The proceedings were opened by Arbos—no longer in the Ministry, but a member of the Opposition—who made a speech in a conciliatory key, urging them to agree rather than present to the public the spectacle of a quarrel on money matters between a father and daughter—a spectacle which, in view of the position they held, must be both painful and discreditable. The next to speak was Father Ortega, who, in the unctuous and persuasive accents which characterised him, first bestowed on both parties a plentiful lather of preposterous encomiums, and then appealed to their Christian feelings, representing how bad an example they would set, and painting the sweets of loving-kindness and self-sacrifice, ending by promises of eternal life and glory.
Clementina replied. She had no wish but to continue in the same friendly relations with her father as had hitherto subsisted, and to achieve that end she was prepared to do all in her power. The curt, dry tone in which she spoke, and the scowl which accompanied her words, gave no strong evidence of sincerity. However, the Duke seemed greatly moved.
"Arbos," he began, "Father, my friends, and my children; you all know me well. To me, without domestic life, there is no possibility of happiness. After the terrible blow I have so lately suffered, my daughter is all that is left to me. On her centre all my hopes, my affections, and my pride. For her I have toiled, have struggled indefatigably, have accumulated the capital I possess. I may say that I have never cared for money but for the sake of my wife, now in glory, and my daughter—to see them living in comfort and luxury. As you know, I could always have lived on a few coppers a day. And now that I am old, all the more so. What can I want with millions? Ere long, I too must take the train for the other side—Eh, Julian? And you too.—Who then can suppose that I should ever quarrel over a handful of dollars with my dear and only daughter? The whole thing has been a mistake. I wanted time to put my affairs in order; that was all. And if you, my child, ever could imagine anything else, I can only tell you this: everything in this house is yours, and always has been. Take it whenever you choose. Take it, my child, take it. I can do with nothing."
As he pronounced the last words with visible emotion, they all were able to shed a tear. Every one was deeply moved and eager with conciliatory exhortation. Father Ortega gently pushed Clementina into her father's arms; and though she was the least agitated of the party, she allowed him to embrace her.
He clasped her to his heart for some minutes, and when he released her dropped into his arm-chair, with his handkerchief to his eyes, quite overcome by so much emotion.
After so pathetic a scene no one could allude to money. The meeting broke up with fervid hand-pressing and warm mutual congratulations on the happy issue of their diplomacy. But Osorio and his wife got into their carriage, grave and sullen, and exchanged not a single word on the drive home. Only as they reached their own door, Clementina said:
"Well, we shall see how the farce ends."
Osorio shrugged his shoulders.
"We have seen the end, I suspect."
And he was right.
The Duke never paid them a cent., and never again spoke of his daughter's fortune. He was very affectionate, and constantly had them to dine with him, complaining of his loneliness. Now and then he spoke of transactions he was engaged in, but not a word of paying them their share. Clementina was at last so much provoked that she suddenly ceased going to the house. They then took to exchanging notes. Nothing was to be got out of her father but ambiguous replies and vague hopes. Finally they decided on taking legal steps, and a lawsuit began, which was a source of endless satisfaction to the faculty.
This was an end of all joy or comfort for Clementina. She lived in a state of perpetual ferment, watching the progress of the litigation with anxious interest, communicating with the lawyers, and trying to exert some influence which might counterbalance the Duke's. He, on his part, took the matter much more calmly, conducted it with maddening acumen, taking advantage of her displays of violence to represent her in the eyes of the world as a greedy and unnatural daughter. At the same time, among his intimate acquaintances, he would now and then give utterance to some sarcastic or cynical speech which, when it reached her ears, made her wild with rage. The struggle became more desperate every day, while, on the other hand, Osorio's creditors, deceived in their hopes, began to press him very hard, and threatened to bring him to ruin. The torments, the tempers, the wretched state of things in the Osorio household may be easily imagined.
This discomfort, and it might be called misery, extended to the hapless Raimundo. Clementina, torn soul and body by a tumult of other passions, found no leisure for the blandishments of love. The minutes she could spare for them were every day briefer and less calm. The gay tête-à-têtes and merry devices of a former time were over for ever. The lady no longer found any amusement in laughing at her boyish lover. She did not seem even to remember the childish pleasures in which they had delighted. She could talk of nothing now but the lawsuit. Her nerves were in such a state of tension that an inadvertent word might put her into a furious rage. And, besides all this, in her vehement desire for triumph over her father, she flirted more than ever with Escosura, who had just come into office; and this, as may be supposed, was what most distressed the young naturalist.
One day, when she was rather more fond than usual, she said in loving accents:
"You are still jealous of Escosura, Raimundo? But it is quite a mistake. I do not care a straw for the man."
