For a moment she was moved by the Senyor’s acquiescence.
‘Poor Tonet,’ she said, ‘what will you do now without any books?’
‘I’ll have you. You’ll stay in exchange for the books. Watch out, you’re burning Thomas à Kempis!’
‘Oh,’ Dona Maria Antònia cried, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? What’s this?’
‘The Encyclopaedia. But these volumes are The Christian Year. They have the same binding.’
‘They shouldn’t have been bound the same. Look at those lovely flames!’
The Senyor smiled mischievously.
‘What will Don Andreu say? We’re doing him out of his canonry.’
She looked at him inquisitively.
‘If Don Andreu,’ the Senyor explained, ‘had been able to present himself to the Bishop as the author of the auto-da-fé, Monsignor might have made him a canon.’
‘Who told you that? Are you serious?’
‘Just an idea I had.’
‘Ah!’
And she kept on burning books, although not quite as hastily. After a while she stopped.
‘And what if it were true?’
I think she felt sorry for the Senyor and wanted to change the sentence she herself had dictated. Don Toni took her hand and briefly praised her thin, delicate fingers.
‘I don’t know what you see in them…You’ve always told me you liked my hands. Poor Tonet,’ she continued, ‘what will you do now without any books?’
‘Now I’ll have to get everything from within myself. Goethe was a primitive soul. Who would ever think of Faust being redeemed because he took land from the sea? It’s all fine and well that a peasant woman from Bearn should think that happiness consists of inheriting one hundred thousand duros, but Goethe had the obligation to delve a little deeper. Look, when I was a boy, I went up on a trapeze, remember?’
‘Xima told me you’d mentioned that.’
‘She did? So your conversation was actually quite friendly.’
‘Quite friendly, indeed.’
‘I won’t give up the trapeze, Maria Antònia. In my mind, that is. Nor anything else.’
‘But didn’t you give me permission to burn…’
‘Yes. Everything. These books no longer mean anything to me. Now I’ll write. You’ll see!’
She replied apprehensively: ‘I hope you won’t write anything outrageous.’
‘I’ll try my best. I’d like to explain the harmony of the world and work towards the concord…’
‘See? I like that,’ said Dona Maria Antònia, not really wanting to reach the heart of the matter, just in case. ‘Good harmony…’
Suddenly she looked at him mischievously (she was a woman after all, even though she considered herself old) and asked: ‘You have to answer one question, Tonet. Were you sorry that Xima had a dragoon?’
‘No. It’s only natural.’
‘Natural for her,’ the Senyora clarified. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t go to Paris? You would have been second on her list, poor Tonet.’
‘As far as I know, I would have been fourth.’
‘Oh, my God! Three before you?’
‘Well, there’s the Duke, the Emperor and the dragoon.’
‘We certainly have a pretty wild niece. To think that I had to kiss her…But what else was I to do?’
‘It’s silly to hold a grudge.’
‘I’m not at all angry with her, but I must say I am happy that she’s leaving and taking her scandals elsewhere.’
‘I doubt whether she’ll make much of a scandal where she’s going. In France everyone does as he pleases.’
‘What haven’t we heard about the Emperor’s mother…’
‘About Queen Hortense? Yes, and about her aunt, Pauline Bonaparte…’
‘From what I can see, they’re just right for Xima. That’s quite a circle of people she’s found herself…’
Like an authentic Bearn she professed, as did her husband, the belief that it takes centuries for good breeding to develop, and felt little veneration towards royalty. ‘Our family,’ the Senyor used to say, ‘is not indebted to any king. On the contrary. When Charles V came to conquer Algiers (which he did not succeed in doing) our ancestors gave him eighty sheep and two mules. He ate the sheep and didn’t even thank us.’ It is true that the real Bearns were never offered a word of thanks. Don Toni claimed so in his Memoirs with pride and perhaps, may God forgive me, with a little resentment. The word botifarra irritated him and he could not stand hearing about titles such as those of Collera or Sant Mateu which date, at the very most, from the beginning of the century.
‘Kings are sometimes bad people,’ said the Senyora.
‘Parvenus. Particularly these.’
‘And others. Look at Isabel II.’
‘That’s why I didn’t want to authorize our relatives to snoop around in the archives.’
