Free Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós Page A

thing is that if this man were to understand that I cannot love him, if he were to erase the word ‘love’ from our relationship and we could relate to each other in a different way, then I could love him, yes, I could, although I’m not sure how, perhaps as one loves a good friend, because he isn’t a bad man, apart from his perverse, monomaniac obsession with pursuing women. I would even forgive him for the wrong he has done me, for my dishonor, I would forgive him with all my heart, as long as he would leave me in peace. Dear God, please make him leave me in peace, and I will forgive him and even feel affection for him, and I will become one of those daughters who is humble to the point of servitude, or like one of those loyal servants who sees a father in the master who feeds them.”
    Fortunately for Tristana, not only did Don Lope’s health improve, thus dispelling her fear that she would have to spend her evenings at home, but he had clearly been offered some relief from his pecuniary difficulties, because his sullen mood lifted, and he regained his usual calm demeanor. Saturna, who was an old dog and a cunning one, told her mistress her thoughts on the matter.
    “He’s obviously in funds again, because it no longer occurs to him that I should be prepared to work my fingers to the bone for half an endive, nor does he forget the respect he owes, as a gentleman, to those of us who wear a skirt, however darned and patched. The trouble is that when he collects the rent arrears, he spends it all in a week, and then it’s farewell chivalry and he’s back to his usual rude, fusspot, interfering self.”
    At the same time, Don Lope once again began to lavish meticulous, almost aristocratic care upon his own person, dressing as carefully as he used to in better days. Both women gave thanks to God for this happy restoration of habits, and taking advantage of the tyrant’s regular absences, Tristana flung herself into the ineffable pleasure of going for walks with the man she loved.
    In order to provide a change of scene and setting, he would bring a carriage most afternoons, and the two of them would set off to savor the enormous delights of driving so far out of Madrid that they could barely see it. Witnesses to their happiness were the hill at Chamartín, the two pagoda-like towers of the Jesuit college, and the mysterious pine forest; one day, they would follow the road to Fuencarral, the next they would explore the somber depths of El Pardo, where the ground was covered in prickly, metallic-looking leaves, the ash groves that border the Manzanares River, the bare peaks of Amaniel, or the deep ravines of Abroñigal. They would then leave the carriage and go for long walks along the edges of plowed fields, breathing in, along with the fresh air, the pleasures of solitude and stillness, enjoying all that they saw—for all seemed to them lovely, fresh, and new—not realizing that the charm of everything was a projection of their own selves. Turning their gaze on the source of such beauty, namely themselves, they would indulge in the innocent game of pondering their love, a game that, to those not in love, would have seemed cloying in the extreme. They would analyze the reasons for that love, try to explain the inexplicable, decipher the profound mystery of it all, only to end up as they always did: demanding and promising more love, defying eternity, giving guarantees of unalterable fidelity in successive lives lived out in the nebulous circles of that home of perfection, immortality, where souls shake off the dust of the worlds in which they suffered.
    Dragging himself back to the more immediate and the more positive, Horacio urged her to come up to his studio, assuring her of the comfort and privacy it offered as a place for them to spend their evenings together. How she longed to see that studio! However, her desire to do so was as strong as her fear that she would become all too fond of that cozy nest and feel so