He found the corpse6 covered with a blanket on the campaign cot where he had always slept,and beside it was a stool with the developing tray he had used to vaporise the poison. On the floor,tied to a leg of the cot, lay the body of a black Great Dane with a snow-white chest, and next tohim were the crutches8. At one window the splendour of dawn was just beginning to illuminate9 thestifling, crowded room that served as both bedroom and laboratory, but there was enough light forhim to recognise at once the authority of death. The other windows, as well as every other chink inthe room, were muffled10 with rags or sealed with black cardboard, which increased the oppressiveheaviness. A counter was crammed11 with jars and bottles without labels and two crumbling12 pewtertrays under an ordinary light bulb covered with red paper. The third tray, the one for the fixativesolution, was next to the body. There were old magazines and newspapers everywhere, piles ofnegatives on glass plates, broken furniture, but everything was kept free of dust by a diligent13 hand.
Although the air coming through the window had purified the atmosphere, there still remained forthe one who could identify it the dying embers of hapless love in the bitter almonds. Dr. JuvenalUrbino had often thought, with no premonitory intention, that this would not be a propitious14 placefor dying in a state of grace. But in time he came to suppose that perhaps its disorder15 obeyed anobscure determination of Divine Providence16.
A police inspector17 had come forward with a very young medical student who was completinghis forensic18 training at the municipal dispensary, and it was they who had ventilated the room andcovered the body while waiting for Dr. Urbino to arrive. They greeted him with a solemnity thaton this occasion had more of condolence than veneration19, for no one was unaware20 of the degree ofhis friendship with Jeremiah de Saint-Amour. The eminent22 teacher shook hands with each of them,as he always did with every one of his pupils before beginning the daily class in general clinicalmedicine, and then, as if it were a flower, he grasped the hem23 of the blanket with the tips of hisindex finger and his thumb, and slowly uncovered the body with sacramental circumspection24.
Jeremiah de Saint-Amour was completely naked, stiff and twisted, eyes open, body blue, lookingfifty years older than he had the night before. He had luminous25 pupils, yellowish beard and hair,and an old scar sewn with baling knots across his stomach. The use of crutches had made his torsoand arms as broad as a galley26 slave's, but his defenceless legs looked like an orphan's. Dr. JuvenalUrbino studied him for a moment, his heart aching as it rarely had in the long years of his futilestruggle against death.
"Damn fool," he said. "The worst was over."He covered him again with the blanket and regained28 his academic dignity. His eightiethbirthday had been celebrated29 the year before with an official three-day jubilee30, and in his thank-you speech he had once again resisted the temptation to retire. He had said: "I'll have plenty oftime to rest when I die, but this eventuality is not yet part of my plans." Although he heard lessand less with his right ear, and leaned on a silver-handled cane31 to conceal32 his faltering33 steps, hecontinued to wear a linen34 suit, with a gold watch chain across his vest, as smartly as he had in hisyounger years. His Pasteur beard, the colour of mother-of-pearl, and his hair, the same colour,carefully combed back and with a neat part in the middle, were faithful expressions of his character. He compensated36 as much as he could for an increasingly disturbing erosion of memoryby scribbling37 hurried notes on scraps38 of paper that ended in confusion in each of his pockets, asdid the instruments, the bottles of medicine, and all the other things jumbled39 together in hiscrowded medical bag. He was not only the city's oldest and most illustrious physician, he was alsoits most fastidious man. Still, his too obvious display of learning and the disingenuous40 manner inwhich he used the power of his name had won him less affection than he deserved.
His instructions to the inspector and the intern41 were precise and rapid. There was no need foran autopsy42; the odour in the house was sufficient proof that the cause of death had been thecyanide vapours activated43 in the tray by some photographic acid, and Jeremiah de Saint-Amourknew too much about those matters for it to have been an accident. When the inspector showedsome hesitation44, he cut him off with the kind of remark that was typical of his manner: "Don'tforget that I am the one who signs the death certificate." The young doctor was disappointed: hehad never had the opportunity to study the effects of gold cyanide on a cadaver45. Dr. JuvenalUrbino had been surprised that he had not seen him at the Medical School, but he understood in aninstant from the young man's easy blush and Andean accent that he was probably a recent arrivalto the city. He said: "There is bound to be someone driven mad by love who will give you thechance one of these days." And only after he said it did he realise that among the countlesssuicides he could remember, this was the first with cyanide that had not been caused by thesufferings of love. Then something changed in the tone of his voice.
"And when you do find one, observe with care," he said to the intern: "they almost alwayshave crystals in their heart."Then he spoke47 to the inspector as he would have to a subordinate. He ordered him tocircumvent all the legal procedures so that the burial could take place that same afternoon andwith the greatest discretion48. He said: "I will speak to the Mayor later." He knew that Jeremiah deSaint-Amour lived in primitive49 austerity and that he earned much more with his art than heneeded, so that in one of the drawers in the house there was bound to be more than enough moneyfor the funeral expenses.
"But if you do not find it, it does not matter," he said. "I will take care of everything."He ordered him to tell the press that the photographer had died of natural causes, although hethought the news would in no way interest them. He said: "If it is necessary, I will speak to theGovernor." The inspector, a serious and humble50 civil servant, knew that the Doctor's sense of civicduty exasperated52 even his closest friends, and he was surprised at the ease with which he skippedover legal formalities in order to expedite the burial. The only thing he was not willing to do wasspeak to the Archbishop so that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour could be buried in holy ground. Theinspector, astonished at his own impertinence, attempted to make excuses for him.
"I understood this man was a saint," he said.
"Something even rarer," said Dr. Urbino. "An atheistic54 saint. But those are matters for God todecide."In the distance, on the other side of the colonial city, the bells of the Cathedral were ringingfor High Mass. Dr. Urbino put on his half-moon glasses with the gold rims55 and consulted thewatch on its chain, slim, elegant, with the cover that opened at a touch: he was about to missPentecost Mass.
In the parlour was a huge camera on wheels like the ones used in public parks, and the backdrop of a marine56 twilight57, painted with homemade paints, and the walls papered with picturesof children at memorable58 moments: the first Communion, the bunny costume, the happy birthday.
Year after year, during contemplative pauses on afternoons of chess, Dr. Urbino had seen thegradual covering over of the walls, and he had often thought with a shudder59 of sorrow that in thegallery of casual portraits lay the germ of the future city, governed and corrupted60 by thoseunknown children, where not even the ashes of his glory would remain.
On the desk, next to a jar that held several old sea dog's pipes, was the chessboard with anunfinished game. Despite his haste and his sombre mood, Dr. Urbino could not resist thetemptation to study it. He knew it was the previous night's game, for Jeremiah de Saint-Amourplayed at dusk every day of the week with at least three different opponents, but he alwaysfinished every game and then placed the board and chessmen in their box and stored the box in adesk drawer. The Doctor knew he played with the white pieces and that this time it was evident hewas going to be defeated without mercy in four moves. "If there had been a crime, this would be agood clue," Urbino said to himself. "I know only one man capable of devising this masterful trap."If his life depended on it, he had to find out later why that indomitable soldier, accustomed tofighting to the last drop of blood, had left the final battle of his life unfinished.
