Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“Mudnon”

“See things as they are, Señor. Do not delude yourself. And in my daring, see the proof of the same fidelity you would demand of a dog, could he speak.” “You have a voice, Guzmán.” “And my truthful voice tells you that my huntsmen are mingling among the uneasy mob, the noisy grumblers of the work sheds and forges whose discontent is growing; something is about to happen; I do not know exactly what, but I can smell conflict in the air. You must be prepared, the motives for rebellion are mounting: the fruitful land destroyed, insufficient wages, the contrast between your luxury and their poverty, the accidental deaths, the fact that you buried your dead with such ceremony while those who died suffocated under the landslide lay abandoned, their widows wailing, and black crape mockingly adorned the plain; you were prepared to give charity to the poor passing by, but there is nothing for the workmen; they ask themselves who will succeed you, they have no trust in your foreign Lady and they believe that when you die that idiot brought here by your mother will take your place; yes, something is in the air.” “What should I do, Guzmán?” “The same thing you did as a young man, Señor; open the doors, let them enter, lock them here inside the palace, and exterminate them.” “This time they will be forewarned.” “Hope blinds them; nothing is forgotten more quickly than the past; nothing repeats itself like the past.” “Again?” “This is destined, Señor.” “So you say; but you do not believe in destiny.” “I give more than one name to action; the means justify the means.” “And the end?” “It is but the means between two actions which in turn becomes means for other actions.” “Guzmán; let me tell you something; of all the things that poor shipwrecked lad recounted, nothing impressed me as much as this: that in the new world the death of innocents is justified by the very order of their cosmos. I did not have that justification. How much suffering I could have saved myself! Do you remember what he said? The inhabitants of the new world are equally disposed to honor light if it triumphs, or shadow if it conquers.” “Then you must accept their belief as valid, and your undertakings will be justified not only by divine right but by the rights of nature as well.” “You have decided, have you not, Guzmán, for yourself, for me? You will go to the new world.” “I shall be a simple soldier in the fleets of El Señor and those of the evangelizing God.” “Guzmán, you know the answer; you told me, you brought that old man here, you forced me to contract that debt, you suggested I name him Comendador of the very noble Order of Calatrava; how shall we pay for the expeditions?” “A divine end, human means. Did not the Inquisitor of Teruel give you the solution? Expel the Jews, Señor, take possession of their riches, demand both purity of blood and purity of Faith; both are in peril. We shall carry to the new world the immaculate flag of Christ our Lord; we must not let false converts filter into the evangelization, false Spaniards who have never been willing to work as laborers or herd cattle, or to teach those offices to their sons, but who have sought positions of ease, and ways to earn a lot of money for very little work. And if what you thus amass is not sufficient for your royal purse, consider the cities, Señor; I repeat, that is where the riches accumulate; there are the merchants and sellers and collectors of excises and interests, and the gentlemen’s stewards and officers, and tailors, shoemakers, tanners, curriers, tilemakers, spice sellers, peddlers, silk mercers, silversmiths, jewelers, physicians, dyers, doctors, and other similar offices; impose exorbitant taxes upon them and deny them the shelter of statutes, courts, tribunals, and assemblies; while your ancestors were combating the Moors and persecuting the Hebrews, while you did battle against distant heretics and then shut yourself up to construct your necropolis, men of the cities were governing themselves, gaining rights and statutes and courts of justice; they were meeting in assemblies and practicing audacious customs; they speak of the will of all men, they make decisions by a majority of votes, they deny the basis of your unquestionable and unique ordination; impose tributes and outlaw their courts; the Augustinian of Teruel spoke wisely; the same law, for those in the new world and those in the old; enough vacillation, subject the Moor, expel the Jew, humble the free man and the burgher, enough contemplation, the undertaking is too great, too profitable, and too holy; there is a superabundance of accusations, choose one: traitors, sodomites, blasphemers, infanticides, murderers disguised as doctors, poisoners, usurers, heretics, witches, profaners of the Holy Spirit; the method is the same, impose it: act out of fervor for the Faith and the salvation of souls, even though you act against many true Christians, utilize the testimony of enemies, rivals, the merely envious; act without proof of any kind, lock them up in ecclesiastical prisons, torture them, wrest confessions from them, condemn them as heretics