Marianela
by Benito Pérez Galdós · English · Gutenberg #48818 · 351,763 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Marianela
Author: Benito Pérez Galdós
Translator: Clara Bell
Release date: April 28, 2015 [eBook #48818]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIANELA ***
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MARIANELA
BY
B. PEREZ GALDÓS
Author of “Gloria,” etc.
From the Spanish by CLARA BELL
REVISED AND CORRECTED IN THE UNITED STATES
NEW YORK
WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER
11 MURRAY STREET
1883
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883
By William S. Gottsberger
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington
THIS TRANSLATION WAS MADE EXPRESSLY FOR THE PUBLISHER
Press of
William S. Gottsberger
New York
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
Those who have read “Gloria” will, it is hoped, hail with pleasure
another work by the same writer, Perez Galdós--different it is true,
but in its way not less delightful.
The strongly-marked humor and darkly-painted tragedy of “Gloria” are
not to be found in “Marianela;” the characters are distinct and crisply
sketched, but with a tender hand, the catastrophe is pitiable, rather
shocking; the whole tone is idyllic.
I have not hesitated to translate literally the Spanish words of
endearment; for though they are foreign to the calmer spirit of our
northern tongue they are too characteristic to be lost, and they are
strangely pathetic as the only outlet found for the imprisoned spirit
of the hapless little heroine.
CLARA BELL.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE.
I.--Gone Astray. 1
II.--Guided Right. 10
III.--A Dialogue which explains much. 24
IV.--Stony Hearts. 35
V.--Labor, and a Landscape with Figures. 52
VI.--Absurdities. 62
VII.--More Absurdities. 73
VIII.--And yet more. 84
IX.--The Brothers Golfin. 98
X.--Nobody’s Children. 117
XI.--The Patriarch of Aldeacorba. 124
XII.--Doctor Celipin. 136
XIII.--Between two Baskets. 144
XIV.--How the Virgin Mary appeared to Nela. 151
XV.--The Three Children. 164
XVI.--The Vow. 172
XVII.--A Fugitive. 179
XVIII.--Nela decides that she must go. 192
XIX.--Nela is Tamed. 201
XX.--A New World. 220
XXI.--Eyes that Kill. 234
XXII.--Farewell. 260
MARIANELA.
CHAPTER I.
GONE ASTRAY.
The sun had set. After the brief interval of twilight the night fell
calm and dark, and in its gloomy bosom the last sounds of a sleepy
world died gently away. The traveller went forward on his way,
hastening his step as night came on; the path he followed was narrow
and worn by the constant tread of men and beasts, and led gently up a
hill on whose verdant slopes grew picturesque clumps of wild cherry
trees, beeches and oaks.--The reader perceives that we are in the north
of Spain.
Our traveller was a man of middle age, strongly built, tall and
broad-shouldered; his movements were brisk and resolute, his step
firm, his manner somewhat rugged, his eye bold and bright; his pace
was nimble, considering that he was decidedly stout, and he was--the
reader may at once be told, though somewhat prematurely--as good a
soul as you may meet with anywhere. He was dressed, as a man in easy
circumstances should be dressed for a journey in spring weather, with
one of those round shady hats, which, from their ugly shape, have been
nicknamed mushrooms (_hongo_), a pair of field-glasses hanging to a
strap, and a knotted stick which, when he did not use it to support his
steps, served to push aside the brambles when they flung their thorny
branches across so as to catch his dress.
He presently stopped, and gazing round the dim horizon, he seemed vexed
and puzzled. He evidently was not sure of his way and was looking
round for some passing native of the district who might give him such
topographical information as might enable him to reach his destination.
“I cannot be mistaken,” he said to himself. “They told me to cross the
river by the stepping-stones--and I did so--then to walk on, straight
on. And there, to my right, I do in fact, see that detestable town
which I should call _Villafangosa_ by reason of the enormous amount of
mud that chokes the streets.--Well then, I can but go ‘on, straight
on’--I rather like the phrase, and if I bore arms, I would adopt it
for my motto--in order to find myself at last at the famous mines of
Socartes.”
But before he had gone much farther, he added: “I have lost my way,
beyond a doubt I have lost my way.--This, Teodoro Golfin, is the
result of your ‘on, straight on.’ Bah! these blockheads do not know
the meaning of words; either they meant to laugh at you or else
they did not know the way to the mines of Socartes. A huge mining
establishment must be evident to the senses, with its buildings and
chimneys, its noise of hammers and snorting of furnaces, neighing of
horses and clattering of machinery--and I neither see, nor hear, nor
smell anything. I might be in a desert! How absolutely solitary! If I
believed in witches, I could fancy that Fate intended me this night to
have the honor of making acquaintance with some. Deuce take it! why is
there no one to be seen in these parts? And it will be half an hour
yet before the moon rises. Ah! treacherous Luna, it is you who are to
blame for my misadventure.--If only I could see what sort of place I
am in.--However, what could I expect?” and he shrugged his shoulders
with the air of a vigorous man who scorns danger. “What, Golfin, after
having wandered all round the world are you going to give in now? The
peasants were right after all: ‘on, straight on.’ The universal law of
locomotion cannot fail me here.”
And he bravely set out to test the law, and went on about a kilometre
farther, following the paths which seemed to start from under his feet,
crossing each other and breaking off at a short distance, in a thousand
angles which puzzled and tired him. Stout as his resolution was, at
last he grew weary of his vain efforts. The paths, which had at first
all led upwards, began to slope downwards as they crossed each other,
and at last he came to so steep a slope that he could only hope to get
to the bottom by rolling down it.
“A pretty state of things!” he exclaimed, trying to console himself for
this provoking situation by his sense of the ridiculous. “Where have
you got to now my friend? This is a perfect abyss. Is anything to be
seen at the bottom. No, nothing, absolutely nothing--the hill-side has
disappeared, the earth has been dug away. There is nothing to be seen
but stones and barren soil tinged red with iron. I have reached the
mines, no doubt of that--and yet there is not a living soul to be seen,
no smoky chimneys; no noise, not a train in the distance, not even a
dog barking. What am I to do? Out there the path seems to slope up
again.--Shall I follow that? Shall I leave the beaten track? Shall I go
back again? Oh! this is absurd! Either I am not myself or I will reach
Socartes to-night, and be welcomed by my worthy brother! ‘On, straight
on.’”
He took a step, and his foot sank in the soft and crumbling soil.
“What next, ye ruling stars? Am I to be swallowed up alive? If only
that lazy moon would favor us with a little light we might see each
other’s faces--and, upon my soul, I can hardly expect to find Paradise
at the bottom of this hole. It seems to be the crater of some extinct
volcano.... Nothing could be easier than a slide down this beautiful
precipice. What have we here?... A stone; capital--a good seat while I
smoke a cigar and wait for the moon to rise.”
The philosophical Golfin seated himself as calmly as if it were a
bench by a promenade, and was preparing for his smoke, when he heard a
voice--yes, beyond a doubt, a human voice, at some little distance--a
plaintive air, or to speak more accurately, a melancholy chant of a
single phrase, of which the last cadence was prolonged into a “dying
fall,” and which at last sank into the silence of the night, so softly
that the ear could not detect when it ceased.
“Come,” said the listener, well pleased, “there are some human beings
about. That was a girl’s voice; yes, certainly a girl’s, and a lovely
voice too. I like the popular airs of this country-side. Now it has
stopped.... Hark! it will soon begin again.... Yes, I hear it once
more. What a beautiful voice, and what a pathetic air! You might
believe that it rose from the bowels of the earth, and that Señor
Golfin, the most matter-of-fact and least superstitious man in this
world, was going to make acquaintance with sylphs, nymphs, gnomes,
dryads, and all the rabble rout that obey the mysterious spirit of the
place.--But, if I am not mistaken, the voice is going farther away--the
fair singer is departing.... Hi, girl, child, stop--wait a minute!...”
The voice which had for a few minutes so charmed the lost wanderer with
its enchanting strains was dying away in the dark void, and at the
shouts of Golfin it was suddenly silent. Beyond a doubt the mysterious
gnome, who was solacing its underground loneliness by singing its
plaintive loves, had taken fright at this rough interruption by a human
being, and fled to the deepest caverns of the earth, where precious
gems lay hidden, jealous of their own splendor.
“This is a pleasant state of things--” muttered Golfin, thinking that
after all he could do no better than light his cigar.--“There seems no
reason why it should not go on for a hundred years. I can smoke and
wait. It was a clever idea of mine that I could walk up alone to the
mines of Socartes. My luggage will have got there before me--a signal
proof of the advantages of ‘on, straight on.’”
A light breeze at this instant sprang up, and Golfin fancied he
heard the sound of footsteps at the bottom of the unknown--or
imaginary--abyss before him; he listened sharply, and in a minute felt
quite certain that some one was walking below. He stood up and shouted:
“Girl, man, or whoever you are, can I get to the mines of Socartes by
this road?”
He had not done speaking when he heard a dog barking wildly, and then a
manly voice saying: “Choto, Choto! come here!”
“Hi there!” cried the traveller. “My good friend--man, boy, demon, or
whatever you are, call back your dog, for I am a man of peace.”
“Choto, Choto!...”
Golfin could make out the form of a large, black dog coming towards
him, but after sniffing round him it retired at its master’s call;
and at that moment the traveller could distinguish a figure, a man,
standing as immovable as a stone image, at about ten paces below him,
on a slanting pathway which seemed to cut across the steep incline.
This path, and the human form standing there, became quite clear now to
Golfin, who, looking up to the sky, exclaimed:
“Thank God! here is the mad moon at last; now we can see where we are.
I had not the faintest notion that a path existed so close to me, why,
it is quite a road. Tell me, my friend, do you know whether the mines
of Socartes are hereabout?”
“Yes, Señor, these are the mines of Socartes; but we are at some
distance from the works.”
The voice which spoke thus was youthful and pleasant, with the
attractive inflection that indicates a polite readiness to be of
service. The doctor was well pleased at detecting this, and still
better pleased at observing the soft light, which was spreading through
the darkness and bringing resurrection to earth and sky, as though
calling them forth from nothingness.
“_Fiat lux!_” he said, going forward down the slope. “I feel as if I
had just emerged into existence from primeval chaos.... Indeed, my good
friend, I am truly grateful to you for the information you have given
me, and for the farther information you no doubt will give me. I left
Villamojada as the sun was setting.--They told me to go on, straight
on....”
“Are you going to the works?” asked the strange youth, without stirring
from the spot or looking up towards the doctor, who was now quite near
him.
“Yes, Señor; but I have certainly lost my way.”
“Well, this is not the entrance to the mines. The entrance is by the
steps at Rabagones, from which the road runs and the tram-way that
they are making. If you had gone that way you would have reached the
works in ten minutes. From here it is a long way, and a very bad road.
We are at the outer circle of the mining galleries, and shall have to
go through passages and tunnels, down ladders, through cuttings, up
slopes, and then down the inclined plane; in short, cross the mines
from this side to the other, where the workshops are and the furnaces,
the machines and the smelting-house.”
“Well, I seem to have been uncommonly stupid,” said Golfin, laughing.
“I will guide you with much pleasure, for I know every inch of the
place.”
Golfin, whose feet sank in the loose earth, slipping here and tottering
there, had at last reached the solid ground of the path, and his first
idea was to look closely at the good-natured lad who addressed him.
For a minute or two he was speechless with surprise.
“You!” he said, in a low voice.
“I am blind, it is true, Señor,” said the boy. “But I can run without
seeing from one end to the other of the mines of Socartes. This stick I
carry prevents my stumbling, and Choto is always with me, when I have
not got Nela with me, who is my guide. So, follow me, Señor, and allow
me to guide you.”
CHAPTER II.
GUIDED RIGHT.
“And were you born blind?” asked Golfin, with eager interest, arising
not only from compassion.
“Yes, Señor, born blind,” replied the lad, with perfect simplicity.
“I only know the world by fancy, feeling and hearing. I have learned
to understand that the most wonderful portion of the universe is that
which is unknown to me. I know that the eyes of other people are not
like mine, since they are able to distinguish things by them--but the
power seems to me so extraordinary, that I cannot even imagine the
possibility of its existence.”
“Who knows ...” Golfin began. “But what strange scene is this, my
friend? What a wonderful place we are in!”
The traveller, who had been walking by the side of his companion,
stood still in astonishment at the weird view which lay before him.
They were in a deep basin resembling the crater of a volcano; the
ground at the bottom was broken and rough, and the sloping sides still
more so. Round the margin and in the middle of the vast caldron,
which looked even larger than it was in the deceptive chiaroscuro of
the moonlit night, stood colossal figures, deformed caricatures of
humanity, monsters lying prone with their feet in the air, with arms
spread in despair, stunted growths, distorted faces such as we see in
the whimsical wreathing of floating clouds--but all still, silent, and
turned to stone. In color they were mummy-like, a reddish bistre; their
action suggested the delirium of fever arrested by sudden death. It was
as though giant forms had petrified in the midst of some demoniacal
orgy, and their gestures and the burlesque grimaces of the monstrous
heads had been stricken into fixity, like the motionless attitudes of
sculpture. The silence which prevailed in this volcanic-looking hollow
was itself terrifying. One might fancy that the cries and shrieks of a
thousand voices had been petrified too, and had been held there locked
in stone for ages.
“Where are we, my young friend?” asked Golfin. “This place is like a
nightmare.”
“This part of the mine is called La Terrible,” replied the blind boy,
not appreciating his companion’s frame of mind. “It was worked till
about two years ago when the ore was exhausted, and now the mining
is carried on in other parts which are more profitable. The strange
objects that surprise you so much are the blocks of stone which we call
_cretácea_, and which consist of hardened ferruginous clay, after the
ore has been extracted. I have been told that the effect is sublime,
particularly in the moonlight; but I do not understand such things.”
“A wonderful effect,--yes--” said the stranger, who still stood gazing
at the scene, “but which to me is more terrible than pleasing, for it
reminds me of the horrors of neuralgia.--Shall I tell you what it is
like? It is as if I were standing inside a monstrous brain suffering
from a fearful headache. Those figures are like the images which
present themselves to the tortured brain, and become confounded with
the hideous fancies and visions created by a fevered mind.”
“Choto, Choto, here!” called the blind lad. “Take care now, Señor, how
you walk; we are going into a gallery.” And, in fact, Golfin saw that
his guide, feeling with his stick, was making his way towards a narrow
entrance distinguished by three stout posts.
The dog went in first, snuffing at the black cavern; the blind boy
followed him with the calm indifference of a man who dwells in
perpetual darkness. Golfin followed, not without some instinctive
trepidation and repugnance at an underground expedition.
“It is really wonderful,” he said, “that you should go in and out of
such a place without stumbling.”
“I have lived all my life in these places, and know them as well as my
own home. Here it is very cold; wrap yourself up if have you a cloak
with you. We shall soon be out at the other end.” He walked on, feeling
his way with his hand along the wall, which was formed of upright
beams, and saying:
“Mind you do not stumble over the ruts in the path; they bring the
mineral along here from the diggings above. Are you cold?”
“Tell me,” said the doctor, gaily. “Are you quite certain that the
earth has not swallowed us up? This passage is the gullet of some
monstrous insectivorous brute into whose stomach we miserable worms
have inadvertently crept.--Do you often take a walk in this delectable
spot?”
“Yes, often, and at all hours, and I think the place delightful. Now we
are in the most arid part--the ground here is pure sand--now we are on
the stones again. Here there is a constant drip of sulphurous water,
and down there we have a block of rock in which there are petrified
shells. There are layers of slate over there. Do you hear that toad
croaking? we are near the opening now; the rascal sits there every
night; I know him quite well. He has a hoarse, slow voice.”
“Who--the toad?”
“Yes, Señor; we are near the end now.”
“So I see; it looks like an eye staring at us--that is the mouth of the
corridor.”
No sooner were they out in the air again, than the first thing that
struck the doctor’s ear was the same melancholy song as he had heard
before. The blind boy heard it too; he turned round to his companion
and said, smiling with pride and pleasure:
“Do you hear her?”
“I heard that voice before and it charmed me wonderfully. Who is the
singer?”
Instead of answering, the blind boy stopped and shouted with all
the force of his lungs: “Nela! Nela!” and the name was repeated by
a hundred echoes, some quite close, others faint and distant. Then,
putting his hands to his mouth for a speaking-trumpet, he called out:
“Do not come to me, I am going that way. Wait for me at the forge--at
the forge!”
He turned to the doctor again and explained:
“Nela is a girl who goes about with me; she is my guide--my
_Lazarillo_. When it was dusk we were coming home together from the
great meadow--it was rather cool, so, as my father forbids my walking
out at night without a cloak, I waited in Romolinos’ cabin, and Nela
ran home to fetch it for me. After staying some little time in the hut,
I remembered that I had a friend coming to see me at home and I had not
patience to wait for Nela, so I set out with Choto. I was just going
down La Terrible when I met you. We shall soon be at the forge now and
there we must part, for my father is not pleased when I go home late,
and Nela will show you the way to the works.”
“Many thanks, my little friend.”
The tunnel had brought them out at a spot even more wonderful than that
they had left. It was an enormous gulf or chasm in the earth, looking
like the result of an earthquake; but it had not been rent by the
fierce throbs of planetary fires, but slowly wrought by the laborious
pick of the miner. It looked like the interior of a huge shipwrecked
vessel, stranded on the shore, and broken across the waist by the
breakers, so as to bend it at an obtuse angle. You could fancy you saw
its ribs laid bare, and their ends standing up in an irregular file on
one side. Within the hollow hull lay huge stones, like the relics of a
cargo tossed about by the waves, and the deceptive light of the moon
lent so much aid to the fancy that Golfin could have believed that he
saw among the relics of a ship’s fittings, corpses half devoured by
fishes, mummies, skeletons--all dead, silent, half-destroyed and still,
as if they had long been lying in the infinite sepulchre of the ocean.
And the illusion was perfect when he presently heard a sound of waters,
and a regular splash like the dash of ripples in the hollow of a rock,
or through the skeleton timbers of a wrecked vessel.
“There is water hereabouts,” he said to his guide.
“The noise you hear,”--replied the other, stopping,--“and which sounds
like--what shall I say--like the gurgle you make when you gargle your
throat?...”
“Exactly--and where is that gurgle? Is it some rivulet that runs near
here?”
“No, Señor; over there to the left there is a slope, and beyond it a
wide mouth opens in the ground, a cavern, an abyss without any known
bottom. La Trascava they call it. Some say that it runs down to the sea
at Ficóbriga, and others think that a river flows at the bottom of it
which goes round and round, like a wheel, and never comes out anywhere.
I fancy it must be like a whirlpool. Some again say that down there is
a constant gust of air coming out of the interior of the earth--as we
blow when we whistle--and that this blast meets a current of water;
then they quarrel, and struggle, and fight, and produce that noise that
we hear up here.”
“And has no one ever been down into this cavern?”
“It can only be got into in one way.”
“How?”
“By jumping into it. Those who have gone in have never come out again;
and it is a great pity, for they might have told us what goes on in
there. The other end of the cavern is a long way off from this, for
two years ago, when some miners were working they came upon a rift in
the rock where they heard the very same sound of water as you hear now.
This rift must, no doubt, communicate with the inside galleries, out
of which the blast blows and into which the water rushes. By daylight
you can see it plainly, for you need only go a few steps to the left
to reach the spot and there is a comfortable seat there. Some people
are frightened to go there, but Nela and I sit there to listen to
the voice down inside the cavern--for really, Señor, we can fancy we
hear it talking. Nela declares and swears that she hears words, and
can distinguish them quite plainly. I must confess I never heard any
words; but it goes on murmuring like a soliloquy or a meditation, and
sometimes it is sad and sometimes gay--sometimes angry, and sometimes
good-humored and jolly.”
“And yet I can make nothing of it but a gurgle,” said the doctor
laughing.
“It sounds so from this spot.--But we must not stop now, it is getting
late. You must be prepared to go through another gallery.”
“Another?”
“Yes--and this one branches off into two in the middle. Beyond that
there is a labyrinth of turns and zigzags, because the miners have to
make galleries which, when they are worked out, are deserted and left
to their fate. Go on Choto.”
Choto slipped into a little opening that looked scarcely bigger than
a rabbit-hole, followed by the doctor and his guide, who felt his way
along the dark, narrow, crooked passage with his stick. There could be
no better evidence of the delicacy and subtlety of the sense of touch,
extending beyond the skin of a human hand through a piece of senseless
wood. They went forwards, at first in a curve, and then round corner
after corner, and all the way between walls of damp, and half-rotten
planking.
“Do you know what this reminds me of?” said the doctor, perceiving that
his guide took pleasure in similes and comparisons. “Of nothing so
much as the thoughts of perverse man. We represent the consciousness
of evil, when he looks into his conscience and sees himself in all his
vileness.”
