Singular Amours

by Edmond Thiaudière

  “That’s exactly in what her folly consists, my de Monsieur Le Bref. She imagines that I’m amorous of all my maidservants, so she won’t keep one of them.”

  “And you’ve done nothing to give her reason to believe it?”

  “Absolutely nothing, I assure you.”

  “You haven’t had any compromising familiarities with the young women in question?”

  “Not at all! Except that being, by God’s grace, a good man, I give them evidence of solicitude, as to all my entourage, and it’s that solicitude, which is nothing but humanity, that Mrs. Little mistakes for flirtation.”

  “But she can’t to fly off the handle frequently, as she’s just done,” I said, lightly, for, after all, I suppose she doesn’t see you very day with a maidservant, especially a Spanish maidservant, in your arms!”

  “She sees worse than that, not in reality but in imagination…so scarcely a day goes past in Chester when she doesn’t make little scenes, if not big ones.”

  “That must make you very unhappy, Mr. Little.”

  “Very unhappy, as you say, Monsieur Le Bref, very unhappy, and it’s in great part to change my wife’s unhealthy condition, even more dolorous for me than for her, that I bought her to the continent. I thought I had succeeded, but now, today, her mania has got hold of her again.”

  “Damn! Today there was a mitigating circumstance…Amparo was in your arms...well and truly in your arms. And I understand why, at that sight, all Mrs. Little’s supposed grievances against you were reawakened. Do you know what I’d do in your place? On returning to Chester I’d replace, once and for all, all my wife’s young maids with old negroes, since, as well as your not obtaining the pleasure from those young women that Mrs. Little supposes, they are, on the contrary, the source all kinds of trouble for you.”

  “I’ve already thought of that,” Mr. Little replied, phlegmatically, “and have even threatened my wife with it, but, apart from the fact that she doesn’t much care to have a negro as a chambermaid, I confess that the constant sight of a face of that color would darken my ides, which are already too black.”

  While chatting in that manner, Mr. Little and I, in the company of one of those benevolent but not disinterested guides, who always put themselves at the disposal of strangers, had climbed a hill overlooking the town of Burgos, crowned by the ruins of a castle in which the ancient kings of Castile resided.

  When we were in sight of those ruins, to which we were unable to get any closer, Mr. Little had a philosophico-lyrical—or lyrico-philosophical, if you prefer—effusion.

  “How I would like my wife to be here with us!” he exclaimed. “I would say to hr: ‘Betty, my dear Betty, you see what remains of that royal castle where powerful princes and beautiful princesses once lived, and of those princes and princesses even less remains, nothing any longer remains but a vague memory. Does that not give you pause for reflection? Does that not put a finger on the nullity of human things? And given that, do you not understand that you have been doubly mistaken to quarrel for no reason with a worthy husband like me, who ought to inspire every confidence in you?’”

  Without perceiving very clearly the correlation there was between the ruins of the castle of the kings of Castile and the jealous scene that Mr. Little had made a short while before, I was almost moved to tears by the truly pathetic tone in which the worthy Mr. Little had pronounced his little speech. I understood once again that he was an excellent man and I thought that his wife was veritably very ill-advised to torment him.

  VI

  After having seen, successively, the triumphal arch in the Doric style erected by Felipe II to Ferdinand Gonzales and the stone column erected to Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar—which is to say the Cid Campeador—in 1784, I believe, neither of which are very curious, we returned to our hotel.

  The first person who struck our eyes on arrival was Mrs. Little.

  She was sitting in the shade outside the door in a veritably very placid attitude. On seeing her, even at a distance, it was obvious that her jealous irritation had completely disappeared.

  I said to her, still in English, with a bright smile, which was reflected on her lips: “In truth, Madame, you were truly inspired not to go to see the monument to the Cid. It’s not worth the trouble of being seen.”

  At the same moment Amparo emerged from the hotel in order to run few local errands and she had an absurd expression of slight embarrassment as she went past us, while Mr. Little, troubled by the fear that his wife’s mania might take hold of her again, at the sight of the maidservant, affected to be looking in the other direction.

