CHAPTER XXVII
A CANON’S TORTURE
“Resignation, resignation!” repeated Don Inocencio.
“Resignation, resignation!” repeated his niece, drying her tears. “If my dear son is doomed to be always a beggar, well, then, be it so. Lawsuits are becoming scarce; the day will soon come when the practice of the law will be the same as nothing. What is the use of all his talent? What is the use of his tiring his brain with so much study? Ah! We are poor. A day will come, Señor Don Inocencio, when my poor boy will not have a pillow on which to lay his head.”
“Woman!”
“Man! can you deny it? Tell me, then, what inheritance are you going to leave him when you close your eyes on this world? A couple of rooms, half a dozen big books, poverty, and nothing more. What times are before us, uncle; what times! My poor boy is growing very delicate in his health, and he won’t be able to work—it makes him dizzy now to read a book; he gets a headache and nausea whenever he works at night! He will have to beg a paltry situation; I shall have to take in sewing, and who knows, who knows but we may have to beg our bread!”
“Woman!”
“Oh, I know very well what I am talking about! Fine times before us!” added the excellent woman, forcing still more the lachrymose note in her diatribe. “My God! What is going to become of us? Ah, it is only a mother’s heart that can feel these things! Only a mother is capable of suffering so much anxiety about a son’s welfare. How should you understand it? No; it is one thing to have children and to suffer anxiety on their account and another to sing the gori gori in the cathedral and to teach Latin in the institute. Of great use is it for my son to be your nephew and to have taken so many honors and to be the pride and ornament of Orbajosa. He will die of starvation, for we already know what law brings; or else he will have to ask the deputies for a situation in Havana, where the yellow fever will kill him.”
“But, niece—”
“No, I am not grieving, I am silent now; I won’t annoy you any more. I am very troublesome, always crying and sighing; and I am not to be endured because I am a fond mother and I will look out for the good of my beloved son. I will die, yes, I will die in silence, and stifle my grief. I will swallow my tears, in order not to annoy his reverence the canon. But my idolized son will comprehend me and he won’t put his hands to his ears as you are doing now. Woe is me! Poor Jacinto knows that I would die for him, and that I would purchase his happiness at the sacrifice of my life. Darling child of my soul! To be so deserving and to be forever doomed to mediocrity, to a humble station, for—don’t get indignant, uncle—no matter what airs we put on, you will always be the son of Uncle Tinieblas, the sacristan of San Bernardo, and I shall never be any thing more than the daughter of Ildefonso Tinieblas, your brother, who used to sell crockery, and my son will be the grandson of the Tinieblas—for obscure we were born, and we shall never emerge from our obscurity, nor own a piece of land of which we can say, ‘This is mine’; nor shall I ever plunge my arms up to the elbows in a sack of wheat threshed and winnowed on our own threshing-floor—all because of your cowardice, your folly, your soft-heartedness.”
“But—but, niece!”
The canon’s voice rose higher every time he repeated this phrase, and, with his hands to his ears, he shook his head from side to side with a look of mingled grief and desperation. The shrill complaint of Maria Remedios grew constantly shriller, and pierced the brain of the unhappy and now dazed priest like an arrow. But all at once the woman’s face became transformed; her plaintive wail was changed to a hard, shrill scream; she turned pale, her lips trembled, she clenched her hands, a few locks of her disordered hair fell over her forehead, her eyes glittered, dried by the heat of the anger that glowed in her breast; she rose from her seat and, not like a woman, but like a harpy, cried:
“I am going away from here! I am going away from here with my son! We will go to Madrid; I don’t want my son to fret himself to death in this miserable town! I am tired now of seeing that my son, under the protection of the cassock, neither is nor ever will be any thing. Do you hear, my reverend uncle? My son and I are going away! You will never see us again—never!”
Don Inocencio had clasped his hands and was receiving the thunderbolts of his niece’s wrath with the consternation of a criminal whom the presence of the executioner has deprived of his last hope.
“In Heaven’s name, Remedios,” he murmured, in a pained voice; “in the name of the Holy Virgin——”
These fits of range of his niece, who was usually so meek, were as violent as they were rare, and five or six years would sometimes pass without Don Inocencio seeing Remedios transformed into a fury.
“I am a mother! I am a mother! and since no one else will look out for my son, I will look out for him myself!” roared the improvised lioness.
“In the name of the Virgin, niece, don’t let your passion get the best of you! Remember that you are committing a sin. Let us say the Lord’s Prayer and an Ave Maria, and you will see that this will pass away.”
