Our Lady of the Pillar

by Eça de Queirós

In this way Don Ruy learned of the journey of the Lord of Lara, and thus the whole city learned it too. It was a great satisfaction to Donna Leonor, who was fond of Cabril, with its rich orchards and gardens, on to which the balconied windows of her light apartments opened without a grating; there, at least, she had ample air, full sunlight, boxes of flowers to water, an aviary, and such long walks of laurel and yew that they were almost liberty. And she hoped that afterwards the country would lighten those cares that had lately made her lord and husband so wrinkled and taciturn. But this hope was not realised, for at the end of a week the face of Don Alonso had not yet lost its cloud, and it was evident that neither fresh greenery, murmurs of running waters, nor scents scattered in the flowering rosaries could calm so bitter and deep an agitation. As in Segovia, he restlessly paced up and down the resounding and vaulted gallery buried in his sheepskin coat, with the point of his beard thrust out in front, and his thick tangled hair bristling backwards; and he had a habit of showing his teeth in a quiet snarl, as if he were meditating evil deeds, and savouring their bitterness in advance. And the whole interest of his life had become concentrated on a retainer who was constantly galloping between Segovia and Cabril, and he sometimes awaited him at the commencement of the village near the large Cross, and stayed listening to the man, who dismounted, out of breath, and straightway gave him his hurried news.

