The interview of the young poet César Vallejo with Don Manuel González Prada

 

The interview of the young poet César Vallejo with Don Manuel González Prada

Source:Newspaper La Cronica Viva, Lima Peru

On the 81st anniversary of the death of Universal Vate César Vallejo, we remember him with this gem of historical journalism. Source: La Crónica Viva Newspaper, Lima Peru In the March 9, 1918 edition of the newspaper La Reforma de Trujillo, this wonderful interview by the then young poet César Vallejo with the

teacher Manuel González Prada was published. An extraordinary meeting between two of the greatest exponents of our letters. Another of the treasures found in libraries: The reading room of the Library, as always, very busy. His abstractive peace. One or another hand fumbles impatiently. The slow steps of some conservative, searching the shelves. Oil paintings by illustrious Peruvians on the walls are hurt by the light from the old windows. We passed. In the management room. From a fine welcoming attitude and sitting lightly on the sofa, as if listening to the spiritual moment, the teacher drops words that I never dreamed of hearing. The vigorous sentimental dynamism of him that subjugates and drags, the fresh expression of eternal spring of his venerable continent has something of the winged and smooth marble in which the pagan Hellas used to embody the divine gesture, the superhuman energy of the gods of her. I don't know why before this man, an extraordinary reverberation, a breath of centuries, an idea of synthesis, an emotion of unity congeals between my fibers. It would seem that on his shoulders they fly the legendary flight of an entire race; and that in his snowy apostolic head the maximum spiritual power of a hemisphere of the globe emerges in beams of white, unquenchable light. I look at him startled; My heart beats faster, and my greatest mental energies fly towards all horizons, in a thousand quick flashes, as if some directing whip suddenly whipped a million invisible arms for a miraculous work, beyond the cell... It is that González Prada, by a hypnotic virtue that in a normal state is only peculiar to genius, imposes itself, takes over us, takes possession of our spirit and ends up making us suggestive. On this visit, as in previous ones, Prada talks about art. He is not prodigal in words. His conceptual postures are always sober. But they flare with emotion and optimism and no solemnity.

 How does one detoxify in front of that immense thinking mountain! "But the doctors say no," I reply. They say that such symbolist literature is nonsense. -The doctors... Always the doctors!-. He smiles piously. Not even in his sentences does he spend pontifical solemnity. The line, in its noble silhouette, always vibrates in a fervor thirsty for truth. He does not have the pause of senescence; He feels life in full meridian, in eagerness, in restlessness that is renewal. It is not the peaceful wing that abandons itself horizontally that passes through it, but the wing in the accelerated rhythm of a flight that ascends eternally. That's why it's not solemn. Because he does not look like an old man. It is a perennial and rare equatorial flower of fertile rebellion. I ask him about our national poetry. "There is the influence of French decadentism in it," he tells me. And then, savoring a pronounced tinge of complacency, he adds: -And from Maeterlinck. There is a broad repose of conviction at the end of each of his phrases, which after being uttered seem to consolidate, to distill their substantial value into blood, strongly encasing his ideal melody in our very veins. Then I pray fervently to Renan's great commentator: -As Valdelomar told me the other day, Peru will never know how to repay the enormous gratitude that he owes it. The complexion of his face brightens into a smile that flutters silently from distant forgotten peaks. -And today's youth - he continued, as if enthusiastically hammering warm applause with his lips - is the daughter of his excellent work of freedom. "Yes, well," he answers, "we have to go against obstacles, against academics." He sparkles a hero diamond in his seeing eyes. And I remember that steel bible called Free Pages. And I think I am wrapped in the incense of a modern altarpiece without effigies. -In literature, he continues, defects in technique, inconsistencies in manner, are not important. -And the grammatical errors -I ask him-, obviously. And the audacity of expression? Smile at my naivety; and creating a gesture of patriarchal tolerance, he answers me: -Those errors are ignored. And I really like audacity. I lower my forehead. In the grave distinction of his bearing the opaque spline clarity of the room melts and withers. At his feet crawls a tongue of humble sun that appears a delicate flame of opal moons that arrived fugitively and gasping from very far away. Hearing the philosopher's last words I think of so many hostile hands, already distant. And I think that tomorrow there will be dawn. With a slight smile that curves into a subtle question, that probes and studies, González Prada.

