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Narrative and
History
Alun Munslow
Narrative and History
Theory and History
Series Editor: Donald MacRaild
Published
Empiricism and History Stephen Davies

Social Theory and Social History Donald M. MacRaild and Avram Taylor
Narrative and History Alun Munslow
Marxism and History Matt Perry
Postmodernism and History Willie Thompson
Further titles are in preparation
Theory and History

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Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Narrative and
History
Alun Munslow
© Alun Munslow 2007
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
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The author has asserted his right to be identiﬁed
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Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2007 by
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As always, for Jane
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Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
The past and history/the-past-as-history 9

Three genres of history 10
Conclusion 15
1 Narrating the Past 16
Representation 16
Story, narrating and narration 17
Conclusion 28
2 History as Content/Story 29
Following a story 31
Epistemological choice 33
Aesthetics/figuration/trope 34
Emplotment/story 36
Argument/analysis/explanation 38
Ethical/political/ideological choices 40
Reference/sources 41
Conclusion 42
3 Narrating and Narration 44
The historian as author 45

Voice and focalisation 47
vii
viii Contents
Tense/time: Mimésis, order, duration and frequency 51

Intentionality: Text, action, agency, characterisation and
the historian 59
Conclusion 62
4 History as Expression 64
Written texts 65
Film and photography 67
Television and radio 68
Graphic novels, comics, history magazines 71
Public histories: Museums, heritage and memorials 73
Performance: Re-enactment, ‘first-person’ history,
games 74
Digitised representations 76
Conclusion 78
5 The Past, the Facts and History 80
Historical reality 80
Reference/facts 84
Representation 89
Conclusion 93
6 Understanding [in] History 94
Explanation 94
Meaning 97
Experimental History 103
Conclusion 109
7 The Oar in Water 111
Objectivity 113
Truth 116
Relativism 121
Conclusion 122
Contents ix
Conclusion 123
Glossary 130
Notes 147
Further reading 174
Index 182
Acknowledgements
The completion of any book is an opportunity to thank those who have been a
part of its creation. My thanks, therefore, to Robert A. Rosenstone, Keith Jenkins
and Beverley Southgate, who gave me the benefit of their thoughts on earlier drafts
of this book. I also thank them for showing me, in their different ways, how it
is possible to rethink history. More recently I have benefited from working with
David Harlan as the US co-editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and
Practice. There are also many other friends and colleagues with whom, for over 30
years of teaching, I shared the academic grind. My thanks to them all. However,
I wish particularly to acknowledge the collegiality and the friendship of Owen R.
Ashton.
xi
Introduction
The aim of this book is very simple. It is to explain how historians make, and
specifically, write history. By that I mean what ‘rules’, ‘procedures’, ‘figurative’ and
‘compositional techniques’ do historians follow and what decisions do they make
in order to turn ‘the past’ into that narrative about it we choose to call ‘history’?
It follows from what I have just said that the basic assumption behind the book
is that history is a form of narrative written by historians. Professional historians
are generally well aware of the construction of historical explanations – especially
the basics of hunting out the sources and the most appropriate ways to work
out what they mean. Indeed, many historians have written at length about the
techniques of source analysis and inference. However, discussions of the nature of
history as a narrative-making exercise have primarily been left to a few philosophers
of history who have an interest in what seem to be matters largely irrelevant to
practitioners who actually do the job. Because of this deficiency, I offer in this
book an introduction to the nature of the history narrative. That requires that I
outline the rules of, and functional relationships that exist in, the actual writing of
history as a narrative form. I will be illustrating this mainly from twentieth-century
historiography.
Clearly, there are many kinds of written as well as non-written narratives. There
are novels, films, comics, digital games, university lectures, church windows, ballet,
dramatic play, annual reports of accounts and, of course, histories. It is because
history is a species of narrative that it is useful to examine how it is created and how
it relates to the claims usually made that history explains and offers meaningful
interpretations about the past. When we have a general guide to the writing of
history, we are better placed to understand how individual histories work and can
assess their claims to understanding the nature of the past.
Precisely because history is a form of literature the rules of historical writing or,
to be precise, historical authorship are derived from the nature, production and
operation of narrative. Though occasionally modified according to the peculiarities
of the discipline, the history narrative – as with all narratives – is concerned with
the general process of representation. While, no doubt, a few historians remain
blissfully unaware of the status of historical writing as a mode of representation,
1
2 Narrative and History
happily most understand that their fundamental task is the construction of a