At six that morning, as he was making his last rounds, the night watchman had seen the notenailed to the street door: Come in without knocking and inform the police. A short while later theinspector arrived with the intern, and the two of them had searched the house for some evidencethat might contradict the unmistakable breath of bitter almonds. But in the brief minutes theDoctor needed to study the unfinished game, the inspector discovered an envelope among thepapers on the desk, addressed to Dr. Juvenal Urbino and sealed with so much sealing wax that ithad to be ripped to pieces to get the letter out. The Doctor opened the black curtain over thewindow to have more light, gave a quick glance at the eleven sheets covered on both sides by adiligent handwriting, and when he had read the first paragraph he knew that he would missPentecost Communion. He read with agitated61 breath, turning back on several pages to find thethread he had lost, and when he finished he seemed to return from very far away and very longago. His despondency was obvious despite his effort to control it: his lips were as blue as thecorpse and he could not stop the trembling of his fingers as he refolded the letter and placed it inhis vest pocket. Then he remembered the inspector and the young doctor, and he smiled at themthrough the mists of grief.
"Nothing in particular," he said. "His final instructions."It was a half-truth, but they thought it complete because he ordered them to lift a loose tilefrom the floor, where they found a worn account book that contained the combination to thestrongbox. There was not as much money as they expected, but it was more than enough for thefuneral expenses and to meet other minor62 obligations. Then Dr. Urbino realised that he could notget to the Cathedral before the Gospel reading.
"It's the third time I've missed Sunday Mass since I've had the use of my reason," he said.
"But God understands."So he chose to spend a few minutes more and attend to all the details, although he couldhardly bear his intense longing63 to share the secrets of the letter with his wife. He promised tonotify the numerous Caribbean refugees who lived in the city in case they wanted to pay their lastrespects to the man who had conducted himself as if he were the most respectable of them all, the most active and the most radical64, even after it had become all too clear that he had beenoverwhelmed by the burden of disillusion65. He would also inform his chess partners, who rangedfrom distinguished66 professional men to nameless labourers, as well as other, less intimateacquaintances who might perhaps wish to attend the funeral. Before he read the posthumous67 letterhe had resolved to be first among them, but afterward68 he was not certain of anything. In any case,he was going to send a wreath of gardenias69 in the event that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour hadrepented at the last moment. The burial would be at five, which was the most suitable hour duringthe hottest months. If they needed him, from noon on he would be at the country house of Dr. L醕ides Olivella, his beloved disciple70, who was celebrating his silver anniversary in the professionwith a formal luncheon71 that day.
Once the stormy years of his early struggles were over, Dr. Juvenal Urbino had followed a setroutine and achieved a respectability and prestige that had no equal in the province. He arose atthe crack of dawn, when he began to take his secret medicines: potassium bromide to raise hisspirits, salicylates for the ache in his bones when it rained, ergosterol drops for vertigo72, belladonnafor sound sleep. He took something every hour, always in secret, because in his long life as adoctor and teacher he had always opposed prescribing palliatives for old age: it was easier for himto bear other people's pains than his own. In his pocket he always carried a little pad of camphorthat he inhaled73 deeply when no one was watching to calm his fear of so many medicines mixedtogether.
He would spend an hour in his study preparing for the class in general clinical medicine thathe taught at the Medical School every morning, Monday through Saturday, at eight o'clock, untilthe day before his death. He was also an avid74 reader of the latest books that his bookseller in Parismailed to him, or the ones from Barcelona that his local bookseller ordered for him, although hedid not follow Spanish literature as closely as French. In any case, he never read them in themorning, but only for an hour after his siesta75 and at night before he went to sleep. When he wasfinished in the study he did fifteen minutes of respiratory exercises in front of the open window inthe bathroom, always breathing toward the side where the roosters were crowing, which waswhere the air was new. Then he bathed, arranged his beard and waxed his moustache in anatmosphere saturated76 with genuine cologne from Farina Gegen眉 ber, and dressed in white linen,with a vest and a soft hat and cordovan boots. At eighty-one years of age he preserved the sameeasygoing manner and festive77 spirit that he had on his return from Paris soon after the greatcholera epidemic78, and except for the metallic79 colour, his carefully combed hair with the centre partwas the same as it had been in his youth. He breakfasted en famille but followed his own personalregimen of an infusion80 of wormwood blossoms for his stomach and a head of garlic that he peeledand ate a clove81 at a time, chewing each one carefully with bread, to prevent heart failure. Afterclass it was rare for him not to have an appointment related to his civic51 initiatives, or his Catholicservice, or his artistic83 and social innovations.
He almost always ate lunch at home and had a ten-minute siesta on the terrace in the patio84,hearing in his sleep the songs of the servant girls under the leaves of the mango trees, the cries ofvendors on the street, the uproar85 of oil and motors from the bay whose exhaust fumes5 flutteredthrough the house on hot afternoons like an angel condemned86 to putrefaction87. Then he read hisnew books for an hour, above all novels and works of history, and gave lessons in French andsinging to the tame parrot who had been a local attraction for years. At four o'clock, after drinking a large glass of lemonade with ice, he left to call on his patients. In spite of his age he would notsee patients in his office and continued to care for them in their homes as he always had, since thecity was so domesticated88 that one could go anywhere in safety.
After he returned from Europe the first time, he used the family landau, drawn89 by two goldenchestnuts, but when this was no longer practical he changed it for a Victoria and a single horse,and he continued to use it, with a certain disdain90 for fashion, when carriages had already begun todisappear from the world and the only ones left in the city were for giving rides to tourists andcarrying wreaths at funerals. Although he refused to retire, he was aware that he was called in onlyfor hopeless cases, but he considered this a form of specialisation too. He could tell what waswrong with a patient just by looking at him, he grew more and more distrustful of patentmedicines, and he viewed with alarm the vulgarisation of surgery. He would say: "The scalpel isthe greatest proof of the failure of medicine." He thought that, in a strict sense, all medication waspoison and that seventy percent of common foods hastened death. "In any case," he would say inclass, "the little medicine we know is known only by a few doctors." From youthful enthusiasm hehad moved to a position that he himself defined as fatalistic humanism: "Each man is master of hisown death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without fear of pain."But despite these extreme ideas, which were already part of local medical folklore91, his formerpupils continued to consult him even after they were established in the profession, for theyrecognised in him what was called in those days a clinical eye. In any event, he was always anexpensive and exclusive doctor, and his patients were concentrated in the ancestral homes in theDistrict of the Viceroys.
His daily schedule was so methodical that his wife knew where to send him a message if anemergency arose in the course of the afternoon. When he was a young man he would stop in theParish Caf?before coming home, and this was where he perfected his chess game with his fatherin-law's cronies and some Caribbean refugees. But he had not returned to the Parish Caf?since thedawn of the new century, and he had attempted to organise93 national tournaments under thesponsorship of the Social Club. It was at this time that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour arrived, his kneesalready dead, not yet a photographer of children, yet in less than three months everyone who knewhow to move a bishop53 across a chessboard knew who he was, because no one had been able todefeat him in a game. For Dr. Juvenal Urbino it was a miraculous94 meeting, at the very momentwhen chess had become an unconquerable passion for him and he no longer had many opponentswho could satisfy it.
Thanks to him, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour could become what he was among us. Dr. Urbinomade himself his unconditional95 protector, his guarantor in everything, without even taking thetrouble to learn who he was or what he did or what inglorious Avars he had come from in hiscrippled, broken state. He eventually lent him the money to set up his photography studio, andfrom the time he took his first picture of a child startled by the magnesium96 flash, Jeremiah deSaint-Amour paid back every last penny with religious regularity97.
