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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Swan of Vilamorta, by Emilia Pardo Bazán
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: The Swan of Vilamorta
-
-Author: Emilia Pardo Bazán
-
-Translator: Mary J. Serrano
-
-Release Date: February 3, 2017 [EBook #54105]
-[Last updated: February 15, 2017]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SWAN OF VILAMORTA ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Ernest Schaal, and the
-Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-(This file was produced from images generously made
-available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
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-
-
-                                  THE
-
-                           SWAN OF VlLAMORTA
-
-
-                                   BY
-                           EMILIA PARDO BAZ¡N
-            AUTHOR OF "A WEDDING TRIP," "A CHRISTIAN WOMAN,"
-                            "MORRIÑA," ETC.
-
-                             TRANSLATED BY
-                            MARY J. SERRANO
-
-             TRANSLATOR OF "MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF: THE JOURNAL
-                        OF A YOUNG ARTIST," ETC.
-
-
-                                NEW YORK
-                       CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
-                        104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
-
-
-
-
-                            Copyright, 1891.
-
-                                   BY
-
-                      CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
-
-                         _All rights reserved._
-
-
-                                          THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
-                                                       RAHWAY, N. J.
-
-
-
-
-                                  THE
-                           SWAN OF VILAMORTA.
-
-                                 * * *
-
-                                   I.
-
-Behind the pine grove the setting sun had left a zone of fire
-against which the trunks of the pine trees stood out like bronze
-columns. The path was rugged and uneven, giving evidence of the
-ravages wrought by the winter rains; at intervals loose stones,
-looking like teeth detached from the gum, rendered it still more
-impracticable. The melancholy shades of twilight were beginning to
-envelop the landscape; little by little the sunset glow faded away
-and the moon, round and silvery, mounted in the heavens, where the
-evening star was already shining. The dismal croaking of the frogs
-fell sharply on the ear; a fresh breeze stirred the dry plants and
-the dusty brambles that grew by the roadside; and the trunks of the
-pine trees grew momentarily blacker, standing out like inky bars
-against the pale green of the horizon.
-
-A man was descending the path slowly, bent, apparently, on
-enjoying the poetry and the peace of the scene and the hour. He
-carried a stout walking-stick, and as far as one could judge in the
-fading light, he was young and not ill-looking.
-
-He paused frequently, casting glances to the right and to the
-left as if in search of some familiar landmark. Finally he stood
-still and looked around him. At his back was a hill crowned with
-chestnut trees; on his left was the pine grove; on his right a small
-church with a mean belfry; before him the outlying houses of the
-town. He turned, walked back some ten steps, stopped, fronting the
-portico of the church, examined its walls, and, satisfied at last
-that he had found the right place, raised his hands to his mouth and
-forming with them a sort of speaking trumpet, cried, in a clear
-youthful voice:
-
-"Echo, let us talk together!"
-
-From the angle formed by the walls, there came back instantly
-another voice, deeper and less distinct, strangely grave and
-sonorous, which repeated with emphasis, linking the answer to the
-question and dwelling upon the final syllable:
-
-"Let us talk togethe-e-e-e-r!"
-
-"Are you happy?"
-
-"Happy-y-y-y!" responded the echo.
-
-"Who am I?"
-
-"I-I-I-I!"
-
-To these interrogations, framed so that the answer should make
-sense with them, succeeded phrases uttered without any other object
-than that of hearing them reverberated with strange intensity by the
-wall. "It is a lovely night."--"The moon is shining."--"The sun has
-set."--"Do you hear me, echo?"--"Have you dreams, echo, of glory,
-ambition, love?" The traveler, enchanted with his occupation,
-continued the conversation, varying the words, combining them into
-sentences, and, in the short intervals of silence, he listened to the
-faint murmur of the pines stirred by the evening breeze, and to the
-melancholy concert of the frogs. The crimson and rose-colored clouds
-had become ashen and had begun to invade the broad region of the
-firmament over which the unclouded moon shed her silvery light. The
-honeysuckles and elder-flowers on the outskirts of the pine grove
-embalmed the air with subtle and intoxicating fragrance. And the
-interlocutor of the echo, yielding to the poetic influences of the
-scene, ceased his questions and exclamations and began to recite, in
-a slow, chanting voice, verses of Becquer, paying no heed now to the
-voice from the wall, which, in its haste to repeat his words,
-returned them to him broken and confused.
-
-Absorbed in his occupation, pleased with the harmonious sounds of
-the verse, he did not notice the approach of three men of odd and
-grotesque appearance, wearing enormous broad-brimmed felt hats. One
-of the men was leading a mule laden with a leathern sack filled,
-doubtless, with the juice of the grape; and as they walked slowly,
-and the soft clayey soil deadened the noise of their footsteps, they
-passed close by the young man, unperceived by him. They exchanged
-some whispered words with one another. "Who is he,
-man?"--"Segundo."--"The lawyer's son?"--"The same."--"What is he
-doing? Is he talking to himself?"--"No, he is talking to the wall of
-Santa Margarita."--"Well, we have as good a right to do that as he
-has."--"Begin you ----"--"One--two--here goes----"
-
-And from those profane lips fell a shower of vile words and
-coarse and vulgar phrases, interrupting the _Oscuras Golondrinas_
-which the young man was reciting with a great deal of expression, and
-producing, in the peaceful and harmonious nocturnal silence, the
-effect of the clatter of brass pans and kettles in a piece of German
-music. The most refined expressions were in the following style:
-"D---- (here an oath). Hurrah for the wine of the Border! Hurrah for
-the red wine that gives courage to man! D----" (the reader's
-imagination may supply what followed, it being premised that the
-disturbers of the Becquerian dreamer were three lawless muleteers who
-were carrying with them an abundant provision of the blood of the
-grape).
-
-The nymph who dwelt in the wall opposed no resistance to the
-profanation and repeated the round oaths as faithfully as she had
-repeated the poet's verses. Hearing the vociferations and bursts of
-laughter which the wall sent back to him mockingly, Segundo, the
-lawyer's son, aware that the barbarians were turning his sentimental
-amusement into ridicule, became enraged. Mortified and ashamed, he
-tightened his grasp on his stick, strongly tempted to break it on the
-ribs of some one of them; and, muttering between his teeth, "Kaffirs!
-brutes! beasts!" and other offensive epithets, he turned to the left,
-plunged into the pine grove and walked toward the town, avoiding the
-path in order to escape meeting the profane trio.
-
-The town was but a step away. The walls of its nearest houses
-shone white in the moonlight, and the stones of some buildings in
-course of erection, garden walls, orchards, and vegetable beds,
-filled up the space between the town and the pine grove. The path
-grew gradually broader, until it reached the highroad, on either side
-of which leafy chestnut trees cast broad patches of shade. The town
-was already asleep, seemingly, for not a light was to be seen, nor
-were any of those noises to be heard which reveal the proximity of
-those human beehives called cities. Vilamorta is in reality a very
-small beehive, a modest town, the capital of a district. Bathed in
-the splendor of the romantic satellite, however, it was not without a
-certain air of importance imparted to it by the new buildings, of a
-style of architecture peculiar to prison cells, which an
-_Americanized_ Galician, recently returned to his native land with a
-plentiful supply of cash, was erecting with all possible expedition.
-
-Segundo turned into an out-of-the-way street--if there be any
-such in towns like Vilamorta. Only the sidewalks were paved; the
-gutter was a gutter in reality; it was full of muddy pools and heaps
-of kitchen garbage, thrown there without scruple by the inhabitants.
-Segundo avoided two things--stepping into the gutter and walking in
-the moonlight. A man passed so close by him as almost to touch him,
-enveloped, notwithstanding the heat, in an ample cloak, and holding
-open above his head an enormous umbrella, although there was no sign
-of rain; doubtless he was some convalescent, some visitor to the
-springs, who was breathing the pleasant night air with hygienic
-precautions. Segundo, when he saw him, walked closer to the houses,
-turning his face aside as if afraid of being recognized. With no less
-caution he crossed the Plaza del Consistorio, the pride of Vilamorta,
-and then, instead of joining one of the groups who were enjoying the
-fresh air, seated on the stone benches round the public fountain, he
-slipped into a narrow side street, and crossing a retired little
-square shaded by a gigantic poplar turned his steps in the direction
-of a small house half hidden in the shadow of the tree. Between the
-house and Segundo there stood a lumbering bulk--the body of a
-stage-coach, a large box on wheels, its shafts raised in air,
-waiting, lance in rest, as it were, to renew the attack. Segundo
-skirted the obstacle, and as he turned the corner of the square,
-absorbed in his meditations, two immense hogs, monstrously fat,
-rushed out of the half-open gate of a neighboring yard, and at a
-short trot that made their enormous sides shake like jelly, made
-straight for the admirer of Becquer, entangling themselves stupidly
-and blindly between his legs. By a special interposition of
-Providence the young man did not measure his length upon the ground,
-but, his patience now exhausted, he gave each of the swine a couple
-of angry kicks, which drew from them sharp and ferocious grunts, as
-he ejaculated almost audibly: "What a town is this, good Heavens!
-Even the hogs must run against one in the streets. Ah, what a
-miserable place! Hell itself could not be worse!"
-
-By the time he had reached the door of the house, he had, to some
-extent, regained his composure. The house was small and pretty and
-had a cheerful air. There was no railing outside the windows, only
-the stone ledges, which were covered with plants in pots and boxes;
-through the windows shaded by muslin curtains a light could be seen
-burning, and in the silent façade there was something peaceful and
-attractive that invited one to enter. Segundo pushed open the door
-and almost at the same instant there was heard in the dark hall the
-rustling of skirts, a woman's arms were opened and the admirer of
-Becquer, throwing himself into them, allowed himself to be led,
-dragged, carried bodily, almost, up the stairs, and into the little
-parlor where, on a table covered with a white crochet cover, burned a
-carefully trimmed lamp. There, on the sofa, the lover and the lady
-seated themselves.
-
-Truth before all things. The lady was not far from thirty-six or
-thirty-seven, and what is worse, could never have been pretty, or
-even passably good-looking. The smallpox had pitted and hardened her
-coarse skin, giving it the appearance of the leather bottom of a
-sieve. Her small black eyes, hard and bright like two fleas, matched
-well her nose, which was thick and ill-shaped, like the noses of the
-figures of lay monks stamped on chocolate. True, the mouth was
-fresh-colored, the teeth white and sound like those of a dog; but
-everything else pertaining to her--dress, manner, accent, the want of
-grace of the whole--was calculated rather to put tender thoughts to
-flight than to awaken them. With the lamp shining as brightly as it
-does, it is preferable to contemplate the lover. The latter is of
-medium height, has a graceful, well-proportioned figure, and in the
-turn of his head and in his youthful features there is something that
-irresistibly attracts and holds the gaze. His forehead, which is high
-and straight, is shaded and set off by luxuriant hair, worn somewhat
-longer than is allowed by our present severe fashion. His face, thin
-and delicately outlined, casts a shadow on the walls which is made up
-of acute angles. A mustache, curling with the grace which is peculiar
-to a first mustache, and to the wavy locks of a young girl, shades
-but does not cover his upper lip. The beard has not yet attained its
-full growth; the muscles of the throat have not yet become prominent;
-the Adam's apple does not yet force itself on the attention. The
-complexion is dark, pale, and of a slightly bilious hue.
-
-Seeing this handsome youth leaning his head on the shoulder of
-this woman of mature age and undisguised ugliness, it would have been
-natural to take them for mother and son, but anyone coming to this
-conclusion, after a single moment's observation, would have shown
-scant penetration, for in the manifestations of maternal affection,
-however passionate and tender they may be, there is always a
-something of dignity and repose which is wanting in those of every
-other affection.
-
-Doubtless Segundo felt a longing to see the moon again, for he
-rose almost immediately from his seat on the sofa and crossed over to
-the window, his companion following him. He threw open the sash, and
-they sat down side by side in two low chairs whose seats were on a
-level with the flower-pots. A fine carnation regaled the sense with
-its intoxicating perfume; the moon lighted up with her silvery rays
-the foliage of the poplar that cast broad shadow over the little
-square. Segundo opened the conversation this wise:
-
-"Have you made any cigars for me?"
-
-"Here are some," she answered, putting her hand into her pocket
-and drawing from it a bundle of cigars. "I was able to make only a
-dozen and a half for you. I will complete the two dozen to-night
-before I go to bed."
-
-There was a moment's silence, broken by the sharp sound made by
-the striking of the match and then, in a voice muffled by the first
-puff of smoke, Segundo went on:
-
-"Why, has anything new happened?"
-
-"New? No. The children--putting the house in order--and
-then--Minguitos. He made my head ache with his complaining--he
-complained the whole blessed evening. He said his bones ached. And
-you? Very busy, killing yourself reading, studying, writing, eh? Of
-course!"
-
-"No, I have been taking a delightful walk. I went to Peñas-albas
-and returned by way of Santa Margarita. I have seldom spent a
-pleasanter evening."
-
-"I warrant you were making verses."
-
-"No, my dear. The verses I made I made last night after leaving
-you."
-
-"Ah! And you weren't going to repeat them to me. Come, for the
-love of the saints, come, recite them for me, you must know them by
-heart. Come, darling."
-
-To this vehement entreaty succeeded a passionate kiss, pressed on
-the hair and forehead of the poet. The latter raised his eyes, drew
-back a little and, holding his cigar between his fingers after
-knocking off the ashes with his nail, proceeded to recite.
-
-The offspring of his muse was a poem in imitation of Becquer. His
-auditor, who listened to it with religious attention, thought it
-superior to anything inspired by the muse of the great Gustave. And
-she asked for another and then another, and then a bit of Espronceda
-and then a fragment or two of Zorrilla. By this time the cigar had
-gone out; the poet threw away the stump and lighted a fresh one. Then
-they resumed their conversation.
-
-"Shall we have supper soon?"
-
-"Directly. What do you think I have for you?"
-
-"I haven't the least idea."
-
-"Think of what you like best. What you like best, better than
-anything else."
-
-"Bah! You know that so far as I am concerned, provided you don't
-give me anything smoked or greasy----"
-
-"A French omelet! You couldn't guess, eh? Let me tell you--I
-found the receipt in a book. As I had heard that it was something
-good I wanted to try it. I had always made omelets as they make them
-here, so stiff, that you might throw one against the wall without
-breaking it. But this--I think it will be to your taste. As for me, I
-don't like it much, I prefer the old style. I showed Flores how to
-make it. What was in the one you ate at the inn at Orense? Chopped
-parsley, eh?"
-
-"No, ham. But what difference does it make what was in it?"
-
-"I'll run and take it out of the pantry! I thought--the book says
-parsley! Wait, wait."
-
-She overturned her chair in her haste. An instant later the
-jingling of her keys and the opening and closing of a couple of doors
-were heard in the distance. A husky voice muttered some
-unintelligible words in the kitchen. In two minutes she was back
-again.
-
-"Tell me, and those verses, are you not going to publish them? Am
-I not going to see them in print?"
-
-"Yes," responded the poet, slowly turning his head to one side
-and sending a puff of smoke through his lips. "I am going to send
-them to Vigo, to Roberto Blanquez, to insert them in the _Amanecer_."
-
-"I am delighted! You will become famous, sweetheart! How many
-periodicals have spoken of you?"
-
-Segundo laughed ironically and shrugged his shoulders.
-
-"Not many." And with a somewhat preoccupied air he let his gaze
-wander over the plants and far away over the top of the poplar whose
-leaves rustled gently in the breeze. The poet pressed his companion's
-hand mechanically, and the latter returned the pressure with
-passionate ardor.
-
-"Of course. How do you expect them to speak of you when you don't
-put your name to your verses?" she said. "They don't know whose they
-are. They are wondering, likely----"
-
-"What difference does the name make? They could say the same
-things of the pseudonym I have adopted as of Segundo García. The few
-people who will trouble themselves to read my verses will call me the
-Swan of Vilamorta."
-
-
-
-
-                                  II.
-
-
-Segundo García, the lawyer's son, and Leocadia Otero, the
-schoolmistress of Vilamorta, had met each other for the first time in
-the spring at a pilgrimage. Leocadia had gone with some girls to whom
-she had taught their letters and plain sewing. Before the chorus of
-nymphs Segundo had recited verses for more than two hours in an oak
-grove far from the noise of the drum and the bagpipes, where the
-strains of the music and the voices of the crowd came softened by
-distance. The audience was as silent as if they were hearing mass,
-although certain passages of a tender or passionate nature were the
-occasion, among the children, of nudges, pinches, laughter
-instantaneously suppressed; but from the black eyes of the
-schoolmistress, down her cheeks, pitted by the smallpox and pale with
-emotion, flowed two large, warm tears, followed so quickly and in
-such abundance by others that she was obliged to take out her
-handkerchief to wipe them away. And returning by starlight,
-descending the mountain on whose summit stood the sanctuary, by
-sylvan footpaths carpeted with grass and bordered with heather and
-briars, the order of march was as follows: first the children,
-running, jumping, pushing one another among the heather and greeting
-every fall with shouts of laughter; Leocadia and Segundo behind,
-arm-in-arm, pausing from time to time to talk in subdued tones,
-almost in whispers.
-
-A sad and ugly story was told about Leocadia Otero. Although,
-without actually saying so, she had given it to be understood that
-she was a widow, it was whispered that she had never been married;
-that the puny Dominguito, the little cripple who was always sick, was
-born while she lived in the house of her uncle and guardian at
-Orense, after the death of her parents. What was certain was that her
-uncle had died shortly after the birth of the child, bequeathing to
-his niece a couple of fields and a house in Vilamorta, and Leocadia,
-after passing the necessary examinations, had obtained the village
-school and gone to settle in that town. She had lived in it now for
-more than thirteen years, observing the most exemplary conduct,
-watching day and night over Minguitos, and living with the utmost
-frugality in order to rebuild the dilapidated house, which she had
-finally succeeded in doing shortly before her meeting with Segundo.
-Leocadia was a woman of notably industrious habits; in her wardrobe
-she had always a good supply of linen, in her parlor bamboo furniture
-with a rug before the sofa, grapes, rice, and ham in her pantry, and
-carnations and sweet basil in her windows. Minguitos was always as
-neat as a new pin; she herself, when she raised the skirt of her
-habit of Dolores, of good merino, displayed underneath voluminous
-embroidered petticoats, stiff with starch. For all which reasons,
-notwithstanding her ugliness and her former history, the
-schoolmistress was not without suitors--a wealthy retired muleteer,
-and Cansin, the clothier. She rejected the suitors and continued
-living alone with Minguitos and Flores, her old servant, who now
-enjoyed in the house all the privileges of a grandmother.
-
-The iniquitous wrong suffered by her in early youth had produced
-in Leocadia, absorbed as she was in her bitter recollections, a
-profound horror of marriage and an insatiable thirst for the
-romantic, the ideal, which is as a refreshing dew to the imagination
-and which satisfies the emotions. She had the superficial knowledge
-of a village schoolmistress--rudimentary, but sufficient to introduce
-exotic tastes into Vilamorta; that is to say, a taste for literature
-in its most accessible forms--novels and poetry. She devoted to
-reading the leisure hours of her monotonous and upright life. She
-read with faith, with enthusiasm, uncritically; she read believing
-and accepting everything, identifying herself with each one of the
-heroines, in turn, her heart echoing back the poet's sighs, the
-troubadour's songs, and the laments of the bard. Reading was her one
-vice, her secret happiness. When she requested her friends at Orense
-to renew her subscription to the library for her they laughed at her
-and nicknamed her the "Authoress." She an authoress! She only wished
-she were. If she could only give form to what she felt, to the world
-of fancy she carried in her mind! But this was impossible. Never
-would her brain succeed in producing, however hard she might squeeze
-it, even so much as a poor _seguidilla_. Poetry and sensibility were
-stored up in the folds and convolutions of her brain, as solar heat
-is stored up in the coal. What came to the surface was pure
-prose--housekeeping, economy, stews.
-
-When she met Segundo, chance applied the lighted torch to the
-formidable train of feelings and dreams shut up in the soul of the
-schoolmistress. She had at last found a worthy employment for her
-amorous faculties, an outlet for her affections. Segundo was poetry
-incarnate. He represented for her all the graces, all the divine
-attributes of poetry--the flowers, the breeze, the nightingale, the
-dying light of day, the moon, the dark wood.
-
-The fire burned with astounding rapidity. In its flames were
-consumed, first her honorable resolution to efface by the
-blamelessness of her conduct the stigma of the past, then her strong
-and deep maternal affection. Not for an instant did the thought
-present itself to Leocadia's mind that Segundo could ever be her
-husband; although both were free the difference in their ages and the
-intellectual superiority of the young poet placed an insurmountable
-barrier in the way of the aspirations of the schoolmistress. She fell
-in love as into an abyss, and looked neither before nor behind.
-
-Segundo had had in Santiago, during his college days, youthful
-intrigues, adventures of a not very serious nature, such as few men
-escape between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, occasionally
-taking part, also, in what in that romantic epoch were called
-_orgies_. Notwithstanding all this, however, he was not vicious. The
-son of a hysterical mother, whose strength was exhausted by repeated
-lactations, and who at last succumbed to the debility induced by
-them, Segundo's spirit was much more exacting and insatiable than his
-body. He had inherited from his mother a melancholy temperament and
-innumerable prejudices, innumerable instinctive antipathies,
-innumerable superstitious practices. He had loved her, and he
-cherished her memory with veneration. And more tenacious even than
-his loving remembrance of his mother was the invincible antipathy he
-cherished for his father. It would not be true to say that the lawyer
-had been the murderer of his wife, and yet Segundo clearly divined
-the slow martyrdom endured by that fine nervous organization, and had
-always before his eyes, in his hours of gloom, the mean coffin in
-which the dead woman was interred, shrouded in the oldest sheet that
-was to be found.
-
-Segundo's family consisted of his father, an aunt, advanced in
-years, two brothers, and three sisters. The lawyer García enjoyed the
-reputation of being wealthy--in reality this fortune was
-insignificant--a village fortune accumulated penny by penny, by
-usurious loans and innumerable sordid privations. His practice
-brought him in something, but ten mouths to feed and the professional
-education of three sons swallowed up not a little. The eldest of the
-boys, an officer in an infantry regiment, was stationed in the
-Philippine Islands, and, far from expecting any money from him, they
-were thankful if he did not ask for any. Segundo, the second in age
-as well as in name, had just been graduated--one lawyer more in
-Spain, where this fruit grows so abundantly. The youngest was
-studying at the Institute at Orense, with the intention of becoming
-an apothecary. The girls spent the days running about in the gardens
-and cornfields, half the time barefooted, not even attending
-Leocadia's school to save the slight expense that would be incurred
-in procuring the decent clothing which this would necessitate. As for
-the aunt--Misía Gáspara--she was the soul of the house, a narrow and
-sapless soul, a withered old woman, silent and ghost-like in
-appearance, still active, in spite of her sixty years, who, without
-ceasing to knit her stockings with fingers as yellow as the keys of
-an old harpsichord, sold barley in the granary, wine in the cellar,
-lent a dollar at fifty per cent. interest to the fruit-women and
-hucksters of the market, receiving their wares in payment, measured
-out the food, the light, and their clothing to her nieces, fattened a
-pig with affectionate solicitude, and was respected in Vilamorta for
-her ant-like abilities.
-
-It was the lawyer's aspiration to transmit his practice and his
-office to Segundo. Only the boy gave no indication of an aptitude for
-stirring up law-suits and prosecutions. How had he achieved the
-miracle of passing with honor in the examinations without ever having
-opened a law-book during the whole term, and failing in attendance at
-the college whenever it rained or whenever the sun shone? Well, by
-means of an excellent memory and a good natural intelligence;
-learning by heart, when it was necessary, whole pages from the
-text-books, and remembering and reciting them with the same ease, if
-not with as much taste, as he recited the "Doloras" of Campoamor.
-
-On Segundo's table lay, side by side, the works of Zorrilla and
-Espronceda, bad translations of Heine, books of verse of local poets,
-the "Lamas-Varela," or, _Antidote to Idleness_, and other volumes of
-a no less heterogeneous kind. Segundo was not an insatiable reader;
-he chose his reading according to the whim of the moment, and he read
-only what was in conformity with his tastes, thus acquiring a
-superficial culture of an imperfect and varied nature. Quick of
-apprehension, rather than thoughtful or studious, he had learned
-French without a teacher and almost by intuition, in order to read in
-the original the works of Musset, Lamartine, Proudhon, and Victor
-Hugo. His mind was like an uncultivated field in which grew here and
-there some rare and beautiful flower, some exotic plant; of the
-abstruse and positive sciences, of solid and serious learning, which
-is the nurse of mental vigor--the classics, the best literature, the
-severe teachings of history--he knew nothing; and in exchange, by a
-singular phenomenon of intellectual relationship, he identified
-himself with the romantic movement of the second third of the
-century, and in a remote corner of Galicia lived again the
-psychological life of dead and gone generations. So does some
-venerable academician, over-leaping the nineteen centuries of our
-era, delight himself now with what delighted Horace and live
-platonically enamored of Lydia.
-
-Segundo composed his first verses, cynical and pessimistic in
-intention, ingenuous in reality, before he had reached the age of
-seventeen. His classmates applauded him to the echo. He acquired in
-their eyes a certain prestige, and when the first fruits of his muse
-appeared in a periodical he had, without going beyond the narrow
-circle of the college, admirers and detractors. Thenceforth he
-acquired the right to indulge in solitary walks, to laugh rarely, to
-surround his adventures with mystery, and not to play or take a drink
-for good-fellowship's sake except when he felt in the humor.
-
-And he seldom felt in the humor. Excitation of the senses, of a
-purely physical nature, possessed no attraction for him; if he drank
-at times through bravado, the spectacle of drunkenness, the
-winding-up of student orgies--the soiled tablecloth, the maudlin
-disputes, his companions lying under the table or stretched on the
-sofa, the shamelessness and heartlessness of venal women--repelled
-him and he came away from such scenes filled with disgust and
-contempt, and at times a reaction proper to his complex character
-sent him, a sincere admirer of Proudhon, Quinet, and Renan, to the
-precincts of some solitary church, where he drew in with delight long
-breaths of the incense-laden air.
-
-The lawyer García made no protest against his son's literary
-inclinations because he regarded them as a passing amusement proper
-to his age, a youthful folly, like dancing at a village feast. He
-began to grow uneasy when he saw that Segundo, after graduation,
-showed no inclination to help him in the conduct of his tortuous
-law-suits. Was the boy, then, going to turn out good for nothing but
-to string rhymes together? It was no crime to do this, but--when
-there was not a pile of law-papers to go through and stratagems to
-think of to circumvent the opposing party. Since the lawyer had
-observed this inclination of his son he had treated him with more
-persistent harshness and coldness than before. Every day at table or
-whenever the occasion offered, he made cutting speeches to him about
-the necessity of earning one's own bread by assiduous labor, instead
-of depending upon others for it. These continual sermons, in which he
-displayed the same captious and harassing obstinacy as in the conduct
-of his law-suits, frightened Segundo from the house. In Leocadia's
-house he found a place of refuge, and he submitted passively to be
-adored; flattered in the first place by the triumph his verses had
-obtained, awakening admiration so evidently sincere and ardent, and
-in the second place attracted by the moral well-being engendered by
-unquestioning approval and unmeasured complacency. His idle, dreamy
-brain reposed on the soft cushions which affection smoothes for the
-beloved head; Leocadia sympathized with all his plans for the future,
-developing and enlarging them; she encouraged him to write and to
-publish his verses; she praised him without reserve and without
-hypocrisy, for, for her, whose critical faculty was situated in her
-cardiac cavities, Segundo was the most melodious singer in the
-universe.
-
-Gradually the loving prevision of the schoolmistress extended to
-other departments of Segundo's existence. Neither the lawyer García
-nor Aunt Gáspara supposed that a young man, once his education was
-finished, needed a penny for any extraordinary expense. Aunt Gáspara,
-in particular, protested loudly at every fresh outlay--after filling
-her nephew's trunk one year she thought he was provided with shirts
-for at least ten years to come: clothes had no right to tear or to
-wear out, without any consideration, in that way. Leocadia took note
-of the wants of her idol; one day she observed that he was not well
-supplied with handkerchiefs and she hemmed and marked a dozen for
-him; the next day she noticed that he was expected to keep himself in
-cigars for a year on half a dollar, and she took upon herself the
-task of making them for him, furnishing the material herself gratis.
-She heard the fruit-women criticising Aunt Gáspara's stinginess; she
-inferred from this that Segundo had a poor table, and she set herself
-to the task of devising appetizing and nutritious dishes for him; in
-addition to all which she ordered books from Orense, mended his
-clothes, and sewed on his buttons.
-
-All this she did with inexpressible delight, going about the
-house with a light, almost youthful step, rejuvenated by the sweet
-maternity of love, and so happy that she forgot to scold the
-school-children, thinking only of shortening their tasks that she
-might be all the sooner with Segundo. There was in her affection much
-that was generous and spiritual, and her happiest moments were those
-in which, as they sat side by side at the window, his head resting on
-her shoulder, she listened, while her imagination transformed the
-pots of carnations and sweet basil into a virgin forest, to the
-verses which he recited in a well-modulated voice, verses that seemed
-to Leocadia celestial music.
-
-The medal had its obverse side, however. The mornings were full
-of bitterness when Flores would come with an angry and frowning face,
-her woolen shawl twisted and wrinkled and falling over her eyes, to
-say in short, abrupt phrases:
-
-"The eggs are all used; shall I get more? There is no sugar;
-which kind shall I buy--that dear loaf sugar that we bought last
-week? To-day I got coffee, two pounds of coffee, as if we had a gold
-mine. I won't buy any more cordial--you can go for it yourself--I
-won't."
-
-"What are you talking about, Flores? What is the matter with
-you?"
-
-"I say that if you like to give Ramon, the confectioner,
-twenty-four reals a bottle for _anisette_, when it is to be had for
-eight at the apothecary's, you can do so, but that I am not going to
-put the money in that thief's hand; he will be asking you five
-dollars a bottle for it next."
-
-Leocadia would come out of her reverie with a sigh, and go to the
-bureau drawer for the money, not without thinking that Flores was
-only too right; her savings, her couple of thousand reals laid by for
-an emergency, must be almost gone; it was better not to examine into
-the condition of the purse; better put off annoyances as long as
-possible. God would provide. And she would scold the old woman with
-feigned anger.
-
-"Go for the bottle; go--and don't make me angry. At eight the
-children will be here and I have my petticoat to iron yet. Make
-Minguitos his chocolate; you would be better employed in seeing that
-he has something to eat. And give him some cake."
-
-"Yes. I'll give him some, I'll give him some. If I didn't give
-the poor child something----" grumbled the servant, who at Minguitos'
-name felt her anger increase. In the kitchen could be heard the
-furious knock given to the chocolate-pot to settle it on the fire and
-the angry sound of the mill, afterward, beating the chocolate into
-froth. Flores would enter the room of the deformed boy, who had not
-yet left his bed, and taking his hand in hers, say:
-
-"Are you warm, child? I have brought you your chocolate; do you
-hear?"
-
-"Will mamma give it to me?"
-
-"I will give it to you."
-
-"And mamma--what is she doing?"
-
-"Ironing some petticoats."
-
-The little humpback would fix his eyes on Flores, raising his
-head with difficulty from between the double arch of the breast and
-back. His eyes were deep set, with large pupils; on his mouth, with
-its prominent jaws, rested a melancholy and distorted smile. Throwing
-his arms around the neck of Flores, and putting his lips close to her
-ear:
-
-"Did the _other one_ come yesterday?" he asked.
-
-"Yes, child, yes."
-
-"Will he come again to-day?"
-
-"He'll come. Of course he'll come! Stop talking, _fillino_, stop
-talking and take your chocolate. It's as you like it--thin and with
-froth."
-
-"I don't think I have any appetite for it. Put it there beside
-me."
-
-
-
-
-                                  III.
-
-
-In Vilamorta there was a Casino, a real Casino, small indeed, and
-shabby, besides, but with its billiard-table, bought at second-hand,
-and its _boy_, an old man of seventy, who once a year dusted and
-brushed the green cover. For the only reunions in the Casino of
-Vilamorta were those of the rats and the moths who assembled daily,
-to amuse themselves by eating away the woodwork. The chief centers of
-reunion were the two apothecaries' shops, that of Doña Eufrasia,
-fronting the Plaza and that of Agonde in the high street. Doña
-Eufrasia's shop, nestling in the shadowy corner of an archway, was
-dark; in the hours of meeting it was lighted by a smoky kerosene
-lamp; its furniture consisted of four grimy chairs and a bench.
-
-From the street all that was to be seen were dark mass-cloaks,
-overcoats, broad-brimmed hats, two or three clerical tonsures that
-shone at a distance like metal clasps against the dark background of
-the shop. Agonde's shop, on the contrary, was brightly illuminated
-and gloried in the possession of six glass globes of brilliant
-coloring and fantastic effect, three rows of shelves laden with
-imposing and scientific-looking white porcelain jars bearing Latin
-inscriptions in black letters, a divan, and two leather-covered
-armchairs. The two contrasting shops were also antagonistic; they had
-declared war to the knife against each other.
-
-Agonde's shop, liberal and enlightened in its opinions, said of
-the reactionary shop that it was a center of unending conspiracies,
-where _El Cuartel Real_ and all the rebel proclamations had been read
-during the civil war, and where for the past five years
-ammunition-belts were being diligently prepared for a Carlist party
-that never took the field; and according to the reactionary shop,
-that of Agonde was the headquarters of the Freemasons; where lampoons
-were printed on a little handpress and where gambling was shamelessly
-carried on. The meetings in the reactionary shop broke up with
-religious punctuality at ten, in winter, and eleven in summer, while
-the liberal shop continued to cast on the sidewalk until midnight the
-light of its two bright lamps and the blue, red, and emerald-green
-reflections of its glass globes; for which reasons the members of the
-liberal reunion called those of the other party _owls_, while those
-of the reactionary clique gave their opponents the name of _members
-of the Casino of the Gaming Table_.
-
-Segundo never put his foot over the threshold of the reactionary
-shop and, since the beginning of his acquaintance with Leocadia
-Otero, he had shunned that of Agonde also, for his vanity was wounded
-by the jests and gibes of the apothecary, who was noted for his
-waggish humor. One evening as Saturnino Agonde was crossing the Plaza
-of the Alamo at an unusually late hour--on his way the devil only
-knew whither--he had caught sight of Leocadia and Segundo seated at
-the window, and had heard the psalmody of the verses which the poet
-was declaiming. From that time Segundo had seen depicted on the
-countenance of Agonde, a practical man of a sanguine temperament,
-such contempt for sentimental trifling and for poetry that he
-instinctively avoided him as far as it was possible to do so.
-Occasionally, however, whenever he desired to read _El Imparcial_, to
-know what was going on, he would stop in at the shop for a few
-moments. He did so on the day after his conversation with the echo.
-
-The meeting was very animated. Segundo's father was leaning back
-on the sofa with a newspaper resting on his knees; his
-brother-in-law, the notary Genday, Ramon, the confectioner, and
-Agonde were hotly disputing with him. At the further end of the shop
-Carmelo, the tobacconist, Don Fermin, alias _Tropiezo_,[1] the
-physician, the secretary of the Municipality and the Alcalde sat
-playing _tresillo_ at a small table. When Segundo entered, he
-remarked something unusual in the air of his father and of the group
-that surrounded him, but certain that he would presently be told the
-cause, he silently dropped into an armchair, lighted a cigar, and
-took up the copy of _El Imparcial_ that was lying on the counter.
-
-    [1] Trip.
-
-"Well, the papers here say nothing, absolutely nothing, about
-it," exclaimed the confectioner.
-
-From the tresillo table came the voice of the doctor confirming
-Ramon's doubts; the doctor, too, was of the opinion that the event in
-question could not happen without due notice of it being given in the
-papers.
-
-"You would die rather than believe anything," replied Agonde. "I
-am certain of it, I tell you, and it seems to me that when I am
-certain of it----"
-
-"And I too," affirmed Genday. "If it is necessary to call
-witnesses to prove it, they are there. I know it from my own brother,
-who heard it from Mendez de las Vides; you can judge whether I have
-the news on good authority or not. Do you want further proof? Well,
-two armchairs, a handsome gilt bedstead, a great deal of china and a
-piano have been ordered from Orense for Las Vides. Are you
-convinced?"
-
-"In any case they will not come as soon as you say," objected
-Tropiezo.
-
-"They will come at the time I have said. Don Victoriano wants to
-spend the holidays and the vintage season here; they say he longs to
-see his native place again, and that he has spoken of nothing all the
-winter but the journey."
-
-"He is coming to die here," said Tropiezo; "I heard that he was
-in a very bad state of health. You are going to be left without a
-leader."
-
-"Go to----What a devil of a man, what an owl, always predicting
-misfortunes! Either hold your tongue, or talk sense. Attend to the
-game, as you ought to."
-
-Segundo was gazing abstractedly at the glass globes of the shop,
-his attention seemingly occupied with the blue, green, and red points
-of light that sparkled in their center. He understood now the subject
-of their conversation--the expected arrival of Don Victoriano Andres
-de la Comba, the minister, the great political leader of the country,
-the radical representative of the district. What mattered to Segundo
-the arrival of this pretentious coxcomb! And giving himself up to the
-enjoyment of his cigar, he allowed the noisy dispute to go on
-unheeded. Afterward he became absorbed in the reading of an article
-in _El Imparcial_, in which a new poet was warmly eulogized.
-
-Meanwhile at the tresillo table matters were becoming
-complicated. The apothecary, who sat behind the Alcalde, was giving
-him advice--a delicate and difficult task.
-
-The tobacconist and Don Fermin held all the good cards; they had
-the man between them--a ticklish position. The Alcalde was a thin
-shriveled-up old man, of a very timid disposition, who, before he
-ventured to play a card, would think a hundred years about it,
-calculating all the contingencies and all the possible combinations
-of which cards are capable. He did not want now to play that _solo_.
-It would be a great mistake! But the impetuous Agonde encouraged him,
-saying: "Come! I buy it." Thus urged, the Alcalde came to a decision,
-but not without having first entered a protest:
-
-"Very well, I'll play it, but it is a piece of folly,
-gentlemen--so that you may not say I am afraid."
