CHAPTER XXIV.
THE news spread quickly through the village that the daughter of the fisherman had been assassinated. Thus this egotist, this rustic, this stupid Momo, thanks to his evil spirit, and his bad instincts, took what he saw at the theatre for reality, and he not only made a useless journey, because he had not accomplished his mission, but his folly led all the good people into an error.
The face of Don Modesto lengthened amazingly. The cura said a mass for the soul of Marisalada. Ramon Perez put a black ribbon on his guitar.
Rosa Mistica said to Don Modesto—
“God pardon her! I predicted that she would end badly. Do you remember that the more pains I took to make her go the right way, the more obstinate she was in going the wrong?”
Old Maria, calculating that this catastrophe prevented the arrival of Don Frederico, decided to confide the cure of Pedro to a young physician who had taken the place of Stein at Villamar.
“I do not know much of his science,” she said to Don Modesto, who recommended this Esculapius to her; “he knows only how to order medicinal drinks, and there is nothing which more weakens the stomach. For nourishment he prescribes chicken broth. Will you tell me what strength such a beverage can give? All is topsy-turvy, my commandant. But all this will come right in the future, and experience will always be experience.”
The doctor found Pedro very ill; he declared he was anxious to prepare for his death.
Maria could not hear this news without weeping bitterly; she called Manuel, and charged him with the painful mission to announce his approaching death to Pedro, with every possible precaution.
“Believe me,” she said, “I would never have the courage to do it.”
Manuel set off to visit the patient.
“Hallo! Pedro,” he said to him, “how are you?”
“I am sinking, Manuel,” replied the invalid: “if you have any commands for the other world, tell me immediately: I am about to weigh anchor, my son.”
“Come! Pedro, this is not so. You will live longer than I; and, as the proverb says—”
“Do not finish, Manuel,” replied Pedro without moving. “Say to your mother that I am ready. It is now a long time since I have felt my last moment approaching. I think only of that—and of her!” he added, in a broken voice.
Manuel went away with his eyes filled with tears, although he had seen, during his military life, much bloodshed, and painful agonies.
The following day there was one of those terrible storms which the equinox usually brings. The wind whistled in every variety of tone. One could believe he heard the seven heads of the hydra breathing all at once. It beat against the cabin, which seemed to complain and moan. The invisible element sent its doleful sounds through the resounding vaults of the ruins of the fort; it struck furiously across the forest, became softer in the orchards, and vanished in a long murmur in the deserted plain, as gradually disappears the shadow of a landscape on the horizon.
The sea dashed its waves angrily, as fury agitates serpents among the leaves. The clouds piled themselves up without pause, and their black flanks opened to emit their torrents on the earth. All was shivering, all trembling, all complaining. The sun had fled, and the color of day was dark as the pall of death.
Although the cabin was protected by the rock, the tempest had swept away a part of the roof during the night. To prevent its complete destruction, Manuel, aided by Momo, had stayed it with some wood and some stones of the ruins.
“You do not wish to shelter your host?” said Manuel. “Wait at least for it to fall down, and then there will be no more need of you.”
If any other look than that of God could through the tempest penetrate the desert, he would have seen some men following along the margin of the sea, braving the fury of the storm, enveloped in their mantles, wrapt and silent, their bodies bent towards the earth, and their heads bowed down. He would have seen an old man, grave, and wrapt in meditation, like those who followed him, his arms crossed on his breast, in the manner of Orientals, and preceded by a child ringing a bell. There could be heard at intervals, despite the roaring of the tempest, the tranquil and sonorous voice of this old man, saying, “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine,” and of the men who responded, “Domine, exaudi vocem meam.”
The rain fell in torrents, the wind blew furiously, and the men continued their onward, impassible march, their step at once grave and slow.
They were the cura and some pious parishioners, who, conducted by Manuel, went to carry to the dying fisherman the last consolations of a Christian.
The priest approached the invalid, whose poor dwelling had been metamorphosed, thanks to the attentions of old Maria and of brother Gabriel. They had placed on the table a crucifix, surrounded with lights and flowers.
“Light and perfume,” said the good old woman, “are the exterior homage which we ought to offer to the Lord.”
After the ceremony, the priest, Maria, and brother Gabriel alone remained near the dying man. Pedro was calm. After a few moments he opened his eyes—
“Is she not come?” he asked.
“My good Pedro,” replied Maria, while streams of tears prevented her from seeing the invalid, “it is far from this to Madrid. She wrote she would set out, and we will see her arrive very soon.”
Santalo again fell into a lethargy. An hour passed, and then he came to himself. He fixed his look for a long time on Maria, and said to her—
“Maria, I have implored of my Divine Saviour that he will deign to come and visit me; that he will pardon me, that he will make you happy, and recompense you for all you have done for us.”
Then he swooned. He again revived, opened his eyes, in which already one could read death, and he murmured—
“She has not come!”
His head fell on the pillow, and he exclaimed—
“Pity, Lord!”
“Let us repeat the Credo,” said the priest, taking in his hands those of the dying man, and approaching his mouth to his ears, to make him understand the last words of faith, hope, and charity. A majestic and imposing silence reigned in this humble retreat, which death had come to penetrate.
Without, the tempest raged in all its terrible power; within, all was peace and repose: because God takes from death all its fears, and all its horror, when the soul springs to heaven at the cry of pity!
CHAPTER XXV.
THE world is composed of contrasts: nothing is more true than this eternal verity.
It was thus that, when the poor fisherman presented to his humble and pious friends the sublime spectacle of the death of a believer, his daughter rendered the public of Madrid enthusiastic even to frenzy. A prima donna without a drop of Italian blood in her veins, eclipsed the grand Tenorini herself. The impression produced by the singer was so great, so general, that the employés deserted their offices, and the students the benches of their classes.
This enthusiasm manifested itself one evening at the door of the theatre, in a group of young men, who sought to make two strangers, recently landed, share their admiration. They commented, they analyzed the quality of the voice, the suppleness of her throat, the superiority of her method of the Diva, without forgetting to eulogize her physical advantages. A young man, covered up to his eyes in a cloak, remained immovable and silent some paces from this group; but when they boasted of the physical advantages of the singer, he stamped his foot with anger.
