Guadalajara

Outside the Gates of Troy

The wooden horse was finally completed, polished and varnished, at the break of day. It had been hard work and required dozens of soldiers supervised by three master carpenters. Majestic and motionless, it rises above the centre of the beach. They leave it to dry the whole day. At night, watching carefully to ensure nobody can see them from the wall, the chosen warriors climb quickly up a hemp ladder, one after another, making no noise. They are armed with small bags, filled with salted meat to give them strength in the morning and a ration of water to slake their thirst, are tied to their belts. After the last warrior has climbed up, they pull in the ladder and close the door so it isn’t visible from the outside.

They sit down in an orderly, patient manner, packed together in the belly of the beast. The smell of varnish lingers on inside and intoxicates them all. They sleep lightly, nervous on the eve of an imminent victory. As agreed, at dawn, the soldiers in the encampment will collect their belongings, set fire to the tents, and board their ships, thus demonstrating that they have abandoned the war as lost and are making a definitive retreat. The chosen warriors watch their movements through the cracks between the timber planks. When the Achaean ships disappear over the horizon, they turn their gaze on the gates of the city. Soon they will open, the Trojans will emerge, take possession of the horse as war booty, and trundle it inside. The Achaean warriors use the wait to eat the meat they’d brought with them.

The hours pass slowly and nobody leaves the city. Ulysses orders the first soldier to express surprise to shut up. Nobody must open his mouth, and they must all make as little noise as possible. If a Trojan emerges and hears men speaking inside the horse, then all their guile will have been in vain.

By early afternoon they’ve drunk all the water they had left. The belly of the horse is like an oven under the relentless sun. At night they sleep and don’t feel cold. They are so many and so tightly packed together there’s no room to spread a blanket. The real problem is their pee. They’ve spent the whole previous day and night inside, and some decide to urinate on the sly in the various corners because they can’t hold it anymore. But the needs of Anticles are major rather than minor. Ulysses orders him to hold it. Anticles says he can’t (his stomach’s all knotted, he can’t resist a single moment more), and he loses his nerve and complains that the Trojans ought to have rolled the horse inside by now. They shouldn’t have to spend so long in there. He blurts this out: Ulysses has to strangle him to shut him up.

Their hopes are renewed when dawn breaks. The Trojans will definitely come today, finally take the horse and push it inside. It was only to be expected they wouldn’t do it yesterday, because they still must have been suspicious. They’ll do it today, as it is obvious the Achaeans have gone for good. This is confirmed mid-morning when they hear music coming from the city, strange songs that are undeniably cheerful. They must be celebrating their victory. In the afternoon the Trojans finally open the city gates. The Achaean warriors are jubilant and (excited yet keeping still so as not to make a sound) watch a group of Trojans leaving the city and walking over to the horse. The Achaeans hold their breath. The Trojans surround the wooden animal and look at it, intrigued. They discuss it amongst themselves, but, although they listen hard, the Achaeans can’t hear what they are saying. They hear the murmur of voices blend with the sound of waves. Now at last they’ll take the horse and push it inside. But rather than do that they retrace their steps, go back inside, and close the gates.

The Achaeans find that night the most difficult one to get to sleep. They are all hungry and thirsty. They have no food or water left, and no way to get any, and that means there are frequent arguments that Ulysses cuts dead: he doesn’t want to hear a single sound. Or snore. The slightest noise could alert the Trojans to their ploy. Dawn breaks. The day passes and nobody comes. Ulysses hides his own concern. The rest of the warriors don’t. They’re hungry, and someone is complaining all the time that it’s not going to plan. Ulysses threatens to strangle anyone who won’t shut up.

Two days later two warriors suggest leaving the horse, come what may, even if doing so reveals their ruse to the Trojans. It’s clear, they say, that it hasn’t worked, and only idiots persist with a plan that’s not working. Ulysses suppresses the attempted mutiny as he’d threatened to: by strangling them as he strangled Anticles. As they haven’t eaten for days, the warriors devour both corpses. One warrior, whose stomach is too delicate, vomits at the first bite. They all decide to drink their own urine in order to stave off dehydration.