As he said this the Penitentiary trembled, and the perspiration stood on his forehead. Poor dove in the talons of the vulture! The furious woman completed his discomfiture with these words:
“You are good for nothing; you are a poltroon! My son and I will go away from this place forever, forever! I will get a position for my son, I will find him a good position, do you understand? Just as I would be willing to sweep the streets with my tongue if I could gain a living for him in no other way, so I will move heaven and earth to find a position for my boy in order that he may rise in the world and be rich, and a person of consequence, and a gentleman, and a lord and great, and all that there is to be—all, all!”
“Heaven protect me!” cried Don Inocencio, sinking into a chair and letting his head fall on his breast.
There was a pause during which the agitated breathing of the furious woman could be heard.
“Niece,” said Don Inocencio at last, “you have shortened my life by ten years; you have set my blood on fire; you have put me beside myself. God give me the calmness that I need to bear with you! Lord, patience—patience is what I ask. And you, niece, do me the favor to sigh and cry to your heart’s content for the next ten years; for your confounded mania of sniveling, greatly as it annoys me, is preferable to these mad fits of rage. If I did not know that you are good at heart——Well, for one who confessed and received communion this morning you are behaving—”
“Yes, but you are the cause of it—you!”
“Because in the matter of Rosario and Jacinto I say to you, resignation?”
“Because when every thing is going on well you turn back and allow Señor de Rey to get possession of Rosario.”
“And how am I going to prevent it? Doña Perfecta is right in saying that you have an understanding of brick. Do you want me to go about the town with a sword, and in the twinkling of an eye to make mincemeat of the whole regiment, and then confront Rey and say to him, ‘Leave the girl in peace or I will cut your throat’?”
“No, but when I advised the señora to give her nephew a fright, you opposed my advice, instead of supporting it.”
“You are crazy with your talk about a fright.”
“Because when the dog is dead the madness is at an end.”
“I cannot advise what you call a fright, and what might be a terrible thing.”
“Yes; because I am a cut-throat, am I not, uncle?”
“You know that practical jokes are vulgar. Besides, do you suppose that man would allow himself to be insulted? And his friends?”
“At night he goes out alone.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know every thing; he does not take a step that I am not aware of; do you understand? The widow De Cuzco keeps me informed of every thing.”
“There, don’t set me crazy. And who is going to give him that fright? Let us hear.”
“Caballuco.”
“So that he is disposed—”
“No, but he will be if you command him.”
“Come, niece, leave me in peace. I cannot command such an atrocity. A fright! And what is that? Have you spoken to him already?”
“Yes, señor; but he paid no attention to me, or rather he refused. There are only two people in Orbajosa who can make him do what they wish by a simple order—you and Doña Perfecta.”
“Let Doña Perfecta order him to do it if she wishes, then. I will never advise the employment of violent and brutal measures. Will you believe that when Caballuco and some of his followers were talking of rising up in arms they could not draw a single word from me inciting them to bloodshed. No, not that. If Doña Perfecta wishes to do it—”
“She will not do it, either. I talked with her for two hours this afternoon and she said that she would preach war, and help it by every means in her power; but that she would not bid one man stab another in the back. She would be right in opposing it if anything serious were intended, but I don’t want any wounds; all I want is to give him a fright.”
“Well, if Doña Perfecta doesn’t want to order a fright to be given to the engineer, I don’t either, do you understand? My conscience is before every thing.”
“Very well,” returned his niece. “Tell Caballuco to come with me to-night—that is all you need say to him.”
“Are you going out to-night?”
“Yes, señor, I am going out. Why, didn’t I go out last night too?”
“Last night? I didn’t know it; if I had known it I should have been angry; yes, señora.”
“All you have to say to Caballuco is this: ‘My dear Ramos, I will be greatly obliged to you if you will accompany my niece on an errand which she has to do to-night, and if you will protect her, if she should chance to be in any danger.’”
“I can do that. To accompany you, to protect you. Ah, rogue! you want to deceive me and make me your accomplice in some piece of villany.”
“Of course—what do you suppose?” said Maria Remedios ironically. “Between Ramos and me we are going to slaughter a great many people to-night.”
“Don’t jest! I tell you again that I will not advise Ramos to do any thing that has the appearance of evil—I think he is outside.”
A noise at the street-door was heard, then the voice of Caballuco speaking to the servant, and a little later the hero of Orbajosa entered the room.
“What is the news? Give us the news, Señor Ramos,” said the priest. “Come! If you don’t give us some hope in exchange for your supper and our hospitality——What is going on in Villahorrenda?”
“Something,” answered the bravo, seating himself with signs of fatigue. “You shall soon see whether we are good for anything or not.”
Like all persons who wish to make themselves appear important, Caballuco made a show of great reserve.
