CHAPTER V.PREPARING THE GROUND.
ON the following morning Luiza received a bouquet of magnificent red roses from Sebastião, which she placed in the vases in the parlor.
At three o’clock Bazilio came. Luiza was seated at the piano.
“The gentleman who was here the other day is outside,” Juliana came to announce in grave, almost reproachful accents.
“Ah, my cousin Bazilio,” said Luiza, blushing. “Show him in. And, by the way, if Senhor Sebastião, or any other visitor, should call, admit him.”
The gentleman, then, was a cousin. These visits had lost all their interest for Juliana. Her malicious curiosity, swelled out to its fullest proportions, suffered a momentary collapse, like a sail when the wind has fallen. He was her cousin!
She went slowly upstairs to the kitchen.
“I have news to tell you, Senhora Joanna,” she said. “Thepetit-maîtreis a cousin,—Cousin Bazilio, it seems. Bazilio! It turns out that we have a cousin at last; how nice!”
“Why, who should the man be but a relative?” said Joanna, with indifference.
Juliana did not answer. She looked to see if the irons were hot, as she had a quantity of clothes to iron, and while waiting for them she sat down at the window. The sky was gray, and the atmosphere charged with moisture and electricity; from time to time a slight breeze agitated the foliage without. “He is her cousin!” she thought, “and he comes only when the husband has gone away. How likely that is! When he goes she remains preoccupied; she sighs; she looks disconsolate. All that is the result of family affection!”
Her eyes glittered with malignant joy. And the irons, were they hot? she asked Joanna.
The bell rang softly.
“There it goes again! This is a dog’s life! To-day is a reception-day, it seems.”
She went down and opened the door. When she saw Julião standing before her, a book under his arm, she gave a little cry of surprise.
“Come in, Senhor Julião,” she said; “the mistress is with her cousin, but she has given orders to admit any one who may call.”
Delighted at being able to interrupt the conversation, she opened the door of the parlor.
“Senhor Julião,” she announced in a shrill voice.
Luiza presented the two gentlemen to each other. Bazilio hardly rose from the sofa, and with a glance expressive of something akin to terror examined Julião, from his disordered hair to his badly-polished boots.
“What a savage!” he said to himself.
Luiza, divining his thoughts, colored with shame. What idea wouldBazilio form of the acquaintances, the friends of the house, by this badly-dressed man whose collar was soiled and whose coat was old and ill-fitting? She felt herchicdiminished by this visit, and instinctively, influenced by a sentiment of futile vanity, her countenance assumed a reserved, almost a serious air, as if Julião’s visit were a surprise to her, and his attire an offence.
Julião vaguely comprehended that his presence was an annoyance, and with something of embarrassment said, settling his spectacles on his nose,—
“I was passing this way by chance, and I stopped in to ask if you have had any news of Jorge.”
“Thanks, yes; he has written to me. He is well.”
Bazilio, leaning back among the cushions of the sofa with all the familiarity of a near relative, was attentively observing his silk stockings embroidered with red, and languidly caressing his mustache, displaying, as he did so, two rings,—a ruby and a sapphire,—that glittered on his little finger. The affectation of this attitude, and the gleams of color shot forth by the jewels, confused Julião. Then, desirous of showing his intimacy in the family, he said,—
“I should be glad to stay with you a while, but that I am exceedingly busy.”
“A thousand thanks!” returned Luiza, blushing. And wishing to divest this apparent familiarity of any importance that it mighty possess in Bazilio’s eyes, she continued, arranging the folds of her morning-gown, “During the last few days I have not been quite well, and I have received no one, excepting, of course, my cousin.”
Julião understood, in a vague sort of way, that he was being reproved. Surprised, confounded, ashamed, he crossed one leg over the other, laying on his knees the book he carried; and, as his trousers were too short, the elastics of his well-worn boots were disclosed to view.
There was a moment of painful silence.
“What lovely roses!” said Bazilio, at last, looking with an air of indifference at Sebastião’s roses.
“Very lovely,” responded Luiza. Beginning to feel sorry for Julião, she looked at him with a smile, trying to think of something pleasant to say to him.
“How warm it is!” she said at last, precipitately. “The heat is killing! Have you many patients?”