Reserch: Walter Sosa Vivanco

With affection,

Ruben

 

 

James Matthew Barrie

 

James Matthew Barrie

 

James Matthew Barrie

 

Born into a family of low-income artisans, he had an unhappy childhood. The death of a brother, when he was barely six years old, profoundly altered family life and disrupted the mental health of his mother, who became an unbalanced, authoritarian and inflexible person, whose influence and memory weighed on James Barrie during the rest of his life. After becoming a famous writer, he himself would confess many times that his deepest wish would have been to recover the happy years of his early childhood, and that his most famous character, Peter Pan, was a personification of such longings. .

 

After studying at the University of Edinburgh and working for two years as a journalist, he moved to London, attracted by the brilliance of its cultural circles. In 1888 he successfully published The Idylls of Auld Licht, a series of evocations of peasant life in his hometown. Shortly afterwards, in 1889, A Window in Thrums nostalgically evoked that world again. In 1891 he had achieved fame thanks to his novels The Little Minister (1891), Margaret Ogilvy (1896), Sentimental Tommy (1896) and Tommy and Grizel (1900), delicate fusions of sentimentalism and ironic realism situated in the tradition of Dickens. but inspired by the texts of George Meredith, R. L. Stevenson and the great Russian authors.

 

To the theater, however, Barrie gave his most authentic works from 1900 (The Admirable Crichton, Street of the Great World). With him one of the most constant tones of the English spirit appeared manifested in delicate nuances: nostalgic melancholy in the form of "humour", perhaps the only original sentiment of J. M. Barrie's theater, otherwise quite eclectic (it came from both W. S. Gilbert and Oscar Wilde as George Bernard Shaw, Maurice Maeterlinck and the Russians).

 

In 1894, Barrie entered into an unhappy and early failed marriage to the actress Mary Ansell. Shortly after, in 1897, he began an intense love relationship with Sylvia Llewellyn Davies, a sentimental and affectionate woman with whose children he formed a true family. It was to those children that he began to tell various stories starring a character of his invention that symbolized the eternal childhood in which he himself would have liked to live: Peter Pan.

 

Some of those stories were published in 1902 in a volume titled The Little White Bird. Shortly after, in 1904, the comedy Peter Pan, the boy who never wanted to grow up, was released. Later, Barrie would publish Peter Pan in Kensington Park (1906) and Peter and Wendy (1911).

 

The success of his character and his adventures was instantaneous. Peter Pan and his adventure companions (little Wendy, John, Michael, the dog Nana, the fairy Tinker Bell, and the terrible Captain Hook) were adopted as heroes by many generations of children. everyone, familiar with his adventures through all kinds of translations and adaptations, some of them as celebrated as Herbert Brenon's film versions or Walt Disney's, in cartoons.

 

The character of Peter Pan provided Barrie with extraordinary celebrity; but his personal life was very often accompanied by misfortunes and misfortunes. In 1910 his marriage ended in divorce, and just four months later his partner Sylvia Davies, who had meanwhile been widowed, died; In addition, two of his lover's children, whom Barrie watched over as if he were a father, also died.

 

After the divorce, the vague legend was formed around the writer that presented him as an aged and sweetly disillusioned Peter Pan, with something of a wise man and a gnome, always with the taciturn pipe, carried by reality to a modest and gray peace. J. M. Barrie enjoyed a peaceful old age abundant in friendships and honors; but his dream world was transformed, until Dear Brutus (1917) and Mary Rose (1920), into another spectral and sad one, populated by impotent and painful ghosts, inhabitants of an arid, soulless and cruel reality.