“To-night, my friend, you shall take with you, if you wish, the money they have given me for—”
“There is good need of it. If the soldiers should get scent of it, however, they won’t let me pass,” said Ramos, with a brutal laugh.
“Hold your tongue, man. We know already that you pass whenever you please. Why, that would be a pretty thing! The soldiers are not strait-laced gentry, and if they should become troublesome, with a couple of dollars, eh? Come, I see that you are not badly armed. All you want now is an eight-pounder. Pistols, eh? And a dagger too.”
“For any thing that might happen,” said Caballuco, taking the weapon from his belt and displaying its horrible blade.
“In the name of God and of the Virgin!” exclaimed Maria Remedios, closing her eyes and turning her face in terror, “put away that thing. The very sight of it terrifies me.”
“If you won’t take it ill of me,” said Ramos, shutting the weapon, “let us have supper.”
Maria Remedios prepared every thing quickly, in order that the hero might not become impatient.
“Listen to me a moment, Señor Ramos,” said Don Inocencio to his guest, when they had sat down to supper. “Have you a great deal to do to-night?”
“Something there is to be done,” responded the bravo. “This is the last night I shall come to Orbajosa—the last. I have to look up some boys who remained in the town, and we are going to see how we can get possession of the saltpetre and the sulphur that are in the house of Cirujeda.”
“I asked you,” said the curate amiably, filling his friend’s plate, “because my niece wishes you to accompany her a short distance. She has some business or other to attend to, and it is a little late to be out alone.”
“Is she going to Doña Perfecta’s?” asked Ramos. “I was there a few moments ago, but I did not want to make any delay.”
“How is the señora?”
“A little frightened. To-night I took away the six young men I had in the house.”
“Why! don’t you think they will be wanted there?” said Remedios, with alarm.
“They are wanted more in Villahorrenda. Brave men chafe at being kept in the house; is it not so, Señor Canon?”
“Señor Ramos, that house ought not to be left unprotected,” said the Penitentiary.
“The servants are enough, and more than enough. But do you suppose, Señor Don Inocencio, that the brigadier employs himself in attacking the people’s houses?”
“Yes, but you know very well that that diabolical engineer——”
“For that—there are not wanting brooms in the house,” said Cristobal jovially. “For in the end, there will be no help for it but to marry them. After what has passed——”
“Señor Ramos,” said Remedios, with sudden anger, “I imagine that all you know about marrying people is very little.”
“I say that because a little while ago, when I was at the house, the mother and daughter seemed to be having a sort of reconciliation. Doña Perfecta was kissing Rosarito over and over again, and there was no end to their caresses and endearments.”
“Reconciliation! With all these preparations for the war you have lost your senses. But, finally, are you coming with me or not?”
“It is not to Doña Perfecta’s she wants to go,” said the priest, “but to the hotel of the widow De Cuzco. She was saying that she does not dare to go alone, because she is afraid of being insulted.”
“By whom?”
“It is easily understood. By that infernal engineer. Last night my niece met him there, and she gave him some plain talk; and for that reason she is not altogether easy in her mind to-night. The young fellow is revengeful and insolent.”
“I don’t know whether I can go,” said Caballuco. “As I am in hiding now I cannot measure my strength against Don José Poquita Cosa. If I were not as I am—with half my face hidden, and the other half uncovered—I would have broken his back for him already twenty times over. But what happens if I attack him? He discovers who I am, he falls upon me with the soldiers, and good-bye to Caballuco. As for giving him a treacherous blow, that is something I couldn’t do; nor would Doña Perfecta consent to it, either. For a stab in the dark Cristobal Ramos is not the man.”
“But are you crazy, man? What are you thinking about?” said the Penitentiary, with unmistakable signs of astonishment. “Not even in thought would I advise you to do an injury to that gentleman. I would cut my tongue out before I would advise such a piece of villany. The wicked will fall, it is true; but it is God who will fix the moment, not I. And the question is not to give a beating, either. I would rather receive a hundred blows myself than advise the administration of such a medicine to any Christian. One thing only will I say to you,” he ended, looking at the bravo over his spectacles, “and that is, that as my niece is going there; and as it is probable, very probable, is it not, Remedios? that she may have to say a few plain words to that man, I recommend you not to leave her unprotected, in case she should be insulted.”
“I have something to do to-night,” answered Caballuco, laconically and dryly.
“You hear what he says, Remedios. Leave your business for to-morrow.”
“I can’t do that. I will go alone.”
“No, you shall not go alone, niece. Now let us hear no more about the matter. Señor Ramos has something to do, and he cannot accompany you. Fancy if you were to be insulted by that rude man!”