  “Would you like us to depart for Valladolid this afternoon, my dear Betty?” asked Mr. Little. “I’ve mentioned it to Monsieur Le Bref, who is of that opinion.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “I believe we have nothing further to do in Burgos.”

  “I think so to, Tom,” said Mrs. Little, daring a glance at her husband that was, in truth, very mild.

  After lunch we packed our trunks and left.

  Why the devil did we go to Valladolid?

  It is one of the Spanish towns that contains the fewest curiosities, but it is also one of the richest in historic memories.

  I wanted to see in it the old city in which Felipe III held his court, where Gongora, Argensola and the great Cervantes lived, where Christopher Columbus died, and which gave birth one of the most brilliant Spanish poets of our era, Don José Zorrilla, the author of the Cantos del Trovador and the truly admirable Don Juan Tenorio.26

  As for Mr. and Mrs. Little, one of their compatriots having praised certain colossal statues of painted wood representing the actors and the onlookers of the drama of the Passion, notably a kneeling virgin very lifelike in her dolor, thy had scarcely other objective in coming to Valladolid than seeing them.

  When we arrived there, as we were surrounded at the railway station by hoteliers who were trying to capture us, Mr. Little said to me: “Above all, let’s not go to a hotel where the service is carried out by women, as in Burgos. You speak Spanish better than me; have the goodness to ask these fellows before anything else whether the service in their establishment is by men or women.”

  Several of those to whom I posed that question, in replying to me that their service was carried out by women, had a expression both mocking and engaging, which showed me the extent to which they misinterpreted my motive in asking, and which was succeeded by a keen disappointment when they saw me turn away.

  One of them changed his mind then, and said: “Caballero, there are undoubtedly women who contribute to the service in my hotel, but it is primarily carried out by men, as in Paris.”

  That was the Hotel of the Redemption. We booked rooms there, and for the day and a half that we stayed there, there was, fortunately, not the slightest scene remotely similar to the one in Burgos.

  On the other hand, in Madrid, to which we went thereafter, I saw Mrs. Little in a much graver state of effervescence. It is true that her Tom had nothing to do with it this time, and little maids even less, given that it was difficult to glimpse the skirt of one in the hotel where we were staying.

  It was during a bullfight, the first and last that Mrs. Little witnessed.

  Although I had warned her about the horror of the spectacle, with which I was already familiar, she had wanted to confront it, not supposing it to be as horrible as it really is. As for her husband, he was no more eager than I was to watch the contest, for he had taken me at my word, but he yielded in order to company his wife, and I went with them.

  At first, Mrs. Little, without enthusiasm taking hold of her, seemed keenly interested. The sight of ten thousand spectators heaped on the steps of an immense circus, the rutilant costumes of the women, and even the men, the noise of joyful conversation and he arrival, to the sound of the music of cuadrilla, of the ceremoniously-clad toreros, the parade of the three espadas dressed in the splendid costume of Figaro in The Barber of Seville, the banderillos and capeadores covered in silver and gold, picador
s in horseback proceeding in pairs holding long lances, with broad-brimmed gray hats and yellow buffalo-hide trousers, and, finally, the chulos, or servants, and even the entry of the bull, all appeared to strike her imagination vividly and capture it.

  But as soon as she had seen a horse, its belly punctured by the bull’s horn, buckle and collapse in the arena and then, lifted up by the picador’s spur, try to walk, impeding its feet with its dangling entrails, she stood up, gripped by a nervous tremor and started abusing the alcalde who was guilty, in her eyes, of permitting such atrocities in the most virulent manner, in English.

  It often happens in arenas that the Spaniards abuse the alcalde, and very violently, but it is to reproach him for tolerating the slightest remission in the massacre.

  Have you ever heard of banderillas de fuego? They are arrows of a sort furnished with a rocket, which ignites just at the moment when the point penetrates the flesh of the bull, and burns the wound, causing the poor animal atrocious pain.

