Project Gutenberg's Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish, by Various
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Title: Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish
Author: Various
Posting Date: November 5, 2011 [EBook #9987]
Release Date: February, 2006
First Posted: November 5, 2003
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES--FOREIGN AUTHORS:SPANISH ***
Produced by Nicole Apostola, Charles Franks, Charles M.
Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
STORIES BY FOREIGN AUTHORS
SPANISH
THE TALL WOMAN .. .. .. .. .. .. by Pedro Antonio De Alarcon
THE WHITE BUTTERFLY. .. .. .. .. by Jose Selgas
THE ORGANIST.. .. .. .. .. .. .. by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
MOORS AND CHRISTIANS .. .. .. .. by Pedro Antonio De Alarcon
BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS .. .. by Fernan Caballero
1898
THE TALL WOMAN
by Pedro Antonio De Alarcon
From "Modern Ghosts" translated by Rollo Ogden.
THE TALL WOMAN
I.
"How little we really know, my friends; how little we really know."
The speaker was Gabriel, a distinguished civil engineer of the mountain
corps. He was seated under a pine tree, near a spring, on the crest of the
Guadarrama. It was only about a league and a half distant from the palace
of the Escurial, on the boundary line of the provinces of Madrid and
Segovia. I know the place, spring, pine tree and all, but I have forgotten
its name.
"Let us sit down," went on Gabriel, "as that is the correct thing to do,
and as our programme calls for a rest here--here in this pleasant and
classic spot, famous for the digestive properties of that spring, and for
the many lambs here devoured by our noted teachers, Don Miguel Bosch, Don
Maximo Laguna, Don Augustin Pascual, and other illustrious naturalists.
Sit down, and I will tell you a strange and wonderful story in proof of my
thesis, which is, though you call me an obscurantist for it, that
supernatural events still occur on this terraqueous globe. I mean events
which you cannot get into terms of reason, or science, or philosophy--as
those 'words, words, words,' in Hamlet's phrase, are understood (or are
not understood) to-day."
Gabriel was addressing his animated remarks to five persons of different
ages. None of them was young, though only one was well along in years.
Three of them were, like Gabriel, engineers, the fourth was a painter, and
the fifth was a litterateur in a small way. In company with the speaker,
who was the youngest, we had all ridden up on hired mules from the Real
Sitio de San Lorenzo to spend the day botanizing among the beautiful pine
groves of Pequerinos, chasing butterflies with gauze nets, catching rare
beetles under the bark of the decayed pines, and eating a cold lunch out
of a hamper which we had paid for on shares.
This took place in 1875. It was the height of the summer. I do not
remember whether it was Saint James's day or Saint Louis's; I am inclined
to think it was Saint Louis's. Whichever it was, we enjoyed a delicious
coolness at that height, and the heart and brain, as well as the stomach,
were there in much better working order than usual.
When the six friends were seated, Gabriel continued as follows:
"I do not think you will accuse me of being a visionary. Luckily or
unluckily, I am, if you will allow me to say so, a man of the modern
world. I have no superstition about me, and am as much of a Positivist as
the best of them, although I include among the positive data of nature all
the mysterious faculties and feelings of the soul. Well, then, apropos of
supernatural, or extra-natural, phenomena, listen to what I have seen and
heard, although I was not the real hero of the very strange story I am
going to relate, and then tell me what explanation of an earthly,
physical, or natural sort, however you may name it, can be given of so
wonderful an occurrence.
"The case was as follows. But wait! Pour me out a drop, for the
skin-bottle must have got cooled off by this time in that bubbling,
crystalline spring, located by Providence on this piny crest for the
express purpose of cooling a botanist's wine."
II.
Well, gentlemen, I do not know whether you ever heard of an engineer of
the roads corps named Telesforo X---; he died in 1860."
"No; I haven't."
"But I have."
"So have I. He was a young fellow from Andalusia, with a black moustache;
he was to have married the Marquis of Moreda's daughter, but he died of
jaundice."
"The very one," said Gabriel. "Well, then, my friend Telesforo, six months
before his death, was still a most promising young man, as they say
nowadays. He was good-looking, well-built, energetic, and had the glory of
being the first one in his class to be promoted. He had already gained
distinction in the practice of his profession through some fine pieces of
work. Several different companies were competing for his services, and
many marriageable women were also competing for him. But Telesforo, as you
said, was faithful to poor Joaquina Moreda.
"As you know, it turned out that she died suddenly at the baths of Santa
Agueda, at the end of the summer of 1859. I was in Pau when I received the
sad news of her death, which affected me very much on account of my close
friendship with Telesforo. With her I had spoken only once, in the house
of her aunt, the wife of General Lopez, and I certainly thought her bluish
pallor a symptom of bad health. But, however that may be, she had a
distinguished manner and a great deal of grace, and was, besides, the only
daughter of a title, and a title that carried some comfortable thousands
with it; so I felt sure my good mathematician would be inconsolable.
Consequently, as soon as I was back in Madrid, fifteen or twenty days
after his loss, I went to see them very early one morning. He lived in
elegant batchelor quarters in Lobo Street--I do not remember the number,
but it was near the Carrera de San Jeronimo.
"The young engineer was very melancholy, although calm and apparently
master of his grief. He was already at work, even at that hour, laboring
with his assistants over some railroad plans or other. He was dressed in
deep mourning.
"He greeted me with a long and close embrace, without so much as sighing.
Then he gave some directions to his assistants about the work in hand, and
afterwards led me to his private office at the farther end of the house.
As we were on our way there he said, in a sorrowful tone and without
glancing at me:
"'I am very glad you have come. Several times I have found myself wishing
you were here. A very strange thing has happened to me. Only a friend such
as you are can hear of it without thinking me either a fool or crazy. I
want to get an opinion about it as calm and cool as science itself.
"'Sit down,' he went on when we had reached his office, 'and do not
imagine that I am going to afflict you with a description of the sorrow I
am suffering--a sorrow which will last as long as I live. Why should I?
You can easily picture it to yourself, little as you know of trouble. And
as for being comforted, I do not wish to be, either now, or later, or
ever! What I am going to speak to you about, with the requisite
deliberation, going back to the very beginning of the thing, is a horrible
and mysterious occurrence, which was an infernal omen of my calamity, and
which has distressed me in a frightful manner.'
"'Go on,' I replied, sitting down. The fact was, I almost repented having
entered the house as I saw the expression of abject fear on my friend's
face.
"'Listen, then,' said he, wiping the perspiration from his forehead."
III.
"'I DO not know whether it is due to some inborn fatality of imagination,
or to having heard some story or other of the kind with which children are
so rashly allowed to be frightened, but the fact is, that since my
earliest years nothing has caused me so much horror and alarm as a woman
alone, in the street, at a late hour of the night. The effect is the same
whether I actually encounter her, or simply have an image of her in my
mind.
"'You can testify that I was never a coward. I fought a duel once, when I
had to, like any other man. Just after I had left the School of Engineers,
my workmen in Despenaperros revolted, and I fought them with stick and
pistol until I made them submit. All my life long, in Jaen, in Madrid, and
elsewhere, I have walked the streets at all hours, alone and unarmed, and
if I have chanced to run upon suspicious-looking persons, thieves, or mere
sneaking beggars, they have had to get out of my way or take to their
heels. But if the person turned out to be a solitary woman, standing
still or walking, and I was also alone, with no one in sight in any
direction--then (laugh if you want to, but believe me) I would be all
covered over with goose-flesh; vague fears would assail me; I would think
about beings of the other world, about imaginary existences, and about all
the superstitious stories which would make me laugh under other
circumstances. I would quicken my pace, or else turn back, and would not
get over my fright in the least until safe in my own house.
"'Once there I would fall a-laughing, and would be ashamed of my crazy
fears. The only comfort I had was that nobody knew anything about it. Then
I would dispassionately remind myself that I did not believe in goblins,
witches, or ghosts, and that I had no reason whatever to be afraid of that
wretched woman driven from her home at such an hour by poverty, or some
crime, or accident, to whom I might better have offered help, if she
needed it, or given alms. Nevertheless, the pitiable scene would be gone
over again as often as a similar thing occurred--and remember that I was
twenty-four years old, that I had experienced a great many adventures by
night, and yet that I had never had the slightest difficulty of any sort
with such solitary women in the streets after midnight! But nothing of
what I have so far told you ever came to have any importance, since that
irrational fear always left me as soon as I reached home, or saw any one
else in the street, and I would scarcely recall it a few minutes
afterwards, any more than one would recall a stupid mistake which had no
result of any consequence.
"'Things were going on so, when, nearly three years ago (unhappily, I have
good reason for knowing the date, it was the night of November 15-16,
1857), I was coming home at three in the morning. As you remember, I was
living then in that little house in Jardines Street, near Montera Street.
I had just come, at that late hour, a bitter, cold wind blowing at the
time, out of a sort of a gambling-house--I tell you this, although I know
it will surprise you. You know that I am not a gambler. I went into the
place, deceived by an alleged friend. But the fact was, that as people
began to drop in about midnight, coming from receptions or the theatre,
the play began to be very heavy, and one saw the gleam of gold in plenty.
Then came bank-bills and notes of hand. Little by little I was carried
away by the feverish and seductive passion, and lost all the money I had.
I even went away missing a second sum, for which I had left my note behind
me. In short, I ruined myself completely; and but for the legacy that came
to me afterwards, together with the good jobs I have had, my situation
would have been extremely critical and painful.
"So I was going home, I say, at so late an hour that night, numb with the
cold, hungry, ashamed, and disgusted as you can imagine, thinking about my
sick old father more than about myself. I should have to write to him
for money, and this would astonish as much as it would grieve him, since
he thought me in very easy circumstances. Just before reaching my street,
where it crosses Peligros Street, as I was walking in front of a
newly-built house, I perceived something in its doorway. It was a tall,
large woman, standing stiff and motionless, as if made of wood. She seemed
to be about sixty years old. Her wild and malignant eyes, unshaded by
eyelashes, were fixed on mine like two daggers. Her toothless mouth made a
horrible grimace at me, meant to be a smile.
"The very terror or delirium of fear which instantly overcame me gave me
somehow a most acute perception, so that I could distinguish at a glance,
in the two seconds it took me to pass by that repugnant vision, the
slightest details of her face and dress. Let me see if I can put together
my impressions in the way and form in which I received them, as they were
engraved ineffaceably on my brain in the light of the street-lamp which
shone luridly over that ghastly scene. But I am exciting myself too much,
though there is reason enough for it, as you will see further on. Don't be
concerned, however, for the state of my mind. I am not yet crazy!
"'The first thing which struck me in that WOMAN, as I will call her, was
her extreme height and the breadth of her bony shoulders. Then, the
roundness and fixity of her dry, owl-eyes, the enormous size of her
protruding nose, and the great dark cavern of her mouth. Finally, her
dress, like that of a young woman of Avapies--the new little cotton
handkerchief which she wore on her head, tied under her chin, and a
diminutive fan which she carried open in her hand, and with which, in
affected modesty, she was covering the middle of her waist.
"'Nothing could be at the same time more ridiculous and more awful, more
laughable and more taunting, than that little fan in those huge hands. It
seemed like a make-believe sceptre in the hands of such an old, hideous,
and bony giantess! A like effect was produced by the showy percale
handkerchief adorning her face by the side of that cut-water nose, hooked
and masculine; for a moment I was led to believe (or I was very glad to)
that it was a man in disguise.
"'But her cynical glance and harsh smile were of a hag, of a witch, an
enchantress, a Fate, a--I know not what! There was something about her to
justify fully the aversion and fright which I had been caused all my life
long by women walking alone in the streets at night. One would have said
that I had had a presentiment of that encounter from my cradle. One would
have said that I was frightened by it instinctively, as every living being
fears and divines, and scents and recognizes, its natural enemy before
ever being injured by it, before ever having seen it, and solely on
hearing its tread.
"'I did not dash away in a run when I saw my life's sphinx. I restrained
my impulse to do so, less out of shame and manly pride than out of fear
lest my very fright should reveal to her who I was, or should give her
wings to follow me, to overtake me--I do not know what. Panic like that
dreams of dangers which have neither form nor name.
"'My house was at the opposite end of the long and narrow street, in which
I was alone, entirely alone with that mysterious phantom whom I thought
able to annihilate me with a word. How should I ever get home? Oh, how
anxiously I looked towards that distant Montera street, broad and well
lighted, where there are policemen to be found at all hours! I decided,
finally, to get the better of my weakness; to dissemble and hide that
wretched fear; not to hasten my pace, but to keep on advancing slowly,
even at the cost of years of health or life, and in this way, little by
little, to go on getting nearer to my house, exerting myself to the utmost
not to fall fainting on the ground before I reached it.
"'I was walking along in this way--I must have taken about twenty steps
after leaving behind me the doorway where the woman with the fan was
hidden, when suddenly a horrible idea came to me--horrible, yet very
natural nevertheless--the idea that I would look back to see if my enemy
was following me. One thing or the other I thought, with the rapidity of a
flash of lightning: either my alarm has some foundation or it is madness;
if it has any foundation, this woman will have started after me, will be
overtaking me, and there is no hope for me on earth. But if it is madness,
a mere supposition, a panic fright like any other, I will convince myself
of it in the present instance, and for every case that may occur
hereafter, by seeing that that poor old woman has stayed in that doorway
to protect herself from the cold, or to wait till the door is opened; and
thereupon I can go on to my house in perfect tranquillity, and I shall
have cured myself of a fancy that causes me great mortification.
"'This reasoning gone through with, I made an extraordinary effort and
turned my head. Ah, Gabriel!--Gabriel! how fearful it was! The tall woman
had followed me with silent tread, was right over me, almost touching me
with her fan, almost leaning her head on my shoulder.
"'Why was she doing it?--why, my Gabriel? Was she a thief? Was she really
a man in disguise? Was she some malicious old hag who had seen that I was
afraid of her? Was she a spectre conjured up by my very cowardice? Was she
a mocking phantasm of human self-deception?
"'I could never tell you all I thought in a single moment. If the truth
must be told, I gave a scream and flew away like a child of four years who
thinks he sees the Black Man. I did not stop running until I got out into
Montera Street. Once there, my fear left me like magic. This in spite of
the fact that that street also was deserted. Then I turned my head to look
back to Jardines Street. I could see down its whole length. It was lighted
well enough for me to see the tall woman, if she had drawn back in any
direction, and, by Heaven! I could not see her, standing still, walking,
or in any way! However, I was very careful not to go back into that street
again. The wretch, I said to myself, has slunk into some other doorway.
But she can't move without my seeing her.
"'Just then I saw a policeman coming up Caballero de Gracia Street, and I
shouted to him without stirring from my place. I told him that there was a
man dressed as a woman in Jardines Street. I directed him to go round by
the way of Peligros and Aduana Streets, while I would remain where I was,
and in that way the fellow, who was probably a thief or murderer, could
not escape us. The policeman did as I said. He went through Aduana Street,
and as soon as I saw his lantern coming along Jardines Street I also went
up it resolutely.
"'We soon met at about the middle of the block, without either of us
having encountered a soul, although we had examined door after door.
"'"He has got into some house," said the policeman.
"'"That must be so," I replied, opening my door with the fixed purpose of
moving to some other street the next day.
"'A few moments later I was in my room; I always carried my latchkey, so
as not to have to disturb my good Jose. Nevertheless, he was waiting for
me that night. My misfortunes of the 15th and 16th of November were not
yet ended.
"'"What has happened?" I asked him, in surprise.
"'"Major Falcon was here," he replied, with evident agitation, "waiting
for you from eleven till half-past two, and he told me that, if you came
home to sleep, you had better not undress, as he would be back at
daybreak."
"'Those words left me trembling with grief and alarm, as if they had
predicted my own death to me. I knew that my beloved father, at his home
in Jean, had been suffering frequent and dangerous attacks of his chronic
disease. I had written to my brothers that, if there should be a sudden
and fatal termination of the sickness, they were to telegraph Major
Falcon, who would inform me in some suitable way. I had not the slightest
doubt, therefore, that my father had died.
"'I sat down in an arm-chair to wait for the morning and my friend, and,
with them, the news of my great misfortune. God only knows what I suffered
in those two cruel hours of waiting. All the while, three distinct ideas
were inseparably joined in my mind; though they seemed unlike, they took
pains, as it were, to keep in a dreadful group. They were: my losses at
play, my meeting with the tall woman, and the death of my revered father.
"'Precisely at six Major Falcon came into my room, and looked at me in
silence. I threw myself into his arms, weeping bitterly, and he exclaimed,
caressing me:
"'"Yes, my dear fellow, weep, weep."'"
IV.
"My friend Telesforo," Gabriel went on, after having drained another glass
of wine, "also rested a moment when he reached this point, and then he
proceeded as follows:
"'If my story ended here, perhaps you would not find anything
extraordinary or supernatural in it. You would say to me the same thing
that men of good judgment said to me at that time: that every one who has
a lively imagination is subject to some impulse of fear or other; that
mine came from belated, solitary women, and that the old creature of
Jardines Street was only some homeless waif who was going to beg of me
when I screamed and ran.
"'For my part, I tried to believe that it was so. I even came to believe
it at the end of several months. Still, I would have given years of my
life to be sure that I was not again to encounter the tall woman. But,
to-day, I would give every drop of my blood to be able to meet her again.'
"'What for?'
"'To kill her on the spot.'
"'I do not understand you.'
"'You will understand me when I tell you that I did meet her again, three
weeks ago, a few hours before I had the fatal news of my poor Joaquina's
death.'
"'Tell me about it, tell me about it!'
"'There is little more to tell. It was five o'clock in the morning. It was
not yet fully light, though the dawn was visible from the streets looking
towards the east. The street-lamps had just been put out, and the
policemen had withdrawn. As I was going through Prado Street, so as to get
to the other end of Lobo Street, the dreadful woman crossed in front of
me. She did not look at me, and I thought she had not seen me.
"'She wore the same dress and carried the same fan as three years before.
My trepidation and alarm were greater than ever. I ran rapidly across
Prado Street as soon as she had passed, although I did not take my eyes
off her, so as to make sure that she did not look back, and, when I had
reached the other end of Lobo Street, I panted as if I had just swum an
impetuous stream. Then I pressed on with fresh speed towards home, filled
now with gladness rather than fear, for I thought that the hateful witch
had been conquered and shorn of her power, from the very fact that I had
been so near her and yet that she had not seen me.
"'But soon, and when I had almost reached this house, a rush of fear swept
over me, in the thought that the crafty old hag had seen and recognized
me, that she had made a pretence of not knowing me so as to let me get
into Lobo Street, where it was still rather dark, and where she might set
upon me in safety, that she would follow me, that she was already over me.
"'Upon this, I looked around--and there she was! There at my shoulder,
almost touching me with her clothes, gazing at me with her horrible little
eyes, displaying the gloomy cavern of her mouth, fanning herself in a
mocking manner, as if to make fun of my childish alarm.
"'I passed from dread to the most furious anger, to savage and desperate
rage. I dashed at the heavy old creature. I flung her against the wall. I
put my hand to her throat. I felt of her face, her breast, the straggling
locks of her gray hair until I was thoroughly convinced that she was a
human being--a woman.
"'Meanwhile she had uttered a howl which was hoarse and piercing at the
same time. It seemed false and feigned to me, like the hypocritical
expression of a fear which she did not really feel. Immediately afterwards
she exclaimed, making believe cry, though she was not crying, but looking
at me with her hyena eyes:
"'"Why have you picked a quarrel with me?"
"'This remark increased my fright and weakened my wrath.
"'"Then you remember," I cried, "that you have seen me somewhere else."
"'"I should say so, my dear," she replied, mockingly. "Saint Eugene's
night, in Jardines Street, three years ago."
"'My very marrow was chilled.
"'"But who are you?" I asked, without letting go of her. "Why do you
follow me? What business have you with me?"
"'"I am a poor weak woman," she answered, with a devilish leer. "You hate
me, and you are afraid of me without any reason. If not, tell me, good
sir, why you were so frightened the first time you saw me."
"'"Because I have loathed you ever since I was born. Because you are the
evil spirit of my life."
"'"It seems, then, that you have known me for a long time. Well, look, my
son, so have I known you."
"'"You have known me? How long?"
"'"Since before you were born! And when I saw you pass by me, three years
ago, I said to myself, THAT'S THE ONE."
"'"But what am I to you? What are you to me?"
"'"The devil!" replied the hag, spitting full in my face, freeing herself
from my grasp, and running away with amazing swiftness. She held her
skirts higher than her knees, and her feet did not make the slightest
noise as they touched the ground.
"'It was madness to try to catch her. Besides, people were already passing
through the Carrera de San Jeronimo, and in Prado Street, too. It was
broad daylight. The tall woman kept on running, or flying, as far as
Huertas Street, which was now lighted up by the sun. There she stopped to
look back at me. She waved her closed fan at me once or twice,
threateningly, and then disappeared around a corner.
"'Wait a little longer, Gabriel. Do not yet pronounce judgment in this
case, where my life and soul are concerned. Listen to me two minutes
longer.
"'When I entered my house I met Colonel Falcon, who had just come to tell
me that my Joaquina, my betrothed, all my hope and happiness and joy on
earth, had died the day before in Santa Agueda. The unfortunate father had
telegraphed Falcon to tell me--me, who should have divined it an hour
before, when I met the evil spirit of my life! Don't you understand, now,
that I must kill that born enemy of my happiness, that vile old hag, who
is the living mockery of my destiny?
"'But why do I say kill? Is she a woman? Is she a human being? Why have I
had a presentiment of her ever since I was born? Why did she recognize me
when she first saw me? Why do I never see her except when some great
calamity has befallen me? Is she Satan? Is she Death? Is she Life? Is she
Antichrist? Who is she? What is she?'"
V.
"I will spare you, my dear friends," continued Gabriel, "the arguments and
remarks which I used to see if I could not calm Telesforo, for they are
the same, precisely the same, which you are preparing now to advance to
prove that there is nothing supernatural or superhuman in my story. You
will even go further; you will say that my friend was half crazy; that he
always was so; that, at least, he suffered from that moral disease which
some call 'panic terror,' and others 'emotional insanity'; that, even
granting the truth of what I have related about the tall woman, it must
all be referred to chance coincidences of dates and events; and, finally,
that the poor old creature could also have been crazy, or a thief, or a
beggar, or a procuress--as the hero of my story said to himself in a lucid
interval."
"A very proper supposition," exclaimed Gabriel's comrades; "that is just
what we were going to say."
"Well, listen a few minutes longer, and you will see that I was mistaken
at the time, as you are mistaken now. The one who unfortunately made no
mistake was Telesforo. It is much easier to speak the word 'insanity' than
to find an explanation for some things that happen on the earth."
"Speak, speak!"
"I am going to; and this time, as it is the last, I will pick up the
thread of my story without first drinking a glass of wine."
VI.
"A few days after that conversation with Telesforo I was sent to the
province of Albacete in my capacity as engineer of the mountain corps.
Not many weeks had passed before I learned, from a contractor for public
works, that my unhappy friend had been attacked by a dreadful form of
jaundice; it had turned him entirely green, and he reclined in an
arm-chair without working or wishing to see anybody, weeping night and day
in the most inconsolable and bitter grief. The doctors had given up hope
of his getting well.
"This made me understand why he had not answered my letters. I had to
resort to Colonel Falcon as a source of news of him, and all the while
the reports kept getting more unfavorable and gloomy.
"After an absence of five months I returned to Madrid the same day
that the telegraph brought the news of the battle of Tetuan. I remember
it as if it were yesterday. That night I bought the indispensable
Correspondencia de Espana, and the first thing I read in it was the notice
of Telesforo's death. His friends were invited to the funeral the
following morning.
"You will be sure that I was present. As we arrived at the San Luis
cemetery, whither I rode in one of the carriages nearest the hearse, my
attention was called to a peasant woman. She was old and very tall. She
was laughing sacrilegiously as she saw them taking out the coffin. Then
she placed herself in front of the pall-bearers in a triumphant attitude
and pointed out to them with a very small fan the passage-way they were to
take to reach the open and waiting grave.
"At the first glance I perceived, with amazement and alarm, that she
was Telesforo's implacable enemy. She was just as he had described her to
me--with her enormous nose, her devilish eyes, her awful mouth, her
percale handkerchief, and that diminutive fan which seemed in her hands
the sceptre of indecency and mockery.
"She immediately observed that I was looking at her, and fixed her gaze
upon me in a peculiar manner, as if recognizing me, as if letting me know
that she recognized me, as if acquainted with the fact that the dead man
had told me about the scenes in Jardines Street and Lobo Street, as if
defying me, as if declaring me the inheritor of the hate which she had
cherished for my unfortunate friend.
"I confess that at the time my fright was greater than my wonder at those
new COINCIDENCES and ACCIDENTS. It seemed evident to me that some
supernatural relation, antecedent to earthly life, had existed between the
mysterious old woman and Telesforo. But for the time being my sole concern
was about my own life, my own soul, my own happiness--all of which would
be exposed to the greatest peril if I should really inherit such a curse.
"The tall woman began to laugh. She pointed at me contemptuously with the
fan, as if she had read my thoughts and were publicly exposing my
cowardice. I had to lean on a friend's arm to keep myself from falling.
