TABLEIII.State of the Blood when Locked Up at Night.September.1920212223242526Liquid212211211210206208209202Liquid and full—1—13328Always full——112112Hard————1———
TABLEIII.
State of the Blood when Locked Up at Night.
These tables give two hundred and twelve expositions for each day, and thus for the whole group a second aggregate of 1,696 expositions. They do not, any more than the preceding ones, give an account of the changes to which the blood is subject, in color, frothing, or minor increase or decrease of volume. These points will be considered in their proper place.
The festival of the patronage on the 16th of December, established in 1632, has been celebrated 228 times down to 1860.
I.On opening the closet or safe the blood was found as follows:Very hard,2Hard,214Soft,1Hard and full,10Liquid,1-228
I.On opening the closet or safe the blood was found as follows:
II.The variations as to times of liquefaction were as follows:Immediately or under half-hour,26Under 1 hour,29” 2 ”41” 5 ”42Over 5 hours,26Always hard,43” full,3” liquid,1Vague or omitted,17-228
II.The variations as to times of liquefaction were as follows:
III.The condition of the blood, when put up, was as follows:Liquid,131” with lump,46Soft,5Hard as found,43Full,3-228
III.The condition of the blood, when put up, was as follows:
The extraordinary expositions were 43 in number. Of these 20 may be grouped with the December exposition, having occurred in the months of November, December, January, and February.
The blood was found: Very hard, 1; hard, 13; soft, 5; and liquid, 1. The times of liquefaction were: Under 10 minutes, 15 times; under 30 minutes, 1; under 5 hours, 1; remaining liquid, 1. Of course, on all the 20 days it was put up liquid.
Nineteen days may be in the same way connected with the May celebration, as they are distributed through the months of March, April, May, and June.
The blood was found: Very hard, 1; hard, 13; soft, 4; liquid, 1. The times of the liquefaction were: Under 10 minutes, 10 times; under 30 minutes, 3; under 60 minutes, 1; under 2 hours, 1; under 5 hours, 1; time not indicated in the diary, 2; and it remained liquid, 1. On every occasion it was put up in a liquid condition.
Four other times there were extraordinary expositions in July and September. Twice the blood was found hard and liquefied within half an hour each time, and twice it was found liquid.
Nineteen instances are recorded in which for various reasons the closet was opened and the reliquary seen in its place. Four times the blood was found very hard; six times it was hard; twice it was soft; four times it was liquid, and three times the condition is not recorded.
These tables present an aggregate of no less than 3,884 expositionswithin a little more than two centuries, of which number no less than 3,331 were marked by a complete or partial liquefaction. The exceptions are of various classes. The most numerous one comprises 320 cases, in which the ampulla, or vial, was found in the morning and continued during the entire exposition of that day so completely full, that it was impossible for an ordinary observer to say whether the blood liquefied or not.
The writer of the diary says on this point,A.D.1773: “When the vial is full, some signs are at times observed indicative of a liquefaction, chiefly a wave-like motion when the vial is moved. But as this can only be seen from the rear (that is, as the light shines on it or through it from the opposite side), and only on close inspection and by practised eyes, and is not visible to ordinary observers standing in front, it is not here noted down as a liquefaction.” In the diary of theTesorochapel, which we cannot now consult, they are probably recorded as liquefactions.
The next largest class of exceptions consists of the 171 cases in which the blood was found liquid in the morning, and was replaced in the closet in the evening still in a liquid condition. We should observe that not unfrequently in such cases the fluid mass became congealed or even hard during the day and liquefied again. Even when this does not happen, there are so many other and frequent changes as to color, to frothing, or to ebullition, and to change of volume by increase or decrease, that, even without the occurrence of liquefaction, the fluid blood presents many wonderful characteristics. Thus in our synopsis we have counted the octave of September, 1659, as presenting seven days during which the blood was found and remained liquid.The diary, taking up that octave day by day, states, that on the 19th of September the blood was found liquid, and, the reliquary being placed near the bust, there commenced an ebullition of the blood marked with froth. This continued, off and on, during the day. On the 20th the blood was again found liquid, and the ebullition and the frothing were repeatedly renewed as on the preceding day. On the 21st the blood was a third time found liquid, and on this day the ebullition was more continuous and violent. The22dand the23dand the 24th were marked by the same phases. The blood was always found liquid, and each day the ebullition was repeatedly resumed and sometimes was violent. On the 26th the blood was found in a soft or jelly-like state. It soon liquefied entirely, and during the day became covered with froth. The 26th—the eighth and last day—was like the first. The blood was again found liquid, and the ebullition was resumed, yet more moderately.
The two remaining classes, which our tables present as exceptions, will also suffer diminution if accurately examined. There are 44 instances in which the blood was foundhard, and continued hard to the end of the exposition. Yet the diary records on several occasions the presence of one or more fluid drops, sometimes of yellowish serum, sometimes of reddish blood, which could be made to run to and fro on the surface of the hardened mass, and continued to be seen for hours, or sometimes even until the close of the day.
As for the 18 other instances in which the blood was found partly liquid and partly solid, the solid part floating as a globe in the fluid portion, and in which the same state of things was seen during the day and lasted until the closing, it must beobserved that generally, if not always, this floating solid mass gradually diminishes by a partial liquefaction or increases in bulk by a partial hardening. Sometimes both these changes succeed each other during the day. In view of these facts, it would seem that these 18 cases, so far from being looked on as exceptions, should on the contrary be rather set down as special forms of the liquefaction.
No mere tabular summaries, like those presented above, can give the salience which they demand to certain unusual facts and to many ordinary but striking characteristics which should not be overlooked. For this it is necessary to go back to the diaries themselves, and to trustworthy historical notices of the miracle.
On Saturday, May 5, 1526, the vigil of the feast of the translation, the liquefaction is recorded to have taken place as usual in theSeggia Capuana, to which the processions were directed that day. On the next day, the feast, the blood was found hard, and it continued hard during the entire exposition. The octave had not yet been established. It continued hard all through the octave of the succeeding September, as also in January, May, and September of 1527, and again in January, May, and September of 1528, and in January, 1529. The liquefactions were resumed on Saturday, May 1, and continued on the next day, the feast, and regularly during the September celebration. Thus, for nearly three years the blood remained hard and solid, without liquefying at any time.
The Neapolitans connect this unusual fact with the anger of God and his judgments, as manifested in the terrible pestilence which broke out in their city in 1526, and came to an end only in the early months of 1529, after causing 60,000 deaths in thesingle year 1527, and, together with the war then raging, as many more in the ensuing year 1528.
Again, in 1551, in 1558, and in 1569, there was no liquefaction. On the contrary, for the two years 1556 and 1557, and again for the two years 1599 and 1600, and a third time for the single year 1631, the blood was always found liquid when brought forth for exposition, and never at any time was seen to become solid. Since the last-named year, it has occurred, in ten different years, that the blood was found and continued liquid during the whole of a single octave in a year; but never in both octaves. It never continued hard for an entire octave at any time, although at some few times the liquefaction occurred only on the second, the third, or the fourth day of the celebration; or, on the contrary, it was found and continued liquid for one, two, or three days at the commencement, and was found hard only on the second, third, or fourth morning. At the votive festival of December 16, it has repeatedly remained hard. The table numbers 44 such cases. Of these only 5 occurred in the first 150 years after the institution of the feast; the remaining 39 all occur in the last 78 years. This the Neapolitans explain by the special character of the festival. The other festivals have been instituted in honor of the saint; this one, to show their gratitude as a city for favors received repeatedly through his intercession. Hence, when vice is rife in the city, and especially when sins against religion abound, their professions of gratitude are wanting in the most necessary quality to make them acceptable; and the displeasure of heaven is marked by the withholding of the miraculous liquefaction.
Departures like these from the ordinary course, or any extraordinarydelay in the liquefaction, or certain appearances of color in the blood, which they traditionally dread, fill the people with alarm and sorrow. From the many instances in the diary we give two, as showing this practical connection between the liquefaction and the religious feelings of the Neapolitans.
“1732, Dec. 16.—The blood was taken out, hard. Hard it continued until after compline (the afternoon service). The people were waiting for the miracle with great anxiety. Wherefore, instead of taking back the relics (to theTesorochapel) at the usual hour, they remained on the high altar (of the cathedral) until after 21 o’clock (2.30P.M.); and the church being crowded with people, they recited the litanies several times. Rosaries were said, and sermons were preached. But the saint did not yield, which caused great terror; and everybody was weeping. So things were up to 24 o’clock (5.30P.M.) At that hour, a Capuchin father in the church again stirred up the people to sincere contrition for their sins, and to acts of penance. While they were doing this, all saw that the blood was of a sudden entirely liquefied—a great consolation to all. TheTe Deumwas sung; and then, only at half-past one of the night (7P.M.), the relics were taken to theTesorochapel.”
“1748, May 7, Tuesday.—The blood was brought out hard. After 16 minutes, it liquefied. During the day it rose so high as to fill the vial completely. From the 8th to the 12th, the vial was always full, and the blood was seen to be one-half black, the other half ash-colored, for which reasons his majesty came a second time to see it, on Sunday afternoon (12th). When the king had left theTesoro, his eminence returned to pray to the saint to vouchsafe some sign of themiracle before the closing up (it was the last day of the octave). In the meantime the vast crowd strove to melt him by their cries and their tears. His eminence, having made his way out of the chapel with great difficulty, sent for a noble Capuchin, called Father Gregorio of Naples, who, in a most fervent sermon, exhorted the people to acts of faith and of sorrow for their sins. He then commenced reciting with them the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. During the recitation thereof, the blood was seen to sink half a finger, and to commence to move. Who can describe the weeping and the fervor? TheTe Deumwas sung; and the blood was put up, being at nearly its normal level, of its natural color, and with some froth.”
No wonder the Neapolitans loveSt.Januarius astheirpatron saint when he thus yields to their fervent entreaties and prayers what was not granted to the pious curiosity of the king; nor, for this occasion at least, to the prayers of his eminence the cardinal archbishop.
The following briefer entries of our diary breathe the same spirit:
“1714, May 5, Saturday.—The miracle took place at once. On Sunday, after an hour and a half. During this octave, the blood showed a thousand changes, liquefying, hardening, and increasing in volume many times a day, in an unusual manner. God knows what will happen!”
“1718, Sept. 19.—The blood was taken out hard. After a quarter of an hour, it completely liquefied. During all this octave the miracle never delayed as much as an hour. This was truly a happy octave. There were no great changes; only a slight increase in volume.”