It was all for chess. At first they played after supper at seven o'clock, with a reasonablehandicap for Jeremiah de Saint-Amour because of his notable superiority, but the handicap wasreduced until at last they played as equals. Later, when Don Galileo Daconte opened the firstoutdoor cinema, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour was one of his most dependable customers, and thegames of chess were limited to the nights when a new film was not being shown. By then he and the Doctor had become such good friends that they would go to see the films together, but neverwith the Doctor's wife, in part because she did not have the patience to follow the complicated plotlines, and in part because it always seemed to her, through sheer intuition, that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour was not a good companion for anyone.
His Sundays were different. He would attend High Mass at the Cathedral and then returnhome to rest and read on the terrace in the patio. He seldom visited a patient on a holy day ofobligation unless it was of extreme urgency, and for many years he had not accepted a socialengagement that was not obligatory98. On this Pentecost, in a rare coincidence, two extraordinaryevents had occurred: the death of a friend and the silver anniversary of an eminent pupil. Yetinstead of going straight home as he had intended after certifying99 the death of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, he allowed himself to be carried along by curiosity.
As soon as he was in his carriage, he again consulted the posthumous letter and told thecoachman to take him to an obscure location in the old slave quarter. That decision was so foreignto his usual habits that the coachman wanted to make certain there was no mistake. No, nomistake: the address was clear and the man who had written it had more than enough reason toknow it very well. Then Dr. Urbino returned to the first page of the letter and plunged100 once againinto the flood of unsavoury revelations that might have changed his life, even at his age, if hecould have convinced himself that they were not the ravings of a dying man.
The sky had begun to threaten very early in the day and the weather was cloudy and cool, butthere was no chance of rain before noon. In his effort to find a shorter route, the coachman bravedthe rough cobblestones of the colonial city and had to stop often to keep the horse from beingfrightened by the rowdiness of the religious societies and fraternities coming back from thePentecost liturgy101. The streets were full of paper garlands, music, flowers, and girls with colouredparasols and muslin ruffles102 who watched the celebration from their balconies. In the Plaza103 of theCathedral, where the statue of The Liberator104 was almost hidden among the African palm trees andthe globes of the new streetlights, traffic was congested because Mass had ended, and not a seatwas empty in the venerable and noisy Parish Caf? Dr. Urbino's was the only horse-drawn carriage;it was distinguishable from the handful left in the city because the patent-leather roof was alwayskept polished, and it had fittings of bronze that would not be corroded105 by salt, and wheels andpoles painted red with gilt106 trimming like gala nights at the Vienna Opera. Furthermore, while themost demanding families were satisfied if their drivers had a clean shirt, he still required hiscoachman to wear livery of faded velvet107 and a top hat like a circus ringmaster's, which, more thanan anachronism, was thought to show a lack of compassion108 in the dog days of the Caribbeansummer.
Despite his almost maniacal109 love for the city and a knowledge of it superior to anyone's, Dr.
Juvenal Urbino had not often had reason as he did that Sunday to venture boldly into the tumult110 ofthe old slave quarter. The coachman had to make many turns and stop to ask directions severaltimes in order to find the house. As they passed by the marshes112, Dr. Urbino recognised theiroppressive weight, their ominous113 silence, their suffocating114 gases, which on so many insomniacdawns had risen to his bedroom, blending with the fragrance116 of jasmine from the patio, and whichhe felt pass by him like a wind out of yesterday that had nothing to do with his life. But thatpestilence so frequently idealised by nostalgia117 became an unbearable118 reality when the carriagebegan to lurch119 through the quagmire120 of the streets where buzzards fought over the slaughterhouse offal as it was swept along by the receding122 tide. Unlike the city of the Viceroys where the houseswere made of masonry123, here they were built of weathered boards and zinc124 roofs, and most of themrested on pilings to protect them from the flooding of the open sewers125 that had been inherited fromthe Spaniards. Everything looked wretched and desolate126, but out of the sordid127 taverns128 came thethunder of riotous129 music, the godless drunken celebration of Pentecost by the poor. By the timethey found the house, gangs of ragged130 children were chasing the carriage and ridiculing131 thetheatrical finery of the coachman, who had to drive them away with his whip. Dr. Urbino,prepared for a confidential132 visit, realised too late that there was no innocence133 more dangerous thanthe innocence of age.
The exterior134 of the unnumbered house was in no way distinguishable from its less fortunateneighbours, except for the window with lace curtains and an imposing135 front door taken from someold church. The coachman pounded the door knocker, and only when he had made certain that itwas the right house did he help the Doctor out of the carriage. The door opened without a sound,and in the shadowy interior stood a mature woman dressed in black, with a red rose behind her ear.
Despite her age, which was no less than forty, she was still a haughty136 mulatta with cruel goldeneyes and hair tight to her skull137 like a helmet of steel wool. Dr. Urbino did not recognise her,although he had seen her several times in the gloom of the chess games in the photographer'sstudio, and he had once written her a prescription138 for tertian fever. He held out his hand and shetook it between hers, less in greeting than to help him into the house. The parlour had the climateand invisible murmur139 of a forest glade140 and was crammed with furniture and exquisite141 objects, eachin its natural place. Dr. Urbino recalled without bitterness an antiquarian's shop, No .26 rueMontmartre in Paris, on an autumn Monday in the last century. The woman sat down across fromhim and spoke in accented Spanish.
"This is your house, Doctor," she said. "I did not expect you so soon."Dr. Urbino felt betrayed. He stared at her openly, at her intense mourning, at the dignity ofher grief, and then he understood that this was a useless visit because she knew more than he didabout everything stated and explained in Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's posthumous letter. This wastrue. She had been with him until a very few hours before his death, as she had been with him forhalf his life, with a devotion and submissive tenderness that bore too close a resemblance to love,and without anyone knowing anything about it in this sleepy provincial142 capital where even statesecrets were common knowledge. They had met in a convalescent home in Port-au-Prince, whereshe had been born and where he had spent his early years as a fugitive143, and she had followed himhere a year later for a brief visit, although both of them knew without agreeing to anything that shehad come to stay forever. She cleaned and straightened the laboratory once a week, but not eventhe most evil-minded neighbours confused appearance with reality because they, like everyoneelse, supposed that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's disability affected144 more than his capacity to walk.
Dr. Urbino himself supposed as much for solid medical reasons, and never would have believedhis friend had a woman if he himself had not revealed it in the letter. In any event, it was difficultfor him to comprehend that two free adults without a past and living on the fringes of a closedsociety's prejudices had chosen the hazards of illicit145 love. She explained: "It was his wish."Moreover, a clandestine146 life shared with a man who was never completely hers, and in which theyoften knew the sudden explosion of happiness, did not seem to her a condition to be despised. Onthe contrary: life had shown her that perhaps it was exemplary.
On the previous night they had gone to the cinema, each one separately, and had sat apart asthey had done at least twice a month since the Italian immigrant, Don Galileo Daconte, hadinstalled his open-air theatre in the ruins of a seventeenth-century convent. They saw All Quiet onthe Western Front, a film based on a book that had been popular the year before and that Dr.
