While I was lost in such thoughts, Dona Xima and the Senyor had vanished. I assumed they had gone into the dining room to eat something, and expecting them to return, sat down on a rocking chair and fell asleep, exhausted as I was after all the day’s excitement. I do not know how long I slept. When I awoke the house was silent. I looked out the window again and saw no one. On a bench, abandoned amidst papers and books, lay Dona Xima’s green coat and feather hat. Lying in the firelight, those objects were full of latent life. The owners of those belongings would be back before long to continue their tempestuous activities. Meanwhile, the coat, books and flames seemed to throb in the silence of the night.
The culprits arrived. They did not come from the dining room, but from the rooms upstairs. Dona Xima, pleased as usual, sat down by the fire and repeated as when she had arrived: ‘Our fireplace…’
She shut her eyes and smiled. Suddenly she asked: ‘Will you show me the dolls’ room?’
The Senyor shook his head.
‘Why not, Uncle Tonet? You know I’ve always been dying to see it. I thought you…’
There was a moment of silence and she realized it was best to drop the subject.
‘Where’s Margalideta?’ she asked.
‘She died.’
‘Ah, that’s right.’
‘Tell me about Paris,’ said the Senyor. They were talking to fill the silence, like two people who no longer have much to say to each other. She answered: ‘It’s better than ever. The Exhibition two years ago was magnificent. The Empire is secured for a couple of centuries.’ That was not long before Sedan. ‘Lesseps is about to inaugurate the canal. Offenbach is a success on the boulevards. Do you know La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein?’
And she parodied, lowering her voice:
‘Voici
le sabre, le sabre,
le sabre de mon père…’
‘So Louis Napoleon is paying for your town house?’
‘Didn’t I tell you he laughed?’
‘And that’s all?’
‘He said, “We’ll have to pay a visit to the Minister of Finances.” ’
The Senyor gave his usual wave with a look of surprised approval, opening his mouth and lowering his head, as if to say ‘that’s much better’.
‘France is so rich…’ Dona Xima continued. ‘What are 600,000 francs after all, divided among all the French?’
And she proceeded to expose her economic and sentimental plans.
‘There’s a dragoon…’
‘What?’
‘A lieutenant dragoon, very young, tall, poor…’
‘You have such a good heart, Xima,’ the Senyor interrupted.
She pretended to be offended at his mockery and pulled at his hair.
‘Why do I tell you these things? You’re very naughty, Uncle Tonet.’
‘Don’t mess up my wig. Are those earrings real?’
‘Yes. Why do you ask? Oh, I’m not telling you any more. This sounds like a confession.’
He explained that when her carriage had arrived he had been in confession with the priest.
‘Where is he? Where are you hiding him?’ she asked. ‘Well, you’ll finish your confession tomorrow. You’ll have more to tell. Let’s see, how will you explain…’
‘I’ll tell him a devil came in…’
‘Aren’t I a gift from God, a seraph?’
‘Lucifer was also beautiful.’
‘But he couldn’t have been a gift from God.’
‘What, then?’
‘I’ve never understood these things,’ she said, fluttering her eyelashes.
Don Toni began some explanations and she interrupted.
‘Now, none of your heresies, Uncle Tonet.’
The Senyor continued, ignoring her.
‘I believe that between God and the Devil there must be some kind of coordination, a certain balance…’
Dona Xima was looking serious, searching for arguments her mind could not find.
‘Stop, it isn’t true,’ she finally said. ‘I do have principles, you know.’
The Senyor pointed out that they were rather poorly applied, and she lightened up again; no matter what was said, she was always pleased to be the centre of attention.
‘But I couldn’t be all that bad,’ she said.
‘You heard Barbara. What does the dragoon say?’
‘He says I’m an angel.’
‘See? We should all reach a consensus. Because the village certainly doesn’t think so.’
He changed the subject with his usual skill: ‘Have you ever seen a sewing machine?’
‘I have one. I had it sent from London, but as you might imagine, I never sew.’
‘Have you got a telephone?’
‘Every morning I lie in bed and use it to give orders to my coachmen.’
Don Toni pointed out: ‘Do you know that your servants left the priest without his ensaïmada? Where did you find that valet?’
‘He’s rather elegant, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Rather insolent, is what I’d call him.’
‘Exactly. It’s more imposing.’
She then proceeded to explain that she had seen Dona Maria Antònia several times, or rather, that they constantly saw each other, but pretended not to do so, as if they had never met.
