Chapter 4 04 The Sinner of Toledo translated from Spanish

Here is a banshee who calls herself Maria.If anyone points out where he is, or brings the succubi to court, dead or alive, that person will be pardoned for all his crimes, Sbaranzo. This announcement was made by Barcelona [Note: The name of the city in Spain. 】The bishop and four judges jointly signed.The days of the proclamation are long gone, but that period has forever left an indelible stain on Spanish history, and perhaps even on human history. The whole city of Barcelona read the proclamation.The search begins.Sixty women were arrested because they looked like succubuses.The relatives of the banshee were all tortured. At that time, there was a ridiculous but deep-rooted belief that the banshee had a skill that could turn into cats, dogs or other animals, and it must have black hair.It is said that hunters often cut off a paw from a pouncing animal and took it home as a trophy, but when they opened the game bag, they found only a bloody hand in it, which they recognized as the hand of their wife.The residents of Barcelona beat all black cats and dogs to death, but did not find Maria among these unnecessary victims.Come Sparanzo.

Maria.Sparanzo was the daughter of a great merchant in Barcelona.Her father is French and her mother is Spanish.From her father she had inherited the French carelessness and the boundless joy of mind which is so charming in French women.She had inherited a purely Spanish body from her mother.She was beautiful, always cheerful, and wise, and spent her days in the gay leisure and art of Spain until she was twenty without shedding a tear.She was as happy as a child. She was married to Sparanzo on the day she turned twenty.The man was known throughout Barcelona as a navigator, was extremely handsome, and was said to be a very learned Spaniard.She married him because she loved him.Her husband swore to her that if she were unhappy with him, he would kill himself.He was madly in love with her.

On the second day after the wedding, her fate was decided. In the evening, she went out from her husband's house to look for her mother, but she got lost.Barcelona is a big city, and not every Spaniard can tell you the shortest way to get from one end of the city to the other.She meets a young monk. How do I get to St. Mark's Street?she said to the monk. The monk stopped, thinking, and began to look at her.The sun had long gone down; the moon had risen, casting its icy light on Maria's beautiful face.No wonder poets of women often speak of the moon!A woman is a hundred times more beautiful in the moonlight.As Maria walked quickly, her beautiful black hair fell over her shoulders and covered her heavily breathing, protruding breasts.She reached out and grabbed the scarf around her neck, her arms bare to the elbows.I swear on the blood of Saint Jan Valli, you are a banshee!The young monk suddenly said for no reason.

If you are not a monk, I will think you are drunk!she says. You are a banshee! ! The monk gritted his teeth and spit out a spell. Where did the dog that ran ahead of me just now go?That dog has become you!I can see it!I know I've denounced fifty banshees before I was twenty-five.You are the fifty-first.I am Augustine [Note: Alluding to Augustine in history, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, a crazy propagandist of religious dark forces, calling on the church to brutally suppress heretics. 】. After saying this, the monk crossed himself on his chest, turned around, and disappeared. Maria knew Augustine and she had heard a great deal about him at her parents' house.She knew he was passionate about banshee extermination and had written a book of scholarship.In that book he curses women and hates men because men are born of women.Maria walked half a mile and met Augustine again.There was a mansion there, with a long line of Latin characters carved on it, and four black figures came out of the gate.The four figures asked her to walk in front of her, and then followed her.She recognized one of them as Augustine, and they kept sending her to the door.

Three days after she had met Augustine, a man arrived at Sbaranzo's house, dressed in black, with a puffy, shaved face, who by all appearances must have been a judge.The man told Sparanzo to go at once to the bishop. Your wife is a banshee!declared the Bishop to Sparanzo. Sparanzo turned pale. You have to thank God!The bishop went on to say that there is a man, God gave him a precious talent, good at finding the devil in people, and now he opened our eyes, and opened your eyes.He saw how she became a black dog and how the black dog became your wife She is not a banshee, she is my wife!murmured a stupefied Spalanzo.

She couldn't be a Catholic's wife!She is Satan's wife!Haven't you, unfortunate soul, discovered by now that she has more than once changed her mind for the devil?You go home and bring her here at once The Bishop is a learned man.He thinks femina [Note: Latin; woman. ] This word is derived from fe [Note: Latin; Faith. ] and minus [Note: Latin; a small amount. 】It is a combination of two words, which seems quite reasonable: women are not very religious. Sparanzo turned paler than a corpse.He came out of the Bishop's room, holding his head.Where are you going now, and to whom are you going to tell that Maria is not a banshee?Who can not believe what the monks believe?Now all Barcelona would believe that his wife was a banshee!All of Barcelona!Nothing is easier than to convince a fool of absurdities, and the Spaniards are all fools!