-
-And all that he had foreseen happened; he found himself between
-two fires: on the one side his king of hearts is trumped, on the
-other his opponent takes his knave of trumps with his queen. Don
-Fermin wins the trick without knowing how, while the tobacconist, who
-is smiling maliciously, keeps all his good cards. The Alcalde lifts
-his eyes appealingly to Agonde.
-
-"Didn't I tell you so? A nice fix we have got ourselves into! We
-shall lose the hand; it is lost already."
-
-"No, man, no. What a coward you are--always afraid of everything.
-There you are hesitating as long about throwing a card as if your
-life depended on it. Play a trump! play a trump! That is the way
-cowards always lose--they are afraid to play their trumps."
-
-The opponents winked at each other maliciously.
-
-"_De posita non tibi_," exclaimed the tobacconist.
-
-"_Si codillum non resultabit_," assented Don Fermin.
-
-The Alcalde, quaking with fear, proceeded, by Agonde's advice, to
-look through the tricks his partners had taken, in order to see how
-many trumps had been already played. Tropiezo and the tobacconist
-protested:
-
-What a mania he had for examining the cards!
-
-The Alcalde, somewhat tranquillized, resolved at last to put an
-end to his uncertainty, and with a few bold and decisive plays the
-hand ended, each player winning three tricks.
-
-"A tie!" exclaimed the tobacconist and the apothecary almost
-simultaneously.
-
-"You see! Playing as badly as you could you haven't lost the
-hand," said Agonde. "They needed all their cards to win what they
-did."
-
-They were all absorbed in the game--whose interest was now at its
-height--with the exception of Segundo, who had abandoned himself to
-one of those idle reveries in which the activity of the imagination
-is stimulated by bodily ease. The voices of the players reached his
-ears like a distant murmur; he was a hundred leagues away; he was
-thinking of the article he had just been reading, of which certain
-expressions particularly encomiastic--mellifluous phrases in which
-the critic artfully glossed over the faults of the poet--had remained
-stamped on his memory. When would his turn come to be judged by the
-Madrid press? God alone knew. He lent his attention once more to the
-conversation.
-
-"We must at least give him a serenade," declared Genday.
-
-"A serenade, indeed!" responded Agonde. "A great thing that!
-Something more than a serenade--we must have some sort of a
-procession--a demonstration which will show that the people here are
-with him. We must appoint a committee to receive him with rockets and
-bands of music. Let those plotters at Doña Eufrasia's have something
-to rage about."
-
-The name of the other shop produced a storm of exclamations,
-jests, and stamping of feet.
-
-"Have you heard the news?" asked the waggish Tropiezo. "It seems
-that Nocedal has written a very flattering letter to Doña Eufrasia,
-saying that as he represents Don Carlos in Madrid so she, by reason
-of her merits, ought to represent him in Vilamorta."
-
-Homeric bursts of laughter and a general huzza greeted this
-remark.
-
-"Well, that may be an invention; but it is true, true as gospel,
-that Doña Eufrasia sent Don Carlos her likeness with a complimentary
-inscription."
-
-"And the regiment? Have they fixed on the day on which it is to
-take the field?"
-
-"Of course. They say that the Abbot of Lubrego is to command it."
-
-The hilarity of the assembly was redoubled, for the Abbot of
-Lubrego was nearing his seventieth year, and was so feeble that he
-could scarcely hold himself on his mule. A boy at this moment entered
-the shop, swinging in his hand a glass bottle.
-
-"Don Saturnino!" he cried, in a shrill voice.
-
-"What is it you want?" answered the druggist, mimicking his
-tones.
-
-"Give me some of what this smells like."
-
-"All right," said Agonde, putting the bottle to his nose. "What
-does this smell like, Don Fermin?"
-
-"Let me see--it smells something like--laudanum, eh?--or arnica?"
-
-"Arnica let it be, it is less dangerous. I hope it will have a
-good effect."
-
-"It is time to retire, gentlemen," said the Lawyer García,
-consulting his silver timepiece.
-
-Genday stood up and Segundo followed his example.
-
-The tresillo party proceeded to settle accounts; calculating
-winnings and losses, centavo by centavo, by means of white counters
-and yellow counters. After the close atmosphere of the shop the cool
-air of the street was grateful; the night was mild and clear; the
-stars shone with a friendly light and Segundo, who was quick to
-perceive the poetic aspect of things, felt tempted to leave his
-father and his uncle without ceremony and walk along the road, alone,
-according to his custom, to enjoy the beauty of the night. But his
-Uncle Genday linked his arm through his, saying:
-
-"You are to be congratulated, my boy."
-
-"Congratulated, uncle?"
-
-"Weren't you crazy to get away from here? Didn't you want to take
-your flight to some other place? Haven't you a hatred for office
-work?"
-
-"Good man," interposed the lawyer; "he is crazy enough as it is,
-and you want to unsettle his mind still more----"
-
-"Hold your tongue, you fool! Don Victoriano is coming here, we
-will present the boy to him and ask him to give him a place. And he
-will give him one, and a good one too; for whether he thinks so or
-not, if he does not do what we ask him, the pancake will cost him a
-loaf. The district is not what he imagines it to be, and if his
-adherents do not keep their eyes open the clergy will play a trick
-upon them."
-
-"And Primo? And Mendez de las Vides?"
-
-"They are no match for the priest. The day least expected they
-will be made a show of; they will hang their heads for shame. But
-you, my boy--think well about it. You are not in love with the law?"
-
-Segundo shrugged his shoulders with a smile.
-
-"Well, turn the matter over in your mind; think what would suit
-you best. For you must be something; you must stick your head in
-somewhere. Would you like a justiceship? a place in the post-office?
-in one of the departments?"
-
-They had turned the corner of the Plaza on their way to García's
-house and were passing under Leocadia's window when the fragrance of
-the carnations penetrated to Segundo's brain. He felt a poetic
-revulsion of feeling and, dilating his nostrils to inhale the
-perfume, he exclaimed:
-
-"Neither justice nor post-office employee. Say no more on that
-point, uncle."
-
-"Don't insist, Clodio," said the lawyer bitterly. "He wants to be
-nothing, nothing but a downright idler, to spend his life scribbling
-rhymes. Neither more nor less. The money must be handed out for the
-Institute, the University, the shirt-front, the frock coat, the
-polished boots, and then, when one thinks they are ready to do for
-themselves, back they come, to be a burden to one, to smoke and to
-eat at one's expense. I have three sons to spend my money, to squeeze
-me dry, and not one to give me any help. That is all these young
-gentlemen are good for."
-
-Segundo stopped, twisting the end of his mustache, with a frown
-on his face. They all stood still at the corner of the little plaza,
-as people are wont to do when a conversation changes to a dispute.
-
-"I don't know what puts that into your head, father," declared
-the poet. "Do you suppose that I propose to myself never to be
-anything more than Segundo García, the lawyer's son? If you do, you
-are greatly mistaken. You may be very anxious to be rid of the burden
-of supporting me, but you are not half as anxious as I am to relieve
-you of it."
-
-"Well, then, what are you waiting for? Your uncle is proposing a
-variety of things to you and none of them suits you. Do you want to
-begin by being Minister?"
-
-The poet began to twist his mustache anew.
-
-"There is no use in being impatient, father. I would make a very
-bad post-office clerk and a still worse justice. I don't want to tie
-myself down to any fixed career, in which everything is arranged
-beforehand and moves by routine. In that case I should be a lawyer
-like you or a notary like Uncle Genday. If we really find Don
-Victoriano disposed to do anything for me, ask some position--no
-matter what--without fixed duties, that will enable me to reside in
-Madrid. I will take care of the rest."
-
-"You will take care of the rest. Yes, yes, you say well. You will
-draw upon me for little sums, eh? like your brother in the Philippine
-Islands. Let me tell you for your guidance, then, that you needn't do
-so. I didn't steal what I have, and I don't coin money."
-
-"I am not asking anything from you!" cried Segundo, in a burst of
-savage anger. "Am I in your way? I will get out of it, then; I will
-go to America. That ends it."
-
-"No," said the lawyer, calming down. "Provided you exact no more
-sacrifices from me."
-
-"Not one! not if I were starving!"
-
-The lawyer's door opened; old Aunt Gáspara in her petticoat,
-looking like a fright, had come to let them in. Tied around her head
-was a cotton handkerchief which came so far over her face as almost
-to conceal her sour features. Segundo drew back at this picture of
-domestic life.
-
-"Aren't you coming in?" asked his father.
-
-"I am going with Uncle Genday."
-
-"Are you coming back soon?"
-
-"Directly."
-
-Walking down the square he communicated his plans to Genday. The
-latter, a short man, with a fiery temper, signified his approbation
-by movements quick and restless as those of a lizard. His nephew's
-ideas were not displeasing to him. His active, scheming mind, the
-mind of an electoral agent and a clever notary, accepted vast
-projects more readily than the methodical mind of the lawyer García.
-Uncle and nephew were much of the same way of thinking as to the best
-manner of profiting by Don Victoriano's influence; conversing in this
-way they reached Genday's house, and the servant of the latter--a
-fresh-looking girl--opened the door for her master with all the
-flattering obsequiousness of a confirmed old bachelor's maid-servant.
-Instead of returning home Segundo, preoccupied and excited, walked
-down the plaza to the highroad, stopped at the first clump of
-chestnut trees he came to, and seating himself on the step of a
-wooden cross which the Jesuits had erected there during the last
-mission, gave himself up to the harmless diversion of contemplating
-the evening star, the constellations, and all the splendors of the
-heavenly bodies.
-
-
-
-
-                                  IV.
-
-
-During the tiresome _siestas_ of Vilamorta, while the visitors to
-the springs digested their glasses of mineral water and compensated
-themselves for the loss of their morning sleep by a restorative nap,
-the amateur musicians of the popular band practiced by themselves the
-pieces they were shortly to execute together. From the shoemaker's
-shop came the melancholy notes of a flute; in the baker's resounded
-the lively and martial strains of the horn; in the tobacconist's
-moaned a clarionet; in the cloth-shop, the suppressed sighs of an
-ophicleide filled the air. Those who thus devoted themselves to the
-worship of Euterpe were clerks in shops, younger sons, the youthful
-element of Vilamorta. These snatches of melody rose with piercing
-sonorousness on the drowsy warm atmosphere. When the news spread that
-Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba and his family were expected to
-arrive within twenty-four hours in the town, to leave it again
-immediately for Las Vides, the brass band was tuned to the highest
-pitch and ready to deafen, with any number of waltzes, dances, and
-quicksteps, the ears of the illustrious statesman.
-
-In the town an unusual animation was noticeable. Agonde's house
-was opened, ventilated, and swept, clouds of dust issuing through the
-windows, at one of which, later on, appeared Agonde's sister, with a
-fringe of hair over her forehead and wearing a pearl-shell necklace.
-The housekeeper of the parish priest of Cebre, a famous cook, went
-busily about the kitchen, and the pounding of the mortar and the
-sizzling of oil could be heard. Two hours before the time of the
-arrival of the stage-coach from Orense, that is to say at three
-o'clock in the afternoon, the committee of the notabilities of the
-Combista-radical party were already crossing the plaza, and Agonde
-stood waiting on the threshold of his shop, having sacrificed to the
-solemnity of the occasion his classic cap and velvet slippers, and
-wearing patent-leather boots and a frock coat which made him look
-more bull-necked and pot-bellied than ever. The coach from Orense was
-entering the town from the side next the wood, and, at the tinkling
-of the bells, the clatter of the hoofs of its eight mules and ponies,
-the creaking of its unwieldy bulk, the inhabitants of Vilamorta
-looked out of their windows and came to their doors; the reactionary
-shop only remained closed and hostile. When the cumbrous vehicle
-turned into the square the excitement increased; barefooted children
-climbed on the coach steps, begging an _ochavo_ in whining accents;
-the fruit-women sitting in the arches straightened themselves up to
-obtain a better view, and only Cansin, the clothier, his hands in his
-trousers' pockets, his feet thrust into slippers, continued walking
-up and down his shop with an Olympic air of indifference. The
-overseer reined in the team, saying in soothing accents to a
-rebellious mule:
-
-"E-e-e-e-e-e-h! There, there, Canóniga."
-
-The brass band, drawn up before the town-hall, burst into a
-deafening prelude, and the first rocket whizzed into the air sending
-forth a shower of sparks. The crowd rushed _en masse_ toward the door
-of the coach, to offer their hands, their arms, anything, and a stout
-lady and a priest, with a cotton checked handkerchief tied around his
-temples, alighted from it. Agonde, more amused than angry, made signs
-to the musicians and the rocket-throwers to desist from their task.
-
-"He is not coming yet! he is not coming yet!" he shouted. In
-effect, there were no other passengers in the omnibus. The overseer
-hastened to explain:
-
-"They are just behind, not two steps off, as one might say. In
-Count de Vilar's carriage, in the barouche. On the Señora's account.
-The luggage is here. And they paid for the seats as if they had
-occupied them."
-
-It was not long before the measured trot of Count de Vilar's pair
-of horses was heard and the open carriage, of an old-fashioned style,
-rolled majestically into the plaza. Reclining on the back seat was a
-man enveloped, notwithstanding the heat, in a cloth cloak; at his
-side sat a lady in a gray linen duster, the fanciful brim of her
-traveling-hat standing out sharply against the pure blue of the sky.
-In the front seat sat a little girl of some ten years and a
-_mademoiselle_, a sort of transpyrenean nursery governess. Segundo,
-who had kept in the background at the arrival of the diligence, this
-time was less stubborn and the hand which, covered with a long Suède
-glove, was stretched out in quest of a support, met with the
-energetic and nervous pressure of another hand. The Minister's lady
-looked with surprise at the gallant, gave him a reserved salutation
-and, taking the arm Agonde offered her, walked quickly into the
-apothecary's.
-
-The statesman was slower in alighting. His adherents looked at
-him with surprise. He had changed greatly since his last visit to
-Vilamorta--then in the midst of the revolution--some eight or ten
-years before. His iron-gray hair, whiter on the temples, heightened
-the yellow hue of his complexion; the whites of his eyes, too, were
-yellow and streaked with little red veins; and his furrowed and
-withered countenance bore unmistakable traces of the anxieties of the
-struggle for social position, the vicissitudes of the political
-bench, and the sedentary labors of the forum. His frame hung loosely
-together, being wanting in the erectness which is the sign of
-physical vigor. When the handshakings began, however, and the
-"Delighted to see you----" "At last----" "After an age----" resounded
-around him, the dying gladiator revived, straightened himself up, and
-an amiable smile parted his thin lips, lending a pleasing expression
-to the now stern mouth. He even opened his arms to Genday, who
-squirmed in them like an eel, and he clapped the Alcalde on the back.
-García, the lawyer, tried to attract attention to himself, to
-distinguish himself among the others, saying in the serious tone of
-one who expresses an opinion in a very delicate matter:
-
-"There, upstairs, upstairs now, to rest and to take some
-refreshment."
-
-At last the commotion calmed down, the great man entering the
-apothecary's, followed by García, Genday, the Alcalde, and Segundo.
-
-They seated themselves in Agonde's little parlor, respectfully
-leaving to Don Victoriano the red rep sofa, around which they drew
-their chairs in a semi-circle. Shortly afterward the ladies made
-their appearance, and, now without her hat, it could be seen that
-Señora de Comba was young and beautiful, seeming rather the elder
-sister than the mother of the little girl. The latter, with her
-luxuriant hair falling down her back and her precocious womanly
-seriousness, had the aspect of a sickly plant, while her mother, a
-smiling blonde, seemed overflowing with health. They spoke of the
-journey, of the fertile borders of the Avieiro, of the weather, of
-the road; the conversation was beginning to languish, when Agonde's
-sister entered opportunely, preceded by the housekeeper of the
-priest, carrying two enormous trays filled with smoking cups of
-chocolate, for supper was a meal unknown to the hosts. When the trays
-were set on the table and the chocolate handed around, the company
-grew more animated. The Vilamortans, finding a congenial subject on
-which to exercise their oratorical powers, began to press the
-strangers, to eulogize the excellence of the viands, and calling
-Señora de la Comba by her baptismal name, and adding an affectionate
-diminutive to that of the little girl, they launched forth into
-exclamations and questions.
-
-"Is the chocolate to your taste, Nieves?"
-
-"Do you like it thin or thick?"
-
-"Nieves, take that morsel of cake for my sake; you will find it
-excellent; only we have the secret of making it."
-
-"Come, Victoriniña, don't be bashful; that fresh butter goes very
-well with the hot bread."
-
-"A morsel of toasted sponge-cake. Ah-ha! You don't have cake like
-that in Madrid, eh?"
-
-"No," answered the girl, in a clear and affected voice. "In
-Madrid we eat crullers and doughnuts with our chocolate."
-
-"It is the fashion here to take sponge-cake with it, not
-crullers. Take that one on the top, that brown one. That's nothing, a
-bird could eat it."
-
-Don Victoriano joined in the conversation, praising the bread,
-saying he could not eat it, as it had been absolutely prohibited to
-him, for his malady required that he should abstain from starch and
-gluten in every form--indeed, he had bread sent him from France,
-bread prepared _ad hoc_ without those elements--and as he spoke, he
-turned toward Agonde, who nodded with an air of intelligence, showing
-that he understood the Latin phrase. And Don Victoriano regretted
-doubly the prohibition now, for there was no bread to be compared to
-the Vilamorta bread--which was better of its kind than cake, yes
-indeed. The Vilamortans smiled, highly flattered, but García, with an
-eloquent shake of the head, said that the bread was deteriorating,
-that it was not now what it had formerly been, and that only Pellejo,
-the baker of the plaza, made it conscientiously, having the patience
-to select the wheat, grain by grain, not letting a single wormeaten
-one pass. It was for this reason that his loaves turned out so sweet
-and substantial. Then a discussion arose as to whether bread should
-be porous or the contrary, and as to whether hot bread was wholesome.
-
-Don Victoriano, reanimated by these homely details, talked of his
-childhood, of the slices of bread spread with butter or molasses
-which he used to eat between meals, and when he added that his uncle,
-the priest, occasionally administered a sound drubbing to him, a
-smile once more softened the deep lines of his face. This expansion
-of feeling gave a sweeter expression to his countenance, effacing
-from it the traces left by years of strife, the scars of the wounds
-received in the battle of life, illuminating it with a reflection
-from his vanished youth. How he longed to see again a grapevine in
-Las Vides from which he had robbed grapes a hundred times when he was
-a child.
-
-"And you will rob them again now," exclaimed Clodio Genday gayly.
-"We must tell the master of Las Vides to put a guard over the vine of
-Jaen."
-
-The jest was received with demonstrations of hilarity, and the
-girl laughed with her shrill laugh at the idea of her papa robbing a
-grapevine. Segundo only smiled. His eyes were fixed on Don
-Victoriano, and he was thinking of what his life had been. He went
-over in his mind the history of the great man: At Segundo's age Don
-Victoriano, too, was an obscure lawyer, buried in Vilamorta, eager to
-break from the shell. He had gone to Madrid, where a celebrated
-jurisconsult had taken him as his assistant. The jurisconsult was a
-politician, and Victoriano followed in his footsteps. How did he
-begin to prosper? This period was shrouded in obscurity. Some said
-one thing, some another. Vilamorta found him, when it least expected,
-its candidate and representative. Once in Congress Don Victoriano's
-importance grew steadily, and when the Revolution of September came
-it found him in a sufficiently exalted position to be improvised a
-minister. The brief ministry gave him neither time to wear out his
-popularity nor to give proof of special gifts, and, with his prestige
-almost intact, the Restoration admitted him as a member of a
-fusionist cabinet. He had just laid down the portfolio and come to
-re-establish his shattered health in his native place, where his
-influence was strong and incontestible, thanks to his alliance with
-the illustrious house of Mendez de las Vides. Segundo asked himself
-if a lot like Don Victoriano's would satisfy his aspirations. Don
-Victoriano had wealth--stocks in banks and shares in railways among
-whose directors the name of the able jurisconsult figured. Our
-versifier raised his eyebrows disdainfully and glanced at the
-Minister's wife; that graceful beauty certainly did not love her
-lord. She was the daughter of a younger son of the house of Las
-Vides--a magistrate; she had probably married her husband, allured by
-his position. No; most assuredly the poet did not envy the
-politician. Why had this man risen to the eminent position he
-occupied? What extraordinary gifts did he possess? A diffuse
-parliamentary orator, a passive minister, with some forensic
-ability--sum total, a mediocrity.
-
-While these reflections were passing through Segundo's mind,
-Señora de Comba amused herself by examining minutely the dress and
-the appearance of everyone present. She took in every detail, under
-her half-closed lids, of the toilet of Carmen Agonde, who was arrayed
-in a tight-fitting deep blue bodice that sent the blood to her
-plethoric cheeks. She next lowered her mocking glance to the
-patent-leather boots of the pharmacist, and then raised them again to
-Clodio Genday's fingers, stained by the cigar, and the purple and
-white checked velvet waistcoat of the lawyer García. Finally, her
-glance fell on Segundo, in critical examination of his attire. But
-another glance, steady and ardent, cast it back like a shield.
-
-
-
-
-                                   V.
-
-
-Agonde rose early on the following morning, and descended shortly
-afterward to his shop, leaving his guests wrapped in their slumbers,
-and Carmen charged, the moment they should stir, to pour the
-chocolate into their mouths. The apothecary desired to enjoy the
-effect produced in the town by Don Victoriano's sojourn in his house.
-He was reclining in his leather-covered easy-chair when he saw
-Tropiezo riding past on his gray mule, and called out to him:
-
-"Hello! Hello! Where are you bound for so early?"
-
-"For Doas, man. I have not a minute to spare." And saying this
-the doctor alighted from his mule, which he tied to an iron ring
-fastened in the wall.
-
-"Is the case so urgent?"
-
-"Urgent? That it is. The old woman, the grandmother of Ramon, the
-confectioner. It appears she has already received the last
-sacrament."
-
-"And it is only now they have sent for you?"
-
-"No; I went to see her yesterday, and I applied two dozen
-leeches, that drew their fill of blood from her. She looked like a
-dying kid; she was very weak, and as thin as a wafer. Perhaps if I
-had given her something that I thought of, instead of applying
-leeches----"
-
-"Ah! a trip," interrupted Agonde maliciously.
-
-"Life is a series of trips," responded the doctor, shrugging his
-shoulders. "And upstairs?" he added, raising his eyes interrogatively
-to the ceiling.
-
-"Snoring like princes."
-
-"And he--how does he look?" asked Don Fermin, lowering his voice
-and dwelling on every word.
-
-"He?" repeated Agonde, following his example. "So-so. Oldish. And
-very gray."
-
-"But what is the matter with him? Let us hear. For as to being
-sick, he is that."
-
-"He has--a new disease--a very strange one, one of the latest
-fashion." And Agonde smiled maliciously.
-
-"New?"
-
-Agonde half-closed his eyes, bent toward Tropiezo, and whispered
-something in his ear.
-
-Tropiezo burst into a laugh; suddenly he looked very serious, and
-tapping his nose repeatedly with his forefinger:
-
-"I know, I know," he said emphatically. "And the waters here, and
-some others in France, are the only cure for that disease. If he
-drinks a few glasses from the spring, he will be himself again."
-
-Tropiezo emitted his dictamen leaning on the counter, forgetful
-of the mule that was stamping impatiently at the door.
-
-"And the Señora--what does she say of her husband's state of
-health?" he suddenly asked, with a wink.
-
-"What should she say of it, man? Probably she does not know that
-it is serious."
-
-A look of derision lighted up the inexpressive features of the
-physician; he glanced at Agonde and smothering another burst of
-laughter, began:
-
-"The Señora--"
-
-"Chut!" interrupted the apothecary furiously. The whole Comba
-family were making an irruption into the shop through the small door
-of the porch. Mother and daughter formed a charming group, both
-wearing wide-brimmed hats of coarse straw adorned with enormous bows
-of flame-colored bunting. Their écru cotton gowns embroidered with
-red braid completed the rustic character of their costumes, reminding
-one of a bunch of poppies and straw. The girl's luxuriant dark hair
-hung loose over her shoulders, and the fair locks of the mother
-curled in a tangled mass under the shade of her broad-brimmed hat.
-Nieves did not wear gloves nor was there visible on her face a trace
-of powder, or of any other of the cosmetics whose use is imputed
-unjustly by the women of the provinces to the Madridlenians; on the
-contrary, her rosy ears and neck showed signs of energetic friction
-with the towel and cold water. As for Don Victoriano, the ravages
-made in his countenance by care and sickness were still more apparent
-in the morning light; it was not, as Agonde had said, age that was
-visible there; it was virility, but tortured, exhausted, wounded to
-death.
-
-"Why! Have you had chocolate already?" asked Agonde, in
-confusion.
-
-"No, friend Saturnino, nor shall we take it, with your
-permission, until we return. Don't trouble yourself on our account.
-Victoriniña has ransacked your pantry--your closets----"
-
-The child half opened a handkerchief which she held by the four
-corners, disclosing a provision of bread, cake, and the cheese of the
-country.
-
-"At least let me bring you a whole cheese. I will go see if there
-is not some fresh bread, just out of the oven----"
-
-Don Victoriano objected--let him not be deprived of the pleasure
-of going to breakfast in the poplar-grove near the spring, just as he
-had done when a boy. Agonde remarked that those articles of food were
-not wholesome for him, to which Tropiezo, scratching the tip of his
-ear, responded sceptically:
-
-"Bah! bah! bah! Those are new-fangled notions. What is wholesome
-for the body--can't they understand that--is what the body craves. If
-the gentleman likes bread--and for your malady, Señor Don Victoriano,
-there is nothing like the waters here. I don't know why people go to
-give their money to those French when we have better things at home
-than any they can give us."
-
-The Minister looked at Tropiezo with keen interest depicted on
-his countenance. He called to mind his last visit to Sanchez del
-Abrojo and the contraction of the lips with which the learned
-practitioner had said to him:
-
-"I would send you to Carlsbad or to Vichy, but those waters are
-not always beneficial. At times they hasten the natural course of a
-disease. Rest for a time, and diet yourself--we will see how you are
-when you return in the autumn." And what a look Sanchez del Abrojo
-put on when he said this! An impenetrable, sphinx-like expression.
-The positive assertion of Tropiezo awoke tumultuous hopes in Don
-Victoriano's breast. This village practitioner must know a great deal
-from experience, more perhaps than the pompous doctors of the
-capital.
-
-"Come, papa," said the child impatiently, pulling him by the
-sleeve.
-
-They took the path toward the grove. Vilamorta, naturally given
-to early rising, was more full of activity at this hour than in the
-afternoon. The shops were open, the baskets of the fruit-venders were
-already filled with fruit. Cansin walked up and down his
-establishment with his hands in his pockets, affecting to have
-noticed nothing, so as not to be obliged to bid good-morning to
-Agonde and acknowledge his triumph. Pellejo, covered with flour, was
-haggling with three shopkeepers from Cebre, who wanted to buy some of
-his best wheat. Ramon, the confectioner, was dividing chocolate into
-squares on a large board placed on the counter and rapidly stamping
-them with a hot iron before they should have time to cool.
-
-The morning was cloudless and the sun was already unusually hot.
-The party, augmented by García and Genday, walked through orchards
-and cornfields until they reached the entrance to the walk. Don
-Victoriano uttered an exclamation of joy. It was the same double row
-of elms bordering the river, the foaming and joyous Avieiro, that ran
-on sparkling in gentle cascades, washing with a pleasant murmur the
-rocks, worn smooth by the action of the current. He recognized the
-thick osier plantations; he remembered all his longings of the day
-before and leaned, full of emotion, on the parapet of the walk. The
-scene was almost deserted; half a dozen melancholy and
-bilious-looking individuals, visitors to the springs, were walking
-slowly up and down, discussing their ailments in low tones, and
-eructating the bicarbonate of the waters. Nieves, leaning back on a
-stone bench, gazed at the river. The child touched her on the
-shoulder, saying:
-
-"Mamma, the young man we saw yesterday."
-
-On the opposite bank Segundo García was standing on a rock,
-absorbed in meditation, his straw hat pushed far back on his head,
-his hand resting on his hip, doubtless with the purpose of preserving
-his equilibrium in so dangerous a position. Nieves reproved the
-little girl, saying:
-
-"Don't be silly, child. You startled me. Salute the gentleman."
-
-"He is not looking this way. Ah! now he is looking. Salute him,
-you, mamma. He is taking off his hat, he is going to fall! There! now
-he is safe."
-
-Don Victoriano descended the stone steps leading to the spring.
-The abode of the naiad was a humble grotto--a shed supported on rough
-posts, a small basin overflowing with the water from the spring, some
-wretched hovels for the bathers, and a strong and sickening odor of
-rotten eggs, caused by the stagnation of the sulphur water, were all
-that the fastidious tourist found there. Notwithstanding this, Don
-Victoriano's soul was filled with the purest joy. In this naiad he
-beheld his youth, his lost youth--the age of illusions, of hopes
-blooming as the banks of the Avieiro. How many mornings had he come
-to drink from the fountain, for a jest, to wash his face with the
-water, which enjoyed throughout the country the reputation of
-possessing extraordinary curative virtue for the eyes. Don Victoriano
-stretched out his hands, plunged them into the warm current, feeling
-it slip through his fingers with delight, and playing with it and
-caressing it as one caresses a loved being. But the undulating form
-of the naiad escaped from him as youth escapes from us--without the
-possibility of detaining it. Then the ex-Minister felt a thirst
-awaken in him to drink the waters. Beside him on the edge of the
-basin was a glass; and the keeper, a poor old man in his dotage,
-presented it to him with an idiotic smile. Don Victoriano drank,
-closing his eyes, with indescribable pleasure, enjoying the
-mysterious water, charmed by the magic arts of memory. When he had
-drained the glass he drew himself up and ascended the stairs with a
-firm and elastic step. Victoriniña, who was breakfasting on bread and
-cheese in the avenue, was astonished when her father took a piece of
-bread from her lap, saying gayly:
-
-"We are all God's creatures."
-
-
-
-
-                                  VI.
-
-
-Almost as much as by Don Victoriano's arrival was Vilamorta
-excited by the arrival of Señor de las Vides, accompanied by his
-steward, Primo Genday. This event happened on the afternoon of the
-memorable day on which Don Victoriano had infringed the commands of
-science by eating half a pound of fresh bread. At three o'clock,
-under a blazing sun, Genday the elder and Mendez entered the plaza,
-the latter mounted on a powerful mule, the former on an ordinary nag.
-
-Señor de las Vides was a little old man as dry as a vine branch.
-His carefully shaven cheeks, his thin lips and aristocratically
-pointed nose and chin, his shrewd, kind eyes, surrounded by
-innumerable crows' feet, his intellectual profile, his beardless
-face, called loudly for the curled wig, the embroidered coat and the
-gold snuff-box of the Campomanes and Arandas. With his delicate and
-expressive countenance the countenance of Primo Genday contrasted
-strongly. The steward's complexion was white and red, he had the fine
-and transparent skin, showing the full veins underneath, of those who
-are predisposed to hemiplegy. His eyes were of a greenish color, one
-of them being attached, as it were, to the lax and drooping lid,
-while the other rolled around with mischievous vivacity. His silvery
-curls gave him a distant resemblance to Louis Philippe, as he is
-represented on the coins which bear his effigy.
-
-By a combination not unusual in small towns Primo Genday and his
-brother Clodio served under opposite political banners, both being in
-reality of one mind and both pursuing the same end; Clodio ranged
-himself on the side of the radicals, Primo was the support of the
-Carlist party, and in cases of emergency, in the electoral contests,
-they clasped hands over the fence. When the hoofs of Primo Genday's
-nag resounded on the paving-stones, the windows of the reactionary
-shop were opened and two or three hands were waved in friendly
-welcome. Primo paused, and Mendez continued on his way to Agonde's
-door, where he dismounted.
-
-He was received in Don Victoriano's arms, and then disappeared
-among the shadows of the staircase. The mule remained fastened to the
-ring, stamping impatiently, while the onlookers on the plaza
-contemplated with respect the nobleman's old-fashioned harness of
-embossed leather, ornamented with silver, bright with use. One after
-another other mules and horses were brought to join the first comer.
-And the crowd assigned them their riders with considerable judgment.
-The chestnut nag of the alguazil, a fine animal, with a saddle and a
-silk headstall, was no doubt for the Minister. The black donkey with
-the side-saddle--who could doubt that it was for the Señora? The
-other gentle white donkey they would give to the little girl. The
-Alcalde's ass was for the maid. Agonde would ride the mare he always
-rode, the Morena, that had more malanders on her head than hairs in
-her tail. During this time the radicals, García, Clodio, Genday, and
-Ramon, were discussing the respective merits of the animals and the
-condition of their trappings and calculating the probabilities of
-their being able to reach Las Vides before nightfall. The lawyer
-shook his head, saying emphatically and sententiously:
-
-"They are taking their time about it if they expect to do that."
-
-"And they are bringing the alguazil's horse for Don Victoriano!"
-exclaimed the tobacconist. "Tricky as the very devil! There will be a
-scene. When you rode him, Segundo, did he play you no trick?"
-
-"Me, no. But he is lively."
-
-"You shall see, you shall see."
-
-The travelers were now coming out of the house, and the cavalcade
-began to form. The ladies seated themselves in their side-saddles and
-the men settled their feet in their stirrups. Then the scene
-predicted by the tobacconist took place, to the great scandal and the
-further delay of the party. As soon as the alguazil's nag became
-aware of the presence of a female of his race he began to snuff the
-air excitedly, neighing fiercely. Don Victoriano gathered up the
-reins, but, before the animal had felt the iron in his mouth, he
-became so unmanageable, first rearing, then kicking violently, and
-finally turning his head around to try to bite his rider's legs, that
-Don Victoriano, somewhat pale, thought it prudent to dismount.
-Agonde, furious, dismounted also.
-
-"What an infernal animal!" he cried. "Here, brutes--who told you
-to bring the alguazil's horse? One would suppose you didn't know it
-was a wild beast. You--Alcalde, or you, García--quick, go for
-Requinto's mule; it is only two steps from here. Señor Don
-Victoriano, take my mule. And that tiger, to the stable with him!"
-
-"No," interrupted Segundo, "I will ride him as he is already
-saddled. I will go with you as far as the cross."
-
-And Segundo, providing himself with a strong switch, caught the
-nag by the mane and at a bound was in the saddle. Instead of leaning
-his weight on the stirrup he pressed the animal's sides between his
-legs, raining a shower of blows at the same time on his head. The
-animal, which was already beginning to curvet and prance again, gave
-a snort of pain, and now, quivering and subdued, obeyed his rider's
-touch. The cavalcade put itself in motion as soon as Requinto's mule
-was brought, after handshakings, waving of hats, and even a timid
-_viva_, from what quarter no one knew. The cortége proceeded along
-the highway, the mare and the mules heading the procession, the
-donkeys following behind, and at their side the nag, kept in order by
-dint of switching. The sun was sinking in the west, turning the dust
-of the road into gold; the chestnut trees cast lengthened shadows on
-the ground, and from the osier-brake came a pleasant breeze laden
-with moisture from the river.
-
-Segundo rode along in silence; Victoriniña, delighted to be
-riding on a donkey, smiled, making fruitless efforts to hide with her
-frock her sharp knee-bones, which the shape of the saddle compelled
-her to raise and uncover. Nieves, leaning back in her saddle, opened
-her rose-lined écru lace parasol, and, as they started, drew from her
-bosom a diminutive watch, which she consulted for the hour. A few
-moments of embarrassed silence followed. At last Segundo felt that it
-was necessary to say something:
-
-"How are you doing, Victoriniña?" he said to the child. "Are you
-comfortable?"
-
-"Yes, quite comfortable."
-
-"I warrant you would rather ride on my horse. If you are not
-afraid I will take you before me."
-
-The girl, whose embarrassment had now reached its height, lowered
-her eyes without answering; her mother, smiling graciously, however,
-now joined in the conversation.
-
-"And tell me, García, why don't you address the child as _thou_?
-You treat her with so much ceremony! You will make her fancy she is a
-young lady already."
-
-"I should not dare to do so without her permission."
-
-"Come, Victoriniña, tell this gentleman he has your permission."
-
-The child took refuge in that invincible muteness of growing
-girls whom an exquisite and precocious sensibility renders painfully
-shy. A smile parted her lips, and at the same time her eyes filled
-with tears. Mademoiselle said something gently to her in French;
-meanwhile Nieves and Segundo, laughing confidentially at the
-incident, found the way smoothed for them to begin a conversation.
-
-"When do you think we shall arrive at Las Vides? Is it a pretty
-place? Shall we be comfortable there? How will it agree with
-Victoriano? What sort of a life shall we lead? Shall we have many
-visitors? Is there a garden?"
-
-"Las Vides is a beautiful place," said Segundo. "It has an air of
-antiquity--a lordly air, as it were. I like the escutcheon, and a
-magnificent grapevine that covers the courtyard, and the camellias
-and lemon trees in the orchards, that look like good-sized chestnut
-trees, and the view of the river, and, above all, a pine grove that
-talks and even sings--don't laugh--that sings; yes, Señora, and
-better than most professional singers. Don't you believe it? Well,
-you shall see for yourself presently."
-
-Nieves looked with lively curiosity at the young man and then
-hastily turned her glance aside, remembering the quick and nervous
-hand-pressure of the day before, when she was alighting from the
-carriage. For the second time in the space of a few hours this young
-man had surprised her. Nieves led an extremely regular life in
-Madrid--the life of the middle classes, in which all the incidents
-are commonplace. She went to mass and shopped in the morning; in the
-afternoon she went to the Retiro, or made visits; in the evening she
-went to her parents' house or to the theater with her husband; on
-rare occasions to some ball or banquet at the house of the Duke of
-Puenteanchas, a client of Don Victoriano's. When the latter received
-the portfolio it made little change in Nieves' way of life. She
-received a few more salutations than before in the Retiro; the clerks
-in the shops were more attentive to her; the Duchess of Puenteanchas
-said some flattering things to her, calling her "pet," and here ended
-for Nieves the pleasure of the ministry. The trip to Vilamorta, the
-picturesque country of which she had so often heard her father speak,
-was a novel incident in her monotonous life. Segundo seemed to her a
-curious detail of the journey. He looked at her and spoke to her in
-so odd a way. Bah, fancies! Between this young man and herself there
-was nothing in common. A passing acquaintance, like so many others to
-be met here at every step. So the pines sang, did they? A misfortune
-for Gayarre! And Nieves smiled graciously, dissembling her strange
-thoughts and went on asking questions, to which Segundo responded in
-expressive phrases. Night was beginning to fall. Suddenly, the
-cavalcade, leaving the highroad, turned into a path that led among
-pine groves and woods. At a turn of the path could be seen the
-picturesque dark stone cross, whose steps invited to prayer or to
-sentimental reverie. Agonde stopped here and took his leave of the
-party, and Segundo followed his example.
