That Glimpse of Truth Page 3

  “During the time I was visiting her I always found the house quite empty, with not a sign either of false relatives or real friends. She had as a servant a girl who was more crafty than stupid. In the end, treating my love-affair like a soldier who will soon be on the move, I put the pressure on my lady Doña Estefanía de Caicedo – for that’s the name of the one who has reduced me to what I am – and she gave me this reply:

  “‘Ensign Campuzano, it would be sheer stupidity for me to pretend to you that I am a saint: I have been a sinner, and I still am; but not so much so that the neighbours gossip about me or that I attract the notice of the outside world. I inherited no property from my parents or from any other of my relatives, and yet my household effects are worth a good two and a half thousand crowns; and if they were auctioned would sell straight away. With this property I am looking for a husband whom I can cling to and obey; and apart from turning over a new leaf, I can promise him that I’ll fall over myself to look after him and serve him. No prince has ever had a cook to make your mouth water more, or one more skilled in putting the finishing touches to the dishes I can give him when I’m in the mood for housekeeping and give my mind to it. I can act as butler, kitchenmaid and lady of the house. In fact, I know how to give orders and make people obey them. I waste nothing, and I manage to make a good deal of profit: I know how to make every real go a long way. My linen, of which I have a great deal and of the finest quality, is not from shops or drapers; it was spun by my own fingers and those of my maid-servants; and if it had been possible to weave it at home, it would have been woven there too. I am singing my own praises because it is only right that you should know these things. In short, what I mean to say is that I am looking for a husband to take care of me, give me orders and honour me, and not a lover to wait upon me and then hurl reproaches at me. If you are pleased to accept the prize you are being offered, here I am all ready to submit to any arrangement you choose, without offering myself for sale, which is the same as putting myself at the mercy of match-makers; for there’s no one so well qualified to arrange things as the parties concerned.’

  “At that time I had my brains in my heels rather than in my head, and as the pleasure seemed just then greater even than I had imagined it, and all that property in front of me as good as cash already, without stopping to look for any arguments beyond my own wishes, which had quite overcome my reason, I told her that I was the most fortunate of persons to have been presented with this heaven-sent miracle, a companion like this to be the mistress of my will and my possessions. These were not so small for, taking into account the chain I had round my neck and some other small jewels at home, with what I could get from the sale of some of my soldier’s finery, they were worth over two thousand ducats. This, together with her twenty-five hundred, was enough to enable us to live in retirement in the village where I was born, and where I still had some property. This, added to the cash, and by selling our produce at the right season, could allow us to live happily and at ease. In short, our betrothal was settled there and then, we contrived to have ourselves registered as bachelor and spinster, and the banns were called on the three holy days which happened to come together at Easter time. On the fourth day we were married, two friends of mine being witnesses, with a youth she said was her cousin, to whom I swore kinship in the most civil way; just as I had behaved up to that moment with my new wife, though my intentions were so crooked and treacherous that I would rather not speak of them; for although I’m telling the truth, it’s not the whole truth as I’d have to tell it at confession.

  “My servant moved the trunk from my lodgings to my wife’s house. In front of her I locked up my splendid chain in it; I showed her three or four more which, although not quite so big, were superior in workmanship, as well as three or four hatbands of various kinds; I let her see my finery and my plumes, and handed over to her four hundred odd reales that I had, for household expenses. The honeymoon lasted for six days, during which I took my ease like a humble son-in-law in the house of his rich father-in-law; I walked on rich carpets, slept on linen sheets, and basked in the light from silver candlesticks. I breakfasted in bed, got up at eleven, dined at twelve and at two took my siesta in the drawing-room, while Doña Estefanía and her maid danced attendance on me. My servant, who up to that time had always given me the impression of being lazy and slow, had become as swift as a deer. When Doña Estefanía was not at my side, she was to be found in the kitchen, preparing dishes to tempt my palate and stir up my appetite. My shirts, collars and handkerchiefs smelt just like the gardens of Aranjuez, with all the sweet-scented angel- and orange-water she sprinkled on them.

