La acedía del claustro / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

The Acidity of the Cloister

I am visited by the memory of beings wasted amid their merits for a more liberal fate. I revere Iphigenia’s saffron-colored garb, in which the vigorous fingers of the sacrificer are discovered.
     Beatrice is dressed in a bloody tone when she appears, for the first time, in the presence of Dante and she is wrapped in an image of a vehement flame when she assists him in the sidereal layover of Paradise. The Florentine poet has chosen, in one moment or another, the devoted colors of martyrdom, suggesting the fleeting days of the heroine.
     I sustain the memory of an unhappy being, of a girl desiccated by the tyranny of her presumptuous relatives. The pride of lineage had persuaded them to separate her from the century, where a brave page was waiting for her.
     The trial of the captive had dissipated in the monotonous austerity of the convent. She would often flee from the confinement and would lean out a balcony, to enjoy a free view.
     I was surveying a resplendent church at the moment the main holiday of the diocese was being foreseen. I saw the girl kneeling on the porphyry ground and in front of a silver altar.
     She took me by the hand to indicate the image of her gentleman. She pointed out for me in a mosaic the effigy of a king dressed in dalmatica and prostrate at the foot of the cross.




Las formas del fuego (1929)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }