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Title: A Wedding Trip

Author: condesa de Emilia Pardo Bazán

Translator: Mary J. Serrano

Release date: April 19, 2017 [eBook #54577]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images available at Google Books)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WEDDING TRIP ***




Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at Google Books)










                            A WEDDING TRIP




                            A WEDDING TRIP

                                  BY

                          EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN

                             TRANSLATED BY

                            MARY J. SERRANO

            TRANSLATOR OF “MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF, THE JOURNAL
                       OF A YOUNG ARTIST,” ETC.

                               NEW YORK

                      CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY

                        104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE

                          COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY

                      CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.

                        _All rights reserved._

                      THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
                             RAHWAY, N. J.




                            A WEDDING TRIP.




CHAPTER I.


That the wedding was not a fashionable one was to be seen at a glance.
The bride and groom, indeed, so far as could be judged from externals,
might mix in the most select society, but the greater number of the
guests--the chorus, so to say--belonged to that portion of the middle
class which merges into and is scarcely to be distinguished from the
mass of the people. Among them were some curious and picturesque groups,
the platform of the railway station at Leon presenting a scene that
would have greatly interested a _genre_ painter.

Just as in the ideal bridal scenes that we see painted on fans, it was
noticeable here that the train of the bride was composed exclusively of
the gentler, that of the bridegroom of the sterner sex. There was also
noticeable a striking difference between the social conditions of the
two parties. The bride’s escort, much the more numerous of the two,
looked like a populous ant-hill. The women, both young and old, wore
the traditional black woolen dress, which, for the women of the lower
classes who have some pretentions to gentility, has almost come to be
the prescribed costume of ceremony; for the people still retain the
privilege of donning gay colored garments on festive and joyous
occasions. Among these human ants were several who were young and
pretty, some of them joyous and excited with thoughts of the wedding,
others lugubrious looking, their eyes red with weeping, thinking of the
approaching parting. They were marshaled by half a dozen duennas of
mature years who, from out the folds of their _manto_, cast around them
on all sides sharp and suspicious glances. The whole troop of female
friends flocked around the newly made bride, manifesting the puerile and
eager curiosity which the spectacle of the supreme situations of life is
apt to awaken in the breasts of the multitude. They devoured with their
eyes the girl they had seen a thousand times before, whose every feature
they knew by heart--the bride who, arrayed in her traveling dress,
seemed to them a different being from the girl they had hitherto known.

The heroine of the occasion might be some eighteen years old; she might
be thought younger, if one judged by the childish expression of her
mouth and the rounded contour of her cheeks, older, judging by the
luxuriant curves of her figure and the exuberant life and vigor revealed
in her whole person. Here were no high and narrow shoulders and
impossible hips such as we see represented in fashion plates, that put
one in mind of a doll stuffed with bran; this was a woman, not of the
conventional type of an ephemeral fashion, but of the eternal type of
the feminine form, such as nature and classic art have designed it.
Perhaps this physical superiority detracted to a certain extent from the
effect of the fanciful traveling dress of the bride, perhaps curves less
rounded, firmer outlines of the arm and neck were required in order to
wear with the necessary ease the semi-masculine dress of maroon-colored
cloth and the coarse straw toque, on whose crown perched, with wings
outspread over a nest formed of feathers, a humming-bird with
irridescent plumage.

It was evident that these adornments of dress were new to the bride, and
that the skirt, gathered and fastened around the waist, and the tight
jacket, which followed closely the lines of the bust, made her feel ill
at ease as a young girl at her first ball feels ill at ease in her
_décolleté_ gown, for in every unaccustomed fashion in dress there is
something immodest for the woman of simple habits. Besides, the mold
was too narrow for the beautiful statue which it inclosed and which
threatened at every moment to burst it, not so much by reason of its
volume as because of the freedom and vigor of its youthful movements.
The race of the strong and robust old man, the father, who stood there
erect, his eyes fastened on his daughter, was not belied in this
splendid specimen of womanhood. The old man, tall, firm and upright as a
telegraph post, and a middle-aged Jesuit of short stature, were the only
men noticeable among the feminine swarm.

The bridegroom was accompanied by some half-dozen friends, and if the
retinue of the bride was the link that joins the middle class to the
people, that of the bridegroom touched on the boundary line, in Spain as
vague as it is extensive, between the middle class and the higher ranks.
A certain air of official gravity, a complexion faded and smoked by the
flare of the gas-jets, an indefinable expression of optimistic
satisfaction and maturity of age, were signs indicative of men who had
reached the summit of human aspirations in those countries which are in
their decline--a government situation. One among them seemed to take
precedence of the rest, by whom he was treated with marked deference.

This group was animated by a noisy joviality restrained by official
decorum; curiosity was rife here too, less open and ingenuous but keener
and more epigrammatic in its expression than among the swarm of the
female friends of the bride. There were whispered conversations,
witticisms of the _café_, accentuated by a gesture of the hand or a push
of the elbow, bursts of laughter quickly suppressed, glances of
intelligence; cigar-ends were thrown on the ground with a martial air,
arms were folded as if they had a tacit understanding with each other.
The gray overcoat of the groom was noticeable among the black coats, and
his tall figure dominated the figures of the men around him. Half a
century, less a lustrum, successfully combated by the skill of the
tailor and the arts of the toilet, shoulders that stooped in spite of
their owner’s efforts to hold them erect, a countenance against whose
pallor, suggestive of habitual late hours, were defined, sharply as
lines drawn with pen and ink, the pointed ends of the mustache, hair
whose scantiness was apparent even under the smooth brim of the
ash-colored felt hat, skin wrinkled and pursy under the eyes, eyelids of
a leaden hue, eyes lusterless and dull but a carriage still graceful,
and the carefully preserved remains of former good looks--such was the
picture presented by the bridegroom. Perhaps the very elegance of his
dress served to make all the more evident the ravages of time; the long
overcoat was a trifle too tight for the waist, less slender than it had
once been, the felt hat, jauntily tipped to one side, called loudly for
the smooth cheeks and temples of youth. But all this notwithstanding,
among that assemblage of vulgar provincial figures the figure of the
bridegroom had a certain air of courtliness, the ease of a man
accustomed to the commodious and comfortable life of great cities, and
the dash of one who knows no scruples and stops at nothing when
self-interest is in question. He showed himself superior to the group of
his friends even in the good-humored reserve with which he received the
innuendos and whispered jests, so appropriate to the _bourgeois_
character of the wedding.

The engine now announced by a shrill whistle or two the approaching
departure of the train; the hurry and movement on the platform increased
and the floor trembled under the weight of the baggage-laden barrows.
The warning cries of the officials were at last heard. Up to this time
the wedding party had been conversing in groups in low and confidential
tones; the approaching crisis seemed to reanimate them, to break the
spell as it were, transforming the scene in an instant. The bride ran
to her father with open arms, and the old man and the young girl clasped
each other in a long embrace--the hearty embrace of the people in which
the bones crack and the breathing is impeded. From the lips of both,
almost simultaneously, came rapid phrases in quick succession.

“Be sure and write to me every day, eh? Take care not to drink water
when you are perspiring. Your husband has money--ask more if that should
run out.”

“Don’t worry, father. I will do all in my power to come back soon. Take
care of yourself, for Heaven’s sake--take care of your asthma. Go once
in a while to see Señor de Rada. If you should fall ill, send me a
telegram on the instant. On your word of honor?”

Then followed the hugs and hearty kisses, the sobs and snifflings of the
retinue of the bride, and the last commissions, the last good-wishes.

“May you be as happy as the patriarchs of old.”

“San Rafael be with you, child.”

“Lucky girl that you are! To be in France without as much as stirring
from your seat!”

“Don’t forget my wrap. Are the measures in the trunk? Will you be sure
not to mistake the threads?”

“Take care not to get open-work embroidery--that is to be had here.”

“Open wide those big eyes of yours and look about you, so that when you
come back you will be able to give us an account of all that you have
seen.”

“Father Urtazu,” said the bride, approaching the Jesuit already
mentioned, and taking hold of his hand, on which she pressed her lips,
letting fall on it at the same time two crystalline tears, “pray for
me.”

And drawing closer to him, she added, in a low voice:

“If anything should happen to papa you will let me know at once, will
you not? I will send you our address at every place where we may make
any stay. Take care of him for me. Promise me to go occasionally to see
how he is getting on. He will be so lonely.”

The Jesuit raised his head and fixed on the young girl his eyes, that
squinted slightly, as is apt to be the case with the eyes of persons
accustomed to concentrate their gaze; then, with the vague smile
characteristic of those given to meditation, and in the confidential
tone befitting the occasion:

“Go in peace,” he answered, “and God our Lord be with you, for He is a
safe companion. I have said the Itinerary for you that we may come back
well and happy. Bear in mind what I have told you, little one; we are
now, so to speak, a dignified married lady, and although we think our
path is going to be strewn with roses and that everything is to be honey
and sweetness in our new state, and that we are going out into the world
to throw care to the winds and to enjoy ourselves--be on your guard! be
on your guard! From the quarter where we least expect it, trouble may
come, and we may have annoyances and trials and sufferings to endure
that we knew nothing about when we were children. It will not do to be
foolish, then, remember. We know that above there, directing the shining
stars in their course, is the only One who can understand us and console
us when He thinks proper to do so. Listen, instead of filling your
trunks with finery, fill them with patience, child, fill them with
patience. That is more useful than either arnica or plasters. If He who
was so great, had need of it to help Him to bear the cross, you who are
so little----”

The homily might have lasted until now, accompanied and emphasized from
time to time by little slaps on the shoulder, had it not been
interrupted by the shock, rude as reality, of the train getting in
motion. There was a momentary confusion. The groom hastened to take
leave of everybody with a certain cordial familiarity in which the
experienced eye could detect a tinge of affectation and patronizing
condescension. He threw his right arm around his father-in-law, placing
his left hand, covered with a well-fitting yellow castor glove, on the
old man’s shoulder.

“Write to me if the child should fall ill,” entreated the latter with
fatherly anxiety, his eyes filling with tears.

“Have no fear, Señor Joaquin. Come, come, you must not give way like
this. There is no illness to be feared there. Good-by, Mendoya; good-by,
Santián. Thanks! thanks! Señor Governor, on my return I shall claim
those bottles of Pedro Jimenez. Don’t pretend you have forgotten them!
Lucía, you had better get in now, the train will start immediately and
ladies cannot----”

And with a polite gesture he assisted the bride to mount the steps,
lifting her lightly by the waist. He then sprang up himself, scarcely
touching the step, after throwing away his half-smoked cigar. The iron
monster was already in motion when he entered the compartment and closed
the door behind him. The measured movement gradually grew more rapid
and the entire train passed before the party on the platform, leaving on
their sight a confused whirl of lines, colors, numbers, and rapid
glances from the passengers looking out at every window. For some
moments longer Lucía’s face could be distinguished, agitated and bathed
in tears, the flutter of her handkerchief could be seen, and her voice
heard saying:

“Good-by, papa. Father Urtazu, good-by, good-by. Rosario, Carmen,
adieu.”

Then all was lost in the distance, the course of the scaly serpent could
be traced only by a dark line, then by a blurred trail of thick smoke
that soon also vanished into space. Beyond the platform, now strangely
silent, shone the cloudless sky, of a steely blue, interminable fields
stretched monotonously far into the distance, the rails showed like
wrinkles on the dry face of the earth. A great silence rested upon the
railway station. The wedding party had remained motionless, as if
overwhelmed by the shock of parting. The friends of the bridegroom were
the first to recover themselves and to make a move to depart. They bade
good-by to the father of the bride with hasty hand-shakings and trivial
society phrases, somewhat carelessly worded, as if addressed by a
superior to an inferior, and then, in a body, took the road for the
city, once more indulging in the jests and laughter interrupted by the
departure of the train.

The retinue of the bride, on their side, began to recover themselves
also, and after a sigh or two, after wiping their eyes with their
handkerchiefs, and in some instances even with the back of the hand, the
group of black human ants set itself in motion to leave the platform.
The irresistible force of circumstances drew them back to real life.

The father of the bride, with a shake of his head and an eloquent shrug
of resignation, himself led the way. Beside him walked the Jesuit who
stretched his short stature to its utmost height in order to converse
with his companion, without succeeding, notwithstanding his laudable
efforts, in raising the circle of his tonsure above the athletic
shoulders of the afflicted old man.

“Come, come, Señor Joaquin,” said Father Urtazu, “a fine time you chose
to wear that Good Friday face! One would suppose the child had been
carried off by force or that the marriage was not according to your
taste! Be reasonable. Was it not yourself, unhappy man, who arranged the
match? What is all this grieving about, then?”

“If one could only be certain of the result in all one does,” said
Señor Joaquin, in a choking voice, slowly moving his bull-like neck.

“It is too late for those reflections now. But we were in such
haste--such haste! that I don’t know what those white hairs and all the
years we carry on our shoulders were for. We were just like the little
boys in my class when I promise to tell them a story, and they are ready
to jump out of their skins with impatience. By the faith of Alfonso, one
might have thought you were the bride yourself--no, not that, for the
deuce a hurry the bride was in----”

“Ah, father, what if you were right after all! You wanted to put off the
marriage----”

“Softly, softly, my friend, stop there; I wanted to prevent it. I speak
my mind frankly.”

Señor Joaquin looked more dejected than before.

“By the Constitution!” he cried, in distressed accents, “what a trial
and what a responsibility it is for a father----”

“To have daughters,” ended the Jesuit, with a vague smile, pushing out
his thick lips with a gesture of indulgent disdain; “and worst of all,”
he added, “is to be more obstinate than a mule, if you will pardon me
for saying so, and to think that poor Father Urtazu knows nothing about
anything but his stones, and his stars, and his microscope, and is an
ignoramus and simpleton where real life is concerned.”

“Don’t make me feel any worse than I do already, father. It is trouble
enough not to be able to see Lucía, for I don’t know how long. All that
is wanting now is that the marriage should turn out badly and that she
should be unhappy----”

“Well, well, give up tormenting yourself about it. What is done cannot
be undone. In the matter of marriage only He who is above can tie and
untie, and who knows but that all may turn out well, notwithstanding my
forebodings and my foolish fears. For what am I but a poor blind
creature who can see only what is right before his eyes? Bah! It is the
same with this as with the microscope. You look at a drop of water with
the naked eye and it looks so clear that you want to drink it up. But
you place it under those innocent-looking little lenses and, presto! you
find yourself face to face with all sorts of crawling things and
bacteria dancing a rigadoon inside. In the same way He who dwells above
the clouds up there sees things that to us dunces here below seem so
simple, but which for Him have their meaning. Bah, bah! He will take
care to arrange everything for us, things we could never arrange for
ourselves though we should try never so hard.”

“You are right, our chief trust must be in God,” assented Señor Joaquin,
drawing a heavy sigh from the depths of his capacious chest. “To-night,
with all this worry, the confounded asthma will give me enough to think
of. I find it hard now to draw a breath. I shall sleep, if I sleep at
all, sitting up in bed.”

“Send for that rascal, Rada,--he is very clever,” said the Jesuit,
looking compassionately at the old man’s flushed face and swollen eyes,
lighted by the oblique rays of the autumnal sun.

While the wedding-party defiled with funereal slowness through the
ill-paved streets of Leon, the train hurried on, on, leaving behind the
endless rows of poplars, that looked like a staff of music, the notes of
a pale green traced on the crude red of the plains. Lucía, huddled up in
a corner of the compartment, wept, without bitterness, with a sense of
luxury, rather, with the vehement and uncontrollable grief of girlhood.
The groom was quite conscious that it was his place to say some word, to
show his affection, to sympathize with this first grief, to console it;
but there are certain situations in life in which simple natures display
tact and judgment, but in which the man of the world, the man of
experience, finds himself utterly at a loss what to do. At times a
drachm of heart is worth a ton of talent. Where vain formulas are
ineffectual, feeling, with its spontaneous eloquence, may be
all-powerful. After racking his brains to find some opening to begin a
conversation with his bride, it occurred to the bridegroom to take
advantage of a trivial circumstance.

“Lucía,” he said in a somewhat embarrassed voice, “change your seat, my
child; come over here; the sun falls full on you where you are, and that
is very injurious.”

Lucía rose with the stiffness of an automaton, crossed to the other side
of the compartment, and letting herself fall heavily into her seat,
covered her face again with her delicate handkerchief, and once more
gave vent in sobs to the tender emotions of her youthful breast.

The bridegroom frowned. It was not for nothing that he had spent forty
odd years of existence surrounded by good-humored people of easy
manners, shunning disagreeable and mournful scenes, which produced in
his system an extraordinary amount of nervous disturbance, disgusting
him, as the sublime horror of a tragedy disgusts persons of mediocre
intelligence. The gesture by which he manifested his impatience was
followed by a shrug of the shoulders which said clearly, “Let us give
the squall time to blow over; these tears will exhaust themselves, and
after the storm will come fine weather.” Resolved, then, to wait until
the clouds should clear away, he began a minute examination of his
traveling equipage, informing himself as to whether the buckles of the
shawl strap worked well, and whether his cane and his umbrella were
properly fastened in a bundle with Lucía’s parasol. He also convinced
himself to his satisfaction that a Russian leather satchel with plated
clasps, which he carried at his side, attached to a leather strap slung
across his shoulders, opened and shut easily, carefully replacing the
little steel key of the satchel in his waistcoat pocket afterward.

He then took his railway-guide from one of the pockets of his overcoat
and proceeded to check off with his fore-finger the names of the
stations at which they were to stop on their route.




CHAPTER II.


We have now to learn whose was the breath that kindled the nuptial-torch
on the present occasion.

Señor Joaquin, then called plain Joaquin, had left his native place in
the vigor of early manhood, strong as a bull and untiring in labor as a
domesticated ox. Finding a place in Madrid as porter to a nobleman who
had an ancestral estate in Leon, he became the broker, man of business,
and confidential agent of all the people of repute of his native
province. He looked up lodgings for them, found them a safe warehouse
for their goods and was, in short, the Providence of Astorga. His
undoubted honesty, his punctuality and zeal won for him so good a
reputation that commissions poured in upon him in a constant and steady
stream, and reals, dollars, and doubloons fell like a shower of hail
into his pocket in such abundance, that fifteen years after his arrival
in the capital Joaquin was able to unite himself in the indissoluble
bonds of matrimony with a countrywoman of his own, a maid in the service
of the nobleman’s wife, and the mistress, for a long time past, of the
thoughts of the porter; and, after the marriage, to set up a grocery,
over the door of which was inscribed in golden letters the legend: “The
Leonese. Imported Provisions.” From a broker he then became the business
manager of his compatriots in Madrid; he bought goods for them wholesale
and sold them at retail, and everyone in Madrid who wished to obtain
aromatic chocolate, ground by hand, or biscuits of feathery lightness,
such as only the women of Astorga possess the secret of making, found
themselves obliged to have recourse to him. It became the fashion to
breakfast on the Carácas chocolate and the biscuits of the Leonese. The
magnate, his former master, set the example, giving him his custom, and
the people of rank followed, their appetites awakened by the
old-fashioned present of a dainty worthy of the table of Carlos IV or of
Godoy. And it was worth while to see how Señor Joaquin, the commercial
horizon ever widening before him, gradually came to monopolize all the
national culinary specialties--tender peas from Fuentesauco, rich
sausages from Candelario, hams from Calderas, sweetmeats from
Estremadura, olives from the olive-groves of Seville, honeyed dates from
Almeria, and golden oranges that store up in their rind the sunshine of
Valencia. In this manner and by this unremitting industry Joaquin
accumulated a considerable sum of money, if not with honor, at least
with honesty. But, successful as he had been in acquiring money, he was
more successful still in investing it after he had acquired it, in lands
and houses in Leon, for which purpose he made frequent journeys to his
native city. After eight years of childless marriage he became the
father of a healthy and handsome girl, an event which rejoiced him as
greatly as the birth of an heiress to his crown might rejoice a king;
but the vigorous Leonese mother was unable to support the crisis of her
late maternity, and after clinging feebly to life for a few months after
the birth of the child, let go her hold upon it altogether, much against
her will. In losing his wife Señor Joaquin lost his right hand, and from
that time forward ceased to be distinguished by the air of satisfaction
with which he had been wont to preside at the counter, displaying his
gigantic proportions as he reached to the highest shelf to take down the
boxes of raisins, for which purpose he had but to raise himself slightly
on the tips of his broad feet and stretch out his powerful arm. He would
pass whole hours in a state of abstraction, his gaze fixed mechanically
on the bunches of grapes hanging from the ceiling, or on the bags of
coffee piled up in the darkest corner of the shop, on which the deceased
was in the habit of seating herself at her knitting. Finally, he fell
into so deep a melancholy that even his honest and lawful gains,
acquired in the exercise of his business, became a matter of
indifference to him, and the physicians prescribing for him the
salubrious air of his native place and a change in his regimen and
manner of life, he disposed of the grocery, and with magnanimity not
unworthy of an ancient sage, retired to his native village, satisfied
with the wealth he had already acquired and unambitious of greater
gains.

He took with him the little Lucía, now the only treasure dear to his
heart, who with her infantile graces had already begun to enliven the
shop, carrying on a fierce and constant warfare against the figs of
Fraga and the almonds of Alcoy, less white than the little teeth that
bit them.

The young girl grew up like a vigorous sapling planted in fertile soil;
it almost seemed as if the life she had been the cause of her mother’s
losing was concentrated in the person of the child. She passed through
the crises of infancy and girlhood without any of those nameless
sufferings that blanch the cheeks and quench the light in the eyes of
the young. There was a perfect equilibrium in her rich organism between
the nerves and the blood, and the result was a temperament such as is
now seldom to be met with in our degenerate society.

Mind and body in Lucía kept pace with each other in their development,
like two traveling companions who, arm in arm, ascend the hills and
help each other over the rugged places on their journey, and it was a
curious fact that, while the materialist physician, Velez de Rada, who
attended Señor Joaquin, took delight in watching Lucía and noting how
exuberantly the vital current flowed through the members of this young
Cybele, the learned Jesuit, Father Urtazu, was also her devoted admirer,
finding her conscience as clear and diaphanous as the crystals of his
microscope, neither of them being conscious that what they both admired
in the young girl was, perhaps, one and the same thing seen from a
different point of view, namely, perfect health.

Señor Joaquin desired to give Lucía a good education, as he understood
it, and indeed did all in his power to cripple the superior nature of
his daughter, though without success. Impelled on the one hand by the
desire to bestow accomplishments on Lucía which should enhance her
merit, fearing on the other lest it should be sarcastically said in the
village that Uncle Joaquin aspired to have a young lady daughter, he
brought her up in a hybrid manner, placing her as a day pupil in a
boarding school, under the rule of a prudish directress who professed to
know everything. There Lucía was taught a smattering of French and a
little music; as for any solid instruction, it was not even thought of;
knowledge of social usages, zero; and for all feminine knowledge--a
knowledge much vaster and more complicated than the uninitiated
imagine--some sort of fancy work, as tedious and useless as it was ugly,
patterns of slippers in the worst possible taste, embroidered
shirt-bosoms, or bead purses. Happily, Father Urtazu sowed among so many
weeds a few grains of wheat, and the moral and religious instruction of
Lucía, although limited, was as correct and solid as her school studies
were futile. Father Urtazu had more of the practical moralist than of
the ascetic, and the young girl learned more from him concerning ethics
than dogma. So that although a good Christian she was not a fervent one.
The absolute tranquillity of her temperament forbade her ever being
carried away by enthusiasm; there was in the girl something of the
repose of the Olympian goddesses; neither earthly nor heavenly matters
disturbed the calm serenity of her mind. Father Urtazu used to say,
pushing out his lip with his accustomed gesture:

“We are sleeping, sleeping, but I am very sure we are not dead; and the
day on which we awaken there will be something to see; God grant that it
may be for good.”

The friends of Lucía were Rosarito, the daughter of Doña Agustina, the
landlady of the village inn; Carmen, the niece of the magistrate, and a
few other young girls of the same class, many of whom dreamed of the
gentle tranquillity, the peaceful monotony of the conventual life,
forming to themselves seductive pictures of the joys of the cloister, of
the tender emotion of the day of the profession, when, crowned with
flowers and wearing the white veil, they should offer themselves to
Christ with the exquisite sweetness of adding, “forever! forever!” Lucía
had listened to them without a single fiber of her being vibrating
responsive to this ideal. Active life called to her with deep and
powerful voice. Nor did she feel any desire, on the other hand, to
imitate others of her companions whom she saw furtively hiding
love-letters in their bosoms or hurrying, eager and blushing, to the
balcony. In her childhood, prolonged by innocence and radiant health,
there was no room for any other pleasure than to run about among the
shady walks that surrounded Leon, leaping for very joy, like a youthful
nymph sporting in some Hellenic valley.

Señor Joaquin devoutly believed that he had given his daughter all the
education that was necessary, and he even thought the waltzes and
fantasies, which she pitilessly slaughtered with her unskillful fingers
on the piano, admirably executed. However deeply he might hide it in the
secret recesses of his soul, the Leonese was not without the aspiration,
common to all men who have exercised humble occupations and earned their
bread by the sweat of their brows--he desired that his daughter should
profit by his efforts, ascending a step higher in the social scale. He
would have been well contented, for his own part, to continue the same
“Uncle Joaquin” as before; he had no pretensions to be considered a rich
man, and both in his disposition and his manners, he was extremely
simple; but if he were willing to renounce position for himself, he was
not willing to do so for his daughter. He seemed to hear a voice saying
to him, as the witches said to Banquo, “Thou shalt get kings though thou
be none.” And divided between the modest conviction of his own absolute
insignificance and the moral certainty he entertained that Lucía was
destined to occupy an elevated position in the world, he came to the not
unreasonable conclusion that marriage was to be the means whereby the
desired metamorphosis of the girl into the lady of rank was to be
accomplished. A distinguished son-in-law was from this time forth the
ceaseless aspiration of the ex-grocer.

Nor were these the only weaknesses of Señor Joaquin. He had others,
which we have no compunction in disclosing to the reader. Perhaps the
strongest and most confirmed of these was his inordinate love of coffee,
a taste acquired in the importing business, in the gloomy winter
mornings, when the hoar frost whitened the glass-door of the show-case,
when his feet seemed to be freezing in the gray atmosphere of the
solitary shop, and the lately-abandoned, perhaps still warm bed, tempted
him, with mute eloquence, back to his slumbers. Then, half-awake,
solicited to sleep by the requirements of his Herculean physique and his
sluggish circulation, Señor Joaquin would take the little apparatus,
fill the lamp with alcohol, light it, and soon from the tin spout would
flow the black and smoking stream of coffee which at once warmed his
blood, cleared his brain, and by the slight fever and waste of tissue it
produced, gave him the necessary stimulus to begin his day’s work, to
make up his accounts, and sell his provisions. After his return to Leon,
when he was free to sleep as long as he liked, Señor Joaquin did not
give up the acquired vice but rather reinforced it with new ones; he
fell into the habit of drinking the black infusion in the _café_ nearest
to his abode, accompanying it with a glass of Kummel, and by the perusal
of a political journal--always and unfailingly the same.

On a certain occasion it occurred to the government to suspend the
publication of this newspaper for a period of twenty days; a little more
and Señor Joaquin would have given up his visits to the _café_ through
sheer desperation. For, Señor Joaquin being a Spaniard, it seems
needless to say that he had his political opinions like the best, and
that he was consumed by a zeal for the public welfare, as we all of us
are. Señor Joaquin was a harmless specimen of the now extinct species,
the progressionist. If we were to classify him scientifically, we should
say he belonged to the variety of the impressionist progressionist. The
only event that had ever occurred to him during his life as a political
partisan was that one day a celebrated politician, a radical at that
time, but who afterward passed over bag and baggage to the
conservatives, being a candidate for representative to the Cortes,
entered his shop and asked him for his vote. From that supreme moment
our Señor Joaquin was labeled, classified, and stamped--he was a
progressionist of Don ----’s party. It was in vain that years passed and
political changes succeeded one another and the political swallows,
always in search of milder climes, took wing for other regions; it was
in vain that evil-disposed persons said to Señor Joaquin that his chief
and natural leader, the aforesaid personage, was as much of a
progressionist as his grandmother; that there were, in fact, no longer
any progressionists on the face of the earth; that the progressionist
was as much of a fossil as the megatherium or the plesiosaurus; it was
in vain that they pointed out to him the innumerable patches sewed on
the purple mantle of the will of the nation by the not impeccable hands
of his idol himself. Señor Joaquin, even with all this testimony, was
not convinced, but, change who might, remained firm as a post in his
loyal attachment to the leader. Like those lovers who fix upon their
memories the image of the beloved such as she appeared to them in some
supreme and memorable moment, and in despite of the ravages of pitiless
time, never again behold her under any other aspect, so Señor Joaquin
could never get it into his head that his dear leader was in any respect
different from what he had been at the moment when, with flushed face,
he deigned to lean on the counter of the grocery, a loaf of sugar on the
one side and the scales on the other, and with fiery and tribunitial
eloquence ask him for his vote. From that time he was a subscriber to
the organ of the aforesaid leader. He also bought a poor lithograph,
representing the leader in the act of pronouncing an oration, and
placing it in the conventional gilt frame, hung it up in his bed-room,
between a daguerreotype of his deceased spouse and an engraving of the
blessed Santa Lucía, who displayed in a dish two eyes resembling two
boiled eggs. Señor Joaquin accustomed himself to look at political
events from the point of view of his leader, whom he called, quite
naturally, by his baptismal name. Did matters in Cuba assume a
threatening aspect? Bah! Señor Don ---- says that complete pacification
is an affair of a couple of months, at the utmost. Was it rumored that
armed men were marching through the Basque provinces? There was no need
to be frightened. Don ---- affirmed that the absolutist party was dead
and the dead do not come to life again. Was there a serious split in the
liberal majority, some supporting X, others Z? Very well, very well,
Don ---- will settle the question; he is the very man to do it. Was there
fear of a famine? Do you suppose Don ---- is sitting idly sucking his
thumb all this time? This very moment the veins (of the public treasury)
will be opened. Are the taxes too heavy? Don ---- spoke of economizing.
Are the Socialists growing troublesome? Only let them dare show
themselves with Don ---- at the head of affairs and he will soon put them
down. And in this manner, without a doubt or a suspicion ever entering
his mind, Señor Joaquin passed through the storm of the revolution and
entered on the period of the restoration, greatly delighted to see that
Don ---- floated on the top of the wave and that his merits were
appreciated, and that he held the pan by the handle to-day just as he
had done yesterday.

Cherishing this sort of adoration for the leader, the reader may imagine
what was the delight, confusion, and astonishment of Señor Joaquin at
receiving a visit one morning from a grave and well-dressed person who
had come to salute him in the name of Don ---- himself.

The visitor was called Don Aurelio Miranda, and he occupied in Leon one
of those positions, numerous in Spain, which are none the less
profitable for being honorable, and which, without entailing any great
amount of labor or responsibility, open to the holder the doors of good
society by conferring upon him a certain degree of official
importance,--a species of laical benefice in which are united the two
things that, according to the proverb, cannot be contained in one sack.
Miranda came of a bureaucratic family, in which were transmitted by
entail, as it were, important political positions, thanks to a special
gift possessed by its members, perpetuated from father to son, a certain
feline dexterity in falling always on their feet, and a certain delicate
sobriety in the matter of expressing their opinions. The race of the
Mirandas had succeeded in dyeing themselves with dull and refined
colors, which would serve equally well as a background for white
insignia or red device, so that there was no juncture of affairs in
which they were the losers, no radicalism with which they could not make
a compromise, no sea so smooth or so stormy that they could not fish
successfully in its waters. The young Aurelio was born, it might be
said, within the protecting shadow of the office walls. Before he had
grown a beard or a mustache he had a position, obtained for him by
paternal influence, aided by the influence of the other Mirandas. At
first the employment was insignificant, with a salary that barely
sufficed for the perfumes and neckties and other trifling expenses of
the boy, who was naturally extravagant. Soon richer spoils fell to his
share, and Aurelio followed in the route already marked out for him by
his ancestors. Notwithstanding all this, however, it was evident that
in him his race had degenerated somewhat. Devoted to pleasure,
ostentatious and vain, Aurelio did not possess the delicate art of
always and in everything observing the happy medium; and he was wanting
in the outward gravity, the composure of manner, which had won for past
Mirandas the reputation of being men of brains and of ripe political
experience. Conscious of his defects, Aurelio adroitly endeavored to
turn them to account, and more than one delicate white hand had written
for him perfumed notes, containing efficacious recommendations to
personages of widely differing quality and class. In like manner, he
gave himself out to be the companion and bosom friend of several
political leaders, among others of the Don ---- whom we already know. He
had never spoken ten consecutive words having any relation to politics
with any of them. He retailed to them the news of the day, the newest
scandal, the latest _double entendre_, and the most recent burlesque,
and in this way, without compromising himself with any, he was favored
and served by all. He caught hold, like an inexpert swimmer, of the men
who were more experienced swimmers than himself, and, sinking here and
floating there, he succeeded in weathering the fierce political storms
which beat upon Spain, following the time-honored example of the
Mirandas. But even political influence in time becomes exhausted, and
there came a period in which such influence as Aurelio could command,
now greatly diminished, was insufficient to keep him in the only place
to his taste--Madrid, and he was compelled to go vegetate in Leon,
between the government building and the cathedral, neither of which
edifices interested him in the least. What was especially bitter to
Aurelio was the consciousness that his decline in official life had its
origin in another and an irreparable decline,--a decline in his personal
attractions. After the age of forty he was no longer the subject of
little notes of recommendation, or, at least, these notes were not so
warm as before; in the offices of the notabilities his presence had come
to be no more regarded than if he had been a chair or a table, and he
himself was conscious that his fluency of speech was abandoning him. As
he advanced in years he grew more like his ancestors. He began to
acquire the seriousness of the Mirandas, and from an amiable rake he
became a man of weight. Perhaps certain obstinate ailments, the protest
of the liver against the unhealthy life--by turns sedentary, by turns
full of feverish excitement--so long led by Aurelio, were not without
their part in this metamorphosis. Therefore, profiting by his sojourn
in Leon and by the knowledge and singular skill of Velez de Rada, he
devoted himself to the work of repairing the breaches made in his
shattered organization; and the methodical life and the increasing
gravity of his manners and appearance, which had been prejudicial to him
in the capital, betraying the fact that he was becoming a useless and
worn-out instrument, served him as a passport with the timid Leonese
villagers, winning for him their sympathy and the reputation of being a
person of credit and responsibility.

Miranda was in the habit of making an occasional trip to Madrid by way
of diversion, and on one of these trips he had met, not long since, the
Don ---- of Señor Joaquin, whom we shall call Colmenar, through respect
for his incognito--furious, at the moment, with a Don ---- who took
pleasure in thwarting all his plans and in nullifying his appointments.
There was no means of coming to an understanding with this demon of a
man, who persisted in cutting and mowing down the flourishing field of
the Colmenarist adherents. Miranda, at the time in question, was in
imminent danger of losing his position, and the words of the leader made
him jump from his seat on the luxurious divan. “It is just as I say,”
continued Colmenar; “it is enough that I should have an interest in a
man’s retaining his place for him to get him out of it. It is to be
counted upon to a certainty. And there is no means of escaping it. He
strikes without pity.”

“As for me,” answered Miranda, “if the worst were only to leave
Leon--for, to tell the truth, that village bores me to death, although
it is not without its advantages. But if matters go any further I shall
be in a pretty fix.”

“And the most likely thing is that they will go further. Fortune is the
enemy of the old. You have changed greatly for the worse, of late. That
hair--do you remember what a splendid head of hair you had? We shall
both soon be obliged to have recourse to acorn-oil as a heroic remedy
_in extremis_.”

“To hear you speak,” exclaimed Miranda, twisting the locks on his
temples with his former martial air, “one would suppose that I was bald.
I think I manage to ward off the attacks of time very well. My ailments
have made me a little----”

“Are you ill?” interrupted Colmenar; “leaks in the roof, my boy; leaks
in the roof!”

“An affection of the liver, complicated with---- But in that antiquated
village of Leon I have stumbled upon one of the most modern of
physicians, a _savant_,” Miranda hastened to add, observing the bored
look of the leader, who feared he was going to be treated to a history
of the disease. “I assure you that Velez de Rada is a prodigy. A
confirmed materialist, it is true----”

“Like all doctors,” said Colmenar, with a shrug of the shoulders. “And
how about other matters? Have you made many conquests in Leon? Are the
Leonese girls susceptible?”

“Bah, hypocrites!” exclaimed Miranda, who, in the unreserve of
confidential intercourse permitted himself to indulge in an occasional
touch of irreverence. “The Jesuits have their heads turned with
confraternities and novenas, and they go about devouring the saints with
kisses. There is little social intercourse,--every one in his own house
and God in the house of every one. But, after all, that suits me very
well, since I require to rest and to lead a regular life.”

Colmenar listened in silence, tracing with his eyes the pattern on the
soft, thick carpet.

At last he raised his head and slapped his forehead with his open palm.

“An unprecedented idea had just occurred to me,” he said, repeating the
celebrated phrase of the Portuguese minister. “Why don’t you marry, my
dear fellow?”

“A bright idea, truly! A wife costs so little in these days. And
afterward? ‘For him who does not like soup, a double portion.’ I am
going to lose my situation, it may be, and you talk to me of marrying!”

“I do not propose, to you a wife who will lighten your purse, but one
who will make it heavy.”

And the leader laughed loud and long at his own wit. Miranda remained
pensive, thinking over the solid advantages of the plan, which he was
not long in discovering. There could be no better means of providing
against the assaults of hostile fortune and securing the doubtful
future, before the few hairs he had left should have disappeared and the
superficial polish conferred by fashion and the arts of the toilet
should have vanished. And then, Leon was a city that suggested of itself
matrimonial ideas. What was there to do but marry in a place where
dullness reigned supreme, where celibacy inspired mistrust, and where
the most innocent adventure gave rise to the most outrageous slanders?
Therefore he said aloud:

“You are right, my boy. Leon is a place that inspires one with the
desire to marry and to live like a saint.”

“The truth is, that for you,” continued Colmenar, “marriage has now
become a necessity. Aside from the fact that it is high time for you
(here he smiled maliciously) to think of marrying, unless you want to be
called an old bachelor, your health and your pocket both require it. If
I cannot succeed in keeping you in your place what are you going to do?
I suppose you have saved nothing?”

“Saved? I? _Au jour le jour_,” said Miranda, pronouncing with airy
nonchalance the transpyrenean phrase.

“Well, then, _il faut se faire une raison_,” replied Colmenar, pleased
to be able to display his learning in his turn.

“The question is to find the woman, the phoenix,” murmured Miranda,
meditatively. “Girls of a marriageable age there are in plenty, but I
have lost my reckoning here. Suggest some one you----”

“Some one here? God deliver you from the women of Madrid. They are more
to be feared than the cholera? Do you know what the requirements are of
any one of those angels? Do you know how much they spend?”

“So that----”

“The wife you require is in Leon itself.”

“In Leon! Yes, perhaps you are right, it might be easier there. But I
don’t see--. The de Argas are already engaged; Concha Vivares is rich in
expectations only; she has an aunt who intends to make her her heiress
at her death, but before that event occurs---- The de Hornillos
girl--no, she has nothing but patents of nobility, and they won’t make
the pot boil.”

“You are flying too high; young ladies are at a discount. Wait a moment
and I will show you----”

Colmenar rose, and opening one of the drawers of his desk, took from it
a strip of paper, yellow with age and covered with names, like a
proscription list. And it was in truth a list; in it were inscribed in
alphabetical order the names of the feudatories of the great Colmenarian
personality, residing in the various provinces of the Peninsula. Under
some of the names was written a capital L, which signified, “Loyal”;
others were marked V L, “Very loyal”; a few were marked, “Doubtful.”

The leader placed his forefinger on one of the names marked L.

“I offer you,” he said to Miranda, “a young girl who has a fortune of
perhaps more than two millions.”

Miranda opened wide his eyes, and stretched out his hand to take the
auspicious list.

“Two millions!” he exclaimed. “But there is no one like you for these
finds.”

“You may have seen in Leon the person whose name is inscribed here,”
continued Colmenar, indicating the line with his nail. “A robust,
fine-looking old man, strong and vigorous still, Joaquin Gonzalez, the
Leonese?”

“The Leonese! There is no one I know better. He has come to the
government office of Leon several times, on business. Of course I know
him. And now I remember that he has a daughter, but I have never taken
any particular notice of her. She is very seldom seen.”

“They live very modestly. In ten years the fortune will double itself.
He is a great man for business, the Leonese. A poor creature, a
simpleton, in everything else; in politics he sees no further than his
nose, but he has succeeded in making a fortune. This girl is his only
child, and he adores her.”

“And don’t you think it likely that the girl may have formed some
attachment already?”

“Bah, she is too young! The moment you present yourself--with your good
address and your experience in such affairs----”

“Probably she is a ninny, and ugly into the bargain.”

“Her father was a magnificent-looking fellow in his youth, and her
mother a handsome brunette,--why should the girl be ugly? No one is
ugly at fifteen. She will need polishing, it is true; but between you
and a dressmaker that is a question of a month. Women are much more
readily civilized and polished than men. The desire to please teaches
them more than a hundred masters could do.”

“And what would all my friends say of me--especially in Leon--if they
saw me marry the daughter of the Leonese?”

“Bah! bah! that is simply a question of making a change. After you are
married, petition privately to be transferred to some other position.
The old man will remain there, taking care of the property, and you and
the girl will go live where nobody will know whether her father was an
archduke or the executioner. After the marriage, you and your bride can
take a little trip to the continent and in this way you will escape
gossip during the first few months. And be quick about it before you
begin to grow rotund, and your hair---- Ah, how time passes! It is sad
to think how old we are getting.”

Miranda gazed at the point of his elegant tan-colored boot in silence,
thoughtfully scratching his forehead.

“Find me an excuse to visit the house,” he said at last, with
resolution. “They are unaccustomed to society, and it will be necessary
to have one. I shall not be required to parade the girl through the
streets, I suppose.”

“You will make them a visit in my name. The old man will give you a
warmer welcome than if you were the king himself!”

So saying, the leader seated himself at the table, which was littered
with newspapers, letters, and books, and taking a sheet of stamped paper
ran his hand over the white page, filling it with the rapid, almost
unintelligible caligraphy of a man overwhelmed with business. He then
folded the paper, slipped it into an envelope, and, without closing it,
handed it to his friend.

When Miranda rose to take his leave he approached Colmenar, and speaking
in a low voice, almost in a whisper, he murmured:

“Are you quite sure--quite certain about the--the two mill----”

“It is so likely I should be mistaken! All you have to do is to make
inquiries in Leon. In conscience, you owe me a commission,” and the
politician laughed and tapped Miranda on the cheek as if he were a
child.

Under this exalted patronage Miranda presented himself in the peaceful
abode of the Colmenarist feudatory, and was received as befitted a guest
who came thus recommended. Naturally he resolved not to make himself
known at once as a suitor for the hand of Lucía. Besides being a want of
delicacy this would also be a want of tact, and then Miranda proposed to
himself, before taking any decided step, to study carefully the ground
on which he was treading. He found that what the leader had told him
with regard to the money was the truth, and even less than the truth. He
saw a house, old-fashioned in style, rude and plebeian in its usages,
but in which honesty presided, and a solid and secure capital, daily
augmented through the judicious management of Señor Joaquin and his
simple and economical mode of living. It is true that the worthy Leonese
seemed to Miranda a tiresome companion, vulgar in his manners, weak in
character, and mediocre in intellect,--stupid even, at times; but he was
obliged to put up with him, and he even adapted himself so skillfully to
the ideas of the old man that the latter was soon unable to sip his
coffee or to read _El Progreso Nacional_, the organ of Colmenar, without
the sauce of the witty commentaries that Miranda made on every article,
every paragraph, every item of news it contained. Miranda knew by heart
the obverse side, the inner aspect of politics, and he explained
amusingly the sly allusions, the artful reservations, the covert satire,
that abound in every important newspaper, and that are a constant
enigma for the simple-minded provincial subscriber. So that, since he
had become intimate with Miranda, Señor Joaquin enjoyed the profound
pleasure of being initiated into the mysteries, and he looked with
disdain upon his Leonese co-religionists, who had not yet been admitted
into the sanctuary of secret politics. In addition to these pleasures
which he owed to Miranda’s friendship, the good old man swelled with
pride--we already know how little of a philosopher he was--when he was
seen walking side by side with a gentleman of so distinguished an
appearance, the intimate friend of the governor, and the familiar
companion of the highest people of the capital.

Lucía regarded the visit of the courteous and affable Miranda without
displeasure, and noted with childish curiosity the neatness of his
person, his well-polished shoes, his snowy linen, his scarf-pin, the
curious trinkets attached to his watch-chain, for every
woman--consciously or unconsciously--takes pleasure in these external
adornments. Besides, Miranda possessed the art--and practiced it--of
what we may call winning affection by diverting; he brought the young
girl every day some new trifle, some novelty,--now a chromo, now a
photograph, now rare flowers, now illustrated periodicals, now a novel
by Fernan Caballero, or Alarcon,--and the pretty gifts that flowed
through the doors of the antiquated house, messages as it were, from
modern civilization, were so many voices praising the generous giver.
The latter succeeded in bringing his conversation to the level of
Lucía’s understanding, and showed himself very well informed regarding
feminine, or rather infantile matters, and the young girl would
sometimes even consult him with regard to the style in which she should
wear her hair and the make of her gowns, and Miranda would very
seriously make her raise or lower, by two centimeters, the waist of her
gown or her chignon. Incidents like these served to vary a little the
monotony of the life of the Leonese maiden, lending a charm to her
intercourse with her undeclared lover.