The stink from the urine and excrement is heightened by the stench from the first corpse (Anticle’s, which is beginning to decompose in the heat) and from the guts of the other two. Someone suggests getting rid of them by opening the door and throwing them out. Ulysses is exasperated. How could they suggest such a thing? How could they throw them out without arousing the suspicions of the Trojans? If they left three corpses (two reduced to a pile of bones and viscera) next to the horse’s hoofs, it would obviously give them away. Another warrior suggests getting rid of them at night: lower them down the ladder and throw them into the sea. Yet another opines that the worst of it isn’t cohabiting with the stench from the corpses and the excrement, but the uncertainty about the future. The Achaeans must send lookouts everyday to see if the wooden horse had entered Troy, as they’d anticipated. They wouldn’t leave it many more days before they recognized that their ruse had failed and sailed home, accepting total defeat. That’s if they haven’t done so already. Ulysses throws himself at this individual, but he has no strength left and, as they can’t wrestle without any energy, they both fall on top of the other warriors who are jammed together side by side, getting thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker. Some are so still it’s difficult to be sure they’re still alive. Ulysses himself feels he is fainting, but he can’t let that happen. The Trojans, he repeats less and less wholeheartedly, will emerge at any moment and lead the horse off. It’s a matter of patience. When that happens, they (the best warriors, chosen from the crème de la crème of the Achaean youth) will wait until nightfall, leave the horse when the Trojans are all sleeping, sack the city, and knock its gates down. He looks longingly at the city walls through the cracks between the planks and covers his ears so he can’t hear the groans of his dying warriors.

Helvetian Freedoms

Once again the son asks his father to tell him the same old story: exactly how grandfather placed the apple on his head, how he could agree without shaking with fear, and if it really was true that he wasn’t at all afraid. Walter Tell has often heard his son ask these questions. When he was a child and grandfather was still alive, it was Grandfather William who told the story. He would say that one day he went to Aldorf with his son, Walter, and in the main square they discovered that the Austrian governor, Gessler de Brunock, had decreed that everyone taking a stroll there must bow reverentially in front of a pole that was adorned with one of his hats (symbolizing himself and Greater Austria); he refused, they were arrested, and Gessler de Brunock ordered him to be hung. Walter praised his father’s skill with the crossbow and Gessler de Brunock had an idea: he would test his skill by placing an apple on the child’s head, and William Tell would have to hit it from eighty paces. If he hit it, he would save his own life. If he didn’t, he would die.

As a child, the grandson was full of wonder at his grandfather’s skill and his father’s courage in submitting to such a test so readily. Consequently, whenever he told the story, he would ask whether (if only for a thousandth of a second) he’d been afraid the arrow might hit an inch too low and penetrate his son’s forehead. He imagined the arrowhead sinking into his flesh, shattering his skull, and the immediate gush of blood drenching his eyes. He never imagined the other possible outcomes: the arrow going too high and getting lodged in the tree, a few inches above the apple. Or veering to the right or to the left, missing the tree trunk completely and ending up lost somewhere. He thought the first of these possible errors the most likely: William Tell would unconsciously aim too high for fear of hitting his son’s forehead. Of course it was possible that he might lower his aim slightly, to counter this tendency, and that might also make him miss.

