I.
A SEREA
II.
A CRIADA
III
O FIDALGO
I.
THE MERMAID
"So what's new, Miz Delfina? Who's that guest of yours in the big room with the balcony?" asked the sergeant of the Civil Guard, setting down his glass of Ribeiro wine and wiping his standard big mustache with a white handkerchief folded in four.
"Well, I hardly know more than his name," responded the lady who ran the inn, a huge matron with three chins, a rounded belly, the soft hands of a stout tavern keeper who still had a youthful green glint in her eyes from her madcap youth and beneath her red scarf an attractive creaminess of nape and well-shaped ears. "But in my opinion, he comes from good stock. You must know him, surely. Don't you remember the Mirteira manor house, that immense mansion with five dark cypress trees and a beautiful chimney, way off in the mountain. above the Fervenzas waterfall? I've forgotten the name of the parish... You can see the manor house quite well from the curve in the road, after the bridge at Frouxán... It's been years since I've been there! When I was a girl, my aunt and I went there to buy pears from the orchard... Today I bet I could still find the medlar tree growing in the middle of some lovely myrtle hedges... Well, that fellow is from that category. They say he's from far away. He hardly speaks with anybody. Maybe it's a problem of the heart..."
"Yes, yes. I can see that. In that parish, San Breixo das Touzas, not so long ago there was quite a passel of thieves... I've eaten in the manor house before. There was a little old man, quite amusing... He'd go down to the wine cellar himself... There were also some ladies warming themselves by the fire. That young man is probably the old fellow's grandson... But it's folks who never come down to the village...
The sergeant took a cigarette out of the pocket of his jacket, thought a moment about how his gray pants sagged over his black elastic boots, matching the dull patent leather of his tricorn, then headed off down the street with the rather serious and picturesque swagger of someone who would soon be a lieutenant.
Delfina kept pouring the oily, dirty coffee liqueur from a round jug into some polyhedric bottles with labels saying anise. She appreciated having those moments in the house to herself, and felt more like a queen than ever, behind the blond oak counter, mended with tin, among the wine barrels, placed like mortars atop crossed feet, cigarette packs, notebooks, and matches, the utensils for measuring volumes of liquids, the shelves where a world of things classified according to an unconscious preference for the decorative: the packages of candles, a luxury of long village nights; the tins of spices with their bright colors; the tragic bottles of drunken nightmares and assassination by rum; the innocent anisettes with their frozen northern landscapes; the wizard of a coffee grinder; the pounds of chocolate sitting like books or bricks, the cheap soup pastas; the posters from the shipping companies; the attractive Skodas batteries; the big barrel of oil; the hoarse melody of the salt. But not only adjectives and epithets concerning eating, drinking, and burning were sold in the store along with the verb of wine and oil. In the window, as if in an aquarium, slept purple, complicated, delicate lobsters, in the style of Venetian paintings, and everything God had created in the sea, the coast or the mountains: good, uncured cheeses, hiking friends; partridges the color of the highlands; sunset on laps; salt pork like bellies; strings of sausages, rosaries of Pantagruelian devotion; skinned virginal lamb tasting like spring; pig heads with odd-looking snouts; ears waving from gluttony, strong, ugly, and unnerving like the monsters of the Portico of Glory in Compostela; hams strung up, trophy of winter campaigns, comfort for the eyes, memory of the wood-filled, smoky hearth. All the flavors of the fallow fields, all the flavors of the valley, of the sea and the beach coming one after another, according to the order of the Zodiac, in the window, king of the sloping street, paved and clattering. The house, large, comfortable, spread out, had a creaky staircase, big bedrooms with beams, with green windows, and the ones in the back area, with a roomy wooden balcony over the simple garden, and the mountain scenery, and a bit of calm sea with yellow sand, ringed by clumps of pines.
The new guest - Don Leonardo - arrived late on a drizzly autumn afternoon. He was soaked when he arrived, and his slender figure, supported by a cane, walked among the tables of drinkers in the tavern. In his room at last, Don Leonardo, lay on the bed without turning on a light. He amused himself with the way the spider-legged rain struggled to grab the last butterfly of the day, colorful and resting on the glass. Two kinds of thoughts battled inside him: landscapes and people with hope, the village identity, a dream for the future and the trust in ships, with visions of farmers' malice, the willful trickery of people and ideas. The casino, the court, the music stage, the well-off young men, wine, homemade brandy. Factors of equal strength that lulled him into a placid sense of balance. "Will my Galicia always be like this?" he thought. "Can I only find peace in narcissism and the ivory tower?"
There were books on the table, blank white writing paper, some letters with handwriting and stamps from a distant place. The hands of the evening weighed upon his shoulders, making him sink into an calm despair, and he had almost given up. He didn't want to admit he felt depressed, and to distract himself from this heavy feeling, he anxiously awaited the hour for supper despite being a reserved man.
Downstairs, the guests were having a glass of wine with friends from town. Little priests, fond of dissecting tins of food, dousing the small talk of notaries with wine; ironic young men, because they had understood it all, weakly, with no courage; commissioners humming bits of outmoded couplets of unscrupulous stupidity. Others, next door in the casino, fulfilled their duty of reading the dry, thorny newspapers of the province or, their fingers and lips stained by bitter cigarettes, played domino or cards. At night, all of the windows, tall or low, allowed the nightmare of winter to seep in. In the town at that hour there were only two things that were noble and pure: the roar of the ocean and an occasional sea chanty on the wharf, from the ghostly grove of the ships' masts.
The regular guests and the ones just passing through took their seats along the long table. The notary complained to the maid about having his napkin changed. He was well aware of the impression his wine-soaked lips gave. Two or three pensioners unashamedly commented on the legs of the girls seen strolling along the archways to the great satisfaction of the captain of the cavalry, he too being a man of the world, accustomed to a free life. A lass from the village who'd come with her father because of a legal case, ate with refined manners, picking up her bread with the napkin. There were other people, skinny from avarice, envy, power, business deals. Don Leonardo ate quickly, bothered by the feeling that there were watchful eyes on him, and he couldn't express what he wanted to say. Between spoonfuls of soup, he was thinking about the phrase that still hadn't come out when the quince jam made the rounds of the table and hands noisily gripped the nutcracker and then came the round of 60-cent cigars. "I am so unfortunate," thought Don Leonardo as he was returning to his room. But early in the morning he was shivering with emotion thinking about the day's discoveries.
