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Title: Dragon's teeth
A novel from the Portuguese
Author: Eça de Queirós
Translator: Mary J. Serrano
Release date: September 19, 2024 [eBook #74442]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Ticknor and company, 1889
Credits: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAGON'S TEETH ***
DRAGON’S TEETH
DRAGON’S TEETH
A Novel
FROM THE PORTUGUESE
BY
MARY J. SERRANO
AUTHOR OF “DESTINY AND OTHER POEMS,” ETC.
TRANSLATOR OF “PEPITA JIMENEZ,” ETC.
BOSTON
TICKNOR AND COMPANY
211 Fremont Street
1889
_Copyright, 1889_,
BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
PREFACE.
IN presenting this graphic picture of Lisbon life to the American
public, the translator has assumed the responsibility of softening here
and there, and even of at times effacing, a line too sharply drawn, a
light or a shadow too strongly marked to please a taste that has been
largely formed on Puritanic models, convinced (without entering into
the question of how far a want of literary reticence may be carried
without violating the canons of true art) that while the interest of
the story itself remains undiminished, the ethical purpose of the work
will thereby be given wider scope.
M. J. S.
MARCH, 1889.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
THE name of Eça de Queiros stands at the head of the list of Portuguese
novelists. Born in Oporto early in the latter half of the present
century, he was intended for the profession of the law by his father,
who belonged to a family distinguished in the annals of Portuguese
jurisprudence; but he soon abandoned his legal studies for literature,
toward which his inclinations impelled him, and which he cultivated
with immediate and marked success, the articles from his pen that
appeared from time to time in the various periodicals of the day
attracting wide-spread and favorable notice.
His characteristics as a writer are,--to quote from the Preface of the
Spanish version of the present work,--
“A vigorous, flexible, and picturesque style, daring and unexpected
flights of the imagination, extraordinary judgment, and a marvellous
perception of the realities of things, as well as of their comic and
sentimental aspects.” “His most marked characteristic, however, is
the wonderful power with which he treats the humorous and the pathetic
alike, moving his readers to tears or laughter at his will, with a
magic art possessed only by the great masters in literature.”
In conclusion, it may be said that the publication of the present work,
under the title of “O Primo Bazilio,” produced a profound sensation in
Portuguese literary circles, as did the publication, by which it was
soon followed, of a Spanish version in those of Madrid, and of a French
version, by Madame Ratazzi, in those of Paris.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HUSBAND AND WIFE 11
II. A PORTUGUESE “TEA” 41
III. COUSIN BAZILIO 72
IV. THE PUBLIC GARDENS 106
V. PREPARING THE GROUND 126
VI. ON TRIAL 146
VII. A CONSULTATION 163
VIII. PLAYING WITH FIRE 178
IX. DRAGON’S TEETH 192
X. IN THE TOILS 219
XI. A LOYAL FRIEND 239
XII. BROUGHT TO BAY 261
XIII. MISTRESS AND MAID 274
XIV. FROM DREAMS TO WAKING 287
XV. THE TELEGRAM 297
XVI. A REPRIEVE 313
XVII. JORGE’S RETURN 326
XVIII. BIDING HER TIME 356
XIX. A DINNER AT THE COUNSELLOR’S 382
XX. THE DREGS IN THE CUP 391
XXI. THE SHADOW OF A SIN 415
XXII. THE FATE OF THE SCORPION 442
XXIII. THE LETTER 458
XXIV. EXPIATION 486
XXV. AND SO THE WORLD GOES ON 503
DRAGON’S TEETH.
CHAPTER I.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.
THE cuckoo-clock in the dining-room had just struck eleven. Jorge,
reclining in an antique easy-chair covered with dark leather, closed
the volume of Louis Figuier that he had been listlessly turning over,
stretched himself, yawned, and said,--
“Are you not going to dress, Luiza?”
“Directly.”
The person who thus answered was still seated at the breakfast-table
reading the “Diario de Noticias.” She was clad in a dark-colored
morning-gown adorned with large pearl buttons. Her blond hair was in
some disorder; her head was small, her profile charming. Her elbow
rested on the table, while her fingers with a slow and graceful
movement mechanically caressed the tip of her rosy ear. Her nails
were long and polished, and in addition to her wedding ring she wore
another, set with small rubies, that shot forth crimson rays when they
caught the light.
The floor of the dining-room was covered with matting; the ceiling was
in imitation of wood, and the walls were adorned with a light-colored
paper with a green vine running through it. It was July. The heat
was intense. The windows were closed, but the fervor of the sun’s
rays striking against the panes and falling on the stone floor of the
balcony without penetrated into the apartment with a sultry glow. That
mysterious and solemn silence reigned which characterizes the hour
of the early Mass. The whole being was pervaded by a vague lassitude
producing a desire for the siesta, or for pleasant reveries under leafy
trees by the water-side. The canaries were asleep in their cages, which
were suspended in the windows between the curtains of blue cretonne.
The monotonous buzz of the flies, attracted to the table by the
half-melted sugar at the bottom of the cups, filled the room with a
drowsy murmur.
Jorge rolled a cigarette, and, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, he
began to think, as he sat here at his ease, comfortably attired in his
blue flannel jacket and his colored shirt without a collar, of his
journey to Alemtejo, and to ruminate on the discomforts attending it.
He was a mining engineer, and business obliged him to leave Lisbon on
the following day for Beja, thence to proceed to Evora, perhaps even
still farther south to St. Domingo; and this journey in the month
of July, this interruption in the course of his tranquil existence,
annoyed him as if it were an injustice of fate that he should be
compelled to take it.
Since the time of his graduation from college he had held a position
under the Government. This was his first separation from Luiza, and
he felt his heart contract within him at the thought of leaving this
little room that he himself had helped to paper in the days preceding
his marriage, and in which, after rising from happy dreams, the
morning meal was prolonged in delightful abandon.
As he stroked his soft and curly beard, which he wore very short, his
eyes lingered with tenderness on each separate article of the furniture
which had been his mother’s, and which was dear to his heart: on the
antique cupboard with glass doors, which contained the costly Indian
porcelain, and the service of silver, bright with constant rubbing, and
glittering now in all its decorative splendor; on the old varnished
table, familiar to his eyes from his earliest recollection, and on
which the few stains left by cup or pitcher were almost concealed by
the ornaments that covered it. Before him, on the opposite wall, hung
the portrait of his father attired in the fashion of 1830, the face
round, the glance animated, the mouth sensual, the medal of Commander
of the Order of the Conception decorating his closely-buttoned coat. He
had been for many years an employee in the Treasury Department; he was
of a sanguine temperament, and was a fine performer on the flute. Jorge
did not remember him, but his mother had often assured him that nothing
was wanting to make the likeness a perfect one but the power to speak.
Jorge had always lived with his mother in the house he now occupied.
Her name was Isaura; she was tall of stature, had a long nose, and was
apprehensive by nature; she would drink nothing but tepid water at her
meals. One day, on returning from the service of the Holy Sacrament,
she expired suddenly, without breathing a sigh.
Jorge had never resembled her. He had always been robust and healthy,
physically as well as mentally. He had inherited from his father an
admirable set of teeth and an excellent digestion. At seven years of
age he was turbulent and unruly; later on he became studious and a good
boy. When he was a student at the Polytechnic School, on returning home
at eight o’clock in the evening he would light his lamp and open his
books to study. He did not frequent cafés, and never spent the night
away from home.
Jorge was not at all sentimental. His companions, who read Alfred de
Musset with responsive sighs, and indulged in dreams of being loved
by a Marguerite Gautier, called him prosaic, _bourgeois_; he
only laughed. A button was never wanting on his shirts; he was very
methodical. He admired Louis Figuier, Bastiat, and Castilho. He had a
horror of disputes; and he was happy.
When his mother died, however, Jorge remained for a long time
inconsolable. He felt lonely. It was winter, and the weather was bad;
his room, situated in the interior of the house, was not a pleasant
one, and the wind sighed through it at times with a melancholy sound.
At night, especially, bending over his books, his feet resting on a
rug, he felt his being invaded by the languor of solitude. He began to
experience in his imagination strange desires; he longed to encircle
with his arm a lithe and graceful figure, to hear near him the silken
rustle of a woman’s dress. He resolved to marry. He had met Luiza one
night during the previous summer on the promenade. He fell in love with
her blond tresses, her charming profile, and her large hazel eyes.
He obtained his degree the following winter, and they were married.
Sebastião, his intimate friend, the good Sebastião, had said, rubbing
his hands together, and gravely shaking his head, “He has been hasty in
his marriage,--a little hasty!”
But Luiza, Luizinha, soon showed herself to be a good housekeeper. She
was an early riser, and had a delightful knack of doing well everything
she did. Moreover, she was neat, gay as a lark, and resembled a little
bird in its fondness for its nest and for the endearments of its
companion. Her presence diffused through the house a sweet and serene
gayety.
“She is a little angel,” said Sebastião, later on, in his deep bass
voice.
Three years had passed since Jorge’s marriage. What happy years!
He, especially, had improved during that time. He felt that his
intelligence had become broader, his disposition livelier, his health
sounder. Both were happy. Even those who did not know them said,
“They are a charming couple; it is a pleasure only to look at them!”
And Jorge, now going over in his mind all the little details of his
pleasant and easy existence, sent the smoke curling up from his
cigarette, with his legs stretched out before him, his soul expanding,
and feeling himself as comfortably sheltered in life as he was in his
flannel jacket.
“Ah!” suddenly exclaimed Luiza in accents of joyful surprise.
“What is it?” said Jorge.
“Cousin Bazilio is coming home!”
And she read aloud from the newspaper:--
“Sr. Bazilio de Brito, a distinguished member of our highest society,
is soon to arrive at Lisbon, from Bordeaux. As may be remembered,
he went, some years since, to Brazil, where it is said that by his
indefatigable efforts he has retrieved his ruined fortunes. He has been
travelling through Europe since the beginning of last year. His return
to our capital will be a real cause of rejoicing to his friends, who
are numerous.”
“Very numerous, indeed,” said Luiza, in an accent of conviction.
“So much the better,” replied Jorge, sending out a fresh puff of smoke
from his cigarette, and stroking his beard with the palm of his hand.
“It would seem, then, that he has made a fortune.”
Luiza cast a glance over the advertisements in the paper, took a sip of
tea, and then rose and opened one of the windows.
“Oh, Jorge!” she exclaimed, “how hot it is outside!” The glare of the
white and garish light dazzled her eyes.
The dining-room was situated in the back part of the house; it looked
out upon a plot of ground enclosed by a low fence and overgrown with
weeds. Here and there among the weeds, browned by the excessive heat,
were a few large stones. A wild fig-tree, isolated in the midst of the
plot, spread out its thick motionless foliage, that in the glare of the
sunlight looked like burnished bronze. Other houses looked out on the
same plot, with their balconies, their clothes spread out on a line to
dry, the white walls of their little gardens, and their consumptive
trees. An impalpable dust begrimed, so to speak, the luminous air.
“It is hot enough to suffocate the birds,” said Luiza, closing the
window. “Can you not fancy yourself already in Alemtejo?”
She came and seated herself on the arm of the easy-chair in which Jorge
was reclining, and ran her fingers through his dark and curling locks,
which he wore, in obedience to a caprice of his wife, parted down the
middle. Jorge passed his arm around her waist.
“Have you given orders to get my white waistcoats ready?” he asked.
“They should be ready now,” said Luiza. “Juliana!” she called, rising,
“Juliana!”
A sound of petticoats stiff with starch was heard approaching.
Juliana entered. She was a woman of about forty years of age, and was
extraordinarily thin. Her neck, long and withered, rose from out the
frills of a shirt-waist, bordered with imitation lace. Her features,
livid and contracted, were of a pale yellow tint. Her eyes, large and
prominent, were crossed by minute red veins, and moved within their
reddened lids with an expression of restless curiosity. She wore a
head-dress in imitation of braids of hair, that gave to her head an
appearance of enormous size. Her nose twitched continually with a
nervous movement; and her dress, flat over the chest, short, and puffed
out below by her stiffened petticoats, allowed a small and well-shaped
foot to be seen, clad in a cloth boot tipped with patent leather.
The waistcoats were not ready, she said, because she had not had time
to starch them. She spoke in a sing-song voice, after the manner of
the natives of Lisbon, through half-closed lips, and with her head bent
down.
“But I told you to be sure to have them ready,” said Luiza; “go get
them ready now, in the best way you can. They must be packed up
to-night in the valise.”
Juliana had hardly left the room when Luiza exclaimed: “That woman
inspires me with horror, Jorge.”
She had been two years in the house, and Luiza could not yet accustom
herself to the sight of her, to her gestures, to the piping manner in
which she pronounced certain words, drawling the _r’s_, to the
noise made by the heels of her shoes, which were furnished with little
metal plates, to her pretensions to possessing a small foot, and to her
black kid gloves on Sunday.
“She sets my nerves quivering,” continued Luiza.
Jorge laughed. In his opinion she was an inoffensive woman, a
good creature, an admirable laundress; and in the Department her
shirt-fronts awakened universal enthusiasm. His friend Julião said of
them that they were not ironed, but enamelled. She was not an agreeable
woman, it was true, but she was neat, silent, discreet. And rising,
with his hands in the pockets of his loose flannel trousers,--
“And in any case, child,” he added, “we must not forget the way she
behaved during Aunt Virginia’s sickness, never taking a moment’s rest.
She behaved like an angel towards her, yes, an angel,” he repeated
gravely; “we are forever indebted to her, my dear.” And with a serious
countenance he began to roll another cigarette.
Luiza, in silence, pushed out with the point of her slipper the edge of
her morning-gown. Then, with bent head, her eyes fixed on her nails,
she said poutingly, “But that would be no reason for not dismissing
her, if she should at last become too disagreeable to me.”
“Not with my consent, my dear,” returned Jorge. “It is with me a
question of gratitude.”
A few moments’ silence ensued. The cuckoo-clock struck twelve.
“I must get ready to make my calls, now,” he added. And leaning towards
her, he caught between his hands the graceful blond head of Luiza.
“Little serpent!” he murmured, fixing on her his tenderest glance.
Luiza smiled, and raised to his her magnificent hazel eyes, which she
had a habit of moving around in their orbits in a slow and luminous
manner, and which were so pure and limpid that one could penetrate into
their profoundest depths. Jorge bent towards her, and pressed on her
eyelids two sonorous kisses which could be heard at a distance; this
was a caress which had the virtue of always pacifying her. Then laying
his finger on her lip with a playful gesture,--
“Have you any commissions for me?” he asked. “Do you want anything,
Luizinha?”
She said that all she wanted was that he should come back quickly.
He replied that he was only going to leave cards; he would go like a
flash; it was a question of a moment. And he went out with a radiant
countenance, singing in his full baritone voice:--
“Dio del oro,
Del mundo signor,
La la ra, lara.”
Luiza yawned. Heavens! how tiresome to be obliged to dress! The heat
was suffocating. She would like to recline in a bath of rose-colored
marble, filled with tepid perfumed water clear as crystal, and
afterwards, robed in primitive garments, to cradle herself softly in
a silken hammock, and be lulled to sleep by the strains of melodious
music. She threw off her slipper, and fixed her glance tenderly on her
little foot, white as milk and marbled by delicate blue veins, while
her thoughts flitted from one idea to another.
It was truly provoking that silk stockings should be so dear! For if
that were not the case she would use no others. True that laundresses
have the art of washing them all to pieces. But then a blue silk
stocking with a little patent leather shoe is so charming, so pretty!
And she yawned again. Then she went to the table, took from it a book
that bore traces of use, and throwing herself into the easy-chair, gave
herself up voluptuously to her reading, caressing her little ear with
the tips of her fingers, as was her habit.
The book was the “Dame aux Camelias.” Luiza read a great many novels,
and subscribed by the month to a circulating library. In her younger
days, when she was about eighteen, she had cherished an enthusiastic
admiration for Walter Scott and Scotland. She would have liked to live
in one of those Scotch castles bearing the coat of arms of the clan
over their vaulted doors, with their oaken chests and their trophies,
their tapestries embroidered with historic legends that the breeze from
the lakes sets in motion and seems to endow with factitious life. She
had fallen in love successively with Evan dale, Morton, and Ivanhoe,
those heroes at once grave and tender, with the eagle’s feather in
their caps, fastened at the side by the Scotch thistle in diamonds and
emeralds. But now her fancy was captivated by the modern,--Paris with
its elegance and its sentimentality. She ridiculed the Troubadours, and
placed above every other hero M. de Camors; and her ideal man presented
himself to her imagination in a white cravat, in the midst of spacious
saloons, endowed with a magnetic glance, consumed by passion, his lips
overflowing with sublime words. For some days past the object of her
enthusiasm had been Marguerite Gautier, whose ill-starred love had
invested her in Luiza’s mind with a vague melancholy. She pictured her
to herself tall, slender, enveloped in a cashmere shawl, her dark eyes
lit up by passion and by the fever of consumption; she found even in
the names of the characters--Julie Duprot, Armand, Prudence--the poetic
savor of an existence dedicated to love; and she contemplated, steeped
in an inexpressible melancholy, this life exhaling itself in sighs,
passed in nights of delirium and days of sadness, enduring privations,
or rolling in a coupé along the avenues of the Bois under a gray sky,
while the first snows of winter were falling silently.
“Good-by for a while, Luiza,” cried Jorge from the dining-room, as he
was about to go out.
“Listen,” said Luiza.
Jorge re-entered the apartment, putting on his gloves.
“Try to come back soon, will you not?” she said. “Ah, and don’t forget
to bring me some tarts. Buy them at Bastreleque’s; do you hear? And if
you pass by the shop of Madame François, tell her to send me my hat.
Ah, listen, listen!”
“Good heavens! what more do you want?”
“I want you to go to the circulating library and ask them to send me
some novels. But I forgot--the library is closed. Above all, don’t stay
away long.”
With two tears trembling on her lids Luiza finished the last page of
the “Dame aux Camelias.” She breathed a sigh, and leaning back in her
easy-chair, with the book resting on her knees, she began to sing
softly, and with profound emotion, the final aria of “Traviata”:--
“Addio del passato
Igli rosi pallenti.”
The death of Marguerite Gautier, her letters, had produced in her
nerves a kind of sentimental vibration.
Suddenly the news she had read in the paper of the return of her Cousin
Bazilio recurred to her mind. A vague smile parted her rosy lips.
Cousin Bazilio! He was her first love. She was just eighteen at the
time. No one was acquainted with this fragment of the past, not even
Jorge or Sebastião. It is true, indeed, that it had lasted only eight
months.
Besides, she was then but a child. When she recalled the tender
emotions, the tears of those happy days, she laughed at herself for
her folly. How changed must her Cousin Bazilio be! She remembered
him perfectly. He was tall, somewhat slender, of a distinguished
appearance, with a mustache curling up at the ends, a bold glance, and
a peculiar habit of putting his hands in his pockets and jingling his
keys and his money. This episode in Luiza’s life had had its beginning
at Cintra, at the villa of her uncle João de Brito, while the others
were engaged in playing billiards. Bazilio had just returned from
England; and had come home somewhat of an Anglo-maniac, awakening
the admiration of the colony at Cintra by his red neckties, which he
wore passed through a gold ring, and his white flannel suits. The
billiard-room was a corner room, whose yellow-painted walls gave it an
air of grandeur, as if it belonged to a family of illustrious lineage.
A large door at the foot of the avenue opened into a garden to which
one descended by three stone steps. The fountain was surrounded by
pomegranate-trees, whose red blossoms Bazilio would pluck for her.
The dark green foliage of the tall camelias formed shady walks. The
water of the fountain sparkled in the sunlight; two turtle-doves cooed
monotonously in their wicker cage; and in the midst of the sylvan
silence of the villa the noise made by the billiard-balls had a quite
aristocratic sound. Then followed all the well-remembered episodes in
Lisbon of this love-affair begun at Cintra,--the moonlight rambles
over the dark grass to Sitiaes, with long and silent pauses at Penedo
da Saudade, before them the valley, and the distant sandy plains,
illuminated by a light, dim, ideal, and dreamy; the midday hours passed
under the shades of Penha Verde, listening to the cool murmur of the
waters that fell, drop by drop, upon the rock; the evenings spent in a
boat on the water darkened by the shadow of the trees at Collares, and
those bursts of laughter when their boat ran into the tall grass, or
her little straw hat caught, in passing, on the overhanging branches of
the elms. She had always liked Cintra. A soft and pleasing melancholy
stole over her whenever she penetrated into the cool and shady depths
of Ramalhão.
She and her Cousin Bazilio had enjoyed complete liberty together. Her
mother, poor lady, always engrossed in herself and her rheumatism,
would send them away smiling, and then fall asleep. Bazilio called her
Aunt Jójó, brought her boxes of bonbons, and she was happy. When the
winter arrived, their love took refuge in the old red-tapestried parlor
in the street of the Magdalena. What happy nights!--her mother, snoring
peacefully, her feet enveloped in a rug, and a volume of the Ladies’
Library resting on her knees. They sat, to their supreme content, side
by side, upon the sofa. The sofa! what memories it called up before
her! It was low and small, covered with light cashmere, with a strip
down the middle which she herself had embroidered,--a marvellous
compound of red and yellow on a black ground. One day the catastrophe
came. João de Brito, who was a partner in the house of Bastos and
Brito, suspended payment and declared himself insolvent. The house at
Almada and the villa at Collares were sold.
Bazilio, left penniless, went to Brazil. Luiza passed the first days
after his departure seated on the beloved sofa, sobbing quietly over
her cousin’s likeness. Then came the surprises of letters long looked
for, and the persistent calls at the consignatorial agency when the
steamers were behind their time.
A year passed. One morning, after a long silence on the part of
Bazilio, she received a letter dated in Bahia, which began thus: “After
much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that we should regard
our feeling for each other as a piece of childish folly.” On reading
these words she fainted. Bazilio breathed profound distress through
two pages full of explanations. He was still poor, he said, and would
have many struggles to pass through before he would be able to earn
enough for them both. The climate was execrable, and he did not wish
to sacrifice the health of his dear angel. He called her “My dove,”
and ended by signing his name in full in the midst of complicated
flourishes.
For many months afterwards Luiza was very sad. It was winter; and
seated at the window, working at her embroidery, she told herself
continually that her illusions were forever dead. She thought of
entering a convent, as her melancholy gaze followed the dripping
umbrellas of the passers-by, or as she sang at night, accompanying
herself on the piano, “Soares de Passos,”--
“Gone forever are the days
Blest that by thy side I passed,”
or the final aria of “Traviata,” or a sorrowful _fado_ of Vimioso
that she had just learned. Meantime her mother’s cold had grown worse,
and this brought with it fears and nightly vigils beside the patient’s
couch. During the convalescence they went to Bellas.
When they returned home in the winter she had gained flesh, her cheeks
were rosy, and she ate with a good appetite. One day she chanced to
come across a likeness of Bazilio, in a writing-desk,--a likeness which
her cousin had sent her shortly after his arrival in Brazil, and which
represented him with white trousers and a Panama hat. She looked at it
and shrugged her shoulders. “To think that I should ever have allowed
my peace to be disturbed by that good-for-nothing!” she said. “What a
fool I was!”
Three years from this time she became acquainted with Jorge. At
first she did not find him attractive; she did not like men with
beards. Afterwards she noticed that Jorge’s beard was fine and silky;
and she began to find a certain charm and sweetness in his glance.
Without being in love with him, she felt when with him a languor and
abandonment, as if she could be content to rest forever on his bosom,
careless of what the future might bring. What joy when he said to her,
“Let us get married”! He had caught her hand in his; that warm pressure
penetrated to her inmost soul and pervaded her whole being. She
answered yes, and then remained silent, unable to add another word, but
with her heart beating violently under the bodice of her merino gown.
She was now engaged. What tranquil happiness for her mother!
They were married at eight o’clock in the morning one foggy day. It
was necessary to light candles in order to put on her wreath and
veil. That day remained in her memory, vague and indistinct, like some
half-forgotten dream, in which stood out in clearly-defined outlines
the discolored and swollen face of the priest and the horrible visage
of a wretched-looking old woman trembling with the palsy, who held out
her hand with mingled greed and hatred, fastened herself on each of the
guests in turn, and pouring forth a volley of coarse speeches, when
Jorge, much moved, distributed at the door of the church some pieces of
money among the beggars. Her satin slippers were too tight for her; she
felt a void in her stomach, and they were obliged to make her a cup of
very strong tea on her return home. And afterwards, what fatigue when
she unpacked her trunks in the evening in her new home!
But Jorge was now her husband, and a husband young, affectionate,
and always cheerful. She told herself, therefore, that she would
adore him. She was possessed by an insatiable curiosity in regard
to everything pertaining to him,--to his business, his weapons, his
papers. She observed other husbands attentively, and she grew proud
of her own. Jorge surrounded her with all the delicate attentions of
a lover; but in all that related to his honor or to his profession he
was exacting to a degree that bordered on excess. At times he would
make use of expressions that caused her to turn pale; he was jealous
in the extreme, and one of her friends once observed to her, “That man
is capable of striking you.” She had but little doubt of it, and this
increased her love for him. He was her all,--her strength, her fortune,
her religion; her maw, in a word. She thought of what she would have
been, married to her Cousin Bazilio. What misery! What would have been
her fate? She grew bewildered in the contemplation of the hypothetic
modes of existence that unfolded themselves before her mind like scenes
in a drama. She pictured herself in Brazil, reclining under the shade
of the cocoanut-trees, in a hammock, attended by little negroes, and
watching idly the flight of the paroquets, and those large spiders and
horrible cockroaches that so greatly terrified her when she chanced to
see one near her.
“The Senhorita Leopoldina,” Juliana announced in a low voice, half
opening the door.
Luiza sat up erect, startled. “What! Leopoldina!” she said. “Why have
you admitted her?” She asked herself, while she was arranging the folds
of her morning-gown, what Jorge would say if he knew of this visit.
Heavens! he who had charged her so often not to receive this woman. But
she was now in the parlor, and what was to be done?
“Very well,” she said aloud; “say I will be with her directly.”
Leopoldina was her most intimate friend. As children they had been
neighbors in the street of the Magdalena, and school-girls together
in the Patriarchal. Leopoldina was the daughter of the Viscount of
Quebraes, who had been one of the pages of Don Miguel, and a man of bad
reputation. She had contracted an unhappy marriage with a certain João
Noronha, a clerk in the Custom House. It was known that she had lovers;
it was whispered that she was an unfaithful wife. Jorge detested her.
He had often said to Luiza, “Anything you like, but Leopoldina.”
Leopoldina was twenty-seven years old. She was not very tall, but she
had the reputation of having the best figure of any woman in Lisbon.
Her gowns were always becoming, and so close-fitting that they followed
every line of her figure, encasing her form like a second skin. Her
face was not pretty; it was, on the contrary, of a somewhat vulgar
cast; the nostrils were too wide to be beautiful; and her complexion,
of a rosy though not very clear brunette, retained almost imperceptible
traces of the small-pox. But she possessed an incontestable attraction
in her eyes, which were of an intense black, liquid, languishing, and
shaded by long lashes. As she entered, Luiza ran towards her with open
arms; they embraced each other warmly, and Leopoldina, as soon as she
was seated, began a series of lamentations, folding and unfolding her
light silk parasol. She had been indisposed, she said, _ennuyée_,
and overwhelmed with annoyances; the heat was killing her. And Luiza,
what had she been doing? Leopoldina thought her looking stouter. She
observed Luiza attentively, wrinkling her brows as she did so, for she
was somewhat near-sighted. Her lips, which were slightly parted, were
of a beautiful red, though perhaps too full, and her teeth were small,
white, and even.
“Happiness gives everything, even a good complexion,” she sighed, after
her inspection was completed. She had come, she added, to learn the
address of the French milliner who made Luiza’s bonnets. Besides, she
was distressed at not having seen her friend for so long a time.
Luiza gave her the address of the milliner; her prices were moderate,
she added, and she had taste. As the room was somewhat dark, she opened
the blinds slightly. The covering of the furniture was of a dark green,
with stripes; the paper and the carpet, of a foliage pattern, were of
the same disagreeable color. On the dark background of the wall the
gilded frames of two engravings, the “Medea” of Delacroix, and the
“Martyr” of Delaroche, stood out in bold relief. There were also on the
walls some illustrations of Dante by Doré. Between the windows was an
oval mirror in which was reflected a porcelain Neapolitan dancing the
tarantella.
Over the tête-à-tête was the portrait in oil of Jorge’s mother. She was
represented sitting bolt upright in her black gown. One of her hands,
of a deathlike pallor, rested under the weight of its rings on her
knee; the other was lost to view amid the voluminous folds of lace,
painted with much minuteness, that adorned her black satin mantilla.
Her long and cadaverous countenance stood out in bold relief against
the background of a crimson curtain, whose folds, drawn back with
studied care, allowed a perspective of blue horizon, and trees with
symmetrically rounded foliage, to be seen between them.
“And your husband, how is he?” said Luiza, seating herself beside
Leopoldina.
“As little amusing as ever,” responded the other, laughing. Leaning
towards Luiza, and slightly elevating her eyebrows, “Do you know that I
have broken off with Mendonça?” she added, with a serious air.
“Yes?” asked Luiza, blushing faintly.
Leopoldina gave her all the details. She was by nature extremely
indiscreet. From Luiza she had never had secrets. She consulted her
alike in regard to her admirers, her opinions, her manner of life, her
nervous attacks, and her gowns.
“So your cousin Bazilio is coming home again?” asked Leopoldina
presently.
“So I have just read in the ‘Diario de Noticias,’” returned Luiza. “The
news surprised me very much.”
“Ah, before I forget,” said Leopoldina, abruptly, “I should like to
know how you have trimmed your blue check gown. I want to make one like
it.”
“I have trimmed it with the same color, but of a darker shade. Come and
look at it.”
They went into the bedroom. Luiza opened the window and then the
wardrobe. The apartment was small and fresh-looking, and was furnished
in pale-blue cretonne; a cheap carpet of a blue pattern on a white
ground covered the floor. The high toilet-table stood between the
windows under a canopy of coarse lace, and was furnished with, bottles
of various sizes, and adorned with a cover embroidered by Luiza’s own
hands. On stands in front of the windows were plants of luxuriant
foliage, such as begonias and mahonias, whose leaves fell gracefully
over the earthen flower-pots in which they were planted.
All these details, which breathed of peace and comfort, brought before
Leopoldina’s mind images of tranquil joys. She looked around her, and
said slowly:
“You are still very much in love with your husband, are you not? Ah,
you are right,” she added, sighing; “you have cause to be so.”
She proceeded to powder her face and neck before the looking-glass.
“Yes, you have cause to be so,” she repeated. “But show me the woman
who could love a husband like mine.”
She threw herself on a tête-à-tête, and broke out into complaints
against her husband. He was so coarse, so selfish, she said. “Would you
believe that if I do not return at four he sits down to table without
waiting for me, dines, and leaves me the remnants?”
She then enlarged on his other defects. He took care of nothing, he
spat on the carpet, and so on, and so on. “His room--for you know we
have separate rooms--is like a pigsty.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed Luiza, gravely. “But for that you too are a
little to blame.”
“I?” responded Leopoldina, with flashing eyes, starting to her feet in
amazement. “Well, nothing but that was wanting,--that I should concern
myself about my husband’s room!”
There was a pause. At last she repeated that she was the most
unfortunate woman in the world. Then with a quick and expressive
gesture of the hand,--
“The stupid fellow is not even jealous,” she said. Juliana here entered
and said, coughing and lowering her eyes,--
“Does the senhora still wish me to iron the white waistcoats?”
“Yes, all of them; I have already told you so,” answered Luiza. “They
must be in the valise before we go to bed to-night.”
“What valise? Who is going away?” asked Leopoldina.
“Jorge. He is going to the mines in Alemtejo.” “Then you will be alone.
I can come and see you. Bravo!”
The clock struck four. Leopoldina, as if suddenly awakened from sleep,
rose.
“I must go,” she said; “it is getting late, and if I am not there he
will sit down to dinner without me. We have baked fish to-day, and
there is nothing so detestable as cold fish. Good-by--for a little
while, is it not so? While Jorge is away I will come to see you very
often. Good-by. The French milliner’s address is Ouro Street, over the
tobacconist’s, eh!”
Luiza accompanied her to the landing. She had almost reached the front
door, when, raising her voice, she said,--
“You think it best to trim the dress with blue, do you not?”
“I have done so with mine,” answered Luiza, leaning over the banister;
“it seems to me the most suitable.”
“Good-by,” repeated Leopoldina. “Ouro Street, over the tobacconist’s,
you say?”
“Yes, Ouro Street. Good-by.”
And Luiza added in a louder voice,--
“The door to the right,--Madame François.”
Jorge returned at five, and putting his umbrella in a corner, said,
from the threshold of Luiza’s room,--
“So you have had a visitor.”
Luiza colored faintly. She was at her toilet; her hair was already
arranged, and she was attired in a gown of light fabric, trimmed with
lace.
“Leopoldina was here,” she said; “Juliana admitted her, though she was
evidently not very much pleased with the visit. She came to inquire the
address of the French milliner, and she remained but a short time. Who
told you of it?” she ended.
“Juliana. Leopoldina was here the whole afternoon.”
“The whole afternoon!” repeated Luiza. “What nonsense! She was here
scarcely ten minutes at the utmost.”
Jorge took off his gloves without answering a word. He approached one
of the windows and began to finger the leaves of a pale rose-colored
begonia. He whistled softly, and seemed to be intently occupied in
detaching a bud of the amaryllis, hidden among the brilliant foliage,
and resembling in color the yellowish stalk of the plant itself.
Luiza was engaged in fastening around her neck a gold locket with a
black velvet ribbon. Her hands trembled slightly, and her face was
flushed.
“Has the heat given you a headache?” she asked her husband.
Jorge did not answer. He whistled louder than before, and went over to
the other window. There he busied himself in fingering the flexible
leaves of a mahonias, of variegated red and green. Then, suddenly
putting his hand to his throat as if he felt himself suffocating,--
“Listen,” he said to Luiza. “You must give up the acquaintance of that
creature. This must end at once and forever.”
Luiza turned scarlet.
“I neither can nor will bear it longer,” he continued. Then, prefixing
the words with a short and somewhat violent expletive, he added, “And
this for your own sake, for the sake of the neighbors, for the very
commonest decency.”
“But--it was Juliana--” stammered Luiza, unable to add another word.
“Next time, put her outside the door,” returned Jorge, walking with
long strides up and down the room. “Say you are not at home, that you
have gone to China, that you are sick--”
Then he paused, and in a voice full of emotion,--
“Only consider, my dear child,” he said, “that every one is but too
well acquainted with her reputation. The _Quebraes_! A byword! A
shameless creature! As if the odor in the room were not enough for me
to know that she has been here! That hateful odor of new-mown hay!”
he continued. “You were school-fellows, it is true; but that will not
prevent me from giving her a fright some day, if I should catch her
here,--yes, a fright,” he repeated.
He was silent for a moment; then, turning to his wife with open arms,
“Come, am I right, or not?” he said.
“Yes, you are right,” returned Luiza, confused and blushing, while she
went on arranging her ornaments before the looking-glass.
“Very well, then,” he said, and left the room, furious.
Luiza remained standing before her glass, and a pearly tear rolled
silently down her cheek.
“That tattling Juliana!” she cried; “and all for the pleasure of sowing
discord!”
She was seized with a sudden fit of anger, and went into the laundry,
slamming the door behind her as she entered.
“Who has given you orders to say whether any one comes to my house or
not?” she said abruptly to Juliana.
“I did not think it was a secret,” responded the latter, laying down in
surprise the iron she was using.
“Of course it is no secret, stupid! Why did you admit her? Have I not
told you a thousand times that I do not wish to receive her?”
“The senhora has never told me so,” answered the woman, with a look of
amazement, and beginning to grow angry in her turn.
“That is not the truth! Be silent!”
She turned her back on Juliana, and went to her own room with her
nerves all unstrung. Presently she crossed over to the window, and
leaning against it looked out.
The sun was just setting, darkness was gradually falling over the
ill-paved street without, and not a breath of air was stirring. The
houses of the neighborhood were old and shabby, with mean entrances;
one could guess that they were inhabited by poorly-paid clerks. On
their balconies, in pots, were some common plants,--sweet basil and
carnations. In the upper stories, where the services of the laundress
were but seldom called into requisition, clothes were hanging out
to dry. The appealing notes of the “Virgin’s Prayer,” which some
young girl of the neighborhood was playing on the piano with all the
sentimental abandon peculiar to the day, fell upon her ears. Crowded
together in the narrow balcony of the house opposite were the four
daughters of Senhor Teixeira Azevedo, thin as tenterhooks, their
hair in disorder, their faces unwashed, devoting the afternoon to
the inspection of the neighboring windows, to making sport of the
passers-by, and to watching, with the seriousness of idiots, their
saliva fall in large drops on the pavement beneath.
“Jorge is right,” thought Luiza. But what more could she do, she asked
herself. She never put her foot in Leopoldina’s house; she had taken
her likeness out of the album in the parlor; and she had felt herself
obliged to confess to her the fact of her husband’s antipathy towards
her. What tears had they not shed together! Poor Leopoldina! she came
to see her so seldom, and remained so short a time! But if he found her
in the parlor would he really put her out of the house?
At this point in her reflections a man, short and stout, with bow legs,
and bending over a Barbary organ, made his appearance at the entrance
of the street; his black beard gave him a savage aspect. He stopped,
and began to play, directing, as he did so, an uneasy glance up at the
windows, and smiling sorrowfully. The _aria_ of “Casta Diva,”
accompanied with an incessant _tremolo_, filled the air with its
harsh and metallic sound.
Some of the neighbors looked out from between the muslin curtains of
their windows. Gertrudes, the servant of the professor of mathematics,
showed in the narrow frame of her window her broad and swarthy face, on
which were plainly discernible the traces of her forty springs. Farther
on, leaning over the balcony of the second story, was seen the dark
figure of Senhor Cunha Rosado, tall and thin, his cap on his head, his
transparent hands clasping his dressing-gown over his stomach with an
air indicative of pain.
The shopkeepers of the street came idly to their doors. The woman who
kept the tobacco-shop stood at her threshold, dressed in mourning, and
revealing in her whole appearance her state of widowhood, her arms
folded over her dyed shawl, her figure squeezed into a jacket too small
for her, that made her look still thinner than she was, an expression
of languor and fatigue in her eyes. From the ground-floor of the house
in which Senhor Azevedo lived, the coal-vender emerged,--a person of
massive proportions, who affected a grotesque gravity, her hair in
tangles, her face black and shining from the coal-dust with which she
was covered from head to foot, accompanied by her three little boys,
who looked like three little crying blacks, half-naked, and hanging on
to her skirts. Senhor Paula, the furniture-dealer, in his cloth cap
with its peak of patent leather, which he never removed from his head,
advanced as far as the gutter. His soiled stockings hung down over the
heels of his slippers, which were embroidered with glass beads. He
suffered from a chronic hoarseness, and he had a disagreeable trick of
making a clicking noise with his tongue. His long gray mustache drooped
over the corners of his mouth. He hated kings and priests. The state of
public affairs was a source of unceasing sorrow to him. He was always
whistling the air of “Maria da Fonte;” and his every word and gesture
revealed the discontented patriot.
The organ-grinder took off his hat, and without ceasing to play held
it up to the balconies with the supplicating glance of one who asks an
alms, leaving uncovered his forehead, to which the hair clung, wet with
perspiration. The Senhoritas Azevedo quickly shut their window. The
coal-vender gave him a copper coin, not, however, without first putting
some questions to him; she wanted to know where he came from, what
streets he had passed through, and how many airs his organ played.
A bell tolled in the distance, announcing the conclusion of some
religious service, and the Sunday was approaching its close with a calm
and melancholy tranquillity.
“Luiza!” said Jorge, entering the room suddenly.
She turned around, answering mechanically,--
“What is it?”
“Let us go to supper, child; it is seven o’clock,” he returned. And
putting his arm around her waist, he continued, in a voice low and full
of tenderness, as they stood together in the middle of the room, “You
were angry with me a little while ago, were you not?”
“No,” responded Luiza, in humble accents; “you were right; I confess
it.”
“Ah!” he said, in the tone of one who has conquered, and is proud of
his victory. And rubbing his hands together, he declaimed gayly, “‘The
husband whom the heart accepts is always the best counsellor and the
truest friend.’ To supper!” he ended joyously.
CHAPTER II.
A PORTUGUESE “TEA.”
ON Sunday evenings a number of intimate friends--a sort of
_conversazione_--gathered in Jorge’s parlor around the antique
lamp of rose-colored porcelain. They drank tea and chatted together in
a somewhat _bourgeois_ fashion. Luiza crocheted; Jorge smoked his
pipe.
The first to arrive on the present occasion was Julião Zuzarte, a
distant relative of Jorge, who had been his school-fellow in the old
days of the Polytechnic. He was a thin and nervous-looking man, with
blue spectacles, and long hair falling over the collar of his coat.
He had studied medicine at the School. He was very intelligent, and
an indefatigable worker; but, as he himself said, he worked without
any definite purpose. At thirty years of age, poor, in debt, without
patients, he began to be discontented with his fourth floor in an
unfashionable neighborhood, his two-shilling dinners, and his overcoat
bound with braid. While he was restricted to this narrow way of living,
he saw others of far less ability succeed in all they undertook and
obtain the object of their ambition. He was in the habit of saying
that he was unlucky. He might have had the position of titular doctor
in one of the provinces, with his own house and garden; but his pride
rebelled against this, and as he had confidence in his ability and
his knowledge, he did not wish to bury them in an insignificant and
gloomy village, with its three streets overrun by pigs. Everything that
smacked of provincialism inspired him with horror. He beheld himself
in imagination leading this obscure existence, playing _manilha_
at evening parties, and dying of tedium; therefore he made no effort
to change his way of living. He still hoped, with the audacity of the
ambitious plebeian, for a large practice, a chair in the School of
Medicine, a carriage in which to visit his patients, and a handsome
wife with a good dowry. He believed firmly in his right to all these
good things, and as they delayed in coming to him, his temper became
soured. He hated this existence in which he had no pleasures. The
periods of long and bitter meditation, during which he gnawed his nails
in silence, grew every day more frequent; or if he opened his lips at
all it was only to give harsh answers and utter unjust complaints in
accents that had the steely sharpness of a sword.
Luiza could see nothing attractive in him; on the contrary, she thought
him extremely tiresome. She detested his magisterial tone, the glitter
of his blue spectacles, and the cut of his trousers, which he wore so
short as to allow the worn elastics of his boots to be seen below them.
But she concealed her antipathy, and always treated him with amiability
because Jorge admired him, and thought him, as he said, a man of
genius, a great man.
As Julião arrived early, he went to the dining-room to take his
after-dinner cup of coffee with Jorge and Luiza. He glanced askance and
with bitterness at the silver on the table and at the fresh toilet of
Luiza. All these evidences of prosperity irritated him. Jorge was, in
his opinion, a man of mediocre abilities, who did not deserve his good
fortune; and the thought of this relative of his who lived comfortably,
who was happily married, good-looking, well thought of in the
Department, and who, in addition to all this, possessed some hundreds
of dollars in bonds, imbittered his mind, like an injustice of fate,
and weighed upon him like a humiliation. But he professed affection
for him, and never failed to visit him on Sunday evenings. On these
occasions he endeavored to hide his envy, chatting gayly, and passing
his hand from time to time over his dry and disordered hair.
Towards nine o’clock Donna Felicidade de Noronha made her appearance.
She entered the room with open arms and a smiling countenance. She was
a lady of about fifty years of age, and was very stout. As she suffered
from a flatulent dyspepsia, she was unable to lace herself, and her
figure, as a consequence, was devoid of symmetry or shape. A few silver
threads glittered here and there in her wavy hair; but her face, round
and full, had all the soft and delicate fairness of a nun’s. The dark
and humid pupils of her prominent and restless eyes shone beneath their
wrinkled lids; her mobile nostrils were somewhat wide; the corners of
her mouth were shaded by a slight down that resembled a circumflex
accent lightly traced by a fine pen. She had been the intimate friend
of Luiza’s mother, and she had kept up the habit of going to see the
_little one_ every Sunday. She was, according to her own account,
of a noble family,--the Noronhas of Redondella. For the rest, she was
highly esteemed in Lisbon. She was somewhat of a devotee, and was a
constant attendant at the Chapel of the Encarnação. The moment she
entered she gave Luiza a noisy kiss, and asked her in a low and anxious
voice,--
“Is he coming?”
“The counsellor?” said Luiza. “Yes, he is coming.”
She spoke with knowledge, for _he_, the Counsellor Accacio, never
came to take a cup of tea with Donna Luiza, as he called her, without
going the evening before to the Department of Public Works to see
Jorge, and say to him with a solemn inclination of his tall figure,--
“My dear Jorge, I shall go to-morrow to ask a cup of tea from your
charming wife.” He almost always added, “Do our beautiful works
progress?--Yes? I am delighted to hear it. If you should see the
Minister, present my respects to him.” And he would then take his
leave, threading with measured step the dirty passage-ways.
Five years ago Donna Felicidade had become enamoured of him. They
bantered her occasionally, on account of this sentiment, at Jorge’s.
Luiza thought it very amusing. They saw her fresh color, her rounded
cheeks, and they did not suspect that this concentrated passion that
burned in secrecy and silence in her bosom, fed anew from week to week,
was destroying her bodily health like an illness, and demoralizing her
nature like a vice. She had once been in love with an officer of the
Lancers, whose likeness she still kept. Later, she conceived a sudden
attachment for a young baker of the neighborhood, whom she had the pain
of seeing marry before her very eyes. She then devoted herself entirely
to a little dog, Bilró. A servant whom she had discharged revenged
herself by giving the little animal black pudding to eat. Bilró had an
attack of indigestion, of which he died; but he still reigned, stuffed
with straw, in his mistress’s dining-room. Donna Felicidade, at fifty
years, was still unmarried. One day the counsellor made his appearance,
and kindled anew her dormant affections. Senhor Accacio became her
craze; she admired his countenance, the gravity of his manner; she
opened her eyes wide with admiration at his eloquence; nor was she
blind to the fact that he would be a good _parti_. The counsellor
came to be the object of her hopes, her desires, her ambition. The
indifference of the counsellor irritated her,--not a glance, not a
sigh, not the least indication that her love was requited. He was for
her solemn, glacial, courteous; but at the least demonstration of her
affection for him he would rise and withdraw with severe and modest
demeanor. One day she fancied that the counsellor cast an admiring
glance from behind his dark spectacles at the superabundance of her
charms. Suddenly she felt herself endowed with a greater facility of
expression; she felt her voice capable of more tender accents, and she
said to him softly,--
“Accacio!”
But he extinguished her ardor by a gesture, and then said gravely,--
“Senhora, the snows that have accumulated upon the head end at last by
settling on the heart. It is useless, Senhora.”
The martyrdom of Donna Felicidade, then, was a secret one. That her
affection was unrequited was known, but not so the pangs she suffered.
They were speaking of Alemtejo, of Evora, and its sources of wealth,
of the chapel of relics, when the counsellor entered, carrying on his
arm his overcoat, which he placed on a chair in a corner of the room,
first carefully folding it. Then with measured and dignified step he
approached Luiza and pressed her hands in his.
“I see you are in the enjoyment of your usual perfect health, Senhora,”
he said, in sonorous accents. “Jorge told me yesterday. That is well,
very well!”
The counsellor was tall and thin; he was dressed in black, his neck
imprisoned in a high stiff collar. The lower part of his face was
narrow; his head, which was bald and polished, was slightly flattened
on the crown. He dyed the little hair he still possessed, which formed
a fringe above his neck, and this hand, black and shining, heightened
by contrast the lustrousness of the bald cranium above. But he left in
its natural color his gray mustache, which drooped over the corners
of his mouth. His beard was full, his complexion pale. He always wore
dark-colored spectacles. His enormous ears projected from either side
of his head like the fans of a windmill. He had been Director-in-Chief
of the Department of Home Government, and whenever he spoke of the
king he mechanically took off his hat and bent his head. His every
gesture, even to the taking of snuff, was measured. He made use of
none but the choicest words, and uttered the simplest phrases with a
certain air of dignity. In speaking of public persons he had a habit
of saying “Our Garrett,” or “Our Herculano,” as the case might be. He
had been something of an author, too, and was never without some apt
quotation at his command. He had no family, and lived on a third floor
in Ferregial Street, with a housekeeper who was at the same time a
companion; and he devoted his time to the study of political economy.
He had written a work on “The Reproductive Principles of the Science
of Wealth and its Distribution, according to the best Authorities,”
with the supplementary title, “Reading for Wakeful Hours.” It was only
a few months since he had published the “History of all the Ministers
of State, from the illustrious Marquis of Pombal to those of our own
Times, with the Dates of their Deaths and Births carefully verified.”
“Were you ever in Alemtejo, Counsellor?” Luiza asked him.
“Never, Senhora,” he answered, bowing, “never. And, believe me, to my
great regret; for I have been told that there are curiosities there of
the first order.”
He delicately took between his thumb and finger a small pinch of the
golden snuff he was in the habit of using, and added, with a majestic
air, “It possesses, besides, a great source of wealth in its hogs.”
“Jorge,” said Julião, from the corner where he sat, “find out how much
the titular doctor of Evora makes a year.”
The counsellor, always well informed, approached Julião, still holding
his pinch of snuff between his thumb and finger. “He must make six
hundred thousand _reis_,[1] Senhor Zuzarte,” he said; “I have it
so stated in my notes. But why this question?” he added, straightening
himself. “Do you desire to abandon Lisbon?”
Every one present joined in expressing disapproval of such an intention.
“Ah, Lisbon is always Lisbon,” sighed Donna Felicidade.
“A city of marble and of granite, as our immortal historian has said,”
added the counsellor with emphasis.
He inhaled his pinch of snuff, spreading out his fingers in the form of
a fan. His hand, thin and pale, but well cared for, was adorned with a
seal ring.
“The counsellor would no more abandon Lisbon than would the hand of God
the Father,” said Donna Felicidade, blushing as she spoke.
“I was born in Lisbon, Senhora, and I am a son of Lisbon to the bottom
of my soul,” answered the counsellor, turning slowly towards her, and
bowing, with eyes bent on the floor.
“I remember,” said Jorge, “that you were born in the street of S. José.”
“No. 75, my friend, in the house next to that in which my poor Geraldo
lived up to the time of his marriage.”
This “poor Geraldo” was Jorge’s father, and Accacio had been his
most intimate friend. They were neighbors, and as Geraldo performed
on the flute and Accacio on the violin, they played duets together;
both were members of the Philharmonic Society of the street of S.
José. Afterwards, when Accacio became a member of the Cabinet, he
abandoned the violin, as well from conscientious scruples as through
considerations regarding his dignity, and with it all the joyful and
tender emotions of the evenings at the Philharmonic. He dedicated
himself to statistics, but he always remained faithful to Geraldo, and
continued to extend to Jorge the same vigilant friendship. He had been
Jorge’s witness on the occasion of his marriage; he went to see him
every Sunday; and he never failed to send him, on his saint’s day, his
card, and a confection of almond paste in the form of an eel.
“Here I was born,” he repeated, unfolding his India silk handkerchief,
“and here I intend to die;” and he blew his nose discreetly.
“It is not yet time to think of that,” said every one.
“The thought of death does not terrify me, my dear Jorge,” he responded
in a melancholy accent. “I have even caused my last resting-place,
modest but convenient, to be constructed in the Cemetery of the
Heights of São João. It is situated on the right of the entrance, in
a sheltered situation, beside the tomb, constructed in the form of a
mausoleum, of some good friends of mine.”
“Has the Senhor Counsellor already composed his epitaph?” asked
Zuzarte, in his incisive and ironical accents.
“No, Senhor Zuzarte, no; I desire no eulogies written on my tomb. If
my friends or my fellow-citizens consider that I have done anything
worthy of remembrance, they have other means of recording it; such as
the press, a necrological article, poetry itself. For my own part,
the utmost I desire on the marble that covers me is my name in black
letters, with my title of counsellor, the date of my birth and that
of my death. I do not object, however,” he added, after a moment of
reflection, “to having engraved underneath, in small letters, the
words, ‘Pray for him.’”
There was a moment’s silence, interrupted by the opening of the door.
“May I come in?” said a thin treble voice.
“Ah,” said Jorge, “it is Ernesto.”
Ernesto advanced with hasty steps towards Jorge, and threw his arms
around his neck. “I have heard that you are going away, Cousin,” he
said. “How do you do, Cousin Luiza?”
The new-comer was a cousin of Jorge, thin and fragile in appearance. He
looked more like a school-boy than a man. His scanty mustache, anointed
with pomade, curled up at the ends in points like needles, and in his
hollow countenance his eyes glittered with an unhealthy brightness.
He wore patent-leather shoes, with broad laces. A watch-chain, which
supported an enormous locket, with a complicated pattern of flowers
and fruits enamelled in relief upon it, hung from his waistcoat. He
wrote for the theatre. He had in his portfolio several plays he had
translated,--two original ones, in one act each, and a farce. He had
just written for the “Variety” a spectacular drama in five acts, called
“Love and Honor.” This was the only one of his pieces which had been
accepted. Since then he was always seen apparently overwhelmed with
business, his pockets filled with manuscripts, surrounded by actors,
and paying without a murmur for unlimited cups of coffee and glasses of
cognac, an expression of fatigue upon his pallid countenance, his hat
pushed back from his forehead, and repeating to every one he met, “This
life is killing me.” It is to be observed that he had been led into
literature solely by his love for it, as he was employed in the Custom
House at a good salary, and possessed, besides, a rent-roll of five
hundred thousand _reis_.[2] He confessed that this passion for art
had cost him a good deal of money; he had caused to be made at his own
expense the patent leather boots used by the lover, as well as those
used by the noble father, in his drama, “Love and Honor.”
He was at once surrounded; and Luiza, laying down her work, remarked
to him that he was pale, and looked depressed. He began thereupon to
complain of his troubles,--the rehearsals gave him nausea, he had
constant disputes with the director. Yesterday he had had to alter,
from beginning to end, the _finale_ of an act; yes, he repeated,
from beginning to end. “And all,” he added with irritation, “because
that stupid fellow wants the scene laid in a salon, when I have placed
it on the edge of a precipice.”
“Of a what!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, in astonishment.
“Of a precipice, Donna Felicidade,” said the counsellor, with his
customary suave urbanity. “It might also be called with propriety an
abyss.” And he quoted,--
“And straight he plunges into the abyss.”
“But why on the edge of a precipice?” inquired the guests.
The counsellor asked for the argument of the piece.
Ernesto, delighted, sketched in broad strokes the plot of his work.
“The heroine,” he said, “is a married woman, who meets in Cintra
a man who is destined to prove fatal to her peace,--the Count of
Monte Redondo. Her husband has lost at play a hundred _contos de
reis_,[3] which he is unable to pay. His name is dishonored, and he
himself in danger of being thrown into prison. The heroine, rendered
desperate, hurries to the ruined castle inhabited by the count, and
there reveals to him the misfortune that has befallen her husband. The
count wraps himself in his cloak and departs; at the moment in which
the police are about to lay hands upon the husband, he arrives upon
the scene. Then follows an affecting scene by moonlight. The count
discovers himself, and throws a purse, full of gold, at the feet of the
officers, exclaiming, ‘Satiate yourselves, vultures!’”
“A fine situation!” said the counsellor.
“Towards the end,” continued Ernesto, “the plot thickens. The Count of
Monte Redondo and the heroine fall in love with each other; the husband
discovers it, throws at the feet of the count the gold he had received
from him, and kills his wife.”
“How?” they all ask.
“He throws her over a precipice, at the end of the fifth act. The
count sees him, rushes to her assistance, and falls over with her. The
husband folds his arms, and gives way to a burst of demoniac laughter.
That is how I have arranged it.”
He paused, breathless, and glanced around him with eyes languid and
colorless as those of a fish.
“It is a well-planned work, in which the grand passions elbow each
other,” said the counsellor, stroking his bald cranium with his hand.
“I offer my congratulations to Senhor Ledesma.”
“But what the deuce does that director want?” said Julião, who had been
listening to the conversation, silent and attentive. “Does he perchance
wish to place a precipice on a first floor furnished by Garde?”
Ernesto turned towards him. “No, Senhor Zuzarte,” he said, in
mellifluous accents; “he wishes the catastrophe to take place in a
salon. So that,” he added with resignation, “I have been obliged to
rewrite the whole of the fifth act. In order to be obliging, I had to
spend the night in vigil, and to drink three cups of coffee.”
“Take care, Senhor Ledesma!” said the counsellor, stretching out his
hand with a warning gesture. “Take care! one should be prudent in the
use of stimulants.”
“They don’t hurt me, Senhor Counsellor,” responded Ernesto, smiling. “I
altered the _dénouement_,” he continued, “in three hours; and I
have just read it over to the director. I have it with me.”
“Read it to us, Senhor Ernesto,” said Donna Felicidade; “read it to us.”
“Yes, read it,” repeated every one.
“It is only the first sketch; I am afraid of boring you,” said Ernesto,
who could not conceal his delight. “But, since you desire it--”
And, in the midst of profound silence, he unfolded a roll of blue-ruled
paper. “I must claim your indulgence before beginning,” he said,
looking around him, “in view of the fact that this is only a sketch. I
have not crossed the _t’s_ nor dotted the _i’s_ yet.” And he
began to read in a theatrical manner:--
“Agatha--that is the name of the wife, and we are now in the scene in
which the husband has discovered everything,--”
“AGATHA (_falling on her knees at the feet of Julio_).
Kill me! kill me! for pity’s sake. Rather death than to feel my heart
slowly breaking under the weight of your contempt!”
“JULIO. Have you not torn my heart out of my bosom? Have you
had compassion upon me? My God! I who in happier days believed her
stainless!”
One of the portières of the parlor was here seen to move slightly;
the noise of cups gently striking against one another was heard, and
Juliana, in a white apron, entered, bringing in the tea.
“How annoying!” exclaimed Luiza. “After tea we will continue, eh?”
“It is not worth while, Cousin,” said Ernesto, folding up the paper
and casting a furious glance at Juliana.
“What do you mean? Why, it is charming!” said Donna Felicidade.
Juliana placed on the table the plate of biscuits, the oeiras cakes,
and the cocoanut bonbons.
“Senhor Counsellor,” said Luiza, “here is your tea,--a little weak, as
you like it. Julião, help yourself. Hand the biscuits to Julião,” she
said to Juliana.
And with her sleeve slightly turned up, her white arm exposed to view,
she inquired, taking the sugar-spoon in her hand, “Who wants more
sugar? Senhor Counsellor, a biscuit?”
“A thousand thanks, dear Senhora,” he responded, bowing. “I have
already helped myself.” And turning to Ernesto, he declared that he
found the style of his work admirable.
“But what more does the director want, now that he has his salon?” they
demanded on all sides.
Ernesto, standing up, a bonbon between his fingers, said with
animation,--
“He wants the husband to pardon his wife.”
There was a movement of astonishment.
“What an idea!” “What nonsense!” “But why?” “What a curious notion!”
resounded on all sides.
“What would you have?” said Ernesto, shrugging his shoulders with
a melancholy air. “He says the public do not like that kind of
_dénouement_; that it does not suit the people of Lisbon.”
“In truth, Senhor Ledesma,” said the counsellor, “our public is not
accustomed to these scenes of bloodshed.”
“That is true,” assented Donna Felicidade.
“But, Senhor Counsellor,” responded Ernesto, balancing himself on the
points of his toes, “in my play there is no blood shed, not a drop; a
push of the shoulder, merely.”
Luiza, here calling the attention of Donna Felicidade, said to her
aside, with a smile,--
“Try these egg bonbons; they are fresh.”
“Impossible, child, impossible,” she responded, in plaintive accents,
placing her hand at the same time upon her stomach.
Meantime the counsellor, his hands on Ernesto’s shoulders, was
recommending clemency to the latter, saying in persuasive accents,--
“That gives more gayety to the piece, Senhor Ledesma. The spectator
leaves the theatre in a more agreeable frame of mind.”
“A tart, Senhor Counsellor?” interrupted Luiza.
“I have finished, dear lady. Come, Jorge, are you not of my opinion?”
“I, Senhor Counsellor?” responded Jorge, putting his hands in his
pockets. “By no means. I am for her death,--most decidedly!”
“Ah, then--”
“I am for her death,” repeated Jorge, with animation; “and I demand
that you kill her,” he added, turning to Ernesto.
“Let him talk, Senhor Ledesma,” interposed Donna Felicidade, quickly;
“he is jesting,--he, who has the disposition of an angel!” she added,
appealing with a smile to the others.
“You deceive yourself, Donna Felicidade,” said Jorge, standing before
her. “I speak in all seriousness. I am a very tiger!”
Every one laughed.
“If she has deceived her husband,” he continued in severe accents, “I
am of the opinion that she should be put to death. Could I consent, in
a case like this, that a member of my family, a cousin of mine, one of
my own blood, should allow himself to be carried away by pity, like a
fool? No!” And turning to Ernesto, “Kill her! It is a tradition of the
family. Kill her at once!”
“Here is a pencil,” said Julião, offering one to Ernesto.
“No,” said the counsellor, gravely, “I cannot believe that our
Jorge speaks seriously. He is too intelligent to hold opinions
so--so--” He could not find the adjective he wished. Julião handed
him a toothpick-holder--a monkey sheltering himself under an
umbrella--bristling with toothpicks. He took one, and continued,
“So--so--barbarous.”
“But you deceive yourself, Senhor Counsellor,” protested Jorge. “Those
are my real sentiments; in the full understanding that if the question,
instead of being of a play, were one of real life, and Ernesto were to
come to me and say, ‘I have found my wife--’”
“Oh, Jorge!” interrupted those nearest him, in accents of reproach.
“Well, if he were to come and say this to me, I should answer in the
same way. I give you my word of honor,” he added, with an energetic
gesture, “that I should say to him, ‘Kill her!’”
Every one protested against this. They called him a tiger, an Othello,
a Bluebeard. Jorge said nothing; he only smiled tranquilly.
Luiza worked on at her embroidery in silence. The light of the lamp,
softened by the shade, gave her hair a pale-yellow tint, and glanced
off her skin, white as polished marble.
“And you,” Donna Felicidade asked her,--“what do you think of all this?”
Luiza raised her beautiful countenance, smiled, and shrugged her
shoulders.
“The Senhora Donna Luiza,” said the counsellor, “will say proudly what
all true matrons would say: ‘The impurities of the world do not touch
even the hem of my garment.’”
“Good-evening to every one,” said a deep bass voice in the doorway.
“Sebastião!” they all cried, looking towards the door; “Senhor
Sebastião! the great Sebastião!”
Sebastião had been the bosom friend, the comrade, the inseparable
companion of Jorge, ever since the time when they studied Latin
together in the class of Brother Liborio the Paulist. He was a man of
colossal proportions, and was dressed entirely in black. He carried in
his hand a soft broad-brimmed hat. His temples began to show signs of
baldness; his chestnut hair was fine and silky, and he wore a short
blond beard. He sat down by Luiza, and in answer to the question where
he came from, responded that he had just come from Price’s Circus; that
he had laughed a great deal at the clown; and that they had given the
pantomime of the “Cask.”
His countenance, seen in the full light, was round, plump, and
rosy; his eyes, somewhat small, and of a light blue, had a very
sweet expression, especially when he laughed; his lips were red and
fresh-colored; his teeth, white and brilliant, gave indication of a
tranquil life cheered by chaste affections. Speaking of Price’s Circus
brought to his mind, he said, the old-time pantomimes of Salitre, and
the traditional bladders that burst with a loud noise when the clown
let himself fall upon them. His manner of speaking was slow, and
somewhat timid, either as if he feared to put forward an opinion of his
own, or did not wish to fatigue himself. Tea was handed to him, and
with eyes still smiling he stirred the sugar gently in the cup with his
spoon.
“Yes, the pantomime of the ‘Cask’ is really very pretty and amusing,”
he said. “So you are going away to-morrow, Jorge?” he added, after a
moment’s silence.
“Without fail.”
“Have you no desire to accompany him?” he asked Luiza.
Certainly she would like to do so, she said, but the roads were so bad.
Besides, she could not leave the house alone, in the care of servants.
“True, true,” answered Sebastião, looking down, and stroking his beard.
“Sebastião,” said Jorge, “do me the favor to come here a moment.”
He entered the study, followed by Sebastião, with his heavy step, his
broad shoulders somewhat stooped, and the skirts of his coat flapping
against his legs,--a coat that seemed to have been cut out of the
cloak of a priest.
“So you are going away at seven in the morning,” said Sebastião, when
they were alone.
“There is no help for it.”
The study where they now were was a small apartment, furnished with a
tall bookcase with glass doors, on the top of which was a Bacchante
covered with dust. The table, on which was an antique inkstand,
a legacy from Jorge’s grandfather, was placed near the window; a
collection of the “Diario do Governo” was piled on the floor in a
corner; above the morocco-covered easy-chair hung a drawing in crayon,
a likeness of Jorge, and on the wall, over the picture, were two
swords placed crosswise. At the further end of the apartment, a door,
concealed by a portière of crimson reps, gave exit to the stairs.
“Who do you suppose was here this morning?” said Jorge, refilling his
pipe. “That shameless creature, Leopoldina! What do you think of that,
eh?”
“But--was she admitted?” asked Sebastião, in a low voice, drawing the
portière.
“She was admitted, she sat down, and she stayed,” said Jorge; “she did
whatever it pleased her to do. Leopoldina!” he added, in a tone of
exasperation,--“the _Quebraes_!”
He lighted his pipe, throwing away the match with an angry gesture.
“When I think,” he continued, “that that impudent creature comes to my
house,--a creature who has more lovers than she has dresses, who goes
alone with them on excursions to Dá-Funde, and who danced last winter
in a domino at a public masquerade with an opera-singer! The wife of a
nobody who has passed through the insolvent court. And she comes here,”
he continued, extending his arms, “she seats herself in my chair, she
embraces my wife, she breathes the air which belongs to me. On my word
of honor,”--raising his clenched fist, as if to put his threat into
execution,--“if I catch her here, I will leave the mark of a whip upon
her!”
“The worst of the matter is--the neighbors,” said Sebastião, slowly.
“There is no disguising the matter,” continued Jorge, with irritation.
“The people of the street, the shopkeepers, all know who she is,--the
Quebraes! Every one knows the Quebraes!”
“The neighborhood is a bad one,” Sebastião ventured to remark.
“It makes me tremble to think of it; but what is to be done?” said
Jorge. “I am accustomed to the house, and it is my own; I have arranged
it according to my taste; it is an economy to live here. If it were not
for all this, I should not remain here a day longer.”
“The neighborhood is in truth a detestable one,” repeated Sebastião.
“Luiza, poor girl,” continued Jorge, “is an angel; but she is like
a child, she knows nothing of the world, and owing to her amiable
disposition she allows herself to be imposed upon. This is what happens
in Leopoldina’s case. They were school-fellows, and continued to be
friends, and now Luiza has not the courage to break with her. It is
all the result of her timidity of character, of her amiability; I can
understand it very well. But society has its exactions. Therefore,
Sebastião,” he added, after a pause, “if you should have cause to
suspect, during my absence, that Leopoldina comes here, give some
good advice to my wife. She does not think; she allows herself to be
influenced without stopping to consider. It would be well, therefore,
that some one should speak a word of warning to her occasionally, so
that she may not transgress the bounds of propriety without knowing
it. This is what I wanted to ask of you, Sebastião,--come to accompany
her occasionally, to play the piano with her; and if you should chance
to see Leopoldina sailing in these waters, say to Luiza, ‘Be careful,
Senhora; it is better to avoid an annoyance.’ If she feels she has
some one else to support her she will be firm; otherwise, through her
weakness of character she will tolerate Leopoldina’s visits. I am sure
these things make her suffer; but she has not the courage to say to
that creature, ‘I do not wish to see you; go!’ Can you understand this?
She has courage for nothing; her hands tremble on the least occasion,
and a lump rises in her throat; she is a woman, a true woman. Do not
forget my recommendation, Sebastião.”
“You may go away with a tranquil mind. Don’t forget anything.”
They could hear the sound of the piano from the parlor, and the pure
fresh voice of Luiza singing a _mandolinata_:--
“Amici la notte è bella,
La luna va spautari.”
“Come to accompany her once in a while,” repeated Jorge; “she will be
so lonely, poor child!”
He took a few turns up and down the room, smoking, and then, with bent
head, said, laying his hand on Sebastião’s shoulder,--
“In every well-ordered household, Sebastião, there ought to be a child
or two.”
Sebastião stroked his beard in silence, while Luiza’s voice, gradually
rising, sang,--
“Di ça, di la, per la cità
An diamo a trasnottari.”
This was Jorge’s secret trouble,--he had no children. He desired them
ardently. As a bachelor, long before his marriage, he had already
dreamed of this happiness,--to have a child. He saw this child, in
fancy, balancing himself on his little rosy, dimpled legs, his hair,
soft as silk, clustering in curls around his face; or as a robust boy,
returning gayly with his books from school, his eyes sparkling as he
showed him his good marks; or, better still, as a grown-up girl, with
rosy cheeks, dressed in white, her hair hanging in braids over her
shoulders, caressing his locks, now grown gray. He thought of the love
which he would lavish on this son or daughter, and dreamed of stories
he would tell them. And all in vain! He had now been married three
years, and he often feared that he would die without tasting of this
supreme happiness.
They could hear from the parlor bursts of laughter mingled with the
shrill accents of Ernesto, and the notes of the _mandolinata_
which Luiza was repeating, with gay _brio_, at the piano.
The door of the study opened, and the dark spectacles of Julião
appeared in the doorway.
“Good-by,” he said. “It is late, and I must go.” He passed his arm
around Jorge’s shoulder, and patting him on the back, added, “Good-by,
till we see you again, old fellow. I should like to go with you to
breathe the fresh air,--to see the country; but alas!”
And he smiled bitterly.
Jorge accompanied him as far as the head of the stairs; there he
embraced him once more, and asked him if he could do anything for him.
“Give me another cigar,” answered Julião, putting on his hat; “or
stay--give me two, rather.”
“Take the box; when I travel alone, I smoke a pipe. Take it.”
He wrapped the box in a “Diario de Noticias,” and gave it to Julião,
who put it under his arm.
“Take care not to catch the fever, and be sure you discover a gold mine
before you come back,” he said in a low voice as he went downstairs.
“Good-night!”
Jorge and Sebastião re-entered the parlor together. Ernesto was leaning
against the piano, twisting the ends of his mustache, and Luiza was
playing the prelude to a waltz of Strauss,--“The Blue Danube.”
“Do you want to waltz, Donna Felicidade?” said Jorge to that lady,
laughing, as he approached her with extended arms.
She smilingly shook her head. Yet why should she not waltz? She was
not an old woman, and she had the reputation of having been a good
dancer. She still remembered the waltz she had danced with the
king, Dom Fernando, in the time of the Regency, in the palace of the
Necessidades; it was a lovely waltz of that epoch called the “Pearl
of Ophir.” Seated on the sofa, the counsellor at her side, she was
conversing with him in a voice low and full of emotion on a subject
that apparently interested her deeply.
“Yes, believe me,” she said, “I think you are looking very well indeed.”
“My health is always better in summer,” responded the counsellor, who
was slowly folding and unfolding his handkerchief of India silk. “And
you, Donna Felicidade, how are you?”
“Ah, I too am very much better, Counsellor. My digestion is excellent;
no more flatulency. I am a different person.”
“God grant it may continue, Senhora; God grant it may continue,” said
the counsellor, rubbing his hands together.
Then he coughed, and made an effort to rise; but Donna Felicidade
detained him, saying,--
“I hope the interest you manifest in me is a genuine one.”
Her face turned crimson, and the beatings of her heart might be counted
in the rising and falling of her ample silk bodice.
“You know well that I am your sincere friend, Donna Felicidade,”
replied the counsellor, seating himself again on the sofa, and resting
his hands upon his knees.
“As I am yours, Counsellor,” said Donna Felicidade, raising her eyes
to his and fixing a glance upon him that betrayed the depths of her
secret passion. Then, breathing a profound sigh, she hid her face
behind her fan.
The counsellor rose abruptly, and with crimson countenance, erect head,
and hands clasped behind his back, went over to the piano where Luiza
was seated; bending towards her, he said,--
“Is that a Tyrolese air you are playing?”
“No,” murmured Ernesto, “it is a waltz of Strauss.”
“Ah, Strauss,” he said; “a famous musician, a great composer!”
Then, looking at his watch, he said it was time for him to go and put
his notes in order; and approaching Jorge,--
“Good-by, my dear Jorge, good-by,” he said. “Take care of your health
in Alemtejo; the climate is an insalubrious one.” And he embraced him
with emotion.
Donna Felicidade put on her black serge shawl.
“Are you going already, Donna Felicidade?” said Luiza to her.
“Yes, my dear,” she whispered in her ear; “I do not feel well. I have
an attack of indigestion; I have eaten too much. And that man,--he is
an iceberg!”
“Ernesto,” she said aloud, “you are going my way, are you not?”
“Straight as an arrow, Senhora.”
Ernesto had put on his gray alpaca overcoat. With cheeks drawn in he
was inhaling the smoke from an enormous pipe on which was carved a
Venus reclining on the back of a tame lion.
“Good-by, Cousin Jorge,” he said; “I wish you good health and plenty
of money. I will send Cousin Luiza a box for the first night of ‘Love
and Honor.’ Good-by.”
Just as they were leaving, the counsellor, already at the threshold of
the door, turned back, and resting his hand majestically on the silver
knob of his cane, which represented a Moor’s head, said gravely,--
“I had forgotten to say something to you, Jorge. You must not neglect
to pay a visit to the civil authorities, either in Evora or in Beja;
it is an attention you owe them, as the highest functionaries of the
province, and they may be of great service to you in your scientific
excursions. _Al rivedere_, as the Italians say,” he ended, bowing
to the ground.
Sebastião remained behind. Luiza opened the windows to dispel the odor
of the tobacco-smoke. The night was cool and serene. The moon cast a
pallid light on the fronts of the houses opposite. Sebastião seated
himself at the piano, and with bent head allowed his fingers to run
over the keys. He played admirably, and with a great deal of musical
skill. He had composed a Revery, two waltzes, and a ballad; but they
were all the products of much research, full of reminiscences, and
without the least originality of style. Thus it was that he himself
often said, with much good-humor, that he had never written anything
original. But with his hands on the piano it was a different matter.
He began to play a nocturne of Chopin. Jorge sat down on the sofa
beside Luiza.
“Will you not take a lunch-basket with you for the journey?” she asked.
“No; a few biscuits will be enough. What I will take, however, is a
little bottle of Cognac.”
“Will you send me a telegram as soon as you arrive?”
“Of course.”
“You will be back in a couple of weeks, will you not?”
“Perhaps.”
“Ah,” she said, with a gesture of annoyance, “if you stay away longer,
I shall go in search of you. How lonely I shall be!” she continued,
glancing around. Suddenly she exclaimed,--
“Sebastião, will you play a _malaguenha_?”
Sebastião began the prelude to a _malaguenha_. The sweet and
languid melody of this Arabian music enchanted her, giving birth in
her soul to romantic dreams of an ideal life under an Andalusian
sky. Where? In Malaga or Granada, which, she did not know. All she
knew was that those dreams were of a warm and perfumed night in
which she sat under the orange-trees, a night illumined by brilliant
stars, a lamp shining from among the branches of a tree near by,
while a _cantador_, seated on a Moorish bench, softly hummed a
_malaguenha_ to the accompaniment of a guitar, and around her
women dressed in red velveteen bodices kept time to the music, clapping
their hands together. In that illusion of the senses she fancied she
beheld an Andalusian girl, such as one reads of in novels and romances,
tender and voluptuous; cavaliers, whose long cloaks, falling in
picturesque folds around them, brushed against the walls of dark and
narrow streets, faintly illuminated by the tremulous light that burned
in the niche of some saint; watchmen, invoking, as they sang out the
hours, the name of the Holy Virgin.
“Bravo, Sebastião,” she exclaimed, when he had finished; “bravo! That
is ravishing!” And she clapped her hands, demanding a repetition of the
piece.
Sebastião rose, smiling, carefully closed the piano, and taking his
broad-brimmed hat, stood turning it around between his hands.
“Well, good-night,” he said. “To-morrow, at seven in the morning, I
will be here.”
It had been agreed upon that he was to come and waken Jorge, and
accompany him in the steamer as far as Barreiro. The good Sebastião!