"Yes, so you have often told me, and yet——"
"There is no 'and yet' in the case, fastidious youth!" she interrupted, gently pulling his ear. "I never loved, and never could love any one but you. But—here comes the but—you alas! are not in power, though you deserve to be more than any one I know. My fortune, as you know, is at the mercy of the law, and I may be told any day that I am a beggar. Accustomed as I am to comfort and luxury, you may imagine how much I should relish this. And my pride, too, would suffer, for I am the object of much invidious feeling; people hate me without knowing why. In short, I should be laughed at, and that I could not endure. My father has a great many supporters. Men count on him for services, though he is utterly incapable of a kindness, and they are afraid of him too. Now I, though on intimate terms with all the official circle of Madrid, have not one true friend to take a real interest in my affairs, or dare to show a bold front to my father. And so, you see, I must try to make one. Now imagine this friend to be Escosura, and imagine me to break with you before the eyes of the world, though still you are the one and only man I can ever love. What do you think of the arrangement? Can you regard it as acceptable?"
Raimundo coloured crimson at this strange and humiliating proposition. For a minute or two he made no reply, but at last he said, between anger and contempt:
"It strikes me as simply infamous and indecent."
The furrow, the fateful furrow, which appeared on Clementina's brow whenever passion stirred her stormy soul, was ominously deep. She abruptly rose, and after looking at him hard, with an expression of scornful rage, she said in icy tones:
"You are right. Such an arrangement could not meet your views! We had better part, once for all." And she turned to go.
Raimundo was confounded.
"Clementina!" he cried as she reached the door.
"What is it?" said she, as coldly as before, and looking round.
"Listen, one moment, for God's sake! I spoke under an impulse of jealousy, not meaning to wound you. How could I ever mean to hurt you when I love you, adore you as a creature of another sphere?" and he poured out words of tenderness and worship.
Clementina listened without moving from her attitude of haughty indifference, and would not melt till she saw him utterly humbled, on his knees before her, beseeching for the scheme he had stigmatised as infamous and indecent as a favour to himself.
At this time Clementina received a blow which almost made her ill. Her father brought the audacious woman to whom he had given a card for his ball to live in the palace, and this extraordinary proceeding became the talk of all Madrid. Every one believed that Salabert was out of his mind. And then a rumour got afloat that he was about to marry Amparo, and amazement and indignation filled the soul of Society.
But an unforeseen accident interfered with this alliance. At a meeting of the shareholders of the Riosa mines it was the Duke's part, as chairman, to give an account of his management, and propose certain measures for the advantage of the company. He usually fulfilled such functions with great brevity and lucidity; he was, above all else, a man of business, and had no fancy for rambling speeches or more words than were absolutely necessary. But now, to the surprise of his audience, among whom there were many bankers and official personages, he began a rambling address quite foreign to the matter.
He wandered from his subject and began giving explanations of his conduct as a public character, sketched a complete biography of himself, dwelling on a thousand insignificant details; sang his own praises in the most barefaced way, putting himself forward as the model of a logical politician, and of disinterested self-sacrifice; spoke of his services to the nation by his loans to the Government in the hour of need, and to the cause of humanity by his co-operation in the founding of hospitals, schools, and asylums; finally having the audacity to assert that the Home for Old Women was his work.
The shareholders looked at one another in bewilderment, muttering not very complimentary comments on the orator's condition of mind. When he had finished the catalogue of his own merits and proclaimed himself, urbi et orbi, the greatest man in Spain, he began an invective against his enemies, describing himself as the victim of persistent and deliberate persecution, of a thousand intrigues plotted to discredit him, and in which various political and financial magnates were implicated. In confirmation of this statement he read, in loud, fierce tones, certain articles from a paper published in the district where the Riosa mines were situated, and which, according to him, constituted a gross and shameful attack. What they actually said amounted to this: That Salabert was not a man of such mark as to be worthy to have a statue.
His hearers, more and more wearied and indignant, now said, though still in under-tone: "The man is crazy! The man is mad!"
As he read on, his face grew purple; it was usually pale, it now looked as if he were being strangled. Suddenly, before he had finished, he fell back senseless in his chair.
CHAPTER XVII.
A DARKENED MIND.
AFTER this attack Requena's mental faculties were perceptibly weakened, as every one could discern who saw him. He suffered from strange illusions; his speech was slow and even less intelligible than of old. He was full of fancies and whims. It was said that he had given his mistress vast sums of money; that he flew into a rage over the merest trifles, and shrieked and raved like a mad creature, going so far as to inflict bodily injuries on his servants and attendants; that he ate voraciously, and would say the most horrible things to his daughter. His sullen and vindictive temper had become violent and malignant.