Then she made a pitying or disdainful gesture, turned on her heels, and
went into the cemetery. Her head was turned towards me. She fanned herself
and nodded to me at the same time. She sidled along among the graves with
an indescribable, infernal coquetry, until at last she disappeared for
ever in that labyrinth of tombs.
"I say for ever, since fifteen years have passed and I have never seen her
again. If she was a human being she must have died before this; if she was
not, I rest in the conviction that she despised me too much to meddle with
me.
"Now, then, bring on your theories! Give me your opinion about these
strange events. Do you still regard them as entirely natural?"
THE WHITE BUTTERFLY
By Jose Selgas
Translated by Mary J. Serrano.
THE WHITE BUTTERFLY
Berta has just completed her seventeenth year. Blissful age in which Love
first whispers his tender secrets to a maiden's heart! But cruel Love, who
for every secret he reveals draws forth a sigh! But here is Berta, and
beside her is a mirror, toward which she turns her eyes; she looks at
herself in it for a moment and sighs, and then she smiles. And good reason
she has to smile, for the mirror reveals to her the loveliest face
imaginable; whatever disquiet Love may have awakened in her heart, the
image which she sees in the mirror is enchanting enough to dispel it.
And why should it not? Let us see. "What has her heart told her?" "It has
told her that it is sad." "Sad! and why?" "Oh, for a very simple reason!
Because it thrills in response to a new, strange feeling, never known
before. It fancies--curious caprice!--that it has changed owners." "And
why is that?" "The fact is, that it has learned, it knows not where, that
men are ungrateful and inconstant, and this is the reason why Berta
sighs." "Ah! And what does the mirror tell her to console her?" "Why, the
mirror tells her that she is beautiful." "Yes?" "Yes; that her eyes are
dark and lustrous, her eyebrows magnificent, her cheeks fresh and rosy."
"And what then?" "It is plain; her heart is filled with hope, and
therefore it is that Berta smiles."
This is the condition of mind in which we find her. Up to the present she
has passed her life without thinking of anything more serious than the
innocent pranks of childhood; she was a child up to the age of seventeen,
but a boisterous, gay, restless, daring, mischievous child; she turned the
house upside down, and in the same way she would have been capable of
turning the world upside down; she had neither fears nor duties; she
played like a crazy thing and slept like a fool. For her mother had died
before Berta was old enough to know her; and although her mother's
portrait hung at the head of her bed, this image, at once sweet and
serious, was not sufficient to restrain the thoughtless impetuosity of the
girl. She was, besides, an only daughter, and her father, of whom we shall
give some account later, adored her. In addition to all this, her nurse,
who acted as housekeeper in the house, was at the same time the accomplice
and the apologist of her pranks, for the truth is she loved her like the
apple of her eye.
Less than this might have sufficed to turn an angel into an imp, and
indeed much less would have sufficed in Berta's case, for the natural
vivacity of her disposition inclined her to all kinds of pranks.
Opposition irritated her to such a degree as to set her crying. But what
tears! Suddenly, in the midst of her sobs, she would burst out laughing,
for her soul was all gayety, spontaneous, contagious gayety, the gayety of
the birds when day is breaking.
But this gayety could not last for ever; and, willing or unwilling, the
moment had to come some time when Berta would quiet down; for it was not
natural that she should remain all her life a madcap; and this moment at
last arrived; and all at once the girl's boisterous gayety began to calm
down, to cloud over, like a storm that is gathering, like a sky that is
darkening.
The nurse is the first to observe this change in Berta, and although the
girl's pranks had driven her to her wits' end, seeing her silent,
thoughtful, pensive, that is to say, quiet, she is overjoyed. The girl is
now a woman. Profound mystery! She has left off the giddiness of childhood
to take on the sedateness of youth. Poor woman! she does not know that a
young girl is a thousand times more crazy than a child. But the fact is
that Berta does not seem the same girl. And the change has taken place of
a sudden, from one day to another, in the twinkling of an eye, so to say.
And sedateness becomes her well, very well. She seems taller, more--more
everything; nothing better could be asked of her; but since she has
become sensible the house is silent. The songs, the tumult, all the
boisterousness of the past have disappeared. The good nurse, who is
enchanted to see her so quiet, so silent, so sedate, yet misses the noisy
gayety that formerly filled the house; and if the choice had been given
to her, she would hardly have known which to prefer.
In this way the days pass calm and tranquil. Berta, who had always been
so early a riser, does not now rise very early. Does she sleep more?
That is what no one knows, but if she sleeps more she certainly eats less;
and not only this, but from time to time, and without any apparent cause,
heart-breaking sighs escape her.
The nurse, who idolizes her, and who would do anything in the world to
please or to serve her, observes it all but says nothing. She says
nothing, but she thinks the more. That is to say, that at every sigh she
hears she draws down her mouth, screws up her eye, and says to herself:
"Hm! there it is again."
Of course she would not remain silent for long; for she was not a woman to
hold her tongue easily. Besides, Berta's sedateness was now getting to be
a fixed fact, and the nurse was at the end of her patience; for as she was
accustomed to say, "A loaf that is put into the oven twisted will not come
out of it straight."
And if she succeeded in keeping silence for a few days, it was only
because she was waiting for Berta herself to speak and tell her what was
on her mind; but Berta gave no sign that she understood her; her heart
remained closed to the nurse, notwithstanding all her efforts to open it.
The key had been lost, and none of those that hung at the housekeeper's
girdle fitted it. It would be necessary to force the lock.
One day the nurse left off temporizing and took the bull by the horns. She
entered Berta's room, where she found her engaged in fastening a flaming
red carnation in her dark hair.
"There! that's what I like to see," she said. "That's right, now. What a
beautiful pink! It is as red as fire. And pinks of that color don't grow
in your flower-beds!"
Berta cast down her eyes.
"You think I can't see what is going on before my eyes," she continued,
"when you know that nothing can escape me. Yes, yes. I should like to see
the girl that could hoodwink me! But why don't you say something? Have you
lost your tongue?"
Berta turned as red as a poppy.
"Bah!" cried the nurse. "That pink must have flown over from the terrace
in front of your windows. I can see the plant from here; there were four
pinks on it yesterday, and to-day there are only three. The neighbor, eh?
What folly! There is neither sense nor reason in that."
This time Berta turned pale, and looked fixedly at her nurse, as if she
had not taken in the sense of her words.
"I don't mean," resumed the nurse, "that you ought to take the veil, or
that the neighbor is a man to be looked down upon either; but you are
worthy of a king, and there is no sort of sense in this. A few signals
from window to window; a few sidelong glances, and then--what? Nothing.
You will forget each other. It will be out of sight out of mind with both
of you."
Berta shook her head.
"You say it will not be so?" asked the nurse.
"I say it will not," answered Berta.
"And why not? Let us hear why not? What security have you--"
Berta did not allow her to finish.
"Our vows," she said.
"Vows!" cried the nurse, crossing herself. "Is that where we are!--Vows!"
she repeated, scornfully; "pretty things they are--words that the wind
carries away."
Some memory of her own youth must have come to her mind at this moment,
for she sighed and then went on:
"And would they by chance be the first vows in the world to be broken?
To-day it is all very well; there is no one else for you to see but the
neighbor; but to-morrow?"
"Never," replied Berta.
"Worse and worse," returned the nurse; "for in that case he will be the
first to tire of you, and then hold him if you can. To-day he may be as
sweet as honey to you, but to-morrow it will be another story. What are
you going to say? That he is young, and handsome? Silly, silly girl. Is he
any the less a man for that? Do you want to know what men are?"
Berta, going up to her nurse, put her hand over her mouth and answered
quickly:
"No, I don't want to know."
The nurse left Berta's room, holding her hands to her head and saying to
herself:
"Mad, stark, staring mad!"
We know already that Berta has a father, and now we are going to learn
that this father, without being in any way an extraordinary being, is yet
no common man. To look at him, one would take him to be over sixty; but
appearances are in this case deceitful, for he is not yet forty-nine.
In the same city in which he dwells live some who were companions of his
childhood, and they are still young; but Berta's father became a widower
shortly after his marriage, and the loss of his wife put an end to his
youth. He settled his affairs, gave up his business, realized a part of
his property and retired from the world. That is to say, that he devoted
himself to the care of his daughter, in whom he beheld the living image of
the wife he had lost. Why should he wish to be young any longer? He grew
aged then long before he had grown old.
Berta--Berta. In this name all his thoughts were centred, and in his
thoughts there was much of sweetness and much of bitterness, for there is
not in the circle of human happiness a cup of honey that has not its drop
of gall.
To see him now walking up and down his room, looking now at the ceiling,
now at the floor, biting his nails and striking his forehead, one would
think the heavens were about to fall down and crush him or the earth to
open up under his feet.
Suddenly he struck his forehead with his open palm, and crossing over to
the door of the room, he raised the curtain, put out his head, and opened
his lips to say something; but the words remained unuttered, and he stood
with his mouth wide open, gazing with amazement at the nurse who, without
observing the movement of the curtain, was approaching the door,
gesticulating violently; it was evident that she had something
extraordinary on her mind.
Berta's father drew aside; the nurse entered the room, and the two
remained face to face, looking at each other as if they had never seen
each other before."
"What is the matter, Nurse Juana?" asked Berta's father. "I never saw you
look like that before."
"Well, you look no better youself. Any one would say, to see you, that you
had just risen from the grave."
Berta's father slowly arched his eyebrows, heaved a profound sigh, and
sinking into a chair, as if weighed down by the burden of existence, he
asked again:
"What is the matter?"
"The matter is," answered the nurse, "that the devil has got into this
house."
"It is possible," he answered; "and if you add that it is not an hour
since he left this room, you will not be far wrong."
"The Lord have mercy on us!" exclaimed the nurse: "the devil here!"
"Yes, Nurse Juana, the devil in person."
"And you saw him?"
"I saw him."
"What a horrible visitor!" exclaimed Juana, crossing herself.
"No," said Berta's father, "he is not horrible; he took the appearance of
a handsome young man who has all the air of a terrible rake."
"And how did this demon come in?"
"By the door, Juana, by the door."
"What a man!" cried the nurse in dismay.
Berta's father was very kind-hearted, and he had a very good opinion of
mankind; thus it was that he shook his head despondently as he replied:
"A man!--A man would not be so cruel to me. To take Berta from me is to
take my life. It is to assassinate me without allowing me a chance to
defend myself; and that is the most horrible part of it--they will be
married, and Berta will be united for life to the murderer of her father."
The nurse folded her arms and there was a moment of sorrowful silence.
Suddenly she said:
"Ah!--Berta will refuse."
A bitter smile crossed the lips of the unhappy father.
"You think she will not?" said the nurse. "Now, we shall see."
And she turned to go for Berta, but at the same moment the curtain was
raised and Berta entered the room.
The red carnation glowed in her black hair like fire in the darkness; her
eyes shone with a strange light, and in the fearless expression of her
countenance was to be divined the strength of an unalterable resolution.
She looked alternately at her father and at her nurse, and then in a
trembling voice she said:
"I know all. It may be to my life-long happiness; it may be to my eternal
misery; but that man is the master of my heart."
She smiled first at her father and then at her nurse; and left the room
with the same tranquillity with which she had entered it.
The nurse and the father remained standing where she left them,
motionless, dumb, astounded.
The devil then had succeeded in gaining an entrance into Berta's house in
the manner in which we have seen; and not only had he gained an entrance
into it, but he had taken possession of it as if it had always been his
own. He was hardly out of it before he was back again. He spent in it
several of his mornings, many of his afternoons, and all his evenings; and
there was no way of escaping his assiduous visits, for Berta was always
there to receive him. And it was not easy to be angry with him, either;
for he possessed the charm of an irresistible gayety, and one had not only
to be resigned but to show pleasure at his constant presence. Besides,
neither Berta's father nor the housekeeper dared to treat him coldly; they
felt compelled, by what irresistible spell they knew not, to receive him
with all honor and with a smiling countenance.
This is the case when they are under the influence of his presence: but
when he is absent, the father and the nurse treat him without any ceremony
whatever. The two get together in secret and in whispers revenge
themselves upon him by picking him to pieces. In these secret backbitings
they give vent to the aversion with which he inspires them; and the father
and the nurse between them leave him without a single good quality.
And it is not without reason that they berate him, for since he took the
house by storm nothing is done in it but what pleases him; he it is who
rules it, he it is who orders everything. For Berta thinks that all he
does is right, and there is no help for it but to bow in silence to her
will.
But they are not satisfied with berating him; they also conspire against
him. What means shall they take to overthrow the power of this unlawful
ruler?--for in the eyes of the housekeeper he is a usurper, and in those
of Berta's father, a tyrant;--turn him out of the house? This is the one
thought of the conspirators. But how? This is the difficulty which
confronts them.
Two means entirely opposed to each other occur to them--to fly from him or
to make a stand against him. To fly is the plan of Berta's father; it is
the resource which is most consistent with his pacific character. To fly
far from him, far away, to the ends of the earth.
But to this the housekeeper answers:
"Fly from him! What nonsense! Where could we go, that he would not follow
us? No; such folly is not to be thought of. What we ought to do is to take
a firm stand and defend ourselves against him."
"Defend ourselves against him!" exclaimed Berta's father. "With what
weapons? With what strength?"
"Neither strength nor weapons are required," replied the nurse. "Some day
you bar the door against him, and then he may knock in vain. Satan turns
away from closed doors."
"Nurse Juana, that is folly," replied Berta's father; "if he does not come
in by the door he will come in by the window, or down the chimney."
Juana bit her lips reflectively, for what she had never been able to
explain satisfactorily to herself was how he had succeeded in entering the
house for the first time, for the door was always kept closed; it was
necessary to knock to have it opened; and it was never opened unless under
the inspection of the housekeeper; she always wanted to know who came in
and who went out, and in this she was very particular. How then had he
been able to come in without being seen or heard?
Her first inquiries on this mysterious point were addressed to Berta--and
Berta answered simply that he had entered without knocking because the
door was open. This the nurse found impossible to believe.
She remained thoughtful, then, for this demon of a man, it seemed, could
in truth enter the house even if the door were barred.
The conspirators did not get beyond these two courses of action: to fly or
to defend themselves. To fly was impossible, and to defend themselves was
impracticable. Berta's father and the housekeeper discussed these two
points daily without seeing light on any side. And must they resign
themselves to living under the diabolical yoke of that man? Both found
themselves in a situation that would be difficult to describe. They lived
in constant trepidation, fearing they knew not what.
And who, then, is this man who rules them with his presence and who has
made himself master of Berta's heart? His name is Adrian Baker, he lives
alone, and he possesses a large fortune. This is all that is known about
him.
For the rest, he is young, tall, graceful in figure, with hair like gold
and a complexion as fair as snow; ardent and impassioned in speech, and
with steadfast, searching, and melancholy eyes, blue as the blue of deep
waters.
His manners could not be more natural, affectionate, and simple than they
are. He enters the house and runs up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Nothing stops him. If he meets Berta's father, he rushes to him and
embraces him, and the good man trembles from head to foot in the pressure
of those affectionate embraces. If it is the housekeeper who comes to meet
him, he lays his hand affectionately on her shoulder, and he always has
some pleasant remark to make, some cunning flattery which awakens in the
nurse a strange emotion. She feels as if the sap of youth were, of a
sudden, flowing through her veins.
There is no way of escaping the magic of his words, the spell of his
voice, the charm of his presence. Juana has observed that when he looks at
Berta his eyes shine with a light like that which the eyes of cats emit in
the dark; she has observed also that Berta turns pale under the power of
his glance, and that she bows her head under it as if yielding to the
influence of an irresistible will.
She has observed still more: she has observed that this mysterious man at
times sits lost in thought, his chin resting on his hand and a frown on
his brows, as if he saw some dreadful vision before him, and that
presently, as if awakening from a dream, he talks and smiles and laughs as
before. Berta's father has observed, on his side, that he knows something
about everything, understands something of everything, has an explanation
for everything, comprehends and divines everything, as if he possessed the
secret of all things. And these observations they communicate to each
other, filled with wonder and amazement.
Sometimes, sitting beside Berta, he amuses himself winding the linen floss
or the silks with which she is embroidering, or in cutting fantastic
figures out of any scrap of paper that may be at hand. Then he is like a
child. At other times he speaks of the world and of men, of foreign
countries and of remote ages, with so much gravity and judgment that he
seems like an old man who has retired from the world laden with wisdom and
experience.
But when he seats himself at the piano, then one can only yield one's self
unresistingly to the caprices of his will. The keys, touched by his
fingers, produce melodies so sparkling, so joyous, that the soul is filled
with gayety; but suddenly he changes to another key and the piano moans
and sighs like a human voice, and the heart is moved and the eyes fill
with tears. But this is not all; for, when one least expects it, thunder
low and deep seems to roll through the instrument; and strains are heard,
now near, now distant, that thrill the heart, and tones that fill the soul
with terror; through the vibrating chords all the spirits of the other
world seem to be speaking in an unknown tongue.
It is all very well for the housekeeper to regard Adrian Baker as the
devil in person, or as a man possessed by the devil, or at least as an
extraordinary being, who possesses the diabolical secret of some
wonder-working philtre. It is all very well for Berta's father to see in
him a masterful mind and an eccentric nature. And who knows--he has
sometimes heard of mysterious fluids, of subtle forces which attract arid
repel, of dominating influences, of marvels of magnetism; and although he
has never given a great deal of thought to any of those matters, he thinks
about them since he has felt himself dominated by this singular personage,
and Adrian Baker has become, in fact, his fixed idea, his absorbing
thought, his unceasing preoccupation, his constant monomania. Berta's
father and the housekeeper may very well attribute to him marvellous
powers, suggested by their own excited imaginations; but we must not share
in those hallucinations, nor are we to conclude from them that Adrian
Baker is outside the common law to which ordinary mortals are subject.
This is evident; but, still, who is Adrian Baker?
We shall present here all the information that we have been able to gather
about him, and let each one draw from it the conclusion he pleases.
It is not yet quite two years since one of the carriages which transport
passengers from the railway station to the city which is the scene of our
story, drove rapidly from the station; the energy with which the coachman
whipped up his horses showed the haste or the importance of the travellers
it carried.
This carriage entered the city and stopped before the door of the best
hotel of the place; there the solitary traveller it carried alighted from
it, and this traveller was Adrian Baker. He was enveloped in a travelling
great-coat lined with costly fur. The eagerness with which the waiters of
the hotel hastened to meet him showed that they had discovered in the new
guest a mine of tips. The coachman took his leave of him, hat in hand, and
as he turned away looked around at the bystanders, displaying to them a
gold coin in his left eye.
Nothing more was needed to cause the luggage of the guest to be whisked
off to the most sumptuous room in the hotel. Seven cities of Greece
disputed with one another the honor of having been the birthplace of
Homer; more than seven waiters disputed with one another the honor of
carrying Adrian Baker's valise. He was like a king entering his palace.
For several days he was to be seen alone and on foot, traversing the
streets and visiting the most noteworthy buildings; then, alone also, but
in a carriage, he was to be seen viewing the wildest and most picturesque
spots in the neighborhood, with the attention of an artist, a philosopher,
or a poet.
He was affable and easy in his manners; and he soon had many friends who
talked admiringly of his eccentricities, of his riches, and of his
learning; so that he was for some time the lion of the day, and therefore
the favorite subject of every conversation. To win his friendship would
have been for the men a triumph; and to win his heart would have been for
the haughtiest woman more than a triumph; but Adrian Baker kept his inmost
heart closed alike to friendship and to love; so that only three things
were known about him--that he was young, that he was rich, and that he had
travelled over half the world.
He was supposed to be an Englishman, a German, or an American; in the
first place, because he was fair, and in the second place, because,
although he spoke Spanish as if it were his native tongue, a certain
foreign flavor was to be noticed in his accent, which each one interpreted
according to his fancy.
For the rest, he seemed pleased with the beauty of the sky and the gayety
of the landscape, and although he had told no one whether he intended to
remain there long or not, the fact was that he did not go away. Doubtless
he grew tired of the life at the hotel, for one day he suddenly bought a
fine house and established himself in it like a prince. This edifice,
venerable from its antiquity, had the grandiose aspect of a palace, and
one of its angles fronted Berta's house.
This is all that was known about Adrian Baker. We now know, therefore,
that the mysterious Adrian Baker was neither more nor less than Berta's
neighbor himself.
One night, returning from his daily visit to Berta, he entered the house,
crossed the hall, and shut himself up in his own apartments. Shortly
afterwards the great door of the palace, creaking harshly on its hinges,
was closed; the lights were extinguished one by one, and everything
remained in profound silence. Adrian Baker, however, was not asleep.
At the further end of the room, which was lighted by the soft light of a
lamp, he sat with his elbows resting on a mahogany table and his face
buried in his hands, seemingly lost in thought. And his thoughts could not
be of a pleasant nature, for the stern frown upon his brow showed that
some storm was raging behind that forehead smooth as a child's and pale as
death. The light of the lamp, reflected from his golden hair, seemed to
envelop his head in fantastic lights and shadows.
After many moments of immobility and silence, he struck the table
violently with the palm of his hand, exclaiming:
"Accursed riches! Odious learning! Cruel experience!"
Then he rose to his feet, and striding up and down the room like a madman,
he cried in smothered accents:
"Faith! Faith! Doubt is killing me!"
A moment later he shook his beautiful head and burst into a terrible
laugh.
"Very well," he said. "The proof is a terrible one, but I require this
proof. I must descend into the tomb to obtain it: well, then, I will
descend into the tomb. I must consult the sombre oracle of death
concerning the mysteries of life: well, then, I will consult it."
At this moment the glass chimney of the lamp burst, falling to the floor
in a thousand fragments; the lurid flame sent forth a black smoke that
filled the room with shadows which crept along the walls, mingled together
on the ceiling, and crossed one another on the floor; the furniture seemed
to be moving, the ceiling sinking down, and the walls receding.
In the midst of this demon dance of lights and shadows, the flame of the
lamp went out, as if in obedience to an invisible breath, and in the
darkness that followed all was silence.
Something extraordinary must have occurred in Berta's house, for the nurse
seemed to have been seized by a sudden fit of restlessness that would not
let her sit still for a moment. She went to and fro, upstairs and down,
out and in, with the mechanical movement of an automaton. It was a sort of
nervous attack that had in a moment increased twofold the housekeeper's
domestic activity. Suddenly she would stand still, and placing her
forefinger on her upper lip she would remain motionless, as if she were
seeking in her mind the explanation of some mystery or the key to some
riddle, gesticulating with expressive eloquence, and, so to say, thinking
in gestures.
But the cause of the agitation which we observe in her could not be a very
alarming one, for in the midst of it all there was apparent something like
joy, a secret joy which in spite of herself was perceptible through her
restlessness and her gesticulations. In our poor human nature, joy and
sorrow often manifest themselves by the same symptoms; and a piece of good
news will agitate us in the same way as a piece of bad news.
Be this as it may, what is certain is that the housekeeper seemed to be
excited by some secret thought which she turned over and over in her mind,
and that she was waiting for something with impatience, for from time to
time she stood still, stretched out her neck, and listened.
Suddenly the door-bell rang twice; slowly, deliberately, producing on the
nurse the effect of an electric shock. She threw down some house-linen
which she had in her hands, overturned a chair or two that stood in her
way, and tore a curtain that opposed her progress, leaving devastation and
destruction in her wake, like a storm.
She pulled the cord which opened the door, and she pulled it so violently
that the door sprang wide open, giving admittance to Berta's father, who
entered slowly, leaning on his cane like a man whose vitality is beginning
to fail. As he entered, he raised his eyes with a look of melancholy
discouragement, and at the head of the stairs he saw the housekeeper, who
seemed to be trying to tell him something, gesticulating violently and
waving her arms like the apparatus of a semaphore. The good man did not
understand a word of this telegraphic language, and he stopped at the foot
of the stairs, endeavoring to comprehend the meaning of the signs which
the housekeeper was excitedly making above his head. But, naturally, he
was not very skilful in this kind of investigation, and his not very vivid
imagination was at this moment paralyzed. Finally, he shrugged his
shoulders with a sort of resigned and patient desperation, as if to say,
"What are you trying to tell me?" The housekeeper folded her arms and
shook her head three times; this meant: "Stupid! stupid! stupid!" The good
man bent his head under the triple accusation, and proceeded to ascend the
stairs. At the head Nurse Juana was waiting for him, and without further
ceremony she took him by the hand and drew him into his room; and there,
after assuring herself that no one was within hearing, she put her mouth
close to the ear of Berta's father, and in a mysterious voice, and with an
air of profound mystery, she said to him:
"He is going away!"
"He is going away!" repeated Berta's father, exhaling a profound sigh.
"Yes," she added; "we are going to be free."
"Free!" repeated the good man, shaking his head with an air of
incredulity. Then he asked:
"And where is he going?"
"He is going very far away," answered the nurse. "That is certain. He is
going very far away, to some place, I don't know where, at the other end
of the earth. It is a sudden journey."
The good man sighed again despondently; Nurse Juana looked at him with
amazement, saying:
"Any one would suppose that I had just given you a piece of bad news. Can
that man have bewitched you to the extent--"
"Yes," he interrupted, "for if he goes he will not go alone; he will take
Berta with him, and then what is to become of us?"
