XXXI.
What more do you wish to know?
Miguel staggered like an athlete who receives a blow in the midst of his forehead; but he did not succumb. In the unavoidable obligation upon him of protecting his baby boy, who had lost his mother just as he was beginning to stammer her name, he found strength to live.
His story, far from romantic, becomes even less interesting from this time forward. It is reduced almost entirely to meditations, doubts, hopes, discouragements,—storms such as only rage in the secret depths of the spirit. The story of it can be interesting only to the psychologist. Therefore we will condense this long and wearisome narration.
He devoted his whole life to his son. Work and study, if they did not assuage his grief, sometimes made him forget it, lifting him at the same time to a loftier plane; as years went on, he maintained a deep and serious sadness which left him calm enough for thought. Day nor night did he leave his son. As often as he could, he took him with him to his office; he used to set him down opposite him, so that when he looked up, his eyes might fall upon that little face, in which he sought anxiously to discover lines and features of another that was graven as with a chisel on his very heart. If his friends wanted to make him happy for a moment, they had only to assure him that the little one would in time come to look exactly like his mother. On the other hand, if any one told him that he was going to resemble him, he would stand sad and thoughtful for a long time.
Sometimes, catching from his lips or in his eyes some expression peculiar to Maximina, he would burst out sobbing.
The little innocent creature would then look at him in surprise and dismay, until his father would gather him up into his arms, and kissing him again and again, would say:—
"Blessed child, you know not what you have lost!"
Likewise, many days he would take him to the cemetery and make him kiss after him the stone under which his mother was lying. Oh! if those kisses did not make their way through the marble, and cause the dust of the little maiden of Pasajes to tremble, you may be certain that nothing in this world could ever stir it.
Nor was it only in his boy that he saw his wife's living image. Any great spectacle, any heroic action, any touch of kindness, any work of art, above all, music, brought her suddenly to his imagination, and made the tears spring to his eyes; as though that dear woman, even if she no longer existed, were still united to all that is noble, beautiful, and lofty in this earth. Consequently, he tried to stimulate these emotions as frequently as he could. He cultivated and kindled the religious sentiment, which had often seemed fainting, though never had it died out in his soul; he loved the arts; he clung to the friendship of the good.
As time went on, that same Mendoza, with whom he had not exchanged a word since he had been ruined and gone to live at Chamberí, became minister.
This will certainly surprise no one. Certain premises being granted, the results are sure to follow. As soon as he became minister, he sent Miguel a message, whether through generosity or egotism, we cannot say, asking him to be his private secretary, and at the same time retain his place in the Council of State.
The weak flesh felt like revolting at such a proposition. However, he was able finally to bring it into subjection. Long since, by force of prayer and meditation, he had emancipated himself from the dominion of pride. By means of terrible struggles, his soul had succeeded in breaking the chains that bound him to earthly objects. He had learned and would never forget the sublime truth which will eternally rise above human science, and will be the compendium of all truths,—SELF-NEGATION.
As soon as he set foot on this sacred ground of liberty, his life began to glide away in perfect serenity, in sweet and tranquil repose. In the sea of human passions, in the whirlwind of his own emotions, he had at last the good fortune to find himself, and understand what he was. His only thought thenceforward was to advance further and further along the road of liberty, until the hour of supreme emancipation should come for him. The only and most ardent desire of his life was to be able to love death. Consequently, he employed the healthy and divine power of his imagination in creating another world, new and free, where he lived with his wife in the same sweet communion as of yore, sharing with her his love and his sorrows. When he completed any action of his life, he never failed to ask himself:—
"Would Maximina approve of it?"
Every day he confessed to her and told her the inmost secrets of his soul. And when he had the misfortune to fall into sin, profound grief would take possession of him, and he would think how, on that day, he had departed a little from his wife. In this way, sharing like a divine being in the august privilege of God, he succeeded in attaining a new life, or rather a foretaste of eternal life.
But, as a human being, his soul was many times shaken by the storm of doubt. He suffered the cruel assaults of temptation, and; like the Son of God in the Garden of Gethsemane, endured hours of agony which left deep scars upon his soul and diminished, if they did not entirely destroy, his strength. Let us witness one of them.
After he came out of the Ministerio, or from Congress, Mendoza was in the habit of riding in an open carriage through the Retiro. Miguel accompanied him. After whirling for a while among the throng of carriages the minister would begin to feel drowsy and would drop off to sleep, lulled by the gentle motion of the carriage. Miguel, almost always neglectful of the curious and gay sights of the promenade, would meditate, with his eyes fixed on the sky or on the landscape.
It was a mild afternoon, the mildest and most brilliant that spring had as yet bestowed that year on the citizens of Madrid.
