Tristana (18 page)

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, who 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.”

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 inkpot.

“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 . . .”

So tremulous was her writing that the last lines were barely legible. When she put down her pen, the poor, unhappy doll fell into deep despair. She wanted to tear the letter up, regretting having written it, but instead handed it, unfolded, to Don Lope, so that he could put it in an envelope and send it to its addressee. This was the first time she had made no attempt to conceal her secret correspondence. Don Lope took it to his room and read it slowly, surprised at the serenity with which Tristana wrote of such a grave matter.

“Now,” he said, as he wrote the address on the envelope and as if he were speaking to the person whose name he was writing, “I do not fear you in the least. You have lost her, you have lost her forever, because all that stuff and nonsense about eternal love, ideal love, without legs or arms, amounts to nothing but the ardent ravings of the imagination. I have beaten you. It is a sad but certain victory. God knows I cannot rejoice in that, unless I were to remove the reason for it, which is the greatest sorrow of my life. She belongs to me now, absolutely, and until the end of my days. Poor wingless doll! She tried to escape me, she tried to fly, but reckoned without her fate, which allows her no flutterings, no flittings; she reckoned without God, who is devoted to me—although quite why I have no idea—and brings her to me, bound hand and foot. Poor dear love, my adorable girl, I love her and will always love her—like a father. No one will take her away from me, not now.”

At the bottom of those sad feelings, which Don Lope kept locked in his heart, there beat a kind of pride, an elemental, very human egotism of which he himself was unaware. “Mine forever! She will never escape me now!” In repeating that idea to himself, he seemed to be trying to postpone the contentment it brought him, for it was hardly the right moment to feel glad about anything.

He went back into the room to find a very downcast Tristana, and in order to cheer her up, he deployed both pious arguments and ingenious explanations as to why our lower limbs are really utterly useless. Tristana was persuaded, reluctantly, to take some food; Don Lope himself could eat nothing. At two o’clock, Miquis, Ruiz Alonso, and a medical student who would act as assistant all arrived and filed silently and gravely into the living room. One of them was carrying the case containing the tools of the trade, discreetly wrapped in a piece of cloth. Shortly afterwards, in came a boy carrying the bottles of liquid antiseptics. Don Lope received them as one might an executioner on his way to ask the condemned man’s forgiveness and prepare him for the execution.