📖✨ La Opinión Ajena de Eduardo Zamacois | Un Relato Profundo y Conmovedor 🎭❤️
In the heart of society, where appearances and the opinions of others dictate the rhythm of life, Eduardo Zamacois’s “Other Opinions” unfolds. This story immerses us in the complexities of a world where what others say can be more powerful than the truth itself. Join us as we discover how the characters navigate between social expectations and their own desires, in a story that invites us to reflect on the influence of outside opinions on our decisions. Chapter 1. Contrary to his custom, Don Higinio Perea got up late that morning. He was awakened by the silvery chimes of the hall clock, the stubborn chirping of the chicks scurrying around the patio amid the green velvet of the flowerpots, and the ray of autumn sunlight stretched out in the dimness of the bedroom like a foil of similor. Don Higinio yawned loudly twice; then he lit a cigarette, and while he smoked, he entertained the possibility that he had won the lottery. Then, nimbly, he jumped out of bed, pulled on some threadbare drawers, slipped his bare feet into a pair of yellow slippers, and, flipping his shoes, approached the mirrored wardrobe. Despite the lazy indulgence with which each individual recognizes and appreciates himself , his fleshy figure, too spheroidal for his short stature, did not satisfy him. The fat made him look old; he had turned thirty-six in August and looked forty. He was beefy, broad-shouldered, with plump arms and legs; and besides, his belly, that hard, round belly, distended by the expansive grind of laborious digestion, always left to itself in the comfortable spaciousness of his trousers held up by suspenders… “I’m turning into a real buffoon,” he murmured. He said it coldly, cruelly, with that rude and loyal honesty that men use when they are alone. He looked at himself straight on, in profile; He sighed… “How must it be!” That mirror, before whose light, fourteen years before, he had donned his wedding frock coat, was inexorable in its affirmations, like a conscience made of crystal. And conscience, at times, has the barbaric frankness of the sun. Don Higinio examined his reddish, noble, and soft coramvobis; his horse-like, gaunt, straw-colored teeth beneath his bushy, coarse mustache ; his close-cropped black hair, among which a few gray strands stood out like silver needles; his hairy, strong eyebrows; his clear blue eyes: large, candid, kind eyes, in which seemed to float a sadness for unfulfilled deeds or the pain of some lofty destiny unrealized… But such crumbling and cracking lacked any substantive gravity. The only thing important there was the incipient development of his plump, cartoonish belly, whose happy smoothness had never been groaned by the oppressive buckles of any belt. “I’ll have to do some gymnastics,” he thought. He normally wore rustic leather boots and corduroy suits made by Antolín, the best tailor in Serranillas, yet he preferred the hierarchical elegance of patent leather and tailcoats; he adored the sedentary and comfortable sport of fishing and would have liked to be a hunter and a mountaineer; he neglected his own beauty and was a great and romantic admirer of other people’s beauty; he had the necessary skills to be the most notable figure in town, yet he tried to live in the shadows. He loved his wife, whom he had never once betrayed, and yet there persisted in him a kind of innocent coquetry, a painterly desire, purely artistic and as if on the surface of his skin, to be pleasing to girls. He expected nothing, and the arrival of the postman brought him intense joy every day; he couldn’t kill an ant and always carried a hunting knife. And this slight inner imbalance, this secret disagreement between will and imagination, between gesture and thought; this quiet and sustained dissonance between what he was and what he would have liked to be, filled his entire psychology and outlined the entire noble, equanimous, and fanciful character of Don Higinio. Very toned, very rigid, stiff as if on a pedestal above the yellowness. From his slippers, Don Higinio Perea repeated a few push-ups . It was necessary to be young, to be agile, to suppress the gross increase in his sagging, to destroy the fatty tissue where, treacherously, evils ferment: for this, he would take long walks , he would buy a shotgun… In the courtyard, the imperative voice of Doña Emilia, Don Higinio’s wife, resounded, calling her sister. “Teresa!… Teresa!” And in the impatient brevity with which the syllables of this name were pronounced, there was an indescribable acceleration, a mad vehemence of anguish. Then there were unintelligible murmurs, murmurs of joy and agony, restlessness of children’s feet, jubilant words, interjections, phrases of hyperbolic salutation and gratitude to the heavenly powers. In duet, Doña Emilia and Teresita improvised a fervent and vibrant ejaculation: “Thank you, blessed Saint Anthony!… Virgin of Health, my little Mother, may the Lord reward you!” Doña Emilia shouted in a treble voice, Teresita in a soprano voice, and their urgent voices were joined by the strident clamor of the children. Anselmito, the firstborn, exclaimed: “We must tell Papa!” The idea had the effectiveness of an order: it was a flurry of skirts, of diligent footsteps, of bodies that brushed against the walls and were stained with lime as they squeezed together in the narrow corridors. At first, Don Higinio Perea remained still, somewhat startled, but without the commotion spurring him to action; In the everlasting tedium of his life, of his uneventful existence, blurred in the uniformity of the same peaceful color, he couldn’t conceive that anything unusual could happen. Nevertheless, projecting a perplexed shadow over the kindness of his blue eyes, his thick eyebrows contracted: that passionate talk, that boisterous swarm-like joy, that Sunday shudder… He was heading toward the door when, with a strong gust of wind, it swung wide open . Doña Emilia, her sister Teresa, the three children, Vicenta the cook, the housekeeper, the two hostesses who attended the table, the gardener, were all there. Don Higinio’s wife, red-faced with excitement, advanced first, victoriously waving a number of El Faro. “We’ve won the lottery!” “Higinio, my dear, God has come to see us!” Perea stammered: “Have we won the lottery?” The surprise produced in his sedentary spirit the effect of sleep; far from awakening him, it made him drowsy and numbed his understanding. He took the newspaper his wife offered him and couldn’t read. Suddenly, he felt a great weakness in his knees, a kind of intimate tremor, and he had to sit down on the nearest object: an oak chest, which creaked under his broad buttocks. For a moment, the good man remained stunned, his mouth slack and stupid, his legs dangling, his slippers hanging from his big toes… Recovering a little, he looked in El Faro for confirmation of his good fortune. “Is our number 7,045?” he asked. “Yes.” Perea looked at the place where the different 7,000 lucky ones had been placed . Doña Emilia exclaimed angrily, jealous that no one doubted her fortune: “That’s it, you fool, you fool! We have a second prize… ” “A second prize?” Don Higinio’s astonishment had turned him into an echo. “Yes, look carefully; here it is; here… Seven thousand and forty-five… See?… Seven thousand and forty-five; one hundred thousand pesetas. ” “One hundred thousand pesetas!” repeated Don Higinio, absorbed. “Of which,” added Teresita, “fifty thousand belongs to Don Gregorio Hernández?” “Fifty thousand,” affirmed Perea. Teresita challenged her sister: “Didn’t I tell you?… He had bought the issue jointly with the doctor!” “Jointly,” muttered Don Higinio. Doña Emilia, so industrious, so protective of her own property, goaded at that moment by greed, cast a murderous glance over her husband. “He’s a fool; doesn’t know how to go anywhere alone. Don Higinio nodded; your wife was right: he “didn’t know “Going anywhere alone.” A vague unease invaded him, a kind of heat that stretched from the nape of his neck to his temples, an invasive sensation of plethora that congested and stunned him, as if an idea that was too big had just been introduced into his brain . Thus he was, restrained, his hands inactive on the softness of his plump, short thighs; his slippers had fallen to the floor, and his brown feet dangled in the air, bony and grotesque. Around him , his relatives formed an expectant and smiling group: the servants whispered under the door frame; Teresita and Doña Emilia had embraced each other as if they needed to help each other withstand the shock of such unexpected and immense happiness; Anselmo and Carmencita smiled before an Eldorado of toys. “They’ll buy me a saber.” “I want a doll and a sheet of stickers…” Joaquinito, the youngest of the brothers, had been slowly approaching his father and was watching him closely, sticking a finger up his nose to the first joint. A clarion voice, nervously tinged with joy, resounded in the courtyard: “Is there no one home?” Everyone recognized it: it was Doña Lucía, the doctor’s wife. Don Higinio reacted suddenly; he understood the ridiculousness of his attitude; he had just seen himself with a big belly, in an undershirt and without slippers, perched on the chest as if on an altar. “Don’t let her in,” he exclaimed, jumping up. “She’s coming to talk about the lottery; I need to get dressed…” Followed by her offspring, Doña Emilia escaped, pushing her sister; the servants went out in front. “We’re here, Lucía, we’re here!” Perea closed the door and, putting an ear to the keyhole, began to listen. The women were embracing, kissing passionately, and their nervousness was now shrill laughter and joyful tears: it was an ornithological hubbub, a trepidation of knocks, of heels clicking, of furniture being moved. Suddenly, Doña Lucía felt ill; she began to sigh: it was excitement, perhaps the corset… Teresita shouted: “Bring some vinegar!” And Doña Emilia: “Orange blossom is better!” There, in the dining room, is the bottle. Vicenta, Julia, help here! There were belligerent voices, panting, shoving, running, and then a silence and the scraping of something very heavy. Undoubtedly, all the women were carrying Doña Lucía toward the inner rooms of the house, and since Mrs. Hernández was very tall and opulent, they couldn’t properly hold her in their arms, and her inert feet dragged along the floor. Then, almost suddenly, as if a door had just closed, the noise subsided; the hubbub turned into a murmur. Don Higinio, smiling, left his observatory. “It would be funny if I, too, had a nervous breakdown…” But, oh, there was no need to worry; he was strong. Nevertheless, he felt fear, a strange inner tremor that seemed to chill his stomach and quicken his pulse. He finished washing, put on a new pair of pants, and with the newly removed, old and worn ones, he rubbed his boots. Sprawled out in front of the mirror, his suspenders hanging over his seat, he was tying his tie, absorbed, indecisive, buffeted by a wave of emotions he’d never known before. He felt uprooted, stripped of the serene self-control he’d always had. It wasn’t because he needed those ten thousand duros with which his wild and provident fortune had just graced his pocket: his affairs were proceeding well; his mine in Serranillas and the properties he owned in other towns of Ciudad Real yielded him annually much more than he, stubborn and methodical, could have spent; the last two harvests were excellent, as if the rain and sun had worked together to lush the wheat fields and ripen the grapes; upon his death, his children would be landowners worth more than one hundred and thirty thousand pesetas each … That hidden commotion, which his disinterested and artistic spirit couldn’t quite classify, recognized the origins of another very noble and splendid spiritual root. It was, quite simply, the Unforeseen. the anonymous and profileless Unknown that his naive soul had been waiting for since his eighteenth birthday, when it gave him, with its first dream, the voluptuous juice of the first melancholy; the show-stopping Chance, the lark of Illusion, the witch Adventure that came his way, a mask over his eyes and a song on his lips. The lottery!… Perea couldn’t admit that ten thousand duros, won like that, all at once, weren’t enough reason to upset an existence as gentle, meek, and well-directed as his. Behind that second prize, which would make the most respectable and lucid society of Serranillas turn pale with envy, something new, very grand, very transcendental lurked: perhaps a long journey, maybe a woman… Don Higinio finished dressing; he neatly stroked the rebellious ends of his mustache; He placed his soft, brown felt hat , tilted more than usual, over his left ear; he coughed loudly, straightened his shirt cuffs, and, stepping with majesty and poise, left the bedroom. He was happy. Men are like days: there is always in their history a moment of maximum happiness, of supreme prosperity, similar to those seconds of full light when the sun touches the meridian. Don Higinio had just understood this; for the first time in the tedium of his plain and uniform life, it was twelve o’clock. He arrived at the dining room: a spacious, cheerful room, with its long family table covered in white oilcloth, its Viennese lattice chairs , and two windows open onto the reverberating light of a garden. There were Doña Lucía, already recovered and almost forgotten about her attack; Doña Emilia, Teresa, and Doña Benita, the wife of Don Cándido, the apothecary. Don Higinio’s appearance was greeted with a jubilant cackle of laughter and heartfelt words of greeting, congratulations , and praise. Doña Lucía allowed herself to embrace him: she was a big woman with lush, toned flesh, a strong voice and gestures, rosy-cheeked, healthy, and passionate, whose big, harem-like black eyes were always moist. “You are the man of luck,” he exclaimed, “and tomorrow, in Ciudad Real, you will be ‘the man of the day.’ They say that money pulls money, and that good things, like bad things, always follow a leash. But what have you done to fate to make it love you so much?” Doña Emilia intervened: “Well, and you?” “It’s true! My poor Gregorio is crazy; he doesn’t get a prescription today. When he read in the newspaper that in 7045 he had won second prize, he went as white as a bat.” Imagine ! Here you can say: Fifty thousand pesetas! It’s the first time we’ve seen so much money together. Don Higinio remained stunned, speechless, without words to counter the ardent philately of his interlocutor. Finally, he declared that he was going to shave. He was red-faced, and a light tan was burning on his forehead. Doña Emilia stood up to caress his cheeks. “Are you feeling ill? I think so… Would you like to drink some linden tea?” Perea smiled boastfully. As if he were a young lady! He claimed to be calm, even-tempered, completely in control of his nerves; his spirits were tempered for greater emotions. Besides, it wasn’t a good idea to indulge in rejoicing without being definitively certain of the auspicious news. Those one hundred thousand pesetas, allocated, according to the newspaper, to the number 7,045, could be a printing error. “That’s what we think,” interrupted Doña Lucía, “and Gregorio has already telegraphed to Madrid asking for information. We should receive a reply today.” Don Higinio greeted his friend with an affectionate pat on the shoulder, shook Doña Benita’s hand, thanking her for her compliments with urbane phrases, and went out into the street. It was eleven o’clock. Slowly, he made his way to Nicanor’s barbershop. At the corner, he greeted the priest Don Tomás Murillo, who was returning from church: a tall, very thin, very pale, and very good man. “They’ve already told me, Don Higinio; it serves as a sign of health…” “Thank you, Don Tomás… ” He continued on, very tenderly. From a window, Manolita, the wife of Pepe Martín, the carpenter, hissed at him with a friendly cordiality full of affection. “Don Higinio!” ” Hello, woman. ” “I know! Congratulations!” ” Thank you, regards…” As he passed in front of the Casino, Julio Cenén, the town clerk, and several of his friends hurried over to greet him. Perea allowed himself to be pampered and then generously gave gifts to those who had invited him. Thus, sometimes inviting and sometimes promising to drink, he downed nine or ten glasses of the best liquor produced by the famous distilleries of Cazalla, with which his usually dull and reserved nature acquired a very spicy and friendly verbosity . Everyone who saw him rushed to congratulate him. Don Higinio was astonished; knowing the social envy, he would never have believed that good news could spread so quickly. Without a doubt, it was the desire men have to mortify one another by recounting the happiness of others that served as his vehicle. Accompanied by Cenén, he continued on his way to the barber’s; a true triumphal march: from the hallways and in the shops, standing on the counters, women and men greeted him. The master builder, Don Nicolás, came out of the shoe shop, where he was trying on some espadrilles, to shake his hand. “That’s not right, Don Higinio. Tonight we ‘ll meet at Justo’s inn, and you’ll have to treat me…” In the plaza, Don Cándido Recio, standing in front of his pharmacy door, showing his plump and jovial belly, rounder than the vermilion glass globe that brightened the dusty pharmacy window at night , also bowed to him and celebrated, waving a handkerchief. He arrived at the barber’s. Nicanor put down the razor he was sharpening against a strop and went over to shake his hand. He was one of the Serranillas residents who first heard the good news; he learned it minutes after the Madrid mail arrived from the mouth of Blind Pablo. “He plans to visit you and Don Gregorio,” he added, “because, apparently , it was he who sold you the winning ticket. ” “Indeed.” Don Higinio took one of the two armchairs in the establishment. Cenén left to attend to urgent matters that Arribas, the notary, had entrusted to him. Nicanor, dragging his slippers, approached Perea. “Shall we shave, Don Higinio?” And when the latter nodded, Nicanor continued: “Shall we use the soap with a brush or by hand?… You already know my opinion : I’m for the old-fashioned way; The brush, as Don Gregorio says, will be cleaner, more hygienic; but the hand works the beard much better. “Well… as you wish! ” “Then, by hand.” He was a little old man, curled up by work and age, and whose small, white-haired head, elongated by a quixotic chin, moved with an epileptic tremor from side to side, as if the long spectacle of everything stinking, everything vile, everything unjust that he had seen in his life had taught his poor nerves that gesture of disapproval. He never left Serranillas. Most of the young men were members of his establishment, and for one duro a year they were entitled to a weekly shave, while this one cost them ten cents and they still got paid for two services. His clientele was numerous; all the young heads he met were whitened under his scissors; Twenty years ago, Don Higinio himself had left the innocent velvet of his first beard on Nicanor’s razor. Good old Perea still remembered that episode: it was a Sunday, after high mass, while his father and other residents of Viso were going to the station to greet the governor of Ciudad Real. How many years had passed since then! By the looks of it, the barber’s barbershop, with its long, frameless mirror and whitewashed walls adorned with garish trading cards, hadn’t changed. Now, lulled under the barber’s rhythmic, gentle strokes, Don Higinio, his eyes half-closed and his blown cheeks covered in soap, watched his story unfold: a of those horizontal lives that, however vast, can be encompassed in a single glance, like the plains. If happiness is that difficult state of spiritual beatitude produced by the fortunate simultaneity and conjunction of robust health, an honorable, numerous, and well-off family, and ample and secure income, Don Higinio Perea had at hand everything he could have needed to be happy. Perhaps for this very reason he wasn’t entirely so, since happiness, with that tranquility and radical cessation of appetites that it brings with it, is as stifling as honey and produces a kind of inner suffocation, very similar to congestion. Every man, even the simplest, is paradoxical. Thus, precisely because he was very happy, Don Higinio always considered himself a little unhappy. Desire is not only an adjective, inseparable from the object that provokes and deserves it, but it also tends to occur spontaneously, in which case its impulse is the most gruesome and distressing of all, since it acquires no fixed direction, nor is there any way, therefore, to define it. To desire!… But “to desire” what?… To the thirsty agony of the subject, no appeasing reality responds; to want… and not know what one wants; to yearn… and for that gnawing longing to lack a name; to feel in the arcane of consciousness a flow of energies and not be able to channel them and bring them to the enjoyment of action. To desire!… It is an infinitive that shatters souls, enervates them, numbs them, dresses them in rags of boredom, infiltrates them with that horrible spiritual cold, worse than snow, which no thermometer could measure, and sometimes it resolves itself in fierce selfishness, and other times in suicide. Don Higinio, despite his cordial and plump demeanor, suffered from that romantic restlessness. His father, Don Salvador, one of the wealthiest chieftains of that sexmo, had been born in Serranillas; his grandfather, Don Huberto, was also born, and both were hardworking farmers with modest habits . His mother, Doña Pastora Alcañiz, was from the nearby town of Almodóvar del Campo, and her family was one of the most well-off and beloved in the region, so much so that when Doña Pastora and Don Salvador united their wills in a holy manner at the altar, the celebration took on the appearance of a public revelry. As the parents of the bride and groom donated a thousand pesetas to their respective town councils for the poor, there was music in the square, fireworks, dancing, swings, donkey races, and other simple, rustic entertainment attended by all the youth of both towns. If the Perea family of Serranillas was well-known and appreciated, the Alcañiz family of Almodóvar enjoyed no less value, esteem, and notoriety. Not a line of bastardy, not a single reprehensible act, not even a rumor of gallant escapades, tarnished the pure lineage of those two families, who managed to remain immune to all the civil disasters that ravaged Spain during the last century. All the women were devoted, homely, and prolific, while the men were hardworking and not fond of traveling or taking risks. The most scrupulous honesty, devotion to the home, fidelity, thrift, order, and the bourgeois fear of the future appeared to be linked to the history of both families from very ancient times. That of the Perea family, especially, stale over time due to the age-old monotony of the village, perpetuated the same figure from generation to generation, with the same moral type. Don Higinio resembled Don Salvador, just as the latter resembled Don Huberto, just as Don Huberto was the astonishing reflection of Don Miguel, his father, whose oil portrait graced the Chapter House of that Town Hall; from one to the other, the original large, round head was repeated, the pleasant, naive, and canonical coramvobis, the lean pestorejo, the square and pot-bellied body, without nervous disturbances, without arbitrariness or tensions of passion, as if immersed in that sweet drowsiness that spreads fat over the characters. Therefore, the fragile seed of rebellion that at spaced intervals disturbed Don Higinio’s spirit, must have referred to his mother; it was something related, but so ephemeral, imprecise, and distant, that Not even the most subtle ethnographer could have determined it. Doña Pastora’s beautiful, dark countenance indicated it as such: she was a genuinely Castilian beauty, pale and gaunt, with the darkness of her eyes highly polished and her thin lips oozing mysticism, elation, and disdain, and above her aquiline nose a concentrated frown, as hard as a late blast of medieval violence. Don Salvador had three children by Doña Pastora Alcañiz, of whom only the first prospered: that Higinio who would later give the illustrious Perea lineage new, healthy offspring. Don Higinio was a studious, thoughtful child, incapable of lying, who went through school without knowing the shame of being punished. One might say that the prestige of his family name obliged him to be good. He spoke in a low voice, and his collected gestures expressed a charming shyness. He was kind, modest, quiet, a little melancholic, with that faint nostalgia for absence that beautifies the features of the distracted; but he wasn’t a coward, for time and again, when faced with squabbling with other boys his age, he knew how to forcefully demonstrate to them the pure La Mancha temper of his will and the rugged effort and diligence of his fists. There was something, however, within him that denied that exemplary kindness. If his teachers awarded him rewards for his diligence, he was ashamed of their honors as if they were a shortcoming; if his father congratulated him on his hard work, his cheeks would redden and he would close his eyes: he would have liked to be unruly, rebellious, a brawler. At night, at home, remembering the classmate whom the teacher had brought to his knees or locked in a dungeon, he experienced sharp shudders of envy. If only he had had the nerve to be mischievous! But he lacked originality, grace, and courage. Once
—just once!—when he decided to commit an inconvenience, his teachers forgave him. The headmaster told him: “That’s not worthy of you, Mr. Perea…” And that was all. That night, the boy wept bitterly: he understood that he was leaving childhood without having been a child; they spoke to him as if he were a little man because his outbursts lacked the frivolous recklessness, full of graceful ingenuity, that distinguishes childhood, and recognizing himself obliged to be reflective, circumspect, and measured in his words and actions, he wept as never before. His pain was the immense pain of good people repenting of their virtue. Puberty confirmed this tendency toward melancholy; There persisted in that young man, usually silent, a laxity of failure, the noble sadness of an old stately garden, something similar to the remorse of an unfulfilled destiny. It was the warm blood of his mother; the restless sap of warriors, mystics, crusaders, perhaps . Like her son, Doña Pastora, when the sun set, contemplating the wild hills that surrounded the arid valley of Serranillas, for no reason at all, became sad. A kite launched into the wind from the deep bed of a ravine rises very poorly; on the other hand, it will rise easily if flown from the seashore or from the height of some bridge. And since that toy is individuals, man, to thrive and manifest himself in the glorious plenitude of his faculties, needs air, environment, space; the gust of perdition or victory that joyful Fortune once raised in each life… Don Higinio never received the novelistic efficacy of that impulse. His childhood slipped between the brotherly affection of his schoolmates and the protective indulgence of his father’s friends. This family environment stiffened and curtailed the boy’s fantasizing propensities . Since he was terribly imaginative, he took to reading novels, and finding this insufficient and wanting to get mixed up in something strange, he would invent serialized letters in which he spoke of homicides or kidnappings committed or about to be committed; and then, putting them in envelopes addressed to some random name, he would throw them out into the street. There was never a lack of curious passersby who would pick them up, and if by chance they began to read them, their author, hidden behind the blinds of his room, suffered inexpressibly. emotions of joy and fear. Those people might hand over their discovery to the judge; it was a clue to a crime; a case would be initiated, the individuals would be arrested for being suspicious; he himself might have to testify… He studied secondary school freely, thanks to a new provision from the Ministry of Public Education that exempted students from attending university during the school year. Although in June and September he had to take exams at the Ciudad Real Institute, he was always watched over, rather than accompanied, by his family. He never went out alone. The watchful affection of his family had created a kind of prison-like redoubt around him : not one hour of pleasant isolation, not a glimmer of freedom through which a scent of adventure and paganism could reach him. At eighteen, he graduated, and since he showed no inclination toward any career, and, on the other hand, his parents believed this was a ripe opportunity to train him in the management of their estate, the newly minted bachelor remained in Serranillas. Little by little, Higinio, rounded out by the fats of idle living, was becoming Don Higinio. The handsome, small figure of his father was exactly replicated in him: he had the soft blue eyes of the Pereas, a calm gait, a strong jaw, and a large , judicious head beneath his machine-cut hair. His youth, without being taciturn, was always prudent and orderly, as if all the dramatic dreams of his childhood had been resolved into courteous nostalgia, equanimity, and a gentle inner laziness. His brave, balanced, compact spirit offered the compact solidity of the La Mancha plain; his soul was firm and massive, like his body. He spoke little, laughed occasionally, and never, not even out of innocent wit or amusement, told a lie. He was sad because he was sincere; he had the painful calm of life. From this same simplicity, an observer would have deduced that if that good, noble, and brave man ever, by some unforeseen impulse, decided to lie, his lie would crystallize and become reality. Through his father, Higinio Perea inherited Don Salvador’s two great hobbies: dominoes and fishing. He also played billiards, although his shortness and fatness prevented him from comfortably commanding the table, and at the Casino, no one could decipher charades like him, nor did he know how to make better candies with the sugar cubes he melted in a flame of alcohol on the marble tables. He never rode a horse or fired a firearm, and the only time he went partridge hunting, following the example of his friends, he returned empty-handed . Because he resembled his parents, he inherited even rheumatism from them. At twenty, he suffered an attack of arthritis that kept him bedridden for a long time and seemed to contribute to standardizing and establishing his character. Two years later, he married Miss Emilia Álvarez, one of the richest and most prestigious heirs in town. That wedding, secretly attended by the bride and groom’s parents, was peaceful and innocent, like those festivals where bourgeois gravity awards prizes for virtue. Not a moment of struggle, not a hint of jealousy. The young men aspiring to Emilia’s estate, upon learning that Don Salvador’s son was courting her, abandoned their efforts, and Emilia accepted Higinio without giving any specific explanation of her feelings, barely savoring them, like those medicines that sick people, half asleep, drink at night. She was a willful beauty, plump and dark-skinned, who played Strauss waltzes on the piano and knew how to make sweets. Don Higinio saw in his marriage and in the birth of his first child the two decisive blows dealt by the prosaic nature of reality to that kind of spiritual asymmetry, timidly adventurous, which had once fluttered like a plume over his childish soul. His future was now definitively outlined; it was clear, peaceful, horizontal: he would live in Serranillas, improve his lands, attend the funeral of his friends dressed in black, and when his last hour When the arrival of the ship arrived, he would go and occupy his stone bed in the family mausoleum. This reflection, restoring his complete peace of mind, increased his love of fishing. Many mornings, and even in the afternoons, sometimes dressed in denim and a white Panama hat, other times hooded and tucked into high sailor boots, Don Higinio would gather his fishing gear and go to war against the small fish of the Guadamil, whose smooth, blue waters, a heraldic blue, rolled chattily half a kilometer from the town. For him, the banks of the Guadamil held no mysteries: he knew the secrets of the Jabalí Basin, very difficult to ford during the rainy season, its pull depending on the height of the water, and the places where one could cross from one bank to the other on horseback or on foot. He also knew the places where the current calmed down and was thus most conducive to fishing, the wooded backwaters good for taking summer siestas, and those hollows, free from the wind and without shoals, perfect for enjoying the full sun in winter . Don Higinio devoted many hours to his favorite sport. He generally went alone, and when he arrived near the spot where he was to settle, he walked on tiptoe so as not to intimidate his enemy with the sound of his footsteps . Next, he baited the hooks, rigged two rods that he placed on forks, and then, sitting on a canvas cot , his legs crossed, a cigar between his thick , calm lips, he would sink his gaze into the blue water where the rods projected two parallel yellow stripes; the corks that held the baits vibrated restlessly in the smooth, trickling water. Suddenly , one of them would sink, indicating that a fish had taken the bait. Perea immediately called for the rod, raising it with a victorious gesture, and the prisoner, torn from his element, convulsed by asphyxiation, painted a silver question mark on the great green and cobalt backdrop of the landscape. Don Higinio, beside himself, could rarely repress a cry of joy, fierce and ancestral. It was something sadistic, stirring, mysteriously carnal, that forced him to half-close his eyes and produced a laxity similar to that left in the soul by bullfights. Afterward, he would go to the Casino, where, playing dominoes, he would wait for someone to call him home for dinner. At night, he almost never went out. Time, meanwhile, continued its eternal work of renewal. Anselmito, Don Higinio’s firstborn, was already four years old when Don Salvador died; The following year, Doña Pastora followed her husband, for it is well known that widowers do not survive each other long enough, and the rapid disappearance of those two beloved white heads, upon establishing Don Higinio as supreme head of the ancestral home, imposed a new austerity on his thoughtful and serious nature. The good man felt his love for his home, for fishing, and for dominoes growing. He thought: “I won’t go any further.” It was like a decisive confirmation of his character. Slowly, the old, bloody wounds healed. Carmen was born. Three years later, Doña Emilia lost her mother, and Teresita, her younger sister, who was still single, preferred to stay with her in Serranillas rather than live in Almodóvar with her father. Later, Joaquinito was born. Doña Emilia was one of those energetic temperaments that blossom and bear fruit quickly and know how to command. Her bellicose activity, her practical instinct, her fortitude, benefited her estate so many times that Perea never embarked on risky matters without first consulting her. She would rise early with the pristine clarity of dawn and go to bed late, after ensuring that the doors were securely closed, the dogs loose, the kitchen fire extinguished, the servants tidied up , and everything in its place. During the day, she worked feverishly: cooking, darning, scolding her children, overseeing the salting of the bacon, examining the clothes the maids hung out to dry in the garden, and everything had to pass through her scrupulous hands, and she knew how to repair everything with a diligence without sleep or oasis. She no longer played the piano; A mother of a family is bound by higher obligations, and she, within her home and over her husband, exercised absolute authority. This restraint maintained her beauty and her health. At thirty-four , Doña Emilia was a swarthy woman, with raven hair and lively eyes, whose thick, dark face displayed the almond-shaped joy of small, white teeth. Teresita, maidenly, sweet, and a little deaf, was the opposite of her sister. The beauty of her springtime years withered and wrinkled early, as if gnawed by the fire of a temperament perhaps too emotional. Tall, slender, with tobacco-colored hair, an easy smile , reserved and kind eyes, her peaceful feet moved soundlessly from room to room. Her nephews adored her. She helped them dress in the mornings, took them for walks, defended them from their mother’s anger, and at the table she placed their napkins around their necks. Her shyness sought the children’s company. She was good, quiet, docile, and never had any real personality. Teresita lacked substantive value ; to the neighbors, she was never Teresita: sometimes she was ” Doña Emilia’s sister”; other times, “Perea’s sister-in-law” or “Anselmito’s aunt …” She didn’t protest this somewhat contemptuous blurring of opinions; perhaps she didn’t even notice it. Her sole concern was not to appear deaf, and she put all her effort into concealing this defect. Many times she would say: “I’m going!… I’m going!” And she would run off to wherever she thought her name had been called. Her nephews, aware of her weakness, would mock her: “Aunt Teresa, can’t you hear Mom asking for you?” She would reply: “I know, I’ve heard it… Do you think I’m deaf? What a success!” The uneducated and cruel children were in fits of laughter. Slowly, Don Higinio aged, subject to the cares of his estate, watching himself grow fatter while the fickle time, master of all farandula, took some affections from him and brought others. Everything changed around him, yet everything remained the same. Over the years, the different generations of Perea family members copied each other, tenaciously repeating the same characters and types; it seemed that the uniformity of the plain and the similarity of impressions and food immortalized their aboriginal features. Carmencita was not yet nine years old, and already her profile recalled the aquiline face of her grandmother, Doña Pastora; Anselmo, whom everyone believed would be tall, suddenly stopped growing, and his little figure began to acquire premature fleshiness. Evidently, the Perea family’s pacifist blood was immortal. Don Higinio, always something of a poet, often despaired at the imbecile existence of the herd. The boisterous blood of the Alcañiz family, albeit occasionally , resuscitated within him, unnerving him. In so much time, not a single trip, not a single escape into the world of fantasy, not a single mystery in which to sow the seed of poetry. Don Higinio recognized himself closely, spied on, by the affectionate vigilance of his fellow citizens. They saw him born, go to school, and marry; year after year, they witnessed the smallest incidents in his brief life; they remembered the dates he lost his parents and could have recalled the exact ages of each of his children by heart. They also detailed his estate: the income from the mine, the number of olive trees he owned, and how much the olive harvest produced annually. the sacks of wheat he kept in the granary, when his barns were already overflowing; whether or not he mulched his lands, and how many smallholdings he had divided and rented out for greater convenience; and which terraces he used for corn and which for hay, and which fields were languishing, covered in brambles and yellow gorse. In the Casino, everything was whispered about: whether he was working at his mill, whether his horse had died, or whether the night before a lot of water had run down the gutters in his orchard… In vain, Don Higinio tried to isolate himself, to withdraw: there was not a corner in the entire region, a single corner, that was completely his. Sometimes the servants, other times his own wife, or his sister-in-law, or his children, would throw everything into the street in the privacy of their homes. His home was happening; he never found those moments of isolation that every man has; one would say his notoriety possessed the annoying virtue of transforming opaque bodies into transparency. Horrible anguish; inside his house, even though he spoke in a low voice and the doors and cracks were hermetically sealed, Don Higinio experienced the unpleasant sensation of being naked and trapped in a glass globe. Perea had reached this point in his bitter reminiscences and fantasies when Nicanor, the barber, who had finished shaving him, questioned him. “Shall we put something on your head?” Don Higinio opened his eyelids and his eyes, his good blue pupils, in which there was a mystical detachment from all the scratches of malice or hatred that common souls carry with them, rested affectionately on his interlocutor, whose face, with its gaunt lines, repeated an eternal negative movement on the thinness of his neck. The barber thought he hadn’t understood his question and repeated: “Do you want something on your hair? ” “Put some cologne on me.” Nicanor’s hands, vigorously rubbing his client’s head, lightened the course of his meditations; his simple spirit shifted toward optimism. If the pleasures of a Sunday are enough to perfume the bitter and dry passage of the week, won’t any notable event also suffice to embellish a life? He thought of the lottery. Those fifty thousand pesetas falling like that, as if from a cloud, into the aridity of his daily existence!… Wouldn’t with them come the romantic journey, the unexpected love, the upsetting and violent adventure, which then, as it dissolved over the coming days, would leave in his life the scent of something heroic and distant?… Don Higinio left the barber’s shop very red-faced; The liquor Cenén forced him to drink was beginning to disturb him, and the certainty that for many months the entire neighborhood would be staring at him was also contributing to his confusion. Nearing his house, he found Pablo. The blind man recognized him by his steps. “May he be in good health, my lord Don Higinio, and may he always be filled with satisfaction, and may he live more good years than a poor man has sorrows. ” He seemed a gypsy, given the ingratiating accent and the tanned complexion. Perea reached into his pocket and gave him fifteen pesetas. “I don’t have any more change,” he said; “but come home another day, my wife will give you a gift.” The blind man, unaccustomed to such generosity being shown to him, poured out fervent praise, blessings, and optimistic wishes for the one who had helped him in this way; in the silence of the deserted street, flooded with sunlight, his prayer resounded ardently. Don Higinio quickened his pace, with that delicate blush of superior men who are bothered by the incense of applause. “Truly,” he thought ironically, “if, as Don Tomás says, good wishes reach heaven, I have just obtained blessedness for sixty reales. It has been a great deal!” Chapter 2. It was twelve o’clock when he arrived home. Doña Emilia examined him uneasily. Where did he come from so red-faced? ” It’s been half an hour,” she exclaimed, “that Don Gregorio and Don Cándido have been waiting for you. Today they are having lunch with us.” Don Higinio entered the dining room, where he was applauded. Before he could cross the door, Anselmo, Carmen, and Joaquinito stopped him, clinging to his knees. The apothecary embraced him cordially, with a simple effusion revealing loyal friendship. The doctor also rushed toward him, triumphantly showing him a blue slip of paper. —Here is the telegram that my Lucía and I were waiting for; our happiness is now indisputable. Fifty thousand pesetas for each of us, Perea of my dearest!… We are rich!… And Don Gregorio Hernández, despite his giant’s build and that terrible voice with which he stunned his patients, tears began to form in his eyes. The worthy Don Higinio felt oppressed, crushed, against the doctor’s chest as if against a wall. In the background, in the soft dimness of the dining room, the faces of his sister-in-law, Doña Lucía, and Doña Benita, formed a kind of smiling and welcoming chorus. At last, he was able to to let go, to breathe freely. “When do we get paid? ” “Right away,” replied Hernández, “today or tomorrow. Since the sum is significant, we’ll need to go to Ciudad Real.” The soup had just been served, and everyone sat down at the table. Don Higinio took the presidency, with Doña Lucía on his right and Doña Benita on his left. The children, under the indulgent and scolding watch of Teresita, invaded the opposite head. Doña Emilia, who kept an eye on her husband, asked: “Don’t you think he’s very red?” All eyes were fixed on Perea, who, suddenly, by a nervous reflex, felt himself blush. Don Cándido declared that he found him as usual; but Doña Emilia, maternal and vehement, stood up to examine his pulse. “His head is very hot; could it be a fever?” Teresa and Doña Benita had become serious; they were thinking the same thing; Rare are the great joys that are not followed by some grave pain, and if Don Higinio were to die… Doña Emilia wanted to take a thermometer. So much concern irritated Perea. He wasn’t suffering from anything, he was fine, better than ever… “It’s just that I’ve been drinking aguardiente with Cenén, and the drink is hurting me. ” “Naturally,” exclaimed Don Gregorio, “a slight, unimportant shortness of breath , which will disappear as soon as the first few meals sink into the stomach. Come on, Emilia, don’t be so squeamish; sit down.” Broad, tall, as strong as a classic boxer, the doctor was a formidable and cheerful eater who, without ceasing to praise every dish placed before him, chewed with both cheeks; he ground chicken bones and left the greasy imprint of his lips on the glass of his wineglass . In his terrible, dark hands, any spoon seemed small. The bones that Doña Lucía placed intact on the edge of her plate, Don Gregorio looked at with savage avidity. “Are you leaving these?” he exclaimed. He ended by sucking them greedily, and then he broke them as if they were biscuits; the roar of his giant jaws surprised the children and made them laugh. When he ate, he went blind, transfigured; he breathed vulgarity… “He’s a man,” Cenén said, “who carries his brain in his belly.” The lunch was long and had a lively and boisterous after-dinner conversation. While the children filled their pockets with raisins, the adults discussed the use of their new fortune. The men reasoned sensibly; Don Gregorio thought of buying a dog and asking Éibar for a shotgun: these would be the only frivolous things he would acquire; the rest of his capital would be invested entirely in land and farm implements. “I am descended from farmers,” he added, “and I adore the countryside; I wish they’d never sent me to university! You’ll see; I ‘m more of a farmer turned doctor than a doctor turned farmer. The apothecary and Don Higinio nodded in agreement. No factories or businesses exposed to strikes and suicidal competition! Money spent on land is safe: the land is the source of everything, the supreme truth, the mother who never deceives man. Perea, for his part, wanted to acquire the estate called Los Cipreses on the banks of the Guadamil, a very suitable place to build a mill. On the other hand, the women, more picturesque, more imaginative, longed for something superfluous, but beautiful, rare, that would refresh their spirits with a burst of novelty: a trip, for example… But was it possible that their husbands would want to reduce to earth money as frivolous, as laughable as lottery money?… Doña Emilia exclaimed, banging on a plate with the coffee spoon: “A trip would be the best!… A month-long trip; the four of us would go. Am I right, Lucía?” Those present remained silent, and Hernández’s wife made a grimace of displeasure with her lips, reddened by digestion. A trip! And where and for what? To suffer?… What Serranillas lacked, in terms of comfort, nobility, and good treatment, there was no need to look for anywhere else. Years ago, she and her husband went to Ciudad Real to buy an orthopedic device for the son of the deceased. Notary Arribas, who had broken his leg, was almost dying of thirst: they could find fresh water nowhere. And a longer journey, to Madrid, for example, was absurd to think of; Gregorio couldn’t leave his patients for that long… He laughed out loud and landed a vigorous blow on the apothecary’s weak shoulder blades. “I can’t leave them free for long because they’d all be cured. I shouldn’t close the pharmacy to Don Cándido!” Teresa and Doña Benita, briefly entertained by the idea of traveling, now looked with horror at the possibility of leaving Serranillas: businesses aren’t abandoned like that; closing a house costs a lot of work; the dampness of uninhabited rooms is fatal to furniture, and moths ravage clothes that aren’t removed and left exposed to the sun. Besides, who was going to take care of the chickens and the flowers? A journey from which no one knows when they’ll return, because their health isn’t guaranteed, can be the ruin of an estate. Doña Emilia, however, didn’t completely abandon her idea. First, she considered leaving the town: it was a noble curiosity, a fascination with distant, never-before-seen sights; then, that artistic impulse faded and became squalid under a practical simulation. She had heard that clothes abroad are so cheap that the savings are easily equivalent to the travel expenses. Now that winter was approaching, Doña Emilia considered a fur coat: one of those magnificent panther or sable overcoats that grand Parisian hetaerae wrap around, half-naked, so Reutlinger could paint their portrait. It was a dazzlement: she saw herself in church, attending high mass on Sundays, passing with the solemnity of a statue before her humiliated friends; And then, in the afternoon, on the platform, waiting for the Madrid mail, which stops in Serranillas for two minutes… He confronted Don Higinio, and suddenly, as if shooting at point-blank range: “You,” he said, “should have gone to Paris to buy me a coat. ” Perea’s healthy expression took on the dazed expression of a dreamer. “Me?… Me alone to Paris?” “So what?” “In short, for six or seven thousand pesetas you can make the trip, have some fun, rest a little, because you really need it, and give me a coat just the way I tell you to. Do you want it?” Don Higinio smiled; the surprise of the first moment had faded; now he was happy, in suspense, trembling with emotion before that path that fate had just generously laid out beneath his feet, like a carpet of sorcery and adventure. To conceal the childish uproar of his feelings, he thought it appropriate to object: “Since I don’t know French… ” “Bah!… Carrying good banknotes in your pocket,” argued Don Gregorio, “think that to buy, you don’t need to know the language of the seller. Besides, in those large foreign hotels, there will always be interpreters to accompany you everywhere.” And after a pause: “I, in your shoes, without that chain my patients have thrown around my feet, would take the train tomorrow.” Don Higinio didn’t reply; he seemed to hesitate, his eyes looking at the tablecloth while his fingers nervously kneaded a crumb of bread. In his naive and lazy spirit, Tartuffe hinted at his hypocritical side: he wanted to be begged, to be pushed toward that venture, drenched in the sweetest honey of anxiety; he wanted to enjoy the adventure without assuming probable responsibilities. It was something quintessential, refined, voluptuous, and feminine, like that deceitful gesture of sacrifice that women always make to their favors to save their modesty. The apothecary insinuated: “If you were to go to Paris, you would do me a great favor by bringing me a treatise on plant chemistry that I need. I don’t remember the author’s name now.” The furs with which Doña Emilia planned to adorn herself aroused parallel ambitions in Doña Lucía and Don Cándido’s wife. “If you go to Paris,” exclaimed Doña Lucía, “I ask only one thing: a corset from the Louvre; I’ll give you the measurements. ” “What an idea! A watch is better,” interrupted Doña Benita. “Or a ring,” Teresa added. ” I have rings and watches, Emilia knows: two watches that are useless because they don’t work. Ah! I prefer the corset: a straight, elegant, mauve corset; a true French corset…” Don Higinio tried to defend himself. He had a methodical, homey temperament , who perhaps couldn’t shake off his old habits; he would miss his home, his slippers, his fishing tackle, his domino duels, the seasoning and flavoring Vicenta gave to the dishes; everything, in short!… In addition, he had farm chores he had to personally supervise: sowing, irrigation, pruning, breaking up the land…” Hernández interrupted him. “Nothing, it’s not true, no, sir! Excuses!… Farming, like fishing, is a sport for you.” The others joined in with Don Gregorio’s stentorian voices. Doña Emilia, her sister, Doña Lucía, and Doña Benita surrounded Don Higinio , who remained seated, patting him on the head and the back of his neck with friendly pats. “Yes, sir; you must go!… What a stingy man!… And all for not giving us a treat… ” “If only I were in your shoes!” repeated Don Gregorio. The children also shouted , encouraged by the women’s example; from the doorway, the servants watched the scene smiling . Perea thought the opportunity had arrived to give in. “Well,” he exclaimed, “as you wish; I have no will…” And immediately, as if what they were proposing were maturing in his mind and winning him over: “Truly, I have always had a great desire to see Paris, and look at what a coincidence it is now…” A boy who came to fetch Don Gregorio for a birth ended the after-dinner conversation. The doctor and the apothecary left together; soon after, Doña Lucía and Doña Benita left as well, and Don Higinio, barefoot and free from the oppressive tyranny of his collar and suspenders, was able to sleep, as was his custom, for an hour-long siesta. He awoke at six. Immediately, with a nervous diligence new to him, he dressed and went out into the street. Pepe Fernández, editor of El Faro, a biweekly newspaper and defender of the interests of Serranillas, came to greet him. “I’ll write about you,” he said, “in the next issue of my newspaper and announce your trip to Paris.” Don Higinio blushed; this unexpected popularity, this constant display, burned his cheeks. When he arrived at the Casino, all the domino players stood up to applaud him, and Julio Cenén played the first chords of the Royal March on the piano. Despite the childish simplicity of such a treat, Don Higinio advanced barefoot and moved, waving his brown hat on his square head. “Thank you, gentlemen, thank you!” The Casino doorman, who was walking behind him, approached him with a reserve that Perea found mysterious. “Don Gregorio needs to see you; he’ll be back immediately; don’t leave too soon…” At seven o’clock, the doctor appeared. His massive body and bronze face , covered with thick whiskers and shaded by a felt with enormous wings, rose powerfully above the crowd of patrons settled around the tables. Don Higinio beckoned him welcomingly. “What’s up? Did you have something to announce?” “That tomorrow morning, early on the seven o’clock train, the two of us are going to Ciudad Real to collect our dues.” Perea was slow to respond; his sympathy rebelled against his resolve . “And wouldn’t it be better to write and tell them to send it?” —No, man! Is it hard for you to receive money? We ‘re leaving for Ciudad Real on the seven o’clock train; then we’ll have lunch wherever I decide… You know that no one dies of hunger at my side!… We had a great day, and we’ll be back by nine-thirty or ten at night. Agreed?… Don Higinio gave in; there was no way around it. —Then—said Hernández—see you tomorrow. Now I’m leaving because they’re waiting for me. Tomorrow at six-thirty, wait for me at your house, dressed; I’ll come and get you. That night, lying in his large marital bed on the left With his wife unable to sleep, Don Higinio struggled in vain to fall asleep. His faint-hearted spirit, always abandoned to the cowardly inertia of habit, felt uprooted and as if thrown into a whirlwind. Fortune invaded his life, throwing it into disarray. Only hours had passed since he was informed of his fortune, and it seemed as if a long time had passed: the shock of that morning, the glasses of brandy drunk with Cenén, his lunch in the company of Don Gregorio and Don Cándido, the affectionate ovation he received at the Casino, the prospect of the journey he was to undertake the following morning… everything, hastily, jumbled around in his memory. How could so many projects, so much hustle and bustle, so many emotions fit into the short space of a day? And then, that walk to Ciudad Real was over, along with the cares, the preparations, the errands for his trip to Paris, the immense metropolis where no resident of Serranillas, as far as he knew, had ever been. At last, the slow, lazy flesh overcame Don Higinio’s imaginative and alert spirit, whose eyelids began to close; beneath the thin veils of sleep, his restlessness was sweetly lulling. Suddenly, the fear that he might be robbed in Ciudad Real shook him; thieves don’t sleep. He nudged Doña Emilia, who was already snoring: “Tomorrow,” he ordered, “remind me to bring my revolver… ” Fortunately, these prudent reluctance was useless. Perea and Don Gregorio arrived in the capital, had breakfast with hot chocolate and croutons at the station café, cashed their twenty thousand duros in handsome five-hundred- and one-thousand-peseta bills, had a lavish lunch at a tavern whose owner, plump and desirable despite her age, had been a good friend of the doctor’s when he was a student, and, not wanting to prolong their absence any longer, they returned to Serranillas on the 7:40 bus . They were loaded with toys: balls, bugles, toy soldiers, a clockwork railroad, a magic lantern, a guignol theater… And yet they ended up at Don Higinio’s house, where Doña Lucía, surrounded by her four children, Doña Emilia with hers, Teresa, Doña Benita, and Don Cándido, were waiting for them. The ovation that the children gave the expeditionaries was thunderous; Perea was deaf; There were moments when the dining room ceiling, with its magnificent bronze chandelier, seemed to crack and collapse. From the following day, and encouraged by his wife and sister-in-law, Don Higinio began the preliminary preparations for his exodus. His first concern was to set a date for his departure. With a seriousness that concealed a certain vague inner fear, he had said: “I’ll leave on Saturday… ” And he had scarcely announced it when he heard and heard it repeated by the neighbors. “Perea is leaving on Saturday…” Around that day, destined to be memorable in the history of Serranillas, everything was being arranged and put right. Antolín received urgent orders to make two suits, a “complete” black one, with a jacket, and another, a gray jacket. Don Higinio also thought it prudent to increase the number of his shirts and ordered half a dozen from Manolita, Pepe Martín’s wife, who tailored them very well. The underpants were made at home, not out of petty stinginess or a ridiculous itch to save, but because Teresita knew how to cut and arrange them perfectly: they were underpants, “ancien régime,” with colorfully embroidered waistbands and ribbons to hold and secure the legs over the socks. Doña Emilia, in the meager spare time her housework allowed, checked his shirts and handkerchiefs, and since her husband never knew how to tie a tie, she ordered several ready-made bows from Mr. Feliciano’s clothing store . Don Higinio, for his part, wasn’t idle: he had bought two hats: a bowler hat, which was supposed to “rhyme” with his morning coat, and a soft, pearl-colored one to wear with his “complete” jacket. He also bought a trunk: a genuine local chest made of sturdy planks, armored with yellow tin and with blue metal corners, which when empty weighed thirty pounds. kilos of luggage that the railway companies grant to each traveler. That trunk, always open in the middle of Don Higinio’s bedroom, looked like a mouth. With so much worry about how much they had to put inside it, no one remembered to close it, and its upright lid had the eloquence of a threat. Carried by Teresita and Doña Emilia were the Scottish thread socks “for dressing,” and the wool socks for rheumatism; the Russian undershirts, thick, soft, capable of resisting the polar cold; the underpants with variegated waistbands, the half- dozen shirts Manolita had brought, the handkerchiefs… everything was disappearing into the insatiable belly of the trunk. The flamboyant white wave was growing. On Thursday morning, two days before the scheduled departure, it was seen that the trunk was too small and it was necessary to exchange it for a larger one. Meanwhile, recommendations and requests rained down on Perea: he could have filled a notebook with requests. All his friends wanted something from Paris: for Don Gregorio, a shotgun; for Doña Lucía, a corset from the Louvre; for Doña Emilia, a fur coat. Teresa wanted a watch; Doña Benita, a hat; Don Cándido, a treatise on plant chemistry and some paperweight or artistic knick-knack to adorn his desk ; Julio Cenén asked him for a cigarette case with an enamel nude that would make the girls blush; the priest, Don Tomás, wanted some eyeglasses; the notary, Don Jerónimo Arribas, a player piano; Don Justo, the owner of the inn, a motorcycle. Someone asked him for a chess set… Tired of not finding a moment’s respite at the Casino, Don Higinio frequently escaped to the countryside. There he breathed a sigh of relief. He walked slowly, looking all around intently, as if on the eve of embarking on what he deemed a very long journey, he wanted to bid farewell with his eyes to those familiar landscapes, and if he greeted someone, a soft melancholy of “goodbye” slipped into his bow. Beneath his fat, the adventurous urges of his childhood cautiously unwound. Once, his chimerical soul had spent many nights partying, while his poor body, bored and enslaved, remained at home; but now it was he, as much or more than she, who would go out and prowl. That prize, that escape to Paris! What adventures did Fate have in store for him? He even felt afraid; he remembered Dante’s panther: _Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita_ _mi ritrovai por una selva oscura_ _que la diritta via era smarrita…_ In his last domino battles, luck was against him; He was absent, didn’t keep track of the pieces he’d played, and always lost. To avoid compromising his reputation as a champion, he had to retire. One morning he went out fishing and came back empty-handed. If a small fish nibbled at the bait, he didn’t notice; he was thinking about the Seine. Late in the afternoon, at sunset, he was heading for the station, as if the place he was soon to leave attracted him. The platform boy, Juan Pantaleón, to whom, due to his swaggering, minstrel-like youth, Don Higinio always displayed hidden affection and appreciation, chatted him up. “So Saturday, Don Higinio? ” “Saturday. ” “For how long?” —Psch!… We’ll see!… And this possibility of prolonging his absence or shortening it, of coming or going according to his own whim and desire, of finding freedom, even if only fleetingly, from sentimental ties and social considerations, of finally being “him,” caused a cold , hysterical shudder in his diaphragm. Deeply distressed, his eyes on the ground, Juan Pantaleón sighed: —Would that I could go with you! He was a nondescript forty-something, of ordinary build, well-built, with the full, clean-shaven face of a canonry man shaded by a Basque beret. His candid bearing was interesting; he was slow, round, gentle, and his rusticity was corrected by the intelligent nostalgia of his calm eyes. As he walked, swaying on his slightly open legs, the fringes of the blanket with which he covered his shoulders at night swept across the platform. Juan Pantaleón had his story, and in it a disappointment and a Tear: a humble story, both comical and sad, like a Daudet tale. As a child, he sang in churches; his sweet, vibrant tenor voice, filling the harmonious hollow of the temple from the heights of the choir stalls, distracted the women’s prayerful devotion; the youngest ones raised their heads to look… And Juan Pantaleón, who had barely written his name, wanted to exchange the church for the theater, to become an artist. The gadfly of greed cruelly stung him; it was a joyful outpouring of pride that, if not expressed, would have driven him mad. He didn’t know music, but his auditory memory was excellent: any little tune he heard he would repeat immediately without hesitation, and trusting in this, he took up the fight. The jingling showbiz took him far and wide, from town to town, along the dusty roads of La Mancha and old Castile; sometimes on merit, other times with a miserable wage. But Juan Pantaleón was happy: the pirouettes of a nomadic life, the existence of backstage, the joy of makeup, the Versailles-like prestige of white wigs, the grotesque polychromy of the costumes he donned to appear in the chorus, distracted his ambitious impatience. Several years passed, and it was always the same: eating poorly today, fasting tomorrow, and, meanwhile, the careless youth that fades, the heart that grows cold and abandons its optimism, the feet that forget the joy of walking… Until Juan Pantaleón finally lost that fatal thread of voice that had led him to such crazy adventures, and feeling for the first time the crushing power of reality, his poor eyes shed bitter tears over dead hope. Thespis bid him farewell from his wagon: he would never again go to Madrid, the Eldorado of his naive soul; the newspapers would never speak of him. Broken, hoarse, and without a job, he returned to Serranillas, his hometown, where the charitable efforts of the mayor and Don Tomás Murillo, the priest, managed to find him a job at the station. His wages were fourteen pesetas a week. There, Don Higinio met him. Despite his defeat and the complete collapse of his past, Juan Pantaleón seemed content. The work was short, the responsibilities of his position light; the switchman who guarded the tunnel entrance seemed much more involved. Meanwhile, he could read newspapers and live on the platform, near those trains that, coming from far away, held a powerful eloquence for his wandering imagination. On those luxury express trains that are sometimes in Lisbon, sometimes in Berlin, travel the artists who were once “his brothers”: the celebrated musicians, the millionaire tenors, beautiful and famous, the great divas of world renown… For this very reason, Juan Pantaleón didn’t always fling the name of his town to the wind in the same way: “Serranillas… two minutes!” If the convoy emerging from the darkness of the tunnel was a freight train, the former artist barely bothered to shout out his cry. Why? Wealthy and distinguished people don’t travel on mixed-class trains, and he, Juan Pantaleón, wasn’t bothered by the third-class crowd. The worker, the peasant, the “stateless,” whoever cared about the name of that station, could ask. On the other hand, when the train was a fast one, one of those great international express trains that take and bring the kings of money and art, Juan Pantaleón didn’t say Serranillas’s name, but sang it, drawing it out, modulating it lovingly, as if sliding a tear from his sad soul between those four melodic and beloved syllables: “Serraniiiillas… two minutes!” The stretched, interminable i, which alternately rose and fell with rare musical acrobatics, was something piercing, very personal, very profound, that no one understood. In the cold silence of the night, before the impassiveness of the hermetic, dark carriages, impenetrable like coffins behind the mystery of their drawn curtains, Juan Pantaleón launched his customary cry into space: —Serraniiiillas… two minutes!… In today’s employee, yesterday’s artist blossomed. Then he sang for the intelligent, or perhaps just for himself, as if evoking bygone, better times: it was a kind of inner cooing, of coquetry, of narcissistic pleasure: —Serraniiiillas… two minutes!… He said it several times and always with the same spirited zeal; the station attendants admired his excited, sweet voice, and he knew it; that platform was his tribune, his stage; those invisible travelers were his audience. Juan Pantaleón thought: “Now they can hear me; perhaps my voice will impress and surprise them; perhaps they’ll carry its timbre with them in their memories…” If by chance a traveler, man or woman, leaned out of a window and glanced at him, Juan Pantaleón would become embarrassed, blush, lower his eyelids… They were staring at him!… Why?… If it were Anselmi! If it were the De Lerma… or the Storchio!… Until the train moved on, leaving the platform in silence and shadows: it was his theater that was closing, his audience that was leaving… Secretly, despite his reputation, his name, and his love for his children, Don Higinio envied Juan Pantaleón. The former servant of the show business had traveled, taken risks, had love affairs at crossroads and inns; Juan Pantaleón, with his days of fasting and his nights without a roof, carried behind him a beautiful story of a minstrel. Having been away from Serranillas for many years, he could recount events unknown to everyone else or invent them, taking refuge in the mystery of distance, only to then, with abundant space and gusto, spin a lie. He, on the other hand, who once alone, when he went to graduate from high school in Ciudad Real, lost sight of the tower of the church where he was baptized!… What could he possibly tell that his fellow countrymen didn’t already know by heart?… That’s why now, when fate was pushing him abroad, the company of that man who had traveled the world had the cheering effect of good advice. Juan Pantaleón, who knew how to explain everything with suggestive aplomb, told him about the feverish speed that comes with the meals served at the stations; about his excitement upon crossing the border and feeling that suddenly everyone spoke another language; about the joy that flavors lunches at the small tables of dining cars; of the extraordinary luxury and comforts of the sleeping cars, where love often offers men traveling alone the smile of an adventure… On Friday afternoon, Don Higinio was also at the station; he liked the house, with its pointed roof shaded by a group of eucalyptus trees; the melancholy of the cars forgotten on the unloading tracks; the small, paved, clean platform, where the coming and going of the trains seemed to leave shudders of cosmopolitanism. As he left, Juan Pantaleón approached him: “So, tomorrow, Don Higinio?” “Yes, man, everything arrives, tomorrow. What time does the express train run? ” “At nine forty-five at night. Who could go on it!” It was a tear dissolved in an exclamation. Unable to contain himself, trampling over distances and categories, Juan Pantaleón gave his calloused hand to Don Higinio. In the joyful excitement of the journey, their souls drew closer, they fraternized; he was “a comrade.” Don Higinio, who had never said “goodbye” to anyone, left the station moved. He was cheerful, although his pride concealed a sadness; his emotion reminded him of stories of exiled politicians that he had once read; now, as an expatriate, he understood the pain of those men upon crossing the border. Perea ate little, had no appetite, restlessness filled his stomach like a strong meal. He tried in vain to keep the conversation going; his spirit was not there; between bites or from one dish to another, he remained suspended, the blond pickled empanada or the piece of chicken stuck on the tip of the fork. Doña Emilia, who watched him attentively and dominated him with that influence that active wills always exert over soft, indecisive, or lazy ones, she reproached him. “What the deuce was she thinking about?” “Never,” he exclaimed, “have you ever made so many little balls of bread!” That night, when they were already in bed, the wife suffered the anguish of the approaching separation, and her grief had accents of childlike simplicity. The soul of woman is exaggerated and primitive; the middle tones of passion occur in her in a confused way; when she is not a child, she is a mother. “You will take great care of yourself, Higinio,” he said, “you will take great care of yourself, won’t you? ” “Yes, woman.” “You will wrap up well and you will not look out of the carriage windows, nor will you get off at any station until the train is quite still. ” “No, woman. ” “And as soon as you arrive in Paris, telegraph me; and if you fall ill, God forbid, write me so that I can come and look after you.” Stroking his mustache, his eyes wide awake in the darkness of the bedroom, Don Higinio repeated distractedly: “Yes, wife…” After a silence, full of superstition, Doña Emilia added: “I regret having initiated this trip; I told Teresa so; a black horsefly has been flying around the sewing room all afternoon … ” Don Higinio shuddered; in such omens, as in everything, there may be some truth. Could she be in danger? Silent, heroic, he turned to his wife and hugged her tightly; his erudition allowed him to remember Hector saying goodbye to Andromache. That was the last night he would spend with her… “In case I never see her again…” he thought. The following morning was extremely hectic; insomnia had left traces of pallor on their faces; Doña Emilia woke up with one eye swollen; Upon leaving his room, he saw Teresita, and the two sisters whispered; neither had been able to sleep. Don Higinio got up at nine, and almost at the same time the tailor arrived with the suits. Poor Antolín was pale, limp, and disheveled, like a corpse. “I haven’t gone to bed yet,” he declared. In front of the wardrobe mirror and in the presence of his wife, his sister-in-law, and the children, Don Higinio put on the two suits: the jacket was fine, but the jacket left a slanted crease on his back, and the trousers were tight around his stomach. Antolín assured him it was nothing, marked the necessary corrections with chalk, and took the garments with him, promising to bring them back by mid-afternoon. After lunch, and already somewhat revived by the optimism of the meal, Perea finished packing his luggage. Inside the colossal trunk , covered in tin and polished and shining like armor, the underwear, neatly folded and ironed, formed a sort of solid, lapidary block: not a single gap was left empty; the socks and handkerchiefs, cleverly distributed, filled the gaps. The collars, cuffs, and suits were placed on top, on the tray, to prevent them from wrinkling. The hats occupied a large, white, cylindrical cardboard box, the lid of which, in gold letters, read: “Fashions of Paris, Ciudad Real.” The umbrella and all the walking sticks, except for one rapier that the expeditionary wanted to carry by hand for any bad luck, were placed in the blanket rack. Toiletries, towels, brushes, bottles of essences, razors, and the first-aid kit, with its small bottle of alcohol, its binding paper for wounds, and its handfuls of tea, mint, and chamomile, distributed in sacks, filled a briefcase. Perea didn’t want to bring a snack. Why, if, as Juan Pantaleón had told him, every rapids has a dining car? But his wife cut him off with an irrefutable supposition: “And if you feel like eating at midnight?” The case, indeed, could happen, and Don Higinio allowed himself to be convinced. He spent the afternoon in his study shuffling papers; then, when he could no longer see, always methodical and with a sadness of farewell, he wound all the clocks in the house. Teresita and her sister moved dinner time forward a little, fearful that someone would interrupt them; they wanted to be alone, free, in the delicious independence of isolation. Doña Emilia Her eyes were filled with tears; she couldn’t forget that that night was “her last,” and every now and then, over the plates, she caressed her husband’s hands. They were just about ready for dessert when Don Gregorio and Doña Lucía appeared, followed by their children, and after them the apothecary and Doña Benita. They hadn’t wanted to go before so as not to disturb anyone. “Are you coming to the station?” asked Perea. “Do you doubt it?” shouted the doctor. “We’ll all be there; they say “half of Casino” is coming to see you off. Not even the priest will be missing!