Jorge and Luiza went out into the balcony to see him off. The silence
of the night diffused around a gentle melancholy. The gas-lights
below had a moribund aspect; the shadow that fell across the street
in a straight and abrupt line had in it a tone of softness. The moon
covered the white fronts of the houses with a silvery veil, and the
paving-stones of the street with a brilliant enamel. The glass panes of
a skylight shone in the distance like a sheet of silver; everything was
motionless, and instinctively the gaze turned heavenward, toward the
silver moon, the dark spots on which stood out in bold relief.
“What a beautiful night!” they both exclaimed at once.
“It makes one long to take a walk, does it not?” said Sebastião from
the shadow in the street below.
“The night is enchanting,” responded Jorge and Luiza.
They remained on the balcony, after Sebastião had gone, conversing
together in low tones, and gazing absently before them, entranced by
the brightness and tranquillity around.
Where would Jorge be to-morrow at this hour? Already in Evora, pacing,
sad and lonely, up and down the brick floor of a room in some inn.
“But you will come back as soon as possible?” asked Luiza.
“Assuredly.”
Jorge had hopes of doing a profitable stroke of business with Paco
the Spaniard, who worked the mines of Portel, and of bringing back
with him to Lisbon some thousands of _reis_. He could then take
a vacation in September. He might take a trip to the North, to Porto,
pass by Bussaco, ascend the mountains, drink the water of the fountains
springing fresh from the rock under the cool shade of the trees;
visit the beach of Espinho, and sit upon the sands, breathing in the
pure atmosphere impregnated with ozone, contemplating the sea, of
that metallic and brilliant blue peculiar to the ocean in summer, and
seeing in the distance, in diminished size, some great steamer sailing
southward. And thus they both continued to form plans, enveloped in an
atmosphere of supreme content.
“If there were a little one in the house,” said Jorge at last to Luiza,
“you would not be so lonely.”
Luiza responded by a sigh. She, too, ardently desired to have a child.
She would have named him Carlos Eduardo; she pictured him to herself,
now asleep in his cradle, now lying on her lap, his little hand
playing with his bare toes, now nursing with his rosy mouth at her
breast. A thrill of pleasure passed through her frame at the thought,
and she stole her arm around Jorge’s waist. Why should not Heaven grant
her this happiness? But she never pictured this child to herself as
already grown up, and Jorge as an old man; she saw them both always
of the same age: the one always enamoured, young, and vigorous; the
other always hanging at her breast, or creeping about, prattling, with
fair hair and rosy cheeks. And this existence, full of unalterable
sweetness, guarded by an undying tenderness, tranquil and serene as the
night around them, she pictured to herself as eternal.
“At what hour does the senhora wish me to call her?” said the harsh
voice of Juliana, behind them.
“At seven,” responded Luiza, turning around; “I have told you so
already.”
She went in and closed the window. A white butterfly was circling
around the room in the light of the tapers. It was a happy omen.
“So you are going to remain without your husband,” said Jorge sadly,
holding out his arms.
Luiza threw herself on his breast with all the sorrowful abandon of the
hour; she fixed her gaze tenderly on him through her half-closed lids,
her arms encircled his neck with languid grace, and pressing her lips
to his,--
“Jorge, dearest Jorge!” she murmured, while her bosom heaved with a
gentle sigh.
CHAPTER III.
COUSIN BAZILIO.
TWELVE days had passed since Jorge’s departure; and Luiza,
notwithstanding the heat and the dust, resolved to dress herself and
pay a visit to Leopoldina, although she was well aware that Jorge would
be displeased if he should come to know that she had done so. But she
was so weary of her solitude! The time hung so heavy on her hands! In
the morning, indeed, she had her household cares, her work, her toilet
to occupy her,--books to read. But in the evening! At the hour in which
Jorge was accustomed to return from the office, it seemed to her as
if solitude hemmed her in on all sides. His loud ring at the bell,
his step in the hall,--she missed them both. When night closed in she
became sad without knowing why, and yielded herself, an unresisting
prey, to the vague melancholy that oppressed her. When she seated
herself at the piano, sorrowful airs seemed to flow from it at her
touch,--_cavatinas_ full of tears, with which the keys seemed of
their own accord to moan. A thousand foolish fancies would then occur
to her mind. And later in the night, unable to close her eyes, and
suffocating with the heat, she was equally a prey to the terrors and
agitations of her widowed state.
Unaccustomed to solitude, she rebelled against it. She thought for
a moment of inviting her aunt Patrocinio, an aged relative who
lived in Belem, to stay with her; she would thus at least have some
companionship in her loneliness. But she dreaded, on the other hand,
to have always before her the sorrowful and depressed countenance of
the widow, as she sat at her knitting, her large spectacles, framed in
tortoiseshell, resting on her aquiline nose.
This morning the image of Leopoldina had suddenly presented itself to
her mind, and it pleased her to think that she was free to come and
go, to chat with her friend, and to spend in agreeable companionship
the hottest hours of the day. Then her thoughts reverted to Jorge, and
she said to herself that she would write to him to return home at the
earliest possible moment. What a good idea it would be to go herself
to Evora, she thought, to arrive there at about three in the afternoon
when he would have returned from his work, in his blue spectacles,
covered with dust and exhausted by the heat, and give him a joyful
surprise, embracing him before the astonished landlady. And in the
evening to put on a light dress, and go out to see the town, leaning,
somewhat fatigued by her journey, on his arm. Every one would gaze
at her with surprise as she passed through the narrow and solitary
streets. The men would come out of the shops at the sound of her
footsteps. “Who can it be?” they would ask one another. “She is a lady
from Lisbon,” some one would say,--“the wife of the engineer.”
Luiza, absorbed in these fancies, and smiling to herself, was tying
the ribbons of her gown before the looking-glass, when the door opened
softly.
“Who is there?” she asked, turning round.
“Senhora, may I go and see the doctor?” asked Juliana in suffering
accents.
“You may go, but do not stay long,” answered Luiza. And looking at her
gown sidewise in the glass, in order to add a few artistic touches to
its folds, she continued, “Pull down my skirt--a little more--so. What
is the matter with you?”
“Palpitations, Senhora, and an oppression on the chest. I passed a bad
night.”
Her countenance was, in truth, livid; the expression of her eyes was
deathlike, and her body was bent with pain. She was attired in a
well-worn black merino dress.
“Very well, go,” said Luiza; “but first, put everything in order. And
do not stay long, do you hear?” Juliana went back to the kitchen. This
was a spacious apartment, situated at the back of the house, on the
second story, and lighted by two bay-windows. The floor before the
fireplace was paved with brick.
“She says that I may go, Senhora Joanna,” said Juliana to the cook. “I
am going to dress. The senhora is just finishing her toilet to go out.”
The cook, rejoiced at this news, began to sing; then she applied
herself to the task of shaking a well-worn carpet out of the window,
during which operation she did not remove her eyes from a little yellow
house opposite, with a large door. This was the workshop of Uncle João
Galho, in which her sweetheart, Pedro, worked. Poor Joanna was in love
with him. He was a tall, pale young man, of a sickly appearance.
Joanna was a native of Avintes, in Minho, and the daughter of peasants,
and this thin and anæmic type, peculiar to Lisbon, had captivated her
fancy and kindled a devouring flame in her heart. As she could not
go out during the week, she would let him into the house by the back
door, when she was alone; to which end she hung out on the balcony, as
a signal, the old carpet, in whose threadbare texture could still be
distinguished the shape of the stag’s horns that had formed part of its
original pattern.
Joanna was a robust girl, broad of chest and large of hip. Her hair,
soaked in oil of sweet almonds, shone like jet. She was not very
intelligent, but to make up for this she was obstinate, and that to an
extreme degree. Her thick eyebrows made her eyes, that at this moment
glowed with eagerness, appear still blacker than they really were.
“Ah,” said Juliana, looking askance at her, and giving a little dry
cough, “the Senhora Joanna has hung out the signal.”
The cook turned red.
“What harm is there in that?” Juliana went on. “I wish I were in your
place. You are perfectly right.”
Juliana was well aware of the cook’s love-affair; but she had need of
Joanna, for the latter gave her broths to strengthen her in her attacks
of debility, or cooked her a beefsteak unknown to the senhora, if
she chanced to feel herself worse than usual. Juliana had a horrible
dread of becoming debilitated, and required something to strengthen
her at every hour of the day. Her prudery as an old maid made her
disapprove of this love-affair; but seeing that such a course provided
an unlimited supply of dainties for her epicurean appetite, she forced
herself to tolerate it.
“If I were in your place,” she continued, in order to conciliate
Joanna, “I should give him the best part of the stew. A fine thing to
have scruples of conscience on account of one’s masters! They would see
one die with as little pity as they would a dog.” And with a bitter
smile which disclosed to view her yellow teeth, she added,--
“She told me not to be long at the doctor’s, which is as much as to
say, ‘Get well soon, or go to the devil!’”
She sighed profoundly, and took up a broom from a corner of the kitchen.
“Ah, Senhora Joanna, the lot of the poor is a hard one! They are beasts
of burden,--nothing more!”
She went downstairs and began to sweep the corridor, brushing the dust
noisily towards the landing. She had passed a bad night. In her room
just under the roof she had felt as if she were suffocating; and the
smell of the bricks heated by the sun had given her palpitations of
the heart ever since the beginning of the summer. She drew her breath
with difficulty. Yesterday she had been unable to keep anything on her
stomach during the day 5 and to-day she had risen at six, and had not
had a moment’s rest since then, dusting and putting things in order,
notwithstanding the pain in her side, and a nauseated stomach. She
had opened the door leading from the stairs, and continued to sweep,
grumbling, and striking the broom against the banisters.
“Is the senhora at home?” asked a voice behind her.
She turned around quickly, and saw before her on the landing a
gentleman with a dark complexion, and a mustache curling up at the
ends, his hat pulled slightly over his brows, and a flower in his
buttonhole.
“The senhora is going out,” said Juliana. “If the gentleman wishes to
give me his name--”
“Say I wish to see her on business,” he replied,--“on business relating
to mines.”
One of his hands was concealed in the pocket of his light striped
trousers, and with the other, in which he held a cane, he was absently
striking the plaster of the wall.
Luiza, standing pensively before the glass, with her hat on, was
placing two tea-rose buds between the buttons of her jacket, when
Juliana announced the visitor.
“On business!” she repeated with surprise. “It most be something
concerning Jorge. Let him come up. What kind of a person is he?”
“A well-dressed gentleman.”
Luiza pulled down her veil, slowly drew on her light Suède gloves, gave
a final touch to her lace necktie, and then opened the door of the
parlor. But the moment she did so she drew back in surprise, blushing
deeply. She had recognized the stranger at once; it was her cousin
Bazilio.
They shook hands with dubious cordiality, and without a word. Both
remained silent for a moment, she with her face suffused with blushes,
he taking in every detail of her appearance with a glance of admiration.
But words soon came, and questions followed one another in quick
succession. When did he arrive? Had she recognized him? How did he find
out where she lived?
He had arrived the day before in the steamer from Bordeaux, he said,
and had sought information concerning her at the Ministry. There they
had told him that Jorge was in Alemtejo, and had given him her address.
“Good Heavens! how you have changed!” he added.
“Grown older?”
“No, indeed; grown more beautiful.”
They continued conversing in a natural tone and with animation.
Luiza asked Bazilio what he had been doing in all these years, and
if he intended to remain in Lisbon. Then she opened the blinds to
let more light into the room. They sat down, he on the sofa, in a
languid attitude; she near him, on the edge of an arm-chair, her hands
trembling, her nerves unstrung.
He had abandoned, he said, the forced labor of exile, and had come to
breathe awhile the air of old Europe. He had been in Constantinople, in
the Holy Land, in Rome. The last year he had devoted to Paris. He had
just come from there,--from delightful Paris!
He spoke tranquilly, leaning towards Luiza with a certain air of
familiarity; his feet, encased in patent-leather shoes, were stretched
out comfortably before him on the carpet.
Luiza observed him attentively, and thought him more bronzed than
before, and more manly looking. A few threads of silver shone here
and there among his black locks, but his mustache still preserved its
former proud and intrepid air, his eyes their liquid softness. She
glanced at the pin--a horseshoe set with pearls--in his black silk
cravat, and at the little stars embroidered on his silk stockings.
Decidedly, Brazil had not caused him to deteriorate; he had come back
looking more interesting than ever.
“But you--” he said, smiling and leaning towards her; “tell me of
yourself. Are you happy? You have a little one--”
“I!” answered Luiza, laughing. “No; who has told you that?”
“I was told so. Is your husband to be long away?”
“Three or four weeks.”
“Four weeks! Almost widowhood!”
He asked permission to come and see her often of a morning, to have a
chat with her.
“Why not?” she answered. “You are the only relative I have left in the
world.”
And this was the case. The conversation then took a tinge of sadness,
turning on more familiar themes. They spoke of Luiza’s mother, Aunt
Jójó, as Bazilio used to call her. Luiza told him how she had expired,
tranquilly and without a sigh, in her easy-chair. These recollections
caused her to shed a few tears.
“Where is she buried?” asked Bazilio. “In our vault, I suppose,” he
added gravely, pulling down with a solemn air the cuffs of his colored
shirt.
“Yes,” responded Luiza.
“I must go there--poor Aunt Jójó! But you were going out,” he said,
after a few moments’ silence, half rising from the sofa.
“No,” she answered, “no. I was only going to the house of a friend to
pass away an hour or so.” And she took off her hat. As she did so,
Bazilio noticed the undulating grace of her figure.
“In other times I was the one intrusted with the task of putting on and
taking off your gloves,” he said, caressing the ends of his mustache.
“I think,” he added, “that I should still continue to enjoy the
exclusive privilege of doing so.”
“I think not,” interrupted Luiza, laughing.
“Ah, true; times have changed,” said Bazilio, slowly, with eyes fixed
on the carpet.
Then they spoke of Collares; his first thought on arriving in
Lisbon had been of going to see the villa. Was the swing under the
chestnut-tree still there? And the white rose-bush beside the plaster
Cupid with the broken wing,--was it still in existence?
Luiza had heard that the place was now owned by a Brazilian, who had
made many improvements in it. He had built an observatory commanding a
view of the road, with a Chinese roof adorned with large glass balls;
and the old family dwelling-house had been torn down, and replaced by a
new one furnished by Garde.
“Our poor billiard-room, with its yellow walls,” said Bazilio, with
a melancholy accent, “and its garlands of roses! Do you remember our
games at billiards?”
“We were a pair of children, then,” responded Luiza, smiling in
confusion, as she twisted her gloves between her fingers.
Bazilio crossed his feet, and with eyes fixed on the flowers of the
carpet appeared to give himself up to remembrances of a happy past.
“Those were my happiest days,” he said at last, in a voice full of
emotion.
Luiza could contemplate, unobserved, the delicate head of Bazilio bent
down by the melancholy weight of these recollections of past happiness,
and his black hair, in which a silver thread shone here and there. She
felt herself possessed by a vague emotion, and rising, she opened the
window, as if she would dispel her agitation by letting in a flood of
light. Then Bazilio spoke of his travels, of Paris, of Constantinople.
Luiza said that she had always longed to travel in the East, with the
caravans, seated on the back of a camel, fearless alike of the desert
and of the wild beasts.
“How courageous you have become!” said Bazilio. “Formerly you were
afraid of everything. Do you remember the wine-cellar in papa’s house
at Almada?”
Luiza colored. She remembered the wine-cellar very well, with its
slippery floor, and its damp coldness that made one shiver; its
oil-lamp hanging from the wall, that illuminated with a red and smoky
light the large dark beams covered with cobwebs, and its row of casks
dimly visible in the shadow. He had often given her a stolen kiss
there under cover of the darkness.
She asked Bazilio how he had spent his time in Jerusalem, and if it
were a pretty place.
“It is worth seeing,” he responded. In the morning, after breakfast,
he would go for a moment to the Holy Sepulchre; then he generally rode
out on horseback. The hotel, too, was not altogether a bad one, and
one met there occasionally charming Englishwomen; he had formed the
acquaintance of several illustrious personages. He spoke of these with
deliberation, swinging his foot to and fro,--his friend the Patriarch
of Jerusalem; his old friend the Princess de la Tour d’Auvergne. But
the time he most enjoyed, he said, was the evening, in the Garden of
Olives, before him the walls of Solomon’s Temple, below the obscure
village of Bethany, where Martha spun at the feet of Jesus, and in the
distance the water, shining motionless under the rays of the setting
sun. He had passed some delightful moments there, seated on a bench,
tranquilly smoking his pipe.
“And were you never in any danger?” Luiza asked him.
“Ah, yes, indeed,” he answered. “I was once in a frightful storm of
sand in the desert of Arabia Petrea. But what a delightful trip,
travelling with the caravans in the daytime, and sleeping in a tent at
night!” And he described his dress, consisting of a cloak of camel’s
hair with red and black stripes, a dagger of Damascus hanging from a
Bagdad belt, and the long lance of the Bedouins.
“That must have been very becoming to you.”
“Very; I have some photographs of myself taken in that dress. I will
give you one. Do you know that I have brought you some presents?” he
ended.
“Indeed!” she said, her eyes brightening.
“The best one first,--a rosary.”
“A rosary?”
“Yes; a relic blessed first by the Patriarch of Jerusalem on the tomb
of Christ, and afterwards by the Pope.” For he had seen the Pope, he
said,--a little old man dressed in white.
“Formerly you were not very devout,” said Luiza.
“No; but I don’t like to show a want of respect for those things,” he
answered, laughing. “Do you remember the chapel in our house at Almada?”
In this chapel they had spent many a delightful hour. In front of it
was a court, full of tall flowering plants, and the poppies, at the
least breath of wind, trembled like red-winged butterflies balancing
themselves on a stem.
“And the branches of the lime-tree, on which I used to practise my
gymnastic exercises, do you remember?”
“Let us not speak of the past,” said Luiza.
“What would you have me speak of, then? The past is my youth, the
happiest time of my life!”
“And in Brazil, what did you do?” she asked, smiling.
“What a country!” he exclaimed. “I made love there to a mulatto girl.”
“And why did you not marry her?”
“You are jesting. Marry a mulatto! Besides,” he continued, in an
accent that was meant to disclose the presence in his soul of painful
memories, “since I did not marry when I ought to have done so, since I
lost the best opportunity I shall ever have, I shall always remain a
bachelor.”
“And what other present have you brought me besides the rosary?” said
Luiza, after a silence during which her cheeks had become suffused with
crimson.
“Ah, Suède gloves for the summer,” he replied, “with eight buttons.
Here they wear short gloves of two buttons, leaving the wrist exposed,
which is horrible! From what I see, the women of Lisbon are the
worst-dressed women in the world. It is something atrocious! Of course
I do not include you among them, for you are dressed with simplicity,
with _chic_, like every other woman of taste; but in general it
is frightful! What fresh and delightful toilets I saw in Paris this
summer! But in Paris everything is better than anywhere else. Since I
have been here, I have been able to eat nothing,--absolutely nothing.
There is no place like Paris for eating.”
Luiza, meantime, kept turning round and round between her fingers a
gold locket attached to her neck by a black velvet ribbon.
So then he had been a whole year in Paris, she said.
“A delightful year,” he answered.
He had a charming apartment that had been occupied by Lord Falmouth, in
the Rue St. Florentin. He had kept three horses--
“In a word,” he continued, bending forward, with his hands in his
pockets, “trying to pass through this vale of tears as comfortably
as possible. Is there any likeness in that locket?” he asked, after a
pause.
“My husband’s.”
“Ah, let me see it”
And he opened the locket. Luiza’s face, as she bent forward to allow
him to do so, was close to Bazilio’s breast, who breathed in the
delicate perfume exhaled by her hair.
“He is a good-looking fellow,” said Bazilio.
There was a moment’s silence.
“How warm it is!” said Luiza. “It is suffocating, is it not?”
She rose and opened the window slightly. The sunlight no longer fell
upon it, and a breath of air agitated the heavy folds of the curtain.
“It is as warm here as it is in Brazil,” said Bazilio. “Do you know
that you have grown taller?” he added, abruptly.
Luiza was standing by the window. Bazilio’s glance, calm and cold,
followed every line of her figure. In more familiar tones, his elbows
resting on his knees, and his face turned towards her, he said,--
“Come, tell me frankly, did you think I would come to see you?”
“What a question! If you had not come I should have been very angry.
Are you not the only relative I have left in the world? I am only sorry
that my husband is not here.”
“It is precisely because I knew he was not here--”
Luiza turned crimson with confusion and emotion. Bazilio, himself
somewhat confused, continued, repressing a smile,--
“I mean--perhaps he may know something of what passed between us.”
“Nonsense!” she interrupted; “we were only children then. All that took
place so long ago.”
“Children! I was twenty-seven years old,” observed Bazilio, smiling and
leaning towards her.
There was a moment of embarrassing silence. Bazilio twisted his
mustache and looked around him.
“You are comfortably situated here,” he said at last.
She acknowledged that it was so. The house, although small, was
commodious, and belonged to them.
“I find it all very comfortable,” said Bazilio. “Who is that lady with
the gold spectacles?” he asked, yawning slightly, and pointing to a
portrait on the wall, opposite the sofa.
“That is my husband’s mother.”
“Ah! Is she still alive?”
“No; she died some time ago.”
“That is the best thing a mother-in-law can do.”
He again yawned discreetly, glanced down at the pointed toes of his
shoes, and with an abrupt movement took up his hat and rose.
“Are you going already?” said Luiza. “Where are you staying?”
“At the Central Hotel. When shall we see each other again?”
“Whenever you wish.”
“Is it permitted to kiss the hand of an old--friend and cousin?” he
asked, smiling, and taking Luiza’s hand in his.
“Why not?”
Bazilio imprinted a long kiss, accompanied by a gentle pressure, on
Luiza’s hand.
“Good-by,” he said.
In the doorway, holding back the portière, he again turned towards her.
“Will you believe that a little while ago, as I came upstairs, I asked
myself how all this was going to turn out?”
“All this? What? Of course we had to meet again; of course! Why, what
did you think?”
“I did not think that you were so good,” he said, after a moment’s
hesitation. “Good-by,” he added, “until to-morrow.”
At the foot of the stairs he lighted a cigar.
“The deuce! how lovely she is!” he thought; “and I--what a fool I was,”
he added, throwing the match on the floor with violence, “to have
almost resolved not to come! She is desirable--the cousin, much more so
than formerly; and alone in the house, face to face with _ennui_,
perhaps. It is well worth while.”
On reaching the Patriarchal he hailed a passing cab, entered it, and,
his legs stretched out before him, his hat between his knees, gave
himself up to reflection, while the hacks trotted on.
“And besides, it would seem that she takes care of her person, which is
a rare thing here. Her hands are well cared for, her feet beautiful. To
the attack, then!” he exclaimed, after some further thought. “To the
attack, like Santiago on the Moors!”
When Luiza had heard the door close behind Bazilio she entered her
room, laid her hat on the table, and went to take a look at herself
in the glass. How fortunate to have been dressed! If he had chanced
to find her in her morning-gown, or with her hair in disorder! She
saw that her face was flushed, powdered it with rice-powder, and went
over to the window, where she stood with folded arms, looking out at
the street below, where the sunshine still fell on the wall opposite.
The clock struck four, and Leopoldina would doubtless be dining. What
should she do till five? Write to Jorge? But she felt lazy, it was so
warm; and besides she had so little to say to him. She began to take
off her gown, yawning, from time to time, with a feeling of pleasant
languor. It was seven years since she had last seen her cousin Bazilio.
He was darker than formerly, more bronzed by the sun; but this was
becoming to him.
After dinner she seated herself in a long, low easy-chair beside the
window, with an open book upon her knees. The wind had ceased; the
atmosphere, still warm, of a deep blue in the more elevated regions of
the sky, was motionless; the birds twittered among the branches of the
wild fig-tree; and the regular and sonorous blows of a hammer could
be heard from a neighboring forge. Little by little the blue of the
heavens faded into a uniform whiteness; behind the roofs of the houses
opposite stretched bands of a pale orange-color, like careless strokes
of a painter’s brush. Then darkness, still, diffused, and warm, covered
everything, one bright little star shining tremulously through it.
Luiza leaned back in her chair, silent, absorbed, forgetting to call
for a light.
“What an interesting life is that of Cousin Bazilio!” she thought.
“How much he has seen!” If she too could only pack her trunks and set
out in search of new and unknown sights,--the snow upon the mountains,
foaming waterfalls! How ardently she longed to visit the countries she
had read of in novels,--Scotland with its melancholy lakes; Venice
with its tragic palaces; to cast anchor in bays where a silvery and
luminous sea dies away upon the limpid sands, and from some fisherman’s
hut to behold in the blue distance islands with sonorous names. To go
to Paris,--Paris, above all. But no! she would never travel; they were
poor. Jorge was very domestic, she an obscure Lisboeta.
What did the Patriarch of Jerusalem look like? Was he an old man with
a long white beard, his garments weighed down with gold embroidery,
only to be seen amid clouds of incense that ascended to heaven
mingling with the strains of solemn music? And the Princess de la Tour
d’Auvergne? She was doubtless beautiful, of regal stature, always
attended by pages. Perhaps she was enamoured of Bazilio. The night grew
darker; other stars appeared in the heavens. But what was the good of
travelling, she asked herself,--to have the trouble of packing one’s
trunks, to be forced to pass the night uncomfortably at inns, and to
nod with sleep in the cold dawn, in jolting diligences? Was it not
better to live comfortably in a cosey little house, to permit one’s
self a night at the theatre occasionally, to have a tender husband, and
to enjoy a good breakfast, listening to the canaries singing on sunny
mornings? This was the lot that fate had assigned to her. She was very
happy. Then she thought sadly of Jorge. She longed to embrace him, to
have him here beside her, to see him in his velvet jacket, smoking his
pipe in the study. She had everything she could wish for,--a husband of
whom she was proud, and with whom she was happy, who was handsome, had
magnificent eyes, was loving and faithful. She would not like a husband
who led a sedentary and domestic life, but Jorge’s profession was an
interesting one. It required him to descend into the dark recesses
of mines; it might even call upon him some day to go armed with his
pistols and face a brigade of workmen in insurrection. He was brave; he
had ability. Nevertheless, involuntarily she allowed her thoughts to
revert to Bazilio, with his white burnoose floating on the breeze in
the plains of the Holy Land, or seated in his phaeton in Paris, quietly
controlling the fiery horses. And this suggested to her mind the idea
of a life different from her present one,--more poetic, more adapted to
sentimental episodes.
“Does the senhora desire a light?” asked the tired voice of Juliana at
the door.
“You may bring one,” responded Luiza.
“She is turning something over in her mind,” said Juliana to herself,
as she went away.
Luiza went to the parlor, seated herself at the piano, played over
by ear some fragments of “Lucia,” of “Somnambula,” of the “Fado;”
then, letting her fingers rest on the keys, she began to think of
Bazilio’s visit on the morrow. Should she wear her new dress of brown
foulard? Her eyes began to close with sleep. She went to her bedroom.
Juliana brought the lamp. She came in shuffling her feet along the
floor, a shawl thrown around her shoulders, her countenance drawn and
lugubrious. The sight of her face, with its air of chronic suffering,
irritated Luiza.
“I declare, you remind me of a death’s-head!” she said to her.
Juliana did not answer; she set down the light, and counted out on the
bureau, coin by coin, without once raising her eyes, the change from
the marketing.
“Does the senhora want anything else?” she asked.
“Nothing; you may go.”
Juliana procured her kerosene lamp and went to her bedroom; she slept
in a room under the roof, adjoining that of the cook.
“I remind you of a death’s-head, do I?” she muttered to herself,
furious, as she went.
The room was low and small, with a wooden ceiling and slanting walls;
the sun, falling all day on the tiles overhead, heated it like an oven.
Juliana slept in an iron cot, on a straw mattress. On the rails at the
head of the bed hung several scapularies and the braids of false hair
she wore during the day. At the foot of the bed stood a large wooden
chest painted blue, with a stout lock. On the pine table stood the
little looking-glass belonging to her scanty toilet appurtenances,
a hair-brush almost without hairs, a bone comb, and several little
bottles of medicine. The only adornment of the dirty walls, disfigured
by the traces of the numerous matches that had been lighted upon them,
was a lithograph of Our Lady of Sorrows, and a daguerreotype, in which
could be faintly discerned, amidst the changing lights of the plate,
the badge, and the mustache stiff with pomade, of a sergeant.
“Is the senhora in bed?” asked the cook from the next room.
“Yes, Senhora Joanna, she is in bed,” returned Juliana. “She is in a
bad humor to-day,” she continued with a bitter laugh; “she misses her
husband.”
Joanna, turning over in her bed, made the worm-eaten boards creak under
her weight.
“It is impossible to sleep,” she exclaimed; “it is suffocating.”
“Ah, how comfortable one is here!” cried Juliana, ironically. She
opened the skylight in the roof, cast off her cloth slippers, and went
out to Joanna’s room; but she remained standing in the doorway without
entering: she was the parlor-maid, and avoided familiarities with the
cook. With her long neck, and her head tightly bound with a yellow and
black handkerchief, her face appeared more wrinkled than ever, and her
ears stood out with greater prominence from her head. Her unhealthy
leanness gave her a skeleton-like appearance. She folded her arms and
began to scratch her elbows softly.
“Tell me, Senhora Joanna,” she said in discreet tones, “did you notice
if that individual stayed long to-day?”
“He went away just as you returned,” replied Joanna.
At the foot of the bed a kerosene lamp, placed on a wooden chair,
exhaled its suffocating odor.
“Oh, this is a hell!” exclaimed Juliana, in a tone of exasperation. “I
shall not fall asleep till daylight. Ah, you have a Saint Peter at the
head of your bed,” she added abruptly; “is that for devotion?”
“It is the patron saint of my sweetheart,” said the other, turning
her large black eyes towards the picture. Then she sat up in bed.
She could not endure the heat, she said, and all the evening she had
been suffering frightfully from thirst. She got out of bed, and with
footsteps that made the floor tremble, went over to a jug of water, and
putting it to her lips took a long draught.
“I have been to see the doctor,” said Juliana. “Ah,” she continued with
a sigh, “God alone knows what is the matter with me!”
But if that were so, her companion asked, why did she not make up her
mind to go see the _mulher de virtude_, as she had advised her?
There was not a doubt but she could cure her. She lived near the Poço
dos Negros; she had prayers and ointments for every kind of sickness,
and she sold them for a trifling sum.
“What is wrong with you is the humors--yes, it is the humors,” she
ended.
Juliana had advanced a couple of steps into the room. When the question
was one of sickness or of medicines, she grew more familiar.
“Yes, I have thought it might be well to go see that woman,” she
answered; “but it would cost me half a pound, which is the sum I have
set aside for a pair of boots.”
Boots were her vice; they kept her always poor. She had cloth boots
with varnished toes, leather boots with laces, kid boots stitched in
colors. She kept them locked up in her trunk, carefully wrapped in
tissue-paper, and wore them only on Sundays.
“Ah,” Joanna would say to her in tones of disapproval, “I would rather
take care of my stomach than be thinking of adornments.”
Joanna, too, now began to utter complaints. She had asked a month’s
wages in advance from her mistress, she said. She had only two gowns
left, and those were in ribbons.
“But what could I do?” she ended; “my sweetheart needed money.”
“You allow yourself to be eaten up by that man,” said Juliana, in
accents of mingled disdain and reproach.
Joanna looked at her, and bringing down her hand with violence on the
straw mattress, exclaimed,--
“Even if I had to gnaw my own bones, my last crust of bread should
still be for him.”
“He is well worth it,” said Juliana, slowly, with a cold smile. But one
could see that she was jealous of this sentiment of the cook’s, and of
the pleasure it gave her.
“Yes, he is worth it!” Joanna repeated, with some violence.
“A handsome young man,--the one who came to-day to see the mistress,”
said Juliana. “Better looking than the husband! And you say he stayed
here more than two hours?”
“He went away, as I already told you, just as you came in.”
At this moment the light of the kerosene lamp went out, diffusing
through the room a disagreeable odor and a blackish smoke.
“Good-night, Senhora Joanna; I am going to say my prayers,” said
Juliana.
The cook lay down with so hasty a movement that all the joints of her
bed creaked.
“Good-night, Senhora Juliana; I am going to say the rosary. Oh, Senhora
Juliana,” she added, “if you would say three _aves_ for the health
of my sweetheart, who has been sick, I would say as many for you that
you might get better of your ailments.”
“Agreed, Senhora Joanna!” said Juliana. But after a moment’s reflection
she added, “My chest is better now, but I have severe pains in the
head. Pray to Saint Engracia that I may get rid of the pains in the
head.”
“As you wish, Senhora Juliana.”
“Yes; do me that favor. Good-night.”
Juliana returned to her room, said her prayers, and put out the light.
An insupportable heat descended from the roof. She opened the windows
again, but the hot air from the tiles made vain the hope of being able
to draw an easy breath. And thus it was every night. Besides, the old
wood was full of vermin. Never in any house where she had served before
had she had a worse room.
The cook began to snore on the other side of the wall, and to Juliana,
who felt herself alone in this misery, life seemed a bitter thing.
Juliana was a native of Lisbon. Her full name was Juliana Conceiro
Tavira. Her mother had been a laundress, and had died a short time
after she herself first went out to service. She had now been in
service twenty years. As she herself said, she changed her masters, but
not her lot. For twenty years she had been sleeping in filthy cots,
rising with the dawn, eating the remnants that others left, wearing
shabby clothes, bearing the rude answers and the hard words of her
masters, going to the hospital when she was sick, enduring the pangs of
hunger when she got well again.
This was too much. There were days now in which only to see the
darning-needle or the smoothing-iron gave her nausea. She could never
become accustomed to live out at service. From a child her ambition
had been to keep a little shop, to order, to rule, to be mistress; but
notwithstanding the strictest economy, the crudest privations, the
utmost she had been able to save was a few coins at the end of every
year. Her horror of the hospital was so great that when she had any
slight illness she went to stay with a relative, so that the money so
painfully saved was soon spent. She had never completely recovered from
an illness she had had, and had now lost all hope of ever doing so. She
must live at service till she was an old woman, and pass her life going
from the house of one mistress to that of another. This certainty made
her continually unhappy. Her disposition began to grow sour.
And then, she had no tact; she did not know how to take advantage of
circumstances; she saw her fellow-servants amuse themselves, visit one
another, stand at the windows, go out well-dressed on Sundays for a
walk, rise with the sun singing, and when the master and mistress went
to the theatre, open the door to their sweethearts, and enjoy the rest
and the freedom from restraint. She could not do this; she had always
been of a serious disposition. She performed her tasks, ate her dinner,
and went to bed. On Sundays, when the streets were deserted, she would
stand at the window, with an old towel thrown over the iron railing
so as not to soil her sleeves, and there she would remain motionless,
watching the infrequent passers-by. Others of her fellow-servants were
liked by their mistresses, towards whom they conducted themselves with
humility, whom they flattered, to whom they carried the gossip of the
neighborhood, notes, and confidential messages to be delivered in
secret. She could not reconcile herself to these meannesses.
Ever since she had lived at service, no sooner did she enter a house
than she experienced a feeling of hostility, a dislike to her master
and mistress; her mistresses seldom addressed her, and then with
asperity; her fellow-servants conceived an antipathy towards her; while
they were chatting and jesting, the severe and unbending countenance of
Juliana annoyed them; they called her nicknames,--“the bean-pod,” “the
witch,” and other unflattering names, imitating the nervous twitching
of her nose; they made mocking verses about her. The only persons
from whom she occasionally met with some sympathy were the taciturn
Gallician servants,--exiles from beautiful Gallicia,--who cherished
sad recollections of their native land, and who performed the humblest
offices in the houses of their masters. Gradually she became suspicious
and aggressive. She had continual disputes with her fellow-servants;
she was not going to let any one tread on her neck, she said.
To the antipathy that met her on all sides she responded by isolating
herself more completely, and her disposition grew constantly more sour
and aggressive. She was unable to keep a place for any length of time.
In a single year she had been in three houses. She had left each,
causing a scandal in the neighborhood, bringing the people to their
doors by her cries, and leaving her mistress pale and nervous. Her old
friend Aunt Victoria, the _inculcadeira_, had said to her,--
“You will end by not having a roof to shelter you or a crust of bread
to eat.”
“Bread!” This word, which is the terror, the hope, and the problem of
the poor, frightened her. She endeavored to control herself. She began
to play the part of an inoffensive creature, to perform her tasks with
affected zeal, to put on an air of patient suffering, casting her eyes
up to heaven; but her spirit writhed in secret within her. By the
nervous restlessness of the muscles of her face, and the _tic_ of
her nose, it could be divined that this meekness was only superficial
The necessity for controlling herself induced in her a habit of hatred;
hatred, above all, towards her mistresses,--a hatred irrational and
puerile. She had had mistresses,--rich, with luxuriously furnished
houses, poor, the wives of clerks, old and young, ill-tempered and
amiable; she hated all alike, without difference or distinction.
It was the mistress, and that was enough. She hated them for their
simplest words, for their most trivial acts; if she saw them sitting
down, “Yes, rest,” she would say in her own mind; “let the slave do the
work!” If she saw them go out, “Go, go; let the slave stay behind to do
what you ought to be doing!” Every action of theirs was an offence to
her sadness and her sufferings; every new gown an affront to her gown
of dyed merino.
She detested the gayety of children, and the prosperity of the houses
in which she served filled her with bitterness. The day on which her
master or mistress had any annoyance or showed a sad countenance she
would sing from morning till night, in a _falsetto_ voice, the
_Carta adorada_. With what pleasure did she bring the bill the
day on which the impatient creditor returned with it, divining that it
would cause embarrassment in the household!
“Here is this paper,” she would cry with a harsh voice; “he says he
will not go away this time without an answer.” Every occasion for
putting on mourning delighted her; and under the black shawl provided
for her she had palpitations of the heart through joy. She had seen
young children die in some of the houses in which she had been, and
not even the grief of the mother had moved her; she would shrug her
shoulders, in its presence, with derisive bitterness.
As years passed, these sentiments became stronger. She began to grow
old, and with age her conduct grew more odious. That her master and
mistress should give a _soirée_ or go to the theatre exasperated
her. When some party of pleasure had been arranged, if it began to rain
unexpectedly, what happiness for her! The sight of the ladies dressed
and with their hats on, gazing through the windows with tedium depicted
on their countenances, made her eloquent.
“Ah, Senhora,” she would say, “this is a flood let loose; it is pouring
in torrents; it will not stop raining all day! See! see!”
In addition to all this she was very inquisitive; it was nothing
unusual to surprise her leaning against a closed door, with attentive
ear and eager glance. Every letter that came was minutely examined.
She peeped slyly into open drawers; she read over the papers thrown
into the trash-basket. She walked with catlike Step, and had a trick
of appearing before one when least expected. She scrutinized every
visitor. She was always on the watch for a secret, a good secret, which
she could use to her advantage.
She was very fond of good eating. She cherished a desire--thus far
ungratified--to dine well, with tarts and _entrées_. In the houses
where she waited at table her reddened eyes followed eagerly each plate
as it was handed round; and to serve any one twice from a favorite dish
exasperated her, as if it were a diminution of her share. Her health
had suffered from eating only what was left from her master’s table,
and of that not always enough. She liked wine, and on certain days
would buy a bottle at eighty _reis_,[4] which she would drink
alone, lying in bed, and enjoying it drop by drop.
She had never had a lover. She had been always ugly, and had never
attracted a glance of admiration from any one. The only man who had
ever looked at her with anything resembling admiration was a servant
in the Casino, of a filthy and villainous aspect. Her thinness, her
air of being always dressed in her Sunday finery, had attracted him.
He looked at her with the expression of a bull-dog. He inspired her
with horror, but at the same time his admiration flattered her vanity.
And the only man for whom she herself had ever felt any tender feeling
was a servant, perfumed and handsome, who had laughed at her, calling
her _isca secca_. Her interest in the other sex had never gone
any farther than this, owing to a sentiment of pique and a lack of
self-confidence. An outlet to human feeling was denied her, and from
the want of this supreme consolation, both morally and physically
considered, had sprung the misery of her life.
She had once entertained for a time strong hopes of bettering her
condition. She had entered the service of Donna Virginia Lemos, a rich
widow, and an aunt of Jorge, who was very ill with a catarrhal trouble.
Aunt Victoria, the _inculcadeira_, had cautioned her beforehand.
“Treat the old woman with kindness,” she had said; “be a patient nurse
to her. She is rich, and not miserly; it is not impossible that she may
leave you a good round sum when she dies.”
For a whole year Juliana, devoured by ambition, served the old woman as
her nurse. What zeal in her service! What attentions she bestowed upon
her!
Donna Virginia had a strong love of life; the thought of dying made her
furious. But when she scolded Juliana, in her harsh and guttural voice,
the latter only grew more attentive, more affectionate than before.
The old woman was at last touched by her devotion. She called her her
_providence_; and when visitors came she praised her without
stint. She had spoken very highly of her to Jorge.
“There is not another woman like her!” she exclaimed; “not another!”
“Ah, you have made your fortune,” Aunt Victoria would say to her. “At
the very least she will leave you three _contos de reis_.”
A _conto de reis_! At night, when the old woman lay groaning on
her antique bedstead of lignum-vitæ, Juliana would behold in fancy
a _conto de reis_ lying in refulgent brightness before her, in
heaps of gold prodigious and inexhaustible. What should she do with
the money? And seated at the bedside of the invalid, a shawl wrapped
around her shoulders, her eyes fixed and dilated, she would spend
the hours forming plans,--she would open a millinery shop; and then
she would dream of other joys, hitherto unthought of; a _conto de
reis_ was a dowry; she might marry and have a husband of her own.
All her misery would be at an end. She would eat well, and only of what
she liked,--of her own provisions. She would order; she would have
a servant, _her_ servant She was seized with nervous twitching
in the stomach, from joy. She would be a good mistress; but let the
servants take care to conduct themselves properly; she would tolerate
no answering back, no angry glances. And dominated by these fancies she
would walk softly up and down the room, shuffling her feet and talking
to herself. No, she would countenance nothing that was not perfectly
right and proper; she would be a model mistress.
Here perhaps the old woman would exhale a sigh.
“This one is going to die,” Juliana would say to herself; “she will
certainly die to-day.”
And with eagerness in her eyes she would go presently to the drawers of
the bureau where the money and the papers were kept. Then perhaps the
old woman would want a drink, and Juliana would return to her bedside.
“How do you feel?” she would ask in lachrymose accents.
“Better, Juliana, better.”
“She always thinks herself better,” she would say to herself. “But
the senhora has been restless,” she would say aloud, vexed at the
improvement.
“No,” the patient would sigh; “I have slept well.”
“That is not sleeping; I heard you groaning; you have been moaning all
night.”
She wished to persuade herself that the patient was worse,--that the
improvement in her condition was only temporary, and that the old woman
would soon die. Every morning she followed Dr. Pinto to the door, with
her arms folded, and a long face.
“Is there no hope, Doctor?”
“It is a matter of days.”
She wanted to know how many days,--two days? five days?
“We cannot say, Juliana,” the old man would answer, settling his
spectacles on his nose; “a few days,--seven or eight.”
Eight days! And as her good fortune drew near, she already began to fix
her eyes on three pairs of boots in the window of Manoel Lourenço.
The old woman died at last: Juliana was not mentioned in her will!
Jorge, grateful for the care she had taken of his Aunt Virginia,
paid the rent of a room for her, where she might remain for a few
months, promising to take her at the end of that time into his house
as chambermaid, as he was soon to be married. She fell ill shortly
afterwards, and Jorge paid a bed for her in the hospital; when she
left it for Jorge’s house she had already begun to complain of her
heart. She had lost all her illusions; at times she wished to die.
Luiza thought her, from the beginning, of sinister aspect. She would
have dismissed her at the end of the fortnight, but Jorge would not
consent to it; he did not regard her as Luiza did. Luiza respected
his opinions, but she could not disguise her antipathy, and as a
consequence Juliana soon began to detest her.
Soon afterwards Luiza began the arrangement of her house. The
upholsterers came and renovated the furniture of the parlor. Aunt
Virginia had left Jorge three _contos de reis_, and she, who for
a year had been her nurse, treated by her with as much contempt as if
she were a dog, and bound to her as if she were her shadow, enduring
every species of discomfort, and deprived, night after night, of sleep,
had been repaid with such ingratitude! She began to hate the house. For
this she had many reasons, as she herself said: she slept in a noisome
garret; at her dinner she had neither wine nor dessert; the ironing
was heavy; both Jorge and Luiza took a bath every day, and it was a
toilsome labor to fill and empty the bath-tub. She had served under
twenty mistresses, and she had never before met with such folly. “The
only advantage the place has,” she would say to Aunt Victoria, “is that
there are no children.” She had a horror of children. Besides this, she
found that quarter of the city healthy; and as she had the cook on her
side, the latter gave her from time to time a bowl of broth or some
dainty. Therefore she remained; if it were not for her--
Meantime she performed her duties, and no one had any fault to find
with her. And as she had lost the hope of becoming independent, she no
longer subjected herself to the restraints of saving. She thus took
care of herself, indulging in some culinary fancy from time to time.
She bought elegant boots, gratifying in this manner her puerile vanity.
“I go out to walk,” she would say, “with feet such as few can show.”
Her delight was to go on Sundays to the Passeio Publico, and sit there
on a bench in the most frequented situation, with the edge of her gown
slightly raised, in order to display to the passers-by with secret
pleasure the point of her pretty little foot.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PUBLIC GARDENS.
AT about three in the afternoon Juliana entered the kitchen and threw
herself down on one of the wooden chairs. She was so exhausted, she
said, that she could scarcely stand. It had taken her two hours to
arrange the parlor, which was like a pigsty. The visitor had left the
ashes of his cigar on the table, for her, the poor slave, to clean
away. And how warm it was I The heat was melting! Her yellow skin shone
as if it had been anointed with oil.
“Is the soup not ready yet?” she asked, softening her voice. “Give me a
little, Senhora Joanna.”
“You are not looking so well to-day,” said the cook.
“There are so many things the matter with me! I did not fall asleep
this morning till the sun was up. This gives one an appetite,” she
added, stirring with a greedy air the soup Joanna had placed before her.
The cook, standing before her with folded arms, contemplated Juliana
with an expression of satisfaction on her countenance.
“The only thing wanting is that it should be to your taste,” she said.
“It is just right.”
Both smiled, pleased at the friendly feeling existing between them, to
which they had just given expression. At this moment the door-bell,
that had already sounded faintly, was heard for the second time with
more distinctness.
Juliana did not move. Puffs of warm air came in through the window, in
the silence could be heard the simmering of the pot on the fire, and
the incessant sound of hammering from the forge near by; from time to
time the melancholy and monotonous cooing of a pair of turtle-doves
from their cage in the balcony mingled with the brightness of the
afternoon a note of gentle sadness.
The bell sounded again, this time rung by an impatient hand.
“Now call with your tongue, imbecile!” said Juliana.
Both women laughed. Joanna went and seated herself in a low chair by
the window, her large feet, encased in listing slippers, stretched out
before her, and began to scratch her arms softly, enjoying to the full
these few moments’ rest.
The bell sounded violently.
“Stay there, idiot!” growled Juliana, without moving.
But the angry accents of Luiza ascended from the floor below,--
“Juliana!”
“One cannot even eat in peace. Detestable house, plague take it!”
exclaimed Juliana, striking the table violently with the bowl of her
spoon.
“Juliana!” called Luiza a second time.
“The mistress is getting angry,” said the cook in a low voice, turning
towards Juliana.
“The deuce take her!” said the latter.
She wiped her lips, greasy with the soup, on her apron, and went
downstairs, furious.
“Did you not hear?” exclaimed Luiza. “The bell has been ringing for an
hour.”
Juliana opened her eyes in amazement as she looked at her mistress;
Luiza was dressed in her new morning-gown of brown foulard with little
yellow dots.
“There is something up,” she thought to herself as she crossed the hall.
The bell rang again, and Juliana saw on the doorstep the gentleman who
had come on business connected with the mines, dressed in a light suit,
with a rose in his buttonhole and a package under his arm. She took in
his appearance with a keen and rapid glance.
“It is the gentleman who was here yesterday,” she said in a low voice
to her mistress.
“Admit him.”
“Come, this is progressing!” said Juliana to herself. Her eyes
glittered, and going upstairs she said to Joanna with an accent of
malicious joy, as she opened the kitchen door,--
“The gentleman who came yesterday is here again, and he has brought a
package with him.”
Joanna turned her round black eyes slowly toward Juliana.
“What do you think of it, Senhora Joanna?” said the latter, standing in
the middle of the floor with folded arms and lips tightly shut.
“He is some visitor,” returned the cook with indifference.
Juliana laughed dryly, sat down, and greedily finished her soup.
Joanna went about the kitchen, singing. In the pauses of her song could
be heard the soft and tender cooing of the doves.
“Come, come; this is going on very well,” said Juliana.
She cleaned her teeth slowly with her tongue as she sat, her gaze
fixed and dilated, plunged in thought; then she rose, took off her
apron, and went down to Luiza’s room. Her searching glance descried
in a moment the keys of the pantry, which Luiza had forgotten, lying
on the bureau. She might have gone upstairs, drunk a glass of good
wine and eaten a few spoonfuls of preserve; but she was devoured by an
insatiable curiosity, and, walking on tiptoe, she went softly to the
parlor door and put her eye to the keyhole. The portière was drawn on
the inside, and she could hear nothing but the gay and animated accents
of the visitor; she crossed the hall and went to the door beside the
staircase. The key was in the lock, and she put her ear to the keyhole.
The portière within was also drawn.
“Those cunning devils have taken care to secure everything,” she said
to herself. Then she thought she heard a chair move, and afterwards the
closing of a window. Her eyes glittered. She heard again the continuous
murmur of a conversation carried on in low tones. All at once the
gentleman raised his voice, and among the phrases which he pronounced,
evidently walking up and down the room, Juliana heard clearly these
words,--“You; it was you!”[5]
“What shamelessness!” she thought.
A timid tin tin of the bell startled her, and she went, running, to
open the door. It was Sebastião, his face flushed with the heat, his
boots covered with dust.
“Is your mistress at home?” he asked, wiping the perspiration from his
forehead.
“The mistress is with a visitor, Senhor Sebastião,” said Juliana,--“a
young gentleman who was here yesterday,” she added, in a lower voice,
closing the door. “Shall I tell her you are here?”
“No, no, thank you. Good-day.” And he went down the steps slowly and
thoughtfully.
Juliana took up her station again beside the door, her ear close to the
keyhole and her hands behind her back; but she could hear nothing of
the conversation, which was carried on in a low voice, but a soft and
confused murmur. She went upstairs to the kitchen.
“They call each other _thou_, Senhora Joanna,” she exclaimed.
“That looks strange,” she continued in shrill accents, and very much
excited.
The gentleman went away at five. When Juliana heard the door open, she
went out to the landing and saw Luiza leaning over the banisters and
saying in low and friendly accents to some one below,--
“Very well; I will be there. Good-by.”
Juliana was seized with an attack of curiosity that resembled an attack
of fever. During the evening she devoured Luiza with eager glances
that flashed like lightning. In her desire to surprise her mistress in
an intrigue, the perfectly natural demeanor of the latter filled her
with impatience, as might a chest securely fastened with lock and key,
which she desired to open but could not.
“Go on!” she said in her own mind to Luiza; “I will catch you yet, you
shameless creature!”
She fancied that Luiza’s eyes had a fatigued expression. She studied
her attitudes, the tones of her voice. When she saw her help herself
twice to the roast meat, she said to herself,--
“This has given her an appetite.”
And when she saw her lean back in her easy-chair, after dinner, with
an air of fatigue, she said to herself that this was the exhaustion of
excitement.
Luiza asked for coffee.
“Half a cup, but strong, very strong,” she said.
Juliana went to give her order to the cook. “She wants coffee, and it
must be strong, she says. The devil’s in the whole lot of them! They
are all the same,--one as bad as another.”
The following day was Sunday. As Juliana was getting ready to go
to Mass, Luiza called her, and standing at the door of her room,
half-dressed, gave her a letter for Donna Felicidade. As a general rule
she sent her messages to her friend verbally; the curiosity of Juliana
was therefore aroused by this closed and sealed envelope, bearing
Luiza’s initial,--a Gothic L, surrounded by a garland of roses.
“Is there any answer?” she asked.
“No.”
When Juliana returned at ten o’clock, Luiza asked her if it was warm
out, and if there was much dust. A dark-colored straw hat adorned with
musk-roses was lying on the table.
Juliana, answered that there was some wind, but that it would probably
cease before the afternoon.
“She has some excursion planned; she is going to meet that young man,”
thought Juliana.
But Luiza, attired in her morning-gown, passed the whole day between
her bedroom and the parlor; now reclining on a sofa reading, now
absently playing fragments of a waltz on the piano. At four she dined,
and shortly afterwards the cook went out. Juliana passed the afternoon
at the window of the dining-room. Dressed in her new gown, her stiffly
starched petticoats, and her best collar, she leaned her elbows,
unsmiling, on the railing of the balcony, over which she had carefully
laid her handkerchief.
At eight, Juliana entered Luiza’s room, and was struck with amazement
to see her dressed in black, and with her hat on. She had already
lighted the lamp, and the candles on her dressing-table, and seated on
the edge of the sofa, was drawing on her gloves with a serious air. Her
countenance revealed a feverish impatience.
“Has the wind ceased?” she asked.
“Yes, Senhora; it is a beautiful night,” responded Juliana.
A little before nine a carriage stopped at the door. It was Donna
Felicidade. She came in very much excited, saying that the horses had
been frightened by a fire-engine that had passed them on their way.
And how warm it was! she said. She had been suffocating all day. And
now that there was not a breath of air stirring! She had preferred
an open carriage to a coupé, where to a certainty they would have
suffocated. Juliana came and went, closing doors, and putting things
in order, devoured by curiosity, and with eyes and ears wide open. But
Donna Felicidade, immovable in her chair, continued to talk without
ceasing; she related in all its details the episode of the fire-engine,
told of the attack of indigestion she had had on the previous day from
eating pea-shells; afterwards how the cook had wanted to cheat her, and
of a visit the Countess of Arruella had made her.
She rose and went to the dressing-table to powder her neck, which, as
she said, was bathed in perspiration.
“Let us go, my dear,” said Luiza; “it is growing late.”
Juliana lighted them out. She was furious. Where could they be going?
Not a single word on that point! How unseemly for two women to go out
alone at night in a hired carriage! If a servant should remain out half
an hour later than usual, what a scolding she would receive!
She went up to the kitchen. She wanted to gossip a little with
Joanna,--to laugh a little. But Joanna said, yawning, that she was so
tired that her knees were bending under her. She had been out all day.
“I must go to bed to get over my fatigue,” she added.
“That’s right,” returned Juliana, in a mocking voice. “Go play the
sluggard! How little it takes to tire you!”
She went down to Luiza’s room, put out the lights, and opened the
window. The air was heavy, dark, hot, and motionless. She drew out a
low chair to the balcony, and disposed herself to spend the evening
there with her arms folded, digesting an abundant dinner.
Footsteps were heard coming slowly down the street, followed by a
gentle ring at the bell. Juliana leaned over the balcony and asked in
tones expressive of annoyance,--
“Who is there?”
“Is your mistress at home?” asked the deep voice of Sebastião.
“She went out in a carriage with Donna Felicidade a little while ago,”
replied Juliana.
“Ah! Good-night, then.”
Meantime Donna Felicidade and Luiza had arrived at the Passeio.
It was the evening of a benefit; a slow and monotonous murmur could be
heard inside, and the air was filled with clouds of dust. They entered,
and a little beyond the fountain they suddenly came face to face with
Bazilio.
“What a happy chance!” he exclaimed in accents of surprise.
Luiza colored as she presented him to Donna Felicidade.
The excellent lady saluted him with a bow of marked politeness and
smiles without number. She remembered him very well, she said; but if
Luiza had not mentioned his name she would not have recognized him;
she found him very much altered.
“The troubles of life, Senhora,” he said, bowing, “and old age; above
all, old age,” he continued, laughing, and striking his cane against
the stones of the fountain.
The gas-lights were reflected in wavering brightness in the dark water.
The foliage of the trees, of a faded green, that looked artificial,
was motionless. Between the two long parallel lines of stunted trees,
interspersed with gas-lamps, a compact multitude of dark forms moved
along, enveloped in clouds of dust; above the noise made by the crowd
the animated strains of the orchestra rose through the heavy air in
the lively measures of a waltz. They remained standing by the fountain
chatting, and looking at the people as they entered: two young men with
curly hair and lavender trousers, smoking with due deliberation their
holiday cigars; an officer with breast swelled out and waist tightened
in, as if he wore a corset, accompanied by two young ladies with their
hair in curls, who showed through the thin fabric of their tasteless
gowns, as they walked, every movement of their shoulder-blades; an
ecclesiastic with a sallow complexion, and a cigar in his mouth, whose
blue spectacles gleamed in the light; two young collegians walking
along with a swinging gait, that they might be thought rakes; the
melancholy Xavier the poet; a young man in a jacket, a heavy cane in
his hand, his hat on the back of his head, and his eyes glittering with
the brilliancy of the wine-cup. Bazilio laughed as two little boys,
dressed in light blue, with scarlet sashes, lancer’s shakos, Hungarian
hoots, and a sleepy air, entered hand in hand with their father, on
whose countenance was depicted satisfaction and delight.
Luiza expressed a desire to sit down. A little ragamuffin in a dirty
blouse of coarse fabric ran to bring chairs, and they seated themselves
beside a family group composed of the mother, the father, and three
daughters, who, sitting motionless in their chairs, looked around them
with silent melancholy.
“What have you been doing to-day?” Luiza asked Bazilio.
He answered that he had been to see the bull-fight.
“What! do you like that kind of thing?” she said.
Bazilio confessed that he had found it tiresome. If it had not been
for the gymnastic feats of Peixinho he should have died of weariness.
The bulls were tame, the horsemen unskilful. Ah, the bull-fights in
Spain,--they were worth looking at!
Donna Felicidade protested. He should not say such a thing; they were
horrible; she had seen one in Badajoz when she was visiting her aunt
Francisca de Noronha, who resided in Elvas, and she had fainted. The
blood, the intestines of the horses,--pah!
“What would you say, Senhora,” said Bazilio, laughing, “if you saw the
cock-fights?”
Donna Felicidade had heard of them, but those diversions seemed to her
barbarous and unchristian; and here calling to mind a pleasure the
recollection of which brought a smile to her broad countenance, she
continued,--
“For me there is nothing like a night at the theatre,--nothing!”
“But the actors here are so poor!” responded Bazilio, with a
disconsolate air.
Donna Felicidade did not answer; half risen from her chair, her eyes
bright and humid, she was making persistent gestures of salutation to
some one with her hand.
“They have not seen me,” she exclaimed at last, with an air of
desperation.
“Is it the counsellor?” asked Luiza.
“No, it is the Countess of Alviella; she did not see me; she often goes
to the Chapel of the Encarnação; she is a friend of mine; she is an
angel; her father-in-law is with her; see!”
Bazilio did not take his eyes from Luiza’s face. Seen through her white
veil, and in that dusty atmosphere, its features were defined in soft
and uncertain outlines. Her blond, wavy hair, of a darker shade at
night, followed the contour of her small head, giving her an expression
of infantile and tender grace; her pearl-colored gloves displayed the
elegant shape of her hands--the delicate wrists surrounded by a frill
of lace--as they rested, holding her fan, on the dark background of her
lap.
“And you,--what have you been doing?” asked Bazilio in his turn.
She had spent a very tiresome day, she said, alone from morning till
night.
He, too, had spent the morning alone, lying on the sofa reading the
“Femme de Feu,” of Belot. “Have you read it?” he asked her.
“No; what is it?”
“A new book; but one of a somewhat daring character. I advise you not
to read it.”
Donna Felicidade confessed that she was reading “Rocambole,” because
she had heard it praised very highly. But it was so confused that
she could not understand it, and she forgot to-day what she had read
yesterday. She was going to leave off reading it, she declared, for she
noticed that it increased her indigestion.
“Are you in bad health?” asked Bazilio, with the interest of a
well-bred man.
Donna Felicidade availed herself of the opportunity to describe the
different phases of her dyspepsia. Bazilio recommended her to use ice,
congratulating her because just now, as he said, disorders of the
stomach were very chic, and asking her for details with interest.
Donna Felicidade was profuse in giving them, endeavoring to show by her
words, by the animation of her glance, and by her friendly accent, the
lively sympathy she felt for Bazilio.
“So then you recommend me to try ice,--with a little wine, of course.”
“Yes, with wine.”
“That ought to be very good,” said Donna Felicidade to Luiza, touching
her on the arm with her fan, her countenance animated and hopeful.
Luiza smiled, and was about to answer, when she observed standing
beside her a man with a pallid countenance, whose languid glance was
fixed upon her with an annoying persistence. She turned her back to
him, and he withdrew, twisting the ends of his imperial.
Bazilio observed her silence. Was she sleepy? he asked.
“Ever since her husband went away,” said Donna Felicidade, smiling,
“she has worn this sorrowful countenance.”
“What folly!” responded Luiza, instinctively observing Bazilio. “All
these days past I have been very gay.”
“We know, of course,” insisted Donna Felicidade, “that that little
heart is in Alemtejo.”
“You wouldn’t want me, I suppose, to begin to dance and shout in a
public place,” responded Luiza, in impatient accents, with an abrupt
movement of her fan.
“Well, well, don’t get angry,” said Donna Felicidade. “What a temper!”
she continued, turning towards Bazilio.
“Cousin Luiza had a terrible temper formerly,” responded Bazilio,
laughing. “I don’t know how it may be now.”
“She is a dove, a little dove; is it not so? A dove,” insisted Donna
Felicidade, regarding Luiza with a maternal glance.
Meantime the taciturn group at their side had risen silently, and with
the air of somnambulists, the daughters in front, the father and mother
bringing up the rear, now slowly and sadly withdrew.
Bazilio immediately took the vacant chair beside Luiza, and observing
Donna Felicidade glancing around her with abstracted gaze,--
“I was on the point of going to see you this morning,” he said in a low
and confidential tone.
“And why did you not come?” responded Luiza, speaking in her natural
voice; “we might have had some music.”
Bazilio did not answer, and began to twist his mustache. Donna
Felicidade wanted to know what time it was. She began to grow
impatient. She had expected to meet the counsellor, and, in order to
appear to advantage in his eyes, she had laced herself, which was for
her a very great sacrifice. Accacio did not make his appearance, the
gas began to incommode her, and the annoyance she felt at not seeing
him increased the tortures of her dyspepsia.
The orchestra, in full force, began to play the first bars of the March
from Faust. This reanimated her. It was a _pot-pourri_ of the
opera, and there was no music she preferred to it.
She asked Bazilio if he would be in Madrid for the opening of the S.
Carlos.
“I don’t know, Senhora,” he responded with a meaning glance at Luiza;
“that depends--”
Luiza remained silent and motionless. The crowd increased. In the
lateral walks, freer, cooler, and without gas-lights, those who
were shy, who were in mourning, or who were shabbily attired, were
walking, while the _bourgeoisie_, dressed in their Sunday finery,
crowded together in the central walk, and grouping themselves in the
passages between the compact files of chairs, moving along with the
slowness of a half-melted mass of metal, impeded at every step, their
throats parched, and in almost unbroken silence, went back and forth
incessantly, in that passive confusion in which indolent races delight.
Notwithstanding the countless lights and the noise of the gay music,
a melancholy weariness, penetrating as a mist, seemed to hover in the
air; the impalpable dust rested on every countenance, bestowing on
it uncertain and ill-defined tones; and on every countenance, as it
came within the light of the gas-lamps, could be read an indefinable
expression of dreariness and fatigue, such as is to be seen only on a
holiday.
Donna Felicidade proposed to take a turn. They rose, and crossed slowly
through the crowd. As they found it difficult to advance, Bazilio
proposed to his companions that they should make their escape from this
confusion.
They assented. While Bazilio was buying the tickets, Donna Felicidade
sat down on a bench under a weeping willow, exclaiming in doleful
accents,--
“Ah, child, I think I am going to burst!”
She passed her hand over her stomach.
“And the counsellor! What do you say to that? Truly, I have no luck!
To-night when I came here--”
She sighed, and continued with a smile,--
“Your cousin is indeed interesting. And what good manners! A true
gentleman! That may be seen at the first glance!”
They had scarcely left the Passeio when she declared she could stand no
longer, and that they must take a carriage.
Bazilio thought it would be better to go on foot to the Praça do
Loreto. The night was so pleasant! To walk would do Donna Felicidade
good.
As they passed Martinho’s, Bazilio proposed that they should go in
and take an ice; but Donna Felicidade was afraid of iced drinks, and
Luiza had not the courage to consent. Through the open doors of the
café could be seen the deserted tables, and the newspapers scattered
about the floor. In the street the little ragamuffins were gathering
up ends of cigars. In the Praça do Rocio people were strolling about
under the trees; on the benches were to be seen a few motionless
figures, apparently asleep; here and there through the darkness
shone the burning end of a cigar; men were walking up and down, hat
in hand, fanning themselves; women with silk handkerchiefs around
their shoulders, and trailing after them long white petticoats very
stiffly starched, to judge from the noise they made, were crying out
on the street corners as they passed, “Water fresh from the Arsenal!”
Open carriages were driving slowly around the praza. The heat was
suffocating; and in the midst of the surrounding darkness the column
that supported the statue of Dom Pedro wore the pallid aspect of a
colossal taper.
Bazilio walked silently by Luiza’s side. “What a horrible city!” he
thought. “What gloom! what tedium!” He recalled the summer he had spent
in Paris: at night, he drove slowly in his phaeton through the Champs
Elysées, and hundreds of victorias drove rapidly past him; the lamps of
the carriages formed along the whole avenue a moving line of luminous
points. Fair and lovely faces of women rested against the cushions,
swayed by the movement of their luxurious carriages. The air had a warm
and velvet softness; the chestnut-trees diffused around a penetrating
odor; and on either side, from among the trees, streamed torrents of
light from the concert cafés, filled with the noise of the gay crowd
within, and the lively strains of the orchestra; laughter resounded
from the restaurants; love and happiness, under their most seductive
aspects, reigned everywhere; and farther on, through the windows of
palaces and hotels, could be seen the soft and shaded lights that
illuminated the treasures within. Ah, if he were only there!
But as they passed under the gas-lamps he glanced at Luiza’s
countenance through her white veil; her profile was full of grace; her
dress followed perfectly the curves of her figure, and there was an
undulating languor in her gait. The thought occurred to him, and he
gave utterance to it aloud, that it was a pity there was not in Lisbon
a restaurant where they might go and eat the wing of a partridge,
moistened with a bottle of champagne _frappé_.
Luiza did not answer, but she said to herself that that must be
delightful.
“A partridge at this hour!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade.
“A partridge or anything else,” said Bazilio.
“Whatever it might be, it would give us an indigestion,” she replied.
In the Chiado a youth in a blue blouse followed them with tickets for
the lottery; his shrill and doleful accents promising them good fortune
in the form of many _contos de reis_. Donna Felicidade stopped.
She felt a momentary temptation; but a group of drunken men came
towards them, their hats pushed back from the forehead, gesticulating
rudely and stumbling against the passers-by with the evident intention
of provoking a quarrel. Luiza took refuge close beside Bazilio, whose
arm Donna Felicidade, much frightened, had taken. The group passed on,
shouting. Donna Felicidade insisted on taking a carriage immediately,
and did nothing, till they reached the Praça do Loreto, but recount,
with a voice still trembling from the terror with which the drunken
men had inspired her, accidents and affrays with knives, all without
loosening for a moment her hold on Bazilio’s arm.
They stopped; and a hackman who was opportunely in the Praça de Camões
directed his carriage towards them. The two ladies entered. Luiza
turned round to give a parting glance to Bazilio as he stood there
motionless, his hat in his hand. Then she settled herself back in the
carriage, stretched out her feet on the cushions before her, and,
rocked by the trot of the horses, gazed silently from her corner, as
they passed them in turn, at the dark houses of the street of S. Roque,
the trees of S. Pedro de Alcantara, the narrow façades of the street of
the Moinho de Vento, and the sleeping gardens of the Patriarchal.
They passed a group of musicians playing the _fado_ of Vimioso on
the guitar, in front of the Polytechnic School. The music penetrated
her soul, awakening gently in her heart echoes of past emotions. A sigh
escaped her half-closed lips.
“There is a sigh that goes to Alemtejo,” said Donna Felicidade,
touching her on the arm.
Luiza felt the blood mount to her face.
When she reached home it was striking eleven. Juliana came to light her
in.
“Tea is ready, when the senhora wishes it,” she said.
Luiza went upstairs, and putting on a loose white dressing-gown, threw
herself, weary and depressed by the heat, into an easy-chair. She
felt herself growing drowsy; her head began to nod, her eyelids were
closing, and Juliana had not yet brought the tea. Luiza called to her.
Where could she be?
She had descended to Luiza’s room, and was examining the pocket of the
gown her mistress had worn; hearing her name called impatiently, she
went into the parlor quickly.
Was it her tea the senhora wanted? If so it was ready.
“Senhor Sebastião was here,” she added as she handed her mistress the
toast; “it was about nine when he came.”
“What did you tell him?” asked Luiza.
“That the senhora had gone out with Donna Felicidade. I could not tell
him where, as I did not know. Don Sebastião,” she continued, “stayed
talking with me more than half an hour.”
CHAPTER V.
PREPARING THE GROUND.
ON the following morning Luiza received a bouquet of magnificent red
roses from Sebastião, which she placed in the vases in the parlor.
At three o’clock Bazilio came. Luiza was seated at the piano.
“The gentleman who was here the other day is outside,” Juliana came to
announce in grave, almost reproachful accents.
“Ah, my cousin Bazilio,” said Luiza, blushing. “Show him in. And, by
the way, if Senhor Sebastião, or any other visitor, should call, admit
him.”
The gentleman, then, was a cousin. These visits had lost all their
interest for Juliana. Her malicious curiosity, swelled out to its
fullest proportions, suffered a momentary collapse, like a sail when
the wind has fallen. He was her cousin!
She went slowly upstairs to the kitchen.
“I have news to tell you, Senhora Joanna,” she said. “The
_petit-maître_ is a cousin,--Cousin Bazilio, it seems. Bazilio! It
turns out that we have a cousin at last; how nice!”
“Why, who should the man be but a relative?” said Joanna, with
indifference.
Juliana did not answer. She looked to see if the irons were hot, as she
had a quantity of clothes to iron, and while waiting for them she sat
down at the window. The sky was gray, and the atmosphere charged with
moisture and electricity; from time to time a slight breeze agitated
the foliage without. “He is her cousin!” she thought, “and he comes
only when the husband has gone away. How likely that is! When he goes
she remains preoccupied; she sighs; she looks disconsolate. All that is
the result of family affection!”
Her eyes glittered with malignant joy. And the irons, were they hot?
she asked Joanna.
The bell rang softly.
“There it goes again! This is a dog’s life! To-day is a reception-day,
it seems.”
She went down and opened the door. When she saw Julião standing before
her, a book under his arm, she gave a little cry of surprise.
“Come in, Senhor Julião,” she said; “the mistress is with her cousin,
but she has given orders to admit any one who may call.”
Delighted at being able to interrupt the conversation, she opened the
door of the parlor.
“Senhor Julião,” she announced in a shrill voice.
Luiza presented the two gentlemen to each other. Bazilio hardly rose
from the sofa, and with a glance expressive of something akin to terror
examined Julião, from his disordered hair to his badly-polished boots.
“What a savage!” he said to himself.
Luiza, divining his thoughts, colored with shame. What idea would
Bazilio form of the acquaintances, the friends of the house, by this
badly-dressed man whose collar was soiled and whose coat was old
and ill-fitting? She felt her _chic_ diminished by this visit,
and instinctively, influenced by a sentiment of futile vanity, her
countenance assumed a reserved, almost a serious air, as if Julião’s
visit were a surprise to her, and his attire an offence.
Julião vaguely comprehended that his presence was an annoyance, and
with something of embarrassment said, settling his spectacles on his
nose,--
“I was passing this way by chance, and I stopped in to ask if you have
had any news of Jorge.”
“Thanks, yes; he has written to me. He is well.”
Bazilio, leaning back among the cushions of the sofa with all the
familiarity of a near relative, was attentively observing his silk
stockings embroidered with red, and languidly caressing his mustache,
displaying, as he did so, two rings,--a ruby and a sapphire,--that
glittered on his little finger. The affectation of this attitude, and
the gleams of color shot forth by the jewels, confused Julião. Then,
desirous of showing his intimacy in the family, he said,--
“I should be glad to stay with you a while, but that I am exceedingly
busy.”
“A thousand thanks!” returned Luiza, blushing. And wishing to divest
this apparent familiarity of any importance that it mighty possess in
Bazilio’s eyes, she continued, arranging the folds of her morning-gown,
“During the last few days I have not been quite well, and I have
received no one, excepting, of course, my cousin.”
Julião understood, in a vague sort of way, that he was being reproved.
Surprised, confounded, ashamed, he crossed one leg over the other,
laying on his knees the book he carried; and, as his trousers were too
short, the elastics of his well-worn boots were disclosed to view.
There was a moment of painful silence.
“What lovely roses!” said Bazilio, at last, looking with an air of
indifference at Sebastião’s roses.
“Very lovely,” responded Luiza. Beginning to feel sorry for Julião, she
looked at him with a smile, trying to think of something pleasant to
say to him.
“How warm it is!” she said at last, precipitately. “The heat is
killing! Have you many patients?”
“Some cases of cholera-morbus,” responded Julião. “The fruits are the
cause of these disorders of the stomach.”
Luiza lowered her eyes, and Bazilio began at once to talk of the little
Viscountess of Azeias; when he left Lisbon she was looking charming.
And what had become of her elder sister?
These inquiries concerning ladies of the nobility whom Julião did not
know excluded him completely from the conversation, and covered him
with humiliation. He felt his neck bathed in perspiration, and he
began to open and shut mechanically the thick yellow-covered volume he
carried.
“Is that book you have there a novel?” Luiza asked him.
“No,” he responded in an important tone; “it is a treatise of Dr. Lee
on the diseases of women.”
Luiza blushed, and Bazilio, repressing a smile, asked her what had
become of Raphaela Grijo, who used to come sometimes to the house in
the street of the Magdalena,--the lady who wore spectacles, and had a
brother-in-law who stammered.
“Her husband died, and she married her brother-in-law afterwards,”
Luiza answered.
“What! the one who stammered?”
“Yes; and they have a child who stammers also.”
“A family conversation in that house must be amusing! And Donna
Eugenia, the wife of Braga?”
Here Julião, unable to endure his position any longer, rose.
“I am in a hurry,” he said in a choking voice, “and I can stay no
longer. When you write to Jorge, remember me to him.”
He hardly bent his head to Bazilio. But when he looked for his hat he
could not find it; it had rolled under a chair. He got entangled in
the portière, he struck himself violently against the closed door, and
went out at last, furious, his heart filled with hatred towards Luiza,
Jorge, wealth, and life itself; and thinking too late of the ironical
words, the apt retorts, with which he ought to have crushed that fool
and that silly woman.
No sooner had the street door closed behind him than Bazilio rose, and
standing before Luiza with folded arms,--
“Who is that savage?” he exclaimed.
“He is a young doctor,” stammered Luiza, turning very red.
“But he is an impossible being! He has the air of a charity student.”
“Poor young man!” said Luiza, confused. “He is not rich, by any means.”
“It is not necessary that he should be rich,” replied Bazilio, “in
order that he should brush his coat, and keep his hair and his nails in
order.” She ought not to receive such a man, he said. He was a disgrace
to the house. If he was according to her husband’s taste, let him
receive him in his office.
He said all this taking long strides up and down the room, very much
excited, jingling his money and his keys in his pockets.
“Fine specimens the friends of the family are!” he continued. “What the
deuce! you were not brought up in this manner. People like that never
came to the street of the Magdalena.”
This was true. Luiza confessed it to herself. She began to think
that her marriage had brought her into contact with some plebeian
acquaintances. But a certain respect for the opinions and the likings
of Jorge made her say,--
“My husband thinks he has a great deal of ability.”
“It would be better for him if he had boots.”
“I find him very amusing, for my part,” said Luiza, without venturing
to contradict Bazilio.
“He is horrible, my dear child.”
These last words made her heart beat. Thus it was that he used to
call her in former days. Before she could answer, the door-bell rang
vigorously.
Luiza was disturbed. Good Heavens! if it should be Sebastião! Bazilio
would find him still more common, still more vulgar than Julião.
Juliana came to say that the counsellor was outside.
“Shall I ask him to come in?” she added.
