Behind the pine grove the setting sun had left a zone of fire
against which the trunks of the pine trees stood out like bronze
columns. The path was rugged and uneven, giving evidence of the
ravages wrought by the winter rains; at intervals loose stones,
looking like teeth detached from the gum, rendered it still more
impracticable. The melancholy shades of twilight were beginning to
envelop the landscape; little by little the sunset glow faded away
and the moon, round and silvery, mounted in the heavens, where the
evening star was already shining. The dismal croaking of the frogs
fell sharply on the ear; a fresh breeze stirred the dry plants and
the dusty brambles that grew by the roadside; and the trunks of the
pine trees grew momentarily blacker, standing out like inky bars
against the pale green of the horizon.

A man was descending the path slowly, bent, apparently, on
enjoying the poetry and the peace of the scene and the hour. He
carried a stout walking-stick, and as far as one could judge in the
fading light, he was young and not ill-looking.

He paused frequently, casting glances to the right and to the
left as if in search of some familiar landmark. Finally he stood
still and looked around him. At his back was a hill crowned with
chestnut trees; on his left was the pine grove; on his right a small
church with a mean belfry; before him the outlying houses of the
town. He turned, walked back some ten steps, stopped, fronting the
portico of the church, examined its walls, and, satisfied at last
that he had found the right place, raised his hands to his mouth and
forming with them a sort of speaking trumpet, cried, in a clear
youthful voice:

"Echo, let us talk together!"

From the angle formed by the walls, there came back instantly
another voice, deeper and less distinct, strangely grave and
sonorous, which repeated with emphasis, linking the answer to the
question and dwelling upon the final syllable:

"Let us talk togethe-e-e-e-r!"

"Are you happy?"

"Happy-y-y-y!" responded the echo.

"Who am I?"

"I-I-I-I!"

To these interrogations, framed so that the answer should make
sense with them, succeeded phrases uttered without any other object
than that of hearing them reverberated with strange intensity by the
wall. "It is a lovely night."--"The moon is shining."--"The sun has
set."--"Do you hear me, echo?"--"Have you dreams, echo, of glory,
ambition, love?" The traveler, enchanted with his occupation,
continued the conversation, varying the words, combining them into
sentences, and, in the short intervals of silence, he listened to the
faint murmur of the pines stirred by the evening breeze, and to the
melancholy concert of the frogs. The crimson and rose-colored clouds
had become ashen and had begun to invade the broad region of the
firmament over which the unclouded moon shed her silvery light. The
honeysuckles and elder-flowers on the outskirts of the pine grove
embalmed the air with subtle and intoxicating fragrance. And the
interlocutor of the echo, yielding to the poetic influences of the
scene, ceased his questions and exclamations and began to recite, in
a slow, chanting voice, verses of Becquer, paying no heed now to the
voice from the wall, which, in its haste to repeat his words,
returned them to him broken and confused.

Absorbed in his occupation, pleased with the harmonious sounds of
the verse, he did not notice the approach of three men of odd and
grotesque appearance, wearing enormous broad-brimmed felt hats. One
of the men was leading a mule laden with a leathern sack filled,
doubtless, with the juice of the grape; and as they walked slowly,
and the soft clayey soil deadened the noise of their footsteps, they
passed close by the young man, unperceived by him. They exchanged
some whispered words with one another. "Who is he,
man?"--"Segundo."--"The lawyer's son?"--"The same."--"What is he
doing? Is he talking to himself?"--"No, he is talking to the wall of
Santa Margarita."--"Well, we have as good a right to do that as he
has."--"Begin you ----"--"One--two--here goes----"

And from those profane lips fell a shower of vile words and
coarse and vulgar phrases, interrupting the _Oscuras Golondrinas_
which the young man was reciting with a great deal of expression, and
producing, in the peaceful and harmonious nocturnal silence, the
effect of the clatter of brass pans and kettles in a piece of German
music. The most refined expressions were in the following style:
"D---- (here an oath). Hurrah for the wine of the Border! Hurrah for
the red wine that gives courage to man! D----" (the reader's
imagination may supply what followed, it being premised that the
disturbers of the Becquerian dreamer were three lawless muleteers who
were carrying with them an abundant provision of the blood of the
grape).

The nymph who dwelt in the wall opposed no resistance to the
profanation and repeated the round oaths as faithfully as she had
repeated the poet's verses. Hearing the vociferations and bursts of
laughter which the wall sent back to him mockingly, Segundo, the
lawyer's son, aware that the barbarians were turning his sentimental
amusement into ridicule, became enraged. Mortified and ashamed, he
tightened his grasp on his stick, strongly tempted to break it on the
ribs of some one of them; and, muttering between his teeth, "Kaffirs!
brutes! beasts!" and other offensive epithets, he turned to the left,
plunged into the pine grove and walked toward the town, avoiding the
path in order to escape meeting the profane trio.

The town was but a step away. The walls of its nearest houses
shone white in the moonlight, and the stones of some buildings in
course of erection, garden walls, orchards, and vegetable beds,
filled up the space between the town and the pine grove. The path
grew gradually broader, until it reached the highroad, on either side
of which leafy chestnut trees cast broad patches of shade. The town
was already asleep, seemingly, for not a light was to be seen, nor
were any of those noises to be heard which reveal the proximity of
those human beehives called cities. Vilamorta is in reality a very
small beehive, a modest town, the capital of a district. Bathed in
the splendor of the romantic satellite, however, it was not without a
certain air of importance imparted to it by the new buildings, of a
style of architecture peculiar to prison cells, which an
_Americanized_ Galician, recently returned to his native land with a
plentiful supply of cash, was erecting with all possible expedition.

Segundo turned into an out-of-the-way street--if there be any
such in towns like Vilamorta. Only the sidewalks were paved; the
gutter was a gutter in reality; it was full of muddy pools and heaps
of kitchen garbage, thrown there without scruple by the inhabitants.
Segundo avoided two things--stepping into the gutter and walking in
the moonlight. A man passed so close by him as almost to touch him,
enveloped, notwithstanding the heat, in an ample cloak, and holding
open above his head an enormous umbrella, although there was no sign
of rain; doubtless he was some convalescent, some visitor to the
springs, who was breathing the pleasant night air with hygienic
precautions. Segundo, when he saw him, walked closer to the houses,
turning his face aside as if afraid of being recognized. With no less
caution he crossed the Plaza del Consistorio, the pride of Vilamorta,
and then, instead of joining one of the groups who were enjoying the
fresh air, seated on the stone benches round the public fountain, he
slipped into a narrow side street, and crossing a retired little
square shaded by a gigantic poplar turned his steps in the direction
of a small house half hidden in the shadow of the tree. Between the
house and Segundo there stood a lumbering bulk--the body of a
stage-coach, a large box on wheels, its shafts raised in air,
waiting, lance in rest, as it were, to renew the attack. Segundo
skirted the obstacle, and as he turned the corner of the square,
absorbed in his meditations, two immense hogs, monstrously fat,
rushed out of the half-open gate of a neighboring yard, and at a
short trot that made their enormous sides shake like jelly, made
straight for the admirer of Becquer, entangling themselves stupidly
and blindly between his legs. By a special interposition of
Providence the young man did not measure his length upon the ground,
but, his patience now exhausted, he gave each of the swine a couple
of angry kicks, which drew from them sharp and ferocious grunts, as
he ejaculated almost audibly: "What a town is this, good Heavens!
Even the hogs must run against one in the streets. Ah, what a
miserable place! Hell itself could not be worse!"

By the time he had reached the door of the house, he had, to some
extent, regained his composure. The house was small and pretty and
had a cheerful air. There was no railing outside the windows, only
the stone ledges, which were covered with plants in pots and boxes;
through the windows shaded by muslin curtains a light could be seen
burning, and in the silent façade there was something peaceful and
attractive that invited one to enter. Segundo pushed open the door
and almost at the same instant there was heard in the dark hall the
rustling of skirts, a woman's arms were opened and the admirer of
Becquer, throwing himself into them, allowed himself to be led,
dragged, carried bodily, almost, up the stairs, and into the little
parlor where, on a table covered with a white crochet cover, burned a
carefully trimmed lamp. There, on the sofa, the lover and the lady
seated themselves.

Truth before all things. The lady was not far from thirty-six or
thirty-seven, and what is worse, could never have been pretty, or
even passably good-looking. The smallpox had pitted and hardened her
coarse skin, giving it the appearance of the leather bottom of a
sieve. Her small black eyes, hard and bright like two fleas, matched
well her nose, which was thick and ill-shaped, like the noses of the
figures of lay monks stamped on chocolate. True, the mouth was
fresh-colored, the teeth white and sound like those of a dog; but
everything else pertaining to her--dress, manner, accent, the want of
grace of the whole--was calculated rather to put tender thoughts to
flight than to awaken them. With the lamp shining as brightly as it
does, it is preferable to contemplate the lover. The latter is of
medium height, has a graceful, well-proportioned figure, and in the
turn of his head and in his youthful features there is something that
irresistibly attracts and holds the gaze. His forehead, which is high
and straight, is shaded and set off by luxuriant hair, worn somewhat
longer than is allowed by our present severe fashion. His face, thin
and delicately outlined, casts a shadow on the walls which is made up
of acute angles. A mustache, curling with the grace which is peculiar
to a first mustache, and to the wavy locks of a young girl, shades
but does not cover his upper lip. The beard has not yet attained its
full growth; the muscles of the throat have not yet become prominent;
the Adam's apple does not yet force itself on the attention. The
complexion is dark, pale, and of a slightly bilious hue.

Seeing this handsome youth leaning his head on the shoulder of
this woman of mature age and undisguised ugliness, it would have been
natural to take them for mother and son, but anyone coming to this
conclusion, after a single moment's observation, would have shown
scant penetration, for in the manifestations of maternal affection,
however passionate and tender they may be, there is always a
something of dignity and repose which is wanting in those of every
other affection.

Doubtless Segundo felt a longing to see the moon again, for he
rose almost immediately from his seat on the sofa and crossed over to
the window, his companion following him. He threw open the sash, and
they sat down side by side in two low chairs whose seats were on a
level with the flower-pots. A fine carnation regaled the sense with
its intoxicating perfume; the moon lighted up with her silvery rays
the foliage of the poplar that cast broad shadow over the little
square. Segundo opened the conversation this wise:

"Have you made any cigars for me?"

"Here are some," she answered, putting her hand into her pocket
and drawing from it a bundle of cigars. "I was able to make only a
dozen and a half for you. I will complete the two dozen to-night
before I go to bed."

There was a moment's silence, broken by the sharp sound made by
the striking of the match and then, in a voice muffled by the first
puff of smoke, Segundo went on:

"Why, has anything new happened?"

"New? No. The children--putting the house in order--and
then--Minguitos. He made my head ache with his complaining--he
complained the whole blessed evening. He said his bones ached. And
you? Very busy, killing yourself reading, studying, writing, eh? Of
course!"

"No, I have been taking a delightful walk. I went to Peñas-albas
and returned by way of Santa Margarita. I have seldom spent a
pleasanter evening."

"I warrant you were making verses."

"No, my dear. The verses I made I made last night after leaving
you."

"Ah! And you weren't going to repeat them to me. Come, for the
love of the saints, come, recite them for me, you must know them by
heart. Come, darling."

To this vehement entreaty succeeded a passionate kiss, pressed on
the hair and forehead of the poet. The latter raised his eyes, drew
back a little and, holding his cigar between his fingers after
knocking off the ashes with his nail, proceeded to recite.

The offspring of his muse was a poem in imitation of Becquer. His
auditor, who listened to it with religious attention, thought it
superior to anything inspired by the muse of the great Gustave. And
she asked for another and then another, and then a bit of Espronceda
and then a fragment or two of Zorrilla. By this time the cigar had
gone out; the poet threw away the stump and lighted a fresh one. Then
they resumed their conversation.

"Shall we have supper soon?"

"Directly. What do you think I have for you?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"Think of what you like best. What you like best, better than
anything else."

"Bah! You know that so far as I am concerned, provided you don't
give me anything smoked or greasy----"

"A French omelet! You couldn't guess, eh? Let me tell you--I
found the receipt in a book. As I had heard that it was something
good I wanted to try it. I had always made omelets as they make them
here, so stiff, that you might throw one against the wall without
breaking it. But this--I think it will be to your taste. As for me, I
don't like it much, I prefer the old style. I showed Flores how to
make it. What was in the one you ate at the inn at Orense? Chopped
parsley, eh?"

"No, ham. But what difference does it make what was in it?"

"I'll run and take it out of the pantry! I thought--the book says
parsley! Wait, wait."

She overturned her chair in her haste. An instant later the
jingling of her keys and the opening and closing of a couple of doors
were heard in the distance. A husky voice muttered some
unintelligible words in the kitchen. In two minutes she was back
again.

"Tell me, and those verses, are you not going to publish them? Am
I not going to see them in print?"

"Yes," responded the poet, slowly turning his head to one side
and sending a puff of smoke through his lips. "I am going to send
them to Vigo, to Roberto Blanquez, to insert them in the _Amanecer_."

"I am delighted! You will become famous, sweetheart! How many
periodicals have spoken of you?"

Segundo laughed ironically and shrugged his shoulders.

"Not many." And with a somewhat preoccupied air he let his gaze
wander over the plants and far away over the top of the poplar whose
leaves rustled gently in the breeze. The poet pressed his companion's
hand mechanically, and the latter returned the pressure with
passionate ardor.

"Of course. How do you expect them to speak of you when you don't
put your name to your verses?" she said. "They don't know whose they
are. They are wondering, likely----"

"What difference does the name make? They could say the same
things of the pseudonym I have adopted as of Segundo García. The few
people who will trouble themselves to read my verses will call me the
Swan of Vilamorta."




                                  II.


Segundo García, the lawyer's son, and Leocadia Otero, the
schoolmistress of Vilamorta, had met each other for the first time in
the spring at a pilgrimage. Leocadia had gone with some girls to whom
she had taught their letters and plain sewing. Before the chorus of
nymphs Segundo had recited verses for more than two hours in an oak
grove far from the noise of the drum and the bagpipes, where the
strains of the music and the voices of the crowd came softened by
distance. The audience was as silent as if they were hearing mass,
although certain passages of a tender or passionate nature were the
occasion, among the children, of nudges, pinches, laughter
instantaneously suppressed; but from the black eyes of the
schoolmistress, down her cheeks, pitted by the smallpox and pale with
emotion, flowed two large, warm tears, followed so quickly and in
such abundance by others that she was obliged to take out her
handkerchief to wipe them away. And returning by starlight,
descending the mountain on whose summit stood the sanctuary, by
sylvan footpaths carpeted with grass and bordered with heather and
briars, the order of march was as follows: first the children,
running, jumping, pushing one another among the heather and greeting
every fall with shouts of laughter; Leocadia and Segundo behind,
arm-in-arm, pausing from time to time to talk in subdued tones,
almost in whispers.

A sad and ugly story was told about Leocadia Otero. Although,
without actually saying so, she had given it to be understood that
she was a widow, it was whispered that she had never been married;
that the puny Dominguito, the little cripple who was always sick, was
born while she lived in the house of her uncle and guardian at
Orense, after the death of her parents. What was certain was that her
uncle had died shortly after the birth of the child, bequeathing to
his niece a couple of fields and a house in Vilamorta, and Leocadia,
after passing the necessary examinations, had obtained the village
school and gone to settle in that town. She had lived in it now for
more than thirteen years, observing the most exemplary conduct,
watching day and night over Minguitos, and living with the utmost
frugality in order to rebuild the dilapidated house, which she had
finally succeeded in doing shortly before her meeting with Segundo.
Leocadia was a woman of notably industrious habits; in her wardrobe
she had always a good supply of linen, in her parlor bamboo furniture
with a rug before the sofa, grapes, rice, and ham in her pantry, and
carnations and sweet basil in her windows. Minguitos was always as
neat as a new pin; she herself, when she raised the skirt of her
habit of Dolores, of good merino, displayed underneath voluminous
embroidered petticoats, stiff with starch. For all which reasons,
notwithstanding her ugliness and her former history, the
schoolmistress was not without suitors--a wealthy retired muleteer,
and Cansin, the clothier. She rejected the suitors and continued
living alone with Minguitos and Flores, her old servant, who now
enjoyed in the house all the privileges of a grandmother.

The iniquitous wrong suffered by her in early youth had produced
in Leocadia, absorbed as she was in her bitter recollections, a
profound horror of marriage and an insatiable thirst for the
romantic, the ideal, which is as a refreshing dew to the imagination
and which satisfies the emotions. She had the superficial knowledge
of a village schoolmistress--rudimentary, but sufficient to introduce
exotic tastes into Vilamorta; that is to say, a taste for literature
in its most accessible forms--novels and poetry. She devoted to
reading the leisure hours of her monotonous and upright life. She
read with faith, with enthusiasm, uncritically; she read believing
and accepting everything, identifying herself with each one of the
heroines, in turn, her heart echoing back the poet's sighs, the
troubadour's songs, and the laments of the bard. Reading was her one
vice, her secret happiness. When she requested her friends at Orense
to renew her subscription to the library for her they laughed at her
and nicknamed her the "Authoress." She an authoress! She only wished
she were. If she could only give form to what she felt, to the world
of fancy she carried in her mind! But this was impossible. Never
would her brain succeed in producing, however hard she might squeeze
it, even so much as a poor _seguidilla_. Poetry and sensibility were
stored up in the folds and convolutions of her brain, as solar heat
is stored up in the coal. What came to the surface was pure
prose--housekeeping, economy, stews.

When she met Segundo, chance applied the lighted torch to the
formidable train of feelings and dreams shut up in the soul of the
schoolmistress. She had at last found a worthy employment for her
amorous faculties, an outlet for her affections. Segundo was poetry
incarnate. He represented for her all the graces, all the divine
attributes of poetry--the flowers, the breeze, the nightingale, the
dying light of day, the moon, the dark wood.

The fire burned with astounding rapidity. In its flames were
consumed, first her honorable resolution to efface by the
blamelessness of her conduct the stigma of the past, then her strong
and deep maternal affection. Not for an instant did the thought
present itself to Leocadia's mind that Segundo could ever be her
husband; although both were free the difference in their ages and the
intellectual superiority of the young poet placed an insurmountable
barrier in the way of the aspirations of the schoolmistress. She fell
in love as into an abyss, and looked neither before nor behind.

Segundo had had in Santiago, during his college days, youthful
intrigues, adventures of a not very serious nature, such as few men
escape between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, occasionally
taking part, also, in what in that romantic epoch were called
_orgies_. Notwithstanding all this, however, he was not vicious. The
son of a hysterical mother, whose strength was exhausted by repeated
lactations, and who at last succumbed to the debility induced by
them, Segundo's spirit was much more exacting and insatiable than his
body. He had inherited from his mother a melancholy temperament and
innumerable prejudices, innumerable instinctive antipathies,
innumerable superstitious practices. He had loved her, and he
cherished her memory with veneration. And more tenacious even than
his loving remembrance of his mother was the invincible antipathy he
cherished for his father. It would not be true to say that the lawyer
had been the murderer of his wife, and yet Segundo clearly divined
the slow martyrdom endured by that fine nervous organization, and had
always before his eyes, in his hours of gloom, the mean coffin in
which the dead woman was interred, shrouded in the oldest sheet that
was to be found.

Segundo's family consisted of his father, an aunt, advanced in
years, two brothers, and three sisters. The lawyer García enjoyed the
reputation of being wealthy--in reality this fortune was
insignificant--a village fortune accumulated penny by penny, by
usurious loans and innumerable sordid privations. His practice
brought him in something, but ten mouths to feed and the professional
education of three sons swallowed up not a little. The eldest of the
boys, an officer in an infantry regiment, was stationed in the
Philippine Islands, and, far from expecting any money from him, they
were thankful if he did not ask for any. Segundo, the second in age
as well as in name, had just been graduated--one lawyer more in
Spain, where this fruit grows so abundantly. The youngest was
studying at the Institute at Orense, with the intention of becoming
an apothecary. The girls spent the days running about in the gardens
and cornfields, half the time barefooted, not even attending
Leocadia's school to save the slight expense that would be incurred
in procuring the decent clothing which this would necessitate. As for
the aunt--Misía Gáspara--she was the soul of the house, a narrow and
sapless soul, a withered old woman, silent and ghost-like in
appearance, still active, in spite of her sixty years, who, without
ceasing to knit her stockings with fingers as yellow as the keys of
an old harpsichord, sold barley in the granary, wine in the cellar,
lent a dollar at fifty per cent. interest to the fruit-women and
hucksters of the market, receiving their wares in payment, measured
out the food, the light, and their clothing to her nieces, fattened a
pig with affectionate solicitude, and was respected in Vilamorta for
her ant-like abilities.

It was the lawyer's aspiration to transmit his practice and his
office to Segundo. Only the boy gave no indication of an aptitude for
stirring up law-suits and prosecutions. How had he achieved the
miracle of passing with honor in the examinations without ever having
opened a law-book during the whole term, and failing in attendance at
the college whenever it rained or whenever the sun shone? Well, by
means of an excellent memory and a good natural intelligence;
learning by heart, when it was necessary, whole pages from the
text-books, and remembering and reciting them with the same ease, if
not with as much taste, as he recited the "Doloras" of Campoamor.

On Segundo's table lay, side by side, the works of Zorrilla and
Espronceda, bad translations of Heine, books of verse of local poets,
the "Lamas-Varela," or, _Antidote to Idleness_, and other volumes of
a no less heterogeneous kind. Segundo was not an insatiable reader;
he chose his reading according to the whim of the moment, and he read
only what was in conformity with his tastes, thus acquiring a
superficial culture of an imperfect and varied nature. Quick of
apprehension, rather than thoughtful or studious, he had learned
French without a teacher and almost by intuition, in order to read in
the original the works of Musset, Lamartine, Proudhon, and Victor
Hugo. His mind was like an uncultivated field in which grew here and
there some rare and beautiful flower, some exotic plant; of the
abstruse and positive sciences, of solid and serious learning, which
is the nurse of mental vigor--the classics, the best literature, the
severe teachings of history--he knew nothing; and in exchange, by a
singular phenomenon of intellectual relationship, he identified
himself with the romantic movement of the second third of the
century, and in a remote corner of Galicia lived again the
psychological life of dead and gone generations. So does some
venerable academician, over-leaping the nineteen centuries of our
era, delight himself now with what delighted Horace and live
platonically enamored of Lydia.

Segundo composed his first verses, cynical and pessimistic in
intention, ingenuous in reality, before he had reached the age of
seventeen. His classmates applauded him to the echo. He acquired in
their eyes a certain prestige, and when the first fruits of his muse
appeared in a periodical he had, without going beyond the narrow
circle of the college, admirers and detractors. Thenceforth he
acquired the right to indulge in solitary walks, to laugh rarely, to
surround his adventures with mystery, and not to play or take a drink
for good-fellowship's sake except when he felt in the humor.

And he seldom felt in the humor. Excitation of the senses, of a
purely physical nature, possessed no attraction for him; if he drank
at times through bravado, the spectacle of drunkenness, the
winding-up of student orgies--the soiled tablecloth, the maudlin
disputes, his companions lying under the table or stretched on the
sofa, the shamelessness and heartlessness of venal women--repelled
him and he came away from such scenes filled with disgust and
contempt, and at times a reaction proper to his complex character
sent him, a sincere admirer of Proudhon, Quinet, and Renan, to the
precincts of some solitary church, where he drew in with delight long
breaths of the incense-laden air.

The lawyer García made no protest against his son's literary
inclinations because he regarded them as a passing amusement proper
to his age, a youthful folly, like dancing at a village feast. He
began to grow uneasy when he saw that Segundo, after graduation,
showed no inclination to help him in the conduct of his tortuous
law-suits. Was the boy, then, going to turn out good for nothing but
to string rhymes together? It was no crime to do this, but--when
there was not a pile of law-papers to go through and stratagems to
think of to circumvent the opposing party. Since the lawyer had
observed this inclination of his son he had treated him with more
persistent harshness and coldness than before. Every day at table or
whenever the occasion offered, he made cutting speeches to him about
the necessity of earning one's own bread by assiduous labor, instead
of depending upon others for it. These continual sermons, in which he
displayed the same captious and harassing obstinacy as in the conduct
of his law-suits, frightened Segundo from the house. In Leocadia's
house he found a place of refuge, and he submitted passively to be
adored; flattered in the first place by the triumph his verses had
obtained, awakening admiration so evidently sincere and ardent, and
in the second place attracted by the moral well-being engendered by
unquestioning approval and unmeasured complacency. His idle, dreamy
brain reposed on the soft cushions which affection smoothes for the
beloved head; Leocadia sympathized with all his plans for the future,
developing and enlarging them; she encouraged him to write and to
publish his verses; she praised him without reserve and without
hypocrisy, for, for her, whose critical faculty was situated in her
cardiac cavities, Segundo was the most melodious singer in the
universe.

Gradually the loving prevision of the schoolmistress extended to
other departments of Segundo's existence. Neither the lawyer García
nor Aunt Gáspara supposed that a young man, once his education was
finished, needed a penny for any extraordinary expense. Aunt Gáspara,
in particular, protested loudly at every fresh outlay--after filling
her nephew's trunk one year she thought he was provided with shirts
for at least ten years to come: clothes had no right to tear or to
wear out, without any consideration, in that way. Leocadia took note
of the wants of her idol; one day she observed that he was not well
supplied with handkerchiefs and she hemmed and marked a dozen for
him; the next day she noticed that he was expected to keep himself in
cigars for a year on half a dollar, and she took upon herself the
task of making them for him, furnishing the material herself gratis.
She heard the fruit-women criticising Aunt Gáspara's stinginess; she
inferred from this that Segundo had a poor table, and she set herself
to the task of devising appetizing and nutritious dishes for him; in
addition to all which she ordered books from Orense, mended his
clothes, and sewed on his buttons.

All this she did with inexpressible delight, going about the
house with a light, almost youthful step, rejuvenated by the sweet
maternity of love, and so happy that she forgot to scold the
school-children, thinking only of shortening their tasks that she
might be all the sooner with Segundo. There was in her affection much
that was generous and spiritual, and her happiest moments were those
in which, as they sat side by side at the window, his head resting on
her shoulder, she listened, while her imagination transformed the
pots of carnations and sweet basil into a virgin forest, to the
verses which he recited in a well-modulated voice, verses that seemed
to Leocadia celestial music.

The medal had its obverse side, however. The mornings were full
of bitterness when Flores would come with an angry and frowning face,
her woolen shawl twisted and wrinkled and falling over her eyes, to
say in short, abrupt phrases:

"The eggs are all used; shall I get more? There is no sugar;
which kind shall I buy--that dear loaf sugar that we bought last
week? To-day I got coffee, two pounds of coffee, as if we had a gold
mine. I won't buy any more cordial--you can go for it yourself--I
won't."

"What are you talking about, Flores? What is the matter with
you?"

"I say that if you like to give Ramon, the confectioner,
twenty-four reals a bottle for _anisette_, when it is to be had for
eight at the apothecary's, you can do so, but that I am not going to
put the money in that thief's hand; he will be asking you five
dollars a bottle for it next."

Leocadia would come out of her reverie with a sigh, and go to the
bureau drawer for the money, not without thinking that Flores was
only too right; her savings, her couple of thousand reals laid by for
an emergency, must be almost gone; it was better not to examine into
the condition of the purse; better put off annoyances as long as
possible. God would provide. And she would scold the old woman with
feigned anger.

"Go for the bottle; go--and don't make me angry. At eight the
children will be here and I have my petticoat to iron yet. Make
Minguitos his chocolate; you would be better employed in seeing that
he has something to eat. And give him some cake."

"Yes. I'll give him some, I'll give him some. If I didn't give
the poor child something----" grumbled the servant, who at Minguitos'
name felt her anger increase. In the kitchen could be heard the
furious knock given to the chocolate-pot to settle it on the fire and
the angry sound of the mill, afterward, beating the chocolate into
froth. Flores would enter the room of the deformed boy, who had not
yet left his bed, and taking his hand in hers, say:

"Are you warm, child? I have brought you your chocolate; do you
hear?"

"Will mamma give it to me?"

"I will give it to you."

"And mamma--what is she doing?"

"Ironing some petticoats."

The little humpback would fix his eyes on Flores, raising his
head with difficulty from between the double arch of the breast and
back. His eyes were deep set, with large pupils; on his mouth, with
its prominent jaws, rested a melancholy and distorted smile. Throwing
his arms around the neck of Flores, and putting his lips close to her
ear:

"Did the _other one_ come yesterday?" he asked.

"Yes, child, yes."

"Will he come again to-day?"

"He'll come. Of course he'll come! Stop talking, _fillino_, stop
talking and take your chocolate. It's as you like it--thin and with
froth."

"I don't think I have any appetite for it. Put it there beside
me."




                                  III.


In Vilamorta there was a Casino, a real Casino, small indeed, and
shabby, besides, but with its billiard-table, bought at second-hand,
and its _boy_, an old man of seventy, who once a year dusted and
brushed the green cover. For the only reunions in the Casino of
Vilamorta were those of the rats and the moths who assembled daily,
to amuse themselves by eating away the woodwork. The chief centers of
reunion were the two apothecaries' shops, that of Doña Eufrasia,
fronting the Plaza and that of Agonde in the high street. Doña
Eufrasia's shop, nestling in the shadowy corner of an archway, was
dark; in the hours of meeting it was lighted by a smoky kerosene
lamp; its furniture consisted of four grimy chairs and a bench.

From the street all that was to be seen were dark mass-cloaks,
overcoats, broad-brimmed hats, two or three clerical tonsures that
shone at a distance like metal clasps against the dark background of
the shop. Agonde's shop, on the contrary, was brightly illuminated
and gloried in the possession of six glass globes of brilliant
coloring and fantastic effect, three rows of shelves laden with
imposing and scientific-looking white porcelain jars bearing Latin
inscriptions in black letters, a divan, and two leather-covered
armchairs. The two contrasting shops were also antagonistic; they had
declared war to the knife against each other.

Agonde's shop, liberal and enlightened in its opinions, said of
the reactionary shop that it was a center of unending conspiracies,
where _El Cuartel Real_ and all the rebel proclamations had been read
during the civil war, and where for the past five years
ammunition-belts were being diligently prepared for a Carlist party
that never took the field; and according to the reactionary shop,
that of Agonde was the headquarters of the Freemasons; where lampoons
were printed on a little handpress and where gambling was shamelessly
carried on. The meetings in the reactionary shop broke up with
religious punctuality at ten, in winter, and eleven in summer, while
the liberal shop continued to cast on the sidewalk until midnight the
light of its two bright lamps and the blue, red, and emerald-green
reflections of its glass globes; for which reasons the members of the
liberal reunion called those of the other party _owls_, while those
of the reactionary clique gave their opponents the name of _members
of the Casino of the Gaming Table_.

Segundo never put his foot over the threshold of the reactionary
shop and, since the beginning of his acquaintance with Leocadia
Otero, he had shunned that of Agonde also, for his vanity was wounded
by the jests and gibes of the apothecary, who was noted for his
waggish humor. One evening as Saturnino Agonde was crossing the Plaza
of the Alamo at an unusually late hour--on his way the devil only
knew whither--he had caught sight of Leocadia and Segundo seated at
the window, and had heard the psalmody of the verses which the poet
was declaiming. From that time Segundo had seen depicted on the
countenance of Agonde, a practical man of a sanguine temperament,
such contempt for sentimental trifling and for poetry that he
instinctively avoided him as far as it was possible to do so.
Occasionally, however, whenever he desired to read _El Imparcial_, to
know what was going on, he would stop in at the shop for a few
moments. He did so on the day after his conversation with the echo.

The meeting was very animated. Segundo's father was leaning back
on the sofa with a newspaper resting on his knees; his
brother-in-law, the notary Genday, Ramon, the confectioner, and
Agonde were hotly disputing with him. At the further end of the shop
Carmelo, the tobacconist, Don Fermin, alias _Tropiezo_,[1] the
physician, the secretary of the Municipality and the Alcalde sat
playing _tresillo_ at a small table. When Segundo entered, he
remarked something unusual in the air of his father and of the group
that surrounded him, but certain that he would presently be told the
cause, he silently dropped into an armchair, lighted a cigar, and
took up the copy of _El Imparcial_ that was lying on the counter.

    [1] Trip.

"Well, the papers here say nothing, absolutely nothing, about
it," exclaimed the confectioner.

From the tresillo table came the voice of the doctor confirming
Ramon's doubts; the doctor, too, was of the opinion that the event in
question could not happen without due notice of it being given in the
papers.

"You would die rather than believe anything," replied Agonde. "I
am certain of it, I tell you, and it seems to me that when I am
certain of it----"

"And I too," affirmed Genday. "If it is necessary to call
witnesses to prove it, they are there. I know it from my own brother,
who heard it from Mendez de las Vides; you can judge whether I have
the news on good authority or not. Do you want further proof? Well,
two armchairs, a handsome gilt bedstead, a great deal of china and a
piano have been ordered from Orense for Las Vides. Are you
convinced?"

"In any case they will not come as soon as you say," objected
Tropiezo.

"They will come at the time I have said. Don Victoriano wants to
spend the holidays and the vintage season here; they say he longs to
see his native place again, and that he has spoken of nothing all the
winter but the journey."

"He is coming to die here," said Tropiezo; "I heard that he was
in a very bad state of health. You are going to be left without a
leader."

"Go to----What a devil of a man, what an owl, always predicting
misfortunes! Either hold your tongue, or talk sense. Attend to the
game, as you ought to."

Segundo was gazing abstractedly at the glass globes of the shop,
his attention seemingly occupied with the blue, green, and red points
of light that sparkled in their center. He understood now the subject
of their conversation--the expected arrival of Don Victoriano Andres
de la Comba, the minister, the great political leader of the country,
the radical representative of the district. What mattered to Segundo
the arrival of this pretentious coxcomb! And giving himself up to the
enjoyment of his cigar, he allowed the noisy dispute to go on
unheeded. Afterward he became absorbed in the reading of an article
in _El Imparcial_, in which a new poet was warmly eulogized.

Meanwhile at the tresillo table matters were becoming
complicated. The apothecary, who sat behind the Alcalde, was giving
him advice--a delicate and difficult task.

The tobacconist and Don Fermin held all the good cards; they had
the man between them--a ticklish position. The Alcalde was a thin
shriveled-up old man, of a very timid disposition, who, before he
ventured to play a card, would think a hundred years about it,
calculating all the contingencies and all the possible combinations
of which cards are capable. He did not want now to play that _solo_.
It would be a great mistake! But the impetuous Agonde encouraged him,
saying: "Come! I buy it." Thus urged, the Alcalde came to a decision,
but not without having first entered a protest:

"Very well, I'll play it, but it is a piece of folly,
gentlemen--so that you may not say I am afraid."

And all that he had foreseen happened; he found himself between
two fires: on the one side his king of hearts is trumped, on the
other his opponent takes his knave of trumps with his queen. Don
Fermin wins the trick without knowing how, while the tobacconist, who
is smiling maliciously, keeps all his good cards. The Alcalde lifts
his eyes appealingly to Agonde.

"Didn't I tell you so? A nice fix we have got ourselves into! We
shall lose the hand; it is lost already."

"No, man, no. What a coward you are--always afraid of everything.
There you are hesitating as long about throwing a card as if your
life depended on it. Play a trump! play a trump! That is the way
cowards always lose--they are afraid to play their trumps."

