Now that I am a very old man, I find that nearly all the women for whom I once sighed with love have died. I closed the eyes of one of them, from another I received a sad letter of farewell, and the others died when they were grandmothers and had forgotten all about me. Where once I aroused great passions, now I live in the saddest, bleakest solitude of soul, and my eyes fill with tears when I comb my snow-white hair. I sigh to remember how once it was caressed by the hands of princesses. My passage through life was like a potent flowering of all the passions. My days were, one by one, warmed by the great bonfire of love. The purest of souls once gave me their tenderness and bemoaned my cruelty and my deceptions, whilst their pale, ardent fingers pulled the petals from the daisies that guard the secrets of every heart. In order to guard one secret for all eternity, a secret that I trembled to discover, death sought out a young girl whom I will mourn for all my old age. My hair was already white when I inspired that fateful love.
I had just reached Estella, where the King had his Court. I was weary with my long peregrination about the world. I was beginning to feel something previously unknown in my bright, adventurous life, hitherto full of dangers and vicissitudes, like the life of one of those younger sons of noble families who would join the infantry in Italy in search of love, duels and fortune. I felt a fading of all my hopes, a profound sense of disillusionment with everything. It was the first chill of old age, sadder than that of death itself. When it arrived, I was still wearing about my shoulders the cloak of Almaviva and, on my head, the helmet of Mambrino. The hour had come when the ardours of the blood burn out, and when the passions of love, pride and anger – the noble, sacred passions that stirred the old gods – become the slaves of reason. I was in the declining years of my life, an age conducive to ambition and stronger than youth itself, when one has renounced the love of women. Ah, if only I had done just that!
I arrived at the Court in Estella a fugitive, wearing the habit left hanging in a farm kitchen by a contemplative monk who had decided to throw in his lot with Don Carlos VII. The bells of San Juan were ringing to announce the King’s mass which, out of gratitude for having escaped with my life, I wanted to hear with the dust of the road still on me. I went into the church when the priest was already at the altar. The flickering light from a lamp illumined the chancel steps where the King’s entourage were gathered. Amongst those dark forms, shapeless and faceless, my eyes could distinguish only the figure of His Majesty, who stood out in their midst with all the admirable elegance and nobility of a King in olden times. The arrogance and brio of his person seemed to call out for a lavish suit of armour created by a Milanese goldsmith, and, as a warhorse, a palfrey hung with chain mail. His bright, eagle eye would have flashed magnificently forth from beneath the visor of a helmet adorned with a crested crown and a long lambrequin. Don Carlos de Borbón y de Este is the only sovereign prince worthy to wear the ermine cloak, hold the golden sceptre and don the jewelled crown by which Kings are represented in the old codices.
Once the mass was over, a friar entered the pulpit and preached the holy war in the Basque language to the Basque troops who, having just arrived, were escorting the King for the first time. I felt very moved. Those strong, harsh words, as rough-hewn as stone-age weapons, made an indefinable impression on me. They had an ancient sonority, they were as primitive and august as the furrows made in the ground to receive the grains of wheat and corn scattered in them. Though I did not understand what was said, I felt those words to be loyal, true, austere, rugged. Don Carlos listened standing up, surrounded by his retinue, his face turned to the friar. Doña Margarita and her ladies remained kneeling. Only then was I able to recognise a few faces. That morning, I remember, the retinue consisted of the Princes of Caserta, Marshal Valdespina, Countess María Antonieta Volfani (Doña Margarita’s lady-in-waiting), the Marquis of Lantana (a nobleman from Italy), Valatié (a French legitimist), Brigadier Adelantado, and my uncle, Don Juan Manuel Montenegro.
Afraid that I might be recognised, I remained kneeling in the shadow of a pillar, until the King and Queen had left the church after the friar’s sermon. Next to Doña Margarita walked a fine figure of a woman, wearing a black veil so long that it almost dragged on the floor behind her. She passed quite close and, although I could not see her face clearly, I sensed that she was looking at me and and that she recognised me in my monk’s disguise. For a moment, I thought I knew who that woman was, but the memory fled before I could grasp it. It came and went like a gust of wind, like the lights that flicker on and off throughout the night along the streets. When the church was empty, I went to the sacristy. Beneath a tenuous ray of sunlight, two old priests were standing talking in a corner, and an equally ancient sacristan was standing by a tall, barred window, blowing on the embers of the censer. I paused at the door. The priests took no notice of me, but the sacristan, fixing me with smoke-reddened eyes, asked me severely:
‘Has the reverend father come to say mass?’
‘I have come in search of my friend, Brother Ambrosio Alarcón.’
‘Brother Ambrosio will be some time.’
One of the priests intervened calmly:
‘If you’re in a hurry to see him, you’ll doubtless find him walking outside somewhere, in the lee of the church.’
At that moment, someone knocked at the door and the sacristan went over to draw the bolt. The other priest, who until then had kept silent, murmured:
‘That may be him already.’
The sacristan opened the door to reveal the figure of that famous friar, who every day of his life said a mass for the soul of Zumalacárregui. He was a hunched giant, all parchment skin and bone, with deep-set eyes and a constantly nodding head, the result of a blow to the neck that he had received as a soldier in the first Carlist war. Before he came in, the sacristan warned him in a low voice:
‘There’s a priest here looking for you. He must be from Rome.’
I waited. Brother Ambrosio looked me up and down without recognising me, but that did not stop him placing one frank and friendly hand on my shoulder:
‘Are you quite sure it’s Brother Ambrosio Alarcón you want to talk to?’
I made no reply; I simply pushed back the hood of my cloak. The old soldier looked at me with happy surprise. Then, turning to the other priests, he exclaimed:
‘This reverend father is known to the world as the Marquis of Bradomín.’
The sacristan stopped blowing on the embers in the censer, and the two priests sitting by the brazier beneath the ray of sun stood up, smiling beatifically. I enjoyed a moment’s vanity at their welcome which demonstrated what a famous figure I was in the court of Estella. They looked at me with love and just a touch of fatherly disapproval. They were, after all, men of the cloth, and perhaps recalled some of my more worldly adventures.
They all crowded round me. I had to tell them the story behind my monk’s habit and how I had crossed the frontier. Brother Ambrosio laughed jovially, while the priests peered at me over their spectacles, a look of uncertainty on their toothless mouths. Behind them, beneath the ray of sun coming in through a narrow window, the sacristan stood absolutely still, listening, and whenever Brother Ambrosio interrupted me, he would scold him:
‘Let him finish telling his story, man!’
But Brother Ambrosio was reluctant to believe that I had just left a monastery where I had sought refuge, disillusioned with the world and repenting of my many sins. More than once, while I was talking, he would turn to the other priests, muttering:
‘Don’t believe him; it’s just one of our illustrious Marquis’ amusing inventions.’
To put paid to his doubts, I had to swear a solemn oath. From that point on, he affected a look of profound belief, constantly crossing himself in amazement.
‘People are quite right when they say that you live and learn. I would never have thought of the Marquis as an infidel exactly, but I would certainly never have imagined this religious side to his nature.’
I murmured gravely:
‘Repentance does not arrive like the cavalry, with bugles blowing.’
At that moment, the bugle call for saddling up sounded and everyone laughed. Then one of the priests asked me in kindly, foolish tones:
‘I imagine that repentance did not arrive as slyly as the serpent either?’
I gave a melancholy sigh.
‘It arrived when I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my white hair.’
The two priests exchanged such a cautious smile that I immediately took them for Jesuits. I adopted a penitent pose, my hands folded over my scapular, and sighed:
‘Now my ill fortune has tossed me back into the sea of the world. I managed to conquer every passion but that of pride. Despite this rough habit I could not forget that I am a Marquis.’
Brother Ambrosio raised his arms and said in a grave voice that seemed made for telling convent jokes:
‘Even the Emperor Charles V could not forget his empire when he was in the monastery of Yuste.’
The two priests again smiled their catechistic smiles and, from where he sat in the ray of sun coming in through the narrow window, the sacristan grumbled:
‘Why can’t you just let him tell his story?’
Having spoken, Brother Ambrosio laughed long and loud, and the dark, formless echo of that jovial laughter still lingered in the vault of the sacristy when a pale seminarian entered, his mouth as red as any virgin’s, in contrast to his white, aquiline profile, with its hooked nose and round, heavy-lidded eyes, which gave his face a cruel expression. Brother Ambrosio received him, bowing from the waist, laughing so hard that his trembling head seemed about to fall from his shoulders.
‘Welcome, sublime and as yet undiscovered captain! A new Epaminondas whose deeds, with the passing of the centuries, will be set down by another Cornelius Nepos. Come in and meet the Marquis of Bradomín!’
The seminarian greeted me, blushing scarlet and removing the black beret which, together with an already threadbare cassock, completed the attire of this elegant personage. Brother Ambrosio placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him with rough affection, saying:
‘If this young man can gather together fifty men, then we’ll set those tongues wagging. He’s another Don Ramón Cabrera – he’s as brave as a lion!’
The seminarian stepped back to free himself from the hand still weighing on his shoulder and then, fixing me with his birdlike eyes, he said, as if in answer to my thoughts:
‘Some people believe that to be a great captain, you don’t need to be brave, and maybe they’re right. Who knows, had Don Ramón Cabrera been a little less bold his military genius might have proved more fertile.’
Brother Ambrosio looked at him scornfully.
‘Epaminondas, my son, with a little less boldness, he might have ended up saying mass, which could well be what happens to you.’
The seminarian gave an admirable smile.
‘That definitely won’t happen to me, Brother Ambrosio.’
The two priests sitting by the brazier said nothing, they merely smiled. One was stretching out trembling hands to the blaze, the other was leafing through his breviary, and the sacristan was half-closing his eyes ready to follow the example of the cat dozing on his lap. Brother Ambrosio instinctively lowered his voice:
‘You say these things because you’re a boy, and you believe in the cunning arguments by which certain generals, who would have been better off as bishops, excuse their fear. I’ve seen a lot of things. I was a monk in a monastery in Galicia when the first war broke out, and I hung up my habit and fought for seven years in the King’s army. And I can tell you that to be a great captain, you must first be a great soldier. Take no notice of people who say that Napoleon was a coward.’
The seminarian’s eyes shone like the sun glinting on the blue-black steel of two bullets:
‘Brother Ambrosio, if I had a hundred men, I would lead them like a soldier, but if I had a thousand, only a thousand, then I would lead them like a captain. For then I could guarantee the triumph of the cause. We do not need large armies in this war; with a thousand men I would lead an expedition throughout the whole kingdom, as did the greatest of the generals in the last war, Don Miguel Gómez, thirty-five years ago.’
Brother Ambrosio interrupted him and said in a bossy, scornful, though still playful voice:
‘Illustrious, beardless warrior, have you ever heard tell of a certain Don Tomás Zumalacárregui? He was the greatest general of the cause. If we had a man like him today, then our success would be assured.’
The seminarian said nothing, but the two priests seemed almost scandalised. One said:
‘We cannot doubt the success of the cause.’
And the other:
‘The justice of our cause is the best general we have.’
Beneath my penitent’s habit I felt a rekindling of that fire that filled St Bernard when he preached in favour of the crusades, and I said:
‘The best general is the help of our Lord God!’
There was a murmur of approval, impassioned as any prayer. The seminarian smiled to himself but still said nothing. Meanwhile, the bells tolled gravely and the old sacristan got to his feet, pushing the sleeping cat off his lap. A few priests arrived, come to sing at a funeral. The seminarian donned his surplice and the sacristan handed him the censer. The aromatic smoke filled the vast room. You could hear the sombre murmur of hoarse, ecclesiastical voices as the priests donned their linen albs, their surplices especially ironed by the nuns, and the golden chasubles still redolent of myrrh burned a hundred years before. The seminarian went into the church, clinking the chains of the censer, and the priests, fully dressed now, followed behind. I remained alone with Brother Ambrosio, who opened wide his great arms and pressed me to his breast, saying in a low, emotional voice:
‘Does the Marquis still remember when I taught him Latin at the monastery in Sobrado?’
And then, after the introit of a cough, and recovering his old theologian’s smile, he purred as if in the confessional box:
‘The illustrious hero will forgive me if I say that I did not believe one word of the story with which you regaled us a moment ago.’
‘What story?’
‘The story about your conversion. May one know the truth?’
‘When no one can hear us, Brother Ambrosio.’
He nodded gravely. I fell silent, pitying that poor ex-monk who preferred history to legend and was curious to know the details of a far less interesting, less exemplary and less beautiful story than the one I had invented. Ah, jovial, wingèd lie, when will men finally be persuaded that it must be allowed to triumph. When will they learn that those souls in which only the light of truth exists are sad, tormented, austere souls who converse with death in the silence and spread over life a pall of ashes? Hail to thee, bright lie, bird of light that sings like hope itself. And you, parched Thebaids, historic cities full of sunshine and silence, perishing beneath the voice of the bells, do not let it slip away, like so many other things, through the crumbling city walls! It is to be found in flirtatious talk at a barred window, in the lustre on worm-eaten coats of arms, in the mirrors in the muddy river flowing beneath the Roman arches of bridges. Like confession, it comforts grieving hearts, makes them flower, restores them to grace. Take note that this too is a gift from heaven. Thus, ancient race of the sun and of the bull, may you preserve for all eternity your mendacious, hyperbolic, blustering genius, and thus will you for ever be lulled to sleep by the strumming of guitars, with all your griefs consoled, though the Indies be lost and gone, like those convent meals once given to the poor. Amen!
Brother Ambrosio considered it his honourable duty to find shelter for me, and I had to submit to his hospitality. We left the church together and walked through the streets of the loyal city, the holy ark of the cause. It had snowed and, in the shelter of the sombre houses, the snow had left behind it an immaculate wake. The rain dripped from the blackened eaves; leaning out from one of the narrow windows beneath them, we occasionally saw the figure of an old woman, a scarf tied about her head, peering out into the street to see if the weather had cleared up enough for her to go to mass. We passed by a big, old house surrounded by walls so high that one could see only the tops of the cypresses in the garden; we saw an ostentatious coat of arms, rusted railings and a studded door which stood ajar to reveal, in the half-light, a hallway with gleaming steps and a great iron lantern. Brother Ambrosio said to me:
‘That is the house of the Duchess of Uclés.’
I smiled, guessing the monk’s cunning intention.
‘Is she still as beautiful as she used to be?’
‘So they say, though I couldn’t actually tell you, since she always wears a veil.’
I could not suppress a sigh.
‘She was once a great friend of mine.’
The monk coughed sarcastically:
‘So I hear.’
‘A secret of the confessional?’
‘An open secret. A lowly ex-monk like myself does not have such illustrious spiritual daughters.’
We continued on in silence. I could not help but remember better times, the days when I was a handsome young man and a poet. Those far-off days bloomed in my memory with all the charm of an almost forgotten tale that brings with it the perfume of faded roses and the old harmonies of poetry. Ah, they were the roses and the poetry of the good old days, when my beautiful friend was still a dancer – brief oriental prayers written in her honour, describing her lithe body as a palm tree in the desert, and declaring that all the Graces gathered about her skirts singing and laughing to the sound of golden bells. Her beauty was indeed beyond all praise. Her name was Carmen and she was as sweet as that name is full of Andalusian wit and grace, for in Latin it means poetry and in Arabic a garden. When I remembered her, I remembered too all the years that had passed without my seeing her and how the monk’s habit I was wearing would once have provoked her into crystalline laughter. Almost without thinking, I said to Brother Ambrosio:
‘Does the duchess still live in Estella?’
‘She is lady-in-waiting to Queen Margarita, but she never leaves the palace except to hear mass.’
