Chapter 40 old lady

On January 14, 1941, Maria Justina Rubio de Jauregui turned one hundred years old.She is the only surviving descendant of servicemen who fought in the Revolutionary War. Her father, Colonel Mariano Rubio, was a somewhat famous figure.The colonel was born of a provincial manor, was born in the parish of the Charity, was a captain in the Andean army, participated in the battle of Chacabuco, experienced the setbacks of Canchalayada, fought in Mayipa, and fought for two years. Later he took part in the battle of Arequipa.It is said that, on the eve of the Battle of Arequipa, Aser Olavarlia and he exchanged swords and encouraged each other.The famous Battle of Cerro Alto took place in early April 1823. Since it was fought in the valley, it was also called the Battle of Cerro Bermejo.Venezuelans, always jealous of our glory, attribute this victory to General Simón Bolívar, but an impartial observer, an Argentine historian, will not be easily deceived, knowing that the laurels of victory belong to Mariano Rubi Colonel O.It was he who, at the head of a regiment of Colombian hussars, reversed the deadly battle of saber and pike in preparation for the equally famous Battle of Ayacucho.He also participated in that battle and was wounded. In 1827 he fought valiantly at Ituzaingo under the direct command of Alvear.Although related to Rosas, he sided with Lavalle and defeated the guerrillas in what he called a saber contest.After the defeat of the Centralists, he moved to Uruguay, where he married.During the Great War, he died in Montevideo, besieged by the Oribe Whites.He was forty-four then, almost old.He was friends with the poet Florencio Valera.The instructors at the military academy probably wouldn't let him graduate; for although he had seen many battles, he had never taken the academy exams.He leaves behind two daughters, Maria Justina being the youngest and who we are going to introduce.

At the end of 1853, the colonel's widow settled in Buenos Aires with her two daughters.They failed to recover the rural property confiscated by the dictator, and those vast lands that were lost were never seen, but remained in memory for a long time.At the age of sixteen Maria Justina married Dr. Bernardo Jauregui, who was not a soldier but had fought in Pavon and Cepeda, and during the yellow fever epidemic he contracted the disease while practicing medicine. died.He left behind a son and two daughters; the eldest son, Mariano, was a tax inspector and wanted to write a detailed biography of his father. He often went to the National Library and Archives to consult materials, but he did not finish it, and perhaps did not start writing at all.The eldest, Maria Elvira, married her cousin, Saavedra, who worked in the Ministry of Finance; the second, Julia, married Mr. Molinari, whose surname, though Italian, Professor of Latin, very learned.I'm not talking about grandchildren and great-grandchildren; the reader can already imagine a respectable but failing family, with an epic family history and a daughter born in exile.

They lived in Palermo in obscurity, not far from the Guadalupe Church. According to Mariano’s recollection, when taking the tram, he could see a few small brick houses with unpainted exterior walls by the pond, unlike The galvanized iron shacks of later times were so shabby; the poverty back then was not as severe as the poverty that industrialization brings us now.Wealth was not as great then as it is now. The Rubio family lived above a department store.The staircase, set on one side, was narrow; the balustrade, on the right, led to a dark hall with a coat-rack and some armchairs.Entering the entrance hall is a small living room with some cloth chairs, and then entering the dining room with mahogany tables and chairs and a glass cabinet.The tin shutters were always closed, and the light was dim.I remember there was always a stale smell in the house.The innermost are the bedroom, toilet, washroom and maid's room.There were not many books in the house, except a volume of Andrade's poems, a commentary on the colonel, with handwritten supplements at the end, and a Spanish-American dictionary edited by Montaner and Simon, which had been paid in installments and was given as a gift. I bought this dictionary because of the small bookshelf where the dictionary is placed.They had a retirement pension that was always delayed, and rental income from a piece of land in Lomas de Zamora, the only remaining piece of what was once a large estate.

At the time of my story the old lady lived with the widowed Julia and one of her sons.She still hated Artigas, Rosas, and Urquiza; the first European war made her hate those Germans whom she knew little about, and for her it was the same as the revolution of 1890 and the Cerro. Aalto's charge is generally vague. Impressions after 1932 fade; the usual tropes are the best, because only they are true.Of course, she is Catholic, but that doesn't mean she believes in the Trinity of God and the immortality of the soul.She counted the beads in both hands and murmured prayers whose meaning she did not quite understand.She was used to Christmas, but Easter and Epiphany; she was used to drinking tea instead of mate.For her, Protestantism, Judaism, Freemasonry, heresy, atheism, etc. are all synonymous and mean nothing.Like her parents she never used the word "Spanish" but "Goth". In 1910, she could not believe that a visiting Spanish princess spoke unexpectedly like a Spanish immigrant and not like an Argentine dame.This puzzling news was told to her by a wealthy relative at the funeral of her son-in-law. This person never came to the door. News about her can often be seen in the social column of the newspaper.Mrs. Jorregui likes to use old place names; she usually refers to Art Street, Temple Street, Pingzhi Street, Mercy Street, South Chang Street, North Chang Street, Park Square, and Qianmen Square.The old clichés that came out of her mouth were encouraged by her family, who spoke not of Uruguayan but of the East Coast.The old lady never went out; perhaps it never occurred to her that Buenos Aires was always changing and expanding.The earliest impressions were the most vivid; the old lady saw the city outside her door as it had been long before they had to move out of the city center.At that time, the carts drawn by the oxen stopped in the Plaza de l'Eleven, and the villas of Baragas exuded the fragrance of withered violets.All I have dreamed about recently are dead relatives and friends. She often said this kind of thing recently.She wasn't stupid, but as far as I know, she never had intellectual pleasures; she had first the pleasures of remembering and then the pleasures of forgetting.She has always been very tolerant.I remember her peaceful bright eyes and the way she smiled.Who knew what human passions this once-beautiful, now ashen-hearted old woman had ever had?She loves those flowers and plants that are similar to her and live silently. She keeps several pots of begonias in the house, and sometimes caresses the leaves that she can no longer see clearly. After 1929, she became confused and used the same words and sentences in the same order to talk about past events as if reciting the Father. I suspect that those events no longer match the impression.She also doesn't have the ability to discern food, so she eats whatever is given to her.In short, she had a good life by herself.

