The jest was received with demonstrations of hilarity, and the girl laughed with her shrill laugh at the idea of her papa robbing a grapevine. Segundo only smiled. His eyes were fixed on Don Victoriano, and he was thinking of what his life had been. He went over in his mind the history of the great man: At Segundo's age Don Victoriano, too, was an obscure lawyer, buried in Vilamorta, eager to break from the shell. He had gone to Madrid, where a celebrated jurisconsult had taken him as his assistant. The jurisconsult was a politician, and Victoriano followed in his footsteps. How did he begin to prosper? This period was shrouded in obscurity. Some said one thing, some another. Vilamorta found him, when it least expected, its candidate and representative. Once in Congress Don Victoriano's importance grew steadily, and when the Revolution of September came it found him in a sufficiently exalted position to be improvised a minister. The brief ministrygave him neither time to wear out his popularity nor to give proof of special gifts, and, with his prestige almost intact, the Restoration admitted him as a member of a fusionist cabinet. He had just laid down the portfolio and come to re-establish his shattered health in his native place, where his influence was strong and incontestible, thanks to his alliance with the illustrious house of Mendez de las Vides. Segundo asked himself if a lot like Don Victoriano's would satisfy his aspirations. Don Victoriano had wealth—stocks in banks and shares in railways among whose directors the name of the able jurisconsult figured. Our versifier raised his eyebrows disdainfully and glanced at the Minister's wife; that graceful beauty certainly did not love her lord. She was the daughter of a younger son of the house of Las Vides—a magistrate; she had probably married her husband, allured by his position. No; most assuredly the poet did not envy the politician. Why had this man risen to the eminent position he occupied? What extraordinary gifts did he possess? A diffuse parliamentary orator, a passive minister, with some forensic ability—sum total, a mediocrity.
While these reflections were passing through Segundo's mind, Señora de Comba amused herself by examining minutely the dress and the appearanceof everyone present. She took in every detail, under her half-closed lids, of the toilet of Carmen Agonde, who was arrayed in a tight-fitting deep blue bodice that sent the blood to her plethoric cheeks. She next lowered her mocking glance to the patent-leather boots of the pharmacist, and then raised them again to Clodio Genday's fingers, stained by the cigar, and the purple and white checked velvet waistcoat of the lawyer García. Finally, her glance fell on Segundo, in critical examination of his attire. But another glance, steady and ardent, cast it back like a shield.
Agonde rose early on the following morning, and descended shortly afterward to his shop, leaving his guests wrapped in their slumbers, and Carmen charged, the moment they should stir, to pour the chocolate into their mouths. The apothecary desired to enjoy the effect produced in the town by Don Victoriano's sojourn in his house. He was reclining in his leather-covered easy-chair when he saw Tropiezo riding past on his gray mule, and called out to him:
"Hello! Hello! Where are you bound for so early?"
"For Doas, man. I have not a minute to spare." And saying this the doctor alighted from his mule, which he tied to an iron ring fastened in the wall.
"Is the case so urgent?"
"Urgent? That it is. The old woman, the grandmother of Ramon, the confectioner. It appears she has already received the last sacrament."
"And it is only now they have sent for you?"
"No; I went to see her yesterday, and I appliedtwo dozen leeches, that drew their fill of blood from her. She looked like a dying kid; she was very weak, and as thin as a wafer. Perhaps if I had given her something that I thought of, instead of applying leeches——"
"Ah! a trip," interrupted Agonde maliciously.
"Life is a series of trips," responded the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. "And upstairs?" he added, raising his eyes interrogatively to the ceiling.
"Snoring like princes."
"And he—how does he look?" asked Don Fermin, lowering his voice and dwelling on every word.
"He?" repeated Agonde, following his example. "So-so. Oldish. And very gray."
"But what is the matter with him? Let us hear. For as to being sick, he is that."
"He has—a new disease—a very strange one, one of the latest fashion." And Agonde smiled maliciously.
"New?"
Agonde half-closed his eyes, bent toward Tropiezo, and whispered something in his ear.
Tropiezo burst into a laugh; suddenly he looked very serious, and tapping his nose repeatedly with his forefinger:
"I know, I know," he said emphatically. "And thewaters here, and some others in France, are the only cure for that disease. If he drinks a few glasses from the spring, he will be himself again."
Tropiezo emitted his dictamen leaning on the counter, forgetful of the mule that was stamping impatiently at the door.
"And the Señora—what does she say of her husband's state of health?" he suddenly asked, with a wink.
"What should she say of it, man? Probably she does not know that it is serious."
A look of derision lighted up the inexpressive features of the physician; he glanced at Agonde and smothering another burst of laughter, began:
"The Señora—"
"Chut!" interrupted the apothecary furiously. The whole Comba family were making an irruption into the shop through the small door of the porch. Mother and daughter formed a charming group, both wearing wide-brimmed hats of coarse straw adorned with enormous bows of flame-colored bunting. Their écru cotton gowns embroidered with red braid completed the rustic character of their costumes, reminding one of a bunch of poppies and straw. The girl's luxuriant dark hair hung loose over her shoulders, and the fair locks of the mother curledin a tangled mass under the shade of her broad-brimmed hat. Nieves did not wear gloves nor was there visible on her face a trace of powder, or of any other of the cosmetics whose use is imputed unjustly by the women of the provinces to the Madridlenians; on the contrary, her rosy ears and neck showed signs of energetic friction with the towel and cold water. As for Don Victoriano, the ravages made in his countenance by care and sickness were still more apparent in the morning light; it was not, as Agonde had said, age that was visible there; it was virility, but tortured, exhausted, wounded to death.
"Why! Have you had chocolate already?" asked Agonde, in confusion.
"No, friend Saturnino, nor shall we take it, with your permission, until we return. Don't trouble yourself on our account. Victoriniña has ransacked your pantry—your closets——"
The child half opened a handkerchief which she held by the four corners, disclosing a provision of bread, cake, and the cheese of the country.
