Of Love and Other Demons Read Online Free

outbreak of rabies, none at all,’ said the doctor. He mentioned frivolous treatises that considered it a curable disease responsive to various prescriptions: liverwort, cinnabar, musk, silver mercury,
anagallis flore purpureo
. ‘All rubbish,’ he said.‘The fact is that some people contract rabies and others do not, and it is easy to say that if they did not, it was because of the medicines.’ He looked into the eyes of the Marquis to be certain he was still awake, and concluded, ‘Why are you so interested?’
    ‘Out of pity,’ the Marquis lied.
    Through the window he contemplated the sea grown drowsy in the ennui of four o’clock and realized witha heavy heart that the swallows had returned. There was still no breeze. A group of children threw stones at a pelican gone astray on a muddy beach, and the Marquis followed the bird in its fugitive flight until it vanished among the brilliant domes of the fortified city.
    The carriage entered the walled precincts at the inland Media Luna gate, and Abrenuncio guided the coachmanthrough the bustlingdistrict of the artisans to his house. It was no easy task. Neptuno was more than seventy years old, and indecisive and shortsighted as well, and he was accustomed to having the horse move on its own through streets it knew better than he did. When at last they reached the house, Abrenuncio said goodbye at the door with a sentence from Horace.
    ‘I am afraid I do not know Latin,’ the Marquis apologized.‘There is no reason you should!’ said Abrenuncio. And he said it in Latin of course.
    The Marquis was so impressed that his first act when he returned home was the most unusual of his life. He ordered Neptuno to collect the dead horse on San Lázaro Hill and bury it in holy ground, and early the next day to send Abrenuncio the best horse in his stable.
    After the ephemeral relief of antimony purges,Bernarda took as many as three consolatory enemas a day to extinguish the blaze in her belly or sank into as many as six hot baths with perfumed soaps to soothe her nerves. By this time there was nothing left of the person she had been when she married, a woman who devised commercial ventures and put them into effect with the assurance of a soothsayer, so great was her success, until the ill-fatedafternoon she met Judas Iscariote and was swept away by misfortune.
    She saw him for the first time inside a bullfighting corral erected at a fair, wrangling a fierce bull with his bare hands, almost naked, and unprotected. He was so handsome and bold she could not forget him. Days later she saw him again, dancing the
cumbé
at a carnival that she attended wearing a mask and disguised as a beggarand surrounded by her slave women dressed as marquises with necklaces and bracelets and earrings of gold and precious stones. Judas was in the center of a circle of onlookers, dancing with any woman who would pay him, and the authorities had to impose order to control the frantic yearning of his claimants. Bernarda asked him how much he cost. Judas replied as he danced: ‘Half a
real
.’
    Bernardatook off her mask.
    ‘What I’m asking is how much you cost for the rest of your life,’ she said.
    Judas saw that with her mask removed she was not the beggar she had seemed. He let go of his partner and walked toward Bernarda with all the airs of a cabin boy to tell her his price.
    ‘Five hundred gold pesos,’ he said.
    She measured him with the eye of a wary appraiser. He was enormous, with seal-coloredskin, a rippling torso, narrow hips, graceful legs and beautiful hands that belied his position in life. Bernarda estimated, ‘You’re two meters tall.’
    ‘And three centimeters,’ he said.
    Bernarda had him lower his head so that she could examine his teeth and she found the ammoniac breath of his armpits unsettling. He had all his teeth, and they were healthy and straight.
    ‘Your master must becrazy if he thinks anyone’s going to buy you for the price of a horse,’ said