🧭 La Ruta del Aventurero ✨ Una odisea de libertad y destino
Welcome to Now for Stories. Today we invite you to embark on a fascinating journey with The Adventurer’s Route, a work by the great storyteller Pío Baroja. In this story, Baroja presents the itinerary of a restless spirit, a man who challenges the established order in search of freedom, truth, and meaning in a changing world. Through European landscapes, political adventures, and philosophical reflections, the protagonist embodies the eternal figure of the rebellious traveler. Prepare for a vibrant narrative, full of action, thought, and the unmistakable irony of the Basque author. Chapter 1. A LEVANTINE CITY. On the shores of the Mediterranean, at the bottom of a cove, lies a small white city perched on a high hill and surrounded by a mountain range that forms a great amphitheater of bare, stony hills. Ondara, a name that some believe to be of Greek origin and others of Iberian origin, nestles into the foothills of a hill, a prominent promontory of the mountain range that juts into the sea. This promontory, called Ondaroe Promontory by the Romans, has an old castle on its summit and must have once been an acropolis where troops and their leaders were holed up upon the arrival of the enemy and where the city’s gods were kept. The great amphitheater-shaped Ondara mountain range rises as it approaches the sea on a higher mountain, called Monsant. Monsant borders Ondara Bay to the north. Inland, it has a bare, conical peak, a giant overwhelmed by solitude, which must have once been a volcano, with its ridges and grooves, where lava flowed. Towards the sea, it juts out, forming a cape, like a formidable prow broken by some igneous convulsion into black sheets, slashed by fissures, into whose bottom the water penetrates and strikes like a battering ram. The collapse of the Monsant has left behind small rocky archipelagos: black tritons bathing among the white meanders of the waves and foam. Neptune and Amphitrite, with their retinue of Nereids and Sirens, seem to preside over these madcap frenzies of the sea. The Ondara inlet, closed to the north by the Monsant, circumscribed by the mountain range with its rocks blue in the morning and purple at dusk, ends to the south in a low sandy point with a lighthouse at its end. This inlet has two large, open beaches, littered with boulders, blackened by seaweed, and a natural harbor at the very foot of the houses. During the first third of the 19th century, Ondara was still a town of some strategic importance; it had a castle and a wall. The castle had suffered greatly during the Peninsular War; the cannons were dismantled; the casemates were destroyed; Everywhere there were relics of a violent and tenacious struggle. The town’s main wall, of little defensive value, was low, without ditches or exterior structures, sometimes loop-holed and sometimes not, interrupted by bastions and circular towers, with their corresponding sentry boxes. This modern wall, white and low, which surrounded the town, joined the castle and had a large esplanade facing the port, called the Glorieta, and a hornwork with its batteries. In addition to the low wall surrounding Ondara, there were remains of fortifications, ancient stretches of amber-colored wall gilded by the sun of centuries and blackened by the sea air. One of these, the largest, closed off a large ravine that existed between the castle and the fishing district. It was a stone curtain of large carved blocks. Scholars were not entirely in agreement on the date of this wall’s construction. Some considered it to date back to the time of the Etruscans, founders of the city; others, to be of Roman origin. The eclectics claimed that part of the wall was very ancient; another, Roman, and another, rebuilt by the Arabs. The set of walls of Ondara, erected at different times, joined together, forming a figure 8, enclosing the castle and the city within its two circles . It was understood that in ancient times Ondara must have been an important fortress, almost impregnable; on the sea side it must have been very Its conquest was difficult, and also difficult on the landward side, guarding the passes to its amphitheater of mountains. Still outside its walls, the city presented vestiges of defenses; at the entrance to the port, on some rocks, rose two half-ruined black towers: one called the Fort, and the other, the Torreta. The city of Ondara, very old in its ruins and very new in its constructions, was almost entirely modern. Only the main church and some houses near the wall dated from bygone ages. The main church, Gothic in design, had a light blue painted façade , with a Baroque doorway and a gallery with vase-shaped finials. This church stood in the center of a small square and rose above the Ondara village with its square tower and green-tiled dome . Inside, the high nave displayed the ribs of its columns and their yellow-painted lancets, and the keystones bore colored coats of arms. In the chapels, the great Churrigueresque altars shone, with their twisted Solomonic columns and ancient panels painted by masters imitating the Flemish. Another church existed in Ondara, toward the port; archaeologists would have found no beauty in it; however, painted blue and pink, it gave the impression of the youth and strength of a rosy-cheeked village girl. The village of Ondara, clustered around the church on the castle hill, had an air of innocence, beatitude, and peace; it resembled a white flock surrounding its shepherd. On the flat roofs of the houses, rags of a thousand colors were drying in the sun. The humidity of the sea covered the few roofs in the village with moss and made lush, green grass sprout. Ondara offered nothing whimsical or picturesque; it had a peasant neighborhood and a fishing district. The center was formed by two or three fairly wide streets, lined with important shops. Unemployed young gentlemen strolled along them, young soldiers dragging their sabers, and priests, with their large tiled roofs and hands behind their backs, gathering their mantles behind them. At certain hours, groups of very graceful, clean, and lively young women would cross, working in the orange packing business. Occasionally, a carriage or a cart from a wealthy family would pass by, and the young people knew immediately whether it was Vicenteta or Doloretes, or the father or mother of one of these, who was in the carriage. Outside of the central and commercial streets, the rest were straight, fairly wide, and deserted. The low, eaveless houses with large doors and green-painted railings lined up one after another, flooded with sunlight, as if lost in a sleepy calm. Passersby were few and far between. Only in the morning did you see old women dressed in black, with suspicious eyes, and some with a hint of beard, taking a key from under their cloak, opening a shutter, and then slamming it shut , demonstrating their contempt for the rest of us. The fishing district was the most picturesque part of Ondara: there you could see narrow, sloping streets with small shacks, huts, boats tucked into pens, and an expressive, exaggerated, gesticulating seafaring population. The men worked, talking, shouting, in their Mediterranean language; The old women, blackened by the sun, were making nets and sails, and the ragged children, in red, yellow, green, and other brightly colored rags, ran around barefoot… If Ondara presented nothing extraordinary from an archaeological point of view, it possessed a magical light that gilded it, beautified it, transformed it at certain times into a golden ember, a city of fire, and at other times gave it the air of an oriental village, of immobility, calm , and light. Like all the cities of the Mediterranean, born from the gentle kiss of the land with the sea, Ondara had something harmonious above the chaos produced by the mixture of many races and diverse peoples. It was a provincial and cosmopolitan city, both peasant and fisherman. In it The humblest being, the most wretched fisherman, carried in his mind, due to the very limitation of the inland sea, an idea of the world. Nearby was Africa, with its mysteries; further away, Greece, Rome, Egypt, with their opulent cities of incomparable sky and fertile soil… The obscure inhabitant of the Atlantic sees the sea as a limitless end; the obscure inhabitant of the Mediterranean sees the sea as a path. Perhaps from this comes their collective superiority, their social sense. For a man who has come from the shores of the Atlantic, the shores of the _mare nostrum_ always hold a surprise, which sometimes takes the form of a lesson. In these blue waters of the Latin Sea, which eternally sing on the coasts, man lives a light and elastic life; there, at times, what elsewhere seems profound seems superficial; there, the tide does not constantly threaten man as it does in the Ocean, and human life develops in the placid contact of land with sea; of the land, which is the homeland and the city; of the sea, which by oar or sail becomes the way of the world… Despite this, the same magic of the decoration, the same splendor of the background, makes man seem in these places of more limited contours, more pronounced and perhaps for this reason smaller. Chapter 2. THE CASTLE. The castle was an arid rock that stood out from the mountain range and advanced, plunging its red and yellowish cliffs into the sea. Seen from afar, little could be seen of it except the occasional stretch of ash-colored wall, the signal tower and the high batteries on its summit. From the port it appeared imposing with its great stone walls, gilded by the sun; its towers, its batteries, its forts, its greenish-black sentry boxes , the traverses, which zigzag across the glacis, and the old cannons, which looked out to sea. The reddish earth between each wall had corners planted with almond and peach trees, which in spring shone like bouquets of snow and rose, and slopes planted with vines and wild grasses glazed with yellow and blue flowers. Climbing up to the castle and entering its grounds, one saw that it was already a ruin, a jumbled jumble of old walls, Greek, Roman, Visigothic, Arab, and a few modern ones. The military considered the restoration of the fortress almost useless, and the government apparently had no intention of fortifying it. The castle had three gates: the Land Gate, which opened near the Church Square; the Marina Gate, which faced the dock; and the Socorro Gate, which faced the countryside. The latter, located outside the walls, served to receive reinforcements and aid from outside in the event that the city rebelled against the government or was occupied by the enemy. Entering through the Marina Gate and crossing a drawbridge, held back by chains and flanked by two sentry boxes, one passed through an archway, on one side of which was the guardhouse. There, on some benches, one would often see the soldiers sitting, while the officer strolled along the quayside or smoked in a rocking chair. From the entrance arch, a steep slope led up, passing beneath a tunnel eight or ten paces long, and emerging from it , one opened into a wide passage with casemates, an ammunition dump, and a gunpowder store. From here, the road forked; one went to the left, facing the mountains; the other to the right, facing the sea. Both met on the esplanade of a battery and surrounded the citadel. The road to the left passed above the town, threatening it with its old, reddish towers, garrisoned with machicolations, and its bastions from the time of Vauban. Then came the counterscarp, overlooking the countryside, bordered by the amphitheater of mountains, which began at Monsant and continued through the other heights that formed the range. The road to the right offered admirable views; at the beginning, it had a paved battery, the Marine Battery, right above the port. The cannons of this battery were bronze, green, with shields and signs, and heavy carriages laden with ornaments. This was one of the most picturesque spots in the Castle. The sea could be seen through the battlements. A swaying stone sentry box, suspended in the air, with a round hole in the ground, offered a bird’s-eye view of the port. Leaving the Marina Battery, the road climbed a slope, ran over the cliffs, passed in front of Cueva de Pastor, which ended in the sea, and reached the Damas Battery. Here the view had lengthened, widened, and enriched. Higher up was the San Antón Battery, where the two paths that circled the mountain met , and from this battery, another path led up, scaling the highest point of the promontory. From here , two or three pavilions could be seen, a large, square tower, the Macho, a small rooftop converted into a garden, the Mirador, and a final battery, the King’s Battery, without walls or loopholes, from which mortars could fire in all directions. From the top of that lofty esplanade, the landscape and the town could be seen, except for a few corners very close to the castle. From the heights, the mountain range, Ondara, the blue sea, and the rocks of Cape Monsant could be dominated like nowhere else . The town, nestled beneath the castle, had a somber, self-absorbed air; its crystal skylights sparkled, along with the tiled dome of its church, its greenish roofs, and its terraces filled with white cloth . Nearby, along the paths, grew the large agave trees, their green leaves as sharp as daggers, covered in dust. Toward the mountain range, the countryside glowed hot and scorched; in the lower reaches, some small vegetable gardens irrigated by irrigation ditches displayed their verdant foliage, and larger orange groves shone in winter with their constellations of golden fruit amid the dark foliage. Farmhouses surrounded by copses of olive and almond trees lined the slopes and slopes of the mountain range . On the peaks, the dry, stony hills, as if formed from ash and pumice, bristled with sharp edges, and the white paths seemed strewn with plaster. On one slope, two rows of cypress trees, interrupted by stone crosses, climbed to the heights leading to the cemetery. At the highest point of the castle, on the ancient, burning and scorched promontory, was the Mirador garden. This garden was a ledge in the wall, attached to the pavilion where the colonel who commanded the citadel’s forces lived. The Mirador had a small turret, called the Castellet, and stairs leading up to the King’s Battery. From there, one could overlook the sea—the blue sea, a splendid, intense color under the dazzling sky. In the distance, on a cliff that seemed made of marble, the white patch of a small village shone. Rosebushes of every color sprouted from the Mirador; jasmine mingled with myrtles and the dark foliage of orange trees. An oleander, with its bright flowers, looked like a waterfall of fire. The colonel lovingly tended the plants at the Mirador. Every day, the soldiers drew water to irrigate the garden from a cistern, the Cisterna del Moro, which was ancient, stone-lined, and extremely deep. Ondara Castle was garrisoned by two companies of infantry and an artillery detachment. This small force, which barely numbered four hundred men, had a large officer corps, commanded by a colonel titled governor. He, with his wife, lived in one of the castle pavilions; a major and a captain lived in another pavilion with their families. The other officers had their homes in the village. On spring and autumn afternoons, and in summer, at night, there were often social gatherings at the castle’s viewing point. The colonel performed the honors in her garden, and the distinguished officers of the garrison would come to greet her. Chapter 3. THE SUSPECTS. ONE afternoon in May, as the sun set after a sweltering and stifling day, the port of Ondara looked busier than usual. Two coal-laden boats from Ibiza were unloading, and the fishermen’s boats were returning at the same time. The sea was blue, almost black, calm, tranquil; across its expanse, the triangular lateen sails shone like magic wings. The setting sun illuminated the land. The castle sparkled on its reddish-yellow cliffs. Part of the town glowed like a glowing ember, and sparks of fire flew from the stained-glass windows, skylights , and tiles; part, buried in shadow, was bathed in violet air. On the quay, the porters, in their red caps, were coming and going, carrying bundles; the shipwrights were sawing frames and assembling the ribs of the skeleton boats lying in the armories; the children were playing and running like sparrows, approaching the arriving boat. The old women were mending nets, and some carabinieri, sitting on a bench in front of the Marina gate, were talking among themselves. Young men, blackened by the sun, with the air of Barbary pirates, laden with baskets full of glistening little fish, passed in front of the carabinieri, paid a few cents, and entered the streets shouting for fish. In the taverns, sailors were talking loudly; others, gathered around tables, listened to the wise explanations of some experienced and determined pilot: old Palinuro, well-versed in the currents and winds… At this point, at nightfall, a ship appeared a few miles from Ondara, causing great surprise in the town. It was a high-sided vessel that, at that moment, was approaching with its white sails unfurled, fantastic, like a hallucination. The watchman of the fortress signaled with pennants, and the ship hoisted its flag on the sterncastle. The curious from Ondara approached the port to observe the ship, and the military personnel from the citadel appeared at the Naval Battery and the King’s Battery to observe with binoculars and glasses. One of the officers approached the watchtower, and the watchman, in a tone that offered no reply, said that the ship was a polacre of two hundred and fifty tons, flying the flag of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Once the ship’s nationality and tonnage were known, the officers on duty at the castle began to comment on the polacre’s possible purpose in approaching Ondara. The Neapolitan vessel was about a mile from the port when some sails fell, others rose, and the polacre lay motionless. Then a boat was seen to be lowered from its side into the sea, which shortly afterward, oars permitting, advanced toward the dock. The colonel, governor of the castle, ordered an officer to question those in the boat, and he remained with a telescope, looking out to sea from the high esplanade of the citadel. The seafaring people also watched, with curiosity, the polacre’s launch as it moved forward. It approached, leaving a silvery trail in the water, until it docked at one of the steps of the pier’s jetty. Three men immediately got out. They were of the most heterogeneous appearance imaginable: one, tall, thickset, red-faced, dressed in an old frock coat; the other, also tall, bent, yellow, and sickly-looking, wearing a black carrick with white stripes; the third, short, cocky, blond, elegantly dressed in a blue tailcoat with gold buttons, blue trousers, a scarlet waistcoat, and an English naval officer’s cap. The first two looked as if they were dressed in a rag market; the third could have been mistaken for a crooked fellow going to a ball or an aristocratic reception . The tall man, upon disembarking, went upstairs carrying a sack; the sick man carried a bundle in his hand; the short man, blond and elegant, had a sailor carry a large suitcase to the dock. The officer sent by the governor approached the three men to question them. The sailors in the boat, as soon as they left the men and their luggage on land, began to row away from the dock. furiously and walked off toward the polacre. “They’re leaving!” exclaimed the audience in surprise. “No; they’re going to bring others,” replied some of those perceptive beings who are always in the know about events. The strangers who had just disembarked were standing on the quay, surrounded by a circle of sailors, women, and children. “Well, well, that’s enough!” shouted the small, blond man, addressing the crowd. “Don’t be idiots. There’s nothing to see here. Out!” At this point, parting the crowd, the officer sent by the colonel-governor approached the three individuals . “Where are you from?” he asked in a curt voice. “We came from Greece, after having touched at Naples,” replied the tall, rosy-cheeked man. “Are you Spanish? ” “No; we’re English. ” “What were you doing in Greece?” “We were merchants.” The Turks sacked the town where we lived, and we had to escape. “And why have they brought them ashore? ” “It’s because our comrade is ill and wanted to leave the ship at all costs. ” A sergeant accompanying the officer approached him and said in a low voice, “Don’t let them catch the plague.” The officer took a few steps back. The phrase and the movement did not go unnoticed by the people, who immediately widened the circle around the three men. The officer spoke very reservedly to the sergeant and then said, turning to the suspects, “You can’t enter the town. ” “Why?” asked the tall man. “Because you have to go to the lazaretto for observation.” The strangers looked at each other. “Will there be a porter or a cavalry to carry our luggage?” asked the elegant little blond man in a dry voice. “You’ll be paid whatever you want.” A peasant, after much hesitation, said he had a mule and would bring it. They waited for him to come, the sack and valise were secured on the horse, the officer left, and the sergeant, master of the situation, said sternly to the supposed plague victims: “Come behind me; but from a distance, eh! There’s no need to come closer. ” The three men, carrying the sick man in their midst, followed the sergeant and the peasant on the mule. They advanced along the beach. From time to time they had to stop so the sick man could rest. They crossed a small neighborhood made up of huts and some barges converted into dwellings and decorated with flowerpots and boxes filled with earth and flowers. Wherever they passed, they caused a stir; word that they were plague victims had spread through the town. The sergeant, leaving the inhabited part of the beach, approached a deserted sandy area where a square house stood, half in ruins, mounted on a solid stone base, which prevented seawater from entering during storms. To get to the house, there were some steps. Around it, open crates of merchandise and some rotten boats could be seen. “This is Ondara’s lazaretto,” said the sergeant. “This is where you will spend the quarantine observation. Bring down your luggage.” The sick man sat sadly on one of the steps of the abandoned house, while the other two and the peasant unloaded the horses. This done, the sergeant said in farewell: “You are not allowed to approach the city under penalty of death. In the morning and at night, bread and food will be brought to you, and they will be left at the door. You know that. Goodbye!” The peasant took his horse’s halter, took the money the blond man gave him, counted it, and began to walk slowly away along the beach. The three men were left alone, and while the sick man, wrapped in a blanket, looked at the sea, the other two entered the solitary house. They opened the rotten windows. The place was dilapidated and dirty: a warehouse like a hospital ward with a small kitchen at the back. “Since we have to stay here for a few days, let’s see if “Let’s clean this up,” said the tall man. “Let’s go,” replied the short one. They both took off their coats, and in their shirtsleeves, each carrying a bucket, went to the seashore to fetch water. They then spent an hour armed with brooms, sweeping and mopping everything until the ground was clean. This task completed, they brought out some old mattresses and shook them out into the open air. The sick man said he wanted to lie down; they placed two mattresses on the ground, one on top of the other, and he lay down wrapped in a blanket. The two healthy men, after finishing their task, remained at the door, tired, without speaking to each other, in a placid contemplation of the landscape. It was falling dark. In front of them could be seen the sea, rippled, adorned with silver; to the right the castle walls glittered in the last glimmer of the sun; To the left, a distant blue point with a lighthouse glimmered palely in the burning twilight sky. The clouds, large and fluffy, took on a coppery hue; the strong evening wind rippled the water into small waves; the lateen sails continued to glimmer white, yellow, and patched in the distance. Fishing boats were returning two by two; the Neapolitan polacre had lit a lantern that looked like a great evening star , and with all its sails unfurled, it was beginning to move away, with the mysterious air of a hallucination… Chapter 4. BURIAL. During the evening, everyone in Ondara was talking about the three men who had arrived at the port by boat, who were considered plague-ridden. It was suspected that the captain of the Sicilian polacre had expelled them from his ship because he considered them to be suffering from the plague. Some local residents claimed that the governor must have strictly forbidden them from going ashore. Others, more pious, said it wasn’t lawful to abandon and leave men helpless even if they were sick. The technicians maintained that everything depended on the lack of organized medical services. According to them, if the medical launch had gone to meet the boat thrown into the sea by the polacre, the landing would have been prevented. At the gathering of Colonel Hervés’s wife, on the castle lookout , there was much talk about the supposed plague-stricken, and a military doctor, Don Jesús Martín, and an artillery lieutenant named Eguaguirre, decided to visit those isolated in the lazaretto. The next morning they mounted horses and went to the abandoned house on the beach. Upon arrival, they found the two healthy men, the tall, thick man and the short, thin man, busy caulking an old boat. They greeted them and asked what they were doing. “Here we are,” said the tall one with a cheerful smile, “working to see if we can fix this boat. ” “What for?” “To go out to sea. That way we can amuse ourselves a bit, fish, and change our diet. ” “And the sick man?” asked the doctor. “He’s the same. ” “What’s wrong with him? ” “He has a malarial fever that has consumed him. ” “I’m going to see him. I’m a doctor.” The tall man went up the steps of the house, opened the door, and ushered the doctor inside. The doctor approached the sick man’s bed. He could barely sit up for weakness. Doctor Martín recognized the malarial man, left the house, and washed his hands in a bucket of seawater. “This man is very ill,” he said. “Yes; you can see. ” “Has he taken quinine? ” “Not very consistently. ” “How is he eating? ” “Badly; you see; they only send us food. We give him the broth, which we filter through a cloth.” “Good; then we’ll send other food and quinine. ” “We’ll see if he gets better,” murmured the tall man. “No, I don’t think so,” said the doctor. “He’s already very weak. He won’t last a week.” When the doctor and the tall man came out onto the beach, they found the small, thin man still working in his shirtsleeves , caulking the boat, while Lieutenant Eguaguirre watched him. “I see you’re people who aren’t daunted by misfortune,” exclaimed the doctor. “One gets used to everything. ” “It will be difficult to get this boat afloat,” interjected the artillery officer. “We’ll see,” replied the thin man. “An attempt will be made. ” “I’m going to send you,” replied the doctor, “an old boat we used to have for the medical service, and which is no longer in use. It’s ugly and unpainted, but it doesn’t leak. ” “Oh, thank you very much!” The doctor and the young officer left, and the next day there was a boat in front of the lazaretto. The two sailors who manned it went down to the beach and, from a distance, warned the pestilents that the boat was there. The doctor had ordered some fishing tackle to be brought to them, which they saw in the boat on a bench, wrapped in paper. For a week the two men’s lives were the same. In the morning they would get up at dawn, feed the sick man, have lunch , and go fishing in the boat. In the afternoon they would return to the sea, and at night, one of their companions would watch over the malarial patient while the other slept. Eight days after arriving at the lazaretto, the sick man died. The thin man wrote to the governor of the castle and the mayor. He told them in his letter that one of those admitted to the lazaretto, an English colonel in the service of the Greek government, had died of fever. He added that the colonel professed the Evangelical religion and for this reason he begged the authorities to tell him where his body could be buried, for which he requested that they provide them with tools: a pick and a shovel to dig the grave. The mayor replied curtly, saying they could bury the dead man near the beach. Anything was good for wicked heretics like those. The governor sent two soldiers with a shovel and a pick. The two men from the lazaretto patrolled the beach. They found a piece of firm ground, made of petrified sand, far from the house at the foot of a cliff, and there they decided to dig the grave. They dug a deep hole , and once finished, they returned to the lazaretto. Then they dressed the body, put it in the boat, and approached the chosen spot. The two of them carried the body up a ladder, crossed the beach, and placed the body in the grave. The tall man took a Bible from his pocket and began to read verses in English; the other listened attentively. From time to time, the latter threw a mound of sand into the grave and then remained motionless, leaning on the handle of the shovel. The work completed, the two men returned to the boat, and while they rowed, they talked. The tall, big man listened to and respected the little one, whom he considered his captain. The latter called his companion by his last name: Thompson. “Friend Thompson,” said the Captain, “from this moment on, your name and personality change. ” “How?” “I’m going to take the name of poor Mac Clair, whom we buried, while I’m here. I carry an English passport under my real name, but I prefer to use Mac Clair. ” “But you don’t know English, Captain. ” “It doesn’t matter. Mac Clair will be an Englishman who has lived in Spain and France and who doesn’t want to speak their language. An anti-English Englishman from the school of our Lord Byron. ” They arrived at the beach in the boat, disembarked, grounded the launch on the sand, and entered the lazaretto. They left the spade and pickaxe in a corner and read the dead man’s papers. They might be of use to the Captain. While examining the documents, Thompson found a heavy envelope. Inside it was twenty pounds sterling. “Mac Clair is dead, and things are looking up,” said Thompson. “I am Mac Clair now,” replied the Captain. “Don’t you dare say he’s dead. ” “Since you insist, I will. I’ll get used to calling the dead man the Colonel.” The poor Colonel was having bad luck. The next day Thompson and the Captain went out fishing as usual. They lived like that for a month, isolated, without speaking to anyone. It would have been difficult to find other men so obedient to the orders given by the authorities. They did not approach the town with the The slightest excuse. At the end of the month, instead of going to the surrounding people, it was the people of the surrounding area who began to approach them. An old woman, who had a canteen on a barge supported by four piles of stones on the beach, offered to cook lunch and dinner for the two suspicious men. They left the ranch to some hungry people, and the fishermen, seeing that the supposed pestilent ones were getting healthier and stronger, befriended them and went fishing together. From the moment it became known in the town that the exiles from the lazaretto were neither sick nor showing signs of impatience or anger, public opinion began to turn against them. The majority considered it irritating that such men lived in the lazaretto as if it were a place of pleasure. They also considered it proof of absurd indifference that they had not made the slightest attempt to enter Ondara, as if the city did not interest them in the least. “What kind of people these are!” the Ondarenses said to each other. The governor, upon learning that the regulation quarantine period had elapsed, gave the order that the detainees’ food not be taken away and that the lazaretto be vacated immediately. The Captain and Thompson sent a boy to fetch a cart. When it arrived, they loaded their luggage into it, and the two men went to town. They bought linen and some other items they needed, shaved and had their hair cut, and presented themselves at the Navy inn, where they were regarded with surprise. Everyone thought they were sea dogs, adventurers, half-pirates, black, bearded, and they were quite surprised to find two gentlemen, one of them elegant to the point of dandyism. Chapter 5. LIEUTENANT EGUAGUIRRE. Upon settling into the inn, the Captain told the owner that he intended to stay only a few days; he was waiting for a ship to take him to France. Thompson assured them that he, too, would head to Gibraltar as soon as possible. The Marina inn where they settled was quite comfortable and clean. The rooms assigned to them opened onto a wide, continuous balcony that sloped toward a vegetable garden. From this balcony, the castle, standing on its glacis, could be seen in front of them, with its towers and walls, bathed in sunlight, which illuminated them with different light depending on the hour. Thompson began to paint watercolors, using the castle ruins as a background . The fortress occupied the entire horizon. It began with a square, reddish stone tower with machicolations at the top and narrow loopholes and barred windows below. The setting sun usually gilded this tower at dusk, giving it a honey-colored hue. The tower was joined by stretches of yellowish, crenellated walls, with another tower that extended to the sea, leaving towers, bastions , and stone curtain walls between them. At a lower level, surrounding the fortress, there was a modern white wall with round sentry boxes and loopholes that defined the patrol path. From the top of the castle to the counterscarp, the hill descended in amphitheater-like steps and earthen slopes, cut diagonally and zigzag by the low walls of the traverses. On these slopes, whose trenches were very poorly maintained, all kinds of herbs sprouted: here there was a small garden with a few rosebushes and an almond tree; there, some vines. High above , the foliage of a laurel tree could be seen from the colonel’s lookout… The garden of the house was sad; silence and shade reigned there; tall orange trees climbed in search of sun, and a lemon tree displayed withered lemons tied to them with twine on its branches. The clear , crystalline light of the mornings, the blinding glare of midday and early afternoon, the warm atmosphere of dusk, the silence, the sound of water in the nearby irrigation ditch, filled Thompson with a great delight. While the watercolorist worked on his drawings and stains, The captain was going to the port and wanted to prepare for his voyage immediately. At the Navy inn, there were four officers and some other less important people. Among these officers, the one who considered himself, for some unknown reason, to have the most rights was Artillery Lieutenant Eguaguirre. Eguaguirre had the best room and paid like the others. Some tried to protest this unjustified distinction; but Eguaguirre remained the spoiled man of the house. Upon arriving in Ondara, the lieutenant faced two challenges, which caused great excitement in the city. In the first, he seriously wounded his adversary in the neck; in the second, he was stabbed in the chest, forcing him to remain in bed for nearly a month. The landlady treated Eguaguirre with great consideration. The other officers at the inn didn’t dare address him informally as they did his comrades. Juan Eguaguirre was not very well-liked. His impertinence, his coldness, his tendency to be ill-tempered, his way of speaking contemptuously of men and women made him unlikable. Eguaguirre was tall, dark, and slender, with a strong, well-shaped nose, black eyes, a short mustache, and small sideburns; his hair was rather long, with a lock of hair draped over his forehead. Eguaguirre had great elegance; his mannerisms were always easy and academic. Dressed in his uniform, he seemed a personage. Upon first seeing him, one saw that he was proud, a conqueror who believed himself worthy of everything. This confidence of some men, who convince with their demeanor that they have more rights than others, he possessed to the highest degree. When Eguaguirre entered a place, especially where there were women, he was the first; he felt a conviction of his worth, which he even communicated to the others. According to what was said, Eguaguirre had had troubles in his childhood, when he lived with his uncle, the colonel of the same name who was indicted during the first revolt of Ferdinand VII. Eguaguirre was fastidious, with an exaggerated pride, which he concealed with affected indifference. Pride is, without a doubt, a plant that grows in old races and ruined peoples. Vanity is the sentiment of younger countries with more hopes. Pride is what remains of fallen races and castes. Eguaguirre was from an old, well-to-do family in Navarre, whose house and possessions had disappeared. When they met at the table in the Navy inn, Eguaguirre and the Captain felt hostile. The Captain spoke to Eguaguirre in a light tone, which greatly surprised the junior officer. Not only did he do this, but on the second day the Captain began to question him. “Are you Colonel Eguaguirre’s nephew?” he said. Eguaguirre did not answer. “Are you Colonel Eguaguirre’s nephew?” the Captain asked again . “Why do you ask me? ” “For no reason, just to know. ” “Am I asking you who he is, or who your relatives are, out of curiosity? ” “No; but you can ask me. I’ll answer if I like.” Eguaguirre looked at the Captain with growing surprise. The latter’s light tone truly stupefied him. Eguaguirre waited until the meal was finished, and approaching the Captain, he asked him in a cold and dry tone: “What did you have to tell me about Colonel Eguaguirre? ” “Nothing. That he is a brave and a good liberal. ” “Are you saying that as a censure? ” “No; on the contrary. ” The Captain’s right hand then made the sign of recognition of Scottish Freemasonry, to which the lieutenant replied. “I knew whether you were a friend or an enemy,” said Eguaguirre, “that you were not an indifferent person. ” “We are brothers,” replied the Captain. “Tell me what you want to do here so I can help you.” “My friend Thompson and I,” said the Captain, “are returning from Greece, where we were in the company of Lord Byron. At this port we had to disembark and leave the Sicilian polacra where we were going at the insistence of the sailors, who had assumed that Thompson, the sick man and I were all three infected. Regarding our projects, Thompson wants to go to Spain, and I plan to go to Marseilles, then to Bordeaux and then on to Mexico. “I think,” replied Eguaguirre, “that the best course of action for you is to go to Valencia. ” “No; I’m not enthusiastic about that idea. The Exterminating Angel has many agents in those cities along the Mediterranean coast. ” “Yes, that’s true,” said Eguaguirre, shuddering and looking to the right and left. “Then you’ll have to wait for a lute that goes directly to a port in France.” After a long conversation alone, Eguaguirre became close to the Captain. Thompson, on the other hand, never liked the artillery officer . The latter was fond of long horseback rides. Thompson preferred to go fishing. The Captain, a good horseman, began to accompany Eguaguirre on his horseback rides around Ondara. They often ran into other young soldiers , and also frequently into a small, blond lady who, dressed as an amazon and mounted on a gray horse, walked very slender and elegant. “It’s the colonel,” said Eguaguirre, seeing her for the first time riding in the Captain’s company. “It’s _missis_ Hervés. ” “English? ” “Mixed, daughter of an English soldier and a Spanish woman. ” “But married to a Spaniard? ” “Yes; to the governor of the castle.” Many other days they ran into the colonel. The Captain came to believe that there was something between the Anglo-Spanish woman and Eguaguirre , and that their cold and courteous greetings concealed a passion or the beginnings of love. The Captain, it seemed, was well acquainted with the life and the types of the military, because he soon began to gauge Eguaguirre. “This is a man of passions,” he said to Thompson, “sensual, not very intelligent.” Although he hasn’t told me anything, I believe he’s a gambler and I imagine he’s on intimate terms with the colonel. “He seems like an apathetic man. ” “No, no. It’s quite the opposite: acutely sensitive and morbidly self-respecting. All that indifference is a comedy, a feint. Eguaguirre, I believe, is a curious case. He’s partly desperate because he considers himself a persecuted liberal and believes he won’t prosper in the army; on the other hand, his love affair with the colonel and his gambling keep him in a state of constant excitement… ” Eguaguirre’s story was interesting. Shortly after leaving the Academy, in mid-1822, he was assigned to Valencia, where he joined the Freemasons. Eguaguirre was brave and prepared to fight to advance in his career. In 1823, after the Bessieres expedition, Eguaguirre looked for an opportunity to take to the field. On March 19, the royalist leaders Sempere and Ulman surprised Sagunto and seized the castle. The government ordered Colonel Fernández Bazán to attack the rebels. Bazán encountered the royalists between Sagunto and Almenara, and, despite having fewer forces than them, defeated them. Shortly after, Bazán found himself in Chilches with the assembled troops of Sempere and Capapé and suffered a complete defeat. Sempere, Capapé, Ulman, and some companies from Prast and Chambó had joined forces and had positioned their artillery forces in a retreat . Bazán, upon making contact with the royalist front line, forced it to retreat; the royalists retreated to their line of trenches. Bazán ordered that, at the same time as his infantry advanced, his cavalry charge on one flank; but the entire squadron, instead of obeying, cowardly fled in all directions. The royalists surrounded the constitutionalists, and the latter, among whom was Eguaguirre, were taken prisoner. The royalists tied up the constitutionalists and took them to the castle of Sagunto. Eguaguirre, who had no deep-rooted political ideas and who, deep down, cared nothing for the absolute king or the Constitution, despaired at seeing himself tied up like a bandit and herded like cattle. Along the way, Eguaguirre had to endure the most violent insults. “Thieves! Black people! Chudios!” the old women called them. “Death to the Freemasons! Death to the murderers of Elío!” the men shouted. When Eguaguirre entered the dungeon of Sagunto Castle and threw himself down on a pile of straw, he wept in despair and rage. A few days later, the junior officer was lying on his cot, thinking about the possibility of being shot, when the dungeon door opened and two women appeared: one of them the wife of the ringleader Chambó; the other, the wife of Royalist Colonel Espuny, governor of Sagunto Castle. Chambó’s wife was a brave young woman from Ulldecona, fresh and pretty; Espuny’s wife was from Valencia itself, a trim and poised blonde . The two women spoke with Eguaguirre and decided to save him. The next day, the officer was transferred to another room; for the next week, he was free to wander around the city. A jealous rivalry arose between the two women, the one from Chambó and the one from Espuny, to save Eguaguirre. The junior officer allowed himself to be won over with the indifference of a sultan. One day, Chambó, who was a passionate and determined man, stopped Eguaguirre and, grabbing him by the lapel, provoked him into a challenge. “I have no weapons,” Eguaguirre replied, pale with rage. “I’ll bring you a saber,” the leader replied in his rough Catalan accent. Chambó returned shortly after with two horses and two sabers. “Follow me,” he said. The two mounted their horses and headed down the Valencia road, trotting without speaking. They hadn’t been leaving for five minutes when two riders, galloping, followed them. They carried an urgent dispatch for Chambó. The leader, upon reading it, flew into a rage, threw his cap to the ground , and began to swear. “Wait here for me,” he said to Eguaguirre. “I’ll be back right away. ” “I’ll wait,” he replied. Chambó disappeared, followed by the two men. Eguaguirre was left alone and reflected. Truly, it was foolish to wait; he had the road open before him; he had a good horse; he was an excellent rider. He made up his mind, loosened the bridle, gave two spur thrusts, and set off for Valencia. He reached the city, which was alarmed by the news of the French advance. Eguaguirre did not join General Ballesteros’ constitutional forces ; he had an influential lady friend, and he took refuge with her. This lady arranged for Eguaguirre to be purified at the end of the war and sent to Ondara. Despite his maneuvers to hide his past, Eguaguirre had not been able to completely erase the traces of his liberalism, and the royalist volunteers in Ondara suspected him and spied on him. Chapter 6. THE CASTLE’S VIEWPOINT. One day, Eguaguirre told his new friends, the Captain and Thompson, that the Colonel wanted to meet them and invited them to tea at the castle’s viewing platform. The two guests accepted with pleasure. In the afternoon, Eguaguirre, Thompson, and the Captain rode horses past the Navy inn, entered through the Land Gate, and climbed the slopes of the citadel. Thompson, at every step, stopped in admiration, enthusiastic, to contemplate the landscape. The day was south-windy, bright, and suffocating; a heavy languor seemed to emanate from the dark blue sky and the green, motionless sea. “What a splendid view!” exclaimed the Englishman, taking out his handkerchief to wipe his face. The Captain smiled, and Eguaguirre, somewhat impatiently, murmured: “Madame Hervés is waiting for us. Let’s not be late.” In a few minutes they climbed to the top of the castle; They passed in front of a bunker, at the entrance of which a few soldiers could be seen; Eguaguirre called to one, handed him the reins, and dismounted. Thompson and the Captain did the same, and the three approached the pavilion where the colonel lived; Eguaguirre called, and they led the way through a courtyard to the garden of the belvedere. Mrs. Hervés came out to meet them, and Eguaguirre made the introductions. The colonel was a woman of medium height, rather short than tall, black eyes, brown-blond hair, an almond-shaped mouth, a round neck, and very small hands. “Is this young lady the colonel’s daughter?” asked the Captain, although he knew she wasn’t. “No; she’s the real colonel,” replied Eguaguirre. “Don’t call me colonel, for God’s sake!” she said. “It’s to convince this friend of what you are and that you’re not some supposed daughter of the colonel. ” “This gentleman is very gallant. ” “No; you really look like a spinster,” replied the Captain, “and you’re quite right to protest being called colonel, because this word always seems to refer to some sour old lady. ” Thompson exchanged a few words with Kitty; then he asked her permission to look at the views from the lookout and from the King’s Battery. Kitty accompanied him, pointing out the villages and mountains that could be seen in the distance. Thompson looked at the landscape with exclamations of enthusiasm. Eguaguirre and the Captain were talking. The garden was small and dense. The rosebushes and myrtles were full of blossoms, and white, red, and purple bells shone in the green patches of foliage of the vines . At one end of the garden stood the small castle, or castellet, an old keep, from which the surroundings were overlooked almost from a bird’s-eye view, as if from a balloon. Thompson and Kitty toured the corners of the battery and descended a stone staircase into the garden to join the Captain and Eguaguirre. They sat in wicker armchairs and the four chatted. Kitty was the daughter of an English soldier and a lady from Alava, from Vitoria. She had been orphaned very young and had married Colonel Hervés, who was more than thirty years her senior. After a long conversation, Kitty invited them to go up to an open gallery that overlooked the garden, via some steps. This gallery had some arches. In it, a servant was preparing refreshments. The Captain and Eguaguirre had coffee, and Kitty and Thompson had tea. From the gallery, the colonel’s study could be seen through the glass . Kitty invited her guests to see it. It had a small library, a piano and a harp, and notebooks of classical music and English folk songs. Kitty’s literary interests were Walter Scott, Lord Byron, and Schelley. She was particularly fond of Diana Vernon, the heroine of Rob Roy, whom she confessed she had wanted to imitate. She also had works by Sterne, Fielding, and Goethe in the library. The Captain looked at all the books, the prints, and an oil portrait of a woman . “Who is she? Perhaps your mother?” he asked. “Yes. ” “Is she alive? ” “No. She died when I was born. I have never met her. ” “Judging from the portrait, she must have been a charming woman. ” “Everyone who knew her speaks glowingly of her.” Kitty became melancholic. Eguaguirre, to erase this impression, urged Kitty to sing, and without further ado, she sang, accompanying herself on the harp, some Irish songs, which aroused great enthusiasm in Thompson. After receiving everyone’s congratulations, Kitty went to the small table where she kept her music papers and took out Mozart’s Don Juan. “Ah! Mozart,” exclaimed Thompson. “I know some of your sonatas. They say that Don Juan is very obscure music. ” “I don’t think so,” replied Kitty. ” Come on,” she said to Eguaguirre. “Sing. ” “Oh! No, no. For God’s sake! It’s annoying these gentlemen. ” “Not at all.” Eguaguirre insisted that she did it badly; but, in the end, she sang the serenade from Don Juan with great skill. “They come to the window. ” “Admirable!” exclaimed Thompson. Magnificent! Eguaguirre lost his usual expression of boredom and became confused and flushed with pleasure. Then Kitty intoned the style of _Doña Elvira_: In quali eccesi o numi, and after this the colonel and the lieutenant sang the admirable duet from _Don Juan_ and _Zerlina_, La ci darem la mano, which they had to repeat a number of times. They gave the song a great malice and ease that concealed, above all in it, their amorous enthusiasm. Listening to the two of them, one didn’t need to be a great psychologist to understand that there was something more between them than an artistic effusion. It was a pity, seeing them so beautiful, to think that only by leaping over the laws and facing the contempt of the crowd could they ever unite. Had they taken the leap? thought the Captain. Everything suggested that Eguaguirre was not one of those men who are afraid to pick flowers at the edge of the precipice. After the concert and the song, they chatted at length. The Captain had met Lord Byron, for whom Kitty greatly admired, and recounted his interviews with the noble poet. He had also met the royalist horsewoman Josephine Comerford, and this lady interested Kitty so much that the Captain had to describe her in great detail. At dusk, Colonel Hervés, Kitty ‘s husband, appeared on the veranda . He was an old, dull, cold man, with a disdainful kindness and a stammering, paralytic way of speaking. Kitty introduced the Captain and Thompson, and the colonel, taking the latter on board, began to explain a host of bureaucratic details that, to him, no doubt seemed extremely important. He spoke in a labored and ponderous manner: “In these matters—ahem!