"Nothing of the kind," replied Juana. "He will go alone--entirely alone."
"Worse and worse," said the father, "for then, what is to become of
Berta?"
"Nothing," said the nurse. "Out of sight, out of mind. The absent are
forgotten; the dead are buried. That is the way of the world. Berta knows
all about it; she told me herself, and she is as calm and as cool as
possible. Bah, she won't need any cordial to keep her up when she is
bidding him good-bye."
As she uttered the last word she turned her head and she could not
restrain the cry that rose to her lips as she saw Adrian Baker, who had
just entered--Adrian Baker, in person, paler than ever, dressed in a
handsome travelling suit. His eyes shone with a strange lustre, and a
smile, half sad, half mocking, curved his lips.
He begged a thousand pardons for the surprise which he had caused them,
and said that unforeseen circumstances obliged him to undertake a sudden
journey to New York, where he was urgently called by affairs of the
greatest importance, but that he would return soon.
"I am going away," he ended, "but I leave my heart here and I will come
back for it."
Saying this, he embraced Berta's father so affectionately that the worthy
man was deeply moved, and Nurse Juana, dominated by the voice and the
presence of this singular man, felt a tear or two spring to her eyes,
which she hastened to wipe away with the corner of her apron.
Adrian Baker laid his hand on her shoulder, a hand which the nurse felt
tremble, and she trembled herself as she heard him say:
"That is the way of the world, eh? Well, we shall see."
Then he left the room, and the father and the nurse followed him
mechanically.
Berta came out to meet them, and her hand sought Adrian Baker's, and both
hands remained clasped for a long time.
"You will come back soon?" asked Berta, in soft and trembling accents.
"Soon," he answered.
"When?" she asked.
"Soon," repeated Baker. "If you wait for me your heart will announce my
return to you."
"I will wait for ever for you," said Berta, in a choking voice, but
without a tear in her eyes.
Their hands unclasped, Adrian Baker hurried to the stairs, ran down
precipitately, and shortly afterward they heard the rolling of the
carriage which bore him away.
Bertha gave her father a gentle smile and then ran to shut herself up in
her room.
As the noise of the carriage wheels died away in the distance, like a
dying peal of thunder, the housekeeper crossed herself, and said:
"He is gone; now we can breathe freely."
Apparently Nurse Juana knew the human heart well, or at least Berta's
heart, for three months had passed since Adrian Baker had sailed for New
York, and not once had she been able to surprise a tear in the eyes of the
girl to whom she had taken the place of a mother. Berta apparently felt no
grief at his absence.
It is true that during these three months of absence a letter had been
received from New York, in which Adrian Baker said to Berta all that is
said in such cases; it was a simple, tender and earnest letter, that did
not seem to have been written three thousand miles away; on the other side
of the great ocean in which the most ardent and the most profound passions
are wrecked. It is true that this letter was answered by return of mail,
and that it traversed the stormy solitudes of the sea full of promises and
hopes.
It is also true that Berta put away Adrian Baker's letter carefully,
treasuring it as one treasures a relic. It is true that she passed whole
hours seated at her piano running her fingers up and down the keys,
playing Adrian Baker's favorite airs, which he himself had taught her. But
except this, Berta lived like other girls; she had an excellent appetite
and she slept the tranquil sleep of a happy heart. She spent the usual
time at her toilet table and she took pleasure in making herself
beautiful. Some of the asperities of her character had become softened;
she spoke with all her natural vivacity, and, finally, she never mentioned
Adrian Baker's name.
Her father and her nurse observed all this and deduced as a consequence
that the traveller had left no trace in Berta's heart. Only one fear
troubled them,--the fear that he would return.
In this way another month passed, and the memory of Adrian Baker began to
wear away; if his name was sometimes mentioned, it was as one evokes the
memory of a dream.
The dream, however, at times assumed the aspect of an impending reality.
He might return, and beyond a doubt he had not intended to remain away for
ever; his last farewell had not been an eternal one. If he himself was on
the other side of the ocean, three thousand miles away, that is, in New
York, at the other end of the earth, more, in the other world, his house
was there, opposite them, open, kept by his servants with the same luxury
and the same pomp as before he had gone away; his house that seemed like
an enchanted palace waiting for its owner; and the order and care with
which everything was conducted in it indicated that the servants did not
wish to be surprised by the sudden appearance of their master; that is to
say, that Adrian Baker might return at any moment. The plants on the
terrace spread their branches as full of life as if they were tended by
the hands of Adrian Baker himself.
Berta's father and the housekeeper saw in this house a constant menace; it
came to be for them the shadow, so to say, of Adrian Baker; but for all
that, time passed and the traveller did not return.
Spring came, and nature bloomed again with all the richness of vegetation
which she displays in southern climes; and it is in the heart of the South
that the scene of our story is laid. Everything put on its fairest and
most smiling aspect, and the soul felt the vague happiness of a hope that
is about to be realized.
Berta shared in this beautiful awakening of nature, and it might be said
that her every beauty had acquired a new charm; her eyes seemed larger,
her glance gentler, calmer, more profound; her cheeks fresher, softer, and
rosier; and her smile more tender, innocent, and enchanting. Her figure
had acquired a majestic ease, which gave to her movements voluptuousness
and firmness. It seemed as if youth had made a supreme effort, and in
giving the last touch to her beauty had obtained a masterpiece. She was in
the full splendor of her loveliness.
In exchange, Adrian Baker's palace one morning appeared as gloomy as a
sepulchre; the drawn blinds and the closed hall-door gave it the aspect of
a deserted house; profound silence reigned within it, and yet the palace
of Adrian Baker was still inhabited.
In the hall the figure of the porter appeared like a shade; he was dressed
entirely in black, and all the other servants of the house were also clad
in mourning, and in their faces were to be observed signs of sadness.
What had happened?
What had happened was simply that Adrian Baker had died in New York of
an acute attack of pneumonia. The news had spread through the city with
the rapidity with which bad news spreads, and it had also penetrated
into Berta's house. At first it seemed incredible that Adrian Baker should
have died, as if the life of this man were not subject to the
contingencies to which the lives of other mortals are subject. But the
tidings had been confirmed and they must be believed. Besides, the aspect
of the palace bore testimony to the authenticity of the news. In that
house hung with black the very stones seemed to mourn. The news had come
in a black-bordered letter dated in New York and signed by the head
of the house of Wilson and Company, with which Adrian Baker had large sums
deposited.
Berta's father and the housekeeper looked at each other with amazement,
and repeated, one after the other:
"He is dead!"
"He is dead!"
Berta, pale as death itself, surprised them as they uttered these words,
and in a sepulchral voice she said:
"Yes, he has died in New York, but he lives in my heart."
And turning from them she fled to her room and seated herself at the
window from which she could see the terrace of the palace. The flowers,
agitated gently by the breezes of spring, leaned toward Berta as if
sending her a melancholy greeting. She gazed at them without a tear in her
eyes. The extreme pallor of her face and the slight trembling of her lips
alone revealed the grief that afflicted her soul.
Suddenly the flight of a white butterfly circling in the air attracted her
gaze. She followed it absently with her eyes, and the butterfly, as if
drawn by Berta's gaze, tracing capricious circles, left the terrace, flew
swiftly to Berta's window and entered the room.
With an involuntary movement Berta extended her hands to catch it, but the
butterfly darted between them, and circled swiftly and silently about her
head, forming around her brow a sort of aureole, which appeared and
disappeared like a succession of lightning flashes. The wings of the
butterfly glowed above Bertha's head with a light like the first splendors
of the dawn. Then it passed before her eyes, she saw it hovering over the
flowers on the terrace, and then it disappeared from her gaze as if it had
vanished into air. Her eyes sought it with indescribable eagerness, but in
vain; she saw it no more.
She clasped her hands and two large tears rose to her eyes and rolled down
her cheeks.
On the following day the housekeeper, entering Berta's room, saw a shadow
outlined against the wall above the head of her bed. This shadow, as the
nurse looked, took the form of a human head.
It was the head of Adrian Baker, the same head, with its pale forehead,
its compelling glance, and its smile, at once sweet, sad, and mocking.
The housekeeper, out of her wits with terror, crossed herself as if she
had seen a diabolical vision and hurried out of the room.
Adrian Baker's death has wrought terrible ravages in Berta. She does not
distress those around her by ceaseless sighs and tears; she does not
continually proclaim in words the depth of her sorrow; on the contrary,
she hides her grief in her own breast, devours her tears in secret, chokes
back her sighs and utters no unavailing complaints; Adrian Baker's name is
never heard from her lips.
It might be thought that she had consoled herself easily, if in her eyes
there did not lie the shadow of a deep grief, if the pallor of her cheeks
did not cover her youthful beauty like a funeral pall, if her hollow voice
did not reveal the profound loneliness of her heart. At times she smiles
at her father, but in her smiles there is an inexpressible bitterness. She
can be seen fading away, like the flame of an expiring lamp. Like a miser
she hides her grief in the bottom of her heart, as if she feared that it
might be taken from her.
Her father and her nurse see her growing thin, they see her fading away,
they see her dying, without being able to stop the ravages of the
persistent, voiceless, inconsolable grief that is slowly sapping her youth
and her life, and they curse the name of Adrian Baker, and they would at
the same time give their lives to bring him back to life; but death does
not give up its prey, and only one hope remains to them, the last hope--
time.
But time passes, and the memory of Adrian Baker, like a slow poison, is
gradually consuming Berta's life.
Everything has been done: she has been surrounded with all the delights of
the world; the most eligible suitors have sued for her favor; youth,
beauty, and wealth have disputed her affection with one another, but her
grief has remained inaccessible; she has been subjected to every proof,
but it has not been possible to tear from her soul the demon image of
Adrian Baker. Medical skill has been appealed to, and science has
exhausted its resources in vain, for Berta's malady is incurable.
The nurse firmly believes that Adrian Baker has bewitched her; he has
diffused through her blood a diabolical philtre. Strong love will survive
absence, but no love will survive death. Berta, consequently, was
bewitched.
Her father has only one thought, expressed in these words: "He has gone
away and he is taking her with him; after all, he is taking her with
him."
But there is still one other resource to be appealed to--solitude, the
fields, nature. Who can tell! the sky, the sun, the air of the country,
may revive her; the poetry of nature may awaken in her heart new feelings
and new hopes; the murmur of the waters, the song of the birds, the shade
of the trees--why not? There is no human sorrow, however great it may be,
that does not sink into insignificance before the grandeur of the heavens.
At a little distance from the city Berta's father has a small villa, whose
white walls and red roof can be seen through the trees which surround it.
There could not be a more picturesque situation. To the right, the
mountain; to the left, the plain; in front, the sea, stretching far in the
distance, until it blends with the horizon; and that nothing may be
wanting to complete the picture, the ruins of an ancient monastery, seated
on the slope of the mountain, can be seen from the villa.
Berta offered no resistance, for it was a matter of indifference to her
whether she lived in the city or in the country; the only thing she showed
any desire about was that the piano should be taken with them, as if she
regarded it as a dear friend and her only confidant; and the family
removed to the villa and established themselves in it.
Berta herself arranged the room which she was to occupy in the villa. This
opened on the garden and served her both as bedroom and dressing-room.
Above her bed she hung a beautiful life-size photograph of a head. It was
that of Adrian Baker, with his pale, smooth brow, his large blue eyes and
his beautiful golden curls--the head of Adrian Baker admirably
photographed, and which she herself had shaded.
For the piano no place could be found to please Berta. There was only one
common room in the villa, the parlor, which at times also served as a
dining-room. She was hesitating between the parlor and her bedroom, when
the idea occurred to her to put it in a small pavilion covered with vines
and honeysuckles, which stood in a corner of the garden and which was used
as a hot-house. The idea seemed to be a happy one, and she smiled as it
occurred to her, and the piano was placed in the pavilion, like a bird in
its cage.
The journey must have fatigued Berta, for she retired early to her room,
where the nurse left her in bed. Did she sleep? We cannot say; but at dawn
the songs of the birds that made their nests in the garden caused her to
rise. She opened the window-shutters and a flock of birds flew away
frightened, to hide themselves in the tops of the trees, gilded by the
first rays of the sun. Before long, however, the boldest of them returned
to hop before her window, looking at Berta with a certain audacious
familiarity as if they recognized in her an old friend. A few grains of
wheat and a few crumbs of bread scattered on the window-sill gradually
attracted the more timid, who grew at last to be familiar. The slightest
movement, indeed, caused them to take flight precipitately; but they soon
recovered their lost confidence and they returned again to hop gayly on
the iron railing of the window.
Berta watched them, and as she watched them she smiled; and at the end of
a few days she had induced them to come in and out with perfect
confidence. In her solitary walks through the garden and through the
avenue of lime trees which led to the villa, they followed her, flying
from tree to tree. She spent a few hours of the morning, every day, in the
pavilion, and there the birds came also, mingling their joyous carols
with the melancholy strains of the piano; but the mad gayety of the birds
was powerless to mitigate the profound sadness of Berta; her one thought
was still Adrian--Adrian Baker.
This name, which never escaped her lips, was to be seen written everywhere
by Berta's hand, on the garden walls, on the trunks of the trees; and even
the vines that covered the pavilion had interlaced their branches in such
a manner that "Adrian Baker" could be deciphered in them. This name was to
be met everywhere, like the mute echo of an undying memory.
During the morning hours Berta's countenance seemed to be more animated,
and her cheeks had even at times a rosy hue; but as the day declined her
transient animation faded away, as if the sun of her life too approached
its setting.
Seated at her window she contemplated in silence the clouds illumined by
the last rays of the setting sun. Juana, who had exhausted in vain all her
subjects of conversation, was with her. A sudden brightness hovered over
Berta's head for an instant, circled swiftly around it, and then vanished
from sight.
"Did you see it?" cried Berta.
"Yes," answered the nurse, "it was a white butterfly that wanted to settle
on your head."
"Well?" asked Berta.
"White butterflies," said the nurse, "are a sign of good luck; they always
bring good news."
"Yes," answered Berta, pressing her nurse's hand convulsively. "That is my
white butterfly, and this time it will not deceive me. Adrian is coming--
yes, he is coming for me; that is what it has come to tell me--I was
waiting for it."
The nurse gazed at her for a moment with dilated eyes; the setting sun
illumined Berta's countenance with a strange light, and the poor woman,
unable to support the look which burned in the eyes of the sick girl, bent
her head and clasped her hands, saying to herself:
"My God! She has lost her mind!"
The idea that Berta had lost her reason threw the housekeeper into a state
of distraction. She would hide herself in the remotest corners of the
house to cry by herself. She could not bear alone the burden of so
terrible a secret, but to whom could she confide it? How stab the father's
heart so cruelly! To tell him that Berta had lost her reason would be to
kill him. The good man watched over his daughter with the eyes of love,
but love itself made him blind and he did not perceive her madness.
And the housekeeper became every day more and more convinced of the
reality of this dreadful misfortune. During the night she stole many times
to the sleeping girl's bedside and listened to her calm breathing. No
extraordinary change, either in her habits, or her acts, or her words,
gave evidence of the wandering of her mind. True; but she was waiting for
Adrian Baker and she declared that he would come. It was in vain she tried
to persuade her that this was folly, for Berta either grew angry and
commanded her to be silent, or smiled with scornful pity at her arguments.
Was not this madness?
The housekeeper suddenly lost her appetite and her sleep; and she shunned
Berta's father, for she was not sure of being able to keep the secret
which she carried in her bosom. The same thought kept revolving in her
mind like a mill. It seemed as if Berta's madness was going to cost the
nurse also her reason.
One night she lay tossing about, unable to sleep, her imagination filled
with dreadful spectres. In the midst of the darkness she saw faces
approaching and receding from her, that laughed and wept, that vanished to
appear again, and all these faces that danced before her eyes had,
notwithstanding their grotesque features, a diabolical likeness to the
head of Adrian Baker. The nurse, terrified, shut her eyes, that she might
not see them, but notwithstanding she still continued seeing them.
She thought that she was under the influence of a nightmare, and making an
effort she sat up in the bed. Suddenly she heard a distant sound of sweet
music, a mysterious melody whose notes died away on the breeze.
She listened attentively, and she soon comprehended that the music she
heard came from the piano; and she sprang out of bed, crying:
"Berta! Berta!"
She began to dress herself quickly, groping for her things in the
darkness, saying as she did so, in a voice full of anguish:
"Alone, in the pavilion, and at this hour! Child of my heart, you are
mad!"
All the visions she had seen disappeared; she saw nothing, she only heard
the distant notes of the piano breaking the silence of the night.
Going into the hall she groped her way to Berta's room. She gently pushed
in the door, which opened noiselessly, and an indistinct glimmer, like the
last gleam of twilight, met her eyes. It was the light of the night-lamp
burning softly in its porcelain vase.
Her first glance was at the bed, which, in the indistinct light, presented
to her eyes only a shapeless object; but in a moment more she saw that the
bed was empty.
She thought of taking the lamp that burned in the corner of the room to
light her way and going to the pavilion, but at this moment she felt a
breath of cold damp air blowing softly on her face.
She turned her eyes in the direction from which the breeze had come, and
observed that the window was wide open and that outside all was profound
darkness.
And filled with indescribable amazement, unwilling to believe the evidence
of her eyes, she saw what appeared to be a human figure standing
motionless in front of the window, its hands clasped and its forehead
resting against the window-frame.
A cold perspiration, like that of death, broke out over her; she would
have shuddered, but she could not; she attempted to cry out, but her voice
died away in her throat; she attempted to fly, but her feet, fastened to
the ground, refused to carry her.
With her eyes starting from their sockets, her mouth wide open, and terror
depicted on her countenance, she stood as if petrified, without the
strength to keep erect or the will to fall.
And in truth she had some reason to be terrified.
Before her stood Berta, leaning motionless against the window, drinking in
with rapt attention the notes which at that moment came in a torrent from
the piano.
It was not Berta, then, who was breaking the silence of the night with
that mysterious music.
What unknown hand, what invisible hand was it that drew those sounds from
the chords of the piano in the midst of the silence and the solitude of
the night! Was what her eyes saw real! Was what her ears were listening to
real! Or was it all the dreadful hallucination of a terrible dream!
And this was not all; for the memory of the terrified nurse recalls with a
secret shudder those mysterious melodies which now enchain her ear. Yes;
through the piano roll sounds like the rumbling of thunder, and strains
are heard, now near, now far, that thrill the heart, and tones that fill
the soul with terror; through the vibrating chords all the spirits of the
other world seem to be speaking in an unknown tongue.
I do not know how long the housekeeper might have stood silent and
motionless, under the influence of the terror which mastered her, if Berta
had not observed her.
It caused her neither surprise nor alarm to see her nurse there.
Approaching her she took her by the hand, and, shaking her gently, said:
"Do you see?--Do you hear?--It is Adrian--Adrian who has come for me; the
white butterfly did not deceive me."
The housekeeper had by this time recovered herself sufficiently to pass
her hand over her forehead and to rub her eyes.
"I knew that he would come," continued Berta; "I have been waiting for him
every day."
The nurse, as if by a supreme effort, drew a deep breath.
"Do you hear those sighs that come from the piano?" said Berta. "It is he;
he is calling me; and since you are here, let us go to meet him."
And taking the lamp in her hand as she spoke, she added:
"Follow me."
Nurse Juana followed her like a ghost.
They entered the garden and walked toward the pavilion. The pale light of
the lamp illumined Berta's countenance, shedding around it a fantastic
light that made the surrounding darkness seem more intense.
The nurse felt herself drawn along by Berta; she walked mechanically; a
power stronger than her terror impelled her.
In this way they crossed the garden and reached the door of the pavilion.
There Berta stopped, and called softly:
"Adrian!"
But there was no response to her call.
Then they entered the pavilion.
Juana caught hold of Berta to keep from falling, and closed her eyes.
The light of the lamp illumined the pavilion, whose solitude seemed
startled by this unexpected visit; the piano was open and mute.
"No one!" exclaimed Berta, sighing.
"No one," repeated Juana, opening her eyes.
And so it was; the pavilion was empty.
It is beyond a doubt that Berta's piano has the marvellous quality of
making its strings sound without the intervention of the human hand. And
this being the case, it must be admitted that this marvellous instrument
is, in addition, a consummate musician, for it plays with the skill
attained only by great artists.
But since Nurse Juana cannot conceive how a piano can play of itself,
without a hand moving the keys, she has decided that in this diabolical
affair an invisible hand, the ghostly hand of some spirit from the other
world, has intervened.
This supposition is not altogether admissible, for it seems to have been
sufficiently proved that spirits do not possess hands. But the nurse does
not stop for such fine distinctions, and she firmly believes that the
spirit of Adrian Baker is wandering about the villa. Condemned perhaps to
eternal torment, he takes pleasure in torturing the living even after his
death.
And it is indeed a diabolical amusement, for the serenade is repeated
nightly; the family are aroused from sleep; they hasten to the pavilion
and the piano becomes silent; they enter it and they find no one. They
have observed that the airs played by Berta in the morning are repeated by
the piano at night.
Juana is assailed by continual terrors; there is no peace in the house.
Berta's father is unable to explain the mystery, and his mind is filled
with confusion and his heart is a prey to sudden alarms. The light of day
dissipates the agitation of their minds, they fancy themselves the victims
of vain hallucinations, and, arming themselves with heroic valor, they
make plans for unravelling the awesome mystery.
The most courageous among them would hide in the pavilion, and there await
in concealment the hour of the strange occurrence; in this way they would
discover what fingers drew those sounds from the piano.
Strong in this purpose they awaited the first shades of night; but then
the courage of the strongest failed. The air became filled with fearful
shadows, the silence with mysterious noises, and no one ventured to leave
the house. They spent the nights in vigil and the terror by which all were
possessed made them seem interminable.
And for Berta, on the other hand, the days were interminable, and she
awaited the nights with eager impatience.
One afternoon she expressed a desire to visit the ruins of the monastery,
and she showed so much eagerness in the matter that there was no resource
but to accede to her wish. Her father and her nurse resolved to accompany
her, and the three set out.
The distance between the villa and the monastery was not great, but the
party walked slowly. In the winding path the ruins disappeared suddenly
behind a hill, as if the earth had swallowed them; a few steps further on
they suddenly reappeared; and the travellers stood before the ruined
portico.
From this point the eye could contemplate the ruined walls, the broken
partitions, the ceilings fallen in, and between the loose stones the
solitary flowers of the ruin. Only the arches which supported the vaulted
roof of the chapel had resisted the corroding influence of time.
The nurse would have now willingly returned to the villa, and Berta's
father had no desire to go any further, but Berta passed through the
ruined portico, and they were obliged to follow her.
She made her way into the chapel, passing under the crumbling arches which
threatened at every moment to fall down and crush her, and she emerged at
what must have been the centre of the monastery, for the remains of the
wall and some broken and unsteady pilasters showed four paths which,
uniting at their extremities, formed a square. This must have been the
cloister, in the middle were vestiges of a choked-up cistern.
Here Berta sat down on a piece of cornice which was imbedded in the
rubbish. She seemed pleased in the midst of this desolation. Her father
and the nurse joined her with terror depicted on their countenances; they
had heard the noise of footsteps in the chapel; more, Juana had seen a
shadow glide away; how or where she did not know, but she was sure that
she had seen it.
Berta smiled and said:
"The noise of footsteps and a shadow? Very well; what harm can those
footsteps or that shadow do us? They are perhaps the footsteps of Adrian
Baker following us; it is his shade that accompanies us. What is there
strange in that? Do you not know that I carry him in my heart? Do you not
know that I am waiting for him, that I am always waiting for him?"
At the name of Adrian Baker, Berta's father and the nurse shuddered.
"Yes, my child," said the former, "but we are far from the villa, the sun
is setting--it is growing late."
"Yes, yes," said Juana, "let us go back."
Berta drew her father affectionately toward her and said:
"Dear father, I am not mad. Juana, I am not mad. Adrian promised me that
he would return, and he will return. I am waiting for him. Why should that
be madness? I know that I grieve you, and I do not wish to grieve you. I
have begged God a thousand times on my knees to tear his image from my
heart and his memory from my mind; but God, who sees all things, from whom
nothing is hidden, to whom all things are possible, has not wished to do
it. Why? He alone knows."
The father's eyes filled with tears, and the nurse hid her face in her
hands to keep back the sobs that rose in her throat.
Berta continued:
"Yes, it is growing late. But I am very tired. Let us wait a moment."
They had nothing to say in answer to her words, nor could they have said
anything, for their voices failed them.
All three remained silent.
Suddenly they looked at one another with indescribable anxiety, for all
three had heard a sigh, a human sigh that seemed exhaled by the ruins
around them.
Could it have been the wind, moaning as it swept through the sharp points
of the broken walls?
Berta rose to her feet, and cried twice in a loud voice:
"Adrian! Adrian!"
Her voice was borne away on the breeze, losing itself in the distance. But
before the last notes died away, another voice resounded among the ruins,
saying:
"Berta! Berta!"
The sun had just set, and the twilight shadows gathered swiftly, as if
they had sprung up from among the ruins, hiding the broken pillars and the
crumbling walls.