‘I’m tempted to turn round and go in to see her.’
‘There’s time enough for that.’
We had reached Santa María and had to stand in the doorway of the church to allow a troop of soldiers on horseback to pass. They were Castilian lancers returning from duty outside the city. The warm chorus of bugles mingled with loud neighing, and the valiant, martial sound of hooves rang out on the old cobbled streets, the same sound as described in ballads when they speak of the paladins. The cavalry passed by and we continued on our way. Brother Ambrosio said to me:
‘Nearly there.’
He pointed to the bottom of the street, at a small house with a worm-eaten wooden balcony supported by columns. An old greyhound was sleeping by the doorway; it growled when it saw us but did not get up. The hallway was dark and smelled of hay and the breath of cattle. We groped our way up stairs that trembled beneath our feet. When we got to the top, the monk pulled hard on a chain hanging by the door and, somewhere inside, a clucking bell danced and clattered. We heard footsteps and the voice of the housekeeper grumbling:
‘What a way to call at a house! What do you want?’
The monk replied imperiously:
‘Open up!’
‘Holy Mother of God, what’s the hurry!’
The woman was still grumbling as she drew the bolt. The monk in turn muttered impatiently:
‘The woman’s unbearable.’
Once we were through the door, the housekeeper grew still angrier:
‘I see you’ve got company again. Of course there’s always so much food in the house that you just have to bring someone back with you to help finish it up.’
White with rage, Brother Ambrosio raised his huge, thin, threatening arms. His ancient parchment hands danced above his ever-bobbing head.
‘Silence that scorpion tongue of yours! Be silent and have a little respect. Do you know who you have offended with your insults? Do you? Do you know who you have before you? Ask the Marquis of Bradomín’s pardon, now.’
Ah, the insolence of the concubine! When she heard my name, the hag showed neither repentance nor unease. She fixed her black witch’s eyes on me – the kind of eyes you see in some of Goya’s paintings of old women – and, looking slightly incredulous, she merely muttered out of the corner of her mouth:
‘If he is the gentleman you say he is, may he be so for many more years. Amen.’
She stood to one side to let us pass. We could still hear her muttering:
‘Just look at the mud they’ve got on their feet. Holy Jesus, look at the mess they’ve made of my floors.’
Those clean, waxed, shining floors, pure mirrors in which she could see her own face, the pride and joy of an old housekeeper, had just been barbarously profaned by our feet. I turned round anxiously to take in the full horror of my sacrilege, and such was the look of hatred in the old woman’s eyes that I felt afraid. She was still grumbling:
‘You’d think they’d been out slaughtering incendiaries. Look at the state they’ve left my floors in! The cheek of it!’
Brother Ambrosio shouted from the living room:
‘Be quiet and bring us some hot chocolate – now!’
And his voice rang through the silent house like a war-like report. It was a voice that once held sway over the men in his troop – the only voice that would make them tremble – but that old woman clearly belonged to the other side, for she merely averted her pasty face and muttered more sourly than ever:
‘You’ll get it when it’s ready. Dear God, give me patience.’
Brother Ambrosio gave a cavernous cough and in the depths of the house we could hear the muffled mutterings of his concubine, then, when silence was restored, the ticking of a clock, as if it were the pulse of that monk’s house ruled over by an old woman and her menage of cats. Tick tock tick tock. It was a wall clock with a pendulum and weights. The monk’s cough, the old woman’s grumblings and the clock’s soliloquy seemed to me to keep a bizarre, grotesque rhythm, learned on the clavichord of some music-loving witch.
I took off my monk’s habit and stood there in the zouave uniform of a papal guard. Brother Ambrosio looked at me with childish delight, waving his long, stiff arms about:
‘That’s a strange get-up!’
‘Haven’t you seen it before?’
‘Only in paintings, in a portrait of the Infante Don Alfonso.’
And, eager to learn of my adventures, he said in a low voice, his tonsured head trembling on his shoulders:
‘So, are you going to tell me the story behind that monk’s habit?’
I said coolly:
‘It was a disguise I needed in order to avoid falling into the hands of that wretched priest.’
‘Santa Cruz?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s set up camp in Oyarzun now.’
‘And I’ve just come from Arimendi where I was so badly stricken with fever that I had to hide on a farm.’
‘Good grief! And why is Santa Cruz after your blood?’
‘He knows that I got the King to sign the order for Lizárraga to shoot him.’
‘Not a good idea, not a good idea at all.’
I replied imperiously:
‘He’s no better than a bandit.’
‘Such bandits are necessary in wartime, except, of course, that this isn’t a war, it’s just a masonic farce!’
I had to smile.
‘Masonic?’
‘Yes, masonic. Dorregaray is a mason.’
‘But Lizárraga is the one who wants to hunt the dog down, the one who has sworn to exterminate him.’
The monk turned towards me, clutching his trembling head with both hands, as if he were afraid it might roll from his shoulders.
‘Don Antonio believes that the war can be won by spilling a few drops of holy water, not blood. Everything can be sorted out with a few communion services, but in war, if you take communion, it has to be with lead bullets. Don Antonio is just a wretched old monk like me, or rather, much more so than me; he was even before he took his vows. We old men who took part in the first war, we look at this one and we feel utterly ashamed. Now it’s given me the palsy.’
He gripped his head harder and sat down in the armchair to wait for the hot chocolate, for we could already hear the old woman’s footsteps in the corridor and the clink of cups on metal trays. She came in wearing a completely changed expression, her face now the placid, smiling face of old ladies who live contented lives, doing their household chores and their knitting, and saying the rosary.
‘What a happy day this is for us. The Marquis won’t remember me, but I once bounced him on my knee. I’m the sister of Micaela la Galana. Do you remember Micaela la Galana? She was a maid who for many years served your grandmother, my mistress, the countess.’
I looked at the old woman, quite touched, and said:
‘I’m afraid, Señora, that I barely remember my grandmother.’
‘She was a saint that woman. She’ll be sitting now in Heaven on our Lord Jesus’ right hand.’
She set the two trays with the hot chocolate on them down on the table, and, after whispering something in the monk’s ear, she withdrew. The hot chocolate smelled exquisite. It was the traditional hot chocolate, flavoured with vanilla and other spices, that used to be drunk in convents and which, in the olden days, was sent as a gift to abbots by the viceroys of the Indies. My old grammar teacher could still remember those fortunate times. Ah, the cosy comforts, the ecclesiastical opulence, the joyous gluttony – so sorely missed – of the royal and imperial monastery of Sobrado. True to tradition, Brother Ambrosio mumbled a few prayers before raising the cup to his lips. When he had finished it, he said, as if passing sentence with all the elegant concision of one of the classic writers of Augustus’ time.
‘Delicious! No one makes hot chocolate like those wonderful Santa Clara nuns!’
He sighed contentedly and returned to the story I had been telling.
‘It was just as well that you didn’t tell the true story behind your disguise in the sacristy. The priests there are all loyal supporters of Santa Cruz.’
He sat for a moment, thinking. Then he gave a long yawn and made the sign of the cross over his gaping, black mouth, like the mouth of a wolf.
‘And what does the Marquis of Bradomín want from this poor ex-monk?’
With feigned indifference, I said:
‘We can talk about that later.’
The monk murmured slyly:
‘That might not be necessary … because, as it happens, I still work as chaplain in the house of the Countess of Volfani. The countess is well, although a little sad perhaps. As it happens, this is exactly the right time to visit her.’
I made a vague gesture, and took a gold coin from my purse.
‘Let us forget about worldly business, Brother Ambrosio. This is for a mass to give thanks for my safe escape.’
The monk silently pocketed it, and went on to offer me his bed on which to take a nap and recover from my journey. It was a bed with seven mattresses on it and a crucifix at the head. Opposite was a large pot-bellied chest of drawers with a horn inkwell on top, and perched on the inkwell a cardinal’s cap.
It rained all day. In the brief moments when the rain let up, a sad, grey light dawned on the mountains surrounding the holy Carlist city, where the sound of rain on windows is a familiar one. From time to time, in the midst of that afternoon of winter tedium, there came the urgent sound of bugles or the ringing of bells by nuns calling people to the novena. I had to present myself to the King and I left the house before Brother Ambrosio got back. A veil of mist drifted on the gusting wind. Two soldiers were walking wearily across the square, their capes dripping. You could hear the monotonous chanting of children in school. The pale afternoon made the vacant space of the gloomy, flooded, deserted square seem even sadder. I got lost several times in the streets, for the only person I came across to ask directions was a woman on her way to church. It was already dark when I reached the King’s house.
‘You soon hung up your habit, Bradomín.’
Those were the words with which Don Carlos greeted me. I replied, hoping that only the King would hear me:
‘I kept tripping over them, sir.’
The King replied in a similar vein:
‘The same thing happens to me, but I, alas, cannot hang mine up.’
I ventured a reply:
‘Well, sir, if you cannot hang them, you should have them shot.’
The King smiled and led me to a window seat:
‘I know you’ve spoken to Cabrera. These are his ideas. Cabrera, as you will have seen, is the declared enemy of the ultramontane party and of all troublesome priests. He is wrong to take that position, because now they offer us some powerful support. Believe me, without them the war would not be possible.’
‘Sir, as you know, the General is also against the war.’
The King fell silent for a moment.
‘I know. Cabrera thinks that it would have been more productive to continue the underground work of the Juntas. I believe he is wrong. For the rest, I myself am no friend of troublesome priests. I told you as much on another occasion, when you advised me to have Santa Cruz shot. The reason why I was, for some time, opposed to forming a council of war, was to prevent the republican troops engaged in pursuing him from getting together and coming down on top of us. As you see, that is precisely what happened. That priest has now cost us the loss of Tolosa.’
The King paused again and looked about the room, a dark room with a walnut floor, the walls hung with weapons and with flags won in the seven-year war by those old generals of now legendary memory. At the far end, the Bishop of Urgel, Carlos Calderón and Diego Villadarias were talking in low voices. The King smiled faintly, a smile of sad indulgence, that I had never before seen on his face.
‘They’re jealous because I am talking to you, Bradomín. You are certainly not one of the Bishop’s favourite people.’
‘Why do you say that, sir?’
‘Because of the way he’s looking at you. Go and kiss his ring.’
I was just about to obey that order, when the King, in a loud voice so that everyone could hear him, said:
‘Bradomín, don’t forget that you will be dining with me tonight.’
I gave a deep bow:
‘Thank you, sir.’
And I went over to join the Bishop’s group, who fell silent at my approach. His Grace received me with cool kindness:
‘Welcome, Marquis.’
I replied with lordly condescension, as if the Bishop of Urgel were merely a chaplain in my house.
‘Delighted to see you, Your Grace.’
And with a bow more courtly than pious, I kissed the pastoral amethyst. His Grace, who had the proud spirit of those feudal bishops who used to wear their weapons beneath their cope, frowned and ventured a castigating homily.
‘Marquis, I have just uncovered a crude plot hatched this morning to make fools of two innocent, credulous priests, at the same time making a mockery of the cloth, and showing absolutely no respect for the sanctity of the place, for it happened in San Juan, and …’
I broke in:
‘In the sacristy, Your Grace.’
His Grace, who was somewhat out of breath, paused and said:
‘They told me it happened in the church, but even if it did take place in the sacristy, Marquis, the story still makes mock of the lives of certain saints. If, as I imagine, the habit was not some carnival disguise, then there was no profanity in it, but the story you told to the priests was worthy of that heathen Voltaire.‘
The prelate was doubtless about to launch into an attack on the authors of the Encyclopédie and, seeing that, I said in a voice of tremulous repentance:
‘I acknowledge my guilt in the matter and am prepared to carry out whatever penance Your Grace sees fit to impose on me.’
Taking this as evidence of the triumph of his eloquence, the saintly gentleman smiled benevolently.
‘We will do our penance together.’
I looked at him uncomprehendingly. Resting one white, dimpled hand on my shoulder, he clarified his ironic remark:
‘We shall both dine at the King’s table, where fasting is unavoidable. Don Carlos has the sober habits of a soldier.’
I replied:
‘The dream of his grandfather was that each of his subjects should be able to afford to sacrifice a chicken. Recognising that dream as a poetic fancy, Don Carlos prefers to fast along with all his vassals.’
The bishop interrupted me.
‘That’s enough joking, Marquis. The King too is sacred.’
I placed my right hand on my breast, indicating that even had I wanted to forget that fact I could not, for his altar was there in my heart. Then I took my leave, for I had to pay my respects to Doña Margarita.
When I went into the antechamber, where the Queen and her ladies were busy embroidering scapulars for the soldiers, I experienced an emotion which was at once religious and gallant. I understood then the ingenuous sentiments that fill novels of chivalry, as well as that cult of female beauty and tears that makes Tirant lo Blanc’s heart beat faster beneath his doublet. More than ever, I felt that I was a knight of the cause. I wanted to die for that lady with hands like lilies and a name perfumed with legend, the name of some pale, saintly, long-ago princess. Doña Margarita inspired a loyalty that belonged to another age. She received me with a gracious, melancholy smile.
‘Don’t be offended if I carry on embroidering this scapular, Bradomín. I receive you as I would a friend.’
And leaving her needle impaled in the embroidery for a moment, she held out her hand, which I kissed respectfully. The Queen went on:
‘They tell me you’ve been ill. You do seem a little pale. You look like the kind of man who doesn’t take enough care of himself and that’s not good at all. If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for the King, who is in desperate need of loyal servants like yourself. We are surrounded by traitors, Bradomín.’
Doña Margarita fell silent for a moment. When she said those last words, her silvery voice shook slightly, and I thought she might break down and weep. I may have imagined it, but it seemed to me that her eyes, beautiful and chaste as the eyes of a Madonna, were full of tears. I cannot be sure, though, for she immediately bent her head over her embroidery again. Some time passed. The Queen sighed and looked up. She wore her hair parted in the middle, and her brow had about it a lunar whiteness.
‘Bradomín, it is up to loyal men like yourself to save the King.’
Moved, I replied:
‘Madam, I am ready to give every last drop of my blood in order that he might wear the crown.’
The Queen looked at me loftily.
‘You have misunderstood me. It is not his crown I am asking you to defend, it is his life. Do not let it be said of the knights of Spain that you went off to distant lands in search of a princess only to dress her in mourning. I say to you again, Bradomín, we are surrounded by traitors.’
The Queen fell silent again. You could hear the sound of the rain on the windows and the distant blowing of bugles. There were three ladies-in-waiting present: Doña Juana Pacheco, Doña Manuela Ozores and María Antonieta Volfani. From the moment I entered the room I had felt the latter’s eyes on me, like a loving magnet. Taking advantage of the silence that had fallen, she got up and walked over to Doña Margarita.
‘Shall I go and fetch the prince and princess, my lady?’
The Queen in turn asked:
‘Will they have finished their lessons?’
‘They will.’
‘Go and get them then. Bradomín can meet them.’
I bowed and took the opportunity to greet María Antonieta as well. Showing the most perfect self-control, she responded with some insignificant words that I no longer remember, but the look in her dark, ardent eyes was such that it made my heart beat as it used to when I was twenty. She went out and the Queen said:
‘I’m concerned about María Antonieta. For some time now she has seemed very sad and I’m afraid she may be suffering from the same illness as her sisters, both of whom died of tuberculosis, and then, of course, the poor thing is so very unhappy with her husband.’
She stuck her needle in the red damask pincushion in her silver workbasket and, smiling, showed me the scapular she had made.
‘There you are. A present for you, Bradomín.’
I went over to receive it from her royal hands, and the Queen gave it to me, saying:
‘May it protect you from enemy bullets!’
