The Sentimentalist

As one of Spain's most gilded and talented young ladies at the turn of the century, Margarita, the tall, aloof daughter of Valencia's governor, the Marques de Villasante, lacked nothing. Eligible swains clustered by the score about Dona Margarita's feet. She easily took a degree in law at Valencia University, and she painted in oils well enough to command the attention at least of the elite. After her first marriage at 20, the young marquesa became one of Madrid's most sought-after hostesses. Nevertheless, life palled for her.

Continued restless travel, a term of service as a spy in Morocco, and at least one romantic attachment did little to relieve the monotony, and after her second marriage in 1936, the marquesa began to retire from the social whirl. To be sure, she still maintained her famous Friday afternoons of bridge and brittle conversation to which all of high-born Madrid flocked, but more and more her private life was lived in the exclusive company of a swarming houseful of pets. Madrid society, crowding her receptions, heard many a whispered story of the marquesa's eccentricities regarding her dogs and cats, but they were quick to forgive and forget the foibles of an old lady so drenched in birth and breeding.

Alcohol & Cotton. A few months ago, the marquesa forgot her pets and her Friday salons alike to concentrate all her attention on her long-estranged daughter, Margot, 42, who had suddenly returned ailing to spend her declining days with her mother. From that moment on, Margarita seldom left her daughter's bedside. When at last the daughter died in January, Margarita gave orders that nobody was to be admitted to the sickroom. For two days the old marquesa stayed with her dead daughter while relatives gathered to mourn and the servants gossiped in the back halls. What was going on in the death room, they asked, and gave no answer. Amid the awed silences, the cook pointed out that some of her sharpest cutlery was missing.

At midnight of the second day, a clanging bell brought the marquesa's faithful servant Luisa racing to the closed door. The marquesa stood distraught, hair disheveled and her hands bloodstained. "Bring me a pitcher of alcohol and some cotton," she said. "Quick, you old fool!" As Luisa turned away, she heard the marquesa mutter: "Ay, those eyes." Then it was that Luisa remembered most vividly the old stories--how the marquesa liked to preserve embalmed bits of her favorite pets around the house, just to have them near. This time Luisa's tact had been strained too far. She went for help.

Inside the Cabinet. As the Marquesa de Villasante sat haughtily courteous in her luxurious drawing room, the police prowled through her possessions. In drawers of massive antique furniture, they found the dissected parts of many animals, even phials of their blood. In an ornate silver soup tureen were the heads of two dead dogs, and finally, in a plastic milk container, the police discovered a woman's severed hand.

As the marquesa protested, the daughter's body was exhumed from the padlocked casket in which it had been laid. It lacked not only a hand but both eyes and the tongue. The eyes and the tongue were found soon after in the marquesa's private medicine cabinet. Last week, as the old lady was led away to serve a possible six months for profanation of the dead, the faithful Luisa was crestfallen. "Marquesa," she cried, kneeling and kissing her mistress' hand, "this is all my fault. Can you ever forgive me?"

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