The Project Gutenberg eBook of Morriña, by Emilia Pardo.

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1891, by
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.

All rights reserved.
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.

MORRIÑA
(HOMESICKNESS).

If the apartment which Doña Nogueira de Pardiñas and her only son Rogelio occupied in Madrid was neither the sunniest nor the most spacious to be found in the city, it possessed, on the other hand, the inestimable advantage of being situated in the Calle Ancha de San Bernardo, so close to the Central University that to live in it was, as one might say, the same as living in the university itself.

Seated in her leather-covered easy-chair by the window, widening and narrowing the stocking she was{2}

knitting without once looking at it, Señora de Pardiñas would follow her adored boy with her gaze, which, traversing space and passing through the solid substance of the walls, accompanied him to the very lecture-room of the university. She saw him when he went in and when he came out—she noticed whether he stopped to chat{3} with any one, whom he talked to, whether he laughed; she knew who his companions were, whom he liked and whom he disliked; who were the industrious students and whom the idle ones; who were regular and who were irregular in their attendance. She was familiar, too, with the faces of the professors, and made a study of their expression and their manner of returning the salutations of the pupils, drawing from external signs important psychological deductions bearing on the problem of the examinations: “Ah, there comes old Contreras already, the Professor of Procedure. How amiable he looks! what a saint-like face he has. How slowly he walks, poor man. ’Tis easy to see that he suffers from rheumatism as I do. The more’s the pity! I like him on that account, and not on that account alone, but because I know that he is indulgent and that he will give Rogelio a good mark in his examination.{4} Now comes Ruiz del Monte, so stiff and so conceited. He looks as if he were made all in one piece. Poor us! Neither favor nor influence nor anything else is of any use with him. He would have the boys know the studies as well as he does himself. If he wants that let him give them his place in the college—and the pay as well. Ah, here we have Señor de Lastra. He stoops a little. What comical caricatures the boys make of him in the class! And he is familiar to a fault. There he is now clapping Benito Diaz, Rogelio’s great friend, on the back. He looks to me like a good easy-going man. My blessing upon him! I don’t know what there is to be gained by torturing poor boys and distressing their parents.”

Pausing in her soliloquy, the good lady ran her knitting needle through the coil of her hair, now turning gray, and scratched her head lightly with it.{5} Suddenly her withered cheek flushed brightly as if a breath of youth had blown across it.

The student emerged from the building, wrapped in his crimson plush cloak, his low, broad-brimmed hat slightly tipped to one side, his glance fixed, from the first moment, on the window at which his mother was sitting. Generally he would give her a smile, but sometimes, assuming a serious air, he would raise his hand to his hat, and, with the stiff movement of a marionette, mimic the salutation of the dandies of the Retiro. The mother would return his salutation, shaking her hand threateningly at him, convulsed with laughter, as if this were not a jest of almost daily repetition. Then the boy would stop to chat for a few minutes with some of his fellow-students; he would exchange a word in passing with the match-vender, the ticket-vender, the{6} orange-girl at the corner, and the clerks of the neighboring shops, winding up with some half-jesting compliment to the servants who stood chatting at the doors; and finally he would ascend the steps of his own house, where Doña Aurora was already waiting for him in the hall. His first words were generally in the following strain:

“Mater amabilis, set quickly before your offspring corporeal sustenance. I have an appetite that I don’t know where I got it. Ah-h-h! If the beefsteak does not soon make its appearance, dreadful scenes of cannibalism will be enacted.”

“Yes,” his mother would answer, smiling, “and it will all amount to your eating a couple of olives and a morsel of meat. Go away with you, you humbug! You have the appetite of a bird.”

The room in which they liked best to sit was neither the parlor—which was almost always solitary and deserted,—{7}nor Rogelio’s study, nor his mother’s room; it was the dining-room, which adjoined the reception-room. Here was the clock which informed Rogelio, negligent about winding his watch, when it was time to go to college; here the little table on which stood the work-basket with the unfinished stocking buried under a pile of numbers of Madrid Comico, Los Madriles, and all the Ilustraciones that had ever been published; here the low, broad, comfortable sofa and the capacious easy-chairs; here, on the sideboard, refreshments for the inner man—a bottle of sherry and some biscuits, or, in summer, fruits, which the boy ate with enjoyment; here, in a glass, the branch of fresh lilacs, or the pinks which he wore in his button-hole; here the earthen water jar exuding moisture from its sides, and the bottle of syrup of iron, and the Japanese fan, and the unfinished novel, with the marker between{8} the leaves, and the text-book, worn more by the ill-humor and displeasure with which it was handled than by use; and finally, the little fireplace that had so good a draught, which made up for the icy class-rooms, and the dilapidated courts and passages of the temple of Minerva. With what enjoyment did Rogelio go to warm himself by the fire before taking off his cloak when he came in from college, stretching out his hands, cold as icicles, to the blaze. The genial heat thawed his stiffened muscles, quickened his impoverished blood, and gave him strength to ask, with a comical pretense at scolding and coaxing entreaties mingled, for his breakfast, almost regretting the promptness with which it was served, since it left him a subject the less for his humorous jests. Before it had crossed the threshold of the door, Doña Aurora was already crying out:{9}

“Fausta! Pepa! Here is the señorito; bring the breakfast. Quick! Hurry! Child, your syrup of iron. Shall I count your bitter drops for you!”

“What more bitterness do I want than the pangs of starvation! Here, you who preside over the culinary department, may I be permitted to know with what delicacies you intend to assuage to-day the pangs of hunger that are gnawing my vitals? Have you prepared for me celestial ambrosia, nectar from the calyxes of the flowers, or tripe and snails from the Petit Fornos? Relieve me from this cruel uncertainty?

Mother and son being seated at the table, the drops counted out and drank, the steaming soup was set before them, followed by the couple of{10}

fried eggs, round and crisp-edged, and the beefsteak, invariably sent in from the neighboring café. Only on this condition would Rogelio eat it. No matter what pains Fausta, the Biscayan, might take, she could never succeed in supplanting the cook of the café. The succulent piece of underdone steak would come between two plates, with its accompaniment of fried potatoes, tender, juicy, and appetizing. While Rogelio cut and ate the meat,{11} his mother watched him eagerly and anxiously, as if she had never before seen this delicate youth, so different from the ideal of a Galician mother. Twenty summers run to seed, a pale, dull complexion, eyes black and sparkling, but with the eyelids drooping, and surrounded by purple rings, a sarcastic mouth, the lips delicately curved and somewhat pale, shaded by a light mustache, hair smooth and silky, a head narrow at the temples, a slender throat, the back of the neck slightly hollowed in, flat wrists and a graceful shape made up a figure still immature, interrupted in its development by the chlorosis which is the result of a hothouse existence in which the plant that requires the pure, free air, dwindles and wilts. So that Doña Aurora did not enjoy a moment’s peace of mind because of this son who, if not exactly sickly, was of a nervous and delicate constitution, as was evidenced by{12} his moods of childlike gayety followed by periods of causeless gloom. Therefore it was that she watched him at his meals as eagerly as if every mouthful he swallowed were entering her own stomach after a two days’ fast. In thought she said to the succulent meat: Go, strengthen the child. Give him muscle, give him blood, give him bone. Make him robust, manly, independent. Make him grow to be like a young bull—although he should have all the savageness of one. No matter, all the better, I only wish it might be so! Consider that all there is left me in the world now to love, is that puny boy. And she would say aloud to Rogelio:

II.

Doña Aurora had her daily reception—and in the afternoon; nothing less, indeed, than a five o’clock tea, as a society reporter would say—only, without the tea or the wish for it, for if she had offered anything to her guests, the Señora de Pardiñas, who was very old-fashioned in her ideas, would undoubtedly have selected some good slices of ham or the like substantial nourishment. As her friends knew that she was accustomed to go out only in the morning wrapped in her mantle and her fur cape to make a few unceremonious calls or to do some shopping, and that she spent her afternoons at her dining-room window knitting, they attended these receptions punctually, attracted to{14} them by the cheerful fire, by the easy-chairs, by friendship, and by habit.

The larger part of the circle of Doña Aurora’s friends was composed of the companions of her deceased husband, magistrates, or, as she called them in professional parlance, “Señores.” Some few of these, who had already retired from active official life, were the most constant in their attendance. Certain seats in the dining-room were regarded as belonging of right to certain persons—the broad-backed easy-chair was set apart for Don Nicanor Candás, the Crown Solicitor, who loved his ease; the leather-covered arm-chair with the soft seat was for Don Prudencio Rojas; the arm-chair covered with flowered cretonne by the chimney corner—let no one attempt to dispute its possession with the patriarch Don Gaspar Febrero. This venerable personage was the soul of the company, the most active, the most imposing in appearance, and the{15}

gayest of the assemblage, notwithstanding his eighty odd years and his lame leg, broken by jumping from a horse-car. The first quarter of an hour’s conversation was generally devoted to a discussion of the weather and the health of the company; there was not one of these worthy people who was not afflicted with some ailment or other.{16} Some of them, indeed, were full of ailments, so that neither their complaints nor the remedies they discussed were of merely abstract interest. There an account was kept of the fluctuations in the chronic catarrhs, the rheumatic pains, the flatulent attacks, and the heartburns of each one of the assemblage, and they discussed as solemnly as they had formerly discussed a judgment the virtues of salycilic acid or of pectoral lozenges.

The sanitary question being exhausted—for everything exhausts itself—they passed on, almost always following the lead of Señor Febrero, to treat of less agreeable matters. The amiable old man could not bear to hear all this talk of drugs, prescriptions, and potions. “Any one would suppose one had one foot in the grave,” he would say, smiling and showing his brilliant artificial teeth. The subject of the conversation was changed, but it{17} scarcely ever turned on questions of the day. Like a gavotte played by a grandmother on an antiquated harpsichord, the ritornello of souvenirs and reminiscences of the past resounded here. The conversation usually began somewhat as follows:

“Do you remember when I received my appointment to the Canary Islands during the ministry of Narvaez?”

“What times those were! At least ten years before the celebrated Fontanellas case. My eldest son was not yet born.”

Señor de Febrero interposed to restrain them in these sorrowful reminiscences of bygone days also, exclaiming with youthful vivacity:

“Why, that took place only yesterday, as one might say. In the life of a nation what is a paltry twenty-five or thirty years?”

“Or in a man’s life either, if it comes to that. Forty or fifty I call the prime of life.”

“Speak for yourself. You have discovered the elixir of youth. You are as fresh as a lettuce. But the rest of us look like parchment; we are only fit to be wheeled out in the sun.”

With his crutch between his knees Don Gaspar laughed, and as he shook his head the silvery curls of his wig shone in the light. I regret to be obliged to pay tribute to descriptive truth by stating that Señor de Febrero wore a wig and false teeth; but it must be added that their falseness was so true that they were superior to the genuine articles and would deceive the sharpest eye. With exquisite taste and consummate art, the old man had had his wig made of hair as white as snow, and the coronet of light white curls that encircled his ivory brow was like a majestic aureole, very different{19} from the thick forest of hair with which would-be young old men persist in striving to repair the irreparable ravages of time. In the same way the teeth, skillfully imitating his own, somewhat uneven and worn, with a gap on the left side, would have deceived anybody. With his beautiful hair, his smooth-shaven face, his regular and still very expressive features, with his pulchritude and dignity of mien, Don Gaspar reminded one of the heads of the eighteenth century as they have come down to us in miniatures. It seemed a pity that he should not wear an embroidered satin coat; the cloth coat did not suit him. Even the ebony crutch, with its blue velvet cushion, served to enhance and complete the commanding dignity of his presence. With the gallantry of a bygone age, Don Gaspar, the moment a woman appeared in sight, was all ardor, and honied speeches flowed from his lips.{20} Even to Señora Pardiñas, who was altogether out of the lists, he did not neglect to pay attentions that were lover-like and gallant, rather than merely polite.

It gratified the vanity of this old man, who wore his old age so serenely and so gracefully, to hear his companions, all infirm, all asthmatic, all with their chronic colds and coughs, all visibly bald, say of him enviously:

It was also a gratification to his vanity to prove to them the strength and clearness of his memory, and it was one which he often enjoyed, for at the reception of the Señora de Pardiñas the thread of memory was constantly spun, and intermingled with it was a strand of gold, but of tarnished gold like that of an antique chasuble. Don Gaspar’s memory was a sort of wardrobe in which were stored away among{21} perfumes, duly labeled and classified, events, names, dates, and even words. “This Señor de Febrero is an old record-book,” Doña Aurora would say. When there was a difference of opinion regarding the date of some past event, Don Gaspar was appealed to as umpire.

“Isn’t it true, Señor de Febrero, that the Zaldivar case, at Seville, was decided in the winter of ’56.”

“No, Señor, the winter of ’57. I remember it was on the 15th of December—I mean the 16th, the birthday of our friend Don Nicanor Candás.”

“But, good Heavens!” exclaimed Don Nicanor, when this was related to him. “It is not right that any one should be endowed with a memory like that. If that infernal Galician does not remember even the date of my birth, a thing that I can never remember myself! As nobody is going to steal any of my years away from{22} me, I don’t see the use of keeping so exact an account of them.”

Don Nicanor Candás, a retired Asturian, from Oviedo, suspicious and conceited like all his townspeople, as biting as pepper and as sharp as a thorn, afforded much amusement to the assemblage through his disputes with Señor de Febrero, whom he opposed systematically, without consideration for his patriarchal privileges or respect for his honorable seniority. The better to confound his adversary Candás adopted a singular method, which was not without humor. He pretended to be as deaf as a post, and he always carried in the pocket of his coat a little silver trumpet, which he put to his ear whenever he was able to answer and refute his opponent’s arguments, but which he would say he had forgotten to bring with him when, not being able to do this, he wished to change the subject of conversation. Such a stratagem{23} could not fail to succeed, and by the help of it he was always enabled to avoid being worsted in a dispute. In his language Señor de Candás was as rude and ill-bred as Don Gaspar was choice, polite and mellifluous, and for this reason he was out of harmony with the other habitués of the house. Nor was he so for this reason alone, but also because he was the only one of them who preferred the news of the day to reminiscences of the past, the only one who brought to this musty senate a breath of out-door air, of real life.

The portentous memory of the octogenarian grew confused and uncertain when recent events were concerned, and Candás, profiting by this defect in the admirable faculties of the patriarch, was always trying to trip him up. “Let us see,” he would say, “how our Don Gaspar would set about proving an alibi. He is impregnable in all that{24} relates to the Calomarde ministry or the regency of Espartero, yet he does not remember what he was doing this morning.” And imitating Don Gaspar’s voice, he would add, “What did I do yesterday? Let me see. Did I go to see Rojas? I think so. What am I saying? No, no. I was walking in Recoletos. Yet I would not swear to that, either.”

This humorous criticism of the patriarch, might, to a certain extent, be applied with equal justice to all the other “Señores.” It would seem as if the present did not exist for them, as if the past only had life and color. They discussed the news of the reporter, Don Nicanor, for a few minutes with the pessimism that is characteristic of old age; then they resumed their progress up the stream of time, plunging with supreme satisfaction into the fogs of vanished years. Perhaps, along with old age, they were influenced in this to{25} some extent by the character acquired in the practice of the law, a profession based on scientific notions already stratified, a science purely historical, in which the spirit of innovation is a heresy, and in which the judicial problems of to-day are solved according to the standard of the Roman law or the jurisdiction of the Visigoths. Thus it was that the reunions in the house of the Señora de Pardiñas might be likened to a rock standing motionless amid the ceaseless surge of the sea of life. The worthy “Señores” did not see that among dusty and worm-eaten parchments, too, living germs palpitate and the spirit of progress lives. Clinging to vain formulas, they fancied they were the custodians of a sacred liquor, when only the empty vase remained in their hands, and, treating of innovations, they placed in the same category of heterodoxy the use of the beard, inferior courts, trial by jury, and the revision of the Codes.{26}

III.

This assembly of sleep-walkers awakened to life and became animated at the entrance Rogelio, who, before taking his afternoon drive or walk, was in the habit of showing himself for a moment at the meeting, laughing at what took place there, but good-naturedly, with the mischievousness of a spoiled child. He had nicknamed it, “The Idle Club.” Candás, on account of his bald yellow skull, he called “Lain Calvo,” and the smooth-shaven and gallant Señor de Febrero, Nuño Rasura. The servants called them by these names among themselves. Even the Señora de Pardiñas laughed in secret, although she pretended to be vexed and would say to the boy:

“It is very wrong for you to turn{27} them into ridicule, in that way—those poor gentlemen who are all so fond of you!”

And they were indeed fond of him. The moment Rogelio appeared it was as if a ray of warm, golden sunlight had entered a closed and darkened room where furniture, hangings, paper, and pictures have all acquired the faded hue imparted by the dust and the damp. All the old men loved the boy; one of them remembered him when he was a child in arms, another had been present at his first communion; this one had brought him toys when he had the scarlet-fever; that other, a professional colleague and the intimate friend of his father, became a child again when he thought of the baptismal sweetmeats. If they had acted according to their feelings, notwithstanding the black fringe that adorned Rogelio’s upper lip, they would have showered kisses on him, and brought him caramels and{28} peanuts. For them he was always the little one, the boy. It was true that by a curious illusion the worthy guests of Señora de Pardiñas were disposed to regard the young as children and those of mature years as young. They would say, for instance; “So Valdivieso is dead! Why, he was in the prime of life, he was only a boy!” And it was necessary for the malicious Asturian, putting his ear-trumpet, or his hand as a substitute, to his ear, to interpose, “A boy indeed! a pretty sort of children you are dreaming of, truly. Valdivieso was past fifty.” “He was not so old as that, not so old as that!” “What do you mean? And the time he was in his nurse’s arms and learning to walk, does that count for nothing?”

Where Rogelio was concerned, they carried to an extreme this whim of forgetting the passage of time, and turning a deaf ear to the striking of the clock. Every additional year he spent{29} in the study of the law, was for them a fresh wonder; they could not fancy him a lawyer: they would have had him still at school learning to read. Once, on his return from a summer excursion to San Sebastián, Señor de Rojas had said to him with the utmost good faith:

“What a fine time you must have had, eh? Running about and playing on the beach all day, I suppose?”

And the boy answered without betraying any annoyance, but with a grimace of mischievous drollery:

“Yes, indeed, splendid! I made holes in the sand, and built little houses with it. I never enjoyed myself so much.”

In reality the good heart of the young man had grown attached to the assemblage of worthy old oddities who frequented the house. This very Señor de Rojas, for example, inspired him with a feeling of affectionate respect,{30} on account of the justness of his views, and his unquestioned probity. If Themis should descend to this lower sphere, she might take up her abode in the house of Señor Rojas and she would find there an altar erected to her and her image (of wood, according to Candás). A jealous interpreter of the law in its literal signification, Rojas walked along the narrow path that lay before him, without turning to the right hand or to the left, with head erect, and with a tranquil conscience. Convinced of the exalted dignity of his position, he complied with the requirements of social decorum at the expense of incredible privations in his house, sympathized with and seconded in this heroic conduct by his wife. In the exercise of his functions he was influenced neither by considerations of politics nor of friendship. Interests involving millions had been intrusted to him, without awakening in him the{31} faintest touch of cupidity, which is only the instinct of conservation expressing itself in the guise of acquisitiveness. For this reason the honorable name of Prudencio Rojas was pronounced, sometimes with veneration, sometimes with the disguised and caustic irony which vice employs to discredit virtue. The sarcastic Don Nicanor called Rojas a “puppet of the law.” He said that everything about him, mind and character alike, was wooden, neither seeing nor wishing to see that this kind of men, if laws were perfect as far as it is possible for human laws to be, might, by their firmness and integrity in applying them, bring back the golden age.

Often, of an afternoon, especially if it was very cold, or if it snowed or rained, Rogelio, instead of going out, would settle himself comfortably in a corner of the broad sofa and listen to the drowsy chat of the old people. Whenever{32} he could he tried to turn the conversation toward a subject for him full of interest, and one of which he never tired—his native Galicia, which he had left when he was very young. Almost all the party were either natives of that province or had spent long periods of time there, filling positions in the court of Marineda, and they expatiated on the benignity and salubrity of the climate, the cheapness and the excellent quality of the food, the easy and cordial manners of the people and the extraordinary beauty of the scenery.

“I cannot understand why our amiable friend, Doña Aurora, does not take the child to see his native place,” Señor de Febrero would say, stroking the cushion of his crutch.

“I am always intending to do so,” Señora Pardiñas would answer, “but it is one of those plans that something always happens to interfere with. The truth is, as you know, that up to the{33} present there has always been some difficulty or other in the way.”

“Say that you are very fond of your ease, mater amabilis,” her son would interpose. “If it had depended upon you, you would have been a tree that you might have taken root where you had happened to be planted.”

“Just as I take you to San Sebastián I might have taken you to Galicia, child, but it has not been possible to do so. Do you think I don’t often long myself to see my native place again? We who were born there—it is foolishness—but our dearest wish is to go back to the old spot, and our love for it never changes.”

“And we who were not born there love it too,” added Don Nicanor Candás, armed with his trumpet. “I would give my little finger now to spend a year in Marineda; I would rather go there than to Oviedo or to Gijón.

“But with me,” continued Señora{34} Pardiñas, “something always occurred to prevent me from carrying out my plan, as if the witches had interfered in the matter. Do you long to see your native place again, before you die? Well, wear yourself out with waiting until you are bent double with old age. You shall hear the causes of my never going back there”—and she would count them upon her fingers: “First, the difficulties in the way of doing so. You leave your family, your home, your possessions, to wander about the world, with a young child who is always delicate—from Oviedo to Saragossa, then, on account of the Regency, to Barcelona, then to the Supreme Court here. I was always saying to Pardiñas, ‘Resign your position, man, resign your position, and let us return to the old land and not leave our bones in a foreign soil. With what we have, we have more than enough to live, and our family is not so large as to be a burden to{35} us.’ But you know what my poor husband was, there is no need for me to tell you.”

“He believed it was his duty to continue at his post to the end. And whenever duty was in question—at any rate, that was his idea, and it was necessary to respect it. And afterward, his health became so wretched——”

Here Señora Pardiñas’ voice grew slightly husky. She put her hand into her pocket, and taking out her handkerchief blew her nose and then wiped her eyes.

“So that,” she repeated, with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, “when the time came—And afterward you know how I was with my sisters-in-law, the law-suits and the difficulties I was involved in. I thought I should never be able to extricate myself from them. From home my old friends wrote to{36} me, ‘Come back, come back; in a day you will accomplish more here than you could in a year there. What would you have?’ I was afraid of the undertaking. With my rheumatism, to think of shutting myself up in one of those coaches that you couldn’t open a window in if it was to save your life! And when, well or ill, things were at last settled and the tangle of the will was straightened out, lo and behold, they put a railroad direct to Marineda. But by that time I had lost the wish to go, for to return home to find myself at variance with all my connections——”

“Not with all of them, mamma; according to your own account there are several who have taken our part.”

“Bah, how can I tell? In our place, child, it is hard to know who is for and who is against you. On that point I have had terrible disappointments. When you least expect it, your friends betray you and drive the knife into{37} you up to the handle. To speak the truth, there we are not frank and loyal, so to say, like the old Castillians.”

“You talk like a book,” assented Señor de Candás, who never let slip an opportunity of showing his claws. “The Galicians may have all the good qualities you please, but so far as being tricky and slippery and deceitful is concerned, there is no one who can beat them. Don’t trust to the word of a Galician, for they have no faith; or, if they have, it is Punic faith. What must the Galicians be when the gypsies don’t venture to pass through their country lest they should be cheated by them?”

“Why, that is a well-known fact. No gypsy will go to Galicia. They are trickier and more crafty than all the gypsies put together. And as for going to law—Good Lord! They are born litigants. And they will be sure{38} to get the best of you; the most ignorant peasant there could wind you around his finger.”

“That is a proof,” responded Señor de Febrero, “that we are an intelligent race; you will not deny that?”

Señor de Candás, removing the silver tube from his ear so as not to find himself in the necessity of replying to this observation, and, in order to finish his argument to his own satisfaction, continued:

“And there are simpletons, who call the Galicians clever! I call them crafty. If they were clever, they would not be always sunk in poverty, eaten up with envy, without ever making an effort to be anything better than beggars and grumblers. They are more given to complaining than any people I know. They are always crying and groaning about something.”

The ivory skin of Señor de Febrero flushed a little, for he found it impossible{39} to accustom himself to the malignant rudeness of Lain Calvo.

“You are a little severe, Señor Don Nicanor,” he said, “remember that we Galicians are in the majority here. How would you like it if I were to repeat to you now the vulgar saying, ‘Asturian, vain, bad Christian, insane’?”

“There are plenty of fools,” continued the imperturbable Crown Solicitor, “who make a great show of surprise when they hear these things, but every one knows them so well that no one thinks it necessary to repeat them. The Galician, it is true, possesses some shrewdness, especially when the question is how to cheat his neighbor, but for all that he can neither cultivate any industry nor better his miserable condition. There he is, contented with his crust of corn bread, a poor creature, without clothes to his back, who never eats meat and who does not drink a{40} glass of wine even once in the year. With all his reputation for smartness, he sometimes seems more stupid than the Aragonese themselves. He is stingy and he would save an ochavitu even if he had to scrape it from his skin with a file; but you need not fear that he will ever think of investing this ochavo, or that he will have the energy to work in earnest in the hope of saving a dollar. Nothing of the kind. All he asks is to be let go on undisturbed in his lazy ways. See, for instance, the network of railroads they have, and what use do they make of them? They would not move a finger to attract summer visitors. None of that desire to please, that neatness of the people of our country.”

