used by our ardent old men. With such talents, his life took him fromAndalusian estates to the farms of Peñaranda, from antique Venetian palaces to Scottish grouse moors, from the hunting parties of Kolodje to the Alfonsine regattas of San Sebastian, travelling according to a map of somewhat tarnished nobility that had seen better days, among whom credit and prestige was given to the North American coats of arms of Armour and Swift, the ketchup aristocracy of Libby, who promoted their advance to grandeur by studying, learning, and annotating the Almanack de Gotha (the entry of their names was always postponed to the next edition) with the close attention of a rabbi interpreting the Talmud, or a Saint-Cyran translating the Bible three times, the better to master the subtleties of its vocabulary and the complications of its hermeneutics. Marcus Antonius was both brilliant and useless; excitable and ambitious like his father, whose anxieties, however, were unknown to him; flesh of a flesh to which he felt alien, he declared himself to be a luxury product, the herald of our culture, a necessary factor in our international prestige, a lunatic, dandy, collector of gloves and sticks, refusing to put on shirts that hadn’t been ironed in London, a harsh critic of famous artists, pursuer of Woolworth heiresses (he dreamed about Anna Gould, who had presented Boni de Castellane with a pink marble palace), five times divorced, occasional aviator, friend of Santos-Dumont, champion polo player, skier at Chamonix, critic of duelling along with Athos de San-Malato and the Cuban Laberdesque, brilliant
rejoneador
* in the making, believer in miracles at roulette and baccarat, although somewhat absent-minded and Hamlet-like at times and given to signing dud cheques, which found their way by way of legal proceedings to our discreet embassies.
And there lay, at the feet of the Head of State, that sameSurgidero de la Verónica where a plaque set up by one of the doors was engraved with the date of his birth, and where Doña Hermenegilda had groaned as she gave birth to her four children under a mosquito net as blue as the dovecote outside.
And that was the town that fell into the hands of the government troops, intact and undamaged by shells, because almost all the disloyal officers surrendered, on a historic April 14.
Finding himself abandoned by his most trusted men, and with no one owning a boat or schooner ready to take him on board, General Ataúlfo Galván shut himself into the old castle of San Lorenzo, built by order of Philip II on a pinnacle of rock that narrowed the entrance to the port. And there, in the middle of the afternoon of the day of surrender, the Head of State disembarked, followed by Colonel Hoffmann, Doctor Peralta, and a dozen soldiers. The defeated man was waiting in silence in the main courtyard. His lips moved strangely, without any accompaniment from his voice, as if wanting to emit words that refused to be uttered. He was trying, with a checked handkerchief, to mop the sweat coming from under his kepi so copiously that it was making dark drops on the cloth of his military tunic. The President stood still and gazed at him for a long time as if measuring his height. Then suddenly, in a sharp, cutting tone: “Shoot him!”
Ataúlfo Galván fell on his knees: “No, no … Not that. Not a bullet … For your dear mother’s sake, no … For the sake of that sainted Doña Hermenegilda, who loved me so much … you can’t do that to me … you were like a father to me … More than a father … Let me explain … You’ll understand … I was misled … Listen to me … For the sake of your dear mother …”
“Shoot him!” He was dragged, groaning, weeping, andimploring, towards the farther wall. Hoffmann arranged the firing squad. Unable to stand upright, the defeated man fell against the wall, his spine slipping slowly down the stonework till he was sitting with his boots in front of him,
rejoneador
* in the making, believer in miracles at roulette and baccarat, although somewhat absent-minded and Hamlet-like at times and given to signing dud cheques, which found their way by way of legal proceedings to our discreet embassies.
And there lay, at the feet of the Head of State, that sameSurgidero de la Verónica where a plaque set up by one of the doors was engraved with the date of his birth, and where Doña Hermenegilda had groaned as she gave birth to her four children under a mosquito net as blue as the dovecote outside.
And that was the town that fell into the hands of the government troops, intact and undamaged by shells, because almost all the disloyal officers surrendered, on a historic April 14.
Finding himself abandoned by his most trusted men, and with no one owning a boat or schooner ready to take him on board, General Ataúlfo Galván shut himself into the old castle of San Lorenzo, built by order of Philip II on a pinnacle of rock that narrowed the entrance to the port. And there, in the middle of the afternoon of the day of surrender, the Head of State disembarked, followed by Colonel Hoffmann, Doctor Peralta, and a dozen soldiers. The defeated man was waiting in silence in the main courtyard. His lips moved strangely, without any accompaniment from his voice, as if wanting to emit words that refused to be uttered. He was trying, with a checked handkerchief, to mop the sweat coming from under his kepi so copiously that it was making dark drops on the cloth of his military tunic. The President stood still and gazed at him for a long time as if measuring his height. Then suddenly, in a sharp, cutting tone: “Shoot him!”
Ataúlfo Galván fell on his knees: “No, no … Not that. Not a bullet … For your dear mother’s sake, no … For the sake of that sainted Doña Hermenegilda, who loved me so much … you can’t do that to me … you were like a father to me … More than a father … Let me explain … You’ll understand … I was misled … Listen to me … For the sake of your dear mother …”
“Shoot him!” He was dragged, groaning, weeping, andimploring, towards the farther wall. Hoffmann arranged the firing squad. Unable to stand upright, the defeated man fell against the wall, his spine slipping slowly down the stonework till he was sitting with his boots in front of him,
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