Ricardo felt deeply sorry to have them take their departure, as though some tide of affection bound him to that family, and he felt an inclination to say to the mamma, "Senora, I have just lost my mother; I am alone in the world, and I have no one to love me, and no one to love.

Won't you take me home with you as your son?" The car door closed with a bang, the bell rang, the hoa.r.s.e shriek of the engine was heard, and the train sped on its way with its metallic clatter, which ceaselessly cried in the silence of the night, Alone! alone! alone!

A few relatives and friends were waiting for him, and they went with him silently to his home, where they left him after a few meaningless words.

During the days that followed he received many visits of condolence from people who extolled his mother's virtues and recommended great resignation. All called him Senor Marques. Never did he suffer so much as at such times. The only person with whom he enjoyed talking was Don Mariano Elorza, who had been a good friend of his father's, and whose house he visited very familiarly whenever he came to Nieva during his vacations. Don Mariano, who was cordial and friendly to everybody, could not well help showing himself doubly affectionate to him on account of the sorrowful situation in which he was placed. His house during the period which followed the marquesa's death, was a place of refuge for our young friend, where his grief was consoled, and he found a little of that family life which he so greatly missed. On the other hand, it must be said that Ricardo had always felt toward Don Mariano's eldest daughter a strong admiration and affection, which easily changed into love when age and occasion offered, and frequency of intercourse stimulated it, and there was still greater reason for it since neither he nor she had ever been in love before. Long before they were formally engaged, the marriage of the young Marques de Penalta and the Senorita de Elorza used to be talked about in the city. It was a marriage desired and demanded by public opinion; for it must be remarked that the families of Penalta and Elorza were the richest in town, and the public always consider it logical for wealth to seek wealth as rivers seek the sea. Accordingly, Ricardo and Maria were declared husband and wife not long after they were born, and the truth is, the gossips of the town would never have forgiven them if they had failed to carry out the edict pa.s.sed by all the tertulias of Nieva. We know on good authority that the young people had no thought of any such intention, and that they had accepted the sovereign decree with the greatest meekness.

Returning now to where we left off, it is sufficient for us to remark that Ricardo very quickly reached the porch of the house of Elorza, which was large and gloomy. From the great solid door, darkened by time and use, hung a bronze knocker, with which he rapped. He was immediately admitted into a rather large court, with a fountain in the centre. A broad flight of stone steps with bal.u.s.trade of the same material led from it. It was now somewhat the worse for wear, and needed repairs in many places. On the first landing this stairway divided into two arms, one of which led to the apartments of the owners, the other to those of the servants. The former ended in a wide corridor, or gallery, from which one looked through windows into the court. The whole house presented the same elegance as that of the old palaces, although it was built at a comparatively modern period. It had the advantage over those old ancestral mansions, like the Marques de Penalta's, in that it had not been designed to minister so much to the vanity of its masters as to the suitable distribution of its rooms for the conveniences of daily life. It was not dark and gloomy, as those are apt to be; on the contrary, its whole interior spoke of joy, comfort, and elegance. It was, in fact, a great building, without being pretentious, and comfortable, without falling into the unpleasing vulgarity of many modern constructions. It held a conciliatory middle course between aristocratic and middle-cla.s.s ideals, combining the proud lordliness of the one and the practical luxurious tendencies of the other.

The house in a certain way mirrored the position of its master and mistress. Both were children of the most important families not only in Nieva, but in the whole province in which the city is situated. The senora was sister of the Marques de Revollar, who cut such a figure in Madrid a few years ago by his incredible dissipation and prodigality, and who afterwards, being totally ruined and driven away by his creditors, had taken refuge in the army of the Pretender, whom he served as minister and adviser. Don Mariano came from a family less ancient and glorious but far more opulent. His grandfather had made an immense fortune in Mexico during the final years of the last century, and with it he had become the most important landowner in Nieva, and had built the house of which we are speaking. Not only himself, but his son and his son's son, had succeeded in giving l.u.s.tre to their millions by allying themselves with n.o.ble families.

Ricardo made his way through the various rooms of the house of Elorza with as much familiarity as though he had been at home, without even taking off his hat. When he entered Dona Gertrudis's boudoir, this senora, a.s.sisted by two waiting-women, was taking a dish of broth. On seeing our hero, she placed the cup on the little stand in front of her, and pushing back her easy-chair, she exclaimed in a doleful tone,--

"Ay, my dear,[14] you come at an evil hour."

