The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (53 page)

Yet because the mind needs relaxation I sought this by reading those enjoyable but dangerous books we know as novels. The taste I had for them predisposed me to love but, as I rarely went out and as no women visited us, I did not have the opportunity of disposing of my heart.

My father discovered that he had business at court and thought that this would be a good opportunity for me to get to know Madrid, so he told me of his plan to send me there. Far from having any objections, I was delighted at being able to breathe a freer air away from the iron grilles of the counter and the dust of our shops.

When all the preparations for the journey had been made, my father summoned me to his study and spoke to me as follows:

‘My son, you are going to a place where merchants don't play the leading role as they do in Cadiz. They need to adopt a very grave and modest demeanour in order not to bring into disrepute a profession which confers honour on them since it contributes greatly not only to the prosperity of their country but also to the real power of the monarch. Here are three precepts that you will faithfully observe on pain of incurring my wrath.

‘First, I order you to avoid the company of nobles. They think they do us honour when they address words to us. This is an error in which they must not be left, since our reputation is altogether independent of anything they might have to say to us.

‘Second, I order you to call yourself just Soarez, not Lope Soarez. Titles do not enhance the reputation of a merchant. That consists entirely in the range of his connections and the wisdom of his ventures.

‘Third, I forbid you ever to draw your sword. Since it is the custom, I will allow you to carry one. But you must not forget that the honour of a merchant consists entirely in the scrupulousness with which he fulfils his engagements. This is why I have never wanted you to take a single lesson in the dangerous art of fencing.

‘If you contravene any one of these three rules you will incur my wrath. But there is a fourth which you must also obey on pain of incurring not only my wrath but also my solemn curse, my father's curse and the curse of my grandfather, who is your great-grandfather and the founder of our fortune. The important point is never to enter into any direct or indirect relations with the house of the brothers Moro, the court bankers.

‘The brothers Moro rightfully enjoy the reputation of being the most honest people in the world and this prohibition of mine may justifiably surprise you. But you will no longer be surprised when you learn of the grievances which our house has against theirs. That is why I must briefly tell you our story:

‘Not at all,' said Velásquez. ‘It's your story which I am thinking about. Señor Iñigo Soarez will perhaps meet someone in America who will tell him the story of someone who has also a story to tell. So as not to lose my way, I have thought up a scale of relations which is like the one used for sequences given by recurrence relations, so called because they ultimately depend upon the first terms. Please go on.'

The gypsy went on as follows:

My father, Ruiz Soarez, remained obedient to his for a long time, but a great bankruptcy which unexpectedly reduced the number of trading houses forced him, one might say, to have recourse to the Moro brothers. He had every reason to repent of this decision. I have told you that we had taken a great share in the Potosí mines at their auction. This meant that we had many ingots in our possession and it was our practice to settle bills with them, as they were not subject to fluctuations in rates of exchange. To do this we kept chests containing a hundred pounds of silver to a value of two thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven piastres fortes and six reals. These chests, some of which you may have seen, were bound in iron and sealed with lead seals bearing the mark of our house. Every chest had its own number. They went out to the Indies and back to Europe and out to America again without anyone thinking of opening them, and everyone was very happy to take payment in them. They were even well known in Madrid. Yet when someone had to make a payment to the house of Moro and took in four of these chests, not only did the head clerk have them opened but he even had the silver assayed. When the news of this insulting behaviour reached Cadiz my father became very indignant indeed. It is true that he received by the next post a letter full of apology from Antonio Moro, Rodrigo's son. Antonio wrote that he had been called away to Valladolid, where the court then was, and that on his return he had been furious about the actions of his clerk, who being foreign, did not know Spanish practice.

My father was not satisfied with this apology. He broke off all
relations with the house of Moro and on his deathbed advised me never to have any dealings with them.

For a long time I remained obedient to my father's orders and things went well. But eventually a particular set of circumstances put me in contact with the house of Moro. I forgot my father's dying advice, or rather I did not have it in the forefront of my mind, and you will see what happened to me as a result.

I was forced by some business at court to go to Madrid. There I made the acquaintance of a certain retired merchant called Livardez, who lived off the income he received from considerable capital sums which had been invested in various places. There was something about this man's character which I found congenial. Our friendship was already close when I learnt that Livardez was the maternal uncle of Sancho Moro, then the head of the Moro house. I should have broken off all contact with Livardez then, but I did not. On the contrary, my friendship with him became even closer.

One day Livardez told me that, knowing how much I knew about commerce in the Philippines, he wanted to invest a million in shares in a venture there. I pointed out to him that as he was an uncle of the Moro family he ought really to entrust his money to them.

‘No,' he replied. ‘I do not like to have financial dealings with my close relatives.' In the end, he succeeded in convincing me to act for him. He was able to do this all the more readily because I was not entering into any relations with the Moro family itself. Once back in Cadiz, I added a ship to the two I sent every year to the Philippines and thought no more about it.

The following year poor Livardez died and Sancho Moro wrote to me that his uncle had placed a million with me and asked me to send it to him. I should perhaps have informed him of the conditions of the share agreement but I did not want to enter into any contact with the accursed house and so simply returned the million.

Two years later my ships returned and my capital investment tripled, so two millions were due to the late Livardez. I had therefore to engage in correspondence with the Moro brothers. I wrote to them that I had two millions to hand over to them.

They replied that the capital had been banked two years before and that they didn't want to hear any more about the matter. You can
well imagine, my son, that I could not fail to be offended by so dreadful an insult. For it amounted to their wanting to make a present of two millions. I spoke about it to several Cadiz merchants, who told me that the Moro brothers were right, and that having banked the capital they no longer had any rights to the profits I had made. I for my part offered to prove by original documents that Livardez's capital was really on the ships, and that if they had not returned I would have had the right to reclaim the money that I had given to them. But I saw that the name of Moro impressed them too much and that if I had appealed to a commission of merchants, their expert opinion would not have been in my favour.

I consulted a lawyer, who told me that as the Moro brothers had withdrawn this capital without the permission of their dead uncle and as I had used it in the way the said uncle intended it to be used, the said capital was still really in my hands and that the million banked by the Moro brothers was another million which had nothing to do with the former sum. My lawyer advised me to summon the house of Moro to the court at Seville. This I did and in six years spent one hundred thousand piastres as plaintiff; but in spite of all this I lost my case and still had the two million pounds.

At first I wanted to use it to set up some pious foundation but I feared that the merit of this would be attributed in part to the cursed Moro brothers. I still do not know what I will do with this money. In the meantime when I draw up my accounts of credit and debit I place on the credit side two million less. So you see, my son, that I have sufficient reason to forbid you to have any contact with the Moro family.