narrative about the past. It is for this reason that all students of history should
have access to a primer that describes that activity. Though this book is neces-
sarily brief, my approach is holistic because I address the theory and practice of
historical authorship and historical representation within which the empirical,
the analytical and all other aspects of historical study are encompassed.
As you will probably be aware, most ‘what is history?’ texts still tend to begin
with how historians find out what happened in the past according to the sources.
They then explain why events occurred as they did and, most important of all,
interpret ‘what it all means’ with the ‘results’ or ‘findings’ of this complex activity –
the explanation and meaning – then being put into a prose narrative.1 In other
words, this simple mechanism is said to reproduce the ‘coherent reality’ of the
past, which is then rendered with analytical objectivity as a historical narrative
that conveys the most likely truth of the past. This is why in such texts we have
the strong sense of ‘ here is the true story of ’.
Most if not all historians write history to correct what they view as the short-
comings of previous generations to open up hitherto neglected facets of the past.
Moreover, they acknowledge that certain aspects of the past such as race, class,
gender and women’s experiences are often silent in terms of sources, and this
requires the application of fresh conceptualisation and theorisation.2 It is clear that
most historians have a highly developed sense of what constitutes their disciplinary
theory and practice. Nevertheless, because they continue to regard the notion of
reference as absolutely fundamental, most tend to ignore the significance to gener-
ating explanation and meaning of their ‘poetic’ or ‘writerly’ processes. So, while
historians understand what they mean by sources, events, reference, the nature of
explanation, objectivity, meaning and so on, there is still a tendency to be less
clear on concepts like authorship, story, expression, voice, focalisation and, most
importantly, the nature of narrative itself.
This is indicated by the debates within mainstream historical thought. Until the
so called postmodern revolution in historical thinking and practice of the past
15–20 years or so, the conventional view of history was often summarised in the
debate between E.H. Carr and Geoffrey Elton over the nature of history.3 Carr
described the essence of history as causal analysis stiffened with substantial doses
of theory as judged appropriate by the historian. This is a classic view of history as
a faithful construction of the past. Carr claims that the study of history is a study
of causes. His advice, when faced with past events (data) and the need to explain
them is to initially apportion several possible causes and then work out a hierarchy
that suggests a set of causal relationships. Only once the historian determines
long- and short-term causes can the next stage – interpretation – present its self.
Rather than a construction (though it is faithful to the data), for Geoffrey Elton
this Carr ‘data-theory’ approach places the historian too centrally in the process of
Introduction 3
working out the meaning of the past. Preferring to view history as a reconstruction
(rather than a construction), Elton favours empiricism over the ‘probable’ history
theorising of constructionism.
For Elton, Carr’s approach was too theoretical and because theory came from
the mind of the historian, this meant the history thus produced was liable to
be too much of a subjective rather than an objective interpretation. Elton was
suspicious that theory was probably just an excuse for idleness in the archive
and, anyway, invariably begged too many questions of the evidence. However,
as Keith Jenkins has pointed out – and why he is justifiably regarded as a major
contributor to the debates over the nature of history – both Carr and Elton were
asking the wrong questions and debating irrelevant issues. For Jenkins no history –
whether it is a Carr construction or an intended Elton reconstruction – is innocent.
No historical interpretation springs forth either ‘objectively’ or ‘subjectively’. For
Jenkins, who was writing then in the early to mid-1990s, history was plainly a
textualised discourse that was unavoidably ‘positioned’. I endorse this judgement
today. It is never possible to empty ‘history’ of the author-historian and/or his or
her theories, attitudes, values, arguments, ideologies and so forth. But in this book
I am going to explain how history is an authored narrative. Consequently, I argue
that this moves us even further away from the misguided Carr–Elton debate in the
disputes over the nature of history.
Now, despite the intervention of Jenkins and the many other theorists that we
will come across, the majority of historians also assume that telling the truth about
the past (even if it cannot be fully realised) requires the re-telling of the most likely
story of the action and events of the past as accurately as possible by deploying both
theory (Carr) and empiricism (Elton). This conflation of theory and empiricism
means, in effect, the past and history can become one. But this will not work
in practice. Even the most scientific of social science histories are still a form of
‘telling’. This has long been summarised as ‘this happened, then that, because ’.
As the philosopher of history William Gallie said,
the exercise of the capacity to follow a story, where the story is known to be based
on evidence and is put forward as a sincere effort to get at the story so far as the evidence
and the writer’s general knowledge and intelligence allow. (italics added)4
Since Gallie said this, over 40 years ago, what is called the narrative turn in
history has posed two fundamental questions. First, does the story of the past
actually exist to be ‘found’?5 And second, does the order of priority of (1) reference,
(2) explanation, (3) meaning and (4) prose narrative presentation tell us all we
need to know about ‘doing history’?6
Before getting to those two basic questions it is worth noting that the concept of
narrative is in itself nothing new to historians. Narrative, however, has generally
been defined as the presentation of ‘a story’ about the past. Even occasionally
described as ‘a narrative history’, there are still examples about today, like George
B. Tindall’s America: A Narrative History.7 But from the eighteenth through to the
present century, histories were and still are often regarded as the story about a
particular past. Thus one well-known contemporary US history text describes the
efforts of Hiawatha to restore peace among his own tribe and the outcome of his
meeting with the holy man Deganawidah which facilitated it, as ‘the (my italics)
story of Hiawatha and Deganawidah ’.8 This might be just a slip of the mind
by the authors of this text or it might not. But the point is that the concept of
a history as a narrative form is known, if not always well understood. Although
the matter of narrative as a philosophical question was acknowledged in the 1960s
when it first began to be distinguished from just telling ‘a story’, even today the
conflation of ‘history’ with ‘a narrative of the past’ remains common especially in
‘popular histories’ and survey texts.9
Yet, before we can address the two questions noted above, we have to be clear
not just about the difference between ‘a story’ and ‘narrative’, but ‘a story’ and its
‘narration’ (the act of creating a narrative). Essentially a story is the recounting of a
sequence of events. This is what is told. Narration, on the other hand, refers to the
manner in which a story is told. It is in not recognising this distinction that one
can be led to the belief that the historian does not really do anything other than
carefully recount the given story of the past (remember ‘the story of Hiawatha and
Deganawidah ’). But, because the process of ‘telling’ or narrating constitutes a
complex system of representation, how a history is told is as important as what is
being told. To put this in the context of Carr and Elton, it is not just a matter of
theory and/or empiricism.
Though it passed Carr and Elton by, since the early 1960s when Gallie was
writing, this distinction between story and its representation has been at the centre
of a major debate over how historians view historical thinking and practice.10
Given that history is the representation of something in the past (it might be the
Crusades or US Second World War Japanese internment camps), what is repres-
ented (told) as history is the historian’s choice. For clearly, if there is no given story
to discover in the sources that relate to past events, then there is no ‘natural’ or
unmediated connection between ‘the chosen past’ of the historian and the histor-
ical narrative she or he writes about it. So it follows that while the past existed in
the time of the past (hi)stories only happen when they are told.
While historians ‘refer’ to the past through the evidence of change over time
(temporal change), because this is done in a narrative constructed by the historian,
then historical meaning is as much the result of the act of narrative making as it
is of anything else. As Linda Hutcheon famously noted, whether it is in ‘fictional’
or ‘historical’ literature, the notion of a story with a beginning, middle and end
‘ implies a structuring process that imparts meaning as well as order’.11 So, while
Introduction 5
the past defined as a period of time during which many things happened is not
invented, history, on the other hand, is a constructed narrative representation (a
narration) of it or, to be more precise, about it.
I will summarise what I have said so far. First, I have been suggesting that the
history narrative is a totalising (bringing together) procedure of representation.
Second, this makes problematic the notion of discovering ‘the story back there’.
And third, the central organising factor in representing the past is the historian as
the author who narrates the history. Indeed, as the French philosopher of history
and literature Paul Ricoeur has argued, we can only engage with what he calls
‘temporality’ (specifically the past in our case but also the present and future) in
the form of an authored narrative. This is recognition of the fundamental state of
our existence as narrative making creatures or what the theorist of time, history
and literature Elizabeth Ermarth calls our ‘discursive condition’.12 Ricoeur’s and
Ermarth’s arguments have liberated many historians to now ‘speak’ for themselves
as much as the past, and to become less constrained by the customs of conventional
objective non-partisanship that only a belief in recovering the story can produce.13
Now, while the notion of history as a representation may not exactly be new,
many historians continue to dispute and debate the significance of its implications.
The comment made by the French literary theorist Gérard Genette about literature
is pertinent to history. He said that like any other activity of the mind, literature
(think history) is based on conventions of which, with some exceptions, it is
not aware.14 To be sure relatively few historians today remain preoccupied with
discovering the story existing back there (as ‘found’ in the data or made up for
its absence in some other way); most historians acknowledge that they present a
story. Yet this story is one that is always primarily – and for some it will always
be solely – the product of the sources (or the lack of them). But, the distinction
between story and narrative raises the problem of how the sources can be made to
speak in a narrative. Indeed, as we shall see, many influential history theorists do
not believe narrative is actually built to access reality, even though it refers to it in
terms of facts.
Undoubtedly the foremost advocates of history viewed as a narrative represent-
ation are Roland Barthes, Hayden White and Paul Ricoeur. Heavily influenced by
Barthes, White specifically has examined what he calls the metahistorical struc-
ture of history, but all, during the past 40 years, have explained in substantial
detail the nature of literary and historical writing and have explored the struc-
ture of narrative as a vehicle that can represent the past.15 Barthes’ (followed by
White) famous insight is that the similarities between history and other forms of
non-realist narration are manifested in the figurative nature of both discourses.
As Barthes asked over 40 years ago, is there actually any real difference between
factual and imaginary narrative? What, if any, linguistic aspect distinguishes the
two modes?
Those who have challenged the Barthes–White analysis in particular claim their
comparison of historical narratives with ‘fictional’ ones obliterates the differences
between them because they are said to share the same literary form.16 This is a
misunderstanding especially of White as he has great respect for the data and never
claims history is a fictional literature. The point is that ‘history’ cannot be equated
with ‘fiction’ once it is understood that history is a narrative representation that
pays its dues to the agreed facts of the past. The point White is making is very
straightforward. It is that history is history and fiction is fiction, but that both
are narratives, which are as much written by the reader as the author (history
narratives are in this sense ‘writerly’). Hence history and fiction, as well as writing
and reception, are imaginatively organised. In this sense both sets of activities are
fictive because both are authored. By acknowledging this as well as the relationship
between narration and story – in effect form and content – we can move on in
understanding the nature of history.
For, although historians are aware that they create narratives there still remains
a need to explain how they use literary techniques in so doing.17 This field of
study, called ‘historiographic narratology’ by Dorrit Cohn, is now well established.
Cohn’s view, however, is that of the ‘physicalist’ who operates, as does Ricoeur, on
the history and fiction distinction. Cohn argues that historical and fictional narrat-
ives work according to different rules about our understanding of physical reality,
and that this produces a difference of kind rather than degree in distinguishing
the two literatures of history and fiction.18 Cohn maintains the writer of fiction
is entirely in control (omniscient) whereas the historian is in a state of ignorance
(nescience).19 In other words, fiction is an emancipated discourse, unlike history
that is always in thrall to ‘what happened’. Ricoeur agrees that what distinguishes
history from fiction is the former’s referential and documentary dimension (its
physicality), and also agrees with Cohn that it deals more with groups and struc-
tures than with individuals. The Cohn position (and Ricoeur’s on this) seems to
still place too much emphasis upon the claims of empiricism and inference, which,
in effect, hold that the historical narrative is ultimately an interpretative report of
what happened.
Historians today still generally accept that empiricism and analysis are the two
key strategies of explanation. However, among the many other concepts we come
across in creating the history narrative is that of story space (a notion only
a few empirical historians actually ever entertain as we shall see). This is the
authored model of what, how, when, why and to whom things happened in the
past, which the reader/consumer enters into when they read, view or ‘experience’
the past, constituted as history. Naturally, every story space possesses authorial
premises and hypotheses as well as data. Historians constantly re-work, over-
haul and amend their story spaces (often as ‘revised’ editions of books) so it is
important to understand story space creation in order to grasp history’s construc-
Introduction 7
tedness and its ability to absorb consumers and engage them with the past in a
meaningful way. Recognising history as a story space permits historians not only
to understand how narrative is instrumental in creating meaning and truth; it
also disabuses us of the notion that the historian is a cipher (the ‘historian as
midwife’) in the sense which Cohn suggests. Rather we need to see historians
as what they are – authors – and thus central to the history narrative making
process.
Because of its story space character, the historical narrative is not a recording
instrument for knowledge derived by non-narrative means. For this reason I
do not endorse the Cohn view of history. While Cohn has made a significant
contribution to debates, his analysis remains essentially a retread of the ‘classic
empirical-analytical model’ as provided by most ‘what is history texts’. But, as a
narrative, history cannot be a report of ‘findings’, that is, explanations and meanings
discovered in the archival sources that have enabled us to sniff out the real story –
only authors tell stories in narrative forms.20
In this text, to more fully understand history as a narrative making activity I
will deploy the thinking of several narrative history theorists starting with Gérard
Genette. I shall begin (in Chapter 1) by noting what he has described as the triad of
story, narrative and narration. He also recognises the ‘how’ or the expression that the
story and its telling takes through the intervention of the historian-author. Thanks
primarily to the work of Genette, in most analyses of the structure of narrative
and narration the ‘what happened’ is referred to as the story told, and ‘how it is
narrated’ is referred to as the discourse. As will become plain, this story–discourse
duality is central to an understanding of history as a narrative form of knowledge.
It is also necessary to explain a range of other concepts that clarify the nature
of the connection between story, narrating and narration/narrative in creating
history. Some of these ideas were noted many years ago by the French history
thinker Michel de Certeau when he argued in his The Writing of History that the
writing of history is not outside the conception and composition of history. He
was saying that the past (the ‘what happened’) is not translated but is transformed
(or turned) into a narrative construction and only through that ‘narrative turning’
can the past be explained and given meaning.21
Since de Certeau wrote, the ‘narrative turn’ in historical studies has been facilit-
ated by a number of significant developments in continental philosophy, mainly
structuralism and poststructuralism. This is reflected in several new kinds of
history that usually carry the prefix ‘post’: post-Marxist, postcolonial, postmodern,
postfeminist and so on. This ‘postist’ narrative turn has often been summarised,
largely incorrectly, as a battle between postmodernism and classic empiricist
history.22 But this is misleading because it suggests that there is an ‘alternative’
and a ‘conventional’ history. This is a false distinction because history has always
been a narrative making activity.
As with all forms of narrative, a key feature of history is its interpretative nature,
which means there is always a constant deferral of meaning and closure.23 If we fail
to acknowledge that language and narrative are ‘empty’ signifiers until ‘filled’ with a
meaning through their construction, we misunderstand the nature of history.24 What
this means is that because history is a narrative making activity, the four principles
of (1) reference, (2) explanation, (3) meaning and (4) prose narrative presentation
presumed to work in a particular epistemological way (epistemology is the theory
and study of knowing and knowledge) are now being fundamentally rethought.25
The various ‘turns’ that started with the narrative and the post structuralist
inspired linguistic turn, then, have challenged the foundational epistemological
arrangement of reference, explanation and meaning. It is now widely acknow-
ledged they are not insulated from the role of narrative, language and the historian
as an author who possesses a voice. This has, nevertheless, generated the most
intense arguments and produced a variety of other ‘turns’ such as the ‘ethical
turn’, ‘aesthetic turn’ and ‘cultural turn’ as historians have acknowledged the
challenge to epistemology.
We must note, however, that very recently there has been a counterblast, which
might be called the ‘empiricist re-turn’ or the ‘new empiricism’. This re-emphasises
the belief that while language and, therefore, the discourse (a.k.a. the narrative) we
call history mediates the past as a narrative representation of it, it is still possible
to engage meaningfully, truthfully and objectively with the true (or most likely)
story of the past. Of course this attempt to harmonise what for a few historians
are still two separate approaches (empirical-analytical and narrative-linguistic) is
complicated by the fact that every act of empiricism and analysis is, by its nature,
a narrative-linguistic (a literary) performance. It is, in other words, not a matter
of determining how history and narrative differ in terms of text types (fiction or
fictive, or narrative and non-narrative) but how history looks when considered only
as a narrative making activity (though it includes empirical-analytical elements).
What also distinguishes new empiricists is a seeming confusion in their minds over
the distinctions of story and narrative.
Whatever the peculiarities of these turns and re-turns, understandings and
misunderstandings, the debates have always ended up with the same ‘big ques-
tion’. That is, can we really tell the truth about the past when we can only ‘know’
it as a constructed history narrative (see Chapter 7, pp. 111–122)? Many of these
debates might disappear if we were to forget the word ‘history’ in favour of, say,
‘the-past-as-history’. At least this would remind us that the past exists now only as a
form of a created (written, physically built, filmed or whatever) phenomenon. As we
shall see, the notion of ‘as’ is central to understanding the narrative nature of history.
In Telling the Truth About History three American historians noted that history,
as an organised mechanism for truthful and objective knowing, had ‘ been
shaken right down to its scientific and cultural foundations at the very time
Introduction 9
that those foundations themselves are being contested’.26 As the authors said, there
was much uncertainty about the creation of historical knowledge, and specifically
the ability of being able to ‘turn’ our knowledge of the past into an objective
written representation. The implication the authors were circling around was that
reference, explanation and meaning might not actually precede the narrative.
To use the noun ‘history’ as a synonym for ‘the past’, as the authors of Telling the
Truth About History did in the title of their book, both illustrates and perpetuates
the problem I have been exploring. So, we are required to ask not how we can
render the past empirical world into its own historical narrative, which corresponds
to it, but what happens if we become convinced we cannot? To accept that the
story does not exist back there or, if it does, that it remains unknowable to us
because of the problem of turning data into narrative actually revolutionises our
understanding of the nature and practice of history.
The past and history/the-past-as-history