“Insulted! A lady insulted by that fellow!” exclaimed Caballuco. “Come that must not be.”
“If you had not something to do—bah! I should be quite easy in my mind, then.”
“I have something to do,” said the Centaur, rising from the table, “but if you wish it——”
There was a pause. The Penitentiary had closed his eyes and was meditating.
“I wish it, Señor Ramos,” he said at last.
“There is no more to be said then. Let us go, Señora Doña Maria.”
“Now, my dear niece,” said Don Inocencio, half seriously, half jestingly, “since we have finished supper bring me the basin.”
He gave his niece a penetrating glance, and accompanying it with the corresponding action, pronounced these words:
“I wash my hands of the matter.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
FROM PEPE REY TO DON JUAN REY
“ORBAJOSA, April 12.
“MY DEAR FATHER:
“Forgive me if for the first time in my life I disobey you in refusing to leave this place or to renounce my project. Your advice and your entreaty are what were to be expected from a kind, good father. My obstinacy is natural in an insensate son; but something strange is taking place within me; obstinacy and honor have become so blended and confounded in my mind that the bare idea of desisting from my purpose makes me ashamed. I have changed greatly. The fits of rage that agitate me now were formerly unknown to me. I regarded the violent acts, the exaggerated expressions of hot-tempered and impetuous men with the same scorn as the brutal actions of the wicked. Nothing of this kind surprises me any longer, for in myself I find at all times a certain terrible capacity for wickedness. I can speak to you as I would speak to God and to my conscience; I can tell you that I am a wretch, for he is a wretch who is wanting in that powerful moral force which enables him to chastise his passions and submit his life to the stern rule of conscience. I have been wanting in the Christian fortitude which exalts the spirit of the man who is offended above the offences which he receives and the enemies from whom he receives them. I have had the weakness to abandon myself to a mad fury, putting myself on a level with my detractors, returning them blow for blow, and endeavoring to confound them by methods learned in their own base school. How deeply I regret that you were not at my side to turn me from this path! It is now too late. The passions will not brook delay. They are impatient, and demand their prey with cries and with the convulsive eagerness of a fierce moral thirst. I have succumbed. I cannot forget what you so often said to me, that anger may be called the worst of the passions, since, suddenly transforming the character, it engenders all the others, and lends to each its own infernal fire.
“But it is not anger alone that has brought me to the state of mind which I have described. A more expansive and noble sentiment—the profound and ardent love which I have for my cousin, has also contributed to it, and this is the one thing that absolves me in my own estimation. But if love had not done so, pity would have impelled me to brave the fury and the intrigues of your terrible sister; for poor Rosario, placed between an irresistible affection and her mother, is at the present moment one of the most unhappy beings on the face of the earth. The love which she has for me, and which responds to mine—does it not give me the right to open, in whatever way I can, the doors of her house and take her out of it; employing the law, as far as the law reaches, and using force at the point where the law ceases to support me? I think that your rigid moral scrupulosity will not give an affirmative answer to this question; but I have ceased to be the upright and methodical character whose conscience was in exact conformity with the dictates of the moral law. I am no longer the man whom an almost perfect education enabled to keep his emotions under strict control. To-day I am a man like other men; at a single step I have crossed the line which separates the just and the good from the unjust and the wicked. Prepare yourself to hear of some dreadful act committed by me. I will take care to notify you of all my misdeeds.
“But the confession of my faults will not relieve me from the responsibility of the serious occurrences which have taken place and which are taking place, nor will this responsibility, no matter how much I may argue, fall altogether on your sister. Doña Perfecta’s responsibility is certainly very great. What will be the extent of mine! Ah, dear father! believe nothing of what you hear about me; believe only what I shall tell you. If they tell you that I have committed a deliberate piece of villany, answer that it is a lie. It is difficult, very difficult, for me to judge myself, in the state of disquietude in which I am, but I dare assure you that I have not deliberately given cause for scandal. You know well to what extremes passion can lead when circumstances favor its fierce, its all-invading growth.
“What is most bitter to me is the thought of having employed artifice, deceit, and base concealments—I who was truth itself. I am humiliated in my own estimation. But is this the greatest perversity into which the soul can fall? Am I beginning now, or have I ended? I cannot tell. If Rosario with her angelic hand does not take me out of this hell of my conscience, I desire that you should come to take me out of it. My cousin is an angel, and suffering, as she has done, for my sake, she has taught me a great many things that I did not know before.