… Have you read today’s El Faro?” Fernández dedicated a chronicle to you. Blushing, the traveler lowered his eyelids. His friends were very good. Why did they bother themselves so? He, frankly, didn’t deserve so much… They had just finished drinking their coffee when Don Jerónimo Arribas and Julio Cenén knocked on the door, and Don Higinio hastened to present them with Havana cigars and liqueurs. “How are you feeling?” the notary asked. “Fine, very fine. ” “Naturally! We all envy you!” He was small and pot-bellied, and had that labored breathing of the obese that suggests a desire to open the windows. He always wore three or four buttons loose on his waistcoat, and since his legs hung dangling when he sat down, he liked to link them to his cane, which he used as a bridge between the floor and the front edge of the chair. “I only ask you, dear Perea,” said Cenén, “for the cigarette case you know… ” “And I,” added Arribas, “don’t throw away my pianola.” There was a moment of pleasant and spicy banter. Don Gregorio had been intrigued by the town clerk’s admonition, and he began to taunt him. “Now we have Cenén in the dance, his head getting smaller and his pants getting shorter every day. What cigarette case is that?” The clerk, indeed, was just like Hernández said, and his sharp, bald head, his mouse-like eyes, and his pale face, topped by a pointed beard, lacked majesty. But, on the other hand, he had a quick and virulent retort and knew how to annoy. He reproached the doctor for his way of eating, his fatness, the horizontal crease that all his suits formed on his back, the size of his ogre-like feet, so large that the leather of his boots could cover a room. “I won’t say anything about his strength,” he added. “When I greet him in the street, I shake his hand closed. Let’s not even mention his elegance; one day I saw him in a tailcoat at the Casino and I felt like eating; he looked like a waiter.” All he needed was a napkin on his arm; his tailcoat had the effect of an aperitif on me… Stung, Don Gregorio wanted to reply: he might not be elegant, but he was hard-working, which, when dealing with married men, is the most important thing. “Do you understand that if it weren’t so, I, for example, who often go to bed at five in the morning, would be back on the street by eight? ” Cenén’s wit, which always had a harvest of sarcasm and poisonous aphorisms apropos of every great thing, immediately found a mortifying response: he remembered that Hernández wasn’t very clean. “Yes, we already know,” he said, “indeed… there are things you can smell, but you can’t explain…” Everyone was laughing, and the conversation was about to turn sour. Fortunately, a maid from the doorway announced the men who were to carry the luggage. The bystanders stood up. Don Gregorio clapped his hands loudly , imitating those with which, when he was a student, the janitors announced the entrance to class. It was nine o’clock. “The train arrives at fifteen to ten,” said the doctor, “but we must be getting closer to the station. We need to check in, and forty-five minutes will pass quickly.” His advice prevailed. In a trice, Teresita and Doña Emilia finished their preparations. Perea’s wife was inconsolable; her nose and eyelids were red, and with her incessant crying, she couldn’t powder herself properly. Teresita whispered to her brother-in-law: “The girls and the gardener want to go see you off. Will you give them some?” Permission?… Magnanimous, slightly disdainful, Don Higinio agreed. Why such a question? Let them go! When has he ever vexed or oppressed anyone?… One of the porters shouldered the sixty-odd kilos that the trunk weighed; the other picked up the hatbox, the blanket carrier, the satchel, and the luncheon wrapped in an issue of El Faro. Immediately, everyone, arranged two abreast, went out into the street. The weather was beautiful: a mild autumn night, warm and moonlit; the stars magnificently riddled the superb celestial velvet; The breeze lay asleep among the trees, which raised their green mystery against the whiteness of the hedges. Along the wide , deserted street, the single-story houses, with their beautifully whitewashed facades and ochre or blue painted door and window frames , formed a charming perspective. The traveler recounted his companionship: surrounding the men carrying the luggage were his children and the doctor’s; the children formed the vanguard. Teresa and Doña Benita followed them, then he and his wife, then Don Gregorio and Doña Lucía, who filled the entire sidewalk with the breadth of their backs; after them Julio Cenén and Don Cándido, then the notary, and finally the housekeeper, Vicenta the cook, the gardener, and the two hostesses who made up Don Higinio’s staff. Many blinds, those witchy blinds through which the local women see everything, discreetly opened with a disguise of insight and mystery as the small procession passed. As they crossed the plaza, Don Tomás Murillo joined them . Everyone greeted him without pausing and continued walking , somewhat bewildered, seeming to have heard, in the religious silence of the night and far away, the whistle of a train. The footsteps grew louder. In front, swinging encouragingly on the shoulders of the baggage handler who carried it, Don Higinio’s trunk, with its polished tin armor, gleaming in the lunar pallor, looked like a banner. When they arrived at the station, there were still few people; but the friends of that “half-casino” of which Don Gregorio Hernández had spoken were soon to appear. They saw them pass in small groups of four or five behind the blue and white fence that isolated the platform, and Don Higinio recognized them by their voices. “I think Don Pedro is coming… I think that cough belongs to Don Cesáreo…” Those who had accompanied Perea from his house surrounded Doña Emilia and Teresita, forming an honor guard. This situation, a little apart, made them proud: they were the good ones, the close ones, the ones who ” took charge” of the painful situation the family of the worthy expeditionary was going through. Don Higinio paced around , shaking hands, hearing and saying phrases whose meaning, in the comical turmoil of his thoughts, he didn’t quite understand. And he would say the same thing to all his friends: “But, man!… Why did you bother coming?… It wasn’t worth it!” The people who came to celebrate Perea’s departure with a salute numbered two hundred. Never, except for the day when the entire neighborhood gathered there to cheer the King, was the modest Serranillas platform the scene of such a demonstration. Among the groups, Juan Pantaleón, wrapped in his blanket, a lantern in his hand, displayed his emotion: the bittersweet restlessness of an old-time wanderer; he wasn’t selfish, since he couldn’t move from there, he was pleased that the others were leaving. On the two faces of the projecting clock that decorated the station facade, the black hands advanced inexorably. Doña Emilia was cold, afraid, and approaching her husband who was chatting with Gutiérrez, the postmaster, she squeezed his arm. Why hadn’t she kissed him more times that day? “How few minutes we have left together!” he murmured. To the group formed by the families of Don Gregorio and Don Cándido, the children and the servants of Perea brought various news, all of them nervous, interesting, chilling to the skin. “They’ve already checked in the trunk… The train is leaving the nearest station right now… They say it’s crossing the bridge now…” The belongings the traveler had been carrying had been placed at the edge of the platform, next to the track. Suddenly the crowd, shaken by those strange presentiments of the collective soul, swayed and swirled. The train was about to arrive. Juan Pantaleón advanced, separating the public: “Gentlemen, please withdraw; step back; the platform must be clear…” A trepidation was heard: something deep, arcane, like an earthquake; far away, in the immense darkness, a light shone. The express train. A very high-pitched whistle vibrated, and a white column of smoke billowed in graceful spirals over the chimney of the locomotive that had just emerged . The enormous, panting engine passed, covered in steam, radiating a hellish heat, and almost at the same time, suddenly, after a strident clatter of brakes, the convoy stopped. From the roar of arrival to the silence of the motionless, jammed cars, there was barely a transition. No one looked out of the closed, dark windows; no doubt all the passengers were asleep. And it was then, in those moments of absolute calm, that Juan Pantaleón, nervous, excited, and artistic as ever, sang the name of his town three times in his tenor voice. He looked at Don Higinio: “Serraniiiillas… two minutes!” Perea, moved and ridiculous, his eyes filled with tears. He hugged his wife, his sister-in-law, the children; he slipped from the doctor’s arms to fall into those of the pharmacist, the notary, the priest… A bell rang; there was no moment to lose. Quick, up!… Pushed, carried by everyone, and as if carried on a carriage, Don Higinio boarded a train car. Through the window, they handed him the blanket carrier, the hatbox, the briefcase, the lunch box… everything at a rapid pace, almost with blows. He was even able to shake several hands; he didn’t know whose… Someone shouted: “Long live Don Higinio Perea! ” “Long live!” the crowd repeated. And Don Gregorio: “Long live the conqueror of Paris! ” “Long live!” the chorus replied. The train was already rolling. The bystanders waved their hats in the air as they bid farewell to the traveler. Motionless at the window, Don Higinio waved a handkerchief; everyone watched that white handkerchief flutter for a long time; then, like a light that is extinguished, it disappeared…. The legend began. Chapter 3. Four days later, at seven in the morning, Don Higinio crossed the Bidasoa. Always modest, he traveled in second class. Leaning on a window seat, the bold La Mancha native observed with curious and eager eyes the new aspects that reality offered him. From Irún to Hendaye, despite their physical proximity, what an astonishing moral distance!… The landscape hadn’t changed, and yet the language, the clothes, even the characters, suddenly modified by the proverbial French friendliness, were different. Was it to be believed that a mountain, a stream, or a tunnel could separate men so much from each other?… More than the gendarmes’ attire, Perea admired the urban diligence and correctness of the platform porters. How could individuals who earned their living carrying trunks be so well-behaved? When the train pulled away, Don Higinio, although not sleepy, stretched out comfortably on one of the seats, happy to be alone; His blanket, his hatbox, his briefcase, and the rapier stick he carried separately occupied one of the small nets designated for luggage. The thought that the distance separating him from Serranillas was increasing every moment filled him with pride. None of his fellow countrymen had dared to go so far. “How much they’ll talk about me!” he thought. At the Saint-Jean-de-Luz station, a French couple and a gentleman with a square, blond beard boarded his compartment. Don Higinio immediately stood up and went to sit by a window, with his back to the machine, to better protect himself from the wind and dust. The man with the beautiful shimmering beard occupied an identical position near the opposite window. The couple also settled into that seat, so that she was on Don Higinio’s right. She was a small woman of medium height, neither thin nor fat, dressed in gray; she looked twenty years old, but the expression and mischief of her blue eyes revealed much more. She wore her hair short and beautifully curly, and in the joy of her rosy, healthy face, lay the temptation of a beautiful mouth: one of those small, plump, fleshy, strawberry-red mouths, absurdly correct and well-rounded, with which the wax mannequins in the windows of fashion stores smile. She had small, well-cared-for hands , and her little feet, which she rested comfortably on the edge of the seat opposite, were delicate and well-shod. The husband, tall, gaunt, and red-faced, his face adorned by a legitimate, long, drooping French mustache, had barely arranged his luggage and slipped his feet into the warm softness of a pair of Swiss slippers before sinking into Le Matin. Perea observed everything, and even the smallest thing was suspended and amazed. Never, not in Serranillas, nor in Almodóvar del Campo, nor even in Ciudad Real, had his eyes ever seen three such men. This was living! And his body trembled with fear, joy, and astonishment, as if the Adventure were passing by, brushing past him . Since it was cold, Don Higinio had to cover his legs with his traveling rug; his hands turned purple, and he suffered a raging desire to smoke, which he didn’t satisfy so as not to appear impolite. The couple exchanged a few words at long intervals, very few, and he returned to reading his newspaper. The gentleman with the golden beard was leafing through a book; and she, the young lady with the fiery mouth, was polishing her nails with an ivory polisher; with each movement, her curly walnut-colored curls trembled on the snow at the nape of her neck. Perea was ashamed of his idleness and laziness, and although shy, since novels and movies had filled his head with gallant railroad escapades, he began to look at the traveler with expressive intent. Abroad, Spaniards, if they are to maintain their Don Juan legend, need to be like that; to Don Higinio, that innocent flirtation seemed like a racial commitment. In Bayonne, they placed boiling water heaters for their feet, and two young Germans entered, hairless, blond, and white, like Nibelung heroes, who, judging by their good looks, courtly distinction of gestures, and great cheerfulness, must have been wealthy students. They had sat opposite Don Higinio, and the train had barely resumed its journey when the tallest of them began to stare at the French lady with obvious eagerness and complacency, as if her husband weren’t even there. Perea watched their gestures out of the corner of his eye: they were undoubtedly speaking of him, and this annoyed him so much that it put him in a fighting mood. Fortunately, his rapier was there. To suppress his anger and distract himself, he tried to look at the landscape, but he couldn’t; a dense fog covered the fields, and the vapor from their breathing and heaters had fogged up the car windows. Furthermore, the German students obsessed him. Were they making fun of him? They noticed the tenacity with which the swarthy La Mancha native spied on them, and perhaps with the sly purpose of reassuring him, they politely asked him: “Do you understand German?” Don Higinio Perea shrugged, blushing like a young lady, and his embarrassment increased when he noticed the traveler turning her pretty head toward him and her scarlet mouth filling with laughter. The students, very pleased, repeated their question in French: “Not a word,” replied Don Higinio. “Spanish? ” “Yes, Spanish…” This was the only thing he understood clearly, and he replied with such fortitude that his vehemence seemed like a challenge. However, the cordial simplicity with which the Germans had spoken to him dispelled his hatred and reduced his will to sympathy and meekness. “They must have thought I was the husband,” he mused. From that moment on, he felt recovered and calm, and it even seemed to him that the pretty traveler’s presence established a certain complicity between him and the students. At the other end of the car, the gentleman with the square, sun-kissed beard was impassively reading a book. The Germans chatted, laughed, and gesticulated as if boxing; then they uncorked a bottle of beer, took bread and cold cuts from a basket, and began to have a snack. The young woman seemed to listen to them with singular interest, occasionally lowering her head, swallowing a smile. They questioned her: “Do you understand German?” They were referring to the man with the straight, bushy mustache who was reading Le Matin. She replied very astutely: “I do, gentlemen; I understand and speak it; my husband doesn’t.” The husband asked in a low voice: “What are they saying? ” “They’re asking if you know German.” —Yeah… And she looked at them with a negative nod. Ceremonious and very proper, the two young men bowed. For a long time, Don Higinio, tired of lovemaking and glances, dedicated himself to searching with his right foot for the French girl’s, who, without the compromising fuss of a woman being pursued, delicately dodged his. The students were surprised by the clumsy pursuit and commented on it with the hilarious and boisterous exuberance that her husband’s certainty of not being understood allowed them. The young woman, barely restraining her inner joy, bit her lips, thus increasing their tempting moisture and bloodthirsty color. They continued talking without ceasing to stare at her, equally overcome by the red spell of her small, almost round mouth, burning like the fresh scar of a fire button. Suddenly, the locomotive whistled, and the train, its lights off, entered the gloom of a tunnel. Don Higinio, whose sexual gluttony was already greatly alarmed, both by the rattling of the carriage and by the warm, fragrant proximity of the traveler, took advantage of that opportunity to pinch the French girl on the buttocks. If only Emilia could see him!… And then something unheard of, Tartarin-esque , and beyond all probability and reason happened. Hardly had Don Higinio realized his sinful thought when it seemed to him that in the vast darkness of the carriage a shadow was advancing, and at the same time that he heard an anxious kiss crackling near him, full of vehement lust, he received the most formidable, infamous, and scandalous slap ever given to the La Mancha native. And since his enemy, the better to affront and mock him, delivered it with his open hand, if the impact wasn’t severe, the stinging of the struck cheek and the subsequent ridicule from the resounding blow were enormous. When the train returned to light, Perea, the two Germans, and the French girl’s husband looked at each other questioningly and threateningly: some seemed surprised, others enraged. Even the man with the similor beard, who had heard the swift fury with which the kiss was responded to by the slap, monologued a few words in English. The French girl’s husband, trembling, had thrown Le Matin to the ground, and beneath his smooth Gallic mustache, his lips blanched with anger. He was certain that they had kissed his wife and that she—the good, the heroic one—hardly received the insult than she harshly punished the offender. But which of those four men was the wretch? And without moving, their fists clenched, and their eyes, inflamed, piercing like knives, darted insultingly from one to another, looking for a victim. The traveler, too, could not explain what had happened. Young lips —she would swear they were young—lips that smelled of Egyptian cigarettes and clover, had crushed themselves swiftly and frantically against hers; but the person who had kissed her—the thief of her mouth could have been any of the three men nearest to her—did not interest her as much as the author of that opportune and cruel slap that resonated like a stone on a mirror. Who could have defended her like that? It wasn’t her husband, the perplexity that disturbed the the expression of the man with the drooping mustache. “So?” Don Higinio, for his part, was embarrassed; the anomalousness and ridiculousness of his situation drove him mad. He had no doubt that one of the students had given the kiss, just as he swore it was the French girl who slapped him, and so, while he envied the German and adored the graceful, childlike delicacy of that hand, he marveled at his manly effort. Ah, if only he could have explained himself! He was only reassured by the certainty that it was a woman, not a man, who had developed that annoying heat on his cheek, that sort of deep tingling that was momentarily transforming into swelling. The filthiness of his conscience allowed him to explain the traveler’s mistake: he was the one with the suggestive glances, the one who stamped his feet, the one who pinched, in short. Thus, the young woman, feeling kissed, turned against him. It was only natural! At the end of his meditations, Perea found himself consoled: ” white hands,” if they anger, they don’t offend; how much worse would it have been if the man from Le Matin had found out! Meanwhile, the Germans were whispering animatedly; the tallest one explained to his companion what had happened; it was a crazy, vaudevillian incident, worthy of Boccaccio or Casanova the gentleman. Minutes before, at the precise moment the train plunged into the tunnel, the darkness inspired in him a mad, sadistic, uncontrollable desire to kiss his traveling companion on the mouth; and at the same time, barely thinking about it, he had satisfied that frenzy, to protect himself from suspicion, he brought his open hand down on Don Higinio’s blown coramvobis . The two students roared with laughter at the wit: it was a Machiavellian improvisation, a strident, comical stroke of caricaturist genius. The adventure had no ramifications and went no further. The couple got off the plane in Landes, and the Germans and the gentleman with the golden beard stayed in Bordeaux; for Don Higinio, had the annoying swelling in his cheeks not persisted, would have come to believe that the whole comical adventure, with the figures involved, was a Goyaesque invention of a dream and a laugh. In the café at the Bordeaux station, Perea wrote two postcards: one addressed to his wife, and the other to Don Gregorio. The first read: “I arrived safely. I’ll be continuing on to Paris in a few moments. France is admirable. You’ll hear my impressions. Kisses.” And the second: “I just drank a glass of this unrivaled wine to your health and that of my friends at the Casino . I resume my journey. I embrace you all.” Don Higinio sighed. All of this was a lie; but would the uniform, sleepy, and prudish reality be acceptable if, at intervals, we didn’t shed over its vulgarity the seasoned beauty of an innocent deception? As the train left Bordeaux, it was raining heavily: one of those compact, silent, as if made of mist, downpours of the French autumn. Everywhere, thick chestnut groves, carefully cultivated green fields, two-story cottages with pointed slate roofs, Norman cows with swollen udders and kindly looks , lying on the ground, receiving the downpour. And in the distance, alternately appearing or eluding among the groups of buildings, a stretch of sea, sailboat masts, chimneys, cranes, and the famous towers of the cathedral, raising their slenderness above the gray monotony of the city saddened by water and smoke. Many days after arriving at the end of his journey, Don Higinio, every morning, upon waking up in his little room at the hotel in the Alps, had the same thought: “I’m in Paris.” And to this pure, almost abstract idea, a strong and candid inner joy responded: Paris!… The theater of all novels, of all the comic adventures that unfold in the cinemas, of millionaires, of the great hetaerae who made the gallant kings of England and Belgium forget the weight of their crowns; the stage of all the serial and arcane crimes that shock the world. Paris!… The focus of elegance, of art and vice, where money, beauty, and the good taste of a refined civilization had installed the most famous bedrooms in Europe! Paris!… And he, a modest resident of the very modest village of Serranillas, was there, in the City of the Sun, fifteen cents by bus from the Venus de Milo, and another fifteen from the Jardin des Plantes!… Two weeks had passed since the soles of his La Mancha boots had resounded beneath the vaults of the Orleans Station, and a carriage had taken him to the Hotel des Alpes, located at the crossroads of the Rues de Trévise and Bleue, there in the Montmartre-like joys of the ninth arrondissement. From then on, nothing happened to him that deserved the honors of a postcard: he didn’t even see the Louvre, nor did he have the opportunity to go to the Bois de Boulogne, nor to visit any of the picturesque cafés in Clichy; he hadn’t even seen the Seine again since the morning he crossed it over the Pont Royal. No walks, no friends, no one-night stands, nothing!… And yet, Don Higinio was happy, and the days slipped by without him noticing, as if the air of the Babel-like city were enough to fill him with satisfaction and pride. The first few days, after lunch, accompanied by Francisco, the hotel interpreter—a Piedmontese who had learned Spanish in Cádiz— he walked the “grand boulevards” from the Church of the Magdalena to the Plaza de la República. The resounding rumble of cars, automobiles, and streetcars; the stagecoach and the throng of that cosmopolitan crowd that clogged the sidewalks and the terraces of the cafés; the succession of luxurious shop windows; the endless profusion of lights; the perpetual coming and going of women, pretty and elegant, with porcelain fragility and violet eyelids, who passed by, revealing the defiant temptation of openwork stockings beneath the edging of their dresses ; the freshness of the autumnal atmosphere, the exercise… everything contributed to the exhaustion of Don Higinio’s lean muscles and sedentary, hoarse mood , so that he felt compelled to eat something at every moment. His companion, who was already old and had a red nose, especially at night, ordered absinthe and talked about Piedmont; Don Higinio drank beer and tried to explain to his interlocutor the amenities of the La Mancha landscape: a land can be very strange, interesting, and worthy of study, even if it doesn’t resemble Switzerland. After the fourth or fifth drink, the daring traveler began to feel dizzy, and this slight dizziness enhanced his natural kindness: “If luck ever took you to Serranillas,” he said, ” you would lack nothing.” Francisco raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders: the expression of an adventurer who doesn’t know where life’s adventures might lead him. “Who knows!” he replied, “I like to have friends everywhere.” Do you understand?… Friends!… Not enemies!… He dipped his old sergeant’s mustache in the fatal green of his absinthe, and, squinting his eyes over the redness of his nose, he repeated: “Friends, nothing more than friends!” And Don Higinio: “Before I return to Spain, I’ll leave you my address. ” “Good, very good; nobody knows… right?… Nobody knows… I don’t have any family… Do you understand?… I don’t have any family, and that hotel thing… Bah!… Any day now… eh?… Nobody knows. Do you understand?… That’s it. Friends, nothing more than friends!” The poor devil would get drunk after three or four glasses of absinthe; but this, far from offending Perea, pleased him. How he enjoyed himself and what strange fellows he was meeting! The nobleman from La Mancha loved everything that, according to his simple opinion, had something snobbish about it, and the idea of meeting an Italian, who might be a murderer, drinking beer and absinthe on the terrace of a Parisian café, seemed to him a sharp note of cosmopolitanism. If only they knew that in Serranillas, where everything seemed so bad!… Already on the way back to the hotel, as Don Higinio was about to get into the elevator to go up to his room, Francisco, familiarly, shook his hand. Then, in a low voice: “If you ever need a little woman, don’t hesitate to Tell me, you understand? Don’t be shy. The body of the Madonna! I know Paris! In the following days, Perea decided to go out alone. He knew that by following the Rue Bleue he reached the Rue de La Fayette and then the Rue de Laffitte, which led him to the Boulevard des Italianes. Then he learned another, simpler and no less lively route: via the Rue Faubourg Poissonnière to the boulevard of the same name. He dared not cross that magnificent thoroughfare, full of movement, temptations, and lights, and draped like a resplendent necklace over the map of Paris: he judged nothing more beautiful, more blinding, and overflowing with richness and life, to be impossible. Then, the fear of “the Apaches”!… Thus, on the afternoon when, with no other support than his rapier stick, he decided to walk along the Boulevard Sebastopol toward the river, and saw from the Place Châtelet the towers of Notre-Dame graying against the melancholy of a foggy, humid, and joyful afternoon, genuinely Parisian, his joy was as intense as the cowardly anxiety he had suffered on the way there. Little by little, as his courage increased, his will softened, and he resolved to travel greater distances, and thus, on his way back to the hotel, he was able to affect the interpreter’s eyes with the important air of a man who has traveled a long way and has business. The indications on a map he acquired for three francs guided him effectively. The witchy spirit of the city was approaching his timid soul and seducing it. One morning he got on the subway and ended up at the Arc de Triomphe; That night he was at the Folies Bergère; the next day a bus and a steam tram took him to the Bois… Generally, Don Higinio, faithful to the healthy rusticity of his habits, woke up early, but he never got up before ten. Those were moments of exquisite inner tranquility: he craved nothing; neither memories nor desires stirred his conscience… Everything the same in the gentle plain of the hours that had passed and of the hours that were coming!… From his bed he comfortably inspected his room: the window opening onto a patio, the dressing table with its mirror and marble stone, the mirrored wardrobe, that small table, covered by a red rug, where he wrote in his even and sure handwriting the four or five postcards he sent daily to Serranillas; the slightly threadbare carpet; the blue jute chairs with oval backs, and in one corner his resplendent, multi-colored trunk, the hatbox, the blanket rack, the briefcase—all the good family objects that accompanied him on that perilous exodus and spoke of his peaceful life in La Mancha. Smoking cigarettes and absorbed in the sweet warmth of the bedspreads, Perea let time pass. Like boredom before, it was sin, the temptation of adultery, that now inflamed and disturbed him. He had never cheated on Doña Emilia; out of habit, out of fear of contracting some dangerous contagion, or perhaps simply for lack of opportunity, he didn’t do it: it was one of those fidelities without sacrifice that women don’t appreciate. But now his idleness, his prolonged continence, the street display of so many desirable voluptuousnesses , and, above all, the atmosphere of Paris—the atmosphere of the bedroom—intoxicating and amoral like a glass of aged sherry, had transfigured him. The lascivious whim hallucinated him. He began to understand the torment of ascetics sought by the devil. Ah, the muttering, cunning, invincible Temptation! Many times he remained motionless, his eyes fixed on a corner of the bedroom, as if the woman, still nameless and profileless, were crouching there. Then, with a leap, he would sit up, fasten his tobacco-colored knitted underpants over the roundness of his abdomen, slip on a pair of cloth slippers, and open the door. There were his boots, already cleaned, and inside them the letters the mail had brought. Don Higinio read them standing up, a little trembling. Oh! Those letters from Spain, on whose seal he read the name Serranillas , perhaps stamped by Gutiérrez himself, stirred in his heart the feeling for his homeland. But he immediately calmed down: the news was good; nothing unpleasant had happened; Doña Emilia sent him many kisses and recommended that he dress warmly before going out; Teresita, in a postscript, reminded him of the corset for Doña Lucía; Julio Cenén spoke to him of his cigarette case, and Don Gregorio of two excellent greyhounds he had bought… Looking inward, Perea reconstructed the entire material and moral life of his town, motionless, monotonous, as if fossilized, and he felt the horror of returning to it. Bah, but he would return!… The past is a terrible chain that we wear on our feet, and the honest man from La Mancha felt that, of all the slaveries that oppress man, none is as strong as the memory of the people who, having always been faithful to him, love him and wait for him. The dining room of the Hotel des Alpes was spacious, with a frosted glass ceiling through which a milky light descended, harmonizing pleasantly with the dark carpet, the jeweled luminosity of the crockery, and the impeccable whiteness of the tablecloths. Don Higinio had lunch at twelve o’clock: at that hour there were few people, and the waiters served better. He invariably occupied a small table near a balcony, from where he overlooked the lively intersection of Rue Bleue and Rue Trévise. Near him, dining was a wealthy young Englishman, an artist, Mr. Grand, who, according to the interpreter, had gone to study painting in Paris. “But he’s a madman,” Francisco said, envious of him, “and he won’t do anything; I do n’t think he’s slept here three nights in one month… ” Further on, a married couple was set up. The wife, pretty, elegant, very nervous, very pale, with long, bright, black eyes, seemed Italian. He was a Dutch giant, blond, enormous, and pink as a newborn. He had a beard, a thick, flowing patriarchal beard that almost reached his waist, and behind the lenses of gold-rimmed glasses, his blue pupils gazed with bovine serenity. He ate a lot, and since he was somewhat hunched in the shoulders, the curvature of his spine gave him a repugnant expression of sensuality and gluttony. How could such a pleasant, petite woman like that have married such an animal?… Lacking other occupations, between courses, Don Higinio dedicated himself to hating the Dutchman with all the vigor of his La Mancha blood . His hatred seemed like a premonition of something evil. Where could such a dart have come from?… He was annoyed by his violent way of breaking bread, of laughing, of raising his glass of beer to his thick lips . Don Higinio felt like hitting him, and since his southern imagination was easily carried away and derailed, he fantasized that he was engaged in a desperate and chivalrous hand-to-hand combat with the Dutchman right there : he would rush at his enemy and, knocking him to the ground, deal him several mortal blows with his dessert knife; then he would rise tragically and gallantly, and seize the Italian woman by the waist and flee with her… The origin of this hatred must have been related to the healthy equanimity and orderliness that the slightest examination revealed in all the giant’s gestures and details. The man was well dressed, correct, calm, Herculean: he had the strength of his muscles and the power of his foresight. Perea observed him and didn’t surprise him with even a nervous wink as he spoke, nor a movement that denoted annoyance or forgetfulness of something. The Dutchman had “everything,” even glasses and a beard, and he knew how to use everything appropriately: if it was raining heavily, he would show up in the dining room wearing a raincoat, overshoes, and leather gaiters; if the weather was changeable, he carried an umbrella. At night, to go to the theater, he would don a magnificent fur coat; during the day, he wrapped himself in a scarf and a green and gray checked English overcoat. He didn’t boast of being elegant, but he owned several morning suits, tailcoats, smoking jackets, and a full mourning suit to attend funerals. Don Higinio also noticed how his hotel companion, whenever he changed clothes, always changed gloves, socks, a tie, and a cane; that he smoked. sometimes a pipe and other times a Havana cigar, and he frequently changed the rings worn on the index and little fingers of his left hand. Perea, so regulated by habit and inheritance, was nevertheless irritated by the chronometric rhythm of that blond, fleshy foreigner, who seemed to have everything planned and in whose existence, for that very reason, there could never be an exclamation of surprise. Besides, he hated him because he was tall. Nothing, not even the figure of Napoleon, relieves for short men the pain of not having grown up. Women, forced to choose between a dwarf and a giant, will always prefer the latter; for them, devotees of form, David has not killed Goliath. Excessive height implies an idea of empire. Tall men are beautiful, imposing, decorative; in the theater, and the same is true in life, the public does not accept the amorous successes of a diminutive gallant. The voice that comes from above is more convincing, more authoritative; the comedians of Athens and Rome wore cothurnus; the first thing Jehovah himself did to earn respect was to climb Mount Sinai… November was ending, and Perea had no intention of returning to his hometown, nor did he bother to fulfill the tasks entrusted to him by his honorable will and diligence. He spent the first few weeks wandering around, walking the streets, visiting cafés, visiting theaters, and reminiscing about those two French courses he had passed as a boy at the Ciudad Real Institute. Afterward, he suffered a cold, accompanied by a fever, which forced him to take to his bed and seek a doctor. Don Higinio accepted this misfortune unperturbed and, without complaint, purged himself and sweated as much as necessary. The constant, restorative, vaguely romantic idea of ”being in Paris” excited him and was sufficient for his contentment. He did nothing, and yet, he lacked time for everything; He even neglected to write to Serranillas, despite how much his wife raged and grieved over those silences. It was an inexpressible and delightful nirvana, a still, fragrant inner quietude that harbored a whisper of skirts, an exquisite desire for adventure. Even if he had entered Paris, according to the graphic saying of the common people, Paris had not entered him: it was too vast to be enclosed in a quick synthesis; he couldn’t savor it comfortably, his emotions were in disarray. And like the days, his money was slipping away: of the ten thousand pesetas he had taken from his village, he had spent nearly half . On what? Don Higinio arched his hairy eyebrows; he didn’t know; let them not ask him anything: there was something ghostly in all of it, a blurring of his personality, of his former provident and rigid habits; a pleasant, soothing, bohemian unconsciousness that made him happy. Still recovering from his cold, Don Higinio Perea went out into the street and, taking La Fayette and Laffitte streets, reached the boulevard. He was well wrapped up, and the sun, that good Parisian sun that scatters the sidewalks with women’s laughter, was making itself felt on his shoulders. Perea went into a café, ordered an aperitif, and read a gallant story in Le Journal. He almost never bought Le Matin; he hated it; it reminded him of his unpleasant adventure on the train. At midday, he started back to the Hotel des Alpes. To distract himself, he improvised a new route along Rue Drouot. At the Grange Batelière, in front of the Passage Jouffroy, an old woman dressed in black and wearing a violet velvet bonnet adorned with a bunch of cherries over her white hair, approached him mysteriously. “Is the gentleman a foreigner?” Don Higinio understood. “Yes, ma’am.” Foreigner, Spanish… He said it in abominable French, slowly and with his lips protruding widely, like children when they begin to speak. His interlocutor, however , understood him: “I’m glad you’re a foreigner, because it will make it less embarrassing for me to explain myself. I’m a widow and live in the greatest misery. Ah! If you only knew how much I suffered before reaching this extreme situation!… In the workshops, women’s work is very poorly paid; you can believe me, sir: I haven’t eaten since yesterday…” Perea’s square shoulders, who had stopped to listen, rose expressively in disgust and disdain. And was that why they bothered him? He mumbled an apology and tried to move on. But the old woman, walking at his side, insisted: “Sir… you are a distinguished gentleman… a gentleman of heart… ” “I don’t carry any change. ” “A sacrifice, sir… a small sacrifice. If you won’t do it for me, do it for my girls. I have two daughters, sir, one sixteen, the other eighteen… pretty as can be… whom you could protect… ” Involuntarily, Don Higinio shortened his pace, and his face, momentarily dull, began to light up. His lucid, sensual pestorejo, tormented by chastity, between the syllables of those badly translated words, he had felt the serpent laugh. The beggar woman, trembling with emotion, her blue eyes shining with greed, continued: “If only you could see them! The youngest, especially, has a beautiful body. I want you to meet them, sir. They are so beautiful! You could be the salvation of both of them.” And when he remained silent, choking on what he wanted and could not find the way to say, the old woman added: “I’ll be frank with you: I love them very much, they are my daughters! But if they are to be lost, as will inevitably happen, I would be glad if they had a protector like you; a man like that, of the world… because experienced men are the best judges of a woman’s worth.” Overwhelmed by emotion, Don Higinio asked: “Where could I meet them? ” “At my house. I live on the Rue de Feydeau… you understand? Near the Bourse… ” “I don’t remember.” “How?” Yes!… On the other side of the boulevard… Rue Feydeau, number nine, fourth floor, door number two. Madame Berta… Don Higinio took out a pencil, and since he didn’t have a wallet or any sheet of white paper, he offered his interlocutor the left cuff of his shirt. “Write the address yourself; it’s better.” The old woman did so; then… “When will you come to see us?” Perea consulted his stomach: he was hungry, and in love affairs it’s best to go well-fed, since from a generous diet of the flesh almost always comes optimism and a better disposition of the spirit. “At six o’clock, for example? ” “Perfectly, yes, sir; at six o’clock, because until then the girls work in an electric lamp workshop. ” “Do they earn much? ” “One franc between the two of them. ” And he added: “Sir… Can you help me with something?… Look at the time ; I still have to take their lunch to the workshop and I don’t have a cent.” Slowly, Don Higinio unbuttoned his coat; he put a hand to his waistcoat. He reflected. If he really intended to seduce both little sisters, why warn them against him by appearing so reticent and stingy on this occasion?… Weren’t first impressions always the best?… With parsimony and dissimulation, full of nobility, Perea slipped a ten-franc piece into the rough hand of that mother, a model of procuresses. ” Here, and see you this afternoon. Attic number two, isn’t it?… Madame Berta… ” “That’s it, sir; thank you very much…; that’s it…; goodbye, goodbye…” And agile, happy, under the grotesque shrillness cast on her white hair by the cherries of her violet cap, the old woman disappeared into the Passage Jouffroy. Don Higinio ate a sumptuous lunch. He was happy, and his joy produced an indescribable hyperesthesia and joy in his stomach. He helped himself to two plates of the soup, which was crab soup, and the waiter took away the plate of empanadas that had been brought to him empty; his unbridled appetite also caused great destruction among the partridges. As always, the Dutchman and his wife were eating a few tables away; but Don Higinio barely looked at them: it was the first time that the man with the colossal hands and feet had not suggested ideas of extermination to him. Completely absorbed in his cup of coffee, a little congested by As Don Higinio watched the prospects of a harem dance in space, his digestion and the voluptuous flow of his thoughts . What would his future friends be like? The image of the French girl he met on the train returned to his memory. They would resemble her: their pearly flesh, their short blond hair… He saw himself climbing the stairs of the house where temptation had met him, paternally caressing the rosy cheeks of two creatures simultaneously vibrant with sinful curiosity and blush, seating them on his knees, kissing them with wise care, and then, finally, with graceful pauses, explaining to them all the chapters of the Greedy Mystery; And later, touring the outskirts of Paris with them: excursions to Versailles, fishing trips on the banks of the Seine, fauna-like lunches in the ancient forests of Saint Cloud… Afterwards, when he had to return to his village, if they continued to be good and sensible, he would take them to Spain, and in Ciudad Real he would look for a reserved place, a kind of La Mancha Elysee, where he could visit them without scandal twice a week. He didn’t care about Madame Berta; ridiculous old woman!… His daughters, on the other hand, had to be taken away, and for good. Don Higinio’s thoughts never went beyond that; nor why else?… To be the lover of two sisters and have them together under the same roof, in love with him, happy, without jealousy, dedicated to the task of constantly inventing new caresses for their greater amusement and flattery ! Could this not be the unheard-of adventure his ardent heart had sensed hidden among the banknotes the lottery had brought him?… Unable to remain still, and as time passed, his nervous itch grew worse, he went out into the street and, along Richelieu Street , reached the Seine in one fell swoop. A fierce battle of old customs and immoral ideas, new to him, disturbed his spirit. At times, he seemed to be staring into a very deep pit. The man who, having the power to steal a fortune, failed to do so, proved his honesty; just as he demonstrated his chivalry when he respected and returned to his duty and honesty the maiden who had innocently offered herself to him; as proved their courage, those who did not tremble, having found themselves in danger and the anguish of death. But he who has never experienced any of these perilous situations, what does he know of himself?… This happened to him, a local and a fool, who, as soon as he was exposed to the siren temptations of the world, began to tremble and become entangled like an adolescent. The obvious possibility he faced of deceiving his wife with Madame Berta’s daughters seemed extremely serious to him, and considering that his future lovers were sisters and still practically children, his crime grew, turning into a monstrous case of incest and bigamy. But then his conscience calmed down, and to serve his selfishness, he found in everything the casuistic reason of man a motive and excuse. There are
superficial affections that, like small change, can be carried without risk, in full view of the crowd, because if someone covets them and seizes them, it will cause us no greater harm; and others, on the other hand, the great, the sacred, those linked to the deepest roots of our sentimental tree, which must be hidden like treasures and are not susceptible to being changed anywhere. Don Higinio prudently reflected that his love for Doña Emilia belonged to the latter, and with that, having clearly defined the boundaries of his interior garden, convinced that the harsh whim that leads to a brothel does not offend his wife, and, therefore, that his home in Serranillas did not prevent Madame Berta’s daughters from having a small hotel in Ciudad Real, he was able to discard all puritanical and saddening scruples and abandon himself fully to the joy that his great fortune had in store for him. Self-assured, his fists clenched, his chin tucked, his stride short, his gaze shining, at six o’clock sharp Don Higinio Perea stopped in front of number nine Feydeau Street. He checked the writing on his shirt cuff to make sure: it was there. The hallway, modest in appearance, smelled damp. At the back, behind a wooden door, crystals, was the staircase. Engrossed in his green desires, the gallant was passing by the porter’s lodge when a female voice called out to him: “Sir, where are you going? ” “To the fourth floor, Madame Berta… ” “Madame Berta?” The woman knitted her eyebrows; her lips formed a hostile grimace. “I don’t know that lady. You see, if I hadn’t called you? You should always ask at the porter’s lodge. No Madame Berta lives here.” Humble, conciliatory, understanding that in adventures of the kind that took him there, the porters always act as a kind of intermediary, the gallant placed a two-franc piece in the gloved hands of his interlocutor . Then, smiling, certain that the good woman would immediately remember: “She’s a lady in mourning, a widow…” A faint blush prevented him from saying more. The porter, without showing any gratitude, had put the two francs in a pocket of her apron. Beneath his white cap, closely cropped and clean, his sullen face slowly repeated, with a slowness full of conviction, a negative movement. Perea felt a wave of blood rise to his throat; a horrible feeling had just pierced his temples; he would declare everything… “She’s a poor woman with two young daughters, the youngest sixteen, the other eighteen, working in an electric lamp factory… ” “Come on, yes, I understand… I understand what you were looking for… Well, it’s not here; they’ve lied to you…” Putting everything he knew of French to the service of his cause, and with the fanaticism of a man defending his happiness—all his happiness—Don Higinio replied: “It’s not possible!… I know Madame Berta very well. A woman… with a violet-colored bonnet and some cherries… You see; She herself wrote these addresses: number nine, Rue Feydeau, fourth floor, door number two… And she showed her fist where the beggar had left an imaginary address. The concierge laughed. “Sir, don’t bother yourself; they’ve tricked you, and I swear you don’t know the lady who wrote that. I assure you: they’ve tricked you.” Don Higinio didn’t insist any further and went out into the street; he was so flustered, so ashamed of himself, that he didn’t even dare reflect on the naive ridiculousness of what had just happened to him. He was a fool, a complete idiot, who should never have left his village! Did he look like a fool? First, the slap in the train; now, Madame Berta. The old woman, the damned scamp! And how she and her bigardonas daughters would have gloated over the half-louis they swindled him out of! Well, what about the concierge? And the two francs he foolishly gave her so that, in the end, she would mock him? The violence of his resentment quickened his pace and set his ears alight; he was flying. He crossed the Boulevard des Italiens and continued along the Rue Drouot, toward his house. All the images of voluptuousness that had moved him that afternoon had turned into inextinguishable embers of hatred. He came to detest the Rue Feydeau and even the name Feydeau. Oh! He would never read a novel by that author! His heart was burning; it was a horrific conflagration fueled by all the rubble of the little hotel he had dreamed of in Ciudad Real for Madame Berta’s girls . Seeing him arrive so congested, François felt obliged to ask him if he had had any trouble. “No, nothing,” he replied evasively. “Then it’s the cold.” —That’s it, the cold… See you later. The dining room clock read half past seven. Perea took his table, nodded slightly to the Dutchman and his wife, who were already at dessert, and ordered two soft-boiled eggs . The waiter, agile and ceremonious in his tailcoat, like a magician, asked: —And then?… —Nothing else. —Are you feeling ill? —No; but I’m not hungry. He drained a good glass of wine to clear his mouth, and this began to He was looking at the Italian woman, pale, interesting, more attractive than usual in the tight-fitting, tailored suit she was wearing that evening. She, at intervals, distractedly, perhaps out of coquetry, looked at him as well. Don Higinio, revived, ordered the waiter to bring him turtle soup and a steak with potatoes. He ended up forgetting his disaster and dining supper lavishly. His fickle spirit recovered. He was happy. He truly deserved, for his evil heart, the deception and mockery he was subjected to. What a mess! Because if he helped Madame Berta with half a louis, he did so with more thoughts of his daughters’ beauty than of her helplessness. He had just finished finishing his cup of coffee and ordering a small glass of cognac when the interpreter arrived. At that moment, the Dutchman and his wife were leaving the dining room; Mr. Grand, the young English apprentice painter, had also left, and Don Higinio was left alone facing the vastness of the living room, covered in a cheerful light green, with its dozens of small tables covered with fine, shining glassware on the jealous whiteness of the tablecloths. Francisco approached Perea. “You’ve finished dinner, and now I’ll begin.” His nose was crimson, and beneath his half-closed eyelids, his blue eyes, burnished by absinthe, gazed with stupid stillness. He smelled of alcohol. “Did you enjoy yourself a lot?” Don Higinio shook his head with the vague, indifferent gesture of a man of the world. “Psch… there was everything!” They talked about women. Abruptly, after a boisterous burst of laughter, the Piedmontese exclaimed: “Tonight, when I saw you coming in from the street with your ears so perked up, I thought: ‘Señor Perea is coming back from spending the afternoon with a young lady.'” Now, tell me if I was wrong: is it true or not true?… Perea leaned back against the back of his chair; his healthy face had all the insolence of happiness: his jumping gaze, the Havana cigar smoking between the wet lipstick on his lips, the thumbs of both hands tucked into his waistcoat pockets , while the other fingers boastfully tapped the epicurean roundness of his abdomen… “Yes,” he affirmed, “it’s true. Why deny it?… Even if one is married, right?… one can allow oneself certain distractions. This morning, in front of the Jouffroy Passage, a lady approached me… And poised, unfolding imaginative luxuries worthy of a playwright, he described an adventure where what was fantasized was embodied and fused with what happened, and vice versa. He described Madame Berta: small, in mourning, with her flaxen hair and violet cap. He had gone to her house; A small garret on the Rue Feydeau, poorly furnished but very clean, from whose single window one could see a large section of Paris. There he met Elisabet and Georgina, Madame Bertha’s daughters. They were both pretty, affectionate, perverse… Especially the youngest, Elisabet: a kind of Salome, with all the lubricity of a panther on her back!… Oh!… Saying this, he closed his eyes. Francisco listened to him, open-mouthed, a grimace of senile lust on his lips, his red nose drooping and seemingly perched on his mustache. “These adventures,” he observed, “usually cost dearly: there are many souteneurs, convicts who live off women, and they can give you a fright. Don’t trust them; I know Paris.” Don Higinio made a disdainful gesture and stood up. He looked around . No one. The dining room was deserted. Then he pulled out a knife with a triangular blade and a black handle that he had placed behind his back, across his loins; a butcher’s knife that he had bought in Ciudad Real for nine reales when he went with Don Gregorio Hernández to collect the one hundred thousand pesetas in the lottery . “As long as you accompany me,” he exclaimed, “I need two men to fight me.” Having made this heroic declaration, he went up to his room. It was ten o’clock, and the turbulent emotions of that day had shaken and ground him so that even his bones ached. He began to undress, and as he took off his clothes, he placed them on the back of his chair. the chairs, as Doña Emilia had taught him to make, so they wouldn’t wrinkle. As he passed by the window, he happened to glance out and saw on the lower floor, and on the other side of the courtyard, black as a cliff, the rectangle filled with white light of a window. It was the Dutchman’s bedroom. For a few moments, Don Higinio remained so suspended and astonished that even the flow of blood must have slowed in his impressionable heart; but reacting immediately , he extinguished the light, thanks to which the images that successively appeared in the illuminated window redoubled their intensity and clarity. The couple forgot to close the blinds, and their intimacy unfolded in full public view. They were ridiculous, grotesque, voluptuous tableaux that the buffoonish art of Téniers would have liked to paint. The Dutchman, in his underwear, sitting on a low chair, was washing his feet. Don Higinio saw his calves, white and strong, worthy of a marble titan; his blond head, his powerful loins, bent laboriously forward. She, the Italian, had begun to undress near the bed. To get a better look at her, Don Higinio had to get down on his knees. Crouching like a tiger, vibrant with curiosity, spurred on by lascivious desires that, like pins, pierced his flesh, Perea looked on, pressing his nose against the windowpane . The spectacle was worth it. The young woman took off her blouse; she got rid of her skirt; bunches of the finest lace, as if woven from threads of Venusian foam, adorned her arms and back and clung to her knees; at intervals she turned toward her husband, as if speaking to him. Both knees resting against the edge of the bed, her bust arched back, the Italian woman lifted her chemise, and her jeweled hands—those tiny hands Perea had seen come and go so many times, back in the dining room, from the hors d’oeuvres platter to the wine bottle—began to slowly stroke the matte smoothness of her hips, where the cruel laces of her corset had left a network of vermilion marks. She was a beautiful sculpture: broad-shouldered, small-waisted, round-hipped… There was a pause; the interesting film seemed to stop there. Suddenly, the Italian woman, perhaps obeying a belated instruction from the Dutchman, turned out the light, and the bedroom was plunged into darkness; it was like an eyelid falling across the glass of a magic lantern. Don Higinio left his vantage point and, sighing, numb with cold, seized by unspeakable sorrow, got into bed; and as soon as he did, facing the wall, he fell asleep: sadness had served as a narcotic. In the following days, as if repentant of the misdeeds he might commit, Don Higinio began to observe a prudent, perfectly regulated conduct: he walked as much as was necessary to keep himself healthy, visited museums, and went to bed early. The interpreter, despite his constant drunkenness, noticed this change in his habits. “You’re right,” he said, “Paris is terrible. Ah, these women!… It’s very difficult to find a good one, very difficult!… They deceive us, they leave us without money… and then… they don’t even know us. Bitches!… You have to do what you do: from time to time… and… boring!… I know Paris, Mr. Perea; I know Paris. A Piedmontese who has seen much of the world tells you : here, a man who doesn’t know how to keep his temper doesn’t last long. At first, I didn’t like your behavior. I watched you, you know?… Oh, I believe it! I watched you and I said to myself: “This gentleman is heading for the precipice headlong; he won’t stop; Paris is a snake, and the snake has bitten him…». I was wrong; you, Mr. Perea, understand life. These rapid conversations unfolded in the hallway of the Hotel des Alpes, whose walls were hung with large, multi-colored posters advertising shipping companies and cheap trips to Italy and Switzerland. Don Higinio listened to Francisco and smiled, thus assenting to the interpreter’s gallant suppositions; this innocent lie flattered his pride and consoled him for being so simple. Then, in the elevator on the way to his room, alone with his conscience, he realized he was a clumsy, prudish, and obscure local, and that he was ridiculous. Frankly, he didn’t understand how these bigwigs could squander his and his wife’s assets. Do they gamble? Do they have mistresses? Do they adore travel, rich furniture, and other opulences of good living?… A mystery. How can the brevity of a life and the weakness of a body contain the hours necessary to melt so many millions?… He didn’t know. He wasn’t stingy, and yet he didn’t spend much money. How do you spend money? He didn’t know either. Money, apparently, is spent almost as hard as it is earned; he’s a wizard who at first doesn’t want to come and then there’s no way to separate him from us. For this, perhaps, it’s essential to have friends, to frequent casinos… But how do you acquire relationships? How can one approach the workshops where love is cheerful and cheap, or the celebrated hetaerae whose nights unravel families and fortunes?… The first movement of cities is hostile, hermetic; they reject the stranger and must be conquered, just as one would conquer people. Don Higinio was unaware of this task of conquest; however, he wouldn’t have trade places with anyone. True to his most deeply rooted hobby, he had bought a fishing rod, and many mornings he went to sit under the Pont des Arts. The past quietly enveloped him, recaptured him; it seemed to him he was in Serranillas, and looking at the Seine, he remembered the Guadamil; just as other times, looking at the printing presses of Le Matin on the boulevard, he remembered El Faro. In the afternoons, he would visit the department stores: the Louvre, Bon Marché, Samaritana… and today he would buy Doña Lucía’s corset, tomorrow a cigarette case for Julio Cenén, or an Eiffel Tower to decorate Don Cándido’s table… Only his wife’s letters bothered him, even if they occasionally touched his vanity. Doña Emilia was jealous; she couldn’t understand why her husband spent so much time getting to know Paris, and she assumed he was in love with some French woman. The imaginations of reserved, homely ladies run very fast. “I’ve been told,” he wrote, “that those women drive men crazy. Is that true?… Take care of yourself, for God’s sake! You’re good, but bad company is very powerful. Higinio: I don’t want to think that you might forget your children and me. When are you coming? The mere thought of seeing you come home sick drives me crazy.” To this letter, which betrayed the haughty, domineering, and vehement spirit of the formerly wealthy woman, Perea replied with a very affectionate and reasoned one, in which he spoke of the many days his cold prevented him from going out into the street, and of the discreet parsimony required to acquire the objects, some of them valuable, that his friends had entrusted to him . He lied a little. “For your fur coat, they asked me five thousand francs at a furrier’s on the boulevard; I was terrified; but they assure me that in a certain store, whose name I now forget, I will find it just as good and cheaper. I must also take care of the pianola our friend Arribas wants; to buy it without exposing myself to being deceived, I need someone to guide and advise me. All this requires walks, acquaintances , and time, a lot of time; in Serranillas you cannot imagine the time wasted in these enormous cities. Besides, I need money; with what I brought, I can’t afford anything; everything here is very expensive.” Send me, then, by return mail, five thousand pesetas…». Doña Emilia’s reply was slow in coming; it was accompanied by a check drawn on the Crédit Lyonnais for one thousand duros, Spanish currency; and it was a brief, terse letter, full of shadows. His wife said: «I hasten to send you the sum you need. I hope it is not against your will. Will we be together soon? I don’t know. It seems like a century has passed since you left. Our children ask me about you: they miss you so much. If you could see how tall the girl is!…». Perea was indignant; it was an idiotic letter: his wife spoke of his two-month absence as if he had been exiled for several years. In the His friends made the same mistake: they all assumed he was having fun, participating in magic tricks and cinematographic tricks, running over “stars” at the café concert, and squandering banknotes with Spanish gallantry . Idiots! They thought Paris was a little bigger than Ciudad Real!… If only they knew about his misfortune on the train, Madame Berta’s trick , and the state of monastic abstention in which he lived!… Don Higinio clenched his fists. Then, with that admirable facility his fickle soul had for passing from anger to disdain to laughter, he shrugged his shoulders. In poor human life, everything is grotesque and tragic at once; only appearances vary; as soon as drama dons the costume of Harlequin, as the buffoon, the insignificant, the “everyday,” it becomes wrapped in the cloak of Cyrano and has, like Romeo, a stopover and a date. Don Higinio found himself in the latter situation. He had to return to his hometown, chaste as Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, bearing intact on his lips the kisses Doña Emilia had given him when she said goodbye. Yet everyone would discover on his face the profound fatigue, ruin, and exhaustion of the orgies he had enjoyed. And it was still excusable that his fellow countrymen, locals and simpletons, should think this way; what was extraordinary, what filled Perea with astonishment, was that people who lived around him—the hotel interpreter, for example—should believe the same. It is the fate of the individual: there are men who, after a long life dedicated to pleasing the devil, reached old age, crowned with an unshakeable reputation for rectitude, gravity, and melancholy; while others, having fought and suffered and borne the most painful crosses, were never taken seriously. No one believes them: their smiling courtesy is frivolity, indifference, a frivolity of morals and conscience. Their moments of sadness, dissimulation; their weariness from work, fatigue from pleasure. The crowd, without knowing how, classifies its individuals as soon as they leave university and gives them performances from which they can never be totally free; and thus, by absurd decree of public opinion, this one will be prudent and virtuous, and that one, mad and frivolous as a hat thrown in the air. Where do these collective errors come from? Is it in the way the individual looks, dresses, shakes hands? Is the grace of suede gloves or the color of a waistcoat that much? And, if so, how does the opinion of others, which is first and for the subject the future and the horizon, and then, through the renewing work of time, transforms into yesterday and crystallizes in History, manage to give such hollow foundations to its judgments?… Evidently, the multitude, inclined to shrug its shoulders when invited to carry out a philanthropic work, discovers a resolute sympathy for the slanderous, and this is attested by the success of the defamatory campaigns of the newspapers: a laudatory chronicle passes unnoticed, as if the envy of all surrounded it with silence; while the infamous piece is repeated with complacency, jumps from mouth to mouth, mischievously clings to all ears, suggests an echo of villainous joy in all souls… Thus Don Higinio explained the absurd judgment that the public was forming about his condition and quiet habits. In the end, the idea of appearing dishonest and a scoundrel couldn’t seriously anger someone who, like him, had always felt the annoyance of being virtuous, and Perea, who had never lied, continued lying: sometimes to the interpreter at his hotel, other times in the letters he wrote to his fellow countrymen; sly missives in which, without saying anything, he let much be seen. Slander should be abhorred for its malice; slander gnaws, undermines, undoes: it is the vitriol of honor; but how can we abhor those innocent lies that, while improving the speaker, delight the listener and discreetly distract him?… Goddess of Lies, soul of salons where polite whispers are heard, nurse of poets, fountain of pearly dreams, lifeblood of all courtesy, how could the divine Plato wish to banish you from his Republic?… Doña Emilia’s letters, reminding Don Higinio that the inevitable outcome of his story lay in Serranillas, exacerbated his desire to see Paris; for cities are like women, only deeply interested in those we arrive at by accident or in passing, and thus, we neither study our wives nor are we curious about the city we inhabit and which wanderers from very distant countries might come to visit. Living in good hotels, the traveler cannot inquire into the soul of the nation where he finds himself, because all the inns in the world, save for very slight differences, are identical. To approach the dark and painful “underworld” of towns, it will be necessary to feel the tragedy of their needs; to intimately understand the importance or value of their currency, to know which are the cheapest markets and the value of a loaf of bread and a pound of meat, and how much coal they give for ten centimes; to break down life, to see how man’s resources multiply to resist poverty. Convinced of this, Don Higinio applied himself to exploring the details of that petty and arcane existence. On his long excursions through the Latin Quarter, often extending as far as the Jardin des Plantes, the curious La Mancha native scrutinized the most minute details: the motley clientele of the taverns; the shoe shops where heels are straightened or half- soles are added to boots in the time the owner spends reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe; the popular bazaars where they even sell pieces of sail; the antique shops on the Rues Bonaparte and Mazarin; the second-hand bookstores tucked away in drawers along the Seine… He also spent many hours wandering around the so-called “department stores”; centers of enormous commercial activity that support thousands of families and whose daily balance sheet is equivalent to a gigantic stock market move. Francisco, the interpreter, had explained to him the founding and development of these establishments, to the astonishment of outsiders. Generally, their origins were humble. An intelligent, poor merchant set up, for example, a ladies’ hat shop ; slowly, the small industry took root, and growing, what began as a milliner’s shop later became a shoe store as well, and then a bazaar. When the stock overflowed from the original premises, its owner acquired one of the neighboring shops, and then another, and later the main floor, and the second and third… even the attics!… And as the bustle increased, he installed special elevators and service stairs. Time passed… The business was now more than secure; the initial effort had borne fruit, and matters were firmly on a prosperous path. Twenty-five or thirty years of hard work had been enough for the insignificant hat shop to be transformed into a grandiose warehouse. Money attracts money; those who were once victorious, without seeking it, always find allies. The former couturier was joined by other merchants who offered him their initiative and capital. At first there were two, then three; then many; shares were issued, and then the battle was for hundreds of thousands and even millions of francs. Eight, nine, or ten houses were purchased together, an entire block; the party walls were demolished and replaced with iron columns that, without compromising the solidity, did not detract from the healthy spaciousness and beautiful perspective of the rooms; the corridors were converted into galleries, and by joining one room to another, magnificent covered courtyards were improvised, five or six stories high, by gigantic glass roofs. Thus were organized these titans of commerce that float on the Paris stock market like enormous buoys, enjoying worldwide prestige. In any of those extraordinary bazaars where a veritable multitude of dressmakers, corsetieres, shoemakers, tailors, glove makers, cabinetmakers, upholsterers, individuals belonging to all trades work, and where the suits are delivered A few hours after the orders are placed, there are clogs for coachmen and grooms , and patent-leather boots; corduroy and tailcoats; thousand- franc hats worthy of being displayed in an opera box, and boaters at eight reales for working women; linen, perfumes, furs, toys, equestrian equipment, furniture, pianos, books, paintings, statues, tapestries… Everything that industry and art have produced is there; and everything is beautifully displayed within the public’s reach, so that they can see and handle it with perfect space and attention. Another commercial display that most interested Perea was the open-air counters. The astute spirit of merchants knows how many passersby, due to lack of time, distraction, or perhaps shameful narrow-mindedness, often refrain from buying. For this very special class of public, the long tables that the merchants set up in the open air starting seven or eight in the morning, depending on the season, are designed. They are like a vibrant and joyful outpouring of the inner life of each store. Faced with the plebeian gaiety of those counters, the curious crowd stops: there, men put on their shirtsleeves to put on a waistcoat, and women try on a blouse; each one goes to his own object; no one gets in each other’s way. This sale continues until nightfall. At that hour, the merchandise is put away, the counters are raised, and the pyramids of hats, the piles of shoes and corsets, the fruitful waves of skirts and blouses disappear into the spaciousness of the establishment. It is a gigantic inspiration or absorption, leaving the sidewalks uncluttered and clean, as if to better allow the mischievous joy of nocturnal Paris to circulate over them . From these instructive adventures, Don Higinio never returned empty-handed. Little by little, he was acquiring the odds and ends he needed to take back to his village: the watch for Teresita, Nicanor’s knives, the shotgun and a pair of gaiters for Don Gregorio, a pair of eyeglasses for Don Tomás… In addition to countless other trinkets that surprised and captivated him: marble figurines, whimsical inkwells, postcards, toys, a mirror, a bidet: it seemed that civilization had not yet reached Serranillas. He made these sacrifices to increase the success of his return to his homeland, certain that the brilliance of his return would be directly proportional to the number of gifts he brought. At the hotel in the Alps, they were astonished by so many acquisitions; inside Perea’s bedroom, at the foot of the bed, on top of the wardrobe, on the chairs, the objects, carefully tied and wrapped in garishly multi-colored paper, were piling up; the indefinable scent of the varnish of new things floated in the air: the room seemed like a bazaar. All this deepened the roots of love that Paris was planting in Don Higinio’s charming personality. Paris was a mystery. No one knew him in that immense city. Who would stalk his steps or come to count the catches he had made in the course of an afternoon, under the shadow of the bridge? So, by contrast, watching the waters of the Seine flow by, he thought of his hometown. Oh, the sad hour, the gray hour, when he would have to return to Serranillas to once again live before the eyes of the whole world! He was surprised then that he had been able to distance himself so far from that dull past, and he understood that distances do not exist; space, infinite as it is, is carried within man. To will! That was the secret; thousands of people never did anything, because their will was never determined to act. One day, he “wanted,” and that inner impulse, which took only seconds to materialize, had been enough to get him out of Spain. What he had previously imagined to be extremely difficult now seemed insignificant to him; And it is because life resembles those mountains that, seen from afar, seem inaccessible, and then, up close, offer countless twists and turns and ravines through which to climb to their summits. And Paris, in a story as simple as that of Don Higinio, was a summit. Chapter 4. That afternoon Perea spent visiting the magnificent central markets. At five, under his raincoat and cotton umbrella, he began his return to the boulevard café where he usually had his aperitif. It was raining heavily, and the fog, that enchanting Parisian fog that so beautifies women, blurred the buildings and suspended halos of similor in front of the illuminated shop windows. Don Higinio continued along Rue Montmartre; he was tired, spattered with mud, pushed every moment by the crowd. At the corner of Rue Croissant, he caught up with a young woman “from the plain house”: blonde, blue eyes, a pert nose, a mouth as cynical and joyful as a café-concert pirouette, her breasts round, her hips tight and swaying. Feeling Don Higinio’s warm breath on the white nape of her neck, the girl turned her head: a small, insolent head , shadowed by her red boater. “You frightened me!” she said. Perea smiled dully and could not find a suitable word to reply in his meager French vocabulary . She continued: “Foreigner? Are you a foreigner? ” “Yes. ” “Spanish? ” “Yes. ” “I like Spaniards. I had a friend from Bayonne, from the South… Will you pay me a bock?” She grabbed his arm, turning toward him to speak, so that the youthful pomp of her breast touched the hand that Don Higinio held at chest level, holding the umbrella. She had closed hers. She dressed in black. She was a legitimate daughter of the boulevard: a lothario, talkative, desirable, immodest, and uncouth. She continued: “Do you like me?” “Yes? The ugliest thing about me is my face: I’m short; My eyes are pretty, but small… My body, on the other hand, is good; many artists have told me so. Do you want to see it ?… Wait a moment. I ‘ll show you a nude photograph taken of me. She was walking away with the frivolity of a bird. Don Higinio stopped her. “Where are you going? ” “To get my portrait. I live right here, on Croissant Street. I’ll be back soon…” And she ran away. Perea stood in the middle of the sidewalk, not knowing whether to wait for the girl or continue on his way; dizzy, his feet wet, while his umbrella tripped over those of all the passersby. He decided to take refuge in a doorway. What a little girl!