“Why must you go at all? I cannot understand. What could possibly justify this trip? If your brother has gone to Sevilla on business, which theory you use to justify choosing that as a destination, then what reason can you possibly have for following him there? You are playing the fool.”
Ana could not deny the logic of the argument—it had nagged at her as well. “I hope that you are right. I hope that when I get to Sevilla and find Sebastián and Juliana, they will heartily laugh at my ridiculous fears. But fears they are, Clara, and I can no longer sit idly and wait.”
“But what fears are they? I have yet to hear you state them. You are reacting only to the ravings of that old simpleton Fernando.”
Ana paused, before responding in a thoughtful tone, “Did you not find Constanza’s manner odd?”
“What has her manner to do with this, and how am I to judge? I know nothing of that girl. For all we know, she’s been odd since the day of her birth. And what of your precious patients? What are they to do while you are gone?”
Ana knew that Clara was exhausting her objections if she had resorted to this, but worry tempered her relief. “They are not my patients, Clara. As I have repeated many times, I have no license as physician, surgeon, or even barber-bloodletter. Please do not refer to them as my patients, or you could cause me great trouble. They are simply people whom I try to help.”
“As though any of them could afford a physician. There are few like Dr. Emilio, bless him, who would treat the poor.”
“You don’t often admit that you care what happens to the people who come to me, Clara.”
“I never said I did not care about them. I simply feel that sometimes they make a nuisance of themselves.”
Ana smiled at this apparent lack of charity, which she knew to be based upon Clara’s love for her mistress.
“Whether I care is not the point. You claim to, so where are they to turn?”
“They must seek help elsewhere.” Stopping, Ana turned to the other woman. “Clara, I am at a loss as to how to name my worries, and yet I cannot shake this dread. I know only that I cannot stay here. You know how much I dislike travel. Surely the very fact that I undertake this journey must convince you of the depth of my anxiety.”
“I shall pray to Our Lady to keep you safe.” Clara turned and went into the house, without waiting for the carriage to pull away.
Ana should have slept, for the short and fitful hours of rest of the past few nights had left her drained, but exhaustion was not an adequate sedative. The sway of the carriage was far from rhythmic, the wheels seeking out each pothole and bump in the road. Neither could her thoughts calm her, though her fatigue thwarted any logical pondering of the situation. The abrupt departure of her brother and niece defied explanation, and for this reason her mind would not relent. It drifted from one theory to the next, and just as an interpretation seemed to elucidate the events, a fissure appeared and widened, swallowing the possibility.
The crowded feeling of the carriage at least provided some small defense against the pervading chill. Ana’s fellow passengers seemed as lost in thought as she, and exchanged only occasional pleasantries. The thin priest with the kind face was Father Del Valle. He mentioned that he had been seeking a way to make this journey for several days, and that he had been quite delighted the previous day, when Señor Monsalve had informed him that the carriage would be leaving the following day. Other than this, he had not much to say. Ana thought his look even more distracted than hers must be, and she wondered what would be the troubles of a priest.
The other passenger was a girl named Andrea, somewhat younger than Juliana. She had told Ana that she had been employed in the household of Señor Monsalve, but that he had recommended her for a position as a lady’s maid for the wife of one of his acquaintances in Sevilla. Señor Monsalve had also instructed her to be of whatever service she could to Ana on their journey, and Ana had been at great pains to convince the girl, without crushing her eagerness, that she preferred to be left on her own. So much for Señor Monsalve’s explanation of his gallantry of asking for no payment from her. Clearly, Andrea, his own servant, had not paid, and Ana doubted that the generous Monsalve had required fare from the priest.
The day passed slowly, and Ana found that still she could not answer its tedium with sleep. They stopped shortly after midday and ate the food that Señor Rojas had instructed each to bring, but there was nothing else to break the journey.
The three passengers seemed to have made a pact to maintain their silence. Each appeared lost in the anticipation of what would greet them at journey’s end. Ana tried to keep her agitation at bay, having realized earlier in the day that a studied calmness was her only defense against the waves of nausea brought on by the incessant rocking of the carriage.
She gazed out at the barren landscape. An occasional cork tree relieved the starkness of the arid terrain, but there were few signs of people. Ana remembered Sebastián’s having said that part of Castile’s—indeed, all of Spain’s—problems was a decline in rural population.
As a child, Ana had occasionally made excursions to the countryside with her father and brother, and she had been fascinated by the point where land meets sky, as though one could simply walk to God. If the land were the top of a hill, how much stronger the illusion. Even after her father had explained to her that one could never walk to the end because the earth was round, she had been unable to dispel the notion.
Now horizon did not beckon, and her knowledge that the earth would never reach the sky, that she could journey on and on and never make an end, was dizzying and appalling. In the approaching darkness, she missed the security of the capital, where the black shadows cast by buildings seemed, by contrast, to illuminate the unshaded regions.
So it was not only the ache in Ana’s head and bones that caused her to welcome the sight of the inn where they would stop for the night. The abject appearance of the buildings and the forlorn features of the courtyard seemed the inspiration for the inn at which Cervantes’s Don Quixote had found his Dulcinea, and Ana smiled, hoping her giants were mere windmills.