“Some cases of cholera-morbus,” responded Julião. “The fruits are the cause of these disorders of the stomach.”
Luiza lowered her eyes, and Bazilio began at once to talk of the little Viscountess of Azeias; when he left Lisbon she was looking charming. And what had become of her elder sister?
These inquiries concerning ladies of the nobility whom Julião did not know excluded him completely from the conversation, and covered him with humiliation. He felt his neck bathed in perspiration, and he began to open and shut mechanically the thick yellow-covered volume he carried.
“Is that book you have there a novel?” Luiza asked him.
“No,” he responded in an important tone; “it is a treatise of Dr. Lee on the diseases of women.”
Luiza blushed, and Bazilio, repressing a smile, asked her what hadbecome of Raphaela Grijo, who used to come sometimes to the house in the street of the Magdalena,—the lady who wore spectacles, and had a brother-in-law who stammered.
“Her husband died, and she married her brother-in-law afterwards,” Luiza answered.
“What! the one who stammered?”
“Yes; and they have a child who stammers also.”
“A family conversation in that house must be amusing! And Donna Eugenia, the wife of Braga?”
Here Julião, unable to endure his position any longer, rose.
“I am in a hurry,” he said in a choking voice, “and I can stay no longer. When you write to Jorge, remember me to him.”
He hardly bent his head to Bazilio. But when he looked for his hat he could not find it; it had rolled under a chair. He got entangled in the portière, he struck himself violently against the closed door, and went out at last, furious, his heart filled with hatred towards Luiza, Jorge, wealth, and life itself; and thinking too late of the ironical words, the apt retorts, with which he ought to have crushed that fool and that silly woman.
No sooner had the street door closed behind him than Bazilio rose, and standing before Luiza with folded arms,—
“Who is that savage?” he exclaimed.
“He is a young doctor,” stammered Luiza, turning very red.
“But he is an impossible being! He has the air of a charity student.”
“Poor young man!” said Luiza, confused. “He is not rich, by any means.”
“It is not necessary that he should be rich,” replied Bazilio, “in order that he should brush his coat, and keep his hair and his nails in order.” She ought not to receive such a man, he said. He was a disgrace to the house. If he was according to her husband’s taste, let him receive him in his office.
He said all this taking long strides up and down the room, very much excited, jingling his money and his keys in his pockets.
“Fine specimens the friends of the family are!” he continued. “What the deuce! you were not brought up in this manner. People like that never came to the street of the Magdalena.”
This was true. Luiza confessed it to herself. She began to think that her marriage had brought her into contact with some plebeian acquaintances. But a certain respect for the opinions and the likings of Jorge made her say,—
“My husband thinks he has a great deal of ability.”
“It would be better for him if he had boots.”
“I find him very amusing, for my part,” said Luiza, without venturing to contradict Bazilio.
“He is horrible, my dear child.”
These last words made her heart beat. Thus it was that he used to call her in former days. Before she could answer, the door-bell rang vigorously.
Luiza was disturbed. Good Heavens! if it should be Sebastião! Bazilio would find him still more common, still more vulgar than Julião.
Juliana came to say that the counsellor was outside.
“Shall I ask him to come in?” she added.
“Certainly,” said Luiza, delighted to find her fears unfounded.
The stately figure of the counsellor, in his alpaca coat and well-ironed white trousers that fell over his low shoes, advanced towards Luiza.
When she had presented Bazilio, he said to the latter, in accents of profound respect,—
“I was already aware of your arrival. I saw it announced among the interesting items of news of our ‘high-life.’ And Jorge?” he added, addressing Luiza.
“Jorge is in Beja, and, judging from his letters, he seems to be very much bored there.”
“In effect,” said Bazilio, with affability, “I cannot form to myself the least idea of how he can spend his time in Beja. It must be horrible.”
“It is, however, the capital of a province,” observed the counsellor, passing over his mustache a white hand adorned with a seal-ring.
“But if in Lisbon, which is the capital of the kingdom,” said Bazilio, pulling down his cuffs, “one does not know what to do with one’s self. It is enough to make one die ofennui!”
“Don’t say that before the counsellor,” said Luiza, laughing, enchanted with Bazilio’s affability. “He is a great admirer of Lisbon.”