… She soon reappeared: she arrived laughing, jumping, with a joy that evoked memories of school. “Look!” Don Higinio looked, while his rough mustache concealed a faun-like grimace on his lips. In that portrait, the young woman appeared in profile, her legs together and her arms raised. She was fine: neither thin nor thick; her breasts were in place. Very good!… The inflammable La Mancha native smiled joyfully; that shameless image had been a kind of wake-up call for his chastened desires. Something scorching, burning like furnace steam, brushed his back. The adventuress’s practiced eyes read fluently on the embarrassed forehead and the lost pupils of her interlocutor. She understood that she had to stall for time: prologues are not always opportune… “Then,” she said, “let’s not drink beer. Do you want it?… I know here, on Paul Lelong Street, a hotel where we’ll be safe.” Don Higinio, amazed, feeling all his blood rush to his neck, asked mechanically: “Is it a trustworthy house? ” “Oh, I certainly do! Don’t be afraid. I go there a lot.” He followed her diligently, without tiring, without cold, with an eagerness for which all roads were downhill. They turned the corner onto Paul Lelong Street. Over a door, Don Higinio read: “Furnished Hotel.” “This is it,” she said. And they entered. At the entrance, a fat man with a clean-shaven, monkish face gave them a key. “Good afternoon, Miss Leopoldina. Room number fifteen; you know , on the second floor…” They hurried up a spiral staircase, covered with a carpet. A very worn green color, stained with drops of wax. They crossed a dark corridor, permeated with that warm air, redolent of perfume and flesh, of bedrooms; they opened the door to a room upholstered in red, where there was a gilded bed, a washbasin, a glass wardrobe… Miss Leopoldina attacked Perea, covering his round cheeks with boisterous kisses. “I’m going to love you very much,” she repeated, “very much: you’re very handsome. Look, that’s how I am: crazy… My friends say so: crazy; I fall in love right away. When you return to Spain, you’ll have to take me with you. And right away. ” “Do you have a knife?” The gallant smiled; he nodded. He didn’t exactly have a knife, but he did have a knife; the famous black-handled knife with a triangular blade that he had used one night to astonish the interpreter at the Hotel des Alpes. Ever since he’d been in Paris, he’d always put it in the back of his waistcoat, between his trousers and sash, following the sailor’s custom, more out of a fondness for the heroic and decorative than because he’d ever seriously considered the possibility of harming anyone. Leopoldina embraced him again; seeing the sharp, polished weapon, her eyes sparkled with ancestral joy; her vagrant soul, accustomed to violent encounters, shuddered… “I like brave men,” she exclaimed. “You’ll be my man!” Mademoiselle Leopoldina knew how to provide her friend with two delightful hours: she was tireless, wise, opportune… Perea was buttoning his waistcoat when he remembered he had no money, either silver or gold. He only had a hundred-franc note. “I’ll change it,” she said. “How much shall I give you back?” Don Higinio, who was beginning to feel smitten with the Frenchwoman, was generous. “Give me half.” They exchanged a kiss, the last, on each other’s lips, and began to descend the stairs, whose spiral steps gave the impression of a whirlpool. Mademoiselle Leopoldina, very lively, very bouncy under her little red hat, led the way. She was whistling a tune. Suddenly, as she stepped out into the street, she broke into a swift run, like a doe’s. Don Higinio saw her moving away, vanishing almost into the mist through the indescribable din of pedestrians and cars, and he threw himself after her. He realized they were trying to rob him. When they reached the Rue Montmartre, Mademoiselle Leopoldina felt herself being held by an arm. Beside her, Perea, his eyes furious and his rough mustache wet with rain, stood imposing. “Give me back my money, thief. ” “What money? ” “My one hundred franc note. Give it back or I’ll break a bone.” She began to scream, while looking at passersby, imploring their sympathy and help. “Let me go!… I don’t know you!… What money is that?… You haven’t given me any money at all.” She made a violent effort, arching her hips and throwing her body forward, at the same time trying to bite the hand with which the brave man from La Mancha was gripping her. Finally, she was able to escape, dodging behind a bus. But Don Higinio caught up with her again, and this time Miss Leopoldina began to scream as if she were being skinned. “Help, they’ll kill me!” “My money,” roared the man from La Mancha, without letting go of the girl; “my money or I’ll strangle you. ” They struggled in the middle of the street, in the mud, in the rain, exposed to being run over by cars; she slipped, he slipped; Don Higinio dropped his umbrella. Leopoldina shouted insultingly: “Help! It’s an Apache!… They’ll kill me!” The girl defended herself well; but she barely managed to free herself from the fingers of her harasser when she fell into his power again. Thus struggling, and without attracting much attention from the public, whose curiosity seemed to be pacified by the downpour, they approached a liquor store located on the corner of Réaumur Street. All Leopoldina’s efforts seemed to be concentrated on getting there. “Help! It’s an Apache,” she repeated, “an Apache!… They’ll kill me!… Help!” Suddenly, the street tragicomedy changed its aspect and threatened to turn into a drama. A young man of about thirty, shaven and robust, wearing a tobacco-colored corduroy suit, his trousers wide at the thighs and tightly fitted over his boots, a blue beret pulled back, and a red handkerchief around his neck, emerged from the tavern and, grabbing Don Higinio by the thick hair, shook him and forced him to release his prey. “Hey, good man!” he demanded. “What’s that? What’s the matter?” His buzzing, insolent accent foreshadowed a coup. “She robbed me,” Perea replied, somewhat surprised. “Well, screw it… or, if you like, what you were going to say to her, you’re saying to me. Isn’t it all the same to you?” Speaking thus, without letting go of Don Higinio’s lapels, he reached behind his back, as if searching for a weapon. He was muscular, had a steely gaze , and a lock of curly hair hung over his pale forehead like a bellicose plume . Miss Leopoldina, meanwhile, had taken refuge in the tavern. Don Higinio hesitated: in Serranillas, he would surely have had a go at that rogue; but there, despite his knife, he was afraid; afraid of death, of the mystery surrounding that dark world of prostitutes and thieves. He remembered the crimes he had seen in the movies, the “Apaches” who knew how to deliver “Father Francisco’s coup,” and, as if by magic, his fires of vulgarity and majesty were extinguished. Understanding this , his opponent turned his back on him, and Perea, still barely recovered from his shock, remained stunned, looking toward the tavern where Leopoldina, standing before a group of women and men, pirouetted and laughed, waving the stolen bill above her head like a flag. Sullen and furious, pale from both anger and fear, Don Higinio continued on his way in the rain, without even remembering to open his umbrella. Despite his diligence, he arrived at the hotel very late; there was no one in the dining room. The waiter, as he served him soup, said: “Today you are the last one.” There was in that statement a kind of reproach, a lament, for the unruly habits of the guest; and Perea began to gobble it up rapidly, as if he wanted to make up for lost time. Leaning greedily on the table, small, round, big-headed, red-cheeked, behind the whiteness of his napkin, he looked like an advertisement for an appetizer. As he ate, his bad temper calmed. What was he ashamed of? If something like that happened to him in Serranillas, he’d let himself be torn to pieces before he’d take a single step back. But in Paris!… Bah!… Who knew him in Paris?… The people who saw him leave would think: “He’s doing the right thing; he’s a prudent man, an enemy of scandal; a gentleman who will have his soul in his closet, like everyone else, but who didn’t want to risk his life for a silly thing…” Besides, given his appearance, they would understand that he was married, that he would have children, and a married man should take care of himself because he belongs to his family. Ah, if it weren’t for his children, carrying his good knife at his waist as he did!… He rudely attacked the steak and potatoes that had just been brought to him, slowly drained a well-filled glass of wine, and his thoughts fertilised. So… what? Nothing!… A few words, jealousy… If it’s true that the “Apache” had grabbed her by the big heads, he also grabbed her wrist. Oh, and with what force! Now she remembered it well; and his hand was firm… I believe it!… He must have hurt her… Well , men’s things!… The truth was that he had spent a very pleasant afternoon… The arrival of the interpreter ended up calming him down. Francisco had brought him some shocking news. “Haven’t they told you about this afternoon’s tragedy?” Don Higinio made the vague gesture of an individual who has just arrived and knows nothing. Francisco continued: “It was something horrible. Do you remember Luisa, the chambermaid on the second floor? ” “A little blonde, dressed in black? ” “Yes. This afternoon she fell into the patio. Poor thing! We picked her up dead.” Francisco was watching Perea; when he spoke, he had used that slowness Sadistic, full of pauses, of cruel reticence, with which men know how to deliver bad news that doesn’t matter to them. Don Higinio made a gesture of surprise and poured a glass of wine into the salad bowl . He asked for details. Remembering poor Luisa, he also thought of the “Apache” on the Rue Réaumur. If only his stomach had been slashed open! Undoubtedly, there are terrible days. Slowly, a little moved after the absinthe he had ordered, Francisco described the tragedy in detail. For the elderly parents who were now mourning her death, she was called Luisa Soucy; for him and the servants at the Hôtel des Alpes, she was “la jeune femme de chambre du second.” Luisa, pretty, mischievous, and cheerful as a little maid from Marivaux, enjoyed a certain popularity among the people below her stairs : she had managed to have “somethings.” As she walked down the street, the coalman next door, the innkeeper, and the boy employed in the haberdashery on the corner would whisper gallant and ardent phrases into her ears. The owner of the nearby épicerie, if he saw her appear with her neat and tight apron and her little basket hanging from her round forearm, would forget his own interests and serve her generously. On Sundays, all the girls in the neighborhood wanted to go out with her, because Luisa was the most diabolical, the happiest, the most witty of all, and by her side there was no pain. According to François, this little celebrity killed her. Luisa Soucy had the temperament of a gymnast: she was daring, agile, devilish; What she saw the puppeteers do at the fairs of Saint Cloud and Neuilly, she would repeat punctually in her sewing room before the open windows, for the neighbors to admire: she would jump on the table, stand upside down, proud of her legs and her taped trousers, swing while holding onto the doorpost; she juggled the plates, and if one of them shattered on the floor, Luisa Soucy’s simple and boisterous audience would roar with laughter. What a devil of a little girl, how well she imitated the Hercules of the small square! How she repeated their farces, their cries! That child, truly, was very graceful, and perhaps, had she dedicated herself to the show business, she would have made a good actress. “No one can beat her,” some said. “She’s not afraid of anything,” others added. She, the innocent little princess of the courtyard, who knew the admiration and even the petty envy of which she was the object, swelled with pride like a heroine. And so, playing, lulled by the applause, she arrived at her death. Leaning out of a second-floor balcony, Luisa Soucy joked with a neighbor. The rain had stopped, and this lull filled the windows with women; a frivolous murmur of feminine whispers enlivened the damp, deep recesses of the courtyard. Luisa, who was sweeping, put down her broom and wanted to amaze her audience with an extraordinary exercise. “I’m going,” she exclaimed to her neighbor, “from my balcony to yours?” And the other: “I’m going, aren’t I?” At the heart of this refusal, unconsciously, throbbed a cruelty. The chambermaids, the cooks, the kitchen workers, and some guests too, aware of the bet, looked on anxiously, and the comments flew feverishly, encouragingly, from window to window. —He’s capable of doing what he says… —Yes; but he doesn’t fall, don’t worry: he’s a devil… The most timid ones shouted: —Luisa, Luisa!… Don’t be crazy… You can’t get through; the distance is too great… At that moment, perhaps, she was afraid. Why not, if she was a woman and very young, and the height at which she was going to expose herself was very deep?… But perhaps she understood that she mustn’t retreat: she had offered “her public” that entertainment, and the public can’t be fooled because it’s lost to them; her insides experienced that chill that only soldiers and artists know when faced with the simultaneously admiring and merciless expectation of the crowds. Automatically, without joy, obeying the proud urge to look good, to not deteriorate. Having acquired fame, Luisa Soucy tried to slide down the rain-drenched balcony railing. Suddenly, her weak wrists buckled, and she somersaulted, crashing against the flagstones of the patio. The interpreter concluded with that pompousness that men inspire when they have witnessed something serious. “I was there, I saw her fall…” Don Higinio had become serious; Luisa Soucy’s soul worried him; it resembled his own. Ah, the often fatal desire to look good!… That vanity that killed the poor girl is one of the most tenacious sentiments of the human spirit: out of vanity, more than out of an abstract and disinterested love of beauty, many artists triumph; out of vanity, many merchants are ruined, and many lovers commit suicide; vanity leads to heroism. That aroma of the crowds called “prestige” can, consequently, be the best and also the worst. And if popularity is smoke and men face death for it, is celebrity worth as much as a life, or is life worth so little that it can be given for celebrity? Don Higinio sighed: poor Luisa! And to think that if he was there safe and sound it was because during his argument with the Apache he had no audience! The next day he woke up sick: his forehead and hands were burning; his tongue was dirty. It was a digestive disturbance that he attributed to his indisposition the day before and to the strong impression that the interpreter had given him after dinner and in the guise of dessert. For the second time since he had been in Paris, Don Higinio felt afraid. To be sick and so far from Serranillas! With this apprehension he took a purgative, and lying down and coughing, complaining sometimes of neuralgia and other times of stomach pains, he spent several days. His food was brought up to his room; He didn’t shave or put the slightest effort into his personal care; the hours he was up he spent in an armchair by the window, reading newspapers and watching the snow fall. Amidst all this annoyance, Perea, however, wasn’t bored. “I’m in Paris,” he thought. Which was the same as saying: “No one sees me, no one supervises my actions, no one knows about me. Of this brief period of my life, if the occasion arises, I’ll be able to say whatever I like. At these moments, legend, like a holy aegis, covers me with poetry…” One afternoon Francisco went to visit him; the Piedmontese man missed him; he had asked about him and was told he was unwell. Nothing serious, apparently: he pulsed his pulse, examined his tongue and eyes… Bah, a trifle! “These ailments,” he added roguishly, “are sooner cured by beautiful women than by doctors. ” The patient made an ambiguous gesture; In a short time, he had run a long way and was tired. He recounted his adventure with Miss Leopoldina, though he dressed it up so that the outcome would be perfectly graceful for him. The girl, from the first moment, had shown great affection for him. He courted her, cooed fervently, and managed to drag her to a “furnished hotel” on Paul Lelong Street. As they left , an old boyfriend of Leopoldina’s stopped them; he was a terrible man. Frightened, she ran and disappeared into the crowd. The stranger was eager to argue; jealousy clouded his understanding, and he even made a move to grab Don Higinio by the lapels. “Then,” Perea continued, “I grabbed him by the neck… I’m strong… I grabbed him well… anyway… some passersby separated us, and that was it.” He had spoken briefly, with the sobriety of prudent and brave men , reluctant to comment on their bravery. The only thing he regretted was not having seen Leopoldina. The interpreter interrupted him: “Don’t mind it; that woman is undoubtedly an adventuress. I know Paris!” Don Higinio was beginning to tire of the interpreter’s crutch; he could not repress his anger. “‘You know Paris…'” he exclaimed. “Blimey, I know it too. What’s the matter with that? Do you think I’m a child? I don’t I suck my thumb, Señor Francisco. The Piedmontese replied: “It doesn’t matter; I understand myself, Señor Perea. There are some very bad people here. What need do you, a serious gentleman, have to expose yourself to a blow?… Paris is very dangerous, very treacherous; one day, any one of those idiots, in agreement with four or five Apaches, can give you a scare. ” Perea hesitated, neither arrogant nor faint-hearted; but with the tranquility of someone who has thought everything through and planned. “You,” Francisco added, “would benefit from a little woman who would come to see you two or three times a week; but right here, in your room, without any fuss… ” Don Higinio opened his eyes wide. He was like a rooster. “But can that be? ” “Why not?… I, in fact, know a young lady you would like: you don’t dress badly, she’s sensible… ” “And would they let her come up? ” “I’ll take care of that.” Furthermore, in this hotel, as in most hotels in Paris, anything goes. Don Higinio was finishing dinner when there was a soft knock at his door. She was a slim young woman, not very tall, delightfully pale amidst the thick black hair, and in her burnished eyes a wise and humble expression, full of promise. Her hands disappeared into a muff. “I am Miss Enriqueta…” Perea understood. The interpreter had been efficient. Mortified by the embarrassment of his unshaven beard, Don Higinio greeted the young woman very politely and invited her to sit down. She accepted, polite and polite. Her voice was impertinent. She was dressed in gray and adorned her head with a small cap of the same color with a red sprit. A white fur was draped around her neck . She wore gloves, rubber galoshes, an umbrella, and a small handbag ; Don Higinio remembered the Dutchman: what foresight! Miss Enriqueta also “had everything…” She began the conversation. “Mr. Francisco, the interpreter, spoke to me about you this afternoon. He says, ‘He’s a very distinguished Spanish gentleman; a good friend.’ That’s what we women need: distinguished, serious people who don’t waste our time. I’m very serious too. Other young women, about my age, fall in love with some student or some chauffeur or some comic, and they wander around disgraced, penniless , and exposed to all kinds of bad things. I’m not one of those: I’m formal; Mr. Francisco has known me for a long time. To be liked, a woman needs to be well shod, well dressed, and that costs money.” There was an excess of seriousness in the little speech of that young lady, who probably had savings at the Monte de Piedad, and an excess of balance and good judgment that distressed Don Higinio. It’s a pity Miss Enriqueta wasn’t a little more insane!… Nevertheless, the nobleman from La Mancha responded to his interlocutor’s words with grave nods of assent and praise. “Very well, yes, miss; all of that was very much in order; gallant young women should be like that!” She continued with genuinely mercantile skill: “Nor am I one of those who cause scandal: I never drink, nor smoke, nor have bad friends, nor do I ask for what I shouldn’t ask for, like others. I don’t abuse it. Above all, I respect propriety. If it would be convenient for you to be my friend, I will come to visit you when you call me: you tell me now, or write to me, or send me a message through Señor Francisco. Besides, if you want to see Paris well, I can accompany you. There are restaurants where the food is cheap and very good, and with the buses we could travel great distances for little money. You’re safe with me. We’ll visit the museums.” I have some artistic culture, and this way, chatting, you can see everything and practice your French. He gave her his card: “Miss Henrietta Nussac, Rue Rougemont, number 10. Near the Grands Boulevards.” Don Higinio bowed courteously and placed the card on the wardrobe mirror. He didn’t know what to say, nor did he need to add a word to what the young woman in the gray suit and the red sprit had said. It was the somewhat embarrassing situation into which men fall when Women take the initiative. Again, the memory of the Dutchman flashed through his mind. Truly, Miss Enriqueta, a guide, a French teacher, a door-to-door caresser, all within the strictest discretion and formality, was a kind of encyclopedia with a “permanent office,” where even the most heterogeneous needs of the stranger were anticipated. And Don Higinio, perpetually in love with emotion, with the irregular, felt that indefinable melancholy that accompanies all business deals that come to us completely done. What the hell! He, so inclined to complicate things in order to embellish them, after what his friend had said, had no choice but to get into bed and turn off the light. The next day, when Don Higinio opened his eyes, he saw Miss Enriqueta, already powdered and dressed, reading Le Journal in front of the balcony. An early riser too? Perea was stupefied. “What time is it? ” “Nine o’clock.” I always get up very early. Does that surprise you, don’t it? He approached his friend, showing him the newspaper; it had just been delivered. Perea invited her to breakfast, but she declined; she wanted to go home soon to feed her little gozqueño and her birds. When she spent a night away from home, she was uneasy; she always feared finding them dead. Don Higinio gave her a louis, and they both promised to meet again that afternoon, at two o’clock, in the Passage Saulnier. They kissed. “Goodbye, dear Enriqueta.” “See you later, my love…” Don Higinio immediately got up and cleaned himself up neatly. He was happy; while he shaved, he didn’t stop singing; all his alifafes had disappeared. Then he went down to the dining room and ate lunch with the appetite of a student. He drank a good cup of coffee, ordered a glass of cognac, lit a Havana cigar, made sure the knife was in its place between his belt and trousers, and went out into the street. At the door of the hotel he found Francisco. “How is my little friend? ” “Delightful!” The Piedmontese man smiled happily. “Will you see her again? ” “What, will I return?… This very night! What did you think? In Spain we are like that…” And he walked along the sidewalk, very erect, very proud, blowing a great puff of smoke into the air… The serious and measured friendship of Miss Enriqueta brought a new element of order to Perea’s ordinary life. Despite his adventurous urges, Don Higinio was a regimented man, one of those substantially methodical characters, attached to their habits and their home, who speak well of marriage, carry umbrellas, and, when traveling, never fail to buy a railway guidebook. Hence the rapidity with which the young woman in the gray suit restrained her will and adapted to his ways. Enriqueta would visit him at the Hotel des Alpes on Tuesdays and Fridays, after dinner; they would spend the night together, and the following day they would spend it strolling or browsing in stores. She favored him with her advice, pointing out the best things, and Don Higinio experienced a mischievous contentment obliging her to wear the various gifts he was to take to her friends in Serranillas: Doña Lucía’s corset, Doña Benita’s hat, Teresa’s watch. Even the exquisite fur coat he bought for Doña Emilia at a furrier’s on the Rue Royal for 1,800 francs, was draped over the girl’s fragrant, round shoulders for an entire afternoon during an excursion to the Louvre . Thanks to her, Perea also got to know the favorite corners of nocturnal Paris, explored the city’s surroundings, always beautiful despite the cold, learned to use the buses, and significantly expanded his knowledge of the French language. Considering these benefits, the two louis he slipped weekly into the alternately interested and affectionate hands of Enriqueta Nussac were a paltry reward. However, the affectionate heart of the gentleman from La Mancha was not inclined to fall in love with the pretty, elegant, well-educated Miss Enriqueta. but methodical, conceited, and serious… horribly serious!… outside and inside that little alcove in the Hotel des Alpes, as if love were a kind of office for her. Don Higinio remembered Leopoldina with a certain melancholy; she was a scoundrel, a true little fool of the square, vulgar and thieving; but so cheerful, so talkative, so dizzy!… What a difference she made from Enriqueta, sweet, circumspect, with something of a governess in her conversation and manner!… Oh! Why is it that the hectic, the unexpected, is also, almost always, the most agreeable?… This did not prevent the gallant, as lavish as a poet in novelistic inventions, from attributing to his little friend certain highly commendable qualities of emotion and disinterest. She had let him understand, in veiled words, that she depended on a certain poor, old, and rich gentleman. For this reason, she had dealings with very few men. Francisco, the interpreter, had to tell her about Don Higinio, praising his good nature, generosity, and noble qualities as a gentleman. “I knew you by sight,” Miss Enriqueta had said, “and I liked you. Unlike my friends, young men bore me: they’re indiscreet, ingratiating, clingy… I prefer a man, a real man, like you… ” With this statement, plus something inadvertently and in the best of good faith added by Don Higinio’s wasteful imagination, he ended up creating a kind of sentimental tangle that, if it didn’t completely console him, always cast a certain poetic artifice over the girl and the path of sympathy that led her to him. And why wouldn’t he be loved?… Evidently, he wasn’t handsome; but love is similar to talent; sometimes it depends exclusively on the spirit: one can obtain great admiration and great affection and be very ugly. Thus consoled, in the dining room, Don Higinio looked at the Dutchman directly and without envy: they were equals; he, too, was loved, with the advantage that his eyes could boast of having seen, even if only surreptitiously, that part of her body that was the most enlarged and luscious . Soon, three months would have passed since Perea arrived in Paris, and Doña Emilia’s letters grew more pressing by the day. The excellent lady had no doubt that her husband was having relations with some Frenchwoman who was a master at swaying men, and she spoke of packing her things and settling into the hotel in the Alps. She no longer wanted a fur coat, or hats, or any of those gifts that the traitor had described as cunning, evidently intending to strengthen her patience with his greed; what she needed was “her Higinio,” ruined, crippled, or blind, or however the great whores of Paris had left him. It was impossible to resist the power of that furious call, and Perea recognized it. But when to return? Serranillas was the truth, the odious reality, and who, having once known the spell of a lie, could return without pain to the aridity of truth? Don Higinio didn’t need women, or orgies, or unusual pageantry: living in Paris was enough for him. Even the worst, the sadness of winter, the rain, the snow, the cold, the mud that fouled the streets, the oceanic murmur of so many thousands of vehicles rolling through the fog, all produced a kind of dizziness, a numbness of conscience, which fueled his pride. He would return to Serranillas, because his wife, his children, and his estate were there; but let them leave him alone for a few more months, let them not harass him in this way. Was the selfishness of his family envious of his freedom? His relationship with Enriqueta also kept him there. Don Higinio, a fool despite his good looks and his years, believed himself loved; she had told him so several times, and such a serious young lady could not lie or fall in love lightly. It was a passion, a true passion… and affections of such high quality should not be repaid with ingratitude. Miss Enriqueta was sweet, affectionate, She would weep for him if she lost him, she would dig her pink nails into the charm of his hair , she would grow weaker… and Don Higinio had too soft a heart to allow anyone to be ruined for him. No, never. Anything but leave a trail of tears behind. But how can poor women be so interested in men they barely know? He was an adventurer, a Spaniard, a son of the land of bloodthirsty legends , a white-fleshed corsair… How could Enriqueta, bewildered, not think of this before surrendering her will to him?… He had to, therefore, come to the breakup gently to spare himself future pangs of conscience. He spent several days with these humanitarian scruples , until a grotesque incident came to free him from that sentimental quagmire. One afternoon Don Higinio was having an aperitif on the terrace of a café adjacent to the Hotel des Alpes when Francisco and a guest, whom Perea had greeted a few times, passed by. Don Higinio, with a smile and a gallant gesture, invited them to sit, and they accepted. The interpreter ordered an absinthe. “I believe this is the twelfth I’ve had today,” he said. The guest ordered a gin. His name was Clark. He was a tall, elegant, blond young Swiss man who must have been very popular with women. Don Higinio, to appear friendly, expressed this. Clark smiled evasively. “You,” he said, “aren’t bored either. Yesterday I saw you with Miss Enriqueta. ” Perea blushed. “Yes?… It’s possible… Do you know her? ” “Very well. She’s Francisco’s friend.” Don Higinio looked at the interpreter, whose eyes, with the delight of drinking, were becoming motionless and taking on an idiotic, moist expression. Clark continued: “She’s a very nice girl, isn’t she?… and she’s not expensive. Too serious, perhaps… I’ve taken her to my room several nights.” Don Higinio remained stunned, as if he had just received a blow to the head, and raised his aperitif glass to his lips without realizing it was empty. Nevertheless, he tried to hide his bewilderment. He spoke in an indifferent manner… “She told me a story; she says she’s having relations with a rich gentleman.” Clark let out a youthful laugh, and Francisco, who had heard Perea’s words, smiled without stopping drinking: his lank mustache, dipped in absinthe; his nose, red; his gaze, cloudy and happy… “Those are inventions,” exclaimed the Swiss. “Miss Enriqueta is our friend Francisco’s lover; she lives with him… Isn’t that right, old man?” The interpreter nodded; then shrugged his shoulders, signifying with that movement that he was taking his morale into account. Clark continued: “Miss Enriqueta, since she’s not ugly and knows how to present herself, is a goldmine.” Here, Señor Francisco manages it very well, and, thanks to it, as you can see, he already has his savings in the Savings Bank. Right, old man? Bravo! Señor Francisco isn’t jealous. The interpreter made another gesture of disdain. He was drunk. “I know Paris,” he said; “here you have to have money. Tomorrow you’ll get old, and if you’re poor… boom! In the hospital, right? To rot, right? To die like a dog… Oh, and that, no! You have to have money, no matter what… But money, Luis… The rest… bah! Don’t tell me stories, eh? Don’t tell me stories… I know Paris!” Clark, who didn’t suspect why the passionate Don Higinio had become so serious, winked at him mischievously and tried to interest him in the conversation. The Swiss, out of mockery, wanted Francisco to talk. —Have you known her for a long time? —Three or four years… it doesn’t matter!… —But, let’s see, Señor Francisco; it’s incomprehensible that a girl like Miss Enriqueta should be in love with a man like you. If it were Señor Perea or me!… But you!… A man almost old!… The interpreter shook his head. —Bah! I don’t know if she loves me; the least important thing is that women love us: the important thing is that they don’t leave us. And to keep them under control, there’s nothing like This… He bared his fists. “Huh?… I know Paris!” While Clark and the interpreter chatted, Don Higinio promised himself he would never spend even one more night with Miss Enriqueta. Look at the little fly, how well she lied and with what monastic humility she lowered her eyelids when speaking of “the rich gentleman” who protected her!… And in the end, it turned out that the hypocrite had stripped naked in every bedroom of the hotel in the Alps, and that the filthy money thus earned was going to fill the pocket of the drunkard and repugnant Mr. Francisco. How disgusting! Perea felt moved by a bellicose ardour; he would have gladly slapped the interpreter a couple of times; his cynicism deserved it. He looked at him attentively, analyzing him implacably. He was ugly, stinking, with those glassy, lizard-blue eyes, those floppy mustaches that, when he spoke, seemed to tuck into his mouth, and that fleshy, reddish nose. And to think that Miss Henrietta would place her lips on such an eyesore! Suddenly, Don Higinio felt very sad; inside his southern imagination, a scaffolding of illusions had just collapsed. He recalled his adventures since leaving Spain: the shameful slap he’d received on the train, Madame Berta’s mockery, the one-hundred-franc note stolen from him by Leopoldina, the adventuress from the Rue Paul Lelong; and, finally, his unsociable affair with Miss Henrietta, a young lady within reach of all the guests at the Hotel des Alpes! Truly, for such shabby fortunes, it was ridiculous for him to continue living in Paris. Yes, he would return to Serranillas. What could he do? That was the center of his life, the inevitable outcome of his dark life. The next morning, the servants from a nearby bazaar brought three huge trunks up to Perea’s room. These trunks, joined to the gleaming tin-lined chest, formed a formidable baggage worthy of a magician. Inside them, Don Higinio placed the furs, clothes, grandfather clocks, toys, figurines, and books he had unwittingly purchased during the long laziness of those three months. There were so many objects that he had to struggle to ensure that, in the end, they were all neatly arranged and wrapped. In the afternoon, he received a visit from Miss Enriqueta. The young woman was surprised; the bedroom felt like a platform. “What, are you leaving?” ” Yes. ” “But at once?” With astonishment, her eyes seemed more beautiful at that moment. Perea sighed. He thought his little friend had changed color, that perhaps she felt like crying, and he wasn’t capable of hurting anyone. He raised his eyebrows, raised his shoulders as high as they could go, and then let them droop dejectedly, as if his whole body were about to collapse: the expression of a deportee to Siberia or someone forced into life imprisonment. “I’m going back to Spain,” he said. “To Spain!” repeated the little French girl, “and for a long time?” Don Higinio was still able to wring a new eloquence from his shoulder blades. “Probably forever. ” He was sad; but a sudden inspiration of the comedian who had just emerged in him advised him to grieve as much as he liked, for at such moments melancholy was beautiful. The little French girl, standing in front of a mirror, replaced the cap she had taken off when she came in over her tousled hair; Her practical instinct told her that next to a man preoccupied with his luggage and facing a bed covered with fragile knick-knacks and ladies’ hats, she had no business being. Everything was over; as if the Pyrenees had just risen between her and Don Higinio… To say goodbye, Miss Enriqueta recovered her seriousness; she spoke to him again in the formal “you. ” “Good; I wish you a good trip, and if you return to Paris, I hope you’ll remember me. You already know my name and address…” Don Higinio interrupted her abruptly: “Yes, yes; Rue de Rougemont, number 10, very close to the Grands Boulevards…” He was horrified by the idea that the young woman was going to give him another card. The scene was trivial, with a triviality bordering on the ridiculous, and yet it had an emotional intensity, it was poignant, stirring, like all farewells, parodies of death. Furthermore, the disorder of the bedroom added a very appropriate decorative interest to the moment: something of a broken home, a cold nest, an altar broken into pieces… Miss Enriqueta had opened her handbag: from it she took out a small mirror, a powder compact, a tiny comb. She seemed upset. “I needed to run several errands and I don’t have any money. Will you pay for a carriage? ” Don Higinio, magnanimous, handed her two louis. “Here,” he said, “to decorate a bracelet.” And they parted. It was only too clear to the nobleman of La Mancha that the money would end up directly in the filthy hands of the performer. But what did it matter to him? If Miss Henrietta wanted to pay for her old lover’s absinthe binges… so be it!… Don Higinio no longer felt jealous; over the slight wound left in his pride by Clark’s indiscreet words, reflection had spread a tolerant and chivalrous equanimity like a balm. Then he called a servant and gave him a franc to buy him some newspapers. “Even if you bring duplicates, it doesn’t matter: I want them to wrap small objects that aren’t yet packaged.” The waiter returned with almost all of the day’s press: Le Journal, Le Petit Journal, Le Matin, Le Figaro, Le Temps, L’Écho de Paris, Le Gaulois, Le Petit Parisien, Gil Blas… Perea glanced through them quickly. Many of them spoke on their front pages of a mysterious crime committed the previous day on an island in the Seine, and published a portrait of the dead man. Perea remembered his dispute with Leopoldina’s “Apache” lover, and amidst the pain of returning to Spain, he experienced a sense of liberation, the joy of a pardoned prisoner; truly, living in Paris was reckless. That night—the last he would spend in Paris—Don Higinio didn’t go out: he preferred the mournful gravity of memory to the frivolity of the present. He remembered Hernán Cortés and “his sad night.” Wasn’t Paris worth the empire of Montezuma? He went up to his room and, exhausted, both from real grief and from the other grief his imagination fantasized and attributed to himself, sat down on a trunk. He looked around. “Tomorrow, at this time,” he said to himself, “I’ll be very far away…” He tried to cry, and since he couldn’t, he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and got into bed, where he soon began to snore loudly. The next day, in the middle of the afternoon, to have time to check his bills, Don Higinio settled his accounts with the hotel owner, said goodbye to Clark and Mr. Francisco, distributed tips among the waiters, and got into a car. “To the Orleans station!” He had with him the blanket carrier, two briefcases, and several hat boxes. Behind him, in a truck, covered with oilcloth, under the pouring rain , were his four trunks crammed with gifts, and packed in special crates, the notary Arribas’s pianola and a motorcycle. On that trip through Paris, Don Higinio seemed like a wise man. Chapter 5. Five years after returning from Paris, Don Higinio Perea experienced the disquieting impression of never having left Serranillas; So perfectly had his old habits regained control of him, and so perfectly was the connection between the day he left his village and the day he returned to it that, through memory, not even the briefest interval of an hour seemed to exist between them. The return of the bold man from La Mancha to the home of his ancestors had, for several weeks, the noise and clarity of an apotheosis. Don Higinio left Paris very sad, and his dark sorrow accompanied him as he crossed the border and over the pain of the Castilian plains: it was the bitterness of exile, of a lost paradise; Don Higinio understood Boabdil… However, as he saw the church of his village again, he was struck by a piercing emotion of pride; then, as the train advanced, he went Recognizing the familiar faces of the people waiting for him on the platform, each one of them eliciting a joyful beat from his impressionable heart. Finally, when he heard the familiar, evocative voice of Juan Pantaleón shouting, more moved and more artistic than ever: “Serraniiiillas, two minutes!” His eyes filled with tears and his round coramvobis turned purple. The crowd acclaimed him; a thunderous shout rent the air: “Long live Don Higinio Perea!” “Long live!” There they were, in the foreground, his wife, his sister-in-law, the enormous Don Gregorio Hernández with his Robinson-like beard more unruly than ever, as if emotion had risen to it and made it bristle; Don Cándido the apothecary; Don Tomás Murillo, Julio Cenén, who had taken Joaquinito Perea in his arms so that his father could see him before his brothers; the notary, Don Jerónimo Arribas; Doña Lucía, Doña Benita, Pepe Fernández, director of El Faro; Gutiérrez, the postmaster, with his daughters Águeda and Francisca… And behind them all the partners of the Casino, the engineer and several employees and foremen of his mine, and many other people curious to see the traveler, who had been much talked about lately and whose supposed adventures had spread throughout the town at the expense of the non-beautiful credulity of some and the idleness and malice of others. Shaken, kissed, oppressed, Don Higinio, with no time to free himself from his briefcase and the blanket in which he was wrapped, writhed under a swarm of obsequious arms: all of them wanted to touch him, to offer him a tangible proof of their affection, and in doing so, they reminded him of his errands. “Will you bring me my postcards? ” “And my vases? What did you do with my vases?” “Friend Perea!… Did you forget my alarm clock?” Unable to respond promptly to so many questions, the great man distributed handshakes, words of hope, smiles of agreement, and congratulations. Around him and regarding him, gossip swirled. Don Gregorio Hernández seemed to have grown stouter; Don Cándido thought he hadn’t changed. Clinging to his arm, pressing against him, both enamored and vaguely jealous, Doña Emilia murmured: “Perillán… you must have enjoyed yourself… We have many scores to settle…” The afternoon was fading, and in the opaline clarity of its agony, curiosity adorned the balconies with women; watchful eyes throbbed behind the blinds; people crowded at the doors of the taverns. It was the unanimous, absolute attention of a town, concentrated on one man. Thus, surrounded by a crowd above which the four large trunks that comprised the traveler’s main luggage floated like buoys, Don Higinio arrived home. Those first days were alternately lax and feverish; moments of feverish agitation, during which the repatriated man was obliged to entertain all his friends who came to visit him by describing in detail everything his eyes had seen, were followed by taciturn intervals of peace. Once the coffers were emptied, the gifts distributed, even the smallest details discussed, and everyone’s curiosity dampened, Don Higinio regained his life. He wound the clocks again and felt the gentle melancholy of familiar and old things. At first, he greatly missed the comforts of the hotel in the Alps. What luxury, what refinements, what a way of anticipating and anticipating the passenger’s slightest needs! Don Higinio spoke incessantly: a servant to open the door, another inside the elevator, maids who looked like governesses, dining room boys in tailcoats, gloves, and patent-leather boots, and on each floor waiters dressed in tuxedos, ceremonious and elegant like comedy leading men, who walked ahead of the guests, turning on the lights, opening all the doors before them until they reached their rooms, and then withdrawing after a respectful curve of their spines. Perea sighed. Little job. It was going to be hard for him to return to his old ways. It was a favorite topic of his conversations, and at every opportunity, to give his phrases historical prominence and prestige, he would exclaim: “These cuffs I’m wearing were ironed in Paris.” And at other times: “I bought the perfume for my handkerchief on the boulevard, near the café where I used to go every afternoon for an aperitif…” The hardest part was getting used to pulling the bell cords. What abominable backwardness, the way of the people! In his bedroom at the Hotel des Alpes, there was a tiny porcelain bell on the wall, between the headboard and the nightstand. All he had to do was place a finger on that little button and seconds later, as if from a Jack-in-the-Box, a smiling waiter would appear, friendly and cordial like a diplomat. On the other hand, using the bell seemed indecorous to him, especially at night: if he was in bed in the dark and needed to ring it, he had to bother himself by sticking an arm out of the hood, groping for the cord on the cold wall, and then pulling it, uncovering himself and waking up with the effort… He also greatly missed the fine , clean crockery at the Hotel des Alpes, the correct and prompt service at the table, and, above all, the immaculate art of shoe polishing. In Serranillas, there was no maid who knew how to shine a pair of boots. How different from Paris! Perea could never forget his joy when, in the mornings, outside his bedroom door, he would find, inside his boots, brushed and polished like jet, his correspondence for the day and an issue of Le Journal. Thanks to such memories, Don Higinio, long after leaving Paris, continued living in Paris, smoking with relish the detestable tobacco he brought back in large quantities from there, discoursed in French, and scrupulously upholding France’s hegemony over all the countries of Europe. He suffocated in his hometown: it seemed base, archaic, and tedious to him, and he attributed this lack of spiritual dynamism to the monotony of his diet, thanks to the proven influence the stomach always had on the brain. That trip revolutionized his political opinions and even his way of speaking; his phonetics changed completely; without ever learning French, he seemed to have forgotten Spanish; he pronounced the simplest and most common words with his lips tightly closed and his vowels as obscured as possible. He would also interrupt himself in the middle of a sentence, hesitating as if he couldn’t find the right verb or adjective, and unravel it in a strange and exotic way . But these innocent tricks with which he strove to give his persona a European veneer lasted barely a year. His wife’s local conversation, the care of his estates, his daily disputes with tenant farmers and shepherds, the friendly hours at the Casino—everything gradually stripped him of that subtle aroma of cosmopolitanism, and finally he returned to who he was and sank into his past: he was like a stone dropped into a tranquil lake, whose waters, after vibrating for a few moments in concentric circles, closed impassively around it. Once again he returned to his fields, to his solitary hours of fishing on the banks of the Guadamil, to his games of dominoes and his sugar candies at the Casino, and to the Virgilian love of the fruit trees and geraniums that grew in his orchard. The three months he spent in Paris were not, however, entirely in vain. Just as a knife leaves a sharp edge on something cut, so the spirit always retains traces of the emotions that passed through it. Serranillas had taken on a sadder expression in his eyes, and its inhabitants, even the most prominent, had an irritating quality of vulgarity and vulgarity that he hadn’t noticed before. His trip, while educating his taste, revealed many uglinesses to him, for it is often the case with people that certain old clothes appear fine in the dim light of the house , but outside, under the harsh light of the street, are unacceptable. From this arose Don Higinio’s unexpected fondness for walking alone. An excellent man, he thought of Paris, and along the wide, quiet streets of Serranillas, in whose peace some music student played notes by Cramer and Kalkbrenner, he dragged, like a broken wing, his misunderstood melancholy of an exile. At intervals, the iron clatter of a horse’s hooves, the lumberjack’s cry , or the monorhythmic cadence with which some schoolchildren repeated in chorus the numbers of the multiplication table; then nothing: only the echo of their footsteps in the stillness. All the houses, with facades plastered pink or blue and projecting eaves, seemed uninhabited; but he felt that from the green shutters, with their sycamore greenery, between the gaiety of the white-painted jambs, feminine eyes were spying on him, following him, asking him, perhaps, about his legend; And Perea, whose petty marital infidelities had sharpened his adventurous instincts, felt the touch of that vehement village lust, aroused by the silence and inaction in which the flesh of the young local women is toasted, and which burned behind the blinds like a vestal fire. Don
Higinio sighed; now he understood; now that it was late. Ah, if only he had known twenty years earlier! The layout of his house allowed him to remain isolated. To the right and left of the hall or entryway paved with small, polished stones , opened the doors of the room intended for Teresita and Carmen, and of the study adjoining the conjugal chamber. Beyond was the patio, adorned with flowerpots and with a well whose pulley, pushed by the wind, creaked in the silence. Further inside were the dining room, the kitchen, the pantry, the wardrobe, Anselmo and Joaquín’s bedroom, and the study; a room with no furniture other than an old table, half a dozen straw chairs, several ratty chests filled with papers, and a cupboard containing novels and books on agriculture and mining. These rooms opened their windows onto the large, tree-lined garden. The servants’ quarters occupied the attic. The carefully mopped floors, high ceilings, and white, unadorned walls gave the entire house a bright, vibrant light. Don Higinio spent long hours in his study, far from the family bustle , meditating on himself. He developed the weakness of sighing. He was a foreigner in his own country! No one understood him! He was so alone!… Many mornings he would take a book and, accompanied by his children, bravely climb to the highest peak of the mountains that seemed to press around Serranillas in a stony belt. There, while the boys played, he would settle down on the ground, stick his stick in the earth, place his hat on it, and gaze out at the landscape. Spring restored the emerald tremors to the countryside and filled the air with the fragrance of orange blossoms and roses. A strong white light anointed the space. Below, from the church to the railway station, following a gently sloping plane, the picturesque village clustered : winding streets, jasmine-patterned plasterwork, russet roofs, and here and there, like April stains, the green rectangle of a garden. From the village, along with the silence, the august voice of the valley, rose, like a boil, the inextinguishable chatter of the horny birds, and at intervals, a bray, the trumpeting of a rooster, or the cry of some mining train: a soft whistle that now swelled, now faded behind a fence, only to be reborn again, according to the zigzagging evolutions of the road. Everything orchestrated the landscape, good and austere at the same time: the mountains, the lush estates, the groves covered with lush saplings, the mines with their smoking chimneys and solid brick buildings, blackened by coal dust ; the potato fields and the alfalfa fields, over which the Guadamil, shining at intervals, seemed to have scattered the shards of some broken mirror; and on the other side, the circular and yellowish perimeter, similar to an enormous grain of wheat, of the Bullring , and the promenade where the fair was held annually and led to a certain hermitage where pious people venerated an image of Saint Rosendo. Don Higinio looked out, and from the horizon, like a fatal mist, a swelling wave of sadness flowed back toward him. There he had been born, and in that distant cemetery whose small, rigid cypresses rose from the ground, marked by tombstones like chess pieces, his dark labors would find resolution and repose. Don Higinio, tragic amidst his insignificance and mediocrity, snorted with pain with such vigor that his children turned their eyes to look at him. The diminished man felt the liturgical austerity of silence weighing on his temples, like a threat of congestion : that terrible peasant silence, the voice of the earth that invades the soul and thus numbs it and reduces it to imbecility, as it exalts it and drives it to madness. Paris, the marvelous towers of Notre Dame, the Pont des Arts, beneath which he lived so many happy hours! The Piedmontese interpreter, the Hotel des Alpes!… And the little French girl from the train? And Madame Berta? And the mischievous Leopoldina with her Apache? And Miss Enriqueta, so self-interested and so formal, so serious even at the moment of taking off her shirt?… Of all these cynical or trivial images, Don Higinio recalled none of them, and none of them suggested resentment. Ah! And how gladly he would have returned to them only to be deceived again!… At the last minute, according to his old custom, he went to the Casino, and seeing the ceremony with which the doormen greeted him, he seemed to receive a breath of Europe and experienced indescribable well-being. Afterward , he would enjoyably amuse himself by listening to his friends lie. During the interminable domino battles, the players invented stories, slashed honors, and dressed the most innocent with serious sauces of sin . All these inventions began the same way: “It is said…” The hypocritical, slanderous, and cowardly formula spread from mouth to mouth. Sometimes they spoke of a certain wealthy tavern keeper from Almodóvar, known by the nickname _Tocinico_, who had just settled in Serranillas and whom they supposed to be involved in a counterfeit currency business; other times, they spoke of the operation several doctors from Ciudad Real performed on Águeda, the eldest daughter of the postmaster: the tumor that, according to her father, was removed from her womb, was a child belonging to Don Mariano, the owner of the blacksmith shop. They commented on the minor incidents that had occurred during the day, the outfits the girls wore for walks and which boyfriends were on the lookout for later; and whether Don Tomás often complained that there was no proportion between marriages and baptisms; and whether the hips of Primitiva and María Luisa, the merry nieces of the municipal judge, were made of flesh or cotton; And since many hands were praying in the street, once in church, irreverently taking advantage of the crowded conditions of High Mass, they pinched them, and opinions were divided. The majority, however, were inclined to do evil: Julio Cenén achieved success when he said that, according to the reliable testimony of the shoeshine boy in the plaza, who had served them several times, both María Luisa and her little sister had very thin calves … After dinner, while Doña Emilia put the children to bed, Don Higinio, leaning on the balcony railing, sank his gaze into the sooty vagueness of the night. From his house, located in the highest part of town, the entire aspect of the hamlet could be clearly seen, whitened with a ghostly whiteness under the milky light of the stars. The silence was so absolute, so dense, that it seemed to be felt on one’s skin. Only at widely spaced intervals, the distant rumble of a train, a watchful bark, or the ominous cry of owls. To one side, as if presiding over the village’s rest, rose the church with its centuries-old, sturdy quadrangular tower, darkened by age and mining dust. That tower, at the top of which beat a four-faced clock, seemed to simultaneously register the cardinal points of the horizon. Its empire extended as far as Don Higinio ; it was the will of the people: it had the force of an order, the despotism of a raised arm, the dramatic eloquence of an “alert!” sounded in the solemnity of the night. Beneath the black expanse, the aquiline top of the old tower recalled the curved profile of a malevolent bird: the spheres, which could only be seen in pairs, were the phosphorescent, circular eyes, and between them, burnished by the pallor of the astral mystery, a ridge like a carnivorous beak. In the never- ending boredom of local existence, the church tower constituted an unchallengeable obsession, like a law: it was the rudder, the will, the voice that cried out in every home. It woke men and sent them to work; it, as the sun set, returned them to their homes; on the way to school, the boys would glance at it furtively. It was sometimes joy, and sometimes pain; For the same reason, her gesture, when reflected in their consciences, had different expressions: pleasant for those who fulfilled their duty, stern for those who, lazy or distracted, had wasted their day’s work. Don Higinio knew these quiet eloquent words by heart. Magical tower, tower of suggestion and enchantment! Its bells, celebrating the love of the married and the immersion of the newborn in the lustral waters and moaning piously over the dead, seemed like tongues charged with relating to heaven the history of that small, forgotten world. She arranged everything: dancing and prayer, work and rest; her clamor vibrated with the voluptuousness of epithalamium in the flesh of single women; her luminous spheres, where time laughed, searched the valley and shone upon it with a threat. Only one little corner escaped her dictatorship, and that was the cemetery, the graveyard; asylum of eternity before whose walls the hours stand still, and which to the proud architecture of the erect tower opposed the docile negation, the ineffable equalizing repose, of the horizontal line. Lost in these useless and sour imaginings, Don Higinio remained for a long time, until Doña Emilia’s voice, bellicose as a bugle call, brought him back to humble reality. “Higinio!… Have you closed the downstairs door? Did you wind the dining room clock?” And then, with the insolent authority of a housewife overwhelmed with worries and duties, she added: “Damn, do something!… You should have thought I’m made of flesh and blood and can’t be everywhere. ” He, silent and passive, more passive than ever, with the repose and noble sadness of a dethroned king, closed the balcony, secured the doors, unleashed the dogs, and returned to the marital bedroom. Many nights, Doña Emilia, who took a long time to fall asleep, heard him sigh. No matter how carefully Don Higinio concealed his emotions, it was impossible for his dissimulation and self-control to be absolute, and the change in his character soon became known to the public. Doña Emilia and Teresita were the first to notice, and even the gossipmongers, who at first mocked the exaggeratedly French pronunciation that Perea brought from Paris, understood that his spirit was going through a grave crisis. They believed him wounded by love or subject to some implacable remorse or curse. “They haven’t changed him,” Don Gregorio would say. And Doña Emilia: “Yes, sir, it’s true: the husband who left me is not the one who has returned.” At times, indeed, he seemed a different man: sadness had aristocratized his plump face, and even his body, despite its ugly shortness and robustness, seemed to timidly insinuate itself with a new elegance. He had subscribed to Le Journal, stopped going to mass, took a liking to dark-colored ties, bought a map of France, and whenever he spoke of Paris he did so in a lowered voice, as if, in evoking that memory, his soul was penetrating into some sacred place. It was the respectful, reserved, prudent accent that is used in homes where there is a seriously ill person… Contrary to his former routine, he left the house every evening, and accompanied by a dog, he walked in the countryside at ten and twelve o’clock. kilometers. Neither the cold, nor the rain, nor the howling north wind that passed through the throngs of the mountain range stopped him. Sometimes he would settle in Argamasilla, other times in Almodóvar. This, besides benefiting his health, helped him demonstrate how deeply rooted his habit of going to bed late was. His neighbors were astonished to see him, and he smiled, flattered and sad. “If I went to bed before twelve,” he explained, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep.” He drank nothing but beer and claimed that the smell of wine made him nauseous. The first bottle of absinthe that arrived in Serranillas was his, and it sparked long commentary: everyone talked about the green concoction in which Perea, who couldn’t give up his Parisian habits, slowly dissolved a lump of sugar placed on a fork. Julio Cenén bought the second bottle, and since he was very novelistic and liked to attract attention, he took it to the Casino so everyone would know. This Frenchification of customs infuriated Don Gregorio and infused his deep voice with the harshness of battle. “You are criminals,” he would say, “you are poisoning the neighborhood, and you, my friend Perea, are primarily responsible. Drinking absinthe in Serranillas! Where has anything like this ever been seen?” Don Higinio would nod and not reply; then he would shrug his shoulders, with the sad laxity of someone who knows they cannot overcome their vices. At the family table, he generally maintained a grave demeanor. Teresita made small talk; Doña Emilia scolded the children for their inattentiveness or unclean eating habits and continually cited herself as a model. “At your age,” he would say, “I wasn’t like that…” Perea remained silent, bored, thinking that those conversations, repeated day after day, over the years, had the soporific sound of a downpour. He would often remain absorbed, motionless, his spoon in the air, his eyes, unseeing, fixed on a spot on the wall. His wife would pinch him: “You’re not in Paris!” He would look at her, smiling kindly: “How did you guess?” And he continued eating with that placidity that faces usually acquire when the spirit is absent. Freshly returned from his trip, he had continued using various objects that denoted a certain gallant refinement of manners: such as garters, mustache pins, bottles of brilliantine, cosmetics, pumice stones that clean the fingers and give them a delicate polish, nail files, pinkish-colored pastes for the nails, skin-softening ointments, and other cosmetics. But imperceptibly, as the atmosphere of Serranillas began to dominate him, those trans-Pyrenean novelties began to fall into deplorable disuse: the garters gave way to the old and abhorred ribbons; the mustache pins, forgotten, remained in a drawer of the dresser; The file trees became moldy; the children filled the spray bottles with water to water the flowerpots. Perea had come to forget the secret of those tie bows he used to make in Paris, and once again, even in these trivial matters, he had to submit to his wife’s maternal authority. Slowly, he gave up, neglected his perfumes, didn’t brush his teeth. When he went out, he couldn’t find anything: Doña Emilia had to tie his tie, helped him put on his suspenders, stretched his waistcoat over the roundness of his abdomen, and when she brushed his clothes, even though she did it with great exaggeration and determination, she would often hit him on the inside of his arms with the handle of the brush. Meanwhile, she would lecture him. “Ah, what a clumsy man! Honestly, I don’t understand how you managed to manage in these worlds separated from me. ” He smiled; His sadness had resolved into forgetting or abandoning himself , and into a brand-new exaltation of his love for nature: he fished more than before and dedicated himself assiduously to improving the fruit trees in the garden. He loved the metallic-gleaming grapes; the strawberries, which, with the last days of April, were beginning to crimson through the green alcatifa of their leaves; the sweet watermelons, which sometimes cracked when ripe, laughing with a clownish, red, and happy mouth; The young lettuces, resembling emeralds on the dark, disturbed soil, were also a favorite among the fruit trees . His favorites were the apricot and fig trees, with their lush, luxuriant foliage, feisty trees whose energetic branches grew straight toward the light. Faced with these determined tentacles, upright and bellicose like bayonets, the nearest olive trees, as well as the apple and cherry trees, with their round, white trunks, gathered their leaves in a clear gesture of flight. Perea disdained those cowardly trees, whose weakness, through a long chain of thoughts, moved him to think of himself. At the end of May, the arrival of some acrobats from Ciudad Real delighted and celebrated the neighborhood. The Casino’s relatives spoke of no other matter. Julio Cenén, who met the show’s director when he went to the City Hall for the necessary license to set up his canvas and board circus on the side of the promenade, claimed that the three women in the troupe were beautiful, especially the youngest. Cenén and Pepe Fernández, director of El Faro, had spoken with her. She was nineteen years old and from Perpignan. “Do you speak Spanish?” Arribas asked. “Very little; twenty or thirty words; that’s the problem: you have to charm her with signs. ” Everyone looked at Perea. “Come on, Don Higinio!… There you have a French woman, almost a fellow countryman… Congratulations!… Now you can show off…” Don Higinio smiled modestly. Yes, it’s true, he was fluent in French; but… bah!… The occasion wasn’t the most appropriate. In the Eastern Pyrenees, a hybrid and obscure dialect full of Catalan influences is spoken. A French woman from Perpignan!… If only she had been from Paris!… Someone hinted at the possibility that Perea might have known her; since those theater women travel so much… Don Higinio felt childishly rocked, infatuated, by such a supposition. Who knows!… While he was in Paris, he had frequented the Casino and Olympia theaters, where he met the most ostentatious and renowned adventuresses, and it wouldn’t be extraordinary if he and that puppeteer had drunk beer together at some point. “I,” he added, lowering his voice, “led a hellish life in Paris: balls, dinners with women… In short! Like a boy! Rare were the nights I went to sleep at my hotel. Imperceptibly, the three months that Don Higinio remained in Paris stretched into four, five, six… At first, the intrepid traveler realized his trick; But then, by repeating it, he ended up deceiving himself and taking his own lie for a real and valid fact. And since the reality of events and people blurs as much or more in the distances of time as in those of space, Don Gregorio himself and all his friends came to believe that Perea had, in fact, resided in the city on the Seine for more than six months. The time at which Don Higinio left Serranillas contributed to adding a semblance of certainty to the invention: it was in mid-November, and the transition from that year to the next gave his exile incredible longevity. Furthermore, Perea, discreetly adding what little he managed to learn to what the newspapers taught him, discoursed with remarkable aplomb about festivals and scenes of Parisian life separated from each other by great intervals: about the toy bazaars that invade the boulevards on Christmas Eve and the famous fair of July 14, the anniversary of the surrender of the Bastille; of the balls at the opera and the “Grand Prix” at Longchamps; of the stormy sessions he had witnessed in Parliament, and of the gallant scenes on the beaches of Dieppe and Trouville… And this diabolical jumble of dates and places singularly contributed to prolonging his trip. On Friday, at half past eight in the evening, as El Faro had announced, the inauguration of the circus took place: a true event that stirred the chests smelling of mothballs, where the well-to-do girls kept their dirty laundry. Don Higinio couldn’t miss a party of such solemnity and cosmopolitanism . Accompanied by his wife, children, and sister-in-law, he occupied six seats in the front row. Also present were Don Gregorio and Doña Lucía, with their red, puffed-out cheeks and suspenders; the apothecary and Doña Benita; Cenén, the notary Arribas; María Luisa and Primitiva Sampedro, the municipal judge’s nieces; the postmaster with his family; and many other names from high society. Along the rows, as if on telegraph wires, gossip, grudges, and slanderous suppositions spread with shameless fervor and alacrity. In that villainous tournament of cowardice and wickedness, the Casino members rose to the top. —Have you seen how pale Gutiérrez’s daughter is?… —Since the story about the tumor… —Yes, yes… What a brave tumor!… We were all born from tumors like that… The circus, made of planks, was a kind of amphitheater, covered by a large canvas that shaded the weather and dust and dotted with white patches; a sturdy fork or prop nailed in the exact middle of the ring gave a conical shape to the fragile roof. The general admission seating was separated from the more prized seats by an alleyway and consisted of long, unnumbered planks with no backrests. A woven jute curtain hid from the spectators where the performers entered and exited. On the other side, on a scaffolding like a stage, six members of the municipal band blew the warlike notes of a pasodoble on their instruments. The formidable cymbal beat marked the rhythm. From the sandy, disturbed, trampled ground, a fine dust rose, whitening the men’s hats and dimming the glow of the two arc lights hanging from a wire above the dance floor. Don Higinio watched the spectacle in silence, a little sad because he was thinking of Paris . Doña Emilia, sensing her husband’s mood , grew irritated: he was bored, and what was worse, with that expression he bored the others; everyone could tell. “Do you want to go home?” Perea, speaking very softly, reassured his wife: “No, my dear; I’m happy… Believe me!… Now… It’s clear!… Since I’ve seen so much of all this and so much good… ” Indeed, neither the German jugglers, nor the clown, nor the Hercules playing with a cannonball excited him; the trained dogs bored him so much that he began to read the latest issue of El Faro. He was only interested in the little French girl from Perpignan, who, standing on a rug and performing dislocation exercises to the strains of a waltz, was performing. She was petite, delicately fleshy, with curly, blond pageboy hair and a wry little mouth like that of a Renaissance gallant. The girl pleased everyone; her youth, her grace, the cordial harmony of her forms and gestures, won over the audience; men and women alike watched her avidly, and the artist must have felt on her rosy skin, like a magnetic effluvium, the touch of desire and envy. A group of friends from the Casino, Julio Cenén among them, looked at Perea, inviting him with exaggerated winks and gestures to take a closer look at the little French girl. They seemed to be saying, “There she is . Those are the ones you like.” Seeing them, Don Gregorio laughed. Don Higinio, annoyed, looked at his wife. —They could consider that I came with you. Such indiscretions can only be tolerated between single men. She had blushed with jealousy. —When your friends tease you like that, there must be a reason. I’m not stupid. Did you meet that woman in Paris? Perea, satisfied and conceited, began to laugh. —Don’t talk nonsense!… Of course I could have met her… But, no, I assure you; I don’t know who she is… And his childish petulance was such that it made his refusal ineffective. Doña Emilia looked him straight in the eyes, and under her plump Her large frame, all her naive, hot Manchegan blood boiled. Ah, the race! “I’ll find out,” she murmured, “and if that puppeteer has come to Serranillas after you, she’ll lose her bun.” Her anger was so great that she began to sigh and squirm in her seat, as if pricked by pins. Perea felt a pang of tragedy at her side and was afraid. The idea of two women killing each other for him horrified him. Doña Emilia’s face was covered with wood and flecked with reddish spots, as if she were threatened by an attack of herpetism. “I must find out this very night,” she repeated; “this very night…” Don Higinio said nothing; but when the French girl, having finished her exercises, withdrew, it seemed to him that a great weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. The next day, at the Casino, Don Higinio Perea tried to slap Cenén and Pepe Martín. His joke the day before at the circus was unforgivable and only served to upset his wife; Doña Emilia was jealous of the French girl from Perpignan. “And if you did it to mortify me,” he added, standing up with warlike arrogance, “you’ve made a mistake: I’m not afraid of anyone; I know how to make fists and put them where they’re needed. ” He coughed, fixed his lapels over his chest, and took a few steps forward, back, and sideways, before the people who surrounded him expectantly, awed by such courage. “Because when it comes to arguing,” he concluded, “and I say this to you… and to you… and to you… and to anyone who might take offense, there’s no one who ‘ll put his foot down.” That outburst of anger had exhausted the scant funds of resentment that could be incubated in a spirit as evangelical and good-natured as his, and so, no sooner had he launched his manly challenge than with his final words his hatred subsided, and he felt faint and tamed like a sheep. Julio Cenén, who knew him perfectly, took this opportunity to embrace him. “Well, let’s go!… But what was that about?” Several of those present intervened in favor of peace, and Don Higinio, satisfied with his graceful conduct and now completely disarmed, concluded by bursting into laughter. He was sorry for his outburst; he didn’t remember anything, and he didn’t want anyone to remember him either. It was over; he took back, one by one, a few aggressive phrases he could have said… At night, he returned to the circus accompanied by Cenén; the town clerk wanted to speak with the French girl from Perpignan at all costs and brought him along as an interpreter. Upon entering, they saw Don Gregorio Hernández. Cenén put his arm around his waist. “Do you want to come? Let’s tell a few flirtatious remarks to the little French girl with the dislocations. ” The mischievous secretary’s aquiline face brimmed with malice. Don Gregorio looked at him disdainfully and mockingly; Cenén had neither his wits nor his pants; he didn’t inspire confidence; he had never liked men with small heads. After a pause, he seemed to yield: “And who’s going to introduce us? ” “Who would it be?… Me!… Or rather, friend Perea, the only one of us who knows French…” That night, the male element predominated; the miners invaded the general entrance; in the preferential seats, on the other hand, there were few families; the ladies said that the acrobats worked too naked… Following an alley, Cenén, Don Higinio, and the doctor arrived at the part of the circus where the performers left and exited. There were the clown with the trained dogs, Hercules, the German jugglers, and the little French girl from Perpignan. Seeing Cenén, whom she already knew, the young woman smiled. In familiar, clear Spanish, the secretary, with great aplomb, introduced Don Higinio: “Here’s a man who, when it comes to speaking French, is a kind of Gambetta.” From the gestures of her interlocutor, the young lady from Perpignan understood that they had brought her an interpreter. “Nice to meet you… Does the gentleman speak French?” Perea stammered: “Yes, yes… a little…” Cenén burst out laughing coarsely: “We understood you perfectly. You said: ‘Yes, yes; a little.’ You don’t need to blush so much for that.” The young woman looked alternately at the three men. “Spain is very beautiful,” she said, “I like it very much. Do you know Paris?” Don Higinio nodded. “Ah! Yes indeed! Paris!… I knew nothing else !” “Did you live there for a long time?” He extended the five fingers of his right hand and the little finger of his left, and then, with a pout of indecision, extended his ring finger as well.