In business matters, however, his faculties showed no signs of deserting him, nor had the mainspring of his nature, avarice, run down. His affairs, to be sure, for the most part went on by themselves, and he still had Llera, whose talents as a speculator had gained in astuteness. Where the derangement, or rather the weakness of his mind, was most conspicuous, was in his domestic affairs. His mistress reigned supreme, and as in Madrid there is no lack of social parasites, there were plenty of hangers-on to sing her praises. She gave tea and card parties, and though the society she collected left much to be desired in point of quality, in appearance it made as good a show as that of many another wealthy house. There were Grandees of Castile who honoured her with their presence, among them Manolo de Davalos, as mad and as much in love as ever.
The lawsuit between the Duke and his daughter ran its lengthy course, each party more obstinate and more virulent every day. In fact, to Clementina, it had resolved itself into a personal struggle with Amparo. The thing which she and Osorio most dreaded was that her father should commit himself to the marriage which was openly prognosticated. If he did, this hussy, an ex-flower-girl, would flaunt the ducal coronet, and treat with them on equal terms. Though society at first would have nothing to say to her, everything is forgotten in time, and Amparo would presently be regarded as a Duchess indeed. Happily for them, though Salabert was very submissive to her vagaries, they heard that the Duke had positively refused to marry her, and that when she endeavoured to coerce him, there were violent scenes between them. Whether all that the servants reported were true or no, there was no doubt that she was urgent and he obstinate. But though her attacks continued to be fruitless, Clementina and Osorio lived "between the devil and the deep sea." The Duke was pronounced to be suffering from creeping paralysis. Under these circumstances, after consulting several eminent lawyers, they determined to petition the Court for a decree pronouncing him incompetent or incapable of managing his own affairs. He had, lately, it was said, had a fresh attack, which had left him quite imbecile. This report seemed to be confirmed by his never leaving the house, and by his most intimate friends being refused admittance to see him. It was under these circumstances that, either from some sudden impulse of her impetuous nature, or because some of her acquaintances had suggested it to her, Clementina determined to deal a decisive blow, which would at once put an end to the litigation and to all the difficulties bound up with it.
"My father is shut up," said she, "I will go and turn that woman out of the house."
Her husband tried to dissuade her, but in vain.
One morning, therefore, she drove to her father's palace. The porter, on opening the gate to the Señora Clementina, was at once amazed and pleased; for though she was neither so smooth-tongued nor so liberal as the ex-florist, a sense of justice led the Duke's household to respect his daughter and contemn his mistress. The haughty lady, without looking at the man, merely said:
"Well, Rafael?" and went quickly up the steps.
"How is papa?" she asked of the servant who met her in the hall.
He was too much astonished to be able to reply.
"Well, fellow!" she repeated impatiently, "Where is papa? In the office, or in his study?"
"I beg your pardon, Señora; the Duke is well. I think he is in his study."
At this juncture, a waiting-maid, who had caught sight of her from the end of a passage, and heard her inquiries, flew off to warn the Señora, while Clementina hastened up the stairs to the first-floor. But before she could reach her father's room, the lady in possession stood in her path, looking straight into her face, with flashing eyes.
"Where are you going?" she asked, in a voice husky with excitement.
"Who are you?" asked Clementina, lifting her head with supreme disdain, and looking down on her.
"I am the mistress of this house," was the reply, but the speaker turned pale.
"The sick nurse, you should say. I never heard that there was a mistress here."
"What! Have you come to insult me in my own house?" exclaimed Amparo, setting her arms akimbo, as if she still were on the market-place.
"No. I have come to turn you out, before the police arrive and do it for me."
Her antagonist made a movement, as though she would fall on her and rend her; but she checked herself, and began to scream as loud as she could: "Pepe, Gregorio, Anselmo! Come here, come all! Turn this insolent creature out of the house! She is insulting me."
Some of the servants came at her call; but they stood confused and motionless, contemplating this strange scene. At the same moment the door of the Duke's room was opened, and Salabert stood before them in a dressing-gown and cap. He had grown terribly old in a few weeks. His eyes were dull, his face colourless, his cheeks pendant and flabby.
"What is all this? What is the matter?" he asked thickly. On seeing his daughter, he staggered back a step.
"This woman," cried Amparo, in a yell of vulgar rage, "after having you declared an idiot, comes here to insult me!"
"Papa, do not heed her," said Clementina, going up to him.
But her father drew back, and holding out his trembling hands he exclaimed: "Go—go away! Do not come near me!"
