Juanita la Larga: a Novel

Chapter 30

Chapter 30 W hen Don Paco awoke from his lengthy nap, the sun was already dipping in the west and the day was expiring. The vacillations that had tormented him earlier came back to torment him anew, and with greater intensity as more time passed. His flight from the town—he believed, and it stood to reason— must have been noticed by everybody and looked upon with amazement . Inasmuch as he performed so many duties, he would have been missed in many matters. He expected that, as he had not asked permission of anyone, and as his unusual disappearance lacked a reason acknowledged by him, all his fellow Villalegrans would struggle to come up with one and would end up considering it an act of desperation or of despair. Nobody would stop bemoaning his flight if he did not return to town; but if he did return, compassion would inevitably be transformed into ridicule and derision. There would not be a single person who did not ask him mockingly what he had gone to the wilderness to do and why he left it so soon, sorry he had been an anchorite. And those who might suspect, and Don Paco did not doubt that some would suspect that he had wanted to take his life, would deem the question of suicide as a joke and attribute its nonrealization to fear. He imagined that, upon his return to town, he would find his new situation intolerable, because he would think that everyone who looked him in the eye was sneering at him. If he went off, they would say, because there was something here that he could not endure, why does he return now, resigned to putting up with it? 159 Don Andrés, especially, would scorn him and ridicule him in his innermost thoughts, figuring that the flight had been on account of the kisses he had given to Juanita and that now Don Paco was returning , resigned to bearing them patiently and even to seeing them given again. He pictured Juanita herself as very distressed, filled with remorse because she was, or was going to be, the reason or cause of his death, and very inclined to shed tears at his memory or over his unknown grave, if indeed they buried him and she knew where and it was not far. But if Juanita saw him again acting as if nothing had happened, either in the streets of Villalegre going about his usual business or paying court to Doña Agustina at Doña Inés’s tertulia, Juanita would consider him the most despicable and contemptible person in the world; Juanita would jeer him, and Don Paco shuddered at the thought of the mere possibility of such vilification. It was, however, very hard to kill yourself unwillingly, and only to have people take you seriously, pity you, and not tease you. There were moments in which if Don Paco had had a revolver, perhaps in violation of all his religious precepts and all his sound philosophies, he would have shot himself, but fortunately Don Paco did not own firearms and carried neither a pistol nor a shotgun on that senseless excursion he was making, pursued by jealously as Orestes was by the Erinyes.1 It occurred to him once to climb to the top of a steep crag, throw himself from it headfirst, and make himself into a pancake. But if he did not die instantly and only broke an arm, a leg, or both, wouldn’t it hurt like the devil, and by remaining alive add the physical pain to the emotional pain from which he had wanted to liberate himself? Bitterly pondering all the above, Don Paco walked on without paying any heed to the direction he was following, until a pitch-dark night caught him unawares. Neither the moon nor the stars could be 160 Juanita la Larga 1. There were three Erinyes, or Eumenides, and their mission was to visit punishment for sins against the family. They haunted Orestes for having slain Clytemnestra, his mother, in order to avenge her participation in the murder of Agamemnon, his father. Juanita la Larga 161 seen in the sky, which was blanketed with thick clouds. It had begun to rain hard, with thunder and lightning. Our traveler realized with regret that he was soaked to the gills, and he feared that death, which he craved and...