“I will bet a hundred guineas, dear viscount,” said our friend Sir John Burnwood, who, not having obtained authority to carry off Alcazar, proposed to himself to ask leave to take Escurial—“I will bet that this woman will make more noise in France than Madame Lafarge; and in England, more than Tom Thumb; and in Italy, than Rossini.”
“I do not doubt it,” replied the viscount.
“What magnificent black eyes!” added a new admirer. “What an elegant and subtle form! As to her feet, one does not see them, and we can only guess: the Magdalen would envy her her hair.”
“I am impatient to hear this wonder,” said the viscount; “let us enter, gentlemen.”
The mysterious young man had disappeared.
Maria, in the costume of Semiramis, came on the stage. The man in the mantle, who was no other than Pepe Vera, entered at this moment, approached the actress, and without any person hearing him, said to her—
“I do not wish you to sing.”
And he went on his way, cold and indifferent.
Maria at first turned pale, then the blush of indignation mounted to her face.
“Come!” said she to her waiting-woman; “Marina, arrange the folds of this mantle. We are about to commence.” And she added in a loud voice, so that Pepe, who was far off, heard her, “We do not play for the public.”
The boy of the theatre came to her, and said—
“Señora, shall we raise the curtain?”
“I am ready.”
But she had scarcely pronounced these words when she uttered a sharp cry.
Pepe Vera had come and placed himself behind her; he laid hold of her arm violently, and said to her a second time—
“I do not wish you to sing.”
Vanquished by her grief, Maria seated herself on a chair, and wept.
Pepe had disappeared.
“What is it? what has happened?” asked those who were present.
“I feel ill,” answered Maria, who continued to weep.
“What is the matter, señora?” asked the director, who had been informed of what had occurred.
“It is nothing,” said Maria, rising, and drying her tears. “It is already passed. I am ready. Come!”
Pepe Vera, pale as a corpse, then came and interposed between the director and the artist.
“This is cruelty,” said he, with an imperturbable calmness, “to force on to the stage a woman who can hardly support herself.
“What!” cried the director; “are you ill, señora? Since when? it is but a moment since I saw you very joyous!”
Maria was about to reply, but she dropped her eyes, and could not open her lips. Pepe’s look fascinated her.
“Why not avow the truth?” he said, without losing any of his calmness. “Why not say it is impossible for you to sing? would it be a great crime? Are you a slave, that they can oblige you to do more than you can?”
The public was impatient, the director knew not what to do. The authorities sent to demand the cause of the delay, and while the director recounted the incident which had occurred, Pepe Vera, who had approached Maria as if to offer his attentions, seized her arm as if he would break it, and said to her in a firm voice—
“Caramba! is it not enough to tell you I do not wish it?”
Maria must decide. When she was in her room with Pepe her anger broke out.
“You are an insolent, an infamous fellow,” she cried, suffocated with fury. “What right have you to treat me thus?”
“I love you.”
“Cursed be your love!”
Pepe began to laugh.
“You curse my love, and you cannot live without it. We will see! we will see! I will never again appear before you until you summon me.”
“I would sooner call a demon.”
“You may call him, I am not jealous.”
“Go then! quit me.”
“Be it so,” said the toreador. “I depart, and go to Lucia del Salto.”
Marisalada was very jealous of this woman, a dancer, whom Pepe had courted before he knew Maria.
“Pepe! Pepe!” screamed Maria, “traitor! add perfidy to insolence.”
“That,” said Pepe, without moving, “that will not make me do but what I choose. You are too grand a lady for me. If then you wish that we get along well together, it must be that every thing is done as I wish. I will command, and you obey. You have enough of dukes, ambassadors, and serene excellencies at your feet.”
So saying, he made some steps towards the door.
“Pepe! Pepe!” called Maria, tearing in pieces a mantle richly garnished with lace.
“Call sooner the demon.”
“Pepe! remember this well: if you ever go near Lucia I will accept the love of the duke.”
“You dare do that?” said Pepe, starting with a gesture of menace.
“I dare every thing, for revenge.”
Pepe placed himself in front of the Gaviota, his arms crossed, and darting on her the most terrible looks. Maria sustained them without flinching. These brief moments sufficed for these two characters to study and know each other.
They comprehended that both were powerful in pride and in energy. This combat could no longer continue; it must be broken or suspended. With mutual and tacit accord each renounced the triumph.
“Come, Mariquita,” said Pepe, who was the culpable one, “let us be friends. I will not go near Lucia, but in exchange, and to have confidence in each other, conceal me this evening at your house, in such a manner that I can convince myself that you do not deceive me.”
“That cannot be,” replied Maria haughtily.
“’Tis well. I go where I go in leaving you.”
“Infamous! you put the knife to my throat,” cried Maria, doubling her fists with fury. “Depart!”
An hour after this scene Maria was half reclining on the sofa, and her husband was feeling her pulse. The duke was seated near her.
“It is nothing, Maria,” said Stein. “It is nothing, duke. A nervous attack, already dissipated. Her pulse is perfectly tranquil. You need only repose, Maria. Work is killing you. It is already some time that your nerves have been extraordinarily irritated. Your nervous system rebels against the zeal you devote to the study of your characters. I am in no way uneasy, and now I go to attend a patient, who is in a dangerous condition. Take the prescription which I will order for you, and some orgeat on retiring; and to-morrow when you rise some ass’s milk. Duke, I leave you with regret, but duty obliges me: á dios!”
After the departure of Don Frederico, the duke gazed on Maria for a long time; her face was altogether changed.
“Are you fatigued, Maria?” asked he, with that penetrating sweetness which love alone knows how to give to the voice.
“I will repose myself,” replied Maria coldly.
“Do you wish that I retire?”
“If it so pleases you.”
“That would pain me.”
“Remain then.”
“Maria,” said the duke, after a short silence, taking out of his pocket a paper, “when I cannot talk to you I sing your praises; here are some verses which I have written for you; to-night, Maria, I will have agitating dreams, without sleep. Sleep has fled from my eyelids since peace fled from my heart. Pardon me, Maria, if this avowal which escapes from my heart offends the purity of your sentiments, but I have suffered from your sufferings, and—”
“You see,” said Maria, smiling, “that my sufferings are already ended.”
“Would you like, Maria, that I read these verses to you?”
“Be it so.”
The duke read his sonnet in honor of the Diva.
