Torquemada en la hoguera 🔥 | Benito Pérez Galdós 👑 | Historia de la Inquisición Española 🕯️
Welcome to Torquemada at the Bonfire by Benito Pérez Galdós, a work that takes us to the heart of 15th century Spain, a time of great religious and political tension. In this story, Galdós presents us with a unique protagonist, the inquisitor Torquemada, whose historical figure is known for his toughness and religious fervor. Throughout this work, we will see how his decisions and his vision of the world confront the contradictions of reality, while morality and fanaticism intertwine in a heartbreaking way. Join us on this intense literary journey. TORQUEMADA AT THE BONFIRE. Chapter 1. I am going to tell how the inhuman who consumed so many unhappy lives in flames went to the burner; that some had their livers pierced with a hot iron; He put others in a well-cooked casserole, and the rest he roasted in parts; over a slow fire, with elaborate and methodical viciousness. I am going to tell how the fierce executioner became a victim; how the hatred he provoked turned to pity, and the clouds of curses cast rains of pity upon him; Pathetic case, very exemplary case, gentlemen, worthy of being told for the teaching of all, a warning to the condemned and a lesson to the inquisitors. My friends already know, from what I felt like telling them about him, Mr. Francisco Torquemada, whom some unpublished historians of these times call _Torquemada the Worst_. Woe to my good readers if they know the implacable stoker of lives and estates for dealings of another kind, not so without malice, not so disinterested as these innocent relationships between narrator and reader! Because if they have had something to do with him in something more important; If they have gone to ask for help in the tantrums of financial agony, it would be better for them to entrust themselves to God and let themselves die. Torquemada is the author of that hell in which debtors die naked and fried; men of more needs than possible; employees with more children than salary; others eager for payroll after a long layoff; soldiers transferred residence, with family and mother-in-law in addition; characters with a weak spirit, possessors of a good destiny, but, with the worminess of a little woman who gives tea and pawns money to buy pasta; weeping widows who collect from the civil or military Montepío and find themselves in a thousand troubles; diverse subjects who cannot solve the arithmetic problem on which social existence is based, and others who are very lost, very lacking, very unscrewed in the head or low in morals, cheats and liars. Well, all of these, the good and the bad, the unfortunate and the scoundrel, each one by his own art, but always with his blood and his bones, amassed for the dirty Torquemada a fortune that many who already shine in Madrid, very stretched of their gloves, wearing new clothes in all seasons, and asking, as one who asks nothing: “Say, how are the funds today?” The year of the Revolution, Torquemada bought a corridor house on San Blas Street, leading to La Leche Street; very used property, with twenty-four small rooms, which provided, discounting inevitable insolvencies, repairs, contributions, etc. , an income of 1,300 reales per month, equivalent to seven or seven and a half percent of the capital. Every Sunday my Don Francisco appeared there to do the collection, the receipts in one hand, in the other the cane with a deer antler handle ; and the poor tenants who had the misfortune of not being able to be punctual, were walking around since Saturday afternoon with their stomachs upset, because the stern face, the iron character of the owner, did not agree with the idea we have of the holiday, the Lord’s day, all rest and joy. The year of the Restoration, Torquemada had already doubled the money with which he took the _gloriosa_, and the radical political change provided him with nice loans and advances. New situation, fresh payrolls, healthy payments, clean business. The brand new governors who had to buy clothes, the various officials who came out of obscurity, starving, made it a good August. The entire era of the conservatives was regular; like what These gave him play with the splendors of domination, and the liberals also with their unsatisfied desires and needs. Upon entering the government, in 1881, those who had not tasted it for so long, Torquemada was on the rise again: loans of the fine, advances of the fat, and we are living. In short, he was already eyeing another house, not a broker’s house, but a good neighborhood one, almost new, well equipped for modest tenants, and that if it didn’t rent more than three and a half for everything, throwing in its administration and collections instead would not give the headaches of the tired Sunday estate. Everything was going smoothly for that ferocious ant, when suddenly the sky afflicted him with tremendous misfortune: his wife died. Forgive me, my readers, if I give you the news without adequate preparation, because I know that you appreciated Doña Silvia, as did all of us who had the honor of treating her, and knew her excellent clothes and circumstances. She died of miserere colic, and I have to say, to the applause of Torquemada, that the expense of a doctor and apothecary was not omitted to save the poor lady’s life. This loss was a cruel blow for Don Francisco, because having lived the marriage in holy and laborious peace for more than four decades, the characters of both spouses had merged in a perfect way, becoming another him, and him as a cipher and recasting of both. Doña Silvia not only governed the house with masterful economy, but also advised her relative in difficult businesses, helping him with her knowledge and experience for the loan. She defending the penny at home so that it would not go to the street, and he sweeping inside to bring back everything that happened, they formed a marriage without waste, a couple that could serve as a model for how many ants there are under the earth and above it. Torquemada was the _Worst_, the first days of his widowhood, without knowing what was happening to him, doubting that he could survive his expensive half. He turned yellower than he usually was, and some gray hair appeared in his hair and goatee. But time did its job as it always does, sweetening the bitter, smoothing the harshness of life with insensitive teeth, and although the memory of his wife was not extinguished in the soul of the usurer, the pain had to calm down; The days were slowly losing their funereal sadness; The sun cleared from the soul, illuminating once again the varied numerical combinations that were in it; Business distracted the bored businessman, and after two years Torquemada seemed consoled; But, understand it well and repeat it in your honor, without any damn desire to remarry. Two children remained: Rufinita, whose name is not new to my friends; and Valentinito, who is now coming out for the first time. Between the ages of one and the other we find ten years of difference, since my Doña Silvia had all the intermediate offspring die more or less prematurely, leaving only the first and the last. At the time of what I am going to relate, Rufinita had turned twenty-two, and Valentín was almost twelve. And to show the good fortune of that animal of Don Francisco, his two children were, each in their own way, true jewels, or like blessings from God that rained down on him to console him in his loneliness. Rufina had taken all of her mother’s domestic skills , and ruled the home almost as well as she did. Of course, she did not have the high business acumen, nor the consummate backroom knowledge, nor the sharp eye, nor other moral and olfactory aptitudes of that distinguished matron; but in formality, in honest composure and good looks, no girl her age could beat her. She was not conceited, nor was she careless in her person; She could not be called unconcerned, nor unsociable. Coquettishness, they never met in it. She had only one boyfriend from the age at which she wanted to until the days when she was introduced; who, after much wandering and sighing, showing by a thousand means the rectitude of his purposes, was admitted into the house in the last days of Doña Silvia, and continued later, with the father’s consent, in the same honorable and loving habit. He was a _medicine boy_, a boy in every sense of the word, since he lifted the least from the ground that a man can lift; studious, innocent, beautiful and from La Mancha. From the fourth year those chaste relationships began; and in the days of this story, with the degree already concluded and Quevedito, as it was called, launched into the practice of the faculty, it was time to get married. The _Peor_ satisfied with the girl’s choice, he praised her discretion, her contempt for vain appearances, to pay attention only to what is solid and practical. Well, I say, if we turn our eyes from Rufina to the tender offspring of Torquemada, we will find a better explanation of the vanity that his offspring instilled in him, because I say it sincerely, I have not known a cuter creature than that Valentin, nor precocity as extraordinary as his. Stranger thing! Despite the resemblance to his unfriendly father, he was the most handsome little boy, with such an expression of intelligence on that face that one was left speechless looking at him; with such charms in his person and character, and traits of conduct so superior to his age, that seeing him, speaking to him, and loving him deeply, was all one. And what a bewitching gravity theirs is, not incompatible with the restlessness of childhood! What grace mixed with I don’t know what poise inexplicable to his years! What a divine ray in his eyes sometimes, and other times what mysterious and sweet sadness! He had a slim body, his legs were thin, but in good shape; the head larger than normal, with some deformity in the skull. As for her aptitude for study, let us call it a true prodigy, the amazement of the school, and the pride and glory of the teachers. I will talk about this later. I only have to affirm now that the _Peor_ did not deserve such a jewel, that he had to deserve it! and that if he were a man capable of praising God for the good things with which he had graced him, the wise man would have reasons to spend, like Moses, so many hours with his arms raised to heaven. He did not lift them, because he knew that none of the figs he liked would fall from the sky. Chapter 2. Let’s move on to something else: Torquemada was not one of those usurers who spend their lives multiplying wealth for the platonic pleasure of possessing it; who live sordidly so as not to spend them, and when they die, they would like to either take them with them to the earth, or hide them where a living soul cannot find them. No: D. Francisco would have been like that in another era; but it could not exempt itself from the influence of this second half of the 19th century, which has almost made a religion of the decent materialities of existence. Those old-fashioned misers, who sought wealth and lived like beggars and died like dogs on a bed full of fleas and banknotes stuffed in the straw, were the mystics or metaphysicians of usury; his selfishness was subtle in the pure idea of the business; They adored the most holy, the ineffable quantity, sacrificing to it their material existence, the needs of the body and life, as the mystic postpones everything to the absorbing idea of saving himself. Living the _Peor_ in a time that began with the confiscation, he suffered, without understanding it, the metamorphosis that has denatured metaphysical usury, turning it into a positivist, and although it is true, as history attests, that from 51 to 68, his true period of learning, he was very poorly dressed and with the affectation of poverty, his face and hands unwashed, scratching his arms and legs at every moment as if he were misery, the greasy hat, the frayed cape; Although it is also recorded in the neighborhood chronicles that in her house she ate meals almost all year round, and that the lady went out to her business with a holey scarf and her husband’s old boots , it is no less true that, around 70, the house was already on another footing; that my Doña Silvia became very nice on certain days; that Don Francisco changed his shirt more than once a fortnight; that in the food there was less mutton than beef, and on Sundays a little offal of chicken was added to the stew ; that that of beans on all grass and some days dry bread and raw sausage, was going down in history; that he contra stew appeared on certain dates, at night, and also fish, especially in soft weather, which were cheap; that veal chops and pig’s head, salted at home by Torquemada himself, who was a famous salter, began on that table ; that, in short, and in order not to get tiring, the entire family began to treat each other as God intended. Well, in Doña Silvia’s last years, the transformation became more accentuated. Around that time the family tried spring mattresses; Torquemada began to wear a fifty-real top hat; I enjoyed two capes, one very good, with red capes; The children were doing well; Rufina had a look-at-me, don’t-touch-me sink, with a basin and a blue glass jug, which was never used so as not to damage it; Doña Silvia decked herself out in a fur coat that looked like a rabbit’s, and left everyone on Tudescos Street and Calle del Perro cross-eyed when she went out with the _visitor_ adorned with beads; In short, that step by step and with a clean nudge, they had been getting into the middle class, into our good-natured middle class, all their needs and pretensions, and that it is growing so, so much, oh pain! that we are running out of town. Well, sir, Doña Silvia explodes, and with Rufina taking the reins of the government of the house, the metamorphosis is much more marked. To new reigns , new beginnings. Comparing the small with the large and the private with the public, I will say that that seemed to me like the entrance of the liberals, with their little bit of revolutionary sense in what they do and say. Torquemada represented the conservative idea; but he compromised, because he was not going to compromise! bending to the logic of the times. He wore a clean shirt every half week; with the abandonment of layer number two for daytime, relegating it to night service; with the absolute banishment of fungus number three, which could no longer handle any more tallow; He accepted, without strong protest, the renewal of tablecloths during the week, the wine on grass, the lamb with peas in its season, the fine fish in Lent and the turkey at Christmas; tolerated new dishes for certain days; the braided jacket, which in him was a refinement of etiquette, and he had nothing to say about the modest finery of Rufina and her little brother, nor about the carpet in the study, nor about many other improvements that were smuggled into the house. And Don Francisco saw very soon that those news were good and that his daughter had a lot of talent, because… come on, it seemed like something from the other Thursday… my man went out into the street and felt, with the good clothes, more of a person than before; He even got better deals, more useful and exploitable friends. He stomped harder, coughed louder, spoke louder and dared to raise his voice in the café gathering, showing himself to have the courage to support any opinion, when before, no doubt due to his bad coat and his routine affectation of poverty, he was always of the opinion of others. Little by little he came to notice in himself the strengths of his social and financial capacity; It was played, and the sound warned him that he was an owner and a renter. But vanity never blinded him. A man of homogeneous, compact and hard composition, he could not be foolish enough to stretch his foot beyond the length of the sheet. In his character there was something resistant to the changes of form imposed by the time; and just as his way of speaking never changed, certain ideas and practices of the trade never changed. The mannerism of always saying that the times were very bad, but very bad, prevailed ; lamenting the disproportion between his miserable earnings and his hard work; That sweetness of diction persisted and that habit of asking about the family whenever he greeted someone, and saying that his health was not good, pouting with boredom with life. He