Tristana (NYRB Classics)

by Benito Perez Galdos

  In her later letters, Tristana no longer used the vocabulary with which both had so liberally scattered their intimate conversations, whether spoken or written. She never again referred to Señó Juan or Paca de Rimini, never invented words or took the grammatical liberties that had been the spice of her piquant style. All those things were wiped from her memory, as if Horacio himself were disappearing, to be replaced by an ideal being, the bold creation of her imagination, a being who embodied all the beauties of the world, visible and invisible. Her heart burned with a vast love that one might easily term mystical, given the incorporeal and entirely unreal qualities of the being who provoked such feelings. This new, intangible Horacio bore a slight resemblance to the real one, but only slight. Tristana made of that pretty phantasm the basic truth of her existence, for she lived only for him, not realizing that she was worshipping a God of her own devising. And that worship found expression in sparkling letters, written in a tremulous hand, in between the overwrought states brought on by sleeplessness and fever, letters that she only dispatched to Villajoyosa out of mechanical habit, for they should really have been sent from the post office of daydreams to somewhere out there in imaginary space.

  Wednesday

  “My lord and master, my pain carries me to you, as would my joys if I had any. Pain and pleasure provoke the same desire to fly . . . if only one had wings. In the midst of the misfortunes afflicting me, God has been kind enough to give me your love. What does physical pain matter? Not a thing. I will bear it with resignation, as long as you do not hurt me. And let no one say that you are far away! I have you by my side, I sit you down next to me, I see you and touch you; I have enough imaginative power to abolish distance and shrink time at will.”

  Thursday

  “You don’t need to tell me, I know that you are as you should be. I can feel it inside. Your peerless intelligence, your artistic genius, send sparks up into my brain. Your lofty sense of goodness seems to have made its nest in my heart. Ah, the power of the spirit! When I think very hard about you, the pain goes. You are my medicine, or at least the anesthetic of which my doctor knows nothing. You should see him. Miquis is astonished at my serenity. He knows I adore you, but he doesn’t know your true worth, nor that you are the divinity’s choicest fragment. If he did, he would be more sparing in prescribing sedatives, which are far less effective than the thought of you. I have the pain under control at the moment, because I needed a moment’s calm in order to write to you. By sheer willpower, of which I have a good deal, and by sheer force of thought, I manage to achieve an occasional respite from pain. Devil take this leg of mine. They can cut it off for all I care. I don’t need it. I will love as spiritually with one leg as with two . . . or none at all.”

  Friday

  “I don’t have to see your marvelous creations. I can see them as clearly as if they were there before my eyes. Nature holds no secrets for you. She is not so much your teacher as your friend. She slips into your works unasked, and your eyes fix her on the canvas before your brushes do. When I am better, I will do the same. The certainty of what I have to do stirs inside me. We will work together, because I won’t be able to be an actress; I see now that it would be impossible. But I could be a painter. I can’t get the idea out of my head. A few lessons from you would be enough for me to follow in your footsteps, although always some way behind, of course. Will you teach me? Yes, you will, because your largeness of soul goes hand in hand with your understanding, and, although you won’t admit it, you are utter goodness, absolute kindness, supreme beauty.”

  22

  YOU CAN imagine the effect on Horacio of these disjointed but subtle thoughts. He found himself transformed into an ideal being, and with each letter that arrived, he was filled with more and more doubts about his own personality, sometimes even going so far as to ask himself if he was as he really was or as painted by the indomitable pen of Don Lepe’s visionary little girl. However, his unease and confusion did not prevent him from seeing the danger that lay behind her letters, and he began to think that Paquita de Rimini was perhaps sicker in the head than in her extremities. Assailed by gloomy thoughts and full of anxieties and suspicions, he resolved to travel to Madrid, and had everything ready for the journey at the end of February, when Doña Trinidad suddenly started coughing up blood, and that, alas, kept him tied to Villajoyosa.