Golfin fancied that he had used a metaphor rather above his companion’s
comprehension; but the blind boy proved that he was mistaken, for he
said at once:
“For those to whom that inner world looks dark and gloomy, these
galleries must be dismal indeed; but I, who live in perpetual darkness,
find here something which has an affinity with my own nature. I can
walk here as you would in the broadest road. If it were not for the
want of air in some parts and the excessive damp in others, I should
prefer these subterranean passages to any place I know.”
“That is an idea of brooding fancy.”
“I feel as if there were in my brain a narrow passage--a
rabbit-hole--like this that we are walking in, and there my ideas run
riot grandly.”
“Ah! what a pity that you should never have seen the azure vault of
the sky at mid-day!” the doctor exclaimed involuntarily. “Tell me,
does this dark hole--in which your ideas run riot so grandly--lead out
anywhere?”
“Oh yes! we shall be outside quite soon now. The vault of the sky you
said--I fancy it must be a perfect, equal curve, which looks as if we
could touch it with our hands, but we cannot really.”
As he spoke they got out of the tunnel; Golfin drawing a deep breath of
relief, like a man who has cast off a burthen, exclaimed as he looked
up at the heavens:
“Thank God that I see you once more stars of the firmament. Never have
you seemed to me more beautiful than at this moment.”
“As I was going along,” said the blind boy, holding out his hand
which held a stone, “I picked up this piece of crystal--now do you
mean to say that these crystals, which to my touch are so sharply cut,
so smooth and so neatly packed side by side, are not a very beautiful
thing? They seem so to me at any rate.” And as he spoke he broke off
some of the crystals.
“My dear fellow,” said the doctor with great feeling and compassion,
“it is sad indeed that you should not be able to know that this stone
is hardly worth looking at, while over our heads there hang the myriads
of marvellous lamps that sparkle in the heavens.” The boy threw back
his head and said in a voice of deep regret:
“Is it true that you are there, you little stars?”
“God is infinitely great and merciful,” said Golfin, laying his hand on
his young companion’s shoulder. “Who knows--who can say--much stranger
things have happened--are happening every day.” As he spoke, he looked
close into his face, trying to see the lad’s eyes by the dim light;
fixed and sightless, he turned them in the direction in which he heard
the speaker’s voice.
“There is no hope,” Golfin muttered.
They had come out on an open space. The moon, rising higher and
higher, illuminated undulating meadows and high slopes, which looked
like the ramparts of some immense fortification.--To the left, on a
level plateau, the doctor saw a group of white houses crowning the
slope.
“There, to the left,” said the boy, “is my home--up at the top. Do
you know that those three houses are what remain of the village of
Aldeacorba de Suso. All the rest has been pulled down at different
times in order to dig mines; all the soil underneath is iron ore, and
our fore-fathers lived over millions of wealth without knowing it.”
He was still speaking when a girl came running to meet them, a tiny
scrap of a child, swift of foot and slightly built.
“Nela, Nela!” cried the blind boy. “Have you brought me a cloak?”
“Here it is,” said the girl, putting it over his shoulders.
“Is this the songstress? Do you know you have a lovely voice?”
“Oh!” exclaimed the boy, in a tone of innocent admiration, “she sings
beautifully! Now, Mariquilla, you must show this gentleman the way to
the works, and I must go home. I can hear my father’s voice already;
he is coming to look for me, and he will be sure to scold me.... I am
here, I am coming!”
“Make haste in, my boy!” said Golfin, shaking hands with him. “The air
is fresh, and you might take cold. Many thanks for your company. I hope
we may be good friends, for I shall be here some little time. I am the
brother of Cárlos Golfin, the engineer of the mines.”
“Oh! indeed.... Don Cárlos is a great friend of my father’s. He has
been expecting you these two days.”
“I arrived this evening at the station at Villamojada, and they told
me that Socartes was not far, and that I could come up on foot. So, as
I like to see the country and get exercise, and as they told me it was
‘on, straight on,’ I set out, and sent my luggage in a cart. You saw
how I had lost my way--but there is no evil out of which good does not
come.... I have made your acquaintance, and we shall be friends, very
good friends perhaps. Go in, good-bye; get home quickly, for the autumn
evenings are not good for you. The little Señora here will be so good
as to guide me.”
“It is not more than a quarter of an hour’s walk to the works, quite a
short way. But take care not to stumble over the rails, and look out
as you cross the inclined plane. There often are trucks on the road,
and in this damp weather the ground is like soap.--Good-bye, Caballero,
and my very good friend.--Good-night.” He went up the slope by a
narrow flight of steps cut in the soil and squared by beams of wood;
Golfin went straight on, guided by Nela. Does what they said deserve a
separate chapter? In case it should, I will give it one.
CHAPTER III.
A DIALOGUE WHICH EXPLAINS MUCH.
“Wait a moment my child, do not go so fast,” said Golfin, himself
standing still. “I want to light a cigar.”
The night was so still, that no precautions were needed in striking the
light to guard it from the wind, and when the doctor had lighted his
cigar he held the wax match in front of Nela, saying kindly:
“Show me your face, little one.”
He looked in the child’s face with astonishment; her black eyes
shone with a red spot, like a spark, for the instant while the
match lasted. She looked a child, for she was but a tiny creature,
extremely thin and undeveloped; but she seemed like a little woman,
for her eyes had not a childlike expression, and her face had the
mature look of a nature which has gone through experience and acquired
judgment--or will have acquired it soon. In spite of this anomaly,
she was well-proportioned and her small head sat gracefully on her
lean little body. You might have said she was a woman seen through a
diminishing-glass; or, again, that she was a child with the eyes and
expression of a grown-up person. In your uncertainty, it was hard to
say whether she was astonishingly forward or lamentably backward.
“How old are you?” asked Golfin, shaking his fingers free of the match
which was beginning to burn them.
“They say I am sixteen,” said Nela, gazing in her turn at the doctor.
“Sixteen!” exclaimed Golfin. “Much less than that, child! You are
twelve at most to judge by appearances.”
“Holy Virgin! They say I am quite a phenomenon,” said the girl in a
tone of weariness of the subject.
“A phenomenon!” repeated Golfin laying his hand on her hair. “Well,
perhaps so. Now, come along--show me the way.”
Nela set out resolutely, keeping but a little way in front of the
traveller but rather on one side of him, to show her just appreciation
of such illustrious company. Her nimble little feet, which were bare,
were evidently familiar with the ground they trod, with the stones, the
puddles and the thistles. She wore a plain frock of scanty breadth,
and the rudimentary simplicity of her garb, as well as the loose flow
of her thick, short hair, which fell in natural waves, had a stamp of
savage independence rather than of abject poverty. Her speech, on the
other hand, struck Golfin by its modest propriety, indicating a formed
and thoughtful mind. Her voice had a gentle inflection of kindliness,
which could not be the result of education, and her glance was restless
and shy, whenever she was not looking at the sky or the earth.
“Tell me,” said Golfin. “Do you live in the mines? Are you the child of
any of the workmen employed here?”
“They say I have neither father nor mother.”
“Poor little girl! and you work in the mines?”
“No, Señor. I am of no use at all,” she replied without raising her
eyes.
“Well, you are modest, at any rate.”
The doctor bent down to look closely at her face; it was small
and freckled all over with little mole-like spots. Her forehead
was narrow, her nose sharp but not ill-shaped, her eyes black and
brilliant, but their light shone but sadly. Her hair, naturally of
a golden brown, was dull for want of care, and from exposure to the
sun, wind and dust. Her lips were so thin as to be hardly visible, and
always wore a smile, but it was like the faint smile of the dead who
have died dreaming of Heaven. Nela’s mouth was, strictly speaking,
ugly, still it deserved a word of praise from the point of view
expressed in the line from Polo de Medina: “A mouth is sweet that asks
for nothing.”[1] In fact, neither in word, look, or smile, did the poor
child betray any of the degrading habits of the beggar. Golfin stroked
the sad little face, holding it under the chin and almost encircling it
with his big fingers.
“Poor little body!” he said. “Providence has not been over-generous to
you. Who do you live with?”
“With Señor Centeno, the overseer of the beasts belonging to the mines?”
“You do not seem to have been born in luxury.--Who were your parents?”
“They say my mother sold peppers in the market at Villamojada. She was
not married. She had me one All-Saints’ day, and then she went to be
wet-nurse at Madrid.”
“A highly estimable woman!” muttered Golfin ironically.
“And no one knows who your father was?”
“Yes, Señor,” said Nela with some pride. “My father was the first who
ever lighted the lamps of Villamojada.”
“Wonderful!”
“I ought to tell you,” said the little girl with the gravity
befitting the dignity of history, “that when the town council first
had lamps hung up in the streets, my father was entrusted with the
care of lighting and cleaning them. I was nursed by a sister of my
mother’s--not that she was married either, as they tell me. My father
had quarrelled with her--they all lived together as I have heard--and
when he went out to light the lamps he used to put me in his basket,
with his lamp-chimneys and cottons and oil. One day when he went up to
light the lamp on the bridge, he put the basket on the parapet, and I
rolled out and fell into the river.”
“And you were not drowned!”
“No, Señor; for I fell on the stones. Holy Mother of God! I was a dear
little thing before that, they tell me.”
“Yes, I am sure you were,” said the stranger with an impulse of
loving-kindness. “And so you are still.--But tell me what next. Have
you lived long in the mines?”
“Thirteen years, they say. My mother took me back after my tumble.
My father fell ill, and as my mother would not do anything for him,
because he was wicked to her, he was taken to the hospital where they
say he died. Meanwhile my mother came to work in the mines. They say
the overseer discharged her one day because she drank so much.”
“And your mother went.... Go on, I take a real interest in the good
woman; she went....”
“She went to a very big hole over there,” said the child, standing
still and speaking with intense pathos, “and she threw herself in.”
“The devil she did! That was coming to a bad end. I suppose she did not
come out again?”
“No, Señor,” said Nela with perfect simplicity. “She is there still.”
“And since that catastrophe, poor child,” said Golfin kindly, “you
have stayed at work here. Mining work is very hard labor and you have
taken the hue of the soil; you are thin and ill-nourished. This life is
enough to ruin the strongest constitution.”
“No, Señor; I do not labor. They say I am not good for anything and
never shall be.”
“God forbid, silly child! why you are a treasure.”
“No indeed,” insisted the girl, “I cannot work at all. If I take up
ever so small a load, I fall down, and if I am set to any hard work I
faint away before long.”
“You are as God made you--and if you fell into the hands of any one who
knew how to treat you, you would work very well.”
“No, Señor, no indeed,” she repeated as energetically as though it were
in her own praise that she spoke, “I am no good to any one--only in the
way.”
“Then you are a mere vagabond?”
“No, Señor, for I attend on Pablo.”
“And who is Pablo?”
“That young blind gentleman, whom you met in La Terrible. I have been
his guide for the last year and a half. I take him everywhere; we go
for long walks in the fields.”
“He seems a good fellow, this Pablo.”
Nela again stood still and looked up at the doctor, and her face glowed
with enthusiasm as she exclaimed:
“Holy Virgin! He is the best and dearest creature in the whole world!
Poor fellow!--and he is cleverer without eyes than all those who can
see.”
“Yes, I liked your master. Does he belong to the place?”
“Yes, Señor; he is the only son of Don Francisco Penáguilas, a very
kind and very rich gentleman who lives in the houses at Aldeacorba.”
“Tell me, why are you called Nela? What does it mean?”
The child shrugged her shoulders, and after a pause, she said:
“My mother’s name was María Canela, and so she was called Nela; they
say it is a dog’s name. My name is María.”
“Mariquita.”
“María Nela they call me, or sometimes Canela’s girl, and some say
Marianela, and some merely Nela.”
“And your master, is he fond of you?”
“Yes, Señor; he is very good to me. He says he sees with my eyes, for I
take him everywhere, and tell him what everything is like.”
“Everything that he cannot see?” The stranger seemed much interested in
this conversation.
“Yes--I tell him everything. He asks me what a star is like, and I
tell him all about it in such a way that it is the same to him as
if he could see it. I explain it all--what the planets are like,
and the clouds, and the sky, and the water, and the lightning, the
weather-cocks, the butterflies, the mists, the snails, and the shapes
and faces of men and animals. I tell him what is ugly and what is
pretty, and so he gets to understand everything.”
“I see; your work is no trifle. What is ugly and what is pretty! There
is nothing.... You decide upon that question? Tell me, can you read?”
“No, Señor.--I tell you I am good for nothing.”
She said this in a tone of perfect conviction, and the gesture that
emphasized her protestation seemed to add: “You must be a great
blockhead to fancy that I am good for anything.”
“Would you not be glad if your friend, by the grace of God, should
recover his sight?”
The girl did not answer at once, but after a pause she said:
“It is impossible.”
“No, not impossible, only difficult and doubtful.”
“The engineer who manages the mines did give my master’s father some
hope of it.”
“Don Cárlos Golfin?”
“Yes, Señor. Don Cárlos has a brother who is an eye-doctor, and they
say he gives sight to the blind, and makes those who squint look
straight.”
“What a clever man!”
“Yes; and when the eye-doctor wrote to Don Cárlos that he was coming to
see him, his brother wrote to him to bring his instruments with him to
try if he could make Pablo see.”
“And has this good man been here yet?”
“No, sir; for he is always travelling about in England and America, and
it seems it will be some time yet before he comes. Pablo laughs at it
all, and says no man can give him what the Holy Virgin has denied him
from his birth.”
“Well--perhaps he is right. But are we not nearly there? For I see some
chimneys which pour forth smoke darker than the bottomless pit, and a
light too, which looks like a forge.”
“Yes--here we are. Those are the roasting furnaces, which burn day and
night. There, in front, are the machines for washing the ore; they only
work by day. To the right-hand is the chemical workshop, and down
there, last of all, the counting-house and offices.”
The place seemed to lie in fact as Marianela indicated. In the absence
of any wind a mist hung over the spot, shrouding the buildings in
heavy, gaseous fog, and giving them a confused and fantastic outline
against the moonlit sky.
“This is a pleasanter place to see for once than to live in,” said
Golfin, hastening onwards. “The cloud of vapor wraps round everything,
and the lights have dim circles round them, like the moon on a sultry
night. Which is the office?”
“Here, we are almost there.”
After passing in front of the furnaces, where the heat made them hurry
on, the doctor perceived a house which was no less dingy and smoky than
the others, and at the same instant he heard a piano being played with
a vigor bordering on frenzy.
“We have music here. I recognize my sister-in-law’s touch and
execution.”
“It is Señorita Sofía who is playing,” said María.
The lights of a busy household shone in the windows, and the balcony on
the ground-floor was wide open. A small spark was visible, the spark of
a cigar. Before the doctor could reach the spot, the spark flew off,
describing a parabola of fire, and breaking into a thousand twinkling
specks--the smoker had shaken the end off.
“There is that everlasting smoker!” cried the doctor, in a tone of
affectionate delight. “Cárlos, Cárlos!”
“Teodoro!” exclaimed a voice from the balcony. The piano ceased like a
singing-bird scared by a noise. Steps sounded through the house. The
doctor gave his guide a silver coin, and ran up to the door.
CHAPTER IV.
STONY HEARTS.
Retracing her steps and jumping over the obstacles in her path, Nela
made her way to a house on the left of the machine-sheds, and close to
the stables where the sixty mules belonging to the establishment stood
in grave meditation. The residence of the overseer, though of modern
construction, was neither elegant nor even commodious. The roof was
low, and it was too small by far to give adequate shelter to the parent
couple of the Centenos--to their four children--to their cat--and to
Nela into the bargain; but it figured, nevertheless, on the parchment
plans of the settlement under the ostentatious name of “overseer’s
residence.”
Inside, the house seemed to afford a practical illustration of the
saying which we have already heard so emphatically stated by Marianela;
namely, that she, Marianela, was of no good to anyone, only in the way.
Somehow, in there, room was found for everything--for the father and
mother, for their sons and their sons’ tools, for a heap of rubbish,
of the use of which no irrefragable proof has been found, for the cat,
for the dish off which the cat was fed, for Tanasio’s guitar, for the
materials of which Tanasio made his _garrotes_--a kind of lidless
hamper--for half a dozen old mule-halters, for the blackbird’s cage,
for two useless old boilers, for an altar--at which Dame Centeno
worshipped the Divinity with offerings of artificial flowers and some
patriarchal tapers, a perennial settlement for flies--in short, for
everything and everybody excepting little María Canela. Constantly some
one was heard to say: “You cannot take a step without falling over that
confounded child, Nela!” or else:
“Get into your corner, do.--What a plague the creature is; she does
nothing, and lets no one else do anything.”
The house consisted of three rooms and a loft. The first of these
served not only as dining-room and drawing-room, but also as the
bedroom of the two elders; in the second slept the two young ladies,
already grown-up women, and named _La Mariuca_ and _La Pepina_.
Tanasio, the eldest of all, stored himself in the garret, and Celipin,
the youngest of the family and nearly twelve years old, had a bed
in the kitchen--the innermost room, the dingiest, dampest and least
habitable of the three rooms which composed the mansion of the Centenos.
Nela, during the many years of her residence there, had inhabited
various nooks and corners, going from one to another, according to
the exigencies of the moment, to make way for the thousand objects
which served only to curtail the last scanty accommodation left for
human beings. On some occasion--the precise facts are unknown to
history--Tanasio, whose feet were as crippled as his brain, and who
devoted himself to the manufacture of large hampers made of hazel
rods, had placed in the kitchen a pile of at least half a dozen of
these bulky trophies of his art. Marianela looked on, casting her eyes
sadly around, and finding no corner left into which to creep; but the
predicament itself inspired her with a happy idea, which she at once
acted upon. She simply got into one of the baskets, and there passed
the night in sound and blissful sleep. In fact, it was comfortable
enough, and when it was cold she pulled another basket on the top. From
that time, so long as there were _garrotes_ (a local name for these
coarse, open baskets) to be found, she never was at a loss for a crib,
and the others would say of the child: “She sleeps like a jewel.”
During meals, in the midst of a noisy discussion on the morning’s work,
a voice would suddenly say in rough tones: “Here!” and Nela would have
a plate given her by one of the family, big or small, and would seat
herself against the big chest to eat what she had got, in silence.
But towards the end of the meal sometimes the master’s harsh bleating
voice would be lifted up saying, with a perfunctory air of benevolence:
“Mother, you have given poor Nela nothing.” And then _Señana_, a
compound name abbreviated from Señora Ana, would move her head about as
if trying to see some minute and remote object between the bodies of
her own children, saying as she did so: “What, are you there? I thought
you had stayed at Aldeacorba.”
At night, after supper, the family repeated the Paternoster over
their beads and then, staggering like bacchantes, and rubbing their
eyes with their fists, Mariuca and Pepina went to their beds, which
were snug and comfortable and covered with patchwork quilts. In a few
minutes a duet of contralto snoring was heard which lasted without
intermission till morning dawned. Tanasio went up to the higher regions
and Celipin curled himself round on a heap of rags, not far from the
basket into which Nela disappeared from sight.
The family thus being disposed of, the parents sat up for a while in
the living-room, and while Centeno, seating himself with a stretch
close to the little table and taking up a newspaper, made a series of
grimaces to convey his bold intention of reading it, his wife took a
stocking full of money out of the family chest, and after counting it
and adding or taking out a few pieces, carefully restored it to its
place. Then she took out sundry paper packets containing gold pieces
and transferred some from one parcel to another. Meanwhile such remarks
as these were made. “Mariuca’s petticoat cost thirty-two _reales_.
I gave Tanasio the six _reales_ he had to pay. We only want eleven
_duros_[2] to make up the five hundred.”
Or, on the other hand:
“The deputies agreed.”--“Yesterday a conference was held, etc....”
Señana’s fingers did her sums, while her husband’s forefinger passed
doubtfully and waveringly along the lines, to guide his eye and mind
through the labyrinth of letters. And these sentences gradually died
away into monosyllables; one yawned, then the other, and at last all
sunk into silence, after extinguishing the lamp by which the overseer
of the mules had been cultivating his mind.
One night, when all was quiet, a creaking of baskets became audible
in the kitchen. It was not perfectly dark there, for the shutters of
the little window were never shut, and Celipin Centeno, who was not
yet asleep, saw the topmost baskets, which were packed one inside the
other, rising slowly like a gaping oyster-shell, and out of the opening
peeped the nose and black eyes of Nela.
“Celipin,” she said, “Celipinillo, are you asleep?” and she put a hand
out.
“No, I am awake; Nela, you look like a mussel in its shell. What do you
want?”
“Here, take this, it is a _peseta_[3] that a gentleman gave me this
evening--the brother of Don Cárlos. How much have you got now? This is
something like a present; now I have given you something better than
coppers!”
“Give it here and thank you very much, Nela,” said the boy, sitting up
to reach the money. “You have given me nearly thirty-two _reales_ now,
a copper at a time.[4] I have it all safe here, inside my shirt, in the
little bag you gave me. You are a real good girl.”
“I do not want money for anything; but take good care of it, for
if Señana were to find it, she would think you would get into some
mischief with it and thrash you with the big stick.”