It is tantalizing to pore over the diary. At times you almost fancythat you have seized the very process of liquefaction. Thus on one day you read: “The blood was brought out, being hard and at its ordinary level. After fifteen minutes, a drop of serous humor, of a light-yellow color, was seen to move about on the hard mass. At the expiration of an hour and fifty-six minutes, the blood became liquid, with a large spherical lump floating in it. There was the usual procession through the streets, his eminence joining in. At 21½ o’clock (about 3P.M.) the lump liquefied. The blood was put up, entirely liquid and at its ordinary level.” (Dec., 1771.) You think you see the steps of the process. First the drop of yellowish serum; then a partial liquefaction, leaving a lump of solid matter; this gradually decreasing for three hours and a half, until it entirely disappears, and the whole mass is fluid. If you read the following, you may feel surer that you are on the right track: “The blood came out hard and at its ordinary level. At the end of half an hour, there was seen to run about on the hard mass a particle of serous matter, inclining to a yellowish color. So it stood during the procession, which was outside, through the streets, his eminence the cardinal archbishop taking his place in it. So it was when the reliquary was brought back to theTesoro. At 23½ o’clock (about 5P.M.) this serous matter changed into blood. But the mass still remained hard. Words cannot tell with what earnestness and fervor the ecclesiastics and the people continued at prayer. Finally, at 24¼ o’clock (5.45P.M.) the mass loosened in the vial; and half an hour later, that is, after eight hours and fifty minutes of waiting, the liquefaction took place, a small lump remaining solid and floating.So it was put up.” (Dec., 1768.) Notwithstanding the change of the character of the yellowish serous drop in the last cited instance into red blood, and the great difference of the times when the liquefaction took place, there is a certain degree of correspondence between the two cases—enough perhaps to arrest the attention and excite expectations. But all to no purpose. Such a drop was seen on seven or eight other days, lasting a couple of hours or for the entire day, without any liquefaction following. And in three thousand three hundred and odd cases of liquefaction, we have failed to find a third one in which such a drop is noted to have preceded the liquefaction.
In fact, the modes of liquefaction are as various as we can imagine, and as remarkable as the fact itself. Sometimes the liquefaction occurs or commences at once, with little or no delay. At other times, it is delayed for a quarter or for half an hour, for one, two, or three hours or more. Sometimes, though very rarely, it has been delayed nine or ten hours. All this is clearly seen in the tables.
Not unfrequently the change from solidity to fluidity, whether occurring early or late, has been instantaneous, and for the whole mass at once—in un colpo d’occhio. Sometimes it is gradual, lasting before its completion over many hours; nay, sometimes the ampulla is replaced in the closet for the night before its entire completion, a greater or a smaller portion still remaining solid.
Sometimes the entire mass liquefies; at other times, only a portion. When this is the case, the unliquefied portion generally floats as a solid lump or globe in the liquid part. Sometimes, however, one side of the mass was liquefied; while the other remained solid, and firmly attachedto the glass. Sometimes again, as in May, 1710, the portion next to the glass all around remained solid, thus forming, as it were, an inner cup, inside of which the other portion moved about in quite a fluid condition. Sometimes, during the process of gradual liquefaction, the upper part is quite liquid, while the lower part remains for a time hard and immovable in the bottom of the vial; or, again, the lower part liquefies first, and the upper portion, remaining hard, is seen either as a floating globe or as a lump attached for a time to the sides of the ampulla. And once, at least, the upper portion and the lower portion both remained solid and attached to the vial, while the middle portion was quite fluid.
We have already said something of the various degrees of liquefaction. Sometimes the blood is as fluid as water, flowing readily and leaving no coating after it on the glass. And, at other times, it may be somewhat viscous; and, if the reliquary be inclined from side to side, may leave behind a dark or a vermilion film on the inner sides of the ampulla.
There are likewise degrees of hardness. Sometimes the blood is only very viscous and grumous, or jelly-like. In the tables we call itsoft. At other times, the diary notes it as hard,duro; very hard,durissimo; or even hard as iron,duro come ferro. When hard, it is attached firmly to the glass ampulla. Yet on two occasions, at least, the hard lump could move within, showing that it was then detached.
After having become liquid, or even when the blood was found liquid in the morning, it has often hardened during the ceremonial of the day, and then liquefied anew. One of the extracts we have quoted above refers to the frequent occurrenceof this variation in 1714. But throughout the diary we find similar instances, where it hardened and remained hard for a few moments only or for one or two hours, during the public ceremony. This was sometimes repeated two or three times in a single day.
There is a special case, in which the mass hardens so frequently, and with such regularity, that it must not be omitted. We refer to the custom of suspending the ceremony for a few hours during the middle of the day. The Italians are very fond of asiestain the early afternoon of a hot and oppressive summer day. Accordingly, unless there be something unusual to excite them, they are accustomed, on the later days of the octave in May, and sometimes of September, to yield to their beloved habit. The church grows very thin soon after mid-day. A few dozen pious souls may perhaps remain for their private devotions—about the number one would almost always find in the ever-open churches of an Italian city. Under these circumstances, the exposition is suspended. The reliquary, if on the high altar of the cathedral, is carried back to theTesorochapel, and is placed on an ornamental stand or tabernacle on the altar; and a silk veil is thrown over the whole. The door in the metal-work railing under the arch leading out into the cathedral is locked; and the clergy may retire, one or two remaining on watch. The reliquary continues on the stand, unapproached, but still visible, through the railing, to those in the cathedral. At 3½ or 4P.M.the clergy return to resume the exposition; and the church is again full. The blood is very frequently found hard at that hour, and liquefies anew, as in the morning. This intermission and the attendant hardening and liquefaction seem tothe Neapolitans so much a matter of course that we find no mention whatever of it in the diary, save the single notice that, on one day, although the veil had been omitted, the hardening nevertheless took place. The scientific men from Italy and from France and Belgium who have studied the liquefaction at various dates, all unite in commenting on this fact of the hardening of the blood during these mid-day intermissions, and in considering it, under a physical point of view, as a fact of the highest importance in deciding the character of the liquefaction.
