Tristana (9 page)

The young artist was astonished, but not to the extent that he did not believe it. And so it remained and for some days, Horacio continued to see in Tristana, his conquest, the legitimate wife of that elegant, respectable gentleman, who so resembled one of the figures in Velázquez’s
Surrender of Breda
. Whenever he mentioned him in her company, he would say, “Your husband this and your husband that . . .” and she did not immediately disabuse him. But one day, at last, word by word, question upon question, such was her invincible repugnance for the lie, that Tristana finally found the strength to face up to it and, overwhelmed by shame and sorrow, she set the record straight.

“I’ve been deceiving you, which I shouldn’t and don’t want to do. The truth burns to be spoken and I can keep it back no longer. I am not married to my husband, I mean, my papa, I mean to that man . . . I kept meaning to tell you, but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t sure, I’m still not sure, whether you would feel angry or glad, if I would be worth more or less in your eyes. I’ve been dishonored, but I’m still a free woman. Which would you prefer me to be: an unfaithful married woman or a spinster who has lost her honor? Even telling you this fills me with shame . . . I don’t know . . . I just . . .”

She could not go on and, bursting into bitter tears, pressed her face to her lover’s breast. That heartfelt spasm of pain lasted a long time. Neither of them said anything, until, finally, she asked the inevitable question: “Do you love me more or less?”

“I love you as much as I did before, no, more, always more.”

It did not take much for her to recount, in broad terms, the how and when of her dishonor. Tears without cease were shed that evening, but in her longing for sincerity, her noble urge to confess, she omitted nothing, as the one sure way of purifying herself.

“He took me in when I was orphaned. He was, it must be said, very generous to my parents. I respected and loved him; I had not the slightest suspicion of what was going to happen. I was too surprised to resist. I was rather more foolish then than I am now, and that wretched man dominated me entirely and dealt with me as he wished. Long before I met you, I hated myself for my weakness of will, and I hate myself all the more now that I know you. Oh, how I have wept! The tears I have shed over my situation! And when I fell in love with you, I felt like killing myself, because I could not offer you what you so deserve . . . What do you think? Do you love me less or more? Tell me that you love me more, always more. In truth, I should seem to you less culpable, since I am not an adulteress; the only person I am deceiving is someone who has no right to tyrannize me. My infidelity, therefore, is not infidelity at all, don’t you agree, but a punishment for his infamy; and he thoroughly deserves the wrong I am doing to him.”

Horacio could not help but express his jealousy when he learned of the illegitimate nature of the ties that bound Tristana and Don Lope.

“But I don’t love him,” she said emphatically, “I’ve never loved him. To tell you the truth, since knowing you, I’ve begun to feel a terrible aversion for him. And then, oh dear God, I have such strange, mixed feelings. Sometimes it seems to me that I hate him, that I feel for him a loathing as great as the evil he has done to me; sometimes—because I want to be totally frank with you—I feel almost affection, like a daughter, and think that if he treated me as he should, like a father, I would love him . . . Because he isn’t a bad man, don’t go thinking he’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work . . . No, he’s a strange mixture of things, a monstrous combination of good qualities and horrible defects; he has two consciences, one very pure and noble in certain respects, the other like a mudhole; and he chooses which to apply depending on the circumstances; he puts them on and off like shirts. He uses his grubby, black conscience for anything to do with love. You see, he was an inveterate womanizer in his time, his conquests too many to count. You can’t imagine! Like Don Juan, he left sad memories behind him everywhere, from the aristocracy to the middle classes to the peasantry. He wormed his way into palaces and hovels alike, and the rogue showed no respect for anything, be it virtue, domestic peace, or religion. The wretch has even seduced nuns and other saintly women, indeed, his successes appear to be the work of the Devil. The list of his victims is endless: deceived husbands and fathers; wives who will end up in hell if they aren’t there already; children . . . well, one can never be sure who the father is. In short, he is a very dangerous man, because he’s a good marksman too and has sent more than a few men into the next world. He cut a very striking figure in his youth and, until only very recently, he could still play a trick or two. Needless to say, his conquests have diminished in number as he’s gotten older. I was his last. I belong to his declining years.”

