The Novel on the Tram

by Benito Pérez Galdós

Behind those eight faces, whose horrendous traits I have just depicted, and through the windows of the tram, I could see the street, the houses and the passers-by, all speeding past as if the tram were travelling at a vertiginous speed. I at least thought that it went faster than the trains on our railroads, faster than its French, English and North American counterparts. It ran as fast as might be imagined when it came to displacing solid objects.

As this state of lethargy increased, I was able to imagine that houses, streets and the whole of Madrid were gradually disappearing. For a moment I thought that the tram was running through oceanic depths: through the windows could be seen the bodies of enormous cetaceans and the sticky appendages of a multitude of polyps of various sizes. Small fish were shaking their slippery tails against the glass and some of them were looking inside with great and gilded eyes. Crustaceans of an unfamiliar shape, large molluscs, madrepores, sponges and a scattering of big and misshapen bivalves which I had never seen before, swam ceaselessly past. The tram was being pulled by monstrous swimming creatures, whose oars, fighting with the water, sounded like the blades of a propeller churning it up with their ceaseless rotation.

This vision started to fade. Then it seemed to me that the tram was flying through the air, always in the same direction and without being blown off course by winds. Through the windows only empty space was visible. Clouds sometimes enveloped us and a sudden downpour drummed against the upper deck. All at once we came out into pure space flooded with sunshine, only to go back to the nebulous presence of huge flashes, now red, now yellow, sometimes opal, sometimes amethyst, which were being left behind us as we made our way forward. We passed then through a point in space where shining forms floated in a very fine golden dust: further on this dust storm, which I took to be produced by the movement of the wheels grinding the light, was silver, then green like flour made from emeralds, and finally red like flour made from rubies. The tram was being dragged by some apocalyptic bird, stronger than a hippogryph and more daring than a dragon, and the noise of the wheels and the driving force made me think of the whirring of the great sails of a windmill, or rather the buzz of a bumblebee the size of an elephant. We were flying through infinite space without ever arriving anywhere. In the meantime the earth fell away several leagues below our feet, and the things of earth—Spain, Madrid, the Salamanca district, Cascajares, the Countess, the Count, Mudarra, the gallant young man, all of them together.

I soon fell into a deep sleep and then the tram stopped moving, stopped flying and the sensation that I felt of travelling in such a tram disappeared and all that was left was the deep and monotonous bass of the wheels which never abandons us even in our nightmares, be it in a train or in the cabin of a steamship. I slept. Oh unhappy countess! I saw her as clearly as I now see the paper that I'm writing on. I saw her sat next to a night light, hand on cheek, sad and pensive like a statue depicting Melancholy. At her feet a lapdog lay curled up that seemed to me just as sad as his as his interesting mistress.

Then I was able to examine at my leisure the woman I had come to see as misfortune personified. She was tall and fair with big and expressive eyes, an aquiline nose that was actually quite prominent, though not out of proportion to the rest of her face, and set off by the twin curves of her fine and arched eyebrows. She was casually groomed and from this, as from her dress, it was possible to surmise that she did not intend to go out again that night. A night of marvels truly! I observed with increasing anxiety the beautiful form I so much wanted to know better and it seemed to me that I could read her mind behind that noble brow in which the habit of reflexion had traced scarcely visible lines which would soon become wrinkles. Suddenly the door to her room opened to let a man in. The Countess gave a yelp of surprise and got up in a state of great agitation.

"What's this?" she said. "Rafael. You. What barefaced cheek! How did you get in?"

"Madam," answered the one who had just entered, a young man of noble bearing. "Weren't you expecting me? I received a letter from you."

"A letter from me!" exclaimed the Countess even more agitated. "I wrote no such letter. And what reason would I have for writing it?"

"Madam, look," the young man responded, taking out the letter and showing it to her. "It's in your own handwriting."

"Good God! What devilry is this?" said the lady in despair. "It was not I who wrote this letter. They're setting a trap for me."