“Six or seven years?” exclaimed the artist, astonished. “No, no… ” “Six or seven months? ” “Yes… yes…” She became confused. When she answered, despite her best efforts at memory, she couldn’t find the right word; the good man looked ridiculous; his festive imagination had deceived him; Now his conscience confirmed it: he didn’t know French. Cenén laughed, mortifying him: “And just for that, to say ‘no, no’ or ‘yes, yes,’ you’ve crossed the border?” Perea tried to apologize; he attributed his clumsiness to lack of habit; there’s a lot of mechanics in the psychology of conversation; he was certain that eight days after returning to Paris he would speak French quickly and correctly, just as before. Besides, in Perpignan they speak a stupid dialect, and not the clean, sonorous French he had learned on the boulevard. “Tell her,” Cenén suggested, “if she wants to have dinner with me. ” Don Higinio bit his lip. “Dinner,” he thought, “how do you say ‘dinner’ in French?” He tried to correct his clumsiness by means of hyperbolic mimicry, perfectly southern. The artist shrugged her shoulders, smiling and charming inside her tobacco-colored tights. She had understood. “Dinner? ” “I can’t; those dinners after the performance tend to be harmful…” A bell rang, and Mademoiselle de Perpignan took her leave; her hard , small, gymnast-like hands clasped Don Higinio’s with a manly shake. “Goodbye, gentlemen. ‘My act’s about to begin. Will you go and applaud me? ” “What does she say?” interrupted Cenén. “Nothing, she’s leaving; she says ‘good night.’ Shall we go and see her?” The little French girl headed toward the jute curtain that covered the dance floor, and every now and then she turned her head, bidding farewell to the three men with a malicious smile. Don Higinio, Cenén, and Don Gregorio, who hadn’t opened his mouth, judging his mission accomplished, withdrew. The secretary was furious. “If I knew,” he said, “I’d bring a dictionary.” What a pity about the night!… Baskets!… Do you know, friend Perea, that in Paris, with an interpreter like you, anyone would die of hunger?… Doña Emilia had categorically forbidden her husband from going to the circus; he, meek and cunning, offered her obedience and went to the Casino under the pretext that his digestion was beginning to be difficult and he needed to lighten it by doing a little exercise after dinner. At the Casino, playing dominoes, he would remain until nine-thirty or ten; but at that hour he, Don Gregorio, who also died for skirts, and the town clerk would go off to gloat over Mademoiselle de Perpignan’s dislocations. The corpulent, sanguine, feudal doctor, and Julio Cenén, stung by lust like an adolescent, were driven there by the desire to see the Frenchwoman almost naked and to delight in the eel-like multiplicity of her attitudes, with the visions of which Don Gregorio would turn red, and the town clerk, who in his moments of most fervid attention had the dirty habit of biting his nails, would turn livid. In Don Higinio, the gelatinous twists of the acrobat produced emotions of another, more spiritual and refined order. The lanky, massive beauty of the German jugglers, the barbaric French of the clown, the oaths muttered in Italian by the director of the troupe, interested him equally and for a few moments would take him away from Serranillas. That was a parody of what he had seen in his European wanderings , a celebration of cosmopolitanism that directed his nostalgic soul toward the Babel-like frivolities of Clichy. Why would he have joined Doña Emilia? Why would he have children, houses, and estates to manage? Why would his fields produce so many olives and so much wheat? Why would the water flow in his mill? And as if all that weren’t enough to keep him firmly anchored and subdued, his coal business, his mine, planted in the earth like the deepest root. He would have liked to be a ship captain, a rogue, a singer, or a puppeteer; then, since his travels around the world had taught him several languages, he would have known how to express his love to Mademoiselle de Perpignan, and she would have loved him and surrendered him to her voluptuous disposition and mercy. The idea of seeing himself in a pair of circus underpants with his nose painted vermillion didn’t intimidate him: such was the poetic efficacy of his dream. She would wear her tobacco-colored tights, and he would don a clown, a Chinese man, or a devil’s costume… What did it matter? And then, onward along the roads; both of them very poor, but very together, very happy, with the supreme joy of freedom. Mother Chance, who always had a smile and a drop of milk for the “stateless,” would accompany them. No children, no furniture! Nothing to hold; no bond to force the heart to look back. Faced with these mirages of thuggery, Don Higinio sighed, drowsed his eyes, and crossed his short, hairy hands over the half -sphere of his belly. Because men are just like women when it comes to desiring what they don’t have, they languish and exhaust themselves for what they don’t have, and so, while the village girls dream of travel, the puppeteers might give up all their independence, all the distractions of their broken and wandering lives, in exchange for a rustic cottage with chickens and fruit trees. These reverie of Don Higinio’s were usually shattered by a sharp nudge from Cenén. The French girl, bowing gratefully to the applause of the audience, would leave the stage with courteous and graceful curtsies. “Look at her, what a painter!” the secretary would roar, biting his fingernail. “She ought to be eaten! ” “What’s her name? ” “La Debreuil, Liana Debreuil… Do you want us to see her again?… Hell! You’re freezing, my friend!” Perea would shrug his shoulders. —But what do you want me to do?… Then, the dialect of those French women from the Low Pyrenees is so strange… You’ll remember what happened to me with her the other night… Right?… We spoke, and… not a word!… When the show was over, Julio Cenén quickly said goodbye to Don Higinio and the doctor. Don Gregorio looked at him attentively and placed one of his huge hunter’s hands on the back of his neck. The secretary’s face had the immobility of lines, the fanatical hardness of expression with which inexorable resolutions are expressed. —Where are you going?… —exclaimed the doctor, gripping his arm. —That’s not a question. —Yes, sir, it’s a question. Where are you going, rascal?… —To see Debreuil. —Alone? —Completely alone; that is to say… —With discreet hypocrisy, he showed his friends a hundred-peseta note that he carried in his wallet. —Hey, friend Perea, you who’ve seen the world, what do you think of my plan? Then, lowering his voice, his eyes shining with mischief: —I’m going to translate my passion into Esperanto; this time I think Miss Liana and I will understand each other. Since the good of others is so distressing, the secretary’s words saddened Don Higinio and Don Gregorio . They walked worriedly for a long time, in the silence of the white, moonlit streets. Finally , Don Gregorio spoke: sanguine people are impatient. —Do you think you’ll achieve something? Don Higinio made an ambiguous gesture; the prudent pout of a worldly man who has seen many times how what seemed impossible is smoothed out and resolved by chance in a flash. —Nobody knows… The doctor asserted selfishly. —Bah! I don’t think so. —However, that Cenén is a devil. —However much of a devil he is! I assure you he won’t get anything. He’ll do his best… that’s for sure! We already know him; but the French girl will get his money, amuse herself at his expense for a few days, and then… the smoke !… French women are good! No one has ever seen them more selfish!… I mean, who am I going to tell it to!… You already know them… Perea smiled and lowered his eyelids, as if he carried some gallant and tasty anecdote on his tongue and didn’t dare tell it. —However,— he said slowly, with the parsimony of someone reading from experience,—those theater women often have whims… —Don’t talk to me about them! They’re filthy. I haven’t had any dealings with any of them, but I know it from my friends in Ciudad Real. As the people say! Theater meat, expensive and bad. —Expensive, yes, that’s true! —And bad, Don Higinio!… —Not bad, Don Gregorio. —Yes, sir, bad! Very bad! A doctor can tell you that! But Don Higinio didn’t give in; instinctively he was passionate about the artists, he didn’t want them to be offended; the bourgeois hatred that Hernández manifested toward the amiable servants of the show business inflamed his spirit; defending them seemed to him to be defending something of his own. His attitude was so resolute that the doctor gave in a little. —Well, don’t get so worked up. Caramba, Perea! It’s well known that gratitude speaks in you. Despite your opinion, I remain firm in my opinion and… wait a minute! I’m sure that Cenén, who is a child at heart, won’t accomplish anything. It was midnight when they said goodbye. In the darkness, on the opposite side of the plaza, the red globe of Don Cándido’s pharmacy had the expression of a gaze. —See you tomorrow, friend Perea. —See you tomorrow, Don Gregorio. When Don Higinio, tiptoeing, reached his room, he was harshly challenged by Doña Emilia: —What time is it?… —Approximately twelve-thirty. —Don’t lie, I haven’t slept for two hours. Now it’s one-thirty. —No, woman… —Yes, sir. Earlier I heard: tan!… one o’clock. And before that I heard another bell: tan!… twelve-thirty. Do you think I’m stupid?… Perea replied phlegmatically: —If you want to convince yourself of your deception, get up and look at your clock. —I don’t need to. I’d like to know what keeps you out until this hour, the least opportune time for decent people to be out of their homes! Don Higinio had taken off his jacket and waistcoat, which he gropingly placed open over the back of a chair, so that his armpits could air and dry. The plump, enraged lady stirred in bed, the sheets rustling harshly. “Do you have a lot of fun at the circus?… Just as now, after all these years, we’ve discovered that you’re madly in love with French women. Lucky Paris, lucky little trip to Paris, lucky lottery!” Perea, who was remembering his little room at the Hotel des Alpes, let out a sigh as deep, as hurricane-force, as the breath of a giant. She echoed it aggressively: “Yes, I understand, you can sigh now! Fortunately, those scoundrels are leaving here on Sunday. They’re right; if they didn’t leave, between me and a few others, we’d be dragged through the streets by their hair. ” Don Higinio, who had just lost a button, began searching the wall for the light switch. “Don’t turn it on,” ordered Doña Emilia, “my eyes hurt. ” Perea finished undressing in the dark. Another night, after two days of hiding, the town clerk reappeared at the Casino with an air of mystery and triumph. His friends questioned him smilingly, and he answered them all in a low voice, putting an arm around their shoulders. In the billiard room, Don Higinio, the notary, and the doctor heard what had happened from Don Cándido . Julio Cenén was in contact with the puppeteer: he said so, giving details; moreover, several people had seen him. “I don’t believe it!” interrupted Don Gregorio. The apothecary insisted; he was a peaceful married man who wasn’t irritated by his neighbor’s amorous successes. “Don’t doubt it, Hernández; last night, late in the day, they were having dinner at the inn. ” Perea remarked vengefully: “Didn’t I tell you, Don Gregorio? But you wouldn’t believe me: artists are very capricious. ” “Capricious!… Let’s understand each other, because that woman won’t want Cenén for his pretty face; she’ll be after his money… ” “It’s also possible,” Perea replied, “that theatrical women are expensive. ” “And bad, Don Higinio. ” “Not bad, Don Gregorio; don’t be stubborn. Not bad, not dirty, not ugly, I’m speaking in general. You wouldn’t say that Debreuil is ugly?” The doctor’s shoulder blades contracted in supreme disdain: “Bah!… So what?… A clown within everyone’s reach.” To distract his envy, he went to sit at the table where his three-seater companions were waiting for him. Don Higinio and the notary continued to inquire from Don Cándido about Cenén’s adventure. “But is the French girl going to stay in Serranillas?” exclaimed Arribas. “I don’t think she’s that crazy. ” “Naturally! Cenén lacks the resources to support her.” Perea smiled, astonished by the secretary’s boldness, wit, and good fortune . He asked: “Does Julio’s wife know anything?” “She knows everything; nothing had happened yet when they went to tell her. But what will the poor woman do? Put up with it! We already know what he’s like!” The astonishment these details aroused in Don Higinio’s equable soul soon melted and dissolved into melancholy. At first, the mortification of self-esteem that Don Gregorio suffered gave him malicious amusement; Then, for the same reason, he himself began to slump. How fortunate Cenén was! Perea was certain he was not inferior to him in conversation and people skills, and that he surpassed him in money, respectability, and his ability to speak with French women—for good reason, he had been to Paris and met Mademoiselle Henrietta. And yet, he would never have been capable of approaching Debreuil, showing her a twenty-dollar note, and taking her to dinner. This required carelessness, shameless cheerfulness, freshness of spirit, and not having a wife like his. “I would like to see him with Emilia!” he thought, consoling himself. Julio Cenén’s relations with Mademoiselle de Perpignan had given the emaciated, charming little figure of the secretary a gallant reputation. His popularity grew. All the female sympathies were on his side, because he was the most picturesque man in town and the only one capable of wooing the wives of his friends. He exploited his success well . He never missed a night at the circus , and the women who watched him pass by from their windows noticed that he was better shaved and more neatly dressed than before. When Liana Debreuil entered the ring, her shameless lips smiling, her arms raised, her plump, feline body perfectly shaped and seemingly naked beneath her tights, the crowd looked at Cenén. She greeted the audience with bows and ballerina pirouettes, and as she lay on the mat, chest up, her legs bent, her hands crossed behind her neck, she perversely veiled her eyes as if the memory of her enamored secretary were brushing her breasts. Julio Cenén, triumphant, envied, and faun-like, laughed happily, as if on a pedestal, among a group of friends. On Sunday night there was an extraordinary performance, and, after the show, as soon as the audience had left, the same artists began to demolish the circus. Their hammer blows sounded mournfully. In a jiffy the stands were dismantled, the wall planking was stored in long crates, and the old canvas that served as a roof was rolled up on a pole, like a curtain. The work barely lasted three hours, and the next day, on the first mixed train that went to Ciudad Real and passed through Serranillas at seven minutes in the morning, the company left with all its baggage. A great sadness of silence, of darkness; a sadness of an empty house, remained behind them. That day Don Higinio had a bad time. What could it matter to him that the acrobats had left? Nothing, absolutely not; and yet, he was sad. At night, after dinner and without moving from the table, he ordered _El Faro_ and began to read. He read the editorial article, the telegrams, the serial, while smoking under the calm white light of the lamp. The children had gone to bed. Doña Emilia questioned him ironically: “Aren’t you going out today?” “No… Why?” Perea tried to give his voice an ingenuous accent. His wife replied: “I thought so; since the circus is over… Gosh, Teresa and I have had a good laugh at your expense!… We know your bad luck. So you were crazy about that French girl?… Debreuil, isn’t her name Debreuil?… One night you were talking to her for at least an hour and a half; They told me so… and you blushed so much… But your linguistic knowledge was of no use to you, because Julio Cenén, more gracious than you and younger, stole her from you in an instant. She fell silent, taking pleasure in her husband’s profound sullenness and embarrassment . It was her revenge. Then: “Frankly; I thought you were less timid. Come on, why let yourself be fooled by a fellow like that, puny, ugly, and badly dressed!” Perea didn’t answer; he continued reading. Why reply? To express the complex state of his mind, his nameless sorrows, his worries, the deep annoyance that year after year, as his hair grayed, engulfed him like a net, he would have needed to talk for several hours straight; at the end of which, neither she would have understood him, nor he, probably, would have come to understand himself: so strange, so heterogeneous, so alien to the beaten paths of his spirit was everything that was passing through his conscience. An accident in the mine, the sudden appearance of a vein of water that flooded several galleries in the short space of one night, came to a healthy stir in Perea’s sedentary morale. The engineer, informed by the foremen of what had happened, went to see him before dawn. A remedy was urgently needed; the flooding was so copious that it threatened the future of the mine. Rescue work began immediately . For several days, two hundred men from Almodóvar and other nearby towns—for there were few idle laborers in Serranillas—divided into companies of fifty men, fought tirelessly against the flood; but together they weren’t enough to remove the cubic meters of water that were bubbling and foaming out of the crevice in the spring, and so the flood level continued to rise. Given the severity of the damage, Don Higinio Perea went without undressing for several weeks. It was necessary to telegraph to Paris requesting a forty-horsepower engine to power a kind of waterwheel the engineer had ordered built. Simultaneously, a few meters from the mine, teams of masons diligently and solidly began to erect the building where the engine would be installed. The work lasted more than two months, and throughout it the engineer, foremen, and laborers alike worked with admirable discretion and goodwill. The day the waterwheel began to operate and the water from its one-meter-deep buckets rolled boisterously down a riverbed toward the Guadamil River was a day of jubilation for employers and workers. Hope returned to the penniless miners, driven from the mine by the flood. So the entire neighborhood came to see the machine at work, its powerful drumming echoing for more than half a kilometer. The building he occupied was solid and large, and its russet brick walls stood out with such victorious pride against the infinite sapphire of space that even the most envious recognized the bravery with which Don Higinio, without any favors from anyone, knew how to face the disaster, investing a capital in the new machinery and in the masonry works attached to it. Fortunately, all his efforts were not in vain; the wheel dominated the vein of water and the height of the flood began to decrease. The following week he was able to maneuver the elevator and some miners descended into the shaft. “It was ‘a gesture,’” said Don Cándido, commenting on his friend’s attitude in that dangerous predicament. “I, frankly, didn’t believe him to be a man of such heart.” Don Higinio, indeed, had demonstrated a stoicism in the face of danger and a generosity in the remedy that earned him the sympathy and respect of everyone, and this helped to foster a certain unexpected prestige of bravery and gallantry that, born no one knows how, began to surround the figure of the nobleman from La Mancha. The legend developed imperceptibly over the course of those five years, and was elaborated by Perea’s trip to France, the ninety days he spent there that over time became seven or eight months; the austerity, increasingly firm, of his face; the parsimony of his conversation; the heroic grace with which one afternoon, while coincidentally in prison, he dominated a “stand-in” and forced the prisoners to surrender the clubs and knives they were armed with; the chivalrous tenacity, perhaps born from the warmth of fond memories, which he always employed in the defense of women of the theater; and finally, his veiled voice and reserved restraint when speaking of Paris, as if something very serious had happened to him during his stay there . These were the elements that the sly popular imagination used to compose his legend; one of those noble or roguish legends that the collective soul imposes on the individual, sometimes helping him prosper and other times ruining him. Beneath that reputation, Don Higinio was doing well; he recognized himself as peaceful, methodical, incapable of seducing women or causing harm to anyone; He knew himself to be a slave to his obligations, to the future of his children, to his own temperament, gentle and easy-going, and yet he was pleased that the world believed him a gallant and ready to take the most daring extremes. This chimerical inclination of soul abounds: thousands of men, saddened by the invincible distance that separates their actions from their dreams, try to forget their failure by revealing themselves in a very hostile manner to what they really are. Such a farce, despite its childish simplicity, amused Perea; without him realizing it, that brief time he spent in Paris had been enough to impregnate his poor existence with a fragrance of adventure: in Serranillas they loved him and envied his hidden loves, his successes as a traveler; it was that something soft and sad, refinedly distinguished, that naive youth attaches, like the scent of a garden, to the white hair of Don Juan… “I am common,” he thought; as vulgar as Don Cándido, who has never left his pharmacy nor known any other woman but his own…». But what about the others? Wouldn’t they be the same? The notary Arribas, for example, a sergeant in the army that capitulated in Santiago de Cuba and of whom feats worthy of being celebrated in ballads were told, would he actually know how to fire a shot or how to hold a bayonet?… Don Gregorio also extolled, with loud shouts, his exploits as a hunter. But who would attest to such notable exploits?… It is very easy to say: “I did this,” “That happened to me…”, when the narrator takes the suspicious precaution of surrounding his adventure with absolute solitude. Julio Cenén had recounted from house to house the story of his love affair with Mademoiselle de Perpignan, and someone, indeed, saw them together at the circus and later dining at Don Justo’s inn; But that did not mean that Debreuil’s modesty, however worn, threadbare, and questionable it might be, had granted the risky secretary any greater favors. No one knew what was happening between them; then Jules Cenén, under the cover of mystery, could lie… Pondering this, Perea felt that an atmosphere of betrayal, deceit, frivolity, and trickery surrounded him. Just as there are no perfect bodies, there are no model souls either; rather, all conceal the caricature or degeneration of some pretense. Those who boast of being honest, those of being brave, others of being seductive, these of being methodical and chaste…; and among the countless threads of so many Lies, no one is usually what they seem, nor what the opinion of others points out and divulges. This was how Don Higinio explained why all his neighbors had something notable to relate, while he had not in his story, which was already long, the slightest incident worthy of praise, remembrance, or commentary. “It’s not that anything happened to them,” Perea ruminated, “but they say it and then the public repeats it.” The most conclusive example of the influence a lie can exert on a man’s life was offered by Diego, Arribas’s nephew. Despite his twenty-five or thirty years of age, Diego’s face retained the humility and sweetness of adolescence: he was a blessed man, a poor, docile, fearful, and hostile to noise; and yet, everywhere he went, he was accompanied by an unfavorable legend of bullying and scandal. Where did this fearful renown come from? What convents did the diminished one raid?… What rivals did he kill in defiance? What fortunes did he lose gambling? What bacchanals were his? What maidens were ruined by him?… No one could have proven that he committed any of these errors, and yet his family hated him; his wife, favored by her father, refused to continue living under the marital roof, and so, from one to another, gossip crystallized and became history and posterity; and Diego, sweet and timid as a hare, was considered one of the worst minds in Serranillas. In the villages, these cases of social injustice number in the thousands. Any incident, even the most trivial, serves to classify an individual, to “mark” him, and this judgment, foolishly repeated by the common people, spreads, strengthens, and becomes indelible. It is a work of impressionism. There are individuals who were fools all their lives and died in the odor of imbecility, solely because their fellow citizens, fulfilling a tacit agreement, agreed to deny them all discretion. This perhaps motivated the aura of misdeeds and wickedness that surrounded that poor Diego, so silent, so humble, capable of sitting for five hours at a time without speaking to anyone. Perhaps as a boy, and probably against all the inclinations of his merciful will, he quarreled with another boy, whom he wounded, which caused his mother and the mother of the injured man to argue. What else? The news shook the town, swelling, swelled from street to street with each new remark, and Diego was “classified”: he was a rebel, a misfit, an irreducible temperament. With the first joys of youth, that innocent adventure renewed his fatal prestige. Diego found himself lost; all his actions aroused suspicion. If they saw him talking at night with a girl, people would say, “He’s a womanizer!” If he was flipping a peseta in the “little green room” of the Casino, “He’s a gambler!” If he was drinking a glass of wine at the counter of a tavern or at Don Justo’s inn, “He’s a drunk!” How could they destroy that public voice, the voice of the people, that resonated everywhere? The boy’s bravado ruined the man; the crowd, after judging him quarrelsome, unsociable, and delinquent, flatly refused to believe him otherwise . It was necessary to surrender: the individual fell to his knees under the pressure of the community. Perea came to think that in the history of ordinary people, the only chapters of any novelistic significance are usually lies born abruptly in the heat of a phrase and then flung to the four winds of gossip by the unconscious masses. Ah, if only he wanted to invent, having, as he did, the immense Paris at his back!… But no; Don Higinio didn’t know how to lie; deceit implies a dissimulation, a felony, which was repugnant to his brave and simple character. These petty philosophical digressions on the one hand, and on the other the years, which have now stealthily stolen one of the most astute consciences, know how to change the physical appearance of men as well as revolutionize their humor until they incline them to what they never desired and vice versa, Don Higinio’s ethics were changing. His fondness for solitude had turned into misanthropy. Outside of the Casino, where he went two or three times a week, he maintained no friendly relations with anyone, and constantly wore on his noble face a sadness of condemnation. His love for Paris had passed through his soul like those intense, romantic affections that tend to leave an indelible mark of sadness on many young people . He thought of Paris with the same melancholy that a woman can remember her first sin. Once, alone, he approached the marvelous stained-glass window of the immense cosmopolis, saw its blinding luminosity, heard the Babel-like roar of its eternal laughter, felt the hands of its cocoons slide over his sinful and trembling flesh, and then, suddenly, the lights went out, and the hallucination dissolved into memory and shadows of exile. If he saw the gold watch he bought for his sister-in-law on Calle de la Paz, or the hip flask he had given to Cenén, Don Higinio would become sad; the notary Arribas’s pianola, heard sometimes in the silence of the spacious, empty streets, inspired him with the desire to weep: it was the voice of Paris, intelligible only to his soul. He experienced the same depressive emotion when on the facade of the Casa Correos they put up one of those posters with which the shipping companies call emigrants: white steamers gliding over a sea of pure emerald; black steamers, plumed with smoke, violently silhouetted against a red sky; and below the names toward which the hungry of old Europe direct their hopes: Buenos Aires, Mexico, Montevideo, Brazil… Seeing them, Don Higinio remembered the entrance hall of the Hotel des Alpes, and the figure of the interpreter, with his lank mustache, his long nose reddened by absinthe, and his cloth boots, crossed his mind, grotesque and sympathetic. The good La Mancha native understood that everything, with the ungrateful favor of time, was leaving him, and he, in turn, felt an absolute detachment and hermitic disdain for everything. Anselmo, his firstborn, had turned fifteen and was in his third year of high school; Joaquinito was going to enter high school; Carmen, with that rare modesty that separates daughters from their parents, only to then throw them into the arms of a husband, no longer undressed without first closing the door of her bedroom; And Doña Emilia, although not old, due to her fatness and feisty character , had managed to place herself outside the sexual realm. Finding himself unfocused and somewhat anachronistic, Don Higinio took refuge in fishing, the only distraction compatible with his nostalgic love of silence, and around him there seemed to be a sudden germination of melancholic flowers he had never noticed before. It was then that he understood the sadness of the old stork’s nest crowning the church tower, the sordid mental aridity of local life, and the boredom of the virgins who flourish and die there; and as if, as he walked the streets, he had the habit of looking into shops, he noticed the astonishing number of stopped clocks in Serranillas; which, demonstrating to him how little time is worth in the slow existence of towns, was for his delicate spirit a new cause of dejection and grief. Late in the afternoon, after visiting the mine, which had already resumed its fertile activity, he would go to the Paseo de la Feria to drink ferruginous water from a certain spring that a famous doctor had discovered long ago and converted into a fountain at his own expense. Sometimes he would extend his walk to the station, where there was never a shortage of friends with whom he could converse warmly while waiting for the mail from Ciudad Real. There, one afternoon, he was greeted by a man he only knew by sight. “Don’t you remember me, Mr. Perea?” “Not at this moment, to be honest. ” “I’m Paco Martínez. ” “Martínez?” “The one who sold you the trunk when you won the lottery and went to Paris… ” “Ah, yes!” Don Higinio examined him affectionately, almost moved, as one sees it. to an accomplice, and the image of his yellow tin-lined chest revived in his memory, and with it the vision of his bohemian little room in the Hotel des Alpes. Martínez reiterated to Perea his humble friendship and the services of his house. “If you make another trip, you already know; remember this servant.” Don Higinio sketched a grimace of doubt and melancholy. “It won’t be easy,” he said as if in a sigh, “for me to move from here again: I’m getting old and the years are not very fond of moving.” Speaking of this, unconsciously, he looked into space, at the rocky hills that surrounded the town, at the church tower, where the illuminated dials of the clock shone in the growing evening darkness like the glaucous pupils of an owl. “No! He would never leave Serranillas again!… Not even for what?… Only the platform, with its trains coming from afar, perhaps from Paris, seemed to understand his exile. His excellent heart was romantically moved by all that bustle; loves are interesting because they leave us; landscapes seem more beautiful when they’re gone; the secret of all passion and all beauty lies in the same anguish that causes us to feel how the most desired thing irremediably crumbles and withers in our ungrateful hands. One day several girls from Serranillas, daughters of miners, boarded the Madrid post office, where they had been told that the maids were paid good wages. They were young women of fifteen to eighteen years old, and their light-colored dresses and the silk scarves that covered their heads enhanced their youthful grace. Many people close to him and close to him accompanied them to the station; The farewell was moving: the mothers sobbed, and the girls, saddened on one side and joyfully stirred on the other by the joy of the journey, didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. The train rolled on, taking them with it toward tomorrow, where life lurks in ambush. They left. Oh, the heartbreaking pain of that instant when things are and cease to be forever, because if one day they were to return they would no longer be the same!… As he left the platform, certain that no one could see him, Don Higinio Perea, who would have liked to leave with them, needed to wipe his eyes. Chapter 6. Autumn was beginning with fresh, slightly misty days that smelled of damp earth. The landscape changed: the meadows were turning yellow, and the wind sounded different among the dry branches; the Guadamil River was swollen, and its waves, in the deep hollow of the Jabalí River, murmured menacingly. Already from the blue sky, a sickly blue, the last swallows had left; the church storks left as well. One October afternoon, after lunch, Don Higinio Perea headed toward Don Cándido’s pharmacy, where he was celebrating, along with his name day, the fiftieth anniversary of his birth. It was raining heavily, and to avoid crossing the plaza, which had been turned into a mud puddle by bad weather and the mayor’s neglect, Don Higinio had to take a long detour. He walked leisurely, puffing on a good cigar. Under his umbrella, which protected him from the downpour, and over the dryness of his overshoes, he walked happily, as if transported back five years: that murky, muddy day, when the stones of the street offered a steely brilliance to the livid clarity of space, was “a Paris day…” By the time he arrived at the pharmacy, after-dinner conversation, though long and lasting, was over, and of all the friends who had come to the intimate and cheerful gathering, only Don Gregorio Hernández, the notary Arribas, Julio Cenén , and Gutiérrez, the postmaster, remained. Don Higinio found them in one of the back rooms of the house, comfortably spread out around a nightstand lent authority and a pleasant appearance by three bottles of cognac, two still intact and the other almost empty. Perea was greeted with student revelry. “How come you’re so late, man of God?” the doctor shouted at him. ” You’ve missed a first-rate luncheon. Here, the most listless of us, licked our fingers. Magnificent!” Cándido already knows: to his wife, Whether he likes it or not, I’m taking her as my cook. Don Higinio excused his delay with his own occupations; he had been doing sums and writing letters; the mine was giving him a lot of headaches. The pharmacist wanted to give him a small cup of caracolillo and mocha, and Don Higinio accepted. He sat with his back to the light, between Don Jerónimo Arribas and the town clerk; he crossed one leg over the other, drank his hot, fragrant coffee, drained half a glass of cognac, and immediately, under the warm caress of that atmosphere impregnated with the smell of tobacco, he was happy. Cenén gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder: “Well, with Don Higinio! Well, you must know that we’ve all missed you. ” “I was going to send you a second message,” said Don Cándido, “but these devils objected.” Hernández corrected himself, shouting loudly. “Stop! It was me who objected; these gentlemen said nothing.” I objected because I know Perea: he’s a silent killer who, on certain days of the week, can’t be counted on. Is that true or not? Everyone laughed heartily, because in those moments of sincere optimism, even the most trivial phrases sounded witty and witty. Don Higinio laughed too, shaking his head from side to side, as if trying to object to something, very red-faced, and looking at his clogs. He was happy; an atmosphere of cordial friendship enveloped him. Don Cándido poured him a second small glass of cognac. “You have to drink quickly to catch up with us; we’re way ahead of you.” As his hand trembled and he couldn’t pour cleanly, Hernández snatched the bottle from him. “Pour it without fear!… Baskets, these apothecaries are miserable! They give everything in drops!” Gutiérrez and Arribas interceded: “But Perea doesn’t like to drink… This cognac has a high content.” That pious intrusion stung Don Higinio’s vanity. “No one should worry,” he said, “I drink a lot: you know that absinthe is water to me.” And in one gulp he drained the glass. The doctor applauded. “You see? But this man, back in Paris, used to rinse his mouth with lye. When I say you don’t know him!” Don Higinio, who was not accustomed to ingesting strong drinks, felt all the heat of that mouthful rise to his temples, to the back of his neck. As if by magic, the discreet melancholy habitual to his character disappeared, and his eyelids experienced a strange and friendly lightness. “Well said, Don Gregorio,” he exclaimed genially, “these weakling gentlemen don’t know me!” To further demonstrate his point, before anyone invited him, he poured himself another cognac. Everyone followed suit; it would have been impolite to leave him alone at such a serious and pleasing moment. Julio Cenén insinuated: “I didn’t know this about our friend Perea: I only remember that years ago, when the news reached Serranillas that he and Don Gregorio had won the lottery, he was at the Casino drinking Cazalla brandy with Pepe Martín and me. ” “But those are just details!” the doctor interrupted. “This man probably got used to drinking in Paris; the French people drink a lot, a lot…, as you can’t imagine. Isn’t that so, Don Higinio? ” The person addressed nodded; He remembered Francisco, the interpreter from the Hotel des Alpes, with his drooping red nose over his limp mustache, his alcoholic breath, and his blue eyes, always moist and half-closed. “It’s true,” he declared sententiously. “Frankly, that’s where I have drunk a little too much. ” “Did you stay in Paris for a long time?” the notary said. “About eight months.” Hernández looked at him in astonishment. “Eight months?” He thought it hadn’t been quite seven, but he wasn’t sure. In the distance of the five years that had passed since then, his memories became jumbled. “How time flies!” Don Jerónimo exclaimed. Arribas’s reflection drew a sigh from the postmaster, and he had the virtue of arching all his eyebrows melancholically. There was a pause. “Well, yes, sir,” Don Higinio perfidiously insisted, ” I was in Paris for eight months or a little less. If only I could go back!” And as he spoke thus, he suddenly became sad, as if he had, in fact, left his heart in Paris. His spirits were once again immersed in a tranquil, ineffable well-being. The room where they were was beautiful; commonplace cards in gilt frames and antique family portraits adorned the dark wallpaper; it was warm; the strong aroma of tobacco invited reverie; through the two barred, uncurtained windows, a patch of garden peeped out, and the stealthy monorhythm of the rain could be perceived. The cognac unleashed in those present the lyrical urge to talk about themselves. The town clerk yielded without much resistance to the entreaties of Gutiérrez and the notary and began to recount his relationship with Debreuil. The naughty details the narrator added to his cinédological tale were so expressive, and he illustrated them with such gestures , that Don Cándido felt obliged to close the door. “Is your wife around?” asked Arribas. “No, she’s at the pharmacy; in any case… ” Cenén’s hyperbolic and mendacious imagination gave his vulgar love affairs with Mademoiselle de Perpignan a novelistic appearance of selflessness and sacrifice. Adorable Liana! She was pretty, she was good… and, to add to the charm and charm of her person, she was horribly unhappy! At every moment, the clerk’s mouse-like eyes turned toward Perea, requesting the undeniable authority of his approval. “Here, Don Higinio, knew Liana well; He spent an entire night talking to her, and he, better than anyone, can tell whether or not she was a charming little girl. Perea nodded slowly, with an emphatic, doctoral slowness: “Yes, she was a very pleasant creature, very French… She’s a type that is very common in Paris. ” Cenén continued: “She had fallen in love with me; at first, no; we almost didn’t understand each other!… But then!… The night before she left, she cried all night; she seemed crazy: one moment she wanted to stay and live here with me; the next she was inviting me to go with her and see the world. My darling child! ‘You,’ she said, ‘don’t have to do anything; I ‘ll dress you, I’ll pay for your inn, your travels…’ I think that if, in order to follow her, I impose the condition that she also bring my family, she would accept.” She moved her birdlike little head all over the place and poured herself a cognac. “Then they say French women are selfish!… Lie!” She looked at Don Higinio. Perea asserted: “French women are like all women: as soon as they truly fall in love, they do as they please.” The doctor bit his lip; he would have gladly protested, putting his terrible lungs at the service of his opinion; but the environment was hostile to him, and he preferred to remain silent. Don Higinio’s sententious words earned general assent. It was clear from them that he had traveled and known the world! Gutiérrez began to recount a similar adventure he had had years before with a girl from Almodóvar. “I ask you about this,” he warned, wishing to allay chivalrous scruples, “the utmost reserve, since the poor girl is already married.” Those present nodded and continued to look at him with the patient , feigned attention that men devote to other people’s stories in order to acquire the right to tell their own. Don Cándido, simple and credulous like a hermit, rubbed his hands together: it had been a long time since he had spent such a spiritual or joyful afternoon. His wife appeared. “Where are the valerian and ginger? ” “On the right-hand shelf, second shelf.” Doña Benita dared to say: “Come here for a moment; I can’t reach. ” “And I can’t move from here. What demands! Get on a chair.” Contrary to his custom, he, so helpful, so affectionate, excited by drink, had replied harshly: he was cheerful and didn’t want to bother anyone; his words had the selfishness of happiness. The postmaster’s story was much celebrated and laughed at, and in his honor the bystanders emptied their glasses again. Eventually, Don Gregorio was able to take control of the conversation and steer it toward his favorite hobby: hunting. The good doctor had an English pointer and a setter, with whom he intended not to leave a single partridge in those parts. “The pointer,” he said, “is still a puppy; but he has long, silky ears , and such a distance from the eyebrow to the tip of his nose that I’d bet my right hand he’s going to be a first-class high-wind dog. The setter has already hunted a lot, although always in covered terrain; for the same reason, he has the unpleasant inclination to track, which here in our La Mancha fields is of no use.” He launched into an erudite digression concerning the training of dogs, according to the type of hunting they are to perform. He cited examples, piled up reasons, and his hot hunter’s blood boiled. The anecdotes began. “Do you remember, Arribas, that matacán we took down in the Tojo ravine?… I knew it well; two months earlier, a greyhound worth millions had killed me; Gutiérrez can attest to that. Well, I was on one side of the ravine with Claudio Hinojosa, may he rest in peace. A good friend!” And we had just finished eating some chicharrones when we heard the pack approaching. As always, Rafael, Hinojosa’s dog, was in front, and as soon as I saw him, I realized the poor animal couldn’t run any faster. The hare had managed to find the advantage of a slope and was cutting the terrain to its liking. So… just enough time to throw the shotgun at my face and… there was the shot!… It rolled down the slope in a ball. There was a knock at the door. “Come in!” shouted Don Cándido. It was a young man who had come in a great hurry to find the doctor; the poor fellow was dripping with water and sweat. “From the teacher,” he said, “go to the barber’s at once, for the master has gotten worse. ” “Is Nicanor sick?” the apothecary asked Don Gregorio. “Didn’t you know? It’s been a while. I wouldn’t give four cents for the rest of his life; he has enterodialysis and is dying by the bucketful. Naturally! These are people who eat poorly and don’t exercise.” He turned to the messenger. “Say I’ll come later, after dinner; I’m busy now.” The messenger hadn’t even left the room when Hernández resumed his recollection of his hunting exploits. That warlike grandson of Nimrod and Saint Hubert was inexhaustible and spoke with a resounding vehemence that left no gaps of silence or pauses for attention in his speech. “Four years ago,” he said, “at the end of November, precisely on my saint’s day, ten or twelve friends, Almodóvar’s best shooters, and I went wild boar hunting in the mountains. Claudio Hinojosa came with us. Do you remember, Don Cándido, that you didn’t want to be part of the party? The hunt started off badly: it had snowed heavily the day before , and the dogs seemed frightened; they weren’t tracking. It was at dusk. Poor Andresito Bustin, who has also died, and I were going along a ravine in search of the ranch where we were to spend the night, when I heard the dogs barking… but with that barking, at the same time of fear and rage, that only hunters know.” He interrupted to rekindle the light of his cigar. “Had you seen anything?” Gutiérrez asked, pouring himself a cognac. This remark roused Don Gregorio’s verbosity. —Well, you bet! Listen!… I said to Bustin: “Get your shotgun ready and don’t move or stop looking over there.” And I pointed out a sort of dark path planted with broom and gorse bushes that looked like it was on the left. I advanced very carefully, because the place was deep and oriented in such a way that there was little light. I don’t know what happened then; I still haven’t been able to explain it. The barking, although getting closer, was still far away; and yet, suddenly I heard a crash of thornbushes and broken thickets, and from among the broom appeared a wild boar, scurrying along with blazing eyes. like glowing embers. I had barely seen the beast when it was upon me, five or six meters in front of me. How could I escape? Poor Bustin fired his shotgun, but, afraid of hitting me, he aimed high. Gentlemen, I can swear to you that, from that day on, I have known the face of death!… In such situations, men must risk everything: I am one of those. What do I do then?… I throw away my shotgun, which was now of no use to me, kneel on the ground, and with my hunting knife in my hand, I wait for the boar. The beast, which had been bitten by the dogs and was furious, attacks me, but in a straight line, like a bull. I tilt my body a little, just enough so that its fangs don’t touch me, and I plunge the knife right into its heart. It was, modesty aside, a master stroke. I remember the animal stood still for a few moments, then began to tremble and fell to the ground. “Crumpled up?” Gutiérrez asked ironically. “Yes, sir, curled up! That’s the phrase! ‘Crumpled up’… What do you think? Or don’t you believe it? Well, you should have believed it, just as I believe that in the post office, which you manage, no letter gets lost.” The doctor’s furious gesture and the venomous acerbity of his reply intimidated Gutiérrez. “But, man, don’t be terrible; I didn’t mean to upset you; it was all a joke…” The rain had accelerated the brevity of autumnal twilight, and night fell abruptly. Don Cándido closed the wooden shutters of the windows and lit the lamp: a very old kerosene lamp, suspended from the ceiling by a chain covered with grime by flies, dust, and time. In the torrid atmosphere of the room, disturbed by the fumes of alcohol and tobacco, faces grew flushed and eyes filled with strange phosphorescence. The gathering continued: Gutiérrez had nothing urgent to do; neither did the notary and Julio Cenén; Hernández, for his part, had resolved not to visit any sick people that day . Don Cándido ordered pastries, which added a new and pleasant incentive to the gathering. As for Don Higinio, he was in no hurry until eight o’clock, dinner time. The conversation wound tenaciously, inexhaustibly, around the same topics: Cenén brought up for the second time the story of his love affair with the puppeteer; Don Gregorio commented on his hunting trips; Arribas told Gutiérrez about the exploits he had accomplished in Santiago de Cuba. Perea, whom the drink had made somewhat drowsy, watched them in silence. Nevertheless, he retained the lucidity necessary to understand that much of what his friends were reporting was a lie. The notary’s heroics, like Don Gregorio’s hand-to-hand fight with the wild boar, like the conquest and amorous captivity of Miss Debreuil, were similar in having the same underlying obscurity and isolation: no one had seen Arribas stab Cubans, nor Don Gregorio kill wolves or wild boars with his bare hands; no one, either, could attest that Miss Debreuil had ever had the condescension to sit on the knee of the town clerk. All these were battles without brilliance or fanfare, mysterious successes achieved behind closed doors or in remote places or before people who —oh, what a suspicious coincidence!—had already died. And yet, as Don Higinio reflected while he poured himself another cognac, he, Gutiérrez, and the excellent Don Cándido, who spoke without hesitation, perhaps wary of lying, found themselves overshadowed by those three eloquent and shameless liars. Probably, neither the doctor believed Cenén, nor the latter believed Don Gregorio, nor did the notary vouch for either of them, nor was he, in turn, taken into consideration by them, which did not prevent them all from reciprocally and politely applauding and revering one another. For the first time, Don Higinio was beginning to understand exactly the deep foundations that lie has in the human spirit. Animals, plants, august Nature itself, betray, dissimulate, They conceal the truth. Everything that fights, everything that lurks, lies: the fox, which best feigns death to escape; the crocodile, which covers itself in mud and, imitating the cries of children, attracts the wayfarer; the cat, which hides behind a curtain to catch a mouse; the spider lies with its immobility; the cunning chameleons, which change color; the anteater, which deceives the ants with the stillness and murderous sweetness of its tongue; the flower, which closes its petals if an insect touches it. And the sky, which appears blue and is not blue, lies too; the water of the sea, which, although colorless, turns green; the earth, which, although flat, appears round; and the sun, which does not move and yet seems to walk. In short, the eyes lie, where images are painted inverted… And if everything lies, how could man not lie when, in addition to fighting against his fellow men, he needs to constantly free himself and defend himself from the horrible boredom of himself?… The lie surrounds the individual, helps him in his social relations, in his scientific investigations, and at the same time that it stimulates him to work, it enchants him. It is a sorceress, a perfume of creation. The lie invades the most august, pirouettes in unexplored spaces, laughs behind the atom, threatens in the enigma of bacteria, beats in the thousands of indecisive, grim, perhaps criminal feelings that conscience cannot clarify. It is the future, it is also history. To the external lie, another lie, a reflection of that one, responds within us and in turn projects its profile onto the objective world; For not all things exist as we see them, nor are the feelings that run through our minds as our credulous conscience imagines them, nor is their nature so abstract that it ceases to influence the subsequent functioning of the senses. From all of which it follows that man, especially in the throes of love, sometimes perceives things as they are and other times as he wishes them to be. Mystery found in lies the marvelous tunic of Tanit and never separates itself from it, and the omnipotence of lies is born precisely from the universality of mystery. Where the science of the chemist stops, where the telescope fails, before the hieroglyph or the fossil that defies the sagacity of the divers of the past, where the light of reflection does not descend, there fraud begins . Don Higinio, always so sincere, couldn’t allow himself to be sophisticated by the lies that sometimes stirred his spirit to the unhealthy extreme of believing them to be real facts. Thus, he was absolutely certain that his stay in Paris had only lasted three months, that his French vocabulary barely included a hundred words, and that he had been and continued to be a local idiot, without worldliness or dealings with women. For this reason, at least half of his “nostalgia for Paris” was a lie: that ardently defending the young ladies of the theater and, in general, everyone from living in ambiguity was a deception; the airs of experience, disdain, and fatigue he assumed when speaking of his travels were false; and his fondness for absinthe was also counterfeit. Nevertheless, despite this harsh but healthy frankness he applied to himself, it was undeniable that he always had to treat himself with a certain indulgence and attribute to himself a few more merits than he truly possessed. “Truly,” he thought, “none of the individuals gathered here is worth more than I.” He poured himself a cognac. His meditations continued. If lying is something so versatile and subtle that it triumphs even over the inner senses, and, undulating from one nerve to another, not only eludes reason but sometimes leaps over it and imposes its dominion over it, why shouldn’t it persist in social relations? For someone who deceives himself, wouldn’t it be easy to deceive others as well? Lying, like blushing, pride, and courage, are feelings that arise in the heat of community. People who, when examined individually, are absolutely loyal, strictly sincere, are hardly come together, they produce lies. This is one of the many times, when it comes to the paradoxical mathematics of the spirit, that a sum is not the total of its constituents. From this arises the so-called “esprit de corps”; the various uniforms with which man stupidly punishes his freedom have always been breeding grounds for lies. Furthermore, the credulity of others surreptitiously leads to the sweetness of deception. The opinion of others, that rumor of the community that is now present and tomorrow will be memory, history, perhaps glorious immortality, depends on us, on our gestures and words; we will be vulgar, and nothing will remain of our brief passage through life; but let us know how to stand out, and the future will eternalize our gestures and have perpetuating echoes of our voice. And it’s so easy, and therefore so tempting, to tell a lie that suddenly ennobles us and elevates us above the herd!… At that moment, Arribas, plump and excited, was saying: “The Yankee and I rolled together to the bottom of the pit, one’s hands digging like claws into the other’s neck. But he fell underneath… Ah, thief!… and I, with my bayonet, slit his belly open from side to side… ” “Long live Spain!” cried Hernández, electrified, bringing down the nightstand with a giant’s fist. The notary, standing there, very out of breath, was showing a ring. “It’s a trophy,” he said, “my enemy was wearing it. When I saw him dead, I tried to take it away from him; but I couldn’t and had to cut off his finger with a knife.” Don Higinio slowly gulped down another cognac. “Why shouldn’t he be like the others?” Why not indulge, at least once, in the frivolous, harmless, and mellow pleasure of lying?… The most agreeable men, the best conversationalists, frequently resort to the grace and poetry of deception, because the truth is too serious, too sad, and always self-reliant to be boring. Good storytellers, if they are to be listened to with pleasure, need to omit certain details, inflate others, invent, in short… and even if no one believes them, what does it matter if, in the end, what they said was beautiful and distracting for a moment?… Lying represents a poetic reaction of the subject against collective vulgarity. Art is delightful because eternally, deep down and as the life-giving breath of its best productions, something imagined, conventional subsists; a work of art is a piece of reality, beneath which, like a bird in a cage, a lie sings. The same courtesy, by whose virtue, according to La Bruyère’s astute observation , “a man manages to appear on the outside as he ought to be on the inside,” is it not also a falsehood? But an exquisite betrayal, without which the gears of the social machine would probably break. Don Higinio was drunk; a witches’ sabbath of ideas swirled confusedly behind his pale, sweaty forehead. What if he lied?… Lies possess a gift of polarization that upsets even the simplest things. To lie is to embark toward the ideal, to love, to surrender hearts, to be a hero, to be a millionaire. What are hashish, or morphine, or the opium-filled paradises produced by the East worth compared to the divine opium of lies?… To lie is to free oneself, to become another man; the soul that dreams and believes in its dreams will always be dressed in Sunday best; a lie is equivalent to the glass of wine that workers drink on Saturdays to forget their sorrows . Plato, wanting to banish lies from his Republic, was committing a very serious crime against beauty and violating the liturgy, because, without the high prestige of lies, what would become of the gods?… Distractedly and slowly, Don Higinio poured himself another cognac. Around him, absurd and Dionysian stories of blood and love continued to be improvised: rapes, battles, hunts; a whole range of terrible thrills of death and voluptuousness. Why not invent something?… This idea produced a secret and gentle joy in him. Each of the people gathered there suffered from a weakness, a vice, that forced them to fall into the most shameful exaggerations and ridiculous; and so Don Gregorio, who was noble, naive, and given to calling things bluntly and by their name, would cloud his wits when talking about hunting, and in the best of good faith would attribute to himself a thousand risky adventures; and the same thing happened to Julio Cenén when it came to the art of surrendering the most austere chastity and the coldest and best-guarded hearts; and to the notary Arribas, in bouts of bullying, ambushes, quarrels, knife challenges, pistol or foil fights , and other chivalrous ways of making him sniff at life. And if everyone, despite the well-deserved discredit their frequent abuse of lies had brought upon them, alternately led the conversation and recounted episodes that seemed to interest the others, he, who had never cultivated fables, what sincere vigor, what persuasive force, what undeniable command of truth would he fail to imbue what he said? The unknown emotion offered him a kind of inclined plane, where his chimerical spirit felt the voluptuous happiness of letting go. “Now I’m nobody,” he reflected, “but as soon as I invented something, I would become a kind of superior will, and everyone would notice me…” He suffered an anguished restlessness, an inner trepidation, similar to those terrible spiritual upheavals with which genius is usually revealed in men. He would lie, yes; his mind was made up; but what would he say, what was he going to talk about? The idea of clumsily stitching together his lie terrified him. His invention wasn’t meant to be trivial, but grand, novelistic, at once romantic and heroic, worthy, in short, of the long years of boring sincerity that preceded it. But a lie like this, beautiful and robust as a work of art, a lie meant for posterity, wasn’t easily improvised; it had to be carefully thought out, matured, and the elements of place and time that would strengthen it had to be carefully balanced, so as not to later fall into contradictions that would reveal the clumsy framework of the deception. All this involved grave difficulties; Perea’s peaceful story was all too well known, and any question, perhaps asked with malicious intent, could disconcert the narrator and make him look ridiculous. And Don Higinio, gauging the danger into which his vanity was trying to launch him, trembled with fear. That self-respect, the greatest trait of his character, always filled with loyal integrity, curled up, blushing and trembling at the laughter of others. He wanted “his public” to applaud him, admire him, and pay his deception the respect that history deserves; he didn’t want to fail; his lie shouldn’t be hissed at; he hadn’t said anything yet, and already his pulse was beating with emotion; his fear was the same as that which oppresses the hearts of authors making their debut… To energize himself, he poured himself another cognac. Disjointed scenes, half-finished memories, phrases that had never taken root in his mind, tossed him about. Since he had never been a soldier, like the notary, nor even a partridge hunter, like Don Gregorio, nor enjoyed the gallant prestige that public opinion granted Cenén, his lie naturally needed to unfold in another setting; for example, in Paris… He looked around; the interest in the stories, perhaps in the lies, with which everyone was baiting the general curiosity was on the rise. The cakes that Doña Benita had brought on a long porcelain platter had disappeared. By the reddish light of the lamp and through the cigar smoke, the bystanders, terribly excited by the cognac and the heat of the room, seemed surrounded by a strange aura of vigor and menace. Thieves, corsairs, they seemed, or soldiers gathered there to fight over the spoils of a robbery. Suddenly, almost against his will and discretion, driven to do so by a higher imperative, Don Higinio moved his lips, insinuated with his right hand a gesture… “Gentlemen…” And he had barely spoken when he had the intuition that something extremely serious, irreparable, was falling upon him, as if the destiny for which he was born had just been fulfilled. Nevertheless, automatically, he repeated: —Gentlemen… Everyone looked at him; his interpellation came precisely during one of those pauses, like gaps of silence, that at intervals interrupt the thread of dialogue. Although, as was his custom, he had spoken very softly, his voice, perhaps endowed at that moment with a certain inexorable and piercing magnetism, overwhelmed everyone’s attention. Don Higinio was about to say something… Perea continued slowly, with a sudden aplomb that he himself, as soon as he noticed, began to be surprised. —I too, if you will allow it, am going to tell something interesting. There is in me, as in all men, an intimate story, a secret page, a sacred corner where no one… understand this well!… where no one has ever entered… A Perea story? Was it possible? A story, that man who at all the meetings at the Casino always limited himself to listening!… There was a brief moment of expectation. Don Cándido took off his velvet cap to scratch his bald, pointy skull, his fingernails yellowed by cigarette smoke and the vapor of his medicines. He was astonished. So, our friend Perea, whom everyone thought they knew perfectly, was hiding a mystery?… In the secret about to be revealed, there emanates a kind of violation, of assault: an aroma of orange blossom leaves that inspires an almost sexual joy. The town clerk, very agitated, his mouse-like eyes darting around , questioned the doctor. “Did you know something, Don Gregorio? ” “No, I didn’t. ” “Nor I,” Arribas affirmed. “Nor I, ” Gutiérrez repeated. ” Nor I,” the apothecary said, “and the incident interests and surprises me all the more since Don Higinio has never gotten into trouble.” “Nobody knows,” Perea interrupted with a certain vehemence, which produced a very pleasant effect on his audience, “and if I decide to speak now it is because there are sorrows, remorse… whatever you want to call them… that cannot be carried hidden in the chest all your life. But, yes !… you must swear to me, on your word of gentlemen, that my misfortune… because it is a misfortune… you will not tell it to anyone, it will not leave here… As if I had spoken inside a tomb, right?… I am married, I have children… You will know how to put yourself in my place!” Those present nodded; they were influenced; Don Higinio Perea’s secret would die with them. And then it was that he, who had begun to speak without yet knowing exactly what he was going to say, saw clearly. It was a marvelous improvisation, a jet of midday light, a brusque and masterful scaffolding of words and gestures so precise and decisively coordinated, as if dictated by truth itself: a kind of astonishing monologue in which the talents of a playwright and a comedian, the finest resources, had just been combined to defend the success of a lie. Easily, with dizzying speed, Don Higinio invented, remembered, stitched together the imaginary with the true, and at the same time linked facts that in historical reality appeared separate, or, on the contrary, divorced what had been united; and all of it feverishly, without hesitation, with that contagious ardor that the resounding, conclusive vision of the truth produces in the mind. It was a precious example of that “imaginative synthesis of scattered and real images ” that neuropaths talk so much about. Leaning forward, his voice uncertain and as if strangled by emotion, his lips trembling, discolored beneath the thick bushiness of his mustache, his face covered with a histrionic pallor, Don Higinio Perea added: “I, gentlemen… have killed a man…” To this terrible declaration no one replied: so bitter was the impression, so extraordinary the astonishment and tragic terror that fell upon those simple heads. The notary was tempted to leave, and Don Cándido looked toward the door to make sure it was closed. Don Gregorio, Gutiérrez, and Julio Cenén did not move: it seemed to them that, hearing Don Higinio’s confessions, they were going to to be accomplices in a crime. The panic of everyone was so evident that Perea, right there, inwardly regretted his foolish audacity. But how could he back down, how could he retreat, how could he withdraw the word heroic now?… Serene, reckless, absolute master of the situation, his expression restrained, his eyes slightly upturned, worthy like Ulysses, his brother in lies, of having a Homer for his feat, the narrator continued: “It was in Paris, a few months after arriving there. I was living at the time in the Hotel des Alpes, which I believe I’ve spoken to you about before…” To give greater credibility to the novel he was unfolding, he artfully sought the alliance and collaboration of his audience. “Do you remember that I went for quite a long time without writing?” Hernández nodded. “Yes, I think so… I have a certain idea… ” “My poor Emilia hasn’t forgotten. How much she suffered then!… Well then ; My silence was prompted by what I’m about to say. You can imagine that at the heart of my story, as with everything that might be of great interest to men in any way, there is a woman… The inspiration or cause of that drama was an Italian woman, an admirable type: black hair, matte skin, very red lips, jet-black eyes. Her name was Leopoldina, and she was married to a Dutchman. Mr. Ruch: a kind of giant, heavy, muscular, with golden hair flattened on his forehead and large, blue eyes, a pale blue. I could draw him. The most notable thing about that colossus was the color of his skin, white, white… like the snows of his country, as only the flesh of the people of the North can be. Here, in our lands of La Mancha, where the sun beats down so beautifully, we don’t know what that is. But in Holland!… The type I’m talking about gave me the extravagant impression of a marble statue with a blond wig. Julio Cenén tried to get ahead of events. “A type like that isn’t the most suitable for an Italian woman,” he said; ” Italian women, like Spanish women, are all fire.” Don Higinio interrupted him. “That’s what appearances seemed to mean; but they are often deceptive. Mr. Ruch, fat and florid, was violent, domineering, and rude as a Turk: a kind of Othello with angel hair. Leopoldina, however, had the audacity to set her beautiful eyes on me… and believe me, the bravest men are lambs compared to a woman who falls in love and says, ‘Here I come!…'” He continued his story with great sobriety, always incorporating a good humor that was very much to the liking of his audience. He had been able to associate the name of Leopoldina, the adventuress who one afternoon in the streets of Paul Lelong and Montmartre had almost robbed him of a hundred-franc note , with the figure of the Dutchman and his wife; And since the appearance of the dining room, the rooms, the stairs, and the hallways of the Hotel des Alpes were linked to these images, his imagination shuffled everything harmoniously, and his improvisation unraveled as if on rails. Why did he associate the image of the Dutchman with his soap opera adventure? The narrator didn’t know the reason: perhaps because of the same antipathy he felt toward that man as soon as he saw him, and because of the many times , while eating, he amused himself by observing his wife. The surname “Ruch,” which he attributed to the Dutchman, belonged to Francisco, the interpreter at the Hotel des Alpes. Don Higinio had just described his emotions the night when, from his bedroom window, excited like a hunter on the prowl, he had seen the Italian woman undress; and he even had the perversity to describe the elaborate luxury and cleanliness of her underwear, and those marks that the laces of her corset left on her young, rosy flesh. Julio Cenén sighed: that episode had made his eyes shine brightly. Don Higinio also sighed; his plump features had just taken on a sad gravity. “Who would have told me then,” he exclaimed, “that a few hours later that most beautiful body would throw itself into my arms?” There was a silence. As he spoke and saw the tremendous impression his words produced, the narrator marveled at his work. It was impossible to lie better than he did: his lie seemed the fruit of seasoned meditation and tenacious, scrupulous rehearsal. Instinctively, with the omniscient intuition of a great comedian, he found the best vocal inflection, the phrase and attitude most appropriate to disguise his fraud. And so, sometimes he lied affirmatively; and other times, tepidly denying certain details that flattered his pride too much or showing regret for what he had done, he continued lying: that, if you consider carefully, in life as on the sea, all roads can lead to the same port. “One afternoon, when I was returning from the street and entering my bedroom,” Don Higinio continued, “I stepped on a piece of paper that had been slipped under the door.” I bend down to pick it up, unfold it trembling, and read: “A lady who is interested in you is waiting for you tonight, at eight-thirty, on Feydeau Street, in a carriage that you will find stopped in front of number nine.” This fantastic quotation had a historical root: Perea had remembered the false address Madame Berta had given him. Hernández interrupted him: “Would the letter be written in French?” Despite the pure innocence of the remark, Don Higinio, who hadn’t been expecting it, was disconcerted for a second; but his embarrassment was so swift, so slight, that no one noticed. He also had the discreet decision to deny it. “The letter was in Italian; but I read it fluently; you know that we understand Italian perfectly.” And he continued: “I had been waiting on Feydeau Street for five minutes when a carriage stopped in front of me.” Now judge of my surprise when I recognized, behind the window, the charming profile of the Italian woman from the Hotel des Alpes. I didn’t hesitate, however, and opened the door. Ah, these adventures, which seem like something out of a novel, happen only in Paris!… There they are commonplace; I’m about to believe they don’t even attract attention: they seem to float in the atmosphere, that the climate produces them… Well, to be honest, as I have had few adventures, I was flustered and didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, Leopoldina came to my aid. She was a creature of extraordinary talent. In a few moments, while the coachman was taking us toward the Arc de Triomphe, she told me her story, sometimes in her own language, sometimes in French. Now she was crying, now she was laughing… and suddenly, as if she had gone mad, she threw her arms around my neck and sat on my knees. There was an explosion of hilarity. Gutiérrez embraced the victorious Don Higinio, and the notary tickled him by pinching him on the back of his knees. Don Gregorio and Cenén drained their glasses of cognac in a sign of joy. But the honoree didn’t even smile, and everyone remained silent, respecting his grief and remembering that their love affair had had a tragic ending. “My relationship with Leopoldina,” Perea continued, “barely lasted a week. We met at the home of a friend of hers, and there she would tell me her troubles: her husband was an animal, a perfect animal, jealous and terrible, who didn’t understand her. The poor thing! She wanted to escape with me at all costs. “You’re taking me to Spain,” she stammered, weeping, “to Spain forever…” And I would have brought her… word of honor! I would have brought her; men, on certain occasions, just don’t know how to resist. Now, when our friend Cenén said that he was in danger of running off with Debreuil, I remembered this… He sighed again and swallowed twice, as if struggling with his grief. “I will omit the details,” he continued, “suffice it to say that Mr. Ruch, having learned of what had happened, came to challenge me in my own room. It was almost dawn when he appeared. As you will understand, I tried to deny it, more out of fear—I swear!—than out of chivalry. I, frankly, have never felt fear. But he forced me to be silent, saying: ‘I know everything, my wife told me everything; so, “If you don’t want to come out and fight me immediately, I’ll kill you right here like a dog.” And he took out a revolver. At that moment, gentlemen, I confess, I remembered my poor Emilia, my children, my Spain… These trials, examined from a distance, don’t seem serious… Ah! But when they pass, they are hard… really hard!… Anyway, convinced that I could do nothing to avoid the incident, I dressed calmly and took a knife that I had bought in Ciudad Real a few days before setting out on my journey. Do you remember, Don Gregorio? The doctor, indeed, remembered… “Didn’t you have a revolver?” interrupted Don Cándido, who was terrified by his friend’s impassive bravery . “Yes,” replied Don Higinio, “but I prefer bladed weapons: with them you have to get close to danger; for that very reason they are braver, more noble, and, of course, much safer.” The Dutchman, sitting on the edge of my bed, watched me impassively. When I finished dressing, I said to him, “You’re the driver.” We went out onto the street and took a cab that dropped us off at the Place de la Concorde, next to a Metro station. There we boarded the subway, which took us to the Arc de Triomphe in less than five minutes, where we caught the steam tram to Neuilly. Quite a journey! I was getting worried; but I kept quiet so my rival wouldn’t get the wrong idea. “What courage!” exclaimed the apothecary. “It was reckless,” said Don Gregorio, “because the Dutchman could be a scoundrel and set a trap for you. It wouldn’t be the first time!” Don Higinio shrugged his shoulders with heroic disdain. ” At times like these, my friend Hernández, believe me, no one thinks about what they’re doing.” Arribas, no doubt remembering the Yankees he had slaughtered like lambs in Santiago de Cuba, approved: “You’re right: we men become blind and are worse than tigers. ” Perea continued: “It must have been nine in the morning when we reached the Neuilly Bridge. By this time, I hadn’t exchanged a single word with my enemy, and whenever we dismounted, he walked ahead, guiding me. Several times I could have murdered him at point-blank range, and this trust he placed in me reassured me, for it showed that Mr. Ruch was not a coward capable of treachery. Thus, walking one behind the other, we continued along the Seine for a long stretch until the Dutchman called a boatman to take us to the island of La Grande Jatte. Don Higinio, indeed, drawn by his love of fishing, had spent a very pleasant afternoon there, and he retained a fairly clear image of that solitary corner . To this circumstance must be added the fact that a “mysterious crime” had been committed those days, on the island of La Grande Jatte, to which the newspapers, perhaps lacking a better subject, devoted entire columns, and which had the virtue of stirring the curiosity of Paris. The perpetrator of that crime had left no trace, and his victim could not be identified. Perea then remembered these various details, and with rare alacrity and skill, he used them to enhance the goodwill, color, and solidity of his hoax. “The weather wasn’t the most suitable for walking in the countryside,” Don Higinio said. “It was the beginning of January, the second, I remember well, and the cold was cutting through the skin. We were walking through a forest; not a breath of wind; the fog was thick and clung to the trees; we could barely walk on the frosty ground. Not a soul, not a sound.” Suddenly the Dutchman stopped, and turning toward me with the phlegm of his blond flesh, he exclaimed: “Do you like the place?” “Very much,” I replied. “We said no more and we attacked each other. It was an instant. I understood that it was necessary to risk my life with a single blow, and so I did. I had a fierce attack, and Mr. Ruch’s heart served as a sheath for my knife. “Did you hit him in the heart?” the notary questioned. “I split it in two,” the hero replied without hesitation. “But my fortune, great as it was, was not complete, because at that moment The Dutchman fired his revolver at me at point-blank range, and the bullet, penetrating through that spot, pierced me through and through, sinking into my spine. If Don Higinio had simply said he killed the Dutchman, his lie would have attracted less attention and would probably have failed, since everyone’s ears were already accustomed to far greater lies . His supreme success, therefore, consisted in declaring himself wounded. That bullet, lodged there, according to the hero’s generous confession , at the level of the tenth vertebra, had all the certainty, all the irrevocable authority of a notarial deed. Thus, the astonishment produced in those present by this undreamed-of declaration was definitive. As if by magic, Don Higinio, whom until then they had considered a judicious and homely man, stood before them wearing Don Juan’s feather over the vulgarity of his bowler hat. From that ancient Perea, without legend or mystery, a fan of fishing, playing dominoes, and making candy, another man had emerged who, both because of his own history and the refined purity of his ancestry, could well be a source of pride for Serranillas: a true man of the world, more of a conqueror than Cenén, undoubtedly braver than the notary Arribas, and at least as skilled in the art of handling a knife as Don Gregorio, the wild boar killer. Everyone, regardless of the specialties of seduction or bullying that each one attributed to himself, felt humiliated by this new and brilliant prestige. “And where did the bullet enter you?” the doctor asked impatiently. Perea had just remembered that his chest bore the scar of an incised wound that, as a child, he had caused himself with a piece of glass one afternoon after leaving school, and he replied: “This way, you see; the entrance wound, although much reduced by time, is still visible.” Almost without knowing what he was doing, he stood up and began unbuttoning his vest and shirt; he lifted the floating ends of his tie. Gutiérrez lowered the lamp, and everyone stood up, pushing their faces forward, squinting to better concentrate their gaze. Don Higinio, with reckless audacity, showed his coppery chest, hairy as a bear’s belly, through the opening of his salmon-colored undershirt . “Here it is,” he said, pointing with the index finger of his right hand to a white print lost beneath his thick hair. The bystanders followed this gesture, and the suggestive poise of the hero on one hand, the cognac on the other, the spirit of imitation, perhaps a timely and sophisticated flicker of light on the other, performed the miracle. Everyone saw the wound. “It’s true!” exclaimed Hernández, “here it is.” Don Cándido also appreciated it, and the town clerk, and the postmaster, and the notary… Don Higinio jumped from surprise to surprise; he would never have believed that poor humanity, systematically inclined to distrust and so incredulous, could nevertheless be so quickly deceived. “And you say,” the doctor added, “that the bullet lodged in the tenth thoracic vertebra? ” “Yes, sir. ” “It can’t be! ” “Why?” “Because, no! Don’t you understand? It’s too low.” Don Higinio didn’t care that the Dutchman’s bullet had lodged one or two or three vertebrae higher; but his agile and clear-sighted discretion understood that he had to stand by what he had said, which, given his friend’s very poor intelligence, would not be difficult for him. “Keep in mind,” he said, “the superior stature of my rival: Mr. Ruch was a big man; For this reason, the trajectory of the bullet must have been oblique, from top to bottom. As you will understand, I am merely repeating what the medical experts who examined me said. Hernández took it as if he understood; the hero’s last words had just convinced him. Didn’t he know as much anatomy as the professors in Paris? To prove it, he thought it appropriate to surprise his listeners by determining right there the path followed by the projectile, and obscuring his description as much as possible in professional terms. “Everything is understood,” he exclaimed. “The bullet pierced the xiphoid process, which, by its cartilaginous nature, is not very resistant; it would have ruptured the peritoneum, passed through the abdominal cavity, and lodged in the spine. And thank goodness it didn’t tear any loop of intestine!