“One must either choke this Don Nicanor or take no notice of what he says,” exclaimed Nuño Rasura, furious, “for he won’t listen to argument. Where is that network of railroads he{41} talks about? A pretty network! Full of holes. He wants everything to be done in a day; no one but God can work miracles! Everything needs time and patience. Let Don Nicanor take note of the growing importance of beautiful Vigo. Its cool climate, its coasts and rivers are the admiration of the newspapers. And the women—always excepting those present, but then my good friend is from there, too. And the fish, the like of which is to be found nowhere else, what do you say of that? My dear Doña Aurora, I have eaten neither sardines nor soles since I left there. Just before the downfall of O’Donnell, I remember we were taking baths in Marin, and they brought a turbot to the door that——”

Here the old man went on spinning the thread of memory, and Rogelio, leaning with his elbow on the sofa, his cheek in the palm of his hand, listened absorbed. It seemed to him as if he{42}

were listening to some family tradition. The apartment, and the people in it assumed an air of friendly intimacy; the atmosphere, moral and material, was genial; the world was as comfortable and easy for him as the cushion against which he leaned. Each of the company was for him, if not a father, at the least an uncle. Around him reigned sweet security; and as in certain{43} luxurious abodes embarrassment and privation betray themselves, so in this modest dining-room was plainly visible domestic comfort, the most perfect golden mediocrity that poet could dream or philosopher desire. Harmony and moderation are always beautiful, and Rogelio, without being able to define this beauty that surrounded him, felt it and sheltered himself in it as the bird shelters itself among the feathers of its nest. And while the blazing logs crackled in the fireplace, and the sounds of the mortar came softened from the kitchen, and the old men chatted and his mother knitted her stocking, the boy, plunged in vague reverie, tried to picture to himself what that beautiful country, that green Galicia, abounding in rivers, in flowers, and in lovely girls was like.{44}

IV.

The whole street—shopkeepers, peddlers, servants, and inhabitants—all knew Rogelio; as the saying is, every one had some account to settle with him. He was familiar with all the establishments, or rather, the modest little shops for the sale of crockery, imported provisions, novelties, cordage and periodicals, interspersed among the ancient and imposing ancestral houses of the Calle Ancha, which was animated by the presence of the students and by the passing up and down of the street cars.

But those with whom Rogelio was most intimate were the drivers of the hackney coaches, of which there was a stand in the little square of Santo Domingo. Doña Aurora seldom went out{45} that a twinge of her rheumatism or the cold or the heat did not decide her to send for one of those vehicles, so shabby in appearance but so comfortable and convenient. She called them, emphatically, her “equipages,” and declared laughingly that her coach stood always waiting at the door with so punctual a driver that he had never once kept her waiting. Rogelio, as the only son of wealthy parents, indulged in a more luxurious mode of conveyance; his mother allowed him to keep a dashing brougham and a pair of spirited horses at the livery stable of Augustin Cuero, so that on feast days he might drive in the Retiro, or wherever he might like. She would not consent to his keeping a saddle horse, through fear of an accident. But nothing in the world would have induced Señora Pardiñas herself to make use of that toy equipage. She was perfectly satisfied with her quiet hacks. Except on some special occasion{46}—to make visits of ceremony or the like—she cared not a jot whether her carriage had a little extra varnish or her coachman wore gloves or a goat-skin cape. Owing to the frequency with which she employed them and to judicious tips all the drivers of the square were devoted to Doña Aurora, as well as greatly attached to the Señorito, though he loved to torment them, especially his compatriots, the Galicians, whom he was never tired of teasing. He ridiculed their native land, he sang the Muñeira for them, he spoke to them in the Galician dialect, like the servants in Ayála’s comedies, and if by a miracle they were vexed, he would say:

Whenever he went to engage a carriage for his mother the moment they caught sight of him, if he was a league{47} away, they would laugh and lower the sign. And he would appear upon the scene addressing them something in this fashion:

“Winged Automedon, touch your fiery courser with the whip that he may fly to my enchanted palace. Already the generous steed, impatient, champs the golden bit. Behold him flecked with snowy foam. Buloniu, of what were you thinking, that you did not perceive my approach?”

“La Correspondencia! What name have thy sacrilegious lips pronounced? La Correspondencia! By the tail of Satan! A revolutionary, an anarchical, a nihilistic sheet. Quick! Cast away that venom before thou comest near the honorable dwelling of peaceful citizens. Hasten, run, fly, coachman! Hurrah, Cossack of the desert! On, drunkard, demagogue!”{48}

The more extravagant the absurdities he strung together the more delighted were the drivers.

One morning Rogelio left the house wrapped up to the eyes in his cloak, for these closing days of October were bitterly cold, although the bright Madrid sun was shining in all its splendor. As usual, his errand was to go in search of a carriage for Doña Aurora. On reaching the corner of the square he caught sight of one of his favorite equipages—a landau whose lining of Abellano shagreen was less soiled and worn than that of the generality of those vehicles. The driver, a stout man, fair and ruddy, answering to the name of Martin, was a Galician. Rogelio made signs to him as he approached, crying:

The driver was conversing with a {49}woman whose face was hidden from the student, but at the sound of Rogelio’s voice she turned around and he saw that she was young and not ill-looking, of humble appearance and dressed in mourning.

“Señorito, what a coincidence!” exclaimed Martin, as he recognized Rogelio. “This young girl is looking for the señorito’s house and she was just asking me the way there. She is a country-woman of ours. She brings a letter——”

“Will you let me look at the direction?” said the student, changing his manner and the tone of his voice completely, as he addressed the young girl.

“Why, it is for mamma!” he said, as he looked at the superscription. “Come with me; I will show you where the house is. Do you, driver, follow in our resplendent wake with{50} your imperial chariot, drawn by that stately swan.”

“Many thanks, Señorito,” said the girl in a sweet and well modulated voice, and with the sing-song accent peculiar to the Galicians of the coast. “There is no need for you to trouble yourself. I can see the door of the house from here; the driver pointed it out to me.”

Without offering any further objection the girl walked with him in the direction of the house. Rogelio instinctively took her left as he would have done with a lady. He had not gone a dozen steps, however, before he repented of his gallantry. In the first place, his companions would ridicule him unmercifully if they should chance to meet him accompanying so politely a girl wearing a shawl over her head and dressed in a plain merino skirt. In the second place, Rogelio was at the age when a boy brought up under maternal influence in the pure atmosphere of home cannot avoid a feeling of painful shyness when brought in contact with persons of the other sex with whom he is unacquainted. It is true that women of an inferior station did not confuse him so much; young ladies were like death to him; he always fancied they were making fun of him, that everything they said to him was only in sport; to draw him{52} out, enjoy his confusion, and ridicule him afterward among themselves with malicious and pitiless irony. Walking at the side of this girl dressed in mourning, however, he experienced the same sort of confusion, for, notwithstanding her humble dress, neither in her manner nor in her appearance was there a trace of vulgarity. “Shall I speak to her?” he said to himself. “Will she laugh at me? She will laugh at me more if I say nothing. No, I must say something to her.” What he said—and with the utmost seriousness, was:

“Why, certainly;” she replied; “it is from the young ladies at General Romera’s. Don’t you know them?”

“Of course I do. General Romera was a friend of papa’s. We have not seen them for a long time.”{53}

“Doña Pascuala, the elder, has been sick. She had something they call tonsilitis. Ah, she was very ill!”

“And is she better now?” asked Rogelio, for the sake of saying something, for anxiety for Doña Pascuala’s tonsils would never have deprived him of his sleep.

“No, Señor, no indeed. It is a very good country, better than Madrid or than any other place in the world.”

Rogelio smiled, pleased with the girl’s patriotism, and beginning to feel{54} at home with her, for she seemed to him incapable of ridiculing any one. They were now near the house; Martin, who had gone on in advance, stopped his hack, a task which was easier than to make him start, and at the door stood Doña Aurora, making signs to her son.{55}

“Come here, let me see. Perhaps it is something that requires immediate attention.”

“See, child; have sense and read what is set down there; there is a terrible{56} draught and the rheumatism in my joints won’t allow me to stand here listening to nonsense.”

“Most respected friend: Esclavita Lamas, the bearer, will inform you of the favor she desires; all we can say is that during the time she was with us, she was most exemplary in her conduct and fulfilled her duties faithfully; so much so that we are very sorry to lose her, as we have no fault to find with her; quite the contrary.

“Yes; asking why no one ever sees me now and saying that I must be grown a fine-looking young fellow. The stereotyped, silly compliments—{57}—”

“I am always telling you so, child!” exclaimed his mother, with vexation. “You never go to spend ten minutes at the house of these poor ladies, who are so fond of you. They have seen you so petted that they will think it is all my fault. Well, I speak to you often enough about them. Pascuala and Mercedes! If you don’t go, I shall.”

“But, mater terribilis, when I put my foot in that reception room, I get so sleepy that I can do nothing but yawn!”

“Amen; I don’t dispute their sanctity; I am only saying that they are very tiresome and that they never stop talking. They keep up a duet like the Germans in La Diva. ‘Rogelio, how is mamma?’ ‘And how are you getting on with your studies?’” And he imitated the husky voice and Malagan accent of the old maids.

“What nonsense you talk,” said Señora de Pardiñas, repressing a smile,{58} “I don’t know why Pascuala and Mercedes should make you sleepy.”

“Unfathomable mysteries of the human heart. Profound arcana. In that dimora casta e pura a fatal narcotic pervades the atmosphere.”

During this skirmish between mother and son the girl stood waiting, motionless, with her eyes fixed upon the ground. Doña Aurora, at last remembering her presence, turned toward her:

“Excuse me, child; this letter says that you will tell me what you have come to see me about. Will you come upstairs?”

“No, Señora. Don’t put yourself to any trouble on my account. Here will do just as well.”

“Favor? No, Señora. I would like to enter into service in your house—or{59} in the house of some other Galician family,” she added, after a pause.

Doña Aurora looked fixedly at the petitioner and fancied she reddened slightly under her gaze.

“Yes, Señora, I was contented enough—and I think they were pleased with me, too. You can see that from the letter they gave me. As far as the Señoritas are concerned I would be in glory, for they are as good as they can be, not belittling others. God grant them every prosperity! Only that sometimes—there are good people that one doesn’t find one’s self at home with. Those ladies are from Malaga, in the Andalusian country, and they have customs and dishes that I don’t understand. Even their way of talking is strange to me. When they tell me to do a thing and I don’t understand, I feel as if I had heard my death sentence.{60} And, then, Señora, the truth before all—not to be among people of one’s own country, never to hear it mentioned, even, makes one’s heart very sad. For the half of the wages and with double the work I would rather serve a person from my own place.”

All this she said with an air of so much sincerity that Doña Aurora’s good-will toward her increased, prepossessed in her favor as she already was by the respectable and decorous bearing of the girl, so different from the bold manners of the Madrid Menegildas. Only there was something in the girl’s story that was not altogether clear to her. There must be some mystery in all this. Before the door the driver was smoking his cigarette, while the hack, with drooping head and projecting lower lip, was dreaming of abundant fodder and delightful meadows.{61}

“Child,” said Señora Pardiñas. “I am going to sit down in the carriage. As I am not as young as you are I feel tired standing, and my legs are bending under me. If you don’t want to go upstairs, come over to the carriage with me.”

The little Galician helped Doña Aurora to settle herself in the vehicle, and the latter when she was seated said:

“Tell me, if you were so greatly attached to your country how was it that you came here?”

Ah, this time there was not the slightest doubt of it; it was a blush, and a vivid blush, that dyed the girl’s cheeks. And when she answered one must be deaf, and very deaf, not to perceive that she stammered, especially at the first words.

“Sometimes—one has—to do what one’s heart least prompts one to do, Señora. We are children of fate. I{62} was brought up by my uncle, the parish priest of Vimieiro. It was the will of God to take him to himself and I was left without a protector. To get one’s bread one must work. I was a queen in my own house; now I am a servant. God be praised, and may we never lose the power of our hands or our health.”

“Why did you not go out to service there?” persisted Señora Pardiñas, who had a keener scent than a bloodhound where a secret was concerned. And that the secret was there she could not doubt on seeing that it was not now a blush but a hot flame that passed over Esclavita’s face.

“I—I couldn’t find a place,” she answered, in choking accents. “And then, as everybody there knows me, I was ashamed.”

Doña Aurora Pardiñas reflected for some two minutes, and speaking gently to soften the harshness of the words:{63}

“Let us see,” she said. “You can refer only to the Señoritas de Romera who—knew nothing about you before you went to their house. Isn’t it so? It would be well, then,—you will see that yourself,—if you could find some one here who knew you at home who would recommend you.”

“Rita Pardo? The wife of the engineer? I am very well acquainted with her. And you say that she knows you?”

The girl answered by raising her hand and shrugging her shoulders as much as to say, “Why, ever since I was born!”

“Well, child,” rejoined Señora Pardiñas, frankly, “I am sorry that you should leave the Romeras. You could{64} not find a better house or better ladies.”

“I do not deny that,” replied Esclavita with greater emphasis than before, if possible; “only that I have told you the truth, Señora, as if I were talking to my dead mother or to the confessor. I was seized with homesickness, and if I hadn’t left them I think I should have lost my reason or have gone straight to my grave. I couldn’t eat. I would go off by myself to a corner to think. I grew paler and paler every day, and so thin that my clothes hung loose on me. At night I had fits of choking, as if some one was tightening a rope about my neck. But in spite of all that I was loth to say anything to the Señoritas. They saw it themselves, though, and they were the first to advise me, if I did not go back home, to look for a place with some family from there! ‘Child, you are so altered that you{65} don’t look like the same person,’ were the very words they used.”

As she said this, Esclavita’s chin trembled like a child’s when it is making an effort to keep from bursting into sobs. Her eyes could not be seen, as she had cast them down, according to her wont.

“Calm yourself,” Señora Pardiñas said kindly. She was beginning to conceive an irresistible sympathy for this girl, whose bearing was so modest and whose heart was apparently so tender. How different she was from the impudent servants of Madrid, the gadabouts of the suburbs, shameless termagants who could not stay in any decent house. It was not two hours ago that Pepa, the house-maid, for a mere nothing had thrown aside all decency and scolded like a fishwoman. This little Galician might have had—well, some slip—for the reasons she gave for leaving her native place did{66} not seem all clear; but her whole appearance was so—well, so like that of an honest woman—God alone knew how the poor thing had been tempted.

“See,” she said, putting her head out of the carriage door, “for the present I cannot give you a decided answer as to whether I will take you or{67} not. Come to the house to see me to-morrow morning about this time. I should be glad to—but I must think the matter over. If I should not be able to take you myself, I will look for a place for you with some other Galician family. Tell me your conditions, in case any one else should want to know.”

Esclavita, meantime, stood rolling an end of her black silk handerchief between her thumb and forefinger.

“May God reward you!” she answered. “As for the wages, a dollar more or a dollar less makes no difference to me. Work does not frighten me. I would not engage as a cook, for I don’t know how to make those fine dishes that are the fashion now. I understand simple dishes like those of my native place. In everything else I think I could give satisfaction—in the cleaning, the mending, and the ironing. All I ask is that in the family you look{68} for there should not be—well, men, who——”

“I understand, I understand,” interrupted Doña Aurora. And she added jestingly, “But in that case, tell me why you want to come to my house. Haven’t you seen that there is a man in it?”

And she pointed to Rogelio who, relieved from his embarrassment by his mother’s presence, stood leaning against the carriage door, looking at the girl. Esclavita followed the direction of Señora Pardiñas’ hand; for the first time her eyes, green, changeful, sincere, rested on the student. After a pause she said with a smile:

“Is that young gentleman your son? May God spare him to you for many years. That isn’t the kind of man I mean, he is only a boy.”

Rogelio changed countenance as if he had received the most outrageous insult. He tried to disguise his annoyance{69} by a laugh, but the laugh died away in his throat. It must be confessed that he even felt his eyes fill with tears of vexation. It was one of those moments of insensate and profound rage which must come at one time or another to the man whose childhood has been unduly prolonged; moments in which he desires, as if it were the highest good, to possess the bitter treasure of experience—sorrows, disappointments, trials, struggles, sickness, gray hairs, wrinkles, calamities, betrayal of friendship and of love—all, all, so that he may hear the supreme word, so that he may taste the fruit of good and evil, the immortal apple, golden on the one side, blood-red on the other. All, so that he may fulfill the destiny of humanity, all, so that he may pass through the cycle of life.{70}

VI.

When the driver whipped up his horse, Señora Pardiñas called out to her son, who was on the box:

Rogelio obeyed; but when they reached the house in the dingy Calle del Pez, in which the engineer’s wife lived, he jumped down and opening the carnage door, said to his mother:

“Oh, to take a turn,” responded the student, indifferently, with a farewell gesture of the hand which betrayed the impatience of the boy growing into manhood to assert his manly independence, something like the nervous fluttering of the wings of the bird{71} when his cage door is opened to him. Without further explanation he drew his cloak more closely about him and disappeared around the nearest corner. His mother followed him with her eyes as long as he remained in sight, then she sighed to herself and half smiled. “It must come some day,” she thought. “He is at an age when the reins cannot be held too tightly. Of course, the poor boy does not impose upon me, that is only to show his independence; he will look in at a few shop-windows, buy half-a-dozen periodicals, and take a turn or two with any friend he chances to meet, and then go to the apothecary’s. If I could only see him strong, robust, burly—there are boys at his age that are perfect giants that have a beard like a forest. He is so delicate, and so puny! Our Lady of Succor, bring me safely through!”

These maternal anxieties had calmed down by the time Señora Pardiñas,{72} releasing her grasp on the banister of the stairs, had rung the bell of Rita Pardo’s apartment—a third floor with the pretensions of a first. The door was opened by a girl of eleven or twelve, pale, black-eyed, with her hair in disorder, her dress in still greater disorder, who as soon as she saw the visitor ran away, crying:

“Show her into the parlor; I will come directly,” answered a woman’s voice from the inner regions of kitchen or pantry. Doña Aurora, without waiting for the permission, was already entering the parlor, a perfect type of middle-class vulgarity, full of showy objects, and without a single solid or artistic piece of furniture. There were three or four chairs covered with plush of various colors, an étagère on which were some cast-metal statuettes; several trumpery ornaments{73} and silver articles which were there only because they were silver; two oil-paintings in oval frames, portraits of the master and the mistress of the house, dressed in their Sunday finery; on the floor was a moquette carpet, badly swept. It was evident that the parlor was seldom cleaned or aired, and the carpet gave unmistakable indications of the presence of children in the house.

At the end of ten minutes, Rita Pardo, the engineer’s wife, made her appearance. She came in fastening the last button of a morning gown, too fine for the occasion, of pale blue satin trimmed with cream-colored lace, which she had put on without changing her undergarments soiled in her household tasks. She had powdered her face, and put on her bracelets. Although she was no longer young and her figure had lost its trimness, neither maternity nor time had been able to{74} dim her piquant beauty, but the coquette whom we remember laying her snares for her cousin, the Marquis of Ulloa, had been transformed into a circumspect matron, with that veneering of decorum under which only the keen eye of the student of human nature could discover the real woman, such as she was, and would ever remain; for the real man and the real woman, however they may disguise themselves, do not change. She greeted Señora de Pardiñas cordially, with her usual, “What a pleasure to see you, Aurora! Heavens! in this life of Madrid months may pass without seeing one’s friends or knowing whether they are living or dead. You have caught me like a fright. The mornings are terrible—they slip away in listening to idle chatter and sending and receiving messages. How sorry Eugenio will be——”

No sooner had Doña Aurora{75} broached the subject of her visit than Rita Pardo suspended the flow of her talk and waited to hear further, with evident curiosity depicted in her voluptuous black eyes, and on her hard, fresh mouth. A series of ambiguous gestures and malicious little laughs was the prelude to the following commentary:

“What do you tell me? What do you tell me? Esclavita Lamas. The rector of Vimieiro’s Esclavita Lamas! Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta! And how has Esclavita Lamas happened to come across you?—Isn’t she a girl with auburn hair?”

“I don’t know whether her hair is auburn or not. She wears a shawl over her head. She is in deep mourning and looks very neat. Her appearance is greatly in her favor.”

“Well, well, well! Esclavita Lamas! Who would have thought it! Yes, she is, as we say in our part of the{76} country, very demure, very mannerly; she talks so soft and low that at times you can scarcely hear her. She smells a hundred leagues off of the sacristy and of incense. A little saint!”

Doña Aurora was more discouraged than was reasonable by this preamble; she resolved, however, to disguise her feelings and to find out the truth, the whole truth, even though it should grieve her to the heart to hear any ill{77} of the girl, in whom she was deeply interested.

“Heavens! As well as I know my own fingers. Indeed I know her! Lamas Tarrío was a great friend of the family even while he was in the other parish in the mountains before papa presented him for Vimieiro. He always lived in our house, and he was very fond of making presents. What lard, what cheese, what eggs at Easter and what capons at Christmas he used to give us! Papa thought a great deal of him, for in the mountains he took charge of the collecting of the rents. In short, he was devoted to us. He was indebted to papa, too, for a great many favors, important favors, Doña Aurora.”

“Well, what I want to know is what relates to the girl. If her antecedents are good, and I can admit her into my{78} house, I shall be glad of it. I am not satisfied with Pepa, and I have taken a liking to this girl.”

Rita Pardo smiled maliciously, as she smoothed out the lace of her left sleeve, a little crumpled with use. She arched her eyebrows, and made a grimace difficult of interpretation.

“Um! Good antecedents may mean much or little, as you know. What is good for one is only middling for another. In that matter, some people are more particular than others. If the girl pleases you so much——”

“No, not so fast!” exclaimed Señora de Pardiñas, alarmed. “For me good antecedents are good antecedents, neither more nor less. Be frank and tell me all you know, for that is what I have come for; and now with the thorn of suspicion you have planted in my mind, I would not take the girl, not if she were crowned with glory, unless you explain to me—{79}—”

Rita smoothed out her lace again, and gave a little sigh of embarrassment as she answered:

“Aurora, there are certain things that, no matter how public they may be, one cannot have it on one’s conscience to reveal them. You know nothing about the matter, eh? Then it would be very ugly on my part to enlighten you. So much the better if it has not reached your ears; it is an advantage for Esclavita. And you can take her without any hesitation; I am certain she will turn out an excellent servant.”

“You are jesting, Rita,” said Señora de Pardiñas, letting her growing irritation get the better of her, “You envelop the affair in mystery, you make a mountain out of it, and then you tell me that I may take Esclavita. No, child; in my house people are not received in that way, without knowing{80} anything about them. Explain what you mean——”

When the interview had reached this point Rita assumed a manner that was almost discourteous; she threw herself back, her nostrils dilated, her bosom swelled, and she began to excuse herself from answering with an air of offended dignity and wounded modesty.

When, after exhausting all her arguments, Doña Aurora obtained for her sole response, “I am very sorry, but it is impossible,” she rose, without troubling herself to conceal the annoyance this impertinent affectation of modesty had given her. She was just saying angrily, “Excuse my having come to trouble you,” when after a loud ring at the bell, followed by exclamations in a childish voice in the hall, the eldest girl—the twelve-year-old madcap, rushed joyfully into the parlor, crying:{81}

Then, the widow Pardiñas, with sudden inspiration, planted her feet firmly on the floor, saying to herself:

“Now I shall have my revenge. Now you shall see, hypocritical cat, impostor, humbug!”{82}

VII.

The commandant, dressed in the costume of a peasant, unceremoniously entered the room with his niece, who was the apple of his eye, his arm encircling her waist as if he was going to dance a waltz with her. In the salutation he exchanged with his sister, however, Doña Aurora could detect a shade of coldness, not far removed from dislike, a feeling which can sometimes be dissimulated where strangers are concerned, but never where its object is a member of one’s family. After the customary salutations and compliments, Señora de Pardiñas, who did not belie her race so far as wiliness and obstinacy were concerned, said tentatively:

“Well, I will leave you now. After all, I did not find out what I had {83}come to learn, and consequently—— Your sister is very reserved, Señor de Pardo.”

“Upon my faith, I have never thought so,” answered the artilleryman bluntly, almost rudely.

“Well, every one speaks of the fair according to the bargain he has made. With me she has shown herself extraordinarily reticent.” And without heeding the gesture or the glance of Rita, she continued undaunted: “For the last quarter of an hour I have been asking information from her in vain about a young countrywoman of ours, Esclavita Lamas, the niece of the rector of Vimieiro.”

Pardo listened like one in whose memory some vague recollection has been awakened.

“Stay—let me think—Vimieiro—Lamas—Lamas Tarrío. He was an intimate friend of papa’s. Rita knows all about him; she has the whole story at{84} her fingers’ ends.—What objection have you to tell it to Doña Aurora?”

A caricaturist desiring to represent bourgeois dignity in its most exaggerated form might have copied with exactness the features and expression of Rita as, arching her brows and pointing to her eldest daughter leaning against the commandant’s knees, she exclaimed impressively:

“Well, what of the child?” responded Don Gabriel, imitating his sister’s tragic tone. “Is it one of those shocking things that innocent ears must not hear—that the cat has had kittens, for instance?”

“Gabriel, you are dreadful,” groaned Rita, casting up her beautiful southern eyes. “When one is killing one’s self, trying to make your nieces what they ought to be in society, you must do your best to—there is no use in trying to struggle against people’s dispositions.”{85}

“Well,” insisted the obstinate Doña Aurora, “I come back to my complaint. Rita, don’t say that it was for the child’s sake that you refused to give me the information I asked. The child was not present, and even if she had been, by sending her out of the room——”

“Which is what I am going to do now. Eugenita, child, go practice your Concone.”

