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Go shoppingThe fact he had been born into an aristocratic family didn’t mean Robin Hood couldn’t hate social inequality. From childhood, he’d always felt indignant when he saw how the poor lived in abject poverty while the rich wallowed in luxury. Robin Hood was repelled by a contrast that left the rest of his family unfazed.
He was sure the powers-that-be were always on the side of the wealthy, and he couldn’t simply stand by and watch that degrading spectacle, so one day he decided to do something about it. He selected the richest of the rich families in the county. He didn’t even need to spy on them to execute the plan he had in mind. He knew them all so well: he was familiar with their every move—where, when, and what they did, when exactly they could be taken by surprise. Then he fixed a day to do the deed. But he had to dress for the occasion. He couldn’t wear his usual garb; they’d recognize him. He opted for a black silk mask and a hunting cap, complete with a slender, gray feather from the trunk in the attic that his Uncle Richard had brought him from a visit to the Tyrol. He took his bow, quiver, and arrows and mounted his best steed.
From afar he could see the castle-windows lit up and hear the music pouring out. As he had anticipated, they were throwing a party. Perfect. That way he’d catch them all together, and the pickings from his choice selection of the wealthy and their guests would be rich. He burst into the house, indifferent to the mess his horse’s muddy shoes were making on the deep red carpet. The crème de la crème of local society was present: not only the hosts (the richest of the rich, the owners of the castle, the main target of his incursion), but also their friends: marquis, counts, and dukes, who were possibly not as rich but in any case were excessively rich when compared to the community as a whole.
It was an exceptional harvest. He stole their tiaras (silver, gold, and jewel encrusted silver), their rings (none was unadorned: all were as thick as the links of a chain), their earrings (some were long and hung down to the shoulder), their keepsakes (one made of platinum), and hair slides (of more varied quality). He put all the money they were carrying in a sack, in a jumble of coins and notes, and ordered the castle-owners (the richest of the county’s rich) to open their strongbox and empty it out. He bundled the silver cutlery and candelabra into the same sack and put all the food he found in the pantry into a blue velvet bag. (So many delicious tidbits the needy never got to taste!) Then, still unrecognized by the revelers, he galloped off into the night. The richest of the rich and their aristocratic friends, excited by his feat (that interrupted the monotony of their existences), decided to dispatch lackeys the next morning to take the news to friends who hadn’t been with them that night: a masked man had come and had stolen their jewels, valuable possessions, and money. They invited them to an orgy in their castle, so they could tell them the whole story in detail.
Robin Hood galloped through the forest, from west to east, with a clear objective in mind. He had taken two weeks to select the poorest of the poor inhabitants of Sherwood: a family who lived in a wretched timber shack next to an open drain. The poverty-stricken family saw Robin Hood riding up from afar and hid. Whenever anybody went near them, it was always to steal the little they had. Sometimes masked robbers in horizontally striped shirts, sometimes tax collectors in checkered jackets, and sometimes gentlemen in need of fresh meat for a banquet. Robin Hood knocked on their door and asked them to open up: he came in peace. The poor people didn’t respond. Robin Hood persisted: “Open up, I bring you what I have robbed from the rich!” They paid no heed. He was forced to smash the door down. The poor people were huddled in a corner of the only room in their hovel (an all-in-one lobby, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom), shaking and begging for mercy. Robin Hood told them they shouldn’t be afraid and told them again that he was going to give them what he’d robbed from the rich. “My idea is this,” he repeated, “steal from the rich and give to the poor.” He repeated the idea several times because they didn’t understand him the first time. They looked at each other and at him, and were frightened. Robin Hood explained himself, yet again. He was proud of his own distinctive idea of justice. As some would say, “He takes justice into his own hands!” But, take note! He didn’t do so to benefit himself but to help others. He robbed the rich (that was clearly a crime: the fact that someone was rich doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to attack their inalienable right to private ownership, at least not in a market economy), but didn’t do so to keep their property for himself, as any common or garden-variety thief would have done, but to hand it on to the needy; he didn’t touch a cent. Robbing the rich to give to the poor was an act of generosity that, he was sure, granted him forgiveness in the eyes of God for his premeditated felony. Did the end justify the means? It did as far as Robin Hood was concerned, beyond the shadow of a doubt. That was why he confronted the sheriff, the powers- that-be, and the landowners, whether ecclesiastical or not. Similarly, he always tried to treat women, the poor, and the humble extremely courteously.
But the fruits of his robbery soon vanished. A poor, numerous family, like the one he’d chosen, with a centuries- old hunger in their bellies, rapidly squandered the food, and the money, and sold the candelabra, earrings, and silver cutlery on the black market for a pittance. The poor were still poor, and in no time the rich purchased new candelabra, new silver cutlery, new earrings, and new rings. Perhaps the poor had assuaged their hunger a little, and the rich had lost some money, but the disparity remained huge.
