Tristana (NYRB Classics)

by Benito Perez Galdos

  Thus, his one concern was to remint his grandson in his own unyielding image, and when the boy grew up and became a man, the grandfather’s desire to stamp on him his own habits and antiquated obsessions only increased. Because, it must be said, he loved him, yes, why deny it? He had grown fond of him, in the outlandish way that typified all his affections and behavior. Meanwhile, apart from Horacio’s still intense vocation for painting, his will had grown flabby with lack of use. Latterly, though, behind his grandfather’s back, in a shabby room at the top of the house, which his grandfather agreed that he could use, Horacio carried on with his painting; and there is some suggestion that Don Felipe Díaz knew about this but turned a blind eye to it. This was the first time in his life that he had ever shown any weakness, and it was, perhaps, the precursor to far graver events. Some cataclysm was bound to follow, and so it was: One morning, Don Felipe was in his office going over some English invoices for potassium chlorate and zinc sulfate, when his head dropped forward onto the paper and he died without uttering so much as a sigh. He had turned ninety the day before.

  9

  HORACIO told all this to his young lady, along with other things that will emerge later on, and she listened with delight, confirmed in her belief that the man heaven had sent her was unique among mortals, and that his life was the strangest and most anomalous of young lives; it almost resembled the life of a saint worthy of inclusion in the list of martyrs.

  “That happened,” Horacio continued, “when I was twenty-eight, when I had the habits of both an old man and a child, for on the one hand, the terrible discipline imposed on me by my grandfather had preserved in me an innocence and ignorance of the world inappropriate to my age, and on the other, I possessed virtues more appropriate to the very ancient; I felt a kind of weariness about things I had scarcely even encountered; I was filled by a weariness and tedium that made others see me as perennially stiff and numb. Anyway, my grandfather left a very large fortune, amassed penny by penny in that vile, malodorous shop. I got a fifth part of it; they gave me a lovely house in Villajoyosa, two other smaller country houses, and a corresponding share in the hardware store, which continues to trade under the name of Nephews of Felipe Díaz. On finding myself suddenly free, it took me a while to recover from the stupor into which my independence had thrown me; I felt so timid that when I tried to take a few steps into the world, I stumbled, yes, I stumbled, like someone who cannot walk because he hasn’t used his legs in a long time.

  “When that wretched brake on my life was finally released, my artistic vocation saved me and made me a man. I didn’t hang around to haggle over the execution of the will, I escaped and rushed straight to Italy, my hope, my dream. I had begun to believe Italy didn’t really exist, that such beauty was a lie, a mirage. I arrived and the inevitable happened. I was like a seminarian with no vocation who is unleashed upon the world after fifteen years of enforced virtue. You’ll understand, I’m sure, how that sudden contact with life awoke in me a wild desire to make up for what I had missed, to live in a matter of months the years that time owed me, having cruelly stolen them from me with the connivance of that fanatical old man. You don’t understand? Well, in Venice, I gave myself over to a life of dissipation, going far beyond my own natural instincts, because the old man-child I had become was not nearly as dissolute as he was trying to appear to be, in order to get his own back, to avenge himself on his dull, foolish past self. I came to believe that I was not a real man unless I took licentiousness to extremes, and I amused myself by looking at my reflection in that mirror, a much-begrimed mirror if you like, but one in which I seemed far more elegant than I ever had in my grandfather’s back room. Needless to say, I soon grew bored. In Florence and Rome, art cured me of those diabolical desires and, having passed the test, I was no longer tormented by the idea of ‘becoming a real man’ and began to devote myself to my studies; I launched enthusiastically into drawing from nature; however, the more I learned, the more I became aware of the deficiencies in my artistic education. As regards color, I was fine. I had a natural talent for that, but when it came to drawing, I seemed to grow clumsier with each passing day. How I suffered! How many sleepless nights I spent, how I labored day and night, trying to achieve the right line, struggling with it and giving up, only to return at once to that terrifying battle with renewed energy and fury!

