Maria hung her head and said not a word. Without offering any resistance she allowed him to pull her down the four or five steps of the staircase. But on reaching the pa.s.sage-way, Ricardo felt on his cheek a warm kiss, which caused him to loose his captive and fall back with horror; instantly Maria's arms were wound around his neck, and on his lips he felt the imprint of other lips.

"Ricardo mio, for heaven's sake, don't put me to shame!"

These words, whispered in his ear with a pa.s.sionate accent, were accompanied by a cloud of caresses. The young man pressed her close to his heart without answering a word; his emotion choked his utterance.

When he became a little calmer, he asked her with trembling voice,--

"Do you love me?"

"With all my soul!"

"Was that nothing else but a moment of ill humor?"

"That was all."

"Oh, what a wretched time you have made me have! Not for all the gold in the world would I go through it again!"

"Tell me, haven't I made up for it now?"

"Yes, loveliest."

"Let me loose. I am going to lie down. I have such a headache!"

"Wait a minute. Let me kiss thee on thy forehead,--now another on thy eyes,--now another on thy lips,--now on thy hands!"

"Adios!"

"Adios!"

"Let me go, Ricardo, let me go!"

The young fellow, laughing with happiness, still held her by the hand.

Maria struggled to escape, though she also was laughing.

"Come, let me go, don't be foolish."

"It shows I'm not foolish because I don't let you go!"

"Think how my head aches!"

"All right, then, I'll let you go."

"Till to-morrow! Be careful whom you dance with now."

"Don't you worry. I am going immediately. Till to-morrow!"

Maria tore herself away. Ricardo tried to catch her again, leaping up the dark staircase, but he did not succeed. The girl said good night[4]

with a merry laugh from the top of the stairs.

When Ricardo returned to the parlor he was smiling like a happy man. The light of the chandelier somewhat dazzled him, and he hastened to sit down.

Maria's room, when she entered it, was plunged in darkness. She groped about for the matches and lighted a lamp of burnished iron. The room was furnished with a luxury and good taste rarely to be found in provincial towns. The furniture was upholstered in blue satin; the curtains and paper were of the same color. In the recess between the windows was a mahogany wardrobe with a full-length mirror. The dressing-table loaded down under the weight of its bottles stood against the opposite wall; the carpet was white, with blue flowers. The exquisite niceness with which all these objects were put in place, the elegance and coquetry of the furniture, and the delicate fragrance perceptible on entering, clearly declared the s.e.x and the station of the person who dwelt there.

When Maria lighted her lamp, her eyes met the eyes of an image of the Saviour which stood on the centre of the table where the light burned.

It was on wood, beautifully carved and painted, with a decidedly sad and meek expression of the face, and it was this which had led the young woman to buy it. When she caught sight of the sweet but icy face of the image, the happy smile which still hovered over her lips died away, leaving her motionless and deeply thoughtful. Little by little, doubtless under the influence of the ideas which came into her mind, her face lost its usual expression and a.s.sumed one as melancholy and humble as that of a Magdalene. At that moment the sound of the piano came vibrating through the dark stairway, telling of the first movement of a fascinating rigadoon. She fell on her knees and bent her head. Every now and then she sobbed. Her lips were pressed convulsively against the naked feet of the Saviour, and muttered unintelligible words.

After a long time she raised her face bathed in tears, and exclaimed in a tone of woe:--

"My Jesus! what treachery! what treachery! How illy do I repay the love which thou hast bestowed on me. Punish me, Lord, so that I may again have peace of mind!"

Arising from the floor, she took the lamp in her hand and went into her bed-room. It was tiny and warm as a nest, and it was ornamented with a profusion of engravings of Jesus and the Virgin. The bed, covered with satin curtains, was white and delightful as a baptismal altar. She placed the lamp on her dressing-table and with more tranquil face quickly undressed.

Then she took a travelling-mantle from the wardrobe, wrapped herself in it, blew out the lamp, made the sign of the cross time and again on her forehead, her mouth, and her breast, and lay down on the floor. The white bed, covered with satin and lawn, warm and perfumed, and full of sensuous delights, awaited her in vain all night. Thus she remained stretched on the floor till daylight dawned.

