The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (29 page)

I gave the little girl the name of Elvira and tried to establish her right to succeed her father. I was told that I had to address myself to the court of Mexico. I wrote to America. I was told that the inheritance had been divided between twenty collateral relations and that it was well known that Rovellas had refused to recognize my
sister's child as his. My whole income would not have been sufficient to pay for as much as twenty pages of legal representations so I contented myself with declaring Elvira's birth and parentage at Segovia. I sold the house I possessed in the town and retired to Villaca with my little Lonzeto, who was soon to be three, and my little Elvira, who was as many months old. My greatest regret was to have always in my sight the house where the accursed stranger with his mysterious passion had taken up residence. In the end I became accustomed to it and my children were a consolation.

I had been in retirement in Villaca for less than a year when I received the following letter from America:

I found my children healthy and happy. I kept on the woman who had been looking after them and she, together with a lackey and a carter, comprised my whole household. I lived thus without wanting for anything.

My birth and my husband's rank gave me a certain position in the
village. Everybody served me as best they could. Six years passed in this way. I hope never to have ones less pleasant.

One day the
alcalde
¹
of the village came to see me. He knew about Don Sancho's extraordinary declaration. He brought me the gazette and said, ‘Señora, please allow me to congratulate you on the brilliant marriage that your niece will one day make. Read this article.'

And indeed what I so ardently desired came about four years later. The Conde de Peña Vélez was made viceroy, and I wrote to him on behalf of my niece. He replied to me that I had deeply insulted him in thinking that he would ever forget the daughter of the incomparable Elvira; but far from being guilty of such forgetfulness he had already taken the necessary steps at the court of Mexico. But the case would last a very long time and he dared not force the pace because, as he desired no other wife than my niece, it would not be fitting that he should cause an exception to the way justice was administered to be made in her favour. I then realized that the count had not weakened in his resolve. Soon after, a Cadiz banker sent me a thousand pieces of eight and refused to tell me from whom the sum came. I suspected that it came from the viceroy. But a sense of delicacy prevented my accepting the money or even touching it. I asked the banker to invest it in the Asiento Bank.

I kept all this as secret as I could, but everything is discovered in the end, and so in Villaca it became known what the viceroy's
intentions towards my niece were. And she was then called nothing other than the little wife of the viceroy.

My little Elvira was then eleven years old, and any other girl of her age would have had her head turned by all this. But I only discovered too late that her mind and heart were of a disposition which prevented vanity from acting on them. From her earliest childhood, she had already, as it were, been stammering words of love and affection. The object of these precocious feelings was her little cousin, Lonzeto. I often thought of separating them but didn't know what to do with my son. So I scolded my niece, but all that I achieved was to make her hide things from me.

As you know, in the provinces our reading matter consists only of novels, novellas and romances, which are recited to the accompaniment of a guitar. We had a score of such fine literary works at Villaca and those who were keen on them lent them to each other. I forbade Elvira to read a single page, but by the time I thought of imposing this prohibition she had long since got to know them all by heart.

What is unusual is that my little Lonzeto had the same romantic turn of mind. They had a perfect understanding between them, especially when it came to hiding things from me, which wasn't very difficult. For, as you know, mothers and aunts are about as observant in these matters as husbands are. But I had some inkling of their complicity and wanted to send Elvira to a convent. I didn't have enough, however, to pay for her board. It seems now that I did nothing I ought to have done. It came about that instead of being delighted with the title of
virreina
(viceroy's wife), the girl had taken to the notion of playing the star-crossed lover and illustrious victim of fate. This fancy she conveyed to her cousin, and the pair of them decided to uphold the sacred rights of love against the tyrannical decrees of fortune. This went on for three months without my having the slightest suspicion of it.

One fine day I came upon them in my chicken-house in the most tragic attitude. Elvira was lying on a cage of chickens, holding a handkerchief and weeping copiously. Lonzeto was on his knees a dozen yards away and was also weeping his heart out. I asked them what they were doing there and they replied that they were rehearsing a scene from the novel
Fuen de Rozas y Linda Mora
.

On this occasion I was not taken in by them and saw that in their play-acting there was real love. I did not let them see that I understood, but went to our priest to ask him what I should do. The priest, having thought a little, said that he would write to a friend of his, also a priest, who might be able to take Lonzeto in, and that in the meanwhile I should say novenas to the Blessed Virgin and carefully lock the door of the bedroom where Elvira slept.

I thanked the priest, said the novenas and locked Elvira's door. But unfortunately I didn't lock the window. One night I heard a noise in Elvira's room. I opened the door and found her in bed with Lonzeto. They leapt out in their night-clothes, threw themselves at my feet and said that they were married.

‘Who married you?' I exclaimed. ‘Which priest can have committed so unworthy an act?'

‘No, Señora,' replied Lonzeto gravely, ‘no priest has been involved. We married each other under the great chestnut tree. The god of nature received our sacred vows in the presence of the first rays of dawn and the birds all around us were witnesses to our joy. That, Señora, is how the beautiful Linda Mora became the wife of the happy Fuen de Rozas. It is set down in print on the pages of their story.'

‘Oh, wretched children!' I said. ‘You are not married, nor could you ever be. You are cousins german.' I was so cast down with grief that I did not even have the strength to scold them. I told Lonzeto to leave and I threw myself on Elvira's bed, which I bathed with my tears.

Once he had gone, Rebecca said to me, ‘These children interest me. Love looked charming in the mulatto features of Tanzai, and Zulica. It must have been even more beguiling when it enlivened the faces of handsome Lonzeto and tender Elvira. It's like the statue of Cupid and Psyche.'

‘What a well-chosen comparison!' I replied. ‘It shows that you are
making as much progress in the art of Ovid as you have made in the writings of Enoch and Atlas.'

‘I believe,' Rebecca said, ‘that the art of which you speak is as dangerous as that with which I was involved up to now. Love has its own magic as well as the cabbala.'

‘On the subject of the cabbala,' said ben Mamoun, ‘I am able to tell you that the Wandering Jew has tonight crossed the mountains of Armenia and is hurrying towards us.'

I was so tired of the subject that I scarcely listened any more when the conversation turned to that subject. So I left the company and went hunting. I returned towards evening. The gypsy chief had gone off somewhere. I supped with his daughters for neither the cabbalist nor his sister appeared. I felt some embarrassment at being alone with these two young persons. But it seemed to me that they were not the girls who had been in my tent at night. They seemed to me to be my cousins. But what I could not work out for myself was who precisely these cousins or demons were.