“I was born in Lisbon,” said Accacio, bowing, “and I esteem Lisbon, dear Senhora. I recognize the fact, nevertheless,” he continued ingenuously, “that it is not to be compared to Paris, to London, or to Madrid.”
“Oh, of course not!” said Luiza.
“But,” continued the counsellor, with an air of pride, “Lisbon has beauties of its own that have no equal. The entrance to the harbor, as I have heard, for I have never been there, is a magnificent panorama that rivals the bay of Constantinople or that of Naples,—worthy to be described by the pen of a Garrett or a Lamartine,” he continued pompously.
But Luiza, dreading quotations and literary criticisms, asked him what he had done with himself last Sunday; saying she had gone with Donna Felicidade to the Passeio, and had been disappointed at not seeing him there.
The counsellor declared that he never went to the Passeio on Sunday. He could well understand that it might be very agreeable, but the crowd made him sea-sick. He had noticed—and in saying this his voice assumed the tone of a revelation—that many persons gathered together in one place were apt to cause vertigo in men of literary habits. Besides, his health was not very good, and he was overwhelmed with work. He was writing a book, and drinking the waters of Vichy.
“You may smoke,” said Luiza, abruptly to Bazilio, with a smile. “Do you want a light?”
She rose with joyful alacrity to get a match. She wore a fresh morning-gown of light-colored and semi-transparent material. Her hair looked brighter and her complexion clearer than usual.
Bazilio puffed out the smoke from his cigar, and said, settling himself on the sofa,—
“The Passeio on Sunday is simply a piece of stupidity!”
“Do not be so severe, Senhor Brito,” said the counsellor, after a moment’s reflection. “Formerly, indeed, it was a very agreeable resort. For one thing, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can take the place of military music; then, there is the price of admission to be considered: I have studied the question closely. Low prices favor the agglomeration of the inferior classes. Far be it from my thoughts to look with contempt upon that part of the population. The liberality of my ideas is well known. I appeal to this lady; but it must be admitted that it is always preferable to meet select society. For my part, I assure you I do not go to the Passeio even when there are fireworks. On those nights I go, indeed, to enjoy the spectacle, but I remain outside the railings. Not from economy, assuredly not,—without being rich I can yet allow myself this expense,—but I fear that some accident might happen. I could give you an instance of an individual whose name I have forgotten, whose skull was pierced by a rocket. To go no further, a spark might fall on one’s head, or on a new suit. And it is well to be prudent,” he added in conclusion, passing over his lips his neatly folded handkerchief of India silk.
Then they spoke of the season. There were a great many people in Cintra. Lisbon was so hot in summer! The counsellor declared that Lisbon would be a city of no real importance until the opening of the Chambers and of the S. Carlos.
“What were you playing when I came in?” Bazilio asked Luiza.
“If you were having music,” said the counsellor at once, “I beg youwill continue. For eighteen years I have been a constant subscriber to the S. Carlos.”
“Are you a musician?” said Bazilio.
“I was at one time, I will not deny it; when I was a young man I played the flute,—youthful follies,” he said, with a benevolent gesture. “Were you playing something new, Donna Luiza?”
“No, on the contrary, something very old,—the ‘Fisherman’s Daughter,’ of Meyerbeer.”
Luiza closed the windows and seated herself at the piano. “Sebastião plays admirably, does he not, Counsellor?”
“Our Sebastião,” responded the counsellor, in a voice of authority, “is the equal of Thalberg and of Liszt. Do you know him?” he added, addressing Bazilio.
“No, I do not know him.”
“A pearl among men.”
Bazilio slowly approached the piano, with his hands in his pockets.
“Do you still sing?” Luiza asked him, smiling.
“When I am alone.”
The counsellor immediately asked him for a song. Bazilio laughed, saying that he was afraid of shocking an old habitué of the S. Carlos.
The counsellor began to encourage him, and approaching him said, with a paternal smile,—
“Courage, Senhor Brito! Come, come, courage!”
Luiza played a prelude, and Bazilio began to sing, in a voice full and of good quality, his high notes resounding through the parlor. The counsellor, standing upright beside his chair, listened attentively,his head bent down, as by the weight of his responsibility as judge and critic, his dark spectacles forming a contrast to his bald forehead, which was rendered still more pallid by the heat.