“Certainly,” said Luiza, delighted to find her fears unfounded.
The stately figure of the counsellor, in his alpaca coat and
well-ironed white trousers that fell over his low shoes, advanced
towards Luiza.
When she had presented Bazilio, he said to the latter, in accents of
profound respect,--
“I was already aware of your arrival. I saw it announced among the
interesting items of news of our ‘high-life.’ And Jorge?” he added,
addressing Luiza.
“Jorge is in Beja, and, judging from his letters, he seems to be very
much bored there.”
“In effect,” said Bazilio, with affability, “I cannot form to myself
the least idea of how he can spend his time in Beja. It must be
horrible.”
“It is, however, the capital of a province,” observed the counsellor,
passing over his mustache a white hand adorned with a seal-ring.
“But if in Lisbon, which is the capital of the kingdom,” said Bazilio,
pulling down his cuffs, “one does not know what to do with one’s self.
It is enough to make one die of _ennui_!”
“Don’t say that before the counsellor,” said Luiza, laughing, enchanted
with Bazilio’s affability. “He is a great admirer of Lisbon.”
“I was born in Lisbon,” said Accacio, bowing, “and I esteem Lisbon,
dear Senhora. I recognize the fact, nevertheless,” he continued
ingenuously, “that it is not to be compared to Paris, to London, or to
Madrid.”
“Oh, of course not!” said Luiza.
“But,” continued the counsellor, with an air of pride, “Lisbon has
beauties of its own that have no equal. The entrance to the harbor, as
I have heard, for I have never been there, is a magnificent panorama
that rivals the bay of Constantinople or that of Naples,--worthy to
be described by the pen of a Garrett or a Lamartine,” he continued
pompously.
But Luiza, dreading quotations and literary criticisms, asked him what
he had done with himself last Sunday; saying she had gone with Donna
Felicidade to the Passeio, and had been disappointed at not seeing him
there.
The counsellor declared that he never went to the Passeio on Sunday. He
could well understand that it might be very agreeable, but the crowd
made him sea-sick. He had noticed--and in saying this his voice assumed
the tone of a revelation--that many persons gathered together in one
place were apt to cause vertigo in men of literary habits. Besides,
his health was not very good, and he was overwhelmed with work. He was
writing a book, and drinking the waters of Vichy.
“You may smoke,” said Luiza, abruptly to Bazilio, with a smile. “Do you
want a light?”
She rose with joyful alacrity to get a match. She wore a fresh
morning-gown of light-colored and semi-transparent material. Her hair
looked brighter and her complexion clearer than usual.
Bazilio puffed out the smoke from his cigar, and said, settling himself
on the sofa,--
“The Passeio on Sunday is simply a piece of stupidity!”
“Do not be so severe, Senhor Brito,” said the counsellor, after a
moment’s reflection. “Formerly, indeed, it was a very agreeable resort.
For one thing, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can take the
place of military music; then, there is the price of admission to be
considered: I have studied the question closely. Low prices favor the
agglomeration of the inferior classes. Far be it from my thoughts to
look with contempt upon that part of the population. The liberality of
my ideas is well known. I appeal to this lady; but it must be admitted
that it is always preferable to meet select society. For my part, I
assure you I do not go to the Passeio even when there are fireworks. On
those nights I go, indeed, to enjoy the spectacle, but I remain outside
the railings. Not from economy, assuredly not,--without being rich I
can yet allow myself this expense,--but I fear that some accident might
happen. I could give you an instance of an individual whose name I
have forgotten, whose skull was pierced by a rocket. To go no further,
a spark might fall on one’s head, or on a new suit. And it is well to
be prudent,” he added in conclusion, passing over his lips his neatly
folded handkerchief of India silk.
Then they spoke of the season. There were a great many people in
Cintra. Lisbon was so hot in summer! The counsellor declared that
Lisbon would be a city of no real importance until the opening of the
Chambers and of the S. Carlos.
“What were you playing when I came in?” Bazilio asked Luiza.
“If you were having music,” said the counsellor at once, “I beg you
will continue. For eighteen years I have been a constant subscriber to
the S. Carlos.”
“Are you a musician?” said Bazilio.
“I was at one time, I will not deny it; when I was a young man I played
the flute,--youthful follies,” he said, with a benevolent gesture.
“Were you playing something new, Donna Luiza?”
“No, on the contrary, something very old,--the ‘Fisherman’s Daughter,’
of Meyerbeer.”
Luiza closed the windows and seated herself at the piano. “Sebastião
plays admirably, does he not, Counsellor?”
“Our Sebastião,” responded the counsellor, in a voice of authority,
“is the equal of Thalberg and of Liszt. Do you know him?” he added,
addressing Bazilio.
“No, I do not know him.”
“A pearl among men.”
Bazilio slowly approached the piano, with his hands in his pockets.
“Do you still sing?” Luiza asked him, smiling.
“When I am alone.”
The counsellor immediately asked him for a song. Bazilio laughed,
saying that he was afraid of shocking an old habitué of the S. Carlos.
The counsellor began to encourage him, and approaching him said, with a
paternal smile,--
“Courage, Senhor Brito! Come, come, courage!”
Luiza played a prelude, and Bazilio began to sing, in a voice full and
of good quality, his high notes resounding through the parlor. The
counsellor, standing upright beside his chair, listened attentively,
his head bent down, as by the weight of his responsibility as judge and
critic, his dark spectacles forming a contrast to his bald forehead,
which was rendered still more pallid by the heat.
Bazilio sang with simplicity, but his voice was full of a grave and
passionate melancholy as he pronounced the words:--
“As in the dark sea,
There are depths in my heart.”
An anonymous poet had translated the verses for the “Ladies’ Almanac,”
prefixing to them a mysterious dedication. Luiza had copied them with
her own hand from between the lines of the music. Bazilio sang the last
verses with an intonation of dignified melancholy:--
“On its surface are storms,
In its depths there are pearls.”
The expressive eyes of Luiza were fixed on the music before her, or
cast from time to time a rapid glance at Bazilio. At the final note,
which she prolonged on the piano, giving it an expression of passionate
appeal, Bazilio’s voice had all the force of an invocation:--
“Come, come
To rest, my well-belovèd,--
Beside my heart, thy heart!”
His eyes fixed themselves upon her with an expression of such ardent
passion that Luiza’s heart began to beat, her fingers trembled as they
ran over the keys, and her countenance displayed an agitation that she
hastened to conceal.
The counsellor applauded.
“An admirable voice!” he exclaimed; “admirable!”
Bazilio said that the quality of it was somewhat impaired.
“No, Senhor, no,” protested the counsellor; “you possess an excellent
organ. I will even go so far as to say that there is no better voice in
Lisbon society.”
Bazilio laughed, and said that since it pleased him he would sing
a little Brazilian song of Bahia. He seated himself at the piano,
and after a prelude of a few bars of melodious rhythm and tropical
movement, sang:--
“Black I am, but in my breast
Beats a truer heart than thine.”
“This song was making a _furore_ in the reunions at Bahia when I
came away,” he interrupted himself to say. It was the story of a young
negress born on a plantation, who gave utterance in commonplace verses
to her passion for a white planter. Bazilio imitated the sentimental
accents of the young ladies of Bahia, and his voice had a comic ring
when he sang the lachrymose _ritornela_:--
“And her gaze the dark-skinned maiden
Fixes on the distant sea,
While myriad birds the palm-tree’s shadow
Vocal make with melody.”
The counsellor thought this charming, and deplored, _apropos_ of
the song, the condition of the slaves. His Brazilian friends assured
him, he said, that the negroes were very well treated. But after all,
civilization is civilization. Slavery is a disgrace. He had a great
deal of confidence in the emperor.
“He is a monarch of rare intelligence,” he ended, with an expression of
profound respect.
He took his hat, declaring with a bow that it was long since he had
spent so pleasant a morning. In his opinion there was nothing to
compare to agreeable society and good music.
“Where are you staying, Senhor Brito?”
“At the Central Hotel; but I beg that you will not trouble yourself.”
The counsellor declared that nothing ever prevented him from fulfilling
his duty, and he would fulfil it now. He had but little influence, as
Luiza knew; but if Bazilio needed anything,--the address of any one,
a presentation in official quarters, permission to visit any public
establishment,--he placed himself at his orders.
“Rua do Ferregial de Cima, No. 3, third floor,” he said, pressing
Bazilio’s hand. “The humble abode of a hermit.” And turning to Luiza he
continued, “When you write to our traveller, present to him my sincere
good-wishes for the success of his enterprise. Your servant.”
And with grave and stately air he left the room.
“At least this one is cleaner,” murmured Bazilio, with his cigar in the
corner of his mouth. Then, seating himself at the piano, he let his
fingers run over the keys. Luiza drew near.
“Sing something for me,” she said.
Bazilio looked at her fixedly.
Luiza colored and smiled confusedly; through the light and transparent
material of her dress could be seen the creamy contours of her neck and
arms; in her eyes, on her lips, in the snowy whiteness of her teeth,
glowed the ardor of a luxuriant vitality.
Bazilio said to her in a voice low and full of emotion,--
“You are more beautiful than ever, Luiza.”
His eager gaze confused her.
“Sing me something,” she repeated, resting her fingers on the keys of
the piano, her heart beating violently.
“Sing _you_,” murmured Bazilio.
He continued to gaze at her fixedly; then he gave a quick sigh, and
caught her hands in his. They remained a moment thus, their hands,
moist and trembling, clasped together.
At that instant the door-bell rang softly. Luiza drew her hand away
quickly.
“Some one is coming,” she said.
The confused murmur of voices conversing together in low tones at
the door reached their ears. Bazilio shrugged his shoulders with an
expression of annoyance, and took up his hat to go.
“What! are you going away?” said Luiza in regretful accents.
“One cannot be alone with you for a moment,” he answered.
They heard the street door close noisily.
“It is no one; whoever it was has gone away,” said Luiza.
They were both standing.
“Bazilio, don’t go!” she murmured. Her beautiful eyes had in them an
expression of gentle entreaty.
Bazilio put down his hat on the piano, nervously biting his mustache.
“But why do you want to be alone with me?” asked Luiza, in some
agitation. “What does it matter to you if visitors come?” The moment
she had uttered the words she was sorry for saying them.
With a sudden movement Bazilio passed his arm around the waist of his
cousin, and drawing her head towards him, pressed passionate kisses on
her eyes and hair.
She freed herself quickly from his embrace, her eyes sparkling, her
countenance crimson.
“Forgive me,” he said, with a passionate gesture. “Forgive me; I acted
without reflection. But the truth is that I adore you, Luiza.”
He spoke with the sincerity of passion, taking her hands in his with an
air of authority, almost as if he had the right to do so.
“No,” he said; “you must listen to me. From the first moment in which
I saw you again, I loved you as madly as ever. I never ceased to adore
you; but I was poor, as you know, and I desired to make you rich and
happy! I could not take you with me to Brazil. That would have been to
kill you, my beloved. You cannot picture to yourself what that country
is! Therefore I wrote you that letter; but what have I not suffered!
What tears have I not shed!”
Luiza, her head bent down, her eyes fixed on the floor, listened
motionless to these accents, full of power and passion, that breathed
in her ear the breath of love, overmastering and subjugating her; the
contact of Bazilio’s hands transmitted to hers a feverish heat; a
subtle languor stole over her, stupefying her senses.
“Speak to me, answer me,” he said with anxiety, crushing her hands in
his, and eagerly seeking to meet her glance.
“What do you wish me to say to you?” responded Luiza in a languid
voice. “Let us speak of something else,” she said, turning her head
aside and sighing.
“But why, why?” asked Bazilio.
“No, Bazilio, no; leave me.”
Her voice had the fervor of a prayer and the sweetness of a caress.
Without further hesitation he caught her in his arms. Luiza was
powerless to resist; her lips were pale, her eyes closed, and Bazilio,
drawing her head to his breast, bent down, and softly pressed long
kisses on her eyelids, her face, her mouth; her knees bent under
her, her lips were slightly parted. But all at once she straightened
herself, and drawing back from him, exclaimed in accents of
desperation,--
“Leave me! leave me!”
With a violent effort she released herself from his arms, pushed him
away from her, and passed her hands over her forehead and her hair,
with a look of terror.
“Oh, my God!” she cried; “this is horrible! Leave me!”
Bazilio approached her, his lips firmly closed; but Luiza retreated.
“Go away! What do you want? Go away! Why do you remain here? Leave me!”
she cried.
Bazilio, in tender accents, said he did not understand why she should
be angry. A kiss! What was a kiss? What had she fancied? It was true
that he adored her, but with a pure love.
“I swear it to you,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart.
He made her sit down on the sofa, and then sat down beside her, and
began to reason with her. He would be resigned; circumstances demanded
it from him. They would be friends, as if they were brother and sister,
nothing more.
Luiza listened, unable to resist his persuasive accents.
It was true, he said, that his love for her was a torture to him; but
he was strong, and he would control himself. All he desired was to see
her, to speak to her. Theirs should be an ideal love.
As he spoke thus, he devoured her with his eyes. He took her hand in
his, bent over it, and pressed a kiss upon the palm.
Luiza rose, trembling, and said, “No; leave me!”
“Very well; good-by!”
He rose with a resigned and melancholy gesture.
“Good-by,” he repeated sorrowfully, smoothing his silk hat with his
hand.
“Good-by,” responded Luiza.
“Are you angry with me?” asked Bazilio, with tenderness.
“No.”
His glance brightened.
“Listen to me,” he murmured, approaching her.
Luiza stamped her foot upon the floor.
“Oh, what a man!” she cried. “Leave me. To-morrow! Good-by! go
away--till to-morrow.”
“Till to-morrow,” said Bazilio tenderly, and left her.
Luiza returned to her room, her nerves quivering. As she looked at
herself in the glass, she hardly recognized herself. Never before had
she been so beautiful. She took a few steps in silence. Juliana was
arranging the drawers of the bureau.
“Who rang the bell a little while ago?” asked Luiza.
“Senhor Sebastião. He would not come in. He said he would return.”
He had, in fact, said that he would return; but he began to be
ashamed of coming every day, and always finding her with visitors.
He was surprised at first when Juliana said to him, “She is with a
gentleman,--a young man who was here yesterday.”
“Who could it be?” he asked himself. He was acquainted with all the
friends of the family. It was probably some clerk in the Department, he
told himself, or some proprietor of mines; the son of Alonso, perhaps,
in relation to some business of Jorge’s,--yes, that must be it. And
on Sunday evening, when he saw the windows of the parlor unlighted,
he had felt a vague sense of oppression. He had brought with him the
score of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which Luiza wished to study; and
when Juliana told him from the balcony that her mistress had left the
house in a carriage with Donna Felicidade, he stood softly stroking his
beard in momentary embarrassment, his heavy book under his arm. Then
he remembered the enthusiastic admiration of Donna Felicidade for the
theatre of Donna Maria. But, could they have gone alone to the theatre,
and with this July heat? After all, it was possible; and so he went to
the Donna Maria.
The theatre, which was almost empty, presented a lugubrious aspect.
Here and there, in the boxes, were to be seen a few family groups who
were enjoying the Sunday evening with a melancholy air, the children
leaning, asleep, against the embossed morocco-covered railing. In the
pit and in the almost deserted stalls were to be seen a few persons
listening to the play with a sleepy air, wiping the perspiration from
their foreheads from time to time with their silk handkerchiefs. The
chandelier diffused a drowsy light. Every one was yawning. On the
stage, which represented a ball-room furnished in yellow, an old man
was speaking, with the monotony of water dropping from a fountain,
to a very slender woman with her hair in curls. In the orchestra the
musicians were fast asleep.
Sebastião went out. Where could they be? On the following day he
learned. As he was going down the street of the Moinho de Vento, his
neighbor Netto, who was coming towards him, his cigar in the corner of
his mouth, which was shaded by a gray mustache, stopped him abruptly
with the words,--
“Oh, friend Sebastião, I want to speak to you. Yesterday I saw Donna
Luiza in the Passeio, with a young man with whose face I am familiar.
But where have I seen him? Who the devil is he?”
Sebastião shrugged his shoulders.
“A young man, tall, fine-looking, with a foreign air,” Netto continued.
“I know I have met him before. The other day I saw him go into a house
down the street. Don’t you know who he is?”
Sebastião said he did not know.
“I have seen that face before. Let me try to think--” and he passed
his hand over his forehead. “I have seen him somewhere. He belongs to
Lisbon!” After a moment’s silence he resumed, “And what is there new,
Sebastião?”
Sebastião had heard nothing new.
“Nor I either; it is all nothing but lies! Good-by.”
CHAPTER VI.
ON TRIAL.
AT about four in the afternoon Sebastião went again to Luiza’s. He
found the same gentleman with her as before. He went away thoughtful,
without seeing her. No doubt the visitor had come on some business
of Jorge’s; for Sebastião could not comprehend that Luiza should
think, speak, or feel, except with reference to the interests of the
household, and with Jorge’s happiness in view. But the business must be
a serious one to be the occasion of so many visits. Could anything of
importance affect their interests and he not know of it? This seemed
to him a piece of ingratitude on their part, and a diminution of their
friendship for him.
Aunt Joanna noticed that something was the matter with him.
“A headache,” he said, in answer to her inquiries. That night he
slept badly. Next day he learned that the gentleman was her Cousin
Bazilio,--Bazilio de Brito. His uncertainty was at an end, but a more
definite fear took possession of him.
Sebastião did not know Bazilio personally, but he knew the story of
his youthful days. It is true that in this there was neither any
exceptional scandal nor any piquant history. Bazilio had been simply
a _viveur_, and as such had passed methodically through all the
traditional episodes of Lisbon life,--parties of _monte_ lasting
till daylight, in the companionship of the wealthy _bourgeois_ of
Alemtejo; a carriage dashed to pieces on a Saturday at the bull-fights;
dinners with some Lola or Carmen, followed by a lobster salad; a
bull caught by the horns, applauses in the circus of Salvaterra or
in Alhandra; nights spent in the taverns with guitar-players, eating
codfish and drinking Collares; and a shower of flour eggs, thrown in
the face of one of the municipal authorities during the Carnival. The
only women who appeared in this story, with the exception of the Lolas
and the Carmens, were la Pistelli, a German dancer with the legs of
an athlete, and the little Countess of Alvini, a feather-head, and a
great Amazon, who had separated from her husband after having given him
a beating, and who once dressed in male attire to drive a coach from
Rocio to Dá Fundo. All this was enough to make Sebastião regard him
as a rake, as one who had already gone to destruction. He had heard
that he was obliged to fly to Brazil from his creditors, and that he
became rich by chance through a speculation in Paraguay; that not even
when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, in Bahia, would he devote
himself persistently to work; and he took it for granted that the
possession of a fortune would be the means of developing his vices.
And this man came every day to see Luiza, staying with her for hours,
accompanying her to the Passeio, with what purpose it was only too
evident.
He was going down the street, oppressed by the weight of these
thoughts, when he heard a hoarse voice saying in respectful tones,--
“Senhor Sebastião!”
It was Paula the furniture-dealer.
“I hope you are well, Senhor João.”
Paula spat on the pavement, and with his hands crossed behind him under
the long skirts of his coat, said gravely,--
“Senhor Sebastião, is there any one sick in the house of the Senhor
Engineer?”
“No,” returned Sebastião, in a tone of surprise. “Why?”
Paula coughed, spat again, and said,--
“Because I have observed a gentleman entering the house every day, and
I thought it might be the doctor,--one of those new homœopaths.”
Sebastião turned scarlet.
“No,” he responded; “it is the cousin of Donna Luiza.”
“Ah!” said Paula. “I thought-- Excuse me, Senhor Sebastião.”
And he bowed respectfully.
“They begin to gossip already,” thought Sebastião, as he continued on
his way.
He returned home ill at ease. He lived in an old-fashioned house with
a garden, belonging to himself. Sebastião lived alone. He possessed a
small fortune in bonds, arable land, and his villa in Almada called
the Rozegal. His two servants had been with him for many years; the
cook was a negress from St. Thomas who had been in the service of the
family since before his mother’s death; Joanna the housekeeper had
served in the house for thirty-five years, and still called Sebastião
the _little one_. She had now all the caprices of a child, but
she was treated with the respect that might be shown to a grandmother.
She was from Oporto,--_Poarto_, as she called it, for she had not
lost her native accent. The friends of Sebastião called her _uma
velha de comedia_. She was short and stout, with a round and jovial
face, a smile full of kindness, hair white as flax, gathered in a knot
on the top of her head, and fastened by an antique tortoiseshell comb;
and she always wore a large white kerchief, freshly ironed, around her
shoulders. She went about the house from morning till night, shuffling
her feet and jingling her keys, repeating proverbs and taking pinches
of snuff from a round box, on the lid of which was a picture of the
hanging bridge of Oporto.
There was something in the aspect of the whole house that called an
involuntary smile to the lips. The immense sofa and the easy-chairs
reminded one of the days of José I., and the damask covering, of a
faded red, recalled the pomp of a decrepit court; on the walls of the
dining-room hung engravings of Napoleon’s battles, in all of which was
to be seen the white horse standing on a height, towards which a hussar
of high rank galloped furiously, brandishing his sabre.
Sebastião slept seven hours of tranquil sleep every night, in an
antique bed of bent-wood, in a small dark bedroom. On a bureau with
brass scutcheons, a St. Sebastian, pierced with arrows, had for many
years past writhed--in the light of a little lamp kept carefully
burning by Joanna--within the cords that bound him to the trunk of
a tree. All the clothes put away in the drawers were perfumed by
lavender-flowers.
The house resembled its master. Sebastião had old-fashioned ideas; he
was shy, and he loved solitude. Years ago, in the Latin class, they had
called him the _bear_; his comrades pinned rags on his back for
sport, and unblushingly robbed him of his luncheon. To the strength of
an athlete Sebastião joined the patience of a martyr.
He was always rejected in the first examinations at college. He was
intelligent, but a question put to him, the glitter of the spectacles
of a professor, the sight of the large black table, petrified him, and
deprived him of the power of speech, leaving him with his face crimson,
his knees trembling, his glance wandering.
His mother, who had come to Lisbon from a little village where she had
kept a baker’s shop, who was very proud of her rents, her villa, her
furniture, and who was always dressed in silks and weighed down with
jewelry, would say,--
“Has he not enough to provide him with food and drink? Why trouble the
boy with studies? Let him alone! Let him alone!”
Sebastião’s great passion was the piano. Following the advice of
Jorge’s mother, who was her neighbor and her intimate friend, his
mother provided a master for him. From the very first lessons, at
which, in a red velvet gown, and covered with trinkets, she assisted,
the old professor Achilles Bentes, who had a face and eyes like those
of an owl, declared, in his nasal voice,--
“Dear lady, your son is a genius. Yes, he is a genius! He will be a
Rossini! We must push him forward!”
But this was precisely what she did not wish to do,--to push forward
the little one. Therefore he did not become a Rossini, which did not
prevent old Bentes from continuing to say,--
“He will be a Rossini!”
Only that instead of proclaiming it aloud, brandishing his roll of
music, he now murmured it softly under his breath, rubbing his knotty
hands together.
At this epoch the two youthful neighbors, Jorge and Sebastião, became
intimate. Jorge, the more active and enterprising of the two, ruled
his comrade. In their sports in the garden Sebastião, if they played
coach, was always the horse; if they played soldiers, he was always the
defeated party. He carried the heavy things; he allowed Jorge to jump
over his back, at leap-frog; in their feasts he contented himself with
the bread and left the fruits to Jorge. This friendship, uninterrupted
and unclouded, was to remain, throughout Sebastião’s life, an essential
and permanent element in it.
When Jorge’s mother died, they thought for a time of living together
in the house of Sebastião, which was larger than Jorge’s, and which
had a garden. Jorge had some intention of buying a horse; but solitude
inspired him with sentimental ideas of marriage. He saw Luiza in the
Passeio, and for two months passed entire days in the street of the
Magdalena.
Thus all that smiling plan which they had called laughingly the Society
of Jorge and Sebastião fell to the ground like a house of cards.
Sebastião felt for a long time a keen sensation of regret. Afterwards
it was he who provided the bouquets of roses which Jorge carried
Luiza, stripping them carefully of their thorns, and wrapping them in
tissue-paper. He it was who made ready the nest; he looked for the
upholsterer, discussed the prices of the stuffs, superintended the
workmen who were putting down the carpets, and arranged the necessary
documents for the marriage.
At night, no matter how fatigued he might be from all these labors, he
was obliged to listen, with a smiling countenance, to Jorge, who, very
much in love, would walk up and down the room in his shirt-sleeves till
two o’clock in the morning, dilating on his happiness and smoking his
pipe.
After the wedding, Sebastião found himself very lonely. He went to
Portel to see his uncle, an eccentric old man, with the look of an
imbecile, who spent his days inventing new graftings in his garden, and
reading and re-reading the “Eurico.”
A month later, when Jorge came home, he said to Sebastião with a
radiant countenance,--
“I need not tell you that this house is yours. You are to live with us.”
But he could never succeed in making Sebastião feel himself quite at
home in his house. He rang the door-bell with timidity. He grew red in
Luiza’s presence. The old _bear_ of the Latin class reappeared.
Jorge endeavored to make him feel at his ease with Luiza, to oblige
him to smoke his pipe before her, and to prevent him from saying at
every moment, “Senhora.”
He never came to dine with them without a previous invitation. When
Jorge was not at home his visits were silent and short. He thought
himself so stupid that he was afraid of being tiresome.
To-night, when he entered the dining-room, Joanna asked him for Luiza.
She adored Luiza; she called her an angel,--a white lily.
“How is she? Have you seen her?” she asked.
Sebastião did not want to answer, as he had done yesterday, that he did
not go in because there were visitors; and, leaning forward, he began
to play with the ears of Trajan, his old hunting-dog, saying,--
“She is well, Joanna; she is well. How should she be? She could not be
better.”
At this time Luiza received a letter from Jorge, dated in Portel,
full of complaints of the heat, and the bad inns, of stories about
Sebastião’s eccentric relative, of remembrances and kisses for herself.
This sheet of paper, covered with minute characters that brought Jorge
vividly before her mind, took Luiza by surprise. The recollection of
his face, his voice, his love for her, caused her a sensation that was
almost painful. All the shame of her cowardice and weakness in regard
to Bazilio presented itself forcibly to her imagination. How horrible
to allow herself to be kissed and embraced by him while he devoured her
with his glances! She recalled everything,--his attitude, the ardor of
his hands, the sweetness of his voice. Insensibly and by degrees these
recollections faded away, and Luiza, dropping her arms by her side,
let her thoughts drift idly, abandoning herself to the lassitude which
they produced in her. But the thought of Jorge presented itself to her
again, hurting her like the sudden stroke of a whip. She rose nervously
and began to walk up and down the room; she felt a vague desire to
weep, to cry out, to break something--
“Ah, no! this is shameful,” she said at last, bursting into bitter
tears. “It must be ended at once!”
She came to the determination, at last, to refuse to see Bazilio
again; she would write, entreating him to go away, and not to seek
to see her again. She repeated to herself the words she would make
use of,--serious, cold, dry. She would not address him as “My dear
Cousin Bazilio,” but simply, “Cousin Bazilio.” What would he say when
he received her letter? Doubtless he would shed tears, poor boy! She
pictured him to herself, alone in his room at the hotel, pale and
unhappy; and then, carried away by her feelings, she recalled the
emotion revealed in his subjugating glance, the persuasive sound of
his voice, and her memory lingered over these recollections with
a sensation of pleasure, like that produced by the contact of the
hand with the soft plumage of some rare bird. She shook her head
with impatience, as if these thoughts were the stings of importunate
insects. She wanted to think only of Jorge; but other thoughts assailed
her, and she said to herself that she was very unhappy. She desired,
without knowing why, to be with Jorge, to ask counsel of Leopoldina, to
fly far away, wherever chance might lead her. Alas! how unfortunate
she was! From the depths of her indolent nature arose an undefined
anger against Jorge, against Bazilio, against feeling, against duty,
against every one and everything that caused her thus to suffer and
distress herself. Good Heavens! why could they not leave her in peace?
After dinner she seated herself again at the window, to read anew
Jorge’s letter, recalling, as she did so, the beauties of his mind
and person. She found arguments, some based on her happiness, others
sentimental, for loving and esteeming him. All this had happened
because he was absent. If he had only been at her side! But he was so
far away from her, and he had been away so long! Notwithstanding all
these reflections, the fact of his absence gave her a sensation of
liberty; the thought of being able to do as she wished filled her heart
at times with an intense happiness, as if she were intoxicated by a
sudden breath of freedom. But of what use was it to her to be free and
alone? All that she might do, feel, possess, appeared before her in
distant perspective, then vanished suddenly. It was like a door opened
and shut quickly, giving her a glimpse, as by a lightning-flash, of
something marvellous and undefined, that moved and fascinated her. Oh,
she must be mad!
Night fell. She went out to the balcony and opened the window. The
night was warm and dark, and the atmosphere, charged with electricity,
announced a coming storm. Luiza drew her breath with difficulty, as
she sat gazing at the horizon, forming plans and cherishing desires,
without knowing clearly what they were. The young man at the baker’s
shop was playing the “Fado;” its sounds, softened by distance, filled
her soul with a sweetness resembling that of a warm breeze, and a
melancholy like that of a sigh. She leaned her weary head upon her
hand. A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, like tongues of
flame running over the paper they consume. She thought of her mother,
of the new hat Madame François had sent her, of the kind of weather it
was now in Cintra, of long summer evenings passed under the shade of
the trees.
She closed the window and remained sitting in her room motionless,
thinking of Jorge, resolving to write to him and ask him to come
home. But these remorseful feelings disappeared, little by little,
like a veil torn down the middle, behind which appeared with luminous
intensity the image of her cousin Bazilio. His travels had improved his
appearance; the pangs of absence had silvered his hair. He had suffered
so much on her account, he had said. And after all, what harm was there
in it? He had sworn that his love should be a pure one, locked up
forever in the inmost recesses of his breast. Why should she not see
him again,--the poor fellow who had come from Paris only to be near her
for a week or a fortnight, at least so he had told her? Was it indeed
necessary that she should say to him, “Go away, and come back no more”?
“When does the senhora want her tea?” asked Juliana, opening the door.
Luiza exhaled a profound sigh, and saying she would not take tea, told
Juliana to prepare the night-lamp.
Ten o’clock struck. Juliana, according to her custom, was taking her
tea in the kitchen. The fire was going out, and the copper saucepans
gleamed in the light of the kerosene lamp.
“To-day there is certainly something the matter with her, Joanna,” said
Juliana, seating herself; “she is angry; she sighs. There is something
serious.”
The eyes of Joanna, who sat at the opposite side of the table, her arms
resting upon it, her face in her hands, were closing with sleep.
“You are always disposed to see evil in everything,” she said.
“One must be a fool not to see it where it is, Senhora Joanna!”
She was silent, and began to suck a lump of sugar. This was one of her
favorite dainties; she liked it white, refined. Brown sugar, that gave
the coffee, as she said, a taste of ants, was one of her vexations.
“It is even worse than it was last month,” she would complain with
bitterness. “But, of course, for a poor creature like me anything is
good enough. Yes, one must be crazy not to see it,” she repeated,
returning to her former idea.
“Every one for himself,” said the cook, carelessly.
“And God for us all,” sighed Juliana.
At this moment Luiza rang the bell.
“What does she want now?” said Juliana, her mouth full of sugar. “Some
new caprice!”
She soon returned, an expression of anger on her countenance, carrying
an empty jug.
“She wants more water! What a fancy--to duck herself at midnight!”
She stamped her foot impatiently upon the brick floor. Putting the jug
under the faucet she continued, while the water fell noisily into the
sink, “She says she wants fried ham for breakfast,--something salt. She
wants an appetizer.”
At midnight every one in the house was asleep. All the lights were
extinguished. Without, the sky grew darker, at every moment a flash of
lightning illuminated the darkness, followed by a clap of thunder.
Luiza awoke terrified. Large drops of rain began to fall heavily; the
tempest sounded from afar; sleep had fled, and with her gaze fixed on
the dim light of the night-lamp, a species of vision appeared before
her, which resolved itself by degrees into the features of Bazilio.
Sebastião also had slept badly. At six he rose, and descended to the
garden in his slippers. A glass door opened from the dining-room into
a small corridor, in which were three painted iron chairs and some
pots of carnations. From thence four stone steps led down to a small
garden, containing several flower-beds, a piece of well-watered turf,
some climbing rose-bushes, a well, a fountain under a grape-vine, and a
few trees. At the farther end of the garden was another corridor shaded
by a lime-tree, with a balcony looking out on a deserted street. In
front it was shut in by the whitewashed wall of another garden. In this
retired spot, quiet as a village, Sebastião was accustomed to smoke his
morning cigar.
Six o’clock had not yet struck. The air was transparent, the sky was of
the blue color of certain antique porcelains, with little white clouds
softly floating here and there; the trees were of a fresh green, the
water of the fountain was clear as crystal, the birds sang joyously as
they flew from branch to branch.
Sebastião was looking out into the street, when the sound of a cane
striking against the ground, and of steps slowly approaching, broke
the silence. It was Cunha Rosado, a neighbor of Jorge; he walked
slowly, and with a stooping gait, as if in pain, and was enveloped in a
comforter and a chocolate-colored great-coat; his face was seamed with
wrinkles, and his gray beard was long and neglected-looking.
“Up already, neighbor?” said Sebastião.
Cunha paused, and raising his head slowly, said, in a voice expressive
of fatigue,--
“Ah, is that you, Sebastião? I am taking my pains out to give them an
airing, my friend.”
“On foot?”
“Formerly I used to ride on a donkey as far as the city walls; but
they say now that a short walk will do me good.” And he shrugged his
shoulders with a gesture expressive of mingled doubt, sadness, and
anger. He suffered from a disease of the intestines.
“And how do you get on?” Sebastião asked him, leaning forward with an
air of interest.
Cunha smiled disconsolately, letting these words fall from his pallid
lips,--
“I get on so fast that I shall soon be out of this.”
Sebastião coughed, unable to think of a single word of consolation.
The sick man stood still, resting both his hands on the head of his
cane; suddenly his doll gaze brightened with interest.
“Tell me, Sebastião,” he said, “that good-looking young man that I see
go into Jorge’s every day,--is he not Bazilio de Brito, the cousin of
Jorge’s wife, the son of João de Brito?”
“Yes; why?”
“I was right! I was right! And that obstinate creature would persist in
saying it was not so.”
He then proceeded to explain himself.
“My room looks out on the street, and as I am almost always sitting at
the window, in order to divert my thoughts, I noticed this young man,
dressed like a foreigner, entering there--every day. I said, ‘It is
Bazilio de Brito.’ My wife insisted it was not. What the deuce! I was
almost certain. I know him as well as I know anything. He looks just
the same as when he was going to marry Donna Luiza. Oh, I have all
that history at my fingers’ ends. She lived then in the street of the
Magdalena.”
“Yes, it is Brito,” repeated Sebastião.
“I was right.” He remained an instant motionless, with his eyes fixed
on the ground. Then, speaking in his former querulous tones, he said,
“Well, I must drag myself home.” He sighed and looked up. “Ah, if I
only had your health, Sebastião!” he said. And waving him a farewell
with a hand encased in a dark woollen glove, he continued on his way,
bending forward, and supporting himself by the wall as he went along.
Sebastião remained preoccupied. Every one began to notice that a man
young and elegant called at Luiza’s house every day in a carriage, and
remained there two or three hours. The neighbors lived in such close
proximity, and they were so malicious! In the afternoon he went out.
He wanted to see Luiza; but he felt, without knowing why, a sense of
oppression, as if he feared to find her changed in some way. He was
going slowly up the street under his umbrella, wrapt in thought, when
he saw a coupé coming towards him at a trot. In another moment it had
stopped at Luiza’s door. A gentleman descended hastily from it, threw
away his cigar, and went into the house. He was tall, wore a mustache
with the ends turning up, and had a flower in his buttonhole. Sebastião
comprehended at once that this must be Cousin Bazilio. The coachman
wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and crossing his legs, began
to roll a cigarette.
At the noise of the carriage Senhor Paula came out to his doorstep,
with his cap awry, his hands in his pockets, and looking askance. The
coal-vender opposite, dirty and disfigured by obesity, also showed
her greasy countenance at her door. The servant of the professor
opened her window hastily. Paula crossed the sunny street quickly, and
entered the shop in front. A few moments afterwards he reappeared in
the doorway, accompanied by the shopkeeper, who had all the air of the
inconsolable widow. They whispered together, their malicious glances
fixed alternately on the windows of Luiza’s house and on the coupé.
Paula, shuffling along in his carpet slippers, went to whisper with the
coal-vender, eliciting from her, by his words, a laugh that shook her
ample chest, and then took up his post in his own doorway, between a
likeness of Dom João VI., on the one side, and two antique choir-chairs
on the other, watching Luiza’s door with a jubilant expression of
countenance. Through the silence resounded the notes of the “Virgin’s
Prayer,” which some one in the neighborhood was practising on the piano.
Sebastião looked up mechanically, as he passed, at the windows of
Luiza’s house.
“What a warm day, Sebastião!” said Paula, with an inclination of the
head. “It is a pleasure to be in the shade.”
CHAPTER VII.
A CONSULTATION.
MEANTIME Luiza and Bazilio were seated, tranquil and happy, in the
parlor within, the half-drawn curtains making a soft obscurity in the
room. Luiza wore a fresh white morning-gown that diffused an agreeable
odor of lavender.
“I shall present myself thus,” she had said, “without ceremony.”
She was charming thus; thus he would always like to see her, Bazilio
had answered gayly, as if in this morning-gown he beheld a promise of
friendlier relations between them. He had entered tranquilly, with the
air of a real relative. He did not annoy her by bold words; he spoke
to her of the heat, of a farce he had seen the night before, of old
friends that he had met; but mentioned to her only _en passant_
that he had been dreaming of her.
And why should he do otherwise? In his dream they were far away, in a
distant land, that might be Italy, there were so many statues in the
plazas, so many musical fountains falling into marble basins. It was in
an antique garden, in the midst of a classic landscape; rare flowers
filled the Florentine vase that rested on the stone balustrade; the
peacocks spread out their tails proudly, and she herself walked slowly
up and down, the train of her blue velvet dress sweeping the mosaic
pavement. It was a landscape, he said, resembling that of San Donato,
the villa of Prince Demidoff. Bazilio took pleasure in recalling the
names of his illustrious acquaintances, and never forgot to place in
their proper light the glories of his travels.
“And you,--did you dream anything?”
Luiza smiled and blushed. No, she had been too much afraid of the storm
to sleep. As she spoke, Bazilio noticed the faint circles under her
eyes.
“Did you not hear the storm?” she asked.
“I was taking supper at the time in the Gremio.”
“Are you in the habit of taking supper?”
Her cousin smiled sadly. Supper? If a tough beefsteak and a bottle of
Collares could be called supper, then--
“And all for you, ungrateful one!” he added.
“For me?”
“For whom else, then, if not for you? What brought me to Lisbon? Why
did I leave Paris?”
“On account of your affairs.”
“Thanks,” he said, leaning forward, and looking at her with severity.
He puffed out the smoke of his cigarette with violence, and walked up
and down the floor of the parlor with long strides. Suddenly he came
over to her, and sitting down beside her told her that she was in
truth unjust; that if he was in Lisbon, it was solely on her account.
And throwing into his voice an expression of tenderness, he asked her
if she indeed felt for him the least little bit of love,--“so much as
that, even,” showing her the point of his nail.
They both began to laugh.
“That much? Perhaps!”
Luiza’s breast heaved with emotion.
Bazilio, taking her hand in his, began to examine her nails, admiring
them, and recommended her to use a certain ointment for the purpose of
giving them more brilliancy, and kissing the tips of her fingers, he
lightly bit the little finger, saying it was very sweet, at the same
time putting hastily in its place a stray lock of her hair. With a
supplicating glance he said he had a petition to prefer.
“What is it?”
“To take a drive with me into the country. It must be so charming now!”
Luiza arranged the folds of her morning-gown in silence.
“It would be very easy,” he continued. “You meet me at some place, at a
distance from here, of course. I will wait for you with a carriage; you
enter it, and we drive away.”
Luiza hesitated.
“Do not refuse me!”
“But where?”
“Wherever you wish. To Paço d’Arcos, to Loires, to Queluz. Say yes.”
His voice was urgent and entreating. “What are you afraid of? We take a
friendly drive together, as brother and sister might do.”
She smiled.
“No, not that!”
Bazilio grew angry and called her a prude. He rose to go away. Then,
half-vanquished, she took his hat out of his hands.
“Well, we shall see. Perhaps,” she said, smiling.
“Say yes,” insisted Bazilio. “Be a good girl.”
“Well, yes; we will speak about it to-morrow, and then we shall see.”
But on the following day Bazilio had the tact to make no allusion
either to the proposed drive or to the country. Nor did he utter a
single word about his love for her or about his hopes. He seemed in
very good spirits. He had brought her the book of Belot, “La Femme
de Feu.” Seated at the piano, he sang for her songs of the _cafés
chantants_, of a somewhat free character, making her laugh by his
imitations of the hoarse and shrill accents of the singers. Then he
spoke to her a great deal about Paris; he retailed to her the gossip
of the day,--anecdotes, love-affairs, fashionable news, in all of
which figured duchesses and princes, who played tragic or sentimental
roles, sometimes comic ones, but who were always surrounded by an
ocean of delights. Of every woman whom he mentioned he said, “She was
a woman of great distinction, and naturally she had a lover.” He made
immorality appear like an aristocratic duty. Virtue, to listen to him,
seemed the defect of a mean spirit, or the ridiculous prejudice of a
_bourgeoise_ temperament. Just as he was about to go he said, as
if struck by a sudden recollection, “Do you know that I have still some
thoughts of leaving Lisbon?”
“Why?” she asked, turning pale.
“What the deuce am I doing here?” he answered, with an air of
indifference. He remained a moment with his eyes fixed on the floor;
then, as if controlling himself, said,--
“Good-by, dearest,” and went away.
When Luiza entered the dining-room in the afternoon her eyes were red,
as if she had been crying. On the following day it was she who spoke
of the country. She complained of the heat, of the dust of Lisbon. How
delightful it must be at Cintra!
“It is you who did not want to go,” he said. “We might have had a
charming drive.”
It was because she was afraid, she answered. They might be seen.
“There is no danger,” he replied; “in a closed carriage, with the
blinds drawn down.”
But that was worse than to be in the house, she returned. It was to
suffocate, shut up in a box.
No, they might go to a villa, to the Alegrias, the villa of a friend of
his who was in London; there would be only the farmer’s family there.
It was in the neighborhood of Olivaes; there were long laurel-walks,
delightful shade. They might take with them ices, champagne--
“Will you come?” he said abruptly, taking both her hands in his.
She turned red.
“Perhaps. We shall see on Sunday.”
Their eyes met. Luiza grew confused, and went to open the windows in
order to let in the light, and thus take away from their interview
its air of intimacy. Then she sat down on a chair beside the piano,
afraid of the obscurity, afraid of herself, and asked Bazilio to sing
something; for she feared equally to speak or to be silent.
Bazilio sang the sensual and touching music of the “Medjé” of Gounod.
Those ardent notes affected her like the atmosphere of a night
charged with electricity. When Bazilio left her she remained seated,
motionless, bending forward, exhausted, languid, as after a fever.
Sebastião spent the three following days in Almada, at the villa
of Rosegal, to which business had called him. On the morning after
his return he was seated, at about ten o’clock, at the door of his
dining-room, which opened into the garden, waiting for his breakfast,
and caressing his cat Rolim, the friend and confidant of the
illustrious Vicencia, enveloped in fur like a bishop, and ungrateful
as a despot. The morning wore on, and the sun fell full upon the
little garden. The water of the fountain flowed in wavering ripples,
reflecting the leaves of the grape-vine. Within their cages two
canaries were singing with all the power of their little throats. Aunt
Joanna, who had just placed the breakfast, smoking hot, upon the table,
approached him, and said in her husky voice,--
“Gertrudes was here yesterday, and she spoke in such a way! And what
nonsense she talked!”
“And what about, Aunt Joanna?” asked Sebastião.
“About a young man who, according to her, goes to see Luiza every day.”
Sebastião rose as if moved by a spring.
“What did she say, Aunt Joanna?”
The old woman straightened the table-cloth which Sebastião’s hasty
movement had disarranged.
“She talked gossip, full of curiosity to know who the young man
could be! She says he is good-looking. He goes there every day in a
carriage. On Saturday he stayed till evening. There was singing in the
parlor, and Gertrudes says that not even in the theatre--”
“It is her cousin,” interrupted Sebastião with impatience. “What of it?
It is her cousin who has returned from Brazil.”
Aunt Joanna smiled maliciously.
“I thought he must be a relative; Gertrudes says he is very
good-looking. Yes, I thought he must be a relative,” she repeated,
going out to the kitchen.
Sebastião breakfasted with a preoccupied mind. If the neighbors should
begin to talk about these visits, what a scandal it would cause!
Troubled and perplexed, he determined to speak to Julião. He was going
down the street of S. Roque towards the house of the latter, when he
perceived him coming towards him on the opposite side, with a roll of
papers under his arm, his white trousers spattered with mud.
“I was just going to your house,” said Sebastião.
Julião was surprised at the unusual excitement betrayed in his voice.
Was there anything new? he asked. What had happened?
“Something diabolical,” answered Sebastião, in a low voice.
They stopped in front of a confectioner’s shop. In the glass case
behind them was an exhibition of works of art in sugar; on a shelf
below, arranged according to their sizes, were some bottles of
Malmsey, with their parti-colored labels; here and there were rosy
and transparent jellies, bonbons of egg, the very sight of which gave
one nausea; in puff-paste moulds floated stale and discolored creams;
masses of marmalade were melting in the heat; and on the counter some
pies displayed their dried-up crusts. In the midst of them, on a showy
pedestal, was coiled a horrible snake of almond paste, displaying a
yellow belly that it made one’s stomach sick to look at; his back was
covered with arabesques in sugar; his hideous mouth was open; the
teeth, of almonds, held an orange between them; two chocolate eyes
protruded from the head; and around this repugnant monster the flies
buzzed incessantly.
“Let us go into a café,” said Julião. “In the street it rains fire.”
“I am very much disturbed,” began Sebastião.
In the café the faded blue of the paper and the air that entered
through the half-open doors tempered the heat of the sun, and produced
a still coolness. They seated themselves at the farther end of the
apartment. The dazzling fronts of the houses, painted white, blinded
the sight. Dirty newspapers lay scattered on the tables around. Behind
the counter, covered with bottles, nodded a waiter, fast asleep. In
another apartment a bird was singing. From behind a green screen
came at intervals the sound of the billiard-balls; from time to time
could be heard the voice of a huckster from the street; and then all
these noises merged into the sound of carriage-wheels rolling past
with accelerated speed. In front of them sat a dirty individual,
with the face of a swindler, reading a newspaper. A few gray hairs
were plastered over his bald yellow forehead; his gray mustache was
sprinkled with the ashes of his cigar; nights spent in dissipation had
given a reddish hue to his eyelids and a waxen tint to his shrunken
skin. From time to time he lazily turned his head, spit through his
eye-teeth, gave a mechanical shake to the newspaper, and then resumed
his reading with an air of weariness. When the two friends entered
the café and called for sherbets, he saluted them gravely with an
inclination of the head.
“But at last what is the matter?” asked Julião when they were seated.
“It is something that concerns our friends,” responded Sebastião,
drawing his chair nearer to Julião. “About the cousin--you understand?”
The vivid recollection of the humiliation he had suffered in Luiza’s
parlor brought the blood to Julião’s face. But he was intensely proud,
and only said, dryly,--
“Yes, I have seen him.”
“Well?”
“He seems to me an ass!” he replied, unable to control himself.
“A coxcomb,--no?”
“An ass!” repeated Julião. “Such manners, such affectation, such airs,
his eyes fixed on his stockings,--very ridiculous ones, in truth, like
those of a woman! I showed him my boots without hesitation,--these very
ones,” he added, displaying to Sebastião’s view his unpolished boots.
“I take pride in them; they are the boots of a man who works.”
Julião was accustomed to boast in public of a poverty that in secret
humiliated him not a little. He sipped his sherbet, and added,--
“He is a fool!”
“Did you know he was at one time engaged to Luiza?” said Sebastião in
a low voice, frightened at the importance of his disclosure. “Yes,” he
added, in response to Julião’s astonished glance. “Hardly any one knows
it, not even Jorge; but I heard it a short time since. They were on the
point of being married; but his father died, he went away to Brazil,
and wrote from there breaking off the engagement.”
Julião smiled, leaning his head back against the wall.
“But this is the story of Eugénie Grandet,” he said; “you are telling
me one of Balzac’s romances.”
Sebastião looked at him in astonishment.
“One cannot speak seriously to you,” he said; “I tell you, on my honor,
that it is true.”
“Very good, Sebastião; continue.”
There was a pause. The bald individual contemplated the stuccoed
ceiling, which was blackened by smoke and by fly-marks, stroking his
gray beard with his dirty hand. His mourning necktie was fastened by a
pinchbeck pin. They could hear the sounds of a discussion going on in
the billiard-room.
Sebastião, as if coming to a sudden resolution, said abruptly,--
“You must know, then, that now he goes there every day.”
Julião stretched himself on the divan where he was seated, and looked
fixedly at Sebastião. The dark glasses of his spectacles glittered in
the light.
“You want to confide something to me, eh, Sebastião?” he said. “You
think the cousin is in love with her still?” he added, with a vivacity
that had in it something of gayety.
Sebastião was shocked. “Julião!” he said severely, “one does not jest
about these things.”
“But it is evident he is in love with her still,” replied Julião,
shrugging his shoulders. “How innocent you are! He was her sweetheart
when she was a girl, and now that she is married he wants to go back to
their old relations.”
“Speak lower,” said Sebastião.
But the waiter still slept, and the bald individual was engrossed in
his melancholy reading.
“The same story as always,” said Julião, lowering his voice. “Cousin
Bazilio is right; he is in search of pleasure without responsibility.
You know, friend Sebastião, what an influence that has over the
feelings. She has a husband who clothes and maintains her; who watches
by her when she is sick, and puts up with her when she is nervous; who
bears all the burdens, all the annoyances, all the responsibilities
of married life,--you know that is the law. Consequently the cousin
has only to present himself, and he finds her amiable, attractive,
charmingly attired, all at the cost of the husband, and--”
He began to laugh, and rolled a cigarette, with an evident sense of
enjoyment in these malicious suggestions. “And he is right,” he added.
“All cousins reason thus; Bazilio is her cousin; therefore-- You know
the syllogism, Sebastião,” he said, slapping him on the thigh.
“A thousand devils!” exclaimed Sebastião, frowning. “So, then, you
think an honorable woman--” he added, rebelling against such a
supposition.
“I think nothing,” responded Julião.
“Speak lower, for Heaven’s sake!”
“Well, then, I think nothing,” repeated Julião, in a lower voice; “I
state her actual position; but, as she is an honorable woman--”
“She is so!” said Sebastião, bringing down his hand with violence on
the table.
“Coming, sir!” said the waiter.
The bald old man rose; but seeing that the waiter went back yawning to
the counter, and that the two friends continued sipping their sherbet,
he rested his elbows on the table, and again taking up the newspaper,
fixed his melancholy gaze upon it.
“The question is not of her,” said Sebastião, sorrowfully. “The
question is--the neighbors.”
They were silent for a moment; the dispute in the billiard-room grew
more violent.
“But what have the neighbors to do with it?” said Julião.
“They have this to do with it. They see the young man entering the
house. He goes there in a carriage, and attracts the attention of the
neighborhood. They have been gossiping about it already, and have gone
with their stories to Aunt Joanna. Some days since I met Netto, who had
observed it, and Correa also. Nothing takes place in that house which
the furniture-dealer does not notice and talk about; they have dreadful
tongues. Yesterday I went out to take a walk, and I met the cousin
getting out of his carriage at the door. Immediately every tongue in
the street was set going; every eye was on the watch. He goes there
every day. They know that Jorge is in Alemtejo. He remains there two or
three hours. It is a serious business,--a very serious business.”
“But is she mad?”
“No; but she sees nothing bad in all this.”
Julião shrugged his shoulders.
The door of the billiard-room opened; a man of tall stature, with a
heavy black mustache, came out abruptly, much excited, and, pausing on
the threshold, cried out to some one within,--
“Do not forget that I am at your service whenever you please!”
A hoarse voice responded from the billiard-room with an obscene
expression.
The gigantic individual shut the door furiously, and passed through the
café, muttering to himself. A thin young man, in a winter overcoat and
white trousers, followed him, staggering.
“What I should have done,” cried the giant, waving his arms, “was to
have given him a slap in the face.”
The thin young man answered with an expression of suavity and
obsequiousness,--
“Disputes lead to nothings Senhor Correa.”
“The truth is, that I am too considerate,” yelled the giant; “and I
do not forget that I have a wife and children.” And he went out, his
hoarse voice lost in the noises of the street.
“Do you think it would be well to warn her?” said Sebastião, after a
moment’s reflection.
Julião shrugged his shoulders, and puffed the smoke from his cigarette.
“Tell me,” said Sebastião in tones of entreaty, “will you go and speak
to her?”
“I!” answered Julião, with a repellent expression on his countenance.
“Are you mad?”
“But, in fine, what is your opinion?” There was something in
Sebastião’s voice that bordered on anguish.
“Go you, if you wish. Tell her you have noticed--In truth, I don’t
know--” And he began to bite the end of his cigarette.
His silence troubled Sebastião.
“I have come to you to ask your advice,” he said desperately.
“But, what the deuce do you want? That is her affair--yes, hers,” he
repeated in answer to Sebastião’s glance. “She is twenty-five years
old, and she has been married nearly four years; she ought to know that
one does not receive daily visits from a good-looking young man in a
little street, with the whole neighborhood on the watch. If she chooses
to do so it is because it suits her.”
“Oh, Julião!” exclaimed Sebastião with severity. “You are wrong, very
wrong,” he added, with emotion. And he relapsed into a sorrowful
silence.
“Friend Sebastião,” said Julião, rising, “I say what I think; do you
what you think right.” And he called the waiter.
“Stop,” said Sebastião. “Leave that to me.”
They were about to go out, when the bald individual, laying down his
newspaper, hastened to the door and opened it for them with a bow, at
the same time handing Sebastião a folded paper. Sebastião, surprised,
read aloud mechanically,--
“The undersigned, a former employee of the State, reduced to poverty--”
“I have been the intimate friend of the noble Duke of Saldanha,” whined
the bald individual.
Sebastião colored, bowed, and discreetly handed him five
_tostões_. The bald individual bowed profoundly, and said in a
sonorous voice,--
“A thousand thanks, your Excellency!”
CHAPTER VIII.
PLAYING WITH FIRE.
ON the following day, at an early hour in the afternoon, Joanna,
leaning back in an old willow arm-chair, was already sleeping the
siesta. As she rose at five every morning, and sometimes even earlier,
she enjoyed to the full this hour of rest. The blinds were closed to
exclude the light, the pot on the fire sent forth its drowsy murmur,
all the house seemed sunk in a silent stupor by the torrid heat, when
Juliana entered the kitchen with an angry air, and throwing a bundle of
soiled clothes on the floor, exclaimed,--
“May I be struck dead by lightning if the scandalous behavior in this
house does not end by becoming public talk!”
Joanna awoke in terror.
“Whoever wants to have things done to suit them should see to it
themselves!” cried Juliana, her eyes bloodshot with passion. “There is
no need to be all day in the parlor gossiping with visitors!”
The cook shut the door in alarm.
“What is the matter, Senhora Juliana? What has happened?” she said.
“What has happened? Why, that she has been stung by a wasp! I am ready
to burst with anger.”
She spoke in shrill and strident accents.
“She avails herself of every pretext to scold,” she continued; “I am in
no mind to put up with her any longer; no!” And she stamped her foot
furiously on the floor.
“But what has happened?”
“She said her collars were badly ironed, and then she began to talk a
string of nonsense. I am tired of it now. I have had enough of it. Let
her not provoke me any more! I shall leave the house, but I will tell
her the reason to her face. Ever since men have been coming here she
has behaved shamefully. When one begins an intrigue--”
“Senhora Juliana, for the love of God!” exclaimed Joanna, putting her
hands to her head. “If the mistress should hear you!”
“So much the better! I would say it to her face. I have had enough
of it, and more than enough!” But all at once she was seized with a
violent attack of faintness. She turned pale as death, and sank into a
chair, her hands pressed to her heart, and her eyes turned up so that
only the whites were visible.
Joanna shook her, and began to call her in a frightened voice,--
“Senhora Juliana! Juliana! Speak to me!” She sprinkled water on her
face. “The Virgin help us! Are you better? Speak!”
Juliana gave a deep sigh of relief, and closed her eyes. She drew her
breath slowly and painfully, as though completely exhausted.
“How do you feel? Do you want some broth? It is debility; that must be
it.”
“It is the heart,” murmured Juliana.
“Of course; those fits of passion are killing her,” said the cook to
herself, as she prepared the broth, pale as Juliana herself. “One
must put up with one’s mistress,” she said aloud. “You should take
nourishing food, and not allow yourself to get excited.”
Luiza, dressed in a white morning-gown, here opened the door and asked
what was the cause of this noise.
“It is Juliana, who does not feel well.”
“A pain in the heart,” murmured Juliana, biting her pale lips with her
yellow teeth. “If the senhora does not need me,” she added, rising with
difficulty, “I will go to see the doctor.”
“Yes, do so,” returned Luiza, going downstairs again.
Juliana took her broth slowly, as if she had hardly strength enough to
lift the spoon to her lips. Joanna consoled her in low tones. And then,
the Senhora Juliana was too easily excited. When one’s health was poor,
there was nothing worse than to allow one’s self to get excited.
“The thing is, that you do not know what all this may end in,” said
Juliana, lowering her voice and lifting her eyebrows. “This cannot
last; she is dressing herself now as if she were going out. She
crumpled up a number of collars and threw them on the floor, saying
that everything I iron is a disgrace to look at, and that I know how to
do nothing. I say this is too much!”
“One must have patience. Every one has his cross to bear.”
Juliana gave a sickly smile, rose with a groan of pain, gathered up the
soiled clothes, and went upstairs. A few moments afterwards she left
the house, her hands covered with black gloves, her face of a yellow
hue, and showing dark circles under the eyes. But on turning the corner
of the street she paused in front of the tobacconist’s, as if undecided
what to do. The walk to the doctor’s house was so long! Her knees were
bending under her, but--to spend three _tostões_[6] in a carriage!
“Pst! pst!” some one called to her from the other side of the street.
It was the tobacconist, with her long black gown, her oily,
lemon-colored face, and her sad smile.
“Where may the Senhora Juliana be going?” she said. “To take a walk?”
Then she complimented Juliana on her black parasol with its bone
handle; she thought it in good taste. And how was her health?
Bad; she had just had an attack, and was going to see the doctor. But
the tobacconist had not an atom of confidence in the doctors; it was
throwing money in the street to consult them. She cited the illness
of her husband, the expenses,--a gold-mine! And what for? To see him
suffer and die as if nothing had been done for him. It was a waste of
money that she had not yet forgotten.
And she sighed, “Well, we must take things as they come.” And what was
there new at her house?
“Nothing.”
“Tell me, Senhora Juliana, who is that young man who goes there every
day?”
“The cousin of the mistress,” responded Juliana.
“They are very fond of each other!”
“So it would seem.” Then she added, coughing, “Well, good afternoon,
Senhora Helena.” And she continued on her way, muttering, “Go ask some
one else for news, you scarecrow; you will get nothing out of me!”
Juliana detested the neighbors. She knew they made sport of her; that
they mocked her, and called her _old parchment_; therefore she was
resolved that it should not be through her they would know anything.
They might burst with curiosity, for what she saw and heard she would
keep to herself,--“to make use of when the occasion should offer,” as
she angrily thought.
The tobacconist remained standing at her door, very much puzzled. Paula
the furniture-dealer, who had seen her talking to Juliana, came up to
her, shuffling his feet, encased in carpet slippers, along the ground.
“Has _old parchment_ unbosomed herself to you?” he said.
“I have not been able to get a word out of her,” she answered.
Paula put his hands in his pockets, and said with a disgusted
expression,--
“The wife of the engineer bribes her. It is she who carries messages,
who opens the little door at night.”
“I cannot believe that!”
“Senhora Helena,” said Paula, looking at her with a superior air, “you
are always in your shop; but I--I know what women of high society are,
to the very tips of their fingers. They are a vicious lot!”
“That is all through the want of religion,” sighed the tobacconist.
“Religion,” said Paula, shrugging his shoulders, “is what it is, and
the priests are what they are.” And he added with clenched fists, “The
priests are a mass of living rottenness!”
“Senhor Paula, it ought to weigh upon your conscience to speak so.” And
the yellow countenance of the tobacconist assumed a severe expression
of reproach.
“All that is talk, Senhora Helena,” exclaimed Paula in derisive
accents; and he added roughly, “Why are there not more convents? Why
does everything go topsy-turvy in those there are?”
“Senhor Paula!” stammered Helena, retreating. “It is scandalous! At
night the nuns go by a subterraneous passage to meet the friars, and
such orgies! You read that in every book!” And raising himself on the
points of his toes, he added, “And the Jesuits, what do you say of
them? Come!”
But he paused suddenly, and taking off his cap, said respectfully,
“Your servant, Senhora.”
It was Luiza, who just then passed by, with her veil down. They looked
after her in silence when she had passed.
“She is certainly very pretty!” murmured the tobacconist.
“She is not a bad piece of goods,” said Paula, nodding his head,--“for
him who likes the stuff,” he added with disdain.
There was a pause, which Paula broke by saying roughly,--
“I am not the one to waste my time running after petticoats.”
He went into the shop whistling, to roll a cigarette; but pausing
suddenly, he fixed his eyes with an expression of indignation on one
of the windows of the house of the engineer, in which he had just seen
the dissipated countenance of Pedro the carpenter. He turned to the
tobacconist, with folded arms, nodding his head.
“So, while the mistress goes in search of her pleasure,” he said, “the
young fellow settles accounts with the servant!” And he went away
slowly.
Luiza at last drove out into the country with Bazilio. She consented to
do so only the day before they went, saying it was “simply to take a
drive, without getting out of the carriage.”
They had agreed to meet in the Praça da Alegria. She arrived late at
the rendezvous, which was for half-past two, hiding her face under
her parasol, and looking frightened. Bazilio was waiting for her in a
coupé, under the shade of a tree at the right of the Praça, smoking. He
opened the door, and Luiza, closing her parasol, entered the carriage;
her gown caught on the step, and she pulled it away with violence,
tearing the silk flounce. Then she seated herself at his side out of
breath and very nervous, her face suffused with blushes, and said in a
low voice,--
“What madness!”
The horse set off at a trot.
“How tired you are, my little one!” said Bazilio, softly. He raised
her veil; her large eyes shone with excitement, partly the result of
fear, partly of the haste with which she had come.
“How warm it is, Bazilio!”
He wished to lower one of the windows of the coupé.
“No, not now; we might be seen,” she said. “When we are outside the
city.”
“Where shall we go?”
Luiza raised up the little curtain, and looked out.
“Let us go towards Lumiar; that is the best place. Shall we?” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. All places were alike to him.
Luiza recovered her tranquillity; she took off her veil and gloves,
smiling, and fanned herself with her handkerchief, which diffused a
delicate perfume around. Bazilio caught her hand and pressed on the
fine skin with its delicate blue veins long and ardent kisses.
“You promised me to be sensible,” she said to him smiling, and looking
at him from under her long lashes.
“One kiss, a single kiss on the arm! What harm is there in that? Don’t
be prudish.” And he looked at her with an ardent glance.
The curtains of the coupé were of red silk, and the light that filtered
through them enveloped her in a soft rose-colored aureole; her lips
were of a humid red, like the petal of a rose, and in the liquid depths
of her eyes gleamed a starry light. Unable to control his emotion, he
passed his trembling fingers over her hair and brow with a tenderness
that had something of cowardice in it.
“Not even a kiss on the cheek?” he said humbly.
“Only one?” asked Luiza.
He kissed her softly on the cheek near the ear; but this contact
inflamed his desires. He caught her to his breast with ardor, and
pressed kisses on her neck, her face, her hat--
“No, no!” she murmured, resisting. Then, with determination, “I want to
get out!” she cried.
She endeavored to open one of the windows, shaking the glass, and
bruising her fingers against the hard and dirty strap.
Bazilio begged her to forgive him. What folly! To get angry for a kiss!
She was so beautiful! he said; her beauty had turned his head; but he
swore he would be more rational in future.
The carriage jolted on towards the suburbs of the city; on either side
stretched, motionless in the sunlight, rows of olive-trees of a dusty
green; the rays of the sun beat down fiercely on the burnt grass.
Bazilio had opened one of the windows, and the curtain fluttered softly
in the breeze. He began to talk to Luiza of himself, of his love for
her, of his plans. He had resolved to establish himself in Lisbon, he
said. He did not want to marry. He loved her, and his sole desire was
to pass his life at her feet. He said he was weary of existence; that
all his illusions were destroyed. What could life offer to him now?
He had experienced the sensations produced by ephemeral passions, by
adventures, by travel; he already felt himself old.
“Not so very old,” said Luiza, with humid eyes.
Ah, yes, he was old! he repeated. All he desired now was to live for
her, to repose in the sweetness of familiar intercourse with her; she
was all the family he had. He spoke of himself as her relative. He said
family ties were the best thing the world had to bestow.
“May I smoke?” he interrupted himself to say, lighting a cigar. “The
best thing life can give,” he resumed, “is a profound affection like
ours; is it not so? I shall be contented with little,--to see you every
day, to converse with you, to possess the certainty of your affection.
‘Eh, Pinteos,’ he called through the door of the carriage, ‘drive out
into the country!’”
The driver obeyed. Bazilio raised the curtain, and a fresher atmosphere
penetrated into the carriage. The sun shed a brilliant light on the
trees, through whose leaves it filtered, casting their glowing shadows
on the ground.
“I shall dispose of everything I possess abroad,” continued Bazilio,
“and settle down in Lisbon, in a little house in the neighborhood of
Buenos Ayres, perhaps. Tell me, would that please you?”
She was silent. These promises, to which the vibrating voice of Bazilio
gave a passionate force, produced in her a confusion of the senses like
that caused by wine; her breast palpitated.
“When I am at your side,” said Bazilio, “I am so happy; everything
pleases me.”
“If all that you say were only true!” sighed Luiza, leaning back among
the cushions of the carriage.
Bazilio put his arm around her waist, and swore to her that it should
be true. It was his intention to dispose of everything he had, and to
live upon his rents. He began to give her the proofs; he had already
spoken to an agent, whose name he mentioned,--a dry old man with a
sharp nose. And pressing her to his breast with an ardent glance,--
“And if it were true, what would you do?” he said.
“I do not know,” she murmured.
They reached Lumiar, and Bazilio, through considerations of prudence,
lowered the carriage-blinds. Luiza raised one of them slightly, and
looking out, gazed as they passed them by, at the trees covered
with dust, the walls of a villa painted a dirty rose-color, some
mean-looking houses, an empty omnibus, some women seated before their
doors in the shade, combing their children’s hair, and a youth dressed
in white, with a straw hat, who stopped to look fixedly at the drawn
blinds of the coupé. She thought to herself that it would be delightful
to live here in a villa standing back from the road, a cool little
house with climbing plants festooning the windows, vines supported
by stone pillars, rose-bushes, walks shaded by trees whose branches
formed an arched roof overhead, and a little spring under a lime-tree,
to which the servants would go in the morning, singing, to wash the
clothes. And in the evening she and Bazilio would walk across the
fields under the starry sky, listening in silence to the monotonous
croaking of the frogs. She closed her eyes. The slow movement of the
carriage, the presence of Bazilio, the contact of his hand with hers,
set her blood on fire. She felt a vague desire expand her soul, as the
wind expands the sail, and turned pale.
“What are you thinking of?” said Bazilio, in a low voice.
Luiza blushed and remained silent. She was ashamed to utter her
thoughts aloud.
Bazilio gently took her hand in his, with respect and tenderness, as
if it were something holy and precious, and kissed it softly, with the
humility of a slave and the fervor of a devotee. This gentleness, so
humble, so touching, moved her, made her nerves vibrate; and she leaned
back in a corner of the coupé, unable to restrain her tears.
What was it? What was the matter with her? he asked. He caught her in
his arms and embraced her, saying to her in passionate accents,--
“Shall we fly together?”
The bright tears rolling down her beautiful countenance made her look
still more interesting, and gave to his feeling for her a tinge of
sadness.
“Fly with me now! Let us go to the ends of the earth!” he cried.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” she murmured, sighing. She leaned back in the
carriage silently, and covered her face with her hands.
“The fact is,” he said to himself, “that I do talk a great deal of
nonsense.”
Luiza dried her tears with her handkerchief.
“This is only nervousness,” she said. “Let us go back. Shall we? I do
not feel well; tell the driver to turn back!”
Bazilio obeyed. The drive back was somewhat silent. Luiza complained
of a slight headache. He took her hands in his and repeated his former
expressions of tenderness. He called her his dove, his ideal, and as he
did so he said to himself that she was his.
They stopped in the Praça da Alegria. Luiza glanced cautiously around,
and then sprang quickly out of the carriage.
“Until to-morrow,” she said. “Don’t fail.”
She opened her parasol and walked rapidly up the street, towards the
Patriarchal. Bazilio lowered the windows of the carriage, drew a
deep breath of satisfaction, and stretching out his legs said to the
driver,--
“Hey, Pinteos! Quick, to the Gremio!”
In the reading-room his friend the Viscount Reynaldo, who had lived in
London and Paris for many years, was buried in an easy-chair languidly
reading the “Times.” They had come together from Paris, with the
agreement to go also together to Madrid. But Reynaldo was overwhelmed
by the heat; he found the temperature of Lisbon melting. He wore dark
spectacles, and went about saturated with perfumes on account of the
ignoble ill-odor of Portugal, as he said. As soon as he perceived
Bazilio, he threw away the newspaper, and letting his arms fall by his
side, said in a fatigued voice,--
“And the affair of the cousin? Is it to be settled or not? This is
horrible, my dear fellow,--horrible! It is killing me; I must go
north--to Scotland! Let us finish at once with this cousin.”
Bazilio threw himself into an easy-chair, and stretching himself,
said,--
“Everything is going on well.”
“Make haste, my dear fellow, make haste,” said the viscount.
He took up the “Times” again, yawned, and called for soda.
“English soda!” he added.
They told him there was none in the house. Reynaldo looked with an air
of consternation at Bazilio, and murmured in a hollow voice,--
“What a wretched country!”
CHAPTER IX.
DRAGON’S TEETH.
WHEN Luiza returned home, Juliana, who had not yet changed her dress,
said to her at the door,--
“Senhor Sebastião is in the parlor. He has been waiting a long time;
for he was here when I got back.”
He had been waiting, in fact, for half an hour. When Joanna, her face
flushed, and looking as if she had been suddenly roused from sleep,
opened the door for him and told him that her mistress was not at home,
Sebastião’s first impulse was to go away, pleased at having escaped
a difficult task. But he resisted this feeling, entered the house,
and waited. He was resolved to speak to Luiza, to warn her that these
frequent visits of her cousin in a neighborhood so given to gossips as
was hers might compromise her. It was indeed terrible to say this to
her; but it was his duty, for her own sake, for her husband’s, for the
peace of the household. He was obliged to warn her; it was his duty
to do so. At this thought his timidity vanished. In the face of an
imperious duty he summoned all his energy to his aid. His heart beat
a little faster, it is true; he turned pale, but he resolved to warn
her. He walked up and down the parlor, with his hands in his pockets,
mentally framing sentences that had a friendly and delicate turn. But
when the bell rang, and a moment afterwards he heard the rustle of her
dress in the hall, his courage collapsed, like a balloon from which the
gas has escaped. He ran to the piano and began to play with spirit.
When Luiza entered the room, her face flushed, without her hat, and
taking off her gloves, he rose, and said, smiling,--
“I have come to chat with you awhile. I waited. Where have you been?”
Luiza seated herself with an air of fatigue. She had been to the
dressmaker’s, she said. How warm it was! Why did he not come oftener?
And a thousand thanks for the flowers! “I receive no visits of
ceremony,” she added. “Only those of my cousin, who has returned from
abroad.”
Sebastião remained seated on the piano-stool, and softly rubbed his
knees.
“And your cousin,--is he well?” he asked.
“Quite well,” she returned. “He comes here often. The poor fellow is
very lonely in Lisbon. He has been accustomed to live abroad.”
“True,” said Sebastião.
“And Jorge, has he written to you?” asked Luiza.
“I received a letter from him yesterday.”
She too had received a letter. They spoke of Jorge, of his _ennui_
in Alemtejo, of the account he gave in his letters of Sebastião’s
eccentric relative, of the length of time he would still remain away.
“I miss the rascal,” said Sebastião.
Luiza coughed; she was slightly pale, and she passed her hand from
time to time across her forehead, closing her eyes with an air of
weariness.
“I have come, my dear friend--” Sebastião began abruptly, as if he had
adopted a sudden resolution. But seeing her seated on the edge of the
sofa, her head bent down, her hand pressed to her eyes, he added,--
“What is the matter with you? Are you in pain?”
“A sudden headache. I felt it coming on in the street.”
“And I am troubling her,” said Sebastião to himself, taking up his hat.
“Do you want anything?” he said aloud. “Do you wish me to go for the
doctor?”
“No; I shall lie down awhile, and it will pass away.”
Sebastião charged her above all things not to allow herself to get
chilled. Perhaps it would be well for her, he added, to apply a mustard
plaster, or a couple of slices of lemon, to the temples; and in any
case, if she did not feel better, to send for him.
“It will be nothing. Come again, Sebastião, and don’t forget me.”
Sebastião went away, drawing a deep breath, and saying to himself,--
“Good heavens! I have not the courage to speak to her.” But chancing
to raise his eyes, as he stood in the doorway, he saw before him the
dark interior of the coal-shop, and the broad face of the coal-vender,
attired in a white morning-gown, on the watch to see who came out of
the house. On the floor above, the three Azevedos put their ringletted
heads together, behind the old muslin window-curtains, in diabolical
conclave; behind her window the professor’s servant was sewing,
looking out of the corner of her eye at every passer-by; and from the
furniture-shop came forth the hoarse sounds of the patriot’s bronchitis.
“A rat cannot pass,” thought Sebastião, “without all these people
taking note of it. And what tongues! Come, I must make up my mind, and
at once! To-morrow, if I can bring myself to it, I will speak plainly
to her if she is better.”
On the following morning, when Juliana wakened her mistress at nine
o’clock to give her a letter from Leopoldina, Luiza was in fact as well
as ever.
Leopoldina’s servant Justina, a thin and vulgar-looking woman, with a
thick mustache and a squinting eye, was waiting in the dining-room.
She was a friend of Juliana. They never met without an exchange of
kisses and compliments. After putting Luiza’s answer into a little
basket which she carried on her arm, Justina said with a smile, as she
arranged her shawl,--
“What is there new here, Senhora Juliana?”
“Nothing, Senhora Justina. The cousin of the mistress,” she added in a
lower voice, “comes here every day, that’s all. A good-looking fellow!”
Justina smiled again, showing her false teeth. Her squinting eye
looking inquiringly at Juliana.
“I don’t think so,” said Juliana, in answer to that mute interrogation,
“at least not for the present.”
“Well, good-by,” said Justina, arranging her shawl again. “It is
growing late. My mistress is coming to dine here to-day. I have spent
the whole morning, since seven o’clock, ironing petticoats.”
“And I too,” replied Juliana.
Just then Luiza rang.
“Good-by, Senhora Juliana,” said the other, putting on her hat.
“Good-by, Senhora Justina.”
She accompanied her to the landing, and they embraced each other once
more. Juliana then hastened to Luiza’s room; she found her mistress
already up and dressing herself, smiling gayly.
Leopoldina’s letter, written in slanting lines, and full of gross
mistakes in orthography, was as follows:--
“My husband is going to-day to the country. I shall go to dine with
you, but not before six. Will this be agreeable to you?”
The letter put her in a good-humor; it was now some weeks since she had
seen her friend. How they would laugh and chat together! And Bazilio
was to come at two. A perfect day!
She went to the kitchen to give orders for the dinner, and as she was
coming downstairs Sebastião’s servant entered, with a bunch of roses,
and a message inquiring how she was.
“Better, much better,” said Luiza. And to reassure Sebastião, in order
that he might not call, she added that she was, in fact, quite well,
and would perhaps go out.