In such a situation, Walter Tell’s son would have hesitated. Not because of lack of confidence in his father, but because nobody, not even the best crossbowman, could be sure to aim straight when he felt all that pressure on him. Walter Tell repeated that he’d not felt afraid at any point. How could he ever doubt his father, the man who, precisely as a result of that feat, would be transformed into the national hero? Walter Tell stroked his son’s head and didn’t mention that, with the passage of time, the heroic deed would finally turn into a headache. Not at the time, because he was only a child. And he wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t afraid, even for a thousandth of a second, that his father wouldn’t hit the apple. It was later on, when he grew up, that he began to think back and ask the questions his son now asked him. At the time of the heroic deed he was too young to grasp the real danger implicit in that challenge, but his father was no child. How could he have imperiled his son’s life without shaking at all? Didn’t his pulse race for a split second? What initially looked like confidence in hitting his target seemed in the end to be an indication of indifference. If he had had the shakes, if only for a moment, it would have meant, if only for the briefest moment, that he was afraid of missing and, thus, suffering for his sake. By virtue of turning it over in his mind so much, he concluded that his father didn’t, in fact, love him very much. It was evident he was the best crossbowman, but he only had to be an inch off and the arrow would have shattered his skull rather than the apple. With the passage of time, and this growing awareness, Walter Tell started to become quite prickly. Every night he dreamed the arrow was flying straight at him. He was standing against the tree trunk, head erect and still, to ensure that the apple (a pippin with a delicious aroma) didn’t fall. Facing him, a whole lot of people: Gessler de Brunock, several soldiers, and, among them, his father aiming his crossbow at him. Suddenly (time and again, effortlessly), the arrow (first small and distant, then suddenly huge) almost combing his hair, the squirsh of the apple shattering, and the sshsthud as the arrow penetrates the tree trunk. But, every now and then, in his dream the arrow hits him and not the apple. Walter would wake up, sit up, and scream in terror. His mother ran to soothe him. “It’s only a nightmare, Walter, try to get back to sleep.” While his mother hugged him, Walter could hear his father snoring in the matrimonial bed.

As a young man Walter Tell belonged for years to an anarchist group that was fighting for the abolition of the Swiss state. They read Bakunin, published a clandestine magazine, sang songs from countries that were on the road to development (particularly the Latin American sort), and, drunk on beer, painted circles on the walls of Freiburg University, where he studied Romance philology and was a member of the Olympic crossbow team. Years later he graduated, returned home, began living off the family inheritance, and finally devoted himself entirely to the two great passions in his life: crossbows and beer. He married the girlfriend he’d had from his first year at school. They had a child. They called the child William because that’s what his wife wanted (she was a big admirer of her father-in-law) and decided to bring him up according to the pedagogical precepts of non-violence.

•

Little William admired his father and grandfather, and when he asked them to tell him the story yet again (how exactly grandfather placed the apple on his son’s head, how he could agree to it without shaking with fear, if it were true he wasn’t at all afraid), he felt incredibly uplifted. He felt deep, unqualified admiration for his father and grandfather. But as an adolescent, he began to feel that natural rebellion towards his father, and he’d ask in a falsetto voice (to annoy him): “Father, tell me again exactly how grandfather placed the apple on your head. How could you let him do that? Did you really not feel scared?” He uses almost the same words as before. But now his tone is mocking, and he particularly likes asking in front of his school-friends, so (apart from admiring him as William Tell’s grandchild and the son of the child who wasn’t afraid when he became a target) they now admire him because he doesn’t idealize them. As far as he is concerned, those heroic figures are simply father and grandfather, like any of his friends’ fathers and grandfathers. That’s why he adopts the falsetto tone: “Father, tell me again exactly how grandfather placed the apple on your head. How could you let him do that? Did you really not feel scared?”

Walter Tell downs his beer, picks up his crossbow, and goes into the garden to practice. He is a good crossbowman. He has always lived in his father’s shadow; however, now that he’s in his forties, he can say, without arrogance, that he’s even better than his father was at the same age. If they competed side by side now, he would win. That’s why he finds his son’s constant taunts so irksome. Not so much because he reproaches him for trusting his father (that might simply be an expression of envy), but because of his doubt: in a similar situation, would his son trust him as he’d trusted his father? Today, between one jar of beer and another, he hears his son taunting him yet again: “Father, tell me again how exactly grandfather placed the apple on your head. How could you let him do that? Did you really not feel scared?”

Walter stares at him long and hard and asks if he wouldn’t like to have a try. To find out what things are like; there is nothing like experiencing it yourself, or so they say. You can get an approximate idea of what things are like from what people tell you, but you never really know what they’re like until you experience them for yourself. If he places the apple on his head, he will shoot from his crossbow. No need to be afraid: he knows he is as good as his grandfather.