-
-As the tinkling of the donkeys' bells grew fainter in the
-distance Segundo felt an inexplicable sensation of loneliness and
-abandonment steal over him, as if he had just parted forever from
-persons who were dear to him or who played an important part in his
-life. "A pretty fool I am!" said the poet to himself. "What have I to
-do with these people or they with me? Nieves has invited me to spend
-a few days at Las Vides, _en famille_. When Nieves returns to Madrid
-this winter she will speak of me as 'That lawyer's son, that we met
-at Vilamorta.' Who am I? What position should I occupy in her house?
-An altogether secondary one. That of a boy who is treated with
-consideration because his father disposes of votes."
-
-While Segundo was thus caviling, the apothecary overtook him, and
-horse and mule pursued their way side by side. In the twilight the
-poet could distinguish the placid smile of Agonde, his red cheeks,
-looking redder in contrast to the lustrous black mustache, his
-expression of sensual amiability and epicurean beatitude. An enviable
-lot was the apothecary's. This man was happy in his comfortable and
-well-ordered shop, with his circle of friends, his cap and his
-embroidered slippers, taking life as one takes a glass of cordial,
-sipping it with enjoyment, in peace and harmony, along with the other
-guests at the banquet of life. Why should not Segundo be satisfied
-with what satisfied Agonde perfectly? Whence came this longing for
-something that was not precisely money, nor pleasure, nor fame, nor
-love--which partook of all these, which embraced them all and which
-perhaps nothing would satisfy?
-
-"Segundo."
-
-"Eh?" he answered, turning his head toward Agonde.
-
-"How silent you are, my boy! What do you think of the Minister?"
-
-"What would you have me think of him?"
-
-"And the Señora? Come, you have noticed her, I warrant. She wears
-black silk stockings, like the priests. When she was mounting the
-donkey----"
-
-"I am going to take a gallop as far as Vilamorta. Do you care to
-join me, Saturnino?"
-
-"Gallop with this mule? I should arrive there with my stomach in
-my mouth. Gallop you, if you have a fancy for doing so."
-
-The nag galloped for half a league or so, urged by his rider's
-whip. As they drew near the canebrake by the river, Segundo slackened
-his horse's gallop to a very slow walk. It was now almost dark and
-the cool mists rose, moist and clinging, from the bosom of the
-Avieiro. Segundo remembered that it was two or three days since he
-had put his foot in Leocadia's house. No doubt the schoolmistress was
-now fretting herself to death, weeping and watching for him. This
-thought brought sudden balm to Segundo's wounded spirit. How tenderly
-Leocadia loved him! With what joy did she welcome him! How deeply his
-poetry, his words, moved her! And he--why was it that he did not
-share her ardor? Of this exclusive, this absolute, boundless love,
-Segundo had never deigned to accept even the half; and of all the
-tender terms of endearment invented by the muse he chose for Leocadia
-the least poetical, the least romantic; as we separate the gold and
-silver in our purse from the baser coin, setting aside for the beggar
-the meanest copper, so did Segundo dispense with niggard hand the
-treasures of his love. A hundred times had it happened to him, in his
-walks through the country, to fill his hat with violets, with
-hyacinths and branches of blackberry blossoms, only to throw them all
-into the river on reaching the village, in order not to carry them to
-Leocadia.
-
-
-
-
-                                  VII.
-
-
-While she distributed their tasks among the children, saying to
-one, "Take care to make this hem straight," to another, "Make this
-seam even, the stitch smaller," to a third, "Use your handkerchief
-instead of your dress," and to still another, "Sit still, child,
-don't move your feet," Leocadia cast a glance from time to time
-toward the plaza in the hope of seeing Segundo pass by. But no
-Segundo was to be seen. The flies settled themselves to sleep,
-buzzing, on the ceiling; the heat abated; the afternoon came, and the
-children went away. Leocadia felt a profound sadness take possession
-of her and, without waiting to put the house in order, she went to
-her room and threw herself on the bed.
-
-The glass door was pushed gently open, and some one entered
-softly.
-
-"Mamma," said the intruder, in a low voice.
-
-The schoolmistress did not answer.
-
-"Mamma, mamma," repeated the hunchback, in a louder voice.
-"Mamma!" he shouted at last.
-
-"Is that you? What do you want?"
-
-"Are you ill?"
-
-"No, child."
-
-"As you went to bed----'
-
-"I have a slight headache. There, leave me in peace."
-
-Minguitos turned round and walked in silence toward the door. As
-her eyes fell on the protuberance of his back, a sharp pang pierced
-the heart of the schoolmistress. How many tears that hump had cost
-her in other days. She raised herself on her elbow.
-
-"Minguitos!" she called.
-
-"What is it, mamma?"
-
-"Don't go away. How do you feel to-day? Have you any pain?"
-
-"I feel pretty well, mamma. Only my chest hurts me."
-
-"Let me see; come here."
-
-Leocadia sat up in the bed and, taking the child's head between
-her hands, looked at him with a mother's hungry look. Minguitos' face
-was long and of a melancholy cast; the prominent lower jaw was in
-keeping with the twisted and misshapen body that reminded one of a
-building shaken out of shape by an earthquake or a tree twisted by a
-hurricane. Minguitos' deformity was not congenital. He had always
-been sickly, indeed, and it had always been remarked that his head
-seemed too heavy for his body, and that his legs seemed too frail to
-support him. Leocadia recalled one by one the incidents of his
-childhood. At five years old the boy had met with an accident--a fall
-down the stairs; from that day he lost all his liveliness; he walked
-little and never ran. He contracted a habit of sitting Turkish
-fashion, playing marbles for hours at a time. If he rose his legs
-soon warned him to sit down again. When he stood, his movements were
-vacillating and awkward. When he was quiet he felt no pain, but when
-he turned any part of his body, he experienced slight pains in the
-spinal column. The trouble increased with time; the boy complained of
-a feeling as if an iron band were compressing his chest. Then his
-mother, now thoroughly alarmed, consulted a famous physician, the
-best in Orense. He prescribed frictions with iodine, large doses of
-phosphates of lime, and sea-bathing. Leocadia hastened with the boy
-to a little sea-port. After taking two or three baths, the trouble
-increased; he could not bend his body; his spinal column was rigid
-and it was only when he was in a horizontal position that he felt any
-relief from his now severe pains. Sores appeared on his skin, and one
-morning when Leocadia begged him with tears to straighten himself,
-and tried to lift him up by the arms, he uttered a horrible cry.
-
-"I am broken in two, mamma--I am broken in two," he repeated with
-anguish, while his mother, with trembling fingers sought to find what
-had caused his cry.
-
-It was true! The backbone had bent outward, forming an angle on a
-level with his shoulderblades, the softened vertebræ had sunk and
-_cifosis_, the hump, the indelible mark of irremediable calamity, was
-to deform henceforth this child who was dearer to her than her life.
-The schoolmistress had had a moment of animal and sublime anguish,
-the anguish of the wild beast that sees its young mutilated. She had
-uttered shriek after shriek, cursing the doctor, cursing herself,
-tearing her hair and digging her nails into her flesh. Afterward
-tears had come and she had showered kisses, delirious, but soothing
-and sweet, on the boy, and her grief took a resigned form. During
-nine years Leocadia had had no other thought than to watch over her
-little cripple by night and by day, sheltering him in her love,
-amusing with ingenious inventions the idle hours of his sedentary
-childhood. A thousand incidents of this time recurred to Leocadia's
-memory. The boy suffered from obstinate dyspnoea, due to the pressure
-of the sunken vertebræ on the respiratory organs, and his mother
-would get up in the middle of the night and go in her bare feet to
-listen to his breathing and to raise his pillows. As these
-recollections came to her mind Leocadia felt her heart melt and
-something stir within her like the remains of a great love, the warm
-ashes of an immense fire, and she experienced the unconscious
-reaction of maternity, the irresistible impulse which makes a mother
-see in her grown-up son only the infant she has nursed and protected,
-to whom she would have given her blood, if it had been necessary,
-instead of milk. And uttering a cry of love, pressing her feverish
-lips passionately to the pallid temples of the hunchback, she said,
-falling back naturally into the caressing expressions of the dialect:
-
-"_Malpocadiño._ Who loves you? say, who loves you dearly? Who?"
-
-"You don't love me, mamma. You don't love me," the boy returned,
-half-smiling, leaning his head with delight on the bosom that had
-sheltered his sad childhood. The mother, meantime, wildly kissed his
-hair, his neck, his eyes--as if to make up for lost time--lavishing
-upon him the honeyed words with which infants are beguiled, words
-profaned in hours of passion, which overflowed in the pure channel of
-maternal love.
-
-"My treasure--my king--my glory."
-
-At last the hunchback felt a tear fall on his cheek. Delicious
-assuagement! At first, the tears were large and round, scorching
-almost, but soon they came in a gentle shower and then ceased
-altogether, and there remained where they had fallen only a grateful
-sense of coolness. Passionate phrases rushed simultaneously from the
-lips of mother and son.
-
-"Do you love me dearly, dearly, dearly? As much as your whole
-life?"
-
-"As much, my life, my treasure."
-
-"Will you always love me?"
-
-"Always, always, my joy."
-
-"Will you do something to please me, mamma? I want to ask
-you----"
-
-"What?"
-
-"A favor. Don't turn your face away!"
-
-The hunchback observed that his mother's form suddenly grew stiff
-and rigid as a bar of iron. He no longer felt the sweet warmth of her
-moist eyelids, and the gentle contact of her wet lashes on his cheek.
-In a voice that had a metallic sound Leocadia asked her son:
-
-"And what is the favor you want? Let me hear it."
-
-Minguitos murmured without bitterness, with resignation:
-
-"Nothing, mamma, nothing. I was only in jest."
-
-"But what was the favor you were going to ask me?"
-
-"Nothing, nothing, indeed."
-
-"No, you wanted to ask something," persisted the schoolmistress,
-seizing the pretext to give vent to her anger. "Otherwise you are
-very deceitful and very sly. You keep everything hidden in your
-breast. Those are the lessons Flores teaches you; do you think I
-don't notice it?"
-
-Saying this, she pushed the boy away from her, and sprang from
-the bed. In the hall outside almost at the same moment was heard a
-firm and youthful step. Leocadia trembled, and turning to Minguitos,
-stammered:
-
-"Go, go to Flores. Leave me alone. I do not feel well, and you
-make me worse,"
-
-Segundo's brow was clouded, and as soon as the joy of seeing him
-had subsided Leocadia was seized with the desire to restore him to
-good humor. She waited patiently for a fitting opportunity, however,
-and when this came, throwing her arms around his neck, she began with
-the complaint: Where had he kept himself? Why had he stayed away so
-long? The poet unburdened himself of his grievances. It was
-intolerable to follow in the train of a great man. And allowing
-himself to be carried away by the pleasure of speaking of what
-occupied his mind he described Don Victoriano and the radicals, he
-satirized Agonde's reception of his guests, his manner of
-entertaining them, spoke of the hopes he founded in the protection of
-the ex-Minister, giving them as a reason for the necessity of paying
-court to Don Victoriano. Leocadia fixed her dog-like look on
-Segundo's countenance.
-
-"And the Señora and the girl--what are they like?"
-
-Segundo half-closed his eyes the better to contemplate an
-attractive and charming image that presented itself to his mental
-vision, and to reflect that in the existence of Nieves he played no
-part whatsoever, it being manifest folly for him to think of Señora
-de Comba, who did not think of him. This reflection, natural and
-simple enough, aroused his anger. There was awakened within him a
-keen longing for the unattainable, that insensate and unbridled
-desire with which the likeness of a beautiful woman dead for
-centuries may inspire some dreamer in a museum.
-
-"But answer me--are those ladies handsome?" the schoolmistress
-asked again.
-
-"The mother, yes"--answered Segundo, speaking with the careless
-frankness of one who is secure of his auditor. "Her hair is fair, and
-her eyes are blue--a light blue that makes one think of the verses of
-Becquer." And he began to recite:
-
-    "'Tu pupila es azul, y cuando ries
-    Su claridad suave me recuerda----'"
-
-Leocadia listened to him at first with eyes cast down; afterward
-with her face turned away from him. When he had finished the poem she
-said in an altered voice, with feigned calmness.
-
-"They will invite you to go there."
-
-"Where?"
-
-"To Las Vides, of course. I hear they intend to have a great deal
-of company."
-
-"Yes; they have given me a pressing invitation, but I shall not
-go. Uncle Clodio insists upon it that I ought to cultivate the
-friendship of Don Victoriano so that he may be of use to me in Madrid
-and help me to get a position there. But, child, to go and play a
-sorry part is not to my liking. This suit is the best I have, and it
-is in last year's fashion. If they play tresillo or give tips to the
-servants--and it is impossible to make my father understand this--and
-I shall not try to do so: God forbid. So that they shall not catch a
-sight of me in Las Vides."
-
-When she heard what his intentions were, Leocadia's countenance
-cleared up, and rising, radiant with happiness, she ran to the
-kitchen. Flores was washing plates and cups and saucers by the light
-of a lamp, knocking them angrily together and rubbing savagely.
-
-"The coffee-pot--did you clean it?"
-
-"Presently, presently," responded the old woman. "Anyone would
-think that one was made of wood, that one is never to get tired--that
-one can do things flying."
-
-"Give it to me, I will clean it. Put more wood on the fire; it is
-going out and the beefsteak will be spoiled." And so saying Leocadia
-washed the coffee-pot, cleaning the filter with a knitting-needle,
-and put some fresh water down to boil in a new saucepan, throwing
-more wood on the fire.
-
-"Yes, heap on wood," growled Flores, "as we get it for nothing!"
-
-Leocadia, who was slicing some potatoes for the beefsteak, paid
-no attention to her. When she had cut up as many as she judged
-necessary, she washed her hands hastily in the jar of the drain, full
-of dirty water, on whose surface floated large patches of grease. She
-then hurried to the parlor where Segundo was waiting for her, and
-soon afterward Flores brought in the supper, which they ate, seated
-at a small side-table. By the time they had got to the coffee Segundo
-began to be more communicative. This coffee was what Leocadia most
-prided herself on. She had bought a set of English china, an
-imitation lacquer-box, a _vermeil_ sugar-tongs and two small silver
-spoons, and she always placed on the table with the coffee a
-liquor-stand, supplied with cumin, rum, and anisette. At the third
-glass, of cumin, seeing the poet amiable and propitious, Leocadia put
-her arm around his neck. He drew back brusquely, noticing with strong
-repulsion the odor of cooking and of parsley with which the garments
-of the schoolmistress were impregnated.
-
-At this moment precisely Minguitos, after letting his shoes drop
-on the floor, was drawing the coverlet around him with a sigh.
-Flores, seated on a low chair, began to recite the rosary. The sick
-child required, to put him to sleep, the monotonous murmur of the
-husky voice which had lulled him to rest, ever since his mother had
-ceased to keep him company at bedtime. The Ave Marias and Gloria
-Patris, mumbled rather than pronounced, little by little dulled
-thought and, by the time the litany was reached, sleep had stolen
-over him, and, half-unconscious, it was with difficulty he made the
-responses to the barbarous phrases of the old woman: "Juana celi--Ora
-pro nobis--Sal-es-enfermorun--nobis--Refajos
-pecadorum--bis--Consolate flitorum--sss----"
-
-The only response was the labored, restless, uneven breathing
-that came through the sleeping boy's half-closed lips. Flores softly
-put out the tallow candle, took off her shoes, in order to make no
-noise, and stole out gently, feeling her way along the dining-room
-wall. From the moment in which Minguitos fell asleep there was no
-more rattling of dishes in the kitchen.
-
-
-
-
-                                 VIII.
-
-
-It was late before the Swan blew out the tallow candle which Aunt
-Gáspara placed every day, always with much grumbling, in his brass
-candlestick. Seated at the little table littered with books, he had
-before him a sheet of paper half covered with lines of unequal
-length, variegated with blots and corrections, little heaps of sand,
-and here and there a flourish. Segundo would not have slept all night
-if he had not first written down the poem which, from the moment he
-had left the cross, had been running through his brain. Only that,
-before taking up the pen, he seemed to have the poem already composed
-in his head, so that all he had to do was to turn the spigot and it
-would flow out in a stream, and when he took the pen in his hand the
-verses, instead of rushing forth, hid themselves or vanished. A few
-strophes fell on the paper, rounded, fluent, finished, with
-harmonious and opportune rhymes, with a certain sweetness and
-sonorousness extremely delightful to the author himself, who
-scribbled them down hastily before they should take flight. Of
-others, however, only the first two lines occurred to him, and,
-perhaps, the fourth--this last rounded, effective; but the third line
-was wanting and he must hunt for it, fill up the space, graft on the
-syllables to eke out the meter. The poet paused and looked up at the
-ceiling, biting the ends of his mustache, and then the idle pen
-traced, obeying the mechanical impulse of the hand, a cocked hat, a
-comet, or some other equally irrelevant design. Sometimes after
-rejecting seven or eight rhymes he would content himself with the
-ninth, which was neither better nor worse than the others. When a
-superfluous syllable would cause a line to halt, he must look for
-another adverb, another adjective. And the accents! If the poet could
-only enjoy the privilege, of saying, eternél, for instance, instead
-of etérnel, it would be so easy to write verses!
-
-Confounded technical difficulties! The divine fire of inspiration
-glowed and burned in Segundo's mind, but as soon as he tried to
-transfer it to the paper, to give expression to what he felt--to
-condense, in words, a world of dreams, a psychic nebula--his mind
-became a blank. To unite the form with the idea, to imprison feeling
-in the golden links of rhyme! Ah, what a light and flowery chain in
-appearance, and how hard to weave in reality! How deceptive the
-natural grace, the facile harmony of the master! How easy it seems to
-express simple, familiar images, to utter the chimeras of the
-imagination and the heart in easy and flowing meter, and yet how
-impossible it is, for him who is not called Becquer, to give his
-verse those palpitating, diaphanous, azure wings on which the
-Becquerian butterfly soars!
-
-While the Swan continues his task of effacing and correcting,
-Leocadia is in her bedroom, preparing to retire. On other nights she
-went to her room with a smile on her lips, her face glowing, her eyes
-humid and half-closed, with deep circles under them, her hair in
-disorder. And on those nights she was in no hurry to retire; she
-would busy herself arranging the articles on her bureau, she would
-even look at herself in the glass of her cheap toilet table. To-night
-her lips were dry, her cheeks pale, she went at once to bed, loosened
-her clothing, and let it fall on the floor, put out the light and
-buried her face in the cool, thick cotton sheets. She did not wish to
-think, all she wished was to forget and to sleep. She tried to lie
-still. A thousand needles seemed to pierce her flesh; she turned
-around, in search of a cool spot, then turned again in search of
-another, and presently she threw off the sheets. She felt a horrible
-restlessness, a savor of bitterness in her mouth. In the silence of
-the night she could hear the tumultuous beating of her heart; if she
-lay on her left side its noise almost deafened her. She tried to fix
-her thoughts on indifferent subjects, and repeated to herself with
-monotonous and persistent regularity--"To-morrow is Sunday, the
-children will not come." In vain; her brain boiled, her blood burned
-as before. Leocadia was jealous.
-
-Measureless, nameless torture! Hitherto the poor schoolmistress
-had not known the accompaniment of love, jealousy, whose barbed sting
-pierces the soul, whose consuming fire dries up the blood, whose
-chill freezes the heart, whose restless anguish makes the nerves
-quiver. Segundo scarcely noticed the young girls of Vilamorta; as for
-the peasant girls, they did not exist for him, he did not even regard
-them as women; so that Leocadia had attributed the poet's hours of
-coldness to the bad offices of the muses. But now! She recalled the
-poem, "A los ojos azules," and his manner of reciting it. Those
-honeyed verses were to her gall and wormwood. Tears sprang to her
-eyes, and she broke into convulsive sobs which shook her frame and
-made the bedstead creak and the cornhusks of the mattress rustle.
-Still her overwrought brain did not suspend its activity. There was
-not a doubt but that Segundo was in love with Señora de Comba; but
-she was a married woman. Bah! in Madrid and in novels all the married
-women have lovers. And then, who could resist Segundo, a poet who was
-the rival of Becquer, who was young, handsome, ardent, when he wished
-to be so?
-
-What could Leocadia do to avert this great calamity? Was it not
-better to resign herself to it? Ah, resignation, that is easily said!
-Why had God denied her the power to express her feelings? Why had she
-not knelt before Segundo, begging him for a little love, describing
-to him and communicating to him the flame that consumed the marrow of
-her bones? Why had she remained mute when she had so many things to
-say? Segundo would not go to Las Vides; so much the better. He had no
-money; better still. He would accept no position, he would not leave
-Vilamorta, better and better. But what did it matter if after all
-Segundo did not love her; if he had turned away from her with a
-gesture which she could still see in the darkness, or rather in the
-lurid light of jealousy.
-
-How warm the night was! How restless she felt! She got out of bed
-and threw herself on the floor, thinking to find some relief in the
-coolness of the boards. Instead of feeling any alleviation she was
-seized with a fit of trembling. A lump seemed to rise in her throat
-that prevented her from breathing. She made an effort to stand up but
-found that she was not able; she felt a hysterical attack coming on,
-but she tried to restrain her cries, her sobs, her contortions, in
-order not to awaken Flores. For a time she succeeded; but at last the
-nervous crisis conquered; her rigid limbs writhed, she dug her nails
-into her throat, she rolled about and beat her temples against the
-floor. Then a cold perspiration broke out over her body, and for a
-moment she lost consciousness. When she returned to herself she was
-calm but exhausted. She rose to her feet, went back to bed, drew the
-clothing over her and sank into a sort of stupor, in which there was
-neither thought nor feeling. The beneficent sleep of early morning
-had wrapped her senses in oblivion.
-
-She woke late, unrested, exhausted, and, as it were, stupefied.
-She could scarcely manage to dress herself; it seemed to her as if a
-year had passed since the night before, and as for her jealous rage,
-her projects of resistance--how could she have thought of such
-things? All that mattered to her, all she desired, was that Segundo
-should be happy, that he should achieve his high destiny, that he
-should be famous. The rest was madness, a convulsion, an attack of
-the nerves to which she had given way, overcome by the sense of her
-loneliness.
-
-The schoolmistress opened the bureau-drawer in which she kept her
-savings and the money for the household expenses. Beside a pile of
-stockings was a slim and flabby purse. A short time ago it had
-contained a few thousand reals, all she possessed in money. Scarcely
-thirty dollars remained, and out of these she must pay Cansin for a
-black merino dress, the confectioner for liqueurs, and some friends
-at Orense for purchases made on her account. And she would not
-receive her little income until November. A brilliant prospect truly!
-
-After a moment of anguish caused by the struggle between her
-economical principles and her resolution, Leocadia washed her face,
-smoothed her hair, put on her dress and her silk manto and left the
-house. Being Sunday, the streets were full of people, and the cracked
-bell of the chapel kept up an incessant ringing. The plaza was full
-of bustle and animation. Before Doña Eufrasia's door, three or four
-mules, whose clerical riders were in the shop, were impatiently
-trying to protect themselves from the persistent attacks of the flies
-and hornets, shaking their heads, stamping their hoofs, and switching
-their flanks with their rough tails. And the fruit-venders, too, in
-the intervals between selling their wares and chatting and laughing
-with one another, were watchful to chase away the troublesome insects
-that settled on the cherries and tomatoes wherever the skin was
-broken, leaving uncovered the sweet pulp or the red flesh. But the
-grand conclave of the flies was held in the confectionery of Ramon.
-It was nauseating to see the insects buzzing blindly in the hot
-atmosphere, entangling their legs in the caramels, and then making
-desperate efforts to free themselves from their sweet captivity. A
-swarm of flies were buzzing around a méringue pie which adorned the
-center of the shelf, and Ramon having grown tired of defending it
-against their attacks, the invading army rifled it at their pleasure;
-around the plate lay the bodies of the flies which had perished in
-the attack; some dry and shriveled, others swollen and with white and
-livid abdomens.
-
-Leocadia entered the back shop. Ramon was there, with his
-shirt-sleeves rolled up, exposing his brawny arms, shaking a saucepan
-gently to cool the egg-paste which it contained; then he proceeded to
-cut the paste with a hot knife, the sugar fizzing and sending forth a
-pleasant odor as it came in contact with the hot metal. The
-confectioner passed the back of his hand across his perspiring brow.
-
-What did Leocadia want? Brizar anisette, eh? Well, it was all
-sold. "You, Rosa, isn't it true that the anisette is all sold?"
-
-The confectioner's wife was seated in a corner of the kitchen,
-feeding a sickly-looking infant. She fixed her gloomy, morbidly
-jealous gaze on the schoolmistress and cried in a harsh voice:
-
-"If you come for more anisette, remember the three bottles that
-are still unpaid for."
-
-"I will pay them now," answered the schoolmistress, taking a
-handful of dollars from her pocket.
-
-"Never mind that now, there is no hurry," stammered the
-confectioner, ashamed of his wife's rudeness.
-
-"Take it, Ramon. Why, it was to give it to you that I came."
-
-"If you insist; but the deuce a hurry I was in."
-
-Leocadia hastened away. Not to have remembered the confectioner's
-wife! Who would ask anything from Ramon before that jealous tigress,
-who, small as she was, and sickly as she looked, ruled her burly
-husband with a rod of iron. Perhaps Cansin----
-
-The clothier was displaying his goods to a group of countrywomen,
-one of whom persisted in declaring the bunting she was looking at to
-be cotton, rubbing it between her fingers to prove herself in the
-right. Cansin, on his side, was rubbing the cloth with exactly
-opposite views.
-
-"How should it be cotton, woman, how should it be cotton?" he
-cried in his shrill voice, putting the cloth close to the buyer's
-face. Cansin appeared so angry that Leocadia did not venture to
-address him; she passed on, quickening her steps. She thought of her
-other suitor, the tavern-keeper. But she suddenly remembered, with a
-feeling of repulsion, his thick lips, his cheeks that seemed to drip
-blood. Turning over in her mind every possible means by which she
-might obtain the money she needed, a thought occurred to her. She
-rejected it, she weighed it, she accepted it. Quickening her pace,
-she walked toward the abode of the lawyer García.
-
-At her first knock Aunt Gáspara opened the door. What a meaning
-contraction of the brow and lips, what a sour face greeted her!
-Leocadia, abashed and covered with confusion, stood still on the
-threshold. The old woman, like a vigilant watch-dog, barred the
-entrance, ready to bark or bite at the first sign of danger.
-
-"What did you want?" she growled.
-
-"To speak to Don Justo. May I?" said the schoolmistress humbly.
-
-"I don't know. I'll see."
-
-And the dragon without further ceremony shut the door in
-Leocadia's face. Leocadia waited. At the end of ten minutes a harsh
-voice called to her:
-
-"Come on!"
-
-The heart of the schoolmistress bounded within her. To go through
-the house in which Segundo was born! It was dark and shabby, cold and
-bare, like the abode of a miser, in which the furniture is made to do
-service until it falls to pieces with old age. Crossing a hall,
-Leocadia saw through a half-open door some garments belonging to
-Segundo hanging on a peg, and recognized them with a secret thrill.
-At the end of the hall was the lawyer's office, an ill-kept, untidy
-room, full of papers and dusty and uninteresting-looking books. Aunt
-Gáspara withdrew, and Leocadia remained standing before the lawyer,
-who, without inviting her to be seated, said to her with a suspicious
-and hostile air, and in the severe tones of a judge:
-
-"And what can I do for you, Señora Doña Leocadia?"
-
-A formula accompanied inwardly by the observation:
-
-"I wager that the scheming schoolmistress has come to tell me
-that she is going to marry that crazy boy and that I shall have to
-support them both."
-
-Leocadia fixed her dejected gaze on García's face, trying to
-discover in his dry and withered features some resemblance to the
-features of a beloved countenance. His face, indeed, resembled
-Segundo's in all but the expression, which was very different; that
-of the father's being as cautious and suspicious as the son's was
-dreamy and abstracted.
-
-"Señor Don Justo----" stammered the schoolmistress. "I am sorry
-to trouble you. I hope you will not take this visit amiss--they told
-me that you----Señor--I need a loan----"
-
-"Money!" roared the lawyer, clenching his fists. "You ask me for
-money!"
-
-"Yes, Señor, on some property----"
-
-"Ah!" (sudden transition in the lawyer, who became all softness
-and amiability). "But how stupid I am! Come in, come in and sit down,
-Doña Leocadia. I hope you are quite well. Why, anyone might find
-himself in a difficulty. And what property is it? Talking together
-people come to an understanding, Señora. Perhaps the vineyard of La
-Junqueira, or the other little one, El Adro? Of late years they have
-yielded little----"
-
-The business was discussed and the promissory note was signed.
-Aunt Gáspara meanwhile walked uneasily and with ghost-like tread, up
-and down the hall outside. When her brother issued from the room and
-gave her some orders she crossed herself hastily several times on the
-forehead and the breast. She then descended stealthily to the cellar,
-and, after some little delay, returned and emptied on the lawyer's
-table the contents of her apron, whence rolled four objects covered
-with dust and cobwebs, from which proceeded, as they struck the
-table, the peculiar sound produced by coin. These objects were an
-earthern savings-bank, a stocking, a leathern sack, and a little
-muslin bag.
-
-That afternoon Leocadia said to Segundo:
-
-"Do you know what, sweetheart? It is a pity that for the sake of
-a new suit or some such trifle you should lose the chance of
-establishing yourself and obtaining what you wish. See, I have a
-little money here that I have no particular use for. Do you want it,
-eh? I will give it to you now and you can return it to me by and by."
-
-Segundo drew himself up and, with a genuine outburst of offended
-dignity, exclaimed:
-
-"Never propose anything like that to me again. I accept your
-attentions at times so as not to see you breaking your heart at my
-refusal, but that you should clothe me and support me--no, that is
-too much."
-
-Half an hour later the schoolmistress renewed her entreaties
-affectionately, availing herself of the opportunity, seeing the Swan
-somewhat pensive. Between him and her there ought to be no _mine_ or
-_thine_. Why should he hesitate to accept what it afforded her so
-great a pleasure to give? Did her future by chance depend upon those
-few paltry dollars? With them he could present himself decently at
-Las Vides, publish his verses, go to Madrid. It would make her so
-happy to see him triumph, eclipse Campoamor, Nuñez de Arce, and all
-the rest! And what was there to prevent Segundo from returning her
-the money, and with interest, too? Talking thus, Leocadia filled a
-handkerchief tied at the four corners with ounces and _doblillos_ and
-_centenes_ and handed it to the poet, saying in a voice rendered
-husky by her emotion:
-
-"Will you slight me?"
-
-Segundiño took the unbeautiful, ungraceful head of the
-schoolmistress between his hands, and looking fixedly in the eyes
-that looked at him humid with happiness he said:
-
-"Leocadia, I know that you are the one human being in this world
-who loves me truly."
-
-"Segundiño, my life," she stammered, beside herself with
-happiness, "it isn't worth mentioning. Just as I give you that--as I
-hope for salvation--I would give you the blood from my veins!"
-
-And what would Aunt Gáspara have said had she known that several
-of the ounces from the stocking, the savings-bank, the sack, and the
-bag would return immediately, loyal and well-trained, to sleep, if
-not under the rafters of the cellar, at least under the roof of Don
-Justo?
-
-
-
-
-                                  IX.
-
-
-The grapevine of Las Vides which has such pleasant recollections
-for Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba, bears those large, substantial
-grapes of the light red and pale green hues which predominate in
-Flemish vineyards, which are known in the neighborhood by the name of
-_náparo_ or _Jaen_ grapes. Its clusters hang in long corymbs of a
-gracefully irregular shape, half hiding themselves among the thick
-foliage. The vine casts a cool shade, and the murmur of a slender
-stream of water that falls into a rough stone basin in which
-vegetables lie soaking, adds to the air of peacefulness of the scene.
-
-The massive building looks almost like a fortress; the main
-building is flanked by two square towers, low-roofed and pierced by
-deep-set windows; in the middle of the central building, above a long
-iron balcony, stands out the large escutcheon with the armorial
-bearings of the Mendez--five vine-leaves and a wolf's head dripping
-blood. This balcony commands a view of the mountain slope and of the
-river that winds below; at the side of one of the towers is a wooden
-gallery, open to the sun, which projects over the garden, and where,
-thanks to the southern exposure, fine carnations grow luxuriantly in
-old pots filled with mold, and wooden boxes overflow with sweet
-basil, Santa Teresa's feathers, cactus, asclepias, and mallows--a
-sun-loving, rich, Arabian flora of intoxicating sweetness. The
-interior of the house is merely a series of whitewashed rooms with
-the rafters exposed and almost without furniture, excepting the
-central room, called the balcony-room, which is furnished with chairs
-with straw seats and wooden, lyre-shaped backs, of the style of the
-Empire. A mirror from which the quicksilver has almost disappeared,
-with a broad ebony frame ornamented with allegorical figures of
-gilded brass representing Phoebus driving his chariot, hangs above
-the sofa. The pride of Las Vides is not the rooms, but the cellar,
-the immense wine-vault, dark, and echoing, and cool as the aisle of a
-cathedral, with its large vats ranged in a line on either side. This
-apartment, unrivaled in the Border, is the one which Señor de las
-Vides shows with most pride--this and his bedroom, which has the
-peculiarity of being impregnable, as it is built in the body of the
-wall and can be entered only through a narrow passage which scarcely
-affords room for a man to turn around.
-
-Mendez de las Vides resembled in no way the traditional type of
-the ignorant lord of the manor who makes a cross for his signature, a
-type very common in that inland country. On the contrary, Mendez
-prided himself on being learned and cultured. He wrote a good
-hand--the small, close handwriting characteristic of obstinate old
-age; he read well, settling his spectacles on his nose, holding the
-newspaper or the book at a distance, emphasizing the words in a
-measured voice. Only his culture was confined to a single epoch--that
-of the Encyclopedists, with whom his father became acquainted late in
-life, and he himself a century after their time. He read Holbach,
-Rousseau, Voltaire, and the fourteen volumes of Feijóo. He bore the
-stamp and seal of this epoch even in his person. In religion he was a
-deist, never neglecting, however, to go to mass and to eat fish in
-Holy Week; in politics he was inclined to uphold the prerogatives of
-the crown against the church. Since the arrival of Don Victoriano,
-however, some movement had taken place in the stratified ideas of the
-hidalgo of Las Vides. He admired English independence, the regard
-paid to the right of the individual combined with a respect for
-tradition and the civilizing influence of the aristocratic classes--a
-series of Saxon importations more or less felicitous but to which Don
-Victoriano owed his political success. Uncle and nephew spent hour
-after hour discussing these abstruse problems of social science,
-while Nieves worked, listening with the hope of hearing the trot of
-some horse sound on the stones of the path announcing some visitor,
-some distraction in her idle existence.
-
-To make the journey to Las Vides, Segundo borrowed the vicious
-nag of the alguazil. From the cross onward the road grew precipitous
-and difficult. Smooth, slippery rocks obstructed the way at times, so
-that the rider was obliged to hold a tight rein to keep the animal,
-whose hoofs slipped continually, drawing sparks from the stone, from
-falling headlong down the descent. The ground, parched by the heat,
-was rugged and uneven. The houses seemed to cling to the
-mountain-side, threatening to lose their hold at every moment and
-topple over into the river, and the indispensable pot of carnations,
-whose flowers peeped through the rails of the wooden balconies,
-reminded one of the flower with which a gypsy carelessly adorns her
-hair. Sometimes Segundo's way led through a pine grove, and he
-inhaled the balsamic odor of the resin and rode over a carpet of dry
-leaves which deadened the sound of his horse's hoofs; suddenly,
-between two fences, a narrow path, bordered by blackberry bushes,
-foxglove and honeysuckle would open before him, and not unfrequently
-he experienced the delightful sense of well-being produced by the
-coolness cast by umbrageous foliage during the heat of the day, as he
-rode through some verdant tunnel--under some lofty grape arbor
-supported on wooden posts, beholding above his head the bunches
-already ripening, and listening to the noisy twittering of the
-sparrows and the shrill whistle of the blackbird. Lizards ran along
-the moss-covered walls. When two or more paths met Segundo would rein
-in his horse, to inquire the way to Las Vides of the women who toiled
-wearily up the steep path, bending under their load of pine wood, or
-the children playing at the doors of the houses.
-
-Far below ran the Avieiro, that, from the height at which Segundo
-regarded it, looked like a steel blade flashing and quivering in the
-sunshine. Before him was the mountain where, like the steps of a
-colossal amphitheater, rose one above another massive walls of
-whitish stone, erected for the support of the grapevines, the white
-stripes showing against the green background, forming an odd
-combination in which stood out here and there the red roof of some
-dovecote or some old homestead, the whole surmounted by the darker
-green of the pine woods. Segundo at last saw below him the tiles of
-Las Vides. He descended a steep slope and found himself before the
-portico.
-
-Under the grapevine were Victorina and Nieves. The child was
-amusing herself jumping the rope, which she did with extraordinary
-agility, the feet close together, without moving from one spot, the
-rope turning so rapidly that the graceful form of the jumper seemed
-to be enveloped in a sort of mist. Through the interstices in the
-foliage of the grapevine came large splashes of sunshine suddenly
-flooding the girl's form with light, in which her hair, her arms and
-her bare legs gleamed, for she wore only a loose navy blue blouse
-without sleeves. When she caught sight of Segundo she gave a little
-cry, dropped the rope and disappeared. Nieves, to make amends, rose
-from the bench where she had been working, with a smile on her lips
-and a slight flush of surprise on her cheeks, and extended her hand
-to the newcomer, who made haste to dismount from his horse.
-
-"And Señor Don Victoriano, how is he?" he asked.
-
-"Oh, he is somewhere in the neighborhood; he is very well, and
-very much interested in the labors of the country--very contented."
