Eça de Queirós

“ The hanged man advanced now with leisurely caution, on bare tiptoe, watching the top of the wall, scrutinising the blackness of the hedge, and stopping to listen for noises which only he perceived—for Don Ruy had never known a night more deeply asleep and dumb. And this fear in one who should have been indifferent to human perils slowly filled the brave knight also with so deep a distrust that he took his dagger from its sheath, folded his cloak round his arm, and walked on guard, with his eyes flashing, as if{60} he were in a place of ambushes and strife. ”

“ It was an ambush! The Lord of Lara was attracting this Don Ruy to Cabril with a splendid promise, to get him in his power, and certainly to kill him, defenceless and alone! And herself, her love, her body were the shining promises set before the beguiled eyes of the luckless youth. So her husband was using her beauty and her bed as a golden net into which that rash prize was to fall. What greater wrong could there be? ”

“ And the man he had killed was Don Ruy de Cardenas, for he had recognised him well straight away from the dark depths of the room where he was watching when{76} he crossed the terrace under the moonlight, confident and gay, with his hand on his girdle, and his face uplifted with a smile, and the feather in his hat tossing in triumph. How could so extraordinary a thing be—a mortal body survive a dagger that had thrice pierced its heart and remained nailed there? ”

“ Don Alonso put the parchment in his girdle next to the dagger which he had sheathed, and went out in silence, his beard pointing forward, hushing the noise of his steps on the flags of the corridor. She remained on the footstool in a state of immeasurable fright, her wearied hands fallen in her lap and her gaze lost in the darkness of the still night. Death appeared to her less dark than this dark adventure in which she felt herself{28} involved and borne along. ”

“ Don Ruy de Cardenas might very well distrust and not accept such an openly amorous invitation, and afterwards, in laughing triumph, show all over Segovia{30} that letter in which the wife of Alonso de Lara offered him her bed and body. But no! the poor fellow would hasten to Cabril and die, die miserably in the black silence of the night, without either priest or sacraments, his soul sunk in the sin of love! Die without doubt, for the Lord of Lara would never permit the man who had received such a letter to live. ”

“ Don Ruy displayed neither terror nor loathing, but calmly sheathing his sword, asked: 'Art thou alive or dead?’ The man slowly contracted his shoulders: 'Sir, I know not. Who knows what is life? Who knows what is death?’ ... 'But, what do you want of me?’ With his long, fleshless fingers the hanged man enlarged the knot of the cord that still encircled his neck, and said very calmly and firmly: 'Sir, I must go with you to Cabril, whither you are going.’
The knight started so sharply in his astonishment, pulling back the reins,{53} that his good horse reared up as if struck by the same fright. ”

“ The whole world seemed to him to contain nought save severity and coldness. On other bright Sunday mornings he met Donna Leonor, and her eyes always remained heedless, and as though unmindful; or, when they crossed his, they were so innocent and free from all emotion that Don Ruy would have preferred them offended and darting anger, or haughtily averted in{12} proud disdain. Certain it was that Donna Leonor knew him now, but she also knew the Moorish flower-woman squatted before her basket beside the fountain, or the poor who loused themselves in the sun before Our Lady’s porch. ”

“ But this short visit of hers to Our Lady of the Pillar sufficed for Don Ruy to fall{5} madly in love with her on the May morning when he saw her kneeling before the altar in a radiance of sunlight, haloed by her golden hair, with her long lashes hanging over a Book of Hours, her rosary falling from between her delicate fingers, all elegant, gentle and white, with the whiteness of a lily blooming in the shade, looking yet whiter amid her black lace and the black satin gown that broke round her graceful form in hard folds over the chapel flags, the ancient flags of burying-places. ”

“ Thus did a man, a young man, evidently well-born, perhaps handsome, penetrate rudely into her destiny, brought there by the hand of her husband. So intimately, even, had this man become a part of her life without preparation on her side, that her garden gate was already open for him at night, and a ladder propped against her window at night for him to mount. And it was her husband who, with the greatest{29} secrecy, set wide the door and raised the ladder.... Why? Then, in a flash, Donna Leonor understood the truth, the shameful truth, and it drew from her an anguished and half-stifled cry. ”