  “The days flew by, like all the years which are subject to the law of time; and as they passed, seeing myself spoiled and waited on so well, the evil intentions with which I had embarked on that affair were changing. But it all came to an end one morning when, as I was with Doña Estefanía in bed, there was a loud knocking at the front door. The maid put her head out of the window, and withdrew it immediately.

  “‘Here’s a fine sight!’ she shrieked. ‘She’s come sooner than she said when she wrote the other day.’

  “‘Who’s come, girl?’ I asked her.

  “‘Who?’ she answered. ‘My lady Doña Clementa Bueso, and she’s got with her Don Lope Meléndez de Almendárez, with two servants and Hortigosa, the duenna she took away with her.’

  “‘Hurry up, girl, for heaven’s sake, open the door for them!’, said Doña Estefanía. ‘And you sir, if you love me, don’t be upset or answer anything you may hear against me.’

  “‘And who will say anything to offend you, especially in my presence? Tell me: who are these people, whose arrival seems to have upset you so much?’

  “‘I’ve no time to explain to you now,’ said Doña Estefanía; ‘but you must know that everything that may happen here is a trick and is all part of a certain plan and purpose which you’ll know about later.’

  “And although I should have liked to reply to this, I was not given a chance, because the lady Doña Clementa Bueso came into the room then, dressed in green satin lustre with lots of gold lace edging, a cape of the same material and the same trimmings, a hat with green, white and red feathers and a rich gold band, and with a fine veil covering half her face. She came in accompanied by Don Lope Meléndez de Almendárez, splendidly dressed in rich travelling clothes. The duenna Hortigosa was the first to speak.

  “‘Heavens! What is this? My mistress Doña Clementa’s bed occupied, and occupied by a man? I can hardly believe my eyes. I must say Doña Estefanía has gone too far, taking advantage of my lady’s good nature!’”

  “‘I should say she has, Hortigosa,’ replied Doña Clementa; ‘but it’s all my fault! Will I never learn not to make the sort of friends who are only friends as long as it suits them?’

  “To all this Doña Estefanía replied, ‘Don’t be upset, lady Clementa, and be sure that what you are seeing here in your home is not what you think. When the mystery is explained, I know I shall be blameless and you will have nothing to complain of.’

  “By this time I had put on my breeches and doublet, and Doña Estefanía led me off by the hand to another room, and told me that this friend of hers wanted to play a trick on this Don Lope who was with her, and whom she wanted to marry; and that the trick was to give him to understand that the house and all its contents were hers, so that she could get him to give her a written promise of marriage, and once the marriage was over she didn’t mind if the deceit was discovered, so confident was she of this Don Lope’s great love for her. ‘And then I’ll get back my property, and no one will hold it against her or any other woman if she tries to get an honourable husband, even at the expense of a trick.’

  “I answered that the gesture of friendship she was proposing was extremely generous, and that she should think seriously about it, because she might later have occasion to resort to the Law to get her property back. But she replied with so many arguments, setting forth so many obligat
ions that she was under to be of even greater service to Doña Clementa that, much against my will and better judgement, I had to fall in with Doña Estefanía’s wish. She assured me that the game would last only a week, during which we would go to stay with another friend of hers. She and I finished dressing and then she went in to say good-bye to Doña Clementa Bueso and to Don Lope Meléndez de Almendárez. She told my servant to pack the trunk and follow her, and I followed on too, without saying good-bye to anyone.

