The Chest and the Ghost

By Stendhal

The leathery and excessively slender chief of police don Blas Bustos y Mosquera has a handsome young nobleman, don Fernando, imprisoned for the crime of appearing before him with a fresh complexion and a cool demeanor. Don Fernando's fiancée comes to plead his case, but her beauty, which the sinister chief of police wants for himself, prompts don Blas to secure--or to attempt to secure--don Fernando's permanent removal from his native Granada.

Genre: short story
Length: 8,300 words
Date of English translation: 2012

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fario
• Release date: Feb 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465892317

Stendhal

Pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle, 1783-1842 Best known for _The Red and the Black_ and _The Charterhouse of Parma_.

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Stendhal

The Chest and the Ghost

A Spanish Adventure

Translated by John Penuel

Original title: Le Coffre et le Revenant

English translation copyright 2012 by John Penuel

Published at Smashwords by John Penuel

Table of Contents

The Chest and the Ghost

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The Chest and the Ghost

One fine morning in the month of May 182., don Blas Bustos y Mosquera, followed by twelve horsemen, entered the village of Alcolote, one league from Granada. At his approach, the peasants rushed back into their houses and closed their doors. The women, in terror, looked at this terrible chief of the Granada police out of a small corner of their windows. Heaven punished his cruelty by leaving the stamp of his soul on his face. He was a man of six feet tall, dark, of appalling leanness; he is only chief of police, but the bishop of Granada himself and the governor tremble before him.

During this sublime war against Napoleon, which, to the eyes of posterity, will place the Spaniards of the nineteenth century above all the other peoples of Europe and second only to the French, don Blas was one of the famous guerrilla leaders. When his band hadn’t killed at least one Frenchman during the day, he didn’t go to bed: it was a vow.

Upon Ferdinand’s return,[1] he was sent to the galleys in Ceuta, where he spent eight years in the most horrible destitution. He was accused of having been a Capuchin in his youth and of having given up the vocation. He later found favor again—no one knows how. Don Blas is famous now for his silence; he never talks. In the past, the sarcastic remarks he made to his prisoners of war before having them hanged had earned him a sort of reputation as a wit. His jokes were passed on from one Spanish army to the next.

Don Blas went slowly up the road in Alcolote, looking at the houses on both sides with his piercing eyes. As he was going by the church, bells tolled for mass. More than dismount, he flung himself off his horse, and you could see him get down on his knees before the altar. Four of his men got on their knees around his chair. They looked at him; there was no longer any piety in his eyes. His sinister eye was on a young man of