To an Angel · 18

Rosalía was silent with surprise; Beatriz, deeply moved, pretended to look out at the leafless trees, delicate as agate arborizations against the clear sky.

“And afterwards, without more ado, did you marry?—the friend inquired with malicious humour.”

“Without more ado—Beatriz answered energetically.—Mama said that Gonzalo, in his own way, had religion, had a faith... honour, you know? And that the Virgin would do what remained... And she did it, Rosalía. My husband, when I go to mass... no longer stays at the door!”

The Princess’s Panorama

The palace of the King of Magna was sad, very sad, since a strange ailment, incomprehensible to the physicians, compelled Princess Rosamor not to leave her apartments. An icy silence spread like a grey mist through the vast galleries with lofty arches and the tapestried halls, with high ceilings of grandiose paintings; and the hurried, solicitous step of the servants, the respectful, subdued gait of the courtiers, the dull thud of the halberd-butts upon the carpets, the conversations in low voices, scarcely whispering, produced the peculiar impression of the antechamber of a dying person. The King wore so stern a countenance, an expression so dispirited and indifferent toward the courtiers, even toward those who were once his friends and favourites! Why struggle? The Princess was dying of languor... No one knew how to save her, and science declared its resources exhausted!

One morning there arrived at the palace gate a certain old man with a long beard and a threadbare cassock of the colour of dry hazelnut, preceded by a little donkey whose back was burdened with an enormous box of blackened wood. The guards attempted roughly to turn aside the old man and his donkey, but hesitated on hearing it said that in that rough box came the health and life of Princess Rosamor. And while they consulted together, irresolute, dominated despite themselves by the composure and confidence with which the old man spoke, a gallant unknown gentleman, young and of goodly presence, whose feathered hat was ruffled by the wind, whose dark hair fell thick and silky upon a brown, erect neck, approached the guards, and, with the superiority conferred by rich attire and dashing bearing, commanded them to let the old man pass, if they would not be responsible before the King for the death of his daughter; and the guards, terrified, drew back, the old man passed, and the little donkey struck with his hoofs the resonant marble flags of the great courtyard where the coaches of the mighty waited in line. Behind the old man and the donkey, the youth also entered.

The King being informed that below waited a man who asserted that he brought in a box the Princess’s health, commanded him to come up at once; for the desperate grasp at a burning iron, and one never knows from what quarter Providence will shower its gifts. There was whispering among the courtiers and a smile soon repressed, on seeing two porters ascend weighed down beneath the burden of the enormous wooden box, and behind them the old man in the hazelnut cassock and the handsome gentleman of sumptuous attire whom no one knew; but curiosity, sharper than sarcasm, gnawed their souls with its little mouse-teeth, and they had no rest until the Prime Minister, likewise somewhat alarmed by the novelty, informed them that the old man’s famous box contained only a panorama, and that by showing the views to the Princess that singular healer answered for her recovery. As for the youth, he was the assistant charged with stationing himself behind a curtain unseen, and making the pictures pass by means of an original mechanism. It seems to me useless to add that on learning in what the remedy consisted, the courtiers, without losing the rhythm of monarchical veneration, laughed softly and uttered very witty gibes.