"At least let me bring you a whole cheese. I will go see if there is not some fresh bread, just out of the oven——"
Don Victoriano objected—let him not be deprived of the pleasure of going to breakfast in the poplar-grovenear the spring, just as he had done when a boy. Agonde remarked that those articles of food were not wholesome for him, to which Tropiezo, scratching the tip of his ear, responded sceptically:
"Bah! bah! bah! Those are new-fangled notions. What is wholesome for the body—can't they understand that—is what the body craves. If the gentleman likes bread—and for your malady, Señor Don Victoriano, there is nothing like the waters here. I don't know why people go to give their money to those French when we have better things at home than any they can give us."
The Minister looked at Tropiezo with keen interest depicted on his countenance. He called to mind his last visit to Sanchez del Abrojo and the contraction of the lips with which the learned practitioner had said to him:
"I would send you to Carlsbad or to Vichy, but those waters are not always beneficial. At times they hasten the natural course of a disease. Rest for a time, and diet yourself—we will see how you are when you return in the autumn." And what a look Sanchez del Abrojo put on when he said this! An impenetrable, sphinx-like expression. The positive assertion of Tropiezo awoke tumultuous hopes in Don Victoriano's breast. This village practitionermust know a great deal from experience, more perhaps than the pompous doctors of the capital.
"Come, papa," said the child impatiently, pulling him by the sleeve.
They took the path toward the grove. Vilamorta, naturally given to early rising, was more full of activity at this hour than in the afternoon. The shops were open, the baskets of the fruit-venders were already filled with fruit. Cansin walked up and down his establishment with his hands in his pockets, affecting to have noticed nothing, so as not to be obliged to bid good-morning to Agonde and acknowledge his triumph. Pellejo, covered with flour, was haggling with three shopkeepers from Cebre, who wanted to buy some of his best wheat. Ramon, the confectioner, was dividing chocolate into squares on a large board placed on the counter and rapidly stamping them with a hot iron before they should have time to cool.
The morning was cloudless and the sun was already unusually hot. The party, augmented by García and Genday, walked through orchards and cornfields until they reached the entrance to the walk. Don Victoriano uttered an exclamation of joy. It was the same double row of elms bordering the river, the foaming and joyous Avieiro, that ranon sparkling in gentle cascades, washing with a pleasant murmur the rocks, worn smooth by the action of the current. He recognized the thick osier plantations; he remembered all his longings of the day before and leaned, full of emotion, on the parapet of the walk. The scene was almost deserted; half a dozen melancholy and bilious-looking individuals, visitors to the springs, were walking slowly up and down, discussing their ailments in low tones, and eructating the bicarbonate of the waters. Nieves, leaning back on a stone bench, gazed at the river. The child touched her on the shoulder, saying:
"Mamma, the young man we saw yesterday."
On the opposite bank Segundo García was standing on a rock, absorbed in meditation, his straw hat pushed far back on his head, his hand resting on his hip, doubtless with the purpose of preserving his equilibrium in so dangerous a position. Nieves reproved the little girl, saying:
"Don't be silly, child. You startled me. Salute the gentleman."
"He is not looking this way. Ah! now he is looking. Salute him, you, mamma. He is taking off his hat, he is going to fall! There! now he is safe."
Don Victoriano descended the stone steps leading to the spring. The abode of the naiad was a humblegrotto—a shed supported on rough posts, a small basin overflowing with the water from the spring, some wretched hovels for the bathers, and a strong and sickening odor of rotten eggs, caused by the stagnation of the sulphur water, were all that the fastidious tourist found there. Notwithstanding this, Don Victoriano's soul was filled with the purest joy. In this naiad he beheld his youth, his lost youth—the age of illusions, of hopes blooming as the banks of the Avieiro. How many mornings had he come to drink from the fountain, for a jest, to wash his face with the water, which enjoyed throughout the country the reputation of possessing extraordinary curative virtue for the eyes. Don Victoriano stretched out his hands, plunged them into the warm current, feeling it slip through his fingers with delight, and playing with it and caressing it as one caresses a loved being. But the undulating form of the naiad escaped from him as youth escapes from us—without the possibility of detaining it. Then the ex-Minister felt a thirst awaken in him to drink the waters. Beside him on the edge of the basin was a glass; and the keeper, a poor old man in his dotage, presented it to him with an idiotic smile. Don Victoriano drank, closing his eyes, with indescribable pleasure, enjoying the mysterious water,charmed by the magic arts of memory. When he had drained the glass he drew himself up and ascended the stairs with a firm and elastic step. Victoriniña, who was breakfasting on bread and cheese in the avenue, was astonished when her father took a piece of bread from her lap, saying gayly:
"We are all God's creatures."
Almost as much as by Don Victoriano's arrival was Vilamorta excited by the arrival of Señor de las Vides, accompanied by his steward, Primo Genday. This event happened on the afternoon of the memorable day on which Don Victoriano had infringed the commands of science by eating half a pound of fresh bread. At three o'clock, under a blazing sun, Genday the elder and Mendez entered the plaza, the latter mounted on a powerful mule, the former on an ordinary nag.
Señor de las Vides was a little old man as dry as a vine branch. His carefully shaven cheeks, his thin lips and aristocratically pointed nose and chin, his shrewd, kind eyes, surrounded by innumerable crows' feet, his intellectual profile, his beardless face, called loudly for the curled wig, the embroidered coat and the gold snuff-box of the Campomanes and Arandas. With his delicate and expressive countenance the countenance of Primo Genday contrasted strongly. The steward's complexion was white and red, he had the fine and transparent skin, showing the full veinsunderneath, of those who are predisposed to hemiplegy. His eyes were of a greenish color, one of them being attached, as it were, to the lax and drooping lid, while the other rolled around with mischievous vivacity. His silvery curls gave him a distant resemblance to Louis Philippe, as he is represented on the coins which bear his effigy.