"Why, what's the matter?"

"I'm dying, Ricardo, I'm dying."

"Do you feel worse?"

"Yes, my son, yes; I feel very ill; it is beyond the power of words to say how ill I feel. If I don't die to-day, I shall never die. I spent the whole night doing nothing but groan, and then--and then--that tiger of a Don Maximo has not come yet, though I have sent him two messages.

May G.o.d forgive him! May G.o.d forgive him!"

Dona Gertrudis shut her eyes as though she were making ready to die without either temporal or spiritual comfort.

Ricardo, accustomed to these vaporings, remained a long time silent. At length he said in an indifferent tone,--

"Did you know Enrique has succeeded in exchanging the jewelry, and the new set came yesterday all right?"

"Indeed? thank G.o.d!"[15] replied Dona Gertrudis, opening her eyes; "I certainly thought they wouldn't be willing to exchange it."

"Why not?"

"Of course, because by selling the other they got rid of an old thing, which I don't know how they will ever sell now."

"Yes, but they would lose a customer who brings them much gain. Don't you see, Enrique receives commissions from the whole province?"

"That's true enough; but don't you know that these traders are blinded by avarice? Uph! what wretched people. I tell you I can't bear to see tradesmen, Ricardo; I can't bear to see them, nor painters either!"

After expressing this unfavorable opinion of commerce, which, in the tribunal of her mind, she made coextensive with all industry and to the mechanical arts in general, Dona Gertrudis again closed her eyes with a gesture of woe, and continued in this strain:--

"What I am sure of, my son, is that I am not going to see you married, and that you will be obliged to postpone the wedding on my account. I feel very ill, very ill; my heart tells me that I am going to die before the day of your marriage; and the truth is, that it would be better for me to die if I have got to suffer so much."

"Come, Dona Gertrudis, don't say such things. Who is going to die? You must surely get better gradually; you will be cured, and you will be well and plump so that it will be a delight to see you."

Instead of brightening up at these words, Dona Gertrudis grew angry:--

"That's nonsense, Ricardo; my illness is mortal, even if no one thinks so; my husband won't believe it, but very soon he will be convinced of it; I don't complain merely from habit, not at all. Ay! my dear, if you knew how I suffer, sitting in this easy-chair!"

It may be declared with certainty that from the day on which the priest had invoked the nuptial blessing on Dona Gertrudis, this n.o.ble senora had done nothing else but nurse her bodily woes and tribulations, dragging out a petty existence amid the strangest and obscurest ailments that were ever known. Before the birth of her eldest daughter, Maria, she had suffered from hemorrhage and consumption. Then for several years afterwards, until her second daughter, Marta, was born, she complained of a terrible pain in her heart, so sharp and cruel that many times she had fainted away. The symptoms of this disease, as related by the patient, would fill any one with terror. Sometimes she thought she felt her heart handled and squeezed to the last degree; at others she thought that it was freezing, and then they had her shivering so that all the furs and flannels which they put on her breast had not the slightest effect, until by an abrupt transition she went into a heated oven, where she was roasted to such a degree that her hands in her paroxysms tore into fragments whatever garments she had on; again, finally, she was conscious of some animal gnawing it with his teeth, and of causing such exquisite agony that she could not refrain from shrieking. Don Maximo, the young graduate in medicine,[16] was absolutely nonplussed by such a pathological case, and at each visit he prophesied the immediate death of his patient unless the remedy for spasms which he prescribed should not instantly restore her safe and sound. As Dona Gertrudis did not make haste to die, nor did her extraordinary malady disappear, Don Maximo came to lose all faith in her. He kept up his visits to the house, but always at his regular hour, from which he rarely deviated even though Dona Gertrudis often sent for him by messengers, begging him to play the old farce over again in her sick-room. Don Maximo ended by having the greatest contempt for his n.o.ble client's infirmities, and he went so far as to characterize them publicly in the apothecary shop, where he was an a.s.sistant, as woman's _cajigalinas_. The exact meaning of the word _cajigalinas_ was never known by the public or anybody else, nor can it be decided whether it was a private invention of Don Maximo's, or whether it was derived from some very ancient, even some dead, language which the licentiate had studied. The word, from its root, seems to be of Semitic origin, but I do not venture to settle this question off-hand; let the wise men decide. What is indubitable is that Don Maximo intended thereby to mean something that was insignificant, mean, or of little account; and this is enough for us to know what to make of the opinion of science in regard to Dona Gertrudis's ills.