  Now, when a bull, certainly having more courage and common sense than that inept and ferocious multitude of men and women, disdains to respond to the bloody provocations of the picadors and banderilleros, who initially sink their lances into it, and then shoot their arrows into is neck, when it only seems to be demanding one thing, which is for the door to be opened so that it can return to the pen, cries ring out from all directions: “Banderillas de fuego!”

  And if the alcalde, who is the only one who can authorize the employment of those banderillas, is still reluctant to do it because of a residuum of humanity, and if, in spite of the furious cries of “Fuego! Fuego!” the alcalde is obstinate in his refusal, popular rage turns against him and one can then hear cries of “Las banderillas al alcalde! Fuego al alcalde!”

  Let us return to Mrs. Little. At first her indignant voice did not penetrate, so loud was the hubbub, any further than the nearest steps, but as it was still increasing in volume, in spite of the efforts that Mr. Little and I were making to stifle it, general attention did not take long to awaken, and all gazes quit the bull momentarily in order to fix upon the foreigner from whom an avalanche of words and gestures was flowing.

  What the devil was wrong with her? It was even possible to believe, at first, that she was exhaling her wrath at the picadors, who might have seemed to the public a little slack and maladroit when they struck the bull with their lances. But her neighbors, particular fanatics of tauromachy, eventually understood by the virulent manner in which she was shouting at them that she was condemning tauromachy itself.

  From then on, Mr. Little and I, like Mrs. Little, were the object of a disorderly protestation on their part. I wondered whether those fanatics were not about to throw all three of us into the arena, and all was all the more authorized in the suspicion because a few cries could be heard threatening us with exactly that, when an incident came to our aid.

  Fortunately, Mrs. Little, vanquished by emotion, lost consciousness.

  Her faint was very opportune, since it extracted Mr. Little and me from a great embarrassment

  But what we needed most of all was to be able to get her out of that furious crowd, and us with her. Alas, we absolutely could not do that, so compact was it, even flooding the corridors.

  For want of anything better, the prolongation of her unconsciousness, if it would not have disturbed Mr. Little, would have appeared to me to be entirely desirable. Yes, I would have been delighted if the worthy woman had not come round before the end of the contest.

  However, she came round after a few minutes and manifested the unrealizable desire to get out.

  We made her understand the impossibility of succeeding in that. Then she started to weep.

  “Nothing forces you to watch,” I told her. “Put your fan in front of your eyes.”

  Vain advice…she could not help looking, from time to time, as if fascinated by some invincible charm; she looked, and she glimpsed all the horrors.

  As for Mr. Little and myself, possessed of greater will-power than her, we had imposed on ourselves spontaneously, without the slightest preliminary agreement, the obligation to watch the spectators rather than the actors of the scene of carnage.

  Although the general attention was entirely devoted to the scene, our excessively unenthusiastic attitude provided our nearest neighbors, of both sexes, with a distraction that they held against us. I heard some suggesting worse things than hanging us. In order not to find the slightest attraction in those bloody games, to dare to allow the repulsion they inspired in us to show, we were wretches, we were going so far as to insult the proud Spanish nation.

  Finally, our torture ended, along with that of twenty horses and five bulls, victims of inept and disgusting human ferocity, and we were able to quit the circus, not without being jeered somewhat.

  Fortunately, there are other things to see in Madrid than the Corrida. One is far from having said everything when one has cited the admirable Plaza de la Puerta del Sol, where the movement of the capital is concentrated, where the noisy genius of the Madrilene people is summarized, the Prado and the Buen Retiro, which are magnificent promenades, the museum of painting and the naval museum, each the most beautiful of its genre in Europe, the convent of the Escurial, a unique ensemble emerged from the grandiose and funereal petrifaction of the reign of Felipe II.

  The idea of their death, which had already haunted Mr. and Mrs. Little several times before my eyes since their arrival in Spain, took hold of them again in the crypt of the church of the Escurial, where Charles V and his successors, from Felipe II to Ferdinand VII, are buried, as well as the Empresses and Queens of the houses of Austria and Bourbon.