Doña Juana Pacheco and Doña Manuela Ozores, venerable old ladies who could remember the seven-year war, murmured:
‘Amen.’
There was another silence. Suddenly, the Queen’s eyes lit up with loving joy: her two eldest children had just come in, led by María Antonieta. They ran to her from the door, and hung about her neck and kissed her. Doña Margarita said to them with mock severity:
‘Who has learned their lessons best then?’
The Infanta blushed scarlet and said nothing, while Don Jaime, who was the bolder of the two, replied:
‘Both of us.’
‘That means neither of you did.’
And Doña Margarita kissed them to hide her laughter. Then, gesturing towards me with one delicate, white hand, she said:
‘This gentleman is the Marquis of Bradomín.’
Resting her head on her mother’s shoulder, the Infanta murmured:
‘The one who went to war in Mexico?’
The Queen stroked her daughter’s hair.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Didn’t María Antonieta tell us?’
‘What a memory you have!’
The little girl came over to me, her eyes full of shy curiosity.
‘Marquis, did you wear that uniform in Mexico?’
From his mother’s side, Don Jaime said loudly, with all the authority of an eldest child:
‘Don’t be so silly! You’re useless at uniforms. That one’s from the papal guard, just like Uncle Alfonso’s.’
With a mixture of familiarity and courtesy, the prince joined us.
‘Marquis, is it true that in Mexico the horses can gallop all day and never get tired?’
‘It is, Your Highness.’
The Infanta asked in turn:
‘And is it true that they have serpents there called glass snakes?’
‘That’s true too, Your Highness.’
The children reflected for a moment, then their mother said to them:
‘Tell Bradomín what you’re studying.’
Hearing this, the prince, with childish arrogance, pulled himself up very straight and said:
‘Marquis, ask me anything you like about the history of Spain.’
I smiled.
‘How many Kings have borne your name, Your Highness?’
‘Only one. Don Jaime the Conqueror.’
‘And what was he the King of?’
‘Of Spain.’
The Infanta, again blushing scarlet, murmured:
‘It was Aragon, wasn’t it, Marquis?’
‘That’s right, Your Highness.’
The prince looked at her scornfully.
‘Well, that’s Spain, isn’t it?’
The Infanta looked to me for encouragement and said with shy gravity:
‘But not the whole of Spain.’
She blushed again. She was a delightful child, with lively eyes and long ringlets that brushed the velvet skin of her cheeks. Plucking up her courage, she asked me more about my travels:
‘Marquis, is it true that you’ve been to the Holy Land too?’
‘I have, Your Highness.’
‘And did you see our Lord’s tomb? Tell me what it’s like.’
And she sat down on a stool to listen, her elbows on her knees and her face cupped in her hands, almost lost beneath her long hair. Doña Manuela Ozores and Doña Juana Pacheco, who were engaged in a whispered conversation, fell silent too, keen to hear the story. At that point, however, the time to do penance arrived – at the royal altar of the King’s table, exactly as His Grace had prophesied.
I had the honour of attending the Queen’s soirée and, while I was there, I sought in vain a propitious moment to speak to María Antonieta alone. I left with a vague feeling that she had been avoiding me all night. When the cold of the street hit my face, I noticed a tall, almost gigantic shadow coming towards me. It was Brother Ambrosio.
‘The King and Queen have treated you very well. You certainly have no reason for complaint, Marquis.’
I replied in a rather surly tone:
‘The King knows that he has no more loyal servant than me.’
And he said in an equally surly manner, but in a quieter tone of voice:
‘There must be some.’
I felt my pride swell.
‘None!’
We walked in silence until we came to a corner by a lamp post. There Brother Ambrosio stopped. I asked him:
‘But where are we going?’
‘The lady in question says that, if you wish, she will see you this very night.’
I felt my heart beat faster.
‘Where?’
‘At her house. It will be necessary to use great stealth. I will guide you.’
We retraced our steps, walking back down the wet, deserted street. Brother Ambrosio spoke to me in a low voice:
‘The countess has herself only just left the Queen’s soirée. This morning she sent orders for me to wait for her. She doubtless wanted me to give you this message. She was afraid she might not be able to speak to you at the King’s house.’
He stopped talking then and sighed, before uttering a strange, loud, grotesque laugh.
‘Great God!’
‘What’s wrong, Brother Ambrosio?’
‘Nothing, Marquis. I’m just so thrilled to find myself carrying out such tasks, so very worthy of an old warrior. Ah, how my seventeen scars are laughing.’
‘You’re keeping track of them, are you?’
‘I’ve got the receipts too.’
He fell silent again, doubtless waiting for some response from me, and when he did not get it, he continued in the same tone of bitter mockery.
‘There’s no privilege like being chaplain to the Countess of Volfani. It’s a shame she isn’t better at keeping her promises. She says that it’s not her fault, that it’s the fault of the royal household. They are against interfering priests, and she cannot risk displeasing them. Ah, if it all depended on my protectress …’
I stopped him and spoke to him firmly:
‘Enough, Brother Ambrosio, my patience has run out. I won’t listen to another word.’
He bowed his head.
‘Fine.’
We walked on, not speaking. From time to time we passed a street lamp, and all around it the shadows danced. When we walked past the houses where troops were billeted, we heard the thrum of guitars and strong, young voices singing. Then silence returned, broken only by the shouts of sentinels and the barking of dogs. We walked beneath a colonnade and kept cautiously in the shadows. Brother Ambrosio went ahead, showing me the way. A door opened quietly. He turned, gesturing to me to follow and disappeared into the hall. I went after him and heard him say:
‘Is it all right to light a candle?’
And another voice, a woman’s voice, replied in the darkness:
‘Yes, sir.’
The door had closed again. I waited, lost in the darkness, while Brother Ambrosio lit a wax taper that burned, giving off a smell of churches. The pale flame trembled in the broad hallway, and that flickering light lit his own tremulous head. A shadow approached. It was María Antonieta’s maid. Brother Ambrosio handed her the light and led me to a corner. I could sense, though not see, the violent trembling of that tonsured head.
‘Marquis, I’m going to abandon this job as go-between – so unworthy of me.’
And a skeletal hand gripped my shoulder.
‘The moment has come to enjoy the fruits of my labours, Marquis. You must give me a hundred gold coins. If you haven’t got them on you, you can ask the Countess for them. After all, it was she who offered them to me.’
I was not frightened, although I was surprised, and, stepping back, I put my hand on my sword.
‘You have chosen the worst possible way of going about things. No one threatens me or tries to frighten me with brave gestures, Brother Ambrosio.’
He gave that grotesquely mocking laugh again.
‘Don’t raise your voice, a passing patrol might hear us.’
‘Are you afraid?’
‘I’ve never been afraid. But what if it were a married woman’s entourage …’
Realising his mischievous intentions, I said to him, my voice restrained, hoarse:
‘This is some vile trick.’
‘An old war ruse, Marquis. The lion is in the trap.’
‘Why, you despicable old monk, I’m tempted to run you through with my sword.’
He opened his long, skeletal arms, revealing his chest, and said in a trembling voice:
‘Please do. My corpse will speak for me.’
‘That’s enough.’
‘Will you give me that money?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
He said nothing for a moment and then insisted in a tone that was at once timid and insistent:
‘It has to be now.’
‘Isn’t my word good enough?’
Almost humbly, he murmured:
‘I don’t doubt your word, but it has to be now. I might not have the courage to face you tomorrow. Besides, I want to leave Estella this very night. That money is not for me; I’m no thief. I need it in order to rejoin the troops. I will leave you a signed note. I have longstanding commitments to certain people and I had to do something. Brother Ambrosio never breaks his word.’
I said to him sadly:
‘Why couldn’t you ask me for the money as a friend?’
He sighed:
‘I didn’t dare. I don’t know how to ask for anything. It makes me feel ashamed. I would find it easier to kill someone than to ask for something. I’m not doing this out of any ill feeling, it’s just sheer embarrassment.’
His voice broke; he stopped talking and went out into the street, oblivious to the drenching rain. Trembling with fear, the maid led me to where her lady was waiting.
María Antonieta had just arrived and was sitting beside a brazier, her hands folded, her hair damp and dishevelled from the rain and mist. When I went in, she looked at me with sad, sombre eyes, ringed with dark shadows.
‘Why did you insist on coming tonight?’
Wounded by the indifference of her words, I stood still in the middle of the room.
‘I regret to say that it was all a story dreamed up by your chaplain.’
She insisted:
‘When I came home, I found him waiting for me on your orders.’
I said nothing more, resigned to her reproaches, since it would have been ungallant to tell her what had really happened and to explain Brother Ambrosio’s ploy to get me there. Her eyes were dry, but her voice was hoarse with emotion.
‘Why are you so eager to see me now, when you never once wrote to me while you were away. Have you nothing to say? What do you want?’
Wishing to make amends to her, I said:
‘I want you, María Antonieta.’
Her lovely, mystical eyes flashed scornfully.
‘You want to compromise me, to take me away from the Queen’s side. You are my executioner.’
I smiled.
‘I am your victim.’
I seized her hands and tried to kiss them, but she pulled away fiercely. María Antonieta suffered from what the ancients called ‘the sacred illness’ and since she had the soul of a saint and the blood of a courtesan, sometimes, in winter, she would renounce love. The poor woman belonged to that race of admirable women who, when they grow old, become edifying figures leading devout lives, yet surrounded by a vague legend of ancient sins. Sombre and sighing, she remained silent, stubbornly staring into space. I again took her hands and held them in mine, though without trying to kiss them, fearful that she might pull away again. In a loving voice, I pleaded:
‘María Antonieta!’
She said nothing. After a moment, I said again:
‘María Antonieta!’
She turned and, withdrawing her hands, replied coldly:
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to tell me all your sorrows.’
‘Why?’
‘So that I can console you.’
She dropped her mask of inscrutability and, suddenly fierce and passionate, she leaned towards me and cried out:
‘Just count up all your ungrateful acts, because those are my sorrows.’
The flame of love burned in her eyes with a solemn fire that seemed to consume her. Hers were the mystical eyes that you occasionally glimpse in convent parlours. She said in a low voice:
‘My husband is coming to serve as an aide to the King.’
‘Where has he been?’
‘With the Infante Don Alfonso.’
I murmured:
‘That is a nuisance.’
‘It’s more than a nuisance. It means that we’ll have to live together. The Queen is forcing it on me; I would rather return to Italy than live with him. Have you nothing to say?’
‘I can only submit to your will.’
She gave me an intense look.
‘Would you be capable of sharing me between the two of you? Good God, I wish I were a withered, old woman.’
I gratefully kissed the hands of my adored love. I have never felt jealous of any husband, but those scruples on her part had a special charm, perhaps the best that María Antonieta could offer me. One does not reach old age without having learned that tears, regrets and blood exude an aphrodisiac essence that prolongs the pleasure of love affairs — a sacred numen that heightens lust, the mother of divine silence and the mother of the world. How often, during that night, did I taste María Antonieta’s tears on my lips. I still recall the sweet, lamenting voice with which she whispered in my ear, her eyelids trembling, her mouth quivering, her breath and her words filling mine:
‘I shouldn’t love you. I should smother you in my arms, like this, like this…’
I sighed:
‘Your arms are like a divine halter about my neck.’
And, holding me still closer, she moaned:
‘Oh, how I love you! Why do I love you so much? What love potion have you given me? You are my madness! Say something, say something!’
‘I prefer to listen to you.’
‘But I want you to say something!’
‘I would only say what you already know, that I am dying of love for you.’
María Antonieta kissed me again, then, smiling and blushing, said quietly:
‘The night is very long.’
‘My absence was much longer.’
‘I bet you’ve deceived me endlessly!’
‘I’ll show you that’s not true.’
Still red-faced and laughing, she replied:
‘You’d better watch what you say.’
‘You’ll see.’
‘I can be very demanding.’
I confess that when I heard that, I trembled, for my nights were no longer as triumphant as they had been on those tropical nights perfumed by La Niña Chole’s passion. María Antonieta freed herself from my arms and went into her boudoir. I waited a while and then followed her. She heard my footsteps and I saw her white figure run away and hide behind the drapes about her bed, an ancient bed of polished walnut, the classic nuptial bed in which noble couples in Navarre would sleep until they reached old age, chaste, simple, Christian, ignorant of the voluptuous art that tickled the malign and somewhat theological wit of my teacher Aretino. María Antonieta was as demanding as a doge’s wife, but I was as wise as an old cardinal who has learned the secret arts of love in the confessional and in some Renaissance court. Sighing and swooning, she said:
‘Xavier, this is the last time!’
I thought she was referring to our amorous deeds and, since I still felt capable of renewed efforts, I sighed and, with the lightest of kisses, aroused the strawberry nipple of one breast. She sighed too and folded her bare arms, resting her hands on her shoulders like one of those penitent saints depicted in ancient paintings.
‘Xavier, when will we see each other again?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘No, tomorrow my calvary begins.’
She fell silent for a moment and, placing the loving knot of her arms about my neck, she murmured:
‘The Queen is determined that there should be a reconciliation, but I swear to you that never … I’ll defend myself by saying that I’m ill.’
Yes, the illness that María Antonieta suffered from was indeed a sacred one. That night she moaned in my arms like the ancient goddess Fauna. The divine María Antonieta was very passionate, and passionate women are always easily deceived. God, who knows everything, knows that such women are not to be feared; rather one should fear those languid, sighing women, more anxious to give pleasure to their lover than to take pleasure themselves. María Antonieta was as frank and selfish as a child, and in her moments of transporting passion she entirely forgot about me. At such moments — her breasts trembling like two white doves, her eyes clouded, her half-open mouth revealing the cool whiteness of her teeth between the fiery roses of her lips — hers was an incomparably sensual, fecund beauty, of a sort steeped in eighteenth-century literature.
When I left María Antonieta, day was not yet breaking though the bugles were already sounding reveille. The moon still cast its sad, sepulchral light on the snowy city. Not knowing where to find lodging at that hour, I wandered the streets and happened upon the square where Brother Ambrosio lived. I stopped beneath the wooden balcony to shelter from the drizzling rain that was once again beginning to fall, and after a while, I noticed that the door was ajar, buffeted by the wild, bitter wind. It was such a foul night that, without even thinking about it, I decided to go in, feeling my way to the stairs, while the greyhound in the stables barked furiously, rattling its chain. Brother Ambrosio appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a large candle. His long, scrawny body was adorned with a tattered cassock and, on his trembling head, he wore a black, pointed cap, which made him look like some kind of grotesque astrologer. With sombre resolve, without saying a word, I went in and he followed, holding the candle aloft to light the corridor. Inside, I could hear the dull murmur of voices and of money changing hands. A few men were gathered in the room playing cards; they had their hats on and their cloaks slung loosely across their shoulders. From their clean-shaven faces it was clear that they were members of the clergy. The pack was in the hands of a sallow, snub-nosed knave who was just putting two cards down on the table as I entered the room:
‘Lay your bets.’
A devout voice murmured:
‘Aha, a Queen!’
And another voice whispered as if in the confessional:
‘What are we looking for?’
‘Can’t you see? A court card! He’s dealt seven of them already.‘
The man holding the pack said sternly:
‘Please don’t discuss the value of the cards. That’s no way to go on. Everyone then bets on the same one!’
A toothless old man wearing spectacles said in a calm, evangelical voice:
‘Don’t get so upset, Miquelcho, to each his own. Don Nicolás thinks it’s court cards…’
Don Nicolás said:
‘He’s dealt seven of them already.’
‘Nine actually … but they’re not court cards, they’re number cards, that’s what we’re playing.’
There was a murmur of other voices, like a litany:
‘It’s your turn, Miquelcho.’
‘Take no notice.’