‘And you can imagine how difficult that is in a village the size of Bearn, Tonet.’
‘I’m sure you’re both marvellous at it.’
He said both out of courtesy, because Dona Maria Antònia was the only one who really deserved any credit. Dona Xima explained that she would have gladly gone up and embraced her aunt. She had no capacity for bitterness, as for so many other feelings. Her aunt was not very resentful either, but she knew how to keep up appearances. She was a master at the delicate social art of ignoring. The first time a peasant came up to tell her that Dona Xima had arrived from Paris, she talked to him about the Seine and Notre Dame. Since the Bearn town house is on the square next to the church, and the village inn, as I already mentioned, is right across the square, Dona Maria Antònia’s balconies overlooked not only the entrance to the inn, but also Dona Xima’s rooms, which as the priest mentioned had been covered in damask and filled with vases and silver candelabra. But Dona Maria Antònia never looked out from her balconies; they were only opened when there was a procession. The niece’s carriage was always waiting at the door; her aunt always left through the garden gate that faced another street.
‘She’s still beautiful, you know,’ said Dona Xima.
‘I always thought she was,’ Don Toni replied, and then added an extravagance improper for a mind as lucid as his: ‘In a quarter of a century, you’ll be just like her.’
Dona Xima was flattered and silent. The Senyor caressed her hair. For a moment he did indeed look like a sorcerer predicting the mysteries of time.
‘You’ll turn fifty,’ he slowly explained, ‘and your hair will be grey. You’ll become a respectable lady, give to charity…’
Dona Xima smiled at the thought of her problematic regeneration. The idea of practising virtue at the age of fifty seemed fine because she had not yet reached thirty.
‘I’ll become a respectable lady,’ she said, filling a pause, because she never dared to interrupt him when he spoke of her, ‘and when I die…’
‘When you die, you’ll have a proper funeral, and up to Heaven you’ll go.’
She embraced him.
‘You’re so kind, so generous…Come to Paris with me!’
That was her reaction to her uncle’s plan for moral regeneration. He gazed at her with a look of irony and perhaps a little sadness.
‘What about your dragoon? And the Emperor?’
Xima tried to scare away the two ghosts with a wave of her hand.
‘Oh, don’t you start making up problems, you who are so kind, you who make everything simple and sweet.’
The Senyor continued to stare at her with the smile Houdon attributes to Voltaire. She said nothing because she enjoyed being looked at up close and did not like to interrupt comments concerning herself. In a clear, low voice, Don Toni uttered eight words that filled my heart with joy.
‘I will not go to Paris with you.’
I heard a loud, almost desperate bolt of laughter.
‘What on earth is this? I thought…What’s come over you, Tonet? When did you change your mind?’
‘Perhaps just this minute. I must tell you something I’ve never told any other woman.’
She was exultant, because, as Don Toni observes in his Memoirs, she was as nosy as a stray cat.
‘Oh, Tonet, you’re so kind…You want to tell me a secret? Is it something intimate and naughty? Will you allow me to tell it? Psychology has become so fashionable in Paris…’
‘You’ll do as you please.’
‘You’re so good, so marvellous…Tell me. I’m all ears, Uncle Tonet.’
She had coiled up on the bench like a snake and stared straight at him, fluttering her eyelashes. The Senyor uttered another decisive eight words: ‘I did not like you much this time.’
I was breathless with joy. Blessed be the Lord a thousand times! Praise His Holy Name! Dona Xima was thunderstruck. Then she let out another shrill laugh.
‘You’re admirable, Uncle Tonet. I’ve never met anyone like you. Is this the first time you’ve said that to a woman? How very original…It’s also the first time anyone’s said it to me.’
Her expression finally turned more sombre and she searched for a mirror in her purse.
‘Don’t bother looking at yourself, Xima. You look magnificent,’ the Senyor said nostalgically.
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘You may continue to think so. I’m the one who’s changed. And yet I haven’t…’ he continued, closing his eyes. ‘Now I see you…There. We’re walking into the Opera. You’re dressed in white. Gounod greets us. The Emperor has noticed you, too. Of course he’ll pay for your town house, if you set your mind to it. Six hundred thousand francs…it’s nothing. But the diamonds on that bracelet are quite small. You’re marvellous, Xima. There’s no one as marvellous as you.’