The opponents winked at each other maliciously.

"_De posita non tibi_," exclaimed the tobacconist.

"_Si codillum non resultabit_," assented Don Fermin.

The Alcalde, quaking with fear, proceeded, by Agonde's advice, to
look through the tricks his partners had taken, in order to see how
many trumps had been already played. Tropiezo and the tobacconist
protested:

What a mania he had for examining the cards!

The Alcalde, somewhat tranquillized, resolved at last to put an
end to his uncertainty, and with a few bold and decisive plays the
hand ended, each player winning three tricks.

"A tie!" exclaimed the tobacconist and the apothecary almost
simultaneously.

"You see! Playing as badly as you could you haven't lost the
hand," said Agonde. "They needed all their cards to win what they
did."

They were all absorbed in the game--whose interest was now at its
height--with the exception of Segundo, who had abandoned himself to
one of those idle reveries in which the activity of the imagination
is stimulated by bodily ease. The voices of the players reached his
ears like a distant murmur; he was a hundred leagues away; he was
thinking of the article he had just been reading, of which certain
expressions particularly encomiastic--mellifluous phrases in which
the critic artfully glossed over the faults of the poet--had remained
stamped on his memory. When would his turn come to be judged by the
Madrid press? God alone knew. He lent his attention once more to the
conversation.

"We must at least give him a serenade," declared Genday.

"A serenade, indeed!" responded Agonde. "A great thing that!
Something more than a serenade--we must have some sort of a
procession--a demonstration which will show that the people here are
with him. We must appoint a committee to receive him with rockets and
bands of music. Let those plotters at Doña Eufrasia's have something
to rage about."

The name of the other shop produced a storm of exclamations,
jests, and stamping of feet.

"Have you heard the news?" asked the waggish Tropiezo. "It seems
that Nocedal has written a very flattering letter to Doña Eufrasia,
saying that as he represents Don Carlos in Madrid so she, by reason
of her merits, ought to represent him in Vilamorta."

Homeric bursts of laughter and a general huzza greeted this
remark.

"Well, that may be an invention; but it is true, true as gospel,
that Doña Eufrasia sent Don Carlos her likeness with a complimentary
inscription."

"And the regiment? Have they fixed on the day on which it is to
take the field?"

"Of course. They say that the Abbot of Lubrego is to command it."

The hilarity of the assembly was redoubled, for the Abbot of
Lubrego was nearing his seventieth year, and was so feeble that he
could scarcely hold himself on his mule. A boy at this moment entered
the shop, swinging in his hand a glass bottle.

"Don Saturnino!" he cried, in a shrill voice.

"What is it you want?" answered the druggist, mimicking his
tones.

"Give me some of what this smells like."

"All right," said Agonde, putting the bottle to his nose. "What
does this smell like, Don Fermin?"

"Let me see--it smells something like--laudanum, eh?--or arnica?"

"Arnica let it be, it is less dangerous. I hope it will have a
good effect."

"It is time to retire, gentlemen," said the Lawyer García,
consulting his silver timepiece.

Genday stood up and Segundo followed his example.

The tresillo party proceeded to settle accounts; calculating
winnings and losses, centavo by centavo, by means of white counters
and yellow counters. After the close atmosphere of the shop the cool
air of the street was grateful; the night was mild and clear; the
stars shone with a friendly light and Segundo, who was quick to
perceive the poetic aspect of things, felt tempted to leave his
father and his uncle without ceremony and walk along the road, alone,
according to his custom, to enjoy the beauty of the night. But his
Uncle Genday linked his arm through his, saying:

"You are to be congratulated, my boy."

"Congratulated, uncle?"

"Weren't you crazy to get away from here? Didn't you want to take
your flight to some other place? Haven't you a hatred for office
work?"

"Good man," interposed the lawyer; "he is crazy enough as it is,
and you want to unsettle his mind still more----"

"Hold your tongue, you fool! Don Victoriano is coming here, we
will present the boy to him and ask him to give him a place. And he
will give him one, and a good one too; for whether he thinks so or
not, if he does not do what we ask him, the pancake will cost him a
loaf. The district is not what he imagines it to be, and if his
adherents do not keep their eyes open the clergy will play a trick
upon them."

"And Primo? And Mendez de las Vides?"

"They are no match for the priest. The day least expected they
will be made a show of; they will hang their heads for shame. But
you, my boy--think well about it. You are not in love with the law?"

Segundo shrugged his shoulders with a smile.

"Well, turn the matter over in your mind; think what would suit
you best. For you must be something; you must stick your head in
somewhere. Would you like a justiceship? a place in the post-office?
in one of the departments?"

They had turned the corner of the Plaza on their way to García's
house and were passing under Leocadia's window when the fragrance of
the carnations penetrated to Segundo's brain. He felt a poetic
revulsion of feeling and, dilating his nostrils to inhale the
perfume, he exclaimed:

"Neither justice nor post-office employee. Say no more on that
point, uncle."

"Don't insist, Clodio," said the lawyer bitterly. "He wants to be
nothing, nothing but a downright idler, to spend his life scribbling
rhymes. Neither more nor less. The money must be handed out for the
Institute, the University, the shirt-front, the frock coat, the
polished boots, and then, when one thinks they are ready to do for
themselves, back they come, to be a burden to one, to smoke and to
eat at one's expense. I have three sons to spend my money, to squeeze
me dry, and not one to give me any help. That is all these young
gentlemen are good for."

Segundo stopped, twisting the end of his mustache, with a frown
on his face. They all stood still at the corner of the little plaza,
as people are wont to do when a conversation changes to a dispute.

"I don't know what puts that into your head, father," declared
the poet. "Do you suppose that I propose to myself never to be
anything more than Segundo García, the lawyer's son? If you do, you
are greatly mistaken. You may be very anxious to be rid of the burden
of supporting me, but you are not half as anxious as I am to relieve
you of it."

"Well, then, what are you waiting for? Your uncle is proposing a
variety of things to you and none of them suits you. Do you want to
begin by being Minister?"

The poet began to twist his mustache anew.

"There is no use in being impatient, father. I would make a very
bad post-office clerk and a still worse justice. I don't want to tie
myself down to any fixed career, in which everything is arranged
beforehand and moves by routine. In that case I should be a lawyer
like you or a notary like Uncle Genday. If we really find Don
Victoriano disposed to do anything for me, ask some position--no
matter what--without fixed duties, that will enable me to reside in
Madrid. I will take care of the rest."

"You will take care of the rest. Yes, yes, you say well. You will
draw upon me for little sums, eh? like your brother in the Philippine
Islands. Let me tell you for your guidance, then, that you needn't do
so. I didn't steal what I have, and I don't coin money."

"I am not asking anything from you!" cried Segundo, in a burst of
savage anger. "Am I in your way? I will get out of it, then; I will
go to America. That ends it."

"No," said the lawyer, calming down. "Provided you exact no more
sacrifices from me."

"Not one! not if I were starving!"

The lawyer's door opened; old Aunt Gáspara in her petticoat,
looking like a fright, had come to let them in. Tied around her head
was a cotton handkerchief which came so far over her face as almost
to conceal her sour features. Segundo drew back at this picture of
domestic life.

"Aren't you coming in?" asked his father.

"I am going with Uncle Genday."

"Are you coming back soon?"

"Directly."

Walking down the square he communicated his plans to Genday. The
latter, a short man, with a fiery temper, signified his approbation
by movements quick and restless as those of a lizard. His nephew's
ideas were not displeasing to him. His active, scheming mind, the
mind of an electoral agent and a clever notary, accepted vast
projects more readily than the methodical mind of the lawyer García.
Uncle and nephew were much of the same way of thinking as to the best
manner of profiting by Don Victoriano's influence; conversing in this
way they reached Genday's house, and the servant of the latter--a
fresh-looking girl--opened the door for her master with all the
flattering obsequiousness of a confirmed old bachelor's maid-servant.
Instead of returning home Segundo, preoccupied and excited, walked
down the plaza to the highroad, stopped at the first clump of
chestnut trees he came to, and seating himself on the step of a
wooden cross which the Jesuits had erected there during the last
mission, gave himself up to the harmless diversion of contemplating
the evening star, the constellations, and all the splendors of the
heavenly bodies.




                                  IV.


During the tiresome _siestas_ of Vilamorta, while the visitors to
the springs digested their glasses of mineral water and compensated
themselves for the loss of their morning sleep by a restorative nap,
the amateur musicians of the popular band practiced by themselves the
pieces they were shortly to execute together. From the shoemaker's
shop came the melancholy notes of a flute; in the baker's resounded
the lively and martial strains of the horn; in the tobacconist's
moaned a clarionet; in the cloth-shop, the suppressed sighs of an
ophicleide filled the air. Those who thus devoted themselves to the
worship of Euterpe were clerks in shops, younger sons, the youthful
element of Vilamorta. These snatches of melody rose with piercing
sonorousness on the drowsy warm atmosphere. When the news spread that
Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba and his family were expected to
arrive within twenty-four hours in the town, to leave it again
immediately for Las Vides, the brass band was tuned to the highest
pitch and ready to deafen, with any number of waltzes, dances, and
quicksteps, the ears of the illustrious statesman.

In the town an unusual animation was noticeable. Agonde's house
was opened, ventilated, and swept, clouds of dust issuing through the
windows, at one of which, later on, appeared Agonde's sister, with a
fringe of hair over her forehead and wearing a pearl-shell necklace.
The housekeeper of the parish priest of Cebre, a famous cook, went
busily about the kitchen, and the pounding of the mortar and the
sizzling of oil could be heard. Two hours before the time of the
arrival of the stage-coach from Orense, that is to say at three
o'clock in the afternoon, the committee of the notabilities of the
Combista-radical party were already crossing the plaza, and Agonde
stood waiting on the threshold of his shop, having sacrificed to the
solemnity of the occasion his classic cap and velvet slippers, and
wearing patent-leather boots and a frock coat which made him look
more bull-necked and pot-bellied than ever. The coach from Orense was
entering the town from the side next the wood, and, at the tinkling
of the bells, the clatter of the hoofs of its eight mules and ponies,
the creaking of its unwieldy bulk, the inhabitants of Vilamorta
looked out of their windows and came to their doors; the reactionary
shop only remained closed and hostile. When the cumbrous vehicle
turned into the square the excitement increased; barefooted children
climbed on the coach steps, begging an _ochavo_ in whining accents;
the fruit-women sitting in the arches straightened themselves up to
obtain a better view, and only Cansin, the clothier, his hands in his
trousers' pockets, his feet thrust into slippers, continued walking
up and down his shop with an Olympic air of indifference. The
overseer reined in the team, saying in soothing accents to a
rebellious mule:

"E-e-e-e-e-e-h! There, there, Canóniga."

The brass band, drawn up before the town-hall, burst into a
deafening prelude, and the first rocket whizzed into the air sending
forth a shower of sparks. The crowd rushed _en masse_ toward the door
of the coach, to offer their hands, their arms, anything, and a stout
lady and a priest, with a cotton checked handkerchief tied around his
temples, alighted from it. Agonde, more amused than angry, made signs
to the musicians and the rocket-throwers to desist from their task.

"He is not coming yet! he is not coming yet!" he shouted. In
effect, there were no other passengers in the omnibus. The overseer
hastened to explain:

"They are just behind, not two steps off, as one might say. In
Count de Vilar's carriage, in the barouche. On the Señora's account.
The luggage is here. And they paid for the seats as if they had
occupied them."

It was not long before the measured trot of Count de Vilar's pair
of horses was heard and the open carriage, of an old-fashioned style,
rolled majestically into the plaza. Reclining on the back seat was a
man enveloped, notwithstanding the heat, in a cloth cloak; at his
side sat a lady in a gray linen duster, the fanciful brim of her
traveling-hat standing out sharply against the pure blue of the sky.
In the front seat sat a little girl of some ten years and a
_mademoiselle_, a sort of transpyrenean nursery governess. Segundo,
who had kept in the background at the arrival of the diligence, this
time was less stubborn and the hand which, covered with a long Suède
glove, was stretched out in quest of a support, met with the
energetic and nervous pressure of another hand. The Minister's lady
looked with surprise at the gallant, gave him a reserved salutation
and, taking the arm Agonde offered her, walked quickly into the
apothecary's.

The statesman was slower in alighting. His adherents looked at
him with surprise. He had changed greatly since his last visit to
Vilamorta--then in the midst of the revolution--some eight or ten
years before. His iron-gray hair, whiter on the temples, heightened
the yellow hue of his complexion; the whites of his eyes, too, were
yellow and streaked with little red veins; and his furrowed and
withered countenance bore unmistakable traces of the anxieties of the
struggle for social position, the vicissitudes of the political
bench, and the sedentary labors of the forum. His frame hung loosely
together, being wanting in the erectness which is the sign of
physical vigor. When the handshakings began, however, and the
"Delighted to see you----" "At last----" "After an age----" resounded
around him, the dying gladiator revived, straightened himself up, and
an amiable smile parted his thin lips, lending a pleasing expression
to the now stern mouth. He even opened his arms to Genday, who
squirmed in them like an eel, and he clapped the Alcalde on the back.
García, the lawyer, tried to attract attention to himself, to
distinguish himself among the others, saying in the serious tone of
one who expresses an opinion in a very delicate matter:

"There, upstairs, upstairs now, to rest and to take some
refreshment."

At last the commotion calmed down, the great man entering the
apothecary's, followed by García, Genday, the Alcalde, and Segundo.

They seated themselves in Agonde's little parlor, respectfully
leaving to Don Victoriano the red rep sofa, around which they drew
their chairs in a semi-circle. Shortly afterward the ladies made
their appearance, and, now without her hat, it could be seen that
Señora de Comba was young and beautiful, seeming rather the elder
sister than the mother of the little girl. The latter, with her
luxuriant hair falling down her back and her precocious womanly
seriousness, had the aspect of a sickly plant, while her mother, a
smiling blonde, seemed overflowing with health. They spoke of the
journey, of the fertile borders of the Avieiro, of the weather, of
the road; the conversation was beginning to languish, when Agonde's
sister entered opportunely, preceded by the housekeeper of the
priest, carrying two enormous trays filled with smoking cups of
chocolate, for supper was a meal unknown to the hosts. When the trays
were set on the table and the chocolate handed around, the company
grew more animated. The Vilamortans, finding a congenial subject on
which to exercise their oratorical powers, began to press the
strangers, to eulogize the excellence of the viands, and calling
Señora de la Comba by her baptismal name, and adding an affectionate
diminutive to that of the little girl, they launched forth into
exclamations and questions.

"Is the chocolate to your taste, Nieves?"

"Do you like it thin or thick?"

"Nieves, take that morsel of cake for my sake; you will find it
excellent; only we have the secret of making it."

"Come, Victoriniña, don't be bashful; that fresh butter goes very
well with the hot bread."

"A morsel of toasted sponge-cake. Ah-ha! You don't have cake like
that in Madrid, eh?"

"No," answered the girl, in a clear and affected voice. "In
Madrid we eat crullers and doughnuts with our chocolate."

"It is the fashion here to take sponge-cake with it, not
crullers. Take that one on the top, that brown one. That's nothing, a
bird could eat it."

Don Victoriano joined in the conversation, praising the bread,
saying he could not eat it, as it had been absolutely prohibited to
him, for his malady required that he should abstain from starch and
gluten in every form--indeed, he had bread sent him from France,
bread prepared _ad hoc_ without those elements--and as he spoke, he
turned toward Agonde, who nodded with an air of intelligence, showing
that he understood the Latin phrase. And Don Victoriano regretted
doubly the prohibition now, for there was no bread to be compared to
the Vilamorta bread--which was better of its kind than cake, yes
indeed. The Vilamortans smiled, highly flattered, but García, with an
eloquent shake of the head, said that the bread was deteriorating,
that it was not now what it had formerly been, and that only Pellejo,
the baker of the plaza, made it conscientiously, having the patience
to select the wheat, grain by grain, not letting a single wormeaten
one pass. It was for this reason that his loaves turned out so sweet
and substantial. Then a discussion arose as to whether bread should
be porous or the contrary, and as to whether hot bread was wholesome.

Don Victoriano, reanimated by these homely details, talked of his
childhood, of the slices of bread spread with butter or molasses
which he used to eat between meals, and when he added that his uncle,
the priest, occasionally administered a sound drubbing to him, a
smile once more softened the deep lines of his face. This expansion
of feeling gave a sweeter expression to his countenance, effacing
from it the traces left by years of strife, the scars of the wounds
received in the battle of life, illuminating it with a reflection
from his vanished youth. How he longed to see again a grapevine in
Las Vides from which he had robbed grapes a hundred times when he was
a child.

"And you will rob them again now," exclaimed Clodio Genday gayly.
"We must tell the master of Las Vides to put a guard over the vine of
Jaen."

The jest was received with demonstrations of hilarity, and the
girl laughed with her shrill laugh at the idea of her papa robbing a
grapevine. Segundo only smiled. His eyes were fixed on Don
Victoriano, and he was thinking of what his life had been. He went
over in his mind the history of the great man: At Segundo's age Don
Victoriano, too, was an obscure lawyer, buried in Vilamorta, eager to
break from the shell. He had gone to Madrid, where a celebrated
jurisconsult had taken him as his assistant. The jurisconsult was a
politician, and Victoriano followed in his footsteps. How did he
begin to prosper? This period was shrouded in obscurity. Some said
one thing, some another. Vilamorta found him, when it least expected,
its candidate and representative. Once in Congress Don Victoriano's
importance grew steadily, and when the Revolution of September came
it found him in a sufficiently exalted position to be improvised a
minister. The brief ministry gave him neither time to wear out his
popularity nor to give proof of special gifts, and, with his prestige
almost intact, the Restoration admitted him as a member of a
fusionist cabinet. He had just laid down the portfolio and come to
re-establish his shattered health in his native place, where his
influence was strong and incontestible, thanks to his alliance with
the illustrious house of Mendez de las Vides. Segundo asked himself
if a lot like Don Victoriano's would satisfy his aspirations. Don
Victoriano had wealth--stocks in banks and shares in railways among
whose directors the name of the able jurisconsult figured. Our
versifier raised his eyebrows disdainfully and glanced at the
Minister's wife; that graceful beauty certainly did not love her
lord. She was the daughter of a younger son of the house of Las
Vides--a magistrate; she had probably married her husband, allured by
his position. No; most assuredly the poet did not envy the
politician. Why had this man risen to the eminent position he
occupied? What extraordinary gifts did he possess? A diffuse
parliamentary orator, a passive minister, with some forensic
ability--sum total, a mediocrity.

While these reflections were passing through Segundo's mind,
Señora de Comba amused herself by examining minutely the dress and
the appearance of everyone present. She took in every detail, under
her half-closed lids, of the toilet of Carmen Agonde, who was arrayed
in a tight-fitting deep blue bodice that sent the blood to her
plethoric cheeks. She next lowered her mocking glance to the
patent-leather boots of the pharmacist, and then raised them again to
Clodio Genday's fingers, stained by the cigar, and the purple and
white checked velvet waistcoat of the lawyer García. Finally, her
glance fell on Segundo, in critical examination of his attire. But
another glance, steady and ardent, cast it back like a shield.




                                   V.


Agonde rose early on the following morning, and descended shortly
afterward to his shop, leaving his guests wrapped in their slumbers,
and Carmen charged, the moment they should stir, to pour the
chocolate into their mouths. The apothecary desired to enjoy the
effect produced in the town by Don Victoriano's sojourn in his house.
He was reclining in his leather-covered easy-chair when he saw
Tropiezo riding past on his gray mule, and called out to him:

"Hello! Hello! Where are you bound for so early?"

"For Doas, man. I have not a minute to spare." And saying this
the doctor alighted from his mule, which he tied to an iron ring
fastened in the wall.

"Is the case so urgent?"

"Urgent? That it is. The old woman, the grandmother of Ramon, the
confectioner. It appears she has already received the last
sacrament."

"And it is only now they have sent for you?"

"No; I went to see her yesterday, and I applied two dozen
leeches, that drew their fill of blood from her. She looked like a
dying kid; she was very weak, and as thin as a wafer. Perhaps if I
had given her something that I thought of, instead of applying
leeches----"

"Ah! a trip," interrupted Agonde maliciously.

"Life is a series of trips," responded the doctor, shrugging his
shoulders. "And upstairs?" he added, raising his eyes interrogatively
to the ceiling.

"Snoring like princes."

"And he--how does he look?" asked Don Fermin, lowering his voice
and dwelling on every word.

"He?" repeated Agonde, following his example. "So-so. Oldish. And
very gray."

"But what is the matter with him? Let us hear. For as to being
sick, he is that."

"He has--a new disease--a very strange one, one of the latest
fashion." And Agonde smiled maliciously.

"New?"

Agonde half-closed his eyes, bent toward Tropiezo, and whispered
something in his ear.

Tropiezo burst into a laugh; suddenly he looked very serious, and
tapping his nose repeatedly with his forefinger:

"I know, I know," he said emphatically. "And the waters here, and
some others in France, are the only cure for that disease. If he
drinks a few glasses from the spring, he will be himself again."

Tropiezo emitted his dictamen leaning on the counter, forgetful
of the mule that was stamping impatiently at the door.

"And the Señora--what does she say of her husband's state of
health?" he suddenly asked, with a wink.

"What should she say of it, man? Probably she does not know that
it is serious."

A look of derision lighted up the inexpressive features of the
physician; he glanced at Agonde and smothering another burst of
laughter, began:

"The Señora--"

"Chut!" interrupted the apothecary furiously. The whole Comba
family were making an irruption into the shop through the small door
of the porch. Mother and daughter formed a charming group, both
wearing wide-brimmed hats of coarse straw adorned with enormous bows
of flame-colored bunting. Their écru cotton gowns embroidered with
red braid completed the rustic character of their costumes, reminding
one of a bunch of poppies and straw. The girl's luxuriant dark hair
hung loose over her shoulders, and the fair locks of the mother
curled in a tangled mass under the shade of her broad-brimmed hat.
Nieves did not wear gloves nor was there visible on her face a trace
of powder, or of any other of the cosmetics whose use is imputed
unjustly by the women of the provinces to the Madridlenians; on the
contrary, her rosy ears and neck showed signs of energetic friction
with the towel and cold water. As for Don Victoriano, the ravages
made in his countenance by care and sickness were still more apparent
in the morning light; it was not, as Agonde had said, age that was
visible there; it was virility, but tortured, exhausted, wounded to
death.

"Why! Have you had chocolate already?" asked Agonde, in
confusion.

"No, friend Saturnino, nor shall we take it, with your
permission, until we return. Don't trouble yourself on our account.
Victoriniña has ransacked your pantry--your closets----"

The child half opened a handkerchief which she held by the four
corners, disclosing a provision of bread, cake, and the cheese of the
country.

"At least let me bring you a whole cheese. I will go see if there
is not some fresh bread, just out of the oven----"

Don Victoriano objected--let him not be deprived of the pleasure
of going to breakfast in the poplar-grove near the spring, just as he
had done when a boy. Agonde remarked that those articles of food were
not wholesome for him, to which Tropiezo, scratching the tip of his
ear, responded sceptically:

"Bah! bah! bah! Those are new-fangled notions. What is wholesome
for the body--can't they understand that--is what the body craves. If
the gentleman likes bread--and for your malady, Señor Don Victoriano,
there is nothing like the waters here. I don't know why people go to
give their money to those French when we have better things at home
than any they can give us."

The Minister looked at Tropiezo with keen interest depicted on
his countenance. He called to mind his last visit to Sanchez del
Abrojo and the contraction of the lips with which the learned
practitioner had said to him:

"I would send you to Carlsbad or to Vichy, but those waters are
not always beneficial. At times they hasten the natural course of a
disease. Rest for a time, and diet yourself--we will see how you are
when you return in the autumn." And what a look Sanchez del Abrojo
put on when he said this! An impenetrable, sphinx-like expression.
The positive assertion of Tropiezo awoke tumultuous hopes in Don
Victoriano's breast. This village practitioner must know a great deal
from experience, more perhaps than the pompous doctors of the
capital.

"Come, papa," said the child impatiently, pulling him by the
sleeve.

They took the path toward the grove. Vilamorta, naturally given
to early rising, was more full of activity at this hour than in the
afternoon. The shops were open, the baskets of the fruit-venders were
already filled with fruit. Cansin walked up and down his
establishment with his hands in his pockets, affecting to have
noticed nothing, so as not to be obliged to bid good-morning to
Agonde and acknowledge his triumph. Pellejo, covered with flour, was
haggling with three shopkeepers from Cebre, who wanted to buy some of
his best wheat. Ramon, the confectioner, was dividing chocolate into
squares on a large board placed on the counter and rapidly stamping
them with a hot iron before they should have time to cool.

The morning was cloudless and the sun was already unusually hot.
The party, augmented by García and Genday, walked through orchards
and cornfields until they reached the entrance to the walk. Don
Victoriano uttered an exclamation of joy. It was the same double row
of elms bordering the river, the foaming and joyous Avieiro, that ran
on sparkling in gentle cascades, washing with a pleasant murmur the
rocks, worn smooth by the action of the current. He recognized the
thick osier plantations; he remembered all his longings of the day
before and leaned, full of emotion, on the parapet of the walk. The
scene was almost deserted; half a dozen melancholy and
bilious-looking individuals, visitors to the springs, were walking
slowly up and down, discussing their ailments in low tones, and
eructating the bicarbonate of the waters. Nieves, leaning back on a
stone bench, gazed at the river. The child touched her on the
shoulder, saying:

"Mamma, the young man we saw yesterday."

On the opposite bank Segundo García was standing on a rock,
absorbed in meditation, his straw hat pushed far back on his head,
his hand resting on his hip, doubtless with the purpose of preserving
his equilibrium in so dangerous a position. Nieves reproved the
little girl, saying:

"Don't be silly, child. You startled me. Salute the gentleman."

"He is not looking this way. Ah! now he is looking. Salute him,
you, mamma. He is taking off his hat, he is going to fall! There! now
he is safe."

Don Victoriano descended the stone steps leading to the spring.
The abode of the naiad was a humble grotto--a shed supported on rough
posts, a small basin overflowing with the water from the spring, some
wretched hovels for the bathers, and a strong and sickening odor of
rotten eggs, caused by the stagnation of the sulphur water, were all
that the fastidious tourist found there. Notwithstanding this, Don
Victoriano's soul was filled with the purest joy. In this naiad he
beheld his youth, his lost youth--the age of illusions, of hopes
blooming as the banks of the Avieiro. How many mornings had he come
to drink from the fountain, for a jest, to wash his face with the
water, which enjoyed throughout the country the reputation of
possessing extraordinary curative virtue for the eyes. Don Victoriano
stretched out his hands, plunged them into the warm current, feeling
it slip through his fingers with delight, and playing with it and
caressing it as one caresses a loved being. But the undulating form
of the naiad escaped from him as youth escapes from us--without the
possibility of detaining it. Then the ex-Minister felt a thirst
awaken in him to drink the waters. Beside him on the edge of the
basin was a glass; and the keeper, a poor old man in his dotage,
presented it to him with an idiotic smile. Don Victoriano drank,
closing his eyes, with indescribable pleasure, enjoying the
mysterious water, charmed by the magic arts of memory. When he had
drained the glass he drew himself up and ascended the stairs with a
firm and elastic step. Victoriniña, who was breakfasting on bread and
cheese in the avenue, was astonished when her father took a piece of
bread from her lap, saying gayly:

"We are all God's creatures."




                                  VI.


Almost as much as by Don Victoriano's arrival was Vilamorta
excited by the arrival of Señor de las Vides, accompanied by his
steward, Primo Genday. This event happened on the afternoon of the
memorable day on which Don Victoriano had infringed the commands of
science by eating half a pound of fresh bread. At three o'clock,
under a blazing sun, Genday the elder and Mendez entered the plaza,
the latter mounted on a powerful mule, the former on an ordinary nag.

Señor de las Vides was a little old man as dry as a vine branch.
His carefully shaven cheeks, his thin lips and aristocratically
pointed nose and chin, his shrewd, kind eyes, surrounded by
innumerable crows' feet, his intellectual profile, his beardless
face, called loudly for the curled wig, the embroidered coat and the
gold snuff-box of the Campomanes and Arandas. With his delicate and
expressive countenance the countenance of Primo Genday contrasted
strongly. The steward's complexion was white and red, he had the fine
and transparent skin, showing the full veins underneath, of those who
are predisposed to hemiplegy. His eyes were of a greenish color, one
of them being attached, as it were, to the lax and drooping lid,
while the other rolled around with mischievous vivacity. His silvery
curls gave him a distant resemblance to Louis Philippe, as he is
represented on the coins which bear his effigy.

By a combination not unusual in small towns Primo Genday and his
brother Clodio served under opposite political banners, both being in
reality of one mind and both pursuing the same end; Clodio ranged
himself on the side of the radicals, Primo was the support of the
Carlist party, and in cases of emergency, in the electoral contests,
they clasped hands over the fence. When the hoofs of Primo Genday's
nag resounded on the paving-stones, the windows of the reactionary
shop were opened and two or three hands were waved in friendly
welcome. Primo paused, and Mendez continued on his way to Agonde's
door, where he dismounted.

He was received in Don Victoriano's arms, and then disappeared
among the shadows of the staircase. The mule remained fastened to the
ring, stamping impatiently, while the onlookers on the plaza
contemplated with respect the nobleman's old-fashioned harness of
embossed leather, ornamented with silver, bright with use. One after
another other mules and horses were brought to join the first comer.
And the crowd assigned them their riders with considerable judgment.
The chestnut nag of the alguazil, a fine animal, with a saddle and a
silk headstall, was no doubt for the Minister. The black donkey with
the side-saddle--who could doubt that it was for the Señora? The
other gentle white donkey they would give to the little girl. The
Alcalde's ass was for the maid. Agonde would ride the mare he always
rode, the Morena, that had more malanders on her head than hairs in
her tail. During this time the radicals, García, Clodio, Genday, and
Ramon, were discussing the respective merits of the animals and the
condition of their trappings and calculating the probabilities of
their being able to reach Las Vides before nightfall. The lawyer
shook his head, saying emphatically and sententiously:

"They are taking their time about it if they expect to do that."

"And they are bringing the alguazil's horse for Don Victoriano!"
exclaimed the tobacconist. "Tricky as the very devil! There will be a
scene. When you rode him, Segundo, did he play you no trick?"

"Me, no. But he is lively."

"You shall see, you shall see."

The travelers were now coming out of the house, and the cavalcade
began to form. The ladies seated themselves in their side-saddles and
the men settled their feet in their stirrups. Then the scene
predicted by the tobacconist took place, to the great scandal and the
further delay of the party. As soon as the alguazil's nag became
aware of the presence of a female of his race he began to snuff the
air excitedly, neighing fiercely. Don Victoriano gathered up the
reins, but, before the animal had felt the iron in his mouth, he
became so unmanageable, first rearing, then kicking violently, and
finally turning his head around to try to bite his rider's legs, that
Don Victoriano, somewhat pale, thought it prudent to dismount.
Agonde, furious, dismounted also.

"What an infernal animal!" he cried. "Here, brutes--who told you
to bring the alguazil's horse? One would suppose you didn't know it
was a wild beast. You--Alcalde, or you, García--quick, go for
Requinto's mule; it is only two steps from here. Señor Don
Victoriano, take my mule. And that tiger, to the stable with him!"

"No," interrupted Segundo, "I will ride him as he is already
saddled. I will go with you as far as the cross."

And Segundo, providing himself with a strong switch, caught the
nag by the mane and at a bound was in the saddle. Instead of leaning
his weight on the stirrup he pressed the animal's sides between his
legs, raining a shower of blows at the same time on his head. The
animal, which was already beginning to curvet and prance again, gave
a snort of pain, and now, quivering and subdued, obeyed his rider's
touch. The cavalcade put itself in motion as soon as Requinto's mule
was brought, after handshakings, waving of hats, and even a timid
_viva_, from what quarter no one knew. The cortége proceeded along
the highway, the mare and the mules heading the procession, the
donkeys following behind, and at their side the nag, kept in order by
dint of switching. The sun was sinking in the west, turning the dust
of the road into gold; the chestnut trees cast lengthened shadows on
the ground, and from the osier-brake came a pleasant breeze laden
with moisture from the river.

Segundo rode along in silence; Victoriniña, delighted to be
riding on a donkey, smiled, making fruitless efforts to hide with her
frock her sharp knee-bones, which the shape of the saddle compelled
her to raise and uncover. Nieves, leaning back in her saddle, opened
her rose-lined écru lace parasol, and, as they started, drew from her
bosom a diminutive watch, which she consulted for the hour. A few
moments of embarrassed silence followed. At last Segundo felt that it
was necessary to say something:

"How are you doing, Victoriniña?" he said to the child. "Are you
comfortable?"

"Yes, quite comfortable."

"I warrant you would rather ride on my horse. If you are not
afraid I will take you before me."

The girl, whose embarrassment had now reached its height, lowered
her eyes without answering; her mother, smiling graciously, however,
now joined in the conversation.

"And tell me, García, why don't you address the child as _thou_?
You treat her with so much ceremony! You will make her fancy she is a
young lady already."

"I should not dare to do so without her permission."

"Come, Victoriniña, tell this gentleman he has your permission."

The child took refuge in that invincible muteness of growing
girls whom an exquisite and precocious sensibility renders painfully
shy. A smile parted her lips, and at the same time her eyes filled
with tears. Mademoiselle said something gently to her in French;
meanwhile Nieves and Segundo, laughing confidentially at the
incident, found the way smoothed for them to begin a conversation.

"When do you think we shall arrive at Las Vides? Is it a pretty
place? Shall we be comfortable there? How will it agree with
Victoriano? What sort of a life shall we lead? Shall we have many
visitors? Is there a garden?"

"Las Vides is a beautiful place," said Segundo. "It has an air of
antiquity--a lordly air, as it were. I like the escutcheon, and a
magnificent grapevine that covers the courtyard, and the camellias
and lemon trees in the orchards, that look like good-sized chestnut
trees, and the view of the river, and, above all, a pine grove that
talks and even sings--don't laugh--that sings; yes, Señora, and
better than most professional singers. Don't you believe it? Well,
you shall see for yourself presently."

Nieves looked with lively curiosity at the young man and then
hastily turned her glance aside, remembering the quick and nervous
hand-pressure of the day before, when she was alighting from the
carriage. For the second time in the space of a few hours this young
man had surprised her. Nieves led an extremely regular life in
Madrid--the life of the middle classes, in which all the incidents
are commonplace. She went to mass and shopped in the morning; in the
afternoon she went to the Retiro, or made visits; in the evening she
went to her parents' house or to the theater with her husband; on
rare occasions to some ball or banquet at the house of the Duke of
Puenteanchas, a client of Don Victoriano's. When the latter received
the portfolio it made little change in Nieves' way of life. She
received a few more salutations than before in the Retiro; the clerks
in the shops were more attentive to her; the Duchess of Puenteanchas
said some flattering things to her, calling her "pet," and here ended
for Nieves the pleasure of the ministry. The trip to Vilamorta, the
picturesque country of which she had so often heard her father speak,
was a novel incident in her monotonous life. Segundo seemed to her a
curious detail of the journey. He looked at her and spoke to her in
so odd a way. Bah, fancies! Between this young man and herself there
was nothing in common. A passing acquaintance, like so many others to
be met here at every step. So the pines sang, did they? A misfortune
for Gayarre! And Nieves smiled graciously, dissembling her strange
thoughts and went on asking questions, to which Segundo responded in
expressive phrases. Night was beginning to fall. Suddenly, the
cavalcade, leaving the highroad, turned into a path that led among
pine groves and woods. At a turn of the path could be seen the
picturesque dark stone cross, whose steps invited to prayer or to
sentimental reverie. Agonde stopped here and took his leave of the
party, and Segundo followed his example.

