Free The Collected Novels of José Saramago by José Saramago Page A

Lisbon enjoyed more, autos-da-fé or bullfights, even though only the bullfights have survived. Women cram the windows looking on to the square, dressed in their Sunday best, their hair groomed in the German fashion as a compliment to the Queen, their faces and necks are rouged, and they pout their lips to make their mouths look dainty, so many different faces and expressions trained on the square below as each lady wonders if her make-up is all right, that beauty spot at the corner of her mouth, the powder concealing that pimple, while her eye observes the infatuated admirer below, while her confirmed or aspiring suitor paces up and down clutching a handkerchief and swirling his cape. The heat is unbearable and the spectators refresh themselves with the customary glass of lemonade, cup of water, or slice of water-melon, for there is no reason why they should suffer from exhaustion just because the condemned are about to die. And should they feel in need of something more substantial, there is a wide choice of nuts and seeds, cheeses and dates. The King, with his inseparable Infantes and Infantas, will dine at the Inquisitor’s Palace as soon as the auto-da-fé has ended, and once free of the wretched business, he will join the Chief Inquisitor for a sumptuous feast at tables laden with bowls of chicken broth, partridges, breasts of veal, pâtés and meat savouries flavoured with cinnamon and sugar, a stew in the Castilian manner with all the appropriate ingredients and saffron rice, blancmanges, pastries, and fruits in season. But the King is so abstinent that he refuses to drink any wine, and since the best lesson of all is a good example, everyone accepts it, the example, that is, not the abstinence.
    Another example, which no doubt will be of greater profit to the soul since the body is so grossly over-fed, is to be given here today. The procession has commenced, the Dominicans in the vanguard carrying the banner of St Dominic, followed by the Inquisitors walking in a long file until the condemned appear, one hundred and four of them, as we have already stated, all carrying candles and with attendants at their sides, their prayers and mutterings rending the air, by the different hoods and sanbenitos you can tell who is to die and who will be sent into exile, although there is another sign, which never lies, namely that crucifix held on high with its back turned on the women who are to be burned at the stake and the gentle, suffering face of Christ turned toward those who will be spared, symbolic means of revealing to the condemned the fate that awaits them, should they have failed to understand the significance of the robes they are wearing, for these, too, are an unmistakable sign, the yellow sanbenito with the red cross of St Andrew is worn by those whose crimes do not warrant death, the one with the flames pointing downward, known as the upturned fire, is worn by those who have confessed their sins and may therefore be spared, while the dismal grey cassock bearing the image of a sinner encircled by demons and flames has become synonymous with damnation, and is worn by the two women who are to be burned at the stake. The sermon has been preached by Friar John of the Martyrs, the Franciscan provincial, and certainly no one could be more deserving of the task, considering that it was also a Franciscan friar whose virtue God rewarded by granting that the Queen should become pregnant, so profit from this sermon for the salvation of souls, just as the Portuguese dynasty and the Franciscan Order will profit from the assured succession and the promised convent.
    The rabble hurls furious insults at the condemned, the women scream abuse as they lean from their window-sills, and the friars prattle amongst themselves, the procession is an enormous snake that cannot be accommodated in the Rossio in a straight line and is therefore forced to coil round and round, as if determined to reach everywhere and offer an edifying spectacle