Dona Maria Antònia arrived an hour and a half later. The Senyor had told everyone to go off to bed, including Madò Francina, who would have liked to welcome her. I was the only one exempt from the general order. He assumed the Senyora had come back to stay, and he was right. He was as happy as can be and rattled off plans to make her life as pleasant as possible.
‘She’ll find the house a little dirty, but that’s her obsession, and it will give her something to do. We must tell Madò Francina to call some women in to whitewash.’
‘Your Honour thinks she’s coming to stay?’ I dared ask him.
‘Naturally,’ he replied. ‘That’s what she said in her message. The priest has made all the arrangements. Where have you been since suppertime?’ he added, looking at me with curiosity. ‘My niece from Paris was here. Didn’t you see her?’
‘No, Senyor,’ I said, trembling.
‘You didn’t hear the carriage? Well, it wasn’t for lack of bells!’
But his attention wandered at once; the thought of his wife’s arrival obsessed him.
‘She’ll want a priest, Joanet. It’s a pity you can’t say Mass yet. You should also learn to play ombre.’
We kept on looking into the courtyard every few minutes. Finally, in the silence of the night, we heard a sound. Biel, the Senyora’s coachman and factotum, was talking to the mule as he drove. Unlike Dona Xima with her insolent luxury, her landau and her servants in livery, Dona Maria Antònia arrived in an old open carriage drawn by a single mule. I have since mentioned that contrast to the Senyor, who did not think it was particularly significant.
‘What does luxury have to do with moral qualities, or even with social standing?’
‘Your niece,’ I replied, ‘oughtn’t to have appeared with servants in livery and English horses when the Senyora…’
‘Why do you lose your temper over things that are only natural? Dona Maria Antònia doesn’t need to impress anyone, whereas Xima is essentially what in France is known as a cocotte. Don’t you realize that she needs to show off more than my wife? There’s a letter from the Empress of Austria to her daughter, Marie-Antoinette, that you should know about. You know that Marie-Antoinette was very fond of luxury and fashion. Her seamstress was a German Jewess by the name of Madame Bertin; if we go to Paris someday I’ll show you where she lived, on the rue de Saint Honoré. She was always firing Marie-Antoinette’s vanity. In one year she made her seventy-two new silk dresses. The Empress scolded her daughter for it. She wrote to her in a letter that such ostentation was “unbecoming in a queen”. The memory of Du Barry was still fresh in everyone’s mind.’
The Senyor had recognised Biel’s voice. Before the carriage drove into the courtyard, he had an idea: he grabbed me by the arm and led me to the dark room where I had spied on his conversation with Dona Xima.
‘From up here,’ he said, ‘we’ll see her enter, but she won’t notice. We’ll see how she walks in, what kind of luggage she brings—she’s always had the strangest luggage—and the look on her face. And don’t forget that listening behind doors,’ he added, laughing, ‘has always been a dreadful sin.’
As the carriage pulled up to the entrance of the estate, the clock struck twelve. Dona Maria Antònia was already about fifty years old. She was still lovely, with a captivating simple, self-assured look.
‘The prie-dieu first, Biel,’ she said. Her voice was calm.
‘Where should I put the fly-swatter and the velvet cushion?’ Biel asked.
The Senyor put his arm around my neck and smiled at me.
‘Just put them all in the same place,’ said Dona Maria Antònia. ‘The crucifix with the bottle of holy water and the little silver bucket.’
She had sat down by the fireplace and looked at the books as she continued to give orders.
‘Don’t put the brooms near the prie-dieu,’—Biel had just walked in with six new ones—‘I don’t like the toilet water near the holy water, either; put my toiletries on a chair.’
The Senyor was tapping me on the neck.
‘Anything else?’ Biel inquired.
The Senyora told him to go to Inca the following day to fetch a priest and buy some violet soap.
‘If you can’t find a priest, bring back a friar. A friar ought to do for saying our rosaries.’
‘And what should I do if I can’t find any violet soap?’
‘Bring some other good soap.’
‘Good night.’
‘Goodbye, Biel. And be careful on the curve going down the hill; the mule can’t see where she’s going.’
‘She can see better than you can, Madam! She’s just naughty, that’s all.’
When she was left alone, Dona Maria Antònia looked around at the walls.
‘What is this? Nobody home?’ she murmured. The Senyor finally decided it was time to leave his hideout and he walked out with theatrical ease. I can see him now, advancing down the length of the hallway in his grey Franciscan habit and his white wig.