… Did they operate on you? ” “Nothing; no, sir. ” “That’s natural! It wasn’t necessary! They would have recommended, in addition to the treatment indicated for such cases, plenty of rest and milk as your only food… ” “Precisely. ” Everyone looked at Perea with the respect, humility, and admiring devotion that survivors of some terrible catastrophe inspire in a crowd. What a man! Now they better understood his reserved nature and the gallant zeal with which he had on different occasions defended women of distracted morals. “And don’t you ever resent the wound?” asked the apothecary. “Sometimes.” when I make any effort, for example, or if the weather changes. Don Higinio thought it appropriate to interject a smile into his account of his adventure, and added: “I can say that the Dutchman put a barometer at the level of my kidneys… ” Perea’s attic humor and self-confidence, and the modesty with which he had until then kept his story quiet, had everyone in suspense and astonishment. There had been another knock at the door, and Don Cándido went to open it. It was Carmen, on her way to get her father for dinner. “It’s nine o’clock,” he said, “we’re waiting for you.” The hero of La Grande Jatte called her to his side, clasped her to his chest, and began to run a hand through her hair. He remembered an engraving, a copy of a painting entitled “Napoleon and His Daughter,” which he had seen once. His expression had a patriarchal and solemn calm; it seemed to say: “If it weren’t for these creatures!” Before leaving, he shook the doctor’s hand, the apothecary’s, Cenén’s , Arribas’s, Gutiérrez’s. At the same time, alluding to the little girl with a pout, he stammered: “That she doesn’t know anything, eh?… You’ll take care of it… It would be horrible!” The postmaster spoke on behalf of everyone. “You have nothing to warn us about: here, at this moment, there are only gentlemen. ” Don Higinio Perea left the pharmacy, leaning on his daughter and taking that slow, long stride, typical, in his opinion, of a man harboring some remorse. It was raining, and the red balloon of the pharmacy cast a bloody cone over the mud of the square. The little girl raised her head. “Have you been drinking, Papa?” Leopoldina’s lover was disconcerted. “No… Why?” ” I thought so: you’re very red. ” He was, in fact, flushed like a poppy, his mouth so dry he could hardly move his lips. As he turned the corner, he turned his head. He was extremely excited; he was afraid, in a superstitious panic, as if the enormous, cold, white corpse of the Dutchman were really on his heels. Chapter 7. In less than a month, the invention launched by Don Higinio Perea in the refuge and mystery of Don Cándido’s pharmacy had made several circuits of the town. Despite the silence those gathered there swore to keep regarding the hero of La Grande Jatte, the news seemed so thrilling and tempting to them, and so subdued and upset their spirits, that they wasted no time in satisfying the voracious curiosity of their wives. The apothecary told Doña Benita; Don Gregorio, Doña Lucía; the town clerk, his Inés; Don Jerónimo Arribas, Doña Marcela, and the two clerks at the notary’s office; Gutiérrez, although with half words and demanding the same reserve that he lacked, confided it to his daughters… And so Perea’s feat, now applauded, now censured, but always commented on with lengthy vehemence, flew from door to door until it became as familiar to the Serranillas neighborhood as the church tower. However unobservant Don Higinio was, and however forgetful and detached he was from his lie, he clearly saw that something extraordinary was being worked on around him. During the first few days, he didn’t know what to attribute it to, because the memory of his deception had left his mind with the last fumes of the cognac he’d swallowed at Don Cándido’s house, and even if he kept it in mind, he never believed it capable of surviving, much less of deserving anyone’s attention. But he soon changed his mind, yielding to the irrevocable authority of the numerous and very serious indications that, from many quarters and under various devices, came to reveal to him the very keen interest, not without admiration, that he was the object of. The liar is a suggester, and he, unconsciously, had influenced the people: they discussed him, spied on him, followed him from afar. The artist was astonished by his work; he found himself enveloped, surrounded, imprisoned by it; he would have liked to destroy it, but perhaps couldn’t; his lie, as if by magic, had become a horizon. At all times, he received convincing proof of the sincere affection and high esteem the collective soul paid him: Cenén, Gutiérrez, the notary, even Don Gregorio Hernández and Don Cándido, who had been friends with him for many years, treated him with greater deference and reverence, as if inferior to his boss; and Doña Lucía herself, who still couldn’t find a corset to compensate for her overweight, used to regard him with a new languor. If he went to the mine, he found its workers more obedient and devoted, and when he arrived at the Casino, the doormen would greet him, standing up, with a silent and humble welcome that bathed him in sweet vanity. The good man curiously observed this most interesting change of opinion. The common people, like women, are imaginative, and since imagination is only satisfied by lies, they feel the almost physiological need to be deceived; because the extraordinary attracts and conquers him, and he prefers the sensationalist picturesqueness of a “they say” to the historical gravity of a proven fact. This explained the success his lie had achieved, despite everyone’s feigned reserve, and how, at the whimsical command of the crowd, in the once peaceful rich man of yesteryear, devoted to the simple pleasures of family, dominoes, and fishing, there now emerged, as if from a jack-in-the-box, a wandering, bellicose, prudent, seductive personality, brimming, in short, with theatrical interest. This observation flattered his childish and romantic whims of exoticism and inspired a concern that, because it was constant, was, in turn, the origin of a reserved gesture that could well be, the public thought, that of remorse. This taciturn demeanor, as comical as his false fondness for absinthe or that fake French accent with which he had returned from Paris five years earlier, was a kind of costume that the hero of La Grande Jatte donned every day when he went out into the street. He really could not have adopted any other attitude. His fellow countrymen had begun to show him that parental affection for the rascally son who refused to learn a career or a trade, but in whom they recognized the virtues of a good understanding and a handsome appearance. They were flattered that from that noble La Mancha estate had emerged, even if only thanks to the unromantic intervention of the lottery, the figure of a complicated, scheming, and gallant man like a gentleman Casanova, who had traveled abroad and seduced an Italian beauty and defeated a Dutch giant in a daring challenge. Consequently, the person blessed with such difficult prestige had no other recourse than to maintain “his role,” to live his lie, that lie launched amidst the exalted bewilderment of two sips of cognac, whose rapid dissemination was aided by the voice of an entire people. This had told him: “Take up your hero’s cross, the heaviest of all, and continue.” And Don Higinio crossed his arms: he would be a hero, like Dieguito, the nephew of his friend Arribas, he would always be a scoundrel; because that is what the opinion of others had decreed… To improve the inner disposition of his spirit and not appear Too ridiculous in the eyes of his own conscience, he wouldn’t be short of reasons. First, it was certain that Doña Emilia wouldn’t know about it, since constantly and to the individual’s benefit, rumors of his petty absurdities either never reach his family or arrive too late; and second, since the hero’s vanity was the mainstay of this, no one could prove to him that he had lied. The figures and places that his facile imagination and novelistic eloquence utilized in the construction of the legend existed: the Italian woman at the Hotel des Alpes hadn’t loved him, but she could have loved him; like the Dutchman, who at that moment was surely in perfect health, it was undeniable that he could have died at her hands. Such suppositions, even within the strictest logic, always represented an argument. Besides, generous chance favored him. The victim he chose was that of a man whose body the police found on an island in the Seine and who could not be identified; He kept several newspapers that said so, and which he remembered in the heated flow of his improvisation. This constituted an Achilles’ argument for Don Higinio, because if he had had the unruly and suicidal whim of publicly confessing to being the author of that old , forgotten crime and taking prisoner under the pretext of pacifying his pangs of conscience, what court would have challenged him?… The only thing that could compromise the accuracy of his story was the Dutchman’s bullet, which he said was embedded in his tenth vertebra; but if no one could prove to him that it wasn’t there, what did it matter?… By reasoning like this, he managed to calm all his scruples. The delightful bully from the island of La Grande Jatte, for the same reason that his neighbors were incorrigible and consummate liars, abhorred lies, although this hatred resembled the misogyny of many old moralists, who reject petticoats precisely because they didn’t know how to unstitch them in their youth. Lying, according to Don Higinio, constitutes one of the most serious prodromes, symptoms, or nuances of social pathology; it retards the advancement of science, inflates the inspiration of young artists with grotesque inventions, and poisons family existence: lying is theft, dissimulation, slander, cowardice, ruinous ostentation, adultery; women, fleeing punishment from men, resort to lying. There are innocent lies that never harm a third party, such as the one about the murder of the Dutchman, and, in general, those of all good conversationalists, happy cultivators of the garden of deception, who demand from the imagination the agile charm and grace that reality lacks. But unfortunately, most men who commit the crime of imposture do so not out of aesthetic devotion or an itch to say something beautiful that frivolously educates or distracts, but to damage the interests or tarnish the honor of someone. The psychology of lying is extremely interesting. For those who could be described as “professional” liars, it comes to dominate them so steadily and completely that it imposes a second personality on them, to the point that many doctors classify them as abnormal. There are, indeed, those who in good faith believe themselves to be heroes and attribute to themselves the majesty of Bayard; or a terrible seducer more favored by the ladies than Lovelace; or a successful rival of Magellan in matters of voyage. There are also many who like to appear caught up in difficult economic machinations. Generally, lying, when it does not come from shyness, is a hyperesthesia, a “product” of the imagination, the great surly one dressed in colors and bells, perpetually determined to correct social vulgarity. There is, moreover, another lie that does not derive from fear or fantasy, but from calculation; a trickery that is not an exaltation or romantic uproar of character, but rather a repression, dissimulation, or belittling of it. The lie of the imagination inflates the simplest things; the reasoned lie, like its mother hypocrisy, tends, on the contrary, to To smooth out or reduce whatever is outstanding in the individual; the former “multiplies”; the latter “subtracts”; and of the two, evidently, this is the worse, because its humility inspires confidence: it is usually the favorite lie of inferiors, of servants, of children. It is also the most common: its eel-like softness, its gray color, so in keeping with collective mediocrity, its unconditional respect for the established, its servile fear of custom, are equivalent to a uniform. How can we differentiate between true goodness and that which is feigned or conspicuous? How can we know who is noble “inside” and who displays nobility accidentally and in passing?… In chivalrous spirits, decency constitutes something substantial, rigid, certainly very uncomfortable to wear; in underhanded and ruffianly people, it is a livery. Appearances, however, do not change: so how can we distinguish when honesty and sincerity are “rags” and when they are “skin”?… Besides shyness and imagination, the most abundant sources of lies are vanity, pride, and envy. Whatever these invent immediately fall under the protective aegis of self-love, and pride and vanity keep it in the public eye, even at the risk of great sacrifice. Lies are also told out of mercy. In men of cultivated spirit, like Don Higinio Perea, and capable of complex mental syntheses, lies are difficult to distill and clarify, since they take root in the spirit that produces them with numerous roots. The hero of La Grande Jatte, although he had never lied, was prone to lying, perhaps because of his birthplace , which was too small for his activity, or perhaps because he envied the fullness of life that the biographies of strong, wandering men brim with and wanted to equal them. The local society that surrounded him, a tranquil world where idleness served as a wonderful breeding ground for gossip and slander, invited him to deceive, and he lied for the sole childish whim of obtaining, for the brief space of an afternoon, the envious praise of his closest friends. It was a matter of gaiety and pastime. But since the seriousness of his words and actions was proverbial, his invention gained stupendous resonance, and, surpassing the limits of Serranillas, he crossed the green banks of the Guadamil and raised an admiring clamor in Almodóvar del Campo. Faced with this unexpected reality, Don Higinio, simultaneously frightened and satisfied, concluded, after careful examination of conscience, by shrugging his shoulders. What immorality is there in a lie that, without hurting anyone , improves the speaker, and delights and amuses everyone equally?… The profiteers, the conquerors, are men of will who cultivate action; reflective stillness belongs to artists, to the wise. Perea felt bound to the members of this last group by a certain spiritual community. His lie, that lie in which his destiny seemed to have been embodied!… Why not impose it on the common people as one imposes a work of art? Don Quixote and Faust lack historical reality; they never lived, and yet, isn’t it true that they both exist?… That day, very early, the residents of the plaza saw Don Higinio pass by laden with all his fishing gear: his rods slung over his shoulder like lances, his camp chair on his back, and slung over his left arm the picnic basket and the voluminous black cotton umbrella trimmed with a purple band. He wore a wine-colored corduroy suit and wore a wide gray felt hat pulled down on the back of his head . He walked quickly, square, plump, hairy, and cheerful, under the leaden light of the morning. As he faced an alley that led to the common land, between walls and very poor miners’ dwellings , and he greeted Don Gregorio. “We’re up early!” Perea shouted. Hernández was wearing his hunting gaiters and a raincoat that covered him almost to the feet. “I’ve just seen Tocinico. ” “Are you feeling better? ” “I don’t think he’ll make it to nightfall; if he doesn’t react…” They had stopped and were talking from sidewalk to sidewalk, with village familiarity. Don Gregorio’s gruff voice resounded in the echoic silence of the unpaved, sloping, and empty alley. “How do you go fishing on a day like that? ” “What happens to the day?” He looked into space: the sky, indeed, was unsettling. A cool west wind was blowing, heralding rain. The doctor extended an arm. “You should know that when those peaks aren’t clear, it always rains in Serranillas. ” “That’s true.” “And for a man who has abused life like you and carries in his body what you have the misfortune to carry in yours, barometric changes are fatal. That’s within reach of a child; but you, apparently, don’t love yourself.” Disdainfully and heroically, Leopoldina’s lover shrugged his shoulders. Yes, now I understood what Don Gregorio was referring to: the Dutchman’s bullet… Bah!… The bullet mattered nothing to him!… “Humidity is a terrible poison for old wounds,” added Hernández. Affably, raising his right arm with the cheerful gesture of a man throwing his hat in the air, Don Higinio replied: “History, Don Gregorio! Don’t pay any attention!… Who remembers those old things?” And he continued on. The doctor exclaimed, as if he had thrown a stone: “Old things? Well! There’s a price to be paid for!” Perea walked away without looking at him and shaking his head. “There’s no price to be paid for?… In a few years you’ll tell me!” In turn, Don Gregorio resumed his walk. A drop of water had just fallen on his nose and he looked up at the sky. Going fishing in weather like that! Don Higinio was decidedly not afraid of anything… When he arrived home, his wife asked him: “Have you seen Perea?” “Right now, in the alley.” Why? ” “Nothing! He passed by here, very stiff, wearing a brand-new corduroy suit and a gray hat. He’s getting younger every day. ” Hernández laughed. “Well, he’ll bring that suit tonight, it’s going to rain so much!” Don Higinio found the current of the Guadamil swollen and faster than usual , a sure sign that it had rained the day before in the mountains. This forced him to walk a good distance, upstream until he found a ford that he crossed without getting his feet wet to the other bank, where there were hospitable hollows and ravines perfectly protected from the wind. He walked another half kilometer in search of a certain stony spot called Hoyo Grande, where barbel and tasty trout flocked in greater numbers on windy, cloudy days. Once there, he prepared his rods, baited his hooks, and drove a stake into the ground. To this he securely tied his open umbrella, thus forming a sort of tiny tent under which he settled. Then he lit his pipe—a large sailor’s pipe, a souvenir from Paris—and waited. During the first hour, a few drops of rain fell; but the wind, which must have been strong, swept the clouds eastward, the sky cleared, and there were moments when the sun seemed to appear; but suddenly the space became cloudy, and far away, perhaps on the other side of the mountain range, a roll of thunder was heard. A strong, milky light flooded the landscape. The air smelled of damp earth, and a strange green shudder ran over the thick grass. As the gusts of the north wind blew high, subtle mists darkened the riverbed, whose waves took on the dead color of ash. The silence, that absolute silence, the lethargic stillness of the fog, drowned out all the echoes of the mountains. Don Higinio remembered that such a morning had been the one he had chosen to get rid of the fearsome Dutchman from the Hotel des Alpes, and thinking of Don Gregorio’s good advice regarding the unhealthy influence of humidity on the healing of old wounds, he began to laugh with a cynicism that must have slightly colored his conscience. He lit another pipe, and to neutralize the effects of the cold, which was beginning to numb his knees, he took the flask of gin from the food basket and took a few long sips. From his position , low and surrounded by rugged, wooded banks, the horizon he could explore was extremely limited. Nothing could be seen of the town, eight or nine kilometers away, nor of the field where the mines were located. Only the banks of the Guadamil River could be seen, escaping on steep slopes toward the mountains, and far beyond, the jagged crests, resembling basaltic eagles, of the mountains that enclosed the valley. Although the view was so small, the mist, at times, narrowed it; dense masses of leaden vapors thickened the space, and the daylight increased his agonizing fever. In the growing darkness, the contours blurred: the trees seemed to dissolve against the vast, sooty ground; the ennui of the high hills eventually merged with the clouds that covered them and vanished within them, and thus, heaven and earth merged and were lost behind the same gray homogeneity. Meanwhile, the flow of the Guadamil, swelled by the downpour that had probably been falling in the mountains for hours, increased so much that Perea needed to move to a higher place. His optimism, however, did not waver, and at midday he ate a hearty lunch, partly due to his stomach’s demands and the satisfaction of the three pounds of good fish he had bought. Bah! In total, the bad weather dwindled to four drops and a bit of humidity. He had just finished making the coffee when it began to rain so furiously that in a few minutes, despite his umbrella, he felt soaked and drenched, as if he had been thrown headfirst into the river. At first, he believed it was a short-lived group, as the very violence of the downpour seemed to indicate it was, and confident in this, without stopping to gather his fishing gear, he fled upslope to take refuge in a hollow in the ground, a kind of cassock that barely covered his shoulders. From his shelter, the paladin of the Grande Jatte observed the melancholy of his useless umbrella, dripping water, and of his fishing rods, which he left suspended over the river current, and the thought that his deception had brought more fish to the surface made him suffer. Time passed and the downpour did not abate, and as the ground became soaked by the minute, the rustic alcove that served as Perea’s hiding place began to leak water, so that it soaked him rather than covered him. Don Higinio began to get worried; for a hereditary rheumatic like him, such dampness could be fatal. Hernández was right: going fishing so far out on a day like this was madness. The rain fell so thickly that the gorse bushes began to bend beneath it, and its flow formed shimmering threads that slid over the trunks of the gorse and pines. The waters of the Guadamil had acquired a threatening sound and garrulousness; its course was more violent; its waves, obscured by the sooty canopy of clouds, rolled in foaming eddies, and as they crashed against the rocks and roots that indented the banks, they leaped out shattered and convulsed. Having grounded, his feet cold and aching, his hat pulled down to the back of his head, Don Higinio tried to warm his hands. He was scared. Not since the legendary flood that floated Noah’s ark had it rained like this in the lands of La Mancha. He didn’t know what to do, and not even the distraction of smoking remained, since the tobacco wouldn’t burn in the humidity. He had to put his tie in his pocket; his shirt collar had lost its starchy stiffness and had become a viscous, cold rag that gave him the impression of a reptile coiled around his neck. The fog of the early morning had peacefully dissolved into rain; but by mid-afternoon, the sky’s expression changed, and what until then had been a whispering rain, with the help of the wind, had begun to swoop. A storm broke out. The cyclone, unexpectedly launched on the other side of the mountain range, was about to pass over the Serranillas Valley with a furious flap of its wings. A thunderous gust blew, disciplining the trees and drawing from the rocky hills groans of doom and terror; a flash of lightning capered through space, its apocalyptic light illuminating even the deepest corners of the forest; thunder crackled, bouncing from mountain to mountain . Whipped by the hurricane, the rain pounded furiously against Don Higinio’s alcove, and the wind, hissing and swirling through those hollows, gathered the fallen leaves and, lifting them to a considerable height, scattered them through the air. On every ridge, in every crevice of the mountain, its violence produced barbaric shrieks. Obeying a childhood custom, Perea signed himself; Never had his vast experience as a rustic man seen such a spectacle. Suddenly , his fishing rods, his camp chair, and his umbrella, swept away by the fury of the elements, fell into the river. Instinctively, Don Higinio ran after them to retrieve them; but his diligence was useless, as the current was very swift, and it would have been foolhardy to enter it. The umbrella, especially, inflated with air, fled rapidly, tumbling like a chimera on the growling waves of the Guadamil. Faced with this disaster, the valiant suitor of the Italian woman from the Hotel des Alpes thought only of escape. But how could he return to town if he needed to cross the river, and with the flood, there would be no way to ford it? Don Higinio wanted to know the time to limit his retreat plans to it, and even this help was lacking, because his watch had stopped at five past one. The gallant La Mancha native clenched his fists and glared simoniacally at the sky. Without tobacco, without a watch, soaked to the bone like a castaway! Ah! Isn’t it true that there are times when everything around us—earth and space, trees, stones, clouds, mountains—seem to mock us? Dejected, he picked up his provision basket, the only object whose weight and small volume didn’t fall into the river, and set off, indifferent, through the downpour. The path was unpleasant, sometimes slippery, sometimes puddled and soft. After traveling three kilometers, Don Higinio felt exhausted and needed to sit down: his muddy boots seemed like those of a giant and were so heavy that they gripped the ground like roots; his corduroy suit, that brand-new, wine-colored suit that Doña Lucía had glanced at furtively, now cramped his movements and weighed down his back like armor. The rain was always falling, and the wanderer, his eyes dull, his mouth half-open, felt its icy caress running down his back. After a few moments, he continued on his way. Night was falling when he reached the fearsome Boar Hollow. In that place, bristling with hostile rocks, the Guadamil River roiled and had the dark, dark shadows of a torrent. Perea’s kind, blue eyes scanned the shore. “If only my umbrella had stopped here!” he thought. He continued on, troubled by the fear that nightfall would surprise him. In reality, he didn’t know what to do: the flood had surely rendered all the river’s fordable points unusable, and although he was certain he knew them every inch of the way, he understood the danger of going into the water without knowing how to swim and trusting his health to shifting stones that the force of the current had perhaps uprooted and carried to other places. The rain had stopped, the wind had calmed, and in the silent, expressionless space, as if fatigued by the storm that had passed over it, the trees stood motionless and shining. A few kilometers further on, in the nighttime darkness, full of hostility and anxiety for walkers , the champion of the Grande Jatte saw two of the church clock’s faces gleam , which revived him with the emotion of a very high joy. “When the clock is lit,” he thought, “it’s six o’clock.” And he resumed his walk, always carefully, because the Guadamil, by throwing out its chest, had lowered many places that hours before had been lean. Meanwhile, Don Higinio’s inexplicable absence had turned their home into a branch or abbreviated imitation of that “valley of tears” spoken of in the Scriptures. In the morning, as soon as it began to rain, Doña Emilia went to the closet to make sure her husband’s raincoat was there, and when she saw it, she became extremely upset. She was one of those domineering and vehement characters in whom all feelings, even that of love, have a hint of anger. “He insisted on not putting on his raincoat,” she grumbled; “it will be a miracle if he doesn’t come back with a chill!” Her sister Teresita, good and deaf, with a growing deafness that added a new sweetness to the naturally amiable expression of her face, tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry, wife; it’s not a child; we’ll probably have him here by lunchtime .” Doña Emilia’s long, Arabic eyes shone spitefully. “It’s incredible that you don’t know him! He’d come back!… But don’t we know that the moment he sees a fishing rod, he goes crazy?” As the hours passed, the excellent lady’s nervousness increased: everything had an insane influence on her; on the one hand, Don Higinio’s absence; on the other, the atmosphere saturated with electricity. Her hands trembled. She went to the kitchen and broke several plates; she tried to sew and pricked her fingers. A sinister feeling pierced her chest; she called her sister. “I think something bad is going to happen to us; I just felt a very strange chill, as if something had brushed the back of my neck.” Teresita didn’t hear well. “What?” Regretting her words, Doña Emilia didn’t want to answer; she was extremely irritated, with that mortification of vanity that comes from the consciousness of having said something foolish. Lunchtime arrived, and Don Higinio didn’t appear. Doña Emilia could barely manage a bite; she turned red, then white, then red; her corset had never been as tight as it was then. Her children ate well, but talked about finding their father. “I’ll go alone,” said Anselmo. The future jurist was proud of his sixteen years and his muscles, hardened by two years of gymnastics. Joaquinito wanted to accompany him, and the eldest son humiliated him by throwing his young age in his face. “You’re still too young.” And then: “Shut up, brat!” With his father not there, Anselmo felt obliged to assume the responsibilities and rights of the head of the family. Joaquinito, furious, threatened his brother with a dessert knife, which he then angrily plunged into a cream and angel hair cake. Carmencita remained silent, thinking that she was already a young woman and that in bad weather, distinguished ladies don’t leave the house. Doña Emilia ended the discussion. “Nothing is done here that I don’t order! You already know that. And if anyone disobeys me, they’ll remember today.” She left the table and began pacing back and forth; every now and then she went out into the street, beneath the downpour, hoping to see Perea arrive, and her hair, as it softened in the dampness, invaded her forehead with plaintiveness and gave her face a dramatic expression. Teresita, deaf and sweet, unconsciously dragged by her sister’s anxiety and grief, walked behind her. In the middle of the afternoon, at the sound of that formidable thunderclap that so terrified Don Higinio and forced him to sign his name, his wife gave a scream and went to kneel before a small statue of Our Lady of Refuge that she kept in her bedroom among blue candles and rag flowers. There she remained for a long time, her tearful, pleading eyes turned upward, her arms open. Teresita, who had followed her, also knelt; then, absorbed and as if fainting in the fervor of her mystical contemplation, she buried her chin on her breast and sought a more comfortable position by sitting back on her heels. Outside the storm raged, and at intervals the dazzling zigzag of lightning ignited the room. Anselmo looked out of the door; this scene interested him without saddening him; in Ciudad Real he remembered having seen A zarzuela that unfolded on the seashore and whose first act ended with such a scene. It was three o’clock, four o’clock… and the storm, as it receded, seemed to leave behind an indefinable throb of desolation and tragedy that Doña Emilia couldn’t resist. “I’m leaving,” she declared. She was going to the doctor’s; she needed to see people, talk to Doña Lucía, somehow vent her anxiety. Perhaps Perea, returning from his ill-fated excursion, had stopped there… She didn’t want to bother fastening her corset; she put on a coat over the gown she was wearing, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and went out into the street. She had barely turned the corner when Anselmo and Joaquinito joined forces. “Shall we look for Papa?” suggested the eldest. “Let’s go.” They grabbed their berets and headed for the doorway. Teresita, assisted by Carmen, tried to stop them; but her kindly reputation wasn’t enough . “We’ll be back soon,” they said. And they escaped in the direction of the river. They were running. At the bottom of that love for their father was a youthful desire for freedom, for the countryside; a burning urge to stamp their feet on the damp grass… Doña Emilia arrived at the doctor’s house so changed and unlike herself that Mrs. Hernández was frightened. “What’s the matter? Is something unfortunate happening?” Without knowing why, Doña Emilia asked for Don Gregorio. “He’s out, but if you need him, they’ll come get him; he’s at the Casino.” Doña Emilia shook her head and, to calm herself, asked for water. What she needed to know was her husband’s whereabouts; she had a feeling something had happened to him; it must have rained horribly in the mountains, and the Guadamil River was undoubtedly carrying a lot of water. Perhaps Higinio tried to wade through it, and since the current was very strong and he didn’t know how to swim… Hernández’s wife tried to calm her down. —Gregorio greeted her this morning and they spoke for a moment. —What time? —Early. I saw him too: he was very shabby in his gray hat and new corduroy suit. —Did he say anything to you? —He didn’t see me. Your husband is like mine with his shotgun when he goes hunting. Gregorio doesn’t know anyone. He watched his friend in a strange, caressing, pitying way; he remembered the duel between Don Higinio and the Dutchman, which her husband had told her about one evening after dinner and under the seal of confession. No! She wouldn’t say anything; she had sworn it! Besides, why make her jealous with the beautiful Leopoldina? However, if Emilia had known who Perea was, the real Perea, that terrible man who didn’t fear death and of whom she only knew his homely, smiling, and methodical side, her pain at that moment would surely not have been so profound. Emilia was distressed because, in her opinion, her husband was a child, a sort of eldest son … “Yes, yes!”… That’s what it seemed with his meek air, and then it turned out what the whole town already knew… Doña Emilia thought she saw in her friend’s eyes an unusual expression of affection, of mercy… “Why are you looking at me like that?” “What , idiot? ” “With that face … Do you know something… something bad, and you don’t want to tell me?” She stood up impetuously and, grabbing Mrs. Hernández by the shoulders, she searched her pupils for a long time. “Are you not hiding anything from me?” Doña Lucía bit her lip. “Why do you ask that? It’s enough for you to know that no misfortune has befallen your husband . ” “Do you know? And how?” Doña Lucía hesitated; her desire to speak was irresistible; something physical; a kind of tickling of the tongue. “Because Higinio,” she said, “is not what you suppose, do you understand? You’ve lived with him for eighteen or nineteen years, and you know him less than I do. Higinio, so you know, is not one of those men who, as the common people say, ‘drown in shallow water’; consequently, he lives peacefully. Higinio will come later or tomorrow… and you’ll see him arrive safe and sound. Your husband is brave and knows how to guard himself.” She was silent for a few moments, during which her honorable reserve and her indiscreet desire to proclaim Don Higinio’s heroism fought tooth and nail. Finally, she added gravely: “Your husband, my child, is not like mine; Gregorio is what we all see: with his booming voice we’d say he’s going to eat the children raw, and then, deep down, nothing: a wretch; I myself make of him whatever I want. But your Higinio is very different. Oh, Emilia, how deceived you are!… Your husband is a man of history…” Mrs. Hernández’s ambiguous phrases and that little smile of irony and mystery with which she underlined them, stirred a jealous suspicion in Doña Emilia’s rebellious spirit. “You speak like that for a reason!” she exclaimed; “don’t dissemble; why all this reticence? Does Higinio have relations with some woman?” To reply, Doña Lucía assumed a solemn expression. “Don’t be jealous; I know your husband isn’t cheating on you. Do you understand? Look carefully: your husband isn’t cheating on you now; but in another, long-ago time, he may have cheated on you… and if then, from some perhaps very serious entanglement, he managed to escape unscathed, it’s innocent that you’re so frightened for him now. She was exhausted; her efforts to remain silent had exhausted her energies. After a moment of silence, Doña Emilia replied, absorbed. “I don’t understand you, daughter; the truth is: I don’t understand you…” She remained suspended, her eyes fixed on the patch of sky that could be seen through the window. Doña Lucía, very restless, got up, arranged her hair in front of a mirror, and sat down again. Despite the ham-like solidity of her figure, the generous growth of her breasts, the extremely robust pomp of her slender hips, the healthy complexion of her face, and the stately beauty of her small, bejeweled hands lent her figure a notable voluptuousness and piquant interest. According to those who knew her young, she was never very beautiful; but her eyes and gestures always had an intention that disturbed men, and this was the advantage that all the young women envied and that caused confusion among the best young men of her time. Doña Emilia herself remembered that, many years before, when they were all single, her husband and the current Mrs. Hernández, whose house had a very ornate, dark gate at a certain dead end , had flirted a bit. Doña Emilia, who also could not sit still, approached the window and the mirror; she drank water again… “And your children?” she asked. “At school.” From there they went to the Casino in search of their father and then returned together. Night was falling rapidly. In the dimness of the study, against the white walls, an antique set of red jute chairs raised their oval backs; above the sofa, a mirror, resembling a still lake, was drowning in shadows; cheap trading cards and bundles of photographs and postcards served as a simple wall covering; on an old marble-topped nightstand, placed in the center of the room, a plant, faded by dust and light, revealed the stupidity of its rag flowers. Restless, youthful footsteps, accompanied by slower, manly ones , disturbed the stillness of the entrance hall. A question was heard: “And Mom? Has Mom come?” It was Anselmo and Joaquín. Doña Emilia recognized her children’s voices and went to meet them. The boys came accompanied by a miner, who had respectfully taken off his hat and was looking very sadly at Mrs. Perea and Mrs. Hernández. “This is the only thing we’ve found,” said Anselmo. And he presented Don Higinio’s tattered umbrella to his mother. “Father’s umbrella!” exclaimed Doña Emilia, clenching her white, trembling hands above her head. “But what about your father? Where is your father?” The two lads, although dismayed, could not help secretly rejoicing in the importance conferred on them by the news that they were bearers. “We,” said Joaquín, “as soon as you left home, went to look for Father, and already in the field, we found this man carrying the umbrella. ” Anselmo introduced the worker. —He works in our mine; he’s a shoring man. Doña Emilia, livid, trembling, ghostly, had to sit down. The doctor’s wife stood beside her, caressing her shoulders with one hand, ready to help her, and at her prudent suggestion, Joaquinito went to get a glass of water. The rustic scratched his head. —I,— he said,—felt ill today. I’ve had a fever for more than eight days , as Don Gregorio knows very well, and that was the reason I left work early. When I left the mine it was five o’clock and it was raining heavily. I live, for whatever the ladies may wish to send me, at the entrance to Calvario Viejo, so, in order not to wander too far, I followed the road that leads to the so-called Venta del Ansia, by its bad name. So, as I approach the river, which is running very high… The young gentlemen here know it and can tell you!… It’s coming to give the handsomest one a fright. So I was about to cross it and had rolled up my trousers, if you please, to this point, when I saw something floating on the current; as it stood, it looked like a wheel. I thought: “That’s an open umbrella.” I stopped, and as the wind was blowing it towards me, I picked it up without difficulty. Then… “But it’s the master’s umbrella!” I recognized it by its purple border, for there is no other like it in Serranillas, and because the master has taken it down to the mine many times. Soon I found the young gentlemen, and we are all here for whatever the ladies may need. I, at least, the ladies know now : if I can be of use in any way… With all confidence… He fell silent, and since in the stupor of tragedy his words had produced no one spoke, he added: “Now all that’s needed is for Don Higinio to have no misfortune befallen him.” Everything fell silent again. Joaquinito was trying to open his umbrella, damp and sinister as a drowned man. His brother snatched it from him. “Hold still, you fool, don’t you understand you’re going to break it?” Doña Emilia remained motionless and colorless, her dry, fixed eyes, wide open, as if she saw the turbid waves of the Guadamil rolling by and Don Higinio’s corpse floating above them. Doña Lucía herself , despite the confidence the champion of La Grande Jatte inspired in her, began to grow restless. She knew the affection Don Higinio professed for his umbrella; For that very reason, when he resigned himself to losing him, it must have been under circumstances of terrible and exceptional danger; probably, seeing that the storm wasn’t abating, he decided to cross the Guadamil, and upon attempting it and feeling overcome by the current, he would throw away his fishing gear, his camp chair, his umbrella… And then?… Because a man, no matter how heroic, if he doesn’t know how to swim, he drowns immediately. Nevertheless, Mrs. Hernández was able to find discreet words of hope in his troubled mind. “I believe,” she said, “that Don Higinio won’t have been so imprudent as to want to ford the river when it was so swollen. ” Her compassionate suggestion found an echo in the miner. “That’s what I think. The master knows the river better than anyone, and he knows that it’s not good to trifle with the Guadamil.” Don Higinio must have hidden himself in the hollow of some rock, waiting there for the current to subside a little… The miner had already left, and Doña Emilia was still stunned by the shock she had suffered: “The umbrella,” she repeated, “the umbrella…” That dry, concentrated, expressionless pain was beginning to be a very bad omen. Fortunately for everyone, the crisis finally resolved itself in a torrent of tears. “I’ll never see him again!” she sobbed, “never!… Ah!… Why did I let him go?… I knew it!… This morning, when I saw him put on his new corduroy suit, my heart spoke to me!… She spoke in a low voice, hiccuping, drinking in her tears. Joaquinito also burst into tears. The eldest son, very pale, bit his lip, holding back his tears, obedient to his father’s bizarre advice, according to which men should never show sorrow. Only Doña Lucía remained courageous: her confidence in the hero was resurrected; it was It was impossible for a man of Perea’s reckless temperament to die so obscurely, so prosaically, without opposing the danger with a beautiful swimmer’s gesture. But what about the umbrella? How could Don Higinio, unless he were in extreme danger of death, have decided to lose his umbrella? ” That’s it,” he said, “he dropped it, and the wind must have been very strong.” But Doña Emilia, inconsolable, shook her head. “I’ll never see him again, never!” she repeated. “That suit, which he put on for the first time today, was his shroud… I’m not mistaken, Lucía; my heart is never mistaken.” Accompanied by her children and the doctor’s wife, the presumed widow returned home. Seeing her so fallen, Teresita and Carmen began to cry. Vicenta, the cook, and the two stewardesses also had moist eyes. They were all talking at once, suspecting the reasons that led them to believe in Don Higinio’s death, and the umbrella, the cursed umbrella that was the main cause of such a lamentable commotion, was passed from one hand to another. Pepe, the gardener, introduced himself. “If it seems good to the lady, I can go find the master.” In the night of so many inane and sterile conversations, that resolute and manly proposition had the effectiveness of a ray of light. Suddenly, Doña Emilia revived; almost with a leap, despite her flesh, she stood up. “Do you know where he planned to spend the day?” ” Approximately, yes, madam. It’s in a bend in the river they call Hoyo Grande. ” “Very far from here? ” “About two leagues. But the distance doesn’t matter, and if someone were to accompany me … well, it would be better if there were several of us with torches…” Doña Lucía intervened; that was best; In any case, her optimism was that they should wait a little longer; until eight o’clock, for example… “In the meantime,” she added, addressing Anselmo and Joaquín, “you will go to the Casino to inform my husband of what is happening and tell him to come here later. No one better than he can decide which men are to accompany Pepe.” As soon as the boys and the gardener left, with urbane reasons Doña Lucía begged Carmencita and the maids to leave the room. The good lady could no longer repress the temptation to discover the terrible incident at the Hotel des Alpes; in her opinion, there was no doubt that the knowledge of Don Higinio’s true, impassive and heroic personality would inspire his wife with great courage. Where did she herself get her certainty that Perea would return, if not from the blind faith she had in his courage? “Shall I leave too?” Teresita asked. “No, you can stay; What I’m going to say is very serious… very serious!… But not so much that you can’t hear it. The mystery that surrounded Mrs. Hernández’s looks, phrases, and gestures was such that, listening to her, Doña Emilia seemed to forget her pain. The doctor’s wife approached her friend, embraced her, and kissed her cheeks soundly and effusively… “What I’m going to tell you will frighten you at first, but then it should reassure you. Emilia, my poor Emilia!… Ah! A woman who has the good fortune… or the misfortune… no one knows!… to belong to a man like yours, in the current situation shouldn’t be frightened!” The narrator looked at the two sisters and interrupted herself every moment, savoring her secret, taking pleasure in having it on her tongue and savoring it like someone savoring candy. “Higinio,” she continued, “where do you see him, so good, so gentle, so incapable of harming anyone… because there are few characters better than his, right?… Well then; Higinio… he has killed a man!” Doña Emilia stood up trembling, stammering, spectral. Her hair was standing on end. “Has he killed a man?” And Teresita, perhaps more terrified than her sister, because her maidenhood served as fertilizer for her naiveté, repeated in a dying voice: “Has my brother-in-law killed a man?” Mrs. Hernández confirmed her expression with a gesture full of melancholy and gravity. “Just as you are hearing it.” Her words were followed by a terrible silence. Suddenly, Doña Emilia launched into a She let out a cry and thrust her trembling, clenched hands toward her friend, as if pale: “But when? When did that happen? Was it this afternoon?” “No, my child; it was five or six years ago, back in Paris.” The relative antiquity of the date did not diminish Doña Emilia’s shock in the least ; so great was it that she suddenly found relief, as if the horror of that unknown tragedy obscured her present anguish. “Your husband,” Doña Lucía continued, “confessed it to Gregorio and other friends at Don Cándido’s house; you know that men, among themselves, don’t keep secrets; and Gregorio told me. Higinio, in defiance, killed the husband of a very beautiful Italian woman, so they say, with whom he had relations.” Hearing this, Señora Perea felt no distress; she wasn’t even jealous; she was absorbed, as if unhinged and out of her mind. Oh, the acrid attraction of terror! She, so fond of reading novels, thought she was attending the real, throbbing performance of an unprecedented serial. Swiftly, but with a skill that neither omitted details nor mincing words, Mrs. Hernandez recounted all she knew of the bloody affair, and even added a good deal of her own imagination and generous temperament: Don Higinio’s trysts with the Italian woman, her husband’s suspicions, the meeting of the two men, their journey across Paris, the Seine, the island of La Grande Jatte, the ferryman, the fog, the hand-to-hand combat, the shooting, and finally, the knife wound that split the Dutchman’s tempestuous heart in two … A victim of indescribable and never-felt tribulation, Doña Emilia wept, laughed, and as soon as she stopped breathing, her lips grew cold and within her breast her soul seemed to curl up with fear, as she regained strength and the healthy color of her blood returned to her cheeks. When she heard that the Dutchman had fired his revolver at Don Higinio, she turned pale, and seconds later, upon learning that Perea, gallantly and without help from anyone, had finished off his rival, she turned red. “And you say he has a bullet inside his body? ” “Yes. ” “Where?” “In the spine, a little above the kidneys. ” “And the wound? I haven’t seen any scar!” “You couldn’t have noticed; it’s tiny; Gregorio knows it and… you’ll understand that a doctor can’t make mistakes!” Don Cándido, Cenén, Arribas, the postmaster… everyone, in short, everyone there saw it too. The scar is on the lower part of his chest: it’s a white mark, a kind of indentation… Like the bullets from these modern revolvers, they hardly leave a trace! Doña Emilia crossed herself: an ineffable, hidden, and unknown emotion possessed her. Despite knowing she’d been deceived, she wasn’t jealous, and the fear the pathetic story produced in her was accompanied by a very sweet, very consoling emotion of admiration for the man who thus, so valiantly, knife in hand, had defended her life. Her feminine vanity felt flattered. Surely Higinio, in attacking his rival, thought of his children and also of her… above all of her!… And her romantic soul, without realizing it, swelled with joy. She recognized herself as humble; she was weak, timid; a poor woman without courage or strength. He, on the other hand, had given conclusive proof of heroism. Ah! And she slept in those reckless arms, trembling with pleasure under the manly caress of hands that, despite their proverbial kindness, knew how to kill if necessary! What a revelation, what joy!… Higinio!… “Her Higinio!”… Why wouldn’t she be there to embrace his knees like a slave?… “Of this,” concluded Doña Lucía, “do not speak to my husband, for I swore to him not to tell you anything. And I would have kept my oath had it not been for the fact that I felt obliged to reassure you, showing you that a man like yours is not one to drown in a mouthful of water.” Shortly after, Anselmo and Joaquín returned; with them arrived Don Gregorio, Cenén, and other friends of Perea, all very excited and chatty. and prepared to scour the forest and even dredge the Guadamil, if necessary, in order to discover Don Higinio’s whereabouts. Julio Cenén wanted to go out in search of him immediately. According to the latest news from the countryside, the water level had dropped considerably, so if Perea was no longer there it was because, perhaps struggling to ford the river, he had suffered some serious mishap. The impressionable secretary paced nervously, and in that continuous pacing, under the lamplight , his neat little ornithological brain took on distinct glimmers. “I don’t believe,” he added, “that it’s an irreparable accident; but something very serious, yes, because Higinio is a character who is not easily intimidated . ” Those present nodded and, out of the corner of their eyes, with enigmatic dissimulation, glanced at Doña Emilia. The poor woman blushed, and in the midst of her grief, she experienced a great relief: the vain and exquisite satisfaction of being the consort, perhaps the widow, of a hero. “Everyone knows about the Hotel des Alpes!” she thought. Hernández had taken out his watch, which he twice put to his ear. He feared it wouldn’t work, for he would have sworn it was later. “But, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “it’s barely six o’clock! Let’s not be so alarmed; the days have grown very short. Perhaps they haven’t lit the church clock yet.” Doña Lucía looked out of a window. “Yes,” she said, “they’ve lit it; you can see it from here. The sky is very clear; there’s a moon…” Given the moderate hour, Don Gregorio’s judgment prevailed. They would wait until seven to begin the hunt. Meanwhile, Pepe the gardener could look for the torches with which the beaters would light themselves. It was also very convenient to take dogs. “By the way,” Cenén ordered Pepe, “go to my house and ask for my gaiters. ” “Bring mine too,” said Don Gregorio, “my children know where they are. ” They all sat in a semicircle in front of Doña Emilia, and they showered her with vulgar words of consolation. Don Higinio knew the banks of the Guadamil like the back of his hand, and he was a serene and brave man accustomed to facing much greater risks. The doctor’s wife embraced her friend. “You see? Didn’t I tell you?” And Doña Emilia, afflicted and consoled at the same time, nodded and closed her eyes. There was, however, something funereal about that scene that transcended a wake or a condolence visit. Don Cándido soon arrived; at the Casino they explained to him what was happening, and he immediately went to the pharmacy to put on his wild boots and have a snack. He said to Doña Benita: “Don’t count on me all night.” Don Gregorio offered him a seat next to him and informed him that they would remain there until seven o’clock. At that moment, the notary appeared; he was wearing a corduroy suit, a blue beret, and leggings of the same color; he looked like a guerrilla fighter. Informed of what had happened, his affection for Perea forced him to ask for a place among the first friends who came to look for him. He also sat down, panting and overweight, and placed the shepherd’s crook he had been armed with between his legs. The gathering was becoming lively; it seemed like a gathering of hunters, and the violent barking of the dogs that had just been brought in and were wandering around the courtyard contributed to this. The excursion, which at first might have seemed dull, suddenly took on an enormous hunting interest; in everyone’s mind, imperceptibly, Don Higinio became prey . Abruptly, the door opened and Pepe appeared. In a stifled voice, “The master!” she cried. The bystanders rose; Doña Lucía gave a cry; Doña Emilia asked heroically, with the gallantry of a Spartan: “But is he coming back alive?” “Yes, madam! He’s coming on foot.” The gardener disappeared. The wife ran to the door, and everyone followed her, crowding together as she left. No one was surprised that Perea had reappeared, no matter how many obstacles he had to overcome; they knew him; Leopoldina’s lover was “a man.” Doña Emilia crossed the hall and went out into the street, shouting: “Higinio!… My Higinio!” And right there, beneath the ironic profile of the moon and before the balconies filled with neighbors watching and moved, she embraced the hero. His friends in turn surrounded him, but didn’t dare touch him for fear of getting wet. Don Higinio was intensely pale, and he was so cold that his teeth chattered and he could barely string together his words. He was pitiful and laughable: he was covered in mud above his knees, his pants were torn, and his hatband was gone. Only Don Gregorio dared to embrace him, and he did so with the rudeness of a Hercules. “Didn’t I tell you this morning that the sky was threatening a storm?… But you are a man without restraint and without law!” Don Higinio smiled vaguely; He was hamstrung, exhausted, and his good eyes, half-closed from fatigue, had the pain of infinite humility. He could not speak. He declared that his head and back ached terribly, and he needed to go to bed immediately. When he learned that these good friends were planning to come looking for him with dogs and torches, he was moved and knew how to give them a smile of gratitude. “Thank you. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what happened… tomorrow… Eh? Now I’m cold… sleepy… Yes, you’ll forgive me; until tomorrow… ” With that, he said goodbye to everyone and entered his house. Doña Emilia fixed Don Gregorio with a pleading look. “It’s nothing,” replied the doctor, “just a little fever. In any case, I’ll return after dinner. ” Chapter 8. Perea arrived at his room, closed the door, and without speaking, got into bed. Doña Emilia helped him undress, and she kept crossing herself, thus expressing her astonishment: the corduroy suit, with all the water and mud it had on it, weighed a pound and would surely be useless. The boots were torn, and the wetness had so unruly and shrunken them that their owner had to struggle mightily to take them off. The socks also appeared useless, riddled with holes and covered in mud. Doña Emilia couldn’t stop marveling; her husband had mud splashes even on his tie; they were absurd stains, and no one could have explained how they had gotten there. The hero of La Grande Jatte ended up stripping down and putting on a yellow flannel suit he wore when he suffered from the onset of rheumatism. Then he closed his eyes. His wife gazed at him lovingly, with a tenderness that had never appeared before, and twice kissed his forehead. “Are you cold?… Eh?… Are you cold?” Perea replied laconically, without bothering to open his eyes: “Yes.” She slid a warm, maternal hand under the covers, searching for Don Higinio’s large, hard, and nail-studded feet. “Do you want a hot water bottle? ” “Well…” The Guadamil castaway allowed himself to be pampered. Doña Emilia left the room to tell them to put a pot of water on the fire immediately , and returned shortly afterward, walking on tiptoe. Although Perea’s eyelids were tightly closed, she pinned an issue of El Faro around the lamp to prevent the light from hurting him if he opened them . Having done this, as loving and docile as a servant, she prostrated herself in front of the bed. Don Higinio had fallen asleep, and from under his shaggy mustache, his lips let out a grotesque, polyphonic snore. His wife took advantage of these moments to go in search of the hot water bottle , which she brought wrapped in a shawl with great diligence. This misgiving, quickly transmitting itself to the sick man’s stiff feet, must have relieved him, for he soon opened his eyes. Seeing Doña Emilia’s face so close to his, he seemed surprised. “What are you doing there?” “Looking at you… taking care of you… ” “Why aren’t you going to bed? ” “It’s very early. ” “Early?… What time?” “Eight o’clock, perhaps… No one has had dinner yet… ” “Eight o’clock!” she repeated. He had lost track of time; he would have sworn it was dawn. “No doubt,” he said, “when I came back I had a slight fever, but now I I feel better. He looked at his wife and was once again amazed to see her so amiable, so womanly, so close to him. She, without abandoning her attitude of inferiority and adoration, began to kiss his hands, and every time she did so, she half-closed her black eyes, as if her lips were tasting the touch of something exquisite. The innocent lady was madly eager to embrace her husband; not as a husband or a common or worldly person, but as a hero; to assure him that from then on she would never scold him again, nor would there be any other voice in that house but his; to tell him that she forgave him for his prank with the Italian woman in question, and to ask him for many details—many… many!—of his quarrel with the dread Dutchman. But so suddenly, she didn’t dare; she feared that the prolonged recollection of those cruel moments would mortify the victor of the Grande Jatte too much; remorse, however dormant it may be with time, is always unpleasant. Gently, waiting for the opportune moment, he asked: “You don’t have a fever now, do you want to eat something?” This proposal instantly evoked a feeling of hunger in Don Higinio . He saw clearly within himself. He hadn’t eaten a thing since midday. He wasn’t sick, but hungry. Indolent, with the laxity, brawling, and bad manners of someone who admits to being spoiled, he expressed a desire for some garlic soup. “With one egg?” his wife asked. “With two. ” She kissed him. “Would you like them light or thick?” “Better thick… ” “Would you also like a small glass of sherry?” A small glass, one of those liqueurs… ” The memory of the meal excited Perea, and his stomach, by the second, regained all its jovial arrogance. “Yes, I want sherry, but not in a liqueur glass; serve it to me in a glass.” Doña Emilia smiled maternally: before, this demand would have seemed like a stupid impertinence; no one with common sense, in such a weak state, would have thought of drinking a large glass of sherry… But now she easily realized what she would not have understood on another occasion. Don Higinio was a much stronger man than most men; an exceptional temperament; a strong, brave man , born for orgies and fights, who, like the legendary musketeers, after an assault and in the arms of the beautiful women who surrendered to them, healed his wounds with wine. While Teresita and Vicenta seasoned the soups, Doña Emilia wanted to rub the sick man’s back with camphorated alcohol. Perea agreed, sweet and affectionate; after spending so many unpleasant hours outdoors, he needed to feel healed, protected. His wife helped him onto his stomach, pulled his undershirt up and wrapped it around his neck like a scarf, removed the blankets, leaving them in that still-honorable place where the tunic of the Venus de Milo had stopped, and began to rub his soft back. Soon his skin began to color; but Doña Emilia continued her healthy task briskly, thinking that beneath that flesh, more beloved to her then than ever, lay a bullet. With the rub, the warmth of the bottle at his feet, and the hearty relief of the meal, the patient was soon as agile, proud, and well-disposed as if nothing bad had happened to him. His eyes shone. Why was his wife so affectionate, so feminine? He asked for a cigarette; he was eager to smoke and chat, exaggerating the risks and hardships he had taken. “The river was mighty!” he exclaimed. “How it roared! It was impossible to ford it !” There were times when I thought a lot about you, especially you, Emilia. “Will I never see her again?” he thought. In his imagination, naturally romantic and aided by the sherry, the events swelled; the Guadamil became the Amazon. His wife became moved: “Is it true,” stammered the lagotera, “that every time you were in danger of death, you remembered me?” “Always, my child.” And as he answered thus, Don Higinio was thinking of his challenge with Mr. Ruch. as if it were a real event. Doña Emilia slid down from the chair she was occupying and knelt on the carpet, her arms resting on the edge of the bed. Teresita appeared, walking on tiptoe. “There’s Don Gregorio.” Perea was delighted; he was going to call him; but his wife stopped him by putting a forefinger to her lips. He turned to his sister: “Tell him that Higinio is fast asleep, and that if anything happens we’ll let him know. ” He added, almost by sign: “You can eat. ” “And you? ” “If I feel like it, I’ll dine later.” Teresita left the room quietly, and as she walked, along the rigid, dry body of a forty-something virgin, her simple black dress moved like a curtain in a doorway. Doña Emilia didn’t want to leave her husband’s side; She was held by his side by the stinging, irrepressible curiosity to know; her soft, nervous hands caressed the hero’s hands with unflagging fervor; and once again Perea saw tremble in the eyes of his companion, long forgotten in love, that humble, voluptuous, and surrendered expression that had twice before moved him. “What’s the matter?” he asked. Since circumstances favored him, he had also just found a sweet inflection of voice in his throat. His wife hesitated, covered her eyes with the sheet, and suddenly her scruples and reserves wavered. Stumbling, suffocating under an unbridled torrent of sighs and tears, she murmured: “I know everything, Hyginus… everything!… Everything!… Ah!… Why were you so mean and so reserved with me? ” “What do you know?” Perea retorted. —Your adventure at the Hotel des Alpes… that adventure that is half your life… Lucía told me about it this afternoon… It’s horrible!… Horrible!… And she kissed his hands: —You, with such good hands… that have never hurt anyone… to have killed a man!… Her pain overflowed the echo of her own words, and her breathing became so spasmodic and labored that she had to get up and take off her corset. Don Higinio was stupefied. Behind his back, his exploit was taking on comical proportions: what he told Don Gregorio, he communicated to Doña Lucía, who, in turn, confessed it to Doña Emilia. Women are good at keeping secrets from others when they’ve never known how to defend their own!… He should have thought of this before lying like a fool and attributing to himself traits of banality so contrary to his simplicity, temperance of manners , and judicious manner. Wasn’t it ridiculous that his wife, believing him to be a murderer, should weep in that way? He, who had never inflicted real sorrow on his companion, would he allow her to grieve over phantoms like that?… And then, his children, when they grew up and, yielding to public testimony, accepted the certainty of that tragedy that the whole town repeated, what would they think of him?… Wouldn’t they judge him harshly, and rightly?… Perea’s conscience made an honest gesture . “All that,” he said, “is false.” “Don’t lie,” replied Doña Emilia, “why are you lying? Who better than I would keep such a secret from you? Oh! Now is when I realize how little you have loved me!” “I repeat, none of this is true.” She denied it with noble honesty; but suddenly the first noble impulse of her spirit failed, and between her lips the very gentleness of her denial was equivalent to a confession. Doña Emilia, her hands crossed on her breast, knelt again. “Trust me,” she murmured. “I am not evil, I forgive you everything, even though you have deceived me with many women. What does it matter, if in the end you came back to me? Am I not the true, the only companion of your life? When Lucía spoke to me about this, I felt jealous, yes… horribly jealous! But they barely lasted an instant and I forgot them to only think of you, of the danger you ran fighting with that man… God rest his soul! The poor man, by doing what he did, was defending his honor. In these cases, I’ve always said, the infamous one who doesn’t deserve forgiveness is the woman. Women are the bitches!… No, you; you’re not to blame: men search, ask, and if they get something… So happy! She smiled, and her lips held an ineffable pleasure. “I know she was Italian and very pretty… right?… He was Dutch, I think… Oh!… Tell me, I’m dying of curiosity; I must know everything to console you and suffer with you; I want your remorse to be mine…” And as Don Higinio, disconcerted by the unexpected bias of that speech, was slow to respond, he added: “Yes, I am very good, yes, I love you more than my own life… Do you know what I did right here, while you were sleeping?… Well, pray two Our Fathers and two Hail Marys for the eternal rest of your victim. ” “Tell me, wasn’t that my duty?… Aren’t we women obligated to ask God for forgiveness for all the follies our husbands commit?” Her words took on prophetic inflections with enthusiasm. ” Believe me, Higinio: what I failed to understand for so many years I’ve suddenly seen now: everything in life has its reason, its divine ‘why’. I can’t get this out of my head now: if God put me at your side and consented to our marriage it was so that I could pray for you.” She became tender, her voice filling again with tears. “Your reserve of so many years has undoubtedly delayed your salvation. But I will know how to make up for lost time, I will pray to God day and night for his forgiveness, and He will hear me…” Her accent trembled with the vehement desire that the tragedy on the island of La Grande Jatte were true; And repeatedly, amid great flashes of flame, that lascivious yet sweet expression that had so interested Perea passed through her tear-soaked pupils. Oh, the paradoxes of the feminine soul! Doña Emilia, so orderly, so upright, devout, and a slave to bourgeois good looks, didn’t find it very wrong that her husband had murdered a man: it was a childish and delightful inconsistency; something gruesome, but also picturesque, alluring, like a bandit romance. Don Higinio smiled inwardly. If his wife, indeed, with the certainty that he had killed a Dutchman, was going to be happier from then on than she had ever been, why persuade her of her error? What harm was there in it? As for his children, he would tell them the truth later… And that if necessary ! And, above all, where is the truth, where is the falsehood? There are millions of truths that are not true because no one believes in them. How many centuries, for example, did humanity go without knowing that the Earth was round?… On the other hand, a lie defended by all is a truth… From sophism to sophism, Don Higinio gradually recovered the alert frame of mind he had been in when he invented his exploit in Don Cándido’s pharmacy. The hot water bottle, the rubbing alcohol, the soups, the glass of sherry, Emilia’s docile attitude… everything encouraged him to continue lying. We undoubtedly obtain the highest esteem with our sincerity; but if in a specific case and due to special circumstances the opposite happens, why seek in it discredit and ruin?… Leopoldina’s lover stopped smoking, contracted his powerful eyebrows, and gave his face the grave expressions of resignation and remorse. That lie produced in him the physical discomfort of a great jump. “It’s true,” he declared. If you already know… why deny it? His fatherly hands caressed Doña Emilia’s head, and thanks to a strange romantic mirage, he was pleased that the hair he had known when she was young had some gray hairs, as if they had sprouted from the pain of her youthful follies. “Poor Emilia!… So good!… What a devil!… I had never thought of speaking to you about this…” His sober, sweet gesture had that fine elegance that kindness and melancholy instill in men . He spoke slowly. Paris… the foggy days… the melancholy of being alone… the chastity… the temptation ambushed in the tedium of every passing hour!… One night, after dinner, as he was about to go out, he met Leopoldina: she was tall, flexible, extremely elegant, and wearing a black cloth overcoat as a duster and a Scottish traveling cap. While her husband was talking to the hotel interpreter, she had remained motionless, livid, and as if petrified, staring at Don Higinio. Doña Emilia let out an angry exclamation: “You rascal!… If only I had been there!” Perea had an eminently plastic imagination that allowed him to see everything he was inventing; but with such clarity and depth that he was barely fantasizing about it before he was already remembering and perceiving it as if it had actually been portrayed in his eyes at some point. Thus, as he unwound the thread of his adventure, he reconstructed the places where he had set his action, associating with surprising artistry and alacrity places and people: successively he evoked the massive figure of the Dutchman, the spiritual profile, wax and violet, of the Italian woman; the smiling aspect of the dining room, the elevator, the concierge with its multicolored posters, the layout of the rooms and corridors of the Hotel des Alpes, the Rue Feydeau…; and then the scene between him and his husband, their journey through Paris, the unwitnessed and life-and-death struggle, in the mist, on a slippery floor covered with frost… Encouraged by the incidents of their romantic relationship, the castaway of the Guadamil had sat up in bed, and with such artistic vehemence felt his lie that he never ceased for an instant to respond with absolute fidelity to the word. That physiological law that imposes a decisive gesture on every emphatic and lively idea was exactly fulfilled in him. His story, a masterful synthesis of observations and movements, instantly acquired the vigor of what he had experienced. His inspiration found some truly enchanting phrases. In the description of the fight, especially, the narrator’s warm imagination overflowed with the same generosity as that afternoon’s Guadamil. The encounter had been swift and savage. At first, he and his enemy fought hand-to-hand; Mr. Ruch put all his effort into grabbing him by the neck. Undoubtedly, he wanted to strangle him; he, understanding this, tried to escape with twists and crouches of extraordinary agility. There were moments when his courage felt overwhelmed and almost defeated beneath the bulk of the formidable Dutchman. Finally, taking advantage of his opponent’s carelessness, he managed to free himself and draw his knife. Mr. Ruch then took two steps back, drew his revolver, and fired. Perea didn’t even have time to feel hurt: blinded by rage, he threw himself at his attacker, and while he snatched the revolver with his left hand, with the other he plunged the knife, right down to the hilt, into his heart… Doña Emilia screamed. “And he died?” Don Higinio thrust out his lower lip, disdainful and forgiving. “Here!… You’ll see! I think the blade came out through his back!” Horrified, she embraced her husband, hiding her face in the hero’s hairy chest. “Hush, Higinio, for God’s sake,” she murmured, “hush; you had a way of looking at him just now that frightened me. ” And, after a pause: “And how did you escape from there? Didn’t you say you were on an island? ” “Yes,” Perea replied, “and I confess that I escaped by a miracle.” As soon as I was certain that Mr. Ruch was dead, I placed my handkerchief over the wound to staunch the bleeding as best I could, buttoned up my coat, and, following the marks our feet had left in the snow, returned to the place where we had landed a few moments before. You will understand that I was furious and prepared to do anything, even to murder the boatman if by chance he refused to take me back to shore. Fortunately, the man seemed pleased to see me; when I arrived, he was asleep in the bottom of his boat, and to wake him , I shook his arm. I remember that he asked me: “And your companion?” I, anticipating that he had heard the shot, answered: “He’s “I’ve stayed with some friends until later; by the way, he killed a terrible rat with his revolver…” He was silent for a few moments and then dived into bed, saying with a nonchalant air: “Well!… Why talk more about it?… Time has already taken everything, and… thank goodness!… the police were unable to find me.” Doña Emilia was sobbing; she had just pictured her husband on his way to prison, tied up and surrounded by gendarmes. Perea continued: “My rival had taken the precaution of not carrying with him a card, passport, or any other document that might indicate his identity; and since poor Leopoldina, out of love for me, said nothing, the incident remained a complete mystery. Another day I’ll read you what the newspapers said about the crime on La Grande Jatte; you’ll see; I was terrified; in Paris, people talked about nothing else. It was the time when you, poor thing, were desperate because I wasn’t writing. Do you remember?” Do you understand now? Ah! If you only knew how much I suffered to ensure that the hotel staff would not notice my wound or the horrible worries that consumed me! I was able to convince the doctor who attended me, a very good old gentleman, that I had shot myself while examining a Browning rifle. What sorrows! If it weren’t for your memory… Ah! I would have liked to leave Paris immediately, but I didn’t dare. “What if I’m arrested?” I thought. A foreigner is always suspect, especially in the wake of a crime whose perpetrator is unknown; for that very reason I preferred to stay put and continue with my ordinary life, and this perhaps saved me. Don Higinio still had the cynicism to add other details to his lie. He spent the nine days it took for his wound to heal, bedridden, using as an excuse an attack of rheumatism. The beautiful Leopoldina accompanied him day and night, with the tenacity of a mother, and so that no one would see her, whenever there was a knock at the door, she hid behind a wardrobe. To justify her husband’s unusual disappearance, she said at the hotel that Mr. Ruch had rushed back to The Hague on family matters, and that, after some time, if he didn’t return, she would go and join him. Meanwhile, her love for Perea grew; she looked at him with a devotion full of gratitude and affection, as one looks at a father, a liberator… The narrator sighed, raised his eyebrows, and assumed a more comfortable attitude. “The unfortunate woman… that’s true!… behaved like a heroine; she didn’t take off her corset for over a week. ” Doña Emilia bit her lip, jealous of the Italian woman and at the same time grateful for her self-sacrifice. She began to grumble: truly, by behaving like this, she was merely doing her duty. She, in her position, and dealing with a man as brave and chivalrous as Perea, would have done the same. “And then?” she exclaimed. “What?” “Where did that woman go; what became of her?” The twisting thought that her husband had not forgotten her and perhaps was still writing about her had only just struck her, suffocating her like a pang in the heart. Don Higinio understood that, unlike reality, where small stories tend to drag on for too long, his lie, for greater intensity and poetic melancholy, had to end soon. He sighed again and his voice was deep: “Poor Leopoldina,” he murmured laconically, “died in The Hague the following year… of remorse, perhaps. ” “Do you swear to me, Higinio; do you swear to me that that woman is dead?” Perea extended his right hand; that hand that had poured onto the snow of the island of La Grande Jatte, like a drop of sealing wax, the blood of a man. “I swear to you, Emilia.” If it were not so, believe me, I would not hide the truth from you. The wife’s innocent eyes shone with joy; but instantly, as she was very devout and did not want to rejoice in evil , much less in the death of anyone, she became sad and thoughtful. Two tears ran down her cheeks. “If God has forgiven her,” she murmured, “as I forgive her at this moment , she will be saved.” In love with her husband as never before, her conscience disturbed under the An explosion of a lightning-fast, romantic affection, the excellent lady found it quite natural that a woman would go mad and trample on her most sacred obligations for Don Higinio. Her eyes were fixed on the hero with the masochistic lust of a bacchante. She herself!… so withdrawn, so faithful, so mistress of her flesh, placed in the situation of the beautiful Italian woman at the Hotel in the Alps, what would she have done?… Then she wanted to see the bullet’s entry wound. Perea was imperceptibly disconcerted: there was the proof that would debunk her fraud at its root, or, on the contrary, give it an unmistakable and definitive certainty. With remarkable poise, half -sitting in bed, he began to unbutton his shirt and his fingers felt at the base of his plump, hairy chest. She had no doubt she’d win: Don Gregorio, Don Cándido, the notary, the town clerk, Gutiérrez… they’d all seen the wound and attested to it. How could Doña Emilia, guided by example perhaps more than by her own eyes, not see it too? She was in love for a reason, and those suffering from such a serious injury see what they want to see, rather than seek and crave what they’ve truly seen. “Look,” Perea said. “There?” “Right here…” His index finger pointed to the faint white scar in that spot caused by a piece of glass thirty years ago. Doña Emilia raised her head, blinked, and rubbed her eyes; the electric light hanging in the middle of the room, near the ceiling, was tired and gave a poor light. She looked, nevertheless… ” I see some kind of wound among the hair…” “That’s it.” —Yes, yes… Now!… How horrible!… To think that our lives could be lost through a hole like that!… —The bullet—Don Higinio replied boldly—was one of those thin, long ones they use now; its diameter, according to what the doctor said, would be smaller than that of a cigarette; that’s why the entry hole is so small. Doña Emilia’s large, candid pupils were filled with terror. —And don’t you feel the bullet?… —Very rarely; only when the weather changes or I walk a lot… or if I exert myself… She added cruelly: —A little while ago, for example, I let you rub me with alcohol because this whole side of my kidneys was hurting quite a bit. Doña Emilia kissed the hero’s wound sweetly, with that same mystical rapture with which she used to kiss the bleeding side of a Christ that was in the church, beneath the choir stall, and Perea felt her healthy chest wet with tears. They chatted for a long time. Don Higinio was beginning to tire; he had elaborated on his invention in various ways and could no longer think of new details to add; his wife’s curiosity was insatiable. Finally, they remembered it would be very late. Tiptoeing, Doña Emilia approached the door, which she gently opened a little. The entire house lay dark and silent. To make sure, she called: “Teresa!” And a moment later: “Anselmo! Vicenta!” No one answered. Undoubtedly, everyone had gone to bed. Then she locked the bedroom and began to undress; her eyes were shining and her face flushed; Don Higinio looked at her proudly; his wife, with desire, seemed younger, more beautiful; it was a nuptial resurrection. She, who had been thoughtful enough to hide behind a curtain to change her underwear , lay down beside her husband and threw her arms around his neck. —Higinio of my soul, Higinio of my life!… See?… So they would have killed you. Crazy! Tell me again: is it true that when you went to fight that man you remembered me?… That night when, after a long interval of fraternal chastity, the fertile torch of marriage shone ardently again, Doña Emilia, trembling, imaginative, prey to fervid and strange sexual anguish , slept more with the Dutchman’s bullet than with her husband. The next morning, as soon as Perea opened his eyes, his wife said to him solemnly: —Last night, thinking about death, I made a promise that I believe you have not kept. to oppose you. Don Higinio, still a little awake, rubbed his eyelids: “What promise?” “To hear a mass on the first Sunday of every month for the repose of Leopoldina and her husband, and to wear the habit of Our Lady of Mount Carmel for the years, few or many, that remain to me. ” Perea was going to be indignant: “What nonsense!… To dress in the habit now!