The Araucanians open Valdivia’s mouth and fill it with dirt. They make him swallow dirt, handful after handful. They swell up his body with Chilean soil as they tell him: “You want gold? Eat gold. Stuff yourself with gold.”
(5 and 26)
1553: Potosí Beauty and the Mayor
If Potosí had a hospital and she passed by the door, the sick would be cured. But this city or bunch of houses, born less than six years ago, has no hospital.
The mining camp has grown crazily, now containing twenty thousand souls. Each morning new roofs rear up, raised by adventurers who come from everywhere, elbowing and stabbing each other, in search of an easy fortune. No man takes a chance in its earth streets without a sword and leather doublet, and the women are condemned to live behind shutters. The least ugly run the greatest risk; and among them the Beauty — a spinster on top of everything — has no alternative but to cut herself off from the world. She only emerges at dawn, heavily chaperoned, to attend Mass, because just seeing her makes anyone crave to gobble her up, either in one gulp or in sips, and one-armed people to clap hands.
The lord mayor of the town, Don Diego de Esquivel, has cast an eye upon her. They say that this is why he goes about with a broad grin, and all the world knows that he hasn’t smiled since that remote day in his infancy when he hurt his facial muscles trying it.
(167)
To the Strains of the Barrel Organ a Blind Man Sings to Her Who Sleeps Alone
Lady,
why do you sleep alone,
When you could sleep with a lad
who has trousers
with polished buttons
and jacket
with silver buttonholes?
Up above
there’s a green olive tree.
Down below
there’s a green orange tree.
And in between
there’s a black bird
that sucks
its lump of sugar.
(196)
1553: Potosí The Mayor and the Gallant
“Don’t sleep alone,” says someone, “sleep with that one.” And points him out. The girl’s favorite is a soldier of fine bearing who has honey in his eyes and voice. Don Diego chews over his despair and decides to await his opportunity.
The opportunity comes one night, in one of Potosí’s gambling dens, by the hand of a friar who has gambled away the contents of his begging bowl. A skilled card sharp is picking up the fruits of his efforts when the cleaned-out one lowers an arm, pulls a dagger out from beneath his habit, and nails the man’s hand to the table. The gallant, who is there out of pure curiosity, jumps into the fray.
All are taken under arrest.
The mayor, Don Diego, has to decide the matter. He faces the gallant and makes him an offer: “Fine or beating.”
“A fine I can’t pay. I am poor, but a gentleman of pure blood and honored lineage.”
“Twelve lashes for this prince,” decides the mayor.
“To a Spanish gentleman!” protests the soldier.
“Tell it to my other ear, this one doesn’t believe it,” says Don Diego, and sits down to enjoy the beating.
When they unbind him, the beaten lover threatens: “I’ll take revenge on those ears of yours, Mr. Mayor. I lend them to you for a year. You can use them for that long, but then they’re mine.”
(167)
1554: Cuzco The Mayor and the Ears
Ever since the gallant’s threat, Don Diego feels his ears every morning on waking up and measures them in the mirror. He has found that his ears grow when they are happy and that cold and depression make them shrink; that glances and calumnies heat them to bright red and that they flap desperately, like birds in a cage, when they hear the screech of a steel blade being sharpened.
To ensure their safety, Don Diego takes them to Cuzco. Guards and slaves accompany him on the long journey.
One Sunday morning, Don Diego is leaving church after Mass, more parading than walking, followed by the little black boy who carries his velvet hassock. Suddenly a pair of eyes fastens on his ears with sure aim, and a blue cloak flashes through the crowd and disappears, fluttering, in the distance.
His ears feel they have been hurt.
(167)
1554: Lima The Mayor and the Bill Collector
Before long the cathedral bells will be ringing out midnight. It will mark just a year since that stupid episode that obliged Don Diego to move to Cuzco, and from Cuzco to Lima.
Don Diego confirms for the thousandth time that the doors are bolted and that the people standing guard even on the roof have not fallen asleep. He has personally inspected the house corner by corner, without forgetting even the woodpile in the kitchen.
Soon he will throw a party. There will be bullfights and masquerades, joustings and fireworks, fowls roasting on spits, and barrels of wine with open spigots. Don Diego will knock Lima’s eye out. At the party he will try out his new damask cloak and his new steed with the black velvet gold-studded saddle, which goes so well with the crimson caparison.
He sits down to await the chimes. He counts them. Takes a deep breath.
A slave raises the candelabrum and lights his carpeted way to the bedroom. Another slave takes off his doublet and shoes, those shoes that look like gloves, and his openwork white hose. The slaves close the door and retire to take up their lookout posts until morning.
Don Diego blows out the candles, buries his head in the big silk pillow and, for the first time in a year, falls into an unperturbed sleep.
Much later, the suit of armor that adorns a corner of the bedroom begins to move. Sword in hand, the armor advances in the darkness, very slowly, toward the bed.
(167)
1554: Mexico City Sepúlveda
The city council of Mexico, cream of the colonial nobility, resolves to send Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda two hundred pesos in gold in recognition of his services and to encourage him in the future.
Sepúlveda, the humanist, is not only a doctor and archpriest, chronicler and chaplain to Charles V. He also shines in business, as witness his growing fortune; and in the courts, he works as an ardent publicity agent for the owners of America’s lands and Indians.
In rebuttal to Bartolomé de las Casas’s assertions, Sepúlveda maintains that Indians are serfs by nature, according to God’s will, and that the Holy Scriptures contain examples to spare of the punishment of the unjust. When Las Casas proposes that Spaniards learn the Indians’ languages and Indians the language of Castile, Sepúlveda replies that the difference between Spaniards and Indians is the same as that between male and female and almost the same as that between man and monkeys. For Sepúlveda, what Las Casas calls abuse and crime is a legitimate system of dominion, and he commends the arts of hunting against those who, born to obey, refuse slavery.
The king, who publishes Las Casas’s attacks, places a ban on Sepúlveda’s treatise on the just causes of the colonial war. Sepúlveda accepts the censure smiling and without protest. In the last analysis, reality is more potent than bad conscience, and he well knows what those in command all know in their hearts: The desire to make money, not to win souls, is what builds empires.