: “You must get yourself cured, but soon, before the disease takes over your whole head… Manolo, you are very ill. I advise you to go to rustication. Go to Orbajosa for a fortnight, and you’ll recover.” That’s not true passion, it’s a crisis of thwarted will, and a collapse of self-respect, both of which are a veritable epidemic in large towns. A few days in the country will make you as good as new. Despite his humor, and the perfect tranquility, superior to all dissimulation, that his countenance revealed, I persisted; and he then, becoming very serious, said to me: “If a formal declaration of mine isn’t enough for you, I don’t know what I can do. I swear you’re mistaken. And although oaths are out of fashion, I’m willing to swear, for whatever it’s worth. I swear there’s nothing you suspect. Do you believe it? Fine. Don’t believe it? It’s up to you.” And after other things that haven’t persisted so clearly in my memory, he added this: “Everything in that house is sacred to me.” And now, my X, don’t be upset if I tell you that Viera convinced me. All that afternoon, while I was in his company, watching him wash and dress, my mind never ceased for a moment to grind on the same idea, like a blacksmith at the forge. The second revelation seemed hopeless; but the first, that of awakening, no one could take from me. Federico tried with skillful dialectics; but he could achieve nothing. I reasoned thus: “What is this, is not; but it will be another, and that other, by God, I shall find it.” We went out and walked together. Federico allowed himself to tease me about the incident; I felt somewhat ridiculous, pretended to be relieved of my lovesickness, and even mocked my own madness a little, attributing it to my impressionable nature. We didn’t eat together that evening. He went off somewhere, and I went to the hotel in Cicero. Then I went to Orozco’s house and found him with a severe cold, which is why his wife didn’t want to go to the San Salomó meeting. He urged her to go and begged me to accompany her. Finally, she decided. She dressed in a moment, and we left. When we entered the carriage, I wasn’t very satisfied, because, if I weren’t a lover, the role of sigisbeo, although it may be an enviable one in the world, doesn’t appeal to me. “Papa told me that you were at his house today,” Augusta said to me as the carriage started moving, “and that you seemed half crazy.” The answer will be in the next issue. I can’t see what I’m writing, I’m so tired. Good and holy. Chapter 20. January 10. How are you? Do you find this amusing, or do you find it extravagant, cloying, worthy only of appearing in the serial version of _El Impulsor Orbajosense_? Come on, your idea that it could be published, swapping the names for foreign ones, assuming the action takes place in Warsaw, and announcing at the top that it’s a translation from the French, made me laugh… Shut your mouth, or I’ll smash you. Publishing this… come on, not even in such disguises! Besides, if as a representation of positive facts it might have some interest for those familiar with the people in the know, as a work of art it would be lackluster, lacking invention, intrigue, and all the other frills that works of entertainment require. We agreed that she and I went into the sedan chair. Well. She had never seemed as beautiful to me as she did that night. She was wearing… That’s where my difficulties lie. I am so clumsy at describing ladies’ dresses that when I try, I say the most absurd things. Not only do I ignore the names of this and that garment, and of the different types of toilette, but I confuse the names of the fabrics. It’s obvious I’m no good as a salon magazine-goer. I’ll only tell you that she looked very elegant, that she was wearing a fur coat, that her hairdo… How can I say it if I’m not quite right about these things? Well, her hair was pulled up in a peak, and in it a jewel, something that sparked when my ungrateful girl moved her peerless head. Ah! I forgot: her hair was slightly powdered. Her gloves were light-colored, with a multitude of buttons; yes, yes, a great many buttons. When I came in, she was already wearing them. I would have hoped she hadn’t, so I could help her fasten them. On her chest was a flower, pink… I won’t say yellow, but yellowish, yes. No cleavage, my boy. And as for her physiognomy, oh, misfortune! in her salty little snout, nothing to encourage me, nothing that meant a promise. To what I said, she answered me sternly, indifferently. I understood that my game was to appear calmly resigned, and so I did, saying more or less: “Don’t worry, I won’t bother you anymore. I’ve convinced myself that it’s madness to pretend to you… When one arrives late, there’s no choice but to be patient. And my destiny is to always arrive late. Someone happier than I has deserved what is denied to me…” I thought I detected uneasiness in her gaze. It was like a flash of lightning. She turned her face to look outside, and after an annoying pause she answered me thus: “We must leave you. You’re insufferable, stupid, crazy, and I don’t know what.” The carriage had traveled down Calle Ancha and was crossing Chamberí to Going down Castellana, passing by the houses of Indo. A dense, luminous, white fog was flattening over Madrid. Neither houses nor trees could be seen. The gas lights, fading in the milky clarity, formed discs, tinged with a pinkish hue in some places, green in others. Augusta and I observed this phenomenon and made some observations about it; but in reality, what we were saying was a pretext to hide our confusion. I wasn’t the only one who was uneasy and worried; she was too. She looked at me and said: “I didn’t think you were such a bad person. ” “I may be as bad a person as you like, Augusta; but the fact is that you don’t dare deny what I’ve said, and even if you did, it would be of no use to you, because what I know about you, I know it, look closely, as if I had seen it myself.” I observed in her mouth and in her eyes that particular expression of someone who strives to laugh at what isn’t meant to be laughed at. The more she pursed her lips, the more serious her expression became. “Don’t call me evil,” I said, shaking her hand, which she didn’t dare withdraw from mine, “nor fear that any unpleasantness might come to you from me. If I know something that you want the whole world to ignore, pretend I’m like a dead person. Fear nothing.” How clearly I read her soul at that moment, even without seeing the face she turned toward the glass! Her voice resonated with a strange timbre as she said to me: “What nonsense!… I won’t listen to you!” And it even seemed to me that her hand was trembling. Through the glove, I don’t know what shudder of her skin revealed to me that Señora Orozco had taken a fright to me. And her fear allowed me what her trust had never allowed me: to kiss her hand. “Augusta, I’m crazy about you. You’ve made me unhappy for life…” And she continued to gaze at the mist, in which the luminous discs, formed by the flame as it melted in the humidity, grew or waned as the carriage passed. “Augusta, I am and always will be the first of your friends, fervent, loyal, ready to sacrifice everything for you, to spare you any sorrow. You don’t know me if you suppose that from me, from my indiscretion, motivated by spite or jealousy, any harm could come to you.” I kissed her glove again. The fear was beginning to dissipate in her soul, or to be overcome by another feeling. She withdrew her hand, saying to me: “I need patience to hear you. ” “We all need patience,” I replied. “Let us be indulgent with one another. Tolerance is the rule of life. Don’t be frightened because you see me possessing your secret.” I looked outside again. Once again, she was afraid of me. “I’m telling you not to be afraid; don’t be afraid of your best friend, who would let himself be killed rather than do anything to harm you.” She tried to overcome the anxiety that dominated her and threatened me with her fan. “I’ll hit you.” “Hit, but listen. ” “You’re annoying. ” “I’m only submissive. I obey you; I have no will but yours. I am your slave. I could have told you something else; but we’ve arrived, and the show’s over…” On my way home from San Salomó, I began to write to you. It’s three in the morning. There’s a great din in my mind. I saw or observed nothing at that meeting that would give me the light I needed. All night I felt disoriented, sometimes stupid, at times so excessively subtle that I imagined the greatest absurdities. My torment consists of a question that provokes in me a burning sensation similar to that of thirst: “Who could it be?” Because Federico isn’t him. He swore to me in such sincerity that it’s impossible to believe he was acting out a comedy. Could it be Malibran? Must I now accept the hypothesis I previously rejected? A diplomat is a man who must possess, to the highest degree, the ability to seduce. The delicate and dreamy expression of his face corresponds to the sharpness of a purely Florentine wit. He has, through his mother, Italian blood; he knows how to feign, flatter, make himself pleasing, and compose his countenance. Could it be Malibran, my God? And to the art of seducing, he combines the art of dissimulation with all the perfection of diplomacy and Machiavellianism? When Malibrán’s candidacy, let’s say, was losing ground in my mind , others were gaining ground. It even occurred to me whether it might be Calderón de la Barca, the clingy friend of the house, Estefanía’s father. No: this is unacceptable. Both husband and wife regard Calderón as a brother… However , it could be… In the end, I discard Calderón and turn my attention to others: to an artillery officer, a nephew of Trujillo’s women, a very good boy; I also turn my attention to Villalonga… Oh no! Villalonga, worn out, full of gray hair… and so little morally worthy!… Impossible, impossible. I look for others; I review, I analyze… What a problem, dear X! But I say that these enigmas may not be deciphered by an investigator aided by reason and patience, but a lover always deciphers them. I will do it without anyone’s help, all by myself. And there will certainly be, as in the summaries of crimes, a happy coincidence that, at some point and hour, will pierce the veil of this devilish cover-up. I agree with you that my head isn’t entirely right. I confess it, man, if you insist on it. But don’t judge me by what I write you tonight . Wait for more news, and, above all, wait for the solution to the riddle, which can’t be long in coming. Boring. Chapter 21. January 13. Well, sir, I get up very late; I’m busy with various matters after lunch; I’m going to Congress. Animation in the corridors, rumors of a crisis, long-winded gossip, a lot of secrets, a lot of curious people surrounding this and that character, bigwigs here and there in case you were supposed to vote and didn’t. The usual angry phrases are heard , and things like, “This isn’t a party, this isn’t a government, this isn’t anything.” In the hall, the peace of the grave reigns. The Criminal Procedure Bill is being discussed: solitude in the pews; the speaker, surrounded by three or four friends, tries to convince the empty benches. In the Committee, there are two who would also leave if they could. At the table, the vice president chats with Villalonga; the Count of Monte Cármenes slouches in one of the secretaries’ chairs; the stenographers are distressed because they can’t hear the speaker well; the mace-bearers give him a compassionate look. On the steps of the Presidency, as I go to get some candy, I bump into Villalonga, who tells me that Orozco was very ill last night. What was it? Colic, an asthma attack…? He doesn’t know. But the fact is that he woke up with a very high fever. The doctor was alarmed. I rushed there and found the patient much better; his condition was not as serious as he had thought. But she remained in bed. The doctor’s prognosis , if not serious, was reserved; the afternoon’s resuscitation had to be observed . I went to Orozco’s bedroom and saw him. He was calm; it seems to me that I understand something about medicine; this is nothing more than a stomach cold. I see no cause for alarm. However, I must tell you that Augusta is inconsolable, having been away from home the night her husband became so ill. I am certain that her grief is sincere. In parentheses, it has been very gratifying to notice these feelings in her; and if I add that I like it better this way, that I love her more, I am speaking the pure truth. My cousin is one of those people who are about to die when they have a sick person in the family; she trembles at every turn, and is excessively scrupulous in administering her medicines. Today she hasn’t left the sick man’s side for a moment; she questions him constantly: “Does this hurt, does that hurt? Are you thirsty?” Don’t uncover yourself. That ‘s nothing; tomorrow you’ll be all right. I admire her, what do you want, for this conjugal affection that confuses me so much; although, upon closer examination, this feeling may be compatible with another. You will make the learned comments that your science and your knowledge of the human heart suggest to you. In this letter I am only relating facts. I am staying to eat. Augusta has not a moment’s rest, and at every moment she gets up from the table to run to the bedroom. She returns saying: “It seems to me that he is somewhat overloaded.” “No, my child: it’s that you It seems to you that he is. I find him very alert. We set up our gathering in the drawing room. Cisneros goes, and, under the pretext of not disturbing the patient, refrains from going in to see him, and says: “Not very bad, but complaining well.” The magnificent Malibrán goes, whom I notice is reserved and with I know not what little treachery in his Italian eyes of _santi, boniti, barati_. This man has something on his mind that I don’t understand, and which I rather guess from the revealing force of the hatred he inspires in me. Villalonga also goes, and he is very gracious, keeping track of the senators who are dying, weak, or in poor health, because if the number of vacancies doesn’t increase, it’s difficult for him to enter the coalition. The Marquis of Cicero also goes, and the charming optimist Count of Monte Carmenes. On the shearers’ side, my godfather and Cato the Ultramarine are engaged in a heated argument, because the former believes we should sell the island of Cuba to the United States. The latter is not in favor of selling it, at least not until he drops by again to put the administration of this unfortunate but generous island to rights. But what everyone is talking about there, as everywhere, is that mysterious crime on Baño Street. Oh, what a headache! The newspapers are concerned with nothing else, and each one on his own, all trying to find the clue; but I fear that so many clues will end up misleading justice. Haven’t you read something about this? A young lady, a mother, whose condition is unknown, was found murdered in her bed and half burned, along with her son, a toddler. There was no one in the house, when the crime was discovered, except a servant, Segundo Cuadrado, who, if not an idiot, pretends to be one. He can’t explain anything that happened there. Some consider him the perpetrator of the crime; but a portion of the public accuses the victim’s stepmother, a very ill-tempered woman who lives on the same street and is named Doña Sara. Opinions are divided. Some maintain that they saw her enter the house uttering I don’t know what threatening words. And, on the other hand, the stepmother proves her alibi, demonstrating that that night, at the time of the crime, she was at the theater. There are those who claim to have seen her in a seat at the Español. In short, Xs, a frightful mess; justice in a muddle, flailing about, arresting and releasing people. It is the fashionable conversation in all Madrid circles, and very respectable people see in this a deep intrigue with far-reaching ramifications. It is also said that very high-ranking figures protect and shelter the stepmother, presenting the innocent servant found in the house as the murderer. The two opinions, which are already clearly defined, have given rise to two bitter factions, in each of which the imagination of this race concocts all sorts of novelistic extravaganzas. And it is not the common people who show the greatest fecundity and the greatest appetite for marvelous and pessimistic versions, since cultured people are not far behind. Women especially, and if you wish, ladies, are crazy about this spicy gossip about the famous and undiscovered crime. At Orozco’s house, Augusta murders relentlessly, and at San Salomó’s as well; but the most furious is Mrs. Trujillo, who doesn’t put on a happy face all night unless you tell her some terrifying detail, unless you add that such and such a person of your acquaintance saw that bitch of a stepmother leave the house , dagger in hand. You must tell her, so she’ll be happy, that the servant is a saint, and that you have proof that the murder of the unfortunate Doña Bernarda—that’s the victim’s name—was carried out by two high-flying figures. Calderón is the one who brings her the latest news every night, always bizarre, and apparently taken from a Ponson du Terrail serial. Teresita listens with delight, and so do others. If one day you hear that a flock of oxen has passed over Madrid, flying like swallows, don’t ask who delivered the news. It’s Pepe Calderón. Federico Viera also comes in. He, Calderón, and I are the only ones who We stopped by for a while to see Orozco. Around eleven, Augusta happily announced that Tomás had fallen asleep, that he didn’t have a fever, and that he would have a good night. We all congratulated ourselves, myself first, and I began to think about the same thing, dear X; you know… While the others gnawed at the crime, I chewed on my enigma; I mean, not mine, hers, and I tried to unravel the difficult question of who her accomplice might be. My case is as tangled as the incident on Baño Street, and every hour I see a new clue. I follow it, and nothing. And what do you say to this, you idiot ? Enlighten me with a ray of your intelligence. Where is the criminal I’m looking for? Of course, if I, who act as judge and hold all the threads in my hand, don’t find out anything, what are you going to discover, far removed from people and events? But… I can hear what you’re saying, and I answer: ” I don’t feel like being reasonable. Damn common sense and whoever invented it.” I pour out all my impressions on paper, so that the paper can carry them to _cultured_ Orbajosa. That’s what _El Impulsor_ calls that rustic city when he speaks of the procession of San Roque or the dances at the Casino. Chapter 22. _January 18._ Calm down. Señor de Orozco, whom you admire so much, is better, almost completely recovered. No matter how much your happy imagination knows how to imagine what the celestial regions are like; no matter how accustomed you are to conceiving the Supreme Good in your mind, you can’t imagine the joy that shone on Augusta’s face when she gave me the news this morning . Her eyes were pure divinities, boy. I would have worshipped her on my knees. What do you want? That’s how I am. I admire what is good, even if I don’t understand it. Someone reading what I write only for you might ask: “But how does this harmonize with that?” Ah! You, who usually penetrate the depths of the human soul, surely won’t ask this. There is a superficial science of the heart learned in the theaters, where passions are presented in their rudimentary and simple form . Many judge the things of life according to this incomplete science , and when they don’t conform to the standard of dramatic art, they say they don’t understand. I do understand, and so do you, right? Go ahead. I saw my friend Orozco already up and having a friendly argument with his wife because he insisted on opening the mail, and she was scolding him like a child to stop him from worrying about anything. The charming Estefanía completed the beautiful scene. All that was missing was for the little girl to be the daughter of Augusta to make it a “Holy Family.” Come on, I ‘m becoming very… domestic and very… patriarchal. Tell me one thing; speak to me frankly: do you believe that the nocturnal revelation I told you about was a mistake on my part? Do you think I’m mistaken in asserting what I assert with such deep conviction? Come, let the _rimpuesta_ come, and, true _payo de la carta_, I won’t hand it over to you, that is, I won’t continue this one until the answer reaches my hands. Chapter 23. _January 21._ The answer already appeared. I swear it surprised me. I thought you would answer _you are mistaken_, because, the truth is, the suspicion was beginning to settle in my mind that my aforementioned revelation was, as others usually are, entirely subjective. And now you come out with the _I am right_! And you add that you have no knowledge of the facts on which to base it! Well, the same thing happens to me, kid. I affirm this without knowing why. I believe, like you, that these things are felt, not reasoned. To divine is to sense the facts separated from our sight by time or space; to see what, because it is invisible, seems nonexistent , from which all wise men have deduced that divination is a faculty similar to poetic genius. The poet precedes the historian and anticipates great truths to the world. Here I am , transformed into a seer, uncovering what is hidden, and observing things from high above, just like an eagle. But let us leave aside these philosophical affectations, and I will satisfy a desire you express in your letter. You want to know my opinion of Orozco; you think it will be easy for me to draw his portrait, and you want me to do so with supreme impartiality. Well, I’m going there; you already know that I don’t hold back , and that no one can beat me in sincerity. But I must begin by telling you that this opinion, or if you will, a sketch or portrait, will be provisional, as I don’t have all the information to consider it definitive. There is something about that man I haven’t fully understood yet. Orozco is not a person who reveals himself completely at any moment; at least that’s how it seems to me. I have seen things in him that have inspired admiration, and others about which I don’t yet dare to express a firm opinion. I’ll begin by telling you that I have met few more agreeable men, and perhaps none who knows how to win sympathy so quickly, and with sympathy, true friendships. His courteous manner, his exquisite kindness, his very face, which reminds me so much—we’ll see what you think of this observation—of the Jewish type, beautiful and pure, which is barely preserved now; surely contributes to this: a long, thick beard, a rather thick, pony-like nose, dull eyes, little liveliness in his physiognomic movements, and, finally, that calmness, that gentle gravity that seems to indicate a perfect inner balance. I love that way of treating young and old, affable with all, familiar with none. There is something in his manner of dealing with kings, who, however kind they may be, are always kings, and maintain the privileges of their high rank. How are you? Am I doing well? Turning now to moral matters, I must tell you that, aside from certain gossip, the reputation that Tomás enjoys is solid and unanimous. There’s no doubt about that. And there’s no need to go around it, Xs: whoever has such a reputation deserves it. When a name survives the constant filing of gossip, there must be a reason. Don’t you think the same? I agree that Orozco casts a shadow over his name. The fortune he enjoys was amassed by his father, Don José Orozco, according to public reports, in a rather irregular manner, to say the least. That execrated Insurance Company, upon which so many curses have fallen and still fall, casts, as I say, a certain opacity over our friend, and he does everything possible to purify a name he received with quite a few blemishes. He is absolutely irresponsible for his father’s faults—call them crimes, if you will. He inherited the fortune and lives quietly, killing his idleness in some of the cleanest businesses, and doing all the good he can. The phrase “model of citizens, model of husbands, model of” is appropriate here. But let’s not be hasty in our judgments. There’s a lot of speculation out there that Tomás is a very mystical man, or rather, a saint. There are those who maintain that he devotes himself to the most exaggerated religious practices . that he secretly disciplines himself, that he fasts like a Trappist… All this is pure fiction. I have observed absolutely nothing in the house to confirm such a supposition. In his library, I can assure you, there are no mystical works, except those included in the collection of classics, which are on the shelves with every sign of never having been opened. Among the family books in constant use, which he keeps on his desk, I have seen nothing religious. In his bedroom you will not find a crucifix or devotional image, because if there is any painting of a sacred subject, it is there as a work of art. You do not see a holy water font in the entire house. And