“Do not be surprised at the incoherence of what I write. Diverse emotions inflame me; thoughts at times assail me truly worthy of my immortal soul; but at times also I fall into a lamentable state of dejection, and I am reminded of the weak and degenerate characters whose baseness you have painted to me in such strong colors, in order that I might abhor them. In the state in which I am to-day I am ready for good or for evil. God have pity upon me! I already know what prayer is—a solemn and reflexive supplication, so personal that it is not compatible with formulas learned by heart; an expansion of the soul which dares to reach out toward its source; the opposite of remorse, in which the soul, at war with itself, seeks in vain to defend itself by sophisms and concealments. You have taught me many good things, but now I am practising; as we engineers say, I am studying on the ground; and in this way my knowledge will become broadened and confirmed. I begin to imagine now that I am not so wicked as I myself believe. Am I right?
“I end this letter in haste. I must send it with some soldiers who are going in the direction of the station at Villahorrenda, for the post-office of this place is not to be trusted.”
“APRIL 14.
“It would amuse you, dear father, if I could make you understand the ideas of the people of this wretched town. You know already that almost all the country is up in arms. It was a thing to be anticipated, and the politicians are mistaken if they imagine that it will be over in a couple of days. Hostility to us and to the Government is innate in the Orbajosan’s mind, and forms a part of it as much as his religious faith. Confining myself to the particular question with my aunt, I will tell you a singular thing—the poor lady, who is penetrated by the spirit of feudalism to the marrow of her bones, has taken it into her head that I am going to attack her house and carry off her daughter, as the gentlemen of the Middle Ages attacked an enemy’s castle to consummate some outrage. Don’t laugh, for it is the truth—such are the ideas of these people. I need not tell you that she regards me as a monster, as a sort of heretic Moorish king, and of the officers here who are my friends she has no better opinion. In Doña Perfecta’s house it is a matter of firm belief that the army and I have formed a diabolical and anti-religious coalition to rob Orbajosa of its treasures, its faith, and its maidens. I am sure that your sister firmly believes that I am going to take her house by assault, and there is not a doubt but that behind the door some barricade has been erected.
“But it could not be otherwise. Here they have the most antiquated ideas respecting society, religion, the state, property. The religious exaltation which impels them to employ force against the Government, to defend a faith which no one has attacked, and which, besides, they do not possess, revives in their mind the feudal sentiment; and as they would settle every question by brute force, with the sword and with fire, killing all who do not think as they do, they believe that no one in the world employs other methods.
“Far from intending to perform quixotic deeds in this lady’s house, I have in reality saved her some annoyances from which the rest of the town have not escaped. Owing to my friendship with the brigadier she has not been obliged to present, as was ordered, a list of those of the men in her service who have joined the insurgents; and if her house was searched I have certain knowledge that it was only for form’s sake; and if the six men there were disarmed, they have been replaced by six others, and nothing has been done to her. You see to what my hostility to that lady is reduced.
“It is true that I have the support of the military chiefs, but I make use of it solely to escape being insulted or ill-used by these implacable people. The probabilities of my success consist in the fact that the authorities recently appointed by the commander of the brigade are all my friends. I derive from them the moral force which enables me to intimidate these people. I don’t know whether I shall find myself compelled to commit some violent action; but don’t be alarmed, for the assault and the taking of the house is altogether a wild, feudal idea of your sister. Chance has placed me in an advantageous position. Rage, the passion that burns within me, will impel me to profit by it. I don’t know how far I may go.”
“APRIL 17.
“Your letter has given me great consolation. Yes; I can attain my object, employing only the resources of the law, which will be completely effectual for it. I have consulted the authorities of this place, and they all approve of the course you indicate. I am very glad of it. Since I have put into my cousin’s mind the idea of disobedience, let it at least be under the protection of the law. I will do what you bid me, that is to say I will renounce the somewhat unworthy collaboration of Pinzon; I will break up the terrorizing solidarity which I established with the soldiers; I will cease to make a display of the power I derived from them; I will have done with adventures, and at the fitting moment I will act with calmness, prudence, and all the benignity possible. It is better so. My coalition, half-serious, half-jesting, with the army, had for its object to protect me against the violence of the Orbajosans and of the servants and the relations of my aunt. For the rest, I have always disapproved of the idea of what we call armed intervention.
“The friend who aided me has been obliged to leave the house; but I am not entirely cut off from communication with my cousin. The poor girl shows heroic valor in the midst of her sufferings, and will obey me blindly.
“Set your mind at rest about my personal safety. For my part, I have no fear and I am quite tranquil.”
“APRIL 20.
“To-day I can write only a few lines. I have a great deal to do. All will be ended within two or three days. Don’t write to me again to this miserable town. I shall soon have the happiness of embracing you.