“No, no, it is not to get into mischief,” said the boy vehemently, and
clenching the money to his breast with one hand, while he supported
himself on the other. “It is to make myself a rich man, Nela, a clever
man like some I know. On Sunday, if they will let me go to Villamojada,
I must buy a spelling-book to learn to read, although they will not
teach me here. Who cares! I will learn by myself. Do you know, Nela,
they say that Don Cárlos is the son of a man who swept the streets in
Madrid, and he, all by himself, learnt everything he knows.”
“And so you think you can do the same, noodle.”
“I believe you! If father will not take me away from these confounded
mines, I will find some other way; ah! you shall see what sort of a
man I am. I was never meant for that Nela. You just wait till I have
collected a good sum, and then you will see--you will see how I will
find a place in the town there, or take the train to Madrid, or a
steamboat to carry me over to the islands out there, or get a place as
a servant to some one who will let me study.”
“Dear Mother of Heaven!” exclaimed Nela, opening her oyster-shell still
wider and putting out her whole head. “How quiet you have kept all
these sly plans.”
“Do you take me for a fool? I tell you what Nela, I am in a mad rage.
I cannot live like this; I shall die in the mines. Drat it all! Why,
I spend my nights in crying, and my hands are all knocked to pieces
and--but do not be frightened, Nela, at what I am going to say, and do
not think me wicked--I would not say it to any other living soul....”
“Well?”
“I do not love father and mother--not as I ought.”
“Oh! if you say such things I will never give you another _real_.
Celipin, for God’s sake, think of what you are saying.”
“I cannot help it. Why, just look how we go on here. We are not
human beings, we are brutes. Sometimes I almost think we are less
than the mules, and I ask myself if I am in any way better than a
donkey--fetching a basket of the ore and pitching it into a truck;
shoving the truck up to the furnaces; stirring the mineral with a stick
to wash it!--Oh dear, oh dear!” ... and the hapless boy began to sob
bitterly. “Drat--drat it all! but if you spend years upon years in work
like this, you are bound to go to the bad at last, your very brains
turn to iron-stone.--No, I was never meant for this. I tell my father
to let me go away and learn something, and he answers that we are poor,
and that I am too full of fancies.--We are nothing, nothing but brutes
grinding out a living day by day.--Why do you say nothing?”
But Nela did not answer--perhaps she was comparing the boy’s hard lot
with her own, and finding her own much the worse of the two.
“What do you want me to say?” she replied at last. “I can never be any
good to any one--I am nobody. I can say nothing to you.... But do not
think such wicked things--about your father I mean.”
“You only say so to comfort me; but you know quite well it is true, and
I do believe you are crying.”
“I ... no.”
“Yes, you are, I am sure.”
“Every one has something to cry for,” said María in a broken voice.
“But it is very late, Celipin; we must go to sleep.”
“No indeed, not if I know it!”
“Yes, child; go to sleep and do not think of such miserable things.
Good-night.”
The shell closed and all was silent.
We hear a great deal said about the hard and narrow materialism of
cities, a dry rot which, amid all the splendor and pleasures of
civilization, eats into the moral cohesion of society; but there is
a worse and deeper disease; the parochial materialism of country
villages--which ossifies millions of living beings, crushes every
noble ambition in their souls and shuts them into the petty round of a
mechanical existence, reducing them to the meanest animal instincts.
There are many more blatant evils in the social order as, for instance,
speculation, usury, the worship of mammon among men of high culture;
but above all these, broods a monster which secretly and silently
ruins more than all else, and that is the greed of the peasant. The
covetous peasant acknowledges no moral law, has no religion, no clear
notions of right and wrong; they are all inextricably mixed up in his
mind with a strange compound of superstition and calculating avarice.
Behind an air of hypocritical simplicity, there lies a sinister
arithmetic which, for keenness and intelligibility, far transcends the
methods of the best mathematicians. A peasant who has taken a fancy to
hoard copper coin, and dreams of changing it presently into silver and
then the silver into gold, is the most ignoble creature in creation; he
is capable of every form and device of malice known to man, combined
with an absence of feeling that is appalling. His soul shrinks and
shrivels till it is nothing more than a minim measure. Ignorance,
coarseness, and squalor complete the abominable compound and deprive it
of all the means of veiling the desolation within. He can only count on
his fingers, but he is capable of reducing to figures all moral sense,
conscience and the soul itself.
Señana and Centeno, who, after many struggles, had contrived to earn
their “morsel of bread” in the mines of Socartes, were able to make,
with the added toil of their four children, a daily wage which they
would have regarded as a princely fortune in the days when they
wandered from fair to fair selling pots and pipkins. It should be
mentioned with regard to the intellectual powers of Centeno, that
his head, in the opinion of many persons, rivalled the steam-hammer
in the workshops for sheer hardness; with no disparagement to that
of dame Ana, his wife, who seemed to be a woman of much prudence and
discrimination, and who governed her household as carefully as the
wisest prince could govern his dominions. She bagged the wages, earned
by her husband and children, with the best grace in the world, and they
amounted to a neat little sum; and each time the money was brought
home, she felt as if the very sacrament itself were being carried in,
so intense was her delight at the mere sight of coin.
Señana afforded her children very little comfort in return for the
fortune she was accumulating by the labor of their hands; however, as
they never complained of the utter and debasing misery in which they
lived, as they betrayed no wish for emancipation, nor for a breath of
any nobler life worthier of intelligent beings, Señana let the days
slip on. Many indeed had slipped away before her children slept in
beds, and many, many more before their brawny limbs were covered with
decent garments. She gave them regular and wholesome meals, following
in this respect the rules most in vogue; but eating in her house was a
melancholy ceremony nevertheless, a mere doling out of fodder, as it
were, to human animals.
So far as mental nourishment was concerned, Señana firmly believed
that her husband’s erudition, acquired by much miscellaneous reading,
was amply sufficient to credit the whole family with learning, and for
that reason she forbore to cram the minds of her progeny even with the
amount of instruction which is given in schools. The elder ones helped
her, and the youngest lived free of pedagogues, buried alive for twelve
hours out of every twenty-four in brutalizing toil in the mines, so
that the whole family swam at large and at leisure in the vast and
stagnant ocean of dulness.
The two girls, Mariuca and Pepina, were not destitute of charms, though
youth and robust growth were the chief. One of them read fluently, but
not the other, and, so far as knowledge of the world was concerned, it
is easy to suppose that some rudimentary information, at least, was
not lacking to girls who lived with a perfect chorus of nymphs of all
ages and every grade of respectability--or the contrary--perpetually
employed in mechanical work which left their tongues free to wag.
Mariuca and Pepina were buxom and well grown, and as erect and strong
as Amazons. They wore short petticoats, displaying half the calf of the
leg which, as well as their broad feet, was bare, and their rough heads
might have supported an architrave as stoutly as those of Caryatides.
The russet dust of the iron ore which colored them from head to foot,
like all in the mines, gave them the appearance of massive figures in
terra-cotta.
Tanasio was a lethargic being; his want of character and ambition
verged on idiocy. Confined to the house from his earliest years,
incapable of taking any exercise, of feeling either annoyance or
pleasure, or of fulfilling any task, the boy, who was born to be a
machine, had sunk into something not superior to the roughest tool.
The day which found such a creature able to originate an idea, would
infallibly see the total subversion of the order of nature; for,
hitherto, no stone has been known to think.
The relation of this family to their mother was that of abject
submission on their part, and unlimited despotism on hers. The only
child who ever dared to show symptoms of rebellion was the little
one. Señana, with her narrow capacities, could not at all understand
this diabolical ambition to be something better than a stone. Was
there--did he suppose--any happier or more exemplary life than that of
a stone? She would not admit that it might be changed, even for that
of a rolling stone. Señana loved her children--but there are so many
ways of loving. She placed them above every other consideration--so
long as they submitted to work perpetually in the mines, to pour all
their earnings into one bowl, to obey her blindly, to cherish no wild
aspirations nor wish to appear in fine clothes, not to marry too
young, nor to learn any mischievous trash and cram their heads with
school-work, since “poor folks”--she would say--“must always remain
poor and behave as such, and not be wanting to jabber in the style of
the rich city folks, who were eaten up with vices and rotten with sin.”
I have described the manners and customs which prevailed in the
Centeno’s house in order that the reader may understand the life to
which Nela was doomed, a helpless, forsaken creature, alone, useless,
incapable of earning a day’s wages; alike without a past and without a
future, with no right to anything on earth beyond a bare subsistence.
Señana gave her this, and firmly believed that her generosity was
nothing short of heroic. Many a time would she say, as she filled
Nela’s little platter: “What a reward I am laying up for myself
hereafter in Heaven!” And she believed it as if it were Gospel. No true
light could penetrate her thick skull as to the saintly exercise of
charity; she could never have understood that a kind word, a caress, a
loving and gentle action, which may make a wretch forget his misery,
are infinitely more precious--aye, and more heroic--than the broken
meat left from a bad meal. It was but a chance that she did not give
them to the cat, who, at least, was far more kindly spoken to. Nela
never heard herself addressed as _michita_, little pet, precious
darling--nor by any other of the sweet and endearing names that were
lavished on the cat.
Nothing ever suggested to Nela that she was born of human beings,
like the other inhabitants of the house. She was never punished; but
she felt that this immunity arose from their contemptuous pity for
her feeble frame, and certainly not from any special esteem or care
for her person. No one had ever taught her that she had a soul ready
to bring forth good fruit if she cultivated it with care, nor that
she bore within herself, like other mortals, that spark of the divine
fire which is called human intelligence, and that this spark might be
fanned to beneficent light and flame. No one had ever told her that
her grotesque smallness included in itself the germ of every noble and
delicate sentiment, and that those tiny buds might open out to lovely
flowers, with no more cultivation than a herb that we glance at now and
again. No one had told her that she had a right, by the very sternness
of Nature in creating her, to certain tender cares which the strong can
dispense with--the healthy and those who have parents and a home; since
under the laws of Christian jurisprudence the helpless, the poor, the
orphan, and the destitute, are all alike worthy of protection.
On the other hand, everything combined to impress upon her, her
absolute resemblance to a rolling stone, which has not even a shape of
its own, but takes that which the waters give it or the kick of the man
that spurns it. Everything told her that her place in the house was
something below the cat, whose sleek back received the only caresses
ever bestowed on anyone, and the blackbird that hopped about its cage.
And of them, at any rate, no one said in heartless compassion: “Poor
creature! it is a pity she did not die!”
CHAPTER V.
LABOR AND A LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES.
The smoke of the furnaces, which all night through were wide awake and
panting out their hot, hoarse breath, caught a silvery gleam as its
wreaths rolled into the distance; the faint smile of dawn fell upon the
remotest peaks of the mountains, and, by degrees, the hills that guard
Socartes came out of the darkness, the huge slopes of rust-colored
earth and the blackened buildings. The bell of the works rang out
shrilly its call “to work, to work,” and hundreds of sleepy souls came
out of the houses, huts, hovels, holes even. Doors creaked on their
hinges; the mules came reluctantly out of the stables, making their way
to their watering-place, and the whole establishment, which had just
now looked like a city of the dead lighted up by the infernal glare of
the furnaces, came to life and began to stir its thousand arms.
The steam soon was seething in the boilers of the great steam-engine,
which supplied the motive power both for the workshops and the
washing-mills. The water, which performed the principal part in the
operations, began to flow through the raised conduits from which it
fell on the cylinders. Files of men and women just risen from their
beds, made their way down to the scene of labor, and at length the
cylindrical sieves began to revolve with hideous groaning; the water
rushed from one to the other, pulverizing the dark earth which tumbled
on in muddy eddies and cataracts, from trough to trough, till it
settled at last in a fine chocolate-brown powder. The sound was as of
a thousand hungry jaws chewing grit and sand; the play of light on
water and soil made it as dazzling as a kaleidoscope, and the clatter
was like some enormous hollow drum, filled with pebbles and potsherds.
It was impossible to look on without turning giddy at the incessant
whirl of a vast skein, as it were, of threads of water, some clear and
transparent, others stained red by the ferruginous clay; nor could any
human brain that was not accustomed to the spectacle, picture to itself
this mad struggle of toothed wheels which never ceased biting at each
other, of cogs, that met, and caught, and rolled away again, of screws
which, as they turned, shrieked in pitiless clamor for oil.
The washing was all done in the open air. The connecting belts came
humming down from the machinery sheds; other belts began to revolve,
and at the same time a rhythmical stamping was heard, a slow and awful
tramp like a giant’s step, or a fearful throbbing inside mother earth.
This was the great hammer which had begun to beat; its stupendous blows
moulded the iron like a paste, and those huge wheels, and beams, which
look as if made to last forever, began to twist and writhe like the
limbs of men in torment, while the hammer, with its monotonous impact,
created new forms as strong as the rocks which are the work of ages.
For the results of labor have a strange resemblance to the results of
patience.
Men so black, that they look like hewn and animated coal, gathered
round the fiery objects that were taken from the forges, and seizing
them with those prolonged hands known as tongs, set to work to hammer
them. It is a strange kind of sculpture, this, which has fire for
its inspiring genius and a steam-hammer for its chisel. Wheels and
axle-trees for thousands of trucks, and the damaged portions of the
washing-machinery, were repaired here, and picks, spades and barrows
were made. At the back of the workshops saws hissed through blocks of
timber, and the iron, which had been formed for labor by fire of wood,
now cut through the sturdy fibre of trees hewn by the axe from their
native spot.
Meanwhile, the mules had been harnessed to long trains of trucks which
carried off the waste earth to add it to the slopes already made, or
fetched the mineral to be washed. They looked like immense reptiles,
crawling up and down to meet each other, and always passing close
but without any jar or collision. They crept into the mouths of the
tunnels, and their resemblance was really perfect to the wriggling
creatures that shelter in such damp clefts and caves; and when the
recalcitrant mules kicked and shied in the bowels of the earth, it was
easy to fancy the Saurians were fighting and screaming at each other.
In the deepest recesses of all, hundreds of men were tearing up the
earth with picks, inch by inch, to win the hidden treasure; these were
the sculptors of the strange and enormous figures which stood in awful
gravity and silence to confront the man who should venture to invade
their mysterious domain. The miners hewed down here, bored holes there,
dug farther on in one place, scraped down the wall in another, broke
up the limestone, chipped out the pretty flakes of mica and shale,
pounded down the calcareous clay, picked out the hematite and pyrites,
crushed the fine, white marble--rolling and stirring it incessantly
till it should yield zinc silicate--for zinc may be called the silver
of Europe, which, being a metal of which you cannot make saucepans,
is destined to become the fount of wealth and civilization. Is it not
on zinc that Belgium has hoisted her standard of moral and political
greatness? Aye, tin even has its epic!
The sky was clear and bright; the sun rose unclouded on the scene,
and the wide settlement of Socartes flashed from dark neutrality into
redness. The sculptured rocks, the heaps of ore, the hillocks of waste
soil that rose on every side like Babylonian mounds, were red; the
ground, the trucks and carts, the machinery, the water and the laborers
that gave life to Socartes. The brick-colored tone was universal, with
faint shades of difference in the earth and the houses, the metal and
the people’s garments. The women at work at the washing looked like a
crowd of nymphs, come down in the world, and cast in red ironstone.
A rivulet of crimson fluid ran through the bottom conduit to join a
crimson river--you might fancy it the sweat of these toiling men and
machines, of muscles and of iron.
Nela stepped out of the house. Even she, though she did not work in
the mines, was faintly tinged with the universal ruddle, for the
finely-powdered metal spared no one. In her hand she held a hunch of
bread which Señana had given her for breakfast, and as she ate it she
walked on quickly, lost in thought and not lingering to amuse herself.
She had soon passed the workshops and, going up the inclined plane and
the steps before mentioned, she reached the houses of Aldeacorba. The
first of these was a handsome and stately mansion, large, well-built,
and cheerful looking, but lately restored and painted; with stone
boundary walls, decorated eaves and a broad escutcheon surrounded
by granite foliage. And the escutcheon itself would be less missed
than the climbing vine, whose long and leafy branches looked like
whiskers--growing, as whiskers do, on each side of a face, of which
the two windows served as eyes, while the escutcheon was the nose and
the long balcony the mouth, always widely grinning. And to complete
this whimsical air of personality, a beam stuck out from the balcony
intended to attach a rope to support an awning, and with this addition
the face was seen as smoking a cigar. The roof was in the shape of a
cap and in it there was a window that might represent the tassel. The
chimneys could only be the ears. It was one of those faces in which a
physiognomist reads plainly, peace of mind, ease of circumstance and a
quiet conscience.
In front of it was a little court-yard enclosed by a wall of adobe,
and on one side was a pretty orchard. As Nela went in she met the cows
coming out to pasture, and after exchanging a few words with their
driver--a formidable youth, about four feet high and ten years old--she
went straight up to a stout gentleman, whiskered, grey-haired and
florid, with a kind face and pleasant smile, and a half-military and
half-rustic air; he was in his shirt sleeves and braces, and his hairy
arms were bared to the elbow. Before the little girl addressed him, he
looked up at the house and called out: “Here is Nela, my boy!”
A lad at once made his appearance, remarkably tall, grave and erect,
his head held somewhat stiffly and his eyes fixed and vacant like
lenses. His face was like marble, carved with exquisite sharpness, and
his skin was as fine and soft as a girl’s; there was not a feature or a
line which was not of that supremely beautiful type of manliness which
was the outcome of a thousand years of Hellenic thought. Those eyes
even, so purely sculpturesque in their lack of sight, were large, grand
and brilliant. Their fixity lost its strangeness when you remembered
that behind them all was night. In the absence of the faculty which is
the cause and origin of facial expression, this blind Antinous had the
cold serenity of marble, endowed with form by the genius of sculpture
and with life by a vital spark. A breath, a ray of warmth, a mere
sensation would suffice to animate the beautiful stone which, while it
possessed every charm of form, was devoid of that consciousness of its
own beauty, which is born of the faculty of seeing it.
He looked about twenty, and his strong and graceful frame was in
every respect worthy of the incomparable head that crowned it. Never
was a more lamentable injustice done by Nature, than to this perfect
example of humanity as to beauty, blest, on one hand, with every
gift, and bereft, on the other, of the sense by which man has most in
common with his fellow-man and gains familiarity with all the marvels
of creation at large. The injustice was such, that these splendid
gifts were useless--it was as though after creating all things the
Creator had left them in darkness, so that he could not himself take
pleasure in his works. And to make the privation more conspicuous, the
young man had mental lights of the highest order and a very superior
intelligence. To have this and to lack the faculty of conceiving the
idea of visibility, of form as distinct from mere matter, and at the
same time to be as beautiful as an angel; to have all the faculties of
a man and be as blind as a vegetable! It was strange and hard. We,
alas! know not the secret of these terrible injustices; if we did,
then indeed the gates would be open to us which hide the primordial
secrets of moral and physical duty; we should understand the fathomless
mysteries of inherited woe, of evil and of death, and might take
measure of the dark shadow which always haunts life and all that is
good in it.
Don Francisco Penáguilas, the young man’s father, was more than good,
he was admirable; judicious, kind, genial, honorable and magnanimous,
and well educated too. No one disliked him; he was the most respected
of all the rich land-owners in the country side, and more than one
delicate question had been settled by the mediation--always equitable
and intelligent--of the _Señor de Aldeacorba de Suso_. The house in
which we now find him had been the home of his infancy. In his youth
he had been to America, and on returning to Spain without having made
his fortune, he had joined the National Guard. He then returned to his
native town where, having inherited a good fortune, he devoted himself
to husbandry and to breeding cattle, and at the period of our story he
had just come into another and even larger sum.
His wife, who was an Andalusian, had died very young, leaving him
the one son who, from his birth, was found to be deprived of the most
precious of the five senses. This was the one drop which embittered
the tender father’s cup. What was the use of reminding him that he
was wealthy, that fortune favored all his undertakings and smiled on
his house? For whose sake did he care about it all? For one who could
see neither the thriving beasts, the flowery meadows, the overflowing
granaries, nor the orchard with its abundant crop. Don Francisco would
gladly have given his own eyes to his son, and have remained blind for
the rest of his days, if such an act of generosity were possible in
this work-a-day world; but, as it was not, Don Francisco could only
carry his devotion into practice by giving the hapless youth every
pleasure which could alleviate the gloom of the darkness in which
he lived. For him he was indefatigable in the cares and the endless
trifling details of forethought and affection of which mothers have the
secret--and fathers sometimes, when the mother is no more. He never
contradicted his son in anything which might console or entertain
him within the limits of propriety and morality. He amused him with
narratives and reading, watched him with studious anxiety, considering
his health, his legitimate amusements, his instruction and his
Christian education; for, said Señor de Penáguilas, whose principles
were strictly orthodox: “I would not have my son doubly blind.”
Now, as he came out of the house, he said affectionately:
“Do not go too far to-day, and do not run--good-bye.”
He watched them from the gate till they had turned the corner of the
garden wall, and then he went indoors, for he had many things to do; to
write to his brother Manuel, to buy a cow, to prune a tree, and to see
whether the guinea-hen had laid.
CHAPTER VI.