“Your verses are very beautiful, duke,” remarked Maria with more than animation. “Will you have them published in the Heraldo?”
“Do you wish it?”
“I think they merit it.”
The duke at this reply let his head fall on his hands. When he raised it again, he saw as it were a light pass in the look which Maria fixed on the glass door of her alcove. He turned his head to that side, but saw nothing.
He had, in his abstraction, rolled the paper on which the verses were written, and which the singer had not taken into her possession. She asked him if he intended to make a cigarette of her sonnet.
“Then, at least,” said the duke, “it would serve for something.”
“Give it to me; I will keep it.”
The duke passed the roll of paper to her in a magnificent ring.
“What! the ring also, my lord duke?”
Maria placed the ring on her finger, and let fall the paper on the carpet.
“Ah!” thought the duke, “there is no love in that heart, there is no poetry in that soul, no blood in these veins. And yet heaven is in her smile, hell in those eyes, and her voice chants all the harmonies of earth and heaven. Repose yourself, Maria,” he said, rising; “leave your soul in its happy quietude, and do not give entrance to the importunate idea that others grow old and suffer because of you.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
HARDLY had the duke closed the door of the saloon, when Pepe Vera came out of the alcove, laughing.
“Will you keep quiet?” said Maria, occupied in lighting the fire with the precious production of the duke.
“No, my dear, I cannot; I would stifle if I did not laugh. I am no longer jealous, my Mariquita, no more than the sultan in his seraglio. Poor woman! if you had not me to love you ardently, what could you do with a husband, who proves to you his love by his prescriptions—with a bashful lover, who courts you in reciting to you his verses? Now that one of them has gone to dream without sleeping, and the other wishes to sleep, we will go, you and I, and sup with the gay companions who wait for us.”
“No, Pepe, I am not well. The disorder you have caused me, the cold I felt on leaving the theatre, has injured me. I am chilly.”
“You do the princess! Come with me, a good supper will cure you sooner than ass’s milk. Come, let us go.”
“I will not go out. We have one of those north winds, which, while it would not extinguish a candle, kills a man.”
“It is well! if it pleases you, so let it be. Since you wish to pamper yourself, pamper thyself, and—good-evening!”
“How! you are going to supper? You leave me? You leave me alone, and ill, as you see, and ill because of your fault!”
“Well! what? Do you wish I put myself on diet? No, no, my beauty. They are waiting for me, and I go; you lose some hours of pleasure.”
Maria seemed to regain courage. She rose, went out, and slammed the door with anger. Pepe Vera laughed. An instant after she came back, dressed all in black, her face hidden under a thick mantle, and enveloped in a large shawl. Thus disguised she went out with Pepe Vera.
On entering his house, well advanced in the night, Stein received from his servant a billet, which he read as soon as he was in his chamber. It ran thus—
“Señor Doctor,
“Do not believe that this is an anonymous letter; I act frankly, and I tell you my name at the commencement—Lucia del Salto. It seems to me it is a name sufficiently known.
“Husband of the Santalo, one must be as simple as you are, not to have perceived that your wife is the mistress of Pepe Vera, who was my lover; I may say so, because I am not married, and deceive no one. If you wish that the scales fall from your eyes, go to-night to No. 13 —— street, and there you will do as St. Thomas did.”
“Can one be guilty of such an infamy?” cried Stein, letting the letter fall from his hands. “My poor Maria has those who are envious of her, and without any doubt they are the women of the theatre. Poor Maria! she is ill! and now perhaps she is sleeping in a sweet slumber. But let us see if she is calm. Last evening she was not well. Her pulse was agitated and her voice was hoarse. Affections of the chest are common now in Madrid. Let us see!”
Stein took a light, went out, and walked on tiptoe through the rooms which led to his wife’s apartment. Arrived near to the chamber, he redoubled his precautions; he softly approached the bed, drew aside the curtains—the bed was empty!
A man as loyal, as confident as Stein, could not easily convince himself of the possibility of such treason.
“No,” said he, after some instants of reflection, “no, it is impossible! Her absence at such an hour is from some other cause, some unexpected circumstance. Still, I cannot remain in the dark, with a doubt in my heart. I must have the power to reply to that calumny, not only with contempt, but with irrefutable proofs, with a formal contradiction without reply.”
He went out.
Thanks to the night watchmen, he arrived easily at the place indicated in the letter.
The house designated had no porter. The street door was open, and Stein entered. He climbed the first flight of stairs, and, arriving at the first landing-place, he knew no longer how to direct his steps, nor where to go.
Recovered from his first movement, he commenced to feel ashamed of his action. “To spy,” said he to himself, “is a base action. If Maria knew what I am doing, she would be irritated, and she would be right to feel so. O my God! suspect her whom I love, is it not to call down the cloud which will obscure the heaven of our love? I a spy! This has happened from the contemptible letter of a woman more contemptible still. Yes, I will return home. To-morrow I will demand of Maria what I desire to know. It is the way the most simple, and the most natural. Come—no more suspicions, no more doubts!”
Stein sighed so deeply that it seemed to suffocate him, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Oh, suspicion!” he cried—“suspicion, which makes the most confident heart believe treason to be possible. Infamous suspicion, the fruit of bad instincts and wicked insinuations! For a moment this monster had vanquished my soul, and now I dare no more look at Maria without being ashamed of myself.”
Stein was at last about to depart when a door, which communicated with the landing-place where he was, opened. This door, when opened, let forth the sound of glasses clashing, joyous songs, and bursts of laughter.
A servant who came out from within, his hands full of empty bottles, moved to make room for Stein to pass, whose appearance and costume inspired him with a sort of respect.
“Enter,” he said to him, “although you come late, and they have already supped;” and he descended without saying any thing more.
Stein found himself in a little antechamber which communicated with the adjoining room: he approached. Hardly had his look penetrated into the interior of this room than he stopped motionless, struck with stupor—Maria was there!
What must he have suffered when he saw his wife, with naked shoulders, seated at table on a stool, and having at her feet Pepe Vera, who sang, accompanying himself on the guitar—
Tiene en sus ojos el sol:
Una aurora en su sonrisa,
Y el Paraiso en su amor.”[6]
“Bravo! bravo! Pepe,” cried the company. “Now it is Mariquita’s turn to sing. Come, sing, Mariquita! We are not the gents of yellow gloves and varnished boots, but we have, as well as grand lords, ears to listen. Come, Mariquita, sing; sing, and so that your countrymen can understand you. The gold-laced, embroidered, and decorated world knows only how to sing in French.”
