Lucía remained thoughtful, her gaze fixed on the flower-knots of the
park, that looked like enameled medallions fastened on a green satin
skirt. They were formed of several varieties of the coleus; those in
the center had lance-shaped and brilliant leaves of dark brown, purplish
red, brick-red, red of the color of the turkey’s comb, rose-red. At the
edge, a row of ruins of Italy, showed their bluish disks against the
fresh vivid green of the grass. The larches and the pines formed, here
and there, in some retired corner of the park, woody, Swiss-like clumps,
their innumerable branches drooping languidly to the ground. Through the
light foliage of the majestic catalpas streamed the last rays of the
setting sun, and splashes of golden light danced here and there upon the
fine sanded walk. The place had the mysterious and secluded air of a
temple. A solemn, poetic silence prevailed, which it almost seemed a
sacrilege to break by a word or movement.

The visitors had begun to leave the park, the light crunching of the
gravel under their feet sounding fainter and fainter in the distance.
But the two friends were in the habit of remaining to “lock up the
place” as the saying is, for it was precisely at the sunset hour that
Lucía thought the park most beautiful in this melancholy autumnal
season. The dying rays of the sun, now low in the western sky, fell
almost horizontally on the grassy meads, lighting them up with hues like
liquid gold. The dark cones of the fir trees dotted this ocean of light
in which their shadows were disproportionately prolonged. The plane
trees and the Indian chestnuts were dropping their leaves, and from time
to time a burr would fall to the ground with a hard, dull sound, and
opening allow the shining chestnut to roll out. In the large
flower-knots, which contrasted with the green of the grass, the pale
eglantine dropped its fragile petals at the faintest breeze, the
verbenas trailed themselves languidly, as if weary of life, their
capriciously growing stalks breaking the oval outlines of the bed; the
sweet milfoil raised its shower of blue stars, and the rare coleuses
displayed the exotic tints and the metallic luster of their spotted
leaves, resembling the scales of a serpent, white with black spots,
green with flesh-colored veins, dark amaranth striped with copperish
red. A profound thrill, precursor of winter, ran through all nature, who
seemed to have adorned herself in her richest attire for her death.
Thus, the virgin vine was arrayed in her splendid purple robe and the
white poplar raised coquettishly its plumy white crest; thus the
coralline decked itself with chains and rings of blood-red coral and the
zinnias ran through the whole scale of vivid colors in their broidered
petticoats. The striped maize shook its green and white-striped silken
skirts with melodious rustle, and far away on the edge of the meadow,
bathed in sunlight, a few tender saplings bent their youthful heads. The
dead leaves covered the paths in such abundance that Lucía felt with
delight her foot sink up to the ankle in the soft carpet. The contact of
the edge of her gown with the leaves produced a quick murmuring sound,
like the hurried breathing of some one following close behind; and, a
prey to childish terror, she would turn back her head now and again and
smile at herself when she saw that her fears were illusory. There were
many varieties of leaves, some dark, decayed, almost rotted; others dry,
brittle, shriveled; others yellow or still greenish, moist with the sap
of the branch through which they had drawn their life. The carpet lay
thicker in the shady spots by the borders of the lake, whose surface
rippled like undulating glass at the light contact of the evening
breeze, breaking into innumerable wavelets, that dashed unceasingly
against one another.

Tall weeping-willows bent with a melancholy air above the water, that
reflected back their tremulous branches, among which could be seen the
disk of the sun, whose rays, concentrated by this species of camera
obscura, struck the eye with the force of arrows. In a labyrinth in the
lake, an enormous clump of malangas displayed their exuberant tropical
vegetation, their gigantic fan-like leaves motionless in the still air.
Swans and ducks paddled--the former, with their accustomed fantastic
grace, swaying their long necks, the latter, quacking harshly,--toward
the bank, the moment Lucía and Pilar appeared, in quest of bits of
bread, which they swallowed greedily, raising their tails in the air as
each mouthful went down. The islet, with its pine tree, cast a
mysterious shade over the surface of the lake. A sheaf of reeds raised
their slender forms and by their side the sharp poas shook their brushes
of chestnut velvet.