Meanwhile the panorama was set up in the Princess’s chamber, who, from the very armchair where she lay reclined upon heaps of cushions, could take pleasure in those views which, as the old man continued strictly affirming, were to heal her. Hidden and invisible, the gallant turned a crank, and there began to appear upon the background of the immense sheet hung to cover a whole side of the chamber, and through a broad pane of glass, pictures of the greatest interest. With surprising truth and relief, there filed before the Princess’s eyes the most magnificent cities, the most grandiose monuments, and the most admirable landscapes in the entire world. In a cracked voice, but with consummate eloquence, the old man explained the splendours, for example, of Rome—the Colosseum, the Baths, the Vatican, the Forum; and now he showed the Princess a naumachia, with its combats of sea monsters and naval engagements between galleys inlaid with ivory, now he made her descend into the somber Catacombs and witness the burial of a martyr, laid to rest in peace with his phial filled with blood beside him. From the famous hanging gardens of Semiramis and the colossal structures of Nebuchadnezzar to the smiling vales of Arcadia, where in the depths of a sacred ancient forest white nymphs dance in a ring around a bust of Pan wreathed with luxuriant ivy; from the snowy peaks of the Alps to the voluptuous inlets of the Parthenopean gulf, whose waters enter turned to liquid sapphire beneath the celestial vaults of the Blue Grotto, there was no sublime aspect of history, no wonder of nature, no stupendous work of human activity that did not present itself before the eyes of Princess Rosamor—those large, dreaming eyes, encircled by a dark, livid ring that betrayed the ravages of disease.—Yet the eyes did not revive; the cheeks did not lose their paleness of transparent wax; the lips remained contracted, forgetful of smiles; the withered, whitish gums made the teeth appear yellow, and the thin hands continued burning with fever or frozen by mortal chill. And the King, furious at seeing a last hope disappointed, the more vivid the more chimerical it was, swore in his wrath that he would hang the old impostor from on high, and ordered the executioner, provided with a greased rope, to mount the highest tower of the palace, to hang from a battlement in the sight of all the man who had deceived him. But the old man, calm and even disdainful, begged of the King a brief respite: he had yet to show the Princess one view, a single view of his panorama, and if after contemplating it she felt no better, let them hang him and welcome, as a clumsy and ignorant fellow. The King consented, unwilling to banish yet the vain last hope, and quitted the chamber, that he might not witness the disappointment. After a quarter of an hour, unable to contain his impatience, he entered, and perceived with transport a singular change in the invalid’s appearance: her eyes were shining; a light flush tinted her thin cheeks; her lips fluttered red, and her waist straightened graceful as a reed. It seemed a miracle, and the King, in his transport, tore from his neck a golden chain and reached it out to the old man, who refused the gift. The only reward he asked was that they should let him continue the Princess’s cure, without conditions or obstacles, offering to complete it in a month. And, wild with joy, the King agreed to everything, even to respecting the mystery of that prodigious view which had begun to restore his daughter to health.

Nevertheless, a week having elapsed and the invalid’s improvement being confirmed—an improvement so marked that the Princess had already left her armchair, and, slender as a lily, was walking about the chamber and adjoining galleries, eager to breathe the air, animated and smiling—the King yearned to know what eighth wonder of the world, what portentous picture was that whose contemplation had revived the dying Rosamor. And as the Princess, covered with blushes, threw herself at his feet imploring him not to pry into her secret, the King, more and more filled with curiosity, commanded that without delay he should be made to contemplate the miraculous last view of the panorama. Oh, unheard-of surprise! What appeared upon the background of the immense black cloth, through the clear glass, was neither more nor less than the face of a man, young and handsome indeed, but who had nothing extraordinary or portentous about him. The face was smiling with sweetness and passion upon the Princess, and she repaid the smile with another no less tender and ecstatic... The King recognized the physician’s supposed assistant, that gallant youth, and understood that, instead of showing the views of his panorama, he showed himself, and with this remedy alone had healed the sick heart and the sorrowful, dejected spirit of the girl; and if any doubt remained to him upon this point, Rosamor herself removed it, saying to him confused, trembling, and in a low voice, like one who asks beforehand for pardon and consent:

“Father, all the monuments and all the beauties of the world are not equal to the sight of a beloved face...”

Remorse

I knew in his old age a famous rake who lived solitary, and to all appearance tranquil, in a magnificent house, taking great care of himself and with a servant for every finger, because fortune—capricious by nature of being a woman, as some writer would say who was as sure of the sex of fortune as I am of the mosquito that crucified me this night—had decreed (I still refer to fortune) that that spendthrift should squander first his patrimony, then those of his brothers, who died young, then that of an old maid aunt, and finally that of an opulent guardian doting upon his ward. And at last gambling or other unknown gains set him afloat once more, when there had already entered his head the notion that it is good to preserve something for the sad years. From the moment my scapegrace (he was called the Viscount of Tresmes) became persuaded that it concerned his happiness not to die in the hospital, he cared for his estate with the perseverance of egoism, and there was no fortune better managed and preserved. Wherefore, at the time I knew the Viscount—shortly before an affection of the heart carried him off to the other world—he was a wealthy old man, and his house—belying the common opinion regarding the dwellings of bachelors—a model of neatness and elegant order.