“The roses,” she thought, “have come just in time.” And she placed them
herself in the vases, singing as she did so, her glance animated,
pleased with herself and with her manner of life, which was now
interesting and full of incidents.
At two, already dressed, she went into the parlor, and seated herself
at the piano to practise the “Medjé” of Gounod, which Bazilio had
brought her, and which she took pleasure in singing, on account of its
tender and passionate character. At half-past two she began to grow
impatient, and her fingers no longer touched the keys with certainty.
“He ought to be here now,” she thought. She opened the windows and
glanced out into the street; but the professor’s servant, who was
sewing at the window, raised towards her a pair of eyes so full of
curiosity, that she closed it quickly, and began to play again with
nervous haste. She heard a carriage coming down the street, and rose,
with her heart palpitating; but the carriage rolled by.
Three o’clock! It seemed to her that it had grown warmer, that the heat
was almost insupportable; she felt suffocating, and went to her room to
powder her face. What if Bazilio should be sick! And in a hotel! Alone,
at the mercy of careless and indifferent servants! But no; in that case
he would have written to her. If he did not come it was because he did
not want to come. Egotist! He did not deserve that she should distress
herself in this way about him. But she was positively suffocating! She
went to look for a fan, and with nervous hand shook it angrily because
it did not open quickly enough. Since this was his character, she would
refuse to see him. Thus everything would be at an end between them.
And all at once she beheld in imagination this passionate love vanish
like smoke carried away by the wind. She felt relieved, and experienced
an intense desire for rest. It was in truth absurd, with a husband like
Jorge, to let her thoughts dwell on any other man,--on a feather-head,
a weathercock.
Four o’clock struck. She was seized with a fit of desperation; she ran
to Jorge’s writing-table, took a sheet of paper, and wrote feverishly:--
“DEAR BAZILIO,--Why do you not come? Are you sick? If you
knew the anguish you make me suffer--”
The bell rang. Was it he? She folded the letter, put it into her
pocket, and waited with a beating heart. Masculine steps sounded on
the floor of the parlor. She looked up with radiant eyes. It was
Sebastião,--Sebastião, looking somewhat pale,--who affectionately
pressed her hands in his. Was she better? Had she slept well? he asked.
“Yes, thanks,” she answered; “I am better.”
She seated herself on the sofa, her face suffused with blushes; she
was scarcely conscious of what she was saying, and repeated with a
vague smile, “I am much better.” And she thought to herself, “Now, this
tiresome man will stay here all day.”
“You did not go out?” asked Sebastião, seating himself in an arm-chair,
his hat in his hand.
No; she was rather tired, she answered.
Sebastião passed his hand slowly over his forehead, and, in a voice
that his embarrassment rendered deeper than usual,--
“I understand,” he said, “that you do not want for society.”
“No,” returned Luiza, casting down her eyes and arranging the folds of
her dress. “My cousin has arrived in Lisbon. It is so long since we
have seen each other! We were brought up together, and he comes to see
me almost every day.”
Sebastião drew his chair a little nearer to the sofa, and said in a low
voice,--
“It was to speak of this matter that I have come.”
“What matter?” asked Luiza in astonishment.
“They begin to notice already. The neighbors are the worst of all, my
dear friend. They see everything. They begin to gossip already; the
professor’s servant,--Senhor Paula. These rumors have even reached the
ears of Aunt Joanna; and as Jorge is not here,--as these people are
ignorant of your relationship, and Bazilio comes to see you every day--”
“So that,” said Luiza, rising abruptly, and pale to the lips, “I cannot
receive my relatives without being insulted!”
Sebastião had risen at the same time. This sudden burst of anger from a
woman so sweet-tempered as Luiza frightened him as a tempest from the
serene sky of summer might have done.
“But, my dear friend,” he said hesitatingly, “I speak of this because
the neighbors have done so; I do not say that. It is on account of the
neighbors.”
“But what can they say?” asked Luiza, in a voice trembling with
passion, and clasping her hands together. “It is in truth strange! I
have but one relative in the world, with whom I was brought up, and
whom I have not seen for years; he comes to see me a few times, stays
each time a few moments, and people begin to gossip about it already!”
She spoke as if she really believed what she said, forgetful of
Bazilio’s words, of his kisses, of the coupé. Sebastião stroked his hat
with a trembling hand.
“I thought it right to warn you,” he said; “Julião too--”
“Julião!” she exclaimed. “What has he to do with the matter? By what
right does he meddle with what takes place in my house?”
The intervention of Julião seemed to her another insult. She threw
herself into a chair, pressing her hands to her heart and raising her
eyes to heaven.
“My God! if Jorge were only here!” she exclaimed. “If Jorge were only
here!”
“It is for your own good,” stammered Sebastião.
“But let us discuss the matter. What harm could come from this? He is
my only relative. We were brought up together. He was always at our
house in the street of the Magdalena, and he dined with us every day as
if he had been my brother. When I was little he used to carry me in his
arms.”
And she accumulated details of their intimacy, exaggerating some,
inventing others, haphazard, on the impulse of her anger.
“He comes,” she continued, “he remains a moment, we have some
music,--for he plays admirably on the piano,--he smokes a cigarette,
and then he goes away.” She thus sought instinctively to justify
herself.
Sebastião was struck dumb. This woman, who inspired him with terror,
seemed to him to be not Luiza, but some one else, and he was almost
overwhelmed by the force of her angry voice, which he had never thought
could be so stern, so eloquent.
“I thought, Senhora,” he said, rising with an air of dignified sorrow,
“that it was my duty to let you know.”
There was a moment of solemn silence. His firm, almost severe accents
compelled Luiza to pause in her torrent of words; she cast down her
eyes, and said in a low and troubled voice,--
“Forgive me, Sebastião; but, in truth, I assure you I am infinitely
obliged to you for warning me. You have done right, Sebastião.”
“It was in order to avoid the calumnies uttered by those vipers’
tongues. Am I not right?”
He sought to justify his intervention, happy in seeing her pacified.
He reminded her that a complete intrigue is often fabricated out of a
word, and that being forewarned--
“You are right, Sebastião,” she repeated. “You have done well to let me
know.”
She sat down. Her eyes still sparkled, and from time to time she passed
her handkerchief over her lips.
“But, finally, what ought I to do, Sebastião?” she asked.
“I am at a loss to say, my dear friend!” He was moved at seeing her
thus yield and ask to be advised, and he reproached himself for
disturbing, by his interference, the pleasure of her friendly relations
with her cousin.
“It is clear,” he said, “that you ought to receive your cousin; but it
is well to observe a certain reserve in the matter, on account of the
neighbors. In your place I should tell him--I should say to him--”
“But tell me,” she interrupted, casting down her eyes, “what do these
people say?”
“They ask one another, ‘What is the matter?’ ‘What is going on?’ ‘Who
enters the house?’ ‘Who leaves it?’”
“I have already said so to Jorge,” cried Luiza, rising abruptly; “and
not only once, but many times. It is impossible to live in this street;
a leaf cannot stir without being noticed.”
“It cannot be helped.”
There was another pause. Luiza paced up and down the room with bent
head and frowning brow; then, stopping before Sebastião, she said to
him with an uneasy glance,--
“If Jorge were to hear of this, how it would annoy him!”
“There is no need for him to hear of it,” answered Sebastião quickly.
“All this should remain between ourselves.”
“So as not to distress him; is it not so?”
“Of course. Then you are not angry with me?” he added, holding out his
hand to her almost with timidity.
“I, Sebastião? What folly!”
“I am very glad. I thought it my duty; for, after all, my dear friend,
you knew nothing of all this.”
“Far from it.”
“Just so. Good-by, then; I do not wish to trouble you further.” And he
added, much moved, “I am always at your service.”
“Good-by, Sebastião. But what a hateful set of people they are! All for
having seen that poor fellow enter the house three or four times.”
“_Canaille_!” replied Sebastião. And he took his leave.
Luiza followed him with her eyes, and when the door had closed behind
him, said to herself,--
“What an outrage! This could happen to no one but me!”
In reality, the interference of Sebastião irritated her as much as the
gossip of the neighbors. Her manner of life, her visitors, her domestic
arrangements, were discussed, noted, by Sebastião, by Julião, by
_tutti quanti_. At twenty-five she had a mentor. It was amusing!
And why, good heavens! Because her cousin and only remaining relative
came to see her!
But she paused abruptly. The glances of Bazilio, his ardent words, his
kisses, the drive to Lumiar, all came back to her memory. She blushed
before herself, but her anger still continued to protest. It was true
she felt some tenderness for him, but it was a feeling for which she
had no cause to blush,--pure, ideal, platonic,--for never should it be
any other. She might feel in the depths of her heart a weakness for
him, but she would be always, always a virtuous woman, faithful to
her husband. This sense of self-security produced in her a feeling of
irritation towards the gossips of the neighborhood. Why should they,
only because they saw Bazilio enter her house four or five times at
two o’clock in the afternoon, begin to gossip about her, and tear
her character to pieces? Sebastião was a ridiculous fellow, with all
the timorousness of a hermit. What an idea was his to call Julião
into consultation! Julião!--he it was who had instigated him by his
_bourgeois_ fears to trouble and annoy her. And why? Through envy,
because Bazilio was good-looking, elegant, and rich.
The good qualities of Bazilio presented themselves to her imagination
as splendid and as numerous as the attributes of a deity. And he
adored her, and desired to be always near her! The love of this man,
who had tasted of so many pleasures and scorned the affection of so
many women, seemed to her the glorious confirmation of her beauty and
her irresistible charms. The very pleasure she felt in his adoration
of her made her fear to lose it. She feared to see it diminish; she
desired to see it rather always increasing, floating around her like
a cloud of incense. Could she bear to part from Bazilio? But, on the
other hand, if her friends or the neighbors made her the subject of
gossip or remark, Jorge might come to know of it. This thought struck
a chill to her heart. After all, Sebastião was evidently right. In a
small neighborhood, consisting of a dozen houses or so, this handsome
and elegant young man visited her every day in the absence of her
husband. The matter looked serious. What ought she to do? The bell rang
loudly, and a moment later Leopoldina entered. She was furious with
the coachman, who had wanted to make her pay double fare because he
had been detained on the way. The scoundrel! And how warm it was! She
took off her hat and gloves and held up her hands, moving them gently
that the blood might flow from them and thus leave them whiter. She
arranged her curls before the looking-glass, her cheeks glowing, her
perfectly-fitted figure displayed to advantage.
“What is the matter, child?” she said to Luiza. “You look angry; your
face is flushed.”
“Nothing,” answered Luiza; “annoyances with the servants.”
“They are insupportable.”
And Leopoldina recounted the exactions of Justina, her carelessness.
But she thought herself very fortunate to be able to keep her, since
one has need of that class of people. She shrugged her shoulders and
sighed. Then, powdering her face, she added slowly,--
“My lord and master is in Campo Grande, and I had an engagement to dine
with--” She stopped with a smile, and turning to Luiza said to her
frankly, “The truth is, I did not know where to go, and I had no money.
The poor fellow, with nothing but his salary, cannot work miracles;
and I said to myself, ‘Let us go to see Luiza.’ What have you for
dinner--without ceremony, eh?”
“That of course.”
There was the same as always, she added, some delicious veal-cutlets.
“Have you no codfish?” said Leopoldina abruptly.
“There ought to be some. But why this caprice?”
“Tell them to prepare me a morsel. That stupid husband of mine detests
codfish. I dote on it, fried, with oil and garlic.”
She stopped, as if some disturbing thought had suddenly occurred to her.
“What is the matter?” asked Luiza.
“That I cannot eat garlic to-day,” she answered. She went into the
parlor, laughing, and taking one of Sebastião’s roses, fastened it in
her bosom. She would like to have a parlor like this one, she thought,
furnished in blue rep, with two large mirrors, and a portrait in
oil of herself, full length, the shoulders bare, standing beside an
elegant vase. She sat down at the piano and played a few fragments of
“Blue-Beard.”
“Have you given orders to prepare the codfish?” she asked Luiza, as the
latter entered.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Fried?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks,” she answered, and began to sing with an arch expression her
favorite song from the “Grande Duchesse,”--
“Once a grandfather I had,
As the chronicles relate.”
But Luiza thought this music too boisterous; she wanted something
sad--sweet--a _fado_, for instance.
“Yes, the new _fado_,” answered Leopoldina; “have you heard it? It
is charming, and the words are divine.”
She struck a few chords, looked up at the ceiling and sang, keeping
time with her head to the music:
“Yesterday a dark-eyed youth
I saw, whose grace and elegance--”
“Have you not heard it, Luiza? There can be nothing more touching; it
brings tears to the eyes.”
She resumed with infinite sweetness,--
“His face looks at me from the skies,
And from the mist that veils the sea;
And still his presence do I feel
Beside me, though he absent be.”
“It is ravishing!” Luiza murmured, with a sigh.
Leopoldina finished with an “ah!” on which her voice lingered with
inexpressible languor.
Luiza, seated near the piano, inhaled the perfume of new-mown hay
which Leopoldina was accustomed to use; the _fado_ and its words
inspired her with a gentle melancholy, and her dreamy gaze followed
Leopoldina’s slender and agile fingers, covered with rings, as they ran
over the keys.
Juliana, dressed in her best, and wearing her new collar, entered the
room and announced dinner.
Leopoldina rose. The announcement came in time, for she was dying of
hunger. The view from the dining-room, through the open windows of
which could be seen the green branches of the trees, the blue horizon
flecked with white clouds, charmed her, and she praised it volubly. Her
own dining-room was so dreary that it took away her appetite. It looked
out on an alley, so that--
She pecked like a bird at the grapes, olives, and candied fruits, and
her glance chancing to fall on the portrait of Jorge’s father, she
said, unfolding her napkin,--
“How amusing your father-in-law must have been! He has the face of a
monkey. What a long time it is since we have dined together!” she added
abruptly. “How long ago is it?”
“Not since the year after my marriage,” answered Luiza.
Leopoldina colored slightly. In those days they used to see each other
with frequency. Jorge allowed them to go together to shop, to the
confectioner’s, to Graça. The recollection of this former intimacy
brought to her mind their school-days. She had met Rita Pessara a few
days ago, she said, with her nephew.
“Do you remember him?” she asked Luiza.
“Espinafre?”
“Espinafre or not, he was for the pupils of the school a man, an ideal,
a hero; the girls all wrote love-letters to him, sent him drawings of
hearts pierced by arrows, and ornamented his greasy cap with paper
flowers.”
Leopoldina was in the humor for gossip; her glance was animated; she
helped herself abundantly; then she took up a morsel here and there on
the point of her fork, tasted it, put it down, ate slices of bread and
butter. She was exhilarated by these recollections of her school-days.
What happy times!
“Do you remember when we quarrelled?”
Luiza could not remember.
“It was because I was jealous of Thereza, on account of your kissing
her.”
They spoke of their school-fellows, their quarrels, their
reconciliations, Juliana, meantime, taking note of all they said. Her
perfidious smile, her flat face, and the metallic _tic-tac_ of
her heels gave them an uncomfortable feeling. When she left the room
Luiza said to Leopoldina,--
“Take care what you say before her.”
“Ah, yes,” responded Leopoldina, smiling; “you are right; we must
remember we are not alone.”
And when Juliana returned with the codfish she rewarded her by a
torrent of praises.
“Bravo! Superb! Delicious!”
She touched the codfish with the point of her fork. It was fried a
light brown, and fell apart in flakes.
“Now you shall see. You do not like this? You are the loser; it is
delicious.”
And she added with decision, “Bring me some garlic, Senhora Juliana,
and plenty of it.” And when the servant went out, she added, “I should
like to go by-and-by to make a visit, but--so much the worse. Ah,
thanks, Juliana,” as the latter returned with the garlic. “There is
nothing like garlic.”
She crushed the garlic between her fingers against the plate, and
sprinkled the pieces of codfish with oil, with a serious air. “Divine!”
she exclaimed.
She filled her glass anew, declaring that this was a holiday. “But what
is the matter with you?” she said abruptly, looking at Luiza.
Luiza, in truth, seemed preoccupied. She had more than once smothered a
sigh, and on two occasions had risen uneasily from her chair, saying to
Juliana,--
“I think the bell rang; go see.”
There was no one at the door.
“Who could ring?” said Leopoldina. “Were you expecting your husband?”
“Oh, no!”
“And your cousin, does he come to see you?”
“Yes,” answered Luiza, blushing; “he has been here several times.”
“Ah! And is he still as handsome as ever?”
“He is not ugly.”
“Ah!”
Luiza hastened to ask her if her check gown was finished yet. She said
it had not yet been sent home. They began to speak of gowns, stuffs,
shops, purchases. Then the roast meat was brought. Leopoldina’s cheeks
were now of a vivid red. She asked Juliana to bring her her fan, and
leaning back in her chair, declared she was as happy as a princess. She
drank her wine in little sips. What a good idea it had been to dine
together!
When Juliana had placed the fruit on the table, Luiza told her that she
might retire, and that they would ask for coffee when they wanted it.
She went herself and closed the door leading into the parlor, and drew
the portière.
“How tiresome that Juliana is!” she said. “I cannot raise my eyes
without seeing her. It makes me feel rebellious to see her always
beside me!”
“And why do you not dismiss her?”
“Because Jorge does not wish it. If it were not for that--”
“Husbands should have no will of their own,” Leopoldina protested.
She took a bite out of a peach, and declared that she detested men
who troubled themselves about the servants, the kitchen, the oil, the
vinegar--
“My lord and master weighs the meat!” she added. “But, after all, that
suits me, for the very thought of going into the kitchen sickens me.”
She sighed. She would have taken more wine, but the bottle was empty.
“Will you have some champagne?” asked Luiza with a laugh. “I have some
of a very good brand, that a Spaniard, the proprietor of a mine, sent
to Jorge.”
And she herself went to bring the bottle, took off its blue wrapper,
and amid bursts of laughter and little cries of affected terror
uncorked it. The sight of the foam in their glasses put them both in
good-humor, and they looked at the wine with an air of unspeakable
well-being.
Leopoldina said she knew exactly how to open champagne, and spoke
mysteriously of a certain supper. The Tuesday of Carnival-week two
years ago! If she were rich she would drink nothing, she said, but
champagne.
Luiza’s tastes were different; her ambition was to have a coupé. They
talked of what they would do if they were rich. Luiza’s desire was to
travel,--to go to Paris, to Seville, to Rome. The desires of Leopoldina
were more ambitious; she wished for a long life, carriages, a box at
the theatre, a season at Cintra, suppers, balls, dresses, play. She
loved _monte_, she said, which it made her heart beat to play; and
she felt sure that she would adore _roulette_.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “men are happier than we are. Nature meant me for
a man. How well it would have suited me!”
She rose and seated herself lazily in the easy-chair beside the window.
Twilight was softly falling; beyond the green plot of ground in front
golden clouds fringed with a brilliant red floated in the atmosphere.
“A man may do anything he wishes; nothing he does is criticised. Has it
never occurred to you, Luiza, to run away,--but entirely alone?”
Luiza laughed.
“Never!” she replied. “What nonsense!”
Besides, she thought the position of a woman alone in the world
horrible, she said,--at hotels hampered by luggage.
“You are right,” returned Leopoldina. “I should like to smoke a
cigarette,” she added abruptly.
“Yes; but Juliana might perceive the smell of the smoke, which would
have a very unpleasant effect upon her.”
“This is a convent, my dear,” replied Leopoldina. “Your prison is not
an ugly one,” she added.
Luiza did not answer. She leaned her head on her hand, her gaze fixed
on vacancy, like one absorbed in thought.
“All this is folly,” she said. “The sole reality in this world is to be
happy in one’s house with one’s husband and children.”
Leopoldina gave a jump in her chair. “Children!” she exclaimed. She did
not want even to speak of them. She thanked God every day of her life
for not giving them to her.
“Horrible!” she exclaimed in accents of conviction. “They are a
burden,--expense, trouble, sickness. Heaven deliver me from them! When
they grow up they stick their noses into every corner; they tell tales.
A woman with children is good for nothing; tied hand and foot; without
any pleasure in life. Not to speak of how it disfigures a woman,”
she continued; “there is no beauty of figure that can resist that.
One loses one’s chief attraction. If one were like your friend Donna
Felicidade, it would not matter; but when one is tall and well-formed,
it is different.”
She rose, displaying her figure airily, in a graceful attitude.
“Thanks,” she said, sitting down again. “We have troubles enough
without that one in addition.”
Just then an organ in the street began to play the final _aria_
of “Traviata;” night was falling, and the open ground in front began
to take on a uniform grayish tint. The façades of the houses were
disappearing in shadow. The notes of the “Traviata” brought to Luiza’s
mind the “Dame aux Camelias;” they began to speak of the novel, and to
interchange opinions concerning it.
“How deeply I was in love with Armand when I was a girl!” said
Leopoldina.
“And I with Artagnan!” responded Luiza, ingenuously.
And they both laughed heartily.
“We began early. Early?” Leopoldina continued. “Every woman begins
early. At thirteen we are already in love. We are all of us women, and
have the same feelings.” And swaying her body to and fro, while she
kept time with her foot, she sang to the air of a _fado_:--
“Love is like a fever
Whose seeds are in the air;
Open but the window,--
It sets the blood on fire.”
“In a word, it is the best thing life can give us. Everything else is
a weariness. Is it not so? What do you say?” she added, rising, and
clapping Luiza lightly on the shoulder.
“Yes,” returned Luiza, in a low voice; “I suppose so.”
“You suppose so!” repeated Leopoldina. “How innocent! Look at the
angel, the hypocrite!”
The organ in the street began to play a waltz. Leopoldina, who was
in the humor for dancing, hummed softly, keeping time with her body.
Without doubt she was a graceful woman! She approached the window,
looked out at the night falling slowly, and suddenly said with
emphasis,--
“Is it in truth worth while to pass privations, to lead the life of an
owl, and spend one’s days doing penance, in order some day to get a
fever, a sunstroke, or the pneumonia, and be carried to the cemetery of
S. João? What a piece of stupidity! What do you say?”
Luiza was disturbed by these remarks. She felt herself blush; and the
influences of the hour, together with Leopoldina’s words, produced
in her a dangerous languor. Notwithstanding this, she pronounced
Leopoldina’s ideas _immoral_.
“But why immoral?” asked Leopoldina.
Luiza spoke vaguely of duty, of religion. But the word “duty” was
displeasing to Leopoldina. If there was anything she disliked to hear
spoken of, it was duty.
They were silent. Luiza called for coffee. Juliana entered with the
tray, and a light. Shortly afterwards they went into the parlor.
“Do you know who spoke of you to me yesterday?” said Leopoldina to
Luiza, leaning back on the divan.
“Who?”
“Castro.”
“What Castro?”
“The one who wears eye-glasses,--the banker.”
“Ah!”
“He is still in love with you.”
“He is a silly fellow,” said Luiza, laughing.
The parlor was dark and the windows were open. The growing darkness
and the softness of the air diffused a sense of peace around. At that
instant the sound of heavy steps was heard in the street below, and
almost at the same moment a flood of light from the gas-lamp on the
sidewalk streamed into the room, filling it with a soft brightness.
Leopoldina rose. “What!” she cried; “are they already lighting the gas?
And my friend will be waiting for me.”
She went into the dressing-room in the dark to put on her hat and get
her parasol. But to go alone,--and so far! If Juliana might accompany
her.
“Of course,” answered Luiza.
Luiza rose languidly, breathing a deep sigh; opening the door, she
stumbled on the threshold against Juliana.
“Heavens! what a fright you gave me!” she exclaimed.
“I came to see if the ladies wanted a light.”
“No; put on your shawl to accompany the Senhora Leopoldina. Be quick!”
Juliana hurried away.
“When shall I see you again?” asked Luiza.
“As soon as possible,” Leopoldina said. She thought of going to Oporto
in a few days to see her Aunt Figueiredo, and afterwards of spending a
fortnight in Foz.
The door opened.
“When the senhora is ready,” said Juliana, in her harsh accents.
They embraced each other warmly, and Luiza said in a low voice to
Leopoldina,--
“How much I have enjoyed myself!”
When she was alone she opened the blinds, lighted the candles, and
began to walk up and down the floor. Presently she seated herself
languidly at the piano, and began to sing _sotto voce_, and with
sorrowful intonation, the _fado_ of Leopoldina,--
“And still his presence do I feel
Beside me, though he absent be.”
This picture of solitude and abandonment saddened her. What tedium,--to
be always alone! The beauty of the night, warm and tranquil, filled
her with a longing to take a romantic walk, or to sit quietly in some
garden, her hands clasped together, gazing at the heavens. What a
stupid life she led! And Jorge--what an idea to go off to Alemtejo! Her
conversation with Leopoldina recurred to her at every moment, and the
effects of the champagne began to be felt in the feverish excitement of
her blood. The clock in her dressing-room slowly struck nine, and at
the same instant the bell rang. She was startled. It was too soon for
Juliana to have returned. She listened in agitation; she could hear the
sound of voices in conversation on the landing.
Joanna appeared in the doorway.
“Senhora,” she said in a low voice, “it is your cousin, who has come to
say good-by.”
“Ask him to come in,” stammered Luiza, suppressing a cry.
Her large eyes were fixed eagerly, and with steadfast gaze, upon the
door. The portière was raised, and Bazilio entered, pale and smiling.
“You are going away!” she said, standing in front of him.
“No,” he answered, embracing her,--“no; I thought you would not receive
me at this hour, and I invented this pretext.” He pressed her more
closely to his breast; she allowed him to do so unresistingly, and
their lips met in a kiss.
“My life! my love!”
“You frighten me,” said Luiza, sighing profoundly.
“Is that true?”
Luiza did not answer; little by little she lost the clear perception
of things; she felt a drowsy languor stealing over her senses, and
murmured faintly,--
“No! no!”
At ten o’clock the bell rang loudly. It was Juliana. She went upstairs
to the kitchen, gave a little cough, and said with a smile to Joanna,--
“At what time, then, is the cousin coming to see the mistress?”
“He came this evening, after you went out.”
“Ah!”
She went downstairs with the lamp, and hearing Luiza moving about in
her bedroom, “Does the senhora want anything?” she asked with interest.
“No,” responded Luiza.
Juliana went into the parlor; she closed the piano, and walking with
stealthy step, glanced eagerly around. Suddenly she paused. At the foot
of the sofa she saw something shining on the carpet. It was a brooch of
Luiza’s,--an amethyst set in gold. She re-entered Luiza’s bedroom on
tiptoe, and placed the trinket on the toilet-table.
“Who is that?” asked the sleepy voice of her mistress from the alcove.
“It is I, Senhora; I was shutting up the parlor. Good-night, Senhora.”
CHAPTER X.
IN THE TOILS.
NEXT morning Juliana entered her mistress’s bedroom with a letter in
her hand, saying, with an air of mystery, that a servant from the hotel
had brought it, and was waiting downstairs for an answer.
Luiza with a trembling hand opened the large blue envelope, with its
monogram, “B. B.,” in purple and gold, surmounting a count’s coronet.
“Very well; there is no answer.”
“There is no answer,” Juliana repeated to the man, who was waiting in
the little passage, smoking a cigar and twirling the ends of his black
mustache.
“There is no answer? Very well. Charming weather!”
He saluted her stiffly with his hand, and went down the steps, humming
a tune.
“Who rang, Senhora Juliana?” the cook asked her.
“It was nothing,” Juliana muttered,--“a message from the dressmaker.”
From this time forth Joanna observed a change in her fellow-servant.
When she took her coffee in the kitchen she no longer chatted with the
cook as before; she seemed preoccupied, as if her thoughts were in
some other place. Joanna was so struck by this that she even asked
her,--
“Do you feel worse, Senhora Juliana?”
“I? Thank God, I never felt better.”
“You are always so silent!”
“Thoughts that I have here within my head. One is not always in the
humor for talking.”
As she was shaking out the skirt of the gown her mistress had worn the
day before, her hand came in contact with a paper in the pocket. It was
the letter Luiza had written to Bazilio:--
“Why do you not come? If you knew what you make me suffer--”
There was an instant during which Juliana silently bit her lip, and
gazed at the letter fixedly, with greedy looks. Finally she put it back
again into the pocket. She folded the gown and laid it carefully on the
tête-à-tête. Then, hearing the cuckoo-clock striking, she went to call
Luiza, saying in mellifluous accents,--
“It is half-past ten, Senhora.”
Luiza, still in bed, had read and re-read Bazilio’s letter. He could
wait no longer, he wrote, to tell her that he adored her. He could not
sleep. He had risen with the dawn to tell her that he was madly in love
with her, and that he placed his life at her feet.
He had composed this letter at three o’clock in the morning, in the
Gremio, after a few rubbers of whist, a beefsteak, two glasses of beer,
and a glance at the “Illustração;” and he ended it by saying:--
“Let others desire fortune, fame, honors; I desire only you! Only you,
dearest, because you are the only tie that attaches me to life; and if
to-morrow I should lose your love, I swear to you that I would put an
end to this useless existence with a bullet.”
He called for more beer, and laid the letter aside in order to date it
at his hotel and put it into an envelope bearing his monogram, because
that always had a better effect.
Luiza sighed, and kissed the paper devoutly! It was the first time he
had employed these expressions of tenderness in writing to her, and
her pride expanded in the warmth of the affection they breathed, as
the pores of the body open in the warmth of an aromatic bath. She was
conscious of an increase of affection on her own part, and she felt
she was entering at last on a more interesting existence, in which
each hour had its own peculiar charm, in which every step led to a new
transport, and in which the soul was steeped in a blissful wealth of
sensations.
She sprang from bed, hastily put on her dressing-gown, and raised the
window-shades. What a beautiful morning! It was one of those days
at the end of August in which summer seems to pause, reluctant to
depart. There was a stillness in the warm air, and a certain autumnal
tranquillity in the light; the sun sent down his rays in unclouded
splendor, and the blue of the firmament shone with a limpid brightness;
one could breathe more freely, and the passers-by did not manifest the
depressing languor that had ushered in the summer. She anticipated a
few hours of happiness; she felt joyous; she had slept with a peaceful
sleep the whole night through, and all the agitation and the impatience
of the past days seemed to have vanished during that repose. She looked
at herself in the glass, and saw that her complexion was clearer,
fresher, that there was a humid tenderness in her glance. Perhaps what
Leopoldina had said was true,--“that there was nothing like a spice of
wickedness for making one beautiful.” She had a lover! Motionless in
the middle of the room, her arms folded, her gaze fixed, she repeated
to herself, “I have a lover!” She recalled the scene in the parlor last
night, and those periods of silence in which life seemed to pause,
while the eyes in the portrait of Jorge’s mother--eyes whose blackness
was enhanced by the pallor of the countenance in which they were
set--gazed at her from the wall with the fixed gaze of a portrait. At
this moment Juliana entered the room with a basket of freshly-ironed
linen. It was time to dress.
What care she bestowed upon her toilet that morning! She perfumed
herself with _eau-de-Lubin_; she selected the finest of her
embroidered wrappers. And how she longed to be rich! She desired to
possess finer linen, more elegant furniture, costly jewels, a coupé
lined with satin. For in impressionable temperaments the joys of
the heart have a tendency to round and complete themselves with the
sensualisms of luxury. The first fault of the hitherto innocent soul
prepares the way for graver transgressions, as the thief who steals
into the house he designs to rob unscrupulously opens the doors to his
ravenous followers.
At the hour of breakfast she appeared in the dining-room, looking cool
and fresh in her white morning-gown; Juliana hastened to close the
blinds. She waited on her at table with tenderness, and seeing that she
was eating a great many figs, said to her, almost with tears in her
eyes,--
“They will hurt you, Senhora.”
She hovered noiselessly around her, a servile smile on her lips. She
seemed to regard her with pride, as if she were a dear and precious
being, all her own, her little mistress; while in her mind she said,
glancing askance at her,--
“Ah, you cunning fox!”
Luiza threw herself on the sofa after breakfast to look over the
“Diario de Noticias,” but she could not read. Remembrances of the night
before surged up in her soul at every moment. She remained motionless,
her humid gaze fixed, feeling those remembrances vibrate slowly and
softly along the chords of her memory. The recollection of Jorge had
not yet abandoned her; his spirit had hovered over her since the night
before, but it neither tormented nor frightened her. It was there,
but motionless, causing her neither fear nor remorse. It was as if
he had died, or as if he were so far away that he could not return,
or had abandoned her. She was terrified to find herself so tranquil;
but she grew impatient at perceiving that this idea remained constant
in her spirit, impassable, with the obstinacy of a spectre; and she
instinctively nought to justify herself. Then she thought of Bazilio.
She resolved to answer his letter, and went to the study. On entering
it her glance fell on Jorge’s portrait, life size, in its black
enamelled frame. A shudder passed through her; she felt chilled to the
heart, as if she had suddenly descended into a vault out of the warm
sunshine; she let her eyes dwell on his waving locks, on his black
beard, on his dotted necktie, on the two swords placed crosswise over
the portrait. If he were to know of it he would kill her!
She turned pale; she looked vaguely around her; his gun hung on the
wall; the rug in which he wrapped his feet lay folded in a corner;
on a table at the farther end of the room were his large sheets of
drawing-paper, his tobacco-canister, and his pistol-case. He would
assuredly kill her! The room was so pervaded by Jorge’s personality
that she felt as if he might return at any moment and enter it. What
if he should return without writing to let her know! It was three
days since she had received a letter from him, and perhaps now, while
she was here writing to her lover, the other might appear before
her and surprise her at her task. But it was folly to think it. The
steamer from Barreiro did not arrive till five o’clock; and besides,
he had Said in his last letter that he would probably remain in
Alemtejo a month longer. She sat down at the table, took a sheet of
paper, and began to write, in her somewhat large hand, “MY ADORED
BAZILIO.”
But an importunate terror seized upon her; she felt something like a
presentiment that Jorge would come home and suddenly appear before her
in the study. She rose, went slowly to the parlor, and sat down on the
sofa; then, as if the recollections of the night before had inspired
her with the courage of a guilty love, she returned with decision to
the library, and wrote rapidly:--
“You cannot imagine with what joy I received your letter this
morning--”
The rusty pen refused to write. She dipped it once more in the ink
and shook it, making, through the trembling of her hand, a dark blot
on the paper This disturbed her, for it seeming to her a bad omen.
She hesitated a moment, and resting her elbows on the table, leaned
her head in her hands, listening to Juliana as she swept the pavement
outside, humming the “Carta Adorada.” Finally she tore up the letter
with impatience into little bits; and threw them into a varnished box
with two metal handles which stood beside the table, and into which
Jorge threw old and useless papers; they called it the sarcophagus.
Juliana was certainly careless in emptying it, Luiza thought, for it
was overflowing with papers. She took another sheet and began again:--
“MY ADORED BAZILIO,--You cannot imagine what I felt when I
received your letter this morning on rising--”
The door opened discreetly, and Juliana said from the threshold,--
“The seamstress is here, Senhora.” Luiza, startled, hid the letter with
her hand.
“Let her wait,” she answered.
And she continued writing, when Juliana had gone:
“What a pity it was the letter and not you yourself that came! I am
astonished at myself,--to see how, in so short a time, you have taken
possession of my heart. But the truth is that I never ceased to love
you. Do not judge lightly of me for this; do not think ill of me
because I desire your affection. I never ceased to love you, and on
seeing you again after that stupid journey to a place so far away, I
could not conquer the feeling that impelled me towards you, my adored
Bazilio. When that hateful servant came to tell me that you had come
to say farewell, I was as if paralyzed; but when I learned that this
was not the truth, I cannot tell you how I adored you! If you had
asked my life, I would have given it to you, for I love you so much
that I myself am amazed at it. But why that piece of deception? Why
did you come? I wished to bid you farewell forever, but I could not,
adored Bazilio. This feeling is stronger than I am. I always loved
you, and now that I am yours, heart and soul, it seems to me that I
love you more than ever, if that were possible--”
“Where is she? where is she?” cried a voice in the parlor.
Luiza sprang up from her seat, livid. “It is Jorge!” she thought. She
crushed the letter convulsively in her hand, and tried to hide it in
her pocket, but there was none in her morning-gown. Without stopping
to think, and half distracted, she threw it into the sarcophagus. She
remained standing, waiting in suspense, her hands resting on the table.
The portière was raised, and disclosed the blue velvet hat of Donna
Felicidade.
“Shut up here? What were you doing? But what is the matter? You are as
white as chalk.”
Luiza dropped into the arm-chair, pale and cold, and answered with a
languid smile,--
“I was writing, and I had an attack of faintness.”
“Ah, I am the one for fainting,” said Donna Felicidade. “It is a real
misfortune. The moment least expected I am obliged to catch hold of
the furniture to keep from falling; and I am even afraid to go out
alone. It all comes from biliousness.”
“Let us go to my room,” said Luiza; “we shall be more comfortable
there.”
They traversed the parlor. Juliana was beginning to put it in order.
Luiza, in passing, noticed some ashes on the marble of the console,
under the oval mirror; it had been left there the night before by his
cigar. She wiped it away, and on raising her eyes was frightened to see
how pale she was.
The seamstress, dressed in black, with a bright red hat, was waiting,
seated on the edge of the sofa, with her disconsolate air, and her
bundle resting on her knees. She had come to try on the waist of a gown
she was making over. She sat down and basted it, with an expression of
sorrowful humility, and a little dry cough; and scarcely had she gone,
gliding out like a shadow, when Donna Felicidade began to speak of
him,--of the counsellor. She had seen him at the Moinho de Vento. Well,
he had not spoken to her. He bowed to her very coldly, markedly so,
indeed, and left her so suddenly that one might suppose he was running
away from her. She asked Luiza what she thought of that. Ah, this
indifference was killing her. And she could not understand it,--no,
truly, she could not understand it.
“In short,” she exclaimed, “I know very well what I am. I am no beauty,
but neither am I, on the other hand, a scarecrow,--is it not so?”
“It is, indeed,” assented Luiza, absently, her thoughts fixed on the
letter.
“Look at me, as I sit here, with my forty years [by her own account,
in reality fifty]. I am still worth something. As for my neck and
shoulders, they are as good as any one’s.”
Luiza was about to rise, but Donna Felicidade repeated,--
“Yes, as good as any one’s! How many there are who would like to own
them!”
“I believe it,” responded Luiza, smiling vaguely.
“And he is no boy, either.”
“No.”
“But he is very well preserved.” And her eyes shone. “He might still
make a woman very happy.”
“Very.”
“A very interesting man,” sighed Donna Felicidade.
“Wait an instant,” interrupted Luiza. “I am going inside; I will be
back in a moment.”
“Go, child, go!”
Luiza ran to the library, and went straight to the sarcophagus. It was
empty! And her letter! Good Heavens! Terrified, she called Juliana.
“Did you throw away the papers in this box?” she asked.
“Yes, Senhora, I emptied it,” Juliana answered tranquilly. And she
added, with an air of interest, “Why? Has the senhora lost anything?”
Luiza turned pale.
“Yes; a paper I threw into the box. Where did you put the papers?”
“In the rubbish-basket, as usual. I did not suppose there was anything
of any use among them.”
“Ah! I will see if it is there.”
And Luiza went quickly upstairs to the kitchen. Juliana followed her,
saying,--
“It was just this instant; it is not five minutes ago. The box was so
full. I went to put the library in order. Good Heavens! if the senhora
had only told me!”
But the rubbish-basket was empty; Joanna had just that moment emptied
it in the drain. Seeing Luiza’s disquietude, the cook asked her,--
“Has the senhora lost anything?”
“A paper,” Luiza answered, very pale, looking around her on the floor.
“It might have fallen from the basket outside,” Juliana suggested,
hesitatingly.
“Go; go see, Joanna!” said Luiza, with a gleam of hope.
Juliana appeared distressed.
“Heavens! if I had only known it! Why did not the senhora tell me?” she
said.
“Well, well, it is no fault of yours.”
“I am very much distressed about it. Was it anything of importance,
Senhora?”
“No; it was a bill.”
“Good Heavens!”
Joanna returned, smoothing out a crumpled paper.
Luiza snatched it from her, and read: “The diameter of the first pit to
be explored.”
“No; this is not it,” she exclaimed with an air of vexation.
“Then it has been thrown into the drain, Senhora.”
“Did you search well for it?”
“I have done so thoroughly.”
And Juliana added, in the greatest distress,--
“I would rather have lost ten _tostões_. If I could only have
guessed it!”
“No matter, no matter,” murmured Luiza, with apparent tranquillity.
But she was secretly terrified; a vague suspicion tormented her. She
suddenly remembered the letter she had written to Bazilio the day
before, and which she had crumpled up and put into the pocket of her
gown. She returned to her room very much agitated. Donna Felicidade had
taken off her hat, and was comfortably seated on the tête-à-tête.
“You must excuse my absence,” she said to her.
“Of course, of course, child. What was the matter?”
“I have lost a bill,” said Luiza.
She went to the wardrobe, and found the letter in her pocket. This
reassured her; doubtless her other letter had been thrown into the
drain. But how imprudent she had been!
“Well, there is nothing more to be done about it,” she said, seating
herself resignedly.
Donna Felicidade, lowering her voice to a confidential tone, at once
began,--
“I have come to speak to you about something. It is a secret.”
Luiza was startled.
“You know,” continued Donna Felicidade, very slowly, and dwelling on
each word, “that my servant Josefa is going to be married to the young
man who goes on errands for me. The man is from Tuy, and he says
that in his part of the country there is a woman who has a gift for
making marriages which is truly miraculous. He says there is nothing
for it,--that as soon as the cards are dealt for a man, he conceives
for the woman who causes it to be done so violent a passion that the
marriage is arranged immediately, and the greatest happiness follows.”
Luiza, reassured, smiled.
“Listen,” continued Donna Felicidade; “don’t begin now with your usual
objections.”
In the solemn accents of Donna Felicidade there was a note of
superstitious respect.
“He says she has wrought miracles,” she continued; “men who had
abandoned girls after deceiving them, others who neglected their
sweethearts, husbands who had ceased to care for their wives,--in a
word, in every case of the kind it operates with magic speed. The man
first grows melancholy, then enamoured, and ends by being madly in love
with the woman he has scorned. The man has told me all about it, and I
have resolved at once--”
“To employ this magic charm with the counsellor,” said Luiza.
“What do you think of it?” returned Donna Felicidade.
Luiza burst out laughing. Donna Felicidade was almost angry.
“Among other instances I might mention two in which the magic virtue of
the spell acted in a striking manner. But the servant,” she continued,
growing excited, “says that in order to go to his native place and
speak with this woman it is necessary to take the likeness of the
counsellor with him, and mine also; and for going there, consulting
her, and returning, he demands seven pieces of silver.”
“Oh, Donna Felicidade!” exclaimed Luiza, reprovingly.
“Hush! don’t begin now with your objections. Heaven grant that I may be
another instance of her miraculous powers!” And straightening herself,
“But those seven pieces of silver--seven pieces of silver!” she
exclaimed, with wide-open eyes.
Juliana appeared at the door, and said in a low voice, with a smile,--
“Will the senhora do me the favor to come here a moment?”
Luiza followed her into the hall.
“This letter,” she said, “has just come from the hotel.”
Luiza turned crimson.
“Very well,” she answered; “but there is no need of all this mystery.”
She did not return to the room immediately, however. Presently she tore
open the envelope. The letter was written in haste, and with a pencil.
When she had read the letter, which was from Bazilio, she rejoined
Donna Felicidade, making an effort to appear composed.
“What is your opinion?” asked the latter, completely absorbed in her
idea. “Do you think I ought to send this man to Tuy?”
Luiza shrugged her shoulders; she was seized with a sudden contempt for
those plots and magic arts employed in the service of a decrepit love.
Beside the poetical superiority of her own romantic intrigue there was
to her something repugnant in this senile sentimentalism.
“Follies!” she said, with an accent of profound disdain.
“Oh, my dear, don’t say that to me!” responded Donna Felicidade,
disconsolately.
“Very well, then; send him, send him,” said Luiza, impatiently.
“But those seven pieces of silver!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, almost
weeping.
“For a husband, it seems to me cheap.”
“And if the cards deceive?”
“Then it is dear.”
Donna Felicidade exhaled a profound sigh. She was very unhappy. This
struggle between the impulses of the heart and the counsels of economy
made her suffer intensely. Luiza was sorry for her, and said to her, as
she took one of her gowns from the wardrobe, “Never mind it, my dear;
those magic arts will not be necessary.”
Donna Felicidade raised her eyes towards heaven.
“Are you going out?” she asked Luiza in a melancholy voice. And she
proposed to her that they should go together to the Encarnação; they
would call to see poor Donna Ana Silveira, who was afflicted with a
boil; and they could also take a look at the preparations being made
in the chapel, where they were about to use for the first time a new
altar-front exquisitely carved.
“I should like to make the stations for the relief of my indigestion,”
she added, sighing.
Luiza agreed; she felt a desire to see altars blazing with lights, to
hear the murmur of the prayers in the choir, as if devout phrases were
in harmony with the sentimental mood of her spirit. She began to dress
herself quickly.
“How plump you are!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, looking at her bare
neck and shoulders in surprise.
Luiza looked at herself smilingly in the glass, pleased with the
graceful contours of her figure, and with the fineness and whiteness of
her skin.
“I am rather plump,” she said.
“Plump! you are getting to be like a ball,” said her friend; and she
added enviously, “Look at you with your dresses, with a husband like
yours, with everything you want, and without a single care!”
“Come,” said Luiza, banteringly, “your troubles do not seem to make you
thin.”
“But they affect me, nevertheless,” she said disconsolately, as if she
were weighed down under the burden of her cares. “Everything inside is
in a deplorable condition,--my stomach, my liver.”
“If the woman of Tuy works a miracle, they will be as good as new
again.”
Donna Felicidade smiled, with an expression of mingled doubt and
sadness.
“Do you know that I have a charming hat?” suddenly exclaimed Luiza.
“Have you seen it?”
She went to the wardrobe and took it out. It was of straw, adorned with
myosotis.
“What do you think of it?” she asked.
“It is beautiful!”
Luiza looked at it, giving the little blue flowers a touch with her
fingers here and there.
“It makes one feel cool to look at it,” said Donna Felicidade.
“Does it not? Try it on.”
The elder woman put it on carefully, with a serious air.
“It is very becoming to me,” said Luiza.
“Bazilio will find you charming in it,” replied her friend.
At this unexpected mention of Bazilio’s name a sudden ecstasy
of happiness took possession of Luiza. Everything seemed to her
delightful,--to exist, to go out, to visit the Encarnação, to think of
her lover,--and she went about as if she floated on air, without even
feeling the weight of her own person. Where had she left her keys? She
wanted them to get something she needed. On the bureau? Perhaps. She
went to see. She ran out, giddy with happiness, singing,--
“Amici, la notte è bella.
La ra, la ra.”
She nearly stumbled over Juliana, who was sweeping the dining-room.
“Do not forget to iron my embroidered petticoat for to-morrow,
Juliana,” she said to her.
“No, Senhorita; it is already starched.” And following her with a
ferocious glance, “Yes, sing,” she said; “sing, accursed one; sing,
vile woman!”
She herself, seized with a sudden fit of merriment, rapidly giving
the floor a few light strokes of the broom, began to sing in shrill
accents,--
“Day after to-morrow the campaign begins again,
They say here; if it be not an idle tale.”
And she added with emphatic intonation, “I shall be very happy!”
On the following day, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, Sebastião
and Julião were walking in S. Pedro de Alcantara. Sebastião had just
given his companion an account of his interview with Luiza, adding that
since then his estimation for her had increased. At first, indeed,
she had been very angry; but she was excusable for being so. It was
a mistake to take her by surprise, as he had done. But when the poor
child had had time for reflection she had shown herself very much
distressed, very jealous of her honor. She had asked his advice with
tears in her eyes.
“I thought afterwards that it would be better to speak to the cousin,
and tell him what is going on. What do you think?”
“Yes,” returned Julião, vaguely.
He had been listening to Sebastião abstractedly, biting the end of his
cigar. His countenance, of a clay-like pallor, looked still more sombre
than usual.
“Do you think I have done right? Tell me,” Sebastião continued. And
after a pause, “She is a virtuous woman in the fullest sense of the
word, Julião,” he added.
They remained silent. The day was cloudy, and there were signs of a
coming tempest in the air. Large clouds, heavy and gray, had been
gathering in the heavens, and now darkened the horizon in the
direction of Graça; a creeping wind came from time to time from behind
the hills, setting the leaves of the trees in motion.
“You are now convinced of that,” resumed Sebastião. “Is it not so?”
Julião shrugged his shoulders, and a melancholy smile passed over his
lips.
“What would I not give if my troubles were like yours!” he said.
And he then began to speak with bitterness of his own anxieties. Within
a week the examinations for the place of a substitute in the School
were to take place, and he was preparing for it. It was the plank on
which he hoped to escape shipwreck, he said. If he could obtain that
position he would be able to make a name afterwards, and get sufficient
practice to enable him to live,--perhaps, after a time, to amass a
fortune. And what the deuce! At least he would not have to go out. But
the certainty of his own superiority did not tranquillize him, for in
Portugal,--was it not so?--in these matters, science, study, talent,
are all a farce if one has not influence, and he had none. And his
competitor, an ignorant fellow, was the nephew of a director-general,
had acquaintances in the Chamber, was in fact a formidable opponent. So
that while he worked hard to pass the examination, he was also seeking
a wedge with which to displace his adversary. To whom should he apply?
“Do you know no one, Sebastião?” he asked.
Sebastião thought of a cousin of his, a deputy from Alemtejo, a person
of importance among the conservatives. If Julião wished, he would speak
to him. But he had always heard it said that nothing was obtained
in the School by favor or by intrigues. Besides, Julião had at his
disposal Counsellor Accacio.
“An idiot,” said Julião; “a bombastic fool! Who pays any attention
to him? Your cousin, eh? Your cousin seems to me a good idea. It is
necessary that some one should speak in my favor,--should work for me.”
He was going on to explain his thesis, when Sebastião interrupted him,
saying,--
“Here she comes!”
“Who, Luiza?”
Luiza was in fact just then passing by, dressed in black. She responded
to the salutation of the two gentlemen with a smile, waving an adieu to
them in some confusion.
Sebastião, motionless, following her devoutly with his eyes, said,--
“If that does not breathe of purity! God be with you, virtuous
creature! God be with you!”
CHAPTER XI.
A LOYAL FRIEND.
AS soon as Luiza began to go out regularly every day, Juliana said to
herself,--
“Good; now I am certain, when she goes out, that it is to meet that
coxcomb.”
And her attitude towards her mistress became more servile than ever.
She ran joyfully, with an obsequious smile upon her lips, to open the
door for Luiza when she returned home at five o’clock. And what zeal in
her service! What exactitude! If a button were wanting in a garment, if
a bill had been mislaid, it was, “A thousand pardons, Senhora; forgive
me this once,” followed by the humblest lamentations. She interested
herself, with real devotion, in the matter of Luiza’s health, of her
clothing, of what she ought to eat. Since her mistress had begun to go
out daily, Juliana’s work had increased; she was obliged to iron every
day; she was often obliged to wash stockings and cuffs till eleven
o’clock at night, or even later.
At six o’clock in the morning, and sometimes still earlier, she was
already with the smoothing-iron in her hand. Yet she did not complain.
On the contrary, she would say to Joanna, when washing or ironing,--
“It is a pleasure to look at so elegant a lady. Will you believe me,--I
can almost say that this gives me pleasure? And then, thank God! I
have good health now, and work has never frightened me.”
She no longer criticised her mistress; she affirmed repeatedly,--
“The senhora is a saint. I have never seen any one better.”
Her countenance lost something of its bilious hue, and of its bitter
contraction.
At times at dinner, or sewing in the evening, by the light of the
kerosene lamp, a sudden smile would cross her face, and her glance
would kindle with a genial light.
“The Senhora Juliana seems to be thinking of something pleasant,”
Joanna would say to her.
“The procession is going on inside, Senhora Joanna,” she would answer,
with an air of satisfaction.
To such a degree was her envious nature apparently changed, that she
even spoke with indifference of a silk gown which the professor’s
Gertrudes had worn for the first time on a certain holiday in
September. All she said was,--
“The day will come when I too shall be able to wear silk gowns, and
fine ones,--gowns made by a dressmaker.”
And by other words like these she betrayed her hopes in a time that was
drawing near. Joanna went so far as to say to her,--
“Does the Senhora Juliana, then, expect a legacy?”
“Perhaps,” she answered dryly.
And, notwithstanding, she detested Luiza more and more every day. When
she saw her in the morning adorning herself, perfuming herself with
Cologne-water, looking at herself in the mirror, going about singing,
she would leave the room, for she was seized with a fit of hatred,
and she feared to betray herself. She hated her for her dresses, for
her fine linen, on account of the man she went to meet, on account of
all her comforts and pleasures. When Luiza left the house she would
stand at the window gazing after her as she walked up the street,
exclaiming,--
“Amuse yourself, wanton, amuse yourself! My day, too, will surely come!”
Luiza did, in fact, amuse herself. She went out every day at two in
the afternoon. The neighbors would say to one another, as they watched
her,--
“The engineer’s wife has her S. Miguel now.”
Hardly had she turned the corner than the council would meet to sit
in judgment on her. They held it for certain that she went to meet a
gentleman. But where? This was the constant theme of the coal-vender.
“At a hotel,” Paula said on one of these occasions. “There is a great
deal of scandalous work going on in the hotels of Lisbon.”
The keeper of the tobacco-shop grew indignant: “A lady who had always
been so virtuous!”
“A cow let loose can easily take care of herself, Senhora Helena,”
Paula growled. “Women are all the same.”
“Not all; for I have always been an honest woman,” the keeper of the
tobacco-shop protested.
“And I,” added the coal-vender. “No one has anything to say against
me.”
“I speak of high society, of ladies, of those who wear silks; it is a
class that has gone to perdition. I know very well what I am speaking
about;” and he added, with an air of gravity, “There is more morality
among the people; the people are a different race.”
And with his hands buried in his pockets, and his legs wide apart, he
remained lost in thought, his head bent down, his gaze fixed on the
ground.
Sebastião, who had remained nearly a fortnight at his villa in Almada,
was terrified when, on his return, Aunt Joanna told him that Luiza
left her house every day at two o’clock, and that the cousin had not
returned there. Gertrudes had told her of it, and the neighbors talked
of nothing else.
“Then a poor lady cannot even go to the shops to buy what she wants,”
exclaimed Sebastião. “Gertrudes is a shameless creature; and I don’t
know, Aunt Joanna, how you can consent that she should put her foot in
this house, with her vile slanders.”
“No, you are unjust,” Joanna answered, angry in her turn. “The poor
woman only repeats what she hears in the street. She defended her,--she
defended her with obstinacy. But the neighbors say it, and every one
repeats it, and if they say it--”
Sebastião, recovering his serenity, replied,--
“But who are those who say it, Aunt Joanna?”
“Who are they? Every one in the neighborhood says it; every one in
the neighborhood,--every one in the neighborhood,” she repeated with
emphasis.
Sebastião was confounded. Every one in the neighborhood! Perhaps, then,
it was true! She went out every day now, and when Jorge was at home
she hardly ever left the house. The neighbors, who had gossiped about
the visits of the _other one_, began to make remarks about her
going out. This would injure her reputation. And he could do nothing.
Should he go and warn her? What for? To have another scene like the
former one? That could not be. He tried to see her,--not that he wished
to touch on this matter at all; he only wanted to see her. She was not
at home. He returned two days later. Juliana said to him at the door,
with her nauseously sweet smile,--
“She left the house a moment ago; she went in the direction of the
Patriarchal.”
At last he met her one day at the head of the street of S. Roque.
Luiza appeared very much pleased at seeing him.
“Why did you remain so long in Almada? What a desertion!” she said.
He told her the carpenters had been there, that it was indispensable
to superintend the work, and that he had, in truth, found it somewhat
tiresome.
“Jorge writes that he will be obliged to remain away some time longer,”
Luiza said; “I begin to lose patience, now. Without Julião, without the
counsellor, without any one--”
Donna Felicidade was the only person who went to see her occasionally,
and then only to stay a moment. She was always now at the Encarnação.
Those pious people--
And she burst into a laugh.
Where was she going now? Sebastião asked her.
“To make some purchases, and afterwards to the dressmaker’s.”
“Come to see me, Sebastião,” she added.
“I will.”
“In the evening I am always alone.”
That same afternoon Sebastião received a letter from Jorge. “Have you
seen Luiza?” it said. He was uneasy because he had not heard from her
for five days. “And then,” it continued, “she seems to be always very
busy, and writes only half a dozen lines, as the mail is just leaving.
Go tell the mail to wait. What the deuce! She complains that she is
lonely, that she is _ennuyée_, that all her friends have abandoned
her, that she lives in a desert. Go bear her company,” etc.
On the following day, towards evening, Sebastião went to see her. She
made her appearance dressed in white, and looking very much flushed, as
if she had been crying. She had reached home much tired, and had fallen
asleep on the sofa after dinner. And what news was there? she asked.
They spoke of the work done at Almada, of the counsellor, of Julião,
and then they were silent. There was something that retained the words
unspoken on the lips of both.
Luiza then lighted the candles on the piano; she showed Sebastião
the new music she was practising,--the “Medjé” of Gounod; there was
a phrase in it in which she always found some difficulty. She asked
Sebastião to play it over for her; and, standing beside the piano,
keeping time with her foot, she accompanied, in a low voice, the music,
to which the skilful execution of Sebastião gave a touching charm. She
wished to try it after him; but found the same difficulty as before,
and she went and sat down on the sofa, saying,--
“I hardly ever play now; my fingers are beginning to grow stiff.”
Sebastião did not venture to ask for her Cousin Bazilio. Luiza did not
even mention his name; and Sebastião, seeing in this reserve either
a diminution of friendship or a remnant of displeasure on her part,
said that he was obliged to go to a meeting of the General Society of
Agriculture. He went away very much grieved. Every day that passed
brought with it some new annoyance. Sometimes it was Aunt Joanna, who
would say to him in the afternoon,--
“Luizinha went out again to-day. With this heat, that is dangerous for
her health.”
Again it was the council of the neighbors, whom he saw, from a
distance, gathered together, and who were, to a certainty, tearing
to pieces the poor girl’s reputation. It seemed to him a repetition
of the aria of the _Calumnia_ in the “Barber of Seville.” The
voice of slander, at first soft as a zephyr, rises in a terrible
_crescendo_, until it bursts forth all at once like a clap of
thunder. He took a roundabout way so as not to have to meet the eyes of
Paula and the keeper of the tobacco-shop. He was ashamed of every one.
He chanced to meet Teixeira Azevedo, who said to him,--
“Has not Jorge come home yet? What the deuce! Does he intend to remain
away forever?”
And this trivial remark filled him with terror. At last he went one day
to look for Julião. He found him in his room in his shirt-sleeves, and
in slippers, uncombed, with a coffee-pot beside him. The dirty floor
was strewn with cigar-ends. Books were lying open on the unmade bed,
and on all sides were signs of great disorder.
At his entrance Julião straightened himself up; he shook himself,
rolled a cigarette, and said that he had been at work since seven
o’clock in the morning. Ah, it was a fine thing to work! He would like
to see how the Senhor Sebastião would stand it!
“For the rest, you have come just in time. I was about to send a
message to your house. I was to have received money, and it has not
come. Give me a _libra_.”
And then he began to speak about his thesis. The thing was turning out
well. He read paragraphs to Sebastião from the prologue, with paternal
delectation, well pleased with his labor. In a burst of confidence
resulting from his excitement he said, taking rapid strides up and down
the room,--
“I am going to show them that there are still Portuguese in Portugal,
Sebastião. I am going to open their eyes; you shall see.”
He sat down and began to number the sheets already written. Sebastião,
reluctant to disturb with private anxieties these lofty scientific
interests, said hesitatingly, and in a low voice,--
“I have come to talk to you about our friends.”
But the door opened suddenly, and a young man with a neglected-looking
beard and weak eyes entered the room. He was a student at the School,
and a friend of Julião. Almost immediately they recommenced a
discussion which they had begun in the morning, and which had been
interrupted at eleven o’clock, at which hour the young man with the
weak eyes was obliged to go to Aurea to breakfast.
“No, my dear fellow, no!” exclaimed the student, “I hold to my
assertion. Medicine is only a half-science; physiology is another
half-science; they are both conjectural sciences, because their
foundation--which is a knowledge of the principle of life--eludes our
research.”
And standing before Sebastião with folded arms, he added,--
“What do we know of the principle of life?”
Sebastião, with a sense of humiliation, lowered his eyes; but Julião
grew indignant.
“You are demoralized by the vitalist doctrine, unhappy man!” he cried.
“A theory which pretends that the laws which govern matter are not the
same as those which govern life is a scientific heresy, and Bichat, who
teaches it, an idiot.”
“Bah!” cried the student, beside himself with anger.
To call Bichat an idiot,--that was indeed idiocy. But Julião treated
the insult with contempt, and continued excitedly,--
“What does the principle of life matter to us? It matters as much to me
as the first shirt I put on. The principle of life is like every other
principle,--a secret of which we must remain forever in ignorance.
We cannot know the principle of anything. Life, death, the origin of
things, the purpose of them, are mysteries, are first causes with
which we have nothing to do, absolutely nothing. We may continue the
struggle for centuries, without advancing a step. The physiologist,
the chemist, have nothing to do with the principles of things. What
concerns them are phenomena. Very well, then. Phenomena and their
proximate causes, my dear friend, may be determined with as much
exactness in regard to dead matter as in regard to the living body; in
regard to a stone, as in regard to a man. That physiology and medicine
are sciences as exact as the science of chemistry has been proved from
the time of Descartes.”
Then they began an incidental dispute about Descartes, and all at once,
without Sebastião, who listened in amazement, being able to discover
the connection, they attacked each other fiercely about the idea of
God. The student seemed to have need of God in order to explain the
universe; but Julião attacked God with rage. He called him an “outworn
hypothesis,” an “antiquated fable of the Miguelist party.” And then
they attacked each other like two fighting cocks on the socialist
question. The student, with bloodshot eyes, and bringing down his
clenched fist upon the table with violence, sustained the principle of
authority. Julião cried out in defence of “individual anarchy,” and
after quoting with fury from Proudhon, Bastiat, and Jouffroy, they
descended to the arena of personalities. Julião, who dominated the
other by reason of the superior loudness of his voice, reminded the
student roughly of his six-percent bonds, and of the absurdity of the
position of the son of humble parents with aristocratic aspirations.
At this they cast glances of hatred and contempt at each other, and
shortly afterwards the student, letting fall a few disdainful words
about Claude Bernard, the dispute was renewed again in all its former
violence.
Sebastião took up his hat.
“Good-by,” he said to Julião, in a low voice.
“Good-by, Sebastião, good-by,” returned Julião, promptly.
He accompanied him to the head of the stairs.
“Ah, when do you think I had better speak to my cousin?” said Sebastião
in a low voice.
“Ah, yes; we shall see; I will think about it,” returned Julião with an
air of indifference, as if his pride in his labors had dissipated his
fear of being treated with injustice.
Sebastião went downstairs in silence, thinking it useless to say
anything to Julião now. But an idea suddenly presented itself to his
mind. What if he were to speak to Donna Felicidade, to consult with her
frankly? Donna Felicidade, it is true, was not very wise, but she was
a woman of mature years, and she was a friend of Luiza. She had more
influence with her, besides being possessed of more tact. He made up
his mind to do so, called a carriage, and drove to the street of S.
Bento. The servant of Donna Felicidade made her appearance at the door,
tearful and disconsolate.
“But do you not know what has happened?” she said.
“No.”
“Ah, it seems impossible!”
“But what is it?”
The mistress--such a misfortune!--had dislocated her foot at the
Encarnação. She had been ill, very ill; she was now staying at the
Encarnação,--on the ground floor; she was unable to go upstairs. She
was with the Senhora Donna Ana Silveira. Such a misfortune! And she was
so distressed about it!
“And when did it happen?”
“The day before yesterday, in the evening.”
Sebastião sprang into the carriage and ordered the driver to go with
all speed to Luiza’s. So Donna Felicidade was ill, at the Encarnação.
Luiza, then, might well go out every day. She went, no doubt, to see
her friend, to bear her company, to chat with her. The neighbors to
gossip so wickedly, when the poor girl went to see her sick friend! It
was two o’clock when the carriage stopped at Luiza’s door. Sebastião
met her coming down the steps, dressed in black, with her veil down.
“Ah, come in, Sebastião, come in; won’t you come in?” she said.
“No; many thanks. I came to tell you,--do you not know that Donna
Felicidade--”
“What about her?”
“She has dislocated her foot; she is very ill.”
“What do you tell me, Sebastião!”
Sebastião gave her all the details.
“You should go to see her,” he added.
“I will go there now.”
“I cannot go, for they do not allow men to enter the Encarnação. How
unfortunate! They say she is very ill.”
He accompanied her to the corner of the street, giving her many
messages for Donna Felicidade. He was sorry not to be able to see her,
poor lady!
He then went in the direction of the Patriarchal. Those daily
excursions of Luiza would be henceforth justified in the eyes of the
world,--she would go to nurse poor Donna Felicidade. It was necessary
that every one should know it,--Paula, the keeper of the tobacco-shop,
Gertrudes, the Azevedos, every one; so that when they saw her leave
the house to-morrow they should say, “She is going to stay with the
invalid, poor lady!”
Paula was standing at the door of his shop, and Sebastião, struck by a
sudden idea, was astonished to find himself so fertile in expedients,
so full of tact. He pushed his hat back a little from his forehead, and
pointing with his umbrella to the portrait of João VI.,--
“How much do you ask for that, Senhor Paula?” he said.
Paula was struck with astonishment.
“Senhor Sebastião is in the mood for jesting,” he returned.
“Jesting!” exclaimed Sebastião; “I am very much in earnest. I want some
pictures for the entrance-hall at Almada, but old ones, without lustre,
that will harmonize with the dark paper on the wall.”
“I beg your pardon, Senhor Sebastião.”
“I like this João VI. How much is it worth?” Paula replied without
hesitation,--
“Seven thousand two hundred; but it is a masterpiece.”
Sebastião thought it dear; but Paula showed him the price written on
a slip of paper at the back. He explained to him the merits of the
picture, pointed out its beauties, spoke of his honor as a merchant,
characterized others of his fellow-merchants as bandits without
conscience, gave him to understand that the portrait had belonged to
the house of Queluz, and that he had bought it at public auction.
Sebastião interrupted him, saying,--
“Very well, I will take it. Send it to my house, and the bill with it.”
“You will have a fine work of art.”
Sebastião looked around the shop. He wished to speak of Donna
Felicidade’s dislocated foot, and sought for an opportunity of
introducing the subject. He looked at some Indian vases, at a large
china jar, and seeing an invalid’s chair,--
“How nice that would be for Donna Felicidade,” he exclaimed,--“a
handsome and comfortable easy-chair!”
Paula opened wide his eyes.
“For Donna Felicidade Noronha,” replied Sebastião, in answer to his
mute inquiry, “to recline in. Is it possible you do not know that she
hurt her foot, and has been and is still very ill?”
“Donna Felicidade, the friend of the people here?” and he indicated
with his thumb the house of the engineer.
“Yes, my friend, yes. She dislocated her foot in the Encarnação, and
was obliged to remain there. Donna Luiza goes to see her every day. She
has gone there just now.”
“Ah!” said Paula, slowly, after a moment’s silence. “Well, it is not a
week since I saw Donna Felicidade going in there.”
“The accident happened the day before yesterday,” said Sebastião. He
coughed, and added, attentively examining some engravings, “Donna Luiza
went every day to the Encarnação before, but it was to see Donna Ana
Silveira, who was sick. It is three weeks now since the poor girl has
been acting as sick-nurse. She hardly leaves the Encarnação; and now,
to cap the climax, Donna Felicidade!”
“I knew nothing of it,--absolutely nothing,” said Paula, in a low
voice, his hands in his pockets.
“Send me home that João VI.”
“At your orders, Senhor Sebastião.”
Sebastião returned home. He went up to the parlor, and throwing his hat
on the sofa,--
“Good!” he said to himself. “How, at least, appearances are saved.”
He took a few turns up and down the room, with bent head, sad and
thoughtful; for that he had been able by chance to justify those
excursions of Luiza’s in the eyes of the neighbors made the thought
only the more cruel to him that he was not able to explain them
to himself. The suspicions the neighbors had for some time past
entertained he had shown to be unjust; but what of his own? He desired
to prove them false, childish, unreasonable, and against his will, his
common-sense, and his principles he was involving himself in greater
and greater difficulties. After all, he had done his duty, and with a
sorrowful gesture he said aloud, breaking the silence around him,--
“The rest is a matter for her own conscience to settle.”
That same afternoon the whole neighborhood knew that Donna Felicidade
had dislocated her foot in the Encarnação; some of the neighbors
declared that she had broken her leg, and that Donna Luiza never left
her bedside; and Paula affirmed in authoritative accents,--
“She is a very good girl, a very good girl!”
The professor’s Gertrudes went in the evening to ask Aunt Joanna if
it was true that Donna Felicidade had broken her leg. Aunt Joanna set
her right; it was a dislocated foot, and nothing more. Gertrudes went
back to tell the professor, adding that the accident had taken place at
the Encarnação, where the sick lady now was. All the neighbors praised
Luiza. A few days afterwards Teixeira Azevedo, who of late had hardly
saluted her, meeting her by chance in the street of S. Roque, stopped
her, and with a profound bow said,--
“I beg your pardon, Senhora; how does your patient get on?”
“Better, thank you.”
“It is truly a very charitable action on your part, Senhora, to go
every day to the Encarnação.”
“She does not want for society,” returned Luiza.
“A very charitable action, indeed,” repeated Azevedo, with emphasis.
“I have said so everywhere,--a very charitable action on your part.
Good-day.”
And he went on his way much moved.
Luiza went, in fact, shortly afterwards to see Donna Felicidade. A
simple sprain was all that was the matter with her; but lying in
bed, in the Senhora Silveira’s room, with compresses of arnica on her
foot, she thought with terror that she was going to lose her leg; and
she spent the day, surrounded by friends, crying, eating Recolhimento
peaches, and nibbling azaroles. No sooner did any new visitor arrive
than she redoubled her exclamations and her complaints; then followed
a minute, circumstantial, and prolix history of the misfortune. Then,
when she saw the excitement was beginning to die away, she would raise
herself on her elbow to exclaim,--
“Ah, our Lady of Health! this was a miracle; I might have died.”
All the ladies agreed that it was indeed a miracle; they were full of
sympathy for her, and went in turn to kneel before the saints to ask
their intercession for the alleviation of Senhora Noronha’s suffering.
Luiza’s first visit was a great consolation for Donna Felicidade, who
complained greatly of being obliged to remain in bed without hearing of
or being able to speak of him. On the succeeding days, as soon as Luiza
entered the room, she would call her to her bedside to ask her in low
and mysterious accents,--
“Have you seen him? Have you heard from him?”
Her chief trouble was that the counsellor did not know she was
ill, and that consequently he could not dedicate to her those
compassionate thoughts to which her foot had a right, and which would
be a consolation to her heart. But Luiza had not seen him, and Donna
Felicidade, throwing herself back in the bed, exhaled bitter sighs.
On two or three occasions Luiza, returning home, had come face to face
with Juliana, returning also in great haste by the Moinho de Vento.
“Where do you come from?” she had asked her, on reaching the house.
“From the doctor’s, Senhora,--from the doctor’s.”
She complained of sharp pains, of palpitations, of a want of breath.
“Flatulence, flatulence,” Luiza said.
For some days past Juliana would set the house in order in the morning,
and no sooner had Luiza turned the corner of the street at one o’clock
than she would go to her room to dress herself, and then, looking very
fine in her merino gown, her hat, and her parasol, would go say to
Joanna,--
“I am going to the doctor’s.”
And Joanna would answer, delighted, “Yes; go.”
Juliana’s way led her by S. Pedro de Alcantara into the Rua do Carmo,
and finally to an alley in front of the barracks. There, on a third
floor, lived her intimate friend Aunt Victoria. She was an old woman
who had once kept an employment agency, but of late years her business
had been of a more complicated and varied character. For some time past
Juliana had been in the habit of visiting her frequently; and no sooner
did she make her appearance than the old woman, notwithstanding her
many occupations, would rise, take her to her private room, shut the
door, and remain closeted with her for half an hour or more. Juliana
always came out from these interviews flushed, her eyes sparkling, and
looking happy. She would return home in haste, and her first words on
entering the house always were,--
“Has the mistress returned, Joanna?”
“Not yet; she is in the Encarnação.”
“Poor thing! And afterwards she will naturally take a walk. She is very
right to amuse herself.”
Joanna was by nature stupid and obtuse. Nevertheless she noticed
that of late the Senhora Juliana manifested great affection for her
mistress, and she said to her one day,--
“It seems that you are better friends with the mistress now than
formerly, Juliana.”
“Better friends?”
“Yes; I mean more--more--”
“More attached to the mistress?”
“Yes; more attached.”
“I always was so. Besides, people have their whims and caprices. But
I am now convinced, Joanna, that I could nowhere be better off than
I am here. The mistress is very good-tempered; she is not exacting
or capricious. I return thanks to Heaven daily for the comfort and
happiness I enjoy here.”
The house had, indeed, an air of tranquil happiness. Luiza went out
every day, and found fault with nothing. Her antipathy to Juliana
seemed to have disappeared; and she seemed to regard her now as an
inoffensive creature. Juliana continued to take her soups, to go out,
and to complain of her ailments. Joanna, who had much greater liberty
than formerly, and who was almost always alone in the house, enjoyed
the society of her carpenter. There were no visitors. Donna Felicidade
was in the Encarnação steeped in arnica. Sebastião was in Almada,
where he had gone to superintend the repairs going on at his villa;
the counsellor had left the city for Cintra, “to feast his spirit,” as
he had told Luiza, to “gladden himself in contemplating the wonders
of that Eden;” Senhor Julião, “the doctor,” as Joanna called him, was
working at his thesis. The household kept regular hours; silence and
repose reigned everywhere. In the kitchen one day Juliana, vividly
impressed with the quietude and contentment that pervaded the house,
exclaimed,--
“Ah, Joanna, one could not be better off! Our boat sails in a sea of
roses.” And she added, with a little laugh, “This is happiness!”
At about this time, as Luiza was one day going to meet Bazilio, she
suddenly saw emerge from a gateway, a little beyond Santa Barbara, the
figure of Ernesto.
“You here, Cousin Luiza,” he exclaimed in astonishment,--“in this
neighborhood! What brings you here? It is a surprise indeed to see you
in such a street!”
His face was flushed; he held up the skirts of his great-coat behind
with one hand, and with the other brandished in his excitement a thick
roll of paper. Luiza paused, very much startled. She told him she was
going to see a friend.
“You do not know her,” she added; “she has just arrived from Oporto.”
“Ah, very well; very well! And what have you been doing? How have you
spent your time? When is Jorge coming home?”
Then he began to excuse himself for not having gone to see her. He had
not a free moment, he said, from morning till night,--always busy with
the rehearsals.
“So the drama progresses?” said Luiza.
“Yes, indeed!” And he added enthusiastically, “And how! It is a
masterpiece! when one works, one works.” He had just come from the
house of the actor Pinto, who took the lover’s part,--that of the Count
of Monte Redondo. He had been listening to him reciting the final words
of the third act. “Malediction! Fate pursues me; be it so then; I shall
fight hand to hand with Fate! To the combat!” It was wonderful. He had
just been receiving notice, too, to remodel the monologue in the second
act. The manager thought it a trifle long.
“So then the manager continues to annoy you with his exactions,” said
Luiza.
Ernesto shrugged his shoulders with a look of irritation. Then he said,
with a joyful countenance,--
“Every one is wild about it. Yesterday he said to me, ‘Ledesma, all
Lisbon will come in a body to the first representation; you will ruin
the other theatres.’ He is not a bad sort of man. I am going now to the
house of Bastos, who writes for the ‘Verdade.’ Do you know him?”
Luiza could not well remember.
“Bastos, of the ‘Verdade,’” he repeated. And seeing that Luiza was
trying in vain to recollect, he added, “There is no one you know
better.” And he went on to describe him.
But Luiza, impatient to put an end to the conversation, interrupted
him,--
“Ah, yes; now I remember.”
“Yes; I am going to his house.” And he added confidentially, “We are
great friends. He is a very good fellow, and he has a beautiful boy.”
He pressed her hand, and said, “Good-by, Cousin Luiza; I have not a
moment to lose. Would you like me to accompany you?”
“No; it is quite near.”
“Good-by. Remembrances to Jorge.”
She had only taken a few steps when he ran after her.
“Ah, I forgot,” he cried. “Do you know that I have forgiven her?”
