Juanita la Larga: a Novel

Chapter 27

Chapter 27 S ince everybody in the town understood that any decree of Doña Inés’s had to be carried out unfailingly, and since word spread that Don Paco and Doña Agustina’s marriage was decreed , there was scarcely a soul who did not consider it a fait accompli . I don’t know that I can convey how fiercely this provoked and incensed Juanita. Nevertheless, she still excused Don Paco, remembering that she had dismissed him and that he did not have to be faithful to her. She thought that maybe he was observing a prudent pretense similar to the one she was observing, and so she resigned herself to forgiving him for not rebelling against Doña Inés; for being so obedient that he went to the tertulia every day; for accompanying—and quite a few nights, as Juanita learned, to abide by Doña Inés’s orders—Doña Agustina to her home, so that the lady would not be walking alone with the maid who came after her; and for perhaps being gracious and gallant so that Doña Inés would not lose her temper. Juanita reasoned at times with this kind of moderation, but more frequently she lost the moderation and became venomous. Then she characterized Don Paco as fickle, as mercurial, and as selfish; she tried to detest him and despise him and felt predisposed, tempted, and anxious to retaliate. Don Andrés Rubio, in the meantime, continued coming every evening to Doña Inés’s house, and Juanita, with unacquired coquetry , shot strange glances at him, glances of the sort that seem like mysterious writing, where the very person who has written ignores 142 or has a confused idea of the revelation that he or she makes and where the person who reads believes that he or she is reading the revelation and nourishes fond hopes. One goes from glances to words with supreme ease, and Don Andrés, always trying to catch Juanita alone, would approach her as he entered to go to the tertulia, and fire at her from close range, as if his mouth were Cupid’s machine gun, a deluge of compliments and a volley of passionately flirtatious rhetoric. Juanita, more cautious in talking than in looking, either lowered her eyes and shied away without responding or responded with indifference, although it was tempered and softened by the respect and the affectionate regard that a personage of such great distinction could not help inspiring in her. On the other hand, Juanita did not manage to disguise the consoling satisfaction that such flattery and cajolery brought to her heart. “Control yourself, Your Excellency,” she would say, “and don’t make fun of a poor girl. How am I to believe that Your Excellency likes my ordinariness when Your Excellency is accustomed to so many refinements and sensibilities? Your Excellency has given proof of such good taste that . . . , well, I don’t want to believe that you now have an impaired palate. Leave me, Señor, and don’t try to get my dander up. Good Lord! Wouldn’t Doña Inés be in fine feather if she found out that Your Excellency was flirting with me, and that I listened to you, ignoring the decorum that is owed to this respectable house.” And with these words or with others like them, Juanita moved away from Don Andrés and went to the opposite end of the anteroom . When Don Andrés pursued her, Juanita fled along the corridors. Don Andrés would then desist from his pursuit in order to avoid being seen. Deploring how little headway, or the total lack of headway, that he was making in the campaign upon which he had embarked, and Juanita la Larga 143 144 Juanita la Larga not wanting to be another Fabius Cunctator,1 he had recourse to a more efficacious strategy and got ready for ambushes and assaults. Instead of looking for Juanita in the anteroom, he waited for her in the vestibule, without entering the house until she left to go to her own to sleep. Juanita feared no one and no one dared to trifle with her, so she returned alone even if the streets were dark. Besides, her house was not far. Don Andrés refused to pretend to meet her by chance, admitted frankly that he was waiting...