‘We’ll see what we’ll see.’
‘Aren’t you going to deal the next two cards?’
Miquelcho said in surly voice:
‘No.’
Then he started to lay down the cards. Everyone fell silent. A few of those present swivelled round irritably, gave me a quick glance, then turned their attention back to the cards. Brother Ambrosio gestured to the seminarian, who was shuffling the cards. He put them down and came over. Brother Ambrosio said:
‘Marquis, please, for the love of God, don’t remind me about what happened earlier tonight. I’d spent all afternoon drinking just to get up enough nerve to do it.’
He stammered out a few more confused words, then placed a gnarled hand on the shoulder of the seminarian, who had joined us and was listening. Brother Ambrosio said with a sigh:
‘It’s all his fault. I’m taking him along as my lieutenant when I leave.’
Miquelcho fixed me with bold eyes and felt in his pockets for his tobacco.
‘We had to get the money from somewhere. Brother Ambrosio told me how generous his friend and protector was…’
Brother Ambrosio opened his black mouth in rough praise:
‘Extremely generous! In that respect, as in everything, he’s the finest gentleman in all Spain.’
Some of the players were eyeing us curiously. Miquelcho moved away, picked up his cards and continued shuffling them. When he had finished, he said to the old man with the spectacles:
‘Cut the cards, Don Quintiliano.’
As he picked up the pack with trembling hand, Don Quintiliano said, smiling:
‘Watch out now, it’s bound to be an ace.’
Miquelcho put another two cards on the table and turned to me:
‘I won’t ask you to play because there’s absolutely no money in it.’
And the old man in the spectacles added in the same evangelical tone:
‘We’re all very poor.’
And another murmured sententiously:
‘Here you can only win pennies, but you can lose millions.’
Seeing me hesitate, Miquelcho stood up, offering me the pack, and all the clergymen made room for me at the table. I turned, smiling, to Brother Ambrosio.
‘Brother Ambrosio, I have a feeling that your money is going to stay right here.’
‘God forbid. Right, that’s it, the game’s over, now.’
And with that, he blew out the candle. The dawn light filtered in through the windows, and the sound of bugles rose up above the hollow sound of horses trotting over the cobbles in the city squares. It was a patrol of Bourbon lancers.
Despite the strong winds and heavy snow, Don Carlos had resolved to go on a campaign. I was told that, for some time now, all they had been waiting for in order to set off was the arrival of the Bourbon cavalry — three hundred veteran lancers, who later richly deserved their name ‘the lancers of El Cid’. The Count of Volfani, who had arrived with them, was among the King’s aides. We were both very pleased to see each other, for we were great friends, as you can imagine, and we rode along together. The bugles sounded the order to march, the wind ruffled the horses’ manes, and the people gathered in the street to cheer us on:
‘Long live Carlos VII!’
Every so often, some old woman would lean out from one of the narrow windows high up beneath the blackened eaves and, holding open the latch with one withered hand, would cry out almost angrily:
‘Long live the King of all good Christians!’
And the robust voice of the people would reply:
‘Viva!’
We paused for a moment on the road. A wild, tempestuous, icy wind blowing down from the mountains beat against us; our capes flapped about us and our berets, pushed back on our heads and revealing tanned foreheads, gave us a look of magnificent, tragic fury. Some of the horses neighed and reared up, and we all steadied ourselves in the saddle. Then the whole column set off along the road that wound away between hills crowned with chapels. We were continually buffeted by great gusts of wind and rain, and so the order was given to stop in the village of Zabalcín. The royal headquarters was a large farmhouse situated where two very rough roads met, one a carriageway and the other a bridle path. Soon after we had dismounted, we all gathered in the kitchen by the fire, and an old woman ran through the house in order to fetch the high-backed chair in which her grandfather used to sit and to offer it to the King. The rain beat hard and incessantly against the windows, and our conversation consisted mainly of complaints about the awful weather that was preventing us from meting out due punishment to the pro-Alfonso faction occupying the road to Oteiza. Luckily, as darkness fell, the storm died away. Don Carlos whispered to me:
‘Bradomín, what shall we do so as not to get bored?’
I replied:
‘Sir, the women here are all old. Shall we perhaps say the rosary together?’
The King fixed me with mocking, penetrating eyes.
‘Why don’t you read us that sonnet you composed for my cousin Alfonso. Get up on that chair.’
The courtiers all laughed. I sat for a moment looking at them and then, bowing to the King, said:
‘Sir, I make rather a high-born minstrel.’
Don Carlos hesitated at first, then, smiling, came over and embraced me:
‘Bradomín, I did not mean to offend you, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I do, sir, but I was afraid that others might not.’
The King glanced about at his retinue and said in his severe, majestic tones:
‘Yes, you’re right.’
There was a long silence, broken only by the gusting wind and the crackle of flames in the chimney. The kitchen was filling up with shadows, but through the dripping window panes, you could see that outside it was still only late afternoon. The two roads — the bridle path and the carriageway — disappeared amongst jagged rocks and, at that hour, both seemed equally solitary. With a mysterious gesture, Don Carlos called me over to the window where he was standing.
‘Bradomín, you and Volfani will accompany me. We’re going to Estella, but it is vital that no one else should know.’
Suppressing a smile, I asked:
‘Sir, do you want me to tell Volfani?’
‘Volfani already knows, since he was the one who organised the party.’
I bowed, murmuring some words of praise for my friend.
‘Sir, I’m delighted to see you do such justice to the Count’s great talents.’
The King kept silent, as if wishing to show his displeasure at my words. Then opening the window and reaching out his hand, he said:
‘It’s stopped raining.’
The moon was just visible in the cloudy sky. Shortly afterwards, Volfani arrived:
‘Everything is ready, sir.’
The King said:
‘Let’s wait until nightfall.’
In the darkness of the kitchen, two voices boomed out: Don Antonio Lizárraga and Don Antonio Dorregaray were discussing the military arts. They were remembering battles won and forging hopes for new triumphs. Dorregaray grew emotional when he spoke about soldiers. He pondered the serene courage of Castilians, the bravery of Catalans and the sheer vigour of men from Navarre. Suddenly an autocratic voice broke in:
‘The best soldiers in the world.’
And on the other side of the fire, the bent figure of old General Aguirre rose slowly to his feet. The reddish glow of the flames flickered on his wrinkled face, and his eyes shone with youthful fire beneath the thick snow of his eyebrows. In a trembling voice, as emotional as a child’s, he went on:
‘Navarre is the true Spain. Only here do you find the same loyalty, faith and heroism as there was in the days of our greatness.’
There were tears in his voice. He too belonged to another age. I confess that I admire these ingenuous souls, who still trust in the old, austere virtues for the good fortune of the people. I admire and pity them, because they are completely blind to the fact that the people, like all mortals, are only happy when they forget about what we call historical consciousness in favour of that blind instinct for the future that is above good and evil and that triumphs even over death. The day will come, though, when there emerges in the conscience of the living a sense of remorse for the harsh sentence that condemns those as yet unborn. We are a land of transcendental sinners who have set a fool’s cap on the yellowing skull that once filled the souls of ancient hermits with sombre thoughts. Is this not a land of elegant cynics, breaking all the laws – even the supreme law that unites the ants with the stars – by refusing to create new life and preparing themselves instead for death in some bright seaside resort! Would that not perhaps be the most amusing way to end the world, with the coronation of Sappho and Ganymede? By this time, it was night, and moonlight was falling on the window sill. Through the open window came a cold, damp breeze that made the flames in the fireplace rise up only to shrink back. Don Carlos indicated to us that we should follow him. We went out and walked for a while until we reached the shelter of some rocks where a soldier was waiting with some horses. The King mounted and galloped off, and we galloped after him. As we passed some guards, a voice in the night called out:
‘Who goes there?’
And the soldier shouted back:
‘Carlos VII!’
‘What is the password?’
‘The house of Bourbon!’
And they let us through. The rocks flanking the road seemed full of menace and, from the nearby hillside, in the silence of the night, we heard the murmur of swollen streams. At the city gates we had to leave the horses with the soldier and proceed cautiously on foot.
We stopped outside a large old house with barred windows – the house of my lovely dancer now elevated to the status of Duchess of Uclés. We knocked cautiously, and the door opened. The great iron lantern was lit, and a man marched ahead of us, opening other doors that remained open long after we had passed through them. More than once, the man glanced at me curiously. I was looking at him, too, wondering who he was. He had a wooden leg and was tall and gaunt with dark Spanish eyes and the bald head and profile of a Caesar. I felt a sudden flash of recognition when I noticed the occasional solemn gesture with which he smoothed down the one tuft of hair above his forehead. The Caesar with the wooden leg had been a famous picador, a man of immense charm, and a great one for parties with flamenco singers and aristocrats. It was once said that he had replaced me in the lovely dancer’s affections. I never attempted to verify the truth of this because I have always felt it was the duty of knights-errant to respect the minor secrets of the female heart. With what deep melancholy did I remember those happy times! They seemed to stir into life again at the thud of that wooden leg on the floor as we walked down the vast corridor on whose walls hung old paintings depicting the love affair between Doña Marina and Hernán Cortés. My heart was still beating fast when the Duchess emerged from a door at the far end of the corridor. Don Carlos asked her:
‘Has she come?’
‘She won’t be long, sir.’
The Duchess made as if to step aside, but the King gallantly refused:
‘Please, ladies first.’
The room, only dimly lit by the candelabra on the tables, was large and cold, with a polished wooden floor. A copper brazier, perched on lion’s feet, stood in front of the sofa in the reception room. As he stretched out his hands to warm them, Don Carlos muttered:
‘The only thing women are good at is keeping people waiting. That is their one great talent.’
He fell silent and we respected that silence. The Duchess smiled at me. Seeing her in her widow’s weeds, I remembered the woman in the black veil whom I had seen leaving the church in Doña Margarita’s retinue. The thud of the wooden leg came echoing down the corridor again, accompanied by a murmur of voices. Shortly afterwards, two women came in, breathing hard and swathed in cloaks still damp from the night air. When they saw us, one of them stepped back, clearly annoyed. Don Carlos went over and, after saying a few words to her in a low voice, they left the room together. The other, a duenna, followed noiselessly only to return shortly afterwards. With one hand, barely visible beneath her cloak, she signalled to Volfani who got up and went out after her. Finding ourselves alone, the duchess laughed and said in a low voice:
‘They won’t show their faces because you’re here.’
‘Do I know them then?’
‘I don’t know … Don’t ask.’
Feeling not the slightest curiosity, I said nothing and tried instead to kiss my friend’s aristocratic hands, but she drew back, smiling.
‘Behave yourself. We’re too old for such things.’
‘You, Carmen, are eternally young!’
She looked at me for a moment and gave a cruel, mischievous reply:
‘Well, I can’t say the same for you.’
Then, taking pity on me and wanting to staunch the wound she had inflicted, she threw her sable boa around my neck and offered me her lips like a fruit – divine lips that dissolved into perfumed prayers and flamenco cries of Olé! She pulled away suddenly because she heard the thud of the wooden leg returning, echoing through the great, rambling house. I said, smiling:
‘What are you afraid of?’
Her pretty brow pleated into a frown and she said:
‘Nothing. Don’t tell me you believe the rumour too?’
And crossing herself, she murmured with a mixture of piety and coquetry:
‘I swear to you, there’s never been anything between him and me. We’re from the same part of Andalusia and I feel a great loyalty towards him; that’s why, when he was gored by a bull and couldn’t work anymore, I took him in out of charity. You would do the same.’
‘Of course,’ I said solemnly, although I wasn’t entirely sure that I would.
As if wishing to expunge the memory completely, she said by way of an affectionate reproach:
‘You haven’t even asked me about our daughter.’
For a moment, I was stunned, because I had more or less forgotten. Then my heart placed this excuse on my lips.
‘I didn’t dare to.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t like to mention her while I was here on one of the King’s romantic adventures.’
Sadness clouded her eyes.
‘She’s not here with me. She’s in a convent.’
I suddenly sensed the love of that distant, almost illusory daughter.
‘Does she look like you?’
‘No … she’s dreadfully plain.’
Fearing that this might all be a joke, I laughed:
‘Is she really my daughter?’
The Duchess of Uclés again swore that she was, crossing herself and kissing the tips of her fingers; perhaps I was blinded by my own emotions, but there seemed to me to be no deceit in that oath. Fixing me with her great, dark eyes, she said with all the feeling and charm that you encounter in certain gypsy songs:
‘The child is as much my daughter as she is yours. I’ve never hidden the fact, not even from my husband. He adored her!’
She wiped away a tear. She had been a widow since the beginning of the war, during which the peace-loving Duke had died in obscure circumstances. The former dancer, as faithful to tradition as any grand lady, was bankrupting herself for the cause. She alone had paid for weapons and saddles for a hundred horsemen, a hundred lancers who were called Don Jaime’s lancers. When she mentioned the heir to the throne, she softened visibly as if he too were her child:
‘So you’ve seen my precious prince?’
‘I have.’
‘And which of the Infantas did you meet?’
‘Doña Blanca.’
‘She’s a funny little thing, isn’t she? She’s going to be a real charmer.’
And that gracious prophecy was still fluttering in the air when we heard the voice of the King at the far end of the room. The duchess stood up.
‘What’s wrong?’
Don Carlos came in looking rather pale and, seeing our questioning eyes, he explained:
‘Something’s happened to Volfani. The two ladies had just left and I was talking to him, when I noticed that he was gradually crumpling up in his seat, until he was bent double over the arm of his chair. I had to hold him up.’
Having said that, he left the room, and, in obedience to his unspoken order, we followed. Volfani was sitting in an armchair, looking exhausted, shrunken, bent, his head lolling. Don Carlos went over to him and used his strong arms to lift him into a more comfortable position.
‘How are you, Volfani?’
Volfani made a visible effort to reply, but was unable to. Strings of saliva hung from his inert, gaping mouth. The duchess hurriedly wiped the saliva away, as sublime and charitable as a St Veronica. Volfani looked at us with sad, mortal eyes. With the courage that women often show in such circumstances, the Duchess said:
‘Don’t worry, Count, it’s nothing serious. The same thing happened to my husband once, he was a bit overweight and …’
Volfani waved one limp arm and from his lips there came a groan which was clearly an attempt to speak. We looked at each other, convinced that he was dying. The same groan, accompanied by a few bubbles of spit, issued from Volfani’s lips. From his clouded eyes two brief tears ran down his waxen face. Don Carlos spoke to him as to a child, in a voice loud with affectionate authority:
‘We’ll take you back to your own house. Do you want Bradomín to go with you?’
Volfani said nothing. The King took us to one side and we spoke together in low voices. First, as befitted magnanimous, Christian hearts, we all said how dreadful for poor María Antonieta. Next, we all predicted the imminent death of poor Volfani. Lastly, we pondered how best to get him to his house without arousing comment. The Duchess said that, of course, none of her servants could take him, and she was doubtless right; then, after some discussion, it was agreed to entrust him to Rafael el Rondeño. When he learned of this, the Caesar of the wooden leg smoothed his tuft of hair and said:
‘Are you sure he’s not just had too much wine?’
The Duchess, with justifiable indignation, told him to be quiet. The Caesar, utterly impassive, continued stroking his hair, then turned to us and offered a solution to the problem. The two sergeants who were currently lodging in the attic could take the Count. They were trustworthy men, veterans from the Fifth Navarre regiment, and they would accompany him to his house as if they were merely on their way home together. He rounded off his speech with the word ¿Hace? – ‘All right?’ – as redolent of his former swaggering, bullfighting life as a tall glass of manzanilla.
We went back to where we had left the horses. The King could not conceal his distress. He kept repeating the same sad phrase:
‘Poor Volfani, he had such a loyal heart.’