… we must stick to the ex… po… si… ti… va—ahem! part as well as the dis… po… si… ti… va—ahem! ahem! Do you understand me? Because if you pay attention only to the dis… po… si… ti… va—ahem! ahem! part, you will not be able to understand the clear and precise meaning that the legislator—ahem! ahem!—has intended to give to the law… ahem! ahem!” Thompson endured the “ahems” most amiably. Ahem! and the colonel’s tiresome explanations; Kitty, meanwhile, smiled with an air of excessive friendliness, and Eguaguirre, with his usual air of boredom and despair, looked out to sea. It was already night. The company said goodbye to the colonel and his wife and mounted their horses. The night was splendid. Thompson pointed out the Big Dipper and Arcturus, the North Star, the Corona Borealis, Cassiopeia in the middle of the Milky Way, and the great stars, such as Capella, Altair, and Aldebaran… The sea murmured far below, and the rhythmic beating of its waves could be heard. As they approached the San Antón battery, the sentry’s cry sounded: “Sentinel, alert!” And then the alert calls grew more distant, until they drew nearer again. They reached the Tierra Gate. Eguaguirre spoke to Captain Llaves, and the three of them went into town. Chapter 7. THE OFFICERS. In the good old days when Ondara Castle was an important fortress, the staff of the main army was complete and the officers were numerous. There was then a governor, the king’s lieutenant, the sergeant major or plaza major, the advisor, the commissioners, the commander of the artillery, the commander of the engineers, the assistants, and the captain of the keys. At the time of the castle’s decline, after the War of Independence, these positions no longer had any value other than a bureaucratic one. At this time, during Ferdinand VII’s second reaction, the army officers’ corps no longer offered the homogeneous character of the officers before the War of Independence; they were no longer exclusively aristocratic, but mixed; The young men from good families found themselves mixed with the former guerrillas, with the traitorous and later purified liberals, and with the absolutist adventurers who had earned their ranks under Mosén Antón, the Trappist, Bessieres, or Quesada. Among the officers of the Ondara garrison were individuals of these diverse origins. In a town with a sparse population and no political life, it was not easy for the ideological divergences between soldiers and civilians to become more intense, and, indeed, they were softened there; on the other hand, Social categories were evident, and the slightest nuances of wealth, distinction, and superiority were even considered . Kitty had sought to influence and soften these differences in her social gathering in the Mirador garden. At first, many officers from the garrison attended; then they began to drop out, and finally, only half a dozen remained. Of the ladies, there were never more than two or three. It is well known, as a friar had already demonstrated in a little book published at the end of the 18th century, entitled *The Dangers of Social Gatherings*, that these gatherings have many hooks for the Devil’s claws. The ladies of Ondara, like Señora Doña Proba, who appears in the friar’s little book, believed Kitty’s social gatherings to be very dangerous and did not attend.
Of the men, one of the most frequent was Don Jesús Martín, the regiment’s doctor , a stout man, slow of speech, very graphic and precise. Don Jesús was the most enthusiastic of Kitty’s companions, an unconditional adorer of her intelligence and grace. Another of the companions feared for his heaviness was Captain Barrachina, a tall man with a prominent chest who fancied himself a conquistador. Barrachina had black eyes, a twisted mustache, short sideburns, and a bilious complexion. Barrachina was a good, stupid person, with the mentality of a sixteen-year-old boy. He had never read a thing in his life. He believed that being a man—and he assumed a great thing—was being a puppet dressed in uniform, with a very prominent chest and a defiant demeanor. Barrachina had many children, and while his wife struggled with them, he paraded his stupidity around town. Barrachina made a point of discrediting his wife; he recounted whether she wore hairpieces, whether she tightened her corset, indiscretions that deeply bothered Kitty . Another of the regulars at the gathering was Captain Embun, a strong, tall, and rugged Aragonese with prominent cheekbones, who had campaigned with the royalists of Eroles and was in love with Kitty. Sometimes he would say to Eguaguirre, “This woman drives me crazy,” and add, “And she’s all for you.” Also frequenting Kitty’s pavilion were a bespectacled , very shy, and distinguished artillery lieutenant named Urbina, who lived in the same inn as the Navy, and a very nearsighted and pedantic pharmacist. Urbina, who was very friendly with Kitty, didn’t speak to Eguaguirre. Colonel Hervés was always in the company of a commandant, Don Santos, a man of hypocritical appearance and as tiresome as the colonel. This Don Santos spoke in rounded, distinguished paragraphs. The ” however,” the “if it is true,” the “if it is true that,” were constantly on his lips. There was no end in sight to his long sentences; they were capable of exhausting anyone’s patience. To make them more exasperating, he would end by saying: “Is that clear? Do you understand? Have you understood the meaning? Do you understand me well?” At Kitty’s social gathering, they played tresillo, and sometimes they sang and played the piano. Of the ladies, only the wife of a captain, a very gracious Andalusian woman who looked like a boy, came occasionally and talked like a chatterbox and imitated everyone with great wit. Chapter 8. URBINA. THOMPSON became friends with Miguel Urbina, the shy and absent-minded artillery lieutenant who lived in the same inn and frequented Kitty’s social gathering. Urbina was a studious man; he had a great interest and enthusiasm for mathematics and was concerned with the scientific problems of war. For some time, he had been writing some observations on Laplace’s analytical theory of probabilities, a task that absorbed all his time. Urbina couldn’t communicate his difficulties and doubts to his colleagues, because among the castle officers, there was not a single one who knew more than the four rules. The mathematician had no friends. He didn’t get along well with the other officers. There is no doubt that the Army, noble and valiant in time of war, It becomes a low, routine institution in peacetime. The soldier trained on the battlefield, amidst the smoke of gunpowder and the vapor of blood, always has something superior to his job, which erases the character of the narrow regulations and ordinances of a Chinese discipline; on the other hand, the one whose field of action has been limited to the office or the smelly corner of the barracks becomes the most uncomprehending of bureaucrats. Urbina, a man of lofty concerns, could not live comfortably with his colleagues, who spoke enthusiastically only about their salaries and ranking, and whose only entertainment was playing cards . As a shy and wise man, Urbina had had to endure many jokes from stupid and petulant young officers. Kitty, who understood the kind of man the lieutenant was, welcomed him with her friendliest smile and knew how to treat him with such kindness that the castle’s viewing platform was the only place where the officer felt at ease. Urbina had that shyness that doesn’t depend on intelligence, or even willpower, but seems to reside in the muscles, which refuse to obey. The lieutenant was capable of thinking clearly, of trying to carry out what he had thought about with boldness, of marching with vigor; but there came a moment when his nerves weakened and he felt paralyzed. In this state of bewilderment, anything—opening a door, greeting someone, leaving a room—left him confused, hesitant, in an attitude of perplexity that he found embarrassing and sad, and others found very comical. People laughed at him, and as a result, Urbina, seeing himself so absurd and so inconsistent with himself, began to isolate himself. Urbina and Thompson became friends and were frequently seen walking together around the castle and along the dock. When the two became close, Urbina spoke of Kitty and Eguaguirre: “What does Mrs. Hervés lead?” Thompson asked. –A very independent life. In the morning she takes her bath, then goes for a horseback ride, reads, writes, and goes on boat trips. At dusk she receives her friends. –And does the town view our friend’s independent spirit favorably? –No. Yeah! The whole town is against her. She’s considered crazy, strange, absurd. –No wonder. –Then you will have noticed that Kitty has a great contempt for all the vulgarities and commonplaces that form the constant shell of petty people. She is often capable of contradicting a person who defends a certain opinion, not because she thinks otherwise, but because such confidence in a vulgar idea, even if it is accurate, disgusts her. –So she must have many enemies. –Imagine. –They won’t forgive her for this independence of spirit. –No. Yeah! A man is not forgiven for having wit and a bit of nobility of spirit; a woman, even less so. –Too bad! –Yes. Kitty is not at all popular in Ondara. Her originality has struck the ladies of the town as a sign of extravagance. Nothing worthy of reproach can be found in her conduct so far, but it is believed that something will soon be found. Her wit and culture are highly suspect to the ladies of Ondares. “We don’t want to go see her,” they say. “She’s so wise!” She asks us what books we read, knowing that we don’t read any. To these ladies, everything Kitty does is ridiculous and pedantic. To them, anything that isn’t talking to her boyfriend behind the gate, if they’re single, confessing to the loud-mouthed priest, or dealing with rags, is absurd. “So Kitty will be very isolated. ” ” Completely. ” “It seems unbelievable! Such a nice woman! ” “And so good,” replied Urbina. “Do you think she’s really good?” asked Thompson. “Yes; very good and very intelligent. You won’t find envy, or resentment, or any base sentiment in her ; only pride.” but a noble pride in seeing oneself superior to the majority. “This must have contributed to the general antipathy.” “Surely; Kitty has a vague suspicion that all superiority comes at a price. Refinement, grace, and kindness disarm and tame boorish people for a moment; but it’s a temporary domestication, because the brute soon becomes aggressive again. ” “And do you think there’s something between Eguaguirre and her? ” “You’ve probably noticed the same thing I have. ” “What do you think of Eguaguirre? He strikes me as a frantically egotistical man. ” “Yes; he’s a great egotist; but, at the same time, a timid, violent, and sensitive man. He has no restraint; the slightest setback unnerves him and plunges him into a gloomy despair. ” “Well, if Kitty is in love with him, as it seems,” said Thompson, ” Eguaguirre will make her unhappy. ” “Yes; out of petulance, out of stupidity, to show off.” Urbina told Thompson the reason for his argument with Eguaguirre. Urbina had begun courting a local orphan girl from a wealthy family, known as Dolores and also as “Clavariesa,” and Eguaguirre had intervened, making love to the girl and entering her house. The tutor had taken his pupil and taken her to the convent in Monsant, where she was staying for the time being. From then on, Urbina refused to have anything to do with Eguaguirre, and only exchanged a few polite words with him when he was in front of Kitty. “I don’t want to be friends with him,” he concluded. “He’s looking for me; he’s tried to explain things to me, but I’m not prepared to compromise. ” Chapter 9. Kitty’s Recommendation. Garrisons, like seminaries and convents, have all the vices and hypocrisies of collegiate groups. The proximity of man to man is corrupting: a barracks, a school, or a convent will always be a center of putrid fermentation. Man, without a doubt, is dignified by solitude; the more dehumanized the countryside, the healthier it is for the spirit. The troops of a town, in times of peace, are one of the greatest centers of corruption. Only the clergy can sometimes match the army in rapacity, lubricity, and bad habits. It will be difficult to find anything high, lofty, and noble in a garrison; on the other hand, envy, malevolence, and hatred grow vigorously and strongly. Thompson and the Captain soon learned of Ondara’s stories and gossip… One afternoon on a holiday, when the whole town was in the countryside, Thompson quietly entered his room and lay down on his bed. He slept for a while. He had left the window overlooking the gallery open, and when he awoke, he heard the sound of conversation. He peeked out, and saw Major Don Santos talking with a young officer at the inn. The man of the paraphrases and circumlocutions was urging the young officer to spy on Eguaguirre and the two suspicious foreigners. Thompson overheard the entire conversation, waited for the soldiers to leave , and when they had, went out into the street to find Eguaguirre and the Captain, who were playing tresillo at a merchant’s house on Calle Mayor. Thompson explained what he had heard. “What did Don Santos say about me?” Eguaguirre asked. “He said that an uncle of yours, who began his military life as a guerrilla with Mina, was persecuted as a conspirator in 1816 in Denia; that your same uncle harshly punished the royalists of Villarrobledo in 1823, and that you are in contact with him. ” “Bah! That’s not true. And the officer, what did he say?” “He said no; that you’re a man indifferent to politics; that all your aspirations consist of having money and making love to women, and that you’re the lover of Mrs. Hervés.” Eguaguirre grew serious and paled. “You’ve also told the story of a girlfriend of yours, who had to be put in a convent. ” “Nothing; there’s no way to live here without people meddling in what you do and don’t do,” Eguaguirre exclaimed furiously. “And hasn’t he said anything about us?” the Captain asked. “Don Santos said we’re Masons and that he’s going to send our address to the police. ” The Captain was uneasy. “That man must be from the Exterminating Angel society,” he murmured. “Probably,” said Eguaguirre. “Some spy paid by that society?” Thompson asked. “No, not paid,” Eguaguirre replied. “The commander probably practices espionage to prosper, to rise. We Spanish military men no longer have war, nor the possibility of it for a long time. You can no longer rise from soldier to general in six years, like Mina, El Empecinado, or Renovales, and people who want to make a career out of it are intriguing and spying. ” The Captain was thoughtful. The news arriving about the persecution of liberals in Valencia and Catalonia was enough to fill anyone with dread. Terrible stories were told about the Exterminating Angel. All along the Mediterranean coast, the vengeance of the absolutists was horrifying. Seeing the Captain’s uneasiness, Eguaguirre said to him: “Don’t worry. Go see Kitty and speak to her frankly. The colonel will do as she tells you. ” “But won’t she tell you what is said, without malice? ” “No, no; you can trust Kitty better than a man.” The Captain went to visit Madame Hervés and expressed his fears. She reassured him, assuring him that she would influence her husband and stop Don Santos’s attacks. The Captain returned to Eguaguirre’s side, saying that Kitty was a charming woman. A few days later, Madame Hervés wrote Thompson a letter begging him to visit her. Thompson went, and they chatted for a long time. “Who is the Captain?” Kitty asked curiously. “He gives me the impression of a strange man, a character from a novel.” “The Captain is an adventurer,” Thompson replied, “one of those types who, in the past, would have been an Italian condottiere or a companion of Hernán Cortés in Mexico. ” “And where did you meet him? ” “I met him on a ship, leaving Missolonghi. He was arriving from Alexandria, Egypt; he had gone to Missolonghi to see Lord Byron, and as the lord was ill , he was awaiting the outcome of his illness. Upon learning of his death, he decided to return to the West and boarded the same Greek corvette as us. On it we went to Naples, where we embarked on the Sicilian polacre, on which we arrived here. My friend, who later died in the lazaretto, became more seriously ill; the sailors began to say he had the plague, and forced the ship’s captain to disembark him. I did not want to abandon my friend; the Captain protested; but as the crew was against us, the three of us had to leave.” “And where is the Captain from?” Kitty asked. “He’s an English subject now; but I believe he was born in Spain.” They talked of other things, and suddenly the colonel said: “You’re a friend of Miguel Urbina , aren’t you?” “Yes . ” “And the Captain, does n’t he know you?” “Very little. ” “Tell him to become his friend. I’m very fond of Urbina. He has a kind heart. Miguel is in love with a girl shut up in a convent nearby, the convent of Monsant. ” “Yes; he’s told me about his love. ” “Ah! Has he told you about his love? ” “Yes. ” “Well, I wish you would encourage him, help him to do something for this girl, even if it were madness. He would be satisfied, and perhaps she, seeing him capable of such a heroic act, would love him. ” “Nothing, we’ll encourage him,” said Thompson; “we’ll try to urge him to take a heroic attitude.” Thompson took leave of Madame Hervés, and that evening he told the Captain about the conversation they had had and the project they had discussed. Chapter 10. EXPLANATION. Since our charming friend Kitty has made this recommendation to you, said the Captain, we will try to serve you. Love, with Love is paid for. Have you understood the reason for this commission, friend Thompson? “No. ” “Well, I’ll explain it to you. Kitty is madly in love with Eguaguirre and wants to keep him safe; she fears some whim of her lover for that girl locked up in the Monsant convent, whom you must have heard of, called Dolores the Clavariesa, and she’s trying to get Urbina to marry Dolores. ” “Bah! Do you believe everything that’s told?” “I know the story in its details,” replied the Captain. “When Juanito Eguaguirre arrived in town, there were two women here whom the local poetasters called the two beauties of Ondara: one was Kitty; the other, a rich orphan, who, because she had held some honorary position at Calvary, was called the Clavariesa. Kitty had the prestige of her elegance, her culture, her foreign appearance; Clavariesa was a beautiful woman, with the perfect lines of a Praxiteles model. This Clavariesa was the pupil of a lawyer named Vicente Fenoller. Fenoller, one of the town’s great men, is a man of great ostentation, an eloquent lawyer, an enthusiastic regionalist, and a fanatical Catholic. Fenoller has married one of his sons to a wealthy woman and plans to marry the other to his pupil, Clavariesa. The girl’s aunt is not at all in favor of such a marriage. In this state of rivalry between Kitty and Clavariesa, Urbina arrived, and, despite his timidity and timidity, was welcomed by the two rivals with their most gracious smiles. Urbina, had he been a brave man with little moral concern, would have launched himself into Kitty’s flirtation; but he lacked the courage for it, and he devoted himself to making love to Clavariesa, who at first reciprocated his affections. It was in such a situation that Eguaguirre arrived in Ondara. Within his first month there, the lieutenant had caused a scandal; he had won and lost large sums gambling, and had engaged in a challenge, in which he seriously injured his adversary. Eguaguirre began his love affair in Ondara on two fronts: he courted a girl from the fishing district and the colonel. Kitty was amused by this flirtation, which she considered innocent. Eguaguirre, a furious egotist, was short of money, and upon learning that Dolores Clavariesa was rich and an orphan, he paid no attention to his friend Urbina, nor to the colonel, nor to the girl from the fishing district , and wrote Dolores a love letter. Clavariesa accepted him with great enthusiasm. These amorous permutations became the talk of the town. The colonel faded into the background, and Urbina did the same. Then Fenoller, Dolores’s tutor, warned her that Eguaguirre was a loser, a gambler, a womanizer who wanted nothing but her money. “It’s you who wants nothing but my money,” she replied violently, and assured him that no, they wouldn’t marry her off to anyone else. Fenoller took his pupil and, through deceit, took her to the Monsant convent. Eguaguirre immediately forgot about the Clavariesa and returned to being Kitty’s gentleman, who accepted him with all the consequences. “I don’t understand Eguaguirre’s success,” Thompson said. “My dear friend,” the Captain replied, “Eguaguirre’s success is, like all successes, a little fatal and a little unfair. There are men who are dispositioned to love, to want, and others to be loved. I’m speaking from an almost physical, sexual point of view. Eguaguirre is one of the latter. He was born with the ability to be desirable to the opposite sex.” What is that faculty? What does it consist of? How have you developed it? I don’t know. –I find what you say very problematic. –It’s that you believe that women fall in love exclusively with pure, angelic men, with wise men, with heroes. –No, no; I know you don’t. –Then we’re in the same boat. Women fall in love with men who are tall and short, good and bad, strange and vulgar; but among these there is no doubt that there are some who, without knowing why, more easily make that machinery of affections, desires, vanities, inclinations that a woman has. These are the Don Juans, the interesting men, the coveted ones… And one wonders why. Do these men have a special perspicacity for seeing the weak points of the opposite sex? No. Do they understand women better than others? No, either. Like everyone else, in these matters of love they shoot their arrow with their eyes closed; but, unlike the others, they almost always hit the target. Now you might ask: Why do they hit the target? For the simple reason that the woman who acts as judge and referee in the game is willing to believe that for the man she chooses, wherever the arrow hits, the target will be there. It’s the arbitrariness of Nature. “That may be so,” said Thompson; “I, honestly, don’t find anything extraordinary about Eguaguirre. ” “What can you find? Nor do I. It’s women who find something special in him.” It’s the impertinent glance, the phlegm, the disdain… Perhaps they appreciate living exclusively for themselves, something that must be boring in the long run. The fact is that Eguaguirre is a Tenorio, and our charming Kitty wants to favor the love of Urbina and the girl locked up in Monsant to have the exclusive on her Tenorio. “Yes, yes, it’s possible, and I’m sorry. The truth is, I don’t think Eguaguirre is worth all the trouble. ” “Friend Thompson. You’re talking like a child. Are you going to pretend that women don’t have the right to fall in love with imbeciles and selfish people? Are you going to deprive them of that sacrosanct right? Well, then you’re going to cut short their lives. It’s the fruit that excites them the most.” And the Captain laughed, rubbing his hands happily. Thompson was somewhat worried by the Captain’s words, and, not wanting to be a systematic denier, he tried to study Eguaguirre. She found nothing in the young lieutenant that surprised her. He was of less than average intelligence, almost completely uneducated, proud, somber, and possessed great self-belief. Perhaps this was one of his strengths. Another attraction the officer had for women was that his life seemed close to tragedy, to catastrophe. Eguaguirre’s egoism was monstrous. Kant, in his practical anthropology, found that there are three kinds of egoism: logical egoism, aesthetic egoism, and practical egoism. Logical egoism judges without taking into account the judgment of others; aesthetic egoism is content with one’s own taste, disregarding general opinion; and practical egoism subordinates everything in the world to one’s own life. Eguaguirre had something of logical egoism and aesthetic egoism; but what possessed him completely was practical egoism. He felt disdain for people; he believed he despised everyone, which was no obstacle to his willingness to risk his life so that others, a mob of imbeciles, according to him, would not believe that he, Lieutenant Eguaguirre, could ever look bad in any matter. Chapter 11. THE PROJECT. The Captain, following Kitty’s suggestion, befriended Urbina, who told him about his love affairs. “Friend Urbina,” the Captain said, “are you really in love with that girl? ” “Yes. ” “Really, really?” “Yes, man, yes. ” “Would you be capable of kidnapping her from the Monsant convent if she wanted to? ” ” I don’t think it would be very easy.” ” We will facilitate it. It’s all a question of having the will. ” “Ah! If it were possible, with a thousand loves.” “You must do something extraordinary to influence the imagination of your lady Urbina,” said the Captain. “Kitty will help us. ” “Will she want to? ” “Yes.” They went to visit the colonel, Urbina, Thompson, and the captain. They explained the idea to her, as if it hadn’t been her own idea, and began to study the project. First, they needed to visit the Monsant convent. Kitty said she was a friend of the superior and would write to her asking permission to visit her. “That’s the first thing we must resolve,” said the Captain, “then we’ll see if Urbina, upon seeing his fiancée, will have a stroke of genius that will have a great effect on the heart of his beloved. ” “Me? Oh!” exclaimed Urbina. “I’ll think of nothing. ” “Well, don’t be so alarmed, Urbina,” said Kitty. “You will not be in charge of the matter, and you will not be responsible for the success or failure of the enterprise. The Captain will be our director, the Prospero of our island. ” “I don’t believe the Captain has read Shakespeare’s *The Tempest*,” replied Thompson, “nor that he has taken note of your allusion; but I, who have read it, affirm that our Prospero is as wonderful as a merely human Prospero can be. ” “Don’t make me famous before you see the results,” replied the Captain. “With success, I will accept applause.” A week later, Kitty told the Captain that she had received a letter from the superior telling her they could visit the convent whenever they wanted. “Very well. ” “A few of us will go,” said the colonel. “Who will go? ” “The doctor and his wife, Urbina, Thompson, you, and I. ” “And Eguaguirre?” asked the Captain, indifferently. “No,” she replied, looking closely at the Captain to see if he reflected any malicious thoughts. The Captain’s face was impassive. “How will we make the trip?” asked Thompson. “Other times we have left Ondara at dawn. We embark here, to a small town two hours away, where a cart is usually waiting. Since there will be more people than usual, we will send for some horses. By mid-afternoon, or at dusk, we can be back. ” “So you have already been to the convent?” asked the Captain. “Yes.” Twice. “Tell me what it’s like. ” “What do you want me to tell you? ” “Give me a description of it: is it big, is it small, does it have a garden, doesn’t it, how it’s located, etc.” Kitty gave a description of the convent, as detailed as she could. The Captain only noticed two details: that next to the monastery the land cut away, towards the sea, into a very high cliff, and that there were many pigeons. “So there are pigeons?” he asked several times. “Yes, many; so much so that they sell them. ” “Ah, they sell them! That’s a little information for us,” said the Captain. “And the cliff, what is it like?” Kitty couldn’t quite remember what it looked like, and couldn’t answer this question precisely . “One more thing,” asked the Captain. “Don’t you have a telescope? ” “Yes.” Kitty called a servant, who came with a telescope, and the Captain watched with him, observing the coast and Monsant Inlet, of which nothing could be seen but the entrance. Then Eguaguirre arrived, and Thompson and he withdrew. Chapter 12. THE JOURNEY. A Sunday was set as the day of march, and in the morning, before dawn, all those who made up the expedition were on the dock. Captain de Llaves had ordered the drawbridge at the Marina Gate to be lowered earlier than usual, and accompanied the expeditionaries, who formed a group… It was the hour before dawn; the hour when the ports and the fishing districts were awakening; the hour that the ancients represented as a winged girl, dressed in a pale violet tunic and accompanied by an owl the color of twilight. The starry sky was still black; The Big Dipper leaned toward the sea, which blossomed into phosphorescent foam, and in the village some early roosters were beginning to crow, sensing the dawn. On the stern of a boat tied to the wharf and held by a rope, there was a swinging lantern. In this boat, the _Young Rosario_, Kitty and her friends were going to leave for Monsant. Two sailors, helped by the soldiers guarding the Marina gate, passed a few bales and several baskets of provisions through the hatch into the hold of the felucca. The passengers then boarded; they settled themselves on the benches aft on the deck, and the _Young Rosario_ pulled away from the jetty and began to row away, making a splashing noise in the water. “Goodbye! Have fun!” said Captain Llaves from the dock. “Goodbye! Goodbye! See you later,” replied the travelers. The felucca was wide and heavy; the crew was four: two sailors, the skipper, and a cabin boy. The wind was fresh; the night dew left their clothes damp. The water seemed as clotted as the sky with stars, which followed the boat, throbbing and trembling over the dark waves that passed over the black abyss of the sea… Suddenly, a pulley began to creak sharply; The great lateen sail spread like a fantastic clarity into the night air , which had murky gusts of light; it whipped, the boat heeled over to one side, and began to move quickly, forcing its way through swirling foam… The horizon was clearing by the moment; the stars were paling. Some gray, bluish clouds had invaded the sky from the east, and these clouds were reddening until the sun made its triumphant appearance, shaving its golden light over the foamy crests of the waves. The clouds began to scatter across the sky in large red flakes, which subdivided and finally dissolved. The cabin boy, running barefoot forward, began to sing in a high-pitched voice: Lairet, lairet, lairet of the morning. Of the rich summer, of the rich summer, of the rich summer. “Silence!” the skipper shouted sternly. “Let him sing,” exclaimed Kitty; “he does it very well.” The boy continued with his song, changing voices very gracefully. The morning light was now illuminating the sea, and the travelers could see one another. Kitty was very rosy-cheeked and elegant, with a shawl and a hood covering her head; the doctor’s wife was beginning to turn pale, a little seasick; Urbina was worried; the Captain was silent, and the doctor and Thompson were busy doing somersaults and geese, risking falling into the water. As they moved a couple of miles from the port, they heard reveille being played by drums and bugles from the castle of Ondara. They all turned to look behind them. The castle shone like a glowing ember. It seemed molten, set alight by the sun; the town was still in shadow, and only a golden ray struck the dome of the church, which sparkled with a thousand reflections. Shortly afterward, several cannon shots were heard. The white smoke of the salvo could be seen staining the blue air, forming a round cloud, and a few seconds later the report sounded. “Nature has its funny ways too,” said the Captain. “That difference in speed between light and sound makes for a grotesque effect. ” “Don’t you want to be in agreement with Nature either?” asked Kitty, laughing. “Nor.” At this, the flag was raised on Ondara Castle, which began to shine in the sun. “Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted Thompson, waving his hat in the air. “I didn’t like that Cossack hurrah, Thompson,” said the doctor mockingly. “What do you think? ” “The truth is, that cry from the North in the middle of the Mediterranean seems untimely,” replied Kitty. “Completely untimely,” said the Captain. “I believe the echo protested indignantly,” added the doctor. “Of course!” replied the Captain. I myself have seen a dolphin blush at that savage exclamation. “Do not try any further, my friends,” exclaimed Thompson, “to convince me that I have done wrong. You are right. I had lost my geographical notion; I had confused the parallel in my head. But now I have oriented myself, I have found the compass, and I believe that you will have no objection to this cry.” “Let’s see,” said the doctor. “Evohe! Evohe!” shouted Thompson wildly. “Hey! How are you? Do I look classical? ” “You sound like a Silenus,” said the doctor. “Evohe! Evohe!” repeated Thompson. “You’re going to capsize the boat with your Bacchic cries,” exclaimed the Captain. “I’ll keep quiet; but you must admit that this “Evohe!” was very good. ” “I confess it,” said the Captain. “The proof is that the Dauphin, who had been embarrassed and sad with his cheers before, gave me a sign of friendship and smiled.” There was little wind, and it took them two hours to disembark at Alba, a small village on the slopes of the Monsant. It was a small, white village; It stood out against the intense blue sky, perched on a low limestone cliff surrounded by a sandy beach. This wall shone like veined marble, stained by a few climbing plants. Above it were lined white, square, dice-like houses with no eaves, which gleamed in the sun. At the foot of the cliff stretched the beach, covered in ragged-looking seaweed. The boat approached and grounded on the sand. At that moment, it was crowded; muleteers from nearby villages were buying and loading fish onto small carts, and there was a great deal of coming and going. The travelers, led by Kitty, crossed among the fishermen, came out onto a village street, and entered the inn. “What time is it?” Kitty asked. “Eight o’clock. ” “Then we have to wait an hour for the cart and horses. ” They all went out onto a gallery of the inn that overlooked the beach. Beside the sea, there was a cluster of huts, some made of straw, others of planks, in whose sheds and roofs were piled esparto ropes. Between each boat, the sailors’ clothes were drying in the sun. The boys and women used hoe to dig small channels in the sand so that the departing boats could slide out to sea, and they helped the arriving boats to board, pulling a rope that passed through two pulleys. At nine o’clock, the innkeeper’s maid announced that the cart and horses were at the door, along with Urbina’s assistant. Kitty noticed at that moment that the Captain was carrying a square bundle covered with cloth. “What are you carrying there?” he said. “It’s a secret. ” “Can’t I know? ” “Yes; it’s a cage. Put it in the carriage, I’ll tell you later what it’s for.” The ladies and the doctor climbed into the cart; The rest mounted their horses, and they all headed down a dusty gully and then up a stony slope to climb the top of a cliff along which ran a bridle path. This path, the Volta del Rosignol, skirted the mountain to overlook the Monsant cove, an almost circular inlet with an islet in the middle, the Farallon islet. At one end of the cove was the convent. As they reached the height and began the descent of the path, the horse with the cart set off at a wild trot, waving its collar and a small cone of bells attached to it that clanged loudly as it went. The riders spurred their horses, and in an hour and a half they were all at the convent. Chapter 13. THE CONVENT. It was a magnificent place where the monastery stood. It stood on a high esplanade of Monsant, at the very edge of the coastal cliff; in front of it was a grove of olive trees; above this, a pine grove, and higher up, rough, stony peaks; below stretched the sea, on whose luminous surface the shadow of the islet was drawn . As one approached the convent, along the Volta del Rosignol, one saw first the tower above the old and grimy roofs, between the cypresses of the cemetery; then one took in the whole of the building, surrounded by a wall with loopholes and bars. Within this wall were enclosed the church, the dwelling, the garden and the Cloister. Between the convent and the olive grove, there was a wide, cobbled plain with a stone cross in the middle. At that moment, a beggar, wrapped in a brown anguarina, was sleeping in the sun. The cart and horses arrived at the small square; they stopped, and the travelers got out. An arch in the wall between two columns, with a studded , blue-painted door, gave access to the first courtyard. At the far end of this courtyard stood the church, a Baroque façade with garlands and large latticed tiles. Above the door, surrounded by a twisted stone molding, was a niche with an ancient Virgin sculpted by some Gothic artist, and on either side stood two large colored coats of arms. The façade was crowned with a tower adorned with several vases and three bells. In the courtyard, the decrepit, badly trimmed myrtles formed a rectangle, and in the middle of it stood a large, mossy, forgotten, and sad marble basin, which must once have been beautified and enlivened by the lively spray of a clear fountain. Kitty and her friends crossed the courtyard and approached the church. “Thompson and I will wait here a moment,” said the Captain, “then we’ll go in.” Kitty, with the doctor’s wife, the doctor, and Urbina, went into the courtyard, and Thompson and the Captain remained outside with Urbina’s assistant and the tartanero. “Listen, lad,” the Captain said to him. “What do you want? ” “Go over there and call the gardener or the porter, and tell either of them to sell you two doves, and ask if they can sell you two more every week . ” “Good. ” “Here,” and the Captain handed him some coins. “Okay, will you take care of the tartan?” “Yes, we’ll be here.” The tartanero entered the convent and returned a little while later with two gray doves. “What did they say?” asked the Captain. “That they’ll sell as many as they want. There’s the deal.” The Captain gave the boy a tip and took the two doves, examined them, locked them in the cage, and left it inside the tartan. “What are we going to do now?” asked Thompson. “I’m going in,” said the Captain. “You stay here, inspect this, and draw me a little plan of the whole building and its surroundings. ” “But then I won’t get to see the convent! ” “And what the devil does it matter to a Lutheran like you to see a Papist convent? ” “And art? ” “What art! Don’t be so affected, Thompson. Isn’t it a work of art to try, as we will try, if possible, to steal a young lady from a convent? I thought you were above such superstitions. ” “I said nothing.” You are the Captain, and I obey you. ‘ ‘Good. See you later, then.’ The Captain entered the courtyard, walked around it, and went to the church, and then to the cloister. Here he joined Kitty and her friends, who were in the company of the superior and a woman of splendid beauty, dressed in black. It was the Clavariesa. The Clavariesa was talking to Kitty, apparently dining with a close friend. Preceding them all was a lame sexton, dressed in a black tunic and armed with a key ring, opening doors. The Captain approached Urbina and asked, pointing to the Clavariesa: ‘Is she your fiancée? ‘ ‘Yes. ‘ ‘Could you say a few words to her? ‘ ‘Yes. ‘ ‘Tell her that a gray dove will arrive on Sunday morning , at twelve noon, bringing her news of Ondara and you. ‘ ‘What do you mean by that? ‘ ‘Tell her at once. Let her wait for the arrival of the dove.’ Urbina, closely following, gave the order to Clavariesa. They all continued visiting the convent. Meanwhile, Thompson took notes and sketches from outside. It was beginning to get hot; the light was blinding and the weather was inviting laziness . The cicadas filled the silence of the countryside with their chirping. Thompson didn’t know the Captain’s definite purpose. He first made a A sketch of the convent’s surroundings and the summit of Monsant, which had a ruined watchtower on one of its peaks from the time of the Moors. He then drew the monastery complex from the Volta de Rosignol, with its large walls, its entrance arch, its tower, its mossy roofs, and its sharp, black cypresses. Then, abandoning the road and moving away from the coast, he climbed into a grove of olive trees. These centuries-old trees, black and twisted, looked like monstrous octopuses with many arms and hands, laboriously ascending the mountain. From that height, one could see the convent’s garden with a large square pool, in which the black water turned green. Behind the pear and peach trees, the melancholic cypresses of the cemetery appeared, as death appears behind life. A few seagulls fluttered over the blue sea, and a few doves hovered on the land. Thompson left the olive grove and climbed through a pine wood to the top of a peak, from where he overlooked the coast as it stretched northward. At first, he was puzzled; in front of him, a limestone rock shone, rising above a beach. The sun cast such strange reflections on it that the gigantic rock, white, red, and yellow, seemed like the ghost of a mountain watching over the blue sea. Thompson gazed at the rock for a moment to make sure it was real; then, afraid of being left behind, he crossed the pine wood and the olive grove and went down to the monastery gate. It was about eleven o’clock when Monsant’s visitors came out into the courtyard. “So why didn’t Thompson come in?” Kitty asked. “He had an errand of mine to run,” the Captain replied. “How selfish! Why didn’t you? ” “He knows more geology than I do, and he needed to examine some stones. Besides, papist airs don’t suit Lutherans.” “Don’t call yourself a Papist. How awful! ” “Are you a fervent Catholic, Kitty? ” “As fervent as I can be.” Some got into the tartan, others mounted horses, and returned to Alba’s inn to dine. “What did you think of Clavariesa?” Kitty asked the Captain. “Very well; a splendid woman. ” “When I was in Ondara, they wanted to find rivalry between her and me. How silly, isn’t it! ” “Yes! There’s too much difference between her and you,” said the Captain. “Isn’t there? ” “Enormous. ” “So much, so much, do you think? ” “It’s like comparing a star, not with a glowworm; let’s avoid exaggerations, like comparing a star of its own light with a planet. ” “And she is the star of its own light? ” “No, you are the star. ” “Thank you, Captain, you are very gallant. ” “You are like those small, brilliant, intense stars that cast a glance that vibrates in the air.” Kitty assumed a look of mixed coquettishness and sadness. “I’d like to know, honestly, what you think of me,” she said. “What I feel about you. Simply that you are an admirable woman. ” “Are you trying to laugh at me? ” “No, no. You are a charming woman. ” “By that you mean I’m crazy, reckless… isn’t it? ” “And who isn’t? Only petty people know how to make a shield of commonplaces and general worries to disguise their pettiness. The few noble people there are in the world, they go bare-chested; if they are hit by an arrow, the arrow penetrates to the heart; if they go over a precipice and slip, they fall to the bottom… ” “You frighten me,” said Kitty. “You must hate society. ” “I hate it… and I despise it,” replied the Captain in a somber tone. “But without society, how could we live? ” “I don’t know; nor do I care to think about it. ” “There must be laws. ” “Yes; “At least there’s the satisfaction of violating them,” the Captain replied sarcastically. “And what do you think of Eguaguirre? ” “Eguaguirre!… He has a perfect selfishness that is protected from all attack.” Sentry boxes, batteries, hornworks, covered galleries: his fortress is impregnable. It will not be lost for love of one’s neighbor. “Do you think he’s that bad? ” “No; not bad. Selfish, cold, petulant. He has great qualities as a conqueror. ” Kitty listened nervously and distraught. When she calmed down a little, she said: “Do you also have a bad opinion of Urbina? ” “No. Oh! Urbina is a saintly man. Between playing the victim or the executioner, he’ll prefer to play the victim; between being the hammer or the anvil, he’ll choose the anvil. I respect and revere him, and if his martyrdom arrives, I will dedicate a memory and a pious tear to him. They ate at Alba’s fonducho and, after spending some time after dinner and waiting for the hot hours of the afternoon to pass, they walked to the beach and entered the _Joven Rosario_. Urbina’s assistant and the tartanero went to Ondara by land, making a long detour. Kitty, who had sat in the stern, noticed the package the Captain was carrying. “You haven’t told me what the cage is for,” she said. “And you want to know? ” “Yes. ” “Well, I have two doves inside here. ” “Where did you get them? ” “Do you think I stole them?” “No. I understand that it would have been more appropriate to steal them; but I was content to buy them at the monastery. ” “And what do you want them for? ” “One of them will serve to carry the letter that our friend Urbina will write to his beloved. ” “What an idea! But Clavariesa should have been warned. ” “She is. ” “And the reply? ” “I suppose it will take two letters to get a reply.” If the girl agrees to enter into correspondence with Urbina, pigeons from the castle will be sent to her as a gift, and from the moment they are released they will return to their dovecote. “Bravo! You are a man of means, Captain.” They disembarked at Ondara at dusk, and the Captain and Thompson went to the Navy inn. That night, the two told Urbina that he could write a letter to Clavariesa, which would be carried to the convent by a pigeon. Urbina, upon learning this, became uneasy and nervous, and began making drafts, which he discussed with Thompson, whom he considered a man more susceptible to sentimentality than the Captain. Two days later the carrier pigeon had to be sent. The final letter was read and submitted to Kitty for her judgment. Kitty made some very acute observations on female psychology, which Urbina heeded, and on Sunday morning Urbina, Thompson, and the Captain went up to the castle’s viewing point. Kitty took one of the pigeons in her hands and stroked it. According to Thompson, it was a specimen of the _Columba Tabellaria_. This small species is very quick to travel. The Captain took Urbina’s letter, folded it, and tied a ribbon around the pigeon’s wing. Then Kitty placed the carrier bird on the parapet of the Mirador. The pigeon took a few steps from side to side, then launched itself into the air, made a large curve to orient itself, headed like an arrow toward Monsant, and disappeared. “I’ve written a nonsense,” said Urbina. “You’re going to think I’m an idiot. ” “You can’t pick up the letter from the post office now,” exclaimed the Captain mockingly. “You’re going to laugh at me. ” “Why would you laugh!” exclaimed Kitty. “Do you think not? ” “No. Of course not. You are the most remarkable man I have ever met . ” “Comic? Grotesque? ” “No. Delicate.” A good, generous character. Urbina, in a burst of emotion, approached Kitty and took her hand with the intention of kissing it; then he didn’t dare and remained in an attitude of sad perplexity. The next day Kitty chose a spotted pigeon from the castle dovecote, put it in a cage, wrote the name of Clavariesa on a tied piece of cardboard, and had it brought to her by a corsair who traveled through the coastal towns and passed through Alba and the convent of Monsant. Two days later Clavariesa answered, and Urbina was mad with delight. happy. Chapter 14. THE ARGONAUTS. The Captain, who had been assured that he was in no danger of being arrested, decided to remain in Ondara until the end of Urbina’s adventure . The love between Kitty and Eguaguirre continued in the same state of amiable flirtation; people were suspicious; but no one had a clear idea of the lovers’ intimacy. Two weeks after letters had exchanged between Clavariesa and Urbina, the officer, on the advice of his friends, contacted his fiancée’s aunt. This lady received Urbina very kindly and told him that Fenoller, the guardian, would not yield in any way as long as he had powers. He had decided that Dolores should marry his son, and this solution seemed to him, because it suited him, so good that he would accept no other. Fenoller’s despotism had produced such protests and opposition in Dolores’s aunt that she was eager to find any means to disappoint the despotic guardian. Urbina, seeing how willing the lady was, thought he should make a great effort. He consulted with his friend Thompson and then with the Captain. “Do you think she’ll be willing to escape with you?” the Captain asked him. “I think so.” “Ask her clearly. If she agrees, we’ll organize the escape plan immediately . ” “I think she’ll agree. ” “Well, then, go ahead!” as General Blücher would say when he put his pipe in his mouth and a woman’s hat on his head. Thompson and I will prepare the kidnapping. You stay in town. Fenoller seems to be watching Eguaguirre, but not you. If he knew you were missing from here, he’d begin to suspect. Get a categorical answer from the girl. Tell her that her guardian won’t give in and that her aunt agrees with you. ” “That’s what I’ll do. ” “And in the meantime, we’ll study the terrain. ” “What are you going to do?” “Since I suppose nothing can be attempted by land, we’ll rent a felucca for a couple of weeks and reconnoiter the area around the convent. ” “I’ll let you have Roque, my assistant. He’s as clever as a devil. ” “I know him. We’ll need three or four more men. ” “That’s easy to find. ” “Yes, I think so. Let’s come to an agreement. We’ll rent the felucca anyway ; if it can’t be used for the escape, the money will be lost, and we’ll just wander around. ” “Well, never mind.” “As soon as we get hold of the felucca, we’ll inspect the coast and see what the prospects are. In the meantime, you’ll have written to your fiancée and received a reply. Does she accept? Then you tell her right away your escape plan with all the details; you ask for a leave of absence of a month or two, you kidnap the girl, you get married, and _laus Deo_. ” “We’ll do everything possible to make it work,” said Urbina. “Don’t even tell your closest friends about the project. ” “No; I don’t have any. ” “The point is to conduct the matter as quietly as possible, so there’s no possibility of suspicion, and then carry it out quickly.” Thompson was charged with finding the boat, and after many fruitless steps, he found a notorious smuggler living at the tip of the lighthouse, who agreed to rent him his sloop for any price. This smuggler, nicknamed “Farestac,” was a burly man of medium height, silent, black from the sun, with red hair that emerged from under his red cap and fell over his shoulders; a large, coppery, tangled whisker; a bear’s chest; and hairy hands. “Farestac” lived with his mother, a woman also red and also wild, in a shack near the sea, half cave, half cabin. “Farestac” was a solitary, unsociable man; He needed space, solitude, waves, foam, hurricanes. This misanthropic dolphin, despite his violence, had much of a contemplator and a quietist in him. Dionysius would not have found for his festivities a satyr, a silenus, an aegyptian, in whose gaze burned with such intense and savage fire. Farestac’s only friend and companion was Rabec, a ragged old fisherman with a tanned and wrinkled face, a crow’s nose, and a red, holey cap. Rabec had several scars, a cut ear, and a silver ring on the intact one. Rabec was ill-tempered and sarcastic, and had a reputation for bad blood. His laugh, his raílla, was always cruel and bloody. Rabec had a spaniel, Drago, ugly, dirty, and intelligent. On Farestac’s boat, which was called the Sargantana , the lizard, Pascualet, a dark-skinned boy as agile as a monkey, served as cabin boy. Farestac’s Sargantana was not a clean and well-kept boat, but an abandoned and ragged boat. On her hull were maps of flaking green paint, and her sails were covered in patches of various colors. The Sargantana was not a respectable lacertid, but a bohemian, wandering lizard, who knew the paths of evil better than those of good. One evening, at dusk, Thompson with his acolytes, the Farestac, the Rabec, and the cabin boy, arrived at Ondara; the Englishman disembarked and notified the Captain that they were going to leave the following morning. They needed a small boat, which they hired, and the next day, at dawn, the Argonauts from Ondara set out in the Sargantana, heading for the Monsant. They carried a ladder, two hoes, a pickaxe, ropes, and some baskets of food. The wind was brisk; The felucca was moving rapidly, its large sail and jib swollen by the wind, making the waters murmur as it cut through its prow, leaving a wake of foamy eddies. They rounded the point of the Monsant, which ended in a pile of large rocks that formed a cave open on both sides; they entered the inlet and headed straight for the islet of Farallon. The islet shone in the sun, dry, like a piece of lava, yellow and red, full of cracks and holes, without a speck of green in the gaps. One of its sides was sheer; the other extended into a pierced rock that formed an arch beneath which the waves flowed. They rounded the islet, which from some places, reflecting the sun, looked like an ice floe; with strokes of the oars, they brought the felucca close to a narrow channel between large stones and grounded it. Drago, Rabec’s dog, was the first to jump ashore and climb to the top of the cliff, scaring away a cloud of seagulls that had made their nest there. Above, there was a small sloping esplanade covered with bird skeletons. Thompson and the Captain climbed onto the esplanade and lay down to contemplate the coast. The sea shone, like a blue rock of various shades, under the splendor of the inflamed sky. The air was warm, impregnated with salty scents. A dolphin played among the waves. “We’ll be here until tomorrow morning,” said the Captain, ” when we’ll do some reconnaissance in the boat. Now, everyone can choose what entertainment they want. ” “Are there that many?” asked Thompson. “You can sleep, fish, play, swim… ” “And what are you going to do? ” “I’m going to dedicate myself to research and reflection.” The Captain took out his telescope and began to contemplate the coast and the Monsant inlet, which seemed to embrace the islet. The cliff, on whose summit the convent stood, began at Alba beach ; then it continued like a plinth below the town, and rose as it moved away from it, reaching a great height and ending in a rocky point. At first, this cliff was smooth, calcareous, without crevices; from a distance it looked like marble; then, as it increased in elevation, the wall it formed became a rocky outcrop, with unevenness, with troughs, into which the sea penetrated and detached pieces of the mountain advanced into the water, strewing it with reefs. In some places, the red soil It showed its naked and bloody entrails. On the opposite side of Alba, behind the other end of the inlet, a rock rose up from the seashore, resembling pumice stone because it was so white and dry. “What a strange mass!” exclaimed Thompson. “The other day I was looking at it from the top of Monsant, and it seemed to me like a cloud illuminated by the sun. ” “It looks like a sugar cube,” said the Captain, disinclined to marvel. From there, the convent loomed high above; all that could be seen of it was the cemetery with its cypresses whitish with dust, a square tower with a machicolation gallery adorned with a vine, and a wall with loopholes descending in a zigzag towards the sea. The convent, viewed from the islet, had a warlike and haughty air. To the right of the monastery, the dark patch of olive groves could be seen, and then pine groves that crept along, becoming lighter and lighter, until they disappeared into the bare, rocky part of the mountain. At one end, on one of the hills, a watchtower from the time of the Moors appeared, with a remnant of a pierced and broken wall. “Who knows these places well?” the Captain asked Thompson. “The Farestac. ” “Who is the Farestac? ” “The skipper of the Sargantana; the one with the red beard. ” “He’s a pirate. What a fellow! Tell him to come. ” The Farestac, who was preparing lunch with Rabec and the cabin boy on an iron stove, climbed to the top of the islet. “What do you want?” he asked the Captain in rude Spanish. “Sit here,” the Captain said, “comrade!” and slapped him on the shoulder. “Partner in what?” asked Farestac mockingly. “In piracy. You’re a pirate, aren’t you? ” “Me? ” “If you’re not a great one, it’s not for lack of desire, Farestac. Your ship is dripping with contraband and piracy. ” “And your ship? ” “I don’t have a ship,” replied the Captain, “I’m a bush pirate. Sit down; we’re wolves of the same breed. ” Farestac sat down, looking at the man in surprise. “Do you know this land in front of us?” said the Captain. “Yes. ” “Well?” “Better than anyone. ” “How many inlets are there on this coast? ” “Inlets? ” “Yes. What do they call them here? Coves. How many coves are there? ” “Three,” answered Farestac. “What’s the name of that one opposite? ” “That one ? ” “Yes.” “Hell’s Cove.” “And this one here near the point? ” “The Capellans. ” “And the third, where is it? ” “The third is just around this point, and is called the Avions. ” “Can we go up any of them? ” “You can go up all of them. ” “Which is the easiest way up? ” “The Infern. ” “Have you gone up? ” “Yes. ” “When? ” “It’s been a year since the last time. ” “Where do we get out?” “To the convent cemetery. ” “Would you be afraid to go up again?” the Captain replied. “Less than you,” the savage sailor replied sarcastically. “I’m not afraid of anything, my son,” the Captain replied, tapping the skipper again on the shoulder and smiling. The Farestac looked at his interlocutor with growing curiosity. “What are you going to do in Infern Cove?” he asked. “We’re going up to the convent. ” “What for?” “To rob a nun.” “A nun.” “Really? ” “Yes. A young and beautiful nun. Would you take one? ” “A young and beautiful one, indeed!” exclaimed Farestac, his eyes shining. “Well, choose one and we’ll help you. We’ll form a Society for Kidnappings and Dangerous Enterprises. Company name: Farestac, Thompson, Rabec, etc., etc. Capital: whoever steals. ” Farestac, who didn’t quite understand what the Captain was saying, began to look at him more strangely. Perhaps he thought he was crazy. They ate at the bottom of the Farallon islet, spent hours fishing, and at nightfall they all lay down to sleep. Before dawn, the Farestac woke the people. It was decided that the Rabec, who had been told nothing about the project, would remain on the islet looking after the Sargantana in company with the Drago. The others boarded the boat and headed toward the coast. So many stars throbbed in the sea that their trembling brilliance made one dizzy. In half an hour they approached the Infern cove. Dawn was breaking. This cove was not a small, wide-open gulf illuminated by the sunlight, but an irregular and dark hole that began with a narrow cleft. In front of this cleft were white and gray basaltic rocks that formed what looked like the remains of a great palace, with broken arches and galleries remaining. At the very edge of the water, pine trees sprouted from the cracks in the stones. The boat slid between the rocks on the still, crystal-like water and entered the cleft. They reached the bottom, tied up the boat, and had lunch. The sunlight was beginning to shine in from above, and little by little the strange configuration of the cove began to appear. The sea appeared white, milky, between two black, damp walls, full of cavities; outside, it was blue, the murky color of crystal; a network of meandering foam covered its surface with silver braid. The convent bell began to ring in a chatty and boisterous manner. “Let’s go and make our inspection,” said the captain. “Let’s go,” replied the Farestac. The cleft was narrower at the mouth than at the bottom. The cove formed an irregular basin within. It was about sixty feet wide and one hundred and twenty feet high. Farestac claimed there was a path that sometimes became a staircase and reached the top. A remnant of a path was found, beginning on the left side when looking inland. At first, it sloped gently; then it became steeper, skirted the cove, and passed to the right side. Up to halfway up, it was possible to climb with great difficulty; then there was a twenty-foot section like a slippery stone ridge, which could be scaled by clambering, holding onto the cracks. From here, the path passed over a ledge half collapsed by water seepage. This ledge, which ran parallel to a horizontal fissure, was called, according to Farestac, the Pass of Rabosa. The sailor found the path to Infern Cove much changed since he had last been there. No doubt the rainwater had been dissolving and tearing away large chunks of sand and limestone, throwing them to the bottom of the cove. The Pas de la Rabosa ended on the right-hand wall in a deep hollow, from which another path, sometimes with steps, led up to the top of the cliff. This path was interrupted by a landslide that left a passageway of about fifteen feet. Upon reaching the hollow, the Captain stopped and, turning to Thompson, exclaimed: “Friend Thompson, do you have a good memory? ” “No; but I have a pencil and a notebook that will do a good job of replacing it. ” “Good. Go and write down everything we need to make the climb accessible. ” Thompson jotted down what they told him: iron grappling hooks, various planks, ropes, etc. During the morning they arranged the climb to the Pas de la Rabosa. Afterward, they ate. They had brought an iron stove, where they cooked and made coffee. They poured the wine into a tin jug, and from there they all drank freely. At the beginning of the afternoon, they carried out an important and dangerous maneuver. They tied Pascualet with the rope around his waist; then they stretched the ladder from one side of the abyss to the other, securing it to a rock as best they could, and made the tied boy pass through and secure the ladder with large nails on the other side. Once this bridge was built, they all crossed. First, Farestac and the Captain crossed; then, Roque and Thompson. They were only missing a few Fifty feet to reach the upper edge of Infert Cove; but this climb was not difficult, because there was a good path. They cleared it of slippery weeds, and as night began to fall, they emerged onto the top of the cliff. Now the convent bell also shed its crystal notes into the calm of the twilight… The Farestac and the Captain approached the cemetery, while Roque and Thompson remained at the corners of the wall, peering furtively in case anyone arrived. The captain scaled the wall of the cemetery, and the Farestac followed him. They approached, jumping over graves, to an arched door that communicated with the convent garden. This door, painted green, was locked with a bolt and key. Through a crack, they looked and saw the superior and another nun giving instructions to the gardener. “The tongue of this key must be filed,” said the Captain. With this open, escape is easy… We’ll open the other cemetery gate that leads to the sea, and in a minute Urbina’s fiancée can be in Pas de la Rabosa. Let’s go, Farestac. The Society of Kidnappings and Dangerous Enterprises has concluded its duties for today. The Captain and Farestac left the cemetery and, meeting up with the other two and the boy, began, almost groping, the descent along the path from Infern Cove to the sea. “Add to what we need,” the captain said to Thompson, “a couple of good files and a club.” “That’s fine.” They boarded the launch. They reached the islet, and shortly after, the Sargantana, like a jovial and joyful triton leaving the ferule of teachers and fathers for the first time , sailed toward Ondara with her sails unfurled. Chapter 15. THE ABDUCTION. Immediately upon arriving at Ondara, the Captain and Thompson went to see Urbina. He showed them a letter from Clavariesa, in which she expressed her eagerness to leave the convent and was ready to escape. “Well,” said the Captain, “you can write to your fiancée that the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, Saturday, you will go for her. Tell her to be at that hour sharp in front of the gate of the convent garden that leads to the cemetery. There we will wait for her and call her. The tongue of the gate will be cut. Let her open the bolt and enter the cemetery, and she will fall into the arms of her adorer.” Urbina wrote the letter with these instructions, sent it by dove from the castle, and by evening she had a reply. The girl was anxiously awaiting the moment of her escape; at the appointed hour she would place herself in front of the gate of the garden that led to the cemetery and, upon hearing her called, she would draw back the bolt and go in. “Tonight we will set out on our expedition,” said the Captain. “Have you asked for your license? ” “Yes; Kitty will see to it that I obtain it. ” “After the kidnapping, will we return to Ondara? ” “What do you think?” asked Urbina. “I, like you, if we had good weather and a smooth sea, would continue as far as possible. ” “And you, Captain, what do you intend to do? ” “I don’t mind leaving this. ” “And Thompson? ” “Thompson, if you wish, can stay here. We’ll pass in front of Ondara: we must bring the boat; you can return in it.” On Friday afternoon, Thompson and the Captain ordered all the necessary equipment for the expedition to be brought onto the felucca, and the Captain added his luggage. They left at midnight, towing a flatboat; there was little wind , and it took them two long hours to reach Monsant Inlet. By starlight they approached the islet of Farallon, tied up the Sargantana, left the Rabec with the Drago on guard on the solitary rock, and with the launch they approached the cove of Infern. The Captain and Thompson climbed to the top of the cliff, jumped over the cemetery wall and began to saw the tongue of the lock on the door that led to the nuns’ garden. By dawn they had their work completed. For fear that the door might creak when they opened it, they greased its hinges with oil. “The Society for Kidnappings and Dangerous Enterprises Collectively is a prudent Society,” said the Captain, “the insured’s money can rest easy. ” “What capital do we have?” asked Thompson cheerfully. “Whoever steals. We don’t want to be distinguished from other Societies.” The little gate of the cemetery that led to the sea was rotten, and with a push it was left open. “Is there anything else that needs to be done?” asked Thompson. “Nothing, just wait.” These preparations completed, Thompson and the Captain crawled to the edge of Infern Cove and lay down on the grass. “I think I’m going to catch a magnificent rheumatism,” said the Captain, as he lay down on the ground. “On the other hand, you’ll see a splendid sunrise,” replied Thompson. “Do you think one thing compensates for the other? ” “Well, it depends on how much importance you give to rheumatism.” –And according to the importance given to contemplating the dawn. The timid and indecisive hour of morning was beginning. Thompson, who was a man of some classical culture, recalled the famous and well-known rose-fingers of Aurora and spoke of Phaethon and Tithon. –Now Aurora is a modest girl,–he said,–like a child going to her first communion. She doesn’t dare look at us, her hair is tied back and her body is covered by her white tunic; soon she will be like a blonde Bacchante, who will envelop us with her flaming hair and set the earth ablaze with rubies and the sea with pearls and diamonds. –That’s how I want her: energetic, anti-rheumatic. –You destroy the poetry of things, Captain, with these memories of herbal teas and flannels. –It’s that I am an anti-poetic man par excellence. –I don’t believe so. The Captain then amused himself by explaining to his friend Thompson the workings of the Society of Combined Kidnappings and Dangerous Enterprises, which he had devised. “You know what I’m thinking when I hear you,” Thompson said seriously. “What?” asked the Captain. “That this Society is as fantastic as our actions. You are a shadow creating another shadow. ” “Bah! Literature, my friend Thompson. Dreams! ” “All life is a dream, Captain. If our adventures had once been written down, the scholars of today would suppose they had no reality. ” “I don’t know why. ” “They would suppose it. And don’t think I suppose it too. No. I believe we are men of flesh and blood,” Thompson replied. “So do I,” said the Captain. “More bone than flesh; but, well, there is some flesh. ” “You’re saying that for yourself, not for me.” “Yes, I had forgotten your opulence, Thompson. Go on with your argument.” “I was saying that, since we are men of flesh and blood, how easily we would be turned into symbols of an ancient myth! ” “I don’t see how easy it is. ” “I do. Imagine the clues the commentator would have , reading our story, to believe in a myth, and a solar myth: first, we are at the solstice of the year; look closely: the solstice of the year! Second, we are going to steal a lady. This lady, Clavariesa, is a beauty, a great beauty; therefore, an incarnation of Mithras, of the sun, of Venus, of love; the convent is the night, where the light is guarded; Urbina is Mars, in love with Venus… ” “A very shy Mars,” said the Captain. “The sacristan of the convent is Vulcan. You said he is lame. ” “And I repeat it. ” “Farestac is wild nature, which takes the side of lovers. ” “Sargantana?” –The power of the sea. And me? –You are probably an incarnation of Mercury, god of merchants and thieves, full of resources for everything. –Thank you! –Pascualet and I would be auxiliary spirits of little importance. –And Roque? –Roque, fidelity, who instead of dressing in white and carrying a key and a dog, commonly goes as an assistant in the life of phenomena. “There is nothing missing but the _Rabec_,” said the Captain. “The _Rabec_ is a servant of Cerberus, of the _Drago_, of that spaniel that seems insignificant to us and that the commentator would give the proportions of an infernal god. Regarding this cove, which lies at our feet, some would say that it was the cavern of Tenare, with its gaping jaws, through which Hercules and Orpheus descended into the underworld, according to Virgil; others, that it was the den of the serpent Python; but the philosopher and rationalist commentator would understand that this cave symbolized the humidity and gloom of the earth when it has not yet been caressed by the rays of the sun. There you have a small mythological plot, in which Venus, Mars, Mercury, Vulcan appear, accompanied by the forces of sea and land. See, Captain, how our mortal bodies can take on the appearance of a symbol.” “Let’s descend, friend Thompson, to the realities of life,” said the Captain, “because this blond bacchante of the Aurora is beginning to get a bit annoying. ” “Let’s descend to the cove of Infern,” replied Thompson. The Mediterranean stretched out green near the coast; further away, it was an intense blue. The wind was brisk, and the waves, as they broke, filled the surface of the sea with a flock of white lambs. The Captain and Thompson returned to the interior of the cove and helped the Farestac, Roque, and Pascualet with the work of making the descent easier . Urbina was utterly astonished to find himself in that fantastic corner. They had lunch and dinner there, and as night fell, the final preparations began. Urbina was made to go up and down from the top of the cliff to the sea, so that he could get used to it. Urbina and the Captain took up positions in the cemetery. Thompson would be at Pas de la Rabosa with a torch, which he would light upon seeing the Clavariesa approach; Roque and the Farestac on the slippery slopes; and Pascualet looking after the launch. At a quarter to seven, the Captain and Urbina left the cove on all fours so that no one would see them, and running along the edge of the cliff into the cemetery. Urbina looked shrunken and embarrassed. “Friend Urbina,” the Captain told him, “you must adopt a gallant posture. Naturalness and modest shrinking are not made for heroes. Remember Napoleon, who took lessons in poise from Talma.” Urbina smiled. The two of them crossed the cemetery and approached the gate that led to the nuns’ garden. They peered through a crack. “She’s coming,” Urbina said suddenly, his heart pounding. ” Speak to her,” the Captain murmured. ” When she comes.” “Come on. Don’t think there’s no one around. ” “Are you there?” Urbina asked in a stifled voice. “I’m here. ” “Ask her if no one’s watching you. ” “Is there a nun in the garden? ” “Now, yes. Wait a moment. ” They waited a few minutes. “No one’s around anymore. Shall I open it? ” “Yes.” The Clavariesa drew back the bolt and pushed the door, whose old , rusty hinges creaked, and the girl passed into the cemetery. The Clavariesa gave her hand to Urbina, who didn’t dare kiss it. The Captain held the door with a bar. “Come in!” he said. “You know the way.” The Clavariesa and Urbina left the cemetery. The Captain looked through the crack in the door. No one appeared in the convent garden. Assured of the peace, he ran through the cemetery, crawled down the slope, and entered Infern Cove. “The Society of Kidnappings and Dangerous Enterprises together is a prudent Society,” he said aloud, “and the insured’s money is in good hands. ” “Are we there yet?” Thompson asked. “Yes.” The Englishman lit his torch. Clavariesa, quite in control of herself, began to walk down the path and crossed the Pas de la Rabosa laughing. Urbina, overcome with emotion and vertigo, He hesitated, and the Captain had to support him. “Courage!” he said. “Just a moment’s effort. We must control our unruly nerves. Don’t ruin the Society’s dividends. ” Urbina pulled himself together and continued down the path to the sea. Fortunately for him, it was dark, and his girlfriend couldn’t notice his agitation. When they reached the boat, Urbina and Clavariesa were given a place in the stern, and the others gathered at the bow. “So, aren’t we leaving?” the girl asked cheerfully. “We’ll wait until it’s completely dark so they can’t see us.” It was about nine o’clock when the launch slid through the rocky cleft of Infern Cove and headed for the Farallón islet. Urbina had consulted with his girlfriend whether to return to Ondara or continue onward, and she was in favor of going on. They all entered the Sargantana and tied the boat to the stern. It was windy, and the waves were bristling with foam. The ship’s great lateen sail spread in the air and paled palely in the darkness; then the jib was lowered. The Sargantana approached within a mile of Ondara. The vague silhouette of the castle and a few lights twinkling here and there in the town could be seen in the starry night air . “Well, Roque and I are going in the launch,” said Thompson. Thompson hugged the Captain and Urbina and shook hands with the Clavariesa; Roque said a heartfelt goodbye to the lieutenant and got into the boat. The boat was motionless for a moment; Thompson and the soldier began to row. When they looked back, the Sargantana had disappeared… At the hour when the morning light begins to filter through the clouds; at the hour when Venus pales and Syrio casts its last glimmering rays; At the hour when the mists evaporate and the blue sea appears with its foamy meanderings, beneath the great glorious clarity of the sun; at the hour when the gates of day open and Phaethon gallops, dragging Aurora’s chariot through the blazing sky, the bells of Monsant began to ring out. Something serious had happened to the good sisters to cause such alarm. The seagulls, making their first exploratory voyage among the rocks, were surprised by this unusual ringing; the pigeons that had been circling around the convent flew away in protest; the swallows and swifts squawked louder; the Farallon islet itself seemed to raise its pointed back like a dolphin above the waters, wondering about the cause of this commotion. Shortly after, from a distance, some black silhouettes were seen entering the cemetery , those of several nuns, led by the superior of the Community. They went back and forth, looking at everything; English: then they approached Infern Cove and quickly fled from it, crossing themselves… And, meanwhile, the bells of Monsant continued to ring out their desperate alarm… EPILOGUE _«Málaga, July 1827._ MR. Don Eugenio de Aviraneta. –In Veracruz. My dear Captain: I have received your letter with the commercial information I requested about that place. Thank you very much for your diligence and kindness. I can’t give you good news about our friends in Ondara. Doctor Don Jesús, who is here now, has told me about them. Commander Don Santos, the one you supposed, and with good reason, to be an agent of the Exterminating Angel, prepared a noose against our friend Kitty and Eguaguirre, and had the colonel surprise them at the lookout of the castle: him, holding Kitty by the waist; her, with her head resting on the lieutenant’s shoulder. The scene must have been terrible; The colonel, who was already prone to apoplexy, suffered a stroke and was left crippled and paralyzed. Everyone in Ondara heard what had happened, and the town was in uproar. Imagine the joy of the people, who think they are virtuous because they go to church, upon learning of the colonel’s actual disgrace . Kitty has been taking care of her husband. And do you know what Eguaguirre has done? He requested a transfer and went to Barcelona. where she wanders from gambling den to gambling den. After the Colonel’s death, Kitty, alone, abandoned, influenced by the priests of Ondara, entered the convent of Monsant. This Eguaguirre, who was always odious to me for his selfishness and brutality, has dishonored and abandoned our poor Kitty, so naive, so affectionate, so good. Will this woman, so worthy of happiness, wither away in solitude, in that slow suicide of the cloister ? I hope not. She is your very good friend, J. H. Thompson. Ondara, December 1827. Señor Don Eugenio de Aviraneta. In New Orleans. Dear Captain: I am writing to you from this town, which holds deep memories for me since the time when we founded the Society of Kidnappings and Dangerous Enterprises. During the time I have been here, I have been told many things, and all of them sad. Kitty, I’m told, is ill at the Monsant convent; she seems to be showing signs of sanctity. She cannot be visited. The Clavariesa-Urbina couple live in Valencia, and they aren’t very happy either. Clavariesa dominates her husband; she brings him, takes him, reproaches him for being poor. My poor friend’s observations about Laplace’s analytic theory of probabilities are going to be left unsaid. Of the two couples who interested us so much in Ondara, Kitty Eguaguirre and Clavariesa Urbina, both have ended badly; both have suffered the worst and the best. As the Spanish saying goes: “The rope always breaks at its weakest point.” Do you know Goethe’s Elective Affinities? I ask the question foolishly. I know you want nothing to do with the Weimar star. Do you know that I saw Farestac and he asked me about you? He has an extraordinary memory of us. He told me that if you were around he would come and join you. He is still as wild as ever. The truth is that when one lives in a world as brutal as ours, one feels like going off to an island like the Farallon, and having no friends but dolphins and tuna. In spite of these passing regrets, you know that I am an optimistic rival of Dr. Pangloss, and that I intend to persist in my optimism. Your affectionate friend, J. H. Thompson. Ondara, May 1831. Señor Don Eugenio de Aviraneta. At Bayonne. My dear Captain: I am very sorry that you cannot yet enter Spain, and that you have to be constantly detained there. Today I fulfilled my pious mission of visiting Kitty’s grave. I went to the convent of Monsant; I spoke with the superior, a gaunt , withered old woman whom I told her I was Kitty’s brother, and asked her permission to adorn with flowers the piece of ground where our friend is buried. Upon entering that abandoned cemetery, upon seeing the blue sea and the islet of Farallón, which springs from the waters; upon reaching the foot of the grave where our poor Kitty sleeps eternally, I wept like a child. The sexton pursued me, and, to be alone, I left the cemetery and, on that slope that descends to Infern Cove, I sat on a stone to give myself over to my thoughts. Of all my memories related to Ondara, the strongest at that moment was that of an afternoon when you and I were on the castle lookout. It was hot. You were talking with Eguaguirre; Kitty, with me; you were discussing politics; we were chatting about our poetic preferences. Kitty then recited the song from Goethe’s _Mignon_, which she loved so much: “Do you know the country where the lemon trees ripen and the golden orange shines in the shady foliage?” She put such feeling into her song that, when she finished it, her eyes were full of tears. “You are very moved,” I told her. “Yes. This song, which speaks of nothing sad,” she replied, “seems to me to be imbued with the idea of death, of completion. When I remember it, I think about where I will be buried when I die.” “And where would you like to be buried?” I said, posing the question as a joke. “There, in Monsant,” she replied, “by the sea, in a land flooded with sunshine. It is already there. Pain! The pain of dying! The pain of living! On my return to Ondara, I sat down on a stone, on the Volta del Rosignol, and tried to bring order and rest to my poor, troubled head. I could not succeed. “Do you know the country where the lemon trees ripen and the golden orange shines in the shady foliage?” “Do you know the mountain and its misty path?” These memories of Mignon’s song have been plunging me, for a long time, into vague, formless thoughts of a desolate sadness, into desires for languor and death. I followed the road like an automaton until I reached Alba, and I stopped to rest in the shade of a small cemetery, set back from the road on a barren, stony hillock. I looked inside. In the abandoned cemetery, nettles, hemlocks, foxgloves, and brambles grew with savage vigor. Not a tombstone, not a wreath had resisted the overwhelming force of the parasitic flora, well fertilized with human detritus; only a few rotten wooden crosses stood out among the thick mass of weeds; a red-breasted, long-tailed bird hopped on one of these crosses and twittered sweetly… Listening to it, I remembered another soft, misty morning in the Basque Country, when I had heard the warbling of a nightingale. It was near Hasparren, a French Basque village. I had been there for more than an hour, and would have spent my whole life, like the enchanted creatures in children’s stories, listening to the nightingale, when the church bells began to ring , and the magical singer fled. Then I entered the village to look for an inn, and as I looked at the church with a certain hatred, because its bells had interrupted the nightingale’s serenade, I saw this sentence written on the tower: _Ut fugitur umbra sic vita_ As the shadow flees, so is life. That terrible saying had the effect of a sledgehammer blow on me. Today it came to my mind as I contemplated the abandoned cemetery in Alba, and the bird singing on a piece of rotten wood. Since then, this sentence has become a heavy refrain in my mind. And in the village, and later on the boat, before arriving and after arriving at Ondara, my mind had only the same commentary on what I was seeing and what I was hearing: _Ut fugitur umbra sic vita_ Life flees like a shadow. Farewell, my friend!–_J. H. Thompson_. THE JOURNEY WITHOUT OBJECT PROLOGUE A few days after the abduction of the _Clavariesa_ we were chatting in that splendid viewing-point of the castle of Ondara, when Kitty, the colonel, asked me if I had written down any account of my adventures since I left London. _I have several notes,_ I told her, _but they are scattered and without order. _Why don’t you put them in order?