Mariquita took the guitar, which Pepe presented to her on his knees, and sang—
This couplet was received by a storm of vivas, bravos, and applause, which made a concussion among the glasses.
Shame, more than indignation, caused Stein to blush.
“This Pepe was born with a caul,” said one of his companions; “he has more happiness than he wants.”
“I would not change my condition for an empire,” said the toreador.
“But what will the husband say to all this?” asked a picador, the oldest in the band.
“The husband!” replied Pepe, “I only know him to render him my duty. Pepe Vera associates only with valiant bull-fighters.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE day following these events, the duke was seated in his library, absorbed by his thoughts.
The door slowly opened, and near the window appeared the pretty ringleted head of a lovely child.
“Papa Carlos,” he said, “are you alone? may I enter?”
“Since when, my angel, have you had need of permission to enter here?”
“Since you have ceased to love me so much,” replied the lovely creature, seating himself on his father’s knees. “Do you know, papa, I am very wise. I study well with Don Frederico, and I already speak German.”
“Really!”
“I know already how to say, ‘God bless my good father and my good mother:’ I say, ‘Gott segne meinen guten Vater und meine liebe Mutter!’ Now kiss me. But,” said he suddenly, “I forgot to tell you that Don Frederico wishes to speak to you.”
“Don Frederico?” asked the duke in surprise.
“Yes, papa.”
“Go, and ask him to come in, my son; his time is precious, and he must not lose it.”
The duke folded the paper on which he had traced some lines, and Stein entered.
“My lord duke,” he said, “I will no doubt astonish you: I come to take your orders, to thank you for all your goodness, and to announce to you my immediate departure.”
“Your departure?” said the duke, overcome with astonishment.
“Yes, señor, to-day.”
“And Maria?”
“She does not go with me.”
“Come, Don Frederico, this must be a piece of fun; this cannot be.”
“That which cannot be, duke, is that I remain an instant longer in Madrid.”
“What motive?”
“Do not ask me, I cannot tell you.”
“I cannot imagine even the motive of such folly.”
“The motive must be very powerful to oblige me to adopt so extreme a course.”
“But, Stein, my friend, once more, what is the motive?”
“It cannot be spoken. And the silence which I impose on myself is very painful to me, for I deprive myself of the only consolation that remains: to open my heart to a noble and generous man, who has held out to me his powerful hand, and has deigned to call me his friend.”
“And where do you go?”
“To America.”
“It is impossible, Stein; I tell you again, it is impossible.” The duke rose in an agitated state. “There is nothing in the world,” he continued, “that can oblige you to abandon your wife, to separate yourself from your friends, and to quit your patients, of whom I am one. You have then ambition? Are you then promised great advantages in America?”
Stein smiled bitterly.
“Advantages, my lord duke! Has not fortune disappointed all these hopes of your poor fellow-traveller?”
“You confound me, Stein. Is it a caprice—a sudden thought—an act of folly?”
Stein was silent.
“In any case, Don Frederico, it is ungrateful.”
These bitter, and at the same time affectionate words, caused Stein the utmost emotion. He covered his face with both hands, and his long-repressed grief burst forth in sobs.
The duke approached him.
“Don Frederico,” said he to him, “there is no indiscretion in confiding one’s griefs to a friend. In the grave circumstances of life, every thing obliges those who suffer to receive the good counsel of those who are interested in their happiness. Speak to me, my friend, open your heart to me. You are too much agitated at this moment to act with coolness. Your reason is too much troubled to allow you to be directed wisely. Let us sit down. Listen to me: let me guide you in circumstances which appear to me grave, imperious, and receive my advice as I would receive yours under like circumstances.”
Stein was vanquished. He took a seat near to the duke, and both remained for a long time silent. Stein broke through it at last.
“My lord duke,” said he, “what would you do if the duchess preferred another man?—if she practised infidelity towards you?”
“Doctor! this question—”
“Answer me!” supplicated Stein, a prey to the most intense anxiety.
“By heaven! both should die by my hand.”
Stein bowed his head.
“I,” said he, “I will not kill them. I will die.”
The duke began to suspect the truth, and an involuntary trembling shook his limbs.
“Maria?” cried he.
“Maria,” said Stein, without raising his head, as if the infamy of his wife pressed on him with all its weight.
“You surprised them?” asked the duke, scarcely able to articulate these words, his voice was so stifled with indignation.
“In a veritable orgie, as gross as licentious: in an atmosphere of wine and tobacco, and where Pepe Vera, the matador, boasted of being her lover. O Maria! Maria!” he continued, letting his head fall on his hands.
The duke, like all energetic men, had great command over himself; he was immediately calm, and replied with but one word to Stein—
“Go!”
Stein rose, pressed in his hands those of the duke. He desired to speak, but his sobs prevented.
The duke opened his arms.
“Courage, Stein,” he said to him, “and to a happier meeting.”
“Good-by, and—forever,” murmured Stein.
And he departed.
The duke, now quite alone, walked about for a long time. As he calmed down from the agitation which Stein’s revelation had caused him, a smile of contempt played on his lips, for he was not one of those men who, possessed of those gross desires for which the misconduct of women, far from being a motive of repulsion, serve on the contrary to stimulate their brutal appetites. His character, full of elevation and nobleness, could not admit of love joined to contempt. The woman, whom he had sang in verse, who had fascinated him in his dreams, had become completely indifferent to him.
“And I,” he said to himself, “I who adored her as one adores an ideal being which he has created; I who honored her as virtue is honored, and who respected her as one respects the wife of a friend! I, who blindly absorbed by her, estranged myself from the noble woman who was my first and my only love, the pure and chaste mother of my children—my Leonore, who has so much suffered, without ever a complaint escaping from her lips!—”
By a sudden movement, yielding to the powerful influence of these last reflections, the duke left his library, and went to the apartment of his wife. On arriving near the saloon where the duchess was accustomed to remain during the day, he heard his name pronounced; he stopped.
“Then the duke has become invisible?” said a voice. “It is now fifteen days since I arrived in Madrid, and my dear nephew has not deigned to come and see me yet, and I have seen him nowhere.”