"Listen to me, papa."
"Do not come near me, wicked, ungrateful child!" repeated the Duke, in a quavering voice, but with melodramatic emphasis.
"Yes, leave this house, shameless creature," added the woman, encouraged by the old man's attitude. "Dare you show your face here, after treating your father so?"
Clementina stood petrified, colourless, staring at them with a look of terror rather than anger. For an instant she was on the point of fainting away; everything seemed to be whirling round her. But her pride enabled her to make a supreme effort; she stood rooted to the spot, and incapable of moving, as white as a marble statue. Then she turned on her heel slowly, for fear of falling, and reached the stairs, down which she went, almost tottering at each step. Her father, spurred by Amparo's cries, followed her to the top of the flight, repeating with increasing fury:
"Go—go. Leave my house!" And he held up a tremulous hand in theatrical menace.
His mistress, meanwhile, poured forth a string of abuse with an accompaniment of gestures, sarcastic laughter and gibes, learnt and remembered from her early experience.
By the time Clementina had reached the garden, her cheeks were tingling. She leaned against the pedestal of one of the lamps for a minute to recover herself, and then ran like a mad creature to the gate, where her carriage was waiting; she sprang into it and burst into tears. On reaching home she was lifted out in a miserable state, and helped up to her room by two maids. When Osorio came up, it was only in broken and incoherent sentences that she could tell him what had occurred.
She kept her bed for eight or ten days in a state of utter prostration, and she rose from it at last so possessed by the desire for revenge, that she really seemed to have gone mad.
The lawsuit, under the hot breath of her malice, was fanned to an imposing blaze. It was regarded in Madrid as a matter of public interest. The opinions of the most distinguished physicians, Spanish and foreign, were taken on both sides as to the Duke's mental incapacity. On one part he was pronounced an idiot, so hopelessly childish that there was nothing to be done with him; on the other it was asserted that he was mending steadily, his mind clearer every day, and his intellect a marvel of acumen and sound sense. And on one point all the authorities concurred—namely, in requiring enormous fees. The press took sides with one or the other party. Clementina subsidised one or two papers. Amparo had bribed others, for the Duke, as a matter of fact, was incompetent to direct the case. And through their columns the two women, more or less disguised, contrived to hurl insolence at one another, reviving, in an allegorical dress, an extensive selection of scandalous tales.
In this warfare the daughter had the worst chance. She could not be so liberal as the mistress, who sowed bank-notes broadcast. On the other hand, Clementina had the support of her husband's creditors, and of her friend Pepa Frias—who was indefatigable in her visits to the doctors, the lawyers, and the newspaper editors—the Condesa de Cotorraso, the Marquesa de Alcudia, her brother-in-law, Calderón, General Patiño and Jimenez Arbos; and, more helpful than all these, as in duty bound, her lover en titre, Escosura. He, holding a post of high importance, had no small influence on the course of the lawsuit.
What a life of excitement, anxiety, and misery! Clementina could not eat, she could not sleep. She was always holding conferences with lawyers and judges, always writing letters. Even at her parties and dinners, nothing else was talked about, till at length the more indifferent of her acquaintance rebelled, and ceased to come. To others, however, she communicated some of her own flame; they became her ardent partisans, and brought or carried reports, volunteered advice, broke out in cries of indignation whenever Amparo was even mentioned. And although Clementina's haughty temper prevented her being a favourite in Madrid society, as she stood forth, after all, as the representative of justice and decency, her cause found most supporters. To this her antagonist's folly contributed, for she paraded herself and her splendour everywhere, with the imbecile and degraded old man.
The Duke was in fact perishing before their eyes. After a stage of excitement and violence, when he had behaved like a madman, came a period of nervous prostration; by degrees he became almost idiotic. He lost his wits so completely that he could not even understand business. Everything was left to Llera. This would have been all right, but that Amparo would interfere and do all kinds of mischief. She took the greatest pains, however, to hide Salabert's condition; on days when he was over excitable or incoherent, she kept him in his room. It was only when he was calm and rational that she ventured to take him out, and then never allowed him to talk to any one. But her efforts were not always successful. Salabert went out by himself on various pretences, and amply betrayed his deranged condition. On one occasion he was found outside the town at four in the morning. Another time he went into a jeweller's shop, and after ordering some trinkets he pocketed some others, believing he had not been observed. The jeweller had seen it, however, but he said nothing, knowing the millionaire. He sent the bill in to Amparo, who hastened to pay it, and went in person to beg that the matter should not be divulged. In short, before long it was established beyond a doubt, in spite of the contending evidence of physicians, that the Duke was absolutely non compos; and it was said that the lawsuit would be decided in that sense.