There is no people more stupid than the Spaniards!His father, who was a physician, told Sparanzo when he was dying, to despise the Spaniards, and not to believe what the Spaniards believe! Sparanzo believed what the Spaniards believed, but not what the bishop said.He knew his wife well enough to believe that women only become succubuses in old age. Those monks are going to burn you, Maria!He came home from the bishop and said to his wife, They say you are a banshee, tell me to take you there, listen to me, my wife!If you are really a banshee, ask God to be with you!You simply become a black cat and escape somewhere else.But if you don't have a demon in you, I won't hand you over to the monks. They will put a dog collar on you and keep you from sleeping until they beat you to death.If you are a banshee, you run away!

Maria didn't turn into a black cat, and she didn't run away. She cried first and began to pray to God. you listen to me!Sparanzo told his weeping wife, "My dead father told me that a new age would soon come and people would laugh at those who believed in banshees."My father didn't believe in God, yet what he said was always the truth.Then you have to hide somewhere, waiting for that time to come is very simple! My brother Christopher has a boat which is currently in port for repairs.I hid you in that boat, you don't get out of the boat, you have to wait for the time that my father said that time will come, in his words, it will come soon

Maria was already sitting in the bilge of that boat that evening.Trembling with cold and fear, she listened to the roar of the waves and waited anxiously for that wonderful time that Spalanzo's father had spoken of. where is your wifethe Bishop asked Sparanzo. She turned into a black cat and ran away from me!Sparanzo lied. I've expected, I've had a premonition that such a move will come!But that's okay too.We'll find her Augustine's great talents!Ah, amazing talents!You can rest assured, don't marry a banshee next time!There have been examples in the past where demons transfer from wives to husbands. Last year I burned a devout Catholic who involuntarily handed over his soul to Satan because of his contact with a demon-possessed woman. !

Maria stayed in that boat for a long time.Sparanzo visited her every evening and brought her everything.She lived for one month, two months, until the third month, but the time she was looking forward to did not come.What Spalanzo's father said was true, but months are not enough to deal with superstition.Superstitions live as long as fish, and last for hundreds of years.Gradually getting used to her new way of life, Maria began to laugh at the monks, calling them crows.If some terrible and irreparable misfortune had not happened to her, she would have lived a long time, and perhaps sailed across the sea, far from stupid Spain, in a ship repaired, as Christopher said. country.

The bishop's proclamation was not only circulated among the inhabitants of Barcelona, ​​but was posted in all the squares and markets, and even Sbaranzo got one.After reading the notice, Sparanzo was silent.The proclamation ended with a promise of forgiveness of sins, which caught his attention. It is a good thing that sinners can be forgiven!Sparanzo sighed. Spalanzo considered himself a great sinner.His conscience was burdened with a mass of sins, for which many Catholics were burned at the stake, or died under the torture.Sparanzo lived in Toledo as a youth.At that time Toledo was the meeting place of warlocks and magicians.Mathematics was more advanced there than anywhere in Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.In Spanish cities, it's just one step from math to magic.Sbaranzo also practiced magic under the tutelage of his father.He dissects animals and collects rare weeds.Once he was crushing something in the iron mortar, but there was a terrible explosion in the iron mortar, followed by a light blue flame, which meant that the devil had come.His life in Toledo was full of such crimes.Shortly after his father's death, Sparanzo left Toledo with a very disturbed conscience.An old and learned monk-physician told him that his sins would never be forgiven if he did not perform a deed worthy of pardon.For the absolution of his sins, Spalanzo would have sacrificed everything, but that his soul would be free from the memory of his shameful life in Toledo, and escape from hell.If Spain sold amulets at that time, he would be willing to spend half of his property to buy them.If his work had not prevented him, he would have set off and walked to the Holy Land. If I wasn't her husband, I'd hand her over, he thought to himself after reading the bishop's proclamation. He thought over and over in his mind that all he had to say was that his sins would be forgiven.This thought haunted him day and night. He loved his wife, loved her very much. If it had not been for this love, this weakness so scorned by the monks and even by the physicians of Toledo, perhaps things might have been so.He showed the notice to his brother Christophe If she's a banshee and not so pretty, said his brother, then I'll hand her over for forgiveness of sins is always a good thing But if we wait for Maria to die Well, if we hand over her dead body to those crows, we won't suffer a loss. Let them burn the dead. Anyway, the dead won't feel pain.In the future, when we are old, she will die, and we, too, will need to have our sins forgiven when we are old. Christopher laughed and thumped his brother on the shoulder after saying these words. I may have died before her, said Spalanzo, but by God I would have given her up if I hadn't been her husband! A week after this conversation, Spalanzo walked up and down the deck of the ship, muttering: Well, if only she died!She is alive, I can't hand her over, I won't do it!But if she's dead, I'll hand her over!Then I'll fool those damned old crows and get a pardon from them! So the stupid Sbaranzo poisoned his poor wife, and Maria's body was sent to the court by Sbaranzo, who was cremated by the court. Sparanzo was pardoned for his crimes at Toledo.In fact, the sin he was pardoned was that he had learned to treat people and studied science, which was later called chemistry.The bishop praised him and gave him a copy of his own book.The learned bishop wrote in this book that the devil often possessed black-haired women, because black hair is the color of the devil.