His son looks surprised and smiles. His father continues: if there’s no reason to do it, the glory is even greater. As he speaks, he takes big strides around his son. Doing it in front of the Austrian governor, he says, added a heroic element, and the risk wasn’t entirely selfless: in the long run, every heroic deed earns its own reward. On the contrary, they are quite alone in their garden and there’s no heroic element involved. It’s simply an issue of trust. Does he or doesn’t he trust his father? He places the apple on his head, leans against the tree, and stands still.

Seen from this point of view, young William Tell is in complete agreement: accepting such a challenge has more (if not heroic) merit. It is random. Because, in fact, if he accepts it is simply to demonstrate that all the taunts he keeps making are no more than that, and if he continues to make them, knowing that deep down they hurt, it is because he wants to feel more grown up, more distanced from his father and his world of heroes of the fatherland. But deep, deep down, wouldn’t he too like to join that world of heroes? To accept his father’s suggestion will be even more audacious. He will surpass them both at a single stroke, because his courage is anonymous and he isn’t seeking a reward. If he accepts the challenge, it will immediately make an adult of him. He runs into the kitchen, grabs an apple, goes back into the garden, looks for a tree that is eighty paces away, leans against the trunk, and places the apple on his head while his father draws his crossbow.

Gregor

When the beetle emerged from his larval state one morning, he found he had been transformed into a fat boy. He was lying on his back, which was surprisingly soft and vulnerable, and if he raised his head slightly, he could see his pale, swollen belly. His extremities had been drastically reduced in number, and the few he could feel (he counted four eventually) were painfully tender and fleshy and so thick and heavy he couldn’t possibly move them around.

What had happened? The room seemed really tiny and the smell much less mildewy than before. There were hooks on the wall to hang a broom and mop on. In one corner, two buckets. Along another wall, a shelf with sacks, boxes, pots, a vacuum cleaner, and, propped against that, the ironing board. How small all those things seemed now—he’d hardly been able to take them in at a glance before. He moved his head. He tried twisting to the right, but his gigantic body weighed too much and he couldn’t. He tried a second time, and a third. In the end he was so exhausted that he was forced to rest.

He opened his eyes again in dismay. What about his family? He twisted his head to the left and saw them, an unimaginable distance away, motionless, observing him, in horror and in fear. He was sorry they felt frightened: if at all possible, he would have apologized for the distress he was causing. Every fresh attempt he made to budge and move towards them was more grotesque. He found it particularly difficult to drag himself along on his back. His instinct told him that if he twisted on to his front he might find it easier to move; although with only four (very stiff) extremities, he didn’t see how he could possibly travel very far. Fortunately, he couldn’t hear any noise and that suggested no humans were about. The room had one window and one door. He heard raindrops splashing on the zinc window sill. He hesitated, unsure whether to head towards the door or the window before finally deciding on the window—from there he could see exactly where he was, although he didn’t know what good that would do him. He tried to twist around with all his might. He had some strength, but it was evident he didn’t know how to channel it, and each movement he made was uncoordinated, aimless, and unrelated to any other. When he’d learned to use his extremities, things would improve considerably, and he would be able to leave with his family in tow. He suddenly realized that he was thinking, and that flash of insight made him wonder if he’d ever thought in his previous incarnation. He was inclined to think he had, but very feebly compared to his present potential.