already had a yellowish goatee, his mustache was more black than white, both of his facial features were so trimmed that they seemed attached rather than born there. Apart from the clothes, improved in quality, if not in the way of wearing them, he was the same one we met at Doña Lupe’s house _the one of the turkeys_; in his face the strange confusion of the military and the ecclesiastical, the bilious color, the black and somewhat dreamy eyes, the gesture and the manners expressing both effeminacy and hypocrisy, the sparser and cleaner bald head, and the whole crass, slippery and repulsive, always very quick, when greeted, to shake hands, certainly quite sweaty. He was so proud of Valentinito’s precocious intelligence that he couldn’t believe it. As the boy progressed in his studies, Don Francisco felt his paternal love grow, until it reached blind passion. In honor of the stingy, it must be said that, if he considered himself physically reproduced in that piece of his own nature, he felt the superiority of the son, and for this reason he was more pleased to have given him being. Because Valentinito was the prodigy of prodigies, an exalted shred of Divinity fallen to earth. And Torquemada, thinking about the future, about what his son would be if he lived, did not consider himself worthy of having begotten him, and he felt before him the ingenuous shortness of what is matter compared to what is spirit. In what I say about the unprecedented intellectual gifts of that creature, do not believe that there is the slightest exaggeration. I affirm with all naivety that the boy was the most wonderful that can be seen, and that he presented himself in the field of education like those extraordinary geniuses that are born from time to time destined to open new paths for humanity. In addition to intelligence, which at an early age emerged in him like the dawn of a splendid day, he possessed all the charms of childhood: sweetness, grace and kindness. In short, the little boy fell in love and it is not surprising that Don Francisco and his daughter were crazy about him. After the first years, it was never necessary to punish him, not even to reprimand him. He learned to read by miraculous art, in a few days, as if he had already learned it from his mother’s cloister. At five years old, he knew many things that other children learn with difficulty at twelve. One day two teachers friends of mine who have primary and secondary schools told me about him , they took me to see him, and I was amazed. I have never seen such precocity or such wonderful intelligence . Because if he gave some answers in a wonderful way, demonstrating the vigor and richness of his memory, in the tone with which he said others it was clear how he understood and appreciated the meaning. I knew Grammar by heart; but Geography dominated her like a man. Outside of school, it was astonishing to see the confidence of his responses and observations, without a hint of childish arrogance. Shy and discreet, he did not seem to understand that there was merit in the abilities he displayed, and he was amazed that they were so praised and applauded. They told me that there was very little to do at home. He studied the lessons with such speed and ease that he had plenty of time for his games, always very bland and innocent. They would not talk to him about going down to the street to mess with the neighborhood kids. His pranks were peaceful, and consisted, until he was five years old, of filling the paper in the rooms with puppets and letters or tearing off a piece of paper; in throwing a very long rope with the lid of a coffee pot from the balcony to the street , lowering it until it touches the hat of a passer-by, and then quickly picking it up. No child could beat obedient and humble , and because he had all the perfections, he even abused his clothes as little as possible. But his unprecedented faculties had not yet shown themselves: they began when he studied Arithmetic, and were revealed later in his secondary education. Already from his early years, upon receiving the elementary notions of the science of quantity, he added and subtracted high tens and even hundreds from memory. He calculated with infallible accuracy, and his father himself, who was an eagle at making, on the edge of his imagination, calculations by the rule of interest, consulted him not infrequently. When Valentín began the study of high school mathematics and suddenly revealed all the greatness of his arithmetic nomenclature, it was quite something. I didn’t learn the things, he already knew them, and the book did nothing but awaken his ideas, open them, let’s put it that way, as if they were buds that unfold into flowers in the spring heat. For him there was nothing difficult, no problem that caused him fear. One day the professor went to his father and said: “That child is something inexplicable, Mr. Torquemada: either he has the devil in his body, or he is the most beautiful piece of Divinity that has ever fallen on earth. Soon I won’t have anything to show you. It is Newton resurrected, Mr. D. Francisco; an exceptional organization for mathematics, a genius who undoubtedly brings new formulas under his arm to expand the field of science. Remember what I say: when this boy is a man, he will amaze and upset the world. How Torquemada was shocked when he heard this will be easily understood. He hugged the professor, and satisfaction overflowed from his eyes and mouth in the form of tears and drool. From that day on, the man had no sense of himself: he treated his son, not with love, but with a certain superstitious respect. He cared for him as if he were a supernatural being, placed in his hands by special privilege. He watched his meals, becoming very frightened if he did not show an appetite; When she saw him studying, she would look around the windows to keep out the air, she would find out the outside temperature before letting him out, to determine if she should put on a scarf, or a fat _carric_, or wellies; when he slept, he walked on tiptoe; I took him for a walk on Sundays, or to the theater; and if the little angel had shown a fondness for strange and expensive toys, Torquemada, having overcome his squalor, would have bought them for him. But the phenomenon showed no interest except in books: he read quickly and as if by magic, reading each page in the blink of an eye. His father bought him a travel book with lots of images of European cities and wild regions. The seriousness of the boy astonished all the friends of the house, and there were some who said of him that he looked like an old man. In matters of malice he was of exceptional purity : he did not learn any ugly saying or act from those that the shameless offspring of the present generation know at their age. His innocence and heavenly kindness almost allowed us to know the angels as if we had met them, and his reflection bordered on the marvelous. Other children, when asked what they want to be, answer that bishops or generals do stand out because of vanity; Those who crave physical dexterity say they are coachmen, athletes or circus clowns; those inclined to imitation, actors, painters… Valentinito, upon hearing the question, raised his shoulders and did not answer anything. At most, he would say “I don’t know,” and when he said it, he would fix his interlocutor with a luminous and penetrating look, a vague glimpse of the endless ideas he had in that brain, and which in their day would illuminate the entire earth. But the _Peor_, even recognizing that there was no career at the level of his miraculous child, thought of dedicating it to an engineer, because the legal profession is a thing for charlatans. Engineer; but of what? civil or military? He soon noticed that Valentin was not enthusiastic about the troops, and that, contrary to the general law of childhood hobbies, he viewed uniforms with indifference. Well, civil engineer. By order of the school teacher, Valentin was placed, before finishing his high school years, in the hands of a teacher of preparatory studies for special careers, who, after testing his colossal intelligence, was astonished, and one day he came out scared, with his hands on his head, and running in search of other teachers of higher mathematics, he told them: “I am going to present to you the monster of the present age.” And he introduced him, and they were amazed, because the boy went to the blackboard, and like someone who scribbles by messing around and using up chalk, he solved very difficult problems . Then he made different calculations and operations from memory, which even for the most expert are not a piece of cake. One of those great teachers, wanting to hurry him up, threw in the calculation of numerical radicals, and as if they had thrown in almonds. The _nth_ root was the same for him as it was for others to take a couple of jumps. The uncles Those so wise looked at each other absorbed, declaring that they had not seen a case even remotely similar. That picture was truly interesting, and worthy of appearing in the annals of science: four men over fifty years old, bald and half blind from studying so much, teachers of teachers, gathered in front of that brat who had to do his calculations in the lower part of the blackboard, and admiration had them mute and perplexed, since they could already give difficulties to the little angel, who drank them like water. Another of the examiners proposed _homologies_ believing that Valentin was outside of them; and when they saw that he was not, they could not contain their enthusiasm: one called him the Antichrist; Another took him in his arms and put him to the fight, and everyone disputed who would take him, eager to complete the education of the first mathematician of the century. Valentin looked at them without pride or courtesy, innocent and self-possessed , like Christ as a child among the doctors. Chapter 3. Enough of the mathematics, I say now, because I need to point out that Torquemada lived in the same house on Tudescos Street where we met him when Bringas went to see him to ask him, I don’t remember what favor, back in ’68; and I am in a hurry to introduce a certain subject that I have known for a long time, and that until now I have never mentioned at all: a Mr. José Bailón, who went every night to our Mr. Francisco’s house to play with him the game of checkers or mus, and whose intervention in my story is now necessary for it to develop logically. This Mr. Bailón is a clergyman who hanged himself in ’69, in Malaga, throwing himself into a revolutionary and free cultist movement with such furious ardor that he could no longer return to the fold, not even if he wanted to, would they admit him. The first thing the condemned man did was let his beard grow, rant in the clubs, write tremendous catilinaris against those of his profession, and, finally, operating _verbo et gladio,_ he threw himself at the barricades with an orange blunderbuss that had a mouth like a trumpet. Defeated and given to the demons, the Protestants catechized him, setting him up to preach and give lessons in the chapel, which he did very reluctantly and only for the sake of the dragging chickpea. He came to Madrid when that gentle couple, Don Horacio and Doña Malvina, set up their evangelical establishment in Chamberí. For a regular stipend, Bailón helped them in the services, giving bittersweet, bizarre and annoying sermons. But after a year of these dealings, I don’t know what happened… it was due to some apostolic daring of Bailón with the neophytes: the truth is that Doña Malvina, who was a very respected person, told him four fresh words in bad Spanish; Don Horacio intervened, also insulting his coadjutor, and then Bailón, who was a man of great skill for such cases, took out a knife as big as today and tomorrow, and let himself be told that if they did not get out of his way he would throw the tripe out of their way. The panic of the poor English was such that they began to run screaming and did not stop until they reached the roof. Summary: Bailón had to abandon that accommodation, and after rolling around with swords, he ended up at the editorial office of a very daring newspaper; like his mission was to throw fire at all authorities: the priests, the bishops and the Pope himself. This happened in ’73, and from that time date the current political pamphlets that the clerizonte published in the serial, and of which he made separate prints; nonsense written in biblical style, and which had, oddly enough, their days of success. They seemed to sell well, and they got their devilish author out of more than one trouble. But all that happened, the revolutionary fever, the pamphlets, and Bailón had to hide, shaving to disguise himself and be able to flee abroad. Two years later he appeared here again, with very long mustaches, augmented by part of his beard, like those worn by Victor Manuel; And whether or not he brought gossip and messages from the emigrants, they put their hands on him and kept him in the Saladero for three months. The following year, the case being dismissed, the man lived in Chamberí, and according to the neighborhood chatter, very biblical, dating a rich widow who had a herd of goats and also a dairy donkey establishment . I tell all this as it was told to me, recognizing that in this part of the patriarchal history of Bailón there is great darkness. What is public and well-known is that the widow was killed, and that Bailón appeared shortly after with money. The establishment and the donkeys and goats belonged to him. He rented everything; He went to live in the center of Madrid, dedicating himself to _English,_ and I do not need to say more to understand where his knowledge and dealings with Torquemada came from, because it is clear that this was his teacher, he initiated him into the mysteries of the trade, and managed part of his capital as he had managed those of Doña Lupe _la Magnifica,_ better known as _la de los turkeys_. Mr. José Bailón was a tall, athletic animal, with robust forms and very prominent features, a true and vivid anatomical study due to his muscular richness. Lately he had taken to shaving again ; but he didn’t have the face of a priest, nor a friar, nor a bullfighter. He was more of a spoiled Dante. A friend of mine, who for his sins has had to deal with Bailon, says that this is the living portrait of the Sibyl of Cumae, painted by Michelangelo, with the other sibyl ladies and the Prophets on the wonderful ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. She seems, in fact, like an old woman of a titanic race who carries all the heavenly wrath in her brow. Bailón’s profile, and his arm and leg, like aged trunks; His strong chest, and the postures he knew how to take, raising one leg and raising his arm, resembled those figures that walk on the ceilings of cathedrals, sprawled on a cloud. It’s a shame that it wasn’t fashionable for us to walk around naked, so that this cornice angel could show off in all her academic gallantry. At the time I present him now, he was over fifty years old. Torquemada esteemed him very much, because in his business relationships, Bailon displayed great formality and even delicacy. And since the renegade clergyman had such a varied and dramatic story, and he knew how to tell it with great abundance, adorning it with lies, Don Francisco was enthralled listening to him, and in all matters of a high order he had him as an oracle. Don José was one of those who, with four ideas and a few more words, managed to pretend that they knew what they did not know and to dazzle the ignorant without malice. The most dazzled was Don Francisco, and also the only mortal who read the dance pamphlets ten years after their publication; literature that was old almost at birth, and whose fleeting success we only understand by remembering that sentimental democracy, in the style of Jeremiah, also had its fifteenth century. Bailón wrote those nonsense in short paragraphs, and sometimes he broke with a very holy thing; for example: “Glory to God in the highest and peace”, etc… to then go through this record: “The times are approaching, times of redemption in which the Son of Man will be owner of the earth. »The Word deposited the divine seed eighteen centuries ago. In a dark night it came to fruition. Here are the flowers. »What are their names? The rights of the people.” And perhaps, when the reader was more