Prevod
There was talk of nothing but the ball, a great event in Madrid society. The capricious and lavish Señora de Cardona had insisted that not only the young but their elders too, not only the ladies but the gentlemen—in short, everyone—should come in costume. “The only exception,” Madame Insausti kept repeating, “is the Nuncio... and that is because he is always in costume.”
No getting out of it with clever little devices such as false noses, electric sunflowers in the buttonhole, wigs, or brightly coloured suits. A complete costume was obligatory: something distinctive, historical, or legendary.
Naturally, people gossiped about Cardona; the coats they cut for her behind her back would have clothed everyone at the party. They gave her a new nickname: Villaverde... But between one spiteful bite and the next, they consulted engravings and fashion plates, visited museums, wrote to Paris, drove tailors and dressmakers mad... and the longest faces were caused not by the drain on their purses, but by omissions from the guest list.
One person quite untroubled was the young Duke of Lanzafuerte. When Perico Gonzalvo asked what he meant to go as, a triumphant smile spread across his lips. “I’m going as my own grandfather. You’ll see what I have up my sleeve,” he added complacently.
The truth was—between ourselves—that extraordinary expenses did not suit the Duke. I am almost tempted to say that ordinary ones did not either. The family’s affairs were in a frightful tangle, and it was a mercy the Duke’s father had died in time; had he lasted another couple of years... Well, they had managed to scrape through, by the door or by the window... Mostly by the window. Country estates were being sold, valuable paintings, sedan chairs, tapestries... There still remained, as witnesses to their past grandeur, a few precious antiquities, among them a complete suit of armour belonging to a paladin who had fought beside Charles V. The Duke had taken notice of this armour, tucked away in a sort of lumber room, and had it cleaned of rust. Once clean, it proved worthy of the Royal Armoury, closely resembling—and perhaps made by the same hand—the Emperor’s celebrated armour for parade and battle, known as “the armour of the grotesque masks.” The same exquisite Milanese workmanship, the same gold and silver damascening, the same blued steel...
Had its existence been known, it would have lured antique dealers and made collectors envious. What better costume? What could be more fitting for a masquerade? Without expense or further thought, Lanzafuerte would be the king of the ball.
No sooner said than done. Two hours before the solemn moment of his entrance, the Duke stood with arms outstretched and legs apart, allowing the pieces of armour to be fastened upon him. Fitting the breastplate and backplate proved particularly difficult: the straps and buckles had been forgotten. When the arduous business was over, the Duke looked into a full-length mirror and failed to recognize himself. His moustache shaved off, the long locks of his wig falling on either side of his face, he was an old portrait stepped down from its canvas. His haughty bearing, his disdainful mouth, the cast of his features, at once manly and delicate, transformed the Duke into a young knight, and the blood of his lineage surged within him, filling him with longing for the heroic age. “If only I had been born then!” he murmured proudly. “But nowadays... of course! There’s no way...” His self-satisfaction grew at the discovery that the armour was a little tight. “I’m more of a man than the paladin...”
As he went downstairs, his thoughts took another turn. Without the servants’ help he would have pitched headfirst into the entrance hall. And endless precautions were needed to get into the carriage, to sit down, to get out, to ascend to Cardona’s palatial residence up marble steps between a double row of powdered footmen in blue livery and knee breeches. His entrance, however, was sensational. Standing out among costumes which were, after all, mere flashy disguises, the armour commanded attention through its artistry, its authenticity, its solemnity and strangeness. A warrior had risen from the tomb; a recumbent statue had stood upright. Like a figure carved by Pompeo Leoni and brought to life, the Duke advanced, stirring murmurs of admiration as he passed. The connoisseurs appraised that noble relic and valued it in resounding figures, with the shamelessness bred by the habit of seeing everything put up for sale. The artists, transported, cried out in praise. Those who prided themselves on their learning recalled the glories of the house of Lanzafuerte, and once again the classic roll of our triumphs passed in review: Saint-Quentin, Pavia, Oran, Cerignola. And the clash of steel as the Duke walked had a romantic echo, something like the sound of shields in a Wagnerian cavalcade. Only one mocking voice, almost to Lanzafuerte’s face, remarked, “He’s come disguised as a hero so that not even his own mother will recognize him...”
