Fernandez

Fernandez is Julia’s brother and the trusted messenger through whom her search for Diego reaches its resolution. Having travelled with his sick sister across the Pyrenees and through France, he presses on alone at her command, delivers her unfinished letter, and rides with Diego back to Spain. His part in the embedded romance is defined by a plain but consequential act of loyalty: he carries a message that the separated lovers cannot deliver to one another themselves.

Identity and mission

The story first presents Fernandez through the recognition that his sister’s beloved has been seeking. At an inn, the traveller’s unusually long nose is identified as the very feature that prompts the host to keep him from the camp-bed. Jacinta calls it glorious; the traveller, overwhelmed, recognizes Diego. The narrative then identifies the traveller as Julia’s brother, come in her name to find the man she loves. The physical oddity that has set others talking becomes the sign by which Fernandez’s search can finally end.

Fernandez has accompanied Julia from Valladolid, across the Pyrenean mountains and through France. Their pursuit of Diego has required him to follow the winding, difficult course of a lover’s search rather than a direct route. The narrative describes the journey as a tangle to be unwound, making his role less that of a casual courier than of the person who keeps Julia’s effort moving when her own strength fails.

Julia’s illness and the letter

The search has exhausted Julia. She can travel no farther than Lyons, where she falls ill under the strain of her anxieties. Though too weak to continue, she retains enough strength to write to Diego and entrust the letter to Fernandez. She makes her brother promise not to see her again until he has found Diego and placed the letter in his hands, then takes to her bed. Her instruction gives Fernandez a specific duty and makes his return to her dependent on completing it.

The letter itself remains unfinished. Julia writes about her suspicions concerning Diego’s nose, but the account breaks off when she can no longer continue; the narrator reports that Slawkenbergius supposes she meant to write that she was unconvinced. The gap preserves the uncertainty and distress of her message rather than supplying it with a neat conclusion. Fernandez must convey not only Julia’s words but a letter whose ending her illness has prevented her from writing.

Delivery and reunion

Even though the camp-bed is described as soft, Fernandez cannot sleep. At daybreak he learns that Diego is awake, enters his chamber, and discharges his sister’s commission by handing over the letter. The act completes the condition Julia set for his return: he has found Diego and delivered the message into his hands.

The letter moves Diego deeply. He orders his own mule and Fernandez’s horse to be saddled, and the two men set out before he has finished composing an ode. The story gives Fernandez no speech or independent account of what he feels; instead, his importance is registered in the chain of actions his delivery makes possible. Once Julia’s letter reaches Diego, delay gives way to movement toward her.

Return and narrative role

Fernandez rides with Diego across the Rhine and through Alsace toward Lyons; they then cross the Pyrenees with Julia and reach Valladolid safely. The conclusion makes the messenger part of the reunion itself: he does not merely carry news to Diego and disappear, but accompanies the lovers on the journey home. His initial passage with Julia and this final ride with Diego frame the search as a family effort sustained across illness, distance, and difficult travel.

Fernandez’s function also belongs to the layered form of the episode. His recognition of Diego’s nose supplies the romantic tale with its turning point, while the narration encloses the reunion within a story attributed to Slawkenbergius. Against the elaborate detours of the search, Fernandez’s task is sharply concrete: reach Diego, place the letter in his hands, and help bring him back to Julia. The episode’s resolution depends on that faithful passage from one person to another.