_ she asked me. _For what purpose? _So that I can read them to you. _If you wish, I will; but I warn you that it is very likely that you will be disappointed. Nothing great has happened to me in my wanderings . “It doesn’t matter. Any story, spiced with a little imagination, can be interesting. ” “Ah! I believe so; but I have no imagination. ” “You want to excuse yourself, Thompson. ” “No, no. Believe me. All I want is to prepare you so that you don’t suffer a little disappointment. ” “I won’t suffer it. Don’t worry. Your impressions will always be interesting to me. ” “Oh! Goodness!” I exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t I keep among my papers some unpublished lines by Calderón, some dialogues by Shakespeare, some ballads by Burns, or some unknown pages by Mozart to bring them to you? ” “Don’t be so modest, Thompson. You’re trying to get away. ” “No, madam. When I get my papers in order, I’ll be here. ” “Do you give your word?” “Yes. I went to the Navy inn and began arranging my notes. It wasn’t easy, by any means. Sometimes I didn’t even know what I had meant to say. When I had finished part of my work, with a large bundle of papers, I went to see my friend Kitty. “The Aimless Voyage,” I read from the first page, my voice thick with emotion. “Do you call it that?” she asked me. “Yes; but if you think it’s wrong, I’ll delete it. ” “No, no; it seems fine to me. Did you give it this title to mean that you made this voyage of good fortune? ” “Yes; that’s right. It would perhaps have been more accurate to call it ‘A Voyage Without Aim or End’; but I didn’t want to emphasize it too much. Shall I go on? ” “Yes; go on… Really, this Aimless Voyage may be nonsense, because it is written without rhyme or reason, in a confused and disordered manner.” Mr. Leguía, the first compiler of *Memoirs of a Man of Action*, had to delete from *Journey Without Object* a number of digressions: road itineraries, botanical classifications, cooking recipes, religious reflections, and other irrelevant trifles . Thompson had a habit of expanding, of dispersing in his commentary; on the other hand, he wanted to be very exact. Like George Borrow, Richard Fox, and other English travelers, he proposed to write a journey with great thoroughness and full of details; but as a lazy and forgetful man, he left many of his ideas in embryo, and only expressed in a title what he would have liked to do. Into the vast heap of untreated issues and untimely reflections that Thompson noted, Leguía entered with abandon, cutting and slashing. After Leguía’s pruning, the current editor has had to make new cuts in the manuscript, to give _Journey Without Object_ a certain proportion of architectural work, or at least modest masonry. Certainly, Thompson was not an academic, nor a classicist, and it is possible that Racine’s tragedies seemed to him great monuments of papier- mâché. It must also be recognized that Thompson did not always show himself to be a serious and reasonable man, and that he often seemed not to understand the difference between the transcendental and the futile. The only thing that can be said in his defense is that Thompson never aspired to end his _Journey Without Object_ on Parnassus, because, if that were the case, his would have been a journey with a purpose, and he believed that in the segment of our limited life nothing has a purpose or an end. PART ONE AN INSIGNIFICANT LIFE Chapter 16. THE TRAVELER AND HIS SONG. I am a man who has left his house along the road, aimlessly, without knowing why, with his jacket slung over his shoulder, at dawn, when the roosters raise their shrill crowing into the air, like a war cry, and the larks take flight over the crops. Day and night, in the August sun and the icy December wind, I have followed my route, at random: sometimes, frightened by chimerical dangers; other times, serene in the face of dangerous realities. To entertain my solitude, I have sung, whistled, and hummed happy and sad songs, according to my mood and the reflection of the atmosphere in my spirit. Sometimes, passing in front of a house along the road, I would sing more loudly, shout, perhaps boastfully, wanting to be heard. Some window will open—I thought—and a friendly, jovial face will appear. No window opened, no one came out; I insisted candidly, and as I persisted, grim faces, hostile looks, people on guard, clenching clubs in their bony hands, emerged from here and there . Perhaps I have offended them, I reasoned. These people want nothing to do with me, and I continued on my way, at random, with my jacket over my shoulder, aimlessly, without knowing why, singing, humming, and whistling… For a long time, this solitude, the squawking of the owls, the howling of the wolves, filled me with anguish and anxiety. Then I tried to get closer to the city; but when I tried to enter , they stopped me at the gate, and they made it a condition of my passing that I leave behind some pleasant dreams, more pleasant than life itself. ” No, no; I prefer to return to the road,” I murmured; and I continued walking with my jacket over my shoulder, at random, aimlessly, without knowing why, singing, whistling, and humming, shuddering at the sounds of the countryside, the sound of water in the stream, and the ominous call of the crows. Then, little by little, they let me into the city without any conditions; but within the streets, I felt suffocated, cramped, unable to breathe, and I returned once more to the countryside… Today, some comrade says to me: “Rest here. Why not live among the people? There are quiet havens, there are corners where they don’t look at each other with grim, threatening faces.” Friend,” I reply, “I am a man of passage, something that moves and does not take root, a particle of air in the wind, a drop of water in the sea. Now I am like the traveler who has believed he was walking by chance through the depths of the ravines, and upon reaching a height, seeing the path he had traveled, realizes that, despite its deviations and its curves, he was instinctively following a plan. Now, in the confusing river of things that eternally pass, always changing and searching for its definitive formula—the Hegelian werden—I see my existence as a thing that has been and that has arrived at its becoming. Now, solitude does not sadden me, nor do the mysterious murmurs of the countryside frighten me, nor the cawing of the crows. Now I know the tree where the nightingales sing, and the star that casts its confidential gaze into the night. I already find the inclemency of the weather gentle and the silent hours of twilight admirable, when a column of smoke rises on the horizon. And so I continue, with my jacket over my shoulder, along this road I did not choose, singing, whistling, humming. And when Fate wants to interrupt it, let it interrupt it; even if I could protest, I would not protest… This preamble, which seems intended to be allegorical, was used by J.H. Thompson to his _Journey Without Object_. Its only justification for being here is that it is as aimless as the whole book. Chapter 17. DISHWASHING AND PHARMACY. AMONG the great number of Thompsons that England has produced, I am one of them. My father was an animal stuffer and had his house and workshop in Grays Inn Lane, a narrow street that leads off Holborn Street. The place, although central, is rarely frequented by wealthy people, and my father used to display his stuffed specimens in half a window lent to him by a phrenologist in Holborn Street, Mr. Fitzhamer, for twenty pounds a year. Our house, rather gloomy and black, barely received any sun on some summer days. We had a housekeeper, Mrs. Webster; but this lady became so attached to us that she ignored us . Besides, as a friend of hers sighed, Mrs. Webster had the misfortune of drinking. This friend meant to imply that taking up the habit of going to the tavern was like suffering from typhus or smallpox. Mrs. Webster had lost her domestic morals, and burnt meat or raw potatoes seemed to her to be minor accidents that did not affect her honor as a housekeeper . My father did not complain. He was something of a stoic. In his good times, he had lived comfortably and earned a lot of money; then he fell and fell, until he was ruined. My father was the King Lear of taxidermy, a King Lear without Cordelia. There are not many Cordelias in the world. My father worked hard to raise his children, and he did raise them, and they forgot him. I was the youngest son. My elder brothers settled well; my sisters brought dowries at marriage; my father, who had given all his money to his children, was left, the poor man, penniless. My father was prepared to go on ruining himself with me and end up the greatest misery. I remember him as an old man. He was tall, robust, with very white hair and a rosy face. I never knew my mother, who died when I was a few months old. From my earliest childhood, I have been accustomed to contemplating ruin as a natural state of my home. My father placed me in a rich school until he could no longer pay, and then he took me out on the pretext that we were leaving London. While I was at school, from the age of ten to fourteen, I invariably returned home during the holidays with something less. In extreme need, my father had to resort to pawning and selling the best models of his stuffed animals, and I saw lions, tigers, and snakes leave our house, magnificent specimens with fine, shining, unmended skins , and only the bald foxes, plucked flamingos, and eyeless owls remain in the workshop . How many times have I asked a stuffed alligator or a featherless vulture for inspiration to solve the family problem! I had to choose a way of life. My father didn’t want me to dedicate myself to the art of stuffing. He assumed the trade was on the decline and spoke ill of it to me. Thus, I lost the morale of a stuffer. My father had several friends who did not abandon him in his misfortune: one of them was Fitzhamer, the phrenologist; another, a stuffer, Mr. Sammerson, a tall, large, pompous figure, irreproachable in his dress, and constantly adorned with a large umbrella; and, finally, an employee of Fitzhamer’s, young Cheene, a thin, fine, and intelligent man, who dedicated his time to assembling skeletons for anatomy students . They all discussed what profession I should follow, and the opinion of the three consulted was that it would be best for my father to take me to the pharmacy of his brother-in-law and my uncle, a pharmacist named Samuel Cox. My father had old grudges against his brother-in-law, Samuel; but seeing that it was the only solution for me, he spoke to my uncle, and I became a trainee at the pharmacy. Then my father sold his house and workshop and became a manager at Sammerson’s establishment. I was at Cox’s pharmacy for nearly three years, and I left through no fault of my own.
My uncle Samuel was a confirmed bachelor who lived with a widow, Mrs. Blount. This lady had a son who was studying pharmacy outside London. This widow was a woman of about fifty, gloomy, bossy, with glasses and a white cap. My uncle Samuel was afraid of her and avoided her with great skill. My uncle was a man of great sagacity, as diplomatic as Talleyrand and almost as selfish. By dint of selfishness, he had become a complete lazybones, and recriminations rankled him horribly. My uncle Samuel and I quickly became friends. At first, he treated me like his assistant, but then he became a comrade. Thus, my childhood was spent partly in the stuffing shop and partly in my uncle’s pharmacy. I lived alongside exotic fauna and flora, among dead and preserved fauna and flora. In my childhood, I set up my hammock among the stuffed lions, panthers, and crocodiles; in my adolescence, I gathered manna like the Israelites, sperma coeti like the whalers, and Cylan cinnamon like the Vedas and the Sinhalese. I am an exotic man, oriental and occidental, polar and equatorial. I am a planetary. The three years of pharmacy were interrupted with the arrival of Mrs. Blount’s son. Then there was a constant series of quarrels and threats between the widow, her son, and my uncle. One day, I learned with astonishment that he was leaving the pharmacy. The widow had set him the condition: marry her or leave the pharmacy. Mistress Blount had letters in which Uncle Samuel promised her he would marry her. My uncle didn’t hesitate to accept the cessation of the pharmacy and left the Soho district forever. “You’re coming with me for now,” he told me. And, indeed, I, armed After a few belongings, I went to his house. Chapter 18. MY UNCLE’S BOOKS. Although I am the son of an old man—my father was over sixty when I was born—I am a strong and vigorous man. According to Fitzhamer, the phrenologist, who let us use half his shop window, where we displayed our stuffed specimens for twenty pounds a year, my most developed faculties are acquisitiveness, habitability, and religiosity. Life has not emphasized in me these qualities predicted by his phrenology. Perhaps the fault lies with me. I do not know with certainty what the intimate conditions of my character are, just as no one, or almost no one, does. The Delphic motto, “know thyself,” has not borne fruit in me. As for the origins of my knowledge, they are school, my father’s workshop, and my uncle’s apothecary . At school I acquired the rudiments of the classics; I mastered Latin and a little Greek; in my father’s workshop I learned to dissect and some notions of zoology, and in my uncle’s apothecary I began the study of chemistry and botany and opened the works of the great philosophers. Uncle Samuel was counted among the best bibliophiles in London. He collected books and collections of prints with great perseverance. While I was in the apothecary, I used to see him arrive every day with parcels of books and rolls of paper. If he was told about a customer who had come for theriac magna or scorpion oil—those things were still in use in those days— he would apparently listen very attentively; but the truth was, he paid no attention. When he and I left the apothecary, we went to live in a narrow lane that led through an archway to the square called Lincolns Inn Fields. The house was a tall, black building, with a desolate little garden in front of it. It would have been difficult to find a dwelling that had a sadder air. Smoke and fog had left the walls black, the windows fogged up. My uncle had his rooms on the top floor. They were filled with books and papers. The books there formed a parasitic vegetation; they peeked out from above the cupboards, from under chairs and tables. Every day my uncle used to go shopping, and I would accompany him. We went to flea markets, to fairs, to private homes. My uncle rented several small rooms in different parts of the city, where he stored his purchases. Seeing these corners crammed with books and papers, I asked him what he wanted to do with so many books and so many prints, whether he wanted to sell them or give them to the British Museum. Later, when I began to develop a taste for book and print hunting, I realized that bibliophilia and print-hobbies, like all human fantasies that enliven existence, have their own ends. My uncle was considered a humble collector, and if anyone asked him if he bought books, he would say no, that his means didn’t allow it. My uncle was certainly not a bibliophile wealthy or illustrious enough to belong to the Roxburg Club in London; but some members of that Society knew him and had invited him more than once to the annual banquet held at the Old St. Albans tavern, an invitation my uncle Samuel accepted, because in addition to being a bibliophile, he was an accomplished gourmet. I would always find my uncle in negotiations and lobbying with all kinds of booksellers, antiquarians, rag-and-bone dealers, scrap paper dealers, and bookbinders. One of the men with whom he had the most business was a paper merchant named Tick, who owned a shop on White Hart Street, a lane near Drury Lane. Tick, the son of a German Jew and an Irish mother, was a tall, gray-bearded old man with blue eyes and a smiling expression. His shop was difficult to enter because it was so narrow and dark. The sign could barely be read: ABRAHAM TICK WHOLESALE AND RETAIL PAPER TRADE From the store you went to a small courtyard crammed with old papers. Abraham Tick had a son about my age, William, a strong, handsome lad with black eyes, blond eyebrows, and black hair. According to the phrenologist Fitzhamer, one should be suspicious of people whose hair and eyebrows are of a different color. I don’t know if in every case, but at least in this one, Fitzhamer was right. William Tick, whom we all called Will Tick, became a very good friend of mine; or rather, I became his friend, for I was soon under his influence. Chapter 19. THE HOUSE OF ISRAELS AND PIPER. My uncle Samuel, seeing that I had a taste for books, thought I should perfect myself in bibliography, and took me as a clerk to the house of Israels and Piper, in Chancery Lane. Chancery Lane is a narrow street that runs down from Holborn to Fleet Street. Like many in London, it has one specialty: it is a street of people in gowns, law booksellers, and bankers. So, I suppose it will continue the same now, Chancery Lane was made up of tall brick houses, blackened by time, mist, and smoke, and caressed very occasionally by the rays of a sun translated into English. The colors of this street, the gradation of shades of its brick walls, I found very pleasing to the eye; they had in dark tones the iridescent variations of coral and mother-of-pearl. The houses on Chancery Lane were as indifferent and as hostile as any other London house, and a little more so: they presented passersby with tightly closed and nailed doors, spiked gates, thick grilles; these lawyerly houses were the most inhospitable, the most fundamentally British that houses, doors, and grilles can be. Near the exit from Chancery Lane to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and almost opposite Cursitor Street, stood the Israels and Piper bookshop. Over the door, on the red wall of the house, was this sign, half washed away by the rain: ISRAELS PIPER, LIMITED, PUBLISHERS OF WORKS ON HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY , AND GENEALOGY. The Israel and Piper bookshop had a small window, a cramped and almost always deserted shop, and then a very long corridor. Anyone would have thought that this establishment was of little importance; but the deeper one went, the larger it became, revealing its great catacomb-like galleries. On one side, the Israels and Piper establishment faced the garden of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where the printing press was located. The storerooms of the house were immense; the books formed streets and more streets, and from time to time, above these streets, there were plank bridges and more books on them. A few steps from the shop was a door that opened onto a large, flagged and glassed-in courtyard, and at all hours the employees were there packing books into boxes, which were then loaded onto carts. At all hours the printer’s assistants came in, carrying stacks of rough paper on their heads. Of the owners, Israels was a Jew in his sixties, with light eyes, a sharp nose, and a white goatee. He was excessively friendly and had a mocking look. Mr. Piper was a good-natured Englishman, square-headed, with a bulldog face and a sullen air. The job at Israels and Piper’s house didn’t appeal to me. Will Tick and I had an office near the courtyard, in a very damp and gloomy basement, where we worked constantly; and this mole lifestyle, always under artificial light, in a dark and damp place, bothered me a great deal. Will Tick managed to avoid working, and he told me all about his tricks. The Israels and Piper household had many curiosities: the printing presses that had been used in the house since its founding, the originals of published works, and a large archive of executions and heraldic manuscripts were kept. To protect these treasures from rats, there were four repulsive dogs and a dozen ferocious cats. The dogs bared their teeth at any stranger they saw, and the Cats leaped and hissed like panthers. These little animals were the offspring of a tabby she-cat, who attacked and scratched anyone who approached her. For Israels and Piper, this ferocious animal was the family genius of the house; he regarded it with the same enthusiasm as Dick Whittington, the popular character, regarded his feline, to whom he owed his fortune and the fact that he had become Lord Mayor of London. Among the assistants at Israels and Piper’s bookshop, I befriended, in addition to Will Tick, a young man, Percy Harrison, a pleasant lad, the son of a farmer. Percy was about my age and had the same interests, and he persuaded me to go with him at night to a drawing school. He had seen the caricature essays I was doing and thought I could use my small talent. The entire time I was at Israels and Piper’s house, for a year and a half, I went to the drawing school at night; but I noticed that, as I copied from statues, the little grace my caricatures had disappeared. I warned Percy, and he admitted that the cultivation of classical art was not suitable for me. Percy, while perfecting his drawing, practiced lithography. When he believed he had mastered this art, he planned to purchase a lithographic press and implements for the trade, and establish himself. Will Tick, Percy, and I formed a partnership, and decided to leave Israels and Piper and throw ourselves into a bit of adventure. Chapter 20. IN PRAISE OF LITHOGRAPHY. The first lithographic works that Percy and I produced were views of towns, picturesque scenes, and portraits of famous people. Will Tick sold the prints at a good price, and when we received the proceeds, we considered that a river of gold was flowing into our pockets. After these timid attempts, I tried my hand at caricature, and one of the best I produced was in favor of the Spanish liberals and against King Ferdinand VII. This caricature brought me into contact with some Spaniards, among them the Spanish-Englishman Blanco White, who had just published some letters about Spain, and who was probably the one who suggested the idea of coming to the Peninsula. After my anti-Fernandine cartoon, I made several others, which sold poorly. I soon noticed that my cartoons lacked personality and cruelty. I couldn’t achieve the brutal and bitter satire of a Gilray, nor could I give my characters the typically English air of George Cruikshank’s cartoons. “In caricature,” Will Tick told me, who in this, as in everything, was very clear, “there is the sweet strain and the sour strain. You are of the sweet strain, and in England, these days, that’s not popular.” Will Tick was right. Since I saw that the market quickly tired of my cartoons, I tried to offer another product and dedicated myself to aqua fort. Etching is undoubtedly an art of greater interest and greater individuality than lithography. It also has a charm for those who practice it, and it is the charm of surprises. These surprises come from the unexpected effects of the acid etching on the plate, and also much from the printing. Lithography, on the other hand, has no surprises, and its printing is more mechanical. It could be said that each etching proof is almost as unique as a painting; on the other hand, lithographic proofs are all the same. I liked the etching process because it is more personal, more complicated, and, at the same time, freer than that of lithography. In lithography, once the difficulty of drawing in reverse has been overcome, everything is resolved; while the work is being done, one can follow its progress by looking directly at the stone or in a mirror. In contrast, in etching, while the copper plate is being scratched, it remains a mystery. The engraver assumes that one part has turned out well, that the other, badly; he believes this is too black; that, on the contrary, too white; he puts the plate in the acid, then takes out the proof, and everything is a surprise for him. The lithography is more honest; in it nothing more or less than What happens? My enthusiasm for etching took away my interest in working in lithography. I did like lithographic prints, yes, but more those of others than my own. I preferred being a print collector than a lithographer. Truly, lithography isn’t a great art, but it is a pleasant art within its vulgarity. It’s something like a street song, like a melody popularized by a barrel organ. The fusion of lithography with costumbrismo and with the episodic history of the period has given rise to a class of prints that are the best documents of our time. It will be said that these plates leave us with a false impression of things. True. Some will assert that art should give the sensation of reality with artificial elements and that lithography does just the opposite: give an impression of unreality with true elements. What does it matter? Is there a reality outside of us? I, a reader of Kant and Berkeley, believe in no reality other than that of our own selves. The rest are disguises of Mother Nature, aspects of the Thing-in-Itself whose existence we do not know to what extent, and whether or not its presentations to our senses are constant. Others may dismiss lithography as an industrial, vulgar, and insignificant art; for me it has had and continues to have great attractions. These village views, so false on the whole and so exact in detail; these country scenes, so uncountrylike; these Spaniards, so unSpanish; these Greeks, so unGreek; these rivers, these waterfalls, these personages, these Amazons, who are the conventional truth of a historical moment, could not have been represented more in harmony with the spirit of the times than with the light, gentle, and somewhat banal pencil of lithography. Chapter 21. IN THE MIDDLE OF BOHEMIA. Percy and I rented a room and brought our tools and some furniture into it on credit. At first we worked with enthusiasm; Then, little by little, we weakened and came to the point of doing nothing, regarding our engraving instruments with disdain and a certain amount of mockery. Will Tick often bailed us out of trouble with the fertility of his resources. He often took us to his house to ask for help. Tick, father and son, engaged in dubious business dealings. They kept piles of old stamped paper, which they must have used to forge documents. They washed and boiled written papers in chlorine water and removed them clean; they also knew how to make antique ink and trace signatures. All the work in the house was shady and even less legitimate. During the time I attended the Tick workshop, the most legitimate business that father and son engaged in was bleaching and scraping some parchment leaves from chapter books and converting them into drum and tambourine heads. The father, son, and a servant, an albino and black-faced man, were always seen in the courtyard, dirty and black, erasing papers and drying them in a stove. Abraham Tick was involved in matters that don’t easily fall under the scrutiny of a judge. One of his specialties was inventing genealogies and falsifying noble documents. Impunity was assured. It was very difficult for his work to come to the attention of the courts, because whoever commissioned the falsification of a writ of execution or a family tree was the first to be concerned that no expert would carefully examine their documents. Abraham Tick paid us well when we helped him. I met a lot of people in his shop, because old Tick had many connections. A number of people who were snooping around pawnshops, bookstores, and antique shops used to gather there. I also decided to take out food snooping, and I began to supply my uncle and a few other people with books and prints. He also bought portraits, which he later sold to Fitzhamer. The phrenologist used them for his studies. Some prints before the title had no names, and I used to add them in the margin in pencil. It was curious to see how candidly the phrenologist managed to find in the sitter’s head what, in the opinion of everyone, there was; how he divined the mathematical spirit in Pascal, the wit in Voltaire, the astronomical sense in Copernicus, and so on. A confusion of mine caused the portrait of Fenelon to pass for that of Machiavelli, and that of Florian for Fouquier Thinville, and vice versa; and one had to admire how accurately Fitzhamer mathematically found the humor and cunning in Fenelon, taking him for Machiavelli, and the destructiveness in the insipid Florian, whom he took for Fouquier Thinville. I did not always hit the mark in my walks in search of a few shillings, and then Percy and I devoted ourselves to eating on credit. At first we worried about paying; But there came a day when the thought of tomorrow didn’t bother us in the least, and from then on we devoted ourselves to the most succulent dishes and the most spirituous liquids, with the vague hope that someone would pay for them. When times were tight, we used to go see Will Tick; but he was already brazenly offering us dangerous counterfeit work, which alarmed us. Percy’s friends and mine, cheerful comrades, lived in a similar way to ours, ready to enjoy themselves, to squeeze the most out of life. One of them, the dearest to me, whom I had known at school, was Thomas Burton, a dissipated young man from a well-to-do family, of the school of Lord Byron, who found everything very bleak in life. Burton poisoned himself with opium and read books on astronomy, from which he derived arguments to deduce the meanness and misery of human life. “The best thing I can do for my family is to ruin them,” he would say, “and then do away with myself. Money has made us unhappy. ” Another of the constant guests at our revels, Joe Flinder, an old law student, kept, he said, a large trunk full of masterpieces, ten or twelve poems that would have been signed by Milton, and a hundred tragedies and comedies far more suggestive and profound than Shakespeare’s. Despite this premise, he thought it safe to say with the certainty of a mathematical axiom, there was no publisher or manager for his works. Such was the stupidity and bad taste of proud England! Other people joined us, especially some rich young men who were accompanied by Will Tick. Will presented us as men of enormous talent, hopeless Bohemians, leading picturesque, disorderly, and absurd lives. Percy and I had come to find our way of life quite logical; We generally did not pay our suppliers, and the income we sometimes obtained from the purchase of a picture, an engraving, or a rare book, we used for a cheerful dinner. We used to have long discussions, debating about glory, politics, literature, the means of making money, the Reformation, the Constitution, and we would conclude with flushed faces, singing at the top of our lungs the Ghost of Cock Lane, the Children in the Wood, or some patriotic song, such as Rule Britannia! and Oh, Britain, the Pride of the Ocean! Chapter 22. Sad Days. I well understood that this life could not last, that it was a more or less long parenthesis that had to close from one day to the next. Indeed, the parenthesis soon closed. One morning the owner of the house informed us that, having waited a long time for the collection of our rent, he could wait no longer. He gave us twenty-four hours to vacate the room. Shortly after this notice, Flinders arrived with the news that Burton had just committed suicide. When his mother entered his room, she had found him lying dead on the floor. The news made a great impression on me. Percy, Flinders, and I talked for a long time, and I forgot my troubles. We would have gone to say our last goodbyes to our friend; but we were afraid that the family would not let us see him, considering us as lost people who had perhaps dragged the suicide to his evil end. We decided to go out and approach Burton’s house. As I went downstairs, a boy brought me a letter. It read: “Dear Thompson: If they send you this letter, they must have found me dead. I’m going with pleasure. Shake hands and good luck. Burton.” We discussed whether I had done well, whether our comrade had done wrong, because there is nothing that stirs the spirit as much as that denial of life by suicide. Talking about Burton, we went out into the street. It was evening. It was one of those autumn days in London when the sky, invariably gloomy, rains down showers upon showers; The entire great city oozed black damp and coal dust, and men, horses , and dogs dragged themselves through the mud of the streets, while a few privileged people were bored in their palaces or looked out of the club window or through the carriage window at the ragged people wallowing in the mud. We arrived at Burton’s house and they refused to see us; such were our attitudes. To return to the room at night, awakening the neighbors, would have exasperated the proprietor. We spent the night at a steady pace, and in the morning I presented myself to my father. We talked, he lectured me somewhat, and told me I ought to go and see my brothers. I replied that I shouldn’t. My sisters were proud of their position; they were married to people of quality and didn’t like to think of having a profligate relative. My two older sisters were of the same material: perfectly selfish and insolent indifference to the fate of the family. They weren’t going to bother about me, whom they hardly knew. My father gave me a few pence, all he had; I ate, and went to see my uncle. I told him I was in a difficult situation and had thought of asking William Tick for a job. Then I told him about Will’s methods. “Yes, he got them from his father,” said my uncle. “He’s obviously as much of a scoundrel as all his family. Take care that you don’t get dragged into something bad. Abraham Tick is constantly making forgeries; draw something, and they’ll want to use you. Don’t be a fool. Make up as many debts as you can; put your signature on every note they bring you; but don’t fake letters, invoices, stamps, or anything like that . This is rope or penal servitude.” My uncle’s remark struck a nerve; I thought the same, though I hadn’t thought about it so clearly. He was a clever crook, and his advice was not lost on me. I lived for a few days at Tick’s house, shut up, painting family trees, and one day Will brought me some plates from a bank in the City for me to trace and then Percy to print. I pretended I had no eyesight. Will Tick laughed and told me to do it, or else I would have to leave. I decided to leave. “You’ll starve to death,” he said. “No; because my uncle has commissioned me to make a catalogue of his library. ” Will Tick insulted me, calling me stupid and selfish; and I went to find my uncle. I told him the story; how I was hounded by creditors, the forgery proposition Will Tick had made me, and asked him to let me have one of his book chests and feed me, in return for which I would do whatever copying or tracing work he suggested. After much hesitation, my uncle agreed, and we agreed that I would restore some old covers and documents for him. The two of us went to a hovel in the Islington neighborhood. It was a top-floor dump, filled with piles of books that had been dusty for years. A publican on the corner, an acquaintance of my uncle, would bring me dinner and wouldn’t lend me a penny. I took possession of my hovel and began my work. I spent the whole winter shut up like this. From my dovecote I looked at the low, gloomy London sky with the thick smoke rising from the chimneys. In the morning I did the restorations for my uncle, and then I studied French and Spanish, for I had a plan to escape from London. At night the mice kept me company and came to devour the remains of my dinner. Sometimes I tied a rind of cheese with a piece of string and amused myself by removing it when the small and graceful rodents threw themselves upon it . On foggy, dark days, I would despair of being able to do anything , and I would go to bed. Chapter 23. EXAMINATION OF MY ABILITIES BY THE SYSTEM. DECIMAL METRIC On one of those days when I was even more bored than usual, I made this table of my moral and intellectual aptitudes by the decimal metric system: J. H. THOMPSON’S CONDITIONS Love of work 5 per cent. Benevolence 10 » Egoism 15 » Personal courage 5 » Erotic sense 10 » Morality 5 » Religious spirit and superstition 2 12 » Fitzhamer-style acquisitiveness 2 12 » Sociability 10 » Vagrancy instinct 15 » After the synoptic table of my aptitudes, I began that of my knowledge by the same decimal metric system, and I got this: Drawing 10 per cent. Literature 10 » Philosophy 5 » Botany and Pharmacy 10 » The art of dissecting 15 » Geography 5 » Languages 5 » For a fantasy like this, the phrenologist Fitzhamer charged a good deal of money; On the other hand, I didn’t charge myself anything. My interest at this time was to raise my linguistic knowledge from 5 percent, according to the table, to 10 or 15 percent. I was learning Spanish and French without a teacher, and I suspected that I would be understood with difficulty. Above all, my pronunciation and the correctness of words would fail me. I would probably suffer the same fate as the Englishman in a French caricature, who enters a Paris café and, in order to order “Garçon, a bottle of beer,” makes an effort of memory and says: “Celibataire, a bottle of coffin!” This confusion of beers with coffins was the most likely to produce ridicule. Although I understood that I wouldn’t manage easily, I wasn’t overly concerned about this. The difficult thing for me was to take the first step, cross the English Channel, and land on the Continent. I had planned to go to Spain. I was hungry for sunshine and blue skies; I was tired of confinement, rain, and mud. I had read a lot about Spain; I didn’t believe, by any stretch of the imagination, that it was a delightful country where extraordinary adventures occurred at every turn; but I planned to go there. Although I am an optimist, I am not one of those who harbor excessive confidence in people and things, and who are disillusioned at the slightest setback. My strength lies in perseverance and stoic resignation. I have always been more of a spectator than an actor; life has given me the impression of a comedy, sometimes pleasant, sometimes boring. I am slow to make decisions. I have always needed the sting of imperative necessity to launch me into action. If this imperative necessity doesn’t spur me on, I look at events calmly. Many times I have said, “We’ll see where this takes us,” and I have drifted along, quite indifferent, until the cruel and urgent necessity appeared. My trip to Spain was a matter of time. Sometimes I wondered if it would be better to stay in London. My creditors were distracted, but how could I live like this all the time? The stillness was making me grow weary; I needed to do something, even if it was just nonsense: walk, run, change the scenery… Chapter 24. LAST FEAT IN LONDON. One day I read in a newspaper about the discovery of a forgery of banknotes and the imprisonment of the forgers and concealers, among whom was my friend Percy Harrison. Will Tick did not appear on the list of prisoners. Was he a stranger to the affair? Or had he slipped from the clutches of the justice with art? Considering his skill and craft, it was very likely. A few weeks later, I was walking, wrapped up in my shabby greatcoat, and still more so in a thick, reddish fog, to my father’s, when I met Will Tick talking to a woman. He stopped me; I told him plainly that I supposed he was the instigator of the forgery for which Percy had been arrested; but Will Tick showed me, with arguments, that my suspicion was not true. His reasons mitigated my anger against him, and we talked at length. I told him I was thinking of going to Spain. “Have you any money?” he asked me. “No.” “Do you know who we could get a few bucks from? ” “Who? ” “My father. ” “What?” “Your uncle has left forty pounds sterling on deposit with my father, to purchase the library of a dead antiquary . My father has seen the library, and is under a pretext to purchase it for your uncle, for there are some valuable books in that library; But he’s given his word, and there’s no going back; I’d lose a good customer. ‘ ‘Then there’s nothing to be done. ‘ ‘Yes, there’s a great deal to be done. My father, on the slightest pretext, is happy to return the forty pounds. You come with me to my house, tell my father that your uncle has changed his mind, and he’ll give you the forty pounds, and we’ll divide them. ‘ ‘No, no. I won’t do that. ‘ ‘I’ll do it on your own; but it’s necessary that you come with me and receive the money. ‘ I hesitated, for the matter seemed a little harsh, coming from a man like my Uncle Samuel who had favored me; but I also thought, ‘If I don’t take advantage of this opportunity, when will another one come? I must make up my mind. Go ahead!’ We went to Tick’s, and Will spoke to his father. The old forger listened for a long time, smiling and shaking his head in the negative, until he made up his mind, and taking the forty pounds out of a drawer, he put them in my hand. Will pushed me out the door and said, “Here’s my share!” I gave him twenty pounds; then he asked me for another five for his commission. “No, I won’t give you another. ” “Well, you’re a cheapskate. Goodbye!” With the money in my pocket and my mind full of rather comical remorse, I went to the docks and found that a few hours later, at dawn, a packet boat was leaving for Bordeaux. As I feared the indignation of my uncle Samuel, of whom I might perhaps never be able to ask anything in my life, I wrote him a letter from a public house, telling him of the exploit Will and I had accomplished at his expense. I told him that I was acting under the influence of something greater. Afterwards, I wrote another letter to my father , bidding him farewell, and at daybreak I set off down the Thames for the Continent. “We’ll see what fate has in store for us,” I murmured, as I approached the railing, feeling dizzy and with my hand pressing against the pit of my stomach. Chapter 25. ABSURD DESTINIES. Anyone, reading the final sentence of the previous chapter, will suppose that I am a fatalist. No; I am not. I am not, but I am not far from being one. This idea of fatality is a little confusing. Containing the idea of predestination, it is false to me; but meaning only destiny, it seems correct. There is no doubt that if one marks a series of points on a piece of paper, these can be connected with a line; there is also no doubt that such a line will have a character: it will be straight or broken, and will present a special shape. This shape, once made _a posteriori_, we will call necessity, destiny, and if it were made _a priori_, we would call it fatality, predestination. At point 1 of the line we do not know where point 2 will fall, nor at point 2 what point 3 will be; but having plotted points 2 and 3, we can be sure that in no way, even if the Universe were to dissolve, could they be anywhere but where they are. Such were my reflections, lying on a bench on the deck of the packet, as we cleared the Channel and my seasickness was passing. When it had completely worn off, I thought it would be convenient to invent a purpose for my journey on reaching the Continent, and I hit upon a little story based on my uncle, Sergeant Cox, who had been a rascal and had been in the Peninsula with General Moore’s troops . I felt that no one would mind if I promoted my uncle a little in the service, and I decided to call him Major Cox. The Major had died in the Peninsula, leaving a small fortune, which I was to collect—five thousand pounds? Six thousand pounds? I don’t think anyone would mind if I raised the inheritance to ten thousand pounds. Cheered up by so pleasant a prospect, I got up from my seat and paced the quarterdeck. There was another young man, about my own age, who had, for no other luggage, a box of tobacco; We began to talk, and, driven by that need for confidentiality that one feels when traveling alone, I told him my story. “So you’re going to the Continent without any purpose?” he asked me. “Yes. ” “Well, it’s the same with me; but since I’m a fatalist at heart, I believe that wherever chance takes me, my fate will be determined. Here, where you see me, I’m coming out of a prison, where I’ve been for some time unraveling a rope. ” “Did you make some forgery? ” “No; I was in business dealings with a gang of thieves who fed me. Once they planned a robbery in a hotel. Each of us had his own mission; I was in charge of throwing a piece of meat laced with laudanum to the dog. They gave me the little bottle, and since I’m forgetful, I left it in a corner. Then I mistook it for a bottle of sauce, and I poured sauce on the meat the dog was supposed to eat, and, of course, he didn’t go to sleep.” It turned out that the police had been warned, and that they had seen me throw the meat to the dog, and that they caught all the thieves, including me with the bottle of sauce. When I told my lawyer what had happened, he said at the trial that I was a very virtuous young man and explained how I had fallen into the hands of criminals, who had sent me with a bottle of laudanum and a piece of meat to throw to the dog, and I had left the laudanum and taken a bottle of sauce to sprinkle on the meat I was going to throw to the guard of the house. The judges all acknowledged that I was a virtuous young man and threw me out into the street, where I began to die of hunger. Then I entered into partnership with a couple of individuals who were engaged in that rather lucrative business the French call blackmail. They had already been preparing an important one; they had documents from a politician, with which they thought to make a lot of money, and they sent me to make the proposition. I arrived at the politician’s house with my lesson learned; but I don’t know how I managed it, for I confused everything I had to say. I discovered my associates’ game and had us all thrown in jail. Like the other time, I was acquitted, and considering me, no doubt, to be a fool, they took me to an asylum, where I spent some time doing tow. When I left the asylum, I wondered if my future lay in exploiting women . I chose a girl who seemed docile to me and began to cultivate her with the aim of living at her expense; but a man intervened ; I fought with him; they took us to court, and everyone believed I was an idealist and that I had fought my rival to defend a lady. Yesterday I was in Hyde Park at dusk, thinking of a way to deprive a lady, accompanied by a gentleman, of a necklace she was wearing, when I saw that the gentleman speaking to this lady was the politician we had wanted to exploit. He came up to me and said, “If you don’t talk about what you saw, I’ll give you twenty pounds.” I hadn’t seen anything. I held out my hand and received a note. I went to the Marble Arch and looked at the note by the light of a lantern. It was good. In the morning I bought a suit of clothes, ate, and came to this ship. I’m going to disembark in France, where I don’t know what I’ll do. Since I can’t be a skilled criminal, I’ll try to be an honest person. If I can’t be either one or the other, I’ll go into business. The young fatalist shrugged his shoulders, and I lay back on my bench. Chapter 26. IN MEMORY OF BURTON. The liner had entered Bordeaux. The May day was splendid; the sun was shining. There was a light breeze from the north. As I had no luggage, I immediately left the ship, went to the terrace of a café, and watched the people passing by and the bustle of the port. I felt a certain drowsiness, and for a moment I closed my eyes and was delirious. I thought I was among my London friends and that I was addressing Burton, who was listening to me, dead and smiling. J. H. Thompson inserts here the speech he gave to his friend, which, although it is not very relevant, we insert it: “What a mistake to suppress oneself from the world of the living like this!” he says to his friend. “What a mistake, my dear Burton! With this sunshine and this pure air, and this blue sky, furrowed by white clouds, and these people coming and going, and these strange appearances of the Thing itself! What a mistake, my friend Burton, to suppress oneself! Oh, no; I will not tell you that these men are worth speaking of, nor that these women are romantic and pure Ophelias, no. It is possible that most of them are cattle, or perhaps pigs; but what a sky! what light! How the blood feels circulating in the veins! What a mistake, my friend Burton, to suppress oneself!” No, I will never try to convince you that love and human brotherhood are born as easily as seaweed in the sea, nor that pure friendship is a common thing. I readily admit, as you do, that most men are selfish