Then came the barrage of San Francisco, the month of All Saints, winter. The wind combed the pine trees in the opposite direction; the puddles in the square held the dull reflection of a sad glare all day. Novenas. A big priest blustered in the church, illuminated, against short skirts. The buses arrived navigating the mud, with coughing engines and packages of newspapers, with a far-off rhythm of the world. In the casino, there was a noble from the mountain who insisted on losing every day. A curia scratched a processual script in a fog of ink, cold, bad faith, and a dirty , spit-covered floor. The Notary did not speak with the Registrar. The judge turned a cold shoulder to the local boss. A lad from town published a book in a distant press, and the gatherings in the casino stopped playing for a bit to flay him. At night the noise of merrymakers echoed: they changed the signs of the stores, went off with Delfina's liqueurs so they could get drunk, in a boat, in the dangerous sea. People didn't notice Don Leonardo: he went out of town every day and they got used to hearing him talk about swimming on a deserted beach. They deemed him crazy and were happy with that. He spent long hours looking out at the sea. In the fanciest soirée of the fine ladies who did not go to the movie theater, an old lord spoke of him:
"That young man has something on his mind and he'll tell it in time. I know a little about his tragedy. He, like I, loved the farmers and the sailors, the ancient legends, and a future for Galicia. I became soft because of this worthless life. He didn't. He will triumph, because he knows how to keep quiet, be scornful, and wait. The way I had of speaking bluntly and my liking for wine and laziness has been my downfall.
There was a period of bad storms scattered with shipwrecks and frantic, sobbing women on the wharf. Life's indifference wore people down. Until one day, early in the evening, a new, unsettling piece of news traveled through town from Delfina's inn to the salon of the ladies and the office of the rectorate.
Where had it come from? It was hard to say. There were few facts, odd ones, but without an easy explanation according to the pervasive logic of the town. Everything was based on what Delfina, the innkeeper's maid, had seen.
Don Leonardo had been absent for three days.. Had he perished at sea? Nobody gave him a thought. But at night, after supper, beneath the limping rain, he appeared carrying in his arms a long, strange package, dripping, shiny like an animal from the sea in the dim light of the tavern. His head was bare, his hair was plastered to his head by the salty water, his eyes were bright, his voice was different, his physical strength different as well. He shut himself in his room and ordered coffee and rum, going down himself to get it from the counter. The maid was astonished. At that hour no cars or ships ever arrived. Don Leonardo, the madman who already had a reputation among the local fishermen, had brought that thing from the beach. And from the discussion between Delfina and the maid the conviction arose: Don Leonardo had brought the mermaid of the sea to the inn. They had planned the tryst, for sure. Some sailors had heard her singing on the dangerous green rocks and felt afraid. The story, despite the customary laughter of the casino, spread through town. From distant times of navigating by sailboat by heroic officers, brash nobles and followers of the Carlist priests, there had been a great need for something marvelous in the small dull-witted population. Common sense and culture in general had been lost. Moreover, that explained Don Leonardo's character. He had conquered the love of a beautiful, cruel mermaid, only defeated by the quiet young man’s worship of her. He must have told her marvelous things in the grottoes of the rocks, amid the weaving and unraveling of the white veils of beaten foam. He hadn't been afraid of the treacherous waters, nor the shine of the green eyes in the abyss, nor even the deceptive play of the drizzly hair like a bundle of sargasso, the rapid curving of the wave. A star shimmering in the mist showed him his beloved's underwater manor with fingers of light. The plovers celebrate the nuptials flying on a ragged cloud and the black crows, assembled on the sand bar, told how a pale man had stolen the terrible deity so he could marry her and they would go together to live in the manor house on the mountain.
The head of the cavalry suspected contraband, the sergeant from the Civil Guard a crime, the casino suspected nothing, the abbot, a learned man, wracked his brains trying to recall things about the Holy Fathers, legends of noble lines, pages written by Father Feijóo. Who knows! And what rite was required to baptize her? Because Don Leonardo, who is from a good line, cannot marry an almost diabolical being. And for a whole day, a fever of mystery and an ancient moral fire made the town's moral temperature rise and an anxious interest girded the balcony of Delfina's inn. All the guests dreamed of or thought from their beds about going in a black ship and without a guide, carried by an invisible wind toward an archipelago of islands that, like the heads of monsters, arose from the tempestuous waters, or towards a Maelstrom, a circular, thundering abyss of moaning caused by death and shipwrecks. More or less all of them had something of the sea, despite looking down on it because of their rude village way of thinking. And now, with the presence of the mermaid, their sleep was broken by the song of beautiful and cruel daughters of the salted wave. A sweet song to listen to, not realizing it beckoned to a voyage with no return except in the tragic pounding of the waves, spitting out scarecrow-like cadavers of those who had drowned onto the beach... From the old women came forgotten bits of stories heard from grandmothers and captains from the long period of scurvy, dead calm, and the octopuses that blocked the straits and gripped the ships. The notary, a bit of a poet, who had won awards as a youth, felt a dripping of a boat song in his nightmare. The priests prayed that the hand of God, tearing the clouds apart, would calm the waters. No need to talk about the town - about Delfina, the maids, the sailors, the officers, the cavalry, the farmworkers. Everyone knew, their enjoyment mixed with fear, how the mermaid came to be there, in a room in the inn, captured in the nets of love, embraced by arms of sea foam, encircling the tempting body, wrapping in cool, fragrant hair, her eyes with the light of the deepest sea and flapping her silver tail, sensual and playful, at a man who knew how to love her and take her from her palatial home of coral and jewels from the caverns of the seabed. The townspeople understood the marvelous situation and the satisfaction of seeing a belief of theirs become reality. And the whole town, grayish, indifferent and with a servant mentality, enjoyed some marvelous mythological hours, the kind experienced but once in many centuries, as if the world had been made anew and the sea, the stones, and the birds could speak. There were different stars in the sky and along the beaches by the sea - a great yet simple and terrible old man - sobbed with the pain of seeing that he had lost his harmonious, his lovely queen.
"The little mermaid doesn't speak: murmured the women in the doorways, because her lips are drowned by kissing."
But when the morning light appeared, with it came common sense, the serious uncle dressed in black and cuts short the hopeful dreams of children, the dried-up master of simple hope, the professor of the official text, the uncle Bill of the markdowns, the ledger of emotions. And general culture also sniffed solemnly at this reasoning: there is no mermaid in the books of the Darwinist Odón de Buen, thereby, the mermaid isn't classified because it doesn't exist. They all returned to their professions, in order to pay the tribute to the government as usual. Only the fisherfolk had eyes for the night and mystery. Delfina was already thinking about how to charge an entry fee to people who wanted to view the contralto of the sea. When they did, they'd also spend money, because with novelty, purse strings loosen and a lot of bottles of potions of uncertain ingredients could be sold.
Like it was reported in the morning, there was a lot of activity in other areas; the mayor comforted by the telegraph operator, who didn't want to send a telegram telling the Civil Government the news, called the town leaders together. The priest, the doctors, the apothecary, the teacher gave rather muddled spoken testimonies, and the apothecary's - he was a man suspected of witchcraft - leaving room for all sorts of interpretations. The result of the meeting was the advancement of the sergeant of the Civil Guard, the Cavalry and the head of the local police, in formal dress and marching in military fashion to Delfina's inn: the mermaid isn’t subject to the law even under order by the commander of the Navy. In a certain sense, it’s a matter for the men of the sea and she has the right to fall in love at any time. But the three of them, with the order of the mayor and the judge's authorization, outranking Delfina's resistance, entered the inn and, a bit pale, knocked on Don Leonardo's door. Outside, the great commotion of the people continued, all work stopped, beneath the stubborn winter rain.