By a combination not unusual in small towns Primo Genday and his brother Clodio served under opposite political banners, both being in reality of one mind and both pursuing the same end; Clodio ranged himself on the side of the radicals, Primo was the support of the Carlist party, and in cases of emergency, in the electoral contests, they clasped hands over the fence. When the hoofs of Primo Genday's nag resounded on the paving-stones, the windows of the reactionary shop were opened and two or three hands were waved in friendly welcome. Primo paused, and Mendez continued on his way to Agonde's door, where he dismounted.
He was received in Don Victoriano's arms, and then disappeared among the shadows of the staircase. The mule remained fastened to the ring, stamping impatiently, while the onlookers on the plaza contemplated with respect the nobleman's old-fashioned harness of embossed leather, ornamentedwith silver, bright with use. One after another other mules and horses were brought to join the first comer. And the crowd assigned them their riders with considerable judgment. The chestnut nag of the alguazil, a fine animal, with a saddle and a silk headstall, was no doubt for the Minister. The black donkey with the side-saddle—who could doubt that it was for the Señora? The other gentle white donkey they would give to the little girl. The Alcalde's ass was for the maid. Agonde would ride the mare he always rode, the Morena, that had more malanders on her head than hairs in her tail. During this time the radicals, García, Clodio, Genday, and Ramon, were discussing the respective merits of the animals and the condition of their trappings and calculating the probabilities of their being able to reach Las Vides before nightfall. The lawyer shook his head, saying emphatically and sententiously:
"They are taking their time about it if they expect to do that."
"And they are bringing the alguazil's horse for Don Victoriano!" exclaimed the tobacconist. "Tricky as the very devil! There will be a scene. When you rode him, Segundo, did he play you no trick?"
"Me, no. But he is lively."
"You shall see, you shall see."
The travelers were now coming out of the house, and the cavalcade began to form. The ladies seated themselves in their side-saddles and the men settled their feet in their stirrups. Then the scene predicted by the tobacconist took place, to the great scandal and the further delay of the party. As soon as the alguazil's nag became aware of the presence of a female of his race he began to snuff the air excitedly, neighing fiercely. Don Victoriano gathered up the reins, but, before the animal had felt the iron in his mouth, he became so unmanageable, first rearing, then kicking violently, and finally turning his head around to try to bite his rider's legs, that Don Victoriano, somewhat pale, thought it prudent to dismount. Agonde, furious, dismounted also.
"What an infernal animal!" he cried. "Here, brutes—who told you to bring the alguazil's horse? One would suppose you didn't know it was a wild beast. You—Alcalde, or you, García—quick, go for Requinto's mule; it is only two steps from here. Señor Don Victoriano, take my mule. And that tiger, to the stable with him!"
"No," interrupted Segundo, "I will ride him as heis already saddled. I will go with you as far as the cross."
And Segundo, providing himself with a strong switch, caught the nag by the mane and at a bound was in the saddle. Instead of leaning his weight on the stirrup he pressed the animal's sides between his legs, raining a shower of blows at the same time on his head. The animal, which was already beginning to curvet and prance again, gave a snort of pain, and now, quivering and subdued, obeyed his rider's touch. The cavalcade put itself in motion as soon as Requinto's mule was brought, after handshakings, waving of hats, and even a timidviva, from what quarter no one knew. The cortége proceeded along the highway, the mare and the mules heading the procession, the donkeys following behind, and at their side the nag, kept in order by dint of switching. The sun was sinking in the west, turning the dust of the road into gold; the chestnut trees cast lengthened shadows on the ground, and from the osier-brake came a pleasant breeze laden with moisture from the river.
Segundo rode along in silence; Victoriniña, delighted to be riding on a donkey, smiled, making fruitless efforts to hide with her frock her sharp knee-bones, which the shape of the saddle compelledher to raise and uncover. Nieves, leaning back in her saddle, opened her rose-lined écru lace parasol, and, as they started, drew from her bosom a diminutive watch, which she consulted for the hour. A few moments of embarrassed silence followed. At last Segundo felt that it was necessary to say something:
"How are you doing, Victoriniña?" he said to the child. "Are you comfortable?"
"Yes, quite comfortable."
"I warrant you would rather ride on my horse. If you are not afraid I will take you before me."
The girl, whose embarrassment had now reached its height, lowered her eyes without answering; her mother, smiling graciously, however, now joined in the conversation.
"And tell me, García, why don't you address the child asthou? You treat her with so much ceremony! You will make her fancy she is a young lady already."
"I should not dare to do so without her permission."
"Come, Victoriniña, tell this gentleman he has your permission."
The child took refuge in that invincible muteness of growing girls whom an exquisite and precocioussensibility renders painfully shy. A smile parted her lips, and at the same time her eyes filled with tears. Mademoiselle said something gently to her in French; meanwhile Nieves and Segundo, laughing confidentially at the incident, found the way smoothed for them to begin a conversation.
"When do you think we shall arrive at Las Vides? Is it a pretty place? Shall we be comfortable there? How will it agree with Victoriano? What sort of a life shall we lead? Shall we have many visitors? Is there a garden?"
"Las Vides is a beautiful place," said Segundo. "It has an air of antiquity—a lordly air, as it were. I like the escutcheon, and a magnificent grapevine that covers the courtyard, and the camellias and lemon trees in the orchards, that look like good-sized chestnut trees, and the view of the river, and, above all, a pine grove that talks and even sings—don't laugh—that sings; yes, Señora, and better than most professional singers. Don't you believe it? Well, you shall see for yourself presently."
