Time snags us all, eventually, as it does Maqroll the Gaviero. The story Un Bel Morir (in English, A Beautiful Death) reads as if it is the last of the Maqroll stories, even though it’s placed mid-point as third of seven. In this novella collection, stories refer back and forth to one another but, in the context of time, they aren’t necessarily sequential.
This novella could be said to be about the fatigue of age. Maqroll is facing the realities of accumulated years and the consequences of the life he has lived. The title essentially tells you what this story is about.
Maqroll reminds me, in a small way, of Sean Connery’s Robin Hood in the movie Robin and Marion. In that movie, Robin Hood is older. He’s back from the Crusades. He’s seen (and delivered) more death than any man or woman should. We first see him in a very Maqroll-like scene: The stupidity of human conflict, pointless violence, the vanity of men and, in the midst of it, a world weary Robin who, like Maqroll, is in a situation of his own choosing, senseless and tragic as it is.
Robin is fatigued. His body feels the years. But he’s still the boy who wants to charge into battle. He deludes himself, refusing to recognize the realities of age.
In Un Bel Morir, Maqroll gets himself into trouble for the same reason. He wants to go on as he always has, indulge his wanderlust, engage in another enterprise, and so he does. But though he feels the years, he doesn’t acknowledge them until too late. He deludes himself because he wants the adventure — the experience. He allows himself to be pulled into something he knows will be disastrous, and refuses to acknowledge what he knows to be true.
He gets caught up in a gun-running scheme that masquerades as the building of a railroad. He allows himself to be duped by a man he knows is lying. He puts himself into a dangerous situation willingly, almost eagerly, pretending even to himself that he has no idea what is going on, though he does acknowledge his doubts. He does all this even while being angry, even disgusted with himself for doing so.
The reality is that he has placed himself in the middle of an idiotic conflict, rebels on one side, the army on the other, both sides questioning Maqroll’s side.
As the situation develops, he begins to see how age has robbed him of the man he once was. A younger Maqroll never would have allowed this to happen, he thinks. His one relief is, yet again, a woman he meets — the third of his three women, Amparo María.
As always with Maqroll, everything falls apart. As always, he gets out of the hole he has dug for himself but not before paying a price. He wins and loses at the same time, the loss great, the win meagre — just his skin.
The story concludes with an appendix that addresses Maqroll’s final days, which are subsequent to the misadventure of the railroad construction ruse, and presents a brief account called In the Marshes which may, or may not, be an accurate account of the death of the Gaviero. It leaves us with a final image of Maqroll, one that resonates with the essence of the man. It’s a romantic image.
Un Bel Morir is a beautifully romantic story, one full with the melancholy that informs all the Maqroll novellas. It’s worth noting that the title is from Petrarch: ‘Un bel morir tutta la vita onora.’ (‘A beautiful death honours all life.’)