In everything I have said so far it is important to understand that ‘the past’
and ‘history’ are separate entities or categories. The past is what once was, is no
more and has gone for good. History, on the other hand, is a corpus of narrative
discourses about the once reality of the past produced and fashioned by historians.
While it may seem odd to stress this, we do need to realise three important implic-
ations. First, that the past is a category of content (real events); second, that the
significance of how it is told is crucial (the issue of discourse or narration of a story);
and third, that history is a category of expression (varieties of narrative represent-
ation) has to be stressed. These ‘implications’ are central to the understanding of
history as argued for in this text.
In writing a history for the past we create a semiotic representation that encom-
passes reference to it, an explanation of it and a meaning for it. So we have a
situation whereby because of the absence of the past (for that is by definition a
phenomenon which is inaccessible), as the historian David D. Roberts has argued,
we have ‘nothing but history’.27 And this, plainly, is a textual or other form of
substitution – the ‘as’ – as already noted. For, even though this references what
happened and can demonstrate according to the rules of comparison and veri-
fication that certain things very probably occurred, its meaning is created as we
narrate (and express) our history. In other words, as Paul Ricoeur has argued, the
past can only meaningfully exist in the narrative we write about it.
It is, therefore, pertinent to note here what the French cultural theorist Roland
Barthes noted as the referential illusion in which he analysed the error of ascribing
to one category (call it history) a feature or features that are really only attributable
to another (call it the past).28 Unfortunately those (admittedly now very few)
historians who believe history is the past rebuilt have been committing what
philosophers identify as a ‘category mistake’. Barthes’ point is that historians who
commit this error collapse that which is signified (representation) into its referent
to create an invalid signifier–referent association. Barthes summarises this category
error by claiming that in the so-called ‘objective history’ the ‘real’ is never more
than a nebulous signified, hiding behind the all-powerful referent.
Only by making this category error could a historian say that ‘according to the
available evidence the meaning of the French Revolution was ’ or ‘ the cause
of the American Civil War was ’. There is, as most historians acknowledge, no
one history of anything if by that we mean ‘the true story of it’. Nevertheless,
we must ask why some historians do still claim that a narrative representation is
close to being the thing to which it refers? After all, a narrative description of the
Eiffel Tower is not the Eiffel Tower no matter how detailed is our description of its
dimensions and structure. This category mistake leads to the referential illusion if
we believe that a history narrative and the past can correspond at any level beyond
simple sentence length statements that refer to the available evidence.
Though history can contain the element of reference, its nature does not flow
from that alone. Moreover, as we shall see, there are many different ways the
category of history can be expressed. Consequently, more and more historians
recognise that there are competing approaches to the-past-as-history. This can
be seen in the existence of three such approaches that encourage a variety of
legitimate modes of expression and forms of narration. These three approaches
to the past may be considered to be ‘genres’ of history as they work in a very
similar fashion to their literary counterparts. The three genres are reconstructionist
history, constructionist history and deconstructionist history.29 Essentially they
reflect the enduring epistemological debate over the relationship between empiri-
cism, analysis and narrative.
Three genres of history

Epistemology is about understanding the theory and fundamentals of knowledge
acquisition. Historians in the West, as the progeny of the seventeenth-century
Cartesian Revolution and the subsequent Enlightenment, have traditionally held
to a view of history derived from analytical philosophy. This suggests that historical
knowledge is acquired through an essentially scientific and rational process that
employs an evidence-based method. This reflects the realist demand that histor-
ical statements will correspond (see the correspondence theory of knowledge) to
evidence that is independent of mind and culture.
According to this theory, historians arrive at their conclusions in terms of argu-
ments that best fit the data. Evidence of real experience, plus reason (inference
or inductive argument) will generate true knowledge of reality. So influential has
Introduction 11
this theory of knowledge become that it has actually hijacked the general term
for the study of knowledge acquisition – epistemology. However, in the twentieth
century this definition of epistemology was challenged as the way to engage with
the real. This challenge has been translated in the world of history in the variety
of ‘turns’ (noted above) which have moved historians away from the supremacy
of epistemology. This move against epistemology has produced the three genres I
have mentioned as different approaches to the past.
Why are these three genres in conflict given my argument that there is only one
kind of history defined in terms of being a narrative making activity? Well, first, we
need to understand that historians make epistemological choices. They choose how
to gain knowledge about the past. The epistemological choice historians make can
be detected – basically – in how they view the role of narrative making in what they
do, and how the history narrative is constituted as a form of knowledge through
the relationship between reference, explanation and the creation of meaning.30
There is a clear difference in this relationship within each genre.31
As an epistemological choice, reconstructionist historians believe they gain true
knowledge through the primacy of referentiality and delivering its inherent story
as the true narrative.32 The issue of history as a mode and structure of representation
does not arise. Reconstructionists hold two basic beliefs. First, they reject the idea
that there is a choice in thinking about and doing history. Second, they believe
history exists outside the here and now, which means it should not be any way
subject to the ontological demands and pressures of the present. In other words,
it must not be historicist.
Apart from referentiality, which is defined as the single factual statement
of justified belief, the touchstone of reconstructionism is inference and the
accurate demonstration of the historical agent’s actions (agency) (see construc-
tionist history below).33 This means that the past can be ‘located’ by well-informed
historians who suspend their personal judgements and any personal desire to ‘tell
the story’ in ways that deviate from what they read it to be in ‘the sources’. This is
despite the long-standing argument, as we shall see, that the reader is as important
as what they read in creating meaning. The ultimate basis of the reconstructionist
realist-referential epistemology that permits ‘fair descriptions’ of the past is the
correspondence theory of knowledge and the objectivity (the ‘thereness’) of histor-
ical data.34
This ‘realist’ position depends on the twin beliefs that the historian’s mind can
engage (largely unproblematically) with knowable reality and that that engagement
can be transcribed without too much difficulty onto the page (for reconstructionists
it is still primarily the printed page). Only through this practice can historical
knowledge be emancipated from the hazards of subjectivity if not entirely freed of
cultural bias. Proper knowledge that is fair and even-handed thus depends on the
reality of a knowable world that is independent of both our minds and our narrative
making. Hence, the concept of a story or, more accurately, an emplotment is
rejected. In other words, it means that truthful statements are what they are because
of how things were in the world.35
This naive realism wins over very few historians these days. Nevertheless, the
reverse seems also to be unconvincing – that all we can know about the past is
what we learn through our a priori best guesses, or our biases, our private onto-
logical beliefs and our constructed narratives. Most historians try to steer clear of
these two apparent extremes. Most accept the ‘common-sense’ or practical realist
position that there is a reality beyond us, and, fortunately, we possess a capacity
to satisfactorily represent (re-present) it. Hence we can produce truthful historical
statements because they match or correspond to the facts of known reality.
What this means for reconstructionist historians like Arthur Marwick, Geoffrey
Roberts, David Loades, Edward Royle and Gertrude Himmelfarb (a few selected at
random from the ever-diminishing tiny group) is that narrative is the end result of
their description of events and their analysis. They would certainly not accept that
their narrative is the medium through which their historical knowledge is fashioned.
Reconstructionists view narrative like a wire that transmits the current of meaning
from the past to the history page. As Geoffrey Roberts says, (my italics) ‘ telling
the story, explaining the action, and reconstructing the experience of people in the
past ’ is what historians do, and it is no more (or less) complex than that.36 The
trick is simply to recognise that the story exists in the action of the human actors,
and then to describe it acknowledging cause and effect. In this way description
equals history and history equals the past.
Indeed, the British social historian Arthur Marwick insists that historians do not
reconstruct the past. He says, ‘ it is knowledge about the past that historians
produce’.37 Despite saying this, the Marwickian makes the epistemological assump-
tion that there is a direct correspondence between reference and representation
which is ultimately located in (the writing up of) the narrative. So triumphant has
this ‘common-sense’ realist-representationalist position become that the history-
consuming general public and amateur historians alike see it as the only way
to engage with the past and its knowable truth. Indeed, the reconstructionist
approach has become the culturally acceptable way of producing past reality (how
many TV history programmes either explicitly or implicitly offer the ‘real story
of ’?). But even in Marwick’s definition you will note that he uses the verb
‘produce’. He also acknowledges the product is ‘about’ the past. As you can tell, it is
actually very difficult to be an unreconstructed reconstructionist.38 This is because
while the historian’s narrative will always be constrained by what happened in
the past, it is also going to be subject to their preferred ways of connecting the
individual historical agent to the larger structures that created change in the past.
Indeed, as the historians Donald N. MacRaild and Avram Taylor have explained,
the data always come loaded with theories, concepts and ideologies.39 Although
most historians would never reject the referential bedrock of empiricism, the
Introduction 13
majority do acknowledge that there is more to history than just finding out what
happened. Hence, a second kind of history shifts us dramatically beyond the
limited reconstructionist approach. The constructionist genre of historical knowing
is a highly complex conceptual and theory-laden social science approach which,
while it is empirical, nevertheless acknowledges that explanation demands ‘a body
of knowledge that is usually referred to as ‘theory’.40 History is not just empirical –
it is also analytical and deploys a priori thinking.
Basically this means hypothesising about the causes of regularities in the past
and explaining them, rather than operating at the level of individual historical
actors.41 Biography, for example, is not a constructionist exercise in this sense. Of
course biographers acknowledge that structures and powers beyond their control
(class, race, gender, imperialism, technology, nationalism, war, etc.) ‘influence’
individuals. The overt use of theory, while it is claimed to substantially enhance
explanation, is still intended by its constructionist practitioners to maintain a firm
and direct contact with past reality.
But the level of sophistication of constructionist history is such that the vast
majority of historians working today fall into this broad category. Two British
constructionist historians John Belchem and Neville Kirk explained in the late
1990s the central tenet of realism to which they as historians both adhere. It is that
‘ aspects of culture, such as words, consciousness, and norms and values, coexist
and interact with political, economic, social and other structures and processes
which come into being ’ ‘out there’.42 In other words, past reality demands
a ‘ dialogue between concept and evidence, and due attention to context
and chronology especially along the lines of race, gender and class ’.43 Other
hard-core materialists like Bryan D. Palmer declare anything other than a thor-
oughgoing realist epistemology (influenced by, in his case, a humanist Marxist a
priori constructionism) are simply a ‘descent into discourse’.44
Belchem and Kirk were prodded into their defence of constructionism by the
dangers, as they saw them, of the so-called postmodern historians. As they
said, ‘ epistemological and methodological credentials and procedures [are]
diametrically opposed to those employed by postmodernists who see nothing
beyond subjectivity, no lurking or hidden external material and other struc-
tures and interests beyond what is captured by self-referential and more or less
autonomous languages and discourses’.45 Clearly, they are endorsing an epistemo-
logical approach to knowledge prompted by the fear that ‘postmodernists’ not only
dissolve the ‘link’ between ‘representation’ and the ‘real’ and between ‘language’
and the ‘social world’, but the ‘real’ becomes merely a ‘representation’.46 While
this is a parody of ‘postmodernist’ views, the constructionist position remains an
intellectual advance on the naivety of reconstructionism.
However, because of their belief in the correspondence theory (of truth), the
majority of constructionists still think that they can access the story, the pattern
of (race, gender, imperialism and class?) structures in (behind and determining)