At first it was matter of no little surprise in Leon that the
fashionable Miranda should choose for his companion Señor Joaquin, a man
on whose square shoulders the peasant’s jacket seemed unalterably
riveted and fastened; but gossip was not long in arriving at a rational
explanation of the phenomenon, and Lucía’s companions soon began to
tease her unmercifully about Señor de Miranda’s passion, his attentions,
his presents, and his devotion. She listened to them with a tranquil
smile, never blushing, never losing a moment’s sleep on account of it
all; nor did her heart beat a second faster when she heard Miranda’s
ring at the bell, followed by the noise made by his resplendent boots as
he entered the room. As no tender speech of Miranda’s came to confirm
the words of her companions, Lucía continued tranquil and careless as
ever. But Miranda, resolved now to bring his enterprise to a
termination, and thinking that he had spent time enough in paving the
way, one day, after sipping his coffee and reading _El Progreso
Nacional_ in the company of Señor Joaquin, asked the latter in plain
terms for his daughter’s hand.

The Leonese was struck dumb with amazement and knew not what to say or
do. His dream--Lucía’s entrance, so ardently desired, into the circles
of polite society--was about to be realized. But we must be just to
Señor Joaquin. He did not fail to perceive clearly, in this supreme
moment, certain unfavorable points in the proposed marriage. He saw the
difference in the ages of the prospective bride and bridegroom; he knew
nothing of Miranda’s pecuniary position, while his daughter’s
magnificent dowry was a matter of certainty; in short, he had a vague
intuition of the base self-interest on which the demand was founded.
The suitor showed himself a skillful strategist, forestalling suspicion,
in a manner, and anticipating the thoughts of the Leonese.

“I myself,” he said, “have no fortune. I have my profession--it is
true”; (Miranda, like most other Spaniards, had studied law and obtained
his degree in early manhood) “and if I should some day lose my position
I have energy enough, and more than enough, to work hard and open an
office in Madrid, where I could have a fine practice. I desire ease and
comfort for my wife, but for her alone; as for my own wants, what I have
is sufficient to supply them. The difference in fortune deterred me for
a long time from asking Lucía’s hand, but the sentiment with which so
much beauty and innocence has inspired me was too powerful to resist;
notwithstanding this, however, if Colmenar had not assured me that you
were generous-minded and disinterested, I should never have summoned
resolution----”

“Señor Colmenar has far too high an opinion of me,” responded the
flattered Leonese; “but those things require consideration. Go take a
little trip----”

“In a fortnight I will come back for your answer,” responded Miranda,
discreetly, taking his hat to go.

He passed the fortnight in a Satanic frame of mind, for it was
undoubtedly ridiculous for a man of his pretensions and his rank to have
asked in marriage the daughter of a grocer and to be obliged to wait in
the ante-chamber of the shop, so to say, until they should deign to open
the door to admit him. Meanwhile Señor Joaquin, reading his newspaper
and sipping his coffee alone, missed him greatly, and the idea of the
marriage began to take root in his mind. Every day he thought the friend
of Colmenar more and more desirable for a son-in-law. Notwithstanding
this, however, he did what people usually do who desire to follow their
inclinations without bearing the responsibility of their actions--he
took counsel with some friends in regard to the matter, hoping to
shelter himself under their approbation. In this expectation he was
disappointed. Father Urtazu, who was the first person that he consulted,
exclaimed, with his Navarrese frankness:

“For the old cat the tender mouse! The sweet-tongued, smooth-faced Don
knows very well what he is about. But don’t you see, unhappy man, that
the old fop might be Lucía’s father? Heaven knows what adventures he has
had in the course of his life! Holy Virgin! who can tell what stories he
may not have hidden away in the pockets of his coat!”

“But what would you do if you were in my case, Father Urtazu?”

“I? Take a year to think of it instead of a fortnight, and another year
after that, for whatever might chance to turn up.”

“By the Constitution! You have not observed the merits of Señor Aurelio,
father.”

“The merits--the merits--pretty merits, indeed! Pish, pish! Unless it be
a merit to go dressed like a dandy, displaying a couple of inches of his
shirt cuffs, and giving himself the airs of a young man, when he is
older-looking than I, for, though it be true that my hair is gray, at
least the tree has not dropped its leaves!”

And Father Urtazu pulled with energy the stout iron-gray locks that grew
on his temples, bristly as brambles.

“What does the child herself say about it?” he asked, suddenly.

“I have not yet spoken to her----”

“But that is the first thing to be done, unhappy man! Ah, how true is it
that the mind, becomes dull with age. What are you waiting for?”

Velez de Rada was even yet more decided and uncompromising.

“Marry your daughter to Miranda!” he cried, raising his eyebrows with an
angry and indignant gesture. “Are you mad? The finest specimen of the
race that I have met with here for the past ten years. A girl who has
red globules enough in her blood to supply all the anæmic mannikins that
promenade the streets of Madrid! Such a figure! Such a poise! Such
proportions! And to Miranda who----” (here professional discretion
sealed the lips of the physician, and silence reigned in the room).

“Señor Rada,”--Señor Joaquin, who was a little hard of hearing, began
timidly.

“Do you know what is the duty of a father who has a daughter like
Lucía?” the physician resumed. “To look, like Diogenes, for a man who,
in constitution and exuberance of vitality, is her equal, and unite
them. Do you consider that, with the indifference that prevails in this
matter of marriage, with the sacrilegious unions we are accustomed to
see between impoverished, sickly, and tainted natures and healthy
natures, it is possible that at no distant date--in three or four
generations more, perhaps--the utter deterioration of the peoples of
Europe will be an assured fact? Or do you think that we can with
impunity transmit to our descendants poison and pus in place of blood?”

Señor Joaquin left the doctor’s office a little frightened, but more
confounded, consoling himself with the thought, however, that the
misfortunes predicted for his race would not happen for a century to
come, at the soonest. The last disappointment that awaited him in his
matrimonial consultations came from a sister of his, a very old woman
who, in her youthful days, had been a laundress, but who was now
supported by her brother. The poor woman, whose deceased husband had led
her a dog’s life, exclaimed, in her husky voice, raising her withered
hands to heaven, and shaking her trembling head:

“Miranda? Miranda? Some rascal, I suppose; some villain. May a
thunderbolt strike----”

The Leonese waited to hear no more, and regarded his consultation as at
an end.

The most important part of the question--Lucía’s opinion--was still
wanting. Her father was racking his brains to find a diplomatic means of
discovering it, when the young girl herself provided him with the
desired opportunity.

“Papa,” she asked one day, with the utmost innocence, “can Señor Miranda
be ill? He has not been here for several days.”

Señor Joaquin seized the opportunity and laid before her Miranda’s
proposal. Lucía listened attentively, with surprise depicted in her
lustrous eyes.

“See there!” she said, at last. “Rosarito and Carmela were right, then,
when they declared that Señor Miranda came here on my account. But who
would have imagined it?”

“Come, child, what answer shall I give the gentleman?” asked the
Leonese, with anxiety.

“Papa, how should I know? I never suspected that he wanted to marry me.”

“But, on your part, do you like Señor Miranda?”

“Like him? That I do. Though he is not so very young, he is still
handsome,” answered Lucía, with the utmost naturalness.

“And his disposition, his manners?”

“He is very polite, very amiable.”

“Is the idea disagreeable to you that he should live here always--with
us?”

“Not at all. On the contrary, he amuses me greatly when he comes.”

“Then, by the Constitution! you are in love with Señor Miranda?”

“See there! I don’t think that, though I have never thought much about
those things, or what it may be like to fall in love; but I imagine it
must be more exciting like, and that it comes to one more of a
sudden--with more violence.”

“But these violent attachments, what need is there of them to be a good
wife?”

“None, I suppose. To be a good wife, Father Urtazu says, the most
needful thing is the grace of God--and patience, a great deal of
patience.”

Her father tapped her on the cheek with his broad palm.

“By the Constitution! you talk like a book. So, then, according to that,
I am going to give Señor Miranda pleasing news!”

“Oh, father, the matter needs thinking over. Do me the favor to think
over it for me, you; what do I know about marrying, or----”

“See here, you are now a big girl. You are too much of a simpleton.”

“No,” said Lucía, fixing her clear eyes on the old man’s face, “it is
not that I am simple, it is that I do not wish to understand--do you
hear? For if I begin to think about those things I shall end by losing
my appetite, and my sleep, and my light-heartedness. To-night, of a
certainty, I shall not close my eyes, and afterward Señor de Rada will
say in Latin that I am ill in mind and that I am going to be ill in
body. I wish to think of nothing but my amusements and my lessons. Of
that other matter, no; for, if I did, my fancy would wander on and on,
and I should pass whole hours with my hands crossed before me, sitting
motionless as a post. The truth is that when my thoughts run that way I
fancy there is not a man in all the world to equal the lover I picture
to myself; who, for that matter, is not in this world,--don’t imagine
it,--but far away in distant palaces and gardens. But I don’t know how
to explain myself. Can you understand what I mean?”

“Have they been putting the notion into your head of becoming a nun like
Agueda, the daughter of the directress of the seminary?” cried Señor
Joaquin, angrily.

“Oh, no, indeed!” murmured Lucía, whose glowing and animated face looked
like a newly opened rose. “I would not be a nun for a kingdom. I have no
vocation for that kind of life.”

“It is settled”; said Señor Joaquin to himself; “the pot begins to boil;
the girl must be married.” And he added aloud: “If that is the case,
then, child, I think you should not scorn Señor de Miranda. He is a
perfect gentleman, and for politics--what an understanding he has! He is
not displeasing to you?”

“I have said already that he is not,” replied Lucía, in more tranquil
tones.

That same afternoon the Leonese himself took this satisfactory answer to
Miranda.

Colmenar wrote to Señor Joaquin a letter that was not without its
effect. And before many days had elapsed Miranda said to his future
father-in-law, in a pleased and confidential tone:

“Our friend Colmenar will be _padrino_; he delegates his duties to you,
and sends this for the bride.”

And he took from its satin-lined case a pearl-handled fan, covered with
Brussels lace, light as the sea-foam, that a breath sufficed to put in
motion.

To describe Señor Joaquin’s gratification and pride would be a task
beyond the power of speech. It seemed to him as if the personality of
the famous political leader had suddenly, and by some occult means,
become merged in his own; he fancied himself metamorphosed, become one
with his idol, and he was almost beside himself with joy; and any doubts
that might still have lingered in his mind, with regard to the
approaching nuptials, vanished. Unwilling to be behind Colmenar in
generosity, in addition to settling a liberal allowance on Lucía, he
presented her with a large sum of money for the expenses of the wedding
journey, whose route, traced by Miranda, included Paris, and certain
beneficial mineral springs prescribed for him some time before by Rada,
as a sovereign remedy in bilious disorders. The idea of the journey
appeared somewhat strange to Señor Joaquin. When he married, the only
excursion he made was from the porter’s lodge to the grocery. But since
his daughter was making her entrance into a higher social sphere, it was
necessary to conform to the usages of her new rank, however singular
they might appear. Miranda had declared this to be so and Señor Joaquin
had agreed with him; mediocre natures are always ready to yield to the
authority of those who care to take the trouble to manage them.

Any one with the slightest knowledge of provincial towns can easily
picture to himself how much comment and criticism, open and concealed,
were aroused in Leon by the marriage of the distinguished Miranda with
the low-born heiress of the ex-grocer. It was criticised without measure
or judgment. Some censured the vanity of the old man who, tired at the
end of his days of his humble station, desired to bestow upon his
daughter the style and rank of a marchioness (there were not a few for
whom Miranda served as the traditional type of the marquis). Others
criticised the bridegroom as a hungry Madridlenian, who had come to Leon
with a superabundance of airs and an empty purse, in order to free
himself from his embarrassments by means of Señor Joaquin’s dollars.
Others again described satirically the appearance the country girl,
Lucía, would make when she should wear for the first time a hat and a
train and carry a parasol. But these criticisms were disarmed of their
sting by the proud satisfaction of Señor Joaquin, the childish frivolity
of the bride, and the courteous and well-bred reserve of the bridegroom.
Lucía, true to her purpose of not thinking of the marriage itself,
busied her thoughts with the nuptial accessories and described to her
friends with satisfaction the proposed journey, repeating the euphonious
names of cities that seemed to her enchanted regions,--Paris, Lyons,
Marseilles,--where the girl fancied the sky must be of a different
color, and the sunshine of a different nature, from the sunshine and the
sky of her native village. Miranda, by means of a loan he had
negotiated, purposing to repay it afterward with his generous
father-in-law’s money, ordered from the capital exquisite presents--a
set of diamonds and a box filled with elegant articles of wearing
apparel, the work of a celebrated man-milliner. Lucía, who after all was
a woman, and to whom all these splendors were new, more than once, like
Faust’s Marguerite, pleased herself by trying on the precious baubles
before the looking-glass, shaking her head to make the diamonds in the
earrings, and in the flowers scattered among her dark tresses, flash
back the light more brightly. In this way women amuse themselves when
they are young and sometimes long after they have ceased to be young.
But Lucía was not to preserve her youth forever.




CHAPTER III.


Meantime the train continued on its way. The tears of the bride had
ceased to flow, leaving scarcely a trace behind them, even in reddened
eyelids. So it is with the tears we shed in youth--tears without
bitterness that, like a gentle dew, refresh instead of scorching. She
began to be interested by the stations which they passed along the route
and the people that looked in curiously at the door of the compartment.
She put a thousand questions to Miranda, who explained everything to
her, sparing no effort to amuse her, and varying his explanations with
an occasional tender speech which the young girl heard without emotion,
thinking it the most natural thing in the world that a husband should
manifest affection for his wife, and betraying by not the lightest
heaving of the chest the sweet confusion that love awakens. Miranda once
more found himself in his element, tears having ceased and serenity and
good-humor being restored. Pleased with the result, he even thanked in
his own mind one of the causes that had contributed to it--an old woman
carrying an enormous basket on her arm, who slipped into the compartment
a few stations before Palencia, and whose grotesque appearance helped to
call back a smile to Lucía’s lips.

On reaching Palencia, the old woman left the compartment, and a
well-dressed man with a serious expression of countenance silently
entered.

“He looks like papa,” said Lucía in a low voice to Miranda. “Poor papa!”
And this time a sigh only was the tribute paid to filial affection.

Night was approaching; the train moved slowly, as if fearing to trust
itself to the rails, and Miranda observed that they were greatly behind
time.

“We shall arrive at Venta de Baños,” he said, turning the leaf of the
Guide, “much later than the usual time.”

“And in Venta de Baños----” began Lucía.

“We can sup--if they allow us time to do so. Under ordinary
circumstances there is not only time to sup but also to rest a little,
while waiting for the other train, the express, which is to take us to
France.”

“To France!” Lucía clapped her hands as if she had just heard a
delightful and unexpected piece of intelligence. Then, with a thoughtful
air, she added gravely. “Well, for my part, I should like to have some
supper.”

“We shall sup there, of course; at least I hope the train will stop long
enough to allow us to do so. You have an appetite, eh? The fact is that
you have eaten scarcely anything to-day.”

“With the hurry and excitement, and attending to the serving of the
chocolate, and grief at leaving poor papa and seeing him so
downcast--and----”

“And what else?”

“And--well, one does not get married every day and it is only natural
that it should upset one a little--it is a very serious thing--. Father
Urtazu warned me of that, so that last night I did not close my eyes and
I counted the hours, and the half hours, and the quarters, by the
cuckoo-clock in the reception-room, and at every stroke I heard, tam,
tam, ‘Stop, you wretch,’ I cried, ‘and let me cover my face with the bed
clothes and go to sleep, and then wake me if you can.’ But it was all of
no use. Now that it is over, it is just like jumping a wide ditch--you
give the jump, and you think no more about it. It is over.”

Miranda laughed; sitting beside his bride, looking at her closely, she
seemed to him very lovely, transformed almost, by her traveling dress
and the animation that flushed her cheeks and brightened her fresh
complexion. Lucía, too, began to return to the unrestraint of her former
intercourse with Miranda, somewhat interrupted of late by the novelty of
their position toward each other.

“Don’t laugh at my nonsense, Señor de Miranda,” murmured the young girl.

“Do me the favor not to misunderstand me, child,” he answered. “And my
name is Aurelio, and you should address me as _thou_ not _you_.”

The whole of this dialogue had passed in an undertone, the interlocutors
bending slightly toward each other and speaking in low, almost
lover-like accents. The presence of a witness to their conversation, in
the person of their fellow-traveler, who leaned back silently in his
corner, by the restraint it imposed, imparted to their whispered words a
certain air of timidity and mystery which lent them a meaning they did
not in themselves possess. The same words spoken aloud would have seemed
simple and indifferent enough. And so it often is with words--they
derive their value not from what they express in themselves but from
the tone in which they are uttered and the relation they bear to other
words, like the pieces of stone employed in mosaic that, according to
the position in which they are set, represent now a tree, now a house,
now a human countenance.

The train at last stopped at Venta de Baños, and the lamps of the
station glared upon them like fiery eyes through the light mist of the
tranquil autumn night.

“Is it here--is it here we are to stop for supper?” asked Lucía, whose
appetite and curiosity were both alike sharpened by the event, new for
her, of supping at the restaurant of a railway station.

“Here”; answered Miranda, speaking much less cheerfully than before.
“Now we shall have to change trains. If I had the power, I would alter
all this. There can be nothing more annoying. You have to hunt up your
luggage so that it may not be carried off to Madrid--you have to move
all your traps----”

As he spoke, he took down from the rack the rug, valise, and bundle of
umbrellas, but Lucía, youthful and vigorous, daughter of the people as
she was, snatched from his hand the bag, which was the heaviest of the
articles, and leaping lightly as a bird to the ground, ran toward the
restaurant.

They seated themselves at the table set for travelers; a table tasteless
in its appointments, that bore the stamp of the vulgar promiscuousness
of the guests who succeeded one another at it without intermission. It
was long and was covered with oilcloth and surrounded, like a hen by her
chickens, by smaller tables, on which were services for tea, coffee, and
chocolate. The cups, resting mouth downward on the saucers, seemed
waiting patiently for the friendly hand which should restore them to
their natural position; the lumps of sugar heaped on metal salvers
looked like building materials--blocks of white marble hewn for some
Lilliputian palace. The tea-pots displayed their shining paunches and
the milk-jugs protruded their lips, like badly brought-up children. The
monotony that reigned in the long hall was oppressive. Price-lists,
maps, and advertisements hanging from the walls, lent the apartment a
certain official air. The end of the room, occupied by a tall counter
covered with rows of plates, groups of freshly washed glasses,
fruit-dishes in which the pyramids of apples and pears looked pale
beside the bright green of the moss around them. On the principal table,
in two blue porcelain vases, some drooping flowers--late roses and
odorless sunflowers--were slowly withering. The travelers came in one
after another and took their places, their features drawn with sleep and
fatigue, the men with their traveling caps pulled down over their brows,
the women with their heads covered with woolen hoods, their figures
concealed by long gray water-proof cloaks, their hair disordered, their
cuffs and collars crumpled. Lucía, with her smiling face, her
well-fitting jacket and her fresh and natural complexion, formed a
striking contrast to the women around her, and it seemed as if the crude
yellow light of the gas-jets had concentrated itself above her head,
leaving the faces of the other guests in a turbid half-light. They were
served the invariable restaurant dinner--vegetable-soup, broiled chops,
sapless wings of chickens, warmed-over fish, slices of cold ham, thin as
wafers, cheese, and fruits. Miranda ate little, rejecting in turn every
dish offered him, and, asking in a loud and authoritative voice for a
bottle of Sherry and another of Bordeaux, he poured out some of each of
the wines for Lucía, explaining to her their particular qualities. Lucía
ate voraciously, giving full rein to her appetite, like a child on a
holiday. With each new dish was renewed the enjoyment that a stomach
unspoiled and accustomed to simple food experiences in the slightest
culinary novelty. She sipped the Bordeaux, clicking her tongue against
the roof of her mouth, and declaring that it smelled and tasted like the
violets that Velez de Rada used sometimes to bring her. She held up the
liquid topaz of the sherry to the light and closed her eyes as she drank
it, declaring that it tickled her throat. But her great orgy, her
forbidden fruit, was the coffee. We, the faithful and exact chroniclers
of Señor Joaquin, the Leonese, have never been able to discover the
secret and potent reason which had always made him prohibit the use of
coffee to his daughter, as if it were some poisonous drug or pernicious
philter; a prohibition all the more inexplicable since we are already
aware of the inordinate passion for coffee cherished by our good
Colmenarist himself. Lucía, forbidden to taste the black infusion, of
which she knew her father swallowed copious draughts every day, had
taken it into her head that the prohibited beverage was nectar itself,
the very ambrosia of the gods, and she would sometimes say to Rosarito
or Carmen, “Wait until I am married, and I will drink as much coffee as
I please. You shall see if I don’t.”

The coffee of the restaurant of Venta de Baños was neither very pure nor
very aromatic, and yet when for the first time Lucía introduced the
little spoon filled with the liquid between her lips, when she tasted
its slight bitterness and inhaled the warm fumes rising from it, she
felt a profound thrill run through her frame, something like an
expansion of her being, as if all her senses had opened simultaneously
like the buds of a tree bursting into bloom at once. The glass of
Chartreuse, sipped slowly, left in her mouth a penetrating and
strengthening odor, a slight and pleasant thirst, extinguished by the
last sips of the coffee sweetened by the powdered sugar that lay in
little eddies at the bottom of the cup.

“If papa were to see me now,” she murmured, “what would he say?”

Miranda and Lucía were the last to rise from the table. The other
passengers were already scattered about in groups on the platform,
waiting to obtain seats in the express which had just arrived and which
stood, vibrating still with its recent motion, in front of the railway
station.

“Come,” said Miranda, “the train is going to start. I don’t know whether
we shall be able to find a vacant compartment or not.”

They began their peregrination, passing through all the coaches in turn
in search of a vacant compartment. They found one at last, not without
some difficulty, and took possession of it, throwing their parcels on
the cushions. The opaque light of the lantern, filtering through the
blue silk curtain, the dull, uniform, gray hue of the covers, the
silence, the air of repose succeeding the glare and confusion of the
restaurant, invited to rest and sleep, and Lucía unfastened the elastic
of her hat, which she took off and placed in the rack.

“I feel dizzy,” she said, passing her hand over her forehead. “My head
aches a little--I am warm.”

“The wines, the coffee,” responded Miranda, gaily. “Rest for a moment
while I go to inventory the luggage. It is an indispensable formality
here.” Saying this, he lifted one of the cushions of the coach, placed
the rolled-up rug under it for a pillow, and raised the arm dividing the
two seats, saying:

“There, you have as comfortable a bed as you could wish for.”

Lucía drew from her pocket a little silk handkerchief neatly folded,
spread it lightly over the cushion to prevent her head coming in contact
with the soiled cover, and lay down on her improvised couch.

“If I should fall asleep,” she said to Miranda, “waken me when we come
to anything worth seeing.”

“Depend upon me to do so,” answered Miranda. “I will be back directly.”

Lucía remained alone in the compartment, her eyes closed, all her
faculties steeped in a pleasant drowsiness. Whether it were owing to the
motion of the train, the sleeplessness of the previous night, or her
invariable habit in Leon of retiring to rest at this hour--half-past
ten--or all these things together, certain it is that sleep fell upon
her like a leaden mantle. The tension of her nerves relaxed, and that
indescribable sensation of rhythmic warmth, which announces that the
circulation is becoming normal and that sleep is approaching, ran
through her veins. Lucía crossed herself between two yawns, murmured a
_Paternoster_ and an _Ave Maria_, and then began to recite a prayer, in
execrable verse, which she had learned from her prayer-book, beginning
thus:

    Of the little child,
    Innocent and simple,
    Lord, just and merciful,
    Grant me the sleep.

All of which operations, if they were performed for the purpose of
driving away sleep, had the effect, rather, of inducing it. Lucía
exhaled a gentle sigh, her hand fell powerless by her side, and she sank
into a sleep as peaceful and profound as if she were reposing on the
most luxurious of couches.

Miranda, meanwhile, was engaged in the important task of making an
inventory of the luggage, which was by no means scant, consisting of two
large trunks, a hat-box, and a leather case designed to preserve smooth
and unwrinkled the bosoms of his dress-shirts. He had no other resource
than to wait patiently for the turn of the luggage marked “A. M.,”
standing in front of the long counter covered with trunks, boxes, and
valises of every description, to which the porters of the station,
bending under their burden, the veins on their necks standing out like
cords with the exertion, were constantly adding. When they reached the
counter, they hastened to throw down their load with brutal
recklessness, making the boards of the trunks creak and their iron bands
squeak. At last Miranda’s luggage was dispatched, and his check in his
pocket, he jumped from the platform to the track and went in search of
his compartment. It was no easy matter to find it, and he opened several
doors in turn before he reached his own. Sometimes a head would appear
at the opening and a harsh voice say, “It is full.” In others of the
compartments he caught sight, through the half-open door, of confused
forms, people huddled up in corners, or lying stretched on the cushions.
At last he found his own compartment.

The form of Lucía, extended on the improvised bed, completed the picture
of peace and quietude presented by this moving bed-room. Miranda gazed
at his bride for a while, without any of the sentimental or poetic
thoughts which the situation might seem to suggest, occurring to his
mind.

“She is undoubtedly a fine girl,” was the reflection of this man of
mature years and experience. “And, above all, her skin has the down of
the apricot while it still hangs upon the tree. It would almost seem as
if that devil of a Colmenar knew things by intuition. Another would have
given me the millions, but with some virgin and martyr of forty. But
this is syrup spread on pie, as the saying is.”

While Miranda was thus commenting on his good fortune, he took off his
hat and put his hand into the pocket of his overcoat to take from it his
red and black checked traveling-cap. There are movements which when we
execute them make us think instinctively of other movements. The arm of
Miranda, as it descended, was conscious of a void, the want of something
which had before disturbed him, and the owner of the arm becoming aware
of this gave a sudden start and began to examine his person from head to
foot. Hastily and with trembling hands he touched in turn his breast
and waist without finding what he was in search of, and angrily and
impatiently he gave utterance to stifled imprecations and round oaths;
then he struck his forgetful brow as if to compel remembrance by the
shock; memory, thus evoked, at last responded. At supper he had removed
the satchel, which had disturbed him while he was eating, from his
person and placed it on an empty chair at his side. It must be there
still, but the cars would start in a few minutes. The smoke-stacks were
already puffing and snorting like angry cats, and two or three shrill
whistles announced the near departure of the train. Miranda was for a
moment undecided what to do.

“Lucía,” he said aloud.

The only answer was the deep and regular breathing of the young girl,
indicating heavy and profound sleep.

Then he took a sudden resolution, and with an agility worthy of a youth
of twenty, leaped to the ground and ran in the direction of the
restaurant. A satchel like his, filled with money in its various and
most seductive forms--gold, silver, bills, letters of exchange--was not
to be lost in this way. Miranda flew.

Most of the lights in the restaurant were by this time extinguished; one
lamp only still burned in each of the four-armed chandeliers; the
waiters sat chatting together in corners or carried lazily to the
kitchen obelisks of greasy plates and mountains of soiled napkins. On
the large table, now almost empty, the two tall vases stood in solitary
state, and in the dim light the white expanse of the table cloth had the
lugubrious aspect of a winding sheet. On the counter a kerosene lamp
shed around a circumscribed circle of yellowish light, by which the
master of the establishment--the marble slab serving him for a desk--was
making entries in a large account book. Miranda, still under the
influence of his recent fright, went up to him quite close, touching him
almost.

“Have you noticed--” he began breathless--“has any of the waiters
found----”

“A satchel? Yes, Señor.”

The friend of Colmenar once more breathed freely.

“Is it yours?” asked the landlord, suspiciously.

“Yes, it is mine. Give it to me at once; the train is just going to
start.”

“Have the goodness to give me some details that may serve to identify
it.”

“It is of Russian leather--dark red--with plated clasps.”

“That is enough,” said the landlord, taking from a drawer in the counter
the precious article and delivering it without demur to its lawful
owner. The latter, without stopping to examine it, slung it hastily over
his shoulder, plunged his hand into his waiscoat pocket and drawing out
a handful of silver coins, scattered them over the marble counter,
saying, “For the waiters.” The action was so rapid that some of the
coins, rolling about, danced around for a moment over the smooth surface
and then fell flat on the marble with a ringing sound. Before the
silvery vibration had ceased, Miranda was hurrying to the train. In his
confusion he missed the door.

“The train is going to start, Señor,” cried the waiters. “This way--this
way!”

He rushed excitedly toward the platform; the train, with the treacherous
slowness of a snake, began to move slowly along the rails. Miranda shook
his clenched hand at it and a feeling of cold and impotent rage took
possession of his soul. In this way he lost a second, a precious second.
The progress of the train grew gradually quicker, as a swing set in
motion describes at every moment wider curves and flies more rapidly
through the air. Precipitately and without seeing where he went, Miranda
jumped to the track to make his way to the first-class carriages which,
as if in mockery, defiled at this moment past his eyes. He tried to
leap on the steps, but missed his footing and fell with violence to the
ground, experiencing, as he fell, a sharp and sudden pain in the right
foot. He remained on the ground in a half-sitting posture, uttering one
of those imprecations which, in Spain, the men who most pride themselves
on their culture and good-breeding are not ashamed to borrow from the
vocabulary of thieves and murderers. The train thundered past, majestic
and swift, the black engine sending forth sparks of fire that seemed
like fantastic sprites dancing about among the nocturnal shadows.

A few moments after Miranda had left the train to go in search of his
satchel, the door of the compartment in which Lucía was asleep was
opened and a man entered. He carried in his hand a portmanteau, which he
threw down on the nearest cushion. He then closed the door, seated
himself in a corner and pressed his forehead against the glass of the
window, cold as ice and moist with the night dew. In the darkness
outside nothing could be seen but the indistinct bulk of the platform,
the lantern of the guard as he walked up and down, and the melancholy
gas lights scattered here and there.

When the train started, a few sparks, rapid as exhalations, passed
before the glass against which the newcomer was leaning his forehead.




CHAPTER IV.


The latter, when tired of looking out into the darkness, he turned his
gaze on the interior of the compartment, thought it strange enough that
the girl who lay sleeping there before him, so much at her ease, should
have come here instead of going into one of the compartments reserved
for ladies. And to this reflection succeeded an idea which contracted
his brows with a frown and curved his lips in a disdainful smile. A
second glance which he cast at Lucía, however, inspired him with more
charitable thoughts. The light of the lamp, whose blue shade he drew
aside in order to obtain a better view of the sleeping girl, fell
directly upon her, but the flame flickered with the motion of the train,
now leaving her form in shadow, now illuminating it brightly. The light
brought into relief the salient points of her face and her form. The
forehead, white as a jasmine flower, the rosy cheeks, the rounded chin,
the slightly parted lips giving egress to the soft breath and disclosing
to view the pearly teeth, gleamed, as the strong clear light fell upon
them; one arm supported her head in the attitude of an antique
bacchante, the whiteness of the hand contrasting with the blackness of
the hair, while the other hand, also ungloved, hung by her side in the
abandonment of sleep, the veins slightly swollen from the posture, which
caused the blood to flow downward, the wedding-ring gleaming on the
little finger. Every time the form of Lucía came within the luminous
zone, the chased metal buttons cast forth golden gleams, flashing red
over the maroon cloth of the jacket; and here and there, beneath the
pleated flounce bordering the skirt, could be caught glimpses of the
lace of the petticoats and of the exquisite bronze leather shoe with its
rounded heel. From the whole person of the sleeping girl there exhaled
an indescribable aroma of freshness and purity, a breath of
virtuousness, as it were, that could be perceived leagues away. This was
not the bold adventuress, the low-flying butterfly in search of a light
at which to scorch its wings; and the traveler, as this reflection
passed through his mind, wondered at this young creature sleeping
tranquilly here alone, exposed as she was to the risk of insult and to
all sorts of disagreeable accidents, and he recalled to mind a picture
he had once seen in a magnificent copy of illustrated fables
representing Fortune awakening the careless boy sleeping on the brink of
the well. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps his
traveling-companion was some English or American miss who carried in
her pocket as escort and attendant a six-barreled revolver. But although
Lucía was as fresh and robust as a Niobe--a type very common among
Yankee girls--in certain details the Spanish type was so plainly visible
that, as the traveler contemplated her, he was constrained to say to
himself, “She does not bear the remotest resemblance to a foreigner.” He
looked at her for some time longer, as if seeking in her appearance the
solution of the mystery, then, slightly shrugging his shoulders as if to
say, “After all, what does it matter to me,” he took a book from his
portmanteau and began to read; but the wavering light making the letters
dance on the white page at every jolt of the carriage, he soon closed
the book again. He then pressed his forehead once more against the cold
window-pane and thus remained, motionless and lost in thought.

The train hurried forward on its course, swaying and leaning to one side
occasionally, stopping only for a moment at the stations, whose names
the officials called out in gutteral and melancholy tones. After each
stop the train, as if it had gathered fresh force from the momentary
rest, hurried forward with greater speed than before, like a steed that
feels the spur. Owing to the difference of temperature between the outer
air and the air of the carriage, the window-pane was covered with a
lace-like mist, and the traveler, becoming tired perhaps of dissolving
it with his breath, devoted himself anew to the observation of the
sleeping girl and, as the slow hours passed, yielding to an involuntary
feeling which appeared ridiculous to himself, he grew more and more
impatient, indignant, almost, to see the unruffled serenity of this
insolent sleep; and he could not help wishing, in spite of himself, that
his fellow-traveler might awake, if only to give him some opportunity of
gratifying his curiosity concerning her. Perhaps there was no slight
degree of envy mingled with this impatience. What delightful and
desirable sleep! What beneficent repose! It was the untroubled sleep of
youth, of innocent girlhood, of a tranquil conscience, of a rich and
happy temperament, of health. Far from being disfigured, far from
showing that cadaverical hollowness, that contraction of the corners of
the mouth, that species of general distortion, which betrays in the
countenance whose muscles are no longer carefully adjusted to an
artificial expression, the corroding cares of sleepless hours, in
Lucía’s face shone the peacefulness which forms so large a part of the
charm of sleeping childhood. Once, however, she softly sighed. The cold
night air penetrated through the crevices of the closed windows. The
traveler rose, and without observing that there was a bundle of shawls
in the rack, opened his own portmanteau and taking out a fine Scotch
woolen plaid spread it gently over the form of the sleeping girl. The
latter turned slightly, without wakening, her head remaining in the
shadow.

Outside, the telegraph posts looked like a row of specters, the trees
shook their disordered locks, agitating their branches that seemed like
arms stretched out in supplication; here and there a gray house rose
solitary in the landscape, like the immense head of some granite
sphinx--all confused, vague, blurred in outline, shifting as the clouds
of smoke from the engine that enveloped the train like the breath of the
fiery dragon enveloping his prey. Inside the carriage reigned unbroken
silence; it seemed like an enchanted region. The traveler drew the blue
curtain before the lamp, leaned back in a corner, closed his eyes and
stretching out his legs rested his feet against the seat in front. In
this way station after station was passed. He dozed a little and then,
astonished at the prolonged sleep of Lucía, rose, fearing lest she might
have fainted. He went forward and leaned over her, and, having convinced
himself of the peaceful and regular breathing of the young girl,
returned to his seat.

A diffused and pale light began to shed itself over the landscape.
Already could be discerned the shapes of mountains, trees, and huts.
Night, retiring, swept away in her train the trembling stars, as a
sultana gathers up her veil broidered with silvery arabesques. The
slender circle of the waning moon grew pale and vanished in the sky,
whose dark blue changed to the opaque blue of porcelain. A chill ran
through the veins of the traveler, who pulled up the collar of his
overcoat and instinctively stretched his feet toward the heater in whose
metallic bosom the water danced with a gurgling sound. Suddenly the door
of the compartment was opened and a morose-looking man, wearing a hat
with a gilt band, and carrying in his hand a sort of tongs, or punch,
entered hastily.

“Your tickets, Señor,” he cried, in short, imperious tones.

The traveler put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and drew from it a
piece of yellow cardboard.

“The other, the ticket of the lady. Eh, Señora, Señora, your ticket!”

Lucía was now partially awake, and throwing down the Scotch plaid she
sat upright and began to rub her eyes with her knuckles, like a sleepy
child. Her hair was disordered and flattened against the flushed cheek
on which she had been lying, a loosened braid hung over one shoulder
and, unbraided at the end, floated in three strands. Her crushed white
petticoat rose rebellious under her cloth skirt, the string of one of
her shoes had become untied and strayed over her instep. Lucía looked
around her with wandering and uncertain gaze; she seemed serious and
surprised.

“The ticket, Señora, the ticket!” the official continued to cry, in no
very amiable tone of voice.

“The ticket?” she repeated. And she looked around again, unable to shake
off completely the stupor of sleep.

“Yes, Señora, the ticket,” repeated the official, still less amiably
than before.

“Miranda! Miranda!” cried Lucía at last, linking together her scattered
recollections of the day before. And she looked anxiously on all sides,
amazed at not seeing Miranda in the compartment.

“Señor de Miranda has my ticket,” she said, addressing the official, as
if the latter must of necessity know who Miranda was.

The official, puzzled, turned toward the traveler, his right hand
extended for the ticket.

“My name is not Miranda,” said the latter quietly. And as he saw the
angry official again turn rudely to Lucía, he said to her.

“Are you traveling alone, Señora?”

“No, Señor,” answered Lucía, now greatly distressed. “Of course I am not
traveling alone; I am traveling with Don Aurelio Miranda, my husband,”
and as she pronounced the words, she smiled involuntarily at the new and
curious sound of the expression, uttered by her lips.

“She seems very young to be married,” said the traveler to himself; but,
remembering the ring he had seen gleaming on her finger, he asked aloud:

“Where did you take the train?”

“At Leon. But is not Miranda here? Holy Virgin! Señor, tell me--allow
me----”

And forgetting that the train was in motion she was going to open the
door hastily when the official interposed, seizing her by the arm with
force.

“Eh, Señora,” he said in a rude voice, “do you want to kill yourself?
Are you mad? And let us end this at once. I want the ticket.”

“I haven’t it. How can I give it to you if I haven’t it?” exclaimed
Lucía, greatly distressed, her eyes filling with tears.

“You will have to buy one at the next station then, and pay a fine,”
growled the official, more angrily than before.

“Don’t trouble the lady any more,” said the traveler, interfering very
opportunely, for tears as big as filberts now began to course down
Lucía’s cheeks. “Insolent!” he continued angrily. “Do you not see that
some unforeseen accident has happened to this lady? Come, take yourself
off or----”

“But you see, sir, we have our duties to consider, our
responsibilities----”

“Say no more, but go. Take this for the lady’s fare.”

As he spoke, he put his right hand into the pocket of his overcoat and
drew from it some greasy-looking papers of a greenish color, the sight
of which at once restored serenity to the frowning brow of the official
who, as he took the proffered bill, lowered by two or three tones the
pitch of his gruff voice.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, placing it in his soiled and well-worn
pocket-book. “Your word would have been sufficient. I did not recognize
you at first, but I recollect your face very well now, and I remember
having often seen both you and your father, Señor de Artegui----”

“Well then,” rejoined the traveler, “if you know me, you know that I am
not in the habit of wasting words. Go.” And pushing the man out of the
compartment, he closed the door behind him. But he opened it again
quickly and calling to the official, who was running with incredible
agility along the narrow ledge beside the steps, he cried to him in
sonorous tones:

“Hist, hist! If you should come across a gentleman called Miranda in any
of the carriages, let him know that his wife is here.”

This done he seated himself again in his corner, and lowering the window
eagerly drew in the vivifying morning air. Lucía, drying her eyes, which
had twice that day shed unaccustomed tears, felt at the same time
extraordinary uneasiness and an inexplicable sense of contentment. The
action of the traveler caused her the profound joy which generous
actions are apt to awaken in souls yet unspoiled by contact with the
world. She ardently desired to thank him, but she could not summon
courage to do so. He, meantime, sat watching the sunrise with as much
intentness as if it were the most novel and entertaining spectacle in
the world. At last the young girl, conquering her timidity, with
trembling lips said the most stupid thing which it was possible, under
the circumstances, to say (as usually happens when one prepares a speech
for any occasion beforehand):

“Señor--I cannot pay you what I owe you until Miranda comes. He has the
money----”

“I do not lend money,” answered the traveler quietly, without turning
around, or removing his gaze from the eastern sky, where dawn was
breaking through light clouds touched with gold and crimson.

“Well, but it is not just that you should--in this way--without knowing
who I am----”

The traveler did not answer.

“But tell me, for Heaven’s sake!” resumed Lucía, in the silvery tones of
her infantile voice, “what can have become of Miranda? What do you think
of the situation in which I am placed? What am I to do now?”

The traveler turned round in his seat and confronted Lucía with the air
of a man who finds himself forced to take part in a matter that does not
concern him but who resigns himself to the necessity. The fresh tones of
Lucía’s voice suggested to him the same reflection as before:

“It seems impossible that she should be married. Any one would think she
was still in the school-room.” And aloud he said:

“Let us see, Señora. Where did you part from your husband? Do you
remember?”

“I cannot tell. I fell asleep.”

“And where did you fall asleep? Can you not remember that either?”

“At the station where we took supper. At Venta de Baños. Miranda got out
to see to the luggage, telling me to rest awhile--to try to sleep----”

“And you tried to some purpose!” murmured the traveler, with a slight
smile. “You have slept ever since--five hours at a stretch.”

“But--I got up so early yesterday. I was worn out.”

And Lucía rubbed her eyes as if they were still heavy with sleep. Then
taking from her hair two or three hair-pins, she fastened back the
rebellious braids with them.

“You say,” questioned the traveler, “that you have come from Leon?”

“Yes, Señor. The wedding was at eleven in the morning, but I had to get
up early to arrange about the refreshments,” said Lucía, with the
simplicity of a girl unaccustomed to social usages. “It was half-past
three when we left Leon.”

The traveler looked at her, beginning to understand the mystery. The
girl gave him the key to the woman.

“I might have known it,” he said to himself. “You traveled together as
far as Venta de Baños?” he asked Lucía aloud.

“Yes, yes; we took supper there. Miranda, no doubt, stayed there to
check the luggage.”

“Impossible. The operation of checking the luggage is always over in
time for the passengers to take the train. Some unforeseen accident,
some mischance must have occurred.”

“Do you think--tell me frankly--that he could have left me on purpose?”

So childlike and real a grief was depicted on Lucía’s countenance as she
uttered these words, that the serious lips of the traveler were once
more involuntarily curved in a smile.

“Just think of it!” she added, nodding her head gravely and
thoughtfully. “And I, who fancied that when a woman married she had some
one to keep her company and to take care of her! Some one to give her
his protection and support! Well, if this can happen before twenty-four
hours have passed--what is to be expected afterward!”

“Undoubtedly--undoubtedly your husband is much more distressed at what
has happened than you are. Believe me, something has occurred of which
we know nothing, and which will explain the conduct of Señor Miranda. Or
have you any reason, any motive to suspect that--that he wished to
abandon you?”

“Motive! Of course not! None whatever! Señor de Miranda is a very
reliable person.”

“You call him _Señor de Miranda_?”

“No--he told me yesterday to call him Aurelio--but as I have not much
confidence with him yet--and as he is older than I--in short, it did not
come to my tongue.”

The traveler closed his lips, forcing back a whole flood of indiscreet
questions which crowded to his mind, and turned again to the window in
order not to lose the magnificent spectacle offered him by nature. The
sun was rising above the summit of a neighboring mountain, dispelling by
his rays the morning mists that sank slowly into the valley in lace-like
fragments, and flooding the clear blue atmosphere with a fresh, soft
light. Down the granite flank of the mountain, glistening with mica,
descended a foaming torrent, and through the dark shadow of the oak
groves could be caught a glimpse of a little meadow in the tender green
tones of young grass, where a flock of sheep were browsing; their white
forms starred the verdant carpet like enormous flakes of wool. Through
the deafening noise of the train one might fancy one could hear, in that
picturesque and sunny spot, distant trills of birds, and the silvery
tinkling of bells.

After gazing for some time at the beautiful view, now fading into the
distance, the traveler sank back wearily into his corner, his arms
dropped powerless by his side, and a faint sigh, which told of fatigue
rather than of sorrow, escaped from his lips.

The sun was mounting in the heavens, and his rays began to dance on the
windows of the carriage and on the brows of its two occupants, seeming
to invite them to look at each other, and, simultaneously, they
furtively measured each other with their glances, whence resulted a
scene in dumb show, represented by the girl with infantile naturalness
and with frowning reserve by the man.