After Maria's birth Dona Gertrudis's sufferings did not disappear, but they returned in a new form. Her heart was considerably calmed down, but instead, all the afflicted senora's muscles and tendons began to suffer contraction, causing powerful pains, preventing her for some months from using her limbs at all, and finally leaving her, though greatly improved, yet obliged when she walked to lean on her husband or one of her daughters. Don Maximo at the beginning of this new phase showed himself preoccupied and captious to the last degree; he studied with watchful eye all the symptoms and causes, prescribed remedies for spasms by the gallon, made use, in a word, of all the resources which science (that is, Don Maximo's science) offers for such emergencies, but without reaching any satisfactory results. At length the word _cajigalinas_, of Semitic origin, once more appeared on his lips, and from that time on he never entered the senora's room without a slight smile of incredulity hovering on his dark face.

Ricardo still remained a while at Dona Gertrudis's side, and then he left her to scour the house in search of the girls. He found Marta in the kitchen busily engaged in making pastry for pies.

"Where's Maria, _ma pet.i.te menagere_?"

"She's in her room, dressing; she'll be down soon."

"If I disturb you in your work, I'm going; if not, I'll stay."

"You don't disturb me, if you'll only stand out of the light a little--there, that'll do!"

"All right! I'll stay and learn how to make--what is it you're making?"

"Pork pies."

"Well, then, to make pork pies."

The girl raised her head, smiling at her future brother-in-law, and then she resumed her work. She was standing at a low table which, judging from its shining surface, was meant for the operation now going on. She wore an enormous white ap.r.o.n like the kitchen girls, and on her head a cap no less white. Her great bright black eyes made a more brilliant contrast with this costume, and so did her jetty hair. She had rolled up the sleeves of her dress and bared a pair of soft arms, which were more fully rounded than might have been expected at her age. Her arms bespoke a woman in full possession of all the piquant attractions, all the graceful curves of her s.e.x; they were the smooth white arms of a Flemish maiden, but solid and well-knit like those of a working-girl; they might have served as a model for a sculptor, or to keep a room in daintiest order. With them she rolled from side to side, on the top of the table, a great lump of yellowish dough, manipulating it and doubling it over and over constantly without thought of rest. The dough spread out softly over the table because of the lard which shortened it, making a slight noise like the rustle of silk. A few maid-servants were bustling about the kitchen, attending to their duties. Ricardo watched the operation for an instant without speaking, but before long he exclaimed with signs of astonishment,--

"What an extraordinary thing! what an extraordinary thing!"

The maid-servants turned their heads around. Marta likewise looked up.

"Why, what's the matter?"

"But child, where did you get those plump arms of yours?"

The young girl blushed, and half-laughing, half-vexed, raised her hand and pulled down her sleeve a little.

"Come! will you begin now? See here, I did not tell you that you might stay to behave like this."

"Then I deserve the punishment of staying, though you should demand the opposite."

"Well, do what you please, but let me work in peace."

"I will let you work, but I must say it never entered into my calculations that the Senorita Marta had such arms. I knew that she was pretty, comely, round, and solid--but how could I suspect such a thing?... Come now, I tell you that no one would believe it without the evidence of his eyes."

The servants laughed. Marta went on industriously kneading her dough, making a gesture of resignation as one who has made up her mind to endure a jest to the end. Ricardo kept on:--

"And that, too, though I have heard Maria speak of them--but vaguely....

Her information wasn't definite. The best way in these matters, if one wants to know about a thing, is to see for himself.... Look here, la.s.sie,[17] supposing one were to quarrel with you, I wouldn't answer for the consequences!... And the beauty of it is, that their strength doesn't injure their elegance; they are muscular but well-shaped; ...

they taper gracefully down to the wrist, which is slender and dainty.

The truth is, that all things considered, a girl only fourteen has no right to have such arms as those!"

Marta suspended her work and burst into a merry peal of laughter.

"What a plague you are, child! there's no resisting you!"