and beastly, but what doubt can there be that there are intelligent and good ones? Certainly, I do not believe in great words; I am a nihilist of all nihilisms, and an atheist of all atheisms; but even so, my friend Burton, what a great mistake it is to suppress oneself! It is true that everything around us is fleeting, elusive; but we still have the moment, the minute! Admirable thing! Yes, perhaps great words are a little empty; but on the other hand, small ones, how full they are! A pleasant conversation, a beautiful woman passing by, a breath of fresh air on a summer day, an entertaining book… “What a mistake, my friend Burton, to suppress oneself!” You will claim that our life is nothing, that a twinkle of a star represents more than all human existences. I will reply that greatness and smallness are relative ideas, and that the suns of the Milky Way and the rays of Sirius or Aldebaran are less transcendental to that gentleman passing by and to me than the lamp that goes out at night. Yes, friend Burton; that infinity of the Universe that worried you so much is, after all, an infinity of negations, and those nebulas of stars should have no more importance to us than the clouds of sparks that fly out of a forge. You would tell me, descending to physiological life, that when the gears of our inner wheels creak, everything is discomfort and pain. It’s true. But even so, in the intervals of pain, one can find moments of placidity and repose. What a mistake, friend Burton, to suppress oneself! Thus Thompson drones on, until he says he awoke, opened his eyes, and, instead of seeing his old comrade, saw the masts of ships bobbing in the harbor. Chapter 27. CHARLATANS AND MOCKERS. I left my coffee and musings,” Thompson continues, “and went to lodge at a cheap garni, from where I wrote again to my uncle. I told him that William Tick had been the inventor of the combination to get the forty pounds out of him, and that I had only agreed to it, being pursued by a creditor, who put me to the alternative of paying him immediately or taking me to the Jail. By repeating this fabrication over and over again, I came to believe it. I also told my uncle of my plan to go to Spain, swearing that if I managed to find work, I would return the money. I also wrote to my father. Both of them replied immediately; my father, giving me advice; my uncle, less bothered than I had supposed. From what he told me, warned by the letter I sent him upon leaving London, he had bought the antiquarian’s library before Abraham Tick arrived. Reassured by this, I spent a few days in Bordeaux, enjoying the dolce farniente. Bordeaux seemed large and gloomy to me, like a deserted town, made to be the capital of a great state and remaining a provincial capital. Walking through the town, I was lucky enough to find in a small shop a packet of French caricatures against the English, which cost me fifteen francs. They depicted pot-bellied lords and thin, ridiculous ladies. I hadn’t been able to find them in London. I bought them and sent them to my uncle, who, reconciled with me, wrote to me a few days later in Bayonne, very pleased, urging me that when I entered Spain I wouldn’t forget to look for Goya’s prints. After six days in the capital of the Gironde, I made my first attempt at being a traveler. I had bought a cheap summer suit, a cloth satchel, in which I packed my clothes, and a map of France with the post races, made by J.B. Poirson in 1821, in Paris, on the Rue Saint Jean de Beauvais. With these requisites, I set off on foot. Since I had been told that the route through the Landes was not very pleasant, I took the banks of the Garonne, intending to go down to Orthez and from there return to the sea. The first day I had a good time, walking six leagues and eating and sleeping perfectly. On the second day I made some rather unusual discoveries. In a village along the way, before reaching Bazas, there was a fair, and I stopped for a moment to browse the stalls. I entered a booth of wax figures and reviewed the figures of the Revolution, the generals of the Empire, Marie Antoinette, various victims and murderers, and a large group that included a hunter devoured by tigers and lions. Those animals were not a marvel of exactness. I allowed myself to make a few disdainful gestures and express my dissatisfaction. A short, plump man dressed in black asked me: “Don’t you like them?” “Not much.” “Those animals have been copied from life. ” “No. Wow! It can’t be.” And I explained how and why this wasn’t possible. “Would you do it better? ” “I certainly would! I’m a London taxidermist and a painter. ” “Yes; they do well in London on these matters; but things aren’t done badly in Paris either. You can’t take anything away from Paris.” I remained silent, as if unwilling to commit myself too much, and then the owner of the wax figures asked me if I would mind working for him, modeling various beasts in ferocious attitudes in wax, and retouching some figures like Danton, the murdered Fuldes, and others that had lost their color, for people were not content merely to see their faces but wanted to touch them. “Are you going to be here that long?” I asked him. “No, I’m leaving immediately; but you can come with me in my carriage. We agreed that I would do the work for him and that he would provide me with the necessary tools, pay my expenses, and give me three francs a day. I settled into his four-wheeled, closed, covered wagon , and we began to drive slowly toward Pau. The owner of the wax figures, Monsieur David, was a refined gentleman who could have been an academic, a notary, or an undertaker. He dressed in black and wore a red ribbon in his buttonhole. He was traveling in the company of his wax figures and his servant Michel. At the same time as Monsieur David, and taking the same route, were several carts: two belonging to a beast tamer, who called himself Hungarian, with an old lion, some panthers, and several monkeys; a carriage belonging to a lady who kept trained cockatoos; a van belonging to a seal tamer; and a tilbury belonging to a charlatan, a salesman of spices, a conjurer, a tooth-puller, and a phrenologist. On the way, we met acrobats, gypsies, and a ragged woman with a cart containing a barrel organ and the small family. During the three days I was with Monsieur David, I put the brightest colors on the cheeks of Fualdés, the murdered man; I animated the eyes of Marie Antoinette, Carrier, Napoleon, Danton, and Marat, and I was beginning some sketches of wild beasts when we stopped at an inn, shortly before reaching Pau. It was raining; The carts were put into a corral, and we assembled in a room of the inn: the Hungarian seal tamer and his servant, the charlatan conjurer, a ventriloquist, the seal tamer, the cockatoo lady, Monsieur David, and myself. We dined together, and since these people are boastful, each of us recounted his triumphs in the different towns along the way. The seal tamer praised his animals so highly that the people took him for a joke. He then bet that he would send his Baby, the best of his seals, with a letter for Monsieur David, since he would deliver it to him. The bet was accepted, and money was placed against it. The seal tamer left the room and went into the courtyard, and shortly after, we saw the seal lumbering along the passage with its flippers, entering the room where we were, offering an envelope it was carrying in its mouth to Monsieur David , and bowing ceremoniously. The seal tamer and his pupil Baby were applauded , and they kissed each other. The charlatan explained his sleight of hand, then took out a deck of cards and invited everyone to a game. I thought the others wouldn’t accept. Who would think of playing cards with a magician ? They sat down at the table, and the charlatan, the tamer, the cockatoo lady , the seal tamer, and Monsieur David shuffled and cut and began to play malilla. I lay down on a couch and fell asleep. In the middle of the night I was awakened by shouts. Everyone was shouting and arguing, and they had piles of silver and coins on the table. The tamer must have been losing badly; he was anxious, flushed, with a thick vein bulging on his forehead. He kept passing his hand over his whiskers. The cockatoo lady was also doing badly, judging from her humiliated air. The seal trainer was indifferent; Monsieur David smiled, and the slim, Mephistophelean charlatan had a placid, insinuating air, holding a card upright to his nose and continuing to play. Meanwhile, the tall, thin ventriloquist, his arms and legs folded in the chair, elicited strange voices from his body. The end of the game was approaching, and, sure enough, in one fell swoop, the Hungarian trainer’s money disappeared and ended up in the hands of the charlatan and Monsieur David. The trainer stood up, swearing, and the winners, with a contrite air and full pockets , prepared to rise. “Wait,” cried the trainer. “You owe me revenge. I’ll be back at once.” The trainer left, and at once Monsieur David and the charlatan slipped from the room. The ventriloquist, the seal man, and the cockatoo lady did the same. I was also about to leave and was about to put on my shoes when the tamer came back with a whip, followed by two panthers. I was horrified. When he saw that there were no players, he began to pace around the room furiously, shouting and cursing and lashing out in the air, while the two beasts he had brought leaped and bared their teeth. I was terrified. The tamer noticed me and approached the couch. He told me mockingly that the owner of the wax figures and the magician had stolen his money. It was necessary that I pay him. “Me, man, why?” “Because they swindled me. Give me the money… Otherwise…” “If not… what will happen?” “You’ll regret it,” he said, and he lashed the couch with his whip, and the two panthers jumped up like cats. “Wait, wait, don’t be in a hurry,” I said, and I stood up and calmly put on my jacket. “Quickly, quickly,” he cried, astonished at my sudden serenity. “Ah! Quickly? Well, now I’m going to tell you something. ” “What? ” “I’m not going to give you anything. ” “No?” He raised his whip. “No,” I said, and I hit him so hard on the beard that I knocked him to the ground, knocking over a chair and the table. The two panthers hid in a corner, frightened. Before the tamer could get up, I opened the room, went out to the courtyard, and from here to the road. I crossed the village and walked until daybreak . I was a short distance from Pau; I arrived at this town, entered an inn, washed, put on my gentleman’s suit, and put the other in my knapsack. I asked how I could leave for Bayonne. They showed me the point where the coaches started, and I headed towards it with my knapsack converted into a suitcase. Chapter 28. BEGINNING OF A ROMANTIC ADVENTURE. I was sitting on a bench in the Place Royale, waiting for eight o’clock to strike and the coach office to open, when I saw two women in mourning coming forward hesitatingly, looking to the right and left. They sat down on the same bench with me; but they must have been impatient, because they got up early, leaving a package on the seat. Noticing this, I called the two ladies and gave them what they had forgotten. “Thank you! Thank you very much!” exclaimed the elder of the two. “I don’t know where our heads are.” “If I can be of any help, I’ll be happy to do so,” I told them. ” We’ve come to meet the coach going to Orthez. ” “Me too; but I’ve been told there’s no coach until noon. Now you can only take a small carriage, called the Cuco. ” “And when will it leave? ” “It seems it won’t leave for another hour and a half. ” “So what are we doing here for an hour and a half?” the young woman exclaimed. “They’re going to know us. ” “Have you got the ticket?” the older lady asked me. “No; not yet. ” “Would you like to come with us? ” “With pleasure. ” The three of us went into a café that had just opened. The older lady was about fifty or fifty-five years old, and she was wearing a widow’s cap; the other was a pale, insignificant girl of about twenty-three. The lady spoke with a nervous, frightened accent; the young lady seemed overwhelmed. When the necessary time had passed, we approached the coach office . We waited for the Cuco to be ready, and the two ladies , a captain of the Bayonne gendarmerie, who had gone to Pau to receive orders, and I got in. The captain and I talked. The elderly lady kept jumping up and down in her seat with impatience. The Cuco rode perfectly, with a smooth motion. At the different points where the horses changed, the gendarmes appeared and invariably asked if they weren’t Spanish. “Point despagnols,” the captain would say. “Two French ladies, an English gentleman, and a captain of the royal gendarmerie. ” “Pardon me, Captain,” the gendarmes would say, saluting. “Why do you always ask if there are Spanish people?” I said. “It’s because they fear there are Spanish revolutionary agents around here,” the captain replied. We arrived at Orthez in the morning. The captain and I offered the ladies our company, and when they accepted, we went to their house. The captain gave his arm to the eldest, and I to the girl. We arrived in front of the gate of a magnificent estate and said goodbye to the ladies. The captain went to one side and I to the other. I walked a little parallel to the gate, which was longer than I had imagined, and when I turned back, I saw that the two women were still at the entrance. “Can’t you hear them?” I asked them. “Do you want me to knock?” “No, no,” they both said, frightened. “Whatever you want,” I said, and I prepared to continue. “Could you do us a favor?” the lady asked me in her tragic voice. “Yes, with pleasure. ” “We’d like to enter the park without the doorman seeing us. ” “I don’t know how. ” “There’s a small gate, locked with a bolt, here on one side. ” “And how are you going to open it from the outside? ” “No, I already know you can’t from the outside. Wouldn’t you be able to climb over this fence? ” “Climb over the fence! What if they see you? ” “No. No one gets up in the house until very late. ” “Well, let me know if anyone shows up.” Without further ado, I left my little bundle on the ground, climbed over the fence, went down the other side, ran to the small gate, and unlocked the bolt. The two women went into the garden, and I went out onto the road. As I passed the gate again, the lady was waiting, and she said to me: “I want to give you an explanation and speak with you. Come to this gate when it gets dark. ” “Yes, madam, I will.” I went to an inn, my imagination a little excited, and at night I presented myself at the gate. A little later, the lady arrived. She spoke to me for more than an hour in a restless, anxious tone, and told me, in a rush, a number of things. This lady was a relative and at the same time the companion of the young woman who had come with her in the carriage. Her name was Madame Domesan. The girl, Gabrielle de Beaumont; from what she told me, lived with her father, her uncle, and a lady friend of her father, Henrietta Sarrazin, who had made herself mistress of the house to such an extent that she kept them all captive, not letting them leave. The day before, this lady had left the castle, and taking advantage of her departure, she and Gabriela had gone to Pau to speak with a relative and explain their situation, but they hadn’t seen him. In the house, Henrietta Sarrazin ruled as mistress and had arranged for her son, who was a deranged man, to marry Gabriela. She was isolating the Beaumont family from their friends and relatives, to the point that no one entered the house anymore. She was assisted in her plans by a local priest. After all this information, Madame Domesan told me that if I had the courage and energy for it, I should show up at the castle the next day and ask for Viscount Beaumont de Lomagne; to tell him I was arriving from London and that I was fond of trees and exotic plants, and that I wanted to see the park and the greenhouse, and make friends with him. I was inspired by that lady’s stories, and I promised to continue the adventure. The next day at noon, I presented myself at the castle and pulled the chain. An old doorman in a grand livery came out to open it; I gave him my card and waited. Shortly after, the gate opened, and the servant told me to come in. I began walking along a sandy avenue. At the end of it, a large, heavy stone building could be seen, with several slate towers adorned with weather vanes. On either side were towering, centuries-old trees, and in front of the castle facade, an oval pond of deep, dark water, around which the leaves that had fallen over many years formed a sort of silver frame. This pond looked like a black mirror reflecting the sky through the foliage of the trees. Skirting the pond, we approached the castle and entered a large hall, resembling a crypt, with a stone floor, walls, and ceiling. We climbed the wide staircase, passed through a hall as large as a museum, and entered an elegant but sad study, where two mummified old men sat opposite each other: the lady and young lady from the carriage, and Madame Sarrazin, a woman with a bunioned face, light eyes, and white hair. The viscount greeted me kindly. He was a tall, stooped, and pale man , with an air of fear and weariness. He wore a suit from the time of the Empire, and when he walked, he seemed to drag himself. Her brother, the Chevalier de Maslac, was a complete old fart of the ancien régime type; he wore colored velvet breeches, silk stockings, a coat, and a pigtail. He was perfumed, made up, with blush on his cheeks and lips; his teeth were false, and he wore a wig. He constantly wore a spectacle and a snuffbox; he wore rings and charms on his fingers, and when he rose from his armchair, he leaned on a gold-headed cane. Mademoiselle Gabrielle and Madame Domesan greeted me politely, and Madame Sarrazin barely deigned to look at me. The Viscount de Beaumont, who had a mania for botany, showed me the park and the greenhouse of his castle. The park was extremely sad; it seemed as if they had tried to give it a gloomy air , placing the gigantic trees so close together that, walking along the paths, one could not see the sky. The pond reflected the clouds like a desperate and somber pupil. The viscount showed me the old Beaumont tower, with its bastions and rings, which overlooked the river and were used to tie down barges. After seeing its strange plants, I said I had to leave; but the viscount begged me several times to stay for dinner and to sleep. As this was my objective, I stayed there. The dinner was sinister. The viscount looked from side to side, as if possessed by the greatest terror; the Chevalier de Maslac, with his adobe tiles and his jewelry, looked like a disinterred mummy. Nothing was discussed at the table but genealogies, and only the viscount interrupted this conversation to discourse on botany. After dinner, the two old men, Sarrazin and Gabrielle, played a game of cards, and Madame Domesan indicated that I should go to the library, where we would talk. Indeed, I went there, and we talked at length. She told me, in a nervous and peremptory manner, that I, who had been sympathetic to the viscount, should enter the house and fight against the influence of Madame Sarrazin, who dominated them all. Then she told me, in her dramatic tone, the story of a young man who had courted Gabriela for a long time, and who had been found drowned in the river, and of a mysterious man who appeared from time to time near the castle. Then she told me about her life and her family. She told me that she came from the secretary of Philip II, Antonio Pérez. “When Antonio Pérez escaped from the Inquisition prison in Zaragoza,” she told me, “he took refuge in Béarn and was protected by Henry IV and Margaret of Valois. Antonio Pérez had an affair with a lady from Orthez, and her son settled here permanently, and I am from him.” Madame Domesan continued to tell a series of tales of crimes and strange events involving murderers, mysteries, and ghosts, and I began to wonder if the woman was a little disturbed, and perhaps, unwittingly, a kind of Gascon Anna Radcliffe. At least it was a serial with many installments. When I went to the bedroom assigned to me, which was immense and dark, I couldn’t sleep. I spent the whole night thinking about drowned people and dead people. The next day I realized that such grandeur was not for me, and, without saying goodbye to anyone, under the pretext of taking a walk, I left the castle and never returned. Chapter 29. IN THE COACH. I ran with my satchel to the place where the coaches left and took a seat for Bayonne. I met the same captain of the gendarmerie with whom I had gone to Orthez. We greeted each other and exchanged names. He told me his name was Montmartin and invited me to have a glass of cognac. The coach carried many people who were going up and down in the small towns, carrying baskets and errands, and a Bayonne merchant with his wife and two daughters. One of them, according to her mother, had a beautiful voice and had had great success singing the Cavatina “Una voce poco fá” from the Barber of Seville in one of the high-class houses in Orthez. The other young lady, according to her mother, possessed great knowledge. literary and historical works, and knew both English and Spanish. She had been much courted by a young officer of the Orthez garrison named Alfredo de Vigni, who had written a beautiful poem for her. Although I spoke French rather poorly—”Celibataire, une boutaille de cercueil!”—I was a little better than the captain of the gendarmerie, for he felt that before the ladies he ought to assume a rigid attitude, as if he were on duty. Perhaps the frequent libations influenced his stiffness, for he took advantage of every stop to intoxicate himself as much as possible. With this fuel, his French background revealed itself, and he said that Napoleon was a great man, whom the English had caused to perish miserably. He also spoke of the Battle of Orthez, in which Wellington, with the allied army, had defeated Marshal Soult, and he poured out insults on the victor of Waterloo. The Bayonne merchant and his family seemed devastated upon hearing this, and looked at me as if begging my pardon. The captain saw that I wasn’t taking any notice, calmed down, became my friend, and livened up the journey with a few tales from the guardhouse. In the early evening, we arrived in Bayonne, and, having crossed the bridge over the Adour, the sergeant of the gendarmerie post asked if there were any Spanish travelers. Captain Montmartin replied that there weren’t, and we continued on to the Place d’Armes. The captain felt, for some reason, a vague impulse of sympathy or remorse as he said goodbye to me, perhaps for having spoken ill of the English, and he invited me to dine with him at the Café del Comércio so insistently that I had to accept. The café, enveloped in a cloud of smoke, was crowded with garrison officers. People were talking loudly. At a table, there was a group of lieutenants and non-commissioned officers, and one of them was reading a recently published book by a certain Paul de Kock, called Gustav the Rascal. Those listening were laughing uproariously. Captain Montmartin and I approached the group, and although I could barely hear the reading, caught up in everyone’s laughter, I ended up laughing. Dizzy and somewhat intoxicated, I said goodbye to Montmartin and went to the inn. The next day I got up early and went out into the street. I saw many groups of Spaniards who I was told were royalists, and among them a priest and a friar, one with his large tiled hat and the other with his bangs. Both were shooting with rifles and had magnificent aim. “They are soldiers of the Faith,” a Frenchman told me, who must have been an enthusiastic royalist. “There is no doubt that with that aim,” I replied, “they will win many souls for heaven.” Chapter 30. MARY OF BIRIATU. At the inn in Bayonne, I was told I could ride to Saint-Jean-de-Luz on horseback in a cacolet. I didn’t know what this was, which turned out to be a contraption called a jamuga in Spanish. I arrived in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in my cacolet; I left my satchel in a cacolet at the edge of the town and went to stretch my legs on the beach. I was caught in a downpour and went into a small cafe and sat down in front of a glass window, watching the raindrops hitting the ground and the clouds drifting across the sky. When the downpour was over, I returned to the cacolet at the edge of the town and made my preparations to enter Spain the next day. I was sitting at the table studying a map when a girl came in to ask me if I would like dinner. When I saw her, it seemed the room lit up; she was so pretty. “Are you going to serve me dinner?” I said. “Yes. ” “I didn’t think I could be so happy.” She laughed. I gazed at her, spellbound. She had clear blue -green eyes, a mocking mouth, and a body that was both light and strong . She was a fruit of the North, gilded by the midday sun. I asked her her name, and she said Mary. I asked her again where she was from, and she replied Biriatu, a small village perched on a hill near the Bidasoa. “I’m going to stay here,” I told her, “so I can see you for many days.” “It can’t be,” she answered. “Why? ” “Because I’m leaving for Biriatu tomorrow. ” “I’ll go to Biriatu. ” “It doesn’t matter; you won’t see me. ” “Do you have a boyfriend? ” “No. ” “But do you have many suitors? ” “No; not that either. ” ” How can that be, since you’re so pretty ?” “Don’t they all think like you,” she replied, laughing. “That’s impossible,” I exclaimed. “Do the men of this country not have eyes? Are they like those fish in the lightless lakes, who are blind? Do they have some kind of perpetual nictitating membrane? Is it that…” Mary from Biriatu came and went carrying plates, paying little attention to my remarks. When supper was over, I told her that since I couldn’t see her, I wanted to leave at dawn and ask her to give me the bill. She brought it to me, and I wanted to tip her a louis d’or. “No, no,” she said. Keep your gold coin. I don’t want it. ‘ ‘But I don’t ask for anything in return! ‘ ‘It’s all the same; I don’t want it. You’ll need it more than I do. Goodbye! Good night. J.H. Thompson says, when he got here, that he went into his room and, taking out pencil and paper, wrote a poem in English in honor of the girl he found at the inn. This poem is a frivolous Spanish slang that cannot please us sensible people, and if we translate and copy it, it is, more than anything else, to demonstrate the extravagance of foreigners when they deal with Spain. The song, translated verbatim, goes like this: ‘To Mary of Biriatu: You have clear blue-green eyes, Mary of Biriatu, like the waves of the sea; you have a mocking, fresh mouth and a lithe, harmonious body like that of a goddess.’ When I see you walking from here to there, my heart trembles and feels the same trembling as if it were a piece of Sèvres porcelain in the hands of a boorish maid, or the finest Bohemian crystal glass between the fingers of a reckless boy. You are kind, Mary of Biriatu, and yet you are cruel. You have the cruelty of strength, which does not suspect the weakness of others; you have the exactness of a mathematical theorem, which is a torment to the obscure intelligence; you are proud like Nature, and I am humble like a human thing. If you wished, I would come out of myself like a dragon from its hole, and I would be the most turbulent and most Dionysian man on earth. But no, I would not be; I already am. I have been transfigured, and the Furies nest in my heart. I am no longer a heavy, thick Englishman; I am Andalusian and I have Moorish blood in my veins; I have claws like eagles and fangs as sharp as tigers. I no longer dissect beasts, I kill them; I no longer argue with men, I dominate them. Come with me, Mary, Mary of Biriatu. I will take you on my Cordoban horse, from the Pyrenees to the Sierra Nevada, and we will rest at the foot of the palm trees of Andalusia to the sound of castanets and guitars. If you want me to be a smuggler, Mary, I will become one; if you want me to be a highwayman, I will be one without fear and imitate the generous bandit, the one who robbed the rich and protected the poor. For me there will be no laws but your whim, Mary, Mary of Biriatu; for me there will be no blue sky but the greenish blue of your eyes. With the blunderbuss on my arm, mounted on my gray nag, I will be a breath of fresh air. I will slip from the hands of justice and make the bailiffs, the mayors, and the bailiffs of the Holy Brotherhood weep with rage. “Is it necessary to defy the king, the Inquisition, the angels, the demons? “Here I am. I will steal the Virgin’s jewels to adorn your throat and I will give you Luther’s Bible so that you can make papillotes with its pages. “And when the whole world is trembling with my glory like a steam boiler, and my exploits are sung by the blind, you, with your helmet-like mantilla and a shell comb; I, with my shorts and my Andalusian cape, we will both go arm in arm to the bullfight. “Come with me, Mary, Mary of Biriatu. See, I’m capable of anything for you. See, if you don’t, you’ll lose yourself like Robin Hood in Calanes.” This is the absurd and senseless poem that J.H. Thompson dedicated to the girl at the inn in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where he was staying, and which has deeply displeased several respectable people who have read it. Chapter 31. THE SALE OF INZOLAS. After pouring out my heart in these verses, I lay down on the bed, fell asleep, and in the morning, at dawn, I got up and left the house. “We’ll see what fate has in store for us,” I said to myself. I walked a league before sunrise, and I sat down at the foot of a tree and took my map of Spain out of my pocket. It was published in London in 1808 by John Stockdale in Piccadilly, and it must have been of use to Wellington’s troops on their way to the Peninsula. “Since I have no objection,” I murmured, “I’ll follow the meridian. The myth of my uncle Commander Cox and the meridian would be my guidelines. I decided to spend one or two months in the Basque Country, half a year in Castile, and eventually end up in Andalusia. I was engrossed in studying the map when a little girl passed by and stared at me. I stood up and asked her: “Is this the road to Navarre? ” “Yes.” The girl went to a hamlet called Herburu, and I went with her. I found a French customs officer whom I asked to show me the road to Spain. He looked at me suspiciously and showed me a path. Following it, I came to a fairly dense wood, with an inn, the Inzola inn. I was in Spanish territory. I asked the inn to give me something to eat, and with a large piece of bread, chorizo, and cheese and a bottle of wine, I sat down on the grass in a meadow. The daisies and heather flowers were shining; A serpentaria displayed its red ear of corn among the greenery. There was a fresh and pleasant breeze blowing from the sea; the sky was very blue; in France, the plain and the coast could be seen; towards Spain, a labyrinth of frowning and somber mountains. Crickets enlivened the solitude, and a cuckoo uttered its ironic voice among the trees. I devoured my provisions and then addressed an eloquent toast to the old Spain of Don Quixote, the Cid, and Saint Ignatius of Loyola. I added Loyola, to prove to myself that this Amadís de Gaula, Catholic and Papist, not only did not irritate my feelings as a thoroughgoing Protestant, but that I saw in him a beautiful source of energy and determination. After this toast, I made my second libation, toasting the Spanish ladies, the knights, the majas, the bullfighters, the gypsies, the corchetes, the alguaciles, and the mayors, and, above all, the fairest of the fair, Mary of Biriatu. As I had more wine left in the bottle and it was not unpleasant, I had to toast the sea, the blue sky, and even the Thing itself, and I fell asleep for a moment. SECOND PART FROM THE PYRENEES TO MADRID Chapter 32. THE PLEASURES OF THE COUNTRY. When I read as a boy descriptions of country pleasures, says J. H. Thompson, they seemed to me one of the most insipid and silly things in the world. It is strange how rhetoric, by dint of repeating the same phrases, can erase all sense of reality. The rural pleasures in the pages of bucolic writers of the 17th and 18th centuries have always been amiable and social pleasures; it is evident that for these writers, Nature was represented by a well-kept park, just as for Fenelon, Calypso’s grotto was one of the underground chambers of the Garden of Versailles. Rural pleasures in painting have also been as dull, as mannered, as those described by poets. When I first came to live in the countryside, I never remembered the descriptions I had read in childhood, nor the paintings of the painters. I never remembered Galatea, nor Amaryllis, nor Thirsis, nor Nemoroso; all these amiable personifications never left their proper shelf in the poetic wardrobe. to present themselves to my imagination. They disdained me as much as I disdained them. As I approached the countryside, Nature, instead of a gentle, pastoral, and bucolic impression, gave me a rude sensation and spoke to me with a harsh and discordant voice. The wind and the rain, the rustling of the trees in their foliage and the murmur of the brook, walking through the tall grass or through a forest clearing all produced a surprise for me. I also had other surprises and discoveries. One of these was lighting fires. Few things have seemed so suggestive to me. To make a fire by the side of a road and see the dry grass crackle, the flames twist, and the smoke spread into the air! What great pleasure! What eternal admiration! It always seems a new spectacle, as if one cherished deep within one’s soul the wonder of primitive man, the discoverer of fire, when he saw the flames rise into the air. This is one of the great sad and melancholic pleasures of the countryside. To gaze into the flame of the bonfire, to see the smoke staining the brightness of the twilight, while the stars begin to appear in the sky… Today, when I think about it, I feel melancholy, the melancholy of a nature lover combined with the melancholy of a rheumatic person. Chapter 33. ERLAIZ THE BAKER. After my libations, I left the inn at Inzola and began my march toward Vera. In front of me was a tangle of rugged and dark mountains, ridges and ravines. Throughout the Basque-Navarrese Pyrenees, the same thing happens: the tragic and gloomy have remained for Spain; the smiling and friendly, for France. Despite this, the spirit of the Basques on both sides of the border has remained the same: the same seriousness, the same taste for black suits, the same air of disillusionment. It seems this small town has a vague awareness of its disappearance, of its absorption by those around it, and it remains with the sadness and pride of old towns that sink, leaving hardly a trace of their existence. I was walking slowly down from the Inzola inn to Vera del Bidasoa when I heard the sound of a cart in the distance. How it creaked! As soon as you heard it, its sound disappeared, then reappeared. These Basque carts have wooden wheels made of a single piece and attached to the axle, which creates a lot of friction. A few days later, I asked the farmers in Vera why they made their carts this way, or at least why they didn’t grease the axles, and one told me that the harsh creaking amused the oxen, and another, that it wasn’t necessary to warn anyone that the cart was passing, because the creaking of the wheels was the only warning. I was descending to the bottom of a stream, along whose banks I could see several farmhouses, when I met an old man walking with his dog. He was a shaved, bent man with a raven’s profile. I struck up a conversation with him, and after some questioning, he told me he was looking for mines. During the interrogation, I had to say who I was and why I was coming to Spain, and I resorted to the Cox myth and inheritance and explained my plans. The same man asked me what I planned to do in Vera; I told him I would spend just one day there and then move on. “Do you have an inn? ” “No.” “Well, I’ll take you to the house of a country friend of mine, who will give you cheap lodging. ” We arrived at one of the town’s quarters at dusk. Deep in a valley, a few old houses could be seen in a row, shrouded in fog; smoke rose from the chimneys in light blue columns. The old man and I walked down a long street, passed near the church, and came out onto the road on the banks of the Bidasoa . We stopped at a house with a shop. At the door stood Erlaiz, the baker, talking to a blacksmith from a nearby forge. The baker, a short, square, pockmarked man with a dark, gloomy face, was explaining something to the blacksmith, a fat, pot-bellied man, with a malicious smile. The baker greeted the old man and me roughly, and a girl who was in the shop told him to take me to a room. I crossed the shop, went up to a green-painted room, washed, and looked around the town. The Basques are indifferent and somewhat hostile to foreigners; even if you speak to them in Spanish, if they see a stranger, they look at you with distrust and suspicion. The people I asked something to, instead of giving me the information I needed, answered by asking me why I had come and what I planned to do. These suspicious Basques assume that a trap is being set for them by asking them the simplest question. I thought I wouldn’t be in the town for many hours. At dinner time, I returned to my inn, the baker’s house, and was shown into a dining room, where the mine prospector I had found in the mountains, Erlaiz, and a soldier were sitting. The baker, my employer, completely changed in appearance, was smiling and friendly. They showed me my place at the table, and we began to dine. The trip had worked up an appetite, and I made a formidable attack on the dishes, bread, and wine. The others weren’t far behind. After dinner, coffee and liqueurs were brought, and we began to talk and sing. I ‘ve never seen happier friends than those. The soldier, a guerrilla with Mina in the War of Independence, recounted his feats of arms, and the baker spoke of his adventures in Castile. Both were more exaggerated than the other. These good Basques, when they get down to it, are somewhat boastful, like Walter Scott’s Scots, or like the Gascons. To hear them tell it, any encounter of fifty men against fifty others is a Battle of Austerlitz; a village with four old houses, a Florence, and a barn with a tower is the Louvre or the Kremlin. After the exploits of the soldier and the baker, the old prospector , whose name was Bidarraín, gave us lessons in botany and popular mineralogy, mixed with a few superstitions. At twelve-thirty, exhausted from sleep, I went to bed, slept soundly until ten, and upon awakening, wondered whether the evening’s dinner had been reality or a fantasy. I dressed, went down to Erlaiz’s tent, and found him listless and grumpy. “That old Bidarraín came to ask for you,” he told me. ” He must be in the garden.” I drank the coffee with milk that Erlaiz’s niece served me, went out to the garden, and found the old prospector. He asked me if I would like to go for a walk with him. I said yes, and we set off. Bidarraín showed me several mineral samples, and we talked about mineralogy and botany. Then I asked him what kind of man Erlaiz, the baker, was, for he seemed to me to have a fickle temper. “He’s a good person,” he told me, “but very violent and very stubborn. Once he sets his mind to something, there’s no one who can convince him otherwise . Lieutenant Leguía and I tried to persuade him that it’s barbaric to set traps in the Bidasoa for salmon during the closed season; well, he does, and even if the bishop came and begged him on his knees, he’d continue to do so. Bidarraín recounted other details of the baker’s barbarity. We arrived at my inn; the prospector left, and I went into the shop. I went into the bakery and saw two old women kneading bread in a trough while Erlaiz worked with a shovel in the oven. Murgui, the baker’s niece, served me my food; I struck up a conversation with this girl and asked her what kind of man Bidarraín was. She told me that he passed himself off as a rich man; that he owned silver and gold mines. I also asked Murgui about Lieutenant Leguía, and from what he told me, I gathered that he was considered an enemy of the people. In the afternoon Bidarraín reappeared and took me to a small garden next to the cemetery, where two English officers were buried , who had died in the town when the Allies crossed the Bidasoa in 1813. Afterwards we went to Lesaca, the town where Lord Wellington had his Headquarters. Bidarraín must have told the baker about my mineralogical knowledge, because that night Erlaiz asked me if I was an engineer. I told him no, and he didn’t seem to believe me. He also asked me if I would have any problem seeing some distant mines. I replied none. We arranged to set off on the expedition the next day. The baker, pleased, brought his guitar and began singing. He sang in a wonderfully graceful way. When he finished, I went to my room and spent some time at the window looking at the stars, listening to the murmur of the river and the song of a toad, which amused its solitude with its notes. Chapter 34. THE SUMBILLA PARADOR. Bidarraín and Erlaiz took me several times to see their mines. They were both convinced that I knew a lot about mining, but for special reasons, I didn’t want to admit it. Erlaiz and Bidarraín asked me to write them several letters in French and English, and when I asked the baker to do the bill, he told me I owed him nothing. Lieutenant Leguía planned to march to Elizondo with a few men from his party, and I agreed to accompany him and then continue on to Pamplona. For this occasion, it was decided to treat us both to a farewell dinner at Las Ventas de Yanci. The guests included, besides the baker, Leguía, Bidarraín, and myself; two Nationalist militiamen, a sergeant and a corporal from Leguía’s party, and a liberal from Vera, who wore silver goggles, whom they called Laubeguicua, the four-eyed man. We all strolled to Las Ventas de Yanci, a league and a half from Vera; we sat down to drink cider, and the innkeeper and landlady were summoned and subjected to a serious interrogation. Erlaiz, Bidarraín, and the militia sergeant gave the consultation a priestly importance. “Let’s see, what can we eat?” asked Erlaiz. “If you want a lamb, we’ll roast it,” said the innkeeper, singing as she spoke. “Well, a lamb. What else? ” “We already have good trout, too. ” “Trout? Not bad. What else? ” “We already have chickens, too. ” “Chickens? Good. What else? ” “We’ll provide good ham.” The innkeeper continued explaining the provisions she had, always using this formula of “we already have” or “we will provide.” This “we already,” with its Germanic air, shocked me to see it used to its full potential. After consulting each other with their eyes, Bidarraín, Erlaiz, and the nationalist sergeant decided, by mutual consent, to provide everything there was so as not to deceive themselves. Once dinner was ready, we continued drinking until we were told the table was set. The sergeant of the militia, a tall man with a pear-shaped belly, his eyes lit up, and rubbing his hands with pleasure, he exclaimed: “Pien, pien! A great dinner. This is what I like. Well, lamb, well, trout, well, chicken, and well, wine. Let’s eat! Let’s eat!” We ate like vultures and drank until we were dizzy, which gave me a rather poor idea of the sobriety of the Basques; we spoke enthusiastically of Mina, Riego, and El Empecinado; with fury, of the raids made by Juanito el de la Rochapea and Don Santos Ladrón in Navarre, and we sang the _Hymn of Riego_, despite the innkeeper and his wife’s plea that we should keep quiet, because we would endanger them. We left Las Ventas de Yanci at midnight; Vera’s men went back to their village, and Leguía, with his two militiamen and I, continued on to Sumbilla. We stopped at the San Tiburcio inn. The sergeant with the pear-shaped belly told me naively that the walk had worked up an appetite, and that he was going to order some garlic soup. I looked at him in astonishment and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I learned that Leguía had left with his militiamen for Santesteban, leaving me a letter for a friend of his in Pamplona. Since I was in no hurry and it was hot, I left the march until sunset . I was at the entrance to the San Tiburcio inn when a large cart pulled by seven mules approached . The muleteer released his animals, called them one by one, and led them to the stable. Morena, Montesina, Capitana, Coronela, Bonita, Vigilante, and Leona went slowly to the manger, where they were first given a drink. The innkeeper asked me: “Aren’t you going to Pamplona? ” “Yes. ” “Well, if you want, you can go with this muleteer. ” “Is that all right?” “None.” The muleteer’s name was Mandashay, and he was a man between thirty- five and forty years old, blond, with eyes that seemed like blue crystal. He told me that if I wanted to go with him, we would leave the following morning. I told him I would be very happy to go with him, and I offered him a glass of wine. We agreed; I went to bed, and at dawn they called me. The morning was cool; there was a thick fog that promised a hot day. Mandashay led his mules and we set off for Almandoz. “When you get tired, you can lie down on the galley,” Mandashay told me. “No, I don’t tire so easily. The Spanish galley is a large, four-wheeled cart pulled by a long train of mules. These galleys are frequently seen in Navarre and Old Castile ; in New Castile, the wagon, also called the Catalan cart, is more common. Traveling on foot behind a cart has its charms. Whoever ideologically linked the galley cart to the galley ship, giving it the same name, was not mistaken. The similarity between these two means of communication is obvious. The ship is a house that floats, just as the cart is a house that rolls. The wagon driver has something of a sailor about him: he is a man who passes by and does not stop, who follows a route, who lives in a world of solitude. Mandashay was a very