There are other special circumstances under which the blood has not liquefied, or, having liquefied, has suddenly hardened again. The presence of open scoffers, or of declared enemies of the church, has sometimes seemed to have this effect. In 1719, Count Ulric Daun was viceroy in Naples. On Saturday, May 6, he came with many German officers lately arrived in Naples to witness the liquefaction, in one of the churches to which the procession went, as we have already explained, and in which the liquefaction was first expected. The viceroy with his personal staff was of course in his officialloggiaor gallery. The foreign officers were clustered together within the sanctuary. Some of them were Catholics, some Protestants. The blood was hard when brought to the altar, and remained hard and unliquefied for a long time. The viceroy at length sent an aid, with a command to all the officers to withdraw and stand outside the sanctuary. They obeyed, of course. “Scarcely was this done—the heretic officers thus withdrawing—when, in an instant, the entire mass became perfectly liquid, to the great joy of all. It was a miracle of miracles!” Someof the Protestants became Catholics immediately.
PutignaniandCelanomention another fact. We quote from the former, who was a canon of the cathedral and present at the time on service. “While the relics were out at the high altar of the cathedral, there came many nobles from beyond the Alps, who wished to do homage to the saint and to witness the liquefaction. The blood was extremely fluid just then, and the reliquary was being presented to those around, in turn, to be kissed. In an instant the blood became hard and dry in the hands of the canon. Those near by, stupefied by this new prodigy, stood, as it were, nailed to the floor. Then the canon, moved by an interior impulse, raised his voice, and said aloud: ‘Gentlemen, if there be any heretic among you, let him retire.’ Immediately, one of the strangers quietly withdrew. Scarcely had he withdrawn, when the blood was liquid again, and was bubbling.” Putignani adds: “The same thing is said to have happened on other occasions.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.
Seven years passed in this manner. Lucia was fifteen, and had blossomed into one of those exquisite and fragile creatures that, in hot climates, appear so rarely and vanish so soon. Lucas, who was twenty, had developed admirably. He was a youth of manly appearance, and so judicious and industrious that farmers and managers of haciendas employed him in preference to others. Both inherited their mother’s type—the oval face, fine aquiline nose, large and expressive black eyes, small mouth, adorned with perfect teeth, broad high forehead, and the bearing of mingled grace and nobility that distinguish the Andalusian.
Their father had yielded completely to the influence ofLa Leona, who absorbed his living, and had made him a drunkard in order to rule him the more effectually. Too enervated and lazy to enter upon a new path, he went on selling his possessions to satisfy the woman’s exactions, as an exhausted stream continues to flow in the channel it made when it was full and strong, without either the will or the force to open another. From the time that Lucas was able to work, he had maintained the house alone, with that mysterious day’s wages of the laborer which God seems to bless, as he did the loaves and fishes destined to feed so many poor people. Else, how thepeseta, sometimes two reals[2]a day can support husband, wife, generally half a dozen robust children; an old father or mother, or widowed mother-in-law, clothe them all and the head of the family in a very expensivemanner,[3]pay house-rent and the costs of child-birth, sickness, and unemployed days; and still yield the copper they never refuse toGod’s-namers,[4]is a thing past comprehension, and belongs to the list of those in which, if we see not the finger of God or his immediate intervention, is because we are very thoughtless or voluntarily blind.
Lucas, who loved his sister above all things, seeing her entirely neglected by her father, had assumed over her the sort of tutelage, recognized and incontestable among the people, which belongs to the eldest brother—a tutelage which is annexed to the obligation of maintaining younger brothers and sisters if they are fatherless. This obligation and right instinctive do not constitute a law, nor are they laid down in any code, but are impressed by tradition on the heart, and have, no doubt, given rise to the institution of entails.[5]Lucaspresented, also, the uncultivated type of those chivalrous and poetical brothers that Calderon, Lope, and other contemporary writers have given us in their delightful pictures of Spanish manners as models of nobility, delicacy, and punctilious honor.
As for Lucia, she was, as her mother had been, loving, impressible, and yielding. She regarded her brother with the deepest affection, in which respect mingled, without lessening its tenderness.
One evening, when several neighbors, who tenanted Juan Garcia’s house, were met together in the yard, one of them—it was the kinswoman of the departed Ana—said:
“Have you heard the news? It is reported thatLa Leona’shusband is dead. What do you say to it?”
“ThatLa Leonais just now singing:
‘My spouse is dead, and to heaven has flown,Wearing the thorns of a martyr’s crown,’”
replied one of the neighbors.
“There will be talk enough, woman, if it is true,” replied the first speaker.
“Well, what do you want me to say? I feel it for one.”
“I feel it fortwo,” added a third, laughing.
“That is what I feel most,” continued the kinswoman. “It is reported already that Juan Garcia is going to marry with the rag of a widow.”
Woman! will you hold your tongue?”
“No; and I say more: I say that I don’t doubt it; for the wretch has him down, and holds him from beneath, so that she can put him to the torture with “thou must swallow this, or I will lay on thee with that.’”
“True enough,” observed the other, “she has made a fool of him with drink; and, not satisfied with giving him wine, which is naturaland the legitimate child of the soil, she poisons him with bad brandy.”
“The kite will get everything away from him by degrees, till she leaves him stuck, like a star lizard, to the bare wall,” added another; “for she is more covetous than greediness, that ‘walks one hand along the ground, and the other in the sky, and, with its mouth wide open, that nothing may go by.’”
“She’ll be Juan’s third wife, and may die like the other two, and the four children he has under the sod. He must have some deadly exhalation about him, like a snake.”
“KillLa Leona! As if that would be possible! It’s my opinion that Death himself couldn’t do it, with a century to help him. There was the cholera, that carried off so many good people; it never approached her door.”
“The she-rake has no end of luck.”
At this moment Lucas entered. It was Saturday evening, and he had come to spend the Sunday at home.
“Lucas,” asked his kinswoman, “do you know thatLa Leonais a widow, and they say that your father is going to marry her?”