Señor Rojas had brought food for the passengers’ dinner, as inns rarely had provisions for guests, because of taxes imposed on all food and drink. They had arrived late, and the innkeeper explained that his wife had already gone to bed, so he himself set to preparing the food they had brought. As Señor Rojas and Ana’s fellow passengers settled down to their jugs of wine, Ana approached the innkeeper.
“May I help you, señor?”
“I could use some help, señora, for my wife is not feeling well, but this is hardly fit work for a lady such as you.”
“Not at all, my friend. I have performed tasks much humbler than this.” This was true, for in the convent, in her search for union with Our Lord, Ana had shunned no task, though she would have been excused from the most objectionable chores. Her father had, after all, paid a large fee when she had entered, a dowry to the Lord.
The man accepted her help and prepared the rabbit they had bought from a hunter, while Ana cut the vegetables.
“I am sorry that your wife is not well. I hope that it is nothing serious.”
“Oh, no, señora. It is just that she is expecting our sixth, and she usually rises very early, to see our guests off and begin the day’s work.”
“Gracias a Dios, a child is such a blessing!”
“Oh, yes, and all of our children are living and are a grace upon our household, helping their mother and me, even the small ones, as much as they can.”
As always, Ana felt pain at the thought of a newborn babe. Surely it must be difficult for the innkeeper to support all of these children. Truly, another child would be a burden. Why did the Lord give in surfeit to these people and deny Emilio and her? But she must banish these thoughts. All of that was long past change, and it was not for her to question the ways of the Lord.
“Your inn is quite well kept, and you do a service not only to your guests, but to God and country
as well, in raising such a fine family.” Already Ana had noticed that this inn, while humble, was much cleaner than others she had seen in her limited travels, and she had great hope that there would be no fleas to disturb the night’s rest.
“You might wonder why I have decided to brave the roads,” Ana remarked aloud.
“I would not presume to wonder, señora.”
Ana hesitated but continued, hoping that sharing a confidence with him would cause the innkeeper to answer more thoroughly the questions she would then put to him. “I travel to Sevilla to see my mother. She is very ill, and we fear that death may call for her any day.” Ana was not by nature prone to lying, but at least, she consoled herself, her lie could bring down no retribution on a mother so long gone.
“Now it is I who am sorry to hear of your loved one’s illness. May Our Lady grant her recovery. I am sure that your presence will be a great comfort to her.”
“Thank you. I hope that it will. My brother and his daughter are also on their way to see my mother. They left Madrid three days before I did.” Ana tried to purge her voice of the nervousness she felt. “I imagine they would have taken this route, and if they were as lucky as we are, they would have stopped at your comfortable lodge. Do you remember talking to them—a man and his daughter, a girl about sixteen, and her dueña, an older woman?”
“Let me see, three days ago. I do not recall. . . . Oh, that night I went to get some provisions, and I was delayed. I did not return until quite late.”
“Perhaps the next morning?”
“As I said, señora, my wife is the one who rises early with the guests, and, as I was late in my arrival the night before, she was forced also to see to their needs until my return, my poor Josefa. I will tell you, señora, it is hard for me to watch my dear wife toil so. For myself, I do not envy the rich. They have their problems. But I would like to give Josefa an easier life. She was very beautiful when we married. We were both young then, and worked here when it was still my father’s inn—may he rest in peace with Our Lord and all the saints. Yes, she was beautiful, but now . . . well, the hard work has made its mark upon her.”
Ana was regarding him peculiarly.
“Do not misunderstand me, señora. I love my wife deeply, more than when she was young. It is just that it saddens me, for her sake, and I know it grieves her, to see herself so changed.”
“I know you love her, señor. I can tell by your voice.” Ana found it hard to conceal the note of envy at this man’s appreciation of his wife’s lost beauty.
They worked in silence for a while, the innkeeper perhaps remembering the beauty of the young girl he had taken in marriage, Ana remembering the love Emilio had given her. She wondered again if he could have cared for her more had she brought him loveliness.
“So, it is possible that your wife might have seen my brother and niece?”
“You can ask her in the morning, señora.”
After dinner, Ana went to the one separate guest room available at the inn. Though it was extremely simple, she appreciated the privacy after the long day in the carriage with the other two passengers. From what Señor Rojas had hinted, this would probably be one of the more luxurious accommodations they would patronize on their journey. Though her body ached from the constant jostling and the confined space, Ana knew that sleep would elude her, and she lit the candle on the small table by the bed.
She felt the shape and texture of Juliana’s diary, and she extracted it from her bag. She did not wish to pry into the private meditations of her niece. She understood that when loved ones speak to us, what they choose to tell and how they tell it are shaped by their love, for love may struggle to survive with all raw thoughts laid open to the world. Still, reading Emilio’s journal had taught Ana that eavesdropping on the reflections of another could offer insight.
Ana’s fears for Juliana were hard to suppress, and it was partly in the hope of finding some hint of where she had gone that Ana would read the book, but that was not its only pull. She also wished to feel Juliana’s presence through her words. Though she was hesitant to intrude upon yet another loved one, surely Juliana’s journal would lay no grave fault at Ana’s feet.