Bazilio sang with simplicity, but his voice was full of a grave and passionate melancholy as he pronounced the words:—
“As in the dark sea,There are depths in my heart.”
“As in the dark sea,There are depths in my heart.”
“As in the dark sea,There are depths in my heart.”
“As in the dark sea,
There are depths in my heart.”
An anonymous poet had translated the verses for the “Ladies’ Almanac,” prefixing to them a mysterious dedication. Luiza had copied them with her own hand from between the lines of the music. Bazilio sang the last verses with an intonation of dignified melancholy:—
“On its surface are storms,In its depths there are pearls.”
“On its surface are storms,In its depths there are pearls.”
“On its surface are storms,In its depths there are pearls.”
“On its surface are storms,
In its depths there are pearls.”
The expressive eyes of Luiza were fixed on the music before her, or cast from time to time a rapid glance at Bazilio. At the final note, which she prolonged on the piano, giving it an expression of passionate appeal, Bazilio’s voice had all the force of an invocation:—
“Come, comeTo rest, my well-belovèd,—Beside my heart, thy heart!”
“Come, comeTo rest, my well-belovèd,—Beside my heart, thy heart!”
“Come, comeTo rest, my well-belovèd,—Beside my heart, thy heart!”
“Come, come
To rest, my well-belovèd,—
Beside my heart, thy heart!”
His eyes fixed themselves upon her with an expression of such ardent passion that Luiza’s heart began to beat, her fingers trembled as they ran over the keys, and her countenance displayed an agitation that shehastened to conceal.
The counsellor applauded.
“An admirable voice!” he exclaimed; “admirable!”
Bazilio said that the quality of it was somewhat impaired.
“No, Senhor, no,” protested the counsellor; “you possess an excellent organ. I will even go so far as to say that there is no better voice in Lisbon society.”
Bazilio laughed, and said that since it pleased him he would sing a little Brazilian song of Bahia. He seated himself at the piano, and after a prelude of a few bars of melodious rhythm and tropical movement, sang:—
“Black I am, but in my breastBeats a truer heart than thine.”
“Black I am, but in my breastBeats a truer heart than thine.”
“Black I am, but in my breastBeats a truer heart than thine.”
“Black I am, but in my breast
Beats a truer heart than thine.”
“This song was making afurorein the reunions at Bahia when I came away,” he interrupted himself to say. It was the story of a young negress born on a plantation, who gave utterance in commonplace verses to her passion for a white planter. Bazilio imitated the sentimental accents of the young ladies of Bahia, and his voice had a comic ring when he sang the lachrymoseritornela:—
“And her gaze the dark-skinned maidenFixes on the distant sea,While myriad birds the palm-tree’s shadowVocal make with melody.”
“And her gaze the dark-skinned maidenFixes on the distant sea,While myriad birds the palm-tree’s shadowVocal make with melody.”
“And her gaze the dark-skinned maidenFixes on the distant sea,While myriad birds the palm-tree’s shadowVocal make with melody.”
“And her gaze the dark-skinned maiden
Fixes on the distant sea,
While myriad birds the palm-tree’s shadow
Vocal make with melody.”
The counsellor thought this charming, and deplored,aproposof the song, the condition of the slaves. His Brazilian friends assuredhim, he said, that the negroes were very well treated. But after all, civilization is civilization. Slavery is a disgrace. He had a great deal of confidence in the emperor.
“He is a monarch of rare intelligence,” he ended, with an expression of profound respect.
He took his hat, declaring with a bow that it was long since he had spent so pleasant a morning. In his opinion there was nothing to compare to agreeable society and good music.
“Where are you staying, Senhor Brito?”
“At the Central Hotel; but I beg that you will not trouble yourself.”
The counsellor declared that nothing ever prevented him from fulfilling his duty, and he would fulfil it now. He had but little influence, as Luiza knew; but if Bazilio needed anything,—the address of any one, a presentation in official quarters, permission to visit any public establishment,—he placed himself at his orders.
