Goya's Glass by Monika Zgustová, Matthew Tree Page A

your wife’s shoulder?” I mocked him.
    I was triumphant, and afraid. Francisco had already staggered out the door.
    After a while María came in to tell me that the royal painter felt ill. I stopped eating dessert and rushed to Francisco’s room.
    I walked across his studio. Another portrait, a large bust of me, just started was cut to pieces, and another had been cut through by a dagger. The painter had collapsed onto the bed, white as a sheet, his lips bitten until they bled. I kissed him. I cleaned the blood away with kisses, as I had done, a long time ago, with the roe deer. He didn’t so much as move. I shook him gently.
    “Paco, my love, forgive me,” I whispered.
    The man didn’t move.
    “Paco, Paco, my love, do you hear me?” I exclaimed in a panic.
    The man opened his eyes, and gave me an ugly look. When he saw my expression, he softened a little. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come.
    “Paco, say something, my love . . . ”
    He looked at my lips.
    “I hear nothing,” he said in a hoarse voice, “only the echo of the tide in my head.”
    “My love, what can I do for you?”
    He read the question on my lips. With the last of his forces he said with a grating voice: “Don’t go out for a ride with that conceited oaf. Stay with me.”
    “Francisco, the Duchess of Alba never changes her plans. You didn’t change yours either, before Christmas. But what does this matter? What matters is that I am with you!”
    “I can’t hear you. I’m as deaf as a post. But I know what you are telling me. I will never hear you again; all I have left is this dreadful tide,” he said, hoarse. He covered his ears with his hands and turned face down.
    “Paco, my love, you will always be mine, only mine,” I whispered desperately, even though the man who was lying down could not hear me.
    I had María come in so that she could take care of him.
    I went with Godoy to see the sunset by the sea, but I was restless and came back quickly.
    I ran up to Francisco’s chambers. His portrait, cut into slithers, stared at me. The drawing album and the portrait of the black maja had disappeared. As had Francisco. Instead of him I found a self-portrait. He had done it with ink and brush. I know of no other painting so full of disgrace and unhappiness as this one. The curls of Francisco’s hair, the chin covered with the hair of his beard, the face of a destroyed man. And what eyes! It was as if they were looking straight into hell itself, as if they saw a dance of monsters such as those he often saw everywhere. Or, what is worse, as if he were looking at any empty space that cannot be filled in any possible way. In that look there is all thehorror that a man is capable of feeling. And something in it that was addressed to me. The face of a destroyed man.
    “María! Where is Goya?”
    “The royal painter left an hour ago.”
    “For Madrid? A messenger, fast!”
    “Perhaps for Seville, or possibly for Cadiz. Or for Madrid, who knows? The royal painter was not feeling at all well. I think he is seriously ill. But no human effort could have kept him here.”
    “María, I’ll make you pay for this. You should have stopped him no matter what! Wicked thing! Monster!”
    “Your Highness knows perfectly well that no one can do anything against the will of the royal painter.”
    “Harpie! You are the cause of my disgrace!”
    That same evening I got rid of that conceited fool Godoy. The next morning I went to Madrid. I didn’t find Francisco there and nobody could give me any news of him.
    I wanted to wait, but time for me had ceased to exist.
    A little later I went to Italy to make time reappear.
    While abroad, I decided to start a new life again. It was the most reasonable thing to do. When I came back to Madrid I went to live in my little palace in the Moncloa, where I had yet to reside ever. I was determined not to let myself be plagued by memories. To be free, independent, like before! I bought new