‘How are you, Maria Antònia?’
She smiled without moving from her seat.
‘Hello, Tonet. I’m feeling very well, sitting here by the fire.’
‘It was awfully kind of you to come so late. Were you very worried about my illness?’
‘Not at all, Tonet. I know you too well.’
Their strength was matched. He tried to make a subtle reference to the past and his wife did not allow him to finish.
‘Let’s not talk about it. We might lose our tempers all over again.’
‘You’re right. You’ll find rose water and violet soap on your dressing table.’
‘You were listening to my conversation with Biel, weren’t you?’
‘You could have guessed so.’
Naturally, she had. They knew each other well; knowledge and understanding, Don Toni used to say, are the equivalent of forgiveness. When I think that such intelligence and kindess have also led him to fall into heresy, I feel as though I were living in the greatest and most tragic of situations. I will always remember one day—the day I sang Mass—when over breakfast he whispered in my ear that between God and the Devil there was only a misunderstanding. If he had punched me in the face it would not have been as great a shock. Without knowing what I was doing, I rose from the table, much to the astonishment of the guests, who had not heard the sacrilegious statement. The Senyor immediately sent me a note with a message in pencil. ‘The chocolate is getting cold.’ It was an order. Instead of obeying, I replied with a manifesto saying that when the impious Voltaire studied with the Jesuits, he put pieces of ice in the holy water fonts so the monks would light the fires, which remained unlit until the water froze; that I didn’t care if the chocolate got cold, but that I had been horrified by those words that were colder than ice, and that I would not return to the table until he asked God’s forgiveness for the nonsense he had dared to utter. Many years have gone by and I still do not know whether that reaction stemmed from my virtue or my arrogance. I had not sacrificed my youth with all its temptations for a ‘misunderstanding’. The Senyor read the manifesto and returned it to me with a single word written in the margin in his own hand: ‘Sorry.’ My eyes swollen with tears, I returned to the table, and there, in front of everyone, he gave me two slaps that made me see stars. Then he made me drink a glass of some strange beverage.
‘That’s the only way to cure a case of nerves,’ he said. ‘I read it this morning in a German book.’
The Senyor went over to Dona Maria Antònia and kissed her forehead.
‘I had to catch your first impression,’ he said, ‘watch you walk in, look at the fireplace, see what you’d brought with you. You’ve always had the funniest luggage!’
‘Well,’ she interrupted, ‘we have a lot to talk about. Xima came to see me. By the way, her entry was particularly unnatural: from the street she started bawling, “Aunt Maria Antònia, do you need anything from Paris?” What manners! Do you think that’s usual in France?’
The Senyor looked alarmed.
‘How should she have done it?’
‘In a more natural way. What good does it do her to always be followed by two servants in livery? I kissed her. What was I to do? I asked her how long she’d been in Bearn, even though we’ve been running into each other everywhere.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She said she’d just heard I was in the village. You should have seen the innocent look on her face when she told me about your illness…’
‘She’s so candid…I know there have been rumours that she came to take out a mortgage on the land. Not only is that false, but knowing that I was penniless, she invited me to go to Paris with her.’
‘Poor Tonet,’ said Dona Maria Antònia. ‘She’s spent these last few days running all over the place trying to find out how much could be got for your property. When she discovered the land was going down in value and that nobody’s willing to lend a penny, because you’ve already mortgaged everything, she decided to invite you. And she probably got something out of you after all.’
A diamond necklace. All she had got from him was a diamond necklace worth as much as the best house in the village, including all the furniture. And she had got it without asking for it, graciously inviting her victim. The Senyor lowered his head and replied in a slightly confused tone: ‘My mother’s necklace. After all, it belonged to her great-grandmother. Seeing as you wouldn’t have it, because you returned it the day we separated, it seemed natural to…do you mind?’
‘Not at all. I’d returned it, just as you said. But given the circumstances, you can be sure your mother wouldn’t have found it so natural.’
He did not reply, and sat down by the fire with his head in his hands.
‘Are you sure you heard that they’ll give no more money against the estate?’
‘The mayor and the town clerk came to tell me. It’s the talk of the town. That’s why she asked for the necklace instead of money.’
The Senyor felt defeated. He was trying to convince himself more than his wife.
‘That’s not exactly true. She didn’t ask for it.’
‘She preferred to have you offer it. And who’s the lucky man now?’
‘The Duke, as usual…and the Emperor too, it seems. There’s a young dragoon from a poor family…’
‘What an exciting story!’ said Dona Maria Antònia. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the dragoon ended up with the necklace.’