I used to look at the Viscount with inquisitive interest, seeking in his countenance the secret history of the terrible heart-breaker for whom a duchess inhabited a madhouse, and an Infanta of Spain had been within an ace of throwing to the winds her royal rank and all that can be thrown to the winds.—Had I not known that I was looking upon the most refined epicurean, I should have believed I was gazing upon the remains of a poet, of an artist, of one of those men who fascinate because their commanding power is not confined to matter, but subjugates the imagination. The noble features of his face recalled those of Wolfgang Goethe, not in his glorious old age, but rather at the period of his famous Italian journey; that is to say, what they would be if Goethe, on growing old, preserved the lines of youth. That delicacy of line; that somewhat fleshy mouth; that straight, slender nose of Greek purity in its mould; those jet-black, subtle brows of graceful arch that accentuated the expression of his lively, deep eyes; those pale, hard cheeks of broad planes, as though carved in marble, manly cheeks—for round ones belong to women or children;—that long neck which set off the haughty head from well-sloped shoulders... all this, though in ruins now, still survived, and at the same time the body betrayed in its just proportions, in its muscular, somewhat compact litheness as of a gymnast, the steely robustness of the man whom excesses neither subdue nor consume. In truth these singular attributes of the Viscount I guessed through the aptitude I have for subtracting the ravages of old age and reconstructing persons just as they were in their best years.

The Viscount liked to chat with me, and at times related adventures of his eventful life, which would not bear telling if he did not know how to carry off the delicate details with exquisite Attic wit, and veil the shamelessness of the substance with the choice elegance of the form. Nevertheless, in the Viscount’s narratives there was something that revolted me, and that was the absolute lack of moral sense, the cold cynicism visible beneath the delicate rind of his language. A curiosity pricked me, and I thought to myself: «Can it be possible that this man, who to his fellow-creatures has been not only useless, but harmful; who has sucked the juice of all flowers extracting honey to intoxicate himself therewith, even though he distilled it with blood and tears; this corsair, this slaver of love, I repeat, can it be possible that he has preserved nothing living and healthy beneath the tissues withered by libertinism? Has he not a remorse, has he never performed an act of self-denial, a deed of charity?»

One day I resolved to ask him directly.

“Because after all—I said to him—in the battles you were wont to win there are killed and wounded; only, as in foil wounds, the haemorrhage is internal, for honour commands silence and succumbing without a murmur. How many husbands, how many brothers, how many fathers (to say nothing of the victims themselves) must have burned through your fault in a hell of shame!”

“Bah! Do not believe it—the Don Juan answered without being in the least disturbed.—In these matters, we experts are a little fatalistic. What is written comes to pass! And what I, through more or less justified scruples, might leave, another would take, perhaps with less art, tact, and consideration than I. The ripe peach hangs from the bough and is about to detach itself from the stem at any moment. He who passes and plucks it gently saves it the shame of falling to the ground, of being bruised, of being trampled...”

Seeing that his strange reasoning left me somewhat perplexed, the Viscount added:

“In spite of everything, I confess that I performed one act of self-denial and that I have one remorse...”

I waited, and the old man, resting his chin upon two fingers of his left hand, spoke slowly and in a tone less ironic than usual:

“You must know that I had a sister who married and died almost immediately (in my house everyone died young and consumptive, except myself, who absorbed the strength that ought to have been divided among the rest). My brother-in-law, shortly afterwards, fell from a horse and did not survive the fall. There remained a little girl, lovely as a seraph. I was her guardian, and although I took good care of her education and her property, I saw her little, because I do not like children. Puberty arrived, and then the creature took on forms less seraphic and more desirable to mortals. And, strange thing, if as a child, on seeing me, she overflowed with welcomes and was wild with delight, as a young woman she seemed rather afflicted by my presence, and I remember she even fainted because I gave her a paternal kiss... Paternal (I swear it to you on my word of honour), because we have the foolish notion of imagining that those whom we knew as children never become grown-up people...”

Nevertheless, certain errors are soon dissipated, and as the symptoms were becoming accentuated, I was not long in discovering the nature of the malady... The girl, I repeat, was a beauty. I will show you her portrait, and you will tell me if I exaggerate. Apart from this matter of beauty, I never saw a woman who showed herself more pierced through. Already surrendered, overcome by a force superior to her will, far from shunning me, she followed and sought me incessantly, and it could be read in her eyes, in her voice, and in her slightest actions that she was so mine, so mine that I might have branded the S and the nail upon her forehead. My age was then that of violent passions: I was eight-and-thirty... but even so!...

“Did you not resolve to pluck the peach?”

“It was no peach, as you shall see—the rake replied, knitting his brows.—What I can tell you is that on understanding the truth, I fled from my niece, I travelled, I was absent for more than a year, and on seeing upon my return the girl sick with passion and more enamoured than ever, I spoke to her just like a father, I depicted to her my life and my character and even my vices...”