The girl left the room, much against{86} her will, casting on her uncle, as she went, a couple of affectionate farewell glances; but no scale or study was heard to tell that she had shut herself in the musical torture-chamber in which our young ladies, worthy of a better fate, are condemned to dislocate their fingers daily.

“You shall hear,” said Doña Aurora, emphatically, “now that we can speak freely. The question is that that girl, Esclavita Lamas, wants to enter my service; and that I, for my part, am greatly pleased with what I have seen of her. But I know nothing about her past, nor why she left her native place. There seems something odd in the whole affair. Your sister knows the story, and neither for God’s sake nor the saints’ will she tell it to me. There you have the cause of our dispute. It was beginning to grow serious when you came in.”

“The story,” said Gabriel, nervously{87} wiping his gold-rimmed spectacles, and putting them on again carefully. “Wait a moment, Señora; for if my treacherous memory does not deceive me—Rita, is not that the Father Lamas who took a poor girl off the street into his house for charity? Tell the truth, or I shall write this very day to Galicia to inquire.”

“Heavens! What notions you have! You are growing more unbearable every day—Was I not going to tell you the truth? Yes, that was the Lamas, and since you insist upon opening his grave, and dragging him out to public shame, do it you, for I don’t want to have such a thing on my conscience.”

“It should weigh more heavily upon your conscience,” replied Gabriel, with vehemence, “to try to prevent the girl getting her place on account of the sins of others. Now I can tell you the whole story, Doña Aurora, by an end I have unwound the{88} skein; it is the same with stories as with an old tune—if one remembers the first bar, one can sing the whole of it through without a mistake. And I can tell you that it is a novel, a real novel.”

“It may seem so to you,” said Rita, venomously, pulling the lace of her sleeves again. “As for me—there are certain things—— Well, I wash my hands of it.”

Doña Aurora concealed the satisfaction her victory gave her, but, a woman after all, she said to herself, casting a side glance at Rita:

“You shall hear,” began the commandant. “This Father Lamas was a simple-minded man, illiterate as all the rural clergy were at that time,—now they are much more enlightened,—and not over-intelligent; but he performed all his parochial duties faithfully, and if{89} he committed faults he succeeded in hiding them. If you cannot be chaste, be cautious, as the saying is. Well, one night there came to the door of the rectory a girl, about tea years old, an orphan, who lived upon charity; in one house they gave her a piece of corn bread, in another a bundle of corn leaves to sleep upon, here a ragged shawl, there a pair of old shoes. In this way the wretched girl managed to live. The rector took pity upon her and said to her: ‘Stay here; you can learn housework; you will have clothes to wear, a bed to sleep in, and good hot soup to nourish you.’ And so it was decided—the girl stayed.”

“No, Señora, no Señora. Wait a while. The girl turned out bright and capable; she put away from her her melancholy, as they say in our country, and she even grew rosy and handsome. And—” here the voice of the commandant{90} took a sarcastic tone—“when the flower of maidenhood bloomed—”

“Oh, Gabriel,” remonstrated Rita, “certain things should be spoken of in a different way. There is no need of entering into details that——”

“Bah!” said Doña Aurora. “We are all of us married and I am an old woman. We know all about it and are not to be so easily shocked as that comes to, my dear. Go on. What came afterward?”

Although Señora Pardiñas had affirmed that she knew all about it, this piece of information, given thus suddenly, almost made her jump in her chair.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, and then looked very thoughtful. “That is why the poor girl—well, and afterward?”

“Afterward,” cried Rita impetuously, unable to keep silent any longer, “papa{91} had the greatest difficulty to pacify Señor Cuesta, the Cardinal Archbishop. As the Archbishop himself was so virtuous he maintained strict discipline and permitted no misconduct. If it were not for all papa’s efforts with his eminence, to-day one entreaty and to-morrow another, Lamas Tarrío would have been deprived of his license and would have been left to rot in the ecclesiastical prison. For it is one thing for a priest to commit a fault that no one knows anything about, and another to scandalize his parishioners, bringing up the child in his own house, outraging public opinion, petting and indulging her——”

“My father,” said Gabriel, interrupting his sister, “with one hand smoothed down the Archbishop and with the other hammered away at the sinner. By dint of exhortations he succeeded in having the siren sent away from the rectory; but Lamas{92} continued to see her. At last papa took a firm stand and prevailed on him to allow the mother to be sent to Montevideo, on condition that he was permitted to keep the child.”

“Yes,” again interposed Rita, “a fine remedy that was, worse than the disease. The man became wilder and more reckless than he had been before. He spent night after night without closing an eye, crying and screaming. He had a rush of blood to the head—he was in our house at the time—so that they were obliged to apply more than forty leeches to him at once, and the blood that came was as black as pitch. We thought he would go mad; he would go about the corridors tearing his hair, calling on the woman’s name with maudlin expressions of endearment.”

As Rita said this her brother observed that the curtains of the adjoining room moved as if they had been stirred by a breath of hoydenish curiosity, and the{93} outlines of an inquisitive little nose were vaguely defined against them.

“See,” he said, “now it is you who are getting beyond your depth. All that has nothing whatever to do with the case. Let us end the story at once, and let me tell it in my own way. Poor{94} Lamas became so ill that the Archbishop himself was sorry for him, and sent for him to cheer him and inspire him with thoughts of penitence. And in effect, in process of time he grew calmer and even behaved himself very well afterward. The only fault to be found with him was that he brought up the child with extraordinary indulgence; but as the feelings of a father, even when they contravene both human and divine laws, have something sacred, people shut their eyes to this. He introduced the girl as his niece. As such children do not inherit, the priest saved up money, ounce upon ounce, which he put into Esclavita’s own hand; but the girl, who had turned out very discreet and very devout, and, in addition to that, very unselfish, when Lamas died, gave all this money, in gold as she had received it, for masses and prayers for the soul of the sinner. This act alone will give you an idea of the{95} girl’s character. There are not many girls who would do so much even if they had been born in a better station and in a more orthodox manner.”

“As my brother is of a romantic turn he sees things in that way,” interposed Rita.

“Señora de Pardiñas, I give you my word as a gentleman that I neither add nor diminish. That girl, in my opinion, would be capable of going bare-footed on a pilgrimage to any part of the world in order to get the soul of the rector of Vimieiro out of purgatory.”

“And well he would need it,” said Rita, “and her mother too, who, by all accounts, does not lead the life of a saint over there in America.”

“Good Heavens! How merciless you women can be, who have never had to suffer for the want of consideration or of bread,” exclaimed Pardo, now really angry. “I do not err on the side of philanthropy, but there are certain{96} things that I cannot understand in people who make a boast of being good Christians and who go to mass and say their prayers. Fine prayers those are! Is that what you understand by charity? Well, my dear, I declare that Esclavita is worth more than——”

“Than some other people. How is she to blame for her parents’ faults? Tell me that! And she is expiating them as if she had committed them. She even left her native place, it seems, so as not to be where people know and remember and discuss——”

“I would swear the same thing,” asserted Doña Aurora warmly. “Now I know why it was that she became so confused when she was asked certain questions. I am of the same opinion as you, Pardo, that she is good, that she has noble sentiments, and that those traits do her honor.”{97}

“Yes, be guided by my brother, admit her into your house,” exclaimed Rita, with a spiteful and insolent laugh. “For giving advice, Gabriel has a special gift. I tremble when he and my husband get together. If Eugenio were to be led by him we should be living on charity. Take that girl on your hands, and you will see how it will end. Then you will say, ‘Rita Pardo was right after all.’”

“I will take her if only to spite you, hypocrite, impostor. I have taken your measure, now.”

When Gabriel was going out, he found his eldest niece waiting for him in the reception room. He caught her by the waist, and lifting her up to a level with his mouth, whispered in her ear:

“Good little girls, if they want Uncle Gabriel to love them, must not{98} go peeping and spying and hiding themselves behind portières. They must obey mamma because she is mamma, and she will not tell them to do anything wrong. Take care and don’t bite, little lizard. Good little girls—are good. Ah-h-h! my cravat!”

“Uncle Gabriel, will you take me with you?” coaxed the little madcap. “With you, yes; with you, no; with{99} you, yes, I will go. Come, take me with you!”

“To Leganes it is that I will take you. Be good now! Study your French lesson! Comb that mane of yours! Run into the kitchen to see what the girl is about there! Papa likes his roast beef well done! See to papa’s roast beef!”

As he crossed the threshold the commandant threw a kiss to the girl, which she promptly returned.{100}

VIII.

Doña Aurora was in the habit of taking her son his chocolate every morning before he was out of bed, for, old-fashioned in many other respects, the household was old-fashioned also in the matter of early rising. Those were delightful moments for the doting mother.

The boy, as she called him, felt on awakening that causeless joy peculiar to the springtime of life, that season when each new day seems to come fresh from the hands of time, golden and beautiful, and embellished with delights, before painful memories have begun to weigh down the fluttering wings of hope. Rogelio, who in the afternoon suffered from occasional fits of nervous depression, in the morning{101} was as gay and sprightly as a bird. Even his chatter resembled the chirping of birds or the cooing of infants when they open their eyes in the morning. His mother, after removing the articles of clothing and the books lying about, would seat herself at his bed-side and hold the tray, so that the chocolate might not spill as the boy dipped the golden biscuits into it, while a glass of pure fresh milk stood beside it waiting its turn.

And what anxiety and trouble this glass of milk cost Doña Aurora! She knew more on the subject than the entire municipal board of chemists; without analysis or instruments or other nonsense of the kind, she could distinguish, simply by looking at it, by its color and its odor, every grade and quality of milk that is consumed in Madrid. For her hopes of seeing Rogelio grow robust were all centered in that glass of milk drank before going to college, and in the beefsteak eaten after returning from it.

While he was taking his chocolate, it was that all the events of the preceding day were discussed, the amusing skirmishes between Nuño Rasura and Lain Calvo, the college jokes, the latest crime, last night’s fire, together with all the trifling incidents of that home so truly peaceful like many another in the capital, notwithstanding the provincial superstition that Madrid{103} is a perpetual whirlpool or vortex, Rogelio’s first words on the morning following the day of the Galician’s application were to ask his mother with ill-disguised interest:

There was nothing strange or out of the way in his asking this question, and yet Doña Aurora was somewhat embarrassed by it, and hesitated whether she should tell him what she had heard or keep it to herself. No, it would be more prudent to say nothing about it. It was a serious matter, and if Rogelio should be wanting in discretion—it was necessary to proceed with caution.

“See, little mouse, in the first place I must tell you that I have dismissed Pepa.”

“Hello! Is a change of ministry to take place here without my being consulted in the matter?”

“You shall hear! She was getting{104} to be very conceited, very fond of answering back. So I handed her her wages. I will bear anything from them but answering back. I suppose there was a lover in the business or she would not——. To tell the truth I am tired of these Madrid servants, they are so upsetting and unbearable with their airs and assurance. I prefer a modest, docile girl. With a civil word you can conquer me, I can’t help it. If you were to see that Pepa, as stubborn as a mule and as wild as a mountain rabbit. Ah, I can’t believe that she is gone!”

“Mater, enough of prolegomena,” exclaimed the boy, dipping the end of his biscuit into the milk. “All this means that you are going to take the black-robed Unknown. She found her way straight into your heart through your eyes. We all have our weaknesses.”

“Don’t be foolish. What I want{105} is that things should run smoothly in the house. That is a deserving girl. When I say so——”

Ah! those resolutions to be reticent, those determinations to be discreet, shun them as you would fire, for they open wide the door to unrestrained confidences. Señora de Pardiñas meant to be silent, but who is silent after letting out the first hint. Nor would Rogelio have given her any peace. Besides, Doña Aurora in her heart was eager to recount her triumph and tell how she had got the best of that hypocritical humbug, Rita Pardo. This sweet satisfaction was the reward of her victory. There is a pleasure whose origin cannot be defined but whose attraction we almost all feel, in relating these tragic episodes of human life which by their reaction on society affect us all, which interest us, because they appeal to our sentiments of compassion and justice, and{106} at the same time present to us grave problems, not for our solution, but only for our consideration, as we consider the argument of a tragedy which we see represented on the stage and which arouses our horror and pity. Rogelio, leaning with his elbow on his pillow and with wide open eyes, waited eagerly for his mother’s romantic story.

“You see,” said the latter, when she had finished her story, “that we must treat the poor girl with some consideration. In the circumstances she could not have behaved better than she has done. She has shown herself to be remarkably unselfish, and along with that, religious and discreet. As far as I understand she believes herself to be under a ban, and that she must bear the sins of her parents, and it makes her ashamed that in her native place they should see her and remember what has happened. We must be{107} very careful how we speak to her. Her father we must not even mention; still less her mother—for the wretched woman is still living and wandering about the world, leading Heaven knows what sort of a life.”

“Well,” responded Rogelio, recovering his good humor, “it seems then that we are to regard the girl as if she were a mushroom. If the question ever turns on fathers or mothers I will say to her—“Of course I know you never had any. Will that do?”

“Child, don’t be absurd. Eat that other biscuit. What I mean is that you must not tease her. People who have suffered great misfortunes are very sensitive; the least thing is apt to upset them. I should like her to be contented. In this Madrid, where there are so few good servants, to find a virtuous girl of so attractive an appearance is a great piece of good luck, I can tell you. They are{108} either like sergeant-majors or like rushes.”

“Shall I buy a bunch of flowers to present to her gallantly when she enters our mansion?” asked the student. His mother gave him an affectionate little tap, saying:

“What I am going to buy is a washstand and a few other necessary articles, for that untidy Pepa has left the room like a den of lions; otherwise this girl, who is so neat, will not find a place to wash her hands. A washstand, some soap, a little table, and new mat so that she may not have to step on the tiles, that are as cold as ice, when she gets out of bed in the morning. Or better than a mat would be a piece of moquette carpet, and it can be had so cheap. I am going to buy her some warm cloth, too, to make a little jacket. I don’t believe she has a wrap; she came without any yesterday. I don’t know how she may be off for{109} clothing. I am sorry now for the three beautiful garments I gave to Pepa less than a fortnight ago.”

“Bah! All you have to do is to order a trousseau from Paris, like that of the Señora de Cánovas, for instance. Ten dozen elegant wrappers and four thousand pairs of silk stockings. Would that be enough?”

Doña Aurora went out early and returned home before twelve with her new acquisitions. It was a pleasure to her to see the room swept and the washstand and the piece of carpet in their places. She put out clean towels and had a white quilt put on the bed to make the iron bedstead look more attractive. She left the room for a moment, and on returning she could not help bursting out laughing. In a blue glass was a cheap bunch of flowers and Rogelio was hidden behind the door, watching.

“What do you think of that idea, eh?{110} Now we have a bouquet. Caray, carapuche, as Lain Calvo says. They are gardenias; ten dollars they cost me. Shall I go get a begonia? It would look very well beside the washstand. We will write a description of it afterward: ‘The alcove was transformed at the touch of a fairy’s wand into a leafy winter garden.’”

Esclavita was engaged when she presented herself at about one o’clock. But she wished to go to say good-by to the Señoritas de Romera. She did not install herself in her new home until the afternoon, when she brought a boy with her to carry her trunk—one of those Galician trunks covered with leather, with tin clamps. It was so light that at the foot of the staircase the girl took it on her shoulders and carried it upstairs herself. In this trunk, which was almost empty, she carried all the wealth she had inherited from the rector of Vimieiro.{111}

IX.

During the first few days she was like a hen in a strange yard. In truth, whether it were owing to sad recollections, or to the strange malady of homesickness from which she had suffered ever since her arrival in Madrid, the girl began to decline visibly in looks and she fell into a state of dejection which, though it did not prevent her from working with diligence and even with ardor, deprived her of the elasticity which lightens toil. It was plain to be seen that she had grown thinner, and although from the slenderness of her form and from the expression of her face it was evident she was younger, from her serious turn of mind, and the gravity of her demeanor, she might be thought twenty-eight or thirty.{112}

It is to be adverted that this species of melancholy or dejection did not interfere with the strict performance of her duties. On the contrary Esclavita was a model servant. She rose very early, almost with the sun, indeed, and before the cook had thought of lighting the fire she was already arranging everything for the breakfast of the mistress and the young master. From the very first day she took charge of the preparation of the chocolate, a duty which she performed with scrupulous care. The secret, which is fast becoming lost, of making chocolate—of the number of times necessary for it to boil up, and of the amount of beating required in order that a solution of cocoa should be aromatic, smooth, and nutritious—Esclavita knew so well that Doña Aurora declared she had never in her life tasted chocolate like hers. In the sweeping, too, she was no less skillful. With her handkerchief knotted at the back of{113} her head and her skirt turned up around her and fastened behind, she would sweep quietly, not making a great disturbance and upsetting everything in the room, yet doing the work thoroughly. That she did not brush and beat too vigorously, annoying everybody in the house, under pretense of cleaning, was an additional merit in the eyes of Doña Aurora, who could not bear rough or noisy people. But what the new maid excelled most in was the mending. It was evident that she was less accustomed to cooking, ironing, or housework than to sedentary tasks. Seated in a low chair by the window, in a couple of hours she would empty the basket of linen, and her invisible darns, her skillful patches, her firmly sewed strings and her well-fastened buttons were Doña Aurora’s admiration. She would say to her friends:

“I am not afraid now of wearing my best linen every day. This Esclavita{114} does not leave a bit of torn lace or embroidery unmended. It is a pleasure to see her with the needle in her hand.”

But at the same time Doña Aurora’s expansive disposition was little in accord with the reserved melancholy of the girl. The more pleased she was with her service the more she desired to see her go about with that lightheartedness that shows a cheerful conformity with one’s lot in life and the occupation in which one is engaged. All the consideration she had for that blessed girl, and yet she looked always dissatisfied and gloomy! In the kindness of the Señora de Pardiñas there was an element of selfishness, the natural outgrowth of that kindness; if she conferred a benefit on any one, she wished to enjoy in return the spectacle of that person’s felicity; and so strong was this feeling that in order to live tranquil and happy she needed to be persuaded that everybody around her{115} was tranquil and happy too. In deciding to take Esclavita she had been influenced by two motives; the first was to spite “that hateful Rita Pardo”; the second to make a girl of so engaging an appearance as Esclavita happy, playing in a certain sense the rôle of Providence, and reconciling her with destiny, for her fatal and implacable from the very hour of her birth. And in the latter generous desire she could not succeed because the girl would not respond to her efforts and allow herself to be cheerful.

One day Doña Aurora noticed that Esclavita ate scarcely anything, persisting at the same time in going on with her work, saying in answer to her mistress’s questions that there was nothing the matter with her. Señora de Pardiñas was of a frank, impetuous, and straightforward character, such as is rarely to be met with among the Galicians; the moment a thought came into{116} her mind she gave expression to it, and when anything prevented her doing this she felt as if she had something sticking in her throat. Without further delay, then, she brought the girl close to a window where the shade of her black silk handkerchief would not conceal the expression of her eyes or the working of her features.

“What is the matter with you, child?” she asked her without preface, with motherly solicitude. “Is there anything troubling you? Do you want for anything?”

The girl turned red, as was habitual with her when she was affected by any emotion, and answered in a low voice:

“No, Señora. How could I want for anything? May God reward you for your kindness.”

“But what is the matter, then? Are you not happy here, either? Do we treat you badly? Does the other girl{117} not behave as she ought? Do you want more covering?”

As the girl remained silent, answering these questions in the negative by a shake of the head, Señora de Pardiñas went on:

“You will do very wrong, I warn you, if you lock up your trouble in your own heart. It is worse for yourself if you are foolish. When you might be happy, I don’t understand the reason of this reserve and this nonsense. For my part I like to see pleasant faces around me. A gloomy countenance, especially when there is no cause for it, disgusts me.”

The last words she pronounced in a tone of annoyance, seeing that Esclavita persisted in her obstinate silence. At the same time she said in her own mind, “The girl has the good qualities of our country, but she has its defects as well. She is modest, respectful, and quiet, but she is a little foxy, too, and{118} there is no way of knowing what she is thinking about, or what are her feelings. The jades here are barefaced and impudent, but at least they are not deceitful; they call bread bread and wine wine; it is either yes or no. For a disposition like mine——”

While these thoughts were passing through her mind, the bell rang, and the voice of Rogelio, who had just returned from college, was heard in the hall. Esclavita’s cheeks grew redder than they were before, and she made an involuntary movement as if to run away and hide herself. “Ta, ta!” said Señora Pardiñas to herself, a sudden thought flashing across her mind, “I noticed that the lad seemed to have something against this girl. He speaks to her so coldly, which is unusual with him. That must be it. The poor girl is dejected because she sees that she has not fallen into the boy’s good graces. I must set this{119} matter right. It is plain that Esclavita is too sensitive and when she fancies that she is not liked——” She resumed aloud, “Well, child, if you are dissatisfied——”

“I am not dissatisfied; no, Señora,” answered Esclavita, respectfully and not without firmness, “unless others are dissatisfied with me. I am perfectly contented; it would be a pity if I was not. But others——”

“What has put that idea into your head?” said her mistress, looking at her fixedly. “Have I ever found fault with you since you came into the house?”

“No, Señora, you are very kind. I am not complaining of anybody,” responded the girl. “I am only afraid—well, that I may not give satisfaction. If I did not give satisfaction I would rather not stay. Unless people were satisfied with me I would rather be in purgatory—or worse.”{120}

“Hold your tongue, silly girl, hold your tongue,” said her mistress reprovingly. “Of course you give satisfaction. Go to your mending. If I hear any more of this nonsense, you shall see.”

As soon as a favorable opportunity presented itself Doña Aurora took her son to task. “I am convinced,” she said, “that the secret cause of all Esclavita’s dejection is your manner toward her. You speak to Fausta in a different way; you may not be aware of it, but with Fausta you are always jesting or disputing, and with the other one you are always serious and formal; she fancies you do not like her, that she does not give satisfaction, as she says. I assure you that the poor girl is greatly distressed and that she is capable of worrying herself into a sickness about it. These nervous girls are ticklish creatures to deal with. And apart from that, on account of{121} her—the rector, eh?—the girl gets more and more sensitive every day. On my word I pity her. If I were you I would speak to her—well—with more kindness.”

The student listened to his mother’s words with his face turned toward a picture, that seemed to possess a great attraction for him. When he was at last obliged to answer, he did so jestingly. “Don’t say another word. I shall get a mandolin and give the young lady a serenade this very night. I will bring her another bouquet and see if I can’t write her some sentimental verses, like those of my friend Anastasio Cardona. You shall see! you shall see! We will sign a treaty of peace, the illustrious kitchen-maid and I.”

In reality, Rogelio was extraordinarily flattered and pleased by Esclavita’s complaint. If his coldness and indifference touched her so profoundly,{122} it was because the girl did not regard him as a child, or, as she said, a boy. Is any one vexed or troubled by what a child does or says? There was not a doubt but that she looked on him as a man, and a man on whose conduct her peace of mind depended; she took it so much to heart that her spirits and even her health were affected by it. Rogelio allowed his mind to dwell with pleasure on this thought. During breakfast, however, notwithstanding his mother’s repeated signals, he made no change in his manner toward the girl. Without knowing why, he felt ashamed of making this alteration in Doña Aurora’s presence. However, he glanced furtively from time to time at Esclavita, who—no doubt from the excited state of his imagination—seemed to him thin and pale and drooping like a willow. As this idea took possession of him his noble youthful heart overflowed with compassion, but his vanity, youthful{123} also, thrilled with sweet satisfaction. “And it is on my account that she suffers thus,” he thought. “To judge by the respectful attention with which she serves me one might almost think her afraid of me.”

Rogelio was washing his hands in his room when he heard a light tap at the door, and in answer to his summons, “Come in,” Esclavita entered carrying a shallow willow basket containing half a dozen ironed shirts. Holding her burden in her uplifted hands, the girl’s fine figure and her graceful and rhythmic gait were displayed to advantage. She was going to lay the shirts upon the bed and leave the room again without speaking, when Rogelio, going up to her and shaking his hand threateningly at her, cried:

“Let us see how these cuffs are ironed. If I find a single scorch on them, woe be to you!”

Esclavita started, imagining at first that he was scolding her in earnest; but when she raised her eyes and noticed the expression on his countenance, she saw that he was jesting. Her glance revealed such sincere joy, she was so visibly relieved, so delighted, in a word, that the young man’s kind heart was once more pleasurably{125} thrilled, and in order to conceal his emotion he went on with the jest.

“Is it right that I should go about like a half-pay government official with my shirts looking like the face of the worthy Señor Don Prudencio Rojas? Let me see; lift up that snowy gauze and show me those inner garments. If my togæ pretextæ display the wrinkles of old age, fly, I warn you, beyond the reach of my avenging wrath.”

Esclavita’s face, that had been gradually clearing up, brightened as she lifted up the cloth with a look of affectionate mischievousness.

“Let us see, Señorito,” she said, “let us see what fault you have to find with these bosoms. Not even the king himself wears finer ones.”

“What the king wears is bibs; let us not get things mixed up. Let me see those prodigies.”

And indeed they were beautifully ironed, so smooth and lustrous that it{126} would have been an unreasonable exaction to require them to be better done.

“Well, for this time I grant you your life. But woe to you if you should ever grow negligent in the performance of so sacred a duty.”

“No, Señor; no, Señor. They shall be whiter and whiter every day. As white as doves.”

“Deign to tell me that in Galician; I intend to begin the study of that language, as I am so perfect now in Greek and in Sanscrit that I cast the professors in the shade. What is dove in Galician?”