the events of the past. Narrative making is not really on their radar either, even
though they are very much aware that they are intervening in the past on behalf
of some present constituency or another. As I just noted, constructionist history is
the most popular form of history practised today, ranging from biography to (one
or more of many varieties of) cultural and economic history. Its practitioners are
constantly innovating and assembling novel ways of explaining the empirical by
resort to theorising about its assumed and often ‘apparently hidden’ structures.47
Sophisticated constructionists are keen to explain not just why individuals did
what they did or how they exercised their powers of agency, but how their decisions
were influenced by the deeper structures that controlled their lives. Addressing
race, class, imperialism and gender has, in fact, become a major historical industry.
Indeed, it often seems that ‘new approaches’ to the past are now as important as
‘the past’.
The third epistemological choice is that of deconstructionist historians. Essen-
tially, the deconstructionist historians hold that past events are explained and
acquire their meaning as much by their representation as by their ‘knowable actu-
ality’ derived by conventional (empirical-analytical) epistemological means. Their
history is different for five reasons.
• First, deconstructionist history rejects the fundamental(ist) epistemological

belief in the correspondence between literary word and empirical world that is
claimed to create meaning.
• Second, deconstructionist history acknowledges the poststructuralist rejection
of essentialism that holds that knowledge is ‘out there’ rather than created.
• Third, given the first two reasons, the history narrative is the only site available
for the construction of historical knowledge and, for those reasons, such history
makes different kinds of truth claims.
• Fourth, deconstructionist historians are willing to work with and explore the
notion that all knowledge in the arts and humanities is in some degree relativist
(see relativism).
• And fifth, this rethinking encourages the possibility of radical and
experimental history practice (see pp. 103–109).
One general consequence of these five assumptions is the acknowledgement of

the authored nature of historical knowledge. This immediately casts doubts on
the notion of the discovery of the story in favour of understanding the nature
of the past through the logic of their own narrative making and all that which
goes with it. Indeed, the way we achieve understanding is part of the nature of
understanding. This also generates questions concerning what Linda Hutcheon
has called ‘postmodernist representation’.
Introduction 15
Briefly, as a representation of the past, history is not capable of knowing the