The wait was brief. Making their way through the crowd the three uniformed men strode out and the thunder of a thousand voices greeted the appearance of Don Leonardo and the mermaid holding on to his arm: her hair, blond and shiny, was coiled in a knot on her snowy neck and formed a long ogival portico along the center part, her forehead, the sweet shape of her face where the gentle green light of huge, calm, deep eyes was shining. A raincoat that seemed like it was made of ocean kelp, covered and outlined a slender body and a gloved hand rested on a light-colored cane with an ivory handle. The shouting turned into enthusiastic applause that already reached the square with its arches before the two arrived at the consistory. A thousand astonished eyes searched for her tail but found only the serious, firm step of feet wearing sturdy shoes. Indifferent to the rain, she walked along with her expression distant. The clapping didn't stop when the two of them appeared on the balcony of the Town Hall. Don Leonardo made a great sign with his hand requesting silence and spoke:
"Neighbors! I don't know if this woman I'm presenting to you is the mermaid of the sea. I spoke to her in a far-off land, beyond the Arctic circle where the waters carry sparkling icebergs and the sun shines along the horizon at midnight in the summer. When I spoke to her and sought her out I was thinking about this poor land of Galicia. I wanted to save it from its moral misery, but I didn't have enough strength for it. I needed the help of a spirit or mermaid from the cold north, from the hard north, forever new and purifying. She listened to my pleas and came to me. We are husband and wife. We will live in the manor at Mirteira, not to loll about in the useless manner of young masters, but to fight for the happiness of the mountain and the coast. Between the two of us we will give you a new way of life. We will guide and advise the farmer and the sailor, we will devote ourselves to freeing the village from the bad habits it has, repulsive and evil. Maybe you don't understand now what I'm trying to tell you. With time and our example you will understand. The sun must also shine on our land at midnight!
"Long live the Mermaid! Long live the Mermaid!" clamored the people without stopping.
The truth is that from that night on the ways of the village changed a great deal. The lords of Mirteira come down and teach new "sports," they create and direct schools, they bring in speakers, advise them regarding other sorts of housing, leave their mark on sailors and the industries of land and sea. For the seafolk she continues to be the mermaid, and a group of lads with hope for the future already plan to present the lord of Mirteira as a candidate.
II.
THE SERVANT
After many arguments, upset feelings, quarrels, sobbing, reasons, and examples, Balbina got permission from her parents to go down into town to work. When you think about it, the girl made sense. The house was among the better off in the area. It had an upper and a lower floor, was well furnished with corrals and stables, an open space with sheds (there was one where where the empty cart pulled by its beam pole turned around), two plots for turnips and vegetables, a bit of land inherited where almost every year, except for the driest ones, there was an abundance of fruit, vines with bunches of grapes that drank in the sun, and finally, hills with good pastures for the livestock and some oak and chestnut trees in the festivities area. There was only a dearth of grass and an excess of rent. The rich clumps of earth and irrigation trenches in the turnip patches were well-employed, making for good sustenance, but it was a small space and in the winter with the ground burned off by the long-lasting frosts on the shady turnip patches, it was a struggle to produce a little food. Sometimes, when the straw was used up and more dry straw had been purchased from the heir, they even turned to the corn husks from the mattresses to feed the cows and suckling pigs during long nights. As for the girl, she could have behaved better with her parents, but that longing she felt when she saw the new finery that Xuliana da Encroba, the two granddaughters of the sexton, and Maripepa da Costa wore to the celebrations as well as the savings some sent home, made Balbina's desire sound reasonable and she won her parents over.
So one morning she went down to the road with her mother. She wept when saying farewell to the two sheep, and the old dog, sad because he didn't like the smell that early morning had, went with mother and daughter to where the coast began. It wasn't good for the light of the home to go by herself. "It's for the best, considering what she earns with us! Working in the garden all day and she still can't ever get new clothes. Her brothers are already established as potters and even though the older one were to go off to serve the king, the younger one is already as big as he is." They went down slowly, both very clean and neat, each carrying a basket of eggs to make a simple little meal. Above them the sun behind the mist over the young rye. But the shore was lined with fog. The day hadn't begun yet when, putting one foot in front of the other, they entered the streets of the capital. Balbina had only been there a few times. She marveled at the high prices that were listed in the shop windows and at the good-looking lads dressed as officers who sent her playful, come-hither glances as they went by. Now at the entry to the city, they gave the food to a vender, sly and brash as a roe deer. Then they went to look for Mrs. María a Prisca. She was from their parish and had a little shop or stand huddled beneath the proud archway of a house of some rich folk on the square. She was old, high, battered, flat-chested, her tiny black eyes were piercing and implacable, her skin the indifferent color of old unmarried servants, dry and worn out, that the priests and well-off ladies had. Because her feet hurt her a lot she had them encased in big square slippers with side stitching. The religious, rich spinster woman she'd served for so long had given her that stand and every day would take her a cup of broth and something to nibble on. Part doorkeeper and part vender of needles, threads, pin cushions, thimbles, knives, scissors, boxes of scented soap and other humble luxury items for maids and servant girls who tended to imitate the seamstresses, Mrs. María Prisca was most of all the center for information of all the houses in the city regarding the situation of masters and servants, the advisor, guide and sybil of all the servant girls, the repository of all their gossip, the office for employment offers and information as well as a sort of ambassador and messenger for her neighbors in the city, which is not to say she had a whit of the Celestina about her, at least according to the information that was gathered to write this true story. She knew the personality of all the ladies, the oddities of all the bachelors with no woman in the house, what food was prepared in all the wood and coal ovens, the interior decor of every house, where the man was boss and where the woman, the despotic nature of the wet-nurses, the preferences of old servants that some houses still had, the contents of every basket that returned from the market, the evolutionary cycle of all the servants according to how they ended up: as old servants, maids, hotel maids, ladies of the night, married to widower gentlemen or aged bachelors, not to mention the ones who disappear again into the village or those who leave for America.
She gave advice to seamstresses, couples in love, and confessors according to the preferences of her clients who were all the maids except for some modern feather-headed gal or a wise cook with good technique and skills. As her first advice, María Prisca gave mother and daughter the familiar classical sermon on the poor state of the profession, the ladies' demands, the growing number of houses with floors to be waxed, not forgetting, since she was a good Christian, the dangers of going too far in the case of couples in love, the masters, the matchmakers, the dances, the cinema, and the shadows of the town arbors. Then, turning to the matter at hand, she reached into the vast files of her memory and presented the psychology, the logic, the ethics, and the economics of three house that were without service. There were children in one, in another there was a passel of them and they were always running around everywhere, in the third there were only two and Balbina would do well caring for them and at the same time, with the lady - who was quite a good homemaker - she could learn the servant trade in a few months, would be able to do general tasks while gradually specializing as cook or serving maid and if she was cut out for that sort of work.