Once again Robin Hood sought out his black silk mask and feathered cap. He rode his steed along winding, labyrinthine paths that cleft the forest and returned to the castle owned by the richest of the rich who, on this occasion, were in the midst of a debutantes’ ball. They were astonished. “Not you again?” They didn’t find him as exciting as the first time round. One or two even complained: “I hope you don’t make a habit of this.” Robin Hood took their earrings (emeralds and pearls), tiaras (one was Greek, from Empúrias, handed down from mother to daughter across the centuries), rings (rubies, pure gold, lapis lazuli), bracelets, clasps (one made from ivory that Robin Hood found immensely beautiful), and a pearl necklace. One woman complained because she’d just purchased the earrings Robin Hood stole from her— to replace the ones he’d taken on his first visit. She was particularly annoyed because tracking down an identical pair had been a real pain. She tried to persuade him that her plea for mercy was entirely justified: if he were to steal those, she’d never find another pair: they were the last ones available. Robin Hood was unmoved, snatched them off of her, and put them in the sack with everything else. There were no candelabra. Robin Hood was surprised and asked why. They hadn’t had the time to go and buy new ones, the owner of the castle apologized. To compensate, he stole their bed linen, the Poussin painting, Bachannal, that was on the living room wall, and a Richard II chest of drawers. When the sack was full, Robin Hood crossed the forest in an easterly direction, toward the hovel of the poor family; they welcomed him with open arms and tear-filled eyes. “And about time too,” said the father, “we were on our last legs.”
The next time Robin Hood found the rich even less disposed to welcome him in. People complained while he was filling his sack with money (only one woman, caught napping, was wearing jewels: a silver hair-slide set with two rubies), carpets (three from Persia and one from Turkmenistan), a glass cabinet, and two beds. There was even a duke who tried to resist. Robin Hood kicked him unconscious. The rest of the revelers screamed. Robin Hood spurred on his steed and sped into the forest. The poor family welcomed him with whoops of delight; although, when they saw what he’d brought, one half complained because the booty was less bountiful than on the previous occasions.
In addition to his thirst for justice, Robin Hood had another virtue: perseverance. He repeated his incursions methodically. In the process he stole crockery, pillows, sofas, tables, and armchairs. He stole books, shelves, an umbrella stand, and armor (a whole suit: helmet, visor, chin-guard, gorget, neck and shoulder armor, breastplates, arm-guards, elbow pieces, gauntlets, halberd, thigh-guards, cod-piece, knee-guards, greaves, shoes, round shield and sword). From the wall, he took a Frenchified oblong, four- sided azurite coat-of-arms with a golden tree and two lions propping up its trunk; a gold frame with seven red fleurs- de-lis, arranged in two pairs and a threesome—sealed by a closed helmet and set opposite azure and silver mantling— and, for a crest, a fleur-de-lis pennant coming out of the helmet. He filched the remaining beds, a three-piece suite, and stoves. He dismantled wardrobes, gathered together desks, bureaus, bunk beds, glass cabinets, waste-paper bins,
Until one day, a long time afterwards, the rich, in rags, went down on bended knees before Robin Hood and spoke to him, imploring, “Mr. Robin Hood, we don’t question your goodness, noble spirit, and legendary generosity. We know you did it for the common good, to bring justice to mankind and compensate for the social inequalities perpetuated by the right to inherit. But you must consider that things aren’t what they used to be, that all we have left are these four walls. We have to sleep on the ground, because you even took our beds from us. We have no blankets to keep us warm, no saucepans to heat water and hoodwink our hunger. Mr. Hood, what more do you want from us? There is nothing more to take! We only have these walls, because you’ve taken even our roofs.”
Robin Hood was taken aback. He only needed to take one glance at what used to be a splendid castle not very long ago to see the truth in what they said. Their walls had been stripped and their rooms gutted, and the wealthy of old now slept in the corners, sheltering from the rain that poured in through where the roofs used to be. The rich were rich no longer. It was quite obvious they were poorer than the poor of old who had become richer than they, partly because of the wealth Robin Hood gave them and partly because of the skillful investment policies they’d pursued, thereby multiplying their wealth. But Robin Hood, so generous, obsessive and obstinate, had continued to steal from the rich, who were now, frankly, very poor, to give to the poor, who were, frankly, very rich. His generous attitude had turned the world upside down, to such a point that now (this was his sudden insight) the rich lived in abject poverty and the poor wallowed in conspicuous extravagance and had transformed what was previously a hovel into a complex of mansions, with a swimming pool, sauna, and all the latest paraphernalia. It had been years since the castle hosted its last party; on the other hand, the residential estate where the poor of old lived now celebrated weekly barbecues, if not a bacchanal. How come he’d not noticed before? He looked at the rich, the people he’d seen as exploiters, with a fresh pair of eyes and imagined the financial jamboree being enjoyed by those he’d thought of as poor until not so very long ago. He raged in anger. From his childhood he’d always felt indignant when he saw how the poor lived in abject poverty while the rich wallowed in luxury. He donned his black silk mask, straightened his hunting cap, with the slender, gray feather his Uncle Richard had brought back from the Tyrol. He grasped the reins of his steed, pointed it eastwards, and lashed its back with those very same reins.
Quim Monzó was born in Barcelona in 1952. He has been awarded the National Award, the City of Barcelona Award, the Prudenci Bertrana Award, the El Temps Award, the Lletra d’Or Prize for the best book of the year, and the Catalan Writers’ Award; he has been awarded Serra d’Or magazine’s prestigious Critics’ Award four times. He has also translated numerous authors into Catalan, including Truman Capote, J.D. Salinger, and Ernest Hemingway.