thing-in-itself and, moreover, as a discourse, it can be expressed in many different
modes or forms (see mode of expression). This is not really a major claim given
that it follows much accepted thinking on realism by many philosophers. So, while
a deconstructionist would claim all we have is history, to be more precise, all we
really have is representation with all its attendant problems. And not least among
these is what happens to questions of truth. Indeed, for each epistemological choice
there is, as we shall see, a different definition of what is truth in history. Those
deconstructionist historians who wish to continue to accommodate a notion of
truth do so by addressing the ontological situation of the historian as an author.
As the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has suggested, the connection
between the historian (subject) and the past (object) has to be understood not as
an obstacle to truth but as an element in its creation (see Chapter 7).48
The deconstructionist investment in recognising the authorial function of the
historian means doubting the epistemological belief that separates the knowing
subject from the observed object. From an epistemological position (both recon-
structionist and constructionist) ‘subjective knowledge’ or ‘textually constructed
knowledge’ is not just undesirable, it is dangerous. But, as Gadamer suggests, this is
precisely what you get with historical knowledge. It cannot be any other way. The
historian either goes into denial or gets on with it by acknowledging history is not
‘the real thing’. Not least, the process of the acquisition of knowledge about the
past implies and acknowledges the determining role of the historian as a creator –
and author – of history. To put this as plainly as I can, the deconstructionist
historian writes history through the acknowledgement that its logic derives from
the way she or he creates a narrative representation.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have introduced the relationship between narrative, history and
the past. This has meant confronting the nature of epistemology and meeting
head-on the epistemological belief that history can be made to correspond with the
past even though the past no longer exists. I have suggested that because history is
not the same as the past, the notion of correspondence has to be replaced with the
logic of narrative representation. I explained how we get to this position through
a consideration of the three primary epistemological orientations available today:
reconstructionism, constructionism and their challenger deconstructionism. I will
now move to the consequences of our narrative epistemological decision by starting
the task of outlining the basic choices all historians make in creating a narrative
about the past.
1 Narrating the Past
Representation
Human beings are story tellers who exist ontologically in a universe of narrative
making.1 Narrativist thinkers like Jerome Bruner hold that narrative making is
wired into the human brain as the key mechanism for representing reality (i.e.,
not added on after we have analysed, explained and produced meaning). For
Bruner, narrative is the a priori concept through which we apprehend reality.2 This
suggests narrative is the mode of cognition. Moreover, in acknowledging this we are
forced to consider Hayden White’s famous metahistorical argument concerning
the functioning of the trope, which is the metaphorical (linguistic) turning of one
thing into another in order to create meaning. As Bruner suggests, narrative is a
form of cognition (knowing), one that is particularly applicable to story telling
disciplines like history.
Moreover, as the Dutch philosopher of history Frank Ankersmit maintains,
history is not and never can be simply a report of events even though it contains
empiricism supported by inference. This is because, as Paul Ricoeur also pointed
out, history is the representation of change over time, and as a form of narrative
it enables temporal creatures like us to create meaning. Not to accept this would
be to embrace the rather odd epistemological belief that reference somehow
insulates the historian against his or her own existence as temporal and narrative-
making creatures. It is important, therefore, to understand how the data is always
embedded within and accessed as a representation of human actions rather than
the other way around.
As Ankersmit suggests, then, taking history seriously requires that we confront
the epistemological view of it as a ‘re-presentation’. This means asking (along
with anti-representationalist philosophers like Richard Rorty and even the more
epistemologically conservative Donald Davidson) if there really is some kind of
tertium quid (or ‘third thing’) that connects the word and the world.3 Normally,
for epistemologically inclined historians this tertium quid is an accurate and unprob-
lematic device that by its nature allows us to discover the story. Unfortunately,
the idea of adequate representation can only work when it is confused with
description. Description is defined as a ‘subject term/reference’ plus the ‘predicate
term’ that is asserted about it. This definition underpins the notion that the past
can be described (re-presented) thereby delivering its given meaning. However,
16
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de Cataluña. Conocedor de la patria en cuyo seno había tenido la
dicha de nacer, creyó que sus frailunas vestiduras eran el uniforme
más seductor para acaudillar aventureros, y al igual de las cortantes
armas puso la imagen del crucificado. En los campos de batalla, fuera
de alguna ocasión solemne, llevaba el látigo en la mano y la cruz en e
cinto; pero al entrar en las poblaciones colgaba el látigo y blandía la
cruz, incitando a todos a que la besaran. Esto hacía en aque
momento, avanzando por la plazuela. Su mulo no podía romper sino a
fuerza de cabezadas y tropezones la muralla de devotos patriotas, y él
afectando una seriedad más propia de mascarón que de fraile, echaba
bendiciones. El demonio metido a evangelista no hubiera hecho su
papel con más donaire. Viéndole, fluctuaba el ánimo entre la risa y un
horror más grande que todos los horrores. Los tiempos presentes no
pueden tener idea de ello, aunque hayan visto pasar fúnebre y
sanguinosa una sombra de aquellas espantables figuras. Sus
reproducciones posteriores han sido descoloridas, y ninguna ha tenido
popularidad, sino antes bien, el odio y las burlas del país.
Cuando el bestial fraile, retrato fiel de Satanás ecuestre, llegó junto
al grupo de que hemos hablado, recibió las felicitaciones de las tres
personas que lo formaban, y él les hizo saludo marcial alzando e
Crucifijo hasta tocar la sien.
—Bienvenido sea el padre Marañón —dijo el jefe de la Comisión
militar acariciando las crines del mulo, que aprovechó tal coyuntura
para detenerse—. ¿A dónde va tanto bueno?
—Hombre..., también uno ha de querer ver las cosas de gusto —
replicó el fraile—. ¿A qué hora será eso mañana?
—A las diez en punto —contestó Regato—. Es la hora mejor.
—¡Cuánta gente curiosa!... No me han dejado rezar, seño
Chaperón —añadió el fraile, inclinándose como para decir una cosa
que no debía oír el vulgo—. Usted, que lo sabe todo, dígame: ¿conque
es cierto que se nos marcha el príncipe?
—¿Angulema? Ya va muy lejos, camino de Francia. ¿Verdad, padre
Marañón, que no nos hace falta maldita?
—¿Pues no nos ha de hacer falta, hombre de Dios? —dijo el fraile
soltando una carcajada que asemejó su rostro al de una gárgola de
catedral despidiendo el agua por la boca—. ¿Qué va a ser de nosotros
sin figurines? Averigüe usted ahora cómo se han de hacer los
chalecos y cómo se han de poner las corbatas.
Los tres y otros intrusos que oían rompieron a reír, celebrando e
donaire del Trapense.
—Queda de general en jefe el general Bourmont.
—Por falta de hombres buenos, a mi padre hicieron alcalde —dijo
Chaperón—. Si Bourmont se ocupara en otra cosa que en coge
moscas, y se metiera en lo que no le importa, ya sabríamos tenerle a
raya.
—Me parece que no nos mamamos el dedo —repuso el fraile—. Y
me consta que Su Majestad viene dispuesto a que las cosas se hagan
al derecho, arrancando de cuajo la raíz de las revoluciones. Dígame
usted, ¿es cierto que se ha retractado en la capilla?
—¿Quién, Su Majestad?
—No, hombre, Rieguillo.
—De eso se trata. El hombre está más maduro que una breva. ¿No
va usted por allá?
—¿Por la capilla?... No me quedaré sin meter mi cucharada... Ahora
no puedo detenerme: tengo que ver al obispo para un negocio de
bulas, y al ministro de la Guerra para hablarle del mal estado en que
están las armas de mi gente... Con Dios, señores... ¡arre!
Y echó a andar hacia la calle de Toledo, seguido del entusiasta
cortejo que le vitoreaba. Chaperón, después de dar las últimas
órdenes a los aparejadores y de volver a observar el efecto de la bella
obra que se estaba ejecutando, marchó con sus amigos hacia la calle
Imperial, por donde se dirigieron todos a la cárcel de Corte. En la
plazuela había también gente, de esa que la curiosidad, no la
compasión, reúne frente a un muro detrás del cual hay un reo en
capilla. No veían nada, y sin embargo, miraban la negra pared, como
si en ella pudiera descubrirse la sombra, o si no la sombra, misterioso
reflejo del espíritu del condenado a muerte.
Los tres amigos tropezaron con un individuo que apresuradamente
salía de la Sala de Alcaldes.
—¡Eh!, no corra usted tanto, señor Pipaón —gritole el de la
Comisión militar—. ¿A dónde tan a prisa?
—Hola, señores, salud y pesetas —dijo el digno varón
deteniéndose—. ¿Van ustedes a la capilla?...
—No hemos de ser los últimos. ¿Qué tal está mi hombre?...
—Van a darle de comer... Una mesa espléndida, como se
acostumbra en estos casos. Con que, señor Chaperón, seño
Regato...
—¡A dónde va usted que más valga! —dijo Chaperón deteniéndole
por un brazo—. ¿Hay trabajillo en la oficina?
—Yo no trabajo en la oficina, porque estoy encargado de los
festejos para recibir al rey —repuso Bragas con orgullo.
—¡Ah!, no hay que apurarse todavía.
—Pero no es cosa de dejarlo para el último día. No preparamos una
función chabacana como las del tiempo constitucional, sino una
verdadera solemnidad regia, como lo merecen el caso y la persona de
Fernando VII. El carro en que ha de verificar su entrada se está
construyendo. Es digno de un emperador romano. Aún no se sabe s
tirarán de él caballos o mancebos vistosamente engalanados. Es
indudable que llevarán las cintas los voluntarios realistas.
—Pues se ha dicho que nosotros tiraríamos del carro —dijo Romo
con énfasis, como si reclamara un derecho.
—Ahí tiene usted un asunto sobre el cual no disputaría yo —insinuó
Regato blandamente—. Yo dejaría que tiraran caballos o mulas.
—Ya se decidirá, señores, ya se decidirá a gusto de todos —dijo
Bragas con aires de transacción—. Lo que me trae muy preocupado
es que..., verán ustedes..., me he propuesto presentar ese día
doscientas o trescientas majas lujosamente vestidas. ¡Oh! ¡qué bonito
espectáculo! Costará mucho dinero ciertamente; pero ¡qué precioso
efecto! Ya estoy escogiendo mi cuadrilla. Doscientas muchachas
bonitas no son un grano de anís. Pero yo las tomo donde las
encuentro..., ¿eh? De los trajes se encarga el Ayuntamiento... Me han
dado fondos. ¡Caracoles!, es una cuestión peliaguda... Espero lucirme.
—Este Pipaón es de la piel de Satanás... ¿De dónde va a sacar ese
mujerío?
—Yo daría la preferencia a los arcos de triunfo —dijo Romo—. Es
mucho más serio.
—¿Arcos?... ¡Si ha de haber cuatro! Por cierto que el seño
Chaperón nos ha hecho un flaco servicio llevándose para la horca los
grandes mástiles que sirven para armar arcos de triunfo.
—Hombre, por vida del Santísimo Sacramento —dijo Chaperón
mostrando un sentimiento que en otro pudiera haber sido bondad—
ya servirán para todo. Pues qué, ¿vamos a ahorcar a media España?
—Entre paréntesis, no sería malo... Conque ahora sí que me voy de
veras.
Estrechó Pipaón sucesivamente la mano de cada uno de sus tres
amigos.
—Ya nos veremos luego en las oficinas de la Comisión.
—Pues qué, ¿hay algo nuevo?
—Hombre, no se puede desamparar a los amigos.
—¡Recomendaciones! —vociferó el brigadier mostrando su fiereza
—. Por vida del Santísimo, que eso de las recomendaciones y las
amistades me incomoda más que la evasión de un prisionero. Así no
hay justicia posible, señor Pipaón; así la justicia, los castigos y las
purificaciones no son más que una farsa.
El terrible funcionario se cruzó de brazos, conservando fuertemente
empuñado el símbolo de su autoridad.
—Es claro —añadió Romo por espíritu de adulación—, así no hay
justicia posible.
—No hay justicia —repitió Regato como un eco del cadalso.
—Amigo Chaperón —dijo el astuto Bragas con afabilidad y
desviando un poco del grupo al comisario para hablarle en secreto—
cuando hablo de amigos me refiero a personas que no han hecho
nada contra el régimen absoluto.
—Si, buenos pillos son sus amigos de usted.
—No es más sino que al pobre don Benigno Cordero le está
molestando la policía de Zaragoza, y es posible que lo pase mal. Ya
recordará usted que don Benigno dio cien onzas bien contadas porque
se le comprendiera en el secreto del 2 de octubre fechado en Jerez
Acogiéndose a la proscripción, se libraba de la cárcel y quizás de la
horca... Pues en Zaragoza me le han puesto en un calabozo. Eso no
está bien...
—Bueno, bueno —dijo Chaperón disgustado de aquel asunto
También Romo me ha recomendado a ese Cordero.
Romo no dijo una palabra, ni abandonó aquella seriedad que era en
él como su mismo rostro.
—Por última vez, señores, adiós —chilló Bragas—, ahora sí que me
voy de veras.
—Abur.
Dirigiéronse a la puerta de la cárcel por la calle del Salvador; pero
les fue preciso detenerse, porque en aquel momento entraba una
cuerda de presos. Iban atados como criminales que recogiera en los
caminos la antigua Hermandad de Cuadrilleros, y por su traje
ademanes, y más aún por el modo de expresar su pena, debían de
pertenecer a distintas clases sociales. Los unos iban serenos y con la
frente erguida; los otros abatidos y llorosos. Eran veintidós entre
varones y hembras, a saber: tres patriotas de los antiguos clubs, dos
ancianos que habían desempeñado durante el régimen caído el cargo
de vocales del Supremo Tribunal de Justicia, un eclesiástico, dos
toreros, cuatro cómicos, un chico de siete años, descalzo y roto, tres
militares, un indefinido, como no se le clasificara entre los pordioseros
una señora anciana que apenas podía andar, dos de buena edad y
noble continente, que pertenecían a clase acomodada, y dos mujeres
públicas.
Chaperón echó sobre aquella infeliz gente una mirada que bien
podía llamarse amorosa, pues era semejante a las del artista
contemplando su obra, y cuando el último preso (que era una de las
damas de equívoca conducta) se perdió en el oscuro zaguán de la
prisión, rompió por entre la multitud curiosa y entró también con sus
amigos.
V
Lo más cruel y repugnante que existe después de la pena de