“My aunt,” replied the duchess, “he is no doubt ignorant of your arrival.”
“Ignorant of the arrival in Madrid of the Marchioness Gutibamba! It is impossible! He would be the only person of the court who knew not of it. I will tell you, besides, you have had time to inform him of it.”
“That is true, my aunt, I am culpable for having forgotten it.”
“But that is not astonishing,” said the voice. “What pleasure can he find in our society, and that of persons of his rank, he who only frequents actresses?”
“It is false!” replied the duchess.
“Are you blind, or consenting?” said the marchioness exasperated.
“What I would never consent to is this calumny, which is at once an insult to my husband, here, in his house, and to his wife.”
“It would be wiser,” continued the voice, angrily, “to prevent the duke, your husband, from giving credit by his conduct to the thousand scandals he has given birth to in Madrid, than to defend him, and driving away from your house your best friends with your ungracious answers—dictated, without doubt, by your confessor.”
“My aunt, it will be also wiser to consult your own as to the language you ought to hold to a married woman, who is your niece.”
“’Tis well,” said the Gutibamba; “your reserved character, austere and gloomy, has already lost you the love and the heart of your husband: it will finish by your losing the affection of your friends.”
And the Marchioness de Gutibamba departed, enchanted with her peroration.
Leonore remained seated on the sofa, her head bowed, and her face bathed in tears long suppressed.
Suddenly she uttered a cry—she was in the arms of her husband. She still wept, but these tears were sweet; she comprehended that this man, always frank and loyal, returned her love, a love which no one could henceforth dispute.
“My Leonore, can you, will you pardon me?” asked the duke on his knees before his wife, who put both her hands on the duke’s mouth, and said to him—
“Would you disturb the happiness of the present in calling back the memories of the past?”
“I wish that you know my faults, which the world has judged too severely; I wish to justify myself and repent.”
“And I, I wish to make a compact with you,” interrupted the duchess; “never speak to me of your faults, and I will never speak to you of my sufferings.”
Angel entered at that moment.
“Mamma weeps! mamma weeps!” he cried, sobbing.
“No, my child,” replied the duchess; “I weep for joy.”
“And why?” asked the child, whose smile had already succeeded to his tears.
“Because that, to-morrow, certainly,” said the duke, taking him in his arms, “we depart for our country-seat in Andalusia, which your mother desires to visit.”
Angel gave vent to a cry of pleasure, and, casting his arms around the necks of the duke and the duchess, he drew their heads together, and covered them with kisses.
The Marquis of Elda entered, and became a witness of this charming family tableau.
“Papa Marquis,” said the child, “to-morrow we all depart.”
“Truly?” asked the marquis of his daughter.
“Yes, my father, and our happiness will be complete if you come with us.”
“My father,” said the duke, “can you refuse any thing to your daughter, who would be a saint, if she were not an angel?”
The marquis looked at his daughter, whose face was radiant with happiness; then at the duke’s, whose ecstasy was visible. A sweet smile illuminated his countenance, naturally austere, and, taking the hand of the duke, he said to him—
“Since I am necessary to complete your happiness, count on me.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE state of the Gaviota, already ill before she went to take supper with Pepe Vera, was made sensibly worse, and on the morrow she was seized with a violent fever.
“Marina,” she said to her maid, after an agitated sleep, “call my husband; I do not feel well.”
“The señor has not come in,” replied Marina.
“He has remained to attend some sick person. So much the better; he would have prescribed for me a dose of physic, which I abhor.”
“You are very hoarse, señora.”
“Yes, ’tis true. I require care. I will remain at home to-day. If the duke calls, tell him I sleep. I do not wish to see anybody. My head is on fire.”
“And if some one presents himself at the door privately?”
“If it be Pepe Vera, you can let him come in: I have something to say to him.”
The servant left; but she returned immediately.
“Señora,” she said, “here is a letter which the señor, my master, has sent to you by Nicolas.”
“Go along with your letter; there is no light to read here, and I wish to sleep. What is it he says: ‘The path where duty calls him.’ What does this communication mean? Leave the letter on the round table, and go away at once.”
Marina a few moments after again entered.
“You here again?” groaned the Gaviota.
“It is because the señor Pepe Vera wishes to see you.”
“Let him enter.”
Pepe Vera entered without ceremony, opened the blinds, threw himself on a chair, without abandoning his cigarette, and gazed at Maria, whose inflamed cheeks and swollen eyes indicated a serious illness.
“How beautiful you are!” he said to her “and your husband?”
“He has gone out.”
“So much the better! and may he follow his path like the wandering Jew until the last day. I come, Mariquita, on my way to visit the bull destined for the course this afternoon. They will give this corrida to annoy me. There is one bull which they call Medianoche (midnight), who has already killed a man in the pasture.”
“Do you wish to frighten me, and render me still more ill? Close the blinds, I cannot stand this glare of light.”
“Nonsense!” replied Pepe. “Pure childishness! the duke is not here, my dear, so that you might fear that too much light may glare on you; nor your mata sanos of a husband, to dread a draft of air on his beloved. One inhales here the infernal odors of musk, lavender, and all the stench of perfumery; these are the drugs which make you ill. Let the air into your room, that will do you good. Tell me, my dear, do you go this evening to the corrida?”
“I am perhaps in a state to go!” replied Maria. “Shut that window, Pepe, I pray you; the cold and the light make me ill.”
Pepe arose, and threw the window wide open.
“That which makes you ill, is affectation. You moan too much for such a trifle. Do they not tell you, you are about rendering up your soul? Señora Princess, I go to order your coffin, and afterwards to kill Medianoche, in honor of Lucia del Salto, who, gracias á Dios, cannot but be more amiable.”
“Still this woman!” screamed Maria. “This woman, who is going off with an Englishman! Pepe, you will not do as you say. It would be infamous!”
“Do you know what would be an infamy?” said Pepe, placing himself in front of the Gaviota; “it would be, when I go to risk my life, that you, in lieu of sustaining my courage by your presence, remain at home to receive the duke freely.”