interesting and entertaining man. Every corner of the road reminded him of a story. Here, some masked men had come out to rob a rich man ; there had lived a crazy girl who had upset all the young men in the area. At times, Mandashay would hold on to the greyhound, and at others he would pull on the bridle of the male horse, shouting: “Eup! Eup!” or “What’s up! ” “What’s up!” Chatting, we reached Almandoz and continued up a slope to the top of Velate. The sky was blue and the sun was shining steadily. It wasn’t too hot because we were already quite high and the air was fresh. In the middle of the afternoon, we crossed a forest, which seemed to me to be used for the mysteries of the Druids, and we ended up at Ventas Quemadas, at the highest point of the pass. Chapter 35. PAMPLONA. WE left Ventas Quemadas in the morning and began our journey towards the Ebro slope. The landscape had changed completely. The sky was bluer; the countryside, drier; On the heights, small horses with large tails ran, and goats and lambs frolicked; below, wheat fields and the occasional vineyard shone. As I began to descend toward the Ebro basin, it seemed to me that Spain was just beginning; everything took on a sadder and more serious character: I saw gloomy villages, gray-walled houses, and dust-covered trees. We grew farther from the heights as we advanced, and descended toward the plain. In the wheat fields, poppies shone like drops of blood, and crickets deafened us with their chirping. We slept in Villaba, and the next day I entered Pamplona. I said goodbye to Mandashay and ended up at an inn on Calle de la Curia. I took out Lieutenant Leguía’s letter; it was for an army captain named Iriarte. I introduced myself to him, and he welcomed me kindly and invited me to lunch. During lunch, I told him about the Cox myth and how I hoped to make a small fortune. In the meantime, I told him, I was willing to work at whatever came my way. “And you, what can you do?” Iriarte asked me. “I know French, and, naturally, English. ” “Yes; perhaps this might be of some use to you. ” “I also have some knowledge of botany.” “Botany? I don’t think there’s anyone here who specializes in that. Unless it’s some herbalist. ” “Well, that’s my knowledge. I also know how to stuff animals,” I added with resignation. “Well! That might be useful. There’s a professor here who sends every bird and vermin he’s given to France to be stuffed, which costs him a lot of money. ” “I’m going to see him. ” “Yes, we’ll go together. We did go; we spoke with him, and I agreed to restore some animals and stuff others for him, for a salary of six pesetas a day, for as long as the job lasted. I stuffed an alligator, an eagle, a swan, and several other creatures for that gentleman. Captain Iriarte recommended a guesthouse on the Plaza del Castillo, and I moved there. My life in Pamplona, as long as I had work, was very pleasant. ” In the morning and afternoon I worked, and at dusk I strolled around the surrounding area. When I didn’t have time to spare, I went to Taconera. There, aristocrats and bourgeois, military men, young women, children, and priests would gather, and on some holidays, at night, paper lanterns would be hung from the trees. I made a great deal of use of the Taconera viewpoint, a beautiful spot from which you can see the towns of the Pamplona basin. I prudently circled the walls. I knew the Citadel and the bastions: the Queen’s, the Redín, the Labrit, the Canons, the Gonzaga; the five gates and the postern gate of the Tejería. I had some friends, because Captain Iriarte introduced me to several of his companions, liberal military men. At that time, there was great hostility between the military and the militiamen of Pamplona ; The military men were anticlerical, supporters of the Constitution; the militiamen, on the other hand, were fervent Catholics and monarchists, and they started brawls, shouting, “Long live God!” It seemed they were afraid the liberals would order his death. As a foreigner, I didn’t voice my opinion on these matters. At the boarding house I went to on Iriarte’s recommendation, everyone was thoroughly reactionary, starting with the owner, Doña Saturnina, an old, big-nosed, and chatty woman. Doña Saturnina was a classic product of the Levitical cities; she adored the aristocrat, the priest, the provincial Don Juan; she spoke tenderly of the rowdy, swashbuckling young men who went to the bullfights, drank wine until they were drunk, and occasionally committed some scoundrel act, then went to confession with a hypocritical and sanctimonious air in the confessional of the priest who was considered the most severe, who was generally the cathedral penitentiary. At first, I thought we could joke about the town’s customs, and I made a few jokes about the sign that is put up on certain days in Spanish churches: “Today souls are taken from Purgatory.” But I soon saw that in Pamplona, jokes of this kind had their dangers. Doña Saturnina, the patron saint, and a nephew of hers spied on me and even followed me one Sunday to see if I was going to mass. Seeing that I didn’t go to church, Doña Saturnina bravely challenged me: “Tell me, aren’t you Catholic?” she said. “No, madam,” I replied. “Then what are you? Protestant? ” “Yes; I belong to a kind of sect called agnostics, which assumes you know nothing about anything. ” “But don’t you believe in the Virgin and the saints?” –Those of my sect believe rather in the unique substance, and we practice the cult of our lord the Self, and of our lady of the Thing-in-Itself. To this my patroness said that this virgin would be very important; but that the miracles of the Virgin of the Way were greater, because she had been seen to rise in the air and place herself on a piece of wood that is in the church of San Cernín in Pamplona, to which I replied saying that the law of gravitation, invented by my countryman Newton, could well be a custom or a routine of Nature, and of our spirit, and that, as Protagoras boldly said, all things are true, and that man is the measure of all things, of those that exist as existent and of those that do not exist as nonexistent. Doña Saturnina asked me if this Protagoras was a saint; I told her that if he wasn’t, he could have been. Then Doña Saturnina recommended that I convert to Catholicism, and I reassured her by saying that I would study the question. In Spain and in towns like Pamplona, there is still great appeal in being an unbeliever. How long will this last? At the rate we’re going, not much longer. One hundred years; two hundred years. Nothing, a pittance. The truth is that, with progress, the free man is deprived of the great charms and emotions of being persecuted. What is an unbeliever, a freethinker, worth in a country where anyone can be one with impunity? Nothing. On the other hand, in the midst of persecution, what a delight! To keep the forbidden book well hidden, to read it in secret, to mock all the ceremonies and farces from the inside, and to escape the snares of this net with which Judaic-Christian despotism has attempted to envelop the world. Admirable thing! We unbelievers should protest at the current leniency, which deprives us of one of our greatest satisfactions… Chapter 36. THE GENTLEMEN. At Doña Saturnina’s guesthouse, I met several people, picturesque individuals, whose lives I later learned from the landlady herself. One of the regulars in the house was a tall, dark-skinned, white-haired gentleman, dressed in a dark suit, who strolled through the arches of the Plaza del Castillo wearing a top hat covered in oilcloth and a long frock coat, and when it was cool, he wore a blue cape over his shoulders. “Who is this gentleman?” I asked the landlady. Doña Saturnina gave me three or four of those long, compound names used by the Spanish. “And doesn’t this gentleman work?” I asked. “No. Yeah! ” “Is he rich? ” “Not much. ” “Is he from a good family? ” “I bet. He’s a Pérez de Cascante! He’s one of the gentlemen of Olite. This gentleman had a friend who accompanied him on his walks, Mr. Sánchez de Peralta. ” Doña Saturnina explained the genealogy of both of them to me. “Neither of them has ever worked,” my landlady told me enthusiastically . “They’re gentlemen.” I found it funny that she equated idleness with nobility, which is actually quite natural and logical. Every day I saw the two gentlemen walking around the Plaza del Castillo, with their top hats and boots, which creaked as they walked. They both seemed much younger than they were. I’ve always believed that not thinking preserves life; That is why Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, and others had said it before him, that the man who thinks is a depraved animal. I have often thought that happiness lies in being a Pérez de Cascante or a Sánchez de Peralta, and in wandering through the arches of the Plaza del Castillo in creaking boots and a blue cape; but, placed in this spiritual attitude, it has occurred to me whether it might not be even more perfect to be a cow, or perhaps an oyster. I have not decided, as I believe no one has, whether science combined with misfortune and pain or stupidity mixed with happiness is better; but, without deciding, when I see some of these lazy people, firm and constant in their noble occupation of doing nothing, I always wonder whether they will be one of the gentlemen of Olite, Señor Pérez de Cascante, or the hidalgo Sánchez de Peralta. Chapter 37. THE SOCIAL STRATA OF PAMPLONA. Since it was the first Spanish city I had inhabited, I wanted to clearly understand its physical and moral makeup. I knew its streets, its squares, the nooks and crannies of the wall inside out; thanks to a few friends and the explanations of Doña Saturnina, I was also able to get an idea of the moral life of the people. Pamplona was a receptacle for aristocrats, lawyers, soldiers, priests, and dogs. I’m not saying that it was for everyone. No kind of population is unfriendly or odious; now, for me, it is, except for the dogs, for which I’ve always had a soft spot. Pamplona was presented as a multi-story building. On the top floor, there were two or three aristocratic families, and these families took on a somewhat comical air of royal families. Although Doña Saturnina wanted to demonstrate to me with all her oratorical flair that the two or three families of Pamplona’s lower social stratum were extremely illustrious, the truth is that she didn’t have anything to say about them worth sculpting in bronze. After these two or three families of the lower stratum who looked down on the common people of Pamplona as if to say: you may live, we graciously allow you to exist, there were six or seven others of lesser stature, with a few insignificant titles and the odd dilapidated, but still serviceable, carriage in the stable. After this second tier came the third, made up of the hidalgos, these hidalgos for whom Doña Saturnina felt great respect and veneration and of whom she would say: “He’s a Pérez de Cascante! He’s a Sánchez de Peralta! ” Beyond the native element, there were two other aristocratic elements: the army and the clergy. The army, in its highest sphere, sometimes reached the first tier; but more commonly, it remained in the second; the brigadier and the general alternated with the marquis or the count, a bit crazy, if they didn’t have some stain of liberalism that prevented them, because then they didn’t alternate with anyone. The constitutional government had disappointed the good people in this regard, first by abolishing the title of viceroy of Navarre, which sounded pleasant to the people of Pamplona, and replacing it with that of captain general; then by sending soldiers infected with the virus of liberalism. The clergy was, naturally, aristocratic and absolutist, and the bishop moved all the levers of Pamplona’s mechanics . The bishop entered fully into the first stage of civic life. The dean and distinguished canons were distributed in the second and third. Aristocracy, clergy, army, and middle class formed a small world. Pamplona, enclosed within its walls, was a microcosm for the people of Pamplona. To me, still carrying the smoke of London in my head, it seemed that the entire town lived in a state of mildew, attached to a few routines and a few commonplaces. Sometimes it occurred to me to think that this system of categories and subordinations was not badly conceived. Truly, Catholicism has resolved life in its own way, disciplining it and confining it to narrow boxes; This, coupled with the fact that it has given pressing needs the character of vices, has led poor people like the Spanish, who live in poverty and neglect, to believe themselves surrounded by sardanapallic pleasures. In part, this severity is an advantage, because it gives life a bit of spice. The construction, in sections, of Pamplona also had its useful side. True, it seemed a bit absurd and petty to me; but it surely didn’t seem the same to those born in the village. The truth is that the entire emphatic and theatrical apparatus of aristocracy, which seeks to impose the mind with its splendor, becomes a comical grimace when it is not accompanied by fortune or power. It is not easy to find anything as imposing as those English ladies, daughters of some cocoa storekeeper, a moneylender, or a tallow manufacturer married to some lord. What pride! What majesty! What admirable contempt for other mortals! These alliances of money with titles yield good results; however, in places where noble families cannot fertilize their fields or their quarters with commoner money, the aristocrats degenerate. It is noticeable in France, as in Spain, in the provincial towns, that the minor aristocrat, the hidalgo, the “hobereau,” is much uglier and less intelligent than the man of the middle class and the people. This undoubtedly depends on the care taken to marry within the same family. caste, from endogamy, as we anthropologists say. In Pamplona, as in almost all Spanish capitals, the minor aristocrats seemed very comical to me. What people! Disdainful mouths, proud gestures, ugly women with mustaches, dark, skinny fellows who looked like monkeys; very flat or with parrot noses; with scrofula or herpes. This prestige of the aristocracy is not something that concerns me; I have no aspirations to greet the count or the marquis, or even to shake the hand of a Pérez de Cascante or a Sánchez de Peralta. A vagabond like myself cannot care much about local superiority or questions of etiquette; nor do I know if these counts and marquises here come from the Crusades like all the aristocrats in French serials; I suppose they are as old as those in England. But there’s no choice but to admit they’re poorer. And, truth be told: the aristocracy, with its dirty, dilapidated houses and a few shacks for property; the aristocrat, with a greasy hat and knee-high trousers, doesn’t command respect or cause much of a stir. That is to say, it didn’t make a big impression on me, because it did on my employer, Doña Saturnina. It’s true that she saw concepts more than accessories and forms. Doña Saturnina was a bit of a Platonist. After the Pamplona aristocracy came the middle class, made up of lawyers and merchants, and then, the people. From top to bottom; from the top of the pyramid to the base; from the first section to the last, Pamplona was a town intoxicated by clericalism. Clericalism overflowed everywhere; a very active clericalism; There was hardly a single resident of Pamplona who didn’t have deposits of this alkaloid between the pia mater and the arachnoid. It was a clericaline that produced an incurable state of stupor. A drop in an individual’s conjunctiva would poison them forever. All the waters of the Arga together were not enough to dissolve the clericaline, the cleritoxin, and the clerigalic acid produced by the city. Chapter 38. PHILONOUS. I used to walk very frequently around Taconera, and almost every afternoon I would take a stroll just outside the walls, what they call in the town the Vuelta del Castillo (Castle Loop). One day I saw a small dog following me. It was an ugly, unsightly dog with the face of a person, reddish fur , and the limp beard of a cynical philosopher. “Well, well,” I said to him. “Go away, you’re not doing anything here.” I continued on my way, thinking about how real things could be, when I saw the ugly dog beside me again. “This dog is following me,” I murmured. “Let’s see if he’s a demon like the spaniel that accompanies Doctor Faustus to his laboratory.” I continued my walk, and the ugly dog followed beside me. “Well, let him do what he wants,” I said. “If fate has decreed that this canis familiaris be my friend, I won’t object.” I thought that if he came to my house and joined me, I would have to give him a name, and I decided to call him Philonous. Sure enough: he came into my house, I fed him, and I adopted him. A few months later, upon arriving in Tafalla, Philonous got into a fierce fight with another dog ; the other dog bit him on the paw, and he developed a sore that lasted a long time. So, as a tribute to his courage and in memory of a Greek hero who also suffered from a leg ulcer, I added Philotectes to his name, and that was the name my dog had in his earthly life, which is no small feat for a dog. Philotectes was profound and sentimental. He thrived in difficult circumstances . Sometimes he was a little cynical; that was his right, being a dog and a poor man’s dog; sometimes he seemed to me to be a gentleman “without fear and without reproach,” like Bayard. I always found him to have a Socratic air. It seemed to me that one day Minerva would emerge from his head. Chapter 39. THE FRENCH ROYALISTS. ONE day some French royalists stopped at Donna Saturnina’s house. These Frenchmen, I learned when they left, had come to meet with the absolutist group of a certain Salaverri, who was lurking along the banks of Navarre. I didn’t like these Frenchmen much. They had narrow and narrow-minded views. They praised the worst of France and Spain. For them, the cruelty used against the liberals was a great merit; military talent consisted of committing all possible barbarities to the detriment of the enemy. Thus, any Vendean was a more illustrious soldier than Napoleon. I have never seen people more vain, more foolish, or more incomprehensible. They had strange ideas. According to them, since the French revolutionaries had guillotined Louis XVI, his wife, and son, they could, with a natural right of reprisal, kill all the men, women, and children in the universe. The cart in which these Bourbons had gone to the guillotine must have been like the famous chariot of Jaggernath, from Hindustan, which is crushing the entire world. Just as we, who were born eighteen hundred years after Christ, are to blame for his death, according to the mystics, and are dishonored by the greater or lesser villainy committed by some supposed Adam and Eve in paradise, so too all of us, French and non- French, are responsible for the death of Louis XVI and his family. What fanaticism those people possessed! Surely it would have been difficult to find in people from another country such a product of affectation, affectation, and petulance. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they had the manners of lords, those Frenchmen would have been taken for ferocious and fanatical brutes who sought nothing but the extermination of all who didn’t think like them. After meeting them, the absolutists of Pamplona became almost sympathetic to me. At least Spanish reactionism is more natural: it is incomprehension and simple brutality; French reactionism is adorned incomprehension; One is a construction of crude spirits, the other is a stinking Gothic confectionery. Chapter 40. CONSPIRACIES. I was not very interested in what was happening in Pamplona, nor was I aware of its political affairs, when Captain Iriarte and a Frenchman who had emigrated for his republican ideas, Juan Pontecoulant, took me one day to a Masonic soiree that was being held in the billiard room of a café. The purpose was to celebrate the liberal triumph achieved in Madrid on July 7. While we waited for the meeting to begin, Pontecoulant, who had a beautiful voice, sang _La Marseillaise_, and then, the song of _Les Girondins_, with great fire and great emphasis: _By the voice of the canon, France calls its children_ . We listened to him with pleasure and sang along. When the Masons met, almost all of whom were military men, they began to talk about the royalist conspiracy that had been hatched in Navarre and had its center in Pamplona. I then learned of the absolutists’ schemes. The first conspirators from Navarre had been the priest of Barasoaín; Canon Lacarra; a certain Uriz, from a town called Sada; and the soldiers Eraso, Juanito el de la Rochapea, and Don Santos Ladrón from Cegama. These last three were former guerrillas of General Espoz y Mina in the War of Independence. Mina considered Eraso an absolutist at heart, but not Ladrón or Juanito; he considered Ladrón a man of liberal ideas; regarding Juanito el de la Rochapea, he regarded him as disloyal and a traitor. Juanito el de la Rochapea, Juan Villanueva, had been a captain in the first regiment of the Navarre Division, commanded by Mina. During the liberal attempt on Pamplona in 1814, Juanito was the one who compromised Colonel Górriz with his impatience, and later, by joining the royalists, he contributed to his execution. Villanueva hated Mina and feared him. When Mina entered Pamplona in triumph with the constitutional banner in 1820, Juanito escaped and asked his former leader if he had anything to fear from him. Mina He replied no. Juanito believed that everything had been forgotten between the two of them and introduced himself to the general, who looked him up and down with disdain. Regarding Ladrón de Cegama, he had taken to the field out of spite and rivalry with the military men who had spoken out in favor of the Constitution. Once the royalist counterrevolutionaries had gathered, Eraso, Juanito, and the others devised a stratagem to arm themselves. Eraso was the mayor of Garinoaín, a town in the Orba Valley. Eraso ordered the valley’s Cendeas to be gathered and had an official request made to the Provincial Council for three hundred rifles and their corresponding ammunition for the nationalist militiamen. The Council provided them, and the three hundred rifles were used to form the first royalist expedition. The policy of the Catholics has always been the same. They will commit acts of disloyalty or infamy; but they will do so with mental reservations. Then they will hear their Mass with devotion, confess, resolve to amend their ways, beat their chests, and be clean to commit another villainous act. The government’s rifles were used to prepare well-armed and equipped absolutist companies . General Eguía, president of the royalist Junta, and Don Vicente Quesada, commander-in-chief of the absolute king’s troops, appointed Guergué, Ladrón, and Juanito el de la Rochapea as commanders, who took to the field and began operations. The captain-general of Navarre ordered the companies of the Toledo regiment and the militia groups to guard the border crossings in case the royalists entered through France. Vera, Zugarramurdi, Maya, Irati, and Roncal were watched. The absolutists had protectors everywhere and could not be found; however, eight deserting French soldiers and their captain, named Adolfo, were captured in Irati, trying to enter Spain with republican proclamations. Captain Adolfo escaped, thanks to the Masonic protection of the Spanish commander; the other French soldiers, captured by Salazar’s Nationalist militiamen, were brought to Pamplona. People believed they were going to be shot, and it seemed perfectly logical to good Catholics that they be shot, for being Republicans; but the Captain General ordered them to be incorporated into the army. Juan Pontecoulant told me that Adolfo was a son of General Berton, and that this general, who at that time was the leader of the revolutionaries and the one most relied upon for the revolution in France, had been in San Sebastián. Captain Adolfo lived in hiding in a hamlet on the border; but the Royalists of Ochagavia denounced him, and he was imprisoned. The hostility between the army and the militiamen, the constant conspiracy of the absolutists, the rumors that the extremists in Madrid were trying to establish a Republic—all this kept the province of Navarre in perpetual turmoil. The Pamplona royalists escaped to the countryside with weapons, and some lowered themselves down the walls at night. I would have been at peace in Pamplona if I had had the means; but my dissecting work was coming to an end, and it was essential to take flight. So I put my papers in order, thanks to Captain Iriarte and his friends, and prepared for my journey. Chapter 41. THE HEAT. I left Pamplona in mid-July. The weather was muggy; the sky was white with steam and dust, the wheat fields were mown, and the sheaves were piled on the ground. I walked for a long time, sheltering in the shade of the trees and drinking from the fountains; Philonous did the same. During our stops, I dedicated myself to reflection. One of the things that occurred to me was to make an effort to master unpleasant impressions and see if I could contemplate the landscape with the utmost equanimity. It seemed to me that with this system, one would find beauty and interest in everything. The first test of the procedure I did looking at a suffocating cloud of dust illuminated by the Orba Valley The sun. Can we, through this contemplation, eliminate pain or physical discomfort? This is what I asked myself several times along the way. There’s no doubt that the character of contemplation is a more or less apparent generosity; but is this character real or not? Is there not a utilitarian root at the bottom of our aesthetic effusions? When one sees a green field and rejoices, isn’t this the result of our ancestors, upon seeing green fields, assuming there was something to eat? The second point I tried to elucidate along the way was whether disinterested contemplation is good or not, and I concluded that while it is true that it leads to laziness and isolation, it also leads one to be self-sufficient in difficult times, which is no small feat. The first stop on my journey was at the Inn of Las Campanas, where I had some boiled eggs and bread. In the afternoon, I continued on until I reached Barasoaín, exhausted from fatigue and, above all, from the heat. I slept rather poorly at an inn and got up at dawn to continue my journey. The day promised to be as scorching as the previous one. I advanced as much as I could in the morning. As I reached the bridge over the Cidacos, a troop of gypsies awoke. Two or three men stretched out their arms, a woman made a fire with some branches, and some children slept in the sun, half-naked. The heat and muggy conditions remained terrible. The sky was blazing; the stacks of sheaves looked like golden flocks on an ashen field. In the distance, I saw villages with whitish roofs that, in the strong sunlight, seemed snow-capped. The women, mounted on threshing machines, turned the threshing floors. At the height of the sun, sweating like mad, I arrived at Tafalla and entered an inn. The innkeeper was a kind man who welcomed Philonous and me. Tafalla is a city located on a vast plain. It has fertile, monotonous countryside, made up of vineyards, wheat fields, and orchards. This town seemed to me like a farmhouse in the middle of its farmland .
Everywhere, the reign of Bacchus was evident, a surly and violent Bacchus. Wine was seen in barrels, casks, and basins. I spent the afternoon and evening in Tafalla in a tavern. The people seemed aggressive and ill-tempered. Only these riverside dwellers became humane when talking about wine, for which they truly worshipped. There, wine is a god, a god that makes men irritable and violent. Throughout the Ribera region of Navarre, aggressiveness is a custom. The character of the riverine people is one of a petulance unknown to the mountain Basques. Upon arriving in Castile, this petulance transforms into an arrogant serenity, sometimes a bit theatrical, but which conveys a certain nobility. One of the endearing traits I found in these Navarrese, a trait perhaps common to all somewhat primitive peoples, was their certain disdain for money. The owner of a village inn holds his friend in much higher regard than the wealthy stranger. This seems fine to me. I am one of those who believe that money is not just yours; only your instincts and passions, illnesses and desires are. I left Tafalla at night, before dawn, and began to walk. At dawn, I glimpsed the yellowish towers of its castle in Olite and continued along the banks of the Cidacos. The day began very early. The horrible heat persisted; I had to take off my clothes and carry them on my arm. My first encounter with the flat Spanish land was unpleasant . My body was in perpetual flames; my face was red, my eyes bloodshot, my hands swollen with blood. The damned heat wouldn’t go away. The sky was still gray and the air hazy. Philonous and I had lunch at the Morillete inn, and we had to stop in a burnt and dusty village, with caves hollowed out in the white, sandy earth and rough, Unsavory. Everyone was planning a fight. I pointed this out to the innkeeper, and he told me, laughing, that those Navarrese weren’t baptized with water, but with wine. As soon as a riverside resident drinks, he becomes boastful and defiant , and feels like hitting or hurting. In this town, where I stopped, a young man told me with satisfaction that every Saturday there were blunderbusses there. Street lamps couldn’t be set up because the next day they’d be smashed to bits. Another young man from Ujué who was listening said, gloating, that in his town it was rare to have a day without stabbings, and that there had been a priest who had to go to say mass with his blunderbuss under his cloak, otherwise he’d be mocked. This saddened me. “Ultimately, it’s not the people’s fault,” I said. “It’s geography in collusion with the institutions that produces such effects.” It is impossible for people to be civilized and sociable in a gray, sun-scorched land, forgotten by the rich, where there is no coolness, no shade, no half measures, and to which not even the most distant echo of European culture reaches. While I was traveling through these villages, Philonous caused me serious problems, and I, like Peter, had to deny him more than three times. He committed terrible acts; one day he would enter the kitchen of an inn, knock over the pot, and eat it; another day he would emerge from a bakery with his snout full of flour, pursued by the baker; he would also eat as many chickens as he could, but only when he was very hungry. Often I would not see him all day, but then, at night, he would come up to me and nudge me with his paw, as if to say, “Here I am, my friend.” Chapter 42. THE FLIES. The flies bothered me as much as the heat, or more, on my journey. There were an inconceivable number of flies in the streets of these towns, heavy, sticky, repugnant. “As long as there are flies in the world, there will be no civilization,” I told myself sadly. To combat their attacks, I began to philosophize about them, about how pernicious they must be and about how little science Nature demonstrates , which allows itself to be carried away by its routines and commonplaces in a lamentable way. I remembered that Lucian of Samosata, the famous Greek satirist, had praised the fly, and from this I drew an almost illuminating conclusion. Many assume that this writer was a Christian, even though in the story of Peregrinus he calls Christ a crucified sophist. This fact seems to imply that Lucian was not a Christian; but his praise of the fly is definitive for me. It gives the diagnosis of the Greek-Syrian writer. He was a Christian. Is there anything more Christian than the fly? The fly is constant, persistent, buzzing. The fly likes to walk on sores, in pus, in garbage, like true Christians. Some will say that bishops and popes like money, opulence, and ostentation more; but this only proves that flies are much more Christian than bishops and popes. The fly grows in direct proportion to the sun, dirt, stables, and horse stables, and in inverse proportion to cleanliness, running water, and reasonable people. The same thing happens to friars. Surprised by such similarities, I obtained the equation of culture in the form I present here. The index of culture is expressed by adding the quantity of wine, the number of flies, and the number of clerics, and dividing the total by the number of trees. Wine Flies Clergy _X_ index of culture ————————– Trees The profound consequences that flow from my discovery I entrust to future Humanity. She will know how to plant more trees and exterminate the flies. Chapter 43. IN THE BARDENAS. While I was in Caparroso, a group of national militiamen appeared , commanded by a captain who was in the vanguard of the column of a chief named Iribarren. I greeted the captain, whom I knew from Pamplona, because he was a friend of Iriarte’s, and we talked. He told me that the party was left without a surgeon because the latter had died, and he asked me if I could replace him for at least a day. “I’m not a surgeon,” I told him. “Bah! For what needs to be done, you’ll do it better than anyone else. Tomorrow we’re going to attack Salaberrí’s people, who are camped out there, in the Bárdenas. We need someone capable of applying a bandage. ” “And the surgeon for this town? ” “He’s one of the rebels and is out in the mountains.” I had no choice but to accept; but I set the condition that I wouldn’t follow the party afterward; once the action was over, I would leave wherever I wanted. ” “Good. Good. Very well.” The captain designated a corporal and eight men to remain under my orders. We took out the surgeon’s first-aid kit and saw what was there. While we made the preparations, I remained calm; But at night, as I lay down in the hayloft, the thought came to me that since the other surgeon was dead, the position was dangerous. Then my imagination took over and painted with unpleasant reality the prospects that awaited me. To believe that these royalist outlaws would respect someone because they bore the character of a surgeon or a doctor seemed like an illusion. I thought about what would happen to me if I were left wounded in the care of a barber in a filthy corner, in that white-hot temperature. Every possible horror appeared in my mind. I began to thrash from right to left, unable to sleep. At dawn, moments before sunrise, I fell asleep, and shortly afterward they called me. I was so sound asleep that they had to push me from side to side to wake me. The sun was illuminating the desolate and deserted countryside when the party set off. I brought up the rear with the stretchers, some mules, and a cart. We walked for a couple of hours until we reached the Bárdenas. The place was solitary and poor, with a monotony, sadness, and unpleasant ugliness, exacerbated by the sweltering weather. The ashen land stretched out like a sea, and in front of us lay hills gnawed by the rains. I was just thinking that the royalists were avoiding the encounter when the first shots rang out. The rebels were entrenched on some whitish hills. I ordered my men, as calmly as possible, to open the first-aid chest and make their preparations. Our soldiers deployed in guerrilla fashion and began firing and advancing. We had to follow them. The bullets whizzed by, and I turned my head violently from side to side. One of our men fell. I broke out in a cold sweat; I approached him and took his pulse. He was dead. Once again we had to advance. The enemy had reoccupied other positions and were still firing. Our men advanced irregularly and managed to break up the absolutist party. The captain had to wait a long time for his forces, which had scattered, to gather. Meanwhile, the improvised paramedics and I began bandaging several wounded. I bled one who was carried unconscious on a stretcher and regained consciousness. When the force was gathered, the captain ordered a retreat, and we set off. I carried the wounded on my horses and in the wagon. We saw Caparroso in the distance on a hill and the ruins of an ancient castle. We were quietly advancing into a grove of white poplars called La Lobera when some royalist troops stationed there fired a volley , which threw our party into disarray. The column became disorganized, the shooting began on our side, and I found myself separated from my men and in the middle of the grove in the company of Philonous. When the shooting stopped, I began to advance slowly. I was marching with the greatest caution when I came across the body of a royalist, wounded or dead. I stopped to see if he was still alive; he had a handkerchief tied around his neck. to the waist, full of blood. I cut it with the knife; and seeing its weight, I found I had two ounces of gold, four hundred, and several silver coins, which I appropriated because the man was dead. I left the thicket and approached the road. I was exhausted from fatigue and hunger. It must have been mid-afternoon. I started walking along the road in the opposite direction to Caparroso when an old, rickety carriage approached . In the carriage were a man, who was driving, and a priest. The carriage stopped for a moment, and I asked the coachman if he could take me to the nearest town. “If the priest wants, I don’t mind,” he said to me in a coarse accent. “As far as I’m concerned, he can get in,” said the priest. I got in and sat down. The priest was a thin, faint man, his eyebrows like two circumflex accents; his eyelids, barely open, like two lines, and a lens in his hand. We arrived in Valtierra in the middle of the afternoon; I went to an inn and tavern, and the first thing I did was ask for something to eat. The town seemed large, sad, dusty, and scorched. In the tavern, I asked the girl who served me if it was very hot. “Here?” exclaimed a man, interrupting. “Here in the winter the Virgin freezes , and in the summer the canopy falls apart. It is the custom of these people to always bring up religious artifacts in their conversation for any reason. I slept in the corral and left at night for Tudela. Chapter 44. REVELATION OF CLASSICAL SPAIN. Although Philonous and I left Valtierra at midnight, we arrived in Tudela, exhausted by the heat, at midmorning. I went into an inn, asked for a room, and lay down on the floor because I could not bear the stifling heat of the mattress. I lay sweating for several hours, listening to the clang of bells and the braying of a donkey, until hunger told me it was time to get up. I asked what time dinner was served, and they told me nine. When evening began to fall, I went out with Philonous to the banks of the Ebro to breathe. Not a particle of wind stirred. The sky was white with heat; the very wide river seemed to be burning, a scarlet shaded by the copses along the banks. The horizon was aglow with lightning from the distant mountains; a few wagons passed over the bridge, with its uneven arches. I sat on the banks of the Ebro until it began to get dark. Its red surface paled, and the shadow of the copses became very black. I returned to the inn and talked with the landlord, a gray-haired old man with goggles and a wise air. There was still three- quarters of an hour until dinner. I went out again; I had seen a modern, insignificant part of the town upon arriving. This time I went the other way; I followed a narrow street; then another; then I passed through an archway. In those narrow alleys, large carts filled with straw blocked the way; at the doorways of the houses, people came out to breathe the hot, dry, dusty air; and some half-naked peasants passed by on donkeys or mules. A lantern under an archway shone, illuminating a niche and the door of a church. The darkness and the uneven ground made me stumble through the streets. As I passed a crossroads, water and dirt were thrown at me from a balcony. I tried to return to the blacksmith’s house, but I got lost, and for some time I wandered around the same places and corners. At this point, I heard a bell ringing, and soon after, in front of a narrow doorway, I saw a line of men holding candles, undoubtedly accompanying the Viaticum. Their heads were down, illuminated by the glow of the candles. What faces! What an air of weariness and resignation! What dejected looks! How Spanish! How terribly Spanish that was! Without paying attention to the direction, I started walking, came out into a square, and from there I easily found the inn. The blacksmith and two other guests were waiting for me for dinner. We sat down by the light of a lamp. One of the men was a peasant from a nearby village, a man in his fifties, with blue eyes and blond hair; the other, such a distinctive Jewish type that he shocked me. The peasant had an idea of Tudela as a center of comfort and pleasure. I told him that the countryside I had crossed seemed arid and dry; but he assured me that it was extremely fertile, and he may have been right. The other, the one with the Jewish air, was, from what he told me, a healer, half sorcerer and half doctor; he cast spells to keep horses from falling ill and to remove the evil eye from children, and believed he had special procedures for prolonging life. I told him that seeing him elsewhere I would have taken him for a Jew of priestly caste, which didn’t bother him; on the contrary, he told me that his father and family came from the Jewish quarter of Tudela, and that it wouldn’t be surprising if he were of Jewish descent. After dinner, the lamp went out, and I went to bed, having to lie down without clothes because of the heat. Fortunately, at midnight a storm began with thunder and lightning, a heavy downpour fell, and the atmosphere cooled. I slept for a few hours and went out in the morning. The air was now breathable. I immediately headed toward the cathedral. I reconciled myself with the town. Despite most of the houses being brick, they were beautiful; some were true palaces with large doors, widely spaced balconies , and a high arcaded gallery on the second floor. Embedded in the walls were bulging, projecting coats of arms of white stone, and in the windows were carved borders inlaid with the finesse of the Renaissance. Walking through this town and then visiting others, I realized that in Spain, people of aesthetic inclinations are not very enthusiastic about progress; here, the old has its beauty and its nobility. On the other hand, the new thing is of a meanness that astonishes for its sense of economy, for its tragic and complete sordidness. I wandered for a long time through Tudela, at dawn; what street names! Street of Life, Street of Death, Street of Judgment…; then the streets of the trades: of the Chapinerías, of the Herrerías, of the Caldereros… The doors of the houses were opening and the farmers were leaving for their work; then women began to pass by, young girls and old women with their mantillas, on their way to church, and a bell began to ring. I walked around the cathedral several times until I found an open door. I entered and sat contemplating the majestic nave; then I went to a chapel to look at an admirable altarpiece. I was leaning against a confessional, on the side of the grille where women confess . Suddenly, the thick head of a priest appeared at the window and, without speaking to me, gestured with his hand for me to come closer. I froze, horrified. Perhaps I had committed a sacrilege. Perhaps the Inquisition awaited me. I quickly backed away, left the chapel, and headed for the door. No one was following me; but, just in case, I went outside. It was beginning to get hot, and many priests were passing through the alleys. I reached the square and sat down. There was a market, stalls selling vegetables, pots, and farm implements… In the women who were running around, I thought I saw two distinct types more clearly than in the men: some were dark-haired, with an elongated oval face, black, melancholic eyes, and a somewhat Jewish air; and others, with a Germanic appearance, were blonde, with blue or light eyes, square faces, and energetic, hard gazes. I went back to my inn. They had just filled the courtyard with straw, and the golden stacks of sheaves filled the air. The young men who had been working, sweating profusely, were drinking wine. This dust, this heat, this mixture of barbarism and simplicity, this contrast between the poverty of the village alleys and the pomp of the cathedral gave me a glimpse of classical Spain, intoxicated with its sun, its wine, its fanaticism, and its violence. Chapter 45. THE SANTERO. The Jewish-looking healer planned to go to Agreda, so I went with him in a local man’s cart. In Cintruénigo, we were joined by a santero and a young man from Biscay who was going to Madrid to seek a “conveniensia,” as he called it. The santero was a thin, gaunt man with very bright eyes and curly hair. He looked like a crow; he wore a worn cassock, leggings, and a wide hat perched on top of a black handkerchief that tightened his head. The man from Biscay was tall, narrow, with a long, thick nose, bulging eyes , and a stiff expression. His name was Belausteguigoitia, and he had a second, longer surname. Belausteguigoitia believed that the Belausteguigoitias were the flower of his town in Biscay; that Biscay was the flower of Spain, and Spain, the flower of the world. The Belausteguigoitias were the delights of mankind , and it could be considered a true honor that this exquisite mold of Belausteguigoitias continued to produce more Belausteguigoitias and spread them throughout the world, as an example to others and to its own glory. The entire society must have been interested in the growth and propagation of the Belausteguigoitias and their noses. This Biscayan spoke of the greatness of his town and his family in such an exaggerated manner that it provoked the ironic retort of the greeter, who told him he didn’t understand how, being so comfortable at home , he could go to Madrid on foot in search of a conveniensia. The Biscayan proudly said that the greeter was ignorant and a commoner, and the greeter replied that he