CHAPTER III.

THE NINE DAYS' FESTIVAL OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS.

Day had hardly dawned, when our maiden arose suddenly from the floor.

She stood motionless a moment with ear attent, but she did not catch the sound of the bells of San Felipe, which she thought she had heard in her dreams. She was mistaken; it was not yet six o'clock. She lighted her lamp, and going to her boudoir prostrated herself in humiliation before the image of Jesus and began to pray. As she wore nothing but a thin cambric night-dress, she naturally felt the cold through it, and began to shiver, but she would not yield, and she kept on with her prayers until her teeth chattered. Only then she decided to quit the position which she had taken and dress herself. Thereupon, she opened the four windows of her boudoir and blew out the lamp.

A peevish light, cold and chill, made its way into the Senorita de Elorza's room, giving the articles of furniture a lugubrious aspect quite different from what they usually bore. The morning chill also penetrated them as well as their mistress, and they stood silent and melancholy, doubtless hoping for the rays of the sun to show forth their beauty and splendor. Only in one spot or another, as the light fell on the varnish, there was a pale reflection which looked like the gla.s.sy, filmy eye of a dying person. The room was situated in a sort of square turret which was built in one of the rear angles of the mansion; it rose some yards above it, and was open to the light on all its four sides. The tower held only two apartments,--Maria's, composed of boudoir and bedroom, and her maid Genoveva's chamber, which was single. They were the coldest but at the same time the most cheerful rooms in the house. The few times that the sun deigned to visit Nieva he went straight to lodge in them, entered without as much as asking leave, in the way of sovereign guests, and spent the day, shining in the mirrors, brightening up the satin of the chairs, dulling the varnish of the clothes-presses, and in a word disporting himself in a thousand different ways,--all this, it may be said, would have been, had not Genoveva taken the precaution to draw the curtains in time. They were likewise the quietest; the noises of the house did not reach them, and those from outside had no possibility of disturbing them, owing to their situation. Only the wind, which almost never ceased to blow heavily around the tower, made strange noises, especially at night, sometimes moaning, sometimes screaming, and constantly complaining because the windows were kept hermetically sealed. During the daytime it was neither melancholy nor petulant, but contented itself with a perpetual but very dignified murmur like sea-sh.e.l.ls held to the ear.

Maria, still shivering though she was wrapped up in her shawl, went to one of the windows which looked down into the garden whose earthwall was contiguous to the quay. From that window the whole length of the Nieva River could be seen down to El Moral, which was the place where it emptied into the sea. It would not measure more than a league in length, but its breadth varied wonderfully, according as it was seen at high or low water, at spring tide or neap tide. When there were full tides, it spread out half a league, lapping up against the foot of the pine-covered hills which shut in the valley on both sides. At low tide the water drew out almost completely, leaving barely a narrow, sinuous thread in the centre. Between the conterminous line of hills there lay on both sides of the channel wide flats of soft gray mud, dotted with pools of water where the ragam.u.f.fins of the quay took delight in splashing and wallowing until they had besmeared themselves thickly enough to go straight and wash it off by diving head first into the channel. Above the garden wall rose the masts of a few vessels, not a dozen in all, anch.o.r.ed by the quay, the majority of them smacks and schooners[5] of insignificant draught.

The young girl looked for an instant at the sky, which was still profoundly dark towards the west, hiding and confusing the outline of the distant mountains. In the zenith she noticed that it was completely overcast, of an ashen color, which grew lighter as she turned her face toward the east. There the clouds were not as yet compacted into a solid ma.s.s as in the opposite quarter; they stood out against the sweep of the sky in monstrous black piles, and opened sufficiently to let the few feeble, melancholy, ruddy rays pa.s.s through, which the sun, like a dying fire, was beginning to shed upon the earth. The tide was rising. The surface of the river absorbed the slender light of the sky, and gave forth nothing more than a tremulous metallic reflection in the far distance.