“Always the same fear! Will it not content you to be concealed here in my alcove, and act as a spy upon me, and to be convinced with your own eyes that there exists nothing between the duke and me? Do you not know that that which pleases him in me is only my voice, and not my person? As to me, you know too well—”
“What I do know is, that you fear me; and, by the blood of Christ! you have reason to fear me. But God only knows what may happen if I leave you alone, and certain not to be surprised by me. I have faith in no woman, not even my mother.”
“I have fear? I?” said Maria, “I have fear?”
“But do you believe myself so blind,” interrupted Pepe, “as not to see what is passing? Do I not know, from a good source, that you put on a good face before the duke, because you have got it in your head to obtain for your imbecile husband the position of surgeon to the queen.”
“’Tis a lie!” cried Maria.
“Maria, Pepe Vera does not mistake bladders for lanterns. Know that I understand as well the ruses of the rude bull of the mountains as those of the less ferocious bull of the plains.”
Maria began to weep.
“Come!” replied Pepe, “dry your tears, the refugium peccatorum of women. You know the proverb which says, ‘Make a woman weep, and you vanquish her;’ but, my beautiful, there is another proverb, ‘Confide not either in the barking of dogs, or in the tears of women.’ Keep your tears for the theatre; here we do not play comedy. Look well to yourself. If you deceive me, you make me incur the danger of death; I do not prove my love by the recipes of the apothecary, nor by dollars. I am not satisfied with grimaces, I must have acts. If you do not come this afternoon to the bull-fight you will repent of it.”
And Pepe Vera went away, without even saying á Dios to his mistress. He was at that moment borne down by two opposite feelings which required iron nerves to conceal them, as he did, under appearances the most tranquil, under a countenance the most calm, and the most perfect indifference.
He had studied the bulls he was about to fight with; never had he seen any so ferocious. One of them strangely preoccupied him; as often happens to men of his profession, who, without caring for the other bulls, believe themselves saved if they can conquer the one which causes their anxiety. Besides, he was jealous. Jealous! he who knew only how to vanquish, and be cheered by bravos. He was told that they mocked him, and in a few hours he went to find himself between life and death, between love and treason. At least he believed so.
When he had quitted Maria, she tore the lace trimmings of her bed, unjustly scolded Marina, and shed abundance of tears. Then she dressed herself, called one of her maids, and went with her to the bull-fight, where she seated herself in the box which Pepe had reserved for her.
The noise and the heat increased her fever. Her cheeks, ordinarily pale, were inflamed, and a feverish ardor shone in her large black eyes. Anger, indignation, jealousy, offended pride, terror, anxiety, physical pain, combined in vain to force a complaint, even a sigh, from that mouth closed like a tomb. Pepe Vera perceived her: he smiled; but his smile in no way moved the Gaviota, who, under her icy countenance, swore to revenge her wounded vanity.
One bull had already bitten the dust under the blow of another toreador. This bull had been good: he had been well fought.
The trumpet again sounded. The toril[8] opened its narrow and sombre door, and a bull, black as night, dashed into the arena.
“It is Medianoche!” cried the crowd.
Medianoche was the bull of the corrida; that is to say, the king of the fête.
Medianoche was in no way like an ordinary bull, who at once seeks his liberty, his fields, and his deserts. He would, before every thing, show them they were not playing with a contemptible enemy; he would revenge himself, and punish. At the noise made by the cries of the crowd, he stopped suddenly.
There is not the least doubt of the bull being a stupid animal. Nevertheless, whether it be the sharp anger, or intelligence the most rebellious, whether it be that he has the faculty to render clear instincts the most blind; it is the fact that some bulls can divine and baffle the most secret ruses of the course. The picadores attracted, at first, the attention of the bull. He charged the one he found nearest to him, and felled him to the earth; he did the same with the second, without leaving the spot, without the lance being able to arrest him, and which inflicted but a slight wound. The third picador shared the fate of his comrades.
Medianoche, his horns and front bloody, raised his head towards the seats whence came cries of admiration at such bravery.
The chulos conveyed the picadores outside the arena. One of them had a broken leg; they took him to the infirmary, and the other two changed their horses.
A new picador replaced the wounded, and while the chulos occupied the attention of the bull, the three picadores resumed their places, their lances in rest.
The bull divided them, and after a combat of two minutes all three were overthrown. One had fainted from having his head cut open; the furious animal attacked the horse, whose lacerated body served as a shield to the unfortunate cavalier.
There was then a moment of profound stupefaction. The chulos searched in vain, at the risk of their lives, to turn aside Medianoche, who appeared to have a thirst for blood, and quenched his rage upon his victim.
At this terrible moment a chulo rushed towards the animal, and covered his head with his cloak. His success was of short duration.
The bull disengaged himself promptly; he made the aggressor fly, and pursued him; but, in his blind fury, he passed him; the chulo had thrown himself on the ground. When the animal suddenly turned round, for he was one of those who never abandon their prey, the nimble chulo had already risen, and leaped the barrier amid the acclamations of the enthusiastic crowd for so much courage and agility.
All this had passed with the rapidity of light. The heroic devotion with which the torreros aid and defend each other, is the only thing really noble and beautiful displayed in these cruel, immoral, inhuman fêtes, which are a real anachronism in our times, so much vaunted as an age of light.
The bull, full of the pride of triumph, walked about as master of the arena. A sentiment of terror pervaded all the spectators.
Various opinions were expressed. Some wished that the cabestro[9] be let into the arena, to lead out the formidable animal, as much to avoid new misfortunes as to preserve the propagation of his valiant race. They sometimes have recourse to this measure; but it frequently happens that the bull withdrawn does not survive the inflammation of blood which had provoked the fight. Others insisted that his tendons be cut, thus killing the bull easily. Unfortunately the greatest number cried out that it would be a crime not to see so beautiful a bull killed according to all the rules of art.
The alcalde did not know which party to side with. To preside over a bull-fight is not an easy thing.
At last, that which happens in all similar cases occurred in this: victory was with those who cried the loudest, and it was decided that the powerful and terrible Medianoche should die according to rule, and in possession of all his means of defence.
Pepe Vera then appeared in the arena, armed for the combat.
He saluted the authorities, placed himself before Maria, and offered her the brindo—the honor of the bull. He was pale.