Nieves looked with lively curiosity at the young man and then hastily turned her glance aside, remembering the quick and nervous hand-pressure of the day before, when she was alighting from the carriage. For the second time in the space of a fewhours this young man had surprised her. Nieves led an extremely regular life in Madrid—the life of the middle classes, in which all the incidents are commonplace. She went to mass and shopped in the morning; in the afternoon she went to the Retiro, or made visits; in the evening she went to her parents' house or to the theater with her husband; on rare occasions to some ball or banquet at the house of the Duke of Puenteanchas, a client of Don Victoriano's. When the latter received the portfolio it made little change in Nieves' way of life. She received a few more salutations than before in the Retiro; the clerks in the shops were more attentive to her; the Duchess of Puenteanchas said some flattering things to her, calling her "pet," and here ended for Nieves the pleasure of the ministry. The trip to Vilamorta, the picturesque country of which she had so often heard her father speak, was a novel incident in her monotonous life. Segundo seemed to her a curious detail of the journey. He looked at her and spoke to her in so odd a way. Bah, fancies! Between this young man and herself there was nothing in common. A passing acquaintance, like so many others to be met here at every step. So the pines sang, did they? A misfortune for Gayarre! And Nieves smiled graciously, dissembling herstrange thoughts and went on asking questions, to which Segundo responded in expressive phrases. Night was beginning to fall. Suddenly, the cavalcade, leaving the highroad, turned into a path that led among pine groves and woods. At a turn of the path could be seen the picturesque dark stone cross, whose steps invited to prayer or to sentimental reverie. Agonde stopped here and took his leave of the party, and Segundo followed his example.
As the tinkling of the donkeys' bells grew fainter in the distance Segundo felt an inexplicable sensation of loneliness and abandonment steal over him, as if he had just parted forever from persons who were dear to him or who played an important part in his life. "A pretty fool I am!" said the poet to himself. "What have I to do with these people or they with me? Nieves has invited me to spend a few days at Las Vides,en famille. When Nieves returns to Madrid this winter she will speak of me as 'That lawyer's son, that we met at Vilamorta.' Who am I? What position should I occupy in her house? An altogether secondary one. That of a boy who is treated with consideration because his father disposes of votes."
While Segundo was thus caviling, the apothecary overtook him, and horse and mule pursued their wayside by side. In the twilight the poet could distinguish the placid smile of Agonde, his red cheeks, looking redder in contrast to the lustrous black mustache, his expression of sensual amiability and epicurean beatitude. An enviable lot was the apothecary's. This man was happy in his comfortable and well-ordered shop, with his circle of friends, his cap and his embroidered slippers, taking life as one takes a glass of cordial, sipping it with enjoyment, in peace and harmony, along with the other guests at the banquet of life. Why should not Segundo be satisfied with what satisfied Agonde perfectly? Whence came this longing for something that was not precisely money, nor pleasure, nor fame, nor love—which partook of all these, which embraced them all and which perhaps nothing would satisfy?
"Segundo."
"Eh?" he answered, turning his head toward Agonde.
"How silent you are, my boy! What do you think of the Minister?"
"What would you have me think of him?"
"And the Señora? Come, you have noticed her, I warrant. She wears black silk stockings, like the priests. When she was mounting the donkey——"
"I am going to take a gallop as far as Vilamorta. Do you care to join me, Saturnino?"
"Gallop with this mule? I should arrive there with my stomach in my mouth. Gallop you, if you have a fancy for doing so."
The nag galloped for half a league or so, urged by his rider's whip. As they drew near the canebrake by the river, Segundo slackened his horse's gallop to a very slow walk. It was now almost dark and the cool mists rose, moist and clinging, from the bosom of the Avieiro. Segundo remembered that it was two or three days since he had put his foot in Leocadia's house. No doubt the schoolmistress was now fretting herself to death, weeping and watching for him. This thought brought sudden balm to Segundo's wounded spirit. How tenderly Leocadia loved him! With what joy did she welcome him! How deeply his poetry, his words, moved her! And he—why was it that he did not share her ardor? Of this exclusive, this absolute, boundless love, Segundo had never deigned to accept even the half; and of all the tender terms of endearment invented by the muse he chose for Leocadia the least poetical, the least romantic; as we separate the gold and silver in our purse from the baser coin, setting aside for the beggar the meanest copper, so did Segundodispense with niggard hand the treasures of his love. A hundred times had it happened to him, in his walks through the country, to fill his hat with violets, with hyacinths and branches of blackberry blossoms, only to throw them all into the river on reaching the village, in order not to carry them to Leocadia.
While she distributed their tasks among the children, saying to one, "Take care to make this hem straight," to another, "Make this seam even, the stitch smaller," to a third, "Use your handkerchief instead of your dress," and to still another, "Sit still, child, don't move your feet," Leocadia cast a glance from time to time toward the plaza in the hope of seeing Segundo pass by. But no Segundo was to be seen. The flies settled themselves to sleep, buzzing, on the ceiling; the heat abated; the afternoon came, and the children went away. Leocadia felt a profound sadness take possession of her and, without waiting to put the house in order, she went to her room and threw herself on the bed.
The glass door was pushed gently open, and some one entered softly.
"Mamma," said the intruder, in a low voice.
The schoolmistress did not answer.
"Mamma, mamma," repeated the hunchback, in a louder voice. "Mamma!" he shouted at last.
"Is that you? What do you want?"
"Are you ill?"
"No, child."
"As you went to bed——'
"I have a slight headache. There, leave me in peace."
Minguitos turned round and walked in silence toward the door. As her eyes fell on the protuberance of his back, a sharp pang pierced the heart of the schoolmistress. How many tears that hump had cost her in other days. She raised herself on her elbow.
"Minguitos!" she called.
"What is it, mamma?"
"Don't go away. How do you feel to-day? Have you any pain?"
"I feel pretty well, mamma. Only my chest hurts me."
"Let me see; come here."