muerte es el ceremonial que la precede, y la lúgubre antesala de
cadalso con sus cuarenta y ocho mortales horas de capilla. Casi más
horrenda que la horca misma es aquella larga espera y agonía entre la
vida y la muerte, durante la cual exponen la víctima a la compasión
pública, como a la pública curiosidad los animales raros. La ley, que
hasta entonces se ha mostrado severa, muéstrase ahora ferozmente
burlona, permitiendo al reo la compañía de parientes y amigos, y
dándole de comer a qué quieres, boca. Algún condenado de clase
humilde prueba en esos dos días platos y delicadas confituras, cuyo
sabor no conocía. Señores, sacerdotes y altos personajes le dan la
mano, le dirigen vulgares palabritas de consuelo, y todos se empeñan
en hacerle creer que es el hombre más feliz de la creación, que no
debe envidiar a los que incurren en la tontería de seguir viviendo, y
que estar en capilla con el implacable verdugo a la puerta es una
delicia. Sin embargo, a nadie se le ha ocurrido solicitar expresamente
tanta felicidad, ni contar a Nerón, Luis XI, don Pedro de Castilla, Felipe
II, Robespierre y Fernando VII entre los bienhechores de la
humanidad.
Desde el 5 de noviembre a las diez de la mañana gustaba don
Rafael del Riego las dulzuras de la capilla. Aquel hombre famoso, e
más pequeño de los que aparecen ingeridos sin saber cómo en las
filas de los grandes, mediano militar y pésimo político, prueba viva de
las locuras de la fama y usurpador de una celebridad que habría
cuadrado mejor a otros caracteres y nombres condenados hoy a
olvido, acabó su breve carrera sin decoro ni grandeza. Un noble mori
habría dado a su figura el realce heroico que no pudo alcanzar en tres
años de impaciente agitación y bullanga; pero tan desgraciada era la
libertad en nuestro país, que ni al morir bajo las soeces uñas de
absolutismo, pudo alcanzar aquel hombre la dignidad y el prestigio de
la idea que se avalora sucumbiendo. Pereció como la pobre alimaña
que expira chillando entre los dientes del gato.
La causa del revolucionario más célebre de su tiempo fue un tejido
de iniquidades y de absurdos jurídicos. Lo que importaba era
condenarle emborronando poco papel, y así fue. Desde que le leyeron
la sentencia el preso cayó en un abatimiento lúgubre, hijo, según
algunos, de sus dolencias físicas. Creeríase que confiaba hasta
entonces en la clemencia de los llamados jueces, o del rey, que es
todo el caudal de inocencia que puede caber en espíritu de hombre
nacido. A diferencia de otros que en horas tan tremendas se atracan
de los ricos manjares con que engorda el verdugo a sus víctimas, no
quiso comer, o comió muy poco. Ningún amigo pudo visitarle, porque
la visita hubiera sido quizás el primer paso para compañía perpetua
hasta la eternidad; pero le vieron muchos individuos particulares de
categoría, deseosos de hartar sus ojos con la vista de aquel hombre
que conmovió con su nombre a toda España; sacerdotes que
solícitamente se prestaban a encaminarle al cielo; hermanos de
diversas hermandades; personas varias, en fin, compungidas las unas
indiferentes otras, curiosas las más; pero en tal número que no
dejaban al preso un momento de descanso.
Estaba frío, caduco, los ojos fijos en el suelo, amarillo como las
velas que ardían junto al crucifijo del altar. A ratos suspiraba, parecía
vagar en sus labios la palabra perdón, acometíanle desmayos, y hacía
preguntas triviales. Ni mostró apego a las ideas políticas que le habían
dado tanto nombre, ni dio alas a su espíritu con la unción religiosa
sino que se abatía más y más a cada instante, apareciendo quieto sin
estoicismo, humilde sin resignación. Chaperón y otros de igual talla
gozaban viendo llorar, como un alumno castigado, al general de la
libertad, al pastor que con la magia de su nombre arrastraba tras s
rebaño de pueblos. En el delirio de su triunfo no habían ellos soñado
con una caída semejante que les desembarazara, no solo de su
enemigo mayor, sino del prestigio de todos los demás.
La retractación del héroe de las Cabezas fue una de las más
ruidosas victorias del bando absolutista. ¡Qué mayor triunfo que
mostrar a los pueblos un papel en que de su puño y letra había escrito
el hombre diminuto estas palabras: «Asimismo publico el sentimiento
que me asiste por la parte que he tenido en el sistema llamado
constitucional, en la revolución y en sus fatales consecuencias, po
todo lo cual pido perdón a Dios de mis crímenes...»! Han quedado en
el misterio las circunstancias que acompañaron a este arrepentimiento
escrito, y aunque el carácter de Riego y su pusilanimidad en las
tremendas horas justifican hasta cierto punto aquella genuflexión de su
espíritu, puede asegurarse que no hubo completa espontaneidad en
ella. El fraile que le asistía, Chaperón y el escribano Huerta sabrían
acerca de este suceso cosas dignas de pasar a la posteridad, porque
a ellos debieron los absolutistas el envilecimiento del personaje más
culminante, si no el más valioso de la segunda época constitucional
Ahora, cuando ha pasado tanto tiempo y la losa del sepulcro les cubre
a todos, ahorcadores y ahorcados, no podemos menos de deplora
que los que asistieron en la capilla a don Rafael del Riego en la noche
del 6 al 7 de noviembre, no hubieran hecho públicos después los
argumentos empleados para arrancar una abdicación tan humillante.
El 7, a las diez de la mañana, le condujeron al suplicio. De seguro
no ha brillado en toda nuestra historia un día más ignominioso. Es tal
que ni aun parece digno de ser conocido, y el narrador se siente
inclinado a volver, sin leerla, esa página sombría, y a correr tras de
una ficción verosímil que embellezca la descarnada verdad histórica
Una víctima sin nobleza, arrastrada al suplicio por verdugos feroces
es el espectáculo más triste que pueden ofrecer las miserias humanas
es el mal puro sin porción ninguna de bien, de ese bien moral que
aparece más o menos claro aun en los más horrendos excesos de
furor político y en los martirios a que es sometida la inocencia. Una
víctima cobarde parece que enaltece al verdugo, y al hablar de
cobardía no es que echemos de menos la arrogancia fanfarrona con
que algunos desgraciados han querido dar realce teatral a su postre
instante, sino la dignidad personal que, unida a la resignación
religiosa, rodean al mártir jurídico de una brillante aureola de simpatías
y compasión. Ninguna de aquellas especies de valor tuvo en su
desastroso fin el general Riego, y creeríase al verle que víctima y
jueces se habían confabulado para cubrir de vilipendio el último día de
la libertad y hacer más negro y triste su crepúsculo. La grosería
patibularia y el refinamiento en las fórmulas de degradación
empleadas por los unos, parece que guardaban repugnante armonía
con la abjuración del otro.
Sacáronle de la cárcel por el callejón del Verdugo, y condujéronle
por la calle de la Concepción Jerónima, que era la carrera oficial
Como si montarle en borrico hubiera sido signo de nobleza, llevábanle
en un serón que arrastraba el mismo animal. Los hermanos de la Paz
y Caridad le sostuvieron durante todo el tránsito para que con la
sacudida no padeciese; pero él, cubierta la cabeza con su gorrete
negro, lloraba como un niño, sin dejar de besar a cada instante la
estampa que sostenía entre sus atadas manos.
Un gentío alborotador cubría la carrera. La plaza era un amasijo de
carne humana. ¿Participaremos de esta vil curiosidad, atendiendo
prolijamente a los accidentes todos de tan repugnante cuadro? De
ninguna manera. Un hombre que sube a gatas la escalera del patíbulo
besando uno a uno todos los escalones; un verdugo que le suspende
y se arroja con él, dándole un bofetón después que ha expirado; una
ruin canalla que al verle en el aire grita; «¡Viva el rey absoluto!...»
¿Acaso esto merece ser mencionado? ¿Qué interés ni qué enseñanza
ni qué ejemplo ofrecen estas muestras de la perversidad humana? S
toda la historia fuese así, si no sirviera más que de afrenta, ¡cuán
horrible sería! Felizmente, aun en aquellos días tan desfavorecidos
contiene páginas honrosas aunque algo oscuras, y entre los miles de
víctimas del absolutismo húbolas nobilísimas y altamente merecedoras
de cordial compasión. Si el historiador acaso no las nombrase, peo
para él; el novelador las nombrará, y conceptuándose dichoso al llena
con ellas su lienzo, se atreve a asegurar que la ficción verosími
ajustada a la realidad documentada, puede ser en ciertos casos más
histórica, y seguramente es más patriótica, que la historia misma.
VI
El triste día de la ejecución todo Madrid asistió a ella, lo mismo los

