Leocadia and little Rosario are outside watching the woodcutter chip away at a diseased trunk. I’m alone to peer at my murals while I reflect on my imminent departure from Quinta del Sorda.

I’m not disheartened by my having to pack up and move out. The physical exertion is a little trying, but no more than is to be expected at this age. José’s a personable friend, an Aragonese with a good sense of humour to cheer me up while I hide, and only an annoying twitch with his neck to tire me. I was actually very lucky to be able to leave, after having seen so many friends die in exile or transform themselves into refugees. But it’s the hurrying away, the stress of the sudden clandestine escape while all the while, I had thought I would die here, that I don’t like. I had planned for something different, for Leocadia, my sweet mistress, to do the organising and commemorating. I had dreamt of perishing before my easel or perhaps after a pleasant walk through the estate, slumping incautiously onto the walnut dining table I now sit at. If I were to have left the world here in this chair, the final dim image imprinted on my mind would have been of a wild man, his gaping mouth enclosing the head of a child as his palms crushed the limp body into submission. It is a favourite mural of mine, one that reminds me of terrors gone by and the sin of hopefulness.

I shall miss it when I am hiding behind my Aragonese. He’s a good man, he could have instead left me here to be arrested and taken away for my associations with liberals in previous years. How naïve we all were, believing that Rodrigo’s men would liberate us from the tyranny and the seemingly perennial occasions of the Inquisition. At least, up until now I had been safe. When I was Court Painter they couldn’t touch me, even if they disliked my ideas and paintings. I remember, some years back, those ugly disfigured faces marching in to receive the King who had just issued a decree against liberals. They were talentless harsh men who had mastered the skills of diplomacy and tact. I had gone only to try and save old friends like Leandro and my dear comrade, Isídoro Máiquez, an actor I drank with and whom I now greatly miss. He was an intelligent, sideburned man with sensitively drawn eyes that often set off a confused expression. He had been sent to prison for afrancesamiento or ‘collaboration’ with the French. We had been together when Napoleon’s men marched into Madrid. We had probably been talking, as I painted him, of the French, of their grand liberal designs. And when we heard the news, we drunkenly rejoiced because the smallmindedness of petty Court intrigues and royal favouritism would at last wither away. Massacres dashed those hopes and yet we hoped again when Ferdinand came back holding the great Liberal Constitution that would set the people of Spain free. Instead, poor Isídoro was taken away for afrancesamiento. That very evening, I brushed the shirt of a surrendering Spanish hero white as he faced French murderers. Máiquez, had he painted, would have done the same. We despised both the Emperor of France and the King of Spain and his feelings for the King would cause him to end his days not only in exile, but in an asylum.