CHAPTER XXIX
FROM PEPE REY TO ROSARITO POLENTINOS
“Give Estebanillo the key of the garden and charge him to take care about the dog. The boy is mine, body and soul. Fear nothing! I shall be very sorry if you cannot come down stairs as you did the other night. Do all you can to manage it. I will be in the garden a little after midnight. I will then tell you what course I have decided upon, and what you are to do. Tranquillize your mind, my dear girl, for I have abandoned all imprudent or violent expedients. I will tell you every thing when I see you. There is much to tell; and it must be spoken, not written. I can picture to myself your terror and anxiety at the thought of my being so near you. But it is a week since I have seen you. I have sworn that this separation from you shall soon be ended, and it will be ended. My heart tells me that I shall see you. I swear that I will see you.”
CHAPTER XXX
BEATING UP THE GAME
A man and a woman entered the hotel of the widow De Cuzco a little after ten o’clock, and left it at half-past eleven.
“Now, Señora Doña Maria,” said the man, “I will take you to your house, for I have something to do.”
“Wait, Señor Ramos, for the love of God!” she answered. “Why don’t we go to the Casino to see if he comes out? You heard just now that Estebanillo, the boy that works in the garden, was talking with him this afternoon.”
“But are you looking for Don José?” asked the Centaur, with ill-humor. “What have we to do with him? The courtship with Doña Rosario ended as it was bound to end, and now there is nothing for it but for my mother to marry them. That is my opinion.”
“You are a fool!” said Remedios angrily.
“Señora, I am going.”
“Why, you rude man, are you going to leave me alone in the street?”
“Yes, señora, unless you go home at once.”
“That’s right—leave me alone, exposed to be insulted! Listen to me, Señor Ramos. Don José will come out of the Casino in a moment, as usual. I want to see whether he goes into his hotel or goes past it. It is a fancy of mine, only a fancy.”
“What I know is that I have something to do, and that it is near twelve o’clock.”
“Silence!” said Remedios. “Let us hide ourselves around the corner. A man is coming down the Calle de la Triperia Alta. It is he!”
“Don José! I know him by his walk.”
“Let us follow him,” said Maria Remedios with anxiety. “Let us follow him at a little distance, Ramos.”
“Señora—”
“Only a minute, then, Doña Remedios. After that I must go.”
They walked on about thirty paces, keeping at a moderate distance behind the man they were watching. The Penitentiary’s niece stopped then and said:
“He is not going into his hotel.”
“He may be going to the brigadier’s.”
“The brigadier lives up the street, and Don Pepe is going down in the direction of the señora’s house.”
“Of the señora’s house!” exclaimed Caballuco, quickening his steps.
But they were mistaken. The man whom they were watching passed the house of Polentinos and walked on.
“Do you see that you were wrong?”
“Señor Ramos, let us follow him!” said Remedios, pressing the Centaur’s hand convulsively. “I have a foreboding.”
“We shall soon know, for we are near the end of the town.”
“Don’t go so fast—he may see us. It is as I thought, Señor Ramos; he is going into the garden by the condemned door.”
“Señora, you have lost your senses!”
“Come on, and we shall see.”
The night was dark, and the watchers could not tell precisely at what point Señor de Rey had entered; but a grating of rusty hinges which they heard, and the circumstance of not meeting the young man in the whole length of the garden wall, convinced them that he had entered the garden. Caballuco looked at his companion with stupefaction. He seemed bewildered.
“What are you thinking about? Do you still doubt?”
“What ought I to do?” asked the bravo, covered with confusion. “Shall we give him a fright? I don’t know what the señora would think about it. I say that because I was at her house this evening, and it seemed to me that the mother and daughter had become reconciled.”
“Don’t be a fool! Why don’t you go in?”
“Now I remember that the armed men are not there; I told them to leave this evening.”
“And this block of marble still doubts what he ought to do! Ramos, go into the garden and don’t be a coward.”
“How can I go in if the door is closed?”
“Get over the wall. What a snail! If I were a man——”
“Well, then, up! There are some broken bricks here where the boys climb over the wall to steal the fruit.”
“Up quickly! I will go and knock at the front door to waken the señora, if she should be asleep.”
The Centaur climbed up, not without difficulty. He sat astride on the wall for an instant, and then disappeared among the dark foliage of the trees. Maria Remedios ran desperately toward the Calle del Condestable, and, seizing the knocker of the front door, knocked—knocked three times with all her heart and soul.
CHAPTER XXXI
DONA PERFECTA
See with what tranquillity Señora Doña Perfecta pursues her occupation of writing. Enter her room, and, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, you will surprise her busily engaged, her mind divided between meditation and the writing of several long and carefully worded epistles traced with a firm hand, every hair-stroke of every letter in which is correctly formed. The light of the lamp falls full upon her face and bust and hands, its shade leaving the rest of her person and almost the whole of the room in a soft shadow. She seems like a luminous figure evoked by the imagination from amid the vague shadows of fear.