 

How to cite this article:

Fernández, Tomás and Tamaro, Elena. «Biography of James Matthew Barrie». In Biographies and Lives. The online biographical encyclopedia [Internet]. Barcelona, Spain, 2004. Available at https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/b/barrie.htm [access date: March 23, 2024].

With affection,

Ruben

 

Morris West

 

Morris West

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

Morris Langlo West AO (26 April 1916 – 9 October 1999) was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels The Devil's Advocate (1959), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963) and The Clowns of God (1981). His books were published in 27 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than one million copies.[1]

 

West's works were often focused on international politics and the role of the Roman Catholic Church in international affairs. In The Shoes of the Fisherman he described the election and career of a Slav as Pope, 15 years before the historic election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. The sequel, The Clowns of God, described a successor Pope who resigned the papacy to live in seclusion, 32 years before the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013.

 

Early life

West was born in St Kilda, Victoria, the son of a commercial salesman. Due to the large size of his family, he was sent to live with his grandparents. He attended the Christian Brothers College, St Kilda where he was awarded the prize of Dux by Archbishop Daniel Mannix in 1929.

 

At the age of 14, West entered the Congregation of Christian Brothers community at St Patricks in Strathfield, Sydney, "as a kind of refuge" from a difficult childhood.[2]

 

In 1934 he began teaching at St Thomas's Primary School, Lewisham, living in that community until 1936. He taught at schools in Tasmania and New South Wales between 1937 and 1939, while also studying at the University of Tasmania.

 

He left the Christian Brothers order in 1940. He worked as a salesman and a teacher.

 

War service

In April 1941, West enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force. He was commissioned as a lieutenant and worked as a cipher officer, being eventually posted to Gladesville, New South Wales, in 1944. He was seconded from the RAAF to work for Billy Hughes, former Australian prime minister, for a time.

 

His first published novel, Moon in My Pocket, came out in 1945 using the pseudonym "Julian Morris". He wrote it while in the air force. It was published by the Australasian Publishing Company, a branch of Harrap's Publishing Company in London, and sold more than 10,000 copies.[3][4]

 

Radio producer

West worked as publicity manager at Melbourne radio station 3DB. He moved into radio drama, setting up his own radio production company ARP, which operated from 1945 to 1954. For the next 10 years he focused on writing, directing and producing radio plays and serials.

 

His radio plays included The Mask of Marius Melville (1945), The Curtain Rises (1946),[5] The Affairs of Harlequin (1951), The Prince of Peace (c. 1951), When a Girl Marries (1952),[6] The Enchanted Island (1952), Trumpets in the Dawn (c. 1953–54) and Genesis in Juddsville (c. 1955–56).

 

The workload of his job and a crisis in his marital relations led to West having a nervous breakdown. He ultimately sold his company to focus on writing full-time.[7]

 

Novelist

Early works

West's first novel published under his own name was Gallows on the Sand (1955), written in seven days.

 He followed it with Kundu (1956), a New Guinea adventure written in three weeks.

[7] He also wrote a play, The Illusionists (1955).

 

West moved to Europe with his family. His third novel was The Big Story (1957), which was later filmed as The Crooked Road (1965).

 

A trip to Naples led to meeting Father Bo

rrelli who worked with the street boys of Naples. This resulted in the non-fiction book Children of the Sun (1957) which was West's first international success.[7][8] According to a later profile on the author:

 

With this work, West not only found his way as a writer but discovered the theme that would underpin almost all of his subsequent books — the nature and misuse of power. Of the 18 novels he was to write post-1957, 15 are on this subject. This discovery was particularly felicitous for West because, it suited his talents admirably. An interesting comparison may be made with David Williamson, another writer from whom profound thinking and significant insights are not to be expected. What they have in common is a keen eye for the real world around them. By fleshing out the partially familiar, they make perceptive sense of it, demonstrating in the process that the general uneasiness and suspicion ordinary people feel about many aspects of contemporary life are well-founded. West was to show that he could identify these concerns with considerable acuity.[9]

 

He wrote The Second Victory (1958) (also known as Backlash and later filmed) and under the pseudonym "Michael East" wrote McCreary Moves In (1958) aka The Concubine.

