When we finished supper I locked myself in my room. I had barely been able to pray all day long. I was finishing my duties when Dona Xima appeared. I looked at the clock; it was close to midnight. I opened the door and she threw herself at my feet. I cannot put what she said in writing. Even if it were not under the seal of confession I would not do so. She kissed my hands and wet them with her tears. During that scene, which left me shattered, she was lost in despair; her repentance seemed sincere. She did nothing but praise the Senyors’ kindness and the mercy of the Lord who had taken pity on her soul.
‘This is the beginning of a new life for me,’ she said when I had absolved her.
I allowed myself to be deceived, maybe because her deception was sweet. I felt as though that sinner’s repentance preceded a great danger, not only for her, but for all of us.
‘Now that your life is resolved and you are determined never to give in to sin,’ I told her, ‘you absolutely must destroy the chocolates that would have provided you with damnation rather than the rest that you seek.’
She told me that she had already thought of that and that she would throw them out of the window, but it seemed to me that such a momentous and symbolic act required a little more solemnity, apart from the fact that they could have harmed any child or animal that happened to walk by.
‘You’ll give them to me tomorrow after Communion,’ I told her. ‘I’ll expect you at the chapel at half past seven. Devote the hours that are left to meditation, with the box in front of you, and when you’ve received Communion you’ll give it to me and I myself will throw it in the fire.’
Morning was breaking when we parted. She did not appear in the chapel at the appointed time, and after waiting for her quite a while, I was greatly surprised to see her talking to the Senyor by the fireplace. I stopped on the threshold and stood there. Her silhouette was thin and graceful; she still looked young. For a moment she threw her head back and laughed, closing her eyes, in an improper abandon that reminded me of the sentence she had uttered a long time back by the other fireplace downstairs: ‘You know I’m nothing but a stray.’ I was about to retire when the Senyor called me: ‘Come in and sit down; you’ll frighten Dona Xima, so tall and dressed in black like that.’
She greeted me with a wave of her hand.
‘Don Joan is going to lend me a cassock as a costume.’
I thought I heard a note of irony in her Don.
I pretended not to have heard her and sat at the opposite end of the room to open my breviary. They continued their conversation.
‘What I would like to know,’ my benefactor said, ‘is how the Empress decided to run away with you, after everything that had happened. You’ve always been a liar, Xima.’
‘Who, me?’
‘Yes. You never take anything seriously. I wouldn’t like to have been deceived by you in my Memoirs.’
She started singing:
‘La paix est faite,
ma foi, tant pis…’
The Senyor continued: ‘You left by the Place Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois.’
‘And from there,’ she replied, ‘we took a boat.’
The Senyor interrupted her angrily: ‘You took a hackney.’
She was still singing when Tomeu brought in a bundle of wood.
‘That devil over there,’ said the Senyor as he got up to leave, ‘has charmed a young girl.’
Dona Xima looked at the farmboy with an expression of wonder I will never forget.
‘You women are always the same. He really is ugly, you must admit!’
‘But, Tonet, he’s exquisite!’
Don Toni had gone off to his room, and he no longer heard her. Dona Xima boldly approached the lad.
‘You’re from Bearn?’ she asked with a smile.
‘Yes, Senyora.’
‘How old are you?’
‘I’ll be twenty-four at Easter.’
‘Then you’re twenty-three. Why do you want to be older? Because you charmed a young girl?’ she inquired with a provocative gaze.
Tomeu looked down and did not reply. She continued her shameless questions, even though she was well aware of my presence.
‘Do you like living here?’
‘Yes, Senyora.’
‘What sort of work do you do?’
‘Whatever I’m told.’
‘You must get up very early.’
‘At daybreak.’
‘Haven’t you ever been a soldier?’
‘I got out of it because my mother’s a widow.’
‘Have you ever been to the City?’
‘I’ll go for the Easter fair.’
‘Are you engaged?’
‘No, Senyora.’
‘And why is that?’
‘We haven’t got any clothes.’
‘Would you like to live in a city? You could be a valet, with a beautiful uniform.’
‘A what?’
‘A servant, but you wouldn’t work.’
‘How’s that?’
‘An elegant coat covered in golden braid.’
‘But what would I do?’
‘Greet people. Or if anyone smoked, you’d light their cigarette.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘And answer if you’re asked a question.’
‘What if I didn’t know how to?’
‘It doesn’t matter! All you have to do is answer graciously with a smile.’
The conversation was taking a dangerous turn that disconcerted me. Less than five hours earlier, that very same woman, prostrated at my feet, in tears of despair, had stated her firm resolution to change her ways. I coughed to state my presence but she looked at me indifferently; to that degree had she forgotten her resolution.
‘Answer with a smile? What if they got angry?’
Dona Xima had a poetic expression on her face. She was relaxed and almost looked beautiful. Suddenly she went up to Tomeu.
‘How is it that you’re missing a tooth? I’ll have to get you a false one.’
She had taken his head between her hands and stared into his eyes. He broke away in terror.
‘No! I’ve heard they get them from dead bodies.’