careless, he would blurt out this: «Behold the tyrant. Damn it! »Apply your ears and tell me where that vague, confusing, strange rumor comes from. »Place your hand on the earth and tell me why it has trembled. »He is the son of Man who advances, determined to recover his birthright. »Why does the tyrant’s face turn pale? Ah! the tyrant sees that his hours are numbered…” Other times he began by saying: “Young soldier, where are you going?” And finally, after much dizziness, the reader was left without knowing where the little soldier was going, unless everyone, author and audience, went to Leganés. All this seemed like pearls to Don Francisco, a man of little reading. Some afternoons the two cheapskates would go for a walk together, talk that talks to you; and if in business Torquemada was the sibyl, in other types of knowledge there was no more sibyl than Mr. de Bailón. In politics, Above all, the former clergyman pretended to be very knowledgeable, beginning by saying that he no longer felt like conspiring; It was like he had the pot secured and he didn’t want to expose his skin to make the fat broth with four whistles. Then he painted all the politicians, from the highest to the darkest, as a bunch of scoundrels, and he gave them an account, to the penny, of how much they had looted… They also talked a lot about urban reforms, and since Bailón had been in Paris and London, he could compare. Public hygiene worried them both: the clergyman blamed everything on the miasmas, and formulated some biological theories that were what had to be heard. He also knew something about astronomy and music , he was not a layman in botany, nor in veterinary medicine, nor in the art of choosing melons. But in nothing did his encyclopedic knowledge shine as much as in matters of religion. His meditations and studies had allowed him to fathom the great and reckless problem of our total destiny. «Where do we end up when we die? Well, we are born again : this is clear as water. “I remember,” he said, staring at his friend and disturbing him with the solemn tone he gave to his words, “I remember having lived before now.” In my youth I have had a vague memory of that life, and now, by dint of meditation, I can see it clearly. I was a priest in Egypt, do you know? back in the years that I know how many… yes, sir, priest in Egypt. It seems to me that I am seeing myself in a cassock or saffron-colored clothing , and some like earmuffs that fell down the sides of my face. They burned me alive, because… you see… there was in that church, I mean, temple, a little priestess that I liked… very barbian, do you know?… and with eyes… like that, and a smack of her hips, Mr. D. Francisco…! Anyway, that got tangled, and the goddess Isis and the ox Apis took it very badly. All that clergy got into an uproar, and they burned the girl and me alive… What I’m telling you is true, just like that is the sun. Look closely, friend; stir in your memory; Search well in the basement and attics of your being, and you will find the certainty that you too have lived in distant times. Your child, that prodigy, must have previously been Newton himself, or Galileo, or Euclid. And as for other things, my ideas are very clear. Hell and heaven do not exist: symbolic potatoes and nothing more. Hell and heaven are here. Here we pay sooner or later for everything we have done; here we receive, if not today, tomorrow, our reward, if we deserve it, and whoever says tomorrow, says the century to come … God, oh! The idea of God has a lot of busilis… and to understand it you have to rack your brains, as I have racked them, over books, and then meditate. Well, God… making very big eyes and making with both hands the expressive gesture of covering a large space is Humanity, Humanity, do you know? which does not mean that it stops being personal… What is personal? Look closely. Personal is what you are. And the great Ensemble, friend Don Francisco, the great Ensemble… is one, because there is no more, and it has the attributes of an infinitely infinite being. We, as a whole, make up humanity: we are the atoms that form the great whole; We are a minimal part of God, a tiny part, and we renew ourselves as in our body the atoms of the filthy matter are renewed … Do you understand?… Torquemada did not understand it a little or a lot; but the other got into a labyrinth from which he only came out by keeping silent. The only thing that Don Francisco got out of all that nonsense was that _God is Humanity_, and that Humanity is the one that makes us pay for our misdeeds or rewards us for our good works. He didn’t understand the rest even if they hanged him. Torquemada’s Catholic sentiment had never been very strong. It is true that in Doña Silvia’s time the two of them went to mass, as a matter of routine; but nothing more. Well, after becoming a widower, the few ideas from the Catechism that _Peor_ kept in his mind, like useless papers or notes, he shuffled with all that chaos of the Humanity God, making a hell of a mess. To tell the truth, none of these theologies long occupied the imagination of the stingy, always attentive to the low reality of his business. But there came a day, or rather, a night when such ideas had to take possession of his mind with a certain tenacity, for what I am going to refer to right now. My man was entering his house at dusk one afternoon in the month of February, having evacuated a thousand errands with varying success, thinking about the steps he would take the next day, when his daughter, who opened the door for him, said these words to him: “Don’t be scared, dad, it’s nothing… Valentín has come home sick from school.” The troubles of the _monster_ put Don Francisco in great alarm. The one that was announced could be insignificant, like others. However , in Rufina’s voice there was a certain tremor, a veil, a strange timbre, which left Torquemada cold and in suspense. “I don’t think it’s a big deal,” the young lady continued. “It seems like she got faint.” The teacher was the one who brought him… in his arms.» The _Peor_ remained rooted in the reception, unable to say anything or take a step. “I put him to bed immediately, and sent a message to Quevedo to come and escape.” Don Francisco, coming out of his stupor as if he had been whipped , ran to the boy’s room, whom he saw in bed, with so much coat over him that he seemed suffocated. His face was flushed, his eyes sleepy. His stillness was more of painful drowsiness than peaceful sleep . The father applied his hand to the innocent monster’s temples, which were burning. –But that Quevedillo thing…. That’s how it will burst…. I don’t know what he’s thinking…. Look, it would be better to call another doctor who knows more. His daughter tried to reassure him; but he resisted consolation. That son was not just any son, and he could not get sick without the order of the universe being altered. The grieving father did not taste the food; He did nothing but walk around the house, waiting for the damned doctor, and incessantly went from his room to the child’s room, and from there to the dining room, where the blackboard on which Valentín drew his mathematical problems with chalk appeared before his eyes, oppressing his heart . What was painted in the morning still remained : scribbles that Torquemada did not understand, but that almost made him cry like sad music: the root sign, letters above and below, and in another part a network of lines, forming a star with many peaks with little numbers at the tips. Finally, praise God, the happy Quevedito arrived, and Don Francisco gave him the corresponding shouting, since he already treated him like a son-in-law. After seeing and examining the child, the doctor did not put on a very good face. Torquemada could have been choked with a hair, when the little doctor, pushing him against the wall and putting both hands on his shoulders, told him: “I don’t like this at all; But we have to wait until tomorrow to see if an eruption breaks out. The fever is quite high. I have already told you to be very careful with this phenomenon of the boy. So much studying, so much knowledge, crazy brain development! ” What you have to do with Valentín is put a cowbell around his neck, release him in the field among some cattle, and not bring him to Madrid until he is very rough.” Torquemada hated the countryside and could not understand that there was anything good in it. But he decided, if the child was cured, to take him to a pasture to drink grass-fed milk and breathe pure air. The pure air , as Bailón said, was a very good thing. Ah! The damn miasmas were to blame for what was happening. Don Francisco felt so much rage that if he picked up a miasma at that moment he would break it along the axis. The sibyl went that night to spend some time with her friend, and look where the noise of Humanity was repeated, the clergyman appearing to Torquemada to be more enigmatic and _latero_ than ever, his arms longer, his face harder and more fearful. Left alone, the usurer did not go to bed. Since Rufina and Quevedo were staying to watch, he would also watch. Adjacent to the father’s bedroom was the children’s bedroom, and in this was Valentin’s bed, who spent the night very restless, suffocated, casting light of his skin, his astonished and sparkling eyes, his uncertain speech, his ideas unthreaded, like beads of a rosary whose thread breaks. Chapter 4. The next day was all shock and bitterness. Quevedo believed that the disease was _inflammation of the meninges_, and that the boy was in danger of death. He did not tell this to his father, but to Bailón so that he could prepare him. He and Torquemada locked themselves in, and from the conference it turned out that they almost hit each other, because Don Francisco, upset by the pain, called his friend a liar and a fraud. The restlessness, the nervous restlessness, the madness of the hopeless miser, cannot be described. He had to go out on several errands of his painful job, and every moment he returned home, panting, with half a span of his tongue hanging out, the mushroom thrown back. He went in, took a look, came out again. He himself brought the medicines, and in the pharmacy he told the whole story … «a dizziness while in class; then horrible fever… what are doctors for? On the advice of Quevedito himself, he sent for one of the most eminent, who described the case as acute meningitis. _
On the night of the second day, Torquemada, exhausted with fatigue, sat down in one of the armchairs in the living room, and there he sat like half a liorite, mulling over a mischievous idea, oh so hard and with many corners, that had gotten into his brain. «I have failed Humanity, and that very so- and-so is now charging me with back credits…. No: well, if God, or whoever it is, takes my son away from me, I am going to become more evil, more of a dog…! You’ll see then what fine cinnamon is. Well, there was nothing else missing…. They don’t play with me…. But no, what nonsense I say! He won’t take it away from me, because I… What they say about me not having done good to anyone is a lie. Let them prove it to me… because it’s not enough to say it. And the many people I’ve rescued from trouble?… well, what about that? Because if Humanity has been told stories about me; that if I push, that if I don’t push… I’ll try…. Hey, I’m already getting loaded: if I haven’t done any good, I will do it now, now, because for a reason it has been said that it is never too late for good. Let’s see: what if I started praying now, what would they say up there? It seems to me that Bailón is wrong, and Humanity must not be God, but rather the Virgin…. Of course, she is female, madam…. No, no, no… let’s not focus on the materialism of the word. Humanity is God, the Virgin and all the saints together…. Hold on, man, hold on, you are going crazy…. I only realize that not having good works, everything is, as if we said, rubbish… Oh God, what a shame, what a shame…! If you make my son good, I don’t know what things he would do; but what things are so magnificent and so…! But who is the scoundrel who says that I have no good deeds written down? They want to lose me, they want to take away my son, who was born to teach all the wise men and leave them small. And they envy me because I am their father, because from these bones and this blood came that glory of the world…. Envy; but how envious this sow Humanity is! I say, not Humanity, because it is God… men, neighbors, us, who are all very scoundrels, and that is why what happens to us happens to us… It is well deserved to us… it is well deserved to us.» He then remembered that the next day was Sunday and he had not issued the receipts to collect the rent for his house. After dedicating half an hour to this operation, he rested for a few moments, stretching out on the living room sofa. In the morning, between nine and ten, he went to the Sunday collection. With not eating and sleeping badly and the bitter sorrow that destroyed his soul, the man was _very_ the color of an olive. Their walk was hesitant, and their gazes wandered uncertainly, lost, now sweeping the ground and then shooting into the heights. When the cobbler, who had his workshop in the dirty doorway, saw the landlord enter and noticed his upset face and drunken walk, he was so scared that he dropped the hammer he was using to hammer in the tacks. Torquemada’s presence in the patio, which everyone Sundays was a very unpleasant appearance, it produced real panic that day; and while some women ran to take refuge in their respective rooms, others, who must have been bad payers, and who observed the face that the beast was wearing, went out into the street. The collection began in the lower rooms, and the bricklayer and the two cigarette cases paid without a word, wishing that the hated image of Don Francisco would be removed from their sight. They noticed something unusual and abnormal about him, because he took the money mechanically and without examining it with filthy triviality, like other times, as if his thoughts were a hundred leagues away from the very important act he was performing; Those biting dog grumbles could not be heard , nor did he inspect the rooms looking for the broken tile or the fallen piece of plaster, to tell the tenant the time . Upon arriving at Rumalda’s room, an ironer, a widow, with her sick mother on a cot and three younger children who were walking in the patio showing their bodies through the holes in their clothes, Torquemada let out the orderly growl, and the poor woman, with an afflicted and tremulous voice, as if she had to confess before the judge a black crime, let out the standard phrase : “D. Francisco, for today it is not possible. Another day I will fulfill.” I cannot give any idea of the astonishment of that woman and of the two neighbors, who were present, when they saw that the stingy man did not spit out any curse or heresy from that mouth, when they heard him say in the most clouded and tearful voice in the world: “No, daughter, if I don’t tell you anything… if I don’t rush you… if it hasn’t occurred to me to scold you… What should we do, if you can’t…!” –D. Francisco, it’s just that…–the other murmured, believing that the beast was expressing itself with sarcasm, and that after the sarcasm would come the bite. –No, daughter, if I haven’t joked… How should things be said? The thing is that there is no one who can convince you that I am a man, as they say, a tyrant… Where do you get that there is no compassion in me, nor… nor charity? Instead of thanking me for what I do for you, you slander me … No, no: let’s understand each other. You, Rumalda, be calm: I know that you have needs, that times are bad… When times are bad, daughters, what should we do but help each other? He continued forward, and in the main room he found a tenant who paid very poorly, but had a lot of heart to face the beast, and as soon as she saw him arrive, judging by the look on his face that he was more sullen than ever, she went out to meet his harshness with these arrogant expressions: “Listen, don’t come to me with haste. You already know there isn’t one. _That_ is out of work. Do you want me to go out on a path? Don’t you see the house without furniture, like a borrowed hospital? Where do you want me to get it from?