Luiza looked at him in astonishment.
“The heroine--the countess,” said Ernesto.
“Ah!”
“Yes; the husband forgives her. He obtains a diplomatic mission, and
goes to live abroad. It is more natural.”
“Assuredly,” Luiza assented in confusion.
“The piece ends by the Count of Monte Redondo, the lover, saying,
‘He has gone to die in solitude, the victim of this fatal passion.’
It produces a great effect.” And looking at her a moment, he added,
“Good-by, Cousin. Remembrances to Jorge.”
CHAPTER XII.
BROUGHT TO BAY.
HOW heavily did the solitude of her room weigh upon Luiza in the
evening! She felt impatient to renew the sensations of the past few
hours. She tried to read, but after a few moments threw the book aside.
The candles on her dressing-table seemed to burn with a melancholy
light. She went to the window to look out at the night; the air was
calm and still. She called Juliana.
“Put on your shawl,” she said; “I want you to accompany me to Donna
Leopoldina’s.”
On arriving there, Justina told them that her mistress had gone to
Oporto, and would remain away a fortnight.
Luiza arose on the following morning feeling very happy. She felt,
indeed, a vague sense of shame at all the follies of the day before,
and almost resolved to meet Bazilio no more. But her desires, which
impelled her to go, furnished her with reasons for doing so. To remain
away would be to offend Bazilio; the same reasons that would prevent
her seeing him to-day ought to prevent her seeing him any more; and
to see Bazilio no more--she could not bear the thought! Besides, the
beauty of the morning inspired her with a longing to go out into the
open air; it had rained during the night, and there was a pleasant
freshness in the atmosphere. At half-past eleven she was going down
the Moinho de Vento, when she observed the dignified figure of the
Counsellor Accacio advancing slowly up the Rua da Rosa, his umbrella
closed, his head erect. When he saw her he hastened his steps, and
bowing profoundly, said,--
“A truly fortunate meeting!”
“How do you do, Counsellor? What a wonder it is to see you!”
“And you, dearest lady? You are looking well.” He gave her the right of
the street with a dignified gesture, saying at the same time,--
“Will you permit me to accompany you in your walk?”
“Certainly; with the greatest pleasure! But why have you not been to
see me? I must give you a good scolding.”
“I have been in Cintra, dear lady.” And he added, momentarily retarding
his pace, “Were you not aware of it? It was announced in the ‘Diario de
Noticias.’”
“But since your return from Cintra?”
“Ah,” he replied, “I have been very much occupied,--very much occupied,
indeed; completely absorbed in the collation of certain documents
indispensable to my book, of the title of which I believe you are not
ignorant.”
Luiza did not remember it exactly. The counsellor mentioned the title
and the headings of some of the chapters, and explained to her the
advantages of the work; it was called “A Description of the Principal
Cities of Portugal, and their most Celebrated Buildings.”
“It is a guide-book, but a scientific guide-book,” he added. “For
instance, you desire to go to Braganza. Without my book, it is
probable, I may say certain, that you would return without enjoying a
view of any of the local curiosities. With my book, you see all the
principal buildings, and store up a fund of knowledge at the same time
that you amuse yourself.”
Luiza, who was smiling vaguely under her white veil as he spoke,
scarcely heard him.
“What a pleasant day!” she exclaimed.
“Exceedingly pleasant!”
“How cool it is here!”
They had entered S. Pedro de Alcantara. A gentle breeze stirred the
leaves of the trees. The ground, hard and free from dust, still showed
traces of the rain of the night before, and, notwithstanding the
brightness of the sun, the blue sky seemed far off. The counsellor
spoke of the summer; it had been a horrible one. In his dining-room
the thermometer had stood as high as 102 degrees in the shade,--102
degrees! And he added ingenuously, by way of apology for this excessive
heat,--
“It has a southern exposure. Let us be just,--it has a southern
exposure. But to-day it is truly delightful.”
He invited Luiza to take a turn through the Garden. Luiza hesitated,
and the counsellor took out his watch--which he held at a distance from
him as he looked at it--and said it was not yet twelve o’clock. It
kept time with the clock of the Arsenal; it was an English watch.
“Very much preferable to the Swiss ones,” he added, with an air of
conviction.
Dominated, notwithstanding her annoyance, by the pompous tones of
the counsellor, Luiza descended the steps that led into the Garden.
There was time enough, she thought, and if necessary she could take a
carriage. They seated themselves on a bench. Through the trees they
could see, in gradual descent, the dark roofs of houses interspersed
with courtyards and walled gardens, and in the background the mass of
foliage of the public gardens, with here and there some bare spot;
farther on, the façades of the houses of Oriental Street, their windows
brilliantly illuminated by the sunlight; and behind these green slopes,
intersected by the dark walls of the Encarnação, of a sad-looking
yellow, and by those of other detached buildings, the hill of Graça,
covered with religious edifices, with their rows of conventual windows,
and spires showing white against the blue sky; the Penha da França,
more distant still, its solitary wall over-topped by a line of blackish
green foliage. To the right, sharply defined against the bare slope,
were the dark walls of the castle; the broken line of the roofs and
projecting cornices of the houses of Mouraria and Alfama descended
in abrupt angles to the massive and ancient towers of Sé. Farther on
could be caught a glimpse of the river, shining in the sunlight, and
two white sails gliding slowly by; on the opposite bank a row of houses
gleamed white in the sun. From the city arose a monotonous murmur in
which were blended the noise of carriages and wagons, the metallic
vibration of iron transported in heavy carts, and the occasional shrill
cry of a huckster.
“A fine panorama!” said the counsellor, with emphasis.
Then he proceeded to launch forth in praise of Lisbon. It was one
of the most beautiful cities of Europe, he declared; its harbor was
unrivalled, except, perhaps, by that of Constantinople. It was regarded
with envy by foreigners. It had once been a celebrated emporium, and
it was a pity that the municipality were so negligent, and that the
water-works made so little progress.
“That ought to be in the hands of Englishmen,” he exclaimed.
But he repented immediately of this unpatriotic remark. He said it was
only a form of expression that meant nothing. He desired the absolute
independence of his country,--neither English nor Spanish interference.
“Ourselves alone--and God!” he added, in reverential tones.
“How beautiful the river is!” said Luiza.
Accacio agreed with her, murmuring in solemn accents,--
“Oh, Tagus!”
He proposed a turn through the Garden; yellow-and-white butterflies
fluttered over the flower-beds; the water of the fountain fell with a
musical sound; an odor of heliotrope predominated over every other;
and from time to time birds alighted on the marble busts among the
shrubbery.
Luiza admired the Garden, but the high railings were not to her taste.
“They are on account of the number of suicides that have taken place
here,” the counsellor hastened to say. But in his opinion these were
diminishing in Lisbon, a fact which he attributed to the severe and
praiseworthy manner in which suicide was condemned by the press. “For
in Portugal, believe me, Senhora, the press is a power,” he added.
“Shall we walk?” said Luiza.
The counsellor bowed in assent; seeing Luiza was about to pick a
flower, he stopped her hastily.
“Ah, Senhora,” he exclaimed, “the rules are peremptory. Let us not
infringe them. A good example should be set by the higher classes.”
When they ascended the steps, Luiza thought to herself,--
“He is going home now; I will part from him at Loreto.”
In the street of S. Roque she glanced at the clock in a confectioner’s;
it was half-past twelve. Bazilio was already waiting for her. She
quickened her pace, and when they reached Loreto she paused. The
counsellor looked at her smiling, and waited.
“Ah, I thought you were going home, Counsellor,” she said.
“No, I shall accompany you, if you will allow me. Am I indiscreet?”
“By no means!”
At this moment one of the carriages of the Company passed by, followed
by a cabinet-courier on horseback.
The counsellor hastily took off his hat.
“The Senhor President of the Council!” he said. “Did you see him? He
saluted me.”
And he proceeded to pronounce a eulogium on the President. He was one
of our greatest orators, he affirmed; his abilities were extraordinary,
his language a model of style.
He was doubtless about to begin a dissertation on politics; but Luiza
crossed over to the Church of the Martyrs, raising her dress a little
on account of the mud, and paused, smiling, at the door.
“I am going to say a prayer, and I do not wish to make you wait.
Good-by, Counsellor,” she said, closing her parasol and extending her
hand.
“How, Senhora! I will wait if you do not stay too long; I am in no
hurry;” and he added, with an air of respect, “such piety is very
praiseworthy.”
Luiza entered the church, desperate. She remained standing under the
choir, thinking,--
“I shall stay here; he will get tired of waiting and go away.”
The windows above gleamed softly; the church was filled with a diffused
and mellow light. The white walls, the freshly-painted woodwork of the
vestry, and the stone balustrades at each side formed a background
against which stood out the gilding of the chapel, the red fronts of
the pulpits, the interior of the confessionals, of a darker red, and
under a violet canopy the gilding of the chief altar. In front of the
baptistery a boy was washing the floor, with a zinc pail at his side.
Here and there before the altars devotees were kneeling, their bent
shoulders covered with shawls; an old man in a jacket knelt in the
middle of the church, muttering his prayers in a melancholy sing-sing
voice, his bald head and the enormous soles of his shoes standing
clearly forth out of the shadow as he fervently beat his breast at
short and regular intervals. Luiza went up to the chief altar. Of a
certainty Bazilio would be desperate. She timidly asked a sacristan who
was passing by what time it was. The man raised a face the color of a
lemon towards one of the windows, and said, glancing askance at her,--
“It is almost two.”
Two o’clock! Bazilio might grow tired of waiting for her. She was
filled with the fear of not seeing him, and glanced confusedly at
the images of the saints, at the virgins transfixed by swords, at
the Christs pierced by wounds, full of a voluptuous impatience.
Nevertheless she waited; she hoped to tire out the counsellor, to
compel him at last to go away. When she thought he had gone, she went
slowly towards the door of the church. There he stood in the doorway,
erect, his hands clasped behind his back, reading the list of jurors.
He began to commend her piety; he had not entered with her, he said, in
order not to disturb her devotions; but her conduct had his approval.
Want of religion was the cause of the prevailing immorality.
“Besides,” he added, “it is good form. You may notice that all the
nobility comply with their religious obligations.”
He relapsed into silence; he walked erect, pleased to be going down
the Chiado in the company of a woman who was so beautiful, and who
attracted so much attention. They passed a group of persons in the
street, and he bent towards her with an air of mystery to whisper in
her ear,--
“What a charming day!”
When they reached Baltreschi’s he invited her to have some tarts; she
declined.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but I too like to be careful in regard to my
hours of eating.”
His voice affected Luiza like the importunate humming of an insect;
although the day was cool, she felt suffocating; her blood ran like
fire through her veins. She felt a sudden impulse to run away; but
she continued to walk on slowly, like a somnambulist, longing to
cry. Without having any object in view she went into Valente’s, the
counsellor following her. It was only half-past one. She hesitated
a moment, and then asked a clerk with fair hair and a good-natured
countenance to show her some foulard neckties.
“White? colored? with dots?” he asked.
“I will decide afterwards; show me some of different kinds.”
She did not like any of them; she unfolded them, set them aside, and
then glanced around her with a pale countenance. The clerk asked her if
she was indisposed, and if she would like a glass of water.
It was nothing, she answered 5 the air would do her good, and she would
come back some other time. They left the shop. The counsellor, with
an air of solicitude, offered to accompany her to a pharmacy, where
she might take some orange-flower water. They walked down the Rua Nova
do Carmo, the counsellor declaring that the clerk had behaved very
courteously. He was not surprised at it, however, for there were many
sons of good families engaged in commercial pursuits; and he mentioned
some instances; but seeing that his companion remained silent,--
“You do not feel well yet,” he said.
“I am quite well now,” she replied.
“We have had a delightful walk.”
They reached Rocio, walked to the end of the square, and returned,
crossing it diagonally. At the arch of Bandeira they turned into Ouro
Street. Luiza looked around her disconsolately, in search of some means
of escape, and the counsellor walked beside her, discoursing gravely.
Passing by the Theatre of Donna Maria, his discourse mounted into the
regions of dramatic art; he thought Ernesto’s play was perhaps a little
too strong. And then, he liked only comedies; not because he could not
enjoy the beauties of a Frey Luiz de Sousa, but his health did not
always permit it. For instance--
An idea suddenly occurred to Luiza.
“Ah, I forgot; I must go in here to Vitry’s to get a tooth filled.”
The counsellor, thus interrupted, glanced at his companion. Luiza gave
him her hand, saying hastily,--
“Good-by. Till we meet again.”
And she hurried into the house.
Gathering her skirts in her hand, she ran quickly up the first flight
of stairs; here she paused, out of breath, and waited a little; then
she went downstairs again slowly, and glanced at the doorway; there
before her was the grave and dignified figure of the counsellor. She
beckoned to a coupé, and rushing past the counsellor, entered it,
giving the driver the direction of the house where Bazilio was waiting
for her, and telling him to drive with all possible speed. On arriving
there she found that he had gone away half an hour before.
Giving the driver her own address, she threw herself back among the
cushions of the coupé, and burst into a fit of hysterical weeping. Then
she drew up the curtains, pulled off her veil, and tore her glove, on
the impulse of her anger. She was seized with a frantic desire to see
Bazilio, and striking the carriage-window violently she called to the
driver,--
“To the Central Hotel!”
She was passing through one of those crises of passion that are apt to
come to weak minds, in which they are possessed by a fierce delight
at the thought of tearing into pieces conventionalities and duties,
and in which the soul deliberately seeks evil with thrills of sensual
delight. The horses stopped at last, slipping on the stones in front of
the hotel. The Senhor Bazilio de Brito was not there, but the Senhor
Viscount Reynaldo was, the driver told her, after making inquiry.
“Very well; home then,” she answered.
The driver whipped his horses. Luiza, with feverish irritation, began
to heap epithets of abuse upon the counsellor.
“Conceited fool! imbecile!” she cried.
She cursed the day on which she had first met him, or any other friend
of her husband. She felt a longing to burst asunder the bonds that
bound her, and to act entirely according to her own impulses.
On reaching home she found she had no change to pay the driver.
“Wait here, and I will send it to you,” she said, going up the steps,
furious.
“What a crazy woman!” thought the driver.
Joanna, who opened the door for her, drew back in amazement on seeing
her mistress so excited. Luiza went directly to her own room. The
cuckoo-clock was striking three. Everything was in confusion,--the
flower-pots on the floor, the toilet-table covered with an old cloth,
clothing lying on the chairs. Juliana, a handkerchief tied around her
head, was sweeping, and humming a tune.
“Is it possible that you have not yet arranged my room!” cried Luiza.
Juliana was taken aback by this unexpected burst of anger. “I am doing
it, Senhora,” she replied.
“That you are doing it I can see,” returned Luiza; “but it is three
o’clock, and the room still in this condition!”
She had thrown down her hat and parasol.
“As the senhora is in the habit of returning home later--”
“What does it matter to you at what hour I return?” she cried. “What
have you to do with that? Your business is to put my room in order as
soon as I am up, and if you do not like that you can take your wages
and go.”
Juliana turned crimson, and fixed on Luiza her bloodshot eyes.
“Very well, Senhora, for I will bear this no longer,” she said,
scattering the sweepings angrily about the floor.
“Go this instant!” cried Luiza. “Not a moment longer in my house!”
Juliana placed herself before her mistress, and striking her breast,
said hoarsely,--
“I shall go if I wish. Yes, if I wish!” she repeated.
“Joanna!” cried Luiza, going to the door.
She wanted to call the cook, a policeman, any one, to her assistance;
but Juliana, shaking her fist insolently at her, followed her.
“The senhora had better not provoke me,” she said; “she had better not
make me angry.” And she added through her clenched teeth, “Waste-papers
are not always thrown into the drain.”
“What do you mean?” cried Luiza, drawing back in terror.
“I mean that I have the letters the senhora wrote to her lover safe
here in my pocket,” she cried, striking her pocket with violence.
Luiza looked wildly at her for a moment, then sank down on the floor,
beside the sofa, insensible.
CHAPTER XIII.
MISTRESS AND MAID.
ON coming to herself again, Luiza’s first impression was that of
two unknown faces bending over her. A moment afterwards one of them
disappeared, and then the sharp sound of a glass bottle set down on the
marble top of her dressing-table aroused her to fuller consciousness.
She heard a voice saying softly,--
“She is better. Did it take her suddenly, Senhora Juliana?”
“Yes, suddenly; she came in very much excited.”
She was conscious of soft footsteps on the carpet, followed by the
voice of Joanna saying close beside her,--
“Are you better, Senhora?”
She opened her eyes and slowly returned to a clearer perception of
things; she was lying on the sofa, and they had loosened her dress;
there was a strong odor of vinegar in the room. She raised herself on
her elbow, and looking around her with a wandering gaze, said,--
“And the other?”
“The Senhora Juliana? She was so upset by your fainting that she was
obliged to go and lie down. Do you feel better now?”
Luiza sat up; she felt a sense of weariness in every limb, and it
seemed to her as if the room was rocking to and fro.
“You may go, Joanna,” she said.
“Does not the senhora want anything,--a cup of broth, perhaps?”
When Luiza found herself alone she glanced around her in terror.
Everything was in order, and the blinds were closed. One of her
gloves had fallen on the floor; she rose slowly, picked it up, and
straightening it out mechanically, put it away in the drawer of her
bureau. She then smoothed her hair at the glass. She found herself
changed, with a different expression of countenance, as if she were in
reality another person; and the silence of the apartment impressed her
vividly. “Senhora,” said Joanna, timidly, at the door.
“What is it?”
“The coachman.”
Luiza turned towards her, without comprehending.
“What coachman?”
“A coachman who says the senhora had no change, and told him to wait.”
“Ah!”
And in an instant, as the whole interior of an apartment is disclosed
at once to view by the lighting of a lamp within it, so was her
misfortune, in all its completeness, revealed now to her mental vision.
She trembled so violently that she could scarcely open the drawer of
the bureau.
“I had forgotten him,” she murmured.
She gave the money to Joanna, and dropping on the sofa,--
“I am lost!” she cried, pressing her head between her hands.
All was discovered! She saw in imagination, standing out with the
distinctness of a charcoal drawing on a white ground, the fury of
Jorge, the horror of her friends, the indignation of some, the contempt
of others. These thoughts burned into her soul as redhot coals burn
into the flesh.
What remained? To fly with Bazilio.
This thought, the first and only one that presented itself to her mind,
swallowed up every other, as water that has burst its bounds submerges
the surrounding country. He had pictured to her so often the happiness
they might enjoy in his apartment in the Rue St. Florentin, in Paris!
Be it so, then; she would go. She would take no luggage with her. She
could put some linen and her mother’s jewels into her morocco satchel.
But the house and the servants? She would leave a letter for Sebastião,
that he might go and shut up everything. On the journey she would wear
her blue gown or her black one. She would take nothing more. Whatever
else she needed she could buy in some other city, far from here.
“If the senhora would like to dine,” said Joanna, making her appearance
at the door in a clean white apron. “The Senhora Juliana has gone to
bed sick,” she added, “and says she cannot wait at table.”
“I will go presently,” responded Luiza.
She hardly tasted the soup. She drank a glass of water, and rising,
said,--
“What is the matter with Juliana?”
“She says she has a severe pain in the heart.”
If Juliana were to die she would be saved! In that case there would be
no necessity for her to fly, and she said with a gleam of wicked hope,--
“Go see how she is, Joanna.”
She had heard of so many who had died of a sudden pain! She might go
afterwards to Juliana’s room, search her trunk, and regain possession
of her letter. She would be afraid neither of the silence of death nor
of the pallor of the corpse.
“She is easier, Senhora,” said Joanna, returning to the dining-room,
“and says she will get up by-and-by. Will the senhora take nothing
more?”
“No.”
And she went back again to her room, thinking,--
“Why seek to remedy matters? There is nothing left but to fly.”
She determined to write to Sebastião, but she could get no further than
the words, “My Friend.”
Why write? When they saw that night came, and she had not returned, the
servants--her enemy--would go tell Sebastião. He was the most intimate
friend of the family. What a fright it would give him! He would think
some accident had befallen her. He would run to the Encarnação, then
to the police station; he would spend the night in anguish; all next
day he would wait for news of her, suffering terrible disappointments,
until at last he would telegraph to Jorge. And at the same hour,
huddled in a corner of the car, listening to the deafening noise of
the engine, she would be hurrying on to a new destiny. Yet why should
she torment herself? How many there were who would envy her her
misfortune! Yes, to give up a cramped existence between four walls,
her only occupation to superintend the affairs of the kitchen and to
crochet, in order to go with a man young and handsome, and whom she
loved, to Paris--to Paris! to live surrounded by luxury, in apartments
hung with silk, with a box at the Opera. She was indeed foolish to
torment herself; this disaster was almost a piece of good fortune.
Without it she would not have had the courage to break away from her
_bourgeoise_ existence. Yes, she would fly with Bazilio; she would
put an end at once to this state of anxiety. But it was too late now to
go to the hotel; she was afraid of the dark streets, of the lateness of
the hour, of meeting with some drunken man.
She began to pack the satchel. She put into it some linen, a few
handkerchiefs, her nail-brush, the rosary Bazilio had given her,
rice-powder, and some jewels that had belonged to her mother. She
wished to take with her Bazilio’s letters also. She had put them
away in a little sandal-wood box in the bureau-drawer. She took them
out, scattered them on her lap, and opened one, from which fell a
pressed flower, and then another containing the likeness of Bazilio.
It suddenly struck her that they were not all here; there should be
seven of them,--two letters and five notes,--the first letter he had
written to her, full of his affection for her, and the last, written
one day when they had quarrelled. She counted them; there were in fact
three wanting,--this first letter and two of the notes. Juliana had
stolen these also! She rose, pale with anger. “Infamous creature!”
she exclaimed. She felt an impulse to go up to her room and tear the
letters from her by force, even if she had to strangle her in order to
do so. But what did it matter? Whether Juliana had one letter or three,
her misfortune was the same.
She laid out on the sofa, in a state of feverish excitement, the
black dress she was to wear, the hat, a cloak. The cuckoo-clock
struck ten. She went into her bedroom, and placing the candlestick
on the night-table, stood gazing at the large bed with its curtains
of white muslin. This was the last time she should sleep in it. The
crochet counterpane she herself had made during the first year of her
marriage,--there was not a single stitch in it that was not associated
with some happy recollection. Jorge had watched her working at it,
smiling silently or talking to her in low tones while he twisted the
cotton slowly around his fingers. There she had slept every night for
three years. In that bed she had gone through an attack of pneumonia.
For weeks Jorge bad not taken off his clothes, nursing her, covering
her when she threw off the bedclothes, giving her her medicine, making
her take nourishing soups, bestowing endearing words upon her that did
her so much good. He spoke to her as he would have spoken to a little
child. “This will pass,” he would say; “you will soon be better now,
and then we will take a little trip into the country.” But while he
said it his eyes filled with tears. At other times he would exclaim,
“Are you better? Tell me that you are better!” And she desired so
ardently to get well that a refreshing wave seemed to sweep over her,
calming the fever in her blood. In the first days of her convalescence
he helped her to dress; he knelt down to put on her slippers; he
assisted her to the sofa, and arranged the cushions for her to lie
down upon it; he read to her; he amused her by drawing landscapes for
her, by cutting paper soldiers. She depended upon him for everything;
she had no one else in the world to care for her in sickness, to mourn
for her if she should die. She always went to sleep with his hand
between both of hers, for she still felt at night something of the
terror she had experienced in the delirious visions of the fever; and
poor Jorge, in order not to awaken her, would remain hour after hour
with his hand held thus imprisoned. He slept, without undressing, on a
mattress beside her bed. Many times she had awakened during the night
and surprised him wiping away his tears,--tears of joy because she was
spared to him. When the physician, the good Dr. Caminha, had said to
him, “She is out of danger; now we must set about reconstructing this
organism,” Jorge, poor fellow, had caught the old man’s hands in his
and covered them with kisses.
And now when he should come home and learn all! She would be far away
in a foreign land hearing a strange tongue; and he there alone in the
house, weeping in the embrace of Sebastião. How many souvenirs of her
would be there to torture him,--her gowns, her slippers, the articles
on her dressing-table, everything in the house! What a sorrowful
existence he would lead! He would sleep alone; there would be no one
there to awaken him with a kiss, and say to him, laying a hand on his
shoulder, “It is late, Jorge.” Everything would be at an end forever
between them--forever.
She threw herself on the bed, and broke into bitter weeping. She heard
Juliana speaking loudly in the hall to Joanna, and she rose to her feet
in terror. Was the vile wretch going to enter her room? She heard the
sound of retreating footsteps, and then Joanna came in with a light.
“The Senhora Juliana got up for a little while,” she said; “but she
does not feel very well yet, and she has gone back to bed again. Does
the senhora require anything?”
“No,” answered Luiza from the alcove.
She undressed herself, and at last fell asleep through exhaustion.
Juliana could not sleep. Tortured by pain, she struggled with the
demon of sleeplessness on her straw mattress, as she had done so many
times before during the past few weeks. Ever since she had taken the
letter from the sarcophagus she had lived in a continual fever, so
intense was the joy, so strong the hope that animated her. From the
time when Bazilio had first begun to frequent the house, she had felt
a conviction that her opportunity had come. What an explosion of joy
when, after so much fruitless spying, she had found the letter in the
sarcophagus! She had run to her room, read it eagerly, and when she
realized the importance of her discovery, her eyes filled with tears of
joy, she lifted up her vile soul to heaven, saying,--
“God be praised!”
What use should she make of it? This was the question that troubled
her. Her first thought was to sell it for a good round sum to Luiza.
But where could her mistress find the money? No, it was better to wait
for Jorge’s return, and then, through the medium of some other person,
concealing her own share in the transaction, extort from him a large
amount by the threat of making the matter public. At times, when she
was most irritated by Luiza’s excursions, by her handsome toilets, by
her beauty, she felt a temptation to rush out into the street, call the
neighbors around her, read the letter to them, and thus avenge herself
on this wanton.
Aunt Victoria soothed and advised her. She told her that to make the
plot complete it was necessary to have a letter of the lover in her
possession. She was obliged to employ much ingenuity,--all the stealthy
watchfulness of a cat joined to the dexterity of a pickpocket,--to
try several keys (two of them made after impressions in wax). But she
obtained the letter; and what a letter! She read it to Aunt Victoria,
whose sides shook with laughter as she read it.
“Good!” she said to Juliana; “now you have the knife and the cheese;
with this you can stand your ground and wait your chance. Amiability,
a pleasant countenance, plenty of smiles, so as not to alarm her, and
a watchful eye. You have the mouse safe; let her play as much as she
wishes.”
From this time forth Juliana enjoyed in secret all the delight of
knowing that she had Luiza, the senhora, the mistress, under her thumb.
She saw her adorn herself, go to meet her lover, sing gayly and eat
well, and she thought with feline pleasure,--
“Go on; amuse yourself; I will make you pay for it all by-and-by.”
This filled her with pride, and she had a vague sense of being mistress
of the house. She held in her hand the happiness, the good name, of her
master and mistress. What joy! Her future was secure. Her secret was
money,--the bread of her old age. At last her turn had come; and she
recited every day a _salve_ of thanks to our Lady the Mother of
Sinners.
But after the scene with Luiza she could no longer stand with her arms
folded, with the letters in her pocket. She must go out; she must do
something. She resolved to consult Aunt Victoria.
On the following morning, at about seven o’clock, without taking her
coffee, or saying a word to Joanna, she went downstairs, and out of the
house.
Aunt Victoria was not at home. In the little parlor were several
persons awaiting her return. Senhor Gouvêa, with the tassel of his cap
in a tangle, was leaning over the table, writing, and nursing his cold.
Juliana said good-day to every one in general, and then sat down, very
erect, in a corner of the room, holding her parasol between her knees.
About half an hour afterwards Aunt Victoria entered hurriedly, and
seeing Juliana, said to her,--
“Ah, you here already? I had some business to attend to, and I have
been out since six this morning. Good-day, Senhora Theodosia; good-day,
Anna; hello, my handsome youth! Come in here, Juliana; I shall be back
directly, chickens; it is a question of a moment.”
She led Juliana into a room that opened on the hall.
“What is there new?” she asked.
Juliana gave her a minute account of the scene of yesterday, ending in
her mistress’s fainting.
“Well, my dear,” said Aunt Victoria, “what is done, is done. There is
no time to be lost; you must set to work at once. Go to see Brito at
his hotel, and have an understanding with him.”
Juliana shook her head; she did not dare, she said; she was afraid.
Aunt Victoria reflected for a moment, scratching her ear. She then rose
and went into the parlor, held a whispered consultation with Uncle
Gouvêa, and re-entered the room, closing the door behind her.
“Let us see,” she said; “you have the letters?”
Juliana took from her pocket an old red morocco pocket-book. But she
hesitated a moment before opening it, at the same time giving Aunt
Victoria a suspicious glance.
“You are afraid to give me the letters,” exclaimed the latter, with an
offended air. “Very well; settle the affair yourself, then.”
Juliana handed her the letters, charging her to be very careful of them.
“A certain person,” said Aunt Victoria, “will go to-morrow to see Brito
and ask him for a _conto de reis_.”[7]
Juliana was dazzled. A _conto de reis_! Aunt Victoria was jesting!
“Why, what are you thinking?” said the latter.
“For a letter that contained scarcely anything a gentleman who may be
seen any day driving in the Chiado (I saw him myself driving there
yesterday in company with a lady), paid three hundred thousand reis in
good bank-notes. It was the lover who paid, of course. If it were any
one but Brito I should say nothing; but he is rich, and a spendthrift.”
Juliana, pale with emotion, tremblingly caught Aunt Victoria by the arm.
“I would give you a silk gown, Aunt Victoria,” she said--
“A blue one. You see, I tell you even the color.”
“But Brito is not an easy man to deal with, Aunt Victoria; he might
take the letters by force.”
“Do you think me a fool, then?” replied the other, disdainfully. “I
shall not send the letters, but copies of them.”
And she added, after a momenta reflection,--
“You will return home--”
“No, I will not go back.”
“Perhaps you are right. Come and sleep here until we see how this is
going to end, and dine with me to-day; we have a fine fish for dinner.”
“But will there be any danger if Brito should have recourse to the
police?”
Aunt Victoria shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
“See, go away now,” she said; “for you put me out of patience. The
police! These matters are not brought to the notice of the police.
Leave it all to me, and come back to dinner at four.”
Juliana went away, feeling as if she floated on air. A _conto de
reis_! It was the _conto de reis_ she had once seen in her
dreams come back to her now with the tinkle of gold and the rustle
of bank-notes. Her brain was filled with images stretching out in
wondrous perspective,--the counter of a millinery-shop, behind which
she was to stand, waiting on her customers; a husband at her side at
supper-time; innumerable pairs of boots, of the best quality and the
most chic fashion. Where should she keep her money? In the bank? No, at
the bottom of her trunk; there it would be safer, and more at hand.
To get through the morning, she bought a quarter of a pound of
biscuits, and seated herself on a bench in the Gardens, under the shade
of her parasol, indulging already in delightful anticipations of the
life she would lead, fancying herself already a lady; and she even cast
a speculative glance at a peaceable householder who was passing by, and
who quickened his pace, scandalized, as he caught her eye.
CHAPTER XIV.
FROM DREAMS TO WAKING.
AT about this time Luiza awoke, and as she hastily sat up in bed,
thought,--
“It is to-day.”
A horrible sensation of dread and anguish seized upon her heart. She
began to dress herself, trembling at the thought of seeing Juliana
again. She had just come to the determination to remain in her room,
without going to breakfast, till eleven o’clock, and then to go see
Bazilio at his hotel, when she heard the voice of Joanna, calling
outside the door,--
“Senhora!”
The girl entered in a fright, saying that Juliana had left the house
early in the morning, that she had not yet returned, and that her work
was undone.
“Very well; get me some breakfast; I will be there directly.”
What a relief! She took it for granted that Juliana had left the house
finally. With what object? To concoct some plot, doubtless. Her best
course was to go at once to their place of meeting, and wait there
for Bazilio. She went to the dining-room and drank a glass of water
hastily, without sitting down.
“Could the Senhora Juliana have been taken sick?” Joanna came to ask
her.
“We shall soon know,” responded Luiza.
At half-past one she put on her hat. Her heart beat violently;
notwithstanding her dread of seeing Juliana in case she should return,
she could not resolve to leave her home--forever! She sat down, with
her morocco satchel in her lap.
“But why delay?” she said to herself at last, rising, as if impelled by
some invisible and irresistible force. She went into her bedroom; her
wrapper and slippers were lying on the rug.
“What a misfortune!” she said to herself, as she picked them up
mechanically. She went to her dressing-table, opened the drawer and
put away the combs; then went hastily into the parlor, took Jorge’s
likeness out of the album, and put it, with a trembling hand, into the
satchel. She glanced wildly around, left the room, and ran downstairs.
A coupé was driving along the Patriarchal. She stopped it, and
entering, told the coachman to drive to the Central Hotel.
Senhor Brito had gone out early in the morning, the porter obsequiously
informed her, when she reached the hotel. A vessel had apparently just
arrived, for men were carrying into the hotel luggage, trunks covered
with oil-cloth, and boxes bound with iron. Some of the passengers,
not yet recovered from the effects of the sea-sickness, and a little
bewildered by the novelty of their surroundings, were talking and
giving directions to the servants all at once. The bustle revived
Luiza’s spirits; she felt a sudden desire to travel, to witness the
excitement and confusion of the railway-stations at night, by gaslight;
to see gay groups seated on the deck of the steamer in the morning. She
told the coachman to drive to the house where she was to meet Bazilio.
As she drove on, it seemed to her as if all her past existence,
Juliana and her domestic life, were fading away before her gaze from
a horizon which she was to leave forever behind her. At the door of a
bookseller’s shop she caught a glimpse of Julião, and she drew back
hastily into a corner of the coupé; she could not see him distinctly,
and she regretted it. She was going away without seeing a single
friend of the house. They all, Julião, Ernesto, the counsellor, Donna
Felicidade, appeared to her now adorable, possessed of noble qualities
that hitherto she had not suspected in them, and suddenly endowed with
peculiar charms. And poor Sebastião, who was so good! Never again
should she hear him play the _malaguenha_!
At the end of Ouro Street the coupé was stopped by a number of
vehicles blocking up the way, and Luiza saw, standing close to her,
Castro,--Castro of the eye-glasses, the banker who Leopoldina had said
was in love with her; a boy was trying to sell him a lottery ticket,
and Castro, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, was joking
with the urchin with the disdainful familiarity of a rich man, and
casting furtive glances at Luiza, at the same time, from behind his
gold eye-glasses. She stole a glance at him from under her long lashes.
This man admired her. How horrible! He inspired her with repugnance,
with his prominent paunch and his short legs. The recollection of
Bazilio’s handsome face came vividly to her mind, and she tapped at the
carriage-window, impatient to see him once more.
The coupé at last drove on. The sun shone brightly as they drove
through Rocio; the passengers were disembarking hurriedly from the
steamboat,--some from Belem, others from Pedrouços; the hucksters
were crying aloud their wares. Every one was returning to home and
happiness; she only was leaving both.
At last the coupé stopped. The mistress of the house appeared at the
door, saying she was very sorry, but the gentleman had the keys of
the apartment, and if the senhora wished to rest a few moments in her
room--At this moment another carriage drove up, and Bazilio descended
from it.
“So you have come at last!” he exclaimed, as they entered the house
together and went upstairs. “And why did you not come yesterday?”
“Ah, if you knew what has happened!”
He caught her by the arm and looked at her intently.
“Bazilio, I am lost!”
“What has happened?” he cried, as they entered the apartment.
Luiza, throwing her satchel on the sofa, told him in a breath of the
letter Juliana had found among the waste-papers, of these she had
stolen from her drawer, and of the scene of yesterday.
“There is nothing left for me but to fly,” she ended. “Here I am; take
me with you. You have often urged me to fly with you,--now I am ready.
I have brought this satchel with the most necessary articles,--gloves,
handkerchiefs. What do you say?”
Bazilio, his hands in his pockets, jingling together his money and his
keys, followed Luiza’s gestures and words with astonishment.
“This could only happen to you!” he exclaimed. “What folly!” And he
added, very much excited, “And you are going to run away for this? Why
speak of running away? It is a question of money, which is what she
wants. Find out how much she asks, and give it to her.”
“No, no!” cried Luiza. “I cannot remain here. This woman might sell the
letters, but she would keep the secret in her possession, and she might
at any moment reveal it. If Jorge knows it, I am lost. I have not the
courage to return home; I should never know a tranquil moment after he
came back. We will go to-day,--shall we? Or if not to-day, to-morrow.
If he should know it, he would kill me, Bazilio! Say that we will go
to-morrow!” And she clung to him, eagerly supplicating him with her
eyes to consent. Bazilio gently released himself.
“You are mad, Luiza; you are out of your mind!” he said. “How can you
think of such a thing? It would be a terrible scandal, and we should
be pursued by the police and by the telegraph. Impossible! This thing
of running away is very well for novels. Besides, the matter is not so
serious as all that; it is only a question of money.”
Luiza turned pale at his words.
“Besides,” continued Bazilio in great agitation, “it would not suit me
to leave Lisbon now, nor you either. The woman who leaves her home
loses even her name; she is regarded with contempt. I shall be obliged
to return to Brazil, and then where would you remain? Do you want to
be on the sea for a month, and then run the risk of taking the yellow
fever? And what if your husband should pursue us, and we should be
detained at the frontier? Do you think it would be a pleasant thing to
return, escorted by the police, and to spend a year in Limoeiro? The
matter is very simple; have an understanding with this woman; give her
a couple of pounds, which is what she wants, and remain in your house,
respected and tranquil, and be a little more prudent for the future;
that is all.”
These words laid all Luiza’s hopes in the dust, as the axe lays low the
tree. At times a glimpse of the truths they contained flashed across
her mind like a gleam of lightning, chilling her like a cold mist. But
in Bazilio’s refusal she saw only ingratitude and indifference. After
seeing herself sheltered, in imagination, in a secure asylum, far away
in Paris, it seemed to her intolerable to return home, hanging down
her head, to endure Juliana’s exactions again, and to wait for death;
the pleasures she had anticipated seemed to her now more intoxicating
than before, and almost indispensable to her. And besides, of what use
was it to buy back her letters with money? That woman knew her secret,
and would continue to imbitter her existence, and she would have this
danger forever hanging over her. She was silent, as though buried in
vague meditation, and then suddenly, with flashing eyes,--
“Well, what is your answer?” she said.
“I have already told you, child.”
“You will not?”
“No,” returned Bazilio, abruptly. “If you are crazy, I am not.”
“Oh, what will become of me! what will become of me!” she exclaimed,
throwing herself on the sofa and covering her face with her hands. Her
bosom was convulsed by sobs that she vainly sought to repress.
Bazilio sat down beside her. These tears annoyed him and made him
impatient.
“But for Heaven’s sake listen to me!” he said.
She turned her eyes, that flashed through their tears, full upon him.
“Why did you say to me that we might be so happy if I only wished?”
Bazilio rose abruptly.
“But was it your intention to travel with me in a railway-car to Paris?”
“I have left my home forever.”
“It would be better for you to return to it, then,” he exclaimed
angrily. “Why do you want to run away? To avoid scandal? But in doing
so we should give greater scandal, irreparable scandal. I speak to
you as your best friend, Luiza.” And he added, taking her hands
affectionately in his, “Do you think it would not make me happy to have
you come with me to Paris? But I know the world, and I know what the
consequences of such a step would be. All this scandal may be avoided
with money. Do you suppose the woman has left the house for the purpose
of betraying you? It is to her interest to disappear. She knows very
well that She has robbed you by means of false keys. The question is,
to purchase her silence.”
“And where have I the money to do so?” returned Luiza, slowly.
“I have it, of course; that is understood,” he said. “Not much,”
he added, “for I am a little in arrears; but--in short--” He
hesitated a moment, and then said, “If she asks two hundred thousand
_reis_,[8] she shall have them.”
“And if she refuses?”
“Why should she refuse? If she has stolen your letters it is in order
to sell them, not for the pleasure of having your autograph in her
possession.”
He could scarcely refrain from speaking angrily to her, as he walked up
and down the room with nervous steps. What a silly pretension to want
to go to Paris with him to be in his way! And what a piece of stupidity
to give a handful of money to a thief! The whole thing--the stolen
letter, the servant acting as a spy on her mistress, the false key of
the bureau-drawer--appeared to him supremely vulgar. He stopped, and
said, to end the matter,--
“Well, then, offer her three hundred thousand _reis_,[9] if you
like; but for Heaven’s sake be more careful in future! I cannot afford
to pay three hundred thousand _reis_ every time you choose to be
careless.”
Luiza grew livid, as if Bazilio had spat in her face.
“If it is a question of money, I will provide it, Bazilio,” she said.
How she should do so she did not know. What matter? She would beg,
work, pawn, but she would not accept money from him.
Bazilio shrugged his shoulders.
“And where can you find this money?” he asked.
“What does it matter to you?”
Bazilio shook his head with a gesture of despair, and taking her hands
in his, said, repressing his impatience,--
“We are talking nonsense and losing our tempers, my dear; you have no
money.”
“Very well,” she cried, catching him by the arm; “speak you to this
woman, and settle the matter with her; I will not see her. If I were to
see her it would kill me. Speak you to her.”
Bazilio drew back quickly, and stamping his foot, said, “Are you mad?
If I were to speak to her she would try to fleece me. This is your
affair. I will give you the money, and you can arrange the matter with
her.”
“You are not willing to do even that?”
“No, a thousand devils, no!” cried Bazilio, unable to control himself
longer.
“Good-by.”
“Are you mad, Luiza?”
“No,” she returned, lowering her veil with a trembling hand; “the fault
is mine, and it is I who ought to bear the consequences of it.”
She opened the door. Bazilio ran after her and caught her by the arm.
“Luiza, Luiza, what are you about to do?” he cried. “We cannot part in
this way. Listen!”
“Let us fly together then, and you will save me from everything,” she
said, eagerly embracing him.
“Again! Have I not told you that is impossible?”
Luiza closed the door behind her, and ran downstairs. The coupé was
waiting for her at the door.
“To Rocio,” she said to the driver.
And leaning back in the carriage, she burst into a convulsive fit of
weeping.
CHAPTER XV.
THE TELEGRAM.
BAZILIO left the house very much agitated. Luiza’s pretensions, her
_bourgeois_ terrors, and the vulgar triviality of the whole affair
irritated him to such a degree that for a moment he thought of breaking
off with her, and letting things quietly take their course. But she
inspired him with pity. Without being in love with her, he admired
her; she was so beautiful and so tender. It was, besides, a manner of
passing away the time while he remained in Lisbon. What an accursed
complication!
On returning to the hotel he said to the servant, “When the Viscount
Reynaldo returns, say to him that I am in my room.”
This was a room on the second story, its windows overlooking the river.
Arrived there, he drank a glass of brandy and threw himself on the
sofa. On the table beside him were his _buvard_ with his monogram
in silver, surmounted by a count’s coronet, some French novels, the
“Manuel du Chasseur,” some numbers of “Figaro,” a likeness of Luiza,
and an engraving of a horse.
Lighting a cigar, he began to reflect, with a feeling of horror, on
his situation. This was all that was wanting,--that he should return
to Paris with such an encumbrance! To let a woman interfere with the
course of his well-ordered existence, merely because a letter had been
stolen from her, and she was afraid of her husband! What a pretension!
The whole adventure, from the very beginning, was a mistake. It had
been the idea of an enamoured _bourgeois_ to trouble the peace of
his cousin of the Patriarchal. He should have gone to Lisbon, arranged
his affairs there, remaining quietly at the Central Hotel, taken the
steamer back to France, and sent his country to the devil. His affairs
had been settled for some time, and he, like the idiot he was, still
remained in Lisbon, spending a fortune in carriages to make visits to
the street of Santa Barbara, for a woman like a thousand others. It was
true that while he remained in Lisbon there was something pleasant and
exciting, like a chapter from a novel, in the affair, with its mixture
of illicit passion and family ties betrayed. But he was tired of the
episode now; the best thing he could do was to leave Lisbon without
seeing Luiza again.
He had made his fortune in a speculation in Paraguay, the success of
which had led to the formation of a company of Brazilian capitalists;
but Bazilio and a number of French engineers desired to buy up the
Brazilian shares, which they found an obstacle in the way of their
ambitious designs. In order to form another company in Paris, and give
a more daring turn to the business, Bazilio had come to Lisbon to
negotiate with some Brazilian shareholders there, and had dexterously
managed to buy up their shares. The prolongation of this amorous
episode threatened to prove a disturbing element in his practical
affairs, and now that the matter began to assume an ugly aspect, it
was expedient that he should put an end to it at once.
The door opened, and Reynaldo entered, wearing blue glasses and looking
very tired. He was furious. He had just come from Bemfica, expiring,
absolutely expiring with this heat, which was only fit for a country
inhabited by negroes! He had had the stupid idea of going to see an
aunt of his, who had obliged him to listen to a long sermon, as if he
had been at church. A school-boy’s idea it was to go see her; for if
there was anything he especially detested it was a display of family
tenderness.
“What did you want to see me for?” he said in conclusion. “I am going
to remain in the bath till dinner-time.”
“Do you know what has happened to me?” responded Bazilio, rising.
“What has happened?”
“Guess; the most stupid thing you can imagine.”
“The husband has found you out?”
“No, the servant.”
“Shocking!” exclaimed Reynaldo, with an air of disgust.
Bazilio gave all the details of the affair, and folding his arms, said
in conclusion,--
“And now, what is to be done?”
“Slip away,” returned the other, rising.
“Where are you going?” asked Bazilio.
“To the bath.”
Bazilio requested him to wait a moment, saying he wanted to consult
him.
“Impossible!” exclaimed Reynaldo, with rude egotism. “Come downstairs
you. One can talk in the water as well.”
And he left the room, calling to William, his English servant, to
accompany him.
When Bazilio rejoined him, Reynaldo, stretched at full length in
a bath-tub full of water that diffused around a strong odor of
eau-de-Lubin, said to him in tones expressive of the physical enjoyment
he experienced,--
“A stolen letter, eh?”
“Tell me frankly, Reynaldo; I am really troubled about this matter.
What ought I to do?”
“Pack your trunks, my boy,” answered Reynaldo; adding, “this is the
result of making love to a cousin who lives in the Patriarchal.”
“Oh!” said Bazilio, impatiently.
“What!” exclaimed the other, supporting himself with both hands on the
edge of the bath-tub. “Do you think a woman is to be admired who takes
the cook into her confidence, who loses her love-letters, who cries,
and asks you for two hundred thousand _reis_, and who wants to
escape the consequences of her folly by running away?”
“Notwithstanding all that, she is a charming woman.”
Reynaldo shrugged his shoulders incredulously. “You are in love,” he
replied, stretching himself with a yawn.
Bazilio shook his head impatiently, in denial of so grotesque a
supposition.
“Come, now,” said Reynaldo. “Do you want to remain tied to her
apron-strings, or do you wish to get rid of her? Tell the truth.”
“I should like,” returned Bazilio, drawing nearer to his friend, “to
get rid of her decently.”
“Stupid!” responded Reynaldo. “Why, you have an excuse for doing so
that if you had invented it yourself could not be better. She left you
like a madwoman, as you tell me. Well, then, write to her saying that
since you see she wishes to break with you, you will trouble her no
more, and then leave the city. Are all your affairs settled? You need
not say they are not, for Lapierre has told me they are. Very well; be
a man, order your trunks to be packed, and rid yourself at once of this
annoyance.”
And taking up the sponge he proceeded to let a shower of water fall
over his head and shoulders, exhaling his breath with satisfaction as
he did so.
“But to leave her in this difficulty with the servant!” said Bazilio.
“After all, she is my cousin.”
Reynaldo stretched his arms with a shout of laughter. “This family
affection is admirable,” he said. “See, go and say to her that your
affairs oblige you to leave Lisbon, and put a few bank-notes into her
hand.”
“That would be brutal!”
“And costly!”
“But it is a pity, after all, that the poor girl should be at the mercy
of her own servant,” said Bazilio.
Reynaldo stretched himself again. “Who knows,” he exclaimed in joyful
accents, “but that they are at this very moment engaged in scratching
each other’s eyes out?”
He leaned back in a state of beatitude, and declared that he was
supremely happy,--provided only that John had not forgotten to prepare
the champagne _frappé_.
Bazilio twisted his mustache in silence. He saw before him in fancy
Luiza’s parlor, and the horrible countenance of Juliana, with her
enormous head-dress. Were they indeed quarrelling at this moment? How
vulgar the whole thing was! Decidedly he ought to go away.
“But what pretext shall I make use of for leaving Lisbon?” he resumed.
“A telegram. There is nothing like a telegram! Telegraph to your agent
in Paris, Lachardie, or Lachardette, or whatever his name may be, and
tell him to send you the following despatch: ‘Come; business is going
badly,’ etc. It is the best way.”
“I shall do so at once,” said Bazilio, rising with decision.
“And we shall set out to-morrow?” asked Reynaldo.
“Yes, to-morrow.”
“For Madrid?”
“Very well; for Madrid.”
“Delightful!” exclaimed the other, standing up in the bath-tub; and
shaking the water from his person with a slight shudder, he stepped
out, enveloped in his Turkish bath-robe. His servant William entered
noiselessly, and kneeling down took one of the viscount’s feet in his
hands, dried it with extreme care, and proceeded to draw on, with
respectful tenderness, the black silk stocking with its embroidered
initials.
On the following day, a little before twelve, Joanna knocked
discreetly at the door of Luiza’s room, and announced in a low voice
(since Luiza’s fainting-fit Joanna had always spoken to her in a low
voice, as if she were a convalescent), “The cousin of the senhora is in
the parlor.”
This announcement took Luiza by surprise. She was still in her
dressing-gown, and her eyes were red with weeping. She powdered her
face, smoothed her hair, and went into the parlor.
Bazilio, dressed in a light-gray suit, was seated in a melancholy
attitude on the piano-stool. His air was grave, and without preface
he proceeded to say that, notwithstanding her anger of yesterday, he
took it for granted that everything was as before between them. That
he had come to see her because at such a time they could not separate
without coming to an understanding, and without arranging, above all,
the question of the letters. And with a sorrowful gesture, like one who
makes an effort to keep back his tears, he added,--
“For I find myself under the necessity of leaving Lisbon, my dear.”
Luiza smiled scornfully, without looking at him.
Bazilio continued: “Only for a short time, of course,--three weeks or a
month at most. But, after all, it is a separation. If my own interests
only were concerned--” and he shrugged his shoulders with a disdainful
gesture. “But the interests of others are also at stake. This morning I
received this.”
He handed her a telegram. She looked at it for a moment without opening
it; the paper trembled in her hand.
“Read it, I beg of you.”
“What for?” she answered.
She read, however, in a low voice: “Come at once; grave complications.
Presence absolutely necessary.”
She folded the paper and gave it back to him.
“According to this you are going away.”
“It is unavoidable.”
“And when?”
“To-night.”
Luiza rose abruptly, and extending her hand, said: “Very well; good-by.”
“You are cruel, Luiza,” murmured Bazilio. “No matter. But there is a
question that must be settled. Have you spoken to that woman?”
“It is all arranged,” she responded, frowning. Bazilio took her hand in
his and said, almost with solemnity,--
“My dear, I know that you are proud, but I ask you to tell me the
truth; I do not want to leave you in difficulties. Have you spoken to
her?”
Luiza drew away her hand impatiently.
“I tell you that it is all arranged,” she answered.
Bazilio seemed preoccupied; his face was paler than usual. He took a
pocket-book from his breast-pocket, and said,--
“Very well; but it is possible, and ought to be taken into account,
since we do not know with whom we are dealing, that there may be still
further exactions.” And he opened the pocket-book, and took out of it a
small and well-filled envelope.
Luiza, her face crimson, followed all his movements with her eyes.
“In order that you may be able to arrange matters with her to your
satisfaction, I think it well to leave you some money,” he said.
“Are you mad?” she exclaimed.
“But--”
“You want to give me money?” said Luiza, in a trembling voice.
“But I think that--”
“Good-by!” she repeated, rising indignantly.
“Luiza, for Heaven’s sake! You do not understand me!”
Luiza paused, and said hastily, as if impatient to put an end to the
interview,--
“I understand you. Thanks; it is not necessary. I do not feel well; let
us not prolong this. Good-by.”
“As I have already told you, I will be back in three weeks.”
“Very well; we shall see each other then.”
He drew her towards him and kissed her on the mouth; her lips were cold
and unresponsive. This indifference wounded his vanity. He pressed her
to his heart, and said in low and passionate accents,--
“Will you not give me a kiss?”
A sudden gleam shot from Luiza’s eyes; she kissed him hastily, then,
drawing back,--
“Good-by,” she again repeated.
Bazilio looked at her for a moment, and sighed.
“Good-by,” he responded. And turning back again at the door, he
added in a melancholy voice, “At least, write to me; you know my
address,--Rue St. Florentin, 22.”
When he had gone, Luiza approached the window. She saw him light his
cigar in the street, speak to the driver, enter the coupé and hastily
shut the door,--all without one glance towards her! The carriage rolled
away. She should see him no more! Their hearts had palpitated with
an equal love; they had shared the same fault. He went gayly away,
carrying with him the romantic souvenirs of this episode in his life;
she remained behind with the ineffaceable bitterness of her fall. Such
was the world! She felt a sharp pang of anguish at the thought of her
solitary and deserted condition. She was alone, and life stretched out
before her like an unknown plain, wrapped in mist and peopled with
dangers. She went back with languid step to her room, and threw herself
on the sofa; on the floor beside her lay the satchel she had prepared
the day before for her flight; she opened it, and began to take out its
contents; in the folds of an embroidered wrapper she found the likeness
of Jorge. She held it in her hand, contemplating his loyal glance,
his honest smile. No, she was not alone in the world! She still had
him! He loved her, and he would never betray her nor abandon her! And
convulsively pressing her lips to the likeness, she buried her face in
the cushions of the sofa, crying, as she burst into bitter tears,--
“Jorge, dearest Jorge, forgive me!”
After dinner Joanna came to her and said,--
“Does not the senhora think it would be well to make some inquiries
about the Senhora Juliana?”
“How is one to inquire?”
“She goes once in a while to see a friend of hers who lives in the
direction of the Carmo. Perhaps she has had an attack of some kind, not
to have sent any message since yesterday morning. I might go and see.”
“Very well; go.”
This sadden disappearance disturbed Luiza also. Where was Juliana? What
was she doing? It seemed to Luiza that some terrible plot was being
concocted against her, that would by-and-by burst with terrible force
upon her head.
Night fell, and she lighted the candles. She experienced a vague
feeling of terror at finding herself alone in the house, and pacing
up and down the room, her thoughts wandered to Bazilio, at this time
joyfully buying his ticket in Santa Apolonia, then entering the cars
and lighting his cigar, and then being carried away from her forever.
For she had no faith in this absence of three weeks or a month. No; he
was going away forever; he was flying from her, and although she now
regarded him with hatred, she yet felt that through this desertion her
heart had received a wound that was bleeding painfully.
It was almost nine o’clock when the bell rang hastily. Thinking it was
Joanna who had returned, Luiza took a candlestick in her hand, and
went to open the door. She drew back quickly on seeing Juliana, her
countenance livid and stamped with Suffering.
“Will the senhora do me the favor to listen to a word?” she said.
She followed Luiza into her room, and burst out furiously,--
“Does the senhora think things are going to remain as they are? Does
the senhora think that because her lover steals away, things are going
to remain as they are?”
“But what things do you mean, woman?” said Luiza, stupefied.
“Do you think that because your lover is going away, this is going to
end in nothing?”
“But for the love of Heaven!”
Luiza’s voice expressed so much anguish that Juliana was silent.
Presently she continued in a lower tone,--
“The senhora knows that it was with some purpose I took the letters;
I wanted to ask the help of the senhora’s cousin. I am worn out with
work, and I want rest. I went to the hotel this afternoon; the cousin
of the senhora was gone--to Olivares, or to the devil! The servant was
to follow in the evening with the luggage. Does the senhora think I am
to be balked in this way?” And she added angrily, bringing down her
hand with violence upon the table, “May a thunderbolt strike me dead
if I do not make a scandal in this house that will be the talk of all
Portugal!”
“How much do you want for the letters, thief?” asked Luiza, standing
before her.
Juliana remained silent a moment.
“Unless the senhora gives me six hundred thousand _reis_ I shall
not give up the letters,” she responded at last, with determination.
“Six hundred thousand _reis_![10] And where do you expect me to
find that sum?”
“In hell!” shouted Juliana. “Either you give me six hundred thousand
_reis_, or as sure as I am standing here, when your husband comes
back I will read them to him.”
Luiza threw herself on a chair, completely overwhelmed.
“What have I done, my God, that this should happen to me?” she cried.
Juliana placed herself insolently in front of her mistress.
“The senhora says well,” she said. “I am a thief, it is true. I
took one letter from the rubbish, and the others I took from the
bureau-drawer. And I did this that I might be paid for giving them
back.” And she added, frantically taking off and putting on her shawl
alternately, “My turn had to come; I have had suffering enough, and I
am tired of it. Find the money wherever you wish, but it shall not be
five _reis_ less than I have said. I have spent years and years
in misery. While the senhora is amusing herself I am slaving myself to
death from morning till night to earn fifty _reals_[11] a month.
I rise at six o’clock in the morning, and without a moment’s delay set
to work to sweep, to dust, to put in order, while the senhora is lying
comfortably in bed without a care. For a month past I have been rising
at daybreak to wash and iron; and the senhora never thinks of all the
clothes she soils; she goes wherever she wishes to go, and here is
the slave with the heart-disease, with the iron in her hand, working
herself to death. For the senhora all is pleasure,--parties, carriages,
silk gowns, everything she takes a fancy to; but the slave,--let her
kill herself working!”
Luiza, overwhelmed, without the strength to answer, cowered under the
weight of Juliana’s anger, like a bird in the fowler’s net; while the
latter was stimulated to still greater violence by the angry sound
of her own voice and by the recollection of the hardships she had
undergone and the humiliations she had suffered, which heated her blood
like the glowing breath from a furnace.
“Why, what did you think,” she continued,--“that I should go on eating
the leavings, and the senhora the tidbits? Who would give me a drop of
wine if I should want it, after working hard all day? I must buy it for
myself. Has the senhora seen my room? There are so many insects in it
that I have to sleep with my clothes on; while if the senhora should
feel a single bite, she has the slave take her bed apart, and clean it
for her. The servant is a beast of burden; let her work if she can, if
not, to the street or to the hospital with her! But my turn has come at
last!” she ended, striking her breast with revengeful fury. “It is I
who am mistress now!”
Luiza sobbed in silence.
“Does the senhora weep? I, too, have wept a great deal. I wish you
no ill; no, Senhora, amuse yourself, enjoy yourself, but I must have
my money. I want it all, or these letters shall be heard about. May
the roof fall down and crush me if I do not show the letters to your
husband, to your friends, to every one in the neighborhood, till you
axe ready to drag yourself on your knees through the streets for the
shame of it!”
She paused, out of breath, and then continued in a fatigued voice,--
“Let the senhora give me my money, my darling money, and she shall have
her letters; and may a thunderbolt strike me dead this instant if ever
I open my lips after receiving it.”
And she clapped her hand to her mouth.
Luiza rose, very pale.
“Very well,” she said, almost in a whisper. “I will get you this money.
Wait a few days.”
A silence ensued that, after the previous noise, appeared all the more
profound. Even the furniture of the room seemed more motionless than
before. The only sound to be heard was the ticking of the clock; the
candles on the dressing-table burned with a reddish light.
Juliana took up her parasol, put on her shawl, and after looking for a
moment at Luiza, said curtly,--
“Very well, Senhora.”
And turning on her heel she left the room.
Luiza heard the outer door close noisily behind her.
“My God! what an expiation!” she exclaimed, dropping into a chair and
bursting into tears.
It was almost ten when Joanna returned.
“I have not been able to find out anything, Senhora,” she said. “No one
knows anything about her.”
“Very well; bring the lamp.”
And as Joanna left the room, Luiza murmured to herself,--
“That good girl has some love-affair, and she has been enjoying herself
with her sweetheart.”
CHAPTER XVI.
A REPRIEVE.
WHAT a night of anguish Luiza spent! No sooner did she fall asleep than
she awoke again in terror. She opened her eyes in the half-obscurity of
the room, ever conscious of the same sharp anxiety that rankled like a
dagger-thrust in her soul. What was she to do? How should she find the
money? Six hundred thousand _reis_! Her jewels, at the utmost,
were worth some two hundred thousand; and besides, what would Jorge say
if he found she had parted with them? She had some plate, but the same
thing was true of that.
The night was warm, and she felt restless and suffocating. At times,
through fatigue, she fell into a light sleep, haunted by dreams. She
saw before her mountains of gold, and bundles of bank-notes flying
around her in the air. She sat up in bed to seize them, and the coins
rolled away from her on the floor, and the bank-notes flew away with a
mocking sound of wings. Again it was a man who entered her room, and
bending before her respectfully, took off his hat and drew from it
pounds and pieces of five thousand _reis_ without number, heaping
them in her lap. Who it was she did not know; he wore a red cloak and
had an insolent air. Could it be the Devil? And what if it were? She
would have the money; she would be saved. Then she began to call to
Juliana, running after her along a road without end, that grew narrower
and narrower, until at last it became a cleft through which she dragged
herself, out of breath, clasping to her breast the money, which struck
a chill to her heart. She awoke in terror; and the contrast of her
actual need with those imaginary riches augmented the bitterness of her
situation. On whom could she call for help? On Sebastião. Sebastião
was rich and kind-hearted. But to send for him and say to him,--she,
Jorge’s wife,--“Lend me six hundred thousand _reis_!” “What for?”
“To redeem some letters I wrote to a lover.” Was it possible to say
this to him? No; she was irretrievably lost, and nothing remained for
her but a convent.
She turned her pillow, contact with which burned her cheeks, from side
to side; she took off her cap, and her long hair fell loose about
her. She gathered it up, and fastened it with a hairpin; and lying on
her side, leaning her head on her arm, she began to go over bitterly
in her mind the romance of the past summer,--the arrival of Bazilio,
the excursion to the country, her first secret interview with him.
Where was the traitor now? Sleeping tranquilly on the cushions of the
railway-car. And she here alone, a prey to anguish! She fell asleep at
last just as day was beginning to dawn.
She awoke late, and with a sense of fatigue; but she saw the sun
shining in unclouded splendor through the dining-room windows, and this
revived her. The canaries were singing in their cages; from the forge
near by came the cheerful sound of hammering, and the intense blue of
the sky filled the soul with a sense of supreme content. The general
cheerfulness inspired her with a sudden courage. She ought not thus to
abandon herself to a hopeless despair. No; she would struggle against
her fate.
Then she felt a swift influx of hope invade her breast. Sebastião was
kind-hearted; Leopoldina had a remedy for everything; other means
would occur to her, and perhaps she would be able in the end to get
six hundred thousand _reis_ together. She would be saved. Juliana
would go away; Jorge would return; and she saw stretch out before her,
with a sense of exhilaration, a vista of happy days to come.
Sebastião’s servant called at about twelve o’clock; his master had just
arrived from Almada and desired to know how the senhora was. Luiza
herself ran to the door; she told the man to beg his master to come and
see her as soon as possible.
She would hesitate no longer; her resolution was taken. She would speak
to Sebastião. After all, it was the only alternative left her,--either
to tell everything to Sebastião or to let Juliana tell everything to
her husband. It was impossible to hesitate. And she might gloss over
the facts; she might say it was only a platonic attachment. Bazilio’s
departure gave the matter the appearance of a past event. And Sebastião
was so devoted to her!
At the end of an hour Sebastião arrived. Luiza, from her bedroom,
heard him come in, and the very sound of his footsteps in the parlor
frightened, almost terrified her. It appeared to her then very
terrible and difficult to carry out her project of confessing her
situation to him. She framed in her mind phrases and explanations--a
vague story of a flirtation, and the interchange of a few letters--as
she stood there trembling, with her hand on the knob of the door. He
seemed to her taller, more dignified-looking than usual. Never had his
glance been more honest nor his countenance more serious than now.
“What is the matter? Can I do anything for you?” he said, after they
had exchanged a few commonplace remarks on the news and the weather.
Luiza experienced an inexplicable terror, and answered,--
“It is on Jorge’s account.”
“I wager he has not written.”
“No.”
“He had not written to me either for a long time past,” said Sebastião.
“But to-day,” he added with a smile, “I received two letters from him
together.”
He looked for them among several papers which he took from his
breast-pocket. Luiza sat down on the sofa; she watched him with a
beating heart, digging her nails into the cushion of the seat.
“Yes,” said Sebastião, turning over the papers, “I received two
together, in which he says he is bored to death in Alemtejo, and speaks
of coming home.” And, handing a letter to Luiza, “See--” he said.
Luiza unfolded the letter, and was about to read it, when Sebastião
hastily interposed,--
“I beg your pardon; that is not the one.”
“No, but let me see it.”
“No, it is nothing--business--”
“No matter; I want to see it.”
Sebastião, seated on the edge of his chair, scratched his beard,
looking at Luiza with a vexed expression.
“What is this?” she cried, frowning, with surprise depicted on her
countenance. “Truly this is--”
“Follies, follies,” said Sebastião, turning crimson. Luiza proceeded to
read aloud slowly:--
“Know, then, friend Sebastião, that I have made a conquest here. She
is not what might be called a princess,--being neither more nor less
than the wife of the village shopkeeper. She seems to be desperately
in love with your humble servant. God forgive me, but I believe she
asks me only a vintem for cigars that are worth a pataco, doing her
worthy husband Carlos the double injury of seeking to ruin him in his
happiness and in his business.”
“How witty!” she muttered, furious. She went on reading:--
“I am not altogether certain that the Biblical story of the wife of
Potiphar will be repeated in my case. I assure you there is some
virtue in resisting her, for, shopkeeper as she is, she is extremely
pretty, and I sometimes fear that my weak virtue may suffer shipwreck
in the end.”
Luiza paused, casting a terrible glance at Sebastião.
“It is only a jest,” he said.
She continued reading:--
“If Luiza were to know of it! And my adventures do not end here.
The wife of the delegate throws terrible glances at me. She is from
Lisbon,--one of the Camargos who live near Belem. Do you know them?
They affect to be dying of weariness in this provincial solitude. She
gave an entertainment in my honor, and in my honor, as I believe, she
went _décoletée_. She has a beautiful neck--”
Luiza turned crimson. It was a diabolical jest.
“He has lost his senses!” she said.
“So here you have your friend transformed into a Don Juan, and leaving
a wake of amorous flames behind him throughout the province. Pimental
charges me--”
Luiza read a few lines farther, in a low voice, and then, rising
abruptly, gave the letter back to Sebastião.
“He seems to be amusing himself very well,” she said, in angry accents.
“You should not take it so seriously.”
“Seriously?” she repeated. “On the contrary, I find it quite natural.”
She sat down, and began to talk volubly of other matters,--of Donna
Felicidade, of Julião.
“He is working very hard now for the examination,” said Sebastião; “the
person I never see is the counsellor.”
“But who are those Camargos of Belem?” asked Luiza.
Sebastião shrugged his shoulders, and said, almost reprovingly,--
“But is it possible that you take this seriously?”
Luiza interrupted him.
“Ah, by the bye, did you know that my Cousin Bazilio has left Lisbon?”
she said.
“Indeed!” returned Sebastião, joyfully.
“He has gone to Paris, and I do not think he will return.” And she
added, after a pause, as if she had forgotten all about Jorge and his
letter, “In Paris he will be able to live more according to his tastes;
he had been wanting to go for some time.” Then, lightly patting the
folds of her gown, “He ought to marry--” she said.
“So that he might settle down,” said Sebastião, finishing the sentence
for her.
But Luiza was afraid that a man who was so fond of travelling, of
horses, and of adventures, would never make a good husband.
Sebastião was of opinion that such men often changed, and made good
heads of families.
“They have more experience,” he added.
“But a bad foundation to begin upon,” she observed.
Then they were silent, both somewhat embarrassed.
“To speak frankly,” said Luiza at last, “I am very glad of his
departure--on account of that nonsense of the neighbors. Lately I
scarcely saw anything of him. He surprised me by a visit yesterday,--to
say good-by.”
She felt that she was making her story of a platonic affection and
an interchange of letters impossible; but a sentiment stronger than
herself impelled her to make her relations with Bazilio appear as
slight as possible; and she added,--
“We are friends, it is true, but our natures are very different;
Bazilio is cold and selfish. Besides, our friendship was never a very
intimate one.”
She paused abruptly; she felt that she was getting beyond her depth.
Sebastião remembered having heard her say that they were brought
up together; but, after all, the way in which she spoke now of her
cousin was the best possible proof that there had never been anything
between them. He almost reproached himself for the unjust doubts he had
entertained.
“And he is not coming back, you say?”
“He did not say so, but I do not think he is. When he finds himself in
Paris--”
And suddenly remembering the letter she had just read, “So you are
Jorge’s confidant,” she said.
“Senhora, can you believe--” began Sebastião, smiling.
“Because he always writes to me,” she interrupted, “that he is bored
to death, that he is lonely, and that he cannot bear Alemtejo.” Then,
seeing Sebastião look at his watch, “What!” she cried, “are you going
already? You have been here only a few moments.”
He was obliged to be down town at three, he answered.
Luiza wanted to detain him, without knowing why. She felt her
resolution failing her. She began to speak of the work at Almada.
Sebastião had begun the work, thinking that two or three hundred
thousand reis would suffice for the alterations he contemplated
making. But one thing led to another, and it was a bottomless gulf, he
declared, that swallowed up his money.
“When one is rich--” responded Luiza, with a forced laugh.
“It seems as if it were nothing,” continued Sebastião; “but the
painting of a door, a new window, the papering of a room, a brick
pavement,--what with one thing and another, eight hundred thousand
_reis_ have gone.”
He rose to take his leave, saying,--
“I think that chatterbox will soon return to us now.”
“If the shopkeeper’s wife will let him,” said Luiza.
When Sebastião was gone, she began to walk up and down the room,
preoccupied by this idea. To allow himself to be made love to by the
shopkeeper’s wife, the wife of the delegate, and who could tell how
many others! She had confidence in him, of course, but after all, he
was a man. And suddenly she pictured him to herself in the embrace of
the shopkeeper’s wife, or imprinting a kiss on the neck of the wife of
the delegate; and imaginary instances of Jorge’s faithlessness thronged
tumultuously to her mind. It was two months since he had left home;
he was weary of his loneliness, he met a pretty woman, and he flirted
with her as an innocent and agreeable pastime. Traitor! She resolved to
write to him a severe and dignified letter,--“he must return at once,
or she would go join him.” She went to her room in a state of great
excitement. The likeness of Jorge, that she had taken the day before
from the satchel, was on her dressing-table. She took it up and looked
at it. She was not surprised that they should fall in love with him. He
was amiable and handsome. She felt a wave of jealousy sweep over her
that darkened her vision; if he should deceive her,--if she discovered
the slightest proof of his faithlessness, she would leave him, she
would retire to a convent, she would die, she would kill him!
“Here is a letter, Senhora,” said Joanna from the doorway; “the person
who brought it is waiting for an answer.”
What a fright! It was from Juliana. It was written on ruled paper, in a
large hand, and was full of orthographical errors. It ran as follows:--
SENHORA,--I know very well that I was too hasty, but
the senhora must attribute my conduct to my poor health and my
misfortunes, for these sometimes make one ill-tempered. If the senhora
wishes me to return, and resume my former position (to which I do not
think she will object), I shall be very glad to make myself agreeable
to her, and I am confident nothing unpleasant will ever occur, always
provided that the senhora fulfils her promise. I, on my side, will
promise to perform my duties faithfully, and I hope the senhora will
accept, for the good of every one concerned. What I said was on the
spur of the moment, for every one has occasional fits of ill-temper;
and, without troubling her further, I remain the senhora’s humble
servant,
JULIANA CONCEIRO TAVIRA.
Luiza stood for a moment with the letter in her hand, unable to decide
upon an answer. Her first impulse was to say no. To take her back
that she might see her again continually before her, with her hideous
countenance, to know that she had her letters in her pocket, and to
call her to render her services, to be waited upon by her! No! But she
reflected that if she refused and the other were to get angry, Heaven
only knew what she might do. Her fate was in her own hands; she must
endure everything; this was her punishment. She hesitated a moment
longer, and then said to Joanna,--
“Say yes; that she may come back!”
Juliana, in effect, returned to the house at eight o’clock that
evening. She went up to the top story, pausing on each step, put on her
working-dress and her slippers, and then went to the laundry, where
Joanna was sewing by the light of a candle.
Joanna, full of curiosity, immediately began to overwhelm her with
questions. Where had she been? What had happened to her? Why had she
sent no word of herself?
Juliana answered that she had gone to see a friend who lived in the
Avenue Marquez d’Abrantes, and that while there she was seized with a
sudden attack of flatulency and pain. She had not sent word, because
she expected soon to be well enough to return; but she had spent half a
day in bed.
She wanted to know, in her turn, what the senhora had been doing, if
she had gone out, if any one had called.
“The senhora has not been very well,” answered Joanna.
“The weather,” returned Juliana, taking up her work.
They spent the rest of the evening in silence.
At ten o’clock Luiza heard a light knock at her door. It was she,
without doubt.
“Come in,” she answered.
“The tea is on the table,” said Juliana, in her usual tone of voice.
Luiza waited awhile after Juliana had gone, hesitating to go into the
parlor, through fear of encountering her. Then she rose, took a few
steps, stopped, and at last entered the room, trembling.
Juliana was in the dining-room. She drew back against the wall, and
said in a respectful tone,--
“Do you want me to bring the lamp, Senhora?”
Luiza nodded affirmatively, without looking at her. When she returned
to her room, Juliana was filling the water-pitcher on the wash-stand.
After arranging the bed and closing the doors, she said quietly,--
“Does the senhora wish anything else?”
“No.”
“Good-night, Senhora.”
And no further word was exchanged between them.
“It seems a dream!” said Luiza to herself, as she undressed
sorrowfully. “That woman here in my house, with my letters in her
possession, to torture me and rob me!”
What had brought about this state of affairs? She did not know,
events had followed each other so rapidly, with the furious haste of
a tempest. She had no time to think and to defend herself; she was
carried along, and she found herself in her own house in the power of
her servant. Ah, if she had only spoken to Sebastião! He, no doubt, had
money. With what eagerness she would take it, pay Juliana’s demand,
and send her away, and her trunks with her, her rags, everything! She
determined to go speak to Sebastião and tell him everything, there
in his own house, in order to make the stronger impression upon him.
After a while, worn out by the agitations of the day, she fell asleep,
and dreamed that she saw a large black bird, with the wings of a bat,
flying through her room, creating a current of air as it passed; it
was Juliana. She ran in terror into the study, calling on Jorge; but
she saw there neither books, nor bookcase, nor table,--nothing but a
pyramid of bundles of cigars, and in the balcony Jorge caressing a
woman magnificently formed, who was seated on his knee, and who said
to him, with languid voice and eyes full of passion, “Brejeiros or
Xabregas cigars?” Then she thought she fled from her house, and after
a series of confused events found herself beside Bazilio, in a street
without end, in which the façades of the palaces had a cathedral-like
aspect, and through which carriages rolled on majestically. She told
Bazilio, with tears in her eyes, of Jorge’s treachery; and her cousin
hovered around her, making love to her while he sang, accompanying
himself on the violin,--
“I sent a letter to Cupid
To ask if the duty laid
By the Court of Love be binding
On a heart that has been betrayed.”
Then suddenly everything grew dark, while Juliana continued her flight
around and around the room with her bat’s wings.
CHAPTER XVII.
JORGE’S RETURN.
IN returning to Luiza’s house Juliana had followed the advice of Aunt
Victoria.
“The bird has flown, my dear,” the latter had said to her. “It is a
pity, for you might have made a good sum out of the affair; but who
could have guessed that the lover would go away? You can do nothing
now but mourn your loss, for you won’t be able to get so much as
that”--indicating the point of her nail--“out of her.”
“But I can show the letters to her husband, Aunt Victoria.”
The old woman shrugged her shoulders.
“You will gain nothing by that. Suppose they separate; suppose he ill
treats her or puts her in a convent; what do you gain by that? And if
they make up you are left in the lurch, and you get nothing from either
side. And this supposing things to turn out well; for it is not at all
impossible that you should find yourself the richer by a good beating.”
And she added, seeing the look of dismay on Juliana’s countenance, “It
would not be the first time such a thing has happened, my dear. A great
many things take place in Lisbon that never find their way into the
papers.”