 

Best-selling novelist

West's first best-selling novel was The Devil's Advocate (1959) 

which he spent two years writing.[10] He sold the film rights for $250,000 and it was adapted into a play and later a film.[7] West later said the novel earned him several million dollars.[8]

 

He wrote another "Michael East" novel, The Naked Country (1960), which was filmed in the 1980s. Daughter of Silence (1961) was also adapted into a play.

 

During this time he was the Vatican correspondent for the Daily Mail from 1956 to 1963.[11] His son, C. Chris O'Hanlon, said that he spent his first 12 birthdays in 12 different countries.[12]

 

The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963) was a huge success, selling over six million copies and made into a movie.[13]

 

He followed it with The Ambassador (1965), The Tower of Babel (1968), Summer of the Red Wolf (1971)[14] and The Salamander (1973).

 He wrote a non-fiction book, Scandal in the Assembly: 

A Bill of Complaints and a Proposal for Reform of the Matrimonial Laws and Tribunals of the Roman Catholic Church (1970, with Robert Francis).

 

He wrote a play The Heretic, based on Giordano Bruno, which was performed on the London stage in 1973. Further novels included Harlequin (1974), The Navigator (1976),[15] Proteus (1979) and The Clowns of God (1981).[16] In 1978 he was living in England, New York and Italy and said "I'm an Australian by origin, by identity, in manners. I have never felt any destruction or diminution of my identity by having a European education, or by acquiring a fluency in three languages and living abroad."[17] His advance of Clowns of God was £100,000.[18] By 1981 his books had sold over 25 million copies.[19]

 

West wrote the play The World is Made of Glass in 1982 for the Adelaide Festival. He turned this into a novel which was published the following year.[7]

 

Return to Australia

In 1982 West returned home to Australia. His later novels include Cassidy (1986) (which became a mini series), Masterclass (1988), Lazarus (1990), The Ringmaster (1991), and The Lovers (1993).[20]

 

In 1993, West announced that he had written his last book and a formal valedictory dinner was held in his honour. However, he found he could not retire as he had planned and wrote a further three novels and two non-fiction books: Vanishing Point (1996) and Eminence (1998), plus an anthology entitled Images and Inscriptions (1997) and his memoir A View from the Ridge: The Testimony of a Twentieth-century Pilgrim (1996).[21][22]

 

He was working on the novel The Last Confession when he died; it was posthumously published in 2000.

 

Writing

A major theme of much of West's work was a question: when so many organisations use extreme violence towards evil ends, when and under what circumstances is it morally acceptable for their opponents to respond with violence? He stated on different occasions that his novels all deal with the same aspect of life, that is, the dilemma when sooner or later you have a situation such that nobody can tell you what to do.[23]

 

West wrote with little revision. His first longhand version was usually not very different from the final printed version.[22] Despite winning many prizes and being awarded honorary doctorates,[24] his commercial success and his skills as a story teller, he never won the acceptance of Australia's literary clique. In the 1998 Oxford Literary History of Australia it was stated that: "Despite his international popularity, West has been surprisingly neglected by Australian literary critics." The previous edition, edited by Dame Leonie Kramer, did not mention him at all.[1]

 

West was awarded the 1959 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Devil's Advocate. In the early 1960s, he helped found the Australian Society of Authors.[1] He presented the 1986 Playford Lecture.[23]

 

Personal life

West was born on 26 April 1916, in St Kilda. He and his first wife, Elizabeth Harvey, had two children: Elizabeth, who became a nun, and Julian who was a wine-maker before his death in 2005. Julian and his wife Helen Grimaux, had a daughter named Juliana Harriett West.

 

West and Elizabeth Harvey divorced, and West then married Joyce "Joy" Lawford. Since his first wife, Elizabeth, was still alive when he married Joy, he struggled for a church annulment of his first marriage. He was out of communion with the Roman Catholic Church for many years because of this marital situation, and he had significant issues with the church's teachings. However, he never considered himself as anything other than a committed Catholic. Joy West said that he was a believer who attended Mass every Sunday.[22]

 

West and Joy had four children together. One son, C. Chris O'Hanlon, born in 1954, changed his name at the age of 26 as a gesture of independence. After starting four books in an attempt to realise what he believed were his father's expectations, and having to give back the advances he received from publishers when he could not finish them, he realised that he was not destined to be a writer. O'Hanlon, who suffers from a severe bipolar disorder, founded Spike Wireless, an internet design house.[12]

 

Another of West's sons, Mike, is a musician who fronted the UK independent popular music band Man from Delmonte during the late 1980s and early 1990s and has released several solo albums of New Orleans country music, especially being well known with the international touring act Truckstop Honeymoon.

 

West's grandson Anthony (Ant) West is also a musician, who fronted the UK music band Futures and currently is in the UK group Oh Wonder.

 

West died at the age of 83 on 9 October 1999 in Clareville, New South Wales.

 

Honours

West was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours of 1985.[25] He was upgraded to Officer of the Order in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1997.[26]

 

Bibliography

Fiction

Moon in My Pocket (1945, using the pseudonym "Julian Morris")

Gallows on the Sand (1956)

Kundu (1956)

The Big Story (1957; aka The Crooked Road)

The Second Victory (1958; aka Backlash)

McCreary Moves In (1958, using the pseudonym "Michael East"; aka The Concubine)

The Devil's Advocate (1959)

The Naked Country (1960, using the pseudonym "Michael East")

Daughter of Silence (1961)

The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963)

The Ambassador (1965)

The Tower of Babel (1968)

Summer of the Red Wolf (1971)

The Salamander (1973)

Harlequin (1974; aka The Duel of Death)

The Navigator (1976)

Proteus (1979)

The Clowns of God (1981)

The World Is Made of Glass (1983)

Cassidy (1986)

Masterclass (1988)

Lazarus (1990)

The Ringmaster (1991)

The Lovers (1993)

Vanishing Point (1996)

Eminence (1998)

The Last Confession (2000, posthumously published)

Radio serials

The Mask of Marius Melville (1945)[27]

The Prince of Peace (c1951)[28]

Trumpets in the Dawn (c1953–54)[28]

Genesis in Juddsville (c1955–56)[29]

Radio dramas

episode of Deadline

Plays

The Illusionists (1955)

The Devil's Advocate (1961)

Daughter of Silence (1962)

The Heretic (1969)

The World is Made of Glass (1982)

Non-fiction

Children of the Sun: The Slum Dwellers of Naples (1957) (US title: Children of the Shadows: The True Story of the Street Urchins of Naples)

Scandal in the Assembly: A Bill of Complaints and a Proposal for Reform of the Matrimonial Laws and Tribunals of the Roman Catholic Church (1970, with Robert Francis)

West, Morris (1996). A View from the Ridge: The Testimony of a Twentieth-century Pilgrim. Sydney: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-7322-5757-3.

West, Morris (1997). Images & Inscriptions. Selected and arranged by Beryl Barraclough. Sydney: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-7322-5827-8.

Film adaptations

The Crooked Road (based on The Big Story) (1965) starring Robert Ryan

The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) starring Anthony Quinn

The Devil's Advocate (1977) starring John Mills, Daniel Massey, Paola Pitagora and Stéphane Audran

The Salamander (1981)

The Naked Country (1984)

The Second Victory (1986)

Cassidy (1989)

With affection

Ruben

Story :The pin

 

 

The pin

Ventura Garcia Calderon

 

The beast fell on its face, dying, oozing sweat and blood, while the rider, in a flash, jumped to the ground at the foot of the monumental staircase of the Ticabamba hacienda. From the obese cedar balcony the dark head of the landowner Don Timoteo Mondaraz appeared, questioning the trembling newcomer.