A thunder-bolt could not have hurt Lucas more suddenly than did these words; nevertheless, he maintained his composure while he answered:
“Either you are dreaming awake, Aunt Manuela, or age is getting the better of your understanding.”
“Don’t fling my age into my face,Luquecillo,”[6]said the good woman, who was jocose. “I would rather you called me sly fox; it is permitted to sayoldonly in the company of wines and parchments.”
“Well, then, why were you born so long ago? But don’t come to me with your troubles.”
“Publish your decrees in time, my son, for this one is in everybody’s mouth.”
“They may say what they please behind my back. Regiments can’t capture tongues and thoughts, but no one is going to speak against my father when I am present.”
“I’ll lay you something, Lucas, that he’ll marry!”
“That will do, Aunt Manuela; you know the saying, ‘Stop jesting while jesting is pleasant.’”
Like all men of stem nature, Lucas, when in earnest, had in him a something that imposed respect: the women were silent, and he went into his own dwelling.
He did not speak to his sister of the matter that occupied his thoughts so painfully, but, after giving her the money he had brought, remained a while talking cheerfully and affectionately with her, and then went in search of his neighbor, Uncle Bartolo.
He knew that the guerilla, on account of his age and good judgment, and because he had been his grandfather’s friend, exercised great influence over his father, and could think of no one so suitable to confide in, and implore to interfere in the matter, and dissuade Juan Garcia, if, indeed, he entertained it, from such an outrageous project.
“Hola! What bringsLuquillowith the step of a Catalan and face of a blacksmith?” exclaimed the old man, as Lucas entered.
The youth told his errand.
Uncle Bartolo, having heard him to the end, shook his head, as he remarked: “Lucas, the proverb says, ‘Between two millstones one had best not put his thumbs;’ but—well, for your sake and Lucia’s, the pretty dove! I will do what you ask, even if I lose—and I shall, for certain—yourfather’s friendship. I tell you though, beforehand, that interference will do no good.”
“But, uncle, that which is never attempted is never done.”
“Have I not told you I would try? You shall never say that you sought me and did not find me. I only want to remind you that counsels are thrown away upon the foolhardy, and perfumes upon swine. And to tell the truth, I would rather tackle one of those highwaymen of last year than your father; notwithstanding that the she-bandit has taken and done for him as easily as a spider would vanquish a fly.”
Our old warrior went, the next day, to see Juan Garcia, whom he found indisposed.
“Hola! Juan,” he cried, as he entered, how are you?”
“Not so well as I might be, uncle,” responded the invalid. “And you?”
“As well as can be, since I am a man of the old times, and not sorry for it: better suited beneath white hairs than white sheets. But,” continued the guerilla, who in his long career had never studied diplomacy nor learned the art of preambling, “let us come to the point; for one needn’t go by the bush where there’s a high-road; they tell me, though I don’t want to believe it, that you are going to marry.”
Juan contracted his brows, and replied:
“And if I have never told any one so, how could they tell it to you?”
“Answer one question with another, to avoid committing thyself,” is a rule of rustic grammar that the people have at their fingers’ ends. Uncle Bartolo proceeded:
“It’s easy to see how; you are thinking of it; and people nowadays are so sharp that they divine the thoughts. So that we may as well be plain—itis what you mean to do. Tell the truth, now.”
“The truth!” responded Juan, availing himself of another subterfuge. “Then, though—because I was not prepared to tell it—I have not complied with the church this year, I am to tell it to you! No, sir! ‘He that reveals his secret, remains without it.’”
“It is plain enough from your crafty answer that your mind is made up. So you needn’t deny it, nor put me off with palaver.”
“The thing is yet in the blade, and to be nibbled at,” replied Juan.
“Do you know, Christian, what you are about? For the beginning of a cure is a knowledge of the sickness.”
“Yes, sir, I have my five senses counted.”
“Yes, Juan, four of them useless, and one empty. But, my son, you know me well, is it not so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are sure that I am your friend?”
“I don’t say no to that, Uncle Bartolo.”
“And you know the proverb says, ‘An old ox draws a straight furrow’?”
“Agreed, Uncle Bartolo; we know that kind of wisdom years give, for we are told that the devil is knowing not because of his devilship, but because he is theold one.”
“Well, that being so, you will heed what I say.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“And you will consider my advice?”
“What is the meaning of all this advanced guard, Uncle Bartolo? Why do you sift and sift without falling through the sieve?”
“To fall with all my weight in saying this, and no more: ‘Don’t you marry, Juan Garcia!’”
“Why not? if you would please tell me.”
“Don’t marry, Juan Garcia!”
“Uncle Bartolo, don’t leave your counsels like foundlings in the hospital, without father or mother. I must not marry-the reason?”
“Juan, ‘where there has been familiarity, let there be no contract.’”
“If it were as you intimate, I ought to marry; for, if this woman has lost respect through me—”
“Stop, Juan; that’ll do! Don’t come to me with your ‘mea culpas.’ There is always a pretext for wrong-doing. But you know very well that the woman has not lost respect through you. Nobody loses what he never had.”
“Uncle Bartolo, by what I shave off, but that you comb gray hairs, and were my father’s friend—Vive Dios!—”
“Tut, tut, man! Don’t get excited, and talk nonsense! I did not come here to poke you up, nor to pick a quarrel, but with a very good intention; and, as the friend I am to you, to prevent your making an atrocious fool of yourself. Have you considered your children, and the kind of step-mother you are going to give them?”
“If she will be a wife good enough for their father, it appears to me that she will be a good enough step-mother for them; especially as, where they are concerned, what I do is right.”
