Coronation by José Donoso

Author:José Donoso [Donoso, José]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 1965-10-14T14:00:00+00:00

12

Andrés slammed the door and ran down the stairs into the street.

He had no recollection later of having hailed a taxi, or why he gave the driver his grandmother’s address. It was not until he noticed that the taxi was pulling into the street where she lived that he realized he must have told the driver to take him there.

He told the man to stop, and got out. He would walk the rest of the way.

He glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock. A light mist blurred some of the detail of trees and houses, leaving them apparently floating in the depths of the gardens. Rings of misty light haloed each street light so that it seemed embedded in a drop of cold. A car tore up the silence of the damp pavement. As Andrés went past, he could see into the brightly lit rooms behind the windows where lives were going on as usual: people were talking, getting ready for bed, laughing.

Andrés walked on. But his life was not proceeding as usual. A shape loomed out of the fog and walked by without looking at him; Andrés briefly registered a high collar and an air of hurrying back to a familiar destination: everything was in order in that life, now vanishing into the mist once more. But he, Andrés Abalos, was no longer the person he had once been . . .

His eyes were moist with a sudden joy. He had at last succeeded in breaking the mold that imprisoned him. He stopped under a street light. His body, enveloped by the chilly mist, glowed with a new and wonderful warmth.

But why? Why?

His imagination had only to stretch up to pluck the answer—he wanted Estela. Just that. But it was not the fact of wanting her which was so important, he had often felt desire before. It was this vital tremor, this feeling of being recharged with power and energy throughout his body, which was so wonderfully new. Now he might howl with hunger, or dance with delight, or groan with pain; the old Andrés Abalos, still halted on the threshold of himself, was powerless to stop him. Was this the truth which Tenchita’s ludicrous caricature had brought into his consciousness? Might it not be the gestation of this force within him which had so disturbed his peace of mind during the past month?

He wanted Estela. His clenched hands thrust into his coat pockets imagined the naked softness of her palms, and her black eyes sparkled before him. His neck tingled reminiscently as he recalled her warm breath on his neck as she had helped him into his coat more than a month ago. Yes. He wanted Estela. He wanted her more than he had ever believed he could want anyone.

Andrés walked on with his eyes half closed. The urgency of his desire was ample proof that, contrary to what he had believed and Carlos had suggested, he was not dead at all. He was not, after all, one of

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