Maria, her countenance on fire, her eyes darting from their sockets, breathed with difficulty. Her body bent forward, her nails forced into the velvet cushions of her box, contemplated this young man, so beautiful, so calm before death, and whom she loved. She felt a power in his love which subjugated her, which made her tremble and weep; because that this brutal and tyrannical passion, this exchange of profound affection, impassioned and exclusive, was the love which she felt: as with certain men of a special organization, who require in place of sweet liqueurs and fine wines the powerful excitement of alcoholic drinks.
Everywhere reigned the most profound silence. A gloomy presentiment seemed to agitate every soul. Many arose and left the place.
The bull himself, now in the middle of the arena, appeared valiant: he proudly defied his adversary.
Pepe Vera chose the spot which seemed to him the most favorable, with his habitual calm and self-possessed manner; and designated it to the chulos, by pointing with his finger.
“Here!” he said to them.
The chulos sprang out like rockets in a display of fireworks; the bull had not for an instant the idea of pursuing them. They disappeared. Medianoche found himself face to face with the matador.
This situation did not last long. The bull precipitated himself with a rapidity so sudden, that Pepe had not time to put himself on guard. All he could do was to dodge the first attack of his adversary. But the animal, contrary to the habits of those of his species, took a sudden spring, and, turning suddenly, he came like a clap of thunder on the matador, caught him on his horns, furiously shook his head, and threw at a distance from him the body of Pepe Vera, which fell like an inert mass upon the ground of the arena.
A cry, such as the imagination of Dante alone could conceive, broke forth from a thousand human breasts, a cry profound, mournful, prolonged, and terrific.
The picadores rushed towards the bull to prevent his returning to his victim. The chulos also surrounded him.
“The medias lunas! the medias lunas!” (long partisans by which sometimes the tendons are cut) cried the crowd.
The alcalde repeated the cry of the crowd.
Then were seen to appear these terrible weapons, and soon Medianoche had his tendons cut; he was red with rage and with pain.
At last he fell under the ignoble poniard of the horse-killer.
The chulos raised up the body of Pepe Vera.
“Dead!”
Such was the cry which escaped from the lips of the group of chulos; and which, passing from mouth to mouth throughout the vast amphitheatre, brought mourning to all hearts.
Fifteen days had fled since this fatal bull-fight. In a bedchamber, from which the luxurious furniture had disappeared, on an elegant bed, but whose furniture was soiled and torn, was lying a young woman, pale, meagre, and broken down.
Nobody was near her.
This woman seemed to have awakened from a long sleep; she seated herself on her bed, let her astonished looks ramble around the chamber, and resting her forehead on her hands, sought to collect her ideas.
“Marina,” she called in a voice harsh and feeble.
A woman entered; it was not Marina. It was an old woman bringing in a beverage she had prepared.
The invalid gazed on her attentively.
“I know that face!” she said, surprised.
“It is possible, my sister,” replied the woman with sweetness; “we render our services equally to the rich and to the poor.”
“But where is Marina?”
“She ran off with the servant, carrying with them all they could take.”
“And my husband?”
“He has gone away. No one knows where he has gone to.”
“My God, my God! And the duke? You ought to know him, for it was at his house I believe I saw you.”
“At the Duchess of Almanzas? Indeed, this lady sometimes commissioned me to distribute her charities. She has departed for Andalusia, with all her family, and her husband.”
“Thus, I am alone, abandoned by all,” cried the invalid; “but the recollections of the past come back in a crowd on my memory.”
“Am I not here?” said the good sister of charity, entwining her arms around Maria; “If they had let me know sooner, your present condition would have been less grave.”
A hoarse cry escaped from the breast of the Gaviota.
“Pepe! The bull! Medianoche! Pepe! Dead! Ah!”
And she fell back on her pillow broken-hearted.
CHAPTER XXIX.
SIX months after, the Countess de Algar was in her saloon with the marchioness, her mother, occupied in putting a ribbon on her son’s straw hat, when General Santa-Maria entered.
“See, general, how well a straw hat becomes a boy at that age.”
“You spoil this child.”
“What matters it?” said the marchioness. “Do not we all spoil our children, who nevertheless become serious men? Our mother spoilt you also, my brother, and that did not prevent you from becoming what you are.”
“Mamma,” said the child, “wilt thou give me a biscuit?”
“What is this?” cried the general. “Your child tutear’s you? You adopt then, after the French fashion, this te and tu, which corrupts our manners. The grandees of Spain formerly obliged their children to call them ‘excellency.’ It was in the good old time. The tutear, in imitation of the French tutoies, makes children lose the respect they owe to their parents.”
“Eh! general—this innocent creature! Can he distinguish between thou and you?”
“It is taught him.”
“I acknowledge that my children tutear me; and if I had done the same to my mother, I had not less respected nor less loved her.”
“You have always been a good daughter; but the exception proves nothing.”
“General, in spite of your severity, your countenance seems joyous.”
“It is because I have a good piece of news to announce to you. The corvette Iberia, from Havana, has arrived at Cadiz, and to-morrow morning, most probably, we will embrace Raphael. He is fortunate, this Raphael! Hardly had he written us that he desired to revisit Spain, when a magnificent occasion presents itself, and he comes home charged with important dispatches confided to him by the captain-general of Cuba.”
The marchioness and the countess had scarcely time to rejoice at this good news, and to give expression to their happiness, when the door opened, and Raphael threw himself into their arms.
“How happy I am again to see you, my good, dear Raphael!” said the countess to him.
“Jesus!” added the marchioness, “thanks to our lady of Carmen, you are here returned to us. But what idea have you had, you who are rich, to travel by sea, as if it were but a river? I bet you have been sea-sick.”
“That is the least of it; it is nothing but an unpleasant voyage, and I have suffered more from delay and my uneasiness for those I love. I do not know if it be because Spain is a good mother, or because we Spaniards are good sons, but we cannot live far away from our country.”
“It is for both reasons, my dear nephew; it is for both,” repeated the general with ardent satisfaction.
“Cuba is a rich country, is it not, Raphael?” demanded the countess.
“Yes, cousin. Cuba is rich, and it knows how to be so, like a great lady, who has always been one, without ostentation, and parading everywhere its benefits.”
“And the women, do they please you?”
“As a general rule, all women please me: the young, because they are so; the old, because they have been so; and the little girls, because they will be so.”
“Do not generalize so; be more precise.”
