Goya's Glass (7 page)
Authors: Monika Zgustova,Matthew Tree
Tags: #Literary, #Biographical, #General, #Fiction
We were sitting in the blue salon, lit by a single candelabra. The round table was covered in dishes full of exquisite food. Don José personally served the champagne. That evening I drank little, I was wary. Halfway through the dinner, what I had been afraid of happened.
“Adorable, let us make a toast now to my new projects, which from this evening on, I would like to share with you.”
Why doesn’t he speak clearly, why so much formality?
“To our journey,
ma chérie
!” And then he looked me straight in the eyes and said, slowly: “Venice and Vienna—I would like to present you à mon cher ami Joseph Haydn, to show you off a little, and to get to know his most recent works and play them for you,
mon âme
.
I concentrated on the oysters to keep my eyes lowered and so hide my perplexity. How could I go away on a journey just now, when any day I expected my strategy with Godoy to prove its worth? What would Francisco think? He would only come to one conclusion: that I had taken Godoy as my official lover and left him in the lurch. He would forget me; he would find a lover or get back together with his wife. And when I got back, no matter how much effort I made, reheated love would be more difficult to digest than a dish of stewed tripe left over from the day before. No, there was no way that I could leave now!
“Don José, my dear! Your invitation honors me. But I have a better idea. Let us put off our excursion to Vienna some six months. Let us wait for the snow to melt in barbarous central Europe and let the cold diminish. Let us organize, for now, a journey to our holdings in Andalusia. Let’s go to the south, to springtime! Your delicate health would appreciate it.”
To Seville, Cadiz, or to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where I could invite Francisco, perhaps with the excuse of a new portrait. Or I could find him a commission myself!
“No, Teresa,
cariño mio
. My decision has been made. It will be Vienna and that is it. Let us talk of it no longer.”
He wanted to take me away from my world, why doubt it? Perhaps he was jealous of Godoy? That would surprise me. His
sensitivity regarding human relationships would surely tell him that a puppet such as Godoy, crude and superficial, could only really please a person as ordinary as the queen. Perhaps he had guessed something about Francisco? No, because nothing had happened. Or had he noticed the depth of my affections for that painter who was already mature, and had realized that it had nothing to do with my usual coquettishness?
“I would love to satisfy your desires,
mon cher époux,
even though, given the state of your health, a journey of this nature
signifie una grave impudence
. However, it is not possible. Soon it will be carnival time and for Mardi Gras I am holding a masquerade ball in the Moncloa. The invitations have already gone to press, apart from the fact that I have already invited many people personally. For this occasion, the dressmakers have prepared a costume for me of a kind that has never been seen before in Spain. It is almost finished.
Je suis désolée, mon cher, mais il m’est absolument impossible de quitter l’Espagne maintenant
. And now, forgive me, but I must go, my head feels heavy. Have them prepare an infusion,
una tisane de verveine
. À propos, I advise you, dear José, to pay attention to what I say. Go to Seville where spring has just begun, as you haven’t been feeling very well lately. I will come and see you there often,
parole d’honneur
. We will repeat
ces petits soupers intimes
. It will be wonderful.”
Once in my room, I undressed without the assistance of the chambermaid. I drank the infusion in front of the mirror and thought that I would not go to Vienna, not even at the risk of a serious disagreement with my husband and his mother.
Consuelo! Have them prepare me
una tisane de verveine
. Serve it in the sixteenth-century Japanese tea set, yes, the white one with a touch of pink.
José, in the end, went to Seville. He was ill. I stayed in Madrid because it was ball season. Carnival was coming up.
The masquerade ball! I wore a dress which even the most daring of the
maja
s would never have worn. But for carnival, everything is permitted! The dress was designed in such a way that Francisco, if he came to the ball, could only recognize me from the décolletage. I danced with many young men, and also with Godoy, who couldn’t take his eyes off my décolletage and didn’t stop pushing me into a corner, like a common village bumpkin! I freed myself from his grasp by reaching out for another glass of champagne. And another, and more. I didn’t want to dance with just anyone; I was looking for stocky men. I observed one of them. It might be him. I kissed him, another, and another. I kissed all of them for a long time. How to know a man: by his kiss. We danced. A new roundish man took me from the arms of a young man. I had drunk too much champagne, my head was spinning. The dancer supported me, then he left the crowd with me, holding me firmly by the waist so that I didn’t fall. Once in the corridor, I stumbled on my dress and my dancing partner pressed me against him, but I bent over like a stalk holding a too-heavy flower. My partner had an unusual custom: he didn’t stop looking me in the eyes. Only the eyes, not like Godoy. I didn’t understand a thing, but I felt lighthearted. Suddenly Godoy, of all people, discovered me and pulled me out of
the arms of the short, strong man to take me away. But I kept on feeling the arms of the unknown man around my body.
No, don’t put it on the bedside table, girl. Leave it for me here, on the low table, that’s right. Thank you, Consuelo, I don’t need you anymore.
The following morning the maid brought the hot chocolate to my bed, together with an envelope that was larger than usual. I found a drawing inside, without any letter or note: a woman in a mask, dressed like a
maja
, and in front of her a man leans forward and looks into her eyes; around them is a group of masked men, drawn to look repulsive. And a title that read
: Nadie se conoce
. The title meant that people don’t recognize each other, but also that they don’t even know themselves. An ambiguous title. And what do these repulsive men, these monsters, standing around, mean?