As the tinkling of the donkeys' bells grew fainter in the
distance Segundo felt an inexplicable sensation of loneliness and
abandonment steal over him, as if he had just parted forever from
persons who were dear to him or who played an important part in his
life. "A pretty fool I am!" said the poet to himself. "What have I to
do with these people or they with me? Nieves has invited me to spend
a few days at Las Vides, _en famille_. When Nieves returns to Madrid
this winter she will speak of me as 'That lawyer's son, that we met
at Vilamorta.' Who am I? What position should I occupy in her house?
An altogether secondary one. That of a boy who is treated with
consideration because his father disposes of votes."

While Segundo was thus caviling, the apothecary overtook him, and
horse and mule pursued their way side by side. In the twilight the
poet could distinguish the placid smile of Agonde, his red cheeks,
looking redder in contrast to the lustrous black mustache, his
expression of sensual amiability and epicurean beatitude. An enviable
lot was the apothecary's. This man was happy in his comfortable and
well-ordered shop, with his circle of friends, his cap and his
embroidered slippers, taking life as one takes a glass of cordial,
sipping it with enjoyment, in peace and harmony, along with the other
guests at the banquet of life. Why should not Segundo be satisfied
with what satisfied Agonde perfectly? Whence came this longing for
something that was not precisely money, nor pleasure, nor fame, nor
love--which partook of all these, which embraced them all and which
perhaps nothing would satisfy?

"Segundo."

"Eh?" he answered, turning his head toward Agonde.

"How silent you are, my boy! What do you think of the Minister?"

"What would you have me think of him?"

"And the Señora? Come, you have noticed her, I warrant. She wears
black silk stockings, like the priests. When she was mounting the
donkey----"

"I am going to take a gallop as far as Vilamorta. Do you care to
join me, Saturnino?"

"Gallop with this mule? I should arrive there with my stomach in
my mouth. Gallop you, if you have a fancy for doing so."

The nag galloped for half a league or so, urged by his rider's
whip. As they drew near the canebrake by the river, Segundo slackened
his horse's gallop to a very slow walk. It was now almost dark and
the cool mists rose, moist and clinging, from the bosom of the
Avieiro. Segundo remembered that it was two or three days since he
had put his foot in Leocadia's house. No doubt the schoolmistress was
now fretting herself to death, weeping and watching for him. This
thought brought sudden balm to Segundo's wounded spirit. How tenderly
Leocadia loved him! With what joy did she welcome him! How deeply his
poetry, his words, moved her! And he--why was it that he did not
share her ardor? Of this exclusive, this absolute, boundless love,
Segundo had never deigned to accept even the half; and of all the
tender terms of endearment invented by the muse he chose for Leocadia
the least poetical, the least romantic; as we separate the gold and
silver in our purse from the baser coin, setting aside for the beggar
the meanest copper, so did Segundo dispense with niggard hand the
treasures of his love. A hundred times had it happened to him, in his
walks through the country, to fill his hat with violets, with
hyacinths and branches of blackberry blossoms, only to throw them all
into the river on reaching the village, in order not to carry them to
Leocadia.




                                  VII.


While she distributed their tasks among the children, saying to
one, "Take care to make this hem straight," to another, "Make this
seam even, the stitch smaller," to a third, "Use your handkerchief
instead of your dress," and to still another, "Sit still, child,
don't move your feet," Leocadia cast a glance from time to time
toward the plaza in the hope of seeing Segundo pass by. But no
Segundo was to be seen. The flies settled themselves to sleep,
buzzing, on the ceiling; the heat abated; the afternoon came, and the
children went away. Leocadia felt a profound sadness take possession
of her and, without waiting to put the house in order, she went to
her room and threw herself on the bed.

The glass door was pushed gently open, and some one entered
softly.

"Mamma," said the intruder, in a low voice.

The schoolmistress did not answer.

"Mamma, mamma," repeated the hunchback, in a louder voice.
"Mamma!" he shouted at last.

"Is that you? What do you want?"

"Are you ill?"

"No, child."

"As you went to bed----'

"I have a slight headache. There, leave me in peace."

Minguitos turned round and walked in silence toward the door. As
her eyes fell on the protuberance of his back, a sharp pang pierced
the heart of the schoolmistress. How many tears that hump had cost
her in other days. She raised herself on her elbow.

"Minguitos!" she called.

"What is it, mamma?"

"Don't go away. How do you feel to-day? Have you any pain?"

"I feel pretty well, mamma. Only my chest hurts me."

"Let me see; come here."

Leocadia sat up in the bed and, taking the child's head between
her hands, looked at him with a mother's hungry look. Minguitos' face
was long and of a melancholy cast; the prominent lower jaw was in
keeping with the twisted and misshapen body that reminded one of a
building shaken out of shape by an earthquake or a tree twisted by a
hurricane. Minguitos' deformity was not congenital. He had always
been sickly, indeed, and it had always been remarked that his head
seemed too heavy for his body, and that his legs seemed too frail to
support him. Leocadia recalled one by one the incidents of his
childhood. At five years old the boy had met with an accident--a fall
down the stairs; from that day he lost all his liveliness; he walked
little and never ran. He contracted a habit of sitting Turkish
fashion, playing marbles for hours at a time. If he rose his legs
soon warned him to sit down again. When he stood, his movements were
vacillating and awkward. When he was quiet he felt no pain, but when
he turned any part of his body, he experienced slight pains in the
spinal column. The trouble increased with time; the boy complained of
a feeling as if an iron band were compressing his chest. Then his
mother, now thoroughly alarmed, consulted a famous physician, the
best in Orense. He prescribed frictions with iodine, large doses of
phosphates of lime, and sea-bathing. Leocadia hastened with the boy
to a little sea-port. After taking two or three baths, the trouble
increased; he could not bend his body; his spinal column was rigid
and it was only when he was in a horizontal position that he felt any
relief from his now severe pains. Sores appeared on his skin, and one
morning when Leocadia begged him with tears to straighten himself,
and tried to lift him up by the arms, he uttered a horrible cry.

"I am broken in two, mamma--I am broken in two," he repeated with
anguish, while his mother, with trembling fingers sought to find what
had caused his cry.

It was true! The backbone had bent outward, forming an angle on a
level with his shoulderblades, the softened vertebræ had sunk and
_cifosis_, the hump, the indelible mark of irremediable calamity, was
to deform henceforth this child who was dearer to her than her life.
The schoolmistress had had a moment of animal and sublime anguish,
the anguish of the wild beast that sees its young mutilated. She had
uttered shriek after shriek, cursing the doctor, cursing herself,
tearing her hair and digging her nails into her flesh. Afterward
tears had come and she had showered kisses, delirious, but soothing
and sweet, on the boy, and her grief took a resigned form. During
nine years Leocadia had had no other thought than to watch over her
little cripple by night and by day, sheltering him in her love,
amusing with ingenious inventions the idle hours of his sedentary
childhood. A thousand incidents of this time recurred to Leocadia's
memory. The boy suffered from obstinate dyspnoea, due to the pressure
of the sunken vertebræ on the respiratory organs, and his mother
would get up in the middle of the night and go in her bare feet to
listen to his breathing and to raise his pillows. As these
recollections came to her mind Leocadia felt her heart melt and
something stir within her like the remains of a great love, the warm
ashes of an immense fire, and she experienced the unconscious
reaction of maternity, the irresistible impulse which makes a mother
see in her grown-up son only the infant she has nursed and protected,
to whom she would have given her blood, if it had been necessary,
instead of milk. And uttering a cry of love, pressing her feverish
lips passionately to the pallid temples of the hunchback, she said,
falling back naturally into the caressing expressions of the dialect:

"_Malpocadiño._ Who loves you? say, who loves you dearly? Who?"

"You don't love me, mamma. You don't love me," the boy returned,
half-smiling, leaning his head with delight on the bosom that had
sheltered his sad childhood. The mother, meantime, wildly kissed his
hair, his neck, his eyes--as if to make up for lost time--lavishing
upon him the honeyed words with which infants are beguiled, words
profaned in hours of passion, which overflowed in the pure channel of
maternal love.

"My treasure--my king--my glory."

At last the hunchback felt a tear fall on his cheek. Delicious
assuagement! At first, the tears were large and round, scorching
almost, but soon they came in a gentle shower and then ceased
altogether, and there remained where they had fallen only a grateful
sense of coolness. Passionate phrases rushed simultaneously from the
lips of mother and son.

"Do you love me dearly, dearly, dearly? As much as your whole
life?"

"As much, my life, my treasure."

"Will you always love me?"

"Always, always, my joy."

"Will you do something to please me, mamma? I want to ask
you----"

"What?"

"A favor. Don't turn your face away!"

The hunchback observed that his mother's form suddenly grew stiff
and rigid as a bar of iron. He no longer felt the sweet warmth of her
moist eyelids, and the gentle contact of her wet lashes on his cheek.
In a voice that had a metallic sound Leocadia asked her son:

"And what is the favor you want? Let me hear it."

Minguitos murmured without bitterness, with resignation:

"Nothing, mamma, nothing. I was only in jest."

"But what was the favor you were going to ask me?"

"Nothing, nothing, indeed."

"No, you wanted to ask something," persisted the schoolmistress,
seizing the pretext to give vent to her anger. "Otherwise you are
very deceitful and very sly. You keep everything hidden in your
breast. Those are the lessons Flores teaches you; do you think I
don't notice it?"

Saying this, she pushed the boy away from her, and sprang from
the bed. In the hall outside almost at the same moment was heard a
firm and youthful step. Leocadia trembled, and turning to Minguitos,
stammered:

"Go, go to Flores. Leave me alone. I do not feel well, and you
make me worse,"

Segundo's brow was clouded, and as soon as the joy of seeing him
had subsided Leocadia was seized with the desire to restore him to
good humor. She waited patiently for a fitting opportunity, however,
and when this came, throwing her arms around his neck, she began with
the complaint: Where had he kept himself? Why had he stayed away so
long? The poet unburdened himself of his grievances. It was
intolerable to follow in the train of a great man. And allowing
himself to be carried away by the pleasure of speaking of what
occupied his mind he described Don Victoriano and the radicals, he
satirized Agonde's reception of his guests, his manner of
entertaining them, spoke of the hopes he founded in the protection of
the ex-Minister, giving them as a reason for the necessity of paying
court to Don Victoriano. Leocadia fixed her dog-like look on
Segundo's countenance.

"And the Señora and the girl--what are they like?"

Segundo half-closed his eyes the better to contemplate an
attractive and charming image that presented itself to his mental
vision, and to reflect that in the existence of Nieves he played no
part whatsoever, it being manifest folly for him to think of Señora
de Comba, who did not think of him. This reflection, natural and
simple enough, aroused his anger. There was awakened within him a
keen longing for the unattainable, that insensate and unbridled
desire with which the likeness of a beautiful woman dead for
centuries may inspire some dreamer in a museum.

"But answer me--are those ladies handsome?" the schoolmistress
asked again.

"The mother, yes"--answered Segundo, speaking with the careless
frankness of one who is secure of his auditor. "Her hair is fair, and
her eyes are blue--a light blue that makes one think of the verses of
Becquer." And he began to recite:

    "'Tu pupila es azul, y cuando ries
    Su claridad suave me recuerda----'"

Leocadia listened to him at first with eyes cast down; afterward
with her face turned away from him. When he had finished the poem she
said in an altered voice, with feigned calmness.

"They will invite you to go there."

"Where?"

"To Las Vides, of course. I hear they intend to have a great deal
of company."

"Yes; they have given me a pressing invitation, but I shall not
go. Uncle Clodio insists upon it that I ought to cultivate the
friendship of Don Victoriano so that he may be of use to me in Madrid
and help me to get a position there. But, child, to go and play a
sorry part is not to my liking. This suit is the best I have, and it
is in last year's fashion. If they play tresillo or give tips to the
servants--and it is impossible to make my father understand this--and
I shall not try to do so: God forbid. So that they shall not catch a
sight of me in Las Vides."

When she heard what his intentions were, Leocadia's countenance
cleared up, and rising, radiant with happiness, she ran to the
kitchen. Flores was washing plates and cups and saucers by the light
of a lamp, knocking them angrily together and rubbing savagely.

"The coffee-pot--did you clean it?"

"Presently, presently," responded the old woman. "Anyone would
think that one was made of wood, that one is never to get tired--that
one can do things flying."

"Give it to me, I will clean it. Put more wood on the fire; it is
going out and the beefsteak will be spoiled." And so saying Leocadia
washed the coffee-pot, cleaning the filter with a knitting-needle,
and put some fresh water down to boil in a new saucepan, throwing
more wood on the fire.

"Yes, heap on wood," growled Flores, "as we get it for nothing!"

Leocadia, who was slicing some potatoes for the beefsteak, paid
no attention to her. When she had cut up as many as she judged
necessary, she washed her hands hastily in the jar of the drain, full
of dirty water, on whose surface floated large patches of grease. She
then hurried to the parlor where Segundo was waiting for her, and
soon afterward Flores brought in the supper, which they ate, seated
at a small side-table. By the time they had got to the coffee Segundo
began to be more communicative. This coffee was what Leocadia most
prided herself on. She had bought a set of English china, an
imitation lacquer-box, a _vermeil_ sugar-tongs and two small silver
spoons, and she always placed on the table with the coffee a
liquor-stand, supplied with cumin, rum, and anisette. At the third
glass, of cumin, seeing the poet amiable and propitious, Leocadia put
her arm around his neck. He drew back brusquely, noticing with strong
repulsion the odor of cooking and of parsley with which the garments
of the schoolmistress were impregnated.

At this moment precisely Minguitos, after letting his shoes drop
on the floor, was drawing the coverlet around him with a sigh.
Flores, seated on a low chair, began to recite the rosary. The sick
child required, to put him to sleep, the monotonous murmur of the
husky voice which had lulled him to rest, ever since his mother had
ceased to keep him company at bedtime. The Ave Marias and Gloria
Patris, mumbled rather than pronounced, little by little dulled
thought and, by the time the litany was reached, sleep had stolen
over him, and, half-unconscious, it was with difficulty he made the
responses to the barbarous phrases of the old woman: "Juana celi--Ora
pro nobis--Sal-es-enfermorun--nobis--Refajos
pecadorum--bis--Consolate flitorum--sss----"

The only response was the labored, restless, uneven breathing
that came through the sleeping boy's half-closed lips. Flores softly
put out the tallow candle, took off her shoes, in order to make no
noise, and stole out gently, feeling her way along the dining-room
wall. From the moment in which Minguitos fell asleep there was no
more rattling of dishes in the kitchen.




                                 VIII.


It was late before the Swan blew out the tallow candle which Aunt
Gáspara placed every day, always with much grumbling, in his brass
candlestick. Seated at the little table littered with books, he had
before him a sheet of paper half covered with lines of unequal
length, variegated with blots and corrections, little heaps of sand,
and here and there a flourish. Segundo would not have slept all night
if he had not first written down the poem which, from the moment he
had left the cross, had been running through his brain. Only that,
before taking up the pen, he seemed to have the poem already composed
in his head, so that all he had to do was to turn the spigot and it
would flow out in a stream, and when he took the pen in his hand the
verses, instead of rushing forth, hid themselves or vanished. A few
strophes fell on the paper, rounded, fluent, finished, with
harmonious and opportune rhymes, with a certain sweetness and
sonorousness extremely delightful to the author himself, who
scribbled them down hastily before they should take flight. Of
others, however, only the first two lines occurred to him, and,
perhaps, the fourth--this last rounded, effective; but the third line
was wanting and he must hunt for it, fill up the space, graft on the
syllables to eke out the meter. The poet paused and looked up at the
ceiling, biting the ends of his mustache, and then the idle pen
traced, obeying the mechanical impulse of the hand, a cocked hat, a
comet, or some other equally irrelevant design. Sometimes after
rejecting seven or eight rhymes he would content himself with the
ninth, which was neither better nor worse than the others. When a
superfluous syllable would cause a line to halt, he must look for
another adverb, another adjective. And the accents! If the poet could
only enjoy the privilege, of saying, eternél, for instance, instead
of etérnel, it would be so easy to write verses!

Confounded technical difficulties! The divine fire of inspiration
glowed and burned in Segundo's mind, but as soon as he tried to
transfer it to the paper, to give expression to what he felt--to
condense, in words, a world of dreams, a psychic nebula--his mind
became a blank. To unite the form with the idea, to imprison feeling
in the golden links of rhyme! Ah, what a light and flowery chain in
appearance, and how hard to weave in reality! How deceptive the
natural grace, the facile harmony of the master! How easy it seems to
express simple, familiar images, to utter the chimeras of the
imagination and the heart in easy and flowing meter, and yet how
impossible it is, for him who is not called Becquer, to give his
verse those palpitating, diaphanous, azure wings on which the
Becquerian butterfly soars!

While the Swan continues his task of effacing and correcting,
Leocadia is in her bedroom, preparing to retire. On other nights she
went to her room with a smile on her lips, her face glowing, her eyes
humid and half-closed, with deep circles under them, her hair in
disorder. And on those nights she was in no hurry to retire; she
would busy herself arranging the articles on her bureau, she would
even look at herself in the glass of her cheap toilet table. To-night
her lips were dry, her cheeks pale, she went at once to bed, loosened
her clothing, and let it fall on the floor, put out the light and
buried her face in the cool, thick cotton sheets. She did not wish to
think, all she wished was to forget and to sleep. She tried to lie
still. A thousand needles seemed to pierce her flesh; she turned
around, in search of a cool spot, then turned again in search of
another, and presently she threw off the sheets. She felt a horrible
restlessness, a savor of bitterness in her mouth. In the silence of
the night she could hear the tumultuous beating of her heart; if she
lay on her left side its noise almost deafened her. She tried to fix
her thoughts on indifferent subjects, and repeated to herself with
monotonous and persistent regularity--"To-morrow is Sunday, the
children will not come." In vain; her brain boiled, her blood burned
as before. Leocadia was jealous.

Measureless, nameless torture! Hitherto the poor schoolmistress
had not known the accompaniment of love, jealousy, whose barbed sting
pierces the soul, whose consuming fire dries up the blood, whose
chill freezes the heart, whose restless anguish makes the nerves
quiver. Segundo scarcely noticed the young girls of Vilamorta; as for
the peasant girls, they did not exist for him, he did not even regard
them as women; so that Leocadia had attributed the poet's hours of
coldness to the bad offices of the muses. But now! She recalled the
poem, "A los ojos azules," and his manner of reciting it. Those
honeyed verses were to her gall and wormwood. Tears sprang to her
eyes, and she broke into convulsive sobs which shook her frame and
made the bedstead creak and the cornhusks of the mattress rustle.
Still her overwrought brain did not suspend its activity. There was
not a doubt but that Segundo was in love with Señora de Comba; but
she was a married woman. Bah! in Madrid and in novels all the married
women have lovers. And then, who could resist Segundo, a poet who was
the rival of Becquer, who was young, handsome, ardent, when he wished
to be so?

What could Leocadia do to avert this great calamity? Was it not
better to resign herself to it? Ah, resignation, that is easily said!
Why had God denied her the power to express her feelings? Why had she
not knelt before Segundo, begging him for a little love, describing
to him and communicating to him the flame that consumed the marrow of
her bones? Why had she remained mute when she had so many things to
say? Segundo would not go to Las Vides; so much the better. He had no
money; better still. He would accept no position, he would not leave
Vilamorta, better and better. But what did it matter if after all
Segundo did not love her; if he had turned away from her with a
gesture which she could still see in the darkness, or rather in the
lurid light of jealousy.

How warm the night was! How restless she felt! She got out of bed
and threw herself on the floor, thinking to find some relief in the
coolness of the boards. Instead of feeling any alleviation she was
seized with a fit of trembling. A lump seemed to rise in her throat
that prevented her from breathing. She made an effort to stand up but
found that she was not able; she felt a hysterical attack coming on,
but she tried to restrain her cries, her sobs, her contortions, in
order not to awaken Flores. For a time she succeeded; but at last the
nervous crisis conquered; her rigid limbs writhed, she dug her nails
into her throat, she rolled about and beat her temples against the
floor. Then a cold perspiration broke out over her body, and for a
moment she lost consciousness. When she returned to herself she was
calm but exhausted. She rose to her feet, went back to bed, drew the
clothing over her and sank into a sort of stupor, in which there was
neither thought nor feeling. The beneficent sleep of early morning
had wrapped her senses in oblivion.

She woke late, unrested, exhausted, and, as it were, stupefied.
She could scarcely manage to dress herself; it seemed to her as if a
year had passed since the night before, and as for her jealous rage,
her projects of resistance--how could she have thought of such
things? All that mattered to her, all she desired, was that Segundo
should be happy, that he should achieve his high destiny, that he
should be famous. The rest was madness, a convulsion, an attack of
the nerves to which she had given way, overcome by the sense of her
loneliness.

The schoolmistress opened the bureau-drawer in which she kept her
savings and the money for the household expenses. Beside a pile of
stockings was a slim and flabby purse. A short time ago it had
contained a few thousand reals, all she possessed in money. Scarcely
thirty dollars remained, and out of these she must pay Cansin for a
black merino dress, the confectioner for liqueurs, and some friends
at Orense for purchases made on her account. And she would not
receive her little income until November. A brilliant prospect truly!

After a moment of anguish caused by the struggle between her
economical principles and her resolution, Leocadia washed her face,
smoothed her hair, put on her dress and her silk manto and left the
house. Being Sunday, the streets were full of people, and the cracked
bell of the chapel kept up an incessant ringing. The plaza was full
of bustle and animation. Before Doña Eufrasia's door, three or four
mules, whose clerical riders were in the shop, were impatiently
trying to protect themselves from the persistent attacks of the flies
and hornets, shaking their heads, stamping their hoofs, and switching
their flanks with their rough tails. And the fruit-venders, too, in
the intervals between selling their wares and chatting and laughing
with one another, were watchful to chase away the troublesome insects
that settled on the cherries and tomatoes wherever the skin was
broken, leaving uncovered the sweet pulp or the red flesh. But the
grand conclave of the flies was held in the confectionery of Ramon.
It was nauseating to see the insects buzzing blindly in the hot
atmosphere, entangling their legs in the caramels, and then making
desperate efforts to free themselves from their sweet captivity. A
swarm of flies were buzzing around a méringue pie which adorned the
center of the shelf, and Ramon having grown tired of defending it
against their attacks, the invading army rifled it at their pleasure;
around the plate lay the bodies of the flies which had perished in
the attack; some dry and shriveled, others swollen and with white and
livid abdomens.

Leocadia entered the back shop. Ramon was there, with his
shirt-sleeves rolled up, exposing his brawny arms, shaking a saucepan
gently to cool the egg-paste which it contained; then he proceeded to
cut the paste with a hot knife, the sugar fizzing and sending forth a
pleasant odor as it came in contact with the hot metal. The
confectioner passed the back of his hand across his perspiring brow.

What did Leocadia want? Brizar anisette, eh? Well, it was all
sold. "You, Rosa, isn't it true that the anisette is all sold?"

The confectioner's wife was seated in a corner of the kitchen,
feeding a sickly-looking infant. She fixed her gloomy, morbidly
jealous gaze on the schoolmistress and cried in a harsh voice:

"If you come for more anisette, remember the three bottles that
are still unpaid for."

"I will pay them now," answered the schoolmistress, taking a
handful of dollars from her pocket.

"Never mind that now, there is no hurry," stammered the
confectioner, ashamed of his wife's rudeness.

"Take it, Ramon. Why, it was to give it to you that I came."

"If you insist; but the deuce a hurry I was in."

Leocadia hastened away. Not to have remembered the confectioner's
wife! Who would ask anything from Ramon before that jealous tigress,
who, small as she was, and sickly as she looked, ruled her burly
husband with a rod of iron. Perhaps Cansin----

The clothier was displaying his goods to a group of countrywomen,
one of whom persisted in declaring the bunting she was looking at to
be cotton, rubbing it between her fingers to prove herself in the
right. Cansin, on his side, was rubbing the cloth with exactly
opposite views.

"How should it be cotton, woman, how should it be cotton?" he
cried in his shrill voice, putting the cloth close to the buyer's
face. Cansin appeared so angry that Leocadia did not venture to
address him; she passed on, quickening her steps. She thought of her
other suitor, the tavern-keeper. But she suddenly remembered, with a
feeling of repulsion, his thick lips, his cheeks that seemed to drip
blood. Turning over in her mind every possible means by which she
might obtain the money she needed, a thought occurred to her. She
rejected it, she weighed it, she accepted it. Quickening her pace,
she walked toward the abode of the lawyer García.

At her first knock Aunt Gáspara opened the door. What a meaning
contraction of the brow and lips, what a sour face greeted her!
Leocadia, abashed and covered with confusion, stood still on the
threshold. The old woman, like a vigilant watch-dog, barred the
entrance, ready to bark or bite at the first sign of danger.

"What did you want?" she growled.

"To speak to Don Justo. May I?" said the schoolmistress humbly.

"I don't know. I'll see."

And the dragon without further ceremony shut the door in
Leocadia's face. Leocadia waited. At the end of ten minutes a harsh
voice called to her:

"Come on!"

The heart of the schoolmistress bounded within her. To go through
the house in which Segundo was born! It was dark and shabby, cold and
bare, like the abode of a miser, in which the furniture is made to do
service until it falls to pieces with old age. Crossing a hall,
Leocadia saw through a half-open door some garments belonging to
Segundo hanging on a peg, and recognized them with a secret thrill.
At the end of the hall was the lawyer's office, an ill-kept, untidy
room, full of papers and dusty and uninteresting-looking books. Aunt
Gáspara withdrew, and Leocadia remained standing before the lawyer,
who, without inviting her to be seated, said to her with a suspicious
and hostile air, and in the severe tones of a judge:

"And what can I do for you, Señora Doña Leocadia?"

A formula accompanied inwardly by the observation:

"I wager that the scheming schoolmistress has come to tell me
that she is going to marry that crazy boy and that I shall have to
support them both."

Leocadia fixed her dejected gaze on García's face, trying to
discover in his dry and withered features some resemblance to the
features of a beloved countenance. His face, indeed, resembled
Segundo's in all but the expression, which was very different; that
of the father's being as cautious and suspicious as the son's was
dreamy and abstracted.

"Señor Don Justo----" stammered the schoolmistress. "I am sorry
to trouble you. I hope you will not take this visit amiss--they told
me that you----Señor--I need a loan----"

"Money!" roared the lawyer, clenching his fists. "You ask me for
money!"

"Yes, Señor, on some property----"

"Ah!" (sudden transition in the lawyer, who became all softness
and amiability). "But how stupid I am! Come in, come in and sit down,
Doña Leocadia. I hope you are quite well. Why, anyone might find
himself in a difficulty. And what property is it? Talking together
people come to an understanding, Señora. Perhaps the vineyard of La
Junqueira, or the other little one, El Adro? Of late years they have
yielded little----"

The business was discussed and the promissory note was signed.
Aunt Gáspara meanwhile walked uneasily and with ghost-like tread, up
and down the hall outside. When her brother issued from the room and
gave her some orders she crossed herself hastily several times on the
forehead and the breast. She then descended stealthily to the cellar,
and, after some little delay, returned and emptied on the lawyer's
table the contents of her apron, whence rolled four objects covered
with dust and cobwebs, from which proceeded, as they struck the
table, the peculiar sound produced by coin. These objects were an
earthern savings-bank, a stocking, a leathern sack, and a little
muslin bag.

That afternoon Leocadia said to Segundo:

"Do you know what, sweetheart? It is a pity that for the sake of
a new suit or some such trifle you should lose the chance of
establishing yourself and obtaining what you wish. See, I have a
little money here that I have no particular use for. Do you want it,
eh? I will give it to you now and you can return it to me by and by."

Segundo drew himself up and, with a genuine outburst of offended
dignity, exclaimed:

"Never propose anything like that to me again. I accept your
attentions at times so as not to see you breaking your heart at my
refusal, but that you should clothe me and support me--no, that is
too much."

Half an hour later the schoolmistress renewed her entreaties
affectionately, availing herself of the opportunity, seeing the Swan
somewhat pensive. Between him and her there ought to be no _mine_ or
_thine_. Why should he hesitate to accept what it afforded her so
great a pleasure to give? Did her future by chance depend upon those
few paltry dollars? With them he could present himself decently at
Las Vides, publish his verses, go to Madrid. It would make her so
happy to see him triumph, eclipse Campoamor, Nuñez de Arce, and all
the rest! And what was there to prevent Segundo from returning her
the money, and with interest, too? Talking thus, Leocadia filled a
handkerchief tied at the four corners with ounces and _doblillos_ and
_centenes_ and handed it to the poet, saying in a voice rendered
husky by her emotion:

"Will you slight me?"

Segundiño took the unbeautiful, ungraceful head of the
schoolmistress between his hands, and looking fixedly in the eyes
that looked at him humid with happiness he said:

"Leocadia, I know that you are the one human being in this world
who loves me truly."

"Segundiño, my life," she stammered, beside herself with
happiness, "it isn't worth mentioning. Just as I give you that--as I
hope for salvation--I would give you the blood from my veins!"

And what would Aunt Gáspara have said had she known that several
of the ounces from the stocking, the savings-bank, the sack, and the
bag would return immediately, loyal and well-trained, to sleep, if
not under the rafters of the cellar, at least under the roof of Don
Justo?




                                  IX.


The grapevine of Las Vides which has such pleasant recollections
for Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba, bears those large, substantial
grapes of the light red and pale green hues which predominate in
Flemish vineyards, which are known in the neighborhood by the name of
_náparo_ or _Jaen_ grapes. Its clusters hang in long corymbs of a
gracefully irregular shape, half hiding themselves among the thick
foliage. The vine casts a cool shade, and the murmur of a slender
stream of water that falls into a rough stone basin in which
vegetables lie soaking, adds to the air of peacefulness of the scene.

The massive building looks almost like a fortress; the main
building is flanked by two square towers, low-roofed and pierced by
deep-set windows; in the middle of the central building, above a long
iron balcony, stands out the large escutcheon with the armorial
bearings of the Mendez--five vine-leaves and a wolf's head dripping
blood. This balcony commands a view of the mountain slope and of the
river that winds below; at the side of one of the towers is a wooden
gallery, open to the sun, which projects over the garden, and where,
thanks to the southern exposure, fine carnations grow luxuriantly in
old pots filled with mold, and wooden boxes overflow with sweet
basil, Santa Teresa's feathers, cactus, asclepias, and mallows--a
sun-loving, rich, Arabian flora of intoxicating sweetness. The
interior of the house is merely a series of whitewashed rooms with
the rafters exposed and almost without furniture, excepting the
central room, called the balcony-room, which is furnished with chairs
with straw seats and wooden, lyre-shaped backs, of the style of the
Empire. A mirror from which the quicksilver has almost disappeared,
with a broad ebony frame ornamented with allegorical figures of
gilded brass representing Phoebus driving his chariot, hangs above
the sofa. The pride of Las Vides is not the rooms, but the cellar,
the immense wine-vault, dark, and echoing, and cool as the aisle of a
cathedral, with its large vats ranged in a line on either side. This
apartment, unrivaled in the Border, is the one which Señor de las
Vides shows with most pride--this and his bedroom, which has the
peculiarity of being impregnable, as it is built in the body of the
wall and can be entered only through a narrow passage which scarcely
affords room for a man to turn around.

Mendez de las Vides resembled in no way the traditional type of
the ignorant lord of the manor who makes a cross for his signature, a
type very common in that inland country. On the contrary, Mendez
prided himself on being learned and cultured. He wrote a good
hand--the small, close handwriting characteristic of obstinate old
age; he read well, settling his spectacles on his nose, holding the
newspaper or the book at a distance, emphasizing the words in a
measured voice. Only his culture was confined to a single epoch--that
of the Encyclopedists, with whom his father became acquainted late in
life, and he himself a century after their time. He read Holbach,
Rousseau, Voltaire, and the fourteen volumes of Feijóo. He bore the
stamp and seal of this epoch even in his person. In religion he was a
deist, never neglecting, however, to go to mass and to eat fish in
Holy Week; in politics he was inclined to uphold the prerogatives of
the crown against the church. Since the arrival of Don Victoriano,
however, some movement had taken place in the stratified ideas of the
hidalgo of Las Vides. He admired English independence, the regard
paid to the right of the individual combined with a respect for
tradition and the civilizing influence of the aristocratic classes--a
series of Saxon importations more or less felicitous but to which Don
Victoriano owed his political success. Uncle and nephew spent hour
after hour discussing these abstruse problems of social science,
while Nieves worked, listening with the hope of hearing the trot of
some horse sound on the stones of the path announcing some visitor,
some distraction in her idle existence.

To make the journey to Las Vides, Segundo borrowed the vicious
nag of the alguazil. From the cross onward the road grew precipitous
and difficult. Smooth, slippery rocks obstructed the way at times, so
that the rider was obliged to hold a tight rein to keep the animal,
whose hoofs slipped continually, drawing sparks from the stone, from
falling headlong down the descent. The ground, parched by the heat,
was rugged and uneven. The houses seemed to cling to the
mountain-side, threatening to lose their hold at every moment and
topple over into the river, and the indispensable pot of carnations,
whose flowers peeped through the rails of the wooden balconies,
reminded one of the flower with which a gypsy carelessly adorns her
hair. Sometimes Segundo's way led through a pine grove, and he
inhaled the balsamic odor of the resin and rode over a carpet of dry
leaves which deadened the sound of his horse's hoofs; suddenly,
between two fences, a narrow path, bordered by blackberry bushes,
foxglove and honeysuckle would open before him, and not unfrequently
he experienced the delightful sense of well-being produced by the
coolness cast by umbrageous foliage during the heat of the day, as he
rode through some verdant tunnel--under some lofty grape arbor
supported on wooden posts, beholding above his head the bunches
already ripening, and listening to the noisy twittering of the
sparrows and the shrill whistle of the blackbird. Lizards ran along
the moss-covered walls. When two or more paths met Segundo would rein
in his horse, to inquire the way to Las Vides of the women who toiled
wearily up the steep path, bending under their load of pine wood, or
the children playing at the doors of the houses.

Far below ran the Avieiro, that, from the height at which Segundo
regarded it, looked like a steel blade flashing and quivering in the
sunshine. Before him was the mountain where, like the steps of a
colossal amphitheater, rose one above another massive walls of
whitish stone, erected for the support of the grapevines, the white
stripes showing against the green background, forming an odd
combination in which stood out here and there the red roof of some
dovecote or some old homestead, the whole surmounted by the darker
green of the pine woods. Segundo at last saw below him the tiles of
Las Vides. He descended a steep slope and found himself before the
portico.