One night when Donna Leonor was telling her beads in her room with her attendants by the light of a waxen torch, the Lord of Lara entered very slowly, bearing in his hand a sheet of parchment, and a pen dipped in his bone inkstand. With a rough sign he dismissed the attendants, who feared him as though he were a wolf, and pushing a footstool near the table, he turned his face towards Donna Leonor, which he had composed into a calm and pleasant expression, as if he were only coming to ask for something natural and easily done, and said: 'Lady, I want you to write me here a letter that is very necessary to write.’ ... She was so accustomed to submission that without more reflection or curiosity, and only going to hang the beads which she had been telling at the head of the bed, she arranged herself on the footstool; and with much application, in order that the writing might be neat and clear, her elegant fingers traced the first short line which the Lord of Lara dictated, and it was: 'My knight....’ But when he dictated the next, and longer one, in a cutting manner, Donna Leonor threw down the pen as if it burnt her, and recoiling from the table, cried out in her affliction: 'Why must I write such things, and so false?’ In a burst of fury the Lord of Lara tore a dagger from his girdle, and shook it close to her face, with a dull roar: 'Either you write what I order you, and what is needful for me, or, by God, I will pierce your heart!’ Whiter than the waxen torch that lighted them, her flesh creeping at that glittering blade, and in a supreme fear that accepted everything, Donna Leonor murmured: 'By the Virgin Mary, do not harm me! Do not be angry, for I live to obey and serve you. Now order, and I will write.’ Then, clenching his fists on the ends of the table where he had placed the dagger, the Lord of Lara crushed the fragile, unhappy woman under his hard, wounding gaze, and dictated, nay, flung at her hoarsely, piece by piece, dragged out, a letter that, when finished, and traced in a very hesitating and trembling hand, read: 'My knight, you have very ill understood, or very ill repay, my love for you, which I could never discover to you openly in Segovia. Now I am here at Cabril burning to see you, and if your desire corresponds to mine, you can very easily realise it, because my husband is absent at another property of his, and this of Cabril is quite easy and open. Come to-night, enter by the garden door beside the lane, pass the fish-pond, until you reach the terrace; there you will espy a ladder resting against one of the windows of the house, which is the window of my room, where you will be very sweetly welcomed by her who anxiously awaits you.’ 'Now, lady, sign your name below, for that is necessary above all!’ As red as if she were being stripped before a crowd, Donna Leonor slowly traced her name. 'And now'—ordered her husband more quietly through his clenched teeth—‘address it to Don Ruy de Cardenas!’ She dared to raise her eyes, surprised at that unknown name. 'Go on! “To Don Ruy de Cardenas,”’ shouted the churlish man, and she directed her immodest letter to Don Ruy de Cardenas. Don Alonso put the parchment in his girdle next to the dagger which he had sheathed, and went out in silence, his beard pointing forward, hushing the noise of his steps on the flags of the corridor. She remained on the footstool in a state of immeasurable fright, her wearied hands fallen in her lap and her gaze lost in the darkness of the still night. Death appeared to her less dark than this dark adventure in which she felt herself involved and borne along. Who was this Don Ruy de Cardenas of whom she had never heard, who had never passed across her quiet life, peopled by so few memories and men? And he certainly knew her, had met her and had followed her, at least with his eyes, since it was a natural and consequent thing that he should receive from her a letter of such passion and promises.... Thus did a man, a young man, evidently well-born, perhaps handsome, penetrate rudely into her destiny, brought there by the hand of her husband. So intimately, even, had this man become a part of her life without preparation on her side, that her garden gate was already open for him at night, and a ladder propped against her window at night for him to mount. And it was her husband who, with the greatest secrecy, set wide the door and raised the ladder.... Why? Then, in a flash, Donna Leonor understood the truth, the shameful truth, and it drew from her an anguished and half-stifled cry. It was an ambush! The Lord of Lara was attracting this Don Ruy to Cabril with a splendid promise, to get him in his power, and certainly to kill him, defenceless and alone! And herself, her love, her body were the shining promises set before the beguiled eyes of the luckless youth. So her husband was using her beauty and her bed as a golden net into which that rash prize was to fall. What greater wrong could there be? And what imprudence too? Don Ruy de Cardenas might very well distrust and not accept such an openly amorous invitation, and afterwards, in laughing triumph, show all over Segovia that letter in which the wife of Alonso de Lara offered him her bed and body. But no! the poor fellow would hasten to Cabril and die, die miserably in the black silence of the night, without either priest or sacraments, his soul sunk in the sin of love! Die without doubt, for the Lord of Lara would never permit the man who had received such a letter to live. So that youth would die for love of her, for a love that, while it had never brought him a single pleasure, now brought him death. Clearly for love of her, since such hatred as that of the Lord of Lara, a hatred that sated itself with such disloyalty and villainy, could only spring from jealousy which obscured in his mind all the duties of a knight and a Christian. He must have surprised glances, movements, and designs of this Don Ruy, who had not been sufficiently on the alert, because he was very much in love. But how? when? Dimly she remembered a youth who had crossed her one Sunday in the square and awaited her at the church porch with a bundle of carnations in his hands.... Was it he? He had a noble bearing, and was very pale, with big, black, passionate eyes. She had passed by, indifferent.... The carnations he carried were red and yellow.... To whom was he taking them? Ah! if she could warn him very soon, at daybreak. But how, if there was no retainer or man-servant in Cabril in whom she could confide? But to allow a brutal sword traitorously to pierce that heart which was full of her, beating for her, all in hopes of her ...!

Oh, the mad and ardent rush of Don Ruy from Segovia to Cabril, with the promise of the enchanting garden open to him, the ladder placed against the window, under the silence and protection of the night! Would the Lord of Lara really order a ladder to be set against the window? Yes, for a certainty, in order the more easily to kill him, the poor, sweet, innocent youth, as he was mounting, ill secure on an uncertain step, his hands employed and his sword sleeping in the scabbard.... And so, in the coming night, facing her bed, her window would be open and a ladder would be raised against her window waiting for a man. Ambushed in the shade of the room, her husband would certainly kill that man....