What she ought by all means to do, according to Aunt Victoria, was to
return to the house. For what was there now left of the whole matter?
Nothing but the fears of Donna Luiza; and of these it was that she must
now avail herself.
“You return to the house,” she continued, “and wait there the
fulfilment of her promise to you. If she gives you the money, well
and good; if she does not, you are there on the spot, and you can go
picking up whatever Providence may chance to throw in your way.”
Juliana hesitated. It would be hard to live under the same roof with
her mistress without having continual disputes with her.
“I shall say no more,” returned the old woman; “you will find out that
I am right in the end.”
“But I am afraid--”
“Of what?” exclaimed Aunt Victoria. “She is not going to poison you.
‘Nothing venture, nothing have.’ Follow my advice if you like,” she
ended; “if not, settle the matter in your own way. What the deuce does
it matter? You will see that I am right; and if you find it does not
suit you to stay there, why, you can leave the house at any time.”
Juliana made up her mind that she would go and see. By-and-by she
discovered that Aunt Victoria sometimes had right on her side.
Luiza appeared resigned to circumstances. Sebastião had gone again to
Almada, but she was determined that as soon as he returned she would
go to his house some morning, throw herself at his feet, and confess
to him everything,--everything. She bore with Juliana, thinking it a
question of a few days at the utmost, and never opened her lips to her.
The proper course with Juliana was to pay her her wages and put her in
the street. Until she could do this, there was nothing for it but to
bear with her in silence. When Sebastião returned--
Meantime she avoided seeing her. She never called her. She never
left her room in the morning without being certain that her bath was
filled, and everything in readiness for her toilet. During the daytime
she remained in her bedroom, reading, sewing, thinking of Jorge, and
sometimes--with hatred--of Bazilio, desiring Sebastião’s return, and
preparing her confession beforehand.
Juliana came face to face with her one day in the hall, carrying a jug
of water to her room.
“But, Senhora, why did you not call me?” she exclaimed, apparently
shocked.
“I had nothing else to do,” returned Luiza.
Juliana followed her to her bedroom, and closing the door behind her
said,--
“Senhora, things cannot go on in this way. It seems as if you were
afraid to look me in the face. I have come back to perform my duties as
formerly. Of course, I expect the senhora to fulfil her promise, for
I will not give up the letters without securing bread for my old age.
What I said was on the spur of the moment, and I have asked pardon for
it. I want to perform my duties while I am here. If the senhora is not
willing,” she ended curtly, “I will leave the house, and it may be the
worse for every one.”
“But--” began Luiza, in confusion.
“No, Senhora,” Juliana interrupted severely; “_I_ am the servant.”
And she left the room, tossing her head.
Luiza was terrified by so much audacity. This thief, it appeared, was
capable of anything. In order to avoid irritating her, she called her,
from this forth, whenever she had occasion for her services. “Bring
this,” “Bring that,” she would say, without looking at her. But Juliana
was so obliging and so discreet, that Luiza, following the impulse
of her fickle nature, and tired of letting things take their course,
began to lose her first vivid sense of her misfortune, and at the end
of three weeks things had again fallen into their natural order, as
Juliana said. Luiza now called her to her room, and sent her on errands
when she had occasion to do so. They went so far as to exchange a few
words together. “How warm it is!” “The laundress is late in coming.”
One day Juliana ventured on the following words, in a confidential
tone,--
“I met the servant of the Senhora Leopoldina to-day.”
“Is her mistress still in Oporto?” asked Luiza.
“She will remain there a month longer, at least, Senhora.”
Altogether the house wore an aspect of tranquillity; and Luiza,
after so many agitations, surrendered herself to the enjoyment of
this repose. She went occasionally to see Donna Felicidade in the
Encarnação, and continued to wait for Sebastião’s return, but without
impatience, almost happy in the thought that the time was yet distant
when she should say to him, “Sebastião, I have written a letter to a
lover.”
Thus the days wore on until the end of September. One afternoon Luiza
was seated at the window in the dining-room. She had been reading, but
the book had fallen from her hand, and she was now gazing with a smile
at a flock of pigeons that had flown from some neighboring villa and
lighted on the wall of the yard. Then her thoughts reverted to Bazilio.
At this moment Juliana appeared in the doorway.
“What is it?” asked Luiza.
The woman shut the door behind her, and stood close beside her
mistress. “The senhora has not yet come to any conclusion?” she
inquired.
“I have not yet been able to do anything,” responded Luiza, slowly.
Juliana looked at the floor in silence. “Very well,” she muttered at
last, and left the room. When she reached the head of the stairs these
words fell on Luiza’s ears: “When the master returns, we shall settle
accounts.”
When the master returned! Her soul was suddenly shaken by the terrors
and the anguish awakened in it by this menace, as the trees of the
forest are shaken by a sudden gale. She must do something before his
return. Jorge had just written to her that he would be in Lisbon soon,
and that he would send her a telegram to let her know by what train
to expect him. She wished that the Ministry might send him on some
distant journey,--to Spain or Africa,--or that some unforeseen event,
without causing him any injury, might keep him away for months. What
would he do if he were to discover everything? Would he kill her? She
recalled to mind his uncompromising words on the night on which Ernesto
had read them the last act of his play. Would he put her in a convent?
Already she saw in fancy the heavy door close on its hinges behind her
with funereal sound, while the lugubrious eyes of the nuns examined
her with curiosity. Her unreasoning terror caused her even to lose the
clear idea of her husband; another Jorge, sanguinary and vindictive,
presented himself to her imagination, forgetful of his amiable nature,
so little disposed to the melodramatic. One day she went into his
study, took his case of pistols, put it away in a trunk, and hid the
key.
One idea alone sustained her; it was that as soon as Sebastião returned
from Almada she would be saved; yet, notwithstanding the unceasing
anguish she suffered, she almost dreaded to know that he had returned,
so much greater did the anguish appear to her of confessing to him
the truth. Then another idea occurred to her,--to write to Bazilio.
Her ever-present fears had broken down her pride, as the constant
filtration of water saps the foundation of a wall. Every day she found
new excuses for asking help from “that traitor.” He had been her lover,
he knew about the letters, he was her only relative. In this way she
would not be obliged to tell Sebastião. She now regarded her refusal to
accept money from Bazilio as a piece of stupid bravado. She ended by
writing a long letter to him, somewhat confused, in which she asked him
to send her six hundred thousand _reis_. She herself posted it,
covering the envelope with stamps. That same afternoon Sebastião, who
had returned from Almada, came to see her. She received him joyfully,
happy at not being obliged to make her confession to him. She spoke to
him of Jorge’s return, and she even made some allusion to her Cousin
Bazilio, and the shameless behavior of the neighbors.
“It is the first thing I shall tell Jorge,” she ended. She now thought
herself saved. Every day she followed with her thoughts her letter
on its way to France, as if her very life had gone enclosed in that
envelope, intrusted to the chances of the railway-trains and the
confusion of travel. She saw it reach first Madrid, then Bayonne,
and at last Paris. A postman hurried to deliver it in the Rue St.
Florentin; Bazilio opened it with trembling hand, he filled an envelope
with bank-notes, covered it with kisses, and then the missive that
carried her salvation and her peace of mind began its journey towards
her. The day on which the answer ought to arrive she rose early, and
greatly agitated, and straining her ear to catch every sound, began to
await the arrival of the postman. She already saw herself dismissing
Juliana, and shedding tears of joy when she had gone. But at half-past
ten she began to grow nervous, and at eleven she called to Joanna to
ask if the postman had already passed.
“Yes, Senhora; he has already passed.”
“Despicable creature!” she muttered, thinking of Bazilio.
But perhaps he had delayed answering her letter for a day or two. She
waited disconsolately and without hope. Nothing! neither now nor on the
days that followed. “Traitor!” she repeated to herself. The thought of
the lottery occurred to her, for she lived only in the one hope. She
bought some tickets, and although she was neither superstitious nor a
devotee, she placed them under a pedestal of a Saint Vincent de Paul
that stood on the bureau in her bedroom. She neglected nothing; she
looked at them every day, added the units together to see whether they
amounted to nine, a zero at the end, or an even number, which is of
good omen. This daily contact with the image of the saint turned her
thoughts to a source of help till now unthought of,--Heaven; and she
made a vow that she would cause fifty masses to be said if the tickets
drew prizes. But they drew blanks; and then she lost hope altogether.
She surrendered herself, almost with pleasure, to inaction, passing
entire days without taking the slightest interest in anything, without
caring to dress herself, wishing to die, devouring the accounts of
suicides, of accidents, of deaths, in the papers, consoling herself for
her own unhappiness by the thought that all around her the city was
full of sorrow and suffering. At times she was seized by sudden fits of
terror. Then she resolved to confide in Sebastião. Again she reflected
that it would be better to write to him, but she could not find words
in which to do so; she was unable to frame any reasonable story; she
lost her courage, and fell back into her former state of inertness,
always thinking, “To-morrow, to-morrow.”
Sometimes, when in her room alone, she would look out of the window
thinking of what the neighbors would say when they should know all.
Would they condemn her? Would they pity her? Would they cry, “What
a shameless creature!” or “What an unfortunate woman!” Behind her
window-blinds she followed with her glance the promenades of Senhor
Paula on the pavement below, the heavy immobility of the coal-vender
at her door, and the movements of the three Azevedos behind their
window-curtains. They would all exclaim, “Did we not say so?” How
horrible! At other times she suddenly fancied she saw Jorge standing
before her, terrible in his anger, with her letters in his hand, and
she drew back as if she felt the physical pain of his blows. But what
most troubled her was the tranquillity of Juliana, as the latter went
about her work singing, or waited on her at table in her white apron.
What were her secret intentions? What was she plotting? At times an
access of rage seized her. If she were strong and brave she would throw
herself upon this woman, take her by the throat, and tear her letters
from her. But unfortunately she had no more strength than a child.
One morning as she was indulging in thoughts like these Juliana came
into the room, with a black silk dress of her mistress’s hanging over
her arm. She laid it on the sofa and showed Luiza, close by the lowest
flounce, a rent that looked as if it had been cut with a knife; she
had come to ask, she said, if the senhora wanted to send it to the
dressmaker’s.
Luiza remembered that she had torn it one morning on her way to meet
Bazilio.
“That is easily mended,” said Juliana, passing her hand caressingly
over the silk.
Luiza hesitated. “It is scarcely worth while,” she answered at last;
“it is no longer new. You may keep it for yourself.”
Juliana trembled and flushed with pleasure.
“Oh, Senhora!” she exclaimed. “I am very much obliged to you. It is
a handsome present. I am _very_ much obliged to you, Senhora;
really--”
Her emotion rendered her unable to proceed. She took up the gown and
carried it to the kitchen. Luiza followed her stealthily, and heard her
say, very much excited, to Joanna,--
“See what a present! Nothing could be finer! It is almost new, and of
very good silk.”
She trailed the skirt along the floor, listening to the delightful
_frou-frou_ it made. She had always wished for, and now she
possessed, a silk gown of her own.
“The senhora is very good, Joanna,” she said; “she is an angel!”
Luiza returned to her room full of joy. She felt like one who has
lost his way at night in the open country, and suddenly sees a light
shining in a window in the distance. She was saved! She had only to
give Juliana presents,--to satiate her with them. She began to think
of other things she might give her, one by one,--her garnet gown,
under-clothing, a bracelet--
Two days afterwards--it was on a Sunday--she received a telegram from
Jorge. “I leave Carregado to-morrow. Will arrive by the train from
Oporto at six A. M.” What a fright! At last he was coming home!
She was young and she loved Jorge, and every other feeling was soon
swallowed up in the thought of her happiness at seeing him again, and
of his first kiss. She looked at herself in the glass; she had grown
thinner, and her face had a tired expression. Jorge’s image presented
itself to her mind in clearly-defined outlines,--his complexion
slightly bronzed by the sun, his curling locks, and his black eyes. How
strange! Never before had she so longed to see him. She at once began
to busy herself in making preparations for his arrival. Was the study
in order? Perhaps he would wish to take a bath; the large bath-tub must
be filled. She went about the house singing, with a feverish light in
her eyes. The voice of Juliana in the hall made her shudder. What would
she do? If she would at least leave her to enjoy in peace the first few
days after Jorge’s return. She felt a momentary courage, and called to
her.
“Did you wish anything, Senhora?”
“The master is coming home to-morrow,” said Luiza.
She paused, with her heart beating violently.
“Ah!” responded Juliana; “very well, Senhora;” and she was about to go.
“Juliana,” said Luiza, in uncertain accents.
The other turned around in surprise; and Luiza, clasping her hands with
a supplicating gesture, cried,--
“For these first few days--I shall get that for you; don’t be afraid.”
Juliana interrupted her.
“Ah, Senhora! there shall be no trouble as far as I am concerned; all I
want is a crust of bread for my old age. I will keep my mouth shut. The
only thing is, if the senhora could help me a little from time to time.”
“Of course! as much as you like--”
“Well, you may rest assured that from my lips--” and she placed her
finger on her lips, shutting them tightly.
What joy for Luiza! She would have a few days, a few weeks, perhaps,
free from torture, with her Jorge. She surrendered herself to her
delightful impatience to see him once again. It was strange, but she
thought she loved him now more than she had ever done. By-and-by she
would consider what course she should pursue; she would give other
presents to Juliana; she might prepare Sebastião little by little for
her request. She almost felt happy!
In the afternoon Juliana entered her room with a smile on her face, and
said,--
“Joanna has gone out; it was her turn; but I wanted to go out too, if
the senhora does not mind remaining alone.”
“No, I do not mind; you may go.”
Shortly afterwards she heard the noise of Juliana’s high-heeled boots
in the hall, and then the sound of the outer door closing. Then a
thought presented itself to her mind that dazzled her as a flash of
lightning might have done,--to go to Juliana’s room, search her trunk,
and rob her of the letters in her turn. She watched her turn the
corner, and then went upstairs slowly, and with her heart beating,
listening for every sound. The door of Juliana’s room was open;
there came from it an odor of unaired garments that sickened her; a
melancholy light entered through the window, and on the floor, placed
close to the wall, she saw the trunk. It was locked. She went back to
her own room quickly for her bunch of keys. She felt a sense of shame;
but what of that if she found the letters! She began to try the keys,
one by one, with trembling hand; the lock yielded suddenly, with a
creaking sound. She raised the lid; perhaps she should find them here.
She proceeded to take out the contents carefully, placing them on the
bed,--Juliana’s merino gown, a gilded fan wrapped in tissue-paper; some
red and blue ribbons; a rose-colored satin scapulary; some unopened
bottles of perfume, with bouquets of roses, cut out of paper, pasted on
the glass; three pairs of boots wrapped in newspapers; white garments
that diffused a mixed odor of wood and leaves of Indian corn. Placed
between two of these latter was a package of letters tied with a
thread; but neither hers nor Bazilio’s were among them! They were in a
scrawling handwriting, yellow and illegible. What a disappointment! She
remained standing by the empty trunk, her arms hanging helplessly by
her sides.
A shadow darkened the window for a moment. She trembled. It was a cat
walking stealthily on the edge of the roof. She replaced the things in
the trunk exactly as she had found them, locked it, and was about to
leave the room, when it occurred to her to search in the drawer of the
table and under the pillow. Nothing! She grew angry; she would not go
away until she had lost all hope; she shook out the bed-clothing, the
straw mattress; she looked in every corner of the room; still nothing!
The bell rang suddenly, and she ran downstairs quickly. What a
surprise! It was Donna Felicidade!
“Is it you? How are you? Come in!” exclaimed Luiza.
She was better, as she told Luiza in the hall. She had left the
Encarnação the day before. Her foot still pained her, but, thank
Heaven! she had been able to leave. Her first visit was for Luiza.
It was growing dark. They entered the bedroom, and Luiza lighted the
candles.
“How do you think I look?” asked Donna Felicidade, standing in front of
Luiza.
“A little paler.”
Ah, she had suffered a great deal, she said. She raised the skirt of
her gown and showed Luiza her foot, encased in a shoe much too large
for her, which she obliged her to touch with her hand. She had one
consolation, however,--that half Lisbon had gone to see her, thank God!
Yes, all Lisbon,--the better part of Lisbon. “And you did not make your
appearance there the whole of last week,” she ended.
“I was not able to go, my dear. Jorge is coming home to-morrow.”
“Ah, you little rogue! That is well. That little heart--” And she
whispered in Luiza’s ear.
They both laughed.
“I have taken it on myself,” continued Donna Felicidade, seating
herself, “to make up your company this evening. This morning I met the
counsellor, and he promised me he would come. I met him in the Martyrs.
Think what a piece of good fortune,--the first day I was able to go
out. A little farther on I stumbled upon Julião, and he too promised to
come.” And she added in a fainting voice, “Do you know that I should
not mind taking a little refreshment?”
Luiza it was who opened the door in the evening for the counsellor and
Julião, who met on the doorstep, saying to them with a laugh,--
“I am the porter for to-night.”
When they entered the parlor, Donna Felicidade, making an effort to
conceal the disturbance produced in her mind by the sight of her
beloved Accacio, began to scold Luiza for allowing the two servants to
go out on the same day.
“What if you had been taken ill?” she said.
Luiza smiled. She was not given to fainting, she answered. They found
her looking a little pale, and the counsellor asked her with interest,--
“Do you still suffer from your teeth, Donna Luiza?”
“From her teeth!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade. “This is the first time I
have heard of her having the toothache.”
Julião declared that he had never seen so perfect a set of teeth.
The counsellor hastened to quote,--
“Pearls by lips of coral hid;”
adding, “The last time I had the honor of seeing Donna Luiza, one of
her teeth began to trouble her so suddenly that she was obliged to go
with all haste into Vitry’s to have it filled.”
Luiza turned crimson. Fortunately at this moment the bell rang. It must
be Joanna, she said, as she went to open the door.
“We had been taking a delightful promenade,” continued the counsellor,
“when Donna Luiza all at once was seized with a toothache. So intense
was the pain that she hurried up the dentist’s staircase as if she were
crazy.”
_Apropos_ of pain, Donna Felicidade, who was anxious to awaken the
counsellor’s compassion, began to relate the story of her foot; it was
a miracle she had not died. And then she spoke of the numerous visits
of countesses and viscountesses she had received; the anxiety of every
one at the Encarnação on her account; the solicitous attentions of the
good Dr. Caminha.
“Ah, I suffered a great deal!” she sighed, her eyes fixed on the
counsellor, eager to draw from him some word of sympathy.
Accacio said, with an air of authority, “It is always dangerous to go
downstairs without first seeking the support of the banisters.”
“Why, I might have died, might I not?” she said, turning to Julião.
“In this world one may die of anything,” responded Julião, leaning back
comfortably in his easy-chair, and smoking his cigarette with an air
of enjoyment. He himself, he continued, had been almost run over by a
carriage that very afternoon; Sundays he dedicated to amusement, and he
generally took a long walk in the suburbs. “I have been living shut up
in my den for more than a month past, like a Benedictine monk in the
library of his convent,” he ended, laughing, and shaking the ashes from
his cigarette on the carpet.
The counsellor desired to know the subject of his discourse; it would
undoubtedly be very powerful. When Julião told him that its subject was
physiology, Accacio observed in sonorous accents,--
“Ah, physiology! That is an important subject, and one that admits
of an elegant style.” And he began to complain of being himself
overwhelmed by his literary labors. “Let us hope, Senhor Zuzarte,” he
ended, “that our vigils may not prove unfruitful.”
“Yours, Counsellor, yours,” exclaimed Julião. And he added, with an
appearance of interest, “When are we to have your new work? It is
awaited with a great deal of curiosity.”
“So I understand,” returned the counsellor, with an air of gravity.
“Some days since, the Minister of Justice, that illustrious scholar,
said to me,--he did me the honor to say to me,--‘Give us your book
soon, Accacio; we need light on that subject greatly.’ Those were his
words. Of course I bowed and responded: ‘Senhor Minister, _I_
shall not be the one to refuse to my country what my country demands of
me.’”
“Very good, Counsellor; very good!”
“I may tell you here in confidence,” he added, “that the minister gave
me reason to anticipate the decoration of the order of Santiago in the
near future.”
“They should have given it to you before this, Counsellor,” exclaimed
Julião, with secret amusement; “but in this country of knaves--yes, you
should be wearing it on your breast now!”
“That is true!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade quickly.
“Thanks, thanks!” stammered the counsellor, blushing, and in the
expansion of his gratitude offering Julião his snuff-box.
“I will take a pinch to make me sneeze,” said the latter.
Julião was this evening in an agreeable frame of mind; his occupations
and the hopes he founded on them had dissipated his bitterness of
spirit. He even seemed to have forgotten the humiliation he had endured
on the occasion of his meeting with Bazilio in this very parlor; for no
sooner did Luiza return than he asked for him.
“He left for Paris some time ago,” she answered.
Donna Felicidade and the counsellor both launched forth in praise of
Bazilio. He had left cards on them; an attention that had delighted
Donna Felicidade, and filled the counsellor with pride.
“He was a true gentleman!” she said; and Accacio confirmed the
assertion with an air of authority.
“And he has a baritone worthy of the S. Carlos,” he declared in
conclusion.
“And he is very distinguished-looking,” affirmed Donna Felicidade.
“A gentleman,” repeated the counsellor.
Julião rocked his leg in silence. Listening to these eulogistic
expressions, his pique began to revive. He recalled the sarcastic
coldness of Luiza on that morning, and the affectation of Bazilio, and
he could not help saying,--
“He wears too much jewelry, and his embroidered stockings are not in
very good taste; but I believe that is the fashion in Brazil.”
Luiza turned scarlet, and darted at him a glance full of animosity.
There still remained in her mind a vague and melancholy recollection of
Bazilio.
Donna Felicidade asked if any one had seen Sebastião lately. It was an
age since she had seen him, she said, and she regretted it, for he was
a person whom it always gave her pleasure to meet.
“He is a great soul,” declared the counsellor, with emphasis. He
censured him somewhat, he continued, for not making himself useful to
his country. “For after all,” he ended, “to play the piano is a very
pretty accomplishment, but it does not give one a position in society.”
And he adduced, as an example worthy to be followed, Ernesto, who,
although dedicating himself to the dramatic art, was--here his voice
took on a graver accent--is, an excellent employee in the custom-house.
They inquired what Ernesto was doing.
Julião had met him a short time since. He had told him then that “Love
and Honor” would be brought out within a fortnight, and in the Rua dos
Condes they already called him the Portuguese Dumas _fils_.
“I am not acquainted with that author,” said the counsellor, gravely;
“but from his name he would appear to be the son of the famous
writer, the author of the ‘Three Guardsmen,’ and other works of the
imagination. Be that as it may, however, our Ledesma is a skilful
exponent of the art of Corneille. Am I not right, Donna Luiza?”
“Yes,” she answered, smiling vaguely.
She seemed preoccupied. Twice she went to see what time it was by the
clock in her bedroom. Almost ten, and Juliana had not yet returned! Who
was to serve the tea? She herself went to the closet for the cups and
saucers; when she returned to the parlor, observing that her guests
were dull and silent,--
“Shall I play something?” she said.
Donna Felicidade, who, seated beside Julião, was examining the
engravings of a “Dante” illustrated by Doré, the leaves of which she
was turning over as it rested on her lap, said to her suddenly,--
“Have you seen this, Luiza? How pretty!”
Luiza drew near, and looked at the engraving.
“It is a case of unhappy love, Donna Felicidade,” said Julião. “It
is the sorrowful history of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. The lady
sitting there is Francesca; and this young man with the flowing
locks, kneeling at her feet and embracing her, is her brother-in-law,
and--I regret to say it--her lover. And the man with the beard, who
is lifting up the tapestry in the background with the one hand, while
with the other he draws his dagger, is the husband, who surprises
them, and--_zas_!” he ended, making a gesture as if giving a
dagger-thrust.
“Ugh!” cried Donna Felicidade, horrified. “And what is that book lying
on the floor? Were they reading?”
Julião replied discreetly,--
“Yes, they were reading, but presently,--
‘Quel giorno più non vi leggiemi avante;’
or, which is the same thing: ‘We read no more during all that day.’”
“Perhaps they were tired,” said Donna Felicidade, smiling.
“Worse than that, Senhora; for, according to the confession
of Francesca, this youth with the flowing locks, and her own
brother-in-law,--
‘La bocca me bacciò tutto tremante;’
which signifies: ‘He kissed me, tremulous, upon the lips.’”
“Ah,” said Luiza, stealing a rapid glance at Donna Felicidade, “it is a
novel?”
“It is Dante,” said Accacio, severely,--“an epic poet, and considered
among the best; inferior, perhaps, to our own Camoens, but the rival of
the celebrated Milton.”
“But in those foreign stories the husbands always kill their wives,”
exclaimed Donna Felicidade. “Is it not so?” she added, appealing to the
counsellor.
“Yes, Donna Felicidade, in those countries domestic tragedies such as
this are frequently enacted; the violence of the passions is greater
there. But among us--and I say it with pride--the sanctity of the
domestic hearth is respected. I, for instance, among my numerous
acquaintances know only model husbands and wives.” And he added,
turning to Luiza with a courteous smile, “Among the latter of whom the
mistress of this house is queen.”
Donna Felicidade glanced up at Luiza, who was leaning over her chair,
and touching her on the arm, said,--
“She is a jewel!”
“Our dear Jorge deserves her,” continued the counsellor. “For, as the
poet says,
‘His noble heart, his haughty brow.
His brave and generous nature show.’”
This conversation irritated Luiza. She was about to seat herself at the
piano, when Donna Felicidade exclaimed,--
“But tell me, is there to be no tea here to-night?”
Luiza went to the kitchen and told Joanna to bring in the tea. Shortly
afterwards Joanna entered, in a white apron, with the tray in her
hands, and looking very red and confused.
“And Juliana?” asked Donna Felicidade.
“She has gone out,” returned Luiza; “she is not in good health.”
“And she is in the streets at this hour! That discredits a house.”
The counsellor also thought it not very proper, he said; adding,--
“For, after all, the temptations of a large city are very great.”
“No!” exclaimed Julião, laughing. “If they seek to tempt her, I
renounce my fellow-citizens forever.”
“Oh, Senhor Zuzarte!” returned Accacio, almost with severity, “I
alluded to another class of temptations, such as that of entering a
tavern, of going to the circus and neglecting her duties.”
Donna Felicidade declared that she could not endure Juliana; she
thought she had the face of a Judas, and that she was capable of
anything.
Luiza took her part. She was very obliging, an excellent laundress,
very honest--
“And she is walking the streets at eleven o’clock at night!”
interrupted her friend. “If she were in my house--”
“I understood,” interposed the counsellor, “that she was afflicted with
a fatal malady; is that the case, Senhor Zuzarte?”
“Yes, an aneurism,” replied Julião, without raising his eyes from the
volume he was looking over.
“Another thing in favor of what I say,” exclaimed Donna Felicidade.
“You ought to dismiss her at once. A servant with a thing like that,
which may burst when she is bringing you a glass of water. God forbid!”
The counsellor coincided with her in this opinion, adding,--
“And such an event might even bring one into trouble with the
authorities.”
Julião closed his copy of Dante and said,--
“I forgot to warn Jorge about it; but the day least expected that woman
will drop dead before your eyes upon the floor.”
Luiza was disturbed; it seemed to her as if some new misfortune was
threatening her. She said aloud, that it was so difficult to find
servants.
In this they were all of one mind. They began to talk about the
exactions of servants, who, they said, grew more audacious every
day,--as soon as they became a little familiar with one. And what
morals!
“The mistresses themselves are very often to blame for that,” said
Donna Felicidade. “They make confidants of their servants, and these,
once they get possession of a secret, make themselves mistresses of the
house.”
Luiza’s hands trembled so that she almost spilled her tea, as she said
with a forced smile to the counsellor,--
“And how are you off in regard to servants?”
“Very well,” he returned, coughing. “I have a very respectable person,
who has a gift for cooking, who is scrupulously exact in her accounts--”
“And not altogether ugly,” interrupted Julião; “or at least so it
seemed to me one day I dropped in at Ferregial Street.”
A crimson hue diffused itself over the bald cranium of the counsellor.
Donna Felicidade glanced at him uneasily, with shining eyes. Accacio
said severely,--
“I am not in the habit of remarking upon the personal attractions of my
inferiors, Senhor Zuzarte.”
Julião stood up, putting his hands into his trousers-pockets with an
air of amusement.
“It was a great mistake,” he said, “to have abolished slavery.”
“And the principle of liberty?” burst out the counsellor. “And the
principle of liberty? I concede that the negroes were skilful cooks;
but liberty is a greater good.”
He expatiated on the subject, denouncing the traffic in slaves; he
insinuated doubts regarding the philanthropy of the English; he was
very severe with the planters of New Orleans, and related the case of
_Charles et Georges_. He addressed himself exclusively to Julião,
who continued to smoke, with his eyes bent on the floor.
Donna Felicidade sat down beside Luiza, and whispered with anxiety,--
“Have you ever seen the counsellor’s servant?”
“No.”
“Do you suppose she is pretty?”
Luiza shrugged her shoulders.
“I begin to fear I know not what, Luiza. I am suffocating.”
And while Accacio discoursed, standing before Julião, she continued to
whisper her amatory complaints in Luiza’s ear.
What a relief it was to Luiza when they went away! What had she not
suffered in secret during the evening! How tiresome, how stupid they
were! And that woman, who had not yet returned! What a life was hers!
She went upstairs to the kitchen, and said to Joanna,--
“Wait up for Juliana. Have patience; she cannot remain long now;
perhaps she has been taken sick.”
It was past twelve o’clock, and Luiza had already retired, when the
door-bell rang, at first faintly, then more loudly, and at last
impatiently.
“The girl must be asleep,” said Luiza to herself.
She jumped out of bed and went in her bare feet up to the kitchen.
Joanna was snoring loudly, her head resting on her folded arms upon the
table beside the smoking lamp. Luiza wakened her, saw her on her feet,
and then went back to bed. Shortly afterwards she heard Juliana saying
in satisfied tones,--
“Everything is done, eh? Well, I have been to the theatre. What a
beautiful play! It couldn’t be better, Joanna; it couldn’t be better!”
It was late when Luiza fell asleep, and all night long she was troubled
by unquiet dreams. She thought she was in an immense theatre covered
with gilding. It was an evening in the season; jewels glittered on
ivory bosoms, and decorations shone on court dresses. In his box
a king, young and of melancholy aspect, sat, rigid and immovable,
supporting in his right hand an armillary sphere; his mantle of dark
velvet, sown with precious stones, fell around him in artistic folds
to the floor, causing the multitude of courtiers to stumble as they
approached him.
She was on the stage; she was an actress. She was making her
_début_ in Ernesto’s drama, and, trembling with nervousness, she
saw, in the vast pit before her, rows of intensely black eyes all
gazing at her pitilessly. In the midst of them, towering above the
others, rose the bald cranium of the counsellor, like a large white
flower surrounded by a swarm of bees. On the stage, the scenery,
representing a wood, was oscillating back and forth; on the left stood
a pine-tree, majestic and ancient, whose summit resolved itself into
the traits of a countenance resembling Sebastião’s. The director of
the orchestra clapped his hands. In appearance he was like Don Quixote;
he wore round eye-glasses framed in tin, and brandished in his hand a
roll of the “Jornal do Commercio.” He cried out,--
“Pass on to the love-scene! pass on to that miracle of art!”
Then the orchestra, the eyes of the musicians glittering, their bushy
hair standing on end, played with melancholy slowness the _fado_
of Leopoldina, and a shrill and uneven voice sang in falsetto,--
“I see the clouds, when night is falling,
Float above the boundless sea;
But still I feel thou art beside me,
However distant thou mayst be!”
Luiza now found herself in Bazilio’s arms, which enfolded her, setting
her blood on fire by their contact. She felt herself sinking languidly
in an element warm as sunshine and sweet as honey. She felt her being
thrill with happiness; but, while she sighed with pleasure, she felt
herself covered with shame, for Bazilio repeated before the audience
the kisses and caresses of their secret meetings. How could she ever
have allowed them?
And the audience with one voice shouted, “Brava!” “Encore!”
A thousand handkerchiefs were waved; the women threw bunches of violets
at her feet; the king rose from his seat like a spectre and cast the
armillary sphere on the stage before her; and the counsellor, in order
to follow the example of his Majesty, tore off his bald cranium and
threw it to her also, with a cry of mingled pain and triumph. The
director shouted,--
“Hail, hail!”
She bowed profoundly; her hair, falling loose around her like that
of a Magdalen, swept the stage; at her side Bazilio followed with
gleaming eyes the cigars that were thrown to him, catching them with
the grace of a _torero_ and the dexterity of a clown. Suddenly the
audience gave a cry of terror. There was a moment of tragic and anxious
silence. Thousands of eyes were fixed in amazement on the background
of the stage, where was seen a garden full of white roses. She, too,
followed with her eyes, as if under magnetic influence, the eyes of
the others, and saw Jorge,--Jorge, who came forward dressed in black,
with black kid gloves on his hands, holding in his grasp a dagger the
blade of which glittered less brightly than his eyes. He approached the
footlights, and said, bowing gracefully to the audience,--
“Your Majesty, Senhor Infante, Senhor Governor, gentlemen and ladies,
it is my turn now. Observe how I shall acquit myself.”
He went towards her slowly, with a step that made the boards tremble,
caught her by the hair as if she were a weed he was about to uproot
from the ground, and held back her head. He raised his dagger with a
tragic gesture, pointed it at her heart, and bending forward plunged it
in her breast.
“Excellent!” cried a voice; “a charming piece of acting!”
It was the voice of Bazilio, who was gracefully driving his phaeton
into the pit. Erect in the drivers seat, his hat on one side and a
rose in his buttonhole, he managed his English horses with admirable
skill. Beside him, clad in his sacerdotal vestments, was the Patriarch
of Jerusalem. Jorge now drew out his crimsoned dagger; the drops of
blood ran along the blade towards the point, fell on the floor with a
crystalline sound, and rolled along the boards like red glass beads.
She fell, expiring, against the pine-tree whose summit wore the
likeness of Sebastião. The tree interposed its spreading roots, soft as
a cushion of down, between her body and the hard ground, and protected
her from the sun with its foliage, like a tent, letting drip from its
leaves upon her parched lips drops of wine. Terrified, she beheld the
blood gushing from the wound in her breast, making little pools here
and winding rivulets there; and she heard the cry from the pit,--
“The author! the author!”
At this, Ernesto, his hair carefully curled, and with a placid
expression on his countenance, made his appearance. He bowed to
the audience with a sigh of pleasure, and each time he made his
bow he jumped to one side and another, that he might not stain his
patent-leather slippers with Cousin Luiza’s blood. She felt herself
expiring, when suddenly she heard confusedly a voice saying,--
“Hello! How is every one here?”
It sounded like Jorge’s voice. Whence did it come? From the sky? From
the pit? From the hall? She heard a noise as of luggage being thrown on
the floor, and she sat up in bed.
“Very well, leave it there,” she heard Jorge’s voice saying.
She jumped out of bed and threw on her wrapper. He entered the room,
and they remained clasped in each other’s arms in a long and close
embrace, while their lips met in a silent kiss.
The clock in the bedroom struck seven.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BIDING HER TIME.
AT noon on the same day Jorge and Luiza were conversing together after
breakfast in the dining-room, as on the eve of the departure of the
former for Alemtejo. But they were not now, as then, oppressed by the
torrid heat of summer; the blinds were thrown open to the October
sunshine, and from time to time an autumnal breeze stirred the air. The
light was paler, and on the trees the leaves were beginning to turn
yellow.
“How pleasant it is to be at home again!” said Jorge, settling himself
comfortably in his easy-chair.
He described his journey to Luiza. He had worked like a slave, he said,
and made a good deal of money. He had brought with him notes for an
interesting memoir, and had made many friends among the good people
of Alemtejo. He had done with the sunburnt plains, the journeys on
horseback through the mountains, the inns, and he was at home at last
in his own little house. As on the eve of his journey, he was smoking
his cigarette and caressing his mustache, for he had shaved off his
beard. This was what had most struck Luiza in his appearance when she
first saw him that morning. He had told her in regretful accents that
the heat had made it necessary.
“But how becoming it is to you!” she had answered.
Jorge had brought her as a present half a dozen rare old china plates
with humpbacked mandarins on them, suspended majestically in the blue
atmosphere,--a treasure that he had discovered in the house of some old
ladies in Mertola. Luiza was now arranging them on the shelves of the
sideboard, and standing thus on tiptoe, the train of her morning-gown
trailing behind her, her luxuriant chestnut hair reflecting golden
lights where it caught the sunshine, she appeared to Jorge more
graceful, more irresistibly charming than ever.
“The last time we breakfasted here together was on a Sunday,” he said.
“Do you remember?”
“I remember,” answered Luiza, without turning round, bestowing her
whole attention, apparently, on the plate she was arranging on the
shelf.
“And, by the bye,” said Jorge, suddenly, “did you see your cousin? Did
he pay you a visit?”
The plate slipped from her hand, making a clatter among the glasses.
“Yes,” she answered, after a pause; “he came to see me occasionally;
but he stayed only a short time in Lisbon.” She opened the drawer of
the sideboard and began to count the silver spoons and forks. She
turned round at last, very red, and shaking the dust from her fingers
said, “They are all complete.” And she went and sat down on Jorge’s
knee.
“How becoming it is to you!” she repeated, twisting his mustache.
She gazed at him ardently. When she had thrown herself into his arms
that morning, she felt her heart open to him, and a sudden influx of
affection thrill it with delight. She felt a desire to worship him
unceasingly, to throw her arms about him and clasp him tightly to her
heart, to anticipate his lightest wishes; it was a complex sensation of
infinite sweetness that penetrated to the very depths of her being. She
passed her arm around his neck, and murmured in his ear in caressing
tones,--
“Are you happy? Do you feel comfortable? Tell me.”
Never had he appeared to her so handsome or so worthy to be loved as
now.
“The Senhor Dom Sebastião is here,” said Juliana at the door,
addressing Jorge.
Jorge gave a cry of joy, released himself hastily from Luiza’s arms,
and went out into the hall, exclaiming,--
“Come to my arms, you rascal!”
One morning, a few days afterwards, when Jorge had gone to the
Department, Juliana entered Luiza’s bedroom, and slowly closing the
door behind her, said in a pleasant voice,--
“I should like to say something to the senhora.”
And she went on to say that her room was worse than a pigsty, and that
she could not remain in it any longer; the heat, the insects, the want
of air, and in winter the dampness, were killing her; in short, she
wanted to change her room for the one downstairs in which the trunks
were kept.
This room had a window looking out on the street; it was high and
spacious. In it were kept Jorge’s drawings, his portmanteaus, his old
coats, and the venerable trunks, red, with a yellow border, of his
grandfather’s time.
“I should be in heaven then, Senhora,” she ended.
But where were the trunks to be put? Luiza asked.
“Upstairs in my room;” and she added with a little smile, “Trunks are
not people; they cannot feel.”
Luiza answered, a little confused,--
“Very well, I will see; I will speak to your master about it.”
“I rely upon the senhora.”
But when Luiza told Jorge that afternoon of “that poor creature’s
ambition,” he gave a jump.
“What! to move the trunks? Is she crazy?” he said.
Luiza insisted, however. It had been the “poor creature’s” dream ever
since she had been in the house. No one could have an idea of what the
poor woman’s room was like! The odor was sickening; the rats ran over
her as she lay in bed at night, and the rain came in; she had not slept
in it very long, and her health had already begun to suffer.
“Good heavens! That is like what my grandmother used to relate of the
dungeons of Almeida,” he exclaimed. “Change her room, change her room
at once, child, and send my fine trunks up to the garret.”
When Juliana learned that the favor she asked had been granted, she
said,--
“Ah, Senhora, you give me new life! God will reward you; for my health
is not in a fit condition to sleep in a garret like that.”
At this time she complained frequently of her health. Her complexion
was livid, with a red spot on either cheek; she had days of profound
sadness and nervous excitability; her feet gave her no rest. Ah! she
needed to take a great deal of care of her health, a great deal of
care indeed! Following up her advantage, she requested Luiza two days
afterwards to come and look at the trunk room; and showing her the
floor, in which many of the bricks were wanting,--
“This cannot remain as it is, Senhora,” she said. “I must have a
matting, or it is not worth while to make the change. If I had money, I
would not trouble the senhora; but--”
“Very well, very well; I will see to it,” returned Luiza, resignedly.
And she bought the matting without saying anything to Jorge. But when
it was brought home he asked Luiza what was the meaning of the rolls of
matting in the hall.
She laughed, and placing her hands on his shoulders, “The meaning of it
is that Juliana begged me for a matting,” she said, “because the floor
of her room is almost without bricks. She wanted to pay for it, and let
me deduct it from her wages, which would have been an absurdity.” And
she added, with a compassionate gesture, “After all, they are God’s
creatures, as we are, and not slaves.”
“Bravo! See that the bronzes and mirrors are taken to the senhora’s
room without delay. But what is the meaning of this change? Once you
could not bear to look at her.”
“Poor thing!” said Luiza; “I always knew she was a good woman, and
while I was alone I learned to appreciate her better. I had no one to
talk to, and she was company for me; and when I was sick--”
“What! you were sick?”
“Only for a few days--a cold. As I was saying, she did not leave me
night or day.”
Luiza was afraid that Jorge would speak of her illness to Juliana, and
that the latter, taken unaware, would say she had not been sick. She
therefore called her, towards evening, into her room.
“I have told your master,” she said, reddening as she spoke, “that you
were very attentive to me during an illness I had while he was away.”
Juliana smiled to find herself thus made her mistress’s accomplice,--a
thing which coincided so well with her own designs.
“I understand, Senhora; you may make yourself easy,” she returned.
The following day after breakfast Jorge said graciously to Juliana,--
“I understand you took good care of your mistress while she was ill.”
“I only did my duty,” she answered, bowing, and laying her hand on her
heart.
“Very well, very well,” replied Jorge, putting a half-pound into her
hand as he left the room.
“Things are going on well,” said Juliana to herself. That very week she
complained to Luiza that the clothing put away in her trunk was being
attacked by moths. Everything was getting spoiled. If she had money
herself she would not trouble the mistress. Finally she declared one
morning that she needed a bureau.
Luiza grew hot with anger, and lifting her eyes from her work,--
“You mean a low bureau?” she said.
“If it is all the same to the senhora, I should like one full size,”
returned Juliana.
“But you have very little clothing,” said Luiza, who was beginning to
grow weary of her humiliating position, and was determined to resist
these increasing exactions.
“That is true, Senhora,” replied Juliana; “but I intend to supply the
deficiency now.”
The bureau was bought in secret, and introduced into the house
surreptitiously. What a happy day for Juliana! She was never tired of
inhaling the aroma of the new wood as she passed her trembling hand
caressingly over the varnish. She lined the drawers with tissue-paper,
and set herself to work at once to supply the deficiencies in her
wardrobe. The weeks that followed were bitter ones for Luiza. Juliana
entered her room every morning, full of compliments, and began to set
things in order. Suddenly she would say in a complaining voice,--
“I am so badly off for under-clothing! If the senhora could help me a
little.”
Luiza opened her overflowing drawers, and proceeded to set aside the
oldest articles they contained. She had a great affection for her
under-garments; she had them by the dozen, beautifully marked, with
little perfume-bags lying among them. It grieved her to give any of
them away. Juliana came at last to demand them as her right. She would
simply say of some article, “How pretty! The senhora does not want
this, does she?”
“Take it,” Luiza would say, smiling through pride, that it might not
seem as if she were acting under compulsion.
Every evening Juliana shut herself up in her room, and, seated on her
matting, the candle on a chair beside her, set herself to remove the
marks from the linen, replacing them, while her bosom swelled with
pride, with her own initials, “J. C. T.,”--Juliana Conceiro Tavira.
There was an end to this at last, for, as she said, she had more than
enough under-dosing now.
“If the senhora would help me now with something for the street,” she
next began.
Luiza proceeded to dress her. She gave her a gown of garnet silk, and a
jacket of black cashmere embroidered with soutache braid. Fearful lest
Jorge should recognize them, she effected a transformation in their
appearance; she had the gown dyed a chestnut brown, and with her own
hands she trimmed the jacket with black velvet. She now worked for that
woman! Good Heavens! how was all this to end? she thought.
One day Jorge said with a laugh at the dinner-table, “Juliana looks as
fine as a peacock now. Any one can see that things are prospering with
her.”
Donna Felicidade noticed the same thing in the evening.
“How _chic_!” she exclaimed. “Not even a palace servant is as
fine!”
“Poor creature!” responded Luiza; “those are old things she has made
over for herself.”
Things were in fact prospering with Juliana. She used on her bed only
linen sheets. She asked for a new mattress, and a rug for the foot of
her bed. The little bags that Luiza had used to perfume her clothes
were now used to perfume hers. She had muslin curtains, tied back with
blue silk ribbons, at her window, and on her bureau were two gilded
vases of Vista Alegra. Finally she went out one feast-day with a neatly
arranged chignon instead of her silk net.
Joanna was amazed at all this luxury. She attributed it to the
mistress’s generosity, and she complained that she was forgotten. One
day, when Juliana used for the first time a new parasol, she said with
an air of pique in Luiza’s presence,--
“All for some people; for others nothing.”
“What nonsense!” Luiza said quickly, with a smile; “I am the same
towards every one.”
This gave her food for thought, however. It might be that Joanna
suspected something, that she had heard something from Juliana. On
the following day, to keep her in good-humor, she gave her two silk
handkerchiefs, and afterwards, two thousand _reis_, to buy a dress
with. From this time forth she never refused her permission to go of an
evening to visit her aunt.
Joanna declared on all occasions that the mistress was an angel. In the
neighborhood they began to remark Juliana’s finery. They had heard of
her new gown, and they whispered to one another that Juliana had money
laid by. Senhor Paula said with indignation that there was some mystery
there. Juliana, in order to silence suspicion, thought fit to give some
explanation to Paula and the tobacconist.
“They say I have this, that, and the other,” she said; “it is no such
thing. I have, it is true, some comforts; but remember how I took care
of the aunt, day and night, without a moment’s rest. No matter how much
they may do for me, they can never repay me for that, for I lost my
health on account of it.”
Thus was Juliana’s prosperity explained. The family were grateful to
her, the neighbors said, and treated her as if she were a relative.
As a consequence of this the house of the engineer came to be
regarded by the servants of the neighborhood as a sort of paradise.
It was asserted that the wages were high, with wine at discretion;
that the servants received presents every week, and that they had
chicken-broth daily. They all desired these good things for themselves.
The _inculcadeira_ contributed to extend the fame of the house,
which became at last the subject of a sort of fairy-tale. Jorge, to
his astonishment, received every day letters from people offering
themselves to him as servants,--butlers, cooks, grooms, housekeepers,
coachmen, porters, scullions. They mentioned the wealthy houses in
which they had been employed, and offered to send references.
“Strange!” said Jorge to himself, walking up and down the room. “They
dispute with one another the honor of serving me. One would suppose I
had drawn the grand prize in the lottery.”
But he attached no great importance to the matter. He was very much
occupied in the writing of his memoir, and he left the house every day
at twelve, to return at six laden with rolls of paper and maps, tired,
hungry, and joyous. He related to his guests, one Sunday evening,
laughing, what had taken place.
The counsellor thought it very simple.
“Donna Luiza’s good temper, Jorge,” he said, “her excellent
disposition; a salubrious neighborhood; a peaceful household, without
family disputes. It is natural that servants less favored by fortune
should aspire to so agreeable a position.”
“That is my opinion also,” said Jorge, patting Luiza gayly on the
shoulder.
The house, in effect, began to assume a more cheerful aspect. Juliana
exacted a more abundant table, so that she might have her portion
without scrimping; and, as she was a good cook, she watched the fire,
tasting the various dishes, and teaching Joanna how to make new and
choice ones.
“This Joanna is a prodigy,” said Jorge; “she improves every day.”
Juliana, well lodged, well fed, with fine white under-clothing without
stint, began to find some savor in life; her nature expanded in
the midst of this abundance; and then, judiciously advised by Aunt
Victoria, she performed her duties with zeal and skill. She took care
of Luiza’s gowns as if they were relics; never had Jorge’s collars been
so lustrous. The October sun shone cheerfully into the house, clean and
orderly as a convent. Even the cat grew fatter.
In the midst of all this well-being Luiza suffered in secret. How far
would Juliana’s tyranny extend? How she hated her! She followed her at
times with a glance so vindictive that she almost expected her to turn
around suddenly, as if she had received a stab in the back. And she
saw her, meantime, contented, singing the “Carta Adorada,” sleeping in
a bed as good as hers, strutting about in her clothes, ruling in her
house. Good Heavens! was this just? she asked.
At other times she gave way to her anger, she cursed her fate, she
writhed in her anguish as in the meshes of a net; but, finding no
solution to the problem that tormented her, she fell into a morose
melancholy in which her nature became perverted. She followed with joy
the growing pallor of Juliana’s countenance, and fixed all her hopes
on the aneurism. After all, might it not burst any day? And Jorge,
meanwhile, was never tired of praising this woman!
Life weighed heavy upon her. No sooner did Jorge close the street-door
behind him in the morning than a feeling of melancholy, blended with
an indefinable fear, descended upon her soul like a funereal pall; she
did not dress till four or five o’clock in the afternoon. Clad in a
loose wrapper, her feet thrust into slippers, her hair in disorder, she
wandered listlessly about her room. At times an impulse would suddenly
assail her, to fly secretly from home and hide herself in a convent.
Her nervous excitement would have impelled her to some melodramatic
act, were it not that her love for Jorge retained her with irresistible
power at his side. For she loved him now with ardor. She loved him as
she had never done before with the irresistible impulses of passion.
She was jealous of everything, even of the Department and of the
memoir; she interrupted him continually at his work; she would catch
his hand eagerly in hers, jealous of every glance, of every word; and
his footsteps in the hall made her heart beat, as if they were those of
a lover.
At first the remembrance of Bazilio troubled her enjoyment of
this affection, imbittering every kiss. But little by little this
remembrance faded away, until at last scarcely a trace of it remained.
How happy she might be,--if it were not for that traitress!
Yes, she it was, that traitress Juliana, who was happy! At times
she would glance around her room smiling, as a miser glances at his
treasures; she would unfold and shake out her silk gowns; arrange
her wrappers in a row, contemplating them ecstatically; and, opening
her bureau-drawers, count and recount her under-garments, with the
caressing glance of one well pleased with her possessions. “How many
things the senhora has!” she would murmur, suffocating with joy.
“Ah, now, indeed, I am well off,” she said one day to Aunt Victoria.
“I believe it,” responded the latter. “Though you have not succeeded
in obtaining a _conto de reis_, remember you are indebted to my
advice for some handsome presents. You should make some return for them
besides gratitude,--a fine piece of linen, some handsome jewelry, some
money. Make the most of your opportunities, my dear; make the most of
your opportunities!”
And this was what Juliana resolved to do. Little by little she began
to think she ought now to enjoy life. Since she had so good a bed, why
should she rise so early? With such fine dresses, why should she not
take a walk occasionally? She must make the most of her opportunities.
One very cold morning she remained in bed till nine o’clock, with
the shutters open, and the sunshine falling across the matted floor.
She explained the occurrence coolly to Luiza by saying that she had
overslept herself. Two days afterwards Joanna came to her mistress at
ten o’clock, saying,--
“The Senhora Juliana is still in bed, and everything is yet to be done.”
Luiza was terrified. What! must she endure her neglect of her duties as
she had endured her exactions?
She went to Juliana’s room.
“You are still in bed,” she said.
“I am obeying the doctor’s orders,” replied Juliana, insolently.
And from this day forth she hardly ever rose before it was time to
serve the breakfast. Luiza asked Joanna to take her place; it would be
only for a short time, the poor woman suffered so much! And in order to
make her contented she gave her money to help her to buy a gown.
Juliana then began to go out without asking permission, and when she
came home late for dinner she did not take the trouble to make any
excuse. One day Luiza, seeing her putting on her black gloves in the
hall, could no longer restrain herself.
“Are you going out?” she said.
“Yes, I am going out. Everything is in order,--everything that it is my
duty to see to.”
And she walked away, her heels clicking noisily on the floor.
Juliana was determined to do in future only what her mistress refused
to do.
Joanna began to complain. “The Senhora Juliana all day in the streets,”
she would say, “and I may get along the best way I can.”
“If you were sick you would do as she does,” Luiza said to her the
first time she heard her grumbling. And she gave her a glass of sweet
wine.
Luiza was very much troubled. How was all this going to end? Juliana
neglected her duties more and more every day. In order to go out
earlier, she neglected everything but the most important of her
obligations. Luiza now always put away the china, very often removed
the things from the table, and even went up to the roof at times to
hang the clothes out to dry. One day Jorge came home at about four
o’clock in the afternoon and saw the bed still unmade. Luiza hastened
to say to him that she had sent Juliana to the dressmaker’s. Two days
later it was already past six o’clock when Juliana came home to serve
the dinner.
“She is at the dressmaker’s,” Luiza said this time also.
“Well, if Juliana is here only to go on errands to the dressmaker’s,
we must have another servant to attend to the duties of the house,”
answered Jorge.
These words, coldly uttered, brought tears to Luiza’s eyes, and sent
the color from her face.
Jorge was astonished. What was it? he asked her. What was the matter?
Luiza, instead of answering, burst into a hysterical fit of weeping.
“But what is this? What is the matter, child? Are you angry with me?”
Luiza, choking with sobs, made no reply.
Jorge kissed her again and again, and made her inhale smelling-salts.
Only after some time was she able to say with choking voice,--
“You spoke so harshly to me, and I feel so nervous.”
He laughed, he called her a foolish child, he wiped away her tears;
but he remained thoughtful. He had already noticed in her a certain
inexplicable sadness and dejection, alternating with a sort of nervous
irritability. What did it mean?
In order that Jorge might not observe Juliana’s neglect of her duties
in the future, Luiza began to do herself what Juliana left undone.
Juliana perceived this, and very quietly adopted the plan of leaving
her more and more each day in which to amuse herself. She began by
leaving off dusting, then sweeping, and finally she no longer made the
beds. Donna Felicidade came in one day unexpectedly, and saw Luiza
sweeping the parlor.
“It is all very well for one who has no servant to do that,” she said;
“but for you--”
Juliana had such a quantity of clothes to starch, Luiza replied.
“You should not excuse her from any of her duties; far from thanking
you, she will laugh at you. You are giving her bad habits. She must
learn to put up with her lot.”
Luiza smiled, and said,--
“It is only for this once.”
Her sadness went on increasing. She took refuge in Jorge’s affection as
her sole consolation. At night she could breathe; Juliana was asleep;
she did not see her sour countenance, she was not obliged to praise
her, she was not doing her work for her. Then she was herself,--the
Luiza of former times. She was safe in her own room, her husband beside
her, free! She could live, laugh, talk; she even had an appetite. And
in fact she sometimes took bread and preserves to her room to eat
before going to bed.
All this aroused Jorge’s wonder. “You are another person in the
evening,” he would say to her; and he called her a “night-bird.”
But what an awakening in the morning! Existence then weighed heavy upon
her. She dressed herself with repugnance, entering upon the new day as
on a state of bondage. She lost the hope of recovering her liberty. At
times the thought of confessing everything to Sebastião passed through
her mind like a flash of lightning. But when she saw him, with his
honest glance, embracing Jorge, and going off with him to his study to
smoke, it seemed to her easier to go out into the street and ask money
from the first passer-by than to go to Sebastião and say to him, “I
wrote a man a letter which the servant stole from me.” No! Rather die
with this daily agony, rather scrub the steps, than this. At times she
thought, “But what am I hoping for?” She did not know,--some unforeseen
occurrence, or the death of Juliana. And she went on living, enjoying
as a favor each new day’s exemption from disgrace, and beholding
vaguely in the distance a dark and fathomless abyss into which she
would end by sinking.
At this time Jorge began to complain that his shirts were badly ironed.
Juliana was positively getting spoiled. One day he grew angry, and
crumpling up his shirt, called her, and threw it on the floor at her
feet.
“This sort of thing cannot continue,” he said; “it is disgraceful.”
Juliana grew livid, and fixed on Luiza a glance that burned into her
soul; but she began to make excuses with trembling lips. The starch was
vile, and it must be changed.
No sooner had Jorge gone away than Juliana swept into Luiza’s room like
a whirlwind, closed the door behind her, and began to cry out that the
mistress soiled a heap of clothes, the master a heap of shirts, and
that without assistance she could not do so much work. “Whoever wants
slaves must go to Brazil for them,” she ended. “And I am in no humor to
put up with the ill-temper of your husband, do you understand, Senhora?
If there is so much put upon me to do I must have help.”
Luiza answered simply, “I will help you.”
She attained at last to a state of resignation sombre and silent. She
accepted everything. At the end of the week there was an accumulation
of soiled clothes, and Juliana said that if the mistress would iron
she would starch, otherwise she would not. The day was a fine one, and
Luiza had intended to go out. She laid aside her gown, and without a
word went and took up the iron.
Joanna looked on in amazement.
“Is the senhora going to iron?” she said.
“There is a heap of clothes, and Juliana alone cannot finish them,”
returned her mistress.
She installed herself in the laundry, and was engaged in ironing some
article belonging to Jorge, when Juliana made her appearance, with her
hat on.
“Are you going out?” exclaimed Luiza.
“I came to tell the mistress; it is unavoidable.”
And she began to button her black gloves.
“But who is going to starch the shirts?”
“I am going out,” replied the other, curtly.
“But for Heaven’s sake who is going to starch the shirts?”
“Let the senhora starch them.”
“Infamous wretch!” cried Luiza, throwing the iron on the floor and
rushing out of the room.
Juliana could hear her sobbing in the hall. Terrified, she took off
her hat and gloves. A short time afterwards she heard the street door
close violently. She went to Luiza’s room, and saw the wardrobe in
confusion and the hat-box lying on the floor. Where had she gone? To
lay a complaint before the police? To look for her husband? “A thousand
devils!” thought Juliana. “That is not a temper to be trifled with.”
She hurried back to the laundry, and began to starch the clothes,
repenting of her imprudence, and resolved to be more cautious in
future. If Luiza were driven to commit some folly, she, after all,
would be the loser. She would be obliged to leave the house, to give up
her room, her comforts, her easy situation. The deuce!
Luiza left the house like a madwoman. In the Rua da Escola an empty
coupé was passing; she called it, and giving the driver Leopoldina’s
address, entered it. She must have returned by this time from Oporto,
she thought; she wanted to see her, she did not clearly know why,--do
unbosom herself to her, to ask for some suggestion, some means of
revenging herself. For the desire of shaking off this tyranny was now
less strong than that of avenging so many humiliations. What if she
were to poison her tormentor? It seemed to her that she would feel an
intense delight in witnessing her writhings, her throes of agony, and
at last her death-struggle. She ascended the steps of Leopoldina’s
house, and with feverish hand violently pulled the bell. No sooner had
Justina caught sight of her than she began to call out to her mistress
from the hall,--
“The Senhora Donna Luiza! the Senhora Donna Luiza! Donna Luiza!”
Leopoldina, in a crimson morning-gown with a long train, and her hair
in disorder, hurried to meet her, with open arms.
“Is it you?” she cried. “What miracle has brought you here? I have only
just now got up. Come in, come in. Everything is in confusion, but no
matter.”
She opened the shutters. There was a strong odor of toilet vinegar
perceptible. Justina hastened to empty a jug of dirty water, and to
put out of sight some soiled towels. Some false curls were lying on a
jardinière, and on the floor some burnt ends of cigarettes. Leopoldina
raised the blind, saying,--
“God be praised, my dear, that you honor this house at last with your
presence!”
But when she saw Luiza’s altered countenance and tearful eyes, “What is
this? What is the matter? What has happened?” she exclaimed.
“Something horrible, Leopoldina,” returned Luiza, clasping her hands
together.
The other-closed the door quickly.
“What is it?” she said.
But Luiza continued to cry without answering her. Leopoldina gazed at
her in astonishment.
“Juliana stole some letters from me,” she said at last, between her
sobs. “She demands six hundred thousand reis for them. I am lost! My
life is a martyrdom. I want you to help me,--to try if you can think of
anything. I am almost crazy. It is I who do all the work of the house;
I can bear it no longer.” And her tears flowed afresh.
“And your jewels?”
“They might be worth two hundred thousand reis. And what should I say
to Jorge?”
Leopoldina was silent for a moment; then, glancing around the
apartment, and opening wide her arms, she said,--
“All I possess, my dear, is not worth twenty pounds!”
Luiza, drying her eyes, murmured,--
“What an expiation is mine! My God! What an expiation!”
“What is there in those letters?”
“Horrible things! I was crazy. There is one of mine, and two of his.”
“Of your cousin’s?”
Luiza slowly nodded her head affirmatively.
“And he?”
“I don’t know. He is in France, and he has not answered my letter.”
Luiza then rapidly related the story of the sarcophagus and the box.
“But what an idea of yours! To put a letter like that in such a place!
It was a piece of folly, child!” And Leopoldina paced rapidly up and
down the room. Her eyes, large, black, and full of excitement, seemed
searching space for some remedy, some means of escape out of this
difficulty.
“This is a question of money,” she said at last. Luiza, seated on the
sofa, repeated dejectedly, “Yes, a question of money.”
Leopoldina stopped suddenly before her.
“I know who would give you this money,” she said.
“Who?”
“A man I know.”
Luiza rose, frightened.
“Who is it?”
“Castro.”
“Of the eye-glasses?”
“Of the eye-glasses.”
Luiza turned crimson.
“Oh Leopoldina!” she murmured.
After a pause she added,--
“I know it; he told Mendonça he would. You know they are inseparable.
He said he would give you anything you asked of him. He said so more
than once.”
“How horrible!” exclaimed Luiza, with sudden indignation. “And you
propose such a thing to me?” And she looked at Leopoldina with frowning
brow and flashing eyes. To receive money from a man! She took off her
hat hastily, and with trembling hand threw it on the jardinière, and
began to walk with agitated steps up and down the room.
“I would rather run away, hide myself in a convent, be a servant and
sweep the streets!”
“Don’t get excited, child. What are you thinking? Perhaps he would lend
you the money without interest.”
“Do you think so?”
Leopoldina did not answer, but with bent head began to turn the rings
on her fingers round and round.
“It would be a _conto de reis_,--two; you would be saved, and you
might then be happy.”
Luiza gave a shudder of indignation at these words, perhaps at her own
thoughts!
“It is base and horrible!” she said.
They were both silent.
“Ah, if I were in your place!” said Leopoldina.
“What would you do?”
“Write to Castro, asking him for the money.”
“That is you!” exclaimed Luiza, unable to restrain herself.
Leopoldina blushed through her powder.
Luiza flung her arms around her neck.
“Forgive me; I am beside myself; I don’t know what I am saying!” she
murmured.
They both began to cry hysterically.
“You have wounded me!” said Leopoldina, sobbing. “I said it for your
good, because I thought it the best thing you could do. If I had the
money I would give it to you,--believe me.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Who is there?” asked Leopoldina.
“I,” answered a hoarse voice.
“It is my husband. That animal has not left the house to-day. I cannot
open now,” she said at the door. “Come back by-and-by.”
Luiza dried her eyes and took up her hat.
“When will you come again?” Leopoldina asked her.
“As soon as I can; if I cannot come I will write.”
“Very well. Meanwhile I will think what can be done.”
Luiza caught her by the arm.
“Of this--not a word!”
Luiza left the house, and walked slowly towards S. Roque. The door
of the Church of the Misericordia was open, the embroidered banner
fluttering in the doorway, gently stirred by the breeze. She felt
impelled to enter, she knew not why; but it seemed to her that the
coolness of the church would calm her agitated spirit. She felt so
unhappy that she remembered God. She felt the need of something strong
and powerful in which to take refuge; she knelt down at the foot of
the altar, crossed herself, and recited a Pater Noster and an Ave
Maria. But those prayers of her childhood afforded her no consolation;
they were like soulless sounds that mounted no nearer to Heaven
than did the agitated breath that framed them; she did not clearly
understand their meaning; they had no application to her case. God
could never guess by them what she asked of him, prostrate here in
her anguish. She wanted to speak to God, to open her whole heart to
him, but in what language? With words such as she used in speaking to
Leopoldina? Would her prayers ascend so high that they would reach him?
Was he so near that he could hear her? She remained kneeling, her arms
powerless, her hands clasped, gazing, by the light of the yellow wax
candles, at the tarnished embroideries, and the round and rosy face of
an Infant Jesus.
Slowly, like rings of smoke floating upward in the atmosphere, her
thoughts began to revolve around the time, now so far away, in which,
through a feeling of sadness or of sentimentality, she used to visit
the churches with frequency. Her mother was still living, and she, her
heart heavy within her--when Bazilio had written to her, breaking the
tie that bound them--sought to transmute her sadness into the ecstasy
of devotion. A friend of hers, Joanna Silveira, had gone about this
time to France, to take the veil; at times she longed to do so too, to
become a sister of charity, to raise up the wounded on the field of
battle, or to pass her life in the mystical and untroubled peace of a
convent cell. What a difference between that life and her present one,
so troubled by anger, so weighed down by sin!
A sacristan, passing by, coughed harshly, and as the young birds in the
nest cease their chirping at a sudden noise, so were these voices from
the past now silent within her. She sighed, rose slowly to her feet,
and went sorrowfully homeward.
Juliana, who opened the door, said to her in the hall, in a
supplicating voice,--
“Forgive me, Senhora; I was crazy; my head was light from not having
slept during the whole night. I am very sorry.”
Luiza went directly to the parlor, without answering. Sebastião, who
was to dine with them, was playing the serenade of “Don Giovanni.” When
he saw her he exclaimed,--
“What makes you so pale?”
“I am only a little tired, Sebastião,” she answered. “I have just come
home from church.”
Jorge was at that moment coming out of his study with some papers in
his hand.
“From church!” he repeated. “What folly!”
CHAPTER XIX.
A DINNER AT THE COUNSELLOR’S.
AT about this time a paragraph appeared one Saturday in the “Diario do
Governo,” announcing that the order of Santiago had been conferred upon
the Counsellor Accacio in recognition of his great literary abilities,
and the works of acknowledged merit which he had produced.
When he entered Jorge’s parlor on the following evening, he was made
the subject of a general ovation. After embracing the company one by
one, he sank on the sofa, overcome by his emotion, saying,--
“I did not expect so much as this from the royal favor,--I did not
expect so much as this.” And laying his hand upon his heart he added,
“I may say, in the words of the philosopher, ‘The day on which I
received this honor was the happiest day of my life.’” He then
proceeded to invite Jorge, Sebastião, and Julião to partake with him,
on Thursday next, of a modest bachelor’s dinner in his humble abode, in
honor of the royal favor.
On Thursday the three invited guests met accordingly at the
counsellor’s, and were shown into the parlor by a slatternly-looking
little girl. Another guest was already there,--Senhor Alves Coutinho.
Shortly afterwards the well-known figure of Savedra, the editor of the
“Seculo,” entered the room.
“We are all here now!” exclaimed the counsellor, who received his
guests in the habit of Santiago, which he wore over his black coat.
“Welcome, my friends!” he continued, bowing. “Perhaps we should be more
at ease in my study; this way,--there is a step; take care. This is my
_sancta sanctorum_.”
The counsellor’s study was a small apartment, very neatly arranged,
with heavy curtains draping the windows.
Julião began at once to examine the bookcase.
“I take pride in possessing the most illustrious authors, friend
Zuzarte,” said the counsellor, with a self-complacent air.
He pointed out to Julião the “History of the Consulate and Empire,”
the works of Delille, the “Dictionary of Conversation,” the pocket
edition of the “Encyclopædia Roret,” and the “Lusitanian Parnassus.”
He alluded to his own works, and said he would like to read, before
persons so well-informed as his guests, the proofs which he had been
just correcting of his new book, “A Description of the Principal Cities
of the Kingdom, and their Institutions,” in order to hear their severe
and impartial judgment of it.
“With pleasure.”
“Certainly, Counsellor, with pleasure.”
He chose, as best calculated to give an idea of the importance of the
work, the passage relating to Coimbra. He rose, and standing in the
middle of the apartment, holding the proof-sheets in his hand, he
read, with sonorous voice and measured gesture:--
“Reclining peacefully on her verdurous hills, like an odalisque
on her couch, is the learned Coimbra, the Portuguese Athens. The
softly-flowing Mondego kisses her as he whispers to her tender
secrets. In her groves the nightingale and other amorous birds warble
their melancholy strains. As you approach the city by the road from
Lisbon, with which it was formerly connected by a well-organized
coach-mail, replaced to-day by the smoky locomotive, you can see it
gleaming whitely, crowned by the imposing bulk of the University, that
stronghold of wisdom.”
“Dinner is on the table,” said a robust girl in a white apron, from the
door.
“Bravo! Counsellor, bravo!” exclaimed Savedra, of the “Seculo,” rising.
“Admirable!”
“What is your opinion, my friend?” said the counsellor, in a low voice
to Julião, laying his hand upon his shoulder. “Your impartial opinion,
friend Zuzarte?”
“Senhor Counsellor,” said Julião, gravely, “I envy you--”
While he spoke his gaze was fixed intently, and with evident curiosity,
on a corner of the room which was occupied by what seemed to be a large
pile of books, judging from so much of it as was visible beneath the
edges of the gray cloth that covered it. What could it be?
“Do not expect a Lucullian banquet,” the counsellor said gayly, as he
conducted his guests to the dining-room. “It will be nothing more than
the modest repast of a humble philosopher.”
Alves Coutinho, however, went into ecstasies over the abundance of the
sweetmeats; there was cream, lightly browned; a plate of egg-paste,
and a rice pudding ornamented with the initials of the counsellor in
powdered cinnamon.
“I don’t know if the soup pleases you,” the counsellor said, as they
took their seats. “For my part, I adore macaroni.”
“You like macaroni?” said Alves.
“Very much, dear Alves; it reminds me of Italy,--a country I have
always desired to see,” he added. “I have been told its ruins are
remarkable, and that its constitution is a very liberal one.”
“Liberal!” repeated Julião. In his opinion, if Italy were liberal, she
would have long ago kicked out the Pope, the Sacred College, and the
Jesuits.
The counsellor, with a benevolent air, asked his friend Zuzarte’s
indulgence for the “Head of the Church.”
“Not that I uphold the Syllabus,” he said, “not that I desire to see
the Jesuits enthroned in the bosom of the family. But the venerable
prisoner of the Vatican,” he added gravely, “the Vicar of Jesus
Christ--Help yourself to rice, my dear Sebastião!”
The Senhora Philomena here placed before the host a dish containing
a leg of roast veal. Animated by a sense of his duty, he grasped the
carving knife and fork with solemnity, and proceeded, with contracted
brow, as if he were engaged in the most important operation in the
universe, to carve thin slices from the joint. Meantime Julião, resting
his elbows on the table, asked,--
“Is the ministry going to fall, or not?”
Sebastião had heard that afternoon, he said, on the boat from Almada,
that the present situation of things was assured.
“Whether they fall or not,” continued Julião, “whether these go out or
others come in--thanks, Counsellor,” he interrupted himself to say,
as the counsellor handed him his plate of roast veal--“is a matter of
complete indifference to me. They are all a pack of knaves!”
He was disgusted with the country; from the highest to the lowest they
were a worthless lot, and he anticipated shortly, by the logic of
events, a revolution that would clear away all this rubbish.
“A revolution!” exclaimed Alves Coutinho, looking around him with an
uneasy glance.
The counsellor resumed his seat, and said,--
“I have no desire to enter into a political discussion; political
discussions serve only to create dissension among friends; but I will
recall to the mind of Senhor Zuzarte the excesses of the Commune.”
Julião threw himself back in his chair, and answered tranquilly,--
“The mistake is, Senhor Counsellor, not to kill a few bankers, rich
land-owners, and anæmic marquises. That would be the right sort of a
clearance to make!” And he made a movement with his knife as if to
sharpen it.
The counsellor smiled urbanely, looking on this sanguinary outbreak as
a jest.
“The truth is this,” he said; “the country is sincerely attached to the
royal family. Am I not right, my dear Sebastião?” he said, directing
himself to him as a proprietor and land-owner.
Sebastião declared that he did not understand politics, but he saw
things that distressed him. The cigar-makers, for instance, earned
barely nine or ten _reals_ a day; and this state of things, with a
family to provide for, was pitiable.
“It is infamous!” interrupted Julião, shrugging his shoulders.
“There are not enough schools,” resumed Sebastião, timidly.
“A piece of stupidity on the part of the government,” said Julião.
Savedra, occupied in eating, was silent; he had unbuttoned his
shirt-collar; his countenance wore the red hue of satiety, and he
smiled vaguely.
“And the lunatics of S. Bento!” exclaimed Julião.
But the counsellor interposed,--
“Let us speak of something else, my friends. It would be more becoming
to us as Portuguese gentlemen and loyal subjects.” And turning to Jorge
he asked him how the interesting Donna Luiza was.
She had been rather indisposed for some days past, Jorge said; but it
was nothing of consequence,--the change of seasons, a little debility--
Savedra put down his glass, and said,--
“I had the pleasure of seeing her pass my house almost every day last
summer, on the road to the Arroios, sometimes on foot and sometimes
driving.”
Jorge manifested some surprise as he heard these words. The counsellor,
however, began to express his regret at not seeing her here a guest at
their modest banquet; but as he was a bachelor and had no wife to do
the honors--
The Senhora Philomena, entering the room with an air of solemnity, here
placed a bottle of champagne on the table before him.
Savedra asked the counsellor to hand it to him to open, as he knew how
to do it with chic. As soon as the cork had been drawn and the glasses
filled, in the midst of the silence that followed the operation,
Savedra, who remained standing, thus began,--
“Counsellor--”
Accacio, pale with emotion, bowed.
“Counsellor! it is with the sincerest pleasure that we all drink to the
health of a man who,”--here he gave an eloquent pull to the cuff of his
shirt,--“on account of his personal qualities, his exalted position,
and his vast information, is one of the notabilities of our country.
Your health, Counsellor!”
Cries of “The Counsellor!” “The Counsellor!” “Our friend the
counsellor,” followed these words.
The toast was drunk enthusiastically. Accacio wiped his lips, passed
his trembling hand over his bald head, rose, and began:--
“My good friends, I did not anticipate this honor; if I had expected
it, I would have prepared some remarks beforehand. I am not gifted with
the eloquence of a Rodrigo or a Garrett, and my emotions overpower
me.” He went on to speak of himself with modesty; he acknowledged, he
said, that with orators or illustrious statisticians so accomplished as
there were in the city, he was a zero on the wrong side. And raising
his right hand he described with his thumb and forefinger a O in the
air. He proclaimed aloud his love for his country, declaring that if
its institutions or the royal family should one day need his support,
he would willingly place his person, his pen, and his modest fortune
at their disposal. He would gladly shed his blood for the throne. He
quoted extensively from the “Eurico,” the Belgian Institutes, Bocage,
and his own introductions. He was proud to belong to the society of the
1st of December--
“On that memorable day,” he said, “I myself illuminate my windows,
if not with the magnificence that characterizes the edifices of the
Chiado, at least with sincere good-will.” And he ended by saying,
“Let us not omit, my dear friends, to drink to the health of the
enlightened monarch, to whom, in my mature years, I owe the privilege
of displaying, before I descend to the tomb, the honorable decoration
of Santiago. My friends, to the health of the Royal Family!”--here he
raised his glass--“the model family, that, seated in the most exalted
position of the State, directs, surrounded by the lights of the
political firmament, directs--”
He paused in vain for the word he wanted; there was an anxious silence.
“Directs--”
Through his eye-glasses his eyes could be seen fixed on the jamb of the
door, seeking inspiration.
“Directs--”
He scratched his bald crown in consternation; but at last a smile
irradiated his countenance. He had found the word he sought, and
extending his arm,--
“Directs the ship of State in such a manner as to excite the envy of
surrounding nations! To the health of the Royal Family!”
“To the health of the Royal Family!” responded the others with respect.
Coffee was served in the parlor; a pair of candles illuminated the cold
apartment with a dismal light. The counsellor wound up the music-box,
and, to the sound of the nuptial chorus of “Lucia,” handed cigars
around.
“The Senhora Adelaide may bring the liquors,” he said to Philomena.
A handsome woman, about thirty years of age, with a fair complexion and
black eyes, her splendid proportions showing to advantage, in a blue
merino gown, now entered, carrying a silver tray, on which were placed
glasses, a bottle of cognac, and another of Curaçao.
“A handsome woman!” murmured Alves, with a flushed countenance.