 

The tremendous old man's sochanter's voice was mocking:

 

—What's wrong with you, Borradito? You're getting banged around... If we don't eat people here. Speak, no more...

 

El Borradito, called that in the valley because of his pockmarked face, grabbed the jipijapa hat with a desperate hand and wanted to explain so many things at once—the sudden misfortune, his twenty-league night gallop, the order to arrive in a few hours. , even if the beast burst on the way—, who was silent for a minute. Suddenly, without breathing, he exhaled his naive refrain:

 

—Well, I'll tell my friend that the boy Conrado told me to tell him that last night the Grimanesa girl caught and died.

 

If Don Timoteo did not take out his revolver, as always when he was moved, it was, without a doubt, by special command of Providence; but he squeezed the servant's arm, wanting to extract a thousand details from him.

 

—Last night?... Is she dead?... Grimanesa?... Perhaps she noticed something in the dark explanations of the Borradito, then, without saying a word, praying that they would not wake up her daughter, "the girl Ana María" , he went down himself to saddle his best "gait horse."

 

Moments later he galloped to the ranch of his son-in-law Conrado Basadre, whom last year he married Grimanesa, the pretty, pale horsewoman, the best catch in the entire valley. Those weddings were a celebration like no other, with its Bengal fires, its dancing Indian women in purple nightgowns, its Indian women who still mourn the death of the Incas, which occurred in remote centuries; but revived in the dirge of the humiliated race, like the songs of Zion in the sublime stubbornness of the Bible. Then, along the best fields of crops, the procession of saints had wandered very ancient, which displayed the stuffed heads of savages in the crimson hairy ring. And the very happy marriage of a pretty girl with the nice and arrogant Conrado Basadre ended like this... Clapper!...

 

Driving his Nazarene spurs, Don Timoteo thought, terrified, of that tragic celebration. He wanted to reach Sincavüca, the old Basadre fiefdom, in four hours.

 

In the late afternoon another resonant and laborious gallop was heard over the boulders of the mountain. Out of caution, the old man shot into the air, shouting:

 

-Who lives ?

 

He checked the race of the next rider, and with a voice that poorly concealed his anguish, he shouted in turn:

 

-Friend! It's me, don't you know me? The administrator of Sincavilca. I'm going to look for the priest for the funeral.

 

The landowner was so disturbed that he did not ask why there was such a rush to call the priest if Grimanesa was dead and why the chaplain was not at the farm. He waved goodbye and encouraged his horse, which he started galloping with its flank full of blood.

 

From the immense gate that closed the patio of the hacienda, that silence was distressing. Even the dogs, silent, sniffed out death. In the colonial house, the large silver-studded doors already displayed cross-shaped crepes. Don Timoteo crossed the large deserted halls, without removing his Nazarene spurs, until he reached the dead woman's bedroom, where Conrado Basadre was sobbing. With a voice clouded by tears, the old man begged his son-in-law to leave him alone for a moment. And when he had closed the door with his hands, he roared in pain for hours, insulting the saints, calling Grimanesa by her name, kissing the inanimate hand, which fell again on the sheets, among the Cape jasmines and wallflowers. . Serious and frowning for the first time, Grimanesa reposed like a saint, with her braids hidden in the Carmelites' cornet and her pretty waist imprisoned in her habit, according to the religious custom of the valley, to sanctify the pretty dead women. On her chest they placed a barbaric silver crucifix that had been used by one of her grandfathers to defeat rebels in an ancient Indian uprising. When Don Timoteo kissed the holy image, the dead woman's habit was left ajar, and he noticed something, because his tears suddenly dried up and he walked away from the corpse as if mad, with strange repulsion. Then he looked everywhere, hid an object in his poncho and, without saying goodbye to anyone, remounted, returning to Ticabamba in the dead of night.

 

***

 

For six months no one went from one farm to another nor could they explain this silence. They hadn't even attended the funeral! Don Timoteo lived cloistered in the storax-smelling bedroom, without speaking for whole days, deaf to the pleas of Ana María, as beautiful as her sister Grimanesa, who lived adoring and fearing her stubborn father. He was never able to find out the cause of the strange detour or why Conrado Basadre was not coming.

