B0040702LQ EBOK Read Free

the beginning of the letter. At least so I deduce
from the presence there of a word like `santateresa', the local
word for the praying mantis, an insect which, according to the
nature guide I consulted, is unique in the natural world for
the way in which it torments its victims. The author of the
guide comments: `It devours them slowly, taking care not to
let them die at once, as if its real hunger were for torture not
for food.'
    Was Lizardi comparing the behaviour of that insect with
the way life had treated the boy? For my part, I believe he was.
But let us leave these lucubrations and look at what Lizardi
did in fact write in the legible part of that fourth page.

    ... do not think, dear friend, that I ever abandoned or
neglected him. I visited him often, always with a kind
word on my lips. All in vain.
    I was still caught up in these thoughts when, at the
beginning of February, one month after Javier had run
away, a pure white boar appeared in the main street of
Obaba. To the great amazement of those watching, it did
not withdraw before the presence of people, but trotted
in front of them with such calm and gentleness that it
seemed more like an angelic being than a wild beast. It
stopped in the square and stayed there for a while, quite
still, watching a group of children playing with what
remained of the previous night's fall of snow.
    The upper part of the fifth page is also damaged but not as
badly as the page I have just transcribed. The dampness only
affects the first three lines. It goes on:
    ... but you know what our people are like. They
feel no love for animals, not even for the smallest
which, being too weak to defend themselves, deserve
their care and attention. In respect of this, I recall an
incident that occurred shortly after my arrival in
Obaba. A brilliantly coloured bird alighted on the
church tower and I was looking up at it and rejoicing
to think that it was our Father Himself who, in His
infinite kindness, had sent me that most beautiful of His
creatures as a sign of welcome, when, lo and behold,
three men arrived with rifles on their shoulders ...
they had shot the poor bird down before I had a chance
to stop them. Such is the coldness of our people's
hearts, which in no way resemble that of our good St
Francis.
    They reacted in just the same way towards the white
boar. They began shooting at it from windows, the
braver amongst them from the square itself, and the
racket they made so startled me that I came running out
of the church where I happened to be at the time. They only managed to wound the animal, however, and in the
midst of loud squeals, it fled back to the woods.

    Since it was a white boar, and therefore most unusual,
the hunters were in a state of high excitement; they
could already imagine it as a trophy. But that was not to
be, at least not that day. They returned empty-handed
and, faint with exhaustion, they all ended up at the inn,
drinking and laughing and with great hopes for the next
day. And it was then, on that first day of the hunt, that
Matias confronted them with these grim words: `What
you're doing is wrong. He came here with no intention
of harming anyone yet you greet him with bullets.
You'd be well advised to consider the consequences of
your actions.'
    As you will recall from the beginning of the letter,
Matias was the old man who loved the boy best and was
so grieved by his disappearance that many feared he
might lose his mind. And there in the inn, hearing those
words and what he went on to say, no one doubted
that this was exactly what had happened. For in his view,
the white boar was none other than our lost boy, none
other than Javier, who, because of the sad life he had led
as a human being, had changed his very nature. It seems
he argued his case as follows:
    `Didn't you see the way he stopped in the square to
watch the boys playing in the snow? Isn't that just what
Javier used to do? And, again