A delightful coolness rose from the water. The landscape breathed a
tender melancholy, a gentle drowsiness, the repose of mother nature,
fatigued with the continued production of the summer, and preparing for
her winter sleep. Lucía was no longer a child; external objects now
spoke to her eloquently, and she began to listen to their voice. The
scene before her plunged her into vague meditation. Her soul seemed to
detach itself from her body, as the leaf detaches itself from the
branch, and like it to wander without aim or object, yielding itself up
to the delight of annihilation, to the sweetness of non-existence. And
how pleasant death must be, a death like that of the leaves,--a gentle
loosening of the bonds of life, the passage to more beautiful regions,
the satisfaction of the mysterious longings hidden in the recesses of
the soul! When ideas like these thronged to her mind, a bird, perhaps,
would fly down from some tree; she would hear the fluttering of its
wings in the air; it would hop along the sanded walk, ruffling its
feathers among the dead leaves; she would approach, and suddenly it
would fly away and go to perch on the topmost branch of the murmuring
acacias.

CHAPTER X.

The voice of the sick girl would break the spell.

“Eh, child, what are you thinking about? How romantic those girls
brought up in the provinces are!”

The sharp and clear-sighted eyes of Pilar fastened themselves, as she
said this, on Lucía’s face, where she descried a faint shadow, a sort of
gray veil extending from the forehead and the temples to the circles
under the eyes, and a certain sunkenness at the corners of the mouth.
Her morbid curiosity was awakened, inspiring her with a desire to
dissect for her pastime this simple heart. Her unerring woman’s
instinct had revealed many things to her, and unable to content herself
with a discreet guess, she desired to obtain the confidence of Lucía. It
would be one more emotion for her to enjoy during her stay at the
springs.

“I don’t know what I was thinking about--nothing,” answered Lucía,
calling to her aid the most commonplace of excuses and the most common.

“Because it sometimes seems as if you were sad, pretty one; and I don’t
know why you should be sad, for you are precisely in the most delightful
part of the honeymoon. Ah, you are to be envied! Miranda is very
agreeable. He has good manners, a good presence.”

“Yes, indeed; a very good presence,” repeated Lucía, like an echo.

“And he dotes upon you. Why, any one may see that. True, he goes about a
good deal with my brother--but what would you have, child? All men are
like that. The chief thing is that when they are with one they should be
amiable and affectionate--and that they should not be jealous. No, that
good quality, at least, Miranda has; he is not jealous.”

Lucía turned red as fire, and, stooping down, gathered a handful of dry
leaves from the ground, in order to hide her confusion; then she amused
herself crumbling them between her thumb and forefinger and blowing the
dust into the air.

“And yet,” continued Pilar, “any one else in his place--No, see, if I
were a man, I don’t know what I should have done--this thing of having a
stranger escorting one’s bride for so many days--in that way, in such
close company--and precisely when----”

At this direct and brutal thrust, Lucía raised her head, and fixed on
her friend the ingenuous but dignified and severe glance which at times
shone in her eyes. Pilar, skillful in her tactics, drew back in order
the better to make her spring.

“It is true that any one who knew you and him, would be just as
unsuspicious as Miranda. You, as we all know, a little saint, an angel
in a niche; and he--he is a gentleman of the old school, notwithstanding
his eccentricities--he is as honorable as the Cid. He takes it from far
back. I have known him very well for a long time past,” declared Pilar,
who, like all young girls of the middle class who have mixed in good
society, was eager to have it appear that she knew everybody.

“You--you have known him for a long time?” murmured Lucía, conquered,
offering the sick girl her arm to lean upon.