  “It was infuriating, but how could it be otherwise? Since I hadn’t practiced drawing as a child, I had the devil’s own job to handle shapes fluently. In my days of slavery, writing endless numbers in Don Felipe’s office, I used to amuse myself by giving them human form. I would give the sevens a rather bullying air, as if I were drawing a brief sketch of a man; I made my eights look like buxom women and so on . . . and my threes had my grandfather’s profile, like the side view of a tortoise. Such childish pursuits were not enough though. They didn’t train me to study the lines of objects and reproduce them. I worked, I sweated, I cursed . . . and, in the end, I actually did begin to improve. I spent a year in Rome, devoting myself body and soul to formal study, and although I still went out on the occasional drunken spree, as I had in Venice, they were far less boisterous affairs, and I was no longer the overgrown child who, having arrived late at life’s party, belatedly gobbles down the dishes already served in order to catch up with those who began eating at the appointed hour.

  “I returned to Alicante, where my uncles and aunts had meanwhile divided up my grandfather’s legacy, assigning me whatever part they wished, and I never objected or bargained, but said my final farewell to the hardware shop—now transformed and modernized—and came to Madrid, where I have an aunt whom I really don’t deserve, an absolute angel, a widow with no children of her own, but who loves and cares for me and spoils me as if I were her own son. She too was a victim of the family tyrant. He used to give her a peseta a day and tell her, in all his letters, that she must save . . . As soon as I arrived in Madrid, I dedicated myself entirely to my work. I’m ambitious, I want applause and glory and renown. It saddens me to be a mere zero, worth nothing more than any of the other grains of sand that form the multitude. And until someone convinces me otherwise, I will believe that I contain a fragment, however tiny, of the divine essence that God scattered willy-nilly over the heap.

  “I’ll tell you something else. Months before I met you, I was plunged into the most dreadful melancholy here in Madrid. There I was with thirty wasted years behind me, and although I knew a little of life and the joys of youth, and could savor, too, certain aesthetic pleasures, I had not known love, had never experienced that sense of fusing my life with that of another person. I began studying abstruse philosophies and, in the solitude of my studio, I struggled with the human form. I had a feeling that love existed only in the desire to obtain it. I fell again into the bitter depressions I had suffered as an adolescent; in my dreams I saw silhouettes, temptingly vague beckoning shapes, whispering lips. I understood then the most subtle of ideas; the most obscure of psychologies seemed to me as clear as the four rules of arithmetic. Then I saw you; you came to meet me. I asked if you were the one and heaven knows what other nonsense. I was so bewildered that you must have thought me utterly ridiculous. However, God decided that you would prove capable of seeing the serious man behind the fool. Our romanticism, our exaltation, struck neither of us as absurd. We came to each other full of hunger, the noble, pure, spiritual hunger that moves the world, which is the reason we exist and will be for the thousands of generations who come after us. I knew you were mine and you declared that I was yours. That is what life is for; what does anything else matter?”

  He spoke, and Tristana did not know how to respond, made giddy by such spirituality, as if her lover were hurling clouds of incense at her from a vast thurible. Inside her, emotion was kicking and stamping, like a living being far larger than the breast containing it, and she vented this emotion by laughing wildly or bursting into sudden, passionate tears. It was impossible to say if this feeling was a source of joy to them or
a lacerating sorrow, because they both felt as if they had been wounded by a sting that plunged deep into their souls, and were both tormented by a desire for something beyond themselves. Tristana, in particular, was insatiable in her continuous demands for love. She would suddenly utter a bitter complaint that Horacio did not love her enough, that he should love her more, far more; and he would effortlessly provide her with that more-always-more, while demanding the same in return.

