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Even though he had taken me in only so that I could work like a slave on his land. Even though he, too, had beaten and insulted me whenever I did anything wrong.
I extricate myself from his grasp and walk over to the door. The Inquisitor turns around one last time to the couple.
“One day, you will thank me for having saved your daughter from eternal damnation.”
“UNDRESS HER.”
The Inquisitor is sitting at a vast table surrounded by a series of empty chairs. Two guards make a move toward her, but the girl holds up her hand.
“I don’t need them; I can do it alone. Just, please, don’t hurt me.”
Slowly she removes her velvet skirt embroidered with gold thread, as elegant as the dress her mother wore. The twenty men in the room pretend to take no notice, but I know what is going through their minds: lewd thoughts, lust, greed, perversion.
“And your blouse.”
She takes off the blouse, which was doubtless white yesterday but which is now dirty and crumpled. Her gestures seem to be too slow and studied, but I know what she’s thinking: He’ll save me. He’ll stop this now. And I say nothing, but silently ask God if what is happening is right. I start to repeat the Lord’s Prayer over and over, asking God to enlighten both her and my Superior. I know what he’s thinking, that the denunciation had its roots not only in jealousy and vengeance but in the woman’s extraordinary beauty. She is the very image of Lucifer, the most beautiful and most perverse of Heaven’s angels.
Everyone here knows her father, knows how powerful he is and what harm he can do to anyone who touches his daughter. She looks at me, and I do not turn away. The others are scattered about the great subterranean room, hidden in the shadows, afraid that she might emerge from this alive and denounce them all. Cowards. They were summoned here to serve a great cause, to help purify the world. Why are they hiding from a defenseless young girl?
“Take off your other clothes, too.”
She is still gazing fixedly at me. She raises her hands and unties the ribbon on her blue slip, which is all that is covering her body now, and lets it fall to the floor. Her eyes plead with me to stop what is happening, and I respond with a slight nod, indicating that she need not worry, everything will be all right.
“Look for the mark of Satan,” the Inquisitor tells me.
Picking up a candle, I go over to her. The nipples of her small breasts are hard, although I cannot tell whether this is because she is cold or involuntarily aroused by the fact of standing naked before all these men. Her skin is covered in goose pimples. The tall windows with their thick glass let in little light, but the light that does enter glows on her immaculately white skin. I do not need to look very hard. On her pubis—which, when I was most sorely tempted, I often used to imagine kissing—I can see the mark of Satan hidden among her pubic hair, at the top left-hand side. This frightens me. Perhaps the Inquisitor is right, for here is irrefutable proof that she has had sexual relations with the Devil. I feel a mixture of disgust, sadness, and rage.
I need to be sure. I kneel down beside her naked body and look at the mark again: a crescent-shaped mole.
“It’s been there since I was born.”
Like her parents, she thinks she can establish a dialogue and persuade everyone of her innocence. I have been praying hard ever since I came into the room, desperately asking God to give me strength. There will be some pain, but it should all be over in less than half an hour. Even if that mark is irrefutable proof of her crimes, I loved her before I gave myself, body and soul, to the service of God, knowing that her parents would never allow a noblewoman to marry a peasant.
And that love is still too strong for me to master. I do not want to see her suffer.
“I have never called up the Devil. You know me, and you know my friends as well. Tell him”—she points to my Superior—“that I’m innocent.”
The Inquisitor then speaks with surprising tenderness, which can only have its source in divine mercy.
“I, too, know your family, but the Church is aware that the Devil does not choose his subjects on the basis of social class but for their capacity to seduce with words or with false beauty. Jesus said that evil comes out of the mouths of men. If the evil is within, it will be exorcised by screams and will become the confession we all hope for. If there is no evil there, then you will be able to withstand the pain.”
“I’m cold. Do you think—”
“Do not speak unless spoken to,” he responds gently but firmly. “Merely nod or shake your head. Your four friends have already told you what happens, haven’t they?”
She nods.
“Take your seats, gentlemen.”
Now the cowards will have to show their faces. Judges, scribes, and noblemen take their places around the large table at which the Inquisitor has been sitting alone until now. Only myself, the guards, and the girl remain standing.
I would prefer this rabble not to be here. If it were only the three of us, I know that he would be moved. Most denunciations are made anonymously, because people fear what their fellow townspeople will say; had this denunciation not been made in public, then perhaps none of this would be happening. But destiny has determined that things should take a different course, and the Church needs the rabble. The legal process must be followed. Having been accused of excesses in the past, it was decreed that everything should be set down in the appropriate civil documents. Thus, in the future, everyone will know that the ecclesiastical authorities acted with dignity and in legitimate defense of the faith. The sentence is handed down by the state; the Inquisitors have only to indicate the guilty party.
“Don’t be afraid. I have just spoken to your parents and promised to do all I can to establish that you never took part in the rituals of which you have been accused. That you did not invoke the spirits of the dead or try to discover what lies in the future, that you never tried to visit the past, that you do not worship nature, that the disciples of Satan never touched your body, despite the mark that is clearly there.”
“You know that—”
Everyone present, their faces now visible to the prisoner, turn indignantly to the Inquisitor, expecting a justifiably stern response. However, he merely raises his finger to his lips, asking her once again to respect the court.