absolutistas rabiosos que los antiguos patriotas, a excepción de los
que no podían salir a la calle sin peligro de ser afeitados o arrojados
en los pilones de las fuentes, cuando no hechos trizas por el vulgo
Pero entre tanto gentío faltó un hombre que durante el verano había
vivido casi constantemente en la calle, entreteniendo a los
desocupados y dando que reír a los pícaros. Echábanle de menos en
las esquinas de la Puerta del Sol y en los diversos mentideros, por lo
cual le creían fallecido. No era cierto. Sarmiento vivía, gozando
además de una regular salud.
La primera noche que se quedó en casa de Solita durmió de un
tirón once horas, y habiendo despertado al medio día llamó con fuertes
voces para que le llevaran chocolate. Dióselo la misma dueña de la
casa con mucha amabilidad, y entre sorbo y sorbo el preceptor decía:
—Puedo aceptar estos obsequios porque hoy mismo entraré por la
senda a que me lleva mi destino... Si fuera por mucho tiempo de
ningún modo aceptaría... Mi carácter, mi dignidad, los recuerdos de
nuestro antagonismo no me lo permiten.
—¿Qué tal está el chocolate? —le preguntó Sola con malignidad.
—Así, así..., mejor dicho, no está mal..., quiero decir, muy bueno
excelente, o hablando con completa franqueza, riquísimo.
—¿Hoy se marcha usted?
—Ahora mismo... Me presentaré a las autoridades —repuso
Sarmiento dejando el cangilón y arropándose de nuevo entre las
sábanas— y les diré: «Aquí tenéis, infames sicarios, al que os ha
hecho tanto daño; quitadme esta miserable vida; bebed mi sangre
caníbales. Quiero compartir la inmortalidad del insigne Riego...».
—¿Todo eso va a decir usted?... Pues un poco perezosillo está m
buen viejo para hacer y decir tantas cosas.
—¡Yo perezoso! —exclamó incorporando el anguloso busto y
extendiendo los brazos—. ¡Venga al punto mi ropa!
Soledad le mostró ropa blanca limpia y planchada.
—Estuve arriba —dijo.
—¿En mi casa?
—Sí: saqué la llave del bolsillo de usted, subí, revolví todo
buscando ropa mejor que la que usted tiene puesta..., pero no
encontré nada.
—¡Cómo había de encontrar, alma de Dios, lo que no tengo! No se
burle de mi miseria... Pero entendámonos, ¿qué ropa es esta que me
ofrece?
—Ya lo ve..., son piezas desechadas, pero en buen uso.
—¡Ah! ya... Ropa desechada del señor don Salvador Monsalud..
Pues mire usted, si fuera obsequio de otra persona lo rehusaría; pero
siendo de aquel noble patriota lo acepto. Conste que no he pedido
nada.
—De ropa exterior podríamos arreglarle algunas piezas decentes —
dijo Sola sonriendo—, siempre que usted tarde algunos días en
marchar a la inmortalidad.
—¡Tardar! Basta de bromas... ¿Para qué quiero yo ropas bonitas?
¿Voy acaso a entrar en algún salón de baile, o en los Elíseos Campos
donde los justos se pasean envueltos en mantos de nubes?... Figúrese
usted la falta que me hará a mí la buena ropa...
—Puede que tarden en matarle a usted un mes o dos. Y si siguen
estos fríos no le vendrá mal una buena capa.
—Tanto como venir mal precisamente, no... ¿La tiene usted?
—La buscaremos.
—No, no es preciso... Voy a levantarme.
Soledad se retiró, y al poco rato apareció en la sala don Patricio
completamente vestido. Sentose en el sofá, y contemplando a la joven
con bondadosa mirada, dijo así:
—Desde el tiempo de mi Refugio, no había dormido en una cama
tan buena... ¡Ay, ella era tan hacendosa, tan casera! Nuestro domicilio
estaba como un oro, y nuestro lecho nupcial podía haber servido para
que en él se revolcara un rey... ¡Pobre Refugio, si me vieras en m
actual miseria!... ¡Pobre Lucas, pobre hijo mío! Hoy tu muerte es digna
de envidia, porque estás en la morada de los héroes y de los elegidos
pero tu padre no tiene consuelo, ni puede vivir sin verte...
Derramó algunas lágrimas, y por largo rato estuvo silencioso y
cabizbajo, dando muestras de verdadero dolor. Soledad, ocupada en
sus quehaceres, no se presentó a él sino a la hora de la comida.
—Supongo que no saldrá usted hasta después de comer —le dijo
poniendo la mesa.
—Saldré antes, ahora mismo, señora —dijo Sarmiento irguiéndose
súbitamente como un asta de bandera—. El peso de la vida me es
insoportable. Una voz secreta me grita: «Anda, corre...». Todo mi se
avanza en pos de la gloria que me está destinada.
—¡Cuánto mejor irá usted después de comer!... ¿Es que desprecia
usted mi mesa?
—¡Oh!, no, señora, de ningún modo —replicó Sarmiento con
cortesía—; pero conste que solo por acompañar a usted...
Comieron tranquilamente, siendo de notar que el espiritual don
Patricio, creyendo sin duda inconveniente el aventurarse por los
ideales senderos con el estómago vacío, diose prisa a llenarlo de
cuanto la mesa sustentaba.
—¡Qué buena comida! —dijo permitiendo a su paladar aquel desliz
de sensualismo—. ¡Qué bien hecho todo, y con cuánto primo
presentado! Solita, si usted se casa, su marido de usted será el más
feliz de los hombres.
Al final de la comida, los ojos de don Patricio brillaron con
resplandores de gozo, viendo una taza llena de negro licor.
—¡También café!... ¡Oh, cuánto tiempo hace que no pruebo este
delicioso líquido!... El néctar de los dioses, el néctar de los héroes..
Gracias, mil gracias por tan delicada fineza.
—Yo sabía que a usted le gusta mucho este brebaje.
—¡Gracias!... ¡y qué bueno es!... ¡qué aroma!
—Será el último que beba usted, porque en la cárcel no dan estas
golosinas.
—¿Y qué importa? —repuso el anciano con solemne acento—
¿Acaso somos de alfeñique? Cuando un hombre se decide a escala
con gigantesco pie el último círculo del cielo, ¿de qué vale el liviano
placer de los sentidos?
Dijo, y poniéndose el farolillo de fieltro que desempeñaba en su
cabeza las funciones propias de un sombrero, se dispuso a salir.
—Adiós, señora —murmuró—, gracias por sus atenciones, que no
esperaba en persona de quien soy encarnizado enemigo... político. Su
papá de usted y yo nos aborrecimos y nos aborreceremos en la otra
vida... Abur.
Salió precipitadamente hacia la puerta; mas no pudiendo abrirla
volvió diciendo:
—La llave, la llave...
Soledad rompió a reír.
—¡Y creía el muy tonto que iba a dejarle salir! No faltaba más. Eso
querrían los chicos para divertirse. ¿Quiere usted quitarse ese
sombrero, hombre de Dios, y sentarse ahí y estarse tranquilo?
—Señora, señora —dijo Sarmiento moviendo la cabeza y pateando
ligeramente en muestra de su decoroso enfado—, ábrame usted la
puerta, y déjeme en paz, que cada uno va a su destino, y el mío es..
el que yo me sé.
—No abro.
—Señora, señorita, que yo soy hombre de poca paciencia. Ábrame
la puerta, o reñimos de veras.
—Que no abro la puerta —replicó Sola, remedando el tonillo de
cantinela de su digno huésped.
—Basta de bromas, basta, repito —vociferó Sarmiento tomando e
aire y tono tragicómicos que empleaba al reprender a los alumnos—
Yo soy un hombre formal... De mí no se ríe nadie y menos una
chiquilla loca... Ea, niña sin juicio, abra usted si no quiere saber quién
es Patricio Sarmiento.
—Un loco, un majadero, un vagabundo, a quien es preciso recoge
por caridad y encerrar por fuerza, para que no se degrade en las calles
como un pordiosero, haciendo el saltimbanquis y muriéndose de
miseria, ya que por el estado de su cabeza no puede morirse de
vergüenza.
Esto lo dijo con tanta seriedad y entereza, que por breve rato estuvo
el patriota aturdido y confuso.
—Aquí hay algo, aquí hay algún designio oculto que no puedo
comprender —afirmó el anciano—, pero que tiene por objeto, sí, tiene
por objeto impedir una resolución demasiado ruidosa y que quizás
perjudicaría al absolutismo.
Otra vez se echó a reír Sola de tan buena gana, que Sarmiento se
enfureció más.
—Por vida de la chilindraina —gritó agitando sus brazos—, que s
usted no me da la llave, la tomaré yo donde quiera que se encuentre.
—Atrévase —dijo Soledad con festiva afectación de valor
incorporándose en su asiento—. Mujer y de poca fuerza, no temo a un
fastasmón como usted... Quieto ahí, y cuidado con apurarme la
paciencia.
—Señora, no puedo creer sino que usted se ha vuelto loca —gruñó
Sarmiento con sarcasmo—. ¡Querer detener a un hombre como yo! No
sabe usted las bromas que gasto. Repito que aquí hay una conjuración
infame... ¡Oh, si es usted hija del conspirador más grande que han
abortado los despóticos infiernos!... ¡Ah, taimada muchachuela! Ahora
me explico a qué venían los chocolatitos, la ropita blanca, el buen
cocido y mejor sopa... ¡Quite usted allá! ¿Cree usted que con eso se
ablanda este bronce? ¿Cree usted que así se abate esta montaña?
¿Soy yo de mantequillas? Aunque fuera preciso derribar a puñetazos
estas paredes y arrancar con los dientes esos cerrojos del despotismo
yo lo haría, yo..., porque he de ir a donde me llama mi hado feliz, y m
hado, fatum que decían los antiguos, se ha de cumplir, y la víctima
preciosa inscrita en el eterno libro no puede faltar, ni la sangre
redentora puede dejar de derramarse, ni la libertad ha de quedarse sin
la víctima que necesita. De modo que saldré, pese a quien pese
aunque tenga que emplear la fuerza contra miserables mujeres, lo que
es impropio de la nobleza de mi carácter.
—¿Se atreverá usted?
—Sí; deme usted la llave de esa puerta nefanda —contestó
Sarmiento con énfasis petulante que no tenía nada de temible—, o se
arrepentirá de su crimen..., porque esto es un crimen... ¡La llave, la
llave!
—Ahora lo veremos.
Corriendo afuera, prontamente volvió Sola con un palo de escoba, y
enarbolándolo frente a don Patricio, le hizo retroceder algunos pasos.
—Aquí están mis llaves, pícaro, vagabundo. O renuncia usted a
salir, o le rompo la cabeza.
—Señora —exclamó don Patricio acorralado en un ángulo de la
sala—, no abuse usted de mi delicadeza..., de mi dignidad, que me
impide poner la férrea mano sobre una hembra... ¡Esto es un ardid
pero qué ardid!... Una trama verdaderamente absolutista.
—Siéntese usted —gritó Soledad conteniendo la risa y sin dejar e
argumento de caña—. Fuera el sombrero.
—Vaya, me siento y me descubro —repuso Sarmiento con la
sumisión del esclavo—. ¿Qué más?
—¿Se compromete usted a no salir en quince días?
—Jamás, jamás, jamás. Antes la muerte —murmuró cerrando los
ojos—. Pegue usted.
—Esto es una broma —dijo Soledad arrojando el palo, sentándose
junto al anciano y poniéndole la mano amorosamente sobre el hombro
—. ¿Cómo había yo de castigar al pobre viejecito demente miserable
que se pasa la vida en las calles divirtiendo a los muchachos? Si no
hay en el mundo ser alguno más digno de lástima... ¡Pobre viejecillo
Me he propuesto hacer una buena obra de caridad y he de
conseguirlo. Yo he de traer a este infeliz a la razón. ¿Y cómo?