And Balbina ended up there, dressed in a cherry-colored blouse, stiff shoes that hurt her feet and a little apron the lady gave her. The first afternoon she got lost with the little boy, carrying him or holding his hand while walking along the streets of the town, dead on her feet because it was supper time. After she'd been questioned by the old servant who'd gobbled up the best portions left by the masters on the serving dishes and hadn't left a drop in the wine glass she brought from the table, the girl lay down on a cot in a tiny room beside the pantry, which gave off the smell of rotting potatoes and where mice scrambled about all night. Balbina was pretty, slight, nicely shaped, had curly blond hair, her skin was fair as flax on the parts that weren't burned by the sun and that were as soft and sweet as early fruit. Maybe she dreamed and cried about the sunset in her village, when she would return from the spring with her friends, crossing over the slippery stepping stones of the stream and in the shade of the walnut trees where birds always sang in pairs, and a serious, slender lad waited for her who talked with her about going to America together. Perhaps she she felt a longing for the big warm fire on the hearth of the large kitchen and the pleasure of feeling the night's damp wings on her face when she went out with an oil lamp to give the cows a handful of clover she'd gathered, feeling free and singing, from the cool, fresh earth of the turnip patch. She awoke two or three times with a nightmare made worse by the noise of drunks and cars that went along the street, and only when it had gotten very late did her eyes dry and she slept like a rock.
Months and years went by. Balbina, ascending from child care to official maid served in many houses and only returned to her parish on its saint's day festivities. She looked like a young lady. She kept her distance from the village lads and in the city she refused to accept soldiers or artisans, shaking them off like one shakes a rug from the balcony. She earned a degree in the grandeur and drawbacks of the trade. In the morning, the happiness of the market, the shop, the general stores, with the neat little basket hanging from her arm, quick-witted, happy conversations with her friends, strolls and social gatherings, discussing houses and their masters, engagements and the lyrical youths who dispatched oil and rice with the rhythm of poets who'd won awards in floral games, when the strong, blond beauty of a slender lass or the catlike grace of a lovely maiden makes the wealth of dull gold of the Toledo scales made from sterling silver. Now a fully grown woman, her golden, lithe body at the peak of its development, the warm light of summer in her smiling eyes, Balbina achieved her doctorate when she went to serve in the house with the arched façade. It cast a shadow over more than half a dozen prosecutors, shopkeepers, and small land owners on the narrow street, paved with well-worn stones, only dry in the middle of August, along which clerics with a farmer's build bound in Theology went by like the clockwork figures of antique clocks, and where the cavernous laughter afraid of its own sound of the mad neighbor echoed long and uneasily. In the house there was a salon as lovely as a minuet and as dusty with time as a Louis XV wig, with immense, cherry-colored choir stalls made of carved wood, with yellow tapestry, the large chairs facing one another like they were in the last conversation of the doctoral and the collegiate noble of Fonseca with the time in the eighteenth century marked by the baroque clock made of bronze supported by the twisting mermaid tails. There were bookshelves arranged in different spots like in the ancient theaters: the theologians and jurors in the high boxes, Madame de Sevigné in the orchestra seats, the respected scientists (Buffón was the youngest) in the amphitheater and up above, in paradise, a few Romantic novelists. This was presided over by a doctoral thesis, in Latin, published with silken covers, on the Christian premonition in Plato and Vergil, and beneath it in another small notebook a letter from the author that ended with these lines: "Because sweet Vergil was the swan that accompanied my youth." The rooms, a bit rustic due to their lack of furnishings, were in the back area and looked out on a garden of manor house rosebushes, the usual cypress, and four pyramid-shaped araucaria trees smartly adorning the round pond, at the bottom of which were delicate green specks of Venetian crystal. A hedge of pedagogical old myrtle hid the vulgarity of the four garden plots and the washing tank. It had been some time since the lady of the house went out anywhere except to morning mass and to visit the cemetery; she wasn't familiar with the new streets of the town and referred to them by their old names -- Figueiral, Inquisición, Arco da Pedra --the nicknames given them since the revolution using the surnames of the heroes of liberalism and the mayors elected by the people. She was the Sybil of the compotes, The Parca of the illustrious families, the Prophetess of the End of the World, the Porphyrigenitus of past elegance. The only thing she had in the world, besides the parrots woven in portraits by her mother when she heard about the exile of Carlos X and a cat she had, descendant in direct line of the little gray kitten from Umbría who when its master Pope León XII, fled and circled the cupola of Saint Peter three times, was a grandson, master Paulos, eighteen years of age, with large eyes the color of pansies grown in the shade, son of a daughter who had died far away, in the colonies, and of whom it was forbidden to speak in the house because she had run off to marry an officer of the infantry when according to her lineage the worst marriages were at least with Dragoons of Santiago. By order of the grandparents, when the officer died of the vomit, soon after his wife, the boy was taken by a servant of the house, Mr. Ambrosio, who had brought him from Cuba feeding him with a bottle. He was now doorman and butler of the house, running it with a hoarse voice from a sort of confessional cubicle by the great dark noble entrance where the poor dared not enter because to them it looked the door to the asylum. Balbina entered as both servant and cook. Not a lot of work. Mr. Ambrosio only ate porridge because of his teeth, the lady only sweets that she made herself, along with some chocolates, and the master, noodle soup, Scott's Emulsion (cod liver oil) and wine with quinine. Still, to keep up appearances in the house, the servant hung a proud basket with high sides on her arm and had two pesos for shopping that she used to buy things for herself and to send send things to her mother's house with the women who sold vegetables. She sent so much that in the village people thought she must be working for a priest, because she didn't return to the festivals and became quite fond of good things: at night she dreamed about the basket and how the next day she'd spend the pesos on ham, chocolates, potted chicken and good beef, exquisite items that the fast tongues with bourgeois taste couldn't even imagine.
Master Paulos thought Chateaubriand was the most modern author and that the voyages of Captain Cook were the last geographic discoveries. Always sickly, he never went out in the sun and had no friends. With a priest he'd studied a bit of Nebrija, and his grandmother considered sending him to study Jurisprudence, since his narrow chest and his fear one night when he caught sight of the candles in the window of a neighbor who had died, showed he wasn't cut out for the noble profession of the military. But in the Institute, the revolutionary Law of Moyano had established a number of chairs in Chemistry, Natural History, and other sciences that the lady of the house thought were equivalent to Alchemy and Witchcraft and she never got around to taking him to the entry exam.
The boy suffered from melancholy. He didn't realize it. When autumn dimmed the rosebushes, he thought of moaning forests and gurgling streams on hilltops. At times, a springlike breeze made him think of golden fields of grain and once, from the mansard of the house, he cried while contemplating the beauty of a little villa in the sunlight, with its bell-tower and the smoke arising along the mountain tops. He thought all the shepherdesses were innocent, that the farmworkers cried with emotion when the sun set and that there were wolves and bandits, ferocious pagans on the hilltops and wise old men giving beautiful apologues. His melancholy needed a reason to burst free.