Leocadia sat up in the bed and, taking the child's head between her hands, looked at him with a mother's hungry look. Minguitos' face was long and of a melancholy cast; the prominent lower jaw was in keeping with the twisted and misshapen body that reminded one of a building shaken out of shape by an earthquake or a tree twisted by a hurricane. Minguitos' deformity was not congenital. He hadalways been sickly, indeed, and it had always been remarked that his head seemed too heavy for his body, and that his legs seemed too frail to support him. Leocadia recalled one by one the incidents of his childhood. At five years old the boy had met with an accident—a fall down the stairs; from that day he lost all his liveliness; he walked little and never ran. He contracted a habit of sitting Turkish fashion, playing marbles for hours at a time. If he rose his legs soon warned him to sit down again. When he stood, his movements were vacillating and awkward. When he was quiet he felt no pain, but when he turned any part of his body, he experienced slight pains in the spinal column. The trouble increased with time; the boy complained of a feeling as if an iron band were compressing his chest. Then his mother, now thoroughly alarmed, consulted a famous physician, the best in Orense. He prescribed frictions with iodine, large doses of phosphates of lime, and sea-bathing. Leocadia hastened with the boy to a little sea-port. After taking two or three baths, the trouble increased; he could not bend his body; his spinal column was rigid and it was only when he was in a horizontal position that he felt any relief from his now severe pains. Sores appeared on his skin, and one morning when Leocadiabegged him with tears to straighten himself, and tried to lift him up by the arms, he uttered a horrible cry.
"I am broken in two, mamma—I am broken in two," he repeated with anguish, while his mother, with trembling fingers sought to find what had caused his cry.
It was true! The backbone had bent outward, forming an angle on a level with his shoulderblades, the softened vertebræ had sunk andcifosis, the hump, the indelible mark of irremediable calamity, was to deform henceforth this child who was dearer to her than her life. The schoolmistress had had a moment of animal and sublime anguish, the anguish of the wild beast that sees its young mutilated. She had uttered shriek after shriek, cursing the doctor, cursing herself, tearing her hair and digging her nails into her flesh. Afterward tears had come and she had showered kisses, delirious, but soothing and sweet, on the boy, and her grief took a resigned form. During nine years Leocadia had had no other thought than to watch over her little cripple by night and by day, sheltering him in her love, amusing with ingenious inventions the idle hours of his sedentary childhood. A thousand incidents of this time recurred to Leocadia's memory. The boy sufferedfrom obstinate dyspnœa, due to the pressure of the sunken vertebræ on the respiratory organs, and his mother would get up in the middle of the night and go in her bare feet to listen to his breathing and to raise his pillows. As these recollections came to her mind Leocadia felt her heart melt and something stir within her like the remains of a great love, the warm ashes of an immense fire, and she experienced the unconscious reaction of maternity, the irresistible impulse which makes a mother see in her grown-up son only the infant she has nursed and protected, to whom she would have given her blood, if it had been necessary, instead of milk. And uttering a cry of love, pressing her feverish lips passionately to the pallid temples of the hunchback, she said, falling back naturally into the caressing expressions of the dialect:
"Malpocadiño.Who loves you? say, who loves you dearly? Who?"
"You don't love me, mamma. You don't love me," the boy returned, half-smiling, leaning his head with delight on the bosom that had sheltered his sad childhood. The mother, meantime, wildly kissed his hair, his neck, his eyes—as if to make up for lost time—lavishing upon him the honeyed words with which infants are beguiled, words profaned in hoursof passion, which overflowed in the pure channel of maternal love.
"My treasure—my king—my glory."
At last the hunchback felt a tear fall on his cheek. Delicious assuagement! At first, the tears were large and round, scorching almost, but soon they came in a gentle shower and then ceased altogether, and there remained where they had fallen only a grateful sense of coolness. Passionate phrases rushed simultaneously from the lips of mother and son.
"Do you love me dearly, dearly, dearly? As much as your whole life?"
"As much, my life, my treasure."
"Will you always love me?"
"Always, always, my joy."
"Will you do something to please me, mamma? I want to ask you——"
"What?"
"A favor. Don't turn your face away!"
The hunchback observed that his mother's form suddenly grew stiff and rigid as a bar of iron. He no longer felt the sweet warmth of her moist eyelids, and the gentle contact of her wet lashes on his cheek. In a voice that had a metallic sound Leocadia asked her son:
"And what is the favor you want? Let me hear it."
Minguitos murmured without bitterness, with resignation:
"Nothing, mamma, nothing. I was only in jest."
"But what was the favor you were going to ask me?"
"Nothing, nothing, indeed."
"No, you wanted to ask something," persisted the schoolmistress, seizing the pretext to give vent to her anger. "Otherwise you are very deceitful and very sly. You keep everything hidden in your breast. Those are the lessons Flores teaches you; do you think I don't notice it?"
Saying this, she pushed the boy away from her, and sprang from the bed. In the hall outside almost at the same moment was heard a firm and youthful step. Leocadia trembled, and turning to Minguitos, stammered:
"Go, go to Flores. Leave me alone. I do not feel well, and you make me worse,"
Segundo's brow was clouded, and as soon as the joy of seeing him had subsided Leocadia was seized with the desire to restore him to good humor. She waited patiently for a fitting opportunity, however,and when this came, throwing her arms around his neck, she began with the complaint: Where had he kept himself? Why had he stayed away so long? The poet unburdened himself of his grievances. It was intolerable to follow in the train of a great man. And allowing himself to be carried away by the pleasure of speaking of what occupied his mind he described Don Victoriano and the radicals, he satirized Agonde's reception of his guests, his manner of entertaining them, spoke of the hopes he founded in the protection of the ex-Minister, giving them as a reason for the necessity of paying court to Don Victoriano. Leocadia fixed her dog-like look on Segundo's countenance.
"And the Señora and the girl—what are they like?"
Segundo half-closed his eyes the better to contemplate an attractive and charming image that presented itself to his mental vision, and to reflect that in the existence of Nieves he played no part whatsoever, it being manifest folly for him to think of Señora de Comba, who did not think of him. This reflection, natural and simple enough, aroused his anger. There was awakened within him a keen longing for the unattainable, that insensate and unbridled desire with which the likeness of a beautifulwoman dead for centuries may inspire some dreamer in a museum.
"But answer me—are those ladies handsome?" the schoolmistress asked again.
"The mother, yes"—answered Segundo, speaking with the careless frankness of one who is secure of his auditor. "Her hair is fair, and her eyes are blue—a light blue that makes one think of the verses of Becquer." And he began to recite:
"'Tu pupila es azul, y cuando riesSu claridad suave me recuerda——'"
"'Tu pupila es azul, y cuando riesSu claridad suave me recuerda——'"
Leocadia listened to him at first with eyes cast down; afterward with her face turned away from him. When he had finished the poem she said in an altered voice, with feigned calmness.