“Yes, child. He goes to Madrid every year; sometimes to spend the whole
winter there, but generally only a month or two in the spring. He has
little liking for society; he was invited to several houses, for his
father, the Carlist chief, was a distinguished man in his part of the
country, and he is connected with the Puenteanchas and with the Mijares,
who are also Urbietas, but he was so chary of his society that every one
was dying to have him. Once, because he danced a rigadoon, at
Puenteancha’s, with Isabelita Novelda, they teased her about it all the
evening--they said she could now undertake to tame wild beasts; that she
could take Plevna without firing a gun--Isabelita was as proud as a
peacock, and it turned out that the Puenteancha had requested him to
dance, as a favor to her, and that he had consented, saying that he
would dance with the first woman he met--he met Isabelita and he asked
her. Fancy how the silly girl looked when it was known! After being
convinced that she had made a conquest! Her nose grew longer than it
was, and it was long enough already--ha, ha!”

The sick girl’s laughter ended in a cough--a little cough that tickled
her throat and took away her breath, compelling her to sit down on one
of the rustic benches of the park. Lucía slapped her gently on the back
without speaking, not wishing to say a word that might change the
current of the conversation. Her eyes spoke for her.

“I can tell you it was a dreadful disappointment,” resumed Pilar, when
she had recovered her breath. “The hundreds of thousands of francs which
his father had laid by for him would have suited the Noveldita
exactly--but they say that he does not like women!”

“He does not like women?” said Lucía, as if the pronoun _he_ could refer
to only one person.

“They say, however, that as a son he has few equals--he pets his mother
like a baby. She is said to be a woman of great refinement, belonging to
the French aristocracy--extremely delicate in her health, and I even
think that long ago, when she was young----”

The sick girl tapped her forehead significantly with her forefinger.

“It seems the father desired that the child should be born on Spanish
soil and he brought his wife before her confinement to Ondarroa, his
native place; they accustomed the boy to speak Spanish, except with his
nurse, with whom he spoke the Basque dialect. Paco Mijares, who is a
relation of his and knows all about it, told me so.”

Lucía listened eagerly, drinking in every word with avidity, to all
these insignificant details.

“He has curious fancies and caprices. At one time he took the notion to
work and entered a commercial house. After that he studied medicine and
surgery, and I understand that he put Rubio and Camison in the shade. In
Madrid he went to the hospitals to study for pleasure; at the time of
the war he did the same thing. Do you know where I sometimes used to
meet him in Madrid? In the Retiro, looking fixedly at the large lake.
What is the matter, child?”

Lucía, with closed eyes and deathly pale, leaned back against the trunk
of the tree that shaded the bench on which they sat. When she opened her
eyes, the shadow on her temples was more marked, and her gaze wandered
like that of a person recovering from a swoon.

“I don’t know--I sometimes seem to lose consciousness in that way. It is
as if there were a sinking here,” she murmured, laying her hand on her
heart.

“It is as I thought,” said Pilar to herself. “She has begun her capers
early,” she added, in her own mind, cynically. Night was falling
rapidly; a cold breeze stirred the foliage of the trees; the two
friends, shivering, drew their wraps closer around them. At the same
moment two dark figures appeared at the end of the avenue. They were
those of Miranda and Perico, who manifested some surprise at finding
Lucía and Pilar in the park at this late hour.

“A pretty way, a pretty way to cure yourself! The devil! you’ll be lucky
if you don’t get an attack of pneumonia for this! get up, you crazy
girl; come, come!”

Pilar rose, weak and pale, and took Miranda’s arm. Perico offered his to
Lucía, whose natural vigor of constitution had by this time got the
better of her momentary faintness.

“I doubt if she can take the waters to-morrow,” the latter said to her
companion. “She was rather excited to-day, and now the reaction shows
itself in fatigue.”

“I wager she would be strong enough, strong enough, if I offered to let
her go to the Casino!”

“Ah, Periquillo of my soul!” cried the sick girl, whose fine ear had not
lost a word of the conversation, “will you let me go, eh? What harm
would that do me? Miranda, you intercede for me.”

“Once in a while--it might be good for her--it would serve to distract
her.”

“Don’t mind what he says, Gonzalvo. Señor Duhamel says she ought not to
go, and who knows best, she or the doctor?” said Lucía.

“And you?” asked Perico, incited to a touch of gallantry by the hour,
the sight of the husband walking in front, and his inveterate
habits,--“and you, young and pretty as you are, why do you not come to
the Casino? All that finery that is lying idle in your trunks would be
better employed where it could be seen. Come, make up your mind, make up
your mind, and I will bring you a bunch of camellias like the one the
Swede carried last night.”