Urbino had read, his heart devastated147 by the barbarism of war. They met afterward in thelaboratory, she found him brooding and nostalgic, and thought it was because of the brutal148 scenesof wounded men dying in the mud. In an attempt to distract him, she invited him to play chess andhe accepted to please her, but he played inattentively, with the white pieces, of course, until hediscovered before she did that he was going to be defeated in four moves and surrendered withouthonour. Then the Doctor realised that she had been his opponent in the final game, and notGeneral Jer贸 nimo Argote, as he had supposed. He murmured in astonishment149: "It wasmasterful!"She insisted that she deserved no praise, but rather that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, alreadylost in the mists of death, had moved his pieces without love. When he stopped the game at abouta quarter past eleven, for the music from the public dances had ended, he asked her to leave him.
He wanted to write a letter to Dr. Juvenal Urbino, whom he considered the most honourable150 manhe had ever known, and his soul's friend, as he liked to say, despite the fact that the only affinitybetween the two was their addiction151 to chess understood as a dialogue of reason and not as ascience. And then she knew that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour had come to the end of his sufferingand that he had only enough life left to write the letter. The Doctor could not believe it.
"So then you knew!" he exclaimed.
She not only knew, she agreed, but she had helped him to endure the suffering as lovingly asshe had helped him to discover happiness. Because that was what his last eleven months had been:
cruel suffering.
"Your duty was to report him," said the Doctor.
"I could not do that," she said, shocked. "I loved him too much."Dr. Urbino, who thought he had heard everything, had never heard anything like that, andsaid with such simplicity152. He looked straight at her and tried with all his senses to fix her in hismemory as she was at that moment: she seemed like a river idol153, undaunted in her black dress,with her serpent's eyes and the rose behind her ear. A long time ago, on a deserted154 beach in Haitiwhere the two of them lay naked after love, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour had sighed: "I will never beold." She interpreted this as a heroic determination to struggle without quarter against the ravagesof time, but he was more specific: he had made the irrevocable decision to take his own life whenhe was seventy years old.
He had turned seventy, in fact, on the twenty-third of January of that year, and then he had setthe date as the night before Pentecost, the most important holiday in a city consecrated155 to the cultof the Holy Spirit. There was not a single detail of the previous night that she had not known aboutahead of time, and they spoke of it often, suffering together the irreparable rush of days thatneither of them could stop now. Jeremiah de Saint-Amour loved life with a senseless passion, heloved the sea and love, he loved his dog and her, and as the date approached he had graduallysuccumbed to despair as if his death had been not his own decision but an inexorable destiny.
"Last night, when I left him, he was no longer of this world," she said.
She had wanted to take the dog with her, but he looked at the animal dozing156 beside the crutches and caressed157 him with the tips of his fingers. He said: "I'm sorry, but Mister WoodrowWilson is coming with me." He asked her to tie him to the leg of the cot while he wrote, and sheused a false knot so that he could free himself. That had been her only act of disloyalty, and it wasjustified by her desire to remember the master in the wintry eyes of his dog. But Dr. Urbinointerrupted her to say that the dog had not freed himself. She said: "Then it was because he did notwant to." And she was glad, because she preferred to evoke158 her dead lover as he had asked her tothe night before, when he stopped writing the letter he had already begun and looked at her for thelast time.
"Remember me with a rose," he said to her.
She had returned home a little after midnight. She lay down fully35 dressed on her bed, tosmoke one cigarette after another and give him time to finish what she knew was a long anddifficult letter, and a little before three o'clock, when the dogs began to howl, she put the water forcoffee on the stove, dressed in full mourning, and cut the first rose of dawn in the patio. Dr.
Urbino already realised how completely he would repudiate159 the memory of that irredeemablewoman, and he thought he knew why: only a person without principles could be so complaisanttoward grief.
And for the remainder of the visit she gave him even more justification160. She would not go tothe funeral, for that is what she had promised her lover, although Dr. Urbino thought he had readjust the opposite in one of the paragraphs of the letter. She would not shed a tear, she would notwaste the rest of her years simmering in the maggot broth161 of memory, she would not bury herselfalive inside these four walls to sew her shroud162, as native widows were expected to do. Sheintended to sell Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's house and all its contents, which, according to theletter, now belonged to her, and she would go on living as she always had, without complaining, inthis death trap of the poor where she had been happy.
The words pursued Dr. Juvenal Urbino on the drive home: "this death trap of the poor." Itwas not a gratuitous163 description. For the city, his city, stood unchanging on the edge of time: thesame burning dry city of his nocturnal terrors and the solitary164 pleasures of puberty, where flowersrusted and salt corroded, where nothing had happened for four centuries except a slow agingamong withered165 laurels166 and putrefying swamps. In winter sudden devastating167 downpours floodedthe latrines and turned the streets into sickening bogs168. In summer an invisible dust as harsh as red-hot chalk was blown into even the best-protected corners of the imagination by mad winds thattook the roofs off the houses and carried away children through the air. On Saturdays the poormulattoes, along with all their domestic animals and kitchen utensils169, tumultuously abandonedtheir hovels of cardboard and tin on the edges of the swamps and in jubilant assault took over therocky beaches of the colonial district. Until a few years ago, some of the older ones still bore theroyal slave brand that had been burned onto their chests with flaming irons. During the weekendthey danced without mercy, drank themselves blind on home-brewed alcohol, made wild loveamong the icaco plants, and on Sunday at midnight they broke up their own party with bloodyfree-for-alls. During the rest of the week the same impetuous mob swarmed170 into the plazas171 andalleys of the old neighbourhoods with their stores of everything that could be bought and sold, andthey infused the dead city with the frenzy172 of a human fair reeking173 of fried fish: a new life.
Independence from Spain and then the abolition176 of slavery precipitated177 the conditions ofhonourable decadence178 in which Dr. Juvenal Urbino had been born and raised. The great old families sank into their ruined palaces in silence. Along the rough cobbled streets that had servedso well in surprise attacks and buccaneer landings, weeds hung from the balconies and openedcracks in the whitewashed179 walls of even the best-kept mansions180, and the only signs of life at twoo'clock in the afternoon were languid piano exercises played in the dim light of siesta. Indoors, inthe cool bedrooms saturated with incense181, women protected themselves from the sun as if it werea shameful182 infection, and even at early Mass they hid their faces in their mantillas. Their loveaffairs were slow and difficult and were often disturbed by sinister183 omens184, and life seemedinterminable. At nightfall, at the oppressive moment of transition, a storm of carnivorousmosquitoes rose out of the swamps, and a tender breath of human shit, warm and sad, stirred thecertainty of death in the depths of one's soul.
And so the very life of the colonial city, which the young Juvenal Urbino tended to idealise inhis Parisian melancholy185, was an illusion of memory. In the eighteenth century, the commerce ofthe city had been the most prosperous in the Caribbean, owing in the main to the thanklessprivilege of its being the largest African slave market in the Americas. It was also the permanentresidence of the Viceroys of the New Kingdom of Granada, who preferred to govern here on theshores of the world's ocean rather than in the distant freezing capital under a centuries-old drizzlethat disturbed their sense of reality. Several times a year, fleets of galleons186 carrying the treasuresof Potos? Quito, and Veracruz gathered in the bay, and the city lived its years of glory. On Friday,June 8, 1708, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the galleon187 San Jos?set sail for C醖 iz with a cargoof precious stones and metals valued at five hundred billion pesos in the currency of the day; itwas sunk by an English squadron at the entrance to the port, and two long centuries later it had notyet been salvaged188. That treasure lying in its bed of coral, and the corpse of the commander floatingsideways on the bridge, were evoked189 by historians as an emblem190 of the city drowned in memories.
