Quite a pretty dustup. The horses, the carriage, the coffin, the dead person, and I were hurled, as one, across the interior of the shop. The shattering of the windowpane was a sound unlike any other. Twenty thousand glasses, lamps, bottles, mirrors, goblets, and vases exploding at once as well. What I still do not understand is how I came out of it alive and, more or less, in one piece.
Getting up on all fours, I peered around at what was now a glass hecatomb. The mob appeared at the mouth of the square. The carriage had come undone at the back, and the coffin was on the floor, with the lid open. And it was empty. “Where might the dead person have gone to?” I asked myself. Anyway, it was hardly the moment to try and find out. I was still stunned by the impact and found myself crawling into the coffin and shutting the lid after me.
My head throbbed horribly. All night drinking, one tavern after another — we’d come to blows at one point with a group of young Dominican monks, even more devout than we Carmelites — then this headlong rush and the bump on the head. “To hell with it all,” I said. If I stayed quiet, maybe things would sort themselves out. I laid my cheek against the velvet coffin lining and let oblivion settle over me.
I do not know how long I was in there, but had I stayed a little longer, it would have been forever. A movement awoke me; my closed bed was lurching around. It took me a good few moments to remember. .
“Hoi! Open this!” I began shouting. “You whoresons, open up!”
My coffin was swaying on account of its being lowered into the ground. They must have heard my cries, for it began to ascend once more (very slowly, or so it seemed to me). Several hands opened the top and out I shot like a scalded cat. What anguish!
“You almost buried me alive!” I cried, justifiably indignant.
It wasn’t difficult to surmise what had happened. The family, finding the coffin, had simply placed it back on the carriage and set out again on the road to the cemetery; it hadn’t occurred to them to check whether it was their kin or good old Zuvi inside. That was a little too close for comfort.
But the next day I had to deal with the consequences. Eight of my fellow classmates were in the hospital with broken bones, and several ladies who had fainted at the funeral were yet to recover. The glass shop owner was threatening to take me to court. What was more, when rounding up the damage to his business, he had found the cadaver of one of his fellow burghers hanging from a chandelier, which was where it had ended up after the crash. I had gone too far this time. The prior gave me two options: return home with a note explaining my disgraceful conduct, or be sent to the castle at Bazoches. Home? If I went back to my father in Barcelona, having been expelled, I would not come away alive. I opted for Bazoches. From what I was able to find out, a certain Marquis de Vauban was offering to take on students.
2
But enough of the nonsense of children. I was saying: That March 5, I was approaching the castle at Bazoches, on foot and with a knapsack at my back.
The edifice was stately rather than military, attractive rather than pompous. Three round towers soared up out of the ramparts, topped by pointed cowls of black tile. Bazoches castle was beautiful in its antiquated sobriety. In that plain landscape, the eye couldn’t help but be drawn to it, magnetized, even, to the point that I didn’t hear the coach approaching and nearly running me over.
The road was so narrow, I barely had time to jump clear as the coach wheels splashed mud all over me. This to the great amusement of the two jokers who poked their heads out of the coach windows, a couple of boys my age. The coach carried on toward the castle, their laughter at my misfortune ringing out.
And misfortune it truly was, given that I had planned to present myself in my very best attire. The tricorn hat and the morning suit I wore were the only ones I owned. How could I show myself to a venerable marquis when covered head to toe in mud?
I barely need tell how low I felt arriving at Bazoches. The gates were still open from the arrival of the coach, and a footman came out and began rebuking me. “How many times do I have to tell you people, alms day, Monday? Get out of here!”
I could hardly blame him. What else was he to think but that I was a beggar come at the wrong time?
“I am here as an engineering candidate — I have a sealed accreditation to prove it!” I said, fumbling with the knapsack.
The man did not even want to listen. This must have been a common occurrence for him, because straightaway he brought out a cudgel. “Away, knave!”
Do you believe in angels, oh German buffalo of mine? I do not, but in Bazoches I met three. And the first appeared just then — just as that footman’s stick was about to crack my ribs.
By the look of the girl, she was a servant, but by her air of authority, I imagined she must have boasted some office. And for all they say that angels have no gender, I can assure you this one was female. My goodness, that she was.
I struggle for words to describe that creature’s charm. Given that I am not a poet, I’ll be brief and simply say that, as a woman, she was everything you are not, my dear vile Waltraud. Don’t be like that — I only mean you are broader in the beam than a honeybee, and she was no more than a handspan and a half across. You seem as weighed down as a mule with a heavy load; her movements were those of a certain kind of select woman, noble or not, who could flatten empires underfoot. Your hair always looks fresh-dipped in a barrel of grease; hers was fine, shoulder-length, and watermelon-red. I have never seen your breasts, nor do I ever want to, but I would wager they hang off you like eggplants; hers, you could fit perfectly inside a cup. I do not say she was perfection. Her lower jaw, which was firm and angular, bestowed perhaps a little too much personality for a woman. Well, and since I have begun in this direction, I might as well go all the way; you, you had your chin stolen from you at some point, consummately rounding off your cretinous mien.
What else? Ah, yes, small ears, eyebrows thin as brushstrokes and the color of russet, and as with most redheads, freckles splashed across her cheeks. She had precisely six hundred and forty-three freckles. (Later I’ll speak about the academic regime in Bazoches and how it was that I came to count those freckles.) If you had freckles, it would make you look like a leprous witch, whereas she resembled a creature out of myth. And now I come to think of it, one of the few heroes of this age I haven’t actually met is your henpecked husband, who puts up with a monstrosity like you every night. Why the tears? Have I said anything that is not truth? Come, take up the quill again.
The maidservant listened carefully to what I had to say. I must have been convincing, because she asked to see my accreditation. She could read, confirmation that she occupied a high position in the servant hierarchy. I told her what had befallen me, which put her in a position to help or have me thrown out. And she helped me. She went off somewhere. I waited for a little while (though it seemed forever). She came back with arms full of clothes.
“Take this morning suit,” she said, “and hurry. They’re starting already.”
I ran off in the direction indicated, and didn’t stop until I reached a perfectly square room with a low ceiling. For furniture, there were only a couple of chairs, and a door was set in the wall facing. And, next to that, the two lugs responsible for my muddy state. They were on foot, waiting to be admitted.
The first was thickset and had a squashed nose, the nostrils facing more forward than down, not unlike a pig’s. The other was tall and scrawny, with legs like a flamingo. His rich boy attire did nothing to hide his ungainliness; instead of having grown gradually, he seemed to have been suddenly yanked from above with tongs. Porky and Stretch, I christened them in my mind.