‘Impossible not to think of Russian dolls,’ writes Antonio Larreta in the prologue to this novel The book juxtaposes different kinds of testimony to cast varying lights on historical events. The novel turns on the death in July 1802 of Maria del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva y Alvarez de Toledo, the 13th Duchess of Alba and the subject of several paintings by Francisco Goya, notably the famous pair of pictures, La Maja Vestida ('La Maja clothed) and La Maja Desnuda (‘La Maja nude’), the second of which caused a major scandal in Spanish society when it was exhibited The novel is constructed around two apocryphal testimonies regarding her death, one supposedly by Goya himself, and the other by Don Manuel Godoy, Duke of Alcudia, a friend but political enemy of the Duchess. The first of these is recounted by Godoy as part of his own statement written in 1848. Both testimonies, plus a police report about the death and a letter sent to Godoy by another participant in the events, are purportedly found by the author in 1980 among papers in a house in Paris belonging to his Uruguayan mother's third husband, Lorenzo de Pita y Evora, Marquess of Peñadolida. There are notes added throughout the text written notionally by Pita y Evora in 1939 and by Larreta himself. The issue throughout is whether the Duchess died naturally, was poisoned or committed suicide. The novel is concerned with the corruption of a luxurious and decadent aristocratic culture, preoccupied with political intrigue and artistic show. The figure of the Duchess, a brilliant schemer, hostess and cocaine addict, is central to this world; her death throws it into crisis, setting up reverberations which echo down the ensuing 150 years. The extract of Volavérunt which follows is from Goya's description of the soiree after which the Duchess is found dying. The paragraph in parentheses is comment by Godoy, and the notes are by Larreta drawing from Pita y Evora (notionally, of course). Goya, it should be pointed out, was substantially deaf by the time of the events he describes.
Giono, Translator or Reader of Moby-Dick?
