The Senate
The pleas of the old men were filling the confines of the building. The open air had covered it with moss and lichen.
No one was able to unfurrow the victor’s brow and persuade him to clemency. The young king was ordering the torture from a seat of stone. He would not be moved before the athletic beauty of the captives.
The executioners were cutting the noble hair and affronting it with their feet. They were enjoying themselves wounding the luxuriant cervix.
The prisoners were offering themselves to death with a proud gesture, and assigning it a semblance of fatidical beauty.
The old men prostrated themselves when the sacrifice ended. The concert of their deep voices was rising in praise of the vanquished and in compensation for invisible justice.
El cielo de esmalte (1929)
{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }
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