After numerous attempts he finally managed to hoist his right arm on top of his torso; he thus shifted his weight to the left, making one last effort, twisted his body around, and fell heavily, face down. His family warily beat a retreat; they halted a good long way away, in case he made another sudden movement and squashed them. He felt sorry for them, put his left cheek to the ground, and stayed still. His family moved within millimeters of his eyes. He saw their antennae waving, their jaws set in a rictus of dismay. He was afraid he might lose them. What if they rejected him? As if she’d read his thoughts, his mother caressed his eyelashes with her antennae. Obviously, he thought, she must think I’m the one most like her. He felt very emotional (a tear rolled down his cheek and formed a puddle round the legs of his sister), and, wanting to respond to her caress, he tried to move his right arm, which he lifted but was unable to control; it crashed down, scattering his family, who sought refuge behind a container of liquid softener. His father moved and gingerly stuck his head out. Of course they understood he didn’t want to hurt them, that all those dangerous movements he was making were simply the consequence of his lack of expertise in controlling his monstrous body. He confirmed the latter when they approached him again. How small they seemed! Small and (though he was reluctant to accept this) remote, as if their lives were about to fork down irrevocably different paths. He’d have liked to tell them not to leave him, not to go until he could go with them, but he didn’t know how. He’d have liked to be able to stroke their antennae without destroying them, but as he’d seen, his clumsy movements brought real danger. He began the journey to the window on his front. Using his extremities, he gradually pulled himself across the room (his family remained vigilant) until he reached the window. But the window was very high up, and he didn’t see how he could climb that far. He longed for his previous body, so small, nimble, hard, and full of legs; it would have allowed him to move easily and quickly, and another tear rolled down, now prompted by his sense of powerlessness.

As the minutes passed, he slowly learned how to move his extremities, coordinate them, and apply the requisite strength to each arm. He learned how to move his fingers and gripped the windowsill. Seconds later he finally succeeded in raising his torso. He thought that was a real victory. He was now sitting down, legs crossed, with his left shoulder leaning on the section of wall under the window. His family stared at him from one corner of the room with a mixture of admiration and panic. He finally pulled himself on to his knees, gripped the sill with his hands, so he wouldn’t fall, and looked out of the window. Part of the building on the other side of the street stood out clearly. It was a very long, dark building, with symmetrical windows that broke up the monotony of the façade. It was still raining: big drops of rain that were easy to spot individually and hit the ground separately. He made one last effort and pulled himself up and stood erect. He marveled at being so vertical, yet felt uncomfortable at the same time, even queasy, and had to lean on the wall so as not to fall down: his legs soon went weak, and he gently eased himself down until he was back on his knees. He crawled towards the door. It was ajar. He had to push it to open it wide, and he pushed so energetically (he found it difficult to estimate the effort strictly necessary for each gesture he made) that he slammed it against the wall and it swung back and almost shut. He repeated the movement, less brusquely this time. Once he’d managed to open the door, he went out into the passageway, still on his knees.

Could humans be somewhere in the house? Probably, but (he imagined) if he did find any, they wouldn’t hurt him; he looked like them now. The idea fascinated him. He’d no longer have to run away for fear they’d crush him underfoot! It was the first good thing about his transformation. He saw only one drawback: they would want to speak to him, and he wouldn’t know how to reply. Once he was in the passage, he pulled himself up again with the help of his arms. He didn’t feel so queasy now. He walked along slowly (his legs bore his weight better now) and every step forward he took became easier. There was a door at the end of the passage. He opened it. The bathroom. A toilet, bidet, bathtub, and two washbasins under their respective mirrors. He had never looked at himself before and now saw immediately what he was like: naked, fat, and flabby. From his height in the mirror he deduced he wasn’t yet an adult. Was he a child? An adolescent? He was upset to see himself naked; he didn’t understand why—nudity had never bothered him before. Was it the misshapen body, the pounds of flesh, the chubby, acne-ridden face? Who was he? What was he all about? He walked through the house, gaining in stability all the time. He opened the door to the bedroom that was next to the bathroom. There were some skates next to the bed. And lots of pennants on the walls. There was also a desk, exercise books, reading books. And a shelf full of comics, a football, and some photos. A photo of himself (he recognized himself straightaway, just like in the bathroom: fat, spotty, and dressed as if for indoor football, in a blue jersey with a white stripe on each sleeve). He found clothes in the cupboard: underpants, a T-shirt, a polo, tracksuit bottoms, socks, and sneakers. He got dressed.

He looked through the spy-hole in the front door. Outside he could see a landing and three more front doors. He went back to the living room, ran his finger along the spines of the few books on the shelves. He caressed a china mug. Turned on the radio. Music blared out, but he couldn’t understand the words:

. . . unforgettable doves,

unforgettable like the afternoons

when the rain from the sierra

stopped us going to Zapoopan . . .