At last the marvellous armour mingled with the bustle of the ball, in a whirl of Gypsies, Andalusians, dandies, Louis XV marquises, roses, dragonflies, and little Japanese ladies with painted eyebrows. Charles V’s paladin was beginning to feel an indefinable discomfort, which steadily increased until it became unmistakable exhaustion.
There could be no doubt: the damned armour was weighing him down and squeezing him... What a notion, to shut himself up in such a shell! Unable to dance, or even to stand... Sit down? But how? What if the tassets sprang loose and left him there in his knitted drawers? Impossible... A sweat of anguish dampened his temples. To leave would be to invite ridicule... As ill luck would have it, the beautiful Inés Puenteancha came to beg him to be her opposite number in a quadrille. A quadrille? Walking, turning, bowing? Lanzafuerte, in distress, excused himself as best he could... In the dining room he asked for a glass of iced punch and felt momentary relief. Puenteancha smilingly asked whether he was ill. “It’s nothing... the heat...” And like a fugitive, pale and shivering, he slipped away into the almost deserted conservatory and made his laborious way to the anteroom. The footmen came to his aid, carried him downstairs, and called a carriage. The warrior collapsed inside with an alarming clatter. Phew! At last! At home they would tear the horrible armour off him.
“Get all this off, off!” he cried once he was in the hands of his servants, who exchanged looks of surprise and displeasure... They had been counting on a night of freedom! And besides... what a predicament!
“Everything off, this instant!” repeated the Duke, stretching out his arms again and spreading his legs. They removed his gorget, tassets, thigh pieces, greaves, arm guards, elbow cops, gauntlets... When they reached the cuirass, they stopped.
“What are you waiting for?” he demanded furiously. “This is what’s squeezing me most!” The valet stammered an apology. Did His Grace not remember? Since the cuirass lacked its buckles and straps, it had been soldered shut.
“Soldered! That’s right! Damn it! Hurry!... The armourer!... Fetch him here at once!” More excuses. Confusion. The armourer! If His Grace wished, they would go... but there was no hope of finding anyone at one in the morning on Carnival Sunday. Not until the following morning...
At a peremptory command they went out in search of the armourer, convinced they would not find him, and the Duke remained encased in his cuirass, lying on the bed, unable to turn over or draw breath. The pressure on his chest, the sensation of suffocation, had become unbearable torment. And the hours of the night passed with cruel slowness, while a leaden hand squeezed his lungs until he choked. Hateful armour! What would the descendant of paladins not have given to be free of it, to have it hanging on the wall in a decorative trophy, displaying its sumptuous workmanship, its pagan figures of the purest Renaissance! On the wall, yes; on his chest, no! What devilish impulse had possessed him? To wedge himself into the mould of other centuries... and be unable to get out! To feel upon a feeble rib cage, upon a heart without vigour, the shell of ancient heroism... and be unable to break it! A prisoner in a suit of armour! The pounding of his arteries mimicked the hoofbeats of warhorses; the rushing of his blood was the din of battle...
“Now you see it isn’t so easy to dress up as your own grandfather,” said Perico Gonzalvo with a burst of laughter. As was his custom, he had called at his friend’s house on leaving the ball, and entered Lanzafuerte’s bedroom blowing a cotillion trumpet trimmed all over with little golden bells. “Resemble the men of those days? My dear fellow! Not even in jest...”
And as Lanzafuerte groaned, half dead—by now he could scarcely breathe—the dandy added, “Do you know what strikes me? Spain is just like you... trapped in the moulds of the past, and dying because she can neither fit into them nor cast them off... A pretty bit of symbolism, eh? Come, I’ll go myself and bring you someone to free you from that contraption... Because if you wait for the servants!...”
