Read Online Goya's Glass by Monika Zgustová, Matthew Tree - Free Book Online Page B

from my husband? Yes, one day after returning from the theater and dinner. It was in the early morning. I felt like going to bed, and I didn’t really understand what my husband was saying to me. I didn’t understand why suddenly he had become so sentimental and loving. That year the theater season was exceptionally amusing. I myself often sang the tonadilla and the audience’s hands practically fell off, they applauded so much. And above all, La Trina, the most celebrated actress in Spain, came to Madrid from Barcelona. Her husband didn’t want to let her go, and had requisitioned all her costumes. But even so she came, and I had a set of dresses made for her according to the latest Paris fashions, even more splendid and lavish than those I wore myself. During her visit to our capital, I kept her under my protective wing and could not go to Seville to see Don José. In obedience to my wishes, Goya, the royal painter, painted La Tirana: a divine portrait of a divine woman.
    One morning, I had a dream. I was a little girl and was playing with a roe deer who began to die right in my hands. I felt absolutely impotent. I dreamed of its eyes, like two halves of a brown globe, full of tears, eyes that knew everything because the animal was dying.
    That day, I ordered the servants to prepare everything necessary so that I could go to Seville. The July heat was exhausting. My friends asked me to think again, saying that it was not a good time to journey to the south, and promised me more amusement with La Tirana and summer nights full of fandango.
    I left with the minimum luggage necessary and a few servants. The others were to follow me, bringing the rest of the things with them. I made the coachman gallop through all of Castile. The eyes of the dying roe deer pursued me; I could not stop seeing them in front of me. I did not want to lose so much as a night spent in an inn. We changed horses frequently; my coachmen took turns, and we ran and ran post-haste. Before we got to Cordoba we were recommended to take a detour to avoid bandits. I didn’t want to know anything about any detour; the bandits did not frighten me. I promised a double salary to the coachman. We hurtled down the straightest road through a starless night, lit only by a pair of luminous eyes that shone with the last of their brightness. They glittered in the darkness, I am sure of it.
    Seville. The palace of the Duke and Duchess of Alba. Reproachful looks. Eyes which placed the guilt on my shoulders. I knew it; I had arrived too late. Surrounded by a cloud of dust from the road I ran to the chambers where José lived. His motherstood in my way, looking at me with disdain, with incriminating hostility. I pushed myself past her to continue on my way.
    José was lying in bed, his face and hands a greenish color, an olive shade. I could barely recognize that skeletonlike face with the eyes sunken into dark holes. Very carefully, I stroked the back of his hand. I still did not understand how there could be something so icy in the torrid heat of a Seville July. The face too was a piece of ice. Only the chest retained a little heat, the last remains of life.
    “José, my love!” I whispered, desperate. “José, my Jose, say something to me!”
    José’s eyes were half-open. I wanted to see those roe deer eyes, but his look was glassy. His eyes were not looking at me: they stared, immobile, at the wall opposite. I sat on his bed and curled up. I placed myself in such a way that the faded light in his eyes rested on me. What a cold and impersonal look! Icy as his hands and forehead, icy as perdition and ruin, the end, and death. Those eyes horrified me, those eyes that were turned toward me and did not see me. I got up. Was that really him, that cold, unknown, strange object? What had the tender warmth of his letters turned into, the delicate life of his hands, that had engendered so much beauty in music, the solitary beat of his heart that I—oh, how I regretted