-Nieves said these words with the abstracted air with which we speak
-of things that possess only a slight interest for us. Segundo
-observed that the glance of the Minister's wife rested on his fine
-suit, which he had just received from Orense; and the idea that she
-might think it pretentious or ridiculous disturbed him so greatly for
-a time that he regretted not having worn his ordinary clothes.
-
-"You frightened away Victorina," continued Nieves, smiling.
-"Where can the silly child have disappeared to? No doubt she ran away
-because she had on only a blouse. You treat her like a woman, and she
-is growing unbearable. Come."
-
-Nieves gathered up the skirt of her morning gown of white
-cretonne spotted with rosebuds, and made her way intrepidly into the
-kitchen, which was on a level with the yard. Following the little
-Louis XV. heels covered by the Breton lace of her petticoat, Segundo
-passed through several rooms--the kitchen, the dining-room, the
-Rosary room, so called because in it Primo Genday said prayers with
-the servants, and finally the balcony room. Here Nieves stopped,
-saying:
-
-"I will call to them if they chance to be in the vineyard."
-
-And leaning out of the window, she cried:
-
-"Uncle! Victoriano! Uncle!"
-
-Two voices responded.
-
-"What is it? We are coming."
-
-Finding nothing opportune to say, Segundo was silent. Her
-conscience at rest, now that she had called the elders, Nieves turned
-toward him and said, with the graciousness of a hostess who knows
-what are the duties of her position:
-
-"How good this is of you! We had not thought you would care to
-come before the vintage. And now that the holidays are
-approaching--indeed I supposed we should see you in Vilamorta before
-seeing you here, as Victoriano has determined to take a fortnight's
-course of the waters."
-
-She leaned against the wall as she spoke, and Segundo tapped the
-toe of his boot with his whip. From the garden came the voice of
-Mendez:
-
-"Nieves! Nieves! Come down, if it is all the same to you."
-
-"Excuse me, I am going for a parasol."
-
-She soon returned, and Segundo offered her his arm. They
-descended into the garden through the gallery, and after the
-customary greetings were over Mendez protested against Segundo's
-returning that afternoon to Vilamorta.
-
-"The idea! A pretty thing that would be! To expose yourself to
-the heat twice in the same day!"
-
-And Señor de las Vides, availing himself of an opportunity which
-no rural proprietor ever lets slip, took possession of the poet and
-gave himself up to the task of showing him over the estate. He
-explained to him at the same time his viticultural enterprises. He
-had been among the first to employ sulphur fumigation with success,
-and he was now using new manures which would perhaps solve the
-problem of grape cultivation. He was making experiments with the
-common wine of the Border, trying to make with it an imitation of the
-rich Bordeaux; to impart to it, with powdered lily-root, the bouquet,
-the fragrance, of the French wines. But he had to contend against the
-spirit of routine, fanaticism, as he said, confidentially lowering
-his voice and laying his hand on Segundo's shoulder. The other
-vine-growers accused him of disregarding the wholesome traditions of
-the country, of adulterating and making up wine. As if they
-themselves did not make it up. Only that they did so, using common
-drugs for the purpose--logwood and nightshade. He contented himself
-with employing rational methods, scientific discoveries, the
-improvements of modern chemistry, condemning the absurd custom of
-using pitch in the skins, for although the people of the Border
-approved of the taste of pitch in the wine, saying that the pitch
-excited thirst, the exporters disliked, and with reason, the
-stickiness imparted by it. In short, if Segundo would like to see the
-wine vaults and the presses----
-
-There was no help for it. Nieves remained at the door, fearing to
-soil her dress. When they came out they proceeded to inspect the
-garden in detail. The garden, too, was a series of walls built one
-above another, like the steps of a stairs, sustaining narrow belts of
-earth, and this arrangement of the ground gave the vegetation an
-exuberance that was almost tropical. Camellias, peach trees, and
-lemon trees grew in wild luxuriance, laden at once with leaves,
-fruits, and blossoms. Bees and butterflies circled and hummed around
-them, sipping their sweets, wild with the joy of mere existence and
-drunken with the sunshine. They ascended by steep steps from wall to
-wall. Segundo gave his arm to Nieves and at the last step they paused
-to look at the river flowing below.
-
-"Look there," said Segundo, pointing to a distant hill on his
-left. "There is the pine grove. I wager you have forgotten."
-
-"I have not forgotten," responded Nieves, winking her blue eyes
-dazzled by the sun; "the pine grove that sings. You see that I have
-not forgotten. And tell me, do you know if it will sing to-day? For I
-should greatly like to hear it sing this afternoon."
-
-"If a breeze rises. With the air as still as it is now, the pines
-will be almost motionless and almost silent. And I say _almost_, for
-they are never quite silent. The friction of their tops is sufficient
-to cause a peculiar vibration, to produce a murmur----"
-
-"And does that happen," asked Nieves jestingly, "only with the
-pines here or is it the same with all pines?"
-
-"I cannot say," answered Segundo, looking at her fixedly.
-"Perhaps the only pine grove that will ever sing for me will be that
-of Las Vides."
-
-Nieves lowered her eyes, and then glanced round, as if in search
-of Don Victoriano and Mendez, who were on one of the steps above
-them. Segundo observed the movement and with rude imperiousness said
-to Nieves:
-
-"Let us join them."
-
-They rejoined their companions and did not again separate from
-them until they entered the dining-room, where Genday and Tropiezo
-were awaiting them. The last to arrive was the child, now modestly
-attired in a piqué frock and long stockings.
-
-The table at which they dined was placed, not in the center, but
-at one side of the dining-room; it was square and at the sides,
-instead of chairs, stood two oaken benches, dark with age, as seats
-for the guests. The head and foot of the table were left free for the
-service. Sober by nature, Segundo noticed with surprise the
-extraordinary quantity of food consumed by Don Victoriano, observing
-at the same time that his face was thinner than before. Now and then
-the statesman paused remorsefully, saying:
-
-"I am eating ravenously."
-
-The Amphitryon protested, and Tropiezo and Genday expounded in
-turn liberal and consoling doctrines. "Nature is very wise," said
-Señor de las Vides, who had not forgotten Rousseau, "and he who obeys
-her cannot go astray." Primo Genday, fond of eating, like all
-plethoric people, added with a certain theological unction: "In order
-that the soul may be disposed to serve God the reasonable
-requirements of the body must first be attended to." Tropiezo, on his
-side, pushed out his lower lip, denying the existence of certain
-new-fangled diseases. Since the world began there had been people who
-suffered as Don Victoriano was suffering and no one had ever thought
-of depriving them of eating and drinking, quite the contrary. For the
-very reason that the disease was a wasting one it was necessary to
-eat well. Don Victoriano allowed himself to be easily persuaded.
-Those dishes of former times, those antiquated, miraculous
-cruet-stands in which the oil and the vinegar came from the same tube
-without ever mingling, that immense loaf placed on the table as a
-center-piece, were for him so many delightful relics of the past,
-which reminded him of happy hours, the irresponsible years of
-existence. At the dessert, when Primo Genday, still heated with a
-political discussion in which he had characterized the liberals as
-uncircumcised, suddenly grew very serious and proceeded to recite the
-Lord's Prayer, the Minister, a confirmed rationalist, was surprised
-at the devoutness with which he murmured--"Our daily bread."
-_Caramba_, those memories of the days when one was young! Don
-Victoriano grew young again in going over those recollections of his
-boyish days. He even called to mind ephemeral engagements,
-flirtations of a fortnight with young ladies of the Border who, at
-the present time, must be withered old maids or respectable mothers
-of families. A pretty fool he was! The ex-Minister laid down his
-napkin and rose to his feet.
-
-"Do you sleep the siesta?" he asked Segundo.
-
-"No, Señor."
-
-"Nor I either; let us go and smoke a cigar together."
-
-
-
-
-                                   X.
-
-
-They seated themselves near the window in the pa rlor in a couple
-of rocking-chairs brought from Orense. The garden and the vineyard
-breathed a lazy tranquillity, a silence so profound that the dull
-sound of the ripe peaches breaking from the branch and falling on the
-dry ground could be plainly heard. Through the open window came odors
-of fruit and honey. In the house unbroken silence reigned.
-
-"Will you have a cigar?"
-
-"Thanks."
-
-The cigars were lighted and Segundo, following Don Victoriano's
-example, began to rock himself. The rhythmical movement of the
-rocking-chairs, the drowsy quiet of the place, invited to a serious
-and confidential conversation.
-
-"And you, what do you do in Vilamorta? You are a lawyer, are you
-not. I think I have heard that it is your intention to succeed your
-father in his practice--a very intelligent man."
-
-Segundo felt that the occasion was propitious. The smoke of the
-cigars, diffusing itself through the atmosphere, softened the light,
-disposing him to confidence and dispelling his habitual reserve.
-
-"The thought of beginning now the career my father is just ending
-horrifies me," he said, in answer to the ex-Minister's question.
-"That sordid struggle to gain a little money, more or less, those
-village intrigues, that miserable plotting and planning, that
-drawing-up of documents--I was made for none of those things, Señor
-Don Victoriano. It is not that I could not practice. I have been a
-fair student and my good memory always brought me safely through in
-the examinations. But for what does the profession of law serve? For
-a foundation, nothing more. It is a passport, a card of admission to
-some office."
-
-"Well----" said Don Victoriano, shaking the ashes from his cigar,
-"what you say is true, very true. What is learned at the University
-is of scarcely any use afterward. As for me, if it had not been for
-my apprenticeship with Don Juan Antonio Prado, who taught me to make
-a practical use of my legal knowledge and to know how many teeth
-there are in a comb, I should not have distinguished myself greatly
-by my Compostelan learning. My friend, what makes a man of one, what
-really profits one is this terrible apprenticeship, the position in
-which a boy finds himself when a pile of papers is set before him,
-and a pompous gentleman says to him, 'Study this question to-day and
-have ready for me by to-morrow a formulated opinion on it.' There is
-the rub! That is what makes you sweat and bite your nails! There
-neither laziness nor ignorance will avail you. The thing must be
-done, and as it cannot be done by magic----"
-
-"Even in Madrid and on a large scale the practice of the law has
-no attractions for me. I have other aspirations."
-
-"Let us hear what they are."
-
-Segundo hesitated, restrained by a feeling of shyness, as if he
-had been going to narrate a dream or to descant on the delights of
-love. He followed with his eyes for a few moments the blue smoke
-curling upward and finally, the semi-obscurity of the room, secluded
-as a confessional, dissipated his reserve.
-
-"I wish to follow the profession of literature," he returned.
-
-The statesman stopped rocking himself and took his cigar from his
-mouth.
-
-"But my boy, literature is not a profession!" he said. "There is
-no such thing as the profession of literature! Let us understand each
-other--have you ever been out of Vilamorta? I mean beyond Santiago
-and the neighboring towns?"
-
-"No, Señor."
-
-"Then I can understand those illusions and those childish
-notions. They still believe here that a writer or a poet, from the
-mere fact of his being such, may aspire to--and what do you write?"
-
-"Poetry."
-
-"You don't write prose at all?"
-
-"An occasional essay or newspaper article. Very little."
-
-"Bravo! Well, if you trust to poetry to make your way in the
-world--I have remarked something curious in this place and I am going
-to tell you what it is. Verses are still read here with interest, and
-it seems the girls learn them by heart. But in the capital I assure
-you there is scarcely anyone who cares for poetry. You are twenty or
-thirty years behind the age here--at the height of the romantic
-period."
-
-Segundo, annoyed, said with some vehemence:
-
-"And Campoamor? And Nuñez de Arce? And Grilo? Are they not famous
-poets? Are they not popular?"
-
-"Campoamor? They read him because he is very witty, and he sets
-the girls thinking and he makes the men laugh. He has his merit, and
-he amuses while he philosophizes. But remember that neither he nor
-Nuñez de Arce lives by writing verses. Much prosperity that would
-bring them! As to Grilo--well, he has his admirers among ladies of
-rank, and the Queen Mother publishes his poems, and as far as we can
-judge he has plenty of money. But convince yourself that no one will
-ever grow rich by following the road that leads to Parnassus. And
-this is when masters are in question, for of poets of a secondary
-rank, young men who string rhymes together with more or less
-facility, there are probably now in Madrid some two or three hundred.
-Have you ever heard of any of them? No; nor I either. A few friends
-praise them when they publish anything in some insignificant review.
-But there is no need to go on. In plain words, it is time lost."
-
-Segundo silently vented his anger on his cigar.
-
-"Don't take what I say as an offense," continued Don Victoriano.
-"I know little about literature, although in my youthful days I wrote
-_quintillas_, like everybody else. Besides, I have seen nothing of
-what you have written, so that my opinion is impartial and my advice
-sincere."
-
-"My ambition," began Segundo at last, "is not confined
-exclusively to lyric poetry. Perhaps later I might prefer the
-drama--or prose. Who knows? I only want to try my fortune."
-
-Don Victoriano rose and stepped out into the balcony. Suddenly he
-returned, placed both hands on Segundo's shoulders, and putting his
-clean-shaven face close to the face of the poet, said with a pity
-which was not feigned:
-
-"Poor boy! How many, many disappointments are in store for you!"
-
-And as Segundo, astonished at this sudden effusion, remained
-silent, he continued:
-
-"Novice as you are, you have no means of knowing what you are
-doing. I am sorry for you. You are deluding yourself. In the present
-state of society, in order to attain eminence in anything, you must
-sweat blood like Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. If it is lyric
-poetry that is in question, God help you! If you write comedies or
-farces, you have an enviable fate before you--to flatter the actors,
-to have your manuscript lie neglected in the corner of a drawer, to
-have half an act cut out at a stroke; and then the dread of the first
-night, and of what comes after it--which may be the worst of all. If
-you become a journalist, you will not have ten minutes in the day to
-yourself, you will make the reputation of others, and you will never
-see even so much as the shadow of your own. If you write books--but
-who reads in Spain? And if you throw yourself into politics--ah, then
-indeed!"
-
-Segundo, his eyes cast down, his gaze wandering over the pine
-knots in the boarded floor, listened without opening his lips to
-those convincing accents that seemed to tear away one by one the
-rose-leaves of his illusions, with the same strident sound with which
-the nail of the speaker flicked away the ash of his cigar. At last he
-raised his contracted face and looking at the statesman said, not
-without a touch of sarcasm in his voice:
-
-"As for politics, Señor Don Victoriano, it seems to me that you
-ought not to speak ill of that. It has treated you well; you have no
-cause of complaint against it. For you politics has not been a
-stepmother."
-
-Don Victoriano's countenance changed, showing plainly the ravages
-disease had made in his organism; and rising to his feet a second
-time, he threw away his cigar and, walking up and down the room with
-hasty steps, he burst forth passionately, in words that rushed from
-his lips in a sudden flood, in an impetuous and unequal stream, like
-the stream of blood gushing from a severed artery:
-
-"Don't touch that point. Be silent about that, boy. How do you,
-how does anybody know what those things are until he has thrown
-himself headlong into them and is caught fast and cannot escape! If I
-were to tell you--but it is impossible to tell one's whole life, day
-by day, to describe a battle which has lasted for years, without rest
-or respite. To struggle in order to make one's self known, to go on
-struggling to keep one's self from being forgotten, to pass from law
-to politics, from a wheel set with knives to a bed of live coals, to
-fight in Congress without faith, without conviction, because one must
-fight to keep the place one has won; and with all this not to have a
-free hour, not a tranquil moment, not have time for anything. One
-achieves fortune when one no longer has the inclination to enjoy it;
-one marries and has a family and--one has hardly liberty to accompany
-one's wife to the theater. Don't talk to me. A hell, a hell upon
-earth is what politics is. Would you believe" (and here he uttered a
-round oath) "that when my little girl was beginning to walk, I
-proposed to myself one day to have the pleasure of taking her out
-walking--a caprice, a whim. Well, I was going downstairs with the
-child in my arms, very contented, when lo, I found myself face to
-face with the Marquis of Cameros, a candidate for representative from
-Galicia, who had come to ask me for fifteen or twenty
-letters--written in my own hand so that they might prove more
-efficacious. And I was such a fool, man, I was such a fool, that
-instead of throwing the Marquis down the stairs, as I ought to have
-done, I walked back my two flights, gave the child to her nurse, and
-shut myself up in my office to prepare the election. And it was the
-same thing always; tell me, then, have I reason or not to abominate
-such folly, such humbug? Ah, what pains we are at to make ourselves
-miserable!"
-
-There could be no doubt of it; in the voice of the statesman
-there was the sound of repressed tears; in his throat smothered
-curses and blasphemies struggled for utterance. Segundo, to do
-something, threw open the window leading to the balcony. The sun was
-low in the heavens; the heat had grown less intense.
-
-"And worst of all--the consequences!" continued Don Victoriano,
-pausing in his walk. "You strive and struggle without pausing to
-reflect what will be the effect upon your health. You fight, like the
-knights of old, with visor down. But as you are not made of iron, but
-only of flesh and blood, when you least expect it, you find yourself
-sick, sick, wounded, without knowing where. You do not lose blood,
-but you lose the sap of life, like a lemon that is squeezed." And the
-ex-Minister laughed bitterly. "And you want to stop, to rest, to get
-back health at any cost, and you find that it is too late; you have
-not a drop of moisture left in your body. Well, keep on until there
-is an end to you. Much your labors and your triumphs have profited
-you! You have drawn down on yourself a doom from which there is no
-escape!"
-
-He spoke with gesticulations, thrusting his hands into his
-trousers pockets in an outburst of confidence, expressing himself
-with as little reserve as if he had been alone. And in reality he was
-talking to himself. His words were a monologue, the spoken utterance
-of the gloomy thoughts which Don Victoriano, thanks to heroic
-efforts, had hitherto been able to conceal in his own breast. The
-strange malady from which he suffered gave rise to horrible
-nightmares; he dreamed that he was turning into a loaf of sugar and
-that his intellect, his blood, his life, were flowing away from him,
-through a deep, deep channel, converted into syrup. In his waking
-moments his mind refused to accept, as one refused to accept a
-humiliation, so strange a malady. Sanchez del Abrojo must be
-mistaken; his was some functional, transitory disorder, an ordinary
-ailment, the result of his sedentary life, and Tropiezo's
-old-fashioned remedies would perhaps after all prove more efficacious
-than those of science. And if they did not? The statesman felt a cold
-chill run through him that made his hair stand on end and constricted
-his heart. To die when he was scarcely past forty, with his mental
-powers unimpaired, with so many things begun, so many accomplished!
-And no doubt this consuming thirst, this insatiable voracity, this
-debilitating sensation of melting away, of fusion, of dissolving,
-were all fatal symptoms.
-
-Suddenly Don Victoriano remembered the presence of Segundo, which
-he had almost forgotten. And laying both hands on his shoulders a
-second time, and fixing on the poet's eyes, his dry eyes, scorched by
-repressed tears, he cried:
-
-"Do you wish to hear the truth, and to receive good advice? Have
-you ambitions, aspirations, hopes? Well, I have had disappointments,
-and I desire to do you a service by recounting them to you now. Don't
-be a fool; stay here all your life; help your father, take up his
-practice when he lays it down, and marry that blooming daughter of
-Agonde. Never leave this land of fruits, of vines, whose climate is
-so delightful. What would I not give now never to have left it! No,
-my boy, remain quietly here; end a long life here surrounded by a
-numerous progeny. Have you observed how healthy your father is? It is
-a pleasure to see him, with his teeth so sound and perfect. I have
-not a single tooth that is not decayed; they say that it is one of
-the symptoms of my malady. Why, if your mother were living now you
-would be having little brothers and sisters."
-
-Segundo smiled.
-
-"But, Señor Don Victoriano," he said, "to act out your ideas
-would be to vegetate, not to live."
-
-"And what greater happiness than to vegetate," responded the
-statesman, looking out of the window. "Do you think those trees there
-are not to be envied?"
-
-The garden, indeed, seen in the light of the setting sun, had a
-certain air of voluptuous bliss, as if it were enjoying a happy
-dream.
-
-The lustrous leaves of the lemon trees and the camellias, the
-gummy trunks of the fruit trees, seemed to drink in with delight the
-fresh evening breeze, precursor of the vivifying dews of night. The
-golden atmosphere took on in the distance faint lilac tints.
-Innumerable noises began to make themselves heard, preludes to songs
-of insects, to the concerts of the frogs and toads.
-
-The pensive tranquillity of the scene was broken in upon by the
-quick trot of a mule, and Clodio Genday, out of breath, flung himself
-out of his saddle, and reeled into the garden. Gesticulating with his
-hands, with his head, with his whole body, he called, screamed,
-vociferated:
-
-"Oh, I have a nice piece of news for you, a nice piece of news! I
-will be there directly, I will be there directly!"
-
-They went to the head of the stairs leading to the garden, to
-meet him, and when he rushed upon them, like an arrow shot from a
-bow, they saw that he wore neither collar nor cravat, and that his
-dress was in the utmost disorder.
-
-"A mere bagatelle, Señor Don Victoriano--that they are playing a
-trick upon us; that they have played it already, that unless we take
-prompt measures we shall lose the district. You would not believe it,
-if I were to tell you of all the plans they have been laying, for a
-long time past, at Doña Eufrasia's shop. And we simpletons suspecting
-nothing. And all the priests are in the plot; the parish priests of
-Lubrego, of Boan, of Naya, and of Cebre. They have set up as a
-candidate Señorito de Romero of Orense, who is willing to loosen his
-purse-strings. But where is Primo, that good-for-nothing, that
-scarecrow, who never found out a word of all this?"
-
-"We will look for him, man. What do you tell me, what do you tell
-me? I never thought they would have dared----"
-
-And Don Victoriano, animated and excited, followed Clodio, who
-went shouting through the parlor:
-
-"Primo! Primo!"
-
-A little later Segundo saw the two brothers and the ex-Minister
-going through the garden disputing and gesticulating violently.
-Clodio was making charges against Primo, who tried to defend himself,
-while Don Victoriano acted as peacemaker. In his fury Clodio shook
-his clenched fist in Primo's face, almost laying violent hands upon
-him, while the culprit stammered, crossing himself hastily:
-
-"Mercy, mercy, mercy! Ave Maria!"
-
-The poet watched them as they passed by, remarking the
-transformation that had taken place in Don Victoriano. As he turned
-away from the window he saw Nieves standing before him.
-
-"And those gentlemen," she said to him graciously, "have they
-left you all alone? The pines must at this time be singing. There is
-a breeze stirring."
-
-"Undoubtedly they will be singing now," returned the poet. "I
-shall hear them as I ride back to Vilamorta."
-
-Nieves' movement of surprise did not pass unnoticed by Segundo,
-who, looking her steadily in the face, added coldly and proudly:
-"Unless you should command me to remain."
-
-Nieves was silent. She felt that courtesy required that she
-should make some effort to detain her guest, while at the same time
-to ask him to remain, they two being alone, seemed to her inexpedient
-and liable to misconstruction. At last she took a middle course,
-saying with a forced smile:
-
-"But why are you in such a hurry? And will you make us another
-visit?"
-
-"We shall see each other later in Vilamorta. Good-by, Nieves, I
-will not disturb Don Victoriano. Say good-by to him for me and tell
-him he may count upon my father's services and upon mine."
-
-Without taking Nieves' outstretched hand or looking at her he
-descended into the courtyard. He was settling his feet in the
-stirrups when he saw a little figure appear close beside him. It was
-Victorina, with her hands full of lumps of sugar, which she offered
-the nag. The animal eagerly pushed out its under lip, which moved
-with the intelligent undulations of an elephant's trunk.
-
-Segundo interposed:
-
-"Child, he will bite you; he bites."
-
-Then he added gayly:
-
-"Do you want me to lift you up here? You don't? I wager I can
-lift you!"
-
-He lifted her up and seated her on the saddle-cloth, before him.
-She struggled to free herself and in her struggles her beautiful hair
-fell over the face and shoulders of Segundo, who was holding her
-tightly around the waist. He observed with some surprise that the
-girl's heart was beating tumultuously. Turning very pale Victorina
-cried:
-
-"Mamma, mamma!"
-
-At last she succeeded in releasing herself and ran toward Nieves,
-who was laughing merrily at the incident. Half-way she stopped,
-retraced her steps, threw her arms around the horse's neck and
-pressed on his nose a warm kiss.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XI.
-
-
-Eight or ten days intervened between Segundo's visit to Las Vides
-and the return of Don Victoriano and his family to Vilamorta. Don
-Victoriano desired to drink the waters and at the same time to take
-measures to frustrate the dark machinations of Romero's partisans.
-His plan was a simple one--to offer Romero some other district, where
-he would not have to spend a penny, and thus removing the only rival
-who had any prestige in the country he would avoid the mortification
-of a defeat through Vilamorta. It was important to do this before
-October, the period at which the electoral contest was to take place.
-And while Genday, García, the Alcalde and the other Combistas managed
-the negotiation, Don Victoriano, installed in Agonde's house, drank
-two or three glasses of the salubrious waters every morning, after
-which he read his correspondence, and in the afternoon, when the
-sultry heat invited to a siesta, he read or wrote in the cool parlor
-of the apothecary.
-
-Segundo frequently accompanied him in these hours of retirement.
-They talked together like two friends, and the statesman, far from
-insisting on the ideas he had expressed in Las Vides, encouraged the
-poet, offering him to endeavor to obtain a position for him in Madrid
-which should enable him to carry out his plans.
-
-"A position that will not take up much of your time, nor require
-much mental labor--I will see, I will see. I will be on the lookout
-for something."
-
-Segundo observed unmistakable signs of improved health in the
-wrinkled face of the Minister. Don Victoriano was experiencing the
-transitory benefit which mineral waters produce at first, stimulating
-the organism only to waste it all the more rapidly, perhaps,
-afterward. Both digestion and circulation had become more active, and
-perspiration, even, entirely suppressed by the disease, had become
-re-established, dilating the pores with grateful warmth and
-communicating to the dry fibers the elasticity of healthy flesh. As a
-candle flares up brightly before going out, so Don Victoriano seemed
-to be recovering strength when in reality he was wasting away.
-Fancying health was returning to him, he breathed with delight the
-narrow atmosphere of party intrigues, taking pleasure in disputing
-his district inch by inch, in winning over adherents and receiving
-demonstrations of sympathy, and secretly flattered by the absurd
-proposal made by his parishioners to the parish priest of Vilamorta,
-that incense should be burned before him. In the evening he amused
-himself patriarchally among Agonde's visitors, listening to the
-comical stories told of the clique at Doña Eufrasia's shop and
-enjoying the ripple of excitement occasioned by the proximity of the
-feasts. Little by little the innocent tresillo table of Agonde had
-become transformed into something much more wicked. Now, instead of
-four persons being seated at it, there was only one, around whom,
-their eyes fixed on his hands, the others stood grouped. The banker's
-left hand grasped the cards tightly while with the ball of his thumb
-he pushed up the last card until first the spot could be descried,
-then the number, then the knob of a club, the point of a diamond, the
-blue tail of a horse, the turreted crown of a king, and other hands
-took up stakes or took money from the pocket and laid it down on the
-fateful pieces of cardboard with the words:
-
-"On the seven! On the four! The ace is in sight!"
-
-Through respect for Don Victoriano, Agonde refrained from dealing
-the cards when the latter was present, bridling with difficulty the
-only passion that could warm his blood and excite his placid nature,
-giving up his place to Jacinto Ruedas, a famous strolling gambler,
-known everywhere, who followed the scent of the gaming-table as
-others follow the scent of a banquet, a rare type, something between
-a swindler and a spy, who made low jests in a hoarse voice. The
-chroniclers do not state whether the civil authorities, that is to
-say, the judge of Vilamorta, made any attempt to interfere with the
-unlawful diversion in which the visitors to the pharmacy indulged,
-but it is an ascertained fact that, the judge having one leg shorter
-than the other, the pounding of his crutch on the sidewalk gave
-timely warning of his approach to the players. And as for the
-municipal authority, it is known to a certainty that one day, or to
-speak with more exactness, one night, he entered the apothecary's
-back shop like a bomb, holding in his hand money which he threw on a
-card, crying:
-
-"Gentlemen, I am queen!"
-
-"Be an ass, if you like!" responded Agonde, pushing him away with
-marked disrespect.
-
-This year Don Victoriano's presence and the open hostilities
-waged between his partisans and those of Romero gave a martial
-character to the feasts. The Combists desired to render them more
-splendid and brilliant than ever before and the Romerists to render
-them a failure, as far as it was possible. In the main room of the
-townhall the monster balloon, which occupied the whole length of the
-apartment, was being repaired; its white sides were being covered
-with inscriptions, figures, emblems, and symbols, and around the
-floor were scattered tin kettles filled with paste, pots of
-vermilion, Sienna, and ochre, balls of packthread and cut paper
-figures. From the giant balloon sprung daily broods of smaller
-balloons, miniature balloons, made with remnants and fancifully
-decorated in pink and blue. At the meetings at Doña Eufrasia's they
-spoke contemptuously of these preparations and commented on the
-audacity of the inn-keeper's son, a mere dauber, who undertook to
-paint Don Victoriano's likeness on one of the divisions of the large
-balloon. The Romerist young ladies, compressing their lips and
-shrugging their shoulders, declared that they would attend neither
-the fire-works nor the ball, not if their adversaries were to offer
-novenas with that purpose to every saint in heaven.
-
-On the other hand, the young ladies of the Combist party formed a
-sort of court around Nieves. Every afternoon they called for her to
-take her out walking; chief among these were Carmen Agonde,
-Florentina, the daughter of the Alcalde, Rosa, a niece of Tropiezo,
-and Clara, the eldest of García's daughters. This latter was running
-about barefooted, spending her time gathering blackberries in her
-apron, when she received the astounding news that her father had
-ordered a gown for her from Orense, that she might visit the
-Minister's lady. And the gown came with its fresh bows and its stiff
-linings and the girl, her face and hands washed, her hair combed, her
-feet covered with new kid boots, her eyes cast down and her hands
-crossed stiffly before her, went to swell Nieves' train. Victorina
-took Clara García under her especial protection, arranged her dress
-and hair and made her a present of a bracelet, and they became
-inseparable companions.
-
-They generally walked on the highroad, but as soon as Clara grew
-more intimate with Victorina she protested against this, declaring
-that the paths and the by-ways were much more amusing and that much
-prettier things were to be met with in them. And she pressed
-Victorina's arm saying:
-
-"Segundo knows lovely walks!"
-
-As chance would have it, that same afternoon, returning to the
-town, they caught sight of a man stealing along in the shadow of the
-houses, and Clara, who was on the other side of the way, ran over to
-him, and threw her arm around his waist, crying:
-
-"Hey, Segundo; you can't escape from us now, we have caught you."
-
-The poet gave a brotherly push to Clara, and ceremoniously
-saluting Nieves, who returned his salutation with extreme cordiality,
-he said to her:
-
-"The idea of this girl--I am sure she has been making herself
-troublesome to you. You must excuse her."
-
-They sat down on one of the benches of the Plaza, to enjoy the
-fresh air, and when, on the following day the party walked out after
-the siesta, Segundo joined them, studiously avoiding Nieves as if
-some secret understanding, some mysterious complicity existed between
-them. He mingled among the girls and, laying aside his habitual
-reserve, he laughed and jested with Victorina, for whom he gathered,
-as they walked along the hedges, ripe blackberries, acorns, early
-chestnut burrs, and innumerable wild flowers, which the girl put into
-a little Russian leather satchel.
-
-Sometimes Segundo led them along precipitous paths cut in the
-living rock, bordered by walls, supporting grapevines through which
-the expiring rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate. Again he would
-take them through bare and arid woods until they reached some old oak
-grove, some chestnut tree, inside whose trunk, decayed and split with
-age, Segundo would hide himself while the girls hand in hand danced
-around it.
-
-One day he took them to the stone bridge that crossed the
-Avieiro, under whose arches the black water, cold and motionless,
-seems to be dreaming a sinister dream. And he told them how in this
-spot, where, owing to the water being deeper there and less exposed
-to the sun's rays, the largest trout gathered, a corpse had been
-found floating last month near the arch. He took them to hear the
-echo also, and all the girls were wild with delight, talking all
-together, without waiting for the wall to repeat their cries and
-shouts of laughter. On another afternoon he showed them a curious
-lake regarding which innumerable fables were told in the
-country--that it had no bottom, that it reached to the center of the
-earth, that submerged cities could be seen under its surface, that
-strange woods floated and unknown flowers grew in its waters. The
-so-called lake was in reality a large excavation, probably a Roman
-mine that had been flooded with water, which, imprisoned within the
-chain of hillocks of argillaceous tophus heaped up around it by the
-miners' shovels, presented a sepulchral and fantastic aspect, the
-weird effect of the scene being heightened by the somber character of
-the marsh vegetation which covered the surface of the immense pool.
-When it began to grow dark the children declared that this lugubrious
-scene made them horribly afraid; the girls confessed to the same
-feeling, and started for the highroad running at the top of their
-speed, leaving Segundo and Nieves behind. This was the first time
-they had found themselves alone together, for the poet avoided such
-occasions. Nieves looked around uneasily and then, meeting Segundo's
-eyes fixed, ardent and questioning upon hers, lowered her gaze. Then
-the gloom of the landscape and the solemnity of the hour gave her a
-contraction of the heart, and without knowing what she was doing she
-began to run as the girls had done. She heard Segundo's footsteps
-behind her, and when she at last stopped, at a little distance from
-the highroad, she saw him smile and could not help smiling herself at
-her own folly.
-
-"Heavens! What a silly fright!" she cried, "I have made myself
-ridiculous. I am as bad as the children! But that blessed pool is
-enough to make one afraid. Tell me, how is it that they have not
-taken views of it? It is very curious and picturesque."
-
-They returned by the highroad; it was now quite dark and Nieves,
-as if wishing to efface the impression made by her childish terror,
-showed herself gay and friendly with Segundo; two or three times her
-eyes encountered his and, doubtless through absent-mindedness, she
-did not turn them aside. They spoke of the walk of the following day;
-it must be along the banks of the river, which was more cheerful than
-the pond; the scenery there was beautiful, not gloomy like that of
-the pool.
-
-In effect the road they followed on the next day was beautiful,
-although it was obstructed by the osier plantations and canebrakes
-and the intricate growth of the birches and the young poplars, which
-at times impeded their progress. Every now and then Segundo had to
-give his hand to Nieves and put aside the flexible young branches
-that struck against her face. Notwithstanding all his care, he was
-unable to save her from wetting her feet and leaving some fragments
-of the lace of her hat among the branches of a poplar. They stopped
-at a spot where the river, dividing, formed a sort of islet covered
-with cats-tails and gladioli. A rivulet running down the
-mountain-side mingled its waters silently and meekly with the waters
-of Avieiro. At the river's edge grew plants with dentated leaves and
-a variety of ferns and graceful aquatic plants. Segundo knelt down on
-the wet ground and began to gather some flowers.
-
-"Take them, Nieves," he said.
-
-She approached and, kneeling on one knee, he handed her a bunch
-of flowers of a pale turquoise blue, with slender stems, flowers of
-which she had hitherto seen only imitations, as adornments for hats,
-and that she had fancied had only a mythical existence; flowers of
-romance, that she had thought grew only on the banks of the Rhine,
-which is the home of everything romantic; flowers that have so
-beautiful a name--_Forget-me-not_.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XII.
-
-
-Nieves was what is called an exemplary wife, without a dark page
-in her history, without a thought of disloyalty to her husband, a
-coquette only in her dress and in the adornment of her person, and
-even in these practicing no alluring arts, content to obey slavishly
-the dictates of fashion.
-
-Her ideal, if she had any, was to lead a comfortable, elegant
-existence, enjoying the consideration of the world. She had married
-when she was very young, Don Victoriano settling on her some
-thousands of dollars, and on the wedding-day her father had called
-her into his magisterial office and, keeping her standing before him
-as if she were a criminal, had charged her to respect and obey the
-husband she had chosen. She obeyed and respected him.
-
-And her obedience and respect were a torture to Don Victoriano,
-who sought in marriage a compensation for the long years he had spent
-in his law office; years of loneliness during which his arduous
-labors and confinement to business had prevented him from forming any
-tender tie or cultivating gentle affections, permitting him at the
-most some hasty pleasure, some reckless and exciting adventure, which
-did not satisfy his heart. He fancied that the beautiful daughter of
-the President of the Court would requite him for all the tender joys
-he had missed and he found with vain and bitter disappointment that
-Nieves saw in him only the grave husband who is accepted with
-docility, without repugnance, nothing more. Respecting against his
-will the peace of this superficial being, he neither could nor dared
-disturb it, and he fretted his soul with unavailing longings,
-hastening to the crisis of maturity and multiplying the white patches
-that streaked his black hair.
-
-When the child was born Don Victoriano hoped to repay himself
-with interest in new and holy caresses, to take solace in a pure
-oasis of affection. But the requirements of his position, the hurry
-of business, the complex obligations and the implacable cares of his
-existence, interposed themselves between him and a father's joys. He
-saw his daughter only from a distance, barely succeeding, when the
-coffee was brought in, in having her for awhile on his knee. And then
-came the first warnings of his disease.
-
-From the time in which his malady declared itself with all its
-afflicting symptoms, Nieves had still less of her husband's society
-than before; it seemed to her as if she had returned to the rosy days
-of her girlhood, when she flitted about like a butterfly and played
-at lovers with her companions, who wrote her fictitious love-letters
-of an innocent nature, which they put under her pillow.
-
-She never had had much amusement since that time. A great deal of
-amusement was to be found in the routine of a methodical Madrid life!
-Yes, there was a period during which the Marquis de Cameros, a rich
-young client of Don Victoriano's, had come to the house with some
-frequency, and he had even been asked to dine with them three or four
-times, without ceremony. Nieves remembered that the Marquis had cast
-many furtive glances at her, and that they had always met him, by
-chance, at whatever theater they went to. It did not go beyond this.
-
-Nieves was now in the bloom of her second youth--between
-twenty-nine and thirty--terrible epoch in a woman's life; and if it
-brought her no red passion flowers, at least she wished to adorn
-herself with the romantic forget-me-nots of the poet. It seemed to
-Nieves that in the porcelain vase of her existence a flower had been
-wanting, and the fragile blue spray came to complete the beauty of
-the drawing-room toy. Bah! What harm was there in all this? It was a
-childish adventure. Those flowers, preserved between the leaves of a
-costly prayer-book, inspired her only with thoughts as pallid and
-sapless as the poor petals now pressed and dry.
