We live in the fifteenth century.

The piece of land to which I will take you now is situated in Catalonia on the border of the Mediterranean, in the region of Barcelona.

I take you to a beautiful region where my cradle once stood.

As the scion of an old noble family, lost riches, we nevertheless lived as a last memory of those rich days at a comfortable hall, the property of my parents, which they could not possibly part with.

Their ancestors had lived and died here, others had performed great things there and all those reminiscences made my parents want to finish their lives here too.

I played in the garden with my dogs and other animals, which I possessed.

My Mother called me: “Alonzo, where are you?”

I pretended not to hear her and went on playing.

I had reached the age of five and was their only child; my brothers had already died at an early age.

Again, she called me and I went up to her.

“What were you doing, Alonzo?

Why did you not come straight away?”

“I played with my animals, Mother, but they will not obey me.”

She looked at me with her stern eyes and asked: “Why do you want the animals to listen to you?

You should leave them alone.

Come, follow me, your Father wants to see you.”

We entered the room of my Father who had been ill for quite some time.

He embraced me ardently; I loved him very much, even more than my Mother.

He understood me in everything. I always had words with my Mother, so that I felt more attracted to my Father.

“Now tell your Father what you were doing, Alonzo.”

My Father asked, although he knew the answer right away: “What do you want with the animals, Alonzo?”

“I do not now, but they must listen to me and play with me.”

My Mother said to my Father: “That shows you, Alonzo, this child has a horrible hobby and I think that nothing good will come of it.”

“Why not let him, he wants to dominate the animals; later he will be a good ruler.”

“Go, Alonzo”, my Mother said to me, and I returned to my animals.

My Father soon recovered from his illness. And, when I was a little older he played with me and my animals.

The years went by and my love for animals became ever stronger.

They tried to free me of those terrible feelings, but I remained as I was, to the grief and annoyance of my Mother.

This caused us to drift apart, for she wanted me to give up my hobby.

My Father regarded this as a highly developed quality of character, which would disappear completely in the future and change into other strong qualities.

My Mother kept demanding that I should do away with them, but I had my Father’s help and I kept my pet animals.

When I was ten years old, he presented me with two young lions, which he had received for me from one of his friends.

The animals were very nice and I played with them for days on end.

However, shortly after my Father died, and my Mother stayed behind with me.

Her first decision she took was that my animals had to go.

My begging and praying were of no avail;

my pet animals had to go for they had embittered her life for years on end.

I grew up and had a keen mind, but I was extremely sensitive.

I absorbed what I had to learn but I retained my love for animals.

In this way, my years of youth went by and I reached the age of eighteen.

During the years that had passed I had nonetheless, though secretly, collected other species of animals and had accommodated them somewhere in my surroundings.

My strongest desire was to possess a few wild animals again and I set out to make enquiries.

After a long time, I again came into possession of two young lions.

The animals soon adapted to me and they grew up to become two magnificent animals.

The estates did not appeal to me, even more so, because I knew they no longer belonged to us.

However, I was very fond of art and those were my only qualities that had come to full consciousness.

I felt attracted to my friend, a young poet, grandson of Spain’s greatest son and we were good friends.

He was a descendent of a famous family of artists and went by the name of Juan, which had once been the name of his grandfather.

In those years, other desires became conscious in me, that is to say for the invisible life.

All those wonderful problems like death and being born forced themselves upon me and I wanted to get to know them.

Juan was also highly interested in this field and we sometimes had serious discussions, which invariably touched all these problems.

As a result, my fondness of the animals was somewhat pushed to the background.

These new feelings and desires grew ever stronger and as I grew older there was only one desire left in me: to be allowed to know more about it.

I could hardly talk with my Mother of it; and when that happened we did not understand each other.

According to her, one should not be allowed to know all these problems, but had to accept exclusively what was being taught.

To her this was religion, just that, and that was enough.

Yet, she followed me.

One afternoon she asked me: “You have new qualities, Alonzo?”

I did not answer her because I did not want a dispute.

She asked: “These are very strange too, Alonzo, they may even render you insane.

Just what do you want to do with those wild animals?

Can they not tear themselves free?

You are not a child anymore, Alonzo. You must do away with them!”

I still did not answer, but she said unrelentingly: “I want you to do away with them.”

Now I answered and asked at the same time: “Why are you afraid, Mother?

Allow me this pleasure.

Father did not mind. What else have I?

Should I lock myself up here?

Or perhaps work on the land which belongs to others?”

“Alonzo, I forbid you to speak like this.

It is still our property and should not be neglected.

You would be well advised to think more seriously about that than about all those hobbies, which come to nothing.

In this way, we will not be able to stay here much longer.

Are you a descendent of an old family?

How different your brothers were!

Your Father

allowed you to keep the animals and it spoiled you.

There is nothing you love.”

“Is it my fault that I am like this, Mother?

Did you not receive what is in you?

You must accept me the way I am. We come on earth and we do not know whence we came but that is the way God made me.”

“Alonzo!”

“I say nothing out of the ordinary, Mother, we are the way we are and cannot change it, we should only understand that it is good as it is.

We will never be able to grasp the ‘why’ and ‘what for’ anyway, and the clergy does not know either.”

“Alonzo, how dare you!”

“I dare nothing, Mother, I say and feel something.

I will do away with the animals, that will give you peace.”

That was the end of our talk of non-understanding, and she left.