“Right! Now you are like the Englishman, Don ‘Turo, that killed an urraca for a partridge, and then said ‘all right.’ Take notice, Juan, that they are not likely to be willing to live under that woman’s flag. You are going to alienate them from you, and, ‘withdraw thyself from thine own, God will leave thee alone.’”
“They will not be willing to live under her! What are you saying,sir? We shall see, however. ‘Where the sea goes, the waves go.’”
“Well, Juan, we shall see that Lucas, who is high-minded, will not consent to let his sister live with a woman of evil note.”
“The note I have put upon her, I will take from her. Do you comprehend? And Lucas will be very careful not to set himself up to crow while I live. There cannot be two heads, and, ‘in sight of the public stocks, street-criers keep their mouths shut.’”
“Think, Juan, that your son should be the staff of your old age. You may provoke him so far that he will leave you some day without warning.”
“Let him go; I have the means to maintain myself, and my wife and daughter.”
“Ah! Juan, what have you left? Juice don’t run out of a sucked orange. As if that woman had not swallowed your slice of field and olive-yard, leaving you nothing but the house; and that will go the same way the field and orchard went. As for making a living—you have thrown yourself away; your back is getting stiff already, and ‘to old age comes no fairy godmother.’ Where, then, are those ‘means’ to come from? What you are going to do is get entangled in debts; and, let a man be as honest as he will, ‘if he owes and doesn’t pay, all his credit flies away.’”
“La Leonahas a gossip at the port that is a contrabandist; he is going to take me for a partner.”
“Only this was wanting!” exclaimed the old man indignantly. “You! you take to the path![7]Does Barabbas tempt you, Juan Garcia? Have you lost your senses entirely, or are you fooling me? Sure enough,‘he that goes with wolves will learn to howl.’ Don’t you know that the devil takes honest gains and dishonest, and the gainer with them? But let us keep to the matter in hand. Juan, the woman has a bad name that neither you nor the king, if he tried, could take from her. She is bad of herself; and neither you nor the bishop, if he set his heart on doing it, could make her good. Moreover, ‘a rotten apple spoils its company.’”
“Go on with the bad! ‘Against evil-speaking there’s nothing strong’; but, if she appears good to me, we are all paid.”
“Juan, ‘look before you leap.’ You have not the excuse of youth for your indiscretion; you are more than forty years old.”
“And have more than fortyarrobas[8]of patience, Uncle Bartolo.Candela!I have long sought and never found a friend that would offer me a sixpence, and have found, without seeking, one that gives me advice.”
“Well, my son, your soul is in your palm,” said Uncle Bartolo, rising. “Remember that there was not wanting a friend to give you good advice—a man of ripe brain, who warned you of the future—for this marriage is going to be the perdition of your house. And, remember what I tell you now, a day is coming when you will have eyes left you only that you may weep.” With these words, Uncle Bartolo went his way.
“Son,” said he to Lucas, who had waited for him in his house, “it was lost labor, as I foretold. But go, now, and mind what I say. Submit to what can’t be helped, and don’t be stiff-necked, for you’ll surely come out loser. The rope breaks where it is slenderest. You are his son, andthe authority belongs to him. You will only be kicking against the goad.”
Lucas went back to the country and to work with a heavy heart. When he returned home on the following Saturday, he learned that the bans of his father’s marriage were to be published the next morning for the first time. Grief made him desperate, and he resolved, as a last recourse, to speak himself.
We have already hinted at the cool and formal relation that existed between these two—thanks to the neglect the abandoned man had shown his children. For some time past, the excellent character of Lucas and the good name it had gained him had inspired Juan Garcia with that bitter sentiment which rises in the heart of a man who possesses the legal and material superiority, against the subordinate to whom he feels himself morally inferior—a sentiment of hostility that is apt to manifest itself in despotism.
“Sir,” said the son, speaking with firm moderation, “they have been telling me that you are going to marry.”
“They have been telling you what is quite true.”
“I hoped that it was not true.”
“And why? if I might ask.”
“On account of the woman they say you are going to have.”
“She is not, then, to your taste; and you think, perhaps, that I ought to have advised with you?”
“No, sir, not with me—I am of small account; but with some one that has more knowledge and judgment than I.”
“So, then, it appears to you,” said Juan, with repressed ire, “that your father needs counsel?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Lucas calmly, “when he has a young daughter, and is going to give her a step-mother.”
“For fear he might give her one that would eat her up, like theCancon?”[9]
“No, sir, no; we understand now that people are not swallowed like sugared anises.”
“Or make her work, being herself industrious, and not willing to sit hand upon hand like a notary’s wife?”
“It is not that, sir; Lucia is not afraid of work. She knows that work is the honor of the poor.”
“Or, perhaps, keep her at home like a chained dog?”
“No, sir; I am not thinking of that; for my sister, though brought up without a mother, is modest, and not a girl to be seen at the street door or with a hole in her stocking. She is used to the shade, but—”
“But what? Have done!”
“That which this woman will give her is evil, and may be her ruin.”
Juan Garcia, who had with difficulty restrained himself, rushed upon his son, as the latter uttered these words, with his hand uplifted to strike. Lucas, perceiving the action, quickly inclined his head, and received upon it the blow that had been aimed at his face.
“God help me, father! what have I done to be chastised? Have I said anything wrong? Have I been wanting in respect to you? Father, just before my mother—heaven rest her!—died, she said to me, ‘Lucas, watch over your sister.’ I promised her that I would, and have kept my promise.”
“She meant,” replied Juan, somewhat softened by the memory of the mother evoked by her son, “she meant in case Lucia should be left without me. But, while I live, which is it that has the authority over my daughter?”
“Father, for the love of the Blessed Virgin, leave her to me! I will support her.”
“Are you in your senses?”