I can attest that neither Orozco nor his wife have any obvious fondness for church matters, nor do they make a great effort to fulfill the precepts of Catholicism. The most, the most they do is go to mass on Sundays, if the morning is nice. But as for confessing and taking communion… I don’t know, I don’t know: I would almost dare to say that in this they are like you and me. So , everything said about Orozco’s mysticism and the whippings has not the slightest foundation. The same as that other nonsense about his connivance with the Jesuits. There is no shortage of fools who will swear to you that Tomás He secretly belongs to the Order, and supports it and gives it money… I, who enter the house every day at different hours, can assure you that I have never seen a cassock there, except that of the kind Father Nones, to whom the Orozco family gives many alms to distribute among the poor of the parish of San Lorenzo. You, who are in contact with Father Nones, will tell me if the poor fellow has any traces of being involved in the _Company_. No, all that is a fable. He is, therefore, rejected. But go and erase such a routine from the minds of the common people. But what else? Cisneros himself, who knows the house as well as I do, but who likes to foster vulgar malice, said to me the day before yesterday: “And how is my son-in-law, the Jesuit?” He says this without believing it, to echo what he hears. But acknowledging and affirming that it’s all just chatter, I now ask: Is there not something that even remotely motivates this opinion? Is it possible that similar errors are fabricated without any foundation? Is there not something… something that, without being that, resembles it? And here my doubts arise, because I try to probe, and I can’t find, I can’t find in Orozco’s life the explanation for his supposed mysticism and Jesuitism. Whatever there is, it will be so hidden that the prying eyes of the friends of the house won’t be able to discern it. This links to another question. Is there conjugal harmony in this marriage? If I am to tell the truth, apparently said harmony is perfect. Everything I have seen and observed seems to prove that Tomás loves his wife tenderly. That his wife respects him, esteems him, and even loves him, I also believe I have seen incontrovertible signs. And yet, the idea suggested to me by universal knowledge, that revelation with which I have given you so many headaches, is in open conflict with what I am stating now. Or is it not? Clarify the mystery for me, Equisillo, you who know so much. As that friend of ours, who writes articles on the relations of the Church and the State, says, “we are faced with one of the most intricate problems of the present time.” I will add that whenever Augusta speaks of her husband, she does so with an air of enthusiasm, of reverent admiration. It seems to me that she considers herself far inferior to him. One day, in confidence, she revealed to me interesting details of Orozco’s charitable works. He spends a fortune on pensions for poor families, whether related to hers or not. He does a lot of good, always keeping it a secret so that people don’t find out, because it bothers him when people talk about it, and he won’t even accept thanks from those who benefit . He invents a thousand subtle and delicate devices to convey his benefits to certain needy people, who can only accept them through very diplomatic means. I knew something of this; but what I knew, as good as it was, falls short of the marvels Augusta has told me . I am sketching the portrait as best I can. I would like to continue; but I warn you that I do not clearly see the entire original: there is something that remains in the shadows, and that is why my picture is not and cannot be complete. Complete it yourself, if you can, adding your knowledge to mine. I am no longer describing, but consulting you. What kind of man is this? Is he a type of moral greatness, rare, though not impossible, in our varied and truly fruitful times? Are we faced with a vigorous religious character, not informed by the current religions, but of a new stamp and of a very novel kind? Is he a heroic soldier of eternal principles, fighting for them, escaping the profane admiration of the common people? Is he a sublime conscience , or a vulgar misanthrope? Ah! A diabolical idea has been born in me, and I do not hesitate to express it, so that you may take it as you wish. I wish to know this man thoroughly. If I could become Augusta’s lover, she would reveal some very strange things to me. See, I am a devilish theologian, or a theophile; a devil who does not seek evil for evil’s sake, but is driven by the desire for knowledge, and who, by the path of sin, aspires to reach where he may contemplate the supreme good up close. What do you think? A great idea, isn’t it? If that she-devil wanted me… But since he won’t love me, as I can already see, I’ll remain with my love and with my sad ignorance about the moral enigma of Orozco. I am, then, the most disdained and foolish devil in the world; a devil who deserves to have a contraption tied to his tail, like a stray dog or cat, to be the laughingstock and the riot of the street urchins. I conclude, my son, by placing all my diabolical uselessness at your command. Chapter 24. January 23. Well, sir, today I was thinking of continuing the portrait of the good Orozco with new data and observations of the greatest interest; but look, a matter has arisen of which I cannot help but inform you without delay, and to it I go. Our friend Federico Viera is the rigor of misfortunes. Do you remember the description I gave you of his house, of his sister, of the indecorous neglect in which she lived? Well, the consequences I feared, and which I announced to you, have not been long in coming. A few nights ago, while accompanying Federico home, between one and two, we surprised a young man coming out of the doorway. Federico grabbed him by the neck. What a scene, boy, so unpleasant, and at the same time, I don’t know why, so funny!… Anyway, according to what Viera had told me shortly before the fatal encounter, the attacked man is Clotilde’s boyfriend or suitor , to be more precise, an honest snob from a nearby store. Things would have ended badly without my intervention and that of the night watchman, for we had a hard time freeing the unfortunate lover from the clutches of his idol’s brother. But things didn’t end there. Listen to the best part: yesterday the little fly disappeared from the house, leaving a letter for her brother, announcing her decision to marry. See if the girl has the courage. She added that she is being judicially deposited in the house of Calvo’s widow, a respectable lady, a close friend of the Viera family and also the Orozco family, and that, under the protection of said lady, she was awaiting the permission she had requested from her father to carry out the marriage. You can’t imagine our poor friend’s anger at this outburst from his little sister, whom he believed to be completely submissive and timid. It’s the same old story, friend X. Arbitrary authority doesn’t realize that the oppressed have souls until it sees them rise up and shake off the yoke by whatever means are available to them. This domestic revolution has driven Federico mad. You know he has an absolutist and aristocratic temperament. The publicity he’s about to receive, or that his humiliation already has, drives him crazy. And look at this strange thing. He was not unaware that Clotilde lived indecorously among maids and vulgar people, and he is irritated that the unfortunate woman emancipated herself by accepting a husband of a lower class than her own. Our friend’s pride tolerates his sister’s consuming sadness and vulgarity, and he will not tolerate a union he calls degrading. But the girl, quietly and as if doing nothing, has let herself be carried along by the current of the century, and from the ignominious obscurity in which she lived, has thrown herself into democracy, seeking in it a kind of redemption. You know the Corsican hatred that Federico professes for democratic ideas , with what amusing cruelty he mocks them, and the progressives, and the _morrión_, etc. He sincerely recognizes that he is out of place in our society; that he came into the world late, and that by mistake he was not born in the times to which his character fits. Imagine how he must be now, seeing his sister sacrificed to the hated principle of political and social equality; seeing her shamefully go over to the enemy, into the arms of an insignificant being who, in his opinion, personifies all the vulgarity of the present age. The man is on fire, and one cannot speak to him about this without him instantly losing his footing and collapsing. Last night this specific case of social revolution was much talked about at Orozco’s house , eclipsing the conversation about the famous crime, and Augusta agreed with me that Federico has no reason to complain. We agreed that he has brought about the triumph of democracy, neglecting Clotilde and depriving her of the position she had held in the Society befits him. Federico has not appeared there: he has fled, and I have not seen him since the night we surprised the daring gallant leaving the house. It was a Calderón-esque scene, which I will not describe to you because I hope others more worthy of your attention will occur. Returning to Tomás, I will tell you that he is now completely recovered. Yesterday I had lunch with him, and I spent almost the entire day with him. His wife left around five. Where could she have gone? This was the subject of my somber meditations all afternoon. And apart from this, I swear that the good Orozco gave me a very pleasant time, chatting with me about various matters, with a friendliness, with a discretion that astonished me. He painted a portrait of his father-in-law’s character, which I regret not being able to transcribe in full, since my musings prevented me from focusing on his apt thoughts with the shorthand attention I usually acquire. He also analyzed the case of Federico Viera’s sister with a criterion similar to the one I presented to you. What happened in this case should be foreseen by any man whose mind is not filled with archaic ideas and whose character is not soured by financial setbacks. Well, sir, I now feel like continuing the interrupted portrait. When I least expected it, I looked at the figure more closely; some lines that were previously lost in shadow have been revealed to me, and I want to fix them immediately on the canvas, hoping that what still remains hidden will become clearer. Perhaps you don’t know that Orozco is one of the most well-groomed men known. He could give lessons in prudent economy and foresight to the entire Spanish race. He keeps his accounts up to date and to the cent, without this meaning mean-spiritedness. On the contrary, he doesn’t stint on anything that might contribute to the luster of his house, nor does he place any obstacles in the way of his beautiful wife. It’s true that she knows how to remain within the limits of the most exquisite prudence. Orozco doesn’t work to increase his capital, which is quite substantial, and the businesses he participates in, in cooperation with other capitalists, do n’t give him many headaches. I know he’s never been interested in usury deals . I know that he’s been offered loans with enormous advantages, and he’s rejected them. He gives, but he doesn’t lend, and he gives only in the measure that’s convenient. There are two things unknown there : sordidness and waste. I confess that this man inspires in me an almost superstitious respect. When I talk to him, I feel dwarfed, I inspire a certain self -contempt, I feel shy… I don’t know what. And I must add that yesterday, when I sat down beside him and he affectionately placed his hand on my shoulder, I felt very strong remorse. It’s true that I have only failed him in intention; but even this thought didn’t calm my conscience, and I tried to calm it with sophistry. “For the very reason that this man is so perfect,” I said to myself, “he is beyond human law. He is so exalted that being mocked does not offend him, nor is any injury that can match such loftiness. Those who offend and insult him will give an account to God, but not to him, for he would lower himself by asking for it.” These things passed through my mind, and when I saw my cousin come in from the street with her smiling face, the image of a calm conscience, it seemed to me that her serenity was cynicism, and her smile hypocrisy. I resolutely took the side of morality and well-known principles, my dear sirs, and it seemed a heinous crime to deceive such a good man. What cunning! To deceive him when I was not his accomplice! I reveal my conscience to you with all its hiding places. It seems to me that the offense, committed in my favor, would be more excusable. His wife took part in our conversation. I watched her, and I don’t know, I don’t know… it seemed to me that her tranquility was only apparent. The way she listened to us indicated a certain alarm, and her laughter was not as frank and natural as usual. Suddenly Orozco said to her: “Have you heard anything more about Federico’s quarrel with his sister? Have you seen him?” I trembled. I don’t know why the suspicions of that my wife assailed me again. Second revelation. I noticed Augusta, who at that moment was rummaging around the table looking for some paper or magazine. I thought she was dodging the answer, avoiding her husband’s and my gaze; but I was completely wrong. Upon hearing Federico’s name, she put down what she was looking for and came to sit opposite her husband, separated from him by the small table on which he had several letters and newspapers. She put her elbows on the table, her chin in one hand, and smiling, she said to us: “Well, I haven’t seen him, nor do I know where he’s hiding. But Malibrán told me this afternoon that he won’t give in, that he’s furious, that what he regrets is not having strangled that poor boy when he found him coming out of the doorway. How extravagant! I think we should all embrace Clotilde’s cause.” In naming Malibrán, was it my apprehension? I seemed to notice a veil in his accent, in his eyes I know not what timidity or fear… Well, snakes coiled around my heart, and I no longer had the serenity to follow closely the conversation the three of us began. And I will not continue the portrait for now. I will continue when it seems right to me. I no longer have the damned desire to end this one the way I thought. Rest in God’s favor, and don’t make too much fun of your deranged friend. Chapter 25. January 26. Malibrán! I can’t help talking to you about this fellow, who has planted himself right on my nose like a fly. I want to chase him away, I shake him off, and he comes back. He pursues me
, I find him wherever I go; I come to think that it is not him I see, but my execrable suspicion, represented in mortal flesh. The fact is that since yesterday the idea that I have cleared up the famous unknown: X Malibrán, has not left my mind . Could I be mistaken now, too? Last night we spent a long time together at the Teatro Real. He spoke to me about Augusta with a certain respect that seemed affected to me. I couldn’t possibly pull such a man’s tongue, saying some captious, mischievous thing about my cousin to get a lucid response, and as I warmly praised her, praising her moral rectitude and the affection she has for her husband, it seemed to me that Malibrán’s words in response to my praise were delicately ironic. Then I noticed he was avoiding that conversation, seeking other topics for conversation. If you press me, I can’t explain the reason for the dislike the diplomat inspires in me. I would like an opportunity to have a falling out with him; but the bastard is so honest, that I don’t even have that hope left. I would beat his head off, even if I realized later that I had committed a useless outrage. To top it all off, today at noon I ran into him at Orozco’s house, and there we had lunch together. I have no doubt that Augusta and he exchanged a few words, which must not have been good, when they spoke so quietly. God knows! Go ahead. When we were alone together for a moment, my cousin said to me: “Tomás is very upset about a letter he received today.” My curiosity piqued, I questioned her and learned that the letter is from Joaquín Viera, Federico’s father, and that in it he announces his arrival in Madrid in two or three days. You must know, and I am merely reporting what my cousin told me, that whenever that bird of ill omen appears in Madrid, he has some large-scale plan in mind to attack those who had the misfortune to be his friends. Orozco has been the victim several times of the subtle schemes of that famous trickster, which deserve better the name of swindles. “This will be,” I observed, “another cause of anxiety for poor Federico, whom I have always heard speak of his father with very little enthusiasm. Every time he comes to Madrid, he leaves him wrapped for a long time in an atmosphere of scandal and shame.” Augusta expressed her intention of doing everything possible to protect her husband from the malice of anyone who exploits his extreme kindness. Orozco has incredible weaknesses toward him, and never treats him with the contempt he deserves; she usually gives in to his wicked demands, no doubt out of pity, perhaps in memory of the great affection he has for her. The fathers of both had each other. What do you think of all this? You might say there’s some scheme brewing here. Well, I think the same. And you know, I’ve been yearning to meet that famous swordsman, who disappeared from here so many years ago and only comes here rarely and for short periods, with the dreaded scimitar in his hand. Well, today, speaking about this with Augusta and Orozco, they told me that Viera Sr. is a man of seductive demeanor, capable of fooling half the human race with his smooth talk. He’s nothing like his son, all susceptibility, pride, and delicacy, a slave to the point of honor and the laws of apparent respectability. Tomás added that Joaquín has been living off blackmail for some time now, threatening from abroad or showing up with some ingenious scheme of plots and entanglements. Because that’s true, he is a man of enormous intellectual resources, very knowledgeable in all kinds of business dealings, with a backroom, a flexibility, and a sense of humor that would give fifteen and a half to even the most experienced. Augusta can’t stand him, and she takes pleasure in applying to him the terrible names of swindler, cheat, gentleman of industry, etc. She doesn’t understand, and on this we are all in agreement, that from a father so lacking in moral palate a son has the opposite quality, extreme to the point of defect. I’ll suspend work and continue tomorrow. I’ll continue today, the 27th. If this letter were a chapter in a novel, it should be titled _Ancora il Malibrán!!!_ like that, with much admiration and a little bit of Italian. Because I have never seen a more terrifying assiduity. If I go to Orozco’s house twenty times, I run into him twenty times. And no matter how hard I try to clash with him, I can’t. I contradict him in everything he says. I say a thousand outrageous things; I maintain that Italian art is a mere figment of the imagination; that Raphael strikes me as a mere painter; that Titian draws less than the last student at the Academy; that Mantegna can pass as a diligent boy—I warn you that I don’t know who Mantegna is, and that all the Pre-Raphaelites are nothing but show-offs. What silly matters, what poverty of composition, what lack of truth!… In short, my boy, I myself laugh at how stupid I am or pretend to be. For although Augusta usually supports me with that adorable independence of judgment that amuses her so much, I never achieve my objective. The other refutes me with sweetness and benevolence. His exquisite education puts up an insurmountable wall against my senseless hatred. If he chats with Orozco about foreign politics, I contradict him with even greater fury. I declare myself a rabid Parnellist: I maintain that Gladstone is a thoroughgoing progressive; that the Iron Chancellor is doting and should retire, dedicating himself to raising poultry; that Austria—look how funny this is—is a good – for-nothing nation and should disappear, divided up by Russia, Germany, and Italy… well, I won’t go on so you don’t laugh at me. Not even then: it’s no good for me to stubbornly support my opinions, to see if I can infuriate him and he comes up with some provocative denial. It’s as if he were speaking to the very statue of prudence. He addresses my cousin phrases of refined, madrigal-like gallantry, and I can clearly see how the hypocrite puffs up hearing them. You’ll remember that on one occasion she spoke to me about him in very unfavorable terms, telling me that he was a malevolent and dangerous person… Farce, son, pure farce and dissimulation to mislead me. Well, listen to something else. That night, Malibrán thanked Orozco for having heeded the recommendation he had made, in favor of I don’t know who. You know that Tomás delicately helps a multitude of families who have fallen on hard times. Well then: upon hearing the diplomat’s expressions of gratitude , I noticed that the great man’s face expressed a certain annoyance at first, and then real disgust. Malibrán smiled kindly and did not insist. As I expressed to my cousin, almost at the same moment, my surprise at Orozco’s attitude, he said to me in a graceful and long aside: “Don’t be naive: you don’t know my husband, just as that fool Malibrán doesn’t know him either, who He acts so diplomatic and so Metternich. Tomás doesn’t like praise for his charitable actions, or even thanks for them. I’m warning you about this for your government. He believes that generosity and charity lose their merit with fanfare. Do you know what pleases him? I’ll tell you so you’ll be amazed. What makes him happy is the absolute secrecy of his good deeds, and the ingratitude of those favored. I’m warning you this because, as you have also recommended to that unfortunate widow Freire, if he favors her, don’t even think of thanking her: the best thing you can do is not speak of the matter. Why are you opening your mouth so much, fool? You who presume to be clever, you don’t understand the nonsense of human secrets. Tomás is a saint, what is called a saint. Haven’t you understood? But do you believe, fool, that there are no saints in this day and age? Well, there are some, there are some, with their frock coats, their tailcoats, and their top hats, instead of miters, staffs , and sackcloth. That serenity of his, which sets him so apart from other people, is only disturbed when trumpeted with favors; it makes you so nervous that, believe me, it causes me unease. So now you know, and also warn your friend Le Petit Talleyrand, so that you will not again fall into the simplicity of showing gratitude. I remembered this, as you might imagine. It was an unknown profile of Orozco’s figure, or rather, a flash of light, which I resolved to add without loss of time to the unfinished portrait. And what do you think of this aspect of the great man’s person? I’ll be frank: I haven’t fully understood it, and it seems to me that you, no matter what you say, won’t understand it either. Chapter 26. _January 28._ Well, yesterday, turning over Augusta’s words in my mind , it occurred to me what you are about to read: “He isn’t Malibran. If he were, there would be trust between them, and the sinner wouldn’t have to use me to warn her accomplice about the inconvenience of showing her husband gratitude. This seems like pure logic. But since logic, in matters of love, usually goes as God intends, I’m starting to wonder if it might not all be a well-rehearsed comedy to further entangle and confuse me. This lady Humanity is a lot of storytelling, dear X, and every day we see stranger and more incomprehensible things in her. I’m on my guard, and I keep watching.” Let’s move on to another human oddity. This one has arrived, the _star with a tail_. Call him that because his appearance produces widespread terror. I’ve seen him, I’ve spoken with him, we’ve had lunch together, and I can assure you that I have never seen a more seductive and entertaining man. He may be a scoundrel through and through, and he certainly is when everyone says so; but at the first opportunity, he pulls a fast one on the morning star. With his father’s presence here and his little sister’s blunder, Federico’s bad temper and intolerance are unbearable. Certainly , her father not only shows himself indulgent toward the little girl, but is extremely pleased with her decision and gives her legal permission. There is not a trace in him of his son’s ideas regarding social distinctions and the decorum of names. He is overly democratic, and his social, political, and religious indifference would strike you as cynical if he didn’t clothe it, when he expressed it, in such endearing terms. Certainly, son and father differ as much spiritually as they resemble physically. So great is the resemblance between the two that you might mistake them for brothers. and even the age difference is diminished because Federico is quite old and the other is plump, spongy, and like a chicken, as they say. But there is such a difference between their personalities that it cannot be approximated. It is one of those distances that we cannot give an idea of, even if we call them abysses. I know that Orozco and Viera Sr. held a conference today; but I could glean nothing, although I had lunch at the house this morning, and I was there when the cheat was announced. It seems to