Chapter 4

The tram kept on going and going and whether because of the heat that could be felt inside it or the slow and monotonous movement of the vehicle that gives rise to a certain amount of dizziness which then turns into sleep, what is certain is that I felt my eyelids droop, leaned to my left-hand side, placing my elbow on the bundle of books, and closed my eyes. While in this position I continued to see the row of faces of both sexes in front of me, some bearded, some shaven, some laughing, some very stiff and serious. Afterwards it seemed to me that, obeying the contraction of a single muscle, all those faces winked and grimaced, opening and closing their eyes and their mouths, and showing me in turn a series of teeth that varied from whiter than white to yellowish, some as sharp as knives, others broken and worn. Those eight noses set under sixteen eyes varying in colour and expression, got bigger or smaller and changed shape; the mouths opened in a horizontal line producing silent laughter or stretched forward forming sharp-pointed snouts similar to the interesting face of a certain distinguished animal which has brought down on itself the anathema of being unnameable.

Behind those eight faces, whose horrendous traits I have just depicted, and through the windows of the tram, I could see the street, the houses and the passers-by, all speeding past as if the tram were travelling at a vertiginous speed. I at least thought that it went faster than the trains on our railroads, faster than its French, English and North American counterparts. It ran as fast as might be imagined when it came to displacing solid objects.

As this state of lethargy increased, I was able to imagine that houses, streets and the whole of Madrid were gradually disappearing. For a moment I thought that the tram was running through oceanic depths: through the windows could be seen the bodies of enormous cetaceans and the sticky appendages of a multitude of polyps of various sizes. Small fish were shaking their slippery tails against the glass and some of them were looking inside with great and gilded eyes. Crustaceans of an unfamiliar shape, large molluscs, madrepores, sponges and a scattering of big and misshapen bivalves which I had never seen before, swam ceaselessly past. The tram was being pulled by monstrous swimming creatures, whose oars, fighting with the water, sounded like the blades of a propeller churning it up with their ceaseless rotation.

This vision started to fade. Then it seemed to me that the tram was flying through the air, always in the same direction and without being blown off course by winds. Through the windows only empty space was visible. Clouds sometimes enveloped us and a sudden downpour drummed against the upper deck. All at once we came out into pure space flooded with sunshine, only to go back to the nebulous presence of huge flashes, now red, now yellow, sometimes opal, sometimes amethyst, which were being left behind us as we made our way forward. We passed then through a point in space where shining forms floated in a very fine golden dust: further on this dust storm, which I took to be produced by the movement of the wheels grinding the light, was silver, then green like flour made from emeralds, and finally red like flour made from rubies. The tram was being dragged by some apocalyptic bird, stronger than a hippogryph and more daring than a dragon, and the noise of the wheels and the driving force made me think of the whirring of the great sails of a windmill, or rather the buzz of a bumblebee the size of an elephant. We were flying through infinite space without ever arriving anywhere. In the meantime the earth fell away several leagues below our feet, and the things of earth—Spain, Madrid, the Salamanca district, Cascajares, the Countess, the Count, Mudarra, the gallant young man, all of them together.

I soon fell into a deep sleep and then the tram stopped moving, stopped flying and the sensation that I felt of travelling in such a tram disappeared and all that was left was the deep and monotonous bass of the wheels which never abandons us even in our nightmares, be it in a train or in the cabin of a steamship. I slept. Oh unhappy countess! I saw her as clearly as I now see the paper that I'm writing on. I saw her sat next to a night light, hand on cheek, sad and pensive like a statue depicting Melancholy. At her feet a lapdog lay curled up that seemed to me just as sad as his as his interesting mistress.

Then I was able to examine at my leisure the woman I had come to see as misfortune personified. She was tall and fair with big and expressive eyes, an aquiline nose that was actually quite prominent, though not out of proportion to the rest of her face, and set off by the twin curves of her fine and arched eyebrows. She was casually groomed and from this, as from her dress, it was possible to surmise that she did not intend to go out again that night. A night of marvels truly! I observed with increasing anxiety the beautiful form I so much wanted to know better and it seemed to me that I could read her mind behind that noble brow in which the habit of reflexion had traced scarcely visible lines which would soon become wrinkles. Suddenly the door to her room opened to let a man in. The Countess gave a yelp of surprise and got up in a state of great agitation.