He switched it off. Silence. Sat down on the sofa. Picked up the channel-changer. Turned on the TV. Changed channels; brightened the colors as much as he could, turned the volume all the way up. Turned it all the way down. It was so easy. There was a book open on the sofa. He picked it up, convinced he would understand nothing, but the second he looked at the page, he read almost fluently: “I’ve moved. I used to live in the Duke Hotel, on the corner of Washington Square. My family has lived there for generations, and when I say generations I mean at least two-hundred or three-hundred generations.” He closed the book, and when he’d put it back where he’d found it, he remembered he’d found it open and not shut. He picked it up again, and while he was looking for the page it had been open to, he heard the sound of keys turning in a lock. A man and a woman appeared; they were clearly adults. The man said, “Hello.” The woman walked over, kissed him on the cheek, looked him up and down, and asked: “How come you’ve put your pants on backwards?” He looked at his tracksuit bottoms. How was he to know they were back to front? He shrugged his shoulders. “Have you done your homework?” the man asked. Oh, no, not homework! He imagined (as if he could remember) an earlier time, when homework and backward pants didn’t exist. “Get on with it then!” It was the woman’s turn. Before going to his bedroom and getting on with it, he went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, took out a can of Diet Coke, that he struggled to open (still being clumsy with his hands), and spilled half on the floor. Before they could scold him, he went to the junk room, and as he unhooked the mop, he spotted three beetles huddling against the wall; after freezing for a moment, they tried to escape. He felt disgusted, put his right foot on them, and pressed down until he could feel them squashing.

A Hunger and Thirst for Justice

The fact he had been born into an aristocratic family didn’t mean Robin Hood couldn’t hate social inequality. From his childhood, he’d always felt indignant when he saw how the poor lived in abject poverty while the rich wallowed in luxury. Robin Hood was repelled by a contrast that left the rest of his family unfazed.

He was sure the powers-that-be were always on the side of the wealthy, and he couldn’t simply stand by and watch that degrading spectacle, so one day he decided to do something about it. He selected the richest of the rich families in the county. He didn’t even need to spy on them to execute the plan he had in mind. He knew them all so well: he was familiar with their every move—where, when, and what they did, when exactly they could be taken by surprise. Then he fixed a day to do the deed. But he had to dress for the occasion. He couldn’t wear his usual garb; they’d recognize him. He opted for a black silk mask and a hunting cap, complete with a slender, gray feather from the trunk in the attic that his Uncle Richard had brought him from a visit to the Tyrol. He took his bow, quiver, and arrows and mounted his best steed.

From afar he could see the castle-windows lit up and hear the music pouring out. As he had anticipated, they were throwing a party. Perfect. That way he’d catch them all together, and the pickings from his choice selection of the wealthy and their guests would be rich. He burst into the house, indifferent to the mess his horse’s muddy shoes were making on the deep red carpet. The crème de la crème of local society was present: not only the hosts (the richest of the rich, the owners of the castle, the main target of his incursion), but also their friends: marquis, counts, and dukes, who were possibly not as rich but in any case were excessively rich when compared to the community as a whole.

It was an exceptional harvest. He stole their tiaras (silver, gold, and jewel encrusted silver), their rings (none was unadorned: all were as thick as the links of a chain), their earrings (some were long and hung down to the shoulder), their keepsakes (one made of platinum), and hair slides (of more varied quality). He put all the money they were carrying in a sack, in a jumble of coins and notes, and ordered the castle-owners (the richest of the county’s rich) to open their strongbox and empty it out. He bundled the silver cutlery and candelabra into the same sack and put all the food he found in the pantry into a blue velvet bag. (So many delicious tidbits the needy never got to taste!) Then, still unrecognized by the revelers, he galloped off into the night. The richest of the rich and their aristocratic friends, excited by his feat (that interrupted the monotony of their existences), decided to dispatch lackeys the next morning to take the news to friends who hadn’t been with them that night: a masked man had come and had stolen their jewels, valuable possessions, and money. They invited them to an orgy in their castle, so they could tell them the whole story in detail.