me, from what I heard from my cousin and Tomás himself, that it is a serious rip-off, such as that consummate marksman is accustomed to delivering. Augusta is extremely indignant. Although one of the few From the words Orozco uttered on this matter, it is clear that he is opening his purse. I don’t know if opening it privately for the rogue who was his father’s partner and accomplice also falls into the category of those merciful acts performed in secret, and for which no gratitude should be given. Ah! As for that scoundrel’s gratitude, nail it to my forehead. I have been able to gather that Viera has presented him with an old credit, an obligation, or something of the famous Humanitaria, and that there are doubts as to whether or not the obligation has legally prescribed. We shall see what comes of this. After the swordsman’s visit, Orozco’s face was as placid, as serene as ever, and it could not be betrayed that he was suffering the slightest agitation. Augusta, on the other hand, seemed very upset. Could it be that she does not find the sanctity of her consort practical or appropriate, in these times ? I don’t know. I have something else to tell you; but I’m very tired, my boy, because… Come on, I’ll tell you if you don’t tell anyone. I was at Peri’s house last night. Don’t put on that cloying, sentimental moralist frown. We went to have our cards read. Let’s see, is there anything unusual about that? Don’t people go to the professorships at the Athenaeum and the University to learn? And is it in these temples of wisdom that one finds such pretty girls as the ones who were at Leonor’s house that night? Beloved Teótimo, it’s all about learning, observing, and pursuing the difficult course of life; and going there every night to hear people argue about the Organization of Public Powers, or about what happened in the Merovingian era, is tiresome, believe it or not, it’s tiresome and brutalizing. It’s necessary to let your hair down, especially before you have them… So , bored, I’m going to bed. Chapter 27. _January 30._ Fat and fresh, friend X. Federico’s sister, the great democrat and revolutionary, marries her beloved tacky friend, thus realizing the long-awaited ideal of class harmony, of the reconciliation of the past with the present. How about that? There you have Lady Reality very quietly doing what you write in your books and others say in their speeches. I ask you: does the idea precede the deed, or the deed precede the idea? But let’s leave the inquiries aside, and get to know the reality. The boy whose humble name has come to connect with that of the Vieras and Gravelinas belongs to one of those honorable mercantile families, natives of the Mena Valley, the true antechamber of Postas Street. They call him Santanita, and he is pleasant, intelligent , handsome, and modest. He’s come to beg me to intercede with Mr. Orozco to obtain a position as bookkeeper in a banking firm, and I assure you that I was interested in that humble representative of the common people, who elbows his way through the social turmoil. From the little I spoke with him, he struck me as one of those characters who, beneath a cloak of modesty, conceal a determined will to march fearlessly toward their goal. He knows how to get close to those who might be useful to him; he doesn’t miss a trick, and he sniffs out where they’re cooking. The girl is being kept in the house of Calvo’s widow; you don’t know her, nor does she care , a lady of the night, whom Santanita’s father served as administrator, steward, or I don’t know what. He’s fallen on hard times and is living off a pension Orozco gives him. That scoundrel Santanita already knows what tree he’s leaning on. Tomás told me there was nothing he could do for him. But he will do something , you must see. I am already recognizing the holy tricks of this man without equal, who practices the hypocrisy of hardness of heart. All his efforts are to be considered insensitive to human misery and misfortune. But I don’t care about him. Well, let’s agree that this tacky fellow is a diligent ant. Clotilde couldn’t aspire to a Coburg Gotha, and when things are going well, we must accept as good the solutions imposed by the leveling nature of the present era. What’s up? I’m annoying today. Well, I’ll tell you: Federico is even more so, stubborn to the point of He assures us that he would rather see his sister dead than see her married to poor Santanita. Our friend brings the fervor of a sectarian to everything , and it’s useless to try to persuade him. He sees the world through very subjective lenses, and what is natural to us seems monstrous to him . The terrifying “star with a tail” departs for other worlds, apparently having fulfilled the purpose of its appearance in this one; but I ignore the truth of what happened between him and Orozco. I haven’t been able to read anything in the latter’s face ; but Viera’s shines with that particular light that triumphs of the will ignite in our eyes. I have no doubt that he has obtained all or part of what he asked for. Augusta must know; but she won’t be clear, and every effort I make to pry my nose into this little secret has been in vain. But today something has happened that increases my confusion, for I don’t know how to relate it to the other known facts in order to shed the desired light. Well, you see: last night Orozco told me not to miss lunch today, that he had to talk to me. Imagine if I would hurry. What a delightful morning! Augusta was as kind to me as she’s ever been, very cheerful, and sending sparks of grace from that infernal mouth… I mean, heavenly. I said infernal because if the devil didn’t make it for her, like a trap to catch souls , I do n’t understand who the hell could have made it for her . Tomás, as always, thoughtful and affectionate, revealing that serene tranquility of superior souls, who have found solid ground and feel firmly planted there. Fortunately for me, no stranger had lunch there other than me. Not even Calderón was there, who would have dazzled us nicely with some new version of the crime. All we talked about was Clotilde’s wedding, Santanita, and what a playboy he is. Augusta harshly criticized Federico for his disagreement with the world’s dominant ideas, his attachment to the old and now discredited prestige of names and classes. Orozco excused him, asserting that the ideas and feelings of things that accumulate in our lives during the years between youth and maturity form a conglomerate of such harshness that it is foolish to think he should yield to the ideas and feelings of others . If Federico is like that, we can do nothing against him, and it is only appropriate to strive for the good to be achieved, respecting the ideas and even the concerns of each individual. This brought the conversation to the level our good friend wanted to place it; and as I sensed a certain hesitation in him about broaching the subject, I helped him and was able to extract the following: Orozco requests my intervention so that Federico will decide to accept a favor from him, which he has not yet expressed in concrete terms. The main difficulty that arises is Viera’s fastidious nature, and his resistance not only to accepting certain kinds of favors, but also to declaring his poverty and anguished way of life. It is to overcome this difficulty that they have come to me, hoping that through diplomacy I can overcome our friend’s inflexible tenacity. Orozco has merely outlined his idea, striving to downplay the generosity involved; and from what I have been able to understand, this is not a donation, which would only serve to temporarily shore up a crumbling budget: it is a matter of ensuring the beneficiary a way of life that will forever free him from the annoying swarm of usurers and Englishmen, and keep him away from the crime scenes… Are you following along? And now I ask your opinion on this strange case of protection, and on the intricacies it may entail. I perceive that your opinion is that in the case referred to there is not, and cannot be, more than what appears to be true; an act of generosity, worthy of the most exalted soul of my friend. Perfectly. But does it not occur to you to connect it with something else? Do you understand me, fool? Does it not occur to you, as it has occurred to me, to look for a thread between the Christian intention of the great man and the object of it, and to follow that thread carefully until you discover that it is entangled in the white, cunning hand of a woman? Have you not considered that the plan of Orozco might be more suggestive than spontaneous? Does it not occur to you that knowledge of this plan and its initial determination could give me the key to the ark containing the secret I seek? Do you believe there is no such connection? How glad I would be if you answered me categorically! But you will not answer, because it is not possible to decide from afar such an obscure and delicate dispute. You will say that this suspicion of mine arises from the pettiness of feelings typical of the times, from the bad habit of pointing out base motives in every greatly generous act. No: I look at the action only from Orozco’s side, and I admit that it is an admirable trait; I do not want to see the usual thread; I want to see nothing but the noble and highly Christian act, because even if the suggestive motive that is the object of my concern existed , the act in question would not be any less morally valuable . Even in our age, whatever one may say, there are examples of stupendous virtue, no less than those of yesteryear. That no saints are born these days is nonsense. There will be no martyrdoms in the material realm; there will be none of those harsh, brutal, Calahorran penances; but there is an exaltation of souls, a fever of virtue, secret enthusiasm for the good, and sacrifices perhaps greater than those of other times, because in ours there is more matter to sacrifice. I need hardly tell you that that conference upset my ideas, leading me to say with complete certainty: “It’s not Malibran. ” And if I did notice Federico again at first, I didn’t continue to affirm it, and I confined myself to asking myself the question at all hours of the day and night. “Could he be that one? And if he is, with what cunning perfidy he deceives me! I don’t forgive his duplicity, I don’t forgive it!” By the way, I haven’t spoken to him for ten days, nor have I been able to find him in the places where he usually goes. Tonight I was told that he was seen at the Teatro Real in the Augusta box. I didn’t see him. January 31st.—Last night I couldn’t finish this one because Morpheus attacked me, and I had no choice but to throw myself into his arms. I’m sending it to you today with this postscript, which is certainly juicy. Well, you see: today Villalonga spoke to me with a certain mystery about some malicious words spoken by Malibrán at Peri’s house, at a dinner they held there last night. The matter is serious. Little Talleyrand allowed himself something more than those reticences inspired by champagne, and from which no reputation is free. You can already guess that the chinitas were against my cousin. For he said, as if he were saying nothing, that he had discovered the burrow where the very hypocrite has her amorous refuge. The most undignified thing is that for a few days now he’s taken to clinging to Orozco and flattering him basely, and tomorrow they’re going together to Las Charcas, the mountain Tomás owns beyond Las Zorreras, to hunt for a couple of days… Imagine how upset I must have been with that guy! My first impulse was to go and find him, demand explanations, and fight him if he didn’t give them to me… But I’ve thought better of it, and I’m saving my desire for a fight for another occasion. Isn’t it true, my friend, that you’re advising me not to play the paladin? If Malibrán had said that in front of me, I’d be fine… But it’s better that it wasn’t in my presence, because that way I’ll be free from unpleasantness and the ridiculousness that always accompanies paladinism. I’m in a hell of a temper. Chapter 28. February 3rd . Dear X: I don’t know what’s happening to me or how I can write to you, or if you’ll understand these scribbles. My hand can’t manage to write the letters. The surprise, the terror of this mysterious tragedy have unhinged the whole machine, and I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’m saying, or even what I feel. I’m not writing to you to give you the tremendous news, which you’ll already know from the newspapers that today there’s no other talk in Madrid. I’m writing to you so you won’t be worried, judging that I might be involved in some way in the complications of this affair… I’m touched only by the horror that possesses me, the frightful confusion that anguishes me more than horror itself… Yesterday at noon, as I was in bed, I felt that They woke up, shaking my arm. It was Calderón: I looked at him, half asleep , half awake… Imagine the effect these words he said to me would have on me: “Get up… Don’t you know what’s happening?… Federico Viera murdered!… His body found today in a garbage dump, over there, I don’t know where!… Get up.” I thought I was dreaming… I turned against Calderón… Practical jokes… I thought they were jokes. His dismayed face made me shudder… He was throwing clothes on the bed for me to dress. I went stupid… I couldn’t believe such an atrocity… Murdered! And by whom? That’s the first thing that comes to mind. Calderón said to me: “By whom? Justice will find out… Poor boy!… His whole body covered in bullets and knife wounds…” I got up trembling, my throat constricted, unable to speak… “Where?—Over there!…” Brave information! Over there! “They’ve taken him to the morgue,” Calderón added. “The judge, my friend, didn’t know the dead man; but because of something found in his wallet, they learned his name. They told me… I recognized him. Terrible fear, dear Manolo. The judge wants a proper ID. Let’s go, you and I… The sister doesn’t know. Let’s go.” Everything came back to me: “But who killed him?”—Who knows… a game perhaps… love… revenge… Who knows. Mystery. I don’t understand… Let’s go. What a mess!” Poor Calderón was like crazy. I was even more so. We left, took a car, and went there… First, we stopped by the duty court: a forensic doctor joined us. What a day, Xs! If I lived a thousand years, I believe I could not forget the frightful emotions of yesterday, the terror that filled my mind… Today it is impossible for me to relate them to you: I would utter a thousand absurdities, I would not be able to express anything clearly… If I write to you today it is to calm you down about me. I am overwhelmed with grief and horror; but nothing more. Tomorrow, if I manage to calm myself, I will tell you everything… Oh! I suspect there will be a long story, longer than would be convenient. I need rest. In twenty-four hours I have not been able to eat a bite; I have only had coffee and more coffee… Sleep is impossible. Wait a day so I can tell you what I saw and felt… not the truth, which we ignore. We are all in complete darkness regarding this tremendous event. Goodbye. Chapter 29. February 4. I did not know what was happening to me, as I drove with the judge, the clerk, and the coroner, the distance between the courthouse and the morgue. The thoughts that assailed my mind during that gloomy journey , dear X, I cannot and should not share with you, at least not yet. I must have asked Calderón if our friends had heard of the incident, because he told me that Augusta had become ill from the terrible surprise, and that he immediately telegraphed to her husband, who left on the afternoon of the first day for Las Charcas in the company of Malibrán and I don’t know who else. He also told me that Clotilde didn’t know a word, that Orozco would probably take it upon himself to give her the news when he came. I don’t know what else he told me, because I didn’t clearly understand anything. At times I thought I was dreaming; I longed to arrive soon, and at times I feared it; and when we were near the Toledo Bridge and the judge pointed out the ordinary Depot building, I felt such panic that I almost didn’t turn back. It angered me that the coroner, a rigid and dry old man, deaf, completely insensitive, due to his long practice, to the emotions of these judicial dramas, was so calm, and told us with the utmost coldness that in his long career he had performed two thousand or so autopsies. He inspired me with horror and pity for that man, whose intelligence I am not unaware of and whose serenity in the face of these catastrophes I have finally admired. We left the car. My legs were trembling. I entered last of all, so that the others’ first impression, if they had any, would attenuate mine… The deaf coroner entered as a priest might enter the sacristy to put on his chasuble… In front of the door, on a table, I saw the corpse of Federico Viera, not as disfigured as I had imagined. I imagined it. I thought an invisible hand was violently squeezing my neck, suffocating me. I didn’t cry, nor could I. Federico’s face was like white wax, with violet stains; his eyes were half- open, clotted, and dull; his nose was pointed, his mouth contracted, revealing his whitest teeth through a violent curl of the upper lip . He was dressed in a frock coat: his trousers and boots were covered in mud; the frock coat was also muddy on the right side. In the middle of his handsome forehead, a red spot the size of a duro, purple in the center: that’s where the bullet had entered. His waistcoat had been unbuttoned, and his shirt was covered with blood, partly dry and dark, partly red and fresh, forming clots. The coroner, pointing to his left side at the waist, said: “There’s another revolver wound. The bullet is inside.” The legal identification was carried out. Calderón and I testified, recognizing the dead man as our friend Federico Viera; we signed, and nothing more. On other tables further away, there were two corpses covered with a cloth. The guard uncovered them , and I viewed them with indifference, as if they were dead animals. I could not take my eyes off my unfortunate friend, and with all the powers of my soul, in a moment of silent and pathetic tension, I said to him: “Unfortunate body, regain a breath of life, and tell me who wounded you, whether it was maliciously or in a fight…” Next to me, Calderón’s voice and others murmured I don’t know what, or argued about whether it was suicide or homicide. I could not take my eyes or my mind off that extremely sad spectacle. The judge asked me if we had notified the dead man’s sister, and then Calderón repeated that Clotilde still knew nothing, and that it was necessary to tell her. I inquired if I could attend the autopsy; They answered yes, and that it would be done the following morning. We left with the intention of returning, at least for me… What I saw still seemed like a horrendous nightmare, and my thoughts flew eagerly toward the mysterious causes, toward the determining factor in that death. As we left, we saw a carriage approaching. A woman got out. It was Peri, dressed in rags, with a shawl and headscarf, beautiful, pale as death. When she saw us, she came up to us: her pained face expressed terror and shock. “Leonorilla,” Calderón told her, “don’t come in, don’t come in, this isn’t for you…” The poor woman grabbed my arm and said to me in a tone I’ll never forget: “Who killed him? Don’t you know who killed him?” The judge then asked for her address so he could summon her to testify, and after giving it to him, she burst into exclamations: “My poor darling !” So good, so affectionate, such a gentleman, and such a decent person… But what can this be? What I say: skirts, skirts… Oh! I don’t have the courage to see him… Leaning against the trunk of a poplar, she shed many tears. There she remained. We watched her from a distance, sitting at the foot of the tree, her face turned toward the door of the morgue. Afterward, we wanted to see the place where the body was found, and crossing all of Madrid, we went to the Paseo de Santa Engracia, above the Tapestry Factory, where there are some very beautiful modern houses. To the left, a very short, planned street opens up, with only one building on each side, and ends in an embankment, on much lower ground . To reach it, you have to descend a chute of quicksand . There were still carts there dumping rubble and sand from the dumping of houses under construction. To the right, you can see huts built with worn cobblestones, planks, and sheets of tin; Behind them, piles of rubbish; and in front of some, corrals enclosed by broken tiles, planks and wires stolen from the municipal squares; pig pens among the piles of straw; quite a few chickens pecking here and there. All of this is deep, and must be buried when the embankments started on one side and the other come together. In the center of the hollow runs a stream, through which the water flows into the culvert. Next to the stream, and in At the most advanced line of the dumped earth, they found the body. “Here it was,” said the judge, pointing with his cane to a dark stain that could have been blood. The inhabitants of the shacks say they heard a shot around seven in the evening… A young man claims to have seen a man coming without a hat, down the dump, and that he was talking to himself. “And the hat wasn’t heard?” ” It was heard at the entrance to the street, next to the fence of the house under construction.” The neighbors disagree on the number of shots that rang out. Some heard only one; another claims to have heard two, and some say three or four. “And do they all testify to the same thing? ” “No: a girl speaks of two men, very tall, very black, with very long beards and their hats pulled down over their faces… wide-brimmed hats. ” “And the weapon?” “We haven’t been able to find it yet. The terrain is very uneven, the earth soft and shifting.” It may well have been hidden by the rubble dumped this morning. “Have the inhabitants of the neighboring houses on Paseo de Santa Engracia been questioned? ” “Yes; but they’re not giving off any light. The doormen at number 17 triplet, which is the nearest house, haven’t seen or heard anything.” There was a discussion about whether it was suicide or homicide. One of those present, who I don’t know was the registrar, put forward the hypothesis that the crime had been committed elsewhere, the body having been transported and thrown into the dump. I don’t know why this seemed inadmissible to me. We examined the ground, on which we saw so many footprints that nothing could be read. Someone there said that the place was very deserted after dark. There used to be a path there that led from Santa Engracia to Calle Trafalgar; But they’ve already blocked the passage with a fence, and not a soul passes through there at night, except for the inhabitants of the huts, who also don’t head in the direction where the body was found, but instead keep to the right. There’s no lighting in that place, nor anything worthy of it. I returned home. I couldn’t eat breakfast. I had a strong desire to visit the Orozco family, and at the same time I was terrified at the idea of entering that house. Oh, God! I couldn’t get out of my mind the idea —a terrible and mysterious presumption!