… Damn your soul… -And who tells you, such a great, foul-mouthed, mouthy woman, that I am coming to suffocate you? Let’s see if there is any of these tarasca that maintains that I do not have humanity. Dare to tell me….” Eria raised the club, a symbol of his authority and his bad temper, and in the group that had formed, only open mouths and looks of stupefaction could be seen. «Well, I tell you and everyone else that I don’t give a damn if you don’t pay me today. Oh! How should I say it so that they understand?… With your husband not working, I was going to put the noose around your neck?… I know that you will pay me when you can, right? Because what is the intention to pay, you have it. Well then, why sulk so much?… Silly, bad heads! striving to produce a smile; You believing me to be tougher than rocks, and me letting you believe it, because it suited me, because it suited me, of course, because God commands that we not make a show of our humanity…! Wow, you are all great combs…. Abur, you, don’t suffocate. And don’t think I’m doing this so you can give me blessings. But note that I am not drowning you; and so you can see how good I am….” He stopped and meditated for a moment, putting his hand in his pocket and looking at the ground. «Nothing, nothing…. Stay with God.» And to another. He charged at the next three doors without any difficulty. «D. Francisco, please put a new stone on my stove, because it can’t be cooked here….» In other circumstances, this complaint would have been the beginning of a tremendous shouting, for example: “Put the trash on the stove, you scoundrel, and start the fire on it.”–“Look at the manguitillas, even if his money turns into poison.” But that day everything was peace and concord, and Torquemada granted everything they asked of him. «Oh, Mr. Francisco!–said another in number 11,–have the syringes fifty reales. To be able to put them together, we have only eaten two quarters of chicken and another two quarters of liver with dry bread…. But for not seeing the character in that face and not hearing it, I would stick to Paris tips. –Well, look, that is an insult, an injustice, because if I have suffocated them other times it has not been because of the materialism of money, but because I like to see people perform… lest it be said… There must be dignity in everyone. By faith, you have a good idea of me!… Was I going to allow your children, these sheep of God, to be hungry?… Come on, leave the money… Or better yet, so that you don’t take it as a snub: let’s split it and keep twenty-five reales… You’ll give it to me another day… You rascals, when you had to confess that I am like a father to you , you call me inhuman and what do I know what! No, I assure you all that I respect humanity, that I consider it, that I esteem it, that now and always I will do all the good I can and a little more…. Hala! Astonishment, confusion. Behind him went the chattering group, gossiping like this: “Some misfortune has happened to this condemned man…. Mr. Francisco is not good at the coffee pot. Look what a gallows face he has brought on. D. Francisco with humanity! There you have it why that star with a tail is rising every night in the sky. “The world is going to end.” In number 16: «But daughter of my soul, so stupid, did you have your bad girl and you hadn’t told me anything? So what am I in the world for? Frankly, that is an offense that I do not forgive you, I do not forgive you. You are indecent; And to prove that you don’t have a lick of sense, let’s bet that you can’t guess what I’m going to do? How much is it going to take if you don’t guess?… Well, I’m going to give you so that you can pout…. hey! Here, and say now that I have no humanity. But you are so ungrateful that you will make me like a dominatrix, and you may even curse me. “Boring.” In Mrs. Casiana’s room, a neighbor ventured to say to her: «D. Francisco, you don’t give it to us… Something is wrong with you. What the hell does he have in that head or in that stone-cold heart? The afflicted landlord let himself fall into a chair, and removing the fungus, he ran his hand over his yellow forehead and greasy bald pate, saying only between sighs: “It’s not easy, daggers, it’s not easy!” As they observed that his eyes were moistening, and that, looking at the ground, and leaning with both hands on the cane, he carried the entire weight of his body on it, rocking, they urged him to let off steam; but he should not have believed them worthy of being confidants of his immense, heartbreaking grief. Taking the money, he said in a hollow voice: “If you didn’t have it, Casiana, it would be the same. I repeat that I do not drown the poor… as I am also poor…. Whoever said, standing up with anxiety and anger, that I am inhuman, is lying more than the _Gaceta_. I am human; I pity the unfortunate; I help them as much as I can, because that is what Humanity tells us to do; And you all know well that if you fail humanity, you will pay for it sooner or later, and that if you are good you will have your reward. I swear to you by that image of the Virgin of Sorrows with the dead Son in her arms pointing to a picture, I swear to you that if I have not seemed charitable and good to you, this does not mean that I am not, daggers! and that if proofs are necessary, proofs will be given. Come on, you don’t believe it… then all of you leave with two hundred thousand pairs of demons, because for me, being good is enough… I don’t need anyone to hype me up. Louses, I don’t want your gratitude at all…. I “I pass your blessings under my nose.” With that said, he left in a hurry. They all looked at him down the stairs, and across the patio ahead, and through the doorway outside, making such gestures that it seemed like the devil himself was crossing himself. Chapter 5. He ran towards his house, and against his custom since he was a man who usually preferred to wake up rather than spend a peseta, he took a car to get there sooner. His heart told him that he would find good news, the sick man relieved, Rufina’s face smiling when she opened the door; and in his crazy impatience, it seemed to him that the carriage was not moving, that the horse was limping and that the coachman was not shaking enough sticks at the poor animal…. «Arrea, man. Damn jaco! “Firewood in him,” he shouted. “Look, I’m in a hurry.” It finally arrived; and as he panted up the stairs of his house, he reasoned his hopes in this way: “Do not come out now saying that it is because of my evils, because there is everything… ” What disappointment when he saw Rufina’s face so sad, and when he heard that _the same thing, dad_, which rang in his ears like a funeral bell! He approached the sick man on tiptoe and examined him. As the poor child was drowsy at that moment, Don Francisco was able to observe him with relative calm, because when he was delirious and wanted to get out of bed, rolling his frightened eyes around, the father did not have the courage to witness such a painful spectacle and fled from the bedroom trembling and terrified. He was a man who lacked the courage to face penalties of such magnitude, undoubtedly because of his moral deficiency; He felt fearful, dismayed, and as if he were responsible for so much misfortune and great pain. Sure of Rufina’s careful assistance, the afflicted father was in no way missing at Valentin’s bedside: on the contrary, he was rather a hindrance, because if he were to assist him, of course, in his confusion, he would mistake the medicines, giving him something to drink that would hasten his death. What he did was watch tirelessly, often approaching the bedroom door, and seeing what was happening, hearing the voice of the child raving or complaining; But if the woes were very pitiful and the delirium very strong, what Torquemada felt was an instinctive desire to run and hide with his pain in the farthest corner of the world. That afternoon Bailón, the butcher from downstairs, the principal’s tailor and the photographer from upstairs accompanied him for a while , all trying their best to console him with the standard phrases ; But Torquemada, unable to sustain the conversation on such a sad subject, thanked them with inattentive dryness. Everything came back to him sighing with roars, walking in strides, drinking mouthfuls of water and punching the wall. That was a tremendous case! How many dashed hopes!… That flower of the world cut down and withered! This was to drive you crazy. The universal derangement would be more natural than the death of the marvelous child who had come to earth to illuminate it with the lantern of his talent… Beautiful things towards God, Humanity, or whoever the so-and-so who invented the world and put us in it was! Because if they were going to take Valentin, why did they bring him here, giving him, the good Torquemada, the privilege of fathering such a prodigy? What a nice business Providence, Humanity, or the dragging Ensemble, as Bailón said! Take that child, luminary of science, and leave all the fools here! Did this make common sense? Was there no reason to rebel against those above, to dress him up as Easter clothes and send them away?… If Valentin died, what was left in the world: darkness, ignorance. And for the father, what a blow! Because let us all imagine what Don Francisco would be when his son, now a man, began to appear, to confuse all the wise men, to turn all science upside down!… Torquemada would be in that case the second person of Humanity: and only for the glory of having fathered the great mathematician, it would be a matter of placing him on a throne. What an engineer who would be Valentine if he were alive! Like he had to build railroads that would go from here to Peking in five minutes, and balloons to navigate through the air, and ships to travel. under the water, and other things never seen or even dreamed of. And the planet was going to miss out on these bargains because of a stupid sentence from those who give and take life!… Nothing, nothing, pure envy, envy. Up there , in the invisible cavities of the high heavens, someone had decided to _annoy_ Torquemada. But… but… what if it wasn’t envy, but punishment? Had he arranged himself like this to overwhelm the cruel stingy, the tyrannical landlord, the gutless lender? Ah! When this idea came into play, Torquemada felt impulses to run towards the nearest wall and crash into it. He soon reacted and came back to himself. No, it couldn’t be punishment, because he wasn’t bad, and if he was, he would make amends. It was enviable, the tyranny and ill-will they had for him, for being the author of such sovereign eminence. They wanted to cut short his future and take away that immense joy and fortune of his last years…. Because his son, if he lived, would earn a lot of money, a lot, and hence the heavenly intrigue. But he thought he would loyally renounce the son’s pecuniary gains , as long as they left him the glory, the glory! Well, for business, his own was enough…. The last paroxysm of his exalted mind was to renounce all the _materialism_ of the child’s science, as long as they left him the glory. When he was alone with him, Bailón told him that it was necessary to have philosophy; and since Torquemada did not fully understand the meaning and application of such a word, the sibyl explained her idea in this way: «It is advisable to resign ourselves, considering our smallness in the face of these great evolutions of matter… well, or vital substance. We are atoms, friend D. Francisco, nothing more than idiots of atoms. Let us respect the provisions of the great Everything to which we belong, and sorrows come. That’s what philosophy is for, or if you want, religion: to endure adversity. Well, if it weren’t like that, we couldn’t live.” Torquemada accepted everything except resigning himself. He did not have in his soul the source from which such consolation could come, and he did not even understand it. As the other, after having eaten well, insisted on those ideas, Don Francisco felt like giving him a couple of blows, destroying at one point the most energetic profile that Michelangelo had drawn . But he only looked at him with terrifying eyes, and the other got scared and put an end to his theologies. That first night, Quevedito and the other doctor spoke to Torquemada in disconsolate terms. They had little or no hope, although they did not dare to say at all that they had lost it, and they left the door open to the reparations of nature and the mercy of God. That was a horrible night. Poor Valentine was burning in invisible fire. His flushed and dry face, his eyes illuminated by sinister splendor, his anxious restlessness, his sudden jumps on the bed, as if he wanted to escape from something that frightened him, were a very sad spectacle that oppressed the heart. When Don Francisco, overcome with pain, approached the opening of the half-closed doors of the door and cast a timid glance inward, he thought he heard, with the labored breathing of the child, something like the squeak of his flesh roasting in the fire of fever. He paid attention to the incoherent expressions of delirium, and heard him say: _ “Ex squared, minus one, divided by two, plus five Xs minus two, divided by four , equal They were the embers of his son’s amazing understanding, flying over the flames in which he was consumed. He fled from there so as not to hear the sweet little voice, and spent more than half an hour lying on the living room sofa, holding his head with both hands as if he wanted to escape. Suddenly he stood up, shaken by an idea; I went to the desk where I had the money; He took out a cartridge of coins that must have been small change, and emptying it into his pants pocket, he put on a cloak and hat, took the key, and went out into the street. He left as if he were in pursuit of a debtor. After walking for a long time, he stopped at a corner, looked from one side to the other with bewilderment, and ran back down the street, with an English gait after his victim. To the beat of the march, the jingling of coins sounded on his right leg … . Great were his impatience and unease at not finding that night what he so often encountered on other nights, annoying and boring him. Finally… thank God… a poor man approached him. «Here man, here: where the hell are you tonight? When you are not needed, you go out like flies, and when people look for you, to help you, nothing …» Then one of those decent beggars who beg, hat in hand, with tearful courtesy, appeared. «Sir, a poor unemployed person.–Here, have more. Here we are charitable men to go to the miseries…. Tell me: didn’t you ask me for past nights? Well, know that I didn’t hit it because I was going too fast. And the other night and the other, I didn’t hit it either because it wasn’t loose: I had a will, well, I had it.» Of course , the unemployed beggar kept seeing visions, and did not know how to express his gratitude. Beyond, the ghost came out of an alley. It was a woman begging on the lower part of Calle de la Salud, dressed in black, with a very thick veil that covered her face. «Here, take, lady…. And let them tell me now that I have never given alms. Do you think it’s slander? Wow, you must have already collected quite a few quarters tonight. Like there are those who say that by asking like this, and with that veil over your face, you have gathered a little capital. Go away now, it’s very cold… and pray to God for me.» On Calle del Carmen, on Preciados and Puerta del Sol, he gave his dog as a beard to all the kids who were going out . “Hey! “Child, are you asking or what are you doing there, like a fool?” He said this to a little boy who was leaning against the wall, with his hands behind his back, his feet barefoot, his neck wrapped in a scarf. The boy stretched out his cold hand. «Here… Well, didn’t your heart tell you that I was going to come to your aid? Are you cold and hungry? Take more, and go home, if you have one. Here I am to get you out of trouble; I say, to break a piece of bread with you, because I am also poor and more unfortunate than you, you know? because the cold, the hunger, are endured; but alas! other things….” He quickened his pace without noticing the mocking face of his favorite, and continued giving, giving, until he had few pieces left in his pocket. Running towards his house, in retreat, he looked at the sky, something very contrary to his custom, because if he had ever looked at it to find out the weather, he had never, until that night, contemplated it. What a star! And how clear and resplendent, each one in its place, beautiful and serious, millions of millions of glances that fail to see our smallness. What most suspended the spirit of the miser was the idea that all that heaven was indifferent to his great pain, or rather ignorant of it. For the rest, as pretty, wow the stars were pretty! There were small, medium and large ones; something like pesetas, hard and hard means. The following occurred to the famous lender: “If he gets well, he will settle this account for me: if we minted all the stars in the sky, how much would they produce at 5 percent compound interest in the centuries since all this existed?” He entered his house around one o’clock, feeling some relief in the anguish of his soul; He fell asleep dressed, and by the next morning Valentin’s fever had subsided considerably. Would there be hope? The doctors only gave them very vague statements, subordinating their ruling to the afternoon surcharge. The usurer, extremely excited, clung to such a weak hope as the shipwrecked man clings to the floating splinter. He would live, because there was no need to live! “Dad,” Rufina told him crying, “ask the Virgin of Carmen, and leave Humanities behind.” –Do you think?