“ In the middle, between the breast-high windows, which were closed, a stone balcony, with pots of basil at the corners, had its glass windows{62} opened wide. The room inside was blotted out, and made a dark gap in the bright façade bathed by the moonlight; and leaning against the balcony was a ladder with rungs of cord. Then the hanged man sharply pushed Don Ruy away from the steps into the darkness of the avenue, and there, in a pressing manner, dominating the knight, exclaimed: 'Sir! it is best that you should give me your hat and cloak now! ”

“ With a rough gesture Don Alonso dismissed the steward, and, after a spare supper, he returned{80} at once to the gallery to watch the windows of Don Ruy. They were now closed; in the end one at the corner shone a trembling light. All the night Don Alonso watched, tirelessly revolving in his mind the same wonderment. How could that man have escaped with his heart transfixed by a dagger? How could he?... When morning dawned, he got a cloak and large hat and descended, all muffled up and concealed, into the square, and remained patrolling in front of Don Ruy’s house. ”

“ But how miserable also, if that youth, who was summoned by her and who loved her and who was hurrying to her, dazzled by his love, were to meet with death in the place of his hope which was the place of his sin, and dying in the midst of sin, were to roll down whither all hope is at an end.... Only twenty-five years old too—if he was the man she remembered, pallid and so good-looking, with a jerkin of purple velvet and a bunch of carnations in his hand at the church door in Segovia.... ”

“ Soon the trembling horse came to a stand, white with foam, and immediately the hanged man noiselessly slid down from the crupper, and bearing up Don Ruy’s stirrup like a good attendant, his skull uplifted, and his black tongue put further out from between his white{69} teeth, he murmured in respectful supplication: 'Sir, do me now the great favour to hang me once again from my beam.’ Don Ruy trembled with horror. 'For God’s sake! I hang you?’ The man sighed, opening his long arms. ”

“ But immediately the terrible man pushed and hurried him: 'To horse, sir, and let us be off, for treason is still upon us!’ Terror-struck, and burning to close that adventure full of miracles and horrors, Don Ruy plucked up the reins and rode off full tilt, and{67} straightway, in great haste, the hanged man leapt also onto the crupper of the faithful horse. The good knight shivered all over at feeling the contact with his back of that dead body which had been hanged from a gibbet and pierced through by a dagger. ”

“ When, after listening at the door of the room where he had shut up Donna Leonor that night, he slily descended at dawn into the garden and did not encounter the body of Don Ruy de Cardenas below the balcony, close to the ladder, as he had expected with delight, he felt certain that the hateful man after falling down had, with his little remnant of life, dragged himself along, bleeding and gasping, in{75} the attempt to reach his horse, and get away from Cabril. ”

“ The old woman swung her lamp higher up to observe the knight—‘To Xarama.’ The light{47} and the old woman immediately disappeared, melting away into the shade as if they had risen up there only to warn the knight of his mistaken road. He had already turned back with a dash, and rounding the Calvary, he galloped along the other and wider road, until, over the brightness of the sky, he caught sight of the black pillars and black beams of Gallows Hill. ”

“ Then Don Ruy took off his gloves, and, taught by the man who had learned his lesson well from the executioner, he tied one end of the cord to the noose the{71} man had on his neck, and vigorously threw the other end, which undulated in the air, passed over the beam, and remained suspended close to the ground. Driving in his feet and tightening his arms, the bold knight pulled and hoisted the man until he was there suspended and black in the air like a natural hanged man among the others. 'Are you right as you are?’ Slow and sinking came the voice of the dead man. ”

“ They both stopped under the empty beam. Round about the other beams hung the other carcasses. The silence was sadder and more deep than other earthly silences. The water in the lagoon had grown black. The moon was descending and waning. Don{70} Ruy contemplated the beam where the piece of cord he had cut with his sword was left short in the air. 'How am I to hang you?’ he exclaimed. 'I cannot reach that piece of cord with my hand; nor can I hoist you up there by myself.’ 'Sir,’ replied the man, 'here, in a corner, there ought to be a long roll of cord. ”

“ Sobre a nudez forte da verdade ”