“And you are from there and you don’t know that. Well, what a being! It is called pomba, and also suriña.”

“Ah! suriña, how sweet that sounds! I shall begin to-morrow to study the classic tongues; you shall be my teacher. ‘Mademoiselle Suriña; professor of languages; lessons given{127} at the house.’ We will put a card on the window and an advertisement in El Imparcial. Suriña, take those shirts off the bed; they are in the way there. Put them in the wardrobe. So!”

“Oh, Señorito, how upset your wardrobe is!” exclaimed the girl when she opened it.

“Put it in order, then, Suriña. The putting in order of wardrobes is a part of the lesson in Galician.”{128}

Whether it were owing to this circumstance or not, it is not to be denied that, after signing the truce with Rogelio, Esclavita’s manner and appearance underwent a complete change. Her eyes brightened, her cheeks grew rosy, her voice lost its melancholy accent, she was less silent; and while her occupations continued the same, her manner of performing them was so different, that if she had looked before like a resigned victim to duty and had seemed to cast a shadow of gloom over the house as she went about her work, her brisk and active movements now filled it with cheerfulness.

Doña Aurora did not cease to congratulate herself on this change. “Praised be God,” she would say. “That is the{129} way I like to see people around me look. I can’t endure those people who go about with long-drawn, gloomy faces, without knowing why or wherefore. You see, child. It was all on your account, neither more nor less. Now that you treat her with a little friendliness see how she is a different person.”

And different indeed she was. Even her physique had undergone a favorable change. Whether in sign of happiness or for some other reason unknown to us, she had removed the black kerchief from her head, allowing her hair to fall negligently down her neck, whose extraordinary whiteness was set off by the black silk of her neck-kerchief. Her complexion now was the complexion of the young maidens of Galicia, that bright complexion that seems to preserve the dewy freshness of their native land, and whose rosy tint puts to shame the sickly pallor{130} of the daughters of Madrid. Her expressive eyes, green, with yellowish lights, emphasized the vernal and delicate character of Esclavita’s beauty, reminding one of a valley watered by two crystalline rivulets. But the girl’s chief beauty was her hair, auburn changing to gold where it caught the light, that, parted in the middle, flowed in luxuriant natural waves on either side of the head, crowning the low forehead and the delicate temples. She wore it hanging down her back in two thick braids, or gathered up in a heavy coil at the back of the head, and if in the morning it looked smooth and even lustrous while damp with the water which was the only cosmetic Esclavita used, as the day wore on, and she went about her work, it curled up, and, rough and silky at the same time, framed her face in an aureole like that of a saint in some old painting. And indeed Esclavita, with her simple rustic{131} manner of wearing her hair, reminded one of some old Flemish painting on wood, or one of the creations of early Italian art, the resemblance being heightened by her modest air, her downcast look, that odor of incense and the sacristy, which Rita Pardo had observed in her. Looking at her full face when she smiled, the type of the rustic could be descried through the angular outlines of the virgin.

All these perfections and graces, with many more that I refrain from mentioning, were perceived through his spectacles, appreciated, talked about, and lauded to the skies by the discreet octogenarian whom Rogelio called Nuño Rasura, and whom we with more respect call Don Gaspar. Nor did he wait to pronounce his panegyric until the transformation we have spoken of took place, but from the very first day on which she had opened the door for him the gallant old man began to extol{132} her merits, wearying the rest of the company with his exaggerated praises, his rhapsodies, his silly effusions, and, in the words of the Crown Solicitor, his archfooleries.

“Just see,” Señor de Febrero would say, throwing back his handsome Orleanic head and gently smoothing the curls of his wig or stroking the velvet cushion of his crutch, “what judgment our excellent friend Doña Aurora has shown in choosing this girl, who is unique in her class. In the first place, she is so handy, so careful, so industrious, and then she has such a modest and truthful air, a great merit in my eyes, now that good manners are out of date and that viragos and strapping jades swarm around us. In former times—do you remember, friend Candás—women were all like this girl, there was none of that effrontery that we see nowadays.”

“Yes, yes, very demure, on the outside,{133}” the incorrigible Don Nicanor would respond, putting his ear-trumpet into requisition—“little saints, all sweetness and softness. But within they made up for it. You may say so indeed! But I have cut my wisdom teeth and I am not to be imposed upon by those Madonna faces.”

“See how far our friend Candás carries his evil-mindedness! That may be the case in Asturia, in your part of the country, but it is not so in ours; am I not right, Doña Aurora? And there is no denying that as boldness and want of decorum in a woman repel, so neatness and modesty are an additional attraction.”

Here Señora de Pardiñas was obliged to use all her efforts to keep from bursting out laughing, for Rogelio, who had followed the conversation from his corner on the sofa, made a comical grimace and winked at her roguishly to give point to the old man’s remarks.{134}

But before many days were over the benevolent admiration of Señor de Febrero was converted into a keen interest, an irrepressible curiosity to know all that related to “our little country-woman.”

“Tell me how you came to get her?” he asked Señora de Pardiñas, speaking rather with his half-closed and expressive eyes that sparkled behind his glasses than with his voice.

“Ah-h-h-h yes, yes! Romera, Romera. Of course.” And he settled his glasses on his well-shaped nose. “But our little friends, the Romeras,” he continued, with the persistence of a judge who is conducting a cross-examination and the obstinacy of an old man who is bent on gaining the information he desires, “they did not bring her from Galicia, did they? I did not{135} know they had ever been there. Is not the girl a Galician?”

“A Galician, yes,” said Doña Aurora, without volunteering any further information.

“She belongs to a decent family, eh?” continued the undaunted Nuño Rasura. “So I should judge, at least—and I have a keen scent,” he added, laying his finger on his classical nose. “As for her language, she speaks well, with the exception of an occasional solecism. Her appearance is refined and lady-like. So she belongs to a decent family, eh?”

“Decent, yes,” Señora Pardiñas was obliged to answer, making a mental reservation.

“No, she is the niece” (Doña Aurora’s voice grew slightly husky) “of a village priest.”

“So, so, so!” exclaimed the dean{136} emphatically. “Did I not say so? The niece of a clergyman! Boccato di cardinale! Those girls are always very pious, admirably brought up, and above temptation. So, so!”

Señora de Pardiñas tried to turn the conversation, but if there is anything in the world more persistent than a child’s caprice, it is an old man’s whim. Don Gaspar played with his crutch, turning it round and round, and then, unable to restrain himself longer, said:

“Do you know, friend Aurora, if I may say so, that I have not yet taken a good look at the face of that girl? And I am curious to know if she really resembles a certain Señorita de Vivero—a lovely girl she was, by the way—that we boys used to call the little Magdelen—somewhere about the year ’24 or ’25. Could you not call her with the excuse of bringing a glass of water, or the like?”

The meaning look that passed between{137} mother and son was observed by Lain Calvo, who exclaimed with simulated terror, and forgetting for the moment his pretended deafness:

“Caray, my dear Doña Aurora, don’t call that nymph, I beg of you; if you do, you will be responsible for the ruin of our friend Señor de Febrero. At Don Gaspar’s age, the passions make sad havoc. Prudence, Don Gasparin, remember that there is a heaven above us.”

When Esclavita, whom Doña Aurora called under some pretext, entered the room, no one could help smiling. This embarrassed the girl, who, not knowing the cause of their merriment, blushed furiously, and as a consequence, looked lovelier than ever, with that charm peculiar to her, that chaste and modest air, through which could be divined a firmness of character bordering on obstinacy. Señor de Febrero devoured her with his eyes. The old man’s head was{138} turned. When Esclavita had left the room Lain Calvo whispered to Señora de Pardiñas:

“Well, the girl may be a treasure, but as for me”—and he touched his throat significantly—“I can’t swallow her. I steer clear of those girls that grow confused the moment one looks at them. Keep an eye upon her, Doña Aurora. Take care!”

“I don’t know why you should say that, Señor Candás,” said Señora de Pardiñas with displeasure, wounded in the affection she felt for the girl.

“Girls like that, that look as quiet as mice, are very limbs of Satan,” declared the malicious Asturian. “They pretend to be modest, and all they want is to be coaxed; they pretend to be innocent, and they are more full of wiles than the devil himself. They are the kind of women who say, ‘Don’t ask me for a kiss, that would be shocking!{139} But if you steal one, why, it can’t be helped.’”

“Señor Candás, there are certain insinuations that can only be qualified as venomous,” Nuño Rasura exclaimed angrily, striking the floor with his crutch. “When the honor of the fair sex is in question, one cannot be too careful; one should consider well what one says and not speak lightly of any one.”

“So, so!” replied the Crown Solicitor, taking refuge in his deafness. “I see this class of women give you, too, something to think about. It is not for nothing that we have lived all these years, and have lost our teeth and our hair. But tell me, Doña Aurora, how this wandering princess happened to come here. Was she forsaken by some Galician Æneas? There seems to be some mystery in the affair.”

“Not at all, Señor,” exclaimed Señora{140} de Pardiñas sharply. “Don’t fancy that by thinking evil in this case you will think right. On account of the death of—of her uncle, she was obliged to go out to service.”

“What do you mean by bad? Nothing of the kind! You are altogether mistaken, Don Nicanor. The poor girl was affected with a sort of homesickness, the homesickness that we Galicians feel when we leave our country for the first time, and she wanted at least to be with some family from there. As you Asturians are a more mixed race, you can’t understand that. Ask the Romeras if they have any complaint to make of the girl; for it was from there she came to this{141} house—which is very much at your service.”

“Ah! ah! homesickness, eh? Romantic notions and affectations, carapuche! Now, indeed, I can safely predict that you will be obliged to take that princess lime-leaf tea for her nerves, every morning. She has more airs than Lucifer! When she has good food and is well treated, I don’t see what the deuce it matters to her what may be the nationality of the people she is with.”

“You are mistaken,” said Señor de Febrero angrily. “This malady called homesickness is a serious affection with our country people, Señor de Candás, and I have even known persons to die of it. Don’t laugh; every one there, even to the cats, knows that, and if you don’t know it, learn it now. Sometimes it is cured by evoking in the mind of the patient a recollection of home. Have you{142} never heard of the conscript who was dying of homesickness in the hospital at Havana? Well, how do you think he was cured, and that like magic? By hearing the muñeira played on the bagpipes of his native place. Exactly as I say, by hearing the muñeira.”

“Don’t be a fool, man, for Heaven’s sake. That conscript must have been as drunk as a fiddler. Pure drunkenness. I would soon cure him with a good flogging.”

“There is no use in talking to you, Don Nicanor. You refuse to believe what we all know to be true. It would be better to pretend to be deaf, as you do. If our little countrywoman does not suit you, Doña Aurora, for such a servant I——”

“Well, I protest! If this man doesn’t want to carry off the fair Helen that you have discovered! It is a crime against public morality.{143} Say no, Doña Aurora; this is something serious!”

“Of course I shall say no, for my own sake. I am too well pleased with Esclavita to wish to part with her.”

Rogelio had been listening in silence to the dispute between Nuña Rasura and Lain Calvo. He was inclined to share the indulgent views of his mother and the ex-president of the court. With all this, however, he was at times tempted to believe that the spiteful Asturian knew more about life and was a better judge of human nature than they. By an illusion common to the inexperienced, cynicism and pessimism seemed to him the highest expression of human knowledge. His own inclination to think well of everybody must be the result, he thought, of his youth and inexperience. “Any one can throw dust in my eyes,” he said to himself. “I am a child, but I am determined not to remain one forever.”{144}

XI.

Esclavita was crossing the hall when she heard her young master’s voice calling her:

“Come quickly! Your presence is required to relieve me from an appalling situation.”

The girl entered the student’s room and found him standing in his shirt sleeves in the middle of the floor, his waist-coat in one hand while the other was tightly clasped, as if it held some precious object.

“A moment ago,” he cried tragically, opening his hand, in which was a small mother-of-pearl button, “this precious button flew with lightning-like swiftness from my collar. Can you secure{145} it in its place again without inflicting with the murderous steel a mortal wound upon my throat?”

Esclavita smiled, and, putting her hand into her pocket, took out her needle-case, spool, and thimble. This latter was open at both ends, like the thimbles used by the peasantry. She put it on quickly, with equal quickness threaded her needle, knotted the thread, and took between her thumb and forefinger the little pearl button. She pulled out the threads where the button had come off, set the button in its place, and inserted the needle. Here began the difficulties of the undertaking. It was impossible to draw the needle straight through without pricking the young man’s chin, smooth and clean as a woman’s. He pretended to be making desperate efforts to assist in the operation, accompanying them by comical grimaces and cries of, “Help! She is severing my carotid artery! she{146} is piercing my jugular vein! she is performing the dangerous operation of tracheotomy upon me without my having the croup!” And the girl, smiling, but undisturbed, would say, “Hold your head up a little—take care, now—there, that will do; I will soon be through.” At last, with a triumphant gesture, she twisted the thread around the button to form the stem, fastened it by a stitch or two, and then broke it off.

The slender fingers, marked with the pricking of the needle, passed over the throat of the student, who broke into fresh cries:

As soon as the collar was buttoned, however, he said softly, as if he were begging her to render him some important and difficult service:

Esclavita took the silk necktie, and as she put it around the young man’s neck their glances met. During the previous operations this had not happened, for Rogelio’s head had been turned aside, as far as his fits of laughing would permit; but now it could not be avoided, for Esclavita’s face was raised, and Rogelio, taller than she, looked, of necessity, into her eyes,{148} green, shot with golden lights; and the parting of the hair, straight and even, like a furrow cut through a field of ripe grain; and her rounded forehead, smooth and fine, and the little blue veins in her temples and eyelids. He inhaled her sweet breath, that intoxicated him for a moment, as if he had opened a jar of oxygen.

It was but for a moment, but it was a moment which seemed to Rogelio a year. Childhood, with its butterfly lightness, its blue and silvery skies, was left behind forever. Esclavita, having finished tying the cravat, drew back to a little distance, the better to observe the effect of the bow.

It was as if the communication between the wire and the battery had been interrupted. Rogelio came to his senses. “How disgraceful!” he thought. “What a vexation for my mother!”

The precepts of morality, which{149} others learn as a rational necessity and a compulsory duty, or as a part of their religion, Rogelio, who as an only son, had been petted and spoiled, had learned through the medium of his feelings. All his ideas of decorum, of goodness, of rectitude, had come to him by this indirect but pleasant path. “Ah! what a grief it would be to me, child, if you were to do such or such a thing!” his mother used to say. “Heavens! what a mortification for me if you should commit this or that fault!” Thus it was that, without being conscious of it, what Rogelio first considered in all his actions was the effect they would be apt to produce on his mother’s feelings; and this was now his first thought when the vertigo passed away that had obscured his reason, while the girl was close beside him. When Esclavita had left the room his very want of confidence in himself made him take an honorable resolve,{150} that of avoiding fresh temptations and still greater dangers. These resolutions are difficult to keep when the temptation is close at hand. Rogelio felt his first desire return to him continually, and the same fumes mount into his brain, like puffs of hot air. At table; when she came to his room, bringing the light, or some message, or his linen, he could not help devouring her with his eyes, following the perfect lines of her slender form, noting the grace and lightness of her movements. The stronger and more passionate his desire, the more embarrassed did he feel himself in the girl’s presence. When with her it seemed to him impossible that he should ever venture to pay her a serious compliment; while in the solitude of his own room at night, unable to sleep, and tossing about restlessly in his narrow bed, he felt himself equal to any undertaking, no absurdity seemed to him unreasonable, and he{151} even thought—strange effect of passion—that it was his bounden duty to do what in the light of day he regarded as a crime and an act of madness. “And then,” he said to himself, “no one can call me a child any longer, and I shall be fully convinced myself that I am not one.” This absurd idea vanished in the morning, when his mother, according to her old affectionate habit, brought him his chocolate. When he saw Doña Aurora, dressed in her plaid morning gown, come into his room with the tray in her hands, when he tasted the fresh biscuit, the spoiled child felt all the power of the moral law imposing itself upon him with apodictic force; and precepts, unknown or denied a few moments before, now presented themselves to him clearly, significantly, plainly. “To give mamma cause for grief—it makes me shudder even to think of it; it would be unpardonable. Even though she should not{152} discover it I should fancy she was reading it in my eyes, in my very breathing. And she would discover it,—she would discover it, there is not a doubt of it. Mamma is very shrewd, easy-going and good-natured as she appears. No one can throw dust in her eyes. She knows me so well that before the words were out of my mouth she can tell what I am going to say. As she cares for no one and thinks of nothing but me. God grant I may never give her cause for grief.”

Thus this criminal in thought studied Doña Aurora’s countenance attentively, fearful lest some glance he might chance to cast at Esclavita should betray him. At times he exposed himself to the risk of attracting attention by going to the opposite extreme, affecting not to look at the girl, and avoiding even the contact of her dress when she waited on him at table. It is true that this simple contact affected{153} him so powerfully as to cause him pain from the intensity of the emotion. His was the passionate desire of youth that has not learned either how to control itself or how to attain its object. After avoiding Esclavita for two or three days, he would devise some excuse to go and surprise her in the little room where she ironed and where the basket containing the mending was kept, and when he was there, the only thing that occurred to him to do was to sit down in a chair and cheat his passionate longing by contemplating the girl who, rosy and perspiring, her right arm curved out firmly, leaned with all her weight on the iron as she smoothed the bosoms and the cuffs of his shirts. When the impulse to embrace her became too violent, Rogelio would rise and take refuge in his little study. There, on the polished desk were the hateful text-books, printed on brown paper with worn and blurred type,{154}

exhaling aridity and tedium from their musty leaves and gray covers. Rogelio had never had any liking for these books, but now, whenever he opened one of them to go over a lesson, a thick fog seemed to envelop his faculties, and a sort of moral dissolution to take place in his spirit, where a rebellious voice would whisper softly such{155} heresies as these: “Go, child, give up those futilities, renounce that dry, worthless, empty, sapless science of the schools. Real life and humanity are something altogether different from this. This pretended nourishment for the mind is a collection of antiquities, the rind of a lemon which the hand of history has been squeezing dry for nineteen centuries. All that you are studying is out of date. They wish to store your mind with mummified remains, dusty rags, and old cobwebs. They wish to fill your head with antiquated juridical rubbish, and they desire that at a bound you should be as old as your mother’s guests, Lain Calvo, Nuño Rasura, and the honorable Puppet. They would have you be of wood, like him. No, you are of flesh and blood, you are a man; life calls to you, and life, at your age, in default of a pursuit which would unfold your faculties harmoniously is—Esclavita.”{156}

To these vague promptings, translated here into plain and vulgar speech, the student responded by yawning, rising nervously from his chair, and taking down from the book-shelf a novel or the latest number of Madrid Comico, which, throwing himself on the bed, he would eagerly devour, seeking thus to forget his feverish longings.

He had not the resource of a cigar, for he belonged to the younger generation who do not smoke; and who, unless God take pity upon them, will come in time to faint like an Englishwoman at the smell of a Havana. He was deprived of this sweet soother of impatience, this great counselor in trouble, this powerful sedative, this most spiritual of material distractions. One day he thought about it a great deal. “What would happen to me if I should smoke?” he said to himself. “The first thing would be that I should grow dizzy, perhaps sick at my{157} stomach—yes, there is not the least doubt of it. And then mamma would know that I had been smoking, from the smell. No, the remedy is worse than the disease.”

The idea of smoking, which pleased him, because there was something manly and rakish about it, suggested another expedient, more effective, besides being easy and pleasant to put in practice. How was it that it had never occurred to him before when it was so simple, so extremely simple, and even so natural and right, and especially when it would be so efficacious as a consolation in his present suffering. “Why, the only thing to be wondered at is, that I should not have a sweetheart already,” he said to himself. “Every one I know has one. And they are quite right. If I had one, I should get rid of these crazy notions. I shall take a sweetheart, yes, indeed. There is nothing wrong in having a{158} sweetheart, and even if mamma should find it out, she will not be vexed on account of it. One nail drives out another. That will be my chief distraction.”

The post being created, it now only remained to find some one to fill it. Rogelio passed in mental review all the young ladies with whom he was acquainted. Some of them were ugly; others were already engaged; this one was too old; that one was never to be met outside her house; one would turn him into ridicule; another would require him to prove his affection for her by performing some difficult task. He remembered at last that in a little street opening on to the Calle Ancha de San Bernardo, just in front of his house, there lived three or four young girls, daughters of an employee in the Colonial Department. They were not bad-looking, especially the youngest, a pale blonde, whose complexion, eyes,{159} and hair were all the same color, which was becoming to her, giving her a certain resemblance to the Infanta Eulalia. Rogelio looked at her occasionally, receiving prompt payment of every one of his glances. “The little blonde will suit me,” he thought. “It will not be necessary for me even to move from the dining-room.” Accordingly, the very day on which the thought occurred to him he took up his post before breakfast by the window, and, opening it slightly, looked toward the windows of the third floor opposite. At one of them was the blonde, dressed in a soiled and crumpled morning-gown of dotted percale. On the railing of the window hung various undergarments, more than half worn, drying, and on a bureau he could see some bottles covered with dust, the empty cage of a lark, some old rags, and an old shoe. As he contemplated this interior, in no wise resembling a Dutch{160} interior, Rogelio abandoned his purpose of looking there for a sweetheart. He remained for the space of ten minutes or so, perplexed. Then he said to himself: “I shall look somewhere else, that’s all. As for remaining without a sweetheart, I cannot make up my mind to that; it would be absurd.”{161}

XII.

One Sunday morning Señora de Pardiñas awoke her son with the following intimation: “To-day we must make some visits; there is no help for it; we owe visits to everybody. I sent to Augustin’s livery stable for the landau; he says it will be at the door punctually at two o’clock. Ah, and what do you think? I shall go dressed so that if I look at myself in the glass I won’t know myself. The dressmaker brought me my black velvet gown, trimmed with jet and lace, yesterday; the hat to match is ready, too. I shall put on all my finery. You must stop in at the barber’s after breakfast; your hair needs cutting.”

Rogelio grumbled not a little; he declared that he had two or three indispensable{162} tasks to perform that day, but all in jest, for he saw very well that Señora Pardiñas was resolved not to go to bed that night without having laid a grand sacrifice on the altar of social duty. At a quarter before two Rogelio had finished fastening the first row of buttons of his English frock-coat, before his bureau glass. Fortunately it was Sunday, when the neighborhood of the University is of all places the one where a student is least likely to be met with. For a pretty teasing he would have to stand if any of his college companions should chance to meet him in his present guise, dressed like a gentleman, with gloves and a silk hat. Accustomed to the cloak and the low, broad-brimmed hat, he felt at first as if to wear a frock-coat were like going disguised. There lay the silk hat, shining and resplendent, on the table of the study, and beside it the gloves, the cane, the Russian leather{163} card-case and the handkerchief with its handsome embroidered initial. He took note of all these articles, placed his hat a little to one side, over his carefully smoothed hair, and was proceeding to draw on his gloves with the ill humor that was habitual to him when performing this operation, when his mother entered.

“Heavens! mater admirabilis!” he exclaimed. “How magnificent you look! Ho! for our handsome women, our stately and aristocratic dames.”

What Doña Aurora really looked was very uncomfortable, with all this finery, which only on state occasions could she bring herself to wear. She never wanted anything better than her comfortable mantle, her merino gown, and her large fur cape. All this frippery was enough to put one out of temper. The weight of the hat, with its high bows, obliged her to bend her head; the steels of the skirt impeded{164} her movements. But there was nothing for it but to submit to this tyranny of fashion at least twice a year. She, like Rogelio, carried a card-case, and a list of the houses where she owed visits. Peeping out from her mink muff was a handsome lace handkerchief, perfumed with some delicate extract, and in her ears were two fine solitaires—the modest elegance of a lady who aspires only to dress in a style suited to her station. And yet such is the power of the arts of the toilet and of dress that Doña Aurora seemed to have left ten of her fifty odd years inside the door of her dressing-room; her face glowed with pleasurable animation, and in her bearing there was an unaccustomed dignity.

Esclavita stood behind with her wrap, which she was to take in the carriage lest the afternoon should turn cold, busying herself—with that admiring{165} interest which attached servants display when they see their masters or mistresses in gala dress—in giving a touch here and there to her gown, smoothing out its folds and brushing off some almost imperceptible speck of dust from the bottom of the flounce. Suddenly the girl raised her eyes and exclaimed, casting a glance of frank admiration at Rogelio:

“He looks like a fashion-plate, does he not? Turn round, Rogelio, turn round—so. The coat looks as if it grew upon you.”

“Mamma!” protested Rogelio. But he was obliged to allow himself to be examined and re-examined by Esclavita, and even to consent to her giving the collar of his coat a touch with the brush. The girl’s eyes told him with innocent speech that he looked well.{166} She arranged his cuffs and when they were going downstairs, she even called after him:

“There! There is a bit of the wool of the carpet on the right leg of your trousers.”

The first visit was to the house of Don Gaspar Febrero, to see the daughter of the worthy dean, who was on the eve of her departure for the Philippine Islands with her husband, a staff-officer, who had been ordered to Manilla. They talked about the voyage, the climate, the hurricanes, the clearness of living there, and of the old gentleman, who was to be left behind alone. Fortunately, he had never been in better health, never more animated nor more gay. Only a moment before, taking advantage of the pleasant weather, he had gone out, leaning on his crutch, for a little walk in the sun. Gratified by this satisfactory account, they left the abode of Nuño Rasura,{167} and proceeded to make other visits more or less of the same ceremonious nature. At some of the houses they merely left cards, and these were the most pleasing visits for Rogelio, who, as he approached each door, repeated under his breath the customary aspiration: “I pray the saints they be not in!”

