Tristana (21 page)

The marvelous prospect of Horacio’s imminent visit troubled Tristana, who, while appearing to believe everything she was told, could not, deep down, quite accept the reality of that visit, for in the days preceding her operation she had grown accustomed to the idea that her beautiful ideal was no longer there; and his very beauty and his rare perfection presented themselves in her mind as things that would shrivel and vanish with proximity. At the same time, a purely human and selfish desire to see and hear the object of her desires struggled in her soul with that unbridled idealism, which, far from seeking proximity, tended, without her realizing it, to avoid it. Distance had come to be one of the most voluptuous aspects of that subtle love striving to detach itself from all sensory influence.

It was while she was in this state of mind that the hour of their interview arrived. Don Lope pretended to absent himself without making any reference to the meeting; instead, though, he stayed in his room ready to emerge should anything happen that might require his presence. Tristana arranged her hair as she had in happier times, and having recovered somewhat during the past few days, she looked very well. She, however, put down the mirror, feeling dissatisfied and anxious, for her idealism did not preclude vanity. When she heard Horacio arrive—Saturna having ushered him into the drawing room—Tristana grew pale and felt almost as if she were about to faint. The little blood in her veins rushed to her heart; she could barely breathe, overwhelmed by a curiosity stronger by far than any other feeling. “Now,” she said to herself, “I will find out what he is like, I will see his face, which was long ago erased, forcing me to invent another for my own personal use.”

Finally, Horacio came in. At first, to Tristana’s surprise, he seemed like a stranger. He walked straight over to her with open arms and tenderly caressed her. For some time, neither of them could speak. Tristana was surprised, too, by the timbre of her former lover’s voice, as if she had never heard it before. And then, what a face, what skin, so bronzed by the sun!

“How you’ve suffered, my poor love!” Horacio said, when sheer emotion allowed him to speak clearly. “And I could not be by your side! It would have been such a solace to me to be able to accompany my Paquilla de Rimini throughout that torment, to keep her spirits up . . . but, as you know, my aunt was very ill. The poor woman only just survived.”

“No, you were quite right not to come. What good would it have done?” Tristana replied, instantly recovering her composure. “Such a sorry sight would have broken your heart. But it’s over now. I’m better and getting used to the idea of having only one leg.”

“What does that matter, my love?” said Horacio, in order to say something.

“Well, we’ll see. I haven’t yet tried to walk on crutches. The first day will be difficult, but I’ll get used to it. I’ll have to.”

“It’s all a question of habit. Naturally, you won’t look quite so elegant to begin with . . . although, of course, you could never be anything but elegant—”

“No, please. Such empty adulation really isn’t right between us. A few compliments, of a charitable nature, fine, but—”

“Your most important qualities, grace, wit, intelligence, remain, needless to say, undiminished as do the charm of your face, the admirable proportions of your body—”

“Shhh,” said Tristana gravely, “I am a sedentary beauty now . . . a woman with only half a body, an upper body, nothing more.”

“How can you say ‘nothing more,’ when the body in question is so very beautiful? Then there is your peerless intelligence, which will always make of you a creature of infinite charm.”

Horacio was scouring his mind for all the flowers one can throw at a woman who now has only one leg. They weren’t hard to find, but once he had heaped the wretched invalid with them, he had nothing more to add. Slightly embarrassed, an embarrassment he himself barely noticed, he said, “And I love you and will always love you just the same.”

“Yes, I know that,” she replied, confirming the very thing she was just beginning to doubt.

The conversation continued in the most affectionate terms, but never achieved the tone and texture of genuine trust. In the very first moments, Tristana felt immediate disappointment. This man was not the same man who had been erased from her memory by distance, and whose image she had then laboriously reconstructed with all the force of her creative faculties. He seemed to her rough and vulgar, his face devoid of intelligence, and as for his ideas, they struck her as extraordinarily banal! From Señó Juan’s lips there emerged only the kind of commiserative remarks one would offer any patient, albeit clothed in a kind of friendly tenderness. And anything he said about the constancy of his love was clearly an artifice painstakingly built out of compassion.