Across the bay, in the residential191 district of La Manga, Dr. Juvenal Urbino's house stood inanother time. One-story, spacious192 and cool, it had a portico193 with Doric columns on the outsideterrace, which commanded a view of the still, miasmic194 water and the debris195 from sunken ships inthe bay. From the entrance door to the kitchen, the floor was covered with black and whitecheckerboard tiles, a fact often attributed to Dr. Urbino's ruling passion without taking intoaccount that this was a weakness common to the Catalonian craftsmen196 who built this district forthe nouveaux riches at the beginning of the century. The large drawing room had the very highceilings found throughout the rest of the house, and six full-length windows facing the street, andit was separated from the dining room by an enormous, elaborate glass door covered withbranching vines and bunches of grapes and maidens197 seduced198 by the pipes of fauns in a bronzegrove. The furnishings in the reception rooms, including the pendulum199 clock that stood like aliving sentinel in the drawing room, were all original English pieces from the late nineteenthcentury, and the lamps that hung from the walls were all teardrop crystal, and there were S猫vresvases and bowls everywhere and little alabaster200 statues of pagan idylls. But that Europeancoherence vanished in the rest of the house, where wicker armchairs were jumbled together withViennese rockers and leather footstools made by local craftsmen. Splendid hammocks from SanJacinto, with multicoloured fringe along the sides and the owner's name embroidered201 in Gothicletters with silk thread, hung in the bedrooms along with the beds. Next to the dining room, thespace that had originally been designed for gala suppers was used as a small music room forintimate concerts when famous performers came to the city. In order to enhance the silence, the tiles had been covered with the Turkish rugs purchased at the World's Fair in Paris; a recent modelof a victrola stood next to a stand that held records arranged with care, and in a corner, drapedwith a Manila shawl, was the piano that Dr. Urbino had not played for many years. Throughout thehouse one could detect the good sense and care of a woman whose feet were planted firmly on theground.
But no other room displayed the meticulous202 solemnity of the library, the sanctuary203 of Dr.
Urbino until old age carried him off. There, all around his father's walnut204 desk and the tuftedleather easy chairs, he had lined the walls and even the windows with shelves behind glass doors,and had arranged in an almost demented order the three thousand volumes bound in identicalcalfskin with his initials in gold on the spines205. Unlike the other rooms, which were at the mercy ofnoise and foul206 winds from the port, the library always enjoyed the tranquillity207 and fragrance of anabbey. Born and raised in the Caribbean superstition208 that one opened doors and windows tosummon a coolness that in fact did not exist, Dr. Urbino and his wife at first felt their heartsoppressed by enclosure. But in the end they were convinced of the merits of the Roman strategyagainst heat, which consists of closing houses during the lethargy of August in order to keep outthe burning air from the street, and then opening them up completely to the night breezes. Andfrom that time on theirs was the coolest house under the furious La Manga sun, and it was adelight to take a siesta in the darkened bedrooms and to sit on the portico in the afternoon to watchthe heavy, ash-grey freighters from New Orleans pass by, and at dusk to see the wooden paddlesof the riverboats with their shining lights, purifying the stagnant209 garbage heap of the bay with thewake of their music. It was also the best protected from December through March, when thenorthern winds tore away roofs and spent the night circling like hungry wolves looking for a crackwhere they could slip in. No one ever thought that a marriage rooted in such foundations couldhave any reason not to be happy.
In any case, Dr. Urbino was not when he returned home that morning before ten o'clock,shaken by the two visits that not only had obliged him to miss Pentecost Mass but also threatenedto change him at an age when everything had seemed complete. He wanted a short siesta until itwas time for Dr. L醕 ides Olivella's gala luncheon, but he found the servants in an uproar as theyattempted to catch the parrot, who had flown to the highest branches of the mango tree when theytook him from his cage to clip his wings. He was a deplumed, maniacal parrot who did not speakwhen asked to but only when it was least expected, but then he did so with a clarity and rationalitythat were uncommon210 among human beings. He had been tutored by Dr. Urbino himself, whichafforded him privileges that no one else in the family ever had, not even the children when theywere young.
He had lived in the house for over twenty years, and no one knew how many years he hadbeen alive before then. Every afternoon after his siesta, Dr. Urbino sat with him on the terrace inthe patio, the coolest spot in the house, and he had summoned the most diligent reserves of hispassion for pedagogy until the parrot learned to speak French like an academician. Then, just forlove of the labour, he taught him the Latin accompaniment to the Mass and selected passages fromthe Gospel according to St. Matthew, and he tried without success to inculcate in him a workingnotion of the four arithmetic functions. On one of his last trips to Europe he brought back the firstphonograph with a trumpet211 speaker, along with many of the latest popular records as well as thoseby his favourite classical composers. Day after day, over and over again for several months, he played the songs of Yvette Guilbert and Aristide Bruant, who had charmed France during the lastcentury, until the parrot learned them by heart. He sang them in a woman's voice if they were hers,in a tenor's voice if they were his, and ended with impudent212 laughter that was a masterful imitationof the servant girls when they heard him singing in French. The fame of his accomplishments213 wasso widespread that on occasion distinguished visitors who had travelled from the interior on theriverboats would ask permission to see him, and once some of the many English tourists, who inthose days sailed the banana boats from New Orleans, would have bought him at any price. Butthe day of his greatest glory was when the President of the Republic, Don Marco Fidel Su醨 ez,with his entourage of cabinet ministers, visited the house in order to confirm the truth of hisreputation. They arrived at about three o'clock in the afternoon, suffocating in the top hats andfrock coats they had worn during three days of official visits under the burning August sky, andthey had to leave as curious as when they arrived, because for two desperate hours the parrotrefused to say a single syllable214, ignoring the pleas and threats and public humiliation215 of Dr.
Urbino, who had insisted on that foolhardy invitation despite the sage92 warnings of his wife.
The fact that the parrot could maintain his privileges after that historic act of defiance216 was theultimate proof of his sacred rights. No other animal was permitted in the house, with the exceptionof the land turtle who had reappeared in the kitchen after three or four years, when everyonethought he was lost forever. He, however, was not considered a living being but rather a mineralgood luck charm whose location one could never be certain of. Dr. Urbino was reluctant to confesshis hatred217 of animals, which he disguised with all kinds of scientific inventions and philosophicalpretexts that convinced many, but not his wife. He said that people who loved them to excess werecapable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile,that cats were opportunists and traitors219, that peacocks were heralds220 of death, that macaws weresimply decorative221 annoyances222, that rabbits fomented223 greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust,and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ.
On the other hand, Fermina Daza, his wife, who at that time was seventy-two years old andhad already lost the doe's gait of her younger days, was an irrational224 idolater of tropical flowersand domestic animals, and early in her marriage she had taken advantage of the novelty of love tokeep many more of them in the house than good sense would allow. The first were threeDalmatians named after Roman emperors, who fought for the favours of a female who did honourto her name of Messalina, for it took her longer to give birth to nine pups than to conceive anotherten. Then there were Abyssinian cats with the profiles of eagles and the manners of pharaohs,cross-eyed Siamese and palace Persians with orange eyes, who walked through the rooms likeshadowy phantoms225 and shattered the night with the howling of their witches' sabbaths of love. Forseveral years an Amazonian monkey, chained by his waist to the mango tree in the patio, elicited226 acertain compassion because he had the sorrowful face of Archbishop Obdulio y Rey, the samecandid eyes, the same eloquent227 hands; that, however, was not the reason Fermina got rid of him,but because he had the bad habit of pleasuring himself in honour of the ladies.