But his desperation reached its height when his mother announced to him that they were now going for a moment to the house of the Señoritas Pascuala and Mercedes de Romera.

“Mother mine, if it be possible, spare me this sacrifice!” he cried. “Carapuche, as our friend of the ear-trumpet says, don’t you know that I shall be obliged to pinch myself to keep from falling asleep at that house?”

“So nice as you look and you don’t want to make a good impression{168} on the pretty girls? Come, come, give the direction—Calle del Barquillo.”

The house of the old maids had a surprise in store for the student, in the person of the sprightly girl who came out to receive the visitors and show them into the parlor, saying that her aunts would come immediately. In saying this she practiced a thousand witcheries with her features and her eyes, which were black, small, sparkling, and very expressive. The niece of the de Romeras wore a rather short dress, a token that she had not yet reached the dignity of the mantilla, and an apron with a bib, with a bright-colored embroidered border. A blue ribbon, tied in a bow, fastened the end of her short braid, and her shoes, worn at the toes, gave evidence of the restlessness of the small feet with their arched insteps within. Pascuala, the elder of the old maids, soon came into the parlor, sniffling and coughing, declaring that her{169} sister was unable to leave her room, as she was suffering from a cold still worse than her own, which made it necessary for her to avoid a change of temperature. “And to keep my sister in-doors is like giving her a stab,” she added. Presently she presented her niece as she might have presented a frisky little dog who disturbed the drowsy quietude of that peaceful abode. “This is my god-daughter, Inocencia, the second eldest girl of my brother Sebastian, who resides in Loja. He has left the poor thing with us because she requires to have her teeth attended to; she has a tooth growing over another, and it will have to be extracted. She is very lively and can’t remain still for a moment; there is no kind of shoe that is strong enough for her; that is why you see her so badly shod.” These explanations being made, it was in order to speak of Esclavita; and in view of the fact that the matter could not be discussed{170} before a child, and as Mercedes, besides, wished to enjoy the society of Doña Aurora, the two ladies went into the dressing-room, leaving Rogelio and Inocencia alone. “Go show him the albums and the views of Granada, child,” was the order the girl received from her aunt as the latter left the parlor.

Inocencia obeyed—playing off all her coquettish arts as she walked over to the table—and cried precipitately and with an affected lisp:

“Come here, come here, and look at the pictures Aunt Pascua told me to show you! They are lovely!”

Although the idea of looking at pictures was little to the taste of the gentleman with frock-coat and silk hat, ashamed to refuse, he went and seated himself beside the girl who, as she opened the album, darted at him, with all the boldness of fourteen, an incendiary glance—a glance impossible to be{171} misunderstood. When he found himself alone with the girl, it occurred to the student that there could not be a more propitious occasion to provide himself with a sweetheart than the present one. His vanity was a little piqued, it is true, at the thought that she was so young; a sweetheart of eighteen or twenty would have done him some credit, while this would look like playing at lovers; but when he was beside her, and looked at her more closely, with her well-formed little figure, developed with Southern precocity, and her full upper lip, slightly raised by the projecting tooth, she seemed to him a woman in miniature, and he thought to himself:

He declared himself accordingly, without further preamble or preface, with high-sounding phrases culled from farces and comedies, magazines and college jests. The girl, without{172} manifesting the slightest surprise, listened with a serious air, rolling between her thumb and finger an end of the ribbon tying her braid, which she had brought forward to show off the beauty of her hair, putting in practice at the same time all the airs and graces of a finished coquette. The student raising his voice a little, the girl whispered:

Rogelio lowered his voice and redoubled his entreaties, although he began to feel a strong inclination to burst out laughing. After making three or four gestures in the negative, the girl all at once, and without further preface, said yes.

“Give me a token of your love!” implored Rogelio; and without waiting for permission he bent his head and kissed her on the cheek, feeling as if he were kissing the painted cheek of a doll{173}—smooth, rosy, and insensible. Inocencia betrayed no emotion whatever—neither pleasure nor coyness—at receiving the kiss; on the contrary, seizing the student by the lapel of his coat, she declared, with an air of conviction:

“I think we ought to say thou to each other. All my girl friends and their sweethearts do.”

“We ought to write to each other every day, too; every day, without missing a single one. My sister Lucia’s sweetheart writes a letter that long to her every morning; and another, every afternoon, that is longer still.”

“Very well; we will write to each other, too. I will make arrangement with the servant to carry our letters.”

“And you must give me your likeness.{174} Have you a photograph? My parents would not let me have mine taken until I have my tooth drawn, but I can give you some of my hair for a locket. Shall I cut you some now?” she added, playing with the curly ends of her braid.

The girl rose quickly and walked on tiptoe to the door of the room where the grown people were chatting. She returned with the same caution, a look of satisfaction on her face.

“I thought god-mother was coming,” she said. “But I was mistaken; they are having a great chat.”

She resumed her seat beside the student, and three or four minutes passed without either speaking. The girl waited, surprised that her lover should have nothing to say to her; but the young man, ransack his brain as he would, could not find a word to say. All{175} he felt was a wild desire to laugh, and to keep from doing so he covered his mouth with his handkerchief. His sweetheart, looking at the handkerchief, observed the richly-embroidered initial, and asked quickly:

“I was going to ask you what your name was. How shall I address your letters? Señor Don Rogelio——”

“Pardiñas, Pardiñas, Pardiñas.” The girl repeated the name several times to herself as if afraid of forgetting it, and then, looking the student straight in the face, she said to him, in solemn accents:

Here Rogelio could no longer restrain his hysterical inclination to laugh. He laughed with his mouth, with his eyes, with his whole body, holding his sides, that ached with the violence of{176} his laughter; and throwing himself back in his chair, he sighed:

“What are you laughing at?” asked the girl, a little offended. “You act like a fool. Tell me whether we are to be married or not.”

“Of course we are to be married. Only I can’t help laughing. Let me laugh or I shall become ill.”

“Will you pass by the house to-morrow at nine? I will be at the window. At that time I always stand at the window to see the mounted artillery pass. It is a very pretty sight. What are you going to be?”

XIII.

Rogelio was still laughing at himself at the idea of his engagement when they were nearing the bottom of the stairs, for which reason he neglected to offer Doña Aurora his arm, as was his custom. A sudden cry and the sound of a fall froze the blood in his veins as he saw his mother slip and fall headlong down the stairs on the tiled floor of the hall. It is only on supreme occasions that the real depth of our sentiment is revealed to us. Rogelio did not know that there were chords in his larynx or tones in his voice capable of the heart-rending pathos with which he uttered the words:

He cleared at a bound the steps down which his mother had fallen, and{178} in an instant had her on her feet and was holding her in his arms and pressing her to his heart, examining her wildly to assure himself that she was not dead and that she had no bones broken. Suddenly he uttered a terrified cry.

“Blood, mamma! you are bleeding. Where are you bleeding? Here. Good heavens, blood!”

Her head had struck against the edge of one of the steps, and the wound was bleeding slightly. Half stunned as Señora de Pardiñas was by the force of the blow, the agonized voice of her son recalled her to herself, and she answered faintly:

“Don’t be frightened, child; it is nothing; you may believe me, it is nothing. I am a little better now.”

“There is no one in the porter’s room. I am going upstairs to get some vinegar—some water——”

“No, child, no, for Heaven’s sake.{179} Don’t call any one; make no disturbance. Help me gently to the carriage. For illness or the like, the best place is home.”

Trembling, and covered with a cold sweat, Rogelio assisted his mother to the carriage, into which he lifted her bodily, and then made her lean back in a corner while he fanned her with his handkerchief, thinking, with terror, “Can there have been any injury to the brain?”

“Home—drive slowly,” he said to the coachman, who had turned round curious to know what had happened. And unable to control himself, he threw his arms around his mother, putting the question usual in such cases:

“I don’t know, child. My foot slipped; it must have been the heels of the new shoes; or my foot may have caught in the flounce of my dress.”{180}

“It was my fault not to have given you my arm. I am a brute. Where does it pain you? How do you feel now, mamma?”

“I don’t know; I think I am going to faint,” answered his mother, in a weak voice.

And indeed she looked as if she were going to faint, to judge from the cold perspiration and the deathly pallor that overspread her face. Rogelio, greatly alarmed, was on the point of calling out to the coachman to drive to an apothecary’s when his mother revived a little and made signs to him that she was better, and the carriage rolled on toward the house. When Rogelio, assisted by the footman, was helping his mother out of the carriage, she uttered a cry.

When Esclavita was informed of what had occurred, she hastened to her mistress without useless outcries, and quickly and skillfully loosened her clothing, applied vinegar to her temples, and afterward undressed her and put her comfortably to bed. Doña Aurora complained of a desire to retch, of heaviness, of oppression, of continued nausea, and an inclination to vomit—all which made the student say to himself with terror, “My God! there is concussion of the brain.” He called Esclavita apart and said to her hurriedly: “Take care of her, I am going to Sanchez del Abrojo and I will not come back without him.”

In effect, he returned with him after a delay of two hours, and the distinguished physician, having made a careful examination of the patient, and a minute and skillful investigation into the manner of the fall, was obliged to acknowledge that there had been a little,{182} a very little, cerebral congestion. The only treatment he prescribed was rest in bed, and diet until the disturbance in the stomach should be settled. The other injuries were of little consequence—the lesion on the forehead did not go beyond the skin; the contusion on the left leg was no more than a bruise of little importance. In short, it was nothing. All she required was rest.

To carry out the physician’s orders, then took place that revolution in the habits of the household, and that transformation in the aspect of the house itself, which sickness always brings with it. The household concentrated itself within the narrow limits of the bedroom and dressing-room of the patient. Rogelio and Esclavita took up their station there—the former receiving the visitors; the latter changing the cloths wet with arnica, bringing cups of lime-leaf tea, burning lavender, and undertaking whispered commissions and{183} receiving keys slipped into her hand secretly. “Don’t let the boy want for anything. Remember to warm his bed.” To these recommendations, which Esclavita listened to with religious attention, followed suppressed groans. “Oh, how this wretched leg hurts me. My head is splitting with pain!”

Esclavita performed her duties as sick nurse with that earnest and silent assiduity which she always displayed when employed in the service of others. She came and went with noiseless footsteps and without rustling of garments. She took charge of everything, and if she was absent for a moment from the bedroom it was because she was in the kitchen, compounding some potion. She even managed to get time to give Rogelio his dinner, without neglecting her mistress; but no one knew at what hour she herself had taken food on that memorable day.{184}

When the night was advanced and every one had retired, she trimmed a lamp carefully and set it on the floor so that the light should not disturb the patient. She then placed a low chair at the head of the bed and seated herself in it. As Rogelio, who was sitting in an easy-chair in the dressing-room, made no motion to retire, she went to him and whispered to him, in tones of entreaty, “Go to bed, Señorito; don’t stay here.” The patient, who had begun to doze, overheard the words and added her entreaties to Esclavita’s, saying, “Child, do go to bed. You are not accustomed to sitting up; it will injure your health. Don’t be foolish; go to bed. Esclavita is taking the best possible care of me.” But it was impossible to persuade Rogelio, and they compromised the matter by deciding that a temporary bed should be made for him on the floor. The little Galician, displaying extraordinary strength,{185} brought in two mattresses, beat the pillows noiselessly, and as noiselessly made up the bed. Rogelio divested himself of his coat and waistcoat only, and thus, half dressed, lay down. Then only did he begin to feel the extreme exhaustion which follows great shocks and profound emotions. At the same time a comical recollection crossed his mind.

“And my sweetheart,” he said to himself, “will she be at the window to-morrow to see me pass by?”{186}

XIV.

Although tired out by the emotions of the day and comparatively tranquil in his mind in regard to his mother’s condition, Rogelio tossed and turned about for a long time before he fell into a light doze. He did not succeed, however, in obtaining a sound and restorative sleep; his slumbers were interrupted and restless and visited by distressing dreams, in which he seemed to be always falling down, down, rapidly, interminably, with the added distress of never being able to reach the ground and of seeing below him the place on which he was about to be dashed. In one of those painful and involuntary efforts which we make in our sleep to shake off a bad dream or to change{187} its character, he woke with a start and looked about him wonderingly, unable to remember at first how it was that he came to be sleeping here, in his mother’s room.

Absolute silence reigned around. The room, dimly lighted by the little lamp, was in a semi-obscurity; his mother, he thought, must be asleep, for he could hear her breathing deeply, almost snoring; at the head of the bed he saw Esclavita sitting motionless, with large, wide-open eyes fixed on himself. An irresistible impulse made him call to her with the accent of a child who, because of some nocturnal fright, begs not be left alone.

“Well, I am wide awake now. Talk{188} to me—softly, so that we may not waken her.”

“Sleep! If you knew the horrible dreams I have had! No, I would rather stay awake now. Sit down here.”

“Here on the floor beside me. Otherwise we cannot speak in a whisper—and we might waken mamma.”

Esclavita acceded to the proposal without demur, and stretched herself on the floor, almost cheek to cheek with Rogelio, but without losing her modest and reserved air, showing in this that she was born in the land, where bucolic naturalness of action is united to modesty of demeanor. The girl’s pure{189} virginal breath mingled for the second time with that of the student, but the feelings it awakened in him now were of a very different nature from those he had experienced on the former occasion. Whether it was that the shock caused by his mother’s fall had transformed his youthful sensations into sentiment, or that the place in which he was did not admit of evil thoughts, certain it is that near to him as Esclavita was, and easy as it would have been to take liberties with her, it did not even enter into his mind to attempt doing so; all he was conscious of was a sort of affectionate effusiveness, unusual with him, a feeling of inexplicable tenderness, which caused his eyes to fill with tears. Reaching out his hand, he grasped Esclavita’s and, pressing it with force, said:

“Thank God it was nothing serious,{190} Señorito!” answered the girl, returning the pressure.

Esclavita did not answer, thereby showing her wisdom, for the question put to her was one of those which do not admit of being answered in words. She pressed more forcibly than before the student’s hot, trembling hand in hers, and her eyes responded in the half shadow with a long and eloquent glance.

“If she had died,” continued Rogelio, yielding to his involuntary emotion, “you see that I should have no one in the world but you, no one.”

“Yes, you; and no one but you. Relations I have none—that is to say, I have several aunts at home in Galicia, with whom we are on cat-and-dog terms. You see what a protection they would{191} be, child. As for friends—well, two or three in the University over there—college friends, that are of little account. Then the old men who come to see mamma. Of much use they would be; they are all in their dotage. It is as I say, Suriña. I should have only you.”

Rogelio had raised himself on his elbow as he spoke, in order to make himself heard by the girl without disturbing his mother, and this lowering{192} of his voice made his words more persuasive, bestowing on them the passionate and mysterious air of a confession. Persuaded himself, he persuaded his hearer. He was not in a frame of mind to measure the importance of his words or to calculate the effect they might produce, still less did he suspect that sensibility and goodness may, on certain occasions, be more fatal than anger and hate. There was a large share of nervousness in his emotion, and the words fell from his lips in the reaction after the morning’s fright as a groan follows a painful hurt, involuntarily and almost unconsciously. All there was in him of the child—and there was much—overflowed in this affectionate unburthening of his heart, and he neither desired nor could he foresee any further consequence, granting even that in moments like these it is possible to calculate effects.

“You, Suriña,” he repeated, yielding{193} his hand to the hands that with almost convulsive force pressed his. “You care for me, and a great deal, too, do you not?”

“I knew it. I had guessed it; and that is the reason why I told you that no one would be left me but you and that I should cling to you; do you know that? Even if you had told me that it was not so, I should not have believed it. You care for me—and for mamma, too.”

“That I do,” said the girl at last, recovering her speech and withdrawing a little from the student. “I don’t know what it was that came over me in this house that made me take a—a kind of affection for it—a very, very great affection from the first moment I crossed its threshold. Why, it seemed to me as if I was at home again. As you are from there—But I think the more one{194} tries to explain these things, the less one is able to do it. What I know is that if I had remained with those other ladies, it would have soon been all over with me.”

“Yes, and thinking of that I became very melancholy. The worm got into my head.”

“That is what we say at home, when one gets a notion one can’t get rid of into one’s head. I would spend the whole blessed night trying to untangle the skein—What shall I do to make the Señorito lose his dislike for me? What means shall I take to please him? And the worst of it was—you may believe what I say, for it is as true as that God is in heaven—that heavy as my{195} heart was, I did not feel as I did in the other house. No; from this house I would not have gone, not if I was to be cut in quarters—unless I was turned out of it.”

“No, indeed I didn’t know it. I give you my word I thought you hated me. It made me so wretched that I wanted to die.”

“And I am ready to die with joy at hearing you, Suriña. You are not comfortable there, child. Put your head on this pillow. Here, let me pull it out to make room for you.”

Esclavita laid her head on the pillow without embarrassment or mistrust, and both remained silent for a while, absorbed in the happiness of the moment. The dim light of the lamp threw the girl’s features into relief, bestowing on the lights a pure pale tint, on the shadows a uniform grayish rose. Her{196} head had the effect of a fine engraving, and Rogelio expressed his admiration by saying:

At this moment Doña Aurora sighed profoundly and both started, although their conversation could in no sense be called guilty. The nurse rose to go see what was the matter. She returned in a moment, saying:

“Settle yourself comfortably again. I want to ask you something. Give me your hand. What put it into your head to care so much whether I liked you or not?”

“Ah, I don’t know. From the first day I said to myself, If they don’t want you here, Esclavita, it is because there is no room for you in the world. You came into it against the will of Our Lord. God has always looked on you with disfavor. Didn’t you know it, Señorito?”{197}

“Yes, I knew it, Suriña. But it is dreadful to say that. Why should God look on you with disfavor?”

The girl half raised herself in her place, her eyes wide open, terrified at seeing that the fact which she was trying to bring herself to disclose was already known.

“Don’t be foolish,” murmured Rogelio, kindly. “What fault is it of yours, child? The same thing might have happened to me or to any one. We don’t choose our parents. Foolish girl!”

“If you knew how that weighs on me here,” exclaimed the girl vehemently, opening her heart as one seeks to open one’s lungs to the air when one feels that one is going to faint. “I am always saying to myself, Esclavita, it is impossible that God should love you. You can never have any good fortune, never. Since the hour in which you were born you have been in the power{198} of the Evil One, and he is not likely to let go what he has once got hold of. No matter how hard you may try to be an angel, you will be forever in mortal sin. You must be so; there is no remedy for it. For you there is neither father nor mother, nor anything but shame when you are asked about them. And in the same way all you undertake must go against you, and if you take a liking to any person, worse still; for God will take away that person’s affection from you.”

“Well, with me that is not going to happen, my white dove. I am as fond of you as if you were a king’s daughter. And mamma is very fond of you, too; don’t you know that she took a liking to you from the very first day?”

Esclavita, when she heard this assertion, raised her head and turned her eyes toward Señora de Pardiñas’s bed. Her glance and her smile were full of meaning, but Rogelio was in no mood{199} to interpret them. He was not in a condition of mind for reasoning; he wanted to be gently soothed by the affection which he needed as a sedative and a medicine. Seeing that in Esclavita’s presence he no longer felt the same temptations as before, he thought that his affection for her had been purified, and that this anomalous courtship was the most innocent thing in the world. Or to say the whole truth; he was passing through an emotional crisis, and he neither weighed nor measured his words nor his affirmations. This was for him one of those moments in which we obey our natural impulses, our secret egotism, and abandon ourselves to the pleasure of feeling ourselves loved and of making ourselves still more dearly loved. It is as natural for one who is sad to seek consolation as it is for one who is hungry to seek food.

“Mamma is very fond of you,” he{200} repeated. “You don’t seem to believe me. Silly girl! why, she herself scolded me because I treated you—well—a little coldly at first. She told me you were unhappy on that account.”

Esclavita lowered her eyes, doubtless lest they should betray her thoughts and forebodings regarding the future.

“See,” said Rogelio, softly, “if you knew how well I feel with you here beside me! I even think I am beginning to grow sleepy, and that I shall have no more bad dreams or such nonsense. I think I shall sleep as sound as a patriarch; but for that you must have the good nature to stay there at my feet. If you go away I shall waken up again.”

“I won’t go away!” the girl answered with decision. “Not with pincers would they be able to pull me away from here.”

Tasting already the first sweet sip of{201} that cup of oblivion which sleep, when it follows some great moral or physical shock, presents to our lips, Rogelio spoke once more:

He only half-heard her answer, and for this reason he was never quite certain that it was this—so romantic and unsuited to a country girl:

XV.

Notwithstanding her positive promise, when Rogelio opened his eyes after a peaceful and beneficial sleep, he saw Esclavita standing at his mother’s bedside, giving her a cup of broth. Señora de Pardiñas complained greatly of the contusion in the spine, but her headache was much better. Sanchez de Abrojo soon came and justified her complaints by saying that, judging by the symptoms, the contusion threatened to assume an erysipelatous character, for which reason, in order to avoid the pernicious effects of cold on the injured parts, it would be well to remain in bed. “And even if he had given me permission, I could not have got up,” Señora de Pardiñas said. “I feel as if I had been tossed in a blanket and been{203} beaten with sand-bags afterward. There is not a bone in my body that does not ache. It is only now that I begin to feel the full effects of the bruise.”

Rogelio took his chocolate, seated at the foot of his mother’s bed, and showed little inclination to stir from there. But Doña Aurora soon observed this. “Oh, oh, child,” she cried, “Hurry off to college! You know very well that the professors, especially Ruiz del Monte, won’t excuse absences. The examinations will come afterward, and then you will be wondering why you didn’t pass.”

He must, then, shake off his laziness, go to his room, bathe his face with cold water, wrap himself well in his cloak and proceed to the confounded “chocolate factory,” as he called the University, for the reason that in no place is there more grinding going on. When he left the warm atmosphere of the house, his faculties brightened by his{204} matutinal ablutions, and felt the cold of the early morning in his eyes and on his lips, it seemed to Rogelio as if a veil of fog had suddenly been rent apart and his recollections of the day before took clear and distinct shape in his mind. At this hour his sweetheart, the little girl with the superfluous tooth, would be leaning over the balcony to see, first the mounted artillerymen, and then himself pass by. Rogelio shook with laughter when he recalled this episode. “What a joke!” he said to himself. “What a way I took to find a sweetheart!” Then he remembered what had passed during the night. “I don’t know what came over me,” he thought. “Mamma’s fall dazed me. I said some stupendous things to Esclavita. That, indeed, was like a declaration of love, in earnest; yes, truly. And I felt it all, and if I had not tried hard to control myself, I should have cried. And she, too, was inclined to be sentimental. But looking{205} at it calmly, nothing that we said to each other compromises either of us. They were words that slip from one—well—because at times—if I were required now to give an explanation of why I said them I could not do it. They came without my thinking. Perhaps this is love; as for the other, that was pure make-believe. Well, this at least, if mamma were to find it out, would not vex her so much as what was near happening the other day. In what happened last night I don’t see anything bad.” And as he exchanged a salutation at the door of the University with the sleepy door-keeper, his thoughts took another direction, and he said to himself, “I shall make a nice show of myself if I am questioned on the lesson to-day.”

In the afternoon the house was full of friends who had heard of the accident and who had come to offer their services. There were two or three ladies who were allowed into the bed-room{206} to chat with the patient, whose head was well now and who, consequently, was not disturbed by the noise. The habitués of the house came as usual and remained in the dressing-room to accompany the “son of the victim,” as Rogelio laughingly called himself. They discussed the possible consequences of the fall; they devoted a good half hour to a consideration of what would have happened if the patient, instead of setting her heel down in this way had set it down in that. Only Lain Calvo, the representative in that senile assemblage, at once of common sense and of malevolence, pretended deafness more than ever, confining himself to stirring the fire and looking over the pictures and caricatures in the illustrated periodicals. Two or three times he took his ear-trumpet from his pocket and made a pretense of cleaning it and putting it into his ear, but the plainest proof that he heard perfectly was, that under pretense of showing{207} some illustration or other in La Ilustracion Iberica to Rogelio, he leaned toward the student and said to him with a look that would better have become the face of a mischievous urchin than of a grave old man:

“When are those manikins going to stop their senseless chatter, boy? They are even more idiotic to-day than usual. What is the use of talking about what the possible consequence might be of something that might possibly have happened but that didn’t happen? It is like saying, ‘If she had fallen on her head instead of on her side it would have killed her.’”

Then another discussion arose—in relation also to the great event of the fall—as to whether it might not be well for some friend to stay and take care of the patient, as there were certain services which Rogelio, being a man and inexperienced in such matters besides, could not very well render her. But{208} here Don Gaspar Febrero broke out, emphasizing his asseverations by striking the ferule of his crutch against the chimney-guard:

“Why, she has the best nurse she could possibly have! Don’t be afraid but that our friend Doña Aurora will be well taken care of by the sympathetic Esclavita. You may be sure she will wait on her like a sister of charity. Don’t pity Doña Aurora; pity a poor fellow like me, rather, who will have no Esclavita at his pillow to close his dying eyes, when his last hour comes.”

The company here all protested, with the exception of Lain Calvo, whose attention seemed to be occupied in adjusting his trumpet in his ear.

“You, Don Gaspar, why, you will live to bury us all! Why you are only in the prime of life! You are as vigorous as a boy.”

Don Gaspar shook his head, but with an air of such Olympic serenity, with{209} so animated an expression on his classical features that he seemed rather a demi-god of antiquity affirming his immortality than an old man of our restless age announcing the decline of his vital powers.

