The Harp and the Shadow
Page 15
As if fascinated by a sudden coincidence of images, he stopped and paused to consider that painting depicting the torment of a saint killed by arrows, which made him think of still other arrows—cruel and delicious arrows—that, since mythological times, have fatefully wounded their targets, causing the ineffable agony of lovers whirled in the “hellish storm” that eternally moves Paolo and Francesca, yesterday, today, and tomorrow (When I committed the sin of concubinage by not marrying my Beatriz, whom I so loved, leaving my seed in her fertile field, I did not foresee those ferocious observers of the canon gathering to condemn me, those icy clerics elected to the Vatican through sinecure and indifference, opposing me as if they were sitting at the right hand of God to judge men, for having, like the magnificent cavaliers of knight errancy [and what was I, if not a knight errant of the sea?], taken as my woman one whom I never betrayed in spirit while living united in the flesh with the one who would perpetuate my line. And as I listened, from the heights of a court decked out for legal trickery, to those ordained personages, grim and contentious, discuss my case, I heard more than once that the heart has its reasons—who said that?—that the mind knows not. And I suddenly thought of the prostrate and sorrowful figure of the Page of Sigüenza, who also had as Mistress, the guide and beacon of his destiny, the noble Lady Madrigal of the High Towers . . . Taking to his heart—like Amadis with the peerless Oriana—the one he had seen for the first time in the Moclín camp, after the taking of Illora, he loved her with the same devotion in which he had until then held his sweetheart from Sigüenza. And, with her image in mind, moved by the same pledge that motivated his Mistress in her glorious zeal of recon-quest, perhaps to increase in fame and bravery in her eyes, he launched a headlong attack, and fell in the crusade against the Moors and was cast in a marble statue, wrapped in his military cape, his flowing hair in an Italian style—the cross of Santiago red on his chest like an eternal bud from his bloody heart.5 How I envied the page, more a warrior than I, although he was depicted on the lid of his tomb reading a book—a book that might have been by Seneca the Elder, while I, seeking the clear prophesies within his Medea, translated prophetic verses of the other Seneca! . . . You and I—and why deny that I was once jealous of you?—loved the same woman, although you never knew, as I did [Or perhaps? . . . who can be sure? How can one penetrate such a shrouded mystery?] the unequaled pleasure of holding a queen in your arms. Madrigal of the High Towers was our incomparable Oriana, although those who judge me, dusty magistrates, full of canonical self-righteousness, could not understand the constancy of a pledge held in secret, because it was necessary that no one know about it, that both of us keep quiet about what perhaps led you to sacrifice yourself in a meritorious display of honor, while I, following the sentiment that after a certain time was always the compass and guide of my actions, did not reject Beatriz, my Beatriz whom I loved just the same. There are rules of gentlemanly fidelity that these mediocre shysters who now find me guilty of concubinage, fornication, and who knows what else will never understand . . . If I had not been devoted to the ideal that I pursued, I would have lain with Indians—many of whom were quite desirable in their Edenic nakedness—as did so many, so many, of those who accompanied me in my discoveries . . . But that, that they can never accuse me o£ however much they rummage through old papers, examine archives, or lend their ears to the slanders of Martín Pinzón, Juan de la Cosa, Rodrigo de Triana, and other filthy scoundrels intent on staining my memory . . . In my life there came one surpassing moment when, setting my sights high, very high, I abandoned the lust of my body and ennobled my mind with a complete communion of spirit and flesh, and a new light illuminated the darkness of wayward actions and thoughts . . .)