… But why do you have to pay for my follies?” ” I must pay for them,” interrupted Doña Emilia sententiously, “because if you sin, I am obliged to cleanse your spirit of guilt and save you with me.” Don Higinio nervously stroked his mustache; his honesty and the mystical ideas that, although quite forgotten and dissolved, he had kept in his heart since childhood, revolted against those theological consequences of his lie. He wanted to speak, red with rage; but his wife prevented him with a grave and fanatical gesture. “It’s useless!” —he exclaimed—, I won’t listen to you; it’ll be the first time I ‘ve disobeyed you; but… I can’t go back on my word: I’ve sworn it!… —And your coat, your magnificent fur coat, which is still intact?… —I’ve renounced it; I can wear it, but I don’t want to; it’s a luxury, and only simplicity and poverty are pleasing in the eyes of God. What does it matter? Fool!… Is the best in this world worth eternal salvation? It took willpower to impose on himself that sacrifice that wounded his most cherished and deepest vanity; but he’d done it, and now he enjoyed that restless inner peace that the soul experiences when it conquers itself . Perea didn’t reply, and suddenly he appeared calm. He had just understood that the habit of the Carmelite order his wife wished to wear placed the enormous power of the Church at the service of his invention. Besides, it was something romantic, beautiful… —Psch!… Well… as you wish… —he murmured— I don’t wish to contradict you… If you’ve sworn it!… In the following days, the bloody mystery of the island of La Grande Jatte floated in the atmosphere of the house like a curse. Teresita had told her nephews and they, in turn, told the servants. No one, however, spoke of it out loud, nor did they use such an unpleasant recollection for gossip or after-dinner chatter; but, on the other hand, everyone glossed over it secretly: the servants, in the kitchen; the boys, in the study, seated around the table, under the milky, still glow of the lamp. Joaquinito’s eyes burned; Carmen, who was already a young woman, and Anselmo, in whom age had allowed ideas of honor and courage to flourish, experienced an unknown disturbance of affection and respect upon seeing their father . He was the true head of the family, good and reckless at the same time, hoary in the difficult art of getting to know men and wrestling with passions. A few months were enough for Perea to feel this new filial devotion that reached him like incense, as well as the docile submission and total allegiance his wife professed for him. Doña Emilia was another woman: perhaps the good lady was harsher than ever with the people downstairs, as if she absolutely needed to eliminate that bad temper of hers caused by an excess of liver activity; but with respect to Don Higinio, her character had softened, and, perhaps without her realizing it, she treated him with greater restraint and as if he were her master, lowering her eyes in his presence and lowering her voice. Perea’s judgments were unappealable: without him seeking to do so, suddenly, in his house there was no other will but his own; his wishes, even if expressed lukewarmly, were fulfilled like decrees. Don Higinio was like Moses: his words, in a very short time, acquired the authority of the Talmud. The false hero of La Grande Jatte was astonished and could hardly realize the vastness, domestic utility, and Hellenic beauty of his lie, and the abundant benefits it could bring him later . Many mornings, while dressing, he reflected on the absolute moral renewal produced around him thanks to a simple A thoughtless lie; which once again confirmed his belief that merit is of little use if it is not expressed, since we live so hastily and devote so little attention to examining our judgments that we rarely delve into its core; and thus, man must take greater care in pretending to be what he would like to be than in actually being it. Just as indigo dissolves in water, so the personality of the individual gradually fades and dissolves in the great deception of the collective soul, until a moment arrives when the echo prevails over the voice and the image has more power than the body that projects it: of the man, then, only what the crowd wants to see will remain: his conscience, his will, his history, everything that was most substantial in him, thanks to a marvelous game of moral sleight of hand, will have become opinion. Lacking riskier ventures, Don Higinio Perea ardently dedicated himself to perfecting and cautiously spreading his fallacy. It was an innocent task that distracted him while, at times, gradually surrounded him with greater well-being. The local atmosphere made his task easier: at first, his lie had spread surreptitiously from house to house , as if frightened by its own gravity; but as soon as it became public knowledge, he reacted triumphantly and, taking hold of Don Higinio, lifted him up and adorned his head with a glorious halo. Perea, who began to lie in the darkness of a back room, suddenly found himself swept away and transported to the light by his own lie; thanks to the gossipy friendship of everyone, his invention had become for him a trumpet, a drum, a vivid clarity. How could he stop that movement? And the hero, frightened, dazzled, sometimes smiling, sometimes uneasy at the growing proportions of his work, let himself be carried away. Can anyone, not even the instigator or originator of a movement, later oppose the overwhelming inertia of other people’s opinion?… Discreetly adhering to the circumstances, Don Higinio continued cultivating his fraud, and the multiplicity and inexhaustible richness of his phrases, facial expressions, and gestures, according to the age, intellectual condition, and rustic credulity of the people he deceived, was astonishing . Leopoldina’s lover, sometimes out of pleasure, sometimes out of necessity, because his surroundings forced him to, was devoting his life to his lie, like an artist who dedicates all the effort of his existence to a single, supreme work of art. He carried it in the center of his consciousness, as the basis or center of gravity of his spirit, and the tight logic and the ardent variety of resources he employed in its decoration, defense, and protection were admirable. In epileptics, hysterics, liars, and visionaries, introspection is defective, and science notes discontinuities in intellectual functioning, lack of psychic centralization, and inconsistencies of character, motivated by a lack of coordination or systematization between voluntary and thinking dynamics. The brain of neurasthenics, doctors say, is made of mountains and valleys. But none of these symptoms harmfully disturbed Perea’s balanced, bourgeois soul: he was never a liar; he, incidentally, only lied once, and that lie, perfectly grounded and arranged, polished and marvelously fortified by the cunning trompe l’oeil of time and opinion, became a true work of art and possessed the compact strength of its own inventor’s life . By imposing it on the credulous neighborhood of Serranillas, Perea realized that aesthetic principle of the poet Oscar Wilde, for whom it is not Nature, as Taine says, that produces art, but rather art, with its astonishing creative virtuality, modifies Nature and reveals it to men. Don Higinio conceived and planned his lie, just as Rembrandt imagined and arranged his famous Anatomy Lesson. And having done this, he simultaneously combined his admirable and never-finished work as an author with another, no less artistic, tenacious, and surprising endeavor. of a comedian, for he alone could be the interpreter of his farce, and he performed it coldly, “seeing” himself at all times so as not to incur in excess of sincerity, as the masters of the theater advise should be done. It was not by chance that the heroic deceiver of Lady Leopoldina exhibited those phenomena—blinking, slight trembling of the nostrils, pallor of the face and lips, hesitations in the voice— that the doctors recorded as symptomatic of lying. He had come to master his invention by dint of maturing and honing it, and in any of the syntheses he made of it, the prolix and artificial concurrence of images was instantaneous. In the extremely complicated human psychology, all expressions and gestures, depending on the circumstances in which they occur, can be admirably used to serve the same lie: indignation, enthusiasm, blushing, disdain, laughter, grimaces of reflection, regret, or offended honor; the sentence that, by stating a lie, and the silence that, precisely by saying nothing, also lies; the eyelids narrowing as if to hide the shock of a betrayal, and the sigh or the shrug of the shoulders that may allude to the memory of something harmful that clouds the conscience; the unfinished sentence, the hidden smile, the sigh, the tear, the fit of coughing… each one of those thousands of inextricable gestures or nuances of thought that fill a conversation, do they not constitute so many hiding places, twists and turns, ravines, shortcuts, caves and labyrinths in the great jungle of lies?… Don Higinio strung out this vast array of expressions with rare mastery, and, depending on the quality of his interlocutor, he was either naive or malicious, exaggerated or reserved, fatuous or modest. At first, when addressing individuals of his own age, his conversation and gestures were vehement and hyperbolic, for there is always something heated about superlatives that dazzles and draws attention. Later, he modified his tactics, especially if his audience consisted of young, inexperienced, and easily deceived people. Then he adopted the weary expression of a sad , weary man who has lived a long life and is afraid of its memories. And between the two extremes were all the grimaces, all the pirouettes, all the countless winks, buffoonish or sad, of deceit. In his most intimate moments of friendly expanse, he also recounted Madame Berta’s mockery, his relations with Henrietta, and even his misfortune on the train, for not everything in his life was supposed to be heroic, and for a man capable, like him, of killing another, a woman’s slap is of no consequence. Perea devoted his life to his invention, and his activity focused on it, drawing from it generous treasures of distraction and good humor. He could now see Cenén’s flask, or the shoes he wore around Paris and kept as relics, and hear the notary’s pianola, or Don Justo’s motorcycle beating like a heart along the roads, and nothing could sadden him. His deception was enough for his joy, and he defended and propagated it as if his destiny had been made flesh within it. Nothing tired him; time and twice, and many times, he recounted his adventures in Paris, always with gentle and cunning skill or with invading enthusiasm. That invention, repeated so often, was like a masterful book whose author was reading it from house to house. One Sunday morning, Don Higinio was having breakfast when Doña Emilia and her sister appeared in the dining room, dressed in the brand-new habits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Seeing his sister-in-law, he remained in shock, not chewing the crouton dipped in chocolate, which he had just placed in his mouth. Teresita blushed; she too, the poor maiden, whose instinctive fear of bloodthirsty and raping men grew with the years, vowed to dress like this for the rest of her life. Perea slammed his fist on the table. “But have you brought Carnival forward? What will the people say? Don’t you understand that they are going to make fun of you?” He found them smaller and rounder in those sergeant dresses. brown hair with no other adornment than a belt, her hair parted devoutly across her forehead, her hands crossed over her stomach , holding a rosary and a prayer book. After a pause, the primitive ingenuity of the two figures calmed Don Higinio’s anger , who shrugged his shoulders, suppressed a smile, and continued eating. Truly, none of this should matter to him. “It’s up to you!” he exclaimed. “As far as I’m concerned!… all that’s pesetas I can save the dressmaker…” The entrance of Doña Emilia and Teresita into the church made an impression that soon spread throughout all parts of Serranillas; Don Tomás himself, who at that moment was ascending the pulpit, leaning on his cane, could not help but look at them. What powerful reason could have prompted that severe change of attire?… Throughout the afternoon, the news, revived and discussed at length, flitted from gathering to gathering. No one understood this explosion of mysticism, least of all Doña Emilia, who had always been fond of dressing well. What would she do then with the suits, one of blue cloth and the other of gray silk, that she had recently received from Ciudad Real?… And the magnificent coat that her husband had bought her in Paris and was still brand new—would she still be wearing it?… A habit as sad as that of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is only offered on the occasion of a trip overseas or in thanksgiving to heaven for having freed us from some terrible illness or extreme accident. But nothing ostensibly adverse had happened to the Pereas ; their misfortune, therefore, supposing they had suffered one, constituted something intimate, enigmatic, whose mystery harshly exasperated the general curiosity. There were those who claimed that Doña Emilia had offered to dress that way because, despite her age, she longed for another child… To the delight and relief of the neighborhood, the truth soon became known. Doña Emilia and Teresita discovered Mrs. Hernández, and she, in turn, revealed it to her friends. Perea’s wife and sister-in-law had made a formal promise to wear the habit of Carmen for as long as they lived, because they were exemplary Catholics and wanted to make amends to God for how much Don Higinio offended her during his time in Paris; to cleanse their souls as much as possible of the terrible sins that stained them; and to pray for the salvation of the Dutchman and the Italian woman from the Hotel des Alpes, who, both because of their lamentable end and the scent of Protestantism under which they lived, must have been quite frowned upon in the next world. And hardly did the town learn of this when the most flattering judgments descended, like a shower of blessing, upon the two sisters. Don Higinio, like all rogues, had plenty of luck. Who, if not he, after what he had done, would have available for the assistance and redemption of his soul two women as good, humble, and pleasing in the eyes of the Creator as his wife and his sister-in-law? Don Tomás himself, who knew the hero’s crooked deeds, felt moved and pointed out the opportunity to lighten the heavy burden of his sins a little in the confessional. “Do not be afraid to come to me,” the priest had said. “Do not forget that Our Lord’s mercy is so great that it reached Saint Paul. However, it is best not to offend Him with our disdain: I am certain that in divine eyes the confession we make freely and in a state of full health will be more pleasing than the one wrung at the last minute from our pride by the fear of death.” To his friend’s well-founded arguments, Don Higinio jokingly replied: he had traveled and read a great deal and had “his ideas”; and although his soul was as gentle and Catholic as his father’s and grandfather’s, he could not escape the unbelieving spirit of the century. He laughed and ironically patted Murillo on the back. “And, above all, my friend Don Tomás!… Gosh!… Don’t take the matter so personally; I, frankly, don’t think I’m going to die yet!” Ever since the whispers in Serranillas began about Don Higinio’s novelistic commitment to gallantry and bravery in Paris, public opinion has been growing. had evolved many times around the hero of La Grande Jatte, and one moment he accused him of the double crime of adultery and homicide, another he reacted kindly, finding in his very gallantry and fortune an excuse for his fault. Perea was aware of some of this , but he would never have suspected the extraordinary passions that his figure suggested. One night, because of him, in Tocinico’s tavern, two miners started slapping each other, and everyone shared in the same enthusiasm. For the sensible minority, Don Higinio was a bad person: no one should lay eyes on their neighbor’s wife, no matter how easy-going, free, and beautiful she may seem, and even less so at Perea’s age and situation, married with children. What a pity the bullet passed through him without hardly damaging him! It would have entered a little higher and to the left, where the heart beats, and nothing would have been missed. Against this harsh judgment, the opinion of the majority, especially that of the women, rose to the challenge, both retarded and cruel. Don Higinio, upon finding himself solicited by the Italian woman from the Hotel in the Alps, accepted the adventure as any man, placed in his situation, would have done. If the Dutchman hadn’t found out about the deception, the affair wouldn’t have had worse consequences; but he found out, sought out his rival, challenged him, and the latter, killing him, merely fulfilled his natural instinct for self-preservation. The valiant Perea did nothing to rob him of the esteem of his fellow countrymen; rather, he behaved bizarrely, as every gentleman should, whether a beautiful and uppity lady pursued him or a man, even an offended husband, challenged and provoked him. Don Higinio had observed, throughout that lamentable affair, an energetic but passive attitude: he didn’t go around courting the Italian woman or looking for a fight with the Dutchman; On the contrary, it was he who, through the devil’s harmful schemes, found himself first seduced and then threatened with death. In both cases, both when he accepted the caresses as a gallant, and when he later fiercely rejected the danger, did he not remain within the limits of what was strictly human? It is true that he could have said to Leopoldina: “Madam, leave me alone; you belong to your husband and you should not think of another man…” With such salutary advice, the tragedy of La Grande Jatte would not have occurred. But how could one ask of Don Higinio, still young and adventurous, the severe reflection and eremitic temperance that only very few men were capable of? This question, passed around and around for a long time, became outdated; the five or six years that slowly passed over it instilled a certain prestige in it; it was something that, for various reasons, was linked to many people and belonged to the history of Serranillas. Perea’s lie, strengthened by time and public opinion, became reality, an incontrovertible and well-known fact. To his contemporaries, Don Higinio had been a fool, a true man of history, whose turbulent private life was known only as much as he willingly chose to recount; to the younger generation, Don Higinio, despite his massive and grotesque figure, was “Don Juan”; the legend that passes by wrapped in a red cape and with the clatter of spurs; and all, reserving the right to imitate him at some point, were proud that Serranillas had served as the cradle of such a temperament. With the illusionary sweep of time, the love drama that began in the hotel in the Alps and ended with gunfire and knife-lashing on an island in the Seine was losing its original contours: many details became blurred , some details were overlooked and replaced by others added by the unbridled imaginations of commentators; And after all that, only a scent of adventure remained in the air , a romantic aroma that was the synthesis of Don Higinio’s varied and strenuous life. Like many distinguished classical authors whom the common people quote, praise, and ignore, so from the history of Perea there remained, like a trail, only a fragrance of love and daring endeavors. No one argued with him anymore, and the Christian The promise his wife and sister-in-law made to always wear the habit added new myrtle and laurel leaves to the sturdy crown of his prestige. Over the years, his lie, gallant and bold like a gesture from the gentleman Casanova, repeated the enduring and enlightened life of works of art. Men respected him and, when speaking of love, they drew on his experience; many women lingered on him with sentimental glances ; on the street, young men greeted him as a master and gave him the sidewalk. One afternoon, as he was leaving the Casino, Arribas’s nephew greeted him; Don Higinio, who loved him, was pleased to see him. “Where are you going, boy? I’ve asked your uncle about you many times.” Diego sighed; he dressed shabbily, and under his bowler hat, his face appeared more sluggish, dispirited, and yellow than ever. “Misfortunes that befall men, Señor Perea,” he replied. “Misfortunes?… Tell me. I’m going home; you can accompany me if you don’t have anything to do. ” “With pleasure…” They walked slowly through the lonely, foggy streets. Don Higinio, important, selfish, and plump, occupied the sidewalk; Diego walked along the path, sometimes stumbling, sometimes slipping on the damp stones; undoubtedly, the old boots he wore were not his own and they tortured his feet. As he continued talking, a piercing desire for confession exalted his solitary soul, harassed and dismissed from all sides by the opinion of the people: he was neither a rogue nor a fool, but he would end up a fool and a rogue, because people had insisted on saying so, and each person is what his peers allow him to be… To these discreet meditations, Perea responded with grave affirmative nods of his head. The moral situation of his interlocutor was extraordinarily similar to his own: his heroism, like the foul play of poor Diego, was the fatal, incorrigible arbitrariness of public opinion. “It’s true that I like to gamble,” Diego continued, “and that I almost always lose. But be impartial, my dear Don Higinio, and tell me what your better judgment advises: Do you believe that what my wife’s family does to me deserves God’s forgiveness?” His lips turned downward, and his peaceful blue eyes became so distressed that Perea thought Diego was going to cry. Truly, the poor man had plenty of reasons to despair. It was of no use to him to be married and the father of two children: his father-in-law had practically kicked him out into the street and taken in his daughter and grandchildren; to make matters worse, his wife would have nothing to do with him; They didn’t even let him see his children!… “Today, the fourth, it will be two months since I last kissed them! Two months!!… His grief broke out in bitter tears, and since he was stunned, he stumbled and put his foot in a puddle of water. Perea took pity on him and, taking him by the arm, helped him climb onto the sidewalk. Diego thanked him: “Thank you very much, Don Higinio… Let me go… What I should have done was die…” He continued to unburden himself: “I’m not that bad, sir… I’m not that bad, nor that stupid, nor that useless!… It’s just that people say it!… Julio Cenén, for example, isn’t he worse than me? He gambles, drinks, and has lovers… And yet, his wife puts up with it. Why can’t mine be content?… But the three or four times they’ve let me speak to her, she’s said: ‘I don’t live with a rascal.'” She learned that from her father, because it doesn’t occur to her, she’s good. And my father-in-law, the day he threw me out on the street, said to me: “Do you think I’m going to give my daughter to a scoundrel?” And I, Don Higinio, what do I do? Here you have a twenty-eight- year-old man lost!… My mother, poor thing, you know, it’s a good thing she can get by with the china shop!… I sleep there, and that’s enough. And there’s no need to think about my uncle. When I went to tell him my misfortunes, he shrugged his shoulders: “All that,” he said, “happens to you because you’re a crook and a fool…” What do you think of consolation?… And I can’t argue with him because I’d lose the five reales I earn at the notary’s office. And that’s all?… Give me five reales with the thousands of duros you have!… And here I am: with no desire to get dressed or go anywhere… There was a long silence; Diego’s labored breathing was that of a man who has just removed a great weight from his shoulders; Don Higinio seemed to be meditating. Finally, the hero of La Grande Jatte hinted at a protest. “And how long does your father-in-law intend to maintain this attitude? He has no right to dismiss you as a servant; especially since it is not his house, but your own, your house as husband and father, from which he is throwing you. The law protects you; all the most inviolable rights are on your side; your wife owes you absolute obedience, and if you know how to tie your trousers properly, your father-in-law will have to keep his mouth shut.” Diego made a doubtful face. “My father-in-law doesn’t exactly hate me; But he told me: “Until I know you’ve given up playing cards and are earning enough to support your family, don’t come here.” Do you understand?… Basically, he’s right; I realize everything. And you can’t play with my father-in-law; I keep telling him that if the code… and if the law… and if he doesn’t give me back my wife and children, I’m going to take him to court… and he gives me such a punch that… Come on… you have to know him!… This cowardly confession inflamed Don Higinio’s bellicose blood. “Then,” he shouted in a thunderous voice, “don’t complain to anyone; in life, what can’t be achieved with good reasons is obtained with knives. You know that!” He stopped because they had reached his house. The cheeks of Leopoldina’s lover were on fire; he seemed to be defending something of his own, and his expression was magnanimous and brave. He straightened his tie, straightened his shirt cuffs … “Bah!” he added. “If they do half to me… look closely, only half of what they’ve done to you… the town will burn!” Poor Diego lowered his eyes, terrified by Perea’s thuggish gesture and furious voices: “Don Higinio, you… we already know who you are and what you’re capable of…; but we’re not all equal…” Perea, very excited, interrupted him: “I’m telling you, the town is burning, man; and the church is burning… and the province!… I swear it!” And putting the index finger and thumb of his right hand in the shape of a cross, he kissed them vehemently. They immediately said goodbye. “Goodbye, Dieguito; If anything comes your way, you know what to do… —Goodbye, Don Higinio… and thank you very much… The notary’s nephew continued down the street, astonished by Perea’s ferocity and bloodthirsty behavior, and Don Higinio entered his house , clicking his heels. His wife, who had been watching him through a window, asked him: —Is that Diego, Arribas’s nephew, talking to you? —The very same. —What did he want? —Nothing; he’d been telling me that his father-in-law had taken his wife and daughters and thrown him out into the street. And he’s so meek! —As if he’s a fool! —replied Doña Emilia. In the dining room, he greeted Doña Lucía; the doctor’s wife was dining with them, because Don Gregorio had gone to Almodóvar and wouldn’t return until the following morning. Mrs. Hernández looked beautiful, and above the almond-shaped whiteness of her slightly large teeth, her moist, thick, red lips bore provocative pouts. Perea sat at the head of the table, between her and Doña Emilia; on the other side sat Teresita, Carmen, Anselmo, and Joaquín. They talked about Dieguito , and Don Higinio repeated in detail everything Arribas’s ill-fated nephew had told him. The women laughed relentlessly. Don Higinio, almost without pause, drank two large glasses of wine: he was in a good, talkative, and coarse mood, in which Doña Lucía, especially, greatly shared; a joy that made him crave something rare, unexpected. Poor Dieguito!… “I told him,” he exclaimed, sticking his fork in a partridge, “to cut off his father-in-law’s head and send it to Ciudad Real to be made into a soup tureen.” The boys laughed uproariously. Doña Emilia crossed herself, exaggerating. the terror that her husband’s ferocious idea produced in her. “Shut up, son, hush!… You, yes, you would be capable of that and much more…” And Doña Lucía confirmed: “I believe it!” For a long time, Mrs. Hernández had shown an alarming inclination toward her friend, and that night she never missed an opportunity to fix her dazzled eyes on him; but with such obvious voluptuous insistence that the gallant man from La Mancha recognized himself compromised by those insinuations, whose sinful reach his nobility refused to understand. Was it possible?… And remembering the long-standing friendship that united her to the doctor and that Doña Lucía and Doña Emilia were, more or less, the same age, he felt a chill down his back. But don’t women, even when they grow old and burdened with children, ever quite say goodbye to betrayal?… Unconsciously, perhaps against all the honorable purpose of his will, he felt under the table for Doña Lucía’s feet with his own. The perverse contact was timid at first, then determined and most regally sweet afterward. Mrs. Hernández, far from avoiding the hero’s rustic heels, seemed to seek them out, and their pressure filled her cheeks with blood. Don Higinio laughed, chatted loudly; he even became completely out of his mind. His wife called him out on it. “You look crazy!… Watch what you’re doing… don’t put salt in your coffee…” At nine-thirty, Doña Lucía got up to leave. Don Higinio , solicitous and gallant, wanted to accompany her; but she refused the offer: she didn’t want anyone to be upset; her house was just a few steps away. Perea was somewhat dismayed by this refusal. Had he pressed his friend’s feet too tightly? What his presumption judged to be love, might it not be the tolerant affection of a sister?… This was what his innocence pondered, while his distracted fingers kneaded a crumb of bread. Mrs. Hernández, for her part, also left sadly: she desired Perea: she began to desire him as soon as she learned of his courage and his good luck with the ladies; it was a romantic passion that unexpectedly struck her in the autumn of her life and brought many secret and cruel tears. But at the same time that she was dying for him, she was afraid of him, and so she did not allow him to accompany her, for a woman’s reputation is lost sooner than it is gained in the society of disreputable and libertine men. The following morning, Perea was finishing dressing when she was told that a man wished to see him. Behind the maid, who had brought the message, appeared Doña Emilia, her face pale and her gestures and eyes very startled. “He’s a man,” she said, “I don’t like him: he seems to be hiding something. I’ve seen him somewhere, but I don’t know who he is. What can I say?” Don Higinio hesitated; a real adventure was coming his way, and he was fearful, without reason . But there was no reason to hide, and besides, his reputation as a brave man forbade him from being weak. He coughed, straightened the cuffs of his shirt and waistcoat, as he always did when he made an important decision; he glanced toward the drawer in the table where he kept his revolver… “Well,” he said, softening his voice a little, “tell that man to come in and leave me alone with him.” The two women obeyed, and a few moments later the stranger appeared. He was a man in his forties, tall, wiry, and earthy-colored. He was wearing a brown cloth jacket and breeches that reached his knees, in the classic fashion of the rustic people of both Castillas; white stockings and espadrilles, and a blue wool sash; he carried his wide peasant hat in his hand, and covered his head of close-cropped gray hair with a black handkerchief tied behind it. Beneath his sunken forehead , in the mystery of his angular, shaven face, his small, ashen eyes looked obliquely. “Good morning, Don Higinio, and don’t you pretend that I should come to bother you like this, so early in the morning … ” “Good morning. ” The non-white seemed embarrassed; but, although he didn’t raise his head, his astute pupils turned from one place to another, scrutinizing everything. The traitorous look unsettled Perea. What was that man after? Don Higinio remembered his lie. “He must be brave,” he thought, “who, knowing who I am, dares to approach me like this.” Then, in a loud voice: “Well, tell me what you want, because I have something to do; he was going out. ” “To the mine perhaps? Well then, if you allow it, I ‘ll accompany you… ” “No; I prefer that we talk here. ” Having calmed the first vibration of his nerves, he had regained control of himself and looked his interlocutor face to face. “I said that,” replied the rustic, turning his hat, “because, come on… it seems that men, when we are alone… do you understand?… men, when we are alone, we talk better… ” “We are alone; now you will know if you really have something to say to me.” He went to the closet, opened it, and took out his revolver, which he put into his pocket with studied slowness, thus signaling to the intruder that he distrusted him and was ready to repel an attack. A shadow passed over
the stranger’s coppery face. Perea’s unexpected gallantry had disconcerted him; he stopped coughing and scratched his head. Suddenly, he regained renewed courage. “The fact is, I needed two thousand reales. You don’t know me; but I know you… I know very well who you are… and I said to myself: ‘Well, no one better than Don Higinio Perea can give them to you.'” The proposition was so extraordinary that Don Higinio felt like laughing. “Golly!… So two thousand reales, huh?… You need two thousand reales, and you’ve come to ask me for them.” Very good, very nice, very comfortable!… And why do you think I’m just going to give you two thousand reales like that?… He burst out laughing and suddenly became serious. The unheard-of audacity and shamelessness of the payo irritated him again. “Well, it seems to me,” he added, “it seems to me… that you’re going to leave without them. What a brave nerve! Breaking into houses like that to ask for money!” The intruder looked at Don Higinio calmly and very thoughtfully; in his ashen little eyes burned a flame of suppressed anger; he was certainly not as stupid as his wild appearance pretended. He replied ironically and cunningly: “If you start crowding in so soon, we’ll never understand each other.” The hero of La Grande Jatte thought he was dreaming; the calmness of his interlocutor inflamed him. “But we don’t have anything to understand each other for.” You’re asking me for five hundred pesetas, aren’t you? I say I can’t give them to you, and that’s it: the conversation is over. “You’re mistaken. ” “Yes?… Well!… Am I mistaken? ” “Yes, sir; you can imagine that I don’t come here for fun, or, as they say, for nothing. I know a story about you that, frankly, doesn’t do you any favors; a bad story that everyone in Serranillas knows… ” “A story?” repeated Don Higinio. “What story is that?” He was trembling; his hands had gone cold. His only thought was: “Emilia has deceived me and they’ve come to tell me so.” Unconsciously, he was remembering Doña Lucía. Then his spirit seemed to go rigid, without a vibration, without an idea. He thought again: “Emilia has deceived me.” It didn’t occur to him for a moment that what the stranger was alluding to was his adventure at the hotel in the Alps. “Yes, sir,” continued the peasant, “I know that years ago you killed a man in Paris.” Don Higinio’s blue eyes flickered, as if a great light had just been kindled before them. He was beginning to understand, and an ineffable joy filled his heart. It took him only a few moments to recover, and once again he found his mask and his stupendous gestures of an actor. “Well,” he replied gloomily, as if the blackest and most poisonous of remorse had just resurfaced within him, “it’s true, I killed a man, but it was nobly and in self-defense; what’s up?” He spoke with a raised voice, for he thought he heard a noise in the next room and assumed it was Doña Emilia. “I won’t say how the fight happened,” replied the lout; “the fact is that You have killed a man… and the crime has remained like this… like many others… “What else?” The stranger smiled: “What, what else?… To a man of understanding… That you would not like to get into a tiff with the law, and that I know your secret… and that I need two thousand reales… ” Perea felt himself blinded by rage. Wasn’t there too much ridiculousness in the whole scene? Solemn, Olympian, he extended an arm. “Get out of here!” And as the other looked at him impassively, he repeated, adding insult to his order : “Get out of here, thief!” His interlocutor did not move: “Watch your tongue, Don Higinio; watch your tongue, because it may hurt you… ” “Me?” Perea shouted. “Me? Threaten me?” He clenched his fists; he was about to rush at the scoundrel. At this dramatic moment, Doña Emilia appeared; the excellent lady had heard everything. Upon entering the room, she did so with such force that she knocked over a chair, which gave the scene a certain theatrical effect. She ran to Don Higinio and hugged him frantically, covering him with her body. “Stop!” she cried. “For me, for your children!” Then, with dignity and coldness, turning to the stranger: “I will give you the two thousand reales you need from my savings. Go in peace and come back for them this afternoon.” And when the rustic hesitated, she added: “A lady is speaking to you.” Perea didn’t reply: he understood that her lie forced him to remain silent. When the rustic left, Doña Emilia burst into convulsive tears; nevertheless, she was happy: she was certain that she had freed her husband from an enormous danger. Chapter 9. After leaving mass, Doña Emilia and her sister went to the pharmacy to buy a bottle of lithium citrate to purge Carmen. They found the pharmacy empty. Mrs. Perea knocked on a dressing table placed like a paperweight on the counter. At her call, from far away, Doña Benita’s voice answered: “Coming soon!” The pharmacy, small and with a brick floor, was full of sunlight. Against the dark red paper that covered the walls and served as a background for the shelves, tall, cylindrical white porcelain bottles, spaced far apart for better decoration, displayed their beneficial bellies, where the germs of health lay dormant. Each one, handwritten, bore a name: lead acetate, zinc sulfate, nux vomica powder, boric acid, gentian powder, cream of tartar… The decor was completed by four jute chairs, a clock, and two plaster busts: one of Hippocrates, the other of Galen. Doña Benita appeared, small and helpful, with the pallor of people who live in isolation. The three women kissed; Don Cándido’s wife searched a drawer for the lithium citrate. “Do you have anyone sick?” “No; Carmen, the only one; she’s been suffering from stomach problems for days. I attribute it to the fruit… ” Doña Benita asked for Perea. “Yesterday afternoon my husband and I saw him cross here accompanied by Cenén; he was talking and seemed very irritated. He said: ‘It can’t be; that can’t be!…’ We didn’t hear anything else; But since Cenén is like that and your husband… well… Do I make myself clear?… Doña Emilia replied, absorbed: “Yes, daughter, too much; with a man like mine there is no possible peace. ” “Well, that’s why. Frankly, his way of speaking caught my attention. “Something serious is happening to him,” I thought. ” Where were they going? ” “I don’t know; they were coming from there, from the left… ” The habits of the two sisters and Doña Benita’s kind countenance strangely fit the pharmacy’s evocative atmosphere of sorrow. Doña Emilia added, letting off steam: “Higinio is very finished. The poor thing suffers a lot; I know him, although he tells me nothing. His conscience won’t let him live; he remembers, you know… That remorse is killing him. Here I can say it: at night, as soon as he goes to bed, he begins to sigh; but when the second comes January 1st, the anniversary of his defiance, he sighs so loudly and begins to utter such strange words in French that it keeps me awake at night. Upon leaving the pharmacy, Doña Emilia and Teresita, arm in arm, walked home along the sunny sidewalk. They were eager to talk; they were in one of those moments of intimate expansion when secrets are told. “Paris, damned Paris!” Doña Emilia muttered. “And to think it was I who encouraged him to make that trip!” Doña Benita’s words made her spirit mysterious. “What could he and Cenén have been talking about, Sister?” Teresa affirmed: “Nothing pleasing to God, surely. ” “I think so too. Your brother-in-law is a fine fellow, but since he doesn’t know how to give anyone a bad face…” While Don Higinio Perea was an obscure man, none of the chapters in his story particularly attracted public attention. His conduct seemed transparent. The public knew his kindness, the simplicity of his customs, his love of order. He would have committed a grave misdeed, and his friends would have shrugged their shoulders indulgently and cast the mercy of silence upon his error. But no sooner had his private life been divulged and the town learned of the lively beast beneath the superficial gentleness of that fat man, a fan of fishing and dominoes, than all his actions and words took on orchestral resonances: his figure grew larger, his voice always echoed, and beneath his feet the earth seemed to resonate like a drum. The Serranillas neighborhood en masse had become spies and commentators on their most illustrious figure; everything concerning him attracted attention. If they saw him walk twice in succession down some lonely street, the public would whisper about it, and the news soon reached the Casino and then Doña Emilia’s ears. The kind-hearted lady, ever since she learned she was married to a hero, never enjoyed a moment’s rest. Furthermore, Don Higinio persisted in the unsettling habit of going out at night. She didn’t follow him; but she spied on him from a distance, and the news she received through various channels was more than enough to keep her alert. Frequently, she couldn’t suppress her curiosity and questioned him: “Yesterday you were looking at a shop window on Peninsular Street. Where were you going?” And other times: “Who did you write to this morning?” Perea was astonished: “How do you know? ” “Because they saw you put a letter in the post office box.” He, who had nothing to hide, laughed inwardly, satisfied with this spying and amazed that in such plain and transparent conduct as his, public opinion could see so many shadows. He launched his lie, and it, reinforced by the deceitful fantasy, the gossip, and the idleness of everyone, like a snowball, grew larger the more it rolled. It was a model case of inertia. Don Higinio no longer lied; Why, if an entire town lied for him? And in this way, with others inventing and inflaming those fantasies with ambiguous attitudes and sly words, the masses began to scrutinize the most ancient and forgotten pages of their history, and from this examination the malevolent imagination of the glossists deduced and made clear that the hero of La Grande Jatte had an illegitimate son of sixteen or eighteen years of age, by a woman named Indalecia, whose lightness of condition and beauty of flesh were so well known that they gave the young men of her time very pleasant moments. When this crazy news reached the presence and knowledge of Don Higinio, all of Serranillas already knew about it. Perea’s first movement was one of astonishment. An eighteen-year-old bastard! Then he became indignant; What would his wife say, what would his real children think of this new brother? For this reason, his protest was so energetic and vibrated with such accents of sincerity, that he was on the point of ruining the brand new invention right there. But he immediately changed his mind: he, more than an active liar, was an inspector of all the imaginary traits attributed to him by others, and in matters of this kind his His beguiling conscience leaned resolutely toward tolerance. Doña Emilia, who loved children so much, could find no fault with him; if anything, she would rebuke him for the neglect he always showed the spurious child, for if not in the eyes of the law, then in the eyes of God, morganatic children are just as much our children as legitimate ones. Don Higinio rubbed his hands with pleasure; those innocent farces with which chance amused the tedium of his days were masterfully unraveled, directed and carried toward their conclusion by the theatrical genius of public opinion. He needed to do nothing, except smile sometimes, slump at others, shake his head, sigh, and look at the ground like someone who knows many delicious secrets and doesn’t want to tell them. Undoubtedly, his position was improving and at times more interesting and graceful. If his father, his grandfather, and all the Pereas left behind them a memorable impression of goodness, he was certain to pass into future times adorned with that halo of seduction and heroism that had so flattered him since childhood; he would have his legend, his immortality; people would speak of him as a feudal lord, terrible with men, submissive, seductive, and generous with the ladies, and before his portrait the dreamy virgins would grow sad… According to this idea, his plan matured: he would never admit that Gasparito, the boy of Lady Indalecia, was his; but he would allow others to say so. He couldn’t be bothered with his children’s opinions . To bring a man to marriage and even to father a bastard after marriage , or two, or five… what does it matter? Didn’t Popes and Kings, obliged by their high rank to serve as an example to the people, have dozens of them?… Of course, in this matter, the local imagination hadn’t invented everything; There was, indeed, something ancient between Perea and Señora Indalecia; but it was a superficial relationship of pure friendship, born of the former’s broad condescension to assist Gasparito at the baptismal font. The origins of their alliance went back a long way. Indalecia had served as a maid in Don Higinio’s house when he was a child and Don Salvador and Doña Pastora were still alive; she was six or seven years older than him, which is quite a lot among children, and so she treated him like a son , repeatedly sitting him on her lap to put him to sleep, or else undressing him and putting him to bed, and on Sundays, holding his hand, taking him to mass. One day, while playing, Indalecia tripped over a console and broke several pieces of valuable equipment. Doña Pastora, who had a manly build and a violent temper, took off one of her slippers, knocked the girl to the ground, and, lifting her shirt , whipped her until she was exhausted. Indalecia had turned sixteen at the time, and Don Higinio, who witnessed her torment, cowering and picking his nose , long retained in his adolescent memory the sight of those bottoms, which, under the blows, were turning red like cheeks. After being severely beaten, Indalecia was dismissed and went to Almodóvar del Campo. Don Higinio saw her very rarely, and she, perhaps remembering the whippings she had received in his presence when she was already a bare bottom , would turn red. With puberty, she grew very tall. At twenty , she was a regal young woman who always had a song or a laugh on her lips and swayed her hips disgracefully as she walked. Men were smitten with her; but none dared to marry her, for her mother, according to old and poisonous tongues, was one of the women Cervantes graciously called “of the plain house,” and everyone feared that the daughter had inherited the same generous nature. However, there was no shortage of those who would take her to the altar, for a good figure obliges much. His name was Patricio Bengoa, a carpenter by trade, known as “the Lord,” a fitting nickname that well expressed the noble, gentle , and brave nature of that man. He lived in Serranillas, and Don Higinio, who was already married, frequently called on his services. He also saw, though at long intervals, Indalecia, always very picturesque and well-groomed. road, and without realizing it, the childhood memory of the spanking returned persistently to his mind: Don Higinio did not forget that where the Lord placed his hands then, he, many years before, had placed his eyes. They joked about the time that was ruining them, and about the lack of diligence that Maestro Bengoa showed in having children. Perea addressed his former servant informally: “You know,” he said, “that I want to be godfather to your first child. ” Patricio’s workshop was frequented by his friend Juan Matías, a foreman of shoring workers at the Perea mine. He was single and seemed to have a sympathetic streak, judging by the way he knew how to reach out to people’s hearts and minds. The two men started businesses together and got along well. To better unite them, Indalecia gave herself to Juan Matías. Their relationship lasted several years, and the town was informed of them, except for Patricio Bengoa. For this reason, Indalecia, who knew the Lord’s jealous and vengeful approach, lived uneasily and on edge. Juan Matías, on the other hand, serenely accepted his role as lover, almost without qualms of conscience; he was not afraid; the habit of danger had made betrayal a legality in his eyes. His beloved, however, admonished him: “Beware of Patricio; listen to me; Patricio is one of those men who act and remain silent.” Many people also thought this way, and this maintained a warm dramatic interest in Master Bengoa’s workshop . Finally, the long-awaited and feared outcome arrived; not for reasons of grand honor, but rather in obedience to trivial motives, for in the eternal human tragicomedy, Fate willed that the solemn should frequently be shuffled aside from the ridiculous. The Lord was celebrating his birthday the next day and invited Juan Matías to lunch in the countryside. It happened to be Sunday. The shoreman agreed, and very early the next morning he showed up at the workshop. It was a splendid July day, hot and blue. “Let’s go,” said Patricio, “before the sun sets.” The two men carried the succulent and hearty lunch together; Bengoa was in a very good mood. Indalecia said she needed to prepare dinner and wouldn’t be able to leave until later; they agreed, and the young woman promised to go find them at the place called Los Alamos, bordering the Guadamil. It was a unique spot, carpeted with lush, tall grass; birdsong enlivened the forest; the leafy trees cast a great, cool shade around them; the land sloped steeply down to the river, which formed a backwater there, and the existence of a hollow gave the waters a dark, eerie stillness. Seated on the ground, Juan Matías and the Lord began to drink; the wine was good; Little by little, a slight intoxication loosened their tongues and recalled the cheerful memories of their youth. Ah, unforgettable pleasures of Ciudad Real! If only I could return there!… The two of them, very flushed, stared into space with moist, happy eyes. “Do you remember Tomasa? ” “Imagine!… And Natividad? She drove you crazy. ” “She loved me too!” “And that Piñata Sunday when we all dressed up?” After a brief silence, Patricio Bengoa let out a deep, labored sigh. “You’re happy,” he said, “because you’re still single, and a young man is always young. But me!” For the first time in his life, that excellent, hard-working, and orderly husband felt that marital fidelity was a bit of a burden. His lips twitched bitterly, and he lamented that Indalecia had come to interrupt them; You can’t talk in front of women… They continued drinking, getting excited, feeling a new passion circulate through their limbs. _The Lord_ challenged his friend to dominoes; Juan Matías accepted the challenge and they bet twenty-five pesetas for dinner at _Tocinico_’s tavern. The amount risked was significant and deserved to be well defended. “Double six! ” “Six and five. ” “Double five…” The chips were tracing a white line on the green grass. The prop-man had what drinkers call “bad wine,” and a certain play he deemed unfair sparked a dispute between the two men. Under the spurs of wine and sun, their stale, fraternal friendship foundered. “You’re making fun of me!” shouted Juan Matías. “It’s you who wants to make fun of me,” replied Bengoa. “You’re a liar!… You want to rob me, and there are roads for robbing, thief!” To the insult, “El Señor” replied by throwing the chips he was holding at his rival’s head . Juan Matías repelled the attack by smashing an empty bottle over the carpenter’s nose. They then got up and, snorting like furious cats, rolled down the bank into the river. At that precise moment, Indalecia arrived; the poor woman let out a scream; she thought they were arguing over her. “Juan Matías!… Patricio!” No one heard her. Clinging to each other, they fell into the Guadamil, whose waves, at first, fled as if frightened, forming homocentric circles , and then merged again above them. Their bodies reappeared together eight days later, swollen and greenish… Since no one could suspect the humble truth of what had happened between Juan Matías and Patricio Bengoa, everyone believed they had killed each other for Indalecia, which added to her well-seasoned physical perfections an extraordinary romantic aspect that she, in her own way, knew how to make good use of. With the four or five thousand reales for which she sold the carpentry shop to a cabinetmaker in Almodóvar, she set up an ironing shop on the outskirts of town, near the bullring. During the first months, her conduct was so industrious and reserved that her virtue left the gossips disoriented and as if pained; But she was not a woman to sign long contracts with chastity, and so soon the workshop became a kind of clandestine café or place of revelry, where, when night fell and following hypocritically disguised alleys, the merry people headed as if to a sanctuary. That threadbare trade, however, rather impoverished the widow of the Lord than improved her, for if some of her friends repaid her favors with noble generosity, that money, and even something more, unexpectedly snipped from her savings, she later gave to the young lovers she had for the service and pleasure of her pleasure. Then Indalecia reached the plenitude of her rustic beauty, and the legend of the two men who, out of affection for her pieces, drowned in the Guadamil, surrounded her splendidly. Julio Cenén, Don Gregorio Hernández, Gutiérrez, the notary Arribas, even Don Cándido the pharmacist, a model of homely men, sometimes knocked on the door of that hospitable woman. Only Perea, restrained by old-fashioned and delicate considerations, never went to see her, and so Indalecia respected and held him in high regard, so much so that if she bumped into him on the street, her cheeks would redden and she would humbly lower her eyes. Then came the bad times. Patricio’s widow gained in physical appearance what she lost in beauty; her lips grew sadder, her eyes became surrounded by small wrinkles, and her best friends, little by little, began to forget her; everyone could have painted a portrait of her from memory, and rarely in these unpleasant affairs of concubinage did habit not serve as an obstacle to desire. Faced with that vexing twilight, the poor woman closed her house and moved to a more modest one. No one spoke of her for a long time. One day Don Higinio learned that she was ill and wanted to see him. Perea came to her call and found her alone, bedridden, holding a newborn baby in her arms. “But, child!” he exclaimed, “is it possible?” “You see! At my age, who would have thought it?” Nevertheless, her emaciation turned very red, as if all the blood she hadn’t lost during childbirth had rushed to her face. Don Higinio, who was mad for children, examined the boy: he was dark-skinned, with a well-defined nose and curly hair. The brat won over him . “Tell me, is he pretty?” asked the mother. —Yes, he’s beautiful; he looks very much like my Anselmo when he was born. And then: —Whose is he?… There was a silence that seemed to draw a question mark over the mystery of that new life. Indalecia sighed: —My dear Don Higinio, I don’t know!… Do you understand?… How do you expect me to know?… Perea, in turn, sighed; she looked at her interlocutor with merciful eyes; a flood of childhood memories invaded her memory; she remembered when Indalecia took him in her arms to rock him, and the stories she told him at night, leaning over his cradle, while she covered his cheeks with maternal kisses; and he saw the cruel scene of the spanking and the girl’s turgid bottom turning carmine beneath Doña Pastora’s relentless slipper: that bottom that so many of his friends knew and that always had something brotherly about it for him!… “Well… And why did you call me? What do you want from me?… Money?… Indalecia was so moved that she began to cry: she felt poor and forgotten by everyone, even by her brothers, who didn’t even write to her. That was why she turned to Don Higinio; no one, perhaps because of the very chastity of their relationships, inspired her with so much confidence: she had seen him as small, he was something very much hers, very much loved, like a piece of those good years when she too was a child… “And you,” she added, “offered many times to be godfather to my first child…” She didn’t need to have appealed to so many sentimental resources to defeat a will as exorable as that of her former master: she could have said half as much and she would have triumphed just as much. Perea accepted the sponsorship and gave Indalecia fifty pesetas to buy the boy a cap and christening cloak. The mother kissed the charitable hands of the nobleman from La Mancha, and the latter, who was very impressionable, began to tear up. Indalecia never ceased to bless him and considered all the hard times he had endured up to that point well spent; she could never have hoped for such an honor, nor aspired to a greater fate for her beloved son. Days later, the boy was baptized and registered in the Registry with the names Gaspar, Higinio, and Andrés; Gaspar, as this was the name of Indalecia’s older brother; Higinio, after his godfather; and Andrés, so as not to offend the saint of his birth, which was the last day of November. The neophyte, inside his white suit covered in ermine lace, looked like a Chantilly ice cream. Vicenta, Perea’s cook, served as godmother , and after the ceremony, Don Higinio, always generous, sent Indalecia another fifty pesetas, four hens, and twelve pounds of chocolate. This altruistic act quickly spread and was highly praised. No one disputed the chastity and purity of the sentiment that had inspired it; Perea, protecting Indalecia, was helping her former nanny, not the poor mistress whom the miners, in scandalous procession, would visit on Sundays. Furthermore, Don Higinio was a chaste, methodical, and sincere man, absolutely incapable of deceiving his wife with any loss. Time, on the one hand, and the often purifying reaction of motherhood, on the other, radically changed Indalecia’s habits. Mad with love for that son conceived in the autumn of her life, and wanting to atone for the obscurity of his origin, she renounced men and sought sustenance in honest work: she dedicated herself to making underwear and shirts, which she then sold to the miners; she also mended and cleaned their clothes. Perea, when he went out fishing, often found her washing on the banks of the Guadamil, her eyes fixed on that river that had taken her husband and her lover. “Good morning, comadre…” They spoke for a few moments and then Don Higinio, who had not yet gone to Paris, walked away taciturn, humiliated, thinking that he, stuck in Serranillas, would never have, like his former servant, “a story.” Many years passed, so many that Perea’s trip to France was beginning to be forgotten, when suddenly the town trembled with the story of the A very serious incident on the Grande Jatte. Indalecia, who knew her compadre’s peaceful and gentle temperament better than anyone, couldn’t stop herself from being amazed. Who would have thought it! That such a good, docile boy would have the courage to kill a man! And the simple woman, who loved him like a son, laughed and cried, sometimes with pride, sometimes with fear. When she saw him, she couldn’t help scolding him: her excitement was genuine. “But, compadre! What did that Italian woman of Satan give you to drink that you risked your life for her with such nerve?” Don Higinio made a modest face. “Who told you?” “Everyone… The miners! But don’t you know? In the mines, for a month now, they’ve been talking about nothing else. ” He continued: “And if they’d killed you? Eh?” And then?… What would have become of your wife and your children?… Ah, madman!… And since I saw you so small… like that…, barely a foot off the ground…; as they say, in diapers!… You didn’t even think of me at that moment, nor of your godson. You men are good, as long as a woman’s shirt is involved!… And if you were single… fine!… Make a fool of yourself and sleep with whoever you like, no one will blame you; but, like that… loaded with obligations!… I don’t understand! What can I tell you? Children, my dear friend, are very… very tying you down!… Look at me; now, almost an old woman, I’ve gone to work; “Well, I do everything so that Gasparito will have something to thank me for tomorrow…” Then he grew sad and spoke of his conscience, and in the coarseness of his words there was an emotion that suddenly seemed to purify his face like lustral water: the evil deeds of our youth haunt us throughout life like rabid dogs; remorse is insatiable; its teeth, which draw no blood, nevertheless dig like pins into the heart. “You killed that man because, otherwise, he would have killed you, wouldn’t he?… He sought you out, provoked you, forced you to fight… What were you going to do?… Well, never mind!… You will always be looking at his corpse, and the more years that pass, the worse it will be. You know my misfortune, my friend, and you know that I speak from experience; Well, I swear to you, on the head of my Gasparito, that I will never forget for a moment that moment when my Patricio and Juan Matías grabbed each other and fell into the river. I didn’t push them, I didn’t throw them into the water like that, with my hand…; but I know they killed themselves for me, and that’s enough. Despite such reasonable observations, Don Higinio understood that, like the entire town, Indalecia, ever since she learned of his feat, esteemed him more; and not precisely as a person of her own intimacy and particular affection, as she had done up to that point, but as a true man of the world, brave, experienced, and gallant. However, before Indalecia, the innocent Perea found himself diminished and without poise: his prestige was stolen, it lacked foundation, it rested entirely on a lie; while that of his comadre had as a heroic and immovable pedestal two corpses, before which the entire neighborhood of Serranillas paraded. No one had seen the Dutchman from the Hotel des Alpes ; but many people met the Gentleman and Juan Matías, and the entire town knew the hidden motives of hatred that mediated between them. Ah! If only he had known that the story of that double death was also false! If only he had suspected that Patricio Bengoa and the prop man had not killed each other out of jealousy, but because of a game of dominoes, he would have seen that the famous drama that embellished the youth of Indalecia, like most of the sorrows that torture fragile humanity, was a little ridiculous! At fifteen, Gasparito attracted attention for his charms and the majesty and gypsy-like grace of his handsome person. He looked like bronze. He was thin and of medium height, but vigorous and very agile; he showed no fondness for any of the trades his godfather wanted to give him. But the bulls robbed him of sleep, and he always wore tight-fitting suits , his hair combed and shiny with oil. His mother was desperate; she didn’t know what to do with him. Don Higinio was also starting to tire: he had placed him in his mine for a peseta’s wage, and the boy sold his tools to go see a bullfight in Manzanares. Later, he dedicated him to blacksmithing, and by no means did he arrive at the workshop on time. He apprenticed him in Antolín’s tailor shop, and the same thing happened. Don Higinio, exasperated, actually hit him, and when the boy went to tell his mother, she, far from attending to him as he had hoped, began to shout in a loud voice: “Whatever your godfather does, it’s well done! He’d kill you, you hear? He’d douse you with oil and set you on fire, and I wouldn’t be the one to hold his hand.” “Do you think that man, without any obligation, has done and is doing so little for us, ungrateful man? Don’t you know, scoundrel, that without him your mother would have died and you would have gone naked to be baptized?” From this scene and others like it, Gasparito deduced that Don Higinio was his father, and since this relationship satisfied his vanity, he soon became convinced of it and began to tell everyone, although always giving his words a mysterious tinge of confession. On another occasion, that fantasy would surely not have prospered; But Don Higinio Perea already carried a legend behind him: an adventurer who, like him, had traveled around Europe seducing Italian women and killing Dutchmen, and was perhaps the author of worse misdeeds—why wouldn’t he have a child with any of his former maids?… Besides, his resolute protection of the boy indicated this: there must have been something going on when Don Higinio, who carried so many grave memories in his soul and was not, for that reason, a man capable of easy tenderness, did not abandon Gasparito. The rumor spread, like wildfire, from conscience to conscience; the women crossed themselves; Don Gregorio, Julio Cenén, Arribas, Don Cándido, Gutiérrez, all the friends of the hero of La Grande Jatte, raised their eyebrows in terror. Canario, with Perea, and what stories they were uncovering about him!… Whenever they spoke to Señora Indalecia about this, the woman smiled flattered. And so it was that Don Higinio, suddenly, by imperative of public opinion, found himself forced to accept Gasparito’s paternity. When Doña Emilia learned of this latest prank by her husband, she was as distraught as when Doña Lucía told her about the tragedy of La Grande Jatte, with the aggravating circumstance that now the source of her grief was prosaic, vulgar, and devoid of any romantic pomp. To have a child by a maid! Who would have thought of that? And by such a hussy, whom not even the miners would want! All the bourgeois pride of the noble lady protested such a filthy alliance. Her indignation was inflamed by the memory: Don Higinio had been visiting Indalecia precisely when she was in her later years with Carmencita; a most painful pregnancy , a true illness, which nearly cost her her life. Doña Emilia had recovered her former bellicose nature and clenched her fists. The scoundrel! A seventeen-year-old son!… That was the fruit of the afternoons he said he spent fishing in the Guadamil!… The wife saw the adulterer hypocritically leaving his house with his umbrella and camp chair under his arm and the fishing rod over his shoulder, to go and gloat with his mistress. The fish that the wretch later brought home , Indalecia surely bought at the market. Ah! How they both must have laughed at her!… The meeting between Doña Emilia and her husband was stormy: she shouted a lot, but he was neither intimidated nor yielded one iota; to one voice of the insulting woman, the attacked man replied with another voice; to one angry gesture, with another gesture of greater hostility and violence. They spoke so loudly that Teresita, despite her deafness, heard them perfectly. From the very beginning, the accused, with an outburst that far from favoring him corroborated the crime attributed to him, began to deny it. A lie! It was all a lie! He hadn’t even touched the hem of Indalecia’s petticoat. He swore it, he upheld it by his honor as a knight. Indalecia, despite her lowly station, was a kind of sister to him. She maintained such an intransigent, irreducible attitude, and her eyes shone with such furious and frightening intensity that the terrified Doña Emilia began to feel disconcerted. Once again she felt the tragic influence that the hero had exerted over her during those last years. “But the whole town says so!” she sobbed. “Well, the whole town is lying!” Perea retorted. “They saw you enter that woman’s house!” ” Naturally. So what? Do I deny it? But you know how: as protector, as godfather to his son. ” “Of your son, you mean.” —Emilia!… I won’t be responsible for myself if my patience runs out!… The champion of the Grande Jatte clenched his fists and his hairy eyebrows, where some gray hairs were whitening, contracted Olympianly. He looked magnificent. He added: —I’d like to know who told you this infamy. —Many people. —But who?… So vaguely, there’s no answer. Be specific, say… I need a name!… Whatever scoundrel he was, it would cost him his heart!… Inflamed by the cheap fanfare of his gestures and words, Don Higinio remembered the Dutchman as if he had actually killed him. Doña Emilia was afraid; she knew her husband; men like him take time to get irritated, but once enraged, they resort to crime. Then she lowered her eyelids and her tears began to flow in ingenuous fashion; she regretted having talked so much. It’s dangerous to harass a beast… Perea paced back and forth across the room with jagged, resounding strides. Suddenly, he stopped; he opened his arms: “It’s not true. Do you hear well?… It’s not true that Gasparito is mine. But even if he were, is that reason enough for you to act like this and lose your respect for me in such a way?… I have my ideas; I am a modern, intelligent man… a man who has traveled, and for that very reason, incapable of abandoning a child of his own, whether he had had one from a princess or a scullery maid.” By speaking thus, the great charlatan reconciled the truth with what so flattered his childish inclination to be considered a man of stormy pedigree. He had said nothing, and yet he understood that this last reticence had definitively strengthened in Doña Emilia the conviction that Gasparito was his work. Pleased with his victory, he added, perfidiously softening his tone: “Besides, silly girl, what did our children ever lack? We have Anselmo in the best boarding house in Ciudad Real, and next year he’ll begin his law degree; Joaquinito will soon be a bachelor; Carmen already has a boyfriend, huh? Did you think I didn’t know? You see, I don’t. I know him: Ismael Cañeja: he doesn’t seem like a bad person. Silly me!… I know many things, but I pretend not to know them because, to entertain women better, it’s always best to deceive them a little… So, if the boys’ future is assured… what are you complaining about?” He fell silent, understanding that silence helped him triumph. He then bent over his wife, who remained seated, and tenderly kissed her hair . Those hairs he had known to be black and that cunning time was slowly dusting with ashes. Deceiving himself, he thought: “I have truly made her suffer greatly.” And his emotion was so sincere that his eyes watered. She, the innocent one, threw her arms around his neck and stammered: “I know… I know… don’t be angry! I know… that Gasparito is your son… Well, let’s not talk about it anymore; I forgive you. But… swear to me that you haven’t had any more children by other women!” Perea, disconcerted by so much indulgence and so much candor, began an ambiguous gesture. “Swear to me!” repeated Doña Emilia. “I want to hear everything, the good and the bad, but from your lips; when you tell me, nothing hurts me. You speak so well!” Her amorous accent was urgent, convulsive; and like Don Higinio, Stopped by a few crumbs of honesty, he hesitated: “Is there another story?” he cried. He was about to cry: the hero understood that it was essential to lie again. “No,” he said slowly, “there are no more stories. ” “Don’t you have other children? ” “No. ” “Do you swear? ” “I swear, Emilia; I swear. ” She breathed a sigh of relief. Perea kissed her many times and went out into the street. On his way to the Casino, he was thinking: “How far will other people’s opinions take me?…” Chapter 10. Like other years, in mid-May there was a fair in Serranillas. The mining character of the town, the tolerance that the authorities self-interestedly showed towards gambling, the excellent specimens of horses, rams, and bulls that were sold there, and the large number of outsiders attracted by these and other causes, had made that festival one of the richest and most popular in the region. Already two days before the revelry began, an unusual commotion began to be noticed at the railway station; the trains arrived packed with vendors, and for a moment on the small platform , blankets, saddlebags, jugs, mattresses, tin-lined trunks, and other bundles, suitcases, and bundles of various colors and shapes formed picturesque barricades. The most important vendors arrived in carts or on mules. Cattle could be seen advancing under golden clouds of dust along the numerous bridleways that, skirting the steep mountain range, descended undulatingly toward the valley, where the mine chimneys smoked. and everything made up a jubilant din of strident colors and voices, of grunts, bellows, neighs, the harsh, endless, and supple wails of badly oiled wheels, the cracking of whips, the accelerated tinkling of collars, all jumbled together, dripping with life and rising to the sky in the rustic, sunny, blue peace of springtime nature. On Friday night, there was a clatter of hammers on the promenade that kept the local children nervous and awake until very late: it was the peddlers, vendors, and puppeteers putting up their canvas and plank huts. All around, the town looked like an encampment; In the night, by the dim light of lanterns, silent and diligent groups of women and men worked busily, digging holes, planting forks, and arranging shelves and counters with astonishing skill, which they then insulated behind fantastic rag partitions. From the large chests where the excavators carried their wares, fake jewels and toys poured out by the thousands. That year, the fair was extraordinarily lively. Several gambling professionals were received at the Casino, with the unanimous and fervent approval of its members , courteous individuals, well-dressed, and with highly decorated hands, and there were games of baccarat until dawn. The twists and turns of chance stirred the spirits. There was talk of the two young bulls that would be fought and stabbed on Sunday by Italian acrobats, and that Pedro Ramírez, director of the municipal band, had thoroughly rehearsed his musicians to show off in the Glorieta. It was also said that Julio Cenén and two of his friends had dinner at Tocinico’s tavern with the singers from a barrack. The next day, Saturday, after lunch and receiving the accounts from his foremen, Don Higinio Perea cleaned himself up carefully, dressed in a brand-new blue wool suit, and with his soft gray felt hat slightly tilted over his left ear, appeared in the dining room. Doña Emilia and her daughter, sitting on low chairs, were sewing in front of a large basket full of clean clothes. At a glance, the wife took in every profile and detail of her husband’s small, round, and healthy figure: the hirsute, glitter-smeared mustache, rising in the rosy, fleshy satisfaction of his face; the red tie with black polka dots, the yellow leather shoes, the folded trousers over the kitsch of his violet thread socks. With so many colors Don Higinio looked like a sunset. “Look,” the good lady exclaimed, addressing Carmen, “how nice your father has become!” Then, with the indulgent, weary air of a woman who had needed to forgive many times, “The saying goes: he who has bad habits has…” Perea smiled proudly, still looking young and handsome , despite his forty-eight years . Doña Emilia, more in love with him than ever, looked at him spellbound, amazed at how a man who carried a bullet inside him could be so strong. Don Higinio asked for Ismael Cañeja, Carmen’s boyfriend: he was a good young man, rich and docile, who had just opened his law office in Serranillas. Ismael hadn’t arrived yet. “We’re waiting for him,” Carmen said. Don Higinio was pleased, because this way they were letting him off the hook. “I was thinking of going to the fair; would you like to accompany me?” “We,” replied Doña Emilia, “will go later; if we knew where to find you at six or seven, for example…” “At that time,” replied Perea, “I’ll wait for you at the fair; you know, at the Casino booth. See you later!” From his house, he headed for the Bullring. That childish fondness for clowns and acrobats embarrassed him a little; but that was the way he was, and his tastes never grew old, despite his travels, his feigned sadness as a cosmopolitan citizen, and those terrible absinthes he used to drink half-heartedly at the Casino. As he approached the ticket office, Don Cándido stopped him. “I have a box,” he exclaimed, laughing. “Don Jerónimo Arribas will be here later with his family. Come with us.” The healthy simplicity with which the apothecary spoke of the entertainment they were going to have relieved Don Higinio of his indigestion. He declared, however, that it all bored him; but like in the villages, when a holiday arrives, there’s nowhere to go… The pharmacist, to console him, gave him some news: the bulls were from Murcia; he had seen them the day before and they seemed brave and powerful; the clown in charge of killing them had said that if each bull took more than fifteen minutes to kill, he would donate twenty-five pesetas to the Hospital. “I assure you,” Don Cándido repeated, “we’re going to have fun: these farces crack me up.” The plaza was made of wood, and both the ring and the alley were covered with short grass. In the middle of the arena, hanging from a metal frame secured by steel wires and polished by the sun, there was a trapeze. The crowd pressed into the stands, shouting and laughing. Shouts, cries, and fierce insults rang out. The afternoon was cheerful, bright, and warm. In the distance, gilded by the evening fire, the mountains that enclosed the stony horizon of Serranillas undulated, and the figures of the young men, almost all wearing black vests and shirtsleeves , occupying the last and highest row of the stands, were clearly outlined against that vast yellowish and blue background. At four-thirty, the farce began, offering a wealth of entertainment and satisfaction for the most demanding audiences: comic farces, clever dogs, tightrope walkers, juggling acts, and strength exercises. But what brought the greatest joy was the fight between the two young bulls, which the Italian clown, after many scares, falls, and grim anguish, managed to kill within the fifteen-minute time limit he had set for himself, thus saving the twenty-five pesetas he had bet and being acclaimed and carried out of the ring on shoulders. It was six o’clock. Arribas had left with his family, and Don Higinio and the apothecary found themselves a little disconcerted by the dull length and emptiness of the afternoon; the spectacle had ended too soon; there was still a long time before dinnertime. They walked toward the Glorieta, where the musicians of the Municipal Band, directed by the vehement baton of Maestro Ramírez, were preluding an inspired sentimental moment. Don Cándido, who couldn’t tell a waltz from a pasodoble, asked: “What are they playing now?” Perea didn’t know either; he had a detestable ear and an unskillful manner. musical performance so precarious that he couldn’t tell Wagner from Lehar. “I don’t know, I don’t remember…; but he must be German.” They walked a few times around the Glorieta, slowly circling the bandstand where Maestro Ramírez, his face red, sweaty, and shining , his arms raised, was covering himself with laurels. The crowd was enormous; they could barely walk; the commotion of so many feet raised a dust from the sandy ground that stained their clothes and inflamed their jaws. Inside their Sunday best, the women and men walked gravely, stiffly, as if stiffened by the worry of seeing and being seen. Diego passed by alone, dressed in gray, his hands in his trouser pockets, the careless gait of someone bored and with nothing to do, and a toothpick stuck in the ribbon of his hat. “Good afternoon, Don Higinio, and company.” “Goodbye, Dieguito. ” “Is this Arribas’s nephew?” —asked Don Cándido. —The same one. —It seemed to me. I don’t like him; I don’t like him. —I don’t know how the poor fellow has the courage to go out on the street. He once told me his troubles. He gambles; well… Well, for no other reason than that, because he gambled away three or four times the salary he was given at the City Hall, they laid him off, and his wife left him and went back to her father. —I’d heard something about that. —Besides, his father-in-law has taken his children away from him. The apothecary, so good-natured, so quick to pity, nevertheless , on that occasion, perhaps due to the influence of public opinion, had a cruel outburst. —I don’t know your wife,— he exclaimed, —but I’m sure he acted very discreetly by going back to his father. That Diego, they say, is a rascal and a fool, and do you know, my friend Perea, how horrible it must be to live with a guy like that? —Gutiérrez came by. —Goodbye, gentlemen. —Good afternoon. Goodbye, ladies. The postmaster was accompanied by his daughters Águeda and Marina. “It seems,” Don Higinio insinuated maliciously, “that the tumor hasn’t returned to Gutiérrez’s daughter . ” “It wasn’t possible. ” “Yes; was she operated on properly? ” “Perfectly; the treatment was radical: the boyfriend… you know who I mean: Don Mariano, from the blacksmith’s shop…; well, nothing: he went to León and hasn’t returned…” The two men laughed, leaning on each other’s arms. That clumsy wit didn’t bother them; why, if everyone said so? They walked slowly, suffocated by the crowd and the dust. To the right and left, the shacks raised their rag facades: there were target shoots , acrobats, boxers, tamed wild beasts, a giant, a dwarf, an Indian who ate raw meat, an Australian wrestler who gave away ten duros to whoever defeated him, a woman with a wolf’s head, an exhibition of wax figures, stalls selling hazelnuts, walnuts, nougat, syrup, and other sweets, and everything was announced with stentorian voices and the resounding zambra of drums, cymbals, and bugles. The carousels, enlivened by the vulgar uproar of the cranked pianos, spun swiftly, displaying the polychrome of their little banners and curtains in the air; the swings, filled with girls laughing in the opaline light of twilight, swayed isochronously in the limpid space; In front of the small bazaars, under the awnings stretched out before them like sunshades, the curious crowd thronged; everyone was looking for something: the women, a charm; the waiters, a wallet or a knife; the children, a toy. There, the dust was chewed and the heat was even stronger. Standing behind the prestige of their counters, the merchants encouraged the public to buy. The rustic crowd stopped, docile and curious, captivated by the shine of the buttons, the combs, the rings, pins, and imitation leather earrings distributed in little white cardboard boxes. The children stared in amazement, heads thrown back, at the piles of tin sabers and rifles, whips, bugles, cardboard carts, and celluloid dolls hanging from the bazaar ceilings like clusters of wonder. What interested the apothecary most was the abundance of new faces. This made him proud. “Serranillas,” he said, “will soon be a large town; consider its influence on the nearby villages: today, half the girls from Almodóvar and Argamasilla are here. ” Don Higinio noticed that many women were looking at him; Don Cándido noticed it too. “They’re ogling you.” The hero of La Grande Jatte smiled; Don Cándido continued jokingly: “What are you wearing today? Is it your hat? Is it your tie?” Perea adopted the reflective and disgruntled air of a man bothered by popularity. “It’s,” he replied, lowering his voice, “that they know my story about Paris: women are dying for strange things.” They crossed paths again with Dieguito, with Gutiérrez and his daughters, and with the notary’s family. They also greeted Julio Cenén and his wife, and in the distance, behind the booths, as if fleeing the hustle and bustle, they saw the kindly, elderly silhouette of Don Tomás Murillo pass by. “Do you want to see a beautiful young woman?” Don Cándido suggested. Don Higinio was slightly startled. “Where?” “Here, near the Glorieta. Let’s go back: she’s from Valladolid; she has a fan stand. As far as I know, nothing bad has been said about her yet, but she seems… very cheerful… You, who know the women, will judge that better than I.” Perea, although reluctantly, went along with it. As they arrived, they saw Doña Emilia with Teresita, Carmen, and her boyfriend. They all greeted each other without stopping. “See you later, Ismael.” —See you later… The fan -seller from Valladolid was dressed in mourning: she was a tall, plump, dark-haired young woman with very pale cheeks and a long, aquiline nose, dominating amidst the impertinent expression of two lively, round, close-set eyes . She was standing behind the red jute-covered counter of her booth, motionless against the backdrop of the shelves piled high with boxes of fans. —But have you spoken to her before? —Don Higinio whispered. —I never have. —Then we shouldn’t go near her; it would be ridiculous. —Ridiculous? Why?