The traveler was a man in the vigor of his age and in the age of vigor.
He might be, at a rough guess, from twenty-eight to thirty-two years of
age. His pale countenance was a degree more pale on the cheeks,
generally the seat of what, in the language of poetry, are called
“roses.” Notwithstanding this, he did not seem to be of a sickly
constitution. His frame was well proportioned, his beard was black and
fine, his hair soft and wavy, straying where it would without regard to
symmetry or art, but not without a certain fitness in its natural
arrangement that gave character and beauty to the head. His features
were well formed, but overshadowed by melancholy and stamped with the
traces of suffering--not the physical suffering which undermines the
health, wastes the tissues, withers the skin, and dulls or glazes the
eye, but the moral, or, rather, the intellectual suffering which only
deepens the circles under the eyes, furrows the brow, blanches the
temples, and concentrates the gaze, at the same time rendering the
bearing careless and apathetic. Apathy--this was what was most apparent
in the traveler’s manner. All his attitudes and gestures expressed
fatigue and exhaustion. Something there was broken or out of order in
that noble mechanism,--some one of the springs, which, when snapped,
interrupt the functions of the inner life. Even in his attire the
languor and despondency which were so plainly visible in his countenance
were perceptible. It was not negligence, it was indifference and
dejection of spirits that were expressed by the dark gray suit, the gold
chain,--out of place on a journey,--the cravat, carelessly and loosely
tied, the new Suède gloves of delicate color, that ten minutes’ wear
would soil. The traveler did not possess that exquisite and intelligent
taste in dress which gives attention to details, which makes a science
of the toilet; in him was revealed the man who is superior to fashion
because, while not ignorant of it, he disdains it--a grade of culture
which belongs to a higher sphere than fashion, which after all is a
social distinction, and he who rises superior to fashion is also
superior to social distinctions. Miranda wore the livery of elegance,
and therefore, before being attracted by Miranda’s person, the gaze was
attracted by his attire, while that which attracted the attention in
Artegui was Artegui himself. The carelessness of his attire did not
detract from, it rather made more evident the distinction of his person;
the various articles composing his dress were rich of their kind: the
cloth was English, the linen of the finest quality, and both shoes and
gloves were of the best make. All this Lucía noted instinctively rather
than intelligently, for, inexperienced and new to the world, she had not
yet arrived at an understanding of the philosophy of dress,--a science
in which women in general are so learned.

Artegui, on his side, regarded her as the traveler, returning from
snow-clad and desert lands, regards some smiling valley which he chances
upon by the way. Never before had he seen united to the grace of youth
so much vigor and luxuriant bloom. Notwithstanding the night spent in
the railway-carriage, the face of Lucía was as fresh as a rose, and her
disordered hair, flattened down in places, gave her the air of a naiad,
emerging bareheaded and dewy from the bath. Her eyes, her features, all
were smiling, and the sun, indiscreet chronicler of faded complexions,
played harmlessly over the golden down that covered the cheeks of the
young girl, imparting to them the warm tones of antique marble.

Lucía waited for the traveler to speak to her and her glance invited him
to do so. But, as he did not seem disposed to gratify her wishes, she
resolved, when some time had elapsed, to return to the charge, and
cried:

“Well, and what am I going to do? You do not tell me how I am to get out
of this difficulty.”

“To what place were you and your husband going, Señora?” he asked.

“We were going to France, to Vichy,--where the doctors had ordered him
to take the waters.”

“To Vichy, direct? Did you not intend to stop at any place on the way?”

“Yes, at Bayonne; we were to rest there for a while.”

“You are certain of this?”

“Quite certain. Señor de Miranda explained it to me a hundred times.”

“In that case I will tell you what my opinion is. There is no doubt that
your husband, detained by some accident, the nature of which we need not
now stop to inquire into, remained in Venta de Baños last night. As a
precautionary measure we will send him, if you wish, a telegram from
Hendaya; but what I suppose is that he will take the first train which
leaves for France to join you there. If we go back you run the risk of
crossing him on the way, and thus losing time, besides giving yourself
unnecessary trouble. If you get out at the first station we come to and
wait for him there----”

“Yes, that would be the best thing to do.”

“No, because he would not know you had done so; and as several hours
have already elapsed, and he will be on his way to join you, and we have
no means of letting him know, and the train stops only for a moment at
those stations, I do not think it would be best. Besides, you might both
have to remain for a considerable time in some wretched railway station
waiting for another train. That course is not advisable.”

“Well, then, what do you suggest?” said the young girl eagerly, and with
the greatest confidence, encouraged by the “if we go back” of the
traveler, which tacitly promised her assistance and support.

“To go on to Bayonne, Señora; it is the only course to pursue. Your
husband will probably take the first train for that place. We shall
arrive in the afternoon, and he will arrive in the evening. Since he has
not telegraphed to you to return (which he could have done), it is
because he is on his way to join you.”

Lucía interposed no objection. Ignorant of the route herself, she felt a
singular relief in trusting to the experience of another. She turned
toward the window in silence and followed with her gaze the broken line
of the sierra, which stood sharply defined against the clear sky. The
train began to move more slowly. They were nearing a station. “What
place is this?” she asked, turning toward her companion.

“Miranda de Ebro,” he answered laconically.

“How thirsty I am,” murmured Lucía. “I would give anything for a glass
of water.”

“Let us get out; you can get some water at the restaurant,” responded
Artegui, whom this unexpected adventure was beginning to draw from his
abstraction. And springing down before her he offered his arm to Lucía,
who took it without ceremony, and, urged by thirst, hurried toward the
bar, where some half-empty bottles, half-eaten oranges, jars of fruit
syrups and flasks of orange-flower water, disputed with one another the
possession of a zinc-covered counter and some yellow painted shelves.
The water was served, and, without waiting for the sugar to dissolve,
Lucía drank it quickly, in gulps, and then shook the moisture from her
fingers, drying them with her handkerchief.

Artegui paid.

“Thank you,” she said, looking at her taciturn companion. “It was
delicious--when one is thirsty--Thank you, Señor--What is your name?”

“Ignacio Artegui,” he answered, with a look of surprise.

Ingenuousness sometimes resembles boldness, and it was only the innocent
look of the clear eyes fixed upon his that enabled the traveler to
distinguish between them in the present instance.

“Is there anything else you would like?” he said. “Some breakfast? a cup
of coffee or chocolate?”

“No, no, at present I am not at all hungry.”

“Wait for me in the carriage, then, I am going to settle about your
ticket.”

He returned shortly, and the train soon started on its way, the motion
that by night had seemed vertiginous, now seeming only tiresome. The sun
mounted toward the zenith, and warm, heavy gusts of wind, like fiery
breaths, stirred the atmosphere. A cloud of coal dust from the engine
entered through the window and settled on the white muslin covers that
protected the backs of the seats. At times, contrasting with the
penetrating odor of the coal, came a puff of woody perfume from the oak
groves and the meadows stretching on either hand. The landscape was full
of character. It was the wild and beautiful scenery of the Basque
provinces. All along the road rose frowning heights crowned by massive
casemates and strong castles, recently constructed for the purpose of
holding in subjection those indomitable hills. On the sides of the
mountain could be discerned broad trenches and lines of redoubts, like
scars on the face of a veteran. Tall and graceful poplars girdled the
well-cultivated, green and level plains, like necklaces of emerald.
Above the neat, white houses rose the belfry towers. Lucía crossed
herself at sight of them.

Passing by Vitoria a thought of home came to her mind. It was suggested
by the long rows of elms that surround and beautify the city.

“They look like the trees in Leon,” she murmured with a sigh.

And she added in a lower voice, as if speaking to herself:

“I wonder what poor papa is doing now?”

“Does your father reside in Leon?” asked Artegui.

“Yes, in Leon. If he were to know of what has happened, he would be
terribly distressed. After all the charges and the advice he gave me! To
beware of thieves--not to get sick--not to go in the sun--not to get
wet. When I think of it----”

“Is your father an old man?”

“He is getting on in years, but he is strong and well-preserved, and
handsomer in my eyes than gold. I have the good luck to have the best
father in all Spain--he has no will but mine.”

“You are an only child, perhaps?”

“Yes, Señor, and I lost my mother when I was but that high,” and Lucía
held out her open hand, palm downward, on a level with her knee. “Why, I
was not even weaned when my mother died! And see! that is the only
misfortune that has ever happened to me; for, except in that, there may
be plenty of happy people in the world, but no one could be happier than
I have been.”

Artegui fixed on her his deep and imperious eyes.

“You were happy?” he repeated, as if echoing the young girl’s thought.

“Yes, indeed; Father Urtazu used sometimes to say to me, ‘Take care,
child, God is paying you in advance; and afterward, when you die, do you
know what he is going to say to you? That there is nothing owing to
you.’”

“So that,” said Artegui, “you missed nothing in your quiet life in Leon?
You wished for nothing?”

“Yes, sometimes I had longings, but without knowing precisely what for.
I think now that what I wanted was change--to travel. But I was never
impatient, because I always felt that sooner or later I should obtain
what I wished. Was I not right? Father Urtazu used to laugh at me
sometimes, saying, ‘Patience, every autumn brings its fruit.’”

“Father Urtazu is a Jesuit?”

“Yes, and so learned! There is nothing he does not know. Sometimes, to
vex Doña Romualda, the directress of the seminary I attended, I used to
say to her, ‘I would rather have Father Urtazu for my teacher than
you.’”

“And now,” said Artegui, with the brutal curiosity that prompts the
fingers to tear apart the bud, leaf by leaf, until its inmost heart is
laid bare, “and now you are happier than ever before? I should say so!
Just think of it--to be married, nothing less!”

Lucía, without perceiving the ironical accent in which her companion
uttered these words, answered frankly:

“Well, I will tell you. I always wanted to marry to please my father. I
did not want to torment him with all that nonsense about lovers with
which other girls torment their parents. My friends, that is some of
them, if they chanced to see an officer of the garrison pass before
their window--lo! on the instant they were dying in love with him, and
it was nothing but sending and receiving letters. I used to be amazed at
their falling in love in that way, just from seeing a man pass by in the
street--and as I had never felt anything for any one of those men, and
as I already knew Señor de Miranda, and father liked him so much, I
thought to myself, ‘It is the best thing I can do; in this way I shall
have no trouble about the matter,’--was I not right?--‘I have only to
close my eyes, say yes, and the thing is done. Father will be pleased,
and I also.’”

Artegui looked so fixedly at her, that Lucía felt her cheeks burn
beneath the ardor of his gaze, and blushing to the roots of her hair,
she murmured:

“I tell you all the nonsensical thoughts that come into my head. As we
have nothing else to talk about----”

He continued to search with his gaze the open and youthful countenance
before him, as the steel blade probes the living flesh. He knew very
well that frankness and candor are often more truly the signs of
innocence than reticence and reserve, and yet he could not but marvel at
the extreme simplicity of the young girl. It was necessary in order to
understand it, to consider that the vigorous physical health of the body
had preserved the spirit pure. Fever had never rendered languid the gaze
of those eyes with their bluish cornea; the excitation that wastes the
strength of the growing girl, in the trying age between ten and fifteen,
had never paled those fresh and rosy lips. Lucía might be likened to a
rosebud with all its petals closed, raising itself proudly in the midst
of its brilliant green leaves upon its strong and graceful stem.

The heat, which had been steadily increasing, was now overpowering. When
they arrived at Alsásua, Lucía again complained of thirst and Artegui,
offering her his arm, conducted her to the dining-room of the
restaurant, reminding her that as several hours had passed since she had
supped, it would be well to eat something now.

“Breakfast for two,” he called to the waiter, clapping his hands to
attract the man’s attention.

The waiter approached, his napkin thrown over his shoulder. He had a
bronzed face and a soldierly air which accorded ill with the patent
leather shoes, and hair flattened down with bandoline, which is the
livery imposed by the public on its servants in these places. A broad
scar, running across the left cheek from the end of the mustache down
the neck, added to his martial appearance. The waiter stared fixedly at
Artegui for a moment, then, giving a cry, or rather a sort of canine
bark, he exclaimed:

“It is either he himself or the devil in his shape! Señorito Ignacio! It
is a cure for sore eyes----”

“You here, Sardiola?” said Artegui quietly. “We shall have a good
breakfast then, for you will see to it that we are well served.”

“Yes, Señorito, I am here. _Afterward_,” he said, laying marked emphasis
on the word, and lowering his voice, “as I found everything belonging to
me destroyed--the house burned to the ground and the field laid waste--I
set to work to earn my living as best I could. And you, Señorito, are
you going to France?”

“I am going to France, but if you keep on chattering we shall have no
breakfast to-day.”

“That would be a pretty thing----”

Sardiola spoke a few words in the Biscayan dialect, bristling with z’s,
k’s, and t’s, to some of his fellow-waiters. Breakfast was at once
served to Artegui and Lucía, the man taking his stand behind the chair
of the former.

“So you are going to France?” he went on. “And the Señora Doña
Armanda--is she well?”

“Not very well,” answered Ignacio, the cloud deepening on his brow. “She
suffers a great deal. When I left her, however, she was feeling slightly
better.”

“When she sees you at home once more she will be quite well again.”

And looking at Lucía, and striking his forehead with his clenched hand,
Sardiola suddenly cried:

“The more so as---- How stupid I am! Why of course the Señora Doña
Armanda will get well when she sees joy entering her doors! What a
pleasure to see you married, Señorito, and to so lovely a girl! I wish
you every happiness!”

“Dolt!” said Ignacio, gruffly and impatiently, “this lady is not my
wife.”

“Well, it is a pity she is not,” answered the Biscayan, while Lucía
looked smilingly at him. “You would make a pair that--not if you were to
search the wide world through--only that the Señorita----”

“Go on,” said Lucía, intensely amused, busying herself in removing the
tissue paper from an orange.

“Shall I, Señorito Ignacio?”

Artegui shrugged his shoulders. Sardiola, taking this for a sign of
assent, launched forth:

“The young lady looks as if she were never out of temper, and you--you
are always as if you had just received a beating. In that you would not
be a very good match for each other.”

Lucía burst into a laugh and looked at Artegui, who smiled indulgently,
which encouraged her to laugh still more. The breakfast proceeded in the
same cordial manner, animated by Sardiola’s chatter and by the infantile
delight of Lucía. On their return to the cars the waiter accompanied
them to the very door of the compartment and, had Lucía been owner of
the arms of Artegui, she would have thrown them around Sardiola’s neck
when the latter repeated, raising his eyes to heaven, and in the tone in
which one prays, when one prays in earnest:

“The Virgin of Begoña be with you, Señorito--God grant that you may find
Doña Armanda well--command me as if I were a dog, your dog. Remember
that I am here at your service.”

“Thank you,” said Artegui, assuming once more his habitual look of
gloomy reserve.

The train started and Sardiola remained standing on the platform waving
an adieu with his napkin, without changing his attitude, until the smoke
of the engine had vanished on the horizon. Lucía looked at Artegui and
questions crowded to her lips.

“That poor man is greatly attached to you,” she said at last.

“I was so unfortunate as to render him a service at one time,” answered
Ignacio, “and since then----”

“Hear that! and you call that a misfortune. Well, then, you have been
very unfortunate ever since this morning, for you have rendered me a
hundred services already.”

Artegui smiled again as he looked at the young girl.

“The misfortune does not consist,” he said, “in rendering a service, but
in the recipient showing so much gratitude.”

“Well, then, I too suffer from the same disease as Sardiola, and I am
not ashamed of it,” declared Lucía; “you shall see by and by.”

“Bah! all that is wanting is that I should have people grateful to me
without cause,” responded Artegui, in the same festive tone. “It is not
so bad when there is some motive for gratitude, as in the case of that
poor Sardiola.”

“What did you do for him?” asked Lucía, unable to keep her inquisitive
lips closed.

“Not much. I cured him of a wound--a rather serious one.”

“The wound that left that scar on his cheek?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“An amateur one, and that by chance.” Artegui relapsed into silence, and
Lucía did not venture to ask any more questions. The heat continued to
increase. Although it was autumn the weather was suffocating, and the
dust from the engine, diffused through the heated atmosphere, was
stifling. The scenery grew wilder as they proceeded, the country growing
more and more mountainous and rugged. Occasionally they entered a
tunnel, and then the darkness, the rush of the train, the damp,
underground air, penetrating into the compartment, mitigated to some
extent the intense heat.

Lucía fanned herself with a newspaper, arranged for her by Artegui in
the form of a shell; light, transparent drops of perspiration dotted her
rosy neck, her temples, and her chin. From time to time she dried them
with her handkerchief. The tresses of her hair, uncurled and damp,
clung to her forehead. She loosened her stiff collar, took off her
necktie, which was strangling her, and leaned back languidly in her
corner. In order to soften the light in the compartment, Artegui drew
the little curtains of the low windows, producing a vague and mysterious
bluish atmosphere that gave the place the air of a submarine grotto, the
noise of the train, not unlike the roar of the ocean, contributing to
the illusion. Insensible to the heat, Artegui raised the curtain
slightly and looked out at the landscape--the oak groves, the sierra,
the deep valleys. Once he caught a glimpse of a picturesque train of
pilgrims. The scene vanished quickly, but he had time to distinguish the
forms of the pilgrims, their scapulars hanging around their necks,
wending along the narrow road on foot or in wagons drawn by oxen, the
men wearing the red or blue flat woolen cap of the country, the women
with their heads covered with white handkerchiefs. The procession
resembled the descent of the shepherds in the Christmas representation
of the Adoration. The bright sunshine, falling full upon the figures of
the pilgrims, bestowed upon them the crude tones of figures of painted
clay. Artegui drew Lucía’s attention to the scene; she raised the
curtain in her turn, leaned out of the window, and gazed at the
spectacle until a bend of the road and a rapid movement of the train hid
the picture from view. It seemed as if the tunnels took a malicious
pleasure in shutting out from their sight the most beautiful views on
the route. Did they catch sight of a smiling hill, a group of leafy
trees, a pleasant meadow, lo! the train entered a tunnel and they
remained motionless at the window, daring neither to speak nor move, as
if they had suddenly entered a church. Lucía, now somewhat accustomed to
the heat, looked with great interest at the various objects along the
road. The tall match factories, with their white-washed walls and large
painted signs, pleased her greatly, and at Hernani she clapped her hands
with delight on catching a glimpse, to the left of the road, of a
magnificent English park, with its gay flower knots contrasting with the
green grass, and its stately coniferous trees, with their symmetrical
pendant foliage. At Pasajes, after the wearisome monotony of the
mountains, their eyes were at last refreshed with a view of the blue sea
that stretched before them, its surface gently rippling while the
vessels anchored in the bay swayed with a gentle motion, and a
sea-breeze, pungent and salt, fluttered the silk curtains of the
carriage, fanning the perspiring brows of the weary travelers. Lucía
gazed in wonder at the ocean, which she had never seen before, and when
the tunnel suddenly and without warning spread a black veil over the
scene, she remained leaning on her elbows at the window, with dilated
eyes and parted lips, lost in admiration.

As the hours went by, and they advanced on their journey, Artegui lost
something of his statue-like coldness, and, growing by degrees more
communicative, explained to Lucía the various views of this moving
panorama. The young girl listened with that species of attention which
is so delightful to a teacher--that of the pupil, enthusiastic and
docile at the same time. Artegui, when he chose to speak, could be
eloquent. He described the customs of the country; he related many
particulars concerning the villages and the hamlets of which they caught
glimpses on their way. Eyes fixed and observant, a countenance all
attention, changing its expression at the narrator’s will, responded to
his words. So that, when the train stopped at Irún, and they heard the
first words spoken in a foreign tongue, Lucía exclaimed, as if with
regret:

“What! Are we there already?”

“In France? Yes,” answered Artegui, “but we have still some distance to
travel before reaching Bayonne. They examine the luggage here; this is
the custom-house of Irún. They will not trouble us much, though; people
coming from France to Spain are the victims of the custom-house
officials, but no one supposes that those who travel from Spain to
France carry contraband articles or new clothes----”

“But I carry new clothes!” exclaimed Lucía. “My wedding outfit. Do you
see that big trunk that they have set there on the counter? That is
mine, and that other is Miranda’s, and the hat-box----”

“Give me the check and the keys to have them examined.”

“The check and the keys? Miranda has them--not I.”

“In that case you will be left without luggage. You will have to remain
here until your husband joins you.”

Lucía looked at Artegui with something like dismay, but the next moment
she burst out laughing.

“Left without luggage!” she repeated.

And her silvery laughter burst forth afresh. She thought it a delightful
incident to be left without her luggage; she seemed to herself like a
child lost in the streets, who is taken in charge by some charitable
person until her home can be found. It was a perfect adventure. Child
as Lucía was, she might have taken it either as matter for laughter or
matter for tears; she took it as matter for laughter, because she was
happy, and until they reached Hendaya the burst of merriment that
enlivened the carriage did not cease. At Hendaya the dinner served to
prolong these moments of perfect cordiality. The elegant dining-room of
the railway station at Hendaya, adorned with all that taste and
attention to detail displayed by the French to serve, attract, and
squeeze the customer, invited to intimacy, with its long and discreet
curtains of subdued hues, its enormous chimney-piece of bronze and
marble, its splendid sideboard surmounted by a pair of large round
Japanese vases, ornamented with strange plants and birds, gleaming with
Ruolz silver, and laden with mountains of opaque china. Artegui and
Lucía selected a small table with two covers where, sitting opposite
each other, they could converse together in low tones so that the firm,
grave sounds of their Spanish speech might not attract attention amid
the confused and gliding sounds of the chorus of French accents
proceeding from the general conversation at the large table. Artegui
played the rôle of butler and cupbearer, naming the dishes, pouring out
the wines, carving the meat, anticipating Lucía’s childish caprices,
shelling the almonds and peeling the apples for her, and dipping the
ruddy grapes into the crystal bowl of water. A cloud seemed to have been
lifted from his now animated countenance and his movements, although
calm and composed, showed less weariness and listlessness than before.

When they re-entered the carriage, night was approaching, and the sun
was sinking in the west with the swiftness peculiar to autumn. They
closed the windows on one side of the compartment and the flickering
light played on the ceiling of the carriage, appearing and disappearing
like children playing hide and seek. The mountains grew black, the
clouds in the distance turned flame color, then faded, one by one, like
a rose of fire dropping its glowing petals. The conversation between
Artegui and Lucía languished and then ceased entirely, both relapsing
into a gloomy silence,--he showing his accustomed air of fatigue, she
lost in a profound revery, dominated by the saddening influence of the
hour. The twilight deepened, and from one of the carriages could be
heard rising above the noise made in its slow progress by the train, a
sorrowful and passionate chorus in a foreign tongue; a _zortzico_,
intoned in deep, full voices by a party of young Biscayans on their way
to Bayonne. Now and then a cascade of mocking laughter interrupted the
song; then the chorus would rise again, tender and melancholy as a sigh,
toward the heavens, black now as ink. Lucía listened, and the train,
slowly making the descent, accompanied with its deep vibration the
voices of the singers.

The arrival at Bayonne surprised Artegui and Lucía as if they had
wakened from a prolonged sleep. Artegui quickly drew his hand away from
the knob of the window on which it had been resting and the young girl
looked around her with an air of surprise. She noticed that it had grown
cool, and she buttoned her collar and put on her necktie. Men with
woolen caps, girls wearing handkerchiefs fastened at the back of the
head, a stream of passengers of diverse appearance and social condition
pushed and elbowed one another and bustled about in the large station.
Artegui gave his arm to his companion so that they might not lose each
other in the crowd.

“Had your husband decided on any particular hotel at which to stop in
Bayonne?” he asked.

“I think,” murmured Lucía, making an effort to remember, “that I heard
him mention a hotel called San Estéban. I remembered it because I have
a very pretty picture of that saint in my missal.”

“Saint Étienne,” said Artegui to the driver of the omnibus, who, seated
on the box, his head turned toward them, was waiting for orders.

The horses set off at a heavy trot, and the vehicle rolled along through
the well-paved streets until it reached a house with a narrow door,
marble steps flanked by consumptive-looking plants in pots, and bright
gas-lamps, before which it stopped.

A fair, tall woman, neatly dressed, wearing a freshly ironed pleated
cap, came to the door to receive them and hastened to give Artegui’s
valise to a waiter.

“The lady and gentleman would like to have a room?” she murmured in
French, in mellifluous and obsequious tones.

“Two,” answered Artegui laconically.

“Two,” she repeated in Spanish, although with a transpyrenean accent.
“And would the lady and gentleman like them connected?”

“Entirely separate.”

“_Tout à fait._ They shall be prepared.”

The landlady called a chambermaid, no less neat and obliging than
herself, who, taking two keys from the board on which were hanging the
keys of the hotel, ascended the waxed stairs, followed by Artegui and
Lucía.

She stopped on the third landing, a little out of breath, and opening
the doors of two rooms adjoining each other, but separate, struck a
match, lighted the candles on the chimney-piece of each and then
withdrew. Artegui and Lucía stood silent for a few moments at the doors
of their respective rooms; at last, the former said:

“You must want to wash your hands and face and brush the dust of the
road from your dress and rest for a while. I will leave you now. Call
the chambermaid if you should require anything; here every one speaks a
little Spanish.”

“Good-by,” she answered mechanically.

When the noise made by the closing of the door announced to Lucía that
she was alone, and she cast her eyes around this strange room, dimly
illumined by the light of the candles, the excitement and bewilderment
she had felt during the journey vanished; she called to mind her little
room at Leon, simple but dainty as a silver cup, with its holy-water
font, its saint, its boxes of mignonette, its work-table, its capacious
cedar wardrobe filled with freshly ironed linen. She thought, too, of
her father, of Carmela and Rosarito, of all the sweet past. Then
sadness overpowered her; fears, vague but none the less real, assailed
her; the position in which she found herself seemed to her strange and
alarming: the present looked threatening, the future dark. She sank into
an easy-chair and gazed fixedly at the light of the candles with the
abstracted look of one lost in deep and painful meditation.




CHAPTER V.


An hour, or perhaps an hour and a half, might have passed when Lucía
heard a knock at the door of her room, and opening it she found herself
face to face with her companion and protector, who gave proof, by his
white cuffs and some slight changes which he had made in his dress, of
having paid that minute attention to the business of the toilet which is
a part of the religion of our age. He entered, and without seating
himself, held out to Lucía his pocket-book, filled with money.

“You have here,” he said, “money enough for any occasion that may arise
until your husband joins you. As the trains are apt to be delayed at
this season, I do not think he will be here before morning, but even if
he should not arrive for a week, or even a month, there is enough to
last you till then.”

Lucía looked at him as if she had not understood his meaning, without
making any motion to take the pocket-book. He slipped it into her palm.

“I am obliged to go out now, to attend to some business,” he said;
“after which I will take the first train for Paris. Good-by, Señora,” he
ended ceremoniously, taking two steps toward the door.

Then, grasping his meaning, the young girl, with pale and troubled
countenance, caught him by the sleeve of his overcoat, exclaiming:

“What--what do you mean? What are you saying about the train?”

“What is natural, Señora,” said the traveler, with his former tired
gesture, “that I am going to continue my journey; that I am going to
Paris.”

“And you are going to leave me in this way--alone! Alone here in
France!” said Lucía, in the greatest distress.

“Señora, this is not a desert, nor need you fear that any harm will
befall you. You have money. That is the one thing needful on French
soil; that you will be well served and waited upon, I will guarantee.”

“But--good heavens! Alone! alone!” she repeated, without loosening her
hold on Artegui’s sleeve.

“Within a few hours your husband will be here.”

“And if he does not come?”

“Why should he not come? What puts it into your head that he will not
come?”

“I do not say that he will not come,” stammered Lucía. “I only say that
if he should delay----”

“In fine,” murmured Artegui, “I, too, have my occupations--it is
imperative that I should go.”

Lucía answered not a word to this, but, loosening her hold on his
sleeve, she sank again into her chair and hid her face in her hands.
Artegui approached her and saw that her bosom heaved with a quick,
irregular motion, as if she were sobbing. Between her fingers drops
flowed as copiously as if they had been squeezed out of a sponge.

“Lift up your face,” said Artegui in an authoritative voice.

Lucía raised her flushed, moist countenance and, in spite of herself,
smiled as she did so.

“You are a young girl,” he said, “a young girl who is not bound to know
what the world is. I, who have seen more of it than I could wish, would
be unpardonable if I did not undeceive you. The world is a collection of
eyes, ears, and mouths that close themselves to all that is good and
open themselves eagerly to all that is evil. My company at present is
more to your injury than your advantage. If your husband has not
exceptionally good judgment--and there is no reason to suppose that he
has--it will give him but little satisfaction to find you so protected.”

“Good heavens! and why? What would have become of me if I had not met
you so opportunely? That dreadful official might have put me in prison.
I don’t know what Señor de Miranda will say but, as for poor papa, he
would kiss the ground you walk upon, I am sure of it.”

And Lucía, with a gesture of passionate and plebeian gratitude, made a
movement as if to kneel before Artegui.

“A husband is not a father,” he answered. “The only reasonable, the only
sensible course, Señora, is for me to go. I telegraphed from Ebro to
Miranda, so that if your husband should be there, he may be told you are
waiting here for him in Bayonne.”

“Go, then.”

And Lucía turned her back on Artegui, and leaning her elbows on the
window-sill, looked out of the window.

Artegui remained for a moment standing in the middle of the room,
looking at the young girl, who doubtless was swallowing her tears
silently, undecided what to do. At last he approached her, and almost in
a whisper:

“After all,” he murmured, “there is no need to be so greatly troubled.
Dry your tears, for if you live long enough you will have time and cause
in plenty for them to flow.”

Lowering still more his sonorous voice, he added:

“I will remain.”

Lucía turned round as if she had been moved by a spring, and, clapping
her hands, cried with childish delight:

“Thank you! Thank you, Señor de Artegui. Oh, but will you stay in
earnest? I am beside myself with joy. What happiness! But,” she added
suddenly, as if the thought had only just occurred to her, “can you
remain? Will it be a sacrifice, will it be a trouble to you?”

“No,” answered Artegui, with a gloomy countenance.

“That lady, that Doña Armanda, who is expecting you in Paris--may not
she, too, need you?”

“She is my mother,” answered Artegui, and Lucía was satisfied with the
response, although it failed to answer her question.

Artegui, meanwhile, pushed a chair toward the table, and seating
himself in it leaned his elbow on the cover and burying his face in his
hands, gave himself up to his thoughts. Lucía, from the embrasure of the
window, was observing his movements. When ten minutes had passed, and
Artegui had neither moved nor spoken, she approached him softly, and, in
a timid and supplicating voice, stammered:

“Señor de Artegui----”

He looked up. His face wore its former gloomy expression.

“What do you wish?” he asked hoarsely.

“What is the matter? It seems to me that you are--very downcast and very
sad--I suppose it is on account of--what we were saying--see, if it
annoys you so greatly, I think I prefer that you should go. Yes, I am
sure I do.”

“I am not annoyed. I am--as I always am. It is because you know me so
little that you are surprised at my manner.”

And seeing that Lucía remained standing with a remorseful expression on
her countenance, he motioned to the other chair. Lucía drew it forward
and sat down in it, facing Artegui.

“Say something,” continued Artegui, “let us talk. We must amuse
ourselves, we must chat--as we did this afternoon.”

“Ah, this afternoon you were in a good humor.”

“And you?”

“I was suffocated with the heat. Our house at Leon is very cool; I am
much more susceptible to the heat than to the cold.”

“You found it pleasant, no doubt, to wash off the dust of the road. It
is so refreshing to make one’s toilet after a journey.”

“Yes, but----” Lucía stopped. “I missed one thing--a very important
thing,” she added.

“What? Cologne water, perhaps. I forgot to bring you my _necessaire_.”

“No, indeed,--the trunk which contained my linen--I could not change my
things.”

Artegui rose.

“Why did you not mention this before?” he said. “We are precisely in the
place where Spanish brides purchase their wedding outfits!--I will be
back directly.”

“But--where are you going?”

“To bring you a couple of changes of linen; you must be in torture with
those dusty garments.”

“Señor de Artegui! for Heaven’s sake! I am imposing on your good nature;
wait----”

“Why do you not come with me to choose them?”

And Artegui handed Lucía her toque.

The scruples that at first presented themselves to the young girl’s mind
vanished quickly like a flock of frightened quail, and a little
confused, but still more happy, she hastily took Artegui’s offered arm.

“We shall see the streets, shall we not?” she exclaimed excitedly.

And as they went down the waxed and slippery stairs, she said, with a
remnant of provincial scrupulousness and shyness:

“Of course, Señor de Artegui, my husband will repay you all you are
spending.”

Artegui tightened his clasp on her arm with a smile, and they walked on
through the streets of Bayonne, as much at home with each other as if
they had lived all their lives together. The night was worthy of the
day. In the soft blue sky the stars shone clear and bright. The
gas-lights of the innumerable shops, which in Bayonne trade upon the
vanity of the wealthy and migratory Spaniards, encircled the dark blocks
of houses with zones of light, and in the show-cases gleamed, in every
tone of the chromatic scale, rich stuffs, porcelains, curious bronzes,
and costly jewels. The pair walked on in silence, Artegui accommodating
his long manly stride to the shorter step of Lucía. The streets were
filled with people who walked along quickly, with an air of animation,
like people engaged in some business that interests them; not with the
languid air of the southern races, who walk for exercise or to kill
time. The tables standing in front of the cafés were crowded with
customers, for the mild atmosphere made it pleasant to sit in the open
air, and under the bright light of the gas lamps the waiters hurried
about serving beer, coffee, or chocolate _bavaroise_; and the smoke of
the cigars, and the rustling of newspapers, and the talk, and the sharp
ring of the dominoes on the marble made the sidewalk full of life.
Suddenly Artegui turned the corner of the street and led the way into a
rather narrow shop, whose show-case was almost filled by two long
morning-gowns adorned with cascades of lace, one of them trimmed with
blue, the other with pink ribbons. Inside the shop were numberless
articles of underwear for women and children, coquettishly
displayed,--jackets with extended sleeves, wrappers hanging in graceful
folds. The ivory white of the laces contrasted with the chalky white of
the muslins. Here and there the brilliant colors, the silk and gold of
some morning cap resting on its wooden stand, rose in contrast from
among the white masses lying around on all sides like a carpet of snow.

The proprietress of the establishment, like most of the shopkeepers of
Bayonne, spoke Spanish; and when Lucía asked her for two suits of linen
she availed herself of her knowledge of the language of Cervantes to
endeavor to persuade her to launch into further purchases. Taking Lucía
and Artegui for a newly married couple she became flattering,
insinuating, importunate, and persisted in showing them a complete
outfit, lauding its beauty and its cheapness. She threw on the counter
armfuls of articles, floods of lace, embroidery, batiste. Not content
with which, and seeing that Lucía, submerged in a flood of linen, was
making signs in the negative with head and hands, she touched another
spring, and took down enormous pasteboard boxes containing diminutive
caps, flannel, swaddling-clothes, finely scalloped cashmere and piqué
cloaks, petticoats of an exaggerated length, and other articles which
brought the blood to Lucía’s cheeks.

Artegui put an end to the attack by paying for the suits selected, and
giving the address of the hotel to which they were to be sent.

This done, they left the shop; but Lucía, enchanted with the beauty and
serenity of the night, expressed a wish to remain out a little longer.

They retraced their steps, passing again before the brilliantly lighted
cafés and the theater, and took the road to the bridge, at this hour
almost deserted. The lights of the city were tremulously reflected on
the tranquil bosom of the Adour.

“How bright the stars are!” exclaimed Lucía; and suddenly pulling
Artegui by the sleeve, to arrest his steps. “What star is that,” she
said, “that shines so brightly?”

“It is called Jupiter. It is one of the planets belonging to our
system.”

“How bright and lovely it is! Some of the stars seem to be cold, they
tremble so as they shine; and others are motionless, as if they were
watching us.”

“They are, in effect, fixed stars. Do you see that band of light that
crosses the sky?”

“That looks like a wide silver gauze ribbon?”

“That is the Milky Way; a collection of stars, the number of which is so
great as to be inconceivable even to the imagination. Our sun is one of
the ants of that ant-hill,--one of those stars.”

“The sun--is it a star?” asked the young girl in surprise.

“A fixed star--we whirl around it like mad people.”

“Ah, how delightful to know all those things! In the school I attended,
we were not taught a particle of all that, and Doña Romualda used to
laugh at me when I would say I was going to ask Father Urtazu--who is
always looking at the heavens through a big telescope--what the stars
and the sun and the moon are.”

Artegui turned to the right, following the embankment, while he
explained to Lucía the first notions of that science of astronomy which
seems like a celestial romance, a fantastic tale written in characters
of light on sapphire tablets. The young girl, enraptured, gazed now at
her companion, now at the serene firmament. She was amazed, above all,
at the magnitude and number of the stars.

“How vast the sky is! Dear Lord! if the material, the visible heavens
are so great, what must the real heavens be, where the Virgin, the
angels, and the saints are!”

Artegui shook his head, and bending toward Lucía, murmured:

“How do those stars seem to you? One might fancy they were sad. Is it
not true that when they twinkle they look as if they were shedding
tears?”

“They are not sad,” responded Lucía, “they are pensive, which is a very
different thing. They are thinking, and they have something to think
about,--to go no further, God who created them.”

“Thinking! They think as much as that bridge or those vessels think. The
_privilege_ of thinking”--Artegui laid a bitter emphasis on the word
_privilege_--“is reserved for man, the lord of creation. And if there be
on those stars, as there must be, men endowed with the privileges and
the faculties of humanity, they it is who think.”

“Do you believe there are people on those stars? Do you think they are
like us, Señor de Artegui? Do they eat? Do they drink? Do they walk?”

“Of that I know nothing. There is only one thing I can assure you of,
but that with full knowledge and perfect certainty.”

“What is that?” asked the young girl, with curiosity, watching, by the
uncertain light of the stars Artegui’s countenance.

“That they suffer as we suffer,” he answered.

“How do you know that?” she murmured, impressed by the hollow tone in
which the words were uttered. “Well, for my part, I fancy that in the
stars that are so beautiful and that shine so brightly, there is neither
discord nor death, as there is here. It must be blissful there!” she
declared, raising her hand and pointing to the refulgent orb of
Jupiter.

“Pain is the universal law, here as well as there,” said Artegui,
looking fixedly at the Adour which ran, dark and silent, at his feet.

They spoke little more until they reached the hotel. There are
conversations which awaken profound thoughts and which are more
fittingly followed by silence than by frivolous words. Lucía, tired,
without knowing why, leaned heavily on the arm of Artegui, who walked
slowly, with his accustomed air of indifference. The last words of their
conversation were discordant--almost hostile.

“At what hour does the morning train arrive?” asked Lucía suddenly.

“The first train arrives at five or thereabouts.”

The voice of Artegui was dry and hard.

“Shall we go to meet it to see if Señor de Miranda is on it?”

“You may do so if you choose, Señora; as for me, permit me to decline.”

The tone in which he answered was so bitter that Lucía did not know what
to reply.

“The employees of the hotel will go,” added Artegui, “whether you do or
not, to meet the trains. There is no need for you to rise so early--at
least, unless your conjugal tenderness is so great----”

Lucía bent her head, and her face flushed as if a red-hot iron had
passed close to it. When they entered the hotel the landlady approached
them; her smile, animated by curiosity, was even more amiable and
obsequious than before. She explained that she had forgotten a necessary
formality--to enter the names of the lady and gentleman, and their
nationality, in the hotel register.

“Ignacio Artegui, Madame de Miranda; Spaniards,” said Artegui.

“If the gentleman had a card----” the landlady ventured to say.

Artegui gave her the desired slip of pasteboard, and the landlady was as
profuse in her courtesies and thanks as if she were excusing herself for
complying with the required formality.

“When the morning train arrives,” said Ignacio, “give orders to inquire
for Monsieur Aurelio Miranda--don’t forget! Let him be told that Madame
is in this hotel, that she is well, and that she is waiting for him to
join her. Do you understand?”

“_Parfait_,” answered the Frenchwoman.

Lucía and Artegui bade each other good-night at the doors of their
respective rooms. Lucía, as she was about to undress, saw the purchases
she had made, lying on the table. She put on the fresh linen with
delight, and lay down thinking she was going to sleep profoundly, as
she had done the preceding night. But she did not enjoy the repose she
had anticipated: her sleep was restless and broken. Perhaps the
strangeness of the bed, its very softness, produced in Lucía the effect
which unaccustomed luxuries produce in persons habituated to a monastic
life, of whom it may be said with truth, paradoxical as it may appear,
that comfort makes them uncomfortable.




CHAPTER VI.


When the chambermaid wakened Lucía in the morning, bringing her a bowl
of coffee, the first piece of news she gave her was that Monsieur de
Miranda had not arrived in the train from Spain. Lucía sprang out of bed
and dressed herself quickly, trying to bring together her scattered
recollections and glancing around her room with the surprise which those
unused to traveling are apt to experience on awakening for the first
time in a strange place. She looked at the clock upon the table; it was
eight. She went out into the corridor and knocked softly at the door of
Artegui’s room.

The latter, who was in his shirt-sleeves, finishing his toilet, when he
heard the knock, quickly dried his hands and face, threw his overcoat
over his shoulders, and opened the door.

“Don Ignacio--good-morning. Do I disturb you?”

“No, indeed, will you come in?”

“Are you dressed already?”

“Almost.”

“Do you know that Señor de Miranda has not come by the morning train?”

“I have been told so.”

“What do you say to that? Is it not very strange?”

Ignacio did not answer. He began, in truth, to think the conduct of this
bridegroom, who had abandoned his bride on their wedding-day in the
carriage of a railway train, strange and more than strange. Of course,
some disagreeable and unforeseen accident must have occurred to the
unknown Miranda; whose fate, by a singular chance, had come to influence
his own in the manner it had done during the last forty-eight hours.

“I will telegraph everywhere,” he said; “to Alsásua, to---- do you wish
me to telegraph to Leon, to your father?”

“God forbid!” exclaimed Lucía “he would be capable of taking the next
train to come in search of me, and suffocating on the way with
asthma--and with worry. No, no!”

“At all events I am going to take measures----”

And Artegui thrust his arms through the sleeves of his overcoat and took
up his hat.

“Are you going out?” asked Lucía.

“Do you need anything else?”

“Do you know--do you know that yesterday was Saturday and that to-day is
Sunday?”

“As a general thing Sunday does follow Saturday,” answered Artegui, with
amiable badinage.

“You don’t understand me.”

“Explain yourself, then. What do you wish?”

“What should I wish but to go to mass like all the rest of the world?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Artegui. Then he added: “True. And you wish----”

“That you should accompany me. I am not going to mass alone, I suppose?”

Artegui smiled again, and the young girl observed how well a smile
became that countenance, generally so emotionless and somber. It was
like the dawn when it tints the gray mountains with rose-color; like a
sunbeam piercing the mists on a cloudy clay. The eyes, the pallid and
hollow cheeks kindled; youth was renewed in that countenance faded by
mysterious sorrows, and darkened by perpetual clouds.

“You should always smile, Don Ignacio,” exclaimed Lucía. “Although,” she
added reflectively, “the other way you look more like yourself.”

Artegui, smiling more brightly than before, offered her his arm; but she
declined to take it. When they reached the street she walked along in
silence, with downcast eyes; she missed the protecting shade of the
black veil of her lace manto, which concealed her face and gave her so
modest an air when she walked under the beams of the half-ruined vaulted
roof of the cathedral at Leon. The cathedral of Bayonne seemed to her as
delicately beautiful as a filigree ornament, but she could not listen to
the mass so devoutly there as in the other; the exquisite purity of the
temple, like an elaborately carved casket; the vivid coloring of the
Neo-Byzantine figures painted on a gold background in the transept, the
novelty of the open choir; of the tabernacle, isolated and without
ornament; the moving of the prayer-desks; the walking to and fro of the
women who rented the chairs, all disturbed her. It seemed to her as if
she were in a temple of a different faith from her own. A white-robed
virgin, wearing a mantle ornamented with gold bands and holding in her
arms the Divine Infant in one of the chapels of the nave, tranquillized
her somewhat. Then she recited a number of Hail Marys; she pulled apart
one by one the leaves of the blood red roses of the rosary, of the
mystic lilies of the litany. She left the temple with a light step and a
joyful heart. The first object on which her eyes fell when she reached
the door was Artegui looking with interest at the Gothic cinter of the
portal.

“I have sent telegrams to all the various stations on the route,
Señora,” he said, politely raising his hat when he saw her; “especially
to the most important station, Miranda de Ebro. I have taken the liberty
of signing them with your name.”

“Thanks--but have you not heard mass?” exclaimed the young girl, looking
at him in surprise.

“No, Señora; I come, as I have just told you, from the telegraph
office,” he answered evasively.

“You must hurry, then, if you wish to be in time. The priest has just
this moment come out, in his vestments.”

A slight frown crossed Artegui’s face.

“I shall not go to mass,” he said, half seriously, half jestingly. “At
least not unless you particularly desire it--in which case----”

“Not go to mass!” exclaimed the young girl with wide-open eyes, amazed
and disturbed as well. “And why do you not go to mass? Are you not a
Christian?”

“Let us suppose that I am not,” he stammered, in a low voice, like a
criminal confessing his crime before his judge, and shaking his head
with a melancholy air.

“Good heavens! What are you then?” And Lucía clasped her hands in
distress.

“What Father Urtazu would call an unbeliever.”

“Ah,” she cried impetuously. “Father Urtazu would say that all
unbelievers are wicked.”

“Father Urtazu might add that they are even more unhappy than wicked.”