… It shouldn’t be for me. But I warn you that if there are no good works, you should not trust the Virgin. And Christian actions There will be, whatever the cost: I assure you. In the works of mercy there is all the intricacies. I will dress the naked, I will visit the sick, I will comfort the sad…. God knows well that this is my will, he knows it well…. Let’s not come out later with the adventure that he didn’t know…. I say, how to know, he knows…. I need to want to. The surcharge came at night, very strong. The calomel and revulsive drugs did not give any results. The poor child’s legs were burned with synapses, and his head was a shame with the embrocations to obtain the artificial eruption. When Rufina cut his hair in the afternoon, in order to clear his skull, Torquemada heard the scissors as if they were hitting him in the heart. It was necessary to buy more ice to put in bladders on the head, and then iodoform had to be brought; errands that _Peor_ carried out with ardent activity, leaving and entering every so often. Returning home, after dark, he found, as he turned the corner of Hita Street, an old beggar and ragged man, wearing soldier’s pants, his head in the air, a tattered jacket over his shoulders, and his bare chest showing. A more venerable face could not be found except in the prints of the _Christian Year_. He had a bristling beard and a forehead full of wrinkles, like Saint Peter; the smooth skull, and two curly white locks at the temples. “Sir, sir,” he said with the trembling of intense cold, “look at how I am, look at me.” Torquemada passed by and stopped a short distance away; He turned back, hesitated for a while, and finally continued on his way. This idea flashed in his brain: “If as I bring the new cloak, I bring the old one…” Chapter 6. And upon entering his house: –Cursed me! I should not have let that act of Christianity slip away. He left the medicine he was carrying, and, changing his cloak, he went out into the street again. A little while later, Rufinita, seeing him come into his body, said to him , scared: “But, dad, how your head is!… Where have you left your cloak?” –Daughter of my soul–answered the stingy, lowering his voice and putting on a very sorry face,–you don’t understand what a good trait of charity, of humanity is… Are you asking about the cape? I want to see you there…. Well, I gave it to a poor old man, almost naked and freezing to death. That’s how I am: I don’t joke around when I feel sorry for the poor. I may seem harsh at times; But since I softened…. I see that you are scared. What is a sad piece of cloth worth? –Was it the new one? –No, the old one… And now, believe me, my conscience bothers me for not having told him the news… and it also upsets me for having told you. Charity should not be preached. There was no more talk about that, because they both had to worry about more serious things. Exhausted by exhaustion, Rufina could no longer cope with her body: she had not gone to bed for four nights; but her courageous spirit always kept her upright, diligent and loving like a sister of charity. Thanks to the helper they had at home; The young lady could rest for a few moments; and to help the maid with the kitchen work, the house’s mop-rapper stayed there in the afternoons, an old lady who collected the garbage and the few food scraps, _ab initio_, that is, since Torquemada and Doña Silvia were married, and she had done the same in the house of Doña Silvia’s parents. They called her _Aunt Roma_, I don’t know why I am inclined to believe that this name is a corruption of Jerónima, and she was so old, so old and so ugly, that her face looked like a handful of cobwebs mixed with ashes; his cork nose was no longer shaped; His round, toothless mouth shrank or grew, depending on the distension of the wrinkles that formed it. Higher up, among that mess of dusty skin, fish eyes showed off, within a circle of wet paprika. The rest of the person disappeared under a wrapping of rags and inside the patched skirt, in which there were remains of a suit belonging to Doña Silvia’s mother, when she was a girl. This poor woman had great attachment to the house, whose sweepings she had collected daily for long years; She held Doña Silvia in great esteem, who never wanted to give the leftover bones, crusts and scraps to anyone but her, and she dearly loved the children, especially Valentín, in front of whom she prostrated herself with superstitious admiration. Seeing him with such a bad illness, which was, according to her, a burst of talent in the head, Aunt Roma had no peace: she went morning and evening to find out; She entered the boy’s bedroom and remained sitting by the bed for a long time, looking at him silently, her eyes like two inexhaustible fountains that flooded the flaccid parchments of her face and neck with tears. The mop left the room to return to the kitchen, and in the dining room she found the master who, sitting next to the table and facing it, seemed to be in deep meditation. Aunt Roma, with the long treatment and her involvement in the family, took confidence in him…. “Pray, pray,” she said, standing in front of him and twirling the handkerchief with which she planned to wipe away the profuse tears, “pray, what a good need it is for you…. Poor son of my loins, how sick he is!… Look, look, pointing to the blackboard at the beautiful things he wrote on that black frame. I don’t understand what he’s saying… but he’s going to say that we should be good… That angel knows more!… Like that’s why God doesn’t want to leave him… –What do you know, Aunt Roma?–said Torquemada, turning pale.–He ‘ll leave us. Do you perhaps think that I am a tyrant and perverse, as fools and some lost people, bad payers, believe?… If one is careless, they will get the most bitchy reputation in the world…. But God knows the truth…. Whether I have done or have not done charity these days, that is no one’s account: I do not like to be found out and my good deeds put on posters …. Pray too, pray a lot until your mouth is dry, because you must be there Look very carefully, because in your life you have had a peseta…. I go crazy, and I wonder what fault I have for having won some real syringes…. Oh, Aunt Roma, if you could see how I have my soul! Ask God to preserve Valentine for us, because if he dies, I don’t know what will happen: I will go crazy, I will go out into the street and kill someone. My son is mine, daggers! and the glory of the world. Whoever takes it away from me… ! –Oh, what a pity!–the old woman murmured, choking.–But who knows… maybe the Virgin will perform the miracle…. I am asking her with great devotion. Push yourself on your side and promise to be even regular. –Well, as promised, it won’t be… Aunt Roma, leave me… leave me alone. I don’t want to see anyone. “I understand myself better just with my desire.” The old woman came out moaning, and Don Francisco, placing his hands on the table, rested his burning forehead on them. He remained like this for I don’t know how long, until his friend Bailón made him change his position, patting him on the shoulder and telling him: “Don’t be intimidated. Let’s put a cow face on misfortune, and let’s not allow ourselves to be cowed by the very… Leave cowardice for women. Before Nature, before the sublime Whole, we are pieces of atoms that do not know the average mass. “You go to hell with your Conjuntos and your parents,” Torquemada told him, shining a light in his eyes. Bailón did not insist; and judging that the best thing was to distract him, taking his thoughts away from those somber sadnesses, after a little while he spoke to him about a certain business that he had on his mind. Since the tenant of his asses and goats had terminated the contract, Bailón decided to exploit that industry on a large scale, setting up a large modern-style dairy establishment with punctual home service, fixed prices, elegant premises, telephone, etc…. He had studied it, and… Believe me, friend Don Francisco, it is a safe business, especially if we add the cow business, because in Madrid the milk… –You leave it to me milk and… What do I have to do with donkeys or cows? – shouted the _Peor_, standing up and looking at him with contempt.–You see how I am, daggers! I’m dying of grief, and he comes to talk to me about the damned milk…. Tell me about how you get God to listen to us when we ask for what we need, tell me about what… I don’t know how to explain it… what it means to be good and to be bad… because, either I’m a fool, or this is one of the things that has the most busilis… – Wow, they have it, dammit, they have it!» said the sibyl with a smug expression, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes. At that moment the man had a very different attitude from that of his similar man in the Sistine Chapel: sitting, his hands on the handle of the cane, the cane between his legs, his legs bent equally: the hat fell back, the athletic body disfigured inside the coat with oily lapels, the shoulders and neck riddled with dandruff. And yet from these proses, the very carried away looked like Dante and had been a priest in Egypt! Things of mischievous humanity…. “Why, they do have it,” repeated the sibyl, preparing to enlighten her friend with a cardinal opinion. “The good and the bad… as they say, light and darkness!” Bailón spoke in a very different way from how he wrote. This is very common. But that time the solemnity of the case exalted his imagination so much that concepts came to his mouth in the form typical of his literary school. «Behold, man hesitates and becomes confused when faced with the great problem. What is good? What is evil? My son, open your ears to the truth and your eyes to the light. Goodness is loving our fellow human beings. Let us love and we will know what good is; let us hate and we will know what evil is. Let us do good to those who hate us, and our thorns will turn into flowers. This is what the righteous man said, this is what I say… Wisdom of wisdoms, and knowledge of sciences. –Wisdoms and weapons on the shoulder–Torquemada grumbled dejectedly.– I already knew that… because _your neighbor against a corner_ has always seemed outrageous to me. Let’s not talk about that anymore…. I don’t want to think about sad things. I won’t say anything more than that if my son dies… come on, I don’t want to think about it… if he dies, I don’t care what’s white or what’s black…. At that moment a harsh, strident scream was heard, launched by Valentín, and which left both of them in suspense with terror. It was the meningeal cry, similar to the cry of a peacock. This strange brain symptom had begun that day in the morning, and revealed the very serious and terrifying course of the poor mathematician boy’s illness. Torquemada would have hidden in the center of the earth so as not to hear such a scream: he went into his office without paying attention to Bailón’s exhortations , and slammed the door into the latter’s Dantesque mouth. From the hallway they heard him opening the drawer of his table, and soon he appeared putting something in the inside pocket of his jacket. He took the hat, and without saying anything he went out into the street. I will explain what this meant and where the unfortunate Don Francisco was going with his body that afternoon. The same day Valentine fell ill, his father received a letter from an old and sacrificed client or debtor of his, asking for a loan with guarantee of the furniture in the house. The relations between the victim and the inquisitor dated back a long time, and the profits obtained by the latter had been enormous, because the other was weak, very delicate, and allowed himself to be skinned, fried and pickled as if he had been born for that. There are people like that. But very difficult times came , and that man could not pick up his paper. Every Monday and every Tuesday, the _Peor_ attacked him, made him dizzy, put the rope around his neck and pulled very hard, without even being able to get the interest due. You can easily understand the anger of the stingy person when he receives the letter asking for a new loan. What atrocious insolence! He would have responded by sending him away, if the child’s illness had not made him so distressed and unwilling to think about business. Two days passed, and here is another distressing obituary, _in exiremis_, as if asking for the Anointing. In those short lines in which the victim invoked the _hidalgas feelings of an executioner, there was talk of a commitment of honor, the most frightening conditions were proposed, he went through everything in order to soften the bronze heart of the usurer, and obtain his affirmative. Well, my man took the letter, and in pieces he threw it into the paper basket, never remembering such a thing again. Well, did he have the head to think about anyone’s commitments and troubles, even if they were those of the Word himself? But the occasion described above arrived, the conversation with Aunt Roma and Don José, Valentin’s cry, and behold, the Jew had a hunch, a fire of inspiration lit in his head, he put on his hat and went straight in search of his unfortunate client. He was an appreciable person, only short-sighted, with an endless family, and a lady who got the hiccups because of her elegance. He had held good positions in the Peninsula, and in Overseas, and what he brought back from there, not much, because he was a good man, the usurer earned in less than a year. Then he received an inheritance from an uncle; But since the lady had some damn Thursdays to gather and entertain the best society, the inheritance money was slipping away , and without knowing how or when, they ended up in Torquemada’s pocket. I don’t know what the hell was with the money in that house, which was like a steel to run towards the magnet of the damned lender. The worst thing about the case is that even after the family found themselves in deep water, the very _fashionable_ Tarasca still ordered dresses from Paris, invited her friends for _five oclock tea_, or imagined any other such nonsense. Well, sir, there goes Don Francisco towards the house of that gentleman, who, judging by the afflictive terms of the letter, must have been about to fall, with all his elegance and his teas, in court, and expose a respectable name to ridicule and disgrace. On the way he felt the cheapskate pulling at his cloak. He turned around… and who do you think it was? Well, a woman who looked like Magdalene because of her pained face and her beautiful hair, poorly hidden with a red and blue checkered scarf . The palmetto was of the best grade; but already very worn out by tiring campaigns. She was well known as a woman who knows how to dress, although on that occasion she was dressed in a mess, almost indecent, with a patched skirt, a fly-wing shawl and boots…. God, what boots, and how they disfigured that beautiful foot. –Isidora!…–exclaimed Don Francisco, putting on a face of joy, something very unusual for him.–Where are you going with that busy body? –He was going to his house. Mr. D. Francisco, have compassion on us… Why are you so tyrannical and so stone? Don’t you see how we are? Doesn’t he have even a little bit of humanity? –Daughter of my soul, you judge me badly… What if I told you now that I was thinking about you… that I remembered the message that the concierge’s son sent me yesterday… and what you yourself told me the day before yesterday on the street? –Wow, how not to take care of our situation!