  At the same time, events of extreme gravity were taking place in Madrid and in Don Lope’s house, and these we will describe now. Tristana’s condition had deteriorated so much that all her willpower was helpless in the face of the intense pain and fever, vomiting, and general malaise. A desperate and bewildered Don Lope, lacking the presence of mind the situation called for, tried to exorcize the danger by crying out to heaven, at first piteously, then with threats and blasphemies. In his blind fear, he thought a change of treatment would save the patient. Miquis was duly dismissed, only to be recalled because his successor was the kind who cured with leeches, and while this provided some relief at first, it soon demolished Tristana’s little remaining strength.

  Tristana was cheered by the return of Miquis, because she liked and trusted him, and the therapeutic powers of his sheer affability helped lift her spirits. For a few hours each day, strong sedatives restored to her the precious ability to find consolation in her own imagination, to forget the danger she was in and ponder imaginary hopes and remote glories. She took advantage of those moments to write a few brief, succinct letters, which Don Lope himself would take to the post office, making no mystery now of his indulgent attitude.

  “Enough of subterfuge, my dear,” he said in confiding, paternal tones. “For me there are no secrets. And if writing your little letters brings you comfort, I will not scold you or try to stop you writing them. No one understands you better than I, and the man lucky enough to read your scribblings is not worthy of them, nor does he deserve such an honor. In time, you will come around to my way of thinking. Meanwhile, my little one, write as much as you wish, and if one day, you are not up to wielding your pen, then you can dictate your words to me, and I will be your secretary. You see how little importance I give to this childish game. For these are childish amusements, which I understand perfectly, because I too was once twenty years old, I too was foolish, and would address every girl I met as my beautiful ideal and offer her my pale hand!”

  He would conclude these jocular remarks with a somewhat insincere little laugh, in the vain hope that Tristana would laugh with him, but alas, he always laughed alone, all the while hiding the gnawing anxiety inside him.

  Augusto Miquis visited her three times a day, yet still this did not satisfy Don Lope, who was determined to use every recourse known to medical science to cure his poor, unhappy “doll.” In these circumstances, it wasn’t enough for him to give his shirt, his very skin would have seemed too small a sacrifice to achieve such a goal.

  “If I run out of money completely,” he thought, “which is not impossible at the rate we’re going, I will do what I always hated and still hate doing: I will ask for a loan, I will stoop to begging for help from my relatives in Jaén, which for me is the very apogee of humiliation and shame. My dignity is worth nothing in the face of this terrible misfortune tearing at my heart, a heart that was once made of bronze and is now pure butter. Who would have thought it? Nothing touched me then, and the sufferings of all humanity mattered not a jot. But it seems to me now that the leg of this poor young woman could topple the universe. Until this moment, I don’t think I realized how much I love her, the poor girl! She is the love of my life, and I will not lose her for all the world. I will do battle for her with God Himself and with death. My egotism could move mountains, I recognize that, but it is an egotism that I would not hesitate to call ‘holy,’ because it is leading me to a complete reform of my character and of my whole being. It is because of that egotism that I now renounce my scandalous love affairs and pledge to devote myself, if God grants me my wish, to the happiness and well-being of this peerless woman, wh
o is not a woman but an angel of wisdom and grace. I held her in my hands and did not understand who or what she was. Own up, Don Lope, you are an arrant fool, and admit that we only learn by living and that true knowledge grows only in the untilled fields of old age.”

  In his derangement, he was as prepared to turn to medicine for a solution as to quackery. One morning, Saturna came to him with a story about some charlatan in Tetuán, whose fame and prestige had reached as far as Cuatro Caminos and the very walls of Fuencarral and who was said to be able to cure so-called “white tumors” with the application of what she termed ’erbs. As soon as Don Lope heard of this miracle worker he sent for her, ignoring Don Augusto’s disapproving looks. The woman immediately issued a sunny prognosis, declaring that the cure would take a matter of days. Hope stirred in Don Lepe, and he did whatever the old woman told him to. Miquis found out about this that same afternoon but did not get angry, simply making it known that the poultice prescribed by the “good doctor of Tetuán” would do neither harm nor good. Don Lope heaped curses on all quacks living and not yet born, dispatching them to hell in the company of a hundred thousand devils—and scientific method was restored.

