Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) A Novel

an empress. He was ten years o

the cathedral, and on Sundays and holy days, instead of following the faithful to witness the pompous ceremonials presided over by the cardinal-ar

iked to have lived. And as he trod the flagging of the Hospitolarios, good Don Esteban, little, chubby, and near-sighted, used to feel within him the soul of a hero born too late. The other churches, huge and rich, appeared to him with their blaze

a bench, brought thither by the knights of the military order. Some sour orange trees spread their branching verdure over the walls of the church,-a blackened, rough stone edifice perforated with long

r semi-circular one, besides covering the walls with a coat of whitewash. But the medieval reredos, the nobiliary coats of arms, and the tombs of the Kni

hough she were the housekeeper. Others would remain standing during the service holding up proudly their emaciated heads that presented the profile of a fighting cock, and crossing upon the breast their gloved hands,-always in black wool in the winter and in thread i

unt. And the notary with meek voice would enlarge his response: "Good day, Se?or Marquis!" "Good day, Se?or Baron!" Although his relations never went beyond this salutation, Ferragut used to feel towar

tered in from above, illuminating the spirals of dust, flies and moths, made him think in a homesick way of the lush green of the orchard, the white spots of the hamlets, the black smoke colu

The sermon always represented for him a half hour of somnolence, peopled with his own lively imaginings. The first thing that his eyes used to see in the chapel of Santa Barbara was a chest nailed to t

s grizzled beard and a new light in his eyes. Sometimes the mysterious power of such a name evoked a new mystery and a more intense interest,-Byzantium. How could that august lady, sovereign of remote co

ns), by Oriental dancers, alchemists, and ferocious Saracen Guards. He legislated as did the jurisconsults of ancient Rome, at the same time writing the first verses in Italian. His life was one continual combat with the Popes who hurled upon him excommunication upon excommunication. For the sake of peace he had become a crusader and set forth upon the conquest of Jerusalem. But Saladin, another philosopher of

n used to murmur. "It must be ad

had seen, but whose paternity Rome was accustomed to attribute to this Sicilian Emperor-especially Los Tres Impostores (The Three Imposters), in which Frederick measured Moses, Jesus and Mahomet, by the same sta

ree harem, in which were mingled Saracen beauties and Italian marchionesses. And the poor young girl married to "Vatacio the heretic," by a father in need of political alliances had lived long years in the Orient as a ba

, and the imperial widow found herself courted by this victorious adventurer. For many years she resisted his pretensions, finally maneuvering that her brother Manfred should return her to her own country, where she arrived just in

was always hovering around the basilisa. They all perished-her brother Manfred, her half-brother, the poetic and lamented Encio, hero of so many songs, and her nephew, the knightly Coradino, who was to die later on under the axe of t

ores of the Gulf of Valencia, where she entered the convent of Santa Barbara. In the poverty of this recently founded convent, the poor Empress lived until the following century, recalling the adventures of her melancholy destiny and seeing in ima

ole baggage that accompanied her upon disembarking on the shore of Valencia. It was a fragm

font of Holy Water. Without ceasing to admire these historic bits of knowl

things to me in a better way

s was not permitted to Empresses-so Santa Barbara had miraculously cured her devotee. In order to perpetuate this event, Santa Barbara was depicted on the canvas as a lady dressed in a full skirt and slashed sleeves, and at her feet was the basilisa in the dress of a Valencian peasant arrayed in great jewels. In vain Don Esteban affirmed that this picture had been painted centuries after the death of t

enough for him to recall the sovereign of Byzantium to make him forget immediately his disquietude and the thousand queer noises in the old building. "Do?a Constanza!"… And he wo

senteta, a maid from the country-a brunette, with eyes like blackberries, rosy-cheeked and soft-skinned-would help him to undress, or awaken him to take him to school, Ulysses would always throw his arms around her as though enchanted by the perfume of her vigorous and chaste vitality. "Visenteta!… Oh, Visenteta!…" And he was

his imaginary life upon seei

play-actor!… You are

for useless idealism and his respect for the artist-a respect similar to the venerati

st Mass!… Then a canon; then a prelate! Who knew if perhaps when she was no longer living, other women might not admire him when preceded by a cross of gold,

ld house. Ulysses' school companions on free afternoons would hasten thither, doubly attracted by the enchantment

le waiting for the papers that the clerks were just scribbling off at full speed, to raise their heads in astonishment. The metallic uproar rocked

s were arraying themselves before the faithful, covering themselves with surplices and gold-worked vestments and putting wonderful caps on their heads. The mother, who was peeping from

lready done more than enough. They must now give up their chasubles to those who were looking on in order that they, in their turn, might exercise the sacred ministry. That was what they had agreed upon. But the clergy resisted with the haughtiness and majesty of acquired right, and impious hands be

their chipped glaze, disclosing the red brick underneath. The Valencian potters of the eighteenth century had adorned these tiles with Berber and Christian galleys, birds from nearby Albufera, white-wigged hunters offe

ble invasions of history. Cats and mice fled together to the far-away corne

er legal science than his. That was the time when the antique dealers had not yet discovered rich Valencia, where the common people dressed in silks for cent