“I have no desire to eclipse the Swede,” said Lucía, with a smile.
“Where would she be if I were to show myself?”

“Well, although you say it in jest, in jest, it is the simple truth,”
and Perico traitorously lowered his voice. “You are worth a dozen
Swedes”; and in a louder tone, he added: “If Juanito Albares did not
make such a fool of himself, deuce a one would look at her, would look
at her.”

(Juanito Albares, as Perico familiarly called him, was a duke, a grandee
of Spain, a count and a marquis, and had I know not how many other
titles besides, a fact worthy to be borne in mind by the future
biographers of the elegant Gonzalvo.)

“Where are your eyes, then?” exclaimed Lucía, with Spanish frankness.
“You have great audacity to say that! The Swede is beautiful! Her
complexion is whiter than milk, and then her eyes----”

“Put no confidence in whiteness,” interposed Pilar, “while Venus’s towel
and Paris white are to be bought. She is too large.”

“Too tall,” declared Perico, like the fox in the fable.

“Never mind,” said Miranda, in a low voice, to Pilar. “We will make that
obstinate brother of yours listen to reason, and you shall go some night
to the Casino. A pretty thing it would be if you were to leave Vichy
without seeing the theater and listening to the concert. It would be
unheard of.”

“Ah, Miranda! You are my guardian angel! If there is no other way of
accomplishing it, you and I will run away some night--an elopement. We
will do as they do in the novels: you shall come on a fiery steed, I
will get up behind, and let them overtake us if they can. We will first
put Perico and Lucía under lock and key, and leave them there to do
penance for their sins, eh? What do you say?”

When they reached the entrance to the _châlet_, where lights were
already shining among the dark foliage of the trees, Miranda said to
himself:

“This one is more amusing than my wife. At least she says something, if
it is only nonsense; and she is cheerful, although she has half of one
lung God knows in what condition.”

“This girl is more insipid than water, than water,” Perico, on his side,
said to himself on parting from Lucía.

Meantime the longed-for day of the evening entertainment arrived. Pilar
was in the habit of spending a couple of hours daily in the Salle des
Dames of the Casino, generally from one to three o’clock in the
afternoon. The Salle des Dames is one of the many attractions of the
fine building which is the center of the gayety of the town, where the
ladies who are subscribers to the Casino can take refuge without fear of
masculine intrusion; there they are at home, and rule with absolute
sway; they play the piano, embroider, chat, and sometimes indulge in a
sherbet or some sweetmeat or bon-bon, which they nibble with as much
enjoyment as if they were mice let loose in a cupboard full of dainties.
It might be taken for a modern Moorish harem, a gynecæum, not hidden
within the modest shadow of the home, but situated in the most public of
all possible places. There congregated all the feminine stars of the
firmament of Vichy, and there Pilar met assembled the small but
brilliant Spanish-American colony--the de Amézegas, Luisa Natal, the
Countess of Monteros; and there was established a sort of Spanish
coterie which, if not very numerous, was none the less animated and gay.
While some blonde Englishwoman executed pieces of classic music on the
piano, and the Frenchwomen seized the occasion to display exquisite
worsted-work, at which they worked at the rate of two or three stitches
an hour, the Spanish women, more sincere, gave themselves up frankly to
idleness and spent the time chatting and fanning themselves. A fine
geographical globe at the farther end of the parlor seemed asking what
was its object and aim in such a place; and in exchange, the portraits
of the two sisters of Louis XVI, Victoria and Adelaide, traditional
_dames_ of Vichy, with powdered hair and rosy, smiling faces, presided
over the exhibition of frivolity continually being celebrated in their
honor. There were whisperings, like the flutterings of bird’s wings in
an aviary; sounds of laughter, like the sound of pearls dropping into a
crystal cup; the silky flutter of fans, the click of the sticks, the
noise made by the casters of the chairs rolling over the waxed floors,
the _frou-frou_ of skirts, like the rustling of insects’ wings. The air
was perfumed by the mingled odors of gardenia, toilet vinegar,
smelling-salts, and perfumery. On chairs and tables lay trinkets and
articles of adornment, long-handled silk parasols embroidered in gold,
work-boxes of Russian leather, work-baskets of straw ornamented with
worsted balls and tassels; here a lace scarf, there a lawn handkerchief;
here a bunch of flowers exhaling in death their sweetest perfume, there
a dotted tulle veil, and, resting on it, the pins used to fasten it. The
group of Spanish women, headed by Lola Amézega, who was of a very
resolute character, maintained a certain independence and intimacy among
themselves, very different from the reserve of the Englishwomen, between
whom and the Spanish group there was even perceptible a feeling of
secret hostility and mutual contempt.