-
-She had fastened the blue spray in her bosom. How well it looked
-among the folds of the écru lace!
-
-"Tell me, mamma," Victorina had said to her that night before
-going to bed, "did Segundo give you those pretty flowers?"
-
-"Oh, I don't remember--yes, I think that García picked them for
-me."
-
-"Will you give them to me to keep in my little satchel?"
-
-"Go, child, go to bed quickly. Mademoiselle, see that she says
-her prayers!"
-
-
-
-
-                                 XIII.
-
-
-The proximity of the feasts put an end to long walks. The
-promenaders confined themselves to walks on the highroad, returning
-soon to the town, where the plaza was crowded with busy people. The
-promenaders included the young ladies of the Combist party, gayly
-attired, parish priests, ill-shaven, of sickly aspect and dejected
-looking, gamblers of doubtful appearance and strangers from the
-Border--all types which Agonde criticised with mordacity, to Nieves'
-great amusement.
-
-"Do you see those women there? They are the Señoritas de Gondas,
-three old maids and a young lady, whom they call their niece, but as
-they have no brother----Those other two are the Molendes, from Cebre,
-very aristocratic people, God save the mark! The fat one thinks
-herself superior to Lucifer, and the other writes poetry, and what
-poetry! I tell Segundo García that he ought to propose to her; they
-would make an excellent pair. They are staying at Lamajosa's; there
-they are in their element, for Doña Mercedes Lamajosa, when any
-visitor comes, in order that it may be known that they are noble,
-says to her daughters: 'Girls, let one of you bring me my knitting;
-it must be in the press, where the letters-patent of nobility are.'
-Those two handsome, well-dressed girls are the Caminos, daughters of
-the judge."
-
-On the eve of the fair the musicians paraded the streets morning
-and afternoon, deafening everybody with the noise of their triumphal
-strains. The plaza in front of the townhall was dotted with booths,
-which made a gay confusion of brilliant and discordant colors. Before
-the townhall were erected some odd-looking objects which with equal
-probability might be taken for instruments of torture, children's
-toys, or scarecrows, but which were in reality fireworks--trees and
-wheels which were to burn that night, with magnificent pomp, favored
-by the stillness of the atmosphere. From the window of the building
-issued, like a Titanic arm, the pole on which was to be hoisted the
-gigantic balloon, and along the balustrade ran a series of colored
-glasses, forming the letters V. A. D. L. C.--a delicate compliment to
-the representative of the district.
-
-It was already dark when Don Victoriano, accompanied by his wife
-and daughter, set out for the townhall to see the fireworks. It was
-with difficulty they made their way through the crowd which filled
-the plaza, where a thousand discordant noises filled the air--now the
-timbrel and castanets in some dance, now the buzz of the _zanfona_,
-now some slow and melancholy popular _copla_, now the shout of some
-aggressive and quarrelsome drunkard. Agonde gave his arm to Nieves,
-made way for her among the crowd, and explained to her the programme
-of the night's entertainment.
-
-"Never was there seen a balloon like this year's," he said; "it
-is the largest we have ever had here. The Romerists are furious."
-
-"And how has my likeness turned out?" asked Don Victoriano with
-interest.
-
-"Oh! It is superb. Better than the likeness in _La
-Illustracion_."
-
-At the door of the townhall the difficulties increased, and it
-was necessary to trample down without mercy the country-people--who
-had installed themselves there, determined not to budge an inch lest
-they should lose their places--before they were able to pass in.
-
-"See what asses they are," said Agonde. "It makes no difference
-whether you step over them or not, they won't rise. They have no
-place to sleep and they intend to pass the night here; to-morrow they
-will waken up and return to their villages."
-
-They made their way as best they could over this motley heap in
-which men and women were crowded together, intertwined, entangled in
-repulsive promiscuity. Even on the steps of the stairs
-suspicious-looking groups were lying, or some drunken peasant snored,
-surfeited with _pulpo_, or some old woman sat counting her coppers in
-her lap. They entered the hall, which was illuminated only by the dim
-light shed by the colored glasses. Some young ladies already occupied
-the space in front of the windows, but the Alcalde, hat in hand, with
-innumerable apologies, made them draw their chairs closer together to
-make room for Nieves, Victorina, and Carmen Agonde, around whom an
-obsequious circle gathered; chairs were brought for the ladies, and
-the Alcalde took Don Victoriano to the Secretary's office, where a
-tray, with some bottles of Tostado and some atrocious cigars, awaited
-him. The young ladies and the children placed themselves in front,
-leaning on the railing of the balcony, running the risk of having
-some rocket fall upon them. Nieves remained a little behind, and drew
-her silver-woven Algerian shawl closer around her, for in this empty,
-gloomy hall the air was chill. At her side was an empty chair, which
-was suddenly occupied by a figure whose outlines were dimly
-distinguishable in the darkness.
-
-"Why, García," she cried, "it is a cure for sore eyes. We haven't
-seen you for two days."
-
-"You don't see me now, either, Nieves," said the poet, leaning
-toward her and speaking in a low voice. "It would be rather difficult
-to see one here."
-
-"That is true," answered Nieves, confused by this simple remark.
-"Why have they not brought lights?"
-
-"Because it would spoil the effect of the fireworks. Don't you
-prefer this species of semi-obscurity?" he added, smiling, before he
-uttered it, at the choice phrase.
-
-Nieves was silent. Unconsciously she was fascinated by the
-situation, in which there was a delicate blending of danger and
-security which was not without a tinge of romance; she felt a sense
-of security in the proximity of the open window, the young girls
-crowded around it, the plaza, where the multitude swarmed like ants,
-and whence came noises like the roaring of the sea, and songs and
-confused cries full of tender melancholy; but at the same time the
-solitude and the darkness of the hall and the species of isolation in
-which she found herself with the Swan afforded one of those chance
-occasions which tempt women of weak principles, who are neither so
-imprudent as to throw themselves headlong into danger, nor so
-cautious as to fly from its shadow.
-
-Nieves remained silent, feeling Segundo's breath fanning her
-cheek. Suddenly both started. The first rocket was streaking the sky
-with a long trail of light, and the noise of the explosion, deadened
-though it was by distance, drew a cheer from the crowd in the plaza.
-After this advanced guard came, one after another, at regular
-intervals, with measured, hollow, deafening sound, eight bombs, the
-signal announced in the programme of the feasts for the beginning of
-the display. The window shook with the report and Nieves did not
-venture to raise her eyes to the sky, fearing, doubtless, to see it
-coming down with the reverberation of the bombs. After this the noise
-of the flying fireworks, chasing one another through the solitudes of
-space, seemed to her soft and pleasant.
-
-The first of these were ordinary rockets, without any novelty
-whatever--a trail of light, a dull report, and a shower of sparks.
-But soon came the surprises, novelties, and marvels of art. There
-were fireworks that exploded, separating into three or four cascades
-of light that vanished with fantastic swiftness in the depths of
-space; from others fell with mysterious slowness and noiselessness
-violet, green, and red lights, as if the angels had overturned in the
-skies a casket of amethysts, emeralds, and rubies. The lights
-descended slowly, like tears, and before they reached the ground
-suddenly went out. The prettiest were the rockets which sent down a
-rain of gold, a fantastic shower of sparks, a stream of drops of
-light as quickly lighted as extinguished. The delight of the crowd in
-the plaza, however, was greatest at the fireworks of three explosions
-and a snake. These were not without beauty; they exploded like simple
-rockets, sending forth a fiery lizard, a reptile which ran through
-the sky in serpentine curves, and then plunged suddenly into
-darkness.
-
-The scene was now wrapped in darkness, now flooded with light,
-when the plaza would seem to rise to a level with the window, with
-its swarm of people, the patches of color of the booths and the
-hundreds of human faces turned upward, beaming with delight at this
-favorite spectacle of the Galicians, a race which has preserved the
-Celtic love and admiration for pyrotechnic displays, for brilliantly
-illuminated nights in which they find a compensation for the cloudy
-horizon of the day.
-
-Nieves, too, was pleased by the sudden alternations of light and
-darkness, a faithful image of the ambiguous condition of her soul.
-When the firmament was lighted up she watched with admiration the
-bright luminaries that gave a Venetian coloring to these pleasant
-moments. When everything was again enveloped in darkness she ventured
-to look at the poet, without seeing him, however, for her eyes,
-dazzled by the fireworks, were unable to distinguish the outlines of
-his face. The poet, on his side, kept his eyes fixed persistently on
-Nieves, and he saw her flooded with light, with that rare and
-beautiful moonlight glow produced by fireworks, and which adds a
-hundredfold to the softness and freshness of the features. He felt a
-keen impulse to condense in one ardent phrase all that the time had
-now come for saying, and he bent toward her--and at last he
-pronounced her name!
-
-"Nieves!"
-
-"Well?"
-
-"Had you ever seen fireworks like these before?"
-
-"No; it is a specialty of this province. I like them greatly. If
-I were a poet like you I would say pretty things about them. Come,
-invent something, you."
-
-"Like them happiness brightens our existence, for a few brief
-moments, Nieves--but while it brightens, while we feel it----"
-
-Segundo inwardly cursed the high-sounding phrase that he found
-himself unable to finish. What nonsense he was talking! Would it not
-be better to bend down a little lower and touch with his lips----But
-what if she should scream? She would not scream, he would venture to
-swear. Courage!
-
-In the balcony a great commotion was heard. Carmen Agonde called
-to Nieves:
-
-"Nieves, come, come! The first tree--a wheel of fire----"
-
-Nieves rose hastily and went and leaned over the balustrade,
-thinking that it would not do to attract attention sitting all the
-evening chatting with Segundo. The tree began to burn at one end, not
-without difficulty, apparently, spitting forth an occasional red
-spark; but suddenly the whole piece took fire--a flaming wheel, an
-enormous wafer of red and green light, which turned round and round,
-expanding and shaking out its fiery locks and making the air resound
-with a noise like the report of fire-arms. It was silent for a few
-brief instants and seemed on the point of going out, a cloud of rosy
-smoke enveloped it, through which shone a point of light, a golden
-sun, which soon began to turn with dizzying rapidity, opening and
-spreading out into an aureole of rays. These went out one by one, and
-the sun, diminishing in size until it was no larger than a coal,
-lazily gave a few languid turns, and, sighing, expired.
-
-As Nieves was returning to her seat she felt a pair of arms
-thrown around her neck. They were those of Victorina who, intoxicated
-with delight at the spectacle of the fireworks, cried in her thin
-voice:
-
-"Mamma, mamma! How lovely! How beautiful! And Carmen says they
-are going to set off more trees and a wheel----"
-
-She stopped, seeing Segundo standing beside Nieves' chair. She
-hung her head, ashamed of her childish enthusiasm, and, instead of
-returning to the window, she remained beside her mother, lavishing
-caresses upon her to disguise the shyness and timidity which always
-took possession of her when Segundo looked at her. Two other pieces
-were burning at two of the corners of the plaza, a pin-wheel and a
-vase, that sent forth showers of light, first golden, then blue. The
-child, notwithstanding her admiration for the fireworks, did not
-appear to have any intention of going to the window to see them,
-leaving Nieves and Segundo alone. The latter remained seated for some
-ten minutes longer, but seeing that the child did not leave her
-mother's side, he rose quickly, seized by a sudden frenzy, and walked
-up and down the dimly-lighted hall with hasty steps, conscious that
-for the moment he was not sufficiently master of himself to maintain
-outward calmness.
-
-By Heaven, he was well employed! Why had he been fool enough to
-let slip so favorable an opportunity! Nieves had encouraged him; he
-had not dreamed it; no; glances, smiles, slight but significant
-indications of liking and good-will; all these there had been, and
-they all counseled him to end so ambiguous and doubtful a situation.
-Ah! If this woman only loved him! And she should love him, and not in
-jest and as a pastime, but madly! Segundo would not be satisfied with
-less. His ambitious soul scorned easy and ephemeral triumphs--all or
-nothing. If the Madridlenian thought of flirting with him she would
-find herself mistaken; he would seize her by her butterfly wings and,
-even at the cost of breaking them, he would hold her fast; if one
-wished to retain a butterfly in his possession he must pierce it
-through the heart or press it to death. Segundo had done this a
-thousand times when he was a boy; he would do it now again; he was
-resolved upon it; whenever a light or mocking laugh, a reserved
-attitude or a tranquil look, showed Segundo that Señora de Comba
-maintained her self-possession, his heart swelled with rage that
-threatened to suffocate him; and when he saw the child beside her
-mother, who was keeping up an animated conversation with the little
-girl, as if she were keeping her there as a protection, he determined
-that he would not let the night pass without knowing what were her
-feelings toward him.
-
-He returned to Nieves, but she had now risen and the child was
-drawing her by the hands to the window; this was the solemn and
-critical moment; the monster balloon had just been attached to the
-pole for the purpose of inflating it; and from the plaza came a loud
-buzz, a buzz of eager expectation. A phalanx of Combist artisans,
-among whom figured Ramon, the confectioner, were clearing a space
-around it sufficiently large to allow of the fuse burning freely, so
-that the difficult operation might be accomplished. The silhouettes
-of the workmen, illuminated by the light of the fuse, could be seen
-moving about, bending down, rising up, dancing a sort of mad dance.
-The darkness was no longer illuminated by the glare of the rockets,
-and the human sea looked black as a lake of pitch.
-
-Still folded in innumerable folds, its sides clinging together,
-the balloon swayed feebly, kissing the ground with its lips of wire,
-between which the ill-smelling fuse was beginning to burn brightly.
-The manufacturers of the colossal balloon proceeded to unfold it
-gently and affectionately, lighting below it other fuses to aid the
-principal one and hasten the rarification of air in its paper body.
-This began to distend itself, the folds opening out with a gentle,
-rustling sound, and the balloon, losing its former limp and lank
-appearance, began to be inflated in places. As yet the figures on its
-sides appeared of unnatural length, like figures reflected from the
-polished, convex surface of a coffee urn; but already several borders
-and mottoes began to make their appearance here and there, acquiring
-their natural proportions and positions and showing clearly the
-coarse red and blue daubs.
-
-The difficulty was that the mouth of the balloon was too large,
-allowing the rarefied air to escape through it; and if the fuses were
-made to burn with greater force there was danger of setting the paper
-on fire and instantly reducing the superb machine to ashes--a
-terrible calamity which must be prevented at all costs. Therefore
-many arms were eagerly stretched out to support it, and when the
-balloon leaned to one side many hands made haste to sustain it--all
-this to the accompaniment of cries, oaths, and maledictions.
-
-In the plaza the surging crowd continued to increase, and the
-eager expectancy became momentarily greater. Carmen Agonde, with her
-mellow laugh, recounted to Nieves the plots that went on behind the
-scenes. Those who were trying to push their way to the front in order
-to overturn the fuses and prevent the ascent of the balloon belonged
-to the Romerist party; a good watch the maker of the fireworks had
-been obliged to keep to prevent them from wetting his powder trees;
-but the greatest hatred was to the balloon, on account of its bearing
-Don Victoriano's likeness; they had vowed and determined that so
-ridiculous and grotesque an object should not ascend into the air
-while they had life to prevent it; and that they themselves would
-construct another balloon, better than that of the townhall, and that
-this should be the only one to ascend. For this reason they applauded
-and uttered shouts of derision every time the gigantic balloon,
-unable to rise from the earth, fell down feebly to the right or to
-the left, while Don Victoriano's partisans directed their efforts on
-the one hand to protect from all injury the enormous bulk of the
-balloon, on the other to inflate it with warm air to make it rise.
-
-Nieves' eyes were fixed attentively on the monster, but her
-thoughts were far away. Segundo had succeeded in pushing his way
-through the crowd in front of the window and was now sitting beside
-her, on her right. No one was observing them now, and the poet,
-without preface, passed his arm around Nieves' waist, placing his
-hand boldly on the spot where, anatomically speaking, the heart is
-situated. Instead of the elastic and yielding curve of the form and
-the quickened pulsation of the organ, Segundo felt under his hand the
-hard surface of one of those long corset-breastplates full of
-whalebones, and furnished with steel springs, which fashion
-prescribes at the present day--an apparatus to which Nieves' form
-owed much of its slender grace. Infernal corset! Segundo could have
-wished that his fingers were pincers to pierce through the fabric of
-her gown, through the steel whalebones, through her inner garments,
-through the flesh and through the very ribs and fasten themselves in
-her heart, and seize it red-hot and bleeding and crush, tear,
-annihilate it! Why could he not feel the throbbings of that heart?
-Leocadia's heart, or even Victorina's, bounded like a bird's when he
-touched it. And Segundo, enraged, pressed his hand with greater
-force, undeterred by the fear of hurting Nieves, desiring, on the
-contrary, to strangle her.
-
-Surprised at Segundo's audacity, Nieves remained silent, not
-daring to make the slightest movement, lest by doing so she should
-attract attention, and protesting only by straightening her form and
-raising her eyes to his with a look of anguish, soon lowering them,
-however, unable to resist the expression in the eyes of the poet. The
-latter continued to search for the absent heart without succeeding in
-feeling anything more than the throbbing of his own arteries, of his
-pulse compressed against the unyielding surface of the corset. But
-fatigue finally conquered, his fingers relaxed their pressure, his
-arm fell down powerless, and rested without strength or illusion on
-the form, at once flexible and unyielding, the form of whalebone and
-steel.
-
-Meanwhile the balloon, in defiance of the Romerist intriguers,
-continued to expand, as its enormous body was filled with gas and
-light, illuminating the plaza like a gigantic lantern. It swayed from
-side to side majestically, and on its immense surface could be read
-plainly all the inscriptions and laudatory phrases invented by the
-enthusiastic Combists. The effigy, or rather the colossal figure of
-Don Victoriano, which filled one of its sides completely, followed
-the curve of the balloon and stood out, so ugly and disproportioned
-that it was a pleasure to see it; it had two frying-pans for eyes,
-the pupils being two eggs fried in them, no doubt; for mouth a
-species of fish or lizard and for beard a tangled forest or map of
-blots of sienna and lampblack. Giant branches of green laurel crossed
-each other above the head of the colossus, matching the golden palms
-of his court dress, represented by daubs of ocher. And the balloon
-swelled and swelled, its distended sides grew ever tenser and tenser,
-and it pulled impatiently at the cord that held it, eager to break
-away and soar among the clouds. The Combists yelled with delight.
-Suddenly a murmur was heard, a low murmur of expectation.
-
-The cord had been dexterously cut and the balloon, majestic,
-magnificent, rose a few yards above the ground, bearing with it the
-apotheosis of Don Victoriano, the glory of his laurels, mottoes and
-emblems. In the balcony and in the plaza below resounded a salvo of
-applause and triumphal acclamations. Oh, vanity of human joys! It was
-not one Romerist stone only but three at least that at this instant,
-directed with unerring aim, pierced the sides of the paper monster,
-allowing the hot air, the vital current, to escape through the
-wounds. The balloon contracted, shriveled up like a worm when it is
-trodden upon, and finally, doubling over in the middle, gave itself
-up a prey to the devouring flames lighted by the fuse which in a
-second's space enveloped it in a fiery mantle.
-
-At the same moment that the balloon of the official candidate
-expired thus miserably, the little Romerist balloon, its swelling
-sides daubed with coarse designs, rose promptly and swiftly from a
-corner of the plaza, resolved not to pause in its ascent until it had
-reached the clouds.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XIV.
-
-
-Nieves spent a restless night and when she awoke in the morning
-the incidents of the preceding evening presented themselves to her
-mind vaguely and confusedly as if she had dreamed them; she could not
-believe in the reality of Segundo's singular hardihood, that taking
-possession of her, that audacious outrage, that she had not known how
-to resent. How compromising the position in which the daring of the
-poet had placed her! And what if anyone had noticed it? When she bade
-good-night to the girls who had been sitting with her at the window,
-they had smiled in a way that was--well, odd; Carmen Agonde, the fat
-girl with the sleepy eyes and placid temper, gave evidence at times
-of a strain of malice. But, no; how could they have observed
-anything? The shawl she had worn was large and had covered her whole
-figure. And Nieves took the shawl, put it on and looked at herself in
-the mirror, using a handglass to obtain a complete view of her
-person, in order to assure herself that, enveloped in this garment,
-it was impossible for an arm passed around her waist to be seen. She
-was engaged in this occupation when the door opened and someone
-entered. She started and dropped the glass.
-
-It was her husband, looking more sallow than ever, and bearing
-the traces of suffering stamped on his countenance. Nieves' heart
-seemed to turn within her. Could it be possible that Don Victoriano
-suspected anything? Her apprehensions were soon relieved, however,
-when she heard him speak, with ill-disguised pique, of the insulting
-behavior of the Romerists and the destruction of the balloon. The
-Minister sought an outlet for his mortification by complaining of the
-pain of the pin-prick.
-
-"But did you ever see the like, child? What do you think of it?"
-he said.
-
-He then went on to complain of the noise of the fair, which had
-lasted all night and had not allowed him to close his eyes. Nieves
-agreed that it was extremely annoying; she, too, had been unable to
-sleep. The Minister opened the window and the noise reached them
-louder and more distinct. It resembled a grand chorale, or symphony,
-composed of human voices, the neighing of horses and mules, the
-grunting of pigs, the lowing of cows, calves, and oxen, hucksters'
-criers, noises of quarreling, songs, blasphemies, and sounds of
-musical instruments. The flood-tide of the fair had submerged
-Vilamorta.
-
-From the window could be seen its waves, a surging sea of men and
-animals crowded together in inextricable confusion. Suddenly among
-the throng of peasants a drove of six or eight calves would rush with
-helpless terror; a led mule had cleared a space around him, dealing
-kicks to right and left, screams and groans of pain were heard on all
-sides, but those behind continued pushing those in front and the
-space was filled up again. The venders of felt hats were a curious
-sight as they walked about with their merchandise on their heads,
-towers of twenty or thirty hats piled one above another, like Chinese
-pagodas. Other venders carried for sale, on a portable counter slung
-from their necks by ribbons, balls of thread, tape, thimbles, and
-scissors; the venders of distaffs and spindles carried their wares
-suspended around their waists, from their breast, everywhere, as
-unskillful swimmers carry bladders, and the venders of frying-pans
-glittered in the sun like feudal warriors.
-
-The confused din, the ceaseless movement of the multitude, and
-the mingling together of human beings and animals, made the brain
-dizzy, and the ear was wearied by the plaintive lowing of the cows
-under the drivers' lash, the terrified cries of women, the brutal
-hilarity of drunken men who issued from the taverns with hats pushed
-far back on their heads, seeking an outlet for their superabundant
-energy by assaulting the men or pinching the girls. The latter,
-screaming with terror, escaped from the drunkards to fall, perhaps,
-on the horns of some ox or to receive a blow from the snout of some
-mule that bathed their foreheads and temples in its frothy saliva.
-But most terrifying of all was it to see infants carried high above
-their mothers' heads, braving, like frail skiffs, the dangers of this
-stormy sea.
-
-Nieves remained for half an hour or so looking out of the window,
-and then, sight and hearing both weary, she withdrew. In the
-afternoon she watched the scene again for a while. The buying and
-selling was less brisk, and the better classes of the Border began to
-make their appearance at the fair. Agonde, who, absorbed in the
-desperate gambling that went on in the back shop, had kept himself
-invisible during the day, now went upstairs and, while he wiped the
-perspiration from his brow, pointed out to Nieves the notabilities of
-the place, as they passed by, naming to her in turn the archpriests,
-the parish priests, the physicians, and the gentry.
-
-"That very thin man, riding that horse that looks as if it had
-been strained through a colander, with silver trimmings in his saddle
-and silver spurs, is Señorito de Limioso, a scion of the house of the
-Cid--God save the mark! The Pazo of Limioso is situated in the
-neighborhood of Cebre. As for money, they have not an _ochavo_; they
-own a few barley-fields, and a couple of grapevines past yielding,
-that bring them in a trifle. But do you suppose that Señorito de
-Limioso would go into an inn to dine? No, Señora; he carries his
-bread and cheese in his pocket, and he will sleep--Heaven knows
-where. As he is a Carlist they may let him stretch himself on the
-floor of Doña Eufrasia's back shop, with the saddle of his nag for a
-pillow, for on a day like this there are no mattresses to spare. And
-you may be sure that his servant's belt bulges out in the way it
-does, because he carries the nag's feed in it."
-
-"You exaggerate, Agonde."
-
-"Exaggerate? No, indeed. You have no idea what those gentlemen
-are. Here they are called _Seven on a horse_, because they have one
-horse for all seven which they ride in pairs, in turn, and when they
-are near the town they stop to ride in, one by one, armed with whip
-and spur, and the nag comes in seven different times, each time with
-a different rider. Why, see those ladies coming there, the one on a
-donkey, the other on a mule--the Señoritas de Loiro. They are friends
-of the Molendes. Look at the bundles they carry before them; they are
-the dresses for to-night's ball."
-
-"But are you really in earnest?"
-
-"In earnest? Yes, indeed, Señora. They have them all here, every
-article--the bustle, or whatever it may be called, that sticks out
-behind, the shoes, the petticoats, and even the rouge. And those are
-very refined, they come to the town to dress themselves; most of the
-young ladies, a few years ago, used to dress themselves in the pine
-wood near the echo of Santa Margarita. As they had no house in the
-town to stay at, and they were not going to lose the ball, at
-half-past ten or eleven they were among the pines, hooking their
-low-necked dresses, fastening on their bows and their gewgaws, and as
-fine as you please. All the gentry together, Nieves, if you will
-believe me, could not make up a dollar among them. They are people
-that, to avoid buying lard, or making broth, breakfast on wine and
-water. They hang up the loaf of wheaten bread among the rafters so
-that it may be out of reach and may last forever. I know them
-well--vanity, and nothing more."
-
-The apothecary spoke angrily, multiplying instances, and
-exaggerating them in the telling, with the rage of the plebeian who
-eagerly seizes an opportunity to ridicule the poor aristocracy,
-relating anecdotes of everyone of the ladies and gentlemen--stories
-of poverty more or less skillfully disguised. Don Victoriano laughed,
-remembering some of the stories, now become proverbial in the
-country, while Nieves, her anxiety set at rest by her husband's
-laughter, began to think without terror, with a certain secret
-complacency, rather, of the episodes of the fireworks. She had feared
-to see Segundo among the crowd, but, as the night advanced and the
-brilliant colors of the booths faded into the surrounding darkness,
-and lights began to appear, and the singing of the drunkards grew
-hoarser, her mind became tranquil, and the danger seemed very remote,
-almost to have disappeared. In her inexperience she had fancied at
-first that the poet's arm would leave its trace, as it were, on her
-waist, and that the poet would seize the first opportunity to present
-himself before her, exacting and impassioned, betraying himself and
-compromising her. But the day passed by, serene and without incident,
-and Nieves experienced the inevitable impatience of the woman who
-waits in vain for the appearance of the man who occupies her
-thoughts. At last she remembered the ball. Segundo would certainly be
-there.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XV.
-
-
-And she adorned herself for the town ball with a certain
-illusion, with the same care as if she were dressing for a soirée at
-the palace of Puenteancha.
-
-Naturally the gown and the ornaments were very different from
-what they would have been in the latter case, but they were selected
-with no less care and consideration--a gown of white China crêpe,
-high-necked, and without a train, trimmed with Valenciennes lace,
-that fell in clinging folds, whose simplicity was completed by long
-dark Suède gloves wrinkled at the wrist, reaching to the elbow. A
-black velvet ribbon, fastened by a diamond and sapphire horseshoe,
-encircled her neck. Her beautiful fair hair, arranged in the English
-fashion, curled slightly over the forehead.
-
-She was almost ashamed of having selected this toilette when she
-crossed the muddy plaza, leaning on Agonde's arm, and heard the poor
-music, and found the entrance of the townhall crowded with
-country-people sitting on the floor, whom it was necessary to step
-over to reach the staircase. On the landings ran the lees of the
-fair--a dark wine-colored rivulet. Agonde drew her aside.
-
-"Don't step there, Nieves; take care," he said.
-
-She felt repelled by this unsightly entrance, calling to mind the
-marble vestibule and staircase of the palace of Puenteancha, carpeted
-down the center, with plants arranged on either side. At the door of
-the apartment which she was now entering was a counter laden with
-cakes and confectionery, at which the wife of Ramon, the
-confectioner, holding in her arms the inevitable baby, presided,
-casting angry glances at the young ladies who had come to amuse
-themselves.
-
-Nieves was given a seat in the most conspicuous part of the room,
-in front of the door. The whitewashed walls were not very clean, nor
-was the red cloth which covered the benches very fresh, nor did the
-badly snuffed candles in the tin chandelier produce a brilliant
-illumination. Owing to the large number of people present the heat
-was almost insupportable. In the center of the apartment the men
-stood grouped together--the youth of Vilamorta, visitors to the
-springs, strangers, gamblers, and the gentry from the neighboring
-country, mingling in one black mass. Every time the band struck up
-anew, deafening the ear with its sonorous strains, the indefatigable
-dancers would leave the group and hurry off in search of their
-partners.
-
-Nieves watched the scene with amazement. The young ladies, with
-their large chignons and their clusters of curls, their faces daubed
-with coarse rice-powder, their bodices cut low around the throat,
-their long trains of cheap materials, continually trodden upon and
-torn by the heavy boots of the gallants, their clumsy, tastelessly
-arranged flowers, and their short-wristed gloves of thick kid, too
-small for their hands, all seemed to her strange and laughable. She
-remembered Agonde's descriptions, the toilet made in the pine grove,
-and fanned herself with her large black fan as if to drive off the
-pestilent air in which the whirl of the dance enveloped her. The
-dancers pursued their task earnestly, diligently, as if they were
-contending for a prize to be awarded to the one who should first get
-out of breath, moving, not with their own motion only, but impelled
-by the jostling, pushing, and crowding of those around them. And
-Nieves, accustomed to the elegant and measured dancing of the
-soirées, wondered at the courage and resolution displayed by the
-dancers of Vilamorta. Some of the girls, whose flounces had been torn
-by some gallant's boot-heel, turned up their skirts, quickly tore off
-the whole trimming, rolled it into a ball, which they threw into a
-corner, and then returned, smiling and contented, to the arms of
-their partners. In vain the men wiped the perspiration from their
-faces; their collars and shirt-fronts grew limp, their hair clung to
-their foreheads; the silk bodices of the ladies began to show stains
-of perspiration, and the marks of their partners' hands. And the
-gymnastics continued, and the dust and the particles of perspiration
-vitiated the atmosphere, and the floor of the room trembled. There
-were handsome couples, blooming girls and gallant young men, who
-danced with the healthy gayety of youth, with sparkling eyes,
-overflowing with animation; and there were ridiculous couples, short
-men and tall women, stout women and beardless boys, a baldheaded old
-man and a stout, middle-aged woman. There were brothers who danced
-with their sisters through shyness, because they had not the courage
-to invite other young ladies to dance, and the secretary of the town
-council, married for many years to a rich Orensen who was old and
-very jealous, danced all the evening with his wife, dancing polkas
-and waltzes in the time of a _habanera_ to keep from dying by
-asphyxiation.
-
-When Nieves entered the ballroom, the other women looked at her,
-first with curiosity, then with surprise. How strange to come so
-simply dressed! Not to wear a train a yard and a half long, nor a
-flower in her hair, nor bracelets nor satin shoes. Two or three
-ladies from Orense, who had cherished the expectation of making a
-sensation in the ball of Vilamorta, began to whisper among
-themselves, criticising the artistic negligence of her attire, the
-modesty of the white, high-necked bodice, and the grace of the small
-head, with its elegantly arranged hair, vaporous as the engravings in
-_La Illustracion_. The Orensens determined to copy the fashion-plate,
-the Vilamortans and the women of the Border, on the contrary,
-criticised the Minister's lady bitterly.
-
-"She is dressed almost as if she would dress at home."
-
-"She does it because she doesn't want to wear her good clothes
-here. Of course for a ball here----She thinks probably that we know
-nothing. But she might at least have dressed her hair a little
-better. And how easy it is to see that she is bored; look, why, she
-seems to be asleep."
-
-"And a little while ago she seemed as if she couldn't sit still a
-moment--she kept tapping the floor with her foot as if she were
-impatient to be gone."
-
-And it was true; Nieves was bored. And if the young ladies who
-censured her could only have known the cause!
-
-She could see Segundo nowhere, anxiously as she looked for him,
-at first with furtive glances, then openly and without disguise. At
-last García came to salute her, and then she could restrain herself
-no longer, and making an effort to speak in a natural and easy tone,
-she asked:
-
-"And the boy? It is a wonder he is not here."
-
-"Who? Segundo? Segundo is--so eccentric. If you could only guess
-what he is doing now. Reading verses or composing them. We must leave
-him to his whims."
-
-And the lawyer waved his hands with a gesture that seemed to say
-that the eccentricities of genius must be respected, while in his own
-mind he said:
-
-"He is most likely with that damned old woman."
-
-The truth is that nothing in the world would have induced the
-poet, under the circumstances, to come to a ball like the present
-one, to be obliged to dance with the young country girls of his
-acquaintance, to perspire and to be pulled about like the other young
-men. And his absence, the result of his æsthetic feeling, produced a
-marvelous effect on Nieves, effacing the last remnant of fear,
-stimulating her coquettish instincts, and piquing her curiosity.
-
-At the same time, in the radical circle that surrounded Don
-Victoriano and his wife, the approaching departure of the Minister
-and Nieves for Las Vides to be present at the vintage was
-discussed--a project that delighted the Minister as an unexpected
-holiday delights a schoolboy. The persons whom the hidalgo had
-invited or intended to invite for the festive occasion were named,
-and when Agonde uttered Segundo's name Nieves raised her eyes, and a
-look of animation lighted up her face, while she said to herself:
-
-"He is fully capable of not going."
-
-
-
-
-                                  XVI.
-
-
-A great day for Las Vides is the day appointed by the town
-council for the inauguration of the vintage. The whole year is passed
-in looking forward to and preparing for the beautiful harvest time.
-The vine is still clothed in purple and gold, but it has already
-begun to drop a part of its rich garniture as a bride drops her veil,
-the wasps settle in clusters on the grapes, announcing to man that
-they are now ripe. The last days of September, serene and peaceful,
-are at hand. To the vintage without delay!
-
-Neither Primo Genday nor Mendez takes a moment's rest. The bands
-of vintagers who come from distant parishes to hire themselves out
-must be attended to, must have their tasks assigned them; the work of
-gathering in the grapes must be organized so that it may be
-advantageously and harmoniously conducted. For the labors of the
-vintage resemble, somewhat, a great battle in which an extraordinary
-expenditure of energy is required from the soldier, a waste of muscle
-and of blood, but in which he must be supplied, in return, with
-everything necessary to recruit his strength during his moments of
-repose. In order that the vintagers might engage in their arduous
-labors with cheerfulness and alacrity, it was necessary to have at
-hand in the cellar the cask of must from which the carters might
-drink at discretion when they returned exhausted from the task of
-carrying the heavy _coleiro_, or basket, filled with grapes up the
-steep ascents; it was necessary that they should have an abundant
-supply of the thick wine flavored with mutton suet, the sardines and
-the barley-bread, when the voracious appetite of the bands demanded
-them; to which end the fire was always kept burning on the hearth at
-Las Vides and the enormous kettles in which the mess was cooked were
-always kept filled.
-
-When in addition to this the presence of numerous and
-distinguished guests be considered, some idea may be formed of the
-bustle of the manor-house during these incomparable days. Its walls
-sheltered, besides the Comba family, Saturnino and Carmen Agonde, the
-young and amiable curate of Naya, the portly arch-priest of Loiro,
-Tropiezo, Clodio Genday, Señorita de Limioso and the two Señoritas de
-Molende. Every class was here represented, so that Las Vides was a
-sort of microcosm or brief compendium of the world of the
-province--the priests attracted by Primo Genday, the radicals by the
-head of the house of Mendez. And all these people of conditions so
-diverse, finding themselves associated together, gave themselves up
-to the enjoyment of the occasion in the greatest possible harmony and
-concord.
-
-To the merriment of the vintagers the merriment of the guests
-responded like an echo. It was impossible to resist the influence of
-the Bacchic joyousness, the delirious gayety which seemed to float in
-the atmosphere. Among all the delightful spectacles which Nature has
-to offer, there is none more delightful than that of her fruitfulness
-in the vintage time, the baskets heaped full of clusters of ruddy or
-dark red grapes, which robust men, almost naked, like fauns, carry
-and empty into the vat or wine-press; the laughter of the vintagers
-hidden among the foliage, disputing, challenging each other from vine
-to vine to sing, a gayety which is followed by a reaction at
-nightfall--as is usually the case with all violent expressions of
-feeling in which there is a great expenditure of muscular strength;
-the merry challenges ending in some prolonged Celtic wail, some
-plaintive _a-laá-laá_. The pagan sensation of well-being, the
-exhilaration produced by the pure air of the country, the mere joy of
-existence, communicated themselves to the spectators of these
-delightful scenes, and at night, while the chorus of fauns and
-Bacchantes danced to the sound of the flute and the timbrel, the
-gentry diverted themselves with childish frolics in the great house.
-
-The young ladies slept all together in a large, bare apartment,
-the Rosary-room, the male guests being lodged by Mendez in another
-spacious room called the screen-room, because in it was a screen, as
-ugly as it was antique; the arch-priest only being excluded from this
-community of lodging, his obesity and his habit of snoring making it
-impossible for any person of even average sensibility to tolerate him
-as a roommate; and the gay and mischievous party being thus divided
-into two sections, there came to be established between them a sort
-of merry warfare, so that the occupants of the Rosary-room thought of
-nothing but playing tricks on the occupants of the screen-room, from
-which resulted innumerable witty inventions and amusing skirmishes.
-Between the two camps there was a neutral one--that of the Comba
-family, whose slumbers were respected and who were exempt in the
-matter of practical jokes, although the feminine band often took
-Nieves as their confidante and counselor.
-
-"Nieves, come here, Nieves; see, how foolish Carmen Agonde is;
-she says she likes the arch-priest, that barrel, better than Don
-Eugeniño, the parish priest of Naya, because it makes her laugh, she
-says, to see him perspiring and to look at the rolls of fat in the
-back of his neck. And say, Nieves, what trick shall we play to-night
-on Don Eugeniño? And on Ramon Limioso, who has been daring us all
-day?"
