“Alas, my dear Betty, behold what will one day remain of you and me. Far worse, no one will seek to see our remains, much less will a worthy Spaniard come to Chester to take them out of their box momentarily and permit them to give one another a posthumous kiss.”
Like her husband, Mrs. Little uttered a deep sigh, and was content to reply, “Ho yes, Tom.”
Mr. Little went on: “It’s only as yet a demi-disaster when the bones of those who have loved one another are united, but when they’re separated, even by the partition in a chest, it’s very sad, Betty. We ought, if you want my opinion, to express in our respective testaments the desire that, once deprived of their flesh, ours should be mingled.”
“Ho yes, Tom,” replied Mrs. Little. “Ho yes.”
“That,” I said to Mr. Little, “is a rather lugubrious precaution.”
“But as well to take, certainly, replacing the bones of the two legendary lovers in their box, “for it’s necessary not to expect our heirs, especially when they are not our own children, to care about our bones. Will they even care about our memory?”
“A good precaution to take, you say but that depends on the manner of one’s understanding,” I objected. “If it is true that there is an immaterial principle within us, it is the souls of faithful spouses that have an interest in drawing together, and not their bones, and if that principle does not exist, what does it matter whether or not the bones are brought together by the hand of a heir?
“Do you believe, in good faith, that the remains of Rodrigo and Chimène feel a very vivid joy in being side by side? Their separation would not be cruel. What is cruel, and truly cruel, is for Rodrigo to survive or Chimène to survive Rodrigo.”
“Very cruel, indeed, Monsieur Le Bref. Thus, my wife and I have tried for two or three years now to shield ourselves as much as humanly possible from that eventuality. Isn’t that true Betty?”
“Ho yes, Tom.”
“But how can you shield yourselves against that?” I exclaimed, astonished.
Our conversation in English was evidently not to the doorkeeper’s liking, either because, not understanding it, she saw it as intolerable gibberish, or because she was in haste to get rid of us. Before Mr. Little had time to respond to my question, therefore, she intervened.
“Caballeros and Señora,” she said, “here is now the stool on which the first judges of Castile sat, from whom the Cid was descended. For nine hundred years that stool has been here, in that very place.”
“What is she saying?” Mr. Little asked me, who scarcely understood any more Spanish than he could speak
I repeated the doorkeeper’s explanation in English.
“Nine hundred years!” exclaimed Mr. Little. “Do you hear, Betty? For nine hundred years that stool has been in the place that it occupies today. Isn’t it worth the trouble of our sitting on it?”
“Ho yes,” said Mrs. Little.
And she made a movement to sit down on it, but before she could put the said stool in contact with her majestic behind, the doorkeeper, who was alert, took her by the arm abruptly, in order to prevent her from doing so.
At the same time, the doorkeeper uttered a flood of words, the sense of which was that it was absolutely forbidden for visitors to pose their humble posterior on a stool that the judges of Castile had honored with their august derrière. And I translated the prohibition for Mr. Little—but instead of resigning himself placidly, as common sense appeared to command, he jibbed.
“It’s impossible, Monsieur Le Bref,” he said to me, “that we leave here without all three of us having sat in turn on that stool. Isn’t it, Betty?”
“Ho yes, Tom.”
“But what’s the point, Monsieur Little?” I observed. “What can result from it for you? And besides, you’ve been told that it’s not permitted.”
Without making any reply, Mr. Little took a duro and two pesetas from his pocket and, holding the duro in one hand and the two pesetas n the other, he made the doorkeeper understand by means of an expressive mime accompanied by a few words in bad Spanish, that he would give her the duro if she would let us sit down, and only the two pesetas if she refused.
It goes without saying that that very British argument caused the doorkeeper to reflect. Her reflection was so prompt, in fact, that it did not last twenty seconds.
“Well, so be it,” she said. “Sit down, but don’t tell anyone, for you’d lose me my job, for sure.”
