The Mystery of the Sintra Road by Eca de Queiroz

Author:Eca de Queiroz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909232600
Publisher: Dedalus
Published: 2013-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

IX

Rytmel hurled himself at me and grabbed the revolver.

I merely muttered:

‘Fine! I’ll do it at the first port we come to.’

The Countess stepped forward, looking white as a ghost, and said (I never will forget the tone of her voice):

‘Rytmel, we must go back to Malta.’

‘Back to Malta? Back to Malta? Why, for God’s sake?’

I interrupted, babbling all kinds of nonsense:

‘Rytmel, give me the revolver, let’s be men about this. Our actions ought to be the equal of our characters. Nothing could be simpler. Passion cannot draw back nor honour yield. Death is the only solution. I will shoot myself, and then you two can flee as far away as you wish.’

But the countess, who was the only one of us who still seemed blessed with a glimmer of common sense, doggedly repeated the same words, in which I could hear her inner pain:

‘Rytmel, we must go back to Malta.’

He looked at her for a moment, then a full awareness of the whole ghastly situation seemed to overwhelm and subdue him. His bowed his head and obeyed. He went to say a few words to the helmsman.

A moment later, we were once again heading for Malta.

A great silence fell, a weariness following that battle of the emotions. Rytmel was pacing briskly up and down the deck, and despite his unruffled countenance, I could sense the torment within.

‘So here we are!’ he exclaimed suddenly, stopping his pacing and folding his arms, with a strange fire in his eyes. ‘It’s all over. We’re going back to Malta. What more do you want? What’s left for us now? To say goodbye forever? Forever! We were going to Alexandria. We were safe, alone together, young, happy! And now? Happiness, love, passion, hope, joy, all gone. Ha! Poor me! They talk to me of honour, but what kind of honour is it that’s going to kill me every day, uproot me from my paradise, make me the most wretched man on earth? Honour, you say! What’s left for me to do? A bullet through the head in India. To die there, alone, like a dog.’

The countess kept her eyes fixed on the sea and said nothing.

Rytmel came and seized my arm in a desperate gesture:

‘Don’t you see? I was prepared to risk everything for her: dishonour, disgrace, scorn. I was prepared to leave the world behind, to betray my uniform, embrace poverty, ridicule, and all for her. A woman says to a man “I love you” and agrees to elope with him. She’s there on the boat, and all of a sudden, only half an hour away from happiness, from paradise, when we’re already out of sight of land, up pops a scruple, a pang of guilt, a nostalgia for her husband perhaps, the memory of a ball she once attended or of a flower that particularly suited her – and it’s goodbye forever. And she wants to go back; and the man, miserable wretch, is left to suffer, cry, tear out his hair and die like a dog somewhere.

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