Meanwhile, shod in silent slippers, so that they would not hear his footsteps, Don Lope paced restlessly about the house and every now and then went over to the door in case anything should happen that required his intervention. Since spying was repugnant to his dignity, he did not put his ear to the door; however, on orders from her master, on her own initiative, and out of a desire to pry, Saturna put her ear to the crack left open for that purpose and was able to catch a little of what the lovers were saying. Calling her out into the corridor, Don Lope plied her with urgent questions.

“Tell me, has marriage been mentioned?”

“I’ve heard nothing that suggested they might marry,” said Saturna. “Plenty about love and loving each other always, and so on, but—”

“Not a word about sacred bonds, though. As I said, it’s over. How could it be otherwise? How could he keep his promise to a woman who is going to have to walk on crutches? Nature will out. That’s what I say. Lots of talk, lots of high-flown words, but no substance. When it comes to hard facts, all that verbiage gets swept away like so many dead leaves and nothing is left. Anyway, Saturna, that’s all to the good and precisely as I hoped. Let’s see what the girl does next. Keep listening out for any formal future commitment.”

The diligent servant returned to her listening post but was unable to hear much more because the two young people were talking so quietly. Finally, Horacio proposed bringing the visit to an end.

“If it was up to me,” he said, “I would stay with you until tomorrow and the day after tomorrow too, but I have to bear in mind that, in allowing me to see you, Don Lope is acting with enormous generosity and high-mindedness, which does him honor and obliges me not to abuse that generosity. Should I leave now, do you think? I’ll do as you think fit. But I hope that if my visits are not too long, then he will permit me to come every day.”

Tristana agreed with her friend, who withdrew, having first kissed her tenderly and reiterated the affection which, although far from lukewarm, was taking on an increasingly fraternal tone. Tristana watched his departure quite calmly, and as they said goodbye, she arranged to have her first painting lesson with him the following day, which hugely pleased the artist, who, as he left the room, came across Don Lope loitering in the corridor and, going straight over to him, greeted him respectfully. They went into the aging gallant’s room and there spoke of things which, to Don Lope, seemed highly significant.

For the moment, the painter said nothing that hinted at marriage plans. He showed intense interest in Tristana, deep pity for her state, and a discreet degree of love, a discretion that Don Lope interpreted as delicacy on Horacio’s part or, rather, a feeling of repugnance at the idea of breaking off their relationship too brusquely, which, given Señorita Reluz’s sad situation, would have been an act of rank inhumanity. Finally, Horacio was keen to give the interest he felt for Tristana a markedly positivist character. Having learned from Saturna that Don Lope was afflicted by certain financial difficulties, Horacio made a suggestion that proud, dignified Don Lope could not accept.

“Look, my friend,” he said in friendly fashion, “I . . . and I hope you don’t think I’m speaking out of turn . . . I have certain duties toward Tristana. She’s an orphan. All those who love and esteem her as they should have an obligation to look after her. It doesn’t seem right to me that you should have a monopoly on the joy of being able to help the invalid. You would be doing me a considerable favor, for which I will be eternally grateful, if you would allow me to—”

“What? Please, Señor Díaz, don’t make me blush. Allow you to do what?”

“Take it as you wish, sir, but what do you mean? That it would be indelicate of me to propose that I pay for Tristana’s medical care? Well, you would be quite wrong to think that. Accept my proposal and then we can be even better friends.”

“Better friends, Señor Díaz? Better friends once you have established that I have no shame!”

“Please, Don Lope!”

“Don Horacio, that’s enough.”

“All right, why then shouldn’t I make a present to my young friend of a better-quality organ, the best of its kind, along with a complete library of music, including studies, easy pieces, and concertos, and, finally, that I pay for her music teacher?”

“Now that I can accept. You see how reasonable I am. You may give the organ and the music, but I cannot allow you to pay for the lessons.”

“Why not?”

“Because the gift of an organ can be seen as a proof of affections past or present, but I’ve never heard of anyone making a gift of music lessons.”

“Don Lope, why these subtle distinctions?”

“Soon you’ll be suggesting that you pay for her clothes and tell her what food to eat . . . and that, quite frankly, seems insulting to me . . . unless you were to come to me with certain proposals and aims.”

Seeing where he was going, Horacio tried to change the subject slightly.