Mrs. Little and her husband immediately satisfied their desire. As for me, mine was so feeble, that in sitting down, it was not so much the desire in question that I was satisfying as that of Mr. Little.
Afterwards, we went to the cathedral, which is one of the most grandiose and splendid monuments in the entire world. There is such a profusion of riches there that the eye is dazzled by them, and so many things to see that the eyes eventually weary of gazing.
Mrs. Little was particularly impressed by the famous crucified Christ who bleeds every Friday. It is, in fact, difficult to imagine anything more troubling, for that Christ, an admirable mannequin, has nothing of the statue but everything of the man in his gaze, his convulsed features, his lips, which seem to move, his hair, beard, eyebrows and eyelashes, and even his skin, which one could believe to be human, which is even said to be, and which appears to cover, instead of stuffing, true flesh, so much elasticity does it offer to the eye.
When, by the light of two candles, the sacristan suddenly lifted the curtain to show us that horrible spectacle, Mrs. Little let herself fall to her knees and almost lost consciousness.
Without sharing her religious ecstasy, Mr. Little and I were deeply moved.
On seeing her faint, like a true Magdalen at the foot of the cross, we hastened to support her.
“Betty, Betty,” said Mr. Little, tenderly, “collect yourself, my dear Betty…it’s only a simulation.”
But even though he lavished concern and delicate tenderness on his wife, she still did not come round. In order to bring her to her senses the sacristan had to go in search of incense; he burned it under her nose, and she did not take long to speak.
“Alas, my dear Tom,” she exclaimed, “I thought I was transported to Golgotha during Our Lord’s passion!”
Meanwhile, we drew her out of the chapel.
The sacristan told us then that it was necessary to see Papa Moscas before leaving the cathedral.
What is Papa Moscas?
Quite simply an automaton lodged inside the case of the clock above the principal door, created by a Moorish artist, commissioned by Enrique III, King of Castile,24 in memory of one of the most romantic episodes of his adventurous life.
Once, a long time ago, that automaton must have been very curious, for at the first stroke of the hour, it emerged from its hiding-place and, at every other stroke, it uttered a scream and made a bizarre gesture. That scream and gesture, provoking laughter from children, and even adults, caused a certain disturbance during religious ceremonies. One bishop, whose humor was austere rather than jovial, considered it as an occasion of scandal and ordered that the secret mechanism that enabled Papa Moscas to cry out and gesticulate should be broken. That is why, since then, Papa Moscas remains silent and motionless.
In response to Mr. Little’s request, I asked the sacristan whether, to his knowledge, before having his springs broken, Papa Moscas had done anything else other than cry out, and if, for instance, he had spoken a few words.
“Don Enrique,” the sacristan replied, “would certainly have liked Papa Moscas to have been able to repeat the tender words uttered to him by a young woman who loved him in secret, and who expired in confessing that chaste love to him, but the constructor of the automaton was not able to succeed, in spite of his efforts. As for the scream it reproduced, it was the one uttered by the young woman when she saw Don Enrique menaced by three wolves in the middle of a forest.”
“In England,” Mr. Little said to me, with a visible smile of satisfaction, “I know two automata much more cu
rious than that one, for, in addition to the particularity they offer in appearing to be flesh and bone, like the Christ we saw just now, they resemble feature or feature persons presently alive, a few of whose familiar words they pronounce with the same intonation as their models, not to mention that once their mechanism is primed, they can walk almost as well as them. Isn’t that so, Betty?”
“Ho yes, Tom,” said Mrs. Little.
“In truth,” I exclaimed, “I’d like to see such automata.”
“If you come to our country, my dear Monsieur Le Bref,” Mr. Little replied, “We’ll show them to you. There’s nothing more curious in the entire world.”
“They’re doubtless exhibited by some Barnum?”
“No.”
“They’re found in some museum?”