and relapsed converts, deprive them of their goods and property, and deliver them to the secular branch of power to be executed: with this one stroke you will fortify your Faith, your political unity, and your depleted coffers.” “Guzmán, Guzmán, I lack the strength; you ask me to reconstruct a kingdom and then to construct a new world in its likeness; I wished only to forfeit it all; I wished to end, you wish to begin.” “Let me act, then, Señor; sign these papers and I shall act in your name; I shall not importune you except when absolutely necessary, I swear to you; your signature will be sufficient, you can continue to dedicate yourself to your devotions — known to everyone — and your passions — known to none; Inés, I shall bring her to you again, Señor.” “Inés? Silence, lackey; Inés, never again; Inés, sold by her father; I have paid for a woman; I desire her, I admit it, but never again, Guzmán, never again; I have never touched the woman I have loved since my youth, because such was my chivalresque ideal; I shall never again touch the woman I love, because I shall not pay for the pleasures of the flesh. I did not touch La Señora; instead I took peasant girls, I took Celestina; I shall not touch a woman who was sold to me in exchange for a loan and a title; no.” “Others touch them, Sire.” “Silence, Guzmán.” “You wish to exorcise the world that lies outside the walls of this palace, but that world has already filtered in here; you know two of the youths who arrived here: the imbecilic heir accompanying your mother and the dreadful shipwrecked sailor accompanying the girl dressed as a page.” “Twins … the prophecy … Romulus and Remus … you should have warned me … the usurpers … those who begin everything anew…” “No, not twins, but triplets; a third…” “Silence, silence; heed me; obey me.” “A third, Señor; you must know the truth; a third, identical to the other two, and more to be feared than they, for he has touched both the touchable and the untouchable; he sleeps with Inés in the servants’ quarters, which El Señor has never entered, and he sleeps with La Señora in La Señora’s bedchamber, also never entered by El Señor; this third youth has touched El Señor’s honor, his wife and his lover, Señor; both are lovers of this audacious burlador, this seducer of women who in addition, on successive nights, has satiated his brutal appetites with Sister Angustias, Madre Milagros, the dwarf Barbarica, the palace scrubbing maids, and have no doubt, would do the same with your own mother, so great is his insatiable lust.” “Oh, Guzmán, Guzmán, nonono, you have wounded me deeply, Guzmán, what shall I do with you?” “I am at the feet of El Señor.” “I think I no longer have the spirit for either. I constructed this space to renounce the material world and consecrate myself to the spirit; here I exorcised my youth, my love, my crime, my battles, my doubts, in order finally to be alone with my soul, complete, free, suspended, awaiting its ascension into Paradise; but now I believe that events are accelerating, sifting in through a thousand chinks; you opened one of them; you brought me Inés; should I punish you or reward you? Yes, events are accelerating; I believe I must reserve my limited forces and respond to only one of the thousand challenges the world again sets before me; I prayed for an unchanging world, but the world is quivering like a thousand-eyed Argos and all those eyes are staring at me, summoning me, challenging me; I shall respond to one only, and surely that one, the one I must answer with what little strength remains, is not you, or what you do, eternal lackey; poor Guzmán, poor creature; I am sorry for you, so much effort, so much energy, so much devotion, for what? for what good if you, like Bocanegra, never know your instant of glory, for what good, if now, purely as a whim, as you seek it for the Jews, heretics and burghers, I ordered your execution — the pillory, the rack, the garrote — with no explanation, saying only, ‘He had rabies’; poor Guzmán, you have wounded my honor, but I forgive you; do I not wound yours?” “Honor, Sire? That concept, so often invoked in this land and so little conforming to the purposes of shrewdness and ambition, needs to be analyzed.” “You see, Guzmán, you see, you would like to undo it, take it apart as if it were a clock or a machine; no Guzmán, those of us who possess honor know it cannot be debated or dismantled; one simply has honor, and knows it, with no need for explanations, and those who would like to explain it will never know or possess it; so, Guzmán, everything I have said to you is true; you do not deserve my attention.” “You will do better, Sire, to occupy yourself with these papers; sign them.” “I shall do it gladly, my loyal, pragmatic Guzmán, because in them I see acts that will make the world more remote, that will abandon me here in this solitary sanctuary of my soul; and if you want me to believe what you have told me, bring me more papers, Guzmán, on paper and with paper domonstrate the reality of what you have told me about Inés and La Señora.” “I shall do so, Señor, as soon as possible; in the meanwhile, have you so little curiosity that…”