‘You did the right thing; they would have messed everything up. They’re worried to death about it. The two youngest ones visited the village some time ago and came to see me. I was very nice to them because I didn’t recognize them at first. I hadn’t seen them in ages.’
‘They oughtn’t to come if they don’t feel like it. Ever since they saw we were ruined…’
‘Wait, Tonet. I’m not quite ruined yet, thank God. You know I really love you, but I’ll never let you touch what’s mine, no matter how much or how little that is.’
The Senyor laughed.
‘Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves. You’re admirable.’
‘No. I know you too well. But don’t worry, because as long as I have something you’ll always be welcome at my table.’
‘You’re so much like Xima!’ he said, with a melancholy look in his eyes.
His wife stared at him in surprise: ‘I’ve never heard you say that!’
‘Morally speaking,’ the Senyor clarified.
‘Morally? Have you gone mad?’
He did not reply. What he undoubtedly thought was that all women resemble each other a little. ‘Isn’t it just the same, Joan?’ he’s asked me a thousand times. He always discovered similarities between things, and when he could not find them directly he found them by contrast. Aunt and niece, so different, had coincided in their maternal reaction.
‘Well, well,’ said the Senyor. ‘So you’re willing to stay?’
‘Yes, as long as you behave.’
‘I can’t live in the City, and even less in the village. This is where I have to be. Don’t you think you’ll be bored?’
‘No, I’ll start to crochet a bedspread.’
My benefactor’s face was transfigured.
‘We’ll work together, each on his own. You’ll see, Maria Antònia. You’ll find the courtyard with the well full of begonias, and a hydrangea such as you’ve never seen before; that was Madò Francina’s doing. We’ll raise animals. It will be wonderful, you’ll see. I love you very much, Maria Antònia, but we mustn’t tell each other so too often…’
He had stopped himself and I completed his thought: ‘Remember our motto: always above the heart.’ Things resemble each other even to that extent. He continued: ‘You’ll have to eat whatever there is in the house.’
‘My God, who cares? What I want is a priest to say mass in the morning and help me with my accounting. Do you know how much you owe, all in all?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Have you been paying the interest, at least?’
‘Every year, when the oil’s ready, the creditors come and take it away.’
‘The priest and I will do what has to be done. I don’t want you to meddle in my affairs, but I will take care of yours.’
That was in keeping with the Senyor’s ideology: an enlightened dictatorship. He had no objection.
‘First of all,’ she continued, ‘this house needs to be whitewashed.’
She suddenly caught sight of the cart and looked concerned.
‘What on earth is this? Tonet, Tonet…’
But she was overcome by curiosity and wanted to know the details of its operation. Had he managed to get it moving?
‘Of course!’ he replied. ‘It moves on its own. That’s why it’s called an auto-mobile. See? You fill this kettle with water, put this iron cover on it and light a fire underneath…Would you like to go for a little drive? It’s past midnight. Everyone’s asleep.’
‘Even if they’re sleeping, Tonet. If they found us out…’
He went to fill up the kettle and put it on the fire.
‘The world’s changing, Maria Antònia,’ he said. ‘A hundred years from now no one will have mule carts anymore. Oh, I have to show you something.’
He returned with a bottle of Seltzer water and a glass. At the time there was no such thing as carbonated water in Spain, and it was supposed to have many healing properties. It was used against fevers and pneumonia. There were even people who got drunk on it.
‘Taste it. It cures every kind of illness.’
‘I feel fine.’
‘So what? It makes you merry.’
She drank a sip.
‘It’s like white champagne. It looks full of gas. Couldn’t it explode?’
Don Toni shook his head, but gave her a few notes of precaution: not to shake the bottle nor let it get too cold. The Senyora was afraid.
‘Take it away, Tonet. I don’t really like it, to tell you the truth.’
‘Everybody’s drinking it in France.’
‘But we’re in Bearn.’
The water had started boiling and the Senyor went back to the auto-mobile.
‘Today,’ he said, ‘is the happiest day of my life. What objection could you have to our going for a little drive around the room? We’d go from that corner to the fireplace and back.’
Dona Maria Antònia looked at the machine with curiosity.
‘But…it isn’t dangerous?’