-
-It was Teresa Molende, a masculine-looking black-eyed brunette, a
-good specimen of the mountaineer, who spoke thus.
-
-"They must pay for the trick they played on us yesterday," added
-her sister Elvira, the sentimental poetess.
-
-"What was that?"
-
-"You must know that they locked Carmen up. They are the very
-mischief! They shut her up in Mendez's room. What is there that they
-won't think of! They tied her hands behind her back with a silk
-handkerchief, tied another handkerchief over her mouth, so that she
-couldn't scream, and left her there like a mouse in a mouse-trap. And
-we, hunting and hunting for Carmen, and no Carmen to be seen. And
-there we were thinking all sorts of things until Mendez went up to
-his room to go to bed and found her there. Of course they had that
-silly creature to deal with, for if it had been I----"
-
-"They would shut you up too," declared Carmen.
-
-"Me!" exclaimed the Amazon, drawing up her portly figure. "They
-would be the ones to get shut up!"
-
-"But they entrapped me into it," affirmed Carmen, looking as if
-she were just ready to cry. "See, Nieves, they said to me: 'Put your
-hands behind you, Carmiña, and we'll put a five-dollar piece in
-them,' and I put them behind me, and they were so treacherous as to
-tie them together."
-
-Nieves joined in the laughter of the two sisters. It could not be
-denied that this simplicity was very amusing. Nieves seemed to be in
-a new world in which routine, the worn-out conventionalities of
-Madrid society, did not exist. True, such noisy and ingenuous
-diversions might at times verge on impropriety or coarseness, but
-sometimes they were really entertaining. From the moment the guests
-rose from table in the afternoon nothing was thought of but frolic
-and fun. Teresa had proposed to herself not to allow Tropiezo to eat
-a meal in peace, and with the utmost dexterity she would catch flies
-on the wing, which she would throw slyly into his soup, or she would
-pour vinegar into his glass instead of wine, or rub pitch on his
-napkin so that it might stick to his mouth. For the arch-priest they
-had another trick--they would draw him on to talk of ceremonies, a
-subject on which he loved to expatiate, and when his attention was
-engaged, take away his plate slyly, which was like tearing a piece of
-his heart out of his breast.
-
-At night, in the parlor of the turbid mirrors, in which were the
-piano and the rocking-chairs, a gay company assembled; they sang
-fragments of _El Juramento_, and _El Grumete_; they played at
-hide-and-seek, and, without hiding, played _brisea_ with _malilla_
-counters; when they grew tired of cards, they had recourse to
-forfeits, to mind-reading, and other amusements. And the frolicsome
-rustic nature once aroused, they passed on to romping games--fool in
-the middle, hoodman-blind, and others which have the zest imparted by
-physical exercise--shouts, pushes and slaps.
-
-Then they would retire to their rooms, still excited by their
-sports, and this was the hour when their merriment was at its height,
-when they played the wildest pranks; when they fastened lighted
-tapers to the bodies of crickets and sent them under the bedroom
-doors; when they took the slats out of Tropiezo's bedstead so that
-when he lay down he might fall to the ground and bruise his ribs. In
-the halls could be heard smothered bursts of laughter and stealthy
-footsteps, white forms would be seen scurrying away, and doors would
-be hastily locked and barricaded with articles of furniture, while
-from behind them a mellow voice could be heard crying:
-
-"They are coming!"
-
-"Fasten the door well, girls! Don't open, not if the king himself
-were to knock!"
-
-
-
-
-                                 XVII.
-
-
-Segundo was the last of the guests to arrive at Las Vides. As he
-cared but little for games and as Nieves did not take any very active
-part in them either, they would often have found themselves thrown
-for society upon each other had it not been for Victorina, who, from
-the moment Segundo appeared, never left her mother's side, and Elvira
-Molende who, from the very instant of his arrival, clung to the poet
-like the ivy to the wall, directing on him a battery of sighs and
-glances, and treating him to sentimental confidences and rhapsodies
-sweet enough to surfeit a confectioner's boy. From the moment in
-which Segundo set foot in Las Vides, Elvira lost all her animation,
-and assumed a languishing and romantic air, which made her cheeks
-appear hollower and the circles under her eyes deeper than ever. Her
-form acquired the melancholy droop of the willow and, giving up
-sports and pranks, she devoted herself exclusively to the Swan.
-
-As it was moonlight, and the evenings were enjoyable out of
-doors, as soon as the sun had set, and the labors of the day were
-ended, and the vintagers assembled for a dance, some of the guests
-would assemble together also in the garden, generally at the foot of
-a high wall bordered with leafy camellias, or they would stop and sit
-down for a chat at some inviting spot on their way home from a walk.
-Elvira knew by heart a great many verses, both good and bad,
-generally of a melancholy kind--sentimental and elegiac; she was
-familiar with all the flowers of poetry, all the tender verses which
-constituted the poetic wealth of the locality, and uttered by her
-thin lips, in the silvery tones of her gentle voice, with the soft
-accents of her native land, the Galician verses, like an Andalusian
-moral maxim in the sensual mouth of a gypsy, had a peculiar and
-impressive beauty--the sensibility of a race crystallized in a poetic
-gem, in a tear of love. These plaintive verses were interrupted at
-times by mocking bursts of laughter, as the gay sounds of the
-castanets strike in on the melancholy notes of the bagpipes. The
-poems in dialect acquired a new beauty, their freshness and sylvan
-aroma seemed to augment by being recited by the soft tones of a
-woman's voice, on the edge of a pine wood and under the shadow of a
-grapevine, on a serene moonlight night; and the rhyme became a vague
-and dreamy melopoeia, like that of certain German ballads; a labial
-music interspersed with soft diphthongs, tender _ñ_'s, _x_'s of a
-more melodious sound than the hissing Castilian _ch_. Generally,
-after the recitations came singing. Don Eugenio, who was a Borderer,
-knew some Portuguese _fados_, and Elvira was unrivaled in her
-rendering of the popular and melancholy song of Curros, which seems
-made for Druidical nights, for nights illuminated by the solemn light
-of the moon.
-
-Segundo's heart thrilled with gratified vanity when Elvira
-recited shyly, in alternation with the verses of the popular and
-admired poets of the country, songs of the Swan, which had appeared
-in periodicals of Vigo or Orense. Segundo had never written in
-dialect, and yet Elvira had a book in which she pasted all the
-productions of the unknown Swan; Teresa, joining in the animated
-conversation with the best intentions in the word, betrayed her
-sister:
-
-"She writes verses too. Come, child, recite something of your
-own. She has a copy-book full of things invented, composed by
-herself."
-
-The poetess, after the indispensable excuses and denials, recited
-two or three little things, almost without poetic form, weak, sincere
-in the midst of their sentimental falseness--verses of the kind which
-reveal no artistic faculty, but which are the sure indication that
-the author or authoress feels an unsatisfied desire, longs for fame
-or for love, as the inarticulate cry of the infant expresses its
-hunger. Segundo twisted his mustache, Nieves lowered her eyes and
-played with the tassels of her fan, impatient and somewhat bored and
-nervous. This occurred two or three days after the arrival of Segundo
-who, in spite of all his attempts, had not yet been able to succeed
-in saying a word in private to Nieves.
-
-"How uncultured these young ladies are!" said Señora de Comba to
-herself, while aloud she said, "How lovely, how tender! It sounds
-like some of Grilo's verses."
-
-
-
-
-                                 XVIII.
-
-
-It was something different from poetry that formed the theme of
-conversation of the head of the house of Las Vides, the Gendays, and
-the arch-priest, installed on the balcony under the pretext of
-enjoying the moonlight, but in reality to discuss the important
-question of the vintage.
-
-A fine crop! Yes, indeed, a fine crop! The grape had not a trace
-of oïdium; it was clean, full, and so ripe that it was as sticky to
-the touch as if it had been dipped in honey. There was not a doubt
-but that the new wine of this year was better than the old wine of
-last year. Last year's vintage was an absolute failure! Hail to-day,
-rain to-morrow! The grape with so much rain had burst before it was
-time to gather it, and had not an atom of pulp; the result was a wine
-that scarcely left a stain on the shirt-sleeves of the muleteers.
-
-At the recollection of so great a calamity, Mendez pressed his
-thin lips together, and the arch-priest breathed hard. And the
-conversation continued, sustained by Primo Genday, who, with much
-verbosity, spitting and laughter, recounted details of harvests of
-twenty years before, declaring:
-
-"This year's crop is exactly like the crop of '61."
-
-"Exactly," assented Mendez. "As for the Rebeco, it will not give
-a load less this year, and the Grilloa--I don't know but that it will
-give us six or seven more. It is a great vine, the Grilloa!"
-
-After these cheerful prognostications of a rich harvest, Mendez
-described with satisfaction to his attentive audience some
-improvements which he had introduced into the cultivation of the
-vine. He had most of his casks secured with iron hoops; they were
-more expensive than wooden ones, but they lasted longer and they
-saved the troublesome labor of making new hoops for each harvest; he
-was thinking too, by way of experiment, of setting up a wine-press,
-doing away with the repulsive spectacle of the trampling of the
-grapes by human feet, and in order that the pressed skins and the
-pulp of the grapes might not go to waste, he would distill from them
-a refined alcohol which Agonde would buy from him at its weight in
-gold.
-
-Lulled by the grave voices discussing important agricultural
-questions on the balcony, Don Victoriano, somewhat fatigued by his
-expedition to the vineyards, sat smoking in the rocking-chair, buried
-in painful meditations. Since his return from the springs he had been
-growing weaker day by day; the temporary improvement had vanished;
-the debility, the unnatural appetite, the thirst, and the desiccation
-of the body had increased. He remembered that Sanchez del Abrojo had
-told him that a slight perspiration would be of the greatest benefit
-to him, and when he observed, after he had been drinking the waters
-for a few days, the re-establishment of this function, his joy knew
-no bounds. But what was his terror when he found that his shirt,
-stiff and hard, adhered to his skin as if it had been soaked in
-syrup. He touched a fold of the sleeve with his lips and perceived a
-sweetish taste. It was plain! He perspired sugar! The glucose
-secretion was, then, uncontrollable, and by a tremendous irony of
-fate all the bitterness of his existence had come to end in this
-strange elaboration of sweet substances.
-
-For some days past he had noticed another alarming symptom. His
-sight was becoming affected. As the aqueous humor of the eye dried up
-the crystalline lens became clouded, producing the cataract of
-diabetes. Don Victoriano had chills. He regretted now having put
-himself into the homicidal hands of Tropiezo and drunk the waters.
-There was not a doubt but that he was being wrongly treated. From
-this day forth a strict regimen, a diet of fruits, fecula, and milk.
-To live, to live, but for a year, and to be able to hide his malady!
-If the electors saw their candidate blind and dying, they would
-desert to Romero. The humiliation of losing the coming election
-seemed to him intolerable.
-
-Bursts of silvery laughter, and youthful exclamations proceeding
-from the garden, changed the current of his thoughts. Why was it that
-Nieves did not perceive the serious condition of her husband's
-health? He wished to dissemble before the whole world, but before his
-wife----Ah, if his wife belonged to him she ought to be beside him
-now, consoling and soothing him by her caresses instead of diverting
-herself and frolicking among the camellias, like a child. If she was
-beautiful and fresh and her husband sickly, so much the worse for
-her. Let her put up with it, as was her duty. Bah! What nonsense!
-Nieves did not love him, had never loved him!
-
-The noise and laughter below increased. Victorina and Teresa, the
-verses being exhausted, had proposed a game of hide-and-seek.
-Victorina was crying at every moment, "Teresa's it!" "Segundo's it!"
-
-The garden was very well adapted for this exercise because of its
-almost labyrinthine intricacy, owing to the fact of its being laid
-out in sloping terraces supported on walls and separated by rows of
-umbrageous trees, communicating with each other by uneven steps, as
-is the case with all the estates in this hilly country. Thus it was
-that the play was very noisy, as the seeker had great difficulty in
-finding those who were hiding.
-
-Nieves endeavored to hide herself securely, through laziness so
-as not to have to run after the others. Chance provided her with a
-superb hiding-place, a large lemon tree situated at one end of a
-terrace, near some steps which afforded an easy means of escape. She
-hid herself here in the densest part of the foliage, drawing her
-light gown closely around her so that it might not betray her. She
-had been only a few moments in her hiding-place when a shadow passed
-before her and a voice murmured softly:
-
-"Nieves!"
-
-"Oh!" she cried, startled. "Who has found me out here?"
-
-"No one has found you; there is no one looking for you but me,"
-cried Segundo vehemently, penetrating into Nieves' hiding-place with
-such impetuosity that the late blossoms which whitened the branches
-of the giant tree showered their petals over their heads, and the
-branches swayed rhythmically.
-
-"For Heaven's sake, García!" she cried, "for Heaven's sake, don't
-be imprudent--go away, or let me go. If the others should come and
-find us here what would they say? For Heaven's sake, go!"
-
-"You wish me to go?" said the poet. "But, Señora, even if they
-should find me here, there would be nothing strange in that; a little
-while ago I was with Teresa Molende behind the camellias there;
-either we are playing or we are not playing. But if you desire it--to
-please you----But before I go I wish to ask you a question----"
-
-"Somewhere else--in the parlor," stammered Nieves, lending an
-anxious ear to the distant noises and cries of the game.
-
-"In the parlor! Surrounded by everybody! No, that cannot be. No,
-now, do you hear me?"
-
-"Yes, I hear you," she returned in a voice rendered almost
-inaudible by terror.
-
-"Well, then, I adore you, Nieves; I adore you, and you love me."
-
-"Hist! Silence, silence! They are coming. I think I hear steps."
-
-"No, it is the leaves. Tell me that you love me and I will go."
-
-"They are coming! For Heaven's sake! I shall die of terror!
-Enough of jesting, García, I entreat you----"
-
-"You know perfectly well that I am not jesting. Have you
-forgotten the night of the fireworks? If you did not love me you
-would have released yourself from my arm on that night, or you would
-have cried out. You look at me sometimes--you return my glances. You
-cannot deny it!"
-
-Segundo was close to Nieves, speaking with fiery impetuosity, but
-without touching her, although the fragrant, rustling branches of
-their shelter closed around them, inviting them to closer proximity.
-But Segundo remembered the cold hard whalebones, and Nieves drew
-back, trembling. Yes, trembling with fear. She might cry out, indeed,
-but if Segundo persisted in remaining how annoying it would be! What
-a mortification! What gossip it would give rise to! After all the
-poet was right--the night of the fireworks she had been culpably weak
-and she was paying for it now. And what would Segundo do if she gave
-him the _yes_ he asked for? He repeated his proud and vehement
-assertion:
-
-"You love me, Nieves. You love me. Tell me that you love me, only
-once, and I will go."
-
-Not far off could be heard the contralto voice of Teresa Molende
-calling to her companions:
-
-"Nieves--where is she? Victorina, Carmen, come in, the dew is
-falling!"
-
-And another shrill voice, that of Elvira, woke the echoes:
-
-"Segundo! Segundo! We are going in!"
-
-In fact that almost imperceptible mizzle, which refreshes the
-sultry nights of Galicia, was falling; the lustrous leaves of the
-lemon tree in which Nieves sat, shrinking back from Segundo, were wet
-with the night dew. The poet leaned toward her and his hands touched
-her hands chilled with cold and terror. He crushed them between both
-his own.
-
-"Tell me that you love me, or----"
-
-"But, good Heavens, they are calling me! They are noticing my
-absence. I am cold!"
-
-"Tell me the truth then. Otherwise there is no human power that
-can tear me from here--come what will. Is it so hard to say a single
-word?"
-
-"And what do you want me to say, tell me?"
-
-"Do you love me, yes or no?"
-
-"And you will let me go--go to the house?"
-
-"Anything you wish--but first tell me, do you love me?"
-
-The _yes_ was almost inaudible. It was an aspiration, a prolonged
-_s_. Segundo crushed her wrists in his grasp.
-
-"Do you love me as I love you? Answer plainly."
-
-This time Nieves, making an effort, pronounced an unequivocal
-_yes_. Segundo released her hands, raised his own to his lips with a
-passionate gesture of gratitude, and springing down the stairs,
-disappeared among the trees.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XIX.
-
-
-Nieves drew a long breath. She felt dazed. She shook her wrists,
-hurt by the pressure of Segundo's fingers, and arranged her hair, wet
-with the night dew, and disordered by the contact of the branches.
-What had she said after all? Anything, no matter what, to escape from
-so compromising a situation. She was to blame for having withdrawn
-from the others and hidden herself in so retired a spot. And with
-that desire to give publicity to unimportant actions which seizes
-people when they have something to conceal she called out:
-
-"Teresa! Elvira! Carmen! Carmen!"
-
-"Nieves! where are you, Nieves?" came in answer from various
-quarters.
-
-"Here, beside the big lemon tree. Wait for me, I am coming!"
-
-When they entered the house, Nieves, who had to some extent
-recovered her composure, began to reflect on what had passed and
-could not but wonder at herself. To say _yes_ to Segundo. She had
-uttered the word partly under compulsion, but she had uttered it. How
-daring the poet had been. It seemed impossible that the son of the
-lawyer of Vilamorta should be so determined. She was a lady of
-distinction, highly respected, her husband had just been Minister.
-And García's family, what were they--nobodies; the father wore
-collars frayed at the edges that were a sight to see; they kept no
-servant; the sisters ran about barefooted half the time. Even Segundo
-himself--he had an unmistakable provincial air and a strong Galician
-accent. He could not indeed be called ugly; there was something
-remarkable in his face and in his manner. He spoke with so much
-passion! As if he commanded instead of entreating! What a masterful
-air he had! And there was something flattering to one's vanity in
-having a suitor of this kind, so ardent and so daring. Who had ever
-fallen in love with Nieves before? There were three or four who had
-made gallant speeches to her--one who had watched her through his
-opera-glass. Everyone in Madrid treated her with that indifference
-and consideration which respectable ladies inspire.
-
-For the rest, this persistency of Segundo's was to a certain
-extent compromising. Would people notice it? Would her husband notice
-it? Bah! Her husband thought only of his ailments, of the elections.
-He scarcely ever spoke to her of anything else. But what if he
-should notice it? How horrible, good Heavens! And the girls who had
-been playing hide and seek, might they not suspect something? Elvira
-seemed more languishing and sighed more frequently than usual. Elvira
-admired Segundo. He--no, he did not pay the slightest attention to
-her. And Segundo's verses sounded well, they were beautiful; they
-were worthy of a place in _La Ilustracion_. In short, as they would
-be obliged to return to Madrid before the elections, there was hardly
-any real danger. She would always preserve a pleasant recollection of
-the summer. The thing was to avoid--to avoid----
-
-Nieves did not venture to tell herself what it was necessary to
-avoid, nor had she settled this point when she entered the parlor,
-where the game of tresillo was already going on. Señora de Comba
-seated herself at the piano and played several quick airs--polkas and
-rigadoons, for the girls to dance. When she stopped they cried out
-for another air.
-
-"Nieves, the _muñeira_!"
-
-"The _riveirana_, please!"
-
-"Do you know the whole of it, Nieves?"
-
-"The whole of it--why, did I not hear it in the feasts?"
-
-"Let us have it then, come."
-
-"Who will dance it?"
-
-"Who knows how to dance it?"
-
-Several voices answered immediately:
-
-"Teresa Molende; ah! it is a pleasure to see her dance it."
-
-"And who will be her partner?"
-
-"Ramonciñe Limioso here, he dances it to perfection."
-
-Teresa laughed in the deep, sonorous tones of a man, declaring
-solemnly that she had forgotten the muñeira--that she never knew it
-well. From the tresillo table came a protest--from the master of the
-house, Mendez: Teresina danced it to perfection. Let her not try to
-excuse herself; no excuse would avail her; there was not in all the
-Border a girl who danced the riveirana with more grace; it was true
-indeed that the taste and the skill for these old customs of the
-country were fast disappearing.
-
-Teresa yielded, not without once more affirming her incompetence.
-And after fastening up her skirt with pins, so that it might not
-impede her movements she stopped laughing and assumed a modest and
-ingenuous air, veiling her large lustrous eyes under her thick
-lashes, dropping her head on her breast, letting her arms fall by her
-sides, swaying them slightly, rubbing the balls of the thumbs and the
-forefingers together, and thus, moving with very short steps, her
-feet close together, keeping time to the music, she made the tour of
-the room, with perfect decorum, her eyes fixed on the floor, stopping
-finally at the head of the room. While this was taking place,
-Señorito de Limioso took off his short jacket, remaining in his
-shirt-sleeves, put on his hat, and asked for an indispensable
-article.
-
-"Victorina, the castanets."
-
-The child ran and brought two pairs of castanets. The Señorito
-secured the cord between his fingers and after a haughty flourish,
-began his rôle. Teresita's partner was as lean and shriveled as Don
-Quixote himself, and, like the Manchego hidalgo, it was undeniable
-that he had a distinguished and stately air, scrupulously as he
-imitated the awkward movements of a rustic. He took his place before
-Teresa and danced a quick measure, courteously but urgently wooing
-her to listen to his suit. At times he touched the floor with the
-sole of his foot, at others with his heel or toe only, almost
-twisting his ankles out of joint with the rapidity of his movements,
-while he played the castanets energetically, the castanets in
-Teresa's hands responding with a faint and timid tinkle. Pushing his
-hat back on his head the gallant looked boldly at his partner,
-approached his face to hers; pursued her, urged his suit in a
-thousand different ways, Teresa never altering her humble and
-submissive attitude nor he his conquering air, his gymnastics, and
-his resolute movements of attack.
-
-It was primitive love, the wooing of the heroic ages, represented
-in this expressive Cantabrian dance, warlike and rude; the woman
-dominated by the strength of the man and, better than enamored,
-afraid; all which was more piquant in view of the Amazon-like type of
-Teresa and the habitual shyness and circumspection of the Señorito.
-There was an instant, however, in which the gallant peeped through
-the barbarous conqueror, and in the midst of a most complicated and
-rapid measure he bent his knee before the beauty, describing the
-figure known as _punto del sacramento_. It was only for a moment
-however; springing to his feet he gave his partner a tender push and
-they stood back to back, touching each other, caressing each other,
-and amorously rubbing shoulder against shoulder and spine against
-spine. In two minutes they suddenly drew apart and with a few
-complicated movements of the ankles and a few rapid turns, during
-which Teresa's skirts whirled around her, the riveirana came to an
-end and a storm of applause burst from the spectators.
-
-While the Señorito wiped the perspiration from his brow and
-Teresa unpinned her skirt, Nieves, who had risen from the piano,
-looked around and noticed Segundo's absence. Elvira made the same
-observation but aloud. Agonde gave them the clew to the mystery.
-
-"No doubt he is at this moment in the pine grove or on the
-river-bank. There is scarcely a night in which he does not make
-eccentric expeditions of the kind; in Vilamorta he does the same
-thing."
-
-"And how is the door to be closed if he does not come? That boy
-is crazy," declared Primo Genday. "We are not all going to do without
-our sleep, we who have to get up early to our work, for that
-featherhead. Hey, do you understand me? I will shut up the house and
-let him manage in the best way he can. Ave Maria!"
-
-Mendez and Don Victoriano protested in the name of courtesy and
-hospitality, and until midnight the door of Las Vides remained open,
-awaiting Segundo's return. As he had not come by that time, however,
-Genday went himself to bar the door muttering between his teeth:
-
-"Ave Mar-- Let him sleep out of doors if he has a fancy for doing
-so."
-
-Segundo, in fact, was at this time on his way to the pine grove.
-He was in a state of intense excitement, and he felt that it would be
-impossible for him in his present mood to meet anyone or to take part
-in any conversation. Nieves, so reserved, so beautiful, had said yes
-to him. The dreams of an ideal love which had tormented his spirit
-were not, then, destined never to be realized, nor would fame be
-unattainable when love was already within his ardent and eager grasp.
-With these thoughts passing through his mind he ascended the steep
-path and walked enraptured through the pine grove. At times he would
-lean against the dark trunk of some pine, his brow bared to the
-breeze, drinking in the cool night air, and listening, as in a dream,
-to the mysterious voices of the trees and the murmur of the river
-that ran below. Ah, what moments of happiness, what supreme joys,
-were promised him by this love, which flattered his pride, excited
-his imagination and satisfied his egotism, the delicate egotism of a
-poet, avid of love, of enjoyments which the imagination idealizes and
-the muse may sing without degradation! All that he had pictured in
-his verses was to be realized in his life; and his song would ring
-forth more clearly and inspiration would flow more freely, and he
-would write, in blood, verses that would cause his readers' hearts to
-thrill with emotion.
-
-In defiance of duty and reason Nieves loved him--she had told him
-so. The poet smiled scornfully when he thought of Don Victoriano,
-with the profound contempt of the idealist for the practical man
-inept in spiritual things. Then he looked around him. The pine grove
-had a gloomy air at this hour. And it was cold. Besides it must be
-late. They would be wondering at his absence in Las Vides. Had Nieves
-retired? With these thoughts passing through his mind he descended
-the rugged path and reached the door ten minutes after the careful
-hand of Genday had secured the bolt. The _contretemps_ did not alarm
-Segundo; he would have to scale some wall; and the romance of the
-incident almost pleased him. How should he effect an entrance?
-
-Undoubtedly the easiest way would be by the garden, into which he
-could lower himself from the brow of the hill--a question of a few
-scratches, but he would be in his own room in ten minutes' time,
-without encountering the dogs that were keeping watch in the yard, or
-any member of the household, as that side of the house, the side
-where the dining-room was situated, was uninhabited. And upon this
-course he decided. He turned back and ascended the top of the hill,
-not without some difficulty. From thence he could command a view of
-the gallery and a good part of the garden. He studied the nature of
-the declivity, so as to avoid falling on the wall and perhaps
-breaking his leg. The hill was bare and without vegetation and the
-figure of the Swan stood out boldly against the background of the
-sky.
-
-When Segundo fixed his eyes on the gallery for the purpose of
-deciding on the safest place for a descent, he saw something that
-troubled his senses with a sweet intoxication, something that gave
-him one of those delightful surprises which make the blood rush to
-the heart to send it coursing back joyful and ardent through the
-veins. In the semi-obscurity of the gallery, standing among the
-flower-pots, his keen gaze descried, without the possibility of a
-doubt as to the reality of the vision, a white figure, the silhouette
-of a woman, whose attitude seemed to indicate that she too had seen
-him, had observed him, that she was waiting for him.
-
-Fancy swiftly sketched out and filled in the details of the
-scene--a colloquy, a divine colloquy of love with Nieves, among the
-carnations and the vines, alone, without any other witnesses than the
-moon, already setting, and the flowers, envious of so much happiness.
-And with a swift movement he rolled down the steep declivity, landing
-on the hard wall. The fruit trees hid the path from him, and two or
-three times he lost his way; at last he found himself at the foot of
-the staircase leading to the gallery, and he raised his eyes to
-satisfy himself as to the reality of the lovely apparition. A woman
-dressed in white was indeed waiting there, leaning over the wooden
-balustrade of the balcony; but the distance did not now admit of any
-optical illusion; it was Elvira Molende, in a percale wrapper, her
-hair hanging loose about her shoulders, as if she were an actress
-rehearsing the rôle of _Sonnambula_. How eagerly the poor girl was
-leaning over the balustrade! The poet would swear that she even
-called his name softly, with a tender lisp.
-
-And he passed on. He made the tour of the garden, entered the
-courtyard by the inner door, which was not closed at night, and
-knocked loudly at the door of the kitchen. The servant opened it for
-him, cursing to himself the young gentlemen who stayed up late at
-night because they were not obliged to rise early in the morning to
-open the cellar for the grape-tramplers.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XX.
-
-
-As the time occupied in the gathering of the grapes and the
-elaboration of the wine in the spacious cellar of Mendez was so
-prolonged, and as in that part of the country everyone has his own
-crop, however small, to gather in, part of the guests went away,
-desirous of attending to their own vineyards. Señorito de Limioso
-needed to see for himself how, between oïdium, the blackbirds, the
-neighbors, and the wasps, not a single bunch of grapes had been left
-him; the Señoritas de Molende had to hang up with their own hands the
-grapes of their famous Tostado, renowned throughout the country; and
-for similar reasons Saturnino Agonde, the arch-priest, and the curate
-of Naya took their leave one by one, the court of Las Vides being
-reduced to Carmen Agonde, maid of honor, Clodio Genday, Aulic
-councilor, Tropiezo, court physician, and Segundo, who might well be
-the page or the troubadour charged to divert the châtelaine with his
-ditties.
-
-Segundo was consumed with a feverish impatience hitherto unknown
-to him. Since the day of the interview in the lemon tree Nieves had
-shunned every occasion of being alone with him; and the feverish
-dream that haunted his sleep, the intolerable anguish which consumed
-him, was that he had advanced no further than the fugitive _yes_,
-which he sometimes even doubted he had heard. He could not endure
-this slow torture, this ceaseless martyrdom; he would have been less
-unhappy if instead of encouraging him Nieves had requited his love
-with open scorn. It was not the brutal desire for positive victories
-which thus tormented him; all he wished was to convince himself that
-he was really loved, and that under that steely corset a tender heart
-throbbed. And so mad was his passion that when he found it impossible
-to approach Nieves, he was seized by an almost irresistible impulse
-to cry out, "Nieves, tell me again that you love me!" Always, always
-obstacles between the two; the child was always at her mother's side.
-Of what avail was it to be rid of Elvira Molende who, since the
-memorable night on which she had kept guard in the gallery, had
-looked at the poet with an expression that was half satirical, half
-mournful? The departure of the poetess removed an obstacle, indeed,
-but it did not put an end to his difficulties.
-
-Segundo suffered in his vanity, wounded by the systematic reserve
-of Nieves, as well as in his love, his ardent longing for the
-impossible. It was already October; the ex-Minister spoke of taking
-his departure immediately, and although Segundo counted on
-establishing himself in Madrid later on through his influence, and
-meeting Nieves again, an infallible instinct told him that between
-Nieves and himself there existed no other bond of union than their
-temporary sojourn in Las Vides, the poetic influences of the season,
-the accident of living under the same roof, and that if this dream
-did not take shape before their separation it would be as ephemeral
-as the vine leaves that were now falling around them, withered and
-sapless.
-
-Autumn was parting with its glories; the wrinkled and knotted
-vine stalks, the dry and shrunken vine branches, lay bare to view,
-and the wind moaned sadly, stripping their leaves from the boughs of
-the fruit trees. One day Victorina asked Segundo:
-
-"When are we going to the pine grove to hear it sing?"
-
-"Whenever you like, child. This afternoon if your mother wishes
-it."
-
-The child conveyed the proposition to Nieves. For some time past
-Victorina had been more than usually demonstrative toward her mother,
-leaning her head upon Nieves' breast, hiding her cheek in her neck,
-passing her hands over her hair and her shoulders while she would
-repeat softly, in a voice that seemed to ask for a caress:
-
-"Mamma! mamma!"
-
-But the eyes of the miniature woman, half-veiled by their long
-lashes, were fixed with loving, longing glance, not on her mother,
-but on the poet, whose words the child drank in eagerly, turning very
-red if he chanced to make some jesting remark to her or gave any
-other indication of being aware of her presence.
-
-Nieves objected a little at first, not wishing to appear
-credulous or superstitious.
-
-"But what has put such an idea into your head?"
-
-"Mamma, when Segundo says that the pines sing, they sing, mamma,
-there is not a doubt of it."
-
-"But you don't know," said Nieves, bestowing on the poet a smile
-in which there was more sugar than salt--"that Segundo writes poetry,
-and that people who write poetry are permitted to--to invent--a
-little?"
-
-"No, Señora," cried Segundo. "Do not teach your child what is not
-true. Do not deceive her. In society it often happens that we utter
-with the lips sentiments that are far from the heart, but in poetry
-we lay bare the feelings of the inmost soul, feelings which in the
-world we are obliged to hide in our own breasts, through respect--or
-through prudence. Believe me."
-
-"Say, mamma, are we going there to-day?"
-
-"Where?"
-
-"To the pine grove."
-
-"If you are very anxious to go. What an obstinate child! But
-indeed I too am curious to hear this orchestra."
-
-Only Nieves, Victorina, Carmen, Segundo, and Tropiezo took part
-in the expedition. The elders remained behind smoking and looking on
-at the important operation of covering and closing some of the vats
-which contained the must, now fermented. As Mendez saw the party
-about to start, he called out in a tone of paternal warning:
-
-"Take care with the descent. The pine needles in this hot weather
-are as slippery as if they had been rubbed with soap. The ladies must
-be helped down. You, Victorina, don't be crazy; don't go rushing
-about there."
-
-The famous pine grove was distant some quarter of a league, but
-they spent fully three-quarters of an hour in making the ascent,
-along a path as steep, narrow, and rugged as the ascent to heaven is
-said to be, and which long before reaching the wood was carpeted with
-the polished, smooth, dry pine needles, which, if they rendered the
-descent more easy than was agreeable, compensated for it by making
-the ascent extremely difficult, causing the foot to slip, and
-fatiguing the ankles and the knees. Nieves stopped from time to time
-to take breath, and was at last fain to avail herself of the support
-of the plump arm of Carmen Agonde.
-
-"_Caramba_, this is like practicing gymnastics! Whoever escapes
-being killed when we are going back will be very lucky."
-
-"Lean well on me, lean well on me," said the sturdy country girl.
-"Many a limb has been broken here already, no doubt. This ascent is
-terrible!"
-
-They reached the summit at last. The prospect was beautiful, with
-that species of beauty that borders on sublimity. The pine wood
-seemed to hang over an abyss. Between the trunks of the trees could
-be caught glimpses of the mountains, of an ashen blue blending into
-violet in the distance; on the other side of the pine wood, that
-which overlooked the river, the ground fell abruptly in a steep,
-almost perpendicular descent, while far below flowed the Avieiro, not
-winding peacefully along, but noisy and foaming, roused into rage by
-the barrier opposed to its progress by some sharp black rocks and
-separating into numerous currents that curled around the bowlders
-like angry green snakes covered with silver scales. To the roaring
-and sobbing of the river the pine wood kept accompaniment with its
-perpetual plaint intoned by the summits of the trees, which swayed
-and vibrated to the kisses of the breeze, dolorous kisses that drew
-from them an incessant moan.
-
-The excursionists, impressed by the tragic aspect of the scene,
-remained mute. Only the child broke the silence, speaking in tones as
-hushed as if she were in a church.
-
-"Well, it is true, mamma! The pines sing. Do you hear them? It
-sounds like the chorus of bishops in 'L'Africaine.' They even seem to
-speak--listen--in bass voices--like that passage in the
-'Huguenots----'"
-
-Nieves agreed that the murmur of the pines was in truth musical
-and solemn. Segundo, leaning against a tree, looked down at the river
-foaming below; Victorina approached him, but he stopped her and made
-her go back.
-
-"No, my child," he said; "don't come near; it is a little
-dangerous; if you should lose your footing and roll down that
-declivity----Go back, go back."
-
-As nothing further occurred to them to say about the pines, the
-excursionists began to think of returning home; Nieves was a little
-uneasy about the descent, and she wished to undertake it before the
-sun should set.
-
-"Now, indeed, we shall break some of our bones, Don Fermin," she
-said to the doctor. "Now, indeed, you may begin to get your bandages
-and splints ready."
-
-"There is another road," said Segundo, emerging from his
-abstraction. "And one which is much less toilsome and much more level
-than this."
-
-"Yes, talk to us now about the other road," cried Tropiezo, true
-to his habit of voting with the opposition. "It is even worse than
-the one by which we came."
-
-"How should it be worse, man? It is a little longer, but as it is
-not so steep it is the best in the end. It skirts the pine wood."
-
-"Do you want to tell me which is the best road--me who know the
-whole country as well as I know my own house? You cannot go by that
-road; I know what I am saying."
-
-"And I say that you can, and I will prove it to you. For once in
-your life don't be stubborn. I came by it not many days ago. Do you
-remember, Nieves, the night we played hide-and-seek in the garden,
-the night they barred me out and I got over the wall?"
-
-Had it not been for the thick shade cast by the pine trees and
-the fading daylight, it would have been seen that Nieves blushed.
-
-"Let us take whichever road is easiest and most level," she said,
-evading an answer. "I am very awkward about walking over rough
-roads."
-
-Segundo offered his arm, saying jestingly:
-
-"That blessed Tropiezo knows as much about roads as he does about
-the art of healing. Come, and you shall see that we will be the
-gainers by it."
-
-Tropiezo, on his side, was saying to Carmen Agonde, shaking his
-head obstinately:
-
-"Well, we will please ourselves and go by the cut, and arrive
-before they do, safe and sound, with the help of God."
-
-Victorina, according to her custom, was going to her mother's
-side, when the doctor called out to her:
-
-"Here, take hold of the end of my stick or you will slip. Your
-mamma will have enough to do to keep herself from falling. And God
-save us from a _trip_," he added, laughing loudly at his jest.
-
-The voices and footsteps receded in the distance, and Segundo and
-Nieves continued on their way in silence. The precipitous character
-of the path along which they walked inspired Nieves with something
-like fear. It was a little path cut on the slope of the pine wood, on
-the very edge of the precipice, almost overhanging the river.
-Although Segundo gave Nieves the least dangerous side, that next the
-wood, leaving himself scarcely a foothold, so that he was obliged to
-place one foot horizontally before the other, in walking, this did
-not set her fears at rest or make the adventure seem any the less
-dangerous to her. Her terror was increased a hundredfold when she saw
-that they were alone.
-
-"Are they not coming?" she asked anxiously.
-
-"We will overtake them in less than ten minutes. They are going
-by the other road," answered Segundo, without adding a single word of
-endearment, or even pressing the arm which trembled with terror
-within his.
-
-"Let us go on, then," said Nieves, in tones of urgent entreaty.
-"I am anxious to be home."
-
-"Why?" asked the poet, suddenly standing still.
-
-"I am tired--out of breath----"
-
-"Well, you shall rest and take a drink of water if you desire
-it."
-
-And with rash hardihood Segundo, without waiting for an answer,
-drew Nieves down the slope and, skirting the rock, stopped on a
-narrow ledge which projected over the river. By the fading sunset
-light they discried a crystal thread of water trickling down the
-black front of the rock.