Under the grapevine were Victorina and Nieves. The child was
amusing herself jumping the rope, which she did with extraordinary
agility, the feet close together, without moving from one spot, the
rope turning so rapidly that the graceful form of the jumper seemed
to be enveloped in a sort of mist. Through the interstices in the
foliage of the grapevine came large splashes of sunshine suddenly
flooding the girl's form with light, in which her hair, her arms and
her bare legs gleamed, for she wore only a loose navy blue blouse
without sleeves. When she caught sight of Segundo she gave a little
cry, dropped the rope and disappeared. Nieves, to make amends, rose
from the bench where she had been working, with a smile on her lips
and a slight flush of surprise on her cheeks, and extended her hand
to the newcomer, who made haste to dismount from his horse.

"And Señor Don Victoriano, how is he?" he asked.

"Oh, he is somewhere in the neighborhood; he is very well, and
very much interested in the labors of the country--very contented."
Nieves said these words with the abstracted air with which we speak
of things that possess only a slight interest for us. Segundo
observed that the glance of the Minister's wife rested on his fine
suit, which he had just received from Orense; and the idea that she
might think it pretentious or ridiculous disturbed him so greatly for
a time that he regretted not having worn his ordinary clothes.

"You frightened away Victorina," continued Nieves, smiling.
"Where can the silly child have disappeared to? No doubt she ran away
because she had on only a blouse. You treat her like a woman, and she
is growing unbearable. Come."

Nieves gathered up the skirt of her morning gown of white
cretonne spotted with rosebuds, and made her way intrepidly into the
kitchen, which was on a level with the yard. Following the little
Louis XV. heels covered by the Breton lace of her petticoat, Segundo
passed through several rooms--the kitchen, the dining-room, the
Rosary room, so called because in it Primo Genday said prayers with
the servants, and finally the balcony room. Here Nieves stopped,
saying:

"I will call to them if they chance to be in the vineyard."

And leaning out of the window, she cried:

"Uncle! Victoriano! Uncle!"

Two voices responded.

"What is it? We are coming."

Finding nothing opportune to say, Segundo was silent. Her
conscience at rest, now that she had called the elders, Nieves turned
toward him and said, with the graciousness of a hostess who knows
what are the duties of her position:

"How good this is of you! We had not thought you would care to
come before the vintage. And now that the holidays are
approaching--indeed I supposed we should see you in Vilamorta before
seeing you here, as Victoriano has determined to take a fortnight's
course of the waters."

She leaned against the wall as she spoke, and Segundo tapped the
toe of his boot with his whip. From the garden came the voice of
Mendez:

"Nieves! Nieves! Come down, if it is all the same to you."

"Excuse me, I am going for a parasol."

She soon returned, and Segundo offered her his arm. They
descended into the garden through the gallery, and after the
customary greetings were over Mendez protested against Segundo's
returning that afternoon to Vilamorta.

"The idea! A pretty thing that would be! To expose yourself to
the heat twice in the same day!"

And Señor de las Vides, availing himself of an opportunity which
no rural proprietor ever lets slip, took possession of the poet and
gave himself up to the task of showing him over the estate. He
explained to him at the same time his viticultural enterprises. He
had been among the first to employ sulphur fumigation with success,
and he was now using new manures which would perhaps solve the
problem of grape cultivation. He was making experiments with the
common wine of the Border, trying to make with it an imitation of the
rich Bordeaux; to impart to it, with powdered lily-root, the bouquet,
the fragrance, of the French wines. But he had to contend against the
spirit of routine, fanaticism, as he said, confidentially lowering
his voice and laying his hand on Segundo's shoulder. The other
vine-growers accused him of disregarding the wholesome traditions of
the country, of adulterating and making up wine. As if they
themselves did not make it up. Only that they did so, using common
drugs for the purpose--logwood and nightshade. He contented himself
with employing rational methods, scientific discoveries, the
improvements of modern chemistry, condemning the absurd custom of
using pitch in the skins, for although the people of the Border
approved of the taste of pitch in the wine, saying that the pitch
excited thirst, the exporters disliked, and with reason, the
stickiness imparted by it. In short, if Segundo would like to see the
wine vaults and the presses----

There was no help for it. Nieves remained at the door, fearing to
soil her dress. When they came out they proceeded to inspect the
garden in detail. The garden, too, was a series of walls built one
above another, like the steps of a stairs, sustaining narrow belts of
earth, and this arrangement of the ground gave the vegetation an
exuberance that was almost tropical. Camellias, peach trees, and
lemon trees grew in wild luxuriance, laden at once with leaves,
fruits, and blossoms. Bees and butterflies circled and hummed around
them, sipping their sweets, wild with the joy of mere existence and
drunken with the sunshine. They ascended by steep steps from wall to
wall. Segundo gave his arm to Nieves and at the last step they paused
to look at the river flowing below.

"Look there," said Segundo, pointing to a distant hill on his
left. "There is the pine grove. I wager you have forgotten."

"I have not forgotten," responded Nieves, winking her blue eyes
dazzled by the sun; "the pine grove that sings. You see that I have
not forgotten. And tell me, do you know if it will sing to-day? For I
should greatly like to hear it sing this afternoon."

"If a breeze rises. With the air as still as it is now, the pines
will be almost motionless and almost silent. And I say _almost_, for
they are never quite silent. The friction of their tops is sufficient
to cause a peculiar vibration, to produce a murmur----"

"And does that happen," asked Nieves jestingly, "only with the
pines here or is it the same with all pines?"

"I cannot say," answered Segundo, looking at her fixedly.
"Perhaps the only pine grove that will ever sing for me will be that
of Las Vides."

Nieves lowered her eyes, and then glanced round, as if in search
of Don Victoriano and Mendez, who were on one of the steps above
them. Segundo observed the movement and with rude imperiousness said
to Nieves:

"Let us join them."

They rejoined their companions and did not again separate from
them until they entered the dining-room, where Genday and Tropiezo
were awaiting them. The last to arrive was the child, now modestly
attired in a piqué frock and long stockings.

The table at which they dined was placed, not in the center, but
at one side of the dining-room; it was square and at the sides,
instead of chairs, stood two oaken benches, dark with age, as seats
for the guests. The head and foot of the table were left free for the
service. Sober by nature, Segundo noticed with surprise the
extraordinary quantity of food consumed by Don Victoriano, observing
at the same time that his face was thinner than before. Now and then
the statesman paused remorsefully, saying:

"I am eating ravenously."

The Amphitryon protested, and Tropiezo and Genday expounded in
turn liberal and consoling doctrines. "Nature is very wise," said
Señor de las Vides, who had not forgotten Rousseau, "and he who obeys
her cannot go astray." Primo Genday, fond of eating, like all
plethoric people, added with a certain theological unction: "In order
that the soul may be disposed to serve God the reasonable
requirements of the body must first be attended to." Tropiezo, on his
side, pushed out his lower lip, denying the existence of certain
new-fangled diseases. Since the world began there had been people who
suffered as Don Victoriano was suffering and no one had ever thought
of depriving them of eating and drinking, quite the contrary. For the
very reason that the disease was a wasting one it was necessary to
eat well. Don Victoriano allowed himself to be easily persuaded.
Those dishes of former times, those antiquated, miraculous
cruet-stands in which the oil and the vinegar came from the same tube
without ever mingling, that immense loaf placed on the table as a
center-piece, were for him so many delightful relics of the past,
which reminded him of happy hours, the irresponsible years of
existence. At the dessert, when Primo Genday, still heated with a
political discussion in which he had characterized the liberals as
uncircumcised, suddenly grew very serious and proceeded to recite the
Lord's Prayer, the Minister, a confirmed rationalist, was surprised
at the devoutness with which he murmured--"Our daily bread."
_Caramba_, those memories of the days when one was young! Don
Victoriano grew young again in going over those recollections of his
boyish days. He even called to mind ephemeral engagements,
flirtations of a fortnight with young ladies of the Border who, at
the present time, must be withered old maids or respectable mothers
of families. A pretty fool he was! The ex-Minister laid down his
napkin and rose to his feet.

"Do you sleep the siesta?" he asked Segundo.

"No, Señor."

"Nor I either; let us go and smoke a cigar together."




                                   X.


They seated themselves near the window in the pa rlor in a couple
of rocking-chairs brought from Orense. The garden and the vineyard
breathed a lazy tranquillity, a silence so profound that the dull
sound of the ripe peaches breaking from the branch and falling on the
dry ground could be plainly heard. Through the open window came odors
of fruit and honey. In the house unbroken silence reigned.

"Will you have a cigar?"

"Thanks."

The cigars were lighted and Segundo, following Don Victoriano's
example, began to rock himself. The rhythmical movement of the
rocking-chairs, the drowsy quiet of the place, invited to a serious
and confidential conversation.

"And you, what do you do in Vilamorta? You are a lawyer, are you
not. I think I have heard that it is your intention to succeed your
father in his practice--a very intelligent man."

Segundo felt that the occasion was propitious. The smoke of the
cigars, diffusing itself through the atmosphere, softened the light,
disposing him to confidence and dispelling his habitual reserve.

"The thought of beginning now the career my father is just ending
horrifies me," he said, in answer to the ex-Minister's question.
"That sordid struggle to gain a little money, more or less, those
village intrigues, that miserable plotting and planning, that
drawing-up of documents--I was made for none of those things, Señor
Don Victoriano. It is not that I could not practice. I have been a
fair student and my good memory always brought me safely through in
the examinations. But for what does the profession of law serve? For
a foundation, nothing more. It is a passport, a card of admission to
some office."

"Well----" said Don Victoriano, shaking the ashes from his cigar,
"what you say is true, very true. What is learned at the University
is of scarcely any use afterward. As for me, if it had not been for
my apprenticeship with Don Juan Antonio Prado, who taught me to make
a practical use of my legal knowledge and to know how many teeth
there are in a comb, I should not have distinguished myself greatly
by my Compostelan learning. My friend, what makes a man of one, what
really profits one is this terrible apprenticeship, the position in
which a boy finds himself when a pile of papers is set before him,
and a pompous gentleman says to him, 'Study this question to-day and
have ready for me by to-morrow a formulated opinion on it.' There is
the rub! That is what makes you sweat and bite your nails! There
neither laziness nor ignorance will avail you. The thing must be
done, and as it cannot be done by magic----"

"Even in Madrid and on a large scale the practice of the law has
no attractions for me. I have other aspirations."

"Let us hear what they are."

Segundo hesitated, restrained by a feeling of shyness, as if he
had been going to narrate a dream or to descant on the delights of
love. He followed with his eyes for a few moments the blue smoke
curling upward and finally, the semi-obscurity of the room, secluded
as a confessional, dissipated his reserve.

"I wish to follow the profession of literature," he returned.

The statesman stopped rocking himself and took his cigar from his
mouth.

"But my boy, literature is not a profession!" he said. "There is
no such thing as the profession of literature! Let us understand each
other--have you ever been out of Vilamorta? I mean beyond Santiago
and the neighboring towns?"

"No, Señor."

"Then I can understand those illusions and those childish
notions. They still believe here that a writer or a poet, from the
mere fact of his being such, may aspire to--and what do you write?"

"Poetry."

"You don't write prose at all?"

"An occasional essay or newspaper article. Very little."

"Bravo! Well, if you trust to poetry to make your way in the
world--I have remarked something curious in this place and I am going
to tell you what it is. Verses are still read here with interest, and
it seems the girls learn them by heart. But in the capital I assure
you there is scarcely anyone who cares for poetry. You are twenty or
thirty years behind the age here--at the height of the romantic
period."

Segundo, annoyed, said with some vehemence:

"And Campoamor? And Nuñez de Arce? And Grilo? Are they not famous
poets? Are they not popular?"

"Campoamor? They read him because he is very witty, and he sets
the girls thinking and he makes the men laugh. He has his merit, and
he amuses while he philosophizes. But remember that neither he nor
Nuñez de Arce lives by writing verses. Much prosperity that would
bring them! As to Grilo--well, he has his admirers among ladies of
rank, and the Queen Mother publishes his poems, and as far as we can
judge he has plenty of money. But convince yourself that no one will
ever grow rich by following the road that leads to Parnassus. And
this is when masters are in question, for of poets of a secondary
rank, young men who string rhymes together with more or less
facility, there are probably now in Madrid some two or three hundred.
Have you ever heard of any of them? No; nor I either. A few friends
praise them when they publish anything in some insignificant review.
But there is no need to go on. In plain words, it is time lost."

Segundo silently vented his anger on his cigar.

"Don't take what I say as an offense," continued Don Victoriano.
"I know little about literature, although in my youthful days I wrote
_quintillas_, like everybody else. Besides, I have seen nothing of
what you have written, so that my opinion is impartial and my advice
sincere."

"My ambition," began Segundo at last, "is not confined
exclusively to lyric poetry. Perhaps later I might prefer the
drama--or prose. Who knows? I only want to try my fortune."

Don Victoriano rose and stepped out into the balcony. Suddenly he
returned, placed both hands on Segundo's shoulders, and putting his
clean-shaven face close to the face of the poet, said with a pity
which was not feigned:

"Poor boy! How many, many disappointments are in store for you!"

And as Segundo, astonished at this sudden effusion, remained
silent, he continued:

"Novice as you are, you have no means of knowing what you are
doing. I am sorry for you. You are deluding yourself. In the present
state of society, in order to attain eminence in anything, you must
sweat blood like Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. If it is lyric
poetry that is in question, God help you! If you write comedies or
farces, you have an enviable fate before you--to flatter the actors,
to have your manuscript lie neglected in the corner of a drawer, to
have half an act cut out at a stroke; and then the dread of the first
night, and of what comes after it--which may be the worst of all. If
you become a journalist, you will not have ten minutes in the day to
yourself, you will make the reputation of others, and you will never
see even so much as the shadow of your own. If you write books--but
who reads in Spain? And if you throw yourself into politics--ah, then
indeed!"

Segundo, his eyes cast down, his gaze wandering over the pine
knots in the boarded floor, listened without opening his lips to
those convincing accents that seemed to tear away one by one the
rose-leaves of his illusions, with the same strident sound with which
the nail of the speaker flicked away the ash of his cigar. At last he
raised his contracted face and looking at the statesman said, not
without a touch of sarcasm in his voice:

"As for politics, Señor Don Victoriano, it seems to me that you
ought not to speak ill of that. It has treated you well; you have no
cause of complaint against it. For you politics has not been a
stepmother."

Don Victoriano's countenance changed, showing plainly the ravages
disease had made in his organism; and rising to his feet a second
time, he threw away his cigar and, walking up and down the room with
hasty steps, he burst forth passionately, in words that rushed from
his lips in a sudden flood, in an impetuous and unequal stream, like
the stream of blood gushing from a severed artery:

"Don't touch that point. Be silent about that, boy. How do you,
how does anybody know what those things are until he has thrown
himself headlong into them and is caught fast and cannot escape! If I
were to tell you--but it is impossible to tell one's whole life, day
by day, to describe a battle which has lasted for years, without rest
or respite. To struggle in order to make one's self known, to go on
struggling to keep one's self from being forgotten, to pass from law
to politics, from a wheel set with knives to a bed of live coals, to
fight in Congress without faith, without conviction, because one must
fight to keep the place one has won; and with all this not to have a
free hour, not a tranquil moment, not have time for anything. One
achieves fortune when one no longer has the inclination to enjoy it;
one marries and has a family and--one has hardly liberty to accompany
one's wife to the theater. Don't talk to me. A hell, a hell upon
earth is what politics is. Would you believe" (and here he uttered a
round oath) "that when my little girl was beginning to walk, I
proposed to myself one day to have the pleasure of taking her out
walking--a caprice, a whim. Well, I was going downstairs with the
child in my arms, very contented, when lo, I found myself face to
face with the Marquis of Cameros, a candidate for representative from
Galicia, who had come to ask me for fifteen or twenty
letters--written in my own hand so that they might prove more
efficacious. And I was such a fool, man, I was such a fool, that
instead of throwing the Marquis down the stairs, as I ought to have
done, I walked back my two flights, gave the child to her nurse, and
shut myself up in my office to prepare the election. And it was the
same thing always; tell me, then, have I reason or not to abominate
such folly, such humbug? Ah, what pains we are at to make ourselves
miserable!"

There could be no doubt of it; in the voice of the statesman
there was the sound of repressed tears; in his throat smothered
curses and blasphemies struggled for utterance. Segundo, to do
something, threw open the window leading to the balcony. The sun was
low in the heavens; the heat had grown less intense.

"And worst of all--the consequences!" continued Don Victoriano,
pausing in his walk. "You strive and struggle without pausing to
reflect what will be the effect upon your health. You fight, like the
knights of old, with visor down. But as you are not made of iron, but
only of flesh and blood, when you least expect it, you find yourself
sick, sick, wounded, without knowing where. You do not lose blood,
but you lose the sap of life, like a lemon that is squeezed." And the
ex-Minister laughed bitterly. "And you want to stop, to rest, to get
back health at any cost, and you find that it is too late; you have
not a drop of moisture left in your body. Well, keep on until there
is an end to you. Much your labors and your triumphs have profited
you! You have drawn down on yourself a doom from which there is no
escape!"

He spoke with gesticulations, thrusting his hands into his
trousers pockets in an outburst of confidence, expressing himself
with as little reserve as if he had been alone. And in reality he was
talking to himself. His words were a monologue, the spoken utterance
of the gloomy thoughts which Don Victoriano, thanks to heroic
efforts, had hitherto been able to conceal in his own breast. The
strange malady from which he suffered gave rise to horrible
nightmares; he dreamed that he was turning into a loaf of sugar and
that his intellect, his blood, his life, were flowing away from him,
through a deep, deep channel, converted into syrup. In his waking
moments his mind refused to accept, as one refused to accept a
humiliation, so strange a malady. Sanchez del Abrojo must be
mistaken; his was some functional, transitory disorder, an ordinary
ailment, the result of his sedentary life, and Tropiezo's
old-fashioned remedies would perhaps after all prove more efficacious
than those of science. And if they did not? The statesman felt a cold
chill run through him that made his hair stand on end and constricted
his heart. To die when he was scarcely past forty, with his mental
powers unimpaired, with so many things begun, so many accomplished!
And no doubt this consuming thirst, this insatiable voracity, this
debilitating sensation of melting away, of fusion, of dissolving,
were all fatal symptoms.

Suddenly Don Victoriano remembered the presence of Segundo, which
he had almost forgotten. And laying both hands on his shoulders a
second time, and fixing on the poet's eyes, his dry eyes, scorched by
repressed tears, he cried:

"Do you wish to hear the truth, and to receive good advice? Have
you ambitions, aspirations, hopes? Well, I have had disappointments,
and I desire to do you a service by recounting them to you now. Don't
be a fool; stay here all your life; help your father, take up his
practice when he lays it down, and marry that blooming daughter of
Agonde. Never leave this land of fruits, of vines, whose climate is
so delightful. What would I not give now never to have left it! No,
my boy, remain quietly here; end a long life here surrounded by a
numerous progeny. Have you observed how healthy your father is? It is
a pleasure to see him, with his teeth so sound and perfect. I have
not a single tooth that is not decayed; they say that it is one of
the symptoms of my malady. Why, if your mother were living now you
would be having little brothers and sisters."

Segundo smiled.

"But, Señor Don Victoriano," he said, "to act out your ideas
would be to vegetate, not to live."

"And what greater happiness than to vegetate," responded the
statesman, looking out of the window. "Do you think those trees there
are not to be envied?"

The garden, indeed, seen in the light of the setting sun, had a
certain air of voluptuous bliss, as if it were enjoying a happy
dream.

The lustrous leaves of the lemon trees and the camellias, the
gummy trunks of the fruit trees, seemed to drink in with delight the
fresh evening breeze, precursor of the vivifying dews of night. The
golden atmosphere took on in the distance faint lilac tints.
Innumerable noises began to make themselves heard, preludes to songs
of insects, to the concerts of the frogs and toads.

The pensive tranquillity of the scene was broken in upon by the
quick trot of a mule, and Clodio Genday, out of breath, flung himself
out of his saddle, and reeled into the garden. Gesticulating with his
hands, with his head, with his whole body, he called, screamed,
vociferated:

"Oh, I have a nice piece of news for you, a nice piece of news! I
will be there directly, I will be there directly!"

They went to the head of the stairs leading to the garden, to
meet him, and when he rushed upon them, like an arrow shot from a
bow, they saw that he wore neither collar nor cravat, and that his
dress was in the utmost disorder.

"A mere bagatelle, Señor Don Victoriano--that they are playing a
trick upon us; that they have played it already, that unless we take
prompt measures we shall lose the district. You would not believe it,
if I were to tell you of all the plans they have been laying, for a
long time past, at Doña Eufrasia's shop. And we simpletons suspecting
nothing. And all the priests are in the plot; the parish priests of
Lubrego, of Boan, of Naya, and of Cebre. They have set up as a
candidate Señorito de Romero of Orense, who is willing to loosen his
purse-strings. But where is Primo, that good-for-nothing, that
scarecrow, who never found out a word of all this?"

"We will look for him, man. What do you tell me, what do you tell
me? I never thought they would have dared----"

And Don Victoriano, animated and excited, followed Clodio, who
went shouting through the parlor:

"Primo! Primo!"

A little later Segundo saw the two brothers and the ex-Minister
going through the garden disputing and gesticulating violently.
Clodio was making charges against Primo, who tried to defend himself,
while Don Victoriano acted as peacemaker. In his fury Clodio shook
his clenched fist in Primo's face, almost laying violent hands upon
him, while the culprit stammered, crossing himself hastily:

"Mercy, mercy, mercy! Ave Maria!"

The poet watched them as they passed by, remarking the
transformation that had taken place in Don Victoriano. As he turned
away from the window he saw Nieves standing before him.

"And those gentlemen," she said to him graciously, "have they
left you all alone? The pines must at this time be singing. There is
a breeze stirring."

"Undoubtedly they will be singing now," returned the poet. "I
shall hear them as I ride back to Vilamorta."

Nieves' movement of surprise did not pass unnoticed by Segundo,
who, looking her steadily in the face, added coldly and proudly:
"Unless you should command me to remain."

Nieves was silent. She felt that courtesy required that she
should make some effort to detain her guest, while at the same time
to ask him to remain, they two being alone, seemed to her inexpedient
and liable to misconstruction. At last she took a middle course,
saying with a forced smile:

"But why are you in such a hurry? And will you make us another
visit?"

"We shall see each other later in Vilamorta. Good-by, Nieves, I
will not disturb Don Victoriano. Say good-by to him for me and tell
him he may count upon my father's services and upon mine."

Without taking Nieves' outstretched hand or looking at her he
descended into the courtyard. He was settling his feet in the
stirrups when he saw a little figure appear close beside him. It was
Victorina, with her hands full of lumps of sugar, which she offered
the nag. The animal eagerly pushed out its under lip, which moved
with the intelligent undulations of an elephant's trunk.

Segundo interposed:

"Child, he will bite you; he bites."

Then he added gayly:

"Do you want me to lift you up here? You don't? I wager I can
lift you!"

He lifted her up and seated her on the saddle-cloth, before him.
She struggled to free herself and in her struggles her beautiful hair
fell over the face and shoulders of Segundo, who was holding her
tightly around the waist. He observed with some surprise that the
girl's heart was beating tumultuously. Turning very pale Victorina
cried:

"Mamma, mamma!"

At last she succeeded in releasing herself and ran toward Nieves,
who was laughing merrily at the incident. Half-way she stopped,
retraced her steps, threw her arms around the horse's neck and
pressed on his nose a warm kiss.




                                  XI.


Eight or ten days intervened between Segundo's visit to Las Vides
and the return of Don Victoriano and his family to Vilamorta. Don
Victoriano desired to drink the waters and at the same time to take
measures to frustrate the dark machinations of Romero's partisans.
His plan was a simple one--to offer Romero some other district, where
he would not have to spend a penny, and thus removing the only rival
who had any prestige in the country he would avoid the mortification
of a defeat through Vilamorta. It was important to do this before
October, the period at which the electoral contest was to take place.
And while Genday, García, the Alcalde and the other Combistas managed
the negotiation, Don Victoriano, installed in Agonde's house, drank
two or three glasses of the salubrious waters every morning, after
which he read his correspondence, and in the afternoon, when the
sultry heat invited to a siesta, he read or wrote in the cool parlor
of the apothecary.

Segundo frequently accompanied him in these hours of retirement.
They talked together like two friends, and the statesman, far from
insisting on the ideas he had expressed in Las Vides, encouraged the
poet, offering him to endeavor to obtain a position for him in Madrid
which should enable him to carry out his plans.

"A position that will not take up much of your time, nor require
much mental labor--I will see, I will see. I will be on the lookout
for something."

Segundo observed unmistakable signs of improved health in the
wrinkled face of the Minister. Don Victoriano was experiencing the
transitory benefit which mineral waters produce at first, stimulating
the organism only to waste it all the more rapidly, perhaps,
afterward. Both digestion and circulation had become more active, and
perspiration, even, entirely suppressed by the disease, had become
re-established, dilating the pores with grateful warmth and
communicating to the dry fibers the elasticity of healthy flesh. As a
candle flares up brightly before going out, so Don Victoriano seemed
to be recovering strength when in reality he was wasting away.
Fancying health was returning to him, he breathed with delight the
narrow atmosphere of party intrigues, taking pleasure in disputing
his district inch by inch, in winning over adherents and receiving
demonstrations of sympathy, and secretly flattered by the absurd
proposal made by his parishioners to the parish priest of Vilamorta,
that incense should be burned before him. In the evening he amused
himself patriarchally among Agonde's visitors, listening to the
comical stories told of the clique at Doña Eufrasia's shop and
enjoying the ripple of excitement occasioned by the proximity of the
feasts. Little by little the innocent tresillo table of Agonde had
become transformed into something much more wicked. Now, instead of
four persons being seated at it, there was only one, around whom,
their eyes fixed on his hands, the others stood grouped. The banker's
left hand grasped the cards tightly while with the ball of his thumb
he pushed up the last card until first the spot could be descried,
then the number, then the knob of a club, the point of a diamond, the
blue tail of a horse, the turreted crown of a king, and other hands
took up stakes or took money from the pocket and laid it down on the
fateful pieces of cardboard with the words:

"On the seven! On the four! The ace is in sight!"

Through respect for Don Victoriano, Agonde refrained from dealing
the cards when the latter was present, bridling with difficulty the
only passion that could warm his blood and excite his placid nature,
giving up his place to Jacinto Ruedas, a famous strolling gambler,
known everywhere, who followed the scent of the gaming-table as
others follow the scent of a banquet, a rare type, something between
a swindler and a spy, who made low jests in a hoarse voice. The
chroniclers do not state whether the civil authorities, that is to
say, the judge of Vilamorta, made any attempt to interfere with the
unlawful diversion in which the visitors to the pharmacy indulged,
but it is an ascertained fact that, the judge having one leg shorter
than the other, the pounding of his crutch on the sidewalk gave
timely warning of his approach to the players. And as for the
municipal authority, it is known to a certainty that one day, or to
speak with more exactness, one night, he entered the apothecary's
back shop like a bomb, holding in his hand money which he threw on a
card, crying:

"Gentlemen, I am queen!"

"Be an ass, if you like!" responded Agonde, pushing him away with
marked disrespect.

This year Don Victoriano's presence and the open hostilities
waged between his partisans and those of Romero gave a martial
character to the feasts. The Combists desired to render them more
splendid and brilliant than ever before and the Romerists to render
them a failure, as far as it was possible. In the main room of the
townhall the monster balloon, which occupied the whole length of the
apartment, was being repaired; its white sides were being covered
with inscriptions, figures, emblems, and symbols, and around the
floor were scattered tin kettles filled with paste, pots of
vermilion, Sienna, and ochre, balls of packthread and cut paper
figures. From the giant balloon sprung daily broods of smaller
balloons, miniature balloons, made with remnants and fancifully
decorated in pink and blue. At the meetings at Doña Eufrasia's they
spoke contemptuously of these preparations and commented on the
audacity of the inn-keeper's son, a mere dauber, who undertook to
paint Don Victoriano's likeness on one of the divisions of the large
balloon. The Romerist young ladies, compressing their lips and
shrugging their shoulders, declared that they would attend neither
the fire-works nor the ball, not if their adversaries were to offer
novenas with that purpose to every saint in heaven.

On the other hand, the young ladies of the Combist party formed a
sort of court around Nieves. Every afternoon they called for her to
take her out walking; chief among these were Carmen Agonde,
Florentina, the daughter of the Alcalde, Rosa, a niece of Tropiezo,
and Clara, the eldest of García's daughters. This latter was running
about barefooted, spending her time gathering blackberries in her
apron, when she received the astounding news that her father had
ordered a gown for her from Orense, that she might visit the
Minister's lady. And the gown came with its fresh bows and its stiff
linings and the girl, her face and hands washed, her hair combed, her
feet covered with new kid boots, her eyes cast down and her hands
crossed stiffly before her, went to swell Nieves' train. Victorina
took Clara García under her especial protection, arranged her dress
and hair and made her a present of a bracelet, and they became
inseparable companions.

They generally walked on the highroad, but as soon as Clara grew
more intimate with Victorina she protested against this, declaring
that the paths and the by-ways were much more amusing and that much
prettier things were to be met with in them. And she pressed
Victorina's arm saying:

"Segundo knows lovely walks!"

As chance would have it, that same afternoon, returning to the
town, they caught sight of a man stealing along in the shadow of the
houses, and Clara, who was on the other side of the way, ran over to
him, and threw her arm around his waist, crying:

"Hey, Segundo; you can't escape from us now, we have caught you."

The poet gave a brotherly push to Clara, and ceremoniously
saluting Nieves, who returned his salutation with extreme cordiality,
he said to her:

"The idea of this girl--I am sure she has been making herself
troublesome to you. You must excuse her."

They sat down on one of the benches of the Plaza, to enjoy the
fresh air, and when, on the following day the party walked out after
the siesta, Segundo joined them, studiously avoiding Nieves as if
some secret understanding, some mysterious complicity existed between
them. He mingled among the girls and, laying aside his habitual
reserve, he laughed and jested with Victorina, for whom he gathered,
as they walked along the hedges, ripe blackberries, acorns, early
chestnut burrs, and innumerable wild flowers, which the girl put into
a little Russian leather satchel.

Sometimes Segundo led them along precipitous paths cut in the
living rock, bordered by walls, supporting grapevines through which
the expiring rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate. Again he would
take them through bare and arid woods until they reached some old oak
grove, some chestnut tree, inside whose trunk, decayed and split with
age, Segundo would hide himself while the girls hand in hand danced
around it.

One day he took them to the stone bridge that crossed the
Avieiro, under whose arches the black water, cold and motionless,
seems to be dreaming a sinister dream. And he told them how in this
spot, where, owing to the water being deeper there and less exposed
to the sun's rays, the largest trout gathered, a corpse had been
found floating last month near the arch. He took them to hear the
echo also, and all the girls were wild with delight, talking all
together, without waiting for the wall to repeat their cries and
shouts of laughter. On another afternoon he showed them a curious
lake regarding which innumerable fables were told in the
country--that it had no bottom, that it reached to the center of the
earth, that submerged cities could be seen under its surface, that
strange woods floated and unknown flowers grew in its waters. The
so-called lake was in reality a large excavation, probably a Roman
mine that had been flooded with water, which, imprisoned within the
chain of hillocks of argillaceous tophus heaped up around it by the
miners' shovels, presented a sepulchral and fantastic aspect, the
weird effect of the scene being heightened by the somber character of
the marsh vegetation which covered the surface of the immense pool.
When it began to grow dark the children declared that this lugubrious
scene made them horribly afraid; the girls confessed to the same
feeling, and started for the highroad running at the top of their
speed, leaving Segundo and Nieves behind. This was the first time
they had found themselves alone together, for the poet avoided such
occasions. Nieves looked around uneasily and then, meeting Segundo's
eyes fixed, ardent and questioning upon hers, lowered her gaze. Then
the gloom of the landscape and the solemnity of the hour gave her a
contraction of the heart, and without knowing what she was doing she
began to run as the girls had done. She heard Segundo's footsteps
behind her, and when she at last stopped, at a little distance from
the highroad, she saw him smile and could not help smiling herself at
her own folly.

"Heavens! What a silly fright!" she cried, "I have made myself
ridiculous. I am as bad as the children! But that blessed pool is
enough to make one afraid. Tell me, how is it that they have not
taken views of it? It is very curious and picturesque."

They returned by the highroad; it was now quite dark and Nieves,
as if wishing to efface the impression made by her childish terror,
showed herself gay and friendly with Segundo; two or three times her
eyes encountered his and, doubtless through absent-mindedness, she
did not turn them aside. They spoke of the walk of the following day;
it must be along the banks of the river, which was more cheerful than
the pond; the scenery there was beautiful, not gloomy like that of
the pool.

In effect the road they followed on the next day was beautiful,
although it was obstructed by the osier plantations and canebrakes
and the intricate growth of the birches and the young poplars, which
at times impeded their progress. Every now and then Segundo had to
give his hand to Nieves and put aside the flexible young branches
that struck against her face. Notwithstanding all his care, he was
unable to save her from wetting her feet and leaving some fragments
of the lace of her hat among the branches of a poplar. They stopped
at a spot where the river, dividing, formed a sort of islet covered
with cats-tails and gladioli. A rivulet running down the
mountain-side mingled its waters silently and meekly with the waters
of Avieiro. At the river's edge grew plants with dentated leaves and
a variety of ferns and graceful aquatic plants. Segundo knelt down on
the wet ground and began to gather some flowers.

"Take them, Nieves," he said.

She approached and, kneeling on one knee, he handed her a bunch
of flowers of a pale turquoise blue, with slender stems, flowers of
which she had hitherto seen only imitations, as adornments for hats,
and that she had fancied had only a mythical existence; flowers of
romance, that she had thought grew only on the banks of the Rhine,
which is the home of everything romantic; flowers that have so
beautiful a name--_Forget-me-not_.




                                  XII.


Nieves was what is called an exemplary wife, without a dark page
in her history, without a thought of disloyalty to her husband, a
coquette only in her dress and in the adornment of her person, and
even in these practicing no alluring arts, content to obey slavishly
the dictates of fashion.

Her ideal, if she had any, was to lead a comfortable, elegant
existence, enjoying the consideration of the world. She had married
when she was very young, Don Victoriano settling on her some
thousands of dollars, and on the wedding-day her father had called
her into his magisterial office and, keeping her standing before him
as if she were a criminal, had charged her to respect and obey the
husband she had chosen. She obeyed and respected him.

And her obedience and respect were a torture to Don Victoriano,
who sought in marriage a compensation for the long years he had spent
in his law office; years of loneliness during which his arduous
labors and confinement to business had prevented him from forming any
tender tie or cultivating gentle affections, permitting him at the
most some hasty pleasure, some reckless and exciting adventure, which
did not satisfy his heart. He fancied that the beautiful daughter of
the President of the Court would requite him for all the tender joys
he had missed and he found with vain and bitter disappointment that
Nieves saw in him only the grave husband who is accepted with
docility, without repugnance, nothing more. Respecting against his
will the peace of this superficial being, he neither could nor dared
disturb it, and he fretted his soul with unavailing longings,
hastening to the crisis of maturity and multiplying the white patches
that streaked his black hair.

When the child was born Don Victoriano hoped to repay himself
with interest in new and holy caresses, to take solace in a pure
oasis of affection. But the requirements of his position, the hurry
of business, the complex obligations and the implacable cares of his
existence, interposed themselves between him and a father's joys. He
saw his daughter only from a distance, barely succeeding, when the
coffee was brought in, in having her for awhile on his knee. And then
came the first warnings of his disease.

