Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online Page A

marry the woman you have idealized. How will you reconcile that love with your ‘primordial instincts’?” A sly smile crossed Valdivia’s lips.
    â€œThat will not be a problem, Pedro. I will shower my cousin with kisses and lower her from her saintly altar, then make love to her with consuming passion,” Aguirre replied, rolling with laughter.
    â€œAnd faithfulness?”
    â€œShe will be the faithful one in our marriage, but I will not be able to renounce women, just as I cannot give up wine or the sword.”
    Francisco de Aguirre hastened to Spain to marry before the indecisive pontiff could change his mind. He must have somehow reconciled his Platonic feelings for his cousin and his unquenchable sensuality, and she must have responded without a trace of timidity, because the ardor of that couple came to be legendary. They say that neighbors gathered in the street before their house to wonder at the raucous sounds of revelry, and to make bets about the number of amorous assaults there would be that night.
    After a long period of war, blood, gunpowder, and mud, Pedro de Valdivia, too, returned to his native land, preceded by word of his military campaigns. He brought with him hard-earned experience and a pouchful of gold, which he intended to use to restore his depleted patrimony. Marina was waiting for him, transformed into a woman; she had left her childish ways behind. She was sixteen, and her ethereal and serene beauty invited comparison with a work of art. She went about with the distracted air of a sleepwalker, as if she had foreseen that her life was to be an eternal waiting. On the first night they were together, the couple repeated the actions and silences of old. In the darkness of their bedchamber, their bodies were joined, but joylessly: he feared he would frighten her and she feared she would sin; he wanted to make her love him and she wanted the night to end.
    During the day they assumed their assigned roles; they inhabited the same space but never touched. Marina treated her husband with an eager and solicitous affection that annoyed more than flattered him. He did not need such attentions, he needed a little passion, but he did not dare tell her that because he supposed that passion was not a proper emotion for a decent and religious woman. He felt as if Marina were watching him, and as if he were a prisoner in the invisible bonds of an emotion he did not know how to return. He was repelled by her beseeching gaze as she followed him around the house, by her unvoiced sadness when she said good-bye, by her expression of veiled reproach when she welcomed him home after a brief absence. He felt that he could not touch Marina, that he could enjoy being with her only by observing her from a distance as she embroidered, absorbed in her thoughts and prayers, and in the golden light from the window resembling one of the saints in the cathedral.
    Their encounters behind the heavy, dusty hangings on their conjugal bed, which had served three generations of Valdivias, lost their attraction for Pedro. Marina refused to substitute a less intimidating garment for the gown with the cross-shaped opening. Pedro suggested that she talk with other women, but Marina was unable to discuss such matters with anyone. After every embrace she knelt for hours, praying, on the stone floor of that large, drafty house, motionless, humiliated, suffering because she did not satisfy her husband. Secretly, however, she took pleasure in the suffering that distinguished her from ordinary women and brought her closer to saintliness. Pedro had explained that lust cannot be a sin between husband and wife, since the purpose of copulation was to conceive children, but Marina could not help it that she turned to ice when he touched her. Her confessor had been too busy filling her head with the fear of hell and shame about her body. In all the years Pedro had known her, he had seen nothing more than her face, her hands, and,