In one of the angles of the cloister appeared a moving shadow. This shadow
advanced slowly until it reached the middle of the court where the remains
of the disused cistern were seen. There it stopped, and in a soft clear
voice uttered the words:
"It is I, Berta; it is I."
"He!" she cried, extending her arms in the air.
Juana uttered a cry of terror and caught hold of Berta with all the
strength left her; the father tried to rise, but, unable to sustain
himself, fell on his knees beside his daughter.
It was not possible to reject the evidence of their senses. Whatever might
be the hidden cause of the marvel, the dark key of the mystery, the shadow
which had just appeared in the angle of the cloister was clearly the
authentic image, the _vera effigies_, the very person of Adrian Baker. The
astonished eyes of Berta, of her father, and of the nurse could not refuse
to believe it.
His fair curls, his pale brow, the outlines of his figure, his air, his
glance, his voice--all were there before the amazed eyes of Berta, her
father, and the nurse.
Now, was this a fantastic creation of their troubled senses? Was it a
phantom of the brain, or a reality? Did all three suffer at the same time
the same hallucination? The fixed thought of all three was Adrian Baker--
and the senses often counterfeit the reality of our vain imaginings. The
state of their minds, the place, the hour--and then, the air produces
sounds that deceive; the light and the darkness mingling together in the
mysterious hour of twilight people the solitude with strange visions. And
in the midst of those ruins, which began to assume fantastic forms, and
which seemed to move, in the gathering shades of twilight, Berta, her
father, and the nurse might well believe themselves in the presence of a
spectre evoked there by their presence.
But the fact was, that the shadow, instead of vanishing, instead of
changing its shape, as happens with chimeras of the brain, assumed before
their eyes a more distinct form, more definite outlines, according as he
approached the group.
Reaching them, he took gently in his the hands Berta held out to him. His
eyes shone with the light of a supreme triumph.
"It is I," he said, in a moved voice. "I, Adrian Baker. I am not a spectre
risen from the tomb."
Berta felt herself growing faint and was obliged to sit down; and Adrian
Baker continued thus:
"Forgive me. I have put your heart to a terrible proof, but the doubts of
my soul were still more terrible. The world had filled my spirit with
horrible distrust and I desired to sound the uttermost depths of your
love. It has resisted absence, and it has resisted death. Your love for me
was not a passing fancy; you did not deceive yourself when you vowed me an
eternal love. I left you in order to watch you and I died to comprehend
you. I have followed you everywhere; I have not separated from you a
single moment. My sweet Berta! You waited for me living, and you have
waited for me dead. 'If you wait for me,' I said, 'your own heart will
announce my return to you,' and you see I have returned. I felt for you an
immense tenderness, but a terrible doubt consumed my heart. Had my riches
dazzled you? Forgive me, Berta. A fatal learning had frozen faith in my
soul; I doubted everything, and I doubted your heart also--I doubted you."
Berta clasped her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven, exclaimed
mournfully:
"My God! what cruel injustice!"
"Yes!" burst out Adrian Baker; "cruel injustice! but you have resuscitated
my heart; you have brought my soul back to life."
"Ah," said Berta, laying her hands on his breast, "what if it were too
late!"
Then, turning to her father and the nurse, she said:
"I feel very cold; let us return to the villa;" and leaning on Adrian
Baker's arm, she led the way.
Her father and the nurse followed her in silence. The good man had
comprehended everything, but the poor woman comprehended nothing.
What passed that night in the villa it is not necessary to relate; it was
a night of pain, of agitation, and of anguish. It was necessary to go to
the city for a physician; why? Because Berta was dying. Adrian Baker was
the image of despair; the unhappy father wept as if his heart would break,
and the nurse stole away from time to time to cry, unable to restrain her
tears.
At dawn it was necessary to go again to the city, for the physician of the
body had exhausted the resources of science, and they were obliged to have
recourse to the physician of the soul.
Dawn was just breaking when a priest alighted at the door of the villa.
The sick girl received him, if we may be allowed the expression, with
melancholy gladness, and a little later all was over.
In the middle of the room, on a funeral bier, lighted by six large wax
tapers, which cast a melancholy light around, lay the body of the dead
girl. The window admitted the morning light; and the autumn wind, tearing
the dead leaves from the trees in the garden, scattered them over the
inanimate form of Berta, as if death thus rendered homage to death.
Attracted by the light of the torches, a white butterfly flew silently in
and circled around and around the head of the dead girl.
Watching the body were the father, leaning over the bier, bowed down under
the weight of an immeasurable grief; the nurse dissolved in tears; Adrian,
with dry and glittering eyes, pale, motionless, mute, terrible in his
anguish; and the priest with folded arms and head bent over his breast,
murmuring pious prayers.
Such was the scene which the morning sun lighted in Berta's room. The
birds of the garden alighted on the rail of the window, but did not
venture to enter; they looked in apprehensively and flew away terrified;
they twittered on the branches of the trees, and their melancholy
chirpings seemed like sighs.
Breathing a sigh torn from the inmost depths of his soul, Adrian Baker
exclaimed in a hollow voice:
"Miserable man that I am! I have killed her!"
"Ah, yes," said the priest, slowly shaking his head. "Divine Justice--
Doubt kills."
MAESE PEREZ, THE ORGANIST
By Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
From "Modern Ghosts." Translated by Rollo Ogden.
MAESE PEREZ, THE ORGANIST
I.
"Do you see that man with the scarlet cloak, and the white plume in his
hat, and the gold-embroidered vest? I mean the one just getting out of his
litter and going to greet that lady--the one coming along after those four
pages who are carrying torches? Well, that is the Marquis of Mascoso,
lover of the widow, the Countess of Villapineda. They say that before he
began paying court to her he had sought the hand of a very wealthy man's
daughter, but the girl's father, who they say is a trifle close-fisted--
but hush! Speaking of the devil--do you see that man closely wrapped in
his cloak coming on foot under the arch of San Felipe? Well, he is the
father in question. Everybody in Seville knows him on account of his
immense fortune.
"Look--look at that group of stately men! They are the twenty-four
knights. Aha! there's that Heming, too. They say that the gentlemen of the
green cross have not challenged him yet, thanks to his influence with the
great ones at Madrid. All he comes to church for is to hear the music.
"Alas! neighbor, that looks bad. I fear there's going to be a scuffle.
I shall take refuge in the church, for, according to my guess, there will
be more blows than Paternosters. Look, look! the Duke of Alcala's people
are coming round the corner of Saint Peter's Square, and I think I see
the Duke of Medinasidonia's men in Duenas Alley. Didn't I tell you?
There--there! The blows are beginning. Neighbor, neighbor, this way before
they close the doors!
"But what's that? They've left off. What's that light? Torches! a litter!
It's the bishop himself! God preserve him in his office as many centuries
as I desire to live myself! If it were not for him, half Seville would
have been burned up by this time with these quarrels of the dukes. Look at
them, look at them, the hypocrites, how they both press forward to kiss
the bishop's ring!
"But come, neighbor--come into the church before it is packed full. Some
nights like this it is so crowded that you could not get in if you were no
larger than a grain of wheat. The nuns have a prize in their organist.
Other sisterhoods have made Maese Perez magnificent offers; nothing
strange about that, though, for the very archbishop has offered him
mountains of gold if he would go to the cathedral. But he would not listen
to them. He would sooner die than give up his beloved organ. You don't
know Maese Perez? Oh, I forgot you had just come to the neighborhood.
Well, he is a holy man; poor, to be sure, but as charitable as any man
that ever lived. With no relative but a daughter, and no friend but his
organ, he spends all his time in caring for the one and repairing the
other. The organ is an old affair, you must know; but that makes no
difference to him. He handles it so that its tone is a wonder. How he does
know it! and all by touch, too, for did I tell you that the poor man was
born blind?
"Humble, too, as the very stones. He always says that he is only a poor
convent organist, when the fact is he could give lessons in sol fa to the
very chapel master of the primate. You see, he began before he had teeth.
His father had the same position before him, and as the boy showed such
talent, it was very natural that he should succeed his father when the
latter died. And what a touch he has, God bless him! He always plays well,
always; but on a night like this he is wonderful. He has the greatest
devotion to this Christmas Eve mass, and when the host is elevated,
precisely at twelve o'clock, which is the time that Our Lord came into the
world, his organ sounds like the voices of angels.
"But why need I try to tell you about what you are going to hear to-night?
It is enough for you to see that all the elegance of Seville, the very
archbishop included, comes to a humble convent to listen to him. And it is
not only the learned people who can understand his skill that come; the
common people, too, swarm to the church, and are still as the dead when
Maese Perez puts his hand to the organ. And when the host is elevated--
when the host is elevated, then you can't hear a fly. Great tears fall
from every eye, and when the music is over a long-drawn sigh is heard,
showing how the people have been holding their breath all through.
"But come, come, the bells have stopped ringing, and the mass is going to
begin. Hurry in. This is Christmas Eve for everybody, but for no one is it
a greater occasion than for us."
So saying, the good woman who had been acting as cicerone for her neighbor
pressed through the portico of the Convent of Santa Ines, and elbowing
this one and pushing the other, succeeded in getting inside the church,
forcing her way through the multitude that was crowding about the door.
II.
The church was profusely lighted. The flood of light which fell from
the altars glanced from the rich jewels of the great ladies, who,
kneeling upon velvet cushions placed before them by pages, and taking
their prayer-books from the hands of female attendants, formed a brilliant
circle around the chancel lattice. Standing next that lattice, wrapped
in their richly colored and embroidered cloaks, letting their green and
red orders be seen with studied carelessness, holding in one hand their
hats, the plumes sweeping the floor, and letting the other rest upon
the polished hilts of rapiers or the jewelled handles of daggers, the
twenty-four knights, and a large part of the highest nobility of Seville,
seemed to be forming a wall for the purpose of keeping their wives and
daughters from contact with the populace. The latter, swaying back and
forth at the rear of the nave, with a noise like that of a rising surf,
broke out into joyous acclamations as the archbishop was seen to come in.
That dignitary seated himself near the high altar under a scarlet canopy,
surrounded by his attendants, and three times blessed the people.
It was time for the mass to begin.
Nevertheless, several minutes passed before the celebrant appeared. The
multitude commenced to murmur impatiently; the knights exchanged words
with each other in a low tone; and the archbishop sent one of his
attendants to the sacristan to inquire why the ceremony did not begin.
"Maese Perez has fallen sick, very sick, and it will be impossible for him
to come to the midnight mass."
This was the word brought back by the attendant.
The news ran instantly through the crowd. The disturbance caused by it was
so great that the chief judge rose to his feet, and the officers came into
the church, to enforce silence.
Just then a man of unpleasant face, thin, bony, and cross-eyed too, pushed
up to the place where the archbishop was sitting.
"Maese Perez is sick," he said; "the ceremony cannot begin. If you see
fit, I will play the organ in his absence. Maese Perez is not the best
organist in the world, nor need this instrument be left unused after his
death for lack of any one able to play it."
The archbishop nodded his head in assent, although some of the faithful,
who had already recognized in that strange person an envious rival of the
organist of Santa Ines, were breaking out in cries of displeasure.
Suddenly a surprising noise was heard in the portico.
"Maese Perez is here! Maese Perez is here!"
At this shout, coming from those jammed in by the door, every one looked
around.
Maese Perez, pale and feeble, was in fact entering the church, brought in
a chair which all were quarrelling for the honor of carrying upon their
shoulders.
The commands of the physicians, the tears of his daughter--nothing had
been able to keep him in bed.
"No," he had said; "this is the last one, I know it. I know it, and I do
not want to die without visiting my organ again, this night above all,
this Christmas Eve. Come, I desire it, I order it; come, to the church!"
His desire had been gratified. The people carried him in their arms to the
organ-loft. The mass began.
Twelve struck on the cathedral clock.
The introit came, then the Gospel, then the offertory, and the moment
arrived when the priest, after consecrating the sacred wafer, took it in
his hands and began to elevate it. A cloud of incense filled the church in
bluish undulations. The little bells rang out in vibrating peals, and
Maese Perez placed his aged fingers upon the organ keys.
The multitudinous voices of the metal tubes gave forth a prolonged and
majestic chord, which died away little by little, as if a gentle breeze
had borne away its last echoes.
To this opening burst, which seemed like a voice lifted up to heaven from
earth, responded a sweet and distant note, which went on swelling and
swelling in volume until it became a torrent of overpowering harmony. It
was the voice of the angels, traversing space, and reaching the world.
Then distant hymns began to be heard, intoned by the hierarchies of
seraphim; a thousand hymns at once, mingling to form a single one, though
this one was only an accompaniment to a strange melody which seemed to
float above that ocean of mysterious echoes, as a strip of fog above the
waves of the sea.
One song after another died away. The movement grew simpler. Now only two
voices were heard, whose echoes blended. Then but one remained, and alone
sustained a note as brilliant as a thread of light. The priest bowed his
face, and above his gray head appeared the host. At that moment the note
which Maese Perez was holding began to swell and swell, and an explosion
of unspeakable joy filled the church.
From each of the notes forming that magnificent chord a theme was
developed; and some near, others far away, these brilliant, those muffled,
one would have said that the waters and the birds, the breezes and the
forests, men and angels, earth and heaven, were singing, each in its own
language, a hymn in praise of the Saviour's birth.
The people listened, amazed and breathless. The officiating priest felt
his hands trembling; for it seemed as if he had seen the heavens opened
and the host transfigured.
The organ kept on, but its voice sank away gradually, like a tone going
from echo to echo, and dying as it goes. Suddenly a cry was heard in the
organ-loft--a piercing, shrill cry, the cry of a woman.
The organ gave a strange, discordant sound, like a sob, and then was
silent.
The multitude flocked to the stairs leading up to the organ-loft, towards
which the anxious gaze of the faithful was turned.
"What has happened? What is the matter?" one asked the other, and no one
knew what to reply. The confusion increased. The excitement threatened to
disturb the good order and decorum fitting within a church.
"What was that?" asked the great ladies of the chief judge. He had been
one of the first to ascend to the organ-loft. Now, pale and displaying
signs of deep grief, he was going to the archbishop, who was anxious, like
everybody else, to know the cause of the disturbance.
"What's the matter?"
"Maese Perez has just expired."
In fact, when the first of the faithful rushed up the stairway, and
reached the organ-loft, they saw the poor organist fallen face down upon
the keys of his old instrument, which was still vibrating, while his
daughter, kneeling at his feet, was vainly calling to him with tears and
sobs.
III.
"Good-evening, my dear Dona Baltasara. Are you also going to-night to the
Christmas Eve mass? For my part, I was intending to go to the parish
church to hear it, but what has happened--where is Vicente going, do you
ask? Why, where the crowd goes. And I must say, to tell the truth, that
ever since Maese Perez died, it seems as if a marble slab was on my heart
whenever I go to Santa Ines. Poor dear man! He was a saint! I know one
thing--I keep a piece of his cloak as a relic, and he deserves it.
I solemnly believe that if the archbishop would stir in the matter, our
grandchildren would see his image among the saints on the altars. But,
of course, he won't do that. The dead and absent have no friends, as they
say. It's all the latest thing, nowadays; you understand me. What? You do
not know what has happened? Well, it's true you are not exactly in our
situation. From our house to the church, and from the church to our
house--a word here and another one there--on the wing--without any
curiosity whatever--I easily find out all the news.
"Well, then, it's a settled thing that the organist of San Roman--that
squint-eye, who is always slandering other organists--that great
blunderer, who seems more like a butcher than a master of sol fa--is going
to play this Christmas Eve in Maese Perez's old place. Of course, you
know, for everybody knows it, and it is a public matter in all Seville,
that no one dared to try it. His daughter would not, though she is a
professor of music herself. After her father's death she went into the
convent as a novice. Her unwillingness to play was the most natural thing
in the world; accustomed as she was to those marvellous performances, any
other playing must have appeared bad to her, not to speak of her desire to
avoid comparisons. But when the sisterhood had already decided that in
honor of the dead organist, and as a token of respect to his memory, the
organ should not be played to-night, here comes this fellow along, and
says that he is ready to play it.
"Ignorance is the boldest of all things. It is true, the fault is not his,
so much as theirs who have consented to this profanation, but that is the
way of the world. But, I say, there's no small bit of people coming. Any
one would say that nothing had changed since last year. The same
distinguished persons, the same elegant costumes, the crowding at the
door, the same excitement in the portico, the same throng in the church.
Alas! if the dead man were to rise, he would feel like dying again to hear
his organ played by inferior hands. The fact is, if what the people of the
neighborhood tell me is true, they are getting a fine reception ready for
the intruder. When the time comes for him to touch the keys, there is
going to break out a racket made by timbrels, drums, and horse-fiddles, so
that you can't hear anything else. But hush! there's the hero of the
occasion going into the church. Goodness! what gaudy clothes, what a
neckcloth, what a high and mighty air! Come, hurry up, the archbishop came
only a moment ago, and the mass is going to begin. Come on; I guess this
night will give us something to talk about for many a day!"
Saying this, the worthy woman, whom the reader recognizes by her abrupt
talkativeness, went into the Church of Santa Ines, opening for herself a
path, in her usual way, by shoving and elbowing through the crowd.
The ceremony had already begun. The church was as brilliant as the year
before.
The new organist, after passing between the rows of the faithful in the
nave, and going to kiss the archbishop's ring, had gone up to the
organ-loft, where he was trying one stop of the organ after another, with
an affected and ridiculous gravity.
A low, confused noise was heard coming from the common people clustered at
the rear of the church, a sure augury of the coming storm, which would not
be long in breaking.
"He is a mere clown," said some, "who does not know how to do anything,
not even look straight."
"He is an ignoramus," said others, "who, after having made a perfect
rattle out of the organ in his own church, comes here to profane Maese
Perez's."
And while one was taking off his cloak so as to be ready to beat his drum
to good advantage, and another was testing his timbrel, and all were more
and more buzzing out in talk, only here and there could one be found to
defend even that curious person, whose proud and pedantic bearing so
strongly contrasted with the modest appearance and kind affability of
Maese Perez.
At last the looked-for moment arrived, when the priest, after bowing low
and murmuring the sacred words, took the host in his hands. The bells gave
forth a peal, like a rain of crystal notes; the transparent waves of
incense rose, and the organ sounded.
But its first chord was drowned by a horrible clamor which filled the
whole church. Bagpipes, horns, timbrels, drums, every instrument known to
the populace, lifted up their discordant voices all at once.
The confusion and clangor lasted but a few seconds. As the noises began,
so they ended, all together.
The second chord, full, bold, magnificent, sustained itself, pouring from
the organ's metal tubes like a cascade of inexhaustible and sonorous
harmony.
Celestial songs like those that caress the ear in moments of ecstasy;
songs which the soul perceives, but which the lip cannot repeat; single
notes of a distant melody, which sound at intervals, borne on the breeze;
the rustle of leaves kissing each other on the trees with a murmur like
rain; trills of larks which rise with quivering songs from among the
flowers like a flight of arrows to the sky; nameless sounds, overwhelming
as the roar of a tempest; fluttering hymns, which seemed to be mounting to
the throne of the Lord like a mixture of light and sound--all were
expressed by the organ's hundred voices, with more vigor, more subtle
poetry, more weird coloring, than had ever been known before.
When the organist came down from the loft the crowd which pressed up to
the stairway was so great, and their eagerness to see and greet him so
intense, that the chief judge, fearing, and not without reason, that he
would be suffocated among them all, ordered some of the officers to open a
path for the organist, with their staves of office, so that he could reach
the high altar, where the prelate was waiting for him.
"You perceive," said the archbishop, "that I have come all the way from my
palace to hear you. Now, are you going to be as cruel as Maese Perez? He
would never save me the journey, by going to play the Christmas Eve mass
in the cathedral."
"Next year," replied the organist, "I promise to give you the pleasure;
since, for all the gold in the world, I would never play this organ
again."
"But why not?" interrupted the prelate.
"Because," returned the organist, endeavoring to repress the agitation
which revealed itself in the pallor of his face--"because it is so old and
poor; one cannot express one's self on it satisfactorily."
The archbishop withdrew, followed by his attendants. One after another the
litters of the great folk disappeared in the windings of the neighboring
streets. The group in the portico scattered. The sexton was locking up the
doors, when two women were perceived, who had stopped to cross themselves
and mutter a prayer, and who were now going on their way into Duenas
Alley.
"What would you have, my dear Dona Baltasara?" one was saying. "That's the
way I am. Every crazy person with his whim. The barefooted Capuchins might
assure me that it was so, and I would not believe it. That man never
played what we have heard. Why, I have heard him a thousand times in San
Bartolome, his parish church; the priest had to send him away he was so
poor a player. You felt like plugging your ears with cotton. Why, all you
need is to look at his face, and that is the mirror of the soul, they say.
I remember, as if I was seeing him now, poor man--I remember Maese Perez's
face, nights like this, when he came down from the organ-loft, after
having entranced the audience with his splendors. What a gracious smile!
What a happy glow on his face! Old as he was, he seemed like an angel. But
this creature came plunging down as if a dog were barking at him on the
landing, and all the color of a dead man, while his--come, dear Dona
Baltasara, believe me, and believe what I say: there is some great mystery
about this."
Thus conversing, the two women turned the corner of the alley, and
disappeared. There is no need of saying who one of them was.
IV.
Another year had gone by. The abbess of the Convent of Santa Ines and
Maese Perez's daughter were talking in a low voice, half hidden in the
shadows of the church choir. The penetrating voice of the bell was
summoning the faithful. A very few people were passing through the
portico, silent and deserted, this year, and after taking holy water at
the door, were choosing seats in a corner of the nave, where a handful of
residents of the neighborhood were quietly waiting for the Christmas Eve
mass to begin.
"There, you see," the mother superior was saying, "your fear is entirely
childish; there is no one in the church. All Seville is trooping to the
cathedral to-night. Play the organ, and do it without any distrust
whatever. We are only a sisterhood here. But why don't you speak? What has
happened? What is the matter with you?"
"I am afraid," replied the girl, in a tone of the deepest agitation.
"Afraid! Of what?"
"I do not know--something supernatural. Listen to what happened last
night. I had heard you say that you were anxious for me to play the organ
for the mass. I was proud of the honor, and I thought I would arrange the
stops and get the organ in good tune so as to give you a surprise to-day.
Alone I went into the choir and opened the door leading to the organ-loft.
The cathedral clock was striking just then, I do not know what hour; but
the strokes of the bell were very mournful, and they were very numerous--
going on sounding for a century, as it seemed to me, while I stood as if
nailed to the threshold.
"The church was empty and dark. Far away there gleamed a feeble light,
like a faint star in the sky; it was the lamp burning on the high altar.
By its flickering light, which only helped to make the deep horror of the
shadows the more intense, I saw--I saw--mother, do not disbelieve it--a
man. In perfect silence, and with his back turned towards me, he was
running over the organ-keys with one hand while managing the stops with
the other. And the organ sounded, but in an indescribable manner. It
seemed as if each note were a sob smothered in the metal tube, which
vibrated under the pressure of the air compressed within it, and gave
forth a low, almost imperceptible tone, yet exact and true.
"The cathedral clock kept on striking, and that man kept on running over
the keys. I could hear his very breathing.
"Fright had frozen the blood in my veins. My body was as cold as ice,
except my head, and that was burning. I tried to cry out, but I could not.
That man turned his face and looked at me--no, he did not look at me, for
he was blind. It was my father!"
"Nonsense, sister! Banish these fancies with which the adversary endeavors
to overturn weak imaginations. Address a Paternoster and an Ave Maria to
the archangel, Saint Michael, the captain of the celestial hosts, that he
may aid you in opposing evil spirits. Wear on your neck a scapulary which
has been pressed to the relics of Saint Pacomio, the counsellor against
temptations, and go, go quickly, and sit at the organ. The mass is going
to begin, and the faithful are growing impatient. Your father is in
heaven, and thence, instead of giving you a fright, will descend to
inspire his daughter in the solemn service."
The prioress went to occupy her seat in the choir in the midst of the
sisterhood. Maese Perez's daughter opened the door of the organ-loft with
trembling hand, sat down at the organ, and the mass began.
The mass began, and went on without anything unusual happening until the
time of consecration came. Then the organ sounded. At the same time came a
scream from Maese Perez's daughter.
The mother superior, the nuns, and some of the faithful rushed up to the
organ-loft.
"Look at him!--look at him!" cried the girl, fixing her eyes, starting
from their sockets, upon the seat, from which she had risen in terror. She
was clinging with convulsed hands to the railing of the organ-loft.
Everybody looked intently at the spot to which she directed her gaze. No
one was at the organ, yet it went on sounding--sounding like the songs of
the archangels in their bursts of mystic ecstasy.
"Didn't I tell you a thousand times, if I did once, dear Dona Baltasara--
didn't I tell you? There is some great mystery about this. What! didn't
you go last night to the Christmas Eve mass? Well, you must know, anyhow,
what happened. Nothing else is talked about in the whole city. The
archbishop is furious, and no wonder. Not to have gone to Santa Ines, not
to have been present at the miracle--and all to hear a wretched clatter!
That's all the inspired organist of San Bartolome made in the cathedral,
so persons who heard him tell me. Yes, I said so all the time. The
squint-eye never could have played that. It was all a lie. There is some
great mystery here. What do I think it was? Why, it was the soul of Maese
Perez."