Robin Hood galloped through the forest, from west to east, with a clear objective in mind. He had taken two weeks to select the poorest of the poor inhabitants of Sherwood: a family who lived in a wretched timber shack next to an open drain. The poverty-stricken family saw Robin Hood riding up from afar and hid. Whenever anybody went near them, it was always to steal the little they had. Sometimes masked robbers in horizontally striped shirts, sometimes tax collectors in checkered jackets, and sometimes gentlemen in need of fresh meat for a banquet. Robin Hood knocked on their door and asked them to open up: he came in peace. The poor people didn’t respond. Robin Hood persisted: “Open up, I bring you what I have robbed from the rich!” They paid no heed. He was forced to smash the door down. The poor people were huddled in a corner of the only room in their hovel (an all-in-one lobby, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom), shaking and begging for mercy. Robin Hood told them they shouldn’t be afraid and told them again that he was going to give them what he’d robbed from the rich. “My idea is this,” he repeated, “steal from the rich and give to the poor.” He repeated the idea several times because they didn’t understand him at first. They looked at each other and at him, and were frightened. Robin Hood explained himself, yet again. He was proud of his own distinctive idea of justice. As some would say, “He takes justice into his own hands!” But, take note! He didn’t do so to benefit himself but to help others. He robbed the rich (that was clearly a crime: the fact that someone was rich doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to attack their inalienable right to private ownership, at least not in a market economy), but didn’t do so to keep their property for himself, as any common or garden-variety thief would have done, but to hand it on to the needy; he didn’t touch a cent. Robbing the rich to give to the poor was an act of generosity that, he was sure, granted him forgiveness in the eyes of God for his premeditated felony. Did the end justify the means? It did as far as Robin Hood was concerned, beyond the shadow of a doubt. That was why he confronted the sheriff, the powers-that-be, and the landowners, whether ecclesiastical or not. Similarly, he always tried to treat women, the poor, and the humble extremely courteously.

But the fruits of his robbery soon vanished. A poor, numerous family, like the one he’d chosen, with a centuries-old hunger in their bellies, rapidly squandered the food, and the money, and sold the candelabra, earrings, and silver cutlery on the black market for a pittance. The poor were still poor, and in no time the rich purchased new candelabra, new silver cutlery, new earrings, and new rings. Perhaps the poor had assuaged their hunger a little, and the rich had lost some money, but the disparity remained huge.

Once again Robin Hood sought out his black silk mask and feathered cap. He rode his steed along winding, labyrinthine paths that cleft the forest and returned to the castle owned by the richest of the rich who, on this occasion, were in the midst of a debutantes’ ball. They were astonished. “Not you again?” They didn’t find him as exciting as the first time round. One or two even complained: “I hope you don’t make a habit of this.” Robin Hood took their earrings (emeralds and pearls), tiaras (one was Greek, from Empúrias, handed down from mother to daughter across the centuries), rings (rubies, pure gold, lapis lazuli), bracelets, clasps (one made from ivory that Robin Hood found immensely beautiful), and a pearl necklace. One woman complained because she’d just purchased the earrings Robin Hood stole from her—to replace the ones he’d taken on his first visit. She was particularly annoyed because tracking down an identical pair had been a real pain. She tried to persuade him that her plea for mercy was entirely justified: if he were to steal those, she’d never find another pair: they were the last ones available. Robin Hood was unmoved, snatched them off of her, and put them in the sack with everything else. There were no candelabra. Robin Hood was surprised and asked why. They hadn’t had the time to go and buy new ones, the owner of the castle apologized. To compensate, he stole their bed linen, the Poussin painting, Bachannal, that was on the living room wall, and a Richard II chest of drawers. When the sack was full, Robin Hood crossed the forest in an easterly direction, toward the hovel of the poor family; they welcomed him with open arms and tear-filled eyes. “And about time too,” said the father, “we were on our last legs.”