From the time in which his malady declared itself with all its
afflicting symptoms, Nieves had still less of her husband's society
than before; it seemed to her as if she had returned to the rosy days
of her girlhood, when she flitted about like a butterfly and played
at lovers with her companions, who wrote her fictitious love-letters
of an innocent nature, which they put under her pillow.

She never had had much amusement since that time. A great deal of
amusement was to be found in the routine of a methodical Madrid life!
Yes, there was a period during which the Marquis de Cameros, a rich
young client of Don Victoriano's, had come to the house with some
frequency, and he had even been asked to dine with them three or four
times, without ceremony. Nieves remembered that the Marquis had cast
many furtive glances at her, and that they had always met him, by
chance, at whatever theater they went to. It did not go beyond this.

Nieves was now in the bloom of her second youth--between
twenty-nine and thirty--terrible epoch in a woman's life; and if it
brought her no red passion flowers, at least she wished to adorn
herself with the romantic forget-me-nots of the poet. It seemed to
Nieves that in the porcelain vase of her existence a flower had been
wanting, and the fragile blue spray came to complete the beauty of
the drawing-room toy. Bah! What harm was there in all this? It was a
childish adventure. Those flowers, preserved between the leaves of a
costly prayer-book, inspired her only with thoughts as pallid and
sapless as the poor petals now pressed and dry.

She had fastened the blue spray in her bosom. How well it looked
among the folds of the écru lace!

"Tell me, mamma," Victorina had said to her that night before
going to bed, "did Segundo give you those pretty flowers?"

"Oh, I don't remember--yes, I think that García picked them for
me."

"Will you give them to me to keep in my little satchel?"

"Go, child, go to bed quickly. Mademoiselle, see that she says
her prayers!"




                                 XIII.


The proximity of the feasts put an end to long walks. The
promenaders confined themselves to walks on the highroad, returning
soon to the town, where the plaza was crowded with busy people. The
promenaders included the young ladies of the Combist party, gayly
attired, parish priests, ill-shaven, of sickly aspect and dejected
looking, gamblers of doubtful appearance and strangers from the
Border--all types which Agonde criticised with mordacity, to Nieves'
great amusement.

"Do you see those women there? They are the Señoritas de Gondas,
three old maids and a young lady, whom they call their niece, but as
they have no brother----Those other two are the Molendes, from Cebre,
very aristocratic people, God save the mark! The fat one thinks
herself superior to Lucifer, and the other writes poetry, and what
poetry! I tell Segundo García that he ought to propose to her; they
would make an excellent pair. They are staying at Lamajosa's; there
they are in their element, for Doña Mercedes Lamajosa, when any
visitor comes, in order that it may be known that they are noble,
says to her daughters: 'Girls, let one of you bring me my knitting;
it must be in the press, where the letters-patent of nobility are.'
Those two handsome, well-dressed girls are the Caminos, daughters of
the judge."

On the eve of the fair the musicians paraded the streets morning
and afternoon, deafening everybody with the noise of their triumphal
strains. The plaza in front of the townhall was dotted with booths,
which made a gay confusion of brilliant and discordant colors. Before
the townhall were erected some odd-looking objects which with equal
probability might be taken for instruments of torture, children's
toys, or scarecrows, but which were in reality fireworks--trees and
wheels which were to burn that night, with magnificent pomp, favored
by the stillness of the atmosphere. From the window of the building
issued, like a Titanic arm, the pole on which was to be hoisted the
gigantic balloon, and along the balustrade ran a series of colored
glasses, forming the letters V. A. D. L. C.--a delicate compliment to
the representative of the district.

It was already dark when Don Victoriano, accompanied by his wife
and daughter, set out for the townhall to see the fireworks. It was
with difficulty they made their way through the crowd which filled
the plaza, where a thousand discordant noises filled the air--now the
timbrel and castanets in some dance, now the buzz of the _zanfona_,
now some slow and melancholy popular _copla_, now the shout of some
aggressive and quarrelsome drunkard. Agonde gave his arm to Nieves,
made way for her among the crowd, and explained to her the programme
of the night's entertainment.

"Never was there seen a balloon like this year's," he said; "it
is the largest we have ever had here. The Romerists are furious."

"And how has my likeness turned out?" asked Don Victoriano with
interest.

"Oh! It is superb. Better than the likeness in _La
Illustracion_."

At the door of the townhall the difficulties increased, and it
was necessary to trample down without mercy the country-people--who
had installed themselves there, determined not to budge an inch lest
they should lose their places--before they were able to pass in.

"See what asses they are," said Agonde. "It makes no difference
whether you step over them or not, they won't rise. They have no
place to sleep and they intend to pass the night here; to-morrow they
will waken up and return to their villages."

They made their way as best they could over this motley heap in
which men and women were crowded together, intertwined, entangled in
repulsive promiscuity. Even on the steps of the stairs
suspicious-looking groups were lying, or some drunken peasant snored,
surfeited with _pulpo_, or some old woman sat counting her coppers in
her lap. They entered the hall, which was illuminated only by the dim
light shed by the colored glasses. Some young ladies already occupied
the space in front of the windows, but the Alcalde, hat in hand, with
innumerable apologies, made them draw their chairs closer together to
make room for Nieves, Victorina, and Carmen Agonde, around whom an
obsequious circle gathered; chairs were brought for the ladies, and
the Alcalde took Don Victoriano to the Secretary's office, where a
tray, with some bottles of Tostado and some atrocious cigars, awaited
him. The young ladies and the children placed themselves in front,
leaning on the railing of the balcony, running the risk of having
some rocket fall upon them. Nieves remained a little behind, and drew
her silver-woven Algerian shawl closer around her, for in this empty,
gloomy hall the air was chill. At her side was an empty chair, which
was suddenly occupied by a figure whose outlines were dimly
distinguishable in the darkness.

"Why, García," she cried, "it is a cure for sore eyes. We haven't
seen you for two days."

"You don't see me now, either, Nieves," said the poet, leaning
toward her and speaking in a low voice. "It would be rather difficult
to see one here."

"That is true," answered Nieves, confused by this simple remark.
"Why have they not brought lights?"

"Because it would spoil the effect of the fireworks. Don't you
prefer this species of semi-obscurity?" he added, smiling, before he
uttered it, at the choice phrase.

Nieves was silent. Unconsciously she was fascinated by the
situation, in which there was a delicate blending of danger and
security which was not without a tinge of romance; she felt a sense
of security in the proximity of the open window, the young girls
crowded around it, the plaza, where the multitude swarmed like ants,
and whence came noises like the roaring of the sea, and songs and
confused cries full of tender melancholy; but at the same time the
solitude and the darkness of the hall and the species of isolation in
which she found herself with the Swan afforded one of those chance
occasions which tempt women of weak principles, who are neither so
imprudent as to throw themselves headlong into danger, nor so
cautious as to fly from its shadow.

Nieves remained silent, feeling Segundo's breath fanning her
cheek. Suddenly both started. The first rocket was streaking the sky
with a long trail of light, and the noise of the explosion, deadened
though it was by distance, drew a cheer from the crowd in the plaza.
After this advanced guard came, one after another, at regular
intervals, with measured, hollow, deafening sound, eight bombs, the
signal announced in the programme of the feasts for the beginning of
the display. The window shook with the report and Nieves did not
venture to raise her eyes to the sky, fearing, doubtless, to see it
coming down with the reverberation of the bombs. After this the noise
of the flying fireworks, chasing one another through the solitudes of
space, seemed to her soft and pleasant.

The first of these were ordinary rockets, without any novelty
whatever--a trail of light, a dull report, and a shower of sparks.
But soon came the surprises, novelties, and marvels of art. There
were fireworks that exploded, separating into three or four cascades
of light that vanished with fantastic swiftness in the depths of
space; from others fell with mysterious slowness and noiselessness
violet, green, and red lights, as if the angels had overturned in the
skies a casket of amethysts, emeralds, and rubies. The lights
descended slowly, like tears, and before they reached the ground
suddenly went out. The prettiest were the rockets which sent down a
rain of gold, a fantastic shower of sparks, a stream of drops of
light as quickly lighted as extinguished. The delight of the crowd in
the plaza, however, was greatest at the fireworks of three explosions
and a snake. These were not without beauty; they exploded like simple
rockets, sending forth a fiery lizard, a reptile which ran through
the sky in serpentine curves, and then plunged suddenly into
darkness.

The scene was now wrapped in darkness, now flooded with light,
when the plaza would seem to rise to a level with the window, with
its swarm of people, the patches of color of the booths and the
hundreds of human faces turned upward, beaming with delight at this
favorite spectacle of the Galicians, a race which has preserved the
Celtic love and admiration for pyrotechnic displays, for brilliantly
illuminated nights in which they find a compensation for the cloudy
horizon of the day.

Nieves, too, was pleased by the sudden alternations of light and
darkness, a faithful image of the ambiguous condition of her soul.
When the firmament was lighted up she watched with admiration the
bright luminaries that gave a Venetian coloring to these pleasant
moments. When everything was again enveloped in darkness she ventured
to look at the poet, without seeing him, however, for her eyes,
dazzled by the fireworks, were unable to distinguish the outlines of
his face. The poet, on his side, kept his eyes fixed persistently on
Nieves, and he saw her flooded with light, with that rare and
beautiful moonlight glow produced by fireworks, and which adds a
hundredfold to the softness and freshness of the features. He felt a
keen impulse to condense in one ardent phrase all that the time had
now come for saying, and he bent toward her--and at last he
pronounced her name!

"Nieves!"

"Well?"

"Had you ever seen fireworks like these before?"

"No; it is a specialty of this province. I like them greatly. If
I were a poet like you I would say pretty things about them. Come,
invent something, you."

"Like them happiness brightens our existence, for a few brief
moments, Nieves--but while it brightens, while we feel it----"

Segundo inwardly cursed the high-sounding phrase that he found
himself unable to finish. What nonsense he was talking! Would it not
be better to bend down a little lower and touch with his lips----But
what if she should scream? She would not scream, he would venture to
swear. Courage!

In the balcony a great commotion was heard. Carmen Agonde called
to Nieves:

"Nieves, come, come! The first tree--a wheel of fire----"

Nieves rose hastily and went and leaned over the balustrade,
thinking that it would not do to attract attention sitting all the
evening chatting with Segundo. The tree began to burn at one end, not
without difficulty, apparently, spitting forth an occasional red
spark; but suddenly the whole piece took fire--a flaming wheel, an
enormous wafer of red and green light, which turned round and round,
expanding and shaking out its fiery locks and making the air resound
with a noise like the report of fire-arms. It was silent for a few
brief instants and seemed on the point of going out, a cloud of rosy
smoke enveloped it, through which shone a point of light, a golden
sun, which soon began to turn with dizzying rapidity, opening and
spreading out into an aureole of rays. These went out one by one, and
the sun, diminishing in size until it was no larger than a coal,
lazily gave a few languid turns, and, sighing, expired.

As Nieves was returning to her seat she felt a pair of arms
thrown around her neck. They were those of Victorina who, intoxicated
with delight at the spectacle of the fireworks, cried in her thin
voice:

"Mamma, mamma! How lovely! How beautiful! And Carmen says they
are going to set off more trees and a wheel----"

She stopped, seeing Segundo standing beside Nieves' chair. She
hung her head, ashamed of her childish enthusiasm, and, instead of
returning to the window, she remained beside her mother, lavishing
caresses upon her to disguise the shyness and timidity which always
took possession of her when Segundo looked at her. Two other pieces
were burning at two of the corners of the plaza, a pin-wheel and a
vase, that sent forth showers of light, first golden, then blue. The
child, notwithstanding her admiration for the fireworks, did not
appear to have any intention of going to the window to see them,
leaving Nieves and Segundo alone. The latter remained seated for some
ten minutes longer, but seeing that the child did not leave her
mother's side, he rose quickly, seized by a sudden frenzy, and walked
up and down the dimly-lighted hall with hasty steps, conscious that
for the moment he was not sufficiently master of himself to maintain
outward calmness.

By Heaven, he was well employed! Why had he been fool enough to
let slip so favorable an opportunity! Nieves had encouraged him; he
had not dreamed it; no; glances, smiles, slight but significant
indications of liking and good-will; all these there had been, and
they all counseled him to end so ambiguous and doubtful a situation.
Ah! If this woman only loved him! And she should love him, and not in
jest and as a pastime, but madly! Segundo would not be satisfied with
less. His ambitious soul scorned easy and ephemeral triumphs--all or
nothing. If the Madridlenian thought of flirting with him she would
find herself mistaken; he would seize her by her butterfly wings and,
even at the cost of breaking them, he would hold her fast; if one
wished to retain a butterfly in his possession he must pierce it
through the heart or press it to death. Segundo had done this a
thousand times when he was a boy; he would do it now again; he was
resolved upon it; whenever a light or mocking laugh, a reserved
attitude or a tranquil look, showed Segundo that Señora de Comba
maintained her self-possession, his heart swelled with rage that
threatened to suffocate him; and when he saw the child beside her
mother, who was keeping up an animated conversation with the little
girl, as if she were keeping her there as a protection, he determined
that he would not let the night pass without knowing what were her
feelings toward him.

He returned to Nieves, but she had now risen and the child was
drawing her by the hands to the window; this was the solemn and
critical moment; the monster balloon had just been attached to the
pole for the purpose of inflating it; and from the plaza came a loud
buzz, a buzz of eager expectation. A phalanx of Combist artisans,
among whom figured Ramon, the confectioner, were clearing a space
around it sufficiently large to allow of the fuse burning freely, so
that the difficult operation might be accomplished. The silhouettes
of the workmen, illuminated by the light of the fuse, could be seen
moving about, bending down, rising up, dancing a sort of mad dance.
The darkness was no longer illuminated by the glare of the rockets,
and the human sea looked black as a lake of pitch.

Still folded in innumerable folds, its sides clinging together,
the balloon swayed feebly, kissing the ground with its lips of wire,
between which the ill-smelling fuse was beginning to burn brightly.
The manufacturers of the colossal balloon proceeded to unfold it
gently and affectionately, lighting below it other fuses to aid the
principal one and hasten the rarification of air in its paper body.
This began to distend itself, the folds opening out with a gentle,
rustling sound, and the balloon, losing its former limp and lank
appearance, began to be inflated in places. As yet the figures on its
sides appeared of unnatural length, like figures reflected from the
polished, convex surface of a coffee urn; but already several borders
and mottoes began to make their appearance here and there, acquiring
their natural proportions and positions and showing clearly the
coarse red and blue daubs.

The difficulty was that the mouth of the balloon was too large,
allowing the rarefied air to escape through it; and if the fuses were
made to burn with greater force there was danger of setting the paper
on fire and instantly reducing the superb machine to ashes--a
terrible calamity which must be prevented at all costs. Therefore
many arms were eagerly stretched out to support it, and when the
balloon leaned to one side many hands made haste to sustain it--all
this to the accompaniment of cries, oaths, and maledictions.

In the plaza the surging crowd continued to increase, and the
eager expectancy became momentarily greater. Carmen Agonde, with her
mellow laugh, recounted to Nieves the plots that went on behind the
scenes. Those who were trying to push their way to the front in order
to overturn the fuses and prevent the ascent of the balloon belonged
to the Romerist party; a good watch the maker of the fireworks had
been obliged to keep to prevent them from wetting his powder trees;
but the greatest hatred was to the balloon, on account of its bearing
Don Victoriano's likeness; they had vowed and determined that so
ridiculous and grotesque an object should not ascend into the air
while they had life to prevent it; and that they themselves would
construct another balloon, better than that of the townhall, and that
this should be the only one to ascend. For this reason they applauded
and uttered shouts of derision every time the gigantic balloon,
unable to rise from the earth, fell down feebly to the right or to
the left, while Don Victoriano's partisans directed their efforts on
the one hand to protect from all injury the enormous bulk of the
balloon, on the other to inflate it with warm air to make it rise.

Nieves' eyes were fixed attentively on the monster, but her
thoughts were far away. Segundo had succeeded in pushing his way
through the crowd in front of the window and was now sitting beside
her, on her right. No one was observing them now, and the poet,
without preface, passed his arm around Nieves' waist, placing his
hand boldly on the spot where, anatomically speaking, the heart is
situated. Instead of the elastic and yielding curve of the form and
the quickened pulsation of the organ, Segundo felt under his hand the
hard surface of one of those long corset-breastplates full of
whalebones, and furnished with steel springs, which fashion
prescribes at the present day--an apparatus to which Nieves' form
owed much of its slender grace. Infernal corset! Segundo could have
wished that his fingers were pincers to pierce through the fabric of
her gown, through the steel whalebones, through her inner garments,
through the flesh and through the very ribs and fasten themselves in
her heart, and seize it red-hot and bleeding and crush, tear,
annihilate it! Why could he not feel the throbbings of that heart?
Leocadia's heart, or even Victorina's, bounded like a bird's when he
touched it. And Segundo, enraged, pressed his hand with greater
force, undeterred by the fear of hurting Nieves, desiring, on the
contrary, to strangle her.

Surprised at Segundo's audacity, Nieves remained silent, not
daring to make the slightest movement, lest by doing so she should
attract attention, and protesting only by straightening her form and
raising her eyes to his with a look of anguish, soon lowering them,
however, unable to resist the expression in the eyes of the poet. The
latter continued to search for the absent heart without succeeding in
feeling anything more than the throbbing of his own arteries, of his
pulse compressed against the unyielding surface of the corset. But
fatigue finally conquered, his fingers relaxed their pressure, his
arm fell down powerless, and rested without strength or illusion on
the form, at once flexible and unyielding, the form of whalebone and
steel.

Meanwhile the balloon, in defiance of the Romerist intriguers,
continued to expand, as its enormous body was filled with gas and
light, illuminating the plaza like a gigantic lantern. It swayed from
side to side majestically, and on its immense surface could be read
plainly all the inscriptions and laudatory phrases invented by the
enthusiastic Combists. The effigy, or rather the colossal figure of
Don Victoriano, which filled one of its sides completely, followed
the curve of the balloon and stood out, so ugly and disproportioned
that it was a pleasure to see it; it had two frying-pans for eyes,
the pupils being two eggs fried in them, no doubt; for mouth a
species of fish or lizard and for beard a tangled forest or map of
blots of sienna and lampblack. Giant branches of green laurel crossed
each other above the head of the colossus, matching the golden palms
of his court dress, represented by daubs of ocher. And the balloon
swelled and swelled, its distended sides grew ever tenser and tenser,
and it pulled impatiently at the cord that held it, eager to break
away and soar among the clouds. The Combists yelled with delight.
Suddenly a murmur was heard, a low murmur of expectation.

The cord had been dexterously cut and the balloon, majestic,
magnificent, rose a few yards above the ground, bearing with it the
apotheosis of Don Victoriano, the glory of his laurels, mottoes and
emblems. In the balcony and in the plaza below resounded a salvo of
applause and triumphal acclamations. Oh, vanity of human joys! It was
not one Romerist stone only but three at least that at this instant,
directed with unerring aim, pierced the sides of the paper monster,
allowing the hot air, the vital current, to escape through the
wounds. The balloon contracted, shriveled up like a worm when it is
trodden upon, and finally, doubling over in the middle, gave itself
up a prey to the devouring flames lighted by the fuse which in a
second's space enveloped it in a fiery mantle.

At the same moment that the balloon of the official candidate
expired thus miserably, the little Romerist balloon, its swelling
sides daubed with coarse designs, rose promptly and swiftly from a
corner of the plaza, resolved not to pause in its ascent until it had
reached the clouds.




                                  XIV.


Nieves spent a restless night and when she awoke in the morning
the incidents of the preceding evening presented themselves to her
mind vaguely and confusedly as if she had dreamed them; she could not
believe in the reality of Segundo's singular hardihood, that taking
possession of her, that audacious outrage, that she had not known how
to resent. How compromising the position in which the daring of the
poet had placed her! And what if anyone had noticed it? When she bade
good-night to the girls who had been sitting with her at the window,
they had smiled in a way that was--well, odd; Carmen Agonde, the fat
girl with the sleepy eyes and placid temper, gave evidence at times
of a strain of malice. But, no; how could they have observed
anything? The shawl she had worn was large and had covered her whole
figure. And Nieves took the shawl, put it on and looked at herself in
the mirror, using a handglass to obtain a complete view of her
person, in order to assure herself that, enveloped in this garment,
it was impossible for an arm passed around her waist to be seen. She
was engaged in this occupation when the door opened and someone
entered. She started and dropped the glass.

It was her husband, looking more sallow than ever, and bearing
the traces of suffering stamped on his countenance. Nieves' heart
seemed to turn within her. Could it be possible that Don Victoriano
suspected anything? Her apprehensions were soon relieved, however,
when she heard him speak, with ill-disguised pique, of the insulting
behavior of the Romerists and the destruction of the balloon. The
Minister sought an outlet for his mortification by complaining of the
pain of the pin-prick.

"But did you ever see the like, child? What do you think of it?"
he said.

He then went on to complain of the noise of the fair, which had
lasted all night and had not allowed him to close his eyes. Nieves
agreed that it was extremely annoying; she, too, had been unable to
sleep. The Minister opened the window and the noise reached them
louder and more distinct. It resembled a grand chorale, or symphony,
composed of human voices, the neighing of horses and mules, the
grunting of pigs, the lowing of cows, calves, and oxen, hucksters'
criers, noises of quarreling, songs, blasphemies, and sounds of
musical instruments. The flood-tide of the fair had submerged
Vilamorta.

From the window could be seen its waves, a surging sea of men and
animals crowded together in inextricable confusion. Suddenly among
the throng of peasants a drove of six or eight calves would rush with
helpless terror; a led mule had cleared a space around him, dealing
kicks to right and left, screams and groans of pain were heard on all
sides, but those behind continued pushing those in front and the
space was filled up again. The venders of felt hats were a curious
sight as they walked about with their merchandise on their heads,
towers of twenty or thirty hats piled one above another, like Chinese
pagodas. Other venders carried for sale, on a portable counter slung
from their necks by ribbons, balls of thread, tape, thimbles, and
scissors; the venders of distaffs and spindles carried their wares
suspended around their waists, from their breast, everywhere, as
unskillful swimmers carry bladders, and the venders of frying-pans
glittered in the sun like feudal warriors.

The confused din, the ceaseless movement of the multitude, and
the mingling together of human beings and animals, made the brain
dizzy, and the ear was wearied by the plaintive lowing of the cows
under the drivers' lash, the terrified cries of women, the brutal
hilarity of drunken men who issued from the taverns with hats pushed
far back on their heads, seeking an outlet for their superabundant
energy by assaulting the men or pinching the girls. The latter,
screaming with terror, escaped from the drunkards to fall, perhaps,
on the horns of some ox or to receive a blow from the snout of some
mule that bathed their foreheads and temples in its frothy saliva.
But most terrifying of all was it to see infants carried high above
their mothers' heads, braving, like frail skiffs, the dangers of this
stormy sea.

Nieves remained for half an hour or so looking out of the window,
and then, sight and hearing both weary, she withdrew. In the
afternoon she watched the scene again for a while. The buying and
selling was less brisk, and the better classes of the Border began to
make their appearance at the fair. Agonde, who, absorbed in the
desperate gambling that went on in the back shop, had kept himself
invisible during the day, now went upstairs and, while he wiped the
perspiration from his brow, pointed out to Nieves the notabilities of
the place, as they passed by, naming to her in turn the archpriests,
the parish priests, the physicians, and the gentry.

"That very thin man, riding that horse that looks as if it had
been strained through a colander, with silver trimmings in his saddle
and silver spurs, is Señorito de Limioso, a scion of the house of the
Cid--God save the mark! The Pazo of Limioso is situated in the
neighborhood of Cebre. As for money, they have not an _ochavo_; they
own a few barley-fields, and a couple of grapevines past yielding,
that bring them in a trifle. But do you suppose that Señorito de
Limioso would go into an inn to dine? No, Señora; he carries his
bread and cheese in his pocket, and he will sleep--Heaven knows
where. As he is a Carlist they may let him stretch himself on the
floor of Doña Eufrasia's back shop, with the saddle of his nag for a
pillow, for on a day like this there are no mattresses to spare. And
you may be sure that his servant's belt bulges out in the way it
does, because he carries the nag's feed in it."

"You exaggerate, Agonde."

"Exaggerate? No, indeed. You have no idea what those gentlemen
are. Here they are called _Seven on a horse_, because they have one
horse for all seven which they ride in pairs, in turn, and when they
are near the town they stop to ride in, one by one, armed with whip
and spur, and the nag comes in seven different times, each time with
a different rider. Why, see those ladies coming there, the one on a
donkey, the other on a mule--the Señoritas de Loiro. They are friends
of the Molendes. Look at the bundles they carry before them; they are
the dresses for to-night's ball."

"But are you really in earnest?"

"In earnest? Yes, indeed, Señora. They have them all here, every
article--the bustle, or whatever it may be called, that sticks out
behind, the shoes, the petticoats, and even the rouge. And those are
very refined, they come to the town to dress themselves; most of the
young ladies, a few years ago, used to dress themselves in the pine
wood near the echo of Santa Margarita. As they had no house in the
town to stay at, and they were not going to lose the ball, at
half-past ten or eleven they were among the pines, hooking their
low-necked dresses, fastening on their bows and their gewgaws, and as
fine as you please. All the gentry together, Nieves, if you will
believe me, could not make up a dollar among them. They are people
that, to avoid buying lard, or making broth, breakfast on wine and
water. They hang up the loaf of wheaten bread among the rafters so
that it may be out of reach and may last forever. I know them
well--vanity, and nothing more."

The apothecary spoke angrily, multiplying instances, and
exaggerating them in the telling, with the rage of the plebeian who
eagerly seizes an opportunity to ridicule the poor aristocracy,
relating anecdotes of everyone of the ladies and gentlemen--stories
of poverty more or less skillfully disguised. Don Victoriano laughed,
remembering some of the stories, now become proverbial in the
country, while Nieves, her anxiety set at rest by her husband's
laughter, began to think without terror, with a certain secret
complacency, rather, of the episodes of the fireworks. She had feared
to see Segundo among the crowd, but, as the night advanced and the
brilliant colors of the booths faded into the surrounding darkness,
and lights began to appear, and the singing of the drunkards grew
hoarser, her mind became tranquil, and the danger seemed very remote,
almost to have disappeared. In her inexperience she had fancied at
first that the poet's arm would leave its trace, as it were, on her
waist, and that the poet would seize the first opportunity to present
himself before her, exacting and impassioned, betraying himself and
compromising her. But the day passed by, serene and without incident,
and Nieves experienced the inevitable impatience of the woman who
waits in vain for the appearance of the man who occupies her
thoughts. At last she remembered the ball. Segundo would certainly be
there.




                                  XV.


And she adorned herself for the town ball with a certain
illusion, with the same care as if she were dressing for a soirée at
the palace of Puenteancha.

Naturally the gown and the ornaments were very different from
what they would have been in the latter case, but they were selected
with no less care and consideration--a gown of white China crêpe,
high-necked, and without a train, trimmed with Valenciennes lace,
that fell in clinging folds, whose simplicity was completed by long
dark Suède gloves wrinkled at the wrist, reaching to the elbow. A
black velvet ribbon, fastened by a diamond and sapphire horseshoe,
encircled her neck. Her beautiful fair hair, arranged in the English
fashion, curled slightly over the forehead.

She was almost ashamed of having selected this toilette when she
crossed the muddy plaza, leaning on Agonde's arm, and heard the poor
music, and found the entrance of the townhall crowded with
country-people sitting on the floor, whom it was necessary to step
over to reach the staircase. On the landings ran the lees of the
fair--a dark wine-colored rivulet. Agonde drew her aside.

"Don't step there, Nieves; take care," he said.

She felt repelled by this unsightly entrance, calling to mind the
marble vestibule and staircase of the palace of Puenteancha, carpeted
down the center, with plants arranged on either side. At the door of
the apartment which she was now entering was a counter laden with
cakes and confectionery, at which the wife of Ramon, the
confectioner, holding in her arms the inevitable baby, presided,
casting angry glances at the young ladies who had come to amuse
themselves.

Nieves was given a seat in the most conspicuous part of the room,
in front of the door. The whitewashed walls were not very clean, nor
was the red cloth which covered the benches very fresh, nor did the
badly snuffed candles in the tin chandelier produce a brilliant
illumination. Owing to the large number of people present the heat
was almost insupportable. In the center of the apartment the men
stood grouped together--the youth of Vilamorta, visitors to the
springs, strangers, gamblers, and the gentry from the neighboring
country, mingling in one black mass. Every time the band struck up
anew, deafening the ear with its sonorous strains, the indefatigable
dancers would leave the group and hurry off in search of their
partners.

Nieves watched the scene with amazement. The young ladies, with
their large chignons and their clusters of curls, their faces daubed
with coarse rice-powder, their bodices cut low around the throat,
their long trains of cheap materials, continually trodden upon and
torn by the heavy boots of the gallants, their clumsy, tastelessly
arranged flowers, and their short-wristed gloves of thick kid, too
small for their hands, all seemed to her strange and laughable. She
remembered Agonde's descriptions, the toilet made in the pine grove,
and fanned herself with her large black fan as if to drive off the
pestilent air in which the whirl of the dance enveloped her. The
dancers pursued their task earnestly, diligently, as if they were
contending for a prize to be awarded to the one who should first get
out of breath, moving, not with their own motion only, but impelled
by the jostling, pushing, and crowding of those around them. And
Nieves, accustomed to the elegant and measured dancing of the
soirées, wondered at the courage and resolution displayed by the
dancers of Vilamorta. Some of the girls, whose flounces had been torn
by some gallant's boot-heel, turned up their skirts, quickly tore off
the whole trimming, rolled it into a ball, which they threw into a
corner, and then returned, smiling and contented, to the arms of
their partners. In vain the men wiped the perspiration from their
faces; their collars and shirt-fronts grew limp, their hair clung to
their foreheads; the silk bodices of the ladies began to show stains
of perspiration, and the marks of their partners' hands. And the
gymnastics continued, and the dust and the particles of perspiration
vitiated the atmosphere, and the floor of the room trembled. There
were handsome couples, blooming girls and gallant young men, who
danced with the healthy gayety of youth, with sparkling eyes,
overflowing with animation; and there were ridiculous couples, short
men and tall women, stout women and beardless boys, a baldheaded old
man and a stout, middle-aged woman. There were brothers who danced
with their sisters through shyness, because they had not the courage
to invite other young ladies to dance, and the secretary of the town
council, married for many years to a rich Orensen who was old and
very jealous, danced all the evening with his wife, dancing polkas
and waltzes in the time of a _habanera_ to keep from dying by
asphyxiation.

When Nieves entered the ballroom, the other women looked at her,
first with curiosity, then with surprise. How strange to come so
simply dressed! Not to wear a train a yard and a half long, nor a
flower in her hair, nor bracelets nor satin shoes. Two or three
ladies from Orense, who had cherished the expectation of making a
sensation in the ball of Vilamorta, began to whisper among
themselves, criticising the artistic negligence of her attire, the
modesty of the white, high-necked bodice, and the grace of the small
head, with its elegantly arranged hair, vaporous as the engravings in
_La Illustracion_. The Orensens determined to copy the fashion-plate,
the Vilamortans and the women of the Border, on the contrary,
criticised the Minister's lady bitterly.

"She is dressed almost as if she would dress at home."

"She does it because she doesn't want to wear her good clothes
here. Of course for a ball here----She thinks probably that we know
nothing. But she might at least have dressed her hair a little
better. And how easy it is to see that she is bored; look, why, she
seems to be asleep."

"And a little while ago she seemed as if she couldn't sit still a
moment--she kept tapping the floor with her foot as if she were
impatient to be gone."

And it was true; Nieves was bored. And if the young ladies who
censured her could only have known the cause!

She could see Segundo nowhere, anxiously as she looked for him,
at first with furtive glances, then openly and without disguise. At
last García came to salute her, and then she could restrain herself
no longer, and making an effort to speak in a natural and easy tone,
she asked:

"And the boy? It is a wonder he is not here."

"Who? Segundo? Segundo is--so eccentric. If you could only guess
what he is doing now. Reading verses or composing them. We must leave
him to his whims."

And the lawyer waved his hands with a gesture that seemed to say
that the eccentricities of genius must be respected, while in his own
mind he said:

"He is most likely with that damned old woman."

The truth is that nothing in the world would have induced the
poet, under the circumstances, to come to a ball like the present
one, to be obliged to dance with the young country girls of his
acquaintance, to perspire and to be pulled about like the other young
men. And his absence, the result of his æsthetic feeling, produced a
marvelous effect on Nieves, effacing the last remnant of fear,
stimulating her coquettish instincts, and piquing her curiosity.

At the same time, in the radical circle that surrounded Don
Victoriano and his wife, the approaching departure of the Minister
and Nieves for Las Vides to be present at the vintage was
discussed--a project that delighted the Minister as an unexpected
holiday delights a schoolboy. The persons whom the hidalgo had
invited or intended to invite for the festive occasion were named,
and when Agonde uttered Segundo's name Nieves raised her eyes, and a
look of animation lighted up her face, while she said to herself:

"He is fully capable of not going."




                                  XVI.


A great day for Las Vides is the day appointed by the town
council for the inauguration of the vintage. The whole year is passed
in looking forward to and preparing for the beautiful harvest time.
The vine is still clothed in purple and gold, but it has already
begun to drop a part of its rich garniture as a bride drops her veil,
the wasps settle in clusters on the grapes, announcing to man that
they are now ripe. The last days of September, serene and peaceful,
are at hand. To the vintage without delay!

Neither Primo Genday nor Mendez takes a moment's rest. The bands
of vintagers who come from distant parishes to hire themselves out
must be attended to, must have their tasks assigned them; the work of
gathering in the grapes must be organized so that it may be
advantageously and harmoniously conducted. For the labors of the
vintage resemble, somewhat, a great battle in which an extraordinary
expenditure of energy is required from the soldier, a waste of muscle
and of blood, but in which he must be supplied, in return, with
everything necessary to recruit his strength during his moments of
repose. In order that the vintagers might engage in their arduous
labors with cheerfulness and alacrity, it was necessary to have at
hand in the cellar the cask of must from which the carters might
drink at discretion when they returned exhausted from the task of
carrying the heavy _coleiro_, or basket, filled with grapes up the
steep ascents; it was necessary that they should have an abundant
supply of the thick wine flavored with mutton suet, the sardines and
the barley-bread, when the voracious appetite of the bands demanded
them; to which end the fire was always kept burning on the hearth at
Las Vides and the enormous kettles in which the mess was cooked were
always kept filled.

When in addition to this the presence of numerous and
distinguished guests be considered, some idea may be formed of the
bustle of the manor-house during these incomparable days. Its walls
sheltered, besides the Comba family, Saturnino and Carmen Agonde, the
young and amiable curate of Naya, the portly arch-priest of Loiro,
Tropiezo, Clodio Genday, Señorita de Limioso and the two Señoritas de
Molende. Every class was here represented, so that Las Vides was a
sort of microcosm or brief compendium of the world of the
province--the priests attracted by Primo Genday, the radicals by the
head of the house of Mendez. And all these people of conditions so
diverse, finding themselves associated together, gave themselves up
to the enjoyment of the occasion in the greatest possible harmony and
concord.