It is strange that we should not have made before this a very important statement, which is that Doña Perfecta was handsome, or rather that she was still handsome, her face preserving the remains of former beauty. The life of the country, her total lack of vanity, her disregard for dress and personal adornment, her hatred of fashion, her contempt for the vanities of the capital, were all causes why her native beauty did not shine or shone very little. The intense shallowness of her complexion, indicating a very bilious constitution, still further impaired her beauty.
Her eyes black and well-opened, her nose finely and delicately shaped, her forehead broad and smooth, she was considered by all who saw her as a finished type of the human figure; but there rested on those features a certain hard and proud expression which excited a feeling of antipathy. As some persons, although ugly, attract; Doña Perfecta repelled. Her glance, even when accompanied by amiable words, placed between herself and those who were strangers to her the impassable distance of a mistrustful respect; but for those of her house—that is to say, for her relations, admirers, and allies—she possessed a singular attraction. She was a mistress in governing, and no one could equal her in the art of adapting her language to the person whom she was addressing.
Her bilious temperament and an excessive association with devout persons and things, which excited her imagination without object or result, had aged her prematurely, and although she was still young she did not seem so. It might be said of her that with her habits and manner of life she had wrought a sort of rind, a stony, insensible covering within which she shut herself, like the snail within his portable house. Doña Perfecta rarely came out of her shell.
Her irreproachable habits, and that outward amiability which we have observed in her from the moment of her appearance in our story, were the causes of the great prestige which she enjoyed in Orbajosa. She kept up relations, besides, with some excellent ladies in Madrid, and it was through their means that she obtained the dismissal of her nephew. At the moment which we have now arrived in our story, we find her seated at her desk, which is the sole confidant of her plans and the depository of her numerical accounts with the peasants, and of her moral accounts with God and with society. There she wrote the letters which her brother received every three months; there she composed the notes that incited the judge and the notary to embroil Pepe Rey in lawsuits; there she prepared the plot through which the latter lost the confidence of the Government; there she held long conferences with Don Inocencio. To become acquainted with the scene of others of her actions whose effects we have observed, it would be necessary to follow her to the episcopal palace and to the houses of various of her friends.
We do not know what Doña Perfecta would have been, loving. Hating, she had the fiery vehemence of an angel of hatred and discord among men. Such is the effect produced on a character naturally hard, and without inborn goodness, by religious exaltation, when this, instead of drawing its nourishment from conscience and from truth revealed in principles as simple as they are beautiful, seeks its sap in narrow formulas dictated solely by ecclesiastical interests. In order that religious fanaticism should be inoffensive, the heart in which it exists must be very pure. It is true that even in that case it is unproductive of good. But the hearts that have been born without the seraphic purity which establishes a premature Limbo on the earth, are careful not to become greatly inflamed with what they see in retables, in choirs, in locutories and sacristies, unless they have first erected in their own consciences an altar, a pulpit, and a confessional.
Doña Perfecta left her writing from time to time, to go into the adjoining room where her daughter was. Rosarito had been ordered to sleep, but, already precipitated down the precipice of disobedience, she was awake.
“Why don’t you sleep?” her mother asked her. “I don’t intend to go to bed to-night. You know already that Caballuco has taken away with him the men we had here. Something might happen, and I will keep watch. If I did not watch what would become of us both?”
“What time is it?” asked the girl.
“It will soon be midnight. Perhaps you are not afraid, but I am.”
Rosarito was trembling, and every thing about her denoted the keenest anxiety. She lifted her eyes to heaven supplicatingly, and then turned them on her mother with a look of the utmost terror.
“Why, what is the matter with you?”
“Did you not say it was midnight?”
“Yes.”
“Then——But is it already midnight?”
Rosario made an effort to speak, then shook her head, on which the weight of a world was pressing.
“Something is the matter with you; you have something on your mind,” said her mother, fixing on her daughter her penetrating eyes.
“Yes—I wanted to tell you,” stammered the girl, “I wanted to say——Nothing, nothing, I will go to sleep.”
“Rosario, Rosario! your mother can read your heart like an open book,” exclaimed Doña Perfecta with severity. “You are agitated. I have told you already that I am willing to pardon you if you will repent; if you are a good and sensible girl.”
“Why, am I not good? Ah, mamma, mamma! I am dying!”
Rosario burst into a flood of bitter and disconsolate tears.
“What are these tears about?” said her mother, embracing her. “If they are tears of repentance, blessed be they.”
