La frontera / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

The Frontier

     The noblewoman authorizes the servants, simple maids, in the use of the crossbow and the bow. She distinguishes, forcing her ear, the kettledrums of the Moors.

     The Castilians have divided themselves into factions and forget their malice toward the infidels. A violent prelate accuses them of befriending the adversary, overlooking their lewd manners, preferring the shade of the palm and the jasmine atmosphere to the glare of the pulverulent journey.

     A leper with a scornful countenance does not limit himself to offending the serenity of the fountains, but instead breaks into the invader’s enterprise, assuming the service of pilot. He has been trained among the Jews and heretics of Languedoc and he disseminates their guilty doctrines. The illness precipitates him from greatness.

     The prelate knows of the conflict by an original means. He struggles to repress an anxiety, a sudden fright, and goes to the secret of the sanctuary, to reverend consultation. A trickle of blood divides the corporal, the Eucharistic cloth.

     The prelate heads toward the plaza, gathers the parishioners in a warlike fashion and induces them to a victorious enthusiasm.

     The mob of the humble runs to suppress the siege and admires the heroine atop the wall. A sad old man with a lofty tunic proclaims the arrival of sanctity and valor within a single person. In dreams he has seen, guided by a youthful voice, the coat of arms of a diamantine splendor, thrown at the foot of a cross.




El cielo de esmalte (1929)




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