Did you sleep at the Venta Quemada? Did you fall into the clutches of demons? There is still a remedy. Come with me to the foot of the altar and confess your sins! Repent!’
The hermit repeated again and again his pious exhortations. Then he fell silent and waited for me to reply.
‘Father,’ I said to him, ‘I went to confession before I left Cadiz. Since then I do not believe that I have committed any mortal sin except perhaps in my dreams. It is true that I slept at the Venta Quemada, but if I was witness to anything there I have good reason for not speaking about it.’
This reply seemed to take the hermit aback. He accused me of being possessed by the demon of pride and tried to persuade me that I should make a confession of all my sins. But on seeing that I was steadfastly opposed to this, he abandoned his apostolic tone and said to me in a much more natural manner:
‘Your courage amazes me, my son. Who are you? What sort of upbringing have you had? Do you or do you not believe in ghosts? I beg you not to refuse to satisfy my curiosity.’
‘Father,’ I replied, ‘your desire to know more about me can only do me honour. And for this I am grateful to you as is only fitting. Allow me to get up and I shall join you in the hermitage, where I shall tell you all you want to know about me.’
The hermit embraced me again and left the room.
Once dressed I went to look for him. He was warming up some goat’s milk which he then gave me, together with some sugar and bread. He himself ate only a few boiled roots.
When we had broken our fast the hermit turned to the possessed man and said:
‘Pacheco, Pacheco, in the name of your Redeemer I command you to lead my goats up the mountain.’
Pacheco uttered a terrible cry and went out.
Then I began my story, which I told as follows:
THE STORY OF ALPHONSE VAN WORDEN
I am descended from a very ancient family, but one which has achieved very little fame and acquired even less wealth. Our whole patrimony has never consisted of more than Worden, a noble fief which fell within the jurisdiction of Burgundy and is situated in the middle of the Ardennes.
My father had an elder brother and had to be satisfied with a tiny legacy which, none the less, was enough to support him honourably in the army. He fought throughout the War of the Spanish Succession,1 and when peace came Philip V promoted him to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Walloon Guards.
At that time in the Spanish army there was a strong sense of honour which was sometimes taken to extremes: my father went even further. For which in truth he cannot be blamed, since honour is properly speaking the life and soul of a military man. Not a duel was fought in Madrid whose ceremonial he did not supervise, and once he had said that satisfaction had been obtained, all parties declared themselves satisfied. But if by chance someone said that he was not satisfied then he had to contend with my father himself, who never failed to uphold the rightness of his decisions by the point of a sword. Moreover, my father kept a blank book in which he wrote down the history of every duel with all its attendant circumstances. This gave him a great advantage when it came to passing judgement on difficult cases.
My father was almost completely taken up with this tribunal of blood and had not shown himself to be much susceptible to the charms of love. But in the end even his heart was moved by the beauty of a young lady called Mouraque de Gomelez, who was a daughter of the oidor2 of Granada and the descendant of the ancient rulers of that province. Mutual friends soon brought the interested parties together and the marriage was arranged.
My father thought it appropriate to invite to his wedding all the men with whom he had fought duels (I only mean those, of course, whom he had not killed). A hundred and twenty-two came to the wedding feast. Thirteen of those absent were away from Madrid, and it had been impossible to trace a further thirty-three whom he had fought while in the army. My mother told me on more than one occasion that the feast had been extraordinarily merry and that there was an atmosphere of great cordiality. I do not find this difficult to believe, for my father had at bottom an excellent heart and was much loved by everyone.
For his part, my father was deeply attached to Spain and would never have left it, but two months after his marriage he received a letter signed by the magistrates of the town of Bouillon informing him that his brother had died without heirs and that the fief of Worden had reverted to him. This news distressed my father greatly. And my mother has since told me that he was so preoccupied that he could not be brought to speak about it. Eventually he consulted his chronicle of duels, chose twelve men from Madrid who had fought the greatest number, invited them to his house and spoke to them as follows.
‘My dear brothers in arms. You know well enough how often I have set your consciences at rest on matters in which honour seemed to have been compromised. Today I find myself constrained to defer to your judgement because I fear that my own judgement may prove to be at fault, or rather that it will be clouded by partiality.
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