But supposing the Lord of Lara were to wait for this Don Ruy de Cardenas outside the walls of the quinta, and assail him brutally in some bypath, and, either because he was less dexterous or strong in a clash of arms, were himself to be pierced through and fall without the other knowing whom he had killed? And she there, in her room, unknowing, and all the gates open and the ladder raised, and that man appearing at the window in the soft shade of the warm night while the husband who ought to defend her lay dead in an obscure path.... What would she do, Virgin Mother? Surely she would haughtily repel the bold youth. But his surprise and anger at his baffled desire! 'I have come at your call, lady.’ And he would carry there on his heart her letter, with her name, which her hand had traced. How could she tell him of the ambush and the deceit? It was such a long tale to tell in the silence and solitude of the night whilst his moist black eyes were beseeching and piercing her.... Miserable she, if the Lord of Lara were to die and leave her, solitary and defenceless, in that great open house. But how miserable also, if that youth, who was summoned by her and who loved her and who was hurrying to her, dazzled by his love, were to meet with death in the place of his hope which was the place of his sin, and dying in the midst of sin, were to roll down whither all hope is at an end.... Only twenty-five years old too—if he was the man she remembered, pallid and so good-looking, with a jerkin of purple velvet and a bunch of carnations in his hand at the church door in Segovia.... Two tears fell from the tired eyes of Donna Leonor, and bending her knees and lifting her whole soul to the heavens where the moon was beginning to rise, she murmured, in her boundless grief and faith, 'O Holy Virgin of the Pillar, Lady mine, watch over us both, watch over us all....’

Don Ruy was entering the fresh patio of his house in the hot hour, when a young peasant got up from a stone seat in the shade and taking from his scrip a letter, handed it to him murmuring, 'Haste and read it, sir, for I have to return to Cabril to the person who sent me.’... Don Ruy opened the parchment and, dazzled by what he saw, beat it against his breast as though to bury it in his heart.... The young peasant anxiously insisted: 'Make haste, sir, make haste! You need not reply. Only give me a sign that you have received the message.’ Don Ruy, very pallid, pulled off one of his gloves embroidered with twisted silk, and the youth rolled it up and hid it in his scrip, and was already making off on the points of his sandals when Don Ruy detained him with a sign: 'Listen, what road are you taking to Cabril.’ 'The shortest and loneliest for bold men, which leads past Gallows Hill.’ 'Good.’ Don Ruy climbed the stone stairs and, once in his apartment, without even removing his hat, again read by the lattice window that blessed parchment in which Donna Leonor summoned him at night to her room and the entire possession of her being. And he was not astonished by this offer after so constant and steady an indifference on her part. Rather he at once saw in it a love which was very astute, because very strong; a love that, with great patience, hides itself in the face of obstacles and perils, and silently prepares its hour of satisfaction, all the better and more delicious because so prepared. She had always loved him, then, since the blessed morning when their eyes had crossed in Our Lady’s porch! And whilst he was circling those garden walls and complaining of her coldness, which seemed to him colder than the cold walls themselves, she had already given him her soul; and, full of constancy, with loving sagacity, suppressing the least sigh, lulling suspicion to sleep, she was preparing the radiant night in which she would also give him her body. Such firmness and such shrewd understanding in the affairs of love made her, in his eyes, all the more beautiful and the more to be desired! How impatiently he looked then at the sun, that lingered so that afternoon in its descent towards the mountains! In his room, with the lattice-blinds drawn, to concentrate his happiness the better, without resting, he lovingly made ready everything for his triumphal journey—fine clothing, dainty laces, a jerkin of black velvet and perfumed essences. Twice he went down to the stable to make certain that his horse was well shod and well groomed, and he bent and re-bent on the floor the sword-blade he was to wear at his girdle to test it.... But his chief care was the road to Cabril, though he knew it well, and the village clustering round the Franciscan Monastery, and the old Roman bridge with its Calvary, and the deep lane that led to the heritage of the Lord of Lara. In that very winter he had passed by there as he was going out to hunt on the mountains with two friends from Astorga, and had caught sight of the tower of the Laras, and thought: 'There is the tower of my ungrateful one.’ How he had deceived himself! The nights were now moonlight, and he would leave Segovia quietly by the gate of St. Mauros. A short gallop and he would be at Gallows Hill. He knew it well also, that place of sadness and terror, with its four stone pillars where criminals were hanged, and where their bodies remained, swayed to and fro by the winds and parched by the sun, until the cords grew rotten and the skeletons fell down, white, and cleaned of their flesh by the ravens’ beaks. Behind the hill lay the Ladies’ Lagoon. The last time he had been by there was on the day of the Apostle St. Matthias, when the Corregedor and the Confraternities of Charity and Peace went in procession to give holy burial to the skeletons which had fallen on the black earth, picked of their flesh by the birds. From there the road ran smooth and straight to Cabril.

