Prevod

The evening of December 24 caught him on horseback in open country, with a storm threatening. It was the hour when, in winter, daylight suddenly goes out, as though it were a lamp and someone had turned the switch. Without transition, darkness descended, effacing the outlines of a landscape perhaps peaceful at midday, but now bleak and desolate.

He was in the gorge of one of those rivers that run deep between two steep escarpments; to the right lay the road, to the left a rocky mountain, almost sheer, bare and leaden in hue. Far below, nothing could be made out but a blackish ribbon where a red reflection of the sunset lay dying, writhing like a crimson asp; above rose dense masses, strange, phantasmal shapes; everything was solemn, one might even say menacing. Mauricio was no coward, yet the sight of the mountain impressed him; he longed to reach the Pazo as soon as possible, though three long leagues still lay between him and it, and urged on his mount with voice and spur as the animal pricked up its ears uneasily.

The wind strengthened, forcing him to tie his hat down with a handkerchief beneath his chin; thunder, still distant, rumbled mysteriously; gusts of rain lashed the rider’s face, and he stifled an oath. What cursed luck! For it to start raining just halfway home! At that very moment the horse reared and shied sideways: a figure had emerged from the undergrowth. Mauricio was already reaching for the revolver in the inside pocket of his sheepskin jacket when he heard these words in the local dialect:

“A little charity! For the love of God, who is about to be born... a little charity, sir!” Reassured, Mauricio looked angrily at the man who had the impudence to beg in such a place and at such a moment. He was a tall, strapping fellow, his feet and legs bare, with a pair of saddlebags over his shoulder, leaning on a stout cudgel. The darkness made it impossible to distinguish his face; his age could be guessed from his cracked voice and the faint silvery gleam of his shaggy white hair.

“Stand aside,” the young gentleman muttered impatiently. “Can’t you see you’re frightening the horse? Another moment and I’d have gone headfirst into the river... What a time to be begging, and what a place to jump out in front of a horse! Brutes!”

The beggar stood as though turned to stone. “Where is the river?” he cried in profound terror. “Isn’t this the road to the church at Cimáis? Sir, by the soul of the woman who bore you... Sir, don’t leave me helpless... I’m blind! May Our Lady preserve your sight! Pity the man who cannot see!”

Mauricio understood. The sightless old man had lost his way, had no idea where he was, and needed a guide to keep him from falling over the precipice. Yes, agreed; he needed a guide... And who was that to be? He, Mauricio Acuña, returning home from Orense on Christmas Eve to dine and spend a merry evening playing julepe or golfo with his brothers and cousins, smoking and laughing? If he checked his horse’s pace to match the slow walk of a blind man; if he turned aside toward the church at Cimáis, a good way off, at what ungodly hour would he make his entrance into the drawing room of the Pazo de Portomellor? For a moment he hesitated: he thought he could hardly do less than sacrifice a few minutes to set the blind man on the road to Cimáis, then leave him, once pointed in the right direction, to manage as best God allowed. Only that meant venturing into the oakwood, risking a stumble over stumps and boulders, and above all, yielding to the pleas of the beggar, who would not readily let go of his improvised guide, and who, if granted one request, would demand another... These paupers were such wheedlers, so hard to shake off! “Better slip away,” he decided; and taking a silver duro from his pocket, he placed it in the trembling hand the old man held out, more in supplication than in begging; then he spurred his horse and fled like a criminal escaping justice.

Yes, like a criminal—that was how he himself described his conduct a little later, as he reined in Maceo, his black Andalusian crossbreed, and realized that night had fallen completely. Veiled by gloomy banks of cloud, the moon showed a livid glimpse of itself, like the face of a corpse shrouded in a monk’s habit. The road stretched ahead, suspended above the river, which slumbered silent and sinister at a terrifying depth. The wind battered the sturdy tree trunks, making them creak; lightning lit the surface of the water, and thunder sounded, quite close now; Mauricio shuddered. He seemed to hear strange noises besides those of the storm. Could the old man have fallen into the water? Behind him, on the rocky path, he thought he heard the footsteps of a man feeling his way with a stick, as blind men do. An obvious absurdity, since Maceo’s gallop must already have left the beggar a quarter of a league behind. Yet Mauricio would have sworn that someone was following him: someone breathing with difficulty, stumbling, moaning, pleading for compassion. An irresistible uneasiness drove him to urge his mount on again, to reach the turning where the road left the river, whose very sight filled him with fears of a tragedy. Could he have fallen?... What tormented Mauricio was the thought of having abandoned a blind man on such a night. “But how could I have done it...? It seems impossible! If someone told me afterward, I wouldn’t believe it... Tonight of all nights, I should never have left a poor wretch alone...” he brooded, driving his spurs into Maceo’s flanks. “And the foulest, vilest part of what I did was to give him money. Money! If his body is floating in the Sil by now... what use is money to him? We think money puts everything right... Wretch that I am! I ought to turn back. Is there no one coming behind me?...”

Maceo flew: a sweat of anguish dampened his rider’s temples. Neither the buzzing in his ears nor the swirling wind, deep as a waterspout, kept him from hearing, ever closer, the footsteps of the man who was now, beyond any doubt, following him, or from catching that same broken breathing, that same sorrowful moan; and the truth was that he dared not turn around: because if he did, he might see the figure of the blind beggar, tall, his feet and legs bare, his bag over his shoulder, his staff in his hand, and the silver of his shaggy white hair gleaming in the darkness...

“Am I going mad?” he thought. “Come, courage... I must turn around...” And still he did not turn; his constricted throat, his pounding heart betrayed him: he was in the grip of a terrible, supernatural fear. He pressed home his spurs, and the excited horse quickened its headlong gallop, striking sparks from the stones in the road. The storm was now directly overhead: lightning flashed; a tremendous thunderclap burst above the young gentleman’s very head, deafening him. Maceo panicked; he spun sharply on his hind legs and plunged toward the slope above the Sil. Mauricio saw the dreadful danger when another flash revealed the abyss and the surface of the water: he closed his eyes, accepting the judgment of Providence... and the horse, in its fatal frenzy, dragged its rider to the bottom of the precipice, snapping pines as it fell and dislodging stones from the escarpment, whose crashing roar, as they tumbled down the rocks, still mimicked the frantic footsteps of the blind man stumbling and moaning.