ABSURDITIES.
Pablo and Marianela went out into the country, preceded by Choto, who
ran on and danced round them, leaping with delight, and sharing his
caresses with great impartiality between his master and his master’s
guide.
“Nela,” said Pablo,--“it is a lovely day; the air is soft and fresh,
and the sun warm without being scorching. Where shall we go?”
“Let us go straight on through the meadows,” replied Nela, poking her
hand into one of the pockets of the lad’s coat. “What have you brought
me to-day?”
“Search and you will find,” said Pablo laughing.
“Ah! Holy Virgin! chocolate! how I love chocolate!--nuts--and something
done up in paper. What is it? Oh, Blessed Virgin! a sweetie! Do not I
like sweeties! How rich I am! We do not have such good things to eat at
home, Pablo. There is no luxury in our food; there is no luxury in our
clothes either, to be sure. In fact, no luxury of any sort.”
“Where shall we go to-day?” repeated the blind lad.
“Wherever you like, child of my heart,” replied Nela, eating the
sugar-plum and tearing up the paper it had been wrapped in. “I hear and
obey, king of the world.”
The child’s black eyes sparkled with happiness; her sprightly little
birdlike face smiled and wrinkled with satisfaction, and was not still
for an instant, as though fitful flashes came and went there like
dimpling light on wavelets in a pool. This helpless little creature,
whose spirit seemed imprisoned and confined in the feeble body,
expanded and rose elastic when she was alone with her master and
friend. With him she at once became original, bright and intelligent;
she had feeling, grace, refinement and fancy. When she left him, the
dark doors of a prison seemed to close on her once more.
“But I tell you we will go wherever you like,” remarked the blind
youth. “I like to do what you like. If you wish we will go to the clump
of trees beyond Saldeoro--but just as you like.”
“Yes, yes, delightful!” exclaimed Nela, clapping her hands. “And as
there is no hurry, we can sit down whenever we are tired.”
“There is a nice place near the spring--do you remember, Nela? And
there are some large tree-trunks, which seem to have been left there on
purpose for us to sit upon, and we hear so many, many birds singing,
that it is quite glorious.”
“And we can go past the mill-stream that, you say, talks and mumbles
the words out like a tipsy man. Oh! what a lovely day and how happy I
am!”
“Is the sun very bright, Nela? Though if you say ‘yes,’ I shall be none
the wiser, since _bright_ has no meaning for me.”
“It is very bright indeed, _Señorito mio_. But what does it matter
that you cannot see it? The sun is not at all pretty; you cannot look
in its face.”
“Why not?”
“Because it hurts.”
“Hurts what?”
“Hurts the eyes. How do you feel when you are happy?”
“When I am out with you, just we two together in the fields?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! I feel inside me a sort of freshness, a springing up of something
sweet and soothing....”
“That is just it; now you know how the sun shines bright.”
“What with freshness?”
“No, no--silly boy.”
“What then?”
“Oh, like that.”
“Like that? But what is that?”
“Like that,” Nela insisted again.
“I see, it is a thing that cannot be explained in words. Do you know I
used to have a notion of day and of night. It was daytime when people
talked, it was night when people were silent and the cocks crowed. Now
I estimate it differently; it is day when you and I are together, and
it is night when we are apart.”
“Ah, Holy Mother!” exclaimed the girl, shaking back the elf-locks that
hung over her forehead.--“To me, who can see, it is exactly the same.”
“I mean to ask my father to let you come and live in our house, so that
I may always have you with me.”
“Good, good!” cried Marianela clapping her hands once more. And as she
spoke, she skipped on a little way in front and picking up her skirts
with a great deal of grace began to dance.
“What are you about?” asked the blind boy.
“Child of my heart, I am dancing, I felt so happy that I thought I must
dance.”
However, they now had to get over a little fence, and she slipped her
hand into his. After surmounting this obstacle, they went along a lane
hedged in on each side by luxuriant ivy and brambles. Nela held the
branches back that they might not scratch her companion’s face, and at
last, after going down-hill for a considerable time, they went up a
slope shaded by chestnut and walnut trees. When they had reached the
top Pablo said:
“If you do not mind we will sit down here. I hear some people going
past.”
“They are the people returning from the market at Homedes. To-day is
Wednesday. The high-road runs just below and we can rest here before
going on.”
“It is the best thing we can do. Choto, come here.”
The trio seated themselves.
“The place is full of flowers,” said Nela. “What beauties!”
“Pick me some. Though I cannot see them, I like to hold them in my
hand. I fancy I can hear them.”
“Here are some lovely ones.”
“As I hold them in my hand I fancy that they make me feel and
understand--I cannot tell you how--that they are pretty and gay. There
is something inside me, that they seem to belong to, and that answers
to them. Do you know, Nela, I fancy that I can really see, inside, as
it were.”
“Oh! yes, I quite understand--we have everything inside us there. The
sun, the flowers, the moon and wide blue sky, with all the stars--we
have them all there; I mean that besides all the beautiful things
outside us, and around us, we carry others with us in our minds. Here
you have a flower--and another, and another--six, all quite different.
Now, what do you think flowers are?”
“Flowers,” said the blind youth, puzzled and lifting them to his face.
“Flowers are I fancy as if the earth smiled; but, in truth, I know very
little about plants and flowers.”
“Merciful Mother! what terrible ignorance!” cried Nela, stroking her
friend’s hands. “Flowers are the stars of the earth.”
“What an extravagant fancy! And what are the stars then?”
“The stars are the eyes of those who have gone to Heaven and look down
on us.”
“Well, but then the flowers....”
“Are the eyes of those who are dead and have not gone straight to
Heaven,” said the girl, with all the decision and conviction of a
Doctor of Theology. “The dead are buried in the ground; but as they
cannot lie still there without just peeping out at the world, they put
forth something which takes the form of a flower. When, in a field
there are many, many flowers, it is because--once upon a time, long
ago, a great many people were buried there.”
“No, no,” said Pablo very seriously. “Do not believe such nonsense. Our
holy religion teaches us that the spirit quits the flesh and that our
mortal life comes to an end. What is buried, Nela, is a mere shell of
useless clay which can neither think, nor feel, nor even see.”
“The books say so--but Señana says that books are full of lies.”
“But faith and reason say so too, dear Nela. Your imagination makes you
believe a number of foolish things, but by degrees I will show you your
errors, and you will have true and right ideas about everything in this
world and the other.”
“Aye, aye! I know, lessons at three for a penny!--And you wanted to
make me believe that the sun stands still and the earth spins round and
round it! How can you know, you who cannot see. Merciful Heaven! May I
die on the spot, if the earth is not as steady as a rock and the sun
running on. _Señorito mio_, I do not set up for learning, but I have
spent many hours of the day and night in looking at the sky, and I know
how the machine works.--The earth is below and full of islands, some
large and some small. The sun comes up on this side and goes down out
there. It is God Almighty’s palace.”
“Foolish child!”
“But why not? Ah! you have never seen a fine day and clear sky; why,
child, you could fancy blessing was dropping down from it. I do not
think there could be wicked people--nobody could be wicked--if they
would only turn up their faces and see the great eye that looks down
upon us.”
“Your religion is full of superstition, my little Nela. I will teach
you something better.”
“Nobody has taught me anything,” said María very simply. “But I myself,
whoever may object, have found out in my own head a great many ideas
that comfort me, and so when a good idea occurs to me, I say: ‘Of
course, it must be so; it cannot be otherwise.’ At night, when I am
alone at home, I wonder what will become of us when we die, and I think
how much the Holy Virgin loves us.”
“Yes, she is our loving Mother.”
“And I look up at the sky and I feel her close over my head, just as
when you go up to any one, you feel the warmth of their breath. She
looks at us night and day through all the lovely things there are in
the world--do not laugh at me.”
“Those lovely things...?”
“Are her eyes, of course. Oh! you would understand it if you had eyes
yourself. You have not seen a white cloud, a tree, a flower, running
water, a little child, a little lamb, the sparkling dew, the moon
sailing across the sky, and the stars, which are the eyes of the good
men who are dead....”
“They would not want to go up there if they lie under the ground
throwing out flowers.”
“Only hear this all-knowing fellow! Why they stay down there only till
they are purified of sin, and then they mount and fly up there. Yes,
I believe it, simpleton. Why, what can the stars be if they are not
the souls of those who are saved? Do not you know that stars sometimes
come down? I, I myself, have seen them fall; down, down, leaving a ray
of light behind them. Yes, Señor, the stars come down when they have
something to tell us here below.”
“Oh, Nela!” Pablo exclaimed eagerly. “Your wild imaginings, absurd as
they are, charm and captivate me, for they betray the innocence of your
soul and the strength of your fancy. All your errors even are part of
an earnest disposition to know the truth, and of great gifts, which
would be very superior talents if they were cultivated by reason and
education. You must acquire one precious accomplishment of which I am
deprived--you must positively learn to read.”
“To read!--And who is to teach me?”
“My father will; I will ask him to teach you. You know he never refuses
me anything. What a pity it is you should live in such a wretched way;
your mind is a mine of treasures. You are goodness and sweetness
itself and have a lovely imagination. God has given you a large share
of all the gifts that are in his store and part of himself; I know
it well--I cannot see what is outside, but I can see within, and I
know all the wonders of your spirit that you have shown me since you
have been my guide.--It is a year and a half now, and it seems like
yesterday, that we first began our walks together--and yet, no; I
have known you a thousand years. How is it that there is such a close
relationship between your feelings and mine? Just now, for instance,
you have talked all sorts of extravagant nonsense, and I, who know the
truth about the world and religion, I was stirred to enthusiasm as I
listened to you. I feel as if it were a voice speaking in my own heart.”
“Holy Mother!” exclaimed the girl, folding her hands. “And can he see
something else that I feel?”
“What is that?”
“That I was put into the world expressly to be your _lazarillo_, and
that my eyes would be of no use at all, if it were not to guide you and
to tell you how beautiful the world is.”
The blind boy turned his head suddenly and eagerly, and putting out his
hands to touch the child by his side, he said anxiously:
“Tell me, Nela--what are you like?”
But Nela did not answer; the question was a stab to her heart.
CHAPTER VII.
MORE ABSURDITIES.
By this time they were rested, and they went on till they reached the
beginning of the grove beyond Saldeoro. Here they turned off into a
clump of ancient walnut trees, of which the trunks and roots made
a sort of step-ladder in the soil, with mossy hollows and backs so
perfect for seats, that the hand of man could have made no better. From
the top of the slope trickled a thread of water, tumbling from stone
to stone, till it fell exhausted into a little basin constructed to be
a reservoir to feed the conduit by which the neighboring houses were
supplied. Before them the land sloped gently away, affording a lovely
panorama of green hills with scattered groves and villas, and meadow
plains where hundreds of cattle grazed and wandered peacefully. Quite
in the background, between two lofty heights which were the farthest
limit of the land, lay a wide segment of purely blue sea. It was such a
landscape as makes a man feel to the utmost his relations to infinity
and eternity.
Pablo had seated himself on the trunk of a tree, resting his left arm
on the edge of the basin; with his right hand he pulled at the boughs
which hung low enough to touch his forehead, on which now and again the
sunbeams played, as the boughs stirred.
“What are you doing, Nela?” asked he, after a pause, not hearing the
steps, the voice, nor even the breathing of his companion. “What are
you about, and where are you?”
“Here I am,” said Nela, laying her hand on his shoulder. “I was looking
at the sea.”
“Ah! it must be a long way off.”
“It is visible between the hills of Ficóbriga.”
“Very large--immensely large--so wide that you might look all day, and
not have done looking--is it not?”
“There is only a piece to be seen from here--like the bit you cut off
with your teeth when you put a slice of bread in your mouth.”
“Yes, yes--I understand. Every one says there is nothing in the world
so beautiful as the sea, because it is so grandly simple.--Listen,
Nela, to what I am going to say--but what are you doing?” Nela had
grasped a bough of the tree with both hands, and was swinging by it
lightly and gracefully.
“Here I am, _Señorito mio_. I was wondering why God should not give us
human creatures wings to fly like birds. How delightful it would be
just to give a flap and a whisk, and up we should go, and in one flight
we should be at the top of that peak between Ficóbriga and the sea.”
“But though God has not given us wings he has given us thought
instead, which flies faster than any bird, since it can fly up to God
himself.--Tell me, child, of what good would wings be to me, if God had
denied me the gift of thought?”
“But I should like to have both. And if I had wings I would pick you
up in my little beak to take you out of this world, and carry you up
ever so much higher than the clouds.” The blind lad put out his hand to
stroke Nela’s hair.
“Sit down by me; are you not tired?”
“Just a little,” she said, sitting down and laying her head with
childlike confidence on her master’s shoulder.
“You are breathing fast, Nelilla, you are very tired; it is with trying
to fly.--Well, what I want to say to you is this: Talking of the sea
put me in mind of a thing my father read to me last night. You know
that ever since I was old enough, my father has been in the habit of
reading to me every evening different books of science, or history,
or art, or mere amusement. I might say that these readings make up
all I know of life. The Lord, to compensate me for being blind, has
given me a very good memory, and it has turned these readings to good
account; for though there has been no regular method in them, I have
contrived to put some order into the ideas that have penetrated to my
understanding. How I have enjoyed listening and learning about the
admirable laws and order of the universe, the harmonious circling of
the stars, the motion of atoms, and above all, those grand principles
which govern our souls and minds. I have enjoyed history too, which is
a true account of all the things men have done in former times; for
though, my child, they have always done the same wicked and foolish
things, they have nevertheless gone on improving, some of them doing
their utmost--but without ever succeeding--to attain that perfection
which belongs to God alone. And finally, my father has read me some
deeper and more mysterious things that cannot be understood at once,
but when they are thought over and considered they occupy and charm
the mind. He does not enjoy that sort of reading very much, as he does
not altogether follow it, and it has tired me sometimes, while at
other times it has delighted me. And there is no doubt that when you
have an author who explains himself clearly, such subjects are very
interesting. They deal with cause and effect, the rationale of all we
think, and how we think, and teach us about the essential nature of
things.”
Nela did not seem to understand a single word of what her friend was
saying, but she listened attentively with her mouth wide open; to
inhale, if possible, the essences and causes of which her master was
discoursing, opening her beak like a bird watching the movements of a
fly he wants to catch.
“Well, then,” he went on, “last night he was reading me some pages
about Beauty. The author, in discussing Beauty, said that it was the
outcome and radiance of goodness and truth, with many other ingenious
comparisons so well thought out and expressed, that it was a pleasure
to listen.”
“And was that book,” said Nela, anxious to prove herself equal to the
occasion, “like one father Centeno has.... _The thousand and I don’t
know how many nights_?”
“No, no, goose-cap; it is a book on Beauty in the abstract, you will
not understand--on ideal Beauty--and yet you must understand that
there is a sort of Beauty which cannot be seen, nor touched, nor
perceived by any of our senses.”
“For example, like the Virgin Mary,” interrupted Nela, “whom we cannot
see nor touch, because her pictures are not herself, but only her
likeness.”
“You are quite right; it is just like that. Thinking over this, my
father shut the book, and talked of one thing and another. We spoke
then of beauty of form, and my father said: ‘This unfortunately you can
never understand.’ But I said I could. I said that there could only be
one type, and that would apply to all.”
Nela, caring little enough for such subtleties, had taken the flowers
out of her companion’s hands, and was arranging their colors to her
taste.
“I have a clear idea about this,” the blind lad went on, vehemently,
“an idea that I have been quite in love with for some months. Yes, I
am sure, quite sure of it; I want no eyes to see that, and I said to
my father, I have an ideal of enchanting beauty, a type which includes
every possible perfection, and that type is Nela. My father began to
laugh, and said ‘yes.’”
Nela turned as scarlet as a poppy, and could not answer a word. During
a short spasm of terror and pain, she felt as if the blind boy were
looking at her.
“Yes, you are the most perfect beauty imaginable,” Pablo went on,
eagerly. “How could it be possible that your goodness, and innocence,
and freshness and grace--your imagination, your sweet and lovely soul,
which have all combined to enliven and comfort my dark and melancholy
life--how, I say, could it be possible that they should not be embodied
in a person as lovely? Nela, Nela,” and his voice trembled with
anxiety.--“Tell me--are you not beautiful--very pretty?”
Nela was silent; she instinctively put her hands up, and stuck into her
hair some of the half-faded flowers she had gathered in the meadows.
“You will not say? You are modest. Indeed, if you were not, you would
not be the sweet little soul that you are; the logic of Beauty would be
at fault, and that cannot be. You do not answer?”
“I ...” murmured Nela timidly, not ceasing her occupation, “I do not
know--they say that I was very pretty as a baby--but now....”
“You are still?”
María, in her utter confusion, could only say:
“Now--well, you know that people talk nonsense--and make stupid
mistakes--sometimes those who have eyes see least.”
“Yes indeed, well said! Come here and kiss me.”
Nela did not instantly obey, for having succeeded in fixing a sort of
garland of flowers in her hair, she now felt an eager wish to see the
effect of the adornment in the clear mirror of the reservoir. For the
first time in her life she felt an impulse of vanity, and leaning on
her hands, she bent over the basin.
“What are you doing?” asked the blind lad.
“I am looking at myself in the water, which is just like a
looking-glass,” she replied, confessing her vanity with perfect
simplicity.
“You need not do that. You are as lovely as the angels round the throne
of God.” He had fired himself with enthusiastic imaginings.
“The water is ruffled now,” said the girl, “and I cannot see myself
plainly. It is trembling as much as I am. There, now it is quieter, now
it is still again.--I can see myself now, very well.”
“And see how pretty you are! Come here, my child?” added the blind
youth, holding out his arms.
“I ... pretty!” she said, in anxious confusion. “Well, what I see in
the pool is not so ugly as they say. The fact is, there are a great
many people who do not know how to see.”
“Aye, a great many.”
“If only I were dressed as other girls are!” exclaimed Nela, with a
touch of pride.
“You shall be.”
“And the book said I was beautiful?” asked Nela, appealing to every
source of conviction.
“I say so, and I always speak the truth!” cried the boy, carried away
by his eager imagination.
“Maybe it is so,” said Nela, moving away from her not too flattering
contemplation. “Maybe that men are very stupid, and do not see things
as they really are.”
“Human nature is liable to a thousand errors.”
“I do believe it,” said Mariquilla, greatly comforted by her friend’s
words. “What can they see to laugh at in me?”
“Oh! how miserable is the lot of man!” cried the blind boy, driven to
wild absurdity by his raving fancy. “The gift of sight may lead him
into many errors--may betray him into a misapprehension of abstract
truth--and abstract truth proves that you are beautiful, without any
stain or blemish of ugliness. If any one tells me the contrary, I will
give him the lie. Away with their theories of form. Oh, fool! into
what sins your eyes may mislead you! Nela, come here, I want to have
you by my side and kiss your beloved head.”
She threw herself into his arms.
“Sweet, lovely darling!” he exclaimed, clasping her passionately to his
breast. “With all my soul I love you!”
Nela did not speak. Her heart was full of innocent and tender devotion,
overflowing with pure delight. The youth, trembling and throbbing, held
her more closely than ever, saying:
“I love you more than my life. Angel of God, love me too or I shall
die!”
María freed herself from his embrace, and he remained lost in
bewilderment. She, the tiny woman, felt an overwhelming and
irresistible impulse to look at her face once more in the water. She
gently stole up to the edge, and there against the green background
she saw the insignificant little face, with its black eyes, its dull
coloring, its sharp nose--not altogether ugly that nose--the short,
unkempt hair, and the birdlike, eager expression. She leaned farther
over the stone brim to see her body; it was pitiably made and mean. The
flowers in her hair fell into the water, making circles in it, and the
image wavered. She, poor child, felt as if her heart were being torn
up by the roots, and she staggered backwards, murmuring:
“Mother of God! how hideous I am!”
“What are you saying, Nela? I thought you spoke.”
“I did not say anything--son of my soul.--I was only thinking.--Yes, it
is high time we should turn homewards. It will soon be dinner-time.”
“Well, come along, you shall dine with me, and bye-and-by we will go
out again. Give me your hand; I will not have you leave me.”
When they reached home, Don Francisco was in the forecourt with two
other gentlemen; Marianela recognized the engineer of the mines and the
stranger who had lost his way in La Terrible the night before.
“Here are the _Señor ingeniero_,” said she, “and his brother--the
gentleman of last evening.”
All three men gazed with evident interest at the blind youth as he
approached.
“We have been expecting you some time, my son,” said the father, taking
his hand and introducing him to the doctor.
“Let us go indoors,” said the engineer.
“Blessings on all men of science with good hearts!” exclaimed Don
Francisco, turning to the doctor. “Walk in, gentlemen; happy is the
hour when you enter my house.”
“Now, let us study the case,” murmured Golfin.
When Pablo and the two visitors had gone in, Don Francisco turned to
Mariquilla, who was standing transfixed and doubtful in the middle of
the court-yard, and said kindly:
“You see, Nela, you may as well go home. My son will not be able to go
out this afternoon.” And then, seeing that still she did not move, he
added:
“You may run round to the kitchen. Dorotea will give you something
nice.”