MOORS AND CHRISTIANS
By Pedro Antonio De Alarcon
From "Moors and Christians,", by Pedro Antonio de Alarcon.
Translated by Mary J. Serrano.
MOORS AND CHRISTIANS
I.
The once famous but now little known town of Aldeire is situated in the
Marquisate of El Cenet, or, let us say, on the eastern slope of the
Alpujarra, and partly hangs over a ledge, partly hides itself in a ravine
of the giant central ridge of Sierra Nevada, five or six thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and seven or eight thousand below the eternal
snows of the Mulhacem.
Aldeire, be it said with all respect to its reverend pastor, is a Moorish
town. That it was formerly Moorish is clearly proved by its name, its
situation, and its architecture, and that it is not yet completely
Christianized, although it figures among the towns of reconquered Spain,
and has its little Catholic church and its confraternities of the Virgin,
of Jesus, and of several of the saints, is proved by the character and the
customs of its inhabitants; by the perpetual feuds, as terrible as they
are causeless, which unite or separate them; and by the gloomy black eyes,
pale complexions, laconic speech, and infrequent laughter of men, women,
and children.
But it may be well to remind our readers, in order that neither the
aforesaid pastor nor any one else may question the justice of this
reasoning, that the Moors of the Marquisate of El Cenet were not expelled
in a body, like those of the Alpujarra, but that many of them succeeded in
remaining in the country, living in concealment, thanks to the prudence--
or the cowardice--which made them turn a deaf ear to the rash and the
heroic appeal of their unfortunate Prince, Aben Humcya; whence I infer
that Uncle Juan Gomez, nicknamed Hormiga [The Ant], in the year of grace
1821 Constitutional Alcalde of Aldeire, might very well be the descendant
of some Mustapha, Mohammed, or the like.
It is related, then, that the aforesaid Juan Gomez--a man at the time of
our story about fifty years of age, very shrewd, although he knew neither
how to read nor write, and grasping and industrious to some purpose, as
might be inferred not only from his sobriquet, but also from his wealth,
acquired honestly or otherwise, and invested in the most fertile lands of
the district--leased, at a nominal rent, by means of a present to the
secretary of the corporation of some hens which had left off laying, a
piece of arid town land, on which stood an old ruin, formerly a Moorish
watch-tower or hermitage, and still called the Moor's Tower.
Needless to say that Uncle Hormiga did not stop to consider for an instant
who this Moor might be, nor what might have been the original purpose of
the ruined building; the one thing which he saw at once, clear as water,
was, that with the stones which had already fallen from the ruin and those
which he should remove from it, he might make a secure and commodious yard
for his cattle; consequently, on the very day after it came into his
possession, and as a suitable pastime for a man of his thrifty habits, he
began to devote his leisure hours to the task of pulling down what still
remained standing of the ruin.
"You will kill yourself," said his wife, seeing him come home in the
evening, covered with dust and sweat and carrying his crowbar hidden under
his cloak.
"On the contrary," he answered, "this exercise is good for me; it will put
my blood in motion and keep me from being like our sons, the students who,
according to what the storekeeper tells me, were at the theatre in Granada
the other night looking so yellow that it was enough to make one sick to
see them."
"Poor boys! From studying so much! But you ought to be ashamed to work
like a laborer, when you are the richest man in the town, and Alcalde into
the bargain."
"That is why I take no one with me. Here, hand me that salad!"
"It would be well to have some one to help you, however. You will spend an
age in pulling down the tower by yourself, and besides, you may not be
able to manage it."
"Don't talk nonsense, Torcuata. When I begin to build the wall of the
cattle yard, I shall hire workmen, and even employ a master-builder. But
any one can pull down. And it is such fun to destroy! Come, clear away the
table and let us go to bed."
"You speak that way because you are a man. As for me, it disturbs and
saddens me to see things destroyed."
"Old women's notions. If you only knew how many things there are in the
world that ought to be destroyed!"
"Hold your tongue, you free-mason! It was a misfortune they ever elected
you Alcalde. You will see when the Royalists come into power again that
the king will have you hanged!"
"Yes, we shall see! Bigot! Hypocrite! Owl! Come, I am sleepy; stop
blessing yourself and put out that light."
And thus they would argue until one or the other of the consorts fell
asleep.
II.
One evening Uncle Hormiga returned from his work every thoughtful and
preoccupied, and earlier than usual.
His wife waited until after he had dismissed the laborers to ask him what
was the matter, when he responded by showing her a leaden tube with a
cover, somewhat like the tube in which a soldier on furlough keeps his
leave, from which he drew a yellow parchment covered with crabbed
handwriting, and carefully unrolling it said, with imposing gravity:
"I don't know how to read, even in Spanish, which is the easiest language
in the world, but the devil take me if this was not written by a Moor."
"That is to say that you found it in the tower?"
"I don't say it on that account alone, but because these spider's legs
don't look like anything I ever saw written by a Christian."
The wife of Juan Gomez looked at the parchment, smelled it, and exclaimed,
with a confidence as amusing as it was ill-founded:
"By a Moor it was written!"
After a while she added, with a melancholy air:
"Although I am but a poor hand myself at reading writing, I would swear
that we hold in our hands the discharge of some soldier of Mohammed who is
now in the bottomless pit."
"You say that on account of the tube."
"On account of the tube I say it."
"Well, then, you are altogether wrong, my dear Torcuata, for such a thing
as conscription was not known among the Moors, nor is this a discharge.
This is a--a--"
Uncle Hormiga glanced around him cautiously, lowered his voice, and said
with air of absolute certainty:
"This paper contains directions where to find a treasure!"
"You are right!" cried his wife, suddenly inspired with the same belief;
"and have you already found it? Is it very big? Did you cover it up
carefully again? Are the coins gold or silver? Do you think they will pass
current now? What a happiness for our boys! How they will spend money and
enjoy themselves in Granada and Madrid! I want to have a look at it. Let
us go there. There is a moon to-night!"
"Silly woman! Be quiet! How do you suppose that I could find the treasure
by these directions, when I don't know how to read, either in Moorish or
in Christian?"
"That's true! Well, then, I'll tell you what to do. As soon as it is
daylight, saddle a good mule, cross the Sierra through the Puerto de la
Laguna, which they say is safe now, and go to Ugijar, to the house of our
gossip, Don Matias Quesada. who knows something of everything. He will
explain what is in the paper and give you good advice, as he always does."
"And money enough his advice has cost me, notwithstanding our gossipred!
But I was thinking of doing that myself. In the morning I will start for
Ugijar and be back by nightfall; I can do that easily by putting the mule
to his speed."
"But be sure and explain everything to him clearly."
"I have very little to explain. The tube was hidden in a hollow, or niche,
in the wall, and covered with tiles, like those at Valencia. I tore down
the whole of the wall, but I found nothing else. At the surface of the
ground begin the foundation walls, built of immense stones, more than a
yard square, any one of which it would take two or three men as strong as
I am to move. Consequently, it is necessary to know exactly where the
treasure is hidden, unless we want to tear up all the foundation walls of
the tower, which could not be done without outside help."
"No no; set out for Ugijar as soon as it is daybreak. Offer our gossip a
part--not a large one--of what we may find, and as soon as we know where
we must dig, I will help you myself to tear up the foundation stones. My
darling boys! It is all for them! For my part, the only thing that
troubles me is lest there be some sin in this business that we are
whispering about."
"What sin can there be in it, you great fool?"
"I can't explain what I mean, but treasures have always seemed to me to
have something to do with the devil, or the fairies. And then, you got
that ground for so low a rent! The whole town says there was some trickery
in the business!"
"That concerns the secretary and councillors. They drew up the documents."
"Besides, as I understand, when a treasure is discovered, a part of it
must be given to the king."
"That is when it is found on ground that is not one's own, like mine!"
"One's own! One's own! Who knows to whom that tower the Council sold you
belonged!"
"Why, to the Moor, of course!"
"And who knows who that Moor may have been? It seems to me, Juan, whatever
money the Moor may have hidden in his house should belong to him, or to
his heirs, not to you or to me."
"You are talking nonsense. According to that, it is not I who ought to be
the Alcalde of Aldeire, but the man who was Alcalde a year ago, at the
time of the proclamation of Riego. According to that, we should have to
send the rents of the lands of Granada and Guadix, and hundreds of other
towns, every year to the descendants of the Moors in Africa."
"It may be that you are right. At any rate, go to Ugijar, and our gossip
will tell you what is best to be done in the matter."
III.
Ugijar is distant from Aldeire some four leagues, and the road between the
two towns is a very bad one. Before nine o'clock on the following morning,
however, Uncle Juan Gomez, wearing his blue stockinet knee-breeches and
his embroidered white Sunday boots, was in the office of Don Matias de
Quesada, a vigorous old man, a doctor in civil and criminal jurisprudence,
the most noted criminal lawyer in that part of the country. He had always
been a promoter of lawsuits, and was very wealthy, and had a large circle
of influential acquaintances in Granada and Madrid.
When he had heard his worthy gossip's story and had carefully examined the
paper, he gave it as his opinion that the document had nothing whatever to
do with the treasure; that the hole in which the tube had been found was a
sort of closet, and the writing one of the prayers which the Moors read
every Friday morning. But notwithstanding this, as he was not thoroughly
versed in the Arabic language, he added that he would send the document to
a college companion of his who was employed in the Commission of the Holy
Places, in Madrid, in order that he might send it to Jerusalem, where it
could be translated into Spanish, for which purpose it would be well to
inclose to his friend in Madrid a draft for a couple of ounces in gold,
for a cup of chocolate.
Uncle Juan Gomez considered seriously before he made up his mind to pay so
high a price for a cup of chocolate (which would be paying for the article
at the rate of 10,240 reals a pound), but he was so certain in regard to
the treasure (and in truth he was not mistaken, as we shall see later on),
that he took from his belt eight gold pieces of four dollars each and
delivered them to Don Matias, who weighed them one by one before putting
them into his purse, after which Hormiga took the road back to Aldeire,
resolving in his own mind to continue his excavations under the Moor's
tower while the document went to the Holy Land and came back translated;
proceedings which, according to the lawyer, would occupy something like a
year and a half.
IV.
Uncle Juan had no sooner turned his back upon his gossip and counsellor
than the latter took his pen and wrote the following letter:
"Don Bonifacio Tudela y Gonzalez, Chapel-master of the Cathedral of Ceuta.
"MY DEAR NEPHEW-IN-LAW,--To no one but a man of your piety would I confide
the important secret contained in the accompanying document. I say
important, because without a doubt in it are directions for finding the
hiding-place of a TREASURE, of which I will give you a part if I should
succeed in discovering it with your help. To this end you must get a Moor
to translate the document for you and send me the translation in a
certified letter, mentioning the matter to no one, unless it be your wife,
whom I know to be a person of discretion.
"Forgive my not having written to you in all these years, but you know how
busy a life I lead. Your aunt continues to remember you in her prayers
every night. I hope you are better of the affection of the stomach from
which you were suffering in 1806, and remain your affectionate
uncle-in-law,
"MATIAS DE QUESADA.
"UGIJAR, January 15, 1821.
"P.S.--Regards to Pepa, and tell me when you write if you have any
children."
Having written this letter, the distinguished jurisconsult bent his steps
toward the kitchen, where his wife was engaged in knitting and minding
the olla, and throwing into her lap the four golden coins he had received
from Juan Gomez, he said to her, in a harsh, cross voice:
"There, Encarnacion, buy more wheat; it is going to rise in price during
the dear months; and see to it that you get good measure. Get my breakfast
ready while I go post this letter for Seville, inquiring the price of
barley. Let the egg be well done and don't let the chocolate be muddy, as
it usually is."
The lawyer's wife answered not a word, but went on with her knitting, like
an automaton.
V.
Two weeks later, on a beautiful day in January, a day such as is to be
seen only in the north of Africa and the south of Europe, the
Chapel-master of the cathedral of Ceuta was enjoying the sunshine on the
roof of his two-story house, with the tranquillity of mind proper to one
who had played the organ at high mass and had afterward eaten a pound of
anchovies, another of meat, and another of bread, and drank the
corresponding quantity of Tarifa wine.
The worthy musician, who was as fat as a hog and as red as a beet, was
slowly digesting his breakfast, while his lethargic gaze slowly wandered
over the magnificent panorama of the Mediterranean,--the Straits of
Gibraltar, the accursed rock from which they take their name, the
neighboring peaks of Anghera and Benzu, and the distant snows of the
Lesser Atlas--when he heard hasty steps on the stairs and his wife's
silvery voice crying joyfully:
"Bonifacio! Bonifacio! A letter from your uncle! And a heavy letter, too!"
"Well," answered the Chapel-master, turning around like a geographical
sphere or globe on the point on which his rotund personality rested on the
seat, "what saint can have put it into my uncle's head to remember me? I
have been living for fifteen years in this country usurped from Mohammed,
and this is the first time that Abencerrage has written to me, although I
have written to him a hundred times. Doubtless he wants me to render him
some service."
So saying, he opened the epistle, contriving so that the Pepa of the
postscript should not be able to read its contents, and the yellow
parchment, noisily unfolding itself, greeted their eyes.
"What has he sent us?" asked his wife, a native of Cadiz, and a blonde,
attractive and fresh-looking, notwithstanding her forty summers.
"Don't be inquisitive, Pepita. I will tell you what is in the letter, if I
think you ought to know, as soon as I have read it. I have warned you a
thousand times to respect my letters."
"A proper precaution for a libertine like you! At any rate be quick, and
let us see if I may know what that large paper is that your uncle has sent
you. It looks like a bank-note from the other world."
While his wife was making these and other observations, the musician
finished reading the letter, whose contents surprised him so greatly that
he rose to his feet without the slightest effort.
Dissimulation was so habitual with him, however, that he was able to say,
in a natural tone of voice:
"What nonsense! The wretched man is no doubt already in his dotage! Would
you believe that he sends me this leaf from a Hebrew Bible, in order that
I may look for some Jew who will buy it, the foolish creature supposing
that he will get a fortune for it. At the same time," he added, to change
the conversation, putting the letter and the parchment into his pocket,--
"at the same time, he asks me with much interest if we have any children."
"He has none himself," cried Pepita quickly. "No doubt he intends to leave
us something."
"It is more likely the miserly fellow thinks of our leaving him something.
But hark, it is striking eleven. It is time for me to go tune the organ
for vespers. I must go now. Listen, my treasure; let dinner be ready by
one, and don't forget to put a couple of good potatoes into the pot. Have
we any children! I am ashamed to tell him we have none. See, Pepa," said
the musician, after a moment, having in mind, no doubt, the Arabic
document, "if my uncle should make me his heir, or if I should ever grow
rich by any other means, I swear that I will take you to the Plaza of San
Antonio in Cadiz to live, and I will buy you more jewels than Our Lady of
Sorrows of Granada has. So good-bye for a while, my pigeon."
And, pinching his wife's dimpled chin, he took his hat and turned his
steps--not in the direction of the cathedral, but in that of the poor
quarter of the town in which the Moorish citizens of Ceuta for the most
part live.
VI.
In one of the narrowest streets of this quarter, seated on the floor or
rather on his heels, at the door of a very modest but very neat
whitewashed house, smoking a clay pipe, was a Moor of some thirty-five or
forty years of age, a dealer in eggs and chickens, which the free peasants
of Sierra Bullones and Sierra Bermeja brought to him to the gates of
Ceuta, and which he sold either in his own house or at the market, with a
profit of a hundred per cent. He wore a white woollen chivala and a black
woollen, hooded Arab cloak, and was called by the Spaniards, Manos-gordas,
and by the Moors, Admet-Ben-Carime-el-Abdoun.
When the Moor saw the Chapel-master approaching, he rose and advanced to
meet him, making deep salaams at every step, and when they were close
together, he said cautiously:
"You want a little Moorish girl? I bring to-morrow little dark girl of
twelve--"
"My wife wants no more Moorish servants," answered the musician stiffly.
Manos-gordas began to laugh.
"Besides," continued Don Bonifacio, "your infernal little Moorish girls
are very dirty."
"Wash!" responded the Moor, extending his arms crosswise and inclining his
head to one side.
"I tell you I want no Moorish girls," said Don Bonifacio. "What I want
to-day is that you, who know so much that you are Interpreter of the
Fortress, should translate this document into Spanish for me."
Manos-gordas took the document, and at the first glance murmured:
"It is Moor--"
"Of course, it is in Arabic. But I want to know what it says, and if you
do not deceive me I will give you a handsome present--when the business
which I am about to entrust you with is concluded."
Meantime Admet-Ben-Carime glanced his eye over the document, turning very
pale as he did so.
"You see that it concerns a great treasure?" the Chapel-master
half-affirmed, half-asked.
"Me think so," stammered the Mohammedan.
"What do you mean by saying you think so? Your very confusion tells
plainly that it is so."
"Pardon," replied Manos-gordas, a cold sweat breaking out over his body.
"Here words modern Arabic--I understand. Here words ancient, or classic
Arabic--I no understand."
"What do the words that you understand signify?"
"They signify GOLD, they signify PEARLS, they signify CURSE OF ALA. But I
no understand meaning, explanations, or signs. Must see the Dervish of
Anghera--wise man and translate all. I take parchment to day and bring
parchment to-morrow, and deceive not nor rob Senor Tudela. Moor swear."
Saying which he clasped his hands together, and, raising them to his lips,
kissed them fervently.
Don Bonifacio reflected; he knew that in order to decipher the meaning of
this document he should be obliged to take some Moor into his confidence,
and there was none with whom he was so well acquainted and who was so well
disposed to him as Manos-gordas; he consented, therefore, to confide the
manuscript to him, making him swear repeatedly that he would return on the
following day from Anghera with the translation, and swearing to the Moor
on his side that he would give him at least a hundred dollars when the
treasure should be discovered.
The Mussulman and the Christian then separated, and the latter directed
his steps, not to his own house, nor to the cathedral, but to the office
of a friend of his, where he wrote the following letter:
"Senor Don Matias de Quesada y Sanchez, Alpujarra, Ugijar.
"MY DEAREST UNCLE,--Thanks be to God that we have at last received news
of you and of Aunt Encarnacion, and as good news as Josefa and I could
desire. We, my dear uncle, although younger than you and my aunt, are full
of ailments and burdened with children, who will soon be left orphans and
compelled to beg for their bread.
"Whoever told you that the document you sent me bore any reference to a
treasure deceived you. I have had it translated by a competent person, and
it turns out to be a string of blasphemies against our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Holy Virgin, and the Saints, written in Arabic verses, by a Moorish
dog of the Marquisate of El Cenet, during the rebellion of Aben-Humeya.
In view of its sacrilegious nature, and by the advice of the Senor
Penitentiary, I have just burned this impious testimony to Mohammedan
perversity.
"Remembrances to my aunt; Josefa desires to be remembered to you both; she
is now for the tenth time in an interesting condition, and your nephew,
who is reduced to skin and bone by the wretched affection of the stomach,
which you will remember, begs that you will send him some assistance.
"BONIFACIO.
"CEUTA, January 29, 1821."
VII.
While the Chapel-master was writing and posting this letter,
Admet-el-Abdoun was gathering together in a bundle all his wearing apparel
and household belongings, consisting of three old hooded mantles, two
cloaks of goat's wool, a mortar for grinding alcazuz, an iron lamp, and a
copper skillet full of pesetas, which he dug up from a corner of the
little yard of his house. He loaded with all this his one wife, slave,
odalisque, or whatever she might be, a woman uglier than an unexpected
piece of bad news, and filthier than her husband's conscience, and issued
forth from Ceuta, telling the soldier on guard at the gate opening on the
Moorish country that they were going to Fez for change of air, by the
advice of a veterinary; and as from that day--now more than sixty years
ago--to this no one in Ceuta or its neighborhood has ever again seen
Manos-gordas, it is obvious that Don Bonifacio Tudela y Gonzalez had not
the satisfaction of receiving from his hands the translation of the
document, either on the following, or on any other day during the
remainder of his existence; which, indeed, cannot have been very long,
since, according to reliable information, it appears that his adored
Pepita took to herself, after his death, another husband, an Asturian
drum-major residing in Marbella, whom she presented with four children,
beautiful as the sun, and that she was again a widow at the time of the
death of the king, at which epoch she gained, by competition in Malaga,
the title of gossip and the position of matron in the custom-house.
And now let us follow Manos-gordas and learn what became of him and of the
mysterious document.
VIII.
Admet-ben-Carime-el-Abdoun breathed freely, and even danced a few steps
for joy, without dancing off his ill-fastened slippers, however, as soon
as he found himself outside the massive walls of the Spanish fortress and
with all Africa before him.
For Africa, for a true African like Manos-gordas, is the land of absolute
liberty; of a liberty anterior and superior to all human constitutions and
institutions; of a liberty resembling that enjoyed by the wild rabbits and
other wild animals of the mountain, the valley, or the desert.
By this I mean to say that Africa is the paradise of evil-doers, the safe
asylum, the neutral ground of both men and beasts, protected here by the
intense heat and the vast extent of the deserts. As for the sultans,
kings, and beys who fancy they rule here, and the authorities and soldiers
who represent them, it may be said that they are for such subjects what
the hunter is for the hare or for the stag--a misadventure which one in a
hundred may chance to meet with, and which may or may not result fatally;
if he who meets it dies, he is remembered on the anniversary of his death;
and if he does not die, he takes himself off to a sufficient distance from
the scene of his mishap--and no more is thought about the matter. With
this digression we will now resume the thread of our story.
"This way, Zama!" cried the Moor to his weary consort, as if he were
calling to a beast of burden.
And instead of turning eastward, that is to say toward the gap of Anghera,
in quest of the holy sage, in accordance with his promise to Don
Bonifacio, he proceeded southward along a ravine overgrown with wild
brambles and forest trees which soon brought him to the Tetuan road; that
is to say, to the indistinct footpath which, following the indentations of
the coast, leads to Cape Negro by the valley of the Tarajar, the valley of
the Castillejos, Mount Negro, and the lakes of Azmir River, names which
are now heard by every true Spaniard with love and veneration, but which
at the time of our story had not yet been pronounced either in Spain or in
any other part of the civilized world.
When Ben-Carime and Zama had reached the little valley of the Tarajar,
they sat down to rest for a while at the edge of the rivulet which, rising
in the heights of Sierra Bullones, runs through it, and in this wild and
secluded spot, that seemed as if it had come fresh from the Creator's hand
and had never yet been trod by the foot of man, looking out on the
solitary ocean, whose waters were untracked save, on an occasional
moonlight night, by some pirate caravel or government vessel sent from
Europe in pursuit of it, the Moorish woman proceeded to make her toilet,
performing her ablutions in the stream, and the Moor unfolded the
manuscript and read it again, manifesting no less emotion than he had
shown on the previous occasion.
The contents of the Arabian manuscript were as follows:
"May the benediction of Allah rest on all good men who read these lines!
"There is no glory but the glory of Allah, whose prophet and messenger
Mohammed was and is, in the hearts of the faithful.
"May those who rob the house of him who is at the wars, or in exile, be
accursed of Allah and of Mohammed, and die eaten up by beetles and
cockroaches!
"Blessed be Allah, who created these and other vermin to devour the
wicked!
"I am the _caid_ Hassan-ben-Jussef, the servant of Allah, although I am
miscalled Don Rodrigo de Acuna by the successors of the Christian dogs
who, by force and in violation of solemn compact, baptized, with a broom
of hyssop, my ill-fated ancestors, together with many other Islamites of
these kingdoms.
"I am a captain, serving under the banner of him whose lawful title,
since the death of Aben-Humaya, is King of Andalusia,
Muley-Abdallah-Mahamud-Aben-Aboo, who does not now sit on the throne of
Granada because of the treachery and cowardice with which the Moors of
Valencia broke their oaths and compacts, failing to rise with the Moors of
Granada against the common enemy: but they will receive their reward from
Allah, and if we are conquered, they, too, will be conquered and in the
end expelled from Spain, without the merit of having fought to the last on
the field of honor in defence of their rights; and if we are the
conquerors we will cut off their heads and throw them to the swine.
"I am, in conclusion, the lord of this tower and of all the land
surrounding it, westward to the ravine of the Fox and eastward to the
ravine of the Asparagus, so called from the luxuriant growth and
exquisite flavor of the asparagus cultivated there by my grandfather,
Sidi-Jussef-ben-Jussuf.
"Things are going badly with us. Since the coming of the base-born Don
Juan of Austria (whom may Allah confound!) to fight against the faithful,
we have foreseen that, for the present, we shall be defeated, although in
the course of years or of centuries another Prince of the blood of the
Prophet may recover the throne of Granada which for seven hundred years
was in the possession of the Moors, and which will be theirs again when
Allah wills it, by the same right by which it was formerly possessed by
the Goths and Vandals, and before that by the Romans, and before that by
those other Africans, the Carthaginians--by the right of conquest. But
I know, as I have said, that, for the present, things are going badly with
us, and that I must very soon depart for Morocco, taking with me my
forty-three sons; that is to say, unless the Austrians capture me in the
coming battle and hang me on a tree, as I would hang all of them, if it
were in my power to do so.