–said the woman, beginning to cry.–Martín dying… the poor thing… in that frozen attic…. No bed, no medicine, nor anything to put on a sad pout to give him a cup of broth…. What pain! Don Francisco, have Christianity and do not abandon us. It is true that we have no credit; but Martín has half a dozen very nice studios left… You see … the one in the Sierra de Guadarrama, beautiful… the one in La Granja, with those little trees… too, and the one in… I don’t know what. All very pretty: I’ll take them to you… but don’t be mean and feel sorry for the poor artist…. –Eh… eh… don’t cry, woman… Look, I’m riding bareback… I have such an affliction inside my soul, Isidora, that… if you continue crying, I too will let go. Go home and wait for me there. I’ll go in a little while…. What… doubt my word? –But is it really going? Don’t fool me, for the Blessed Virgin. –But have I ever deceived her? You may have another complaint about me; but What is that?… -Am I really waiting for you?… How good you will be if you go and help us!… Martín will be happier when I tell him! –Go calmly…. Wait for me, and while I arrive, ask God for me with all the fervor you can. Chapter 7. It didn’t take him long to arrive at the client’s house, which was a very good main house, furnished with great luxury and elegance, with _views of San Bernardino_. While waiting to be introduced, the _Peor_ contemplated the beautiful coat rack and the superb curtains of the room, which could be seen through the half-closed door, and such magnificence suggested these reflections to him: “As for the furniture, as good as they are… well, they are.” The friend received him in his office; and as soon as Torquemada asked him about the family, he dropped into a chair with signs of great consternation. “But what’s wrong with him?” the other said. –Don’t talk to me, don’t talk to me, Mr. D. Juan. I’m with my soul in a thread…. My son…! –Poor! I know it’s very bad…. But don’t you have hope? –No, sir…. I say, hopes, what is called hopes…. I don’t know; I’m crazy; My head is a volcano…. –I know what that is!–observed the other sadly.–I have lost two children who were my sweetheart: one four years old, the other eleven years old. –But your pain cannot be like mine. I, father, am not like other fathers, because my son is not like other children: he is a miracle of wisdom…. Oh, Don Juan, Don Juan of my soul, have mercy on me! Well, you see…. When I received your first letter, I couldn’t take care of myself… The affliction didn’t let me think… But I remembered you and said: “That poor Don Juan, what bitterness he must be going through!…” I receive the second obituary and then I say: “Hey, well, what he is, I won’t leave him in that swamp. “We must help each other in our misfortunes.” So I thought; It’s just that with the hustle and bustle at home, I didn’t have time to come or answer…. But today, even though I was half dead with grief, I said: “I’m going, I’m going to get that good friend Don Juan out of purgatory right now…” and here I am to tell you that although you owe me seventy-odd thousand reales, which makes more than ninety with the interest not received, and although I have had to give you several extensions, and… frankly… I’m afraid of having to give you some more, I am determined to give you to you that loan on the furniture so that you avoid the adventure that is coming your way. “It has already been avoided,” replied D. Juan, looking at the lender with the utmost coldness. “I no longer need the loan.” –He doesn’t need it!–exclaimed the bewildered miser.–Repair one thing, Don Juan. I’ll do it to you… at twelve percent. And seeing that the other was making negative signs, he stood up, and picking up his cloak, which had fallen from him, he took a few steps towards D. Juan, put his hand on his shoulder and said: “You don’t want to deal with me, because of whether or not I am caught.” It seems to me like a twelve! When have you seen them fatter! –The interest seems very reasonable to me; But, I repeat, I no longer need it. –Have you hit the jackpot, for the life of…!– Torquemada exclaimed rudely–D. Juan, don’t play jokes with me…. Do you doubt that I’m talking to you seriously? Because you don’t need that … radish!… you who would be able to swallow, I’m not saying this beak, but the entire Mint… D. Juan. Don Juan, know, if you don’t know, that I have my humanity as well as any neighbor’s son, that I care about my neighbor until I favor those who hate me. You hate me, Don Juan, you hate me, do not deny me, because you cannot pay me: this is clear. Well , so that you can see what I’m capable of, I’ll give it a five… a five! And as the other repeated the negative signs with his head, Torquemada became more disconcerted, and raising his arms, with which it was said that the cape had ended up on the ground, he unleashed this volley: “Not even the five!… Well, man, less than the five, snails!… Unless you want me to also give you the shirt I’m wearing…. When have you seen yourself in another?… Well, I don’t know what the angel of God wants… From this done, I go crazy. So that you can see, so that you can see how far my generosity goes: I give it to you without interest. –Thank you very much, friend Mr. Francisco. I don’t doubt your good intentions. But we have already made up. Seeing that you did not answer me, I went to find a relative, and I had the courage to tell him my sad situation. I wish I had done it sooner! –Well, the relative is happy… You can already say that he has made a great bread…. With many of those businesses…. Anyway, you didn’t want it from me, it’s your loss. Go on saying now that I don’t have a good heart, the one who doesn’t is you…. –Me? That one is salty. –Yes, you, you with spite. Anyway, I take it from them, they are waiting for me somewhere else where I am greatly needed, where they are waiting for me like May water. Here I am too much. Boring….” D. Juan said goodbye to him at the door, and Torquemada went down the stairs grumbling: “You can’t deal with ungrateful people. “I’m going to understand myself with those poor things…. What will become of them without me!” It didn’t take him long to reach the other house, where they were waiting for him with so much anxiety. It was on Luna Street, a good-looking building, which housed an aristocrat in the main building; modest families above , and on the roof a swarm of poor people. Torquemada walked down the dark hallway looking for a door. The numbers on these were useless, because they could not be seen. Luckily, Isidora heard his steps and opened the door. «Ah! men of their word live. Come in, come in.” Don Francisco found himself inside a room whose sloping ceiling touched the floor on the opposite side of the door; Above, a window with some of its glass broken, covered with rags and papers; the floor was tiled, covered in places with pieces of carpet; on one side an open trunk , two chairs, a stove with a fire; to another, a bed, on which, among blankets and various clothes, half dressed and half sheltered, lay a man of about thirty years old, handsome, with a pointed beard, large eyes, a beautiful forehead, emaciated and with slightly flushed cheekbones; on the temples a greenish depression, and the ears transparent like the wax of the devotees who hang themselves on the altars. Torquemada looked at him without answering the greeting and thought like this: «The poor guy is more consumptive than Traviatta. Pity boy! “Such a good painter and such a bad head… I could have made so much money!” –You see, Don Francisco, how I am… with this cold that doesn’t want to leave me. Sit down…. How grateful I am for your kindness! –No need to thank anything…. Well, there was nothing more missing. Doesn’t God command us to clothe the sick, give drink to the sad, visit the naked?… Alas! I mess everything up. What a head!… He said that soft-hearted men are there to alleviate misfortunes… yes, sir.» He looked at the walls of the attic, largely covered by a multitude of landscape studies, some with the sky downwards, nailed to the wall or pushed up against it. «There are still beautiful things here. “As soon as the cold clears, I’m going to go out into the field,” said the sick man, his eyes lit up by the fever. “I have an idea, what an idea!… I think I’ll be well in eight to ten days, if you help me, Don Francisco; and immediately to the field, to the field…. “The cemetery is where you are going soon,” thought Torquemada; and then in a loud voice:–Yes, that is a matter of eight or ten days… nothing more…. Then, you will go out there… in a car…. Do you know that the attic is cool?… Wow! Let me put it on the cape. “Well, be amazed,” said the sick man, sitting up. –Here I’ve put on something better. The last days we spent in the studio… let Isidora tell you… I was very bad; We kind of got scared, and…» He started coughing so hard that it seemed like he was suffocating. Isidora went to sit him up, raising the pillows. The eyes of the unhappy It seemed that they were jumping, their ruined lungs agitated laboriously like broken bellows that cannot expel or inhale air; He clenched his fingers, finally remaining prostrate and as if lifeless. Isidora wiped the sweat from his forehead, put in order the clothes that were falling off on both sides of the narrow bed, and gave him a painkiller to drink. “But what an atrocious shock I have come across!…” exclaimed the artist when he recovered from the attack. –Talk as little as possible–Isidora advised him. –I will understand with Mr. Francisco: you will see how we manage. This Don Francisco is better than he seems: he is a saint disguised as a devil, right? When he laughed, he showed his incomparable teeth, one of the few graces he had left in his sad decadence. Torquemada, pretending to be kind, made her sit next to him and put his hand on her shoulder, saying: “I think we’ll make things right… As with you, one can understand each other easily; because you, Isidorita, are not like those other big women who have no education. You are a decent person who has fallen into disrepair, and you have all the characteristics of a fine woman, like the pure daughter of marquises…. I know it well… and that those scoundrels in the curia took away the position that corresponds to you…. “Oh, Jesus!” Isidora exclaimed, exhaling in one breath all the sad and happy remembrances of her romantic past. “Let’s not talk about that…. Let’s get down to reality. Mr. Francisco, have you taken charge of our situation? Martín’s studio was seized. The debts were so many that we could not save more than what you see here. Afterwards we had to pawn all his clothes and mine to be able to eat… I only have what I’m wearing… look at what he looks like! and nothing to him, what you see on the bed. We need to do what is necessary; take a warmer little room, the third one, which is full of papers; light a fire, buy medicine, even have a good stew every day…. A man from the home charity brought me two vouchers yesterday, and told me to go there, to where the office is; but I am ashamed to present myself with this appearance…. Those of us who were born in a certain position, Mr. Don Francisco, no matter how much we fall, we never fall to the depths…. But let’s get to the point: for all that I have told you, and for Martín to recover and be able to go out into the field, we need three thousand reales… and I don’t say four because he won’t be scared. It’s the last thing. Yes, Mr. Francisquito of my soul, and we trust in your good heart. –Three thousand reales!–said the usurer, putting on the face of reflective doubt that he had for cases of benevolence; face that was already in him like a delaying formula, one of those used in diplomacy.–Three thousand realetes!… Daughter of my soul, look at you.» And making a perfect donut with his thumb and index finger, he presented it to Isidora, and continued like this: «I don’t know if I will be able to have the three thousand reales at the moment. Anyway, it seems to me that you could get by with less. Think carefully, and settle your accounts. I am determined to protect you and help you so that your fortunes improve…. I will go as far as to sacrifice until I take the bread out of my mouth so that you can kill your hunger; but… but remember that I must also look out for my interests…. “Let’s put whatever interest we want, Don Francisco,” said the sick man emphatically , who apparently wanted to finish quickly. –I am not referring to the materialism of money income, but to my interests, of course, my interests. And I assume that you plan to pay me someday. “Well, of course,” they replied to one Martín and Isidora. And Torquemada for his part: “On the day of Judgment in the afternoon you will pay me: I already know that this is lost money.” The sick man sat up in his bed, and with some excitement said to the lender: “Friend, do you think that my aunt, who is in Puerto Rico, is going to leave me in this situation when she finds out?” I’m already seeing the letter of four or five hundred pesos that he has to send me. I wrote to him by last email. “If your aunt doesn’t send you five hundred daggers,” Torquemada thought. and in voice high:–And you have to give me some guarantee too… I mean, it seems to me that…. –Here! the studies. Pick the ones you want. Casting an expert glance, Torquemada explained his thoughts in this way: «Well, my friends: I am going to tell you something that is going to leave you confused. I have felt sorry for so much misery; I cannot see such a misfortune without immediately resorting to remedying it. Ah! What idea did you have of me? Because again they owed me a pickaxe and I rushed them and drowned them, do you think I’m made of marble? Fools, it was because then I saw them succeeding and spending, and frankly, the money that I earn with so much effort is not to be wasted on carousing. You don’t know me, I assure you that you don’t know me. Compare the tyranny of those hickeys who seized your studio and left you naked; Compare that, I say, with my generosity, and with this tender heart that God has given me…. I am so good, so good, that I have to praise myself and thank myself for the good that I do. Well, you’ll see what a blow. Look….” The donut reappeared, accompanied by these serious words: “I’m going to give you the three thousand reales, and I’m going to give it to you right now… but that’s not the biggest thing, I’m going to give it to you without interest…. What’s up, is this a trait or not a trait? –D. Francisco–Isidora exclaimed effusively–let me give you a hug. “And I’ll give you another one if you come here,” the sick man shouted, wanting to get out of bed. –Yes, come all the love you want–said the miser, allowing himself to be embraced by both.