“For God’s sake, don’t separate us! I will work with all my might to maintain us both.”
“Separate you! Nobody has thought of doing it. You will come with her to my house.”
“No, sir.”
“How is that? What do you mean by ‘no, sir’? Do you think you have a right to call your father to account? Is it not enough for you to know what his hands decide? Perhaps you would like to have another proof of what they are able to do?”
“My father may kill me, and I shall neither open my lips nor forget my duty; but—make me live with that woman—never!”
“We shall see about that, insolent upstart!”
“Yes, we shall see,” said Lucas, as he went sorrowfully out.
Lucas was gifted with one of those noble and delicate natures that humble themselves in victory and grow firm in defeat; that is alike incapable of noisy elation in triumph, or pusillanimous abjection when prostrate. But the determination of his character was degenerating into stubbornness, as it always happens when will forsakes the guidance of reason to follow the promptings of pride. Therefore, though he had not, in the slightest degree, failed in the strict respect that morality enforces, neither the threats of his father nor love for his sister could shake the resolution he had taken in that decisive interview. On leaving his father’s presence, he went in search of Lucia, whom he found weeping. For a long while neither spoke: brother and sister mutually comprehending the cause of the profound depressionof the one and the tears of the other.
“If mother could open her eyes!” at last exclaimed Lucia.
“They whose eyes God has closed have no wish to open them again in the world,” replied Lucas; “but remember, that from heaven she always has hers fixed upon her daughter. I cannot help you; for, though I have tried my best to keep you under my flag, I have not succeeded: because, heart’s dearest, there is no power in the world that can oppose a father’s.”
“But I am to do only what you tell me, Lucas, for my mother left me to you,” sobbed the girl.
“Well, then, pay attention to what I am going to say.
“Bear your cross with patience; for that is the only way to make it lighter. Be a reed to all storms, but an oak to temptation. Never turn from the right path, though it be steep and sown with thorns. Always look straight before you, for he that does not do this never knows where he will stop. As for this woman who is going to be your father’s wife, give her the wall; but remember that she is bad, and neither join yourself to her nor talk with her, except with reserve and when you must.”
“Shall you do the same, Lucas?”
“I—I shall act as God gives me understanding.”
Nothing was seen of Lucas on the day of Juan’s marriage, and it was in vain that they looked for him: he had disappeared. Juan, who left no means untried to ascertain his son’s whereabouts, learned some days later, from a muleteer who come from Tevilla, that he had enlisted. The father felt indignant at the contempt thus shown for his authority, and sorry to lose an assistant in his son: but found consolation in freedom from the immediate presence of aninterested witness whose censure like the fog, without form, voice, or action, penetrated him with an uncomfortableness from which there was no escape.
Lucia went to live with her stepmother, and it is hardly necessary to relate what she had to endure; in particular from the daughters of the latter, who, being both foolish and ugly, naturally disliked one who was beautiful and wise; for she had commenced by playing with sweetness the role of Cinderella that her brother had recommended. But, little by little, the continual friction was wasting her patience, and indignation, repressed discontent, and rancor were beginning to find place in her heart. She wished, sometimes, to humiliate, by her advantages, those who were continually humiliating her, and grew presuming and fond of admiration. So it is that evil seeds spread and multiply with prodigious rapidity: one suffices to open the way and prepare the ground for the rest.
While these things were passing, a regiment of cavalry, commanded by one Colonel Gallardo, came, and took up its quarters in Arcos.
Gallardo was rich, well-born, had been good-looking, and a great coxcomb. He was still the latter; with the kind of conceit that is often the result of living in the atmosphere of adulation that surrounds the possessors of money and command—an atmosphere that intoxicates many, making them overbearing and insolent, and apt to do, with great impertinence, things that would not be tolerated in others. While authority is thus misunderstood, it is hardly to be wondered at that it has lost its ancient prestige, and is hated and set at naught. Authority should be consecrated to its mission, and, with its advantages, accept its responsibilities,the first of which is to give good example. Do those in place really think they owe the masses nothing?—that these are, at once, mothers to nourish, and incensories to deify them? Shall we ever go back, morally, to those remote times when men were both worthy and self-respecting, and neither admitted flattery nor refused to rule its reverence; for the latter was never so despised as it is at present; the former never so cringing.
But to return to Colonel Gallardo, who has given margin to those reflections.
This admirable person added to his other pretensions that of youth in its flower. His own having already gone to seed, the result was that, instead of appearing the young cock, he suggested the idea of a very old chicken. By grace of the peruke-maker, which, as everybody knows, consists in creating ringlets where there is no hair, he wore curled locks. He encased himself in a French corset, which gave him a slenderness a sylph might have envied. It was an article of his belief that amorous conquests were as creditable to a soldier as military ones; and he considered a little hare-brainedness in a man and a spice of coquetry in a woman the proper seasoning, for each respectively. These things, united with vanity enough to fill the space left vacant in his heart and brain by the absence of other qualities, made of Colonel Gallardo one of those characters that are detestable, without being malevolent and ridiculous, though they do not provoke mirth.
This cavalier, a bachelor, of course, like all of his stamp, had lodgings opposite the house ofLa Leona, whose daughters were not long in becoming acquainted with his attendants.
The preludes to acquaintanceship were couplets worded and sung with the evident intention of opening a flirtation. The soldiers took the initiative, singing to the music of theirguitarillos:[10]
“If your person can be wonBy valor in the field,Here’s a man with sword in handWill sooner die than yield.”
Another followed:
“If for a rustic’s loveYou slight a soldier bold,Base metal you will haveInstead of shining gold.”
To which the girls replied in a similar strain, declaring that they found it difficult to have patience with “these men of the fields,” whom they describe as “persecutors of the ground” and “sepulchres ofgazpacho.”
