Goya's Glass Read Online Free

describes my freedom to do as I wish, to look at the sky and the tops of the trees, to be taught music and painting, to begin to learn through my grandfather the basic tenets of philosophy, and when it is over, in the afternoon to play in the garden with the children of the servants.
    That is Grandfather’s ideal. But there is something he doesn’t know, roe deer, which is that here I feel like you in your cage. Do you want to come out, like I do? Come on, I’ll help you escape. Miguelito, open the side door that goes onto the street. Shut up and open it! Now, little animal, off you go in search of freedom. Why do you drag your heels as if you didn’t want it? You have to learn to run and jump, you don’t even know how. Have your hooves become atrophied in the cage? You’re free now! Run, go on, over there you’ll find a meadow and a few trees!
    I felt relieved. I imagined the roe deer discovering the beauty of nature. I went back to the soiree smiling because people didn’t know my secret, that the roe deer had recovered its freedom and that, one day, I would follow it.
    After a while, however, I saw Miguelito’s face at the window, covered in panic. He was signaling for me to come out at once. I ran. The roe deer! It was lying in the middle of the lawn and behind it trailed a flow of blood. Its body and nose were coveredin deep scratches. “It came back on its own, dragging itself with the last of its strength,” Miguelito told me.
    We took it to the cage. Miguelito poured water over the traces of blood so they wouldn’t be found. I lay next to the wounded animal, which was panting and suffering in silence, and wiped the blood from its face. Is this liberty? I asked myself. Who did this to him? It could hardly have been another animal; it was probably the street children, probably our servants’ boys and girls. The animal lay dying all night. And while the roe deer complained like an injured bird, I stroked the hair along its back and neck, and looked at its big, tender eyes, flooded with tears. All of the world and all of life was reflected there. And the world, which was mirrored in those sad, whiteless eyes, suddenly became full: more full than my world before the death of my father.
    It was my most beautiful night. In the tear-filled eyes of the roe deer I found the strength of life once more: in those unfathomable eyes from which, little by little, life was fleeing.
    I’m thirsty. Where did they leave my glass? Ah, yes, here it is, on the cushion. María, you who are the only understanding soul, dear old thing who will outlive me, pour me a little water, you who knows that I don’t like drinking it from any other glass. How old was I when my grandfather gave it to me? He left it to me as a souvenir so that I should never be apart from him. I took it everywhere: Paris, Florence, Seville; even in Piedrahíta, I drank only from this glass. And that time, here in Madrid . . .
    When I entered the salon, festively illuminated, all the guests were standing, waiting for me. The deep décolletage of my black dress was half hidden under the scarf with fire-red brocade: that of a maja , a village girl, a gypsy. In the salon, there was something that dazzled me more than the candelabras full of lit candles. When I had found my bearings, I was able to make out a shameless look, as if he had never seen a woman before, from head to toe, from feet to forehead. And there and then, I knew that those eyes were of the first man I had met in my life.
    At that moment the man was talking to someone . . . maybe it was the Marquess of Villafranca, my mother-in-law. Yes, it must have been she. I remember the bright silver, her silvery dress and the ash color of her hair. She was asking him something, but he heard nothing. Because he was half deaf, but above all because he was obviously living in another world. I went about scattering greetings, looks, and smiles, and yet never stopped noticing that pair of sharp, small eyes, a