-
-"Drink, if you wish--in the palm of your hand, for we have no
-glass," said Segundo.
-
-Nieves mechanically released Segundo's arm, scarcely conscious of
-what she was doing, and took a step toward the stream; but the ground
-at the base of the rock, kept moist by the dripping of the water, was
-overgrown with humid vegetation as slippery as sea-weed, and as she
-set her foot upon it she slipped and lost her balance. In her
-vertigo, she saw the river roaring menacingly below, the sharp rocks
-waiting to receive her and mangle her flesh, and she already felt the
-chill air of the abyss. A hand clutched her by her gown, by her
-flesh, perhaps; held her up and drew her back to safety. She dropped
-her head on Segundo's shoulder and the latter, for the first time,
-felt Nieves' heart beat under his hand. And how quickly it beat! It
-beat with fear. The poet bent over her, and on her very lips breathed
-this question:
-
-"Do you love me? tell me, do you love me?"
-
-The answer was inaudible, for even if the words had been formed
-in her throat her sealed lips were unable to articulate them. During
-this short space of time, which was for them an eternity, there
-flashed across Segundo's brain a thought potent and destructive as
-the electric spark. The poet stood fronting the precipice, Nieves
-with her back toward it, kept from falling over its edge only by the
-arm of her savior. A movement forward, a stronger pressure of his
-lips to hers, would be sufficient to make them both lose their
-balance and precipitate them into the abyss. It would be a beautiful
-ending--worthy of the ambitious soul of a poet. Thinking of it
-Segundo found it alluring and desirable, and yet the instinct of
-self-preservation, an animal impulse, but one more powerful than the
-romantic idea, placed between the thought and the action an
-insuperable barrier. He pleased himself, in imagination, with the
-picture of the two bodies clasped in each other's arms, borne along
-by the current of the river. He even saw in fancy the scene of the
-discovery of the corpses, the exclamations; the profound impression
-that such an event would cause in the district; and _something_, some
-poetic feeling that stirred and thrilled in his youthful soul, urged
-him to take the leap; but at the same time a cold fear congealed his
-blood, obliging him to proceed slowly, not toward the abyss, but in
-an opposite direction, toward the path.
-
-All this, short enough in the telling, was instantaneous in the
-thinking. Segundo felt a cold chill strike through him, putting to
-flight thoughts of love as well as of death. It was the chill
-communicated to him by the lips of Nieves, who had fainted in his
-arms.
-
-He dipped his handkerchief in the spring and applied it to her
-temples and wrists. She half opened her eyes. They could hear
-Tropiezo talking, Carmen laughing; they were coming doubtless in
-search of them, to triumph over them. Nieves, when she came back to
-consciousness and found herself still alone, did not make the
-slightest effort to free herself from the poet's embrace.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XXI.
-
-
-As if by tacit agreement the hero and heroine of the adventure
-made light of the danger they had run, to their companions in the
-excursion in the first place, and afterward to the elders at Las
-Vides. Segundo observed a certain reticence regarding the particulars
-of the occurrence. Nieves, on the contrary, was more talkative than
-usual, speaking with nervous loquacity, going over the most
-insignificant details a hundred times. She had slipped; García had
-reached out his hand to her; she had caught it, and as she
-was--well--timid, she had been a little frightened, although there
-was not the slightest occasion for being so. But the obstinate
-Tropiezo, with mild scorn, contradicted her. Good Heavens, how
-mistaken she was! No danger? Why, it was only by a miracle that
-Nieves was not now floating in the Avieiro. The ground there was as
-slippery as soap, and the stones below were as sharp as razors, and
-the current was so strong that----Nieves denied the danger, making an
-effort to laugh; but the terror of the accident had left unmistakable
-traces upon her countenance, changing its warm healthy pallor to a
-sickly hue, producing dark circles under her eyes, and making her
-features twitch convulsively.
-
-Segundo longed to say a few words to her, to ask her to grant him
-an interview; he comprehended that he must avail himself of these
-first moments, while her soul was still under the softening influence
-of gratitude and fright which made her cold heart palpitate beneath
-the whalebone of her stays. In the brief scene of the precipice the
-arrival of Tropiezo had allowed Nieves no time to respond explicitly
-to the poet's ardor, and Segundo wished to come to some agreement
-with her, to devise some means of seeing each other and talking to
-each other alone, to establish the fact at once that all these
-anxieties, these vigils, these intrigues, were love and requited
-love--a mutual passion, in short. When and how should he find the
-desired opportunity of establishing an understanding with Nieves?
-
-It may be said that in the history of every love affair there
-exists a first period in which obstacles accumulate and difficulties,
-seemingly insurmountable, arise, driving to despair the lover who has
-made up his mind to conquer them, and that there comes, too, a second
-period in which the mysterious force of desire and the power of the
-will sweep away these obstacles, and circumstances, for the moment
-favorable, aid the lovers. So it happened on the night of this
-memorable day. As Victorina had been somewhat frightened, hearing of
-the danger her mother had been in, she had been sent to bed early,
-and Carmen Agonde had remained with her to put her asleep by telling
-her stories. The principal witnesses being thus removed and the
-elders plunged in one of their interminable viticultural,
-agricultural, and sociological discussions, Nieves, who had gone out
-on the balcony for air--for she felt as if she had a lump in her
-throat which prevented her from breathing--had an opportunity to chat
-for ten minutes with Segundo, who was standing near the window, not
-far from the rocking-chairs.
-
-Occasionally they would raise their voices and speak on
-indifferent subjects--the afternoon's accident, the strange singing
-of the pines. And low, very low, the diplomatic negotiation of the
-poet followed its course. An interview, a conversation with some
-degree of freedom. Why, of course it could be! Why could it not take
-place in the gallery that very night? No one was going to think of
-going there to spy out what was passing. He could let himself down
-easily into the garden----He could not? She was very timid----It
-would be wrong? Why?--She was tired and not very well----Yes, he
-understood. She would prefer the daytime, perhaps. Well, the other
-would be better, but----Without fail? At the hour of the siesta? In
-the parlor? No; nobody ever went there; everyone was asleep. On her
-word of honor?--Thanks. Yes, it was necessary to dissemble so as not
-to attract attention.
-
-Meantime the gentlemen at the tresillo table talked of the
-vintage and its consequences. The poor country girls earned a good
-deal of money at the work. Apropos of which Don Victoriano gave
-expression to some of his favorite ideas, referring to English
-legislature, and eulogizing the wisdom of that great nation whose
-laws regulating labor give evidence of a careful study of the
-problems it involves, and of some regard for the welfare of women and
-children. With these serious disquisitions the evening ended, every
-owl retiring to his olive tree.
-
-Nieves, seated at her toilet table, her open dressing-case and a
-small silver-framed mirror before her, was taking out, one by one,
-the tortoise-shell hair-pins which fastened her hair. Mademoiselle
-gathered them together and arranged them neatly in a box and braided
-Nieves' hair, after which the latter threw herself back in her seat
-and drew a deep breath; suddenly she looked up.
-
-"If you could make me a cup of lime tea," she said, "in your own
-room, without troubling anybody?"
-
-The Frenchwoman left the room and Nieves leaned her elbow
-thoughtfully on the table, resting her cheek in the palm of her hand,
-without moving her eyes from the mirror. Her face was deathly pale.
-No, this life could not continue; if it did it would carry her to her
-grave. She was very nervous--what terrors! What anxiety, what moments
-of anguish she had suffered! She had seen death face to face, and had
-had more frights, more fears, more misery in a single day than in all
-the previous years of her existence put together. If this were love
-in truth there was little that was pleasing in it; such agitations
-were not suited to her. It was one thing to like to be pretty, and to
-be told so, and even to have a passionate adorer, and another to
-suffer these incessant anxieties, these surprises that bring one's
-heart to one's mouth and expose one to the risk of disgrace and
-destroy one's health. And the poets say that this is happiness. It
-may be so for them--as for the poor women----And why had she not the
-courage to tell Segundo that there must be an end to this, to say to
-him: "I can endure these alarms no longer. I am afraid. I am
-miserable!" Ah, she was afraid of him, too. He was capable of killing
-her; his handsome black eyes sent forth at times electric sparks and
-phosphoric gleams. And then he always took the lead, he dominated
-her, he mastered her. Through him she had been on the point of
-falling into the river, of being dashed to pieces on the rocks. Holy
-Virgin! Why, only half an hour ago did he not almost force her to
-agree to a meeting in the gallery? Which would be a great piece of
-madness, since it would be impossible for her to go to that part of
-the house without her absence being noticed by Mademoiselle, or
-someone else, and its cause being discovered. Good Heavens! All this
-was terrible, terrible! And to-morrow she must go to the parlor at
-the hour of the siesta. Well, then, she would take a bold resolution.
-She would go, yes, but she would go to clear up this
-misunderstanding, to give Segundo some plain talk that would make him
-place some restraint upon himself; that he should love her, very
-good; she had no objection to that, that was well enough; but to
-compromise her in this way, that was a thing unheard of; she would
-entreat him to return to Vilamorta; they would soon go to Madrid. Ah,
-how long that blessed Mademoiselle delayed with the lime tea.
-
-The door opened to admit, not Mademoiselle, but Don Victoriano.
-There was nothing to surprise her in his appearance; he slept in a
-sort of cabinet near his wife's room and separated from it by a
-passageway, and every night before retiring he gave a kiss to the
-child, whose bed was beside her mother's; nevertheless Nieves felt a
-chill creep over her, and she instinctively turned her back to the
-light, coughing to hide her agitation.
-
-The truth was that Don Victoriano looked very serious, even
-stern. He had not indeed been very cheerful or communicative ever
-since his illness had assumed a serious character; but in addition to
-his air of dejection there was an indefinable something, a darker
-gloom on his face than usual, a cloud pregnant with storm. Nieves,
-observing that he did not approach the child's bed, cast down her
-eyes and affected to be occupied in smoothing her hair with the ivory
-comb.
-
-"How do you feel, child? Have you recovered from your fright?"
-asked her husband.
-
-"No; I am still a little----I have asked for some lime tea."
-
-"You did well. See, Nieves----"
-
-"Well--well?"
-
-"See, Nieves, we must go to Madrid at once."
-
-"Whenever you wish. You know that I----"
-
-"No, the thing is that it is necessary, indispensable. I must put
-myself seriously under treatment, child; for if things continue as
-they are now it will soon be all over with me. I had the weakness to
-put myself in the hands of that ass, Don Fermin. God forgive me for
-it! and I fear," he added, smiling bitterly, "that I have made a
-fatal mistake. Let us see if Sanchez del Abrojo will get me out of
-the scrape--I doubt it greatly."
-
-"Heavens, how apprehensive you are!" exclaimed Nieves, breathing
-freely once more and availing herself of the resource offered to her
-by Don Victoriano's illness. "Anyone would think you had an incurable
-disease. When you are once in Madrid and Sanchez has you under his
-care--in a couple of months you will not even remember this trifling
-indisposition."
-
-"Bravo! child, bravo! I don't wish to hurt your feelings or to
-seem unkind, but what you say proves that you neither look at me, nor
-care a straw about my health, nor pay any attention to me whatever,
-which--forgive me--is not creditable to you. My disease is a serious,
-a very serious one--it is a disease that carries people off in fine
-style. I am being converted into sugar, my sight is failing, my head
-aches, I have no blood left, and you, serene and gay, sporting about
-like a child. A wife who loved her husband would not act in this way.
-You have troubled yourself neither about the state of my body nor the
-state of my mind. You are enjoying yourself, having a fine time, and
-as for the rest--a great deal it matters to you!"
-
-Nieves rose to her feet, tremulous, almost weeping.
-
-"What are you saying? I--I----"
-
-"Don't distress yourself, child; don't cry. You are young and
-well; I am wasted and sickly. So much the worse for me. But listen to
-me. Although I seem to you dry and serious, I loved you tenderly,
-Nieves, I love you still, as much as I love that child who is
-sleeping there, I swear it to you before God! And you might--you
-might love me a little--like a daughter--and take some interest in
-me. The trouble would not be for long now--I feel so sick."
-
-Nieves drew near him with an affectionate movement and he touched
-her forehead with his parched lips, pressing her to him at the same
-time. Then he added:
-
-"I have still another observation to make, another sermon to
-preach to you, child."
-
-"What is it?" murmured his wife smiling, but terrified.
-
-"That boy García--don't be alarmed, child, there is no need for
-that--that boy looks at you sometimes in a very curious way, as if he
-were making love to you. No, I am not doubting you. You are and you
-have always been an irreproachable wife--I am not accusing you, nor
-do I attach any importance to such folly. But, although you may not
-believe it, the young men here are very daring; they are shyer in
-appearance than those of the capital, but they are bolder in reality.
-I spent my youthful years here, and I know them. I am only putting
-you on your guard so that you may keep that jackanapes within bounds.
-For the rest of the time we are to remain in this place, avoid those
-long walks and all those other rusticities which they indulge in
-here. A lady like you among these people is a sort of queen, and it
-is not proper that they should take the same liberties with you as
-with the Señoritas de Molende or others like them--but I have already
-told you that such a thought has not even crossed my mind. It is one
-thing that this village Swan should have fallen in love with you, and
-have given you his hand to help you over the rocks, and another that
-I should insult you, child!"
-
-Shortly afterward Mademoiselle entered with the steaming cup of
-tea. And greatly Nieves needed it. Her nerves were in a state of the
-utmost tension. She was on the verge of a hysterical attack. She even
-felt nausea when she took the first few spoonfuls. Mademoiselle
-offered her some anti-hysterical drops. Nieves drank the remedy, and
-with a few yawns and two or three tears the attack passed off. She
-thought she would go to bed, and went into her bedroom. There she saw
-something which renewed her uneasiness--Victorina, instead of being
-asleep, lay with eyes wide open. She had probably heard every word of
-the conversation.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXII.
-
-
-She had in fact heard it all, from beginning to end. And the
-words of the conjugal dialogue were whirling around in her brain,
-mingling confusedly together, stamping themselves in characters of
-fire on her virgin memory. She repeated them to herself, she tried to
-understand their meaning, she weighed them, she drew conclusions from
-them.
-
-No one can tell which is the precise moment that divides day from
-night, sleeping from waking, youth from maturity, and innocence from
-knowledge. Who can fix the moment in which the child, passing into
-adolescence, observes in herself that undefinable something which may
-perhaps be called consciousness of sex, in which vague presentiment
-is changed into swift intuition, in which, without an exact notion of
-the realities of life, she divines all that experience will
-corroborate and accentuate later on, in which she understands the
-importance of a sign, the significance of an act, the character of a
-relationship, the value of a glance, and the meaning of a reticence.
-The moment in which her eyes, hitherto open only to external life,
-acquire power to scrutinize the inner life also, and losing their
-superficial brilliancy, the clear reflection of her ingenuous purity,
-acquire the concentrated and undefinable expression which constitutes
-the _glance of a grown person_.
-
-This moment arrived for Victorina at the age of eleven, on the
-night we have mentioned, overhearing a dialogue between her father
-and mother. Motionless, with bated breath, her feet cold, her head
-burning, the child heard everything, and afterward, in the dim light
-of the bedroom, united broken links, remembering certain incidents,
-and at last understood without attaching much importance to what she
-understood, reasoning, however, with singular precocity, owing,
-perhaps, to the painful activity with which imagination works in the
-silence of night and the repose of the bed.
-
-It is certain that the child slept badly, tossing about
-restlessly in her monastic little bed. Two ideas, especially, seemed
-to pierce her brain like nails. Her father was ill, very ill, and he
-was annoyed and displeased, besides, because Segundo had fallen in
-love with her mamma. With her mamma. Not with her! With her who
-preserved all the flowers he had given her like relics.
-
-The sorrows of childhood know neither limit nor consolation. When
-we are older and more storms have passed over us, and we have seen
-with astonishment that man can survive griefs which we had thought
-unsurvivable, and that the heavens do not fall because we have lost
-what we love, it may almost be said that absolute despair, which is
-the heritage of childhood, does not exist. It was evident to
-Victorina that her father was dying and that her mother was wicked,
-and Segundo a villain, and that the world had come to an end--and
-that she too, she too, desired to die. If it were possible for the
-hair to turn white at eleven, Victorina would have become white on
-the night in which suffering changed her from a bashful, timid,
-blushing child to a moral being, capable of the greatest heroism.
-
-Nor did Nieves enjoy the balmy sweets of slumber. Her husband's
-words had made her thoughtful. Was Don Victoriano's illness a fatal
-one? It might be so! He looked greatly altered, poor fellow. And
-Nieves felt a touch of grief and apprehension. Why, who could doubt
-that she loved her husband, or that she should regret his death? She
-did not feel for him any passionate love, such as is described in
-novels--but affection--yes. Heaven grant the malady might be a
-trifling one. And if it were not? And if she were to be left a wi----
-She did not dare to complete the word even in her thoughts. To think
-of such a thing seemed like indulging in wicked desires. No, but the
-fact was that women, when their husbands die, were--Holy Virgin! It
-must be a terrible grief. Well, but _if it happened_?
-Segundo--Heavens, what folly! Most assuredly such an absurdity had
-never entered his head. The Garcías--nobodies. And here a vivid
-picture of all Segundo's relations and their manner of living
-presented itself to her mind.
-
-She would willingly have absented herself from the rendezvous on
-the following day, because her husband had begun to suspect something
-and the situation was a compromising one, although in the place
-designated for the interview the meeting between them might always be
-attributed to chance. On the other hand if she failed to meet him,
-Segundo, who was so enamored, was fully capable of creating a
-scandal, of going to look for her in her room, of forcing an entrance
-into it through the window.
-
-After all, thinking well over the matter, she judged it most
-prudent to comply with her promise and to entreat Segundo to--forget
-her--or at least not to compromise her. That was the best course to
-pursue.
-
-Nieves passed the morning in a state of complete prostration; she
-scarcely tasted a morsel at breakfast and during the meal she kept
-her eyes turned away from Segundo, fearing lest her husband should
-surprise some furtive glance of intelligence between them. To make
-matters worse, Segundo, desirous of reminding her with his eyes of
-her promise, looked at her on this day oftener than usual.
-Fortunately Don Victoriano's attention seemed to be all given to
-satisfying his voracious appetite for eating and drinking. The meal
-being finished everyone retired as usual to take the siesta. Nieves
-went to her room. She found Victorina there, lying on the bed. For
-greater precaution she asked her:
-
-"Are you going to sleep the siesta, my pet?"
-
-"To sleep, no. But I am comfortable here."
-
-Nieves looked at herself in the glass and saw that she was pale.
-She washed her teeth, and after satisfying herself by a rapid glance
-that her husband was resting in the other room, she stole softly into
-the parlor. She was trembling. This atmosphere of storm and danger,
-grateful to the sea-fowl, was fatal to the domestic bird. It was no
-life to be always shuddering with fear, her blood curdled by fright.
-It was not to live. It was not to breathe. She would end by becoming
-crazy. Had she not fancied just now that she heard steps behind her,
-as if someone were following her? Two or three times she had stopped
-and leaned, fainting, against the wall of the corridor, vowing in her
-own mind that she would never put herself in such a dilemma again.
-
-When she reached the parlor she stopped, half startled. It was so
-silent and drowsy in the semi-obscurity, with the half-closed
-shutters through which entered a single sunbeam full of dancing
-golden motes, with its sleepy mirrors that were too lazy to reflect
-anything from their turbid surfaces, its drowsy asthmatic clock,
-whose face looked like a human countenance watching her and coughing
-disapprovingly. Suddenly she heard quick, youthful foot-steps and
-Segundo, audacious, impassioned, threw himself at her feet and
-clasped his arms around her. She tried to restrain him, to advise
-him, to explain to him. The poet refused to heed her, he continued
-pouring forth exclamations of gratitude and love and then, rising to
-his feet, he drew her toward him with the irresistible force of a
-passion which does not stop to consider consequences.
-
-When Don Victoriano saw the child enter his room, white as wax,
-livid, almost, darting fire from her eyes, in one of those
-horror-inspired attitudes which can neither be feigned nor imitated,
-he sprang from the bed where he had been lying awake smoking a cigar.
-The child said to him, in a choking voice:
-
-"Come, papa! come, papa!"
-
-What were the thoughts that passed through her father's mind? It
-was never known why he followed his daughter without putting to her a
-single question. On the threshold of the parlor father and child
-paused. Nieves uttered a shrill scream and Segundo, with an
-impassioned and manly gesture, placed himself before her to shield
-her with his body. An unnecessary defense. In the figure of the man
-standing on the threshold there was nothing of menace; what there was
-in it to inspire terror was precisely its air of stupor and
-helplessness; it seemed a corpse, a specter overwhelmed with impotent
-despair--the face, green rather than sallow, the eyes opened, dull
-and fixed, the hands and feet trembling. The man was making fruitless
-efforts to speak; paralysis had begun with the tongue; he tried in
-vain to move it in his mouth, to form sounds. Horrible conflict! The
-words struggled for utterance but remained unuttered; his face
-changed from livid to red, the blood becoming congested in it, and
-the child, clasping her father around the waist, seeing this combat
-between the spirit and the body, cried:
-
-"Help! help! Papa is dying!"
-
-Nieves, not daring to approach her husband, but comprehending
-that something very serious was the matter, screamed too for help.
-And at the various doors appeared one after another Primo Genday and
-Tropiezo in their shirt-sleeves, and Mendez with a cotton
-handkerchief tied over his ears.
-
-Segundo stood silent in the middle of the room, uncertain what
-course to pursue. To leave the room would be cowardly, to
-remain----Tropiezo shook him.
-
-"Go, flying, to Vilamorta, boy!" he said. "Tell Doroteo, the
-cabman, to go to Orense and bring back a doctor with him--the best he
-can find. I don't want to make a trip this time," he added with a
-wink. "Run, hurry off!"
-
-The Swan approached Nieves, who had thrown herself on the sofa
-and was weeping, her face covered with her dainty handkerchief.
-
-"They want me to go for a doctor, Nieves. What shall I do?"
-
-"Go!"
-
-"Shall I return?"
-
-"No--for God's sake leave me. Go bring the doctor! go bring the
-doctor!" And she sobbed more violently than before.
-
-                             * * * * *
-
-In spite of all Segundo's haste, the physician did not arrive in
-Las Vides until early on the morning of the following day. He did not
-think the case an unusual one. This disease often terminated in this
-way, in paralysis; it was one of the most frequent complications of
-the terrible malady. He added that it would be well to remove the
-patient to Orense, taking suitable precautions. The removal was
-effected without much difficulty, and Don Victoriano lived for a few
-days longer. Twenty-four hours after the interment Nieves and
-Victorina, attired in the deepest mourning, departed for the capital.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXIII.
-
-
-The black pall of winter has fallen over Vilamorta. It is
-raining, and in the wet and muddy main street and plaza no one is to
-be seen but occasionally some countryman, riding enveloped in his
-grass cloth cloak, his horse's hoofs clattering on the stone
-pavement, raising showers of mud. There are now no fruit-venders for
-the simple reason that there is no fruit; all is deserted, damp,
-muddy, and gloomy; Cansin, in listing slippers, a comforter around
-his neck, walks up and down unceasingly before his door, to prevent
-chilblains; the Alcalde avails himself of a very narrow arch in front
-of his house to pass away the afternoon, walking ten steps up and ten
-steps down, stamping energetically to keep his feet warm--an exercise
-which he affirms to be indispensable to his digestion.
-
-Now indeed the little town seems lifeless! There are neither
-visitors to the springs nor strangers from the surrounding country,
-neither fairs nor vintages. Everywhere reigns the stillness and
-solitude of the tomb, and a moisture so persistent that it covers
-with a minute green vegetation the stones of the houses in course of
-construction. These little towns in winter are enough to make the
-most cheerful person low-spirited; they are the very acme of tedium,
-the quintessence of dullness--the disinclination to arrange one's
-hair, to change one's dress, the interminable evenings, the
-persistent rain, the gloomy cold, the ashen atmosphere, the leaden
-sky!
-
-In the midst of this species of lethargy in which Vilamorta is
-plunged there are, however, some happy beings, beings who are now at
-the summit of felicity, although soon destined to end their existence
-in the most tragic manner; beings who, by their natural instinct
-alone, have divined the philosophy of Epicurus and practice it, and
-eat, drink, and make merry, and neither fear death nor think of the
-unexplored region which opens its gates to the dying, beings who
-receive the rain on their smooth skins with rejoicing, beings for
-whom the mud is a luxurious bath in which they roll and wallow with
-delight, abandoning the discomfort and narrowness of their lairs and
-sties. They are the indisputable lords and masters of Vilamorta at
-this season of the year; they who with their pomps and exploits
-supply the reunions at the apothecary's with food for conversation,
-and entertainment for familiar gatherings in which their respective
-sizes are discussed and they are studied from the point of view of
-their personal qualities, heated discussions taking place as to
-whether the short or the long ear, the curly tail, the hoof more or
-less curved upward, and the snout more or less pointed, augur the
-more succulent flesh and the more abundant fat. Comparisons are made.
-Pellejo's hog is superb as far as size is concerned, but its flesh,
-of an erysipelatous rosy hue, and its immense flabby belly, betray
-the hog of relaxed muscle, nourished on bakehouse refuse; a
-magnificent swine, that of the Alcalde, which has been fed on
-chestnuts, not so large as the other, but what hams it will make!
-What hams! And what bacon! And what a back, broad enough to ride
-upon! This will be the swine of the season. There are not wanting
-those who affirm, however, that the queen of the swine of Vilamorta
-is the pig of Aunt Gáspara, García's pig. The haunches of this
-magnificent animal look like a highroad; it once came near being
-suffocated by its own fat; its teats touch its hoofs and kiss the mud
-of the road. Who can calculate how many pounds of lard it will yield,
-and the black puddings it will fill with its blood, and the sausages
-that its intestines will make?
-
-It stops raining for a week; the cold grows more intense, frost
-falls, whitening the grass of the paths and hardening the ground.
-This is the signal for the hecatomb, for which the auspices are now
-favorable, for, in addition to the cold, the moon is in her last
-quarter; if she were on the wane the flesh would spoil. The hour has
-come for wielding the knife. And through the long nights of Vilamorta
-resound at the most unexpected moments desperate grunts--first grunts
-of fury, that express the impotent rage of the victim at finding
-himself bound to the bench, and reveal in the degenerate domestic pig
-the descendant of the wild mountain boar; then of pain, when the
-knife penetrates the flesh, an almost human cry when its blade
-pierces the heart, and at last a series of despairing groans which
-grow fainter and fainter as life and strength escape with the warm
-stream of blood.
-
-This bloodcurdling drama was being enacted in the house of the
-lawyer García at eleven o'clock on a clear frosty December night. The
-girls, wild with delight, and dying with curiosity, crowded around
-the expiring pig, in whose heart and throat the butcher, with rolled
-up sleeves and bare arms, was about to plunge the knife. Segundo,
-shut up in his bedroom, had before him some sheets of paper, more or
-less covered with scrawls. He was writing verses. But as the sounds
-of the tragedy reached him, he dropped his pen with dismay. He had
-inherited from his mother a profound horror of the spectacle of the
-killing; it usually cost his mother ten or twelve days of suffering,
-during which she was unable to eat food, sickened by the sight of the
-blood, the intestines and the viscera, so like human intestines and
-human viscera, the greasy flitches of bacon hanging from the roof,
-and the strong and stimulating odor of the black pudding and spices.
-Segundo abhorred even the name of pig, and in the morbid condition of
-his mind, in the nervous excitement which consumed him, it was an
-indescribable martyrdom to be unable to set his foot outside the door
-without stumbling against and entangling himself among the accursed
-and repulsive animals, or seeing, through the half-open doors,
-portions of their bodies hanging on hooks. All Vilamorta smelled of
-pig-killing, of warm entrails; Segundo did not know at last where to
-hide himself, and intrenched himself in his own room, closing the
-doors and windows tightly, secluding himself from the external world
-in order to live with his dreams and fancies in a realm where there
-were no hogs, and where only pine groves, blue flowers and precipices
-existed. Insufficient precaution to free himself from the torture of
-that brutal epoch of the year, since here in his own house he was
-besieged by the drama of gluttony and realism. The poet seized his
-hat and hurried out of the room. He must flee where these grunts
-could not penetrate, where those smells should not surround him. He
-walked along the hall, closing his eyes in order not to see, by the
-light of the candle which one of the children was holding, Aunt
-Gáspara with her skeleton-like arm, bare to the elbow, stirring a red
-and frothing liquid in a large earthern pan. When they saw Segundo
-leaving the house the sisters burst into shouts of laughter, and
-called to him, offering him grotesque delicacies, ignoble spoils of
-the dying.
-
-Leocadia had not retired; she felt ill and she was dozing in a
-chair, wrapped in a shawl and shivering with cold; she opened the
-door quickly to Segundo, asking him in alarm if anything had
-happened. Nothing, indeed. They were killing the pig at home--a
-Toledan night; they would not let him sleep. Besides, the night was
-so cold--he felt somewhat indisposed--as if he had a chill. Would she
-make him a cup of coffee, or better still, a rum punch?
-
-"Both, my heart, this very instant!"
-
-Leocadia recovered her spirits and her energy as if by
-enchantment. Soon there rose from the punch-bowl the sapphire flame
-of the punch. In its glare the schoolmistress's face seemed very
-thin. It had lost its former healthy color, a warm brown like that of
-the crust of a well-baked loaf. The pangs of disappointed love were
-revealed in the pallor of her cheeks, in the feverish brightness of
-her eyes, the purplish hue of her lips. Grief had given her prosaic
-features an almost poetic stamp; as she had grown thinner her eyes
-looked larger; she was not now the robust woman, with firm flesh and
-fresh-colored lips, who, pitted though she was by the smallpox, could
-still draw a coarse compliment from the tavern-keeper; the fire of an
-imperious, uncontrollable, and exacting passion was consuming her
-inwardly--the love which comes late in life, that devouring love
-which reason cannot conquer, nor time uproot, nor circumstances
-change, which fixes its talons in the vitals and releases its prey
-only when it has destroyed it.
-
-And this love was of so singular a nature that,--insatiable,
-volcanic, desperate, as it was,--far from dictating acts of violence
-to Leocadia and drawing from her furious reproaches, it inspired her
-with a self-abnegation and a generosity without limits, banishing
-from her mind every thought of self.
-
-The summer, the vintage season, the whole period during which she
-had scarcely seen Segundo, when she knew he had not given her a
-passing thought, that he was devoting himself to another woman, had
-been horrible for her; and yet not a jealous word, not a complaint
-had crossed her lips, nor did she once regret having given Segundo
-the money; and when she saw the poet, her joy was so genuine, so
-profound, that it effaced, as if by magic, the remembrance of her
-sufferings and repaid her for them a hundredfold.
-
-Now there was an additional reason why she should lavish her
-affection upon the poet. He too was suffering, he was ill. What was
-the matter with him? He himself did not know: hypochondria, the grief
-of separation, spleen, the impatient disgust produced by the contrast
-of his mean surroundings with the dreams that filled his imagination.
-A constant inappetency, depression of spirits, an uneasy sensation in
-the stomach, nerves on the stretch, like the strings of a guitar. And
-his love for Nieves was not like Leocadia's love, one of those
-passions that absorb the whole being, affect the heart, attenuate the
-flesh, and subjugate the soul. Nieves lived only in his imagination,
-in his vanity, in his lyrics, in his romantic reveries, those eternal
-inspirers of love. Nieves was the visible incarnation, in beautiful
-and alluring form, of his longings for fame, his literary ambition.
-
-Leocadia had served the punch and was pouring out the coffee
-when, her hand trembling with pleasure and emotion, she spilled some
-of the hot liquid, scalding herself slightly; she took no notice of
-the burn, however, but went on, with the same solicitude as always,
-to minister to Segundo's comfort. Thinking to please and interest the
-poet she asked him for news of the volume of poems which he had in
-hand, and which was to spread his fame far beyond Vilamorta, so soon
-as it should be published in Orense. Segundo did not show much
-enthusiasm at this prospect.
-
-"In Orense," he said, "in Orense----Do you know that I have
-changed my mind? Either I shall publish it in Madrid or I shall not
-publish it at all. The loss to Spanish literature would not be so
-very great."
-
-"And why don't you want to publish it now in Orense?"
-
-"I will tell you. Roberto Blanquez is right in the advice he
-gives me in a letter he has just written me from Madrid. You know
-that Roberto is in a situation there. He says that no one reads books
-published in the provinces; that he has noticed the contempt with
-which books that do not bear the imprint of some publishing house of
-the capital are looked upon there. And besides, that they delay a
-century here in printing a volume, and when it is printed it is full
-of errors, and unattractive in appearance--in short, that they do not
-take. And therefore----"
-
-"Well, then, let the book be published in Madrid. How much would
-it cost?"
-
-"Child, the prices Roberto tells me are enough to frighten one.
-It seems that the affair would cost a fortune. No publisher will buy
-verses or even share with the author the expense of publishing them."
-
-Leocadia answered only by a smile. The little parlor had a look
-of homelike comfort. Although winter had despoiled the balcony of its
-charms, turning the sweet basil yellow and withering the carnations,
-within, the hissing of the coffee-pot, the alcoholic vapor of the
-punch, the quietude, the solicitous affection of the schoolmistress,
-all seemed to temper and soften the atmosphere. Segundo felt a
-pleasant drowsiness stealing over him.
-
-"Will you give me a blanket from your bed?" he said to the
-schoolmistress. "There is not a spot at home where I could rest
-to-night. I might sleep a little on the sofa here."
-
-"You will be cold."
-
-"I shall be in heaven. Go."
-
-Leocadia left the room, and returned dragging in with her an
-unwieldy bulk--a mattress; then she brought a blanket; then, pillows.
-Total, a complete bed. For all that was wanting--only the sheets--she
-brought them also.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXIV.
-
-
-Leocadia did not vacillate on the following day. She knew the way
-and she went straight to the lawyer's house. The latter received her
-with a frowning brow. Did people think he was coining money? Leocadia
-had now no land to sell; what she brought was of trifling value. If
-she made up her mind to mortgage the house he would speak to his
-brother-in-law Clodio, who had some money saved, and who would like
-to have some such piece of property. Leocadia breathed a sigh of
-regret, it was not with her as with the peasantry--she had no
-attachment to land, but the house! So neat, so pretty, so
-comfortable, arranged according to her own taste!
-
-"Pshaw, by paying the amount of the mortgage you can have it back
-the moment you wish."
-
-So it was settled. Clodio handed out the money, tempted by the
-hope of obtaining, at half its value, so cozy a nest in which to end
-his bachelor existence. In the evening Leocadia asked Segundo to show
-her the manuscript of his poems and to read some of them to her.
-Frequent mention was made in them, with reticences and transparent
-allusions, of certain blue flowers, of the murmur of a pine wood, of
-a precipice, and of various other things which Leocadia knew well
-were not inventions, but had their explanation in past, and to her
-unknown, events. The schoolmistress divined a love story whose
-heroine could be no one but Nieves Mendez. But what she could not
-understand, what she could not explain, was how Señora de Comba, now
-a widow, and free to reward Segundo's love, did not do so
-immediately. The verses breathed profound despondency, ardent
-passion, and intense bitterness. Now Leocadia understood Segundo's
-sadness, his dejection, his mental anguish. How much he must suffer
-in secret! Poets, by their nature, must suffer more and crueler
-tortures than the rest of humanity. There was not a doubt of it--this
-separation, these memories were killing Segundo slowly. Leocadia
-hesitated how to begin the conversation.
-
-"See, listen. Those verses are beautiful and deserve to be
-printed in letters of gold. It just happens, child, that I received
-some money a few days ago from Orense. Do you know what I was
-thinking of the other night while you were asleep in the little bed I
-arranged for you? That it would be better for you to go yourself to
-publish them--yonder--to Madrid."
-
-To her great surprise she saw that Segundo's face clouded. To go
-to Madrid now! Impossible; he must first learn something of Nieves.
-The last tragic scene of his love affair, the dénouement of her
-sudden widowhood, raised between them a barrier difficult to pass.
-Nieves was rich, and if Segundo should go to her now and throw
-himself at her feet, he would not be the lover asking her to requite
-his love, but the suitor to her hand, alleging anterior rights and
-basing on them his aspirations to replace her defunct husband. And
-Segundo, who had accepted money from Leocadia, felt his pride rebel
-at the thought that Nieves might take him for a fortune-hunter, or
-might scorn him for his obscurity and his poverty. But did not Nieves
-love him? Had she not told him so? Why, then, did she not send him
-some message. True, he had made no attempt to communicate with the
-beautiful widow, or to refresh her memory. He feared to do it
-awkwardly, inopportunely, and so reopen the wound caused by the death
-of her husband.
-
-The volume of verses--an excellent idea! The volume of verses was
-the one means of recovering his place in Nieves' recollection
-worthily, borne on the wings of popular applause. If this volume were
-read, admired, praised, it would win fame for its author; the
-difference between his own and Nieves' social position, which might
-now make his pretensions appear ridiculous, would disappear. "To
-marry!" said Segundo to himself. Marriage seemed to him a secondary
-matter. Let Nieves only love him. It was love he asked, not marriage.
-Sitting at Leocadia's very table he wrote to Blanquez, giving him
-instructions, and prepared the manuscript to post it, and made out
-the index and the title-page with the impatient joy of one who,
-expecting to win a fortune, buys a ticket in the lottery. When he was
-gone Leocadia remained sunk in thought. Segundo had no desire to go
-to Madrid. Then the gleam of happiness that flashed across her mind
-at the thought that Segundo should establish himself in Vilamorta was
-quenched by two considerations--one was that Segundo would die of
-tedium here; the other that she could not long continue to supply his
-wants. In mortgaging the house she had burned her last cartridge.
-What should she mortgage now--herself? And she smiled sadly. In the
-hall resounded the steps of the neglected little cripple, on his way
-to bed, where Flores would soon lull him to sleep with her solecisms
-and barbarous litanies. The mother sighed. And this being, this being
-who had no support but her--what should he live on? When ruin had
-overtaken her, and she could no longer give him food or shelter, what
-a mute and continual reproach would the presence of the unhappy child
-be to her! And how could she set him to work?
