La Cabeza

At night, with the music of the Odeon and the speeches of Astol still ringing in his ears, returned from the streets where he had heard the rattle of carriages and the plaintive chant of the pastry vendors, that dreamer found himself at his worktable, where immaculate sheets of paper were awaiting the customary silvas and sonnets dedicated to women with burning eyes.

What silvas! What sonnets! The lyric poet’s head was an orgy of colors and sounds. In the hollows of that brain resounded cyclopean hammerings, hymns to the beat of ringing tympani, barbaric fanfares, crystalline laughter, the warble of birds, the fluttering of wings, and the bursting of kisses, all in wild and tangled rhythms. And the grouped colors were like petals from disparate buds jumbled upon a tray, or like the devilish medley of inks that covers a painter’s palette...

Spring. Already the flowering lilies, heavy with honey, have opened their pale chalices beneath the gold of the sun. Already the iridescent sparrows, those fondling lovers, court the fresh roses, those opulent and purple empresses; already jasmine, simple blossom, studs the dense foliage like a white star against a green sky. Already elegant ladies don their light gowns, consigning furs and winter wraps to oblivion.

And while the sun goes down, tinting the snows with a soft, rosy clarity, beside the trees of the Alameda that display their glittering crests, solemn slenderness, and new leaves in a dust of light, a human swarm stirs amidst the sound of music, vague whispers, and fleeting words.

Behold the tableau. In the foreground is the blackness of the carriages, gleaming and shattering the last solar reflections; the proud horses with their sparkling harness, their necks outstretched and motionless like heraldic beasts; the taciturn coachmen in their aloof stillness, displaying upon their long liveries blazing metal buttons; and in the depths of the carriages, reclining like odalisques or erect like queens, fair women with dreaming eyes, those with black tresses and pale faces, and rosy adolescents laughing with the joy of springtime birds: languid beauties, bold loveliness, chaste white lilies, and burning temptations.

In that carriage door a face appears that resembles a cherub; from that other has emerged a gloved hand that might be taken for a child’s, yet belongs to a brunette who summons hearts; further on can be seen a Cinderella’s foot in a dark slipper and lilac stocking; and yonder, graceful with goddess-like gestures, fair with the hue of poppy-flushed ivory, royal neck, and crowned tresses, stands the Venus de Milo—not armless, but with two arms as robust as the muscles of a Murillo cherub, and dressed in the latest fashion of Paris.

Further off is the surge of those who come and go: enamored couples, brothers and sisters, bevies of irreproachable young gentlemen: all in the confusion of faces, glances, bright colors, dresses, and bonnets, where now and then against the black and oily sheen of elegant top hats stands out a woman’s white face, a straw hat trimmed with ribbons or feathers, or the inflated red rubber balloon that a laughing child in blue stockings, patent shoes, and loose sailor collar carries dangling from a thread.

In the background, palaces lift to the azure the pride of their facades, against which upright poplars etch leafy columns amidst the tremulous, dying buzz of the fleeting afternoon.