“Rua do Ferregial de Cima, No. 3, third floor,” he said, pressing Bazilio’s hand. “The humble abode of a hermit.” And turning to Luiza he continued, “When you write to our traveller, present to him my sincere good-wishes for the success of his enterprise. Your servant.”
And with grave and stately air he left the room.
“At least this one is cleaner,” murmured Bazilio, with his cigar in the corner of his mouth. Then, seating himself at the piano, he let his fingers run over the keys. Luiza drew near.
“Sing something for me,” she said.
Bazilio looked at her fixedly.
Luiza colored and smiled confusedly; through the light and transparent material of her dress could be seen the creamy contours of her neck and arms; in her eyes, on her lips, in the snowy whiteness of her teeth, glowed the ardor of a luxuriant vitality.
Bazilio said to her in a voice low and full of emotion,—
“You are more beautiful than ever, Luiza.”
His eager gaze confused her.
“Sing me something,” she repeated, resting her fingers on the keys of the piano, her heart beating violently.
“Singyou,” murmured Bazilio.
He continued to gaze at her fixedly; then he gave a quick sigh, and caught her hands in his. They remained a moment thus, their hands, moist and trembling, clasped together.
At that instant the door-bell rang softly. Luiza drew her hand away quickly.
“Some one is coming,” she said.
The confused murmur of voices conversing together in low tones at the door reached their ears. Bazilio shrugged his shoulders with an expression of annoyance, and took up his hat to go.
“What! are you going away?” said Luiza in regretful accents.
“One cannot be alone with you for a moment,” he answered.
They heard the street door close noisily.
“It is no one; whoever it was has gone away,” said Luiza.
They were both standing.
“Bazilio, don’t go!” she murmured. Her beautiful eyes had in them an expression of gentle entreaty.
Bazilio put down his hat on the piano, nervously biting his mustache.
“But why do you want to be alone with me?” asked Luiza, in some agitation. “What does it matter to you if visitors come?” The moment she had uttered the words she was sorry for saying them.
With a sudden movement Bazilio passed his arm around the waist of his cousin, and drawing her head towards him, pressed passionate kisses on her eyes and hair.
She freed herself quickly from his embrace, her eyes sparkling, her countenance crimson.
“Forgive me,” he said, with a passionate gesture. “Forgive me; I acted without reflection. But the truth is that I adore you, Luiza.”
He spoke with the sincerity of passion, taking her hands in his with an air of authority, almost as if he had the right to do so.
“No,” he said; “you must listen to me. From the first moment in which I saw you again, I loved you as madly as ever. I never ceased to adore you; but I was poor, as you know, and I desired to make you rich and happy! I could not take you with me to Brazil. That would have been to kill you, my beloved. You cannot picture to yourself what that country is! Therefore I wrote you that letter; but what have I not suffered! What tears have I not shed!”
Luiza, her head bent down, her eyes fixed on the floor, listenedmotionless to these accents, full of power and passion, that breathed in her ear the breath of love, overmastering and subjugating her; the contact of Bazilio’s hands transmitted to hers a feverish heat; a subtle languor stole over her, stupefying her senses.
“Speak to me, answer me,” he said with anxiety, crushing her hands in his, and eagerly seeking to meet her glance.
“What do you wish me to say to you?” responded Luiza in a languid voice. “Let us speak of something else,” she said, turning her head aside and sighing.
“But why, why?” asked Bazilio.
“No, Bazilio, no; leave me.”
Her voice had the fervor of a prayer and the sweetness of a caress.
Without further hesitation he caught her in his arms. Luiza was powerless to resist; her lips were pale, her eyes closed, and Bazilio, drawing her head to his breast, bent down, and softly pressed long kisses on her eyelids, her face, her mouth; her knees bent under her, her lips were slightly parted. But all at once she straightened herself, and drawing back from him, exclaimed in accents of desperation,—
“Leave me! leave me!”
With a violent effort she released herself from his arms, pushed him away from her, and passed her hands over her forehead and her hair, with a look of terror.
“Oh, my God!” she cried; “this is horrible! Leave me!”
Bazilio approached her, his lips firmly closed; but Luiza retreated.
“Go away! What do you want? Go away! Why do you remain here? Leave me!” she cried.