To the merriment of the vintagers the merriment of the guests
responded like an echo. It was impossible to resist the influence of
the Bacchic joyousness, the delirious gayety which seemed to float in
the atmosphere. Among all the delightful spectacles which Nature has
to offer, there is none more delightful than that of her fruitfulness
in the vintage time, the baskets heaped full of clusters of ruddy or
dark red grapes, which robust men, almost naked, like fauns, carry
and empty into the vat or wine-press; the laughter of the vintagers
hidden among the foliage, disputing, challenging each other from vine
to vine to sing, a gayety which is followed by a reaction at
nightfall--as is usually the case with all violent expressions of
feeling in which there is a great expenditure of muscular strength;
the merry challenges ending in some prolonged Celtic wail, some
plaintive _a-laá-laá_. The pagan sensation of well-being, the
exhilaration produced by the pure air of the country, the mere joy of
existence, communicated themselves to the spectators of these
delightful scenes, and at night, while the chorus of fauns and
Bacchantes danced to the sound of the flute and the timbrel, the
gentry diverted themselves with childish frolics in the great house.

The young ladies slept all together in a large, bare apartment,
the Rosary-room, the male guests being lodged by Mendez in another
spacious room called the screen-room, because in it was a screen, as
ugly as it was antique; the arch-priest only being excluded from this
community of lodging, his obesity and his habit of snoring making it
impossible for any person of even average sensibility to tolerate him
as a roommate; and the gay and mischievous party being thus divided
into two sections, there came to be established between them a sort
of merry warfare, so that the occupants of the Rosary-room thought of
nothing but playing tricks on the occupants of the screen-room, from
which resulted innumerable witty inventions and amusing skirmishes.
Between the two camps there was a neutral one--that of the Comba
family, whose slumbers were respected and who were exempt in the
matter of practical jokes, although the feminine band often took
Nieves as their confidante and counselor.

"Nieves, come here, Nieves; see, how foolish Carmen Agonde is;
she says she likes the arch-priest, that barrel, better than Don
Eugeniño, the parish priest of Naya, because it makes her laugh, she
says, to see him perspiring and to look at the rolls of fat in the
back of his neck. And say, Nieves, what trick shall we play to-night
on Don Eugeniño? And on Ramon Limioso, who has been daring us all
day?"

It was Teresa Molende, a masculine-looking black-eyed brunette, a
good specimen of the mountaineer, who spoke thus.

"They must pay for the trick they played on us yesterday," added
her sister Elvira, the sentimental poetess.

"What was that?"

"You must know that they locked Carmen up. They are the very
mischief! They shut her up in Mendez's room. What is there that they
won't think of! They tied her hands behind her back with a silk
handkerchief, tied another handkerchief over her mouth, so that she
couldn't scream, and left her there like a mouse in a mouse-trap. And
we, hunting and hunting for Carmen, and no Carmen to be seen. And
there we were thinking all sorts of things until Mendez went up to
his room to go to bed and found her there. Of course they had that
silly creature to deal with, for if it had been I----"

"They would shut you up too," declared Carmen.

"Me!" exclaimed the Amazon, drawing up her portly figure. "They
would be the ones to get shut up!"

"But they entrapped me into it," affirmed Carmen, looking as if
she were just ready to cry. "See, Nieves, they said to me: 'Put your
hands behind you, Carmiña, and we'll put a five-dollar piece in
them,' and I put them behind me, and they were so treacherous as to
tie them together."

Nieves joined in the laughter of the two sisters. It could not be
denied that this simplicity was very amusing. Nieves seemed to be in
a new world in which routine, the worn-out conventionalities of
Madrid society, did not exist. True, such noisy and ingenuous
diversions might at times verge on impropriety or coarseness, but
sometimes they were really entertaining. From the moment the guests
rose from table in the afternoon nothing was thought of but frolic
and fun. Teresa had proposed to herself not to allow Tropiezo to eat
a meal in peace, and with the utmost dexterity she would catch flies
on the wing, which she would throw slyly into his soup, or she would
pour vinegar into his glass instead of wine, or rub pitch on his
napkin so that it might stick to his mouth. For the arch-priest they
had another trick--they would draw him on to talk of ceremonies, a
subject on which he loved to expatiate, and when his attention was
engaged, take away his plate slyly, which was like tearing a piece of
his heart out of his breast.

At night, in the parlor of the turbid mirrors, in which were the
piano and the rocking-chairs, a gay company assembled; they sang
fragments of _El Juramento_, and _El Grumete_; they played at
hide-and-seek, and, without hiding, played _brisea_ with _malilla_
counters; when they grew tired of cards, they had recourse to
forfeits, to mind-reading, and other amusements. And the frolicsome
rustic nature once aroused, they passed on to romping games--fool in
the middle, hoodman-blind, and others which have the zest imparted by
physical exercise--shouts, pushes and slaps.

Then they would retire to their rooms, still excited by their
sports, and this was the hour when their merriment was at its height,
when they played the wildest pranks; when they fastened lighted
tapers to the bodies of crickets and sent them under the bedroom
doors; when they took the slats out of Tropiezo's bedstead so that
when he lay down he might fall to the ground and bruise his ribs. In
the halls could be heard smothered bursts of laughter and stealthy
footsteps, white forms would be seen scurrying away, and doors would
be hastily locked and barricaded with articles of furniture, while
from behind them a mellow voice could be heard crying:

"They are coming!"

"Fasten the door well, girls! Don't open, not if the king himself
were to knock!"




                                 XVII.


Segundo was the last of the guests to arrive at Las Vides. As he
cared but little for games and as Nieves did not take any very active
part in them either, they would often have found themselves thrown
for society upon each other had it not been for Victorina, who, from
the moment Segundo appeared, never left her mother's side, and Elvira
Molende who, from the very instant of his arrival, clung to the poet
like the ivy to the wall, directing on him a battery of sighs and
glances, and treating him to sentimental confidences and rhapsodies
sweet enough to surfeit a confectioner's boy. From the moment in
which Segundo set foot in Las Vides, Elvira lost all her animation,
and assumed a languishing and romantic air, which made her cheeks
appear hollower and the circles under her eyes deeper than ever. Her
form acquired the melancholy droop of the willow and, giving up
sports and pranks, she devoted herself exclusively to the Swan.

As it was moonlight, and the evenings were enjoyable out of
doors, as soon as the sun had set, and the labors of the day were
ended, and the vintagers assembled for a dance, some of the guests
would assemble together also in the garden, generally at the foot of
a high wall bordered with leafy camellias, or they would stop and sit
down for a chat at some inviting spot on their way home from a walk.
Elvira knew by heart a great many verses, both good and bad,
generally of a melancholy kind--sentimental and elegiac; she was
familiar with all the flowers of poetry, all the tender verses which
constituted the poetic wealth of the locality, and uttered by her
thin lips, in the silvery tones of her gentle voice, with the soft
accents of her native land, the Galician verses, like an Andalusian
moral maxim in the sensual mouth of a gypsy, had a peculiar and
impressive beauty--the sensibility of a race crystallized in a poetic
gem, in a tear of love. These plaintive verses were interrupted at
times by mocking bursts of laughter, as the gay sounds of the
castanets strike in on the melancholy notes of the bagpipes. The
poems in dialect acquired a new beauty, their freshness and sylvan
aroma seemed to augment by being recited by the soft tones of a
woman's voice, on the edge of a pine wood and under the shadow of a
grapevine, on a serene moonlight night; and the rhyme became a vague
and dreamy melopoeia, like that of certain German ballads; a labial
music interspersed with soft diphthongs, tender _ñ_'s, _x_'s of a
more melodious sound than the hissing Castilian _ch_. Generally,
after the recitations came singing. Don Eugenio, who was a Borderer,
knew some Portuguese _fados_, and Elvira was unrivaled in her
rendering of the popular and melancholy song of Curros, which seems
made for Druidical nights, for nights illuminated by the solemn light
of the moon.

Segundo's heart thrilled with gratified vanity when Elvira
recited shyly, in alternation with the verses of the popular and
admired poets of the country, songs of the Swan, which had appeared
in periodicals of Vigo or Orense. Segundo had never written in
dialect, and yet Elvira had a book in which she pasted all the
productions of the unknown Swan; Teresa, joining in the animated
conversation with the best intentions in the word, betrayed her
sister:

"She writes verses too. Come, child, recite something of your
own. She has a copy-book full of things invented, composed by
herself."

The poetess, after the indispensable excuses and denials, recited
two or three little things, almost without poetic form, weak, sincere
in the midst of their sentimental falseness--verses of the kind which
reveal no artistic faculty, but which are the sure indication that
the author or authoress feels an unsatisfied desire, longs for fame
or for love, as the inarticulate cry of the infant expresses its
hunger. Segundo twisted his mustache, Nieves lowered her eyes and
played with the tassels of her fan, impatient and somewhat bored and
nervous. This occurred two or three days after the arrival of Segundo
who, in spite of all his attempts, had not yet been able to succeed
in saying a word in private to Nieves.

"How uncultured these young ladies are!" said Señora de Comba to
herself, while aloud she said, "How lovely, how tender! It sounds
like some of Grilo's verses."




                                 XVIII.


It was something different from poetry that formed the theme of
conversation of the head of the house of Las Vides, the Gendays, and
the arch-priest, installed on the balcony under the pretext of
enjoying the moonlight, but in reality to discuss the important
question of the vintage.

A fine crop! Yes, indeed, a fine crop! The grape had not a trace
of oïdium; it was clean, full, and so ripe that it was as sticky to
the touch as if it had been dipped in honey. There was not a doubt
but that the new wine of this year was better than the old wine of
last year. Last year's vintage was an absolute failure! Hail to-day,
rain to-morrow! The grape with so much rain had burst before it was
time to gather it, and had not an atom of pulp; the result was a wine
that scarcely left a stain on the shirt-sleeves of the muleteers.

At the recollection of so great a calamity, Mendez pressed his
thin lips together, and the arch-priest breathed hard. And the
conversation continued, sustained by Primo Genday, who, with much
verbosity, spitting and laughter, recounted details of harvests of
twenty years before, declaring:

"This year's crop is exactly like the crop of '61."

"Exactly," assented Mendez. "As for the Rebeco, it will not give
a load less this year, and the Grilloa--I don't know but that it will
give us six or seven more. It is a great vine, the Grilloa!"

After these cheerful prognostications of a rich harvest, Mendez
described with satisfaction to his attentive audience some
improvements which he had introduced into the cultivation of the
vine. He had most of his casks secured with iron hoops; they were
more expensive than wooden ones, but they lasted longer and they
saved the troublesome labor of making new hoops for each harvest; he
was thinking too, by way of experiment, of setting up a wine-press,
doing away with the repulsive spectacle of the trampling of the
grapes by human feet, and in order that the pressed skins and the
pulp of the grapes might not go to waste, he would distill from them
a refined alcohol which Agonde would buy from him at its weight in
gold.

Lulled by the grave voices discussing important agricultural
questions on the balcony, Don Victoriano, somewhat fatigued by his
expedition to the vineyards, sat smoking in the rocking-chair, buried
in painful meditations. Since his return from the springs he had been
growing weaker day by day; the temporary improvement had vanished;
the debility, the unnatural appetite, the thirst, and the desiccation
of the body had increased. He remembered that Sanchez del Abrojo had
told him that a slight perspiration would be of the greatest benefit
to him, and when he observed, after he had been drinking the waters
for a few days, the re-establishment of this function, his joy knew
no bounds. But what was his terror when he found that his shirt,
stiff and hard, adhered to his skin as if it had been soaked in
syrup. He touched a fold of the sleeve with his lips and perceived a
sweetish taste. It was plain! He perspired sugar! The glucose
secretion was, then, uncontrollable, and by a tremendous irony of
fate all the bitterness of his existence had come to end in this
strange elaboration of sweet substances.

For some days past he had noticed another alarming symptom. His
sight was becoming affected. As the aqueous humor of the eye dried up
the crystalline lens became clouded, producing the cataract of
diabetes. Don Victoriano had chills. He regretted now having put
himself into the homicidal hands of Tropiezo and drunk the waters.
There was not a doubt but that he was being wrongly treated. From
this day forth a strict regimen, a diet of fruits, fecula, and milk.
To live, to live, but for a year, and to be able to hide his malady!
If the electors saw their candidate blind and dying, they would
desert to Romero. The humiliation of losing the coming election
seemed to him intolerable.

Bursts of silvery laughter, and youthful exclamations proceeding
from the garden, changed the current of his thoughts. Why was it that
Nieves did not perceive the serious condition of her husband's
health? He wished to dissemble before the whole world, but before his
wife----Ah, if his wife belonged to him she ought to be beside him
now, consoling and soothing him by her caresses instead of diverting
herself and frolicking among the camellias, like a child. If she was
beautiful and fresh and her husband sickly, so much the worse for
her. Let her put up with it, as was her duty. Bah! What nonsense!
Nieves did not love him, had never loved him!

The noise and laughter below increased. Victorina and Teresa, the
verses being exhausted, had proposed a game of hide-and-seek.
Victorina was crying at every moment, "Teresa's it!" "Segundo's it!"

The garden was very well adapted for this exercise because of its
almost labyrinthine intricacy, owing to the fact of its being laid
out in sloping terraces supported on walls and separated by rows of
umbrageous trees, communicating with each other by uneven steps, as
is the case with all the estates in this hilly country. Thus it was
that the play was very noisy, as the seeker had great difficulty in
finding those who were hiding.

Nieves endeavored to hide herself securely, through laziness so
as not to have to run after the others. Chance provided her with a
superb hiding-place, a large lemon tree situated at one end of a
terrace, near some steps which afforded an easy means of escape. She
hid herself here in the densest part of the foliage, drawing her
light gown closely around her so that it might not betray her. She
had been only a few moments in her hiding-place when a shadow passed
before her and a voice murmured softly:

"Nieves!"

"Oh!" she cried, startled. "Who has found me out here?"

"No one has found you; there is no one looking for you but me,"
cried Segundo vehemently, penetrating into Nieves' hiding-place with
such impetuosity that the late blossoms which whitened the branches
of the giant tree showered their petals over their heads, and the
branches swayed rhythmically.

"For Heaven's sake, García!" she cried, "for Heaven's sake, don't
be imprudent--go away, or let me go. If the others should come and
find us here what would they say? For Heaven's sake, go!"

"You wish me to go?" said the poet. "But, Señora, even if they
should find me here, there would be nothing strange in that; a little
while ago I was with Teresa Molende behind the camellias there;
either we are playing or we are not playing. But if you desire it--to
please you----But before I go I wish to ask you a question----"

"Somewhere else--in the parlor," stammered Nieves, lending an
anxious ear to the distant noises and cries of the game.

"In the parlor! Surrounded by everybody! No, that cannot be. No,
now, do you hear me?"

"Yes, I hear you," she returned in a voice rendered almost
inaudible by terror.

"Well, then, I adore you, Nieves; I adore you, and you love me."

"Hist! Silence, silence! They are coming. I think I hear steps."

"No, it is the leaves. Tell me that you love me and I will go."

"They are coming! For Heaven's sake! I shall die of terror!
Enough of jesting, García, I entreat you----"

"You know perfectly well that I am not jesting. Have you
forgotten the night of the fireworks? If you did not love me you
would have released yourself from my arm on that night, or you would
have cried out. You look at me sometimes--you return my glances. You
cannot deny it!"

Segundo was close to Nieves, speaking with fiery impetuosity, but
without touching her, although the fragrant, rustling branches of
their shelter closed around them, inviting them to closer proximity.
But Segundo remembered the cold hard whalebones, and Nieves drew
back, trembling. Yes, trembling with fear. She might cry out, indeed,
but if Segundo persisted in remaining how annoying it would be! What
a mortification! What gossip it would give rise to! After all the
poet was right--the night of the fireworks she had been culpably weak
and she was paying for it now. And what would Segundo do if she gave
him the _yes_ he asked for? He repeated his proud and vehement
assertion:

"You love me, Nieves. You love me. Tell me that you love me, only
once, and I will go."

Not far off could be heard the contralto voice of Teresa Molende
calling to her companions:

"Nieves--where is she? Victorina, Carmen, come in, the dew is
falling!"

And another shrill voice, that of Elvira, woke the echoes:

"Segundo! Segundo! We are going in!"

In fact that almost imperceptible mizzle, which refreshes the
sultry nights of Galicia, was falling; the lustrous leaves of the
lemon tree in which Nieves sat, shrinking back from Segundo, were wet
with the night dew. The poet leaned toward her and his hands touched
her hands chilled with cold and terror. He crushed them between both
his own.

"Tell me that you love me, or----"

"But, good Heavens, they are calling me! They are noticing my
absence. I am cold!"

"Tell me the truth then. Otherwise there is no human power that
can tear me from here--come what will. Is it so hard to say a single
word?"

"And what do you want me to say, tell me?"

"Do you love me, yes or no?"

"And you will let me go--go to the house?"

"Anything you wish--but first tell me, do you love me?"

The _yes_ was almost inaudible. It was an aspiration, a prolonged
_s_. Segundo crushed her wrists in his grasp.

"Do you love me as I love you? Answer plainly."

This time Nieves, making an effort, pronounced an unequivocal
_yes_. Segundo released her hands, raised his own to his lips with a
passionate gesture of gratitude, and springing down the stairs,
disappeared among the trees.




                                  XIX.


Nieves drew a long breath. She felt dazed. She shook her wrists,
hurt by the pressure of Segundo's fingers, and arranged her hair, wet
with the night dew, and disordered by the contact of the branches.
What had she said after all? Anything, no matter what, to escape from
so compromising a situation. She was to blame for having withdrawn
from the others and hidden herself in so retired a spot. And with
that desire to give publicity to unimportant actions which seizes
people when they have something to conceal she called out:

"Teresa! Elvira! Carmen! Carmen!"

"Nieves! where are you, Nieves?" came in answer from various
quarters.

"Here, beside the big lemon tree. Wait for me, I am coming!"

When they entered the house, Nieves, who had to some extent
recovered her composure, began to reflect on what had passed and
could not but wonder at herself. To say _yes_ to Segundo. She had
uttered the word partly under compulsion, but she had uttered it. How
daring the poet had been. It seemed impossible that the son of the
lawyer of Vilamorta should be so determined. She was a lady of
distinction, highly respected, her husband had just been Minister.
And García's family, what were they--nobodies; the father wore
collars frayed at the edges that were a sight to see; they kept no
servant; the sisters ran about barefooted half the time. Even Segundo
himself--he had an unmistakable provincial air and a strong Galician
accent. He could not indeed be called ugly; there was something
remarkable in his face and in his manner. He spoke with so much
passion! As if he commanded instead of entreating! What a masterful
air he had! And there was something flattering to one's vanity in
having a suitor of this kind, so ardent and so daring. Who had ever
fallen in love with Nieves before? There were three or four who had
made gallant speeches to her--one who had watched her through his
opera-glass. Everyone in Madrid treated her with that indifference
and consideration which respectable ladies inspire.

For the rest, this persistency of Segundo's was to a certain
extent compromising. Would people notice it? Would her husband notice
it? Bah! Her husband thought only of his ailments, of the elections.
He scarcely ever spoke to her of anything else. But what if he
should notice it? How horrible, good Heavens! And the girls who had
been playing hide and seek, might they not suspect something? Elvira
seemed more languishing and sighed more frequently than usual. Elvira
admired Segundo. He--no, he did not pay the slightest attention to
her. And Segundo's verses sounded well, they were beautiful; they
were worthy of a place in _La Ilustracion_. In short, as they would
be obliged to return to Madrid before the elections, there was hardly
any real danger. She would always preserve a pleasant recollection of
the summer. The thing was to avoid--to avoid----

Nieves did not venture to tell herself what it was necessary to
avoid, nor had she settled this point when she entered the parlor,
where the game of tresillo was already going on. Señora de Comba
seated herself at the piano and played several quick airs--polkas and
rigadoons, for the girls to dance. When she stopped they cried out
for another air.

"Nieves, the _muñeira_!"

"The _riveirana_, please!"

"Do you know the whole of it, Nieves?"

"The whole of it--why, did I not hear it in the feasts?"

"Let us have it then, come."

"Who will dance it?"

"Who knows how to dance it?"

Several voices answered immediately:

"Teresa Molende; ah! it is a pleasure to see her dance it."

"And who will be her partner?"

"Ramonciñe Limioso here, he dances it to perfection."

Teresa laughed in the deep, sonorous tones of a man, declaring
solemnly that she had forgotten the muñeira--that she never knew it
well. From the tresillo table came a protest--from the master of the
house, Mendez: Teresina danced it to perfection. Let her not try to
excuse herself; no excuse would avail her; there was not in all the
Border a girl who danced the riveirana with more grace; it was true
indeed that the taste and the skill for these old customs of the
country were fast disappearing.

Teresa yielded, not without once more affirming her incompetence.
And after fastening up her skirt with pins, so that it might not
impede her movements she stopped laughing and assumed a modest and
ingenuous air, veiling her large lustrous eyes under her thick
lashes, dropping her head on her breast, letting her arms fall by her
sides, swaying them slightly, rubbing the balls of the thumbs and the
forefingers together, and thus, moving with very short steps, her
feet close together, keeping time to the music, she made the tour of
the room, with perfect decorum, her eyes fixed on the floor, stopping
finally at the head of the room. While this was taking place,
Señorito de Limioso took off his short jacket, remaining in his
shirt-sleeves, put on his hat, and asked for an indispensable
article.

"Victorina, the castanets."

The child ran and brought two pairs of castanets. The Señorito
secured the cord between his fingers and after a haughty flourish,
began his rôle. Teresita's partner was as lean and shriveled as Don
Quixote himself, and, like the Manchego hidalgo, it was undeniable
that he had a distinguished and stately air, scrupulously as he
imitated the awkward movements of a rustic. He took his place before
Teresa and danced a quick measure, courteously but urgently wooing
her to listen to his suit. At times he touched the floor with the
sole of his foot, at others with his heel or toe only, almost
twisting his ankles out of joint with the rapidity of his movements,
while he played the castanets energetically, the castanets in
Teresa's hands responding with a faint and timid tinkle. Pushing his
hat back on his head the gallant looked boldly at his partner,
approached his face to hers; pursued her, urged his suit in a
thousand different ways, Teresa never altering her humble and
submissive attitude nor he his conquering air, his gymnastics, and
his resolute movements of attack.

It was primitive love, the wooing of the heroic ages, represented
in this expressive Cantabrian dance, warlike and rude; the woman
dominated by the strength of the man and, better than enamored,
afraid; all which was more piquant in view of the Amazon-like type of
Teresa and the habitual shyness and circumspection of the Señorito.
There was an instant, however, in which the gallant peeped through
the barbarous conqueror, and in the midst of a most complicated and
rapid measure he bent his knee before the beauty, describing the
figure known as _punto del sacramento_. It was only for a moment
however; springing to his feet he gave his partner a tender push and
they stood back to back, touching each other, caressing each other,
and amorously rubbing shoulder against shoulder and spine against
spine. In two minutes they suddenly drew apart and with a few
complicated movements of the ankles and a few rapid turns, during
which Teresa's skirts whirled around her, the riveirana came to an
end and a storm of applause burst from the spectators.

While the Señorito wiped the perspiration from his brow and
Teresa unpinned her skirt, Nieves, who had risen from the piano,
looked around and noticed Segundo's absence. Elvira made the same
observation but aloud. Agonde gave them the clew to the mystery.

"No doubt he is at this moment in the pine grove or on the
river-bank. There is scarcely a night in which he does not make
eccentric expeditions of the kind; in Vilamorta he does the same
thing."

"And how is the door to be closed if he does not come? That boy
is crazy," declared Primo Genday. "We are not all going to do without
our sleep, we who have to get up early to our work, for that
featherhead. Hey, do you understand me? I will shut up the house and
let him manage in the best way he can. Ave Maria!"

Mendez and Don Victoriano protested in the name of courtesy and
hospitality, and until midnight the door of Las Vides remained open,
awaiting Segundo's return. As he had not come by that time, however,
Genday went himself to bar the door muttering between his teeth:

"Ave Mar-- Let him sleep out of doors if he has a fancy for doing
so."

Segundo, in fact, was at this time on his way to the pine grove.
He was in a state of intense excitement, and he felt that it would be
impossible for him in his present mood to meet anyone or to take part
in any conversation. Nieves, so reserved, so beautiful, had said yes
to him. The dreams of an ideal love which had tormented his spirit
were not, then, destined never to be realized, nor would fame be
unattainable when love was already within his ardent and eager grasp.
With these thoughts passing through his mind he ascended the steep
path and walked enraptured through the pine grove. At times he would
lean against the dark trunk of some pine, his brow bared to the
breeze, drinking in the cool night air, and listening, as in a dream,
to the mysterious voices of the trees and the murmur of the river
that ran below. Ah, what moments of happiness, what supreme joys,
were promised him by this love, which flattered his pride, excited
his imagination and satisfied his egotism, the delicate egotism of a
poet, avid of love, of enjoyments which the imagination idealizes and
the muse may sing without degradation! All that he had pictured in
his verses was to be realized in his life; and his song would ring
forth more clearly and inspiration would flow more freely, and he
would write, in blood, verses that would cause his readers' hearts to
thrill with emotion.

In defiance of duty and reason Nieves loved him--she had told him
so. The poet smiled scornfully when he thought of Don Victoriano,
with the profound contempt of the idealist for the practical man
inept in spiritual things. Then he looked around him. The pine grove
had a gloomy air at this hour. And it was cold. Besides it must be
late. They would be wondering at his absence in Las Vides. Had Nieves
retired? With these thoughts passing through his mind he descended
the rugged path and reached the door ten minutes after the careful
hand of Genday had secured the bolt. The _contretemps_ did not alarm
Segundo; he would have to scale some wall; and the romance of the
incident almost pleased him. How should he effect an entrance?

Undoubtedly the easiest way would be by the garden, into which he
could lower himself from the brow of the hill--a question of a few
scratches, but he would be in his own room in ten minutes' time,
without encountering the dogs that were keeping watch in the yard, or
any member of the household, as that side of the house, the side
where the dining-room was situated, was uninhabited. And upon this
course he decided. He turned back and ascended the top of the hill,
not without some difficulty. From thence he could command a view of
the gallery and a good part of the garden. He studied the nature of
the declivity, so as to avoid falling on the wall and perhaps
breaking his leg. The hill was bare and without vegetation and the
figure of the Swan stood out boldly against the background of the
sky.

When Segundo fixed his eyes on the gallery for the purpose of
deciding on the safest place for a descent, he saw something that
troubled his senses with a sweet intoxication, something that gave
him one of those delightful surprises which make the blood rush to
the heart to send it coursing back joyful and ardent through the
veins. In the semi-obscurity of the gallery, standing among the
flower-pots, his keen gaze descried, without the possibility of a
doubt as to the reality of the vision, a white figure, the silhouette
of a woman, whose attitude seemed to indicate that she too had seen
him, had observed him, that she was waiting for him.

Fancy swiftly sketched out and filled in the details of the
scene--a colloquy, a divine colloquy of love with Nieves, among the
carnations and the vines, alone, without any other witnesses than the
moon, already setting, and the flowers, envious of so much happiness.
And with a swift movement he rolled down the steep declivity, landing
on the hard wall. The fruit trees hid the path from him, and two or
three times he lost his way; at last he found himself at the foot of
the staircase leading to the gallery, and he raised his eyes to
satisfy himself as to the reality of the lovely apparition. A woman
dressed in white was indeed waiting there, leaning over the wooden
balustrade of the balcony; but the distance did not now admit of any
optical illusion; it was Elvira Molende, in a percale wrapper, her
hair hanging loose about her shoulders, as if she were an actress
rehearsing the rôle of _Sonnambula_. How eagerly the poor girl was
leaning over the balustrade! The poet would swear that she even
called his name softly, with a tender lisp.

And he passed on. He made the tour of the garden, entered the
courtyard by the inner door, which was not closed at night, and
knocked loudly at the door of the kitchen. The servant opened it for
him, cursing to himself the young gentlemen who stayed up late at
night because they were not obliged to rise early in the morning to
open the cellar for the grape-tramplers.




                                  XX.


As the time occupied in the gathering of the grapes and the
elaboration of the wine in the spacious cellar of Mendez was so
prolonged, and as in that part of the country everyone has his own
crop, however small, to gather in, part of the guests went away,
desirous of attending to their own vineyards. Señorito de Limioso
needed to see for himself how, between oïdium, the blackbirds, the
neighbors, and the wasps, not a single bunch of grapes had been left
him; the Señoritas de Molende had to hang up with their own hands the
grapes of their famous Tostado, renowned throughout the country; and
for similar reasons Saturnino Agonde, the arch-priest, and the curate
of Naya took their leave one by one, the court of Las Vides being
reduced to Carmen Agonde, maid of honor, Clodio Genday, Aulic
councilor, Tropiezo, court physician, and Segundo, who might well be
the page or the troubadour charged to divert the châtelaine with his
ditties.

Segundo was consumed with a feverish impatience hitherto unknown
to him. Since the day of the interview in the lemon tree Nieves had
shunned every occasion of being alone with him; and the feverish
dream that haunted his sleep, the intolerable anguish which consumed
him, was that he had advanced no further than the fugitive _yes_,
which he sometimes even doubted he had heard. He could not endure
this slow torture, this ceaseless martyrdom; he would have been less
unhappy if instead of encouraging him Nieves had requited his love
with open scorn. It was not the brutal desire for positive victories
which thus tormented him; all he wished was to convince himself that
he was really loved, and that under that steely corset a tender heart
throbbed. And so mad was his passion that when he found it impossible
to approach Nieves, he was seized by an almost irresistible impulse
to cry out, "Nieves, tell me again that you love me!" Always, always
obstacles between the two; the child was always at her mother's side.
Of what avail was it to be rid of Elvira Molende who, since the
memorable night on which she had kept guard in the gallery, had
looked at the poet with an expression that was half satirical, half
mournful? The departure of the poetess removed an obstacle, indeed,
but it did not put an end to his difficulties.

Segundo suffered in his vanity, wounded by the systematic reserve
of Nieves, as well as in his love, his ardent longing for the
impossible. It was already October; the ex-Minister spoke of taking
his departure immediately, and although Segundo counted on
establishing himself in Madrid later on through his influence, and
meeting Nieves again, an infallible instinct told him that between
Nieves and himself there existed no other bond of union than their
temporary sojourn in Las Vides, the poetic influences of the season,
the accident of living under the same roof, and that if this dream
did not take shape before their separation it would be as ephemeral
as the vine leaves that were now falling around them, withered and
sapless.

Autumn was parting with its glories; the wrinkled and knotted
vine stalks, the dry and shrunken vine branches, lay bare to view,
and the wind moaned sadly, stripping their leaves from the boughs of
the fruit trees. One day Victorina asked Segundo:

"When are we going to the pine grove to hear it sing?"

"Whenever you like, child. This afternoon if your mother wishes
it."

The child conveyed the proposition to Nieves. For some time past
Victorina had been more than usually demonstrative toward her mother,
leaning her head upon Nieves' breast, hiding her cheek in her neck,
passing her hands over her hair and her shoulders while she would
repeat softly, in a voice that seemed to ask for a caress:

"Mamma! mamma!"

But the eyes of the miniature woman, half-veiled by their long
lashes, were fixed with loving, longing glance, not on her mother,
but on the poet, whose words the child drank in eagerly, turning very
red if he chanced to make some jesting remark to her or gave any
other indication of being aware of her presence.

Nieves objected a little at first, not wishing to appear
credulous or superstitious.

"But what has put such an idea into your head?"

"Mamma, when Segundo says that the pines sing, they sing, mamma,
there is not a doubt of it."

"But you don't know," said Nieves, bestowing on the poet a smile
in which there was more sugar than salt--"that Segundo writes poetry,
and that people who write poetry are permitted to--to invent--a
little?"

"No, Señora," cried Segundo. "Do not teach your child what is not
true. Do not deceive her. In society it often happens that we utter
with the lips sentiments that are far from the heart, but in poetry
we lay bare the feelings of the inmost soul, feelings which in the
world we are obliged to hide in our own breasts, through respect--or
through prudence. Believe me."

"Say, mamma, are we going there to-day?"

"Where?"

"To the pine grove."

"If you are very anxious to go. What an obstinate child! But
indeed I too am curious to hear this orchestra."

Only Nieves, Victorina, Carmen, Segundo, and Tropiezo took part
in the expedition. The elders remained behind smoking and looking on
at the important operation of covering and closing some of the vats
which contained the must, now fermented. As Mendez saw the party
about to start, he called out in a tone of paternal warning:

"Take care with the descent. The pine needles in this hot weather
are as slippery as if they had been rubbed with soap. The ladies must
be helped down. You, Victorina, don't be crazy; don't go rushing
about there."

The famous pine grove was distant some quarter of a league, but
they spent fully three-quarters of an hour in making the ascent,
along a path as steep, narrow, and rugged as the ascent to heaven is
said to be, and which long before reaching the wood was carpeted with
the polished, smooth, dry pine needles, which, if they rendered the
descent more easy than was agreeable, compensated for it by making
the ascent extremely difficult, causing the foot to slip, and
fatiguing the ankles and the knees. Nieves stopped from time to time
to take breath, and was at last fain to avail herself of the support
of the plump arm of Carmen Agonde.

"_Caramba_, this is like practicing gymnastics! Whoever escapes
being killed when we are going back will be very lucky."

"Lean well on me, lean well on me," said the sturdy country girl.
"Many a limb has been broken here already, no doubt. This ascent is
terrible!"

They reached the summit at last. The prospect was beautiful, with
that species of beauty that borders on sublimity. The pine wood
seemed to hang over an abyss. Between the trunks of the trees could
be caught glimpses of the mountains, of an ashen blue blending into
violet in the distance; on the other side of the pine wood, that
which overlooked the river, the ground fell abruptly in a steep,
almost perpendicular descent, while far below flowed the Avieiro, not
winding peacefully along, but noisy and foaming, roused into rage by
the barrier opposed to its progress by some sharp black rocks and
separating into numerous currents that curled around the bowlders
like angry green snakes covered with silver scales. To the roaring
and sobbing of the river the pine wood kept accompaniment with its
perpetual plaint intoned by the summits of the trees, which swayed
and vibrated to the kisses of the breeze, dolorous kisses that drew
from them an incessant moan.

The excursionists, impressed by the tragic aspect of the scene,
remained mute. Only the child broke the silence, speaking in tones as
hushed as if she were in a church.

"Well, it is true, mamma! The pines sing. Do you hear them? It
sounds like the chorus of bishops in 'L'Africaine.' They even seem to
speak--listen--in bass voices--like that passage in the
'Huguenots----'"

Nieves agreed that the murmur of the pines was in truth musical
and solemn. Segundo, leaning against a tree, looked down at the river
foaming below; Victorina approached him, but he stopped her and made
her go back.

"No, my child," he said; "don't come near; it is a little
dangerous; if you should lose your footing and roll down that
declivity----Go back, go back."

As nothing further occurred to them to say about the pines, the
excursionists began to think of returning home; Nieves was a little
uneasy about the descent, and she wished to undertake it before the
sun should set.

"Now, indeed, we shall break some of our bones, Don Fermin," she
said to the doctor. "Now, indeed, you may begin to get your bandages
and splints ready."

"There is another road," said Segundo, emerging from his
abstraction. "And one which is much less toilsome and much more level
than this."