“No. They belong to an individual, and cost him very dearly, I can’t deny. That’s not astonishing, though; a master sculptor and a mechanician each worked on them for four years without respite. The individual had to shell out no less than twenty thousand pounds sterling—isn’t that so, Betty?”
“Ho yes, Tom.”
“But in sum, what does that individual do with his automata?”
“Nothing, for the moment, thank God, but a time will come, unfortunately, when one or other of them will have its utility.”
“One of them?” I said, astonished
“Yes,” said Mr. Little.
“But in the meantime he shows them to the curious?”
“No, no,” Mrs. Little put in, with an animation that was not habitual to her. “On the contrary, he hides them, and they both repose in the coffins that he has had fabricated in their size.”
“What a singular idea,” I said.
There is a proverb which says that if one mentions the wolf one sees his tail. Scarcely had Mrs. Little mentioned coffins to me than we turned a street corner and were confronted by a shop devoted exclusively to the sale of coffins.
There were coffins of every size and genre—painted, gilded, sculpted, covered in lace, in two beautiful window displays to either side of the open door, where a young and pretty Castilian woman was framed, plying a needle and singing wholeheartedly.
Inside the shop there were more ordinary ones piled up on top of one another, all the way to the ceiling, as well as little ones designed for children.
We stopped, astonished by that exhibition of coffins, which is no more customary in England than in France.
Although there was nothing amusing about it, Mr. and Mrs. Little were very interested in it, and I even thought I observed them looking one another up and down from the corner of the eyes, as if each of them were measuring up the other for a coffin. But I dare not affirm that.
V
In almost all the hotels in the two Castiles, especially in the one in which we were staying in Burgos, the service is carried out by young women rather than men, and quite lovely young women, believe me. Sturdy, lively and cheerful, it gladdens the heart just to look at them.
If I mention that detail, it is because it was the pretext for a violent scene between Mrs. Little and her husband, which permitted me to appreciate in a new light the true character of the lady in question, which had previously appeared to me to be excessively meek.
The day after our arrival in Burgos, as Mr. Little, who had come to collect me from my room at eight o’clock in the morning, was going down the hotel staircase with me, one of the maidservants named Amparo—Protection—who was just in front of us, wanting to hasten her pace, made a false step and fell backwards, laden with sheets and napkins.
Mr. Little only just had time to catch her in his arms. She was a very cheerful young woman. Although she must have had a moment of fright on suddenly finding herself in the Englishman’s arms, she uttered a burst of laughter that resounded all the way to the room where Mrs. Little was putting the last touches to her attire before joining us.
If it had only been Amparo’s laughter that had reached Mrs. Little’s ears, there would certainly not have been much harm done, and it would not have disturbed the taciturn Englishwoman unduly, but what completed the disaster, what troubled her beyond all expression, was that the loud voice of her husband mingled with that burst of feminine Spanish laughter.
Mrs. Little bounded out of her room, her hat in one hand and her cape in the other, just in time to see this stimulating spectacle: Amparo guffawing with laughter in the arms of Mr. Little, who, I admit, was not in any particular hurry to stand her up again, although I would swear that there was not the slightest frolicsome intention on his part.
As soon as he heard his wife coming, however, he hastened to return Amparo to her feet—too late, alas!”
Mrs. Little had seen everything, and misinterpreted it completely.
As I turned round I was amazed by her expression, which, ordinarily so placid, had become more trenchant than a sharp steel blade. Mr. Little could not see that guillotine gaze weighing upon the back of his neck, because he was turned around, but he must have sensed it, for he shuddered in every limb.
Divining the situation marvelously, I thought that it was up to me to save him.
“Madame,” I said, affecting a detached tone, “but for your husband that poor girl might have broken her hip.”
“Truly,” said Mrs. Little, “the pretext is good.”
At that point Mr. Little thought he ought to turn round and defend himself.
“I swear to you, my dear Betty, that it’s not a pretext but the pure truth.”