CHAPTER VIII.
AND YET MORE.
The following day Pablo and his guide set out at the same hour; but,
as the sky was overcast and a disagreeable breeze was blowing which
threatened to become a south-westerly gale, they decided on making
their walk a short one. Crossing the village green of Aldeacorba, they
went along the great slope above the mines to the west, intending to
go down into the excavations.
“Nela, I must tell you something that will make you leap with joy,”
said the blind lad when they were at some distance from the house. “My
heart is bursting with happiness.--I feel as if the whole Universe, all
the sciences, history, philosophy, natural history--all that I have
ever learnt had got inside me, and was dancing in procession. You saw
those two gentlemen who were waiting for me yesterday....”
“Don Cárlos and his brother....”
“He is a famous doctor who has been all over America, making wonderful
cures.--He is come to see his brother, and as Don Cárlos is a great
friend of my father’s, he asked his brother to examine me. How kind
and gentle he is! First he sat talking to me; he asked me a number
of questions, and told me all sorts of pleasant and amusing stories.
Then he told me to sit quite still; I felt his fingers on my eyelids,
and after a long time he said something I did not understand--medical
terms, and my father never read me anything about medicine. Then he
led me close to the window, and while he examined my eyes with some
instrument the room was as quiet.--Then he said to my father: “It is
worth trying.” They said more, but in a low voice that I might not
hear, and I think they talked partly by signs. When the visitors were
gone, my father said to me: ‘Son of my soul, I cannot conceal from you
the joy that is in me. This man, this angel from Heaven, has given
me a hope--a very faint hope--but we cling most to a hope when it is
smallest. I try to give it up by telling myself it is impossible--no,
almost impossible--but it sticks to me like a burr.’--This was what my
father said, and I could hear in his voice that he was crying. What are
you doing, Nela? Are you dancing?”
“No.--Here I am, close to you!”
“But you used to dance when I told you anything that made me happy.
Where shall we go to-day?”
“It is a dull day--we will go as far as Trascava, that is a sheltered
spot, and then go down into La Terrible.”
“Very well, just as you like.--Oh, Nela! If only it could be true; if
God would have pity on me, and grant me the joy of seeing you. Even
if I could only see for one day, and were blind again the next, how I
would thank Him.”
Nela said nothing. After feeling at first intensely happy, she now
walked on thoughtfully, with her eyes fixed on the ground.
“Many wonderful things happen in the world,” Pablo went on. “And God’s
mercy works in strange ways--strikes as suddenly as his wrath. It comes
upon us unexpectedly, after long punishment and torment, just as his
anger falls on us in the midst of happiness which has seemed secure and
eternal--do you not think so?”
“Yes--what you hope will be accomplished.”
“How do you know?”
“My heart tells me so.”
“Your heart tells you! And why should not such warnings come true?”
cried Pablo, fervently. “Yes--such chosen souls as yours can, in some
cases, foresee the issue. I have noticed it in myself, for, as I am
not diverted from self-inspection by seeing things outside me, I have
perceived sometimes that I had a whispered presentiment that was quite
inexplicable. Then when some event or other has come to pass, I have
said to myself with astonishment: ‘I knew all this beforehand.’”
“The same thing happens to me,” replied Nela. “Yesterday you told me
you loved me dearly, and when I got home I said to myself: ‘It is very
strange, but I knew something of this.’”
“It is wonderful, dear little one, how perfectly our souls are one.
United by our own wish and will, nothing is wanting but a bond of
union. That bond shall be tied if I really gain the precious sense
that I have never enjoyed. The idea of seeing would never have taken
possession of my mind if I did not cherish above all things the idea
that through it I should love you better. The acquisition of that power
can be nothing to me but the faculty of admiring in a new kind of way
what I already admire so truly by the way of love.--But I fancy you are
sad to-day.”
“Yes, I am; and to tell you the truth, I do not know why. I am very
happy and very sad, both at once. The day is so gloomy--it would be
better if it never were day at all, always night.”
“Nay, nay, things are good as they are. Day and night! If God ever
grant me to know the difference, how happy I shall be! Why are you
stopping?”
“We have come to a dangerous bit. We must turn aside a little way to
get to the path.”
“Ah! La Trascava! This slippery grass slopes down till it is lost in
the chasm. Whatever falls down there does not come up again. Let us go
away, Nela; I do not like this place.”
“Silly boy, it is a long way from this to the mouth of the chasm. And
it is very pretty here to-day.”
Nela stood still and detained her companion by the arm, looking down
at the mouth of the gulf which opened in the earth, in shape like a
funnel. The sloping sides of this narrow, deep basin were covered by
extremely fine turf; at the very bottom a large oblong rock lay on the
grass among brambles, fennel shrubs and rushes, and an immense variety
of gay-colored flowers. The stone looked like a large tongue. You felt,
rather than saw, that by the side of it there was an opening, an abyss,
hidden by plants, such as Don Quixote had to cut away when he slid into
the cavern of Montesinos.
Nela seemed never tired of looking.
“Why do you say that the horrible Trascava looks pretty?” asked Pablo.
“Because it is so full of flowers. Last week they were all dead and
over, but now they have bloomed afresh, and it really is lovely to
look at. And there are such numbers of birds there, and of butterflies
too, sucking honey from the flowers. Choto, Choto, come here--do not
frighten the poor little birds.”
The dog, who had run down the slope, came galloping back at Nela’s
call, and the fluttering republic of birds returned to take possession
of their common property.
“I have a perfect horror of the place,” said Pablo, pulling the girl’s
arm. “Now, shall we go as far as the mines? I know the way there, and
feel on my own ground; we will go round behind el Barco.--Choto, go on
in front, do not get under my feet.”
They went down a path cut into steps and soon reached the basin formed
by digging out the earth and ore. Leaving the zone of vegetation,
they suddenly crossed the boundary line of a geological zone, so to
speak, an enormous trench, whose sides, wrought by the pick and shovel,
displayed an interesting section of stratification, where the different
layers showed the greatest variety of colors and earths. This was the
place where Teodoro Golfin had fancied himself in the hull of a wrecked
vessel, worn away by the waves--and its popular name _el Barco_ (the
ship), had been suggested by that very resemblance. By day, however,
the spectator was chiefly struck by the sections of the strata with
their sulphurous and carboniferous veins, black sedimentary deposits,
lignites, in which jet frequently occurred, streaks of ferruginous
earth that looked as if they had been mixed with blood, and large,
even layers of slate, split in a thousand places by human devices,
bristling with splinters and riven into fissures and clefts, looking
like wounds seen through a strong magnifier; while a thread of water,
stained with oxide of iron, that flowed down the middle, might be taken
for blood.
“Where is our seat?” asked the young man. “Let us go there; we shall be
sheltered from the wind.”
Out of the bottom of the great cutting they went up by a rough
foot-path, that had been made between broken stones and earth overgrown
with rank fennel, and at the top they sat down under the shelter of
an enormous crag, rent across the middle. The two halves of the rock,
standing opposite each other, with their jagged faces, looked for all
the world like two yawning jaws trying to meet and close.
“How pleasant it is here!” Pablo said. “Sometimes there is a
disagreeable draught through this chasm, but I do not feel it to-day.
What we hear is the trickling water down inside the bowels of La
Trascava.”
“It is very quiet to-day,” observed Nela. “Would you like to lie down?”
“That is a good idea! Last night I could not sleep, for thinking of
all my father had said to me, of the doctor, of my eyes.--All night I
felt as if a hand went into my eyes and opened a closed and moss-grown
door.” As he spoke he stretched himself at full length and laid his
head on Nela’s knees.
“A door,” he went on, “which was quite in my inmost feeling, opened,
as I tell you, showing a way into a room where the idea that haunts me
was shut up. Oh! Nela of my heart, best beloved, idolized darling, if
only God would grant me the sense I lack. Then I should think myself
the happiest of men--for I am almost that already, merely from having
you to be the friend and companion of my life. Very little is needed
to make us two one--nothing but to see you and rejoice in your beauty,
with that joy in seeing which I cannot even comprehend, since I have
only a vague conception of it. I have a questioning spirit only because
I have no power to see for myself. I fancy it will be like a new way
of loving you. I think of nothing but your beauty, still, there is
something in it which I cannot realize as my own.”
“Hark!” said Nela suddenly, with evident interest in something quite
distinct from what her friend was saying. “Do not you hear?”
“What?”
“Down in there--La Trascava--it is talking.”
“Superstitious child! water cannot talk, my Nela. What language could a
driblet of water speak? There are but two things which speak, my sweet:
the tongue and the conscience.”
“And La Trascava,” said Nela, turning paler. “It is a whisper only:
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ it says. And sometimes I can hear my mother’s voice,
saying quite plainly. ‘My little girl, it is very pleasant down here.’”
“It is all your fancy. Well, fancy talks too; I forgot that. My
imagination sometimes chatters so fast, that I have to tell it to be
silent. Its voice is loud, persistent, intolerable; that of conscience
is deep, calm, convincing; there is no answering or refuting it.”
“Now it sounds as if it were crying,” said Nela, still listening to the
bubbling water. “It is dying away little by little.”
Suddenly a light gust came up from the chasm.
“There, it sighed deeply--did not you hear? Now I hear the voice again;
it is speaking low, and it says to me in a whisper, a tiny whisper in
my ear....”
“Well, what does it say?”
“Nothing,” said María shortly, after a pause. “You say it is all
nonsense--you may be right.”
“I will get all these absurd ideas out of your head,” said the blind
youth taking her hand. “We are going to live together all our lives.
Oh! Heavenly Father! If I am never to enjoy the blessing of which
Thou didst deprive me at my birth, why hast Thou allowed me to hope?
Hapless wretch that I am, if I am not born anew under the hands of
Doctor Golfin. A new birth indeed--a new life! Oh! my darling, I swear
to you by the image of God that exists in my soul, glorious, real and
immutable, that you and I will never part by my will. I shall have
eyes, Nela, eyes to delight in your presence, and then I will marry
you. You will be my beloved wife--life of my life, and the joy and
pride of my soul.--And do you say nothing to this even?”
Nela bent her head down over the lad’s handsome face; she wished to
speak, but could not for emotion.
“And if God will not after all vouchsafe me this mercy,” added Pablo,
“still you will not leave me, still you will be my wife--unless it
horrifies you to think of marrying a blind man. Indeed, my dearest, I
ought not to inflict such a burden on you. You will meet some good
man who will love you, and who will make you happy. Your wonderful
kindness, your noble feelings, your sweet face, must win many hearts
and inspire the purest love in all who have to do with you--your future
cannot fail to be bright and happy. I swear to you that I shall love
you as long as I live; seeing or blind, I devote myself to you before
God in the fullest, most perfect, and most unbounded love.--Will you
not speak to me, Nela?”
“Yes--I love you dearly--very, very dearly ...” said Nela, putting her
face close to his. “But do not be anxious to see me. Perhaps I am not
so nice as you fancy.”
As she spoke, Nela felt in her pocket and brought out a piece of
silvered glass, a dull and useless fragment of a cheap mirror, which
had been broken a week since in the Centeno household. In this she
looked at herself. The image was all awry, and in consequence of the
small size of the looking-glass she was obliged to study it a bit at
a time, first one eye and then her forehead, till, holding it farther
off, she could command a view of half her face at once. But alas! the
result of her investigations was sad enough--as she looked in the
glass, the tears started from her eyes.
“Nela, I felt a drop on my forehead--it is raining.”
“Yes, my child, it seems to be raining,” said Nela with a gulping sob.
“No--you are crying.--Something in my heart tells me so. You are
goodness itself; your soul and mine are united by some divine and
mysterious bond; they can never be parted--is it not true? they are two
halves of one whole.--Are they not?”
“Quite true.”
“Your tears give me a plainer answer than words could. You love me do
you not, and will always love me, just the same whether I recover my
sight or remain blind?”
“The same, just the same!” cried Nela vehemently.
“And will always stay with me?”
“Always.”
“Then listen,” cried the blind lad in passionate rapture. “If I had to
choose between remaining blind and losing you, I would choose....”
“You would choose to remain blind! Oh! merciful Mother of Heaven! how
happy--how happy I am!”
“I would choose not to see your sweet face with these eyes, for I can
see it in my soul as clearly as truth. You live here, in my heart, and
to me you are more lovely and enchanting than anything on earth.”
“Oh! yes, yes,” cried Nela half-crazed. “I must be beautiful--I must be
lovely!”
“Listen,” said Pablo, “I have a presentiment, a sure anticipation. It
is as though the voice of God within me promised me that I should have
my sight, that I shall see you, that we shall be happy. Do you not feel
it yourself?”
“I--yes, I feel sure you will see....”
“I shall see your face--what happiness!” cried the blind boy in the
high-pitched ecstatic tone, which was peculiar to him in moments of
excitement.--“But I see it already, I see it now in my heart as plainly
as the truth in my soul.”
“Yes, yes, oh! yes,” Nela repeated wildly, with wide-open eyes and
quivering lips. “It is true, I am, I must be, beautiful!”
“Bless you, sweet one!”
“And you,” she said gravely, kissing his forehead. “Now, are you not
sleepy?”
“Yes, I am beginning to be sleepy. I did not sleep all night. And I am
so comfortable here.”
“Then sleep, my child....”
And she began to sing a lullaby. In a few minutes he was asleep; but
Nela sat listening to the voice of La Trascava, which said: “Daughter
come ... daughter come.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE BROTHERS GOLFIN.
Teodoro Golfin did not waste his time at Socartes. The first day
after his arrival he spent several hours in his brother’s laboratory,
and during the following days he went from one part of the mines to
another, examining and admiring all he saw--here the awful might of
natural forces, and there the power and enterprise of human skill. At
night, when all was still in the busy village, and nothing was awake
but the snorting furnaces, the worthy doctor, who was an enthusiastic
musician, listened with delight to his sister-in-law’s piano; Señora
Sofía, was Don Cárlos’ wife, but their children were all dead.
The two brothers were devotedly attached to each other. Born in the
humblest rank of life, they had struggled hard in early youth to rise
above ignorance and poverty, often on the point of giving way to the
difficulties that beset them; but the impetus of manly determination
was so strong in them, that at length, gasping for breath, they
reached the longed-for land, rising superior to the beating waves
in which vulgar souls splash and struggle in a perpetual state of
shipwreck.
Teodoro, who was the eldest, was a medical man before Cárlos was
qualified as an engineer, and he helped him to the utmost so long as
the younger brother needed it, and when he saw him fairly started, he
took the step to which his enterprising spirit had long aspired, and
set out for South America. There he practised with other celebrated
physicians, gaining fame and wealth. After a short visit at home, in
Spain, he returned to the New World, and even after a second voyage
home he went back again; but during each of these expeditions he
made a short tour in Europe to avail himself of the advances made in
ophthalmic science which he particularly cultivated.
He was a man of unpolished manners, dark and with an expression at
once intelligent and sensual; his lips were thick, his skin opaque
and hairy, his eyes bright and keen; his frame was robust and his
constitution sound, though somewhat injured by the South American
climate. His large, round face, his prominent brow, his short,
rebellious hair, the flash of his eyes and his thick, square hands, had
led to his being spoken of as “the black lion.” In truth, he was like
a lion, and like the king of beasts, he never lost an opportunity of
asserting the estimation in which he held himself. However, this vanity
of a really distinguished man was the most pardonable of vanities,
for it consisted chiefly in his persistently displaying his two great
titles of fame and honor, namely: his devotion to surgery and the
lowness of his origin. He spoke incorrectly, from his utter inability
to elaborate phrases with ease and elegance. His rapid and broken
sentences followed the course of his ideas, which were as swift as the
electric spark.
“We,” Teodoro would say, “although we have sprung from the grass by
the way-side, which is the lowest origin conceivable, have grown into
stalwart trees. Long live labor and human enterprise! I cannot but
think that we Golfins, though Heaven knows where we came from, must
have some English blood in our veins. Even our name seems to me to be
of purely Saxon origin. I give it this etymology, _Gold-find_, or, as
you may say, Gold-finders. Well, and my brother finds it in the bowels
of the earth, while I find it in that marvellous miniature universe:
the human eye.”
At the period of our story he had just arrived via New York and
Liverpool, and, as he declared, he now meant to remain at home; but no
one believed it, for he had said so many times before and had not kept
his word.
His brother Cárlos was a gentler being, placid, studious, a slave to
his duties, and devoted to mineralogy and metallurgy to the point of
caring far more for these two branches of learning than for his wife’s
society. But the couple lived, nevertheless, in perfect harmony; or,
as Teodoro said, in an isomorphous state, crystallizing on the same
system. As for himself, when matrimony was spoken of, he would say:
“To me, marriage would be an epigenesis, a pseudo-morphous
crystallization, that is to say, a mode of crystallization which would
not harmonize with my nature.”
Sofía was a very good woman, who had been very handsome, but whose
beauty was daily losing character and expression from her unfortunate
tendency to stoutness. She had been told that an atmosphere charged
with coal smoke had a tendency to reduce fat, and for this reason she
had come to live at the mines, without ever leaving them the whole
year through. The horrible air, charged with dust, calamine and smoke,
annoyed her much however. She had no child alive, and her principal
occupation consisted in playing the piano and in organizing societies
of benevolent ladies for giving the poor help in their homes, and for
maintaining hospitals and schools.
At Madrid, for many years her energy had been prodigious, a real model
for all who feel prompted to acts of charity. With the help of two or
three ladies of rank, equally devoted to their humble and suffering
neighbors, she had organized more than twenty dramatic performances,
and as many fancy balls, six bull-fights and two cock-fights, all for
the benefit of the poor.
Among her other manias, which were apt to be but transient, however,
was one which perhaps is less commendable than that for helping the
needy, and which consisted in surrounding herself with dogs and cats,
devoting herself to these animals with an affection really worthy to be
called love. Lately, since she had lived at Socartes, she had kept a
toy-terrier which had been brought to her as a commission from England
by Ulises Buli, the head of the machinery department. This was a
delicate and slender creature, as tricky and amusing as a child. It was
called Líli, and had cost a small fortune in London--as dogs go.
On fine days the trio walked out together; when it was wet they played
and sang, for Sofía had a modest pipe which, at Socartes, passed
for singing. The deputy engineer had a deep bass voice, and Teodoro
likewise was _basso profondo_. Cárlos could sing but a little higher,
so that the whole effect was somewhat like a priestly choir, in which
Sofía’s treble came out as if she were a priestess being carried off
to be immolated. All the pieces they sang were--or at any rate sounded
like--priests offering a sacrifice, and a priestess being sacrificed.
On the days when they walked far they took with them a sort of picnic
afternoon meal. One evening--it was at the end of September, and six
days after the doctor’s arrival at the mines--the party were returning
homewards in the following order: Líli, Sofía, Teodoro, Cárlos. The
path was too narrow to allow of their walking two and two. Líli wore a
little sky-blue coat or gaberdine with his mistress’s initials worked
upon it; Sofía carried her parasol like a gun over her shoulder, and
Teodoro had his stick in precisely the same position with his hat
hanging on the end of it; it was one of his favorite whims to walk out
bare-headed. They were passing above La Trascava when Líli, leaving the
path, with his elastic little legs like springs, began to run on the
turf that covered the slope to the chasm. First he ran, but then he
slipped on the grass. Sofía gave a cry of terror. Her first impulse,
prompted by an almost maternal feeling, was to run after the little
beast that was in no real danger; but her husband stopped her, saying:
“The devil may have Líli if he wants him--but he will come back. It is
impossible to go down, the turf here is so slippery.”
“Líli, Líli,” cried Sofía, hoping that her touching appeal would arrest
the creature on the road to perdition, and bring him back to the path
of virtue and duty. But the tenderest adjurations had no effect on the
rebellious soul of Líli, who went lower and lower. From time to time he
looked up at his mistress with his bright, black eyes, which seemed to
say: “For mercy’s sake do not be so foolish.”
At the large, moss-grown, white rock, which lay like a lid at the
very mouth of the chasm, Líli stopped. All stood with their eyes
fixed on the spot, and they at once perceived something moving there.
They supposed it to be some beast of prey hiding behind the rock; but
Sofía gave another shriek of astonishment rather than of terror, and
exclaimed:
“It is Nela.--Nela what are you doing there?”
On hearing her name called, the girl appeared greatly disturbed, and
colored deeply.
“What are you doing there, mad child?” repeated the lady. “Take up Líli
and bring him back to me. Heaven have mercy on us! but what next will
that creature be doing? Just look at the place she has put herself in!
It is all your fault that Líli went down there--what an example to set
the poor little animal. It is all your fault that he behaved in this
naughty, wilful way.”
“That child is a perfect limb of mischief,” said Don Cárlos to his
brother. “Only look at the place she has got to.”
