The Three-Cornered Hat

by Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

  Here ends all that this book has to do with things military and political in that epoch. Our only purpose in mentioning them was to establish that in the year in question – which we shall imagine to be 1805 – the Old Order still reigned supreme in Spain in every sphere of public and private life. It was just as if amid so many innovations and upheavals the Pyrenees had been transformed into another Great Wall of China.

  2

  How They Lived in Those ‘Good Old Days’

  In andalusia, for instance – the scene of the events about which you are to hear – people of standing went blithely on, rising very early in the morning, going to the Cathedral for Matins – and not only on days of obligation – breakfasting at nine on a fried egg and a cup of chocolate with fingers of buttered toast, lunching between one and two on vegetable stew and an entrée – provided of course they had hunted the day before – otherwise on stew alone, dozing through the afternoon siesta, then taking a stroll in the open air; going off to recite the rosary at their parish church in the gathering dusk; taking more chocolate at the Angelus – this time with biscuits; putting in an appearance, assuming that they really were somebodies, at the reception given by the Governor, the Dean or some other local bigwig; returning home at vespers; shutting the front door before the ‘Ave Maria’; dining on salad and a fricassee, that is if fresh anchovies were not forthcoming, and going promptly to bed with their wives – those that had wives at any rate – taking care first, for nine months in the twelve, to have the bed well warmed in advance…

  O happy, happy time, when our native land went sweetly along in quiet and peaceful tenure of all its cobwebs and its dust and its moths, all its observances, beliefs, traditions, uses, abuses, consecrated by the centuries! O happy time wherein society boasted a diversity of classes, of loyalties, of customs! Happy time, I repeat, especially for poets who found round every corner material for interludes, farces, comedies, trag­edies, miracles or epics, in place of that prosaic uniformity and flat realism which was spawned by the revolution in France! Happy time indeed!

  But enough of dwelling on the past! Enough of generalizing and beating about the bush! Now for a resolute plunge into the story of The Three-Cornered Hat!

  3

  A Sprat for a Mackerel

  At that time there was, near the city of ***, a well-known flour mill, long since vanished, situated about a quarter of a league from the town between the foot of a gently sloping hill thick with mazard and cherry trees and a flourishing garden, which served as bank – and sometimes as bed – for the wayward and uncertain river which lords it through the region.

  For sundry different reasons this mill had been for a long time past a favourite rendezvous and place of entertainment for the more consequential people of leisure living in the aforesaid city. In the first place, leading to it ran a highway rather less difficult of passage than any of the others thereabouts. Secondly, in front of the mill there was a small stone-paved courtyard, roofed by a vast climbing vine, a roof under which it was good to take the air in summer or to sun oneself in winter by reason of the swaying of the wind-stirred branches. In the third place, the Miller was a man of parts with much discretion and good taste, who possessed what we Spaniards call the “don de gentes”, the gift for people, that is to say the art of making friends and influencing them. He danced attendance on the fine gentlemen who honoured him at his evening gatherings, pressing upon them anything which the season provided such as cherries and mazard, long lettuces unseasoned – which were very good when bread rolls went with them such as their Worships took care to send ahead of themselves – or perhaps melons or grapes, from that same spread of vine which was their canopy, or roasted popcorn in winter-time and roast chestnuts, almonds and walnuts and, now and again on chill evenings, a draught of generous old wine, drunk inside the house, to which at Easter were added a few fritters fried in honey, a cracker, or rusk, or a slice of Alpujarra ham.

  I seem to hear the curious reader asking; “Was the Miller rich then, or was it that his guests had extravagant tastes?” I answer: Neither. The Miller had just a sufficiency, and his gentlemen guests were good taste and dignity personified. But in those days when fifty or more levies were paid to Church and State, a shrewd countryman like our friend was making a sound investment by ingratiating himself as he did with Aldermen, Canons, Friars, Notaries, and other people of consequence. And so there were those who said that Tio Lucas – as our Miller was called – saved a power of money every year by dint of providing general entertainment.

  “Your Grace will perhaps let me have an old gate from the house you’ve just pulled down?” he’d say to one dignitary. And to another: “Would you, sir, bid them reduce my rates, or sales tax, or civil fruits levy?” “Your Reverence wouldn’t object to letting me pick leaves for my silkworms in the Monastery gardens?” “Will your Excellency allow me to get a little timber from such-and-such a wood?” “Please, good Father, write me a chit giving me leave to cut a log or two in the pinewood at so-and-so.” “All it needs, sir, is your drawing me up a little deed free of charge.” “This year I cannot pay the poll tax. I trust that the suit will go in my favour?” “Today I came to blows with a fellow and I think he should go to prison for provoking me.” “Has your Worship by any chance such-and-such a thing that you don’t want?” “Is this or that of any service to you?” “Can you lend me the mule?” “Will you be using the carriage tomorrow?” “May I send for the ass?”

  Such were tunes he was always singing, and invariably he got for response a generous and unselfish “Como se pide” or “As you will”. Which clearly shows that Tio Lucas was not on the road to ruin.

  4

  One Glance at a Woman

  The last and perhaps strongest reason which the city gentry had for visiting Tio Lucas’s mill at evening was that in this way every one of them, clergy and laity alike, from their lordships the Bishop and the Corregidor downwards, could gaze their fill at one of the loveliest and most bewitching creatures ever to come from the hand of what the Frenchified writers of that time call ‘the Supreme Being’.

  The creature in question was named Frasquita – the Señora Frasquita. At once let me say that the Señora Frasquita, lawful wife of Tio Lucas, was a truly virtuous woman and well known to be so by all the mill’s distinguished habitués. What is more, none ever openly looked at her in the common manner of a male eyeing a female, or with anything of sly calculation in his eyes. Her admirers would express their admiration and even pay court to her on occasion – always, of course, in her husband’s presence – as a paragon of beauty who did honour to her Maker and a bewitching piece of femininity whose innocent high spirits and inoffensive banter could rejoice the gloomiest spirit. “She really is a lovely creature,” that virtuous man the Bishop would say. “A statue from ancient Greece!” averred a most learned Doctor of Law and Correspondent of the Academy of History. “She’s a true daughter of Eve!” the Colonel of the Militia boomed, “A serpent of the Nile, a siren, an arrant witch!” the Corregidor himself contributed. “For all that a virtuous woman, an angel, a child, a mere four-year-old,” was the verdict they all concurred in as, the grapes and nuts lying comfortingly in their stomachs, they jogged back from the mill to their own formal and regimented households.

  The “mere four-year-old” of their common admiration was at that time touching thirty years of age. Her height was not much short of six feet, and she was robust in proportion, perhaps even more so than suited her unusual height. She had none of the statuesque repose suggested by the learned Doctor’s simile. She would sway like a reed in the wind, veer like a weathercock, spin around like a top. Her features were more mobile still, even less sculptural. Their liveliness was enhanced by no fewer than five dimples, two in one cheek and one in the other, with a fourth, very tiny, near the left corner of her laughing mouth, and the last and largest nestling in the very middle of her exquisitely rounded chin. Add to all this her constant expression o
f lurking merriment, the flash in her eye, and the lively tilt of her head as she talked, and you may form some notion of the charm of her looks, so full of spirit and radiance, of health and gaiety.

  Neither Señora Frasquita nor Tio Lucas were natives of that region; she came from Navarre, he from Murcia. He had gone to the city of *** at the age of fifteen as combined page and servant to the Bishop who then ruled the Church in those parts. His patron trained him for the Church and, perhaps with that in view and so that he might not lack for a “competence”, left him the mill as a legacy; but Tio Lucas, who at the date of his Lordship’s death had only been admitted to minor orders, hung up his cassock there and then and enlisted for a soldier, having more a mind to see the world and meet adventures than say Masses and grind corn. In 1793 he made the campaign of the Western Pyrenees as orderly to General Don Ventura Caro of gallant memory, took part in the assault on Castillo Pinon, and spent a long time in the northern provinces where he received in due course a total dispensation from his priestly vows. He came to know Señora Frasquita in Estella – she was not, of course, Señora then – and fell in love with her, married her, and bore her off to Andalusia to the mill that was fated to be thenceforward the scene of their pilgrimage through this “valley of laughter and tears”.

  Señora Frasquita, transplanted from Navarre into this new and lonely life, had never acquired any of the ways of Andalusia. She remained indeed altogether different from the local ladies, dressing with more simplicity, naturalness and taste. She washed more frequently and let the sun and air caress her bare arms and uncovered throat. She would wear, it is true, the common feminine dress of the period, the dress of Goya’s women; that is, a skirt half a stride or, at most, a stride wide, very short, allowing a sight of her slender feet and something of her well-shaped legs. She favoured the low round “décolleté” then fashionable in Madrid, in which city she had stayed for two months with her Lucas while in passage from Navarre to Andalusia. Her hair was all gathered up on top of her head coronet-fashion, revealing the full vivid charm of her head and neck. In each small ear she wore a pendant earring, and more than one handsome ring on the slender fingers of her strong white hands. And then her voice – her voice had all the tones of a musical instrument of widest range, and her laughter was so light-hearted and silvery that it sounded like a peal of Easter Sunday bells.

  And Tio Lucas?…

  5

  A Glance All Round – and Inside – a Man

  Tio lucas was uglier than sin itself. He had been so all his life and he was now nearing forty. Nevertheless few such openhearted and genial spirits had ever come from the Creator’s hand. Completely captivated by his liveliness, his quickness of mind, and his native wit, the late Bishop had begged him of his parents, who had been shepherds – of real sheep, I mean, not men. On his Lordship’s death the boy left the seminary for the barracks and soon was singled out by General Caro to act as his valet and orderly in the field. When at last his military service was over it was just as inevitable that he should take Frasquita’s heart by storm as that he should have won the special regard of both Prelate and General. That “fair maid of Navarre” – who at that date had known a mere twenty springtimes and was the toast of all the young bloods in Estella, many of them young men of fortune – was quite powerless to resist his innumerable social graces, the witty sallies, the quizzing of his little, amorous, simian eyes, the ready smile so full of raillery and mischief, and yet of tenderness too. The young Murcian was indeed so forthcoming, had so much to say for himself, showed constantly such sense, address, spirit and wit, that in the end he completely turned the head not only of the much-sought-after young beauty but of her father and mother as well.