There were all kinds of Guatemalan birds in cages along the passageways, and premonitorycurlews, and swamp herons with long yellow legs, and a young stag who came in through thewindows to eat the anthurium in the flowerpots. Shortly before the last civil war, when there wastalk for the first time of a possible visit by the Pope, they had brought a bird of paradise fromGuatemala, but it took longer to arrive than to return to its homeland when it was learned that the announcement of the pontifical228 visit had been a lie spread by the government to alarm theconspiratorial Liberals. Another time, on the smugglers' ships from Cura莽 ao, they bought awicker cage with six perfumed crows identical to the ones that Fermina Daza had kept as a girl inher father's house and that she still wanted to have as a married woman. But no one could bear thecontinual flapping of their wings that filled the house with the reek174 of funeral wreaths. They alsobrought in an anaconda, four meters long, whose insomniac115 hunter's sighs disturbed the darknessin the bedrooms although it accomplished229 what they had wanted, which was to frighten with itsmortal breath the bats and salamanders and countless46 species of harmful insects that invaded thehouse during the rainy months. Dr. Juvenal Urbino, so occupied at that time with his professionalobligations and so absorbed in his civic and cultural enterprises, was content to assume that in themidst of so many abominable230 creatures his wife was not only the most beautiful woman in theCaribbean but also the happiest. But one rainy afternoon, at the end of an exhausting day, heencountered a disaster in the house that brought him to his senses. Out of the drawing room, andfor as far as the eye could see, a stream of dead animals floated in a marsh111 of blood. The servantgirls had climbed on the chairs, not knowing what to do, and they had not yet recovered from thepanic of the slaughter121.
One of the German mastiffs, maddened by a sudden attack of rabies, had torn to pieces everyanimal of any kind that crossed its path, until the gardener from the house next door found thecourage to face him and hack231 him to pieces with his machete. No one knew how many creatureshe had bitten or contaminated with his green slaverings, and so Dr. Urbino ordered the survivorskilled and their bodies burned in an isolated232 field, and he requested the services of MisericordiaHospital for a thorough disinfecting of the house. The only animal to escape, because nobodyremembered him, was the giant lucky charm tortoise.
Fermina Daza admitted for the first time that her husband was right in a domestic matter, andfor a long while afterward she was careful to say no more about animals. She consoled herselfwith colour illustrations from Linnaeus's Natural History, which she framed and hung on thedrawing room walls, and perhaps she would eventually have lost all hope of ever seeing an animalin the house again if it had not been for the thieves who, early one morning, forced a bathroomwindow and made off with the silver service that had been in the family for five generations. Dr.
Urbino put double padlocks on the window frames, secured the doors on the inside with ironcrossbars, placed his most valuable possessions in the strongbox, and belatedly acquired thewartime habit of sleeping with a revolver under his pillow. But he opposed the purchase of a fiercedog, vaccinated233 or unvaccinated, running loose or chained up, even if thieves were to stealeverything he owned.
"Nothing that does not speak will come into this house," he said.
He said it to put an end to the specious234 arguments of his wife, who was once againdetermined to buy a dog, and he never imagined that his hasty generalisation was to cost him hislife. Fermina Daza, whose straightforward235 character had become more subtle with the years,seized on her husband's casual words, and months after the robbery she returned to the ships fromCura莽 ao and bought a royal Paramaribo parrot, who knew only the blasphemies236 of sailors butsaid them in a voice so human that he was well worth the extravagant237 price of twelve centavos.
He was a fine parrot, lighter238 than he seemed, with a yellow head and a black tongue, the onlyway to distinguish him from mangrove239 parrots who did not learn to speak even with turpentine suppositories. Dr. Urbino, a good loser, bowed to the ingenuity240 of his wife and was even surprisedat how amused he was by the advances the parrot made when he was excited by the servant girls.
On rainy afternoons, his tongue loosened by the pleasure of having his feathers drenched241, heuttered phrases from another time, which he could not have learned in the house and which ledone to think that he was much older than he appeared. The Doctor's final doubts collapsed242 onenight when the thieves tried to get in again through a skylight in the attic243, and the parrot frightenedthem with a mastiff's barking that could not have been more realistic if it had been real, and withshouts of stop thief stop thief stop thief, two saving graces he had not learned in the house. It wasthen that Dr. Urbino took charge of him and ordered the construction of a perch244 under the mangotree with a container for water, another for ripe bananas, and a trapeze for acrobatics245. FromDecember through March, when the nights were cold and the north winds made living outdoorsunbearable, he was taken inside to sleep in the bedrooms in a cage covered by a blanket, althoughDr. Urbino suspected that his chronic246 swollen247 glands248 might be a threat to the healthy respiration249 ofhumans. For many years they clipped his wing feathers and let him wander wherever he chose towalk with his hulking old horseman's gait. But one day he began to do acrobatic tricks on thebeams in the kitchen and fell into the pot of stew250 with a sailor's shout of every man for himself,and with such good luck that the cook managed to scoop251 him out with the ladle, scalded anddeplumed but still alive. From then on he was kept in the cage even during the daytime, indefiance of the vulgar belief that caged parrots forget everything they have learned, and let outonly in the four o'clock coolness for his classes with Dr. Urbino on the terrace in the patio. No onerealised in time that his wings were too long, and they were about to clip them that morning whenhe escaped to the top of the mango tree.
And for three hours they had not been able to catch him. The servant girls, with the help ofother maids in the neighbourhood, had used all kinds of tricks to lure82 him down, but he insisted onstaying where he was, laughing madly as he shouted long live the Liberal Party, long live theLiberal Party damn it, a reckless cry that had cost many a carefree drunk his life. Dr. Urbino couldbarely see him amid the leaves, and he tried to cajole him in Spanish and French and even inLatin, and the parrot responded in the same languages and with the same emphasis and timbre252 inhis voice, but he did not move from his treetop. Convinced that no one was going to make himmove voluntarily, Dr. Urbino had them send for the fire department, his most recent civic pastime.
Until just a short time before, in fact, fires had been put out by volunteers using brickmasons'
ladders and buckets of water carried in from wherever it could be found, and methods sodisorderly that they sometimes caused more damage than the fires. But for the past year, thanks toa fund-organised by the Society for Public Improvement, of which Juvenal Urbino was honorarypresident, there was a corps7 of professional firemen and a water truck with a siren and a bell andtwo high-pressure hoses. They were so popular that classes were suspended when the church bellswere heard sounding the alarm, so that children could watch them fight the fire. At first that wasall they did. But Dr. Urbino told the municipal authorities that in Hamburg he had seen firemenrevive a boy found frozen in a basement after a three-day snowstorm. He had also seen them in aNeapolitan alley27 lowering a corpse in his coffin253 from a tenth-floor balcony because the stairway inthe building had so many twists and turns that the family could not get him down to the street.
That was how the local firemen learned to render other emergency services, such as forcing locksor killing254 poisonous snakes, and the Medical School offered them a special course in first aid for minor accidents. So it was in no way peculiar255 to ask them to please get a distinguished parrot, withall the qualities of a gentleman, out of a tree. Dr. Urbino said: "Tell them it's for me." And he wentto his bedroom to dress for the gala luncheon. The truth was that at that moment, devastated by theletter from Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, he did not really care about the fate of the parrot.