“I don’t repent, I can’t repent!” cried the girl, in a burst of sublime despair.
She lifted her head and in her face was depicted a sudden inspired strength. Her hair fell in disorder over her shoulders. Never was there seen a more beautiful image of a rebellious angel.
“What is this? Have you lost your senses?” said Doña Perfecta, laying both her hands on her daughter’s shoulders.
“I am going away, I am going away!” said the girl, with the exaltation of delirium.
And she sprang out of bed.
“Rosario, Rosario——My daughter! For God’s sake, what is this?”
“Ah, mamma, señora!” exclaimed the girl, embracing her mother; “bind me fast!”
“In truth you would deserve it. What madness is this?”
“Bind me fast! I am going away—I am going away with him!”
Doña Perfecta felt a flood of fire surging from her heart up to her lips. She controlled herself, however, and answered her daughter only with her eyes, blacker than the night.
“Mamma, mamma, I hate all that is not he!” exclaimed Rosario. “Hear my confession, for I wish to confess it to every one, and to you first of all.”
“You are going to kill me; you are killing me!”
“I want to confess it, so that you may pardon me. This weight, this weight that is pressing me down, will not let me live.”
“The weight of a sin! Add to it the malediction of God, and see if you can carry that burden about with you, wretched girl! Only I can take it from you.”
“No, not you, not you!” cried Rosario, with desperation. “But hear me; I want to confess it all, all! Afterward, turn me out of this house where I was born.”
“I turn you out!”
“I will go away, then.”
“Still less. I will teach you a daughter’s duty, which you have forgotten.”
“I will fly, then; he will take me with him!”
“Has he told you to do so? has he counselled you to do that? has he commanded you to do that?” asked the mother, launching these words like thunderbolts against her daughter.
“He has counselled me to do it. We have agreed to be married. We must be married, mamma, dear mamma. I will love you—I know that I ought to love you—I shall be forever lost if I do not love you.”
She wrung her hands, and falling on her knees kissed her mother’s feet.
“Rosario, Rosario!” cried Doña Perfecta, in a terrible voice, “rise!”
There was a short pause.
“This man—has he written to you?”
“Yes.”
“And have you seen him again since that night?”
“Yes.”
“And you have written to him!”
“I have written to him also. Oh, señora! why do you look at me in that way? You are not my mother.
“Would to God that I were not! Rejoice in the harm you are doing me. You are killing me; you have given me my death-blow!” cried Doña Perfecta, with indescribable agitation. “You say that this man—”
“Is my husband—I will be his wife, protected by the law. You are not a woman! Why do you look at me in that way? You make me tremble. Mother, mother, do not condemn me!”
“You have already condemned yourself—that is enough. Obey me, and I will forgive you. Answer me—when did you receive letters from that man?”
“To-day.”
“What treachery! What infamy!” cried her mother, roaring rather than speaking. “Had you appointed a meeting?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“To-night.”
“Where?”
“Here, here! I will confess every thing, every thing! I know it is a crime. I am a wretch; but you who are my mother will take me out of this hell. Give your consent. Say one word to me, only one word!”
“That man here in my house!” cried Doña Perfecta, springing back several paces from her daughter.
Rosario followed her on her knees. At the same instant three blows were heard, three crashes, three reports. It was the heart of Maria Remedios knocking at the door through the knocker. The house trembled with awful dread. Mother and daughter stood motionless as statues.
A servant went down stairs to open the door, and shortly afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Doña Perfecta’s room. Her face, flushed with anxiety, exhaled fire.
“He is there, he is there!” she said, as she entered. “He got into the garden through the condemned door.”
She paused for breath at every syllable.
“I know already,” returned Doña Perfecta, with a sort of bellow.
Rosario fell senseless on the floor.
“Let us go down stairs,” said Doña Perfecta, without paying any attention to her daughter’s swoon.
The two women glided down stairs like two snakes. The maids and the man-servant were in the hall, not knowing what to do. Doña Perfecta passed through the dining-room into the garden, followed by Maria Remedios.
“Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there,” said the canon’s niece.
“Where?”
“In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall.”
Doña Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes. Rage gave them the singular power of seeing in the dark peculiar to the feline race.
“I see a figure there,” she said. “It is going toward the oleanders.”
“It is he!” cried Remedios. “But there comes Ramos—Ramos!”
The colossal figure of the Centaur was plainly distinguishable.
“Toward the oleanders, Ramos! Toward the oleanders!”
Doña Perfecta took a few steps forward. Her hoarse voice, vibrating with a terrible accent, hissed forth these words:
“Cristobal, Cristobal—kill him!”
A shot was heard. Then another.