“It is true,” replied Lucía, trembling still like a tree shaken by the
blast. “It is true, even more unhappy; Father Urtazu would certainly say
nothing else. And how unhappy they must be! Holy Virgin of the Rosary!”

The young girl bent her head as if stunned by the sudden blow. The
religious sentiment, dormant, until now, along with so many other
sentiments, in the depths of her serene and placid soul, awoke with
vigor at the unexpected shock. Two sensations struggled for the
mastery--piercing pity on the one hand, mingled terror and repulsion on
the other. Horrified, she was prompted to move away from Artegui, and
for this very reason her heart melted with compassion when she looked at
him. The people were coming out of the church; the portico poured forth
wave after wave of this human sea, and Lucía, standing erect and pale as
a Christian martyr in the arena, was hemmed in by the crowd. Artegui
offered her his arm in silence; she hesitated at first, then accepted
it, and both walked mechanically in the direction of the hotel. The
morning, slightly cloudy, promised a temperature cooler and more
agreeable than that of the day before. A delightful breeze was blowing,
and through the light clouds the sun could be seen struggling, like love
struggling through the clouds of anger.

“Are you sad, Lucía?” Artegui asked the young girl softly.

“A little, Don Ignacio.” And Lucía heaved a profound sigh. “And you are
to blame for it,” she added, in a gently reproachful tone.

“I?”

“Yes, you. Why do you say those foolish things, that cannot be true?”

“That cannot be true?”

“Yes, that cannot be true. How can it be true that you are not a
Christian? Come, you are saying what you do not mean.”

“And how does it matter to you, Lucía?” he exclaimed, calling her for
the second time by her Christian name. “Are you Father Urtazu? Am I one
who interests or concerns you in any way? Will you be called upon in any
tribunal to answer for my soul? Child, this is a matter that touches you
in no way.”

“Does it not, indeed? I declare, Don Ignacio, to-day you talk as if--as
if you were crazy. Why should it not matter to me whether you are saved
or lost, whether you are a Christian or a Jew!”

“A Jew! As far as being a Jew is concerned, I am not that,” responded
Artegui, endeavoring to give a playful turn to the conversation.

“It is the same thing--to deny Christ is to be a Jew in fact.”

“Let us drop this, Lucía; I don’t want to see you look like that, it
makes you ugly!” he said lightly, alluding, for the first time, to
Lucía’s personal appearance. “What, do you wish to do now? Shall I take
you to see some of the curiosities of the place? The hospital? The
forts?”

He spoke with more cordiality of manner than he had yet manifested, and
Lucía’s soul was tranquillized, as when oil is poured on the troubled
waters.

“Could we not make a little excursion into the country? I am
passionately fond of trees.”

Artegui turned toward the theater, before the door of which two or three
little basket-carriages were standing. He made a sign to the driver of
the nearest, a Biscayan, who, raising his whip, touched with it the
flanks of the Tarbes ponies, that, with a shake of the mane, prepared to
start. Lucía sprang in and seated herself in the light vehicle, and
Artegui, taking his place beside her, called to the driver:

“To Biarritz.”

The carriage set off, swift as an arrow, and Lucía closed her eyes,
letting her thoughts wander at will, enjoying the light caresses of the
breeze, that blew back the ends of her necktie and her wavy tresses. And
yet the scenery, picturesque and smiling, was well worthy of a glance.
They passed cultivated fields, country houses with pointed roofs,
English parks carpeted with fresh turf and fine grass, yellow now with
the hues of autumn. Descrying a footpath winding among the fields,
Artegui called to the driver to stop, and giving his hand to Lucía
helped her to alight. The Biscayan sought the shelter of a wall where
his horses, bathed in sweat, might rest with safety, and Artegui and
Lucía proceeded on foot along the little path, the latter, who had now
recovered her childlike gayety and her innocent delight in bodily
motion, leading the way. She was enchanted with everything: the clover
blossoms that covered the dark green field with crimson dots; the late
chamomile and the pale corn-flowers growing by the roadside; the
fox-gloves, that she gathered with a smile, bursting the pods between
her hands; the curling plumes of the celery; the cabbages growing in
rows, each row separated by a furrow. The earth, from over-culture,
over-manuring, over-plowing, had acquired an indescribable air of
decrepitude. Its flanks seemed to groan, exuding a viscous and warm
moisture like sweat, while in the uncultivated land bordering the path
were spots of virgin soil where grew at will the ornamental
superfluities of the fields,--vaporous grasses, many-colored flowers,
and sharp thistles.

The path was too narrow to admit of their walking side by side, and
Artegui followed Lucía, although he strayed occasionally into the
fields, with little regard for proprietorial rights. The young girl at
last paused in her meandering course at the foot of a thick osier
plantation on the borders of a marsh, shading a steep grassy bank from
which could be obtained a view of the road they had traversed. They
seated themselves on the natural divan and looked at the plain that
stretched before them like a patch-work composed of the various shades
of the vegetables cultivated in the different fields. In the high-road,
that wound along like a white ribbon, they could distinguish a black
spot--the basket-carriage and the ponies. The sun shone with a mild
light that came softened through a veil of clouds, and the landscape
showed dull tones,--sea-greens, sandy yellow patches, faint ash-colored
distances, soft tints that were reflected in the tranquil pond.

“This is very lovely, Don Ignacio,” said Lucía, in order to say
something, for the silence, the profound solitude of the place, was
beginning to weigh upon her spirits. “Don’t you like it?”

“Yes, I like it,” answered Artegui, with an absent air.

“Although it seems, indeed, as if you liked nothing. You seem, always,
as if you were tired--that is to say, not tired, but sad, rather. See
here,” continued the young girl, taking hold of a flexible osier branch
and wreathing it playfully around her head, “I wager you would not
believe that your sadness is communicating itself to me, and that I,
too, begin to be--I don’t know how to describe it--well, preoccupied. I
would give, I don’t know what, to see you contented and--natural, like
other men. Neither in your face nor your expression do you resemble
other men, Don Ignacio.”

“And I, on my side,” he responded, “find your gayety infectious; I am
sometimes in a better humor than you are yourself. Happiness, too, is
contagious.”

As he spoke he drew toward him another osier branch, whose tender peel
he stripped off with his fingers and threw into the pond, watching
fixedly the circles it made on the surface of the water as it sank.

“Of course it is,” assented Lucía; “and if you wished to be frank, if
you made up your mind to--to confide to me the cause of your trouble,
you should see that in a second’s time I would chase away that shadow
that you now wear on your face. I don’t know why it is that I imagine
that all this seriousness, this gloom, this dejection is not caused by
real unhappiness, but by--by--I don’t know how to explain myself--by
nonsensical notions, by ideas without rhyme or reason, that swarm in
your brain. I wager I am right.”

“You are so right,” exclaimed Artegui, dropping the osier branch and
seizing the young girl’s hand, “that I am now firmly persuaded that
pure and sinless natures possess a certain power of divination, a
certain marvelous and peculiar intuition denied to us who, in exchange,
see clearly the irremediable sadness of life.”

Lucía looked with a serious and disturbed countenance at her companion.

“You see!” she found voice to say at last, making an effort to form her
lips into a smile and succeeding with difficulty. “So that all those
foolish notions that resemble the houses of cards that father used to
build for me when I was a child, and which would fall down at a breath,
have now vanished?”

“In this you are mistaken, child,” said Artegui, dropping her hand with
one of his languid, mechanical gestures. “The contrary is the case. When
sadness springs from some definite cause, if the cause is removed the
sadness may also disappear; but if sadness springs up spontaneously in
the soul like those weeds and rushes you see growing on the borders of
that pond, if it is in ourselves, if it is the essence of our being, if
it does not spring up here and there only, but everywhere, if nothing on
earth can alleviate it, then--believe me, child, the patient is beyond
help. There is no hope for him.”

He smiled as he spoke, but his smile was like the light falling on a
statue in a niche.

“But, tell me,” said Lucía, with painful and feverish curiosity. “Have
you ever met with any terrible misfortune--any great grief?”

“None that the world would call such.”

“Have you a family--who love you?”

“My mother adores me--and if it were not for her----” said Artegui,
allowing himself to be drawn, as if against his will, into the gentle
current of confidence.

“And your father?”

“He died many years ago. He was a Biscayan, a Carlist emigrant, a man of
great energy, of indomitable will; he took refuge in the interior of
France; he found himself there without money and without friends; he
worked as he had fought, with lion-like courage, and succeeded in
establishing a vast commercial business, accumulating a fortune, buying
a house in Paris and marrying my mother, who belongs to a distinguished
Breton family, also legitimist. I was their only child; they lavished
affection upon me but without neglecting my education or spoiling me by
over-indulgence. I studied, I saw the world, I expressed a wish to
travel, and my mother placed the means of doing so at my disposal; I had
whims, many whims, when I grew up, and they were gratified, I have
traveled in the United States and in the East, not to speak of Europe; I
spend the winters in Paris and in summer I generally go to Spain; my
health is good and I am not old. You see then that I am what people are
accustomed to call a favorite of fortune, a happy man.”

“It is true,” said Lucía; “but who knows that it is not for that very
reason that you are as you are! I have heard it said that for bread to
be sweet it must be earned; it is true that I have not earned it and yet
so far I have not found it bitter.”

“There was a time,” murmured Artegui, as if in answer to his own
thoughts, “when I fancied that my apathy proceeded from the security in
which I lived, and I desired to be indebted to myself, myself only, for
a livelihood. For two years I refused to receive the allowance made me
by my parents, devoting myself ardently to work and earning, as active
partner in a large commercial house which I entered, more than
sufficient for my wants; fortune attended me, like a faithful lover, but
this constant and pitiless competition sickened me and I desired to try
some work in which mind and body both should have a part and in which
the gain should be no more than sufficient for my wants. I studied
medicine, and taking advantage of the war at that time raging in the
north of Spain, I joined the forces of Don Cárlos. My father’s name
opened every door to me, and I devoted myself to practicing in the
hospitals----”

“Was it then that you cured Sardiola?”

“Precisely, the poor devil had been horribly wounded by a discharge of
grapeshot; his cheek was laid open and the jawbone injured, and, in
addition, he was bleeding from an artery. The cure was a difficult but
most successful one. I worked hard at that time and it was the period
during which I suffered least from tedium. But in exchange----”

Artegui paused, fearing to proceed.

“To what purpose, child, to what purpose should I go on? I don’t even
know why I should have given you all these nonsensical details, probably
to you as unintelligible as the ravings of a madman are to the sane.”

“No, indeed,” declared Lucía, half offended, “I understand you very
well, and, as a proof that I do, I am going to tell you what you have
kept to yourself. You shall see that I will,” she cried, as Artegui
smilingly shook his head. “You were less bored during the period in
which you were an amateur physician, but in exchange--seeing so many
dead people and so much blood and so much cruelty, you became still
more--more of an unbeliever than you were before. Have I guessed right
or not?”

Artegui looked at her, mute with amazement, and his brow contracted in a
frown.

“And do you want me to tell you more? Well, that is what is the matter
with you and it is for that reason that you are so dissatisfied with
fate and with yourself. If you were a good Christian, you might indeed
be sad, but with a different sort of sadness, more gentle and more
resigned. For when one has the hope of going to heaven, one can suffer
here in patience without giving way to despair.”

And as Artegui, with compressed lips, silently turned his head aside,
the young girl murmured in a voice gentle as a caress:

“Don Ignacio, Father Urtazu has told me that there are men who do not
wish to admit what the church teaches and what we believe, but who, in
their own way, according to their fancy, in short, worship a God whom
they have created for themselves, and who believe also that there is
another life and that the soul does not die with the body--are you one
of those men?”

He did not answer, but seizing a couple of osier branches, bent them
forcibly between his fingers until they snapped. The broken branches
hung down limply from the tree, held together by the bark, like broken
limbs held together by the skin.

“You are not one of those men, either?” resumed the young girl, turning
toward him, her hands joined together, almost kneeling on the bank.
“Don’t you believe, even in that way? Don Ignacio, do you indeed believe
in nothing? In nothing?”

Ignacio sprang to his feet, and standing on the summit of the bank
overlooking the whole landscape, slowly said:

“I believe in evil.”

From a distance the group might have seemed a piece of statuary. Lucía,
completely overwhelmed, almost knelt, her hands clasped in an imploring
attitude. Artegui, his arm raised, his form erect, challenging with
sorrowful glance the blue vault above, might have been taken for some
hero of romance, some rebellious Titan, were it not for his modern
costume, with its prosaic details; the sky grew momentarily darker;
leaden clouds, like enormous heaps of cotton, banked themselves up over
Biarritz and the ocean. Gusts of hot air blew low down, almost along the
ground, bending the reeds and setting in motion the pointed foliage of
the osiers with its fiery breath. The plain exhaled a deep groan at
these menacings of the storm. It seemed as if evil, evoked by the voice
of its worshiper, had appeared, in tremendous form, terrifying nature
with its broad black wings, to whose flapping fancy might have
attributed the suffocating exhalations that heated the atmosphere. Murky
and dark, like the surface of a steel mirror, the lake slept motionless
and the aquatic flowers drooped on its border. Artegui’s voice, more
intense than loud, resounded through the awe-inspiring silence.

“In evil,” he repeated, “that surrounds and envelops us on all sides,
from the cradle to the grave; that never leaves us; in evil, that makes
of the earth a vast battle-field where no being can live but by the
death and the suffering of other beings; in evil, which is the pivot on
which the world turns and the very mainspring of life.”

“Señor de Artegui,” stammered Lucía faintly, “it would seem, according
to what you say, that you pay to the devil the worship you refuse to
God.”

“Worship! no! Shall I worship the iniquitous power that, concealed in
darkness, works for the general woe? To fight, to fight against it is
what I desire, now and always. You call this power the devil; I call it
evil, universal suffering. I know how alone it may be vanquished.”

“By faith and good works,” exclaimed the young girl.

“By dying,” he answered.

Any one who had observed these two from a distance,--a young and
handsome man and a blooming young girl,--conversing alone in the shady
meadow, would have taken them, to a certainty, for a pair of lovers, and
would never have imagined that they were speaking of suffering and
death, but of love, which is life itself. Artegui, standing on the bank,
could see his image reflected in the blue eyes which Lucía lifted toward
him; eyes, that notwithstanding the darkness of the sky, seemed to
sparkle with light.

“By dying!” she echoed, as the tree echoes back the sound of the blow
that wounds it.

“By dying. Suffering ends only with death. Only death can vanquish the
creative force that delights in creating so that it may afterward
torture its unhappy creation.”

“I do not understand you,” murmured Lucía, “but I am afraid.” And her
form trembled like the osier branches.

Artegui was silent, but a deep and powerful voice resounding through the
heavens suddenly mingled with the strange dialogue. It was the thunder
which pealed in the distance, solemn and awe-inspiring. Lucía uttered a
low cry of terror and fell prone upon the grass. The clouds broke and
large drops of rain fell with a sound like that of molten lead upon the
silky leaves of the osiers. Artegui hurried down the bank, and taking
Lucía in his arms, with nervous force, began to run, without looking to
the right or to the left, leaping ditches, crossing newly plowed fields,
pressing under foot celery plants and cabbages, until, beaten by the
rain and pursued by the thunder, he reached the high road. The driver
was energetically uttering maledictions on the storm when Artegui placed
Lucía, almost insensible, on the seat and pulled up the oilcloth cover
hastily to protect her as far as was possible from the rain. The ponies,
terrified by the tempest, without waiting for the touch of the whip,
with pricked-up ears and distended nostrils, set off toward Bayonne.




CHAPTER VII.


Lucía had just finished drying her wet garments at the fire that Artegui
had lighted for her. Her hair, which the rain had flattened against her
forehead, was beginning to curl slightly at the temples; her clothing
was still steaming, but the beneficent warmth pervading her frame had in
some degree brought back her natural buoyancy of spirits. Only the
feathers of her hat, drooping sadly, notwithstanding their owner’s
efforts to restore to them their graceful curl by holding them to the
fire, bore witness to the ravages of the storm.

Artegui leaned back in an easy-chair, listless as usual, plunged in idle
revery. He was resting, doubtless, from the fatigue caused by lighting
the logs that burned so cheerfully in the fireplace, and ordering and
pouring out the tea, to which he had added a few drops of rum. Silent
and motionless now, his eyes rested alternately on Lucía and on the
fire, which formed a shifting red background to her head. While Lucía
had been incommoded by the weight of her wet garments and the pressure
of her damp shoes, she too had remained silent and constrained,
nervously fancying she still heard the pealings of the thunder and felt
the sting of the rain drops beating against her face, like needles.

Little by little the genial influence of the heat relaxed her stiffened
limbs and loosened her paralyzed tongue. She stretched her feet and
hands toward the blaze, spread out her skirts, to dry them equally, and
finally sat down on the floor, Turkish-fashion, the better to enjoy the
warmth of the fire, which she contemplated with fixed and absorbed gaze,
listening to the crackling of the logs as she watched them gradually
change from red to black.

“Don Ignacio,” she said suddenly.

“Lucía?”

“I wager you do not know what I am thinking of?”

“You will tell me.”

“The things that have been happening to me since yesterday are so
strange, and the life I have been leading so out of the usual
course--what you told me there--beside the pond, seems to me so
singular, so extraordinary, that I am wondering whether I did not fall
asleep in Miranda de Ebro and have not yet awakened. I must be still in
the railway-carriage; that is to say my body must be still there, for my
soul has flown away and is dreaming such wild dreams--against my will.”

“I don’t know what there is that is strange in anything that has
happened to you; on the contrary, it is all very commonplace and simple.
Your husband is left behind on the road. I meet you afterward by chance,
and stay with you to take care of you until he arrives. Neither more nor
less. Let us not weave a romance out of this.”

Artegui spoke with the same slow and disdainful intonation as usual.

“No,” persisted Lucía, “it is not what has happened to me that I find
strange. What I find strange is--you. Come, Don Ignacio, you know it
very well. I have never before seen any one who thinks as you think, or
who speaks as you speak. And therefore, at times,” she murmured, taking
her head between her hands, “the idea comes to me that I am still
dreaming.”

Artegui rose from his chair and drew near the fire. His manly figure
loomed up in the glowing light, and to Lucía, from her seat on the
floor, he looked taller than he really was.

“It is right,” he said, inclining himself before her, “that I should ask
your pardon. I am not in the habit of saying certain things to the first
person I meet, and still less to persons like you. I have talked a great
deal of nonsense, which naturally frightened you. Besides being out of
place, my conduct was in bad taste and even cruel. I acted like a fool
and I am sorry for it, believe me.”

Lucía, lifting up her face, looked at him in silence. The glow of the
fire turned her chestnut hair to gold, and cast a rosy hue over her
countenance. The eyes she raised to his, as he stood looking down at
her, were shining brightly.

“I have two temperaments,” Artegui resumed, “and, like a child, I give
way to the impulses of both without reflection. In general, I am what
my father was--firm of will, reticent, and self-controlled; but at times
my mother’s temperament governs me. My poor mother suffered when she was
very young, in her remote castle in Brittany, from nervous attacks, fits
of gloom, and mental disturbance which she has never succeeded in
overcoming completely, although she has suffered less from them since my
birth than she did before. She lost a part of her malady and I acquired
it. Is it to be wondered at if I sometimes act and speak, not like a
man, but like a woman or a child!”

“The truth is, Don Ignacio,” exclaimed Lucía, “that in your sober senses
you would not think what--what you said there.”

“In company with you,” he said, “with a young and loyal creature who
loves life, and feels, and believes, what business had I to speak of
anything sad, or to set forth abstruse theories, turning a pleasure
excursion into a lecture? Could anything be more absurd? I am a fool.
Lucía,” he ended, with naturalness and without bitterness, “you will
forgive me for my want of tact, will you not?”

“Yes, Don Ignacio,” she murmured, in a low voice.

Artegui drew his chair toward the fire and sat down, stretching out his
hands and feet toward the blaze.

“Are you still cold?” he asked Lucía.

“No, indeed; on the contrary, I am delightfully warm.”

“Let me feel your hands.”

Lucía, without rising, held out her hands to Artegui, who found that
they were soft and warm and soon released them.

“On account of the rain,” he continued, “I could not take you a little
farther, as I wished to do, to Biarritz, where there are very pretty
villas and parks in the English style. Indeed, we enjoyed scarcely
anything of the beautiful country. How fragrant the hay and the clover
were! And the earth. The smell of freshly turned earth is somewhat
pungent but pleasant.”

“What was most fragrant of all was a bed of mint growing by the pond. I
am sorry I did not bring a few of the plants with me.”

“Shall I go get you some? I would be back directly.”

“Heavens! What nonsense, Don Ignacio, to think of going for them now,”
said Lucía; but the pleasure caused by the offer dyed her cheeks with
crimson. “Do you hear how it is raining?” she added, to change the
subject.

“The morning gave no indication of the coming storm,” replied Artegui.
“France has, in general, a moist climate, and this basin of the Adour is
no exception to the rule. It was a pity not to have been able to drive
through Biarritz! There are many fine palaces and agreeable places of
resort there. I would have taken you to see the Virgin, who, from her
station on a rock, seems to command the troubled waters to be still.
There could not be a more artistic idea.”

“How! the Virgin!” said Lucía, greatly interested.

“A statue of the Virgin, standing among the rocks; at sunset the effect
is marvelous; the statue seems made of gold and is surrounded by a sea
of fire. It is like an apparition.”

“Oh, Don Ignacio, will you take me there to-morrow?” cried Lucía, with,
eager, wide-open eyes and clasped hands.

“To-morrow”--Artegui again relapsed into thought. “But, Señora,” he said
presently, in a changed voice, “your husband will probably arrive
to-day.”

“True.”

The conversation ceased of itself and both sat gazing silently into the
fire. Artegui added fresh logs, for the embers were now burning low. The
blazing brands crackled and occasionally one would burst open like a
ripe pomegranate, sending forth a shower of sparks. The fiery edifice
sank under the weight of the fresh materials. The flames gently licked
their new prey and then began to dart into it their asp-like tongues,
drawing from it with each ardent kiss a cry of pain. Although it was
scarcely past the meridian hour, the apartment was almost dark, so black
was the sky outside and so fierce the storm.

“You have not breakfasted yet, Lucía,” said Artegui, suddenly
remembering the fact, and rising. “I am going to give orders to have
your breakfast sent here.”

“And you, Don Ignacio?”

“I--will breakfast too, down-stairs in the dining-room. It is high time
now.”

“But why do you not breakfast here with me?”

“No, I will breakfast down-stairs,” he said, going toward the door.

“As you choose--but I am not hungry. Don’t send me anything. I feel--I
don’t know how.”

“Eat something--you have been chilled and you need something to restore
the circulation.”

“No--though if you were to breakfast here with me I might perhaps make
the effort,” she persisted, with the obstinacy of a self-willed child.

Artegui shrugged his shoulders resignedly, and pulled the bell-rope.
When the chambermaid entered the room a quarter of an hour later with
the tray, the fire was burning more brightly and merrily than ever, and
the two arm-chairs, one on either side of the fireplace, and the table
covered with a snowy cloth, invited to the enjoyment of the
unceremonious repast. The glass, the coolers, the salver, the vinegar
cruets, the silver bands of the mustard vessel sparkled in the light;
the radishes, swimming in a fine porcelain shell, looked like rose-buds,
the fried sole displayed its lightly browned back garnished with curled
parsley and slices of lemon of a pale gold color; the juicy beefsteak
rested in a lake of melted butter; and in the lace-like glasses sparkled
the deep garnet of the Burgundy and the ruddy topaz of the
Chateau-Yquem. Every time the waiter came and went to bring or to take
away a dish, he laughed to himself at the Spanish lovers, who had asked
for separate rooms to breakfast together in this way--_tête-à-tête_ by
the fire. As a Frenchman, he took advantage of the occasion to raise the
price of everything. He handed Artegui the list of wines, giving him at
the same time suggestions and advice.

“The gentleman will want iced champagne--I will bring it in a cooler, it
is more convenient. The pine-apples we have are excellent, I will bring
some--we receive our Malaga direct from Spain--ah, the Spanish wines!
there is no place like Spain for wines.”

And bottles continued to arrive, and the already formidable array of
glasses standing beside each of the guests to increase. There were wide
flat glasses, like the _crater_ of the ancients, for the foaming
champagne; narrow, green glasses, with handles, for the Rhine wine;
shallow glasses, like thimbles, with a short stem for the southern
Malaga. Lucía had taken only a few sips of each of the wines, but she
had tasted them all, one after another, through childish curiosity; and
now, with her head a little heavy, blissfully forgetful of the events of
the morning’s excursion, she sat leaning back in her chair, her bosom
heaving, her white teeth gleaming between her moist rosy lips when she
smiled--the smile of a bacchante who is still innocent and who for the
first time has tasted the juice of the grape. The atmosphere of the
closed room was stifling--pervaded with the savory odors of the
succulent dishes, the mild warmth of the fire, and the faint resinous
aroma of the burning logs. A charming subject it would have formed for a
modern anacreontic ode--the woman holding up her glass, the wine falling
in a clear and sparkling stream, the thoughtful looking man gazing
alternately at the disordered table and the smiling nymph with glowing
cheeks and sparkling eyes. Artegui felt so completely master of himself
that, melancholy and disdainful, he looked at Lucía as the traveler
looks at the wayside flower from which he voluntarily turns aside his
steps. Neither wines nor liqueurs, nor the soft warmth of the fire were
of avail now to draw the pessimist from his apathetic calm; through his
veins the blood flowed slowly, while through Lucía’s veins it coursed,
rapid, generous, and youthful. But for both the moment was one to be
remembered--one of supreme concord, of sweet forgetfulness; the past was
blotted out; the present was like a peaceful eternity shut within four
walls, in the pleasant drowsiness of the silent room. Lucía let both
arms hang over the arms of her chair, her fingers loosened their clasp,
and the glass they had held fell with a crystalline sound on the brass
fender, breaking into countless fragments. The young girl laughed at the
accident, and with half-closed eyes fixed upon the ceiling, yielded
unresistively to the feeling of lethargy that was stealing over her,--a
suspension, as it were, of all the faculties of being. Artegui,
meanwhile, calm and silent, sat upright in his chair, haughty as an
ancient stoic; his soul was pervaded by a bitter pleasure,--the
pleasure of feeling himself to be truly dead and of knowing that
treacherous nature had tried her arts in vain to resuscitate him.

And thus they might have remained for an indefinite period had not the
door suddenly opened to admit, not the waiter, still less the expected
Miranda, but a young man of some twenty-four or twenty-five years of
age, of medium height, and of abrupt and familiar manners. He had his
hat on, and the first objects to attract the eye in his person were the
gleaming pin of his necktie and his low-cut light yellow shoes, of a
somewhat daring fashion, like those of a _manolo_. The entrance of this
new personage effected a transformation in the scene; while Artegui rose
to his feet, furious, Lucía, restored to full consciousness, passed her
hand over her forehead and sat upright in her chair, assuming an
attitude of reserve, but unable to steady her gaze, which still
wandered.

“Hello, Artegui, you here? I saw your name just now in the register, and
I hurried up,” said the newcomer, with perfect self-possession. Then
suddenly, as if he had but just seen Lucía, he took off his hat and
bowed to her easily, without adding another word.

“Señor Gonzalvo,” responded Artegui, veiling his anger under an
appearance of icy reserve, “we must have become very intimate since
last we saw each other. In Madrid----”

“You are always so English--so English,” said the young man, showing
neither confusion nor embarrassment. “You see I am frank, very frank; in
Madrid we each had our business or our pleasures to attend to, but in a
foreign land it is pleasant to meet a compatriot. In fine, I beg your
pardon, I beg your pardon. I see that I have disturbed you. I regret it
for the lady’s sake----”

Here he bowed again, while his eyes, from between their half-closed
lids, cynically devoured Lucía’s countenance lighted by the glow of the
dying brands.

“No, stay!” cried Artegui, rising, and seizing the intruder hastily by
the arm, seeing that he had turned to leave the room. “Since you have
entered this apartment so unceremoniously, I wish you to understand that
you do not discover me in any discreditable adventure, nor is that the
reason of my displeasure at your intrusion.”

“Don’t say another word. I am not asking any questions,” said the young
man, shrugging his shoulders.

“Don’t imagine that I care a jot about what you think of _me_, but this
lady is--an honorable woman; owing to circumstances, which it is
unnecessary to explain, she is traveling under my protection until she
is joined by her husband,” and observing the half-suppressed smile on
his interlocutor’s face, he added:

“I advise you to believe what I say, for my reputation for truthfulness
is perhaps the only thing on which I set any value.”

“I believe you, I believe you”; returned the young man simply, and with
an accent of sincerity. “You have the name of being eccentric,
eccentric, but frank as well. Besides, I am an expert, an expert, an
expert in the matter, and I can recognize a lady----”

As he spoke he bowed for the third time to Lucía, with easy grace. The
latter rose with instinctive dignity, and with a serious and composed
air returned the salute. Artegui then advanced and uttered the
prescribed formula:

“Señor Don Pedro Gonzalvo, the Señora de Miranda.”

“Miranda--yes, yes, I saw the name, I saw the name on the hotel
register. I know a Miranda who was to have been married about this
time--an old bachelor, an old bachelor?”

“Don Aurelio?” Lucía asked involuntarily.

“Precisely. I am intimate, intimate with him.”

“He is my husband,” murmured Lucía.

The young man’s face flushed with eager curiosity, and he once more
fixed his small eyes on Lucía’s countenance, which he scanned with
implacable tenacity.

“Miranda--ah, so you are the wife, the wife of Aurelio Miranda!” he
repeated, without further comment. But discreetly-repressed curiosity
was so apparent in his manner, that Artegui imposed upon himself the
task of giving the young man a full and minute account of all that had
occurred. Gonzalvo listened in silence, repressing with the discreetness
of the man of the world the malicious smile that rose to his lips. It
was evident that the comical conjugal mishap of the middle-aged rake
diverted the youthful rake excessively. A stray sunbeam, breaking
through the gray clouds, threw into relief the blonde, lymphatic
countenance of the young man,--the freckled skin, the delicate but
characteristically marked features. His white hands, resembling those of
a woman, played with his steel watch-chain; on the little finger of one
of them gleamed a large carbuncle, side by side with another ring, a
school-girl’s simple trinket--a little cross of pearls set in a hoop of
gold, much too small for the finger it encircled.

“So that you know nothing, nothing of Miranda’s whereabouts,” he asked,
when he had heard the narration to the end.

“Nothing up to the present,” gravely answered Artegui.

“This is delightful! delightful!” muttered the young man under his
breath, laughing with his eyes rather than with his mouth. “Was there
ever such an adventure! Miranda must be a sight to see! a sight to see!”

Artegui looked at him fixedly, intercepting the indiscreet laughter of
his eyes. With an air of great gravity, he said:

“Are you a friend of Don Aurelio Miranda?”

“Yes, very much so, very much so,” lisped Gonzalvo, who had a habit of
dropping two or three letters in every word, repeating the word itself
two or three times to make amends; which was productive of a singular
confusion in his speech, especially when he was angry, when he would
jumble up or leave out entire words.

“Very much so, very much so,” he continued. “Everywhere, everywhere in
Madrid I used to meet him. He belonged at one time to the--what’s its
name--the Rapid Club, the Rapid Club, and he used to frequent with us
young men, with us young men, the--well, the Apollo, the Apollo.”

“I am very glad of it,” cried Artegui, without losing his air of
gravity for a moment. “Well then, Señora,” he continued, addressing
Lucía, “you have here what you stood so greatly in need of two days
ago--a friend of your husband’s, who has on all accounts a much greater
claim than I to serve as your escort until such time as Señor Miranda
may make his appearance.”

At this unexpected turn Gonzalvo smiled, bowing politely, like a man of
the world accustomed to all sorts of situations; but Lucía, a look of
astonishment on her still flushed face, drew back, as if in refusal of
the new escort offered to her.

This dumb show was interrupted by the entrance of the waiter who handed
to Artegui, on a salver, a blue envelope. It seemed impossible for
Artegui to be paler than he already was, and yet his cheeks grew
perceptibly whiter as, tearing open the envelope, he read the telegram
it contained. A cloud passed before his eyes, instinctively he grasped
the chimney-piece for support, leaning heavily against the mantle-shelf.
Lucía, recovering from her first astonishment, rushed toward him and
placing her clasped hands on his arm said to him with eager entreaty:

“Don Ignacio, Don Ignacio, don’t leave me in this way. For the little
time that now remains--what trouble would it be for you to stay? I
don’t know this gentleman. I have never seen him before----”

Artegui listened mechanically, like one in a state of catalepsy. At last
he found his voice; he looked at Lucía in surprise, as if he now saw her
for the first time, and in faint accents said:

“I must go to Paris at once--my mother is dying.” Lucía felt as if she
had received a blow on the head from some unseen hand, and stood for a
moment speechless, breathless, pulseless. When she had recovered herself
sufficiently to exclaim:

“Your mother! Good heavens! What a misfortune!” Artegui had already
turned to leave the room, without waiting to listen to the lisped offers
of service with which Gonzalvo was overwhelming him.

“Don Ignacio!” cried the young girl, as she saw him lay his hand on the
knob.

As if those vibrant tones had reawakened memory in the unhappy son, he
retraced his steps, went straight to Lucía, and, without uttering a word
took both her hands in his and pressed them in a strong and silent
clasp. Thus they remained for a few seconds, neither saying to the other
a word of farewell. Lucía tried to speak, but it seemed to her as if a
soft silken cord were tightening around her neck and slowly strangling
her. Suddenly Artegui released her hands; she drew a deep breath and
leaned against the wall, confused, scarcely conscious. When she looked
around her she saw that she was alone in the room with Gonzalvo, who was
reading, half aloud, the telegram which Artegui had left behind him on
the table.

“It was the truth, it was the truth--and the telegram is in Spanish,” he
murmured. “‘The Señora dangerously ill. She desires Señorito to come.
Engracia.’ Who may Engracia, Engracia, Engracia be? Ah, now I
know--Artegui’s nurse, the nurse to a certainty. Well, well! I don’t
know whether he will catch the express” (this word Gonzalvo pronounced
as if it were written epés). “Half-past two--it is only a little while
since the express arrived from Spain--yes, he will still have time to
catch it.”

He put back again into his pocket the beautiful skeleton watch, with its
double face, and turning his small eyes toward Lucía, he added:

“I am sorry for this for your sake, Señora; now I am your escort. The
best thing you can do is to put yourself under my care. My sister is
here with me, here with me, and I will get you a room together. It is
not fit, it is not fit that a lady should be alone in this way in a
hotel.”

Gonzalvo offered her his arm and Lucía was mechanically going to take it
when the door opened a second time and the waiter, with a theatrical
gesture, announced:

“Monsieur de Miranda.”

It was, in truth, the unlucky bridegroom, who came limping with
difficulty into the room, his right foot still almost useless; the sharp
pain of the dislocation, the result of his jump, being renewed every
time he attempted to place it upon the ground. The habitual dignity of
his bearing thus destroyed, his forty odd years revealed themselves in
unmistakable characters in every feature of his face; the
melancholy-looking black line of the mustache stood sharply defined
against the withered skin; the eyelids drooping, the temples sunken, his
hair in disorder, the ex-beau resembled one of those ruins, beautiful in
the twilight, but which in the full noonday are seen to be only
crumbling walls, nettles, brambles, and lizards. And as Lucía stood
hesitating, unable either to utter a word of welcome or to throw herself
into his arms, Gonzalvo, the constant censor of matrimony, terminated
the strange situation by bursting out laughing and advancing to give a
serio-comic embrace to the pitiable caricature of the returned husband.




CHAPTER VIII.


A few days’ sojourn in Bayonne sufficed to alleviate greatly the pain of
Miranda’s foot and to make Pilar Gonzalvo and Lucía acquainted, and even
in some degree intimate with each other. Like Miranda, Pilar was on her
way to Vichy, with the difference that, while what Miranda required of
the waters was that they should eliminate the bile from his system, the
little Madridlenian was going to the health-giving springs in search of
particles of iron to enrich her blood and restore the brilliancy to her
lustrous eyes. Eager, like all people of weak and delicate organization,
for novelty and excitement, the new friendship with Lucía, the curious
incidents of the wedding journey, and the inspection of her bridal
finery, which Pilar looked at, article by article, examining the lace on
every jacket, the flounces on every dress, the initials on every
handkerchief, served to divert her greatly. Besides, the frank
simplicity of the Leonese offered a virgin and uncultivated soil in
which to plant the exotic flowers of fashion, and the poison weeds of
society scandal. Pilar, at the time we speak of twenty-three years old,
had the precocious malice characteristic of young girls who, connected
with the aristocracy, through their social relations, and belonging to
the middle class, through their antecedents, are familiar with society
in all its aspects, and can as easily discover who has given a
rendezvous to a duke as who it is that corresponds with the neighbor on
the third floor. Pilar Gonzalvo was tolerated in the distinguished
houses of Madrid. To be tolerated is one of the degrees of social
standing; to be received, as her brother was, is another degree; beyond
being tolerated and received is the highest degree of all--to be
courted; few enjoy the privilege of being courted; this being reserved
for the notabilities who are chary of their society, who allow
themselves to be seen once or twice a year; for the bankers and wealthy
men who give balls, entertainments, and midnight masses, with a supper
afterward; for beauties, during the brief and dazzling period of their
full efflorescence; for politicians during the time when they are in
power, like cards when they are trumps. There are cases of persons who
have been received and who suddenly find themselves courted for some
particular reason,--for inventing a new style of wearing the hair, on
account of a winning horse, a whispered scandal of which they are the
heroes, and which people fancy they can read in their faces.

Of these ephemeral successes Perico Gonzalvo had had many; his sister
not one, in spite of repeated efforts on her part to obtain one. She did
not succeed even in being tolerated or admitted. The world is wide for
men, but narrow, narrow for women. Pilar always felt the invisible
barrier that raised itself between her and those noblemen’s daughters
whose brothers associated so familiarly with Perico. Hence sprung up in
her breast a secret rancor that, struggling with admiration and envy,
produced the nervous irritation that undermined the health of the
Madridlenian. The fever of an unsatisfied desire, the pangs of wounded
vanity, destroyed the equilibrium of a not very healthy or well-balanced
organization. Like her brother, she had a skin of lymphatic whiteness,
whose many freckles she concealed with cosmetics; her eyes were blue and
expressive though not large, and her hair, which she had the art of
arranging becomingly, was fair. Her ears, at this time, seemed made of
wax, her thin lips appeared like a faint red line above the sallow chin,
her blue veins showed under the skin and her gums, pale and flaccid,
imparted to the sparse teeth the hue of old ivory. Spring had set in
for her under very unfavorable auspices; the Lenten concerts and the
last balls of the Easter holidays, of which she had not missed one, had
cost her palpitations of the heart every night, indescribable weariness
in the limbs, strange caprices of appetite; the anæmia was turning to
neurosis; and Pilar masticated, in secret, bits of the clay statuettes
that adorned the corner shelves of her dressing-room. She experienced
intolerable pains in the epigastrium, but in order not to interrupt her
amusements she was silent about all this. At last, as summer approached,
she resolved to speak of her ailments, thinking, not without reason,
that the malady offered a good pretext for taking a trip to the country,
in conformity with the canons of good society. Pilar lived with her
father and a paternal aunt, neither of whom was willing to accompany
her; the father, a superannuated magistrate, being reluctant to leave
the Bourse, where, on the sly, he speculated with moderation and
success; the widowed aunt dreading the dissipations which her niece was
no doubt planning as a part of the treatment. This task then devolved
upon Perico Gonzalvo, who accompanied his sister to El Sardinero,
counting upon finding there friends who would relieve him in his duties
as escort. And so it was; there were plenty of acquaintances at the
seashore, who undertook to keep Pilar constantly on the go and to take
her everywhere. But, unfortunately for Perico, the sea baths, which in
the beginning had been of service to his sister, ended, when she
indulged in them to excess, wishing to swim and display her skill in the
water, in inflicting serious injury on her delicate organization; and
she began once more to suffer from lassitude, to awaken bathed in
perspiration, to lose her appetite for plain food, while she ate
voraciously of dainties. What most terrified her was to see that her
hair had begun to fall out in handfuls. It enraged her every time she
combed it, and she would scream out to Perico and tell him to bring her
some remedy before she should become entirely bald. One day the
physician who attended her took her brother aside and said to him: “You
must be careful with your sister. Don’t let her take any more baths.”

“But is she seriously ill, seriously ill?” asked the young man, opening
his small eyes to their fullest extent.

“She may become so in a short time.”

“The devil, the devil, the devil! Do you think she has consumption,
consumption?”

“I do not say that. I do not think the lungs are affected as yet, but
the moment least expected there will be a determination of blood to
them, congestion will supervene and---- We see cases of that kind every
day. The blood is greatly impoverished. She has the pulse of a chicken
and there is present, besides, an extreme degree of nervous excitement,
which increases periodically, with profound gastric disturbance. If you
follow my advice you will avail yourselves of the autumn for a course of
mineral waters.”

“Panticosa, Panticosa?”

“In this case I think the iron springs of Vichy preferable. Anæmia is
the first enemy to be combatted, and the gastric symptoms are also
benefited by those waters. After Vichy come Aguas Buenas and
Puertollano; but attend to the matter at once. Within the last fortnight
she has lost ground, and the falling of the hair and the sweats are very
serious symptoms.”

And as Perico was going away with bent head, the doctor added:

“Above all, no excitement, no dancing, no swimming--mental
repose--neither music nor novels. Peasant women, afflicted with the
disease from which your sister is suffering, cure themselves with water
into which a handful of nails or old iron has been thrown. Civilization
tends to make everything artificial. If she wants to get well let her
not keep late hours, let her attend no entertainments;--a loose
corset--low heels----”

“Yes, yes, order the impossible, the impossible,” lisped Perico, under
his breath. “Ask my sister to give up a single one of her pleasures; she
would not do so though she knew Old Nick were to carry her off if she
refused.”

When Pilar heard the opinion of the Esculapius she threw her arms around
Perico’s neck in a transport of sisterly affection such as she had never
before manifested. She employed a thousand wiles to obtain her desire;
she grew gentle, obedient, prudent in all things, and promised all and
more than all that was asked of her.

“Periquin, precious, come, say that you will take me. Say that you will
take me, silly. There is no one in the world to be compared to you. What
Puertollano are you talking about? Let us go to France. How delightful!
It seems like a dream. What will Visitacion and the de Lomillos say when
they hear it! But you see, when the doctor orders it, it has to be done.
You think I am going to be in your way, hanging on to you all the time?
No, my dear boy, I shall find plenty of friends. Don’t you suppose there
will be some one there whom we know? I will manage, you shall see. I
will make a gown of gray holland, that will last me--Well, well, don’t
be waspish. I know that I must lead a regular life, of course, and go to
bed early--at eight, with the chickens. What more do you want? Ah, what
a treasure of a brother Heaven has bestowed upon me. No wonder all the
girls are dying of love for him!”

“Do you think, do you think that you are deceiving me with your
flatteries? Go, leave me in peace. I shall take you because it is
necessary, it is necessary; if I did not, who could put up with you, put
up with you next winter? But see that you behave sensibly, or I shall
throw all that confounded hair into the fire,--with all your efforts you
never look like a lady.”

Pilar swallowed the insult, as in such circumstances she would have
swallowed a much more disagreeable dose, and thought only of the
fashionable excursion which was to crown, with so much splendor, her
summer expedition. Gonzalvo senior, who, besides his half-pay, had some
private means, loosened his purse-strings on the occasion, not without
advising his daughter, however, to be prudent and economical. With
Perico’s affairs he never interfered; he made him a monthly allowance
and pretended not to see that Perico spent ten times as much as he
received, gave himself the airs of a prince, and never asked for an
increase in the sum given him.

Thus provided, the brother and sister set out from El Sardinero in
triumph for France. They rested at Bayonne, putting up at the Hotel St.
Étienne, where we had the honor of making their acquaintance. Perico
thought he saw the heavens open before him when he learned that Miranda
and his wife intended to go on to Vichy, and recognized that Lucía was
the person best suited to relieve him in the duty of bearing Pilar
company, and even of nursing her should it become necessary. He
accordingly encouraged the intimacy between the two women, and it was
arranged that they should all travel together to Vichy.

The details given by her brother concerning Lucía and Miranda sharpened
singularly the eager curiosity of the sick girl, and her keen scent
perceived romantic possibilities in the events that had happened to the
newly married pair. The brother and sister had conversed at length about
the matter, in half-finished phrases, venturing at times on some coarser
or more graphic expression than usual, with much laughter on both sides.
One of Lucía’s greatest pleasures was the conversations she occasionally
held with Perico, when the latter deigned to treat her, not as a child,
but as a grown woman, communicating to her certain details, anecdotes,
and events which, as a general thing, do not reach the ears of young
girls brought up with strictness and decorum. Perico and his sister, who
had no great amount of tenderness or affection for each other, had yet a
perfect understanding in the field of scandal, and at times the sister
completed the piquant phrase arrested on the lips of the brother by a
touch of the delicacy which the presence of a woman inspires in the man
least capable of delicacy. Pilar experienced an unhealthy enjoyment in
witnessing aspects of the cosmograma of life unknown to the noblemen’s
daughters so greatly envied by her, who, living in the cloistral
atmosphere of their palaces, watched over constantly by the mother or
the austere governess, bear on their brows, at the age of twenty-five,
the stamp of their haughty innocence.