While, on the top of the slope, they were thus discussing her, Nela,
down at the bottom, was trying to catch Líli, who, more wilful and
daring than he had ever been before in the whole course of his
monotonous existence, constantly eluded her grasp. His mistress shouted
to him in vain to “be good and behave himself,” while he, ignoring
the most elementary principles of duty, went on leaping and frisking,
looking up at her, from time to time, with consummate impudence, as
though to say: “My good lady, just go on with your walk and leave me in
peace.”
At last, however, the sportive little beast got entangled among the
briars which grew in the hollow, and there his little great-coat got
him into dire trouble; the poor dog, finding it impossible to escape
from the brushwood, began to bark lamentably for help.
“He will be lost, he will be killed!” wailed the Señora. “Nela, Nela,
if you will only save him, I will give you a fine, big dog. Save
him--go carefully--hold fast.”
Nela went boldly to the rescue; setting her foot on the brambles and
stout-stemmed creepers that grew over the rift, and holding on by one
hand to the rock, she put out the other to take hold of Líli’s tail,
by which she pulled him out of the tangle in which he had been caught.
Then, patting and coaxing him, she mounted in triumph to the top of the
slope.
“It is your fault, all your fault,” said Sofía crossly, and boxing
the dog’s ears very gently. “What on earth made you go down into that
hole--you know he goes after you wherever he finds you--hussy that you
are!”
And then she kissed her recovered treasure and gave him one or two mild
slaps, and after having assured herself that his precious skin was
whole, she pulled his little coat straight, which had got dragged over
his head, and gave him to Nela, saying:
“Take him, and carry him in your arms, for he must be tired, and
such a long scamper may do him harm. But take care of him--go on in
front.--Take great care of him--you see I am close behind to keep an
eye on you.”
The family party set out again, with Nela leading the way. Líli looked
at his mistress over Nela’s shoulder, and seemed to say: “My good
mistress, what a simpleton you are!”
Teodoro Golfin had said not a word during the whole of Líli’s agitating
escapade, but when they had started on their way once more and were
crossing the fields, where the three could walk abreast without
inconvenience, the doctor said to his brother’s wife:
“I cannot but think, dear Sofía, that you are unreasonably devoted to
the little dog. To be sure a dog that cost two hundred _duros_, is
indeed a dog among dogs. Still, I cannot but ask myself how it is that
you have spent time and money in making a great-coat for his highness
the terrier, while it has never occurred to you to buy a pair of shoes
for Nela.”
“Shoes for Nela!” exclaimed Sofía laughing. “What for, I should like
to know. She would have worn them through in two days. You may laugh
at me as much as you please--well, I admit that my affection for Líli
amounts to an extravagance; still, you cannot accuse me of want of
charity.--Nor indeed, I must say, should I ever allow you to take
such a liberty,” and as she spoke she drew herself up with a solemn
look of offended dignity. “As to knowing how to exercise charity
with due prudence and judgment, I believe I may hold my own with
any one, be it whom it may--for charity does not consist merely in
giving without rhyme or reason, not knowing whether your alms are well
or ill-bestowed. Do you suppose you can teach me anything? My dear
Teodoro, I am quite as experienced in such matters as you are in the
treatment of eyes.”
“I know, I know, my dear.--You have done wonders. You need not tell me
for the fiftieth time of all the dramatic entertainments, balls and
bull-fights, you have got up for the benefit of the poor, nor of the
lotteries, which have brought in large sums; though, after providing
food for any number of idle vagabonds, there has been but a small
fraction left for the sick and suffering! All these facts only go to
prove to my mind the singular state of a society, which cannot be
charitable without dancing, bull-fights or lottery tickets.--No, we
need not discuss all that; I know and admire those heroic achievements;
they have their good side, and that not a small one. But you and your
gay friends very rarely put yourself in connection with any poor soul,
to learn from his own lips the cause and history of his misery, or to
discern what kind of wretchedness it is that oppresses him--for there
are, actually, some troubles so extraordinary that the gift of a few
coppers can do nothing to alleviate them, no, nor even a morsel of
bread.”
“Here we have our philosopher well astride on his hobby,” said Sofía
spitefully. “Pray how do you know what I have ever done, or what I
ought to do?”
“Nay, do not be vexed,” said Golfin; “for all my discourse tends to a
single point, and that is that Nela should have shoes.”
“Very well, then to-morrow morning I will buy her a pair.”
“No--for I will buy them myself this evening. Do not poach on my
preserves, Señora.”
“Here--Nela,” cried the lady, seeing that she had gone some distance
ahead. “Do not go so fast; keep in sight that I may see what you are
about.”
“Poor little creature!” said her husband. “Who could guess she was
sixteen years old!”
“She is dreadfully stunted, miserable little thing!” exclaimed
Sofía. “I cannot help asking, why God should permit such creatures to
live? And again I ask myself, what in the world can be done for her?
Nothing--nothing, but to feed and clothe her after a fashion--but you
see, she tears everything she puts on. She cannot labor because she
faints away--she has not strength enough to do any kind of work. She
skips from stone to stone, or climbs the trees, playing and chattering
the whole day long and singing like the birds; what clothes she has are
soon reduced to rags....”
“And yet,” said Cárlos, “I have noticed that she is very intelligent.
There is a great deal of acuteness and cleverness under that simple
exterior and wild rusticity. No, no, Nela is no fool by a long way.
If any one had taken the trouble to teach her anything, she would
have learnt it better, perhaps, than most children. Would you believe
it? Nela has a great imagination; but lacking, as she does, the most
rudimentary knowledge, it has of course, made her sentimental and
superstitious.”
“In point of fact she is in the condition of all primitive races,” said
Teodoro. “She is at the pastoral stage of civilization.”
“Only yesterday,” Cárlos went on, “I was passing by La Trascava and I
saw her sitting exactly where we found her again just now. I called her
and made her come to me, and I asked her what she was doing there; and
with the most perfect simplicity she told me she was talking with her
mother.--You know, perhaps, that Nela’s mother threw herself into that
chasm.”
“That is to say that she killed herself,” said Sofía. “She was a
woman of bad character and worse feeling, from all I have heard of
her. Cárlos was not living here then, but they say she drank like a
stoker. And I ask you: Do these vile creatures, who end a life of sin
by committing the greatest crime of all--Suicide--deserve any pity from
the human race? There are things too horrible to contemplate--wretches
that ought never to have been born. Teodoro may argue as much as he
likes, but I cannot help asking you....”
“Ask nothing, my dear sister,” said Teodoro warmly. “For I could only
reply that the suicide deserves our deepest and fullest pity. So far as
abuse goes, heap it on her by all means, and as much as you please; but
at the same time it might be as well to enquire what were the causes
that brought her to such a fearful extremity of desperation--and I may
add that if society had not wholly abandoned her and left her no way
out but the yawning door of that hideous abyss which seemed to invite
her....”
“Abandoned by society! Well, some must be ...” said Sofía flippantly.
“Society cannot take care of every one. Look at the statistics of
population--only look, and you will see how many poor there are to
provide for. Besides, supposing society does overlook some--what is
religion for?”
“I am speaking of those poor wretches who add to all their other
miseries, ignorance, which is the greatest of all. An ignorant soul,
debased and superstitious, has none but the vaguest and absurdest
ideas of God. The sense of something Great and Unknown, instead of
withholding him, impels him to crime. It is rarely indeed that the
thought of religion is of any good to those who vegetate in stolid
ignorance. No intelligent friend ever goes near them, neither master
nor priest; the only superior they ever come into contact with, is the
judge who tries them.
“It is strange to see how inexorably you condemn what, after all, is
your own work!” he went on, twisting the stick on which his hat was
still mounted. “You stand looking straight before you, seeing at the
very threshold of your own comfortable homes a crowd of neglected
creatures, deprived of everything that childhood needs, from parents
to playthings--you see them, I say, without its ever occurring to you
to raise them an inch in the world, by telling them that they too are
human beings, and giving them some of the ideas they so deplorably
lack, without ever dreaming of ennobling them by lifting them out of
their brutalizing, mechanical toil, to some intelligent work; you see
them dwelling in filthy hovels, ill-fed, sinking lower day by day in
their savage squalor, and it never occurs to you to spare for them a
little of the comfort and luxury that surround you! You save all your
energies to declaim against murder, robbery and suicide, without ever
reflecting that you are, in fact, keeping open school for these three
crimes.”
“You seem to forget that there are houses of refuge, hospitals,
asylums ...” said Sofía tartly. “Read statistics, Teodoro, and you will
see the number of miserable creatures.... Read statistics.”
“I do not read statistics, my dear sister, and your statistics count
for nothing with me. Asylums are good--not that they can ever solve the
great problem of orphanage. A hapless orphan, dropped in the streets
or in the fields, bereft of all personal affection, and cared for only
by a town council--rarely, indeed, is the vacuum filled which yawns
in his soul for the love of a parent--not to speak of the vacuum where
self-respect, honor, and responsibility ought to be, and so rarely are
found. And on that point I have an idea of my own--but, perhaps, it
will appear to you absurd....”
“Tell us, at any rate.”
“The problem of orphanhood, and the miseries of infancy, will never
be completely and finally solved, any more than the rest of our great
social problems; still, it will be lightened when custom, supported by
law--yes, by law, you see I am in earnest--when custom and law insist
that every orphan, whatever its birth--do not laugh--has a right to
claim adoption by some married couple in easy circumstances, and who
have no children. By this plan, there will be no childless parents, and
no fatherless children.”
“Yes, by this plan,” retorted Sofía, “we should be parents to Nela!”
“And why not?” said Teodoro. “At the same time you would not waste
two hundred _duros_ in buying a dog, nor the livelong blessed day in
talking nonsense to his highness, Master Líli.”
“And why are rich bachelors to be exempt under this delightful law? Why
should not they also be burthened, each with his orphan?”
“I have no objection ...” said the doctor; he was looking at the
ground. “But what is this? Blood?”
They all looked down, and at regular intervals they saw small spots of
blood.
“Mercy!” cried Sofía, covering her eyes. “It is Nela--see, it is where
she has trodden; these are her footmarks.”
“Oh yes! I see. It was when she went into the brambles to fetch your
precious dog. Nela, come here.”
Nela, whose right foot was bleeding a good deal, came hobbling back
again.
“Give me my poor Líli,” said the lady, taking the dog out of the ragged
child’s arms. “Do not hurt him; does it hurt you much? Poor little
thing.--Oh! how it is bleeding.--I cannot bear to look at it.” And
Sofía turned her back to spare her sensitive nerves, hugging Líli more
closely.
“Let us see what has happened,” said Teodoro, lifting Nela up and
seating her on a high stone that was at hand. Then, putting on his
spectacles, he said: “It is quite a trifle, only a few scratches; there
is a thorn in here I rather think.--That hurts you? Yes, just so, here
is the villain.--Wait a minute. Now, Sofía if you cannot look on at a
surgical operation, you had better walk on.”
While his sister went slowly forward to save her nervous system this
terrible shock, Golfin took a small case out of his pocket and a pair
of tweezers out of the case, and in less than a winking the thorn was
extracted.
“That is a brave little woman,” he said to Nela, who had not even
winced. “Now we will tie this foot up.” And he bound it round with his
handkerchief. Marianela jumped down to walk and Cárlos offered her his
hand.
“No, no--come here,” said Teodoro. He took the little girl under the
arms, and with a rapid and dexterous twist perched her on his right
shoulder.
“If you do not feel safe hold on to my hair,” he said. “It will not
come off. Now, you must carry the stick with the hat.”
“What a ridiculous sight!” said Sofía, in fits of laughter as they came
up with her. “Teodoro, with Nela on his shoulder, and then the stick
and Gessler’s hat on the top....”
CHAPTER X.
NOBODY’S CHILDREN.
“There you see a man ready for anything and everything, my dear Sofía,”
said Teodoro. “It is the result of our education, is it not, Cárlos?
of having had no coddling in our childhood, and having been accustomed
from our tenderest infancy to the idea that no one could be our
inferior? Men who have made themselves, as we have done, who, without
any mortal help nor any safeguard but strong will and high ambition,
have been able to triumph in the struggle for existence--the devil’s
in it, but they are the only people who really know how to help the
helpless! I will not tell you half the things I have been able to do
in my life--treating my neighbor as myself--for fear of falling into
an ugly trick of singing my own praises; for fear too of making you
envious, in spite of your raffles and benevolent lotteries--enough of
that.”
“Nay, tell us, or tell us some other time.”
“No, no, such things should be kept secret for modesty’s sake. I am
bound to confess that I cannot boast of any considerable store of that
lovely grace; I am not lacking in vanity, and one of the things I am
vainest of, is of having been a beggar, of having asked charity from
door to door, of having walked barefoot with my brother Cárlos, and
slept in corners under door-ways, without a roof, without shelter,
without a home of any kind. Some wonderful spirit of energy and
determination burned within me--whence it came I know not; but I felt
that before us lay two paths, one to prison and one to glory. I took my
poor little brother on my shoulders--just as I am carrying Nela--and
I said: ‘Our Father which art in Heaven--save us!’ And he saved us. I
learnt to read, and then I taught my brother; I served many masters,
who gave me food and let me go to school. I saved my pittance. I bought
a money-box, and scraped enough together to buy some books. How I
began medicine, I do not know; but somehow I did, while my brother was
earning a living as an errand boy in a shop.”
“What are you talking about?” exclaimed Sofía much annoyed, for this
was a theme she particularly disliked. “I cannot help asking; what
is the use of recalling all these childish details? Besides, you
exaggerate them greatly.”
“I exaggerate nothing,” said Teodoro with triumphant jollity. “Just
listen, Señora, and say nothing. I speak of what I know with the
authority of experience. Hear me all ye poor, all ye helpless ones,
and ye forsaken little ones! I took to medicine, God knows how; I
learnt, God knows how. A worthy man--blessings on his memory! gave
me good counsel and helped me with money; I loved the science, but
how could I study without ceasing to work for my living? This was
a terrible dilemma. Do you remember, Cárlos, when we both went
to ask for employment in the barber’s shop, in the old _calle de
Cofreros_?[5] Never in our lives had either of us had a razor in
his hand, but we had to earn our bread by shaving. At first we only
looked on--do you remember Cárlos--and then we wielded the noble
instruments ourselves.--Bleeding was the making of us. Then I began
to study anatomy; a noble, a glorious science! but my school-work
became a serious matter, and I had to give up working for the worthy
barber.--He cried, positively cried, the day I left him; he gave me
two _duros_, and his wife made me a present of a pair of her husband’s
old trousers.--Then I went as a valet. God was always merciful in
giving me good masters. My love of study interested these dear, kind
people, and they allowed me as much spare time as possible. I sat up
to study; nay, I studied in my sleep. I was like a monomaniac, for
while I did the washing, I repeated the names of the different parts of
the human frame. I remember, that as I brushed my master’s clothes, I
studied muscular anatomy--as I folded a sleeve I would say to myself:
‘_deltoid_, _biceps_, _supinator_, _flexor_, _cubitalis_;’ and over his
trousers I would repeat, ‘_glutaeus_, _psoas_, _gemellus_, _tibialis_.’
In that house they used to give me broken food, which I carried to
my brother, who was living with a worthy man who bought and sold old
clothes. Do you remember, Cárlos?”
“I remember well,” said Cárlos with feeling. “And I am grateful to the
good soul who gave me a roof over my head in return for some trifling
service in keeping his accounts. And it was there that I was so lucky
as to come across the retired Colonel, who taught me the elements of
mathematics.”
“Well! you have not a rag that you blush to display to all the world!”
snorted Sofía.
“My brother asked me for bread,” Teodoro went coolly on, “and my answer
was: ‘Bread? work at mathematics.’ One day my master gave me tickets of
admission to the Theatre de la Cruz; I took my brother, and we enjoyed
it enormously, but Cárlos caught a cold and inflammation of the lungs.
That was a dreadful, a terrible business; it was a blow at the very
root of our existence, a shot in our backbone. But who is cast down?
On we had to go.--He must be cured. A physician who had taken a great
fancy to me, undertook to doctor him.”
“It was nothing less than a miracle that he saved my life in that
squalid hole--a perfect museum of old clothes, old iron, and old
leather.”
“God was on our side--I see it plainly. Oh! I knew very well in whom
I trusted,” Teodoro went on, with the fervid rapid eloquence, which
was as characteristic of the man, as his black elf-locks and leonine
countenance. “But, for my brother to have medicine, I had to do without
clothes. The Pharmacopeia did not admit of tailors’ bills--nay,
prescription after prescription--first my cloak went, then my overcoat,
then my shoes were turned into pills. However, my master stood by me.
I got some clothes once more, and my brother was outside the house
again. The doctor said: ‘He will get quite well in the country.’--‘The
country,’ said I, and I thought it over; then he may go to the School
of Mines. My brother was a good mathematician, I taught him some
chemistry, he soon took a fancy to rocks and stones, and before he
went into the school he had begun going out into the fields to pick
up pebbles. Well, I meanwhile went on my way, beaten by winds and
waves; every day I knew something more of medicine. A famous operator
took me as his assistant; then I was no longer a mere menial--I was a
servant to science. My master fell ill, I nursed him like a Brother of
Charity--but he died, leaving me a legacy. God bless me! but it was a
fortune! It consisted of a walking-stick, a machine for making cigars,
a hunting-horn, and four thousand _reales_ in money. My brother bought
books and I bought some clothes, and as soon as I was decently dressed,
I began to get patients. It really seemed as if folks fell ill on
purpose to give me employment. On--straight on! Years and years went
by; at last, after many miseries I saw, far off, the way to a refuge.
Still, my brother and I sailed on without any too severe toil, and we
were never melancholy; God smiled upon our souls. Well, indeed, for us!
God held out his hand to us, as it were. I began to study the eye and
soon could operate for cataract, but I wanted something more than this.
I was earning money, no doubt, but my brother cost me all I earned. At
last, however, Cárlos passed out of the schools. Three cheers for the
brave--none but the brave win the day. I saw him settled at Riotinto
with a good salary, and then off I went to America. I was a sort of
Columbus, the Columbus of labor; a sort of Cortés; I discovered a New
World for myself, and having discovered it, I conquered it.”
“You are your own trumpeter,” said Sofía laughing.
“If there are still heroes to be found you are one of them,” said
Cárlos with eager admiration for his brother.
“Well, set to work now, noble Demi-god,” said Sofía, “crown your
achievement by working a miracle, and restore to sight a man blind from
his birth.--Look, there is Don Francisco coming out to meet us.”
And, in fact, mounting the ridge which shuts in the mines to the west,
they had come to Aldeacorba, and past the house of Penáguilas, who,
pulling on his coat in the utmost haste now came hurrying towards them.
Darkness was falling fast.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PATRIARCH OF ALDEACORBA.
“The cows are just being milked,” he began, without wishing them
good-evening. “I thought you would all like some milk. I hope to see
you well, Señora Sofía--and you Don Teodoro. The sight of you is good
for sore eyes. But what is the matter with María Canela--a little lame
paw? How long have you been so spoiled, little one?”
The whole party turned into the court-yard. They could hear the deep
lowing of the cows, which had just been driven to their stables, and
the homely sound, with the fresh country smell of the hay, which the
laborers were carrying from the lofts, soothed the senses and the mind.
The doctor seated Nela on a stone bench, while she, speechless with
surprise and respect, dared not budge an inch, but could only wonder at
this delightful state of things.
“And where is Pablo?” the engineer enquired.
“He is just gone down into the garden,” said Señor de Penáguilas, as he
offered Sofía a rustic seat. “You might run off and join him Nela.”
“No, no, I do not wish her to go yet,” said Teodoro detaining her.
“Besides, she is going to have some milk with us.”
“Do you wish to see my son this evening?” asked Penáguilas.
“No, yesterday’s examination was quite satisfactory,” replied Golfin.
“The operation can be performed.”
“And successfully?”
“Ah!--as to that I cannot say. How great a pleasure it would be to give
sight to a young fellow who so richly deserves it, I need not tell you!
Your son has a most superior intelligence, a brilliant imagination, and
a most delightful nature. His total ignorance of the outer, visible
world, only throws his beautiful qualities into relief; they stand out
in conspicuous simplicity, with the naked charm and dignity of a work
of Nature, untouched and unspoiled by the hand of man. He is full of
idealism, it affects all his thoughts--a grand and beautiful idealism.
It reminds me of a colossal mass of unwrought marble--a block as it
lies in the quarry. He knows nothing of reality, he lives a charmed
life, a life of pure illusion. If we could but give him sight! Still,
I say to myself--supposing that by giving him sight we should make him
a man instead of an angel.--It is a question that raises doubts in my
mind. However, we are bound to try to make a man of him; it is the
duty of science; we will drag him out of the world of fancy into that
of reality, and then, with his powerful mind, he would rapidly gain
accurate information and sound judgment. He would soon acquire the
invaluable power of estimating the true relative value of things.”
Three cups of milk were now brought in, white, warm, fragrant, and
frothy to the very rim. Penáguilas handed a cup first to Sofía, and the
two gentlemen took the others; but Teodoro Golfin offered his to Nela,
who was overwhelmed with bashfulness and refused to touch it.
“Come, little woman,” said Sofía, “do not be so rude; take what is
given you.”