 

But one clear Sunday in June, Don Timoteo got up in a good mood and proposed to Ana María that they go together to Sincavüca, after mass. That resolution was so unexpected that the little girl walked around the house for the entire morning as if crazy, trying on in the mirror her long Amazon skirts and the jipijapa hat, which had to be fixed on the oily locks with a long gold stiletto. The father saw her like this, and said, embarrassed, looking at the pin:

 

—You're going to get rid of that eyesore!...

 

Ana María obeyed with a sigh, determined, as always, not to guess the mystery of that violent father.

 

When they arrived at Sincavilca, Conrado was breaking in a new colt, bare-headed in the full sun, beautiful and arrogant on the black saddle with silver nails and rivets. He jumped down, and when he saw Ana María so similar to her sister in her sweet grace, he looked at her for a long time, enthralled.

 

No one spoke about the misfortune that occurred or mentioned Grimanesa; but Conrado cut his splendid and carnal Cape jasmines to give them to Ana María. They didn't even go to visit the dead woman's grave, and there was an annoying silence when the old nurse came to hug "the girl" crying:

—Jesus, Mary and Joseph, as pretty as my little friend! A chapuli! Since then, every Sunday the visit to Sincavilca was repeated. Conrado and Ana María spent the day looking into each other's eyes and gently squeezing each other's hands when the old man turned his face to contemplate a new cut of the ripe cane. And one festive Monday, after the fiery Sunday on which they kissed for the first time, Conrado arrived in Ticabamba displaying the showy elegance of fair days, his violet poncho draped over his sheep's hair, his mane well combed and shining. his horse, which "braced" with elegant foreshortening and stuck its foaming nose into his chest, like the palfreys of the liberators.

 

With the solemnity of the great hours, he asked about the landowner, and did not call him, with the usual respect, "Don Timoteo", but he murmured, as in ancient times, when he was Grimanesa's boyfriend:

 

—I want to talk to you, my father.

 

They locked themselves in the colonial room, where the portrait of their dead daughter was still there. The old man, silent, waited for Conrado, very embarrassed, to explain to him, in an indecisive and embarrassing voice, his desire to marry Ana María. He paused so long that Don Timoteo, with his eyes closed, seemed to be sleeping. Suddenly, agilely, as if the years had no weight on that iron constitution of a Peruvian landowner, he went to open an old-style iron box with a complicated key chain, which had to be requested with a thousand tricks and a "password" written on a padlock. Then, always silent, he picked up a gold pin there. It was one of those moles that close the mantle of the Indian women and end in a coca leaf; but longer, sharper, and stained with black blood. Upon seeing him, Conrad fell to his knees, whimpering, like a confessed prisoner.

 

—Grimanesa, my poor Grimanesa!

 

But the old man warned, with a violent gesture, that it was not the time to cry. Disguising his growing confusion with a superhuman effort, he murmured, in a voice so muffled that he could barely be understood:

 

—Yes, I took it from her chest when she was dead... You had stuck this pin in her heart... Isn't that true?... Maybe she missed you...

 

-Yes my father. -Yes my father.

 

-Nobody knows?

 

—No, my father.

 

—Did he go with the administrator?

 

-Yes my father.

 

—Why didn't you kill him too?

 

He ran away like a coward. "Do you swear to kill him if he returns?"

 

-Yes my father.

 

The old man cleared his throat loudly, squeezed Conrad's hand, and said, already out of breath:

 

—If this one also deceives you, do the same... Here!...

 

He solemnly presented the golden pin, as grandfathers gave the sword to the new knight; and with brutal rejection, clutching his failing heart, he told his son-in-law to leave immediately, because it was not good for anyone to see the tremendous and righteous Don Timoteo Mondaraz sobbing.

VENTURA GARCÍA CALDERÓN.

With affection,

 Ruben

​