Sleep is said to be our most mysterious behavior.We spend a third of our lives sleeping, yet don't understand it.For some it is nothing more than a temporary lapse of waking; for others it is a rather complex state involving yesterday, today and tomorrow; for still others it is a series of uninterrupted dream.It would be wrong to say that Mrs. Joreghi passed ten years of indolence in peace; every moment of that decade could have been a pure present with neither past nor future.The present, which we count in terms of days and nights, hundreds of pages of calendars, anxieties and events, does not surprise us;Our daily experience is double that of the old lady.

As we have seen, the situation of the Jorégi family is somewhat unreal.They thought they belonged to the aristocracy, but the aristocratic class did not recognize them; after they were famous, the history books did not often mention the name of their prominent ancestor.There is indeed a street named after that ancestor, but very few people know that street, and it is almost buried deep in the West End Cemetery. The day is approaching. On January 10, a uniformed soldier came to deliver a letter signed by the minister himself, informing him that he would visit on the 14th.The Jaureguis showed the letter to all the neighbors, emphasizing the stamp on the letterhead and the signature.Journalists began to come to interview.The Joreghis gave them all kinds of information; apparently they had all heard of Colonel Rubio.People who have never met before call and hope to be invited.

The whole family worked hard to prepare for the big day.They waxed the floors, wiped the windows, dusted off the cobwebs, polished the mahogany furniture and the silver in the vitrines, changed the arrangement of the rooms, and lifted the covers of the pianos in the living room to reveal the velvet key covers.People are coming and going, very busy, except for Mrs. Jauregui, who doesn't seem to understand anything.She smiled; Julia, with the help of the maid, dressed her up as though she were going to be buried.The guests are the first to enter the door.The first thing I saw was the oil portrait of the colonel, with the battle-hardened saber resting on the bottom right of the portrait.The family did not sell the sword when life was most difficult, and they planned to donate it to the history museum in the future.An obliging neighbor lent them a pot of geraniums for decoration.

The party is expected to start at seven o'clock.The time on the invitation was set at half past six, because they knew that no one wanted to be there on time, and they waited foolishly like putting out candles. At ten past seven, there was no sign of a single guest; pros and cons.Elvira, who thought she was punctual, said it was an unforgivable faux pas to keep people waiting; Julia repeated her husband's opinion that it was polite to be late, because no one would be embarrassed if everyone was late.At fifteen past seven, the house was packed with people.The neighbors were envious of Mrs. Figueroa's car and driver, and although she never invited the neighbors as guests, they still received her warmly, lest anyone think that they only met at the bishop's funeral.The President sent his aide-de-camp, and the amiable gentleman said it was a great honor to shake hands with the daughter of the hero of Cerro Alto.The Minister, who was leaving early, read a short speech in which St. Martin was mentioned more than Colonel Rubio.The old lady was sitting in a big armchair with several pillows on her back, drooping her head or dropping the folding fan from time to time.A group of well-known ladies sang the national anthem in front of her, but she didn't seem to hear it.The photographers asked the guests to pose in various poses according to the artistic requirements, and used the spotlight again and again.The red and white wine was not enough to drink, so I opened a few more bottles of Xiangqi.Mrs. Jauregui didn't say a word: she probably didn't know who she was anymore.Since that night, she has been bedridden.

After the outsiders left, the Jauregui family ate some cold food for dinner.The smell of tobacco leaves and coffee overwhelmed the faint scent of benzo. The next day's morning papers and dailies dutifully lied; praising the hero's daughter's miraculous memory as "the living archive of a century of Argentine history."Julia wanted her to read the reports too.The old lady closed her eyes in the dark room, motionless.She had no fever; the doctor examined her and declared her to be all right.A few days later, the old lady passed away suddenly.The intrusion of a large number of guests, the unprecedented chaos, the flickering of spotlights, the speeches of ministers, people in uniform, frequent handshakes, and the sound of champagne corks were all hastened her death.She probably thought it was corn on the cob again.

I think of the fallen warriors of Cerro Alto, of the forgotten men of America and of Spain who died trampled by horseshoes; old lady.