"Yes, talk to us now about the other road," cried Tropiezo, true
to his habit of voting with the opposition. "It is even worse than
the one by which we came."

"How should it be worse, man? It is a little longer, but as it is
not so steep it is the best in the end. It skirts the pine wood."

"Do you want to tell me which is the best road--me who know the
whole country as well as I know my own house? You cannot go by that
road; I know what I am saying."

"And I say that you can, and I will prove it to you. For once in
your life don't be stubborn. I came by it not many days ago. Do you
remember, Nieves, the night we played hide-and-seek in the garden,
the night they barred me out and I got over the wall?"

Had it not been for the thick shade cast by the pine trees and
the fading daylight, it would have been seen that Nieves blushed.

"Let us take whichever road is easiest and most level," she said,
evading an answer. "I am very awkward about walking over rough
roads."

Segundo offered his arm, saying jestingly:

"That blessed Tropiezo knows as much about roads as he does about
the art of healing. Come, and you shall see that we will be the
gainers by it."

Tropiezo, on his side, was saying to Carmen Agonde, shaking his
head obstinately:

"Well, we will please ourselves and go by the cut, and arrive
before they do, safe and sound, with the help of God."

Victorina, according to her custom, was going to her mother's
side, when the doctor called out to her:

"Here, take hold of the end of my stick or you will slip. Your
mamma will have enough to do to keep herself from falling. And God
save us from a _trip_," he added, laughing loudly at his jest.

The voices and footsteps receded in the distance, and Segundo and
Nieves continued on their way in silence. The precipitous character
of the path along which they walked inspired Nieves with something
like fear. It was a little path cut on the slope of the pine wood, on
the very edge of the precipice, almost overhanging the river.
Although Segundo gave Nieves the least dangerous side, that next the
wood, leaving himself scarcely a foothold, so that he was obliged to
place one foot horizontally before the other, in walking, this did
not set her fears at rest or make the adventure seem any the less
dangerous to her. Her terror was increased a hundredfold when she saw
that they were alone.

"Are they not coming?" she asked anxiously.

"We will overtake them in less than ten minutes. They are going
by the other road," answered Segundo, without adding a single word of
endearment, or even pressing the arm which trembled with terror
within his.

"Let us go on, then," said Nieves, in tones of urgent entreaty.
"I am anxious to be home."

"Why?" asked the poet, suddenly standing still.

"I am tired--out of breath----"

"Well, you shall rest and take a drink of water if you desire
it."

And with rash hardihood Segundo, without waiting for an answer,
drew Nieves down the slope and, skirting the rock, stopped on a
narrow ledge which projected over the river. By the fading sunset
light they discried a crystal thread of water trickling down the
black front of the rock.

"Drink, if you wish--in the palm of your hand, for we have no
glass," said Segundo.

Nieves mechanically released Segundo's arm, scarcely conscious of
what she was doing, and took a step toward the stream; but the ground
at the base of the rock, kept moist by the dripping of the water, was
overgrown with humid vegetation as slippery as sea-weed, and as she
set her foot upon it she slipped and lost her balance. In her
vertigo, she saw the river roaring menacingly below, the sharp rocks
waiting to receive her and mangle her flesh, and she already felt the
chill air of the abyss. A hand clutched her by her gown, by her
flesh, perhaps; held her up and drew her back to safety. She dropped
her head on Segundo's shoulder and the latter, for the first time,
felt Nieves' heart beat under his hand. And how quickly it beat! It
beat with fear. The poet bent over her, and on her very lips breathed
this question:

"Do you love me? tell me, do you love me?"

The answer was inaudible, for even if the words had been formed
in her throat her sealed lips were unable to articulate them. During
this short space of time, which was for them an eternity, there
flashed across Segundo's brain a thought potent and destructive as
the electric spark. The poet stood fronting the precipice, Nieves
with her back toward it, kept from falling over its edge only by the
arm of her savior. A movement forward, a stronger pressure of his
lips to hers, would be sufficient to make them both lose their
balance and precipitate them into the abyss. It would be a beautiful
ending--worthy of the ambitious soul of a poet. Thinking of it
Segundo found it alluring and desirable, and yet the instinct of
self-preservation, an animal impulse, but one more powerful than the
romantic idea, placed between the thought and the action an
insuperable barrier. He pleased himself, in imagination, with the
picture of the two bodies clasped in each other's arms, borne along
by the current of the river. He even saw in fancy the scene of the
discovery of the corpses, the exclamations; the profound impression
that such an event would cause in the district; and _something_, some
poetic feeling that stirred and thrilled in his youthful soul, urged
him to take the leap; but at the same time a cold fear congealed his
blood, obliging him to proceed slowly, not toward the abyss, but in
an opposite direction, toward the path.

All this, short enough in the telling, was instantaneous in the
thinking. Segundo felt a cold chill strike through him, putting to
flight thoughts of love as well as of death. It was the chill
communicated to him by the lips of Nieves, who had fainted in his
arms.

He dipped his handkerchief in the spring and applied it to her
temples and wrists. She half opened her eyes. They could hear
Tropiezo talking, Carmen laughing; they were coming doubtless in
search of them, to triumph over them. Nieves, when she came back to
consciousness and found herself still alone, did not make the
slightest effort to free herself from the poet's embrace.




                                  XXI.


As if by tacit agreement the hero and heroine of the adventure
made light of the danger they had run, to their companions in the
excursion in the first place, and afterward to the elders at Las
Vides. Segundo observed a certain reticence regarding the particulars
of the occurrence. Nieves, on the contrary, was more talkative than
usual, speaking with nervous loquacity, going over the most
insignificant details a hundred times. She had slipped; García had
reached out his hand to her; she had caught it, and as she
was--well--timid, she had been a little frightened, although there
was not the slightest occasion for being so. But the obstinate
Tropiezo, with mild scorn, contradicted her. Good Heavens, how
mistaken she was! No danger? Why, it was only by a miracle that
Nieves was not now floating in the Avieiro. The ground there was as
slippery as soap, and the stones below were as sharp as razors, and
the current was so strong that----Nieves denied the danger, making an
effort to laugh; but the terror of the accident had left unmistakable
traces upon her countenance, changing its warm healthy pallor to a
sickly hue, producing dark circles under her eyes, and making her
features twitch convulsively.

Segundo longed to say a few words to her, to ask her to grant him
an interview; he comprehended that he must avail himself of these
first moments, while her soul was still under the softening influence
of gratitude and fright which made her cold heart palpitate beneath
the whalebone of her stays. In the brief scene of the precipice the
arrival of Tropiezo had allowed Nieves no time to respond explicitly
to the poet's ardor, and Segundo wished to come to some agreement
with her, to devise some means of seeing each other and talking to
each other alone, to establish the fact at once that all these
anxieties, these vigils, these intrigues, were love and requited
love--a mutual passion, in short. When and how should he find the
desired opportunity of establishing an understanding with Nieves?

It may be said that in the history of every love affair there
exists a first period in which obstacles accumulate and difficulties,
seemingly insurmountable, arise, driving to despair the lover who has
made up his mind to conquer them, and that there comes, too, a second
period in which the mysterious force of desire and the power of the
will sweep away these obstacles, and circumstances, for the moment
favorable, aid the lovers. So it happened on the night of this
memorable day. As Victorina had been somewhat frightened, hearing of
the danger her mother had been in, she had been sent to bed early,
and Carmen Agonde had remained with her to put her asleep by telling
her stories. The principal witnesses being thus removed and the
elders plunged in one of their interminable viticultural,
agricultural, and sociological discussions, Nieves, who had gone out
on the balcony for air--for she felt as if she had a lump in her
throat which prevented her from breathing--had an opportunity to chat
for ten minutes with Segundo, who was standing near the window, not
far from the rocking-chairs.

Occasionally they would raise their voices and speak on
indifferent subjects--the afternoon's accident, the strange singing
of the pines. And low, very low, the diplomatic negotiation of the
poet followed its course. An interview, a conversation with some
degree of freedom. Why, of course it could be! Why could it not take
place in the gallery that very night? No one was going to think of
going there to spy out what was passing. He could let himself down
easily into the garden----He could not? She was very timid----It
would be wrong? Why?--She was tired and not very well----Yes, he
understood. She would prefer the daytime, perhaps. Well, the other
would be better, but----Without fail? At the hour of the siesta? In
the parlor? No; nobody ever went there; everyone was asleep. On her
word of honor?--Thanks. Yes, it was necessary to dissemble so as not
to attract attention.

Meantime the gentlemen at the tresillo table talked of the
vintage and its consequences. The poor country girls earned a good
deal of money at the work. Apropos of which Don Victoriano gave
expression to some of his favorite ideas, referring to English
legislature, and eulogizing the wisdom of that great nation whose
laws regulating labor give evidence of a careful study of the
problems it involves, and of some regard for the welfare of women and
children. With these serious disquisitions the evening ended, every
owl retiring to his olive tree.

Nieves, seated at her toilet table, her open dressing-case and a
small silver-framed mirror before her, was taking out, one by one,
the tortoise-shell hair-pins which fastened her hair. Mademoiselle
gathered them together and arranged them neatly in a box and braided
Nieves' hair, after which the latter threw herself back in her seat
and drew a deep breath; suddenly she looked up.

"If you could make me a cup of lime tea," she said, "in your own
room, without troubling anybody?"

The Frenchwoman left the room and Nieves leaned her elbow
thoughtfully on the table, resting her cheek in the palm of her hand,
without moving her eyes from the mirror. Her face was deathly pale.
No, this life could not continue; if it did it would carry her to her
grave. She was very nervous--what terrors! What anxiety, what moments
of anguish she had suffered! She had seen death face to face, and had
had more frights, more fears, more misery in a single day than in all
the previous years of her existence put together. If this were love
in truth there was little that was pleasing in it; such agitations
were not suited to her. It was one thing to like to be pretty, and to
be told so, and even to have a passionate adorer, and another to
suffer these incessant anxieties, these surprises that bring one's
heart to one's mouth and expose one to the risk of disgrace and
destroy one's health. And the poets say that this is happiness. It
may be so for them--as for the poor women----And why had she not the
courage to tell Segundo that there must be an end to this, to say to
him: "I can endure these alarms no longer. I am afraid. I am
miserable!" Ah, she was afraid of him, too. He was capable of killing
her; his handsome black eyes sent forth at times electric sparks and
phosphoric gleams. And then he always took the lead, he dominated
her, he mastered her. Through him she had been on the point of
falling into the river, of being dashed to pieces on the rocks. Holy
Virgin! Why, only half an hour ago did he not almost force her to
agree to a meeting in the gallery? Which would be a great piece of
madness, since it would be impossible for her to go to that part of
the house without her absence being noticed by Mademoiselle, or
someone else, and its cause being discovered. Good Heavens! All this
was terrible, terrible! And to-morrow she must go to the parlor at
the hour of the siesta. Well, then, she would take a bold resolution.
She would go, yes, but she would go to clear up this
misunderstanding, to give Segundo some plain talk that would make him
place some restraint upon himself; that he should love her, very
good; she had no objection to that, that was well enough; but to
compromise her in this way, that was a thing unheard of; she would
entreat him to return to Vilamorta; they would soon go to Madrid. Ah,
how long that blessed Mademoiselle delayed with the lime tea.

The door opened to admit, not Mademoiselle, but Don Victoriano.
There was nothing to surprise her in his appearance; he slept in a
sort of cabinet near his wife's room and separated from it by a
passageway, and every night before retiring he gave a kiss to the
child, whose bed was beside her mother's; nevertheless Nieves felt a
chill creep over her, and she instinctively turned her back to the
light, coughing to hide her agitation.

The truth was that Don Victoriano looked very serious, even
stern. He had not indeed been very cheerful or communicative ever
since his illness had assumed a serious character; but in addition to
his air of dejection there was an indefinable something, a darker
gloom on his face than usual, a cloud pregnant with storm. Nieves,
observing that he did not approach the child's bed, cast down her
eyes and affected to be occupied in smoothing her hair with the ivory
comb.

"How do you feel, child? Have you recovered from your fright?"
asked her husband.

"No; I am still a little----I have asked for some lime tea."

"You did well. See, Nieves----"

"Well--well?"

"See, Nieves, we must go to Madrid at once."

"Whenever you wish. You know that I----"

"No, the thing is that it is necessary, indispensable. I must put
myself seriously under treatment, child; for if things continue as
they are now it will soon be all over with me. I had the weakness to
put myself in the hands of that ass, Don Fermin. God forgive me for
it! and I fear," he added, smiling bitterly, "that I have made a
fatal mistake. Let us see if Sanchez del Abrojo will get me out of
the scrape--I doubt it greatly."

"Heavens, how apprehensive you are!" exclaimed Nieves, breathing
freely once more and availing herself of the resource offered to her
by Don Victoriano's illness. "Anyone would think you had an incurable
disease. When you are once in Madrid and Sanchez has you under his
care--in a couple of months you will not even remember this trifling
indisposition."

"Bravo! child, bravo! I don't wish to hurt your feelings or to
seem unkind, but what you say proves that you neither look at me, nor
care a straw about my health, nor pay any attention to me whatever,
which--forgive me--is not creditable to you. My disease is a serious,
a very serious one--it is a disease that carries people off in fine
style. I am being converted into sugar, my sight is failing, my head
aches, I have no blood left, and you, serene and gay, sporting about
like a child. A wife who loved her husband would not act in this way.
You have troubled yourself neither about the state of my body nor the
state of my mind. You are enjoying yourself, having a fine time, and
as for the rest--a great deal it matters to you!"

Nieves rose to her feet, tremulous, almost weeping.

"What are you saying? I--I----"

"Don't distress yourself, child; don't cry. You are young and
well; I am wasted and sickly. So much the worse for me. But listen to
me. Although I seem to you dry and serious, I loved you tenderly,
Nieves, I love you still, as much as I love that child who is
sleeping there, I swear it to you before God! And you might--you
might love me a little--like a daughter--and take some interest in
me. The trouble would not be for long now--I feel so sick."

Nieves drew near him with an affectionate movement and he touched
her forehead with his parched lips, pressing her to him at the same
time. Then he added:

"I have still another observation to make, another sermon to
preach to you, child."

"What is it?" murmured his wife smiling, but terrified.

"That boy García--don't be alarmed, child, there is no need for
that--that boy looks at you sometimes in a very curious way, as if he
were making love to you. No, I am not doubting you. You are and you
have always been an irreproachable wife--I am not accusing you, nor
do I attach any importance to such folly. But, although you may not
believe it, the young men here are very daring; they are shyer in
appearance than those of the capital, but they are bolder in reality.
I spent my youthful years here, and I know them. I am only putting
you on your guard so that you may keep that jackanapes within bounds.
For the rest of the time we are to remain in this place, avoid those
long walks and all those other rusticities which they indulge in
here. A lady like you among these people is a sort of queen, and it
is not proper that they should take the same liberties with you as
with the Señoritas de Molende or others like them--but I have already
told you that such a thought has not even crossed my mind. It is one
thing that this village Swan should have fallen in love with you, and
have given you his hand to help you over the rocks, and another that
I should insult you, child!"

Shortly afterward Mademoiselle entered with the steaming cup of
tea. And greatly Nieves needed it. Her nerves were in a state of the
utmost tension. She was on the verge of a hysterical attack. She even
felt nausea when she took the first few spoonfuls. Mademoiselle
offered her some anti-hysterical drops. Nieves drank the remedy, and
with a few yawns and two or three tears the attack passed off. She
thought she would go to bed, and went into her bedroom. There she saw
something which renewed her uneasiness--Victorina, instead of being
asleep, lay with eyes wide open. She had probably heard every word of
the conversation.




                                 XXII.


She had in fact heard it all, from beginning to end. And the
words of the conjugal dialogue were whirling around in her brain,
mingling confusedly together, stamping themselves in characters of
fire on her virgin memory. She repeated them to herself, she tried to
understand their meaning, she weighed them, she drew conclusions from
them.

No one can tell which is the precise moment that divides day from
night, sleeping from waking, youth from maturity, and innocence from
knowledge. Who can fix the moment in which the child, passing into
adolescence, observes in herself that undefinable something which may
perhaps be called consciousness of sex, in which vague presentiment
is changed into swift intuition, in which, without an exact notion of
the realities of life, she divines all that experience will
corroborate and accentuate later on, in which she understands the
importance of a sign, the significance of an act, the character of a
relationship, the value of a glance, and the meaning of a reticence.
The moment in which her eyes, hitherto open only to external life,
acquire power to scrutinize the inner life also, and losing their
superficial brilliancy, the clear reflection of her ingenuous purity,
acquire the concentrated and undefinable expression which constitutes
the _glance of a grown person_.

This moment arrived for Victorina at the age of eleven, on the
night we have mentioned, overhearing a dialogue between her father
and mother. Motionless, with bated breath, her feet cold, her head
burning, the child heard everything, and afterward, in the dim light
of the bedroom, united broken links, remembering certain incidents,
and at last understood without attaching much importance to what she
understood, reasoning, however, with singular precocity, owing,
perhaps, to the painful activity with which imagination works in the
silence of night and the repose of the bed.

It is certain that the child slept badly, tossing about
restlessly in her monastic little bed. Two ideas, especially, seemed
to pierce her brain like nails. Her father was ill, very ill, and he
was annoyed and displeased, besides, because Segundo had fallen in
love with her mamma. With her mamma. Not with her! With her who
preserved all the flowers he had given her like relics.

The sorrows of childhood know neither limit nor consolation. When
we are older and more storms have passed over us, and we have seen
with astonishment that man can survive griefs which we had thought
unsurvivable, and that the heavens do not fall because we have lost
what we love, it may almost be said that absolute despair, which is
the heritage of childhood, does not exist. It was evident to
Victorina that her father was dying and that her mother was wicked,
and Segundo a villain, and that the world had come to an end--and
that she too, she too, desired to die. If it were possible for the
hair to turn white at eleven, Victorina would have become white on
the night in which suffering changed her from a bashful, timid,
blushing child to a moral being, capable of the greatest heroism.

Nor did Nieves enjoy the balmy sweets of slumber. Her husband's
words had made her thoughtful. Was Don Victoriano's illness a fatal
one? It might be so! He looked greatly altered, poor fellow. And
Nieves felt a touch of grief and apprehension. Why, who could doubt
that she loved her husband, or that she should regret his death? She
did not feel for him any passionate love, such as is described in
novels--but affection--yes. Heaven grant the malady might be a
trifling one. And if it were not? And if she were to be left a wi----
She did not dare to complete the word even in her thoughts. To think
of such a thing seemed like indulging in wicked desires. No, but the
fact was that women, when their husbands die, were--Holy Virgin! It
must be a terrible grief. Well, but _if it happened_?
Segundo--Heavens, what folly! Most assuredly such an absurdity had
never entered his head. The Garcías--nobodies. And here a vivid
picture of all Segundo's relations and their manner of living
presented itself to her mind.

She would willingly have absented herself from the rendezvous on
the following day, because her husband had begun to suspect something
and the situation was a compromising one, although in the place
designated for the interview the meeting between them might always be
attributed to chance. On the other hand if she failed to meet him,
Segundo, who was so enamored, was fully capable of creating a
scandal, of going to look for her in her room, of forcing an entrance
into it through the window.

After all, thinking well over the matter, she judged it most
prudent to comply with her promise and to entreat Segundo to--forget
her--or at least not to compromise her. That was the best course to
pursue.

Nieves passed the morning in a state of complete prostration; she
scarcely tasted a morsel at breakfast and during the meal she kept
her eyes turned away from Segundo, fearing lest her husband should
surprise some furtive glance of intelligence between them. To make
matters worse, Segundo, desirous of reminding her with his eyes of
her promise, looked at her on this day oftener than usual.
Fortunately Don Victoriano's attention seemed to be all given to
satisfying his voracious appetite for eating and drinking. The meal
being finished everyone retired as usual to take the siesta. Nieves
went to her room. She found Victorina there, lying on the bed. For
greater precaution she asked her:

"Are you going to sleep the siesta, my pet?"

"To sleep, no. But I am comfortable here."

Nieves looked at herself in the glass and saw that she was pale.
She washed her teeth, and after satisfying herself by a rapid glance
that her husband was resting in the other room, she stole softly into
the parlor. She was trembling. This atmosphere of storm and danger,
grateful to the sea-fowl, was fatal to the domestic bird. It was no
life to be always shuddering with fear, her blood curdled by fright.
It was not to live. It was not to breathe. She would end by becoming
crazy. Had she not fancied just now that she heard steps behind her,
as if someone were following her? Two or three times she had stopped
and leaned, fainting, against the wall of the corridor, vowing in her
own mind that she would never put herself in such a dilemma again.

When she reached the parlor she stopped, half startled. It was so
silent and drowsy in the semi-obscurity, with the half-closed
shutters through which entered a single sunbeam full of dancing
golden motes, with its sleepy mirrors that were too lazy to reflect
anything from their turbid surfaces, its drowsy asthmatic clock,
whose face looked like a human countenance watching her and coughing
disapprovingly. Suddenly she heard quick, youthful foot-steps and
Segundo, audacious, impassioned, threw himself at her feet and
clasped his arms around her. She tried to restrain him, to advise
him, to explain to him. The poet refused to heed her, he continued
pouring forth exclamations of gratitude and love and then, rising to
his feet, he drew her toward him with the irresistible force of a
passion which does not stop to consider consequences.

When Don Victoriano saw the child enter his room, white as wax,
livid, almost, darting fire from her eyes, in one of those
horror-inspired attitudes which can neither be feigned nor imitated,
he sprang from the bed where he had been lying awake smoking a cigar.
The child said to him, in a choking voice:

"Come, papa! come, papa!"

What were the thoughts that passed through her father's mind? It
was never known why he followed his daughter without putting to her a
single question. On the threshold of the parlor father and child
paused. Nieves uttered a shrill scream and Segundo, with an
impassioned and manly gesture, placed himself before her to shield
her with his body. An unnecessary defense. In the figure of the man
standing on the threshold there was nothing of menace; what there was
in it to inspire terror was precisely its air of stupor and
helplessness; it seemed a corpse, a specter overwhelmed with impotent
despair--the face, green rather than sallow, the eyes opened, dull
and fixed, the hands and feet trembling. The man was making fruitless
efforts to speak; paralysis had begun with the tongue; he tried in
vain to move it in his mouth, to form sounds. Horrible conflict! The
words struggled for utterance but remained unuttered; his face
changed from livid to red, the blood becoming congested in it, and
the child, clasping her father around the waist, seeing this combat
between the spirit and the body, cried:

"Help! help! Papa is dying!"

Nieves, not daring to approach her husband, but comprehending
that something very serious was the matter, screamed too for help.
And at the various doors appeared one after another Primo Genday and
Tropiezo in their shirt-sleeves, and Mendez with a cotton
handkerchief tied over his ears.

Segundo stood silent in the middle of the room, uncertain what
course to pursue. To leave the room would be cowardly, to
remain----Tropiezo shook him.

"Go, flying, to Vilamorta, boy!" he said. "Tell Doroteo, the
cabman, to go to Orense and bring back a doctor with him--the best he
can find. I don't want to make a trip this time," he added with a
wink. "Run, hurry off!"

The Swan approached Nieves, who had thrown herself on the sofa
and was weeping, her face covered with her dainty handkerchief.

"They want me to go for a doctor, Nieves. What shall I do?"

"Go!"

"Shall I return?"

"No--for God's sake leave me. Go bring the doctor! go bring the
doctor!" And she sobbed more violently than before.

                             * * * * *

In spite of all Segundo's haste, the physician did not arrive in
Las Vides until early on the morning of the following day. He did not
think the case an unusual one. This disease often terminated in this
way, in paralysis; it was one of the most frequent complications of
the terrible malady. He added that it would be well to remove the
patient to Orense, taking suitable precautions. The removal was
effected without much difficulty, and Don Victoriano lived for a few
days longer. Twenty-four hours after the interment Nieves and
Victorina, attired in the deepest mourning, departed for the capital.




                                 XXIII.


The black pall of winter has fallen over Vilamorta. It is
raining, and in the wet and muddy main street and plaza no one is to
be seen but occasionally some countryman, riding enveloped in his
grass cloth cloak, his horse's hoofs clattering on the stone
pavement, raising showers of mud. There are now no fruit-venders for
the simple reason that there is no fruit; all is deserted, damp,
muddy, and gloomy; Cansin, in listing slippers, a comforter around
his neck, walks up and down unceasingly before his door, to prevent
chilblains; the Alcalde avails himself of a very narrow arch in front
of his house to pass away the afternoon, walking ten steps up and ten
steps down, stamping energetically to keep his feet warm--an exercise
which he affirms to be indispensable to his digestion.

Now indeed the little town seems lifeless! There are neither
visitors to the springs nor strangers from the surrounding country,
neither fairs nor vintages. Everywhere reigns the stillness and
solitude of the tomb, and a moisture so persistent that it covers
with a minute green vegetation the stones of the houses in course of
construction. These little towns in winter are enough to make the
most cheerful person low-spirited; they are the very acme of tedium,
the quintessence of dullness--the disinclination to arrange one's
hair, to change one's dress, the interminable evenings, the
persistent rain, the gloomy cold, the ashen atmosphere, the leaden
sky!

In the midst of this species of lethargy in which Vilamorta is
plunged there are, however, some happy beings, beings who are now at
the summit of felicity, although soon destined to end their existence
in the most tragic manner; beings who, by their natural instinct
alone, have divined the philosophy of Epicurus and practice it, and
eat, drink, and make merry, and neither fear death nor think of the
unexplored region which opens its gates to the dying, beings who
receive the rain on their smooth skins with rejoicing, beings for
whom the mud is a luxurious bath in which they roll and wallow with
delight, abandoning the discomfort and narrowness of their lairs and
sties. They are the indisputable lords and masters of Vilamorta at
this season of the year; they who with their pomps and exploits
supply the reunions at the apothecary's with food for conversation,
and entertainment for familiar gatherings in which their respective
sizes are discussed and they are studied from the point of view of
their personal qualities, heated discussions taking place as to
whether the short or the long ear, the curly tail, the hoof more or
less curved upward, and the snout more or less pointed, augur the
more succulent flesh and the more abundant fat. Comparisons are made.
Pellejo's hog is superb as far as size is concerned, but its flesh,
of an erysipelatous rosy hue, and its immense flabby belly, betray
the hog of relaxed muscle, nourished on bakehouse refuse; a
magnificent swine, that of the Alcalde, which has been fed on
chestnuts, not so large as the other, but what hams it will make!
What hams! And what bacon! And what a back, broad enough to ride
upon! This will be the swine of the season. There are not wanting
those who affirm, however, that the queen of the swine of Vilamorta
is the pig of Aunt Gáspara, García's pig. The haunches of this
magnificent animal look like a highroad; it once came near being
suffocated by its own fat; its teats touch its hoofs and kiss the mud
of the road. Who can calculate how many pounds of lard it will yield,
and the black puddings it will fill with its blood, and the sausages
that its intestines will make?

It stops raining for a week; the cold grows more intense, frost
falls, whitening the grass of the paths and hardening the ground.
This is the signal for the hecatomb, for which the auspices are now
favorable, for, in addition to the cold, the moon is in her last
quarter; if she were on the wane the flesh would spoil. The hour has
come for wielding the knife. And through the long nights of Vilamorta
resound at the most unexpected moments desperate grunts--first grunts
of fury, that express the impotent rage of the victim at finding
himself bound to the bench, and reveal in the degenerate domestic pig
the descendant of the wild mountain boar; then of pain, when the
knife penetrates the flesh, an almost human cry when its blade
pierces the heart, and at last a series of despairing groans which
grow fainter and fainter as life and strength escape with the warm
stream of blood.

This bloodcurdling drama was being enacted in the house of the
lawyer García at eleven o'clock on a clear frosty December night. The
girls, wild with delight, and dying with curiosity, crowded around
the expiring pig, in whose heart and throat the butcher, with rolled
up sleeves and bare arms, was about to plunge the knife. Segundo,
shut up in his bedroom, had before him some sheets of paper, more or
less covered with scrawls. He was writing verses. But as the sounds
of the tragedy reached him, he dropped his pen with dismay. He had
inherited from his mother a profound horror of the spectacle of the
killing; it usually cost his mother ten or twelve days of suffering,
during which she was unable to eat food, sickened by the sight of the
blood, the intestines and the viscera, so like human intestines and
human viscera, the greasy flitches of bacon hanging from the roof,
and the strong and stimulating odor of the black pudding and spices.
Segundo abhorred even the name of pig, and in the morbid condition of
his mind, in the nervous excitement which consumed him, it was an
indescribable martyrdom to be unable to set his foot outside the door
without stumbling against and entangling himself among the accursed
and repulsive animals, or seeing, through the half-open doors,
portions of their bodies hanging on hooks. All Vilamorta smelled of
pig-killing, of warm entrails; Segundo did not know at last where to
hide himself, and intrenched himself in his own room, closing the
doors and windows tightly, secluding himself from the external world
in order to live with his dreams and fancies in a realm where there
were no hogs, and where only pine groves, blue flowers and precipices
existed. Insufficient precaution to free himself from the torture of
that brutal epoch of the year, since here in his own house he was
besieged by the drama of gluttony and realism. The poet seized his
hat and hurried out of the room. He must flee where these grunts
could not penetrate, where those smells should not surround him. He
walked along the hall, closing his eyes in order not to see, by the
light of the candle which one of the children was holding, Aunt
Gáspara with her skeleton-like arm, bare to the elbow, stirring a red
and frothing liquid in a large earthern pan. When they saw Segundo
leaving the house the sisters burst into shouts of laughter, and
called to him, offering him grotesque delicacies, ignoble spoils of
the dying.

Leocadia had not retired; she felt ill and she was dozing in a
chair, wrapped in a shawl and shivering with cold; she opened the
door quickly to Segundo, asking him in alarm if anything had
happened. Nothing, indeed. They were killing the pig at home--a
Toledan night; they would not let him sleep. Besides, the night was
so cold--he felt somewhat indisposed--as if he had a chill. Would she
make him a cup of coffee, or better still, a rum punch?

"Both, my heart, this very instant!"

Leocadia recovered her spirits and her energy as if by
enchantment. Soon there rose from the punch-bowl the sapphire flame
of the punch. In its glare the schoolmistress's face seemed very
thin. It had lost its former healthy color, a warm brown like that of
the crust of a well-baked loaf. The pangs of disappointed love were
revealed in the pallor of her cheeks, in the feverish brightness of
her eyes, the purplish hue of her lips. Grief had given her prosaic
features an almost poetic stamp; as she had grown thinner her eyes
looked larger; she was not now the robust woman, with firm flesh and
fresh-colored lips, who, pitted though she was by the smallpox, could
still draw a coarse compliment from the tavern-keeper; the fire of an
imperious, uncontrollable, and exacting passion was consuming her
inwardly--the love which comes late in life, that devouring love
which reason cannot conquer, nor time uproot, nor circumstances
change, which fixes its talons in the vitals and releases its prey
only when it has destroyed it.

And this love was of so singular a nature that,--insatiable,
volcanic, desperate, as it was,--far from dictating acts of violence
to Leocadia and drawing from her furious reproaches, it inspired her
with a self-abnegation and a generosity without limits, banishing
from her mind every thought of self.

The summer, the vintage season, the whole period during which she
had scarcely seen Segundo, when she knew he had not given her a
passing thought, that he was devoting himself to another woman, had
been horrible for her; and yet not a jealous word, not a complaint
had crossed her lips, nor did she once regret having given Segundo
the money; and when she saw the poet, her joy was so genuine, so
profound, that it effaced, as if by magic, the remembrance of her
sufferings and repaid her for them a hundredfold.

Now there was an additional reason why she should lavish her
affection upon the poet. He too was suffering, he was ill. What was
the matter with him? He himself did not know: hypochondria, the grief
of separation, spleen, the impatient disgust produced by the contrast
of his mean surroundings with the dreams that filled his imagination.
A constant inappetency, depression of spirits, an uneasy sensation in
the stomach, nerves on the stretch, like the strings of a guitar. And
his love for Nieves was not like Leocadia's love, one of those
passions that absorb the whole being, affect the heart, attenuate the
flesh, and subjugate the soul. Nieves lived only in his imagination,
in his vanity, in his lyrics, in his romantic reveries, those eternal
inspirers of love. Nieves was the visible incarnation, in beautiful
and alluring form, of his longings for fame, his literary ambition.

Leocadia had served the punch and was pouring out the coffee
when, her hand trembling with pleasure and emotion, she spilled some
of the hot liquid, scalding herself slightly; she took no notice of
the burn, however, but went on, with the same solicitude as always,
to minister to Segundo's comfort. Thinking to please and interest the
poet she asked him for news of the volume of poems which he had in
hand, and which was to spread his fame far beyond Vilamorta, so soon
as it should be published in Orense. Segundo did not show much
enthusiasm at this prospect.

"In Orense," he said, "in Orense----Do you know that I have
changed my mind? Either I shall publish it in Madrid or I shall not
publish it at all. The loss to Spanish literature would not be so
very great."

"And why don't you want to publish it now in Orense?"

"I will tell you. Roberto Blanquez is right in the advice he
gives me in a letter he has just written me from Madrid. You know
that Roberto is in a situation there. He says that no one reads books
published in the provinces; that he has noticed the contempt with
which books that do not bear the imprint of some publishing house of
the capital are looked upon there. And besides, that they delay a
century here in printing a volume, and when it is printed it is full
of errors, and unattractive in appearance--in short, that they do not
take. And therefore----"

"Well, then, let the book be published in Madrid. How much would
it cost?"

"Child, the prices Roberto tells me are enough to frighten one.
It seems that the affair would cost a fortune. No publisher will buy
verses or even share with the author the expense of publishing them."

Leocadia answered only by a smile. The little parlor had a look
of homelike comfort. Although winter had despoiled the balcony of its
charms, turning the sweet basil yellow and withering the carnations,
within, the hissing of the coffee-pot, the alcoholic vapor of the
punch, the quietude, the solicitous affection of the schoolmistress,
all seemed to temper and soften the atmosphere. Segundo felt a
pleasant drowsiness stealing over him.

"Will you give me a blanket from your bed?" he said to the
schoolmistress. "There is not a spot at home where I could rest
to-night. I might sleep a little on the sofa here."

"You will be cold."

"I shall be in heaven. Go."

Leocadia left the room, and returned dragging in with her an
unwieldy bulk--a mattress; then she brought a blanket; then, pillows.
Total, a complete bed. For all that was wanting--only the sheets--she
brought them also.




                                 XXIV.


Leocadia did not vacillate on the following day. She knew the way
and she went straight to the lawyer's house. The latter received her
with a frowning brow. Did people think he was coining money? Leocadia
had now no land to sell; what she brought was of trifling value. If
she made up her mind to mortgage the house he would speak to his
brother-in-law Clodio, who had some money saved, and who would like
to have some such piece of property. Leocadia breathed a sigh of
regret, it was not with her as with the peasantry--she had no
attachment to land, but the house! So neat, so pretty, so
comfortable, arranged according to her own taste!

"Pshaw, by paying the amount of the mortgage you can have it back
the moment you wish."