The sun was setting. Through the open window our young secretary saw it descending between the trees over the wide plains of Vallecas, descending majestically till it reached the edge of a cloud, and casting a golden trail over the earth.
Carried away by the train of thought which often took possession of him, he began to speculate upon the time during which this orb had thus been hurtling through space. Toward what mysterious region of heaven, was it taking the earth in its tremendous march? From whence had that immense mass originally sprung? When and how would its light become extinguished?
He thought how its history, long as it seems, is only an instant in the history of Creation. In the numberless worlds which are forever forming and perishing, what an insignificant rôle is played by this poor sun, which is the prime actor for us! Why, then, does it seem to us so great and so beautiful? Who saw, before we were created, that "wake of gold," as it is called by the poets? How many thousand years had it been sweeping across the earth without gilding other heads than those of gigantic saurians, pterodactyls, megalosauruses, and other fearful monsters?
The veil that hides the infinite mysteries of space—will it some day be removed? will there be creatures who will ever understand them?
He spent much time buried in such thoughts, in ecstatic contemplation of the horizons, brought up before him by the frequent and long turns that they took in the carriage. When he came down from these heights, and cast his eyes on the equipages which were gathered in that delectable place, he was given the same impression as though he were looking upon an anthill; and what else was it, except that the ants, instead of working, were riding? By his side there were crowded together a multitude of atomic animals, with their faces fixed on the ground, carried along by other animals whom they had made their slaves. But ants also own slaves. All the masters, and the horses also, appeared to believe that they themselves, and nothing else, constituted the world; and their schemes, their desires, their loves, their restaurants, and their daily allowance of oats, the only and highest ends of creation.
But there among the pedestrians he saw a pale face adorned with a long white beard, with melancholy, dreamy eyes likewise fastened on the skies. As he passed, this face smiled affectionately. Miguel replied, saying, "Good afternoon, Don Ventura."
It was the tenderest and most spontaneous of Spanish poets, the famous Ruiz Aguilera. Then his eyes fell upon Mendoza, who was dozing deliciously. He looked at him attentively for a few moments, and suddenly felt inclined to laugh.
"Poor man! he thinks that he is on the pinnacle of glory because he has the disposal for a few months of a few dozen offices, and to this he has consecrated his whole life, all the powers that God has given him. To-morrow this man will die, and he will not have known the love of a tender and innocent wife, nor the enthusiasm awakened in the soul by a heroic action, nor the deep emotion caused by the study of nature, nor the pure delight in contemplating a work of art; he will never have thought, never felt, never loved! Nevertheless, he thinks in good faith that it is his right to swell with pride because a bell rings at the Ministerio when he comes in, and a few unhappy wretches take off their hats before him! How much energy and fawning meanness this ant has had to exercise in order that other ants may greet him respectfully!"
He could not help laughing out loud. Mendoza opened his eyes on hearing him, but being accustomed to these original sallies of his secretary, he instantly closed them again, and once more slumbered.
Miguel, however, went on with his thinking.
"Religion, art, love, heroism, these signs in which I think that I can see the expression of a more elevated nature—may they not also be illusions, like those which this poor devil has, of his own importance? May not the far-off country to which I aspire be a false reflection of my own desires?"
The idea of annihilation came into his mind, and made him tremble.
"If all vanishes at the end like smoke, like a shadow, if the purest emotions of my soul, if my wife's love, if my boy's innocent smile, have the same worth in nature as the hate of the miscreant and the coarse laughter of the vicious; if two beings unite and love only to be separated for an eternity, oh! how gladly would I hate you, infamous universe! If beyond those spaces, beautiful as they are, there is no one capable of compassion, what is the worth of your mighty masses, or your rythmic movements, or your tremendous rivers of light? I, miserable atom, am more noble, because I can love and can feel compassion...."
He remained a few moments lost in suspense, with his eyes fixed on vacancy. A strange depression, such as he had rarely felt, was gradually taking possession of his spirit. In thought he took a rapid survey of his past life, and it appeared to him like a chain of misfortunes; even the pleasures of his youth seemed to him detestable and beneath contempt. In it there was only one delicious and sweet oasis,—the two years of his marriage.
"If all men," he said to himself, "were to look back, they would find it the same; perhaps even worse, because the majority have not been blessed as I have, by Heaven, for a few short moments."
His memory brought up a few friends who had died in the flower of life after cruel sufferings; others, who, weary of struggling against fate, had fallen at last into the depths of misery; he saw the noblest and most intelligent of them filling humble stations, and elevating the low and degraded ones; he remembered his good father, whose last years were embittered by a proud and wilful wife; he remembered his sister, a creature all light and joy, vilely deceived and forever disgraced; he remembered finally that angelic half of his own being snatched from the world when she had just touched her lips to the cup of happiness....