Two days before the decision was made public, Amparo vanished from the Requena palace, after sacking it very completely, and carrying off with her many objects of great value. Her savings already amounted to several thousand dollars, and in anticipation of disaster she had drawn the money out of the Bank of Spain and placed it in foreign securities. She was afterwards heard of in France, and a few months later it was reported in Madrid that she had married the crazy Marquis.
On the very day of Amparo's flight—for it may be called a flight—Clementina and her husband took possession of the Requena palace. She found her father in a pitiable state of total imbecility. He spoke as though they had met but the day before and nothing of any importance had occurred, he asked for Amparo, and sometimes mistook his daughter for her. The daughter's heart, it must be owned, was not severely wrung. This catastrophe by no means satisfied the bitterness which possessed her soul when she recalled all the wretchedness she had endured. Her vengeance was incomplete, for Amparo was rich and content. She longed to prosecute her as a criminal, while Osorio, satisfied with the enormous fortune which had dropped into his hands, did not regard her thefts as worth a thought.
The Duke de Requena, the famous financier who for twenty years had been the wonder and admiration of the banking world in Spain and abroad, the man who had been so much discussed by the public and the press, was ere long, in his own house—now the Osorio palace—a useless and worthless chattel. To avoid comment, or to be more secure as to his condition, or perhaps out of some dim fear lest he should recover, the Osorios did not send him to a lunatic asylum; they had him cared for at home. Salabert was no more than a child. He thought of nothing but his meals. He spoke very little, but sat hour after hour, looking at his nails or rubbing one hand over the other, now and then uttering some strange, inarticulate cry. He was in the charge of an attendant, who, when he was tiresome, would fly in a rage and slap him. But the person he held in most respect, it may be said in real awe, was his daughter. It was enough for Clementina to frown and speak a scolding word; he submitted at once. For his son-in-law, on the other hand, he did not care a pin.
When his attendant found him quiet and went to amuse himself for an hour with the other servants, the crazy old man would wander about the house, more especially to gaze in the mirrors. His principal mania was for picking up pieces of bread and storing them in a corner of his room, where they lay till they were mouldy. When the pile was too large the servants cleared it away in baskets and flung it out on the dust-heap. Then when he missed it he was furious, and his keeper had to use strong measures to pacify him. One morning, soon after the Osorios' breakfast—the old man ate alone in his own room—three or four of the servants were together in the great dining-room, cleaning the plate and putting it away in the side-board cupboards. They were in high spirits and playing games, hitting each other with the long loaves they had taken up for sticks, running round the table and laughing loudly. Their mistress was upstairs and could not hear them. Suddenly the old imbecile appeared on the scene, with the tray on which he was wont to carry off the broken pieces as a precious booty to his room. He had on a greasy old shooting coat, and his head was bare. And, in spite of its white hairs, that head was not venerable; the yellow unshaven cheeks, the colourless, loose lips, the stony, expressionless eyes had no trace of the beauty of old age, but only the decrepitude of vice, which is always repulsive, and the stamp of idiotcy which is always terrible.
Seeing so many persons, he paused a moment, but he made up his mind to come in, and went straight to the drawers of the side-board, where he began an eager search, picking up every scrap he found there and collecting them on the tray. The servants watched him with amusement.
"Hunt away, old fellow!" cried one. "When are you going to ask us to try the broth, daddy?"
The old man made no reply, he was much too busy.
"The broth, sir," said another, "you had better ask us to share a ten dollar-note."
"I shall not ask you," mumbled the Duke with some irritation, "I shall only ask Anselmo."
"Oh yes, we know why you ask Anselmo, it is because he keeps the stick! Never fear, if that is all, you shall ask me too."
The others all shouted with laughter, and the youngest, a boy of about sixteen, seeing him with his tray filled, and about to depart, slipped behind him and, giving him a jerk, upset all the bits, which were scattered on the floor. The Duke's rage was terrific, with yells of rage he went down on his knees to pick them up again, while the servants applauded the joke. As soon as he had collected them all again on his tray, and was shuffling off as fast as he could to escape from their rough fun, the same fellow again came behind him and snatched it away. The madman's frenzy was indescribable; gnashing his teeth and glaring with fury, he rushed on the lad, but the others seized him. The poor lunatic began to utter cries which were anything rather than human.
At this moment Clementina's voice was heard in high wrath:
"What is the matter? What are you doing to papa?"
The servants let him go, and vanished from the room.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A PASSION BURNT OUT.