“Good, good, one knows your habits.”
“My habits!” cried Mr. Little, clapping his hands together.
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Little, whose gaze was animated by a singular fire. “You’re the vilest of men and I don’t know what’s stopping me from throwing you down the stairs.”
“Calm down, Betty, for God’s sake, came down. Don’t make a scandal here for no reason.”
“For no reason?”
“Yes, yes, for no reason.”
As he said that, Mr. Little darted a pleading glance at me, as if to appeal for my aid. I was fearful of his life, but I felt even more pity for him.
“It’s certain Madame,” I said, “that there is nothing in this to excite your anger in the slightest.”
“I’m not angry, merely indignant.”
“Yes, yes, I meant your indignation, since you prefer that. Note that what happened to your husband might equally well have happened to me.”
“It would have been much better, Monsieur, if it had happened to you.”
“I don’t disagree, Madame.”
“And why, in fact, was it not into your arms, but precisely into Mr. Little’s, that this young lady allowed herself to fall, laughing?”
“For the very simple reason, Madame that Mr. Little was behind her, and not me.”
“Mr. Little always arranges himself in such a manner as to find himself behind maids!” exclaimed Mrs. Little.
“Oh!” interjected Mr. Little.
Amparo, the maidservant who had caused all that emotion, quite innocently, had not failed to perceive that she was the object of it. She had turned back at the moment of Mrs. Little’s sharpest—or, at last, most ironic—remarks, and, without comprehending a word of the English exchanged between the husband, the wife and me, she had divined everything.
I judged that by a smile, which was immediately followed by a slight artificial coughing fit, but which Mrs. Little, unfortunately, mistook for a burst of laughter.
Thinking that she was being mocked, the latter lavished imprecations upon her husband almost as tragic as those of the famous Camille of the Horatii.25
“Man devoid of morality, devoid of decency, vulgar debauchee, knowing your depraved tastes as I do, I ought to have refused to undertake a voyage to the continent in your company. It’s not enough to play the rake with my maidservants, now you have to address yourself to hotel maids! And in front of Monsieur Le Bref! Well, you ought to be dying of shame. As for me, I no longer want to loo
k at you.”
Mrs. Little had delivered that philippic in a strident voice, save for the final words—As for me, I no longer want to look at you”—which had dissolved in a flood of tears. As she pronounced them she ran to her room, and went into it precipitately, locking the door behind her, with a double click.
“It’s a tantrum,” said Mr. Little. “It will pass, like the others...”
Meanwhile, he went tranquilly downstairs.
I hesitated to follow him. He noticed that.
“Come on, then,” he said. “You know very well that we still have to see the Cid’s monument.”
“But it’s scarcely possible for us to go without Mrs. Little,” I objected.
“Why not?”
“In order not to give her a further motive for irritation.”
“Come on, then—at least she’ll be irritated for something, whereas just now she was irritated for nothing. And then, I know her; after a few minutes, we’ll see her fall back into her flat calm.”
As we were leaving the hotel, me apparently more worried than him, for the unexpected domestic quarrel preoccupied me greatly, he added: “Poor Monsieur Le Bref, you look utterly upset. You would never have believed in her capable of such an outburst, would you?”
“No, I confess. In my presence at least, Mrs. Little has always been so tender in your regard, so passive, even, that I thought her incapable of being carried away like that.”
“Well, yes, she deceives everyone. Oh, my dear friend”—it was the first time that Mr. Little had conferred the title of friend upon me—“you can’t imagine how my poor wife’s mania has made me suffer in the past.”
“Is it habitual to her?” I asked.
“Alas,” sighed Mr. Little.
“Perhaps,” I observed, “you have given purchase to it in the beginning by exciting Mrs. Little’s jealousy. I observed just now that your attitude with regard to Amparo was only incorrect in appearance, but I noticed that Mrs. Little also reproached you with the one you ordinarily have to your maidservants in Chester.”
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