“The truth is,” interposed Lain Calvo, “that we are all like moldy parchment, ready to burn to dust at a touch, like the mummies of Peru. Is not that what you were saying, Don Gaspar?”

“He was saying,” screamed Rojas, “that he would like to have Esclavita, Doña Aurora’s maid, to nurse him when he is sick.”

“What an idea!” exclaimed the Asturian. “With a girl like that to take care of him, an old man would soon be in his grave, even if he were as strong as an oak, caray. Unless he were like King David.” And turning to Rogelio, he added. “What does the son of the house say to that? Would he be willing to give up the pretty girl to the old{210} fellows? Wouldn’t he protest against it?”

Whether because of the manner in which the question was put to him, or because his conscience was not altogether tranquil, or finally because owing to his youth and inexperience he had not the self-possession demanded by the occasion, Rogelio turned crimson (which was the more noticeable in him, on account of his habitual pallor), and stammered:

“No—to Señor Febrero—I—I—” And in his own mind, he said “Hypocrite! You can’t hear, indeed. I verily believe you can hear the grass grow.”

The arrangements for the night were the same as on the previous night, only that, in order not to vitiate the air of the bed-room, Rogelio’s bed was placed in the dressing-room, the door between the two rooms being left open. It was long before the patient fell asleep; she complained of much{211} pain, of a sensation of heat in the injured leg, and an unaccountable feeling of weariness. Rogelio, laying his hand on her forehead, noticed that it was hot, a fact which kept him from sleeping, without preventing him, however, from wondering a little if Esclavita would come to chat a while with him, a thing which he at once feared and desired. Debating this question in his mind, he at last fell asleep, and waking toward morning, he saw the girl approach his bedside. Leaning over him, she said quickly, “I can’t stir from there; she is continually asking for water. She complains of pains all over her body. It is all the effect of the fall.” Rogelio, greatly troubled, answered softly, “Very well, Suriña.” But this bad news prevented him from falling asleep again. Was there any danger? Was this the beginning of a fever? The doctor, who came at an early hour, relieved{212} him from his apprehensions. “All this,” he said, “is the after-effect of the fall. The fever is slight. The inflammation we will soon have under control. Give me a piece of paper. You will see an improvement by evening.” In the evening, instead of the promised improvement, there was an increase in the fever, but at nightfall a change for the better took place, and at ten o’clock the patient ate with appetite the wing of a chicken. “Ah, God be praised!” she cried. “The pain in my bones seems better now. I felt such an oppression inside. Child, I think I shall soon be myself again.” This cheerful prognostication was followed by a period of freedom from pain, and toward midnight Doña Aurora was enjoying the profound and peaceful slumber of a convalescent.

“To-day she will come flying,” said Rogelio to himself, resolving to keep awake, and notwithstanding his sophistical{213} arguments to prove all that of no importance whatever, he felt his nerves thrill with excitement, and his heart throb tumultuously.

XVI.

She came on tiptoe with an air of gayety and animation that contrasted with her usual reserve of manner, and curled herself up on the floor like a pet kitten, at the foot of her master’s bed. The latter, however, did not dedicate his first words to her, but instinctively consecrated them to the real love of his life, the mother who had borne him; who was sleeping close by in the next room.

“Only think what happiness, Esclavita! Mamma is almost entirely well. I can scarcely believe it. She gave me a terrible fright. This morning when you told me how ill she felt, I could not go to sleep again.”

Esclavita gave the student a curiously{215} penetrating and meaning glance, and then answered:

“I prayed earnestly to Our Lady of Slavery that the mistress might get better. I offered her a mass, besides. You see how the Virgin has listened to my prayers, Señorito.”

“Against yourself!” exclaimed Rogelio, surprised and somewhat displeased. “And is it against yourself that my mother should get well?”

“That she should get well—no,” stammered Esclavita; “that she should get well, no, indeed; and I hope God will take me to himself before he takes her. But as soon as her illness is over our sitting up with her will be over. And when that is over, these pleasant times will be over.”

The explanation flattered Rogelio’s{216} vanity, assuring him once more that he was loved, and not as a child is loved, but as a man is loved by a woman; in which consisted the whole charm of this singular intercourse, that not even to himself did he venture to call amorous. These words, that were rendered sweeter to him by the tremulous and regretful tones in which they were uttered, impelled Rogelio to put his arm around her head, and, drawing it toward him, he tenderly pressed it to his breast. Esclavita’s breath came and went so tumultuously that Rogelio said to her at last, affectionately:

Rogelio did not again attempt to caress her. It was not necessary that he should impose any restraint upon himself in order to treat Esclavita with respect here, almost at his mother’s bedside,{217} or to refrain from these manifestations of affection, that were fraternal rather than lover-like; of whose real meaning and significance he himself was ignorant. He only permitted himself to pass his hand now and again over her loosely-flowing and luxuriant auburn hair. Esclavita’s hair looked softer than it really was, but it was certainly pleasant to pass his hand over the warm, wavy tresses.

“Don’t you want to sleep a little?” he said. “You have been sitting up for two nights, and you must be worn out. If mamma moves I will waken you. I will not sleep in any case.”

Esclavita refused. To sit up three nights! What was that? She had spent forty nights without taking off her clothes, when nursing the priest during his last illness, without other rest than such as was afforded her by leaning back in an old arm-chair and dozing for five minutes or so at a time. Do without{218} rest for three nights! She could do without rest for three months if it were necessary.

“Well, if you don’t want to sleep, amuse me, then. Tell me something,” he said.

“Ah, Señorito, a good person you ask to tell you something! One who knows nothing herself.”

“Of course you know something, silly girl. Tell me something about our native place. I am dying to hear about it. When I left there I was only a child. I can scarcely remember it.”

Hearing him speak of her native land, Esclavita’s eyes glowed in the darkness like the eyes of a cat.

“Well, I will tell you. Searching in my memory I fancy I can see a great many green fields and a rough sea, very green, too. But it is all very confused. Do you know what I can remember{219} most distinctly? A sailor taking me in his arms to bathe me; I fancy I can see him now before me, as black as pitch and smelling of sardines.”

“This year it will go hard with me or I will persuade mamma to go. We will pass through Marineda and Compostela. We shall see the provinces of Pontevedra and Orense. We will feast upon oysters and lobsters. It must be like Paradise there. We will take you with us. You shall see.”

“Me?” said the girl, shaking her head. “Me? Ah, no; you will see that you will not take me.”

“When my heart tells me anything it always comes true, and my heart tells me that my eyes shall never see home again.”

“Be still, bird of ill omen! Let me get through with the worry of the examinations{220} and you shall see. So it is a beautiful place, eh? Come, tell me all about it? What is it like? They say it is the loveliest province in all Spain.”

“Or in all the world; I have already told you so,” Esclavita answered, with profound conviction. “If you were to see the rivers of Pontevedra you would be struck dumb with admiration. If you were to see them casting the nets for sardines!”

“It must be delightful. You are already making me long to see it. And the pilgrimages with their drums and bagpipes, what do you say of them?”

“A festival like one of those,” declared the girl, very seriously, “is better than all the diversions of Madrid put together. There I was very gay and I danced every Sunday; here I feel as if my paletilla[A] had sunk in.”

“It is a bone that we have here,” she answered, touching her breast, “that when it sinks in, it seems as if one’s soul sank, too; one keeps growing sadder and sadder, and one loses one’s color and appetite, so that after a while if one doesn’t get it raised again, one dies.”

“It is the truth. Some people say that all that about the paletilla is the effect of witchcraft, but I have seen two or three die already because they wouldn’t have it raised.”

“Well, then, Suriña, sometimes it seems as if my paletilla, too, had fallen, for I have fits of the spleen and I lose my appetite completely. I have got the notion into my head that as soon as I go home I shall get strong and grow as fat as a pig—so,” and he puffed out his cheeks to show how fat he expected{222} to become. “Here, I will always be as thin as a lath. The life here is not calculated to make one grow strong. Come, tell me something about home.”

Esclavita obeyed, and began to narrate, without order or descriptive skill, incidents connected with her own history rather than having any relation to the country. “When I was a child, such or such a thing took place—” “One afternoon when I went to see the sardine fishing—” “When I was learning to make lace with the bobbins—” “Once when we were baking the bread in our oven.” The very personality of these recollections lent them a singular charm in Rogelio’s eyes. While he listened to the girl’s words, it seemed as if the vanished memories of his childhood took definite and distinct shape in his mind. The room seemed to be filled with rural scents of mint, anise, new-mown hay. The illusion was so strong that he drew Esclava’s{223} head toward him and smelled it. “Your hair smells like—like the fields,” he said. While the girl talked, his determination to go home grew every moment stronger. “If I don’t go home,” he thought, “I shall never be a man. It is the first thing to be done. I am going to ask mamma to go when she is well. It is a wonder she has never gone there before to spend the summer instead of going to that ill-smelling, crowded San Sebastián. The moment I set foot in the old land I shall grow as strong as a young ox.”

“Ah, Señorito,” said Esclavita softly, “how ugly and arid all the country on the way coming here seemed to me! Not a solitary tree, not a streamlet, not a green bush. How can the farmers live here?”

“Better than there, foolish girl. This is the land that produces bread and wine.”

“Holy Mother! It seems impossible{224} that people could live contented in that parched land. And then, never to see the sea! When you look at the sea, it seems the same as if you were looking at the grandeur of God. Isn’t it true that only God could create a thing so grand as the sea, and all that comes out of it? Those pretty little shells; so many, many kinds of fishes, the sardines, that are the maintenance of the poor.”

“You talk like a book, Esclavita. I am not surprised that your devoted Nuño Rasura——”

“Yes. Well, he says that you are a treasure. You must know that he is head over ears in love with you.”

“I am in earnest. Why, he wants{225} to take you to his own house. They say it will end by his offering you his lily-white hand and his lame foot. He has conceived for you an insensate passion which will carry him to the tomb in the flower of his youth, in the smiling age of illusion, before he has reached his eighty-sixth April.”

“Hold your tongue, ungrateful girl; hypocrite, rather. You will gain nothing by concealing the profound impression which his curling locks have made upon you.”

“Yes, taken from some dead man’s head,” said the girl, smiling humorously.

“His pearly teeth and his slender form. But lay no plans, traitress, for I will not allow you to follow that Don Juan. If you should prove false to your duty, be prepared to die at my hands. I will tear your heart out if you betray me.”{226}

“Suriña will not go with the old man. Suriña belongs to me. Who wanted to steal her from me? Let them prepare to defend themselves; let them prepare to defend themselves. Suriña is mine!”{227}

XVII.

On the following day Doña Aurora was so much better that she was able to sit up for a couple of hours, and when night came she refused to consent to Rogelio’s sleeping in her room. “It does not suit me,” she said. “You don’t sleep comfortably; you lie awake for a long time; you toss about; you chat with Esclavita. Last night I could hear you between sleeping and waking, and then you get up in the morning looking pale and miserable; and you have no appetite.” When Señora de Pardiñas was saying this the girl, who had been going about the room putting things in order, turned her back quickly to her, pretending to be looping up a curtain which had become unfastened, an operation which{228}

engaged her attention for some time. The student fixed his eyes with alarm on his mother’s countenance; but that dear face, so little schooled in dissimulation, and so familiar to him in its every line, reflected no other thought than that to which her lips had given utterance, and the student, breathing freely once more, acceded to her wish that he should sleep that night in his{229} own room. His mother was not without reason in saying that he needed sleep. At the most important stage of his development, his health not yet fully established after a childhood, if not precisely sickly, at least weakly, his delicate organization was easily disturbed, and the three nights of wakefulness he had spent had begun to tell upon him.

When he was in his own room, however, he felt sad and solitary. Accustomed to be surrounded by tenderness and indulgent care—wrapped in cotton, as it were—he was avid of affection, and two days had sufficed to habituate him to those tender and novel conversations, carried on at an unusual hour with a woman who offered him so large a measure of affection and loyalty that not even his own mother, seemingly, lavished love upon him more profusely. If Rogelio had been able to analyze his sentiments he{230} would have found that a great part of the charm of his intercourse with Esclavita consisted in the fact that in it he was the one who commanded, while the woman of twenty-five, who at first had treated him like a stripling, a boy, was now all obedience, submissive as a very slave. No matter how loving and tender his mother might be, Rogelio was always conscious of his subjection to her; the habit of respecting and obeying her had become rooted in his nature, keeping him in a state of perpetual childhood. In his intercourse with the girl, on the contrary, he could gratify at once his youthful vanity and his vague and secret longing to assume the virile toga, the symbol of human dignity.

For this reason the interruption in those pleasant nocturnal chats vexed him greatly. He was on the point of stealing into his mother’s dressing-room on tiptoe at about one o’clock to{231} bring back a smile to Suriña’s countenance that had grown a mile long. But what if his mother should surprise them? She would think all sorts of evil things; it would be a dreadful affliction to her; she might have a relapse; perhaps she would dismiss Esclavita. The instinct of cautiousness, which in moments of passion springs up in the soul to moderate the fever that urges to rash resolutions and wild extremes, counseled him to observe prudence; and on the following day, when he saw Esclavita’s face looking pale and haggard, he drew her into a corner of the hall and said to her, between jest and earnest, “Suriña, don’t wear that look of misery. Last night I thought a great deal about you and about our chats together. I longed to go to you, but I did not dare to do so. We must be careful for poor mamma’s sake. Come, Esclava, smile on your lord!”{232}

This glimpse of happiness sufficed to bring back the color to the girl’s cheeks, and even to restore to her, apparently, cheerfulness and serenity.

Rogelio had consented to sleep in his own room, partly through prudence, partly through filial respect. “Only let mamma get quite well,” he thought, “let her be herself again; that is the first thing. Until she is strong and well, let Esclavita nurse her, that is all. But mamma is much better now, and will soon be convalescent; in eight or ten days more there will not be a trace of the injury left. Then we shall have time enough for all the chats we desire. Mamma will go out, or she will be occupied with her visitors, and—we shall have all the liberty we want. I must tell Sura this to make her completely happy.”

He watched for a favorable opportunity to communicate these agreeable plans to her. Kept a prisoner in the{233} patient’s room during these days, Esclavita did not enter that of the student; it was necessary to take the hall as the center of operations, and Rogelio resolved to wait there for her in the afternoon, as the morning slipped away between breakfast and college. At about four o’clock, the coming and going of Doña Aurora’s daily visitors introduced a certain animation and disorder into the house which were favorable to Rogelio’s plans. And on these days there were many visitors, for Señora de Pardiñas’s illness not being of a nature to exact quietude, imposed upon her friends the duty of keeping her company. Not only the gentlemen came, but also the feminine contingent, composed almost entirely of mothers of families of moderate means, who, lacking Doña Aurora’s wealth, could indulge only occasionally in the luxury of visiting, and then not without much previous preparation so as to present{234} themselves in public with the respectability demanded by their station as the wives of magistrates. On the afternoon in question two ladies came who allowed themselves to be seen but seldom: the wife of the President of the Court, Don Prudencio Rojas, and the wife of the ex-Crown Solicitor, Don Nicanor Candás, nicknamed Lain Calvo. If a painter, had desired to symbolize Dignity clad in the garb of modesty he need only have copied faithfully the costume and the features of Señora de Rojas. For one whose sentiments had not been perverted or distorted and whose sensibilities had not been blunted, there was something in the appearance of this simply dressed woman, socially insignificant, which would impel him irresistibly to uncover the head and bend the knee before her. Her worn black velvet wrap, scrupulously brushed, carefully altered to meet the fashion of the day at the cost of a{235} week’s labor, perhaps; her bonnet, the lace on which betrayed by its gloss its home making-up; her new two-button gloves of a dark and serviceable color, bought for the occasion; her old-fashioned earrings, each a cluster of minute brilliants; her white hair, worn smooth over the temples with the supreme decorum of a widowed queen who has renounced the aspiration to please, revealed more courage, more endurance, more secret heroism than any beggar’s rags, any invalid’s uniform, any nun’s sackcloth. The living commentary and perhaps the best explanation of the strict integrity of the husband was the aureole of domestic patience and of serene acceptance of daily sacrifice which surrounded the brow of the wife. The severity and inflexibility of Rojas in his manner of interpreting and administering the law were softened by the sweetness of his wife, whom ancient Rome would have{236} chosen as a priestess of domestic piety. This matron had never asked, even in her own mind, why her life, for thirty years or more, should be one continued act of self-abnegation. She knew, and this sufficed, that in her house the stern image of duty was worshiped side by side with the gilded statue of decorum, and without a protest she had consecrated herself to the worship of both deities.

There could not be a greater contrast than that which existed between Señora de Rojas and Señora de Candás. As in the magistracy great importance is attached to family antecedents, doubtless his marriage to so vulgar a woman, who, according to report, had been the landlady of an inn at Gijón, had had much to do with certain clouds that at one time had rested on the reputation of the Crown Solicitor, and had caused his colleagues, irritated at being obliged to associate with her,{237} to regard him with a disfavor which was heightened by the incorrigible mordacity, the mocking cynicism, and the intermittent deafness of the Asturian. Señora de Candás, a stout woman with a wen on the left eye-lid, who was very showy in her dress, always wearing gowns full of furbelows, and bonnets looking like sentry-boxes or preserving kettles, who spoke partly in Spanish, partly in the Asturian dialect, calling her husband this one, and describing in mixed company ailments which, with more propriety, might have been allowed to remain buried in oblivion—was a perfect type of incurable and ingrained vulgarity; a vulgarity which was proof against example, against the atmosphere of the court, against ridicule, and against the influence of time, which smoothes and polishes, as the waves smooth and polish the roughest stone. If Don Nicanor had ever made the effort to civilize his{238} wife, he had certainly long since given up the task; and besides, his colleagues affirmed that to polish Pachita it would be necessary for Don Nicanor to begin by polishing himself, and abjuring the roughness of his speech, the harshness of his manners, and the bad taste of his opinions; for even the opinions of the Crown Solicitor were in bad taste, or at least seemed to be so from his manner of expressing them.

But whether he were or were not on a level with his Pachita (and perhaps the only superiority he possessed over her was his masculine acuteness of intellect and his learning), it was certain that Don Nicanor seemed at times a little ashamed of his better half. A concealed observer, stationed at Doña Aurora’s door and noting first Señor de Rojas and then Señor de Candás, each accompanied by his wife, as they entered the house on the day in question, might, from this observation{239} alone, have been able to form a correct idea of the psychic natures of each of the couples and of the moral atmosphere of their houses. Rojas offered his arm to his wife as they were going upstairs, hurried forward to ring the bell, and then stood aside courteously at the door to allow her to enter first, afterward drawing aside the portière of the dining-room (where the receptions were once more held). His manner of seating himself beside her, of associating her with him in his inquiries for the health of Rogelio’s mother, was full of the same consideration, the same delicate feeling of reverential familiarity, if I may say so, and the magistrate, in respecting his partner, showed that he respected himself. Señor de Candás, on the contrary, entered with the same want of ceremony as on the other days, and almost left his wife in the corner where he left his umbrella. One might have thought that Pachita and her husband{240} were strangers to each other who had met by chance on the staircase. But further: while Señor de Rojas, conversing with his wife in the same deferential tone as with Doña Aurora, made no motion to go until Señora de Rojas gave the customary signal, saying: “When you wish, Prudencio, we will go home,” Señor de Candás, brusquely cutting short a harangue of Pacha on the dearness and the rancidness of bacon in Madrid, said, with the greatest rudeness:

Señor de Candás left the room first, doubtless to show the way to his wife, who was floundering through the ceremonies of leave-taking, and was just in time to surprise two persons who were whispering earnestly together at the further end of the hall. No one could excel the sly Asturian in the art of appearing not to see what was not meant{241} for him to see, but as for seeing, carapuche, he saw so much that long after he had quitted the house a smile still played among the wrinkles of his Voltairian countenance.

“Great news, Suriña! This summer we are to go home—all of us. Mamma has promised me.”{242}

XVIII.

Señora de Pardiñas was now pronounced entirely well, and the advisability of her going out for a walk was being considered, when one morning, at the hour when Rogelio had his lecture on Political Economy, an hour which was unusually early for visitors, Don Nicanor arrived, smiling, and seemingly in a very good humor. He pretended to be surprised at finding none of the accustomed visitors there, whereupon Doña Aurora, who was knitting a woolen stocking, answered with much show of reason that as it wanted at least two hours to the usual time of their arrival, it was not strange that none of them had yet come. But apparently Lain Calvo did not hear this answer,{243} for he had kept his ear trumpet in his pocket, using his hand as a substitute.

“Tell me, Doña Aurora, have you not noticed something?” he asked, settling himself comfortably in his easy-chair, whose broad back already bore the impress of his form.

Doña Aurora raised her eyes with an expression that seemed to say: No—that is to say, I don’t know. Do me the favor to explain yourself.

“Did you not notice the other day, the day that Pacha and I were here——”

“Poor woman! She is never very cheerful; but she never seems discontented, either. She is an excellent woman! As good as gold!”

“Well, she tried hard to conceal her grief, but it was very evident, especially to those of us who were already aware of the circumstances.”{244}

“Why, what has happened? Have they had any trouble?” asked Señora de Pardiñas in alarm, for she sincerely esteemed and liked Señora de Rojas.

“Joaquin—the son, the judge—they have transferred him again from one end of Spain to the others, two months after the first transfer, and just when his wife is about to be confined. That will convince him that one cannot play the Quixote here, carapuche. Fancy a young man, who is beginning his career, making his début by opposing so powerful a chief as Colmenar, who has at his back the Minister of the Department. He will soon see, he will soon see that they are not the people to be trifled with. And he will see, too, of how much consequence the law is. A judge can be transferred only at his own instance? Well, put in the royal order, ‘at his own instance,’ and that settles it. Why, there have been people who were placed on the retired list{245} ‘at their own instance.’ And when they protested, they were told they were wanting in respect for the Minister.”

“But, Señor Don Nicanor, that is very creditable to the Rojases. It is evident the young man is of his father’s school. People as upright as that are seldom seen nowadays. I understand nothing about those things, but I remember the affair was discussed here, and it was said that they wanted Joaquin Rojas to be a party to a dreadful piece of dishonesty—a robbery of——”

“The idea of a jackanapes like that,” continued Lain Calvo, persisting in his deafness, “wishing to set himself up in opposition to the Minister. The Rojases are as stubborn as mules. Talis pater—a fanatic the father, a fanatic the son. That is to say, a still greater fanatic, although that might seem to be impossible. For the father at least does not get himself into a fix; he adheres{246} to the letter of the law and that is the end of it. The code says white? White let it be, then. Does it say black? Then let it be black. Rojas is a machine for carrying out the law. If the law to flog criminals or to cut off their ears were still in force, Rojas would himself go about seeing it carried into execution. But the boy! Because he has read a few trashy German and Italian books, translated into worse gibberish, he plays the learned man and the phi-los-o-pher. A judge a phi-los-o-pher! Fancy! What pretentiousness!”

“Well, for my part,” protested Doña Aurora, without raising her voice, for she knew how much faith to put in the Crown Solicitor’s deafness, “I think that in every situation in life a man should behave himself with dignity and propriety. For that reason I have a great deal of sympathy for the Rojases.”

“And as a natural consequence,”{247} continued Lain Calvo, “they are very straitened in their circumstances. They never light a fire in that house, they eat only the plainest food, they drink no coffee. The salary is not enough to meet the expenses of moving from one place to another; he has married a girl without a penny, and as soon as things come to a crisis the young gentleman will lower his tone. Necessity teaches more than all the universities put together. They will tame him yet. He will be as soft as a glove before the year is over.”

Convinced that she would gain nothing by argument, Doña Aurora went on narrowing the heel of her stocking, contenting herself with shaking her head in dissent from time to time, for her quick temper would not allow her to listen quietly to the spiteful remarks of the malicious Asturian.

“We all begin life with the idea that we are going to reform the world,” he{248} went on, “but very soon we take in our sails. Oh, yes, we soon take in our sails. Or if we do not, we lead a miserable existence. You will see that the storm that has caught Joaquin will reach his father also. It is brewing for him. Before the year is out they will give him a lesson he won’t forget. They cannot transfer him? They will superannuate him, then. I am no lover of the past like Don Gaspar and the others, but I must acknowledge that in my day politics had less to do with the magistracy than it has now. That is the way things come and that is how we must take them. Those gentlemen are always in the clouds, carapuche. Complete fools! The new generation understand things better. I am the only one of our circle who lives in the world. If it were not for this cursed deafness——”

“Don’t come to me with stories about your deafness,” protested Señora{249} de Pardiñas. “God deliver me from deaf people like you. You hear more than you ought to hear. Give over your nonsense with me, eh? I wasn’t born in the year of the fools.”

“And the craziest of them all,” continued Lain, pretending not to have heard, “is the worthy Don Gaspar. He is a perfect simpleton. He has gone back to his childhood. We shall have to give him a nurse, or at the least a maid to take care of him. That is what he wants, and that is what he sighs for, and he is trying to steal away from you the one you have chosen for your boy. I am speaking in earnest; as sure as my name is Nicanor he is crazy for your maid, for Esclava, or whatever her name is. No boy of twenty could be more desperately in love than he is with her. I am certain that Rogelio is not half so deeply smitten.”

On hearing Rogelio’s name, and observing{250} the tone in which it was uttered by Candás, Señora de Pardiñas started, and let her knitting fall on her lap.

“As for Rogelio,” continued the Asturian, with the same affectation of indulgence, “what has happened to him is so natural at his age that the wonder would be if it had not happened. It is plain. A woman of twenty-five, good-looking and affectionate; a boy of twenty, what was to happen? A glance to-day, a touch to-morrow, a{251} caress in the hall, a romp in the reception-room—youthful follies that come to an end of themselves.”