So it was settled. Clodio handed out the money, tempted by the
hope of obtaining, at half its value, so cozy a nest in which to end
his bachelor existence. In the evening Leocadia asked Segundo to show
her the manuscript of his poems and to read some of them to her.
Frequent mention was made in them, with reticences and transparent
allusions, of certain blue flowers, of the murmur of a pine wood, of
a precipice, and of various other things which Leocadia knew well
were not inventions, but had their explanation in past, and to her
unknown, events. The schoolmistress divined a love story whose
heroine could be no one but Nieves Mendez. But what she could not
understand, what she could not explain, was how Señora de Comba, now
a widow, and free to reward Segundo's love, did not do so
immediately. The verses breathed profound despondency, ardent
passion, and intense bitterness. Now Leocadia understood Segundo's
sadness, his dejection, his mental anguish. How much he must suffer
in secret! Poets, by their nature, must suffer more and crueler
tortures than the rest of humanity. There was not a doubt of it--this
separation, these memories were killing Segundo slowly. Leocadia
hesitated how to begin the conversation.

"See, listen. Those verses are beautiful and deserve to be
printed in letters of gold. It just happens, child, that I received
some money a few days ago from Orense. Do you know what I was
thinking of the other night while you were asleep in the little bed I
arranged for you? That it would be better for you to go yourself to
publish them--yonder--to Madrid."

To her great surprise she saw that Segundo's face clouded. To go
to Madrid now! Impossible; he must first learn something of Nieves.
The last tragic scene of his love affair, the dénouement of her
sudden widowhood, raised between them a barrier difficult to pass.
Nieves was rich, and if Segundo should go to her now and throw
himself at her feet, he would not be the lover asking her to requite
his love, but the suitor to her hand, alleging anterior rights and
basing on them his aspirations to replace her defunct husband. And
Segundo, who had accepted money from Leocadia, felt his pride rebel
at the thought that Nieves might take him for a fortune-hunter, or
might scorn him for his obscurity and his poverty. But did not Nieves
love him? Had she not told him so? Why, then, did she not send him
some message. True, he had made no attempt to communicate with the
beautiful widow, or to refresh her memory. He feared to do it
awkwardly, inopportunely, and so reopen the wound caused by the death
of her husband.

The volume of verses--an excellent idea! The volume of verses was
the one means of recovering his place in Nieves' recollection
worthily, borne on the wings of popular applause. If this volume were
read, admired, praised, it would win fame for its author; the
difference between his own and Nieves' social position, which might
now make his pretensions appear ridiculous, would disappear. "To
marry!" said Segundo to himself. Marriage seemed to him a secondary
matter. Let Nieves only love him. It was love he asked, not marriage.
Sitting at Leocadia's very table he wrote to Blanquez, giving him
instructions, and prepared the manuscript to post it, and made out
the index and the title-page with the impatient joy of one who,
expecting to win a fortune, buys a ticket in the lottery. When he was
gone Leocadia remained sunk in thought. Segundo had no desire to go
to Madrid. Then the gleam of happiness that flashed across her mind
at the thought that Segundo should establish himself in Vilamorta was
quenched by two considerations--one was that Segundo would die of
tedium here; the other that she could not long continue to supply his
wants. In mortgaging the house she had burned her last cartridge.
What should she mortgage now--herself? And she smiled sadly. In the
hall resounded the steps of the neglected little cripple, on his way
to bed, where Flores would soon lull him to sleep with her solecisms
and barbarous litanies. The mother sighed. And this being, this being
who had no support but her--what should he live on? When ruin had
overtaken her, and she could no longer give him food or shelter, what
a mute and continual reproach would the presence of the unhappy child
be to her! And how could she set him to work?

To work! This word brought to her mind the plans she had matured
in those hours of sleeplessness and despair in which all the past is
retraced in thought and new plans are formed for the future and every
possible course of action is deliberated upon. It was plain that
Minguitos was unfitted for the material labor of cultivating the
ground, or for making shoes, or grinding chocolate, like that
good-looking Ramon; but he knew how to read and write and in
arithmetic, with a little help from Leocadia, he would be a prodigy.
To sit behind a counter kills nobody; to attend to a customer, to
answer his questions, take the money, enter down what is sold, are
rather entertaining occupations that cheer the mind than fatiguing
labors. In this way the little hunchback would be amused and would
lose a little of his terror of strangers, his morbid fear of being
laughed at.

A few years before if anyone had proposed to Leocadia to separate
her from her child, to deprive him of the shelter of her loving arms,
she would have insulted him. Now it seemed to her so easy and natural
a solution of the question to make him a clerk in a shop. Something,
nevertheless, still thrilled in the depths of her mother's heart,
some fibers still closely attached to the soul, that bled, that hurt.
She must tear them away quickly. It was all for the good of the
child, to make a man of him, so that to-day or to-morrow----

Leocadia held two or three consultations with Cansin, who had a
cousin in Orense, the proprietor of a cloth shop; and Cansin,
dilating upon his influence with him, and the importance of the
favor, gave the schoolmistress a warm letter of recommendation to
him. Leocadia went to the city, saw the shopkeeper, and the
conditions on which he agreed to receive Minguitos were agreed upon.
The boy would be fed and lodged, his clothes washed, and he would
receive an occasional suit, made from the remnants of cloth left over
in the shop. As to pay, he would be paid nothing until he should have
acquired a thorough knowledge of the business--for a couple of years
or so. And was he very much deformed? Because that would not be very
pleasant for the customers. And was he honest? He had never taken any
money out of his mother's drawer, had he?

Leocadia returned home with her soul steeped in gall. How should
she tell Minguitos and Flores? Especially Flores! Impossible,
impossible--she would create a scandal that would alarm the
neighborhood. And she had promised to take Minguitos without fail on
the following Monday! A stratagem occurred to her. She said that a
relative of hers lived in Orense and that she wished to take the
child there to make his acquaintance. She depicted the journey in
glowing colors, so that Minguitos might think he was going on a
pleasure trip. Did he not want to see Orense again? It was a
magnificent town. She would show him the hot springs, the Cathedral.
The child, with an instinctive horror of public places, of coming in
contact with strangers, sorrowfully shook his head; and as for the
old servant, as if she divined what was going on, she raged and
stormed all the week. When Sunday came and mother and son were about
to take their departure in the stage-coach Flores threw her arms
around the neck of the boy as he was mounting the step, and embraced
him with the tremulous and doting fondness of a grandmother, covering
his face with kisses, and moistening it with the saliva on her
withered lips. She spent the rest of the day sitting in the doorway,
muttering words of rage, or of tender pity, her forehead pressed
between her hands in an attitude of despair.

Leocadia, once they were in the diligence, tried to convince the
boy that the change was for his good; describing to him the pleasant
life that awaited him in that fine shop situated in the most central
part of Orense, which was so lively, where he would have very little
to do, and where he had the hope of earning, if not to-day,
to-morrow, a little money for himself. At her first words the boy
fixed on his mother his astonished eyes, in which a look of
intelligence gradually began to dawn. Minguitos was quick of
comprehension. He drew up close to his mother, and laid his head down
on her lap without speaking.

As he continued silent, Leocadia said to him:

"What is the matter with you? Does your head ache?"

"No; let me sleep so--for a little--until we reach Orense."

And thus he remained, quiet and silent, lulled to sleep,
apparently, by the creaking of the diligence and the deafening noise
of the windows rattling in their sashes. When they reached the city
Leocadia touched him on the shoulder, saying:

"We have arrived."

They alighted from the stagecoach and then only did Leocadia
observe that her lap was moist and that, on the spot where the boy
had rested his forehead, sparkled two or three crystal drops. But on
finding himself among strangers, in the gloomy shop crowded with
rolls of dark cloth, the hunchback's attitude ceased to be resigned;
he caught hold of his mother's skirt with a despairing impulse,
uttering a single cry in which were concentrated all his reproaches,
all his affection:

"M-a-a-a-m-m-a--m-a-a-a-m-m-a!"

This cry still resounded through Leocadia's heart when, on her
arrival at Vilamorta, she saw Flores lying in wait for her in the
doorway. Lying in wait is the exact expression, for Flores threw
herself upon her, the moment she appeared, like a bulldog, like a
wild animal asking for and demanding her young. And as a man in a fit
of rage throws at his adversary whatever he finds nearest his hand so
Flores heaped on Leocadia every species of insult, all sorts of
injurious and opprobrious epithets, crying, in a voice that trembled
with rage and hatred:

"Thief, thief, wretch! What have you done with your child, thief?
Go, drunkard, vagabond, go drink your liqueurs--and your child,
perhaps, dying of hunger! Reprobate, wolf, traitress, where is the
child? Where is the little angel? Where have you hidden him, schemer?
In such a hurry you were to get rid of him so as to be left alone
with your trumpery young gentleman! Wolf, wolf--if I had a gun, as
sure as I am standing here, I would send a charge of shot into you!"

Leocadia, her face pale, her eyes red with weeping, put out her
hand to stop the mouth of the frenzied old woman; but the latter
caught her fingers between her toothless gums, biting them and
slavering them with the foam of her fury, and when the schoolmistress
went upstairs, the old woman followed her, crying after her in hoarse
and sinister accents:

"You will never have the grace of God, wolf--God and the Holy
Virgin will punish you! Go, go, rejoice now because you have carried
out your evil designs! May you be forever accursed, accursed,
accursed!"

The malediction made Leocadia shudder. The house, with Minguitos
away, seemed like a tomb. Flores had neither made the dinner nor
lighted the lamp. Leocadia, too sick at heart to do either, threw
herself on the bed, dressed as she was, and, later on, undressed
herself and went to bed without tasting a morsel of food.




                                  XXV.


With what interest did Segundo read the letters of Roberto
Blanquez giving him news of his book. Roberto was a few years older
than the Swan; the difference in their ages was not so great as to
prevent their having been very good friends when they were at college
together, though it was great enough to have given Blanquez so much
more experience than the poet as to enable him to serve as his guide
and mentor. Blanquez, too, had had his poetic epoch, when he had
written Galician verses; he now devoted himself to the prose of a
modest clerkship, and wrote official articles. Madrid was
enlightening him, and, with the natural penetration of one in whose
veins flowed Galician blood, he was gradually acquiring a knowledge
of practical life. He entertained for Segundo a fanatic admiration
and a sincere attachment, one of those college attachments which last
a lifetime. Segundo wrote to him with entire confidence--some cousins
of Blanquez were acquainted with the mother of Nieves Mendez, and
through this channel Segundo occasionally received tidings of his
lady-love. Blanquez was not ignorant of the episodes of the summer.
And in the beginning his news was very satisfactory: "Nieves lives in
the greatest retirement--my cousins have given me news of her. She
scarcely ever leaves the house except to go to mass. The child is not
well. The physicians say it is the age. They are going to send her to
a convent of the Sacred Heart to be educated. They say the mother
looks superb, my boy. It seems they have been left very well off. The
book will soon appear now. Yesterday I chose the paper for the
edition and the linen paper for the hundred copies _de luxe_. The
type will be Elzevir, which is at present the most fashionable. The
title-page--they make them beautiful now, in six colors--would you
like it to represent something fanciful, something allegorical?" In
this style were Roberto's letters, source of illusions for Segundo,
sole food for his imagination through all that long and gloomy
winter, in that out-of-the-way corner of the world, in the midst of
his prosaic domestic surroundings, his mind filled with the
recollections of his unhappy passion.

March had arrived, that uncertain month of sunshine and showers
which heralds in the spring with affluence of violets and primroses,
when the cold begins to lessen, and in the pale blue sky white clouds
float like streamers, when Segundo received that most precious of all
objects, that object the sight of which makes the heart palpitate
with joy and longing, mingled with an undefinable fear resembling,
somewhat, the feeling with which the new-made father regards his
first-born--his first printed book. It seemed to him a dream that the
book should be there, before his eyes, in his hands, with the
satin-smooth white cover on which the artist had gracefully twined
around a group of pine trees a few sprays of forget-me-nots; with its
pea-green paper, that gave it an antique air, the compositions headed
by three mysterious asterisks. Looking at his verses thus, free from
blots, finished and correct, the thought standing out clearly in
distinct black characters on the delicately tinted page, he almost
felt as if they had issued from his brain just as they were, smoothly
flowing and with perfect rhymes, without corrections or unmeaning
syllables put in to fill out the meter.

Leocadia was even more moved by the sight of the book than its
author had been. She shed tears of joy. The fame of the poet was, in
a sense, her work! For two or three days she was happy, forgetting
the bad news which Flores brought her every Sunday from Orense; from
Orense, where Leocadia did not dare to go herself, fearing to yield
to the entreaties and melt before the prayers of the child, but where
palpitated those fibers of her heart which still bled, and which
Flores wrung with torture by her account of the sufferings of
Minguitos, who declined visibly in health, and who always complained
that they made sport of him in the shop and cast up his deformity to
him.

Unsolvable mysteries of the human heart! Segundo, who despised
his native place, who believed--nor was he mistaken--that there was
not in Vilamorta a single person capable of judging of the merits of
a poem, could not refrain from going one evening to Saturnino
Agonde's and drawing carelessly the volume from his pocket, throwing
it on the counter and saying with affected indifference:

"What do you think of that book, my boy?"

On the instant he repented of his weakness, so many were the
nonsensical remarks and absurd jokes with which the beautiful volume
inspired the irreverent assemblage. He wished he had never shown it.
He had drawn all this upon himself. If the public did not treat him
better than his fellow-townsmen! Man can never isolate himself
completely from his surroundings--the circle in which he moves must
always have an interest for him. However little importance Segundo
might attach to the opinions of the Vilamortans, and although their
approbation would assuredly not have raised him in his own
estimation, their stupid mockery wounded and embittered his soul. He
went home hurt and pained. He spent a feverish night--one of those
nights in which great projects are conceived and decisive resolutions
adopted.

His resolutions and his plans he summed up in the letter he wrote
to Blanquez. The latter did not answer by return of mail; days
passed, and Segundo went every morning to the post-office, always
meeting with the same laconic answer. At last one day he received a
voluminous registered letter.




                                 XXVI.


As he opened it, several newspapers fell out, containing notices
marked by a cross of the volume of poems just published, entitled
"Songs of Absence," this being the name chosen by Segundo for his
volume of rhymes.

These were accompanied by a letter of four pages from Roberto.
What it might contain was of such vital importance to Segundo, so
great the influence it might exercise over his future, that he laid
it aside fearing, he knew not why, to read it, wishing to defer what
he so eagerly desired. The letter lay open before him and certain
names, certain words frequently repeated, caught his eye. The name of
the widowed Señora de Comba was often mentioned in it. To calm his
agitation, which was purely nervous, he took up the newspapers,
resolving to read first the marked paragraphs. He traversed the _via
crucis_, in the fullest signification of the words.

_El Imperial_ gave a noisy boom to Galicia and, as a proof that
the country produced poets in the same abundance as it produced
exquisite peaches and beautiful flowers mentioned, without naming
him, the author of "Songs of Absence," a beautiful volume just
published. And not a line more, not a word of criticism, nothing to
indicate that anybody in the office of the popular daily had taken
the trouble even to cut the leaves of the book. _El Liberal_, better
informed, declared, in three lines, that "Songs of Absence" gave
evidence of the author's great facility in versification. _La Epoca_,
in the most obscure corner of its department, "New Books," eulogized
the typographical elegance of the book; disapproved of the romantic
savor of the title and of the title-page, and deplored in trenchant
phrases that the poet should have sought inspiration in the barren
theme of absence when there were so many wholesome, cheerful and
fruitful subjects on which to write. _El Dia_----

Ah, as for _El Dia_, it gave Segundo a castigation in style: not
one of those angry, predetermined, energetic castigations, in which
the lash is taken up with both hands to crush a powerful and
dangerous adversary, but a contemptuous cut of the whip, a flick with
the nail, as it were, as one might brush away a troublesome insect;
one of those summary criticisms in which the critic does not take the
trouble to adduce proof or argument in support of his criticisms,
whose justice he deems so evident as not to require demonstration; an
execution by a few jests, but jests of a kind that extinguish a new
author, crush him, relegate him forever to the limbo of obscurity.
The critic said that now when verses of supreme merit lacked readers
it was greatly to be deplored that the press should be made to groan
with rhymes of an inferior quality; that now when Becquer had been
placed in the pantheon of the immortals it was a crime to treat him
with the disrespect of stupidly imitating him, mutilating and
counterfeiting his best thoughts; and finally, that it was to be
regretted that estimable young men, endowed, perhaps, with admirable
capabilities for trade, or for the career of an apothecary or a
notary, should spend their parents' money in costly editions of
verses which no one would either buy or read.

Underneath this philippic Roberto Blanquez had written: "Pay no
attention to this ass. Read my article."

And indeed in an obscure, insignificant sheet, one of those
innumerable periodicals that see the light in Madrid without Madrid
ever seeing them, Blanquez poured forth the gall of his wounded
friendship and patriotism--taking the critic to task, eulogizing
Segundo's book and declaring him the worthy compeer of Becquer, with
the difference that the former was a little sweeter, a little more
dreamy, a little more melancholy, as being the son of a land as
beautiful as it was unfortunate, and which was fairer than Andalusia,
than Switzerland, or than any other country on the face of the globe;
ending by saying that if Becquer had been born in Galicia he would
feel, think, and write like _The Swan of Vilamorta_.

Segundo seized the bundle of newspapers and, after looking at
them for a moment fixedly and with a gloomy brow, tore them into
pieces, large at first, then small, then smaller still, which he
threw out of the window to hover for a moment in the air like
butterflies or like the silvery petals of the flower of illusion, and
then fall into the nearest pool. Segundo smiled bitterly. "There goes
fame," he said to himself. "Now I think I am calmer. Let us see what
the letter says."

Of this letter we need cite here only certain passages,
supplementing them with the comments made on them in his mind by the
reader.

"According to your request I went to the house of Señora de Comba
to deliver to her the copy, so carefully wrapped up and sealed, which
you sent me for that purpose."--Of course. It contained an
inscription which I did not want her to think that you might have
read.--"She has a beautiful house, hangings and natural flowers
everywhere."--Everything pertaining to her is like that, beautiful
and refined.--"But I was obliged to return several times before she
would receive me, the moment was always inopportune."--She does not
receive indiscriminately all who may chance to present
themselves.--"At last she received me, after innumerable ceremonies
and formalities. She is very beautiful close by, more beautiful,
even, than at a distance, and it seems impossible that she should
have a daughter twelve years old; she looks at most twenty-four or
twenty-five."--What news Roberto has to tell me.--"The moment I told
her I had come on your part"--Let us hear--"she became--what shall I
say?"--red--"displeased and annoyed, my boy, and in addition so
serious, that I was quite taken aback, and did not know what to
do."--Infamous! Infamous!--"She was afraid that I"--Let us hear; let
us finish, let us finish.--"She refused to receive the book, in spite
of my urgent entreaties"--but this is inconceivable. Ah, what a
woman!--"because she says it would remind her too forcibly of that
place and of the death of her husband, whom God keep in his glory;
and consequently she begs you to excuse her"--wretch!--"from opening
the package and reading your verse, for which she thanks you."--Ha!
ha! ha!--Bravo! What an actress!

"Notwithstanding all this, as you had charged me explicitly to
deliver it to her, I determined not to take the book back with me
and, taking up my hat and saluting her, I laid your package on a
table. On the following morning, however, it came back to me
unopened, with all its seals intact."--And I did not throw her into
the Avieiro that day when our lips--the more fool I! Well, let us
finish.

"In view of the little widow's conduct I imagine that you must
have invented all that about the window and the precipice; you must
have told it to me to fool me or, as you are so imaginative, you
dreamed that it happened and you took the dream for reality."--He
does well to mock me.--"At all events, my boy, if you were interested
in the widow, think no more about her. I know to a certainty, through
my cousins, who have it for a fact from their father, that at the
expiration of the period of her mourning she is to marry a certain
Marquis de Cameros who represented at one time a district in
Lugo."--Yes, yes, I understand.--"The thing is serious, for,
according to what my cousins say, the house linen is being
embroidered already with the coronet of a marchioness."

The letter was torn still more slowly and into still smaller
pieces than the newspapers. With the fragments Segundo made a ball
which he threw far into the middle of the pool. "Such is love," he
said to himself, laughing bitterly.

He began to walk up and down the room, at first with a certain
monotonous regularity, then restlessly and with fury. Clara, the
eldest of his sisters, half opened the door of the room, saying:

"Aunt Gáspara says you are to come."

"What for?"

"Dinner is ready."

Segundo took his hat and rushing into the street walked toward
the river, filled with that species of fury which one who has just
received some mental shock, some bitter disappointment, is apt to
feel at being called on to take part in any of the ordinary concerns
of life.




                                 XXVII.


What a walk was his along the marshy borders of the Avieiro! At
times he hurried on without any motive for accelerating his steps,
and again, equally without motive, stood still, his gaze riveted on
some object but in reality seeing nothing. One regret, a gnawing
grief, pierced his soul when he recalled the past. As in a shipwreck
there is for each of the passengers some one particular object whose
loss he deplores more bitterly than that of all his other
possessions, so Segundo, of all his past life, regretted one instant
above every other, an instant which he would have given all he
possessed to live over again--that during which he had stood with
Nieves on the edge of the precipice, when he might have obtained a
worthy and glorious death, carrying with him into the abyss the
precious treasure of his illusions, and the form of the woman who for
that one unforgettable instant only, had truly loved him.

"A coward then, and a coward now!" thought the poet, calling all
his resolution to his aid but finding himself unable to summon the
necessary courage to throw himself at once into the cold and muddy
waters of the river. What moments of anguish! Giddy with suffering he
seated himself on a stone on the river bank and watched with idiotic
vacancy of expression the circles formed on the bosom of the river by
the drops of rain that fell slantingly from the gray sky, as they
expanded and were lost in other circles that pressed upon them on all
sides, while new circles took their place, to be lost in their turn
in yet other circles, covering the surface of the water with a wavy
design resembling the silver work called _guilloché_. The poet did
not even notice that these same rain-drops that fell thick and fast
on the surface of the Avieiro fell also on his hat and shoulders, ran
down his forehead and, making their way between his collar and his
skin, trickled down his neck. He noticed it only when the chill they
produced made him shiver and he rose and walked slowly home, where
dinner was already over and no one thought of offering him even so
much as a cup of broth.

Two or three days later a fever declared itself, which was at
first slight, but soon grew serious. Tropiezo called it a gastric and
catarrhal fever, and truth compels us to say that he administered
remedies not altogether inappropriate; gastric and catarrhal fevers
are, for physicians whose knowledge is derived chiefly from
experience, a perfect boon from Heaven, a glorious field in which
they may count every battle a victory; a beaten path in which they
run no risk of going astray. It will not lead them to the unknown
pole of science, but at least it will betray them into no abyss.

As Tropiezo was leaving García's house one evening, after his
customary visit to Segundo, muffled up to the ears in his comforter,
he saw, standing beside the lawyer's door in the shadow cast by the
contiguous wall, a woman clad in an old morning gown and with her
head bare. The night was bright and Don Fermin was able to
distinguish her features, but it was not without some difficulty that
he recognized her to be Leocadia, so altered and aged did the poor
schoolmistress look. Her countenance betrayed the keenest anxiety as
she asked the doctor:

"And what news, Don Fermin? How is Segundo getting on?"

"Ah, good evening, Leocadia. Do you know that at first I did not
recognize you?--Well, very well; there is no cause for uneasiness.
To-day I ordered him some of the _puchero_ and some soup. It was
nothing--a cold caught by getting a wetting. But the boy seems a
little preoccupied, and he was for a time so sad and dejected that I
thought he was never going to get back his appetite. At this season
it is necessary to go warmly clad; we have a fine day, and then, when
you least expect it, back come the rain and the cold again. And
you--how are you getting on? They tell me that you have not been
well, either. You must take care of yourself."

"There is nothing the matter with me, Don Fermin."

"So much the better. Any news of the boy?"

"He is in Orense, poor child. He can't get used to it."

"He will get used to it by and by. Of course--accustomed to be
petted. Well, Leocadia, good-night. Go home, my dear woman, go home."

Don Fermin proceeded on his way, drawing his comforter up closer
around his ears. That woman was mad; she had not taken the disease
lightly, it seemed. And how altered she was! How old she had grown in
these last few months! Old women were worse than young girls when
they fell in love. He had done wisely, very wisely in telling her
nothing about Segundo's new plans. She was capable of tearing down
the house if he had told her. No, silence, silence. A shut mouth
catches no flies. Let her find it out through someone else besides
him. And with these sensible ideas and worthy intentions Tropiezo
reached Agonde's, and before a quarter of an hour had elapsed
unbosomed himself of his news: Segundo García was going to America to
seek his fortune--as soon as he should be entirely well, of course.
He would take the steamer at Corunna.

The occasion was a favorable one for the company to lament once
more in concert the death of Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba,
protector and father of all the Vilamortans in want of situations, a
useful representative and an untiring worker for the district. If he
were alive now most assuredly a young man of so much ability--a
poet--that night the party all agreed that Segundo had ability and
was a poet--would not be obliged to go across the raging seas in
quest of a decent situation. But since they had lost Don Victoriano,
Vilamorta was without a voice in the regions of influence and favor,
for Señorito de Romero, the present representative of the district,
belonged to the class of docile representatives who give no trouble
to the Government, who vote when their votes are wanted, and who hold
themselves cheap, valuing themselves at no more than a few tobacco
shops, and half a dozen or so of official appointments. Agonde took
his revenge that night, expatiating on his favorite theme, and
abusing the pernicious Eufrasian influence which was responsible for
the decadence of Vilamorta, on account of which its youth were
obliged to emigrate to the New World. The apothecary expounded his
theories--he liked the representative of a district to show himself
in it occasionally. Otherwise of what use was he? In his eyes the
ideal representative was that famous politician from whom the barber
of the town he represented had asked a place, basing his request on
the fact that, owing to the distribution of appointments among the
persons of his station in the town, there were no customers left for
him to shave and he was starving. The Alcalde here interposed, saying
that he had it on very good authority that Señorito de Romero
intended to interest himself in earnest for Vilamorta; the
confectioner and some others of those present confirmed this
statement, and then arose a discussion in which it was proved beyond
a doubt that a dead representative has no friends and that the new
representative of the district had already, in the very stronghold of
the former Combista radicals, friends and adherents.




                                XXVIII.


The Swan has left his native lake, or rather, his pool; he has
crossed the Atlantic on the wings of steam. Will he ever return? Will
he come back with a sallow countenance, a disordered liver, and some
thousands of dollars, in bills of exchange, in his pocketbook, to end
his life where it began, as the ship disabled by storms receives its
last repairs in the dockyard in which it was built? Will the black
vomit, that terrible malady of the Antilles, the scourge of the
Iberians who seek to emulate Columbus conquering a new world, attack
him on his arrival on the young continent? Will he remain in the
tropics, riding in his carriage, united in the bonds of matrimony to
some Creole? Will he preside one day over one of those diminutive
republics, in which the doctors are generals and the generals
doctors? Will his melancholy be cured by the salty kiss of the ocean
breeze, by the contact of virgin soil, the sharp spur of necessity,
that, pushing him into the conflict, will say to him, "Work"?

History may perhaps at some future day relate the story of the
metamorphosis of the Swan, of his wanderings and his vicissitudes;
but years must first elapse, for it was only yesterday, as one might
say, that Segundo García quitted Vilamorta, leaving the
schoolmistress behind him dissolved in tears. And the story of the
schoolmistress is the only episode in the chronicle of the Swan which
we can at present bring to an end.

Leocadia was the theme of much gossip in Vilamorta. She was
seriously ill, according to some, according to others, ruined, and
according to many, touched in her mind. She had been seen haunting
the neighborhood of Segundo's house on various nights during the
poet's illness; it was affirmed that she had sold her land and that
her house was mortgaged to Clodio Genday; but the strangest thing of
all, that which was most bitterly censured, was her neglect of her
son after having cared for him and watched over him from his infancy,
never going to Orense to see him, while old Flores went there
constantly, bringing back worse and worse news of the child every
time she went--that he was wasting away, that he spit blood, that he
was dying of grief, that he would not last a month. Leocadia, as she
listened, would let her chin fall upon her breast, and at times her
shoulders would move convulsively, as if she were weeping. Otherwise
she appeared calm, although she was very silent and had lost her
former activity. She helped Flores in the kitchen, attended to the
children of the school, swept and dusted--all like an automaton,
while Flores, who pitilessly spied out every occasion to find fault
with her, took pleasure in crying:

"Woman, you have left this side of the pan dirty--woman, you
haven't mended your skirt--woman, what are you thinking about? I am
going to Orense to-day and you will have to take care of the
_puchero_."

At the end of the summer Clodio demanded the interest on his loan
and Leocadia was unable to pay it; she was notified accordingly that,
after the necessary legal proceedings, the creditor would avail
himself of his legal right to take possession of the house. This was
a terrible blow for Leocadia.

It will sometimes happen that a prisoner, a distinguished
personage, a king, it may be, shut up through an adverse fate within
the walls of a dungeon, stripped of his grandeur, deprived of all
that once constituted his happiness, will bear his ills for years
with resignation, calm in appearance although dejected, but if some
day, by the cruel tyranny of his jailors, this prisoner is deprived
of some bauble, some trifling object for which he had conceived an
affection, the grief pent up within his bosom will burst its bounds,
and the wildest manifestations of grief will follow. Something like
this happened to Leocadia when she learned that she must abandon
forever the beloved little house where she had spent in Segundo's
company hours unique in her existence; the little house in which she
was mistress, which had been rebuilt with her savings, the little
house lately so neat and so attractive, of which she was so proud.

Flores heard her on several nights sobbing loudly, but when on
one or two occasions, moved by an involuntary feeling of pity, the
old woman went into her room to ask her what ailed her, if she could
do anything for her, Leocadia, covering her face with the bedclothes,
had answered in a dull voice: "There is nothing the matter with me,
woman; let me sleep. You will not even let me sleep!"

During those days her moods varied constantly and she formed a
thousand different plans. She talked of going to live in Orense, of
giving up the school and taking sewing to do in the house; she
talked, too, of accepting the proposal of Clodio Genday, who, having
dismissed his young servant, for what reason no one knew, offered to
take Leocadia as his housekeeper, by which arrangement she would
remain in her house, Flores, of course, being dismissed. None of
these plans lasted for more than a very short time, but were all in
turn rejected to give place to others no less ephemeral; and while
the schoolmistress was thus engaged in forming and rejecting plans
the time was fast approaching when she should find herself without a
shelter.

One market day Leocadia went to purchase various articles
urgently needed by Flores, among others a sieve and a new
chocolate-pot, the old one being no longer fit for use. The movement
of the crowd, the jostling of the hucksters, and the glare of the
autumnal sun made her head, weak from want of sleep, from fasting,
and from suffering--slightly dizzy. She stopped before a stall where
sieves were sold, a sort of variety booth, where innumerable
indispensable trifles were for sale--chocolate-beaters, frying-pans,
saucepans, kerosene lamps. In a corner were two articles of
merchandise in great request in the place--consisting of pink paper,
soft, like brown paper, and some whitish powder, resembling spoiled
flour. Leocadia's glance fell on these, and the vender, thinking she
wished to buy some, began to extol their properties, explaining that
the pink sheets moistened and placed on a plate, would not leave a
fly alive in the neighborhood, and that the white powder was
_seneca_, for killing mice, the manner of using it being to mix it
well with cheese and place the mixture, made into little balls, in
their haunts. Leocadia asked the price and told the vender to give
her a small quantity, and the woman, to appear generous, took up a
good portion on the spatula, wrapped it up in paper, and gave it to
her for a trifling sum. The drug indeed was of little value, being
very common in that part of the country, where native arsenic abounds
in the calcareous spar forming one of the banks of the Avieiro, and
arsenic, acid--rat-poison--is sold openly in the fairs, rather than
in drug shops. The schoolmistress put away the powder, bought,
through complaisance, half a dozen of the pink slips of paper, and on
her return home punctually delivered to Flores the articles she had
been commissioned to purchase.

Flores noticed that after dinner Leocadia shut herself up in her
bedroom, where the old woman could hear her talking aloud as if she
were praying. Accustomed to her eccentricities the servant thought
nothing about the matter. When she had ended her prayer, the
schoolmistress stepped out on the balcony, where she stood gazing for
a long time at the flower-pots; she then went into the parlor and
looked for a good while also at the sofa, the chairs, the little
table, the spots which reminded her of the past. Then she went into
the kitchen. Flores declared afterward--but in such cases who is
there that does not lay claim to a prophetic instinct--that
Leocadia's manner on entering had attracted her attention.

"Have you any fresh water?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Give me a glass of it."

Flores affirmed that, as she took the glass, the hand of the
schoolmistress trembled, as if she had a chill, and the strangest
part of the matter was that, although there was no sugar in the
water, Leocadia asked for a spoon, which she put into the glass. An
hour, or perhaps an hour and a half passed, when Flores heard
Leocadia groan. She hurried to her room and saw her lying on the bed,
her face frightfully pale, making desperate and fruitless efforts to
vomit. Then a cold perspiration broke out on the forehead of the sick
woman, and she remained motionless and speechless. Flores, terrified,
ran for Don Fermin, urging him to hurry, saying this was no jesting
matter. When Don Fermin arrived out of breath, he asked:

"What is this, Leocadia? What is the matter with you; my dear
woman, what is the matter with you?"

Opening her dilated eyes, she murmured:

"Nothing, Don Fermin, nothing."

Standing on the table at the head of the bed was the glass; it
contained no water, but the bottom and the sides of the vessel were
coated with a white powder which had remained undissolved and which
the schoolmistress, not wishing to leave it there, had scraped off in
places with the spoon. It is proper to say, on this occasion also,
that the illustrious Tropiezo made no mistake in the treatment of so
simple a case. Tropiezo had already fought some battles with this
common toxic substance and knew its tricks; he had recourse, without
a moment's delay, to the use of powerful emetics and of oil. Only the
poison, having gained the start of him, had already entered into the
circulation and ran through the veins of the schoolmistress, chilling
her blood. When the nausea and the vomiting ceased several little red
spots--an eruption similar to that of scarlet-fever--made their
appearance on Leocadia's pallid face. This symptom lasted until death
came to set her sad spirit free and release it from its sufferings,
which was toward daybreak. Shortly before her death, during an
interval of freedom from pain, Leocadia, making a sign to Flores to
come nearer, whispered in her ear: "Promise me--that the child shall
not know it--by the soul of your mother--don't tell him--don't tell
him the manner of my death."

A few days later Tropiezo was defending himself to the party at
Agonde's who, for the pleasure of making him angry, were accusing him
of being responsible for the death of the schoolmistress.

"For one thing, they called me too late, much too late," he said;
"when the woman was almost in her death agony. For another, she had
taken a quantity of arsenic which was not large enough to produce
vomiting, but which was too small to cause merely a colic and be done
with it. Where I made the mistake was in waiting so long before
sending for the priest. I did it with the best intentions, so as not
to frighten her and hoping we might yet pull her through. When
extreme unction was administered she had no senses left to know what
was going on."

"So that," said Agonde maliciously, "where you are called in,
either the soul or the body is sure to meet with a trip."

The company applauded the joke, and there followed funereal jests
mingled with expressions of pity. Clodio Genday, the creditor of the
deceased, moved about uneasily in his chair. What stupid
conversation, _canario_! Let them talk of more cheerful subjects!

And they talked of very cheerful and satisfactory subjects
indeed. Señorito de Romero had promised to put a telegraph-office in
Vilamorta; and the newspapers were saying that, owing to the
increasing importance of the viticultural interests of the Border, a
branch railroad was needed for which the engineers were soon coming
to survey the ground.