-
-To work! This word brought to her mind the plans she had matured
-in those hours of sleeplessness and despair in which all the past is
-retraced in thought and new plans are formed for the future and every
-possible course of action is deliberated upon. It was plain that
-Minguitos was unfitted for the material labor of cultivating the
-ground, or for making shoes, or grinding chocolate, like that
-good-looking Ramon; but he knew how to read and write and in
-arithmetic, with a little help from Leocadia, he would be a prodigy.
-To sit behind a counter kills nobody; to attend to a customer, to
-answer his questions, take the money, enter down what is sold, are
-rather entertaining occupations that cheer the mind than fatiguing
-labors. In this way the little hunchback would be amused and would
-lose a little of his terror of strangers, his morbid fear of being
-laughed at.
-
-A few years before if anyone had proposed to Leocadia to separate
-her from her child, to deprive him of the shelter of her loving arms,
-she would have insulted him. Now it seemed to her so easy and natural
-a solution of the question to make him a clerk in a shop. Something,
-nevertheless, still thrilled in the depths of her mother's heart,
-some fibers still closely attached to the soul, that bled, that hurt.
-She must tear them away quickly. It was all for the good of the
-child, to make a man of him, so that to-day or to-morrow----
-
-Leocadia held two or three consultations with Cansin, who had a
-cousin in Orense, the proprietor of a cloth shop; and Cansin,
-dilating upon his influence with him, and the importance of the
-favor, gave the schoolmistress a warm letter of recommendation to
-him. Leocadia went to the city, saw the shopkeeper, and the
-conditions on which he agreed to receive Minguitos were agreed upon.
-The boy would be fed and lodged, his clothes washed, and he would
-receive an occasional suit, made from the remnants of cloth left over
-in the shop. As to pay, he would be paid nothing until he should have
-acquired a thorough knowledge of the business--for a couple of years
-or so. And was he very much deformed? Because that would not be very
-pleasant for the customers. And was he honest? He had never taken any
-money out of his mother's drawer, had he?
-
-Leocadia returned home with her soul steeped in gall. How should
-she tell Minguitos and Flores? Especially Flores! Impossible,
-impossible--she would create a scandal that would alarm the
-neighborhood. And she had promised to take Minguitos without fail on
-the following Monday! A stratagem occurred to her. She said that a
-relative of hers lived in Orense and that she wished to take the
-child there to make his acquaintance. She depicted the journey in
-glowing colors, so that Minguitos might think he was going on a
-pleasure trip. Did he not want to see Orense again? It was a
-magnificent town. She would show him the hot springs, the Cathedral.
-The child, with an instinctive horror of public places, of coming in
-contact with strangers, sorrowfully shook his head; and as for the
-old servant, as if she divined what was going on, she raged and
-stormed all the week. When Sunday came and mother and son were about
-to take their departure in the stage-coach Flores threw her arms
-around the neck of the boy as he was mounting the step, and embraced
-him with the tremulous and doting fondness of a grandmother, covering
-his face with kisses, and moistening it with the saliva on her
-withered lips. She spent the rest of the day sitting in the doorway,
-muttering words of rage, or of tender pity, her forehead pressed
-between her hands in an attitude of despair.
-
-Leocadia, once they were in the diligence, tried to convince the
-boy that the change was for his good; describing to him the pleasant
-life that awaited him in that fine shop situated in the most central
-part of Orense, which was so lively, where he would have very little
-to do, and where he had the hope of earning, if not to-day,
-to-morrow, a little money for himself. At her first words the boy
-fixed on his mother his astonished eyes, in which a look of
-intelligence gradually began to dawn. Minguitos was quick of
-comprehension. He drew up close to his mother, and laid his head down
-on her lap without speaking.
-
-As he continued silent, Leocadia said to him:
-
-"What is the matter with you? Does your head ache?"
-
-"No; let me sleep so--for a little--until we reach Orense."
-
-And thus he remained, quiet and silent, lulled to sleep,
-apparently, by the creaking of the diligence and the deafening noise
-of the windows rattling in their sashes. When they reached the city
-Leocadia touched him on the shoulder, saying:
-
-"We have arrived."
-
-They alighted from the stagecoach and then only did Leocadia
-observe that her lap was moist and that, on the spot where the boy
-had rested his forehead, sparkled two or three crystal drops. But on
-finding himself among strangers, in the gloomy shop crowded with
-rolls of dark cloth, the hunchback's attitude ceased to be resigned;
-he caught hold of his mother's skirt with a despairing impulse,
-uttering a single cry in which were concentrated all his reproaches,
-all his affection:
-
-"M-a-a-a-m-m-a--m-a-a-a-m-m-a!"
-
-This cry still resounded through Leocadia's heart when, on her
-arrival at Vilamorta, she saw Flores lying in wait for her in the
-doorway. Lying in wait is the exact expression, for Flores threw
-herself upon her, the moment she appeared, like a bulldog, like a
-wild animal asking for and demanding her young. And as a man in a fit
-of rage throws at his adversary whatever he finds nearest his hand so
-Flores heaped on Leocadia every species of insult, all sorts of
-injurious and opprobrious epithets, crying, in a voice that trembled
-with rage and hatred:
-
-"Thief, thief, wretch! What have you done with your child, thief?
-Go, drunkard, vagabond, go drink your liqueurs--and your child,
-perhaps, dying of hunger! Reprobate, wolf, traitress, where is the
-child? Where is the little angel? Where have you hidden him, schemer?
-In such a hurry you were to get rid of him so as to be left alone
-with your trumpery young gentleman! Wolf, wolf--if I had a gun, as
-sure as I am standing here, I would send a charge of shot into you!"
-
-Leocadia, her face pale, her eyes red with weeping, put out her
-hand to stop the mouth of the frenzied old woman; but the latter
-caught her fingers between her toothless gums, biting them and
-slavering them with the foam of her fury, and when the schoolmistress
-went upstairs, the old woman followed her, crying after her in hoarse
-and sinister accents:
-
-"You will never have the grace of God, wolf--God and the Holy
-Virgin will punish you! Go, go, rejoice now because you have carried
-out your evil designs! May you be forever accursed, accursed,
-accursed!"
-
-The malediction made Leocadia shudder. The house, with Minguitos
-away, seemed like a tomb. Flores had neither made the dinner nor
-lighted the lamp. Leocadia, too sick at heart to do either, threw
-herself on the bed, dressed as she was, and, later on, undressed
-herself and went to bed without tasting a morsel of food.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XXV.
-
-
-With what interest did Segundo read the letters of Roberto
-Blanquez giving him news of his book. Roberto was a few years older
-than the Swan; the difference in their ages was not so great as to
-prevent their having been very good friends when they were at college
-together, though it was great enough to have given Blanquez so much
-more experience than the poet as to enable him to serve as his guide
-and mentor. Blanquez, too, had had his poetic epoch, when he had
-written Galician verses; he now devoted himself to the prose of a
-modest clerkship, and wrote official articles. Madrid was
-enlightening him, and, with the natural penetration of one in whose
-veins flowed Galician blood, he was gradually acquiring a knowledge
-of practical life. He entertained for Segundo a fanatic admiration
-and a sincere attachment, one of those college attachments which last
-a lifetime. Segundo wrote to him with entire confidence--some cousins
-of Blanquez were acquainted with the mother of Nieves Mendez, and
-through this channel Segundo occasionally received tidings of his
-lady-love. Blanquez was not ignorant of the episodes of the summer.
-And in the beginning his news was very satisfactory: "Nieves lives in
-the greatest retirement--my cousins have given me news of her. She
-scarcely ever leaves the house except to go to mass. The child is not
-well. The physicians say it is the age. They are going to send her to
-a convent of the Sacred Heart to be educated. They say the mother
-looks superb, my boy. It seems they have been left very well off. The
-book will soon appear now. Yesterday I chose the paper for the
-edition and the linen paper for the hundred copies _de luxe_. The
-type will be Elzevir, which is at present the most fashionable. The
-title-page--they make them beautiful now, in six colors--would you
-like it to represent something fanciful, something allegorical?" In
-this style were Roberto's letters, source of illusions for Segundo,
-sole food for his imagination through all that long and gloomy
-winter, in that out-of-the-way corner of the world, in the midst of
-his prosaic domestic surroundings, his mind filled with the
-recollections of his unhappy passion.
-
-March had arrived, that uncertain month of sunshine and showers
-which heralds in the spring with affluence of violets and primroses,
-when the cold begins to lessen, and in the pale blue sky white clouds
-float like streamers, when Segundo received that most precious of all
-objects, that object the sight of which makes the heart palpitate
-with joy and longing, mingled with an undefinable fear resembling,
-somewhat, the feeling with which the new-made father regards his
-first-born--his first printed book. It seemed to him a dream that the
-book should be there, before his eyes, in his hands, with the
-satin-smooth white cover on which the artist had gracefully twined
-around a group of pine trees a few sprays of forget-me-nots; with its
-pea-green paper, that gave it an antique air, the compositions headed
-by three mysterious asterisks. Looking at his verses thus, free from
-blots, finished and correct, the thought standing out clearly in
-distinct black characters on the delicately tinted page, he almost
-felt as if they had issued from his brain just as they were, smoothly
-flowing and with perfect rhymes, without corrections or unmeaning
-syllables put in to fill out the meter.
-
-Leocadia was even more moved by the sight of the book than its
-author had been. She shed tears of joy. The fame of the poet was, in
-a sense, her work! For two or three days she was happy, forgetting
-the bad news which Flores brought her every Sunday from Orense; from
-Orense, where Leocadia did not dare to go herself, fearing to yield
-to the entreaties and melt before the prayers of the child, but where
-palpitated those fibers of her heart which still bled, and which
-Flores wrung with torture by her account of the sufferings of
-Minguitos, who declined visibly in health, and who always complained
-that they made sport of him in the shop and cast up his deformity to
-him.
-
-Unsolvable mysteries of the human heart! Segundo, who despised
-his native place, who believed--nor was he mistaken--that there was
-not in Vilamorta a single person capable of judging of the merits of
-a poem, could not refrain from going one evening to Saturnino
-Agonde's and drawing carelessly the volume from his pocket, throwing
-it on the counter and saying with affected indifference:
-
-"What do you think of that book, my boy?"
-
-On the instant he repented of his weakness, so many were the
-nonsensical remarks and absurd jokes with which the beautiful volume
-inspired the irreverent assemblage. He wished he had never shown it.
-He had drawn all this upon himself. If the public did not treat him
-better than his fellow-townsmen! Man can never isolate himself
-completely from his surroundings--the circle in which he moves must
-always have an interest for him. However little importance Segundo
-might attach to the opinions of the Vilamortans, and although their
-approbation would assuredly not have raised him in his own
-estimation, their stupid mockery wounded and embittered his soul. He
-went home hurt and pained. He spent a feverish night--one of those
-nights in which great projects are conceived and decisive resolutions
-adopted.
-
-His resolutions and his plans he summed up in the letter he wrote
-to Blanquez. The latter did not answer by return of mail; days
-passed, and Segundo went every morning to the post-office, always
-meeting with the same laconic answer. At last one day he received a
-voluminous registered letter.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXVI.
-
-
-As he opened it, several newspapers fell out, containing notices
-marked by a cross of the volume of poems just published, entitled
-"Songs of Absence," this being the name chosen by Segundo for his
-volume of rhymes.
-
-These were accompanied by a letter of four pages from Roberto.
-What it might contain was of such vital importance to Segundo, so
-great the influence it might exercise over his future, that he laid
-it aside fearing, he knew not why, to read it, wishing to defer what
-he so eagerly desired. The letter lay open before him and certain
-names, certain words frequently repeated, caught his eye. The name of
-the widowed Señora de Comba was often mentioned in it. To calm his
-agitation, which was purely nervous, he took up the newspapers,
-resolving to read first the marked paragraphs. He traversed the _via
-crucis_, in the fullest signification of the words.
-
-_El Imperial_ gave a noisy boom to Galicia and, as a proof that
-the country produced poets in the same abundance as it produced
-exquisite peaches and beautiful flowers mentioned, without naming
-him, the author of "Songs of Absence," a beautiful volume just
-published. And not a line more, not a word of criticism, nothing to
-indicate that anybody in the office of the popular daily had taken
-the trouble even to cut the leaves of the book. _El Liberal_, better
-informed, declared, in three lines, that "Songs of Absence" gave
-evidence of the author's great facility in versification. _La Epoca_,
-in the most obscure corner of its department, "New Books," eulogized
-the typographical elegance of the book; disapproved of the romantic
-savor of the title and of the title-page, and deplored in trenchant
-phrases that the poet should have sought inspiration in the barren
-theme of absence when there were so many wholesome, cheerful and
-fruitful subjects on which to write. _El Dia_----
-
-Ah, as for _El Dia_, it gave Segundo a castigation in style: not
-one of those angry, predetermined, energetic castigations, in which
-the lash is taken up with both hands to crush a powerful and
-dangerous adversary, but a contemptuous cut of the whip, a flick with
-the nail, as it were, as one might brush away a troublesome insect;
-one of those summary criticisms in which the critic does not take the
-trouble to adduce proof or argument in support of his criticisms,
-whose justice he deems so evident as not to require demonstration; an
-execution by a few jests, but jests of a kind that extinguish a new
-author, crush him, relegate him forever to the limbo of obscurity.
-The critic said that now when verses of supreme merit lacked readers
-it was greatly to be deplored that the press should be made to groan
-with rhymes of an inferior quality; that now when Becquer had been
-placed in the pantheon of the immortals it was a crime to treat him
-with the disrespect of stupidly imitating him, mutilating and
-counterfeiting his best thoughts; and finally, that it was to be
-regretted that estimable young men, endowed, perhaps, with admirable
-capabilities for trade, or for the career of an apothecary or a
-notary, should spend their parents' money in costly editions of
-verses which no one would either buy or read.
-
-Underneath this philippic Roberto Blanquez had written: "Pay no
-attention to this ass. Read my article."
-
-And indeed in an obscure, insignificant sheet, one of those
-innumerable periodicals that see the light in Madrid without Madrid
-ever seeing them, Blanquez poured forth the gall of his wounded
-friendship and patriotism--taking the critic to task, eulogizing
-Segundo's book and declaring him the worthy compeer of Becquer, with
-the difference that the former was a little sweeter, a little more
-dreamy, a little more melancholy, as being the son of a land as
-beautiful as it was unfortunate, and which was fairer than Andalusia,
-than Switzerland, or than any other country on the face of the globe;
-ending by saying that if Becquer had been born in Galicia he would
-feel, think, and write like _The Swan of Vilamorta_.
-
-Segundo seized the bundle of newspapers and, after looking at
-them for a moment fixedly and with a gloomy brow, tore them into
-pieces, large at first, then small, then smaller still, which he
-threw out of the window to hover for a moment in the air like
-butterflies or like the silvery petals of the flower of illusion, and
-then fall into the nearest pool. Segundo smiled bitterly. "There goes
-fame," he said to himself. "Now I think I am calmer. Let us see what
-the letter says."
-
-Of this letter we need cite here only certain passages,
-supplementing them with the comments made on them in his mind by the
-reader.
-
-"According to your request I went to the house of Señora de Comba
-to deliver to her the copy, so carefully wrapped up and sealed, which
-you sent me for that purpose."--Of course. It contained an
-inscription which I did not want her to think that you might have
-read.--"She has a beautiful house, hangings and natural flowers
-everywhere."--Everything pertaining to her is like that, beautiful
-and refined.--"But I was obliged to return several times before she
-would receive me, the moment was always inopportune."--She does not
-receive indiscriminately all who may chance to present
-themselves.--"At last she received me, after innumerable ceremonies
-and formalities. She is very beautiful close by, more beautiful,
-even, than at a distance, and it seems impossible that she should
-have a daughter twelve years old; she looks at most twenty-four or
-twenty-five."--What news Roberto has to tell me.--"The moment I told
-her I had come on your part"--Let us hear--"she became--what shall I
-say?"--red--"displeased and annoyed, my boy, and in addition so
-serious, that I was quite taken aback, and did not know what to
-do."--Infamous! Infamous!--"She was afraid that I"--Let us hear; let
-us finish, let us finish.--"She refused to receive the book, in spite
-of my urgent entreaties"--but this is inconceivable. Ah, what a
-woman!--"because she says it would remind her too forcibly of that
-place and of the death of her husband, whom God keep in his glory;
-and consequently she begs you to excuse her"--wretch!--"from opening
-the package and reading your verse, for which she thanks you."--Ha!
-ha! ha!--Bravo! What an actress!
-
-"Notwithstanding all this, as you had charged me explicitly to
-deliver it to her, I determined not to take the book back with me
-and, taking up my hat and saluting her, I laid your package on a
-table. On the following morning, however, it came back to me
-unopened, with all its seals intact."--And I did not throw her into
-the Avieiro that day when our lips--the more fool I! Well, let us
-finish.
-
-"In view of the little widow's conduct I imagine that you must
-have invented all that about the window and the precipice; you must
-have told it to me to fool me or, as you are so imaginative, you
-dreamed that it happened and you took the dream for reality."--He
-does well to mock me.--"At all events, my boy, if you were interested
-in the widow, think no more about her. I know to a certainty, through
-my cousins, who have it for a fact from their father, that at the
-expiration of the period of her mourning she is to marry a certain
-Marquis de Cameros who represented at one time a district in
-Lugo."--Yes, yes, I understand.--"The thing is serious, for,
-according to what my cousins say, the house linen is being
-embroidered already with the coronet of a marchioness."
-
-The letter was torn still more slowly and into still smaller
-pieces than the newspapers. With the fragments Segundo made a ball
-which he threw far into the middle of the pool. "Such is love," he
-said to himself, laughing bitterly.
-
-He began to walk up and down the room, at first with a certain
-monotonous regularity, then restlessly and with fury. Clara, the
-eldest of his sisters, half opened the door of the room, saying:
-
-"Aunt Gáspara says you are to come."
-
-"What for?"
-
-"Dinner is ready."
-
-Segundo took his hat and rushing into the street walked toward
-the river, filled with that species of fury which one who has just
-received some mental shock, some bitter disappointment, is apt to
-feel at being called on to take part in any of the ordinary concerns
-of life.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXVII.
-
-
-What a walk was his along the marshy borders of the Avieiro! At
-times he hurried on without any motive for accelerating his steps,
-and again, equally without motive, stood still, his gaze riveted on
-some object but in reality seeing nothing. One regret, a gnawing
-grief, pierced his soul when he recalled the past. As in a shipwreck
-there is for each of the passengers some one particular object whose
-loss he deplores more bitterly than that of all his other
-possessions, so Segundo, of all his past life, regretted one instant
-above every other, an instant which he would have given all he
-possessed to live over again--that during which he had stood with
-Nieves on the edge of the precipice, when he might have obtained a
-worthy and glorious death, carrying with him into the abyss the
-precious treasure of his illusions, and the form of the woman who for
-that one unforgettable instant only, had truly loved him.
-
-"A coward then, and a coward now!" thought the poet, calling all
-his resolution to his aid but finding himself unable to summon the
-necessary courage to throw himself at once into the cold and muddy
-waters of the river. What moments of anguish! Giddy with suffering he
-seated himself on a stone on the river bank and watched with idiotic
-vacancy of expression the circles formed on the bosom of the river by
-the drops of rain that fell slantingly from the gray sky, as they
-expanded and were lost in other circles that pressed upon them on all
-sides, while new circles took their place, to be lost in their turn
-in yet other circles, covering the surface of the water with a wavy
-design resembling the silver work called _guilloché_. The poet did
-not even notice that these same rain-drops that fell thick and fast
-on the surface of the Avieiro fell also on his hat and shoulders, ran
-down his forehead and, making their way between his collar and his
-skin, trickled down his neck. He noticed it only when the chill they
-produced made him shiver and he rose and walked slowly home, where
-dinner was already over and no one thought of offering him even so
-much as a cup of broth.
-
-Two or three days later a fever declared itself, which was at
-first slight, but soon grew serious. Tropiezo called it a gastric and
-catarrhal fever, and truth compels us to say that he administered
-remedies not altogether inappropriate; gastric and catarrhal fevers
-are, for physicians whose knowledge is derived chiefly from
-experience, a perfect boon from Heaven, a glorious field in which
-they may count every battle a victory; a beaten path in which they
-run no risk of going astray. It will not lead them to the unknown
-pole of science, but at least it will betray them into no abyss.
-
-As Tropiezo was leaving García's house one evening, after his
-customary visit to Segundo, muffled up to the ears in his comforter,
-he saw, standing beside the lawyer's door in the shadow cast by the
-contiguous wall, a woman clad in an old morning gown and with her
-head bare. The night was bright and Don Fermin was able to
-distinguish her features, but it was not without some difficulty that
-he recognized her to be Leocadia, so altered and aged did the poor
-schoolmistress look. Her countenance betrayed the keenest anxiety as
-she asked the doctor:
-
-"And what news, Don Fermin? How is Segundo getting on?"
-
-"Ah, good evening, Leocadia. Do you know that at first I did not
-recognize you?--Well, very well; there is no cause for uneasiness.
-To-day I ordered him some of the _puchero_ and some soup. It was
-nothing--a cold caught by getting a wetting. But the boy seems a
-little preoccupied, and he was for a time so sad and dejected that I
-thought he was never going to get back his appetite. At this season
-it is necessary to go warmly clad; we have a fine day, and then, when
-you least expect it, back come the rain and the cold again. And
-you--how are you getting on? They tell me that you have not been
-well, either. You must take care of yourself."
-
-"There is nothing the matter with me, Don Fermin."
-
-"So much the better. Any news of the boy?"
-
-"He is in Orense, poor child. He can't get used to it."
-
-"He will get used to it by and by. Of course--accustomed to be
-petted. Well, Leocadia, good-night. Go home, my dear woman, go home."
-
-Don Fermin proceeded on his way, drawing his comforter up closer
-around his ears. That woman was mad; she had not taken the disease
-lightly, it seemed. And how altered she was! How old she had grown in
-these last few months! Old women were worse than young girls when
-they fell in love. He had done wisely, very wisely in telling her
-nothing about Segundo's new plans. She was capable of tearing down
-the house if he had told her. No, silence, silence. A shut mouth
-catches no flies. Let her find it out through someone else besides
-him. And with these sensible ideas and worthy intentions Tropiezo
-reached Agonde's, and before a quarter of an hour had elapsed
-unbosomed himself of his news: Segundo García was going to America to
-seek his fortune--as soon as he should be entirely well, of course.
-He would take the steamer at Corunna.
-
-The occasion was a favorable one for the company to lament once
-more in concert the death of Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba,
-protector and father of all the Vilamortans in want of situations, a
-useful representative and an untiring worker for the district. If he
-were alive now most assuredly a young man of so much ability--a
-poet--that night the party all agreed that Segundo had ability and
-was a poet--would not be obliged to go across the raging seas in
-quest of a decent situation. But since they had lost Don Victoriano,
-Vilamorta was without a voice in the regions of influence and favor,
-for Señorito de Romero, the present representative of the district,
-belonged to the class of docile representatives who give no trouble
-to the Government, who vote when their votes are wanted, and who hold
-themselves cheap, valuing themselves at no more than a few tobacco
-shops, and half a dozen or so of official appointments. Agonde took
-his revenge that night, expatiating on his favorite theme, and
-abusing the pernicious Eufrasian influence which was responsible for
-the decadence of Vilamorta, on account of which its youth were
-obliged to emigrate to the New World. The apothecary expounded his
-theories--he liked the representative of a district to show himself
-in it occasionally. Otherwise of what use was he? In his eyes the
-ideal representative was that famous politician from whom the barber
-of the town he represented had asked a place, basing his request on
-the fact that, owing to the distribution of appointments among the
-persons of his station in the town, there were no customers left for
-him to shave and he was starving. The Alcalde here interposed, saying
-that he had it on very good authority that Señorito de Romero
-intended to interest himself in earnest for Vilamorta; the
-confectioner and some others of those present confirmed this
-statement, and then arose a discussion in which it was proved beyond
-a doubt that a dead representative has no friends and that the new
-representative of the district had already, in the very stronghold of
-the former Combista radicals, friends and adherents.
-
-
-
-
-                                XXVIII.
-
-
-The Swan has left his native lake, or rather, his pool; he has
-crossed the Atlantic on the wings of steam. Will he ever return? Will
-he come back with a sallow countenance, a disordered liver, and some
-thousands of dollars, in bills of exchange, in his pocketbook, to end
-his life where it began, as the ship disabled by storms receives its
-last repairs in the dockyard in which it was built? Will the black
-vomit, that terrible malady of the Antilles, the scourge of the
-Iberians who seek to emulate Columbus conquering a new world, attack
-him on his arrival on the young continent? Will he remain in the
-tropics, riding in his carriage, united in the bonds of matrimony to
-some Creole? Will he preside one day over one of those diminutive
-republics, in which the doctors are generals and the generals
-doctors? Will his melancholy be cured by the salty kiss of the ocean
-breeze, by the contact of virgin soil, the sharp spur of necessity,
-that, pushing him into the conflict, will say to him, "Work"?
-
-History may perhaps at some future day relate the story of the
-metamorphosis of the Swan, of his wanderings and his vicissitudes;
-but years must first elapse, for it was only yesterday, as one might
-say, that Segundo García quitted Vilamorta, leaving the
-schoolmistress behind him dissolved in tears. And the story of the
-schoolmistress is the only episode in the chronicle of the Swan which
-we can at present bring to an end.
-
-Leocadia was the theme of much gossip in Vilamorta. She was
-seriously ill, according to some, according to others, ruined, and
-according to many, touched in her mind. She had been seen haunting
-the neighborhood of Segundo's house on various nights during the
-poet's illness; it was affirmed that she had sold her land and that
-her house was mortgaged to Clodio Genday; but the strangest thing of
-all, that which was most bitterly censured, was her neglect of her
-son after having cared for him and watched over him from his infancy,
-never going to Orense to see him, while old Flores went there
-constantly, bringing back worse and worse news of the child every
-time she went--that he was wasting away, that he spit blood, that he
-was dying of grief, that he would not last a month. Leocadia, as she
-listened, would let her chin fall upon her breast, and at times her
-shoulders would move convulsively, as if she were weeping. Otherwise
-she appeared calm, although she was very silent and had lost her
-former activity. She helped Flores in the kitchen, attended to the
-children of the school, swept and dusted--all like an automaton,
-while Flores, who pitilessly spied out every occasion to find fault
-with her, took pleasure in crying:
-
-"Woman, you have left this side of the pan dirty--woman, you
-haven't mended your skirt--woman, what are you thinking about? I am
-going to Orense to-day and you will have to take care of the
-_puchero_."
-
-At the end of the summer Clodio demanded the interest on his loan
-and Leocadia was unable to pay it; she was notified accordingly that,
-after the necessary legal proceedings, the creditor would avail
-himself of his legal right to take possession of the house. This was
-a terrible blow for Leocadia.
-
-It will sometimes happen that a prisoner, a distinguished
-personage, a king, it may be, shut up through an adverse fate within
-the walls of a dungeon, stripped of his grandeur, deprived of all
-that once constituted his happiness, will bear his ills for years
-with resignation, calm in appearance although dejected, but if some
-day, by the cruel tyranny of his jailors, this prisoner is deprived
-of some bauble, some trifling object for which he had conceived an
-affection, the grief pent up within his bosom will burst its bounds,
-and the wildest manifestations of grief will follow. Something like
-this happened to Leocadia when she learned that she must abandon
-forever the beloved little house where she had spent in Segundo's
-company hours unique in her existence; the little house in which she
-was mistress, which had been rebuilt with her savings, the little
-house lately so neat and so attractive, of which she was so proud.
-
-Flores heard her on several nights sobbing loudly, but when on
-one or two occasions, moved by an involuntary feeling of pity, the
-old woman went into her room to ask her what ailed her, if she could
-do anything for her, Leocadia, covering her face with the bedclothes,
-had answered in a dull voice: "There is nothing the matter with me,
-woman; let me sleep. You will not even let me sleep!"
-
-During those days her moods varied constantly and she formed a
-thousand different plans. She talked of going to live in Orense, of
-giving up the school and taking sewing to do in the house; she
-talked, too, of accepting the proposal of Clodio Genday, who, having
-dismissed his young servant, for what reason no one knew, offered to
-take Leocadia as his housekeeper, by which arrangement she would
-remain in her house, Flores, of course, being dismissed. None of
-these plans lasted for more than a very short time, but were all in
-turn rejected to give place to others no less ephemeral; and while
-the schoolmistress was thus engaged in forming and rejecting plans
-the time was fast approaching when she should find herself without a
-shelter.
-
-One market day Leocadia went to purchase various articles
-urgently needed by Flores, among others a sieve and a new
-chocolate-pot, the old one being no longer fit for use. The movement
-of the crowd, the jostling of the hucksters, and the glare of the
-autumnal sun made her head, weak from want of sleep, from fasting,
-and from suffering--slightly dizzy. She stopped before a stall where
-sieves were sold, a sort of variety booth, where innumerable
-indispensable trifles were for sale--chocolate-beaters, frying-pans,
-saucepans, kerosene lamps. In a corner were two articles of
-merchandise in great request in the place--consisting of pink paper,
-soft, like brown paper, and some whitish powder, resembling spoiled
-flour. Leocadia's glance fell on these, and the vender, thinking she
-wished to buy some, began to extol their properties, explaining that
-the pink sheets moistened and placed on a plate, would not leave a
-fly alive in the neighborhood, and that the white powder was
-_seneca_, for killing mice, the manner of using it being to mix it
-well with cheese and place the mixture, made into little balls, in
-their haunts. Leocadia asked the price and told the vender to give
-her a small quantity, and the woman, to appear generous, took up a
-good portion on the spatula, wrapped it up in paper, and gave it to
-her for a trifling sum. The drug indeed was of little value, being
-very common in that part of the country, where native arsenic abounds
-in the calcareous spar forming one of the banks of the Avieiro, and
-arsenic, acid--rat-poison--is sold openly in the fairs, rather than
-in drug shops. The schoolmistress put away the powder, bought,
-through complaisance, half a dozen of the pink slips of paper, and on
-her return home punctually delivered to Flores the articles she had
-been commissioned to purchase.
-
-Flores noticed that after dinner Leocadia shut herself up in her
-bedroom, where the old woman could hear her talking aloud as if she
-were praying. Accustomed to her eccentricities the servant thought
-nothing about the matter. When she had ended her prayer, the
-schoolmistress stepped out on the balcony, where she stood gazing for
-a long time at the flower-pots; she then went into the parlor and
-looked for a good while also at the sofa, the chairs, the little
-table, the spots which reminded her of the past. Then she went into
-the kitchen. Flores declared afterward--but in such cases who is
-there that does not lay claim to a prophetic instinct--that
-Leocadia's manner on entering had attracted her attention.
-
-"Have you any fresh water?" she asked.
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Give me a glass of it."
-
-Flores affirmed that, as she took the glass, the hand of the
-schoolmistress trembled, as if she had a chill, and the strangest
-part of the matter was that, although there was no sugar in the
-water, Leocadia asked for a spoon, which she put into the glass. An
-hour, or perhaps an hour and a half passed, when Flores heard
-Leocadia groan. She hurried to her room and saw her lying on the bed,
-her face frightfully pale, making desperate and fruitless efforts to
-vomit. Then a cold perspiration broke out on the forehead of the sick
-woman, and she remained motionless and speechless. Flores, terrified,
-ran for Don Fermin, urging him to hurry, saying this was no jesting
-matter. When Don Fermin arrived out of breath, he asked:
-
-"What is this, Leocadia? What is the matter with you; my dear
-woman, what is the matter with you?"
-
-Opening her dilated eyes, she murmured:
-
-"Nothing, Don Fermin, nothing."
-
-Standing on the table at the head of the bed was the glass; it
-contained no water, but the bottom and the sides of the vessel were
-coated with a white powder which had remained undissolved and which
-the schoolmistress, not wishing to leave it there, had scraped off in
-places with the spoon. It is proper to say, on this occasion also,
-that the illustrious Tropiezo made no mistake in the treatment of so
-simple a case. Tropiezo had already fought some battles with this
-common toxic substance and knew its tricks; he had recourse, without
-a moment's delay, to the use of powerful emetics and of oil. Only the
-poison, having gained the start of him, had already entered into the
-circulation and ran through the veins of the schoolmistress, chilling
-her blood. When the nausea and the vomiting ceased several little red
-spots--an eruption similar to that of scarlet-fever--made their
-appearance on Leocadia's pallid face. This symptom lasted until death
-came to set her sad spirit free and release it from its sufferings,
-which was toward daybreak. Shortly before her death, during an
-interval of freedom from pain, Leocadia, making a sign to Flores to
-come nearer, whispered in her ear: "Promise me--that the child shall
-not know it--by the soul of your mother--don't tell him--don't tell
-him the manner of my death."
-
-A few days later Tropiezo was defending himself to the party at
-Agonde's who, for the pleasure of making him angry, were accusing him
-of being responsible for the death of the schoolmistress.
-
-"For one thing, they called me too late, much too late," he said;
-"when the woman was almost in her death agony. For another, she had
-taken a quantity of arsenic which was not large enough to produce
-vomiting, but which was too small to cause merely a colic and be done
-with it. Where I made the mistake was in waiting so long before
-sending for the priest. I did it with the best intentions, so as not
-to frighten her and hoping we might yet pull her through. When
-extreme unction was administered she had no senses left to know what
-was going on."
-
-"So that," said Agonde maliciously, "where you are called in,
-either the soul or the body is sure to meet with a trip."
-
-The company applauded the joke, and there followed funereal jests
-mingled with expressions of pity. Clodio Genday, the creditor of the
-deceased, moved about uneasily in his chair. What stupid
-conversation, _canario_! Let them talk of more cheerful subjects!
-
-And they talked of very cheerful and satisfactory subjects
-indeed. Señorito de Romero had promised to put a telegraph-office in
-Vilamorta; and the newspapers were saying that, owing to the
-increasing importance of the viticultural interests of the Border, a
-branch railroad was needed for which the engineers were soon coming
-to survey the ground.
-
-
-                                THE END.
-
-
-
-
-                           THE ANGLOMANIACS.
-
-                 _A Story of New York Society To-day._
-
-                        By MRS. BURTON HARRISON.
-
-    A Volume, 12mo, on Extra Fine Laid Paper, Dainty Binding, $1.00.
-            Also in "Cassell's Sunshine Series," paper, 50c.
-
-
-This is the story that has attracted such wide attention while
-running through the _Century Magazine_. There has been no such
-picture of New York social life painted within the memory of the
-present generation. The satire is as keen as a rapier point, while
-the story itself has its marked pathetic side. Never has the subject
-of Anglomania been so cleverly treated as in these pages, and it is
-not to be wondered at that society is deeply agitated as to the
-authorship of a story which touches it in its most vulnerable part.
-
-    "This delicious satire from the pungent pen of an
-    anonymous writer must be read to be appreciated. From the
-    introduction on board the Etruria to the final, when the
-    heroine waves adieu to her English Lord, it is life, real,
-    true American life, and we blush at the truth of the picture.
-    There is no line not replete with scathing sarcasm, no
-    character which we have not seen and known.... Read this book
-    and see human nature; ponder upon what is there written, and
-    while it may not make you wise, it certainly will make you
-    think upon what is a great and growing social
-    evil."--_Norristown Daily Herald._
-
-    "The heroine is the daughter of an honest money-making
-    old father and an ignorant but ambitious mother, whose money
-    has enabled the mother and daughter to make their way into
-    the circle of the 'Four Hundred.'"--_N. Y. Herald._
-
-
-
-
-                      CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY,
-                   104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
-
-
-
-
-                            _LORD HOUGHTON'S
-                           LIFE AND LETTERS._
-
-
-    THE LIFE, LETTERS, AND FRIENDSHIPS OF RICHARD MONCKTON
-    MILNES, FIRST LORD HOUGHTON. BY T. WEMYSS REID. INTRODUCTION
-    BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
-
-    In two vols., with portraits.  Price, $5.00.
-
-
-"A perfect storehouse of interesting things, grave and gay,
-political, philosophical, literary, social, witty."--_London Times._
-
-"The book of the season, and an enduring literary
-masterpiece."--_The Star_, London.
-
-"In this biography, not his acquaintances only, but his friends,
-are counted by hundreds, and they are found in every country."--_The
-Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in The Speaker._
-
-"A charming book, on almost every page of which there is
-something to arrest the attention of the intelligent reader."--_The
-Western Daily Press._
-
-"These charming volumes are more interesting than most novels,
-and fuller of good stories than any jest-book. Every page is full of
-meat--sweetbread be it understood, and not meat from the
-joint."--_The Spectator_, London.
-
-"We can only strongly recommend the reader to get the 'Life and
-Letters' as soon as he can, and he will thank Mr. Wemyss Reid for
-having furnished him with the means of passing as many agreeable
-evenings as it will take him to read through the book."--_The New
-York Herald._
-
-                             * * * * *
-
-                      CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY,
-                   104 & 106 Fourth Avenue, New York.
-
-
-
-
-                           Transcriber Notes:
-
-Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
-
-Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
-
-Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe".
-
-Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents
-of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. Possible
-misspellings in dialogues are not corrected if there is a chance that
-the misspellings were deliberate.
-
-Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not
-corrected unless otherwise noted.
-
-On page 22, "aquiring" was replaced with "acquiring".
-
-On page 23, "induge" was replaced with "indulge".
-
-On page 72, "recived" was replaced with "received".
-
-On page 84, "decribed" was replaced with "described".
-
-On page 99, "Dona" was replaced with "Doña".
-
-On page 106, "countrary" was replaced with "contrary".
-
-On page 121, "Nunez" was replaced with "Nuñez".
-
-On page 127, "outbrust" was replaced with "outburst".
-
-On page 129, "volputuous" was replaced with "voluptuous".
-
-On page 130, "Gesticulatng" was replaced with "Gesticulating".
-
-On page 169, "Vila morta" was replaced with "Vilamorta".
-
-On page 181, "aproaching" was replaced with "approaching".
-
-On page 187, "tolerate him" was replaced with "to tolerate him".
-
-On page 193, "expreses" was replaced with "expresses".
-
-On page 200, an extra single quotation mark was deleted.
-
-On page 238, "consiousness" was replaced with "consciousness".
-
-On page 240, "thought ful" was replaced with "thoughtful".
-
-On page 277, "passsages" was replaced with "passages".
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's The Swan of Vilamorta, by Emilia Pardo Bazán
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