Goya's Glass

by Monika Zgustova

  María, María! Where has that damned old woman gone to? Consuelo, I want my aya here! What, where has she gone? How shameless of her! Consuelo, go and see her and ask her what happened after the summer at Piedrahíta, when the royal painter painted me dressed in white with a red sash. Run, my memory is slipping!

  My husband was proud of that portrait. He organized soirees in which first he played the harpsichord, then invited everyone to dinner, and after coffee and liqueurs, as the culmination of the evening’s entertainment, he gathered the guests in the salon to show them my portrait. On the opposite wall hung the portrait that Goya had painted of him, of Don José, Marquis of Villafranca. People cried out in their enthusiasm and, who was it that day? Osuna perhaps? Somebody said, amid the silence that fell after the exclamations: “What an ideal couple, the Duchess of Alba and the Marquis of Villafranca! How they resemble each other, what a match! It doesn’t surprise me that they live in perfect harmony together.”

  In more than one face I saw a grimace of mockery.

  I replied: “Now then, dearest friend! How could I compete with my husband? I have the face of a wild animal, though not as much as you do, my dearest, whereas Don José has the eyes of a deer, which are nothing if not the expression of his soul.”

  That is what I thought then of José, yes. Osuna had to shut up; José shone.

  But I didn’t think that when they engaged me to him at the age of eleven, and married me to him when I was thirteen. At that time I was standing in front of the altar next to Mama and her bridegroom. Any man there seemed to me to be more masculine than my bony scarecrow with his big brown eyes. Even Miguelito, the son of our laundrywoman, had bigger muscles. Oh, how I loved playing with him in the granary! We took off our clothes and then swam together in the grain. One day I told my grandfather about our games and he quoted me something so beautiful I’ve remembered it ever since. A philosopher, Diderot, I think, told him:

  L’habit de la nature, c’est la peau,

  plus on s’éloigne de ce vêtement

  plus on pèche contre le gout.

  That is how I wrote it down and I took it seriously. I spent my wedding night with Miguelito in the granary. We swam nude among the corn, even though it was very cold. When my friends came to see me, I usually received them in the nude, following the advice of the French philosopher regarding good taste, and when the girls were frightened and about to flee, I made them a present of that wise sentence and added that I would dress myself with my hair, so as not to alarm them. At that time my hair reached down to my knees. But I never received Don José like that. Soon, he stopped coming to visit me and preferred to spend nights playing the piano and the harpsichord, the viola and the violin. Only after a long time did I receive him, almost fully dressed because I find men’s bodies repulsive. I wanted a little child to play with, but he was unable to give me one. He wasn’t even capable of doing that.

  “Hey Consuelo, what does my aya say?”

  “Milady, Doña María says that she is ashamed to answer your question.”

  “Wonderful, let her be ashamed, the pious thing. But did she give you an answer or didn’t she?”

  “Milady, she says that after you came back from Piedrahíta you became friends with Don Manuel de Godoy, the Príncipe de la Paz.”

  “Heavens, was it then? Yes, it’s true. At that time I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, and the only thing I managed to achieve was to injure myself. Go, go, don’t bother me now, girl.”

  Finally! How hard it is to get rid of these gossipmongers. It was at a soiree in my palace. I had very few candles lit. My husband played Haydn for the guests and he managed to make me sad. I realized that year after year my life was slipping away, years lived uselessly, without aim, without emotion. Nothing attracted me, nobody needed me. I sang tonadillas, I acted in plays, people applauded me, admired my beauty and my talent, but none of that meant anything to me. That evening Don José played, no, in fact it wasn’t Haydn; he was playing something on the viola. I think it was Marin Marais, Les Folies d’Espagne. The same melody was repeated, grew like a wave, and then suddenly settled back again to rise quickly into a crescendo. Godoy stood behind my chair and whispered into my ear that never had any woman, that the affection he felt for me . . . that because of me he had neglected affairs of state . . . that I, that I, that I . . .