  Lucas was in those days, as he still was at the time of our story, of spare build – at any rate, compared with his wife. He had something of a hump on his back, and was very swarthy. He was clean-shaven, his ears were rather long, and his face was pockmarked. On the other hand, his mouth was very well-shaped and his teeth perfect.

  It could be said of Lucas that only the shell of the man was rough and ugly; as soon as one got beyond that, his perfections became manifest, and they began with his teeth. Then came the voice, vibrant, flexible, seductive; virile and grave at times; then, when he sought a favour, soft and honeyed – at all times hard to resist. Next there was what that voice said – every single word straight to the point, most apt, ingenious, and persuasive. To sum up, the character of Tio Lucas was a compound of stoutness of heart, staunchness, straightforwardness, common sense, a readiness to learn, an instinctive or acquired knowledge of many things, a deep contempt for fools whatever their social standing, and a certain spirit of irony, burlesque, and raillery that stamped him in the learned Doctor’s eyes as a Quevedo in the raw.

  Such, outwardly and inwardly, was Lucas.

  6

  A Married Couple’s Aptitudes

  Señora frasquita loved her Lucas to distraction and counted herself the happiest woman in the world to be adored by him in return. Having no children, they regarded coddling and waiting on each other as the main business of life – not, however, that their mutual attachment was in any way tinged with the sickening, sentimental mawkishness of so many childless couples. On the contrary, they treated each other always with the unaffected good-humour, gaiety, and frankness found in two childhood playmates who, though having the utmost regard for each other, never speak about, or indeed seem in the least conscious of, their feelings.

  Never surely lived a miller better looked after, better turned out, better treated at table, or surrounded in his house with more creature comforts, than Tio Lucas. Never was a miller’s lady, or queen herself, the object of so many attentions, so many little presents and treats as the Señora Frasquita. Never did a mill contain so many things necessary, useful, ornamental, entertaining, and even luxurious as the one serving as stage for our present story.

  This happy state of affairs was due in part to the fact that the Señora Frasquita – like the beautiful, lively, buxom daughter of Navarre she was – was ever able, competent, and willing to cook, sew, embroider, sweep, bake, wash, iron, tidy, polish, knead, spin, mend, and darn, as well as sing and dance, play the guitar and the castanets, take a hand at cribbage and “beat-your-neighbour”, and do much more that it would take too long to mention. Another contributory factor was that Tio Lucas was ever able, competent and willing to manage the property, cultivate the land, hunt, fish, be carpenter, smith, mason, help his wife in all the multifarious household tasks, read, write, keep accounts, and much besides.

  But all this is to leave unmentioned the rarer side of him – his truly remarkable specialized talents. For instance, Tio Lucas adored flowers, as did his wife, and was so expert in growing them that he had succeeded in producing new species by means of assiduous crossing and grafting. He was by way of being a born engineer and had proved it by constructing a sluice, a siphon-pump, and an aqueduct that had tripled the mill’s water supply. He had trained a dog to dance, tamed a snake, and taught a parrot to screech out the hours shown on a sundial which the Miller had contrived to make in a party wall. The parrot would thus announce the time with perfect accuracy even on cloudy days and at night.

  In conclusion, within the limits of the mill were a kitchen garden yielding every kind of fruit and vegetable; a water-hole enclosed in a kind of arbour of jasmine, in which Tio Lucas and Señora Frasquita would bathe in summer; a flower parterre; a hothouse or winter garden for exotic plants; a drinking-water fountain; two donkeys on which husband and wife used to go to the city or neighbouring villages; a chicken run, a dovecot, an aviary, one hatchery for fish and one for silkworms; beehives whose bees sipped the jasmines round about; a winepress and cellar, on a specially small scale; a kiln, a loom, a forge, a carpenter’s shop, and oh! much more, all restricted to an eight-roomed house and little more than three acres of land of the taxable value of 10,000 reals.

  7

  The
Foundations of Happiness

  They both indeed loved each other to distraction, did the Miller and his lady. It seemed almost that she was the more in love in spite of her husband’s ugliness and her own great beauty. This was because she was inclined to grow jealous and call Lucas to account whenever he was unduly late home from the city or the small towns where he went for grain. Tio Lucas, for his part, actually seemed to delight in the attentions to which the gentry who frequented the mill treated Frasquita. He took a genuine pride and joy in the fact that she was just as attractive to everyone else as she was to himself. Though he knew well enough that in their heart of hearts they had an understandably human desire for her and would have given anything for her to be less chaste, yet he would leave her on her own for whole days together without the least anxiety, never asking questions afterwards about what she had been doing or who had been there in his absence.