He was not able to find wall space enough for the pictures, nor room in his salons for the furniture. Therefore, the latest acquisitions were provisionally taking their way to the pòrche to await definite installation. Years afterward, when he s

as though it had acquired feet; for Do?a Cristina and her servants, obliged to live in a continual struggle with the dust

borers, whose iron fretwork, pierced like lace, was dropping away from its supports. Some of the youngsters, brandishing short, small swords with hilts of mother-of-pearl, or long blades such as the Cid carried, would then wrap themselve

its and Bailiffs." But thieves could not go clad in such rich cloths; their attire ought to be inconspicuous. And so they overturned some mountains of dull-

Rubens which the notary was keeping only out of historic respect. Tapestry then, like all things that are plentiful, had no special merit. The old-clothes dealers of Valencia had in their storehouses dozens of the

in the mountains of books stored away by his father, a volume that related in double columns, with abu

latent in the background of his likes and desires. He really had read few of its paragraphs, but what intereste

conquest: "Let every good Castilian pass this line…." And the good Castilians-a dozen little scamps with long capes and ancient swords whose hilts reached up to their mout

n vargue?os, tables and pyramids of chairs, they began to shy books at their persecutors. Venerable leather volumes decorated with dull gold, and folios of white parchment fell face downward on the floo

rret to the mystic delights of the abandoned chapel. The Indians were most worthy of execration. In order to make splendor of attire counterbalance the humility o

books, used to make him thrill with a sensation of fear and nocturnal mystery, despite the rays of sunlight that came filtering in through the skylights; but he began to enjoy this solitude when he found that he could people it to h

a caravel, a galleon, a ship such as he had seen in the old books, its sails painted with lions and crucifixes, a castl

ooth beach formed by some bundles of clothes. And the navigator, followed by a crew as numerous as it was imaginary, would leap ashore, sword in hand, scaling some mountains

onvinced. Something must still be left for him to discover! He was the meeting point of two families of sailors. His mother's brothers had ships on the coas

ropped, curled hair bound by a knot of ribbon on the temple, like those that Velazquez loved to paint, and long faces of the century following, with cherry-colored mouth, two patches o

d picture, making two gashes replace the challenging eyes. Then he added a few gashes more for good measure…. That same evening, his godfather having been invited to supper, the notary spoke of a certain portrait acquired a few months before in the neighborhood of Játiva, a city that he had always regarded with interest on account of the Borgias having been born in

s godfather's home; to his childish eyes, this godparent, the lawyer, Don Carmelo Labarta, was the personification of th

e in civilian matters! By applying himself he might earn

ilded books that covered the walls, he saw some great plaster heads with towering fo

ttered bits of scale. The sweet eyes of his godfather-yellowish eyes spotted with black dots-used to receive Ulysses with the doting affection of an aging, old bachelor who needs to invent a family. He it was who had given him at the baptismal font the name which had

silver cups, nude marble statuettes, placques of different metals upon plush backgrounds on which glistened imperis

facility he used to carry off the natural flower awarded for the heroic ode, the cup of gold for the amorous romance, the pair of statues dedicated to the most complete

Valencian verse. Next to Valencia and its past glories, Greece claimed his admiration. Once a year Ulysses beheld him arra

dol to whom other poets were dedicating their eulogies-clerics given to rhyming, personifiers of religious images, silk-weavers who felt the vulgarity of their existence

e library. In real life he saw perfectly well that his head had no such adornment, but reality lost its value before the firmness of his concepti

upon a time he had crossed the frontier, going courageously into a remote country called the south of France, in order to visit another poet whom he was accustomed to call "My f

ermitted any informality in table matters, would become very im

… We have a

em would advance a huge bosom protruding above an abdomen cruelly corseted. Afterwards, long afterwards, would appear a white and radiant countenance, a face like a full moo

ad seen her in their home. Do?a Cristina used to eulogize her care of the poet-but distantly and

d commands. All of them, however dignified they may appear, are rather carnal

His godfather had relations with a woman; he was enamored like the heroes of the novels! And the boy recalled many of his Valencian poems, all rhapsodizing a lady-sometimes singing of her great b

deserved that much! And he also imagined to himself that their rendezvous must be in the morning, in one of the strawberry gardens near the cit

per, and began to suspect that possibly Do?a Pepa might be the inspiration of so much lachrymose and enthusiastic verse. B

ome inherited from his parents was enough for the poet to live upon. In vain his friend brought him cases that represented enormous fees. The voluminous documents wo

he could see the lad as a great civilian jurist like his godfather, but with a positive activi

obes, with its screen doors and green curtains, behind which reposed the volumes of the protocol, covered with yel

"there are no rice plantations that can produce what this estate do

r they heard any talk about smart men, always thought immediately of the notary from Valencia. With religious veneration they saw him adjust his spectacles in order to read as an expert the bill of sale or d

ithout any illusions to the sins of the flesh, but always those in which the digestive organs figured with every degree of license. The clients would roar with laughter, captivated by th

the object of many after-dinner conversations on t

to be?" Labarta

y from his own viewpoint, without consulting the interested party. He would be an eminent jurisconsult; thousands of dollars were going to roll toward him as though they were pennies; he was going to figure in university solemnities in a cloak of crim

ed these images o

to be a

gs have for the plume and the sword. At the mere sight of a uniform his soul always thrille

Captain of what?… Of ar

pa

tain of

rror. He well knew who was guilty of this ridiculous idea,

nal home over there in the Marina:-an excellent man, but a little crazy, whom the p