  In short, the most common sort of praise. At the same time he tickled me in the most delicious fashion on the nape of my neck as he played with my necklace. My melancholy began to fade and I began to have the feeling that I was in heaven, full of music and of words and caresses.

  The king and queen were seated in the first row according to protocol, and Godoy should have been seated next to María Luisa, as prime minister and her prime lover. But he had stood up to move away from her and approach the wall behind me. After a while the queen turned—the salon glittered with the brilliance of her jewels, so much so it seemed as if the candles had gone out—she saw everything. She went red with anger while I put on a listless expression so that my dear María Luisa should have no doubt about what was happening. Godoy became alarmed and wanted to go back to his seat, but I made him burn up inside with a furtive look that said now or never. He hesitated. I rose a little as if preparing to leave and immediately he nodded: yes, I’m ready. While waiting for me he went red as a prawn and his fingers ran over my skin with greater strength. He caressed my naked shoulders under my hair. My mother-in-law, dressed as ever in a ubiquitous pearl gray with platinum around her neck and silver in her hair, turned toward me to whisper that after the music we would dine with their majesties king and queen in a small group, but maybe I didn’t hear her. The music was reaching its culmination, the wave grew. The music gave me strength. I got up, making a signal to Don Manuel. As he followed me, he reddened and paled by turn. I left a message for my husband saying I felt indisposed and that Don Manuel had been called away unexpectedly and needed to leave most urgently. So the intimate dinner with their majesties did not take place in order to avoid a somewhat uncomfortable situation in which two of the main heroes would be missing, the tenor and the soprano, and what was more, each from a different duo. The king, who never understood anything, didn’t understand what was happening then either. I can imagine him perfectly, patting my husband on the back and saying how it was high time they played together, while Don José bit his lip—first from imagining the clumsy king in comparison to his refined fingers, which didn’t play so much as produce magic, and second, when he realized the reason why his wife and the queen’s lover were missing after the concert.

  Once in my chambers, the spell that I had been under a moment before disappeared altogether, but I attended Godoy’s amorous petition. The hope that I was hurting the queen with my action was a consolation to me. What was more, in some hidden corner of my soul I was feeding the illusion that Francisco, who had not come to any supper or musical evening at my little salon in the Moncloa, was a friend of Don Manuel. I had no reason to believe that Godoy was not discreet, and I hoped that this juicy piece of social news would reach Francisco’s ear and if it didn’t hurt him, that it would at least graze him. Graze him, the only man who did not respond to my challenges. The untamable man.

  On the afternoon of the following day my chambermaid brought me an ochre-colored envelope which contained a letter.

  Ma bien aimée,

  Je vous supplie de souper avec moi ce soir après mon concert, vers minuit. For our intimate little supper I have ordered one of your favorite dishes to be prepared. If I could, I would have gone personally to fish oysters to serve them on your dish, and with them deposit a beautiful pearl on your knees. Une perle qui ne pourrait en rien rivaliser avec vôtre beauté car vous êtes la plus ravissante des créatures. We will have dinner in my little salon without servants; only you, adored one, and me. I hope that you will honor me with the pleasure of spending the day today looking forward to this charming repas en tête à tête, notre petit souper intime que votre pré
sence rendra inoubliable.

  José, votre époux qui vous adore

  un peu plus chaque jour

  We were sitting in the blue salon, lit by a single candelabra. The round table was covered in dishes full of exquisite food. Don José personally served the champagne. That evening I drank little, I was wary. Halfway through the dinner, what I had been afraid of happened.

  “Adorable, let us make a toast now to my new projects, which from this evening on, I would like to share with you.”

  Why doesn’t he speak clearly, why so much formality?

  “To our journey, ma chérie!” And then he looked me straight in the eyes and said, slowly: “Venice and Vienna—I would like to present you à mon cher ami Joseph Haydn, to show you off a little, and to get to know his most recent works and play them for you, mon âme.