For a while, all you could hear was the sound of horses’ hooves. The moon, a bright winter moon, lit the snowy, arid slopes of Monte-Jurra. The cold, squally wind beat in our faces. Don Carlos said something and a gust of wind scattered his words. All I heard was:
‘Do you think he’ll die?’
Cupping one hand over my mouth, I shouted:
‘I’m afraid so, sir!’
And an echo repeated those words, blurred and shapeless. Don Carlos fell silent and did not speak for the rest of the journey. We dismounted in the shelter of the rocks near the farmhouse and, handing over the reins to the soldier who had accompanied us, we continued on foot. At the door, we stopped for a moment to study the black clouds that the wind was blowing across the face of the moon. Don Carlos said:
‘Wretched weather! He had such a loyal heart.’
Before going in, he gave one last look at the stormy sky heavy with the promise of more snow. Once across the threshold, we heard the sound of voices arguing. I said to the King, to calm him:
‘It’s nothing, sir. They’re just gambling away their future wages.’
Don Carlos gave an indulgent laugh.
‘Do you know who they are?’
‘I can guess, sir. The entire barracks.’
We had gone into the room set aside for the King. A large candle was on the table, the bed was covered by a moleskin blanket, and the brazier, set between two camp chairs, was burning low. Sitting down to rest, Don Carlos said with affectionate irony:
‘You know, Bradomín, tonight someone warned me about you. They said that your friendship brings misfortune. They begged me to distance myself from you.’
I murmured, smiling:
‘Was it a lady, sir?’
‘A lady who doesn’t actually know you, but who says that her grandmother always cursed you as the worst of all men.’
I felt a vague feeling of apprehension.
‘Who was her grandmother, sir?’
‘A princess from Romagna.’
I said nothing, overcome with emotion. The saddest memory of my whole life had just risen up in my soul, piercing it through with mortal cold. I left the room with my soul in mourning. That hatred transmitted to her granddaughter by an old lady, reminded me of the first and greatest love of my life lost for ever in my ill-starred fortunes. With what sadness I remembered my youthful years in Italy, when I served in the Pope’s guard. I had arrived at the old papal city on a spring morning filled with the trembling voices of bells and smelling of newly opened roses, at the palace of a noble princess, who received me surrounded by her daughters, as if in a Court of Love. That memory filled my soul. The whole tumultuous, sterile past engulfed me, drowning me in its bitter waters.
Wanting to be alone, I went out into the garden, and for a long time I walked my solitude and my sadness up and down in the quiet night, beneath the moon, which had been a witness on other occasions to my loves and glories. Hearing the sound of the swollen torrents rushing down to flood the roads, I compared them to my life, sometimes roaring with passions, at others a dried-up, arid river bed. Since the moon did nothing to dissipate my black thoughts, I realised that I would have to seek oblivion elsewhere, and with a resigned sigh, I joined my worldly friends in the barracks. It is a sad fact, but the white moon offers fewer consolations to the sorrowing heart than a game of cards. At cockcrow, the bugles sounded reveille, and I had to put away my winnings and immerse myself once more in sentimental thoughts. Shortly afterwards, an aide came to tell me that the King wanted to see me. I found him in his room, sipping a cup of coffee, his spurs and sabre already buckled on:
‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Bradomín.’
‘At your orders, sir.’
The King drank the last drop of coffee and then, putting down his cup, he led me over to the window.
‘It seems we have yet another troublesome priest on our hands. A loyal, valiant man, they say, but a fanatic. The priest from Orio.’
I said:
‘Is he emulating Santa Cruz?’
‘No, he’s just a poor old man for whom the years have not passed, and who wages war as they did in the time of my grandfather. It seems he intends having two mad Russian travellers burned as heretics. I want you to see him, and make him realise that times have changed. Tell him to go back to his church and give up his prisoners. As you know, I have no desire to upset Russia.’
‘And what if he proves stubborn?’
Don Carlos smiled majestically:
‘I leave that up to you.’
And he moved off to receive a courier who had just arrived. I stayed where I was, awaiting one final word. Don Carlos looked up for a moment from the report he was reading and gave me one of his looks – friendly, noble, serene, sad – the look of a great King.
I left his room and, a moment later, I was riding along with an escort often lancers chosen from the Bourbon ranks. We did not stop until we reached San Pelayo de Ariza. There I learned that a pro-Alfonso faction had cut off the bridge at Omellín. I asked if it was possible to cross the river and they told me no. After the recent heavy rains the ford was impassable and the ferry boat had been set fire to. That meant going back and following the mountain road round to cross the river at the bridge of Arnáiz. I wanted, above all, to complete the mission with which I had been entrusted, and I did not hesitate, even though the route was full of dangers, something which the guide was careful to point out to me; he was an old villager with three young sons in Don Carlos’ army.
Before setting out, we took our horses down to the river to drink and, seeing the other shore so close, I felt tempted to risk a crossing. I consulted the men, and since some seemed determined to follow me whilst others hesitated, I put an end to all the talk and rode into the river myself. My horse trembled and its ears quivered. The water was already up to its girth when, on the other shore, I saw an old woman laden with firewood who began shouting to us. At first, I thought that she was warning us about the danger of trying to ford the river, then, when I was halfway across, I heard what she was saying.
‘Stay where you are, gentlemen. For God’s sake, don’t cross. The road ahead is crawling with alfonsistas.’
And throwing down her bundle of wood, she waded into the water in her clogs, her arms upstretched like a village sibyl – clamorous, desperate, tragic.
‘Our Lord God wants to test us, to find out how much faith we each have in our souls, to prove our resolve. All they talk about is the great battle they’ve won. Abuín, Tafal, Endrás, Otáiz have all fallen to the enemy.’
I turned round to judge the mood of my men only to find that they were all beating a cowardly retreat. At that same moment, I heard shots and saw the circles left by bullets in the water around me. I hurriedly turned back, and just as my horse’s hooves reached the shore, I felt a bullet pierce my left arm and the warm blood pour down over my numb hand. Bent over their saddles, my horsemen were galloping up a hill through thick, damp vegetation. We entered the village, our horses covered in sweat. I called for the local quack who set my arm using four bamboo canes and then, taking no rest or any other precautions, I led my ten lancers into the hills. The guide, who was walking ahead of my horse, kept warning me of new dangers.
The pain from my wounded arm was so great that the soldiers in my escort kept a respectful silence, seeing my feverish eyes, my waxen face, my dark beard, which seemed to have grown in a matter of hours the way that the beards on corpses grow. The pain was so intense that I could barely see, and I rode with the reins loose over the saddle, so that as we rode through a village, I nearly knocked down two women who were walking along together, almost hurling them into the mud. As they drew away, they shouted out, fixing me with frightened eyes. One of the women recognised me.
‘Marquis!’
I turned with a look of pained indifference:
‘What do you want, Señora?’
‘Don’t you remember me?’
She came over, uncovering her head a little, for she was wearing the traditional headscarf of a Navarre village woman. I saw a lined face and a pair of dark eyes, those of someone good-hearted and energetic. I struggled to remember:
‘Is it you?’
I hesitated. She came to my aid.
‘It’s Sister Simona, Marquis! Surely you remember?’
My memory gone, I repeated:
‘Sister Simona.’
You saw me a hundred times when we were on the frontier with the King! But what’s wrong? Are you wounded?’
I merely showed her my livid hand, my fingernails now cold and tinged with blue. She examined it a moment and then declared in kindly, vigorous terms:
‘You can’t ride on in that condition, Marquis.’
I murmured:
‘I have orders from the King.’
‘I don’t care how many orders you’ve got. I’ve seen a lot of wounds in this war, and I can tell you that that arm won’t wait. So let the King wait.’
And she took the reins of my horse and led him away. In that lined, brown face, her dark, blazing eyes, the eyes of a born founder of convents, were full of tears. Turning to my soldiers, she said:
‘Follow me, lads.’
She spoke in that tender, authoritative tone that I had so often heard in the voices of grandmothers, the eldest daughters of their families. Even though the pain had drained me of all my energy, out of gallant habit I tried to dismount. Sister Simona would have none of it, and she said so in brusque but affectionate terms. Lacking all will, I obeyed and we rode down a street lined with gardens and low hovels, their chimneys smoking in the peace of the afternoon and filling the air with the smell of burnt pine needles. As if in a dream, I heard the voices of children playing and the angry shouts of mothers. The branches of a willow tree, overhanging a wall, struck me in the face. Bending low in my saddle, I passed beneath its baleful shade.
We stopped outside a grand house with a coat of arms carved in stone above the door and with an ample, musty-smelling hallway, which seemed to proclaim a generous spirit. It stood in an empty, grass-grown square that echoed to the sounds of a blacksmith’s hammer and an old woman singing as she darned her underskirt. As Sister Simona helped me dismount, she said:
‘This has been our home ever since the republicans burned down the convent at Abarzuza out of rage at the death of their general…!’
I asked vaguely:
‘Which general?’
‘Don Manuel de la Concha!’
Then I remembered having heard, where or when I did not know, how the news had been carried to Estella by a nun disguised as a village woman. To gain time, the nun had walked all night in the middle of a storm and, when she arrived, people had taken her for a visionary. That nun was Sister Simona. When I reminded her of it, she said, smiling:
‘Ah, Marquis, I thought they would shoot me that night.’
Leaning on her shoulder, I went up the broad stone staircase and ahead of us went Sister Simona’s companion, who was little more than a child, with velvet eyes, very sweet and loving. She knocked at the door and the sister who was acting as porter opened it:
‘Deo gratias!’
‘Deo gratias!’
Sister Simona said to me:
‘This is our field hospital.’
In the twilight depths of a white room with a wooden floor, a group of women in wimples, sitting on low wicker chairs, were making cotton wool out of threads and tearing up bandages. Sister Simona said:
‘Make up a bed in the cell that belonged to Don Antonio Dorregaray.’
Two nuns got up and went out. One of them had a great bunch of keys at her waist. Sister Simona, helped by the girl who had accompanied her, began undoing the bandage on my arm.
‘Let’s see what it looks like. Who put these splints on you?’
‘A local man in San Pelayo de Ariza.’
‘Good God! Is it very painful?’
‘It is.’
Once the splints were off, I felt a sense of relief, and I sat up with a burst of sudden energy.
‘Just patch me up and I’ll be on my way.’
Sister Simona said calmly:
‘Sit down and don’t be so stupid. Tell me what this order from the King is and, if necessary, I’ll see to it myself.’
I sat down, giving in to the nun’s calm tones.
‘What town is this?’
‘Villarreal de Navarra.’
‘How far is it from Amelzu?’
‘Six leagues.’
Suppressing a groan, I said:
‘The orders I have are for the priest in Orio.’
‘And what are they?’
‘For him to deliver some prisoners over to me. I have to see him today.’
Sister Simona shook her head.
‘I’ve told you before not to be so stupid. I’ll sort it out. Who are these prisoners?’
‘Two foreigners he wants to have burned as heretics.’
The nun laughed uproariously.
‘He gets some strange ideas that priest!’
Suppressing another moan, I laughed too. For a moment, my eyes met the eyes of the young girl, who, frightened and compassionate, had just looked up from my yellowish arm and the purple hole left by the bullet. Sister Simona said to her in a low voice:
‘Maximina, make sure you put linen sheets on the Marquis’ bed.’
She hurried out of the room and Sister Simona said to me:
‘I could see she was on the verge of tears. She’s an angel that girl.’
I felt my soul fill with tenderness for the girl with the sad, compassionate, velvet eyes. My febrile memory began stubbornly, insistently to repeat:
‘She’s dreadfully plain, plain, plain!’
With the help of a soldier and an old serving woman who worked for the nuns, I got into bed. Sister Simona arrived soon afterwards and, sitting down at the head of the bed, she began:
‘I’ve sent word to the mayor telling him to find lodgings for the men who were with you. The doctor will be here in a moment; he’s just finishing his rounds in another ward.’
I nodded and gave a faint smile. Shortly afterwards, we heard a hoarse, familiar voice in the corridor talking to the nuns, who responded in mellifluous tones. Sister Simona muttered:
‘Here he is.’
Some time passed, though, before the doctor looked round the door, humming a popular Basque tune. He was a jovial old man, with bright red cheeks and expressive eyes, full of innocent mischief. Pausing on the threshold, he exclaimed:
‘What should I do? Should I remove my beret?’
I murmured weakly:
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, I won’t then, although the person who should say yea or nay around here is the Mother Superior. Now let’s see what’s wrong with the valiant corporal.’
Sister Simona said with all the primness of an old lady:
‘This “corporal” is the Marquis of Bradomín.’
The old man’s bright eyes looked at me attentively.
‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’
He fell silent, bending over to examine my hand, and as he started to undo the bandage, he turned for a moment.
‘Sister Simona, would you mind bringing the light a little closer?’
The nun did so. The doctor bared my arm to the shoulder and ran his hands over it, squeezing it. Surprised, he looked up:
‘Doesn’t it hurt?’
I said dully:
‘A bit.’
‘Well, shout out then. That’s the purpose of the examination – to find out where it hurts.’
He began again, stopping now and then and looking into my face. He pressed harder with his fingers around the edge of the actual bullet wound.
‘Does it hurt here?’
‘Yes, a lot.’
He pressed harder and there was a crunch of bones. A shadow seemed to pass over the doctor’s face and, addressing Sister Simona, who was standing motionless holding the light, he said:
‘He has a comminuted fracture of the ulna and the radius.’
Sister Simona nodded. The doctor carefully rolled down my sleeve and, looking me in the eye, said.
‘I can see that you’re a brave man.’
I smiled wanly and there was a moment of silence. Sister Simona put the lamp down on the table and returned to my bedside. I saw them in the shadows, intent and serious. Understanding the reason for that silence, I said:
‘Will you have to amputate?’
The doctor and the nun looked at each other. I read the sentence in their eyes and my only thought was what attitude I should adopt from then on, when in the company of women, in order to make the loss of my arm seem poetic. If only I could have lost it during one of our history’s more exalted moments! I confess that I felt more envious then of Cervantes’ glorious career as a soldier, than I did of his achievement in having written Don Quixote. While I was thinking these mad thoughts, the doctor again uncovered my arm and explained that the gangrene was so advanced they could not risk any further delay. Sister Simona beckoned him over and I saw them talking together at one end of the room. Then the nun returned to my bedside.
‘You’re going to have to be very brave, Marquis.’
I murmured:
‘I will, Sister Simona.’
And the good Mother Superior said again:
‘Very brave.’
I looked at her hard and said:
‘Poor Sister Simona, you don’t know how to tell me.’
The nun said nothing and any vague hopes I had been nurturing fled like a bird into the twilight. My soul felt like an old abandoned nest. The nun whispered:
‘One must accept the misfortunes that God sends us.’
She walked softly away and the doctor came over. Slightly warily I said:
‘Have you cut off many arms, doctor?’
He smiled and nodded:
‘A few, a few.’
Two nuns came in and he went over to help them arrange gauzes and bandages on a table. I followed the preparations with my eyes and, overriding the feminine feeling of self-pity rising up in me, I felt a cruel, bitter pleasure. I was sustained by my one great virtue, pride. I did not complain once, not even when they cut into my flesh, not even when they sawed through the bone, not even when they sewed up the stump. When the last bandage was on, Sister Simona murmured, a glint of sympathetic fire in her eyes:
‘I’ve never seen such bravery.’
And the assistants who had been present at the sacrifice all burst out:
‘Such bravery!’
‘Such fortitude!’
‘And we thought the General was brave!’
I assumed they were congratulating me and said in a feeble voice:
‘Thank you, my children.’