  Tristana spent a terrible night, with violent attacks of fever interspersed with feelings of intense cold in her back. Utterly downcast, Don Lope had only to see the doctor’s face after his usual morning visit to know that the illness was entering a critical phase, for although good Don Augusto was usually able to disguise the truth of his diagnoses in the presence of a patient, on that day, sorrow won out over dissembling. Tristana herself said with apparent calm, “I understand, Doctor. This is the last time. I don’t mind. I like death, I’m warming to him. All this suffering is eating away at my will to live. Up until last night, I still thought living was, at least occasionally, a lovely thing, but now I rather think that it might be better to die . . . to feel no pain . . . what a delight that would be!”

  Then she burst into tears, and it took all of brave Don Lepe’s courage not to weep with her.

  Having consoled the patient with a few skillfully invented lies, Miquis shut himself up with Don Lope in the latter’s bedroom, leaving his jokes and his mask of easy friendliness at the door, and there he spoke to him in all seriousness.

  “Don Lope,” he said, placing his hands on the gentleman’s shoulders, for the gentleman seemed more dead than alive, “we have reached the point I feared we would reach. Tristana is very gravely ill. To a brave, calm-tempered man like yourself, capable of accommodating yourself to the most painful circumstances in life, I feel I must speak clearly.”

  “Yes,” murmured Don Lope, putting on a brave face, meanwhile feeling as if the sky were falling in on him, which is why he instinctively raised his hands to hold it up.

  “A very high fever and cold in the base of the spine can mean only one thing, as you know, don’t you? It’s an unmistakable symptom of reabsorption . . . of blood-poisoning, sepsis.”

  “Yes, and—”

  “There’s no alternative, my friend. Be brave now. We have to operate.”

  “Operate!” cried Don Lope, utterly stunned. “You mean cut it off? And you think—”

  “It could save her life, although I can’t be sure.”

  “But when?”

  “Today. There’s no time to lose. An hour’s delay and we might be too late.”

  Don Lope was gripped by a kind of madness when he heard this and began lurching around like a wounded animal, bumping into the furniture and striking himself on the head. Finally, he uttered this incoherent, unconnected stream of words: “Poor child! Cut off her leg . . . Mutilate her horribly . . . And what a leg, Doctor! One of Nature’s masterpieces. Phidias himself would have wanted it to make his immortal statues. But what kind of science is it that can only cure by cutting? You haven’t a clue, you doctors. Please, Don Augusto, for your own soul’s sake, think of some other remedy. Cut off her leg! If I could make her better by having myself cut in half, I would do it—right now. Yes, cut off her leg . . . and don’t bother with the chloroform.”

  The good gentleman’s cries must have been audible in Tristana’s room, because Saturna rushed in, looking very frightened, to ask whatever had come over her master.

  “Get out of here, you mischief-maker. It’s all your fault. I mean, no . . . Oh, I don’t know what to think. Off you go, Saturna, and tell the child I won’t let them cut off so much as a sliver of her leg. I’d rather cut off my own head. No, don’t tell her that. Say nothing. That way she won’t know, except she’ll have to be told. I’ll do it. Be very careful what you say, Saturna. Now go, leave us.”

  And turning to the doctor, he said, “Forgive me, my dear Augusto. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m quite mad. We will do whatever the doctors decide. What do you think? Must it be today?”

  “Yes, the sooner the better. My friend, Dr. Ruiz Alonso, a leading surgeon, will come and . . . well, we’ll see. I believe that if the amputation goes well, she has a good chance of surviving.”

  “A good chance! So it’s still not sure . . . Ah, doctor, don’t think the worse of me for being such a coward. I’m no use in these situations. I revert to being a boy of ten. Who would have thought it! I, who have faced far worse dangers without so much as batting an eyelid.”

  “Don Lope,” said Miquis sadly, “it is on these testing occasions that we discover just how well we will cope with misfortune. Many who consider themselves cowards turn out to be brave, and others who thought they were cock of the walk turn out to be mere chickens. You’ll cope.”