"Well, then, when I depart from this tower to engage in the last and the
decisive campaign, I leave hidden here, in a place which no one can
discover without coming across this manuscript, all my gold, all my
silver, all my pearls, my family treasures, the possessions of my fathers,
of myself, and of my heirs; the fortune of which I am lord and master by
human and divine right, as the bird is of its feathers, or the child of
the teeth he cuts with suffering, or as every mortal is of the bad humors,
cancerous or leprous, which he may inherit from his ancestors.
"Stay thy hand, then, oh thou, Moor, Christian, or Jew, who, in tearing
down this, my dwelling, mayest discover and read these lines which I
am now writing! Stay thy hand and respect the treasure-house of thy
fellow-mortal! Touch not his estate! Take not possession of that which
belongs to another! Here there is none of the public wealth, nothing
belonging to the exchequer, nothing belonging to the state. The gold in
the mine may belong of right to him who discovers it, and a part of it to
the king of the country; but gold melted down and stamped--money, coin--
belongs to its owner and to no one but its owner. Rob me not, therefore,
evil man! Rob not my descendants who will come, on the day appointed, to
take possession of their inheritance. And if thou shouldst, without evil
intent, and by chance discover my treasure, I counsel thee to make public
proclamation, calling on and notifying the circumstance to the heirs of
Hassan-ben-Jussef; for it is not just to keep that which has been found
when it has a lawful owner.
"If thou doest not this, be accursed, with the curse of Allah, and with my
curse! And mayest thou be struck dead by lightning! And may each coin of
my money and each pearl of my treasure become a scorpion in thy hands! And
may thy children die of leprosy, may their fingers rot and drop off, so
that they may not have even the pleasure of scratching themselves! And may
the woman thou lovest love thy slave and betray thee for him. And may thy
eldest daughter leave thy house secretly with a Jew! And mayest thou be
impaled upon a stake, and suspended on high, exposed to the public gaze,
until by the weight of thy body the stake pierce thy crown and thou fall
parted asunder on the ground like a loathsome toad cut in twain by the
hoe!
"Now thou knowest what I would have thee know, and let all men know it,
and blessed be Allah who is Allah!
"Tower of Zoraya, in Aldeire, in El Cenet, On the fifteenth day of the
month of Saphar, Of the year of the Hegira 968.
"HASSEN-BEN-JUSSEF."
IX.
Manos-gordas was profoundly impressed by a second reading of this
document; not because of the moral maxims or the terrible curses it
contained, for the rascal had lost his faith both in Allah and in
Mohammed, through his frequent intercourse with the Christians and the
Jews of Tetuan and Ceuta, who naturally scoffed at the Koran, but because
he believed that his face, his accent, and some other personal
peculiarities of his forbade his going to Spain, where he would find
himself exposed to certain death should any Christian man or woman
discover him to be an enemy to the Virgin Mary.
"Besides, what aid" (in the opinion of Manos-gordas) "could a foreigner, a
Mohammedan, a semi-barbarian, expect from the laws or the authorities of
Spain, in acquiring possession of the Tower of Zoraya for the purpose of
making excavations there, or what protection in retaining possession of
the treasure when he should have discovered it, or even of his life? There
is no help for it," was the conclusion to which he came, after much
reflection. "I must trust the secret to the renegade Ben-Munuza. He is a
Spaniard, and his companionship will protect me from danger in that
country. But as there does not exist under the canopy of heaven a wickeder
man than this same renegade, it will not be amiss to take some
precautions."
And, as a result of his reflections, he took from his pocket writing
materials, wrote a letter, and inclosed it in an envelope, which he sealed
with a bit of moistened bread, and this done, he burst into a sardonic
laugh.
He then looked at his wife, who was still engaged in removing the filth of
an entire year from her person, at the expense of the material and moral
cleanliness of the poor rivulet, and having attracted her attention by a
whistle, he deigned to address her in these terms:
"Sit down here beside me, fig-face, and listen to what I am going to say.
You can afterward finish washing yourself--and well you need it--and
perhaps I may then think you worthy of something better than the daily
drubbing by which I show my affection for you. But for the present,
brazenface, leave off your grimaces, and listen well to what I am going to
tell you."
The Moorish woman, who after her toilet looked younger and more artistic,
though no less ugly than before, licked her lips like a cat, fixed the two
carbuncles that served her for eyes on Manos-gordas, and said, showing her
broad white teeth, that bore no resemblance to those of a human being:
"Speak, my lord, your slave desires only to serve you."
Manos-gordas continued:
"If, in the future, any misfortune should happen to me, or if I should
suddenly disappear without taking leave of you, or if, after taking leave
of you, you should hear nothing from me within six weeks' time, make your
way back to Ceuta and put this letter in the post. Do you understand fully
what I have said, monkey-face?"
Zama burst into tears and exclaimed:
"Admet, do you intend to abandon me?"
"Don't be an ass, woman!" answered the Moor. "Who is talking of such a
thing now? You know very well that you please me and that you are useful
to me. The question now is whether you have understood my charge
perfectly."
"Give it here!" said the Moorish woman, taking the letter and placing it
in her dark-skinned bosom, next her heart. "If any evil should happen to
you, this letter shall be placed in the post at Ceuta, though I should
drop dead the moment after."
Aben-Carime smiled with a human smile when he heard these words, and
deigned to let his eyes rest upon his wife as if she were a human being.
X.
The Moorish couple must have slept soundly and sweetly among the thickets
on the roadside that night, for it was fully nine o'clock on the following
morning when they reached the foot of Cape Negro.
At that place there is a village of Arab shepherds and husbandmen, called
Medick, consisting of a few huts, a morabito or Mohammedan hermitage, and
a well of fresh water, with its curb-stone and its copper bucket, like the
wells we see represented in certain biblical scenes.
At this hour the village was completely deserted, its inhabitants having
betaken themselves, with their cattle and their implements of labor, to
the neighboring hills and glens.
"Wait for me here," said Manos-gordas to his wife. "I am going in quest of
Ben-Munuza, who at this hour is probably ploughing his fields on the other
side of yonder hill."
"Ben-Munuza!" exclaimed Zama, with a look of terror; "the renegade of whom
you spoke to me?"
"Make your mind easy," returned Manos-gordas. "I have the upper hand now.
In a few hours I shall be back and you will see him following me like a
dog. This is his cabin. Wait for us inside, and make us a good mess of
alcazus, with the maize and the butter you will find at hand. You know I
like it well cooked. Ah, I forgot. If I should not be back before
nightfall, ascend the hill, crossover to the other side, and if you do not
find me there, or if you should find my dead body, return to Ceuta and
post this letter.--Another thing: if you should find me dead, search my
clothing for this parchment; if you do not find it upon me, you will know
that Ben-Munuza has robbed me of it; in which case proceed from Ceuta to
Tetuan and denounce him as a thief and an assassin to the authorities.
That is all I have to tell you. Farewell!"
The Moorish woman wept bitterly as Manos-gordas took the path that led to
the summit of the neighboring hill.
XI.
On reaching the other side of the hill Manos-gordas descried in a glen, a
short distance off, a corpulent Moor dressed in white, ploughing the black
earth with the help of a fine yoke of oxen, in patriarchal fashion. This
man, who seemed a statue of Peace carved in marble, was the morose and
dreaded renegade, Ben-Munuza, the details of whose story would make the
reader shudder with horror, if he were to hear them.
Suffice it for the present to say that he was some forty years old, that
he was active, vigorous, and robust, and that he was of a gloomy cast of
countenance, although his eyes were blue as the sky, and his beard yellow
as the African sunlight, which had bronzed his originally fair complexion.
"Good-morning, Manos-gordas!" cried the renegade, as soon as he perceived
the Moor.
And his voice expressed the melancholy pleasure the exile feels in a
foreign land when he meets some one with whom he can converse in his
native tongue.
"Good-morning, Juan Falgueira!" responded Ben-Carime, in ironical accents.
As he heard this name the renegade trembled from head to foot, and seizing
the iron bar of the plough prepared to defend himself.
"What name is that you have just pronounced?" he said, advancing
threateningly toward Manos-gordas.
The latter awaited his approach, laughing, and answered in Arabic, with a
courage which no one would have supposed him to possess:
"I have pronounced your real name; the name you bore in Spain when you
were a Christian, and which I learned when I was in Oran three years ago."
"In Oran?"
"Yes, in Oran. What is there extraordinary in that? You had come from Oran
to Morocco; I went to Oran to buy hens. I inquired there concerning your
history, describing your appearance, and some Spaniards living there
related it to me. I learned that you were a Galician, that your name was
Juan Falgueira, and that you had escaped from the prison of Granada, on
the eve of the day appointed for your execution, for having robbed and
murdered, fifteen years ago, a party of gentlemen, whom you were serving
in the capacity of muleteer. Do you still doubt that I know who you are?"
"Tell me, my soul," responded the renegade, in a hollow voice, looking
cautiously around, "have you related this story to any of the Moors? Does
any one but yourself in this accursed land know it? Because the fact is, I
want to live in peace, without having any one or anything to remind me of
that fatal deed which I have well expiated. I am a poor man. I have
neither family, nor country, nor language, nor even the God who made me
left to me. I live among enemies, with no other wealth than these oxen and
these fields, bought by the fruit of ten years' sweat and toil.
Consequently, you do very wrong to come and tell me--"
"Hold!" cried Manos-gordas, greatly alarmed. "Don't cast those wolfish
glances at me, for I come to do you a great service, and not to vex you
needlessly. I have told your unfortunate story to no one. What for? Any
secret may be a treasure, which he who tells gives away. There are,
however, occasions in which an EXCHANGE OF SECRETS may be made with
profit. For instance, I am going to tell you an important secret of mine,
which will serve as security for yours, and which will oblige us to be
friends for the rest of our lives."
"I am listening; go on," responded the renegade quietly.
Aben-Carime then read aloud the Arabic document, which Juan Falgueira
listened to without moving a muscle of his still angry countenance.
The Moor seeing this, in order to dispel his distrust, disclosed to him
the fact that he had stolen the paper he had just read from a Christian in
Ceuta.
The Spaniard smiled slightly to think how great must be the huckster's
fear of him to cause him voluntarily to reveal to him his theft, and poor
Manos-gordas, encouraged by Ben-Munuza's smile, proceeded to disclose his
plans, in the following terms:
"I take it for granted that you understand perfectly well the importance
of this document and the reason of my reading it to you. I know not where
the Tower of Zoraya, nor Aldeire, nor El Cenet is, nor do I know how to go
to Spain, nor should I be able to find my way through that country if I
were there; besides which, the people would kill me for not being a
Christian, or at least they would despoil me of the treasure after I had
found it, if not before. For all these reasons, I require that a trusty
and loyal Spaniard should accompany me, a man whose life shall be in my
power, and whom I can send to the gallows with half a word; a man, in
short like you, Juan Falgueira, who, after all, have gained nothing by
robbing and murdering, since you are now toiling here like a donkey, when
with the millions I am going to procure you, you can go to America, to
France, or to India, and enjoy yourself, and live in luxury, and rise in
time perhaps to be king. What do you think of my plan?"
"That it is well put together, like the work of a Moor," responded
Ben-Munuza, in whose nervous hands, clasped behind his back, the iron bar
swung back and forth like a tiger's tail.
Manos-gordas smiled with satisfaction, thinking that his proposition was
already accepted.
"But," added the sombre Galician, "there is one thing you have not
considered."
"And what is that?" asked Ben-Carime, throwing back his head with a
comical expression, and fixing his eyes on vacancy, like one who is
prepared to hear some trivial and easily answered objection.
"You have not considered that I should be an unmitigated fool if I were to
accompany you to Spain to put you in possession of half a treasure,
relying upon your putting me in possession of the other half. I say this
because you would only have to say half a word the day we arrived at
Aldeire, and you thought yourself free from danger, to rid yourself of my
company and avoid giving me my half of the treasure, after it was found.
In truth, you are not the clever man you imagine yourself to be, but only
a simpleton deserving of pity, who have deliberately walked into a trap
from which there is no escape, in telling me where this great treasure is
to be found, and telling me at the same time that you know my history, and
that if I were to accompany you to Spain you would there be absolute
master of my life. And what need, then, have I of you? What need have I of
your help to go and take possession of the entire treasure myself? What
need have I of you in the world at all? Who are you, now that you have
read me that document, now that I can take it from you?"
"What are you saying?" cried Manos-gordas, who all at once felt a chill,
like that of death, strike to the marrow of his bones.
"I am saying--nothing. Take that!" replied Juan Falgueira, dealing
Ben-Carime a tremendous blow on the head with the iron bar. The Moor
rolled over on the ground, the blood gushing from his eyes, nose, and
mouth, without uttering a single sound.
The unfortunate man was dead.
XII.
Three or four weeks after the death of Manos-gordas, somewhere about the
20th of February, 1821, it was snowing, if it ever were to snow, in the
town of Aldeire, and throughout the beautiful Andalusian sierra to which
the snow gives existence, as it were, and a name.
It was Carnival Sunday, and the church bell was for the fourth time
summoning to mass with its thin, clear tones, like those of a child, the
shivering Christians of this parish (too near to heaven for their
comfort), who found it difficult, on so raw and inclement a day, to bring
themselves to leave their beds or to move away from the fire, saying,
perhaps, in excuse for their not doing so, that on the three days before
Ash-Wednesday worship should be rendered not to God, but to the devil.
Some such excuse as this, at least, was given by Uncle Juan Gomez in
answer to the arguments with which his pious wife, our friend, Dame
Torcuata, tried to persuade him to give up drinking brandy and eating
biscuits, and accompany her, instead, to mass, like a good Christian,
regardless of the criticisms of the schoolmaster or the other electors of
the liberal party. And the dispute was beginning to grow warm, when
suddenly Genaro, his honor's head shepherd, entered the kitchen, and
taking off his hat, and scratching his head with the same movement, said:
"God give us good-day, Senor Juan and Senora Torcuata! You must have
guessed already that something has happened up above to bring me down here
on a day like this, it not being my Sunday for going to hear mass. I hope
you are both well!"
"There! there! I'll wait no longer!" cried the Alcalde's wife,
impatiently, folding her mantilla over her breast. "It was decreed that
you were not to hear mass to-day. You have drink enough there, and
conversation enough for the whole day, discussing the question as to
whether the goats are with kid or whether the young rams are beginning to
get their horns. You will go to perdition, Juan, you will go to perdition,
if you don't soon make your peace with the church and give up the accursed
alcaldeship!"
When Dame Torcuata had departed, the Alcalde handed a biscuit and a glass
of brandy to the head shepherd, saying:
"Women's nonsense, Uncle Genaro! Draw your chair up to the fire and tell
me what you have to say. What is going on up above there?"
"Oh, a mere nothing! Yesterday, Francisco, the goat-keeper, saw a man
dressed like a native of Malaga, with long trousers and a linen jacket,
and wrapped in a blanket, go into the cattle-yard you are making, from the
open side, and walk around the Moor's Tower, examining it and measuring
it, as if he were a master-builder. Francisco asked him what he was doing,
to which the stranger answered by asking in his turn who was the owner of
the tower, and Francisco saying that he was no less a person than the
Alcalde of the town, the stranger replied that he would speak with his
honor and explain his plans to him. Night soon fell, and as the man
pretended to be going away, the goat-herd went to his hut, which, as you
know, is but a short distance from the tower. Some two hours later the
same Francisco noticed that strange noises proceeded from the tower, in
which he also observed a light burning, all which terrified him so
greatly, that he did not even venture to go to my hut to tell me of what
he had seen and heard. This he did as soon as it was daylight, saying in
addition that the noises he had heard in the tower were kept up all night.
As I am an old man and have served my king and am not easily frightened, I
went at once to the Moor's Tower, accompanied by Francisco, who trembled
at every step he took, and we discovered the stranger, wrapped up in his
blanket, asleep in a little room on the ground floor where the plaster
still remains on the ceiling. I wakened the mysterious stranger and
reproved him for spending the night in a strange house without its owner's
permission, to which he answered that the building was not a house, but a
heap of ruins, where a poor wayfarer might very well take shelter on a
snowy night, and that he was ready to present himself before you and tell
you who he was and what his business and his plans were. I have brought
him with me, therefore, and he is now out in the yard with the goatherd,
waiting for your permission to enter."
"Let him come in," answered Uncle Hormiga, rising to his feet, greatly
disturbed, for the thought had presented itself to his mind at the head
shepherd's first words, that all this was closely connected with the
celebrated treasure, the hope of discovering which, by his own unaided
exertions, he had abandoned, a week before, after he had removed, without
result, several of the heaviest of the foundation stones.
XIII.
Here, then, we have, face to face and alone, Uncle Juan Gomez and the
stranger.
"What is your name?" the former asked the latter, with all the
imperiousness warranted by his exalted office, and without inviting him to
be seated.
"My name is Jaime Olot," responded the mysterious stranger.
"You do not speak like a native of this country. Are you English?"
"I am a Catalan."
"Ah, a Catalan! That may be. And what brings you to these parts? And,
above all, what the devil were you doing yesterday measuring my tower?"
"I will tell you. I am a miner by profession, and I have come to this
country, which is famous for its copper and silver mines, in search of
work. Yesterday afternoon, passing by the Moor's Tower, I saw that a wall
was being built with the stones that had been taken from it, and that it
would be necessary to tear down a great deal more of the building in order
to finish the wall. There is no one who can equal me in pulling down
buildings, whether by the use of tools or with hands only, for I have the
strength of an ox, and the idea occurred to me that I might be able to
make a contract with the owner of the tower to pull it down and dig up the
foundation stones."
Uncle Hormiga, with a wink of his little gray eyes, responded, dwelling
upon every word:
"Well, that arrangement does not suit me."
"I would do the work for very little--almost nothing."
"Now it would suit me less than before."
The so-called Jaime Olot was puzzled not a little by the mysterious
answers of Uncle Juan Gomez, and he tried to get some clue to their
meaning from the expression of his face; but as he was unsuccessful in his
efforts to read the fox-like countenance of his honor, he added, with
feigned naturalness:
"It would not displease me, either, to repair a part of the old building
and to live there, cultivating the ground that you had intended for a
cattle-yard. I will buy from you, then, the Moor's Tower with the ground
around it."
"I do not wish to sell it," responded Uncle Hormiga.
"But I will pay you double what it is worth!" said the self-styled Catalan
emphatically.
"It would suit me now less than ever to sell it," replied the Andalusian,
with so crafty and insulting a look that his interlocutor took a step
backward, suddenly becoming conscious that he was treading on false
ground.
He reflected for a moment, therefore, and then raising his head with a
determined air, and clasping his hands behind his back, he said, with a
cynical laugh:
"So, then, you know that there is a TREASURE on that ground!"
Uncle Juan Gomez leaned over in his seat, and scanning the Catalan from
head to foot, exclaimed with a comical air:
"What vexes me is that you, too, should know it!"
"And it would vex you much more if I should tell you that I am the only
person who knows it with certainty."
"That is to say, that you know the precise spot in which the treasure is
buried?"
"I know the precise spot, and it would not take me twenty-four hours to
disinter all the wealth that lies hidden there."
"According to that you have in your possession a certain document--"
"Yes; I have a document of the time of the Moors, half a yard square, in
which all the necessary directions to find the treasure are given."
"And tell me--this document--"
"I do not carry it about with me, nor is there any reason why I should do
so, since I know it word for word by heart, both in Spanish and in Arabic.
Oh, I am not such a fool as ever to deliver myself up, bag and baggage,
to the enemy! So that before coming to this country I concealed the
document--where no one but myself will ever be able to find it."
"In that case there is no more to be said. Senor Jaime Olot, let us come
to an understanding, like two good friends," exclaimed the Alcalde, at the
same time pouring out a glass of brandy for the stranger.
"Let us come to an understanding!" repeated the stranger, taking a seat
without waiting for further permission, and drinking his brandy with
gusto.
"Tell me," continued Uncle Hormiga, "and tell me without lying, so that I
may learn to put faith in you--"
"Ask what you wish; when it does not suit me to speak I shall be silent."
"Do you come from Madrid?"
"No. It is twenty-five years since I was in the capital, for the first and
last time."
"Do you come from the Holy Land?"
"No; that is not in my line."
"Are you acquainted with a lawyer of Ugijar, called Don Matias de
Quesada?"
"No; I hate lawyers and all people who live by the pen."
"Well, then, how did this document fall into your possession?"
Jaime Olcot was silent.
"I like that! I see you don't want to lie!" exclaimed the Alcalde. "But
there cannot be a doubt that Don Matias de Quesada cheated me as if I were
a Chinese, stealing from me two ounces in gold, and then selling that
document to some one in Melilla or Ceuta. And the fact is, although you
are not a Moor, you look as if you had lived in those countries."
"Don't fatigue yourself, or lose your time guessing further. I will set
your doubts at rest. This lawyer you speak of must have sent the
manuscript to a Spaniard in Ceuta, from whom it was stolen three weeks ago
by the Moor from whose possession it passed into mine."
"Ah! now I see. He must have sent it to a nephew of his who is a musician
in the cathedral of that city--one Bonafacio de Tudela."
"It is very likely."
"What a wretch that Don Matias is! To cheat his gossip in this way! But
see how chance has brought the document back to my hands again!"
"To mine, you would say," observed the stranger.
"To ours!" returned the Alcalde, again filling the glasses. "Why, then, we
are millionaires. We will divide the treasure equally between us, since
you cannot dig in that ground without my permission, nor can I find the
treasure without the help of the document which has fallen into your
possession. That is to say, that chance has made us brothers. From this
day forth you shall live in my house--another glass--and the instant we
have finished breakfast, we will begin to dig."
The conference had reached this point when Dame Torcuata returned from
mass. Her husband told her all that had passed, and presented to her Don
Jaime Olot. The good woman heard with as much fear as joy the news that
the treasure was on the eve of discovery, crossing herself repeatedly on
learning of the treachery and baseness of her gossip, Don Matias de
Quesada, and she looked with terror at the stranger, whose countenance
filled her with a presentiment of coming misfortune.
Knowing, however, that she must give this man his breakfast, she went into
the pantry to take from it the choicest articles it contained--that is to
say, a tenderloin with pickle sauce, and a sausage of the last killing,
saying to herself, however, as she uncovered the jars:
"Time it is that the treasure should be discovered, for whether it is to
be found or not, it has already cost us the thirty-two dollars for the
famous cup of chocolate, the long-standing friendship of our gossip, Don
Matias, these fine slices of meat, that would have made so rich a dish,
dressed with peppers and tomatoes, in the month of August, and the having
so forbidding-looking a stranger as a guest. Accursed be treasures, and
mines, and the devils, and everything that is underground, excepting only
water and the faithful departed!"
XIV.
While Dame Torcuata was making these reflections to herself, as she went,
with a pan in either hand, toward the fire, cries and hisses of women and
children resounded in the street, mingled with other voices in a lower
key, saying:
"Senor Alcalde! Open the door! The city authorities are entering the town
with a troop of soldiers!"
Jaime Olot became yellower than wax when he heard these words, and
clasping his hands together, he said:
"Hide me, Senor Alcalde! Otherwise we shall not find the treasure! The
authorities have come in search of me!"
"In search of you? And why so? Are you a criminal?"
"I knew it!" cried Aunt Torcuata. "From that gloomy face no good could
come. All this is the doing of Lucifer!"
"Quick! quick!" resumed the stranger. Take me out by the back door!"
"Very good, but first give me directions where to find the treasure," said
Uncle Hormiga.
"Senor Alcalde!" the cry was repeated outside the door, "open! The town is
surrounded! It seems it is that man who has been shut up with you for the
last hour they are in search of!"
"Open to the authorities!" an imperious voice now cried, accompanied by a
loud knocking at the door.
"There is no help for it!" said the Alcalde, going to open the door, while
the stranger tried to escape into the yard by the other door.
But the head shepherd and the goat-herd, who were on the alert, cut off
his egress, and they and the soldiers, who had now also entered the room,
seized and bound him securely, although the renegade displayed in the
struggle the strength and agility of a tiger.
The constable of the court, who had under his command a clerk and twenty
foot-soldiers, meantime told the Alcalde the causes of and reasons for
this noisy arrest.
"This man," he said, "with whom you have been shut up I don't know why--
talking of I don't know what--is the famous Galician, Juan Falgueira, who,
fifteen years ago, robbed and murdered a party of gentlemen, whose
muleteer he was, in a certain hamlet of Granada, and who escaped from the
chapel on the eve of the day appointed for his execution, dressed in the
habit of the friar who was administering to him the consolations of
religion, and whom he left there half-strangled. The king himself--whom
Heaven preserve--received, a fortnight ago, a letter from Ceuta, signed by
a Moor named Manos-gordas, saying that Juan Falgueira, after long
residence in Oran and other points in Africa, was about to embark for
Spain, and that it would be an easy matter to seize him in Aldeire in El
Cenet, where it was his intention to purchase a Moorish tower and to
devote himself to mining. At the same time a communication was received by
the government from the Spanish Consul in Tetuan, stating that a Moorish
woman called Zama had presented herself before him to make complaint
against the Spanish renegade, Ben-Manuza, formerly called Juan Falgueira,
who had just sailed for Spain, after having assassinated the Moor,
Manos-gordas, the complainant's husband, and robbed him of a certain
precious document. For all which reasons, and chiefly on account of the
attempt against the life of the friar in the chapel, His Majesty the King
strongly urged upon the authorities of Granada the arrest of the criminal
and his immediate execution in that city."
