El sino / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Fate

     Marie Antoinette has just called me by means of her confessor, a cleric of honest virtue. She wants to entrust me with a message for the representative of a provincial city, an enthusiast of the Queen’s defense, obstinate in gaining for her the nation’s consent.

     Marie Antoinette has allowed herself to be persuaded by the gentlemanly representative and becomes cautious. She occupies her time in raising her children and withdraws from the malice of the courtesans.

     I traverse, in fulfillment of the order, a twisted sidestreet, where a single lantern burns. That’s where the malignant people of other ages would gather to arrange the adventures of homicide and rapaciousness.

     I found the representative in his modest study. He was organizing the books piled on the table. I discovered the origin of his ideas reading the title of a few volumes about man and his destiny, gathered in essays and dissertations of a prudent philosophy, of British aspect.

     I placed in his hands a rich present and the sovereign’s effigy, drawn by an infallible paintbrush, careful in reproducing the glossy face.

     The representative refuses the magnificent gift. Due to his gesture of surprise, the crowd of sonorous coins, manufactured of regal metal, spills onto the floor.

     He puts away the portrait painted with jealous skill, and beautifies it with a violaceous flower, where the ancients read the interjection of lament.




Las formas del fuego (1929)




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