Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“And thus was born my plan to throw them still sleeping into the sea on the day of the appointed meeting, so that they wake together, without the third having been able to tell his dream to the other two, as before…”

Then El Señor recounted the details of his last armed crusade against the Adamite heresy in Flanders: how the sacred glory of his triumph had been stained by the blasphemy and desecration of the Teutonic mercenaries in the Cathedral; how he had sworn then to erect a temple, a palace and pantheon of princes, an impregnable fortress of the Holy Trinity. And as a renunciation of battle, how he had thrown the Banner of the Blood from the tower of the citadel into the moat: from that moment forward, nothing but solitude, mortification, and death.

When that night he went for the third time into the chapel, he was surprised to hear contentious voices at the foot of the stairway of the thirty-three steps. The darkness was even deeper, all the easier to hide himself. He saw the gleam of two unsheathed swords. A voice sobbed behind the latticework of the nuns’ choir. A trembling servant hidden behind a pillar was muttering impudently. El Señor also trembled, the place he had constructed to protect the Eucharist was again profaned: howling nuns, a dead dog, crossed swords. Like the servant, he trembled. Like the servant, he also hid.

“You have doubly stained my honor, Don Juan,” the old Comendador was saying, spurred by anger to a spirit inconsistent with the frailness of his limbs.

“You speak of something you do not possess, old javel,” the graceful youth replied, one hand at his waist, one hand disdainfully parrying at sword point the edge of Inés’s father’s sword.

“You would add insult to injury, liar?”

“May God be a witness! You sold your daughter to El Señor. Is that your honor?”

“You have none, sir, or you would not mention such arguments, for honor lies in silence, especially when it is harmful to the honor of others.”

“Honor is appearances, old man, and judging on appearances, you are ruined.”

“Honor means respecting the seal of a letter; and you opened mine through the offices of a rogue who has charged us for his faithlessness.”

“It is said that honor is the strict fulfillment of duty, and you have failed in all of yours: that you owe El Señor, for having given you rank; that you owe yourself, out of gratitude; and that you owe your daughter, if honor also lies in woman’s honor and virtue.”

“She gave herself to El Señor and to God, supreme honors on earth and in Heaven; but with neither title nor honor, you seduced her; for that I demand redress.”

“Be grateful that even though she was stained, I granted her my favors.”

“Monster! Vile knave!”

“Honor is glory that results from virtue, Señor Comendador de Calatrava, and it transcends families, persons, and even the acts of the one who earns it: my honor is greater in seducing than yours in procuring, and a greater feat…”

Thoughtful, the Sevillian moneylender lowered his guard and rested his chin on the hilt of his sword. “Let us consider that.”

Don Juan laughed, gleefully threw his sword into the air, and caught it again in mid-air. “Yes, let us consider that.”

The old man and the youth sat down on the first step of the thirty-three that led from the chapel to the plain.

“You say that honor is appearances,” murmured the Comendador.

“For others; not for me, for public reputation could never harm the exalted and profound concept I have of my own honor.”

“Then no one can be insulted except by himself?”

“So say the masters of ethics: the whole world cannot injure you if they touch not your soul, for only by his own soul may man be harmed.”

“Well, I believe that each of us is the child of his acts, not of his lineage. Plato says there is no King who has not come from low origins, as there is no man of low estate who has not descended from eminence. But the vagaries of time have reversed all ranks, and fortune lowered and raised them. Who then is the nobleman? Seneca answers: He whom nature has shaped for virtue. Such is my case, Señor Don Juan, for my honor rests upon my virtue, my virtue upon my acts, and my acts upon my wealth.”

“Thus, to rob you of your wealth is to take your acts, your virtue, and your honor.”

“To lose it, sir, would be to lose my soul. And I shall lose it all if you do not return that letter to me.”

“Wait; first would you give your life or your honor?”

“I tell you, if each of us is son of his acts, each can be the founder of a dynasty: but there is no lineage — or honor and glory in our lifetime and even after death — without wealth, for our acts procure for us the fame that lives after us. Don Juan: return my letter.”

“As God is witness, what a foolish interpretation you give to morality! In these kingdoms it is held as common wisdom that one owes his wealth and his life to the King, but that honor is the patrimony of the soul, and the soul belongs only to God.”

“And you, Don Juan, do you prefer honor to death?”

“I don’t give a fig for honor; and as far as death is concerned, it is a long day between now and then.”

“Don Juan: I believe we can come to an understanding. Return my letter, thus saving my wealth, my acts, my virtue, and my honor, for yours matter not to you.”

“But my life matters, javel.”

“Do not expose it to danger, then.”

“You do not understand, wretched old man. This is my life: the adventure I begin, whether love affair or duel, is the challenge from which I emerge victorious: I live for pleasure, not for God, the King, wealth, virtue, acts, lineage, or honor.”

“Then fear me, for I shall have my revenge, even after death.”

“If you are saving your vengeance for your death, it is better that you give up hope.”

The two men rose to their feet, the moneylender agitated, Don Juan serene.

“Return that letter, Don Juan, or by my honor, I swear…”

“What, javel? That by that feeble arm you will kill me?”

“I shall die with honor…”

“One is born with honor; but you…”

“One also dies with honor…”

“What? A challenge so distant?”

“Then take this, swine!”

Holding his sword before him, the old man threw himself upon Don Juan; Don Juan, with one motion, impaled him like a butterfly and raised the frail figure of the Comendador, like a pierced shadow, high in the air …

There was a scream from the nuns’ choir; Don Juan with a flick of his wrist freed from his blade the body of the old man, which fell noiselessly upon the granite floor of the chapel, and noiselessly Don Juan slipped behind the altar, followed by a terrified Catilinón, the servant exalted by fear and also by the novelty of the incomprehensible codes, arguments, and ceremonies of people of breeding … through galleries, courtyards, dungeons, the hiding places of the servants Azucena and Lolilla; as he passed before the altar, the rascally servant knelt and swiftly crossed himself, and there, taking them as his own, repeated the words of his master: “I don’t give a fig…”

As the nun Inés ran into the chapel and knelt weeping beside the motionless body of her father, El Señor emerged from the shadows and approached the pitiful pair.

Inés raised teary eyes, kissed El Señor’s hand which loomed long and pallid beside her, and implored: “Oh, Señor, Señor, see this poor old man dead, a lifetime of labor and cares wasted, dead scarcely after he achieved the honor for which he had so long striven; Señor, if I have pleased you in any way, please me now: promise me that you will erect a statue upon my father’s tomb in Seville, a mausoleum of stone that will perpetuate, in death, the honor that was so fleeting in his lifetime…”