Bazilio, in tender accents, said he did not understand why she should be angry. A kiss! What was a kiss? What had she fancied? It was true that he adored her, but with a pure love.
“I swear it to you,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart.
He made her sit down on the sofa, and then sat down beside her, and began to reason with her. He would be resigned; circumstances demanded it from him. They would be friends, as if they were brother and sister, nothing more.
Luiza listened, unable to resist his persuasive accents.
It was true, he said, that his love for her was a torture to him; but he was strong, and he would control himself. All he desired was to see her, to speak to her. Theirs should be an ideal love.
As he spoke thus, he devoured her with his eyes. He took her hand in his, bent over it, and pressed a kiss upon the palm.
Luiza rose, trembling, and said, “No; leave me!”
“Very well; good-by!”
He rose with a resigned and melancholy gesture.
“Good-by,” he repeated sorrowfully, smoothing his silk hat with his hand.
“Good-by,” responded Luiza.
“Are you angry with me?” asked Bazilio, with tenderness.
“No.”
His glance brightened.
“Listen to me,” he murmured, approaching her.
Luiza stamped her foot upon the floor.
“Oh, what a man!” she cried. “Leave me. To-morrow! Good-by! go away—till to-morrow.”
“Till to-morrow,” said Bazilio tenderly, and left her.
Luiza returned to her room, her nerves quivering. As she looked at herself in the glass, she hardly recognized herself. Never before had she been so beautiful. She took a few steps in silence. Juliana was arranging the drawers of the bureau.
“Who rang the bell a little while ago?” asked Luiza.
“Senhor Sebastião. He would not come in. He said he would return.”
He had, in fact, said that he would return; but he began to be ashamed of coming every day, and always finding her with visitors. He was surprised at first when Juliana said to him, “She is with a gentleman,—a young man who was here yesterday.”
“Who could it be?” he asked himself. He was acquainted with all the friends of the family. It was probably some clerk in the Department, he told himself, or some proprietor of mines; the son of Alonso, perhaps, in relation to some business of Jorge’s,—yes, that must be it. And on Sunday evening, when he saw the windows of the parlor unlighted, he had felt a vague sense of oppression. He had brought with him the score of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which Luiza wished to study; and when Juliana told him from the balcony that her mistress had left thehouse in a carriage with Donna Felicidade, he stood softly stroking his beard in momentary embarrassment, his heavy book under his arm. Then he remembered the enthusiastic admiration of Donna Felicidade for the theatre of Donna Maria. But, could they have gone alone to the theatre, and with this July heat? After all, it was possible; and so he went to the Donna Maria.
The theatre, which was almost empty, presented a lugubrious aspect. Here and there, in the boxes, were to be seen a few family groups who were enjoying the Sunday evening with a melancholy air, the children leaning, asleep, against the embossed morocco-covered railing. In the pit and in the almost deserted stalls were to be seen a few persons listening to the play with a sleepy air, wiping the perspiration from their foreheads from time to time with their silk handkerchiefs. The chandelier diffused a drowsy light. Every one was yawning. On the stage, which represented a ball-room furnished in yellow, an old man was speaking, with the monotony of water dropping from a fountain, to a very slender woman with her hair in curls. In the orchestra the musicians were fast asleep.
Sebastião went out. Where could they be? On the following day he learned. As he was going down the street of the Moinho de Vento, his neighbor Netto, who was coming towards him, his cigar in the corner of his mouth, which was shaded by a gray mustache, stopped him abruptly with the words,—
“Oh, friend Sebastião, I want to speak to you. Yesterday I saw DonnaLuiza in the Passeio, with a young man with whose face I am familiar. But where have I seen him? Who the devil is he?”
Sebastião shrugged his shoulders.
“A young man, tall, fine-looking, with a foreign air,” Netto continued. “I know I have met him before. The other day I saw him go into a house down the street. Don’t you know who he is?”
Sebastião said he did not know.
“I have seen that face before. Let me try to think—” and he passed his hand over his forehead. “I have seen him somewhere. He belongs to Lisbon!” After a moment’s silence he resumed, “And what is there new, Sebastião?”
Sebastião had heard nothing new.
“Nor I either; it is all nothing but lies! Good-by.”