Horacio listened to these words indignantly at first and then with amazement, and the only thing it occurred to him to say to his beloved was that she should put an end to that abominable relationship once and for all, but this, the anguished girl replied, was easier said than done, because whenever the wily fellow noticed that she seemed bored or showed a desire to leave, he would immediately play the father figure and become tyrannically affectionate. It would take unusual strength to uproot oneself from such an unpleasant, ignominious life. Horacio urged her to screw up her courage, and the larger the figure of Don Lope loomed in his imagination, the keener became his resolve to deceive the deceiver and snatch from him possibly his last and doubtless his most precious victim.

With her nerves strained to breaking point and feeling poised to commit some rash act, Tristana returned home in a terrible state of moral and mental ferment. She hated her tyrant that night, and when she saw him come in, all smiles and jokes, she felt so enraged that she could happily have thrown her bowl of soup at him. Over supper, Don Lope was witty and talkative, teasing Saturna and saying, among other things, “I know all about your boyfriend in Tetuán, the one they call Juan and a Half because he’s so tall, the blacksmith . . . you know who I mean. Pepe the tram driver told me. That’s why you go off wandering each evening, looking for dark corners, often accompanied by a tall, thin shadow.”

“I have nothing to do with him, sir. He may well be interested in me, but I have other, far worthier men courting me . . . even gentlemen. He’s not the only fish in the sea.”

Saturna was playing along with the joke, while Tristana was burning up inside, and the little she ate tasted like poison. Don Lope had a healthy appetite that night and, like any good bourgeois, steadily munched his way through the chickpea stew, the main course—more mutton than beef—and the grapes that served as dessert, all washed down with the truly awful wine from the local tavern, which the good gentleman drank with true resignation, wincing each time he raised his glass to his lips. Once the meal was over, he withdrew to his room and lit a cigar, summoning Tristana to keep him company. Then, lounging in his armchair, he uttered words that made the young woman tremble.

“Saturna’s not the only one enjoying an evening romance. You have your own such romance. Not that anyone has told me as much, but I know you, and for some days now, it’s been there to read on your face and hear in your voice.”

Tristana turned pale. Her mother-of-pearl complexion took on a bluish tinge in the glow from the lamp lighting the room. She looked like a very beautiful dead girl, and she stood out against the sofa with the dramatic foreshortening of one of those insubstantial Japanese figures, who resemble smiling corpses glued onto the backdrop of a tree or a cloud or some incomprehensible decorative scroll. She finally managed a faint, forced smile, and answered fearfully, “No, you’re quite wrong . . . I don’t . . .”

Don Lope wielded such power over her, such mysterious authority, that in his presence, even though she had ample reasons to rebel, she could not dredge up so much as a breath of willpower.

“THERE’S
no use denying it,” added the decaying Don Juan, taking off his boots and putting on the slippers that Tristana, to conceal her state of shock, brought to him from the bedroom next door. “I have a sharp eye for such things, and the person hasn’t yet been born who can deceive or outwit me. You, Tristana, have found romance, I can tell from your general state of agitation, from the way you look, from the dark circles under your eyes, from a thousand other tiny details, none of which is lost on me. I’m an old dog, and I know that, sooner or later, any young woman of your age who sallies forth into the street each day is sure to stumble over a romance of one sort or another. Sometimes good, sometimes ghastly. I don’t know what kind yours is, but for heaven’s sake, don’t deny that it exists.”

Tristana again denied it with gestures and with words, but so unconvincingly that she would have been far better off keeping quiet. Don Lope’s penetrating gaze frightened and dominated her, filling her with terror and an amazing inability to lie. Making an enormous effort, she tried not to succumb to the fascination of that gaze and repeated her denials.

“Deny it if you can,” he went on, “but I’m sticking to my guns. I’m an old tailor and I know my cloth. I’m giving you due warning, Tristana, so that you may realize your mistake and withdraw before it’s too late, because I really don’t like such street romances, although yours I imagine has, for the moment, gone no further than childish pranks and innocent games, because if there has been anything more than that . . .”

As he said this, he shot poor Tristana such a sharp, menacing look that she recoiled slightly, as if it were not a look but a hand being aimed at her face.