Creation suddenly presented itself before him in a terrible aspect; beings pitilessly devouring each other; the stronger constantly pushing the weaker to the wall—all deceived by the illusion of happiness which is beyond the reach of any, working, suffering for the advantage of other species, and these for still others, and so on to infinity! The world, in fine, appeared to him like an immense fraud, a place of torment for all living beings, more cruel still for those gifted with consciousness; absolute happiness for the All-existent because It is and ever will be: absolute misery for individuals, because they will eternally be created anew to suffer and to die.
Before that terrible picture which he saw in the intensest light, his soul was tormented, and a shudder of horror shook his frame.
"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" his trembling lips repeated again and again, and a wrenching sob which had been gathering for some time in the depths of his breast suddenly burst forth.
The minister opened his eyes; in affright.
"Man alive!" said he, "you spend your life either laughing or crying."
"That is true," replied the secretary, raising his handkerchief to his eyes.
END OF THE NOVEL.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Foolish maiden.
[2] She says Usted está instead of tu estás.
[3] Galicia is the northwestern province of Spain.
[4] Using Usted, contraction for Vuestra merced; literally, your grace.
[5] Brigadier-General Rivera's widow, Miguel's step-mother.
[6] El buen Retiro, a public park and drive in Madrid, formerly the pleasure ground of the Spanish kings.
[7] El reservado del Suizo.
[8] Lady-killers, literally, drivers of cattle.
[9] Hasta mañana, literally, till morning.
[10] Dollars: pesos duros or pesos fuertos is the full expression. It contains twenty reales.
[11] Twenty-five dollars.
[12] Equivalent to Mr. Such-an-one.
[13] Sweetmeats made of flour, sugar, and rose-water.
[14] Academia de Estado Mayor.
[15] De tre manera lo sé ési ... percurador, porcurador, precurador.
[16] Almost corresponding to our vulgar "son of a gun."
[17] Pasacalle; song with guitar accompaniment sung on the street.
[18] Bonita, graciosa, elegante, encantadora.
[19] Tertulia.
[20] All Madrid apartments have a small opening, called ventanilla, in the entrance door.
[21] A word similar in meaning to our "sympathetic," but not quite synonymous; more akin to "congenial."
[22] Lucía Poblacion, la generala of "Riverita," was the lady to whom Miguel, when a young man, had been quite too attentive.
[23] Guindillas, red peppers.
[24] Novillada, bull-driving.
[25] Bull-fighter who uses a long knife.
[26] Little Manuela.
[27] Cabayero for caballero.
[28] Onza de oro, $16.
[29] Seo morral; seo, vulgar for señor.
[30] Señorito de bomba.
[31] A native of Biscay; a Basque.
[32] Santander, known to the sailors as St. Andrew's, is a seaport on the Bay of Biscay; astillero means, originally, a shipyard.
[33] Diminutive of Ana (Anna).
[34] From cervecería, a tavern or alehouse.
[35] Carlos II., el Hechizado, reigned over Spain 1665-1700.
[36] Literally, Enamels and Cameos.
[37] The central square in Madrid.
[38] Rota de la Nunciatura Apostólica, a supreme ecclesiastical court of last appeal in Spain, composed of judges nominated by the king and confirmed by the Pope.
[39] Ayuntamiento, municipal council in Spanish towns.
[40] Diputación provincial, district assembly.
[41] Spanish nickname for an old man.
[42] A kind of pulse much affected by the Spanish.
[43] Chiquirritin, affectionate diminutive of chiquetin, little one.
[44] Civil magistrates, judges or mayors.
| Ea, ea, ea, |
| ¡Qué gallina tan fea! |
| ¡Comó se sube al palo! |
| ¡Cómo se balancea! |
[46] Lyones, in Spanish.
[47] In Spanish, reña, a big rock; a slang expression.
[48] A Spanish weight of twenty-five pounds.
| Perro nuevo y perro viejo, |
| Nunca han hecho buen trabajo. |
Literally: young dog and old dog never play together well.
[50] "Barley Square," formerly famous for its executions.
[51] The ayuntamiento; consisting of alcalde, or mayor, and the regidores, or aldermen.
[52] The collective name of the town or district authorities.
[53] $175.00.
[54] In Spain the estanquillos, where snuff and tobacco are sold, are under special government license.
[55] A skin dressed and lined with pitch, made for carrying wine.
[56] Prima instancia.
[57] The Madrid Ateneo or Athenæum, the literary headquarters of Spain.
[58] Majadero.
[59] The Guipuzcoana, native of the province of Guipúzcoa.
[60] Falua.
[61] Casa de socorro.
[62] $300.00.