Of Love and Other Demons Read Online Free PDF

medicines.’
    He removed a sleeping cat fromthe large armchair, which was his, so that the Marquis could sit down. He served him a herbal brew that he prepared on his alchemist’s burner and spoke about his medical experiences, until he realized that the Marquis had lost interest. It was true: in a sudden movement he had stood and turned his back, looking through the window at the ill-tempered sea. At last, with his back still turned, hefound the courage to begin.
    ‘Doctor,’ he murmured.
    Abrenuncio had not expected him to speak.
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘Protected by medical confidentiality, and only for your information, I confess that what they say is true,’ said the Marquis in a solemn tone. ‘The rabid dog also bit my daughter.’
    He looked at the doctor and saw a soul at peace.
    ‘I know,’ said the doctor. ‘And I suppose that is why you havecome here so early.’
    ‘It is,’ said the Marquis. And he repeated the question he had already asked about the rabies victim in the hospital: ‘What can we do?’
    Instead of his brutal response of the previous day, Abrenuncio asked to see Sierva María. That was what the Marquis had come to request. And so they were in agreement, and the carriage was waiting for them at the door.
    When they reachedthe house the Marquis found Bernarda seated at her dressing table, arranging her hair for no one, with the coquetry of those distant years whenthey made love for the last time, and which he had erased from memory. The room was saturated with the springtime fragrance of her soaps. She saw her husband in the mirror and said without acerbity, ‘Who are we to go around giving away horses as presents?’
    The Marquis evaded the question. He picked up her everyday tunic from the unmade bed, threw it over Bernarda and with no compassion ordered, ‘Get dressed, the doctor is here.’
    ‘God help me,’ she said.
    ‘Not for you, although you are in dire need of one,’ he said. ‘He has come to see the girl.’
    ‘It won’t do her any good,’ Bernarda said. ‘She’ll either die or she won’t: there’s no other possibility.’But curiosity got the better of her. ‘Who is he?’
    ‘Abrenuncio,’ said the Marquis.
    Bernarda was appalled. She preferred to die just as she was, alone and naked, rather than to place her honor in, the hands of a grasping Jew. He had been her parents’ doctor, and they had repudiated him because he divulged the condition of his patients in order to glorify his diagnoses. The Marquis confronted her.
    ‘Although you do not wish it, and although I wish it even less, you are her mother,’ he said. ‘On the basis of that sacred right, I ask you to consent to the examination.’
    ‘As far as I’m concerned, you can all do whatever you want,’ said Bernarda. ‘I’m a dead woman.’
    Contrary to expectations, the girl submitted without fuss to a meticulous exploration of her body, displaying the same curiosityshe might have shown toward a wind-up toy.
    ‘Doctorssee with their hands,’ Abrenuncio told her.
    Amused, the girl smiled at him for the first time.
    The signs of her good health were plain to see, for despite her forlorn air she had a well-proportioned body covered by an almost invisible golden down and showing the first buds of an auspicious flowering. Her teeth were perfect, her eyes clear-sighted,her feet calm, her hands adroit, and each strand of hair was the prelude to a long life. She answered his subtle questions with good humor and a great deal of authority, and one would have had to know her very well to realize that none of her replies was true. She tensed only when the physician discovered the tiny scar on her ankle. Abrenuncio demonstrated his astuteness: ‘Did you fall?’
    Thegirl nodded without blinking: ‘From the swing.’
    The doctor began to speak to himself in Latin. The Marquis interrupted: ‘Say it in Spanish.’
    I am not talking to you,’ said Abrenuncio. ‘I think in Low Latin.’
    Sierva María was delighted