Carlos Fuentes The Death of Artemio Cruz (pdf)

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next town when they d take a rest.
In the darkness, he felt around for his field jacket. He slung his
cartridge belts across his chest. Outside, the black horse, the quiet
one, was tied to a post. People were still gathered around the
victims of the hanging, but he didn t even look in that direction.
He got on his horse and galloped to headquarters.
Where the hell did those bastards go? he shouted to one of
the soldiers on guard.
They re on the other side of the ravine, sir. They re supposed
to be dug in next to the bridge, waiting for reinforcements. Looks
like they want to take this town again. Come on in and have
something to eat.
He dismounted. Slowly he threaded his way through the
bonfires in the patio, the clay pots swinging over the crisscrossed
logs. The sound of a woman s hands slapping the dough got
louder. He stuck a big spoon into the boiling broth of the tripe
stew, took a pinch of onion, some powdered chile and oregano.
He chewed the hard, fresh northern-style tortillas; the pigs feet.
He was alive.
He ripped from its rusty iron ring the torch that lit up the
entrance to headquarters. He sank his spurs into the black horse s
flanks. Those still walking the street jumped out of the way. The
The Death of Artemio Cruz 67
surprised horse tried to buck, but he held the bridle tight, spurred
the horse, and felt, finally, that the horse understood. It was no
longer the horse of the wounded man, the wavering man who
had crossed the mountains that afternoon. And it was a different
horse, too: it understood. It shook its mane to make sure the man
understood: it was a war horse, as furious and swift as its rider.
And the rider raised the torch to light the road that wound around
the town and led to the bridge over the ravine.
There was another bonfire at the entrance to the bridge. The
federales caps glowed with a reddish pallor. But the hooves of the
black horse carried all the force of the earth, scattering grass and
dust and thorns and leaving a trail of sparks from the torch held
on high by the rider, who hurled himself at the post at the bridge,
leapt over the bonfire, discharged his pistol into astonished eyes,
dark necks, bodies that did not understand, who pushed back the
cannons, which could not see in the darkness that he was alone,
a rider heading south, to the next town, where someone was
waiting for him&
Out of the way, you goddamn sons of bitches! shout the
thousand voices of this one man.
The voice of pain and desire, the voice of the pistol, the arms
that torches the boxes of powder and blows up the cannons and
stampedes the riderless horses, amid a chaos of whinnies and calls
and gunshots that now have a distant echo in the lost voices of
the town, in the bell that begins to toll in the reddish church tower,
in the pulse of the earth that fears the horses of the revolutionary
cavalry, which is now crossing the bridge and finds the
destruction, the flight, the spent fires, but they don t find either
the federales or the lieutenant, he who rides south holding the
torch on high, the eyes of his horse burning: riding south, with
the thread in his hands, riding south.
I survived. Regina. What was your name? No. You, Regina.
What was your name, nameless soldier? I survived. You all died.
I survived. Ah, they ve left me in peace. They think I m asleep. I
remembered you. I remembered your name. But you have no
name. And the two come toward me, holding hands, with their
begging bowls empty, thinking they re going to convince me,
The Death of Artemio Cruz 68
inspire my compassion. Oh, no. I don t owe my life to you. I owe
it to my pride, are you listening? I owe it to my pride. I sent out
the challenge. I dared. Virtue? Humility? Charity? Ah, you can
live without them, you really can. You can t live without pride.
Charity? What good is it? Humility? You, Catalina, what would
you have done with my humility? You would have used it to
conquer my disdain, you would have abandoned me. I know you
forgive yourself, envisioning the sanctity of that sacrament. Ha.
If it hadn t been for my money, you wouldn t have waited a second
to divorce me. And you, Teresa, if you hate and insult me though
I support you, how would you have liked to hate me in misery,
insult me in poverty? Imagine yourselves without my pride,
pharisees, waiting forever on every corner in town for a bus;
imagine yourselves lost in that footsore crowd; imagine yourselves
working in some shop, in an office, typing, wrapping packages,
imagine yourselves saving up to buy a car on the installment plan,
lighting candles to the Virgin to keep up your illusions, making
monthly payments on a piece of land, sighing for a refrigerator;
imagine yourselves sitting at a neighborhood movie on Saturdays,
eating peanuts, trying to find a taxi after the show, eating out once
a month; imagine yourselves having to shout that there s no other
country like Mexico to feel yourselves alive; imagine yourselves
having to feel proud of serapes and Cantinflas and mariachi music
and mole poblano just to feel alive, ha ha; imagine yourselves
having to believe in legacies, pilgrimages, the efficacy of prayer
to keep you alive.
Domine, non sum dignus&
Cheers. First, they want to cancel all loans from U.S. banks to
the Pacific Railroad. Do you have any idea how much the railroad
pays per year in interest on those loans? Thirty-nine million pesos.
Second, they want to fire all advisers involved in the railroad
rehabilitation program. Do you have any idea how much we
make? Ten million a year. Third, they want to fire all of us who
administer the U.S. loans to the railroads. Do you have any idea
how much you earned and how much I earned last year& ?
Three million pesos each&
Exactly. And the thing doesn t end there. Do me a favor and
The Death of Artemio Cruz 69
send a telegram to National Fruits Express telling them that these
Communist leaders intend to cancel the rental of refrigerator
cars, an item that costs the company twenty million pesos a year
and brings us a good commission. Cheers.
Ha, ha. That s the way to explain it all. Fools. If I didn t defend
their interests& fools. Oh, get out of here, all of you. Let me listen.
We ll just see if you don t understand me. We ll just see if you
don t understand what an arm bent like this means& [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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