Thus did Don Ruy meditate his venturesome journey whilst the afternoon was waning. But when it grew dark, and the bats began to circle about the church towers, and the niches of the Holy Souls were lighted up in the corners of the square, the brave youth felt a strange fear, the fear of that happiness which was drawing near to him, and which seemed to him supernatural. Was it true then that this woman, famous throughout Castile for her divine beauty, and more inaccessible than a constellation, would in a short space be his—all his, in the silence and security of an alcove, when these devotional lights before the pictures of the Holy Souls had not yet been extinguished? And what had he done to enjoy so great a good? He had trod the flags of a square, he had waited in the porch of a church, and sought with his eyes two other eyes which, either through indifference or want of attention, remained lowered. Then, without grief, he had abandoned his hope.... And lo! suddenly those absent eyes seek him, and those closed arms open to him, wide and bare, and with her body and soul that woman cries out to him: 'O foolish man, that you did not understand me! Come! She who discouraged you now belongs to you!’ Was there ever such fortune as this? So great, so rare was it, that, unless human experience errs, ill-fortune must already be in pursuit! It was so of a truth already, since how great an ill-fortune lay in the knowledge that after such good fortune, when, early in the morning, he left her divine embrace and retired to Segovia, his Leonor, the supreme good of his life, and so unexpectedly acquired for a moment, would straightway fall again under the power of another master! What did it matter? Let troubles and jealousies come afterwards! That night was magnificently his, the whole world an empty vision, and the one reality that dimly-lighted room at Cabril, where she would await him with unbound hair! Eagerly he descended the stairs and threw himself on his horse; then, for prudence’ sake, he crossed the square very slowly, with his sombrero worn clear of his face, as though he were making an ordinary promenade in search of the freshness of night outside the walls. No meeting disturbed him until he got to the gate of St. Mauros. There, a beggar, who was squatted in the darkness of an arch monotonously playing his sanfona, begged with a whine the Virgin and all the Saints to have that gentle knight in their sweet and holy guard. Don Ruy had stopped to throw him an alms, when he remembered that he had not been that evening to the church at the hour of vespers to pray and beg a blessing of his divine Godmother. He immediately leapt down from his horse, for, just close to the old arch, a lamp flickered, lighting a picture. It was an image of the Virgin, with her breast transfixed by seven swords. Don Ruy knelt, rested his hat on the flags, and with raised hands said a Salve Regina with passionate ardour. The yellow reflection of the light enveloped the face of Our Lady, who, either not feeling the pain of the seven points, or as if they only gave her ineffable joys, smiled with bright red lips. Whilst he was praying, the small bell in the convent of St. Dominic, on one side, began to sound the Agony. In the black shadow of the arch the sanfona ceased, and the beggar murmured, 'There lies a friar dying!’ Don Ruy said an Ave Maria for the friar who was dying. The Virgin of the seven swords smiled sweetly—the passing bell, then, was not a bad omen! Don Ruy mounted his horse gaily and set off. Beyond the gate of St. Mauros, after passing some potters’ hovels, the road followed a narrow, black course between lofty aloes. Behind the low hills, at the bottom of the dark plain, rose the first reflection, yellow and languid, of the full moon, which was still hidden. Don Ruy rode slowly, fearing to reach Cabril very early, before the maidservants and the men had finished their evening work and the rosary. Why had not Donna Leonor appointed him an hour in her clear and deliberate letter?... Then his imagination ran on ahead, broke into the garden at Cabril, and flew up the promised ladder, and he, too, let himself go after it in an eager race that tore up the stones of the ill-laid road. Then he drew in his panting horse. It was early! It was early! And he resumed his weary pace, feeling his heart beat against his breast like an imprisoned bird against the bars.