Balbina had a sunny, fragrant April afternoon to do the washing in the tank. The swallows flew in fantastic gyres around the Cathedral's tower. They created such a happy scene that it made one weep. Paulos, hearing the slapping of the clothing in the tank, looked toward the myrtle. Balbina, whose blouse was open at the top and her arms were naked, strong, white and shapely, had wrapped her hair in a coastal style kerchief that went around her head. With her eyes twinkling and her face reddened like a sweet, juicy peach, she was singing:
Paulos had only been near one farmer: an ugly, angry farmer with a worm-eaten head, bowed legs and hands like claws scratching some accounts on a piece of paper. Now the rural Muse was before him in the figure of Balbina and the soap bubbles floated up in search of the glowing nape of her neck and the golden locks that were escaping at will from beneath the headscarf. Paulos feared that his grandmother would hear that scandalous song. There was nothing to fear, because that day she was adding syrup to the moulds of walnut pudding. And without hesitating, with the simplicity of a bird that escapes its cage feasts on the first fruit of the orchard, he hugged Balbina, devouring her arms and cheeks with hungry kisses.
She didn't resist, nor did it seem strange to her. In the lad's eyes there glowed a passion so youthful that they became lovers like the shepherds of olden times.
III.
THE NOBLE
One morning there was a big ruckus in the silent, parsimonious street, residence of stingy people with strait-laced habits. It was a spring morning. The swallows were tracing mad, twitter-filled circles full of chirping in the warm air above the rooftops; they were the only ones who could enjoy the joy of the sun's joyfulness, which was, never seen by the shoemaker by the doorway, nor by the stones of the pavement. The large figure of a stiff old man appeared on the balcony of the top floor, his clumsy-looking rifle aimed at the sky, and bang, bang!! the loud, echoing, angry shots like the ones heard in the hills rang out, causing the poor, dirty windowpanes of the apartments, the paralytic fellow in his chair, the ladies of the gentile classes, the employees who prepared chocolate, the old woman and her knitting, the little girl reading novels, the bourgeois cats and retired servants who go to mass and survive on a pension left to them by long-dead masters, to shudder. Fear, puzzlement, murmurings, tall tales. For most, a verdict of ill conduct and a great agitation among the residents when the noble stood facing the sun in his lofty gallery.
We're going to recount the story of that man in brief vignettes, told in accordance with trustworthy sources. The logic of the story, and it's the only one that's known, will justify his tragic ending, coinciding with the end of the nineteenth century. No judgment or criticism is intended, no interpretation or explanation. Two notes must be considered beforehand, however: he had only been taken ill once; he never gave any explanation for it. And nobody doubts that he was a great master.
1835. Scene: a large wine cellar in Ribeiro. Barrels that were already were a hundred years old when the Napoleonic invasion took place. Friars collected fees for land rental. The big autumn sun arrives to pay homage at the gate to the strong, new wine imprisoned in the deformed bellies. A noble with a white beard and twinkling eyes holds a child who is no longer a baby on his lap. Foremen, day workers, a chaplain from the house form a respectful circle around him. The noble had studied in Fonseca and had been prone to questioning; he spent a lot of time reading the classics, was drawn to the stories of his class. Even so, he had never wanted to be ordained. Domine, non sum dignus, Lord I am not worthy. Primogeniture maintained a cloistered existence in the winter manor house, the summer manor house, the autumn manor house, the spring manor house. Seven sites were joined, and there were seven curates. A manor house on New Street. The Clarissa Sisters. Captain of the people in a valley during Independence. Strong backbone - because of lineage and studies - not a courtier of King Fernando, not for love of the benches of his seven kitchens and calm strolling through the echoing halls, not a coronel in the Andean war. Married late, when relatives were sharpening their teeth for a fat inheritance, he spoiled his son with an old man's love. With his son in his arms, he was only afraid of one thing: illness or revolution. For illnesses he had the prescriptions of the friar of Saint Francis, for the Revolution he'd arm a troop of loyal mountaineers. The ones from Bocelo, the ones from Friol. Not begun like the core of an oak tree. Now he's watching the decanting of the wine. A fragrant golden fountain spurts from the largest barrel: agile hands carry off the pots and the pots are emptying into the toothless mouths of other volumes. The murmuring of two rivers along the roads fills the wine cellar and the afternoon.
The boy, for once, is still. The father is pleased with the boy's attention. The boy is entertained watching the strong stream flowing from the large spigot. A game. A draining away that excites the child's restlessness. Then the spout starts to slow down, it no longer has that strong flame-colored arc; now it slows down and and weakens. It quickly stops. Then the boy bursts into tears. He wants to watch that lovely fleeting thing forever. If he were grown, he'd catch it in his hands like a slippery snake. His father shivers, is uncertain, then notices and orders:
"Open all the spouts." Frightened, the men, fearing divine punishment, aren't sure if they should obey: there are no other barrels available. Angry, the master orders them to do it. They all know the force of the mater's terrible voice. With trembling hands, surreptitiously crossing themselves - they aren't responsible - they open the barrels, The noble's loud declaration echoes inside the wine cellar:
"Let my son, my heir, the scion of my line enjoy himself."
And so the barrels flow, the ones with white wine, the ones with red wine, the ones from Encosta, from Bacelar, from Teixugueira, just as the fountains of Versailles flowed during the Great Century. A roar of diluvium in the wine cellar, an ancient harvest running along the sandy floor, forming a flooded lake offered up to the unconscious cruelty of a baby Nero. The wine resembles blood bathed in the sun's amazement, inebriates the atmosphere of the wine cellar, the men, the chaplain; pants are rolled up, the wine stains their legs. Partridge legs. The little boy laughs, shouts, claps his hands with glee. Weary, he falls asleep in his father's arms when the loud whisper of the empty bottles fills the wine cellar with the sense of fatality. With the arrival of the evening and great regret the men head to the kitchen and walk toward their homes, saying:
"What a grand gentleman Don What's-His-Name is..."
The exclamation in the voice of the people and the envy of the noble class spreads throughout the region:
"What a grand gentleman, what a grand gentleman..."
1845. The wintry air comes down the chimney making the coals hiss and spark in the fire. The chaplain warms his hands, paces uneasily, at times goes to the bedroom door. Surrounded by cousins and siblings, the noble is fighting death in the great bed. The white of his beard blends with the white sheets. His eyes are focused on the crucifix, but at times also reveal impatience and pain. What they all feel. The chaplain, an exclaustrated friar - goes up to warm himself by the hearth and to look through the windows, The cold morning is born, painfully, over a landscape of white mountaintops. Many people went out to look for it. And they see the day, they see death, and Don Xohán, he is the only one they don't see.
Everything is prepared in the chambers of the law office: the papers, the titles, the will. The Master with a large contingent of faithful followers made a solemn visit to the manor house. There were lace tablecloths on all the tables, gilded altars, and bouquets of flowers, a miracle in the middle of winter in the mountains. In the kitchen the farmhands don't dare to speak. The noble gave no sign of movement or effort, but when the Master arrived, he jumped out of bed, despite being so weak, and took communion on his knees, his arms crossed like a Christian king. But his son hadn't arrived. The final bitter chalice for the dying noble. Around mid-morning, the soft steps of death as they left the bedroom crossed the hall, having completed their task. A sinister old woman there saw it, saw Death striding through the sunroom in order to go down to the garden and continue the work of wielding the scythe.