–But do not praise me too much, because these actions are the duty of every person who cares for Humanity, and they do not have great merit…. Open me again, as if I were your father, and pity me, for I need it too…. In faith that tears will come to my eyes if I neglect myself because I am so compassionate… so…. –D. Francisco, of my intertwinings – declared the consumptive, wrapping himself tightly again in those rags – you are the most Christian, most complete and most humanitarian person under the sun. Isidora, bring the inkwell, the pen and the sealed paper that you bought yesterday, I’m going to make a promissory note. The other brought him what he asked for; and while the unfortunate young man wrote, Torquemada, meditatively and with his forehead resting on a single finger, fixed his reflective gaze on the ground. When he took the document that Isidora presented to him, he looked at his debtors with a paternal expression, and he used the effeminate and sweet register of his voice to say to them: «Children of my soul, you do not know me, I repeat that you do not know me. You undoubtedly think that I am going to keep this promissory note… You are idiots. When I do a work of charity, you really go there, with your soul and with your life. I’m not lending you the three thousand reales, I’m giving it to you, for your pretty face. Look what I do: scratch, scratch…» He tore the paper. Isidora and Martín believed it because they were seeing it; If not, they wouldn’t have believed it. “That’s called a good man… Mr. Francisco, thank you very much,” Isidora said moved. And the other, covering his mouth with the sheets to contain the bout of coughing that was beginning: –Holy Mary, what a good man! “The only thing I will do,” said Don Francisco, getting up and examining the paintings closely, “is accept a couple of studies, as a souvenir…. This one about the snowy mountains and that one about the grazing donkeys…. Look , Martín, I will also take, if you like, that little seascape and this bridge with ivy…” Martín had had a fit and was suffocating. Isidora, coming to help him, cast a furtive glance at the tables and at the scrutiny and selection that the profitable lender made of them. “I accept them as a souvenir,” he said, putting them aside; “and if it’s okay with you, I’ll also take this other one…. I have to warn you one thing: if you’re afraid that these paintings will be damaged by moving, take them home, I’ll keep them there and you can pick them up any day you want…. Wow?” Is that damn cough going away? Next week you will no longer cough at all, but nothing. You will go to the countryside… there by the bridge of San Isidro…. But what a head of mine…! I forgot the main thing, which is to give them the three thousand reales. Come here, Isidorita, understand well… A hundred peseta bill, another, another… He was counting them, he wet his fingers with saliva on each bill, so that they wouldn’t stick together. Seven hundred pesetas… I have a fifty bill, daughter. Another day gives it. They have one hundred and forty duros there, or two eight hundred reales….» Chapter 8. When she saw the money, Isidora almost cried with pleasure, and the sick man was so encouraged that he seemed to have regained his health. Poor things, they were so bad, they had gone through such horrible shortages and miseries! Two years earlier they met at the house of a moneylender who skinned them both alive. They confided in each other their respective situations, they commiserated and loved each other: that same night Isidora slept in the study. The unfortunate artist and the lost woman made a pact to merge their miseries into one, and to drown their sorrows in the sweet liquor of an entirely conjugal trust. Love made their misfortune bearable. They got married on the altar of cohabitation, and after two days of union they truly loved each other and were willing to die together and share the little good and the much bad that life could bring them. They fought against poverty, against usury, and they succumbed without ceasing to love each other: he was always loving, she was solicitous and affectionate; both examples of self-denial, of those high virtues that hide in shame so that the law and religion do not see them, as the ragged nobleman hides from his well-dressed equals. Torquemada embraced them again, saying to them in a sweet voice: “My children, be good and may you benefit from the example I give you.” Favor the poor, love your neighbor, and just as I have pitied you, pity me, because I am very unfortunate. “I know,” said Isidora, detaching herself from the miser’s arms, “that you have the bad boy.” Poor! You’ll see how good it gets now…. –Now! “Why now?” Torquemada asked with very lively anxiety. –Well… what do I know… It seems to me that God will favor him, he will reward him for his good works…. –Oh! If my son dies,” said Don Francisco with despair, “I don’t know what will happen to me. “There is no need to talk about dying,” cried the sick man, whom the possession of the holy quarters had awakened and excited as if it were a dose of the most energetic stimulant. “What is this about dying?” Nobody dies here . Mr. Francisco, the child is not dying. Well, there was nothing more missing. What does it have? Meningitis? I had a very strong one when I was ten years old; And they already thought I was dead, when I reacted, and I lived, and here you have me ready to grow old, and I will, because what the cold is, I now have it. The child will live, Don Francisco, have no doubt; will live. –He will live–Isidora repeated:–I am going to ask the Virgencita del Carmen. “Yes, daughter, to the Virgin of Carmen,” said Torquemada, raising the handkerchief to his eyes. “It seems very good to me.” Each one pushes in his or her own way, to see if together…» The artist, crazy with joy, wanted to communicate this to his troubled father, and half got out of bed to say: «D. Francisco, don’t cry, the boy lives… My heart tells me, a secret voice tells me… We will all live and we will be happy. –Oh, son of my soul!–exclaimed the _Peor_; and hugging him again :–God hear you. What great comfort it gives me! –You have also consoled us. God has to reward him. We will live, yes, yes. Look, look: the day I can go out, we will all go to the countryside, the child too, for a snack. Isidora will make us food, and we will spend a very pleasant day, celebrating our recovery. “We will go, we will go,” said the miser with effusion, forgetting what he had previously thought about the _field_ to which Martin would go very soon. It happens that I can still make them a much bigger one. Which one?… Let’s see, Mr. Francisquito. –Well, it occurred to me… it’s not an idea just now, I’ve had it for a long time…. It occurred to me that if Isidora retains the papers of her inheritance and succession of the house of Aransis, we should try to get that out …. »
Isidora looked at him, somewhere between stunned and astonished. «That again?» was the only thing he said. “Yes, yes, Don Francisco is right,” said the poor consumptive, who was in a good mood, drunkenly giving himself over to a crazy optimism. “We will try…. That cannot remain like this.” –I am suspicious, Torquemada added, that those who participated in the action the other time were not very smart, or they sold themselves to the old Marquise… We have to see it, we have to see it. –As soon as I get rid of the cold. Isidora; my clothes; Go immediately and get my clothes, I want to get up…. How good I feel now! It makes me want to start painting, Mr. Francisco. As soon as the child gets out of bed I want to take the portrait. –Thank you, grace… you are very good… the three of us are very good, right? Come give me a hug, and ask God for me. I have to go, because I am in an anxiety that I cannot live with. “Nothing, nothing, the child is better, he is saved,” the artist repeated , increasingly excited. “If I’m seeing him, I can’t be wrong.” Isidora prepared to leave, with part of the money, on the way to the loan house; but the poor artist’s cough and dyspnea came on with greater force and he had to stay. Don Francisco said goodbye with the most affectionate expressions he knew and, taking the squares, he left with them under his cloak. On the stairs I was saying: “Wow, it’s good to be good!… I feel something inside me, a consolation…!” Yes, Martin will be right! If that piece of my life will be good for me!… Let’s run there. I don’t trust, I don’t trust. This mess has the illusions of consumptives to the last degree. But who knows! He is surely deceived about himself, and is right about the rest. Where he soon goes is the niche…. But the dying tend to have second sight, and he may have _seen_ Valentin’s improvement… I’m running, running. How much these damn pictures bother me! Now they won’t say that I’m a tyrant and a Jew, since few traits of these are worth a pound!… They won’t tell me that I charge for paintings, because for these sketches, for sale, they wouldn’t give me even half of what I gave. It’s true that if he dies they will be worth more, because here, when an artist is alive, no one pays damn attention to him, and as soon as he dies of misery or fatigue, they put him in the clouds, they call him a genius and what do I know… It seems to me that I never get home. How far it is, being so close! He climbed the stairs of his house three steps at a time, and Aunt Roma opened the door for him, shooting him these words at point blank range: “Sir, the boy seems to be a little calmer.” Hearing it, Don Francisco, and letting go of the paintings and hugging the old woman, was all one. The rag was crying, and _Peor_ gave her three kisses on the forehead. Then he went straight to the sick man’s bedroom and looked out from the door. Rufina rushed towards him to say: «He has been calmer since midday… See? The poor angel seems to be sleeping. Who knows. He may be saved. But I dare not hope, lest we lose them this afternoon. Torquemada was overcome with shock and anxiety. The man was on edge, unable to remain still for a moment, sometimes wanting to burst into tears and sometimes wanting to laugh. He went back and forth from the dining room to the bedroom door, from the bedroom door to his office, and from the office to the study. In one of these somersaults, he called Aunt Roma, and going into the bedroom with her, he made her sit down, and said to her: – Aunt Roma, do you think the child is saved? –Sir, it will be what God wants, and nothing more. I have asked the Virgin of Carmen last night and this morning, with so much devotion that it could not be more, crying with mucus and drool. Can’t you see how my eyes are? –And do you think…? –I have hope, sir. As long as it’s not a corpse, there must be hope, no matter what the doctors say. If the Virgin orders it, the doctors are going to use daggers…. Another: last night I fell asleep praying, and it seemed to me that the Virgin was coming down in front of me, and saying yes with her head… Another: haven’t you prayed? –Yes, woman; what questions you ask! I’m going to tell you an important thing. You’ll see.” He opened a store in Vargueño, in whose drawers he kept papers and jewels of great value that had come into his hands as collateral for usurious loans: some were not yet his; others, yes. For a while he was opening cases, and Aunt Roma, who had never seen anything like this, was dazzled by the glow that came out of the boxes. They were, according to her, emeralds like walnuts, diamonds that shed pale rays, rubies like pomegranate seeds, and very fine gold, gold of the best quality, worth hundreds of thousands…. Torquemada, after opening and closing cases, found what he was looking for: an enormous pearl, the size of a hazelnut, from the most beautiful east; and taking it between his fingers, he showed it to the old woman. “What do you think of this pearl, Aunt Roma?” –Really pretty. I don’t understand it. It will be worth billions. Are you right? –Well, this pearl, Torquemada said in a triumphant tone, is for Lady Virgen del Carmen. It is for her, if it makes my son well. I show it to you, and I make the intention known to you, so that you can tell it to them. If I tell you, you probably won’t believe it. –D. Francisco looking at you with deep pity, you are sick as hell . Tell me, for the life of you, why does the Virgin of Carmen want this requisition? –Here, so they can wear it on their saint’s day, July 16. Well, she won’t be too nice about this! It was a wedding gift from the Most Excellent Lady Marquesa de Tellería. Believe it, there are few like this. –But, Don Francisco, you think that the Virgin is going to grant you…! paice bobo… for that piazo of anything! –Look at the east. You can make a pin and put it on her chest, or on the Child. –Lightning! The Virgin makes a brave case for pearls and whores!… Believe me: sell it and give the money to the poor. Look, it’s not a bad idea,” said the miser, putting the jewel away. “You know a lot. I will follow your advice, although, if I have to be honest, giving to the poor is foolish, because everything you give them they spend on liquor. But we’ll fix it so that the pearl money doesn’t end up in the taverns… And now I want to talk to you about something else. Pay close attention: do you remember when my daughter, walking one afternoon through the outskirts with Quevedo and the Morejón girls, went there, where you live, towards the Tejares del Aragonés, and entered your hut and came telling me, horrified, about the poverty and scarcity she saw there? Do you remember that? Rufina told me that your home is a den, a filth made with adobes, old boards and iron sheets, the roof made of straw and earth; He told me that neither you nor your grandchildren have a bed, and you sleep on a pile of rags; that the pigs and chickens you raise with garbage are people there; and you animals. Yes: Rufina told me this, and I should have felt sorry for you and I didn’t. I should have given you a bed, because you have served us well, you loved my wife very much, you love my children, and in so many years that you have been here you have never stolen from us even the value of a sad nail. Well, if it didn’t occur to me then to help you, it does now.” Saying this, he approached the bed and gave it a strong slap with both hands, like the one usually given to shake mattresses when making beds. «Aunt Roma, come here, play here. Look how soft it is. See this wool mattress on top of a spring mattress? Well, it’s for you, for you, so that you can rest your hard bones and spread out to your heart’s content.” The miser was expecting an explosion of gratitude for such a splendid gift, and he already seemed to be hearing Aunt Roma’s blessings, when she It came out in a very different register. His cobweb face dilated, and from those visible ulcers that opened in the place of his eyes, a glow of embarrassment and fright came out, as he turned his back on the bed, heading towards the door. «Get out, get out there–he said:–go with what you can think of… Give me the mattresses, which don’t even fit through the door of my house!… And even if they fit… dammit! Keep in mind that I have lived so many years sleeping hard like a queen, and I wouldn’t close my eyes on these softnesses. God forbid me from lying there. Do you know what I’m telling you? That I want to die in peace. When the one with the ugly face comes, she will find me without a speck, but with a conscience like the jets of silver. No, I don’t want the mattresses, because inside them is your idea… because you sleep here, and at night, when you start to brood, the ideas get through the fabric inside and through the springs, and they will be there like bedbugs when there is no cleaning. Lightning with the man, and the one who wanted to fit me!… The old lady acted in a graphic way, expressing so well, with the movement of her hands and flexible fingers, how the stingy man’s bed was contaminated with his base thoughts, that Torquemada listened to her with true fury, amazed at so much ingratitude; but she, firm and surly, continued to despise the gift: «Well, what a jackpot that fell to me, Holy God… So that I could sleep on it! Not that I was stupid, Mr. Francisco. So that at midnight all the worms of your ideas come out and get into my ears and eyes, driving me crazy and giving me a bad death…! Because, I know well… you don’t give it to me… in there, in there, are all your sins, the war you wage against the poor, your stinginess, the income you suck, and all the numbers that you have in your head to collect money… If I fell asleep there, at the hour of death I would have toads with very big mouths, some disgusting soap operas that would come out on one side and on the other. They would wrap around their bodies some very ugly devils with mustaches and bat ears, and they would all grab me and drag me to hell. Go to hell, and save your mattresses, I have a cot made of rag bags, with a blanket on top , which is divine glory … Do not eat more than the garbage that you eat. –At good hours and with sun. You now want to put your fist in the sky. Oh, sir, to each page his clothing! That suits you like earrings suit a donkey. And all this is because he is afflicted; But if the child becomes good, you will become worse than Holofernes again. Look , he’s getting old; Look, the best day is the one with the bald face, and you won’t be fooled by this one. “But where do you get that picture from the sura,” Torquemada replied angrily , grabbing her by the neck and shaking her, “where do you get that I am bad, nor have I ever been?” –Leave me, let me go, don’t shake me, I’m no tambourine. Look, I’m older than Jerusalem and I’ve seen a lot of the world and I’ve known you since you wanted to marry Silvia. And I advised her not to marry… and I announced to her the famines she would suffer. Now that he is rich, he doesn’t remember when he started earning it. I do remember, and I am sorry that it was yesterday when I was telling the chickpeas to the poor Silvia and you had everything under lock and key, and the poor thing was starved, trashed and barking from hunger. As if it weren’t for me, who brought him some occult egg, he would have died a hundred times. Do you remember when you got up at midnight to search the kitchen to see if you discovered any food that Silvia had hidden to eat alone? Do you remember when you found a piece of sweet ham and a half cake that they gave me at the Marquesa’s house, and that Did I bring Silvia so she could eat it herself, without giving you even that much? Do you remember that the next day you were like a lion, and that when I came in you threw me to the ground and kicked me? And I didn’t get angry, and I came back, and every day I brought something to Silvia. Since you were the one who was going shopping, we couldn’t steal from you, and the unfortunate woman didn’t have a sad jacket to wear. She was a martyr, Don Francisco, a martyr; and you saving the money and giving it a pound a month! And meanwhile, they ate nothing but raw mojama with dry bread and salad. Thank you that I shared with you what you gave me in the rich houses, and one night, do you remember? I brought a wild boar bone that you put in the pot for six days in a row, until it was drier than your dagger soul. I had no obligation to bring anything: I did it for Silvia, whom I held in my arms when Mrs. Rufinica, from Dog Alley, was born. And what made you furious was that I kept things for her and didn’t give them to you, damn it ! As if I had an obligation to fill your mouth, dog, more than dog…. And tell me now, have you ever given me the value of a real? She did give me what she could, silently; But you, the capigor, what have you given me? Crooked nails, and the sweeps of the house. Come now with fools and farce!