wondrous spectacle with tears in their eyes, but with varying reactions, for what were tears of devotion and tenderness in the Catholics, were tears of compunction and remorse in the Heretics. The Catholics celebrated the triumphs of Faith while most of the Heretics deplored the errors of the Sect, only one or two rebels, in the face of the evidence, clung to their cherished absurdities and appeared to court disgrace. But they could not deny their amazement, so that those very men who before the contest were predicting triumphs, were so petrified by events that they became like the first statues erected to commemorate the victory.
Raimundo Silva paused to observe, The following paragraph describes the conversion of Guialdo along with his relatives and friends, I'll spare you this passage, but what you must hear is the peroration, How admirable the enduring virtue of St Antony. A virtue capable of transforming Beasts into humans to confound Mankind. David complained that the irrational servants were only familiar with the stable where they found sustenance, while ignoring their Lord who provided for them, but on this occasion by order of St Antony, the ingratitude of its nature forgotten, this grateful living creature'scorned sustenance and the stable in order to worship the true Lord who had given it both life and nourishment. Oh blessed Animal. You have now shown that judicious Beasts do exist, for you have given due warning to so many brutish Men. Once in Bethlehem, you refrained from munching the hay in order to protect the new-born Jesus, now in Toulouse you refrain from eating barley in order to worship God in the Holy Sacrament. You ignored the hay in the Manger in order to adore the Child Jesus made manifest in the house of bread, you ignored the barley during the contest in order to venerate Christ concealed in the substance of bread. You have thus shown yourself capable of reason and deserve our applause. Your instinct may be fantasy, but has all the appearance of discourse, your notions may not be reasoning, yet seems akin to understanding. Deprived of memory, you appear to know what you are venerating, deprived of willpower, you show affection for what you adore, without understanding, you appear to discover judgment in what you know. St Antony worked two miracles in you with a single prodigy that might be infinitely prodigious in this one portent. He made your brute instinct look like a rational idea because you adored, he made your bestial hunger look like penitential abstinence because you did not eat. There were not simply two surprises, because there were many more brutes present on this occasion. Guialdo was blind in his acceptance of that mystery, slow to show Faith in that presence, but Antony's faith opened his eyes before this singular miracle, Guialdo's faith stirred when confronted with this wonder never before witnessed. Behold how a single action by sovereign St Antony brought about three incredible miracles, because thrice refined in virtue whereby one became triple, because thrice miraculous in its works in that single miracle it became a wondrous superlative. Amen.
Raimundo Silva closed the formidable book with a gesture of mock solemnity and repeated, Amen. Does this amen appear in the author's discourse, or was it introduced by you, asked Maria Sara, An oratorical bombast such as this demanded no less, What a strange world it must have been, that such things should have been believed and written, I'd prefer to say in which such things are not written, but believed even today, We're positively mad, Do you mean us, No, I was referring to people in general, I'm one of those people who thinks that human beings have always been mentally deranged, As platitudes go, that isn't bad, Perhaps it will sound less like a platitude if I tell you that in my opinion, madness is the result of the shock produced in man by his own intelligence and we still haven't recovered from the trauma three million years later, So, according to this hypothesis of yours, we're going from bad to worse, I'm no fortune-teller but I fear so. He went to put the book on the table just as Maria Sara was getting to her feet, they stood facing each other, neither can escape nor wants to. He took her by the shoulders, the first time he had touched her in this way, she raised her head, her eyes were shining brightly, caught by the dim light of the lamp, and whispered, Say nothing, not a word, don't tell me that you like me, that you love me, simply give me a kiss. He drew her gently towards him without their bodies touching, and slowly leaned forward until his lips touched hers, at first the merest touch, the most delicate contact, and then, after some hesitation, their mouths quickly opened, their sudden kiss total, intense, and eager. Maria Sara, Maria Sara, he murmured, not daring to use other words, but she made no reply, perhaps she still did not know how to say Raimundo, for anyone who thinks it is easy to pronounce a name for the first time when you're in love, is much mistaken. Maria Sara drew back, he tried to hold on to her, but she shook her head, moved away, slipped quietly from his arms, I must go, she said, give me my coat, it's in the study, and my bag, please. When Raimundo Silva returned, she was holding a sheet of paper in her hand and smiling, The world is full of such madmen, she said, and Raimundo Silva replied, Mogueime, I can see him below, in front of the Porta de Ferro, awaiting the order to attack, Ouroana, now that dusk has fallen, will be summoned to the knight Heinrich's tent so that he might take his pleasure, as for us, we're the Moors up here on a tower where we think we can watch destiny advance. Maria Sara took her coat, without putting it on, and her bag, and made for the bedroom door. He accompanied her, tried once more to detain her, No, she said, losing no time in opening the door on to the landing, from where she announced, I'll be back tomorrow, there's no need to bring me the photocopies at the office, and please, no telephone calls.
Raimundo Silva scarcely ate any dinner and stayed up late writing, when the time came to go to bed he realised he would be incapable of turning down the covers, of lying on those laundered sheets, or so much as disturbing the pillow on top of the bolster. He took two extra covers from the wardrobe and carried them into the sitting-room, improvised a bed on the narrow divan and settled down to sleep.
...
IT IS GENERALLY CONSIDERED a show of unsurpassable bravura when a man condemned to death himself gives the firing squad the order to shoot, and even the most peaceful or cowardly of us, attended by favourable circumstances, at some time must have dreamed of this glorious demise, especially if someone survived to tell the tale, for glories without anyone to narrate them are valued less. In fact, it is necessary to have come into the world with nerves of steel, or, if shaky and cracking, to be possessed of a patriotic or similar zeal beyond the ordinary, to cry out with a hoarse and then for ever afterwards silent voice, Fire, somehow alleviating the conscience of the assassins from any sense of guilt, while elevating our own conscience in one last glow to the sublime heights of sacrifice and total abnegation. It is possible that the common spectacle of such gestures, especially when transferred to the screen, contributes to an exaltation capable of turning the most mediocre person into a hero, only by chance absent from the scene of the drama, precisely because they decided to come to the cinema today, to see, one minute feigned, the next real, how the famous actor simulated death or how, with the realism of a documentary, an executed man without a name died for good. There is no hint of malice in this doubt, only what we assume to be true, that no one condemned to the electric chair, gallows, guillotine, garrote or stake will have given the order to switch on the current, open the trap-door, release the blade, turn the screw, or spark the match, perhaps because such deaths are so undignified, including those with the longest tradition in art, perhaps because they lack the military factor, the institution of arms, where heroism is more readily found, for even when the condemned man was no more than a common civilian, the shots he received in the chest turned out to be a ransom for his mediocrity and were the viaticum, the safe-conduct, thanks to which he will be permitted, when the time comes, to enter the paradise of heroes, without any wrangling over meaning and cause, for there one loses any notion of these differences on earth.
This lengthy circumlocution had no other justification than to show how, in all innocence, it can happen that a person gives voice to his own death, even if it should not be imminent, and how, in this case, words spoken in piety are transformed into enraged serpents that would not turn back for anything in this world. It was noon, and the muezzins had climbed up on to the balcony of the minarets to summon the faithful to prayer, because although the city is under siege and plunged into the turmoil of warfare, the rites of worship must not be neglected, and although the muezzin of the great mosque knew that he could be seen on all sides by the Christian soldiers, especially by those besieging the nearby Porta de Ferro, he remained unconcerned, firstly because he was not so close that he might be hit by a stray javelin, secondly because his own words would protect him from any danger,