"They will invite you to go there."
"Where?"
"To Las Vides, of course. I hear they intend to have a great deal of company."
"Yes; they have given me a pressing invitation, but I shall not go. Uncle Clodio insists upon it that I ought to cultivate the friendship of Don Victoriano so that he may be of use to me in Madrid and help me to get a position there. But, child, to go andplay a sorry part is not to my liking. This suit is the best I have, and it is in last year's fashion. If they play tresillo or give tips to the servants—and it is impossible to make my father understand this—and I shall not try to do so: God forbid. So that they shall not catch a sight of me in Las Vides."
When she heard what his intentions were, Leocadia's countenance cleared up, and rising, radiant with happiness, she ran to the kitchen. Flores was washing plates and cups and saucers by the light of a lamp, knocking them angrily together and rubbing savagely.
"The coffee-pot—did you clean it?"
"Presently, presently," responded the old woman. "Anyone would think that one was made of wood, that one is never to get tired—that one can do things flying."
"Give it to me, I will clean it. Put more wood on the fire; it is going out and the beefsteak will be spoiled." And so saying Leocadia washed the coffee-pot, cleaning the filter with a knitting-needle, and put some fresh water down to boil in a new saucepan, throwing more wood on the fire.
"Yes, heap on wood," growled Flores, "as we get it for nothing!"
Leocadia, who was slicing some potatoes for thebeefsteak, paid no attention to her. When she had cut up as many as she judged necessary, she washed her hands hastily in the jar of the drain, full of dirty water, on whose surface floated large patches of grease. She then hurried to the parlor where Segundo was waiting for her, and soon afterward Flores brought in the supper, which they ate, seated at a small side-table. By the time they had got to the coffee Segundo began to be more communicative. This coffee was what Leocadia most prided herself on. She had bought a set of English china, an imitation lacquer-box, avermeilsugar-tongs and two small silver spoons, and she always placed on the table with the coffee a liquor-stand, supplied with cumin, rum, and anisette. At the third glass, of cumin, seeing the poet amiable and propitious, Leocadia put her arm around his neck. He drew back brusquely, noticing with strong repulsion the odor of cooking and of parsley with which the garments of the schoolmistress were impregnated.
At this moment precisely Minguitos, after letting his shoes drop on the floor, was drawing the coverlet around him with a sigh. Flores, seated on a low chair, began to recite the rosary. The sick child required, to put him to sleep, the monotonous murmur of the husky voice which had lulled him to rest,ever since his mother had ceased to keep him company at bedtime. The Ave Marias and Gloria Patris, mumbled rather than pronounced, little by little dulled thought and, by the time the litany was reached, sleep had stolen over him, and, half-unconscious, it was with difficulty he made the responses to the barbarous phrases of the old woman: "Juana celi—Ora pro nobis—Sal-es-enfermorun—nobis—Refajos pecadorum—bis—Consolate flitorum—sss——"
The only response was the labored, restless, uneven breathing that came through the sleeping boy's half-closed lips. Flores softly put out the tallow candle, took off her shoes, in order to make no noise, and stole out gently, feeling her way along the dining-room wall. From the moment in which Minguitos fell asleep there was no more rattling of dishes in the kitchen.
It was late before the Swan blew out the tallow candle which Aunt Gáspara placed every day, always with much grumbling, in his brass candlestick. Seated at the little table littered with books, he had before him a sheet of paper half covered with lines of unequal length, variegated with blots and corrections, little heaps of sand, and here and there a flourish. Segundo would not have slept all night if he had not first written down the poem which, from the moment he had left the cross, had been running through his brain. Only that, before taking up the pen, he seemed to have the poem already composed in his head, so that all he had to do was to turn the spigot and it would flow out in a stream, and when he took the pen in his hand the verses, instead of rushing forth, hid themselves or vanished. A few strophes fell on the paper, rounded, fluent, finished, with harmonious and opportune rhymes, with a certain sweetness and sonorousness extremely delightful to the author himself, who scribbled them down hastily before they should take flight. Ofothers, however, only the first two lines occurred to him, and, perhaps, the fourth—this last rounded, effective; but the third line was wanting and he must hunt for it, fill up the space, graft on the syllables to eke out the meter. The poet paused and looked up at the ceiling, biting the ends of his mustache, and then the idle pen traced, obeying the mechanical impulse of the hand, a cocked hat, a comet, or some other equally irrelevant design. Sometimes after rejecting seven or eight rhymes he would content himself with the ninth, which was neither better nor worse than the others. When a superfluous syllable would cause a line to halt, he must look for another adverb, another adjective. And the accents! If the poet could only enjoy the privilege, of saying, eternél, for instance, instead of etérnel, it would be so easy to write verses!
Confounded technical difficulties! The divine fire of inspiration glowed and burned in Segundo's mind, but as soon as he tried to transfer it to the paper, to give expression to what he felt—to condense, in words, a world of dreams, a psychic nebula—his mind became a blank. To unite the form with the idea, to imprison feeling in the golden links of rhyme! Ah, what a light and flowery chain in appearance, and how hard to weave in reality! Howdeceptive the natural grace, the facile harmony of the master! How easy it seems to express simple, familiar images, to utter the chimeras of the imagination and the heart in easy and flowing meter, and yet how impossible it is, for him who is not called Becquer, to give his verse those palpitating, diaphanous, azure wings on which the Becquerian butterfly soars!
