Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez [Marquez, Gabriel Garcia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

the next day Cayetano Delaura went to the Convent of Santa Clara. Despite the heat he wore a habit of raw wool and carried a flask of holy water and a casket with sacramental oils, primary weapons in the war against the demon. The Abbess had never seen him, but talk of his intelligence and power had penetrated the silence of the cloister. When she received him in the locutory at six in the morning, she was struck by his air of youth, his pallor worthy of a martyr, the timbre of his voice, the enigma of his lock of white hair. But no virtue would have been enough to make her forget that he was the soldier of the Bishop. All that Delaura noticed, though, was the uproarious crowing of the roosters.

"There are only six of them, but they make enough noise for a hundred," said the Abbess. "Furthermore, a pig spoke and a goat gave birth to triplets." And she added with fervor: "Everything has been like this since your Bishop did us the favor of sending us his poisoned gift."

She viewed with equal alarm the garden flowering with so much vigor that it seemed contra natura. As they walked across it she pointed out to Delaura that there were flowers of exceptional size and color, some with an unbearable scent. As far as she was concerned, everything ordinary had something supernatural about it. Widi each word Delaura felt that she was stronger than he, and he hastened to sharpen his weapons.

"We have not stated that the girl is possessed," he said, "but only that there are reasons to suspect it."

"What we are witnessing speaks for itself," said the Abbess.

"Take care," said Delaura. "Sometimes we attribute certain things we do not understand to the demon, not thinking they may be things of God that we do not understand."

"Saint Thomas said it, and I will be guided by him," said the Abbess: " 'One must not believe demons even when they speak the truth.'"

The cloistered silence began on the second floor. On one side were the empty cells, locked and bolted during the day, and facing them was a row of windows opened to the splendor of the sea. The novices did not seem to be distracted from their labors, but in reality they followed every move of the Abbess and her visitor as they made their way toward the prison pavilion.

Before they came to the far end of the corridor, where Sierva María was confined, they passed the cell of Martina Laborde, a former nun condemned to life imprisonment for having murdered two of her companions with a carving knife. She never confessed her motive. She had spent eleven years there and was better known for her failed escape attempts than for her crime. She never accepted that being imprisoned for life was the same as being a cloistered nun, and in this she was so consistent that she had offered to serve the rest of her sentence as a maid in the pavilion of those interred in life.

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