“My proposal is that she should learn a skill in which she can shine and find an outlet for all the creative fluid that must have accumulated in her nervous system, all the treasures of artistic passion and noble ambition filling her soul.”

“Well, if that’s what you are proposing, I am perfectly capable of doing the same. I may not be rich, but I have enough money to open up for Tristana whatever paths to glory are available to a poor little cripple. To be honest, I thought that you . . .”

Wanting to draw from Horacio a categorical statement and seeing that he was getting nowhere with these oblique tactics, he attacked head-on.

“I thought that, in coming here, you were intending to marry her.”

“Marry! Oh, no,” said Horacio, caught momentarily off guard by that sudden blow, but immediately recovering. “Tristana is an irreconcilable enemy of matrimony. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Oh, yes, she loathes it. Perhaps she sees more keenly than we do; perhaps her perspicacious gaze or perhaps a certain instinct for divination given only to superior women, can see the way society is going more clearly than we can.”

“Yes, perhaps. These spoiled, capricious girls do tend to be farsighted. Anyway, Señor Díaz, we accept the gift of the organ, but nothing else. We are duly grateful, but we cannot accept the rest for decorum’s sake.”

“It’s agreed though,” said Horacio as he was about to leave, “that I will spend a little time with her each day painting.”

“Yes, once she’s out of bed, because she can’t paint while she’s still in bed.”

“No, of course, but in the meantime, I can come—”

“Oh, yes, to talk to her and distract her. You can tell her about your lovely estate.”

“Oh, no,” said Horacio, frowning. “She doesn’t like the country, or gardening, or Nature, or chickens, or the quiet, obscure life, all of which I adore. I’m very earthbound, very practical, whereas she’s a dreamer, with wings of such extraordinary power that she can fly up into endless space.”

“Quite so,” said Don Lope, shaking his hand. “Well, come and visit whenever you wish, Señor Díaz. You’ll always be welcome.”

He accompanied him to the door, then went back to his room, gleefully rubbing his hands and saying to himself, “Incompatibility, complete and utter incompatibility, insurmountable differences.”

DON LOPE
noticed that his invalid seemed slightly stunned after Horacio’s visit. Tristana, in response to the crafty old man’s questions, said frankly, “How that man has changed! He’s a different person, and I can’t help remembering how he used to be.”

“Has he lost or gained in the transformation?”

“Oh, he’s definitely lost, at least for the moment.”

“He seems a nice enough fellow, though, and he clearly cares about you. He offered to pay your medical expenses, but I refused, of course. I mean, imagine . . .”

Tristana blushed scarlet.

“And he’s not the sort,” added Don Lope, “who, when he stops loving a woman, simply leaves without saying goodbye. No, no, he seems very attentive and sensitive. He’s going to buy you a new harmonium, an organ, a really good one, plus all the music you could possibly need. I accepted that offer, well, it seemed imprudent to turn him down. In short, he’s a good man and he feels sorry for you. He realizes that, in your position, having lost your leg, you need to be pampered and surrounded with distractions and things to do and, like the kind, sincere friend he is, he will, first of all, be giving you a few little painting lessons.”

Tristana said nothing, but all day she felt sad. Her interview with Horacio on the following afternoon was rather chilly. The painter could not have been more amiable, but he spoke not one word of love. Don Lope entered the room unannounced and joined in the conversation, which was entirely about artistic matters. When he urged Horacio to talk about the joys of life in Villajoyosa, the painter spoke at length on the subject, which, contrary to Don Lope’s belief, seemed to please Tristana. She listened intently to his descriptions of that pleasant existence and of the pure delights of domesticity in the heart of the country. A metamorphosis had doubtless taken place in her heart after the mutilation of her body, and what she had once despised now presented itself to her as the smiling prospect of a new world.

On subsequent visits, Horacio skillfully avoided all reference to the delightful life that was now his most ardent passion. He also revealed himself to be indifferent to art, saying that he felt no interest now in glory and in laurels. And when he said this—which was a faithful reproduction of the ideas expressed in his letters from Villajoyosa—he noticed that Tristana seemed not at all displeased. On the contrary, and much to Horacio’s astonishment, for his memory still bore the indelible imprint of the exalted ideas with which his lover had filled her letters, she sometimes appeared to share his view and to look with equal disdain on artistic enterprises and successes.