  I concentrated on the oysters to keep my eyes lowered and so hide my perplexity. How could I go away on a journey just now, when any day I expected my strategy with Godoy to prove its worth? What would Francisco think? He would only come to one conclusion: that I had taken Godoy as my official lover and left him in the lurch. He would forget me; he would find a lover or get back together with his wife. And when I got back, no matter how much effort I made, reheated love would be more difficult to digest than a dish of stewed tripe left over from the day before. No, there was no way that I could leave now!

  “Don José, my dear! Your invitation honors me. But I have a better idea. Let us put off our excursion to Vienna some six months. Let us wait for the snow to melt in barbarous central Europe and let the cold diminish. Let us organize, for now, a journey to our holdings in Andalusia. Let’s go to the south, to springtime! Your delicate health would appreciate it.”

  To Seville, Cadiz, or to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where I could invite Francisco, perhaps with the excuse of a new portrait. Or I could find him a commission myself!

  “No, Teresa, cariño mio. My decision has been made. It will be Vienna and that is it. Let us talk of it no longer.”

  He wanted to take me away from my world, why doubt it? Perhaps he was jealous of Godoy? That would surprise me. His sensitivity regarding human relationships would surely tell him that a puppet such as Godoy, crude and superficial, could only really please a person as ordinary as the queen. Perhaps he had guessed something about Francisco? No, because nothing had happened. Or had he noticed the depth of my affections for that painter who was already mature, and had realized that it had nothing to do with my usual coquettishness?

  “I would love to satisfy your desires, mon cher époux, even though, given the state of your health, a journey of this nature signifie una grave impudence. However, it is not possible. Soon it will be carnival time and for Mardi Gras I am holding a masquerade ball in the Moncloa. The invitations have already gone to press, apart from the fact that I have already invited many people personally. For this occasion, the dressmakers have prepared a costume for me of a kind that has never been seen before in Spain. It is almost finished. Je suis désolée, mon cher, mais il m’est absolument impossible de quitter l’Espagne maintenant. And now, forgive me, but I must go, my head feels heavy. Have them prepare an infusion, una tisane de verveine. À propos, I advise you, dear José, to pay attention to what I say. Go to Seville where spring has just begun, as you haven’t been feeling very well lately. I will come and see you there often, parole d’honneur. We will repeat ces petits soupers intimes. It will be wonderful.”

  Once in my room, I undressed without the assistance of the chambermaid. I drank the infusion in front of the mirror and thought that I would not go to Vienna, not even at the risk of a serious disagreement with my husband and his mother.

  Consuelo! Have them prepare me una tisane de verveine. Serve it in the sixteenth-century Japanese tea set, yes, the white one with a touch of pink.

  José, in the end, went to Seville. He was ill. I stayed in Madrid because it was ball season. Carnival was coming up.

  The masquerade ball! I wore a dress which even the most daring of the majas would never have worn. But for carnival, everything is permitted! The dress was designed in such a way that Francisco, if he came to the ball, could only recognize me from the décolletage. I danced with many young men, and also with Godoy, who couldn’t take his eyes off my décolletage and didn’t stop pushing me into a corner, like a common village bumpkin! I freed myself from his grasp by reaching out for another glass of champagne. And another, and more. I didn’t want to dance with just anyone; I was looking for stocky men. I observed one of them. It might be him. I kissed him, another, and another. I kissed all of them for a long time. How to know a man: by his kiss. We danced. A new roundish man took me from the arms of a young man. I had drunk too much champagne, my head was spinning. The dancer supported me, then he left the crowd with me, holding me firmly by the waist so that I didn’t fall. Once in the corridor, I stumbled on my dress and my dancing partner pressed me against him, but I bent over like a stalk holding a too-heavy flower. My partner had an unusual custom: he didn’t stop looking me in the eyes. Only the eyes, not like Godoy. I didn’t understand a thing, but I felt lighthearted. Suddenly Godoy, of all people, discovered me and pulled me out of the arms of the short, strong man to take me away. But I kept on feeling the arms of the unknown man around my body.

