The Heretic by Miguel Delibes

Author:Miguel Delibes [DELIBES, MIGUEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, FIC019000FIC014000
ISBN: 9781468304800
Publisher: ABRAMS, Inc. (Ignition)
Published: 2012-07-09T22:00:00+00:00

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TEO lost a few pounds when she went into mourning, a distinguished and respectful mourning that caused her to wear over her bosom a necklace of black pearls that contrasted with the pallor of her skin. Cipriano also shrank, dressed in a sleeveless leather coat, black—as was the fashion—and wearing a collar that was so high it covered half his neck. Above the collar appeared the ruffled boarder of his shirt. But mourning did not resolve the difficulties in the couple’s relationship. Teo’s hopes for motherhood returned, while Cipriano maintained she should give him a period of time and be sensible. In his eagerness to convince her, Cipriano brought up the fact that his father was eight years older than his Uncle Ignacio, that she should realize that his grandparents had probably had the same intimate relations both before and after their first child.

Even so, one afternoon, certain he’d never convince her, he made a private visit to Doctor Galache. He would have preferred to see the doctor who’d help bring him into the world, Doctor Almenara, but he’d died eleven years earlier. Doctor Galache examined Cipriano and said everything was fine, but that he could enrich the quality of his sperm by drinking an infusion of verbena and honeysuckle after each meal. Salcedo admitted he felt physically strong, and that the sterility did not seem to derive from his side. It was then Doctor Galache made the request he feared most: “Why don’t you bring your wife to see me? Wives are often the cause of matrimonial sterility.”

Salcedo told him that she wasn’t prepared for such a visit, but that perhaps with time she might decide to come. Cipriano said nothing to Teo about seeing Galache; nor did he start drinking the infusion.

The next morning he left for Pedrosa. It was a calm day with white clouds and high temperature. Cipriano’s lightness, the speed of his horse, and the maze of shortcuts and side roads he’d come to know allowed him to reach Pedrosa in a little over two hours. He began skirting the hills, then turned on the Geria path, and from there rode in a straight line through the young vines crossed Villavieja and Villalar, reaching Pedrosa through the fields of wheat without having to make any detours. Seated outside some shack, there would be a man; then a rat terrier would bark when the horse passed. Sometimes children would wave.

He took a room in the Baruque’s daughter’s inn and immediately went to see his farmer. Days earlier he’d had a luminous idea: Pull up the vines from Villavendimio and replace them with a stand of pines. No one had ever dared plant pines on the right bank of the Duero, but the quality of the soil, thin and sandy, simply demanded it. Besides, Martín Martín was an expert in pines. He’d cultivated white pine with his uncle over in Olmedo, knew how to tend trees, and even knew the fluctuations of pine nuts in the market:

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