“Another cup of milk for Don Teodoro,” said Don Francisco to the
servant. And then they heard the milk as it flowed into the pails from
the full udders of the cows.
“He will appreciate the true relative value of things,” said Don
Francisco, repeating the doctor’s last words, which had made a deep
impression on his mind. “That is an admirable observation, Don Teodoro.
And with regard to the subject under discussion, I must explain to you
the doubts I have felt for some days past. But I may as well sit down.”
And Don Francisco seated himself on a stool he had in his hand. The
others had already been accommodated with chairs brought out of the
house, and Nela was still perched on the stone bench. The milk she had
drunk as she was bidden had left a thin white moustache on her upper
lip.
“I must tell you Don Teodoro that for some days I have been very uneasy
at the excited state in which my son has been; I attribute it to the
hope that has been held out to him--but still, there is something
else--something more than that. You know that I am in the habit of
reading to him out of various books. I believe that this reading has
done much to fire his imagination and instruct his mind, and that many
ideas have been developed in his brain, which are, as it were, above
the comprehension of a blind man. I do not know whether I am making
myself clear.”
“Perfectly.”
“There is no end to his discussions and arguments; I am astounded
by the depth and acuteness of his remarks, though I feel that his
knowledge is mixed up with a thousand misconceptions, from want of
method and from his ignorance of the visible world.”
“It could not be otherwise.”
“But the strangest thing is that, carried away by his
imagination--which is like a young Hercules fettered with chains within
a dungeon, and struggling to burst its bonds and break down walls....”
“Good, very good, well said.”
“His imagination, I was saying, cannot rest in the darkness of his
sense, and strives to reach our world of daylight, making up for his
want of sight by the boldness of its assumptions. Pablo has a wonderful
spirit of enquiry, but it is like a noble bird whose wings are clipped.
For some few days he has been almost delirious; he does not sleep and
his passion for information has been almost madness. At all hours of
the day he asks for some new book, and at every pause he makes the
keenest observations, but with such a mixture of simple innocence,
that he makes me laugh. He asserts and maintains the absurdest things,
and if I contradict him--I am really afraid of his going out of his
mind--of his brain softening. If you could only see how melancholy and
how disputatious he sometimes is. He takes up an idea and, come what
may, it is impossible to get it out of his head. Now, for some days, he
has had a fixed idea, which is as touching as it is preposterous. He
will have it that Nela is pretty.”
They all laughed, and Nela turned scarlet.
“That Nela is pretty!” exclaimed Teodoro kindly. “Well, and so she is.”
“Oh! sweetly pretty, particularly with that moustache!” said Sofía.
“She has a dear little face of her own,” repeated Teodoro, putting his
hand under her chin; “Sofía, lend me your handkerchief. Come, we will
get rid of the moustache.”
Teodoro returned the handkerchief to Sofía after wiping Nela’s face.
Don Francisco told the girl to go and join the blind boy, and she
hobbled away.
“And if I contradict him,” he then went on, “my son tells me that,
perhaps the gift of sight has weakened my perception of the true aspect
of things--a quaint paradox!”
“Do not contradict him at all, and for the present discontinue
your readings. For a few days we must adopt a regimen of absolute
tranquillity. The brain must be treated with the utmost consideration
before attempting any operation of this kind.”
“If it is indeed God’s will that my son should receive his sight,”
said Penáguilas devoutly, “I shall regard you as the greatest and most
beneficent of men. The darkness of his eyes is the darkness of my life;
that black shadow has saddened all my days, and clouds all the wealth
and ease of which I am master. For I am rich--but of what use are
riches? How can I care for the things he cannot see. Only a month ago I
fell heir to a fine fortune--you know, Don Cárlos, my cousin Faustino
died at Matamoros. He had no children, so my brother Manuel and I
are his heirs. It is throwing pearls before swine--not as regards my
brother, who has a daughter, a sweet girl, old enough to marry--but so
far as I am concerned, a wretched man who can never see his son enjoy
the best pleasures of a respectable and easy position.”
A long silence followed, interrupted only by the gentle lowing of the
cows in the adjoining stable.
“And then,” added the worthy father in melancholy tones, “he knows
nothing of the pleasures of work, the greatest pleasure of all.
Ignorant, as he is, of the beauties of Nature, what can he know of
the delights of the country or the charms of agriculture? I cannot
imagine how God can bear to deprive a human creature of the pleasure
of admiring a fat beast, a tree loaded with pears, or a green pasture;
of seeing the fruits of the earth in their abundance; of sending out
the laborers to their day’s toil, and reading the signs of the weather
in the sky. For him life is simply a fevered dream--it is lonely too;
solitary, for he can never have the comfort of a family round him. When
I die what family will the poor blind boy have? He will not want to
marry, nor will he find a woman of good family who would engage herself
to him, in spite of his wealth; nor, indeed, could I advise him to
marry. So that when Don Teodoro gave me a hope, I felt as if heaven was
opened to me; I had visions of a young and happy and sensible marriage;
cherubs--my grandchildren--fluttered round me; I saw my tombstone
graced and fragrant with the blossoms of a future generation, and the
loving care which even after death should follow me to the grave.--You
cannot enter into all this; you cannot know how my brother, who is as
good as gold, God bless him!--as soon as he heard of my hopes, began
to plot and plan and dream.--Here, this is what he says”--and he took
out a parcel of letters which he turned over for a few minutes without
finding the one he wanted.--“Well, to make a long story short, he
was beside himself with delight and he said to me: ‘I will marry my
Florentina to your Pablo, and so we shall get compound interest on
the half million of _pesos_ left by cousin Faustino.’--I can see him,
poor old Manuel, rubbing his hands and strutting about as his way is
when he has hit on a good idea. I am expecting him and his daughter
to arrive at any hour; they are coming to stay with me for the 4th of
October, and to see what comes of this attempt to bless my son with the
light of day.”
By this time it was growing dark and the party of four became aware of
a most appetizing vapor issuing from the house, and announcing a savory
farm-supper. The village patriarch, who seemed the very incarnation of
the spirit of the place--a tranquil melancholy--spoke again presently:
“My brother’s happiness and my own depends on my having a son, whom I
may propose as a husband for his daughter, who is as sweet and fair as
the Holy Virgin, as we see her represented when the angel of the Lord
comes to say: ‘The Lord is with thee.’ My blind boy is not the man--but
my Pablo, with his eyesight, would realize my fondest dreams and bring
the blessing of God into my house.”
They were all silent, deeply impressed by the worthy father’s simple
and pathetic utterances, and he himself raised his rough, brown hand,
hardened by labor, to wipe away a tear.
“What have you to say to all this?” Cárlos asked his brother.
“I can say no more than that I have conscientiously examined the
case, and can find no sufficient reason for saying it is hopeless,
as the other distinguished operators have said whom our good friend
has consulted. I cannot pledge myself to succeed, nor can I think it
impossible. The examination I made yesterday revealed no defect or
injury in the retina, and no disease in the optic nerve. If the retina
is perfect, all that is needed is the removal of some impediment in
front of it. The crystalline lens often becomes opaque--sometimes hard
and stony--and this is what does the mischief. If all the other parts
of the organ are healthy and work--but, in the commonwealth of the eye,
many individual portions are only too ready to become atrophied by
idleness.”
“So that, in short, it amounts simply to congenital cataract,” said
Penáguilas eagerly.
“Oh no, Señor; if it were no more than that, it would be a happy thing
for us! All that would be needed would be to get rid of the part that
does its duty so badly. It ought to let the light in and instead of
that, it is congested, degenerate, stony, and as opaque as a wall.
No--there is something more than that, Don Francisco. The iris is
defective, the pupil must be taken in hand.--Still, I can laugh all
these details to scorn if, when I enter into possession, as it were, of
this dormant organ, I only find the choroid and the retina uninjured.
If, on the other hand, when I have removed the opaque lens and let the
light in, I find complete amaurosis--if it were only partial, that
would be something--but if it is total.... When the nerve of sight is
dead we can do nothing. The deep mysteries of life are closed against
us. There is nothing for it but patience. This case is to me a most
interesting one; there are symptoms which lead me to believe that the
internal function is unimpaired. The retina, as Sovereign lord, seems
quite disposed to receive the light I shall introduce to it, and that
high functionary, the vitreous humor, will probably find it no novelty.
If from long want of exercise it has sunk into a state of incipient
glaucoma--a kind of melancholy--we will treat it for that. All will
then be well in that darkened chamber. But there is another thing to
be considered. A fissured iris, and an ordinary cataract usually admit
some gleam of light, and our patient sees not a glimmer. This made
me hesitate. In fact, the sclerotic too is very much thickened; the
impediments to the admission of light are many and serious.... However,
we shall see, Don Francisco. Have you courage for anything?”
“Courage! What should I have courage for?” asked Don Francisco.
“Sir, you will want all your courage if....”
“Well, if...?”
“If, after undergoing a painful operation, your son is still as blind
as before. I said to you, plainly: The case is not desperate; shall I
operate?”
“And I answered, and I answer once more; Yes--operate; and God’s will
be done. Onwards!”
“Aye, onwards! You have taken my motto.”
Don Francisco rose and wrung the surgeon’s hands, that were so like a
lion’s paws.
“In this climate the operation may be favorably performed early in
October,” Golfin went on. “To-morrow we will decide on the regimen to
which we must subject our patient. Meanwhile we will be going, for it
is fresh up on this hill.”
Penáguilas pressed shelter and supper on his friends, but they would
not accept. They set out homewards with Nela, whom Teodoro insisted
on taking with him, and Don Francisco kept them company as far as the
works.
Soothed by the silence and beauty of the night, they fell into
conversation on lighter themes--on the yield and profits of the
mines, and other local matters. The Golfins having reached home, Don
Francisco turned back alone and heavy-hearted, walking slowly, with
his eyes fixed on the ground. He was thinking of the terrible days of
doubt and hope, of expectation and anxiety which were coming on him.
Presently he was met by Choto, and the pair lazily climbed the wooden
stair. The moon gave them light, and the old man’s shadow went up in
front of him, broken by the steps into a zigzag monster that leaped
from plank to plank. The dog trotted by its side and Don Francisco, in
the absence of any other mortal to whom he could confide the thoughts
that wearied his brain, presently said:
“Oh Choto! will it succeed?”
CHAPTER XII.
DOCTOR CELIPIN.
That worthy, Señor Centeno, having refreshed his mind with the dull
columns of his newspaper, and ‘Señana,’ his wife, after enjoying the
more intoxicating delights of counting and feeling the coin in the
stocking, had taken themselves to bed. Children first and parents
after, they had all marched off to their respective couches. First
there was the mumbled Litany, sounding like some muttered gibberish;
then yawns, while the sluggard fingers made the sign of the cross--and
then the stony-hearted family slept.
When the house was as still as the grave itself, a soft rustling began
to be audible in the kitchen, like the stirring of bats coming out of
their hiding nooks to see life. The hampers opened and Celipin heard
these words:
“Celipin--look here; I have got something nice for you to-night.”
Celipin could see nothing, but he put out his hand and took from
Nela’s two _duros_. Having assured himself of their genuineness by
touch--since he could hardly have done so by sight--he remained
speechless with astonishment.
“Don Teodoro gave them to me,” added the girl, “to buy myself a pair of
shoes. But I do not want shoes; so I give them to you, and so you will
get on faster.”
“Hurrah! You are as good as the Holy Virgin, Nela--I want very little
more now, and when I have got another half-dozen or so of _reales_--you
shall see what Celipin is made of.”
“Aye, and listen to me, child; the man who gave me that money ran about
the streets barefoot begging when he was a boy, and now....”
“You do not mean it! Don Teodoro? And now he has such lots of money.
They say six mules could not carry it all.”
“Yes, and he slept in the streets, and was an errand boy, and had no
breeches--in short, was poorer than a rat. And his brother, Don Cárlos,
lived in an old-clothes shop.”
“Lord save us! What wonderful things we live to hear of! Well, I will
go and find an old-clothes shop where I can live.”
“Well, and after that he became a barber to earn a living and be able
to study.”
“Ah...! Look here then; I have a great mind to go straight into a
barber’s shop; I shall soon have to shave myself, and I am brisk and
quick enough, thank God!--Only wait till I get to Madrid--shaving on
one hand and studying on the other, at the end of two months I will
know everything. Look here, it has just struck me that I am made to
be a doctor.--Yes, a doctor, what with feeling pulses and looking at
tongues, that is the way to fill your pockets.”
“Don Teodoro,” Nela went on, “had much less than you, for you will
soon have five _duros_, and with five _duros_, you can get almost
everything. Don Teodoro and Don Cárlos were like the birds that fly
about without house or home, all alone in the world. Well, by managing
well, they got learned. Don Teodoro studied dead bodies, and Don
Cárlos studied stones, and so they learnt to be gentlemen, and men of
importance. And that is why Don Teodoro is such a friend to the poor.
Celipin, you should have seen him this evening when he jumped me upon
his shoulder--and then he gave me his cup of milk and looked at me as
if I were a lady.”
“All strong, active men, are the same,” said Celipin sharply. “You will
see how brave and fine I shall look when I wear a long cloak and a high
hat; and I will wear those stockings on my hands--gloves they call
them, and never take them off excepting to feel a pulse--I will have a
stick with a gilt knob and will wear such clothes! nothing shall ever
touch my skin but fine linen. Lord love you child! but you will laugh
to see me!”
“Do not be fancying that you can rise to such things at once--you who
are as bare as an egg,” said the girl. “You must go step by step,
learning one thing to-day and another to-morrow. I advise you, before
you learn to cure sick folks, to learn to write; and so you ought, if
it is only to leave a letter for your mother, asking her to forgive
you, and telling her that you are gone away from home to improve
yourself, to make your way like Don Teodoro, and become a clever
doctor.”
“Do not talk nonsense child. Who does not know that writing comes
first? Only let me get a pen in my hand, and you will see me flourish
away at the letters, and what beautiful fine strokes I will make
up and down, like Don Francisco Penáguilas’ name at the end of a
letter.--Write? do not talk to me--in four days you will see what
letters I will write.--Aye, you shall hear them read and see what
grand ideas I can hatch out, and set them down too, in such fine words
as will make you all look foolish. Bless you child! but you have no
notion how clever I can be. I feel it inside my head here, buzzing
and humming, _burumbum, burumbum,_ like the water in the boiler of
a steam-engine. It will not let me sleep, and I feel as if all the
sciences in the world came rushing in and flapped blindly about like
bats, wanting me to study them.--All the sciences--I must learn them
all; I must not leave out one.--Well, you will see.”
“But there must be a great many. Pablo Penáguilas knows them all, and
he told me that there are a great, great many, and that a man’s whole
lifetime is not enough to learn even one.”
“Never do you believe him.--Well, you will see what I can do.”
“And the best of all is what Don Cárlos learns; why, only think, he
picks up a stone and makes brass of it; indeed, they do say he makes
silver, and even gold. Learn that science, Celipillo.”
“Do not you be mistaken, Nela; there is nothing like knowing how to
take a wrist and look at a tongue, and tell in a minute in what corner
of a body the mischief lies. They say that Don Teodoro can take a man’s
eye out and put him in a new one, that he can see with as well as if he
had been born with it. Just think what it is to see a man dying, and to
make him hale and sound again only by making him swallow half-a-dozen
flies, let us say, stewed down on a Monday with hazel twigs gathered
by a maid named Juana--I say that is something worth doing.--Yes, you
shall see, you shall see what I will do. Doctor Celipin de Socartes. I
tell you my fame will reach as far as Havana.”
“Good, good!” cried Nela, delighted. “But remember, you must be a good
boy, because the reason your parents have taught you nothing, is only
because they were not clever enough, and so, as you are clever, you
must pray for them to the Holy Virgin, and not forget to send them
some of all the money you are going to get.”
“I will be sure to send them some. You see, it is not because I owe
them any grudge that I am going to run away; and before long, very
soon, you will see a porter come up from the station so loaded with
big parcels that he can hardly stand, and what will they be? Why,
petticoats for mother and the girls, and a tall hat for father--and
you--I will send you a pair of ear-rings.”
“You are in a hurry with your presents,” said Nela, smothering a laugh.
“Ear-rings for me!”
“Stop; I have just got another idea. Shall I tell you? It is that you
should come with me; two of us together we should help each other to
earn money and to learn. For you are clever too, I am too sharp not to
see that; and you can learn to be a lady as I can to be a gentleman. Oh
Lord! how I should laugh to see you playing the piano like Doña Sofía.”
“What a simpleton you are! Why I am no good for anything. If I went
with you, I should only be a clog and burden to you.”
“But they say now that Don Pablo is going to be made to see, and when
he can see, you will have nothing to do in Socartes. What do you think
of my plan? Why do not you answer?”
There was a long pause, during which Nela made no answer. Celipin asked
her again but got no answer.
“Go to sleep, Celipin,” she said from the bottom of the baskets. “I am
dreadfully sleepy.”
“If my brain will let me sleep, God save us!”
And a minute later he was dreaming of himself in the semblance of
Don Teodoro Golfin, fixing new eyes in old sockets, splitting open
fragments of rock, and snatching sick men from the jaws of death by
means of doses of flies, stewed on a Monday, with hazel twigs picked
by a maiden. He saw himself dressed with gorgeous garments, his hands
encased in perfumed gloves, and riding in a coach drawn by swans
instead of horses, invited by Kings and courted by Queens, attending
ladies of distinction, lauded by nobles, and carried in triumph by all
the peoples of the earth.
CHAPTER XIII.
BETWEEN TWO BASKETS.
Nela had shut herself into her baskets to be alone; we will follow her,
however, and look in upon her thoughts. But first we must give a little
more of her history.
Having entirely lacked all instruction in her infancy, having equally
lacked all those soft endearments, which unfailingly open the mind
to recognize certain truths, Marianela’s powerful imagination had
conceived a strange set of ideas, a wild and fanciful theogony, and
a highly whimsical scheme of cause and effect. Teodoro Golfin’s
comparison of Nela’s mind with the early stage of a primitive race was
a particularly happy one. In her, as in them, the fascination of the
marvellous was the predominant sense; she believed in supernatural
agencies, apart from the one and supreme God, and saw in all natural
objects an abstract personality, by no means cut off from all
communication with men. In spite of all this, however, Nela had some
knowledge of the Gospel. It had never been taught her, to be sure, but
she had heard such things talked of. She saw that people went to a
function they called the Mass, and she understood the idea of a sublime
sacrifice; but beyond this her notions could not go. The contagion of
a common feeling had accustomed her mind to reverence the image of
the Crucified God; she knew it should be kissed, and she even could
repeat some prayers that she had learnt mechanically; she knew whatever
she wanted she could ask of God--but this was all. The absolute
neglect in which her whole nature had been left until the time of her
acquaintance with Pablo Penáguilas was the cause of this confusion,
and her friendship with this strange being, who, shut up in darkness,
nevertheless with his mind’s eye boldly investigated all the problems
of life, had come to her too late. Nela’s system of philosophy, of her
own fabrication, had already petrified--a strange compound of paganism
and sentimentality. At the same time it must be said that Marianela,
though her spirit ranged so far outside the common atmosphere, was well
endowed with good sense, and could form a sound judgment on the things
of daily life, as has been seen in the advice she gave to Celipin.
This, no doubt, was due to the native soundness of her mind.
The strongest instinct of her nature was her love, nay her secret
passion, for physical beauty wherever she saw it. Nothing could be
more natural than this impulse in a human soul growing up in total
solitude, so far as society and teaching were concerned, and in
constant intercourse, in close intimacy we may say, with Nature and all
its sublime or gracious beauty--light, color, eloquent inarticulate
voices, and infinite variety of form. And Marianela’s admiration had
assumed the guise of worship; in obedience to a law, which also governs
the primitive race, she had personified all the beauty she saw around
her and worshipped it in a single incarnation, ideal but human. This
divinity of her imagination she called the Virgin Mary, a conception
she had derived from the domain of religious thought, of which she knew
so little. And the Virgin Mary would not have become her cherished
ideal, if she had not joined to her moral perfections all the physical
gifts of beauty and grace; if her aspect had not been noble and
attractive, at once human and divine; if it had not seemed to Nela the
epitome in which were concentrated all the glory of light, the sober
peace of darkness, the music of running waters, the grace and sweetness
of flowers, the freshness of the dew, the low complaining of the wind,
the spotless purity of the mountain snow, the loving glances of the
stars, and the solemn majesty of the clouds, as they ride across the
vault of heaven.
