Of Love and Other Demons Read Online Free PDF Page A

Marquisclosed the mosquito netting with the greatest care so that the bats would not drain her blood as she slept. It was almost ten, and the chorus of madwomen was intolerable in the house redeemed by the expulsion of the slaves.
    The Marquis set loose the mastiffs, and they raced to the grandmother’s bedroom and sniffed at the cracks in the doors, panting and yelping. The Marquis scratched their headswith his fingertips and calmed them with the good news: ‘It is Sierva, she will be living with us from now on.’
    His sleep was brief and restless because the madwomen sang until two. The first thing he did when he woke with the roosters was to go to the girl’s room, but she was notthere. He found her in the shack with the slave women. The one sleeping closest to her woke with a start.
    ‘She cameby herself, Señor,’ she said before he could ask the question. ‘I didn’t even know.’
    The Marquis knew it was true. He asked which of them had been with Sierva María when the dog bit her. The only mulatta, whose name was Caridad del Cobre, identified herself, trembling with fear. The Marquis reassured her.
    ‘Take charge of her as if you were Dominga de Adviento,’ he said.
    He explained her duties.He warned her not to let the girl out of her sight for an instant and to treat her with affection and understanding but not to pamper her. Most important of all, she was not to cross the thornbush fence he would place between the slave-yard and the rest of the house. In the morning when she awoke and at night before she went to sleep she was to give him a full report without his having to askfor it.
    ‘Be careful what you do and how you do it,’ he concluded. ‘You will be the only one responsible for seeing that these orders of mine are carried out.’
    At seven in the morning, after returning the dogs to their cages, the Marquis went to Abrenuncio’s house. The doctor came to the door in person, for he had no slaves or servants. The Marquis himself uttered the reproach he believed hedeserved.
    ‘This is no hour for a visit,’ he said.
    The doctor, grateful for the horse he had just received, opened his heart. He led him through the courtyard to a shed, all that remained of an old smithy except a ruinedforge. The handsome two-year-old sorrel, far from familiar surroundings, seemed restless. Abrenuncio soothed the animal with pats on the cheek while he whispered empty promisesin Latin into its ear.
    The Marquis told him that the dead horse had been buried in the former garden of the Amor de Dios Hospital, which had been consecrated as a cemetery for the wealthy during the cholera plague. Abrenuncio thanked him for his excessive kindness. As they spoke, he noticed that his visitor stood at a certain distance. The Marquis confessed that he had never had the courage toride.
    ‘Horses frighten me as much as chickens do,’ he said.
    ‘That is too bad, because lack of communication with horses has impeded human progress,’ said Abrenuncio. ‘If we ever broke down the barriers, we could produce the centaur.’
    The interior of the house, illuminated by two windows open to the great sea, was arranged with the excessive fastidiousness of a confirmed bachelor. The atmospherewas permeated with a fragrance of balms, which encouraged belief in the efficacy of medicine. There was a neat and ordered desk and a glass case containing porcelain flasks labeled in Latin. The curative harp, covered by golden dust, was relegated to a corner. Most notable were the books, many of them in Latin, with ornate spines. They were behind glass doors and on open shelves, or arrangedwith great care on the floor, and the physician walked the narrow paper canyons with the ease of a rhinoceros among the roses. The Marquis was amazed at the number of volumes.
    ‘All knowledge must be in this room,’ he said.
    ‘Books are worthless,’ Abrenuncio said with goodhumor. ‘Life has helped me cure the diseases that other doctors cause with their