“I went up to Artegui’s room,” said Perico to Pilar, “because, to tell
you the truth, to tell you the truth, my curiosity was aroused when I
heard he had a fine girl, a fine girl with him.”

“It was enough to arouse the curiosity of the statue of Mendizabal
itself. That Artegui, who has never been known to make a slip.”

“An eccentric fellow, an eccentric fellow. Rich as Crœsus and he
leads the life of a friar. If I had his money, his money--you should
see!”

“But tell me, don’t you think there is something between Artegui and
Lucía?”

“Pish, no,” said Perico, who, differing in this from his sister, was not
addicted to speaking ill of people unless they had given him some cause
of offense. “This Artegui has only milk in his veins, milk in his veins,
and I am very sure he has not said as much as that to her!” and he
snapped his thumb nail against the tip of his forefinger.

“The truth is that she has not a particle of style about her. But let us
come to facts, Periquin; did you not tell me that she was greatly
grieved and upset when he went away and Miranda came in afterward?”

“But put yourself in her place, put yourself in her place. Miranda
looked like a scarecrow----”

“No, I should not like to be in her place,” exclaimed Pilar, bursting
into a laugh.

“And then the idiot did what all coxcombs do when they are angry,”
continued Perico, laughing in his turn. “When he ought to have tried to
make himself agreeable, to say something to the poor girl, he launched
into a philippic against her because she did not return to Miranda de
Ebro, de Ebro, to take care of his dislocated foot. And then, it could
have happened to no one but him to faint for a dislocation and neglect
to telegraph to his wife to inform her of it. And he asked her with a
tragic air, ‘Where is your attentive companion gone to?’ The man was
heavenly.”

“You see, it is as I said, the husband is jealous. You are nothing but a
simpleton.”

“Child, child, child! No one can deceive me in those matters! I tell
you, I tell you, there was nothing between Artegui and Lucía, Lucía. I’d
bet a hundred dollars this moment, this moment----”

“And I,” insisted Pilar, with the clairvoyance of an invalid, “can
assure you that as far as she is concerned--as for him I have not seen
him, if I were to see him I should know--but as for her, I heard her
heave sigh after sigh--and they were not for Miranda. She is pensive at
times, and then again she brightens and laughs and is like a child.”

“Bah, bah, bah! I don’t say that in her secret heart--but you know
nothing about those matters, and I can assure you that as for there
being anything between them, there was nothing of the kind. I ought to
know.”

“And I too,” persisted Pilar. “Well, we are both right. There is nothing
between them, but she is--what is it they say of pigeons?--struck on
the wing.”

“Bah, bah!” said Perico again, manifesting in this way his contempt for
everything like sentiment, illusion, or the like romantic nonsense.
“That is of no consequence, that is of no consequence. Miranda will be
lucky if nothing worse awaits him than that. It is a piece of stupidity,
a piece of stupidity to dislocate one’s foot and be obliged to wait two
days to have it set, to have it set, leaving one’s bride to travel about
the world alone. It is charming, charming. What vexes him most is that
it should be known, be known--I tease him----”

“No, see here, don’t make him angry. You know they have come to us as if
they had dropped down from heaven.”

“Don’t worry, child; don’t worry. The truth of the matter is that
Miranda cannot live, cannot live without me, because he is bored to
death; and no one but me can drive away the spleen, the spleen, the
spleen, talking to him of his conquests. And he looks like a piece of
putty. He would need to drink half Vichy to cure him--To begin cutting
capers at his age, at his age----”

It was not spleen that was the matter with Miranda, however; it was the
affection of the liver, greatly aggravated by anger caused by the
ridiculous adventure which had cut short the wedding trip. His temples
had a greenish hue, the shadows under his eyes were purple, the bile had
imparted a yellow tinge to the skin; and, as the proximity of a new
house makes old houses look still older, so did Lucía’s youthful bloom
emphasize the deterioration in her husband. The enchanting transition
from girlhood to womanhood was now taking place in Lucía; her movements,
slower and more composed, were more graceful than formerly, while in him
maturity was fast passing into old age, rather because of physical decay
than of years. The stronger the evidence he gave of failing health, the
deeper the traces left upon his countenance by suffering, the more
tender and affectionate did Lucía show herself toward him. A certain
moroseness, a certain inexplicable harshness on the part of Miranda, did
not discourage her in her task; she waited upon him with the solicitude
of a daughter; she spoke to him affectionately; she herself prepared his
medicines and bandaged the injured foot with the pious care she might
have displayed in dressing the image of a saint; she was happy, touched
even, if he but found the bandage properly adjusted. At last, Miranda
was able to walk without risk. Dislocations are not generally attended
by serious consequences, although at Miranda’s age they are apt to be
somewhat obstinate. He was soon pronounced cured, and the whole party
prepared to set out for Vichy.

The season was advancing; it was now almost the middle of September, and
to wait longer would be to expose themselves to the persistent rains of
that place. At Miranda’s request, the landlord wrote to the Springs to
engage lodgings. With a verbosity peculiarly French he tried to convince
Miranda and Perico that they ought to hire a _châlet_ in order to save
the ladies the annoying familiarity of the hotel table, and make them
feel as if they were at home. Divided between the two families the
expense would not be excessive, and the advantages would be many. This
was agreed upon, and Miranda asked for his bill at the hotel, which was
brought to him, written in almost illegible characters. When he had
succeeded in deciphering them he sent for the landlady.

“There is an error here,” he said, putting his finger on the scrawl,
“you have made a mistake against yourself. You have made out my wife’s
bill for the same number of days as mine, while in reality it should be
made out for two days more.”

“Two days more?” repeated the landlady reflectively.

“Yes, Señora, was she not here two days before I came?”

“Ah, you are right--but Monsieur Artegui paid for those days.”

Lucía, who, at the time, was folding some articles of clothing
preparatory to packing her trunk, turned her head suddenly, like a bird
at the fowler’s call. Her face was pale.

“Paid!” repeated Miranda, in whose lackluster eyes flashed a short-lived
spark. “Paid! and by what right did he pay for them, Señora, I should
like to know?”

“Señor, that does not concern me” (_ce n’est pas mon affaire_),
exclaimed the landlady, having recourse, the better to explain her
meaning, to her native tongue. “I receive travelers, is it not so? A
lady and a gentleman arrive, is it not so? The gentleman pays me for the
time the lady has been here, when he takes his departure, and I do not
ask if he has the right to pay me or not. Is it not so? He pays, and
that is all (_voilà tout_).

“Well,” said Miranda, raising his voice, “this lady’s bills are paid by
me and by no one else, and you will do me the favor to send a check
to--that gentleman, returning him the amount he has paid.”

“The gentleman will be so kind to excuse me,” protested the landlady,
slaughtering the Spanish language, without compunction, in her
confusion. “I must decline to do what the gentleman asks; I am truly
desolate, but this cannot be done; this has never been done in our
house. It would be an offense, a serious offense, and Monsieur de
Artegui would have much reason to complain. I beg the gentleman’s
pardon.”

“Go to the devil!” answered Miranda in excellent Spanish, at the same
time turning his back upon his interlocutor, and forgetting, as was
usual with him when he was annoyed, his artificial politeness in his
mortification at the landlady’s refusal to comply with his wishes.

Lucía on this night, too, bandaged Miranda’s foot, now almost well. She
did it with her accustomed lightness of touch and skill, but, as she
placed her husband’s foot upon her knee, the better to arrange the
compress and secure the elastic bands around the joint, she did not
smile as formerly. In silence she performed her task of mercy, and on
rising from the ground she breathed a light sigh, such a sigh as one
breathes after completing some task fatiguing alike to mind and body.




CHAPTER IX.


The _châlet_ hired at Vichy by the families of Miranda and Gonzalvo bore
the poetic name of “Châlet of the Roses.” In justification of its name,
along its open-work balusters had been trained the airy festoons of a
wilderness of climbing roses, at the extremities of whose branches
languidly drooped the last roses of the season. Roses of a pale yellow
contrasted with flame-hued Bengal roses; and dwarf-roses, of a warm
flesh-tint, looked like diminutive faces, curiously peeping in at the
windows of the _châlet_. In the peristyle grew in graceful confusion
roses of all sorts and colors. Pink Malmaison roses lifted themselves
proudly on their stems; tea-roses dropped their leaves languidly; roses
of Alexandria, beautiful and stately, poured from their cups their
intoxicating perfume; moss-roses smiled ironically, with their carmine
lips half hidden by their luxuriant green mustaches; white roses rivaled
the snow with their cold pure beauty, their modest primness like that of
artificial flowers. And among her lovely sisters the exotic
_viridiflora_ hid her sea-green buds, as if ashamed of the strange
lizard-like hue of her flowers, of her ugliness as a monstrosity,
interesting only to the botanist.

The _châlet_ had the usual two stories,--the _entresol_, consisting of
a dining-room, kitchen, small parlor, and reception-room; the main floor
being reserved for the bedrooms and dressing-rooms. Along the main story
ran a balcony protected by a railing of lace-like delicacy, and along
the _entresol_ ran a similar balcony, which was almost completely
covered by trailing vines. A delicate iron railing separated the
_châlet_ from the public road--an avenue bordered with trees; low walls
performed the same office with respect to the adjoining houses and
gardens. At either side of the entrance stood, on a massive gray column,
a bronze figure of a boy, holding up in his chubby arms a ground glass
globe, which protected a gas-jet. It was evident at a glance that the
_châlet_, with its thin wooden walls, could afford but slight protection
to its inhabitants against the cold of winter or the heat of summer; but
in the mild and genial autumn weather this fanciful building, with its
light and delicate ornamentation, carved like a drawing-room toy,
adorned with blooming rose-garlands, was the most coquettish and
delightful of abodes; the most appropriate nest possible to imagine for
a pair of loving turtle-doves. I regret to have to give these charming
dwellings, which abound in Vichy, the foreign name of _châlet_, but how
is it to be avoided if there is no corresponding term in our own
tongue? What we call cabin, cottage, or country house is not at all what
is understood by the word _châlet_, which is an architectural conception
peculiar to the Helvetian valleys, where art, deriving its inspiration
from nature, reproduced the forms of the larches and spruce trees and
the delicate arabesques of the ice and the hoar-frost, as the Egyptians
copied the capitals of their columns from the lotus-flower. The
_châlets_ of Vichy are built solely for the purpose of being rented to
foreigners. The wife of the _concierge_ undertakes the management of the
house, the marketing, and even the cooking; the _concierge_ himself
attends to the cleaning of the house, prunes the plants in the little
garden, trains the vines, sweeps the sanded walks, waits at table, and
opens the door. The Mirandas and the Gonzalvos, then, installed
themselves in the _châlet_ without further trouble than giving the
_concierge_ their wraps and taking their places at the dining-room
table.

Although Lucía, and still more Pilar, felt fatigued after the long
railway journey, they could not help admiring the beauty of the abode
which fate had allotted them. The balcony, especially, they thought
delightful for sewing or reading. It brought to Pilar’s mind the many
water-color scenes, landscapes painted on fans, and sentimental
pictures that she had seen representing the now hackneyed subject of a
young girl with her head framed in foliage. Lucía, on her side, compared
her house in Leon, antique, massive, bare and gloomy, with this
dwelling, where all was neat and bright, from the shining waxed floors
to the curtains of blue cretonne adorned with clusters of pink
bell-flowers. When Lucía sprang out of bed on the day following that of
their arrival, her first impulse was to go out into the balcony; from
thence she went down into the garden, fastening up her morning gown with
pins, to keep it from being wet by the damp grass. She looked at the
roses, fresh from their bath of dew, lifting themselves proudly on their
stems, each with its necklace of pearls or diamonds. She inhaled the
odor of each in turn, passing her fingers over their leaves without
daring to pluck them. At this hour the roses had scarcely any perfume;
what she perceived was, rather, the aroma of the general freshness and
moistness that rose from the beds of flowers and from the surrounding
trees. In Vichy there are trees everywhere; in the afternoon, when Lucía
and Pilar went out to see something of the town, they uttered
exclamations of delight at every turn at the sight of some tree, some
alley, or some park. Pilar thought Vichy had an elegant aspect; Lucía,
less well-informed in matters of elegance and fashion, enjoyed simply
the spectacle of so much verdure, so much nature, which rested her eyes,
making her think at times that, notwithstanding its crowded streets and
its brilliant shops, Vichy was a village, exactly suited to gratify her
secret desire and need for solitude. A village of palaces, with all the
adornments and refinements of comfort and luxury characteristic of our
age, but a village after all.

Pilar and Miranda began to take the waters simultaneously, although with
the difference of method required by the different natures of their
maladies. Miranda drank the powerful water of the Grande Grille,
undergoing at the same time a complicated course of treatment of local
effusions, baths and douches, while the anæmic girl drank in small doses
the pungent, gaseous, and ferruginous water of the Source des Dames.
From this time forth a constant struggle went on between Pilar and those
who had charge of her. It was necessary to use heroic efforts to prevent
her leading the same life as the fashionable visitors, who spent the
entire day in displaying their toilets and amusing themselves. From this
point of view the presence in Vichy of some six or eight Spanish ladies,
acquaintances of the Gonzalvos, who intended to remain till the end of
the season, was pernicious to Pilar. The best and most brilliant part of
the season was over; the races, the pigeon-shooting, the public
excursions in chaise and omnibus to the Bourbonese, beginning in August,
had ended in the early part of September. But there still remained the
concerts in the Park, the promenade on the asphalt-paved avenue, the
nightly entertainments in the Casino; the theater, which, now soon to
close, was more and more crowded every night. Pilar was dying to join
the dozen or so of her fashionable compatriots who were participating in
the short-lived round of watering-place gayeties. The physician at Vichy
who attended Pilar, while he recommended amusements for Miranda,
prohibited strictly to the anæmic girl every species of excitement,
advising her strongly to avail herself of the semi-rural character of
the town to lead a country life as far as was possible, going to bed
with the chickens and rising with the sun. This regimen required a great
deal of perseverance on the part of the patient, and, more than this, to
have some one constantly at her side who should oblige her to follow
strictly the doctor’s orders. Neither Miranda nor Perico was calculated
for this office. Miranda complied with the social requirements,
exhorting Pilar to “take care of herself,” and “not to be imprudent,”
with that fictitious interest which egotists display when the health of
another is in question. Perico grew angry at seeing his sister pay so
little heed to the advice of the doctor, a neglect that might delay the
cure, and consequently prolong their stay in Vichy; but he was incapable
of watching over her and seeing that she carried out the orders she had
received. He would say to her at times:

“I hope the devil will fly away with you, fly away with you, and that
you may be as yellow as a lemon this winter. You will have it so, so let
it be.”

The only person, then, who devoted herself to the task of making Pilar
observe the regimen prescribed by the doctor, was Lucía. She did so,
moved by that need of self-sacrifice experienced by young and vigorous
natures, who must have an outlet for their superabundant energy, and by
the instinct which impels such natures to feed the animal neglected by
every one else, or to protect the child abandoned in the street. There
was no one within Lucía’s reach but Pilar, and on Pilar Lucía placed her
affections. Perico Gonzalvo did not sympathize with Lucía, whom he
thought very provincial and very little womanly, as far as the art of
pleasing was concerned. Miranda, now somewhat rejuvenated by the
favorable effects of the first week of the waters, went with Perico to
the Casino and to the Park, holding himself erect and twisting his
mustache once more. The two women, then, were thrown upon each other’s
society. Lucía subjected herself in everything to the mode of life of
the patient. At six she softly rose and went to awaken the sick girl, so
that prolonged sleep might not induce debilitating sweats. Then she
would take her out on the balcony on the ground floor to breathe the
pure air of morning, and both enjoyed the country sunrise, which seemed
to electrify Vichy, causing it to thrill with a sort of matutinal
expectancy.

The business of the day began very early in the town, for almost all of
the inhabitants kept boarders during the season, and were obliged to do
their marketing and be ready to give breakfast to their guests by the
time these should have returned from drinking their morning glass of
water. Usually the mornings were rather cloudy, and the summits of the
tall trees rustled as the breeze played through them. Now and then some
workman would pass by with long beard, ill-washed and shy face,
shuffling his feet, only half awake, unable to shake off fully the
leaden sleep which had overpowered him, exhausted by fatigue, the night
before. The domestic servants, with their baskets of coal on their arms,
their large aprons of gray or blue cloth, and their smoothly combed
hair--like that of a woman who has but ten minutes in the day for her
toilet, and who makes good use of them--walked with quick step, fearing
to be late. From a neighboring barracks came the soldiers, holding
themselves erect, their uniforms tightly buttoned across their chests,
their ears red from the vigorous rubbing they had given them during the
matutinal ablutions, the backs of their heads close shaven, their hands
in their trousers’ pockets, and whistling an air. An old woman, with a
clean white cap, her gown turned up, carefully swept up the dead leaves
which strewed the asphalt pavement, followed by a lap-dog that sniffed,
as if trying to recover the scent, at each heap of leaves swept up by
the diligent broom. There were vehicles in great number, and of various
forms and sizes, and Lucía amused herself by watching them and noting
the different styles and shapes to be seen. Some, mounted on enormous
wheels, were drawn by little donkeys with pricked-up ears, driven by
women with harsh and weather-beaten countenances, who wore the classic
Bourbonese hat, a species of straw basket with two black velvet ribbons
crossing each other over the crown; these were milk-wagons; at the back
of the wagon was a row of tin cans containing the milk. The carts
employed in the transport of earth and lime were more clumsy than these
and were drawn by strong percherons, with harnesses adorned by tassels
of red wool. Going for their load, they rolled along with a certain
carelessness; while, returning laden, the driver cracked his whip, the
horse trotted along spiritedly and the bells of the harness tinkled.
When the weather was fine, Lucía and Pilar would go down into the little
garden and stand with their faces pressed to the iron railing, looking
out into the avenue; but on rainy mornings they remained on the balcony,
sheltered by the carved projections of the _châlet_, and listening to
the noise of the raindrops plashing fast, fast on the leaves of the
plane trees that rustled with a silky murmur.

But the weather seemed determined to favor the travelers, and shortly
after their arrival in Vichy began a series of days as brilliant and
serene as it was possible for days to be in autumn, that season so
peculiarly serene, especially in its early part.

The sky was clear and cloudless, the air genial, vegetation in all the
plenitude of its splendor of coloring and growth; the afternoons were
long, the mornings were bright, and Lucía availed herself of this
conjunction of favorable circumstances to persuade Pilar to take a trip
into the country in accordance with the doctor’s advice. It was a part
of the treatment that Pilar should take rides on a donkey in order that
the uneven trot of the animal might serve her as exercise, setting her
blood in motion without fatiguing her; and although the sick girl
cordially detested this species of conveyance, and, until they emerged
from the town, persisted in going on foot, dragging herself laboriously
along rather than mount it, yet she consented to do so when they were
outside the town. The exercise excited her, and imparted a faint color
to her cheeks. Lucía would joke with her about her appearance.

“You see how beneficial it is to ride a spirited steed,” she would say.
“You look splendid; you look like a different person; see, to make a
conquest, all you have to do is to take a turn up and down as you are
now, before the Casino, when the band is playing.”

“Horrors!” exclaimed the sick girl, with a little cry. “What if the
Amézegas were to see me--they who never ride except in a jaunting car or
a brougham!”

The two friends would go sometimes to the Montagne Verte, sometimes to
the Source des Dames, sometimes to the intermittent spring of Vesse.
The Montagne Verte is the highest point in the neighborhood of Vichy.
The hill is covered with vegetation, but scrubby vegetation, scarcely
rising above the surface of the earth, so that from a distance it looked
to them like the head of a giant covered with short and very thick hair.
When they reached the summit, they ascended to the mirador, and looked
through the great field-glass, examining the immense panorama that lay
spread before them. The gentle slopes, clad with vines, descended to the
Allier, which wound in the distance like an enormous blue snake. Far
away the chain of the Fonez raised its snow-capped hills, the giants of
Auvergne, vaporous and gray, looked like cloud-phantoms; the castle of
Borbon Busset emerged from the mists, its seignorial towers casting into
the shade the peaceful palace of Randan, with all the disdain of a
legitimate Bourbon for the degenerate branch of Orleans. Lucía’s
favorite excursion was to the Source des Dames; a narrow footpath,
shaded by leafy trees, gently followed the course of the Sichon,
pausing, when the river paused to form a shallow lake, and then
continuing its winding course along the border of the tranquil stream.
At every step some picturesque accident broke the monotony of the rows
of poplars and elms,--now a lavatory, now a little house standing on the
river’s brink, now a dam, now a mill, now a duck pond. The mill, in
particular, seemed as if it might have been placed there by some
landscape painter for artistic effect. Ancient and moss-grown, it rested
on wooden posts that were slowly decaying in the water; in the center of
the structure the wheel gleamed like an enormous eye shining in the
brown and wrinkled forehead of a Cyclops. The drops of liquid silver
that leaped from spoke to spoke with every revolution one might fancy
tears dropping from the immense eye, and the groan to which the massive
wheel gave utterance as it turned completed the resemblance, imitating
the breathing of the monster. Through the ill-joined planks of a bridge,
boldly thrown across the very bend of the cataract which formed the dam,
could be caught glimpses of the water foaming and roaring below. In the
dam some half-dozen ducks were lazily paddling, and innumerable sparrows
flew hither and thither under the irregular eaves of the roof, while in
the dark aperture of one of the irregularly placed windows grew a pot of
petunias. Lucía loved to sit and watch the mill from the bank opposite,
lulled by the monotonous snore of the wheel and the gentle plash of the
water. Pilar preferred the intermittent spring, which procured her the
emotions of which her sickly organization was so avid. The spring was
reached by a pleasant path, and from the bridge could be obtained a fine
view of the surrounding country.

The Allier is a broad and deep stream, but at this season of the year
its waters are greatly diminished by the summer draughts, the channel
being almost dry, except in the deepest parts, leaving the sandy bed of
the river exposed to view in broad white bands. In places, dark rocks
intercepted the current, forming eddies where the water foamed angrily
and then went on its way, calm and placid as before. Beyond stretched an
open plain. Wide meadows, with here and there cows grazing and sheep
browsing, were bounded on the horizon line by pale green poplars,
straight, with pointed tops, like the artificial trees of the toy sets.
The osiers, on the contrary, were squat and round, looking like balls of
somber verdure dotting the meadow. In the distance could be seen the
summit of the Montagne Verte, outlined in pure dark green against the
sky with a certain hardness and distinctness, that reminded one of a
Flemish landscape. On the river bank the right arms of the washerwomen,
rising and falling like the arms of marionettes could be seen, and the
monotonous sound of the bat beating the linen could be heard. Carts
laden with sand and gravel slowly ascended the rough slope of the bank,
and then as slowly crossed the bridge, the team bathed in sweat, the
bells tinkling at rare intervals. Auvergnese peasant women walked along,
dressed in dull-colored garments, wearing the straw panier above the
white coif, guarding their cows, whose udders, swelling with milk, swung
as they went, and which, looking with melancholy gaze at the passers-by,
would suddenly start on an oblique run, lasting some ten seconds, after
which they resumed their former slow and resigned pace. At the corner of
the bridge a poor man, decently clad, and with the air of a soldier,
begged for charity with only a supplicating inflexion of the voice and a
sorrowful contraction of the brow.

In proportion as they left the bridge behind them, penetrating more
deeply into the shade of the road leading to Vesse, the heart of Lucía,
who felt herself now really in the country, would grow lighter. The
trees here were wilder, less straight and symmetrical than in Vichy; the
path less even and more natural; the grass borders less trim, and the
villas and houses on either side of the road less neatly kept and
handsome. No zealous hand removed the dry leaves that formed a natural
carpet for the ground. At intervals was to be seen some shed, in whose
dark shadow gleamed the agricultural implements, and the rural and
pungent odor of the turned-up earth penetrated the lungs, healthy and
strengthening as the wholesome vegetables growing in the neighboring
gardens. The distance from the bridge to the spring was short. Arrived
there they crossed the hall of the little house, entered the garden, and
directed their steps toward the vine-covered arbor containing the
fountain. They found the basin empty; from the brass tube of the jet not
a drop of water flowed. But Pilar knew beforehand the precise time at
which the singular phenomenon would occur, and made her calculations
with exactness. During the interval before the water made its
appearance, she would remain leaning over the basin, her heart
palpitating, silently listening, with her right hand held like an
ear-trumpet to her ear.

“He is coming; I hear him hissing,” Lucía would say, as if they were
speaking of some monster.

“You will see that he won’t come for five minutes yet,” Pilar would
answer in a tone of conviction.

“I tell you he is coming, my dear; he is sputtering now.”

“Let me listen. No, no! It is the noise of the wind shaking the trees.
You are dreaming.”

Then a short pause of complete silence would follow--a tragic interval.

“Hist! now, now!” the sick girl would cry, clapping her hands; “now it
is coming, and in earnest!”

In effect, a strange gurgling noise was heard, followed by a shrill
whistle, and then a jet of boiling water, which emitted an intolerable
odor of sulphur, rose straight, swift, and foaming to the very roof of
the high arbor. A thick steam enveloped the basin, and diffused itself
through the atmosphere, now filled with the sickening odor of the
sulphur. Thus the stream rose impetuously until the force below began to
diminish when, with the fury of impotence, it issued in wild leaps, like
the convulsions of an epileptic, writhing in anger, sputtering with
desperate articulation; at last it would fall down, vanquished and
powerless, sending forth only at rare intervals a thin stream, like the
last flashes of a dying taper. Its agony ended with two or three
hiccoughs from the tube at whose orifice the stream would appear, but
without sufficient force to emerge. The spring would not now flow again
for ten hours at least.

Lucía and Pilar would often dispute together about the termination of
the phenomenon as they had done about its beginning.

“It has stopped. He is going to sleep. Good-night, sir,” Lucía would
exclaim with a wave of the hand.

“No, child. He will make his appearance three or four times yet before
he goes to rest.”

“He can’t.”

“He can. You shall see; he will give a few _little spits_ more, as the
servant of a cousin of mine, an artillery officer says. Hush, listen,
listen to him still snoring! One, two, three, now he is spitting!”

“Four, five, six! There, he won’t come back again. The poor fellow is
tired out.”

“No, he won’t come again now; he has given his last gasp.”

Returning, the friends would find the bridge more animated than they had
found it on going to the spring. This was the hour at which the
townspeople and the bathers returned from their expeditions into the
country, and many equestrians were to be seen hastening to the town,
displaying their riding-trousers and buttoned gaiters, against which
gleamed brightly stirrup and spur. An occasional sociable, looking like
a light canoe, proceeded on its way, drawn by its handsome pair of
well-matched ponies, with lustrous coats and clean hoofs, proud of their
elegant burden. Hasty glimpses could be caught of wide straw hats,
profusely adorned with lilacs and poppies; of light gowns, laces, and
ribbons; light-colored muslin parasols; gay countenances, gay with the
gayety of good society, which is always set in a lower key than, the
gayety of common people. This latter was enjoyed by the pedestrians, for
the most part happy family parties, who wore contentedly the livery of
golden mediocrity or even of plain poverty; the father, obese,
gray-haired, red-faced, with gray or maroon coat, carrying on his
shoulder the long fishing pole; the daughter wearing a dark woolen gown,
a little black straw hat adorned with a single flower, carrying on her
left arm the little basket containing the flies and other piscatorial
appurtenances, and leading by the right hand the little brother who had
outgrown his trousers and jacket and who showed the ankles of his boots,
proudly holding the pail in which floated the foolish fishes, victims of
the death-dealing pastime of his father.

Lucía took such delight in the view of the bridge and the river that she
retarded her steps in passing them in order to prolong the pleasure.
The green curtain of the new park stretched before her view. The whole
of this beautiful garden was a marsh, until the massive dykes erected by
Napoleon III to prevent the inundations following the rise of the
Allier, and the draining of the ground, transformed it into a paradise.
The choice trees growing in the fertile soil had for the most part tones
intense and soft, like green plush; but some of them, now turning
yellow, shone, in the light of the setting sun, like pyramids of golden
filagree work. Others were reddish with a brick-like red, that, where
the sun fell, showed carmine. The sick girl, as they returned to the
town, liked to sit and rest awhile on one of the benches of the park.
There were generally visitors there at this hour, and sometimes they
would meet members of the Spanish colony, acquaintances of Perico or
Miranda, with whom they would exchange salutations and the trivial
phrases current in society. Sometimes, too, the rich Cubans, the de
Amézegas, would flash like comets on their sight, with their
extraordinary hats, their enormous parasols, and their fanciful
adornments, always in the height of the fashion. Pilar could distinguish
them a league away by their famous hats, impossible to confound with any
other head-covering whatsoever. They resembled two large pudding dishes,
completely covered with small, fine, red feathers and adorned each with
a natural bird, a species of pheasant, artistically mounted with
outspread wing, and head turned gracefully to one side. This strange
semi-Indian ornament suited well the tropical pallor and flashing eyes
of the two young Cubans. When they drew near, Lucía would give Pilar a
push with her elbow, saying, with a touch of malice:

“See, there come the wonderful foreign birds of those friends of yours.”

The meeting with “the Amézegas,” as Perico called them, always produced
a slight degree of fever in Pilar, which left her prostrate for a couple
of hours afterward. When she descried them in the distance she
instinctively arranged her hair, put forward her foot covered with a
little Louis XV shoe of Morocco leather, and nervously passed her hand
over the brown lace of her wrap, bringing into full view the turquoise
arrow that fastened it. They would enter into conversation, the de
Amézegas speaking in languid or disdainful accents, looking at the sky
or at the passers-by and striking the ground with the knobs of their
parasols as they spoke. Short answers, lazily given--“What would you
have, child?” “It was magnificent,” “More people there than ever,” “Of
course the Swede was there,” “Cream-colored satin and grenadine the
color of heliotrope, combined,” “As usual, devoted to her,” “Yes, yes,
it is warm,” “Well, I am glad you are better, child,”--responded to the
eager questions of Pilar. Then the Cubans would continue on their way
with titters politely suppressed, half-finished phrases, and a rustle of
new fabrics, planting their heels firmly on the ground as they walked.
For at least a quarter of an hour afterward, Pilar did nothing but
criticise the belles, and others, also.

“They are getting to be more and more extravagant and loud every day.
Now, do you like that odd gown with the head of a bird, to match the
bird on the hat, fastening every pleat? They look like a glass case in
the Museum of Natural History. Even on the fan a bird’s head! It is not
credible that Worth should have conceived that grotesque style. I
believe they make them at home themselves with the help of the maid and
then say they were ordered from Worth.”

“But it is said for a fact that their father is a very wealthy banker in
Havana.”

“Yes, yes; they have more tricks than _trapiches_,”[A] said Pilar,
repeating a jest that had been going the rounds of Madrid all the
winter, _à-propos_ of the Amézegas.

 [A] A sugar plantation in Cuba.

“There is no doubt but that birds are a very curious ornament. I have
one, too, in a hat.”

“Yes, in a toque; but that is different. Besides, a married lady can use
certain things that in the dress of a young girl----”

“And for that reason Perico was quite right not to buy you that wrap
embroidered in colored beads that you took such a fancy to. It was very
striking.”

“Nothing of the kind. It was very distinguished-looking. What do you
know of those matters?”

“I? Nothing,” answered Lucía, smiling.

“The gown of the Swede must have been lovely--cream-color and
heliotrope! I like the combination. But how she is making herself talked
about with Albares--a married man! Good need they both have of the
waters!”

“Why, I heard your brother say that she does not take the slightest
notice of him.”

“Bah! unless you would have them pay the town-crier to publish it!
Albares is a fool, inside and out, who loves to attract attention. The
fact is that every one in Vichy is talking about them.”

Lucía remained thoughtful, her gaze fixed on the flower-knots of the
park, that looked like enameled medallions fastened on a green satin
skirt. They were formed of several varieties of the coleus; those in
the center had lance-shaped and brilliant leaves of dark brown, purplish
red, brick-red, red of the color of the turkey’s comb, rose-red. At the
edge, a row of ruins of Italy, showed their bluish disks against the
fresh vivid green of the grass. The larches and the pines formed, here
and there, in some retired corner of the park, woody, Swiss-like clumps,
their innumerable branches drooping languidly to the ground. Through the
light foliage of the majestic catalpas streamed the last rays of the
setting sun, and splashes of golden light danced here and there upon the
fine sanded walk. The place had the mysterious and secluded air of a
temple. A solemn, poetic silence prevailed, which it almost seemed a
sacrilege to break by a word or movement.

The visitors had begun to leave the park, the light crunching of the
gravel under their feet sounding fainter and fainter in the distance.
But the two friends were in the habit of remaining to “lock up the
place” as the saying is, for it was precisely at the sunset hour that
Lucía thought the park most beautiful in this melancholy autumnal
season. The dying rays of the sun, now low in the western sky, fell
almost horizontally on the grassy meads, lighting them up with hues like
liquid gold. The dark cones of the fir trees dotted this ocean of light
in which their shadows were disproportionately prolonged. The plane
trees and the Indian chestnuts were dropping their leaves, and from time
to time a burr would fall to the ground with a hard, dull sound, and
opening allow the shining chestnut to roll out. In the large
flower-knots, which contrasted with the green of the grass, the pale
eglantine dropped its fragile petals at the faintest breeze, the
verbenas trailed themselves languidly, as if weary of life, their
capriciously growing stalks breaking the oval outlines of the bed; the
sweet milfoil raised its shower of blue stars, and the rare coleuses
displayed the exotic tints and the metallic luster of their spotted
leaves, resembling the scales of a serpent, white with black spots,
green with flesh-colored veins, dark amaranth striped with copperish
red. A profound thrill, precursor of winter, ran through all nature, who
seemed to have adorned herself in her richest attire for her death.
Thus, the virgin vine was arrayed in her splendid purple robe and the
white poplar raised coquettishly its plumy white crest; thus the
coralline decked itself with chains and rings of blood-red coral and the
zinnias ran through the whole scale of vivid colors in their broidered
petticoats. The striped maize shook its green and white-striped silken
skirts with melodious rustle, and far away on the edge of the meadow,
bathed in sunlight, a few tender saplings bent their youthful heads. The
dead leaves covered the paths in such abundance that Lucía felt with
delight her foot sink up to the ankle in the soft carpet. The contact of
the edge of her gown with the leaves produced a quick murmuring sound,
like the hurried breathing of some one following close behind; and, a
prey to childish terror, she would turn back her head now and again and
smile at herself when she saw that her fears were illusory. There were
many varieties of leaves, some dark, decayed, almost rotted; others dry,
brittle, shriveled; others yellow or still greenish, moist with the sap
of the branch through which they had drawn their life. The carpet lay
thicker in the shady spots by the borders of the lake, whose surface
rippled like undulating glass at the light contact of the evening
breeze, breaking into innumerable wavelets, that dashed unceasingly
against one another.

Tall weeping-willows bent with a melancholy air above the water, that
reflected back their tremulous branches, among which could be seen the
disk of the sun, whose rays, concentrated by this species of camera
obscura, struck the eye with the force of arrows. In a labyrinth in the
lake, an enormous clump of malangas displayed their exuberant tropical
vegetation, their gigantic fan-like leaves motionless in the still air.
Swans and ducks paddled--the former, with their accustomed fantastic
grace, swaying their long necks, the latter, quacking harshly,--toward
the bank, the moment Lucía and Pilar appeared, in quest of bits of
bread, which they swallowed greedily, raising their tails in the air as
each mouthful went down. The islet, with its pine tree, cast a
mysterious shade over the surface of the lake. A sheaf of reeds raised
their slender forms and by their side the sharp poas shook their brushes
of chestnut velvet.

A delightful coolness rose from the water. The landscape breathed a
tender melancholy, a gentle drowsiness, the repose of mother nature,
fatigued with the continued production of the summer, and preparing for
her winter sleep. Lucía was no longer a child; external objects now
spoke to her eloquently, and she began to listen to their voice. The
scene before her plunged her into vague meditation. Her soul seemed to
detach itself from her body, as the leaf detaches itself from the
branch, and like it to wander without aim or object, yielding itself up
to the delight of annihilation, to the sweetness of non-existence. And
how pleasant death must be, a death like that of the leaves,--a gentle
loosening of the bonds of life, the passage to more beautiful regions,
the satisfaction of the mysterious longings hidden in the recesses of
the soul! When ideas like these thronged to her mind, a bird, perhaps,
would fly down from some tree; she would hear the fluttering of its
wings in the air; it would hop along the sanded walk, ruffling its
feathers among the dead leaves; she would approach, and suddenly it
would fly away and go to perch on the topmost branch of the murmuring
acacias.




CHAPTER X.


The voice of the sick girl would break the spell.

“Eh, child, what are you thinking about? How romantic those girls
brought up in the provinces are!”

The sharp and clear-sighted eyes of Pilar fastened themselves, as she
said this, on Lucía’s face, where she descried a faint shadow, a sort of
gray veil extending from the forehead and the temples to the circles
under the eyes, and a certain sunkenness at the corners of the mouth.
Her morbid curiosity was awakened, inspiring her with a desire to
dissect for her pastime this simple heart. Her unerring woman’s
instinct had revealed many things to her, and unable to content herself
with a discreet guess, she desired to obtain the confidence of Lucía. It
would be one more emotion for her to enjoy during her stay at the
springs.

“I don’t know what I was thinking about--nothing,” answered Lucía,
calling to her aid the most commonplace of excuses and the most common.

“Because it sometimes seems as if you were sad, pretty one; and I don’t
know why you should be sad, for you are precisely in the most delightful
part of the honeymoon. Ah, you are to be envied! Miranda is very
agreeable. He has good manners, a good presence.”

“Yes, indeed; a very good presence,” repeated Lucía, like an echo.

“And he dotes upon you. Why, any one may see that. True, he goes about a
good deal with my brother--but what would you have, child? All men are
like that. The chief thing is that when they are with one they should be
amiable and affectionate--and that they should not be jealous. No, that
good quality, at least, Miranda has; he is not jealous.”

Lucía turned red as fire, and, stooping down, gathered a handful of dry
leaves from the ground, in order to hide her confusion; then she amused
herself crumbling them between her thumb and forefinger and blowing the
dust into the air.

“And yet,” continued Pilar, “any one else in his place--No, see, if I
were a man, I don’t know what I should have done--this thing of having a
stranger escorting one’s bride for so many days--in that way, in such
close company--and precisely when----”

At this direct and brutal thrust, Lucía raised her head, and fixed on
her friend the ingenuous but dignified and severe glance which at times
shone in her eyes. Pilar, skillful in her tactics, drew back in order
the better to make her spring.

“It is true that any one who knew you and him, would be just as
unsuspicious as Miranda. You, as we all know, a little saint, an angel
in a niche; and he--he is a gentleman of the old school, notwithstanding
his eccentricities--he is as honorable as the Cid. He takes it from far
back. I have known him very well for a long time past,” declared Pilar,
who, like all young girls of the middle class who have mixed in good
society, was eager to have it appear that she knew everybody.

“You--you have known him for a long time?” murmured Lucía, conquered,
offering the sick girl her arm to lean upon.

“Yes, child. He goes to Madrid every year; sometimes to spend the whole
winter there, but generally only a month or two in the spring. He has
little liking for society; he was invited to several houses, for his
father, the Carlist chief, was a distinguished man in his part of the
country, and he is connected with the Puenteanchas and with the Mijares,
who are also Urbietas, but he was so chary of his society that every one
was dying to have him. Once, because he danced a rigadoon, at
Puenteancha’s, with Isabelita Novelda, they teased her about it all the
evening--they said she could now undertake to tame wild beasts; that she
could take Plevna without firing a gun--Isabelita was as proud as a
peacock, and it turned out that the Puenteancha had requested him to
dance, as a favor to her, and that he had consented, saying that he
would dance with the first woman he met--he met Isabelita and he asked
her. Fancy how the silly girl looked when it was known! After being
convinced that she had made a conquest! Her nose grew longer than it
was, and it was long enough already--ha, ha!”

The sick girl’s laughter ended in a cough--a little cough that tickled
her throat and took away her breath, compelling her to sit down on one
of the rustic benches of the park. Lucía slapped her gently on the back
without speaking, not wishing to say a word that might change the
current of the conversation. Her eyes spoke for her.

“I can tell you it was a dreadful disappointment,” resumed Pilar, when
she had recovered her breath. “The hundreds of thousands of francs which
his father had laid by for him would have suited the Noveldita
exactly--but they say that he does not like women!”

“He does not like women?” said Lucía, as if the pronoun _he_ could refer
to only one person.

“They say, however, that as a son he has few equals--he pets his mother
like a baby. She is said to be a woman of great refinement, belonging to
the French aristocracy--extremely delicate in her health, and I even
think that long ago, when she was young----”

The sick girl tapped her forehead significantly with her forefinger.

“It seems the father desired that the child should be born on Spanish
soil and he brought his wife before her confinement to Ondarroa, his
native place; they accustomed the boy to speak Spanish, except with his
nurse, with whom he spoke the Basque dialect. Paco Mijares, who is a
relation of his and knows all about it, told me so.”

Lucía listened eagerly, drinking in every word with avidity, to all
these insignificant details.

“He has curious fancies and caprices. At one time he took the notion to
work and entered a commercial house. After that he studied medicine and
surgery, and I understand that he put Rubio and Camison in the shade. In
Madrid he went to the hospitals to study for pleasure; at the time of
the war he did the same thing. Do you know where I sometimes used to
meet him in Madrid? In the Retiro, looking fixedly at the large lake.
What is the matter, child?”

Lucía, with closed eyes and deathly pale, leaned back against the trunk
of the tree that shaded the bench on which they sat. When she opened her
eyes, the shadow on her temples was more marked, and her gaze wandered
like that of a person recovering from a swoon.

“I don’t know--I sometimes seem to lose consciousness in that way. It is
as if there were a sinking here,” she murmured, laying her hand on her
heart.

“It is as I thought,” said Pilar to herself. “She has begun her capers
early,” she added, in her own mind, cynically. Night was falling
rapidly; a cold breeze stirred the foliage of the trees; the two
friends, shivering, drew their wraps closer around them. At the same
moment two dark figures appeared at the end of the avenue. They were
those of Miranda and Perico, who manifested some surprise at finding
Lucía and Pilar in the park at this late hour.

“A pretty way, a pretty way to cure yourself! The devil! you’ll be lucky
if you don’t get an attack of pneumonia for this! get up, you crazy
girl; come, come!”

Pilar rose, weak and pale, and took Miranda’s arm. Perico offered his to
Lucía, whose natural vigor of constitution had by this time got the
better of her momentary faintness.

“I doubt if she can take the waters to-morrow,” the latter said to her
companion. “She was rather excited to-day, and now the reaction shows
itself in fatigue.”

“I wager she would be strong enough, strong enough, if I offered to let
her go to the Casino!”

“Ah, Periquillo of my soul!” cried the sick girl, whose fine ear had not
lost a word of the conversation, “will you let me go, eh? What harm
would that do me? Miranda, you intercede for me.”

“Once in a while--it might be good for her--it would serve to distract
her.”

“Don’t mind what he says, Gonzalvo. Señor Duhamel says she ought not to
go, and who knows best, she or the doctor?” said Lucía.

“And you?” asked Perico, incited to a touch of gallantry by the hour,
the sight of the husband walking in front, and his inveterate
habits,--“and you, young and pretty as you are, why do you not come to
the Casino? All that finery that is lying idle in your trunks would be
better employed where it could be seen. Come, make up your mind, make up
your mind, and I will bring you a bunch of camellias like the one the
Swede carried last night.”

“I have no desire to eclipse the Swede,” said Lucía, with a smile.
“Where would she be if I were to show myself?”

“Well, although you say it in jest, in jest, it is the simple truth,”
and Perico traitorously lowered his voice. “You are worth a dozen
Swedes”; and in a louder tone, he added: “If Juanito Albares did not
make such a fool of himself, deuce a one would look at her, would look
at her.”

(Juanito Albares, as Perico familiarly called him, was a duke, a grandee
of Spain, a count and a marquis, and had I know not how many other
titles besides, a fact worthy to be borne in mind by the future
biographers of the elegant Gonzalvo.)

“Where are your eyes, then?” exclaimed Lucía, with Spanish frankness.
“You have great audacity to say that! The Swede is beautiful! Her
complexion is whiter than milk, and then her eyes----”

“Put no confidence in whiteness,” interposed Pilar, “while Venus’s towel
and Paris white are to be bought. She is too large.”

“Too tall,” declared Perico, like the fox in the fable.

“Never mind,” said Miranda, in a low voice, to Pilar. “We will make that
obstinate brother of yours listen to reason, and you shall go some night
to the Casino. A pretty thing it would be if you were to leave Vichy
without seeing the theater and listening to the concert. It would be
unheard of.”

“Ah, Miranda! You are my guardian angel! If there is no other way of
accomplishing it, you and I will run away some night--an elopement. We
will do as they do in the novels: you shall come on a fiery steed, I
will get up behind, and let them overtake us if they can. We will first
put Perico and Lucía under lock and key, and leave them there to do
penance for their sins, eh? What do you say?”

When they reached the entrance to the _châlet_, where lights were
already shining among the dark foliage of the trees, Miranda said to
himself:

“This one is more amusing than my wife. At least she says something, if
it is only nonsense; and she is cheerful, although she has half of one
lung God knows in what condition.”

“This girl is more insipid than water, than water,” Perico, on his side,
said to himself on parting from Lucía.