RAIMUNDO'S love affairs hung only by a thread. In these latter days Clementina, entirely absorbed by her triumph and thirst for revenge, had hardly given him a thought. They still met frequently, for the young man did not cease to visit her, but their love-passages were fewer every day. If he timidly complained of her neglect, the lady excused herself on the score of Escosura's jealousy. It was in vain that she had tried to persuade him that she was "off with the old love." "And you see," she said "if he finds out that I have deceived him, he will have good cause for a furious scene."
Raimundo was so utterly lost that he admitted, or feigned to admit, this reasoning as valid. Through this abject humiliation he still contrived to be happy in the illusion that his idol preferred him, loved him best at the bottom of her heart, that she only flirted with the Minister for the sake of her lawsuit. Clementina fostered this belief by sending him from time to time, when she could forget her vexations, a few lines appointing a meeting, "to-day at four," or "this afternoon in our rooms." And at these interviews she would make him as happy as of old by swearing eternal fidelity.
But all joys are brief in this world; Raimundo's were brief indeed. The very next day, after some such meeting, he would find his mistress as cold as marble, disdainful of him, and, what was worse, absorbed in conversation with Escosura, in a recess of the drawing-room. He had innocently believed that the end of the lawsuit would restore his happiness, that Clementina, no longer needing the great man's help, would again be wholly his. But his hopes were blown to the winds like smoke. The lawsuit was decided in her favour, but far from dismissing her official cavalier, she showed him greater respect and affection.
One morning, two months after the close of the business, he received a note from Clementina, saying:
"Meet me at two this afternoon."
His heart leaped for joy. It was more than a fortnight since Clementina had given him rendezvous at their little entresol. By one o'clock he was there to wait for her, and as soon as he saw her from afar he ran to open the door with as much agitation as though she had been a queen, and far more tender devotion. She seemed grateful and affectionate, and accepted his passionate caresses with gracious kindness.
But after they had chatted for about an hour, as they sat side by side on the sofa, she looked at him with a slow, compassionate gaze, and said:
"Do you know, Mundo, that this is the last time we shall ever sit here alone together?"
The youth looked at her in speechless amazement; he did not, he would not, understand.
"Yes, I cannot keep up this mystery any longer. Escosura is very indignant, and with reason. Besides, I am ashamed—it is horrible of me. And, after all, you have nothing to complain of. I have always been nice to you. If I ever loved a man truly, it was you, and the proof of it is that it has lasted so long. But nothing in this world can last for ever, and as matters stand we had better part. You see, Mundo, I am growing old—you are but a boy. If I did not break with you, sooner or later you would throw me over. Such is life. Though you still think me handsome, these are but the last remains of beauty. I must bid farewell to all the follies we have indulged in together, but I shall always look back on them with pleasure. I swear to you that you will always symbolise to me the happiest period of my life. So now, henceforth, we will still be good friends. It will always be a satisfaction to me to be able to serve you, for I owe you many hours of happiness."
The young man listened to this cruel speech, motionless and stricken. His face was perfectly colourless.
"Do you mean it?" he said at last, in a husky voice.
"Yes, my dear boy, yes. I mean it," she replied, with the same sad, patronising smile.
"It is impossible! It cannot be!" he exclaimed vehemently, and starting to his feet he looked down on her with a mixture of horror and indignation.
This expression in his eyes roused her pride.
"But you will see that it can be!" she retorted with a touch of irony which was the height of cruelty.
He stood frozen for a moment, gazing at her with intense anguish, then he fell on his knees at her feet, with clasped hand, imploring her:
"For God's sake, do not kill me! Do not kill me!"
Clementina's face softened, and her voice broke a little.
"Come, Mundo," said she, "do not be a baby. Get up. This had to come. You will find other women far more worthy than I."
But the young man held her knees clasped, kissing them in a frenzy of grief, his whole frame shaken by sobs.
"This is horrible, horrible, horrible!" he kept saying. "Oh! what have I done that you should kill me with misery?"
"Come, come," she said, gently stroking his hair. "Get up, be reasonable. Do you not see that this is ridiculous?"
"What do I care?" he cried, his face hidden in her silk skirts. "For you I would be ridiculous in the eyes of the whole world."
Clementina tried to soothe him, but without any emotion or pity. There is no wild beast more cruel than a woman whose love is satiated. She let his grief have its way for a while, and when he grew calmer she rose.
"I am grateful to you for all this feeling, Mundo. I, too, have gone through a terrible struggle before I could make up my mind to part."
"It is false!" cried Raimundo, still kneeling, with his elbows on the sofa. "If you still loved me, you could not be so cruel, so base."