The priests of three bishoprics and the nobles of seven jurisdictions, have been summoned, and the poor will come from twenty parishes. The rosary fills the manor like an obsequious tide. At nightfall the great candles are lit. Because the doors are not shut, nobody notices the arrival of the young noble. The chaplain starts to scold him, but falls silent when he sees the haughty figure of the young man. He's wearing high boots, a rustic overcoat, and is accompanied by a pack of dogs howling in a bloodcurdling chorus. The noble cracks his whip at the dogs, orders his horse to be led to the stable and, with the gesture of a great noble, bares his head, kneeling to kiss the small lands of the dead man. The chaplain remembers the date: It was a holiday in Monteseixo and, looking at the noble, he says "Facies pecaminosa". Guilty expression. He keeps vigil all night long, silent, straight-backed. Around eleven o'clock seventy priests sing the burial hymn, an entire village stirs on the patios, the beasts do not fit in the stables, and the nobility doesn't fit in the halls. Don Xohán accepts the condolences with a sad, tranquil dignity. People's faces look assured, since Don Xohán will do well by his lineage...
The sunset, urged on by the evening, disappeared quickly, when there were still people seated at the tables. Mules and horses of priests and nobles go back up the paths along the mountain. Their tongues as they leave are once more merry and wild. One crosses plains full of wolves before coming to rest by the fire of the manor houses. The evening is like a rosary of the poor strung along the shortcuts in the highland. Everyone, without clearing away the tables, goes to bed early in the manor.
Yet the noble does not sleep. Nor does he think. He cries briefly, pondering, not his father's hand but the hand of the friend that rested affectionately on his shoulder. Then he hears a noise coming from the room where his father died. He gets up and looks from the darkness of the doorway. Candle ends are still burning. A girl, a good family servant, daughter of tenants, her arms bare, a bit frightened, removes the bedclothes, puts the room in order. is cleaning the room. The noble enters like a falcon going after its prey. Caught off guard, not understanding the sacrilege, she doesn't dare resist. Don Xohán, without heeding the prayers filling the room nor looking at the frightened eyes of the girl, embraces her and kisses her with feudal gluttony, atop the bed which still has the shape of a body.
1855. In the fancy dining room of Rúa Nova, some women wait impatiently. The chorus of elderly women awaits as well. But Don Xohán doesn't appear. Only young ladies whom he knows come through the door. The usual ones. In the other soiree, the rustic elegance of Don Xohán had planted flowers of hope in their lives. Until morning Don Xohán places coin after coin on the game table. Bourbon gold, from the period of the Indies, constitutional gold, oddly minted gold. Two centuries of Spanish history can be read in the round pieces of gold. Their gleam makes profiles grow sharper, makes hands grow pale, causes cheeks to become hollow, sharpens the fire in eyes. Only Don Xohán remains impassive, serene, happy as a hunter in the mountains. He has finished off many pitchers of wine because he dislikes the fine liqueurs and drinks of the city. The parasites' interest grows. Don Xohán, with a superior air of which he is unaware, keeps tossing on the table coins as big as suns, fields of rye, pairs of oxen, showy adornments, the astonishment of farmworkers, seeded lands, a vegetable garden, trunks of old oaks whose lovely rings, like an archive, register the gentle, certain passing of the seasons, barrels of wine, the privileges of a noble line. Suddenly a strong, brave man from Sar rests his claw on the heap of coins and points a threatening pistol at the chests of the players. The blood in their bodies runs cold. The man is linked to past deaths, he's as sure in his aim as a gypsy knife, his story is told by the signs of the blind. He looked down on the noble, respecting only men of his profession. Don Xohán deftly grabs him by the neck, pushes the pistol aside and the ridiculous shot is buried in a ceiling beam. Immediately afterward, half a dozen of the usual slaps. The brave fellow is on the floor and his eyes plead for mercy. Many think they should summon the forces of law and order. It's the only chance to have him arrested! There's shouting:
"To jail with him, let him hang."
Don Xohán's arm makes a great protective sweep:
"Let nobody touch a hair on the head of this beaten man, he's under my power."
Then he says to him:
"Come, you shall be my servant. Good wages and diversion. But you must be honorable and make sure you don't steal a coin from me nor carry a knife. Otherwise, you know full well who Don Xohán is."
The noble has a reputation in Santiago. He lives with students. During the day, very slicked back, he strolls along the arches, offers his arm to old spinsters knowledgeable in terms of elegance, climbing the steps of the Praterías. His table is abundant, his wine cellar open, his pockets are for spending. Teams of mules bring him skins full of the best wines of Avia along the shortcuts through the highland. In the lower level of the house gatherings and musical sessions are organized, card games and ways of cheating the everyday commerce of the city. He just as easily removes the cloak of an old priest returning from the novena or turns to Van Spen in the arches, as he sits at the table of the titles and works out the branches of family trees. In the living quarters of the house there are reserved rooms; stretching out in them like a reddish brown cobra beside the warm hearth, on luxurious carpets and furs is the creole woman from the Antilles, lazy and sensual, angry at having to wait but mollified by Don Xohán with a kiss. He had stolen her from her father, an old slave trader in Cuba. The creole has many caprices; when she's driven by jealousy to break a window pane, the next day there's another in its place, even more beautiful. There are servants who go into town for her to get the most expensive items and they bring flowers and delicious fruits from Portugal in the blink of an eye. One day her father will send him the bill. Don Xohán will pay it if he doesn't split the father's head open with a bullet. That's how he is, and nobody disputes it.
1865. Fear of the chorus of parasites and the buffoon, the old curial of the town that is the drunkenness of the majority - there's no wine that gets Don Xohán drunk - is a parody of all the eminences of Santiago, from the cardinal to the witch with her Oven, fear of the lawyer and the administrators. Don Xohán is getting married. The wedding is a decision they never expected. Don Xohán fell in love with her one morning when entering the little church of the nuns to do something barbaric, from the moment he saw her, simple and lovely, so modest and well-behaved, Don Xohán hushed his henchmen and thought only of serving her. She was afraid of him. He conquered her in the first conversation. No, those were all insults of evil-wishers!
Dona Rosina lives and rules in the manor house by the sea. Some mansions were completely dismantled by Don Xohán. He always keeps the furnishings, however; and from the hills and the shore, from the mansions sold for a song, golden altarpieces from chapels arrive, carved bed frames, finely crafted chests, ancient weaponry, portraits of ecstatic friars, terrible lords, ladies of opulent beauty looking like autumnal peaches. In the manor house beside the sea all the rivers of Don Xohán's lineage converge, and Don Xohán in the midst of all the precious furnishings thinks he's the owner of all the inherited mansions.
At the end of the year, beside the hearth, Dona Rosina is nursing their firstborn. The servants and maids are already in bed. Whom does the boy resemble? That general in the living room? The pretty lad who's wearing a dragoon's uniform from the war of independence and is resting his girlish hands on a heavy sword?
