Sandoval was too drunk to be offended. He took the whole thing as only exaggerated graciousness from his new friend, who undoubtedly did not want to take his money the first time they had met. They left the place arm in arm. When they parted, Paco Serrano offered to meet Fernando Sandoval the next day for an aperitif.
When Julieta Sandoval was sixteen years old, she got a special maid for her personal use, a plumpish lively blonde called Trini, not much older than her mistress. She was the daughter of a washerwoman who had worked long for the Sandoval family.
This girl seemed to give an undue importance to the relations between men and women, an importance which nowadays would seem mild, but which at that time was excessive. She apparently thought of nothing else and considered it part of her duties to her mistress to act as a matchmaker and to encourage every young admirer whose florid missives she often brought in great secrecy.
Her duties as a maid were not sufficient to keep her very busy and consequently she had a great deal of time to herself which she employed reading strange things, standing on the balcony, or carrying on conversations on forbidden subjects with her mistress.
At this point Garcia’s story took a not entirely unexpected turn for the pornographic and I halted him. I don’t want to project myself too much into this and am not averse to the grand classical ribaldry of a Boccaccio or a Quevedo, but the uncalled-for and irrelevant pornography that mars like grease spots much of our literature at the turn of the century does not appear engaging and in Spain we have coined another word for it.
I told Garcia this and it precipitated an altercation. I said that this was not even pornography but what we call in Spain sicalipsis, which is not only unnecessary but reprehensible and not only discouraged but condemned and prosecuted by the postal and other authorities which maintain law and order and that I also objected to it on the grounds of literary integrity, because it was not of the essence in the story and I found its connection, if any, entirely too farfetched: “You have thrown that in only to shock the reader.”
He protested heatedly that this was not the case, that the passage was not sicaliptic, but simply bold and real and that it showed more artistic integrity by not shrinking from facts no matter how objectionable and that it was very relevant indeed as he expected to develop from it the subsequent neuroses of the heroine.
That is what he said and also some other things, but I argued against literature that attempts to gain popularity by appealing to the same giggly and prudishness-on-vacation spirit as does a dirty joke, whose lack of humorous merit is easily exposed by cleaning it up, and our argument descended to almost childish acrimony. To the devil with the neuroses of the heroine. It would be simpler to develop it from an early fall on her head when she was a baby. However, and to clinch things, I said that if I had anything to do with the translation, I would not tolerate any more of such passages which could only offend the ears of the English reader and create the wrong impression about our fair sex and our country where we can be as mid-Victorian as the best. I ended by pouring myself a smug fathom of the brandy.
Garcia glanced at the bottle and me: “There is also some regular whiskey if you want any.”
I had had my say and calmed down, so I kept my peace and told him that he did not have to get me drunk in order to read to me.
“I thought it might wash away some of your old-fashioned ideas and loosen up your inhibitions.”
“Never mind my inhibitions. You just go ahead and read.”
He turned over five pages, no less, and then:
All this created a strong bond of friendship between Julieta and Trini. The maid was the most intimate companion of Julieta. She was her confidante, shared her emotions and became indispensable to her. Between them a strange relationship was developing and who knows where it would have ended had it not been for the interfering incidents which follow.
Fernando Sandoval discovered one good day that his sister’s maid was exceedingly likable. He assayed one or two tentative advances which met with but a very weak rebuff and the siege began. He spied on all her movements, approached her whenever the opportunity presented itself and forced his attentions mercilessly behind every conspiring door or portiere until she rushed away to the safety of her mistress’s room.
Once, as she came out of that room, she met Fernando in the corridor. Her naturally pink complexion was glowing with a flush of excitement. Fernando made for her hungrily and held her in his arms.
“No. please. Señorito. oh God!”
She could resist no longer and met Fernando brutally, pressing herself against him with all the force that mighty nature can command at times. It was a nerve-shattering kiss. She experienced the sensation of rolling backwards and sinking in an abyss where she could exercise no control, a wonderful, wonderful abyss, and by force of instinct, as anyone who sinks, she pressed more that which she held.
Their love affair progressed rapidly from then on. She was no longer free. She was entirely at his mercy.
At first they did not leave each other a moment’s peace. It was a tempestuous affair. To live in the same house, to have constant opportunity to love in a clandestine manner, acted like a whip on their desires, urging them, driving them to one another. Trini seemed to have forgotten Julieta. Those conversations and intimate sessions which had constituted their mutual delight ceased abruptly. Trini limited herself to her strict duties as a maid and had resumed her position in regard to her mistress cruelly. If Julieta broached the subject they used to like so well, Trini answered:
“Don’t think so much about those things. It is not good for you.”
Julieta could not understand what had happened to her maid and this was the first emotional shock, a strong shock to her tense feelings.
In the house everybody had noticed more or less the change in Fernando’s behavior. No one can help noticing a person whom one has scarcely seen for years and who suddenly appears at the dinner table every night and then does not even rush out. Even Don Mariano noticed it and once said to his son while at dinner:
“What is the matter, Fernando? All this sudden seriousness? Have you repented like Saint Francis for all your worldly sins? Are you getting ready to enter a convent?”
“No, it is nothing particular, simply that Madrid life is getting boresome, always the same thing over and over again. Haven’t you noticed it?”
“Me? No! I never notice those things.”
“I decided to take a little rest. That’s all.”
“Hmm — it does not seem to agree with you at all. You look paler and thinner than ever.”
“I? Why, I never felt better in my life.”
“Perhaps it is my imagination and you really are redder and fatter. I have not seen you for such a long time that I almost forgot what you looked like, but I have a vague recollection that you looked healthier.”
“That is because I was much younger then.”
Fernando grew uneasy. He began to view the matter from a different angle. His meetings with Trini began to take place outside the house at a certain dwelling in the Street of Jardines where a discreet lady accommodated any couple in a cozy room, but this too was difficult. In Madrid too many people could recognize them.
He had thought that he could enjoy the young maid for a while and then tire of her. But she clung to him. Every day she grew more passionately in love. She was a perfect pleasure machine and Fernando became hopelessly entrapped.