Fermina Daza had put on a loose-fitting silk dress belted at the hip21, a necklace of real pearlswith six long, uneven256 loops, and high-heeled satin shoes that she wore only on very solemnoccasions, for by now she was too old for such abuses. Her stylish257 attire258 did not seem appropriatefor a venerable grandmother, but it suited her figure--long-boned and still slender and erect259, herresilient hands without a single age spot, her steel-blue hair bobbed on a slant260 at her cheek. Herclear almond eyes and her inborn261 haughtiness262 were all that were left to her from her weddingportrait, but what she had been deprived of by age she more than made up for in character anddiligence. She felt very well: the time of iron corsets, bound waists, and bustles263 that exaggeratedbuttocks was receding into the past. Liberated264 bodies, breathing freely, showed themselves forwhat they were. Even at the age of seventy-two.
Dr. Urbino found her sitting at her dressing265 table under the slow blades of the electric fan,putting on her bell-shaped hat decorated with felt violets. The bedroom was large and bright, withan English bed protected by mosquito netting embroidered in pink, and two windows open to thetrees in the patio, where one could hear the clamour of cicadas, giddy with premonitions of rain.
Ever since their return from their honeymoon266, Fermina Daza had chosen her husband's clothesaccording to the weather and the occasion, and laid them out for him on a chair the night before sothey would be ready for him when he came out of the bathroom. She could not remember whenshe had also begun to help him dress, and finally to dress him, and she was aware that at first shehad done it for love, but for the past five years or so she had been obliged to do it regardless of thereason because he could not dress himself. They had just celebrated their golden weddinganniversary, and they were not capable of living for even an instant without the other, or withoutthinking about the other, and that capacity diminished as their age increased. Neither could havesaid if their mutual267 dependence175 was based on love or convenience, but they had never asked thequestion with their hands on their hearts because both had always preferred not to know theanswer. Little by little she had been discovering the uncertainty268 of her husband's step, his moodchanges, the gaps in his memory, his recent habit of sobbing269 while he slept, but she did notidentify these as the unequivocal signs of final decay but rather as a happy return to childhood.
That was why she did not treat him like a difficult old man but as a senile baby, and that deceptionwas providential for the two of them because it put them beyond the reach of pity.
Life would have been quite another matter for them both if they had learned in time that itwas easier to avoid great matrimonial catastrophes270 than trivial everyday miseries271. But if they hadlearned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. Foryears Fermina Daza had endured her husband's jubilant dawns with a bitter heart. She clung to thelast threads of sleep in order to avoid facing the fatality272 of another morning full of sinisterpremonitions, while he awoke with the innocence of a newborn: each new day was one more dayhe had won. She heard him awake with the roosters, and his first sign of life was a cough withoutrhyme or reason that seemed intended to awaken273 her too. She heard him grumble274, just to annoyher, while he felt around for the slippers275 that were supposed to be next to the bed. She heard himmake his way to the bathroom, groping in the dark. After an hour in his study, when she had fallen asleep again, he would come back to dress, still without turning on the light. Once, during a partygame, he had been asked how he defined himself, and he had said: "I am a man who dresses in thedark." She heard him, knowing full well that not one of those noises was indispensable, and thathe made them on purpose although he pretended not to, just as she was awake and pretended notto be. His motives276 were clear: he never needed her awake and lucid277 as much as he did during thosefumbling moments.
There was no sleeper278 more elegant than she, with her curved body posed for a dance and herhand across her forehead, but there was also no one more ferocious279 when anyone disturbed thesensuality of her thinking she was still asleep when she no longer was. Dr. Urbino knew she waswaiting for his slightest sound, that she even would be grateful for it, just so she could blamesomeone for waking her at five o'clock in the morning, so that on the few occasions when he hadto feel around in the dark because he could not find his slippers in their customary place, shewould suddenly say in a sleepy voice: "You left them in the bathroom last night." Then right afterthat, her voice fully awake with rage, she would curse: "The worst misfortune in this house is thatnobody lets you sleep."Then she would roll over in bed and turn on the light without the least mercy for herself,content with her first victory of the day. The truth was they both played a game, mythical280 andperverse, but for all that comforting: it was one of the many dangerous pleasures of domestic love.
But one of those trivial games almost ended the first thirty years of their life together, because oneday there was no soap in the bathroom.
It began with routine simplicity. Dr. Juvenal Urbino had returned to the bedroom, in the dayswhen he still bathed without help, and begun to dress without turning on the light. As usual shewas in her warm foetal state, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow, that arm from a sacred danceabove her head. But she was only half asleep, as usual, and he knew it. After a prolonged sound ofstarched linen in the darkness, Dr. Urbino said to himself: "I've been bathing for almost a weekwithout any soap."Then, fully awake, she remembered, and tossed and turned in fury with the world because infact she had forgotten to replace the soap in the bathroom. She had noticed its absence three daysearlier when she was already under the shower, and she had planned to replace it afterward, butthen she forgot until the next day, and on the third day the same thing happened again. The truthwas that a week had not gone by, as he said to make her feel more guilty, but three unpardonabledays, and her anger at being found out in a mistake maddened her. As always, she defended herselfby attacking.
"Well I've bathed every day," she shouted, beside herself with rage, "and there's always beensoap."Although he knew her battle tactics by heart, this time he could not abide281 them. On someprofessional pretext218 or other he went to live in the interns282' quarters at Misericordia Hospital,returning home only to change his clothes before making his evening house calls. She headed forthe kitchen when she heard him come in, pretending that she had something to do, and stayedthere until she heard his carriage in the street. For the next three months, each time they tried toresolve the conflict they only inflamed283 their feelings even more. He was not ready to come back aslong as she refused to admit there had been no soap in the bathroom, and she was not prepared tohave him back until he recognised that he had consciously lied to torment4 her.
The incident, of course, gave them the opportunity to evoke many other trivial quarrels frommany other dim and turbulent dawns. Resentments284 stirred up other resentments, reopened oldscars, turned them into fresh wounds, and both were dismayed at the desolating285 proof that in somany years of conjugal286 battling they had done little more than nurture287 their rancour. At last heproposed that they both submit to an open confession288, with the Archbishop himself if necessary, sothat God could decide once and for all whether or not there had been soap in the soap dish in thebathroom. Then, despite all her self-control, she lost her temper with a historic cry: "To hell withthe Archbishop!"The impropriety shook the very foundations of the city, gave rise to slanders289 that were noteasy to disprove, and was preserved in popular tradition as if it were a line from an operetta: "Tohell with the Archbishop!" Realising she had gone too far, she anticipated her husband'spredictable response and threatened to move back to her father's old house, which still belonged toher although it had been rented out for public offices, and live there by herself. And it was not anidle threat: she really did want to leave and did not care about the scandal, and her husbandrealised this in time. He did not have the courage to defy his own prejudices, and he capitulated.