“Cousin, the Cuban ladies are charming feminine lazzaroni, covered with muslins and lace, and whose little satin shoes are useless ornaments for the little feet they are destined for, as I have never seen an Havana lady on foot. They speak like nightingale’s singing, live on sugar like bees, and smoke like the chimneys of a steamboat. Their eyes are poems, and their hearts mirrors, without tin-foil. The doleful drama is not written for this country, where the women pass their life lying in a hammock balanced amidst flowers, and fanned by their slaves with fans fringed with flowers of a thousand colors.”
“Do you know that public rumor announces your marriage?”
“Dame Rumor, my dear Gracia, arrogates to herself the royal buffooneries of the olden time. Like them, she tells all that passes in her head without inquiry into the truth. But public rumor has told a lie.”
“They add, that your future wife brings you a fortune of two millions of duros.”
Raphael burst into a fit of laughter.
“Indeed, I remember that the captain-general wished to make me indorse this bill of exchange.”
“And who was to be my future cousin?”
“She was ugly as mortal sin: her left shoulder approached too conspicuously the ear on the same side, while the right shoulder was separated from the ear, its neighbor, by a distance too marked. I therefore refused the indorsement.”
“You were wrong,” said the countess, “above all, knowing that—” She did not finish. She had seen pass over the frank and open countenance of her cousin the expression of a bitter recollection.
“Is she happy?” he demanded.
“As much as one can be in this world. She lives very retired, since above all she expects soon to be a mother.”
“And he?”
“Entirely changed, since the marriage. He is a model of a husband. The family have received him as a returned prodigal son.”
“And Eloisita?”
“Hers is a lamentable history. She secretly espoused a French adventurer, who called himself cousin of the Prince of Rohan, coadjutor of Alexander Dumas, and sent by the Baron Taylor to purchase artistic curiosities, and who, unfortunately, is called Abelard. She saw in the name of her beloved and in her own the decree of destiny commanding their union; and in this man, at the same time literary, artistic, and of princely family, she believed she saw the ideal being who had appeared to her in her beautiful dreams of gold, and a happy future. She regarded her parents, who opposed this union, as the tyrants of a melodrama, of ideas retrograde, and filled with obscurity.”
“And of Spainishism,” added the general, ironically. “And the learned señorita, nourished by novels and poetic flowers, united herself to this grand swindler, already twice married, as we learned later. After the lapse of some months, after having dissipated the money she had given him, he abandoned her at Valence, where her unfortunate father went to seek her, and to take her back, dishonored, but neither married, nor widow, nor maid. You see, my nephew, to what leads this mad love of strangerism.”
“And our A. Polo, our eternal point of exclamation, what has become of him?”
“He has become a political man,” replied Gracia.
“I know it,” replied Raphael; “I know also that he has written an ode against the throne, under the pseudo name of Tyranny.”
“Poor tyranny,” said the general, “all the world make fagots of the fallen tree.”
“I know, besides,” pursued Raphael, “that he wrote another poem against Prejudice, in which he comprehended the fatal presage of the number thirteen, the infallibility of the Pope, the upsetting of a salt-cellar, and conjugal fidelity. If I do not cite the text, I cite at least the spirit of this chef-d’œuvre which public opinion will class among—”
“Among?”
“We will see, when they have destroyed this society, with what they will replace it.”
“I know indeed that our A. Polo has composed a satire (he felt himself carried towards this point, and for a long time he has felt growing on his forehead the horns of Marsias), a satire, I say, he declares it to be an act of hypocrisy, all claims of tithes, or the rights of convents.”
“Eh! Well, my dear nephew,” said the general, “these lucubrations will give him sufficient merit to be received in an opposition journal.”
“I understand that much, general, and I can imagine what will happen; it is a comedy played every day: he made of his pen the jaw-bone of an ass, and, armed with this jaw-bone, he will bravely attack the Philistines of power.”
“You have been a good prophet,” affirmed the general; “I do not know how he will get on. But at present he is a personage; he has money, he gives the ton, he is strong.”
“And the duke, will I meet him at Madrid?”
“No, but you may see him, on your way, at Cordoval, where he is at this moment with his family.”
“The duke has finished by following my advice,” said the general; “he has abandoned public life. Everybody of slight importance ought to-day, like Achilles, to retire within their tents.”
“But, my uncle, is it then the fashion to retire?”
“They say that the duke,” interrupted the countess, “is entirely devoted to literature. He writes for the theatre.”
“I bet that the title of his first piece will be, ‘The goat returns always to the mountain,’ ” said Raphael, in the ear of his cousin, alluding to the loves of Maria and Pepe Vera, which everybody knew.
“Hold your tongue, Raphael,” said the countess, “we ought to act with our friends as the sons of Noah did with their father.”
“And Marisalada, has she mounted to the capitol in a chariot of gold, drawn by her fanatical admirers?”
“She has lost her voice, caused by a severe attack of pleurisy; did you not know that?”
“I was so far from knowing it that I bring her magnificent offers from Havana. What does she do?”
“Now, when she can no longer sing,” replied the general, “she will follow without doubt the counsels of the ant: she will learn to dance.”
“But where is she?” repeated Raphael, insisting; “I have a letter to deliver to her from her husband.”
“From her husband!” cried at once the marchioness, the countess, and the general.
“Have you seen him?” demanded the marchioness, with interest.
“He embarked in the same vessel with us for Havana. How he was changed! how sad he was! you would not have recognized him. A little time after our arrival he died of yellow fever.”
“He died! poor Stein!” said the countess.
“The death of this good man,” said the general, “will fall entirely on the conscience of this accursed singer.”
“I, who believe myself invulnerable,” replied Raphael, “and without ever having had the epidemic, I went to see him so soon as I learned he was ill. The attack was so violent that I found him almost at his last extremity; always calm, always filled with serene goodness, he thanked me for my visit, and said to me that he was happy in seeing, before he died, a loved face. He asked me for paper and a pen, and, almost dying, he traced some lines which he asked me, as the last request of a dying man, to convey to his wife. The vomiting soon followed, and he died with one hand clasped in those of the priest, the other in mine. I confide to you this letter, my dear Gracia; send it by a trusty man to Villamar, where, I suppose, Marisalada will have retired near to her father. Here is this letter, which I have often read, as one reads a holy hymn.”
The countess opened the paper, and read—