had met many phantasmagorical and vain people among the Biscayans; but that he had never met one as vain and as phantasmagorical as he. Belausteguigoitia seemed offended and didn’t speak to us. Afterward, the santero, the healer, and I argued about various things; both of them believed in the devil as if he were a figure who crossed their paths every day, something like a dog that got between their legs. “If I believed in the devil and God as much as you do,” I told them, ” I would let the devil explain himself for some time, lest he be right.” The santero said he had never heard of a greater absurdity; the healer murmured that perhaps I was right. The healer remained in Agreda; and the Biscayan of the _conveniensia_, the santero, and I continued on in another cart, heading for Almazán. The santero had to go to Barahona to collect part of his inheritance. He invited us to go with him, and the Biscayan and I went. I went to see, from a distance, the Witches’ Field and a ruined village called Los Hoyos, where nothing remained standing but a house and a gallows next to it. At night we went to dinner at the village priest’s house with the sanctuary, and I don’t know why it occurred to me to say I wasn’t Catholic. “Aren’t you Catholic? ” “No.” “We have a heretic in the house,” the priest murmured, addressing the housekeeper. The woman began to tremble so much that I thought the plates would fall from her hand. She kept looking at me with great curiosity, no doubt to see if my horns could be seen. I interrupted dinner on some pretext and went to the inn, and that night the mayor and the bailiff came to look for me. The mayor hesitated about arresting me, but decided to order me to leave the village the following morning. From then on, I never said, not even in jest, that I was a Protestant. We followed the Biscayan of the _conveniensia_ and I, on foot, our march through Paredes and the Venta de Río Frío to enter Castilla la Nueva. It was very hot; but it was the second half of August, and at night it cooled down and we could sleep. From time to time we came across groves of trees, where we would rest. In these countries where trees are scarce, they take on such value that a grove of poplars or cottonwoods seems like paradise, a wonder of nature, something divine and admirable. In Jadraque we met a wagon driver, with whom we became friends, and in his cart we arrived at Alcalá. Here it seemed best to take the stagecoach, and I entered Madrid by coach. THIRD PART FROM MADRID TO SEVILLE Chapter 46. THE GUEST HOUSE. The arrival in the vicinity of Madrid on a sunny summer day, with the bare earth, colorless from the brightness and dust, seemed somewhat tragic and somber to me. The Alcalá Gate somewhat mitigated the sad impression I had received from the landscape. We stopped at the entrance to the town, and then galloped up Alcalá Street and arrived at Huertas Street, as far as a car office. A cynical and shameless police mob rummaged through my small luggage, and one of them told me that I had to take a letter of security. I went to comply with this requirement and settled into a very bad inn on Gorguera Street. My first impression of Madrid was confusing. Fortunately, since I came from abandoned villages, I didn’t feel the same smallness and misery that other foreigners do. My first concern was to find a way to live, as I had nothing but a few copper coins for capital. I went to the café La Fontana de Oro, had a soft drink, and asked the waiter for directions to the Grand Orient of Scotland. He gave me the address, and I presented myself at the Masonic lodge. A brother with a friarlike air came out to greet me; he asked me what I knew how to do, and I explained what I knew and left the address of my inn. The next day, they sent me a note telling me to go to the Museum of Natural History on Alcalá Street and ask for the director. I did, indeed, go, and the director told me I could have a job for a while and that they would pay me fifty duros a month. I left satisfied and began going to the Museum every day. I soon saw that no one was working there. The director had a habit of not going to the office, and the other employees did the same. Later, I was able to verify that this was a custom in almost all official centers in Spain. As evidenced by the need to go the entire month without receiving a cent, I went back to the lodge and received an advance of twenty duros, which I promptly returned when I was paid. As soon as I had some money, I paid the inn and looked for a guesthouse. A museum employee recommended a clerk friend of mine who was taking in a few people as a family. This citizen lived in the slums, on Encomienda Street, between Embajadores and Mesón de Paredes Streets. His name was Don Nemesio Fernández de la Encina, and he was a clerk in the General Securities Accounting Office, earning a small salary. His wife, Doña Mencía, managed his guests, and with this, he helped himself a little. Don Nemesio and Doña Mencía showed me a bright, fairly spacious room they would lend me. They explained to me in detail what was eaten in the house, and told me they would bring me ten reales. At first, they refused to accept Philonous; but since I said I didn’t want to part with the dog, they accepted him on condition that I always carried him with me and only kept him in the room at night. Señor Fernández de la Encina’s house was an old house, which by chance caught the sun; it had many rooms, with a floor of crumbling red tiles. There wasn’t a single plumb edge or a right angle in that house; everything seemed to be in a state of flux, and I often thought the ceilings and walls were about to collapse. At first, life in Señor Fernández de la Encina’s house seemed somewhat monotonous to me; but I gradually got used to it until I found it pleasant. Señor Fernández was a bit petulant and spoke of his family and his possessions in Extremadura like a down-and-out nobleman. His wife, Doña Mencía, a lady with a pale, sour face, was always complaining about the high cost of living, and had to explain to me how much each delicacy she put on the table cost. “You see, Don Juan,” she would say, “this escabeche you’re eating cost me two reales. You don’t know what the market is like.” Doña Mencía spoke Spanish like a book, with such academic turns of phrase and such a quantity of words that it surprised me. The other guests in the house were a married couple who had come from a village in Andalusia. Both of them, quite elderly, had a certain charm, due to their love for each other. Of the daughters of the Lord of the Encina, the eldest was a withered, ill-tempered spinster who did chores. The second, very determined, came and went and was always on the street; and the youngest, Paquita, had a taste for household chores, managed the family funds, and encouraged the maid, an Asturian woman who fell asleep standing up, forgot everything, and spilled sauces on the diners. The son, the youngest of all, was a devil; he was constantly making noise, hitting the cats, and aspiring to be a national militiaman. The mother and the girls spent half their lives sewing on the balcony, beneath a canvas curtain. They had some pots of geraniums and carnations there, and for them, the little balcony was like Versailles. Across the street, some boys lived, and the neighbors used to pass around baskets of candy and letters. The youngest daughter, Paquita, used to joke with me and ask if I had a girlfriend in England. I would answer by telling her lies, and she would say, “Oh, Don Juan, Don Juan! You’re a rascal.” On the ground floor of the house worked a pockmarked chairmaker named Deogracias, who played the guitar; a militia gathering used to meet in his small shop. There I used to hear stories of what was happening in Madrid. On Saturdays, Deogracias and his son would go out to the porch, one with the guitar and the other with the bandurria, and they would play and the neighborhood girls would dance. Paquita, Doña Mencía’s little girl, danced the bolero very gracefully . “My girl is very pretty; isn’t that true, Mr. Englishman?” her mother would tell me. “I believe it.” All the neighborhood boys would follow her, and on Sundays, after high mass, three or four young men with the air of Tenorio would appear in the street. Chapter 47. DIGRESSIONS ON THE COUNTRY. In Deogracias’s stalls, as in the workshop of the Museum of Natural History, as at the table at La Fontana de Oro, where he used to go from time to time at night, nothing was done but discuss politics. Perhaps not much was reasoned; but a great deal of fire and passion was put into the discussions. Witnessing these disturbances gave me the idea that Spain was completely losing its former homogeneity. The country couldn’t transform itself as a whole and was violently splitting apart. The revolutionary government had taken a run down a dark path and was already lost, unable to find its bearings. Its push had further torn the country’s spirit apart, and mending was no longer possible. The poor class in Madrid carried on with their old ways, in their narrow, sordid alleys, and had their majos and majas, their manolas, their bullfighters, their bullies, their artisans, who pawned their mattresses to go to the bullfights; their master shoemakers and blacksmiths, who worked in a small doorway or on the street; their water carriers, their pickpockets, their party girls, their blind men who played guitar in street corners… The ruling class wanted to transform this quickly, and since it couldn’t, it complained about the people. They felt the same way as some foreigners who had come to Spain believing that the Revolution would change the country in an instant. “This isn’t Europe,” they used to say, and they spoke of Paris, London, Brussels. Those French and English supposed that there is only one fashion to dress the people and one way, one and indivisible, to achieve happiness. This, at least, is not proven. I, for my part, believe that everyone should seek happiness in their own way; everyone drinks from the fountain of life when they can and however they can. Many people believe that there is only one happiness for the individual: being rich, respectable, etc., etc.; but there are men who are happy contemplating a landscape, others participating in an intrigue, others thinking exclusively about women, others working in a laboratory, others gazing at a green field. Everyone’s life has its guidelines. Being able to follow them as exactly as possible is what makes them feel good, and the same thing happens in the villages. Of course, this cannot be easily achieved; but why should we believe that there is only one kind of happiness for man? Why should we think that only the vote and the parliamentary system and what they call democracy bring happiness and progress to the people? Some say that to know if things are good, we simply have to confront them with reality. But what is reality? There are many people who believe that reality is only what is tangible, as if touch were a sense of mathematical exactness. A stone is as much a reality as a cloud; there is no difference except that a stone can be felt with the touch and with the eyes, and a cloud only with the eyes. In Nature itself, it is not easy to distinguish reality. And if it’s not easy to distinguish reality in nature, how can it be distinguished in social facts? When I discussed politics and philosophy with my friends in Madrid, they considered me a troublemaker. “Our conclusions are proven; they are definitive,” they asserted. The eagerness of politicians to conclude, to leave nothing to those who come after them, is remarkable. This is definitive, true, unassailable, say those with myopic eyes, and they naively believe it. What do we know about what is definitive and what is not? Doesn’t truth roll around the world and change its appearance from age to age? Jupiter seemed more definitive than democracy and parliamentarism in his time, with his retinue of gods, and he collapsed; Jehovah has seemed more definitive, and now he retreats into the wings with his retinue of black-bearded, parrot-nosed prophets. as true as Copernicus’s system was believed to be, corrected by Ptolemy… What a ridiculous imprudence to speak of what is definitive! What a desire to close doors that will be opened by those who come after! That is why I am constantly in the habit of saying to Philonous: “Friend, can. Let’s leave the conclusions to the idiots.” Chapter 48. Leaving Madrid. The atmosphere of Madrid, of joking and roguish life, caught me full in. I saw that hardly any work was done in the Museum workshop and that no one took it seriously, and I did like the others: I went in later and later , and ended up not showing up at all. Some Masonic friends told me that as long as they remained in charge I would enjoy my salary with certainty; but that when they left power my job would not last more than a week at most. I wrote to Will Tick telling him what I had done on my trip, and he answered me with a long letter; He told me that he had been appointed secretary of a London society of philhellenes, and that he, in turn, had appointed me agent for this society in Spain. He added that in June they would send me a sum to Seville for the purpose of purchasing weapons and taking them to Gibraltar, and he suggested that if I knew any people sympathetic to the Greek liberation movement, I should start a subscription and keep the money. I thought that if I found no other recourse, I would resort to this one, preparing in advance some Jesuit maxims and a large amount of mental reserves. Meanwhile, no longer concerned with my destiny except to collect, I was beginning to develop a taste for Madrid: I formed groups with the liberals and the serviles, listened to the litanies of the blind, and went after the bullfights to see the manolas in the carriages and the picadors with the monosabios on the horses’ haunches. A person I used to meet almost every day was a certain Patricio Moore, a former Spanish friar of Irish origin, a fiery and Carbonari affiliated with the Carbonaris. With him were two very mysterious-looking Italians with mustaches. bristling, and a comedian, a man of certain genius in his profession, but who abused alcohol and was growing hoarse by the minute. They were all republicans and lived in perpetual excitement, constantly talking and ranting. I almost always found myself in disagreement with them, and the projects they considered feasible seemed utopian to me, and vice versa. One of the things they constantly discussed among themselves was whether there should be one or two representative chambers. It seemed impossible that such a question could inspire people. Of course, the people didn’t care; but they assumed that the people were an entity they had invented and that it served to realize the most stupid of utopias. These reformers didn’t understand that they found themselves in an insignificant minority in Spain, because not only in the countryside, where everyone was royalist, but in Madrid itself, the number of liberals in relation to the serviles was not in the ratio of one to ten. Patricio Moore and his friends accused me of having little affection for the new regime and of viewing serious matters with indifference. I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm as them, nor could I reach a burning passion over a matter of words. When the Duke of Angoulême’s soldiers arrived at the border, public expectation grew enormous: some believed that if the French entered, an era like that of Independence would return; but most people saw that these were different times. At the gathering of Deogracias, the saddler on Encomienda Street, a servant of the Count of Montijo explained how his master was working for the party they called the ring-bearers or moderates, and how Generals O’Donnell, Ballesteros, Morillo, and Martínez Rosa’s friends agreed on trying to change the Constitution. This same servant of Montijo, a staunch liberal, told us a scene that took place in the count’s palace, in the Plazuela del Angel, between Montijo and El Empecinado. Montijo had invited Don Juan Martín and his assistant Aviraneta to dinner and waited for them in the company of a young woman, a lover of his. The four of them sat at the table and talked about indifferent things. When they finished their coffee, Montijo invited El Empecinado into his study. The assistant was left alone with the girl and began to flirt with her; she was laughing. At this point, a loud clatter of voices was heard; the girl called the servant, the door of the study was forced, and the Count of Montijo was seen screaming under a table, and El Empecinado was seen threatening him with his cane. The girl began to scream; but the count covered her mouth, and El Empecinado and his assistant left . One of the servants had seen and heard what had happened. The count had tried to convince El Empecinado that it was necessary to change the government and do away with the Constitution; Later, he had tried to bribe him, and seeing the guerrilla’s coldness, he said angrily: “You are a brute, incapable of the sacraments.” Then El Empecinado, enraged, slapped the count so hard that he knocked him to the ground, and brandishing his cane, he tried to hit him. The servant who told us this gave us so many details that he left us with no doubt that the scene was real. When the French entered Spain, the anger of some and the discouragement of others increased. Around this time, there was a change of ministry, and they told me at the Museum that they had abolished my position and that I was unnecessary. I had some money saved, and since it wasn’t convenient for me to wait, I decided to leave for Seville without delay. I packed my suitcase, and with my documents in order and an effective recommendation to the Masonic Lodge of the Scottish East, I prepared for my journey. I said goodbye to Mr. Fernández de la Encina and his family, who told me to stay with them until I found work, and took the stagecoach. I wanted to take Philonous with me, but the dog refused. When I got into the carriage, he stared at me as if to say, “This isn’t what we agreed upon,” and then, turning around, he left. I dedicated a sentimental memory to him and continued on. Along the way, we had a slight encounter with a party of royalists commanded by a sacristan, Palillos’s lieutenant. Between Andújar and Carmona, the danger of encountering bands of bandits was constantly discussed in the coach ; but we didn’t find any, and we arrived happily in Seville. Chapter 49. FROM SEVILLE TO THE SANLÚCAR PRISON. I arrived in Seville with enough money to wait a month. It was already summer; the weather was respectably warm. I went to the Masonic lodge, where I made some acquaintances, and stayed at the home of a banker representing Beltrán de Lis, who told me that as soon as he received notice from the Philhellenes in London , he would pay me. This banker introduced me to several people, among them an English widow, Mrs. Landon, and her niece, Mercedes. The time I was in Seville I had a good time. Despite the political squabbles, life there was cheerful. Dancing was practiced everywhere; and I, following the example of other gentlemen, went to a dance academy run by a nobleman named Alvarez de Acuña. Alvarez de Acuña was one of the most serious people on the Peninsula. Few men put such faith in their priesthood. He gave the science of dance everything necessary, and each of his pirouettes had the stability of an axiom and the transcendence of a dogma. Alvarez de Acuña was a small, gray-haired man with a face so mobile it seemed made of rubber. He exaggerated his gestures to such an extent that I imagined he was performing gymnastics with his face. He dressed excessively neatly and had the habit of covering his mouth with his right hand, as if he considered it cynical to show a gap in his teeth. At Alvarez de Acuña’s academy, I met many young people; It was assumed, I don’t know why, that I was a rich man, and although I repeatedly affirmed that I was not, I was not believed. While I was enjoying myself, affairs in Spain were going from bad to worse; the French occupied Madrid, and I witnessed their entry into Seville and the uproar raised by the people of Triana and the gypsies against the liberals and in favor of Ferdinand VII. One day in August, I received a letter from Will Tick telling me to go to Cadiz and wait there for a brick barge that would come with a cargo of rifles for Missolonghi. Everyone told me that it would be very difficult to reach Cadiz by land, and that I would be arrested. At Triana, I took a small steamboat called the Guadalquivir and went down the river to Bonanza. I disembarked and went to stay at a tavern full of French officers. I was about to leave immediately when the owner of the tavern recommended that I not go out. “So what’s going on?” I asked. “The thing is, the beach at Sanlúcar is full of thieves and bandits, and any foreigner caught is stabbed to death. ” “Is there no surveillance? ” “Yes; French patrols of cavalry, infantry, and gendarmes are roaming around. ” “Well, I need to travel to Sanlúcar to get to Cádiz. ” “It will be impossible for you. ” “Why?” “Because all the ships from these ports and the steamers on the Guadalquivir are embargoed by the French authorities to carry munitions to Puerto de Santa María. ” “And what are people saying about the war? ” “People say that Cádiz will hold out for very little time.” I went to bed without resolving my travel plan. I slept soundly, and the next morning I was surprised to see a sergeant and four royalist soldiers enter my room. They had come to arrest me. ” “This is a mistake!” I exclaimed. “I am a peaceful person.” “Yes, that’s true,” the sergeant replied, “but we have orders to take you prisoner to Sanlúcar de Barrameda.” I wondered if the innkeeper had denounced me; although he swore to me that he hadn’t told anyone about my presence there. I paid for the inn, took a carriage to protect myself from the blazing sun , and at a walking pace, escorted by the four soldiers, we left Bonanza. The royalist sergeant climbed into the carriage with me, and we talked. He told me he was a wine merchant and cachicán for a wealthy landowner from Sanlúcar who was in Cádiz with the liberals, and that he had decided to join the royalist militia to defend his master’s interests against the barbarity of the absolutists, who were fanaticized by some rabid friars and clerics. We arrived at the town of Sanlúcar, and amid groups of peasants and French soldiers, we approached the house of the royalist volunteer commander . We entered one of those curtained rooms found in Spanish villages, reminiscent of small chapels, and I was taken to the commander, who was accompanied by a priest. The commander was a plump man of about fifty, with small, black eyes, a very fleshy, red face, and a tight-fitting frock coat. I greeted him, and he began to question me. Afterward, the clergyman and the commandant conferred, and they told me I had to go to the public jail. I protested, but it was useless. I left with the sergeant; we took the gig again and got off in front of the jail, in a square plaza. The sergeant knocked twice , a soldier opened a portcullis, and we passed through a passage to another door. Another knock sounded; several bolts were drawn back; a shutter turned, and a wizened old man with a cap on his head led me into a large stable where there were about a hundred men; some sitting, some lying down, some chatting, and others smoking. I greeted everyone on the right and left, smiling amiably, and withdrew to a corner. “He’s a Frenchman,” some were saying. “No; he’s an Englishman.” At this point, two blackened, sullen-faced men rushed at me, and one of them, taking me by the chin, said: “Listen, you Englishman.” You know the obligation of novices. “I don’t know anything. What obligation is it? ” “Pay here half of the money you have and pretend you understood us. ” “Me? Come on!” I exclaimed. “Come on, gentleman, give up the money,” said the other sarcastically, “it will be safer in our hands, because there are many people here who are lost and could be robbed. ” I shook my head vigorously again in denial, and one of the thugs, putting his hand in my pocket, took out my handkerchief. I immediately grabbed him by the jacket, and since I had him and he wanted to escape, he tore his jacket open to his shoulder. The thug, seeing the torn garment, said he valued it more than his own skin and that such an offense could only be washed away with blood. Sure enough, he opened his knife; But I, with extraordinary quickness , seized him by the wrist and squeezed it with such force that he dropped the weapon with such shrieks that I thought I had broken his arm. The other thug came up sideways with his knife hidden in his sleeve; but I managed to give him such a decisive kick in the roundest part of his body that I left him ready to make, Fielding-style, a brilliant discourse on kicking in the backside. After the fight, I took back the first thug’s knife, which was a Royalist knife, for on one side of the blade was written, “I die for my King,” and on the other, “I fight my heart out killing niggers.” My quarrel had created a tremendous uproar among the prisoners; some were for me, others against me. They shouted and yelled, with exaggerated and comical phrases being thrown at each other. “Bring the holy oil for this brother, because I’m going to kill him,” one said. “Commend yourself to God,” another shouted. At this point, the jailers entered, dealing out blows with their clubs left and right, followed by the warden. The warden arrested the two thugs and interrogated me. He was a one-eyed man, tall, dry, muscular, and sullen. I told him what had happened, and he decided to take me out of that stable and take me to the jail. Chapter 50. NIEVES THE WARDEN. In the company of the one-eyed man, I left the stable, walked down a long hallway, climbed a wooden staircase, and entered a beautiful house. It was the warden’s office. In a small room, a woman was sewing. The one-eyed man told me that she was his wife. Her name was Nieves. Nieves was a superb woman, about thirty years old, dark-haired, of Arab build, with black, slanted eyes, ebony hair, dazzling teeth, and a small mouth. She had been born in Ceuta. The one-eyed man explained to his wife what had happened to me. We sat down. Then the one-eyed man spoke for a long time. He was an adventurer. He had been an artillery sergeant in Oran and had lived among the Moors for a long time. The warden, after telling me long and very interesting stories, told his wife to fix me two meals a day, provide me with a bed, and bring me whatever she thought best. With that, the man left, and the warden and I were left alone. He asked me who I was and why I’d been put in jail, and I told him. We chatted amiably for a long time. That night, before dinnertime, the one-eyed man came and told me that the commander of the royalist volunteers, the town’s boss at the time, had heard about my fight in jail with the thugs, which amused him greatly. He added that I could stay in the jail safely until the consignment of prisoners was sent to Seville, and that he authorized me to go out for a walk in the city with a trusted person . “Good; then you’ll come out with me,” said Nieves. “Eh, what do you think, Englishman? ” “I’d be delighted. If your husband allows it. ” “Nothing, nothing; I’m in charge here.” The one-eyed man left, and I was left alone with the warden and the maid. They set the table and two utensils. “Isn’t your husband eating with us?” I asked. “No, I’m not.” He eats only one thing, and so do I. She served me soup, a stew with chickpeas and ham, and a good piece of meat, a plate of vegetables, then a roast partridge, then fried fish, plenty of olives, all washed down with Manzanilla wine from Sanlúcar and red wine from Rota. I ate like a barbarian, and somewhat regretfully I said to the warden: “I ate like a prince, like a hungry prince; but I’m afraid I can’t stay here long, because this must cost a lot. ” “I’ll bring you three pesetas a day,” said Nieves, who had insisted on speaking to me informally. “Three pesetas? ” “Yes. ” “But you’re going to go bankrupt! ” “That doesn’t matter to you. Now I’m going to get dressed and we’ll go to the café.” I waited a moment, and soon after, Nieves appeared, very coiffed, with large curls, dressed in black, with a helmet-shaped mantilla, and a red rose in her black hair. “Am I all right?” she said. “Like the goddess Venus herself. ” “Well, well; don’t joke around, I have a bad temper. ” “Well, you don’t know how much I like bad-tempered women, boss,” I told her. “Come on, you dull, fat blood! Get dressed up.” The warden looked at me, straightened my tie, and laughed. We crossed a few streets, came out onto the Plaza de la Constitución, which was now the Plaza de la Constitución, and entered a crowded café. Nieves and I attracted the attention of all the spectators; the women talked about me; they assured me I was a millionaire and a liberal Englishman; the French raved about Nieves’s grace and grace. “Oh, what a beautiful girl!” they could be heard saying. “She’s a real dandalorian! Here’s a real manola.” We left the café and strolled through the square. There were many pretty girls, with bright, black eyes, on the promenade. This song I heard at that time seemed very legitimate: For alcarrazas, Chiclana; for wheat, Trebujena; and for pretty girls, Sanlúcar de Barrameda. At eleven o’clock at night my landlady grew tired of strolling, and we returned to the prison. Chapter 51. THE RECOMMENDATIONS. THAT night I lay down in a beautiful bed and slept until eight. Shortly afterward, Nieves opened the window and brought me a glass of milk. sugared, with a cake, and she told me to take it piping hot and not to get up until ten o’clock. “Madam,” I said, “you treat me too well; I ought to be the one who has the honor of serving you. ” “Don’t call me madam. You’re a fool, Englishman. ” “Yes; but I’m a well-kept fool.” I got out of bed and dressed. “Now let’s go,” she said. “Well.” We went out into the street and went to the parish church. “I warn you that I’m a Protestant,” I said, to see what she would reply. “What are you telling me about that?” she exclaimed in anguish. “That you’re a heretic? Well, my son, say it out loud and you’ll be put to the stick.” I tried to convince her seriously that everyone has the right to profess their religious ideas; But she ignored me, and it was necessary to attend mass, drink holy water, and even beat her chest like a true Papist. As we left the church, she said to me: “Now let’s go see my comadre, who’s the cousin of the commander of the voluntary realization, to see if she’ll do something for you. ” “We’ll go wherever you want. ” The comadre was a big, dark, and daring woman. “Where did you get this big Englishman from?” she said to my landlady upon seeing me. Nieves told her what had happened to me; she said I was completely innocent and that she wanted her to speak to the commander of the royalists so they wouldn’t make a fuss about me. The comadre said she would do what she could; but that Nieves should also speak to the cousin of a friend of the priest’s housekeeper, who was the commander’s advisor. From the conversation, it became clear that absolutely nothing was done in the town except by recommendations. This network of influence and Machiavellian maneuvering had everything undermined. It was impossible for there to be even the slightest shadow of justice in the town. After the visit to Nieves’s friend, we returned to the jail. I spent six days in the jail. In order not to become clumsy with immobility and good food, I devoted myself to gymnastics; then I talked with my landlady. Nieves carried her husband around like a lamb; she wore the trousers in the house, and, according to gossip, she occasionally and very effectively used an ash rod, with which she restored her husband to reason, who lost it in the tavern at least once a week. From what I was told, she inaugurated this custom one night when the one-eyed man, in a bad mood, tried to employ on his wife the same method he used on the prisoners—that is, garroting. But she took it away from him in time and managed to administer such a beating that the one-eyed man was forever convinced of his wife’s superiority. Chapter 52. ON THE ROAD. Six days after I’d been living at Nieves’s house, her friend informed me that the following morning they were going to transfer the prisoners to Seville; I would go on horseback with the sergeant. Indeed; before seven o’clock, the escort appeared at the prison door. They brought out about eighty prisoners, fifty militiamen and soldiers imprisoned at the Trocadero, and the rest, common criminals. The royalist commander and the warden’s friend came to greet me, and Nieves hugged me, almost in tears. I mounted my horse and, alongside the sergeant, who was riding a beautiful Cordoban pony, we left the town. Three hours later, we arrived at an inn on the road between Sanlúcar and Trebujena, and our procession stopped. The common criminals were put in a corral, under a shed; the political prisoners were taken to a stable, and we, the sergeant and I, remained in the inn. We entered the kitchen, which was enormous, and spoke to the landlady. She told us that if we didn’t want to wait, she could immediately give us soup, a stew, a casserole of rice with rabbit, a plate of tripe, and salad. “What do you think?” the sergeant asked me. “It’s too late later, as my landlady used to say.” We sat down at a small table, ready to eat, when the explosion A great commotion broke out in the hall; we went out to see what was happening and saw a group of French officers accompanied by a small escort. They were speaking in such a despotic and unpleasant manner that, to cut short their explanations, I went out to the doorway and offered to serve as their interpreter and friendly mediator. The French wanted rooms for two commanders; the innkeeper was able to provide them with them. Once things were settled, the sergeant and I ate peacefully in a corner of the kitchen. We had finished a good portion of the soup, the stew, and the rice with rabbit, and were about to begin with the tripe when I remembered the Liberal prisoners who had come with us, and I said: “Have those poor people eaten?” “Yes, they must have something. ” “Who are these political prisoners? ” “They are Catalans,” the sergeant told me, “who were in the Cádiz army. It seems they made a sortie from the island to the pine forests of Chiclana and found themselves surrounded by the French.” They tried to resist, but half of them died, and the rest remained prisoners with the lieutenant. “Good; let’s take this plate of tripe to them. I’ll buy them some bread and a few bottles of wine.” I did so; we entered a shed, and I spoke with the Catalan lieutenant, who confessed to me that he was so hungry his vision was blurring, and that our appearance in the yard with the plate of tripe and the bread had seemed more sublime than all the celestial apparitions. Two hours after arriving at the inn, the sergeant gave the order to march , and we all formed up. One of the French soldiers, commander of the royal gendarmerie, was on the balcony of the inn. “Are you the leader of this rabble of soldiers of the Faith?” he asked me in French, in a sharp and dry manner. “This rabble has been formed thanks to the protection and care of you French,” I said, bowing. “I know. It’s a disgrace to France.” In what capacity are you with that troop? “I’m going as a prisoner to be identified in Seville.” The commander gave me his name and address, offering to see if he could be of any use to me, and we set off. “What did that Frenchman say to you?” the sergeant asked me. “He asked me why I was in the procession. ” “What kind of people! They have to get involved in everything; once again they think they’re the masters of Spain.” As we left the Trebujena road and reached the highway that goes from Jerez de la Frontera to Lebrija, a squadron of Spanish cavalry approached us . There were ten or twelve commanders, among them a French aide-de-camp, escorting a general. The general was an elderly man, with a fair face, white sideburns, light eyes, and a grumpy appearance. One of the squadron leaders stopped to ask the sergeant who I was, and the sergeant in turn asked a soldier who the general they were escorting was, to which he replied that he was Don Francisco Ballesteros, a soldier from the exalted liberals who had just capitulated in a most suspicious manner. At dusk we arrived in Lebrija, and the sergeant and I were sent to the home of a wealthy farmer with liberal ideas, who treated us very well. PART FOUR PRISONER Chapter 53. THE COURT HALL. On September 27, 1823, at eleven in the morning, we prisoners arrived at the capital of Andalusia and made our triumphal entry amidst shouts and shouts and the occasional rotten tomato or cabbage stalk presented to us by the sovereign people. We all ended up at the police sub-station. The subdelegate was in Alcalá de Guadaira, and his secretary received us. He quickly interrogated the sergeant and ordered the prisoners for common crimes to be taken to jail, the Catalan soldiers to the military headquarters, and me to the Parliament. The sergeant distributed his forces and sent me with a soldier to my destination. That Parliament was an old artillery barracks, which had previously been a Jesuit college. I was received by the warden, a An Andalusian of about sixty years of age, whom they called Señor Pepe, a man who, to give greater polish to his figure, wore an old tailcoat and a top hat. “Are you English?” he said to me. “Yes, sir. ” “You won’t be well here, because English people are very fond of comfort; but come to the rescue, and there you will find yourself among gentlemen.” I entered the hall and was very warmly welcomed by those liberal prisoners. Señor Pepe, the warden, rented me two mattresses and a pillow, and looking for a place to make my nest, I found a small vacant gallery, where I settled down. Shortly after noon, the prisoners were preparing to eat at the tables, forming groups. Since I did not belong to any of them, I sat separately on a bench and prepared to eat some fried fish and bread, which the warden sold me for six reales. Those at the next table urged me to join them; I thanked them, saying I didn’t feel like it; but two gentlemen stood up, grabbed me, pulled me to my feet, and forced me to sit next to them. We ate admirably, and some of the Sevillians teased me about my lack of appetite. “A boy like this, as tall as a castle, and English at that ,” said an old man, “will swallow anything you put before him. ” After eating and drinking coffee, the tables were cleared, and some sat on chairs smoking, while others strolled around the old church, as if they were in a small square. There were violent arguments, interrupted by jokes; then a gentleman stood on a chair and delivered a very rhetorical speech that was thunderously applauded. This gave me a rather odd impression: it was hard to tell if he was being serious or joking. Most of the prisoners were gentlemen and wealthy landowners from Seville. The afternoon passed thus, and at dusk the families, relatives, and friends of the prisoners began to enter the hall. By that time, the old chapel was full. The lamps were lit, gaming tables were set, and the hall was transformed into a grand café. Many artillery officers and some commanders of the garrison also attended. I strolled with a colonel named Rosales and a fat canon who was being held as a liberal: Canon Molinedo. Colonel Rosales and the canon reported that the news from Cadiz was very bad and that the constitutional government had made peace proposals to the French. At eleven o’clock, the order was given to evacuate the hall for the sake of families and strangers. Everyone prepared for bed; I took my tribune and, lying on the mattress, spent the night in a dream. Chapter 54. Mrs. Landon. The next day I woke up early, washed and dressed, and went out for a walk in the convent cloisters. I asked Señor Pepe, the warden, to allow me to do gymnastics in the cloister, because I felt lazy when I was still. Señor Pepe must have been suspicious, because he assigned a subordinate of his, a short, blond man, to watch over me. This guard didn’t have a reassuring air about him. I thought I knew him, though I didn’t know from what. I did a few push-ups on a door frame, strong enough to support me, and then I walked on my hands, head down and feet up. I was in this position when I heard women’s laughter; I returned to my natural position and found myself facing Mrs. Landon and her niece, Mercedes. “You do lovely push-ups,” Mercedes told me mockingly. “Yes, I’m not bad at them. And what brings you here?” “I’ve come for you,” Mrs. Landon told me. “I heard yesterday about an Englishman who was imprisoned, bearing your address, and we came to see him. I bowed in gratitude.” Mrs. Landon added that she was very familiar with the deputy police commissioner of Seville, Don Lorenzo Hernández de Alba, and that as soon as I returned from Alcalá de Guadaira, she would speak to him to arrange for my release. “I suppose you’re no Brutus. Have you killed a tyrant? ” “No, no. Unless in your dreams. ” “Then I think we’ll spare you.” I offered my most sincere thanks, and Mrs. Landon added that she would send for a bed and linen for me, and that she would order my dinner and supper from an inn. “Madam,” I said, “don’t send me too much food, because I’ll eat it all and become tiresome and won’t be able to do these exercises. ” Miss Mercedes laughed. They chatted with me for a long time, said they would return the next day, and left. I met with the fat canon from the previous night and with a young captain named Iscar. Iscar was a very nervous and lively man who had taken part in several revolutionary movements. He was General Porlier’s right-hand man when he tried to rise up in Galicia with the Marquis of Viluma. After Porlier’s enterprise failed and the general, known as the Marquis, was executed, Iscar, Viluma, and the other suspects were imprisoned in La Coruña for some time. “You’ve had a visit from a prominent lady from Seville,” the canon told me. “Yes, Mrs. Landon.” “The Sevillians who are here were a little surprised by the visit, and they say you must be a man of great family and position. ” “No, no. I come from a modest family.” The canon smiled incredulously. At this point, the little blond man who had been watching me while I was doing gymnastics passed by, and Captain Iscar rushed over to him. The blond man first looked to the right and left in great alarm. The two spoke quickly for a moment, then separated. “This place is full of mysteries,” the canon told me. We returned to the hall; but the stay there was not entirely pleasant. Among the prisoners were sick people in their beds, some with typhus and dysentery; No one had taken care to figure out how to ventilate the old church, and the atmosphere was already unbreathable. I decided to leave the gallery and put my two mattresses in the cloister, even though everyone considered this an extravagance. Chapter 55. THE TOWER. On the last day of September, a new batch of Nationalist prisoners from the Trocadero entered the old building of the Parliament Hall. They were frightened. I spoke with some of them, and they told me they feared for their lives, as several of their own had been shot along the way. That same day, the Parliament Hall was vacated, and more than half of the prisoners living in Seville were freed, thanks to the efforts of the deputy police commissioner. This mixture of severity and leniency worried me; sometimes I thought the Royalists were going to establish the White Terror; sometimes, I thought it was all a joke. Apparently, this divergence arose from the fact that sometimes the captain-general was in charge, and sometimes the deputy police commissioner. The captain-general wanted to shoot everyone, while the deputy police commissioner wanted to release the political prisoners; hence this disquietude of procedure, so disturbing and so absurd. I was at a loss for what to think; at one time it seemed like a laughable comedy, at another something serious. The prisoners escaped with the sub-commissioner’s assent; but every now and then one was put on bail and shot by order of a court-martial . One morning before lunch, Mrs. Landon and her niece came to visit me. They told me that the sub-commissioner had given orders to release me, but that the secretary objected, saying that the captain-general had written recommending greater vigilance with suspicious foreigners. “So you’ll have to stay a few more days,” Mrs. Landon concluded . “I don’t mind being locked up much,” I replied. “What I dislike is going to eat in the dining room, where it’s no longer possible to stay because of the stench. If they moved me somewhere else, that would be fine. ” “Where do you want to be moved?” “What do I know? To some corner of this old building. ” “Wait a quarter of an hour. I’m going to speak to the commander of the barracks.” I stayed with Miss Mercedes, who was a bit imposing on me, and half an hour later, Mrs. Landon came in with an artillery major. The major said the entire building was occupied by troops and political prisoners. “The only empty room there,” he continued, “is a small room in the bell tower, the bell ringer’s former residence. At the moment, it’s occupied by a storekeeper sergeant who has set up his office there; but we can tell him to leave. ” “Let’s see that room,” said Mrs. Landon. “Come on,” I replied. The two ladies, the major, and I went along a cloister, through a door, and out into an abandoned courtyard overgrown with weeds. The major opened a massive door in a tower, we passed through a small cobbled hallway, and climbed a winding stone staircase to the first floor. The storekeeper’s room consisted of a room like a closet and a bedroom. The room had a large barred window, and the bedroom had a loophole. “What do you think of this?” the commander asked me. “Very good. It suits me. ” “Do you like it?” Mrs. Landon told me. “Yes, very much so. I intend to immortalize this tower by calling