It afforded great diversion to the Spanish group to see the Englishwomen
gravely take out a newspaper, as large as a sheet, from their pockets,
and read it from the first word to the last.

Pilar had been unable to persuade Lucía to accompany her to the Salle
des Dames; the shyness and timidity resulting from her provincial
education deterred her from going; she dreaded, more than fire, the
inquisitive glances of those women, who examined her toilet as minutely
as a skillful confessor examines the recesses of the conscience of his
penitent. Pilar, on the contrary, was there in her natural element. Her
rather shrill voice yielded in power only to the Cuban lisp of the
leader, Lola Amézega.

Let us listen to the concert:

“Well, I bought this to-day,” Lola was saying unconstrainedly, as she
turned up the sleeve of her pink muslin gown, trimmed with dark garnet
bows, and displaying to view a bracelet, from which hung a little pig
with curled-up tail and swelling sides, executed in fine enamel.

“I have one in another style,” said Amalia Amézega, showing a pig no
less resplendent than her sister’s, which dug its snout into the lace of
her necktie.

“Heavens! what an ugly fashion!” exclaimed Luisa Natal, a belle whose
attractions were now on the wane, and who was very careful to use no
ornaments except such as might serve to enhance her beauty. “For my
part, I would not wear such creatures. They make one think of
black-pudding, don’t they, countess?”

The Countess of Monteros, a Spanish woman of the old-fashioned type,
very devout and somewhat austere, nodded in the affirmative.

“I don’t know what they are going to invent next,” she said slowly. “I
have seen in the shops, elephants, lizards, frogs, and toads, and even
spiders,--in short, the most disgusting creatures possible,--as
ornaments for young ladies. In my youthful days we had no fancy for such
oddities; fine brilliants, beautiful pearls, a ruby heart--and, yes, we
wore cameos, also, but it was a charming caprice--one had one’s likeness
or that of some virgin or saint engraved on the stone.”

There was a brief silence; the Amézegas, subjugated by the imperiousness
of that authoritative voice, did not venture to reply.

“See, countess,” said Pilar, at last, delighted to have an opportunity
to enrage the Amézegas, “what is really pretty is that pin of Luisa’s.”

Luisa drew from her hair the long golden pin with its head of amethyst
set with diamonds.

“The Swede wore one like it yesterday,” she said, handing it to the
countess. “She had on the whole set--earrings, a necklace of amethyst
balls, and the pin. She looked magnificent with those and the heliotrope
gown.”

“Last night?” asked Pilar.

“Yes, at the theater. The other was gloomy and listless as usual; at ten
he entered her box and handed her the customary bouquet of camellias and
white azaleas; they say it costs him seventy francs a night. It is a
regular addition to his bill at the hotel.”

“That nephew of mine has neither shame nor discretion,” said the
Countess of Monteros gravely.

“A married man!” said Luisa Natal, who lived very happily with her
husband, who blindly obeyed all her caprices.

“And is it known, finally, whether the Swede is the daughter or the wife
of that baron of--of--I never can remember his name--well, of that old
man who escorts her?” asked the countess, allowing herself to be drawn
at last, in spite of her dignity, into the current of curiosity.

“Of Holdteufel?” asked Amalia Amézega, in a sing-song voice. “Bah! who
knows! But judging by the liberty he allows her he would seem to be her
husband rather than her father.”