… They are going to make a brave case. “Look, you old devil,” Torquemada told her furiously, “out of respect for your age, I won’t kick you to death.” You are a liar, a devil, with your entire body full of lies and entanglements. Now you want to discredit me after having been eating my bread for more than twenty years. But I do know you, you poison bag; Yes, what you said, no one is going to believe you: neither above nor below! The devil is with you, and you are cursed among all the witches and grotesqueries in heaven… I mean, in hell.» Chapter 9. The man was out of his mind, delirious; and without noticing that the old woman had left the room at a good pace, he continued talking as if he had her in front of him. «Scare, mother of cobwebs, if I catch you, you will see…. Discredit me like this!» He went from one part to another in the narrow bedroom, and from this to the study, as if shadows were chasing him; He nodded against the wall, some so loud that they echoed throughout the house. The afternoon was falling, and darkness already reigned around the unhappy miser, when he heard clearly and distinctly the peacock cry that Valentine gave in the paroxysm of his very high fever. “And they said it was better!… Son of my soul…. They have sold us, they have deceived us.” Rufina entered the beast’s room crying, and said to him: “Oh, dad, he’s gotten so sick; but how bad! –That Quevedo thing!–Torquemada shouted, putting his fist to his mouth and biting it with rage.–I’m going to take out his insides… He killed us . –Dad, for God’s sake, don’t be like that…. Don’t rebel against God’s will …. If He so decides…. –I’m not rebelling, daggers! I don’t rebel. It’s just that I don’t want, I don’t want to give my son, because he is mine, blood of my blood and bone of my bones. …
–Resign, resign, and let us be in agreement–exclaimed the daughter, in a flood of tears. –I can’t, I don’t feel like resigning. This is a theft…. Envy, pure envy. What does Valentine have to do in heaven? Nothing, no matter what they say; but nothing…. God, so many lies, so many lies! Yes heaven, yes hell, yes God, yes devil, yes… three thousand radishes. And death, that very stupid person of death, who doesn’t remember so many scoundrels, so many frauds, so many idiots, and thinks he’s my child, because he’s the best thing in the world!… Everything is wrong, and the world is disgusting, a huge mess.” Rufina left and Bailón entered, carrying a very sad face. He came from seeing the sick man, who was already dying, surrounded by some neighbors and friends of the house. The priest was preparing to comfort the afflicted father in that painful trance, and began by giving him a hug, saying in a blurred voice: “Courage, my friend, courage. In these cases strong souls are known. Remember that great philosopher who died on a cross leaving the principles of Humanity enshrined. –What principles or what…! Do you want to get out of here, you bug?… Wow, he’s one of the most annoying and annoying and stinky things I’ve ever seen. Whenever I’m distressed I come out with those puns. –My friend, be very calm. Faced with the designs of Nature, of Humanity, of the great Everything, what can man do? The man! that ant, even less, that flea… still much less. “That coquito… even less, that… daggers!” added Torquemada with horrible sarcasm, imitating the voice of the sibyl and then raising his closed fist . Let me go, let me go, for the damned soul of your mother, or…” Rufina entered again, brought by two of her friends, to take her away from the very sad spectacle of the bedroom. The poor young woman couldn’t stand up. He fell to his knees, moaning, and when he saw his father struggling with Bailón, he said to him: “Dad, for God’s sake, don’t get like that.” Resign… I ‘m resigned, don’t you see me?… The poor guy… when I came in… he had an oh-oh moment! in which he regained consciousness. He spoke with a clear voice, and said that he saw the angels who were calling him. –Son of my soul, son of my life!–torquemada shouted with all the force of his lungs, becoming a savage, a madman–don’t go, don’t pay attention; Those are some scoundrels who want to deceive you…. Stay with us…. »
Saying this, he fell flat on the ground, stretched out one leg, contracted the other and one arm. Bailón, with all his strength, could not hold him, as he developed incredible muscular vigor. At the same time he let out a ferocious roar and foam from his pursed mouth. The twitching of his limbs and the kicking were truly a horrible spectacle: he dug his nails into his neck until he bled. He remained like this for a long time, held by Bailón and the butcher, while Rufina, overcome with pain, but in her five senses, was comforted and cared for by Quevedito and the photographer. The house was filled with neighbors and friends, who in such situations usually come compassionately and helpfully. Finally, Torquemada’s patatús ended, and he fell into a deep sleep that resembled death itself, due to its stillness, and they picked him up by four of them and threw him on his bed. Aunt Roma, by Quevedito’s agreement, scrubbed it with a brush, scratching it, as if she were polishing it . Valentin had already expired. His sister, whether you like it or not, went there, gave him a thousand kisses, and, helped by her friends, prepared to fulfill her last duties with the poor child. He was brave, much braver than his father, who when he came to himself from that tremendous syncope, and was able to learn of the complete extinction of his hopes, fell into profound physical and moral depression. He cried silently, and gave a few sighs that could be heard throughout the house. After a while, he asked for coffee with half a piece of toast, because he felt horrible weakness. The absolute loss of hope brought him nervous sedation, and sedation, urgent stimuli to repair the fatigued organism. At midnight it was necessary to administer a substantial potion, which the photographer’s sister upstairs and the butcher’s wife downstairs made, with eggs, sherry, and stew broth. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” said the _Peor_; “but it seems like my life wants to go away.” The deep sighing and the compressed crying lasted until near daylight, when he was attacked by a new paroxysm of pain, saying that he wanted to see his son; _resuscitate him, no matter what the cost_, and he tried to get out of bed, against the combined efforts of Bailón, the butcher and the other friends who wanted to contain him and calm him down. Finally they managed to get him to stay still, with the result that he The philosophical admonitions of the cleric, and the wise things that the butcher, a man of few letters, but a very good Christian, had little part in. “They are right,” said Don Francisco, overwhelmed and out of breath. “What remedy is there other than to conform?” Conform! It’s a trip for which you don’t need saddlebags. See what it is worth for one to be better than bread, and to sacrifice oneself for the unfortunate, and to do good to those who cannot even see us in painting…. In short, what I was thinking of spending on favoring four scoundrels… poorly spent money, which was to go to taverns, gambling dens, and pawnshops!… I say that I am going to spend those fortunes on giving my son of the soul, to that glory, to that prodigy that did not seem from this world, the most brilliant funeral that Madrid has ever seen. Ah, what a son! Isn’t it painful to have it taken away from me? That was not a son: it was a little god that the Eternal Father and I half-generated…. Don’t you think I should give him a magnificent burial? Hey, it’s already daytime. “Let them bring me samples of hearses… and come with black ballots to invite all the teachers.” With these vanity projects, the man became excited, and around nine in the morning, getting up and dressed, he gave his orders with poise and serenity. He had a good lunch, received all his friends who came to see him, and told them all the well-known story: “Conformity… What should we do to you!… It’s clear: it doesn’t matter if you become a saint, or if you become a Judas, in case they listen to you and have mercy on you… Ah, mercy!… Nice hook without bait for fools to swallow.” And the luxurious funeral was held, and many brilliant people came to it, which was a source of satisfaction and pride for Torquemada, the only balm for his deepest sorrow. That gloomy afternoon, after they took away the body of the admirable child, pitiful scenes occurred in the house. Rufina, who was coming and going without consolation, saw her father leaving the dining room with his mustache all white, and was frightened, believing that in an instant he had turned gray. What happened was the following: out of his mind, and overcome by a spasm of tribulation, the inconsolable father went to the dining room and took down the blackboard on which the mathematical problems were still written, and taking it as a portrait, which faithfully reproduced the features of his beloved son, he spent a very long time giving kisses on the cold black cloth, and squeezing his face against it, so that the chalk stuck to his mustache wet with tears, and The unhappy usurer seemed to have suddenly aged. Everyone present was amazed at this, and even began to cry. Don Francisco took the waxwork to his room , and commissioned a gilder to create a luxurious frame to put it on, and hang it in the best place in that room. The next day, the man was overcome, from the moment he opened his eyes, with the fever of earthly business. As the young lady had been very broken by insomnia and pain, she could not attend to household things: the maid and the tireless Aunt Roma replaced her to the extent that replacing her was possible. And here, when Aunt Roma came in to bring the chocolate to the Grand Inquisitor, he was already on the floor, sitting at the table in his office, writing numbers with a feverish hand. And since the witch had so much confidence in the master of the house, allowing herself to treat him as an equal, she approached him, placed her stark and cold hand on his shoulder, and said: “He never learns… He is already preparing the hanging implements again. “You are going to have a bad death, damned by God, if you don’t mend your ways.” And Torquemada cast a look on her that was entirely yellow, because in him it was of this color what other human eyes are white, and he answered her in this way: “I do what I please, you idiot, old woman older than the Bible. “I would be Lucido if I consulted with your foolishness what I should do.” Contemplating the mathematics blackboard for a moment , he sighed and continued like this: “If I prepare the junk, that’s not yours or anyone’s responsibility, because I know everything there is to know about tiles below and even tiles above, daggers! I already know that you are going to come out with the materialism of mercy…. To that I answer that if I made good memorials, they gave me good, fat pumpkins. Whatever mercy I have,…signs! “Let them stick it in my forehead.” We have reached the end of Torquemada at the bonfire of Benito Pérez Galdós. Through the figure of Torquemada, Galdós has shown us the complexities of power, religion and morality, all wrapped up in a profound criticism of the excesses of fanaticism. The story has been a journey through the tensions of a turbulent time, where the boundaries between good and evil are blurred. Thank you for joining us in this fascinating story. We are waiting for you in the next episode here, in *Now of Stories*.
🔴 **Torquemada en la hoguera** es una obra histórica escrita por Benito Pérez Galdós que narra una de las figuras más emblemáticas de la España medieval: Tomás de Torquemada, el gran inquisidor. En esta obra, Galdós retrata de manera profunda los conflictos de fe, poder y justicia que marcaron una de las etapas más oscuras de la historia de Europa. Descubre cómo Torquemada, una figura central de la Inquisición española, fue parte crucial de la persecución de herejes, conversos y judíos durante el reinado de los Reyes Católicos. 🔥
**Resumen completo de la obra:**
📜 **Contexto histórico**: Ambientada en el siglo XV, la historia se sitúa en el reinado de los Reyes Católicos, Isabel de Castilla y Fernando de Aragón, donde la unidad religiosa y política de España se logra a través de la creación de la Inquisición. Tomás de Torquemada, un monje dominico, se convierte en el gran inquisidor que lidera la caza de herejes y la ejecución de miles de personas acusadas de apostasía y traición a la fe católica.
🔨 **Personajes principales**:
– **Tomás de Torquemada**: Un hombre devoto y cruel que utiliza su poder para imponer la religión católica a toda costa. La obra presenta su lucha interna entre la fe y el poder, lo que lo convierte en una figura compleja y trágica.
– **Los conversos**: Judíos convertidos al cristianismo, pero aún sospechosos de practicar su antigua fe en secreto. La obra aborda sus dilemas, persecuciones y sacrificios en la época medieval.
– **Los herejes**: Aquellos que, bajo la mirada de Torquemada, se oponen a las doctrinas de la Iglesia. Sus vidas están marcadas por la amenaza constante de ser condenados al fuego.
⚖️ **La lucha entre el bien y el mal**: La obra explora temas complejos de moralidad, justicia y fe, planteando preguntas sobre el derecho al perdón y la crueldad de la Inquisición. Torquemada, como personaje, representa el fanatismo y el autoritarismo, pero también la creencia ciega en la verdad divina.
📚 **Impacto cultural**: Torquemada en la hoguera es una crítica a la intolerancia religiosa y a las injusticias cometidas en nombre de la fe. Galdós utiliza a Torquemada como un símbolo de la tiranía y el dogmatismo que puede surgir cuando el poder y la religión se entrelazan.
🔔 **No te pierdas esta increíble obra literaria**: Si te apasiona la historia, la literatura y las grandes tragedias humanas, esta obra te sumergirá en una época fascinante y llena de conflictos morales. Además, te invitamos a que te suscribas al canal para seguir explorando más clásicos de la literatura española y mundial.
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-Amor y Pedagogía ❤️📚 – La obra maestra de Unamuno (https://youtu.be/ZTE9FkjgUpY)
-Torquemada en la hoguera 🔥 | Benito Pérez Galdós 👑 | Historia de la Inquisición Española 🕯️ (https://youtu.be/MLkAM7vnVuw)
🔹 **Si te ha gustado este video, no olvides darle like, compartirlo con tus amigos y dejar tus comentarios** sobre qué te ha parecido la obra de Benito Pérez Galdós. Nos encantaría saber tu opinión y tus reflexiones sobre el papel de Torquemada en la historia. 👇💬
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