  At sunset, they contemplated the vast horizon of the Sierra, a vivid turquoise blue with, here and there, different highlights and transparencies, as if that purest of blues had been poured over ice crystals. The curves of the bare hills, appearing and disappearing as if imitating the gentle movement of waves, repeated back to them that “more-always-more,” the inextinguishable longing of their hungry hearts. On some afternoons, strolling beside the Canal del Oeste—an undulating ribbon that winds, like an oasis, around the arid contours of the Madrid landscape—they savored the bucolic peace of that miniature valley. Cocks crowing, dogs barking, little laborers’ huts; fallen leaves that the gentle breeze swept into heaps around the trunks of the trees; the donkey grazing calmly and gravely; the slight trembling in the highest branches, which were gradually growing bare; all this aroused in them feelings of delight and amazement, and they spoke to each other of their impressions, in a back-and-forth exchange as if it were simply one impression flowing from lips to lips and springing from eye to eye.

  They always returned at the same hour, so that she would not be scolded for staying out late; paying no heed to Saturna, who waited patiently for them, they would walk arm in arm along the Aceiteros path, which, as night fell, became more silent and solitary than the Carretera Mala de Francia. In the west, they saw the sky in flames, the splendid afterglow of the setting sun. Silhouetted against that backdrop, like sharp, black crenellations, stood the cypresses in the cemetery of San Ildefonso, interspersed with sad Grecian-style porticos which, in the half-light, seemed more elegant than they really were. There were few houses and, at that hour, few if any people. They nearly always saw one or two unyoked oxen, of the sort who seem as large as elephants, beautiful creatures bred in Ávila, usually black, with horns that strike fear into the heart of even the bravest of men; beasts made inoffensive by sheer tiredness and who, once the yoke has been removed, want only to lie down and rest and thus regard any passersby with scornful indifference. Tristana would go over to them and place her hands on their curved horns, wishing she had something to feed them.

  “Ever since loving you,” she would tell her friend, “I haven’t felt afraid of anything, not of oxen nor of thieves. I feel almost heroically brave, and wouldn’t even flinch if confronted by the horned serpent or the lion.”

  As they drew near the water tower, they saw, plunged in lonely gloom, the massive bulk of the carousel, where the wooden horses stood poised with their galloping legs outstretched as if bewitched. The strange shapes of the seesaws and the roller coaster loomed out of the darkness. Since there was no one else about, Tristana and Horacio would briefly monopolize those large toys intended for children, for they, too, were children. Not that far away, they could see the outline of the old water tower, surrounded by dense trees and, over toward the street, the lights of the tram or the passing carriages or some open-air café from which emanated the argumentative voices of a few lingering customers. There among that humble architecture, surrounded by rickety benches and rustic tables, Saturna would be waiting for them, and there they parted, sometimes as sadly and tragically as if Horacio were setting off to the ends of the earth or Tristana were bidding a last farewell before entering a convent. Finally, finally, after many attempts, they managed to part and go their separate ways, still looking back, still just able to make each other out in the gloom of night.

  10

  NOW THAT she was in love, Tristana, to use her own words, feared neither the hefty oxen or the horned serpent or the fierce Atlas lion, but she was afraid of Don Lope, seeing him as a monster so large that he made all the wild, dangerous beasts of creation seem small. Analyzing her fear, though, she judged it to be such that it could, at any given moment, change into blind, bold valor. The differences between captive and tyrant grew more marked by the day. Don Lope reached new heights of impertinence and although, in agreement with Saturna, Tristana concealed from him her evening sorties, when the old gallant said to her, grim-faced, “You’re going out, Tristana, I know you are, I can see it on your face,” she at first denied it, but then acknowledged it with her disdainful silence. One day, she dared to answer back, “What if I am going out, what of it? Am I to remain shut up in the house for the rest of my life?”

  Don Lope gave vent to his rage with threats and curses, and then, half angry, half mocking, said, “Because if you do go out, I can just imagine you being pestered by some good-for-nothing, some carrier of the Bsacillus virgula of love, the sole fruit of this feeble generation, and the nonsense he might spout could quite simply turn your head. I wouldn’t forgive you, my girl. If you’re going to be unfaithful to me, at least let it be with a man worthy of me. But then where would you find such a worthy rival? Nowhere! Such a man has not yet been born, nor will be. Indeed, even you must admit that I am not so easily supplanted. Oh, come here, enough of your airs and graces. Do you really think that I don’t love you any more? How I would miss you were you to leave me! Out there, you’ll find only men of quite staggering insipidness. Come, let us make our peace. Forgive me if I doubted you. You would never deceive me. You’re a superior woman, who appreciates the value of people and . . .”