While the Swan continues his task of effacing and correcting, Leocadia is in her bedroom, preparing to retire. On other nights she went to her room with a smile on her lips, her face glowing, her eyes humid and half-closed, with deep circles under them, her hair in disorder. And on those nights she was in no hurry to retire; she would busy herself arranging the articles on her bureau, she would even look at herself in the glass of her cheap toilet table. To-night her lips were dry, her cheeks pale, she went at once to bed, loosened her clothing, and let it fall on the floor, put out the light and buried her face in the cool, thick cotton sheets. She did not wish to think, all she wished was to forget and to sleep. She tried to lie still. A thousand needles seemed to pierce her flesh; she turned around, in search of a cool spot, then turned again in search of another, and presently she threw off the sheets. She felt a horrible restlessness,a savor of bitterness in her mouth. In the silence of the night she could hear the tumultuous beating of her heart; if she lay on her left side its noise almost deafened her. She tried to fix her thoughts on indifferent subjects, and repeated to herself with monotonous and persistent regularity—"To-morrow is Sunday, the children will not come." In vain; her brain boiled, her blood burned as before. Leocadia was jealous.
Measureless, nameless torture! Hitherto the poor schoolmistress had not known the accompaniment of love, jealousy, whose barbed sting pierces the soul, whose consuming fire dries up the blood, whose chill freezes the heart, whose restless anguish makes the nerves quiver. Segundo scarcely noticed the young girls of Vilamorta; as for the peasant girls, they did not exist for him, he did not even regard them as women; so that Leocadia had attributed the poet's hours of coldness to the bad offices of the muses. But now! She recalled the poem, "A los ojos azules," and his manner of reciting it. Those honeyed verses were to her gall and wormwood. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she broke into convulsive sobs which shook her frame and made the bedstead creak and the cornhusks of the mattress rustle. Still her overwrought brain did not suspend itsactivity. There was not a doubt but that Segundo was in love with Señora de Comba; but she was a married woman. Bah! in Madrid and in novels all the married women have lovers. And then, who could resist Segundo, a poet who was the rival of Becquer, who was young, handsome, ardent, when he wished to be so?
What could Leocadia do to avert this great calamity? Was it not better to resign herself to it? Ah, resignation, that is easily said! Why had God denied her the power to express her feelings? Why had she not knelt before Segundo, begging him for a little love, describing to him and communicating to him the flame that consumed the marrow of her bones? Why had she remained mute when she had so many things to say? Segundo would not go to Las Vides; so much the better. He had no money; better still. He would accept no position, he would not leave Vilamorta, better and better. But what did it matter if after all Segundo did not love her; if he had turned away from her with a gesture which she could still see in the darkness, or rather in the lurid light of jealousy.
How warm the night was! How restless she felt! She got out of bed and threw herself on the floor, thinking to find some relief in the coolness of theboards. Instead of feeling any alleviation she was seized with a fit of trembling. A lump seemed to rise in her throat that prevented her from breathing. She made an effort to stand up but found that she was not able; she felt a hysterical attack coming on, but she tried to restrain her cries, her sobs, her contortions, in order not to awaken Flores. For a time she succeeded; but at last the nervous crisis conquered; her rigid limbs writhed, she dug her nails into her throat, she rolled about and beat her temples against the floor. Then a cold perspiration broke out over her body, and for a moment she lost consciousness. When she returned to herself she was calm but exhausted. She rose to her feet, went back to bed, drew the clothing over her and sank into a sort of stupor, in which there was neither thought nor feeling. The beneficent sleep of early morning had wrapped her senses in oblivion.
She woke late, unrested, exhausted, and, as it were, stupefied. She could scarcely manage to dress herself; it seemed to her as if a year had passed since the night before, and as for her jealous rage, her projects of resistance—how could she have thought of such things? All that mattered to her, all she desired, was that Segundo should be happy, that he should achieve his high destiny, that heshould be famous. The rest was madness, a convulsion, an attack of the nerves to which she had given way, overcome by the sense of her loneliness.
The schoolmistress opened the bureau-drawer in which she kept her savings and the money for the household expenses. Beside a pile of stockings was a slim and flabby purse. A short time ago it had contained a few thousand reals, all she possessed in money. Scarcely thirty dollars remained, and out of these she must pay Cansin for a black merino dress, the confectioner for liqueurs, and some friends at Orense for purchases made on her account. And she would not receive her little income until November. A brilliant prospect truly!
After a moment of anguish caused by the struggle between her economical principles and her resolution, Leocadia washed her face, smoothed her hair, put on her dress and her silk manto and left the house. Being Sunday, the streets were full of people, and the cracked bell of the chapel kept up an incessant ringing. The plaza was full of bustle and animation. Before Doña Eufrasia's door, three or four mules, whose clerical riders were in the shop, were impatiently trying to protect themselves from the persistent attacks of the flies and hornets, shakingtheir heads, stamping their hoofs, and switching their flanks with their rough tails. And the fruit-venders, too, in the intervals between selling their wares and chatting and laughing with one another, were watchful to chase away the troublesome insects that settled on the cherries and tomatoes wherever the skin was broken, leaving uncovered the sweet pulp or the red flesh. But the grand conclave of the flies was held in the confectionery of Ramon. It was nauseating to see the insects buzzing blindly in the hot atmosphere, entangling their legs in the caramels, and then making desperate efforts to free themselves from their sweet captivity. A swarm of flies were buzzing around a méringue pie which adorned the center of the shelf, and Ramon having grown tired of defending it against their attacks, the invading army rifled it at their pleasure; around the plate lay the bodies of the flies which had perished in the attack; some dry and shriveled, others swollen and with white and livid abdomens.
Leocadia entered the back shop. Ramon was there, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, exposing his brawny arms, shaking a saucepan gently to cool the egg-paste which it contained; then he proceeded to cut the paste with a hot knife, the sugar fizzing and sending forth a pleasant odor as it came in contactwith the hot metal. The confectioner passed the back of his hand across his perspiring brow.
What did Leocadia want? Brizar anisette, eh? Well, it was all sold. "You, Rosa, isn't it true that the anisette is all sold?"
The confectioner's wife was seated in a corner of the kitchen, feeding a sickly-looking infant. She fixed her gloomy, morbidly jealous gaze on the schoolmistress and cried in a harsh voice:
"If you come for more anisette, remember the three bottles that are still unpaid for."
"I will pay them now," answered the schoolmistress, taking a handful of dollars from her pocket.