After watching the sunrise for a time, our maiden got a book which lay on the dressing-table in her room, and came back to the window to see if she could read; but it was not yet light enough. She laid the book on a chair and again went to the window, leaning her forehead against its panes. The sky kept growing brighter in the direction of El Moral; but it added no life or good cheer to the earth. The growing light seemed only to make more distinct its stern, forbidding face. A wretched and disagreeable day was in prospect, such as the natives of Nieva were accustomed to enjoy the larger part of the year.

But soon the windows of the east were closed; the huge, thick clouds which had stood out separate, allowing the light to pa.s.s, once more made one unbroken ma.s.s, by the impulse of some breath of air, and the rosy flush faded away. In their place remained a uniform pallid light, which, little by little, spread over the heavens, lazily struggling with the shadows in the west. The far-away reflections on the river likewise died out, leaving it all a monotonous color, like unpolished steel. The boudoir slowly filled with light; the pretty articles of furniture, and the objects adorning it, emerged from the obscurity, graceful, dainty, and fascinating, like the dancers in the opera, when at an outburst from the orchestra they throw aside the spectral mantles in which they had wrapped themselves. The light, however, did not smile; all the time it grew more melancholy and forbidding. Across the mighty ma.s.ses of dark violet cloud which were rising above the four or five houses of El Moral, others, small and white, began to fly like wisps of gauze--a sure sign of storm.

Maria quickly felt the pane against which she was leaning tremble. A gust of wind and rain had savagely lashed the window. She stepped back a little and saw that all the panes were weeping at once. For some little time she occupied herself in watching the more or less rapid and uneven course which the drops of water followed as they rolled down the smooth surface of the gla.s.s. The sharp, intermittent pattering of the rain brought back to her memory the many afternoons that she had spent near that same window listening to it with an open book in her hand. The book had always been a novel. For more than four months she had incessantly begged her father to let her have the use of the boudoir in the tower so that she might give herself up entirely to her favorite occupation without fear of any one interrupting her. But Don Mariano feared to give his permission, because the apartments in the tower were cold, and the girl's health was delicate. At last, overcome by her entreaties and caresses, he yielded, after having the rooms carefully carpeted, and exacting the condition that Genoveva should sleep near by. It was a happy period for Maria. She was sixteen, and her mind was restless and high-spirited. Her music, in which she had made prodigious strides, had stimulated in her heart a decided tendency to melancholy and tears. She wept at the slightest provocation, sometimes without reason, and when it was least expected, but her tears were so sweet, and she experienced such intense pleasure in them, that on many occasions she fostered them artificially. How many times, gazing from that window upon the delicate clouds of the horizon tinted with rose or the last splendors of the dying sun, she felt her heart overcome by a depth of melancholy which found relief only in sobs! How many times she had pained her father with a storm of tears, the cause of which she could not tell, because she herself knew not! The knowledge of painting, in which she also excelled, turned her inclinations towards light and a wide outlook, and this equally contributed to make her long for the rooms in the tower. When once she had taken her quarters there with her piano, her paints, and her novels, Maria looked upon herself as the most fortunate girl on earth. If at noon of some magnificent sunny day, under an effulgent azure sky, she opened all the windows of her boudoir and admitted the fresh, keen wind which toyed with her hair and scattered the papers from the table over the floor, she imagined with delight that she had mounted upon a star, and that she was in the midst of s.p.a.ce, swimming through the air at the mercy of every chance. And this illusion, though it was hard for her to keep it up, made her happy. Sometimes at night she used to open the blinds and light not only her lamp, but all the candles in the candlesticks, so as to imagine that she was stationed in a lofty lighthouse. "From the river this tower must seem like a beacon, and my room the lamp which has just been lighted," was what she used to say, in childish delight. And then she began to peer through the panes to see if any ship were on its way down to El Moral, until, frightened by the darkness without and dazzled by the light within, she finally grew terror-stricken at such an illumination and hastened to extinguish the lights.