Meantime the longed-for day of the evening entertainment arrived. Pilar
was in the habit of spending a couple of hours daily in the Salle des
Dames of the Casino, generally from one to three o’clock in the
afternoon. The Salle des Dames is one of the many attractions of the
fine building which is the center of the gayety of the town, where the
ladies who are subscribers to the Casino can take refuge without fear of
masculine intrusion; there they are at home, and rule with absolute
sway; they play the piano, embroider, chat, and sometimes indulge in a
sherbet or some sweetmeat or bon-bon, which they nibble with as much
enjoyment as if they were mice let loose in a cupboard full of dainties.
It might be taken for a modern Moorish harem, a gynecæum, not hidden
within the modest shadow of the home, but situated in the most public of
all possible places. There congregated all the feminine stars of the
firmament of Vichy, and there Pilar met assembled the small but
brilliant Spanish-American colony--the de Amézegas, Luisa Natal, the
Countess of Monteros; and there was established a sort of Spanish
coterie which, if not very numerous, was none the less animated and gay.
While some blonde Englishwoman executed pieces of classic music on the
piano, and the Frenchwomen seized the occasion to display exquisite
worsted-work, at which they worked at the rate of two or three stitches
an hour, the Spanish women, more sincere, gave themselves up frankly to
idleness and spent the time chatting and fanning themselves. A fine
geographical globe at the farther end of the parlor seemed asking what
was its object and aim in such a place; and in exchange, the portraits
of the two sisters of Louis XVI, Victoria and Adelaide, traditional
_dames_ of Vichy, with powdered hair and rosy, smiling faces, presided
over the exhibition of frivolity continually being celebrated in their
honor. There were whisperings, like the flutterings of bird’s wings in
an aviary; sounds of laughter, like the sound of pearls dropping into a
crystal cup; the silky flutter of fans, the click of the sticks, the
noise made by the casters of the chairs rolling over the waxed floors,
the _frou-frou_ of skirts, like the rustling of insects’ wings. The air
was perfumed by the mingled odors of gardenia, toilet vinegar,
smelling-salts, and perfumery. On chairs and tables lay trinkets and
articles of adornment, long-handled silk parasols embroidered in gold,
work-boxes of Russian leather, work-baskets of straw ornamented with
worsted balls and tassels; here a lace scarf, there a lawn handkerchief;
here a bunch of flowers exhaling in death their sweetest perfume, there
a dotted tulle veil, and, resting on it, the pins used to fasten it. The
group of Spanish women, headed by Lola Amézega, who was of a very
resolute character, maintained a certain independence and intimacy among
themselves, very different from the reserve of the Englishwomen, between
whom and the Spanish group there was even perceptible a feeling of
secret hostility and mutual contempt.

It afforded great diversion to the Spanish group to see the Englishwomen
gravely take out a newspaper, as large as a sheet, from their pockets,
and read it from the first word to the last.

Pilar had been unable to persuade Lucía to accompany her to the Salle
des Dames; the shyness and timidity resulting from her provincial
education deterred her from going; she dreaded, more than fire, the
inquisitive glances of those women, who examined her toilet as minutely
as a skillful confessor examines the recesses of the conscience of his
penitent. Pilar, on the contrary, was there in her natural element. Her
rather shrill voice yielded in power only to the Cuban lisp of the
leader, Lola Amézega.

Let us listen to the concert:

“Well, I bought this to-day,” Lola was saying unconstrainedly, as she
turned up the sleeve of her pink muslin gown, trimmed with dark garnet
bows, and displaying to view a bracelet, from which hung a little pig
with curled-up tail and swelling sides, executed in fine enamel.

“I have one in another style,” said Amalia Amézega, showing a pig no
less resplendent than her sister’s, which dug its snout into the lace of
her necktie.

“Heavens! what an ugly fashion!” exclaimed Luisa Natal, a belle whose
attractions were now on the wane, and who was very careful to use no
ornaments except such as might serve to enhance her beauty. “For my
part, I would not wear such creatures. They make one think of
black-pudding, don’t they, countess?”

The Countess of Monteros, a Spanish woman of the old-fashioned type,
very devout and somewhat austere, nodded in the affirmative.

“I don’t know what they are going to invent next,” she said slowly. “I
have seen in the shops, elephants, lizards, frogs, and toads, and even
spiders,--in short, the most disgusting creatures possible,--as
ornaments for young ladies. In my youthful days we had no fancy for such
oddities; fine brilliants, beautiful pearls, a ruby heart--and, yes, we
wore cameos, also, but it was a charming caprice--one had one’s likeness
or that of some virgin or saint engraved on the stone.”

There was a brief silence; the Amézegas, subjugated by the imperiousness
of that authoritative voice, did not venture to reply.

“See, countess,” said Pilar, at last, delighted to have an opportunity
to enrage the Amézegas, “what is really pretty is that pin of Luisa’s.”

Luisa drew from her hair the long golden pin with its head of amethyst
set with diamonds.

“The Swede wore one like it yesterday,” she said, handing it to the
countess. “She had on the whole set--earrings, a necklace of amethyst
balls, and the pin. She looked magnificent with those and the heliotrope
gown.”

“Last night?” asked Pilar.

“Yes, at the theater. The other was gloomy and listless as usual; at ten
he entered her box and handed her the customary bouquet of camellias and
white azaleas; they say it costs him seventy francs a night. It is a
regular addition to his bill at the hotel.”

“That nephew of mine has neither shame nor discretion,” said the
Countess of Monteros gravely.

“A married man!” said Luisa Natal, who lived very happily with her
husband, who blindly obeyed all her caprices.

“And is it known, finally, whether the Swede is the daughter or the wife
of that baron of--of--I never can remember his name--well, of that old
man who escorts her?” asked the countess, allowing herself to be drawn
at last, in spite of her dignity, into the current of curiosity.

“Of Holdteufel?” asked Amalia Amézega, in a sing-song voice. “Bah! who
knows! But judging by the liberty he allows her he would seem to be her
husband rather than her father.”

“One needs to have effrontery,” continued Luisa Natal, with gentle and
smiling condemnation, “to make one’s self the talk of every one in that
way.”

“The idea!” said Pilar, in her thin voice. “Why, that is what he wants.
What do you suppose? The point of the thing and the pleasure of it are
in being talked about.”

“Juanito was always the same--always fond of making a noise,” murmured
the countess softly, remembering how her nephew, when a wild boy of ten,
used to go to her house and give her a headache, teasing her for a
thousand nonsensical things.

“Why, the day before yesterday----”

Eager curiosity was expressed in every face. The group drew their chairs
closer together and for a full minute a sound of casters rolling over
the floors could be heard.

“The day before yesterday,” continued Amalia Amézega, lowering her
voice, “she went to the shooting match----”

“Do you shoot now?” asked Pilar and Luisa Natal simultaneously.

“A little, for amusement,” and Lola smoothed down the straight black
fringe of hair that covered her forehead to within half an inch of the
eyebrows, making her look like a page of the Middle Ages, setting off
the tropical pallor of her face and her large eyes like those of a
child, but of a malicious and precocious child.

“Well,” continued Amalia, seeing that her audience was listening
attentively, “Gimenez, and the little Marquis of Cañahejas, and Monsieur
Anatole were there, and they were all talking about a paragraph in
_Figaro_, alluding to a scandal caused at one of the most fashionable
watering places in France, or all Europe, by the insane passion of a
Spanish grandee for a Swedish lady----”

“Only the initials of the names were given,” added Lola; “but it was as
clear as daylight. And to make it more clear it said, ‘_This worthy
grandson of the Count of Almaviva spends a fortune in flowers!_’”

A chorus of laughter broke from the circle. Lola had a way of saying
things with a certain lisp and a movement of the eyelids that greatly
added to their piquancy.

“And she? How does she receive his attentions?” asked Pilar.

“She?” replied Lola. “Oh, every night, on receiving the bouquet, she
answers invariably: ‘Dhanks, tuke, you are too amiaple!’”

They laughed more loudly than before. Even the countess smiled, holding
her fan before her face for the sake of propriety.

“Hist!” said Luisa Natal, “there she comes.”

“The Swede!” exclaimed Pilar.

They all turned round, greatly excited. The door of the Ladies’ Parlor
opened slowly, an old man, dressed with elegant simplicity, with white
side-whiskers, the rest of his face being smoothly shaven, stood in a
courtly attitude at the threshold of the door, while a tall and graceful
woman passed into the room; her classic beauty was set off by her gown
of black silk, close-fitting and sparkling with jet; the hat of tulle,
trimmed with golden wheat-ears, rested on her brow like a diadem; her
walk was noble and queenly. Without deigning to salute any one, she went
straight to the piano and, seating herself before it, proceeded to play
a mazourka of Chopin’s in a masterly manner. Her attitude served to
display to advantage the stately grace of her figure--the long and
rounded arms, the hips, the shoulder-blades, which at every movement of
her white hands defined themselves clearly through the tight-fitting
bodice.

“Is it not true,” said Pilar in a low voice to Luisa Natal, “that if
Lucía Miranda were to dress like her, she would resemble her somewhat in
her figure?”

“Bah!” murmured Luisa Natal, “the Mirandita has not an atom of _chic_.”

From the group of Englishwomen now broke forth the energetic hissing
sound which in every language signifies “Silence! hold your tongues and
listen, or at least permit others to listen.” The Spanish women touched
one another with their elbows and imperturbably went on with their
whispering.

“Do you see that man?” said Lola Amézega.

“Who? who? who?” They all asked in chorus.

“Who do you suppose? Albares. There, there at the window. Take care.
Don’t let him see that you are observing him.”

Looking in at the window overlooking the roof of the Casino was to be
seen, in effect, a youthful, almost boyish face defined against the
porcelain-like whiteness of the necktie, among whose folds rested one of
those agates called “cat’s eyes,” on which the caprice of fashion has of
late bestowed so exaggerated a value. A morning-suit of a soft,
exquisite shade of gray, a fine beaver hat, a gardenia in the
button-hole, and chamois gloves of a rather bright color--such were the
details of the costume of the inquisitive young man who was thus
exploring with his gaze the Salle des Dames. He presented a strange
mixture of weakness and strength; with an under-sized frame, he had the
muscles of a Hercules. Gymnastic exercises, fencing, riding, and hunting
had apparently hardened a constitution, which nature had made weakly,
almost sickly. He was short of stature, his limbs were delicate as a
woman’s, but the muscles were of steel. That this was the case was
apparent from the manner in which his garments hung upon him; from a
certain virile turn of the knees and the shoulders; in addition to this
he had that air of haughty superiority which wealth, birth, and the
habit of command, united, bestow.

But if the duke had expected to be rewarded for his indiscretion, he
was doomed to disappointment; for the Swede, after she had played with
perfect self-possession and consummate skill some half-dozen mazourkas,
arose with no less majesty than she had displayed on her entrance to the
room, and without looking to the right or left walked straight toward
the door. This opened as if by magic, and the diplomat with the white
side-whiskers presented himself, grave and courteous as before, and
offered her his arm. It was the exit of a queen, _très réussie_, as the
group of Frenchwomen said among themselves.

“One would think she was the Princess Micomicona,” said Lola Amézega,
who had spent no less than two hours before the looking-glass, that
morning, practicing the regal walk of the Swede.

“What an air!” said Luisa Natal. “No, it cannot be denied that she is a
handsome woman. What a figure! and what hands! Have you noticed them?”

“What a disappointment for Albares!” exclaimed Amalia; “she did not even
know he was there.”

Every eye was turned toward the window. The duke had disappeared.

“Now he has no doubt gone to the park to try to meet her; shall we go
see?”

“Yes, yes; the sight will be amusing.”

They rose, and hastily gathering up their fans, parasols, and veils,
hurried toward the door.

“Eh, young ladies!” said the Countess of Monteros, “don’t walk so fast.
I am not so young as you are, and I shall be left behind. By my faith,”
she added, under her breath, “when I see my fine nephew I shall tell him
what I think of him for making that poor Matilde, who is an angel,
grieve herself to death by his conduct, as he is doing.”

While Pilar amused herself in a manner so agreeable to her inclinations,
Lucía sat waiting for her on the balcony of the _châlet_. At this hour
neither Miranda nor Perico was in the house. The Casino had swallowed up
every one. Only at rare intervals was a passer-by to be seen in this
retired neighborhood. The only sound to be heard was the monotonous
noise of the machine on which the daughter of the _concierge_ was
sewing. In the garden, the roses, drunk with the sunshine which they had
been quaffing all the morning, exhaled themselves in perfumes; even the
cold white roses showed the effects of the heat in a tinge, like pale
flesh-color, but flesh-color still. It seemed as if all the odors of the
garden had mingled together to form one sole odor, penetrating,
powerful, inebriating, like the fragrance of a single rose, but a rose
of gigantic size--a glowing rose that exhaled from its purple mouth an
intoxicating and deadly fragrance. Lucía had taken her work and busied
herself at it for a while, but after a quarter of an hour or so the
cushion fell from her lap, the thimble slipped from her finger, and she
sat with vacant gaze fixed on the clump of rose bushes, until at last
her eyelids closed of themselves, and leaning her forehead against the
vine that covered the balcony, she abandoned herself to the delicious
enjoyment of the balmy air, unconscious of external sights or sounds,
scarcely breathing. Two months before she could not have remained quiet
for half an hour; the beauty of nature would have incited her to
physical activity. Now, on the contrary, it invited her to repose, it
produced in her a sort of half-conscious torpor, like that of the lizard
sleeping in the sun.

One afternoon Pilar, returning from the clubhouse, found Lucía more
pensive than usual.

“Silly child,” she said, “of what are you thinking? If you were to go to
the Casino it would amuse you greatly.”

“Pilarcita,” murmured Lucía, throwing her arms around the neck of her
friend, “will you keep a secret for me if I tell you one?”

The eyes of the sick girl lighted up.

“Of course I will! open your heart to me, child. In confidence, is it
not so? You may tell me anything. I have seen so many things--there is
nothing that could surprise me.”

“Listen,” said Lucía, “I want to know, at all costs, how Don Ignacio
Artegui’s mother is.”

Pilar drew back, disappointed; then laughing, with her cynical laugh,
she cried:

“Is that all? A great secret that! What a big handful three flies make.”

“For Heaven’s sake!” entreated Lucía uneasily, “don’t give a hint of
this to any one. I am dying to know, but if any one should hear--Miranda
or----”

“Simpleton! I shall soon learn what you wish to know, and without any
one hearing anything about it. I have a hundred ways of finding out. I
promise you your curiosity shall be gratified.”

Pilar tapped Lucía, who looked serious and a little confused, two or
three times on the cheek.

“Are we going to take a walk to-day, madam nurse?” she asked.

“Yes, and you shall drink some milk in Vesse. But put on a warmer dress,
for Heaven’s sake; you are so careless, you are quite capable of
exposing yourself to taking a cold. Have you not observed how fragrant
the roses are? In Leon there are hardly any roses; I remember that I
used to place all I could find before the image of the Virgin, which I
have there in my room.”




CHAPTER XI.


The Casino was for Perico and Miranda, as for all the other idlers of
the colony, house and home during the time they spent at the springs.
The great edifice, taken as a whole, might be likened to a concert of
voices, inviting to the enjoyment of the rapid and easy life of our age.
The spacious peristyle, the principal façade with its broad roof, its
private garden where exotic plants grow in graceful baskets, and its
rich and fanciful ornamentation of dazzling whiteness; the tall columns
of burnished porphyry that support the interior portion of the building;
its luxurious arm-chairs and broad divans; the mischievous cupids
(artistic symbol of the ephemeral passions that last during a two weeks’
course of the waters), that run around the cornice of the large
ball-room or hover on the blue background of the broad panels of the
theater; the profusion of gold, artistically disposed in touches, like
points of light, or in long stripes, like sunbeams; the large
window--everything, in short, contributes to give one the idea of an
Athenian temple, improved and enriched with the benefits and pleasures
of modern civilization. A glance at the southern façade of the Casino
discovers at once the _numen_ to whom worship and sacrifice are here
paid, the nymph of the waters, gracefully inclining her urn, while from
some rushes at her feet emerge two cupids, one of them supporting a
shell, which receives in its hollow the sacred water that flows in a
copious stream from the urn. The priests and flamens of the temple of
the nymphs are the waiters of the Casino who, at a sign, a movement of
the lips, hasten, swiftly and silently, to bring the desired
article--cigars, newspapers, writing-materials, refreshments, even the
waters, which they carry at a run, in a little tank, turned mouth
downward over a plate, so that they may not lose their temperature or
the gases which give them their value.

Miranda’s favorite resort was the reading-room, where were to be found
various Spanish periodicals, including the organ of Colmenar, which he
read with the air of a statesman. Perico was more frequently to be found
in another apartment, gloomy as a cave, with hangings of a dirty gray,
adorned with red fringe, in which a row of spotted guttapercha benches
stood fronting a row of tables covered with the traditional melodramatic
and much worn green cloth. As the out-going tide deposits on the shore
fringe after fringe of seaweed, so on the backs of the red guttapercha
benches had the heads and shoulders of the players deposited a series of
layers of filth, signs which grew more marked in proportion as the
benches receded and the play rose from harmless piquet to exciting
_écarté_, for the row began with social games and ended with games of
chance. The benches at the entrance were clean in comparison with those
at the far end of the room. This apartment, in which rites so unholy
were practiced in honor of the nymph of the waters, had witnessed many
deeds of prowess of Perico, which, from the resemblance they bore to
others of the same order, do not deserve special mention. Still less
worthy of description are the scenes, dear to the novelist, that
succeeded one another at the gaming tables. Play at Vichy partakes, to
some extent, of the hygienic refinement characteristic of the place,
whose inhabitants take pleasure in saying that no one has ever blown his
brains out in their town on account of the green cloth, as constantly
happens at Monaco; so that the hall of the Casino does not lend itself
to descriptions of the dramatic or soul-harrowing order. There the
loser puts his hands into his pockets and walks out of the room, more or
less disgusted according as he happens to be of the nervous or the
lymphatic temperament, but satisfied that he has been fleeced in a
perfectly legitimate manner, a fact which is guaranteed to him by the
presence there of government officials and agents of the company of
lessees with the purpose of preventing cheating, quarreling, or
disturbances of a similar kind, proper only to low gambling houses and
not at all in place in those Olympic regions in which the cards are
dealt with gloved hands.

It is to be adverted that although Perico was one of those who most
contributed, by the pomade on his hair and the friction of his
shoulders, to grease and polish the backs of the guttapercha benches, he
did not correspond to the traditional type of the gambler, as portrayed
in pictures of a moral and edifying character. When he lost, it never
occurred to him to tear his hair, blaspheme, or raise his clenched fists
to Heaven. It is true, indeed, that he took every precaution which it
was possible to take not to lose. Play is like war; fortune and chance
are said to decide the victory in both; but the skillful strategist
knows very well that a plan which is the result at once of insight and
of reflection, which is at the same time analytic and synthetic,
generally secures an easy triumph. In both cases, an error in
calculation may lead to ruin, and in both, if it be true that the
skillful generally vanquish, it is no less true that the daring at times
sweep all before them and conquer in their turn. Perico possessed a
profound knowledge of the science of play, and, in addition, carefully
studied the character of his adversaries, a course which seldom fails to
produce happy results. There are people who grow angry or confused in
playing, and act according to the mood they chance to be in, so that it
is easy to surprise and vanquish them. Perhaps the enigma called luck,
chance, or happy inspiration is nothing but the superiority of the man
who retains his judgment and his self-possession over other men who are
mad with passion. In short, Perico, who, although impulsive and
loquacious to excess, had a head cool as ice, understood so well the
marches and counter-marches of the battle fought every day in the
Casino, that after winning many small fortunes he succeeded in winning a
large fortune in the shape of a good-sized bundle of thousand-franc
notes, which he quietly put into his waistcoat pocket and then walked
out of the hall with his accustomed air and bearing, leaving the loser
to reflect on the transitoriness of all earthly possessions. This
happened on the day following that on which Lucía had manifested to
Pilar so great an interest in the health of Artegui’s mother. Perico was
not naturally parsimonious, at least not unless he needed money for his
amusements, when he would economize a maravedi, and making a sign to
Pilar, who was in the Salle des Dames, to walk with him outside on the
roof, he said to her, giving her his arm:

“So that you may not be always saying that I did not buy you anything at
Vichy, see, I am going to make you a present.”

“A present?” and Pilar opened wide her eyes.

“A present, yes. One would think that I had never made you a present
before. Come, say what you want, say what you want.”

“But are you in earnest? How generous you are getting!” said the sick
girl; “will you buy me _anything_ I ask you?”

“Come to the shops and choose,” he said, leading the way.

Pilar hesitated long, like a child before a dish of various kinds of
sweetmeats; at last she made choice of two diamonds, clear as two drops
of water, for her ears, and a hand mirror, with a frame of chased gold,
a novel and fanciful trinket worn hanging from the belt, a style of
ornament which no one in Vichy but the Swede had yet been seen to wear.
On returning home with her purchases, the sick girl’s eyes shone so
brightly and her cheeks were so rosy that Perico said:

“You women are the very devil. One has only to give you a tambourine or
a bell, a bell, to cure you of all your ailments. I laugh at drugs, I
laugh at drugs. I wager you have no pain in the stomach, now.”

“Periquillo! You are a jewel! See, I am wild with joy, and if you would
only--ah! say yes.”

“If I would only--Do you want me to buy you something else? No, child,
enough for to-day.”

“No, nothing of the sort--but to-night--I should like to go to the
concert to show the mirror; neither Luisa Natal nor either of the
Amézegas has one like it, or even knows that such a thing is to be had
in Vichy. They will open their eyes with astonishment. Come, Periquin,
you _will_ take me, won’t you. For once, come, say yes.”

Lucía begged Pilar, almost on her knees, to give up the dangerous
pleasure she longed for. It was precisely the most critical stage of her
malady. Duhamel hoped that nature, aided by a regular way of life, would
conquer in the struggle, and that perhaps a couple of weeks of
determined self-denial on her part would decide the victory in her
favor. But it was impossible to dissuade the sick girl from her purpose.
She spent the day feverishly examining the contents of her wardrobe;
when night came she went to the Casino, escorted by Miranda; she wore a
dress which she had not before worn, thinking it too thin and summery--a
gown of white gauze spotted with carnations of various colors; from her
belt hung the mirror; in her ears sparkled the solitaires, and in her
hair, placed with Spanish grace, was a bunch of carnations. Thus
arrayed, and flushed with fever and gratified vanity, she looked almost
handsome, notwithstanding her freckles and the emaciation of her
features, worn by illness. She had, then, a great success at the Casino;
it may be said that she shared the honors of the evening with the Swede,
and with an eccentric English lord, of whom it was rumored that he had
the floor of his stable covered with a Turkish carpet and his
reception-room paved with stone. Happy and admired, to Pilar the Casino
seemed like a scene from the Arabian Nights, with its countless
gas-lights, its perfumed atmosphere, through which floated the strains
of the magnificent orchestra; its ball-room where the sportive cupids on
the ceiling seemed to hover in a golden mist. Gimenez, the little
Marquis of Cañahejas, and Monsieur Anatole disputed with one another the
pleasure of dancing with her. Miranda danced a rigadoon with her, and,
to crown her happiness and triumph, the Arézegas kept casting furtive
glances, during the evening, at the little mirror--a style of trinket
like which there was but one other in the room, that which gleamed at
the side of the Swede. It was, in short, one of those moments that stand
alone in the life of a vain girl, when gratified pride gives rise to
emotions so sweet as almost to be mistaken for feelings deeper and
purer, that forever remain unknown to such natures. Pilar danced with
each one of her partners as if he had been her favored lover, so
brightly did her eyes sparkle, so happy did she seem. Perico could not
but say to her, _sotto voce_:

“You are dancing, eh? We shall see what Duhamel will say to-morrow. It
will be heavenly, heavenly. To-morrow I shall make my escape, my escape.
To a certainty you will explode, you will explode like a firecracker.”

“Don’t imagine it. I feel so well!” she exclaimed, drinking a glass of
iced water flavored with currant syrup which Monsieur Anatole, the
Hispanomaniac had just brought her.

On the following morning, when Lucía went to waken Pilar, she
involuntarily started back when she saw her. The sick girl lay with one
cheek buried in the pillows; her sleep was uneasy and broken; in her
ears, colorless as wax, the solitaires still gleamed, their limpid
purity contrasting with the ashen hue of the cheek and neck. There were
black shadows under her eyes. Her tightly-drawn lips resembled two
withered rose-leaves. The general effect was corpse-like. On the chairs
were scattered various articles of clothing used the night before; the
white satin shoes, heel upward, were at the foot of the bed; on the
floor some carnations were lying, and the never-enough-to-be-admired
mirror, the innocent cause of all this evil, rested on the night table.
Lucía softly touched the shoulder of the sleeping girl, who awoke with a
start and raised herself on her elbow; her half-opened eyes were dull
and glazed, like the eyes of a dead animal; a heavy, fetid odor was
perceptible; the sick girl was bathed in perspiration.

She could not get up, for on placing her foot on the floor she was
seized with a chill, her teeth chattered, an icy sweat bathed her limbs,
and she was obliged to cover herself up again with the bed-clothes. She
felt, in addition, a sharp and violent pain in her left side. She shook
like a reed in the wind and all the coverings which were put over her
were ineffectual in restoring warmth to her chilled body.

Lucía rushed to the room of her husband, who, between sleeping and
waking, was smoking a cigarette. The waters agreed with Miranda: the
faded tones of his skin, under which the blood was beginning again to
circulate and the adipose tissue to be renewed, were disappearing,
giving place to that look of mature freshness which bestows a certain
beauty on stout well-preserved women of middle-age. Such was the
physical effect of the waters upon Miranda; their moral effect was a
desire for rest and selfish ease, an inclination to fall into a regular
way of living, such as is often observable in persons of mature years,
and which makes them regard as an irreparable misfortune half-an-hour’s
delay in dinner or bed-time. The ex-beau desired to lead an easy
comfortable existence, to take care of his precious health, and, in
short, to sustain the traditional reputation for respectability and
importance of the Mirandas. Lucía entered the room like a whirlwind, and
pale and trembling said:

“Get up; go and see if you can find Señor Duhamel and bring him at once.
Pilar is very ill.”

Miranda sat up in bed.

“Of course the crazy creature is ill. Why, she danced last night as if
she were out of her senses! She was well-employed!”

Lucía looked at her husband in astonishment.

“Go at once,” she said, “go at once! She has had a chill--she complains
of a pain in her side, and she has almost lost her voice.”

Miranda rose grumbling.

“I don’t know what her brother is here for,” he muttered, drawing on his
boots. “He might very well go.”

“Tell him so, you, if you wish,” said Lucía, her eyes swimming in tears.
“I cannot go into Gonzalvo’s room to waken him. In any case you were
going to rise now to drink the waters.”

“It would be time enough for that in three quarters of an hour. One
would suppose that girl was the only person here whose health is of any
consequence. Other people, too, are sick and have to take care of
themselves. To-day, precisely, I am feeling wretched.”

Lucía had been in the habit of manifesting a deep interest in Miranda’s
health, asking him every day those minute particulars which mothers are
wont to ask their children--and which bore the indifferent; but on this
occasion she turned her back on him and went to the kitchen where she
asked the wife of the _concierge_ for a cup of lime-leaf tea and carried
it herself to Pilar.

Duhamel frowned when he saw the patient. What most displeased him was to
learn that she had taken two or three iced drinks at the ball. Duhamel
was a little old man with skin like parchment, in whose bright and
searching eyes all the vitality of his body seemed to have concentrated
itself. His hair and eyebrows were gray, but of his teeth, which were
long and yellow as ivory, and which he showed when he smiled, which was
often, not one was wanting.

In his movements he was quick and gliding as an eel. Having at one time
gone to Brazil on a scientific expedition, he possessed a smattering of
Brazilian Portuguese, which he persisted in trying to pass off for
Spanish.

“Let the whole treatment, _ó tratamento_, be stopped,” he said,
addressing himself exclusively to Lucía, although the sick girl’s
brother was present, guided doubtless by that infallible instinct
possessed by the physician and which enables him to distinguish at once
the person most interested in his instructions and most capable of
carrying them out: “The patient, _a doente_, has done wrong in
disobeying my orders in this way.”

“But now, what is to be done?”

“We will try a strong counter-irritant; there is congestion of the
lungs; we must try to dissipate it. _Bon Dieu!_ to dance and take iced
drinks! And now we have the sweats to fight against.”

This dialogue between the doctor and Lucía took place at a sufficient
distance from the sick girl’s bed to prevent her from hearing it. Lucía
informed herself minutely regarding all that concerned the nursing of
the patient, the hours at which nourishment was to be given to her, and
the precautions which it was necessary to observe. After she had applied
to Pilar the remedies prescribed by the doctor, she set the room in
order, moving about on tiptoe, half closed the shutters, and then
installed herself at the bedside in a low sewing-chair. Pilar was very
feverish and suffered greatly from thirst. At every moment Lucía would
put to her lips the glass of gum-water, previously warmed on the little
stove. In the afternoon Duhamel came again and found that the
counter-irritant had had the effect of restoring to some extent the sick
girl’s voice, and rendering her breathing easier. The fever, however,
was high, the perspiration having been checked. The pulmonary congestion
lasted for eight days, and when, in obedience to Duhamel’s orders--as
lying in bed increased the fever and debilitated her--Pilar rose, the
girl looked like a specter; to the symptoms, bad enough in themselves,
of anæmia were now added others more alarming still. Her limbs no longer
supported the weight of her clothing, which slipped down from them as if
they had been the limbs of a badly stuffed doll. She herself was
alarmed, and in one of those moments of clairvoyance which are apt to
visit persons suffering from the dreadful disease which now held her in
its clutches, she asked for the famous mirror, which Lucía, in order not
to vex her, gave her very unwillingly. When Pilar saw herself in the
glass she recalled her image as she had seen it on the night of the
ball, the carnations in her artistically arranged hair, her face beaming
with happiness. The contrast between her face as she now saw it and as
she had seen it a week ago, was so strong that Pilar threw the mirror
with a quick movement on the ground. The glass was broken and the
exquisitely chased frame dinted by the blow.

It was not long, however, before the flattering illusion which
mercifully blinds the consumptive to his danger and smooths his path to
the very portals of the tomb, again took possession of her. The symptoms
of the disease were so marked that seeing them in another she would
have regarded them as fatal; and yet Pilar, animated as ever, continued
to lay out plans for the future and thought she was suffering only from
an obstinate cold, which would eventually cure itself. She had a
constant hacking cough, with viscous expectoration; the slightest
increase of temperature excited profuse perspiration, and instead of her
former capricious appetite she had now an intense loathing for food. In
vain the wife of the _concierge_ put in practice all her culinary arts,
inventing a hundred dainty dishes. Pilar regarded them all alike with
repugnance, especially such as were of a nutritious kind. There began
now for both the friends a valetudinarian existence. Lucía scarcely ever
left Pilar, taking her out on the balcony to breathe the fresh air if
the weather was fine, keeping her company in her room if it was bad,
using all her efforts to amuse her and to make the hours seem less
tedious. The sick girl now began to feel the impatience, the desire for
change of scene, which generally seizes those affected by the disease
from which she suffered. Vichy had become intolerable to her; the more
so, as she saw that the season was now drawing to a close, that the
Casino was fast becoming deserted, that the opera-troupe were about to
depart, and the brilliant swallows of fashion to take flight for other
regions. The Amézegas had come to bid her good-by, and to give her the
last vexation of the season. If Lucía had followed her own inclinations,
she would have received them in the little parlor down-stairs, making
some excuse for Pilar; but the latter persisted in her desire that they
should come up to her room, and Lucía was compelled to yield. The Cubans
were triumphantly happy because they were going to Paris to make their
purchases for the winter, and from thence to display their finery at the
most fashionable entertainments in Madrid and in the Retiro, and they
spoke with the lisp and with the affected airs habitual to them on such
occasions.

“Yes, child, who could endure it here any longer--this place has grown
so stupid--not a soul to be seen. Yes, Krauss has gone. She has a
contract in Paris. She scored a triumph on the last night of ‘Mignon.’
Some of the hotels are closed already. As you may suppose the rope has
followed the pail; when the Swede left, was it likely he was going to
remain? He will follow her to Stockholm. Yes, indeed! but have you not
heard? On the day of her departure he filled her carriage with flowers.
A whole parlor carriage filled with gardenias and camellias; just think
of it! He has spent a small fortune already in flowers. Luisa
Natal?--why, where should she go but to Madrid? Ah! the countess will
stop at Lourdes on her way--she intends to remain at least a week there.
Yes, Cañahejas is going on a visit to a castle belonging to some
relations of Monsieur Anatole, where they will shoot until November.
Gimenez? I don’t know, child; he is always engaged in some mysterious
affair or other. They say that Laurent, the soprano of the company--that
cross-eyed woman--I don’t believe a word of it--he is an incorrigible
braggart----”

“And you, you remain here, eh?” added Amalia, joining her lisp to
Lola’s. “How long, child? But you will die of _ennui_, here. This is a
convent, now! Why, that is nothing--what signifies a cold? Cheer up.
This winter the Puenteanchas will give some private theatricals--the
Monteros told me so. The Torreplanas de Arganzon have already signified
their intention of receiving on Thursdays. We shall have Patti in the
Real, and Gayarré,--think of it! We have sent to secure a box in case we
should not arrive in time.”

“I am going to order a couple of frocks from Worth--simple ones, as I am
not married. One for skating--I dote upon skating! In the Casa de Campo
last year--do you remember, Amalia?--that day----”

“That the king complimented you on your skating? Yes, I remember it, of
course.”

And the voices of both sisters mingled in a concert of little laughs of
gratified pride; both saw again in imagination the frozen lake, the
trees covered with their embroidery of frost, the early morning mist,
and the youthful figure of the king, his countenance pale with cold,
with his effeminate frame, his easy and elegant manners, and his
half-mischievous, half-courteous smile as he bent forward to compliment
the skater on her skill.

The visit left Pilar more impatient, more feverish, more excited than
ever. Pilar was desperate; at any cost she desired to leave Vichy, to
fly away, to break from the dark prison of sickness and make her
appearance once more, a brilliant butterfly, in the world of fashion.
She fully believed herself able to do so; she did not doubt but that her
strength was equal to it. No less impatient than herself were two other
persons--Miranda and Perico. Perico, accustomed to live in perpetual
divorce from himself, could not endure solitude, which compelled him to
keep his own company; and as for Miranda, the period prescribed for his
drinking the waters being now at an end and his health notably
improved, he thought it was time to betake himself to winter quarters
and enjoy in peace the result of the treatment. It annoyed him extremely
to see that his wife, appointed by high decrees to nurse himself, should
neglect, as she did, her providential mission, dedicating her days and
nights to a stranger suffering from a malady painful to witness and
perhaps contagious. Therefore, he suggested to Lucía that they should
take their departure, leaving the Gonzalvos to their fate, as those are
left behind, in a shipwreck, for whom there is no room in the lifeboat.
But contrary to all his expectations, he met with a vehement and
obstinate resistance from Lucía. She indemnified herself now, by giving
free utterance to her feelings, for all she had hitherto concealed, even
from herself.

“It would be necessary to have no heart--to have no heart!” she said.
“Poor Pilar, she would be well off indeed with her brother, who does not
know even how to arrange her pillows, for a nurse. What would become of
her? I cannot bear even to think of it.”

“She could send for a sister of charity--she would not be the first who
has done so,” answered Miranda roughly.

“How cruel--poor girl! To talk like that is even worse than leaving her
to die alone like a dog.”

“Well, as for her, confound me if she would have stayed behind for you
or for me, or for the angel Gabriel himself. And what obligation are we
under to nurse her? One would think----”

“Do you not say that you are Gonzalvo’s friend?” said Lucía, riveting
her gaze on her husband.

“His friend, yes, in a social way. What do you know about those things?
We are friends as hundreds of other people are friends.”

“Then why do we live in the same house with the Gonzalvos. They were not
my friends; but now I have come to like her, and the idea of going away
and leaving her so ill----”

“Good Heavens! has she not her father, her aunt, her brother? Let them
come, in the devil’s name, to take care of her. What have we to do with
the matter? If your vocation was to be a sister of charity, you should
have said so before, and not have got married, my child. Your duty now
is to see to your husband and your house, and nothing more.”

“Well,” said Lucía, raising her face, in which the rounded and
evanescent contours of youth were beginning to lose themselves in the
firmer outlines of early womanhood: “I will go, if you command me; but I
am none the less convinced that it is a wicked action to abandon a
friend in this way in her dying moments.”

She left the room. In her mind there was beginning to germinate a
singular conception of marital authority; she thought her husband had a
perfect, incontestable and manifest right to forbid her every species of
enjoyment or happiness, but that she was free to suffer; and that to
forbid her to suffer, to forbid her to devote herself, as she wished to
do, to the care of the sick girl, was cruel tyranny. These strange
notions are common enough with the unhappy, who often take refuge in
suffering as in a sanctuary, in order to avail themselves of the
immunity it confers.

The question, however, settled itself better than Lucía could have
anticipated, for that very afternoon Perico took part in it, and decided
it with his accustomed effrontery.

“Good-by, my dear boy,” he said, entering Miranda’s room, dressed in
traveling attire, wearing cloth gaiters and a felt cap, and carrying a
double-barreled fowling-piece slung across his shoulder.

And as Miranda looked at him in amazement:

“I have made up my mind,” he said. “Vichy is too stupid, and as Anatole
makes a point of it----”

“You are going to Auvergne?”

“To the Castle of Ceyssat, of Ceyssat. It seems there are hares and deer
there by the hundred, by the hundred--and one can have a good time at
the castle; there is a large party--eighteen guests.”

Miranda put as much energy as he could summon into his voice and
gestures, and said to the enthusiastic sportsman:

“But Lucía and I had decided on returning to Spain in two or three days
at the latest, and as Pilar is--in delicate health--your presence here
is indispensable.”

“Go to the deuce, to the deuce!” exclaimed Perico, faithful to his rule
of always speaking his mind freely. “Can’t you wait a fortnight to
oblige me? What are you going to do in Spain? To bury yourself in Leon,
and vegetate there, vegetate there. Here you are in the honeymoon, the
honeymoon. Not a word, not a word. I will leave my sister with you. I
know she will be well taken care of, well taken care of. Good-by; I must
catch the train. I will bring you back a deer’s head for a cane-rack.

“But listen; see here----”

Perico was already at the door. Miranda called to him from the window;
but the young man turned round smiling, and waving him an adieu, hurried
on in the direction of the station. And so it was that in this struggle
between two selfish natures, the most daring, if not the bravest or the
noblest, conquered.

Miranda was in a diabolical humor when Duhamel came to afford him some
slight consolation, saying that the sick girl during the last few days
had shown signs of improvement and that she ought to avail herself of
them to return to Spain in search of a milder climate, adding, in his
broken French-Portuguese that, as he intended, like most of the other
consulting physicians of Vichy, to return soon to Paris, they might
travel together, and in this way he would be able to see how the motion
of the train agreed with the patient, and to determine whether she
needed to rest or whether she could bear the journey to Spain without
further delay. The doctor’s advice appeared to every one to be very
judicious and Lucía wrote a letter to Perico, at the dictation of Pilar,
charging him to return within a fortnight, as that was the date fixed
upon by Duhamel to close his office at Vichy. The new arrangement
moderated in some slight degree the ill-humor of Miranda, consoled
Lucía, and rejoiced the patient, who longed, above all things, to return
to Madrid.

It was true; the very frailty of Pilar’s constitution, opposing less
resistance to the disease, retarded the inevitable termination of her
sufferings; and as the hurricane that uproots oaks only bends the reed,
so was the progress of the malady which had declared itself less violent
in this delicate frame than it would have been in a more vigorous one.
In a portion of one of the lungs, tubercles were present, and those
terrible breaches had already been made in it which doctors call
cavities; but the other lung was still unaffected. It is with the lungs,
however, as it is with fruit--a very brief space of time is sufficient
to infect a sound one if the one beside it be decayed. At all events,
the momentary improvement in Pilar was so marked as to allow of her
taking a short walk every morning, leaning on Lucía’s arm; and her
disinclination for food was now not so obstinate as before.




CHAPTER XII.


The aspect of Vichy, in truth, in those last days of October, was well
calculated to inspire sadness. Dead leaves lay everywhere. The park,
formerly so full of animation, was deserted; only a few visitors, who
had come late in the season to drink the waters--and who were really
ill--were to be seen promenading the asphalt pavement lately thronged
with richly-dressed people and enlivened by the buzz of cheerful
conversation. No one hastened now to sweep up and carry away the yellow
leaves that covered the ground like a carpet, for Vichy, so clean and
attractive in the season, becomes neglected-looking and filthy as soon
as its fashionable summer guests have turned their backs upon it. The
whole town looked as if a general removal were taking place; the
adornments of the balconies of the _châlets_, deserted now by their
tenants, had been removed, so that they might not be injured by the
rains; in the streets were heaps of brick and mortar to be used in
building, which no one had ventured to undertake in the summer, not
wishing to mar the beauty of the place during the season. The shops for
the sale of articles of luxury had, one after another, closed their
shutters, and their owners, taking with them their wares, had departed
for Nice, Cannes, or some other wintering place of the kind. A few shops
still remained open, and their show-cases served to divert Lucía and
Pilar when they went out for their leisurely walks. The chief of these
was a shop for the sale of curiosities, antiques, and objects of art,
situated almost in front of the famous “Nymph,” and consequently at the
back of the Casino. The shop being too small to conveniently hold the
_mare magnum_ of objects which it contained, they overflowed its limits
and invaded the sidewalk. It was a delightful occupation to rummage
among its recesses, and to pry into its corners, making at every instant
some new and curious discovery. The proprietors of the shop, having
little business at this season, made no objection to their doing so.
They were a married couple: the husband a Bohemian from the Rastro, with
sleepy eyes, a well worn coat and a torn necktie worthy of a place among
the antiques of his shop; the wife fair, thin, willowy, and agile as a
garret cat, gliding among the precious objects heaped up to the ceiling.
Lucía and Pilar found great amusement in examining the heterogeneous
assemblage. In the center of the shop, a superb table of Sèvres
porcelain and gilt-bronze proudly displayed its splendor. On the central
medallion was represented in enamel, on a blue background of the shade
peculiar to _pâte tendre_, the broad, good-natured, but rather sad
countenance of Louis XVI; around this was a circle of smaller
medallions, representing the graceful heads of the ladies of the court
of the guillotined king--some with powdered hair, piled high on the
head, and surmounted by a large basket of flowers; others with hoods of
black lace fastened under the chin; all with immodestly _décolleté_
gowns, all smiling and richly dressed, with the freshest of complexions
and the rosiest of lips. If Lucía and Pilar had been learned in history,
how many reflections would have been suggested to them by the sight of
all these ivory necks adorned with diamond necklaces or tight velvet
bands, destined, doubtless, like that of the king who presided with
melancholy air over the beautiful bevy, to bow to the executioner’s
knife.

The pride of the collection was the ceramics. There were a number of
Dresden figures, pure, soft, and delicate in coloring as the clouds
painted by the dawn; rosy cupids garlanded with wreaths of sky-blue
flowers; shepherdesses with a complexion of milk and roses guarding
sheep adorned with crimson bows; nymphs and swans who exchanged amorous
compliments in groves of a pale green, planted with roses; violinists
holding the bow with affected grace, advancing the right foot, ready to
take part in a minuet; flower-girls who simperingly pointed to the
basket of flowers which they carried on their left arms. Side by side
with these pastoral fancies, rare products of Asiatic art displayed
their strange and deformed shapes, like idols of a barbarous faith;
across rotund vases, adorned with yellow leaves and purple or
flame-colored flowers, flew bands of unnatural-looking birds or glided
monstrous reptiles; on the dark background of flat-sided vases stood out
boldly fantastic scenes--green rivers flowing over ochre beds; kiosks of
crimson lake, hung with golden bells; mandarins with gorgeous trains
falling in straight lines, sleek, drooping mustaches, oblique eyes, and
heads like pumpkins. The Majolica and Palissy plates seemed fragments
taken from the bed of the sea, pieces of some sunken reef or of some
oozy river-bed. There, among sea-weed and algae, glided the gleaming,
slimy eel, the mussel opened its fluted shell, the silver bream flapped
its tail, the snail lifted up its agate horn, the frog stared with stony
eyes, and the many-clawed crab, looking like an enormous black spider,
moved along with a sidewise motion. There was a dish on which Galatea
reclined among the waves, her coursers, blue as the sea, pawing the air
with their webbed hoofs, while Tritons, with puffed-out cheeks, blew
their winding trumpets. In addition to the porcelain there were pieces
of silver, antique and heavy, such as are handed down from father to
son in honest provincial families; enormous salvers, broad trays, huge
soup-tureens with massive artichokes for handles; there were wooden
coffers inlaid with pearl and ivory; iron chests carved with the
delicacy of filagree-work; china tankards of antique shape, with metal
bands that recalled the beer-drinkers immortalized by Flemish art.