Dona Rosina studies all the portraits of the line tin order o entertain herself; outside, the sharp wind makes the pine trees sway and is about to tear up the cedar in the garden, the one they brought back from their honeymoon. And Don Xohán hasn't returned. He's always off hunting. Nobody knows the Galician hills as well as he does. He tells horrifying tales of wolves, wild pigs, gay stories of partridges along the slippery sides of the cliff. The old priest from Fontefera in the area of Lugo brags about having killed fifty wolves. In a few winters, suffering the intense cold, Don Xohán beat his record, killing sixty seven. Wolves' heads for his coat of armor like the Moscoso had.
The fire dies away and Don Xohán enters silently. He's pale but determined. What's wrong? Without kissing his son, Don Xohán holds something he has brought bundled in his overcoat up to the face of his frightened wife. It's a little child, lovely, rosy, as white as a little angel, wrapped in poor, dirty rags. Don Xohán says without hesitating:
"Rosina, this is my son. His mother is dead. I'm giving him to you and you can do what you wish with him!"
The two babies seem to smile at one another. Facing the frightened expression of the woman, Don Xohán opens the window to the black night:
"There's the patio. The dogs are hungry. If it's your wish, throw him to them."
The woman, without a word, as was her custom, quickly bares her other breast and the two little ones drink comfortably, happily, of the same milk.
The next day, Don Xohán with a cohort of servants goes to the fair in Pontevedra. On returning early in the evening he goes knocking on doors of the hamlets and leaves in the laps of the gentle peasant girls with obedient eyes, bold fishmongers with lilting voices, dozens of silk scarves, velvet smocks, coral and baroque silver for lovely necks and sweet ears, coins by the handful to free the lands mortgaged by the masters, to pay the medicines for the lame grandmothers lying in bed..
1875. The people still say:
"What a great gentleman!"
Every day the admiration of the gentlemen and clergy grows, as does the envy of the lords of the town, the hunger of local priests and the loansharks. Along all the roads, the ones that braid up through the hills, spreading through the open spaces of the sunny fields that, enamored of the beauty of the inlets, trace the lacy coast, Don Xohán's contented cars scatter their joy. They can be heard from a distance breaking the sleep of the pines in early morning. They're bringing four, six, eight horses, purchased at the fairs in Zafra and Sevilla and Jerez. They don't take the streets of Santiago and when they enter the town squares they spread a festive air. Often Don Xohán goes alone guiding the spirited team of horses: in the driver's seat he has his shotgun and an attractive, spirited, proud lass sits beside him.
At the tables with the priests sitting between the archpriests and the priors he maintains the rhythm of the loading docks discussing with proven method and the cleanliness of a noble, from the soup, thick, wise combination of good things, to the long coda of deserts. The great simplicity of Don Xohán's soul is visible in his speech, in his simple, clear evaluation of things, always choosing the middle road and impressive in topics of hunting, wine, and social behavior, complete mastery. A mouth that never uttered words of doubt and a heart so good that the hard abbots, often scandalized by the field of sins that Don Xohán spread through the parishes, couldn't help but say:
"Don Xohán sins simply, like a boy, and certainly evil doesn't abide in his childlike heart."
A big child spoiled by fortune, by women, by health. No feelings, no problems. More than with the men, he speaks without words in a dialogue of facial expressions and gestures with the dog who hunts partridges. Animals, the poor, suffering animals, have a special love for Don Xohán. His whistle and his voice control the dogs better than than they do the whistles and voices of the servants. He went on a long trip in the middle of winter to see the poor mutt Soult, a good servant and loyal friend, who was dying, in a manor house on the mountain. Lying on the manure of a shed, he didn't have the strength to crawl as far as a warm ray of sun by the door. When he heard the horse coming up and caught the special scent of Don Xohán, perhaps arising from the volatile essences of character that dogs can sense in men, Soult, sticking up his poor, faded ears, wagging a stub of a tail, reached the door quickly, feeling like a puppy again, listening to the music of starry nights beneath the master's window, imagining sweet dreams by his feet on the living room rug. Don Xohán wouldn't leave the dog, his eyes trapped in the other's in a dialogue nobody could imagine. When night fell and the cold set in, the caretakers, who were kindly, brought fire, and Don Xohán must have seen a plea in the eyes of the dog, because with little hesitation he put a bullet right in its head,
"A great gentleman!," murmured the farmers, thinking that Don Xohán had a superior dignity, when they saw the livestock in the meadows stop their grazing and stare at him contentedly, damp with the tenderness once inspired by the great leaders of the shepherds, or the doves wrapping the figure of the noble in winged affection on the balcony with the first burning sun of the morning, or the oxen lowering their powerful, meek heads to nibble the blond stalks of wheat, or the peacock strutting majestically in courting style.
Don Xohán travels the roads along the shore in his car. It's not only for enjoyment. Times are different now. Don Xohán, who never knew what he had nor counted the change for his money, has become an entrepreneur. He doesn't get involved in anything on his own account. He has intelligent servants, some well-off men from the town, who take care of all the business of the settling up on the highway. Don Xohán admires those businessmen, calculating, who know how to follow the curves, build the bridges and flatter the engineers and understand finances and deadlines. Don Xohán is always ready to be surprised, smiles and pays. Sometimes things don't go well. Maybe a part of a road needs changing, or the conscience of an official needs to be bought, the cost of a down payment might be lost, for reasons unknown. The advisors in the matter are now his friends. Some, with a lot of children and little income are in financial trouble. Delicately, so as not to offend them, Don Xohán makes rolls of bills reach their pockets. Many people are jealous of Don Xohán's friends, who have new overcoats, rise in status with authority like they never have; some build new houses, other, less well off, he gives stores to the members of their families. One afternoon, oddly enough, Don Xohán is at home. He's enjoying the cool air with Rosina; the little boys are playing in the garden. The oldest one will have to be sent as an intern to the capitol. Dona Rosina speaks of something that's been gnawing at her; she wants to take advantage of that presence of her husband in the house.
"Forgive me for telling you this; I don't like the people you're keeping company with. They don't seem like good people to me. Why are you looking for business deals? Wouldn't we be better off tending to the land? I'm afraid that you get sick from so much preoccupation. Your hair is turning gray!"
Don Xohán listens in silence. Then he smiles. No, his friends are all good persons, men he'd die for; money needs to be circulating, nowadays one can't live in manor houses like they used to. Don Xohán keeps offering his reasons, without great faith in them and is surprised by an odd memory. Not long ago he'd been with Bibiana, an older woman now, good-looking when in her prime, whom Don Xohán had taken away from hoeing fields with his sweet talking and now, fat and cared for, she governed a bevy of ladies of the night in the city. Bibiana was good to the noble. And she'd had, more clearly, the same thought as his wife:
"Those friends of yours are a crew of thieves. They're relieving their hunger at your expense. If you continue to be so stupid you're going to end up as fleeced as a sheep. Can't you see how fat they're getting? You're the noble, live like it and stop supporting the bloodsuckers and their affairs."