“Do you know what you are saying?” she exclaimed. “Do you think it is right to say such things for no other reason than your own pleasure, without any proof or foundation whatever? Are you to let your tongue gallop away with you without caring whom you knock down? Rogelio, poor boy, is incapable of such conduct in his mother’s house.”

“Of course I can understand your attaching little importance to the matter, and turning it into ridicule, for those things are follies natural to youth; and for that reason when I caught them the other day in the reception-room billing and cooing like a pair of turtle-doves, I said to them in{252} my own mind: ‘That’s right, children, amuse yourselves; that is the law of God.’ But when I think of that other driveler, with his eighty odd years, playing the love-sick swain, I vow I could lay him across my knee and give him a sound flogging for an arch fool.”

And Doña Aurora felt that she could with the greatest pleasure have performed the same operation on the person of the incorrigible Asturian. To say these dreadful things to her and to say them in that treacherous way, that did not even give her a chance to set him right, for with the pretense of his deafness, he might assert what he chose regardless of all that might be said either in denial or disproof of his words. It was enough to make one’s blood boil with rage. It was a stupid, shameless, insufferable jest. And was she going to let it pass? No, indeed. Señora de Pardiñas’s anger was aroused; the blood boiled in her veins. “Hypocrite!{253} liar! fire-brand! tale-bearer! fox!” she said to the Asturian in her own mind. “Now I am going to settle accounts with you.” She rose from her chair, went up quickly to him, put her hand in the pocket of his coat with the dexterity of a professional pickpocket, and took from it the case which contained his ear-trumpet. And before the astonished Lain Calvo could make a movement to defend himself, Doña Aurora had taken the silver tube out of its case, introduced it into his ear, and screamed with all her might:

“Whenever you talk to me in future, either use your trumpet or else make up your mind to hear what I say in answer to you. All that about Rogelio and Esclava is the suggestion of your own vile thoughts, do you hear? My boy is not in the habit of flirting with his mother’s servants, do you hear? People are not so loose and so shameless in their conduct as you try to make{254} them out to be, do you hear? do you hear? And decent people are not the same as villains, do you hear? And I am not so great a simpleton, listen well to what I say, that such things could take place under my very nose without my seeing them. And malicious people are not to my taste, do you hear? For I always think of the saying, ‘Ill-doers, ill-deemers,’ do you hear?”

Her philippic ended, she let herself fall on the sofa, agitated and unstrung, while the Asturian, putting both his hands up to his bald crown, exclaimed in distressed accents:

“Carapuche, Aurorina, you have broken the drum of my ear. Another such outbreak as that and you would leave me deaf.”{255}

XIX.

But no sooner had the hypocritical Lain Calvo taken his departure than Doña Aurora, whose agitation had now subsided, and in whose mind anger had given place to reflection, scratched her head with her knitting needle, as was her habit, and put to herself the question invariably suggested by mistrust.—“And why should it not be true?” Without the need of any great perspicacity, without possessing the Crown Solicitor’s evil-mindedness, her own good sense suggested to her that such proverbs as, ‘Fire and tow,’ etc., were not without foundation. And by a natural process of reasoning, based on common sense, Señora de Pardiñas arrived at a conclusion exactly the reverse of her first conviction,{256} and accused herself of being simple-minded and credulous, because not only the possibility but the probability also of so obvious a result had not occurred to her until it had been maliciously brought to her notice by a stranger, when it was her duty to have foreseen the danger. “We mothers make the mistake of thinking that boys will always remain boys,” she said to herself, “and time passes, and they become men without their mustaches waiting for our permission to grow. When we don’t imagine they are still children we go to the opposite extreme and think that they are old men, and ought to have as much sense as we have ourselves—another absurdity, another mistake. Youth will have what belongs to it, and it is a folly to shut our eyes to it. The worst of it here is that we have the enemy within our very gates. And it was I myself who admitted her. I opened the door{257} and invited her in. Besides putting myself in a humiliating and unbecoming position, I have placed the temptation in his way and increased the seriousness of the consequences that may follow—and how serious they may be! Of course I never supposed that Rogelio was going to live all his life like a saint, but this—here, in the very house——”

Another scratching of the head suggested to her the logical counterpoise to these reflections. “It is very likely that that vile old man may have slandered my boy and poor Esclava merely for the pleasure of slandering. I am not so easily deceived where birds of that feather are in question, and it was precisely on account of her modest and serious appearance that I took a liking to Esclava. It is true her family antecedents are not in her favor, and that she has bad blood on both sides, but in that—in that one is sometimes apt to{258} be greatly mistaken; people are not like peppers, that grow good or bad according to the seed they spring from. No, there is only one course to be pursued here—to observe, to be on the alert, and to provide some outside distraction for the boy. I will be guided by circumstances. I am not going to commit the cruelty of turning the girl away without a word of warning. If all this should turn out to be only stories of Don Nicanor, I should have it on my conscience. And if it is the truth, the lad might rebel and we should have a fine time. These first fancies are apt to be very violent with boys. I must proceed with caution. Aurora, imagine that you are a policeman, and that they have set you to track a crime. Keep your eyes open, be prudent, and suspect everything.”

Never was programme more literally carried out. Señora de Pardiñas occupied herself from that very instant in{259} making up for lost time. In proportion as she had been trusting and credulous before, did she become incredulous and mistrusting from the moment when suspicion first suddenly laid its cold touch upon her. She watched them adroitly, without betraying her suspicions or allowing her uneasiness to be perceived. In every woman, in the most innocent and frankest even, there is the germ of the detective. The habits of dissimulation, practiced from childhood, make it easy for her to play the part. In order not to awaken suspicion, Doña Aurora resolved to exercise her surveillance over one only of the supposed criminals. And, indeed, in the circumstances it cannot be denied that watching Esclavita it was unnecessary to watch Rogelio. And this was what Señora de Pardiñas did. Making use of her indisputable right she studied, without a moment’s cessation, every action, every step, every{260} movement of her servant. She knew at what hour she awoke in the morning, what she did when she arose, how often and with what object she entered Rogelio’s room; how she spent the afternoon; in what way she was occupied when there were visitors; when she retired for the night, and when she put the light out. And it must be confessed that at first this espionage was absolutely without result. Esclavita, when she left the room, attended at once to the making of the chocolate, and afterward to her toilet, which was simple; she did not even arrange her hair in the coil at the back of the head which is the only adornment indulged in by the domestics of Madrid. She put Rogelio’s study and bed-room in order while he was at college or out walking; she never entered either room when he was there. Esclavita never went out on Sundays except to go to church, consequently Rogelio did{261} not go out either. During the receptions Rogelio did not stir from his corner on the sofa, nor the girl from her basket of mending, except to open the door. And the evenings, which, unless some college friend came to see him, Rogelio spent reading the magazines or at the theater, Esclavita spent in her room sewing or doing some other work for herself. There was nothing in all this to arouse suspicion, and Señora de Pardiñas would have slept with a tranquil mind if her powers of observation had been of a more vulgar order.

But she was not a woman to let pass unnoticed certain things, insignificant in appearance, but in reality very significant and even alarming for a suspicious mother—loose threads which her maternal perspicacity divined to belong to a tangled skein. These indications, signs or guides for the investigations of the watchful mother, were something{262} of the following nature: At breakfast, when Esclava brought Rogelio his pills or his syrup of iron, or when she handed him some favorite dish, there passed between them (and it would have been useless to try to persuade Doña Aurora to the contrary, for she had seen it only too well) an exchange of glances, at times languishing and sentimental, at times flashing and ardent. When Esclavita went to open the door at Rogelio’s ring she showed an eagerness which she was very far from showing when it was one of the tiresome old men who rang the bell; it was evident that she recognized the Señorito’s ring, and even the sound of his step upon the stairs. When Esclavita was ironing Rogelio’s linen, she took the greatest possible pains with it, and this sign was also observable in the manner in which she arranged his room and waited on him at the table. Sometimes, when{263} Rogelio was going out of an evening, the girl would be in the hall and they would exchange a few words, but always in so low a tone that it was impossible to catch what they said; the same thing happened when Rogelio came in from college in the morning, if Doña Aurora did not chance to be in the reception-room at the time. Finally, and this last was the most significant sign of all, Rogelio had, on two or three occasions, objected to accompanying his mother when she went out, and although he always finally yielded, it was with much grumbling and evident dissatisfaction.

This was all Señora de Pardiñas perceived, but this was enough and more than enough to keep her in a state of constant anxiety, and to inspire her with an ardent desire to put an end, in the quietest way possible, to this ambiguous situation, and to unwind the skein which threatened otherwise to{264} become, with time, an inextricable tangle. She did not dare to stir from the house lest she should thus afford them dangerous opportunities. Such a course may be followed for a time, but it cannot be continued through a whole winter without arousing suspicion. Rogelio had already, on several occasions, manifested much surprise at the discontinuance of the morning drives. “Mater,” he said to her jestingly, “we are soon destined to witness grave disturbances if you persist in your seclusion, disdaining the gilded chariots that wait impatiently to receive you at the foot of our palace walls, that, reclining luxuriously on their embroidered cushions, you may resume your accustomed matutinal drives. An imposing demonstration is being organized in which ten thousand of the most distinguished Phætons are to take part; discourses in the sweet tongue of the troubadour Macías and the{265} eloquent jargon of Duke Pelayo are to be pronounced. Martin the Buloniu and José the Cabaleiro are to speak. The government has adopted precautionary measures and the affair will come off in the tavern.”

When the habitués of the house learned of Doña Aurora’s seclusion, they, too, felt themselves obliged to enter their protest against it on hygienic grounds. “Friend Aurora, you must not give way to indolence. Take care how you create humors that may afterward give you trouble. Look at me, I owe my good health and my cheerful spirits to my habit of never letting a day pass without walking a certain distance. Less than a league will not thin the blood. Since the accident to my foot I walk more than that.” This advice came from the worthy Nuño Rasura. “Exercise is very necessary,” added Señor de Rojas, with his accustomed sententiousness, “for the body,{266} and, if it goes to that, for the mind as well. Walking, the mind is diverted. There is nothing like a little walk, and if one finds it tiresome, why one can count the stones, or the trees, or the numbers on the houses.” These counsels at last put Doña Aurora out of patience. “People have a sort of mania for giving advice without knowing what is the matter or where the shoe pinches,” she said to herself. “These gentlemen seem determined on having happen here what shouldn’t happen. That intermeddler, Don Nicanor, is right in saying that they all live in the clouds.”

Doña Aurora, however, was not long in convincing herself that her plan of remaining always at home was impracticable, and it irritated her to think that perhaps she was taking unnecessary trouble, for the inclination of the young people for each other did not seem so strong as to justify all these{267}

precautions; and even if it were, to try to prevent them from seeing each other alone was like putting doors to an open field. A device then occurred to her by means of which to clear up her doubts and measure the magnitude of the danger. She had a key secretly made for the door of the apartment; and, provided with this, she drove out one morning in one of her “equipages”—that of Martin, it chanced to be—and dismissing it shortly afterward, returned home on foot, opened the door noiselessly with her key, and{268} made her way softly to the lion’s den, where she supposed she should find Esclavita, nor was she mistaken. She found her quietly seated at her sewing, as usual, with that pensive and absorbed air which characterized her.

“Where is the Señorito?” Doña Aurora asked her suddenly, with the intention of taking her off her guard.

“I believe he is studying in his room. How did you get in, Señora? I did not hear the bell.”

“Fausta was going out,” hurriedly explained Doña Aurora, feeling as if she herself had been caught in the snare she had laid. She even felt her cheeks grow red. This was what might be called a take-in! So much secrecy about having the key made only to find that nothing particular was going on at the house, and that when she expected to surprise them in a stolen{269} meeting she found everything going on in its usual routine. And yet she was not convinced. No, indeed. Let Satan convince himself. “Can this girl be slyer than I had imagined?” she thought. “Can she be deceiving me without my knowing it? Are they both laughing at me? For the glances and the whispered words when they meet and the unwillingness the boy shows to leave the house—no one can make me lose sight of all that; I have seen it, and what I see I see, and not all the preaching of all the bare-footed friars in the world would make me believe anything else. Instead of this failure reassuring me, I believe it will put me more on my guard than ever. No, I am not to be so easily hoodwinked as that. To protect my son I shall do everything in human power to do. They shall find me prepared—whatever may happen. That girl makes me afraid. She looks—I don’t know{270} how—but I am not pleased with her. She is a true Galician: she keeps everything to herself, and one can never be sure of her, for she never lets you see what is passing in her mind. Well, then, against deceit greater deceit. Wait, wait for awhile; I shall find a way to get rid of you, and to get rid of you decently, in a way that will give you no room for complaint; on the contrary, you will be obliged to say that you are contented. And now—one nail drives out another, and boys will be boys—I am going to provide Rogelio with an amusement. I am going to give you a rival. Wait, girl; against wiles, counter-wiles. I have found a rival who shall supplant you.”{271}

XX.

And in effect, before twenty-four hours had passed, Señora de Pardiñas had arranged an interview between her son and Esclavita’s rival. The place of rendezvous was the abode of the aforesaid rival, an obscure abode and not a very odorous one, as is apt to be the case with the dwellings of individuals of her class; for which reason, in order that Rogelio should make himself acquainted with the bearing and the figure of his new sweetheart, she was brought out into the yard unadorned, her graceful form was covered only by an old blanket, which Augustin Cuero, the proprietor of the livery stable, hastened to take off, so that not a single one of her charms should remain hidden from view.{272}

She was a beautiful Andalusian pony, sorrel, with black feet, with a small, thin head, sinewy legs, curved and shining hoofs, a coat dazzlingly bright, dilated and sensitive nostrils, and an eye full of fire and sweetness; she was young, gentle, graceful, spirited, one of those animals which do honor to the race of Spanish horses by the beauty of their appearance, by their intelligence, and by their noble and generous natures. Augustin Cuero was lavish in his praises of the animal, affecting to be grieved at parting from so precious a treasure.

“I assure you, Señora, that a finer horse is not to be seen to-day on the Castellana. She has not a single blemish. And she is a saint—a skein of silk; an infant could manage her. Spirited as she is, she is incapable of playing a trick. So that a man becomes attached to her, and when one sells her, it is like parting, one{273} might almost say, with one of the family.”

“Yes,” answered Señora Pardiñas, who had an eye for a bargain, “but you won’t attempt to deny that this kind of horse is not now in fashion. The horses that are in style now have a neck a mile long, and are shaped like a tooth-pick.”

“Yes, the English horses; a ridiculous fashion, like a great many others. And those are for a certain kind of young gentlemen and certain circumstances.{274} For the hippodrome and that sort of nonsense. A pony like this will always be of use. Anxious enough the Baraterin, is to buy her from me; only we can’t come to an agreement about the price. The Señorito there can tell you so.”

“That is true, mamma,” affirmed Rogelio, stroking the silky coat of the gentle animal. “I can bear witness to it. Augustin asked him the same price that he has asked you, and the bull-fighter offers him two ounces less; he is wild about her; he is all the time hanging around her; he makes her more visits!”

“Let him give up hanging around her then, for she is yours,” exclaimed the mother, with decision, enjoying the sight of the happiness depicted on the countenance of her son, who, on hearing those heavenly words, with a spontaneous movement threw his arms around the neck of the pony and{275} planted a hearty smack on her soft black nose.

The price and the time of payment being agreed upon, Doña Aurora proposed to leave the pony in the care of Augustin for the present. But Rogelio, almost wild with delight, would not hear of this or of any other definite arrangement being made. “You know nothing about it, mamma,” he cried. “I will take charge of that, leave it all to me. Likely, indeed, that I should spend a whole day without knowing how my pony goes! Every morning and evening I must have a look at my lady pony. Leave it all to me, I say.” Doña Aurora ended by acceding to his wishes, and investing him with full powers in the matter, saying, “Very well, arrange it to suit yourself, then.” When the question arose as to a name for the pony, the young man said, smiling, “I will call it ‘Suriña.’”

The cardinal affections of the human{276} soul are at times marvelously clear-sighted counselors. Señora de Pardiñas had divined, enlightened by maternal affection, that with a young man of twenty—and one young for his age—a woman can have no more dangerous rival than a fine horse. The horse is not merely a distraction for a couple of hours daily, but an occupation and a preoccupation from sunrise to sunset. To make investigations with regard to what it has eaten, and whether it has been robbed of its feed; to see if it has been rubbed down, and if all the operations of its toilet have been performed—and the toilet of a fine horse occupies almost as much time as the toilet of a beautiful woman; then the affectionate understanding that establishes itself between the horseman who for the first time enjoys the possession of a horse, and the animal; the tenderness that springs from ownership, the exchange of caresses, the sugar robbed{277} from the breakfast table to take to it; the fresh bread put away in the waistcoat pocket, the pleasure produced by the joyful whinny of the animal when its keen sense of smell and its delicate perception tell it that its master is approaching with the dainty. Then the anxieties regarding its health—a horse gives as much anxiety in this respect as a child. “Señorito, I don’t know what is the matter with the pony, it hasn’t eaten its feed to-day. I notice that its eyes look dull—” “Señorito, to-day the pony has not—” But who can enumerate the ailments from which a pony may suffer. With all these cares, there are others of a different order, having relation to what may be called the wedding-finery of horsemanship—the saddle of the best pig-skin, small, fanciful, that crackles at the touch; the saddle-cloth of handsome felt, adorned with English ciphers; the steel stirrup, the fine head stall that gives{278} free play to the graceful movements of the slender head; and for the rider, the whip with its chased silver handle, the Tyrolese gloves, the cravat with white horseshoes on a gray ground. All is excitement, all is delight in the enchanting honeymoon of the young man and his pony. And what emotion when it is brought out of the stable! What pride in displaying it before his friends! What ineffable joy to ride up and down the shady walks of Moncloa, seated on its back; to see a carriage approach in which some black-robed beauty reclines, and under the fascinating gaze of the beautiful unknown to make it rear and prance and show off its grace and spirit until it is covered with foam and sweat! What delight to put it through all its paces,—passing from the measured pace to the quick trot, then to the fiery gallop, and, as he strokes with his palm the neck of the obedient brute, to hear it snort with pleasure, thrilling through{279} all its sensitive nerves and its vigorous and sinewy muscles like a young girl when the arm of her agile partner encircles her waist as he leads her to the dance!

There was not a doubt but that the idea of the pony had been a happy one, suggested as it was by experience, and infinitely superior to that commonplace artifice of taking a sweetheart, which had suggested itself to the innocent mind of Rogelio as a sovereign remedy against his incipient love-sickness. His mother did not need now to ask him to accompany her on her expeditions or to invent excuses to get him out of the house. Of his own accord the young man spent his time between his house and the stall of his favorite. The weather was now growing milder. The closing days of March, notwithstanding the bad reputation of that variable month, were clear, calm, and pleasant, and every afternoon, at three{280} o’clock, Rogelio rode out to enjoy the first warm airs of spring, now alone, again with some friend, and again with the riding-master, to return home at dusk healthily tired, intoxicated with the pure air, strengthened and exhilarated, and his mind free from enervating thoughts. Between this vein of activity which his mother had discovered, and study no longer to be avoided, as the examinations were approaching with alarming swiftness, how or when could he find time to devote to Esclavita?

His mother did not on this account relax her vigilance, however, or abandon her well-considered plan of defense. One day Don Gaspar Febrero, having gone somewhat earlier than usual to Doña Aurora’s, found himself alone with her, and, according to his custom, turned the conversation on Esclavita, praising her so extravagantly that his companion at last began to grow impatient.{281}

“Now that you speak of the girl,” she said, when the old man allowed her to get in a word, “I wish to say something to you about her. But promise me first that you will answer me with the frankness due to our long-standing friendship.”

“Can you doubt it? Why of course I shall, my dear Aurora. In what way can I serve you?”

“You shall hear. It is something that I have been thinking of sitting here alone in the mornings when the boy is at college. As you will be very lonely, no doubt, when Felisa starts on her long voyage to the Philippines, I have thought—so that you might not miss so greatly the attentions to which you have been accustomed—what do you think?”

“Let us hear—let us hear. Since the idea is yours—you always reason very judiciously, my dear friend——”

“As you have often told me that{282} you thought Esclavita so excellent a servant——”

The sprightly old man made a quick movement of delighted surprise, settled his spectacles on his nose, and eagerly and tremulously, in disjointed phrases, exclaimed:

“My dear friend! my dear friend! what is it you are saying? what is it you are saying? Have you considered well before speaking? To part with that treasure! that treasure! You overwhelm me with this proof of your goodness. Yes, indeed, but in conscience no, I cannot accept. Now I see of what friendship is capable, Aurora! No, it would be too selfish on my part. You have not thought well over the matter. Are you speaking in earnest? in earnest?”

Señora de Pardiñas felt the pricking of remorse at this spontaneous effusion of gratitude, and hastened to add:

“Listen and you will see that it{283} would be for my own advantage as well as for yours. There is something of selfishness in the offer, too, Don Gaspar, it is not all a kindness. As I am thinking of taking Rogelio on a visit to our native place this year——”

“A reason the more, my friend; a reason the more. You cannot dispense with the services of such a girl, traveling. The times are bad. With the Higinias that are going, who would part with an Esclavita? And an Esclavita of that stamp! Have you thought seriously over the matter, I mean seriously?”

As he spoke thus, Nuño Rasura jumped up and down in his chair, twirling his crutch between his palms. His eyes sparkled, his form straightened itself like a boy’s, and his breast rose and fell with his agitated breathing.

“Heaven help us!” thought Doña Aurora, “I shall have to lift the man up from the floor with a spoon.” And{284} as she remained silent, affecting to be considering the good man’s arguments, the latter added quickly and energetically, like a child who pretends to be yielding to persuasion in accepting a toy:

“That is to say—of course I know from the very fact of your proposing it to me that you have thought well over it. I see that you are right in what you say; very right, very right, Aurora. Traveling, one is better alone; the boy and his mother, of course, of course. As for me, it is enough that you should propose it; I accept, I accept; do you hear, my friend? I accept.”

“It is true,” reflected Doña Aurora, “that that slippery Don Nicanor, who is stuffed full of malice and who is capable of thinking evil of his own mother, irritates one at times; but these simpletons, too, who can never understand a hint—well, there are days when they{285} keep one’s nerves on the stretch like the strings of a guitar.”

Don Gaspar’s scruples being thus vanquished, he himself arranged a plan of action, which he laid before Doña Aurora—as soon as his daughter should go away, he would take Esclavita as his housekeeper. The octogenarian added, rubbing his hands:

“Don’t let Candás know anything about the matter. I don’t want to be made the subject of annoying jests.”{286}

XXI.

This domestic conspiracy was kept a profound secret. Doña Aurora was silent, for women know how to keep a secret when they resolve to do so, especially if their affections are concerned, and Don Gaspar did not open his lips because he dreaded more than the cholera the jokes and insinuations of the Crown Solicitor, and no less—if we must betray the secrets of his household—the anger of his daughter Felisa. The latter, suspicious as a wife, distrusting the sociable and gallant disposition of the old man, had made it her business to provide him with the ugliest, most ignorant, and worst-tempered Maritornes to be found, for she always saw in the distance the menacing shadow of a stepmother. Until Felisa{287} should have started on her voyage to the fifth division of the globe, the old man did not dare even to hint at his desire of taking into his service the gentle and pretty Esclavita. It was with the greatest difficulty that he was able to control his impatience and wait for this event, for his old age was a second childhood. Capricious and impatient as a child, if he yielded to his impulses, he would stamp upon the floor whenever anything interfered with the gratification of his desires. The outlet he sought for his impatience was a tête-à-tête with Doña Aurora before the arrival of the other visitors, when he would talk to her ramblingly, as old people are wont to talk, of his plans for the future, of the comfort he should enjoy with Esclavita to wait upon him, of the favors he would heap upon her, of how easy it would be to wait on an old man like him, without any family, and many other things of the same{288} kind. And when the good man, owing to the presence of others, was unable to dilate on his favorite theme, he gave his excellent friend glances and winks of intelligence. He smiled at her without any cause, and, in short, sought to give vent to his exuberant and boyish gayety. “Heaven grant he may keep his reason,” said Señora de Pardiñas to herself. “I don’t know why we should wonder at the craziness of youth, when old men can act in this way. No boy could be more deeply smitten. I declare, if he is not wild for his daughter to take herself off, so that he may get Esclavita at once. If I did not know that he is a really excellent man and that the girl, on her part, is incapable of laying a trap for him, I should be a little uneasy, for no one can tell where these things will end, and if he should take it into his head to marry!—” The idea of Don Gaspar marrying a girl of twenty-five was so absurd{289} that Señora de Pardiñas laughed to herself, and the monologue ended by the good lady scratching her head with her knitting-needle, and saying, as a corollary of her reflections: “It won’t be my fault if anything extraordinary should happen. To find a good situation for a good servant is not a crime. All I am sorry for is that that tiresome Felisa Febrero keeps forever putting off her departure for the Philippines.”