… Come on, you’re so considerate! And you ‘ve traveled?… Bah! You don’t know how to deal with these people. He came forward, a little flustered, nevertheless: —Good for pretty faces! If I weren’t so old, I’d sell the pharmacy and go off into the world with you selling fans. Despite the hackneyed and vulgarity of the flirtation, the girl smiled, thanking Don Cándido for his devoted intentions. She showed appreciation for him; she knew the pharmacy belonged to him; she also knew Doña Benita, with whom she had been speaking one afternoon. The apothecary felt the fire of his amorous attacks and the disdain of the conversation subside momentarily . He had to say something, exclaiming, placing all the responsibilities of the interview on Perea. “Well… I wanted to introduce you to this friend, who has fallen in love with you. ” Don Cándido’s indiscretion stirred Don Higinio’s bile, and he became as angry as a radish. The fan-seller from Valladolid burst out laughing. “This gentleman Don Cándido, despite his age, is a troublemaker.” The apothecary continued, very animated: “Haven’t you heard of Don Higinio Perea? ” “That he owns a mine? ” “That’s him. Well, here he is.” Where do you see him, a fool, he knows Paris and has been very lucky with women.” Turning to Perea, he added: “But, man… are you going to blush over that?” The fan-seller from Valladolid looked at Don Higinio with the attention inspired by an individual about whom a serious story is known. Perea, startled, not knowing what to do or say to recover, replied: “I happen to have here a portrait of one of them. ” “What portrait? ” “The one of the Italian woman from the Hotel des Alpes.” He was referring to an old portrait he bought in Paris for one franc, and that morning he found while searching through a file of forgotten papers. To give it historical value, the lying and deceitful eloquence of Don Higinio had planned to dedicate it to her in mock handwriting, and then carefully scratch out the dedication, but not so carefully that the name Leopoldina wouldn’t be clearly legible. “I put it in my pocket precisely to show it to you. Look at it…” It was the photograph of a beautiful, half-naked woman, wrapped in a fur coat. Don Cándido and the fan-girl from Valladolid looked avidly at the portrait that Perea showed them somewhat surreptitiously so as not to attract the attention of curious onlookers. Both recognized Don Higinio’s good taste. She asked: “Was this lady from the theater? ” “No…” He was becoming melancholy, and a deep sigh rose in his throat. The young woman added, curious: “It said something here: the dedication, right?… Who erased it? You?… And why?… Was it scandalous?” ” No, my child; it wasn’t that it was scandalous; It was… that it was imprudent. Considering a married woman… Gravely, with the sad face of someone who has just hurt their soul against a bad memory, Don Higinio put the portrait away. Then the fan-seller from Valladolid questioned Don Cándido: “You see? How do you expect this gentleman, who has known such beautiful women, to fall in love with me? What Señor Perea will want is to buy me a fan. ” Don Higinio, always courteous, agreed and paid twelve pesetas for a fan that was barely worth eight or nine reales. With this generosity of a great gentleman, he took his leave of the girl. The apothecary was outraged by this useless expenditure. Perea smiled, satisfied that his generosity had made up for his lack of self-confidence and conversation. He said: “With women, to win them over quickly, you have to start like this.” They returned to the Glorieta and climbed the four steps that led to the Casino booth: it was a vast asphalt rooftop where coffee and refreshments were served; a railing surrounded it and it was covered by a canvas secured to tall iron pillars. Don Higinio and Don Cándido settled down at a table next to the promenade. From there they greeted several friends. The apothecary ordered a beer, Perea an absinthe, and both unbuttoned their waistcoats for greater comfort and ease. They also took off their hats and, very slowly, wiped the sweat that soaked their foreheads and the backs of their necks. Below, the crowd moved slowly or paused in front of the bargains; a breeze sighed in the trees, their tallest stems still gilded by the final flames of dusk; the musicians of the Municipal Band had left, and the silence they left behind added a feeling of freshness to the evening atmosphere. Breaking through the crowd, a balloon vendor approached: a small man, dressed in corduroy, his waistcoat open over the plump slope of his belly. A swarm of children preceded him, surrounded him, staring at him like an idol; when the merchant stopped, the tiny battalion imitated him, their faces blackened by the weather and the sun burning with desire. Those squeaky, colorful little balloons, at one time swollen and eager for freedom, at another prone to withering, were an admirable symbol of infantile psychology. Seeing them, Don Higinio suddenly felt sad and began to sigh. His melancholy surprised the apothecary: “What’s wrong with you?” “Psch… nothing!” He was lying; he was remembering his childhood, his good years. Balloons!… Who, as a boy or a young man, hasn’t carried a toy like that in their soul?… The vendor was approaching. Unexpectedly, the string holding his lightweight merchandise broke, and the balloons, tied together , rose up in a sudden swarm: a flock of strange birds they looked like, and their harsh polychromy fixed the shrill jubilation of a sign against the peaceful, uniform background of the sky. The crowd, surprised, let out a shout; then there was laughter, and hundreds of arms pointed into space. A new spectacle! The people laughed, guessing that the unfortunate balloon vendor must feel like crying. It’s human: what was once a tear for an individual, later, when reflected in the social conscience, is transmuted into laughter. But the wind had driven the bunch of balloons against the trees along the promenade, and the fugitives began to stumble, as if some branches were throwing them off and others catching them. They, however, although bumping, continued climbing until the little string they carried dangling at their tails became entangled in one of the highest stems. Then they stopped. The audience burst into a long, admiring “Oh!” Seen like this, they formed a graceful plume, a kind of colossal and absurd cluster that the dying sun tinged red, green, orange, violet, indigo… Their owner, the little man in the corduroy suit, stamped his feet and tore at his hair. How could he recover it? His pain was tragic and comical; Seeing him so unhappy, so mean, the crowd felt like either insulting him or embracing him. The poor man looked at his beloved balloons; he understood that if he didn’t reach them immediately, they would be useless, unpainted, pitifully deflated in the night dew. Suddenly, he started running: he remembered that there was a very long ladder at the Town Hall, and he went up it. A murmur of hilarity spread through the crowd; the spectators imagined how comical the figure of the vendor would be when he reappeared, tiny, sweaty, panting, under the weight of the ladder. Standing at the foot of the tree, the children eagerly watched the balloons that the wind was swinging up there in the light, like a gale. If only they could catch them before their owner returned! The people urged them on, taking pleasure in this wicked deed. The boys hesitated. Several tried to climb, but couldn’t; the trunk was too thick. Suddenly, one of them, more vigorous or more determined, undertook the adventure; aided by his companions, he managed to crawl and hoist himself over the first fork, and there, from one branch to another, he continued climbing. Don Higinio, who was keeping an eye on him, had gotten to his feet, nervous and frightened. “He’s going to fall,” he murmured, “and give us a hard time. ” Don Cándido, also very worried, affirmed: “I think so…” The audience, which was of the same opinion, had just fallen into an imposing silence. Everyone was watching. Near the top, the thin branches offered little security; the boy understood this and began to hesitate; he was afraid. But he could no longer turn back; his ambition on the one hand, and the praise of the crowd on the other, compelled him to continue. He advanced a few meters. Finally, he managed to reach the cord that hung from the balloons, and they quivered as if defending their freedom. The enthusiasm of the impressionable and unconcerned audience erupted in applause. Suddenly, tragedy struck. The boy, who had been swinging down with feline skill from branch to branch, made a wrong move and fell at the foot of the tree, livid and inert, his head bathed in blood, while the balloons, independent of each other, flew, shedding their colorful laughter through the endless indigo. Some guards carried the wounded man away, who, despite the water they sprayed on his face, did not regain consciousness. Don Cándido, very worried, repeated: “But have you seen these children? Have you seen them?” Perea, having calmed the shock of the initial moment, fell into a reflective and nostalgic silence . The opinions of others, the praise emanating like a fatal aroma from that crowd that filled the avenue, were what wounded the boy; The boy risked his life to look good, for the same reason that one afternoon Luisa Soucy, the chambermaid at the Hotel des Alpes, risked her life before the small audience that was to judge her. And he, year after year, stubbornly maintaining the vain farce of his heroism, wasn’t he also a victim of public opinion? He sighed again and remained sad, very sad, as he had never been before: melancholy is the gesture that crystallizes the experience of long lives, and his was beginning to be so. In that dark village drama, In that child who kills himself and in those balloons that flee, Don Higinio saw the ordeal of all the conquistadors, of all the founders of religions, of all the great men, wise men, or artists, who succumbed to the inaccessible Ideal, eternally suspended in the blue… Truly, the hero of La Grande Jatte found himself in a moment of depression; moreover, he knew that his grief and his glass of absinthe rhymed very well. Until the voices of Doña Lucía and her husband brought him back to reality. “I’ve come from your house,” the doctor said to Don Cándido. “Have you heard about what happened here a few moments ago? ” “The boy who fell from a tree? Exactly. They took him to your pharmacy and there I gave him the first aid. He is the son of a poor neighbor of the Matadero. I had to give him three stitches.” Doña Lucía asked Perea about his family, and upon learning that Doña Emilia and Carmen would not be long, he decided to wait for them. Mr. and Mrs. Hernández sat down. She ordered beer and chips, and her husband cognac; Don Cándido courteously accompanied them with another bock of coke, and Don Higinio with a second absinthe. Don Gregorio reprimanded Perea for his worship of the horrible concoction that exhausts France. Doña Lucía also rebuked him for his fondness for strong drinks: absinthe is poison; her husband often said so . Don Higinio shrugged disdainfully; he was delirious for absinthe; the habit!… It was a vice he acquired in Paris and couldn’t overcome. She cast an indefinable glance over the hero. “Poor Emilia! I don’t want to think how much she must have suffered with a man like you!” Don Higinio looked at the doctor’s wife and, for the second time, saw her very close to him. She was beautiful, with the opulent curves of her forty years, her white silk blouse, and her face flushed from the constriction of her corset. A velvet ribbon childliked the matronly expression of her head of black hair, gracefully gathered at her temples. The fading light of twilight gave her throat a warm and exquisite softness. Hernández noticed Don Higinio’s sadness. “What’s wrong with you? ” “I’d noticed it too,” his wife confirmed. “What are you thinking about, friend Perea? What nerve! It’s as if they’re presenting you with a bill!” Don Higinio laughed and tried to explain his attitude. The boy’s fall had shocked him; not because the blood made him dizzy… Quia! On the contrary! The blood animated him, exalted him, produced a kind of bellicose reaction; but he was a child… the wounded man was a child, a weak being… and this saddened him. Oh! If only instead of being a boy, he had been a man… Bah, then, nothing! So calm!… Doña Lucía listened to him moved, amazed that he could be so brave and so good at the same time. Don Cándido, whose temper had been revived by the second book, thought it opportune and amusing to offer another explanation for Don Higinio’s melancholy . “I believe,” he said, lowering his voice, “that what is depressing our good friend is a woman, or more exactly, the memory of a woman. ” “Which one?” asked Doña Lucía. Perea pretended to be embarrassed and looked at the floor; in reality, he was delighted by the apothecary’s simplicity. The apothecary laughed and rubbed his hands together. “He’ll tell you; he can even show you the portrait; he carries it with him…” Filled with emotion, the Hernández family dragged their chairs closer to Perea, moving as close as the table would allow. Then Don Higinio assumed a grave air as he spoke. Don Cándido, who never ceased to laugh, was a solemn, indiscreet man, a big boy; he didn’t like to stir up certain memories; but, well… how they knew everything!… Curious, with an aggressive curiosity that perhaps contained a touch of jealousy, Mrs. Hernández exclaimed: “But do you have another lover?” “No, my child. ” “Then what?… Explain yourself. Because you are terrible. ” “No; calm down a bit. The portrait I have here is… you can imagine it…” “Us?… Yes, yes… Anyone can guess! As if we didn’t know you!” ” Lucia, for God’s sake… ” “You must have had so many escapades!” Don Higinio smiled proudly and modestly, at the same time bursting with pride. He had never enjoyed himself so much. The doctor’s wife’s hard, full breasts brushed against his arm and seemed to burn him; he could faintly hear the whalebone of his friend’s corset; Doña Lucía smelled healthy and perfumed herself with clover. Don Higinio felt a slight and delicious faintness. Wanted, pampered!… He wouldn’t have traded hands with a king. “But all the little adventures I’ve had,” he said, “were short-lived and of little substance. Now it’s something very old, but unforgettable for me. ” His face darkened again, and he looked at the apothecary. “The portrait this friendly indiscreet fellow is referring to is that of Leopoldina. ” “The Italian woman from the Hotel des Alpes?” Don Gregorio asked. “The same one. ” “My goodness, I’m glad to meet her!” ” I hid that portrait so well when I left Paris that it remained lost for several years. Besides, I never made a real effort to find it. You understand! I didn’t want poor Emilia to see it. I was certain I had it, and that was enough for me. Until today, while searching through some newspapers from that period, I found it. I was so happy! And then, without knowing how… perhaps to carry it close to me for a few hours, I put it in my pocket. This is it…” He took out the photograph, somewhat paled with age, of that shameless and splendid courtly beauty, half-naked beneath the soft fur of the coat she had the coquettishness to wrap herself in. Don Higinio observed astutely: “I’ve erased the dedication…” Doña Lucía’s eyes shone with curiosity, disdain, hatred, envy, and jealousy. She never tired of looking at the portrait, and yet she would have gladly torn it to pieces. The doctor declared rudely: “Good woman!” He had seen that she had a strong chest and vigorous hips, and he no longer needed her devotion to surrender to her. Doña Lucía, without ceasing to look at the portrait, murmured: “The feet are a little big, perhaps… The mouth is pretty… The eyes are beautiful; but I find them too close together…” She examined with hostile minuteness the impeccable line of that leg that the photographer’s gaita inspiration left bare; the morbid harmony of the arms and shoulders; the grace of the short, curly, childlike hair; the laughing perversity of the half-open lips above the jubilation of the small, snowy teeth. She truly was one of those artistic, theatrical, and decorative beauties who, with their alluring shamelessness, work the despair of married ladies. “Did you love her very much?” he asked. Don Higinio took the portrait his friend was indifferently handing back to him, looked at the floor, and bit his lip. He didn’t answer, and he could never have answered more eloquently: that silence was an affirmation, a sob, his entire life soaked in a tear… “Well, frankly,” Mrs. Hernández added, “I would never have fallen in love with any woman capable of portraying herself like that. ” Leopoldina’s lover felt obliged to say something: “You know, Lucía, what foreigners are like; Paris isn’t Serranillas… ” His gesture was sparse, sad, noble, chivalrous. It was clear that he had loved her!… And how could anyone doubt it when he risked his life for her?… “My words were not meant to offend her,” declared Doña Lucía hastily. “I know she’s dead, and I have heard more than one mass, be it known now, to the relief of her soul; that doesn’t prevent me from seeming and still seeming like a puppeteer.” Hernández and the apothecary, who had begun to chat separately, got up to take a walk along the promenade. Doña Lucía did not wish to accompany them; she was waiting for Doña Emilia, who could not be long. “Then,” replied the doctor, “if I don’t come back here within half an hour, go home.” Don Cándido called the waiter and paid for everyone. “See you later…” Doña Lucía and Perea were left alone before the nightstand, where the green mystery of the absinthe that Don Higinio had not yet been able to drink seemed to observe them like a Sabbath pupil. The lanterns had just been lit, and those scattered lights, flickering here and there under the foliage, added a romantic piquancy to the scene. Mrs. Hernández took a sip of water; her heart was beating with an unknown force; she was flushed, suffocating from the heat. Her hands and feet, on the other hand, were stiff. After a brief silence, “Tell me,” he murmured, “what was that woman like? Her name was Leopoldina, wasn’t it? ” “Yes, Leopoldina. ” “And did you love her very much?” Be frank with me; You know I’ve prayed for her… and I did it because, by saving her soul, I imagine it will benefit yours… —Lucia… dear friend… He pressed his hand ardently beneath the marble tabletop. She trembled: suddenly the fire in her cheeks went out; she became livid, spectral. —Yes, I am your friend… a good friend… a sister of many years… who loves you as much as your own wife can love you… Perhaps more!… Her voice clouded; her eyes watered; she was about to cry… Fortunately, she was able to restrain herself. —Tell me everything… —But, Lucia… what’s the point of this? What do you want from me?… —Everything; I need to know your story in detail. It will be so interesting! You are an extraordinary man. Tell me about your Parisian drama . I have dreamed of it many times. Speak, speak, for God’s sake, before they come and interrupt us!… How did you kill the Dutchman? Wasn’t the Italian woman’s husband from the Hotel des Alpes Dutch?… “Yes, Dutch: poor Mr. Ruch!” They chatted slowly, pleasantly, their heads slightly close together, while, out of discretion, they looked at the crowd. He, meanwhile, furtively sought out his friend’s knees with his own, and she allowed herself to be clasped, languid, absorbed, and defenseless. Perea, enthusiastic, intensified his eloquence: he described the Seine, the island of La Grande Jatte, the terrifying mystery of the boat in which he and his enemy were, gliding softly under the mist, and then the shooting, the barbaric struggle … Mrs. Hernández feverishly squeezed the hero’s hands. “And you never feel remorse?” “Sometimes. ” “At night, right?” Perea was astonished: “How do you know? ” “By Emilia. She has such confidence in me!” “There are nights,” she told me, “when Higinio, with his sighs, keeps me awake.” They drew closer in a wordless, discreet, and exciting idyll, while her knees triumphantly continued their conquering action. Don Higinio forgot the friend he had offended; Doña Lucía’s reprehensible indulgences had driven him mad, and he had the reins of his evil desires around his neck; after all, it was the first time that a woman, through sincere paths of love or whim, had come to him. He took a sip of absinthe to cool his mouth, heated by lascivious desire and much talk. “I still have,” he said, “many newspapers that describe that affair. ” “Is it possible? ” “They publish a portrait of my rival. I keep them out of curiosity, as well as the boots I was wearing then. Several times I’ve wanted to throw those mementos away, but I couldn’t.” “I don’t know!… It’s a page of youth that simultaneously attracts and hurts me. ” Mrs. Hernández narrowed her eyes. “What a man, what a man!… You scare me!” Don Higinio replied: “Why don’t you go see them at my house?… One of those newspapers reproduces a photograph of La Grande Jatte, and you will know the exact place where the poor Dutchman and I fought. ” “To your house?” Doña Lucía repeated stammeringly, to whom this conversation gave the impression of crossing an abyss on a tightrope. “Why not?” And since she was slow to respond, he added seductively: “No one would see you enter.” She asked without looking at him: “When?” “After the fair: Tuesday. ” “At what time? ” “In the afternoon: at the first stroke of six. ” “It can’t be. ” “How? ” “Emilia and Teresita go to church at that time.” Don Higinio smiled. “That’s precisely why I said it; so we could be alone. ” There was another pause that had all the sweetness of consent, all the Edenic gravity of a fall: something warm, intimate, ineffable, like those silences in bedrooms that follow the breathless violence of an embrace. Perea insisted: “Will you go?” She agreed with a gesture. Afterward, the two smiled with hypocritical joy at Doña Emilia, Teresita, Carmen, and her fiancé, who were approaching and greeting them from the promenade. Sunday night, the gallant of the Hotel des Alpes spent a very restless time, sighing a lot and apparently with more remorse than usual. He was, however, very proud: finally, for the first time, he was about to have a real adventure. The next day he got up early, put on some ordinary clothes, and went to the mine, from where he returned late in the afternoon. He felt nervous, and that overwhelming nervousness forced him to move. In the mine, his master’s temper took on the accents of a storm: he examined accounts, harshly reprimanded the foremen, and fired a worker; his voice echoed fearfully in the darkness of the mineshaft. The workers looked at him with respect, and no one dared to reply. The hero’s massive figure filled them with fear; they couldn’t remember ever having seen him like that. In the afternoon, he was at the station, imbued with the gentle sadness of the workers leaving: that was the last day of the fair. Juan Pantaleón greeted him. The former artist had aged lamentably and no longer proclaimed the euphonious name of Serranillas with the optimistic and victorious spirit of yesteryear. However, he remained upright and retained the arrogance of a man who carries a story behind him. After dinner, Don Higinio went to the Casino, where he played dominoes until midnight. Don Gregorio invited him several times to a game of billiards, but he declined; his honest conscience, refractory to betrayal, could not withstand the doctor’s noble and friendly gaze. Every time Hernández’s frank voice reached his ears, his whole body shuddered: remorse, like a breath of cold air, brushed his back. He thought: “If only you knew!” He left the Casino accompanied by Julio Cenén and the notary, and the three of them, encouraged by the warmth of spring and the milky splendor of the moonlit night, headed toward the fair. The small shopkeepers, the acrobats, the exhibitors of apocryphal monstrosities and films were dismantling their booths; the merchandise was disappearing into vast chests; the planking of the counters was tied down firmly with rope; the timbers that held the four corners of the shop were ripped from the ground, and instantly the roof and walls vanished. The hammer blows then were identical to those that had resounded there nights before, and yet they seemed different: the joy of arrival had turned to disappointment and farewell, and a weariness hung over all those objects. The swallows were leaving and, to make matters worse, taking their nests with them. Don Higinio greeted the fan-maker from Valladolid. The girl didn’t seem to have good memories of Serranillas; she had sold very little; her earnings, she said, barely covered the costs of the train and the inn. From there she headed to Manzanares. Then he would go to Almadén; later, to Valdepeñas. “We shall see,” he added, “if in the future luck will be more kind to me.” Perea said goodbye to her, wishing her good fortune, and his emotional tone had a paternal sincerity. Then he and his friends resumed their journey. Slowly all the sounds faded away, the lights went out, and as the darkness of the earth increased, the sky, drowned in the silver evaporation of the moon, appeared more Deep and solemn. They were at the end of the walk, near the hermitage of San Rosendo and about two kilometers from the town. The panorama, under the coldness of the astral light, had mysterious blurs; around the valley, which descended in a gentle slope toward the mines, the mountains suggested a long line of humps and white depressions, similar in the dark space to the line a chalk might have left in the darkness of a blackboard. In the distance, the church tower displayed the illuminated dials of its clock and its square dome, like the head of a cabalistic bird, and around it the village was grouped, silent and collected, filled with the enchantment that trestles and walls whitewashed in the moonlight have. When Perea, Don Jerónimo Arribas, and the town clerk retired to sleep, it was two o’clock, and from farmhouse to farmhouse, like an alert, the defiant crowing of the roosters flew. On Tuesday morning, as soon as he finished lunch, Don Gregorio strapped on his leggings, grabbed his satchel and cartridge belt , and gracefully slung his shotgun over his back. The thought that the hunting season would soon arrive infuriated his hunting ardor. He was red-faced and happy. His heroic figure, his giant’s feet, and the enormous size of his hat filled the dining room. He looked like a statue of Nimrod in a corduroy suit. The playful dogs barked, jumping joyfully, rubbing their cold snouts against their master’s cyclopean legs . Hernández kissed his wife and declared he wouldn’t be back until dinnertime. Ernestín wanted to accompany him; that very day, the school principal was celebrating his name day, and there were no classes. “Can I come with you, Papa?” The doctor agreed: “Fine; but on condition that you don’t tire yourself out, because I warn you, we’re going to be hitting the road a lot.” Doña Lucía, hidden behind a blind, watched them leave, and her soul felt a complex feeling of pity and disdain for the doctor. Then, as soon as she found herself alone, she experienced a thrill of fear, a deep tremor that disturbed the pace of her heart and seemed to chill the roots of her hair. “At the first stroke of six,” Don Higinio had said. Doña Lucía did not want to remember the insinuating and sinful mystery with which those words were spoken, nor the voluptuous torment her pretty patent leather shoes suffered under the rough and amorous boots of the hero. Nor would she recall that time, now so distant, when Perea, then a bachelor, hung around her gate. May the withered greenery go in peace! No: Don Higinio, however accustomed he was to subduing women, could not have placed in her any hope or desire that was not absolutely honest; Don Higinio wanted to show her his boots and the newspapers that recounted his exploits, and nothing more; and if he wished to receive her alone, it was because those compromising diaries could not be seen by anyone, for if in killing Mr. Ruch he acted nobly and in self-defense, he would nevertheless be exposed to justice one day taking a close and terrible accounting of his actions. The honesty of the compromised lady resorted to these hypocritical inventions so as not to frighten herself unduly. Once again, the lie triumphed: she knew she was going to fall, but pretended not to believe it and thus shifted all the horrible responsibility for her mistake onto Perea. The better to deceive herself and feel less danger, her sophistic conscience raised new strongholds around her virtue. Don Higinio, surely, would not think of seducing her; But even if she tried, since the worst had to be expected and feared from such an unbridled and libertine man, didn’t she have the teeth and nails to repel him? At the same time, another emotion, one of gentle complacency and voluptuousness rather than fear or remorse, began to trouble her. It was clear that she would know how, if necessary, to defend herself bizarrely. But would she have enough courage and strength to resist the blind assault of the enraged beast? She remembered the figure the hero’s roundabout; Don Higinio, placed in such a tight predicament, must have had the terrible violence of a redskin. And as in the afflictions of amorous falls, the role of victim is so sweet!… The calming tricks of her conscience, on the one hand, and on the other, the ineffable masochism of struggling, kicking, drowning in tears if necessary, and, finally, being taken by force, pacified her virtue. Don Higinio!… That man who held Italians and French women and women from who knows how many countries in his arms, what would he be like in intimacy?… His hands! What ardor, what perverse wisdom, what savage prison vehemences must there be in them?… Mrs. Hernández thought she could already feel them on her loins and closed her eyes. This emotion, decidedly sexual, decided her. Why avoid that moment that, without knowing it, she had waited for so many years?… Yes, she would go. Didn’t other women, like her, married with children, record a similar hour in their history?… She would go and hesitate no longer; reason must be allowed to rest from time to time in chance, and if one arrives at moments or occasions of such risk, life must be crossed as tightrope walkers cross abysses, without looking down… Doña Lucía spent the afternoon behind the lattices of her bedroom, in a state of hyperesthesia that distinguished simultaneously and equally all the sounds of her house and the street, and even the slightest trepidations of her enamored heart. Oh, and how slowly the hours passed! Never did the town seem so quiet, so sad, nor did she feel more strongly the melancholy of its idle, moss-stained streets. Hernández’s wife was suffocating inside her corset. Never, not even when she went to the altar dressed in white, her chest and hair covered in orange blossoms, had her temples throbbed like this. Alternately, at the touch of the slightest thought, she would feel hot or cold, turn red or pale… Then it’s true that human entrails are so resilient!… Then a woman can have a lover and keep her date without fear that, before reaching his arms, her heart will burst from joy and fright!… And after the fall, in the conscience of the adulteress who swore to belong only to one man, and suddenly belongs to two, what happens?… At five-thirty, she saw Doña Emilia, Teresita, and Carmen on their way to church. The two sisters were wearing, as they had always done for the past five years, their grave habits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and in their hands, books of devotion and black bead rosaries. Mrs. Hernández shuddered, and to stop herself from looking at them so calm, so faithful, she put her handkerchief to her eyes. “They’re going to pray for him,” she thought. And then: “Oh, if ‘he’ were my husband, I would do the same thing!…” With this reflection and belief, her affection for Perea recovered and became furiously exalted. Ah!… Why is it that the worst men, the most adventurous, the most unruly, are also the most loved?… Doña Lucía found the hero of La Grande Jatte pacing in the hall of her house with his hands behind his back, over his seat, and in his shirtsleeves . The good lady was not bothered by this prosaic detail; she did not read novels; besides, in a village there was no reason for a man, no matter how much in love, to dress in a tuxedo at six in the evening. They crossed the patio and arrived at the dining room. “It’s a miracle I’m here,” she said. “What? Didn’t you dare come? ” “No… I didn’t dare…” “Why?” “Well… you see.” because not… Don Higinio made a gesture of astonishment and she blushed, for in her refusal the obsession with sin throbbed decisively. He, familiar, laboriously overcoming his emotion, shook her hand: “What a child you are!” He was proud and little by little he acquired the poise of an artist accustomed to receiving visits from women. Slyly he proposed to go to the study; Doña Lucía refused; it was better if they were there; Perea insisted, saying that he had the newspapers stored in his bedroom, inside a chest, and she maintained her refusal; there was more light in the dining room. The idea of finding Don Higinio near the bedroom intimidated her. Leopoldina’s lover, convinced that he would not overcome his friend’s stubborn resistance, was relieved to consider that in the dining room, covered by a sackcloth cover, there was a divan. He finally gave in and went to look for the newspapers. When he reappeared, Mrs. Hernández, at once hopeful and fearful, was bordering on that delicious moment of spirit when women desire everything and are frightened of everything. She too, as soon as she arrived in the dining room, had seen the divan. Perea unwrapped the much-heralded bundle of newspapers: they were issues of Le Matin, Gil Blas, Le Journal, Le Figaro, Le Petit Parisien, L’Écho de Paris, and Le Gaulois, yellowed by the double action of time and dust; some were stained by damp. There too were the hero’s boots; a pair of rough brodequins, twisted upwards, stained by the mud of Paris. Doña Lucía looked on curiously, her eyes brightened and as if widened by that unhealthy interest that crimes inspire in impressionable and simple minds . The gallant from the Hotel des Alpes, meanwhile, maneuvered leisurely, certain that his best speech and the complete submission and obedience of his beloved lay in those papers. He opened an issue of Le Journal and pointed to a portrait inserted in the front column of the second page. “Here he is,” he said simply. She bent down to get a better look. “The Dutchman? ” “Yes. ” “Oh! Poor man! Mr. Ruch, isn’t he? How frightening!” The photograph, probably taken at the famous Morgue, was of a young man of about thirty, naked from the waist up; his strong neck and broad jaw indicated great physical strength; He wore a mustache and his eyes were closed; on his chest, just above his left nipple, the stain of a huge wound was clearly visible. The impression that this human remains made on Mrs. Hernández was too intense. Perea had put his arm around her waist; she began to tremble; her teeth chattered, and, fascinated, she pressed herself against the hero. Don Higinio read a caption: “Yesterday’s Crime.” Do you understand French? Doña Lucía didn’t answer; he repeated his question: “Do you translate the French?” The doctor’s wife was having trouble coordinating her thoughts and was slow to reply: “I don’t.” “It’s a shame, because everything is perfectly explained here, and there are some very interesting details. ” He continued reading, while his thick index finger, tipped by a broad, blunt fingernail, pointed at the columns of the newspaper as if on a map. “Look. It says: ‘On the island of La Grande Jatte.’ ‘The initial investigations.’ ‘The body has not been identified.'” “The probable motive for the crime…” He unfolded an issue of Le Matin. “Here is the place where the body was found.” He sighed. “I remember it perfectly: if I close my eyes I think I can still see it…” But Hernández’s wife could barely hear him: the dead man, with his limp mustache and the expression of pain and peace that the agony gave to his face, fascinated her. And then… that horrible, frightful wound, like the mark of an axe blow!… In a timid, almost imperceptible voice, she asked: “Did you hit him many times? ” “Just one; but frightful… nonetheless!” The knife entered up to the handle, and the blade must have been three fingers wide, perhaps… They fell silent. The swift, growing, inevitable seduction continued its course. Now Doña Lucía looked trembling at the boots; those terrible boots whose soles, perhaps, were soaked in the Dutchman’s blood. “Were you wearing them? ” “Yes. ” “The morning of the incident?” —Also; she didn’t use any others. If only they could talk! —How awful!… The men… the men… Recovering curiously: —You received the bullet in the chest? —A little lower. Here; right here, where the ribs separate. The scar is very small; over the years it’s almost faded, but it’s still visible. Do you want to see it? She wanted nothing more, but she began to shake her head. —No, no… How embarrassing!… —Embarrassed? Why?… Don’t be naive! I hardly need to undress. He unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up the elastic through the opening. The soft, sallow flesh appeared, covered by a thick, grayish hair. Doña Lucía, without wanting to, looked. She saw the wound. Oh!… And, as she drew closer, her nose perceived an acrid, penetrating, lascivious odor: a macho smell… The tragic suggestion was increasing. Mrs. Hernández understood that her legs were beginning to weaken; she was lost; there was not a cry in her throat, not a breath of energy in her muscles; Moreover, at that very moment she had just felt Perea’s hand rest on her back, warm, impatient… the murderous hand… Sobbing, defeated, the excellent lady hid her tear-stained face against the hero’s waistcoat. The memory of Leopoldina tormented her. “Higinio!” she stammered. “Higinio! And you did all that for the love of a woman, for her you stained your conscience with blood! Ah! I would adore the man who had known how to love me like that!” The sweet moment passed adorned in its most beautiful finery of humility and tears; it had to be seized. Don Higinio locked the dining room door and gently pushed Doña Lucía toward the divan; she yielded, putting an arm in front of her face. And there was a long, nuptial silence… Perea, still breathless, but triumphant and joyful, hurriedly adjusted the bow of his tie in front of a mirror. She watched him, motionless, stunned, thinking that for a few moments she had been another woman. A lover! She had a lover!… And wasn’t this equivalent to having found her youth again?… She couldn’t contain herself and, getting up, she threw her arms around his neck and gave him many long, silent kisses; kisses of betrayal, of adultery. The pride of belonging to a hero filled her spirit: “My Higinio! What do men like you have that makes them so loved?” At seven o’clock they heard Doña Emilia arrive; Teresita, Carmen, and her fiancé had undoubtedly gone to visit the notary’s wife, who was ill. While Señora Perea left her rosary and prayer book in the study, the two lovers had time to calm down: Don Higinio lit a cigarette and straightened his waistcoat; Doña Lucía ran a hand through her hair and quickly, with a powder puff she took from a small celluloid box, powdered her cheeks. When Doña Emilia entered the dining room, her husband was strolling indifferently, whistling a song. To greet her friend, Mrs. Hernández stood up. The two women kissed. “Why are you here at this hour?” asked Doña Emilia. The person addressed, despite her inexperience, immediately found, amidst that great depth of hypocrisy that characterizes feminine moral architecture , perfect poise. “I was bored at home and came to see you. Gregorio went hunting this morning and took Ernestín with him. Understand my annoyance; all day alone!… I saw you this afternoon, you, your sister, and your daughter, when you were going to the novena, and I thought I’d join you at church.” Then I spent too much time preparing some sweets, and I lost the desire to get dressed. Your husband, to distract me, showed me the famous newspapers… Perea directed a sideways glance of concern toward the table and continued pacing. Doña Emilia asked: “Which newspapers?” “Those…” She recognized them at once and her face clouded: it bothered her that her husband had shown Doña Lucía such a marked demonstration of confidence; after all, those newspapers were documents that, sooner or later, could compromise him. Who knows what might happen tomorrow? There are secrets that bind people together like chains, and for that very reason only the wife can know. Mrs. Hernández showed her friend the portrait of the Dutchman. “Had you seen him?” “Many times. May God forgive him!” She stifled a sigh, and her kind eyes filled with tears. The two women, standing at the table, contemplated those dirty boots and that pile of yellowed papers, from which the accusing voice of the victim seemed to rise, as if from a grave. At intervals, with the astonishing dissimulation of a theatrical act, Doña Lucía’s eyes sought the hero. It seemed to Perea that this scene was going on too long. Without speaking, with the severity of face that befits a deep mental concern, she began to gather the newspapers; she barely looked at the portrait of the Dutchman; it was clear that the face where death had frozen an expression of rage and anguish, made a painful impression on her. So as not to make him suffer any more, Doña Lucía tried to give the conversation a frivolous and spicy tone. “And the other portrait,” she exclaimed, “do you know it? ” “Which one? ” “The one of the Italian woman.” Doña Emilia faced her husband, and her chubby, peaceful hands, roughened by age and idleness, tightened: there was a trembling of claws in them. “Is it possible? You have the portrait of that woman and you haven’t shown it to me? Do you still love her?” Doña Lucía stirred up his jealousy. “You’re a fool. Tell him to show it to you; he carries it in his pocket; on Saturday, in the booth at the Casino, Gregorio, Don Cándido, and I were looking at it. ” Perea looked at her, surprised by her hostile attitude. Why this hatred for the beautiful Italian woman from the Hotel des Alpes? To reassure his wife, he adopted an expression at once distracted and serious. “I thought,” he said, “that you knew him; It’s not a secret, but something forgotten. I’ll go look for it; I think I have it in my purse. He left slowly, but with the firm, noble gait that a clear conscience gives. The two women, after following him with their eyes to the door, looked at each other. “What do you think?” exclaimed Doña Emilia. Mrs. Hernández raised her eyebrows and bit her lip. “The more I see him,” she said, “the more I am astonished that he did what we know. ” “Well, I’m not. If only you had seen him one morning ready to strangle a man who came to ask for money, threatening to denounce him to the law!… ” “Is it possible?” “Oh, my dear! How frightened I was! Higinio turned into a tiger, yellow as wax, his lips white… A beast! If I didn’t arrive in time, he’d kill the fellow.” Doña Lucía looked at her friend intensely, envying her with all her heart the trouble of having such a husband. The love of the Italian woman, the death of the Dutchman!… But does anyone know the fragrance that such an adventure leaves in a life?… Mrs. Perea sighed and lowered her eyes; in her habit and in that attitude, she seemed like an image. Her dying voice, her pallor, her hands devoutly crossed on her abdomen, her feet shod in comfortable cloth shoes, seemed to say: “Men of that nature must be forgiven at least twenty times a day.” Don Higinio reappeared, holding a photograph between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, which he casually threw onto the table. “There is the portrait!” Doña Emilia picked it up; she was about to insult him, but restrained herself, remembering that the person represented there was dead. New and hostile emotions shook her: one moment she felt resentment that her husband had treated such a beautiful woman, another she was pleased to have had such a rival. In reality, the Italian woman’s theatrical and decorative beauty overcame his jealousy. Doña Emilia and Mrs. Hernández remained motionless, half-embracing, as if helping each other with the expression of that lascivious, tempting image, half-naked amidst the caress of her fur coat. His wife noticed that the photograph had been dedicated. “Do you know the dedication?” she murmured. —No. —Didn’t he tell you? —No. —Really? —On my word! —That would be shameless. —Imagine, when he decided to erase it! —Only the name is legible: “Leopoldina.” They remained thoughtful; Don Higinio, who had been following the conversation, looked at them out of the corner of his eye. —She’s beautiful, isn’t she? —Doña Lucía insinuated. Reluctantly, the hero’s wife declared: —Yes, my child; it’s undeniable. —Her feet are a little big, perhaps… —Psch…, perhaps!… —And her eyes are too close together… —Yes, perhaps… —No, “perhaps,” no; look: they are very close together. She spitefully questioned Don Higinio: —Isn’t it true that she painted them?… Perea shrugged his shoulders; he couldn’t remember; Besides, what elegant woman, especially a French one, doesn’t wear a little makeup?… She continued pacing from one end of the room to the other, her hands clasped behind her, feeling that Doña Lucía’s bizarre conquest and surrender had made her legs a little sore. The doctor’s wife watched her full of devotion. In that dining room, she thought, there were three women: she, Emilia, and the one in the portrait, and all three had belonged to Don Higinio. Ah, what a man!… Suddenly, Doña Emilia, struck by a sudden conceit, paled, widened her eyes, and raised a hand to her forehead. “What do I see?” she murmured. “It’s true!… Yes… it’s true. The coat this most reverend zurrona is wearing is mine. Mine!” Don Higinio was astonished and began to laugh. Women are crazy; we must leave them alone. Doña Lucía took the portrait and looked at it closely. Indeed, that coat belonged to her friend. She turned to Perea disdainfully: “How disgusting!… It’s unbelievable…” Don Higinio protested: “Oh! You too?… Damn, it’s not true!… How could I give a married woman a coat like that? What a coincidence!” Now he remembered that his wife’s coat had , in fact, warmed Miss Enriqueta’s shoulders for an entire afternoon … Doña Emilia wept dejectedly: “How sad for me!… Yes, it’s my coat; and don’t say that all fur coats look alike, because I know this one: it’s mine, my coat!”… If you didn’t give it to her, you would lend it to her to take a picture; and naked!… How shameful!… I don’t want it anymore, it’s cursed. Ah, it’s finished!… I was thinking of giving it to my Carmen, when she was older; but that’s not the case now either. It’s finished forever! Neither she nor I.” Never!… Thus, crying and talking, her spite began to subside. Then she approached her husband and, taking his hands, said: “Will you let me tear up that photograph?”… “Why?” she stammered. “What does it matter to you after all these years? ” “Yes, it matters to me. I’m horribly jealous of her… Will you let me?”… “Don’t be silly… I don’t love her, do you understand?… but I’d like to keep her: she’s a trophy…” That portrait, bought on the boulevard, held no interest for her and said nothing to her memory; nevertheless, she wanted to defend it solely because it was from Paris. But Donna Lucía came to her friend’s aid. “Yes, sir,” she exclaimed, “that portrait will die right now! Of course !… And you are wrong, very wrong, not to agree immediately.” He understood that he could not fight against both of them, and bowed his head in resignation. “Do what you like.” His gesture was weak and sad, like that of Pilate handing Jesus over. “Come, Emilia,” cried Doña Lucía, who had picked up the portrait, joyfully. “Come! It’s ours now! Let’s burn it!” They ran away and went out into the garden. Don Higinio, fat and wearing his shirtsleeves, had leaned out of one of the windows to watch the auto-da-fé, and he felt a strange unease, as if his past were indeed going to dissolve into smoke and ashes. It was almost nightfall, and the great twilight melancholy infused the trees with majesty and mystery. A fountain was chanting. The quiet garden smelled of mint, honeysuckle, jasmine, and fennel. Doña Emilia and Doña Lucía were excited. Mrs. Hernández He laughed a lot; his laughter was unpleasant, shrill; Doña Emilia seemed intimidated and kept looking at her husband, expecting a reprimand. The hero’s presence inhibited her. Was what they were about to do wrong?… Finally, Doña Lucía’s cackling hilarity won her over, and she began to laugh in turn. The wife and the beloved were preparing to take cruel revenge on their rival, for whom Perea, mad with love, had killed. Both of them fought over the pleasure of breaking the portrait. “Me first!… Bring it!” “No, let me!” The photograph was shattered in a jiffy; they piled up the pieces and set them on fire with a match; it was childish; a little column of white smoke rose, twisting in the violet gloom. Later, when the last flames had died down, the two of them, in an effort to break up the ashes, kicked at the embers. Then, suddenly, Don Higinio became very sad. Why? Perhaps because of Doña Lucía, who called to his heart so late; perhaps because of that woman in the portrait, whom he had never seen. When night fell, already in his bed, the hero of La Grande Jatte sighed deeply. Doña Emilia, supposing him to be overcome with remorse, gave him maternal advice: “Don’t think about it anymore, don’t suffer. God will want to forgive you. Don’t you know there are two women praying for you?” Chapter 11. Doña Emilia burst into the bedroom like a gust of wind. Her sister followed her, walking with small steps and drying her hands on her apron. Don Higinio, who was still sleeping, opened his eyes. He had a sensation of surprise. Teresita’s humble countenance spoke of astonishment; Doña Emilia’s, cholera. “Don’t you know what’s going on?” exclaimed the wife. And she paused to give her news, with that silence, greater importance. Perea shook his head. “Well, nothing, it’s a scandal; Manolilla is pregnant. ” “What are you telling me? ” “She told me herself. Imagine!… Eh? How embarrassing for us!” Seeing her brother-in-law’s stupefaction, like an echo, Teresita affirmed: “Yes, don’t doubt it; she’s pregnant.” Doña Emilia continued: “Immediately, as you can imagine, I fired her; I’m sorry because she’s a good-natured, hard-working, and clean maid. But in that state, she can’t continue here. With who you are and your reputation, the town would immediately say the child was yours. What do you think? A sixteen-year-old brat! What corruption, Lord, what corruption!” Don Higinio lit a cigarette; the story interested him; he wanted to hear details. “We discovered it,” replied Doña Emilia, “by chance. Teresa and I were shocked by Manolilla’s belly; we thought she was too round. But those people always wear so many petticoats!… Now I get to the kitchen and see the torrijas I gave her last night still untouched on a plate. What a mess!… “Why haven’t you eaten them?” I ask. “Because I didn’t feel like it.” ” Weren’t they good?” “Yes, ma’am.” “So, how are you leaving them? I know you like them a lot…” She turned very red, and my heart leaped . I thought the torrijas were poisoned, that someone wanted to kill us… I don’t know! How the world hides so much evil!… Then I close the door, grab the little girl by the arms, give her a good shake, and say: “Right now, in front of me, you eat your torrijas.” “No, ma’am; I don’t feel like it.” —”Well, no way; you’re going to eat them just to please me.” I take the plate and put it in front of her. And she remains silent. “Eat.” Silent. “Eat!” The third time I couldn’t stop myself and I slapped her. The damn thing, nothing; very angry and without raising her eyes from the floor. I was choking with rage; at the same time I didn’t want to scream, because I thought: “If Higinio gets up, this will end badly.” Because I know your temper! You’re very good as long as you don’t get pricked; you see Manolilla like that, stubborn in not speaking, and you smother her!… Perea made a modest pout to hide the satisfaction he felt at his wife’s conviction in his heroism. Doña Emilia and Teresita and I had sat on the edge of the bed. The narrator continued: “I don’t know how many slaps I gave her; my hand still hurts. Just then, Vicenta arrives, and upon learning what was happening, she says to me: ‘Don’t tire yourself out, miss; the only one here who knows this hypocrite is me; to make her talk, you’d have to burn her bottom with an iron. I ‘ll take care of it!…’ Anyway, the little girl got scared and confessed. She told me she was five months pregnant… Do you see the infamy? Five months!… And even if we skinned her like that, she wouldn’t eat torrijas, because the author of her misfortune is a young man from Ciudad Real who works as a cook at Tocinico’s tavern, and the afternoon that it was his for the first and only time, the rascal gave her some torrijas he was making to taste. What do you think of this explanation? I was shocked!” “Have you ever heard anything with less common sense?” Don Higinio didn’t reply. He understood the African hatred, exquisitely tender and ridiculous at the same time, that the unfortunate Manolilla directed toward torrijas; it was a hatred similar to the one his heart once nurtured toward Le Matin, for example, or the Rue Feydeau. Torrijas were for Manolilla what those old newspapers that spoke of the mysterious crime on La Grande Jatte were for Doña Lucía: a pretext; and in life, where nothing is solid, grand, or definitive, what is everything that happens but a pretext for everything that’s to come afterward? ” And what are you planning to do with Manolilla?” he asked. “Fire her, don’t you know?” “But like that! What does the author of the mess say? ” “The cook won’t hear of her, and you’ll understand that I’m not inclined to remedy other people’s faults. Thank goodness now, since no one knows.” But, what about after that?… She says she has nowhere else to go, she doesn’t want to return home, because if her father saw her like that, he’d kill her. I understand and even pity her… frankly!… I pity her; but… to each his own!… I wish she hadn’t eaten torrijas! She stood up to leave, her expression austere and icy, like that of the archangel who announced to our first parents the loss of Paradise. “I pity that Manolilla so much,” said Teresita, “that little girl makes me feel so sorry for her. How we knew her when she was little!… Now the poor thing is locked in her room crying, crying rivers of tears, while she gathers her clothes…” The two sisters left the bedroom. Don Higinio remained thoughtful, and for a few moments his generous soul angrily censured his wife’s insolently moral attitude. To be good!… Virtue is so easy when all the needs of the heart and stomach have been satisfied!… Manolilla, on the other hand, possessed nothing. Naturally , the unfortunate woman would have liked to emancipate herself from the stove, to find a home, a husband; if she succeeded, it was perhaps to better retain her lover; and suddenly her hopes crumble, her deceiver cowardly abandons her , and she finds herself abandoned by everyone, without a decent home to take refuge in. Emilia reasoned well: “I wish I hadn’t eaten torrijas!” But who doesn’t commit crimes? Who, in any of the ambushes that love, pride, need, or greed so readily target a man’s integrity, hasn’t eaten torrijas at some point?… And, for the same reason, didn’t Jesus, beneath whose bare feet the ancient world collapsed, always command forgiveness?… Then she thought of the cook who left the girl’s maidenhood so badly damaged and shabby. He knew him by sight: he was a young man in his twenties, pockmarked, blond, boastful, and unpleasant. However, Perea envied him: that rascal, who surely couldn’t write, had adventures and seduced maids, even though they were as unappetizing as Manolilla; but he, apart from his wedding night, what could he tell?… Didn’t his life have the sincerity of the sun, the boredom of the plain?… Doña Lucía certainly surrendered to him; but not to him, to the man, but to the prestige of his lie; about this, neither his modesty nor his good judgment and speech could be mistaken. The conspicuous man from La Mancha was thinking such things when they called for the door. —Come in!… It was Manolilla. The puny, pale, emaciated girl remained at the threshold; her legs slightly apart, her eyes lowered, inhibited by her master’s presence. She was wearing a blue and white checked shawl , and in her hands a puffy bundle of clothes. —The lady must have told you I’m leaving, —she murmured. —Yes, my child. At the humiliation and banishment of the sinner, he felt a very strong emotion, a tenderness that, had it lasted, would have dissolved into tears. The poor creature! He, had he followed the evangelical dictates of his will, would have said: “Manolilla: You’re not leaving; you’re staying with us, for you have nowhere else to go. If your father, following stale worries, curses you, I, a modern man, a Christian man, forgive you and take you home. Go back to your room, unhappy woman, and leave your little clothes there.” Dry your tears. Here you will give birth to your child, and together we will help you raise him. The swaddling clothes my children wore will serve yours. I will not continue the execrable work of betrayal, selfishness, and infamy that your lover began.” This was beautiful, noble, what Christ, had He lived in Serranillas, would have done. But Don Higinio recognized himself incapable of such a lofty undertaking. How could he obtain from Doña Emilia a pardon for the girl? How could he convey to her understanding, much less to her orderly heart, the idea that all little ones, regardless of who they are, should be equally loved by us? Impossible; Doña Emilia’s judgment was that of the entire town; human selfishness is so colossal that it fills the horizon, and how could one escape the horizon? While these illustrious imaginings shook Don Higinio’s spirit , Manolilla remained motionless and humble, as if waiting for a verdict. Finally, the unfortunate woman thought she should say goodbye: “Well, then… you’ll forgive me if I’ve been wrong in any way. ” “No, woman. ” “And until another day… if I don’t die… and you want to see me…” She spoke stumblingly, swallowing back tears. Perea sat up in bed and searched the pockets of his waistcoat, which was hanging over the back of a chair. “Here,” he said. He offered her two duros. She refused; she had just received her salary and her savings amounted to forty pesetas. What more? Don Higinio admired the carelessness, the stoicism with which Manolilla looked to the future. “It doesn’t matter,” she insisted; “this is a gift from me; keep it, keep it quickly and don’t let anyone know.” She gave in and timidly approached the bed. “May God grant you better health. ” “Thank you, Manolilla. Where are you going now? ” “To the inn; I’ll spend the night there. ” “And tomorrow?” “I’m going to Ciudad Real, to see if I can get into the maternity ward. ” “And aren’t you going to talk to your boyfriend? ” “No, sir. Why?” Her voice, which had been weakening, expired in a sob. Drying her eyes with her apron, she left the bedroom, and as she closed the door, Don Higinio felt that a grave infamy had just been committed. However , deep within his soul, perpetually oriented toward adventure, he envied Manolilla: she was young, and the carnival of the unexpected awaited her; but what about him? Fat, old, surrounded by family, tied hand and foot to his estate, nothing could tear him away from there. And yet, his heart was still young, still waiting. Hence the thrill of envy that Manolilla left him with when she left. “Who could have eaten torrijas like her!” he thought. For everything, however, it was already a little too late. At fifty- two years of age, tied to the land more than to business by inveterate habits of sedentarism and inaction, where to go?… Don Higinio appreciated the profound changes that wandering time had wrought in people, as in affections, and from all sides came to him a breath of silence, forgetfulness, and disillusionment. Slowly, he recognized himself removed from the flow and as if pushed to the margins of life; other generations had snatched the reins of activity from his, and seeing how the marriages of people He knew that young women were bearing children, bringing him the sense of humanity marching behind him. Around him, everything was declining and budding: Doña Emilia’s hair was gray; Teresita was more deaf and gaunt than ever, and the fleshy and decorative twilight of Doña Lucía, at the same time, was fainting from various sides and beating a deplorable retreat. His friends were equally badly off, and of their closest friends his faithful memory preserved two images: the graceful one they had displayed as youths, and the other, ugly and old, which the cares of life had left behind. Don Jerónimo Arribas had grown so fat that his adipose tissue was suffocating him and he could barely attend to his office; Don Gregorio had lost the keen eyesight and steady pulse of his good days, and he barely remembered his shotgun; Don Cándido was aging inside his pharmacy, like ancient wax images that fade and wither in the dusty gloom of chapels; Julio Cenén, despite his ornithological frivolity, had also calmed down, to the point that his wife, as if seeking revenge for all she had suffered at his side, barely allowed him to go out at night; Gutiérrez, nailed to his chair at the Post Office by rheumatism , rarely went to the Casino; from the street, through the barred windows of the office, he could be seen writing, and in the semidarkness of the room, his head, with its white, curly hair, resembled a ball of cotton. The ailing and slow old profiles were replaced by other young and agile figures. The noble Perea recognized the sadness of the years, more than in his own ailments and leaks, in the astonishing blossoming of his children. Anselmo, the eldest son, was a lawyer and had opened a law firm in Ciudad Real; Joaquinito was in his second year of medical school; Carmen had married and had a son, Higinín, blond as corn and with his grandfather’s large, credulous, blue eyes. In that hopeful and fruitful movement forward, no one was left behind, for the infinite time of everything is remembered equally. Eugenio and Gorito, the eldest Hernández sons, were also successful young men. Eugenio finished his degree as an agricultural expert; Gorito was a soldier. Baldomero, Don Cándido’s sole heir, had graduated in pharmacy and was already preparing to marry and replace their father behind the counter of the pharmacy. Águeda and Marina, the Gutiérrez daughters, despite certain slanderous rumors, had married: the former to a postal worker, and her sister to a well-off farmer from Argamasilla. Gasparito, the son of Señora Indalecia, was a seasoned scoundrel, with whom the Civil Guard had to settle scores two or three times. Fortunately, his abundant friendliness and great cunning always saved him from the nasty scrapes his need or his excessive fondness for other people’s property landed him in, and from market to market, sometimes as a bullfighter and other times as a laborer, he earned his living and that of his elderly mother. Thus, the more the worthy Don Higinio looked around him, the more alone and forgotten he felt, both among those who, as old people, were heading toward death, and among those young people whom life was calling. And he himself!… with his bald head, his cloth shoes, his flannel underwear, and his frequent attacks of ankylosis, wasn’t he a man of the past?… The rheumatism that, as a legacy of his race, had begun to torment him since he was a youth, had caused a serious lesion in his pericardium, aggravated by the dampness of the mine and his fishing habits . His friend Don Gregorio had lectured him enough about this , and tried to intimidate him with many furious prophecies! But who would take his wisdom and prudence to the extreme of taking care of himself?… Now that he was beginning to crumble, he understood better than ever the majesty and artistic beauty of the lie that served as the center of gravity of his story and gave it color and relief. That beautiful false gesture was the pyrosphere of his soul, what infused cohesion into all the acts of his life, like the thread that holds one thing together. rosary beads. Although late and incomplete, thanks to his trickery, he achieved those preeminent satisfactions of vanity, reserved only for the most illustrious men. He had many things: the submissive devotion of his wife, the respect of his family, the esteem of his friends, a lover, an illegitimate son, a golden legend of gallantry and bravery, and with it the admiration of an entire people. The lie, which first became gossip and then public opinion, with the help and favor of time, turned into history, was for Don Higinio what the pseudonym with which they achieved celebrity is for artists: the masses admire El Greco, but ignore Domingo Theotocópuli; they have perhaps read Stendhal and are unaware of Henri Beyle. Immortality is achieved with a statue, with a book, with a gesture. This is how Perea obtained it : for his fellow countrymen, proud of his courage, he would always be “a man who killed a Dutchman in Paris”; his glory, like that of Juan de Urbieta, the obscure soldier who captured Francis I in Pavia, crystallized in a gesture, but so resounding and happy that all the gold of his life fit into it. During those rare hours of sincerity that men tend to have with themselves, Don Higinio examined with cruel impartiality the royal cloak of heroism that he wore for years and years . Oh! If the people of Serranillas knew the truth… How they would despise him, how they would come to laugh at him in his face!… And they would do wrong; His mockery would be unfair: if he lied, it was driven by the natural urge to ennoble himself, to be “something,” and does n’t the same desire for notoriety always beat, like a heart, in the history of all men ? The illustrious Don Higinio, forgotten about fishing, somewhat removed from the great domino tournaments at the Casino, good-naturedly dedicated to raising rabbits and observing the passing of time in the mornings through the glass of his bedroom, had, despite his vulgar appearance, something of the sad grandeur of Charles V in his cell at Yuste. Who would he talk to about his past? To what delicate spirit would he confide the failure of his dreams as an Argonaut and his unfading love for Paris? In the past, when both were young, there was still a desire to chat: in the social gatherings, the former would recount his hunts, the latter his successful affairs; lying was like a rash of youth. But now, in everyone’s mind, even their imaginations had fallen silent. “I’m a foreigner in my own country!” Don Higinio used to say. Only his story endured: the legend that surrounded his almost white head was written in indelible characters and, as it were, nailed to everyone’s memory. No one doubted that courage, unquestionably affirmed when the prisoners in the jail rioted and Leopoldina’s lover, with no other weapons than his well-tempered courage and his fists, prevailed over them; and a similar impression was left by the bizarre generosity with which he stopped the flooding in his mine. As if such memories were not enough to enhance his prestige, fate would have it that Perea, now on the threshold of old age, added to his well-established history of bravery new, unfading laurels. One evening the church bells rang out wildly. The neighborhood was stirred, and men took to the streets; The windows were filled with women and children; all faces had the same motionless expression produced by the clash of curiosity and fear. The fire was in a poor house on Hanged Man Alley, behind the Market Square, and the flames, fanned by the wind, stretched sinisterly into the dark sky. Their bloodthirsty flashes reached far and wide. A strong shock shook the town. The workers who were leaving the mines and saw the fire quickened their pace, and as they approached in droves, the noise of their voices and their ragged figures, blackened by coal, gave their arrival the disturbing appearance of a riot. The streets trembled with the murmur of their panting breaths and their footsteps. The disaster was intensifying: whirlwinds of red, pearly sparks, Jumping like rockets, they crowned it; it looked like a volcano, and on the burning roof, turned into a crater, the flames flickered , licking the air, swelling, twisting, like a giant red and yellow handkerchief saying “goodbye.” The bells cried for help. Against the great twilight background, the pale faces of the church clock, shining like ominous eyes, had this time a strange expression, and the curved ridge that separated them, reddened by the fire, looked like a bloodstained peak. The two firefighters paid by the municipality, assisted by several pairs of civil guards and a large group of well- meaning neighbors, had managed to get the only serviceable pump that remained in the Town Hall out onto the street and take it to the scene of the danger. From all sides, men armed with hoes and ladders came ready to demolish whatever was necessary to isolate the fire. Don Higinio, standing in front of his house, was touched by those strong vibrations of danger and struggle, and his adventurous soul trembled. Doña Emilia, Teresita, Carmen, who was carrying her son in her arms, Doña Lucía, and other women surrounded him, pressing fearfully against him, as if the hero of La Grande Jatte had to protect them from some danger. They saw Don Gregorio. The doctor was going very quickly and did not stop; several neighbors followed him; they said there were wounded… Doña Emilia grabbed her husband by the arms: “You’re not going. ” “No, my child. ” “It’s because I know you; the desire to go fills your eyes; you’re with me; you would cause me great distress, and you’ve made me suffer enough already. Besides, you’re old.” Teresita, guessing what her sister was saying, added: “Do you advise him not to go? Naturally!” That would be madness!… And Doña Lucía, narrowing her eyes, said, “You’re staying with us. ” Don Higinio, standing very firmly on his yellow leather boots, his hands in his trouser pockets, his abdomen free and plump beneath his unbuttoned vest, bit his lip. His wife was right: he wanted to go to the fire. And why not? Didn’t other men go, and wasn’t he, given his heroic status, the one most obliged to go to places of danger? If not, what good was his courage? A brave man who doesn’t use his courage when circumstances call for it comes off as shamefully as a stingy rich man who hides his money. At that moment, Julio Cenén passed by; on his thin, wax-colored face, his pointed, still-black beard seemed false. “Are you coming with me?” the secretary shouted to Perea. “No, sir!” Doña Emilia replied, “my husband isn’t moving from here!” Ignoring this interruption, Cenén continued: “Come on. We’re all needed there; they say there’s a dead man.” Don Higinio, excited, took a few steps forward. The women surrounded him: Doña Emilia and Teresita embraced his knees, dragging the gravity of their habits on the sidewalk, and Carmen tried to move her father by showing him Higinín’s stupid, chubby, red-faced little head. “Higinio, my dearest, don’t go!” “Papa, for God’s sake!” But the hero rejected them all and imposed himself on them all with a gesture of irrevocable authority; the same reckless gesture he would have used if one day he had truly needed to kill a Dutchman; and stoically, staining with his shoes the suits those two saintly women wore to better pray for him, he continued onward. Moments later, the gallant of the Hotel des Alpes was covered in glory. Don Higinio and Julio Cenén made their way easily through the crowd gathered at the scene of the accident. Their prestige was in their favor. The curious, upon seeing them, pressed forward, respectfully opening the way for them. Where was Perea going so determinedly? Everyone remembered the time he had conspired to avert the prisoners’ riot, and they followed him with their eyes, certain that he was about to carry out some dangerous, extraordinary action, worthy of him, in short… In front of the burned house, which had two floors, the furniture, Mattresses, bundles of clothes, trunks, and other objects that neighbors had thrown from their balconies lay in chaotic heaps, horribly stained with water, mud, and smoke. There, the glow of the fire was so violent it burned the cheeks; no one approached; before the formidable blaze, the suspenseful, cowering faces of the crowd appeared red. Through the windows of the house, which had become a volcano, terrible curtains of flame rose, blackening and cracking the facade. Several balconies collapsed with a terrifying roar of burning debris. The pump, although working well, was insufficient to control the fire, and its stream of water fed it rather than fought it. The heat had shattered all the windows in the surrounding homes. The two seriously injured firefighters had just been taken to Don Cándido’s pharmacy, and the team of bricklayers led by the mayor and the chief of police, convinced that it was impossible to extinguish the fire, was busy trying to prevent it from spreading, aided by the wind. Suddenly, a woman, who had probably been locked in one of the inner rooms, appeared disheveled, mad with terror, on a second-floor balcony. Her desperate screams dominated the boiling tumult of the crowd. Leaning over the railing, her arms outstretched, her hair hanging down, her mouth tragically open in the horror of her smoke-stained face, she looked like a fury. Julio Cenén recognized her. —It’s Evarista, Matilde the Belter’s daughter… The unfortunate woman implored: —Help!… Help!… At her call, several voices answered: —Come down the stairs! —I can’t! It’s burning!… Her convulsing arms twisted frantically; it seemed as if she were going to throw herself headfirst into the street. The mayor ordered her: —Climb down slowly, and when you can’t go on, let yourself fall; we’ll receive you here! Don’t be afraid!… She measured the depth of her jump with terrified eyes. The mayor repeated: —Don’t be afraid! Jump!… Bravely defying the burning proximity of the flames, two Civil Guards spread several mattresses on the ground, and then, their bodies rigid, arms open, their eyes raised, they prepared to receive the young woman. But she didn’t dare jump; the abyss, truly, was too deep. “I can’t!” he repeated, crying, “I can’t!” Julio Cenén whispered in Perea’s ear: “I warn you, she’s a beautiful girl: she’s not even eighteen yet, and she already has one of the most beautiful tambourines in town…” The inappropriateness of the remark disgusted Don Higinio. The town clerk was a cynic and a fool. They had put themselves there, in front of everyone, to do something notable, or at least to be useful. Suddenly, the idea that public opinion might misjudge him assailed him. Irritated, he looked at Cenén: “We must save that woman. ” “Save her? How?” ” By going up to where she is. ” The clerk was perturbed. “Don’t attempt such a foolish thing; it would mean certain death; the stairs are on fire. ” Perea didn’t hear him. A wave of reckless blood, the blood of the Alcañiz family, clouded his reason; He buttoned up his corduroy coat, and before anyone could stop him, leaping nimbly over the furniture piled up in the middle of the street, he disappeared into the entrance hall of the burning house. The crowd let out a cry of admiration and horror. Was it credible that a man like him, fat and respectable, could defy death like that? Julio Cenén stamped his feet and bit his fists in rage. “He’s not coming out!” he said, “he’s never coming back!… And I’m to blame for his misfortune, because I was the one who encouraged him to come!” The mayor tried in vain to console him; both of them recognized that Perea, like all brave men, was attracted to danger, and whoever loves danger—an old saying teaches us—sooner or later perishes in it. Several moments of agonizing anxiety passed. Suddenly, swiftly, triumphantly, Don Higinio emerged onto the balcony, enveloped in a sudden gust of reddish smoke, picked up the half-fainting Evarista in his arms, threw her over his shoulder with a manly dash, and fled just as a partition, yielding to the voracity of the flames, collapsed , and the interior of the apartment blazed horribly. Minutes later, to a thunderous explosion of cheers and applause, the hero of La Grande Jatte emerged into the street with Evarista. He had lost his hat and suffered several burns on his hands, but he still had the composure to greet the enthusiastic townspeople with a smile. Immediately, cheered, supported by hundreds of friendly arms, he headed to Don Cándido’s pharmacy to be treated. On the way, he met his family, who came weeping, informed of his new feat. His wife, his sister-in-law, his daughter, Doña Lucía—they all hugged him. Doña Emilia was utterly devastated; she had to be rushed into a house and removed from her corset. “What madness, sir!” hiccuped the poor lady. “What madness!… A man like Higinio, with a heart condition!… To expose himself to such an emotion!” Julio Cenén, who was holding Perea by the waist, mysteriously asked him: “Tell me, my friend Don Higinio, you who have touched him: how is Evarista’s bottom?” Don Higinio, in whom no lewd feeling had tainted the noble disinterestedness of his action, was indignant: “But you are a fool; do you think that when a man risks his life, as I have just done, he notices the details?” The lascivious secretary burst out laughing. “Basketball!” he exclaimed, “you are not surprised at anything!” You call a bottom like that “a detail”?… This feat was the last of those two or three outstanding traits of valor that marked so many glorious milestones in Perea’s bizarre history ; a kind of swan song or gallant verse with which Chance allowed him to conclude the magnificent sonnet of his life. Afterward, as if that sacrifice had abruptly dampened his spirits, the hero of La Grande Jatte became more sedentary and domestic than ever. His secret love affair with Doña Lucía lasted little, and it had been a long time since their relationship had been completely fraternal: they shook hands in a certain way, looked at each other with eyes that held a sadness of farewell, a warmth of ashes, and nothing more. Don Higinio went down the mine only rarely; He would get up at noon, and after lunch he would go out into the garden, where the fig, orange, apricot, and cherry trees with silver trunks perpetuated the struggle between the trees for dominion of space and land. There, calm, solemn, a little sad, like someone who, having had everything, had renounced it all through a generous and stoic detachment of his will, he would devote very sweet hours to raising his rabbits. He himself built their homes and prepared their pasture, composed mainly of sage leaves, sprigs of thyme and fennel, and other fragrant plants, which, if not for fattening the animals, would strengthen them and increase their fertility. He knew their illnesses and how to cure them, the diet the males should be subjected to during certain times of the year, the breeds that were most ardent and produced the best offspring; And he kept notes in a notebook about the mating days, the dates the does were due, and the dates the kits needed to be weaned. Leopoldina’s lover could have written a book about such details . At the Casino, he played dominoes with his friends his own age; but he no longer drank absinthe, nor burned sugar cubes, nor laughed as he had before, and if a young man spoke to him, envying his story of love and courage, he would adopt a sad attitude. “I see,” he would say with a sigh, “that I inspire jealousy in youth. Only now do I recognize that I am getting old!” Disillusionment, which in the imperceptible course of time falls on all heads equally, with the difference that it does on young women. and warm it thaws, while in the elderly it curdles and endures, having almost completely whitened the hero’s rough, short hair. Doña Emilia, also old within the brown sadness of her habit, suffered at the sight of that slow ruin. Stealthily the years carried out their work. The first gray hair! Oh! What piercing cold, what cold of another life is there in that first white hair that nothing, not the bonfire of all illusions, nor the sun of all future springs, could cure?