Spalanzo left the archbishop’s chambers as pale as a corpse. He clutched his head. If the monks said Maria was a witch, who would believe him if he said otherwise? Who would dare?
All Barcelona would be convinced. Every last person! Fools will fall for a falsehood, and the people of Barcelona were fools to a man!
“No people are more foolish than the Spanish,” Spalanzo’s father, a doctor, had inveighed on his deathbed. “Scorn them and their beliefs!”
Spalanzo shared many beliefs with his fellow Spaniards, but the words of the archbishop he didn’t believe. He knew his wife. In any case, he was convinced that it was only when they got old that women turned into witches.
“The monks want to burn you, Maria!” he told his wife. He was back from seeing the archbishop. “They say you’re a witch. They’ve ordered me to bring you there. Listen, wife! If you really are a witch, well—that’s that!—turn into a black cat and flee; but if there’s no evil spirit in you, I’m not going to turn you in. The monks will put a dog’s collar on you. They won’t let you sleep until you confess, whether it’s true or not. But if you are a witch—just leave! Run away!”
Maria didn’t turn into a black cat. She didn’t run away. She wept. She prayed to God.
“Listen!” said Spalanzo to his weeping wife. “My father told me that the time will come—soon—when people who believe in witches will be mocked. My father may have been an unbeliever, but he was no liar. We’ve got to hide you away until that time comes. And that’s easy! My brother Christopher’s ship is in the harbor for repairs. We’ll hide you there until the time is ripe. My father promised it would be soon.”
That evening, Maria sat in the ship’s hold, shivering from cold and fear, and listening to the noise of the waves. She couldn’t wait for Spalanzo’s father’s unlikely prophesy to come true.
“Where is your wife?” the archbishop demanded.
Spalanzo lied. “She turned into a black cat and ran away!”
“Just as I said! Never mind. We’ll find her. Augustine has a gift! An extraordinary gift! Go in peace, my son, and next time, don’t marry a witch! Evil spirits can migrate from wife to husband. Just last year I burned a devout Catholic who touched an unclean woman and was compelled to give his soul to Satan. You’re free to go!”
Maria was in the ship for a long time. Every night, Spalanzo visited her. He brought her whatever she needed. She was there for a month, for two months, for three, and still the longed-for time had not come. Superstitions disappear, Spalanzo’s father was right about that, but not in a matter of months. Superstitions live on and on—it takes centuries for them to die off.
Now that she was used to her new life, Maria began to make fun of the monks. She called them crows. She could have gone on like that for a while and, when the ship was all fixed up, sailed away to distant lands, far far from foolish Spain—as Christopher proposed—if not for an irreparable disaster.
Passed from hand to hand and published in every plaza and marketplace, the archbishop’s proclamation had finally made its way to Spalanzo. He read it lost in thought. He couldn’t stop thinking about the promised absolution of sins.
“How good to be absolved of all my sins!” He sighed.
Spalanzo considered himself a terrible sinner. He had countless sins on his conscience, sins for which many a Catholic had been burned or died under torture. When Spalanzo was young, he had lived in Toledo, then a rallying point of sorcerers and wizards. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, arithmetic flourished in Toledo as nowhere else in Europe. But in Spain, arithmetic was one step away from magic. Under the tutelage of his father, Spalanzo had practiced magic. He’d dissected animals. He’d gathered strange herbs. Once, while pounding something in an iron mortar, a bluish flame had burst out: an evil spirit that escaped with a horrible noise. Life in Toledo had been rife with sin!
After his father’s death, Spalanzo left Toledo, consumed with remorse for his sins. An old monk—a very learned doctor—told him that if he wanted to be forgiven, he must perform a great deed. Spalanzo was ready to do anything to receive absolution for his sins. If only he could rid his soul of these memories of his shameful Toledan life and avoid hell! He would have given half of all his earthly goods, if indulgences had been available at the time. He would have gone on foot to the holy sites, but his business dealings held him back.
He read the archbishop’s proclamation and he thought, “If I weren’t her husband, I’d turn her in.”
Day and night he was tormented by the thought that with just one word he would receive absolution. He loved his wife—he loved her very much. If not for that love, a weakness despised by monks and by Toledan doctors too, he would probably have spoken.
He showed the proclamation to his brother Christopher.
“If she’s a witch, I’d turn her in,” said his brother, “except she’s so beautiful. Absolution’s a good thing. Then again, we won’t lose out if we hand Maria over to those crows when she’s dead. Let them burn her then. Dead, there’s no pain. And she’ll die when we’re old, when we’ll really need absolution.”
Christopher had said his piece. He burst out laughing, and slapped his brother on the shoulder.
“I might die before her,” Spalanzo brooded. “If I wasn’t her husband, I’d turn her in, I swear!”
A week later, Spalanzo paced the ship’s deck. “If only she were dead!” he muttered under his breath. “I won’t turn her in alive, no! Dead, I’d turn her in! I’d trick the lot of those damned old crows and receive absolution!”
So foolish Spalanzo poisoned his poor wife.
He brought Maria’s dead body to the court. It was burned.
He received absolution for the sins he’d committed in Toledo. He was forgiven for learning how to heal people and for studying the science that in years to come would be known as chemistry. The archbishop praised him and gave Spalanzo a book that he’d written himself. In it, the learned archbishop explained that it’s because demons are black that black-haired women are so often possessed by demons.
THE TEMPERAMENTS
(Based on the Latest Scientific Findings)
SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT IN A MALE
THE SANGUINE male is readily influenced by all his experiences, which is the cause, according to Hufeland,* of his frivolity. In his youth he is a bébé and a Spitzbube.† He is rude to teachers, doesn’t get haircuts, doesn’t shave, wears glasses, and scribbles on walls. He is a bad student but manages to graduate. He doesn’t respect his parents. If he is rich, he dresses to the nines; if he is impoverished, he lives like a pig. He sleeps until noon and goes to bed at odd hours. He makes mistakes when he writes. For love alone did Nature create him,‡ and he is constantly in love with someone or other. He is always willing to drink himself silly, but after drinking himself into a stupor, he gets up in the morning as sound as a bell, his head just a touch heavier than usual and not in need of similia similibus curantur.§ He gets married by accident. He is constantly fighting with his mother-in-law. He doesn’t get along with his relatives. He lies nonstop. He is terribly fond of scandals and amateur theater. In an orchestra he plays first violin. Because he is frivolous, he is liberal. Either he doesn’t read at all or he reads nonstop. He likes newspapers and wouldn’t mind writing for them. The “Responses to Our Correspondents” section of humor magazines has been invented specifically for males of sanguine temperament. He is constant in his inconstancy. When in service, he is an official for special missions or something to that effect. In school he teaches language arts. He rarely gets promoted to actual state councillor, but when he does, he turns phlegmatic or, in the rare instance, choleric. Scamps, rapscallions, and ne’er-do-wells are all of the sanguine temperament. It is not recommended to sleep in the same room with anyone who is a sanguine: He’ll tell you jokes all night, and if he doesn’t know any jokes, he will criticize his relatives or else tell lies. He will die of a disease of the digestive system and premature burnout.