  After the warden had shown us by the light of his torch the name of Luisa, written on the tomb of Doña Maria Luisa of Savoy by that princess herself, with the point of her scissors, Mrs. Little said to her husband: “Tom, when we get back to Chester, I shall also write my name on my tomb with my scissors, so that one day, it can be shown to travelers, while saying to them: ‘That’s what Mrs. Little did.’”

  Although Mrs. Little generally approved of what her husband said, except when he showed some benevolence for your maidservants, it was not the same for Mr. Little in her regard. He maintained a much greater independence with regard to his wife. So he had no hesitation in showing her what was strange in her project, and even slightly ridiculous.

  “In truth, Betty,” he said to her, “are you’re losing your head, my dear love, in wanting to copy a Queen of Spain, being a simple cheese-maker’s wife? Even if you did write your name on our tomb with your own scissors, Betty, no one among the tourists who come to Chester—and there are very few of them—would take any notice of it.”

  “But you, Tom, if you survive me, as I wish, would you not be touched, in coming to make your devotions at my tomb, to find the letters of my name traced in my own hand?”

  “With the point of your scissors?”

  “With the point of my scissors.”

  “Indeed, that would touch me,” replied Mr. Little, after a few seconds of reflection. “You’d do it, then, with my intention?”

  “Of course, Tom!” cried Mrs. Little. And she added: “For myself, I declare to you, nothing would soften my heart as much as to see on yours the name Tom, written by you with a pen-knife.”

  “Then I’ll give my tomb a thrust with my pen-knife in order to be agreeable to you,” replied Mr. Little, “since you’d experience as much pleasure in that as you would have had irritation I’ve delivered one in our contract.”

  It was scarcely habitual for Mr. Little, an earnest man, to joke in that fashion, so his unexpected pleasantry made me laugh heartily.

  VII

  On quitting Madrid we went to Aranjuez in order to visit the splendid palace constructed for Felipe II by the celebrated architect Herrera and where the abdication of Charles IV in favor of his son Ferdinand took place in 1808, following the so-called Aranjuez insurrection against Manuel Godoy, the Prince of the Peace.

 
; As we were in the other little marble palace that stands in the depths of the gardens traversed by the Tage, the most grandiose and most marvelous gardens I had ever seen, and especially in Charles IV’s billiard room, I noticed that an extreme disturbance had taken possession of Mr. Little. He had gone very pale, with a vague gaze and a sort of nervous tremor in his hands.

  “What’s the matter with you, Tom,” Mrs. Little asked him. “You seem to be suffering.”

  “Suffering! Oh, yes!” replied Mr. Little, who could not suppress a sort of trepidation in his left leg. But he immediately pulled himself together. “That is to say…no…I’m not suffering at all. Pay no attention to me, I beg you, Betty, pay no attention to it.”

  However, Mrs. Little, who rendered to her husband all the affection that she received from him, took a small bottle of smelling salts out of her pocket and offered it to him to sniff.

  “Here,” she said, “breathe in, Tom, breathe in.”

  He pushed his wife’s hand away gently. “It’s useless; it doesn’t do anything at all.”

  We had had lunch not long before. I approached Mr. Little and said: “Is your lunch giving you indigestion?”

  “On the contrary,” he replied. “But I beg you, occupy yourself with my wife rather than me; explain the curiosities to her, which I don’t have the strength to explain to her at the moment.”

  In truth, it was the warden of the small palace who was furnishing us with all the desirable explanations, but, as Mrs. Little did not understand Spanish, I translated them for her.

  After having traversed a series of little boudoirs, where I invited Mrs. Little to admire cushions embroidered by queens and musical clocks that had amused Infantas, we arrived in a certain cabinet of extraordinary magnificence, which Charles IV had had equipped for his personal use. The guardian described all the ornaments and did not fail to show us the essential piece, pronouncing with a smile what were perhaps the only two English words he knew: “Water closet.”