—that Augusta knows the truth. I don’t know what order of impressions or hunches I had based myself on, the night before learning of the event, that is, the very night the catastrophe must have occurred, to dismiss the mystery that torments me so much, and to say with effusive and frank conviction: ” It is Federico.” As if when I went to bed I thought of writing you my first letter in this sense, telling you: _eureka_… I remember this _eureka_, and the reasoning with which I proposed to support my conclusions. How far was I from thinking that my first letter would be written under a tragic impression! I am completely stunned. Let me pick up the thread that has slipped from my grasp. I was telling you that… now I remember… that there is no one who can get it out of my head that Augusta knows the truth. I wanted to observe that face, those eyes… to see if she has the fortitude to put on the mask, and how she deceives others with it, because as she does me… I entered trembling. I must have been like a dead man. The first one I saw was Orozco, sad, but without losing that tranquility that we so admire in him. He did not call the case a suicide or a homicide. Whatever it was, he seemed to attribute it to gambling. I had just arrived from Las Charcas with Malibrán, and the two of them recounted the terrible shock that Augusta’s telegram that morning had made on them, informing them of the dreadful event. Tomás later spoke to me about poor Clotilde, and there I learned, I don’t know from whom, that she had already heard of her brother’s death. We were therefore spared the tremendous step of giving her the news. I didn’t dare ask about Augusta, whom I didn’t see in the drawing room or in her study. I soon learned that the unpleasant surprise received by the That morning, when Calderón told him the story, she had suffered a severe headache; she was in bed and didn’t want to see anyone. Orozco, Malibrán, and I ate alone. Cornelio was the only one with a moderate appetite; the saint ate very little, and I nothing. The three of us remained silent. My eyes watered every moment. The diplomat—I say this, to be fair—seemed genuinely sorry, and I will add that for the first time I felt the dislike I always had for him soften. He and Tomás praised the poor dead man, praising his extreme delicacy, his affectionate manner, and lamenting that the irregularities of his life had led him to such a sad end. I couldn’t maintain my manly composure and burst into tears like a child. Later, some of the season ticket holders arrived, whom I noticed were dismayed and as if afraid to broach the subject. It seems to me— I can’t be sure—that Villalonga and Malibrán whispered in a long aside, while the Marquis of Cicero asked me for a detailed account of what I saw at the Depósito. I said as little as I could about this. Another thing I noticed was that that night there was no talk of crime. We had enough with that fresh reality, which touched us so closely. The legal emotions of the other drama, already old and overused by reenactments, were losing their novelistic interest. Cisneros didn’t say a word about the event, and I observed in him a taciturnity that completely disfigured him, presenting him as very different from how I had always seen him. The Ultramarine Cato left the Cuban Administration and the scoundrels who were going to exploit it in profound peace. All the topics of conversation, so lively and appetizing on other nights, turned into insipid meats. But the great matter, the novelty of the day, filled them with fear, and they dared not discuss it. I repeat, my godfather’s gloomy homesickness caused me no small amount of surprise. He wasn’t the same man; it was either: either he put on the mask, or he threw it away, revealing his true face. But something else happened that was to leave a deeper impression on my mind than all the impressions of that fateful, unforgettable day, February 2nd, Candlemas Day. Have a little patience. Around eleven, Orozco told me that Augusta wanted to see me. Only Mrs. Trujillo had passed by, and she was already back in the living room, waiting for an opportunity to share her “criminal” little paragraph with Calderón. I entered my cousin’s bedroom. The faint sound of my footsteps and those of Orozco, who entered with me, sounded to me as if I had never heard the sound of footsteps in my life. I saw the lady reclining on a long chair, well covered. There was no light in that room, but in the next one, and barely enough light penetrated through the curtains for us to see each other’s faces. Augusta extended her left hand to me, ordering me to sit beside her. Her husband affectionately asked her if she was feeling better, and she replied that she was, asking her in turn who had come and which of the regulars was missing that evening. The three of us talked for a while about Federico’s case, she being the first to mention it, saying to me: “What do you think of this tragedy?” I answered in a boxed set of phrases, trying to observe her face; but the darkness prevented me from distinguishing it. I could clearly hear her voice. It had a certain tremor, a dullness or muffled quality that betrayed profound disturbance. “I’m still reeling from the shock,” she said, trying to keep her voice clear. “This morning, as I was leaving for Mass, Pepe came by and delivered the news to me point-blank. I was in a very bad mood because I spent part of the night with Cousin Serafina, who is still very ill. I think we’ll lose her soon. Just imagine: in that state of mind, a shot from a musket like that… I was so upset that I couldn’t leave the house, and I almost got a headache. I can’t hear talk of people killing themselves or being killed without going all out. And when it’s someone I know… ” “Poor boy!” Tomás pointed out. “He had his faults like everyone else; but he also had great qualities.” “Qualities that are not at all common, that’s the truth,” added Augusta, looking at me. “It’s truly a sorrow… We appreciated him as we appreciate you, who are part of the family. I must warn Pepe to learn to break this terrible news with more tact and gradually, not all at once, as today… I was stunned… The first thing that occurred to me, as always when I feel sad and nervous, was to telegraph him to come. I was afraid of being alone. From the moment I saw you come in tonight looking affectionately at your husband, it seemed to me that my fear was gone. I’m recovering my composure, and if that little nail prick had been removed, I would be so happy receiving my friends… ”
I grieved bitterly for my friend’s unfortunate end, and Augusta said, now in a more confident voice: “May God forgive him! Poor thing!” “What strays, what conflicts, what disorders in life must have led him to such a disaster!” I don’t know what I replied. I thought at that moment that my cousin had called me to say all that before me, as one brings a witness to lend legal force to important statements. I also thought that she was securing her alibi by accompanying Aunt Serafina. Orozco said that we shouldn’t venture any judgment on the motives for Federico’s death, not even on the death itself, which until that moment remained shrouded in mystery; and with that, he left, leaving me with the impression that the event concerned him more than it seemed at first glance. When we were alone, Augusta diplomatically introduced into the conversation an idea foreign to the central issue of that evening. I don’t know what she said to me about whether or not Pez’s second-in-command had finally married the gunner, and she suddenly returned to the tragic subject, saying to me: “Well, this gives one pause! But you, who were perhaps the only one somewhat acquainted with the ins and outs of her life, don’t you have any background to discover…?” “When I heard of this misfortune,” I replied, presenting the most vulgar version to see if she would accept it with joy, “I thought that some loss in gambling could have been the cause. ” “But what?” she pointed out briskly, the very rogue fleeing from the trap I had set for her, “has it been established that it was suicide? Look, judging only by impression, I’m inclined to believe not. ” “It’s easy for justice to clarify it; and if it turns out to be…” “For me,” she stated confidently, interrupting me, “what we have here is a clash over women.” You’ve already heard about the scandalous revelry at the house of that woman they call Perri, or La Pera, or whatever. It seemed to me she was using this twist of events to throw me off my scent, so that I wouldn’t be able to catch her in her thoughts. “You know,” I said to myself, my soul filled with misgivings; “you know what happened, you alone. Whether someone killed him or he did it himself, you know it, because the dreadful misfortune occurred right in front of you, however it happened.” I stated aloud that I didn’t suspect Leonor of any connection with the mysterious incident, and she repeated that the causes of these tragedies must always be sought in the fatal combination of women and gambling . I looked at her face, considering it like a mirror on whose surface the terrible scene had been reproduced for a few moments. How much I would have given for some trace of that image to remain on the mirror face! But if there was anything there, it wasn’t easy for me to see it because of the darkness. Nor could I examine her expressive eyes, which might have reproduced some fleeting shadow of what was faithfully preserved in my mind . I had to notice later that she was moving restlessly, trying to wrap herself more closely in her cashmere, and that in those cautious movements she never once removed her right hand. It seemed to me that she was hiding it behind a blanket. “What’s that hand?” I asked her briskly. “Nothing. I got a little burn yesterday while sealing a letter. But it’s nothing. To avoid friction, I protect the burn with my handkerchief.” She gave further explanations; but she didn’t show me what the burn was. “Well, you see,” I said after a pause, “if justice doesn’t uncover the truth of what happened, I will.” It seemed to me that she didn’t flinch at hearing this. Finally, she answered: “I believe justice will make it quite clear, Manolo. Don’t get involved as a cop, or else what happened to those who are trying to uncover the crime on Baño Street, and have already stirred up such a mess that no one can understand, will happen to you.” She stopped and stared at the ceiling. I stared at her without blinking. There was a moment, I can tell you this naively, when that woman inspired me with a horror I can’t describe to you. I felt an impulse to throw myself at her and throw my hands around her neck, shouting: “Confess your crime; confess that it’s your fault that that unfortunate man died. Reveal the truth to me, or I’ll drown you right here.” That rush soon faded , but fortunately it never went from idea to action. But my exquisite impressionability immediately determined another mental phenomenon, and that was that I was amazed at having loved such a woman. No: at that moment, I could have sworn I hated and despised her with all the strength of my soul. The passion I felt for her seemed to me like one of those stimuli of our self-love that lead us to emphatic situations and attitudes, which we regret as soon as we realize they don’t spring from the very depths of our being. Afterward, we spoke of indifferent things, and I left thinking that we live in an essentially dramatic society; only the veneer of culture we’ve given ourselves conceals the drama in the upper echelons, leaving it only uncovered in the lower ones. I left there with a broken heart and left that house early, which I was beginning to hate. I had a very bad night… My bed was full of needles. Chapter 30. February 5th . I attended the autopsy. What a load of stuff there is inside this wretched human body! A frightful anatomy lesson! I shall never forget it as long as I live. The corpse had several bruises and two revolver wounds: one in the forehead and another in the left side. In the first, the bullet passed through the brain and exited through the occipital region. It was fatal. The second, which involved the liver, was also fatal, though not immediately fatal. The bullet had lodged itself in a vertebra. In addition, severe erosion was observed on the left arm, and the fingers of both hands were flayed. There was, therefore, a struggle. I believe there is not enough evidence to prove suicide; but I see the judge inclined to admit it as a fact. He has taken statements from the inhabitants of the hovels, and nothing precise is found. It’s a mass of vague and contradictory testimony, which serves more to confuse than to enlighten us. The investigation by the doormen of the nearby houses has also yielded no insight. This is like dying!… The slowness of the justice system and the lack of police force drive me to despair. I can think of a thousand evidentiary resources that would surely yield results; but what’s that judge thinking?… I’ll act on my own. I’ll inform you in due course of the steps I’ve taken and intend to take to discover the truth for myself, without the help of police officers. Let me continue telling you now. When we went to the autopsy on the morning of the 3rd, we found Peri sitting at the foot of the same tree where we had seen her the day before. Her pale, haggard face revealed fatigue and lack of sleep. It was as if the unfortunate woman had spent the entire night there . He told us that he had finally worked up the courage to enter the morgue, step by step, gradually overcoming his fear . He approached the door slowly; he craned his neck until he could make out one of Federico’s feet; then he moved forward slowly, seeing more and more with each passing moment… until his spirits strengthened and he was able to face the sight of the entire corpse, from head to toe. Even with these precautions, he couldn’t avoid a sudden, extremely painful emotion when he saw his face… and he fell with a slight fainting spell. And the guard had to lift her up. She stood there praying, as she says, as they allowed her to; then she dipped a handkerchief in the blood oozing from the deceased’s skull, and, cutting off strands of hair, she placed them in another handkerchief. She showed me these relics while she spoke. When the guard made her leave, because it was already late, she sat down by the tree, determined to stay there all night, watching over her soul mate. The poor thing was so alone in that dunghill, forgotten by everyone! It was painful to see the body of the man who had been the joy and delight of society thrown onto that table, composed of a single marble slab on four iron legs. Peri didn’t say it like that, but that was her idea. I remember this phrase: “And the others there, having fun, and perhaps glad to have gotten rid of him! Scoundrels!” Well, as I’m telling you, Leonor spent the entire night in the open field, under the leafless elm, wrapped tightly in her shawl. At dawn, the inhabitants of a nearby tavern gave her shelter; she took a drink of brandy, then fritters, and then another little bit of brandy on top. With this, she perked up and went back on guard duty. At dawn, she was exhausted, sleepy, tired, and miserable. She told us all this with naive ease, paying no attention to the fact that she hadn’t been seen or the discomfort of sleeping badly in such a hard bed. And when the coroner, whom we were accompanying, allowed himself the liberty of making a joke about the loneliness her friends from Madrid had been left in that night, she replied with great ease, “Let them go to hell,” adding a highly expressive gesture to the sentence. When she learned that the autopsy was about to be performed, she was horrified to think of how they would arrange her poor friend’s body and head. “And why such a carnage?” “You’d better go,” I told her, “for these things are very sad.” But she, determined not to witness the dismemberment, even if they allowed her to, said that she would not return home until she had laid her friend’s body on sacred ground and prayed a good Our Father over it. When I left the terrible medical examination, I found her there , weeping. She begged me to tell her the horrors I had seen; but I was so deeply impressed that I could hardly oblige her. Her curiosity spurred me to talk, and she asked me questions that left me cold. “Did they open his head? What was inside him? Was it clear that he was the greatest gentleman in the world?” “No, woman, you can’t see that.” She then asked if they had taken out his heart, and what it was like. It must have been, according to her, a huge heart, so big it couldn’t fit inside… That woman’s candid interrogations hurt me so much , as if I felt the coroner’s knives on my flesh performing my own autopsy. I admired Leonor’s dog-like fidelity, and the poor woman towered in my eyes. The burial took place in the San Justo Cemetery. Santanita represented the family, and with him two people I had never met before. They were Claudia’s husband and Barbara’s husband, both of humble demeanor. They had arranged for a decent burial, and brought, in a funeral home car, everything needed for the ceremony. Since it was not possible to redress the body, they wrapped it in sheets, leaving its face uncovered, and nothing more was done, nor was there any need to. As we were leaving the morgue, the Marquis of Cícero, Villalonga, and other friends arrived. The funeral procession did not exceed fifteen people and six or seven carriages. We walked quickly and at a regular pace along the road to the cemetery. We got out. We followed behind the coffin through those very sad courtyards surrounded by niches. Leonor and I walked at the tail end of the small procession; but at the burial ceremony I approached, and she remained at a certain distance, weeping. She was the only person, among all those present, who showed a deep, profound, inconsolable sorrow; for the others, even Santanita, only expressed formal mourning, and in On some faces one could read this official commiseration, mixed with severe criticism, which, if translated into words, would sound like this: “Poor Perdis! You could have had no other end than the one you had. God forgive you.” I will not tell you anything about the sadness of the act. You can imagine and understand it, knowing the circumstances of the deceased and his disastrous death. Nor will I tell you about the ideas that crowded my mind, nor about the mournful sound of the coffin falling to the bottom of the grave. All this, although true, would not adequately express what I felt. Besides the pain of seeing a sympathetic and amiable friend disappear forever, I was distressed to consider that with him we were burying the unsolved enigma of his pitiful end; that Federico, upon falling into the grave and receiving the earth upon him, would lock the secret, and bid us goodnight to eternity with a certain lugubrious humor that chilled my blood: “Goodbye, fools. The solution is in the Valley of Josaphat.” We left there talking about the dead man in the hackneyed, cold, almost indifferent terms that are customary. We asked each other about our precious health, complaining about the bad weather, fickle and uneven, unseasonable, and blaming it for our ailments. We amused ourselves by seeing more funerals arrive, with quite a few carriages, and in them some familiar people, whom we greeted, rejoicing to see them alive. Long strings of carriages descended the streets heading for the various cemeteries. In the distance, as if inviting us to live a little longer, the hill of Madrid appeared before us, with a hundred little domes beneath a clear, transparent, burnished sky. The sun shone splendidly and was quite stinging. I won’t tell you that the dry, bare trees looked like skeletons to me, nor that their branches rattled with a mournful sound, for that would be untrue. The day was one of the most beautiful seen here, cold in the shade, burning in the sun; a day that threatened existence with two parallel swords: pneumonia and typhoid. We got into our carriages and headed for Madrid. Look at how things are: the image of poor Federico, wrapped in the sheet and buried under so much earth, never left my mind; but it was getting far away, very far away, fading a little with each turn of the carriage wheels. In mine, I brought Calderón and poor Peri, who had dried her tears and seemed calmer. Calderón is an indelicate and importunate man, and he doubtless believed that Leonor’s bad reputation authorized him to mock her feelings, allowing himself to address her with tasteless jokes on such a sad occasion. “Tell me, are you still with the man from Malaga, or have you gone back to Guillermón?” she answered him with disdain, and I, frankly, was outraged by my friend’s rudeness and his lack of respect for what is always respectable, wherever it may be. We spoke little during the journey. I did nothing but stare at Peri, rapturously contemplating her pained face inside the handkerchief tied to her scarf. Sleeplessness and sadness made her more beautiful, or at least it seemed to me. I hide nothing from you about what I feel, even though I know you might make fun of me. That’s why I tell you that I found that woman extremely interesting, and that I liked her, yes, I liked her; I felt a mysterious impulse within me that propelled me toward her in the most spiritual way . My blessed impressionability was already creating in me one of those passionate fluctuations that are so common in me. I paid no attention to the kind of woman she was; I wanted to see nothing but the noble, pure, and pure feeling that she displayed, without any mixture of affectation, and I admired her with all my soul. After the admiration came I don’t know what respect; yes, respect, don’t cross yourself. Why shouldn’t we call things by their names? I saw in her a warmth of feeling that was very sympathetic to me, and I felt like embracing that warmth of my spiritually solitary and frozen existence. “Leonor,” I said to her, as we approached her house on Preciados Street, after having I left Calderón in his, “I have to talk to you, and if you allow me, it must be today, right now. I’m inviting you to lunch. We’ll go wherever you want.” I don’t know if the motive that prompted me to speak to her like this was a strong desire to be at her side, or the purpose of questioning her about certain facts concerning Federico that I wanted to clarify, in order to provide a solid foundation for my investigation. I believe that both motives were simultaneously what determined my approach to that woman. I told her more: “You are very good, Leonorilla, and I need to understand you without delay; I need you as a friend and as a revealer of certain things I want to know. ” “I don’t know if I can,” she replied, smiling. “That one must be burned out, waiting for me.” “Go up and we’ll have lunch together… or we’ll go wherever you want… as long as they let me.” We went up. There was no man in the house, which seemed to annoy her, but was very pleasing to me. The maid informed Leonor of everything that had happened during her absence, and I thought I understood that someone had been poisoned by such a long absence. They had gone out in search of her… they had informed the district mayor. Leonor was laughing. I remained alone in the living room, and from there I heard her bustling about in her study; I heard the sound of a washroom, and the maid and housekeeper grumbling. Soon the girl entered, transformed into an elegant woman, wearing a beautiful dressing gown and red slippers. “I suppose,” she said to me, “that you want to know something about that poor fellow…” Her eyes moistened again, and sitting next to me in the most honest attitude, she added: “He was, you can believe it, the first gentleman in the world, and the most decent person there was in Madrid.” I supported her assertions with a nod of my head. Then I smiled when I heard him say this: “I knew the day before what was going to happen. I read the cards, and in ‘what you’re waiting for’, the seven of swords came up, ‘certain death’, with the two of cups, ‘surprise’, because of ‘the woman of good color’… “But is it possible that you have faith in that nonsense? ” “It has never failed me. Everything the cards say always comes out exactly as they say. The poor wretch was here the very day of the case. I don’t know if I should tell you what he said to me, which was very little. When the judge summons me, I’ll get away with four pesos; but with you, if you give me your word to keep quiet, I’ll be more frank. Federico and I were friends, but friends… I don’t know how to explain it to you… come on, we had nothing, there was nothing between him and me… At one time, yes, we loved each other; But now… We were the same as old married couples… As for illusion, there wasn’t one… I swear to you it wasn’t my turn. But we had a very close relationship, we appreciated each other, and I took advice from him whenever I found myself in a bad situation, and he from me. —He took advice from you, from you! How so?… Explain that to me… But let’s take it step by step and not get confused. Clarity, order above all. The first thing I want to know, and you can tell me, is whether Federico had any big losses gambling these last few days. —No, no: quite the contrary. The night before he won a lot of money, a lot… I’ll tell the judge about this whatever I think best, whatever doesn’t compromise the good name of the poor deceased. —Yes; but you’ll tell me everything you know, absolutely everything. I ‘ll keep your secret, Leonor, and I’ll be your friend… friend, as he was. “That’s a bit difficult,” he said, smiling sadly and looking at his nails. “A lot of idiots would have to get together. This goes back a long way, my lord. I could, in the twinkling of an eye, fall in love with a man, and he with me, and we could love each other for a longer or shorter period of time; but a friendship like the one he and I had isn’t a matter of three or four days. ” “Well, you must tell me everything,” I repeated, consumed by curiosity, “and quickly. ” “Don’t be so hasty… And besides, there are things I don’t know if I should tell you. They’re very delicate, and if you don’t understand them well, you might think badly of our friend. Not everyone fully understands what’s going on. There are things… things, eh? that seem very bad, and they aren’t. ” “True; but I figure I’ll understand everything you tell me.” and that my friend’s good memory will lose nothing because of it. Now, the first thing you must tell me, and there can be no postponing this, is what you think of this misfortune… What happened? When did you find out? What did you say when you found out? No one knew him better than you; no one was aware of his dealings better than you… Your opinion on this death is of the utmost importance, Leonor. As I asked her the question, I also questioned her facial expression . I saw her grow contrite and cry again. Wiping away her tears, she answered in a broken voice: “I don’t know, I don’t know… but to me… Federico has been killed… That bit about him killing himself… I don’t know… seems to me to be an invention of the law to cover up the truth. My poor soul, so good, so loyal, such a decent person! Curse the swindler who’s to blame!” “So you think there’s a woman’s hand or a woman’s influence involved?” —Do you believe there is one… If the judge asks me about this, I’ll play dumb; but I have my idea here, and no one can take it away from me. —What is your idea?… I want to know… —There are some very wicked women. —That’s true; but what remains to be known is what wicked woman has been involved in this.