Clementina stood silent for a minute, looking at his shoulders in great irritation. At last, touched by pity, she said:
"I forgive you the insult in consideration of the agitation you are in. Though you may abuse me you will still be able to think of me with affection; and even when you have quite forgotten me, the memory of your face and the happy hours we have passed together will remain engraved on my heart. But now we must come to an explanation," she added, in a sterner tone. "Let us be worthy of each other, Raimundo. You must, please, take a hackney coach to your house and bring me back every line I ever wrote to you, that we may burn them. I have none of yours; you know I always destroyed them immediately."
Raimundo did not stir. After waiting a few moments she went up behind him, leaned over him, and laid her hands on his cheeks, saying kindly:
"Foolish boy! Am I the only woman in the world?"
He thrilled at the touch of those soft hands, and, turning suddenly, seized them and covered them with kisses, pressed them to his heart, laid them on his brow.
"Yes, Clementina, the only woman; or, if there are others, I do not know them—I do not want to know them. But is it true? Is it true that you do not love me?"
And his tearful eyes looked up at her with such an expression of woe that she could not but lie.
"I never said I did not love you, but only that we can meet no more—like this."
"It is the same thing."
"No, it is not the same thing, foolish boy. I may love you, and yet, in consequence of special circumstances, I may not be able—we cannot have everything we wish for in this world." And she wandered into incoherent argument and specious reasoning, which she knew was false, and could not utter without hesitancy; the same commonplaces, repeated in different words, trying to give them the weight they lacked by emphasis and gesticulation.
But Raimundo was not listening. In a few minutes he rose, dried away his tears, and left the room without a word. Clementina watched him in surprise.
"I will wait for you," she called after him into the passage.
Twenty minutes later he returned, carrying a parcel.
"Here are your letters," he said with apparent calm, but his voice was thick and his face deadly pale.
Clementina glanced at him keenly, not without some uneasiness. But she controlled herself, and said simply:
"Thank you very much, Mundo. Now, we will burn them, if you please, in the kitchen."
He made no reply. They went together to the cold, unfurnished kitchen, which no one ever used, and Clementina, with her own hand, laid the packet on the hearth. But suddenly, just as she was about to strike the match which Raimundo had given her, she paused. Then she said, with a smile:
"Do you know that this is dreadfully prosaic? To burn my love-letters on a kitchen hearth! It seems to me that they might have a more romantic end. Shall we go and burn them in the fields? That will give us a last walk together and a fitter parting."
"As you please," he said, in a scarcely audible voice.
"Very well. Fetch a carriage."
"I kept one."
"Then come."
Raimundo took up the packet of letters, and together they quitted the room whither they were never to return.
The hackney-coach carried them along the road to the eastward. It was an afternoon in Spring, misty and fresh. Clementina had closed the blinds for fear of being seen; but when they were outside the Alcalá gate she asked Raimundo to let them down. Unluckily the moment was inopportune, for at that very moment they met an open carriage, in which sat Pepe Castro with Esperancita Calderón, now his wife. She had barely time to lean back in the corner and cover her face with her hand, and even so was not sure that they had not recognised her.
Raimundo, by a great effort, had recovered some self-control, but not completely. Clementina did all she could to divert his mind, talking to him, like a friend, of indifferent matters, of their acquaintances, and taking it for granted that he would continue to visit at her house. When Castro and his wife had gone past she discussed them with much animation.
"You see, I was right, Mundo. They have not been married three months, and Pepe and his father-in-law are squabbling over money matters. No one knows Calderón better than I. If he does not die before long, the poor children will be dreadfully hard up, for they will never get any money out of him."
Raimundo replied to her remarks, affecting a calm demeanour, but there was a peculiar accent in his voice which the lady could not help noticing. It seemed foggy, as though it had passed through many tears.
At last, in a very deserted spot, they bid the driver stop, and got out.
"Wait for us here; we are going for a little walk," Raimundo explained.
But then observing a doubtful glance in the man's eyes, he turned back when he had gone a few steps, and taking out a five-dollar note he handed it to him saying:
"You can give me the change presently."
They turned off from the high road and wandered away over the dreary deserted fields which stretch away to the east of Madrid. The ground is slightly undulating, but burnt and barren, cutting the horizon with a long level line—not a house, not a tree was in sight. Clementina's dainty shoes sank in the dust as they walked on in silence. Raimundo had no spirit to talk, and she, too, was oppressed by the sadness of the little drama, to which that of the landscape contributed; she had enough good feeling not to speak a word. Now and then she looked back to assure herself whether they could still be seen from the high road. When she thought they had gone far enough she stopped.
"Why should we go any further?" she said. "Will not this place do?"