The next time Robin Hood found the rich even less disposed to welcome him in. People complained while he was filling his sack with money (only one woman, caught napping, was wearing jewels: a silver hair-slide set with two rubies), carpets (three from Persia and one from Turkmenistan), a glass cabinet, and two beds. There was even a duke who tried to resist. Robin Hood kicked him unconscious. The rest of the revelers screamed. Robin Hood spurred on his steed and sped into the forest. The poor family welcomed him with whoops of delight; although, when they saw what he’d brought, one half complained because the booty was less bountiful than on the previous occasions.

In addition to his thirst for justice, Robin Hood had another virtue: perseverance. He repeated his incursions methodically. In the process he stole crockery, pillows, sofas, tables, and armchairs. He stole books, shelves, an umbrella stand, and armor (a whole suit: helmet, visor, chin-guard, gorget, neck and shoulder armor, breastplates, arm-guards, elbow pieces, gauntlets, halberd, thigh-guards, cod-piece, knee-guards, greaves, shoes, round shield and sword). From the wall, he took a Frenchified oblong, four-sided azurite coat-of-arms with a golden tree and two lions propping up its trunk; a gold frame with seven red fleurs-de-lis, arranged in two pairs and a threesome—sealed by a closed helmet and set opposite azure and silver mantling—and, for a crest, a fleur-de-lis pennant coming out of the helmet. He filched the remaining beds, a three-piece suite, and stoves. He dismantled wardrobes, gathered together desks, bureaus, bunk beds, glass cabinets, waste-paper bins, standard lamps, pouffes, children’s toys, kitchen sinks, towel-rails, sculleries, bathtubs and sinks, bidets, scales, medicine chests, shower curtains, torches, firelighters, stools, linen curtains, bottles (of whisky, cognac, and wine), and fireplaces.

Until one day, a long time afterwards, the rich, in rags, went down on bended knees before Robin Hood and spoke to him, imploring, “Mr. Robin Hood, we don’t question your goodness, noble spirit, and legendary generosity. We know you did it for the common good, to bring justice to mankind and compensate for the social inequalities perpetuated by the right to inherit. But you must consider that things aren’t what they used to be, that all we have left are these four walls. We have to sleep on the ground, because you even took our beds from us. We have no blankets to keep us warm, no saucepans to heat water and hoodwink our hunger. Mr. Hood, what more do you want from us? There is nothing more to take! We only have these walls, because you’ve taken even our roofs.”

Robin Hood was taken aback. He only needed to take one glance at what used to be a splendid castle not very long ago to see the truth in what they said. Their walls had been stripped and their rooms gutted, and the wealthy of old now slept in the corners, sheltering from the rain that poured in through where the roofs used to be. The rich were rich no longer. It was quite obvious they were poorer than the poor of old who had become richer than they, partly because of the wealth Robin Hood gave them and partly because of the skillful investment policies they’d pursued, thereby multiplying their wealth. But Robin Hood, so generous, obsessive and obstinate, had continued to steal from the rich, who were now, frankly, very poor, to give to the poor, who were, frankly, very rich. His generous attitude had turned the world upside down, to such a point that now (this was his sudden insight) the rich lived in abject poverty and the poor wallowed in conspicuous extravagance and had transformed what was previously a hovel into a complex of mansions, with a swimming pool, sauna, and all the latest paraphernalia. It had been years since the castle hosted its last party; on the other hand, the residential estate where the poor of old lived now celebrated weekly barbecues, if not a bacchanal. How come he’d not noticed before? He looked at the rich, the people he’d seen as exploiters, with a fresh pair of eyes and imagined the financial jamboree being enjoyed by those he’d thought of as poor until not so very long ago. He raged in anger. From his childhood he’d always felt indignant when he saw how the poor lived in abject poverty while the rich wallowed in luxury. He donned his black silk mask, straightened his hunting cap, with the slender, gray feather his Uncle Richard had brought back from the Tyrol. He grasped the reins of his steed, pointed it eastwards, and lashed its back with those very same reins.