And the doctor, who was washing the blood from his hands, told them jovially:
‘Leave him to rest now.’
I closed my eyes to hide the two tears welling up in them and, still without opening them, I noticed that the room had grown dark. I heard a few light steps approaching and then nothing. I don’t know if my thoughts merely dissolved into sleep or if I fainted.
All around me was silence and a shadow was watching at my bedside. I opened my eyes in the vague darkness and the shadow approached solicitously. Two sad, compassionate, velvet eyes asked:
‘Are you in much pain, sir?’
They were the eyes of the girl, and when I recognised them, I felt as if consoling waters were cooling the scorched desert of my soul. My thoughts flew like a skylark, breaking through the clouds of drowsiness in which there persisted an anxious, painful, confused awareness of reality. I wearily raised my one remaining arm and stroked that head that seemed to be haloed by a divine, childlike sadness. She bent to kiss my hand and when she got up again her velvet eyes were bright with tears. I said to her:
‘Don’t feel sorry for me, my child.’
She struggled to collect herself and said in a voice charged with emotion:
‘You’re very brave.’
I smiled, feeling rather flattered by her ingenuous admiration.
‘That arm wasn’t any use to me anyway.’
The girl looked at me, her lips trembling, her two great eyes fixed on me like two Franciscan flowers giving off a warm, humble perfume. Wanting to savour again the consolation of her shy words, I said:
‘You may not realise this, but the fact that we have two arms is like a reminder of less civilised times, when we needed them both in order to climb trees, wrestle with wild animals…but nowadays, my dear, you can get by perfectly well with just one. Besides, I hope that this severed branch will help prolong my life, because I am already a very ancient tree.’
The girl sobbed:
‘Don’t talk like that, please! It makes me so sad.’
Her slightly childish voice had the same soothing charm as her eyes, whilst her small, pale face with its dark-shadowed eyes hovered hesitantly in the gloom. With my head buried in the pillows, I said weakly:
‘Talk to me, my child.’
She replied innocently, almost laughing, as if a gust of childlike joy blew through her words:
‘Why do you want me to talk to you?’
‘Because it does me good to hear you. Your voice is like a balm to me.’
The girl remained thoughtful for a moment and then, as if she were looking for some hidden meaning in my words, she said:
‘Like a balm?’
And sitting in her wicker chair, at the head of my bed, she remained silent, slowly passing the beads of a rosary through her fingers. I could see her through my drooping eyelids as I lay buried in the pit of the hot, burning pillows that seemed to infect me with fever. Little by little, the mists of sleep closed about me again, a weightless, floating sleep, full of crevices and a strange diabolical geometry. I suddenly opened my eyes and the girl said to me:
‘The Mother Superior has just left. She told me off because she says I wear you out with my chatter, so you’re going to have to keep very quiet.’
She smiled as she spoke and in her sad, wan face, her smile was like the glint of sunlight on humble, dewy flowers. Sitting in her wicker chair, she looked at me with eyes full of melancholy dreams. I felt my soul pierced by a sweet tenderness, innocent as the love of a grandfather who wants only to warm his old age a little by consoling the sorrows of a child and listening to her stories. Merely in order to hear her voice again, I asked:
‘What’s your name?’
‘Maximina.’
‘That’s a very pretty name.’
She looked at me, blushing furiously, then smiled and said earnestly:
‘It’s the only pretty thing about me.’
‘Your eyes are very pretty too.’
‘My eyes maybe, but I’m fairly ordinary otherwise.’
‘Oh, I think you’re quite something.’
She hurriedly interrupted me:
‘No, sir, I’m not. I’m not even very good.’
I held my one hand out to her:
‘You’re the best girl I’ve ever met.’
‘Girl! I’m practically a dwarf, Marquis. How old do you think I am?’
And standing up, she folded her arms, mocking her own smallness. I said with gentle humour:
‘About twenty?’
She looked at me merrily.
‘Don’t make fun of me. I’m not even fifteen. I thought you were going to say twelve! Oh, but I’m making you talk and the Mother Superior told me not to.’
She sat down hurriedly, raising one finger to her lips, begging forgiveness with her eyes. I again provoked her into talking.
‘Have you been a novice long?’
Smiling, she again placed a finger to her lips. Then she said:
‘I’m not a novice, I’m a pupil here.’
And sitting there in her chair, she became lost in thought. I fell silent, feeling the charm of those eyes peopled by dreams – the eyes of a girl, the dreams of a woman. The lights of a lost soul in the night-time of my old age!
The loyal troops were marching down the street. You could hear the fanatical roar of the people who had turned out to see them. Some shouted:
‘Long live God!’
Others threw their berets in the air and yelled:
‘Long live the King! Long live Carlos VII!’
I suddenly remembered the orders I had been given and I tried to sit up, but the pain in my amputated arm brought me up short. It was a dull pain as if my arm were still there, weighing on me like lead. I looked at the girl and said in a sad, mocking voice:
‘Sister Maximina, I need the Mother Superior, could you call her for me?’
‘She’s not here. Can I help you?’
I looked at her, smiling:
‘Would you dare to put yourself in great danger for my sake?’
Maximina lowered her eyes and two roses bloomed in her pale cheeks.
‘Of course I would.’
‘You, my poor little one!’
I said no more, because there was a lump in my throat, from feelings that were at once melancholy and sweet. I sensed that those sad, velvet eyes would be the last to look on me with love. I felt like a dying man contemplating the fiery golds of the evening, knowing that it will be his last. Maximina looked at me and murmured:
‘Don’t discount me just because I’m small, Marquis.’
I smiled and said:
‘You seem very tall to me, my child. I imagine that your eyes gaze on Heaven itself.’
She looked at me, smiling, and then, with a charming seriousness beyond her years, she said:
‘You do say some strange things, sir.’
I looked in silence at that head so full of sad, childish charm. After a moment, she asked, with the adorable shyness that made the roses bloom in her cheeks:
‘Why did you ask me if I would dare to put myself in danger?’
I smiled.
‘That wasn’t what I asked you. I asked if you would do so for my sake.’
Maximina said nothing, and I saw her lips tremble and the colour drain from them. After a moment, not daring to look at me, and sitting very still in her chair, her hands folded, she said:
‘Are you not my fellow man?’
I sighed.
‘Be quiet, my dear, please.’
And I covered my eyes with one hand, in a tragic pose. I remained thus for some time waiting for the girl to question me, but since she said nothing, I decided to be the first to break the long silence:
‘Your words have wounded me deeply. They were as cruel as duty itself.’
Maximina murmured:
‘Duty is a sweet thing.’
‘The duty that comes from the heart is sweet, but not one born of doctrine.’
The sad, velvet eyes looked at me seriously.
‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’
And after a moment, she got up to rearrange my pillows, then, saddened to see my stern face, she said:
‘What danger were you talking about, Marquis?’
I looked at her, my face still severe.
‘It was just a manner of speaking, Sister Maximina.’
‘And why did you want to see the Mother Superior?’
‘To remind her of an offer she made to me and which she has forgotten.’
Maximina smiled.
‘I know what it is. She was to go and see the priest in Orio. But who told you she had forgotten? She came in here to say goodbye to you, and since you were asleep, she didn’t want to wake you.’
Maximina ran over to the window. Again the street echoed with the shouts of the people greeting the loyal troops:
‘Long live God! Long live the King!’
Maximina sat down on one of the seats by the window, a narrow window with small, greenish panes, the only one in the room. I said to her:
‘Why are you sitting so far away, my child?’
‘I can hear you just as well from here.’
And from her seat by the window that looked out onto a road lined by withered poplar trees and with a backdrop of sombre, snow-topped mountains, she sent me a glance of compassionate sadness. As in the religious days of the Middle Ages, the voices of the people rose up from the street: Long live God! Long live the King!
Fever troubled my thoughts. I would sleep for a few moments only to wake with a start, feeling, at some remove, the painful gripping of my amputated arm and hand. The whole day passed in the same state of anxiety and tension. Sister Simona came in as night was falling, greeting me in a grave, absolute voice that seemed to contain the very yeast of ancient Castilian virtues.
‘How are you feeling, Marquis?’
‘Not too good, Sister Simona.’
She vigorously shook the water from her headscarf.
‘I had quite a job convincing that priest in Orio.’
I said weakly:
‘You saw him then?’
‘I’ve just come from there. A five-hour journey, followed by an hour of sermonising, until I got fed up and told him exactly what I thought of him. God forgive me, I was tempted to scratch his face and pretend I was the Infanta Carlota! I don’t even know what I said to him. The poor man had never had any intention of burning the prisoners, he just wanted to keep them with him to see if he could convert them. Anyway, they’re here now.’
I sat up on my pillows.
‘Would you have them come in, Sister Simona?’
She went over to the door and called:
‘Sister Jimena, ask the gentlemen to come in.’
Then, returning to my bedside, she said:
‘They’re obviously people of quality. One of them is almost a giant. The other is a mere youth, with the face of a young girl, and was doubtless a student in his own land, for he speaks Latin better than the priest himself.’
Hearing the sound of slow, weary footsteps approaching down the corridor, she fell silent and stood waiting, her eyes on the door, where a nun finally appeared. The nun had a deeply lined face and was wearing a very starched habit and a blue apron; her brow and her hands were as white as the host itself.
‘Mother, the gentlemen were so tired and numb with cold that I took them to the kitchen to warm up a few scraps for them. They’re making short work of the garlic soup I gave them. It looks as if they haven’t had a proper meal for three days or more. Have you noticed how you can tell from their hands that they’re people of quality?’
Sister Simona replied with a condescending smile:
‘I had noticed, yes.’
‘One of them is as solemn as a judge, but the other is so handsome you could dress him up as the archangel Raphael in a silk robe with little feathered wings and put him on a float in an Easter procession.’
The Mother Superior was smiling as she listened to the nun, whose limpid, blue eyes beneath wrinkled lids preserved a childlike candour. Sister Simona said in a jolly voice:
‘Sister Jimena, I think a good drop of wine would probably go down better with the garlic soup than feathered wings.’
‘You’re quite right, Mother! I’ll see to it at once.’
Sister Jimena shuffled out, her body bent, and Sister Simona watched her leave with kindly eyes.
‘Poor Sister Jimena, she’s in her second childhood.’
Then she sat down at my bedside and folded her hands. Night was falling, and, through the rain-drenched windows, one could still see the vague outline of the mountains, the snow silvered by the moonlight. Far off, a bugle sounded. Sister Simona said:
‘The soldiers who came with you have been causing mayhem. The town is fed up with them and with some other men who arrived yesterday. They beat the notary Arteta because he refused to open up a barrel and invite them to drink the wine, and they wanted to tar and feather Doña Rosa Pedrayes because her husband, who died twenty years ago, was a friend of Espartero. They’ve apparently ridden their horses up to the top floor of a house and put barley on the tables for them to eat. Terrible.’
I could still hear the vibrant, luminous sound of the bugle that seemed to be launching its notes upon the air like the unfurling of warlike flags. I felt the warrior spirit rise up in me, despotic and feudal, the atavistic, noble spirit which, had I been born in other times, would have been my downfall. Proud Duque de Alba! Glorious Duque de Sesa, de Terranova y Santangelo! Magnificent Hernán Cortés! In your day, I would have marched under your colours as a second lieutenant. I felt too the beauty of horror; I was filled with love for the glorious red of spilled blood, for the sacking of villages, for cruel old soldiers and those who rape young women, for those who set fire to cornfields and those who commit outrages in the name of military power. Lifting myself up on my pillows, I said as much to Sister Simona.
‘Madam, my soldiers are keeping up the tradition of all Castilian lancers, and that tradition is as beautiful as a ballad and as sacred as a religious ritual. And if the honourable inhabitants of Villarreal de Navarra come to me with their complaints, that is what I will say to them.’
In the darkness, I saw Sister Simona wiping away a tear. Her voice heavy with emotion, she said:
‘That is exactly what I said, Marquis. Not in those words, because I cannot speak with such eloquence, but in the clear Castilian of my own land. Soldiers should be soldiers, and war should be war.’
At that point, the other older nun, smiling beneath her white, starched robes, timidly opened the door and came in bearing a candle, asking permission to bring in the prisoners. Despite all the years that had passed, I recognised the giant at once. He was the Russian prince who had once provoked my anger, when, in the land of the sun, he had tried to seduce La Niña Chole. Seeing the two prisoners together, I again regretted that I had never chanced to enjoy the beautiful sin, that gift of the gods and temptation of poets. On this occasion, it would have been my war booty and a magnificent revenge, because the giant’s companion was the most admirable of youths. Pondering the sad sterility of my fate, I gave a resigned sigh. The youth spoke to me in Latin and on his lips that divine language evoked a happier era when other young men, his fellows, were anointed and crowned with roses by emperors.
‘Sir, my father thanks you.’
It was with just that loud, sonorous word ‘father’ that his brothers would have addressed the emperors. Moved, I said to him:
‘May the gods keep you from all evil, my son.’
The two prisoners bowed. I think the giant recognised me, because I caught in his eyes a shifty, cowardly look. I was in no position to exact revenge, and as I watched them leave, I remembered instead the girl with the sad, velvet eyes, and regretted with a sigh that she lacked the graceful forms of that young man.
All night there was noise and the distant firing of rifles. At dawn, the wounded began to arrive, and we learned that the alfonsistas had occupied the shrine of San Cernín. The soldiers were covered in mud and their capes smelled damp. They came straggling back along the roads, discouraged and distrustful, muttering that they had been betrayed.
I had obtained permission to get out of bed and I stood with my forehead resting against the window panes, staring out at the mountains that were wrapped in a grey curtain of rain. I felt very weak, and standing there, with my amputated arm, I confess that I was filled by an immense sadness. My pride rose up, and I suffered to think of the pleasure of certain former women friends of whom I will never speak in my memoirs. I spent the whole day in a state of great depression, sitting on one of the seats near the window. The girl with the sad, velvet eyes kept me company for long periods. Once I said to her:
‘Sister Maximina, what balm do you bring me today?’
Smiling shyly, she came and sat on the other bench in the window. I took her hand and started to explain to her:
‘Sister Maximina, you are the mistress of three balms: one you give with your words, the other with your smiles, the other with your velvet eyes.’
I talked to her like that, in a dull, rather sad voice, as if I were speaking to a child whom I wanted to distract with a fairy tale.
She replied:
‘I don’t believe you, but I like to hear you talk. No one can talk the way you do about things.’
And she blushed and fell silent. Then she wiped away the condensation from the windows and, looking out into the garden, remained sunk in thought. The garden was a dreary sight. The humble, spontaneous grass of graveyards grew beneath the trees and the rain dripped from their bleak, black, leafless branches. Those pretty birds they call snow birds hopped around the edge of the well, whilst at the foot of the wall a sheep was bleating and straining at the rope tethering it, and a flock of crows flew across the cloudy backdrop of the sky. I said in a low voice:
‘Sister Maximina.’
She turned slowly, like a sick child who has lost all pleasure in games.
‘What do you want, sir?’
All the sadness of the landscape outside seemed caught in her velvet eyes. I said:
‘Sister Maximina, the wounds in my soul are opening and I have need of one of your balms. Which one of them do you want to give me?’
‘Whichever you want.’
‘The balm from your eyes.’
And I kissed them paternally. She blinked several times and stood there looking very serious, staring down at her delicate, fragile hands, the hands of a child martyr. I felt a deep tenderness filling my soul with a voluptuousness I had never before experienced. It was as if a perfume distilled from tears had flowed into the river of happier times. I said again:
‘Sister Maximina.’
Not looking up, she said in a slow, painful voice:
‘Yes, Marquis.’
‘I think you’re very mean with your treasures. Why don’t you look at me? Why don’t you speak to me? Why don’t you smile, Sister Maximina?’
‘I was just thinking that you’ve been standing up a long time. Are you sure you’re all right?’
I took her two hands in mine and drew her to me.
‘I’ll be all right if you give me the gift of your balms.’
For the first time, I kissed her on the lips. They were icy cold. I forgot the sentimental tone of voice I had used up until then and with all the fire of my youthful years, I said:
‘Do you think you could love me?’
She shivered but did not reply. I said again:
‘Do you think you could love me – with your child’s soul?’
‘Yes, I do love you, I do.’
And she tore herself from my arms, her face contorted. She fled and I did not see her for the rest of the day. I stayed sitting by the window for a long time. The moon was rising over the mountains in a fantastic sky full of heavy clouds. The garden lay in darkness, the house in holy peace. I felt my eyes well with tears. It was the emotion of love which lends a deep sadness to lives that are slowly burning out. As if it were the greatest possible source of happiness, I imagined those tears being wiped away by the girl with the sad, velvet eyes. The murmur of the rosary being said by all the nuns together reached me like an echo from those humble, happy souls who tended the sick as they did the roses in their garden, and who loved our Lord God. Remote and white as a novice escaped from her cell, the solitary moon travelled across the sky. It was Sister Maximina!
After a night struggling with one’s sins and one’s insomnia, nothing purifies the soul so much as a good bath of prayer and a dawn mass. Prayer then is like the morning dew that douses the fevers of the inferno. Since I have always been a great sinner, I learned this in early life and was unlikely to forget it then. I got up when I heard the nuns ringing the bell, and, kneeling in the chancel, shivering beneath my soldier’s tabard, I attended the mass being celebrated by the chaplain. A few tall, gawky lads could be seen kneeling in the shadows along the walls, wrapped in blankets and with bandages round their heads. The darkness resounded with hollow, tubercular coughs, drowning the murmur of liturgical Latin. When mass was over, I went out into the courtyard where the flagstones were shiny with rain. Convalescent soldiers were strolling about there, their cheeks gaunt and their eyes sunken with the effects of fever. In the dawn light they looked like ghosts. They were nearly all village lads, ill with fatigue and home-sickness. Only one had been wounded in battle. I went over to talk to him. As I approached, he stood to attention and I asked him:
‘How are you, lad?’
‘Waiting for them to throw me out into the street.’
‘Where were you wounded?’
‘In the head.’
‘I mean in what action.’
‘A skirmish near Otáiz.’
‘Which troops were involved?’
‘It was just us against two companies from Ciudad Rodrigo.’
‘And who is “us”?’
‘We’re the priest’s boys. It was the first time I’d been under fire.’
‘And which priest is that?’
‘The one from Estella.’
‘Brother Ambrosio?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Don’t you know him?’
‘No, sir. Our leader was Miquelcho. People said the priest was wounded.’
‘You weren’t in the original group then?’
‘No, sir. Me and about three others joined up when they passed through Omellín.’
‘And they forced you to follow them?’
‘Yes, sir. They were levying troops.’
‘And how did the priest’s lads fight?’
‘I thought we did well. We killed at least seven of the red-trousered brigade. We hid on a slope by the road. They were walking along singing, not a care in the world …’
The boy broke off. There was the distant clamour of frightened female voices that echoed through the house, shouting:
‘This is terrible!’
‘Holy Mother of God!’
‘Holy Jesus!’
The clamour suddenly stopped. Silence was restored. The soldiers were talking about what had happened, and various versions of the event were given. I was walking beneath the arches and, even without paying much attention, I caught fragments that told me the bare bones of the story. In one group they spoke of an ancient, bedridden nun who had set fire to the curtains around her bed, in another group they talked of a novice found dead in her cell by the brazier. Weary of walking beneath the arches where the rain gusted in on the wind, I went to my room. In one corridor I met Sister Jimena.
‘What is all the crying about, Sister?’
The nun hesitated for a moment and then replied, smiling and innocent:
‘What crying?’
She knew nothing. She was busy distributing food to the boys. It was terrible to see the state the poor things were in.
I did not want to press her further and so I went back to my cell. My soul was filled with a decadent and subtle sadness, the latent lust of the mystic and the poet. The morning sun, a pale winter sun, trembled on the panes of the narrow window that looked out onto the road lined by leafless poplars and the backdrop of sombre mountains stained with snow. Soldiers were still arriving in scattered groups. The nuns, who were gathered in the garden, received them with loving solicitude and bound their wounds after first washing them with miraculous water. I could hear the dull murmur of distressed and angry voices. They were all saying that they had been betrayed. I sensed then that the war was nearing its end and, gazing out at the austere peaks from which came both eagles and betrayal, I remembered the words of the Queen:
‘Bradomín, do not let it be said of the knights of Spain that you went off to distant lands in search of a princess only to dress her in mourning.’
Someone rapped on the door. I turned round and saw Sister Simona standing there. Her voice was so changed, I had not recognised it. Fixing me with imperious eyes, she said:
‘I have some good news for you, Marquis.’
She paused, in order to give more weight to her words, and, staying precisely where she was, standing motionless in the doorway, she said:
‘The doctor says that you can leave and be on your way, that you are out of danger.’
I looked at her, surprised, trying to divine her thoughts, but her face remained impenetrable, hidden in the shadow of her wimple. Slowly, imitating the haughty tone with which she had spoken to me, I said:
‘When should I leave, Reverend Mother?’
‘Whenever you wish.’
Sister Simona made as if to go and with a gesture I stopped her:
‘One moment, Reverend Mother.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to say goodbye to the young girl who kept me company during these sad days.’
‘The girl is ill.’
‘And I can’t see her?’
‘No, the cells are cloistered.’
She was already half-way out of the room when, firmly retracing her steps, she came back in and closed the door. With a voice vibrant with anger and heavy with sorrow, she said:
‘In making that girl fall in love with you, you have committed the most loathsome of crimes.’
I confess that her accusation only awoke in my soul a feeling of sweet, sentimental regret.
‘Sister Simona, do you imagine that with my white hair and my missing arm I am still capable of making someone fall in love with me?’
The nun fixed me with eyes that flashed angrily out at me from beneath heavily lined eyelids.
‘You can if the girl in question is an angel. Since you can no longer make conquests with your fine physique, you put on a manly melancholy that moves the heart to pity. Poor girl, she confessed everything to me.’
Bowing my head, I said:
‘Poor girl.’
Sister Simona stepped back and shouted:
‘You knew.’
I felt troubled and uneasy. A heavy black cloud wrapped about my soul and a flat, unemphatic voice, the unfamiliar voice of doom, spoke inside me like a sleepwalker. I felt the terror of all my sins upon me as if I were about to die. My past years seemed full of shadows, like pools of stagnant water. That intuitive voice inside me implacably repeated words which come back to me now with stubborn persistence. The nun clasping her hands together cried out in horror:
‘You knew.’
And that voice laden with the full horror of my guilt made me tremble. I felt as if I were dead and were hearing it from inside the tomb, like an accusation from the world. The mystery of those sweet, sad, velvet eyes was the mystery of the melancholy I used to feel when I was a young man and a poet. Beloved eyes! I had loved them because I found in them the romantic sighs of my youth, the sentimental longings which, when they foundered, had made of me a cynic, the melancholy, Don Juanesque perversion that weeps along with the victims it itself creates. The nun’s words, repeated again and again, seemed to fall on me like drops of molten metal:
‘You knew.’
I kept a sombre silence. I examined my conscience, wanting to punish my soul with the hairshirt of remorse, but that consolation of all repentant sinners, that too eluded me. I thought that my guilt could not be compared with that of our original sin, and I even regretted, along with Jacopo Casanova, that parents cannot always make their children happy. With her hands clasped and that note of horror and doubt still in her voice, Sister Simona kept repeating:
‘You knew. You knew.’
And then, suddenly, fixing me with ardent, fanatical eyes, she made the sign of the cross and began hurling curses at me. I left the room as if I were the Devil himself. I went down into the courtyard where some of the soldiers in my escort were chatting to the wounded men there, and I gave orders for the horses to be saddled up. Shortly afterwards, the bugle uttered its notes, bright and arrogant as a cockerel crowing. The ten lancers in my escort gathered together in the square. Held in check by their riders, the horses were pawing the ground outside the doorway above which stood the coat of arms. When I mounted my horse, I so felt the lack of my arm that I was filled by a sense of profound despair and, seeking the balm of those velvet eyes, I looked up at the windows, but the narrow windows glittering in the morning sun remained firmly closed. I asked for the reins to be handed to me and, sunk in bitter thought, I rode on ahead of my lancers. As we went up a hill, I turned round to send my last sigh back to that old house where I had encountered the most beautiful love of my life. On the panes of one window I saw the tremor of many reflected lights, and the presentiment of the misfortune that the nuns had sought to conceal from me fluttered over my soul like the sombre flight of a bat. I dropped the reins and covered my eyes with my hand, so that my soldiers would not see me cry. In that grim state of grief, depression and uncertainty, a few childish words tormented my fevered memory: She’s dreadfully plain, plain, plain!
That was the saddest day of my life. My griefs and my thoughts gave me not a moment’s peace. One minute I would be burning with fever, the next I would be shivering, my teeth chattering. Sometimes I was filled by a wild delirium, and strange, grotesque, futile ideas became transmuted into the anxious ramblings of a nightmare. When, at nightfall, we rode into the streets of Estella, I could barely keep myself in the saddle, and when I dismounted, I almost fell to the ground. I stayed in a house with two ladies – mother and daughter – the mother being the widow of the famous Don Miguel de Arizcun. I still vividly remember those two ladies dressed in their serge habits; I remember their faded faces, their thin hands, their noiseless footsteps and their nun-like voices. They attended me with loving solicitude, giving me soup and plenty of wine and constantly peering round the door of my room to see if I was asleep or if I needed anything. When night had fallen, there were great poundings at the door that echoed throughout the house, and the daughter came into my room, looking rather frightened:
‘Marquis, someone wants to see you.’
A very tall man appeared at the door of my room, his head bandaged, his cape about his shoulders. In a voice as grave as if he were intoning a prayer for the dead he said:
‘I greet our illustrious leader and deeply regret your misfortune.’
It was Brother Ambrosio and I could not but rejoice to see him. He came over to my bed, spurs jingling and with his right hand clutching his brow in an attempt to control the shaking of his head. As she took her leave, the lady said in mellifluous tones:
‘Try not to tire him, and speak softly.’
Brother Ambrosio nodded. We were left alone and, when he had sat down at my bedside, he began mumbling various trite phrases:
‘To think that after all your travels and all the dangers you have faced, you should lose an arm in this war, which is not even a real war. We can never know when misfortune will befall us, nor good fortune for that matter, and as for death … We know nothing. Happy the man who does not die in mortal sin when his final hour comes.’
It diverted me from my sorrows listening to that warriormonk’s words. I knew that I was supposed to find his words edifying, but I could not help but feel a wave of incipient laughter rising inside me. Seeing me pale and gaunt with fever, Brother Ambrosio had judged me to be on the point of death and he was glad to put aside for a moment his bluff soldier’s guise, in order to set safely on the path to the other world the soul of a friend who was dying for the cause. He was as happy waging war against the alfonsistas as he was against Satan. The bandage, which he wore like a turban about his head, had slipped back slightly to reveal the bloody slit of a knife wound in his temple. Buried in the pillows, I moaned and said in a faint, mocking voice:
‘Brother Ambrosio, you still haven’t told me about your adventures, nor how you received that wound.’
He stood up. He looked as fierce as an ogre, indeed I found him just as diverting as the ogres in fairy tales.
‘You want to know how I received this wound? As ingloriously as you did yours. Adventures? There are no adventures any more, there’s no war any more, it’s all an utter farce. The alfonsista generals flee from us and we flee from the alfonsista generals. This war is all about collecting promotions and new reasons to be ashamed. I tell you it will all end with a sell-out, just like the first war. There are plenty of generals in the alfonsista camp who would be happy to act as go-betweens. That’s how you get to be a general these days!’
He fell into an ill-humoured silence, struggling to adjust his bandage. His hands and his head were both trembling. His ugly, bare cranium was reminiscent of the skull of one those giant Moors who rise up, dripping blood, beneath the horse of the Apostle. I said to him with a smile:
‘I’m tempted to say, Brother Ambrosio, that I’m glad that the cause will not triumph.’
He looked at me, astonished:
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Absolutely.’
And it was true. I have always thought that fallen majesty was far more beautiful than the enthroned variety; indeed my reasons for defending tradition have always been purely aesthetic. For me, Carlism has all the solemn charm of great cathedrals, and even in time of war, I would gladly have had it declared a national monument. I think I can say, without boasting, that the King is of the same opinion. Brother Ambrosio opened wide his arms and unleashed the thunder of his voice.
‘The reason the cause will not triumph is because there are too many traitors.’
He remained silent for a moment, frowning, clutching his bandaged head, revealing the terrible knife wound. I asked him again:
‘Come on, tell me how you got that wound, Brother Ambrosio.’
He tried to set the bandage straight as he stammered:
‘I don’t know … I can’t remember.’
I looked at him uncomprehendingly. Brother Ambrosio was standing by my bed and his bare, shaking skull gleamed white in the darkness. Shadows covered the wall. Suddenly, hurling what remained of the bandage to the ground, he exclaimed:
‘We know each other well, Marquis, and I know that you are perfectly aware of how I got this wound, and that you are only asking in order to embarrass me.’
When I heard this, I sat up, and said with lofty disdain:
‘Brother Ambrosio, I have suffered too much in these last few days to waste my time worrying about you.’
He frowned and bowed his head:
‘That’s true. You have had your problems too. Well, it was that thief Miquelcho who split my head open. The traitor took over command of the troops. I’ll pay him back one day. Believe me, the terrible things I said to you that night weigh heavy on me. But what’s done is done, and fortunately, you, Marquis, are capable of understanding all things.’
I broke in:
‘And of forgiving them too, Brother Ambrosio.’
His anger subsided into gloom, and, sighing, he slumped into an armchair at my bedside. After some time, while he felt around under his cape, he said:
‘That’s what I’ve always said. You’re the finest gentleman in all Spain. Well, here are four gold coins for you. I don’t imagine you want to check their assay value. They say that only Jews do that.’
He had taken the money, wrapped in a piece of paper stained with snuff, from the lining of his cape and his jocund laughter recalled the laughter you hear in the vast refectories of monasteries. I said to him with the sigh of a sinner:
‘Keep them to pay for a mass.’
His black mouth opened in a smile:
‘A mass for what?’
‘For the triumph of the cause.’
He got up out of the chair, as if to bring the visit to an end. I was looking at him from where I lay on my pillows, and I kept an ironic silence, because I could see that he was hesitating. Then he said:
‘I have a message from a certain lady. She wants you to know that she still loves you, but she begs you not to try and see her.’
I sat up amongst the pillows, surprised and shocked. I recalled the trap that had been laid for me by this same friar, and I judged his words to be some new trick. With proud disdain I told him so and showed him the door. He started to reply, but, without saying another word, I merely repeated the same imperious gesture. Muttering under his breath, he slammed out of the room. The noise boomed about the house, and the two ladies appeared at the door, a look of innocent alarm on their faces.
I enjoyed a refreshing, easeful sleep that night. The bells of the neighbouring church woke me at dawn and, some time afterwards, the two ladies who were looking after me appeared at the door of my room, each wearing a headscarf and with a rosary wrapped about their wrist. Their voices, gestures and dresses were identical. They greeted me in the rather unctuous fashion that devout ladies do. They smiled the same sweet, childlike smile that seemed to spread into the mystical shadows cast by their scarves which they wore fastened to their hair with long pins made out of jet.