He was dreaming out loud, like a sibyl. Seeing him in such an unusual state, I could not help but recall the rumours about his sorcery. Something was running through him and his words came out inspired and somewhat mad, straight from his heart. Dona Xima had risen and looked out of the courtyard doorway. She may also have felt moved at that moment.
The Senyor continued: ‘Quiet, don’t say a thing. I had never seen you as clearly as tonight. When I kissed you, I couldn’t see you. To see each other, we need a certain distance. Give me your hand. Where are you? Xima!’
He opened his eyes and found he was alone. She walked back to him with a tender look in her eyes.
‘I’m here, Tonet,’ she said as she sat down beside him. ‘I was looking at the stars. You could see me clearly with your eyes closed and from far away?’
The Senyor had returned from his reverie.
‘Wait a moment,’ he said. ‘I have a surprise for you.’
He left the room. Dona Xima went over to the wooden cart and studied it closely. I thought I heard her say to herself: ‘An automobile?’
Don Toni produced a little case with the diamond necklace that had belonged to his mother. It was the only valuable piece of jewelry left in the house. My benefactor had once shown it to me, telling me that if he had to he would sell it to pay off his debts. Dona Xima flung her arms around his neck, exaggerating her joy, which was undoubtedly genuine.
‘A diamond necklace? Uncle Tonet, you’re marvellous. Oh, I’m so happy! Louis Napoleon…’
He smiled modestly.
‘These are bigger, aren’t they?’
‘But why are you giving me this? And you’re not coming to Paris with me?’
He shook his head.
‘My goodness,’ Dona Xima laughed, ‘never have I been so lavishly rejected. What can I do for you, Uncle Tonet?’
‘Enjoy yourself with that dragoon.’
‘Are you jealous?’
The Senyor looked at her sadly. He wasn’t exactly jealous of the lieutenant, as he has expressed very well in his Memoirs: he had just understood that one does not reach Eternity by selling one’s soul to the Devil, but by stopping time, freezing it. The eternity he yearned for (eternity in this life, as he was too pagan to think of any other) he had to create himself. It was too late to repent, but not to remember. He no longer needed Dona Xima. Now her image was enough: his Memoirs, the seclusion of Bearn, his pen, ink and paper.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘when I was a child I loved my skipping rope; when I was older, the trapeze…Now that would all be absurd. Besides, I don’t really want to give up my childhood. I’ll always have fond memories of what I did on the trapeze.’
‘It seems too late for the trapeze,’ said Dona Xima.
‘Not really. It’s too late to repeat, not to remember. I won’t be leaving this place any more. I know what I have to do now. I assume you don’t understand.’
She moved closer to him, gentle as a cat.
‘Oh, Tonet, you know I’m nothing but a stray. And you’re so kind and understanding. Now I really feel ashamed. Who would think it, ashamed for the first time at the age of twenty-eight.’
She leaned her head on his shoulder and said something I could not make out.
‘Yes,’ said the Senyor, holding the necklace. ‘Look at this one. You could make him a ring out of this stone. How old is your dragoon?’
‘Twenty.’
Don Toni was already fifty-eight.
‘Twenty years old…’ he thought out loud, ‘Lieutenant Dragoon. How did it occur to you to ask my permission?’
She kissed his hand, moved by such generosity.
‘Come now, don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘Don’t you remember our motto, “always above the heart”? It’s half past ten. Do me a favour and leave for the village now. Maria Antònia will still be awake. Pay her a visit on my behalf.’
‘Don’t frighten me.’
‘You’re not the least bit frightened. You’ll be splendid. Tell her you’ve been here and found me in bed, ill and lonely…’
‘At death’s door?’
‘Not quite. She doesn’t like extremes.’
‘And she should come?’
‘No. That’s up to her. Oh, and allow me to give you a bit of advice. Don’t have that general in livery announce your arrival.’
‘Well, then, what should I do?’
‘Leave your carriage a little way down the street, go in alone and say, “Aunt Maria Antònia, I’m leaving tomorrow. Do you need anything from Paris?” ’
‘Very well.’
The Senyor helped her on with her coat and made her button it up to her neck so his wife would not see her décolleté. He was very attentive and always respected conventions, at least minor ones. Dona Xima vanished into the night leaving the sound of bells and horses in her wake. He stood still in the doorway for a moment. Then he walked over towards the entrance to the kitchen and said: ‘Madò Francina, please get the Senyora’s room ready. She’s left a message that she’ll be coming in a little while. See if anything’s missing and put rose water on her dressing table.’