Leonor gave a deep sigh; she looked at her nails again, as she always did when she was meditating, and finally said to me in a low voice: —Why are you asking me, if you know her better than I do? —I didn’t want to mention the name that floated in the confluence of our words. I simply said: —Did Federico ever speak to you about that woman, did he tell you about his love affair with her? —Never, never, —Peri declared with a certain dignity. —I swear to you that he never said anything to me. He was so sensitive that in this house he never mentioned the names of the ladies who were crazy about him. And when I wanted to pull his leg, he denied it, believe me, he denied it… “So how did you know…?” “I knew it from another source; I knew it… just because… as one knows many things. ” “Well, let’s leave aside the source of your knowledge. And on what do you base your belief that he was killed? ” “It’s a hunch… but I’m not mistaken,” he responded with a convinced and mischievous tone. “What I think is as true as this is the day… I ‘ll keep my idea to myself. I don’t want to confide it to anyone. ” “Not even to me? ” “Why? We won’t be able to prove it. If I speak of this, they might take revenge on me. ” “Well, then tell me one thing, just one, and I won’t ask you any more. Do you believe that Federico died at the hands of a man? ” “Of course: a man… ” “That’s enough for me.” I’ll tell you this exchange, from which you will glean little substance, so that you will understand the confusion of my ideas. I didn’t want to insist on my interrogation; And as bodily needs, due to the late hour of the morning, took over, it occurred to both of us that nothing is so inconvenient for high human goals as going an entire day without lunch. Our very grief demanded physical reparation, and even the intricate problem that worried us required physical strength to be treated with due integrity and formality. She insisted that we have lunch there; I insisted on lunch at the restaurant. The weaker sex finally won , and we moved to the dining room. Shall I be completely honest with you? Yes, why not? That woman fascinated me: she towered before me, not only because of her beauty, but also, and perhaps more so, because of some moral aura that my willful mind saw or wanted to see in her. Nothing, my dear child, I was in love… I won’t take back the word, in love with Peri, and wanting to tell her; and you must also know that what I felt inside was very subtle, something of chivalrous and sentimental gallantry that went through me like a splendid procession, and… I don’t know what else to tell you. I’ll leave the conclusion for another letter, because I’m extremely tired, and I can’t finish without filling one more sheet. Until tomorrow. Chapter 31. February 7. Do you believe that the luncheon ended well; that my fascination reached its peak, and that with the stimulus of the food and drinks, I launched myself into to express my feelings, and I raised my loving arms and Peri fell into them, repaying my respectful affection with another of the same quality or perhaps less pure? Oh, don’t be a fool! If you’ve believed this, erase it from your papers. We were both very discouraged about everything, very sad. Now notice, in what you are going to read, how sad and comical things are intertwined in life, and how our intentions and reality are or often are at odds. We hadn’t finished our lunch, which, by the way, was quite irregular, as if it were held in a poorly run house, when the abrupt entrance of a man known in the world of gallantry by the nickname “the Malaga chicken” came to twist the course of my convoluted thoughts. I suppose you’re not going to look for this celebrity in the Vapereau, the Larousse, or any other encyclopedia. Don’t look for her because you wouldn’t find her, which doesn’t mean he’s an undeniable celebrity, at least here, and we all know him, some by sight, others by demeanor, like me, unfortunately. Let me introduce you to this little rascal from a good family and better shadow, a bit of a bullfighter, a bit of an aristocrat, a bit of a drunkard, as quick with words as he is slow of understanding, handsome, yes, although effeminate, with the feet and hands of a woman, a very lanky body, hair hanging over his ear, and a little mustache that looks like black silk, eyes like suns; a man, in short, whom I, whenever I see him, would gladly kick twice in such a place, and I swear I didn’t do it on that occasion out of respect for the one I don’t hesitate to call… laugh, man, laugh until tomorrow… _lady of my thoughts_. Well, sir, the same thing happened when that guy came in and… Do you think there was a huge commotion, that Peri and her lover got into a verbal exchange, that then the pimp and I got into a fight, and…? No, man, be patient; there was none of those _trigedias_ that in philosophical language are called _quarrels_. I think Leonor greeted him with a _hello, perdis!_ _are you here yet?_ But I’m not sure if she said this, or simply _good heavens, what’s here!_ When in doubt, don’t jot anything down, lest later, in future ages, historians make a fuss trying to elucidate the true terms of this important greeting. What I have no doubt about, and this you can record with all solemnity, is that Pepe Amador, for that is his name, approached his mistress and made a show of slapping her, jokingly, I mean, with an attitude somewhere between affectionate and angry, braying thus: “Oh my, all day and all night! You fool ! What are these papers for, if you weren’t even a corpse?” Leonor allowed herself to be caressed by that fool, and turning to me said: “Come on, tell me frankly. Isn’t it nonsense that I ‘m so mad about this animal?” I was about to reply that, indeed, it was the biggest nonsense; but I said nothing. Amador greeted me in a servile manner, with extremes of friendship, which I had never given any occasion to do, because the guy repulsed me. At that moment, she didn’t show the slightest concern about my presence, and I believe that even if she had been jealous of me, she would have been very careful not to show it. The chulapo sat down next to her, and soon they began to slobber, which angered me immensely. I certainly didn’t understand that a woman of merit… I say merit, and I won’t go back on it, because everything is relative in this world… well, yes, I didn’t understand that a woman of quality could love such a slacker. In the tenderness and recriminations she directed at him, I thought I sensed affection and contempt mingled. Analyze this, sensible man, if it doesn’t bother you. I would tell you something about the matter if I were in the mood to entertain myself with such nonsense. You’ll understand that I wouldn’t be at all amused by the cap that those two combs were trying to put on me, and I wanted to leave. Leonor objected, telling her boyfriend to be polite. And now, proceeding with that logic that you wise men call inflexible, you will undoubtedly believe that in the face of Peri’s love for that fellow, in the face of The sight of his silly antics and her flattery suddenly disillusioned me, and I was suddenly repulsed by the one who had previously seemed so seductive. You believe this, don’t you? Well, no, sir, it wasn’t so. That’s the logic of little treatises on ethics; that of the human heart is often, alas!, very different. I’ll tell you, then, that, contrary to every written law, the girl continued to attract and fascinate me, and her manifest weaknesses didn’t take away my illusion of that strange moral radiance I thought I saw in her. This may seem like a millipede to you; but I’ll tell you as it is, and there’s no joking about reality. I said goodbye two or three times, and Leonor and her lover kept me there just as many times. In one of these, the fool allowed himself to give his opinion on the day’s events, telling us what he had heard at the corner of the Suizo, at the Taurina, and at other centers of learning and culture. The version Amador received could not have been more extravagant. Federico had been killed by Orozco. “How outrageous!” I said. “If Orozco was in Las Charcas that night… I know for sure. ” “Well, a friend of mine,” replied the pimp with the certainty of barbarism, ” told me he saw Don Tomás at eleven at night, on a street that leads to the actual crime scene. He was tightly wrapped in his cape, with another kid. And that one?” I laughed. Peri laughed too, although with noticeable affectation, as if trying to hide her thoughts. I didn’t want to enter into discussions on such a delicate matter, and I withdrew, promising Leonor that I would return to chat with her when I could spare a long, long time. We agreed that I would set a place, day, and time, and I set off across the world in search of the public and street impressions that were bound to be forthcoming. In the three or four places I went, the only thing talked about was anything else. You will easily understand that a matter of such a nature, steeped in mystery and scandal, is bound to stir up the gossipmongering of the most gossipy race in the world; a race endowed with a prodigious aptitude for adding variations to facts and embellishing them until their mother who gave birth to them has known them; a race that is essentially artistic and imaginative, creating scenarios and characters, forming a credible reality within and above authentic reality. Faced with an event of great resonance, every Spaniard feels humiliated if he does not give his firm opinion on it, all the better the more distinct from the rest. I heard, as you might imagine, reasonable explanations; others novelistic, though imbued with that verisimilitude characteristic of imaginative works written with talent; some outlandish, belonging to the genre of handouts, the kind that, full of gibberish, are shoved under your door. I listened to everything with patience and attention, for even the greatest absurdities must, in such cases, be heard and weighed to obtain the truth. I encountered people who plowed into the matter with brutal ferocity, eager to sink their teeth into hitherto untouched reputations; others who leaned toward the most atrocious, risky, and pessimistic, and some who, liking to take the sympathetic role of common sense amidst so much delirium, proposed the most anodyne and trivial versions; but in all honesty, I must tell you that these made few converts. The crowd followed those waving bright red banners with some very scandalous slogan; those announcing their thesis with drums and bugles as if they were exhibiting a phenomenon in a fairground stall. I will give you a detailed account of all this, dear X, when I am calmer and you are less fed up with me. Forgive me for not continuing; but you can see that the day has been a trial. Judge it by the index I hastily sketch out for you, which reads like the summary of a chapter in a cause célèbre: Autopsy—Burial—My passion for Peri—Lunch at her house—Amador—Public opinion or the confusion of opinions—Boring, and live a good life, for this is the only thing we can learn during our brief transit through the worst and most foolish of planets. Chapter 32. February 9th . Today, my friend, I have something very important to tell you; and since we live in a truly novelistic atmosphere, with everyone inventing, stitching, and weaving together more or less acceptable arguments about this event, I have acquired something of the artistic affectation, and I hope to excite your reader’s interest by recounting the facts without following them in a sequence; that is, starting in the middle, then returning to the beginning and jumping from there to the end, perhaps concluding with vagueness, question marks, or ellipses containing conjectures for all tastes. Well, you see: my godfather sent for me yesterday. I assumed he wanted to discuss Viera’s tragic end with me, and so it was. I have never seen good old Cisneros as I saw him yesterday. He was distracted, his mind wandering off at every moment. His efforts to conceal his profound confusion were visible ; but he couldn’t manage it. He put on the mocking mask he knows how to use like no one else when he pleases; but not even then. The confusion came out of his eyes in fleeting flashes, from his mouth in monosyllables and broken expressions. “Public opinion in this country is indecent,” he told me, trembling with rage. “They respect nothing… This is a scandal.” He showed me several newspapers that reported on the crime, making veiled allusions to the Orozco family. “It’s a matter of going and breaking the heads of those wretches.” “Little by little, Don Carlos,” I responded. “These things that were once your most delicious treat, why do they anger you so much now? ” “Oh! No, no: I don’t deny that society is perverted; “That everything bad, just for the sake of being bad, is true,” he indicated, recovering his role; “but if I catch one of those journalists, I would be very happy to give him a beating… Let it be known that I maintain what I have always maintained. But let’s not confuse things. If Federico’s idiot gets the urge to kill himself, does this have to do with my children? You know I have no affection for Orozco; but that doesn’t mean that… Anyway, I feel like getting indignant about these infamies, and I don’t know why you don’t get indignant too. Are you or are you not part of the family? ” “I understand why you are angry,” I said to him, “and that’s why you had a two-hour conference yesterday with the judge investigating the case.” This news from the judge, acquired and verified by me the day before, is the spring that, having to be explained at the beginning, I reserved to fit you into the context of my interview with Cisneros. With this little trick, I thought I’d artistically construct the narrative to play on your curiosity; but, my boy, it slipped out before its time, and I don’t erase anything I’ve written. Strictly speaking, I must prefer the logical order of the story to the tricks of the narrative trade, which are not for apprentices. Well, all right. When I told my uncle about the judge, his face fell, and he suddenly flew into a rage, saying to me: “And you, what do you know about it? Look, you scamp, I’ll throw you out of my house, and you’ll never set foot in it again. I see you have no honorable feelings. You’ve told a lie, a foolish thing, a stupid thing, yes, sir.” I don’t know what atrocities came out of his mouth; but he didn’t deny that he had conferred with the judge. And how could I deny it? He had completely lost his composure, and I retained it. He paced back and forth, agitated, from one corner of the room to the other, gathering the tails of his archaeological gown. Perhaps the enraged old man was banging his fists on everything he could get his hands on, be it a chest, a wardrobe, or a mosaic table. Look at what he said: “There will come a time, if we continue like this, when no one will be able to go out into the street. This is nauseating. How much filth is in that opinion! But what opinion, or what…? Decidedly, I’m breaking someone’s baptism … which doesn’t mean, understand this clearly, standing before me and shaking his fist, that I believe the world is good. Manolo, believe me, we’re heading for a cataclysm. Society can’t continue like this. Its foundations, the famous foundations that those filthy papers speak so much about, They crack, crack. Marriage is collapsing, political and religious institutions are crumbling. Army, Church, Judiciary, rotten pillars just waiting for a clash to fall! Yes, Manolo, Manolito, a new world must come… but what I’m saying: although I know that this new world must come, and it will come, have no doubt about it, for the moment I feel like giving a couple of slaps to those who talk about things that don’t concern them, to those who accuse serious people of illusory crimes… For the same reason, man, for the same reason that society is falling to dust, I want to let off steam… Ah!… what a troop, son!… Be careful allowing yourself reticence against my beloved Tinita!… Come on, this is the height of shamelessness and …! Of course, I recognize that the world is a spherical prison. Sin and evil are their absolute masters; but honesty and purity exist, why shouldn’t they? Man, if only as an indispensable term of comparison. Well then: I tell you that these atrocities they’re telling you now about the Orozco family are unjust and slanderous… I’m furious; and if you want your godfather to love you, go out there, and the first one who lets slip a little allusion to you, knock out all his teeth. “Friend Don Carlos,” I said, “I think we should keep quiet, since we don’t know the truth. ” “Manolo, you’re a coward… and I’ll have to throw you out of my house. ” “I’ll leave, if you insist; but not without telling you that the court version regarding Federico’s death seems absurd to me.” Here it’s worth pointing out that that very morning the notary told me that the summary report has yielded nothing that could support the homicide. The court is of the opinion that Federico killed himself as a result of heavy gambling losses. The proceedings continue, yes, but already headed in a direction from which they will not deviate. “And on what do you base your belief that the court version is absurd,” Cisneros told me, standing before me with a swaggering air, ” because I know for a fact that Federico hasn’t had any losses in the last few days, but rather large profits. ” “Stop it, fool. Well, anyone can prove that there were those profits. And even if there were… what does that mean? What a way of arguing.” The good gentleman was undoubtedly completely distraught, or about two inches from distraught, because suddenly he changed his accent and expression, and putting his arm around my neck, he said: “Come here, silly, my dearest godson… Why are you meddling in what doesn’t concern you? What investigations are these without me inquiring, since I have more knowledge of the world than you? Let’s understand each other and act in concert . From you to me, we can communicate our impressions.” Whatever you know, whatever you think or suspect about this tremendous childishness of poor Federico, confide it to me, and with my experience I will give you the logical outline of the facts. Tell me what you’ve heard around here. Has Peri told you anything? What’s being said at the Casino and at the Peña de los Ingenieros? I want to know. It’s just that… I’ll tell you: I like to learn about the different aspects of human malice , about all the ills of public opinion, because public opinion is pure gangrene, you know? Society is evil; but public opinion, my son, that great chatterbox, deserves to be treated like the least of whores. I had never seen him so out of his element. Within him, the ideas that constitute the most typical and most agreeable aspects of his personality were struggling with the obligation to apply a different criterion to a real event than the one he always uses; also within him, the desire to know the truth was struggling with the shame of seeing his daughter’s name mixed up in that incomprehensible drama. The clatter of this struggle; the leaps of his wit as it clashed with his conscience; the shrieks that sometimes came from the depths of it; the yearnings of curiosity; the bellows of pride, wanting to sustain the pessimistic idea above all else, produced a spiritual turmoil that amused me greatly . Believe me: it was hard for me not to burst out laughing, because at times I felt like laughing. They represented my godfather’s feelings and ideas like cats scratching and biting each other in a furious brawl. I began to believe he was having a nervous breakdown, because the poor gentleman, in all his pacing, seemed to be dancing or performing somersaults. I tried to calm him down, and finally managed to get him to lie down on a sofa. When I changed position, his tone changed. You should have seen and heard him. “I’ll confess something to you: I have a bitterness in my soul that’s bothering me. I still stand firm: humanity is a slave to evil; but frankly, I don’t like my name on the lips of the malicious crowd. You must tell me everything you hear, even if it’s the most insolent and shameless. Afterwards, do you know what you and I do? We challenge half of Madrid. ” “Hail Mary, Most Pure!” “The thing is, here where you see me, I have a very delicate sense of honor, and I can’t stand anyone touching my clothes. I’m furious; I want to attack someone, take on anyone who contradicts me, commit some atrocity. It seems to me I’ve reverted to my twenties, to the brave age when I used to charge the low price among the boys of my taifa!” He wanted to get up. I restrained him, saying: “Don Carlos, don’t be a child. I’ll tell you everything I hear. But bear in mind that most of what is said is pure nonsense, stories that each person makes up to his liking to gather an audience of fools who will listen and applaud them. ” “Well, well… that’s how I like the way you express yourself… because, frankly, when you began talking to me this afternoon, you seemed inclined to believe all these rumors that are circulating. That’s why I wanted to throw you out of my house. I’m glad to see you agree with me.” You and I think the same; you and I think that the so-called Humanity is a bunch of scoundrels; but in the present case, we reject the malicious suppositions and are indignant… Aren’t you indignant, my son? Oh! I haven’t slept a wink for two nights, so shocked, consumed by spite and curiosity… Look, I’ll tell you frankly: I want to know the truth, and I’m afraid to know it . The thing is, one can’t be made of rock, even if one wants to. I, who sense the destruction of current society in the more or less distant future, but not in my lifetime, not in my lifetime; I, who hardly admit pure motives in most human actions, can’t stand to see my name and that of my Tinita being dragged down… You understand what I mean. This is slander, a disgusting slander, and we mustn’t tolerate it. “Look here, godfather,” I observed, “if I don’t possess the truth, I’m trying to possess it. I swear to you by my salvation that if I find it, you will have it, however painful and bitter it may be.” His first impulse was to give me a firm embrace; but then I saw him turn pale and frown, and he said to me in a very grave voice: “You will tell me everything you hear; but no base inquiries; don’t stir this up, don’t stir this up. ” “But what harm is there in pursuing the truth, the holy truth, uncle? ” “The holy truth, my dear son, you will never find it unless you descend after it into the hell of consciences, and that is impossible. Be content with the relative and apparent truth, a truth founded on honor, and which we will extract, with the help of the law, from the malice of the common people. Honor and social forms impose this truth on us, and we adhere to it.” Having said this, he embraced me again, and almost whispered these words in my ear: “Do not investigate anything, nor become a seeker of the absolute truth, for you will not find it. The judge is an upright man and a very good friend of mine, and he will give us the solution. You accept it, you spread it, and whoever says anything against it , you divide them. Cough loudly, and you will always be right. And now that we have explained ourselves, I will confess that the judge and I spoke. He is a friend of mine and owes his career to me, because, knowing his merit, I took him from Valoria la Buena, where he was obscured, and I took him to Zamora, and from Zamora I brought him here. Do not think that I have exerted pressure on him. He is a man of lucid ideas and very lofty points of view. He knows very well that, absent any harm to a third party, the greatest injustice is to uselessly cast ignominy upon a respectable family. I wanted to object, and I noticed that he was getting furious. “Shut your mouth,” he shouted. “I don’t accept foolish remarks… Look, I’m throwing you out of my house. You don’t want to believe it; well, I’m throwing you out, I’m throwing you out on the street, like three and two make five.” I didn’t dare contradict him, fearing that he might throw a tantrum with fatal consequences for his health, and in return for my silence, he embraced me with paternal effusion, and patted me firmly on the back, calling me his beloved son, and assuring me that I am the person in the family he loves most. I would have liked you to witness the scene, for I can’t give you any idea of the tricks of this old fox. Now I remember that in one of your letters you told me that the figure of Cisneros seems to you to be my creation; That, carried away by narrative fever and the natural desire to captivate my readers, I have painted the features and profiles of this individual’s moral physiognomy , creating a figure of artistic reality, but not a true portrait as you expected of me. No, dear X: I swear it’s a portrait. Don’t let the strangeness of the silhouette move you to doubt its resemblance and authenticity. Think of the infinite varieties that Nature treasures, of the abundance of its inexhaustible collections, where both fauna and flora offer you new forms each time you examine them. Cisneros is not my invention, nor do I invent anything. And what would I gain by becoming a plasma artist, even if I could? I would always remain far from reality. She does invent, and with such panache! What things she teaches us, and what surprises she gives us! What a knowledge that rogue knows! To understand her fertile mastery, start competing with her and give your imagination free rein. Dedicate yourself to feigning, for example, types of plants, varieties of animals. Surely you tire before reaching the millionth part of what already exists, and in despair you throw away your imagination? Well, the same thing would happen to you in the immense chapter of psychology and human actions. Set about composing characters and events, and you’ll see how you fall short, very short. Useless and foolish work, when reality always presents them to you, alive and true, and always brand new! Truly practical invention consists in opening your eyes wide and getting used to seeing clearly what is going on among us… I won’t go on, because now I remember that you and I tend to thunder against considerations, and these I’m making are perhaps among the most soporific. Chapter 33. February 10. I’ll continue yesterday’s, which, although rather long and tiresome, was incomplete. I was relating to my uncle some of the absurd hypotheses I had heard when Malibrán entered. Realizing that my presence annoyed them and that they wanted to talk privately, I withdrew and watched them in deep secrecy for a while. Not a single syllable reached my ears, nor did I try to catch it. That they were talking about the incident in question was beyond doubt. Malibrán spoke with the officious vehemence of a person who, on his own initiative or by commission, has taken upon himself the task of settling a difficult matter. Cisneros listened and seemed to dictate a plan. I thought that, after this, Cornelio would go out into the street; but that was not the case. My godfather seemed tired and sleepy. We left him on the sofa and went to a nearby study , where the diplomat began to look at portfolios of prints. I