  “We’ll have to prepare her. Oh dear God, what a tragedy! I can’t do it, Don Augusto, I’m not strong enough.”

  “Poor child! We won’t tell her directly. We’ll deceive her.”

  “Deceive her! You haven’t yet realized how keen-eyed she is.”

  “Well, let’s go then and just hope for some unexpected, favorable turn of events. If she’s as sharp-witted as you believe, it may be that she has realized already and then we won’t need to say anything . . . The patient often sees things very clearly.”

  23

  THAT WISE student of Hippocrates was quite right. When they went in to see Tristana, she greeted them with a look that was part smiling, part tearful. She laughed, and two large tears ran down her paper cheeks.

  “It’s all right, I know what you’re going to say. There’s no need to be upset. I’m brave. I feel almost glad, almost without . . . because it’s best if they cut it off. That way I won’t suffer anymore. And what does it matter if I do have only one leg, given that I don’t really have two legs as it is, since this one is of no use anyway. Cut it off and then I’ll get better and be able to walk again, with crutches or however God teaches me.”

  “You’ll be absolutely fine, my dear,” said Don Lope, emboldened by her cheerful mood. “If I thought that cutting off both my legs would free me from my rheumatism, I wouldn’t hesitate. After all, legs can be replaced by mechanical devices made by the English and the Germans, and you can walk better on them than on the two wretched oars with which Nature has fitted us.”

  “Anyway,” added Miquis, “there’s no need for you to be afraid, you won’t feel a thing. You won’t even know it’s happened. And then you’ll be well again and in a few days’ time you can get back to your painting.”

  “Or even today,” said old Don Lope, screwing up his courage and trying to swallow down the knot in his throat. “I’ll bring you your easel and your paint box, and you’ll paint us some really lovely pictures.”

  Augusto took his leave with a cordial handshake, saying that he would be back soon, although without specifying an exact time, and when Tristana and Don Lope were left alone, they sat for a while in silence.

  “I must write a letter,” said the patient.

  “Do you think you can, my dear? You’re very weak. Dictate it to me, and I’ll write it.”

  As he said this, he brought over the piece of wood that served as a writing tablet, along with the paper and in
kpot.

  “No, I can write. It’s very strange what’s happening to me now. My leg doesn’t hurt anymore. I can barely feel it at all. Of course I can write. My hand is a little shaky, but I can manage.”

  In the presence of her tyrant, she wrote these lines:

  “I’m not sure if the news I am sending is good or bad. They are going to cut off my leg, my poor little leg! But it’s my leg’s fault. Why is it misbehaving like this? I don’t know whether to be glad or not, because my leg is of no use to me as it is. I don’t know whether to feel sad, because they are, after all, removing part of my person . . . and my body will be different from the one I’ve had up until now. What do you think? Why get so upset over a leg? You, who are all spirit, will see it like that. I do. And you will love me just as much with one oar as with two. Now I realize it would have been a mistake to devote myself to the stage. A most ignoble art, one that wearies the body and jades the soul. Painting, though, is quite another matter. They tell me I will feel no pain when they . . . shall I say the word? . . . when they operate. To be frank, it’s all very sad, and the only thing that makes it bearable is knowing that, as far as you’re concerned, I will be the exactly the same person after they have butchered me. Do you remember that cricket we had, which sang more and better after it lost one of its legs? I know you well, and I know that you will value me no less. You don’t need to reassure me on that score. So why, then, am I not happy? It will mean an end to my suffering. God gives me strength and tells me that I will survive this and once again enjoy health and happiness, and be able to love you as much as I wish, and be a painter or a sage and a philosopher. But, no, I can’t be happy. I want to cheer myself up, but I can’t. That’s enough for today. I know you will always love me, but tell me that it’s so anyway. Since you cannot deceive me, and since there is no room for lies in a being who embodies every form of goodness, what you say will be my gospel. If you had neither arms nor legs, I would love you just as much, therefore . . .”