Autumn & Winter Sonatas: The Memoirs of Marquis of Bradomin (Empire of the Senses)

Autumn and Winter Sonatas completes the cycle begun with Spring and Summer Sonatas when the Marquis of Bradomin was at the height of his powers. The scene has shifted, however, from verdant Italy and steamy Mexico to rainy Galicia and to wintry Navarre and the court of the pretender Carlos during the final Carlist War. Valle-Inclan's last two Sonatas are decadent in every sense of the word. He interweaves death, sex and religion - Bradomin seducing the pious, protesting Concha even as she is dying and, later, casually making an innocent convent pupil fall in love with him, a young girl who might well be his own daughter - but this Bradomin is now white-haired and fearful that his sexual powers may be waning. The world he inhabits and the beliefs he claims to embrace are also falling away.