Let the reader picture to himself the terror and astonishment with which
this narration was listened to by all present, as well as the despair of
Uncle Hormiga, who could not now doubt that the document was in the
possession of this man condemned to death.
The avaricious Alcalde, then, at the risk of compromising himself still
further, called aside Juan Falgueira and held a whispered conversation
with him, having previously informed the assemblage that he was going to
try to prevail upon the renegade to confess his crime before God and men.
What passed between the two PARTNERS, however, was really what follows:
"Gossip!" said Uncle Hormiga, "not Heaven itself could now save you! But
you must feel that it would be a pity that that document should be lost.
Tell me where you have hidden it."
"Gossip!" responded the Galician, "with that document, or, in other words,
with the treasure it represents, I intend to purchase my pardon. Procure
for me the royal favor, and I will deliver the document to you; but for
the present I shall offer it to the judges to bribe them to declare my
sentence null and void by prescription."
"Gossip!" replied Uncle Hormiga, "you are a wise man, and I shall be glad
if you succeed in your purpose. But if you fail, for God's sake do not
carry to the tomb a secret which will profit no one!"
"Be certain, I shall take it with me!" answered Juan Falgueira. "I must
have my revenge upon the world in some way."
"Let us proceed!" here cried the constable, putting an end to this strange
conference.
And the condemned man, being chained and handcuffed, the officers of
justice and the soldiers proceeded with him in the direction of the city
of Guadix, whence they were to conduct him to Granada.
"The devil! the devil!" the wife of Uncle Hormiga Juan Gomez kept
repeating to herself for an hour afterward, as she returned the
tenderloin and the sausage to their respective jars. "My curse upon
all treasures--past, present, and to come!"
XV.
Needless to say that Uncle Hormiga found no means of procuring Juan
Falgueira's pardon, nor did the judges condescend to listen seriously to
the offers which the latter made them of delivering to them a treasure on
condition that they should relinquish the prosecution against him; nor did
the terrible Galician consent to disclose the hiding-place of the document
nor the whereabouts of the treasure to the bold Alcalde of Aldeire--who,
with this hope, had the face to visit him in the chapel in the prison of
Granada.
Juan Falgueira, then, was hanged on the Friday preceding Good Friday, in
the Paseo del Triumfo, and Uncle Hormiga, on his return to Aldeire, on
Palm Sunday, fell ill with typhoid fever, the disease running its course
so quickly that on Wednesday of Holy Week he confessed himself and made
his will and expired on the morning of Easter Saturday.
But before his death he wrote a letter to Don Matias de Quesada,
reproaching him with his treachery and dishonesty (which had caused the
deaths of three persons), and forgiving him like a Christian, on condition
that he should return to Dame Torcuata the thirty-two dollars for the cup
of chocolate.
This dreadful letter reached Ugijar simultaneously with the news of the
death of Uncle Juan Gomez, both which events, coming together, affected
the old lawyer to such a degree that he never recovered his spirits again,
and he died shortly afterward, having written in his last hour a terrible
letter, full of reproaches and maledictions, to his nephew, the
Chapel-master of Ceuta, accusing him of having deceived and robbed him,
and of being the cause of his death.
To the reading of this just and tremendous accusation was due, it is said,
the stroke of apoplexy that sent Don Bonifacio to the tomb.
So that the suspicion, merely, of the existence of a hidden treasure was
the cause of five deaths, and of many other misfortunes, matters remaining
in the end as hidden and mysterious as they were in the beginning, since
Dame Torcuata, who was the only person in the world who knew the history
of the fatal document, took good care never to mention it thereafter in
the whole course of her life, thinking, as she did, that it had all been
the work of the devil, and the necessary consequence of her husband's
dealings with the enemies of the Church and the Throne.
BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS
By Fernan Caballero
Translated by Mary J. Serrano.
BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS
CHAPTER I.
Although the villages of the sierras of Andalusia, owing to their
elevation, enjoy in summer a milder temperature than those of the plains,
during the middle hours of the day the sun reflected from the rocks that
abound in this mountainous region, produces a dry and ardent heat, which
is more transitory, indeed, but also more irritating than that of the
plains. The chief sufferers from its ardors are the wandering reapers,
who, after finishing the labors of the harvest in their own province, go
in search of work to the provinces where the harvest has not yet been
gathered in. The greater number of the reapers of the province of Granada
go to the sierra of Ronda, where they are welcomed, and where their
toilsome labors are well rewarded, so that they are able to lay by some
money, unless indeed sickness, that scourge of the poor, prostrates them
and consumes their earnings or terminates their existence.
In a more pious age a small hospital for poor strangers was established in
Bornos, which is one of the villages that, like a fringe, border the slope
of the sierra; an hospital which remained closed in winter, but which in
summer received many of the poor reapers who were prostrated by the
intense heat, and who had no home or family in the village.
On a hot summer day, early in the thirties, a woman with a kind and gentle
countenance was seated at the door of her cottage, in the village above
mentioned, engaged in chopping the tomatoes and peppers and crumbling the
bread for the wholesome, nutritious, and savory gazpacho which was to
serve for the family supper; her two children, a boy of seven and a girl
of five, were playing not far from her in the street.
As Bornos is almost entirely surrounded by orchards and orange groves,
planted on the slopes of the tableland on which the village is seated, and
which at this hour are irrigated by the clear and abundant waters of its
springs, every breeze brought with it the perfume of the leaves and the
melodious strains of the birds singing their evening hymn to the sun,
filling the air with coolness, as if kind Mother Nature made of her trees
a fan to cool the brow of her favorite child, man. The front of the house
was already steeped in shadow, while the sun still gilded the irregular
crests of the mountains on the opposite side of the valley that, like
patient camels, supported the load of vines, olive groves, and cornfields
confided to them by man.
The mother, occupied with her task, had not observed that a poorly clad
little boy had joined her children and that they were talking together.
"Who are you?" said the Bornos boy to the stranger; "I have never seen you
before. What is your name?"
"Michael; and yours?"
"Gaspar."
"And my name is Catherine," said the little girl, who desired also to make
the strange boy's acquaintance.
"I know the story of St. Catherine," said the latter.
"Oh, do you? Tell it to us."
The boy recited the following verses:
"To-morrow will be St. Catherine's day,
When to heaven she will ascend and St. Peter will say,
'What woman is that who asks to be let in?'
'I am Catherine,' she will answer, 'and I want to come in.'
'Enter, little dove, in your dove-cote, then.'"
"What a lovely story!" exclaimed the girl. "Don't you know another?"
"Look, Catherine," cried her brother, who was eating roasted beans; "there
is a little dead snail in this bean, a roasted snail."
"Will you give me some beans?" begged the strange child.
"Yes, here are some. Are you very, very fond of roasted beans?"
"Yes, very; but I asked you for them because I am very hungry."
"Why, have you had no dinner?"
"No."
"Nor any breakfast, either?"
"No."
"Mother, mother," cried both the children together, running to their
mother; "this poor little boy hasn't had any dinner or any breakfast, and
he is very hungry; give us some bread for him."
"He has had no dinner, you say?" said the good woman, giving the child a
piece of bread with that compassionate tenderness which seems innate in
women toward children; "have you no parents, then, my child?"
"Yes, but they have no bread to give me."
"Poor little boy! And where are your parents?"
"Over there," answered the boy, pointing in the direction of a lane that
ran between garden walls, at right angles with the street.
The good woman, followed by the children, went to the lane.
On the dry grass, with his face turned to the wall, lay a man, miserably
clad and apparently lifeless; a handkerchief was tied round his head; near
him lay a sickle that had fallen from his nerveless grasp; seated on the
ground beside him was a woman, who, with her thin cheek resting on her
emaciated hand, was gazing fixedly at him through the tears that rolled
down her sad face, as on a rainy day the water trickles down the walls of
a deserted ruin. The last rays of the setting sun, lingering in the lane,
illumined the melancholy group with a light tender and sorrowful as a
farewell glance.
Approaching the stranger, the good woman, whose name was Maria, said to
her:
"Senora, what is the matter with your husband?"
"He has a fever that is killing him," answered the stranger, bursting into
sobs.
"Holy Mary!" cried the mother of the children compassionately. "And why
don't you let people know about it and ask them to help you? Are we living
in a heathen land, then?"
"I don't know any one in the place."
"No matter; for a neighborly act, acquaintance isn't necessary. What! Is
this poor man to be left alone to die, as if he were among the Moors? Not
if I can prevent it."
At this moment a man with a strong, calm, and kind face approached the
group.
"Father, father," cried the children, "this man is dying, and this little
boy, who is his son, says he has no bread to give him."
"John Joseph," added the mother of the children, "this poor man is lying
shelterless here; this is pitiful. If you are willing, let us carry him
into the house and send for the doctor."
"Willing? Of course I am willing," answered her husband. "I have never yet
refused my help to any one in need of it, God be praised! There has always
been a corner in my kitchen for the poor, and especially for those who are
looking for a shelter for the night, who are on a journey, or who are
sick; and such food as I had, I have always shared with them! Don't you
know that, wife?"
"Come, then," said the latter; "let us lift him up, John Joseph; I 'll
take hold of him by one arm and his wife can take him by the other."
They did as she said. One of the children took the sickle, another the
hat, the third a small shabby bundle of clothes, and all went toward the
house.
A sheepskin and a pair of sheets were spread over one of the thick reed
mattings which serve the laborers in the farms and vineyards as beds, and
the sick man, who remained sunk in a profound stupor, was placed on it,
while Gasparito, who was told to fly, ran for the doctor. When the latter
came, he pronounced the patient to be dangerously ill, and prescribed
various medicines, which were administered to him with that zeal and
intelligence in caring for the sick that is one of the many prerogatives
of the sex called the fair, but which might with much more propriety be
called the pious sex.
After the medicines had been administered and he had been bled freely, the
patient seemed somewhat better, and sank into what seemed a natural and
beneficent sleep; and then, and not until then, did the family think of
their supper, the refreshing and nutritious gaspacho, and the fruits, so
abundant in the country, and of which the people, frugal, refined, and
elegant, even in their material appetites, are so fond.
CHAPTER II.
It is needless to say that those first called to partake of the mess, as
the master of the house, who had been a soldier, called it, were the
strange woman and her son.
"And what part of the country are you from?" said John Joseph to his
guest, as he offered her a slice of a magnificent watermelon, which
sparkled like a garnet in the light.
"From Treveles, in the Alpujarras," she answered.
"I was there when I served the king," responded John Joseph. "Those are
poor villages. Treveles is a village overhanging the ravine of Poqueira."
"That is true," replied the poor woman, whose sorrowful face brightened a
little at the recollection, so dear to the heart, of the place where she
was born and where her home was.
"And by the same token," continued John Joseph, "you can see from there
the peaks of Mulha Hasem and Veleta, that don't reach the sky because the
Almighty wouldn't let them, and not because they didn't try."
"And why do they call that peak the Veleta, [a weather-vane.] John Joseph?
Is it because it has one on it?"
"If it has, I never saw it."
"It has none now," said the stranger, "but it had one in former times,
when Moors and Christians went fighting one another through the mountains.
It was guarded by an angel who kept it pointed toward Spain, and then the
Christians conquered; but if he neglected his task, the devil came and
made it point toward Barbary, and then the Moors conquered."
"But, in spite of all the devil could do, we drove them out; yes, and we
would have done it if there had been ten times as many of them!" said the
ex-soldier.
"And were you ever on those peaks?" said the mistress of the house to her
guest.
"I was never there myself," answered the latter; "but my Manuel has been
there a hundred times. Once he went there with an Englishman who wanted to
see them. Between the two peaks there is a ravine that is full of water;
and that is a cauldron that the demons made. From the middle of it come
strange sounds that are caused by the hammering of the demons mending the
cauldron. The whole place is a desert, full of naked rocks, and so awesome
and solitary that the Englishman said it was like the Dead Sea--a sea that
it seems there is in some of those far-off countries."
"Oh, mother! and why did it die?" asked the girl.
"How should I know?" answered the mother.
"Father," said the girl, repeating her question: "why did that sea die?
Did the Moors kill it?"
"What a question!" returned the father, who did not wish to confess his
ignorance of the matter, as his wife had done: "it died because everything
in the world dies, even the seas."
"And is the whole mountain like that?" asked Maria.
"No, for lower down there are trees,--chestnuts, oaks and shrubs, and some
fine apple trees planted by the Moors, whose fruit is sent to Granada to
be sold."
"And I was told," continued John Joseph, "that there are wild goats there
that run faster than water down a hill, that leap like grasshoppers, and
that are so sagacious that they always station one of their number on a
height to keep watch, and when danger is approaching he strikes the rock
with his foot, and then the others scamper off and disappear like a flight
of partridges."
"That is all true," responded the guest; "and there are owls there, too, a
kind of birds with wings and a human face."
"What is that you are saying, Senora?" cried John Joseph, "who ever saw
such birds as those?"
"My Manuel has seen them, and every one who has ever climbed up those
heights; and you must know that the owls and the mountain-goats have been
there ever since the time when Jesus was in the world. He came to those
solitudes, that were then shady meadows in which tame and handsome goats
browsed, watched by their shepherds. The Lord, who was tired, entered a
goat-herd's hut, and asked the goat-herds to prepare a kid for supper for
Himself and St. John and St. Peter, who were with Him. The goat-herds, who
were wicked Moors, said that they had none; but the Lord insisted, and
then what did those heartless wretches do? They killed a cat, cooked it,
and set it on the table. But the Lord, as you may suppose, who sees into
all hearts and knows everything that is going on, however secret it may be
thought, knew perfectly well what the goat-herds had done, and sitting
down at the table He said:
'If you are a kid,
Remain fried.
But if you are a cat,
Jump from the plate.'
"Instantly the animal straightened itself up and ran off. The Lord, to
punish the goat-herds, turned them into owls and their flocks into wild
goats."
At this moment a moan was heard; they all hurried to the sick man's
bedside. His improvement had been only momentary; the fever, caused by a
cerebral attack, had reached its height, and in a few hours terminated his
life, without his having returned to consciousness for a single instant.
It is an easy matter to describe a violent and noisy grief which rebels
against misfortune; but it is not easy to describe a profound, silent,
humble, and resigned grief. The poor widow who had lost everything, even
the strength to work, raised her eyes to heaven, clasped her hands and
bowed her head, while her life, which her chilled heart was unable to
maintain, slowly ebbed away.
She was not sent away by the kind and charitable people who had sheltered
her; but she knew that she would be a heavy burden upon them; and although
she was submissive to the will of the Lord, she prayed to Him to grant her
a speedy and contrite end, as a release from all her sufferings; and the
Lord granted her prayer.
One night she saw with ineffable joy the bed on which she lay surrounded
by kind, devout, and compassionate souls; the house was lighted up; an
altar stood in front of her humble cot, on which she saw the image of our
Lord, to whom she had prayed, with arms opened to those who call upon Him.
Every one brought flowers, those universal interpreters of human feeling,
which enhance the splendor of the most august solemnities and lend poetry
and beauty to the gayest festival; and which, as if they were angels'
gifts, are found, like these, in the hut and in the palace, in royal
gardens and in the fields.
A bell sounded in the distance that with its silvery voice seemed to say:
"Here cometh the Lord, who giveth a peaceful death."
And thus it was; for when the solemn act of receiving the Last Sacrament
was ended, the sick woman raised her eyes, in which a gleam of her lost
happiness shone.
"I am leaving this valley of tears," she said, in a faint voice, "and
through the mercy of God I am going to His presence to ask Him to watch
over this poor boy, this poor orphan--"
"Orphan, did you say?" cried John Joseph. "Don't you know, then, that he
is our son?"
The dying woman leaned her pale face against her son's forehead, on which
a tear fell, and said to him, "Child of my heart, pay to our benefactors
your own debt and that of your parents; as for me, I can only pray to God
that He will bless them as I bless them."
"John Joseph," said the priest, "the blessing of the dying is the most
precious legacy they can leave to those who survive them."
CHAPTER III.
In 1853, Gaspar and Michael, who had grown up together like two brothers,
had arrived at the age of manhood; and they were as honest and industrious
as the father who had guided them. Catherine was a beautiful girl, as
modest and as diligent as the mother at whose side she had grown up.
Michael, who had a noble and affectionate, and consequently a grateful
heart, loved the family who had adopted him with ardent affection; but
especially did he love Catherine, for whom he felt all the affection of a
brother, joined to all the tenderness of a lover toward her whom he
desired to make the companion of his life.
Many days of tranquil happiness were enjoyed by these united and worthy
people; but as happiness, like the blue of the sky, cannot be lasting, for
the earth, to yield its fruits, requires the rain, and man, to estimate at
their true value this life and the next, has need of tears, a time came in
which many were shed in this house, to prove to its inmates that God
bestows this blessing, almost preferably, on the poor and the righteous.
The draft was proclaimed and both sons were enrolled for the drawing.
Those who know how passionate is the affection which the mothers of the
people have for their children can understand Maria's inconsolable grief.
She believed that she loved both sons equally; she feared for both with
the same anguish; with the same fervor she prayed to God and to the Virgin
that both might escape the draft; but when they returned from the drawing
and she learned that the soldier's lot had fallen on her own son, the cry
which this intelligence drew from her mother's heart--"Child of my soul, I
knew that it must fall upon you!"--showed that a mother's love can be
equalled by no other.
Michael saw Maria's grief with a breaking heart, a grief which not all his
own efforts nor those of her husband could diminish or soothe.
On the following day John Joseph took his son to the barrack, but what was
the astonishment of both when the commandant told Gaspar that he was free
and that he might return home.
"Free!" cried Gaspar in amazement. "And why?"
"Because you have a substitute," answered the officer.
"'I!" said Gaspar, with ever-increasing astonishment; "why, that can't be
so!"
"Why do you say it can't be so? If the substitute is already accepted and
enrolled it is so."
"But who is he?" asked Gaspar, amazed.
"That young man, there," answered the officer, pointing to the man whom
his parents, in their beneficence, had brought up as a son.
"Michael, what have you done?" exclaimed Gaspar, strongly moved.
"What my mother charged me on her death-bed to do," answered Michael; "I
have paid a debt.'
"You owed me nothing," answered Gaspar; "but I now owe you a debt; and God
grant me the opportunity to pay it, brother; if the occasion presents
itself, you may be sure I will not let it pass; that I will not."
CHAPTER IV.
Two years after the events just recorded, a still greater sorrow befell
this worthy family, so united and so affectionate, as the families of the
peasantry usually are. Michael drew the lot in a second conscription, as
Gaspar had done before; and as he was thus obliged to serve on his own
account, the son of his adopted parents, whom he could not now serve as a
substitute, was once more called to the ranks. Four years more passed; and
just when they were expecting Michael home, his time of service having
expired, and while Catherine was preparing her wedding garments, a cry,
uttered by the Queen of Spain, resounded through the country, electrifying
the people and producing a universal outburst of patriotic enthusiasm--
Long live Spain! Death to the Moor who has insulted her! This cry was
re-echoed throughout the length and breadth of he Peninsula, accompanied
by the clash of the warrior's sword and the chink of the rich man's gold,
offered on the altar of the country's honor; it was repeated by the
people, who gave their blood; by the sacred episcopate, who blessed the
cause of the country and of Christianity, and whose words powerfully
influenced not only timid and pious consciences, but all by their wisdom,
prudence, and judgment. The Sisters of Charity offered their devoted
services; the nuns made lint and sacred scapulars of the Virgin; the
ladies also made lint and bandages which they moistened with their tears;
and even schoolboys, fired with enthusiasm, asked to be allowed to go to
the popular war against the Moors.
[Note: This assertion might be proved by many examples; but it will
suffice to transcribe here a letter written by a nephew of mine, the son
of Marquis C----.
"SENOR GOVERNOR: Although I am only a boy of eight I am moved to say to
you that I would like to die for the country, and that, being fond of
military things, I wish you would permit me to go fight the Moors.--
Written by P---- P----."
It is to be observed that this boy is docile, and gentle and modest in
disposition, rather than daring or arrogant.--Note of the Author]
Michael, who shared in the general enthusiasm for the war, on receiving
his discharge, enlisted again, refusing to accept the premium for
re-enlisting, for such time as the war in Africa should last.
John Joseph, who in winter followed the occupation of a muleteer, brought
home this news on his return from one of his trips, in which he had seen
his sons, who were both serving in the King's regiment, in Africa. Maria,
on hearing it, burst into tears.
"They were right in saying last year, when the saddle-shaped comet
appeared, that it came to foretell a war with the Moors!" she exclaimed
disconsolately.
"The comet had no resemblance to a saddle," answered her husband, with
martial ardor; "you know very well that what they said was that it was the
same star that had guided the kings who went to Bethlehem to declare that
Christ was the true Messiah; very well, our people will go to the Moorish
country now to tell them that Spanish Christians are tired of putting up
with the atrocities and the insults of the accursed Moors."
"But a great many people will be killed in this war, John Joseph, and that
is heartbreaking to think of; yes heartbreaking, although you with your
warlike notions say it is not."
"Oh, yes, you would like this war to be like a war between women; a war to
the knife, but without any one killed; well, war with those who use a
beard, and especially if they wear the King's uniform and have the flag of
Spain, under which they are fighting, to defend, is another matter; with
them, the question is to conquer or die."
"For that very reason," replied Maria disconsolately, "couldn't he have
come back and stayed quietly at home, after he had fulfilled his duty?"
"Yes, like you, at the spinning-wheel; but you must know that no new
sailing vessel ever yet wanted to be a pontoon. Don't you know that?"
Maria and Catherine kept on crying.
"If you had even told me that you were going to see them," said the
former, "I would have given you some scapulars to take them."
"They have them already, they have them already, and blessed by the bishop
of Malaga. I told you before, wife, that this war is a holy war, which
will rejoice St. Ferdinand in heaven. But you are in a crying humor, it
seems," he added impatiently, seeing that his wife and daughter were still
shedding tears. "Why, what would you have? That they should remain here
like women, instead of going to throttle those accursed Moors who don't
believe in Christ, who deny His Holy Mother, and who call the Spaniards
'hens' and 'Christian dogs'? But let them wait a bit, and I'll warrant
they won't want a second taste of the broth those hens will make them!
They never catch a Spaniard, even in time of peace, that they don't
quarter or impale him; you see that makes every Spaniard's blood boil! I
don't know how I can contain myself that I don't go too, for I tell you
that the soles of my feet are itching to go, and the day you least expect
it, I'll take my gun and my blanket and join the camp."
"John Joseph! In the Virgin's name! Isn't it enough to have your sons
there? Would you leave us entirely alone?"
"It wouldn't be for long."
"Hush, hush! God only knows how long it might be, for those people are in
their own country, defending their homes, and you know that they are
ferocious, savage, fearless, and valiant."
"That they are, but as far as being fearless and valiant is concerned, we
Spaniards are more so."
"And God knows what hunger and privation they are going to suffer!"
"Don't imagine it, but even if it should be so, give the Spanish soldier
plenty of water to drink and he has all he needs. Why, the joy of that
regiment as they went on board was plain to be seen! And to think that I
couldn't have gone with them!"
"John Joseph, in the Virgin's name, don't indulge in those boyish
explosions; remember, you are sixty-five years old."
"To-day I am twenty, wife, I am twenty; do you hear?"
"Your fiery spirit deceives you; and I won't hear you talk about going to
the war, when you have two sons in it already."
"And if I had more sons they should be in it, too. Do you think that I
should be behind the father of the first soldier killed at the taking of
the Serrallo, who when he heard of his son's death called another son,
took him to the alcalde of his village, and said: 'My son has been killed
in the war in Africa; here is another to take his place'?"
"From what you say, I shouldn't wonder if you had urged Michael to go to
the war?"
"Michael didn't need any urging, Michael has done well, and so I told him.
'Go without fear,' I cried to him, as I came away, 'the weather-vane in
your village points for Spain; and don't lose heart, if there should be
some reverse, for reverses there must be in war, unless it be by a miracle
of God; but many there won't be; and the devil will have little chance to
get at the weather-vane of the peak of the Alpujarras, for the one who has
charge of it now is an archangel, your patron saint, Michael, and the
patron saint of Spain, and he won't neglect his business, and he knows how
to keep the devil at a respectful distance!"
CHAPTER V.
Not long afterward, John Joseph went with his mule for a load of pears to
Ronda. He found that from there he could go without much difficulty to the
Christian camp in Africa. "Why, then," he said to himself, "I can sell my
pears there as well as in Jerez or Malaga; there I will go, then; in that
way I shall see my boys and the fighting that is going on, which will be
something worth seeing." And so he went.
Catherine and Maria were far from suspecting anything of this when, six or
eight days later, John Joseph returned home. After he had taken the mule
to the stable and put away his things with much deliberation, he sat down
and said to his wife and daughter:
"The boys send many remembrances, and hope that when you receive them you
will be enjoying as good health as they are enjoying at present."
"Why, what are you saying, John Joseph?"
