Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman Page B

Clara.’
    Abrenuncio did not understand, and the Marquis tookadvantage of his confusion to deliver the next blow.
    ‘Sheis to be exorcised,’ he said.
    The physician gave a deep sigh and said with exemplary calm, ‘Tell me everything.’
    Then the Marquis told him about his visit to the Bishop, his desire to pray, his blind decision, his sleepless night. It was the confession of an Old Christian who did not hold back a single secret for his own enjoyment.
    ‘I am convinced it was a commandment from God,’ he concluded.
    ‘You mean you have recovered your faith,’ said Abrenuncio.
    ‘One never quite stops believing,’ said the Marquis. ‘Some doubt remains forever.’
    Abrenuncio understood. He had always thought that ceasing to believe caused a permanent scar in the place where one’s faith had been, making it impossible to forget. What did seem inconceivableto him was subjecting one’s child to the castigation of exorcism.
    ‘There is not much difference between that and the witchcraft of the blacks,’ he said. ‘In fact, it is even worse, because the blacks only sacrifice roosters to their gods, while the Holy Office is happy to break innocents on the rack or burn them alive in a public spectacle.’
    The presence of Monsignor Cayetano Delaura duringthe Marquis’s visit with the Bishop seemed a sinister precedent. ‘He is an executioner,’ Abrenuncio said with no elaboration. And then he became involved in an erudite listing of ancient autos-da-fé carried out against mental patients who had been executed for demonic possession or heresy.
    ‘I think that killing her would have been more Christian than burying her alive,’ he concluded.
    TheMarquiscrossed himself. Abrenuncio looked at him, tremulous and phantasmal in his mourning taffetas and again saw in his eyes the fireflies of uncertainty that had been with him since birth.
    ‘Take her out of there,’ he said.
    ‘It is what I have wanted to do since I saw her walking toward the pavilion of those interred in life,’ said the Marquis. ‘But I do not feel as if I have the strength to opposethe will of God.’
    ‘Well, start to feel as if you did,’ said Abrenuncio. ‘Perhaps God will thank you some day.’
    That night the Marquis requested an audience with the Bishop. He wrote the letter himself, in a circuitous style and a childish hand, and gave it to the porter in person to be sure it would reach its destination.
    The Bishop was informed on Monday that Sierva María was ready for exorcism.He had finished his afternoon meal on the terrace with yellow bellflowers and took no special notice of the message. He ate little, but with a circumspection that could prolong the ritual for three hours. Sitting across from him, Father Cayetano Delaura was reading aloud in a measured voice and somewhat theatrical style. Both qualities suited the books that he chose according to his own tasteand judgment.
    The old palace was too large for the Bishop, for whom the reception room and bedroom and the open terrace where he took his siestas and meals until the rains began were sufficient. In the opposite wing was the official library, founded, enriched and sustained with a master hand by Cayetano Delaura, and in its time considered one of the best in the Indies. The rest of the buildingconsisted of eleven closed chambers where the debris of two centuries had accumulated.
    Except for the nun who served his food, Cayetano Delaura was the only person with access to the Bishop’s house during meals, not because of personal privilege, as some said, but because of his position as reader. He did not have a definite office or any title other than librarian, but he was considered a
defacto
vicar because of his close association with the Bishop, and no one could imagine the prelate making an important decision without him. He had his own cell in an adjoining house that had interior passageways to the palace and contained the offices and living quarters of diocesan