… Soul that beats within us, your green dress torn to pieces, made with silks of illusion; why did you not wrap yourself, as in a shroud, beneath the first snows that blossomed on your brow? Doesn’t the silence of your silver curls reach you? And if you feel it, why do you still wait?… Doña Emilia frequently spoke of this with her sister and daughter, and Carmen, who had Higinín on her knees, sighed, and without realizing it, she was getting used to the idea of being the orphan of a hero. Doña Lucía was also saddened by the natural dullness of her former lover. Over the years, her flesh had quieted, but her heart still beat for him. Many afternoons, watching him work good-naturedly making and cleaning his hutches, she would muse: “And that man should have killed another man for a woman!” One morning in late October, Don Higinio declared that he could not get up. His wife, when she brought him breakfast in bed, was surprised to find him lying face down, complaining of severe pains in his back and stomach. Rheumatism had been plaguing him for some time: sometimes it was concentrated in his elbow, other times it attacked his knees, and there were times when his feet, particularly his left, would swell so much that it was impossible to put on shoes. Now the disease seemed to be halted and localized, and it gripped with such fury that the patient, much to his chagrin, couldn’t stay still. “Do you want us to call Hernández?” asked Doña Emilia. “No, not yet; let’s wait until later. ” The doctor, ignorant and expeditious in his procedures, inspired fear in her. “It would be better,” she added, “if you gave me a good rubbing of alcohol on my kidneys. ” Doña Emilia left the hero’s morning meal on the nightstand and went out in search of a preparation of alcohol and rosemary that was very effective against all kinds of pain. Teresita, whose joints also became swollen with the changes of season, used it a lot and was always successful. His face buried in the pillow, his baize undershirt bunched up to his armpits, Don Higinio patiently endured the massage. While she rubbed him with all her might and devotion, his wife kept talking, both maternal and jealous: “Oh! If you hadn’t led the life we know, you wouldn’t be like this; but, of course, you didn’t want to listen to my advice, and now you look the way you do… a sick man! Between the dampness from the mine and the dampness you endured when you went fishing, they’ve left you, well! Do you remember the afternoon the river flooded? That morning I didn’t want to let you go; but you, as usual, ignored me.” “Naturally!… Proper women are never right, are they?… We’re a piece of meat with eyes, a kind of housekeepers or donkeys, without beauty, without understanding, without anything, son, without anything!… Good only for scolding the maids and breastfeeding the children. On the other hand, if I were some common slut, one of those who only knows how to look at herself in the mirror, put on eye makeup and take pictures of herself naked, like someone I know…, God have forgiven her!…, you wouldn’t know where to put me…” As she spoke, her memories became threateningly unstiff, and her hands tightened furiously, as if the patient’s slender loins were the hated entrails of some rival. Perea, quiet, submissive, with the humility that a dirty conscience instills, did not answer a word, and with his teeth clenched and his cheeks swollen with the effort it cost him not to complain, he resisted the allied pains of rheumatism and of the rubs. Doña Emilia continued her spiteful monologue, and at times, overcome by fatigue, she would inadvertently lean on the sick man, her skin itching and her ribs cracking. “And if it were nothing more than the mine’s colds!… But other… I believe it!… other are the reasons that now have you lying in that bed. Men who in their youth abused their pleasures, as you have done, reach old age prematurely. Because, you cannot deny it!… You have had no shortage of lovers: today one, tomorrow another; I take the brunette, I leave the blonde… a harem!… and from all countries. Then, that wound… God forbid it should upset us!” She continued rubbing, satisfied to see how the patient’s soft back reddened. —When I see you like this, I realize that of all your lovers, the one I hate the most, the one I detest with all my soul, so much so that if I could, I would burn her alive, is the Italian. I don’t hate Indalecia—there you are, Indalecia. But the Italian! You damned bitch! God forgive me; but if I consider that it was because of her that you could have been killed and our children left without a father, it seems I’m going to go crazy. It’s true that I have you, that you’re mine; but how they’ve left you! Rheumatic, wounded, sick at heart… See? Say… Do you recognize now the consequences of your bad temper? With the help of alcohol and rubbing, Don Higinio felt better, and the large piece of warm flannel his wife applied to his abdomen helped. A healthy reaction allowed him to sleep until noon. When he awoke, remembering that he had to reply immediately to the letter that the Belgian engineer, Monsieur Luis Berain, future director of the mine, had sent him, he asked for some writing materials and drafted a telegram: “Luis Berain. Polytechnic School. Brussels. Your presence here is urgently needed. Get on your way as soon as possible. Bankers Misters Witerbay, Sedwind and Company will provide you with the necessary funds.—Perea.” He called Doña Emilia: “Order Vicenta to go to the post office and tell Gutiérrez to do me the favor of translating this telegram into French and forwarding it immediately . Oh! And you, if you see Gutiérrez, explain to him that because I am ill I have not sent it translated, lest he think I don’t know French…” Don Higinio did not want to have lunch; his stomach was swollen and the pain in his back was tormenting him again. For sustenance, throughout the afternoon, he drank two glasses of sweetened milk and a cup of broth. At dusk, he dozed. Doña Emilia, who never left his side, felt his forehead and pulse and noticed that they were very strong and frequent. “You have a fever. Should we send for Don Gregorio? ” “No, my child. ” “Why?” ” I’ve already told you; it’s not necessary yet. ” His wife gave him a second rubbing of alcohol and rosemary, and wrapped his belly in a good cotton poultice and a flannel sash. This historic sash, for it had served Doña Emilia twenty years before, during her last childbirth, brought a sad smile to the hero’s lips . Then he closed his eyes and, in his sleep, heard the murmur of footsteps and thought he recognized Doña Lucía’s voice. He spent the night very badly; Fleeting but terrible pangs, which seemed to originate in his kidneys, tore at his stomach, which grew more swollen and harder by the second. Carmen accompanied her father until midnight, when she retired because she could no longer leave Higinín alone. Teresita and Doña Emilia stayed watching over the sick man. At intervals, Perea anxiously sought his wife’s hands and held them tightly. “I feel worse,” he said, “what could it be?” He half closed his eyelids, and his breathing, despite the pain, was labored and noisy. He stammered: “I feel worse.” In the morning, his will weakened, and he asked for the doctor. “He’s an animal!” he sighed, “a complete animal; but… what can we do!” Soon, wrapped in a brown cloth tuina with sleeves and a collar of Don Gregorio arrived, wearing a khaki suit, corduroy trousers, and yellow calfskin boots. His hat, his mature build, his stormy booming voice , and the flailing of his enormous arms filled the bedroom. His eyelids were swollen with sleep; they hadn’t even given him time to wash his face. As soon as they received Don Higinio’s message, Doña Lucía threw him out into the street. “I haven’t had a chance to eat breakfast!” he exclaimed. She approached the patient and, gently, beneath the blankets, examined his stomach. Her iron fingers moved from side to side, tapping, pressing… “Does it hurt here?” she would say, “and here?… and now?” Don Higinio would affirm as much as deny; at times he seemed perplexed and stared at the ceiling, as if the subtle explanation and answer to what was happening inside him lay there. Doña Emilia, her sister, and Carmen, with Higinín in her arms, surrounded the bed, stunned and pale. “I think,” Don Higinio suggested timidly, because the doctor’s fingers were hurting him badly, “that this is an attack of rheumatism. ” “And why do you think that? ” “Well… as you know, I’m a chronic rheumatic…” Hernández fell silent; he seemed to have another opinion. “Let’s see,” he murmured, as if talking to himself, “let’s see…” Doña Emilia sighed, crossing her hands: “Oh! Do you think it’s serious?” ” I don’t know, my lady; I don’t know yet; but I hope to find out; my fingers must tell me something…” Suddenly, his bronze hunter’s face lit up with the clarity of a discovery; but instantly that light disappeared, and what had been a moment of intense joy changed into shadows of worry and tragedy. This second gesture acquired such manifest and decisive authority that Doña Emilia, first, and then Teresita, burst into tears. Doña Emilia cried out: “What is it, my dear Don Gregorio, what is that?… Speak up, for the love of your children; speak up!” The doctor replied, absorbed and solemn: “The case is not hopeless, but it is serious. Why use euphemisms? Very serious!” He crossed his arms, his chin buried in the bow of his tie, his eyebrows furrowed. He questioned Perea: “You have a heart condition, don’t you? ” “Here! What’s the point of that question? Haven’t you always known?” There was another pause. Hernández murmured: “Very serious… very serious…” Don Higinio, a little uneasy, watched his friend, thinking: “What nonsense is this ostrich about to say!” The doctor seemed to have difficulty making up his mind to speak. Without a doubt, his words were going to be terrifying. At last he made up his mind: “I wish these ladies would leave us alone for a moment.” The three women simultaneously burst into screams and sobs, forming a deafening uproar. Fortunately, Don Higinio, imperiously waving his short, heroic right hand, silenced them. “Do me the holy favor of being quiet. Otherwise, you’ll force me to throw you out of here.” And, turning to Hernández amiably: “But let’s see; don’t you think, like me, that it’s a bit of rheumatism? ” “No, sir. ” “No?” “No, sir: unfortunately, it isn’t like that. If you weren’t Higinio Perea, you would speak differently; but you are a man, a real man, calm and brave… Do you understand? A man who can hear everything! ” The women remained trembling, mouths agape; in their dilated eyes, curiosity dried up their tears. Perea was also beginning to grow alarmed; the mystery and fear with which Don Gregorio’s diagnosis surrounded everyone was overwhelming, and there was such silence in the room that one could have heard a spider’s spin. The doctor’s face and gestures took on a prophetic expression: “My friend Don Higinio, in this underworld, as I remember telling you many times, everything comes at a price.” Perea wanted to joke: “Everything? Don’t exaggerate! Remember your student debts!” But Hernández remained serious; as serious as he had ever been in his life. “Everything comes at a price!” he insisted sibyllinely; “and so, he who sowed good things will reap prosperity, and he who was wicked will reap only storms and sorrows at the end of his life. ” And after a pause: “The latter has happened to you, dear friend. You are very good, we know… very noble! But your youth was turbulent; you used and squandered the precious energies of youth without calculation, and now the sad moment has come to pay for those follies. You believe these pains are rheumatic; you are completely mistaken. Those pangs that, as you rightly say, seem like tears… something as if they were tearing you open from the inside… right?… come from another cause. ” “From what?” No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find the milestone or destination his interlocutor was getting at. Hernández continued: “You’ve forgotten that your adventures left an indelible mark on your body; You don’t remember that you have a bullet inside you and you don’t know that old wounds, when we reach a certain age, are usually fatal… The hero of La Grande Jatte shuddered; in those moments of sincerity, the doctor’s words produced the brutal sensation of a jet of cold water on his back. “What do you mean? ” “I mean,” replied Don Gregorio with a slowness full of authority, “that if I didn’t know the story of the bullet wound, I would be inclined to believe that your illness was simply a very acute attack of visceral rheumatism. It is a type of rheumatism very common in heart patients. ” Don Higinio, waving both arms in the air, began to affirm with resolute vehemence: “Ah, well, don’t doubt it! Don’t doubt it!… What I have is visceral rheumatism! ” “Why? ” “What, why?… Here!” “Because yes!… Because my father and my grandfather and all my ancestors were rheumatic… and they gave me their rheumatism as their last name. Nothing more, nothing less!” “You’re mistaken, friend Perea.” With the stubbornness of the doctor, Don Higinio was beginning to get irritated: “But why couldn’t it be rheumatism?” Hernández, in turn, gave a terrible voice. “And why couldn’t it be the bullet, which, finally detached from the bone where it was lodged, now descending obeying gravity, causes you those pains you complain of? Give me at least one reason against what I say: why couldn’t it be the bullet?” ” Just as the cowardly and pessimistic human complexion, by virtue of its very pettiness and mischief, is always inclined to believe the worst, from the very beginning, Doña Emilia, like Teresita and Carmen, placed their trust in Don Gregorio’s opinion; And they had scarcely heard that the Dutchman’s vengeful bullet was the cause of the persistent pain afflicting the head of the family when they threw themselves into each other’s arms, dissolving into tears, sobs, and furious imprecations. Doña Emilia, especially, had inflections of voice, fiery glances , and gestures worthy of Greek tragedy. Forgetting the meekness to which her habit seemed to oblige her, she bit her fists and stamped her feet as if there, beneath her feet, were the Italian woman from the Hotel des Alpes. He remembered her portrait, torn and burned in the garden; he saw her among furs, proud of her enticing beauty, half-naked, and this increased his anger. “The bitches!” he roared. The great she-wolves, scoundrels, vicious and shameless, who, not content with their husbands, stand up to married men!… He’s dead!… And what about me?… He’ll have fallen headlong into hell and will burn there for eternity. The very wicked woman!… Putting two men face to face so they can kill each other!… What does God—May the Virgin of Carmen forgive me!—do that a lightning bolt doesn’t split the hearts of those wicked women?… She was about to continue her fervent tirade when her husband, curtly and harshly, cut her short and reduced her to silence. “Either you keep quiet, but keep quiet at all, or you go. Choose!” The three mourners reported, and although they continued weeping, Sincere tears neither flow nor are wiped away at will; they did so with such fearful slowness and restraint that they were inaudible. The hero’s face reflected deep concern: he was certain he was suffering from an attack of rheumatism; but the doctor affirmed that those pains were caused by the bullet in its downward movement, and, truly, accepting the story of his encounter with the Dutchman, there was no scientific reason to reject what Don Gregorio said. Perea acknowledged that both explanations, his own and Hernández’s, balanced each other. Then, gravely, he looked at his friend. “Well,” he said, “supposing you’re right, what do you think we should do?” Don Gregorio had a gesture of indecision that the patient was quick to dispel; with him one could talk about anything: he was “a man.” “I know,” replied the doctor, “I know; therefore, I will express my opinion without hesitation.” Friend Perea, the situation you find yourself in is extremely difficult: you must be operated on. “Operate on me?” repeated Don Higinio, who, despite his undeniable courage, had felt his cheeks turn pale. “Yes, sir. ” “Operate on what? Where? ” “Oh! Nothing could be simpler: cut open your belly and remove the bullet.” These words so stunned and suspended the women’s spirits that, as if by magic, their crying ceased. There was a prolonged and absolute silence. Don Higinio, not knowing what to do, lit a cigarette; one moment he was frightened, the other he felt like laughing, or the suffering imposed some ridiculous expression on his face. Hernández had begun to present a terrible diagnosis. “Didn’t you tell me that the Dutchman was a tall man? ” “Yes, sir.” —Taller than me, perhaps?… The patient noticed that his wife, his daughter, and his sister-in-law were staring at him fixedly, desperately, urging him to remember carefully, to not forget or neglect any detail. His eyebrows furrowed, as if aiding his memory with that movement. —No, I don’t think so,— he declared with the parsimony of someone who measures and weighs his words carefully; —Mr. Ruch would be like you. Don Gregorio replied: —I thought so, I don’t know why. Well, then; the bullet that a man of my height fired at you, upon penetrating below the xiphoid process, which is where the bullet’s entry wound is, would follow a downward line, until it struck the spine or dorsal column, at the level of the tenth vertebra. The doctor’s big hands traced geometric figures in the air. —You see? The bullet enters here and continues downward… The women nodded; Don Gregorio was right: his explanation was succinct and conclusive. What science!… They thought they were seeing the bullet… Hernández continued: “Now I need to know if your convalescence was quick.” Don Higinio, stunned, dragged by the force of the situation he found himself in, declared: “Yes, quick… I don’t remember exactly… So many years have passed! But, yes… it certainly didn’t last long. ” “About fifteen days? ” “That’s right: a couple of weeks, or less; let’s calculate twelve days…” His wife intervened in that apparently very interesting arrangement of dates: “I know that when you were in Paris you went exactly eighteen days without writing to me. Wouldn’t that be the length of your illness?” Don Higinio made an ambiguous face. “It’s the same thing,” interrupted Don Gregorio; “five days more or less don’t change what I’m going to say. ” The bullet, which had it ruptured any loop of intestine would have caused peritonitis and immediate death, undoubtedly pierced the peritoneum and the abdominal cavity, without injuring any of the large vessels of the celiac trunk or other major organs. We must attribute to this truly miraculous coincidence the rapid healing of the wound. Now, as the years have passed, you know that living bodies have a marked tendency to discard all foreign objects. there could be in them, and so the books record numerous cases of individuals who, having swallowed a needle, for example, long afterward found it in a leg or foot. This is what has happened here: the eliminative action, very slow but certain, of the bone, on the one hand, and on the other, some movement or effort that you have made, managed to expel the projectile from the kind of cell or alveolus that it itself, when sinking into the spine, had formed. At this moment, the bullet, obeying the law of gravity, is descending, and it does so by tearing every fiber, ligament, and tissue it finds in its path; perhaps it reaches the duodenum, part of the small intestine attached to the posterior part of the abdomen, and the mesentery… Those pains in your kidneys that you feel indicate the trajectory the projectile follows. If there were a blackboard here, I would paint it; This, in surgery, is a kind of cliché, something that is seen… Although completely defeated under the terrible coalition formed by his own lie and the irritating ignorance of the doctor, the unfortunate Don Higinio still dared to insinuate: “What if the bullet had remained quiet and this were nothing more than rheumatism?… Pardon my insistence, but I…” Hernández, with that special fanaticism that doctors display in the defense of their opinions, did not let him finish. “No, sir, it is not rheumatism,” he shouted; “I assure you it is not rheumatism. I do not deny the existence of rheumatic pleuritis and peritonitis, caused by the direct action of the specific toxic substance, or perhaps by rheumatic pericarditis. Your abdomen is inflamed, and it could happen that this inflammation has been transmitted from the pericardium to the pleura and from there to the peritoneum, in which case the ailment would be reduced, in the last analysis, to gastric catarrh.” This explanation is the immediate one, the simplest, if not the only one, in the case of a man who had not been wounded; but let us not forget that you have a bullet inside you, and that this piece of lead, considering certain symptoms that are more likely to be felt by the doctor than explained, has undoubtedly just slipped out of the anterior surface of the body of the vertebra where it had been trapped for twelve or fifteen years, and it does so by suspending the terrible danger of peritonitis over your life. He discoursed at length and with a pedantic abundance that, despite its obscurity, both amazed and distressed his audience. Listening to him, Don Higinio thought sarcastically: “You’re brilliant, if you’re always right like this!” Once again, Don Gregorio begged the ladies to leave; he needed to speak with the patient alone for a moment. They withdrew with stealthy steps, one after another, their heads bowed on their chests and a handkerchief soaked in tears beneath their noses. As soon as Teresita, who was last, closed the door, Hernández settled himself at the edge of the bed, his voice and face reflecting intense paternal emotion. “Are you suffering a lot?” he asked. “Quite a bit. The pain starts here behind me, at the level of my hips, and reaches all the way to the instep.” Don Higinio touched the breadth of his hard, round abdomen. “It’s swollen,” he repeated; “it’s undeniable that I’m swollen. ” “We’re headed straight for peritonitis… ” Perea made a gesture of tiredness and disdain. Don Gregorio insisted: “You’ll call me a pest; but I’m obliged to tell you what my good friendship and loyal knowledge advise me: we’re headed straight for peritonitis. Do you want it more clearly? Very well; you need surgery immediately.” If I don’t inspire enough confidence in you, let’s call another doctor, or several doctors, and I’m sure they’ll say the same thing: that you must have the operation before the swelling of the tissues makes any surgical action impossible. The main difficulty, know this once and for all, is that to survive an operation like this it’s essential to be chloroformed, and you can’t take chloroform because you have a heart condition. Don Higinio looked at the ceiling; he seemed calm, as if he didn’t measure anything. Well, the terrible dilemma in which Don Gregorio’s science placed him. Hernández added: “I invite you to meditate on this; but immediately, since the extreme risk of the situation allows each minute to have for us the importance of an hour. To you, who have exposed your skin so many times, death cannot frighten you; that is why I speak thus: the moment has arrived, dear friend, to risk your life on a card; or, assuming the worst, to choose between two deaths: sweet, gentle, totally unconscious, one of them, that of chloroform; terrible, desperate, full of indescribable convulsions, the other, that of peritonitis. Without hesitation, I would choose the first. By chloroforming, you always have legitimate hopes of saving yourself; on the other hand, by allowing the swelling to take its course, you are headed for a fatal outcome.” What do we do then?… The hero of La Grande Jatte scratched his head, stroked his mustache, rubbed his nose, and rolled his noble blue eyes. Then, majestically, with the reflective slowness of a man who, sensing his approaching end, is preparing to make a will, he replied: “Dear Don Gregorio, my situation is too difficult to be resolved suddenly; I have many unfinished businesses; I also have many dear affections that tie me to life and make it pleasant. Dying is nothing… nothing!… a blink of an eye and it’s over. But what about the rest? How do you say goodbye to everything you put your heart into?… Let me think…, organize my thoughts…, speak with my conscience… Eh? Is that okay with you?… I’ll let you know tomorrow… ” The tone with which these apt remarks were delivered contained a hint of irony and good humor. And he added: “Now, provisionally, to alleviate the stomach pains a little, what do you advise?” Don Gregorio recommended that she apply hourly warm poultices of linseed flour, seasoned with drops of laudanum, to her stomach. “It’s best,” he said, “because laudanum doesn’t cure, but it soothes, and linseed is a good emollient. Try not to move and remain on your back as much as possible; this way we’ll slow the forward movement of the bullet. For food, nothing but milk and, if necessary, a little broth…” As soon as Hernández left, Doña Emilia, Carmen, and Teresita reappeared; they wanted to know what the doctor had said, and Don Higinio, both to satisfy that affectionate request and to be left in peace, informed them of everything in detail. They, standing in front of the bed, listened to him silently, their imploring eyes, filled with tears, fixed on him. The hero also asked for the linseed meal poultices prescribed for him, and after receiving the first one, almost burning, on his stomach, he begged to be left alone. In the dim light of the bedroom, barely surrounded by silence, Don Higinio Perea felt a new and extravagant restlessness easing within him . It was something like a bad feeling. He was quite certain that all this peritonitis stuff Don Gregorio had explained with garrulous phraseology was, quite simply, a complete and formidable nonsense. However, the doctor’s opinion worried him; it seemed as if his opinion was a real threat, a true, tangible danger that lived outside of him and could harm him; an enemy force against which he might need to wield his will. At dusk, Doña Emilia and Teresita entered the bedroom, and their Carmen robes made an unpleasant impression on Perea, suggesting to him the emotion of being very ill. The two sisters were returning from Don Gregorio’s house after speaking with him. They discussed their conversation; Hernández, whom they had caught studying Don Higinio’s wound on an anatomical atlas, had reiterated the absolute necessity and urgency of the operation; Doña Lucía shared the same opinion. When they suddenly interrupted each other, the gentleman from the Hotel des Alpes, who had been listening attentively, asked: “And you? What do you think?” Neither of them dared to answer, and they looked at each other in fear, as if entrusting each other with the task of speaking. It was the charitable indecision of those commissioned to remind a dying man of the opportunity to dictate his will. Finally, Doña Emilia, more resolute: “We believe,” she said, “that you should have an operation; the idea of having your stomach cut open horrifies me; I know your operation will cost me an illness… But your health depends on it!” Don Higinio shuddered again; a great chill ran through his limbs; that same chill that the doctor, upon leaving, had left in his conscience. A sinister halo surrounded him; he felt it growing around him, thickening, acquiring a palpable consistency, and he couldn’t help it. But was it that his wife and sister-in-law, the people who loved him most, infected by Hernández’s chatty and pedantic ignorance, were formally talking about exposing his intestines to the sun to extract an imaginary bullet? The paladin of La Grande Jatte, between the pains of his rheumatism and the memory of the deadly conspiracy that was closing in on him, could not close his eyes all night. Very early in the morning Don Gregorio went to see him. “How did you sleep?” “Quite badly, my friend,” Perea replied; “quite badly; worse than yesterday.” Indeed, he was pale, and his gray, overgrown beard made him look deplorably old. Don Gregorio, under the covers, felt his stomach, which he found to be harder and larger than the day before. “This,” he said, “is on the rise.” He took out a cigarette, changed the paper, and lit it with studied slowness, waiting for Don Higinio to reflect. Then: “Well?” What do we do? It’s impossible to beat around the bush: what have you decided about the operation?… The hero fixed his interlocutor with an indefinable look. “Don’t you think,” he murmured softly, “that salicylates are good for rheumatism ?… Also, on other occasions, I’ve taken iodide…” Hernández stood up indignantly, his noble and rough face expressing disdain. “My friend, I didn’t think you were so faint-hearted!… They say that age makes men effeminate, and it’s true. I see it in you. Treating a bullet wound with salicylates or iodide is the same as going hunting hares with a guitar. I’ve already stated my opinion and I won’t repeat it: you have to operate, okay?; you have to operate, otherwise you’ll die. Did you hear that correctly, did you understand that correctly?… Within eight days you’ll die raging like a dog. ” But, like that, like a dog!… Am I speaking clearly?… Now, do what you want! For my part, as long as you don’t change your mind, I consider my mission here concluded and I’m leaving. Having said this, he left furious, puffing and angry, ignoring the conciliatory voices with which Don Higinio called him; and at the tremendous slam of the door he made upon leaving, the pictures on the walls shook and the entire bedroom vibrated like a drum. Chapter 12. The afternoon passed without incident; Perea continued applying the linseed meal poultices and ordered some iodide to be brought to him. At nightfall, the apothecary came to visit him; his tall, pot-bellied, and sweet figure pleased the sick man, who was beginning to grow bored at being left so alone. Don Cándido apologized for being late; he hadn’t set foot outside for three days because his son had needed to go to Ciudad Real and the pharmacy couldn’t be left alone. —I knew from Don Gregorio that you were ill. What the hell! Who would have thought it, right? Don Higinio flinched: —What? Nothing, that… the bullet… You see! Such an old wound! And the danger, really, isn’t in the operation, but in the heart injury you suffer. Anyway, the case isn’t hopeless at all; you know that modern surgery performs miracles… real miracles! Perea didn’t reply; he was absorbed and as if petrified. Terrified, he returned to ask himself: “But, sir… what inevitable curse is hanging over me?” Julio Cenén soon arrived, wearing his very short trousers, his blue jacket, and his tiny, bird-like head, full of unconsciousness and mobility. “Hello, Don Higinio!… What’s up?… They’ve already told me, I found out last night… ” “What did you find out?” ” About the operation. When will it be?” ” I was just asking that,” exclaimed Don Cándido. The town clerk asked the pharmacist for some details. “So the bullet, it seems, has detached itself from the bone?” “That’s what Don Gregorio assures us.” “And there’s no doubt about it: a moment ago they were explaining it at the Casino. Gutiérrez maintained that the detachment of the bullet is due to an effort.” I then remembered the fire in Hanged Man Alley, when our friend here saved Evarista, the daughter of Matilda the Belted One, from the flames. “Eh, Perea?… Do you think I’m right? Wouldn’t that be the case then?” Don Higinio shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, genuinely heroically, regarding that afternoon when, throwing himself through a bonfire, he risked his life. “Perhaps…” he murmured. He wouldn’t have liked to answer in the affirmative; but what was he going to do?… Accepting the legend of the island of La Grande Jatte, why not establish connections between the Dutchman’s bullet and Evarista’s rescue ? One explained the other, and he couldn’t rebel against that logical interweaving of events; the lie launched one afternoon amid the joy of two glasses of cognac continued its triumphant course, and it was almost impossible to stop it; The opinion of the thousands of people who shared it had conferred irrevocable authority on it; it was a case of moral inertia, a kind of downward spiral that one man, Don Higinio Perea, was rolling down, propelled by the murderous opinions of many men. Don Cándido stood up: “Shall we go, friend Cenén? ” “As you wish. It’s eight o’clock: time for dinner.” They were already leaving when Notary Arribas and Gutiérrez arrived with two other friends. They had come from playing some carom at Don Justo’s inn . They all greeted Don Higinio effusively, and Perea knew how to thank them for their visit with courteous and well-combed words. The notary sat down: the distension of his abdomen, which forced him to lean back a lot, his labored breathing, and his large, wide-open eyes gave him the appearance of a frightened man. “When is the operation?” he exclaimed. “At the Casino they said it was tomorrow.” Don Higinio, who had already expected the question, assumed an expression of irreducible impassiveness. “I don’t know yet,” he said; “we’ll see. Tomorrow, of course, won’t be. ” “Are you suffering a lot? ” “Quite a bit. ” “Your kidneys, aren’t they?” Don Gregorio explained it to me last night. “Yes, my kidneys; and my stomach too; it’s swollen.” The notary, Gutiérrez, Julio Cenén, and Don Cándido were all making faces of perplexity and disgust. They all pitied Don Higinio, and some more, some less, felt remorse for having helped with their advice to get him to Paris. “But how the misfortune is coming!” —they said—, who would have believed such an old wound!… Distracted, carried away by his habit of lying, becoming more and more entangled in that fatal legend of heroism, whose prestige he guarded like a sacred fire, Perea replied with a sigh, resigned and sentimental: —These are things of men!… That night too, the hero of La Grande Jatte could not sleep. At times, his doubts were more stabbing and terrifying: he had fallen into a trap; he recognized that he was hounded by everyone and trapped in a dead end street. The loyal friends who came to visit him represented the collective opinion; the people who admired his courage wanted to know he was cured, so that for many years he would continue to serve as a source of glory, honor, and legitimate vanity to Serranillas. The crowd, at the same time good, curious, and cruel, needed to see the bullet, to watch from afar. before the operation, to hear from Don Gregorio’s authoritative lips the extraordinary disposition and volume of the great man’s reckless entrails. Evidently, this danger was imaginary; Don Higinio, with just a sincere word, could destroy the doctor’s dire diagnosis; but to do so, he needed to erase his history of bravery, that brief and ardent history maintained, at first, with lies, later affirmed by the heroic boasts of his adventurous heart. The lie had taken too deep root in the social conscience to be demolished without risk; fantasies, transformed by the work of time into reality, constitute compact, tenacious blocks of perfectly objective solidity. Now, scrutinizing his situation and finding himself threatened by the dramatic majesty of his work, Don Higinio Perea understood the implacable coalition formed against him by the thousands of sentiments born around him by the poetic heat of his lie. The most mortifying, because they were the most ridiculous, were the small details: those glances, those gestures of apparent sadness, those hypocritical half-sentences that for nearly twenty years were perfecting, honing, and clarifying the marvel of his deception. He remembered the false sighs with which he interrupted his wife’s peaceful sleep so many nights ; the comical scene of the burned portrait; the shameless display of newspapers, which, according to him, contained the details of his manliness, and in which Doña Lucía’s virtue stumbled inglorious ; his cynical passivity when Doña Emilia handed over two thousand reales of her savings to the wretch who one morning threatened to reveal his crime to the courts; the audacity, in short, with which, impiously mocking the most respectable beliefs, he allowed his wife and sister-in-law to wear the habit of Carmel for life and hear masses for the eternal repose of the Italian woman and the Dutchman… At present, all these details were turning against the vulgarity of his swollen and rheumatic belly like sword points. Unbeknownst to him, public opinion, by forcing him to undergo a useless and fatal operation, seemed to want to take barbaric revenge on his lie. How to avoid danger? How to free the life of the body without falling into ridicule, the death of the soul? How, without having his skin slashed, could his dignity be preserved intact? Don Higinio experienced the desperate anguish of a man who has fallen into a quagmire and feels himself slowly sinking. How could he call his wife and Teresita to tell them: “Take off those habits and don’t pray for the salvation of people who lived only in my spirit…”? How could he confess to Doña Lucía: “I have stolen your kisses; I do not deserve your esteem nor the honesty you sacrificed to me; be ashamed of myself; I have swindled you; I am not the gallant and swordsman you believed me to be…”? How, in short, could he drag back the scorn of public opinion, tearing his musketeer’s air from his brow and throwing it at the feet of the populace ? Was this suicidal sacrifice not more painful than death itself? The following day, throughout his morning, Don Higinio listened to the murmur of footsteps and the conversations of many people who had come to inquire about his health. Leopoldina’s lover had ordered that no one be allowed into his room ; he was beginning to fear that crowd, apparently interested in seeing him die. Nevertheless, he recognized several visitors by their voices, among them the priest Don Tomás Murillo, Pepe Fernández, Don Remigio the teacher, and Juan Pantaleón. The murmur of their conversations was the inquisitive, impatient, and bloodthirsty echo of the entire town, for whom Don Higinio’s operation was beginning to have the interest of a capital punishment. “It is they,” thought the hero, “the unemployed, the curious, those thirsty for barbaric emotions, who have come to inquire about the day of my execution…” In the afternoon his pains worsened, and he loudly called for a salicylate paper. Then, instantly relieved, he fell asleep. Upon awakening, he was surprised to see Doña Emilia and Teresita kneeling on either side of the bed. “What are you doing there?” They took the hero’s hands and, very slowly and lovingly, began to kiss them. According to what they said, they had been there for a long time. “We want,” Teresita murmured, “to ask you a favor; Emilia will tell you; I don’t dare… ” Doña Emilia interrupted her sister: “We’ll both tell him; it’s agreed upon. ” “Well… well… both of us!” And, almost at the same time, she fixed Perea’s eyes, imploring and wet with copious tears, on hers : “You must let the operation be carried out,” they stammered; “it’s necessary…” The sick man didn’t even have the strength to be frightened; Fainting, apathetic, he murmured: “But is it possible that you also believe that?” “We do; I believe it!” ” Why?” “Don Gregorio said it; everyone says it.” “But the thing is that Don Gregorio, who is not a celebrity, can be wrong; you know that making mistakes is his specialty… What if what I have is rheumatism?” Doña Emilia, without ceasing to kiss her husband’s hand, replied: “The thing is that Don Gregorio’s opinion is the same as that of everyone we’ve spoken to: the notary, Julio Cenén, Gutiérrez, Don Tomás… they think the same. There is no such thing as rheumatism. Don Cándido and his wife, when I went to buy the salicylates last night, exclaimed: ‘All this is nonsense and a waste of time; as long as Higinio doesn’t resolve to have the bullet removed, he’ll go from bad to worse.'” Perea stroked his mustache slowly, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, motionless, impassive, with the sad gravity of a prisoner hearing his sentence read. “That’s what Don Cándido thinks!” he murmured. Drinking back her tears, Doña Emilia continued: “We, on behalf of everyone, have come to beg you to decide to have the operation. Don’t be afraid, my Higinio, don’t be afraid. God will want to save your life; we have prayed a lot for you and we will continue praying day and night until we see you healthy and happy. You will be brave, won’t you? We will all be by your side. Don Gregorio and Don Cándido say that a swollen abdomen is the beginning of peritonitis, and that if it increases, it will be impossible to cure you and you will die of rage. To die! For God’s sake!” “I don’t want to see you die!… Let me die a thousand times first, I pray to the Virgin!” The torrent of her tears broke out in such a way that she couldn’t continue speaking. She buried her face in the bed and, exhausted, sank back onto her heels; her poor shoulders trembled, convulsed with pain. Teresita, her afflicted and humble eyes fixed on her brother-in-law, repeated: “Higinio… you see… you need to make up your mind…; you haven’t been bad, God won’t abandon you…” At that moment, Carmen appeared; her mother raised her head. “Have you written to your brothers?” she asked. “No, why?… Until we know what Papa has decided…” She approached him and kissed him many times on his cheeks and forehead. —Yes, Daddy… And she continued kissing him: —My dear Daddy, brave Daddy… you need to have the operation… The victor of La Grande Jatte felt a grim, colossal, indescribable anguish; the same anguish that Julius Caesar would have experienced when Brutus, his son, raised his knife against him. At first, he believed that only his friends at the Casino wanted to see him operate, and he wasn’t afraid. “My family,” he reflected, “cannot tolerate such nonsense, and the sacrifice, even if I adopt an attitude of heroic passivity, will not be carried out.” The bastard hadn’t imagined that the terrible invading force of public opinion would penetrate his home and, quickly, one by one, win over everyone . Now it was his sister-in-law, his wife, his daughter, who were on their knees asking for his death. The tragic lie, elaborately concocted, matured at length over the years, suddenly flowered, and its fruits promised to be bloody. “The opinion is killing me,” he thought. Then, as his thoughts coalesced in the grim agitation of his spirit, he began to recognize the admirable way his invention had taken shape and gained substantive validity. Leopoldina’s husband, that Mr. Ruch whom he had so insulted and grossly vilified in the eyes of an entire people, now, suddenly, seemed to rise from his grave on the island of the Seine to demand a cruel accounting of his actions and words. Oh, miracle!… Just as men, when they die, transform into ideas and memories, is it true that, in the same way, superstitions, intensely experienced, become reality?… So the objective does not exist without us?… So the nominalists, disciples of Abelard, are right?… “It is the Dutchman, my enemy,” Don Higinio repeated, “who finally defeats me, and the stab I said I gave him in the heart, he inflicts on me in the stomach with Don Gregorio’s scalpel.” Perea let out a cry of rage; his energies rose; he did not want to die!… and beneath his mustache, his lips opened, trembling, livid, ready to declare the truth. But at that very instant, his pride and his courage reacted, and he said nothing. The three women had stood up with great vehemence and pride, believing that, at last, the sick man had acceded to their prayers. Don Higinio remained motionless, his eyes half-closed, meditating. His Greek spirit, his noble soul enamored of beauty, thought: “Dying doesn’t matter if you die well…” Suddenly, his wide blue pupils lit up; beneath the eyelids that had just risen with sudden joy, divine illusion was reborn. Science could still save him; science, represented by a few learned doctors, would understand that his illness was rheumatic and would not allow the infamy of slicing open his stomach, like a pig’s, to be consummated, and thus, despite everything, he would save his reputation. Honor and life depended on this. “I’ll let myself be operated on,” he said; “but since I don’t trust Don Gregorio, I need a medical board.” You can, of course, notify Don Salvador López, who lives in Almodóvar, and Dr. Regatos, in Ciudad Real, and another one, if you wish… Tell them to come immediately, because the case is urgent, and I will do whatever they decide.” And he added, hopeful and cheerful: “Now, for now, give me another linseed plaster and let me sleep.” When he was alone, he experienced a satisfaction so deep and exalted that it made him laugh. That meeting of doctors would cost him no less than two thousand five hundred to three thousand pesetas; but weren’t life and honor worth much more?… Dr. Regatos, especially, one of the most notable physicians in the province, could not be as mistaken as Don Gregorio; the wise doctor would recognize him, see that he was a chronic arthritic , and, convinced that the Dutchman’s bullet had not moved, would cure him in such a way that neither his life nor his skin would suffer any damage. In the afternoon, Don Higinio received a visit from the priest. Poor Don Tomás was already very old, and against the threadbare blackness of his slouch, his livid head, in which not a single globule of blood seemed to remain, had a melancholy tremor of old age. “I thought,” he said upon entering, “that you were being operated on today. When he learned that there would be a meeting of doctors, he seemed delighted; before launching into a serious operation, it was always prudent to hear the opinion of good professors.” His sweet, indulgent, caressing voice, with its prayerful monotony, produced in the hero a Christian laxity, a kind of gentle and humble indifference toward everything. When the priest rose to leave, Don Higinio shook his hand with optimistic rudeness. “Still,” he exclaimed, “I don’t think I’ll die; besides, I know that a moment of contrition is enough to wash away the sins of a lifetime. ” “That’s right, as you say,” replied Murillo. But death often strikes us without warning, which is why we must always carry the soul as clean as our carnal weakness allows. Don Higinio spent the following day lamenting, and at dusk his pains intensified with such fury that it was necessary to give him a morphine injection. At night, his sons Anselmo and Joaquín arrived from Ciudad Real, who had been terribly shocked by their father’s sudden illness and seriousness. Don Higinio, in his sleep, heard them turning around the bed, discussing in low voices what they should do, and the words “operation,” “bullet,” and “peritonitis” constantly resonated in his ears. Don Gregorio’s name was also stubbornly repeated, like the leitmotif of that nightmare. Drowsy from the morphine, the patient could not speak, but although in a confused manner, he understood almost everything. A woman’s silent footsteps whispered in the stillness of the bedroom, and the rustle of skirts on the floor and the barely perceptible sound of careful hands opening or closing the bedroom door. The next morning, Doña Emilia received a telegram from Dr. Regatos, announcing his arrival the following evening. Anselmo and Joaquín were outraged; celebrities like slowness because it’s theatrical; they should find another doctor. But Don Higinio was absolutely against it: he could wait; despite the acknowledged seriousness of his condition, he was fine and he was in no hurry. Teresita approached her brother-in-law and with great mystery: “There’s Gasparito, he wants to see you. ” “Oh!… Gasparito?… Well, let Gasparito come in!” And she smiled, considering her situation with the boy whose paternity they attributed to her. Doña Emilia and her children discreetly withdrew ; Their good souls, deep down, sympathized with the bastard’s pain. Gasparito approached his godfather, whom he hadn’t seen for many months , and with all unction and respect kissed his hand. His gypsy eyes, black, large, and luminous, bore fresh traces of tears. “I heard about the operation in Manzanares,” he said, “and I wanted to see you first. ” “In case I died, right?” “Godfather… it’s not like you’re going to die! God forbid ! But, come on, opening a man’s stomach is always serious.
” “And your mother? ” “She’s fine, thank you. It was she, the poor old woman, who gave me the news; and he has offered two candles to Saint Anthony, which will burn until you are cured and we see you again on the street… Two candles!… As if the habits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel worn by Doña Emilia and Teresita weren’t enough!… But by what strange association did heaven also rise up against Don Higinio? Then, Perea, noticing Gasparito, so handsome, so picturesque, with his bronze skin, the ebony of his wings and the great grace of his agile and vibrant body, mused: “Where did people get the idea that this boy is my son?…” After a few moments of conversation, Gasparito asked permission to leave. “Well, godfather; I have things to do in Manzanares; but I’m not leaving here until I know what the doctors have to say about you. ” “Thank you, man.” “I already know that Don Salvador, the doctor from Almodóvar, and the one from Argamasilla, Don Fidel Aranda, have come; The only one missing is Dr. Regatos, who will arrive tomorrow. Don Higinio was surprised; he, despite his sick condition, was less informed than Señora Indalecia’s son. But what prodigious echoic conditions do towns have that everything, even the most secret, resonates and is immediately made public? Gasparito hadn’t been mistaken; the doctors from Argamasilla and Almodóvar had, indeed, been in Serranillas for several hours. The two of them, as soon as they set foot at the station, without warning each other and docile to the spirit of solidarity, headed for Hernández’s house. They needed information about the case they were going to diagnose and wanted to know the opinion of the family doctor. When they arrived at the house Don Gregorio and his wife, who had just finished lunch, invited them to coffee. Don Higinio’s illness served as the after-dinner conversation piece. Both Don Fidel Aranda and Don Salvador had known, from ancient times, the story of the duel between Perea and a Dutchman on an island in the Seine, and this helped them quickly reach an agreement. They were two dark, eclectic little minds, incapable of engaging in a discussion. “Well, then,” exclaimed Don Gregorio, “we don’t need to talk much; the bullet, which, according to my calculations, remained embedded for years and years in the body of the tenth vertebra, has detached itself and is tearing apart the abdominal membranes. ” Don Fidel Aranda nodded: “Perfectly.” And Don Salvador López: “It’s clear…” Don Gregorio continued: “The bullet entered below the xiphoid process, probably without touching it, and since the assailant was a very tall man, the projectile continued in a downward plane in our friend’s abdomen. Fortunately, it didn’t rupture any loop of intestine, and so, in less than two weeks, the wound closed. You will soon recognize him. In my opinion, dear companions, poor Perea is threatened with peritonitis; he says he’s suffering from an attack of visceral rheumatism, but it seems to me he’s not being sincere; the truth is, he’s afraid of surgery.” Don Salvador asked: “Is he a cardiac patient, perhaps? ” “That’s the difficulty; yes, sir; he is a cardiac patient. Perea is a man who has greatly abused his heart and is dying from it.” Doña Lucía, present at the conversation, muttered a long sigh filled with memories. Her husband continued: “Consequently, the dilemma before us is a very delicate one.” The patient can neither take chloroform, nor , in my humble opinion, can he avoid surgery. His life, as you see, is suspended between two fatal outcomes: either he dies of peritonitis, or he dies of heart disease… Both Don Fidel Aranda and Don Salvador López made slow, grave affirmative gestures, finding all the reasons given by their colleague for the diagnosis crystal clear. It was the criminal solidarity of many doctors who abstain from seriously defending the life of a patient so as not to contradict themselves. Unhappy Don Higinio! From that moment on, neither Don Salvador nor Don Fidel would know how to use their science; they would not see, they would not hear; Don Gregorio’s words, saving them the trouble of personally forming an opinion, would weigh inexorably on their senses like a bandage. Everyone seemed delighted to have reached an agreement so quickly. “We’ll see,” Don Fidel observed, “what Dr. Regatos has to say tomorrow, although I’m sure he’ll have nothing to add or subtract from what our colleague said.” When they finished their coffee, they left for the Casino, very wrapped up warmly, because it was cold. During the journey, Don Salvador López expressed a doubt: “Will you perform the operation, Don Gregorio? ” “Well… it’s only logical, since I’m the family doctor; but I’m planning to assign my rights to Dr. Regatos, and I don’t think anyone would mind. ” Don Fidel Aranda gravely confirmed: “No, sir, on the contrary; we all know how much Dr. Regatos is worth. ” Don Salvador López added, measuredly: “You’ve thought very well, my friend Hernández; you are the right person.” The following afternoon, Don Gregorio Hernández, Don Fidel, and Don Salvador went to the station to greet Dr. Regatos, who was coming from Ciudad Real on the 7:43 train. Indeed, he arrived. He was a man in his fifties, tall and slender, very neat and personable, and not very talkative, which gave him that importance that silence instills in everything, even the most trivial. Stiff, stiff, thoughtful, behind his gold glasses, he looked like a good provincial gentleman having his picture taken. Don Gregorio, who knew him, introduced him to his companions, and together the four of them went to Perea’s house. The people, Seeing them pass, he commented: “They are the doctors who are going to operate on Don Higinio…” As they crossed the plaza, Pepe Fernández came out to meet them; Don Gregorio introduced him to his colleagues. The modest editor of El Faro looked respectfully at the eminent doctor from Ciudad Real, whose seriousness and impressive stature imposed themselves on everyone. He took out the latest issue of his newspaper. “Here I am speaking of you… ” Don Fidel and Don Salvador, very grateful, hastened to read aloud : “One of these days, our great friend Don Higinio Perea, one of the most conspicuous figures in the province, will undergo abdominal surgery. The operation will probably be directed by the distinguished doctor Don Servando Regatos, a glory of contemporary science, and the distinguished physicians Messrs. Hernández, Aranda, and López. We will wholeheartedly celebrate the speedy recovery of the illustrious patient.” The eyebrows of the professor from Ciudad Real trembled slightly with approval, and Pepe Fernández, satisfied, took his leave. Dr. Regatos had heard of Perea on several occasions as one of the wealthiest men in Serranillas, but he was ignorant of the details of his life. He asked his colleagues for some details regarding the patient’s constitution, habits, idiosyncrasies, and pathological history. “I know nothing,” he exclaimed; “I’ve come in the dark; I only believe that it will be essential to operate on that gentleman…” Don Gregorio took the floor and, with his usual vehemence and harshness of voice , began his diagnosis. He barely mentioned Perea’s gouty or arthritic parents , before moving on to Don Higinio’s chaotic life in Paris. He described with astonishing vividness of imagination the fight on the island of La Grande Jatte, the Dutchman’s corpulence, the attitude Don Higinio must have been in when he was wounded, and every time he paused to breathe, Don Salvador López and Don Fidel Aranda nodded in approval, and Dr. Regatos, hermetic and decorative, murmured: “Perfectly; go on…” Hernández spoke of how the bullet, undoubtedly as a result of some effort, had been dislodged from the bone where it had been lodged, and of the extremely serious lacerations, followed by swelling and terrible pain, that its descent caused. Then he explained Don Higinio’s pericarditis : this was the worst of it; if they operated on him, how could they cut open his abdomen without giving him chloroform? And if they chloroformed him, wouldn’t that mean risking killing him by stopping his heart?… Like an echo of public opinion, of the imbecile and lazy public opinion that rarely bothers to examine the falsity or accuracy of what it hears, Dr. Regatos repeated: “Perfectly; very well; go on…” This light conversation was enough for his conscience: when the four doctors arrived at Perea’s home, the famous professor from Ciudad Real was as convinced as Hernández himself that Don Higinio had a bullet in his body. On the one hand, the suggestion of the resounding, unanimous opinion of his colleagues, without the slightest room for doubt, and on the other, his professional pride, his vanity, and also his interest in performing an operation that would increase his fame, and which , due to both his own merit and the importance of the patient, would surely be reported in the newspapers, were the motives that strengthened his spirit with the inexorable conviction and resolution to open Don Higinio’s abdomen. Upon seeing them appear, the hero of La Grande Jatte felt a great relief. The opinion that condemned him to death might, for sentimental reasons, cloud the good judgment of his wife and children; but in no way would it cloud the profound, even-tempered, and lofty discourse of science; science is not so easily mistaken, nor does the inane gossip of the common people reach it. Immediately the four professors set about examining the sick man. He was placed in a supine position and with a A pillow under his loins to clearly highlight his swollen belly. More light was brought in: Doña Emilia, Teresita, Anselmo, Joaquín, Carmen, and her husband were there, forming a throbbing, anxious half-circle around the bed. Dr. Regatos began the examination: his agile fingers, at intervals, sank into the hero’s round, almost caricature-like abdomen. Perea complained, and at times his suffering was so acute that he had to bite the pillow to keep from bursting into wails. “Does it hurt here? ” “Yes, sir. ” “And here? ” “Too. ” “And here?… Huh?… It must hurt you much more here. ” “Oh!… Yes, sir… Oh!… Much more!” The torture had bathed his forehead in sweat; but he remained silent, always sustained by his beautiful desire to be well. Dr. Regatos, continuing to press his stomach with one hand, placed the other on his sacrum. Perea cried out; rheumatism seemed to tear his insides apart; he was about to speak… Dr. Regatos left him, and with a stethoscope, slowly listened to his heart. Everyone was silent. The patient looked around in terror , amazed at the pallor of the faces, so motionless and bloodless that they were almost lost in the vast whiteness of the wall. It was a scene from an Inquisition or a hospital. “I think,” thought the hero, “that Rembrandt painted something like that…” Don Gregorio gestured to the scar that Perea had inflicted on his chest with a piece of glass as a boy. It appeared at the level of the xiphoid cartilage and depicted a kind of white cleft beneath the thick gray hair that covered his thorax. “There we have the bullet’s entry wound.” Dr. Regatos replied curtly, annoyed by the futility of the observation: “I’ve already seen it.” He leaned closer to get a better look and made a strange movement. “Is this the wound? ” “Yes, sir.” The professor from Ciudad Real seemed very surprised. “This isn’t a bullet wound.” He took off his glasses, which he carefully cleaned with his handkerchief; he put them back on; the light shone in his eyes, and he had to contract his eyelids to see. Don Fidel and Don Salvador, greatly astonished, looked at Hernández. At that moment, Don Higinio’s extravagant and bizarre spirit reacted: he, who shortly before had been doomed to tell the truth, had felt the terror of having his lie exposed. In the eyes of his wife, his sister-in-law, his children, and his son-in-law, he thought he saw a reflection of doubt, a hesitation that surrounded the hope that everything would be resolved satisfactorily, and suddenly, as the worst conflicts are resolved in melodramas, within that illusion, a gentle contempt also seemed to throb. For the second time, the hero’s temples broke out in sweat; not because of the softening of fear, but rather because of the heightened exaltation of his pride. He would rather die a thousand times than confess. Without giving Regatos time to form an opinion, he exclaimed: “Yes, doctor; our friend Hernández spoke correctly; that’s the bullet scar.” The patient’s testimony was so incontrovertible that Regatos didn’t know what to argue. He immediately changed his mind; his hesitations became clear; no doubt because of his position, facing the light, he hadn’t seen well… His fingers, however, suspiciously touched and rubbed the scar. He was searching for an explanation. “The revolver,” he said, “would be of a very small caliber.” Don Higinio replied: “Truly, I don’t know… I don’t remember… But, yes; it was undoubtedly small. ” This detail diminished the importance of his adventure somewhat; but he needed to give something in order to place himself in that middle ground where the real and the fantastic blend; and above all, he couldn’t have forced Mr. Ruch to shoot him with a service revolver. “The bullet,” he added, “according to the opinion of the doctor who attended me, was very thin; its diameter would be half that of a cigarette.” _susini_. Almost nothing!… And so much time has passed since then!… Seeing Dr. Regatos’s conviction, his calm was restored. Once again he dominated the situation; he was the protagonist, the hero. But wasn’t this success going to cost him dearly?… He trembled again. Now he measured the abyss that public opinion had placed beneath his feet; it was the same one where Luisa Soucy, the chambermaid at the Hotel des Alpes, had met her death. “The volume of the bullet,” Regatos declared, taking off his glasses, “does not significantly influence the course of the disease: the important thing is that it exists.” Hernández, who, while renouncing the glory of the operation, wanted to claim all the credit for the diagnosis, took advantage of the moment of silence that followed these words to say: “The line followed by the bullet is conclusive…” “Perfectly clear,” replied the professor from Ciudad Real. “A descending line, with perforation of the peritoneum…” “That’s it. ” “And of the muscles that make up the abdominal girdle.” —Very well. —Until it stopped at the body of the tenth vertebra. —Exactly. —Then, detachment of the bullet, followed by dilacerations, general swelling, impaired kidney function… —Exactly, agreed. Don Gregorio Hernández could not repress a satisfied smile that mortified Don Fidel and Don Salvador, jealous at that moment of the triumph achieved by the doctor from Serranillas. —I am glad, —exclaimed Don Gregorio, —that a comrade as eminent as you shares my opinion. No one spoke. Don Higinio was stunned, not knowing what to say; he seemed to be dreaming and he even wondered if his encounter with the Dutchman at the Hotel des Alpes might not be true. Why not? Facts are real when everyone believes in them and speaks about them. He wanted to say something but couldn’t. The ideas had fled from his head like frightened birds; his will, his memory, his thoughts were broken; one sought and did not recognize; never, within any conscience, had there been such a void. In the silence of the room, the suppressed cries of the women could be heard, like a whisper. Calmly, with authoritarian and cold slowness, Dr. Regatos, on whom all eyes were fixed, spoke, and his voice was cutting, implacable, like that of a prosecutor who rises to ask for a death penalty. “We must operate,” he said. And then, turning to Don Higinio, he confirmed: “We must operate on you.” Stupefied with fear, the hero of La Grande Jatte repeated: “I must have an operation… ” “Yes, sir… That is, of course, if you decide to do it, because, given your cardiac condition, I must not hide from you that the case is very serious.”
Don Higinio, whose pillow had just been removed from under his lower back during the examination, had sunk back into bed with his eyelids closed, stiff and white, like a corpse in its coffin. After the moments he deemed necessary for the patient to calm down had passed, Dr. Regatos asked: “So what do we do?” Perea didn’t answer. Don Gregorio’s thunderous voice repeated the question: “Shall we operate? It takes courage, you bastards!” And then, in a joking tone: “This is truly a tough pill to swallow.” But the hero didn’t move; if he hadn’t been breathing, they would have thought him dead. In turn, Doña Emilia sobbed to him, “Higinio… can’t you hear me?” Anselmo and Joaquín approached, a little disturbed by that silence that seemed like a fainting spell: “Dad… Dad… listen… what’s wrong?” Don Fidel and Don Salvador sat the patient up, and Hernández gave him a little orange blossom water to drink. Don Higinio opened his eyes. “Are you better?” Regatos asked. “Yes, yes…” “Was it dizziness, wasn’t it?” “Yes, dizziness; it’s over now…” He looked around and remembered everything, and that perennial desire for beauty and heroism that burned within him helped him recover . “Forgive me,” he murmured. “You said that if I had an operation, right?” “Good; then…, tomorrow I will answer you…; tomorrow…, I need to think…, now I can’t…” And again, faint, exhausted, he closed his eyelids. As he left, Dr. Regatos called Doña Emilia and his children: “As the patient’s response,” he said, “will undoubtedly be affirmative, it is best that everything be ready for the operation tonight. Here my colleagues will tell you what must be done; I, with everyone’s permission, am going to sleep.” Don Higinio, as soon as he realized that the doctors had left, called his wife, and with great and tender love he embraced and kissed her. “You can go to bed,” he said, “sleep peacefully; tonight I don’t need anything… My poor Emilia!… Tomorrow at this time, probably, I won’t need anything either…” He had a terrible, suffocating desire to cry and confess his childish lie: once, twice, many times… he went to do it; But the pride that makes Satan invincible, the pride that resists death, always prevented him. No, he wouldn’t speak! Even if they broke his bones with pliers or ripped out his entrails with sludgy forceps, he wouldn’t speak! Doña Emilia tried to rub him with alcohol, but he refused; a salicylate slip was enough. She asked: “I’ve heard that El Faro is talking about me, is it true? Give it to me.” He read the insert announcing his operation, impassive. Over the years, the most culminating events of his humble life had been reported in that newspaper: his trip to Paris, his return… “My obituary,” he thought, “will also appear in it.” Then he looked at his wife. “I want you to rest; go to bed. I’m very tired and I want to sleep. Sleep!” What Perea felt was an enormous need to be alone with himself. Within his soul, his faculties and his passions were engaged in a bitter discussion, and their attitudes were so different and emphatic that the unfortunate man heard distinctly everything each was saying. His imagination was excited and subdued, livid with terror, under the accusatory gesture of his conscience, which asked: “Imbecile, what did you do? Damned rattlesnake, don’t you understand that we’re going to die because of you?” And reason added: “The sad moment has arrived to become vulgar by speaking the truth.” But immediately, suffocating this voice of sanity, pride, vanity, and arrogance, the three great demonic impulses of the soul, rose in a unanimous cry of rebellion: “We mustn’t give in. Why give in, when the bitterness of death would be less bitter than the shame of the truth?” Don Higinio felt isolated; more isolated, lonely, and detached from everything than ever; His lie had spread and permeated reality to such an extent that it ceased to be an abstraction and a dream and transformed into history, and, growing in stature, spoke through the countless tongues of opinion and became science as well. The objective world does not exist while there is no subject capable of knowing it, just as the sun does not exist for those born blind; and thus, truths are not truths as long as no one believes in them. For this very reason, it was necessary to admit that the gallant from the Hotel des Alpes had been shot, since thousands of people first, and later his family, and more recently science, had confirmed it. It is clear that he alone could do more than all of them put together, and if he agreed to acknowledge and proclaim his lie, it would be easy for him to radically change his situation; but was his life worth such a sacrifice?… As soon as he recounted his adventure with Mr. Ruch, he ceased to be Don Higinio Perea and became another man: that adventurous type that his valiant heart, from the moment it began to beat, had carried within him. Now then: was it fair that the first character, prudish, amorphous and vulgar, should prevail over the second, full of relief and color? … “If I confess my deception,” he thought, “I will live without honor and in perpetual ridicule; if I remain silent, no one will doubt me, because there are not many men capable of carrying their vanity so far, and if the bullet does not appear, the public will attribute it, not to my invention, but to ineptitude. of my operators who failed to discover it.” Only the marvel of death can perform before public opinion the sleight of hand of transforming the ridiculous into triumph, admiration, and immortality. No, I wouldn’t speak! He who, for aesthetic reasons, for so many years, maintained the eminent prestige of his valor intact, would never cast the disgrace of a cowardly gesture upon the gallantry of his legend. A heroic death is enough to dignify the life most filled with fainthearted surrenders and renunciations; and likewise, a soldier, no matter how many crosses he wears on his chest, dishonors them all if he went to his death trembling: such is the august majesty of that instant, that it alone is enough to issue definitive deeds of temerity or cowardice. As in a sonnet the last verse, so in the life of every man the last gesture must be the best. No; the hero of La Grande Jatte wouldn’t speak! Although great pain is resistant to lies, and this is the effectiveness of torture in extracting, even from the strongest characters, the truth they refuse to tell, the admirable Don Higinio felt capable of facing the supreme danger without opening his lips. He would give what little he was for how much he would have liked to be, and his fall would equal in arrogant beauty that of a gladiator. At the last moment, the warrior and artistic blood of the Alcañiz family triumphed. Did he not belong to that noble lineage that surely counted more than one ancestor killed in the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre? Yes; he was brave; now he saw it clearly, and this certainty soothed and restored him with the sublime sap of satisfied pride. Lucanus opening his veins or Socrates drinking hemlock were less great than he voluntarily taking chloroform. He would succumb beautifully, adored, revered, envied by many, perhaps; and as he closed his eyelids, he would try to make the terrible anesthetic leave a smile on his lips. In his case, what noble Knight Templar would have been capable of going further?… Hardly had this resolution taken root in his mind when he felt himself possessed by a deep, juicy, and soothing equanimity. The doubts that had tormented him until then dispersed like dry leaves swept away by a great gust of wind, and the hours of life that still remained to him formed, in the eyes of his conscience, a kind of short road, smooth, straight, and glorious. Perea’s soul looked around him: his business was proceeding prosperously; his will was made; consequently, nothing unfinished remained behind him. To die! Bah!… No man after reaching the age of fifty, especially if he is suffering from heart disease, should fear death!… Certainly, he was mortified by the idea of parting so soon from those who were dear to him; But that moment lasted only seconds. Don Higinio remembered when he had said goodbye to all his family to leave for Paris. Death would be something like that. Nothing… He thought of Doña Emilia and Doña Lucía, the only two women who had loved him selflessly; he thought of his children, now grown men, on whom he would leave an indelible impression of heroism; of Higinín, his grandson, who would learn his grandfather’s bizarre and gallant story at his mother’s knee… He also remembered Don Gregorio, Don Cándido, Gutiérrez, Julio Cenén, the notary Arribas, Don Tomás, Juan Pantaleón… all those hundreds of people, in short, who, had they known the truth, would have scorned him. And what about Dr. Regatos? And Don Fidel? And Don Salvador?… A reckless irony passed through Don Higinio’s spirit, whom the idea of dying was ennobling. He thought: “How can I make fun of them!” The next morning, in the presence of his family and the four doctors who were assisting him, he calmly declared that he wanted to be operated on. They asked him if he wanted to confess and receive the Last Sacraments, and he replied in the negative. He only had one whim: “If I die,” he said, “I ask that my body be wrapped in a flag.” French. The serenity of her eyes and the disdainful sweetness of her words and smiles surprised everyone. She didn’t even complain of pain. She seemed like a different man. Only a certain unusual pallor in her cheeks betrayed the existence of some strong and arcane emotion. Dr. Regatos arranged for the dining room table, which was large and solid, to be moved to the bedroom, where there was plenty of light, and covered with a sheet to serve as the basis for the operation. Don Higinio, from his bed, observed everything: he saw the buckets where her blood was to be collected, the long iodine-based bandages, and the packets of absorbent cotton sent by Don Cándido. He also saw the bottle of chloroform, that admirable combination of chlorine and methylene chloride with which a pious man, Simpson, defeated pain in a single battle ; and the steely gleam of the scalpels, the forceps used to stop the bleeding from the arteries, and the needles and platinum threads with which the edges of his wound would later be closed. The hero watched everything and seemed neither surprised nor afraid. The doctors had dressed in long, spotless white aprons. Hernández was in charge of administering the chloroform; Don Fidel and Don Salvador would assist Dr. Regatos, handing him the supplies he would need during the operation. Since the morning was cold, they brought a large brazier. Dr. Regatos had said, “It’s advisable to keep the room fairly warm.” Don Higinio, indifferent to everything, was smoking a cigarette. Dr. Regatos urged him not to smoke; it was necessary for the atmosphere to be as clean as possible. Perea smiled and ignored them. “It seems to me,” he said, “that of all of us here, I am the most serene.” His pulse, indeed, was calm. He heard the street bell ring and wanted to know who had rung. They answered: “It’s the postman. ” “Do you have something for me?” he replied. “Why don’t you give it to me?” The bystanders looked at him, astonished, terrified, and moved at the same time by such openness of heart. Teresita, who had gone to carry out the hero’s order, returned with a copy of Le Journal. Don Higinio was moved, and for the first time, in the hours of that exemplary morning, tears appeared in his eyes. Le Journal! He loved that newspaper, which he had never read: Le Journal was Paris, Leopoldina, the hotel in the Alps with its drunken interpreter and its noisy bustle of travelers; it was the best page of his youth, innocent and comical. And one of those deep sighs that mourning memory draws from men rose to his lips. Dona Emilia appeared carrying a card, which she handed to the hero. Don Higinio read: “Luis Berain. Engineer.” “Oh, what a coincidence!” he exclaimed. “The Belgian engineer I was expecting. Let him in right away!” A man between thirty-five and forty entered the bedroom. He was a corpulent, plump man with blue eyes, a pearly complexion, and golden hair. His enormous hands, his very broad chest, and his constricted neck were those of an athlete. In nasal, incoherent, and picturesque Spanish, he greeted Perea: he knew nothing; he had just gotten off the train; he had come directly from Brussels and was in a daze, five days of travel! His trunks had been left at the station… He examined the doctors, noticed the white-covered table under the bright light of the window, and understood. He looked at Don Higinio: “Sick? ” “Yes.” “Is he having an operation?” ” Yes.” —A belly, perhaps?… —Yes, yes… —Ah!… Pitiful!… To be nothing, nothing… Nevertheless, pitiful… Oh! Truly, very pitiful!… He spoke with a certain elegant phlegm; he wore gold glasses and his white, peaceful right hand stopped every moment in perplexity over the magnificence of a biblical beard. Don Higinio watched him out of the corner of his eye, thinking: “Lord, how this man resembles the Dutchman!” He was certain that he was not, because the imaginary Mr. Ruch of Hotel in the Alps, after all the years that had passed since then, he would already be old; but the Belgian engineer resembled the Dutchman extraordinarily, which troubled Don Higinio and stirred tremors of fear in his valiant spirit. Wasn’t this like his past, suddenly returning to him to see him die?… Doctor Regatos looked at his watch; it was ten o’clock. “It would be advisable,” he said, “for the family to leave; here, except for my three companions, there should be no one. ” As best he could, since his rheumatism had almost robbed him of movement, Don Higinio Perea sat up in bed. He understood that the moment of his death had arrived and he wanted to say goodbye to everyone. “First,” he exclaimed, “let as many people as there are in the house who wish to see me come; without distinction of class, I want to say ‘goodbye’ to all of them…” He spoke slowly, with the majesty of a great king. Around him were his three children, Doña Emilia and his sister; Dona Lucía, the doctors, the Belgian engineer; then the servants arrived, and almost at the same time, at the door, appeared the handsome bronze head of Gasparito, who did not dare to enter. Don Higinio called to him: “Come, Gasparito; you also have the right to give me a hug…” The boy approached his godfather and kissed him, weeping. Then, very quietly, putting his lips in his ear so that no one could hear him: “My mother is on the street; give me your blessing for her…” And he sobbed. “Take her away,” replied Don Higinio, moved. He looked at everyone: his legitimate children, his bastard, his wife, his lover— everything an adventurous man can gather around him at the hour of death—was there. The last moments of the hero of La Grande Jatte had a patriarchal solemnity. In his energetic, sweet eyes, there was a lesson. They seemed to say: “This is how one dies.” Then, addressing the doctors, the voice impassive: “Gentlemen, whenever you wish…” Don Higinio died during the operation; he died of chloroform, peacefully, without a grimace, and in this way his womb, which was never desecrated, kept its mystery. At two o’clock in the afternoon of the following day, the entire town attended the burial of the great man. His friends, his servants, his sharecroppers, the three hundred workers who worked in the mine, lined up behind the hearse. No one was missing; not even Higinín, the hero’s grandson, whom Don Gregorio led by the hand. As they passed in front of the Arribas notary’s office, romantic hands—a woman’s hands, no doubt— played Mozart’s Funeral March on the pianola, whose voice had the poetic virtue of saddening the hero. Many eyes filled with tears. The procession continued on and reached the common. In the laughing vastness of the autumn landscape, that mournful demonstration painted a long black brushstroke, sad as a trail of ink on a green tapestry. Monsieur Luis Berain, the Belgian engineer, had joined the procession. At his side, very downcast, was Julio Cenén. The two men didn’t know each other, but they spoke. “Poor Mr. Perea!… Still a young man!… What did he die of?” “A gunshot wound. ” “What?… Oh?” ”Yes, it’s a story; it was given to him in a challenge for a woman… ” “Oh?… Interesting… interesting! ” Delighted to be able to show off, the secretary grabbed his interlocutor’s arm: “Didn’t you know that?… I’ll tell you. Higinio Perea was a brave man; Once in Paris… Behind the corpse, triumphant, immortal, like gold dust, flew the legend… Thus concludes ‘The Opinion of Others’, a story that leaves us thinking about the invisible chains we forge with the fear of the judgment of others. Eduardo Zamacois has led us by the hand along a path where personal decisions collide with the walls of social convenience. Thank you for joining us on this literary journey. Don’t forget to subscribe to Ahora de Cuentos for more stories that, like this one, invite us to look beyond appearances and question the true value of other people’s opinions.
Descubre la fascinante historia de *La Opinión Ajena*, escrita por el renombrado autor Eduardo Zamacois. Este relato, lleno de emociones y reflexiones profundas, te transportará a una época donde las apariencias y las opiniones de los demás dictaban el curso de las vidas. 🕰️📚
**Sinopsis:**
– La historia gira en torno a un hombre cuya vida está dominada por el miedo a la opinión ajena. 👤💔
– A medida que avanza la trama, el protagonista se enfrenta a dilemas morales y sociales que lo llevan a cuestionar sus decisiones y su propia felicidad. 🤔⚖️
– Con un final inesperado, Zamacois nos invita a reflexionar sobre la importancia de vivir auténticamente, sin dejarnos llevar por las expectativas de los demás. 🌟🔍
**¿Por qué ver este video?**
– **Narración envolvente:** Una voz cautivadora que te sumerge en la historia. 🎙️🎧
– **Análisis profundo:** Descubre los temas ocultos y los mensajes clave de la obra. 🧠📖
– **Ilustraciones únicas:** Visuales que complementan la narrativa y enriquecen la experiencia. 🎨🖼️
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-📖✨ La Opinión Ajena de Eduardo Zamacois | Un Relato Profundo y Conmovedor 🎭❤️[https://youtu.be/TPSbgBNkWTM]
-Incesto: novela original de Eduardo Zamacois 📖💔[https://youtu.be/xdJaZmBZh3Y]
-Napoleón en Chamartín 📖🔥 ¡Intriga histórica en España![https://youtu.be/niCNpeJXx9k]
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