"Never mind that now, there is no hurry," stammered the confectioner, ashamed of his wife's rudeness.
"Take it, Ramon. Why, it was to give it to you that I came."
"If you insist; but the deuce a hurry I was in."
Leocadia hastened away. Not to have remembered the confectioner's wife! Who would ask anything from Ramon before that jealous tigress, who, small as she was, and sickly as she looked, ruled her burly husband with a rod of iron. Perhaps Cansin——
The clothier was displaying his goods to a groupof countrywomen, one of whom persisted in declaring the bunting she was looking at to be cotton, rubbing it between her fingers to prove herself in the right. Cansin, on his side, was rubbing the cloth with exactly opposite views.
"How should it be cotton, woman, how should it be cotton?" he cried in his shrill voice, putting the cloth close to the buyer's face. Cansin appeared so angry that Leocadia did not venture to address him; she passed on, quickening her steps. She thought of her other suitor, the tavern-keeper. But she suddenly remembered, with a feeling of repulsion, his thick lips, his cheeks that seemed to drip blood. Turning over in her mind every possible means by which she might obtain the money she needed, a thought occurred to her. She rejected it, she weighed it, she accepted it. Quickening her pace, she walked toward the abode of the lawyer García.
At her first knock Aunt Gáspara opened the door. What a meaning contraction of the brow and lips, what a sour face greeted her! Leocadia, abashed and covered with confusion, stood still on the threshold. The old woman, like a vigilant watch-dog, barred the entrance, ready to bark or bite at the first sign of danger.
"What did you want?" she growled.
"To speak to Don Justo. May I?" said the schoolmistress humbly.
"I don't know. I'll see."
And the dragon without further ceremony shut the door in Leocadia's face. Leocadia waited. At the end of ten minutes a harsh voice called to her:
"Come on!"
The heart of the schoolmistress bounded within her. To go through the house in which Segundo was born! It was dark and shabby, cold and bare, like the abode of a miser, in which the furniture is made to do service until it falls to pieces with old age. Crossing a hall, Leocadia saw through a half-open door some garments belonging to Segundo hanging on a peg, and recognized them with a secret thrill. At the end of the hall was the lawyer's office, an ill-kept, untidy room, full of papers and dusty and uninteresting-looking books. Aunt Gáspara withdrew, and Leocadia remained standing before the lawyer, who, without inviting her to be seated, said to her with a suspicious and hostile air, and in the severe tones of a judge:
"And what can I do for you, Señora Doña Leocadia?"
A formula accompanied inwardly by the observation:
"I wager that the scheming schoolmistress has come to tell me that she is going to marry that crazy boy and that I shall have to support them both."
Leocadia fixed her dejected gaze on García's face, trying to discover in his dry and withered features some resemblance to the features of a beloved countenance. His face, indeed, resembled Segundo's in all but the expression, which was very different; that of the father's being as cautious and suspicious as the son's was dreamy and abstracted.
"Señor Don Justo——" stammered the schoolmistress. "I am sorry to trouble you. I hope you will not take this visit amiss—they told me that you——Señor—I need a loan——"
"Money!" roared the lawyer, clenching his fists. "You ask me for money!"
"Yes, Señor, on some property——"
"Ah!" (sudden transition in the lawyer, who became all softness and amiability). "But how stupid I am! Come in, come in and sit down, Doña Leocadia. I hope you are quite well. Why, anyone might find himself in a difficulty. And what property is it? Talking together people come to an understanding, Señora. Perhaps the vineyard of La Junqueira, or the other little one, El Adro? Of late years they have yielded little——"
The business was discussed and the promissory note was signed. Aunt Gáspara meanwhile walked uneasily and with ghost-like tread, up and down the hall outside. When her brother issued from the room and gave her some orders she crossed herself hastily several times on the forehead and the breast. She then descended stealthily to the cellar, and, after some little delay, returned and emptied on the lawyer's table the contents of her apron, whence rolled four objects covered with dust and cobwebs, from which proceeded, as they struck the table, the peculiar sound produced by coin. These objects were an earthern savings-bank, a stocking, a leathern sack, and a little muslin bag.
That afternoon Leocadia said to Segundo:
"Do you know what, sweetheart? It is a pity that for the sake of a new suit or some such trifle you should lose the chance of establishing yourself and obtaining what you wish. See, I have a little money here that I have no particular use for. Do you want it, eh? I will give it to you now and you can return it to me by and by."
Segundo drew himself up and, with a genuine outburst of offended dignity, exclaimed:
"Never propose anything like that to me again. I accept your attentions at times so as not to see youbreaking your heart at my refusal, but that you should clothe me and support me—no, that is too much."
Half an hour later the schoolmistress renewed her entreaties affectionately, availing herself of the opportunity, seeing the Swan somewhat pensive. Between him and her there ought to be nomineorthine. Why should he hesitate to accept what it afforded her so great a pleasure to give? Did her future by chance depend upon those few paltry dollars? With them he could present himself decently at Las Vides, publish his verses, go to Madrid. It would make her so happy to see him triumph, eclipse Campoamor, Nuñez de Arce, and all the rest! And what was there to prevent Segundo from returning her the money, and with interest, too? Talking thus, Leocadia filled a handkerchief tied at the four corners with ounces anddoblillosandcentenesand handed it to the poet, saying in a voice rendered husky by her emotion:
"Will you slight me?"
Segundiño took the unbeautiful, ungraceful head of the schoolmistress between his hands, and looking fixedly in the eyes that looked at him humid with happiness he said:
"Leocadia, I know that you are the one human being in this world who loves me truly."
"Segundiño, my life," she stammered, beside herself with happiness, "it isn't worth mentioning. Just as I give you that—as I hope for salvation—I would give you the blood from my veins!"
And what would Aunt Gáspara have said had she known that several of the ounces from the stocking, the savings-bank, the sack, and the bag would return immediately, loyal and well-trained, to sleep, if not under the rafters of the cellar, at least under the roof of Don Justo?