  No, don’t put it on the bedside table, girl. Leave it for me here, on the low table, that’s right. Thank you, Consuelo, I don’t need you anymore.

  The following morning the maid brought the hot chocolate to my bed, together with an envelope that was larger than usual. I found a drawing inside, without any letter or note: a woman in a mask, dressed like a maja, and in front of her a man leans forward and looks into her eyes; around them is a group of masked men, drawn to look repulsive. And a title that read: Nadie se conoce. The title meant that people don’t recognize each other, but also that they don’t even know themselves. An ambiguous title. And what do these repulsive men, these monsters, standing around, mean?

  In the evening a new envelope arrived of the same size with another drawing: a very beautiful woman with naked breasts was half-sitting, half-lying across a man’s knees. Her head, with eyes half-open, was bent down like a broken ear of corn. The man is wringing his hands and wailing, his desperation limitless. Title: Tántalo. Tantalus, the king whom the gods punished by surrounding him with paradisical fruits, which when he tried to pick them, moved away. Temptation is offered and then immediately denied. There is no doubt: the man is him, the features of the face are his. The woman, who lies across his knees, showing her marvelous breast, is me. It is my face, my figure, my hair. And now I realize that the posture of the body in the drawing is the same as that of the clothed maja and the nude maja.

  Two drawings.

  Francisco the courtesan, who reproaches his lady for not recognizing him.

  Francisco Tantalus, who desires the tempting fruits that are forbidden to him.

  “María, bring me my husband’s letters. I keep them in the alcove.”

  “But all the correspondence which Your Highness received from the Marquis of Villafranca is in the bottom drawer of the bedside table!”

  “Is it? Well then, give me the letters. Just the last packet. Yes, they are from him. Let’s see, one of the last, chosen at random.”

  Seville, April 1796

  My dearest,

  Your Madame de Sévigné wrote to her absent daughter: “Il faut se consoler en vous écrivant.” I identify completely with these words; writing to you is my only consolation, my only joy.

  This time I am unable to write anything new to you, but just what I always write: that I miss you, that I see you in all women, in all young and beautiful women. But I do not want my words to influence you in any way. I know perfectly well that you have been through the period of dances and carnival and that you, as always, have been the most admired woman in Spain. I trust that you take pleasure from this, my love. I really do not want you to change anything because of my letters full of longing. I wi
sh this for you from the bottom of my heart, I give you my word of honor. I only ask of you that, even if occasionally, you write me a few lines or a few words and nothing more, just so that I know you remember me sometimes. Is this a selfish request? Yes it is. Is it blackmail? Yes, it is. Do forgive me, my darling.

  For me you are a dream, always very brief but intense enough to stay in my memory and keep me alive. I like to imagine where you are and what you are doing, and I would visit the places where you are with more eagerness than I would the seven wonders of the world. But I am ill, weak, and unable to support a journey to Madrid. What I most desire in all the world is forbidden to me. But what I have lived with you, I keep inside me, and I shall have to make do with that.

  It might interest you to know that now I am playing something new. That is to say, new for me. The piece in itself was written a good ten years ago. It is The Last Seven Words of Christ by Haydn. It is a commission from the canon of Cadiz cathedral; it was he who gave me this wonderful score. What I prefer most is “The Fourth Word” largo in F minor, “Father, father, why have you abandoned me?” impregnated with the most absolute desperation. They are seven minutes of tragedy, tragedy conceived as adagio, la tragédie maintenue adagio, that is to say, a real tragedy. Will you allow me to play it for you some day, my love? Would you like to know what it is that I am living? I am sure you would and I am grateful to you. I know that you have always liked my way of playing music. I am well aware that I am not a suitable man for you. You require someone stronger, more masculine, and yet you also have a sharp sense of what art is. I trust that you shall find him and wish this for you from the bottom of my heart.