‘She’s only planning to give the dragoon one diamond for a ring.’
‘That’s what she told you? That woman must be out of her mind!’
‘She’s candid, I tell you.’
‘Either that or she came across someone else who was.’
He meditated, sitting by the fire.
‘A few hours ago,’ he said, ‘by this same fire, Xima was sincere. She asked my permission to give a diamond to the dragoon. Her sincerity was real, even if she then gives him the entire necklace. Everything changes, Maria Antònia. Those moments of sincerity pass like all the rest: immortalizing them is up to each one of us.’
His wife caressed him as though he were a child.
‘You’re either very kind or very stupid, Tonet.’
‘And you’re marvellous. I have never loved anyone the way I love you.’
‘How many have you said that to?’
‘It’s true, but not in the same way. Will you stay with me?’
‘If you behave.’
‘I’ll have to,’ he said.
‘If you promise to burn these books…because I’m sure there are quite a few bad ones among them.’
‘That depends on what they answer from the Palace…We’ll see what they say.’
‘If you confess…’
‘That’s all I want.’
‘If you repent, if you can forget…”
The Senyor gave her a cold glance. Suddenly poor Dona Maria Antònia really did not understand him, despite her intelligence and her intuition. Please do not think I am vain, Miquel, but it is true that the Senyor, who had travelled so much and known so many different people, was never understood by anyone but me. I realized right then and there that Dona Maria Antònia had touched upon a sensitive point, the only one that should have been left unmentioned. Don Toni would agree to anything, even burning the library, but he would never forsake his memories. There was no doubt that those memories were often sinful, but they were so deeply embedded in his soul that it would have been impossible to eradicate them. He could condemn them or try to dignify them, but not suppress them. The Senyor’s last and most faithful lover, the one who kept him company in his solitude, was Memory, and in his Memoirs he has in effect sacrificed everything: money, a good name, even Dona Xima’s beauty. Therefore, when he heard his wife’s words he stood up and went to sit at the other end of the room.
‘Never,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask that of me. I can’t forget a thing.’
He pronounced his words with acrimony. Seeing his reaction, she had a moment of pain and wiped away a tear. Then, without saying a word, she started collecting her luggage.
‘I’ll leave early in the morning. I won’t leave earlier because I’m afraid of the dark. You’ll have my things sent.’
He embraced her tenderly. He was back to his old self.
‘You silly thing, you’re just like a little girl! Afraid of the dark…’
Since they were now at the opposite end of the room and spoke softly, I could not hear them, but it was obvious that they would soon be reconciled. Even if Dona Maria Antònia did not succeed in understanding certain things about her husband, she knew how to forget and leave questions unanswered if necessary, realizing that time and oblivion are the only ways to solve insoluble problems. She was endowed with the gift of diplomacy and the ability to choose what she wished to hear. Her husband’s answer had been ambiguous because Dona Maria Antònia had proposed ‘repenting and forgetting’ and he had stated that ‘he could not forget a thing’, as though the important part of the question were the second instead of the first. It seemed fairly obvious that he had not repented, but to avoid admitting such a painful truth, the Senyora’s practical instinct drew a veil over the ambiguity and proceeded to negotiate other aspects. It was necessary to burn a few books. Why wait for the bishopric’s decision? Did they not know that Voltaire was evil, that Diderot was an atheist? She had gone over to the fire and had one hand on the Senyor’s shoulder.
‘Burn these things, Tonet! Look, this one at least…Voltaire, fancy that. And this one, Renan: “Life of Jesus…” Oh, this one…’
‘If it pleases you…’
Without waiting for a reply, he threw the books she had chosen into the fire. His docility comforted Dona Maria Antònia. ‘I must admit,’ she thought, ‘Tonet is quite good after all. We oughtn’t to pay attention to little things when he’s so accommodating on truly fundamental matters.’ Such reasoning was hardly the product of anaylsis or precision, but it calmed her and served her purposes the same way an umbrella would have, not because umbrellas reveal any truth, but because they protect us from the rain. Watching from the little window (although now legitimately, so to speak, since the Senyor himself had taken me there) I was not fooled by Don Toni’s docility. Years later, he himself explained to me how littled he cared about those books.
‘It’s only natural,’ he said. ‘It’s fine that a man should read until the middle of his life, but past a certain point it’s time for him to write. Or have children. If we enlighten ourselves, we must then enlighten others, perpetuating what we’ve learned.’