Julião placed his finger on his lips, and said in an undertone,
glancing at the counsellor,--
“Darest thou, madman, raise thine eyes
To Cæsar’s wife!”
While they were sipping the Curaçao, Julião went softly into the study,
and raised the cloth that concealed the object of his curiosity. Under
it were rows of bound books tied together with twine,--the works of the
counsellor intact!
CHAPTER XX.
THE DREGS IN THE CUP.
WHEN Jorge reached home at eleven o’clock he found Luiza up, waiting
for him, with a book in her hand.
She asked him how the counsellor’s dinner had passed off.
“Excellently,” replied Jorge. “A great deal of wine was drunk, toasts
were proposed--” And suddenly interrupting himself, “By the bye, what
took you every day to the Arroios?” he said.
Luiza passed her hands over her face to conceal her confusion, and then
repeated, her voice trembling slightly,--
“To the Arroios?”
“Yes; Savedra, one of the counsellor’s guests this evening, told me he
saw you going there every day, on foot or driving.”
“Ah,” said Luiza, with a little cough, “I went to see the wife of
Guedes, a girl who used to go to school with me, and who had recently
arrived from Oporto,--Silva Guedes.”
“Silva Guedes,” repeated Jorge, thoughtfully; “I thought Guedes was at
Cape Verde, as secretary-general.”
“I don’t know. They came here for a month last summer and stopped at
the Arroios; she was sick, poor thing; I went to see her occasionally.
Take that light away; it hurts my eyes.”
She complained of having felt unwell all the afternoon. She felt weak
and feverish.
On the succeeding days she was no better. She complained vaguely of a
heavy feeling in her head, of _malaise_. One day she was unable
to rise, and Jorge, filled with uneasiness, stayed with her, proposing
to send at once for Julião; but Luiza insisted that it was nothing,--a
little debility, at the most.
This was the opinion Juliana expressed to Joanna in the kitchen,--
“The senhora has grown thin; there is some chest-trouble there,” she
said, with an important air.
Joanna, bending over the fire, replied,--
“As for the mistress, she is a saint!”
Juliana cast a spiteful glance at her, and said with a little smile,--
“The Senhora Joanna says that as if other people were nothing but the
dirt under one’s feet.”
“What other people?”
“I, and you, and every one.”
Joanna answered without looking around, while she went on moving the
pots on the fire,--
“You will not find another like her, Senhora Juliana,--a lady who lets
you do whatever you wish, and does your work herself! The other day she
threw out the dirty water. She is a saint!”
The hostile tone of Joanna exasperated Juliana, but she controlled
herself; notwithstanding her position in the house, she depended on the
cook for her broths, her beefsteaks, and her dainties; she regarded her
with the cowardly respect of weak constitutions for strong ones, and
she responded with ambiguous accent,--
“It is her temper; she likes to scold, but it must be said of her that
she is very orderly and fond of work. If she sees a speck of dust, she
takes up the dust-brush. It is her disposition; I have known others
like her;” and she pursed up her lips as she said it.
“As for her, she is a saint!” repeated Joanna.
“The trouble with her is her temper,” repeated Juliana. “She is always
boiling over. I never go out without leaving everything in order; but
she is never satisfied. The other day she began to iron. Very well;
I took off my hat and would not let her. Do you know what ails her?
Want of something to do, not having children; for she has no wish
unsatisfied--”
She paused, glanced at her foot, and added, with an air of
satisfaction,--
“Nor I either;” and she leaned back in her chair.
Joanna began to sing. She did not want disputes, but she found in all
this something out of the way,--Juliana, always in the street or in her
own room, working for herself, without caring a straw for anything,
leaving things to go as they would, and the poor mistress ironing,
sweeping. No; there must be some mystery here. But her Pedro, whom she
consulted on the matter, said to her good-humoredly, twisting his
little mustache,--“Let them settle it between themselves. Try to amuse
yourself, and don’t mix yourself up in other people’s affairs. The
place is a good one; try to profit by your opportunities.”
But Joanna secretly felt her dislike for the Senhora Juliana increase.
She was enraged at her assumption of importance, at the luxury of her
room, at her continual running out, at her giving herself the airs
of a fine lady; she did not refuse to perform her obligations for
her, because this brought her presents from the senhora; but what an
antipathy she had to her! It was some consolation, however, to have a
handsome young fellow to restore her to good-humor, and the place, too,
possessed many advantages. Pedro was right.
Juliana was now more cautious. The scene in the laundry had frightened
her; for, after all, a scandal might make her lose her place. She
refrained from going out for some days, and was very industrious
in the house; but when she saw Luiza resign herself to her fate,
she surrendered herself almost feverishly to the pleasures of
self-indulgence and the delights of vengeance. She began once more to
go out, to shut herself up in her room, to sew, leaving the mistress
to put up with it. In Jorge’s presence she placed some restraint upon
herself; she was afraid of him; but no sooner did she hear the door
close behind him in the morning than she left her sweeping, or whatever
else she might be doing, and devoted herself to her own affairs. Luiza
was there to finish her work!
Luiza’s health, meantime, went from bad to worse; suddenly, and without
any cause, she began to suffer from ephemeral fevers; she grew thin,
and her fits of sadness began to cause Jorge some anxiety. She laid the
blame of it all on her nerves. “What can this be, Sebastião?” was the
constant question of Jorge, who remembered with terror that Luiza’s
mother had died of an affection of the heart.
The neighbors had learned from Joanna that the wife of the engineer was
in ill health. Senhor Paula accounted for it in the following manner.
“The whole trouble is the mind,” he said, nodding his head with a
profound air. “Do you know what is the matter with her, Senhora Helena?
Too many novels on the brain. I see her from early morning with a novel
in her hand. She sits all day reading novels; and there is the result.
Cracked!”
One day Luiza fainted away suddenly, without any apparent cause, and
when she returned to consciousness she was very weak, with a high pulse
and sunken eyes. Jorge went at once for Julião; he found him greatly
excited, for the examinations were to take place on the following day,
and he began to feel nervous. On the way he spoke, without pausing, of
his thesis, of the shamelessness of giving appointments through favor,
of the scandal he would make if they treated him unjustly, and of his
regret at not having inserted more wedges.
He examined Luiza, and said to Jorge in a vexed tone,--
“There is nothing the matter with her; and you call me for this?
She has anæmia; we all have it. Let her go out; let her amuse
herself,--amusement and iron; a great deal of iron. Ah, and cold water
on the spinal column.”
As it was already five o’clock, he invited himself to dine, abusing the
country for the rest of the evening, cursing the science of medicine,
insulting his opponent, and smoking Jorge’s cigars with desperation.
Luiza took the iron, but she refused to amuse herself; it tired her
to dress, and she hated to go to the theatre. Then, when she saw that
Jorge was really uneasy about her condition, she tried to affect
energy, gayety, good-humor; but the effort depressed her profoundly.
“Shall we go to the country?” said Jorge to her in despair, seeing that
she was growing worse.
Fearing possible complications, she refused. She said she did not feel
strong enough. Where could she be better than in her own house? And
then the expense--the trouble.
One morning when Jorge returned home unexpectedly he found her in a
wrapper, a handkerchief tied around her head, and sweeping, with a
dejected countenance.
He stood still at the door in amazement.
“What are you doing?” he said. “Are you sweeping?”
She flushed crimson, threw down the broom, and went to embrace him.
“I had nothing to do; I took a fancy to sweep,” she responded. “I was
tired of doing nothing; besides, that is good for me; it is a healthy
exercise.”
Jorge told Sebastião that evening of Luiza’s stupid notion of setting
to work to sweep.
“A person as weak as you are, Senhora!” said Sebastião, reproachfully.
But no, she returned; she was not ill now,--at least, she was a great
deal better.
She asked Sebastião to play Mozart’s “Requiem;” it was so beautiful.
When she died she would like to have that sung in the church.
Jorge grew angry. “What a fancy for talking nonsense!” he cried.
“But is it not possible for me to die?”
“Very well, then; die, and leave us in peace,” he answered furiously.
“What an amiable husband!” she said, glancing with a smile at Sebastião.
She let her knitting drop on the table, and asked him to play her a
certain passage of the “Africaine.” She listened, with her head resting
in her hand; the music penetrated her soul with the sweetness of mystic
voices calling to her; it seemed to her as if, borne along by them, she
was leaving behind her everything terrestrial, every agitation, and as
if she were transported to a distant shore, before her the melancholy
sea, when, a spirit freed from the miseries of the flesh, she floated
on the air, bathed in light, passing over the waves like a breeze.
Her melancholy attitude irritated Jorge.
“Sebastião, will you do me the favor to play a fandango,--‘Blue-Beard,’
‘Pirolite,’ or the devil. Else, if you insist on having sadness, I
will give you the thing in earnest.” And he began to sing the _Dies
Irœ_.
Luiza laughed.
“What folly! Cannot one be sad?” she said.
“One can,” returned Jorge; “but if one is sad, one should be so
consistently.” And he sang in lugubrious accents the _Bemdito_.
“The neighbors will say we are crazy, Jorge,” she said.
“And so we are,” he answered, going into his study and shutting the
door behind him.
Sebastião played a few bars, and turning to Luiza, said in a low
voice,--
“But what notions are these? Why this sadness?”
Luiza lifted her eyes to his; she saw his open and friendly
countenance, full of sympathy; perhaps, in a burst of sorrow, she would
have told him everything, but Jorge came out of the study, she smiled,
shrugged her shoulders, and slowly took up her knitting again.
On the following Sunday evening there was the usual _causerie_
in Jorge’s parlor. Julião gave an account of his examination. Not
to enlarge upon the subject, he had pronounced a lucid and concise
discourse, lasting two hours. Dr. Figueiredo had told him that he ought
to have made his style a little more florid. “What would you have?”
said Julião, shrugging his shoulders with contempt. “Those literary men
cannot speak for five minutes about the thigh-bone, without bringing in
‘spring flowers’ or the ‘progress of civilization’!”
“The Portuguese have a mania for rhetoric,” said Jorge.
Juliana entered with a letter. It was from the counsellor. There was a
moment’s uneasiness. It was only an excuse from Accacio, however, for
not being able to go, as he had promised, to enjoy a chat in the house
of the excellent Donna Luiza. Some urgent work kept him at the post of
duty. He sent remembrances to Sebastião and Julião, and affectionate
regards to the interesting Donna Felicidade.
A wave of carmine inundated the face of the excellent lady. She
coughed, very much agitated, changed her seat twice, played the “Pearl
of Ophir” with one finger on the piano, and at last, unable to control
herself longer, asked Luiza, in a low voice, to go with her to her
room, for she had a secret to tell her.
“What do you say of his letter?” she cried, when they entered.
“That I congratulate you,” responded Luiza, laughing.
“The charm!” said Donna Felicidade. “The charm is beginning to work.”
And she added in a lower tone, “I went to the house of the man I told
you of,--the Gallician.”
Luiza did not comprehend.
“The man of Tuy. I took him my likeness and Accacio’s, and he left the
city a week ago. The woman has begun already to stick the needles in
the heart.”
“What needles?”
Donna Felicidade, standing close beside Luiza, near the dressing-table,
continued with a mysterious air, “The woman makes a waxen heart; she
fastens it on the likeness of the counsellor, and for a week sticks
into it every night at midnight a needle anointed with a preparation
she has, and at the same time recites a prayer.”
“And you gave her money?”
“Eight dollars.”
“Donna Felicidade!”
“Don’t say anything; you see what a change there is already! In a few
days more he will declare himself. Ah, may our Lady of Joy grant it!
That man turns me crazy. I dream of him every night.” She looked at
herself in the glass; she wanted to convince herself that the beauties
of her person would lend their aid to the needles of the sorceress, and
she smoothed her hair over her forehead. “Don’t you think me thinner?”
she said.
“No.”
“Well, I am then, child,” she answered; “I am.” And she drew Luiza’s
attention to her waist.
She began to make plans. They would go to spend the honeymoon in
Cintra. Her eyes shone with anticipated happiness. “May our Lady of Joy
grant it!” she repeated. “I have two candles burning in her honor day
and night.”
Suddenly a cry of terror from Joanna resounded through the house.
“Senhora, Senhora! Quick!” she said.
Luiza ran upstairs, followed by Jorge. Juliana was lying on the kitchen
floor in a faint.
“It came all of a sudden,” said Joanna, pale and trembling. “She fell
suddenly--on her side.”
Julião, who had followed, tranquillized them. It was a simple
fainting-fit. They carried her to her room and laid her on the bed.
Julião ordered friction to the extremities with a hot flannel. Before
Joanna could collect her senses sufficiently to fasten up her hair
and go to the apothecary’s for an antispasmodic, Juliana regained
consciousness. She was still very weak, however. When they descended to
the parlor, Julião, rolling a cigarette, said,--
“This in itself is of no consequence. These fainting-fits are very
common in diseases of the heart. But sometimes they assume an
apoplectic character, and end in paralysis,--of short duration, for
the effusion of blood on the brain is slight; but they are always
disagreeable.” And lighting his cigarette he added, “That woman will
die in your house the day least expected.”
Jorge, preoccupied, walked up and down the floor with his hands in his
pockets.
“I have always said so,” rejoined Donna Felicidade, who was very much
frightened, lowering her voice. “I have always said so. You will be
obliged to get rid of her.”
“The treatment is incompatible with living at service,” continued
Julião. “Even at the wash-tub one might take digitalis or quinine; but
the only efficacious treatment is repose,--an absolute avoidance of
fatigue. Let her have an annoyance some day, or a morning’s hard work,
and she may go off.”
“And is the disease far advanced?” asked Jorge.
“According to what she says, she already feels difficulty in breathing,
oppression, sharp pains in the cardiac region, flatulency, moistness of
the extremities. All these are the worst possible symptoms.”
“What an annoyance!” muttered Jorge, looking out into the street.
“Dismiss her,” repeated Donna Felicidade.
When their guests had gone, Jorge said to Luiza,--
“What do you think of this? We must get rid of her. I don’t wish her to
die in the house.”
Luiza, standing at the dressing-table, unfastening her hair, said,
without looking at him, that they could not turn the poor woman out to
die in the streets. She alluded to what she had done for Aunt Virginia.
She let her words fall tentatively, like one walking on unstable
ground. They might give her some money to go and live elsewhere.
Jorge, after a moment’s silence, said,--
“I have no objection to giving her ten or twelve pounds and letting her
go. Let her arrange things to suit herself.”
“Ten or twelve pounds!” thought Luiza, in despair. And standing before
her dressing-table she looked at herself in the glass with a vague
wistfulness, as if she sought there her image as it must shortly be,
stricken by grief, her eyes weary with weeping. For the crisis had
at last come. If Jorge insisted on discharging this woman, she could
not, without provoking a terrible explanation, say to him, “I do not
wish her to go; I wish her to die here.” And Juliana, finding herself
dismissed, desperate, sick, and seeing that Luiza did not interpose in
her behalf, would take her revenge. What was to be done?
She arose in great agitation on the following day. Juliana had a
great deal of oppression, and remained in bed. While Joanna set the
table, Luiza, seated in an easy-chair at the dining-room window, was
mechanically reading the “Diario de Noticias,” hardly comprehending
what she read, when a notice at the head of the column gave her a
slight shock:--
“To-morrow our friend the well-known banker, Senhor Castro, a partner
in the house of Castro, Miranda, and Company, leaves Portugal for
France. He retires from business in Lisbon to establish himself
permanently in France, where he possesses a fine property in the
neighborhood of Bordeaux.”
Castro! The man who would give her as much money as she asked him for.
He was going away! And although she had rejected from the first this
infamous means of obtaining money, it troubled her, against her will,
to know that he was going away. An idea suddenly occurred to her that
made her tremble, and rise with pallid countenance to her feet. Good
God! What if on the eve of his departure, the very eve, she should ask
him for it. No, it was too horrible! No, no; she must not think of it.
But her mind continued to dwell upon this thought, and her resolution
began to fail, vanquished by the persuasive accents of the tempter in
her soul. She would be saved! She would give the six hundred thousand
_reis_ to Juliana, and that fiend might go and die far away from
her, wherever she wished. And he, this man,--he would take the steamer
to-morrow. She would not have to blush before him; her secret would
be buried in a foreign land, safe as in a tomb. Besides, if Castro
really felt an affection for her, he might lend her the money without
putting conditions. Good God! To-morrow she might have in her drawer
the bank-notes, the gold. Why not? She felt an intense desire to throw
off her chains, to live happy, freed from this anguish, this continued
martyrdom.
Returning to her room, she set herself to arrange the dressing-table,
stealing a look at Jorge, who was dressing. In his presence she felt
a pang of remorse. To go to ask money from a man,--to endure his
disrespectful glances, his ambiguous words. How horrible! Then she
sought to justify her intentions by sophistical arguments. It was for
Jorge’s sake; it was to save him the pain of _knowing_; to be able
to love him freely all her life, without secret fears, without reserve.
During breakfast she did not speak a single word. Jorge’s frank and
good-humored countenance was as attractive to her now as that of the
other was repellent; she hated him now.
When Jorge left the house she was trembling with nervousness. She
went out into the balcony. The sun shone brightly; the street looked
inviting. Why should she not go out? The harsh voice of Juliana
resounded on the stairs leading to the kitchen, and that hated sound
decided her. She dressed herself with care; she was a woman, and she
desired to look her best. She reached Leopoldina’s house out of breath
just as it was striking twelve in S. Roque.
She found her friend dressed, and about to sit down to breakfast. She
took off her hat, and seating herself on the sofa, explained clearly
to Leopoldina what she had resolved upon. She wanted the money from
Castro,--given or lent; she must have it. She had absolute need of it,
and she must avail herself of any means of obtaining it. Jorge wanted
to dismiss that woman, and she feared her vengeance. She wanted the
money, and she was there to get it.
“But, my dear, so suddenly!” said Leopoldina, wondering at her
resolution.
“Castro is going to-morrow to Bordeaux. Something must be done, and
soon.”
Leopoldina proposed to write to him.
“Whatever you wish; I am here now.”
Leopoldina seated herself at the table, took a sheet of paper and began
to write, her head on one side and her little finger in the air.
Luiza walked up and down the room nervously. Her resolution was now
fixed, and the sight of Leopoldina strengthened it. The latter amused
herself, danced, went to the country, lived, enjoyed herself, without
having, like her, a secret torment that sapped and imbittered her
existence. No; she would not return home without carrying in her
pocket, in ready money, her ransom, her salvation. She was weary of
humiliations, of frights, of nights haunted by bad dreams! she wanted
to enjoy her life, her affection for Jorge, her meat and drink, without
cares, and with a cheerful heart.
“Listen,” said Leopoldina, reading aloud:--
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I wish absolutely to speak to you on an
urgent matter. Come as soon as you can, and you may have cause to
thank me. I will expect you, at the latest, by three o’clock. Always
your friend,
LEOPOLDINA.
“How does it sound to you?”
“Horrible! But no; it is very well. Cross out that ‘you may have cause
to thank me;’ it is better.”
Leopoldina copied the letter, and sent Justina with it in a carriage.
The dining-room opened into a small reception-room. The walls were
covered with ugly pictures, in which large green blots represented
hills, and blue lines lakes. A corner cupboard served as a china
closet; the straw chairs were covered with a cheap red stuff, and the
table-cloth showed the stains of yesterday’s coffee.
“You may be sure of one thing,” said Leopoldina, drinking her tea in
large swallows, “and that is, that Castro is a man capable of keeping a
secret. If he gives you the money--and he will give it to you--no word
of it will pass his lips.”
They remained silent for some time. Luiza was the first to speak.
“And your husband?” she asked.
He had gone to Oporto, Leopoldina said. They would be alone for the
rest of the day, and might do as they liked.
There was another silence of a minute or two.
“But what shall I say to this man?” Luiza asked suddenly.
Leopoldina answered lazily,--
“Why, that you need a _conto de reis_ or six hundred thousand
_reis_. What else should you say to him? And that you will repay
him.”
“How?”
“In smiles.”
“Oh, this is horrible!” exclaimed Luiza, exasperated. “You see me
desperate and half mad; you call yourself my friend; and yet you laugh
and jest about my situation.” Her voice trembled; she could scarcely
restrain her tears.
“It is that you ask so silly a question. How are you going to pay him?
You yourself must know.”
They looked at each other a moment in silence.
“No! I am going away this very instant,” exclaimed Luiza.
“Don’t be silly!”
They heard a carriage stop at the door, and a moment later Justina made
her appearance. She had not found Senhor Castro in his house; he was at
the office. She had gone there, and he had told her he would follow on
the instant.
But Luiza, who was very pale, still kept her hat in her hand.
“No, no;” said Leopoldina, almost angry. “You are not going to leave me
alone with him now. What should I say to him?”
“This is horrible!” murmured Luiza, with a tear resting on her lashes,
as she let her arms drop helplessly by her side, urged on the one hand
by her interest, on the other by shame.
“It is as if you were going to take a dose of castor-oil,” said
Leopoldina. Then, seeing Luiza’s terror, “The deuce! since when is it
dishonorable to ask a loan of money? Everybody does that.”
Suddenly they heard a carriage draw up hastily at the door.
“Go into the parlor,--speak to him first,” said Luiza, raising her
clasped hands with a supplicating gesture.
The bell rang. Luiza, trembling and very pale, looked around her on all
sides with wide-open eyes, as if in search of an idea, a resolution, a
corner in which to hide herself. They could hear Castro’s step on the
matting in the parlor close beside them. Leopoldina said to her friend
in a low voice, and very slowly, as if she wished to engrave her words
one by one upon her mind,--
“Remember that within an hour you may be safe, free, and happy, with
your letters in your pocket.”
Luiza stood up with quick decision; she went to the dressing-table to
powder her face and smooth her hair, and then followed Leopoldina into
the parlor.
On seeing Luiza, Castro looked surprised. Standing with his small feet
close together, he bent his round head, on which the hair was beginning
to turn gray. On his rounded paunch, which his short legs made appear
still more prominent, a locket, depending from his watch-chain, rested
conspicuously. He carried in his hand a little cane with a silver
knob representing a Venus wreathing her arms. His complexion was of
a uniform red; his heavy mustache terminated in points sharpened by
pomade, _à la_ Napoleon; his gold eye-glasses gave him an air of
importance, in keeping with his character as a banker and a friend of
order, and he seemed as satisfied with life as a contented sparrow.
So it was necessary to send for him in order to catch a glimpse of him,
began Leopoldina. Then she presented Luiza as her intimate friend, the
companion of her school-days, and said,--
“But why have you not been to see me?”
Castro leaned back in a rocking-chair, and tapping his boot with his
cane, gave as an excuse the preparations for his journey.
“Then it is true that you are going to leave us?” Castro bowed.
“To-morrow, in the ‘Orinoco,’” he answered.
“This time, then, the newspapers have not lied. And how long will you
be away?”
“_Per omnia saccula sacculorum._”
Leopoldina expressed her astonishment. A man who had so many friends,
and who could lead so agreeable a life, to leave Lisbon! “Am I not
right?” she said, turning to Luiza in order to draw her out of her
embarrassed silence.
“Yes, indeed,” murmured Luiza.
She was seated on the edge of a chair, filled with terror, and longing
to fly. The persistent gaze of Castro from behind his eye-glasses
annoyed her.
Leopoldina leaned back on the sofa, and with an accusing gesture of the
finger,--
“Ah, there are petticoats at the bottom of this journey to France,” she
said.
He denied it faintly and with a fatuous smile. Leopoldina, to flatter
him, called him a rake. Pleased and smiling, he answered, stroking his
mustache, “Calumnies, calumnies.”
Leopoldina, turning to Luiza, said,--
“He has bought a splendid villa in Bordeaux,--a palace.” “A hut, a
hut.”
“And he is going to give magnificent entertainments.”
“Modest teas, modest teas,” he answered, delighted. And both women
laughed with simulated gayety. Castro bent towards Luiza, saying,--
“I had the pleasure of seeing you some time since in the Rua do Ouro.”
“Yes, I think I remember,” she answered.
There was a moment’s silence. Leopoldina coughed, seated herself nearer
the edge of the sofa, and said, smiling,--
“Well--I sent for you because we have something to say to you.”
Castro bowed. He did not take his eyes off Luiza.
“The question is this,--I will proceed to the matter at once and
without preface,--my friend is in a serious difficulty and has need of
a _conto de reis_.”
Luiza interrupted her, saying in a voice that was almost inaudible,--
“Six hundred thousand _reis_.”
“It is all the same,” interrupted Leopoldina, with magnificent
indifference; “we are talking to a millionaire. The question is this:
Can you do her the favor of lending it to her?”
Castro straightened himself slowly, and said in doubtful accents,--
“Certainly, certainly.”
Leopoldina rose.
“Very well; I am going. The seamstress is waiting for me in my room. I
shall leave you to talk it over.”
At the door she turned to Castro, shaking her finger gayly at him,--
“Don’t let the interest be too high a one,” she said.
And she went away laughing.
Castro bent towards Luiza and said,--
“Well, Senhora, I--”
“Leopoldina has spoken the truth,” she interrupted; “I am in a serious
pecuniary difficulty. I have addressed myself to you. I will try to
repay you as soon as possible.”
“Oh, Senhora,” answered Castro, with a gesture expressive of a generous
indifference. He went on to say that he comprehended perfectly, that
every one had difficulties occasionally. He regretted not to have made
her acquaintance before, he added, for she had always impressed him
agreeably, very agreeably!
Luiza was silent, her gaze fixed on the floor. He stood up, went and
placed his cane beside the jardinière, and then returned to his seat
beside her. Seeing her confusion he begged her not to distress herself.
It was not worth while where only money was concerned. It gave him the
greatest pleasure to be able to be of use to so charming a woman. She
had done right in addressing herself to him. He knew of ladies who, in
similar cases, had applied to money-brokers, who got all they could out
of them, and were besides indiscreet.
And thus speaking, he caught her hand in his. Seeing that Luiza did not
withdraw it, he went on, in an agitated voice, to promise her whatever
she wanted.
“Six hundred thousand _reis_--what you wish.”
“And when?” asked Luiza, in confusion.
“Now!” he exclaimed, passing his arm around her waist, and pressing his
lips to hers.
Luiza sprang from her chair at a bound.
“I will give you whatever you wish; but sit down,” he said. “Listen to
me--”
Luiza shrank back from him in terror.
“Leave me! leave me!” she cried, in a voice of anguish.
With set teeth and wide-open eyes he approached her again, as if to
embrace her. Luiza, indignant, mechanically caught the cane which he
had placed beside the jardinière, and struck him violently on the hand.
“A thousand devils!” he cried, grinding his teeth together, furious
with rage and pain. He would have seized her hand; but Luiza, raising
her arm, and animated by frantic rage, rained rapid blows upon his head
and shoulders. A sombre expression rested on her livid countenance, and
her eyes glittered with a cruel light.
Castro, astonished, drew back, covering his face with his hands,
without seeking to defend himself. Suddenly he stumbled against the
jardinière; the porcelain lamp fell to the floor with a loud noise, and
the oil ran over the matting.
“Well, have you had enough?” said Luiza, tightening her grasp
convulsively upon the cane.
Leopoldina hurried into the parlor at the noise made by the falling
lamp.
“What has happened?” she said.
“Nothing! we were only amusing ourselves,” returned Luiza, throwing the
cane on the floor and leaving the room.
Castro, livid with rage, caught up his hat, and with a terrible glance
at Leopoldina said,--
“I am deeply indebted to you. You may count on me for another time.”
“But what has happened?” asked Leopoldina again.
“I have the honor to bid you good-day,” roared Castro.
He took up his cane, and shaking it menacingly in the direction Luiza
had taken,--
“Hypocrite!” he muttered in revengeful accents.
And he went out, slamming the doors behind him.
Leopoldina, astounded, went into her room, where she found Luiza
putting on her hat, her hands still trembling, but with eyes gleaming
with satisfaction.
“Some unaccountable fancy took possession of me,” she said, “and I beat
him on the face with his cane.”
Leopoldina gazed at her in amazement.
“You beat him?” she cried, bursting into a fit of laughter. “Castro,
Castro of the eye-glasses covered with blows! Castro to endure a
beating!” She threw herself on the sofa, choking with laughter. “Castro
to come to the house of a friend, to bring with him six hundred
thousand _reis_, and to go away with a cudgelling,--and with his
own cane! It is enough to make one die laughing.”
“The worst of it is the lamp,” said Luiza.
Leopoldina rose to her feet suddenly.
“The oil! what an omen!” she exclaimed.
She ran into the parlor, where Luiza found her a moment afterwards,
standing with folded arms before the dark stain, as if she had caught a
glimpse of some near catastrophe.
“Good God! what an omen!” she repeated.
“Throw some salt on it at once.”
“Is that good?”
“It breaks the spell.”
Leopoldina hurried away, brought back some salt, and kneeling down,
scattered it over the stain, exclaiming,--
“Ah, may Our Lady grant that nothing bad may come of it! But what an
occurrence! My God, what an occurrence! And now, child?”
Luiza shrugged her shoulders.
“Now--I am aware of it--there is nothing left for me but--to endure!”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SHADOW OF A SIN.
ONE morning, some days afterwards, Jorge, who had forgotten that it was
a feast-day, found the office closed, on going to the Department, and
returned home. Joanna was standing at the door, talking to an old woman
who was selling eggs. The hall door was open, and entering without
ringing, he surprised Juliana comfortably seated on the sofa, reading
the newspaper.
On seeing him she turned crimson, and rising to her feet stammered,--
“I am not to blame, Senhor; I have just had a violent palpitation,--”
“So violent that you sat down to read the newspaper,” returned Jorge,
mechanically grasping his cane. “Where is the senhora?”
“She must be in the dining-room,” answered Juliana, taking up the broom
and hastily beginning to sweep.
Luiza was not in the dining-room. Jorge found her in the laundry, in a
morning wrapper, her hair in disorder, very busy ironing, and with an
expression of dejection on her countenance.
“Can it be possible that you are ironing?” he exclaimed.
Luiza colored, and laid down the iron. As Juliana was sick, she said,
and the clothes had accumulated--
“Let us settle this matter at once,” returned Jorge. “Who is mistress
here, I should like to know, and who is servant?”
The sternness with which he spoke sent the color from Luiza’s cheek.
“What do you mean?” she stammered.
“I mean to say that I find you here ironing, while she is downstairs,
sitting at her ease on the sofa, reading.”
Luiza, bending over the clothes-basket in confusion, began to shake out
the clothes and fold them with a trembling hand.
“You cannot imagine how much there is to be done,” she said. “The
cleaning, the ironing, the waiting at table. And that poor sick
creature--”
“If she is sick, let her go to the hospital!”
“No, you ought not to say that.”
This insistence in defending Juliana, who was taking her ease
downstairs, exasperated him.
“But what does this mean? Are you depending upon her? Any one would
think you were afraid of her!”
“Ah, if you have come home in that humor,” answered Luiza, with
trembling lips, and ready to cry.
Jorge continued, with increasing vexation,--
“This indulgence must have an end! That this good-for-nothing should
take her ease in my house, enjoying every comfort, stretching herself
in my chairs, going out to amuse herself, and that you should take her
part and do her work for her--no! an end must be put to this. Always
excuses, and more excuses! Let her go to the hospital--or to the devil!”
Luiza burst into a fit of hysterical weeping.
“There it is! Now you begin to cry! What is the matter? Why do you cry?”
She continued weeping, without answering.
“But, child, what is the meaning of these tears?” he asked, in tones of
mingled tenderness and impatience, approaching her.
“Why do you speak to me in that way?” she said, with a fresh sob,
wiping her eyes. “You know I am ill and nervous, and you treat me as
you do. You have only disagreeable things to say to me.”
“Disagreeable things! But, child, I have said nothing disagreeable to
you,” he answered, embracing her, much moved.
But Luiza drew herself away from him, and in a broken voice said,--
“Is it a crime to iron? You are angry because I work, and attend to the
affairs of the house. Would you prefer me to neglect things? This woman
is sick, and if I do not help her, the work is left undone. And you are
always saying disagreeable things to me.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Come, reflect a moment and you will see it is
only that I don’t want you to fatigue yourself.”
“Why do you tell me, then, that I am afraid of her?” she said,
her tears beginning to flow afresh. “Afraid! And of what? What an
absurdity!”
“Very well; I will not say it. Come, let us speak no more of the
matter. But don’t cry. There! It is all over now.” He kissed her, and
putting his arm around her waist, drew her gently away. “There, leave
the ironing now. Come. What a child you are!”
Through good-nature and consideration for Luiza’s nerves Jorge did not
speak again for some days about the “poor woman.” But he thought about
her. And to think of that sickly creature, with one foot in the grave,
in his house, irritated him. Since the night she had fainted, when
he had seen with astonishment the comforts she enjoyed in her room,
owing to the ridiculous indulgence of Luiza, he had found something
mysterious and annoying in all this. As he was out during the day, and
in his presence Juliana had only smiles and manifestations of affection
for Luiza, he thought she had succeeded in insinuating herself into
his wife’s confidence, and making herself, in the intimacy existing
between mistress and servant, necessary and dear to her. This augmented
his antipathy towards her,--an antipathy which he did not take the
trouble to disguise. Luiza trembled at times, when she saw him follow
Juliana with his angry glance. But what made her suffer most was the
manner Jorge had adopted of speaking of the woman in terms of ironical
respect; he called her “the illustrious Donna Juliana, my lady and
mistress.” If a goblet or a wine-glass were wanting on the table he
pretended to be astonished. “What!” he would exclaim, “Donna Juliana,
that paragon, to forget anything!” He made use of jests that froze
Luiza’s blood with terror.
“How did the philter that she gave you, taste?” he once said. “Was it
pleasant?”
Since then she had not ventured, in his presence, to speak with
naturalness to Juliana; she dreaded his ambiguous smiles, his
asides,--“Go, give her a kiss; I can see in your face that you are
dying to do so.” Fearing to awaken his suspicions, and anxious to show
her independence, she began to speak to Juliana, when he was by, with
abrupt and affected coldness. Juliana, who was very sagacious, and
understood the motive of this conduct, bore with it in silence. She
felt very ill, and feared being sent to the hospital. All day long she
sipped broths or nibbled croquettes or sweet-potato pudding. She kept
jelly and Port wine in her room, and she even asked occasionally for
chicken broth in the evening.
“I pay for it with the sweat of my brow,” she would say to Joanna.
“Since I work like a slave, I may as well have something for it.”
One day, however, when Jorge was more irritated than usual by the
sallow countenance of Juliana, and his nerves vibrating from having
found neither water nor towel in the bedroom, he lost control over
himself, and cried angrily,--
“I am in no humor to put up with this carelessness any longer.”
Luiza hastily began to make excuses for Juliana.
He bit his lip, bowed profoundly, and in a voice trembling with anger
said,--
“I beg your pardon; I had forgotten that Juliana’s person is sacred. I
will go for the water myself.”
Luiza grew angry in her turn. If they were to come into constant
collision on account of her, it was better to dismiss the woman, she
said. Did he think, by chance, that she had any love for Juliana? If
she kept her, it was because she was an excellent servant. But if they
were going to have disputes on her account it was better that she
should go. These continual sarcasms were a martyrdom to her.
Jorge did not answer.
Luiza was unable to sleep that night, tormented by the thought that
this state of things could not last. She was weary of it now. To put up
with Juliana herself, and to listen to hints and innuendoes at every
moment on her account from Jorge,--no, this was too much! She began
to fear that the bomb was at last about burst. She herself, then, it
should be, she determined, who would set fire to the match. She would
dismiss Juliana, and let her show Jorge the letters! If she retired
to a convent, at least she would be freed from her; she would suffer,
she would die; but anything was better than this slow martyrdom, these
secret pin-pricks!
“What is the matter?” asked Jorge sleepily, feeling her restless.
“I cannot sleep.”
“Poor child! count a hundred and fifty backwards.”
And he turned over, wrapping the blankets comfortably about him.
On the following morning Jorge rose early. He had an engagement to
dine at the Hotel Gibraltar with Alonso the Spaniard, with whom he had
business connected with the mines. At ten he went into the dining-room
to breakfast. He returned to the bedroom, to tell Luiza with a profound
bow, and dwelling on each word, that the table was not yet set, that
the teacups that had been used the evening before were still there
unwashed, and that the Senhora Donna Juliana, the illustrious Senhora
Donna Juliana, had gone to take a little walk!
“I told her last night to go to the shoemaker’s,” began Luiza, who was
putting on her wrapper.
“Ah, I beg your pardon,” Jorge interrupted her, very ceremoniously. “I
had forgotten that Juliana, your lady and mistress, was in question. I
beg your pardon!”
“Yes, you are right,” answered Luiza. “You shall see. It is necessary
to put an end to this.”
She hurried upstairs to the kitchen.
“Joanna, why did you not set the table when Juliana was not here to do
it?” she cried.
The girl said she had not heard the Senhora Juliana going out. She
thought she was downstairs in the parlor, as Juliana wanted to do
everything herself now!
When Joanna placed the breakfast on the table a short time afterwards,
Jorge sat down, nervously twisting his mustache. Twice he rose, smiling
silently, first to get a spoon, and then the sugar-bowl. Luiza noted
the contraction of his countenance, and tried in vain to eat; she felt
as if every mouthful would choke her; the teaspoon trembled in her
hand. She stole a glance from time to time at Jorge, whose silence made
her suffer keenly.
“You said yesterday you were going to dine out to-day?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered shortly; adding, “Thank Heaven!”
“You are in a good humor!” murmured Luiza.
“As you see!”
Luiza turned pale, and took up the newspaper to hide a tear that
trembled on her lashes; but the letters danced before her eyes, and she
felt her heart oppressed with anguish. Suddenly there was a ring at the
bell. It was Juliana, without doubt.
Jorge rose.
“It must be that lady; I have a few words to say to her.”
And he remained standing by the table, sharpening a toothpick with
deliberation.
Luiza rose, trembling.
Jorge caught her quietly by the arm.
“No, allow me,” he said; “let me have that pleasure!”
Luiza dropped into a chair, very pale. The noise of Juliana’s high
heels could be heard in the hall. Jorge continued tranquilly sharpening
his toothpick.
Luiza turned towards him, and clasping her hands, said in a
supplicating voice,--
“Don’t say anything to her!”
He looked at her in astonishment.
“Why?” he asked.
Juliana opened the door.
“What do you mean by going out and leaving your work undone?” said
Luiza, rising.
Juliana, who arrived smiling, stood still at the door, as if petrified;
notwithstanding her naturally livid color, a sudden flush overspread
her cheeks.
“Let this not happen again! Do you hear?” continued Luiza. “Your
obligation is to remain in the house in the morning.”
She stopped, transfixed by a terrible glance from Juliana. Then, taking
up the pitcher with trembling hand,--
“Take this and bring some water--quick!” she said.
Juliana did not move.
“Did you hear?” shouted Jorge, impatiently, giving the table a blow
with his hand that made the plates rattle.
“Jorge!” exclaimed Luiza, seizing him by the arm.
“Leave the house!” continued Jorge. “Pay her her wages and let her go!
I am tired of it now, and I shall bear it no longer. If I see her here
when I come back, I will tear her to pieces! I have been silent long
enough! It is my turn now!”
He took up his overcoat, trembling with excitement, and as he was about
to go out, turned round to say,--
“Let her go this very instant, do you hear? She shall not stay here an
hour longer. She has been sticking in my throat for a fortnight past.
Put her in the street!”
Luiza went to her room, scarcely able to support herself. She was lost!
A thousand wild and insensate ideas whirled around in her brain, like
dead leaves in a storm. She thought of leaving the house, and under
cover of the darkness that night throwing herself into the river. She
regretted not having accepted the money from Castro. All at once she
saw Jorge in imagination opening the letters given to him by Juliana,
and reading, “My adored Bazilio.” A panic terror paralyzed her soul.
She ran to Juliana’s room to beg her pardon, to ask her to remain in
the house, and not to inflict martyrdom upon her. And Jorge? She would
tell him that Juliana had wept, that she had knelt to her. She would
lie to him; she would cover him with kisses; he loved her, and she
would be able to pacify him.
Juliana was not in her room. Luiza went upstairs to the kitchen. She
was there, sitting in a chair, her eyes flaming, her arms folded
tightly, an expression of mute rage upon her countenance. When she saw
Luiza she started from her chair at a bound, and shaking her fist in
her mistress’s face, cried in a shrill voice,--
“The next time you speak to me as you have done to-day there is an end
to everything!”
“Silence, wretch!” cried Luiza.
“You tell me to be silent? You--” said Juliana, with mingled scorn and
rage.
Joanna ran up to her, and gave her a slap with her hand full on the
face that took her off her feet.
“No, Joanna!” cried Luiza, catching her by the arms.
Juliana fled from the room in terror.
“Oh, Joanna, what a disgrace and what a scandal!” said Luiza, pressing
her head between her hands.
“I will tear her limb from limb!” cried the girl, clenching her teeth
and waving her arms. “I will tear her limb from limb!”
Luiza walked around the kitchen table mechanically, trembling from head
to foot, and white as chalk.
“What have you done, girl! what have you done!” she cried.
Joanna, still boiling over with rage, her face flushed, moved the
tripod furiously on the fire, saying,--
“If that shameless creature speaks a single word to me I will put an
end to her.”
Luiza went downstairs to her room. Juliana came out to the hall to meet
her, with her face very red, and a handkerchief tied around it.
“If that shameless hussy is not sent out of the house,” she cried, “I
will stand in the doorway, and when the master comes home I will tell
him everything!”
“Very well, then, tell him. Do what you like,” returned Luiza, passing
her without a glance.
“Let there be an end to this anguish and this hatred,” she thought.
“Better the end should come at once!”
She felt something like a sense of painful relief at seeing the
end of her long martyrdom approach. It had lasted for months; and
reflecting on all she had done and suffered, the infamy in which she
had been steeped, and the humiliations which she had endured, she
felt a loathing for herself and a profound disgust towards life. It
seemed to her that she was no longer the same; that she had neither
legitimate pride nor a single pure feeling; that her whole being, body
and soul, had been trampled in the dust like a rag trodden underfoot
by the multitude. It was not worth while to make any struggle for a
life so vile. To enter a convent would be to expiate her crime and to
die,--above all to expiate her crime. And where was he,--the man who
was the cause of all her misfortunes? In Paris, twirling his mustache,
jesting, driving his horses, making love to other women, while she
was here, stupidly suffering! And when she had written to him, asking
him to save her, not even a word in answer, as if he thought her not
worth the expense of a postage-stamp. And he had told her that he
would dedicate his life to her, that he would live in the shadow of
her presence. Traitor! So long as she was free from care and happy,
all went well; but when trouble came, when she suffered and wept--ah,
no; not that. You are a beautiful animal on whom I depend for pleasure
and enjoyment--very well; everything you wish! But you have become an
afflicted creature, who has need of consolation and some hundreds of
thousands of _reis_, then good-by; I am going to the steamer that
is waiting for me! Ah, what a stupid thing life was! How gladly would
she have done with it!
She leaned against the window and looked out; the day was cloudless
and mild. The sun shed a reddish light on the walls of the houses and
on the pavement. There was a serene softness in the air. Senhor Paula
in his carpet slippers was standing at the door of the tobacco-shop.
Lulled by the soft winter air, she felt moved to tears. Every one
was happy on this beautiful morning,--every one but her, miserable
creature that she was; she alone suffered! She remained sunk in
melancholy reflections; a tear trembled on her lashes. Suddenly she saw
Juliana cross the street, turn the corner, and after a while come back,
accompanied by a stout Gallician, carrying a bag on his shoulder.
“She is going!” thought Luiza. “She is about to take away her trunk!”
And afterwards? Would she send the letters to Jorge, or would she give
them to him at the door, as she had threatened? Good God! She fancied
she saw Jorge entering the room, with a pallid countenance, and the
letters in his hand. She was seized with a fit of terror. She did not
wish to lose her husband, her Jorge, his love, her house, everything!
A feeling of rebellion against this state of widowhood took possession
of her. To enter a convent at twenty-five! No, impossible! She went
to Juliana’s room; her clothing was lying scattered on the bed; boots
wrapped in old newspapers were lying on the floor.
“Have you come to see if I am taking anything away with me?” cried
Juliana, angrily. “I am leaving a few things here still; see, there is
the bundle. And I want my wages.”
“Listen, Juliana,” said Luiza. “Don’t go.” And her voice died away in
her throat as she spoke, while the tears sprang to her eyes.
Juliana looked at her, haughty and triumphant, with a boot in either
hand.
“If you turn that shameless creature into the street,” she said in
her shrill voice, “I will be satisfied.” And she added, shaking the
dust from her boots, “Everything shall go on as before, in peace and
quietness.” An expression of intense joy lighted up her glance. She
had avenged herself; she had made her mistress shed tears, she had
turned _the other_ out of the house, and she had lost none of
her comforts! “Send that impudent creature away! send her away!” she
repeated.
Luiza, with a gesture of despair, went slowly upstairs to the kitchen.
The steps seemed to her unending. She dropped on a stool in the
kitchen, and wiping her eyes, said,--
“Listen, Joanna; you cannot remain in the house.”
The girl looked at her with an expression of terror.
“What Juliana said to me was on the spur of the moment,” she continued.
“She is sorry for it; she has been crying. She has been longest in the
house, and the master is very much attached to her.”
“Then--the senhora is sending me away; you are sending me away?”
“It was on the spur of the moment,” repeated Luiza, in a low voice,
blushing with shame. “She has asked my pardon.”
“And all for taking the part of the mistress!” exclaimed the girl, in
accents of distress, looking at Luiza in astonishment.
Luiza understood the implied indignity, but, impatient to end the
matter at once, she said,--
“Well, Joanna, let us speak no more about it; I am the mistress. I am
going to pay you your wages.”
“A pretty return to make me!” exclaimed Joanna in desperation. And she
added, stamping her foot with an air of determination on the floor,
“But I will tell the master; yes, I will tell him; I will tell him all
that has taken place. The senhora is not doing right.”
Luiza looked at her in silence. So the disaster was to come at last
from her, the docile one. It was too much! She felt seized by a
strange terror, a fear of her own conscience; and pressing her temples
between her hands, she exclaimed, “What a punishment! My God! what a
punishment!”
Suddenly she seized Joanna by the arms in her frenzy, and whispered in
her ear,--
“Go, for the love of God, Joanna! Say nothing, but go!”
And losing all sense of self-respect she fell on her knees before the
girl, sobbing,--
“For Christ’s sake, Joanna, go! Go at once, dear Joanna!”
The girl, terrified, began to cry.
“I am going; yes, dear mistress, I will go!”
“Yes, Joanna, yes. I will give you something. You shall see. But don’t
cry. Wait.”
She ran downstairs to her room, took from a drawer two pounds of her
savings, ran quickly upstairs again, and putting the money into her
hand, said in a low voice,--
“Take this to make a jacket for yourself, and to-morrow I will send
your trunk.”
“Yes, Senhora, yes,” responded the other, sobbing. “Yes, dear Senhora!”
Luiza went to her room, and throwing herself on the sofa, buried her
face among the cushions, sobbing, wishing for death, asking God in her
terror to take pity upon her.
Suddenly she heard the harsh voice of Juliana in the doorway.
“Well, what have you decided upon?” she asked.
“Joanna is going. What more do you want?”
“Let her go at once,” returned the other, imperiously. “I will get the
dinner--for to-day, of course.”
Luiza’s tears were dried by the heat of her anger.
“And now,” continued Juliana, “let the senhora listen to me.”
Juliana’s tone was so insulting that Luiza rose as if cut by the stroke
of a whip.
“The senhora must act squarely with me; otherwise I shall speak out,”
she ended haughtily, and with a menacing gesture of the finger. And
turning on her heel she went away with noisy steps.
Luiza glanced up, dazed, as if a flash of lightning had suddenly passed
through the room. But everything was motionless; not a fold of the
curtains moved; the two little porcelain shepherds smiled pretentiously
as before upon the dressing-table. She took off her wrapper quickly,
put on a gown, without waiting to lace herself, then a winter wrap,
then her hat, without smoothing her hair, left the house, hurried down
the steps, and almost ran through the street, entangling her feet in
the folds of her gown.
Senhor Paula walked out to the edge of the sidewalk to follow her with
his eyes, saw her enter Sebastião’s house, and then went to say to the
tobacconist, “There is something new at the engineer’s.”
And he remained standing at the door, his eyes fixed on the windows in
which the folds of the green rep curtains hung down motionless.
“Senhor Sebastião?” Luiza asked the girl who opened the door for her,
as she followed her into the hall.
“He is in the parlor,” returned the girl.
Luiza went upstairs; she could hear him playing the piano. She opened
the door quickly, and running to him clasped her hands across her
breast, and said in a choking voice, with an expression of anguish on
her face,--
“I wrote a letter to a man, and Juliana stole it from me! I am lost!”
Sebastião, pale with astonishment, rose to his feet. Seeing her face
bathed in tears, her hat half fallen off, and her agonized glance,--
“What is the matter? What has happened?” he asked.
“I wrote to my cousin,” she returned, her eyes fixed anxiously upon
him, “and that woman stole the letter from me! I am lost!”
A deathlike pallor overspread her countenance; her eyes closed.
Sebastião caught her in his arms, and laid her, half-fainting, on the
yellow damask sofa; and then, paler than Luiza, remained standing
beside her, his hands in the pockets of his blue sack-coat, motionless
and stupefied. Suddenly he left the room, came back with a glass of
water, and sprinkled some on her face. Luiza opened her eyes, put her
hands out blindly before her, gave him a glance of terror, and leaning
on the arm of the sofa, her face buried in her hands, burst into a
passion of tears. Her hat fell upon the ground. Sebastião took it up,
shook out the flowers gently, placed it carefully on the jardinière,
and returned to her side with noiseless steps.
“Come, come!” he murmured, touching her lightly on the arm with his
hand, which trembled like a leaf. He offered her some water, but she
put it away with her hand. She slowly raised herself to a sitting
posture, wiping her eyes, and drawing long breaths between her sobs.
“Have patience with me, Sebastião,” she said.
She drank a little water, and then let her hands drop powerless on her
lap, while her tears continued to flow. Sebastião closed the door, and
returning to her, said gently,--
“But let us see; what is it?”
Luiza raised her agitated countenance, in which her eyes burned
feverishly, looked at him a moment, and then said, bowing her head in
humiliation,--
“A misfortune, Sebastião! A disgrace!”
“Come, come; don’t distress yourself in this way!” He took a seat near
her, and said to her in low and earnest accents, “I am at your disposal
for whatever service you may require of me and I can perform.”
“Sebastião,” she exclaimed, her heart overflowing with gratitude,
“believe me, I have been well punished. I have suffered a great deal,
Sebastião.”
She remained silent a moment, her eyes fixed on the floor; then,
catching him abruptly by the arm, she burst into a torrent of words
that followed each other incoherently, like water escaping from a
narrow-necked vessel.
“She stole the letters from me,--in what way I know not,--and she asked
at first six hundred thousand _reis_ for them; then she began
to torture me; and I was obliged to give her gowns--everything she
demanded. She changed her room, and she took for her own use my finest
sheets; she was the mistress, I the servant. Every day she threatens
me; she is a monster. All was in vain,--soft words, entreaties. Where
could I find the money,--is it not so? She knew it well What have I not
suffered! They say I have grown thin; you yourself have noticed it. My
life is a hell. If Jorge were to know! That vile wretch threatened to
tell him everything to-day. I work like a slave. In the morning I sweep
and put things in order; often I wash the breakfast things. Have pity
on me, Sebastião, if it were only for _his_ sake! Unhappy creature
that I am, I have no one in the world to turn to.” And burying her face
in her hands, she burst into a fresh fit of weeping.
Sebastião bit his trembling lip in silence; two tears rolled down his
cheeks, and rising slowly,--
“But why did you not tell me this before?” he said.
“I could not, Sebastião. I was on the point of telling you once, but I
could not.”
“You were wrong.”
“This morning Jorge wanted to dismiss her. He has observed her neglect
of her duties, and he is displeased with her, but he suspects nothing,”
she added, flushing, and turning away her eyes. “He has often scolded
me for taking her part, but to-day he grew angry, and told her to leave
the house. No sooner was he gone than she came to me like a fury, and
began to insult me.”
“Good God!” murmured Sebastião, in amazement, pressing his head between
his hands.
“Perhaps you will not believe, Sebastião, that it is I who throw out
the sweepings.”
“But that vile creature deserves death!” he exclaimed, stamping his
foot on the floor. He took a few turns up and down the room with his
hands in his pockets, his head sunk between his broad shoulders; then
he returned to his seat beside her, and touching her timidly on the
arm, said in a low voice, “Those letters must be got from her.”
“But how?”
Sebastião scratched his beard and then his head.
“They must be got from her, and they shall be got from her,” he said at
last.
“If you could only do it, Sebastião,” said Luiza, catching his hand in
hers.
“I will get them from her.”
He reflected a moment, and then said, with his habitual air of
gravity,--
“I will arrange the matter with her. It would be well for her to be
alone in the house. You might go to the theatre to-night. He rose,
took the ‘Jornal do Commercio’ from the table, and glanced over the
advertisements. You could go to the S. Carlos, that is out later than
the others. They represent Faust to-night. Go to see Faust.”
“Very well,” answered Luiza with a sigh of relief.
Seated on the edge of the sofa, she listened anxiously to Sebastião
while in a low voice he explained to her his plan.
She must write to Donna Felicidade, begging her to accompany her to the
theatre, and send a message to Jorge to tell him they would call for
him at the Hotel Gibraltar on their way. “And what about Joanna?” he
ended.
Joanna had already left the house, she replied, and Juliana would
therefore be alone in the house at nine o’clock.
“Do you see how easily everything can be managed?” he said, smiling.
“Yes,” she said; “but will that woman give up the letters?”
Sebastião scratched his beard again.
“She will have to give them up,” he answered. Luiza looked at him,
deeply moved; his countenance appeared to her graced with the
perfection of moral beauty, and standing before him,--
“You are going to do this for me, Sebastião,” she said, in melancholy
accents,--“for me, who have been so wicked?”
Sebastião colored, and answered, shrugging his shoulders, “There are
no wicked women, Senhora; it is the men who are wicked.” And he added
presently, “I shall go for the tickets now, so as to get good seats,
eh,--seats in the front row?” He smiled in order to tranquillize her.
She put on her hat and lowered her veil, all the while giving utterance
to choking sobs that resounded through the parlor. In the hall they
found Aunt Joanna waiting with open arms to greet Luiza, whom she
kissed repeatedly. What a miracle it was that Luiza had made them a
visit, she said; and how well she looked! She was the flower of the
_bairro_.
“Enough, enough, Aunt Joanna,” said Sebastião, gently putting her aside.
How selfish he was! Aunt Joanna returned. He had had her to himself for
more than half an hour, and now she wanted her a little while too. He
ought to have a wife like that, a modest girl, a lily--
Luiza blushed painfully, unable to utter a word.
And the Senhor Jorge, what had become of him? No one saw anything of
him now. And Donna Felicidade?
“Enough, enough, Aunt Joanna!” repeated Sebastião, growing impatient.
“Good gracious! no one is going to eat the child!” responded Aunt
Joanna.
Luiza forced a smile. Suddenly she remembered that she had no one to
send with the message to Donna Felicidade, of to Jorge at the hotel.
Sebastião took her to his study to write her notes, saying he would
send them. He chose the paper for her, and dipped the pen in the ink,
more solicitous for her now, and more attentive to her, than before
he had known of her misfortune. Luiza wrote the note to Jorge; and
as, notwithstanding her anxieties, she recalled to mind a certain
low-necked gown of Donna Felicidade, she added in a postscript to her
note to that lady: “It is best to dress in black, and not to wear too
conspicuous a toilet. No low necks or light-colored gowns.”
As she approached her own house she saw a young man coming out of it,
carrying Joanna’s bundle. She heard the husky voice of the latter,
saying in menacing accents,--
“Touch it with but a finger and you shall not escape out of my hands
alive, you hog!”
“Get out of the house! get out of the house!” retorted Juliana, at
the head of the stairs. “It would be better for you to go and throw
yourself into the river than lay a hand on me!”
Luiza listened, biting her lips in silence. Her house converted into a
tavern!
“Let me ever catch you!” growled Joanna, going down the steps.
“Leave the house, you hog!” replied Juliana.
Luiza called the cook to her in a low voice.
“Joanna,” she said, “don’t look for a situation, and come here the day
after to-morrow.”
Upstairs, Juliana was singing the “Carta adorada” with shrill gayety.
A short time afterwards she came down to announce stiffly that dinner
was on the table.
Luiza did not answer her. She waited until Juliana had gone upstairs
again to the kitchen, and then hurried to the dining-room, took some
bread, a plate of the dessert, and a knife, went to her own room, shut
herself in, and ate her dinner off the jardinière. At six a carriage
stopped at the door. It must be Sebastião. She went herself on tiptoe
to open the door. It was he, looking animated and fresh-colored, with
his hat in his hand He had brought the key of box No. 18.
“And this?” said Luiza, as he put a bouquet into her hand. It was a
bunch of red camellias, surrounded by double violets.
“Oh, Sebastião!” she cried, deeply moved.
“Have you a carriage?” he asked.
“No.”
“I will send one. At eight, eh?”
He went down the steps, happy to serve her in anything, and she
followed him with a humid glance. “Ah, what a man!” she said to
herself; and she inhaled the perfume of the violets, turning the
bouquet around in her hands, feeling a tender joy in being the object
of his protection and his care.
She heard a knock at the door.
“Does not the senhora wish to dine?” said the impatient voice of
Juliana outside.
“No.”
“There will be so much the more for me, then.”
Donna Felicidade arrived before eight o’clock. Luiza was reassured by
seeing her appear in a black gown with a high neck, and her emerald
ornaments.
“What is this? What piece of folly is this, I want to know?” the
excellent lady said gayly, as she entered the room.
“A caprice,” answered Luiza. Jorge was dining out and she felt lonely.
She took a notion, which she could not resist, to go to the theatre.
They had to stop at the Hotel Gibraltar on their way, for Jorge.
“I had just finished dining when I received your note. I was on the
point of not coming. To lace one’s self after dinner! Fortunately I
had eaten scarcely anything.”
She asked what they were going to perform that evening. Faust. Good.
On which side of the house was the box? No. 18. What a pity! They lost
the view of the Royal Family. And then that theatre was so far away!
She rose, and standing before the dressing-table, looked at herself
sidewise in the glass, smoothing down the bands of her hair, and then
arranged her bracelets, her eyes shining joyously.
A carriage stopped at the door.
“The coach!” she said smilingly.
Luiza put on her gloves and her wrap, and glanced around. Her heart
beat violently, and there was a feverish light in her eyes.
“Are you forgetting anything?” asked Donna Felicidade. “The key of the
box? Your handkerchief?”
“Ah, my bouquet!” said Luiza.
Juliana was struck with amazement when she saw her mistress dressed
for the theatre; she lighted her out in silence, and slammed the door
insolently after her.
“What a barefaced creature!” she muttered.
Just as the carriage started, Donna Felicidade cried out, knocking at
the window,--
“Wait! Stop! I have forgotten my fan! I cannot go without my fan! Stop,
driver!”
“We shall be late, my dear. Take mine,” said Luiza, impatiently.
Donna Felicidade complained that these mental agitations disturbed her
digestion. The drive down the Chiado restored her good-humor, however.
Dark groups, gesticulating violently, stood out in bold relief against
the brightly illuminated doorways of the Havaneira. In front of the
Riding Academy carriages passed rapidly, the white capes of the drivers
lighted up by the shifting gleams of the lamps. Donna Felicidade, a
smile on her countenance, enjoyed the exhilaration produced by the
winter air, and the brightness of the numerous gas-lights, and it was
with a sense of satisfaction, when the carriage stopped, that she saw
the porter of the Hotel Gibraltar open the door and stand waiting their
orders, cap in hand.
Luiza gave him a message for Jorge.
They gazed in silence at the staircase of the hotel, on which the
shaded lamps diffused a soft light. Donna Felicidade, curious to know
something of hotel life, observed attentively the laundress, who was
just then entering with a basket of clothes; then a lady who descended
the staircase in evening dress, her feet encased in white satin
slippers; and she smiled as she saw the passers-by cast curious glances
at them through the open window of the carriage.
“They are dying to know who we are,” she said.
Luiza pressed her bouquet between her hands in silence. Jorge at last
made his appearance at the head of the stairs, speaking with great
energy to a very lean individual with his hat on one side of his head,
his hands in the pockets of his narrow trousers, and an enormous
cigar in his mouth. They stopped, gesticulated, whispered. Finally
the lean individual pressed Jorge’s hand, whispered something in his
ear, laughed under his breath, and turning back, clapped him on the
shoulder, and obliged him to take another cigar. Then he pulled his hat
still more to one side and went to speak to the porter.
Jorge ran out, smiling, to the carriage-door.
“What follies are these?” he said. “Theatres! Suppers! I shall apply
for a divorce!”
He seemed to be in a very good humor. All he regretted, he said,
was that he was not in evening dress, but he would remain in the
background, in the box. And in order not to crush their gowns he took a
seat outside.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE FATE OF THE SCORPION.
AT nine o’clock Sebastião left his house, and braving the sharp
northeast wind that made the gas-jets flicker inside the globes, went
slowly to the house of Vicente Azurara, a cousin of his, who was a
commissary of police. An elderly female servant in shabby attire took
him to the bachelor’s den where the Senhor Commissary was sweating away
a severe cold. He found him enveloped in a great-coat, his feet and
legs wrapped in a blanket, sipping hot grog, and reading “O Homem dos
tres calções.” When Sebastião entered he took his eye-glass off his
nose and raising his watery eyes, exclaimed,--
“I am tormented with a cold that I have had for the last three days.”
He grumbled a little, passing his thin and dirty hand over his face,
which was dark and full of lines, and to which a heavy mustache gave a
certain air of fierceness.
Sebastião said he was very sorry, but it was not strange with this
weather! He advised him to take sulphur-water with boiled milk.
“No; if it does not go away,” said the commissary, in a hoarse voice,
“I will attack it to-morrow with half a bottle of gin; and then, if it
does not go of its own accord, it will have to go by force. And what
is the news?”
Sebastião coughed, complained of feeling somewhat indisposed himself,
and taking a chair and seating himself near his cousin, said, placing
his hand upon the knee of the latter,--
“Vicente, if I were to ask you to let a policeman accompany me on a
little matter of business--merely to show himself--so that a certain
person might make restitution of something that has been stolen, you
would give me the order, eh?”
“Order, for what?” asked the commissary slowly, fixing his small eyes
on Sebastião.
“The order for him to accompany me,--only to show himself. It is a
delicate affair. To give a fright--nothing more. It is to make some one
restore something that has been stolen, without causing scandal.”
“Effects, or money?” said the commissary, slowly twisting his mustache
with his long tapering fingers that bore the stains of the cigarette.
Sebastião hesitated.
“Well, effects--so as not to cause scandal, you understand. You can
already imagine that.”
“A policeman in order to give some one a fright,” murmured Vicente. He
blew his nose noisily, and with a sudden change of countenance said,
“It is nothing relating to politics?”
“No!” returned Sebastião, with emphasis.
The commissary wrapped the blanket more closely about his feet, and
raised his eyes with a suspicious glance.
“It does not concern any person of respectability?”
“Nonsense, man!” returned Sebastião.
“A policeman, in order to give some one a fright,” ruminated Vicente.
“You are a man of honor; hand me the portfolio that is on the chest of
drawers there.”
He took from it a sheet of ruled paper, and reflected a moment, with
his hand to his head.
“Mendez--would Mendez do?” he asked. Sebastião, who did not know who
Mendez was, responded,--
“Yes, any one you choose. It is only that he may be seen.”
“Mendez, then; he is a respectable man; he belongs to the Guard.”
He asked Sebastião to hand him the inkstand, wrote an order, read it
over twice, put strokes to the dried it at the flame of the lamp, and
folding it with solemnity, said,--
“Second division.”
“Thanks, Vicente. It is a great service. I am much obliged to you.
Wrap yourself up well and do not forget the sulphur-water; it is to be
had at the pharmacy of Azevedo, Rua de S. Roque--with half a litre of
boiled milk. Thanks. Have you any commands?”
“No; give something to Mendez. He is a person of respectability; he
belongs to the Guard.” And putting on his eye-glasses he again became
absorbed in the “Homem dos tres calções.”
Half an hour afterwards Sebastião, followed by Mendez, who walked with
military step, his arms slightly bending outward like a bow, was on
his way to Jorge’s house. He had formed no plan of action. He reflected
naturally that Juliana, on seeing a policeman enter the house at that
hour, would be frightened, would think at once of Limoeiro and the
coast of Africa, and would deliver up the letters and beg for mercy.
And afterwards? He thought vaguely of paying her passage to Brazil,
or giving her five hundred thousand reis to establish herself in some
distant province. He would consider about it,--the chief thing was to
frighten her.
In effect, when Juliana opened the door, and saw a policeman standing
behind Sebastião, she grew livid, and exclaimed,--
“Ave Maria! What is the matter?”
She had a blank shawl around her shoulders, and the lamp she carried in
her hand projected on the wall the shadow of her repulsive profile.
“Senhora Juliana,” said Sebastião, quietly, “do me the favor to light
the parlor.”
She fixed an uneasy glance on the policeman.
“But what is the matter, Senhor? The master and mistress are out. If I
had known, I should not have opened the door; no, indeed. Has anything
happened?”
“It is nothing,” answered Sebastião, opening the door of the parlor.
“Everything can be quietly arranged.”
He himself lighted one of the candles, causing the gilded
picture-frames to stand out indistinctly from the surrounding darkness,
and casting a gleam on the pallid countenance of the portrait of
Jorge’s mother.
“Sit down, Senhor Mendez, sit down,” he said to his companion.
Mendez sat down on the edge of a chair, his hand on his hip and his
sabre between his knees, maintaining all the while a grave countenance.
“This is the person,” said Sebastião, pointing to Juliana, who stood
petrified with terror at the door.
“Senhor Sebastião, what jest is this?” she cried, retreating with a
pallid countenance.
“It is nothing, nothing.”
He took the light, and touching her on the arm said, “Let us go inside
to the dining-room.”
“But why? My God! is it anything that concerns me?”
Sebastião, when they had entered, closed the door, leaving Mendez in
the parlor. He placed the light upon the table, on which were remnants
of food on a plate, and a little wine in a glass; he took a few turns
up and down the room, nervously snapping his fingers, and then stopping
abruptly before Juliana,--
“Give me the letters that you stole from your mistress,” he said.
Juliana made a movement as if to open the window and call for help.
Sebastião caught her by the arm, and forcing her into a chair, said,--
“You need not scream out of the window, because there is a policeman in
the house. Give me the letters; if not--”
Juliana mentally caught a glimpse of a dark cell in Limoeiro, of the
broth served out to prisoners.
“But what have I done?” she stammered.
“You have stolen those letters. Give them to me quickly!”
Juliana, seated on the edge of the chair, clasped her hands together
with a gesture of desperation, and muttered between her teeth,--
“The hypocrite! the hypocrite!”
Sebastião laid his hand impatiently on the bolt of the door.
“Wait, in the name of a hundred thousand devils!” she cried, springing
to her feet at a bound. She glanced at him vindictively, unfastened her
jacket, put her hand into her bosom, and drew out a pocket-book. But
suddenly she stamped her foot upon the floor, and cried frantically,
“No, no, no!”
“May the Devil take me if you do not sleep to-night in prison,” said
Sebastião to her. He half opened the door and called out, “Senhor
Mendez!”
“There they are!” cried Juliana, throwing the pocket-book at his
feet; and shaking her clenched fist in his face, she added, “may a
thunderbolt strike you dead for this, you villain!”
Sebastião took up the pocket-book. It contained three letters, one,
very much folded, of Luiza’s. He read the first line: “My adored
Bazilio,” and turning very pale, placed all three in the breast-pocket
of his great-coat. He opened the parlor door; the robust figure of
Mendez stood out against the shadowy background.
“Everything is settled, Senhor Mendez,” he said, in a slightly
tremulous voice. “I will not detain you any longer.”
The policeman bowed in silence. When Sebastião slipped a _douceur_
into his hand at the head of the stairs, Mendez bowed again
respectfully, and said in mellifluous accents,--
“When you need me again, you know my address, No. 64, Mendez, of the
Guard. Do not trouble yourself, your Excellency; at the service of
your Excellency. My wife and children will be grateful to you. Do not
trouble yourself, your Excellency. No. 64, Mendez, of the Guard!”
Sebastião closed the door behind him and returned to the dining-room.
Juliana had sunk into a chair, apparently overwhelmed by the blow that
had fallen upon her; but no sooner did she see him than she rose,
furious.
“I will tell that hypocrite what I think of this, when I see her. You
have set this trap for me because you are her lover also!”
Sebastião, who had turned very pale, restrained himself with difficulty.
“Go get your hat and send to-morrow for your trunk,” he said; “your
master has already dismissed you.”
“He shall know everything!” she screamed. “May the roof fall and crush
me if I don’t tell him everything,--the letters she received from him,
and when they met--”
“Silence!” cried Sebastião, bringing his hand down upon the table with
a force that made the china rattle, and woke up the canaries. And he
added, with white lips and trembling voice: “The police have your name
written down, thief. At the first word you utter you go to Limoeiro or
beyond seas, for you stole not only letters but gowns, linen--”
Juliana endeavored to protest, but he continued with violence,--
“Very well; she gave them to you, then, but under compulsion, for you
threatened her. It is a robbery, which means transportation to Africa!
You can tell your master now anything you please; the only thing
wanting is that he should believe it. It will only end in your getting
a good thrashing, you thief!”
Juliana muttered between her teeth. It was amusing! They had
everything on their side, the police, the prison, fetters, Africa. And
she--nothing.
All her hatred against Luiza burst forth.
“She is no better than a street-walker,” she exclaimed, “and I am an
honest woman; no man can boast of ever having laid a hand on me. And
that hypocrite!”
Her shawl had fallen from her shoulders, and she felt an uneasy
sensation in the throat.
“This is an outrage!” she shrieked. “And all that I suffered with that
witch his aunt! Is this the reward they give me? May the Devil take me
if I don’t put this in the papers,--I who have passed my life chained
down to work like a dog!”
Sebastião, against his will, listened with painful curiosity to these
details. He felt an intense desire to choke her, and with his ears he
devoured her words. When she paused, out of breath,--
“Put on your hat, and let us go,” he said.
Juliana, convulsed with rage, her eyes starting from their sockets,
went up to him and spat in his face. But all at once she opened her
mouth to its fullest extent, bent forward, pressed her hands to her
heart with an agonized expression on her countenance, and fell, with
a dull noise, a lifeless heap upon the floor. Sebastião bent over her
and tried to move her; she was rigid, and a reddish foam discolored
her lips. He caught up his hat, hurried downstairs, and ran along the
Patriarchal. An empty carriage was passing. He hailed it, entered, and
ordered the driver to take him with all speed to the house of Julião,
whom he obliged to accompany him at once, without a collar, and in
slippers.
“It is very serious--Juliana--” he murmured, with a pallid countenance.
On the way, amidst the noise of the carriage and of bells ringing, he
told his companion incoherently that he had gone to Luiza’s, that he
had found Juliana enraged at having been dismissed, and that, while
talking and gesticulating she had suddenly fallen lifeless upon the
floor.
“It was there, and it must happen one day or another,” said Julião,
puffing his cigar.
The carriage stopped. Sebastião in his excitement had closed the door
behind him on leaving the house. And the dead woman inside! The driver
offered his latch-key, with which they succeeded in opening the door.
“Sha’n’t we take a little drive to Dá Fundo?” said the driver, as he
put his latch-key back into his pocket.
But on seeing the door close behind them,--
“They are not the sort of people for that,” he muttered
contemptuously, touching his horses with the whip.
Meantime they had entered the house. The silent hall had a lugubrious
aspect in Sebastião’s eyes. With a feeling of terror he went up the
stairs that seemed to be unending, and with his heart beating violently
he glanced around, expecting to see her lying there in a faint, or
standing before him pale but breathing.
No, there she was as he had left her, stretched on the floor, her arms
extended, her fingers drawn up like claws. The edge of her skirt was
slightly raised, disclosing to view her rose-colored stockings and her
carpet slippers. The lamp that Sebastião had left on the floor, by the
side of a chair, gave her rigid features livid tones, her distorted
mouth was set in a grimace, and her half-open eyes, fixed immovably
in death, were veiled by a cloud like a diaphanous cobweb. Everything
around seemed motionless and dead. The silver on the shelves of the
sideboard gleamed faintly in the light, and the cuckoo-clock continued
its ceaseless ticking.
Julião examined her and then stood up, shaking his hands.
“She is dead, and very dead,” he said. “She must be taken away from
here. Where is her room?”
Sebastião, very pale, pointed upstairs.
“Very well; carry her you, and I will take the light,” said Julião.
Seeing that Sebastião did not move, “Are you afraid?” he asked,
laughing. And he began to ridicule him. What was he afraid of? It was
inert matter; it was just as if he were carrying a trunk. Sebastião,
perspiring to the roots of his hair, put his hands under the arms of
the corpse, raised it, and dragged it slowly along. Julião held the
light before him, and through bravado sang the first bars of the March
of Faust. But Sebastião, shocked, said in a trembling voice,--
“I will leave it all, and go away.”
“Let us respect the nerves of the young lady,” said Julião, with a bow.
They went on in silence. This frail body weighed on Sebastião like the
stone of a sepulchre; one of the dead woman’s slippers fell off and
rolled downstairs. Sebastião felt something strike against his knees;
it was the chignon, fastened with a ribbon, which had fallen down. They
laid her on the bed, and Julião said they must respect the traditions.
He folded her hands across her breast, and closed her eyes. He stood
watching her for a moment, and then said,--
“An ugly reptile!”
He covered her face with a towel, and glancing around as he left the
room, remarked, “That good-for-nothing was better lodged than I am!”
He closed the door, turned the key in the look, and said,
“_Requiescat in pace_?”
They went downstairs in silence, and when they were in the parlor
Sebastião, laying his hand on Julião’s shoulder, said,--
“Do you think it was the aneurism?”
“Yes; she allowed herself to become excited, and it burst. It is stated
by the authorities on the subject--”
“So that if she had not been excited to-night--”
“It would have been to-morrow. She has been dying for some time past.
Leave her in peace; she is already beginning to decompose. Let us not
disturb her.”
He then observed, rubbing his hands together, that he would like to eat
something. He found in the cupboard some cold meat and half a bottle
of Collares. He sat down, and, looking through his glass at the light,
asked Sebastião, with his mouth full,--
“Have you heard the news?”
“No.”
“My opponent has got the place.”
“Is it possible!”
“It was settled beforehand,” said Julião, with a grimace. “I was going
to make a scandal, but--” and he smiled--“but they pacified me by
giving me another position. They threw me a bone.”
“Indeed!” responded Sebastião. “I am very glad; I congratulate you. And
now?”
“Now, I will gnaw it.”
They had promised it to him at the first vacancy. The place was not
a bad one. In short, he had bettered his condition. He was sick of
medicine, he continued; it was a lane that led nowhere. He ought to
have been a lawyer, a politician, a diplomat; he was born for it. He
rose, and taking long strides up and down the room, he began, with
shrill voice, his cigar between his teeth, to disclose his ambitious
projects.
“The country is ruled by an intriguer who has strength of will;
the people are degenerate, diseased, full of chronic catarrhs, of
hereditary ailments, rotten within and without. The old constitutional
society will fall to pieces. New men are needed!”
He planted himself in front of Sebastião.
“This country, my friend,” he said, “thus far has been governed by
expedients. When the reaction against these comes, the country will
look for some one who will give it fundamental truths. But who has
fundamental truths? No one. They have debts, secret vices, artificial
teeth; but fundamental truths, no one! If there were a few brave
spirits who would take the trouble to expound half a dozen serious,
rational, modern truths, the country would go on its knees to them
and would say to them, ‘Gentlemen, do me the favor to put the bit in
my mouth;’ I ought to be one of those men. I was born for it, and it
makes me angry to think that while others, astuter or less scrupulous,
are basking in the sun,--‘the beautiful Portuguese sun,’ as the farces
say,--I should be prescribing poultices for devout old women, or curing
the ailments of decayed clerks.”
Sebastião’s thoughts, meanwhile, dwelt silently on the dead woman
upstairs.
“Stupid country, stupid life!” growled Julião.
A carriage stopped at the door.
“The prince and princess have returned!” said Julião.
Jorge was helping Luiza out of the carriage, when Sebastião, opening
the door, said abruptly,--
“Something very serious has happened.”
“Fire?” asked Jorge, turning around in alarm.
“No; Juliana’s aneurism has burst,” said Julião in the shadow of the
doorway.
