The Bridge of San Luis Rey

If there were any plan in the universe...

...any pattern to human life...

...surely it could be discovered

mysteriously latent...

...in those lives so suddenly cut off.

Either we live by accident...

...and die by accident...

...or we live by plan...

...and die by plan.

The day of the funeral,

all Lima was in a state of a trance.

The bodies of the victims

had been approximately collected, but...

...only approximately separated.

It was a great service...

...and a resolute rendering of hearts

among soul-searchers.

There but for the grace of God.

Why did this happen to those five?

Why not me?

On Friday at noon,

the finest bridge in all Peru broke...

...and precipitated five travelers...

...into the gulf below.

We have all of us,

since we have heard of the accident...

...made the...

the sign of the cross...

...and a mental calculation...

...as to how recently

we had crossed by it...

...and how soon we had intended

crossing by it again.

We live in a country, in a place...

...where catastrophes,

which are shockingly called acts of God...

...are more than usually frequent.

Tidal waves

have washed away entire cities.

Earthquakes arrive every week

in some parts...

...and diseases are forever flitting

in and out of the provinces.

Old age carries away

some of our most admirable citizens...

...and towers fall

on good men and women all the time.

But we have all of us been

deeply impressed...

...and especially touched...

...by the rent

in the bridge of San Luis Rey.

The bridge seemed to be

among the things that would last forever.

It was unthinkable

that it should just... break.

We've all had hallucinations

of ourselves...

...falling into that gulf.

Within ten minutes... myself.

It would have been me.

So I resolved to inquire into the

secret lives of those five persons...

...falling through the air at that moment...

...and to surprise the reasons

of theirtaking off.

For six years,

I knocked on all the doors in Lima...

...asked hundreds of questions...

...cataloging thousands of little facts

and anecdotes and testimonies...

...as accurately as I could.

The result, as we know,

was this torrid testament...

...as heretical in title as in content.

Sheer treachery.

It's but a book of findings.

Nothing more sinister.

The mere facts of these five lonely lives

so tragically cut off.

So, we may never know

their central passions...

...and you, who claim to have inquired

after every detail of their existences...

...isn't it possible that even you have

missed the very spring within the well?

If you'll permit, what I wrote down were

the particulars of these precious portraits.

I began in the Franciscan reading room

at San Martin...

...with a book that is bound

between two great wooden covers.

It was there that I came upon

the only copy of the volumes of letters...

...from the Marquesa de Montemayor...

...to her daughter, Doa Clara.

I will write often.

I will write every day, my love.

And when my little daughter

has a little...

It must take

six months at least, Marquesa...

...to receive an answer

to one's letter from Spain.

Left alone in Lima...

...the Marquesa's life grew

more and more inward.

So necessary was it for her love...

...that she attract the admiration

of herdistant child...

...she existed entirely

in the endless dialogues...

...that evidence hereccentricities

in her many letters to Spain.

"Rest easy, my love.

I am sending His Most Catholic Majesty

the perfect gold chain.

He need never know

that in orderto obtain it...

...I had to walk into a picture.

Do you remember

that in the sacristy of San Martin...

...there is a portrait by Velzquez...

...of the viceroy who founded the monastery

and of his wife and brat...

...and that his wife

is wearing a gold chain?"

I have resolved

that only that chain will do. "

The most beautiful girl

in Spain, you see...

...ishes to present the finest golden chain

that could be found...

...to the most gracious king in the world.

My mother,

the Marquesa de Montemayor...

...most insisted

that you should have it...

...on the occasion of

the christening of the infante.

It is the most perfect gold chain.

Isn't it just, Your Highness?

She stepped into

a Velzquez portrait to procure it.

I must meet this Marquesa.

Be sure she's invited to court.

We might pass an evening together

in a Titian.

We cannot possibly

entertain her at court.

You must rest easy, my love.

It is done.

History may well revere her

as one of the few great women of Peru.

Her indiscretions could get us both

into a great deal of trouble.

We have interceded three times

to ignore her from the Inquisition.

His Excellency has the gout again.

I say again

because the flattery of court insists...

...that there are times

when he's free of it.

He started out,

this being Saint Mark's Day...

...to visit the university...

...where 22 new doctors

were being brought out.

He had hardly been carried

from his divan to his couch...

...whereupon he broke

the most delicious cigar.

And while we were listening

to his long doctrinal address...

...more or less in Latin...

...he summoned for you...

...more or less in Spanish.

All the while,

in the same humor, the gout.

So...

She represents well

the reports of her honor...

...made to the Inquisition,

does she not?

My dear Marquesa, you have been

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