Asistiéndole, cuidándole, dándole de comer cositas buenas y
sabrosas, arreglándole su ropa para que esté decente y no tenga frío
proporcionándole todo lo necesario para que no carezca de nada y
tenga una vejez alegre y pacífica.
Estas palabras debieron hacer ligera impresión en el espíritu de
viejo, porque moviendo la cabeza, se dejó acariciar y no dijo nada.
—Jesucristo nos manda hacer bien a los pobres, cuidar a los
enfermos y aliviar a los menesterosos —añadió Sola acercando su
agraciado rostro a la rugosa efigie del vagabundo—. Y cuando esto se
hace con enemigos, el mérito es mayor, mucho mayor, y el placer de
hacerlo también aumenta. Recordando que este pobre iluso y fanático
negó a mi padre un vaso de agua en un trance terrible, más me alegro
de hacerle beneficios, sí, porque además yo sé que el desgraciado
vejete loco no es malo en realidad, ni carece de buen corazón, sino
que por causa del condenado fanatismo hizo aquella y otras
maldades... Por consiguiente, papá Sarmiento, aquí estarás
encerradito, comiendo bien y cenando mejor, libre de chicos, de
insultos, de atropellos, de hambre y desnudez; aquí vivirás tranquilo
haciéndome compañía, porque yo soy sola como mi nombre, y estaré
sola por mucho tiempo, quizás toda la vida... ¿Quedamos en eso? Ya
ves que te tuteo en señal de parentesco y familiaridad.
—¡Ah, mujer melosa y liviana! —dijo Sarmiento haciendo un
esfuerzo de energía, semejante al de los anacoretas cuando se veían
en grande y peligrosa tentación—. ¡Quita allá! Mi alma es demasiado
fuerte para sucumbir a tus pérfidos halagos.
—Esta noche cenaremos —dijo Soledad hablando como cuando se
les anuncia a los niños lo que han de comer—. Oye tú lo que
cenaremos; pollo, chuletas, uvas...
Iba contando por los dedos cada cosa, y haciendo gran pausa en
cada parada.
—Mañana —añadió— voy a ocupar a mi ancianito en cosas útiles
Me ha de trabajar para que yo pueda tratarle bien. Yo necesito
reformar mi letra, porque escribo patas de mosca y no tengo
ortografía. El viejecillo me dará lección todas las noches. Por el día le
emplearé en algo que le entretenga. Darele buenos libros..., nada de
política..., y cuando esté domesticado, le sacaré a paseo por las
tardes.
A don Patricio se le humedecieron los ojos. Difícil es saber lo que
pasaba en su alma.
—¿Y mi gloria, pero esa gloria que me está llamando? —dijo dando
fuerte porrazo en el brazo de la silla—. ¡Vaya un modo de hace
caridades, señora, quitándole a uno la inmortalidad, el lauro de oro que
se le tiene destinado!
Don Patricio dijo esto con una seriedad que hacía llorar y reír a
mismo tiempo.
—¿Qué gloria? —repuso Soledad—. No conozco sino la que Dios
da a los que se portan bien y cumplen sus mandamientos.
—¿Pero y esa víctima, esa víctima de quien necesita la libertad?
—La libertad no necesita víctimas, sino hombres que la sepan
entender... Conque Sarmientillo, seremos amigos. De aquí no se sale
mientras esa cabeza no esté buena.
Diole dos cariñosas palmadas en ella la encantadora joven
mientras el insigne patriota exhalaba de su noble pecho un suspiro de
a libra, permítase la frase. ¿Era que hacía el sacrificio de su idea
sublime? ¿Era que pedía a su espíritu fuerzas para sobreponerse a
seducción tan poderosa? No es fácil saberlo. Los próximos sucesos lo
dirán.
—¡Ah, señora —exclamó tomando la mano de Sola—, no sabe
usted bien lo que hace! La historia, quizás, pedirá a usted cuentas de
su acción abominable, aunque declaro que es inspirada por un noble
impulso de caridad... Engañosa Circe, no sabe usted bien qué clase de
ímpetus sojuzga y contiene al encerrarme; no sabe usted bien qué
especie de monstruo encarcela, ni qué heroicas acciones se pierden
con este hecho, ni qué días gloriosos serán borrados de la serie de
tiempo.
Dijo, y un rato después dormía la siesta.
VII
En los días sucesivos tuvo don Patricio los mismos deseos de salir
si bien, a excepción de una vez, no fueron tan ardientes; pero hubo
gritos, amenazas, volvió a funcionar el inocente palo y la carcelera a
desplegar las armas de su convincente piedad, de la graciosa entereza
que tan buenos efectos produjera el primer día. Horas enteras pasaba
el vagabundo patriota, corriendo de un ángulo a otro de la sala, como
enjaulada bestia, deteniéndose a veces para oír los ruidos de la calle
que a él le sonaban siempre como discursos, proclamas o himnos, y
poniéndose a cada rato el sombrero como para salir. Este acto de
cubrirse primero y descubrirse después, al caer en la cuenta de su
encierro, era gracioso, y excitaba la risa de su amable guardiana. En la
comida y cena mostrábase más manso, y se ponía con cierto orgullo
las prendas de vestir que Sola le arreglara. Desde la cabeza a los pies
cubríase con lo perteneciente al antiguo dueño de la casa, de cuya
adaptación no resultaba gran elegancia, a causa de la diferencia de
talle y estatura.
Por las noches daba a Soledad lección de escritura, poniendo en
ella tanto cuidado la discípula como el maestro. Él, particularmente
mostraba una prolijidad desusada, esmerándose en transmitir a su
alumna sus altos principios caligráficos, la primorosa maestría de
ejecución que poseía y de que estaba tan orgulloso.
—Desde que el mundo es mundo —decía observando los trazos
hechos por Soledad sobre el papel pautado—, no se han dado
lecciones con tanto esmero. Hanse reunido, para producir colosales
efectos, la disposición innata de la discípula y la destreza del maestro
Ahora bien, señora y carcelera mía: la justicia y el agradecimiento
piden que en pago de este beneficio me conceda usted la libertad, que
es mi elemento, mi vida, mi atmósfera.
—Bueno —respondió Sola—, cuando sepa escribir te abriré la
puerta, viejecillo bobo.
En los primeros días de noviembre estuvo muy tranquilo, apenas
dio señales de persistir en su diabólica manía, y se le vio reír y aun
modular entre dientes alegres cancioncillas; pero el 7 del mismo mes
llegaron a su encierro, no se sabe cómo (sin duda por el aguador o la
indiscreta criada), nuevas del suplicio de Riego, y entonces la
imaginación mal contenida de don Patricio perdió los estribos. Furioso
y desatinado, corría por toda la casa gritando:
—¡Esperad, verdugos, que allá voy yo también! No será él solo..
Esperad, hacedme un puesto en esa horca gloriosa... ¡Maldito sea e
que quiera arrancarme mis legítimos laureles!
Soledad tuvo miedo; mas sobreponiéndose a todo, logró contenerle
con no poco trabajo y riesgo, porque Sarmiento no cedía como antes a
la virtud del palo, ni oía razones, ni respetaba a la que había logrado
con su paciencia y dulzura tan gran dominio sobre él. Pero al fin
triunfaron las buenas artes de la celestial joven, y Sarmiento
acorralado en la sala, sin esperanzas de lograr su intento, hubo de
contentarse con desahogar su espíritu poniéndose de rodillas y
diciendo con voz sonora:
—¡Oh tú, el héroe más grande que han visto los siglos, patriarca de
la libertad, contempla desde el cielo donde moras esta alma atribulada
que no puede romper las ligaduras que le impiden seguirte! Preso
contra todo fuero y razón; víctima de una intriga, me veo imposibilitado
de compartir tu martirio, y con tu martirio tu galardón eterno. Y
vosotros, asesinos, venid aquí por mí si queréis. Gritaré hasta que mis
voces lleguen hasta vuestros perversos oídos. Soy Sarmiento, el digno
compañero de Riego, el único digno de morir con él; soy aque
Sarmiento cuya tonante elocuencia os ha confundido tantas veces; e
que no os ha ametrallado con balas, sino con razones; el que ha
destruido todos vuestros sofismas con la artillería resonante de su
palabra. Aquí estoy, matad la lengua de la libertad, así como habéis
matado el brazo. Vuestra obra no está completa mientras yo viva
porque mientras yo aliente se oirá mi voz por todas partes diciendo lo
que sois... Venid por mí. La horca está manca: falta en ella un cuerpo
No será efectivo el sacrificio sin mí. ¿No me conocéis, ciegos? Soy
Sarmiento, el famoso Sarmiento, el dueño de esa lengua de acero que
tanto os ha hecho rabiar... ¿No daríais algo por taparle la boca? Pues
aquí le tenéis... Venid pronto... El hombre terrible, la voz destructora de
tiranías, callará para siempre.
Todo aquel día estuvo insufrible en tal manera, que otra persona de
menos paciencia y sufrimiento que Solita le habría puesto en la calle
dejándole que siguiera su glorioso destino; pero se fue calmando, y un
sueño profundo durante la noche le puso en regular estado de
despejo. Habíale traído Soledad tabaco picado y librillos de papel para
que se entretuviese haciendo cigarrillos, y con esto y con limpiar la
jaula de un jilguero pasaba parte de la mañana. Sentándose después
junto a la huérfana mientras esta cosía, hablablan largo rato y
agradablemente de cosas diversas. Uno y otro contaban cosas
pasadas: Sarmiento sus bodas, la muerte de Refugio y la niñez de
Lucas; Sola su desgraciado viaje al reino de Valencia.
Continuaban las lecciones de escritura por las noches, y después
leía el anciano un libro de comedias antiguas que de la casa de
Cordero trajo Sola. Cuidaba esta de que en la vivienda no entrase
papel ninguno de política, y siempre que el anciano pedía noticias de
los sucesos públicos, se le contestaba con una amonestación
acompañada a veces de un ligero pellizco. Poco a poco iba
acomodándose el buen viejo a tal género de vida, y sus accesos de
tristeza o de rabia eran menos frecuentes cada día. Su carácter se
suavizaba por grados, desapareciendo de él lentamente las asperezas
ocasionadas por un fanatismo brutal, y la irritación y acritud que en é
produjera la gran enfermedad de la vida, que es la miseria. A las
ocupaciones no muy trabajosas de hacer cigarrillos y cuidar el pájaro
añadió Soledad otras que entretenían más a Sarmiento. Como no
carecía de habilidad de manos y había herramientas en la casa, todos
los muebles que tenían desperfectos y todas las sillas que claudicaban
recibieron compostura. En la cocina se pusieron vasares nuevos de
tablas; después nunca faltaba una percha que asegurar, una cortina
que suspender, lámpara que colgar, lámina que mudar de sitio o
madeja de algodón que devanar.
Llegó el invierno, y la sala se abrigaba todas las noches con
hermoso brasero de cisco bien pasado, en cuya tarima ponía los pies
el vagabundo, inclinándose sobre el rescoldo sin soltar de la mano la
badila. Era notable don Patricio en el arte de arreglar el brasero, y de
ello se preciaba. Su conocimiento de la temperatura teníale muy
orgulloso, y cuando el brasero empezaba a desempeñar sus

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