did the same, and we fell into conversation, he beginning by giving me an instructive course on Albrecht Dürer, Lucas de Leyden, Holbein, and other masters, and I confess I listened with pleasure, for he knows the history of intaglio and etching by heart, and he explains it with amusing ease and lucidity. When it seemed to me we had talked enough on those subjects, I got involved in the topic I wanted to discuss and said to him: “Let’s see, friend Malibrán: you, like everyone else, have formed your opinion on this mess. Tell me honestly, if it’s not indiscreet to want to know.” “Oh! No, it’s not indiscreet at all,” he responded calmly and affectionately. “My opinion is quite clear, and I don’t hide it from anyone. From the moment Orozco and I received the news in Las Charcas, I had an idea; and after arriving here and hearing so much nonsense, I haven’t changed it one bit. I believe this is simply suicide through insolvency, through an inability to fulfill obligations contracted in the game, a clouding of the soul whose origin must be found in a fierce sense of honor and responsibility. ” “And don’t you think that…? ” “Women?… The sentimental novel that’s going around…? For God’s sake, friend Infante: consider that it is up to us to judge these things with rational criteria and not with those of the rabble. It seems to me that we should reject this shameful fable which, besides being implausible, goes against the reputation and honor of very dear friends.” The matter being put on this footing, I had no choice but to yield by remaining silent, and I even uttered a few ambiguous remarks in defense of our friends. I was surprised by Malibrán’s attitude, circumspect to the point of being excessively so, and conforming to diplomatic forms, in keeping with the role he plays so well in the world. I would not have been surprised by such an attitude if I did not know that the day before , at the house of San Salomó, he had launched one of the most novelistic and bizarre variations of the dark drama. I would not have been surprised if I did not know, as I do, that, nights before the incident, Malibrán had let it be known at Peri’s house, in front of several friends excited by champagne, that he had discovered my cousin Augusta’s love nest , and that he knew who he was, although he withheld his name. But, strictly speaking, I should have taken nothing as a surprise when dealing with the character of a man whose falsehood and duplicity were revealed to me beneath the most cultured exteriorities. Without a doubt, after a fit of manifest malevolence, he had regressed, withdrawing into his social role; without a doubt, having caused the damage he intended, he had once again donned the sheep’s clothing within which he so effectively resolves life’s problems . My godfather and he certainly understand each other and pull the strings of the plot behind his cover-up. We spoke for a while longer, with him endeavoring to demonstrate to me the need to quell the uproar of gossip as much as possible. Look what I gathered from that conversation: that Malibrán aspires to make himself pleasing to my cousin, embracing her cause ardently and defending it with the adroit phraseology possessed by that very scoundrel. I’m sure you’ll draw from the facts presented the same conclusion I did. But wait a minute, I’m going to tell you something else that will surprise you. Suddenly, we heard my godfather, from the next room, calling us: “Hey, chickens, you’ve got me here alone and abandoned.” He tends to call everyone who isn’t his age a bunch of chickens. We ate with him, and right off the bat, like someone continuing a monologue out loud, he said, laughing: “Of course, I always think that little son-in-law God gave me, that Orozquito, is a good guy… ” “We don’t agree, Don Carlos: you know that I…” Malibrán pointed out, firm in his role. “My friend, you always err on the side of benevolence. You must be writing lives of saints, just like that silly little Manolo, who maintains that we should elevate Tomás to the altars. How naive! He’s the biggest rascal that… come on… I’m very surprised that you don’t understand him like that.” If they come to making saints, there is my daughter, for it is no weak virtue to love that Jesuit as she does… “We will canonize her,” Malibrán affirmed, with a smile that left me frozen, for it contained the most subtle sarcasm imaginable. “Yes, canonize her for me,” Cisneros repeated, rising. “My poor Tinita! How much she must suffer with these infamies…” Malibrán and I looked at each other without saying anything; but it seems to me that he read my thoughts in my eyes, as I read his in his. And that’s enough for today. It seems to me that you have time to meditate for a while. Chapter 34. February 12. Prepare to hear the versions of the drama that occurred at the _solar del polvorista_, which, as I later learned, is the name of the place where our friend was found dead. I won’t tell you everything that popular imagination has to offer, because that would be an interminable task; I’ll give you only the most widely accepted versions in gossip circles, some with the credibility given to them by renowned authorities in the art of slander; others discredited, but nonetheless unwelcome. The first I’ll foist on you is the one I heard at the Peña de los Ingenieros, and it’s based on information supplied by that old fox I told you about in one of my letters—don’t you remember? The one who assured me he’d seen Augusta leaving a certain house she probably wasn’t entering with good intentions. I begged him to tell me everything he knew, and finally he told me the house, although he couldn’t tell me the apartment. It’s one of the houses on the Paseo de Santa Engracia, near the _solar del polvorista_. From the gate to the dump, it will be about sixty paces of my own. This morning I made my topographical surveys on the ground; but I warn you that these investigations are for my own use, since the first condition that that gentleman imposed upon me in order to come clean with me was that I was not to bring any information to the judicial proceedings. It’s better if I give you a brief extract of his own words: “Look , my friend, I don’t want to get into trouble, or betray anyone. If this were a murder for theft, I would be the first to assist justice with the evidence I have; but in a tragedy caused by clandestine love; in an intimate tragedy, one of those whose factors are passion, jealousy, the exalted sense of dignity and honor, I believe that the action of the citizens should not intervene.” Therefore, the news from the house, which to me is of incontestable authenticity, because not once, but several times I have seen that lady and her lover, may God rest her soul, enter it, I am sharing with you so that you may become enlightened; but this must remain between us, because if you are so weak as to bring this information to the judge, and the judge summons me, I will deny the report and call you a liar. To put it bluntly: I believe the judiciary is right not to rush the investigation into these matters of love and jealousy, because quarrels and arguments over the possession of a woman are, like duels, above the law, whatever may be said. Do not be surprised if, when a case like your friend’s occurs, especially if the deceased belongs to the upper classes, it turns out that he committed suicide due to gambling or a fit of madness. I am well aware that the solution does not satisfy strict justice; “But it seems to me that the straight path would produce greater evils, for the sake of _summum jus summa injuria_.” The opinion of that fellow, who reinforced his arguments with his gray hair, gave me pause , for he is well known to be a man of consummate expertise and encyclopedic erudition in all areas of human frailty. Regarding the event, he reconstructs it in this way: “Orozco learned of his wife’s infidelity and of the place where he could verify it with his own eyes. He showed up there on the night of February 1st.” I interrupted him to point out that this was impossible because Tomás was in Las Charcas; and he, bursting out laughing, said to me: “Don’t be naive. Alibis are skillfully concocted when one is determined to do so, and what they did was the most vulgar expedient of feigning a trip, saying goodbye and then staying. As far as I’m concerned, Orozco surprised them and didn’t have the courage to kill his wife.” He wounded the unfortunate Viera, shooting him at point-blank range. This first wound is in the side, fatal, although not immediately. The wounded man was able to flee. Hounded by the attacker, and when he was already down and unconscious, he received the second shot, the one in the head, with which he was finished off. The aspect of plausibility of this hypothesis did not win my heart, full of doubts about Orozco’s participation. Certainly, however great a man’s virtue, his prudence and gentleness of customs in the ordinary acts of life, we cannot guarantee that the same man, driven by jealousy and harassed by the greatest insult that can be inflicted on his dignity, will not transform from a peaceful man into an avenger. Knowledge of a person’s character can give us the standard of his probable conduct in all social situations , except those arising from passionate love, jealousy, or honor. When dealing with the situation created for a man by these great motives, we cannot guarantee that his actions will be contained within an easily defined limit. He becomes fiercely irresponsible, and all the qualities that constituted his personality in ordinary life are eclipsed and distorted. Despite this, and despite the possibility of Orozco’s homicidal exaltation, I do not enter into it. My understanding repels it. What do you want me to say? I do not see, I cannot see Orozco, revolver in hand, pursuing his enemy. That may be so, but I can’t reproduce the act in my mind; I can’t quite picture the face or the tragic attitude of a man whom I saw just yesterday displaying a serenity and a calmness of spirit that… well, they can’t in any way be the work of hypocrisy, and I maintain that there is no histrionics at such a perfect level. In the same Peña area, another variant was circulating, in which Orozco figures only as the instigator of the crime, by means of a mercenary assassination. He waited for Federico as he left, and boom, boom. The main proponent of this story claims that a friend of his, passing at nine o’clock at night by the intersection that leads into the dump, saw a man of a shady appearance, and that at ten he saw him again. This whole paid killer thing seems even less acceptable to me. That Orozco killed, it may be, although I don’t _feel_ the act, do you understand? There isn’t in my soul that intimate movement of faith that leads us to conviction. But buying a murderer seems contrary to all logic. Orozco isn’t capable of that. I’ll complete this news by telling you that I tried to make some inquiries today, in what we’ll call the murder house. The house, which is recently built, has only two floors, ground floor and main floor, and two rooms on each. The main floor on the left and the lower floor on the right are filled with papers. I’m inclined to believe that the lower floor on the left is the nefarious place. I question the doormen; but I haven’t seen anyone more discreet. I offer them a gratuity; I make them understand that I’m not from the Curia, that no harm will come to them for any revelations they make to me, and nothing. Calm and confident, they neither accept my gifts nor shed any light on me. Either they’re innocent or they’ve already been sold. I’m inclined to believe the latter . They showed me the two empty rooms, which all indications are that they haven’t been inhabited yet. A solicitor lives in the main room, with his wife and a host of children; in the lower left-hand room, the object of my suspicions, there’s a furniture warehouse or workshop, the kind advertised in Madrid as auction houses. I entered; it was impossible to take a step, because everything was clogged with blank chairs, stacked armchairs, and upside-down sofas. In the center of the room, filled with a thousand odds and ends, where you can chew the dust from the ball and get your feet tangled in strings of steel springs, two men were working on upholstery. The woman who showed me the establishment, and whom I tried to get to sing by skillfully offering her a good reward, was offended by my insinuations. Her disdainful arrogance seemed to me to be either sincere or very well feigned. Despite so many signs contrary to my idea, I don’t know why I persist in thinking that those walls enclosed what I presume and God knows. Otherwise, as far as acquiring real knowledge about this problem goes, I haven’t made any progress. The darkness grows greater every day, the vertigo grows, reason fades, and if this doesn’t drive me mad, I believe my sanity is assured for the rest of my days. Until tomorrow, and tell me something, enlighten me. Sometimes those who are far removed from events see more and better than those who touch them with their noses. Tell me whatever occurs to you, because no matter how absurd it may be, it won’t reach the garrulous novels concocted here. Goodbye. Chapter 35. February 14. Here’s another one. Of the six or seven versions collected at the Casino, I’ll choose the one with the most followers. Orozco is eliminated from this hypothesis and doesn’t figure at all in the crime. On the other hand, another character appears whose name no one knows: a second lover of the unfortunate Augusta. How this new element’s participation in the drama is determined is something that everyone explains in their own way, with highly original criteria and points of view. Some testify and report the incident as if they had seen it. One of those present maintains that Augusta entered the house with the stranger around nine-thirty. It would have been eleven when Federico entered. “But you saw him?” To this question they reply: “I didn’t see him; but Vargas told me.” When the man named Vargas, a well-known sportsman and cyclist, arrives , he is formally questioned; but it turns out he didn’t see anything, but was told by a friend, a captain of infantry who left yesterday for the Balearic Islands. Praise God! I feel like, dear X, setting off immediately for Majorca, in order to keep this appointment. But I think better of it, and I’ll stay. What his friend told Vargas is that the lady needs to find out if the captain knows her, or if, having seen another woman enter the house, he comes to believe in good faith that she was the person so much talked about today. She arrived in a cab with a man, of whom all I can say is that he had a long, blond beard. “Was he tall?” “Rather tall than short… well dressed.” The lurid task of personalizing this detail immediately begins, and some seriously, others jokingly, pin the blame on various acquaintances, among them your friend Bueno de Guzmán, who is astonished to discover that she is the real Aunt Javiera of Federico’s murder. Joking aside, this version is accepted by many, and some believe it as gospel. Appraisals regarding the unknown man vary: some consider him a gentleman or a person of our class, others an ordinary man. A little cousin from Villalonga, one of those who, when mysterious events are discussed, are eager to be eyewitnesses at all costs, swears that about two weeks ago, around eleven at night, he saw the woman from Orozco walking through the side streets of Chamberí arm in arm with a big man who didn’t seem like a gentleman to him. _It certainly shocked him._ He gives the address: tall, strong, with a long blond beard, loose, badly cut clothes, a foreign appearance, like a machinist or the head of some factory. Anyway, you can imagine what the witty bastard would see. He’d rather get killed than suffer the slight of not having seen a little something. So what, do you believe this? I don’t accept it, nor do I reject it in the least, for the very confusion I’m in forces me to admit everything humanly probable, and to keep an open mind about the immense field of feminine fragility. Last night I thought a lot about the mysterious, tall, thickset bearded man, as that devil of a boy described him. Frankly, I can’t think of who he could be. I’ve almost, almost decided to eliminate him, like an intruding ghost, from the series of reasonable hypotheses. Well, now you’ll see the most salty one. In the house of the San Salomó woman, there are paraphrases for all tastes. But the Marchioness has her own, which she confides only to certain very trusted friends, always with the marginal note that she knows it through the most reliable means. I’ll pass on to you the illustrious lady’s witticism without missing a period or comma: “Well, I know the truth, the absolute truth. Believe me, this is the real deal. I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it a secret, and I warn you that the person who told me knows it… well, knows it as if they had witnessed it. Neither Orozco nor any other man is to blame. She, she was the one who killed him out of jealousy for Peri. Things had been very tense for days: every meeting was an altercation. No, don’t doubt it, This is like the Gospel. It’s known where he bought the revolver; it’s known that to a close friend I can’t name… you consider him, he confided his intention to kill Fritz. But what, don’t you believe in women who kill? That night there was a great uproar. Augusta fired, and it pierced his liver, and his stomach, and his spine, and his bladder, and I don’t know what else. The poor thing came out and fell where they found him. “But, madam, what about the wound in his forehead, which is necessarily fatal ?” everyone who hears such a vulgar version objects. “There is no such wound in his forehead,” the marchioness responds imperturbably. ” You are naive and a liar. The coroner, the coroner himself, lowering his voice very low, told a friend of mine, whom I shall not name, that there was no such wound, and that this was included in the expert’s report to prove suicide.” Believe me: what I’m telling you is what happened… Ah! It’s costing Orozco and Don Carlos a fortune to straighten this mess. —But, madam, allow me to cast doubt… —Hell is full of unbelievers… I’m telling you what I know, and I’ll only add, friend Tal, that this will stay between you and me. Let’s not go around shouting it now. But believe it… believe it and shut up. This was told to me by Cato Ultramarine, who neither believed it nor kept quiet, and at his own risk, after hearing from Tyrians and Trojans, he also gave me his little version. Orozco surprises the lovers… it is assumed that no such trip to Las Charcas took place; Augusta throws herself at her husband’s feet and begs his forgiveness. Ah, oh! Federico, always proud, defies her husband. Oh, ah! The latter takes out a revolver and, handing it to the other, says: “No, the one who should die here is you. If there’s even a spark of honor in your soul, you know what you have to do.” To the other, the fraternal conversation seems quite reasonable, grabs the weapon, and boom, boom… Do you believe, Equisillo, that I didn’t sleep all night thinking about this interpretation, in which I saw I don’t know what distant glimmers of certainty? Well, wait a minute. This morning I set out determined to check Tomás’s alibi; I went down to the Estación del Norte station, and with the testimony of the chief, several employees, and the inspector of the section, I can affirm, without any doubt, that Orozco and Malibrán were in Las Charcas all night from February 1st to the 2nd. It seems the inspector accompanied them, and they had dinner together, chatting until twelve o’clock, when the three of them went to bed, all in the same room, as the accommodations on that estate leave much to be desired. The inspector deserves my credit. But still not satisfied, I take the train, head to Las Charcas, and check that testimony with that of the chief of Las Zorreras, the forest guards, and the woman they have there to prepare food for the hunters. In short, kid, Orozco’s alibi is an incontestable fact, and by proving it, I’ve removed a great deal of confusion from the problem. More news. In the circles of Congress, where I go as little as possible now, I’ve also heard every catalog that sings of mystery. I won’t tell you about them so as not to transfer to your head the whole mess I have in mine. Joaquín Pez told me today very quietly: “I have a great piece of information, friend Infante, that sheds a lot of light. The husband of the coroner’s daughter-in-law’s niece told me … you see, the channel couldn’t be better… he told me that, at lunch yesterday, the coroner at the house of his cousin’s sister-in-law’s brother, said this: “The wound in the side is homicide; the one in the forehead, suicide.” ” That’s not bad information,” I answered, “if it turns out to be true. But to verify it, we need to go through that labyrinthine rosary of the niece’s uncle’s brother’s daughter-in-law… You’ll see, friend Pez, how, when we get to the coroner, it turns out that the good man hasn’t said a word.” This and other species circulate there, when there are no more serious matters to discuss. Journalists, it’s fair to say, if they are the most prolific in novelistic combinations, seem to have set their sights on not to harm the Orozco family. If press reports and the fever for news commonly induce them to exploit any matter that gives a taste and sting of scandal to the morning or afternoon papers, a friendly suggestion made in these corridors is enough to put a stop to reticence against respectable people, especially if these are the kind who, by not getting involved in politics, are free of personal or collective hatred. By this means, it has been easy to ensure that names do not appear in print. This does not mean that the ravages of public opinion are not great, because the anonymous hubbub of the press is joined by oral reports, which are more widespread, more penetrating, and have incredible power among us. Verbal chatter destroys private and public reputations faster and more effectively than written chatter… Before I forget: a journalist reproduced for me tonight the coroner’s opinion on the nature of the wounds; But the opposite of how Joaquín Pez told it to me, that is, that the wound on his forehead was a homicide, the one on his side, a suicide. Regarding the source of the news, he considered it authentic and authoritative beyond belief. He had heard it himself the night before, at some minister’s social gathering, from a respectable member of the curia. So he’s taking notes, and he’s just driven you, like your correspondent and friend, crazy. He’s now so lost in his compass that he doesn’t know where he’s going, nor does he understand what’s happening in the parliamentary ranks. Do you believe that these past few days the good Infante has voted for I don’t know how many laws, and has said yes or no to a multitude of resolutions, without any clear conscience of his legislative acts? I am a mere number, a mechanical, unconscious energy ; I go with the masses, where the masses go. The murmur of voting sounds in my ear , and I have a feeling that we have made the country happy with laws like the Criminal Prosecution Act, the Silver Coinage Act, Child Labor in Factories, the Rectification of Electoral Rolls, etc., plus a multitude of railroads that will swiftly cross our native soil in all directions. I am convinced, from what I hear, that I have voted for all these good things, and I am ready to vote for the transubstantiation of the Word if it is put before me. Don’t ask me for anything, not even for the oblivion I have over the affairs of this infamous district. If they murmur against me in that cursed land , do me the favor of telling them to give it to me there. I hate them with all my soul, and I wish that heaven would afflict them with a thousand calamities, droughts, floods, hailstorms, and cyclones, and an earthquake to boot; may not house or tree be left standing. May all the cattle pass to a better life , including the village chieftains, and may the land be barren and not produce a single garlic. Boring. Chapter 36. February 16th. Here I am, presenting myself at Peri’s house, intent on having the conversation I so ardently desire. And the witch wants to tell me my cards, tearing with her rose-colored finger the thick veil of the future… she stirs! But I dissuade her, addressing the matter that is bringing me into that magical sanctuary of the… allow me not to finish the sentence. And Leonorilla pouts very… I don’t know how, hurrying to vary the conversation. And here she is, mockingly, telling me that she had a fight with that curly-haired Malagan lad, and throwing him out of her house down the stairs. He’s a pimp, an indecent man, a faggot, and I don’t know how many others. I commend her judicious resolution, adding that I find the young man quite unpleasant, and that she deserves more, much more, for her good heart and her noble and generous sentiments. I don’t quite remember if I said the word “noble and generous”; but something like that, or something close to it, was what came from my authoritative lips. Forgive the lack of formality with which I write to you; but my spirit is already inclined to treat all matters as a joke and to make fun of the most serious matters, because, finding no judgment or seriousness anywhere, My ideas become farcical, and the rigidities of my will become the dislocations of a clown. For lo and behold, shortly after questioning Peri, I find her sincerity sealed away in stone and mud. She is not the same woman I saw days before; now she is all reserve, half-words, and a discretion hardly in keeping with her profession. In short, Leonor doesn’t know a thing; she’s close to telling you that she never met Federico. She has become completely ignorant of what he did in the days preceding the crime. She has no evidence that he won or lost at the game; she has no evidence that he had affairs with this lady or that other; she hasn’t learned a single thing, nor is there any way to extract a single sentence from her pretty mouth that illustrates the matter. Needless to say, observing this and becoming disillusioned with her were one and the same. Clearer, in an instant, the fascination her fidelity toward the poor dead man had produced in me, along with the sentiment she had displayed on the sad day of the autopsy, was erased from my mind. Here you see how a passion, born so suddenly, vanishes, and suddenly transforms into aversion, suspicion, pity, or I don’t know what. But wait, the best is yet to come. The opposite phenomenon occurred in her ; I mean, at the moment I was fading, like a light that has been breathed into, she suddenly ignited, as if the flame had passed from my being to hers by miraculous art. In other words, I was wincing at her , a tremendous wincing, according to what her arrow-like eyes and her insinuating attitude told me . Anyway, half an hour into the conversation, she started making faces at me, and I, cold and completely disillusioned, decided to let myself be enchanted, imagining that by doing so I could break through the reserve the scoundrel had locked herself into, also getting involved in diplomacy. The gaffes reached an alarming crescendo: she told me I was very nice, that it warmed her heart when she saw me, and that she felt in her heart that we were going to be friends, really very good friends. I supported these amorous arguments, and in the trust that quickly developed between us, I was able to glean some indication of her change of behavior. “Look, sweetheart,” she said, now addressing me informally and pulling my ears, “I don’t interfere with the law. From the moment they tried to involve me in that death, I’ve put my foot down, kid, and now I know nothing, nor am I in the know about what that guy did or didn’t do.” Anyway, I don’t blow a whistle, you know. That’s what I told that judge-type guy, and that’s what I’m telling you, since you’re also out there trying to find fault. If you want to be friends, let’s cover it up, a lot of cover. The poor thing is in the grave, and your investigations, neither mine nor anyone else’s, will ever get him out of there . Today I’ve had four masses said for him: believe me, that’s what will be of value to him in the afterlife, and not the investigations in this one. Whether it was suicide, or not; whether this or that hand killed him… Look, this doesn’t mean anything to his soul, which must be in Purgatory now for certain little sins; although I think they’ll release it soon, because he was good and loyal as anyone, more honorable than the sun, and a gentleman to the top of his head. Believe me and leave the poor thing alone. He was slightly moved when he remembered his friend, adding with a pained accent that he would never have another like him again in his life. This stung my pride, and I proposed myself for the vacancy of that friendship, which seemed to me so deep and pure. Leonor rejected the proposal, giving me to understand that Federico was irreplaceable; that although I was very good, I did not have the very special circumstances that made the other’s friendship an unintelligible bond for those who were not in the secret. No matter how hard I tried, sometimes feigning affection, sometimes resorting to a thousand dialectical tricks, I could not get him to explain to me what kind of relationship or dealings constituted that friendship. On this point his reserve was impenetrable, and I do not hesitate to admit it; he had certain traces of dignity, inappropriate for his relaxed life. She became very serious and examined her rosy nails very closely, to tell me: “I feel “I wish I had told you something about this, and if I could take it back, I would take it back, as those in the Cortes do when they let something outrage slip. What was going on between Federico and me is a _private_ thing between us, so _private_ that if you want me to love you, you’ll have to sew your little mouth shut and not ask me any questions, because I’ll throw you out on the street, like I threw out that filthy chicken from Malaga, may he be cursed and all his lineage.” What do you think? The worst part is that one can’t help but respect these _private_ delicacies, which perhaps have a spiritual and elevated origin. Do you think that, speaking of it, my impressionability got the better of me, and I once again became a little hopeful about the physical and moral person of that magical woman? Among a thousand things she said, there was one that left me astonished. “And don’t think you’re going to replace him, because I swear on these crosses that the void that good friend left here in my soul will never be filled, even if I live a hundred and a half thousand years, because the man who can fill it hasn’t been born yet. So now you know, and that’s enough of the math. ” “So,” I said, between smiling and thoughtful, “when I thought I was coming to inherit poor Federico, it turns out I’m inheriting… ” “That scamp, that sycophant, that cat-licker,” he replied without letting me finish. “You see how frank I am. I put my whole heart in my mouth, and I show all my nature, everything, everything, except for a part that stays inside. I am very shameless, very open, very cool; but also very “here for me.” I give the person speaking to me all the keys to my nature, except for the one to a reserved little room, which will never be opened again, because the tenant has moved out.” Are you in on what I’m telling you? You’re my little whim now; I like you; I love you; you excite me. It may last two months, three, a year; maybe less, maybe only eight days; but if you love me, if you like me, take me as I am. The day I tire of you, I’ll tell you. I don’t know how to pretend. Now I’m inclined to throw my arms around you; tomorrow I’ll kick you. Don’t laugh: I kick when I’m fed up with a man, and I kicked the chicken to the ladder, kicking it like that, with my back foot, until it got out of my way. I realize your astonishment when you read this nonsense. Don’t think I’m adding or subtracting anything. That little bitch was absolutely adorable, and even though she is who she is, we should admire her character, even if we decide not to admire anything except bodily beauty, when it comes to women of that class. You will now see the completion of yesterday’s scene , which I would like to tell you in all its details, for the lesson it contains and the horizons it opens to the knowledge of human affairs . As I passed from the living room to the study, oh surprise! I saw a superb tapestry hanging on the wall. At once my mind lit up, and I recognized it; for should I not? “Ah! You rascal, you’ve already fallen,” I said, embracing her by the neck, while she hugged me by the waist. “I’ve got you. My godfather gave you that tapestry. I know it, I’ve seen it there a thousand times. It’s Flemish, a cartoon by Rubens or Jordaens, and one of the repeated ones he keeps for his bartering. Don’t deny it: he gave it to you in payment for your silence, perhaps so that you would make a false statement, assuring the judge that Federico lost large sums at roulette in the days before his death. Come, confess everything to me.” Are we friends or not? That’s just between us. How could she deny it? She didn’t even try. At first disconcerted by my brusque question, for she no longer remembered the tapestry, she soon burst out laughing, confirming in a few words what I had said, not without adding a few explanations. “Cisneritos gave it to me, it’s true… You know he’s been my friend ever since I took the alternative. I’d asked him many times, and the bastard always refused. But these days… I’ll tell you: what he wants is for me to keep quiet, not for me to declare what you suppose. I told the judge I didn’t know a word. Because you see… if I had gasped more than necessary, I could have made a hell of a mess.” But what’s the point of dishonoring a respectable family? Take it from me. What I want is to be left alone, and not brought in or taken away. I’ll tell you something else: Cisneros thought I had letters from Federico or commitment papers for someone… I brought him here so he could see there was nothing there. He ransacked all my furniture like a jealous man. Anyway, that old trickster pestered me for two days, and I told him, I say: “Now I’ve really earned the tapestry.” Anyway, he gave it to me on the condition that I become mute and not give any substantive evidence, keeping me very safe from those trumpeting journalists. What a hatred he has for them! Well, the truth is, like everyone else, I had composed my own novel to fool those people at my gathering. ” “And what was your novel?” “Well, he killed himself in front of your cousin because he found out she was sleeping with Malibrán.” —Jesus! —Honestly, since they were saying at San Salomó’s house that she had killed him out of jealousy of me, I got angry and said: “Well, before they wrap me up, I’m going to come out with my blind man’s romance too. She’d stick it to anyone who came here, and she was so cool… Cisneros found out, sent for me, and said, ‘Girl, what are you doing? Look, if you let your guard down, I’ll send you to jail.’ I was scared; I was close to tears. Anyway , I promised her not to mention the crime again and to stick to my guns about not knowing anything. In short, with this and something else, I’d won the tapestry.” Such statements, despite the tone of sincerity with which Leonor made them, seemed to me, if not false, then incomplete. The rogue was telling me only part of the truth, perhaps the least important. Tireless in my investigative plan, I laid siege to his incantations, redoubled my flattery, widened the field of trust as much as I could, and finally today, after a day of these easy relationships, I managed to wring from him that other part of the truth that he was hiding from me. You’ll find out. Cisneros proposed that he testify before the judge that Federico had been at his house that same morning, February 1st, extremely distressed, and had said to him: “If I don’t find a certain amount by tonight, I’ll shoot myself.” “That old fox preached to me so much,” Leonor added, “making me see that with these little lies I wasn’t harming anyone and could do a lot of good, that I gave in… Of course, not harming anyone… what did it matter…? Ah! He also wanted me to say that Federico asked me for money, and I wouldn’t give it to him… I resisted this; But, boy, the tapestry had settled between my eyebrows… It was a whim, and I’m formidable when I get a whim about something… We made our deal, and that was that… But you don’t know the worst part, and that is that I behaved filthily with Cisneritos. When I found myself before the judge, I was overcome with remorse, and I thought that if I said what the old man told me, I would be casting a stain on the good name of my dear friend, the number one gentleman in Madrid… Nothing, nothing, I couldn’t resist spilling the beans… that ‘s just the way I am. The clerk made a lot of faces at me, and the secretary told me a thousand dirty words, and between them all they kept me dizzy for a while. Well, boy, I got really angry and had a damned good will not to spill the beans: I didn’t know a word, I hadn’t seen the _interfezto_, I didn’t know if I won or lost. There they wrote down everything I said, I signed and went to live… You will say that I behaved badly with Don Carlos, and that I should return the tapestry… But you see: it was indecent of me to say things about Federico that put him in a bad light. Come on, I remembered him, and my eyes filled with tears. I have all the defects, all of them, except that of ingratitude… The poor fellow was always very good to me. How could I…! It is true that, not honoring Cisneros, I should have said to him: “Take your shabby tapestry, for I am a more decent person than you think…” But about the fact that I did not have the heart to return the gift, don’t you think it is fair to play a mountain game with that guy, worse than not eating?… And quite a favor to him I keep quiet, I say! My ‘I know nothing’, my ‘I have seen nothing’ are worth , I won’t say a tapestry, but half a dozen. What do you think? Isn’t it true that this trait paints a picture of a person? Don’t you see the whole of Leonor just by relating one of her actions? The only thing left for me to tell you about this gypsy, whose displays of impudence I sometimes abhor , and sometimes I cannot help but admire, is that my abilities to find out more were utterly useless. No caresses or clever tricks have availed me in obtaining from the girl any clue as to the kind of connections she had with Viera. I don’t know whether I shall be more fortunate in the future; but I don’t know why I imagine that when she puts her foot down, neither prods nor pats will do anything against her. She remains put down, and she must be killed or left. Here’s another detail that, if it has nothing to do with the main subject, deserves to be noted for your and my enjoyment; a bit of farce is welcome amidst these funereal and courtly matters. Leonor and I were having a private conversation, in the greatest possible abandon and confidence, when the bell rang. I heard the sound of voices, and the maid burst into the study, announcing that the Malaga snob had presented himself in a hostile and rowdy attitude. You should have seen Peri jump up in clothes that should be called minimal rather than lesser, and grab a slipper, a weapon that, she said, was more than enough to put the invader to shameful flight. “You’ll see, you’ll see how quickly I’ll dispatch him,” she said, smiling and nervous, unable to get her arms into the sleeves of her gown. “I can’t see him… Indecent, lazy, scoundrel…” He went out in his stockings, slipper in hand, and immediately I heard a great commotion; but it didn’t seem like stamping feet. Soon Leonor returned and, laughing, said to me: “Poor fellow, he’s starving! He must eat, at least.” She put her pink-nailed fingers into my waistcoat pocket and took out five duros, which, through the maid, passed into the needy hands of that languid-eyed lad. As he gave her the alms, the gypsy woman sent him this affectionate message: “Give him that so he can eat, and tell him not to come here again, because I’m above a hair’s breadth, and to go and get support from the Nuncio.” And what do you say now about my depravities, about my fall into the deep swamp of vice, where, stir up! all the poisonous serpents that destroy the soul… and the body? Please don’t put your hands to your venerable head. There’s no such vice, nor anything worth it. It’s life, kid; biological development within the social environment… Come on, if this isn’t philosophy, let the devil come and see it. Chapter 37. February 17. Gospel of the day, secundum Villalonga. This astute scrounger, the bustle of politics, which is his passion and profession, has recently become a man of order. His axe-like tongue, which once turned the most solid reputations into firewood if they got in his way, is now a very padded little tongue, more licking than cutting. He aspires to occupy a position in the situation, and he only bites when his hopes of a lifetime senatorship are dampened. These days things seem to be going well, and the man is as reasonable, as sensible as you can imagine. He thunders against the slanderers and says that this tendency to besmirch the most respectable names is a symptom of social derangement. When he puts the smack in the pulpit, we laugh, because it seems he’s refuting everything he’s said and done in twenty years. Well, if they want to see him out of control, let them hit the Orozco family. He must be expecting something from them, or there’s some favor involved. Hear their version: ” Federico’s death was nothing more than the most vulgar end of a gambling den quarrel. Like any corrupted vicious person, like a drunk who can’t find any liquor strong enough and craves more ardent ones every day, Federico was no longer satisfied with the excitement of gambling dens established in elegant circles, and he frequented ignoble gambling dens… If this can be proven any day you want!” says Villalonga at once. He continues his legal report, asserting that a friend of his saw him leave with another man from a very shabby gambling house at around 10:30 on the night of the 1st, and that, in an attitude of quarrel, they entered through the street that leads to the powder keg. “It seems to me it couldn’t be clearer. This friend of mine saw them, repeated that he saw them, and is ready to testify. ”
He then complains that they want to turn this most vulgar incident into a love story, defaming an illustrious lady… And then he strings on his panegyric of her, and crude anathemas against the frivolity and baseness of a section of the public. The fact is that in this vile race there has existed and always will exist the national nervous tic of belittling what is lofty, of sullying even purity, and of muddying what is clearest and purest. The orator concludes by swearing that he would give anything to change nationality, abandoning his vile race and ungrateful soil, to metamorphose into an Englishman, a German , or, if necessary, a Berber Moor… But no: what he wants to be is English. Now he’s all about being English, parliamentary , and self-government. That’s what country is, that’s what politics and sovereign opinion are… and the play of institutions…! Enough with Villalonga, and I’m going with Calderón de la Barca, whom I thought, being a close friend of the Orozcos, or rather a parasite, would uphold the versions most favorable to his employers. Well, no, sir. That’s what the intention is; but it doesn’t work, and his crazy brain has composed a novel that he believes will be very flattering to his friends; but such is the foolishness of his invention that it can do them neither harm nor favor. He supposes Federico is madly in love with Augusta, and that she rejects him with disdain. If pressed, Calderón is capable of maintaining that he _knows_ it, having heard and seen something that corroborates such an assertion. Well then: Federico, mad with love, frantic, and without considering the means he employs to obtain from the lady the appointment he tenaciously requests, resolves to deceive her, telling her that her husband has a mistress. Augusta denies and hesitates; he insists, and offers to prove it. How? Well, that’s where lovers meet: the offended wife can surprise them and make sure they’re tricking her. My cousin falls into the trap and allows herself to be led by the traitor to the house where he has offered to reveal Orozco’s infidelity to her. They arrive… Scene. Federico, drunk with love, confesses his perfidious ruse and falls to his knees. Augusta gives him the runaround: this is obvious. The other, furious and blind, says to her: “Either you’re mine, or I’ll kill you.” And the rascal pulls out his revolver. The lady prefers death. A brief struggle ensues, the revolver falls to the ground, fires by itself, pataplum, and the bullet enters Federico’s waist. _Table…a…u_. Imagine the rest. Seeing himself wounded, the criminal recognizes the _finger of Providence_, because it was this little finger that pulled the trigger of the weapon; and, overcome with remorse, he begs the lady’s forgiveness. She gives it to him and gives him her little lecture, recommending that he repent, to which he agrees, because he now has no other option. “And the head wound, the fatal wound of necessity?” we ask him. “The head wound?” The narrator scratches his own, but cannot manage to extract with his fingernail the continuation of such a crude argument. At last… the thing is clear… the perfidious man flees… But what’s next? You can already imagine the development of these monstrosities of vulgar inventiveness. I don’t want to keep you going any longer with twists and turns around the matter, and let’s get to the center, to the heart of it. To think that this hieroglyph is not for just one person, and that such a person, if he wished, could dispel the confusion in my mind with four words! To think that Augusta knows the solution, and that I can’t read it on her face; that behind that frown is the exact representation of the fact, and that I can’t see it! My curiosity has been so excited that I don’t know what I would give, friend X: I think I would give years of my life for that woman to have a A moment of frankness with me, and she will reveal her secret. Come on, I ‘ll forgive her for the wrong she did, the fault, error, or crime, if she tells me what happened on that fateful night. Well, believe it or not, I will try; I will undertake with her a campaign of cunning, of perseverance; a siege in which I employ every weapon, from those that inspire fear to those that inspire affection and trust. I will not die with this uncertainty, and it itself will save me from this fierce torment. For six days I was nowhere to be seen at Orozco’s house, and on the fifth, Tomás himself sent me a message complaining about my straying. Today I had lunch with them. I’ll tell you what we discussed. I’m in a hurry, and I’m also looking forward to a conference I hope to have with Augusta, who, at my urging, promised that we would speak for a while alone. We agreed that she would set a day and time, and here you have a confidential communication already established between us. I’ll tell you everything; but don’t rush me, there’s still time, and I’m postponing my reports in the hope of acquiring a clearer understanding of some of the facts. Until another day. Chapter 38. February 19. You won’t believe me; but I’ll tell you a hundred times if necessary. The saint acts as if he were unaware of what’s happening and what’s being said, and it’s almost certain that he is not. Such serenity, which is disturbed by nothing, is it greatness of soul, or just the opposite? To affirm the former, it would be necessary to see in this man a temper of character so superior that it borders on the supernatural. For you should have seen his face, in which you don’t notice even the slightest sign of displeasure or annoyance; you should have heard his accent, always firm and calm. He treats his wife with his usual affectionate deference, and she treats him with even greater consideration, if possible, than before. I’ll tell you frankly: the mystery that undoubtedly lurks in the intimacy of this marriage now troubles me more than the question of our friend’s death, and I would give I don’t know what, years of my life too, the only currency with which such satisfactions are valued, to be able to hide in the conjugal chamber and hear what they say… But what do they say, my God? What do they say? Or is it that they say nothing, and have agreed to ignore and disown each other?… This Orozco, what kind of man is he? Explain it to me, enthusiastic apologist for his virtues. Frankly, when they are presented to me in such a degree of perfection, I feel like doubting them, or considering them a well-studied and learned role to deceive the world. It is impossible for a man of flesh and blood to maintain such presence of mind in the midst of the atmosphere that has formed around him; and if he truly maintains it, it is because he is not of flesh and bone like us. I don’t deny that holiness may exist in our times; but I refuse to admit it in the upper classes. It may exist in religious orders , or in deserts inhabited by a single person; but in the active world, in society, in marriage, amid gossip, envy, pride, luxury… Come on, Equisillo, get that out of your head. Your shrewd sense of smell has never reached the scent of that… perfumed holiness. Let’s move on to something else. The conference with Augusta, alone, took place yesterday. It was interesting, although fruitless for my investigative purposes. She received me in her boudoir in the afternoon, and there was no one present, for I do not call Calderón’s little girl a person, who went back and forth around the room pulling on a doll tied by the neck, an exact image of my spiritual situation, for at times, during these sad days, it seems to me that a demon has thrown a rope around my neck and amuses himself by pulling and squeezing me without suffocating me. My cousin cannot hide that she has had insomnia, very bad days and worse nights, and that her spirit is deeply troubled. Without a doubt, she does not possess sanctity to such a high degree as her husband, nor does she know how to rise above human miseries. The poor thing is withered, haggard; her gaze wanders, it becomes lost. It is true that she tries to hide it, tying a knot around the sighs that want to escape from her chest; but She can’t do it. If I tell you she’s more beautiful than ever, you probably won’t believe it, although you’ll suppose this is the effect of the love she inspires in me. I see you’re laughing. Hadn’t we agreed, you might say, that all that love had turned into hatred for the finest things? Well, then, I answer that these things are said very quickly, but they are rarely the expression of the truth. Nothing deceives us so much as the development of our own affections in the serious situations of life. It often happens that we are mistaken, like children who are beginning to live, and that we love more when we think we hate, or vice versa. The fact is that I found her very beautiful that day, and I felt the energies of my character weaken pitifully before her. But I’ll keep quiet, for now, about everything that relates to good Cupid. What my cousin wanted from me, I understood well from the moment she began to speak to me. You can imagine: that I should stop inquiring, for the result was only to further thicken the atmosphere of gossip and lies. To tell me this, she employed a thousand skillful circumlocutions, acknowledging the goodness of my intent, my love for my family, etc., etc. For my part, I made it clear to her that I was not pursuing the truth to make it public; that if I succeeded in acquiring it, I would keep it within me as the most delicate secret of my life. She could very well reveal it to me, then, and I would listen to it like a confessor and lock it away within me as in a tomb. To these insinuations, which I expressed with warmth and almost eloquence, the crafty woman replied with a flat denial. She had absolutely no participation or responsibility in the affair. Neither Federico was her lover, nor did she fail in her duties to him or to anyone else. All slander, a poorly thought-out and even worse written novel, the work of the unemployed, of those who envied the happiness of their home, of those who, by living depraved lives, do not forgive the honesty of others. She was, therefore, completely unaware of the causes of the death of that good friend of the house, and did not know whether he killed himself or was killed, nor did she want to interfere in any investigation. I told her not to test my respect for him; that she might be innocent of Viera’s death; but that she was innocent of loving him and having secret dealings with him… that, she should tell someone else, since I had enough information to form my own opinion on the matter. She did not take sides, and she denied it, denied it with an insistence that drove me crazy. Afterward, laughing with forced humor, she examined the different versions. That of her friend, the Marchioness of San Salomó, was treated with a sarcastic phrase. “And is it possible that you are one of those who believed that I killed him, I…? That my hands… ? Come on, this would be the greatest indignity, if it weren’t grotesque.” But the interpretations that irritated her most were those that included good old Orozco in the plot, giving him the role of the killer, either directly or through the use of a mercenary assassin. What a stupid monstrosity! Seeing that dry argumentation was of no use to me, I appealed to sentiment; I tried to flatter her pride, telling her more or less what I write below: “I don’t know why you hesitate to confide in me your fault. Do you think you will lose merit in my eyes, that you will lose my esteem? No, because a fault and even a crime of love, of true love, deserve no more punishment than love itself, which is penance enough. If a living feeling has prevailed over your will and your legal duties, what remedy is there but to forgive you? And how could I not forgive you, I who sin out of love for you; I, who have also broken the law, though only intentionally? If I absolved myself of my intentional fault, how can I not absolve you of yours, even if it was less innocent? I have a certain right to know your sorrows in order to console them; I ardently desire that you throw upon me the burdens that weigh down your conscience, because I love you madly, and I would not hesitate to lose for you, if necessary, not only the peace of my soul, but also my honor and everything that binds me to society. If there is anyone to whom you should confide, it is I, because I love you; and so that you may not attribute what I ask of you to selfishness, I declare that I love you without hope, and I am Convinced—this is truly sad!—that you do not reciprocate my feelings, nor will you ever reciprocate them. You inspired in me a mad passion, and I declared it to you, unaware that you loved another, or at least doubting it. Now, knowing that you loved poor Fritz, it is not lost on me that that passion cannot be repeated or inherited. But since I cannot pretend to fill the void in your heart left by someone who no longer exists, I aspire to be your best friend, your advisor, and to possess your trust. I will console you; I will know, like no one else, how to respect your loneliness, your immense sorrow, which for a long time must resist all attempts at consolation. What do you think of that tirade, which I don’t know if I copied exactly? Tiresome, isn’t it? And even a little corny. But even so, it had a terrible effect on her. I saw that she was moved; her eyes moistened, and she couldn’t hold back a few tears. I remained silent, believing that tears would be a precursor to the spontaneity she desired. I observed that she was making efforts to calm herself and be in control of herself. She wiped her eyes, suppressing her emotions so as not to be overwhelmed by them, and said this to me, which impressed me deeply: “I am very unhappy… you don’t know it well. Pity me very much, because I truly deserve it.” I stroked one of her hands, without her trying to stop me. Far from doing so, she abandoned me with the other, like a person in whom the need for consolation overrides all considerations. I repeated my wishes to be her friend, to dedicate my life to her, and my unceasing moral intentions, and she was not shocked, not in the least. On the contrary, she seemed grateful, deeply moved. But suddenly I noticed in her face and in the frown between her eyes a certain severity, something that came from a feeling of pride, which took possession of her soul after a moment of weakness; and standing up and pushing me away from her with a certain ceremonious dryness, she said to me: “We will be friends; but on condition that you ask me nothing, that you inquire absolutely nothing, neither of the others nor of me.” I wanted to answer her; but she imposed silence on me. It was impossible to disobey her: her gesture and her voice dominated me so much. And there was more. She ended the conference, ordering me to leave… Another day we would talk more: that’s what she gave me to understand. What was I to do but blindly submit to her capricious will? I spent a terrible night, unable to get rid of the image and the words of this devilish woman, who, if I’m not mistaken, is going to drive your friend mad, if he isn’t already completely mad. And look at this strange thing: consider the mysterious connection between words and emotions in this shambling human life, so fertile that the more strange things one sees in it, the more there is left to see. So I began to address those amorous phrases I’ve copied from you to her, like someone employing a specious argument. I said them to her, convinced that she wasn’t telling the truth, and when I concluded, I was surprised to see that my heart responded to all that rhetoric with an affirmative feeling. Nothing, Equisillo, but all night and the next day I was struggling with my cerebral powers, doubting what I felt, and concluding by declaring that this woman had me bewitched. that the more she hides her secret from me, the more compelled I feel toward her, and that if I were convinced that she was really a murderer, I would love her more, not hesitating to submit to the test of being killed by her hand, provided that first… I will not go on, because you will be alarmed, believing that I am beyond help. Boring, fool. Chapter 39. February 20th . Emotions, more emotions. First of all, you can go to Zaragoza or come to Leganés, and order that a cage with very strong bars be prepared for me, because I am… you will see. The second interview took place yesterday at Aunt Serafina’s house, where she is still very ill. Augusta goes every day to accompany her. I also went, without prior notice, certain that I would find her there and that we could talk without witnesses. We shut ourselves in a closet near the sick room, at a time when there were no doctors or nurses there, No visitors. How nice! I had the illusion, seeing myself alone with her and observing her expectant attitude, not without suspicion, that this was a romantic rendezvous, in a discreet place unknown to everyone. The first thing that occurred to me was to take her right hand and examine her wrist, saying to her: “Is your burn healed yet?” Troubled, she withdrew her hand, not before I saw the mark of the barely healed wound, and said to me: “We agreed that you must be discreet, and not do or say anything foolish… What does this stupid suspicion mean, you great simpleton? Did it ever occur to you that I bruised my hand in a fight…? Of course, as if I were a murderer, and I had to hold the victim to… ” “It’s not that, it’s not that,” I hastened to answer. “I never believed you were a murderer; But I have believed, and I do believe, that you witnessed the death of a man, brought about in a manner I know not. Come, child: the first condition for my admitting you into my confidence is that you be gentle with me, and consider me, and believe me when I tell you something that directly concerns me. Otherwise , this friendship that I desire and almost need cannot exist… And do not distort it; do not aspire to any other more lively feeling, because if you insisted on it, you would not obtain that feeling, and farewell friendship. Understanding that in these cases one must be content with what is given, and trust in time for the extension of the gift, I told him that although I am madly in love, I am content with the peaceful and honest feeling that he grants me, and I recognize that I deserve no more. “If we are to be friends,” he said to me, “since you allow yourself to interfere in my affairs, and pretend to be a father teacher, and even a spiritual father, with your little pretensions of ferreting out faults that don’t exist, I am also going to call you to account, asking you to account for certain slips, and urging you to correct yourself. What did you think you were, Mr. Moralist?” I was perplexed, unable to fathom his intention. Did he want to confuse me, disorient me, or what on earth was this very cunning woman up to, in whom I couldn’t help but recognize the Castilian sagacity of her father, the fox Cisneros? I was not long in guessing where she was going; I realized that her objective was to take the offensive, as a more honorable role for herself in the struggle we had begun. “No doubt they’ve told you the tale,” I told her without flinching, “that there’s something… and even somethings going on with Peri. Well, I won’t deny it. But you must already assume that this is accidental and of no importance in life. Don’t call that a relationship. It’s a whim on her part and a condescension on mine, which can be terminated at any moment.” She became thoughtful, and soon resumed the conversation, saying such things about Peri with such emphasis and such lively anger that I couldn’t help but pay attention. “You’ve had very bad taste,” she told me. “That woman is shameless, a trickster, and besides, she has nothing particularly beautiful, not at all. I don’t understand how you get so excited about a type like that. It’s a great pity that in these times of democratic vulgarity, there aren’t the Justiciars of another era!” “What a pity these scoundrels aren’t feathered and flogged in the streets, as a lesson to the fools who stray into them, or to those who…” He didn’t continue. He was becoming more excited than necessary, forgetting the role he wanted to play; he became too bright, and let me see the edge of an immense hatred that throbbed in his soul. His lips trembled and lost their fiery color. I soon noticed that he was trying to recover and correct the lapse of sincerity he had just shown. To this end, he composed his face, saying: “But what does it matter to me? I said it because… it disgusts me to see you in such degradation.” More intent on observing his face than on calculating what I should say to him, I answered thus: “It’s enough that you don’t like it, and it’s over immediately. ” “No, I’m not asking you to sacrifice your tastes for me.” —Didn’t you say that, to strengthen our friendship, you would become my spiritual director and correct my bad habits? “Yes, I did; but then it occurs to me that I shouldn’t do it.” She seemed disoriented, not knowing which path to take. Finally , after a brief thought, she decided on one. “Look, Manolo, I’ll tell you frankly: I don’t want you to break off your friendship with that hussy. ” Judge how I would react to this unexpected declaration. “Don’t be surprised, don’t open those big eyes,” she told me. “My wish is a little strange, and I need to explain it. I’ll do you the favor of believing that it’s very easy for you to kick that little woman. And I think more… let me guess… I think your plot has a detective purpose: the purpose of finding out what kind of relations, what kind of dealings poor Federico had with her, because, since you’ve become an investigating judge, you naturally had to look for information… from the harvester himself… Did I guess? ” “Yes… that was my intention. ” “Well, well,” she declared, losing her fear of the matter, “then if you have discovered anything, tell me, and if not, continue cultivating that trust, in which you will find the light you seek and that the rest of us also wish to see. ”