Neither was the colonel behindhand in becoming enamored of the beauty of Lucia; nor was he the man to dissimulate his sentiments. And, alas! Lucia herself had ceased to be the discreet and modest maiden, who would once have shrunk offended from demonstrations that could not fail to give occasion for scandal.
The hopes of our decorated aspirant, who soon learned the interior circumstances of this family, rose high in view of the antecedents of the step-mother and the unhappy lot of the young girl. But he deceived himself. For, though vanity had led Lucia beyond the limits of prudence, she receded from corruption with all the energy of the honorable blood she had inherited from her mother. This resistance exasperated the step-sisters, who, wishing both to be rid of Lucia and to see her undone, hoped that the colonel would take her away with him, and laid a plan to accomplish the result theydesired. Having previously concerted with the lover, they carried out their project in the following manner: One night, when Lucia had gone to her room, and sat combing down her beautiful hair, the door opened suddenly, and admitted the colonel, hidden to the eyes in cloak and slouched hat, and accompanied by the daughters ofLa Leonain giggling triumph. They had hardly introduced him into the chamber, when, with jests and bursts of laughter, they turned and ran out, closing the door behind them and drawing the bolt.
Too much overwhelmed with indignation, terror, and shame to think of any means of escape, the unfortunate girl covered her face with her hands and remained silent. The colonel, also, who had been led byLa Leonato think that it would not be difficult to propitiate Lucia by tender and gallant speeches, found himself without words in the presence of grief so real and so mute. For, unless a man is totally base, no amount of daring will enable him wholly to overcome the respect that innocence inspires.
“Am I, then, so disagreeable to you,” said Gallardo at last, drawing nearer to Lucia—“I who have no wish but to please you?”
“Lucas! Lucas! O my brother!” cried the girl, bursting into sobs.
“I will go! I am going!” said the colonel, half-offended, half-compassionate; and he approached the door, but it was locked.
“You see that I cannot get out,” said he, turning again toward Lucia.
“I know it,” she exclaimed. “They wanted to ruin me, and they have done it! Have locked me in here alone with you! How can I ever bear to have any one look me in the face again! What will Lucas say? Ah, my heart’s brother!”
“You are not ruined, child!” saidthe colonel, irritated. “I am no friend to tragedies; heroic Lucretias frighten me. Believe me, I desire to go, and, to prove it, since I cannot leave by the door, I will get out by this window.” With these words, the colonel wrapped himself again in his cloak, and, mounting the window-seat, sprang into the yard, which was enclosed only by a low paling.
Hardly had his feet touched the ground when he felt himself attacked by an infuriated man, who apostrophized him with the most violent insults. At the same moment,La Leonaand her daughters ran shrieking from the house, while the unhappy Lucia called from the window in a voice of anguish: “Don’t hurt him! It is my father!”
The man had drawn a knife but Gallardo, who was vigorous and wished to escape from the adventure without hurting Lucia’s father and without being recognized, pushed the assailant from him with such force as to throw him upon his back; ran to the paling, leaped it, and disappeared.
Juan Garcia rose from the ground in that state of blind rage in which men of his uncultivated nature stop at no obstacle and hesitate at no crime. Violently repulsing his wife and step-daughters, who, alarmed at the result of their work, would have detained him, he hastened to the house, and was making directly for Lucia’s room.
“Lucia! Lucia! jump from the window!” screamedLa Leona, foreseeing a catastrophe. “Your father is going to kill you!”
Wild with terror, Lucia, who heard the enraged and drunken voice of her father approaching her chamber, precipitated herself into the yard.
“Run to the colonel’s!” urged the step-mother, with no intention then but that of saving her life. “He isthe last one your father will suspect. It is the nearest house, and you can be hidden there better than anywhere else.”
Lucia obeyed mechanically, guided by the instinct of self-preservation, the only motive that rules weak natures in moments of supreme peril.
Gallardo was excitedly pacing his room when she rushed in, pale as death, covered with her long black hair, cold and helpless with fear and desperation, and, sinking upon a chair, exclaimed:
“You have been my ruin! At least save my life!”
It is to be supposed that even the dry and sterile heart of this man would find, in such circumstances, sentiments and words to soothe the wretched creature thus forced to seek his protection. It is certain that, at the vision of her youthful and innocent beauty, seen through the prism of her tears, he became more enamored than ever, and took advantage of the distress, of which he was the cause, to advance his suit.
And the poor child, bereft of affection and support, having nowhere to lay her head, lacking firmness to resist and energy to act, unsustained by principle duly and constantly inculcated, which would have made her prefer misery to shame, allowed herself to be persuaded and retained, drawn by a love that began with the promise and conviction that it was to be unchanging and eternal.
The colonel soon left, taking with him, secretly, Lucia, who had already begun to feel contented in the atmosphere of tenderness and luxury that surrounded her.
The fit of passion that Juan Garcia had experienced, united with grief, shame, and remorse, so affected his constitution, already spent and worn by the life he had been leading, that he fell into an inflammatoryfever, from which he never recovered. A little while before he died, he said to his old friend: “Uncle Bartolo, you hit the mark when you told me that the day would come when I should have eyes left only to weep. It has come, and—well, better to close them for ever.”
* * * * *
Two years had passed since the events last narrated, and five since Lucas left home. His regiment was in Cordova, where a general recently arrived from Madrid was going to review the troops of the garrison.
The evening before the parade, Lucas was in the quarters with several other soldiers from Arcos, one of whom, with the careless and constant gayety which characterizes the Spanish soldier, and proves, to the extreme scandal and disgust of the votaries of utility, the non-material genius of the nation, was alternately touching his guitar, and singing: