EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF DON JOAQUÍN BARRERA LOPEZ, WHOLLY WRITTEN IN HIS OWN HAND, BEQUEATHING, SINCE HE WAS WITHOUT ISSUE, ALL HIS WORLDLY GOODS TO THE NUNS OF DOMESTIC SERVICE, SISTERS OF CHARITY, THE DAUGHTERS OF MARY IMMACULATE.

FOURTH CLAUSE: I direct that the packet of papers to be found in the drawer of my writing table, tied with twine and marked in red pencil “Pascual Duarte,” be consigned to the flames without being read and without any delay whatsoever, as being of a demoralizing nature and contrary to good custom. Nevertheless, if Providence should ordain and so dispose that the aforementioned packet, without the elicit connivance of anyone, escape the flames to which I consign it, for the period of at least eighteen (18) months, I then charge whoever comes upon it to spare it from destruction, accept it as his property and responsibility, and dispose of it in accordance with his own will, provided it is not in disaccord with mine.

Given at Mérida, Province of Badajoz, on the eve of death, the 11th day of May of the year 1937.

To the memory of the distinguished patrician Don Jesús González de la Riva, Count of Torremejía, who, at the moment when the author of this chronicle came to kill him, called him Pascualillo, and smiled.

P. D.