It was true, indeed, that Don Gaspar’s daughter delayed her journey in a way to make the blood boil in the veins of a more patient person than Doña Aurora. What made the latter wild was that the time for the examinations to take place was now drawing near, after which she had resolved to take a trip to Galicia, and to leave Esclavita behind or to take her with her seemed equally impracticable. Don Gaspar kept her informed of the news regarding his daughter’s departure,{290} looking more and more joyful as the time drew nearer. “They are packing the trunks.” “They have made inquiries concerning the dates of sailing of the steamers.” “On Thursday, or at furthest on Saturday, they will be on their way to Cadiz.” At last he came one day with a face looking more radiant, more Olympic than usual, under the aureole of his beautiful white curls. “Friend Aurora,” he said, “they are to leave us this afternoon.” It was agreed that for appearance’s sake a few days should be allowed to pass before giving warning to the ignorant and slatternly Estremaduran who waited on Don Gaspar, and informing Esclavita of her change of situation. “Friend Aurora, do you take charge of that,” said the octogenarian. But although he thus laid all the responsibility on the shoulders of Doña Aurora, he could not resist the temptation, as he was passing the{291}

confectionary of La Pajarita when he was taking his constitutional on the following day in the Puerta del Sol, to enter the shop and buy half a pound of caramels and bonbons. He hid his purchase in an inside pocket of his coat and when, stopping at the house of Señora de Pardiñas, Esclavita opened the door for him, he glanced around furtively, put his hand into his pocket, and drawing out the cartridge slipped it into her palm as if it were a billet{292} doux. “Fresh,” was the only word his pleasing agitation allowed him to utter, as he put the gift into her hand.

Very reluctantly, and with much hemming and hawing, Doña Aurora set about performing her disagreeable task of getting rid of Esclavita. She would have felt less embarrassed if she had been called upon to break to her the news of some great misfortune, such as the death of some one dear to her, or some pecuniary loss, for, after all, in such a case she would have none of the responsibility nor would she be in any way to blame, while in merely announcing to her the impending change of abode and of employers, she felt, with her natural sense of right, to which nothing but her maternal affection could blind her, that there was something of harshness and cruelty in her conduct, although this was dictated by motives such as no prudent mother could disregard. “It is even a matter{293} of conscience with me,” she said to herself, to fortify her courage. “I was thoughtless in bringing temptation within Rogelio’s reach. Felisa Febrero has shown more knowledge of the world than I, for, old as her father is, she would not put him in danger’s way. The boy has more sense than could have been expected, not to have lost his head completely. No, no, it is better to blush once than to turn pale a hundred times. To-day I will get rid of her. As soon as Rogelio goes to college——”

There are in the tones of the human voice mysterious notes of warning which in certain situations reveal our inmost thoughts before we have put them into words. The simple words, “Come here, Esclavita,” words such as a servant hears innumerable times in the course of a day, echoed on this occasion with an ominous sound in the soul of the young Galician. All the{294} blood in her body rushed to her heart, and when she entered the room where her mistress was awaiting her she already knew by intuition the purport of what she was about to hear.

Doña Aurora was seated, not in the dining-room, but in her son’s study, where she was in the habit of going, in his absence, to write a note, to make up her accounts, or the like, and perhaps also to satisfy that instinctive and restless curiosity characteristic of an absorbing affection when it reaches the height of a passion. She made Esclavita sit down in a chair beside her and began to speak, without looking at her, occupying herself in taking the pens, one by one, from a little pen-box and placing them symmetrically, side by side, upon the table—On account of the trip to Galicia, there was nothing else to be done—To travel with three people was not the same as to travel with only two, that required no explanation—A situation{295} in the house of Señor de Febrero was the best thing a girl like her could possibly desire; it was a great piece of good fortune. She would be, not a servant, but the housekeeper. She would be treated with every kind of consideration. The labor of waiting on one person only would not kill her; by taking a little trouble to please that excellent gentleman she would be in heaven—almost as if she were in her own house. Finally, Don Gaspar, too, was from Galicia. There would be no cause for her to feel lonesome there, as she had felt in the house of the Señoritas Romera.

When she had brought forward all these arguments she felt her mind relieved and, still apparently intent on the symmetrical arrangement of the rows of pens, gave a side glance at the girl. Esclavita remained motionless in her seat, her hands folded in her lap, her feet side by side, her eyes cast{296} down; she, too, was little prone to throw open those windows of the soul to prying eyes.

“Well, what do you say?” asked Señora de Pardiñas at last, beginning to grow impatient, as she always did when she was met by a passive resistance.

“What should I say?” asked Esclavita in husky tones, but with apparent calmness.

“Say yes or no; say whether you like the situation I propose to you, or whether you would prefer to look for another, which should be more to your taste.”

There was an interval of silence, and then the girl answered in a voice deprived of all expression by her effort to render it calm:

“If there is no great hurry, I will give you my answer to-morrow or the day after.”

“I understand you,” said Señora de{297} Pardiñas, in her own mind. “You want to have a talk with the boy first. Very good. I am prepared for whatever may happen. Here I am on guard and here I mean to remain. The first thing I shall do is to see that you don’t take him by surprise. I shall be on the alert, never fear!”

That afternoon, however, she was obliged to leave the house, contrary to her habit, to go to the railway station to see Felisa Febrero off, in compliance with one of those irksome social duties which cannot be evaded and which always seem to come at the most inopportune moment. Rogelio, too, had gone out riding, but owing to the necessity of attending to his studies now that the examinations were close at hand, he shortened his ride, and it was just as he was entering the house, flushed with exercise, fanning himself with his gray hat and cracking his whip, that Esclavita caught him by the sleeve{298} and drew him, almost by force, into the study, bringing him to a stand-still beside the very table on which Doña Aurora had that morning drawn up her army of pens.

“Has anything happened, Suriña?” he asked. “What is the matter with you?”

“Didn’t I tell you—that I wasn’t going to Galicia,” she cried, “either this year or any other year? Your mamma has dismissed me. She is going to leave me at Señor Febrero’s.”

The girl told him all she herself knew. Her eyes were dry, but her mouth and chin quivered. Her bosom heaved, and in her manner of telling what had occurred, in that despairing cry for help, like the cry of a drowning man when he is about to sink beneath the waves, there was a vehemence and{299} disorder which formed a contrast to her habitual composure, and which might well have moved one with more years and experience than Rogelio. While he stammered, “No, it cannot be possible, you won’t leave us, what nonsense,” he clasped his arms involuntarily around the girl’s slender form, and the thrill of passion he had felt four or five months before awoke within him again, more ardent than ever, inspiring him with courage to rebel, to protest, and to defend Esclavita as we defend what belongs to us and is a part of our life. “Some one must have been telling her stories,” he said; “but who and why? What motive have we given for talk, Suriña? Why, since mamma’s illness we have scarcely spoken a word together. You never put your foot here. This is very strange; this must not be. I will arrange the matter. The idea of your leaving us! No, my pretty one.”{300}

Cheered and revived by these promises, Esclavita nestled close to Rogelio’s bosom, as if she sought there a refuge whence no one could tear her, and Rogelio, with youthful and irresistible transport, covered her with kisses and tried to lift up her head, seeking her lips. The bell rang, unheard by either. It rang again, this time energetically and impatiently, and with an abrupt and simultaneous movement they drew apart. The girl smoothed her hair, and arranged her neckerchief with trembling fingers, saying:

XXII.

When Señora de Pardiñas observed that her son looked pale and preoccupied that evening at dinner, and even answered her shortly when she spoke to him, she thought to herself at once, “We are in for it now. That jewel has given him her news.” She intercepted, too, furtive glances, frightened and eloquent, between them, but she bore it all in silence, saying to herself, “According to Don Nicanor one must pretend to be a fool for a quarter of an hour every day in this world. But more than that falls to my share, for I must pretend to be a fool for months to come.” She pretended to be a fool then, acting as if she did not notice anything unusual in her son’s manner, asking him with a great show of interest{302} about the pony, the stable, his companions in his rides. When the table-cloth was removed she introduced another subject of conversation, very timely, and of immediate and vital importance, namely, the examinations. “I think your turn will come about Wednesday or Thursday, child,” she began, “so that this week I shall have my hands full. For the fact is, that with those gentlemen one never knows what course to take. If they were all like Contreras! He knows how to be reasonable. Only Contreras won’t be your professor this year. With the others one doesn’t know what course to pursue; if one were to listen to this one and that one, it would be enough to make one crazy. Lastra wants people to bow down before him, to pay him the compliment of begging him, to be indebted to him. Ruiz del Monte seems to be just the opposite; if he is spoken to in behalf of a boy, he takes a{303} dislike to him and torments the life out of him. You know whether that is so or not; it was your friend Diaz, the one who writes verses, who told me so. Of Albirán they tell a different story—that he does not disregard intercession, but in rule and measure; according to whom it comes from. The safest thing would be for you to study, child.”

During the whole of the evening it was impossible to draw another word from him. He turned over the illustrated papers, he took them up and laid them down, he changed his seat, passing from the chair to the sofa and from the sofa to the chair; he sighed profoundly, and, in short, gave every possible sign of distress, making no effort to conceal this distress, but, on the contrary, seeming to desire that his mamma should notice it. At last,{304} when the latter said to him, “Are you not going for a while to the theater to-night?” he answered, in a hard and resolute tone:

And he left the room and walked noisily through the hall to his study,{305} which he entered, slamming the door behind him.

“It is as I said; we are in for it now,” she said to herself. “I have made a great mistake. I should have waited to settle this affair until the examinations were over, a few days before our departure. It was a piece of stupidity on my part. Well, you see, I wanted to get out of the mess quickly; but I was wrong. There are things that it is better to go slowly about. I must only see if I can remedy matters now by putting off the girl’s departure; otherwise the boy will be all upset when he most needs to keep a cool head. We must wait a while. I must see if I can persuade Don Gaspar to wait. I shouldn’t wonder if it would be harder to make the old man listen to reason than the boy. What complications! That perfidious Rita Pardo was right. One ought to consider well whom one receives into one’s house.”{306}

There then took place in the little domestic drama that was now drawing near to its dénouement one of those byplays, like momentary truces, during which the actors, while appearing to be occupied with other interests, or while thus occupied in reality, do not yet lose sight of the main subject of the drama, continuing still to play a part, so to speak, and maintaining silence regarding the matter which chiefly occupies their minds, without deceiving anybody by this silence. Señora de Pardiñas put off the girl’s departure from day to day, calming the puerile impatience of Don Gaspar Febrero at the delay, with the excuse of the nearness of the examinations and the impossibility of remaining at such a time without a servant. Esclavita waited, hiding in the depths of her heart a tenacious hope, based on the words and the promises of Rogelio; and Rogelio, preoccupied and agitated, waited in vain for an{307} opportunity to say something—something very serious and decided—to his mother. To speak the truth, however, if his mother had given him this opportunity he would not have known how to avail himself of it. As time passed, the courage which he had felt at first evaporated by degrees, like the essence in a vial which is left uncorked. It requires more resolution than appears at first sight for a good son to place himself in direct opposition to a good mother, and take a step, which to a certain extent emancipates him from maternal authority, but which at the same time wrings the inmost fibers of his heart. So blended together are natural duty, habit, and even that excusable selfishness which counsels us to place ourselves without reserve in the hands of one who loves us better than ourselves, that the breaking of this bond is an act of supreme courage, one of those efforts from which the will{308} shrinks, unless it be of finely-tempered metal. Against a severe father there is always energy; his very severity serves as a tonic to the will; but a mother like Rogelio’s, whose first thought had always been her son, who had made him the object of so much solicitude, sparing him even the trouble of considering and the effort of desiring; a widowed mother, delicate in health, who had made it a practice to anticipate the wishes of her son, in this way preventing the will of her son from ever acquiring the robustness which struggles and privations give, was an adversary against whom Rogelio had not the strength to measure himself. “If she herself would introduce the subject,” he thought. But the truth is that if she had introduced it, the result would have been the same. All he ventured to do was to enter a mute protest, to show himself melancholy at times, and at times ill-tempered{309} and sullen. “Mamma, in order not to see me looking unhappy, is capable of anything,” he reasoned, with the logic of a spoiled child. Only that his mamma knew how to discriminate between toys.

The examinations, too, had their effect in weakening his resolution still more. What with his studies, his fears of failure, and the coming and going of the friends who brought him an account of the rise and fall, so to say, of the marks, Rogelio found himself outside the magic circle by which an absorbing passion surrounds us, and if it were not that occasionally a pair of greenish eyes looked steadily into his, he would even have forgotten the danger which, by a curious illusion, seemed to him every day less imminent, being in reality more so, for the departure for Galicia was inevitably to take place immediately after the examinations.{310}

And the examinations came, and Rogelio found that he had passed in two branches, but in one—the most difficult and uncongenial to him—there came upon him, like a dash of cold waiter, a conditioned. “I know who is to blame for this!” thought his mother, looking through the half-closed door at Esclava, who was dusting the pictures in the parlor. “This is what comes of flirtation; but what is to be done? every age has its tastes. He will gain in September what he loses now; he is young enough, provided he keeps well. And let us be just; the pony, too, made him lose his head in this last term. It is true that that was all the better. About the time lost in that way I don’t complain. The pony has behaved well. It deserves a lump of sugar.”{311}

XXIII.

On the last evening spent in Madrid by Doña Aurora and her son, before setting out for their native place, a great many friends came to bid them good-by, and there was a pleasant informal reception at the house. It was now the end of June, and the most enjoyable hour for a social gathering was really between ten and eleven at night, when a fresh and healthy breeze blows{312} even through the heated streets of old Madrid, the Madrid which is not shaded by trees and which enjoys little of the benefit of the municipal watering. The neighbors on the second floor, nieces of a brigadier, came down, and they were also joined by the Marchioness de Andrade, a compatriot of Doña Aurora, a handsome and elegant woman who moved in aristocratic circles, and was consequently accustomed to keep late hours. Señora de Pardiñas, finding herself surrounded by visitors, gave herself up to the task of entertaining them to the best of her ability, without seeking to guide the conversation, which soon drifted to subjects connected with the country to which she was about to return after an absence of so many years. The Marchioness, who was of a vain and lively disposition, said that she thought of going to Vigo soon, displaying at the same time a new bracelet of sapphires and diamonds,{313} with an air of mystery. “She is evidently thinking of marrying again,” thought Doña Aurora. “Who may her intended be? God grant she may choose well.”

Rogelio had quietly slipped away without saying a word to any one. His retreat did not pass unnoticed by his mother, but, besides there being no remedy for it, she discovered other reasons for resignation. “Bad luck is not always going to follow us, and, at the worst, we are going away to-morrow,” she thought. (Esclavita still foreboded danger and trouble, but far in the distance.) “To-morrow at this hour we shall be near Avila. When shall I hear the whistle of the train?”

Rogelio retired to his study, impelled by a vague hope of seeing the girl, explaining to her his attitude during these days, and the impossibility of his acting differently, of rebelling and refusing to go with his mother. He foresaw that{314} Esclavita, availing herself of the occasion, would soon join him, and to attract her attention he lighted a lamp, striking a great many matches in the operation, and walking about the room noisily; he opened the drawers and made the door creak two or three times. He did not venture to call her, through fear of his mother’s keen ear, for, according to his paradoxical and hyperbolical expression, she could hear better than the deaf Candás.

He was not obliged to wait long. After ten minutes or so he heard a knock at the door, and before he had time to say, “Come in,” Esclavita entered. The light of the lamp standing on the table of the study which communicated with the bedroom and dressing-room of the student, fell full on the girl’s face, and Rogelio suddenly realized how thin and pale her face had grown during the last fortnight, presenting now a spiritual and refined type{315} of beauty that might have served as a model for one of those waxen images which are used to inclose the bones of unknown martyrs.

Rogelio went up to Esclavita and took her hand in his—it was burning with fever.

Without exchanging a word, they involuntarily looked around for a seat where they could sit down side by side. There was none in the study, which was furnished with a high stool and half a dozen chairs, and without reflecting they went into the inner room, where Rogelio, putting his arm around the girl’s neck drew her toward the couch and made her sit down beside him. They remained silent for a space of five minutes or so, Rogelio pressing and stroking the girl’s hand, hardened somewhat by labor, the fingers marked by the pricking of the needle, as if to communicate to it the coolness of his palms and draw from it its fever. But he{316} could think of nothing to say except the commonplaces usual on parting, and at last, unwilling to remain silent any longer, he resolved to avail himself of that poor resource.

“Suriña, silly girl, don’t be like that,” he began. “See, I have been thinking a great deal; this has troubled me more than you. Nothing would be gained by opposing mamma now. We should afflict her greatly. She might even become ill on account of it, but she would not change her resolution. Have patience. Within three months, or even{317} less, we shall be back here again, and we shall see each other, for you will enjoy a great deal more liberty at Señor Febrero’s than here. You know already that I shall always love you, foolish girl. Don’t desert me for the tender Nuño Rasura. There, silly girl, there, my dove, don’t look like that. If you do, you will make me very unhappy.”

Esclavita only answered by shaking her head with persistent melancholy. After a while she responded in a tolerably firm voice;

“Gay I cannot be; but I am not sad, either. Don’t be troubled on my account. Only my head is—as if there was something wrong going on inside.”

“It is as I say. I am here, eh? I am listening to you? I answer you? Well, it is as if I were listening to some person—far away, from the other world, talking to me.”{318}

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the student shuddering. “I would rather see you cry. If you cried you would not have such wild notions, Sura. Cry and give way to your grief; but don’t say those dreadful things.”

“I cry inwardly, not with my eyes. I cannot shed a tear. I was the same way once before, when my father died,” responded the girl quietly, without either of them taking notice of the word father, which, perhaps, for the first time in her life, Esclavita uttered without mystery or circumlocution.

“Child, you seem to me to be ill. Ah! you have fever. Promise me that you will go to-morrow to see Sanchez del Abrojo.”

“No, it isn’t sickness. I was never better in my life. It is a warning.”

He bent toward the girl and kissed her cold cheek; she made no resistance.{319} She seemed to be more resigned, and it was in a tone that was natural and almost confidential that she uttered the following extravagances:

“Rogelio, there are certain things that the dead warn the living about; don’t doubt it. Three days before my father’s death I saw a large black bird at the foot of my bed. Yesterday I saw the same bird again. He flew so fast that I couldn’t see where he disappeared to, but I saw him as surely as that we are here now. I shall never go home again, never. Time will show, and then you will see that what I tell you is true and you will say, ‘Esclavita was right.’ If I was as sure of having a million ounces I should be considering now where to hide them so that they should not be stolen from me. Last night——”

“A dog in the next house howled till morning, and that means that some one is going to die.”

“Heavens! Suriña,” for the second time exclaimed Rogelio, now superstitiously affected by this strange conversation, “you are crazy! Don’t you know, Suriña, that scores of people die or are at the point of death every night in Madrid? Just imagine; if the dogs have to announce all those deaths they have enough to do. There would be announcements enough to fill an extra sheet of La Correspondencia. The fact is, Sura, that you feel badly because we are going away and you remain behind. I, too, have been troubled for some time past about the trip. I have had some frightful moments. Afterward I reflected—and—I think it is better to be resigned to things as they are, for if we rebel it will only make matters worse. In three months, Suriña—in ninety days (and perhaps even less){321} you will have me here again. My first visit shall be to Doña Sura. Come, don’t look like that. I love you dearly, believe it. We shall be able in time to win mamma over. You haven’t yet told me to-day that you care for me. Come!”

With the gesture of a child asking for a caress he approached his cheek to Esclavita’s lips, and the latter, without protest, as if she were performing an accustomed act, pressed her lips to it. Like her palms, they were hot and dry, and it seemed to Rogelio as if they burned his flesh, causing him a sensation that was painful rather than pleasant. Only, caresses were a resource to render this last painful interview a little less intolerable, and the student, in default of arguments by which to console the poor deserted girl, had recourse to caresses, without being influenced by a motive less pure or noble....{322}

“Suriña, Suriña, I think I hear the marchioness saying good-by in the hall. If she is going, it is because every one else has gone. Mamma will be here directly, I am certain. Try to slip away without being seen. Good-by; go quietly so that no one may hear you.”

The girl obeyed with the same passiveness she had shown throughout, in her utter submissiveness, not even claiming the last embrace. Rogelio lighted the lamp again, carefully straightening the wick. He then closed the bedroom window, and standing before his bureau glass, brushed his hair and parted it with a little comb. Then putting his hands into his trousers pockets he stood for a while studying carefully, with eager curiosity, his own countenance, questioning his own eyes in the mirror, as if to convince himself that, after this vertigo had passed away, he still preserved his{323} individuality, and that there did not remain in him a something belonging to another individuality, a something which could not be effaced and which would betray him. Then the thought of his mother came again to oppress his heart. But this feeling, suddenly gave way to a burst of joy, and running to the window he threw it open, allowing the pure night air to blow in upon him and, grasping the window bars, drew a long, deep breath.{324}

EPILOGUE.

Punctual as the sun, Don Gaspar made his appearance at four in the afternoon with a little carriage, to take his future housekeeper back with him to his house. Being told that Esclavita was on her way there, he again got into his shabby landau and told the coachman to drive quickly home. His impatience would not permit him to walk with his lame foot.

At the last moment Doña Aurora had called Esclavita and put into her hands, in addition to her wages, a handsome present of money and a pair of torquoise earrings. “I don’t want her to go away dissatisfied,” she said to herself. “And, indeed, the poor girl looked greatly altered. I really believe she had a liking for the boy, which{325} makes my resolution all the more prudent. I pity her, and I know that it is folly for me to do so. Where could she find a home like the one I have provided for her? I am doing her a very great service; that is what sets my mind at rest. She has a sinecure.”

With all this, Señora de Pardiñas could not repress a certain feeling of disquietude, of secret pain, of overwhelming pity, which she afterward interpreted as a presentiment of coming evil. “The idea of my pitying her,” she said to herself, “when I am certain that I have found her the best situation a girl of her class could possibly desire.” And Señora de Pardiñas was firmly convinced of the truth of what she said. Like many good-hearted people, incapable of hating or injuring any one, who like to think that they are acting in the interests of others when they are really prompted by self-interest, she wished to persuade herself{326} that she had at heart Esclava’s good, and not, primarily, her son’s welfare, just as this motive might seem to her, and as it really was.

She was somewhat reassured when she heard Fausta joking Esclavita in the kitchen, humming, “And now I serve a doting old man, and I am the mistress of the house.”

“Fausta is right,” she thought. “She will be mistress in Señor de Febrero’s house. If she doesn’t make herself too much so——”

The train for Galicia started at thirty-five minutes past seven, and at that pleasant twilight hour the platform of the Northern Depot was filled with a hurried and animated crowd of travelers and their friends who had come to see them off, the latter envying those who were going to see beautiful scenery, to breathe the sea air, to enjoy a cool temperature, and to spend a few months pleasantly in a healthy and{327}

temperate climate. Here were no sad parting scenes. It was not the good-by of the sailor, the leave-taking of the soldier departing for the war, the homesick farewell of the emigrant. Those who were going were joyous and excited; those who remained behind, outwardly gay. Only, at one end of{328} the train, at the door of a first-class carriage, could be seen a group of four or five persons, exchanging long and lingering embraces. It was composed of two men, one of them young, the other already in the decline of life, with bowed heads but erect forms, and three ladies, two young, the third a white-haired old lady, who frequently applied their handkerchiefs to their reddened eyes. Inside the car was a nurse, holding an infant in her arms. Lain Calvo approached Doña Aurora and said to her, pointing to the group:

“Do you see the Rojases there? Fanatics to the end, to death. They have transferred the son again to Marineda on account of that affair with the Minister, and even if he knew he was going to die of want, he would travel first-class, through respect for his office. If they transfer him a third time, he says he will send in his resignation. And they have paid off Rojas himself already. Haven’t you heard of it? He{329} was put on the retired list a week ago.”

“What do you tell me?” exclaimed Señora de Pardiñas, with genuine sorrow. “Heaven help us! Unhappy people! Where will that poor Matilde Rojas find a man who will be willing to marry her without a penny? I declare I shall have that family in my thoughts during the whole of the journey. What a world this is, Don Nicanor!”

Doña Aurora tried to make her way toward the group to shake hands with the ladies of the Rojas family, but it was not possible, the warning bell sounded, the engine snorted, and wheelbarrows, laden with baggage checked for the train, were passing on all sides. Rogelio, who was on the train, reached out his hand to assist his mother, who ascended the steps slowly, smiling because a flounce of her dress had caught on one of them, and the noise made by the starting of the train drowned the voice of Lain Calvo as he cried:{330}

The train, swaying gently, hurried on its way. Evening closed in with serene splendor, and Rogelio as he looked out of the window fancied he could already descry the fresh Galician valleys, the leafy chestnut trees, the blue waters girdling the most beautiful country in the world.

But he did not perceive Esclavita, who, from the other side of the platform, followed the train with her eyes until it passed, swift and majestic, from her sight. When the last black smoke-wreath had disappeared in the distance, trembling as if with cold, she turned her steps slowly toward the city, resolved that the sun, which was just sinking below the horizon, should never again rise for her. Let us leave the unhappy girl, for, however hard we might try we could never dissuade her from her purpose. Don Gabriel Pardo, who is fond{331} of generalizing in a dogmatic way, and who, in support of a favorite theory, will make use of the most illogical arguments, would tell us, if we asked him to account for this tragedy, that the mental aberration which leads to suicide is a natural outcome of the melancholy temperament of the Celtic race, that great martyr of history; just as if the newspapers did not every day record similar cases of suicide in every province of Spain.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Morriña (Homesickness)

M O R R I Ñ A
(HOMESICKNESS)

MORRIÑA
(HOMESICKNESS).

I.

II.

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IV.

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VII.

VIII.

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X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

EPILOGUE.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Morriña (Homesickness)

M O R R I Ñ A (HOMESICKNESS)

MORRIÑA (HOMESICKNESS).

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

EPILOGUE.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

M O R R I Ñ A
(HOMESICKNESS)

MORRIÑA
(HOMESICKNESS).