"What's this?" she said. "Rafael. You. What barefaced cheek! How did you get in?"

"Madam," answered the one who had just entered, a young man of noble bearing. "Weren't you expecting me? I received a letter from you."

"A letter from me!" exclaimed the Countess even more agitated. "I wrote no such letter. And what reason would I have for writing it?"

"Madam, look," the young man responded, taking out the letter and showing it to her. "It's in your own handwriting."

"Good God! What devilry is this?" said the lady in despair. "It was not I who wrote this letter. They're setting a trap for me."

"Madam, calm down. I'm very sorry."

"Yes. I understand everything now. That infamous man. I have a strong suspicion as to what he had in mind. Leave this instant. But it's already too late. I can already hear my husband's voice."

Indeed a deafening voice could be heard in the room next door and, after a short interval, the Count came in the room. He feigned surprise at seeing the gallant visitor and, subsequently laughing somewhat affectedly, spoke to him:

"Ah Rafael! You're here. Long time no see! You came to accompany
Antonia on the piano. You'll take tea with us."

The Countess and her spouse exchanged a meaningful glance. The young man in his perplexity hardly managed to return the Count's greeting. I saw them entering the living room and servants coming out to meet them. I saw that the servants were carrying tea things and afterwards they disappeared, leaving the three main characters alone.

Something terrible was going to happen.

They sat down. The Countess looked mortified. The Count affected a dazed hilarity like drunkenness and the young man spoke only in monosyllables. Tea was served and the Count passed to Rafael one of the cups, not just any cup, but one he'd singled out. The Countess looked at that cup so fearfully it seemed that her soul had left her body. They drank in silence ballasting the brew with a tasty assortment of Huntley and Palmers biscuits and other nibbles appropriate to this type of supper. Then the Count burst out laughing again with the outrageous and noisy demonstrativeness that was peculiar to him that night, and said:

"How bored we all are! You, Rafael, haven't said a word. Antonia, play something. We haven't heard you play for such a long time. This piece by Gorschack, for instance, entitled Death. You used to play it wonderfully. Come on. Sit down at the piano."

The Countess tried to speak, but could not say a word. The Count looked at her in such a way that the unhappy woman quailed before the terrible expression in his eyes like a dove hypnotized by a boa constrictor. She got up to go to the piano and again there the husband must have said something that terrified her even more, subjecting her to his devilish dominion. The piano sounded with several strings struck at once and, running from the low notes to the high notes, the lady's hands awoke in a second hundreds of sounds that were lying dormant in among the strings and hammers. At first the music was a confused mixture of sounds that stunned rather than pleased, but then that storm blew over and a funereal and timorous dirge like the Dies irae came out of such disorder. It seemed to me I heard the sad sound of a choir of Carthusians accompanied by the hoarse bellow of the bassoons. After could be heard pitiful sighs like those that we imagine souls exhale, condemned in purgatory to ceaselessly beg for a pardon that is a long time in coming.

Then came loud and extended arpeggios and the notes reared up as if arguing about which of them would could there first. Chords came together and broke up like the foam on waves which forms and is then effaced. The harmonies boiled and fluctuated in an endless heavy swell, fading into silence and then coming back more strongly in great and hasty eddies. I carried on entranced by the majestic and impressive music. I could not see the face of the countess, sat with her back to me, but I imagined it to be in such a state of bewilderment and fright that I started to think that the piano was playing itself. The young man was behind her, the count to her right, leaning on the piano. From time to time she raised her eyes to look at him, but she must have seen something dreadful in the eyes of her companion as she went back to lowering hers and kept on playing. Suddenly the piano stopped sounding and the Countess cried out.

Just at that moment I felt an extremely strong blow to my shoulder, shook myself violently and woke up.