It was a strange meeting of the minds. The butler comes to talk with the master: tomorrow's the fair in Soutoledo. The best one for buying a pair of oxen. We really need them. Don Xohán gets his purse. Then he looks in the files and drawers. For the first time in his life he has no money. The sun, gold coin like the others he sowed by the handful, is about to set in the curve of the hills. The noble who hunts always looks toward the sky, like the sailor toward the sea. In the sky a buzzard vibrates calm, ferocious, dominant. The king of the sunset. There's a snipe hiding in the white dovecote. Don Xohán grabs his shotgun and goes down through the fields of high corn. Now the buzzard is above the great stone pines. The noble admires it for a moment. It's so beautiful! Then he shoots. The bird falls, spinning, is stopped for a moment by a branch, crashes heavily to the ground. The eyes, the beak, the claws. As he returns to the house Don Xohán begins thinking for the first time: "So maybe there are some big payments due on a construction project." Will he have to give in to the sweet talking of Estornelo to mortgage the house in Santiago?
1885. An office in the late afternoon. It was raining against the dirty window panes. The stink of cigarette butts. Extraordinary work. Fear of the arrival of a new boss. Heads on the tables. Don Xohán's head on his. He's easy-going for a noble. He doesn't think ill of it when an old shoemaker, who once made him good hunting boots, addresses him this way from a nearby table:
"Hi there, Juan."
Don Xohán had a jagged line of files on the table. His dimmed wit breaks like the cords of a corset of a young girl on the body of a fat woman. Don Xohán doesn't know where to begin. Maybe he thinks: "Is Leandro still alive, my caretaker from Ribacova? Did Florinda get married? She must be twenty now." He dreams about the blond body of Florinda's mother and the fire, kept going by Don Xohán, in the fireplace. Time of hangovers. "What's up with the wine cellar in Ribeiro? The new owner must have done away with that old oak barrel. It's a good afternoon for spending it with the distiller." The hands dealt in a card game shimmer before his eyes. Good. There are still cigarettes. The afternoons in the fall are longer now than they once were.
Leaving the office, Don Xohán doesn't want to look at a group of girls who are going by. He's recognized the figure of his daughter, the most elegant. She has a boyfriend at her side. A store employee. When Don Xohán is crossing in front of the casino the horses of a coach nearly run him over. The driver stops, alights, and says:
"So sorry, Sir."
He was once Don Xohán's servant. Inside the coach the figure of the loan shark looks like a sardine in a tin. He pretends not to see Don Xohán. He's afraid of a beating.
"Well, the fact is I've got a noble manor house with a split-level stairway and coats of honor, in Compostela," he thinks, bowing, sly as a fox.
Don Xohán, with two retired fellows, strolls beneath the arches of the street. Endless hours. But he doesn't seem to notice. His daughters must be sewing and it wouldn't be right to disturb them. At suppertime they are all happy around the clean table. Don Rosina's hair is white. She says to her husband:
"You look like a spring chicken next to me."
The girls receive an urgent message: they have to finish the ruffles and sleeves of a dress for the dance, before eleven. Then, without tasting a bit of cheese, they start sewing. Don Xohán is not one to tell a sad story. It's nothing important. In the little pitcher there are only a couple of inches of wine from the tavern. In the dining room there is an empty space. The beautiful inlaid ottoman was there previously. It no longer is. Don Xohán and Dona Rosina give each other telling glances. She puts a roll of coins in his hand. Looking out the window, Don Xohán studies the lights of the city at night. The dark street curves. Beyond it there's a narrow side street and on the street a tavern famous for the good tripe it serves. The woman who runs it was and still is close to Don Xohán. Just recently she sent him a fish empanada. She also has other delicacies for him. There's a devilish little Portuguese lass, it's a pleasure to see her. She got tired of serving. Don Xohán suffers as he thinks:
"I'll have to take the other street and go up the steps... One can't attract attention along these streets with their devout residents."
Don Xohán is very frank. He never hid anything about his affairs. If only he still had the open paths of the village!
He gets his big broad-brimmed hat to go out. Dona Rosina, when she says good-by on the stairs, tells him:
"Remember that tomorrow's the day to pay the interest for Estornelo."
Inside their daughters are singing and working to the sound of the Singer. Don Xohán says:
"You're right. It's cold tonight. I'm going to bed."
1900. Everybody is amazed by the physical resistance and dominion of Don Xohán. There were elegant hunters, politicians, people from Madrid. Don Xohán in the forest and at the table seemed to be the one inviting them. His accurate shots filled the cliff of the coast with partridges. Dogs crowded around him as if they were mad. The farmworkers - there were none left now from his time - thought: "What a great gentleman!" His old heavy overcoat set the tone in the hallway. They were in a manor house that had been fixed up and repainted in the latest fashion. The owner didn't know how to read the coats of arms. Don Xohán deciphered them and told stories about the house.
"Over here," he said to the owner, "is where the secret was."
Making an effort to move shakily along the walls of a dark room, Don Xohán managed to make a stone move. Everybody was excited. A waft of age floated out. Yet there was no treasure. There was a packet of parchment and a big container of honey. Don Xohán picked it up carefully and took it to the dining room. The symbol of the good times, the honor of the tradition, the treasure of the house, the fine honey of the grandmothers, of the bees that drink in the old gardens and shine like golden-winged salamander on the field of gules of the coats of arms!
Don Xohán ate and drank like a prior from the war. The story of an entire century, the family lines and the parishes, the harvests and the famines, the Carlist Wars and the Revolution, the classic students, the epic sprees, the beauties of the elegant salons, the beginnings of politicians, bandits, and those who were hung from the gallows, Pepa the Wolf Girl and Xan Quinto, sailing fleets and feudal hunting, it all was part of his conversation. Some who knew it all well, urged him on to make more confessions. But the noble had no words for his false friends nor for the scavengers dressed in pieces of his lordly cloak. With his slightly autumnal gaiety Don Xohán seemed like a slender, ancient tower where birds from the valley had made their nest.
Finally a youth asked him about the romantic period. Was he a poet? No. He'd met many poets and many muses. But he knew just one poem:
"It's my favorite poem," and he recited it: And with sad farewell my lost youth/sent to my hair/expecting they would never return/beautiful hands to caress it. They were all touched and nobody thought to laugh at the lack of good taste.
At the end of the year Don Xohán makes a tremendous discovery: his body is also subject to pain. A mouse's tooth gnaws at his stomach. For two days he has had a terrible pain in his bladder. He doesn't know how to face the doctor. He has only known doctors in social settings. Don Xohán can only stand being in bed for two days. A wintery fog buries the ailing city in a mass of wet cotton. Dona Rosina doesn't leave his bedside. One morning Don Xohán appears to be resting and thinking. Dona Rosina goes to mass. When she returns there are people on the steps, her daughters are screaming and crying like madwomen, there's the stench of gunpowder in the meager dwelling. Don Xohán had made the first and last decision about himself: he was ill, he could not endure the pain and had simply shot himself in the same way as he had done so often with old or sick dogs. Without remorse, without vanity, without sin.
In the cemetery, the simple tombstone of Don Xohán, modest retired civil servant, is surprised at the marble monument of the loan shark. In seven parishes in Galiza the late afternoon sun still kisses the seven cypresses that Don Xohán helped to plant as it is dying.
