evening while walking I flirted with the officers, but especially with the common sailors. Life came . . . and it was unstoppable. As unstoppable as death when it must come. The sailors looked at me out of the corners of their eyes, straight at me, and I smiled. I am seventeen years old and I am starting to learn what life is, I thought.
One day I had tea with one of them. I had ordered cakes and drinks in abundance and, when it was time to pay, the sailor had to leave his uniform in the café as collateral. He didn’t have enough money on him, poor thing! How I laughed watching him get out of there as fast as his legs could carry him in his under-clothing and nothing else! The next day, I invited him to come to my palace at Cadiz, where I was in the service of the Duchess of Alba, so I had told him. He came, and the servants brought him to me. I sat on the podium, covered in gold and fine lace, surrounded by maids and lackeys. The sailor, very much afraid, recognized me and wanted to leave, so frightened was he of the Duchess of Alba. The whole thing made me curl up laughing. I had a special tea prepared for two. We had tea together, and then I accompanied the little lad out to the street and, in one of the dark corridors I pressed myself against him with the full weight of my body so that he could see that the Duchess of Alba was not mean. He left perplexed, red in the face, and confused. And in that moment I decided the time had come to continue the journey again, this time directly to the final destination.
Our dog came out to greet me. What was his name? Gluck, perhaps? No, Gluck didn’t jump. It was Sirio. He recognized me, after so much time! He barked and jumped just as he did when he was a puppy. I noticed that from out of the pine wood a huge moon was rising, of an intense yellow, almost red, and I thought that the dog would feel upset at night because the full moon has influence over the sea and animals, on women and artists. And I now saw the Palacio del Rocío, a white palace with Moorish windows, a few servants in front of it, and someone who was coming to receive me walking at a slow pace. A disheveled head on a strong body, fitted into a suit that was too tight . . . My Paco! I didn’t think he would come. Francisco was waiting for me. I had lost one man and gained another. One life had finished, another was beginning. It has always been like that, and it was now. Paco! I cried mentally, while he, all confused, kissed my hand.
The bath was already prepared for me. I sank into the scented water and made a mental drawing of what I would do afterwards and how he would behave. I lay there with my body relaxed and thought about Francisco, who now seemed to me to have gotten older, to be stout and ugly, a man who was frankly not attractive at all. But he radiated a closeness that was so great . . . as if he was one of mine, perhaps more than any other person. My Paco, ugly and fat! I looked at my body and jumped out of the bath.
We went for a walk in the Coto de la Doña Ana. First we went into the mountainous part, covered in pines. I wore a comfortable outfit, of the kind the village girls wear, and Francisco a suit, which squeezed him like a corset. I didn’t feel at all tired after the journey. We walked fast, we almost ran as if pursued by a herd of elephants.
“I would like to offer you my most sincere condolences for the death of the Marquis of Villafranca.”
“Thank you.”
He observed me, with a questioning look. A doubt. “Was it terrible, his death?”
“I appreciate your having thought about it. But life, is that not terrible too?” I replied.
A doubt was trembling, clearly visible in those green eyes. A suspicion.
“More than death?”
“What is death in comparison with an incomplete life?” I answered him with a question. The suspicion in his eyes had turned into an incrimination.
“Is there anyone whose life is not incomplete, in the end?”