Alas! dear X, from that desire to investigate Federico’s relationship with Peri, a new complication arises. There is something that Augusta ignores, knowing, according to my calculations, the main thing. So I told her, and she insisted that it was only curiosity. I told her that she could deny me everything; but not her passion for her poor dead friend, and her presence at the act that determined his death. I lost my temper; I became upset; I believe that violent phrases escaped me, followed by others tender and passionate. I knelt before her, and kissing her hands ardently, I begged her to reveal to me the truth of that tragedy, of which she had at least been a witness, and I could not obtain even a timid assent. She closed herself in a grim silence, which was my despair; she shook her head at every word I spoke, and ended by once again predicting that she knew nothing, that she had seen nothing. Only when I questioned her about her love affair with Viera did I notice that her denial was weak, almost affirmative, from the way she spoke it, amid sighs that came from the depths of her soul. Finally, calming down and trying to calm me, she explained herself in these terms: “To gain a person’s trust, the first thing is to make yourself worthy of that trust. What is worth a lot costs a lot, friend Infante. Bring me what I asked for, and we’ll talk. Haven’t you made Peri’s friend to investigate on your own? ” “Yes, and now you want me to investigate on yours. ” “True, that’s the truth. ” “And you want me to be your cop, and to serve you, without gaining a single piece of trust from you !” ” Reveal to me what you know, and if it’s incomplete, I ‘ll help you complete it.” The infamous woman overwhelmed me, saying with cruel aplomb: “How can I express myself so that you will understand me? Precisely because I know nothing, I want you to find out what I proposed to you to find out… And let’s not prolong this conversation any longer, because I sense people in the bedroom; you’re very excited, you’re talking loudly, and they’re going to think we’re here throwing things at each other. Do me the favor of leaving, and see you tomorrow or the day after…” I left there with my head like a drunk, desperate and dazed, and I walked around the streets for a while, to refresh my ideas. And no sooner did I feel a mad impulse of all the forces of my life towards that woman, more fascinating for the mysteries that surrounded her, like a veil wrapped with supreme coquetry; I was so inclined to flee from her, as from an unfathomable abyss over whose edge my feet were already slipping. After an hour of restless wandering through the streets, I went to Leonor’s house, where she was waiting for me, and right off the bat, without any preparation, I addressed her in this way: “You are going to answer me right now what I have asked you several times without getting an answer… Look, Leonor, the matter is serious: you are going to tell me, and thus you will prove to me that you love me and are my friend. Nothing, you are just telling me, aren’t you? I want to know what kind of relationship you had with me.” with Federico. It’s no good denying it. Because he came here very often. We all know this, and there are those who believe he didn’t come just to look at your pretty face. So you’re telling me, yes or no? Leonor, Leonor, I’m asking you for what you love most. Do me a favor and stop staring at your nails, and speak clearly. You’re really going to tell me… to me, darling, cutie, to me who loves you very much…? ” He began, joking. “Like a trout to a trout. Crazy for me… Oh! How slick my comb is, and what beautiful eyes he has!” This nonsense excited me even more. “Leonor, Leonor, don’t joke, I’m very serious, very serious. I need to know that, or I’ll end up like poor Federico. ” “You, you… ” “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, bursting into laughter. “You have no soul for that, nor are you in his circumstances. You are neither such a gentleman as he is, nor such a fool, nor such… What has bitten you today, my little comb…? Something is the matter with you. Come, I’ll read the cards and find out.” He got up and brought the cards, and on the same sofa where I was sitting he began his game, laying out the five little piles: “what you expect,” ” what you don’t expect,” “what will happen to you,” “your fate,” “what is hidden.” I was so excited that with one swipe of my hand the whole deck fell to the floor, and I said to him: “You look like a witch… Stop with your nonsense, and answer what I’m asking you.” Leonor became angry. Standing to attention and shaking her head, she said to me: “Look, Infantito, I’m getting the better of you; Look, Infantito, I’m a bit short-tempered boy. Look, Infantito, if you get annoying, I’ll go and get the cane, you know? The slipper I used to dismiss the other comb… It’s the one I use to give a pass to those who are annoying, pesky, and tiresome… You’ll remember I told you: “Don’t ask me anything about that.” On that condition, I admitted you. “Then I’ll back out,” I answered, blinded by rage, putting my paw on her shoulders and shaking her brutally. “You have to tell me, or I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll drown you!” That was going to end badly. I was like a madman and I wasn’t in control of my actions. Leonor began to scream, and the maid came in… Don’t think there were any blows or scratches. It was just a squeezing, accompanied by upsetting words. Finally, coming to, I threw her down on the sofa. The poor girl, weeping with grief at my outrage and brutality, seemed more offended than angry, and she countered my insane tenacity with even greater tenacity: “You’re neither a gentleman,” she said, wiping away her tears, “nor even a decent person… You’re just a guy, and I don’t know, frankly, I don’t know how I liked you… Do you know what I’m telling you now? Even if you chop me up, even if you cut me into little pieces this size, you won’t get a word out of me. Go on. Do you think that because I’m a public woman I don’t have tenacity? Well, you’re wrong, because I’m also a private woman when I feel like it, and I know how to be one just like anyone else. Look, the door is wide open for you. I liked you, and I still like you. I’m very frank and I don’t hide what I feel. You can come back if you apologize for this argument.” But if you come to me with questions, I’ll kick you back, like a donkey when it kicks, and I’ll put you in the street, so you’ll realize that when someone wants to be _private_, and decent, and quiet, they are. Although her language wasn’t as violent as I might have expected from my violence, I felt deeply hurt. That unfailing discretion was a kind of virtue I hadn’t expected to find there. It offended me, and I’ll tell you clearly, it diminished me. I left that house vowing never to return, although Leonor didn’t repel me, far from it; on the contrary, her image shining through my memory was pleasing to me. But the other one attracted me more, much more; the other one, the X of my sins, drove me crazy, gave me a vertigo of passion, of curiosity… To her natural attractions, the perfidious one added the indefinable splendor of an unknown or half-known drama. What a night I had, what a night! It is impossible to give you any idea of my suffering, nor of the painful turns my spirit took, now wanting to put the desire to knowledge about the illusion of love, now this about that. And you tell me nothing; you neither advise me nor even give me an opinion. It seems that you have become a fool, or that you view with indifference what concerns me. Well, for that, damned is the need I have for your friendship nor for that all-encompassing knowledge they say you have. You have forgotten me. You are selfish… yes, selfish. I have understood it now. I did not want to say it; but at last it is said, and I will not go back. Chapter 40. February 21. If I remember correctly, yesterday I ended my letter treating you with a certain harshness. Turn a blind eye, man, and consider the state of my mind, prone to violence and injustice. I need to vent to someone this effervescence, this deep disturbance of my soul. Let me call you *Jewish dog*, and that way I will calm down a little: it seems a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. So, disregard any outrage you read here. I’ve had moments of real epilepsy, and my damned nerves still haven’t calmed down ; my hand is trembling, and… you see what handwriting and syntax I use… Even hendecasyllables, kid! Today has been a trying day for me; I’d better say yesterday, because it’s two in the morning. What a day! In the afternoon, after raving like a madman, it occurred to me to take the train and fly to your side, to cry with you… I mean, you wouldn’t cry… Then I thought better of it. Impossible to get out of here, impossible to get away from what’s driving me crazy. But I still don’t know, I don’t know if I’ll be forced to adopt a resolution that will save me from my own anxiety. What do you think? Well, yesterday afternoon I saw her again. She had just come in from the street, and we were alone. She hadn’t let go of her cap or taken off her hood. It seems to me that I still have her before me, with her fur coat unbuttoned: how warm it was in that closet!… I still think I see the compassionate look she gave me, and hear her brotherly tone. For from the moment I saw her before me, I overflowed with loving words that came from the depths of my soul. I have never felt a greater fascination, nor do I think I will ever feel it again. The terrible enigma that surrounds her, far from disillusioning me, unsettles me even more. I love her for an honorable woman, if she is such, and I love her for a criminal, if, in fact, she has been such. And I believe she was: criminal to a degree I cannot determine, and which certainly does not reach the point of committing the deed. I cannot quite remember what I told her: that I am mad for her; that, in order to love her, it does not matter if she has on her hands a stain of blood like Lady Macbeth’s. “You do not have her,” I added deliriously, kissing her gloved hands, ” you do not have her; But if you had it, Augusta, I would wipe it out with my kisses. Your heart will be purified simply by responding to the outpouring of mine. I have gone through a thousand alternatives. Spite has suggested evil ideas to me; I have believed you to be wicked; I was so stubborn that I came to believe I hated you… look how absurd… And at the very moment of believing it, I would have been capable of giving you my life. Forgive me for my impertinent inquiries, which might prove offensive to you. I made them under the pretext of discovering your fault; but the true motive was to know your passion. Nothing ignites our curiosity like a secret, the illicit quid of the person we love, that which in our selfishness we believe to be infidelity. I was looking for the unfaithful one in you, and for being unfaithful I consider you, and for being unfaithful I love you more. ” He begged me in a grave and affectionate tone not to insist, for he could not love me in the way I intended. We would be friends without overstepping the bounds of respectful friendship. “Do not believe,” she told me later with a moved tone, “that I attribute to myself qualities I do not possess, nor think that I wish to pass myself off as impeccable. My conscience is not at peace; but there is in it the desire and the purpose of being calmed, and this is something. ” When I once again gently urged her to confess her fault to me, she tried to silence me with these words: “I still do not know who would be the person worthy of hearing my confession, except a priest.” And that’s not the point now. To confess to a friend, I need proof of true friendship, prudence, and self-denial. Here’s my argument: “You have demanded that I render you a service that has proved beyond my control. Peri refuses to give me the news you asked for. What can I do? Neither with entreaties nor with threats have I been able to obtain a word from her. ” “Which proves,” she replied, “that women, even wicked ones like that one, know how to keep a secret better than you do… Do you know that I have changed my mind about the commission I gave you? I applaud that woman’s reserve. I no longer want to know anything. My curiosity was an inappropriate and tasteless thing, and it’s better not to satisfy it. What I don’t know, remains unknown as long as I live. What’s done, is done. You and I are content with the very little we know, aren’t we?” This inflamed me even more. Her Castilian tenacity magnified her in my eyes, and as she grew nobler, I was also cured of the insane curiosity that had consumed me. “Love me,” I said, trying to hold her in my arms, “love me, and hide from me your fault, your crime, or whatever it may be. I will ask you no more questions; I do not wish to learn anything. I thought I would adore you sincerely, and in silence I adore you even more. But do not kill me with this cold friendship: I am mad for you, and I will die if you do not love me. Broken the law, Augusta; broken the law, be damned with me, for I am no longer saved… It is not hidden from me that your heart is wounded, that the wound is too fresh for you to love me; but give me hope, give it to me, or I will not live…” She broke away from me with vigorous efforts, turning her face away. She said nothing but this: “It cannot be, it cannot be. —Consider that I’m giving up on any further efforts, and that not a single question will come from my lips. Curiosity has been stifled by passion. —This can’t go on. Manolo, calm down. I’ll tell you just one word, the last, and adjust your conduct to it. —Let that word come; come quickly. —He withdrew from me, and placing his right hand on the curtain of the door that led to the next room, he said to me in a low voice and with the greatest seriousness and aplomb in the world: —The last word, and perhaps the most sincere confession I can boast of in my entire life: I have not been honest; but I am determined to be so now, and I will be until the end of my days. —I saw the curtain move, and that woman disappeared, leaving me in the greatest solitude: the solitude of not possessing and of being ignorant. I felt an impulse to pick up a chair and smash it to pieces. Look how childish. I left because the thought struck me that if I ran into Orozco, I ‘d be unable to hide my unhealthy agitation from him. Dear X, I’m sick; I don’t know what’s wrong with me. That woman has driven me crazy. What should I do? Should I insist or leave her? If I can’t; if I’m a child; if tonight, determined to skip her get-together to flirt with my absence, I’ve spent the early hours of the night pacing the street, like a cadet, for the pleasure of seeing the balconies of her house and counting them from the outside, saying: “There’s her dressing table, there’s where she sleeps…” Imagine how crazy I must be… I haven’t returned to Peri’s house, nor do I intend to. Everyone annoys me. Orozco, the exemplary, the saint, the incomprehensible, is odious to me, and all my friends have become as unpleasant to me as Malibrán. I’m out of my mind… Even you’re annoying me. I would hit you, I think I would hit you. But, in the end, I resign myself to not losing your precious friendship. I
spare your life. Despair and spite inspire in me things that I presume must be enormous nonsense. Gosh, not loving me! That last-minute honesty…! The devil sated with flesh… She’s a scoundrel; no, she’s an angel… I adore her for being a criminal: a tremendous antithesis! If she could prove her innocence to me, would I like her less? Perhaps… X, X, X, come for God’s sake to my aid. P.S. February 22. I think that if I remain in Madrid I won’t end well. Today I tried to see her, and she refused to see me. I wrote to her. She returned the letter without opening it. I had a moment of exaltation, which fortunately It’s passing. I’ve decided to put some distance between us. I’m going to Orbajosa. I need just one day to settle certain matters, just the bare minimum. I’ll leave tomorrow on the mail train, and I’ll be in your company at midnight . For God’s sake, X of my life, do everything possible to prevent the town’s music from coming out to greet me. Chapter 41. February 23. What is this, X of my life? Is it written that I’m going to go mad, and that you’ll be the one to finish me off? Let’s take it step by step. Today, as I was packing up my belongings, the illustrious son of that town, Don Juan Tafetán, fell upon me like a meteorite, or rather, as if a boulder had been thrown at me from Orbajosa. After greeting me in a tearful tone, informing me that his trough had been cleaned and that he had come to request , with my help—God help us!—its replacement, he handed me a small errand you gave him for me. The parcel… But no: I said we should go piecemeal, and piecemeal we must go. For the complaints that came from Tafetán’s afflicted heart would split a rock. He told me that those people are furious with me for the indifference, bordering on contempt, with which I have for some time now viewed the affairs of the district. The lofty Polentinos, as well as the humble Lycurgus, are in agreement in making me a parsley leaf, because through my carelessness I have allowed those of the opposition to mount ours. These, that is, those who were mine, held a patriotic meeting last week to agree on the form and manner of giving me a whistle if I have the nerve to present myself in the metropolis of garlic. And I, who, in the height of innocence, believed or feared that the music of the people would come out to greet me with its discordant trumpets! And I already imagined I could hear the crack of the rockets that the skillful hand of Frasquito González would launch into the air in homage to me ! But tell me, is what this poor man tells me true, with whom I don’t know what to do, or where to put him, or how to console him in his affliction of unemployment? Is it true, tell me, that during this entire period of anguish, fever, and police investigations, I have not answered a single letter from the chieftains and common people of the district? Is it true that during this period, which we shall call the interregnum, the question of the location of the railway station has been resolved , placing it in Valdegañanes, leaving our Urbs Augusta ten and seventeen kilometers from the line? What a fine thing El Impulsor is going to do, when he said not long ago that the railway was knocking at the doors of Orbajosa with the warning of its locomotives, those advanced sentinels of civilization! And is it true that my hair stands on end as I write this that those from Valdegañanes, those extinguished lights of the obscurantism, threaten to uproot the Court and carry it off to their own territory? Is it true that our enemies, emboldened by my abandonment, have dried up the Chorrillos fountain, taking the royal torrent of water to the Penitents’ drinking trough in San Bartolomé de Abajo? Is it true that they stole my Fuente los Tojos pedestrian area and Uncle Majavacas’s tobacco shop, and that they’ve left this unfortunate Tafetán unemployed? It must be true, since he wears such a gloomy expression that not even Magdalena’s can match it. With these blows and the mass dismissal of the Villahorrenda City Council, I see that which we representatives of the country call the _altarito_, that is, my political power in the part of Spain that had the honor of electing me its slave and oppressor, on the ground, or on the verge of collapse. Faced with such a pile of disasters, dear X, I resolve to postpone the visit to my constituents, with the dual purpose of seeing if I can put some support to the well-known altar, and of avoiding the serenade that my servants and tyrants—oh, pain!—have prepared for me. And let’s get to the other point, because I said we would go in parts, and in parts, by God! we will go. Tafetán hands me a thick package, which seems to me, as it passes from his trembling hands to mine, a box of biscuits. drunks. And here I am, saying to myself: “Where does this fool think of sending me drunken biscuits now! Ah! I need some sweet, narcotic medicine! What talent this X has!… Well, sir, I open the tome and find it contains papers. Ahaha! Five handwritten notebooks, roughly the same size, and tightly sewn with red thread. I leaf through them with feverish curiosity. The first thing that catches my attention is the handwriting. I know this handwriting… But, sir, whose handwriting is this damned handwriting? It isn’t X’s, and yet it is familiar to me, very familiar… And from one great surprise we move on to another. Imagine my astonishment to see the names of Augusta, Orozco, Federico, Malibrán, running through the pages, quickly turned by my fingers. What amazes me most is that the arrangement of names at the top of more or less long sections of text seems to indicate that the content of the notebooks is in dramatic dialogue. I look at the heading of one of them and see that it says: _Third Day_. The cover of the first one is what completes my stupor, and I distrust my eyes when I read: REALITY, _novel in five days_. I open my mouth so wide that Tafetán himself, pausing in his consternation as an unemployed man with nine children, laughs at me. What is this, X of all the devils? What drama is this, or what novel, and who wrote it? Was it you? Is this a joke you’re playing on me?… Come on, come on! I read the list of characters, written on the first page, and I find all my people. X, X, explain yourself, for your life, if you don’t want me to completely lose my mind. Why don’t you send me a letter with the parcel, informing me of the reason for this most strange and mysterious writing? But I know the handwriting… I’ve seen it a thousand times, and at this moment, because of the disorder in my head, I can’t remember whose it belongs to! Ah! I realize now. The handwriting is yours, yours, disfigured. Don’t deny it. You, who are of the Merlin family; you, who possess a power of divination not granted to all mortals; you, who know how to see the inner face of human deeds when the rest of us see only the outer surface, and penetrate the viscera of characters when the rest of us only see and touch the epidermis; you, diabolical little Equiss, have extracted this _Reality_ from the indicative elements I gave you, and now you complete with the interior description of the matter the one I gave you of its surface. So my letters were no more than half, or if you will, the body, destined to be a container, but still empty, of a being for whose creation I lacked the strength. But you come with the other half, that is, with the soul; to the apparent truth that I simply referred to you, you add the profound truth, extracted from the heart of consciences, and now we have the complete and living being. Is this so? Tell me yes or no, and while I throw myself like a starving man upon your _Reality_, let the demons charge you, and me as well. FROM EQUIS TO INFANTE Chapter 42. _Orbajosa, February 24._ Lazy: I receive yours, and I hasten to explain to you the reason for the manuscript that good Tafetán brought you. But come here, fool, is it possible that you do not recognize your handwriting? If it is yours, you great idiot! Have you reached such a point in your cerebral delirium that you don’t even know your own handwriting? To this you will reply that you have not composed such a drama or anything worthy of it, and you will fear, no doubt, that my explanations will increase the din in your unhappy head. You will see how not; you will see how you are reassured to know in what a natural and simple way that REALITY that so astonishes you was produced, emerging from your handwriting without you ever laying your hand on it. Well, you will see, my son, what an easily understandable phenomenon for a perspicuous scholar, such as you are, trained in the school of Peri and other peri… pathetic philosophers. Pay close attention. I kept your correspondence, perfectly bound with balduque, in a chest where I usually put, so that these scoundrels do not steal it, the garlic of the last harvest. I also keep onions, some squash, strings of chili peppers, anise seed, and other products of this prolific soil. You see, your letters were in good company. I had put a little label on them that said “The Unknown.” Well, the day before yesterday I felt like rereading them. I open my chest, and… poof. Without an oath, you can believe me that a hell of a smell was coming out of there. I reach for the package and find it transformed into the drama or dialogued novel, in your own handwriting, that you received through good old Tafetán. Understanding that you must read it before anyone else, I curbed my curiosity, and off you went for five days. But what, don’t you believe in metamorphosis? The phenomenon is so common to me, and I’ve witnessed it so many times, that it doesn’t surprise me at all. Yes, kid, don’t burn your eyebrows trying to find out who composed that. Reality doesn’t need anyone to compose it; It composes itself. What, do you still doubt it, and you persist in saying that I…? No, son, I do not have that knowledge of divination that you attribute to me. The phenomenon that you admire today is as natural as the most common that you can observe in Nature day after day. When I want to obtain the truth of a case, I take the apparent and public data; I write them down on several sheets of paper, I put them in the garlic chest, and in three days, give or take an hour, it is done. You still doubt, do you not? Well, if you want me to believe your passion for Augusta, you must believe the supernatural and garlicky metamorphosis of your letters into a dramatic novel. Your invariable—EXIS X. P.S. I forgot to tell you that you are right not to come. All the taffeta references are true. If you’re around, a whistle awaits you, in which all the inhabitants of this exalted city will take part, both the stupid and the enlightened, among whom I have the immodesty to count myself. Forty and a half dozen whistles have already been sold in town . I will go as a simple witness, to witness the righteous anger of the citizens, and your shame and humiliation. I won’t whistle at you, because you already know… I don’t blow a whistle… As we close this chapter of The Unknown, we are left to reflect on the decisions we make in our lives and how the destinies of the characters, marked by their choices, teach us about human fragility. I hope you have enjoyed this captivating story. 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No me importa -_-