“The devil!” exclaimed Jorge in amazement, as he hastily looked for the
money to pay the driver.
“I shall not go in,” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, showing her face,
muffled in a veil, at the carriage door. “I shall not enter!”
“Nor I!” said Luiza, terrified.
“But where shall we go, child?” asked Jorge.
To his house, Sebastião answered. There was his mother’s room; there
was nothing to do but to arrange the bed.
“Let us go there, Jorge; let us go,” entreated Luiza. “It is the best
thing we can do.”
Jorge hesitated; the patrol was passing farther up the street, and on
seeing this group standing in the light of the carriage lamp, they
stopped. Finally Jorge yielded to persuasion, and consented, but very
much against his will.
“The devil of a woman to go take it into her head to die at such
an hour!” he exclaimed. “The carriage will take you home, Donna
Felicidade,” he added.
“And me,” said Julião. “I am in my slippers.”
Donna Felicidade with Christian piety suggested that some one ought to
watch beside the dead woman.
“For Heaven’s sake give up such nonsense!” exclaimed Julião, getting
into the carriage and closing the door.
But Donna Felicidade insisted. It was a want of religion; they should
light a pair of candles at least, and send for a priest.
“Drive on, coachman,” growled Julião, impatiently.
The carriage turned the corner. Donna Felicidade, putting her head
through the window, notwithstanding Julião’s efforts to pull her back
by the dress, cried out, “It is a mortal sin, a sacrilege! At least a
pair of candles!”
Luiza had some scruples in the matter. It was true, she said, they
ought to send for some one.
Jorge grew angry. Whom should they send for at such an hour? What
hypocrisy! Was she not dead? Well, then, there was an end of it; they
would bury her. To watch beside that good-for-nothing! And why not put
her a _chapelle ardente_ as well? Perhaps Luiza herself would like
to watch beside her.
“Come Jorge, come,” murmured Sebastião.
“Yes, it is just as I have said; nothing but a love of excitement.”
Luiza bent her head in silence, and while Jorge was closing the door of
the house, she went down the street leaning on Sebastião’s arm.
“She expired in a fit of rage,” he said to her in a low voice.
During the whole of the way Jorge continued to grumble. What an idea to
go sleep out of the house! That was making too much of the matter.
“It seems as if you wanted to add to my suffering,” said Luiza, “and I
feel very ill already.”
Jorge bit his cigar with anger, and was silent. Sebastião, in order to
satisfy Luiza, proposed that Aunt Vicenta, the negress, should go watch
beside Juliana.
“That would be best,” she murmured.
They had by this time reached Sebastião’s door.
The rustle of Luiza’s silk skirt in his house moved Sebastião
profoundly; his hand trembled as he lighted the candles in the parlor.
He wakened Aunt Vicenta to make them some tea; he himself saw to the
arrangement of their room, happy in being able to extend to them his
hospitality. When he returned to the parlor Luiza was alone, seated on
the edge of the sofa.
“And Jorge?” he asked.
“In the study, writing to the parish priest about the burial. Have you
got them?” she added, with glittering eyes and trembling voice.
Sebastião took Juliana’s pocket-book out of his pocket. Luiza caught it
from him eagerly, and, taking his hand in hers with an abrupt movement,
pressed her lips upon it.
Jorge entered, smiling.
“Are you more tranquil now, child?” he asked.
“Entirely so,” she answered, with a sigh of relief.
They went into the dining-room to take some tea. Sebastião related to
Jorge, coloring faintly as he did so, how he had gone to his house,
and how, as Juliana was telling him that she had been discharged, and
talking and working herself into a passion, she suddenly fell upon the
floor, dead! “Poor creature!” he ended.
Luiza, as he uttered this falsehood, gave him an adoring glance.
“And Joanna?” asked Jorge, suddenly.
“Ah, I forgot to tell you,” said Luiza, tranquilly; “she asked me for
permission to go to Bellas to see her aunt, who is very ill. She said
she would be back to-morrow. A little more tea, Sebastião.”
They forgot in the end to send Aunt Vicenta, and no one watched beside
the dead woman.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LETTER.
LUIZA passed a feverish and uneasy night. In the morning Jorge was
alarmed by the frequency of her pulse and the heat of her skin. He,
too, owing to a feeling of nervousness, had spent a wakeful night.
The room in which they slept had been shut up for a long time past,
and was pervaded, in consequence, by a chill dampness; there were
stains of mould on the wall near the ceiling; the antique bed, without
curtains, with its pillars of bent-wood, and the old chest of drawers
with its mirror of the last century, had an indefinable air of sadness,
as though recalling lives long dead and gone. To find himself thus
with his wife under a strange roof produced in his mind, without
his knowing why, a vaguely superstitious feeling. It seemed to him
as if a turning-point had come in his life, and that, like a river
which changes its course, it would begin from this night forth to
flow amid different surroundings. The northeast wind beat against the
window-panes, and howled through the narrow street, seeking an outlet.
In the morning Luiza was unable to rise.
Julião, who was called in haste, allayed their fears, however.
“It is a slight nervous fever that will pass away with a little rest,”
he said. “Last night’s fright, no doubt.”
“I dreamed all night of her,” responded Luiza. “I thought she had come
back to life again. How horrible it was!”
“You need have no uneasiness on that score,” returned Julião. “Have
they prepared her for burial yet?” turning to Jorge.
“Sebastião is there,” answered Jorge, “and I am going now to take a
look at things.”
The death of old parchment was already known in the neighborhood.
The woman who had laid her out--a matron deeply pitted with the
small-pox, with eyes reddened by the abuse of spirituous liquors--was
an acquaintance of the Senhora Helena. She had stood a moment in the
sunshine chatting with her at the door of the tobacco-shop.
“Is there much business, Senhora Margarida?”
“A good deal, a good deal,” replied the other in a husky voice. “In
winter there is always more to do. But they are all old people, who
drop off with the cold. There is not a pretty corpse among them.”
The Senhora Margarida, it will be seen, had artistic tastes.
The tobacconist related many particulars to her regarding Juliana,--the
favors shown her by her master and mistress, her airs, and the luxury
she enjoyed of having a matted room. The Senhora Margarida responded
that she was amazed by what she heard. And who would have it all now?
she asked. “But I must dress that doll,” she ended, going into the
house with an air of compunction. The priest was there conversing in a
husky voice with Sebastião about agriculture, drainage, and grafting,
and passing his folded handkerchief from time to time under his nose
with his hairy hand. All the windows were open to the pleasant warmth
of the sun, and the canaries were twittering in their cages.
“Had the deceased been long in the family?” asked the priest of Jorge,
who was walking up and down the parlor, smoking.
“Three years.”
The priest slowly unfolded his handkerchief and shook it out
preparatory to blowing his nose.
“Her mistress must regret her greatly,” he said. “But it is a debt we
must all pay at last.” And he blew his nose loudly.
Joanna made her appearance at this moment, wrapped in a shawl, with a
handkerchief tied around her head. She had heard from the neighbors
that Juliana was dead, and that the master and mistress were at Dom
Sebastião’s. She came from there now. Luiza had sent for her to her
room, and when Joanna saw her “dear mistress” lying ill in bed, she
shed tears; but Luiza told her that now things would soon be better,
and that she might come back.
“And listen, Joanna,” she ended; “if the master should ask you, say
that you went to Bellas to see your aunt.”
The girl went for her bundle, and installed herself anew in the house,
somewhat frightened by a death having taken place there.
Shortly afterwards Senhor Paula knocked discreetly at the door. He came
to offer his services for whatever might be wanted on the occasion.
Taking off his cap, and scraping his foot, he said in his hoarse voice,
“I am very sorry for the misfortune,--very sorry. But we are all
mortal!”
“True, true, Senhor Paula,” answered Jorge; “but I need nothing. Many
thanks.”
And he shut the door abruptly. He was impatient to get rid of the whole
matter; irritated by the hammering of the men upstairs who were nailing
the coffin, he called to Joanna,--
“Tell those people to make haste; we don’t want this to go on forever.”
Joanna went upstairs to deliver the message. She had made friends
with the Senhora Margarida, who went to the kitchen with her to take
a little refreshment; as there was no fire she contented herself with
some bread and wine, which she declared good enough for any one.
She was disgusted with the deceased, she declared; she had never seen
an uglier creature. She looked like a dried herring. And she glanced at
Joanna’s rounded form as she spoke.
“You seem to have a fine figure,” she added, as if she were calculating
mentally how she would arrange the shroud on those robust contours.
“I suppose you would like--” began Joanna, indignantly.
“People of very high position have passed through my hands,”
interrupted the other in a piping voice, smiling. (She had lost two of
her front teeth.) “Do me the favor to give me a little more wine. It is
Cartaxo, isn’t it? Excellent wine!”
At last, at about four o’clock, to Jorge’s great relief they brought
the coffin downstairs. The neighbors looked on curiously from their
doors as it was carried out. Senhor Paula, through bravado, waved a
good-by with his hand as it passed him, adding,--
“A good journey!”
“Are you not afraid of remaining here alone?” Jorge asked Joanna
upstairs.
“No, sir; the dead can’t come to life again,” she answered. Not that
she was not in reality afraid, but she expected Pedro to keep her
company in her solitude.
Jorge returned with Sebastião to the house of the latter. “It is all
over,” he said, entering the room where Luiza was in bed. “She is on
her way to the heights of S. João,” he continued, rubbing his hands
together with satisfaction, “with everything duly arranged for the
journey. _Per omnia saccula sacculorum_!”
Aunt Joanna, who was sitting with Luiza, burst out hastily,--
“Let her go, let her go! She was a bad woman!”
“She was a good-for-nothing creature,” said Jorge. “Let us hope she is
now boiling in the caldron of Pedro Botello, eh, Aunt Joanna?”
“Jorge!” exclaimed Luiza, reprovingly. She thought it a Christian duty
to recite two Pater Nosters for the dead woman’s soul.
This was the sole effect produced on earth by the death of her who was
now being carried by two worn-out hacks to the common burial-ground,
and who in life was known as Juliana Conceiro Tavira.
On the following day Luiza was better, and they spoke of returning
home, to the great disgust of Aunt Joanna. Sebastião said nothing, but
he secretly desired that Luiza’s convalescence might detain them in his
house for an indefinite period. She gave him such grateful glances that
he alone could understand! He was so happy to have her and Jorge under
his roof! He held consultations with Aunt Vicenta about the dinner; he
walked through the house with a feeling of reverence, almost on tiptoe,
as if it were sanctified by her presence in it; he filled the vases
with camellias and violets; he smiled beatifically when Jorge smacked
his lips over the old cognac after dinner. He felt an indefinable
sense of well-being that infused new life into him, and he thought
sorrowfully that when she went away an air of greater coldness than
before would hang over everything, like the sadness that hangs over a
ruin.
Two days afterwards, however, they returned home. Luiza was very much
pleased with the new servant whom Sebastião had engaged. She was a girl
with expressive eyes, and a pleasing manner, and was very neat in her
person. Her name was Marianna, and she soon told Joanna that she would
do anything for the mistress, who had an angelic disposition, and who
was very handsome.
Jorge sent Juliana’s trunks to Aunt Victoria.
When Jorge left the house in the afternoon, Luiza shut herself up in
her room with Juliana’s pocket-book, drew down the blinds, lighted a
candle, and burned the letters. Her hands trembled, and she beheld,
with eyes swimming in tears, those words, the evidence of her shame,
disappear in a column of white smoke,--at last, thanks to Sebastião,
to that dear Sebastião! She went to take a look at the parlor, at the
kitchen; everything seemed new to her, and life full of sweetness; she
opened the windows, ran her fingers over the keys of the piano, tore
to pieces with a superstitious feeling the music of Medjé that Bazilio
had given her, talked a long time to Marianna, and sipping her cup of
chicken-broth, thought with a radiant countenance,--
“How happy I shall be now!”
When she heard Jorge’s step in the hall she ran out to meet him, threw
her arms around his neck, and with her head on his shoulder said,--
“I am very happy to-day. If you only knew what a good girl Marianna is!”
That very night the fever returned. Julião found her much worse on the
following morning.
“This begins to grow a little more serious,” he said in a dissatisfied
tone.
He was writing a prescription, when Donna Felicidade came in, very much
excited. She was surprised to find Luiza sick; leaning over her, she
whispered in her ear,--
“I have something to tell you.”
When Jorge and Julião had left the room, she seated herself beside the
bed and proceeded to unbosom herself to Luiza, speaking now in low and
confidential tones, now in a voice rendered shrill by indignation. She
had been robbed, basely robbed, she cried. The man she had sent to
Tuy, like the unscrupulous thief he was, had written to her servant
Gertrudes that he was not coming back to Lisbon, that the sorceress had
changed her place of abode, and that he desired to hear nothing more
about the matter,--all in the clerkly handwriting of a paid copyist,
and in horrible Portuguese. But not a word did he say of money.
“What do you think of the swindler? Eight dollars! If it were not for
the shame of it, I should go to the police. I want to have nothing
more to do with Gallicians. That was the reason the counsellor made no
further advances; the sorceress had not wrought the spell.”
If she did not believe in the honesty of the Gallicians, however, it
was very evident that she still believed in the arts of magic. It was
not for the money, but for the annoyance. Where could the woman be now?
It was enough to make one crazy. What did Luiza think of the matter?
Luiza shrugged her shoulders. Enveloped in the bedclothes, she lay
there silent, with flushed face and heavy eyes. Donna Felicidade
advised her, with a sigh, to take something to make her perspire; and
finding she could obtain no consolation from Luiza, she went to the
Encarnação to unbosom herself to the Senhora Silveira.
Towards morning Luiza grew worse. The fever increased. Jorge, very
uneasy, dressed himself hurriedly at nine o’clock to go for Julião. He
was going downstairs hastily, buttoning his overcoat, when he met the
postman, who seemed to have a bad cough, going up.
“Are there any letters?” asked Jorge.
“One for the senhora,” answered the postman.
Jorge looked at the envelope; it was directed to Luiza, and bore the
French postmark.
“Who the deuce can it be from?” he thought, putting it in his pocket
and going out. He returned in a carriage half an hour later with
Julião; Luiza was sleeping heavily.
“She needs care; we shall see,” said Julião, shaking his head, while
Jorge watched him anxiously from the other side of the bed. He wrote a
prescription, and remained to breakfast. The day was cold and cloudy.
Marianna, wrapped in a shawl, waited at table, her fingers swollen with
chilblains. Jorge felt depressed, as if the mists of the atmosphere
were gathering around his soul. What could be the cause of this fever?
he asked Julião disconsolately. It was very strange. For six weeks she
had been ill and well by turns.
“These fevers have a thousand different causes,” said Julião,
tranquilly breaking off a piece of toast; “sometimes a draught is
the cause, sometimes anxiety. I have at present in my practice a
curious example,--an individual, one Alves, who was at death’s door
as the result of a couple of months of constant anxiety. Two weeks
ago, through a caprice of Fortune,--for that lady is, as we know,
capricious,--he was able to settle his affairs, and free himself from
his embarrassments. Well, ever since he has had a fever of this kind,
insidious, perplexing, with contradictory symptoms. What is the cause
of it? That the nervous excitement debilitates, and the sudden joy
inflames the blood. A general wasting away of the system follows,
until at last the implacable creditor presents himself, and--_per
omnia saccula_.”
He rose and lighted a cigar.
“In any case let her have absolute repose,” he continued, “as if her
senses were wrapped up in cotton-wool. No noise, no conversation; and
if she is thirsty, lemonade. Good-by.” And he went away drawing on the
black gloves which he had worn ever since he had become a member of the
medical fraternity.
Jorge returned to the bedroom. Luiza was still dozing. Marianna,
seated in a low chair beside the bed, an expression of sorrow on her
countenance, did not remove her eyes, in which there was a vague
terror, from her mistress.
“She has been very quiet,” she whispered.
Jorge touched the burning hand of Luiza, and drew the bedclothes around
her; then he pressed his lips to her hair, and went softly and closed
the window-blinds. Walking up and down in his study a short time
afterwards, Julião’s words recurred to him. “These fevers are sometimes
caused by an annoyance.” He thought of the case of the merchant, and
recalled Luiza’s inexplicable state of depression and weakness which
had lately caused him so much anxiety. Bah, nonsense! Anxiety? what
source of anxiety could she have? She had been so happy while they were
at Sebastião’s that Juliana’s death could not be the cause. Besides, he
had but little faith in fevers caused by anxiety. Julião’s knowledge
of medicine was mostly theoretical, and it occurred to him that
perhaps it would be well to call in old Dr. Caminha. As he put his
hand into his pocket it came in contact with a letter,--the one given
him by the postman for Luiza. He examined it again with curiosity;
the envelope was an ordinary one, such as is to be found in cafés and
restaurants; the handwriting, which was that of a man, was not familiar
to him. It bore a French postmark. He felt an impulse to open it, but
he restrained himself, and throwing it on the table, began to roll a
cigarette. He returned to the bedroom. Luiza continued to doze: the
sleeve of her nightgown had fallen back, and disclosed to view her
beautifully modelled arm; her face was brilliantly flushed; her long
lashes rested motionless on her cheek; an escaping curl fell over her
forehead; and with her feverishly bright color she seemed to Jorge more
beautiful than ever. The thought came to his mind, he knew not why,
that others might find her equally beautiful, and that they might even
tell her so if she gave them the opportunity. Why should she receive a
letter from France? He returned to his study; the letter lying there
before him on the table irritated him; he tried to read, but after a
few moments threw away the book impatiently. He began to walk up and
down the room, nervously twisting the lining of his pockets between his
fingers. He took up the letter and tried to read its contents through
the semi-transparent envelope, and unconsciously his fingers began to
tear one of its corners. This was dishonorable, he felt. But curiosity,
which was strong within him, suggested, with persuasive voice, many
and various reasons for opening it. She was sick, and it might be
something urgent, perhaps a legacy. Besides, she had no secrets from
him, and least of all in France. His scruples were puerile. He could
tell her he had opened it by mistake. And if the letter should contain
the secret of the anxiety of Julião’s theory, then it was his duty
to open it in order that she might be the sooner restored to health.
Without his own volition he found the letter open in his hand. He
devoured it at a glance, but he failed to master its contents at once.
The letters danced before his eyes. Approaching the window he read
slowly:--
MY DEAR LUIZA,--It would take too long to explain to you how
and why I found myself the day before yesterday in Nice, on my way to
Paris, which I reached this morning, and where I received your letter.
Judging by the number of stamps upon it, it must have travelled all
over Europe in search of me. As it is now nearly two months and a half
since you wrote it, I suppose that you will have already settled with
that woman, and do not need the money; but if this should not be the
case, send me a telegram and you shall receive it two days afterwards.
I see by your letter that you do not believe that my departure was
caused by business, and in this you do me an injustice. My departure
ought not to have deprived you of your illusions regarding love, as
you say it did, for in truth I did not know how much I loved you until
I had left Lisbon; and not a day passes that I do not think of our
meetings. What happy mornings! Do you ever pass the house now? Do you
remember our lunch? I have time to say no more. Perhaps I shall soon
return to Lisbon, when I hope once more to see you, for without you
Lisbon would be a desert to me. Receive an ardent kiss from your
BAZILIO.
Jorge slowly folded the letter, threw it upon the table, and said
aloud,--
“Excellent!”
He mechanically filled his pipe with tobacco, took a few turns up and
down the floor with wandering gaze and quivering lip, threw his pipe
suddenly across the room, breaking a pane of glass in the window,
shook his clenched fist violently in the air, buried his face in his
arms upon the table, moving his head from side to side and biting his
sleeves with rage, and burst into a passion of sobs, stamping his
feet like a madman upon the floor. Then he rose abruptly, took up the
letter, and was about to go with it into Luiza’s room; but he was
restrained by the recollection of Julião’s words: “Keep her quiet; no
conversation, nothing to excite her.” He locked the letter in a drawer
and put the key in his pocket. Standing thus, his nerves quivering,
his eyes bloodshot, thoughts flashed through his brain like flashes of
lightning through the tempest--of killing her, of abandoning her, of
blowing his brains out!
Marianna knocked lightly at the study door, and told him the senhora
was calling for him. The blood rushed to his head, he looked stupidly
at Marianna, his eyelids nervously twitching, as he answered hoarsely,--
“I will go directly.”
On passing by the oval looking-glass in the parlor he was surprised to
see that he seemed to have grown suddenly aged. Entering the bedroom,
he passed a wet towel over his face, smoothed his hair, and went to
the alcove. When his glance fell on Luiza, her large eyes dilated by
fever, he was obliged to catch hold of the rail of the bed to overcome
the sensation he felt that the walls were oscillating around him like
a vessel with the motion of the sea. He looked at her with a smile,
however. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Badly,” she murmured faintly, beckoning him to her side with a gesture
full of weariness.
He sat down beside her without looking at her.
“What is the matter with you?” she said, approaching her face to his.
“Don’t grieve,” she added, taking his hand and laying hers upon it on
the bed.
Jorge pushed her hand away coldly and rose abruptly to his feet, with
set teeth. He felt an impulse of brutal anger, and was about to leave
the room, afraid of himself, afraid of committing a crime, when he
heard her voice speaking to him in sorrowful accents,--
“What is this, Jorge? What is the matter with you?”
He turned round and saw her half sitting up in bed, her dilated eyes
fixed upon him and anguish depicted on her face, down which two tears
rolled silently. He fell on his knees beside the bed, caught her hands
in his, and broke into sobs.
“What is this?” asked the voice of Julião at the door of the bedroom.
Jorge rose to his feet, very pale.
Julião led him into the parlor, and standing before him with folded
arms and a terrible look upon his face,--
“Are you mad?” he said. “You are aware of her condition, and yet you
yield to your feelings in this way before her?”
“I could not control myself.”
“You must. Am I trying to break up the fever only in order that you may
augment it? Are you mad?”
Julião was really indignant. He took an interest in Luiza as his
patient, and he wanted to cure her. He felt pleasure, too, in
exercising the authority of a person whose presence was necessary in
the house which heretofore he had always entered with a certain feeling
of dependence. Nor did he forget, on leaving, to offer a cigarette,
with apparent carelessness, to Jorge. During the remainder of the day
Jorge gave proofs of heroism. He could not remain long at a time by
Luiza’s bedside, for his soul was torn by conflicting emotions; but he
went there continually; he smiled at her, he drew the bedclothes around
her with trembling hand. When she dozed, however, he remained looking
at her with a curiosity at once painful and ignoble, as if he wished
to surprise in her countenance traces of another’s kisses, or hoped
that the fever would draw some name or fact from her unguarded lips. He
loved her more since he had known that she was unfaithful to him, but
with a perverted love. Then he would shut himself up in his study and
pace restlessly up and down like a wild beast in its cage. He re-read
the letter an infinite number of times, and the same vile and corroding
desire for details continued to torture him. He re-read the letters he
had received from her in Alemtejo, trying to discover in their words
the symptoms of her coldness, the time of her faithlessness. Then he
felt a ferocious hatred towards her. Thoughts of murder passed through
his mind,--of strangling her, of giving her chloroform or laudanum.
Then he would sit leaning back in his chair motionless, and with turbid
gaze, recalling the past, the day of their marriage, certain walks they
had taken together, the words he had said to her. At times the thought
occurred to him that the letter might be a forgery. Some enemy might
have written it and sent it to France. Perhaps Bazilio had known some
other “Luiza” in Lisbon, and in directing the letter had written the
name of his cousin by mistake. The momentary joy these fancies gave him
only made the reality more cruel. But how did it happen? If he only
knew the truth he would be more tranquil. He would tear this love from
his heart as if it were some foul parasite; as soon as she was well he
would take her to a convent, and he himself would go far away to end
his days--to Africa or elsewhere. But--who knew the truth? Juliana! She
knew it, without a doubt. All those favors to Juliana, the new room,
the furniture, the clothes, all were now explained. She had been paying
her for her complicity in her crime! She had been her confidante, had
carried the letters, had known everything! And the accursed wretch was
lying in her grave dead, unable to speak!
Sebastião came in the evening, as was his custom. The lamps were not
yet lighted, and Jorge, lighting a candle, called him into his study,
and taking the letter from the drawer, said, “Read that!”
Sebastião was struck with astonishment when he saw Jorge’s face by the
light. He looked at the letter Jorge handed him, and trembled; and
when he saw the signature the cold sweat of agony covered his brow. It
seemed to him that the ground swayed beneath him, and that he swayed
with it. But he controlled himself, read the letter, and placed it upon
the table in silence.
“Sebastião,” said Jorge, “this is my death-blow. Do you know anything
of this, Sebastião? You came here, you must know. Tell me the truth!”
Sebastião extended his arms. “What would you have me tell you?” he
said. “I know nothing.”
Jorge caught his hands in his, shook them with violence, and looking at
him entreatingly,--
“Sebastião,” he said, “for the sake of our friendship, by the soul of
your mother, by all the years we have passed together--tell me the
truth, Sebastião!”
“I know nothing,” he repeated. “What should I know?”
“You lie!”
“They may hear you!” murmured Sebastião.
There was a pause. Jorge pressed his temples between his hands, strode
up and down the study, making the floor tremble with his steps, then
suddenly stopping before Sebastião in an attitude of supplication,--
“Tell me, at least, what she did. Did she go out? Did any one come to
see her?”
Sebastião responded, with his gaze fixed upon the light,--
“Sometimes, in the beginning, her cousin came to see her, and when
Donna Felicidade was sick she went to see her. Her cousin went away
afterwards. I know nothing more.”
Jorge looked at Sebastião fixedly for a moment.
“But what did I ever do to her, Sebastião,--I who adored her? What did
I ever do to her that she should treat me thus,--I who adored her?”
He broke into bitter weeping. Sebastião remained standing by the table,
overwhelmed.
“It was a passing folly!” he murmured.
“And those allusions,” cried Jorge, turning around with sudden rage and
shaking the paper violently,--“those meetings, those happy mornings
spent together. She is a vile wretch!”
“She is sick, Jorge,” Sebastião said timidly.
Jorge did not answer. He walked up and down the room in silence for
some time, while Sebastião gazed intently at the flame of the candle.
Jorge put the letter back into the drawer, and taking the candlestick
in his hand, said in accents of resigned and melancholy lassitude,--
“Let us go and take tea, Sebastião.”
They did not again allude to the letter.
That night Jorge slept profoundly, and on the following morning he rose
with a countenance impassible, and of a ghastly serenity.
After an uncertain course of three days the disease defined itself; it
was intermittent fever. She lost flesh rapidly, but Julião continued
tranquil. Jorge passed the days at her bedside. Donna Felicidade
came to see her almost every morning, seated herself at the foot of
the bed, and remained there silent, an aged look upon her face. The
hopes she had placed on the woman of Tuy, so suddenly dashed to the
ground, had thrown her existence off its balance, like an edifice from
beneath which part of the foundation has been suddenly removed; she was
falling into decay, and gave signs of animation only when, at about
three o’clock in the afternoon, she saw the counsellor entering to
inquire after “our beautiful invalid.” Keeping his hat in his hand, and
refraining, through modesty, from entering the alcove, he would utter
some profound observation, such as: “Health is a blessing which we
fully appreciate only when we have lost it;” or, “Sickness is the test
of friendship.” And he would end thus: “Soon, dear Jorge, the carmine
of health will again color the cheeks of your virtuous spouse.”
At night Jorge slept on a mattress on the floor, but he closed his
eyes for only an hour or two at the most. During the rest of the night
he tried to read, but he never got beyond the first few lines; the
book lay beside him, and with his head between his hands, his thoughts
reverted continually to the same question: How had it happened? He put
together in logical sequence certain facts. He saw Bazilio arrive in
Lisbon, visit Luiza, fall in love with her, send her flowers, follow
her, take every opportunity of seeing her, write to her--and then? He
comprehended that the money was for Juliana. Did she demand it? Had she
surprised them? Had she letters of theirs in her possession? In this
painful reconstruction of details there were gaps, like dark gulfs, in
which his tortured soul was submerged. He recalled the days since his
return from Alemtejo, her tenderness, her caresses. Why did she seek to
deceive him?
One night he searched her drawers, taking the precautions of a thief to
avoid detection while he did so; he looked in her pockets, in the boxes
in which she kept her collars and her laces; he went to the very bottom
of her sandal-wood trunk,--nothing, not even a withered flower! At
other times he moved the articles of furniture in the bedroom and the
parlor from their places, as if they could reveal the details of her
perfidy to him. Where had they sat? Did he kneel at her feet here on
the carpet? Above all, the view of the sofa irritated him. At last he
came to hate it. He began also to hate the house, as if the roof that
had sheltered them and the floor that had supported their weight had
been conscious accomplices in their crime. But what most tortured him
was the words, “our meetings,” “those happy mornings.”
Meantime Luiza slept tranquilly. By the end of the week the fever had
disappeared, but she was very weak; on the day she rose for the first
time she fainted twice; she required help for several days to dress
herself, and then to reach the lounge, and she insisted, with the
capriciousness of a child, on Jorge remaining at her side. It seemed as
if she absorbed life at his eyes and health from his touch. She made
him read the paper in the morning, and do his writing, seated beside
her. He submitted to all her exactions, and these acts of tyranny were
like caresses to a wound, for he loved her tenderly. Unconsciously he
would feel sudden thrills of happiness. He surprised himself saying
tender words to her, laughing with her, oblivious of what had taken
place. Reclining on the lounge, Luiza, tranquil and happy, looked
over old volumes of the “Illustração franceza,” which the counsellor
had sent her, and in which, as he said, she might acquire useful
information concerning historical events, at the same time that she
enjoyed the engravings. Or she tasted silently, her head resting on
the cushions, the happiness of returning health, of seeing herself
free from the tyranny of that woman and the bitterness of the past.
One of her pleasures was to see Marianna enter with her breakfast on a
tray; her appetite was returning, and she sipped with delight the glass
of Port wine prescribed for her by Julião. If Jorge were not there
she would enter, with a sense of contentment, into long chats with
Marianna while she ate her jelly. At other times she would silently
form plans, her eyes fixed on the ceiling; she would go for a few weeks
to the country to re-establish her health and on her return she would
set to work to embroider strips of cashmere to cover anew the parlor
furniture; for she wanted to occupy herself with household matters,
and to live quietly. Jorge would not go back to Alemtejo, he would not
leave Lisbon again. Thus life would for the future be easy and sweet.
At times she thought Jorge preoccupied. What was the matter with
him? He gave her as an excuse for his evident dejection fatigue and
sleepless nights. She told him if he were to fall sick it must be
when she was strong and able to nurse him; but he was not going to
fall sick, was he? She made him sit down beside her; she passed her
hand through his hair, gazing at him tenderly, for with returning
strength her pleasure in the sweetness of life returned. Jorge was
conscious that he still loved her, and this consciousness augmented his
unhappiness.
When alone she formed yet other resolutions. She would see Leopoldina
no more; she would attend church regularly; her sickness had given
rise within her to a vague feeling of sentimental devotion. When she
had the fever she fancied herself at times in some dreadful place, in
which, from amidst red flames forms rose, twisting their arms,--black
forms that whirled round and round, while groans of agony ascended up
to heaven; already the tongues of fire had begun to lick her breast,
when suddenly she felt the cool touch of something ineffably sweet; it
was the pinions of a luminous angel who caught her in his arms, and
she felt herself mounting up, her head resting on the celestial bosom,
inundated with a supernatural felicity, and she saw the stars close
beside her, and she heard the noise of wings. This left upon her mind a
melancholy impression of heaven. She aspired to heaven, and she hoped
to gain it by devout attendance at Mass, and by prayers to the Virgin.
One morning she entered the parlor, and for the first time opened the
piano. Jorge was standing at the window looking out into the street;
she called to him with a smile.
“I have taken a dislike to that sofa,” she said. “We might have it
taken away from there, don’t you think so?”
Jorge felt as if a dagger had been thrust into his heart, but he
controlled himself, and said,--
“I think so.”
“I should like to have it taken away,” she repeated, as she left the
parlor, sweeping the floor with the long train of her morning-gown.
Jorge began to experience a feeling of sombre resignation. When he
heard her gayly making plans for the future, and speaking with so
contented an air of the happiness in store for her, he almost resolved
to destroy the letter and forget everything. There was no doubt but
that she had repented of her sin, and she loved him. Why, in cold
blood, prepare a life of perpetual unhappiness for them both? But at
other times a wave of brutal rage swept over his soul, and he left the
room that he might not be tempted to strangle her.
In order to account for his silence and moroseness he began to complain
of his health, to say he did not feel well, and her solicitude and
the mute questioning of her eyes made him still more unhappy, for he
felt that he was loved while he knew he had been betrayed. At last
one Sunday Julião gave Luiza permission to sit up a little later than
usual, and to do the honors of the house for the evening. It was a
happiness to every one to see her once more in the parlor,--a little
thin and pale still, but, in the words of the counsellor, “restored
to her domestic duties and to the enjoyments of society.” When Julião
arrived, at about nine o’clock, he found her “as good as new,” he said.
Then, standing in the middle of the parlor, he exclaimed, opening wide
his arms,--
“What do you say to the news? Ernesto’s play has achieved a triumphant
success.”
He had seen the news in the papers. The “Diario de Noticias” said:
“The author was called before the curtain in the midst of the greatest
enthusiasm, and received a beautiful laurel-crown.”
Luiza expressed a desire to see the piece.
“Later on, Donna Luiza, later on,” said the counsellor. “It is prudent
to avoid every strong emotion for the present. You would not fail to
shed tears. I know the goodness of your heart, and that might cause a
relapse. Am I not right, friend Julião?”
“Certainly, Counsellor, certainly. I, too, would like to see it, and
convince myself with my own eyes--”
The noise of a carriage stopping suddenly at the door cut him short. A
moment afterwards the bell rang vigorously.
“I’ll wager it is the author,” said Julião.
Almost at the same moment Ernesto, in evening dress, precipitated
himself into the room, his face radiant with happiness; they all arose
and embraced him effusively. “A thousand congratulations,--a thousand
congratulations!” they cried. And the counsellor, his voice dominating
the voices of the others, exclaimed, “Welcome to the illustrious
author; welcome!”
Ernesto was suffocating with happiness; he smiled in silence; his
nostrils dilated as if to breathe in incense, his bosom swelling with
pride; he nodded his head unceasingly, as if mechanically acknowledging
the acclamations of the multitude.
“Here I am! here I am!” he said at last.
He sat down out of breath, and with an air of friendly fellowship said
that the final rehearsals had left him no time to come and see Cousin
Luiza. To-night he had been able to steal away for a moment, but he
was obliged to be back at the theatre by ten o’clock; he had not yet
supped. He recounted his triumph, to its minutest details. At first he
had had severe pains in the stomach,--every one had them, even those
most accustomed to write for the stage, the most illustrious authors.
But no sooner had Campos recited the monologue in the first act (and
one must hear him to know how he recited--it was sublime) than the ice
was broken. The audience was pleased throughout, but at the end it was
something stupendous; calls for the author, thunders of applause; he
came before the curtain reluctantly, but--Jesuina on the one hand and
Maria Adelaide on the other--it was a frenzy. Savedra, of the “Seculo,”
had said to him, “You are our Shakspeare;” Bastos, of the “Verdade,”
had added, “You are our Scribe.” There was a supper afterwards, and
they had presented him with a wreath.
“And does it fit you?” asked Julião.
“Yes--a little too large.”
The counsellor said with authority,--
“Great authors--the illustrious Tasso, our own Camoens--are represented
in their portraits wearing wreaths.”
“Take my advice, Senhor Ledesma,” said Julião, rising, and clapping him
on the shoulder, “and have your likeness taken with your wreath on.”
They all laughed, and Ernesto, somewhat annoyed, said, unfolding his
perfumed handkerchief,--
“Senhor Zuzarte will have his jest.”
“That is the penalty of fame, my friend. The victorious generals of
ancient Borne kept by their side a slave whose business it was to
remind them that they were but mortal.”
“I think,” said Luiza, smiling, “that this is an honor for the family.”
Jorge was of the same opinion. He was walking up and down the room,
smoking, and he paused to say that he had as much pleasure in the
wreath as if it were he himself who was to wear it.
Ernesto turned towards him,--
“Do you know that I pardoned her at last, Cousin Jorge?” he said. “I
pardoned the unfaithful wife.”
“Like Christ,” responded Jorge.
“Like Christ,” assented Ernesto, with satisfaction. Donna Felicidade
approved of this.
“You did very well; it is more moral,” she said.
“It was Jorge who wanted me to kill her,” said Ernesto, with a fatuous
laugh. “Do you remember that night?”
“Yes, yes,” returned Jorge, laughing nervously.
“Our dear Jorge,” said the counsellor gravely, “could not persist in
such extreme opinions; and doubtless reflection, and a wider experience
of life--”
“Let us change the subject, Counsellor,” interrupted Jorge. And he went
into his study abruptly.
Sebastião followed, filled with anxiety. The room was in darkness.
“Will those idiots never be silent? Will they never go away?” Jorge
said hoarsely, catching Sebastião by the arm.
“Compose yourself.”
“Oh, Sebastião! Sebastião!” he cried, in a voice that had the sound of
tears in it.
Luiza called to them from the parlor,--
“What are you plotting together there in the dark?”
Sebastião returned to the parlor, saying,--
“Nothing; we remained inside a moment.” And he added, in a lower voice,
“Jorge is tired, and not very well.”
They noticed, when Jorge re-entered the room, that he looked very tired.
“In fact, I do not feel well,” he said. “I am a little out of sorts.”
“And the delicate Donna Luiza needs the repose of her couch,” said the
counsellor, rising.
Ernesto, who could remain no longer, placed his carriage--a modest
coach--at the disposal of Julião and the counsellor, if they were going
towards the city.
While Donna Felicidade was putting on her wraps, the three men went
downstairs together. Half-way down Julião stood still, and folding his
arms, said,--
“Here I am, between the representatives of the two great movements
of our time in Portugal,--Literature,” bowing to Ernesto, “and
Constitutionalism,” paying the same tribute of respect to the
counsellor.
They both smiled with pleasure at the compliment, saying together,--
“And our friend Zuzarte?”
“I?” he said. And lowering his voice he added. “A few days ago I was a
terrible revolutionist; now--”
“Well?”
“I am a friend of order,” he exclaimed gayly.
And they went down the stairs, satisfied with themselves and with their
country, to take seats in the carriage of the successful author.
CHAPTER XXIV.
EXPIATION.
ON the following morning Jorge went for the first time in some days to
the Department, but he did not remain long. In the street the presence
of strangers and of acquaintances was alike irritating to him; he felt
as if every one was acquainted with his shame; in the most innocent
glance he thought he discovered some secret intention, and in the most
friendly hand-clasp a token of sympathy. He returned home in a more
morose mood and more weary of life than ever; on entering the hall he
heard Luiza singing the _Mandolinata_, as in other times. She was
dressing.
“How do you feel?” he asked, putting his cane in a corner.
“Better,--much better; a little weak still.”
Jorge took a few steps up and down the room.
“And you?” she asked.
“So, so,” he answered, in so mournful a tone that she laid down the
comb she was using, and going over to him, with her hair hanging loose
around her, placed her hands caressingly on his shoulders.
“What is the matter?” she said. “There is something the matter with
you. I find you so altered for some days past. You are not the same. At
times you look as if you had committed some crime. What is the matter?
Tell me!” And her glance sought his, which he turned away in confusion.
She embraced him, and urged him again to tell her what was the matter.
She asked him to confide in his _little wife_.
He looked at her fixedly, and suddenly, as if he had just come to a
decision,--
“Very well, then,” he said. “I will tell you. You are well now, and you
can hear it. Luiza, for the past two weeks I have lived in a hell, and
I can endure it no longer! You are well now, is it not so? Well, then,
what is the meaning of this? Tell me the truth.” And he held Bazilio’s
letter before her eyes.
“What--is it?” she articulated, pale as death, taking the letter in her
hand.
She opened the letter, saw Bazilio’s handwriting, and divined
everything at a glance; she looked at Jorge for a moment with the gaze
of madness, extended her arms mutely, then raised her hands to her head
with an uneasy gesture as if she had received a sudden wound, gave a
hoarse cry, staggered and fell, first upon her knees, and then full
length upon the floor.
Jorge uttered a cry, and the two servants came running in. They laid
her on the bed. Jorge told Joanna to run quickly for Sebastião, and
stood stupefied beside the bed, gazing at her, while Marianna loosened
her mistress’s dress.
Sebastião came at once. There was ether in the house, and they made her
inhale it. When she opened her eyes Jorge threw himself down beside
her on the bed.
“Speak, Luiza, hear me!” he cried. “I do not doubt you, no! only speak
to me. What do you feel?”
At the sound of his voice a convulsive shudder ran through her, and she
fainted again. Sebastião went hastily in search of Julião.
Luiza appeared sunk in a stupor, motionless and white as wax, her hands
lying helplessly outside the quilt, while two tears rolled slowly down
her cheeks. Shortly afterwards a carriage stopped at the door, and
Julião entered, out of breath.
“She took ill suddenly, Julião. Come, she is very ill,” cried Jorge,
meeting him at the door.
They made her inhale more ether, and she again came to herself. Julião
spoke to her while he felt her pulse.
“No, I want no one,” she murmured, drawing away her hand; and she
repeated impatiently, “I want no one; go away!”
Her tears continued to flow. They went out of the bedroom, in order not
to irritate her, but they soon heard her call,--
“Jorge!”
He went in again, and kneeling down by the bedside, approached his face
to hers, saying,--
“What ails you? Come, let us say no more about it; it is past. Don’t
get sick. I love you; I swear it to you. Let it be what it will, I
don’t want to know it. I want to know nothing.”
Seeing she was about to speak, he laid his hand upon her mouth: “I
want to hear nothing. I want you to be well--not to suffer. Say you are
better. To-morrow we will go to the country and forget it all. It is
all past now.”
“Jorge, Jorge,” she murmured, in a choking voice.
“Very well, yes; but now you are going to be happy again. Tell me what
you feel?”
“Here!” she answered, raising her hands to her head. “It hurts me!”
Jorge rose to his feet in order to call Julião, but she detained him,
and gazing eagerly at him, with feverish eyes, approached her face to
his. He bent towards her and pressed on her lips a long, long kiss full
of forgiveness.
“Oh, my poor head!” murmured Luiza.
Her temples throbbed violently, and a burning flush suffused her
countenance. As she often suffered from headache, Julião did not regard
her illness as very serious; he advised absolute repose, and ordered
mustard plasters to the feet till he came again. Jorge remained at the
bedside, his mind filled with melancholy presentiments; from time to
time he sighed profoundly.
Four o’clock struck; a fine rain was falling, a melancholy light filled
the apartment.
“This will be nothing!” Sebastião would murmur.
Luiza tossed about on the bed, pressing her head between her hands,
tortured by the pain that was momentarily increasing, and burning with
thirst.
Marianna went about the room on tiptoe, setting things in order, and
wondering at this house in which nothing was to be seen but sickness
and sorrow. But even her light steps tortured Luiza as if they were
blows of a hammer upon her skull.
Julião did not remain long away. When he entered the bedroom the aspect
of the patient alarmed him. He lighted a match and held it close to her
face; the light made her give a scream as if a cold steel had pierced
her brain. Her dilated eyes shone with a metallic brilliancy. She lay
very still, for the slightest movement caused her horrible pains in the
back of her neck. Only from time to time she smiled at Jorge with an
expression of mute and resigned wretchedness.
Julião placed three pillows, one above the other, under her head,
to keep it elevated. Night was falling without, damp and chill. In
Luiza’s room they went about cautiously and on tiptoe; they stopped
the monotonous ticking of the clock on the wall. The patient began to
moan wearily, and to toss about from side to side with sharp cries of
pain; then she would lie motionless, uttering groans of anguish. They
had applied mustard plasters, but she did not feel them. Towards nine
o’clock she grew delirious; her tongue was dry and of a dirty white
color. Julião applied cloths wet in cold water to her head, but her
delirium continued to increase. At times she would utter a hoarse and
indistinct murmur, in which the names of Leopoldina, Jorge, and Bazilio
followed one another in rapid succession; then she would toss her arms
wildly, and tear her nightgown with her hands; again she would try to
sit up in bed, her eyes rolling in their sockets till only the whites
were visible. Then she would remain quiet for a time, smiling with an
imbecile sweetness; then she would pass her hand caressingly over the
quilt with an expression of childish delight. By and by she would begin
to gasp for breath, she would mutter some words in a terrified voice,
and strive to hide herself among the pillows and bedclothes, as if she
were pursued by some frightful phantom; she would press her hands to
her head, begging them to open it and relieve her of the weight that
tortured her,--to take pity upon her, the tears coursing meanwhile down
her cheeks. They put her feet in a hot mustard-bath whose pungent odor
filled the room. Jorge poured words of consolation and entreaty into
her ear; he supplicated her to be calm, to look at him with recognition
in her eyes. Suddenly she flew into a violent passion, demanded her
letters, heaped maledictions on Juliana, and in the same breath, in
the midst of endearing epithets spoke of sums of money. Jorge feared
that in her delirium she would reveal everything to Julião and to the
servants, and a cold perspiration covered his brow. At times he would
fly like a madman from the room, and throw himself on the sofa in the
parlor, sobbing and writhing in anguish.
“Is she in danger?” Sebastião asked Julião.
“Yes,” he answered. “If she had felt the mustard-plasters--but these
accursed brain-fevers--”
They were silent on seeing Jorge re-enter the bedroom, his face pale
and rigid as that of a corpse. Julião took him by the arm and led him
outside. “Listen, we must cut off her hair,” he said.
Jorge gazed at him stupidly.
“Her hair?” he repeated, catching him by the arm. “No, Julião, no;
anything else you wish,--you ought to know what is best. But not her
hair,--no, no, for the love of Heaven, no! She is not in danger. Why
cut off her hair?”
“The mass of hair interferes with the action of the water.”
“To-morrow, if it must be so, to-morrow. Wait until to-morrow, and I
will eternally be grateful to you, Julião.”
Julião consented, against his will; but he caused wet cloths to be kept
constantly applied to her head. As Marianna’s hand trembled so as to
wet the pillow a great deal, Sebastião seated himself at the head of
the bed, and let the water drop slowly on her head from a wet sponge
all night. So as to have a constant supply of cold water they filled
jugs and set them in the balcony. The delirium abated a little during
the night, but her bloodshot eyes had a wild aspect and the pupils
looked like small black points.
Jorge, seated at the foot of the bed, his head between his hands, kept
his face fixed upon her; he recalled vaguely other nights of vigil when
she was ill with pneumonia, and recovered. She was even paler then,
with a pallor that imparted a softer aspect to her countenance. They
would go to the country when she grew better; he would hire a little
house, and would go out there in the omnibus every day after business,
and watch her waiting for him at the door in the distance as evening
was softly falling. Here a moan fell upon his ear, and he raised
his eyes, startled. She seemed to him changed; he fancied she was
disappearing before his gaze, in the midst of the feverish atmosphere
that filled the alcove, the heavy stillness of the night, and the
pungent odor of the mustard. He sighed, and returned to his former
immobility.
Joanna was praying upstairs. The candles that had burned with a dull
flame were going out. At last a faint light threw the shadows of the
leaden setting of the window-panes on the white curtains. Day was
dawning. Jorge stood up, and going over to the window looked out. The
rain had ceased, and the pavements were beginning to dry; the light
was gray and misty. Silence reigned over everything. A forgotten towel
moved slowly in the cold wind on the balcony of the Azevedos.
Jorge went into the alcove. Luiza was muttering in a gasping voice. She
was vaguely conscious of the mustard plasters, but the pain in her head
had not abated. She began to toss about in bed, and shortly afterwards
the delirium returned. Julião ordered her hair to be cut off at once.
Sebastião went to the Rua da Escola for a hair-cutter, who came at
once, the collar of his coat turned up about his ears, and looking
half frozen. With fingers greasy with pomade he took slowly out from a
little leathern bag the razors and the scissors.
Jorge went into the parlor; he felt as if, with those beautiful locks
that were falling one by one under the sharp steel, the edifice of his
happiness were falling to the ground stone by stone. With his head
clasped between his hands he recalled to mind certain fashions in which
she had worn her hair, certain shades it was wont to take in the light.
He went back, irresistibly drawn to the alcove; he listened to the
metallic sound of the scissors, and his glance fell on a little cup
on the table filled with soap-suds, and in which rested a well-worn
shaving-brush. He called to Sebastião in a low voice,--
“Tell him to be quick; I am burning at a slow fire; tell him to be
quick!”
He went to the dining-room; he wandered restlessly through the house.
As the light grew stronger the cold increased; the wind rose, whirling
along clouds of gray dust. When he returned to the bedroom the barber
was putting away his instruments as slowly as he had taken them out.
When this was accomplished he took up his shabby hat and went out on
tiptoe, murmuring in lugubrious accents,--
“I shall rejoice to hear of the lady’s recovery. God grant that this
may be nothing.”
The delirium passed away at the end of an hour, and Luiza fell into a
doze, giving utterance to faint moans that broke from her lips like an
inward lament for her ruined life.
Jorge told Sebastião that he would like to call in Dr. Caminha. He was
an old physician who had attended Jorge’s mother, and he had brought
Luiza safely through an attack of pneumonia in the second year after
their marriage. Jorge had retained a grateful admiration for that
celebrity of by-gone days, and all his hopes were now fixed on him, as
if he were some saint who was to perform the miracle of restoring Luiza
to health. Julião deigned his consent, for he regarded the old doctor
with esteem, and Sebastião hurriedly went for him to his house.
Luiza, roused for an instant from her lethargy, heard them speaking in
low tones, and called to Jorge in a faint voice.
“They have cut off my hair,” she said sorrowfully.
“It is for your good,” said Jorge, looking almost as deathlike as
herself. “It will soon grow again and be finer than ever.”
She did not answer; two tears rolled slowly down her cheeks.
This must have been her last sensation. The prostration of coma had
begun to paralyze her faculties; from time to time her head moved
gently on the pillow; she moaned continually, in a gasping voice; her
face grew gradually paler, and the noises in the street failed to
produce any impression on her senses. At noon Donna Felicidade made her
appearance; she was struck dumb at seeing Luiza so ill, when she had
come with the intention of carrying her off to the Encarnação, and even
to the shops. She took off her hat and installed herself in the house.
She caused the alcove to be put in order, had the mustard plasters and
the various articles used during Luiza’s illness put away, and arranged
the bed, for there was nothing worse for a sick person, she said, than
an untidy bedroom; and she bravely strove to inspire Jorge with courage.
A carriage stopped at the door; it was Dr. Caminha at last. He came in,
his throat enveloped in a green-and-black check muffler, complaining
of the cold, and slowly drawing off his gloves, which he placed
methodically inside his hat. He advanced to the alcove with measured
step, smoothing down with his hand the few gray hairs brushed flat
against his head. Julião remained alone with him in the alcove, while
the others waited outside in silence with Jorge, who was pale as wax,
with eyes like lighted coals.
“We are going to put a blister on the back of her neck,” said Julião,
coming out of the room.
Jorge devoured Dr. Caminha with his eyes as the latter, putting on his
gloves, said,--
“We shall see the result of the blister. She is very ill now, and she
may be worse. I will return, my friend; I will return.”
The blister was useless; she did not feel it; she lay pallid and
motionless, with drawn features, and the nerves of the face twitching
convulsively.
“There is no hope,” said Julião to Sebastião, in a low voice.
Donna Felicidade was seized with terror, and began to talk of the
“rites of the church.”
“What for?” growled Julião, impatiently.
Donna Felicidade declared that she had scruples of conscience, that it
was a mortal sin; and calling Jorge over to the window, she said to him
in a trembling voice, “Don’t be frightened, Jorge; but it would be well
to think of the rites of the church.”
“The rites of the church!” repeated Jorge in terror.
Julião interposed abruptly, in an accent of irritation:
“Let us have no nonsense! What is the use of sacraments, if she neither
hears, nor understands, nor feels? It is necessary to put on another
caustic, perhaps to cup her. These are the only sort of sacraments that
are of any avail here.”
But Donna Felicidade was shocked, and began to cry.
“You forget God, and there is no hope for her but in him,” she said,
blowing her nose noisily.
“And what does God do for me?” exclaimed Jorge, roused from his stupor
and throwing out his hands as if in protest against an injustice. “What
have I ever done that this should happen to me? What have I ever done?”
Julião ordered another blister. Confusion reigned in the house. Joanna
came into the room, when no one looked for her, with some broth that
no one had asked for, her eyes red with weeping. Marianna sobbed in
corners. Donna Felicidade came and went, shut herself up in the parlor
to pray, made vows to the saints, and considered whether it might not
be well to call in Dr. Barbosa or Dr. Barral.
Luiza meantime remained motionless; the livid hue of her features
imparted to them a rigid and swollen appearance.
Julião, faint with hunger, asked for a glass of wine and a piece of
bread. Then they remembered that they had not eaten anything since
the previous day, and they went to the dining-room. Joanna, her eyes
swimming in tears, placed some soup and eggs on the table, but she
gave them neither plates nor spoons; she alternately murmured a prayer
and asked them to excuse her. Jorge, meantime, his swollen eyes fixed
on the edge of the table, with contracted features, nervously twisted
his napkin in his hands. After a little he left the table and went
downstairs to the bedroom. Marianna was seated at the foot of the bed.
Jorge sent her upstairs, telling her to go wait on the table; and as
soon as she was gone, falling upon his knees by the bedside, he took
one of Luiza’s hands in his and began to speak to her, first in a low
voice and then more loudly,--
“Listen, hear me, for the love of God. Do not remain thus; try to get
better. Don’t leave me alone in this world, for I believe in no other.
Forgive me, tell me that you forgive me; give me some sign that you do.
She does not hear me, my God!”
And he looked at her with an expression of anguish on his countenance.
Then raising his arms wildly,--
“Thou knowest that I believe in thee, my God,” he cried. “Save her!
save her!” And lifting up his soul to Heaven, he continued: “Hear me,
my God! Listen to me. Be merciful!”
He gazed and gazed, waiting for a movement, a voice, a miracle. But
everything seemed to him more still than before. The livid countenance
began to sink in. He placed his hand with cowardly vacillation upon
her head, from which the wet cloth had partly fallen; it was cold. He
smothered a cry, ran out of the room, and stumbled against Dr. Caminha,
who was entering, taking off his gloves with deliberation.
“Doctor, she is dead! She does not speak; she is cold!” he cried.
“Let us see, let us see,” responded the doctor. “Softly, softly!”
He took Luiza’s hand, and felt her pulse escaping under his fingers
like the expiring vibration of a chord.
Julião arrived shortly afterwards, and he agreed with Dr. Caminha that
the cupping was useless.
“She would not feel it,” added the doctor, shaking the snuff from his
fingers.
“What if we were to give her a little brandy?” said Julião suddenly.
And he added, on seeing the look of astonishment on the doctor’s
face, “At times these symptoms of coma do not signify that the brain
is disorganized; it may be inaction of the nervous force. If death
is inevitable nothing is lost; and if it is only a depression of the
nervous system, she may be saved.”
Dr. Caminha shook his head incredulously.
“Theories,” he murmured.
“In the English hospitals--” began Julião.
Caminha shrugged his shoulders with contempt.
“If the doctor would only read--” Julião insisted.
“I read nothing,” said Caminha, raising his voice. “My books are my
patients.” And he added with an ironical bow, “Nevertheless, if my
intelligent colleague wishes to make the trial--”
“A glass of brandy or whiskey!” called out Julião from the door of the
bedroom.
Caminha seated himself tranquilly, to enjoy the discomfiture of his
“intelligent colleague.”
They raised Luiza’s head, and Julião made her swallow a little of the
brandy. When they laid her back again in bed, she remained in the
same condition of comatose immobility as before. Dr. Caminha took out
his watch, looked at it, and waited. An anxious silence reigned. At
last the doctor rose, felt the pulse of the patient, and noted the
increasing coldness of the extremities; then he took his hat, without
speaking, and began to draw on his gloves.
Jorge went out with him, and catching him forcibly by the arm, said,--
“Well, Doctor?”
“Everything is being done that can be done,” said the old man,
shrugging his shoulders.
Jorge remained at the head of the stairs, stupefied, watching the
doctor go down; his slow footsteps, as he went down step by step,
resounded dolorously in Jorge’s heart. He leaned over the banister and
called to him softly. The doctor paused and looked up. Jorge followed
him.
“Then--there is no hope?” he said in a voice of mingled humbleness and
entreaty.
The doctor made a vague gesture and pointed toward heaven.
Jorge returned to the alcove, supporting himself along the wall. He
knelt down at the foot of the bed, and remained there, his head buried
in his arms, sobbing quietly.
Luiza was dying. Her beautiful arms, that she had so often caressed
before the looking-glass, were already paralyzed; her eyes, that had
flamed with passion or shone humid with pleasure, were sunken in their
sockets. Donna Felicidade and Marianna had placed a lighted lamp before
an engraving of the Virgin of Sorrows, and were praying on their knees.
Twilight was falling sadly, and seemed to bring with it a funereal
silence. The bell rang discreetly, and a few moments afterwards the
countenance of the Counsellor Accacio appeared at the bedroom, door.
Donna Felicidade rose to her feet, and on seeing her tears the
counsellor said,--
“I come to perform a duty,--to accompany you on this sad occasion.”
He said he had met the good Dr. Caminha by chance, and that he had
informed him of the dreadful event. But he had no wish to enter the
alcove. He sat down in a chair, rested his elbow sorrowfully on
his knee, and his head in his hand, saying in a low voice to Donna
Felicidade,--
“Go on with your prayers. The designs of God are inscrutable!”
In the alcove Julião felt Luiza’s pulse and glanced at Sebastião,
making a gesture with his hand as of something about to vanish.
They approached Jorge, who was motionless on his knees, his face buried
in the bedclothes.
“Jorge,” whispered Sebastião to him, almost inaudibly.
He raised his face, that looked haggard and aged; his hair hung in
disorder over his forehead, and dark rings were about his eyes.
“Come away,” said Julião. And he added, seeing the terror depicted on
Jorge’s countenance, “No, she is not dead; she is still in the same
lethargic condition. Come.”
Jorge rose, and answered with gentleness,--
“Yes; I am going. There is nothing the matter with me--thanks.” And he
left the alcove.
The counsellor rose, and embraced him with solemnity, saying,--
“I am here, dear Jorge.”
“Thanks, Counsellor, thanks.”
He took a few steps up and down the room; from time to time he glanced
uneasily at a package that was on the table; he took it up, opened it
slightly, and saw Luiza’s hair; he looked at it, passing it from one
hand to the other, and said, kissing it tenderly, “She took such pride
in it, my darling!”
He returned to the alcove, but Julião took him by the hand and sought
to draw him away. He resisted gently, and pointing to a candle that was
on the little table by the bed, said,--
“Perhaps the light troubles her.”
“She can no longer see it, Jorge,” said Julião, deeply moved.
Jorge drew his hand from Julião’s clasp and threw himself on Luiza’s
body; he caught her head between his hands, gazed at it a moment with
exquisite tenderness, then kissed her cold lips twice, murmuring,
“Good-by, good-by!”
He rose to his feet, extended his arms, and fell to the floor,
senseless. They hastened to him, lifted him up, and laid him on the
sofa. And while Donna Felicidade, drowned in tears, closed Luiza’s
eyes, the counsellor, his hat still in his hand, folded his arms, and
shaking his respectable bald head, said to Sebastião,--
“What a terrible misfortune for our Jorge!”
CHAPTER XXV.
AND SO THE WORLD GOES ON.
AFTER Luiza’s funeral Jorge dismissed the servants, and went himself to
stay with Sebastião. At about nine o’clock in the evening of the same
day the Counsellor Accacio was walking disconsolately by the Moinho de
Vento, when he encountered Julião, who had just come from visiting a
patient in the Rua da Rosa. They walked on together, conversing about
Luiza, the funeral, and Jorge’s grief.
“Poor fellow! It is a terrible blow to him,” said Julião,
compassionately.
“She was a model wife!” murmured the counsellor.
He had just come, he said, from Sebastião’s, but he had not been able
to see his dear Jorge, who had thrown himself upon the bed and fallen
into a profound sleep. And he added,--
“I have been lately reading that intense suffering is apt to be
followed by profound sleep. Thus it was with Napoleon, for instance,
after Waterloo,--the great disaster of Waterloo.” And after a moment’s
silence he continued,--
“The truth is, I went to see Sebastião; I wanted to show him--”
And he interrupted himself to say, dwelling on every word,--
“For I thought it my duty to pay a tribute to the memory of the unhappy
lady. It was my duty,--a duty from which nothing could absolve me. And
I rejoice to have met you, for I desire to know your conscientious and
dispassionate opinion of it.”
Julião coughed, and asked,--
“Is it an obituary?”
“It is an obituary.”
And the counsellor, although he did not consider it altogether proper,
on account of his exalted position, to enter a public coffee-house,
intimated to Julião that they might rest a little at Tavares’ if there
were not many people there, and he would read him his production.
They entered the café. They found no one there, except two old men
seated at a table drinking coffee, with their hats on, and leaning on
their bamboo canes. The waiter was dozing at the other end of the room.
A glaring and intense light filled the narrow apartment.
“There is a propitious silence here,” said the counsellor.
He invited Julião to take some coffee, and drawing from his pocket a
sheet of ruled paper, murmured, “Unfortunate lady!” He then bowed to
Julião and began:--
OBITUARY.
TO THE MEMORY OF THE SENHORA DONNA LUIZA MENDONÇA DE BRITO
CARVALHO.
“Rosa d’amor, rosa purpurea e bella,
Quem entre os goivos te esfolhon da campa.”
“Those are the words of the immortal Garrett.” And he continued, in
slow and lugubrious accents:
“An angel has ascended to heaven,--a flower that bloomed on earth till
the storm-wind of death swept her with relentless fury to the tomb.”
He glanced at Julião as if soliciting his admiration, but seeing him
occupied in stirring his coffee, he continued, with a still more
lugubrious intonation:--
“Pause, and cast a glance on this cold earth. Here lies the chaste
wife torn from the arms of the intelligent husband! Here lies,
stranded like a vessel on a rock-bound coast, the virtuous lady who,
from the amiability of her nature, was the delight of all who enjoyed
the honor of gathering around her hearth! Why do you sigh?”
“A cup of coffee, Antonio!” called out gruffly a stout man in a jacket,
who had just entered and seated himself at a table, laying his cane
noisily on the marble.
The counsellor gave him a vindictive glance from under his brows, and
lowering his voice, continued:
“Sigh not! For angels belong not to earth, but to heaven!”
“Has Senhor Guedes been here yet?” asked the gruff voice.
“Not yet, Senhor Dom José,” answered the waiter, wiping the metal
cross-bars of the railing with a cloth.
The counsellor continued:--
“There her spirit, soaring upward on spotless wing, shall sing praises
to the Eternal; she will not fail to supplicate the Omnipotent for
mercies, to shower them on the head of her idolized husband, who one
day, do not doubt it, will meet her in those celestial regions, the
country of the elect.”
And the voice of the counsellor, as if symbolizing that paradisiac
transit, grew flute-like in its intonations.
“Was Senhor Guedes here last night?” persisted the individual in the
jacket, resting his elbows on the table, and smoking like a chimney.
“He was here very late,--at about two o’clock in the morning.”
The counsellor shook the paper he was reading, in mute desperation;
from behind his dark spectacles his eyes shot the contemptuous glance
of an interrupted author at the offending individual. He continued
reading, however:--
“And ye, tender souls, shed tears, without forgetting that man should
bow to the decrees of Providence--”
He interrupted himself to say,--
“That is in order to inspire our poor Jorge with courage.”
He then continued:--
“Heaven has an angel more, and her spirit shines brightly--”
“Was there any one with Senhor Guedes?” asked the before-mentioned
individual, shaking the ashes of his cigar on the marble.
The counsellor paused, pale with anger.
“That man must be a person of very low extraction,” he muttered, with
an inflection of hatred in his voice.
The waiter spoke in shrill accents from behind the counter,--
“He was accompanied by a Spanish lady who lives up the street,--a thin
lady with curls, and a red mantle.”
“Lola!” said the other, in a satisfied tone, delivering himself up with
enjoyment to his recollections of the aforesaid lady.
The counsellor resumed more hastily,--
“Besides, what is life? A short and rapid passage through this world,
an indistinct dream, from which we awaken in the bosom of the God of
armies, of whom we are all the unworthy subjects.”
He ended with this monarchical phrase.
“What do you think of it?” he said. “Frankly, now--”
Julião drank the last drop from the bottom of his cup.
“Is it for publication?” he asked.
“Yes; in the ‘Voz Popular,’ surrounded by a black border.”
Julião scratched his head nervously, and rising, said,--
“It is very good, Counsellor.”
Accacio, taking the money for the waiter from his pocket, replied,--
“I think it is worthy of her and of me.”
They left the coffee-house in silence. The night was dark. A cold
northeast wind was blowing, and the ground was still wet from the
recent rain. Julião paused suddenly as they reached Loreto, and said:--
“I forgot! Have you heard the news, Counsellor? Donna Felicidade is
going to retire to the Encarnação.”
“Ah!”
“So she has just told me. I had been to see her before making my visit
in the Rua da Rosa. She has a slight fever,--nothing serious, the
agitation, the fright. She herself told me so; to-morrow she enters the
Encarnação.”
“I always thought that lady had retrogressive ideas,” said the
counsellor. “It is the result of the machinations of the Jesuits, my
friend.” And he added in the melancholy tone of a discontented liberal,
“The reaction is already beginning to take place.”
Julião took him familiarly by the arm and said, smiling,--
“What reaction are you talking of? Why, it is on your account, ingrate!”
The counsellor stood still.
“What does my worthy friend wish to insinuate?” he said.
“Yes, my dear fellow; I don’t know how the deuce she discovered
something very serious about you--”
“What? I assure you--”
“Something that I discovered also,--that a rival has already taken
secure possession of the heart she aspired to occupy. She has just told
me so!” And laughing heartily he turned down the street of Alecrim,
calling out “Good-by, good-by.” The counsellor remained standing with
folded arms, petrified with astonishment.
“Unhappy lady! What a fatal passion!” he murmured, caressing his
mustache with a satisfied air.
He had still to copy the obituary, and he went home. He seated himself
at the table with a rug around his knees, and the cares of the author
made him forget before long the anxieties of the man. In the august
silence of his sancta sanctorum his pen ran over the paper in the
flowing and beautiful characters of his official handwriting until
eleven o’clock. He was just finishing, when the door creaked on its
hinges, and Adelaide, with a shawl around her shoulders, said,--
“Do you not intend to go to bed to-night?”
“I am going, Adelaide, I am going.”
He began to read over in a low voice what he had written; it seemed to
him that the end was not sufficiently affecting; he desired to conclude
it with a prolonged exclamation of sorrow. He reflected, his elbows
resting on the table, his head between his hands, the fingers of which
were spread wide apart. Adelaide approached him slowly and laid her
hand upon his head. Her touch seemed to have the effect of making his
thought flash out like a spark, for he took the pen and added,--
“Weep! weep! As for me, my sorrow chokes me!”
He rubbed his hands together with a feeling of pride, and repeated
aloud in mournful accents,--
“Weep! weep! As for me, my sorrow chokes me!”
And passing his arm around the waist of Adelaide, he exclaimed,--
“That will make a sensation, my Adelaide.”
He stood up; he had brought to its close a well-spent day. He
had read in the “Diario do Governo” in the morning that the royal
family continued in the enjoyment of good health; he had fulfilled
one of the duties of friendship, accompanying Luiza to the cemetery
of the Prazeres in a hired carriage; he had assured himself, by an
examination of the list of deputies, of the continuance of the peace
of his country; he had composed a remarkable piece of writing, and his
Adelaide loved him. And his thoughts dwelt with delight on all this
happiness which contrasted so strongly with the sepulchral images his
pen had described, for Adelaide heard him murmur,--
“Life is an inestimable boon;” adding, like a good citizen, “above all
in this era of public prosperity.”
At the same hour two men descended from a carriage at the door of the
Central Hotel; the one wore an ulster and the other a fur pelisse. A
German waiter, who was chatting with the porter, recognized them, and
said, taking off his cap,--
“Senhor Dom Bazilio! Senhor Viscount!”
The Viscount Reynaldo, who was stamping his foot on the ground, growled
inside his fur pelisse,--
“Here we are once more in this pig-pen!”
“And at what an hour we have arrived!”
“At what hour would you have us arrive? Only twelve hours delayed; a
bagatelle. In Portugal, that is a trifle.”
“Was there an accident?” the servant asked with solicitude, following
them upstairs.
“The national accident!” answered Reynaldo, striking his foot nervously
against the matting of the corridor. “The cars got off the track! We
are here by a miracle. A vile country!”
He vented his anger on the servant as he had done before on the stones
of the street, so intense was his disgust.
“For more than a year,” he said, “my sole prayer has been, ‘O my God,
send another earthquake!’ I read the telegraphic news every day to see
if the earthquake has taken place. Nothing. A minister has fallen, a
new baron has been created, but of the earthquake, nothing.” And he
smiled, vaguely grateful to a country whose defects provided him with
so many subjects of complaint.
When the servant told him, trembling, that there were only a parlor and
a double-bedded room on the third story, the rage of Reynaldo knew no
bounds.
“Do you expect us to sleep in the same room?” he cried! “The hotel
is full? And whom the devil does it occur to, to come to Portugal?
Foreigners? Just so; that is the worst part of it.” And he added,
shrugging his shoulders, “It is the climate, the national bait, that
attracts them! A pestiferous climate! There is no greater disadvantage
to a country than to possess a fine climate!” He did not cease to utter
his invectives against the country, while the waiter, with a servile
smile, placed on a table, plates, cold meats, and a bottle of Burgundy.
Reynaldo had come to Lisbon to dispose of the last remaining portion
of his estate, and Bazilio had accompanied him in order to finish the
troublesome affair of “that madwoman.”
Reynaldo did not cease to murmur inside his fur pelisse,--
“Here we are again in this pig-pen!”
Bazilio remained silent. From the moment of their arrival at Santa
Apolonia, recollections of Luiza, of the romance of the past summer,
began to throng upon him, exercising over him a powerful fascination.
Leaning against the window he contemplated the scene before him. The
moon, cold and pale, pursued her course among the clouds; a luminous
network covered the surface of the water at times with shifting lights;
then everything was plunged again in obscurity, unbroken save for the
indistinct shapes looming up here and there, or the lantern of some
vessel shining coldly.
“What is she doing now?” thought Bazilio. “Has she gone to sleep yet?”
How little she imagined he was back again in his room in the Central
Hotel!
They supped. Bazilio took the bottle of brandy with him to his room,
and with his face covered with rice-powder, and the collar of his shirt
thrown open, he gave himself up, stretched at full length in bed, and
smoking a cigar, to his sensations of luxurious lassitude. Presently he
smiled, and his gaze wandered to the ceiling.
“What the deuce!” he said to himself; “she is a lovely girl. It is well
worth while!”
He drank a glass of brandy, and was soon sound asleep.
At the same hour Jorge, alone in his room, sitting motionless in his
chair, and breaking into sobs from time to time, was also thinking of
her. In his room below Sebastião was shedding tears silently. Julião,
stretched at full length on a sofa in the hospital, was reading the
“Revue des Deux Mondes.” Leopoldina was dancing at a soirée at the
Cunhas; every one else was sleeping. And the chill wind that swept
the clouds across the face of the heavens, and caused the gas-jets to
flicker in their globes, stirred with a melancholy motion the branches
of the tree that hung over the grave of Luiza.
Bazilio left his hotel at an early hour in the morning and went to find
a decent coupé. Pinteos saw him from a distance, and drove towards him,
saying, “Here is Pinteos, Senhor.”
He smiled, charmed to see the Senhor Dom Bazilio again.
“To the Patriarchal, Pinteos.”
“To the senhora’s? We will be there in a flash, Senhor,” he said,
mounting into the driver’s seat, and touching the horses with his whip.
When the coupé stopped at Jorge’s door Senhor Paula came out to the
sidewalk, the tobacconist came to her door, and the professor’s servant
flattened her nose against the window-pane, all straining their eyes to
see. Bazilio rang the bell a little nervously; he waited awhile, bit
the end of his cigar, and rang the bell again, this time more loudly.
“The windows are closed, Senhor,” said Pinteos. Bazilio went out into
the middle of the street and looked up at the house; the green blinds
were closed, and the house wore a deserted aspect.
Bazilio directed himself to Paula.
“Are the people out who live here?” he asked.
“They live here no longer,” answered Paula, lugubriously, caressing his
mustache.
Bazilio’s attention was aroused by those funereal tones.
“Where do they live, then?” he asked.
Senhor Paula looked mournfully at Bazilio. “Are you a relative?” he
said.
“I am,” replied Bazilio, smiling.
“And--you know nothing?”
“But what is it, man, for Heaven’s sake?”
Senhor Paula scratched his head. “Well, I am sorry to have to tell you
of it,--the senhora is dead.”
“What senhora?” asked Bazilio, turning very pale.
“The senhora,--Donna Luiza, the wife of Senhor Carvalho the engineer.
Senhor Jorge is at the house of Senhor Sebastião, there at the end of
the street. If you want to go there--”
“No,” replied Bazilio, with a quick gesture of the hand, and lips that
quivered slightly. “But how did it happen?”
“A fever. It carried her off in a couple of days.”
Bazilio went slowly and with bent head back to the coupé. He glanced
once more at the house, then shut the carriage door quickly. Pinteos
drove quickly toward the city. Senhor Paula went over to the
tobacconist’s.
“It didn’t seem to grieve him much,” he said. “Gentlemen!
_Canaille_!” he muttered.
“Well, I am no relation,” said the tobacconist, “and every night I
recite two Pater Nosters for her.”
“And I,” said the coal-vender, sighing.
“Much good they’ll do her!” growled Paula, as he left them. His
business was bad just now, and the deaths that had recently taken place
in the street impressed him with the uncertainty of life. He hated the
priests more and more every day; at night he read the Nação, which
Azevedo lent him, spitefully turning his eyes away from the devotional
articles, which exasperated him and impelled him to atheism, while
his disgust at the state of public affairs inclined him to communism.
Everything, as he said, was a mass of rottenness.
Going down the street of Alecrim, Bazilio saw the Viscount Reynaldo
standing at the door of Street’s Hotel. He told the driver to stop, and
getting out of the coupé, said to him,--
“Do you know what has happened?”
“What?”
“My cousin is dead.”
“Poor thing!” murmured Reynaldo, politely.
They walked down the street arm in arm till they reached Aterro. The
day was a glorious one; there was an invigorating coolness in the air,
the atmosphere was filled with a golden light in which the houses, the
trees, the masts of the vessels, took on softer outlines; every sound
vibrated with joyous sonorousness; the river shone like molten metal;
the boat from Cacilhas sent forth puffs of smoke that floated upward
with opaline tints, and a blue haze enveloped the hills, in the midst
of which nestled peaceful villas.
As they walked along they talked of Luiza.
The viscount regretted that the poor lady should have died in the
midst of such glorious weather. But as a matter of fact he had always
thought that affair absurd. For after all, to be frank, what was there
in his cousin to attract Bazilio? He wished to speak no ill of the poor
lady, who was now lying in that horrible Prazeres, but it could not
be denied that she was wanting in _chic_; she drove in a hired
carriage; she had married an employee; she lived in a mean little
house; she had no respectable acquaintances; she bought tickets in the
lottery; she had no _esprit_; and she did not know how to dress.
“Still, for a month or two that we are to remain in Lisbon,” murmured
Bazilio, with eyes bent on the ground.
“Well, for that perhaps,” responded Reynaldo, disdainfully.
They were silent for a time. Presently they began to laugh
simultaneously at a man who passed by, controlling with difficulty
a pair of black horses. What a carriage! What style! It was only in
Lisbon that such things were to be seen.
When they reached the end of Aterro they turned back, and the Viscount
Reynaldo, passing his hand over his whiskers, said to Bazilio,--
“So now you are a widower.”
Bazilio smiled resignedly; and at the suggestion of the viscount they
went together into the English café to take a glass of sherry.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: About eight hundred and ten dollars.]
[Footnote 2: About six hundred and seventy-five dollars.]
[Footnote 3: A conto de reis is about thirteen hundred and fifty
dollars.]
[Footnote 4: About eleven cents.]
[Footnote 5: In the original, _Tu_, _foste tu_,--“Thou, it
was thou,”--familiar style.]
[Footnote 6: About thirteen cents.]
[Footnote 7: About thirteen hundred and fifty dollars.]
[Footnote 8: About two hundred and seventy dollars.]
[Footnote 9: About four hundred and five dollars.]
[Footnote 10: About eight hundred and ten dollars.]
[Footnote 11: A real is twelve cents.]
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