Isabel Allende
Translated by E.D.Carter Jr.
[1] On that glorious noonday when Dulce Rosa Orellano was crowned with the jasmines of Carnival Queen, the mothers of the other candidates murmured that it was unfair for her to win just because she was the only daughter of the most powerful man in the entire province, Senator Anselmo Orellano.They admitted that the girl was charming and that she played the piano and danced like no other, but there were other competitors for the prize who were far more beautiful.They saw her standing on the platform in her organdy dress and with her crown of flowers, and as she waved at the crowd they cursed her through their clenched teeth.For that reason, some of them were overjoyed some months later when misfortune entered the Orellano’s house sowing such a crop of death that thirty years were required to reap it.
[2] On the night of the queen’s election, a dance was held in the Santa Teresa Town Hall, and young men from the remotest villages came to meet Dulce Rosa.She was so happy and danced with such grace that many failed to perceive that she was not the most beautiful, and when they returned to where they had come from they all declared that they had never before seen a face like hers.Thus she acquired an unmerited reputation for beauty and later testimony was never able to prove to the contrary.The exaggerated descriptions of her translucent skin and her diaphanous eyes were passed from mouth to mouth, and each individual added something to them from his own imagination.Poets from distant cities composed sonnets to a hypothetical maiden whose name was Dulce Rosa.
[3] Rumors of the beauty who was flourishing in Senator Orellano’s house also reached the ears of Tadeo Cespedes, who never dreamed he would be able to meet her, since during all his twenty-five years he had neither had time to learn poetry nor to look at women.He was concerned only with the Civil War.Ever since he had begun to shave he had had a weapon in his hands, and he had lived for a long time amidst the sound of exploding gunpowder.He had forgotten his mother’s kisses and even the songs of mass.He did not always have reason to go into battle, because during several periods of truce there were no adversaries within reach of his guerrilla band.But even in times of forced peace he lived like a corsair.He was a man habituated to violence.He crossed the country in every direction, fighting visible enemies when he found them, and battling shadows when he was forced to invent them.He would have continued in the same way if his party had not won the presidential election.Overnight he went from a clandestine existence to wielding power, and all pretext for continuing the rebellion had ended for him.