Don Mariano called that gay, aerial boudoir _Maria's bird-cage_; and in truth the name was admirably appropriate, for the girl was constantly flitting about in it, moving the furniture and changing the things from one place to another, nervous and restless as a bird. To make the resemblance more complete, it often happened that when the family were gathered in the dining-room they heard the distant trills of some cavatina or romanza which Maria was studying. Don Mariano never failed to exclaim, with his usual benignant smile, "Our little bird is singing." And all would likewise smile, full of content, for everybody in the house loved and admired the girl.

In two or three years a cargo of novels had made their way into the tower boudoir, and been sent away again, after having diverted the long leisure hours of our young friend, who put under contribution, not only her father's library and her own purse, but likewise the book-shelves of all the friends of the family. Don Serapio was her first purveyor, and thus for a long time she read only blood-thirsty accounts of terrible and unnatural crimes, in which the proprietor of the canning factory took such intense delight. In this period she did not enjoy much, for, though these novels excited her curiosity to the highest degree, keeping it in suspense and under the spell of the reading a large part of the day and night, yet no sweet or poetic aftertaste was left in her mind for her delectation, and she forgot them the day after she read them.

Moreover, they terrified her too much; many and many times they disturbed her dreams, and even on some occasions she begged Genoveva to lie down beside her, for she was frightened to death. After exhausting Don Serapio's library, she asked one of the Delgado sisters to give her the freedom of hers, which had the reputation of being abundantly supplied. In fact, it was furnished with a great quant.i.ty of novels, all of the primitive romantic school, and elegantly bound, but many of them soiled by use. In the more tender pa.s.sages many of the pages were marked by yellow spots, which was a manifest sign that the various ladies into whose hands the book had fallen had shed a few tears in tribute to the misfortunes of the hero. We already know that one Senorita de Delgado wept with great facility. Among the novels which she read at this time were _Ivanhoe_; _The Lady of the Lake_; _Maclovia and Federico_, or _the Mines of the Tyrol_; _Saint Clair of the Isles_, _or the Exiles on the Island of Barra_; _Oscar and Amanda_; _The Castle of Aguila Negra_; and others. These gave her very much greater enjoyment. Absolutely absorbed, heart and soul, she explored the region of those delicious fantasies with which the ill.u.s.trious Walter Scott, and other novelists not so ill.u.s.trious, delighted our fathers, creating for their use a middle age peopled with troubadours and tournaments, with stupendous deeds of prowess, with Gothic castles, heroes, and indomitable loves. What exercised the greatest fascination upon the Senorita de Elorza was the unchangeable steadfastness of affection always manifested by the protagonists of these novels. Whether man or woman, if a love pa.s.sion seized them, it was labor wasted to raise any barriers, for everything was idle; across the opposition of fathers and guardians, and in spite of the crafty schemes laid by jilted suitors, purified by a thousand different tests, suffering much, and weeping much more, at the end they always came out triumphant and well deserved it all. The Senorita de Elorza vowed secretly in the sanctuary of her heart to show the same fealty to the first lover whom Providence should send her, and imitate his fort.i.tude in adversities. Each one of these novels left a lasting impression on her youthful mind, and for several days, provided that the characters of some other did not succeed in captivating her, she ceaselessly thought of the beautiful miracles accomplished by the heroine's love, pure as the diamond and as unyielding, and taking up the action where the novelist had left it, which was always in the act of celebrating the nuptials of the afflicted lovers, she continued it in her imagination, conceiving with all its minutiae the after-life spent by the husband and wife surrounded by their children, and re-reading with folded hands the places where her tears had so often been shed. Our maiden was anxious for one of these irresistible and melting pa.s.sions to take possession of her heart, but it never entered her mind that any of the young fellows who visited her house dressed in a frock-coat or _Americana_ could inspire it. Love, for her, always took the form of a warrior, whom she imagined with helmet and breastplate, coming breathlessly and covered with dust, after having unhorsed his compet.i.tor with a lance-thrust, to bend his knee before her and receive the crown from her hand, which he would kiss with tenderness and devotion. Again, stripped of his helmet, and in the disguise of a beggar, yet evincing by his gallant port the n.o.bility and courage of his race, he came by night to the foot of her tower, and accompanying himself on the lute, sang some exquisite ditty in which he would invite her to fly with him across country to some unknown castle, far from the tyranny of her sire and the hated spouse whom he wished to force upon her. The night was dark, the sentinels of the castle benumbed with a philter, the ladder already clung close to the window, and the champing steeds were pawing the ground not very far away. "Why dost delay, O mistress mine, why dost delay?" Maria heard a gentle tapping on the panes, and more than once she had risen from her bed, in her bare feet, to satisfy herself that it was not her warrior but the wind who called her, sighing. At that time she could not see a vessel making for the port at night, without trembling; the mystery which always attends a vessel seen in the darkness made her vaguely imagine an ambuscade laid by some ignorant, brutal suitor, who, fearing lest he be rebuffed, wished to ravish her away by main force from her home, and bear her away to distant strands where he might enjoy with her his barbarous pleasure. All that she needed to become disillusionized was to perceive the vessel carefully warping up to the quay and discharging a few barrels and boxes. But the romance which made the profoundest impression upon her was, without question, that ent.i.tled _Matilde_, _or the Crusades_. This, better than any other, was able to carry her mind back to that strange, brilliant epoch of which it treated, causing her to be present during that heroic struggle under the walls of Jerusalem. It is easy to comprehend, however, that it was not the battles between Infidels and Christians which most interested her in the tale, but that weird, improbable love, tender and pa.s.sionate at once, which sprang up in the heroine's heart for one of the Mohammedan warriors who had laid violent hands on the Sepulchre of the Lord. The Senorita de Elorza absolved and almost with her whole heart sympathized with this pa.s.sion where the sin of loving one of the most terrible enemies of Christ offered a more powerful attraction and a keener zest. How was it possible not to fall in love with that famous Malec-Kadel, so fiery and terrible in battle, so gentle and submissive with his ladylove, so n.o.ble and generous on all occasions! Ah! if she had been in Matilde's place, she would have loved in the same way in spite of all laws, human and divine! This Infidel was the character who captivated her the most of all, even to the point of inspiring her to make a very clever painting in which she represented him on the deck of a ship where he was sailing with Matilde, saving her from the snares of her enemies, protecting her with his left hand, and hewing off heads with his right hand, as one reaps the grain in summer.