"I am saying that the boys have sent you many remembrances."
"Have you had a letter from them?"
"No, I am the letter myself."
"You! Why, what do you mean by that?"
"That I went to Morocco and have come back again without losing my way,
with my mule Orejero, who showed little surprise when, on arriving in that
strange country, we found ourselves in the midst of noise and confusion--
Moors everywhere, bands playing, guns firing."
"Holy Mary! And what did you go there for, rash man?"
"To sell some pears that I got an excellent price for; to see the boys,
whom I found in good health and as gay as larks; and to kill three Moors
who will never again call any Spaniard 'Christian dog.' So you see, wife,
that I have not lost my journey."
"And you did that? God help us! God help us!" cried the good woman,
crossing herself. "You killed three Moors, did you say? You would not have
been able to do that unless they had been unarmed, or had been taken
prisoners, or had surrendered; and you did that?"
"Maria, what are you saying?" responded her husband. "Don't you know that
to kill an unarmed man would be contrary to the laws of honor and the work
of an executioner? Don't you know that to kill a man who had surrendered
would be a vile deed and would be to make one's self a butcher of men?
Don't you know that to kill a man who asks quarter would be the deed of a
miscreant and a coward, and would disgrace the name of Christian and
dishonor the name of Spaniard? In honorable combat I killed them, Maria,
when with arms in their hands they tried to kill me and my companions. I
know well that the glory is not in killing but in conquering the enemy,
and I wouldn't want at the hour of my death to have to remember killing
any man by treachery. I tell you, so help me God, that I killed them
honorably, like a brave man, and may they all die thus, for they won't
surrender, not even with the bayonet at their breasts."
"Mercy!" cried Maria, "and why not?"
"Because their holy men have made them believe that the Spaniards are as
ferocious as themselves, and that we burn alive the wounded and the
prisoners we take. You thought that only young chaps were good for the
war, and that I, with my sixty-five years, would be of no use in it; well,
you were mistaken, you see, you were mistaken, for I am of good quality,
and although the steel is worn off, the non remains. Do you understand?
And I am a brave soldier, but not an assassin, do you understand?"
"Forgive me, John Joseph, I didn't stop to think--"
"It is plain you didn't stop to think; and you didn't remember, either,
that your husband is a Christian of the old stock, and a well-born
Spaniard, and that he knows how to fight the enemies of his faith, of his
country, and of his queen; but that he will never dishonor himself by
killing a defenceless man, nor debase himself by putting to death a man
who has surrendered, nor make a tiger of himself by refusing his life to a
man who asks it, not even if he were Barabbas himself."
"Were ours winning, John Joseph?"
"To be sure they were. Winning all the time, past, present, and future."
"But I have heard them say that a great many more Moors are coming, with a
brother of their king, whom they call Muley Abbas."
"Let them come! That is just what we want; but don't imagine that those
Moors that are with the king are like the Riff Moors, who are the most
savage and the fiercest of all the Moors. But all of them together could
do nothing against the division of Echague, which has covered itself with
glory in the war. Queen Isabel may well be proud of her soldiers. But as I
was telling you, when I arrived at Algeciras I embarked with my mule and
my pears; and you know that I have no fancy for travelling by sea; for the
mule that falls on that road doesn't get up again. I landed at Ceuta and
from there I went with my mule and my pears to the camp; and when I saw
the flag of Spain floating over the Serrallo, my heart swelled so that my
breast could hardly contain it. I reached the camp and sold my pears like
lightning, for there is no want of money there, nor of the will to spend
it. What a hubbub, Maria! It seemed like the gayest kind of a fair;
nothing was to be heard but the twang of guitars, singing, and hurrahs for
the queen. I need only tell you that the commander-in-chief has had to
forbid so much singing and guitar playing at night, because it served as a
guide to the accursed Moors. I was just inquiring for the King's regiment,
when the bugle sounded, our soldiers seized their guns, crying, 'Long live
Spain!' and advanced to the attack. I left my mule there and followed
them; and you may believe me that the sight was worth seeing, and one that
would have set the blood coursing in a dead man's veins. Each of our
soldiers was a Bernardo, every officer a Pizarro, every general a Cid. One
might have thought that Santiago himself, on his white horse, was at the
head of the army, so completely did they rout the Moors, who are all
warriors, and who were three times as many as we. I could not tell you all
I saw, not if I had a hundred tongues. I saw General Quesada seize a gun
and lead the bayonet charge himself. 'Ah, brave son of a brave father!' I
said to myself; for I had served under his father, and he was another of
the right kind. But why do I say another, when they are all of the right
kind! I saw the bullets flying over the head of the commander-in-chief, as
thick as comfits in Carnival. I saw the regiment of Granada, with its
valiant commander, Colonel Trillo, at its head, make a bayonet charge
crying, 'Long live the Queen!' that made the Moors fly in terror from the
field; and I heard the commander-in-chief say to the colonel, that that
exploit deserved a decoration; to which the generous colonel replied:
'Nothing for me, General, the credit belongs to my battalion.' I heard the
commander-in-chief say to a group of soldiers of the Granada regiment,
'How goes it, boys? Have you received your baptism yet?' 'Yes, General,'
answered the soldiers, 'and the Moors have paid dear for the christening.'
In short, Maria, if I was to tell you of all I saw there, I should keep on
talking till the Day of Judgment. But the ones I never lost sight of,
Maria, were our two boys; and you may imagine how well they must have
fought when the commander-in-chief, who was nearby, observed them, and
going up to Michael, he said, 'You have fought well. Now tell me, what do
you wish?' 'To keep on fighting, General,' answered Michael; and on the
instant the general gave him the cross of St. Ferdinand. I cannot tell you
how I felt; but I thought I should go out of my wits with joy; I could not
contain myself, and I was running to embrace him, when I saw one of those
crazy howlers stab one of our soldiers, who fell down beside me. 'So?' I
said, seizing the wounded man's gun; 'you won't have a chance to kill
another brave Christian;' and with that I despatched him; and as I had
joined the dance, I despatched two others, and I made a bayonet charge
with the boys that put wings to the feet of the Moors, for if they have a
heavy hand for the fight they have a light foot for flight. Then, night
coming on, I gave up the gun and went to look for my mule, who evidently
had not found that dance of Moors and Christians to his liking, and who, I
learned on inquiry, had gone, like a mule of peace, to the shelter of the
walls of Ceuta.
"That night a storm arose that I don't believe had its equal since the
world began. I thought the sea, the wind, and the rain together would
bring the world to an end. But the next morning we were all as if nothing
had happened, and if the devil had sent that, and others like it, at the
instance of his friend, Mahoma, to terrify his enemies, they might both
have been convinced that Spaniards are not to be terrified either by the
roaring of the elements or the howling of their ferocious Moors.
"Well, as I was saying, next morning I got up and walked to the camp to
have a chat with the boys; for, as I have told you, the Moors had
prevented me from doing so the day before. When I arrived I found the
King's regiment drawn up in line, with its band and all! 'What may this be
for?' I said to myself. The sentry on guard was as mute and as motionless
as a statue, so that it isn't because there are Moors in sight. And why is
this regiment drawn up and not the others? This was beginning to excite my
curiosity. I drew near. The band was playing away when the colonel, taking
his place in front of the regiment, commanded silence, and said in a loud
voice, so that all might hear him:
"'The commander-in-chief has learned with great satisfaction that on the
afternoon of the 24th of November, a soldier of the King's regiment, which
I have the honor to command, seeing his companion and friend wounded and
in the hands of the Moors, and animated by the noblest sentiments, fixed
his bayonet, and throwing himself heroically upon the Moors, and striking
down those who attempted to stop him, seized his wounded friend, threw him
over his shoulder, more regardful of his friend's life than of his own,
and, snatching him from certain death, carried him back to the ranks; and
desiring to recompense, in view of the whole regiment, the soldier who, in
so admirable a manner, unites in himself the gallantry of the soldier and
the piety of the Christian, transmits to him this gold medal, which the
Cadiz Athenaeum has provided and caused to be engraved, with the object of
making it an honorable reward for an act of surpassing merit, to be given
to him before his regiment drawn up in line, so that it may serve as a
stimulus to the brave and generous soldier referred to--'"
The old man's voice, up to this time so animated, here failed him, and he
was unable to proceed.
"Well," said his wife, deeply moved by the story she had been listening
to, "why do you stop, John Joseph? Go on."
"I can't get the words out, there's a lump in my throat; for the soldier
whose name was called and who stepped from the ranks to receive the gold
medal was--"
"Was who? Why do you stop?"
"He was--my son. He was Gaspar!"
"Child of my heart! And the Virgin has kept him safe for me!" cried Maria.
"My darling brother! And he saved Michael's life!" murmured Catherine.
"And he killed three Moors! Ah, good son, honor of my gray hairs!" added
John Joseph, with enthusiastic tenderness.
There was a moment's silence during which tears choked the utterance of
these simple people, and they could only clasp their hands and raise their
eyes to heaven.
When he had somewhat recovered from his emotion, John Joseph continued his
recital in these words:
"When the ceremony was over I went in search of my boys. I cannot
describe, Maria, what I felt when I saw them, the one with his gold medal
and the other with his cross of St. Ferdinand. But what I can say is that
the queen herself can't feel prouder, with her crown and sceptre, than I
felt with my Gaspar and my Michael! If Gaspar was happy, Michael was
happier still; his eyes danced with joy; the other seemed dazed. 'Good, my
son, good,' I said to him, 'that's the way Spaniards behave when they are
fighting for their country, their queen, and their faith, remembering that
the soldier who is brave and not humane is brave only as the brutes are.
You have deserved the medal, son, and your father's blessing with it.'"
"'Why, what did I do?' said Gaspar, who like all really brave men is
neither proud nor boastful, and holds himself for less, not more than he
is really worth.
"'You saved your brother's life,' I replied.
"'And by so heroic an act that it will be written in letters of gold,'
added Michael.
"'Why, nonsense," answered Gaspar, putting his arm around his brother's
neck; 'I have done nothing but pay a debt I owed.'
"'And Spain has paid the debt she owed to the Moors, and with interest,' I
said; and I fancy they won't be likely to try their tricks again. So you
see, wife, all the advantages the war has brought us. Hurrah for the war!"
"John Joseph," returned his wife, "we mustn't forget, because it has been
favorable to us--and that, perhaps, owing to that poor mother's dying
blessing--the many evils to which war gives rise: the unhappy people who
suffer, those who are left disabled, those who die, and all the families
who are at this moment weeping and in mourning; for war is a calamity, and
therefore we ought to pray to God with all our hearts and souls for peace,
for the song of the angels is: 'Glory to God in the highest; and peace on
earth, to men of goodwill!'"
CHAPTER VI
Two months later, that is to say, toward the middle of January, John
Joseph, his wife, and his daughter were seated one evening around the
brazier. The sky had been covered for several days with heavy clouds that
sent down their rain with a steadiness not usual in storms. The wind that
came from the Levant roared as if it brought with it, to terrify Spain,
the menacing howls of the savage children of Africa and the growling of
its lions.
"Who knows what they may be going through now!" said Catherine, in a voice
choked with emotion.
"Ah, merciful God," answered her mother, "with swamps for a floor, tents
that let the water through for shelter, and the cholera killing them by
hundreds, and the Moors lying in ambush for them or treacherously
following them, and those eternal nights that swallow up the days! There
is no strength nor courage that could bear up against so many ills."
"And that is not the worst," said John Joseph, with the thoughtless
frankness of the peasant, bringing his foot heavily down on the floor and
raising his eyes to heaven.
"What! There are worse things yet?" said Maria, anxious and surprised.
"Why, what else is there, John Joseph? What else? Speak out."
"Hunger!" answered her husband in a funereal voice.
"Holy Mary!" cried the poor mother in terror. "What is that you say, man?
And the provisions, then?"
"Provisions they cannot get there; they must be sent by sea from Spain;
and although they took plenty with them, when they get used up more must
be sent, and with these storms, to which there is neither stop nor stay,
not even the birds could cross the Strait. Those are the chances of war,
Maria; and if it has pleased God to send His storms precisely in these
days it must be to put our courage and our constancy to the proof, Maria,
so that we may go to Him and ask His help, and so that the victory, being
more dearly bought, may be the more brilliant and the more prized."
"Or the sufferings and the death of our soldiers the more deeply felt and
bitterly lamented," returned his wife. "Merciful God! Tempestuous weather,
an epidemic, fierce and treacherous enemies around them, and hunger! Who
would not lose heart with all this?"
"The Spanish soldier, Maria."
"And will the generals and the great people come back?"
"Neither the one nor the other, Maria. And if any of them should be
obliged to come back because they are sick or wounded, it will be in grief
and rage, and only because they can't help themselves; I know them, Maria,
I know them."
"What, are they all going to perish, then?"
"Don't imagine it, for God and the Holy Virgin will bring them safely
through; hold that for an article of faith."
"Let us ask them to do it, then," groaned the unhappy mother. "Mother of
the forsaken! where are my sons? What has become of them? Are they alive?
If they are, what will they not be suffering, and what will they not
suffer in the future, if thou dost not protect them? How their hearts will
be filled with anguish and their minds with despair! Holy Mother! if I
only had news of them, even. Let us pray to the Virgin to intercede for
them."
The family began to recite the rosary with that fervor which changes
anguish to hope, and sorrow to resignation; and scarcely had they ended
when a little boy called out from the door:
"Uncle John Joseph, my father says there is a letter in the post-office
for you, and that it is from the Christian's camp over yonder."
John Joseph, with the activity of twenty years, hurried out of the house,
while Maria and her daughter, falling on their knees before an image of
the Virgin, raised their clasped hands in prayer.
John Joseph soon returned, bringing with him one of his cronies who knew
how to read and who proceeded to read aloud the letter which the former
had carried in his trembling hand.
"MY DEAR PARENTS: I hope that when you receive this you will be enjoying
as good health as I desire for myself. Michael and I are well, and at your
service. The cholera is raging again, but we laugh at it. Every day of
action is a day of pleasure and enjoyment for us; for it is happiness
enough for us to win glory for our country and to see the enthusiasm of
everybody; for this increases every day, as well among us of the ranks as
among the officers and generals, and which shows most it would be hard to
say. The mess has been a little scanty in these last days, because the sea
was fiercer than the Moors themselves, and the boats were unable to reach
us with the supplies; but what matter? The worst of it was that we had no
tobacco. And so it happened that the commander-in-chief, who came among us
encouraging us, like a greatly respected but very careful father, came up
to me and said: 'Well, my boy, are you very hungry?' And I answered him:
'The hunger is nothing, General; if I only had--if I only had a
cigarette.'--And what do you think he did? He went to his tent and brought
from it an enormous box of cigars that the Queen had presented to him for
the campaign; and saying that Her Majesty would be glad that they should
serve to lighten the labors of her faithful soldiers, he distributed them
among us. We have received provisions, thanks to the navy, that on this
occasion did not seem the sister but the mother of the army; and as for
that brave General Bustillo, a hundred lives, if we had them, wouldn't be
enough to pay him for all he has done for us. Hurrah for the navy, father,
notwithstanding that your worship doesn't like the sea.
"You must know, father, that a prince of the royal house of France has
arrived here. Although tall and of handsome presence, he is but a boy--
only seventeen. If your worship had seen him, you would have said that he
was only a stripling, and not fit for such hard service, but you would
have changed your mind if you had seen how he attacked the Moors. On my
faith I had always believed that, from Santiago down, only the Spaniards
attacked the Moors in that way. We believe here that what he wanted to do
was to perform another exploit like the one related by Michael's mother of
Hernando del Pulgar in her native Granada, and to fasten the Ave-Maria on
the tent of Don Manuel Habas, and that he would have done it, too, if he
hadn't been held back. And mind you, father, it is a very noble thing, and
one worthy of admiration, to come, without anything obliging him to it, to
this war, which is no child's play, just for the sake of proving himself
brave. True it is that to have that name is worth more than all the gold
in the world, and lifts one a foot above the ground.
"We have made more than half a dozen charges with the bayonet, father,
like the one in which your worship took part. These charges are not, as
one might say, greatly to the taste of the Moors, who, when they hear the
call to the charge, to which we have given the name of General Prim's
Polka, tremble and turn pale and fall back. [Note: It may properly be
related here that this same division, with its leader, General Prim,
reconnoitring at a few leagues distance from Tetuan, came upon a poor old
Moorish woman, sick and abandoned by her people; and that putting her on a
stretcher, they carried her on their shoulders to Tetuan with all the
gentleness of sisters of charity. (Note of the Author.)]
"Michael gives me many remembrances for you, and bids me tell Catherine
that he does not forget her, and he bids me tell you, father, that you
were right when you said that his saint would not neglect the weather-vane
that has always pointed for Spain, for we have never once been defeated,
and mind you that the Moors are valiant men, and that they fight with
desperate courage. With this I say good-bye, asking your blessing for your
son, GASPAR.
"Mother: I never enter action without commending myself to the Virgin, as
you told me to do."
It will be easy to understand the delight of the parents on reading this
cheering and animated letter, which was read many times over, for as soon
as it was known in the village that a letter had arrived from Africa, the
house was besieged with people eager to hear the news of the most national
and popular war which Spain has had since the Independence.
CHAPTER VII.
Several days passed, and the loving mother's heart was once more a prey to
anxiety.
"John Joseph," she said to her husband, "we have heard nothing, and that
means that they can't take Tetuan."
"Hold your tongue, you foolish woman," answered her husband; "wherever the
sun enters the Spaniards can enter. And don't you know that Zamora wasn't
taken in an hour, and that the artillery can't cross over swamps, and that
a causeway has to be built? Women, who know nothing about war, think that
to take a fortress in an enemy's country is as easy as to toss a
pan-cake."
But on the 5th of February a muleteer, who came from Xerez, brought the
news to Bornos, which had been transmitted to Xerez by telegraph, that a
hard-fought battle had taken place the preceding day before Tetuan, in
which, as in all the previous ones, the Spaniards had come off victorious,
having made themselves masters of five encampments of the enemy, although
at the cost of many lives.
His patriotic ardor, added to a feeling of deep anxiety, made it
impossible for John Joseph to remain in the village, and he set out for
Xerez. There he learned that the wounded of that memorable day were to be
taken to Seville, and as a train of materials for the railroad was just
leaving for that city, he begged to be taken on board.
The 7th of February dawned--a day memorable for ever in the annals of
Spain. Day had scarcely broken when the sonorous and soul-stirring bells
of the Cathedral of Seville, diffusing, authorizing, and solemnizing joy,
announced to the sleeping people the great and auspicious event of the
taking of Tetuan. It would be impossible to give an idea of the impression
caused by those sounds, for who can describe the apogee of the most
unanimous, ardent, and national enthusiasm? But let a few facts speak for
themselves.
The priests who repaired to the churches to say mass recited it solemnly
in chorus, and afterward chanted the Te Deum, that august hymn of thanks
to the Lord.
The venerable Generals Guajardo and Hernandez, military authorities of the
district, and both veterans, in whose laurels there is not a leaf that
time can wither, when they met fell into each other's arms, unable to
utter a word; the sight of this noble spectacle drawing tears from the
eyes of the officers who were present. When the alcalde presented himself
before the archbishop to ask his consent to take in procession the image
of the Immaculate Virgin, the patroness of Spain, and the standard and
sword of St. Ferdinand, the venerable Prince of the Church burst into
tears, causing the alcalde to shed tears also; seeing which, a man of the
people rushed to the latter, saying: "Senor Alcalde, let me embrace your
worship!" The people called for their venerable pastor, and the latter,
showing himself on the balcony, blessed his flock, who cheered him
enthusiastically. The various sodalities of women entered their
magnificent chapel in procession, giving thanks aloud to the Virgin.
Musicians paraded the streets, followed by a multitude intoxicated with
joy, who cheered the Queen, Spain, the army, and the generals who had led
it to victory, and who stopped before the houses where the commanders and
officers wounded in this glorious war were lodged, to cheer them also.
In the public square, a vender of oranges abandoned his stall and his
merchandise, leaving behind him a notice which said: "The owner of this
stall has turned crazy with joy, and here he leaves this trash." Others
broke the jars of a water-seller (the value of which they gave him
promptly), saying, "What is this? Water? Today nothing but wine is to be
drunk in Seville." Further on, another group shouted, "No one sleeps
to-night; whoever sleeps to-night is an Englishman!" Flags on the towers,
hangings on the houses, the pleasing noise of joy everywhere.
"A telegraphic despatch," shouted the blind men, beside themselves with
joy, "announcing the entrance of our valiant troops into the great city of
Tetuan, and the utter annihilation of the Moors. Long live Spain! Long
live the Queen! Long live the army! Long live the Moors!" "What is that
you are saying, man? Long live the Moors?" "Yes, so that we may kill them
again!"
Such is the enthusiasm of the Spanish people when it is unanimous,
legitimate, and genuine; they go to their churches, take out in procession
the Immaculate Virgin, cheer their queen, their prelates, their
authorities, their country, applaud their army, which gives them power and
greatness, its commander and the generals who lead it, and those who bring
back from the war glorious wounds; and not even for its most ferocious
enemies does it find the odious "Death!"
And that you, brave soldiers who remain in Africa, who have bestowed so
great a joy upon your country, should be unable to witness the gratitude
with which it repays you!
Perhaps the universal and frantic enthusiasm inspired by the taking of a
Moorish city, however heroic the exploit which had put it in the power of
the Spaniards, may seem disproportioned to the occasion; but this is not
the case, for in the first place, the people, with their admirable
instinct, know that the result is, in everything, what gives it its value;
they feel, besides, that it is not only a Moorish city and the advantages
its capture may bring, which its army has gained for Spain, but also that
from the Moorish fire the Spanish phoenix has arisen, directing its flight
to a glorious future; and in the second place, because in these public
demonstrations, in this ardent expansion, the country gives expression to
three months of admiration, of interest, and of sympathy. This was owed to
the army for its constancy, for its unequalled valor, for its boundless
humanity. This debt the country owed, and it paid it in love, in
admiration, and enthusiasm.
On the 8th, the same rejoicings were continued; processions, salvos, and
so much firing of guns everywhere, that it was said as much powder was
expended in it as in the taking of Tetuan. On the 9th, one of the
principal streets of the city was named the street of Tetuan; the ceremony
taking place at eight o'clock in the evening, when the municipal council
went in procession to the street, carrying the Queen's likeness.
But meantime Maria had had no news of John Joseph. Exaggerated reports of
the losses by which the victory had been gained were spread. Maria was
unable to control her anxiety, and she set out, as many other mothers of
the peasantry did, for the capital, where the wounded, who might perhaps
be able to give her some news of her sons, were to be brought.
Mother and daughter reached Seville on the evening of the 9th, and after
resting for a few moments at an inn, went out to inquire where the
wounded, who had been recently brought to the city, had been taken.
A vast crowd of people and enthusiastic cheering announced to them the
approach of the procession. They stood on a bench in a porch to watch it
as it passed. Five mounted pioneers and a numerous band headed the
procession; the municipal guard followed on foot; then came four men
carrying flags, followed by a number of men bearing torches; and then the
soldiers who had been wounded in Africa, wearing laurel wreaths and
carrying ensigns with the names, in silver letters, of the principal
victories gained by the army. After these came the municipal council
headed by the civil governor and two councillors carrying the likeness of
the Queen, and the procession was closed by a detachment of infantry with
another band of music at its head.
"Here come the wounded soldiers!" cried the crowd, and the cheering became
more enthusiastic, and tears ran down the cheeks of the women as they
stopped to look admiringly at the wounded heroes, and then joined the
procession. "Look at that one! Look at that poor fellow; he isn't able to
walk alone; they are supporting him," some one said close beside Maria,
pointing to a young man, who with his arm in a sling, his pale forehead
crowned with laurel, and carrying in his hand an ensign bearing on it the
word "Tetuan," walked with a modest expression on his thin but pleasing
face, leaning on the arm of a robust old man whose proud and enraptured
expression seemed to say to every one, "This brave man is my son!" Maria,
whose heart had for many days past been agitated alternately by fear,
hope, enthusiasm, and anguish, uttered a cry drawn from her by all these
mingled feelings, as she recognized in the emaciated and glory-covered
wounded soldier her son, and fell into Catherine's arms.
CHAPTER VIII.
A few months later a happy wedding, the wedding of Catherine and
Michael, was celebrated in Bornos. Gaspar, whose health was entirely
re-established, but who had lost his right arm, was present. But if he had
lost an arm he had in return received a gold medal, a cross with a pension
attached to it, and an annuity; the last, as having been disabled in the
war in Africa; the cross for bravery; and the medal for humane and gallant
conduct.
"Every day is a day of thanksgiving! There is not a happier father in the
world than I!" exclaimed John Joseph gayly. "My only grief is to see you
crippled, my boy. But that can't be helped. You have paid your debt to the
country like an honest man, Gaspar."
"And the country, father," answered Gaspar, pointing proudly to his cross
and medal, "has acquitted herself fully of hers to me."
"You are right, my son: and so, sirs, a toast. Long live the Queen, and
long live all the generous and patriotic Spaniards who, like Her Majesty
and the Royal Family, have aided in taking care of the wounded and
disabled soldiers of the African war!"
THE END
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