Not in the sense that he admitted there had been soap in the bathroom, but insofar as he continuedto live in the same house with her, although they slept in separate rooms, and he did not say aword to her. They ate in silence, sparring with so much skill that they sent each other messagesacross the table through the children, and the children never realised that they were
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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crutches
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| n.拐杖, 支柱 v.支撑 | |
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illuminate
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| vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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propitious
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| adj.吉利的；顺利的 | |
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15
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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16
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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17
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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18
forensic
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| adj.法庭的，雄辩的 | |
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19
veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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20
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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21
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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22
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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23
hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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24
circumspection
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| n.细心，慎重 | |
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25
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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26
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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27
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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28
regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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29
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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30
jubilee
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| n.周年纪念；欢乐 | |
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31
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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32
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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33
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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34
linen
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|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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35
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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36
compensated
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| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
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37
scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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38
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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39
jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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40
disingenuous
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| adj.不诚恳的，虚伪的 | |
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41
intern
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| v.拘禁，软禁；n.实习生 | |
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42
autopsy
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| n.尸体解剖；尸检 | |
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43
activated
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| adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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44
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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45
cadaver
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| n.尸体 | |
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46
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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47
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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48
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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49
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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50
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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51
civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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52
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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53
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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54
atheistic
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| adj.无神论者的 | |
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55
rims
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| n.（圆形物体的）边( rim的名词复数 )；缘；轮辋；轮圈 | |
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56
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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57
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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58
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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59
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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60
corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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61
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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62
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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63
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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64
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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65
disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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66
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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67
posthumous
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| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
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68
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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69
gardenias
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| n.栀子属植物，栀子花( gardenia的名词复数 ) | |
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70
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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71
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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72
vertigo
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| n.眩晕 | |
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73
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
avid
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| adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的 | |
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75
siesta
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| n.午睡 | |
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76
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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77
festive
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|
| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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78
epidemic
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|
| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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79
metallic
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|
| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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80
infusion
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| n.灌输 | |
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81
clove
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| n.丁香味 | |
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82
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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83
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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84
patio
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| n.庭院，平台 | |
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85
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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86
condemned
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|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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87
putrefaction
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| n.腐坏，腐败 | |
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88
domesticated
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|
| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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90
disdain
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|
| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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91
folklore
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| n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗 | |
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92
sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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93
organise
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| vt.组织，安排，筹办 | |
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94
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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95
unconditional
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| adj.无条件的，无限制的，绝对的 | |
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96
magnesium
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| n.镁 | |
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97
regularity
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|
| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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98
obligatory
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| adj.强制性的，义务的，必须的 | |
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99
certifying
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| （尤指书面）证明( certify的现在分词 )； 发证书给…； 证明（某人）患有精神病； 颁发（或授予）专业合格证书 | |
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100
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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101
liturgy
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| n.礼拜仪式 | |
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102
ruffles
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| 褶裥花边( ruffle的名词复数 ) | |
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103
plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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104
liberator
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| 解放者 | |
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105
corroded
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| 已被腐蚀的 | |
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106
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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107
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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108
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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109
maniacal
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| adj.发疯的 | |
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110
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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111
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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112
marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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113
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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114
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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115
insomniac
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| n.失眠症患者 | |
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116
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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117
nostalgia
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| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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118
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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119
lurch
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| n.突然向前或旁边倒；v.蹒跚而行 | |
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120
quagmire
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| n.沼地 | |
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121
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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122
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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123
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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124
zinc
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| n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌 | |
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125
sewers
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| n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 ) | |
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126
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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127
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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128
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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129
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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130
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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131
ridiculing
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的现在分词 ) | |
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132
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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133
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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134
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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135
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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136
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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137
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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138
prescription
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| n.处方，开药；指示，规定 | |
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139
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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140
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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141
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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142
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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143
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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144
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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145
illicit
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| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
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146
clandestine
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| adj.秘密的，暗中从事的 | |
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147
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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148
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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149
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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150
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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151
addiction
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| n.上瘾入迷，嗜好 | |
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152
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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153
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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154
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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155
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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156
dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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157
caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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158
evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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159
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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160
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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161
broth
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| n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等) | |
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162
shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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163
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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164
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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165
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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166
laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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167
devastating
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| adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的 | |
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168
bogs
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| n.沼泽，泥塘( bog的名词复数 )；厕所v.（使）陷入泥沼， （使）陷入困境( bog的第三人称单数 )；妨碍，阻碍 | |
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169
utensils
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| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
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170
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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171
plazas
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| n.（尤指西班牙语城镇的）露天广场( plaza的名词复数 )；购物中心 | |
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172
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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173
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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174
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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175
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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176
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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177
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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178
decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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179
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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180
mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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181
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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182
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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183
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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184
omens
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| n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 ) | |
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185
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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186
galleons
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| n.大型帆船( galleon的名词复数 ) | |
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187
galleon
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| n.大帆船 | |
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188
salvaged
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| （从火灾、海难等中）抢救（某物）( salvage的过去式和过去分词 )； 回收利用（某物） | |
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189
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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190
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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191
residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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192
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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193
portico
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| n.柱廊，门廊 | |
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194
miasmic
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| adj.瘴气的；有害的 | |
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195
debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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196
craftsmen
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| n. 技工 | |
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197
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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198
seduced
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| 诱奸( seduce的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾引； 诱使堕落； 使入迷 | |
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199
pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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200
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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201
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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202
meticulous
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| adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的 | |
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203
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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204
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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205
spines
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| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
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206
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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207
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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208
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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209
stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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210
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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211
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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212
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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213
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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214
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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215
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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216
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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217
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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218
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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219
traitors
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| 卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人 | |
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220
heralds
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| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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221
decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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222
annoyances
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| n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事 | |
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223
fomented
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| v.激起，煽动（麻烦等）( foment的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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224
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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225
phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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226
elicited
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| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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227
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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228
pontifical
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| adj.自以为是的，武断的 | |
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229
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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230
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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231
hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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232
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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233
vaccinated
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| [医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的 | |
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234
specious
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| adj.似是而非的；adv.似是而非地 | |
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235
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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236
blasphemies
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| n.对上帝的亵渎，亵渎的言词[行为]( blasphemy的名词复数 )；侮慢的言词（或行为） | |
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237
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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238
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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239
mangrove
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| n.(植物)红树，红树林 | |
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240
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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241
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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242
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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243
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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244
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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245
acrobatics
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| n.杂技 | |
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246
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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247
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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248
glands
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| n.腺( gland的名词复数 ) | |
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249
respiration
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| n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用 | |
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250
stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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251
scoop
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| n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出 | |
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252
timbre
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| n.音色，音质 | |
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253
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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254
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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255
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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256
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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257
stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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258
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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259
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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260
slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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261
inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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262
haughtiness
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| n.傲慢；傲气 | |
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263
bustles
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| 热闹( bustle的名词复数 )； （女裙后部的）衬垫； 撑架 | |
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264
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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265
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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266
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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267
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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268
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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269
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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270
catastrophes
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| n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难 | |
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271
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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272
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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273
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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274
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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275
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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276
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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277
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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278
sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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279
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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280
mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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281
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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282
interns
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| n.住院实习医生( intern的名词复数 )v.拘留，关押( intern的第三人称单数 ) | |
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283
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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284
resentments
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| （因受虐待而）愤恨，不满，怨恨( resentment的名词复数 ) | |
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285
desolating
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| 毁坏( desolate的现在分词 )； 极大地破坏； 使沮丧； 使痛苦 | |
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286
conjugal
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| adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的 | |
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287
nurture
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| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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288
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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289
slanders
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| 诽谤，诋毁( slander的名词复数 ) | |
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