‘Not at all. I’ll bring a lot of embers from the fire, and since the water’s already boiling, it’ll make steam in no time. The steam comes out here, see? There’s a valve…’
‘Don’t bother explaining. I don’t want to understand it. You say it’s perfectly safe?’
‘Get in.’
I listened in terror. The Senyora was about to give in. I saw her look around as if she wanted to make sure that they were alone. She would finally yield to an adventure disapproved if not condemned by those in a position to do so. But she was extremely resourceful and her sharp instinct found a formula that harmonized whim and duty, just as the poet knows how to use the limitations of rhyme to his advantage and only add beauty to his verse.
‘I consent to riding around the room on the condition that tomorrow the priest comes and burns the cart in front of everyone.’
The Senyor’s eyelashes fluttered in a way that reminded me of Dona Xima.
‘I have no objection.’
Why was that incorruptible man being so acquiescent? Had he really forsaken the automobile or did he plan to rebuild it later on? I do not know whether at that time the English were already ahead of him and there were a few driving around London. If that were the case, he certainly would have known, and that would have explained his acquiescence. Whereas if he had believed his invention was the only one in the world, he surely would not have destroyed it. A few weeks later, referring to the books they had burned, he laughed as he told me:
‘Even though you aren’t a clergyman yet, Joan, I must confess to you that I have fooled the Senyora. She stayed here in exchange for my burning the library, and unlike the medieval caliph, I didn’t need to have it copied before it was burned. With the printed letter, the great Gutenberg guaranteed free thought to such an extent that nowadays burning books is the same as propagating them. The more editions are burned in Bearn, the more will be printed in Paris.’
Primo avulso non deficit alter, writes Virgil in Book VI of the Aeneid. But there is a difference: the poet refers to a beautiful bouquet of flowers, whereas Don Toni was alluding to the poisonous fruits of false philosophy.
They had stepped into the automobile and sat next to each other, stiff and motionless.
‘What are we waiting for?’ she asked.
‘We have to wait for pressure to build up from the steam.’
‘How strange! I’ll never understand how a cart can be moved by a kettle of water, no matter how big it is. Don’t go too fast, Tonet.’
‘Are you scared?’
‘Not particularly,’ Dona Maria Antònia specified, ‘but a little, I suppose.’
The automobile let out strange rumbles and whistling noises. It appeared to be animated by some vast inner energy, as though it were possessed by spirits. It could be compared to a beast in chains: without moving an inch, it heaved and shook like the demoniacs of Jaca on the Day of Santa Orsia. I assure you that it was no sight for a lady. I looked at her and she seemed serene, perhaps slightly pale, but calm and composed. The beast kept on shaking and I expected the whole thing to burst into pieces any minute. The Senyor’s expression changed: he was aware of the responsibility that he had taken upon himself. I saw him hesitate between two levers, as if he had suddenly become disoriented; he finally pulled one energetically and cried:
‘Hold on tight!’
The automobile let out a screech and jolted forwards. The entrance hall in Bearn is a large room. The corner the Senyors were in was more than forty steps away from the fireplace. The car bolted towards it like lightning.
‘Not so fast,’ said Dona Maria Antònia.
‘Hold on tight!’ the Senyor repeated, while trying to manoeuvre one of the levers.
‘Stop, Tonet, we’re going to crash!’
I had shut my eyes. Suddenly, in the silence of the night, I heard Don Toni’s agitated voice: ‘I can’t stop it!’
Almost a quarter of a century has gone by, and I can still hear it now. ‘I can’t stop it.’ For years the Senyor had searched for Truth and Life in the theories of a science that have been declared omnipotent. ‘When the forces of nature threaten mankind, Franklin comes to the rescue and stops lightning,’ reads the caption of a French engraving from 1754, exactly one year before the Lisbon earthquake. Scorning the power of God, a false philosophy had created a multitude of idols and revered the atheists Diderot, Voltaire and Condorcet. And when the Lisbon earthquake proves the impotence of Man, when the railway crashes or the most dreadful Napoleonic wars begin, natural consequences of the French Revolution, then Science will fall silent and all its advocates will manage to say will be ‘I can’t stop it.’ You cannot stop that which you yourself have unleashed. Lucifer will never return to Heaven because no one, my Lord, can undo what has been done.