In the evening a new envelope arrived of the same size with another drawing: a very beautiful woman with naked breasts was half-sitting, half-lying across a man’s knees. Her head, with eyes half-open, was bent down like a broken ear of corn. The man is wringing his hands and wailing, his desperation limitless. Title:
Tántalo
. Tantalus, the king whom the gods punished by surrounding him with paradisical fruits, which when he tried to pick them, moved away. Temptation is offered and then immediately denied. There is no doubt: the man is him, the features of the face are his. The woman, who lies across his knees, showing her marvelous breast, is me. It is my face, my figure, my hair. And
now I realize that the posture of the body in the drawing is the same as that of the clothed
maja
and the nude
maja
.
Two drawings.
Francisco the courtesan, who reproaches his lady for not recognizing him.
Francisco Tantalus, who desires the tempting fruits that are forbidden to him.
“María, bring me my husband’s letters. I keep them in the alcove.”
“But all the correspondence which Your Highness received from the Marquis of Villafranca is in the bottom drawer of the bedside table!”
“Is it? Well then, give me the letters. Just the last packet. Yes, they are from him. Let’s see, one of the last, chosen at random.”
Seville, April 1796
My dearest,
Your Madame de Sévigné wrote to her absent daughter:
“Il faut se consoler en vous écrivant.”
I identify completely with these words; writing to you is my only consolation, my only joy.
This time I am unable to write anything new to you, but just what I always write: that I miss you, that I see you in all women, in all young and beautiful women. But I do not want my words to influence you in any way. I know perfectly well that you have been through the period of dances and carnival and that you, as always, have been the most admired woman in Spain. I trust that you take
pleasure from this, my love. I really do not want you to change anything because of my letters full of longing. I wish this for you from the bottom of my heart, I give you my word of honor. I only ask of you that, even if occasionally, you write me a few lines or a few words and nothing more, just so that I know you remember me sometimes. Is this a selfish request? Yes it is. Is it blackmail? Yes, it is. Do forgive me, my darling.
For me you are a dream, always very brief but intense enough to stay in my memory and keep me alive. I like to imagine where you are and what you are doing, and I would visit the places where you are with more eagerness than I would the seven wonders of the world. But I am ill, weak, and unable to support a journey to Madrid. What I most desire in all the world is forbidden to me. But what I have lived with you, I keep inside me, and I shall have to make do with that.
It might interest you to know that now I am playing something new. That is to say, new for me. The piece in itself was written a good ten years ago. It is
The Last Seven Words of Christ
by Haydn. It is a commission from the canon of Cadiz cathedral; it was he who gave me this wonderful score. What I prefer most is “The Fourth Word”
largo
in F minor, “Father, father, why have you abandoned me?” impregnated with the most absolute desperation. They are seven minutes of tragedy, tragedy conceived as
adagio
,
la tragédie maintenue adagio
, that is to say, a real tragedy. Will you allow me to play it for you some day, my
love? Would you like to know what it is that I am living? I am sure you would and I am grateful to you. I know that you have always liked my way of playing music. I am well aware that I am not a suitable man for you. You require someone stronger, more masculine, and yet you also have a sharp sense of what art is. I trust that you shall find him and wish this for you from the bottom of my heart.
Beloved, I prefer not to reread what I have just written. I am afraid that I would also destroy this letter, as I have others during the last two weeks. I do not like my style; I do not know how to express myself in a few brief words, as you do. I would know how to say what I feel with music, and what I would know how to do is caress you with a hand that holds no pen or bow. What is to be done with me? Nothing, I will die soon. Let it be a rapid process! But before I go I would like to embrace you still and see myself in your green eyes. I have to tell you that I feel very sad. I haven’t felt like this for years. Yesterday I played Haydn’s “The Second Word”—
grave cantabile
, which starts with desperation and agony, and reaches hope and recovered health—and found that I was shedding tears that flowed down my cheeks to the neck of my shirt. If you come and see me, as you promised on the day of our supper, I would like to go, just the two of us, for a few days to a place where nothing would distract me from you. I would place you in such a way that you would fill my entire horizon, so that there were nothing in the world except for you.
Have fun my little one, while I remember you from here.
I kiss your hands and forehead.
Your José
Thank you, María, you can take away all the open sheets of paper now. Take Don José’s letters to the alcove and put them away carefully, so that none are lost. Burn them after my death, keep the ashes in an urn, and place the urn in my coffin. I won’t die? Come on, you mad old woman, deceive the scatterbrained if they let you! Well, go away and let no one enter, understood?
When was it that I first read that letter from my husband? Yes, one day after returning from the theater and dinner. It was in the early morning. I felt like going to bed, and I didn’t really understand what my husband was saying to me. I didn’t understand why suddenly he had become so sentimental and loving. That year the theater season was exceptionally amusing. I myself often sang the
tonadilla
and the audience’s hands practically fell off, they applauded so much. And above all, La Trina, the most celebrated actress in Spain, came to Madrid from Barcelona. Her husband didn’t want to let her go, and had requisitioned all her costumes. But even so she came, and I had a set of dresses made for her according to the latest Paris fashions, even more splendid and lavish than those I wore myself. During her visit to our capital, I kept her under my protective wing and could not go to Seville to see Don José. In obedience to my wishes, Goya, the royal painter, painted La Tirana: a divine portrait of a divine woman.
One morning, I had a dream. I was a little girl and was playing with a roe deer who began to die right in my hands. I felt absolutely impotent. I dreamed of its eyes, like two halves of a brown globe, full of tears, eyes that knew everything because the animal was dying.
That day, I ordered the servants to prepare everything necessary so that I could go to Seville. The July heat was exhausting. My friends asked me to think again, saying that it was not a good time to journey to the south, and promised me more amusement with La Tirana and summer nights full of fandango.