The person of God himself she conceived of as terrible and austere,
inspiring respect rather than love. All that was gracious was bestowed
by the Virgin, and she was the giver of all that human creatures could
ask for. God frowned, while She smiled; God chastised, but She forgave;
this last notion was by no means a strange one. It is accepted with
almost absolute faith among the laboring classes of the rural parts of
Spain. Nor is it at all uncommon, when we find a strong imagination
joined to extreme ignorance, to meet with the fusion which existed
in Nela’s mind of all the beauties of Nature with the beautiful
personification which combines all the æsthetic charms of the Christian
ideal. If the darkness in which Nela dwelt had only been more complete,
if she had but been rather more destitute of religious notions, she
would have been an utter pagan and have worshipped the moon, the woods,
the rivers, fire and the sun. This was Nela as her life in Socartes
had made her, and such she remained till she was fifteen. After that,
her comradeship with Pablo and her frequent talk with the lad, whose
ideas were so broad and so sound, had somewhat modified her tone of
thought. But she still allowed supreme sovereignty to physical beauty;
she still superstitiously adored the Virgin as the embodiment of all
the loveliness of Nature, and, in a way, of all moral law; crowning her
system with the most extraordinary ideas as to death and the life to
come.
* * * * *
Curling herself up in her basket, Marianela’s reflections took this
form:
“Holy Mother of God! Why--why did you not make me beautiful? Why did
you not look down on me as soon as I was born? For the more I look
at myself, the uglier I seem to grow. Oh! why am I in this world at
all? Of what good can I be? Who can care for me? One single soul, Lady
Mother, only one, and he only because he cannot see me. What is to
become of me when he sees me and casts me off? for it is impossible
that he should ever love me when he sees my miserable little body, my
freckled face, my ugly mouth, my sharp nose, my dirty brown skin--all
my hideous little self--of no good to any one but to kick perhaps. What
is that? Only Nela--nothing at all. She is of no use to any one but the
blind boy. If his eyes are opened, if he turns and looks at me, I shall
drop down dead.
“He is the only being to whom ‘Nela’ is anything more important than
the cats and the birds. He loves me. Loves me as lovers love their
sweet-hearts, as God intends human beings to love each other.--Oh Lady
Mother! now that you are going to work a miracle and let him see, make
me beautiful or strike me dead, for I shall not be wanted any more in
this world. I am good for nothing and ever shall be, excepting to one
person. Am I sorry then that he should be able to see?--No, no, not
that, no. I want him to see; I would give my own eyes for him to see
with his; I would give my life. I hope Don Teodoro can work the miracle
as they say. Blessings on all wise men! What I do not want is that my
master should ever see me. Before I will let him see me, oh Mother! I
will bury myself alive, I will throw myself into the river.--Yes, the
earth shall cover my ugliness. I ought never to have been born.”
She writhed in her narrow basket, and then she went on:
“All my heart and thought are for him. That poor, blind man, who has
taken it into his head to be fond of me--he is the first being in
the world to me next to the Virgin Mary. Oh! If only I were tall and
handsome; if I had the figure, and the face, and the color--above
all, the color--of other girls! If I could only make a lady of myself
and dress myself up.--And then my greatest joy would be to think that
his eyes liked to look at me. If I were like other girls, even like
Mariuca--how soon I would find a way of getting taught and being made
a lady of. Oh Mother Mary, Queen of the world! The only creature that
loves me, I am going to lose: he will leave me. Why did you ever let
him love me, and let me love him? It ought not--never--to have been.”
The tears poured down her cheeks; she folded her arms and turned over,
and even when half asleep she still was speaking to herself:
“Oh, how much I love you, child of my soul! Love me too, love me very
much. It is Nela who is no good to any one.--Love me very much. Let me
give you a kiss--here on your head.--But do not open your eyes, do not
look at me. Shut them--so.”
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED TO NELA.
The thoughts which fade and fly as sleep overcomes us, very commonly
lurk in some hole or corner ready to take us by storm again as soon
as we wake. Thus it was that Mariquilla, who, having fallen asleep
with her head full of strange fancies of the Virgin, of the blind lad,
and of her own ugliness which, she longed so wildly to see changed
into wonderful loveliness, woke with the same ideas in her brain when
Señana’s call roused her in her basket. As soon as her eyes were open,
Nela put up her usual prayer to the Virgin Mother--a sort of Litany,
compounded of the ordinary Litany to the Virgin and of certain clauses
of her own devising, and forming altogether an address which would look
strange enough if it were written down. Among other things, Nela’s
prayer said:
“Thou didst appear to me in my dreams last night, oh Lady! and promise
to comfort me to-day. Now I am awake, and still I feel as if I saw thy
face just before me, and far lovelier than all the grand and lovely
things in the world.” And as she spoke she turned and gazed round her.
Noticing in herself the utter vagueness with which she did so, she
thought to herself: “Something has come over me.”
“What is the matter, Nela?” asked Señana, seeing the girl stand with
her eyes wide open and fixed on a spot in space. “Do you see a vision,
simpleton?”
But Nela did not answer, her mind was absorbed in self contemplation.
“What ails me?” she asked herself. “It cannot be anything evil, or
wicked, for I do not feel the black ugly figure of a devil inside me,
but something heavenly: a beautiful face, a smile and a look which--if
I am in my right mind--are those of the Virgin Mary herself. Oh Lady
Mother! Can it be true that thou wilt give me comfort to-day? And
how?--By giving me what I prayed for last night?”
“Now then, brat!” screamed Señana in her harsh tones, like a cracked
bell. “Go and wash your ugly little snout.”
Nela went at once. Her spirit had felt a shock as of a sudden gleam
of great hope. She looked at herself in the quivering surface of the
water, and her heart shrank within her.
“No difference,” she muttered. “As ugly as ever; the same child’s face
with a woman’s years and a woman’s heart!”
But after washing herself she went through the same experience as
before--a sort of agony of anticipation, and, in spite of her narrow
vocabulary, Nela could classify these feelings as presentiments.
“Pablo and I,” said she to herself, “have often talked of how we feel
when something sad or something pleasant is going to happen. Pablo told
me that just before an earthquake people have strange sensations; there
is something in the air, and the beasts feel it too. Is there going to
be an earthquake, I wonder?” And she knelt down and felt the ground
with her hand.
“I cannot tell. But something is going to happen, and I cannot doubt
that it will be something good.--The Virgin told me last night that
to-day she would comfort me. What has come over me? The Heavenly Queen
seems to be close to me. I cannot see her, but I feel her--before
me--behind me....”
She went close by the machines for washing the ore towards the inclined
plane, looking about her with eager eyes. There was nothing to be seen
but the arms and wheels of iron, toiling with fiendish shrieks amid the
hideous confusion of whirling cylinders, lashing the water to powder,
as it seemed, and breathing out dust and smoke. Presently, when she
had gone some little distance, she stopped; putting her hand to her
forehead, and fixing her eyes on the ground in all the bewilderment of
doubt: “The question is,” said she to herself, “am I happy or am I sad?”
She looked up at the sky, half wondering to see it appear the same as
on other days--and it was a lovely day--and then she walked on faster,
to reach Aldeacorba as soon as possible. Instead of going through
the gallery in the mines and up the wooden steps, she kept above the
hollow way, along by the gutter that bordered the inclined tram-way,
intending to get out into the fields, and walk straight on by the level
road to the village. This way was much the prettiest, and she almost
always chose it, for that reason. It went by lanes full of sweet and
gay flowers, where crowds of bees and butterflies fluttered and sipped;
there were thickets of bramble loaded with the black fruit beloved
of children; clumps of cherry-trees overgrown with honeysuckles, and
enormous ilex, tall, spreading, densely shady, and proud, it would
seem, of their wide, black shadows.
Here Nela went more slowly, uneasy in herself, puzzled at her own
sensations, and at the anxious excitement that stirred in her. Her
rapid fancy presently hit upon a formula to express the state of her
feelings, and remembering having heard it said of such and such a one,
“the devil is in him,” she said to herself: “The angels are in me,
the Virgin Mary is with me this day. What I feel are the wings of her
angels fluttering inside me. Thou art near me, Lady Mother, I see you
and yet I do not see you--as we see with our eyes shut.”
She shut her eyes, and then she opened them again. She had just passed
a grove of trees and turned an angle of the road to go to a place where
she knew of a bramble copse, the greenest, prettiest, and most fruitful
in all the neighborhood. There were luxuriant ferns too, honeysuckle,
wild vine, and other climbing plants, all clinging and tangled together
in mutual dependence.
Nela heard a rustle in the brushwood close to her, and turning round
she saw--Merciful Heaven! There, in a frame of greenery, stood the
Immaculate Virgin herself--the face, the eyes, which in their gaze
seemed to have all the calm beauty of the sky. Nela stood silent,
petrified; with a feeling at once of devotion and terror. She could
not stir, nor cry out, nor hardly breathe, nor take her eyes off this
beatific vision.
It stood among the verdure, the face and figure to the waist perfectly
displayed. This was--yes, certainly--the very presence of the Maiden
of Nazareth, whose moral loveliness every painter has endeavored to
express by means of physical beauty, from St. Luke downwards through
eighteen centuries. Have not men indeed seen that sacred form with
the eyes of sense--with the eyes of Albert Dürer--of Rafael--of Van
Eyck--of Bartolomé Murillo? It was under the Rafaelesque aspect that
she now appeared to Nela, the most realistic of all, if realism can
mean the nearest approach of perfect human beauty to an artistic
representation of divine goodness. The oval of her face was less
narrow than the Seville painter’s type, and had more of the tender
roundness of the Italian form. Her eyes, which were finely shaped, were
gentleness itself, with a softness and sweetness as far removed from
indifference, as from the lightning glow of the eyes of Andalucia; the
brows that overarched them were delicately curved, and as fine as if
they had been traced with a paint-brush. Her forehead was unshadowed
by any cloud of weariness or sadness, and her lips, which were rather
full, parted in a smile that revealed the pearliest teeth that ever bit
into the apples of Paradise. And so, without in the least intending
it, I have compared her to our Mother Eve--wide as the distance is
between her who yielded to the Serpent and her who set her heel on
his head; but the beauty of a lovely girl is enough to betray us into
such unlucky blunders. To put a finishing touch to this imperfect
description of the divine vision which had so utterly dismayed poor
Marianela, it must be said that her complexion was of that faded rose
color, or warm clear brown which gives an enchanting glow to the faces
of those glorious pictures which successive generations, of believers
and heretics alike, have worshipped in ecstasy.
After the first shock of surprise was over, the first thing that Nela
observed, and which confused her judgment greatly, was that the fair
Virgin wore a blue ribbon round her throat, a detail she had never
before seen in any picture or dream of the Virgin Mary; then she
perceived that her shoulders and bosom were covered by a dress in every
respect similar to that worn by other ladies; but the thing which
puzzled and disturbed her most was that the fair creature was picking
blackberries--and eating them.
She was beginning to draw accurate inferences from this remarkable
behavior, when she heard a loud man’s voice calling:
“Florentina, Florentina!”
“I am here, Papa--here, eating blackberries.”
“Naughty child--how can you like to eat blackberries? What next whim
will you take? Have I not told you that they are only fit for the poor
children that run about the country, and not for a young lady who has
been properly brought up.--Do you hear? And lived in good society.”
Nela saw the speaker come towards them. He was a man of advanced middle
age and medium height, rotund, and with a ruddy countenance that seemed
to radiate satisfaction as the sun radiates light. His legs were thin,
his nose was large, and his person decorated with a variety of splendid
objects, among which a thick watch-chain was conspicuous, while he wore
a broad-brimmed hat of fine black felt.
“Come, come, child,” said Don Manuel Penáguilas, for he it was,
“respectable people do not eat blackberries nor skip and jump about
like that. There, you have torn your dress--I do not care about the
dress, for I can buy you another as I bought you that--I only speak
because the people here who see you might think you had no dress but
the one you have on.”
Nela, who by this time understood the case, looked at the young lady’s
dress. It was good and handsome, but her face betrayed unmistakably
the transition--and a rapid one--from the position of a rich peasant’s
daughter to that of a fine lady. Every detail of her attire, from her
shoes to her comb, stamped her as the daughter of the people in holiday
clothes. But the girl’s natural grace and beauty were so transcendent,
that no deficiency, as measured by any conventional standard of
elegance, could dim them. It was not to be denied, however, that her
whole individuality cried out for a short peasant’s skirt, hair dressed
in plaits with a bunch of poppies to adorn it with affected simplicity,
a sleeveless bodice, a coral necklace--in short, the costume which
good taste and the nature of things would have suggested, without any
admixture of the devices of the fine lady.
As the young girl came out from among the brambles, Don Manuel
perceived Nela, at the moment when she had just recovered from her
delusion, and he called out as he turned to her:
“Hallo! and who are you? Why, look Florentina, it is Nela, the little
body that waits upon your cousin. You remember--I spoke of her to you?
And how are you now-a-days?”
“Very well, Señor Don Manuel. And you.--How are you, Señor?” asked
Mariquilla without taking her eyes off Florentina.
“Perfectly well--as you see. This is my daughter.--Well, what do you
think of her?”
Florentina had just set out on a butterfly chase.
“My dear child, where are you going? What do you want now?” said the
father, visibly annoyed. “Now do you think it looks well that you
should be running after an insect like some poor child? You must not be
so wild, my child. Young ladies brought up in good society do not do
such things--never do such things....”
It was a trick with Don Manuel to repeat the last clause of his
sentences to give them emphasis.
“Ah! do not be cross, Papa,” said the girl, returning from her
fruitless chase to shelter herself under the protecting brim of the
paternal hat. “You know how much I love the country and that I am half
crazy when I see trees and flowers and meadows. And in that dismal town
of Campó I never see anything of the kind....”
“Oh! but you must not say anything against Santa Irene de Campó; it is
a famous town where you find every comfort and convenience, and a great
deal of very distinguished society. It stands in the foremost ranks
of civilization--yes, of civilization. You can admire the beauties
of Nature while you walk properly by my side. I admire them too, but
without cutting capers or turning somersaults. You can tell when a
young person has moved in good society only by her way of walking and
looking at the scene around her. This way of calling out at every
minute: Ah! Oh! Look there, Papa!--How pretty!--and pointing to a fern,
perhaps, or an oak-tree, or a rock--a thorn-bush even, a brook--is not
at all in good taste--people will think you have lived in a desert. So
come and walk by me.--Nela will show us the way home, for, to tell you
the truth, I do not know where we are.”
“If we turn to the left, past that old house,” said Nela readily, “we
shall be there directly.--But here comes Don Francisco.”
And, in fact, Don Francisco came on towards them, calling out: “The
chocolate is getting cold.”
“What would you have my good fellow.--This child was so anxious
to scamper across the country that she would not wait, so we went
springing from bush to bush like goats--just like goats from bush to
bush.”
“Well come in now, come home. Nela do you come too, and have some
chocolate,” said Penáguilas, laying a hand on the child’s head. “Well,
and what do you think of my niece? Is not she pretty?--Florentina, when
you have had your chocolate, Nela will take you and Pablo for a walk,
and you will see all the beauties of the neighborhood--the mines, the
wood, the river....”
Florentina sent a kind glance to the hapless little creature who, as
she ran by her side, seemed to have been formed by Nature expressly as
a foil and contrast to one of the loveliest and most perfect of her
creations.
When they reached the house the table was ready laid with the chocolate
pots full of the thick and nutritious beverage, and a small hillock of
slices of bread. There too were the _mantequilla_ (a sort of cake),
duly decked with fern leaves, and no lack of other household dainties.
The bright glasses of crystal water reflected and magnified all these
gastronomical objects.
“Here we have something to support life,” said Don Francisco, seating
himself.
“And you will have some chocolate too, Nela,” said Pablo. He had
hardly spoken when Florentina had offered her the chocolate pot, and
everything that was on the table was pressed on her acceptance. She
refused at first, but the Señorita insisted with so much kindness
and gentle grace, that she had at last no choice. Don Manuel cast
side glances at his daughter, not feeling perfectly satisfied with
her advance in the arts and manners of the best society, since one of
the most important points, in his estimation, consisted in a delicate
appreciation of the shades of civility due to different people
according to their rank and position, “showing to each neither more nor
less than was appropriate by the rules of social distinction; since, by
this means, each would keep his place, while true dignity would hold
its own and observe that happy medium of courtesy, which was not too
haughty or reserved to the rich, nor too humble and condescending to
the poor--not too humble to the poor.”
When they had done breakfast, Don Francisco said:
“Now, you children, go out for a walk. Pablo, this is the last day that
Don Teodoro will allow you to walk out. You three go and have a run,
while my brother and I go over the farm.--Fly away birds!”
There was no need to speak twice; the beauty of the day was invitation
enough, and the three young people set out for the fields.
CHAPTER XV.
THE THREE CHILDREN.
The town-bred damsel thoroughly enjoyed the open and smiling meadows
without the trammels of her father’s social dogmas, and as soon as they
were at some little distance from the house she took to running and
leaping, swinging now and then from the branches of the trees as she
passed them. She pinched the blackberries with the tips of her fingers,
and when she thought them ripe she would pick three, one for each mouth.
“This is for you, cousin,” she said, putting it to his lips, “and this
is for you, Nela, and this little one is for me.”
Then as the birds flew across she could not resist the temptation to
wave her arms as if she too could fly. “Where are the little rascals
off to I wonder?” she said. She must need gather a branch from every
oak-tree and split open the acorns to see what was in them, then she
bit into one, and finding it bitter, tossed it away. No botanist, mad
on Latin names and classification, could have been so eager to collect
all the flowers that grew under her feet, as if to bid her welcome to
their native soil, and she gathered enough in half an hour to adorn
every button-hole in her cousin’s cloak, to make a garland for Nela’s
hair, and then one for her own.
“My cousin would like to see the mines,” said Pablo. “Do not you think
we might go down?”
“Yes, let us go down--this way, Señorita.”
“Oh! but I do not like to go through tunnels, they frighten me
dreadfully. I really cannot go through a tunnel ...” said Florentina,
following them. “Cousin, do you and Nela walk about here often? Oh! but
this is beautiful--I could live here all my life. Blessings on the man
who is going to give you the power of enjoying this lovely world!”
“God grant it! And it will all look much more lovely to me who have
never seen it, than to you who are tired of it all. But do not suppose,
Florentina, that I do not understand what beauty is; I can feel it in
my own fashion, and my fancy almost, almost makes up for my want of
sight.”
“That is strange.--But say what you will,” replied Florentina, “we will
have some good fun when you can see.”
“Maybe,” said the blind boy, “that I may not find much to say that day.”
Nela meanwhile was absolutely speechless.
When they had reached the crater of La Terrible, Florentina was greatly
struck by the grand spectacle of the limestone rocks, left on the
ground after the ore had been extracted. She compared them to huge
masses of sugar loaves piled one on another; then, after looking a
second time, she said they were like gigantic dogs and cats turned to
stone at the critical moment of a furious fight.
“Let us sit down on this slope,” she said, “and we shall see the trains
go by with the mineral, and besides we can see these stones which are
very curious. That large rock in the middle has a wide mouth--do you
see, Nela?--and out of the mouth sticks a toothpick; it is a tree
that has grown all alone there. It looks as if it were laughing at
us, for it has eyes too; and there, farther on, is one with a hump,
another smoking a pipe, and two pulling each other’s hair; there is
one yawning, another asleep and drunk, and another head downwards
supporting a cathedral on his feet; then there is one playing the
guitar, with a dog’s head and coffee-pot on it like a cap.”
“What you are saying,” observed the blind man, “proves to me how
differently things are seen by different eyes, and that the precious
gift of sight sometimes travesties them strangely, changing their
natural form into something whimsical and unreal; for, after all, what
you see before you are neither cats nor men, toothpicks, cathedrals,
nor coffee-pots, but merely limestone rocks and masses of calcareous
stone stained with oxide of iron. And it is your eye that burlesques so
simple a fact.”
“You are right, cousin; and for that very reason I say it is our
imagination that sees, and not our eyes. Nevertheless our sight is
useful--to inform us, for instance, of certain things which poor people
have not got and which we who are rich can give them.” And as she spoke
she touched Nela’s dress.
“Why does not this dear little Nela wear better clothes?” she went on.
“I have a number of frocks and I will give her one--and a new one too,
into the bargain.” Marianela, covered with blushes and confusion, did
not raise her eyes.
“That is a thing I can never understand: why some have so much and
others so little. I get quite angry with Papa when I hear him abusing
those who wish that everything should be divided so that all should
have an equal share. What do they call those people, Pablo?”
“Socialists--communists ...” said the lad smiling.
“Well, those are the people for me. I vote for a redistribution, so
that the rich should give the poor all they have too much of. Why
should this orphan go barefoot when I wear shoes? Even wicked people
ought not to be destitute, much less good ones. Now, I know that Nela
is very good, you told me so last evening, and your father said so too.
And she has no parents, no one to care for her. How is it that there
are so many, many, miserable creatures in the world? My bread burns my
mouth when I remember how many there are who have none at all. Poor
little Nela! such a good child, and so forlorn! It seems impossible
that to this day you should have lived without being loved, without
any one to give you a kiss nor to cuddle and pet you as we pet little
children--my heart aches to think of it.”
Marianela was as completely petrified with astonishment as at the first
sight of the apparition. Then she had seen the Virgin Mary, now she
heard her very words.
“Listen, little one,” the Holy Maiden went on, “and you, Pablo, listen
too. I must help and comfort Nela--not as we help the beggars by the
road, but as we try to help a brother whom we find un
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