Pilar was enchanted especially with the agate cup-shaped jewel-cases,
with the jewelry of different epochs, from the amulet of the Roman lady
to the necklace of false stones and fine enamels of the time of Marie
Antoinette; but what most delighted Lucía were the church ornaments,
which awoke in her the religious sentiment, so well calculated to move
her sincere and ardent soul. The figures of two of the apostles,
solemnly pointing heavenward, stood outlined in brass on two stained
glass windows, doubtless torn from the ogive of some dismantled
monastery. On a triptych of brownish yellow ivory were represented Eve,
with meager nude figure, offering Adam the fatal apple, and the Virgin
in the mysteries of the Annunciation and of the Ascension; all
incorrectly done, with that divine candor of early sacred art, in the
ages of faith. Notwithstanding the rudeness of the design, the face of
the Virgin, the modesty of her downcast look, the mystic ideality of
her attitude charmed Lucía. If she had had money enough, she would
certainly have bought a crucifix which lay unnoticed among the other
curiosities of the shop. It was of ivory also, and was made in a single
piece, with the exception of the arms. The expression of the dying
Christ, nailed to a rich pearl cross, was painfully realistic, the
nerves and muscles showing the contraction of the death agony. Three
diamond nails pierced the hands and feet. Lucía said a paternoster every
day before it and even kissed the knees when she thought herself
unobserved.

She enjoyed looking at paintings; all the more as she could understand
them, which was not the case with all of the objects of art, some of
which she thought ugly and extravagant enough. It was plain that that
fierce swaggerer, rushing, sword in hand, on his adversary, was going to
cleave his heart in twain at a blow. What a lovely sunrise in that
Daubigny! With what naturalness those sheep of Jacque--valued at a
thousand francs apiece (there were twelve in the picture) were browsing!
How white the feet which that Favorite Sultana of Cala y Mora was
dipping in the marble basin! The head of the young girl, after Greuze,
was a marvel of innocent grace. And that Quarrel in a Flemish Inn--it
was enough to make one laugh to see how the earthenware flew around in
fragments, and the copper saucepans rolled about, and the two plowmen of
St. Oustade, misshapen and clownish-looking, distributed blows and cuffs
on all sides, their ape-like ugliness heightened by the grotesqueness of
their attitudes.

But even more than the bazar of objects of art, where so great a
diversity of forms and colors, styles and artistic ideals, after all
confused her, did one among the many stalls at the edge of the sidewalk
near the Casino, interest Lucía. These stalls represented the modest and
unpretending branches of trade. Here an old German cried his
wares--glasses to drink the waters--engraving on them with an emery
wheel the initials of the purchasers’ names in their presence; there a
Swiss offered for sale toys, dolls, little boxes, and book folders
carved in beech-wood by the shepherds; here lenses were sold, there
combs and writing-materials. Lucía’s favorite stall was one presided
over by a peddler of curiosities from Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
Mother-of-pearl calvaries with simple carvings in relief, pen handles of
olive-wood terminating in a cross, heads of the Virgin cut on shell,
brooches and trinkets of enamel adorned with arabesques, cups of black
bitumen, aromatic lozenges--such were the contents of the peddler’s
box. All this was sold by an Israelite of not unpleasing appearance,
with black eyes and yellow skin, wearing a dark red Arab fez and wide
trousers, gentle, insinuating, a Levantine in everything, with a
smattering of many languages and a good knowledge of Spanish, which, but
for the use of an occasional archaism, he spoke like a native. In this
man’s conversation Lucía found entertainment in the absence of other
sources of interest. She would question him about the holy village of
Bethlehem, the sacred house of Nazareth, Mount Olivet, and all the other
holy places which she had pictured to herself as situated rather in some
mysterious and remote paradise than on the earth. Between Lucía and the
peddler there was thus established the habit of having a ten minutes
chat every afternoon in the open air, which she enjoyed all the more
when he told her that he was a Christian and a Catholic, catechized and
instructed by the Franciscans of Bethlehem. Lucía bought specimens of
all his wares, even to a rosary of those opaque greenish beads, called,
not without some analogical similitude, Job’s tears.

“I don’t know how you can like that ugly rosary,” said Pilar.

“But just see,” exclaimed Lucía, “they look like real tears.”

But the swallow of the Levant, too, flew away in his turn, in search of
milder climes. One day they did not find Ibrahan Antonio in his
accustomed place; discouraged, perhaps, by a day without a sale, he had
packed up his wares and departed, no one knew whither. Lucía missed him;
but the retreat was a general one; on all sides, closed up and empty
shops were to be seen. On the pavements were mountains of straw, piles
of wrapping paper, packing cases and boxes bearing in large letters the
word “fragile.” The gloom, the disorder, the ever-increasing bareness of
a removal reigned. Pilar thought Vichy in this condition so unattractive
that she planned excursions which should take her away from the
principal streets. One morning she took a fancy to go to the
pastry-cook’s shop and witnessed the manufacture of two or three
thousand cakes and bonbons. On another morning she visited the
subterranean galleries which contain the immense reservoirs of water and
the enormous pipes that supply the baths of the thermal establishment.
They descended a narrow staircase whose lowest steps were lost in the
obscurity of the gallery. The keeper preceded them, carrying in her hand
a miner’s flat-shaped lamp, which emitted a disagreeable odor. Miranda
carried another lamp, and a little street urchin, who made his
appearance among them as suddenly as if he had fallen down from the
clouds, took charge of a third. The vaulted roof was so low that Miranda
was obliged to stoop down in order to avoid striking his head against
it. The narrow passage made an abrupt turn and they suddenly found
themselves in another gallery, which received, as in a yawning mouth,
the pipes that, owing to the perpetual dampness, were here covered with
rust. From the roof exuded a fine white moisture that sparkled in the
light; on either hand flowed a stream of water over a bed of residuum
and alkaline phosphates, white and floury, like newly fallen snow. As
they advanced further into the long subterranean gallery, a suffocating
heat announced the passage of the overflow of the Grande Grille, the
temperature of whose waters was still higher in this confined atmosphere
than it was at its source. From the walls, covered with patches of
mildew and limy scales, hung monstrous fungi, cryptogamous plants full
of venom, whose noxious whiteness gleamed on the wall like a pale and
sinister eye gleaming in a livid countenance. Dusty cobwebs shrouded the
elbows of the pipes like gray winding-sheets shrouding forgotten
corpses. Through the loose stones of the pavement could be caught
glimpses of the black water below. They could hear plainly the steps of
the people passing overhead, and the hard sound of the horses’ hoofs. At
intervals there was an airhole, through the iron grating of which came
the daylight, livid and sepulchral, imparting a yellow tinge to the red
flame of the lamps. The pipes wound like intestines through the damp
passage, now dragging themselves along the ground like gigantic
serpents, now reaching upward to the roof, like the black tentacles of
some enormous polypus. At one time they emerged from the corridors into
a brighter spot--a species of circular cave with a skylight, in whose
far end yawned the open mouth of the Lucas well, disclosing the still,
somber, and unfathomable water within. The urchin held his lamp over the
brink and looked down. The keeper seized him by the arm.

“Eh, my friend,” she said, “take care that you don’t fall in there. It
would not be easy to go down a hundred yards, which is the depth of that
hole, to look for you.”

Lucía, fascinated, approached the mouth of the well. The mephitic gases
it exhaled made the smoky flames of the lamps flicker. Here the
temperature was not warm, but cold--a dense, airless cold, which made
breathing difficult. An iron door opened into another gallery, on
entering which they all drew back in alarm, with the exception of the
keeper, at finding themselves surrounded by a vast expanse of water, a
sort of subterranean lake. They were standing on a narrow plank, thrown
like a bridge across the reservoir. The water, lying in its stone tomb,
had a stillness and limpidity that had something lugubrious in them. The
flame of one of the lamps, that had been left on the opposite bank to
show the extent of the deposit, threw long lines of wavering light over
the gloomy transparence of the lake, and looked, in the distance, like
the torch of a hired assassin in some Venetian prison. So fantastic was
the aspect of this lake, overhung by a granite sky, that one might fancy
it peopled with floating corpses. Lucía and Pilar experienced a vague
terror, and like children, or rather, like women, they were especially
horrified at the idea that in some one of the narrow and confused
passages, they might stumble over a rat. They knew that the deposits of
water communicated with the sewers, and two or three times already they
had turned pale, fancying they had seen a black shadow pass by, which
was only the wavering shadow of some parasites cast by the light of the
lamps upon the wall. Suddenly both women uttered a cry; this time there
was no room for doubt, they heard the sharp, shrill squeal of a rat.
Lucía stood for an instant motionless, with dilated eyes; it was
impossible here to run away. But the street urchin and the keeper burst
out laughing; they were both familiar with the sound, which was produced
by the corking of the bottles of mineral water on the other side of the
wall. The two women breathed more freely, however, when they emerged
from the gloomy labyrinth, and saw once more the light of day and felt
the fresh air blowing across their perspiring brows.

One place only did Lucía visit unaccompanied--the church of St. Louis.
At first the Leonese, accustomed to the grandeur of the superb basilica
of her native place, was not greatly pleased with the edifice. St. Louis
is a poor mediæval rhapsody conceived by a modern architect; the
interior is disfigured by being painted in tawdry colors; in a word, it
resembles an actress masquerading as a saint. But Lucía found in the
temple a Virgin of Lourdes, which charmed her exceedingly. It stood in a
grotto of blooming roses and chrysanthemums, and above its head was the
legend: I am the Immaculate Conception. Lucía knew very little about the
apparitions of Bernadette, the shepherdess, or the miracles of the
sacred mountain; but notwithstanding this, the image exercised a
singular fascination over her, seeming to call to her with mysterious
voice that floated among the grateful perfumes of the flowers, and the
flickering of the tall white tapers. The image, gay, smiling, and
simple, with floating robes and blue mantle, touched Lucía’s soul more
than the stiff images of the cathedral of Leon, clad in their pompous
garments, had ever done. One afternoon, as she was going to the church,
she saw a funeral procession pass along and she followed it. It was the
funeral of a young girl, a Child of Mary. The beadle, dressed in black,
a silver chain around his neck, walked with official gravity at the head
of the procession; four young girls, dressed in white, followed him,
their teeth chattering with cold, their cheeks violet, but proud of
their important rôle of carrying the ribbons. Then came the priests,
grave and composed, their rich voices swelling at intervals on the still
air. Inside the hearse, adorned with black and white plumes, was the
coffin covered with a snow-white cloth starred with orange-blossoms,
white roses, and heaps of lilacs that swayed with every movement of the
car. The Children of Mary, the companions of the deceased, walked along
almost gayly, lifting up their muslin skirts to keep them from touching
the muddy ground. The civil commissary, in his robes, headed the
mourners; behind him came a crowd of women dressed in black, in the
midst of whom walked the family of the dead girl, their faces red and
their eyes swollen with weeping. The church bells tolled with melancholy
sound while the coffin was being taken out of the hearse and placed on
the catafalque. Lucía entered the nave and piously knelt down among
those who were mourning for one whom she had never seen. She listened
with a melancholy pleasure to the office for the dead, the prayers
intoned in full and mellow voices by the priests. Those unknown Latin
phrases had for her a clear signification; she did not understand the
words, but she could comprehend without difficulty that they were
laments, menaces, complaints, and at times ardent and tender sighs of
love. And then, as had happened in the park, there came to her mind the
secret thought, the desire to die, and she said to herself that the dead
girl lying there in her coffin, covered with flowers, calm and
peaceful,--seeing nothing, hearing nothing of the miseries of this
wretched world, that goes round and round, and yet in all its countless
revolutions never brings a good day nor an hour of happiness,--was more
to be envied than she who was alive and obliged to feel, to think, and
to act.

“Yes, but--the soul!” Lucía said to herself.

Thus curiously did a simple and ignorant girl repeat the thought
expressed in the philosophical soliloquy of the Danish dreamer!

“Ah, and how good it must be to be dead,” thought Lucía. “Don Ignacio
was right in saying that--that--well, that there is no such thing as
happiness. If one only knew what fate awaited one in the other world!
Where now is the soul of that body that lies there! And what would be
the use of dying if after all one does not cease to exist, and to be
conscious of what is going on around one.”

Certain it is that these wild imaginings, aided by the sleepless hours
passed at the sick girl’s bedside, and perhaps by another cause, also,
dimmed the freshness of Lucía’s complexion, and tinged with gloom her
once happy and tranquil disposition. Miranda, who, cut off from all
other society, now sought that of his wife, was struck by the melancholy
expression of her countenance, and thoughts, never fully set at rest
since the unfortunate mishap of the wedding journey, sprung up again in
his mind. This thorn, which pierced his vanity, the keenest of his
feelings, to the quick, could never cease to rankle. Had Miranda’s
nature been more amiable, he might have won by love the open and
generous heart of the young Leonese, but it would seem as if some demon
inspired him always to do exactly the opposite of what he ought to have
done. He acquired the habit of speaking harshly to Lucía, and of
treating her with a certain scorn, as if he never forgot her inferiority
of station. He reminded her by covert allusions of her social position.
He spied upon her every action, reproached her with the time spent in
taking care of Perico’s sister, and, in short, adopted a system of
opposition and tyranny, admirably adapted to succeed with weak or
perverse women, whom it subjugates and charms. Lucía it brought to the
verge of desperation.

A few days before the one fixed for Perico’s return, Pilar received from
him a letter which she handed to Lucía to read. He announced in it his
near return and gave at the same time some details of the fashionable
life he was leading at the Castle of Ceyssat, and, among other pieces of
news, mentioned the death of the mother of Ignacio Artegui, which
Anatole had communicated to him, thinking it would interest him as
concerning a compatriot. He added that the son had taken the body to
Brittany, to the same old castle of Houdan, at which his childhood had
been passed, for interment. Miranda was present when this paragraph was
read, and noticed the rapid glance of intelligence that passed between
Pilar and Lucía and the sudden pallor that overspread the face of his
wife. Lucía left the house that afternoon and went to the church of St.
Louis, in which she spent half an hour or so. She went back to the
_châlet_, entered her room, where there were writing materials, wrote a
letter, which she hid in her bosom, ran down-stairs and walked rapidly
in the direction of the main street. Night was falling, the first lamps
were being lighted, and the street urchins, the choirboys of
civilization, were standing about on the pavement, crying out the names
of the Paris papers which had just arrived. Lucía went straight toward
the red lamp of the shop and dropped her letter into the wooden
letter-box. At the same instant she felt her arm seized in a vise-like
grip and turned around. Miranda was beside her.

“What is the meaning of this,” he cried, in a voice of suppressed anger.
“You here, and alone,--what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she stammered.

“Nothing! why, have you not just dropped a letter into the letter-box?”

“Yes, a letter,” she answered.

“Why did you lie, then?” exclaimed the husband, in furious accents, his
mouth and chin trembling with jealous rage.

“I don’t know what I may have said when you hurt my arm,” answered
Lucía, recovering her self-possession. “What is true is that I dropped a
letter there just now.”

“And why did you not give it to me to post? Why did you come here
yourself--alone?”

“I wished to post it myself.”

Some passers-by turned around to listen to the dialogue carried on in
angry tones and in a foreign tongue.

“We are making a scene,” said Miranda. “Come.”

They turned into a solitary street and for the space of a few minutes
both maintained an eloquent silence.

“For whom was that letter?” the husband at last asked abruptly.

“For Don Ignacio Artegui,” answered Lucía, in a firm and composed voice.

“I knew it!” said Miranda under his breath, suppressing a malediction.

“He has lost his mother. You yourself heard so to-day.”

“It is highly indecorous, highly ridiculous,” said Miranda, whose voice
sounded harsh and broken like the crackling of burning brambles, “for a
lady to write in this unceremonious fashion to a man.”

“I am indebted to Señor de Artegui for services and favors,” said Lucía,
“which compel me to take a part in his griefs.”

“Those services, if there be such, it is my duty to acknowledge. I would
have written to him.”

“Your letter,” objected Lucía simply, “would not have served to console
him, while mine would; and as it was not a question of etiquette but
of----”

“Hold your tongue,” cried Miranda rudely; “hold your tongue and don’t
talk nonsense,” he continued, with that roughness which even men of
culture do not hesitate to display when speaking to their wives. “Before
marrying you should have learned how to conduct yourself in society, so
as not to bring ridicule upon me by committing silly actions, which are
in bad taste. But I have no right to complain; what better could I have
expected when I married the daughter of a retailer of oil and vinegar!”

Miranda walked with long strides, dragging rather than supporting his
wife, and they had now almost reached the _châlet_. At this offensive
speech Lucía, with pale cheeks and flashing eyes, freed herself
violently from his clasp, and stood still in the middle of the road.

“My father,” she cried, in a loud voice, making an effort to keep back
her sobs, “is an honest man, and he has taught me to be honest, too.”

“Well, one would never have known it,” replied Miranda, with a bitter
and ironical laugh. “To judge by appearances he has taught you to palm
off the spurious article for the genuine as he himself probably did with
his provisions.”

At this last stab Lucía rushed forward, passed through the gate, hurried
up the stairs as quickly as she had a short time before descended them,
and shutting herself in her room gave free vent to her anguish. Of the
thoughts that passed through her mind during this long night, which she
spent extended on a sofa, the following letter, assuredly not intended
by its author for publication and still less intended to awaken the
applause of future generations, will give some idea:

     DEAR FATHER URTAZU: The fits of rage you warned me about are
     beginning to come, and that sooner and with more frequency than I
     had thought possible. The worst of it is, that thinking well over
     the matter, it seems to me that I myself am in some sort to blame.
     Don’t laugh at me, for pity’s sake, for I am trying to keep my
     tears back while I write, and this blot, which I hope you will
     excuse, is even caused by one of them falling upon the paper. I am
     going to tell you everything as if I were in Leon, kneeling before
     you in the confessional. The mother of Señor de Artegui is dead.
     You already know from my previous letters that this is a terrible
     misfortune, for it may bring with it others--which I do not wish
     even to think about, father. In short, I reflected that Señor de
     Artegui would be very sad, very sad, and that perhaps no one would
     think of saying a kind word to him and especially of speaking to
     him of our Lord, in whom he cannot but believe--is it not so,
     father?--but whom he may forget, perhaps, in the bitterness of his
     grief. Moved by these considerations I wrote him a letter,
     consoling him as best I could--I wish you could have seen it. I
     said a great many things in it that I think were very fine and very
     comforting. I told him that God sends us sorrows so as to make us
     turn to Him in our grief; that then it is He is most with us--in
     short, all that you have taught me. I told him, besides, to be
     assured that he was not the only one who mourned for that poor
     lady, that saint; that I mingled my tears with his, although I knew
     that she was now in glory, and that I envied her. Ah, and that is
     the truth, father! Who so happy as she? To die, to go to heaven!
     When shall I attain such happiness!

     But to return to my story. I went to post the letter and Miranda
     followed me and seized me by the arm, and heaped insults upon me,
     calling me all sorts of bad names, and, what I felt more than all,
     insulting my father. Poor, dear father! How is he to blame for what
     I may do? Tell him nothing of all this, Father Urtazu, for the love
     of God! I was so indignant that I answered him haughtily, and then
     went and shut myself up into my room. I feel as crushed as if the
     house had fallen in upon me.

     My health is beginning to suffer from all these things. Tell Señor
     Velez de Rada that when he sees me he will no longer be pleased
     with my looks. My head is dizzy just now and I often have severe
     fits of giddiness. Good-by, father; advise me, for I am bewildered
     by all this. Sometimes I think I have done wrong, and again I think
     I am not in any way to blame. Is pity a sin? When I look into my
     heart I find only pity there; nothing more.

     Excuse the writing, for my hand trembles greatly. Write soon, for
     charity’s sake, for we are shortly to leave this place, and I
     should like to receive a letter from you before we go. Your
     respectful daughter in Jesus Christ,

                                                 LUCÍA GONZALEZ.



To those familiar with the conversational style of Father Urtazu, and
who desire to have some knowledge of the epistolary style employed by so
learned a man, the following letter will afford satisfaction:

     LUCIGÜELA OF MY SINS: Ah, child, how well we know how to represent
     things so as to put our dear little selves in the best light! Pity,
     eh? I’ll give you pity! You did wrong, and very wrong, to write
     that letter without your husband’s knowledge, and I am not
     surprised that he should have behaved like a very dragon about it.
     You should have asked his permission; and if he had refused
     it--patience! Did I not tell you, child, that to be a good wife and
     to make the journey in peace you should put a couple of arrobas of
     patience in your trunks? We forget to do that, and this is the
     result. Go, unlucky child, and buy a supply of patience now where
     you are, and feed upon it, for you stand sorely in need of it. Your
     husband ought not to have insulted your good, kind father (although
     in some respects he deserves it, and I know myself the reason why),
     but remember that he was angry, and when one is excited,--I, who
     have a hot temper myself, can make allowance for him! As I said
     before, patience, patience, and no more clandestine notes. What
     call had you to turn preacher? And there is no need to grieve. God
     tightens the cord, but he does not strangle; he is no executioner,
     and perhaps when you least expect it, he will send you
     consolation--as a gift, and not because of your own merits. And
     good-by, for the mail is closing; and besides, I have the lungs of
     a frog on the slide of a microscope, and I am going to study the
     manner in which those little people breathe. Remember to say a few
     prayers, eh? And that will take down our pride a little. The
     blessing of God and of San Ignacio be with you, child.

                                                 ALONZO URTAZU, S.J.



When these counsels reached her, Lucía had already done by instinct what
Father Urtazu advised her to do. Mild and gentle now as a lamb, her
every glance was a mute petition for pardon. Miranda persistently
avoided looking at her, treating her with icy contempt. From the
constant strain on her feelings, and her continued attendance on Pilar,
the roses in Lucía’s cheeks had turned to lilies, and she had grown
noticeably thinner, although her appetite continued good. One morning
Duhamel called her aside, and said to her in his Portuguese-French.

“You must take care of your health, _menina_. _Conservar-se. Vae cair
doente._ Less watching, less fatigue, regular sleep. So much nursing
_altera-the a saude_.”

“Do you think I shall take Pilar’s disease?” asked Lucía, in so tranquil
a voice that Duhamel stared at her.

“No, it is not that.” And the physician, lowering his voice still more,
entered into a long and serious conversation with her.

That night Lucía answered Father Urtazu’s letter in these words:

     DEAR FATHER: Blessed be your lips! for it almost seems as if you
     had the gift of prophecy, so true were your words when you said
     that I should receive consolation. I am wild with joy, and I hardly
     know what I am writing.... A child! what happiness, Father Urtazu!
     To-morrow I am going to begin working on the baby-clothes, that the
     little angel may not run any risk of coming into the world, like
     our Lord, without swaddling clothes in which to wrap him. I am
     putting a great deal of nonsense in this letter and a few tears,
     too, but not like the last--these are tears of joy.

     To-morrow or the day after we shall leave Vichy. Miranda and I are
     to spend a few days in Paris before returning to Leon. (I am wild
     to be there to tell father the news; don’t tell him you, however; I
     want to give him a surprise.) Poor Pilar and her brother are going
     on to Spain, if the state of her health will admit of it, and she
     has not to stop at some place on the road--to die, perhaps. For I
     am not deceived by her apparent improvement; she is marked for
     death. What I regret most is to have to leave her two or three
     weeks before--But I am so happy that I don’t want to think of that.
     Offer up a prayer for me.




CHAPTER XIII.


The Gonzalvos were unable to go on to Spain, for midway on the journey
Pilar was seized with symptoms so alarming, such sweats, swoons, fits of
retching and exhaustion, that they thought her last hour was at hand,
and that it would be fortunate if she reached Paris alive; in which case
Doctor Duhamel was not without hope that a few days rest there would
restore her strength sufficiently to allow of their proceeding on their
way. Miranda, who had thought himself already rid of the dying girl,
whom, although he did not nurse her himself, it annoyed him to see
others nursing, accepted this change of program with ill-concealed
discontent; Lucía, who could not reconcile herself to the idea of
deserting her friend on the brink of the grave, as it were, with a
lightening of the heart; and Perico, confident as he was that his sister
would lack no attention, with the secret determination to see all there
was to be seen in Paris. As for Pilar herself, possessed by the strange
optimism characteristic of her malady, she manifested great delight at
the prospect of visiting the capital of luxury and fashion, resolving to
make her purchases for the winter there that she might be as good as
“those affected Amézegas.”

They arrived in the great French capital on a dark and foggy morning and
were at once assailed by innumerable runners from the hotels, each
calling their attention to his omnibus and disputing their possession
with his rivals. One of these runners, with a dark face crossed by a
long scar, approached Miranda and said to him in good Spanish:

“Hotel de la Alavesa, Señor--Spanish spoken--Spanish waiters--olla
served every day--Rue Saint-Honoré, the most central situation.”

“It would be well to go there,” said Duhamel, touching Miranda on the
arm. “In a Spanish hotel _a doente_ will receive better attention.”

“Let us go, then,” said Miranda resignedly, giving the check for his
luggage to the runner. “Look here,” he added, addressing Perico, “you
and I will go with the luggage in the hotel omnibus, and we will send
Lucía and Pilar in one of those hackney-coaches--they do not jolt so
much.”

They carried Pilar almost bodily from the railway carriage to the coach.
The runner installed himself on the box after giving many charges and
instructions to the postillion of the omnibus, and the driver whipped up
his sorry-looking nag. After driving through several broad and
magnificent streets they stopped in front of the Hotel de la Alavesa,
and Lucía, springing lightly as a bird to the ground, said to the
runner:

“Do me the favor to assist me in helping this young lady out of the
carriage, she is ill.”

But suddenly recognizing the man’s face, she cried excitedly:

“Sardiola!”

“Señorita!” responded the Biscayan, showing no less joy, cordiality, and
surprise than Lucía had done. “And I did not recognize you! How stupid
of me! But one sees so many travelers at that blessed station, meeting
them there when they arrive, and taking them there when they are going
away, that it is not to be wondered at.”

And after looking at Lucía for a few moments longer, he added:

“But the truth is, too, that you yourself are greatly changed. Why, you
don’t look like the same person as when Señorito Ignacio was with
you----”

At the sound of this name, so long unheard by her, Lucía turned as red
as a cherry, and dropping her eyes, she murmured:

“We will go at once to our rooms. Come, Pilar. Here, put your arm around
my neck--now the other around Sardiola’s--don’t be afraid to lean;
there! Shall we carry you in the queen’s chair?”

And the Biscayan and her valorous friend, crossing hands, raised the
sick girl gently in the improvised throne, on which she sank like an
inert mass, letting her head fall on Lucía’s shoulder. In this way they
went up-stairs to the _entresol_, where Sardiola showed the two women
into a large and airy room, containing the customary marble
mantle-piece, the immense beds with hangings, the _moquette_ carpet,
somewhat soiled and worn in places, the wash-stand and the traditional
clothes-rack. The windows of the room looked out into a small garden, in
the center of which was a light kiosk constructed of wood and glass,
which served as a bath-house. They placed Pilar in an arm-chair and
Sardiola stood waiting for further orders. His eyes, dark and brilliant
as those of a Newfoundland pup, were fixed on Lucía with a submissive
and affectionate look truly canine. She, on her side, had to bite her
lips to keep back the questions which crowded impatiently to them.
Sardiola, divining her thoughts with the loyal instinct of the domestic
animal, anticipated her words.

“If the ladies should need anything,” he said hesitatingly, as if
fearing to seem intrusive, “let them call upon me at any time. If I am
at the station, Juanilla will come; she is the chambermaid of this
floor--an obliging girl, and quick as lightning. But if ever I can be of
any service--well, it would delight me greatly; it is enough for me to
have seen the Señorita with Señorito Ignacio----”

And as Lucía remained silent, questioning only with the mute and ardent
language of the eyes, the Biscayan continued:

“Because--did the Señorita not know? Well it was the Señorito himself
who got me this place. As the Alavese took Juanilla, who is a cousin of
mine, with her and it made me, well--sad, to see those hills which no
one but us country lads and the wild beasts had, with God’s help, ever
climbed before, overrun by government troops, and, in short, as I was
dying of sadness in that station, I wrote to the Señorito--his mother,
may her soul rest in glory, was still living--and he recommended me to
the Alavesa, and here I am at your service, living in clover.”

Lucía’s eyes continued their mute questioning, more eager than ever.
Sardiola continued:

“But what most pleased me was to live so near the Señorito----”

“So near?” mutely asked the shining eyes.

“So near,” he said in response, “so very near that--why it is
delightful!--you have only to cross the garden there to reach his
house.”

Lucía ran to the balcony, and, as pale as wax, looked with wild eyes at
the building opposite. Sardiola followed her to the window and even the
sick girl turned her head around with curiosity.

“Look there,” explained Sardiola. “Do you see that wall there and that
other wall which joins it at a right angle? Well, those are the walls of
the hotel. Now look at that other wall, which forms the third side of
the square--that is the wall of Don Ignacio’s house; it opens on the Rue
de Rivoli. Do you see those steps leading into the garden? You ascend by
those into the corridor on the first floor, into which the dining-room
opens--a very handsome room! The whole house is handsome. Don Ignacio’s
father accumulated a great deal of money. Do you see that little tree
there at the foot of the steps, that sickly-looking plane tree? That is
where the Señorito used to take his mother to sit to breathe the air;
she died of a disease the name of which I don’t remember, but which
means--well, that the heart becomes greatly enlarged--and as she had
dreadful fits of oppression at times so that she could scarcely breathe,
just like a fish when it is taken out of the water; she had to be
brought down into the garden, and even then there was not air enough for
her, and she would sit for an hour trying to get her breath. If you had
seen the Señorito! That was what might be called devotion! He supported
her head, he warmed her feet with his hands, he kissed her a thousand
times in an hour, he fanned her--well, it was a sight worth seeing! A
purer soul God never sent into the world nor shall we see another like
her in our time. After death the blessed saint looked so smiling and so
natural and so handsome, with her fair hair! He it was that looked like
a dead person; if he had been lying in the coffin any one would have
taken him for the corpse.”

“Silence!” the eloquent eyes suddenly commanded.

And Sardiola obeyed. Duhamel, Miranda, and Perico were entering the
room. Duhamel examined the apartment minutely and declared it, in his
Lusitanian-French jargon, to be sheltered, convenient, not too high, yet
well ventilated, and in every way suitable for the patient. Miranda and
Perico retired to the adjoining room to wash themselves after the
journey, and tacitly, without debating the question, it was decided that
patient and nurse should room together, and that the two men should
occupy together also the room in which they were. Miranda interposed no
objection to this sacrifice on Lucía’s part; for Duhamel, calling him
aside, informed him that the disease was rapidly nearing its fatal
termination, and that he thought the sick girl could hardly live a month
longer, in view of which fact Miranda silently resolved to depart with
his wife in eight or ten days’ time under some pretext or other. But
fate, which had ordained that these events should have a very different
_dénouement_, disposed matters in such a way, employing Perico as her
instrument, that Miranda very soon began to find himself contented,
diverted, and happy in this Parisian Babylon; this gulf among whose
reefs and shoals the artful Gonzalvo piloted him with more skill and
dexterity than singleness of purpose.

“What the deuce, what the deuce are you going to bury yourself in Leon
for now?” exclaimed Perico. “You will have time enough, time enough to
bore yourself there! Take my advice and avail yourself of the
opportunity. Why, you are well enough now! Those waters have made you
look ten years younger.”

The sly fellow knew very well what he was about. Neither her father nor
her aunt had manifested any very great desire to come and take care of
Pilar, and he foresaw that on him would devolve the disagreeable office
of sick nurse. His mind, fertile in wiles, suggested a thousand
artifices by which to charm Miranda in that magical city that of itself
turns the heads of all who set foot in it. Lucía’s husband made
acquaintance with the refinements of the French _cuisine_ in the best
_restaurateurs_, (close your eyes, ye purists!) and the experienced
_gourmet_ of middle age came to take a profound interest in the question
as to whether the _sauce Holandaise_ were better in this restaurant or
in the one two doors below, and when the stuffed mushrooms had their
richest flavor. In addition to these gastronomic enjoyments he took
pleasure in frequenting the variety theaters, of which there are so many
in Paris. He was amused by the comic songs, the contortions of the
clown, the rollicking music, and the airy and almost Eden-like costumes
of the nymphs, who went disguised as saucepans, violins, or puppets. It
is even stated--but on evidence insufficient to establish it as a
historical fact--that the illustrious ex-beau sought to recall his past
glories and to refresh his dry and withered laurels, and selected for
his victim a certain proscenium-rat, in the high-sounding language of
the stage, called Zulma, although every one was well aware that in less
exalted regions she might be called Antonia, Dionisia, or the like.
This creature sang with inimitable grace the refrains of certain
_chansonnettes_, and it was enough to make one split one’s sides
laughing to see her when, with her hand on her hip, her right leg in the
air, a wink in her eye, and parted lips she uttered some slang
expression--a cry from the fish-stands or the market, repeated by her
rosy mouth for the delectation and delight of the audience. Nor were
these the only graces and accomplishments of the singer, for the
choicest part of her repertory, the quintessence of her art, she kept
rather for her hours of dalliance with those fortunate mortals who
succeeded in obtaining access, well-provided with gold-dust, to this
Danaë of the stage. What feline wiles did she employ with her adorers;
calling grave men of sixty her little mice, her little dogs, her little
cats, her _bébés_, and other endearing and delightful names, sweeter to
them than honey. And what shall I say of the incomparable humor and
grace with which she held between her pearly teeth a Russian pipe while
she sent into the air wreaths of blue smoke; the contraction of her
lips, accentuating the curves of her _retroussé_ nose and the dimples of
her puffed-out cheeks? What of the skill with which she balanced herself
on two chairs at once without sitting, properly speaking, on either of
them, since her shoulders rested against the back of the one and her
heels on the seat of the other? What of the agility and dexterity with
which she swallowed in ten minutes ten dozen of raw oysters, accompanied
with two or three bottles of Rhine wine, so that it almost seemed as if
her throat had been annointed with oil to let them slip down smoothly?
What of the smiling eloquence with which she proved to some friend that
such or such a diamond ring was too small for his finger while it fitted
hers as if it had been made for it? In short, if the adventure that was
then whispered in the corridors of a certain variety theater and at the
_table d’hôte_ of the Alavesa seems unworthy of the traditional splendor
of the house of Miranda, at least it is but just to record that its
heroine was the most entertaining, cajoling, and dangerous of the feline
tribe that then mewed discordantly on the Parisian stage.

While Perico and Miranda kept off the blues in this way, Pilar’s
remaining lung was gradually being consumed, as a plank is consumed with
dry-rot. She did not grow worse because that was now impossible, and her
existence, rather than life, was a lingering death, not very painful,
disturbed only by an occasional fit of coughing which threatened to
choke her. Life was in her like the flickering flame of a candle burned
to the socket, which the slightest movement, the least breath of air
will suffice to extinguish. She had lost her voice almost entirely, so
that she could speak only in soft, low tones, such as a drum stuffed
with cotton might emit. Fits of somnolence, frequent and protracted,
would overpower her, periods of profound stupor, of utter exhaustion,
which simulated and foreshadowed the final repose of the tomb. Her eyes
closed, her body motionless, her feet side by side as if she already lay
in her coffin, she would lie for hours and hours on the bed, giving no
other sign of life than a faint, sibilant breathing. It was generally at
the noonday hour that this comatose sleep took possession of her, and
her nurse, who could do nothing for her but leave her to repose, and who
was oppressed by the heavy atmosphere of the room, impregnated with the
emanations from the medicines and the vapor of the perspiration--atoms
of this human being in process of dissolution--would go out on the
balcony, descend the stairs leading into the garden, and seating herself
in the shade of the stunted plane tree, would pass there the hours of
the _siesta_, sewing or crocheting. Her work consisted of diminutive
shirts, bibs equally diminutive, petticoats neatly scalloped. In this
sweet and secret occupation the hours passed by unnoticed, and
occasionally the needle would slip from her skillful fingers and the
silence, the solitude, the serenity of the heavens, the soft rustle of
the sickly looking trees would tempt the industrious needlewoman into a
pensive revery. The sun darted his golden arrows through the foliage
across the sanded paths at this hour, and the air was dry and mild. The
walls of the hotel and of Artegui’s house formed a sort of natural
stove, attracting the solar heat and diffusing it through the garden.
The railing which shut in the square bordered the Rue de Rivoli, and
through its bars could be seen pass by, enveloped in the blue mists of
evening, coaches, light victorias, landaus, whirled rapidly along by
their costly teams, equestrians who at a distance looked like puppets,
and workmen who looked like shadows cast from a Chinese lantern. In the
distance gleamed at intervals the steel of a stirrup, the gay color of a
gown or of a livery, the varnished spokes of a swiftly revolving wheel.
Lucía’s attention was attracted by the many varieties of horses. There
were Normandy horses with powerful haunches, strong necks and lustrous
coats, deliberate in pace, that drew, with a movement at once powerful
and gentle, the heavy vehicles to which they were harnessed; there were
English horses with long necks, ungraceful, but stylish, that trotted
with the precision of marvelous automatons; Arabian horses, with
flashing eyes, quivering and dilated nostrils, shining hoofs, dry coats,
and thin flanks; Spanish horses--although of these there were but
few--with luxuriant manes, superb chests, broad loins, and forefeet that
proudly pawed the air. As the sun sank lower in the west, the carriages
could be distinguished in the distance by the scintillation of the
lamps, but their forms and colors all blending together confusedly,
Lucía’s eyes soon wearied of the effort of following them, and with
renewed melancholy she fixed her gaze on the puny and
consumptive-looking plants of the garden. At times her solitude was
broken in upon, not by any traveler, either male or female--for visitors
to Paris as a general thing do not spend the afternoon under a plane
tree working--but by Sardiola, _in propria persona_, who, under pretext
of watering the plants, plucking up a weed here and there, or rolling
the sand of the path, held long conversations with his pensive
compatriot. Certain it is that they were never in want of a subject on
which to talk. Lucía’s eyes were no less tireless in asking questions
than Sardiola’s tongue was eager to respond to them. Never were matters
insignificant in themselves described with greater minuteness of detail.
Lucía was now familiar with the eccentricities, the tastes and the ideas
of Artegui, and knew by heart his traits of character, and the events of
his life, which were in no wise remarkable. The reader may find matter
for surprise in the fact that Sardiola should be so well acquainted with
all that related to a man with whom his intercourse had been so slight,
but it is to be observed that the Biscayan’s native place was at no
great distance from the family estate of the Arteguis, and that he was
the intimate friend of Ignacio’s former nurse, on whom the care of the
solitary house now devolved. The pair held long and intimate
conversations together in their diabolical dialect, and the poor woman
never wearied of relating the wonderful sayings and doings of her
nursling, which Sardiola heard with as much delight as if he had himself
performed the feminine functions of Engracia. Through this channel Lucía
came to have at her finger’s ends the minutest particulars regarding the
disposition and character of Ignacio; his melancholy and silence as a
child, his misanthropy as a youth, and many other details relating to
his parents, his family, and his fortune. Does fate indeed at times
please herself by bringing together mysteriously and by tortuous ways
two lives that constantly come in contact with and influence each other,
without apparent cause or reason? Is it true that, as there are secret
bonds of sympathy between souls, so there are other bonds connecting
events, which link them together in the sphere of the material and the
tangible?

“Don Ignacio,” said the good Sardiola, “was always so. You see they say
that he never had any bodily ailment, not even so much as a toothache.
But his nurse Engracia says that from the cradle he suffered from a kind
of sickness of the soul or the mind, or whatever it may be called. When
he was a child, he was subject to strange fits of terror when night
came, without any known cause for them. His eyes would grow larger and
larger like that” (Sardiola traced in the air with his thumb and
forefinger a series of gradually widening circles) “and he would hide in
a corner of the room, huddled up like a ball, and stay there without
budging until morning dawned. He would never tell his visions, but one
day he confessed to his mother that he saw terrible things--all the
members of his family, with the faces of corpses, bathing and splashing
about in a pool of blood. In short, a thousand wild fancies. The
strangest part of the matter was that in the daytime the Señorito was as
brave as a lion, as everybody knows. At the time of the war it was a
pleasure to see him. Why bless you! he would go among the balls as if
they were sugar plums. He never carried arms, only a hanging satchel
containing I don’t know how many things--bistouris, lancets, pincers,
bandages, sticking-plaster. Besides this he had his pockets stuffed with
lint and rags and cotton batting. I can tell you, Señorita, that if
promotion were to be earned by showing no disgust for those
good-for-nothing liberals, no one would be better entitled to it than
Don Ignacio. On one occasion a bomb fell not two steps away from him. He
stood looking at it, waiting for it to explode, no doubt, and if
Sergeant Urrea, who was standing beside him at the time, had not caught
him by the arm---- Why, he would not retire even when the enemy charged
on us with the bayonet. In one of these charges a guiri[B]
soldier--accursed be every one of his race--charged at him with his
bayonet. And what do you suppose Don Ignacio did?--it would not have
occurred even to the devil himself to do it--he brushed him aside with
his hand as if he had been a mosquito, and the barbarian lowered his
bayonet and allowed himself to be brushed aside. The Señorito gave him a
look. Heavens! such a look, half-serious, half-smiling, that must have
made the boor blush for shame.”

 [B] Government.

Then followed an account of the attentions lavished by the son upon his
mother during her last illness.

“I fancy I can see them now. There, there where you are sitting, Doña
Armanda; and he just here where I am standing, be it said with all
respect. Well, he would bring her down into the garden and he would
place her feet on a stool and put a dozen pillows of all sizes and
shapes behind her head, to help the poor lady to breathe easier. And the
potions! and the draughts!--digitalis here, atropina there. But it was
all of no use--at last the poor lady died. Would you believe that Don
Ignacio showed no extravagant grief? He is like a well; he keeps
everything inside, so that, having no outlet, it suffocates him. But he
did not deceive me with his calmness, for when he said to me, ‘Sardiola,
will you watch by her with me to-night,’ I thought of--see what a
foolish fancy, Señorita--but I thought of a cornet in our ranks who used
to play a famous reveille, that was so clear and full and beautiful; and
one day he played out of tune, and as we laughed at him he took his
cornet and blew it and said, ‘Boys, my poor little instrument has met
with a misfortune, and it has cracked.’ Well, the same difference of
sound that I noticed in the cornet of that fool, Triguillos, I noticed
in the voice of the Señorito. You know what a sonorous voice he has,
that it would be a pleasure to hear him give the word of command; but
that day his voice was--well, cracked. In short, he himself arrayed Doña
Armanda in her shroud, and he and I sat up with her, and at daybreak off
to Brittany in a special train,--with the body in a lignum-vitæ coffin,
trimmed with silver,--to the old castle, to bury the poor lady among her
parents, her grandparents, and all the rest of her ancestors.”

Lucía, who, her work fallen on her lap, had been listening with all her
faculties, now concentrated them in her eyes to put a mute question to
Sardiola. The quick-witted Biscayan answered it at once.

“He has never come back since and no one knows what he intends to do.
Engracia has not had a word from him. Although, indeed, for that matter,
he never tells his plans to a living soul. Engracia is there alone by
herself, for he dismissed all the other servants, rewarding them well,
before he went away. She attends to the little, the nothing, indeed,
there is to attend to, opening the windows occasionally, so that the
dampness may not have it all its own way with the furniture,--passing a
duster----”

Lucía turned her head and looked intently at the windows, closed at the
time, behind which she could see passing at intervals the figure of an
elderly woman, whose head was covered with the traditional Guipuscoan
cap, fastened with its two gilt pins.

“The house ought to be taken care of,” continued Sardiola, “for that
blessed Doña Armanda kept it like a silver cup--it is handsomely
furnished and very spacious. And now that it occurs to me,” he exclaimed
suddenly, slapping his forehead, “why don’t you go to see it, Señorita?
I will speak to Engracia, she will show us over it. Come, make up your
mind to go.”

“No,” answered Lucía faintly; “what for?”

“Why, to see it, of course. You will see Señorito Ignacio’s room, with
his books and the toys he had when he was a child, for his nurse
Engracia has kept them all.”

“Very well, Sardiola,” answered Lucía, as if asking a respite. “Some day
when I am in the humor. To-day I am not in the mood for it. I will tell
you when I am.”

Lucía was, in fact, greatly preoccupied by a matter which gave more
anxiety to her than to any one else. Duhamel had told her that Pilar’s
end was drawing near, and Pilar, who had not the slightest suspicion of
this, gave no indication of wishing to prepare her soul for the solemn
change. They talked to her of God, and she answered, in a scarcely
audible voice, with remarks about fashions or pleasure parties; they
wished to turn her thoughts toward solemn things and the unhappy girl,
with scarcely a breath of life left in her body, uttered some jest that
sounded funereal, coming from her livid lips.

All Lucía’s pious eloquence was of no avail to conquer the invincible
and beneficent illusion that remained with Pilar to the last. She
appealed to Miranda and Perico, but they both shrugged their shoulders
and declared themselves altogether inexperienced in such duties and but
little adapted for them. The very day on which it occurred to her to
speak to them of the matter, they had a supper arranged with Zulma and
some of her gay companions in the snuggest and most retired little
dining-room at Brébant’s--a fit time this to think of such things.
Lucía, however, found some one to help her out of her difficulty, and
this was no other than Sardiola, who was acquainted with a Jesuit, a
compatriot of his, Father Arrigoitia, and who brought him in a trice.
Father Arrigoitia was as tall as a bean-pole, with stooping shoulders;
and was as gentle and insinuating in his manners as his compatriot,
Father Urtazu, was harsh and abrupt. He made his first visit with the
pretext of bringing news from Pilar’s aunt; he returned to inquire, with
a great appearance of interest, about the bodily health of the sick
girl; he brought her some earth from the holy grotto of Manresa, and
some pectoral lozenges of Belmet, all wrapped up carefully together;
and, in short, used so much tact and skill that after a week’s
acquaintance with him Pilar asked of her own accord for what the Jesuit
so greatly desired to give her. As Father Arrigoitia was leaving the
room of the now dying girl, after having pronounced the words of
absolution, he heard behind the door sobs, and a voice saying: “Thanks,
many thanks!” Lucía was there, weeping bitterly.

