When we left the bedroom, Señor Parra looked at me searchingly, trying to ascertain my opinion of his son’s condition, and I responded in all sincerity: As experience had shown that fits of stupor never lasted overly long, and as at first glance young Prudencio’s physical condition did not appear to have deteriorated, he might hope to improve somewhat in the coming months. (In fact, it happened that he recovered when we embarked on the journey to Casa de Salud; almost in the very moment we left the city, our patient came out of his stupor. Later on, I will record his strange evolution in detail.)
Señor Parra showed me his house, as he had not been able to the previous night owing to the lateness of my arrival, and I, out of discretion, had refrained from roaming that morning while the masters slept. The classical rows of rooms that opened out onto galleries, forming square courtyards — the slaves slept in the back rooms — held not a single surprise for me, but out behind them was a well-tended, if cold-ravaged, garden and a fine nursery of fruit trees, laden with mandarins, oranges, lemons. As we talked, we ate a few mandarins, sweet and icy cold, at the foot of the tree, and when we went back inside, I was surprised by something that the house’s conventional construction had been unable to give me: I stepped into one of the rooms next to the dining room, tastefully furnished and endowed with an abundant library. Several local landscapes, executed by an able but uninspired hand, adorned the walls, and a bust of Voltaire observed us from a shelf. I suddenly realized that I was lucky to be staying at the house of a fashionable and illustrious family, a most rare situation in those remote provinces at that time. (The situation has not, in fact, improved. Note, M. Soldi.) Señor Parra’s discretion, not to mention his shyness, prevented him from revealing too much (and perhaps also my reputation as Dr. Weiss’s collaborator and having studied in Europe), but over the weeks I was forced to tarry, I was able to learn of his lively and sensible ideas and the agreeable tenor that prevailed within his family, who were truly saddened by young Prudencio’s illness. The paintings in the library were by Señor Parra, which, when I found out, caused me to judge them more favorably — I do not know if this was because they had been executed by an amateur who had never undertaken to study painting, or out of affection for the artist and his family. Señor Parra’s numerous businesses, which had allowed him to amass a considerable fortune, did not prevent him from cultivating himself as well as his orchard and garden, and his genuine modesty was unjustified if one takes into account the soundness of his general opinions — a rare trait in a man of means — as it had already been made possible for me to note more than once, by observing frequently on two continents, that the rich hold a high opinion of themselves and are, by a mysterious transposition, convinced that their skill at winning money allows them to hold forth topics of which they are ignorant, whether artistic, political, or philosophical.
While Señor Parra went to carry out his duties, I went to the barracks to see if my traveling companions had settled in. The soldiers, accustomed to military life, had already melted in with the rest of the troops — perhaps too lofty a name for that handful of men, poorly-armed and practically in rags — but Osuna was in a foul mood and claimed not to have slept all night from the racket and constant bustle that reigned in the block. What they called “the block” was an old brick-and-adobe building, in fairly poor repair but large enough to permit some forty men to spread out their nicked, scuffed equipment on the hard-packed floor and kip down at night. Special cases, like sick men or deserters, I would learn later, were dispatched to the hospital or the jail, which were located in a slightly larger building perhaps a hundred meters from the block. Osuna’s discontent seemed justified because the accommodations were of the worst sort, but, visiting it some time later, I saw that our guide’s rather special character might have caused him to exaggerate the reasons for his protest without realizing it. It ought to be clear to my future readers, should ever I have them, that this observation does not denigrate Osuna’s many and excellent qualities in any way, as his loyalty, matchless efficiency, intelligence, common sense, and self-denial overshadowed those others. And yet, I do not know whether due to professional bias or something else, it is impossible for me not to speculate about personality traits that motivate the opinions and actions of those I consort with beyond the reasons they themselves might offer, which are likely true enough. Osuna was thirty-five at the time and already knew the vast plain minutely, out to its farthest corners, and he had turned his irrefutable knowledge of everything related to it into a profitable but unsteady situation, perhaps familiar to the sage or the artist. Like Osuna or other desert-experts of his kind, the wise man or the artist must frequently deal with those who may benefit from their practice but are unable to properly appreciate it. Leaving aside the fact that the others did not stop to consider the sacrifices made to acquire that knowledge — and in Osuna’s case that knowledge constituted a true mastery of the unseen — it could leave him in fairly tight situations. These included dealing with superiors who might fail to give him the respect he deserved, merely taking advantage of his knowledge, or, might instead form an excessive regard for him, giving him special treatment that cut him off from the soldiers and men of similar means. Because of the many travails that gave rise to his knowledge, Osuna had acquired a particular character that made him feel darkly different from the rest, separating himself from them and concentrating, like a great ascetic, on the many details of the outer world. Over the years I dealt with him, I noticed that he was at ease only in the desert. What astonished me about him was seeing, when we made camp at some outpost and he was tempted by liquor, how the impassive façade began to crack on his sharp, dark face, how his small, slanting eyes sparkled, rapid and ever-changing, betraying the passions he hid so well during the day: vanity, arrogance even, regarding his position; jealousy that kept him from admitting to himself that there might be some other worthy guide on the plain; his efforts, otherwise so clumsy, to always be the center of attention; his air of superiority as he listened to and observed the other gauchos, soldiers, et cetera, who shared a bit of roast with the travelers in the plain’s empty night. But much more astonishing to me was to see him decisively mount his horse the next morning, fresh and ready; laconic, energetic, forbidding his face from revealing a single emotion, a single sentiment — as opposed to some hours earlier — as if it was not his will to pick up the road again, proceeding thanks to the thousand messages only he could read that reality sent to him at every step. So every time Osuna complained of something to me and I proposed to rectify the situation, he would respond that it wasn’t worth it. My hearing his complaints, it seemed, was enough.