Chapter One
._
“_Why have I been brought here your worship?_” I asked with a great deal of firmness.
_There were two figures in black, the one beside, the other behind a large black table. I was placed in front of them between two dirty soldiers, in the centre of a large, gaunt room, with bare, dirty walls, and the arms of Spain above the judge’s seat._
_“You are before the Juez de la Primera Instancia,” said the man in black beside the table. He wore a large and shadowy tricorn. “Be silent, and respect the procedure.”_
It was, without doubt, excellent advice. _He whispered some words in the ear of the Judge of the First Instance. It was plain enough to me that the judge was quite an inferior official, who merely decided whether there was any case against the accused_; he had, even to his clerk, an air of timidity, of doubt.
_I said: “But I insist on knowing....”_
_The clerk said: “In good time....” And then_, in the same tone of disinterested official routine, _he spoke to the Lugareño, who, from beside the door_, rolled very frightened eyes _from the judges and the clerk to myself and the soldiers_--“Advance.”
_The judge, in a hurried, perfunctory voice, put questions to the Lugareño; the clerk scratched with a large quill on a sheet of paper._
“_Where do you come from?_”
“_The town of Rio Medio, excellency._”
“_Of what occupation?_”
“_Excellency--a few goats._...”
“_Why are you here?_”
“_My daughter, excellency, married Pepe of the posada in the Calle._...”
_The judge said, “Yes, yes,”_ with an unsanguine impatience. The Lugareño’s dirty hands jumped nervously on the large rim of his limp hat.
“_You lodge a complaint against the señor there._”
_The clerk pointed the end of his quill towards me._
_“I? God forbid, excellency,” the Lugareño bleated._ “The Alguazil of the Criminal Court instructed me to be watchful....”
* * * * *
_Part Five: The End._
_A long time after a harsh voice said_:
“_Your excellency, we retire, of course, from the prosecution._”
_A different one directed_:
“_Gentlemen of the jury you will return a verdict of ‘Not Guilty’._...”
_Down below they were cheering uproariously because my life was saved. But it was I that had to face my saved life. I sat there, my head bowed into my hands. The old judge was speaking to me in a tone of lofty compassion_:
“_You have suffered much, as it seems, but suffering is the lot of us men. Rejoice now that your character is cleared; that here in this public place you have received the verdict of your country-men that restores you to the liberties of our country and the affection of your kindred. I rejoice with you who am a very old man at the end of my life._...”
_It was rather tremendous, his deep voice, his weighted words. Suffering is the lot of us men.... The formidable legal array, the great powers of a nation, had stood up to teach me that, and they had taught me that--suffering is the lot of us men!_
* * * * *
_It takes long enough to realise that someone is dead at a distance. I had done that. But how long, how long it needs to know that the life of your heart has come back from the dead._ For years afterwards I could not bear to have her out of my sight.
Of our first meeting in London all I can remember is a speechlessness that was like the awed hesitation of our overtried souls before the greatness of a change from the verge of despair to the opening of a supreme joy. The whole world, the whole of life, with her return had changed all around me; it enveloped me, it enfolded me so lightly as not to be felt, so suddenly as not to be believed in, so completely that that whole meeting was an embrace, so softly that at last it lapsed into a sense of rest that was like the fall of a beneficent and welcome death.
_For suffering is the lot of man_, but not inevitable failure or worthless despair which is without end--suffering, the mark of manhood, which bears within its pain a hope of felicity like a jewel set in iron....
Her first words were:
“You broke our compact. You went away from me whilst I was sleeping.” Only the deepness of her reproach revealed the depth of her love, and the suffering she too had endured to reach a union that was to be without end--and to forgive.
_And, looking back, we see Romance--that subtle thing that is mirage--that is life. It is the goodness of the years we have lived through, of the old time when we did this or that, when we dwelt here or there. Looking back it seems a wonderful enough thing that I who am this and she who is that, commencing so far away a life that after such sufferings borne together and apart, ended so tranquilly there in a world so stable--that she and I should have passed through so much, good chance and evil chance, sad hours and joyful, all lived down and swept away into the little heap of dust that is life. That, too, is Romance._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.