I said quietly:
‘Are you going to mass?’
‘No, we’ve just come from there.’
‘What news in Estella?’
‘What do you want to know?’
Their two voices chimed together like a litany, and the half-light of the bedroom served only to increase their nun-like appearance. I decided to ask outright:
‘Do you know how the Count Volfani is?’
They looked at each other, and I believe that a blush tinged their sallow cheeks. There was a moment’s silence and the daughter left the room, obeying a gesture from her mother, who had watched over her daughter’s prim innocence for more than forty years. At the door, she turned and smiled, the innocent, faded smile of an old maid.
‘I’m so glad you’re feeling better, Marquis.’
And with neat, modest steps she disappeared into the shadows of the corridor. Feigning indifference, I continued my talk with her mother:
‘Volfani is like a brother to me. He had an accident the day we left and I don’t know how he is.’
The woman sighed:
‘Well, he has not yet fully recovered consciousness. The person I feel sorry for is the Countess. When they brought him to her, she spent five days and nights at his bedside. And now they say that she looks after him and serves him like another St Isabel.’
I confess that the almost posthumous love that María Antonieta was showing for her husband filled me with a mixture of astonishment and sadness. In the days I had spent contemplating my amputated arm and allowing myself to dream, it had often seemed to me that the blood from my wound and the tears from her eyes were falling on our sinful love and purifying it. I had felt the ideal consolation of her womanly love becoming transmuted into an exalted, mystical Franciscan love. My heart beat jealously. I said:
‘And the Count has not improved?’
‘He has improved, but he’s like a child. They dress him and sit him in a chair and that’s where he spends the day. Apparently he doesn’t recognise anyone.’
The lady was removing her scarf as she spoke, folding it carefully and then sticking the pins in it. Since I said nothing more, she clearly judged that she should leave:
‘I’ll come and see you later, Marquis, but if you want anything, you only have to call.’
As she left, she paused in the doorway, listening to the sound of footsteps approaching. She looked out, and said:
‘I’m leaving you in good company. Here’s Brother Ambrosio.’
Surprised, I sat up. He entered, spluttering:
‘I should never again have set foot in this house after the way you treated me, sir, but your unworthy servant Brother Ambrosio will forgive a friend anything.’
I held out my hand to him.
‘Let’s talk no more about it. I know of our Countess Volfani’s conversion.’
‘And what do you have to say? Do you understand now how ill-deserved your arrogant remarks of yesterday were? I was merely the emissary, a humble emissary.’
Brother Ambrosio squeezed my hand until my bones cracked. I said again:
‘Let’s talk no more about it.’
‘But we must talk. Do you still doubt that I am your friend?’
It was a solemn moment and I took advantage of it to free my hand and press it to my heart:
‘Never!’
He got up.
‘I have seen the Countess.’
‘And what does our saint have to say?’
‘She says that she is prepared to see you one last time in order to say goodbye.’
When I heard that, rather than happiness, I felt a shadow of sadness cover my soul. Was it perhaps the sadness of having to show myself to her lovely eyes in this unpoetic state, and with one arm missing?
Leaning on the friar’s arm, I left my lodgings to go to the King’s house. A pale sun was making inroads into the leaden clouds, and the white wake of snow, lingering in the shelter of the sombre walls, was beginning to melt. I walked along in silence. With romantic sadness I evoked the history of my loves and savoured the mortuary perfume of María Antonieta’s farewell. The friar told me that, out of saintly scruple, she did not wish to meet me in her own home, but would await me in the King’s house. Equally scrupulous, I had declared with a sigh that the purpose of my visit to the King’s house was not to see her but to pay my respects to the Queen. When I went into the anteroom I was afraid I might weep. I remembered that other day when I had kissed her pale, royal, blue-veined hand and how I had felt like a paladin eager to consecrate his life to his Queen. For the first time, I found a proud and lofty consolation for my ugly, one-armed state, that of having spilled my blood for that princess, as pale and saintly as a princess in a legend, who, surrounded by her ladies, sat embroidering scapulars for the soldiers of the cause. When I went in, some ladies stood up, as they used to do when respected members of the church entered. The Queen said to me:
‘I had news of your misfortune, and I prayed long and hard for you. God chose to save your life.’
I bowed deeply:
‘God chose not to allow me to die for you.’
Moved by my words, the ladies wiped the tears from their eyes. I smiled sadly, reflecting to myself that, in future, that was the attitude I would have to adopt with ladies in order to make my one-armed state seem poetic. With utter sincerity, the Queen said:
‘Men like you have no need of arms, your heart is all you need.’
‘Thank you, your Majesty!’
There were a few brief moments of silence, and a bishop who was present said in a low voice:
‘Our Lord God has allowed you to keep your right hand, the hand you use for the pen and for the sword.’
The prelate’s words provoked a murmur of admiration amongst the ladies. I turned round and my eyes met María Antonieta’s. A mist of tears made them seem still brighter. I greeted her with a slight smile and she remained serious, looking at me hard. The prelate approached, priestly and benevolent:
‘Our beloved Marquis must have suffered greatly.’
I nodded and His Grace half-closed his eyes in a gesture of grave compassion.
‘I’m so very sorry.’
The ladies sighed. Only Doña Margarita remained silent and serene. Her princess’ heart told her that, as far as my pride was concerned, pity was tantamount to humiliation. The prelate went on:
‘Now that you will be forced to rest, you should write a book about your life.’
The Queen said, smiling:
‘Yes, Bradomín, your memoirs would make most interesting reading.’
And the Marchioness of Tor grunted:
‘He’d be sure to leave out the really interesting bits.’
I replied, bowing:
‘I would mention only my sins.’
The Marchioness of Tor, my aunt and a great lady, made some other mumbled comment that I did not quite catch. The prelate continued in his sermonising tones:
‘I’ve heard some extraordinary things about our illustrious Marquis. Confessions, when they are sincere, are always of great educational value. One has only to think of St Augustine. Of course, pride often blinds us and one can make of such books a mere vulgar display of sins and vices. Consider only that impious philosopher from Geneva. In such cases the bright lesson that one normally gleans from confessions, the crystalline spring water of doctrine, grows muddy.’
Bored with the sermon, the ladies were talking in low voices. Seated some way off, María Antonieta appeared absorbed in her work and was saying nothing. The edifying effect of the prelate’s talk seemed to be aimed only at me, and, since I am not a selfish man, I decided to sacrifice myself for the ladies, and humbly interrupted him:
‘I do not aspire to teach, but to amuse. My whole doctrine lies in a single phrase: Hurrah for bagatelles! For me, human-kind’s greatest triumph is having learned how to smile.’
There was a ripple of delighted, frivolous laughter, which made one doubt for a moment that men could have been totally serious for long centuries at a time and that whole ages could have passed during which History records not a single famous smile.
His Grace raised his arms to Heaven:
‘It is likely, nay almost certain, that the ancients never said “Hurrah for bagatelles!”, like our frenchified Marquis here. Only do your best, Marquis, not to be damned for a mere bagatelle. I’m sure people have always smiled in Hell.’
I was about to respond, but the Queen was eyeing me sternly. With learned solemnity, the prelate gathered his habits about him and, adopting that aggressive but affable tone favoured by theologians engaging in debates in the seminary, he launched into a long sermon.
With the familiar, surly manner that all my devout, old aunts adopted when addressing me, the Marchioness of Tor called me over to the balcony. I went reluctantly, knowing that she would have nothing pleasant to say to me. Her first words confirmed my fears.
‘I didn’t expect to see you here. I assume you’ll be leaving shortly.’
In a slightly sentimental tone, I said:
‘I would like to obey you, but my heart prevents my leaving.’
‘It’s not me telling you to leave, it’s that poor creature.’
And with a glance she indicated María Antonieta. I sighed, covering my eyes with my hand.
‘And does that same poor creature refuse to say goodbye to me, even though it is for ever?’
My noble aunt hesitated. Despite her wrinkles and her severe expression, she retained the sentimental candour of old ladies who, as young women, had attended literary gatherings.
‘Xavier, don’t try to take her away from her husband. You, better than anyone, must understand what a sacrifice that is for her. She wants to remain faithful to that shadow dragged back by some miracle from the very brink of death.’
She spoke in an emotional and dramatic manner, clutching my hand in her withered hands. I said in a low voice, fearful that I might not be able to speak for emotion.
‘What harm can it do for us to say goodbye? She was the one who wanted it.’
‘Because you demanded it, and the poor woman did not have the courage to refuse you. María Antonieta wants to live for ever in your heart. She wants to give you up, but not your affection. I am very old and I know the world and I know you intend to commit some folly. Xavier, if you cannot respect her sacrifice, at least try not to make it even more cruel.’
The Marchioness wiped away a tear. I said with melancholy resentment:
‘So you think I won’t respect her sacrifice! You’re unfair to me, but, in that, you’re being true to family tradition. It grieves me so, the idea that you all have of me. God, who can read in all our hearts …’
My aunt recovered her imperious tone:
‘Be quiet. You are the most admirable of all Don Juans, ugly, Catholic and sentimental.’
She was so old, the good lady, that she had forgotten the fickleness of the female heart and the fact that when a man is missing one arm and his hair is nearly white, he must give up any pretensions to being a Don Juan. Ah, I knew that the sad, velvet eyes that had opened to me like two Franciscan flowers in the dawn light would be the last to look on me with love. Now the only possible attitude for me to take towards women was that of a cold, broken, indifferent idol. Realising all this for the first time, I gave a sad smile and showed the old lady the empty sleeve of my uniform. Then, moved by the memory of the young girl shut up in that old house, I had to lie a little when speaking of María Antonieta.
‘María Antonieta is the only woman who still loves me. Her love is all that’s left to me in the world. I was resigned to never seeing her again and, filled with disillusion, I was just considering becoming a friar when I learned that she wanted to say goodbye to me for the last time …’
‘And what if I asked you to leave now?’
‘You?’
‘On behalf of María Antonieta.’
‘I think I deserve to hear that from her.’
‘And does the poor woman not deserve to be spared that new pain?’
‘Even if I do as you say today, she may call me back tomorrow. Do you imagine that the Christian piety that now draws her to her husband will last for ever?’
Before she could respond, I heard a tearful voice behind me say:
‘Yes, Xavier, for ever.’
I turned round and found myself face to face with María Antonieta. She was standing utterly still and looking at me with eyes ablaze. I showed her my amputated arm and, with a look of horror, she closed her eyes. She seemed to have aged greatly. María Antonieta was very tall and full of a proud majesty, her black hair now streaked with white. She had the mouth of a statue and her cheeks were like withered flowers, the cheeks of a penitent – gaunt and aloof – that seemed to live bereft of kisses and caresses. Her eyes were dark and febrile, her voice grave, like molten metal. There was something strange about her, as if she could hear the flutter of departing souls and could communicate with them at the midnight hour. After a long, painful silence, she said again.
‘Yes, Xavier, for ever.’
I looked at her hard.
‘Longer than my love for you?’
‘For as long as your love lasts.’
The Marchioness, who was glancing myopically about the room, said in a quiet, advisory voice:
‘If you must talk, then do it somewhere else.’
María Antonieta nodded and moved off, her face set, saying nothing, just as some of the other ladies were beginning to give us curious looks. At almost the same moment, two of the King’s dogs burst into the room. Don Carlos followed moments later. When he saw me, he came over and, without uttering a single word, gave me a long embrace. Then he began talking to me in the slightly joking tone he always adopted, as if nothing about me had changed. I confess that no other demonstration of his affection for me could have moved me as much as that generous display of delicacy.
My aunt indicated to me that I should follow her and led me to her room where María Antonieta was waiting for me, weeping and alone. When she saw me come in, she stood up, fixing me with reddened, shining eyes. She was breathing hard and she spoke in a tense, hoarse voice:
‘Xavier, we must say goodbye. You have no idea how I have suffered since that night we parted.’
I interrupted her and said, with a vague, sentimental smile:
‘Do you remember that we parted promising to love each other always?’
It was her turn to interrupt me.
‘You have come here to ask me to abandon a poor sick man and I can never, never do that. That would be dishonourable.’
‘Love sometimes demands that we act dishonourably, but, alas, I am now too old for any woman to do so for me.’
‘Xavier, I have to sacrifice myself.’
‘A rather belated sacrifice, María Antonieta.’
‘You’re very cruel.’
‘Cruel!’
‘You mean that my sacrifice should have been not to neglect my duties.’
‘That might have been better, but if I blame you, I have to blame myself too. Neither of us was capable of sacrificing ourselves, because that is a science that one only learns with the years, when one’s heart finally freezes over.’
‘Xavier, this is the last time that we will see each other, and your words will leave me with such bitter memories.’
‘Do you really think this is the last time? I don’t. If I did give in to your pleas, you would only call me back again.’
‘Why do you say that? Even if I were such a coward as to call you back, you wouldn’t come. Our love is impossible now.’
‘I would always come back.’
María Antonieta raised her eyes to heaven, eyes made lovelier by tears, and she murmured as if in prayer:
‘Oh God, perhaps one day my resolve will falter and my cross become too much for me…’
I went over to her and stood so close I could feel her breath. I took her hands in mine.
‘That day has come.’
‘Never, never!’
She tried to pull away from me, but couldn’t. I whispered, almost in her ear:
‘Aren’t you sure? That day is here.’
‘Go, Xavier! Leave me!’
‘How you wound me with your scruples, María Antonieta.’
‘Go, go! Don’t say anything more. I don’t want to hear you.’
I kissed her hands.
‘The divine scruples of a saint.’
‘Be quiet!’
With frightened eyes, she moved away from me. There was a long silence. María Antonieta drew her hands across her brow and breathed deeply. Gradually she grew calmer. There was a light of desperate resolution in her eyes when she said:
‘Xavier, I am going to have to hurt you badly now. I wanted you to love me as if I were a bride of fifteen. I must have been mad. I have not told you the truth about myself.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I’ve had other lovers.’
‘Well, that’s life.’
‘You don’t despise me?’
‘I can’t.’
‘But you’re smiling.’
I said calmly:
‘My poor María Antonieta, I am smiling because I can find no reason to be harsh with you. Some men want to be a woman’s first lover, but I have always preferred to be their last. Ah, but will I be?’
‘Such cruel words!’
‘Life is cruel, unless we are prepared to walk through it like blind children.’
‘You do despise me. That is my penance.’
‘No, I don’t despise you. You used to be just like all women, no better, no worse. Now you’re going to be a saint. Goodbye, María Antonieta.’
María Antonieta was sobbing, tearing at her lace handkerchief with her teeth. She slumped down on the sofa. I remained standing close by her. There was a silence full of sighs. María Antonieta dried her eyes, looked at me and smiled sadly.
‘Xavier, if all women are as you judge me to be, then perhaps I have not been quite the same as them. Pity me then, but bear me no malice.’
‘It isn’t malice that I feel, it’s the melancholy of disillusion, a melancholy that feels as if the winter snow had fallen on my soul, as if my soul, like a wasteland, had made of it a shroud.’
‘You’ll know the love of other women.’
‘I fear they might notice that my hair has turned white and that I have one arm missing.’
‘What does your missing arm matter, or your white hair! I would seek them out in order to love them all the more. Goodbye, Xavier … for ever.’
‘Who knows what life may have in store for us? Goodbye, María Antonieta.’
Those were our last words. Then she silently held out her hand to me, I kissed it and we parted. As I went out of the door, I was tempted to turn around, but I resisted. War may not have given me the opportunity to show my heroism, but love did as it bade me farewell, perhaps for ever.