“You be careful, young lady,” he said, biting fiercely into his cheap cigar (for he could afford no other kind). “And if you, out of mere flippancy or foolishness, make a laughingstock of me and encourage some good-for-nothing to take me for a . . . No, I’m sure you’ll see reason. Because, up until now, no one has ever made a fool out of me. I’m not yet so old that I must put up with such ignominy. Anyway, I will say no more. If it comes to it, I will use my authority to remove you from harm’s way and, as a last resort, declare my paternal rights, because, if necessary, I will be obliged to treat you as if I were your real father. Your mother entrusted you to me so that I could protect you, as indeed I have, and I’m determined to save you from all kinds of snares and to defend your honor—”

When she heard this, Tristana could contain herself no longer and, feeling a gust of anger rising in her heart like a hurricane, coming from who knows where, she sprang to her feet and said, “How can you speak of my honor? I have none, because you took it away from me, you ruined me.”

She burst into such inconsolable sobbing that Don Lope immediately changed both tone of voice and expression. Putting his cigar down on a pedestal table, he went over to her and clasping her hands, he kissed them and kissed her on the head, too, with genuine tenderness.

“My child, how it wounds me to hear you judge me like that, in such absolute terms . . . The truth is . . . Yes, you’re right . . . But you know perfectly well that I don’t see you as one of many, as . . . No, not at all. Be lenient with me, Tristana, for you are not a victim; I cannot abandon you, nor will I ever abandon you, and as long as this sad old man you see before you has a crust of bread, it will be yours.”

“Hypocrite, fraud, liar!” exclaimed the slave, suddenly aware of her power.

“All right, child, get it off your chest, heap all the insults you want on me,” he said, taking up his cigar again, “but allow me to do with you what I have never done with any other woman: to look upon you as someone I love—which is quite a novelty for me—as someone of my own blood. Don’t you believe me?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, you’ll soon find out. Suffice it to say that I’ve discovered that you are up to no good. Don’t deny it, please. Tell me it’s of no significance, a mere bagatelle, a thing of no importance, but don’t deny it. Because if I wanted to, I could have you watched . . . but no, spying would be unworthy of you and me. I am merely issuing a warning, to let you know that I can see you, that I know what your game is, that you can hide nothing from me, because, if I wanted to, I could extract the very ideas from your mind and examine them one by one; when you least expect it, I could squeeze out of you even your most hidden thoughts. Be careful, child, and come to your senses. We will speak no more of the matter if you promise me that you will be good and faithful; but if you deceive me, if you exchange my dignity for a handful of soppy words from some dull, snotty-nosed boy, don’t be surprised if I defend myself. No one has ever got the better of me yet.”

“It’s all baseless suspicion on your part,” said Tristana, simply in order to say something. “It has never occurred to me—”

“We’ll see,” said the tyrant, fixing her with another penetrating look. “We’ve said enough. You are free to come and go as you please, but I warn you, I will not be deceived. I regard you as both wife and daughter, as it suits me. I invoke the memory of your parents—”

“My parents!” exclaimed Tristana, reviving. “If they could rise from their graves and see what you have done to their daughter—”

“God knows that, left alone in the world or in other hands, you would have fared far worse,” said Don Lope, defending himself as best he could. “Goodness and perfection do not exist. Let us thank God that he has at least given us the less bad and the relatively good. I don’t expect you to venerate me like a saint; I ask only that you see in me the man who loves you with all the many kinds of love that exist, the man who will do anything to save you from evil and—”

“All I see,” broke in Tristana, “is gross, monstrous egotism, an egotism that—”

“The tone you take,” said Don Lope sourly, “and the energy with which you answer me back only confirm my suspicions, you empty-headed creature. There’s some romance here. There’s something going on outside the house that makes you loathe what’s inside and, at the same time, fills you with ideas of freedom and emancipation. Why not drop the mask? Anyway, I won’t let you go. I care about you far too much to surrender you to the perils of the unknown and to dangerous adventures. You’re a mere innocent with no knowledge of the world. I may have been a bad father to you, but now I’m going to be a good one.”