  “Doña Estefanía stopped at the house of a friend of hers, and before we went in she spent some time talking to her, after which a girl came out and told me and my servant to go in. She took us to a little room, in which there were two beds so close together that they looked like one, because there was no space between them, and the sheets on them were touching each other. There we stopped for six days, and not an hour passed without our quarrelling, I telling her how stupid she had been to leave her house and property in someone else’s hands, even if it had been her own mother’s. I kept on at her so much that the lady of the house, one day when Doña Estefanía said she was going off to see how her affairs stood, wanted to know why I quarrelled so much with her, and what she had done to make me scold her, accusing her of crass stupidity rather than friendship. I told her the whole story, and when I got to the point of saying that I had married Doña Estefanía, and mentioned the dowry she had, and how silly she had been to leave her house and property to Doña Clementa, even with such a worthy purpose as that of winning an excellent husband like Don Lope, she began to cross herself rapidly, and repeated to herself so many times the words “Lord, what a wicked woman,” that I was completely confused. At last she said to me,

  “‘Ensign, I don’t know whether I am going against my conscience in telling you what I think would be just as much on my conscience if I kept silent about it, but at all events I must tell the truth. And the truth is that Doña Clementa Bueso is the real lady of the house and owns the property which was given to you as a dowry; everything that Doña Estefanía has told you is lies. She has neither house nor property, nor anything but the clothes she stands up in. And what gave her the occasion to practise this fraud was that Doña Clementa went off to do penance at Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, leaving her house in the hands of Doña Estefanía to look after, for they are in fact great friends. And indeed, you can’t blame the poor lady, since she’s managed to pick up someone like you as a husband, Ensign.’

  “Here she stopped speaking, and I was beginning to despair, and doubtless would have done so if my guardian angel hadn’t come to the rescue at that moment by reminding me that I was a Christian and that the worst sin a human being could fall into was that of despair, for it was a devilish sin. This consideration or inspiration gave me some comfort, but not enough to prevent me putting on my cloak and sword and going off in search of Doña Estefanía, intending to inflict exemplary punishment on her. However luck, for better or worse, determined that I couldn’t find Doña Estefanía, hard though I looked. I went to San Llorente, commended myself to Our Lady, sat down on a bench, and was so upset that I fell into a deep sleep, from which I shouldn’t have stirred very quickly if I hadn’t been awakened. Full of bitter thoughts I went to Doña Clementa’s house, and found her completely at ease as the mistress of her house. I did not dare to say anything to her because Don Lope was there. I went back to my landlady’s house, and she told me that she had told Doña Estefanía that I knew all about her plan and about the fraud, and that she had asked her how I had reacted to the news. She told her that I had taken it very badly, and that she thought I had gone to look for her, bent on doing her harm. Then she told me that Doña Estefanía had gone off with everything that was in the trunk, leaving me nothing but a single travelling suit.

  “Here was a pretty kettle of fish! But I could feel the hand of God upon me again. I went to look at my trunk and found it open, like a tomb awaiting a corpse, and the corpse might well have been me, if my mind had been up to appreciating the full weight of my misfortune.”

  “It certainly was a grave misfortune,” said Licenciate Peralta, “that Doña Estefanía went off with all those chains and hatbands, for, as they say, you can bear any trouble with a full stomach.”

  “I didn’t mind the loss,” answered the ensign; “for as they say: ‘Don Simueque thought he was deceiving me with his squinting daughter, but by jove, I’m lop-sided myself, so he met his match.’”

  “I don’t know quite what the point of this is,” said Peralta.

  “The point is,” answered the ensign, “that all that splendid pile of chains, hatbands and trinkets was worth no more than ten or twelve crowns.”

  “That is impossible,” replied the licenciate. “The one that you were wearing round your neck looked as if it was worth more than two hundred ducats.”

  “Indeed it would have been,” answered the ensign, “if truth matched appearance; but as all that glisters is not gold, the chains, hatbands, jewels and trinkets were in fact only artificial; but they were so well made that only a touchstone or fire could reveal it.”

  “In that case,” said the licenciate, “as far as you and Doña Estefanía are concerned, you’re quits.”

  “And so much so,” answered the ensign, “that we can shuffle the cards and start again; but the trouble is, Licenciate, that she can get rid of my chains, but I can’t get over the dirty trick she played on me. The fact is that whether I like it or not I’ve got the consequences for keeps.”

  “Give thanks to God, Mr Campuzano,” said Peralta, “that she had feet and has gone off, and you’re not obliged to look for her.”

  “That’s true,” replied the ensign. “All the same, even without looking for her, she’s always in my mind, and wherever I am my disgrace goes with me.”

  “I don’t know how to answer you,” said Peralta, “except to remind you of a couple of verses of Petrarch, which go:

  Che chi prende diletto di far frode,

  Non si de’ lamentar s’altri l’inganna.1

  which being translated means: ‘He who takes delight in deceiving others must not complain when he is deceived himself.’”

  “I’m not complaining,” answered the ensign, “but I am sorry for myself, for the guilty man does not fail to feel the pain of punishment because he recognizes his guilt. I can well see that I wanted to deceive and that I was deceived, because I was caught in my own trap; but I can’t help feeling sorry for myself. And to crown it all, and this is the main point of my story – for this is what one can call this affair of mine – I found out that Doña Estefanía had been carried off by the cousin who I told you was at our wedding, and who had been her steady lover for a long time. I had no wish to look for her, for I’d have been looking for more trouble. I left my lodgings and I lost my hair within a few days, because my eyebrows and eyelashes began to moult, and gradually my hair went too, so I went bald before my time, suffering from a complaint they call ‘alopecia’, or in plain terms ‘loss of hair’. I was really ‘fleeced’, because I had neither hair to comb nor money to spend. My sickness kept pace with my need, and as poverty tramples honour under foot and brings some to the gallows and others to the hospital, just as it makes others go begging and pleading at their enemies’ doors, one of the greatest misfortunes which can come to an unhappy man; so in order not to have to pawn, for the sake of paying for a cure, the clothes which would have to cover me and protect my honour when I was well again, I waited until the time when they put on the sweat treatment in the hospital of the Resurrection, and then went in. I’ve been sweated forty times, and they say I’ll stay well if I look after myself. I have a sword, and as for the rest, may God help me.”

  The licenciate, amazed at the things which he had told him, offered his sympathy again.

  “What you say surprises you, Señor Peralta, is nothing,” said the ensign. “There are things I could tell you which surpass all imagination, for they go beyond the bounds of nature. But I’d like you to know that they are of
such a kind that I think all my misfortunes well worth while if only because they brought me to the hospital, where I saw what I shall now relate, which neither you nor any one else in the world will ever credit.”

  All these preambles and commendations with which the ensign prefaced his account of what he had seen aroused the curiosity of Peralta. So much so that he pressed him to tell him straight away of the marvellous things he had to relate.

  “You will have seen,” said the ensign, “two dogs which go round with lanterns on them at night, accompanying the begging brothers, and lighting their way when they ask for alms.”

  “Yes, I have,” replied Peralta.

  “You will also have seen or heard,” said the ensign, “the stories that are told about them: that if by chance people throw alms out of the windows and it falls on the ground, they rush up straight away with a light to look for what falls, and stop in front of the windows where they know people usually give them alms; and although they go along so meekly that they are more like lambs than dogs, in the hospital they’re like lions, guarding the house with great care and vigilance.”

  “I’ve heard all this,” said Peralta, “but there’s no reason why that should surprise me.”

  “Well, what I’m going to tell you now will; and you must be prepared to believe it without crossing yourself or raising objections and difficulties. The fact is that I heard and as good as saw with my own eyes these two dogs, one of whom is called ‘Scipio’ and the other ‘Berganza’, who were lying one night (the one before I had the sweat treatment for the last time) on some old matting behind my bed; and in the middle of the night, when it was dark and I was lying awake, thinking of my past adventures and present misfortunes, I heard talking close by. I was listening attentively, to see if I could find out who was talking and what they were talking about, and soon after I realized by what they said that it was the two dogs ‘Scipio’ and ‘Berganza’ who were talking.”