What best brought her to realize her enthusiasm, was the arrival of a Turk at Nieva, selling mother-of-pearl ornaments and slippers. She was so surprised to see him pa.s.s in front of the house, and her curiosity was so excited, that she was not content until she had addressed him, and made him undergo a long series of questions about the fields of Jerusalem where the love scenes which so impressed her had taken place, about the customs, the dress, and the government of the Mohammedans; but the Turk, either because he was not in the humor of parleying, or because of his being a native of Reus in the province of Tarragona, and having never been in Palestine in his life, answered her questions with impudent curtness.

It had now been a long time, however, since Maria had taken up a novel.

The recollection of the time when she had devoured so many caused a slight contraction of her features, and drew in her smooth brow a wide, deep furrow.

The blasts of wind fraught with rain lashed the panes of gla.s.s for a long time, until they had given them a thorough washing. Gradually its gusts became less frequent, and at last they completely ceased. The light, meantime, had increased, mantling the whole of the murky heavens, and now bringing into relief the forms of the far western hills which were visible through the opposite cas.e.m.e.nt. But the windows of the sky which gave pa.s.sage to the rosy rays when the sunrise first began, did not open again, and all the clouds of the celestial vault united into one, like an ash-colored or grayish mantle, which gave free course to the rain and hindered the light. The storm, as usual, dissolved into a fine drizzle, which began to fall slowly, filling the atmosphere with an evanescent, tremulous veil, woven of watery threads, which still more diminished the brilliancy of the growing light, and hid the outlines of distant objects. The tide was still flowing; the wide sheet of water which stretched away to El Moral a.s.sumed a color earthy near its edges, but dark and heavy in the centre.