So he reached the Calvary, where the road split into two roads, more closely joined than the prongs of a fork, both cutting through the pine wood. Baring his head before the image of the Crucified, Don Ruy had a moment of anguish, because he did not remember which of them led to Gallows Hill. He had already plunged into the gloomier of the two, when, from between the silent pines a light appeared dancing in the darkness. It was an old woman in rags with long flowing tresses bent over a staff, and carrying a lamp. 'Where does this road lead to?’ shouted Ruy. The old woman swung her lamp higher up to observe the knight—‘To Xarama.’ The light and the old woman immediately disappeared, melting away into the shade as if they had risen up there only to warn the knight of his mistaken road. He had already turned back with a dash, and rounding the Calvary, he galloped along the other and wider road, until, over the brightness of the sky, he caught sight of the black pillars and black beams of Gallows Hill. Then he stayed motionless, erect in his stirrups. On a tall, bare hill without either grass or heather, connected by a low wall, full of breaches, the four pillars of granite rose up black and enormous in the yellow moonlight, looking like the four corners of a ruined house. Upon the pillars rested four stout beams. From the beams were suspended four hanged men, black and rigid, in the still, dumb air. All around seemed dead as they. Fat birds of prey slept perched upon the beams. Beyond, the dead water of the Ladies’ Lagoon shone livid, and in the heavens the moon was growing large and full. Don Ruy murmured the Paternoster due from every Christian to those guilty souls. Then he urged on his horse, and passed by—when, in the immense silence and the immense solitude, a voice rose and resounded, a voice that called him, supplicating and slow: 'Knight, stay you, come hither!’ Don Ruy drew rein sharply, and standing in his stirrups cast his astonished eyes over all that ominous wilderness. All he saw was the rough hill, the still, shining water, the beams, the dead men. He thought it must have been an illusion of the night, or the daring of some wandering demon, and calmly spurred his horse, without alarm or haste, as if he were in a street in Segovia. But, behind him, the voice came again and more urgently called him, with anxiety, almost with affliction: 'Wait, knight; do not go on; return; come here!’... Don Ruy pulled up again, and turning in his saddle, boldly gazed at the four bodies suspended from the beams. The voice sounded from their direction, and being human could only issue from a human form! One of these hanged men, then, had called him with all that haste and anxiety. Did there remain in any, by God’s wonderful mercy, breath and life? Or was it that—a still greater marvel—one of those half-putrified carcasses detained him to transmit him warnings from beyond the grave?... But whether the voice proceeded from a living breast or a dead breast, it would be great cowardice to go off as if in a fright without attending to it and listening. He immediately drove his trembling horse into the middle of the hill, and stopping, erect and calm, with his hand at his side, cried, after steadfastly gazing at the four suspended bodies, one by one: 'Which of you hanged men dared to call for Don Ruy de Cardenas?’

Then the one who had his back to the full moon replied from the top of the cord, very quietly and naturally, like a man talking from his window to the street: 'It was I, sir.’

Don Ruy drove his horse forward. He could not distinguish the man’s face, which was buried in his breast, and hidden by his long, black, falling tresses. All he saw was that his hands were free and unbound, and also his bare feet, which were already withered and the colour of bitumen.

'What do you want of me?’ The hanged man sighed and murmured: 'Do me the great favour, sir, to cut the cord by which I am suspended.’ Don Ruy snatched his sword, and with a sure blow cut the half-rotten cord. With a sinister sound of clashing bones the body fell on the ground, and lay stretched out there for a moment, but immediately righted itself on its ill-secure and still sleeping feet, and raised towards Don Ruy a dead face, which was a skull with the skin tightly glued to it, and more yellow than the moon that beat upon it. The eyes showed neither movement nor light. The two lips grinned in a stony smile. From the whitest of teeth issued the point of a very black tongue. Don Ruy displayed neither terror nor loathing, but calmly sheathing his sword, asked: 'Art thou alive or dead?’ The man slowly contracted his shoulders: 'Sir, I know not. Who knows what is life? Who knows what is death?’ ... 'But, what do you want of me?’ With his long, fleshless fingers the hanged man enlarged the knot of the cord that still encircled his neck, and said very calmly and firmly: 'Sir, I must go with you to Cabril, whither you are going.’