Raimundo also stopped, but made no answer. He dropped the parcel on the ground and looked away—far away to the horizon. Clementina untied it, looked with some curiosity at her letters, all carefully preserved in the envelopes; then she made a little heap of them, and after waiting a minute or two for Raimundo to look round, finding that he did not move, she said:
"Give me a match."
The young man obeyed, and gave it her lighted, in perfect silence. Then he looked away again while Clementina set fire to the papers, and watched them burn one by one. The process took some minutes, and she had to turn the blazing fragments with her gloved hands to prevent their remaining half-burnt. Now and then she cast a half uneasy, half pitying glance at her lover, who stood as motionless and absorbed as a sailor studying the signs of the weather.
When nothing remained but black ashes, Clementina rose from her stooping posture, waited a moment, not liking to intrude on Raimundo's deep abstraction, and at last, with a cloud of tender pathos on her beautiful face, hastily looked about her, went up to him, and laying her arm on his shoulder, said in a fond tone:
"And now that we are alone for the last time, shall we not bid each other a loving farewell?"
"How ought we to part?" he replied, looking at her and making a great effort to smile.
"So!" she exclaimed, and she threw her arms round his neck, and covered his face with passionate kisses.
Raimundo stood rigid. He let her kiss him many times, like an inert creature, and then his knees failed, and with a heartrending cry:
"Oh Clementina, this is death!" he fell senseless on the ground.
She was terribly frightened. There was no one to help; no water near. She raised his head, resting it on her lap, fanned him with her hat, and held a scent-bottle she had with her under his nose. He presently opened his eyes, and could soon stand up. He was ashamed of his weakness. Clementina was most affectionate and helpful. As soon as she saw that he was in a state to walk, she took his arm and said:
"Let us go."
And she tried to amuse him by talking of a little dance she meant to give, to which she urgently pressed him to come; he was on no account to fail her.
"And on Saturdays, as usual, you know. You are to be sure not to desert me. In my house you will always be what you have been—my friend; and in my heart, so long as I live, you will fill the dearest place."
Raimundo's only answer was a forced smile.
Thus they made their way back to the spot where they had left the coach. As they drove back, still she talked, while he, as they got nearer to the town, turned even paler than before; nor could he even smile.
Seeing him thus, with despair in every feature, Clementina at last ceased talking so lightly, and, moved with pity, she again kissed him tenderly. But he shrank from her touch; he gently pushed her away, saying:
"Leave me alone—leave me. You only hurt me more."
Two tears rose to his eyes and remained there without falling. At last they dried away, or returned to the hidden fount whence they had sprung.
They reached the Alcalá gate once more. Clementina bid the driver stop at the corner of the Calle de Serrano:
"You had better get out here. You are close to your own house."
Raimundo, speechless, opened the door.
"Till Saturday, Mundo. Do not fail me. You know I shall look for you." And she grasped his hand tightly.
He, without looking at her, merely said:
"Good-bye."
He sprang out. The lady saw him walk up the street, staggering like a drunken man, and he did not once look round.
THE END.
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EDITOR'S NOTE.
THERE is nothing in which the Anglo-Saxon world differs more from the world of the Continent of Europe than in its fiction. English readers are accustomed to satisfy their curiosity with English novels, and it is rarely indeed that we turn aside to learn something of the interior life of those other countries the exterior scenery of which is often so familiar to us. We climb the Alps, but are content to know nothing of the pastoral romances of Switzerland. We steam in and out of the picturesque fjords of Norway, but never guess what deep speculation into life and morals is made by the novelists of that sparsely peopled but richly endowed nation. We stroll across the courts of the Alhambra, we are listlessly rowed upon Venetian canals and Lombard lakes, we hasten by night through the roaring factories of Belgium; but we never pause to inquire whether there is now flourishing a Spanish, an Italian, a Flemish school of fiction. Of Russian novels we have lately been taught to become partly aware, but we do not ask ourselves whether Poland may not possess a Dostoieffsky and Portugal a Tolstoï.
Yet, as a matter of fact, there is no European country that has not, within the last half-century, felt the dew of revival on the threshing-floor of its worn-out schools of romance. Everywhere there has been shown by young men, endowed with a talent for narrative, a vigorous determination to devote themselves to a vivid and sympathetic interpretation of nature and of man. In almost every language, too, this movement has tended to display itself more and more in the direction of what is reported and less of what is created. Fancy has seemed to these young novelists a poorer thing than observation; the world of dreams fainter than the world of men. They have not been occupied mainly with what might be or what should be, but with what is, and, in spite of all their shortcomings, they have combined to produce a series of pictures of existing society in each of their several countries such as cannot fail to form an archive of documents invaluable to futurity.
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