Anyway, let us return to Madrid and to his eminence, Cardinal Barberini. That afternoon, the most illustrious guests, including the pope’s nephew, had long since left the gathering in the garden; however, there were still remnants of that party in the form of ladies and gentlemen of the court, people out for a stroll, enjoying the lovely gardens and the lawn near the waterwheel, and the cool drinks and dishes containing fruits and sweetmeats set out beneath the arbor awning. Outside, too, along the avenues and amongst the fountains, from San Jerónimo to Recoletos, people were promenading up and down or else taking their ease beneath the trees; there were carriages, respectable married couples, ladies of quality, doxies carrying lapdogs and pretending to be ladies, young wastrels, serving wenches from inns with nothing to lose, handsome young men on horseback, fops, vendors of limes and sweetmeats, maids and lackeys, and idle onlookers. Indeed, the scene was exactly as described, with his usual self-assurance, by an acquaintance and neighbor of ours, the poet Salas Barbadillo.
Married couples share this field,
All come t’enjoy its great appeaclass="underline"
Both sexes truly like such days
When men can stare while women graze.
And we, too, were out for a leisurely afternoon stroll, the captain, don Francisco de Quevedo, and I, from the garden to the Torrecilla de la Música, where minstrels were playing, and then back up to the Prado again, beneath the shade cast by the three lines of tall poplars. My master and Quevedo were talking quietly about various private matters, and I have to confess that, although I normally listened carefully to what they said, on this occasion I had concerns of my own: that rendezvous near the palace at the hour of the angelus. This did not, however, prevent me from catching the drift of the conversation.
“You’re risking your life,” I heard don Francisco say, and a little farther on—the captain was walking beside him in silence, his eyes somber beneath the brim of his hat—he said it again:
“You’re risking your life, you know. That particular cow bears someone else’s brand.”
They stopped, and I did too, by the parapet of the little bridge, in order to allow a few carriages to pass, carrying off ladies of the court and giving way to the trollops and whores who, with nightfall, would be out looking for likely lances to pierce their shields, and to loose young women, faces half covered, who, behind the backs of fathers or brothers, on the pretext of going to a late mass or on a charitable errand, and accompanied by an indulgent duenna, were off either to find or to meet some secret lover. Quevedo doffed his hat to an acquaintance in one of the carriages, then turned back to my master.
“It’s as absurd as a doctor bothering to marry an old woman, when it’s perfectly within his power to kill her.”
The captain tugged at his mustache, unable to repress a smile, but still he said nothing.
“If you insist,” said Quevedo, “you’re as good as dead.”
These words startled me. I studied my master’s impassive aquiline profile silhouetted against the declining afternoon light.
“Well, I have no intention of simply surrendering,” he said at last.
His friend looked at him, intrigued.
“Surrendering what? The woman?”
“No, my life.”
There was another silence; then the poet, glancing around him, whispered something along the lines of: “You’re mad, Captain. No woman is worth risking your neck for. This is a very dangerous game indeed.” My master merely smoothed his mustache and said nothing more. And after uttering a few curses and “I’faith”s, don Francisco shrugged.
“Well, don’t rely on me for help,” he said. “I don’t fight kings.”
The captain looked at him again but made no comment. We walked back toward the garden’s boundary walls, and shortly afterward, halfway between the Torrecilla and one of the fountains, we saw in the distance an open carriage drawn by two fine mules. I paid it no attention until I saw my master’s face. I followed his gaze and saw, seated in the right-hand side of the carriage, María de Castro, all dressed up for the ride and looking very beautiful. To her left rode her diminutive husband, with his smiling, bewhiskered face; he was carrying an ivory-handled cane and wearing a gold-braided doublet and an elegant French-style beaver hat, which he was constantly having to remove to greet acquaintances along the way. He was clearly feeling delighted with life and with the excitement that he and his wife aroused.
“Were there ever two finer pairs of hands,” commented don Francisco wryly, “hers for seducing and his for filching? A very elegant net for catching fish.”