“Give them to God,” answered the Jesuit gently. “Come, there is no
occasion for grief, Señora Doña Lucía; on the contrary, we have cause
for congratulation.”

“No, no; I am weeping for joy,” answered the nurse. And as the black
cassock and the tall belted figure of the Jesuit were receding from
view, she softly called to him. The priest retraced his steps.

“I too, Father Arrigoitia, desire to confess myself, and soon, very
soon,” she said.

“Ah, very good, very good. But you are in no danger of death, thanks be
to God. In San Sulpicio, in the confessional to the right, as you
enter--I am always at your service, Señora. I shall return shortly to
see our little patient. There, don’t cry, you look like a Magdalen.”

That afternoon Lucía went down as usual into the garden. But so
exhausted was she both in mind and body that, leaning back against the
trunk of the plane tree, she soon fell fast asleep. Before long she
began to dream, and the oddest part of her dream was that she did not
imagine she was in any strange or unknown place, but in the very spot
where she sat in the garden, only that this, in the capricious mirroring
of her dream, instead of being small and narrow, seemed to be enormous.
It was the same garden but seen through a colossal magnifying-glass. The
railing had receded far, far away into the distance and looked like a
row of points of light on the horizon; and this increase in its size
increased the gloom of the little garden, making it seem like a dry and
parched field. Casting her eyes around, Lucía fixed her gaze on what
seemed to be the front of Artegui’s house, from one of whose open
windows issued a pale hand that made signs to her. Was it a man’s hand
or a woman’s hand? Was it the hand of a living being or of a corpse?
Lucía did not know, but the mysterious beckoning of that unknown hand
exercised a spell over her that grew stronger every moment and she ran
on and on, trying to approach the house. But the field continued to
stretch away; one sandy belt followed another; and after walking hours
and hours she still saw before her the long row of sickly plane trees
fading into the distance and Artegui’s house further off than ever. But
the hand continued to beckon furiously, impatiently, like the hand of an
epileptic agitating itself in the air; its five fingers resembled
whirling asps, and Lucía, breathless, panting, continued to run on and
on, and one plane tree succeeded another and the house was still in the
distance. “Fool that I am!” she cried, “since I cannot reach it running,
I will fly.” No sooner said than done; with the ease with which one
flies in dreams, Lucía stood on tip-toe, and presto! she was in the air
at a bound. Oh, happiness! oh, bliss! the field lay beneath her, she
winged her way through the serene, pure blue atmosphere; and now the
house was no longer distant, and now there was an end to the
interminable row of plane trees, and now she distinguished the form to
which the hand belonged. It was a form, slender, without being meager,
surmounted by a countenance manly, though of a melancholy cast, but
which now smiled kindly, with infinite tenderness. How fast Lucía flew!
how blissfully she drew her breath in the serene atmosphere! Courage, it
is but a little distance now! Lucía could hear the flapping of her
wings, for she had wings, and the grateful coolness refreshed her heart.
Now she was close beside the window.

Suddenly she felt two sharp pains pierce her flesh as if she had
received two wounds at once, made by two different weapons; hovering in
the air above her she saw an enormous pair of shears, two white dove’s
wings stained with blood fell to the ground, and losing her power she,
too, fell, down, down, not on the soil of the garden, but into an abyss,
a deep, deep gulf. At the bottom two lights were burning, and the
pitying eyes of a woman dressed in white were fixed upon her. It seemed
to her as if she had fallen into the grotto at Lourdes--it could be no
other; it was exactly as she had seen it in the church of St. Louis at
Vichy, even to the roses and the chrysanthemums of the Virgin. Oh, how
fresh and beautiful was the grotto with its murmuring spring! Lucía
longed to reach it--but as generally happens in nightmares, she was
wakened by the shock of her fall.




CHAPTER XIV.


A few days after she had made her confession, Pilar expired. Her death
was almost sweet, and altogether different from what they had expected
it would be, inasmuch as it was painless. A more severe fit of coughing
than usual interrupted her respiration and the flame of life went out,
as the flame goes out in a lamp when the oil is exhausted. Lucía was
alone with the sick girl at the time, supporting her while she was
coughing, when suddenly dropping her head forward she expired. The
horrible malady, consumption, has so many different phases and aspects
that, while some of its victims feel life slowly ebbing away from them
hour by hour, others fall into eternity as suddenly as the wild animal
falls into the snare. Lucía, who had never seen any one die before, did
not suppose that this was anything more than a deep swoon; she could not
think that the spirit abandoned, without a greater struggle and sharper
pangs, its mortal tenement. She ran out of the room calling for
assistance. Sardiola was the first to come to the bedside in answer to
her cries, and shaking his head he said, “It is all over.” Miranda and
Perico came shortly afterward; they were both in the hotel at the time,
it being eleven o’clock, the hour at which they left the bed for the
breakfast table. Miranda raised his eyebrows when he received the
intelligence and setting his voice in a solemn key, said:

“It was to be feared, it was to be feared. Yes, we knew she was very
ill. But so suddenly, good heavens!--it does not seem possible.”

As for Perico, he hid his face in his hands, and murmured more than
thirty times in succession, “Good heavens! Good heavens! What a
misfortune! What a misfortune!” And I must add, in honor of the
sensibility of the illustrious schemer, that he even changed countenance
perceptibly, and that he made desperate attempts to shed, and did at
last succeed in shedding a few of those drops called by poets the dew of
the soul. I have not wished to omit these details lest it might be
thought that Perico was heartless, the fact being that curious and
minute statistical researches show him to have been less so than
two-thirds of the progeny of Adam. Sorrowful and dejected in very truth,
he allowed Miranda to lead him to his room, and it has also been
ascertained for a fact that in the whole course of that day no other
nourishment passed his lips than two cups of tea and a boiled egg, which
at nightfall extreme debility obliged him to swallow.

Father Arrigoitia and Doctor Duhamel, in union with Miranda, empowered
by telegraph by the sorrowing family of Gonzalvo, provided the dead girl
with all that she now needed--a shroud and a coffin. Pilar, arrayed in
the robe of a Carmelite nun, was placed in the casket which was laid on
the bed she had occupied when living. Candles were lighted and the body
left, in accordance with the Spanish custom, in the chamber of death,
the French custom being to place the corpse, surrounded by lighted
candles, at the entrance to the room, in order that every one who passes
the door may sprinkle it with holy water, using for the purpose a sprig
of box floating in a vessel standing near by. The funeral services and
the interment were to take place on the following day.

The arrangements for these were soon made, and at about three in the
afternoon, Father Arrigoitia was already reading from his breviary,
beside the open window in the chamber of death (from which all traces of
disorder had disappeared), the prayers for the dead, Lucía answering
“Amen” between her sobs. The flame of the tapers, paled by the glorious
brightness of the sun, showed like a reddish point of light, with the
black line of the wick strongly marked in the center. The rumbling of
approaching and receding carriage wheels could be heard, causing the
windows to rattle as they passed by; and above the noises of the street
the voice of the Jesuit father, saying:

“_Qui quasi putredo consumendus sum, et quasi vestimentum quod comeditur
a tinea._”

As if in protest to the funeral hymn, the glorious winter sun darted his
rays upon the bowed gray head of the priest, and lighted with warm tones
Lucía’s neck, bowed also.

And the prayer continued:

“_Hen mihi, Domine, quia peccavi nimis in vita mea._”

A sunbeam, brighter and more daring than its fellows, stole into the
room and fell across the form of the dead girl. Pilar was wasted away
almost to a skeleton; death had bestowed neither beauty nor majesty on
this body, emaciated, diseased, and consumed by fever. The white
head-dress brought into relief the greenish pallor of the sunken
countenance. She seemed to have shrunk and diminished in size. Her
expression was undecided, between a smile and a grimace. Her teeth, of
an ivory hue, were visible. On her breast gleamed in the sunlight the
metal of a crucifix which Father Arrigoitia had placed between her
hands.

The Jesuit and the friend of the dead girl prayed for about an hour. At
the end of that time the priest rose, saying that he would return to
watch beside the body after he had attended to some urgent business,
which required his presence at his own house. He looked at Lucía and,
noticing that her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen, he said to her
kindly:

“Go rest a little, child; you are as pale as the corpse. God does not
require that you should treat yourself in this way.”

“Instead of resting, father,” returned Lucía. “I will go down into the
garden to breathe the fresh air awhile--Juanilla will remain here. I
feel the need of air, my head is burning.”

The Jesuit fixed his glance on her anew, and, suddenly putting his mouth
close to her ear, he whispered, as if he were in the confessional:

“Now that this poor girl is dead, you know what my advice is, do you
not? Put miles between you, daughter; this neighborhood, this place does
not suit you. Return to Leon. If I chance to be sent there--I shall be
able to congratulate you.”

And as Lucía gave him an eloquent glance, he added:

“Yes, yes, put miles between you. How many sick souls have I cured with
only this remedy! Well, good-by, good-by for a little while. Yes, my
dear child, yes; God keeps an account of all these things in Heaven.”

“Father, I wish I were in her place,” murmured Lucía, pointing to the
dead girl.

“Holy Virgin! No, child. You must live in order to serve God by
fulfilling his will. Good-by for a while, eh?”

When Lucía went down into the garden, to her eyes, fatigued with
weeping, it seemed less sickly-looking and arid than usual. The yucas
raised their majestic heads wearing perennial crowns; the plants exhaled
a faint rural odor, more grateful, at any rate, than the odor of the
wax. The sun was sinking low in the west, but his rays still gilded the
points of the lance-shaped heads of the railings. Lucía, from habit,
seated herself under the plane tree, which the blasts of winter had
despoiled of its last withered leaf. The quiet of this solitary retreat
brought familiar thoughts again to her mind. No, Lucía could weep no
more; her dry eyes could not shed another tear; what she desired was
rest--rest. God and nature had forbidden her to wish for death; so that,
employing an ingenious subterfuge, she wished for a long sleep, a sleep
without end. While she was absorbed in these thoughts, she saw Sardiola
running toward her.

“Señorita! Señorita!” The good Biscayan was panting for breath.

“What is the matter?” she asked, languidly raising her head.

“He is there,” said Sardiola, gasping.

“He is--there.” Lucía sat erect, rigid as a statue, and pressed her
hands to her heart.

“The Señorito--Señorito Ignacio. He arrived this morning--he is going
away again to-night--where, no one knows--he refused to see me--Engracia
says he looks worse even than when he left for Brittany.”

“Sardiola,” said Lucía, in a faint voice, feeling her heart contract
until it seemed to be no bigger than a hazelnut; “Sardiola----”

“I must go back, they need me at every moment. On account of to-day’s
misfortune there are a hundred errands to be done. Can I do anything for
you, Señorita?”

“Nothing.” And Lucía’s faint voice died away in her throat. There was a
buzzing sound in her ears, and railing, walls, plane tree and yucas
seemed to whirl around her. There are in life supreme moments like this,
when feeling, long suppressed, rises mighty and triumphant, and
proclaims itself master of the soul. It was this already; but the soul
was perhaps ignorant, or only vaguely conscious of its subjection, when
suddenly it feels itself stamped, as with a red-hot iron, with the seal
of its bondage. Although the comparison may appear irreverent, I shall
say that the same thing happens here, in a measure, as in conversions;
the soul wavers, undecided for a time, knowing neither what course it is
taking, nor what is the cause of its disquiet, until a voice from on
high, a dazzling light, suddenly come to dispel every doubt. The assault
is swift, the resistance faint, the victory sure.

The sun was sinking rapidly in the west, the garden was in shadow,
Sardiola, the faithful watch-dog who had given the alarm, was no longer
there. Lucía looked around with wandering gaze, and put her hand to her
throat, as if she were strangling. Then she fixed her eyes on the house
opposite as if by some magic art its walls of stone could transform
themselves into walls of glass, and disclose to her what was within. She
gazed at it fascinated, suppressing the cry that rose to her lips. The
dining-room door stood ajar. This was not unusual, the nurse Engracia
frequently standing at its threshold of an afternoon to breathe the
fresh air and chat awhile with Sardiola; but there was something now in
the aspect of the half-open door that froze Lucía’s heart with terror,
and at the same time filled her soul with ardent joy. Through her brain,
incapable of thought, ran the refrain, with the monotonous regularity
of the ticking of a clock:

“He came this morning; he is going away to-night.”

Then, her nerves irritated by this iteration, the sounds blended
confusedly together and she heard clearly only the last word of the
refrain--“night, night, night,” which seemed to sink and swell like
those luminous points that we see in the darkness during sleepless
hours, which approach and recede, without apparent change of place, by
the mere vibration of their atoms. She pressed her temples between her
hands as if she sought to arrest the movement of the persistent
pendulum, and rising, walked slowly, step by step, toward the vestibule
of Artegui’s house. As she put her foot on the first step of the stairs,
there was a buzzing in her ears like the humming of a hundred gadflies,
that seemed to say:

“Do not go; do not go.”

And another voice, low and mysterious, like the voice of the wind among
the dry boughs of the plane tree, murmured in a prolonged whisper:

“Go, go, go!”

She mounted the steps. When she reached the second step she stumbled
forward, tripping on the hem of her merino dressing-gown, which she now
noticed, for the first time, not only bore the traces of her attendance
in the sick room, but was both ugly and of an unfashionable cut. She
noticed, too, that her cuffs were limp and wet with the tears she had
lately shed, and on her skirt were bits of thread, evidences of her
sewing. She passed both hands over her dress, mechanically brushing off
the threads, and smoothed out her cuffs as she went toward the door.
Here she hesitated again, but the semi-obscurity that now reigned gave
her courage. She pushed open the door and found herself in a large and
gloomy apartment--the dining-room, whose dark, leather-covered walls,
high presses of carved oak, and chairs of the same wood, gave it an air
of still greater gloom.

“This is the dining-room,” said Lucía aloud, and she looked around in
search of the door. It was situated at the far end, fronting the door
which led from the garden. Lucía walked toward it, raised the heavy
portière, turned the knob with her trembling hand, and emerged into a
corridor which was almost dark. She stood there breathless and uncertain
which way to turn, regretting now that she had so persistently refused
to visit the house before. Suddenly she heard a sound, the rattling of
plate and china. Engracia was doubtless washing the dishes in the
kitchen. She turned and walked along, the corridor in the opposite
direction. The thick carpet deadened the sound of her footsteps. She
groped her way along the wall in search of a door. At last she felt a
door yield to her touch, and, still groping, she entered a small room,
stumbling, as she went, over various objects; among others, the metal
bars of a bedstead. From this room she passed into another and much
larger apartment, faintly illuminated by the expiring daylight, that
entered through a high window. Lucía immediately came to the conclusion
that this must be Artegui’s room. There were in it shelves laden with
books, costly skins scattered around carelessly on the carpet, a divan,
a panoply of handsome weapons, some anatomical figures, a massive
writing-table littered with papers, several bronze and terra-cotta
figures, and above the divan hung the portrait of a woman whose features
she was unable to distinguish. Half-fainting, Lucía dropped on the sofa,
clasping both hands over her breast that heaved with the wild throbbing
of her heart, and said aloud:

“His room!”

She remained thus for a time, without a thought, without a wish,
abandoning herself to the happiness of being here, in this spot, where
Artegui had been. Night was rapidly approaching, and she would soon have
found herself in utter darkness if some one had not just then lighted a
lamp outside, whose light entered through the window. At sight of the
light Lucía started.

“It must be night,” she exclaimed, this time also aloud.

A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind. No doubt they were already
inquiring about her in the hotel. Perhaps Father Arrigoitia had already
returned, and they might even now be searching for her in the garden, in
her room, everywhere. She herself did not know why it was that the
thought of Father Arrigoitia came to her mind before that of
Miranda--but certain it is that her chief fear was that she might
suddenly come face to face with the amiable Jesuit who would say to her,
“Where have you been, my child?” Troubled by these fancies, she rose
tremblingly to her feet, saying in a low tone to herself:

“It is not right to leave the corpse alone--alone.”

And she tried to find the door, but suddenly she stood motionless, like
an automaton whose works have run down. She heard steps in the corridor,
approaching steps, firm and resolute; no, they were not those of
Engracia. The door of the room opened, and a man entered. Lucía was now
in the little room, concealed behind the curtain. This was not
completely, drawn, and through the opening she saw the man light a match
and then light a candle in one of the candlesticks; but the light was
unnecessary, she had already recognized Artegui.

Yes, it was he, but he looked even more dejected, and his face bore
stronger traces of suffering than when she had last seen him. His
countenance was almost livid, his black beard heightening its pallor,
and his eyes shone feverishly. He sat down at the table and began to
write some letters. He was seated directly opposite Lucía, and she
devoured him with her eyes. As he finished each letter she said to
herself:

“I have seen him; I will go now.”

But she still remained. At last Artegui rose and did a curious thing; he
went over to the portrait hanging above the divan and kissed it. Lucía,
who had followed his every movement with intense interest, saw that the
likeness was that of a woman who closely resembled Artegui, and softly
murmured:

“His mother!”

The skeptic then opened a drawer in his writing-table, and drew from it
an oblong shining object, which he examined with minute care. He was
absorbed in his occupation, when suddenly he felt his arm grasped
convulsively and saw beside him a woman with a countenance paler than
his own, eyes fixed and burning like two coals of fire, lips parted to
speak but mute, mute. He dropped the pistol on the floor and caught hold
of her. Her form yielded to his touch like a flower broken on its stem,
and he found himself with Lucía lying insensible in his arms.

Alarmed, he laid her on the divan, and going to his dressing-room
brought from it a bottle of lavender water, which he poured over her
brow and temples, at the same time tearing open her gown to allow her to
breathe more freely. Not for an instant did it occur to him to call
Engracia; on the contrary, he murmured in low tones:

“Lucía, do you hear me? Lucía--Lucía; it is I, only I--Lucía!”

She opened her dazed eyes and answered in a voice low, also, but clear:

“I am here, Don Ignacio. Where are you?”

“Here, here--do you not see me?--here at your side.”

“Yes, yes; I see you now. Is it really you?”

“Tell me, I entreat you, Lucía, what this--this miracle means. How did
you come here?”

“Tell you--tell you--I cannot, Don Ignacio--my head feels confused. As
you were here, I wished to see you and I said to myself, I must see him.
No, it was not I that said so; it was a chorus of little birds that sang
it within me, and so I came. That is all.”

“Rest,” said Artegui, in gentlest accents, as if he were speaking to a
child. “Lean your head on the cushion. Would you like a cup of tea--or
anything else? Do you feel better now?”

“No, let me rest, let me rest.” Lucía closed her eyes, leaned back on
the divan, and remained silent. Artegui gazed at her anxiously with
dilated eyes, still trembling with excitement. He placed a footstool
under her feet, over which he drew the folds of her gown. Lucía remained
passive, murmuring disconnected words in a low voice, still slightly
wandering, but speaking now less incoherently and with clearer
enunciation.

“I don’t know how I came here--I was afraid, so much afraid of meeting
some one--of meeting--Engracia--but I said to myself, on, on! Sardiola
says he is going away to-day, and if he goes away--you too are going to
Leon--and then, for all time to come, Lucía, unless it be in heaven, I
don’t know where you will see him again! When thoughts like these come
to one’s mind, one is afraid of nothing. I trembled, I trembled like a
leaf--it may be that I broke something in the little room--I should be
sorry for it if I did--and I should be sorry, too, if Father Urtazu and
Father Arrigoitia should blame me, as they will, oh, indeed they will--I
shall tell them I only wanted to see him for an instant--as the light
fell upon his face I could see him clearly; he looks so pale, always so
pale! Pilar too, is pale, and I--and everybody--and the world, yes, the
world that was rose-colored and azure before--but now---- Well, as I
wanted to see him, I entered. The dining-room is large. Engracia was
washing the dishes. How I ran! It was a chance to have found his room.
It is a pretty room. His mother’s likeness is there--poor lady! Duhamel
is a great doctor, but there are diseases for which there is no cure, as
I well know, but the grave. That is a cure for everything. How pleasant
it must be there--and here too. It is pleasant; one feels like sleeping,
because----”

“Sleep, Lucía, my life, my soul,” murmured a passionate and vibrant
voice. “Sleep, while I guard your slumbers, and fear nothing. Sleep;
never in your cradle, watched over by your mother, did you sleep more
secure. Let them come, let them come to seek you here!”

Like a hind wounded by an arrow from some unseen hand, Lucía started at
the sound of those words, and opening her eyes, and passing her hand
over her forehead, she sprang to her feet and standing before Artegui
looked around her, her cheeks flushed with sudden shame; her glance and
her intelligence now clear.

“What is this?” she cried, in a changed voice--“I here--yes, I know now
what brought me here, why I came and when--and I remember, too--ah! Don
Ignacio, Don Ignacio! You must be surprised, and with good reason, to
meet me again when you least expected. At what a moment did I come!
Thanks, Holy Virgin; now I am in possession of all my senses and my
reason, and I can throw myself at your feet, Don Ignacio, and say to
you, ‘For God’s sake, by the memory of your mother who is in
heaven,--by--by--all you hold sacred, never again, promise me, never
again to think of taking the life you can employ so usefully!’ If I knew
how to speak, if I were learned like Father Urtazu, I would put it in
better words, but you know what I mean--is it not so?--promise me never
again--never again----”

And Lucía, with disheveled hair, pathetic, beautiful, threw herself at
Artegui’s feet and embraced his knees. Artegui raised her with
difficulty.

“You know,” he said, with confusion, “that I have attached little value
to life; more, that I have hated it ever since I have realized its
hollowness, and have known what a useless burden it is to man; and now
that my mother is dead, and there is no one to feel my loss----”

A torrent of tears and sobs straight from the heart were Lucía’s answer.
Artegui lifted her in his arms, and, placing her on the sofa, seated
himself beside her.

“Don’t cry,” he said, speaking more composedly; “don’t cry; rejoice
rather, for you have conquered. And is this to be wondered at since you
embody the illusion dearest to man, the one illusion that is worth a
hundred realities, the illusion that vanishes only with life! The most
persistent and invincible of all the illusions that nature has contrived
to attach us to life and prevent the world going back to chaos! Listen
to me! I will not tell you that you are for me happiness, for happiness
does not exist, and I will not deceive you; but what I will say is this,
that for your sake a noble spirit may worthily prefer life to death.
Among the deceptions which attach us to life, there is one that cheats
us more sweetly than all the others, with delights so blissful, so
intoxicating, that a man may well give himself up to a joy that, though
it be a fictitious one, can thus embellish and gild existence. Hear me,
hear me. I have always shunned women, for knowing the mysterious doom of
sorrow pronounced on man, the irremediable suffering of life, I did not
wish to attach myself through them to this abode of misery, nor give
life to beings who should inherit as their birthright suffering, the
only inheritance which every human being has the certainty of
transmitting to his children. Yes, I regard it as a matter of conscience
to act thus and diminish by so much the sum of sorrows and evils; when I
considered how overwhelming was this sum, I cursed the sun that
engenders life and suffering on the earth; the stars that are the abodes
of misery; the world that is the prison in which our doom is fulfilled,
and finally love, love which sustains and preserves and perpetuates
unhappiness, interrupting, in order to prolong it, the sacred repose of
annihilation. Annihilation! Annihilation was the haven of repose which
my weary spirit wished to reach. Annihilation, nothingness, absorption
in the universe, dissolution for the body, peace and eternal silence for
the spirit. If I had had faith, how beautiful and attractive and sweet
would the cloister have seemed to me! Neither will, nor desire, nor
feelings, nor passions--a robe of sackcloth, a walking corpse beneath.
But----” Artegui bent toward Lucía uneasily.

“Do you comprehend me?” he suddenly asked.

“Yes, yes,” she said, and a shiver ran through her frame.

“But I saw you,” continued Artegui. “I saw you by chance; by chance,
too, and without any volition of my own, I remained for a time at your
side, I breathed the same air, and against my will--against my will--I
knew--I did not wish to acknowledge your victory to myself, nor did I
know it until I left you to the embraces of another. Ah, how I have
cursed my folly in not taking you with me then! When I received your
letter of condolence, I was on the point of going to seek you----”

Artegui paused for a moment.

“You were the illusion. Yes, through you, nature, inexorable and
persistent, once more entangled my soul in her snares. I was vanquished.
It was not possible now to obtain the quietude of soul, the
annihilation, the perfect and contemplative tranquillity to which I
aspired; therefore I desired to end the life that each day grew more
intolerable to me.”

He paused again, and, seeing that Lucía continued silent, added:

“It may be that you do not fully comprehend me. There are things which,
although true, are difficult of comprehension to those who hear them for
the first time. But you will understand me if I tell you plainly that I
will not die because I love you and you love me; and now, come what may,
I will live.”

He pronounced these words with an energy that had more of violence than
of love in it, and throwing his arms around Lucía, he drew her to him
with resistless force. She felt as if she were clasped in a fiery
embrace, in which her strength was gradually melting away, and summoning
all the power of her will, by a desperate effort she tore herself from
Artegui’s arms and stood trembling, but erect, before him. Her tall
form, her gesture of supreme indignation might have made her seem like a
Greek statue, had it not been for the black merino gown, which served to
destroy the illusion.

“Don Ignacio,” stammered the young Leonese, “you deceive yourself, you
deceive yourself. I do not love you--that is to say, not in that way;
no, never!”

“Swear it, if you dare!” he thundered.

“No, no; it is enough for me to say so,” replied Lucía, with growing
firmness. “Not that.” And she took two steps toward the door.

“Listen to me for an instant,” he said, detaining her; “only for an
instant. I have wealth, more than I can make use of. I have made
arrangements to leave this place to-night. We are in a free country; we
will go to a country still more free. In the United States no one asks
any one where he comes from, whither he is going, who he is, or what is
his business. We will go away together. A life spent together, do you
hear? See, I know you desire it. Your heart urges you to consent. I know
with absolute certainty that you are neither happy, nor well married;
that your health is failing; that you suffer. Do not imagine that I do
not know this. No one loves you but me, and I offer you----”

Lucía took two steps more, but this time toward Artegui, and with one of
those rapid, childish, joyous gestures which women sometimes employ on
the most solemn and serious occasions, she said to him:

“Do you believe that? Well then, Don Ignacio, God will send me by-and-by
some one who will love me!”

Ignacio bent his head, vanquished by that cry of victorious nature.
Lucía seemed to him the personification of the great Mother he had
calumniated and cursed, that, smiling, fecund, provident and indulgent,
symbolized life, indestructible and inexhaustible, saying to him:
“Foolish skeptic! see how unavailing are your efforts against me. I am
eternal.”

“No matter,” he murmured, resigned and humble. “For that very reason I
will respect your sacred rights.”

He caught her by the folds of her gown, and gently made her sit down
again.

“Now let us talk together,” he said quietly. “Tell me why you refuse. I
cannot understand you,” he added, with renewed vehemence. “Was it not
love, was it not love you showed me on the journey and in Bayonne? Is it
not love that makes you come here to-day--alone--to see me? Oh, you
cannot deny it. You may invent a thousand sophisms, you may weave a
thousand subtleties, but--it is plain to be seen! Do you know that if
you deny it, you say what is not true? I did not know that in your
innocent nature there was room for falsehood.”

Lucía raised her head.

“No, Don Ignacio,” she said, “I will speak the truth--I think it is
better that I should do so now, for you are right, I came here--yes, you
must hear me. I have loved you madly ever since that day at Bayonne--no,
ever since the moment I first saw you. Now you know it. I am not to
blame; it was against my will, God knows. At first I thought it could
not be possible, that all I felt for you was pity, and--well, gratitude,
for all the services you had rendered me. I believed that a married
woman could feel love for no one but her husband. If any one had told me
it was that, I should certainly have denied it indignantly. But by dint
of thinking--no, it was not I who made the discovery; I did not even
suspect it. It was another person, one who knows more than I do about
the mysteries of the heart. See, if I had known that you were happy, I
should have been cured of my love--or if any one had shown me, in my
turn, pity. Charity! Pity! I have it for every one and for me--no one,
no one has it. So that--do you remember how light-hearted I was? You
declared that my presence brought with it joy. Well--now I have fallen
into the habit of indulging in thoughts as gloomy as your own--and of
wishing for death. If it were not for the hope I have, nothing would
make me happier than to lie down in Pilar’s place. I used to be strong
and healthy--I never know now what it is to be well for a moment. This
has come upon me like a thunderbolt. It is a punishment from God. The
greatest bitterness of all is to think of you--that you must be unhappy
in this world, lost in the next.”

Artegui listened with mingled joy and pity.

“So that, Lucía----” he said meaningly.

“So that you who are so good, for if you were not good I should not have
cared for you in this way, will let me go now. Or if you do not, I shall
go without your leave, even if I should have to jump out of the window.”

“Unhappy woman!” he murmured gloomily, relapsing into his former state
of dejection, “you have stumbled across happiness--that is to say, not
happiness, but at least its shadow, but a shadow so beautiful----”

He rose to his feet suddenly, shaking himself and writhing like a lion
in his death agony.

“Give me a reason!” he cried, “or I shall kill myself at your feet. Let
me at least know why you refuse. Is it for your father’s sake? your
husband’s? your child’s? the world’s? Is it----”

“It is,” she murmured, bending her head, and speaking with great
sweetness, “it is for the sake of God.”

“God!” groaned the skeptic. “And if there be no----”

A hand was placed upon his mouth.

“Can you still doubt his existence when to-day, by a miracle--you
yourself have said it--by a miracle--he preserved your life?”

“But your God is angry with you,” he objected. “You offended him by
loving me; you offend him by continuing to love me; by coming here you
have offended him still more deeply----”

“Though I stood on the brink of perdition, though I were sinking in the
flames of hell--my God is ready to save and to pardon me if my will be
turned to Him. Now, now I will ask Him to save me.”

“And He will not save you,” replied Artegui, taking both her hands in
his; “He will not save you; for wherever you may go, though you should
hide yourself from me in the very center of the earth, though you should
take refuge in the cell of a convent, you will still adore me, you will
offend Him by thinking of me. No, the sincerity of your nature will not
permit you to deny it. Ah! if one could only love or not love at will!
But your conscience tells you plainly that, do what you may, I shall
always be in your thoughts--always. And for the very reason that it
horrifies you that this should be so, so it will be. And more--the day
will come when, like to-day, you will desire to see me, although it be
but for a moment, and overcoming all the obstacles that lie in your way,
and breaking down the barriers that oppose themselves to your will, you
will come to me--to me.”

And he shook her violently by the wrists, as the hurricane shakes the
tender sapling.

“God,” she murmured faintly, “God is more powerful than you or I or any
one. I will ask Him to protect me and He will do it; He must do it; He
will do it, He will do it.”

“No,” responded Artegui energetically. “I know that you will come, that
you will fall, as the stone falls, drawn by its own weight, into this
abyss or this heaven; you will come. See, I am so certain of this, that
you need not fear now that I shall kill myself. I will not die because I
know that one day you will inevitably come to me; and on that day--which
will arrive--I wish to be still in the world that I may open my arms to
you thus.”

Had not Lucía’s back been turned to the light, Artegui must have
perceived the joy that diffused itself over her countenance, and the
swift glance of gratitude she raised to heaven. He waited with
outstretched arms. Lucía bowed her form, and, swift as the swallow that
skims the crest of the waves in its flight across the seas, rushed
toward him, and rested her head for an instant on his shoulder.

Then, and no less swiftly, she went toward the table, and taking from it
the candlestick handed it to him and said in a firm and tranquil voice:

“Show me the way out.”

Artegui led the way without uttering a word. His blood had suddenly
cooled, and after the terrible crisis his habitual weariness and
melancholy were greater than before. They passed through his room and
entered the corridor in silence. In the corridor Lucía turned her head
for an instant and fixed her eyes on Artegui’s countenance as if she
wished to engrave his image in indelible characters on her memory. The
light of the candle fell full upon it, bringing it out in strong relief
against the dark background of the embossed leather that covered the
walls. It was a handsome face; handsomer, even, from its expression and
character than from the regularity of its features. The blackness of the
beard contrasted with its interesting pallor, and its air of dejection
made it resemble those dead faces of John the Baptist, so vigorous in
_chiaroscuro_, produced by our national tragic school of painting.
Artegui returned Lucía’s gaze with one so full of pain and pity that she
could bear her feelings no longer, and ran to the door. At the threshold
Artegui looked down into the dark recesses of the garden.

“Shall I accompany you?” he said.

“Do not advance a step. Put out the light, and close the door.”

Artegui obeyed the first command; but, before executing the second, he
murmured in Lucía’s ear:

“In Bayonne you once said to me, ‘Are you going to leave me alone?’ It
is my turn to ask you the same question now. Remain. There is still
time. Have pity on me and on yourself.”

“Because I have pity” she replied, in a choking voice, “for that very
reason--farewell, Don Ignacio.”

“Good-by,” he answered, almost inaudibly. The door closed.

Lucía looked at the sky in which the stars were shining brightly, and
shivered with cold. She knelt down in the vestibule and leaned her face
against the door. At that moment she remembered a trivial
circumstance--that the door was covered on the inner side with a brocade
of a dark red color, harmonizing with the color of the leather on the
walls. She did not know why she remembered this detail; but so it often
happens in supreme moments like this, ideas come to the mind that
possess no importance in themselves, and have no bearing on any of the
momentous events which are taking place.

Miranda had gone out that afternoon,--to clear his brain, as he said. On
his return to the hotel, he went up to the death-chamber and found
Juanilla watching there by the dead girl, and worn out with fatigue and
terror. She said complainingly that the Señorita Lucía had asked her to
watch for a little while in the room, but that she had now been a long,
long time here, and that she could bear it no longer. Not the faintest
misgiving entered the suspicious mind of Miranda, then, and he answered
with naturalness:

“The Señorita has probably gone to lie down for a while, she must be
very tired,--but you can go. I will send Sardiola to take your place.”

He did so; and the dinner-bell of the hotel sounding immediately
afterward, he went down into the dining-room, having that day an
excellent appetite, a thing by no means of daily occurrence in the
present debilitated condition of his stomach. The bell was yet to ring
twice before the soup should be served, and knots of the guests were
standing about the room, conversing while they waited; the greater
number of them were talking about Pilar’s death, in low tones, through
consideration for Miranda, whom they knew to be her friend. But one
group, composed of Navarrese and Biscayans, were talking aloud, the
subject of their conversation being of a nature that called for no such
precaution. Nevertheless, so strongly was Miranda’s attention attracted
by their words that he stood motionless, all his faculties concentrated
in the one faculty of hearing, and scarcely daring to breathe. After
listening for ten minutes he knew more than he desired to know: that
Artegui was in Paris, that he lived in the neighboring house, and that
his dwelling could be reached by crossing the garden, since one of the
Biscayans mentioned that he had gone that way to visit him in the
morning. The waiter, who was passing at the moment with a tray full of
plates of steaming soup, signified to Miranda that he might now take his
place at the table; but the latter, without heeding him, ran up-stairs
like a madman and rushed into the chamber of death.

“Where is the Señorita Lucía?” he abruptly asked Sardiola, who was
watching by the body.

“I do not know.” The Biscayan looked up and by a swift intuition he read
in the distorted features of the husband a hundred things at once.
Miranda rushed out like a rocket, and went through the rooms calling
Lucía’s name. There was no answer. Then he went quickly out on the
balcony and ran down into the garden.

A dark form at the same moment descended the stairs leading from the
vestibule of Artegui’s home. By the light of the stars and of the
distant street lamps could be perceived the unsteadiness of the gait,
the frequent pressing of the hands over the face. Miranda waited, like
the hunter lying in wait for his prey. The figure drew nearer. Suddenly
from a clump of bushes emerged the form of a man, and the silence was
broken by a vulgar exclamation, which in polite language might be
rendered:

“Shameless woman!”

Sounds of violence followed, and a body fell to the ground. At this
moment another figure came running down the staircase of the hotel, and
rushing between the two, bent down to raise Lucía from the ground.
Miranda gesticulated wildly, and in a hoarse, choking voice, stuttering
with rage, and throwing every vestige of good-breeding to the winds,
cried:

“Out of this, boor, intermeddler! What business is this--is this of
yours? I struck--struck her, because I had--had--had the right to do so,
and because I wished to do it. I am her husband. If you don’t take
yourself off without delay I will cut--cut you in two. I will let
daylight through you.”

If Sardiola had been a stone wall he could not have paid less heed to
the words of Miranda than he did. With supreme indifference to his
threats, and with Herculean force, he took the unconscious form in his
arms, and thrusting the husband aside with a vigorous movement, carried
his lovely burden up the stairs, not stopping till he had placed it on a
sofa in the chamber of death. The madman followed close behind, but he
controlled himself somewhat, seeing the warlike attitude and the
flashing eyes of the Carlist ex-volunteer, who formed a rampart with his
body for the defense of the insensible woman.

“If you do not take yourself off----” yelled Miranda, shaking his
clenched fists.

“Take myself off!” repeated Sardiola quietly. “In order that you may
strangle her at your ease. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to touch
even so much as a thread of the Señorita’s garments.”

“But you--by what authority do you come here? Who has sent for you?” and
Miranda’s countenance was convulsed with senile rage. “Begone!” he
cried, with renewed anger, “or I shall find a weapon.” The bloodshot
eyes of the husband glanced around the room until they fell upon the
corpse, which preserved in the midst of all this violence its vague
funereal smile. Sardiola, meantime, putting his hand into his waistcoat
pocket, drew from it a medium-sized knife, probably used for cutting
tobacco, and threw it at his adversary’s feet.

“There is one!” he cried, with the proud and chivalric air so frequently
seen among the Spanish populace. “God has given me good hands with which
to defend myself.”

Miranda stood for a moment, hesitating, then his rage boiled over again
and he yelled out:

“I warn you that I will use it! I will use it! Go away, then, before I
lose my patience.”

“Use it,” replied Sardiola, smiling disdainfully, “let us see how much
courage there is behind those bold words--for, as for my leaving the
room--unless the Señorita herself commands me to do so----”

“Go, Sardiola,” said a faint voice from the sofa, and Lucía, opening her
eyes, fixed them with a look of mingled gratitude and authority on the
waiter.

“But Señorita, to go away and----”

“Go, I say.” And Lucía sat erect, apparently quite calm. Miranda held
the knife in his right hand. Sardiola, throwing himself upon him,
snatched the weapon from his grasp, and taking a sudden resolution ran
out into the corridor shouting, “Help! help! the Señorita has been taken
ill.” At his cries, two persons who had just come up the stairs hurried
forward into the chamber of death. They were Father Arrigoitia and
Duhamel, the physician. A strange scene met their view; at the foot of
the bed, on which lay the dead girl, a woman stood with outstretched
hands trying to protect her sides and her bosom from the blows which a
man was showering down upon her with his clenched fists. With a vigor
not to be looked for in one of his frail physique, Father Arrigoitia
rushed between the pair, receiving as he did so, if report speak truly,
a blow or two on his venerable tonsured crown, and Duhamel, emulating,
in the honor of science, the courage of the Jesuit, seized the furious
man by the arm, and succeeded in preventing further violence. Pity it is
that no stenographer could have been present at the time to take down
the eloquent discourse, in broken French-Lusitanian-Brazilian, addressed
by the doctor to Miranda for the purpose of demonstrating to him the
cruelty and barbarity of striking in this way a _menina_, in Lucía’s
condition. Miranda listened with a countenance that grew darker and
darker every moment, while Father Arrigoitia lavished cares and
affectionate attentions on the maltreated woman. Suddenly the husband
confronted the doctor and asked something in a hoarse voice.

“Yes,” answered Duhamel, nodding his head affirmatively, with the quick
and energetic movement of a pasteboard doll moved by a string.

Miranda looked around the room, he fixed his eyes in turn on his wife,
on the Jesuit, on the doctor. Then he took a hand of each of the two
latter, and begged them, with much stuttering, to grant him an interview
of a few minutes. They went into the adjoining room and Lucía remained
alone with the corpse. She might almost have fancied all that had passed
a terrible nightmare. Through the open window could be seen the dark
masses of the trees of the garden; the stars shone brightly, inviting to
sweet meditation; the tapers burned beside Pilar, and in Artegui’s
dwelling the light could be seen shining behind the curtains. To descend
ten steps and find herself in the garden, to cross the garden and find
herself clasped to a loving heart, for her soft as wax, but hard as
steel for her enemies--horrible temptation! Lucía pressed her hands with
all her force to her heart, she dug her nails into her breast. One of
the blows which she had received caused her intense pain; it was on the
shoulder blade, and it seemed as if a screw were twisting the muscles
until they must snap asunder. If Artegui were to present himself now! To
weep, to weep, with her head resting on his shoulder! At last she
remembered a prayer which Father Urtazu had taught her, and said: “My
God, by your cross grant me patience, patience.” She remained for a
long time repeating between her moans--“patience.”

Father Arrigoitia at last made his appearance. His sallow forehead was
contracted in a frown, and clouded with gloom. He and Lucía stood for a
long time conversing together on the balcony without either of them
feeling the cold, which was sharp. Lucía at last gave free rein to her
grief.

“You may judge if I would speak falsely--with that corpse lying there
before me. This very moment I might go away with him, father--and if God
were not above in the heavens----”

“But he is, he is, and he is looking at us now,” said the Jesuit, gently
stroking her cold hands. “Enough of madness. Do you not see how your
punishment has already begun? You are innocent of what Don Aurelio
charges you with and yet his atrocious suspicion is not without some
appearance of foundation--you yourself have given it by going to that
man’s house to-day. God has punished you in that which is dearest to
you--in the little angel that has not yet come into the world.”

Lucía sobbed bitterly.

“Come, courage daughter; courage, my poor child,” continued the
spiritual father, in accents that every moment grew more tender and
consoling. “And in the name of God and of His Holy Mother, to Spain! To
Spain, to-morrow!”

“With him?” asked Lucía, terrified.

“He is packing his trunks to leave Paris to-night. He is going to
Madrid. He is leaving you. If you would throw yourself at his feet and
humbly and repentantly----”

“Not that, Father,” cried the proud Castilian. “He would think I was
what he has called me; no, no.” And more gently she added: “Father, I
have done what is right to-day, but I am exhausted. Ask nothing more
from me to-day. I have no strength left. Pity, Señor; pity!”

“Yes, I will ask you for the love of Jesus Christ to set out to-morrow
for Spain. I shall not leave you until I put you on board the train. Go,
my dear daughter, to your father. Can you not see that I am right in
advising you as I do? What would your husband think of you if you were
to remain here?--with only a wall between you. You are too good and
prudent even to think of such a thing. In the name of your child! That
its father may be convinced--for in time, witnessing your conduct, he
will be convinced. Ah, let man not divide those whom God has joined
together. He will return, he will return to his wife. Do not doubt it.
To-day he has allowed himself to be carried away by his anger--but
later----”

Sobs deeper and more piteous than before were Lucía’s only answer.

Father Arrigoitia pressed the hands of the weeping woman tenderly in
his.

“Will you give me your promise?” he murmured, with earnest entreaty, but
also with the authority of one accustomed to exact spiritual obedience.

“Yes,” answered Lucía, “I will go to-morrow; but let me give way to my
misery now--I can bear it no longer.”

“Yes, weep,” answered the Jesuit. “Relieve your sorrow-laden heart.
Meanwhile, I will pray.”

And returning to the bedroom he knelt down beside the bed of death, and
taking out his breviary began in grave and composed accents to read by
the flickering light of the tapers the solemn service for the dead.

       *       *       *       *       *

For more than a fortnight the idle tongues of Leon found food for gossip
in the strange circumstance of Lucía Gonzalez’s arrival alone, sad and
deteriorated in looks, at her father’s home. The wildest stories were
invented to explain the mystery of her return, the seclusion in which
she chose to live, the heavy cloud of gloom that rested constantly on
the countenance of Uncle Joaquin Gonzalez, the disappearance of the
husband, and the innumerable other things which hinted at scandal or
domestic infelicity. As usually happens in similar cases, a few grains
of truth were mixed up with a great deal of fiction, and some of what
was said was not without a semblance of reason; but for want of the
necessary data wherewith to complete and elucidate the known facts of
the story, public opinion groped about blindly for a time and at last
went altogether astray. As may be inferred, however, the scandalmongers
performed their part with diligence and zeal, some criticising the
mature dandy who had wanted to marry a young wife; some the vain and
foolish father who had sacrificed his daughter’s happiness to his wish
to make her a lady; some the crazy girl who---- In short, they tacked on
so many morals to Lucía’s story, that I may well be excused from adding
another. What was most severely criticized, however, was the modern
fashion of the _wedding trip_, a foreign and reprehensible innovation,
calculated only to give rise to disgusts and annoyances of all kinds. I
suspect that, warned by Lucía’s sad example, handed down by tradition,
and repeated in turn to all the marriageable girls of the place, that
for a century to come not a Leonese bride will be found willing to stir
an inch from the domestic hearth, at least during the first ten years of
her married life.

THE END.









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