  Whatever words Don Lope uttered, whether placatory or angry, they only succeeded in arousing in his captive a deep, unspoken hatred, that sometimes disguised itself as scorn and, at others, as repugnance. She found his company so horribly tedious that she would count the minutes until she could leave and go out into the street. She was terrified that he might fall ill, because then she would not be able to go out. Good God, and what would become of her if she were thus imprisoned, if she couldn’t . . . ? No, that was impossible. She would have her evening walk even if Don Lope fell ill or died. At night, Tristana nearly always feigned a headache so that she could escape early from the sight and the odious caresses of that now decrepit Don Juan.

  When alone with her passion and her conscience, she would say to herself, “The strange thing is that if this man were to understand that I cannot love him, if he were to erase the word ‘love’ from our relationship and we could relate to each other in a different way, then I could love him, yes, I could, although I’m not sure how, perhaps as one loves a good friend, because he isn’t a bad man, apart from his perverse, monomaniac obsession with pursuing women. I would even forgive him for the wrong he has done me, for my dishonor, I would forgive him with all my heart, as long as he would leave me in peace. Dear God, please make him leave me in peace, and I will forgive him and even feel affection for him, and I will become one of those daughters who is humble to the point of servitude, or like one of those loyal servants who sees a father in the master who feeds them.”

  Fortunately for Tristana, not only did Don Lope’s health improve, thus dispelling her fear that she would have to spend her evenings at home, but he had clearly been offered some relief from his pecuniary difficulties, because his sullen mood lifted, and he regained his usual calm demeanor. Saturna, who was an old dog and a cunning one, told her mistress her thoughts on the matter.

  “He’s obviously in funds again, because it no longer occurs to him that I should be prepared to work my fingers to the bone for half an endive, nor does he forget the respect he owes, as a gentleman, to those of us who wear a skirt, however darned and patched. The trouble is that when he collects the rent arrears, he spends it all in a week, and then it’s farewell chivalry and he’s back to his usual rude, fusspot, interfering self.”

  At the same time, Don Lope once again began to lavish meticulous, almost aristocratic care upon his own person, dressing as carefully as
he used to in better days. Both women gave thanks to God for this happy restoration of habits, and taking advantage of the tyrant’s regular absences, Tristana flung herself into the ineffable pleasure of going for walks with the man she loved.

  In order to provide a change of scene and setting, he would bring a carriage most afternoons, and the two of them would set off to savor the enormous delights of driving so far out of Madrid that they could barely see it. Witnesses to their happiness were the hill at Chamartín, the two pagoda-like towers of the Jesuit college, and the mysterious pine forest; one day, they would follow the road to Fuencarral, the next they would explore the somber depths of El Pardo, where the ground was covered in prickly, metallic-looking leaves, the ash groves that border the Manzanares River, the bare peaks of Amaniel, or the deep ravines of Abroñigal. They would then leave the carriage and go for long walks along the edges of plowed fields, breathing in, along with the fresh air, the pleasures of solitude and stillness, enjoying all that they saw—for all seemed to them lovely, fresh, and new—not realizing that the charm of everything was a projection of their own selves. Turning their gaze on the source of such beauty, namely themselves, they would indulge in the innocent game of pondering their love, a game that, to those not in love, would have seemed cloying in the extreme. They would analyze the reasons for that love, try to explain the inexplicable, decipher the profound mystery of it all, only to end up as they always did: demanding and promising more love, defying eternity, giving guarantees of unalterable fidelity in successive lives lived out in the nebulous circles of that home of perfection, immortality, where souls shake off the dust of the worlds in which they suffered.