18
Juliana
Madrid, 30 September 1660
My father has given me this wonderful book as a gift for the celebration of my sixteenth birthday! I shall value it highly, as much for the beauty and value of the book itself as for the gratification it gives to me to think that he believes me capable of making worthy use of it. He said that I might use its pages to record my thoughts on my studies, and this I intend to do.
Perhaps I might also use it to record the minor day-to-day happenings of my life, so that when I am older, I shall be reminded of tales of my youth to tell my children and grandchildren.
11 October
I have been somewhat nervous about recording my observations here, but now I have begun to study some works of drama that father has given me. He said that now that I have completed some rudimentary learning in the classics, he would like me to study some of the great writers of our own time. He went to some trouble to obtain printed copies of a number of plays, for he says that they will be a good way to start my course of more independent study, as I should be able to discern more easily the meanings in these contemporary works. To this end, he has given me copies of some plays by the dramatists Tirso de Molina and Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Although I do have a passing familiarity with some of their works, Father wishes me to make a more systematic study of them. I am to read them and refine my thoughts on them, and then we will discuss them together. I shall record in this book my notes on our discussions.
Though Father has always shown a keen interest in my studies, and has from time to time been so generous as to take upon himself the role of tutor, I now enter a new phase of my education. Father has said that it is no longer his desire to lecture me on the meanings of works that I have read, but that he wishes instead to discover the fruit of these recent years of my study through conversations with me. We will discuss themes, even as I have heard him in friendly intellectual arguments with his friends, many of them university educated. I must work hard so that I will be worthy of the confidence he has placed in me!
This morning at Holy Mass, I noticed Antonio, son of my father’s friend Don Baltasar, staring at me for long periods. I must admit that I smiled at him a few times when I looked up and caught his eye. He is quite handsome, tall and slender of leg, with rich black hair and classic features. The servants tell me that many young girls would be happy to be matched with him, but that as yet he has shown no interest in any.
17 October
I have read one of the plays by Don Tirso de Molina, The Trickster of Sevilla. I have also had my first discussion with Father about it, and I fear that I have disappointed him. The play deals with a rogue, Don Juan Tenorio, who seduces several young women of various classes by means of trickery and false promises. His sole delight is in dishonoring as many young women as he can, even the fiancée of his friend. In the event of discovery, he depends upon his father’s high position to save him from temporal punishment. When some remind him that his actions also break the laws of God, he declares that he is young and will have time to repent before his death. In the act of escaping the room of one of the señoritas, he is discovered by her father, whom Don Juan kills. At the end of the play, Don Juan is punished, burning in everlasting fires. The girls are free to be married.
In discussing the play with my father, I chose to emphasize the dishonorable and highly immoral behavior of Don Juan, and the just punishment he received. I concluded that the end to which he was brought was well deserved, and that the play served to show that one should act honorably and well, both for honor’s sake and for fear of a just punishment.
“I am afraid that you have missed the points that I most particularly wished you to see, my daughter” was my father’s slow reply. “What of the conduct of the maidens who allowed themselves to be disho
nored?”
“In each case they were deceived by Don Juan, who either came disguised or promised marriage, only to abandon them.”
“And why did they allow themselves to be so deceived? It was a grave defect in their own characters that allowed their downfall, and this is what I wished you to discern. A woman’s first duty is to guard her honor, for it is the most precious gift she gives to her father, then to her husband. Without it, she can be nothing to either man.”
Although his words disturbed me, not only in their reference to the play’s interpretation, but also in his own pronouncement, I ventured to offer further proof of my understanding of the play.
“But, Father, it is Don Juan who is punished in the end. Although the girls have been deceived and made to suffer, each in the end will marry, restoring her honor. I believe that this would indicate that it is Don Juan who is to be most blamed.”
“And this is the defect of the play!” Father answered. “I would have you disregard this false ending and keep in mind that each girl brought on her own shame because she did not guard her honor carefully enough. To my mind, each deserved a fate far worse than that which she received.”
“Yes, Father. I am sorry that I have not understood the play as you had wished.”
Father quickly relented. “Do not worry, my daughter. I believe that as you continue in the works I have given you, you will begin to find in them the lessons proper for a young woman. Good night, now.”
I wonder at my father’s emphasis in his interpretation. It seems that I have much to learn.
25 October
Again at Mass it seemed to me that Antonio sought out my glance in a most interested manner. Yet I wonder whether this might be the work of my desiring imagination. When he has so many young, honorable, and well-born girls to choose from, I do not know why he might single me out. I do not even know if I am pretty. My father has told me so from time to time, but might not this be merely a father’s love? I have inherited my father’s tallish stature, perhaps too much so for a girl, although Antonio is yet again a full head taller than I. My hair is brown, with somewhat of a curl to it, which my nurse, Silvia, tells me I inherited from my mother. My hair is perhaps my best feature. When I look into my mirror, I think that perhaps my face is somewhat pleasing. But then it could be only that I wish it to be so.
The Lines Between Us Page 8