it Thompson’s Tower from now on . ” The commander ordered the premises vacated and my bed moved. They gave me a small table and a chair, and Mrs. Landon promised to send me some volumes by Sir Walter Scott. “Here you can spend your time admiring Seville. From the top of the bell tower you can see the whole city,” the commander told me. ” I’ll take advantage of the permission. ” “I suppose you won’t escape, Mr. Englishman?” the commander then said to me as he shook my hand. “If I find the opportunity, I think I will.” The commander laughed, and Mrs. Landon and Mercedes did the same. The day after I took up my cell in Thompson’s tower, my friend Mrs. Landon sent me the promised books. I read for some time, and when I grew tired, I went for a walk in the cloister with Canon Molinedo and Captain Iscar. At night, I climbed to the top of the bell tower, from whose balcony I spent hours and hours gazing at Seville in the moonlight. I saw the Giralda, the pinnacles of the cathedral, some distant towers and domes I didn’t recognize, and the rooftops bathed in silver light. Chapter 56. “MARE SERENITATIS.” Thompson wrote many extravaganzas, absurdities, and follies addressed to the moon, which he contemplated at night from the balcony of the tower. Among his fragmentary notes, the only one that makes a bit of sense is this one, entitled _Mare Serenitatis_, which reads as follows: “Among the extraordinary and poetic names that astronomers have given to the geography of the moon, none is as suggestive to me as the Sea of Serenity _Mare Serenitatis_. In ancient times, they must have believed that these lunar seas had water and waves; today we know that they are plains, hollows between mountains and volcanic craters. Like that supposed sea of yours, O Moon!, we would like that in the human spirit there were also another Sea of Serenity in a hidden and unexplored region… What an admirable discovery it would be to reach it through a labyrinth of abrupt mountains! This _mare serenitatis_ would have water more subtle than that of the lagoons of the high peaks, and would extend under a clear and dull sky. I would not ask of this sea pleasures unworthy of a noble spirit, nor the oblivion of the waters of Lethe, but rather clarity, the understanding of life’s enigmas, of our brutalities, our fanaticisms, and our violence. There I would like to see myself, without anger and without humility, limited before Nature and tranquil in my limitation; there I would like to see my spirit cleansed of turbid and unhealthy sediments like a crystal shining in the sunlight. Unfortunately, neither in you, old Selene, little satellite, nor in our human spirit, as small as you, exists that sea of Serenity. Chapter 57. THE FRIAR. On the second day of my imprisonment in the tower, Lady Landon and her niece did not come; instead, I had a visit from Canon Molinedo and Captain Iscar. According to what the canon said, there were no more prisoners left in the Parliament, except for some militiamen, whom they wanted to transfer to another town. The king was going to arrive in Seville, and the royalists had thought, as a festive event to entertain Ferdinand VII, to slaughter some black people; and the deputy police commissioner, always paternal with the liberals, was preparing to remove the most qualified from Seville and take them elsewhere. Molinedo and Iscar were to leave the following day. The absurdity continued; the mixed regime of severity and benevolence persisted. The most innocent people were shot, and the most dangerous were left free. Captain Iscar told me: “Do you know that short, blond, slightly cross-eyed man who was watching you on the warden’s orders? ” “Yes. What happened to him? ” “He escaped. ” “But wasn’t he a prison guard? ” “Oh! He’s a conspirator. Iscar told me how he deceived the jailers. ” “And who was that man? ” “He’s one of the most rebellious men of the time. His name is Aviraneta, and he was El Empecinado’s right-hand man. ” “Now that you mention El Empecinado, I remember this Aviraneta. I saw him once with the general at the Café de La Fontana in Madrid. And you’ve known him for a long time? ” “Yes; I’ve known him since the Porlier assassination attempt.” I went as Porlier’s emissary to see El Empecinado at his estate in Castrillo de Duero, and there Aviraneta and I spoke. Iscar and Canon Molinedo left; I climbed the bell tower and gazed at Seville, illuminated by the last rays of the sun. The next morning, upon awakening, I had the unpleasant surprise of seeing a Dominican friar enter my room accompanied by the warehouse sergeant. He was a fat, pot-bellied friar with the air of a rotten whale, a blond beard, curly red hair that looked like it was made of shavings, and the eyes of a nearsighted person. “My son,” the friar told me with a very syrupy Andalusian accent, “I’ve heard that you are in prison, and I’ve come to offer you the help of religion. I suppose your conscience is heavy and that a general confession will ease your soul.” “Are they thinking of hanging me?” I asked the sergeant, jumping out of bed in my nightshirt. “No, no. This priest has come here to hear the confessions of other prisoners, and he wanted to see you. ” “So be it, he dies suddenly!” I muttered to myself. “Don’t you want to confess?” the priest asked me. “No, I’m not a Catholic,” I exclaimed. “I’m English, and of the religion of my country. ” “You must abandon this heresy, my son. ” “If I have to be converted by force,” I muttered, “my conversion will be worthless. I was brought up in the reformed religion, and I have no reason to believe it to be false. If you give me arguments, I will take them into account. I did not dare say that Protestantism, like Catholicism, seemed to me to be made up of myths more remote from reality than that of the Thing itself. The friar gave me a most vulgar lecture; In his sweet accent, he told me that the moment of death could be very close; that we must prepare for this terrible moment, and that he would bring me religious books. The friar left with the sergeant. I jumped out of bed, dressed, and went downstairs to the tower door. It was bolted on the inside, and I decided to draw it so that visitors like that wouldn’t surprise me. I had just bolted it when I heard a sound of footsteps in the small doorway. “Who’s here? Who is it? ” “For God’s sake, sir!” said a voice. “Don’t lose me.” “But who are you? Let’s see. Come into the light, so we can see each other . ” We went up to the first floor, and I was astonished to see a girl dressed as a soldier. “Don’t say anything, for God’s sake,” he exclaimed. “What am I going to say, I’m a prisoner. ” “Are you a prisoner? ” “Yes.” “Well, I came disguised as a soldier to give my boyfriend a note explaining how he could escape; but just this very night they took him out of Seville. When I found out, I tried to leave; but I found the door locked, and so they wouldn’t see me, I hid here. ” “Well, it’s going to be very difficult for you to get out. Weren’t you wearing women ‘s clothes? ” “No. ” “We’ll see what can be done. Come up.” The girl wasn’t particular. We shared the mattresses, and she slept in the bedroom, and I in the study.” The next day, Tránsito—that was the girl’s name—tidied the room and cleaned it while the tower door was closed. Afterwards, she had to climb to the bell tower and spend the day there. Chapter 58. ESCAPE. The next day I decided to study the area to see if an escape was possible. I went to bed very early and got up at dawn. I went down the stairs to my confinement, opened the door, and explored the courtyard. This courtyard, where the tower stood, was paved and enclosed by three very high walls and another, not so high, which separated it from a garden populated by trees. I examined the lowest wall and saw that there was an old, closed window at a height of three or four varas. If this window didn’t have a grate, it must have been easy to pass through it to the neighboring garden. “I saw a barrel in the courtyard, pushed it over, and carried it under the window; I brought a chair down from my room and placed it on top.” Then I climbed onto the chair, and with a pointed stick, inserting it into the crack of the window, I managed to open it. There was no grating. I closed the window and returned to the tower. At nine in the morning, the storekeeper sergeant who had occupied the tower before me came to visit me. He brought several mystical books, sent for me by the friar. He told me that there were no more political prisoners, since they had all been transferred out of Seville while the king was in the city. “And what are they going to do with me? ” “I don’t know. They’ve ordered me to keep a sentry on him and lock him up from tomorrow. ” “Well, it’s a joke. It was a good idea for me to make some inquiries before the door closed , and the next day, before dawn, I went down to the courtyard. The Transito would remain at the window, and if she saw someone looking out, she would throw a small stone on the ground to warn me.” I picked up the chair in one hand, went downstairs, opened the tower door, walked to where the barrel was, placed it under the window, and the chair on top of it. Then I struggled through the window, scratching my face and hands. I crossed to the other side, into the neighboring garden; I grabbed a branch of a tree and climbed down the trunk to the ground. The orchard was completely silent; the only sound I could make was the chirping of birds in the foliage. I crossed the garden without making a sound. I approached the tree closest to the wall facing the street; I climbed it, and from branch to branch I reached the edge of the wall and looked cautiously. It opened onto a narrow, deserted alley. The wall must have been six or seven yards high. I was tempted to jump; but I didn’t want to leave Tránsito alone, so I returned to the garden, then to the patio, and then to my tower. After the excursion, I washed and went to bed. The next day, when I got out of bed, I saw an artilleryman standing sentry at the door, his bayonet fixed. “Can’t I get out?” I asked. “That’s the order I’ve been given. At noon, Mrs. Landon appeared. I told her my situation was getting complicated; that I had a sentry on guard and that I was being locked in the tower. “I’m going to see if I can escape,” I continued. “You’ll do very well,” she exclaimed. “Could you help me? ” “Yes, yes; tell me what you need. I had my plan all right. ” “I’ll need a rope eighty yards long, about the thickness of your little finger. ” “And how am I going to get that in here? ” “Tomorrow you’ll give me a cushion; say it’s my birthday, and put the rope inside the cushion. ” “Very well. ” “Also, take two empty bottles of sherry, still with the labels, fill them with turpentine, seal them tightly, and send them to me with the cushion, as a gift. ” “Don’t worry; all this will be done. How do you plan to get out? ” “I’m going to make a ladder with the rope you bring me, and I’ll lower myself down the tower. ” “And then? ” “Then I’ll go through a hole in the wall to the garden next door, and from this garden I’ll go to the street.” What I’d like to know are the exits from the street that runs along there behind. Mrs. Landon and I looked out of the barred window, and I showed her the treetops in the nearby garden, which peeped over the wall. “I could send you a map of Seville,” said Mrs. Landon. “But why? Something else is better. Tomorrow will be the escape route? ” “Yes, if you send me the cushion. ” “That will come without fail. What time do you think you’ll escape? ” “From ten to ten-thirty at night. ” “At that time there will be someone posted in that alley who will wait for you and accompany you. ” Mrs. Landon left, and I spent the day with the greatest impatience. In the morning they woke me up, bringing me Mrs. Landon’s gifts: the cushion and the two bottles of turpentine disguised as sherry. Seeing myself alone, I tore the cushion, took out the rope, and Transito and I began to make the ladder. I saved a piece of string about eight yards long. I bolted the tower door and we worked on the bell tower. From there, we saw the great excitement of the town. The King of Spain was about to enter the city. All the balconies were decorated with hangings, triumphal arches, branches, and flowers. The streets were crowded with people. Along the riverbank, carriages and gigs could be seen heading toward the Torre del Oro, and along the distant roads, groups of farmers on foot and on horseback could be seen. “Stupid people!” I exclaimed eloquently. “Get excited about your Fernando. When it suits this scoundrel, he’ll warm your back.” The girl and I finished the ladder all day. At the hour of retreat, I went down to the tower door. It was locked. I listened. No one was in the courtyard. I began my tests. The ladder wasn’t enough; it was five or six yards short of reaching the small balcony of the bell tower into the courtyard. I considered a way to resolve this difficulty and decided to add a rope made from a piece of sheet to the ladder. “I’ll go down first,” I said to Transito, “I’ll wait in the courtyard and whistle. If by chance, when you reach the rope made from the sheet , you don’t have the strength to hold on, I’ll pick you up in my arms.” The girl said she wasn’t afraid. Then I emptied my two bottles of turpentine into the basin and soaked the ladder and the piece of sheet until they were almost completely soaked. I poured the rest through a hole in the tower’s vestibule. Then I tied the ladder to the stone railing of the bell tower balcony and started to lower it. Having done this, I put a box of straws in my pocket and jumped to the outside of the railing, climbing down with difficulty until I reached the piece of sheet and reached the courtyard. I whistled softly and noticed, through the rope, that the ladder was shaking and the girl was slowly beginning to descend. Before she reached the piece of sheet, I brought the barrel closer and climbed onto it. When the Transito reached the piece of sheet, I was able to hold the girl by her feet and then by her body. The girl was exhausted. “Rest,” I told her. “Now let’s see a beautiful show,” I added. I took out the link, the flint, and the wick; I tied a sulfur straw to the piece of sheeting where the ladder ended and set fire to it with the wick. The straw burned, then the piece of sheeting, then the ladder, so discreetly that it seemed to disappear by magic. This part over, we brought the barrel up to the small window that led to the adjoining garden; I had the girl pass through, then I did, we crossed the garden, and climbed up a tree to the wall. I tied the piece of rope I was carrying to a thick branch of a tree and threw the end out over the wall, toward the street. “I’ll go down first,” I said to Transito, “then I’ll receive her in my arms.” I slid down close to the wall and descended easily. Then the girl came down, skinning her hands and nearly knocking me down as I held her. So that no one would notice, I wound the end of the rope from the street and threw it over the wall into the garden. “Now what do we do?” asked Transit. “Do you have a place to go? ” “Yes. ” “Then we’ll go our separate ways.” I shook her hand and separated from her. The night was dark; there wasn’t a soul in the vicinity. I walked up and down the street twice when a poor-looking woman approached me. It was Mrs. Landon. “Follow me,” she said. I followed her; the central streets were filled with commotion; there were groups of guitars and tambourines and people singing songs alluding to the king’s entrance. The priests and friars passed by, followed by the mob, talking and acting, and leading patrols of ragged people. All were shouts and cheers for the absolute king and death to the Constitution, to the heretics, and to the blacks. Chapter 59. THE ABANDONED HOUSE. Always following Mrs. Landon, I reached a street far from the prison and stopped in front of a large mansion. My guide passed through a doorway; I followed her; we came to a courtyard with a garden; then to another courtyard, and I found myself in a large, abandoned house. Mrs. Landon led me to a room with a columned alcove. She showed me a table with food and said: “Have dinner and go to bed. ” “Very well. Nothing else? ” “You may keep the light on; but don’t go with her into the rooms that face the street. This house is uninhabited and has two exits. If by some chance, which seems unlikely to me, they come looking for you on the side we entered, you can escape through this other side. The key is in the door. ” “Good. Understood. ” “Do you want anything?” “If you don’t mind, I’d tell him that I think it would be a good idea for you to go to the Court Room tomorrow to pretend you’re going to visit the prisoner and see what they’re saying about his escape. ” “Yes, yes; you’re right. I will.” Having said this, Mrs. Landon bade me goodnight and left me alone. I had dinner, went to bed, and slept soundly until seven o’clock. I got up at this time and walked around the house. The rooms facing the street were closed; the floor and furniture were covered with a layer of dust. In the large , tarnished mirrors, I saw myself in the semi-darkness like a goblin. I went out at once into the garden. It was large, had orange and palm trees, and communicated only with Mrs. Landon’s garden. A very high wall separated it from a convent. I walked around for an hour, peered into an old greenhouse with rotten doors and broken glass, and then entered the house. I walked through the rooms, and in one I found an open cupboard full of books bound in parchment. Almost all were in Latin, and I only saw in Spanish the history of the conquest of Mexico, by Captain Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and the book by my countryman William Bowles, the _Introduction to the Natural History and Geography of Spain_. I read one book after another alternately and became so absorbed in the reading, for when I looked at the clock it was twelve. I went down to the garden, and Mrs. Landon, from her window, bade me approach. She had been in prison, and on arriving at the tower courtyard, she had found the astonished and laughing gunners. “The Englishman has flown,” the storekeeper sergeant told her. “How? Has he escaped?” she asked him. “Yes. ” “Which way? ” “Well, no one knows. It’s a mystery.” The sergeant told her that in the morning, seeing the door locked from the inside, they had thought the Englishman must be ill and had knocked repeatedly, and when he made no reply, they broke the bolt and entered. In the prisoner’s room, a sheet on his bed was seen to be torn ; in the bell tower, a woman’s comb was found, and in the tower vestibule, a strong smell of turpentine was present. Some believed that the Englishman had escaped by magic. At that time, two captains were preparing a report to determine how the escape had been carried out. After telling me this, Mrs. Landon ordered my food, and in the afternoon I read. On the third day of captivity, Mrs. Landon came to visit me and told me that she had seen the deputy commissioner of police and had confessed to him that I was at her house. The deputy commissioner warned her not to show me on the street, but that I had no need to hide. That same day, Mrs. Landon indicated that she would take me that evening to a tailor’s house; I told her that I had no money at that moment, to which she replied that it didn’t matter. Since Mrs. Landon was so domineering, I had to give in and went with her by carriage to see the tailor, who had arrived from Gibraltar. This tailor was a Frenchman out of an English caricature: tall, thin, with shoulders higher than his head, a yellow, bunioned face, and thin legs. All he needed to be a Gillrray type was bare calves, a ponytail and papillotes, and a frog in his hand. The tailor praised his fabrics with large hems and showed us his ready-made suits. Mrs. Landon chose a bottle-green frock coat that, she said, suited me very well, two piqué waistcoats, and a pair of light-colored trousers. Afterward, we stopped at a milliner’s, where she bought me a top hat; then a shoemaker’s, and we returned with our purchases. “Now, Mr. Thompson, you are going to do the following: Tomorrow morning , before my maids have gotten up, you will go to the place where the coaches stop with a satchel in your hand; you will wait for one to come, and immediately take a carriage, give the address of my house, and present yourself here and knock on the door. You will call yourself my nephew.” I did as he told me, and the next day I knocked on the door, playing the part of a foreigner. The maid showed me into the room, and Mrs. Landon received me with a mixture of indifference and affection, as if I were truly an unwelcome relative. Chapter 60. DILEMMA. Over the next few days, I was introduced to friends as Mrs. Landon’s nephew, and she played her aunt so well that she accused me of being lazy and a vagabond, as if she knew me intimately. Although I had a good time, I was bored to tears; I had long conversations with Mercedes, whom I jokingly called my cousin. I told her
about my life without hiding anything from her, and she told me about her boyfriend, a young man from Seville who was in the army, for whom Mrs. Landon felt a great hatred. One day, Mrs. Landon called me into her study and said: “You talk a lot to my niece, Mercedes. ” “Yes.” “My niece, who, as you may have noticed, is quite a flirt, has a good income, and would suit you, since you are a penniless vagabond .” “It would certainly suit me,” I said; “but as I, though a vagabond, am not a scoundrel, nor even an ambitious one, I have no pretensions regarding her. No. I know my situation. ” “You don’t understand me,” said Mrs. Landon. “I don’t think it’s amiss if you address her. “But there’s a problem, madam. ” “What? ” “She has a boyfriend. ” “Yes; a miserable, puny, useless idiot. ” “But she loves him. ” “Well, think she doesn’t. Anyway, you know. If you can get Mercedes to forget that monkey, you’ll be the boss here; if not, you can leave this house as soon as possible. I give you eight days . I had a conference with Mercedes, and I told her what Señora Landon had explained to me. “She’s given me eight days to win her over. Since I don’t feel like a Don Juan, I’m going to leave. She told me not to leave; but since the dilemma was whether to leave or marry her, Merceditas opted for me to leave. ” “Do you have any money?” she said. “No.” “I only have two five-dollar coins, which I’m offering you. ” “No; I don’t want them.” “You’ll have to take them.” “Okay; I’ll take them.” “And when are you leaving?” “Tomorrow. I’ll take this book of William Bowles’s _Natural History_ from the library. ” “Yes, yes; you can take them all, if you like.” At dusk, I left the house and went to see the banker and representative of Bertrand de Lis, in case he had any news from England. When I entered prison, I had written to Will Tick telling him what was happening to me and asking him if he had anything to say to me to write to the banker in Seville. The banker told me that he had not written to him at all. He only knew that, on behalf of the Philhellenes in London, arms were being purchased in Algeciras, which would be taken on a ship that would pass through the Strait with volunteers, bound for Greece. I returned home, and at night I wrote a letter to Mrs. Landon thanking her for her kindness, and at dawn I dressed in my old frock coat and the clothes I had brought from Madrid; I opened the door, crossed Seville, and headed for Jimena. Chapter 61. ON A JOURNEY. I set out for Gibraltar via Utrera. It was early November, and beautiful weather for traveling. The hours of sunshine were oppressive, but not bothersome. I usually slept in the countryside; I bought bread in the villages, and fed myself with bread and fruit. The book by William Bowles, which I had taken from Mrs. Landon’s house, was very useful to me, and thanks to its directions, I was able to breakfast on the fruits of the strawberry tree (Arbustus unedo), the alfonsigo (Pistacia vera), and the carob tree (Seratonia silicua), which produces sugary pods. I also had to exploit, on bad occasions, the licorice (Glycyrrhiza gladia ) and the prickly pear (Opuntia vulgaris). I was having a hard time continuing on my way when, as I began to climb a mountain range between El Bosque and Ubrique, I met a villager who was riding with his daughter to Gibraltar; both of them on horseback. He was a man of fifty, very dark and very dry, with sideburns already graying. She was at most fifteen or sixteen, and she was beautiful, slim, and delicate, with black, blazing eyes, a round face, and red lips. The man and I talked for a long time; he told me he traveled frequently and smuggled goods. His name was Señor Juan; the girl’s, Milagros. I told them who I was and some of my adventures, and they both laughed a lot. “Come on, get on my horse,” he said to me, “it’s starting to make me sad to see you walking.” I got on the horse, and we continued talking and walking through dry, rugged thickets, occasionally interrupted by dusty bushes and mastic trees. On the barren, sun-scorched peaks, a few goats could be seen, and eagles soared in great curves through the air. “So what? Aren’t you afraid of bandits?” she asked me suddenly. “I’m not afraid of any bandits. What are they going to do to me, if I don’t have a penny? ” “Take your life. ” “Why? ” “Haven’t they offered you insurance against thieves there in Seville?” he asked me. “Not me. Is there such an insurance? ” “Yes, sir. All over Andalusia you have insurance against thieves. The owner who travels and doesn’t want to be robbed pays a sum to the society, and it gives him a safe-conduct pass and sometimes a small escort. ” “But doesn’t the Government do anything to put an end to this immorality? ” “Nothing. The Constitutional Government seems to have wanted to do something; but with the arrival of the French, all order has ended, and lost people wander the roads as if they were in their own house. ” While Señor Juan was speaking, his daughter examined me with a curious and ironic look. We were traveling along a bad, scorching, and dusty road, through the mountains, between tall oaks and carob trees. Before reaching Ubrique, we stopped at an inn along the way. “Will you spend the night here?” Señor Juan asked me. “Is this a good inn?” I asked him. “Very good.” “I only have a few pesetas left to get to Algeciras, and I don’t dare spend them. ” “Don’t worry. They won’t get you much here.” We got off at the inn, and the innkeeper, a rather disreputable fellow, took the three of us to the kitchen. We chatted, had dinner, and after dinner, there was a real swell of dancing with Milagros and other girls from the inn and some young muleteers. The muleteers seemed a bit shameless to me. Señor Juan introduced me to them. They were called Gavilán, Moreno, Uncle Malaspulgas, and Manquillo; they were all very elegant. I was shocked that they obeyed Señor Juan blindly, and he told me they were his servants. I had to dance and show off the skills I had learned in Seville at Alvarez de Acuña’s academy. “Hooray for English! There’s the little gypsy blood! What a heatwave!” they shouted at me. We joked around until midnight. Tired, and with the memory of Milagros still in my head, I lay down on a mattress and fell asleep. I woke up late in the morning. I went down to the kitchen and no one was there. I knocked, but no one answered. The door was closed. I entered a room near the kitchen and was shocked to see two blunderbusses and several packages in a corner. Perhaps this was a smugglers’ nest? I went out to the hall and was astonished and horrified to see a trail of blood on the floor. This trail stained the doorway and the kitchen, continued through a small yard, and ended in a corner where the earth had been disturbed. The thought that a man had just been buried there shocked me. Then I vaguely remembered that during the night I had heard noises and rumors of a struggle. Could this Mr. Juan, his daughter, and their servants be bandits? It seemed to me there was no room for doubt, and without further thought, I scaled the wall of the corral, jumped into the field, and set off at forced marches toward Ubrique. When I searched my pockets, I saw that they had stolen the little money I had, leaving me only a few copper coins. Chapter 62. A MADMAN. I PASSED Ubrique, a rather wretched town, where everyone was engaged in smuggling with the greatest impunity and in sewing leather pouches. I was shocked that contraband tobacco was being sold in plain sight , and I was told that the Spanish government didn’t dare send customs officers. The people of Ubrique were prepared to defend their prerogative of smuggling the blood in their veins. From Ubrique, I went deep into the Sierra de los Gazules and arrived at Jimena. I was entering this town by a narrow street when I saw myself followed by a tall, thin, dark man with deep-set eyes and a black beard stained with silver. Some new mishap awaited me. I stopped, ready to face the conflict. The man approached me and said in a gruff voice: “Are you a Goth?” I made a surprised gesture, which could have been affirmative or negative. The man must have thought I was saying yes, and taking a sheet of paper from his pocket, he exclaimed: “Here, read it.” I took the paper, which was a form, and began to read it. It was from a completely absurd anti-constitutional manifesto protesting the impieties of the time. The manifesto ended by saying: “Long live religion! Long live the Cid! Long live Castilian honor! Down with the vile Jew who lives in Gibraltar! ” Given at Jimena de la Frontera on the 15th of August, 1823. “I, the King. ”
After reading the paper, I smiled, understanding that the poor man was not right in the head, and I made a sign of assent, and the madman, seizing me by the arm, said: “Do you recognize me as sovereign? ” “Yes, sir. ” “Will you bring me the head of the traitor Riego? ” “Right away. ” “Do you know where that scoundrel is? ” “Yes; I would need a rope to tie him. ” “I’ll come with it now.” The madman ran away, and I ran into an inn. I asked for news of that unfortunate man, and was told that political matters had consumed his brains; there was also talk of the bandits who prowled the mountains; but I said nothing, nor did I indicate that I knew them. In the afternoon I left Jimena, and soon afterward I began to see the sea. The landscape changed; large piteras and huts with thatched and grass roofs could be seen. Facing the bay, I met a guard from the reservation, who showed me the way to Algeciras. Chapter 63. THE FLAKE. I arrived in Algeciras one November morning, tired and without a copper coin. Before entering the town, I approached Paredones beach, and seeing that no one was there, I undressed, left my clothes held in place with a stone, and went into the sea. The water was warm; I rubbed my body with bunches of dried seaweed and sand. The bath took away my itch to walk and made me very sleepy and very hungry. I would have liked to be like Buridan’s donkey, with a ration of food on one side and mattresses on the other, to demonstrate, by choosing, that I had free will. Since I wasn’t lucky, I couldn’t satisfy both my needs of eating and sleeping, and I opted for the one that cost me nothing, and I lay down beside a boat so that the sun wouldn’t shine on my head. I slept for several hours, and when I woke up, I found myself surrounded by a circle of boys and some men, all in rags, who were looking at me, talking and laughing. “This is a giant,” one said. “Wow! It’s an elephant! ” “Well, it has camel’s feet.” “It’s not a baby whale that’s escaped from its cage.” “Why would a baby whale come here, my friend?” “Perhaps you’d like to take lessons in fishing out the flakes.” “Gentlemen,” I said, sitting up, “I’m nothing like what you say; I’m an Englishman who’s yawning from hunger at this moment. ” “Ah! He’s an Englishman,” they all exclaimed. “Well, nothing,” said one. “If you’re so brave, pull the net with us and you’ll have your share. ” “I’ll pull even a cart for food.” Perhaps the man had made his offer ironically; but when he saw that I accepted his proposition, he was surprised. I found out what the net consisted of; I took off my coat, which I left in a hut on the beach, took a rope of esparto with a cork at the end, and began to pull the towline like the others. We had already had the nets close to the beach when an old man approached us. “You won’t catch more than two birds,” he told us. He pronounced it “páharos.” “So you burst, bird of ill omen,” I muttered. The net was hauled out, and a heap of large and small fish came up in the net, and several men immediately appeared to offer money for the fish. The auction ended, and fifty reales were raised, of which three went to me. Apparently, it was a good catch. The job over, I washed and put on my frock coat. “Where do you eat?” I said to one of the boys who was my companion in pulling the net. Each one pointed me to a different place, and I decided to go to an inn with someone they called “Cara e perro,” who inspired me with more confidence. I ate on the dock, in a tavern near where the Honey River flows into the sea , and fraternized with Cara e Perro, Currichi, Mojama, Chirri, Rondeño, and other distinguished individuals. I was thinking about the problem of going to bed when a man of about twenty-five appeared at the tavern, accompanied by an old man. The young man approached the table. “You, Chirri,” he said imperiously, “go to Nacional’s house and tell him to be ready by seven tomorrow. ” Chirri immediately got up and ran off. “Who is this gentleman?” I asked, pointing to the man with the mustache. “This is Paquito, our skipper,” they told me, “the owner of the net you had to pull this morning, and of the boats. ” “Isn’t he usually there? ” “No; He has two boats, a large one called the Lince, which he uses for smuggling, and a smaller one called the Consolación. At the same time, the owner of the boats and the old man who accompanied him were supposed to be talking about me. Paquito called one of the boys sitting at my table, who then approached me. “The skipper,” he said, “wants to talk to you.” I got up and went to his table. “Sit down,” Paquito told me, “and have whatever you want.” I sat down and ordered a cup of coffee. The skipper was a man in his thirties, thin, wiry, tanned by the sun and the sea air, with bright eyes and a black mustache. “Are you English?” he asked suddenly. “Yes, sir. ” “I’ve heard you’ve been pulling the codnet this afternoon. ” “That’s true. ” “Was it on a whim? ” “No. To earn a few cents to eat.” I’ve run out of money … –That’s fine. One can be more of a gentleman than the divine word and have hands calloused from work… Are you coming from Gibraltar? –No, I’m coming via France. –And, listen, have you come to Spain just for a walk? –No. And I immediately resorted to the Cox myth and developed it before the boss’s eyes. –Did you like Spain? –Very much. It’s a country I have great sympathy for. –Congratulations. You only need one thing to have me on your side. –And that is? –Being a liberal. –Well, I am. –You’re one of me. What’s your name, Mr. Englishman? –I am Thompson. –Well, Mr. Thompson, you have a friend here. –Thank you very much. –What do you need for the moment? –A place to eat and sleep until they send me money from my country. –You’ll come to my house. Come on, let’s go! We left the tavern, took a sloping street and came out to a beautiful square, and from there we continued along an avenue until we stopped at a small one-story house with only a large door and a single step. “Come in, Thompson,” Paquito told me, and I went in. Chapter 64. THE MASTER’S FAMILY. Paquito introduced me to his wife and mother and then ordered a room to be arranged for me. We talked about various things. Paquito, like all Spanish liberals, high and low, was concerned about politics and asked me about English parliamentary customs, these customs which are, it seems, a great honor for every Englishman, although, in truth, they have always left me somewhat indifferent. Then we talked about the possibility of the reaction, enthroned by the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis in Spain, continuing or not. Paquito was hoping for a revolutionary movement. This didn’t seem likely to me , and even less likely to happen, because most people had grown tired of the constitutionalists’ fruitless attempts. After our conversation, they led me to a small, whitewashed room they had made available to me. Despite his liberalism, Paquito was perfectly tyrannical in his home. He was demanding and grumpy; everything others did seemed detestable to him, and he only showed favoritism for their shortcomings. His mother was similar: an old woman who habitually quarreled and spoke with a rapidity I couldn’t understand. She was always complaining about the cold. Many times, when I was suffocating from the warmth of the room, I would hear her complaining that the doors weren’t locked: “Jesus! My God! It’s so cold today! They’re trying to kill me! I can’t stand this biting wind! Holy Christ of the Alameda, why hasn’t God taken me away from them, since I’m nothing but a nuisance to everyone?” This old woman went on, stringing together complaints and conjuring up all the saints in the calendar. Paquito’s wife looked like a little princess condemned to live among pirates. She had a resigned air, clear, naive eyes, and a very gentle nature. She was the daughter of a soldier who had fought in the Americas. She had been orphaned very young. Her name was Dolores. It seemed to me that at home they showed her no consideration and made her work too hard. The couple had a boy and a girl. The boy was a savage of six or seven, despotic and ill-mannered. I was often on the verge of angering him because he displayed such vicious intentions. The boy came to hate me. On the fourth or fifth day after arriving in Algeciras, I went to see the English consul, who gave me a job for a while. I told him I was in contact with the Philhellenes in London, and he informed me that a ship with soldiers was about to arrive for Greece. When I received the money from the consul, I spoke to Dolores, Paquito’s wife , to learn how much I would have to pay to stay at her house. We agreed, and I stayed there, in my small room, writing and painting. In the afternoons, I would often take a walk along the beach and also walk through the streets of the town, with its large white houses , with projecting balconies adorned with baroque ironwork, its grilles, gutters, and green-painted shutters. I also strolled through the Plaza Alta and along an avenue, whose intersections led to the bay, and from which one could see the sky and the sea. As this was a period of political turmoil, there was something happening every day. As the ministers of Ferdinand VII seized power, the repression increased. Arrests were made, and a constant stream of prisoners arrived, sent by the commander of Campo de Gibraltar, Don José O’Donnell, to the prisons in Africa. One day I saw a sad sight in the Plaza Alta. A constitutionalist, an old man of noble appearance, escaped from the rope; two royalist volunteers chased him, shouting: “That one! That one!” The people went after him, grabbed him, and beat him to the ground. The entire town displayed great royalist fervor; the tablet of the Constitution had been replaced by another with the sign: “Plaza del Rey,” with the city’s coat of arms and a crown. Paquito, who was considered an exalted liberal, rarely went out, and many, including me, advised him to go to Gibraltar and not come back except occasionally . This is what he did. I was very happy, not for Paquito’s safety, for which I didn’t care, but for talking freely with Dolores. The truth is, I was falling in love with her by the minute. She was such a nice, good woman! I couldn’t get enough of her. I know there’s a commandment, I don’t know which one, that says you shouldn’t covet your neighbor’s wife; but this has always seemed silly to me. I not only coveted my neighbor’s wife, but I would have taken her from him if I could have. When Dolores was alone with her mother-in-law and the children, I told her to get out, not to stay stuck in the house all the time. One Sunday we took a trip around the bay on the Lince, a large boat. The Chirri was in charge of the sails, and I was at the helm. The sky was blue, and the sea was almost as blue as the sky. In front of me, the Rock was visible, an ash-gray color, dark in places covered with forest, and stretched to the tip of Europe… Dolores told me about her childhood, of which she still had a memory. Confused by the comings and goings between schools in different cities, he told me a series of silly stories with real grace. I asked him a thousand questions and listened delightedly. The boat sailed smoothly; I saw the broken line of mountains formed by the last branches of the Sierra de los Gazules unfold before my eyes. In the distance appeared the Ronda mountain range, the mountains of Gaucín and Casares, and those of Estepona. Closer still were the Sierra Carbonera, with San Roque on a hill; El Campamento, on the seashore, and then La Línea on the sandy beach that connects the mainland to Gibraltar. “Let’s go,” said Dolores, “your mother will be waiting. ” “What’s your hurry to get back?” I asked her. “Yes, we have to make dinner. ” “Leave dinner; for one day we’ll have dinner later. The day is so beautiful! ” “Good,” she replied. We continued talking. We made our way to the exit of the bay. The Strait was full of ships sailing with their sails unfurled. We passed close to the lichen-covered walls of Isla Verde. Now we could see the other end of the great, almost circular bay, Punta Carnero, and in the distance, the coast of Africa, the whitish cliffs of the Sierra Bullones mountains, and the peak of Almina in Ceuta. Dolores and I continued talking for a long time, and as evening fell, I told Chirri to return. We passed in front of Isla Verde again. The sun was slowly retreating, climbing the houses of Algeciras, shining on the windows, rising to the roofs, abandoning them and illuminating the church bell tower with a reddish light. The mountain range seemed to draw closer, and as its folds faded, it took on the appearance of a wall rising behind the town. The houses stood out more clearly in the cold light of twilight. The sky was turning scarlet on the seaward side, and the sea was beginning to glow with pink. As we disembarked, approaching Algeciras, the windows of the houses were beginning to light up; the strumming of guitars could be heard in the taverns and a strong smell of cold oil could be felt. From the dock, we went to the Plaza Alta. As we passed by on our way home, we heard the retreat in a barracks. Two days later, I was in my room writing when Paquito appeared , with a serious, dramatic air. He warned me that he had to talk to me; I pretended to listen, and suddenly he told me that I was a scoundrel, an ingrate, and a scoundrel who was courting his wife. I denied it, and then he replied that the previous Sunday he had gone for a ride in the boat with Dolores and that he had told her she was very pretty and a lot of other things. “Who told you that? ” “My boyfriend and Chirri.” I remained silent and did not reply; he continued insulting me, and then insulting his wife. I could not bear this and jumped. Already furious, I told him that he was a fool and that his wife was worth millions of times more than he was; that I considered him vain and a fraud; that his liberalism was a lie, because it was nothing more than envy of those who could and were worth more than he was; and, finally, that I was ready to fight him with fists, knives, or gunshots, because I considered him one of the most despicable and ridiculous beings on earth. My indignation cooled Paquito, and without answering me, he left, leaving me alone and furious. Chapter 65. MAC CLAIR. After our quarrel, Paquito’s whole family moved to Gibraltar, and I was left in a neighboring house, in the deepest despair. I was still working for the consul when I received a letter from Will Tick announcing that a few days later an expedition of Philhellenes would be crossing the Strait, heading for Greece. Colonel Mac Clair would arrive in Algeciras before then, on his way to buy weapons and munitions. I would go out to meet him at the dock and recognize him as a tall, thin fellow, dressed in a black ulster jacket with white stripes, and that He was carrying a square bundle wrapped in waxed cloth in his right hand and an umbrella in his left. Sure enough, I recognized him. It was Mac Clair, a thin, dry man with a sickly air. He had curly red hair, short sideburns, a thick mustache, and blue glasses. Under his Ulster hat, he wore a chestnut-colored frock coat. I took Mac Clair home, and the next day we drove to Tarifa, where we collected several cases of rifles, hidden near the beach, and put them on a barge. Colonel Mac Clair then went to Gibraltar, where he bought a hundred Spanish and English rifles. The colonel told me he would notify me of the arrival of the packet boat from London with the Philhellenes. Sure enough, he did notify me two weeks later. In very bad weather, the two of us left in a felucca. We went to Tarifa, where we had our boxes of rifles, loaded them, and waited an entire afternoon and a whole night. The next day, the colonel recognized the brig _Fénix_, which we were waiting for. We approached the ship, which looked like a large black fish in the water, and boarded. As we passed in front of Algeciras, my eyes moistened with the memory of Dolores. I read these pages to Mrs. Hervés, from the lookout point of Ondara Castle , one summer afternoon. My adventure in Greece, perhaps because it is insignificant, I have not yet written. I don’t know if I ever will. Itzea Vera del Bidasoa.–October, 1916. We hope you have enjoyed The Adventurer’s Route, a work that blends travel writing with social criticism and introspection, so characteristic of Pío Baroja. This story not only takes us along physical paths, but also along the paths of the human soul, showing us how the desire for adventure can become a form of resilience and inner search. 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