“One needs to have effrontery,” continued Luisa Natal, with gentle and
smiling condemnation, “to make one’s self the talk of every one in that
way.”

“The idea!” said Pilar, in her thin voice. “Why, that is what he wants.
What do you suppose? The point of the thing and the pleasure of it are
in being talked about.”

“Juanito was always the same--always fond of making a noise,” murmured
the countess softly, remembering how her nephew, when a wild boy of ten,
used to go to her house and give her a headache, teasing her for a
thousand nonsensical things.

“Why, the day before yesterday----”

Eager curiosity was expressed in every face. The group drew their chairs
closer together and for a full minute a sound of casters rolling over
the floors could be heard.

“The day before yesterday,” continued Amalia Amézega, lowering her
voice, “she went to the shooting match----”

“Do you shoot now?” asked Pilar and Luisa Natal simultaneously.

“A little, for amusement,” and Lola smoothed down the straight black
fringe of hair that covered her forehead to within half an inch of the
eyebrows, making her look like a page of the Middle Ages, setting off
the tropical pallor of her face and her large eyes like those of a
child, but of a malicious and precocious child.

“Well,” continued Amalia, seeing that her audience was listening
attentively, “Gimenez, and the little Marquis of Cañahejas, and Monsieur
Anatole were there, and they were all talking about a paragraph in
_Figaro_, alluding to a scandal caused at one of the most fashionable
watering places in France, or all Europe, by the insane passion of a
Spanish grandee for a Swedish lady----”

“Only the initials of the names were given,” added Lola; “but it was as
clear as daylight. And to make it more clear it said, ‘_This worthy
grandson of the Count of Almaviva spends a fortune in flowers!_’”

A chorus of laughter broke from the circle. Lola had a way of saying
things with a certain lisp and a movement of the eyelids that greatly
added to their piquancy.

“And she? How does she receive his attentions?” asked Pilar.

“She?” replied Lola. “Oh, every night, on receiving the bouquet, she
answers invariably: ‘Dhanks, tuke, you are too amiaple!’”

They laughed more loudly than before. Even the countess smiled, holding
her fan before her face for the sake of propriety.

“Hist!” said Luisa Natal, “there she comes.”

“The Swede!” exclaimed Pilar.

They all turned round, greatly excited. The door of the Ladies’ Parlor
opened slowly, an old man, dressed with elegant simplicity, with white
side-whiskers, the rest of his face being smoothly shaven, stood in a
courtly attitude at the threshold of the door, while a tall and graceful
woman passed into the room; her classic beauty was set off by her gown
of black silk, close-fitting and sparkling with jet; the hat of tulle,
trimmed with golden wheat-ears, rested on her brow like a diadem; her
walk was noble and queenly. Without deigning to salute any one, she went
straight to the piano and, seating herself before it, proceeded to play
a mazourka of Chopin’s in a masterly manner. Her attitude served to
display to advantage the stately grace of her figure--the long and
rounded arms, the hips, the shoulder-blades, which at every movement of
her white hands defined themselves clearly through the tight-fitting
bodice.

“Is it not true,” said Pilar in a low voice to Luisa Natal, “that if
Lucía Miranda were to dress like her, she would resemble her somewhat in
her figure?”

“Bah!” murmured Luisa Natal, “the Mirandita has not an atom of _chic_.”

From the group of Englishwomen now broke forth the energetic hissing
sound which in every language signifies “Silence! hold your tongues and
listen, or at least permit others to listen.” The Spanish women touched
one another with their elbows and imperturbably went on with their
whispering.

“Do you see that man?” said Lola Amézega.

“Who? who? who?” They all asked in chorus.

“Who do you suppose? Albares. There, there at the window. Take care.
Don’t let him see that you are observing him.”

Looking in at the window overlooking the roof of the Casino was to be
seen, in effect, a youthful, almost boyish face defined against the
porcelain-like whiteness of the necktie, among whose folds rested one of
those agates called “cat’s eyes,” on which the caprice of fashion has of
late bestowed so exaggerated a value. A morning-suit of a soft,
exquisite shade of gray, a fine beaver hat, a gardenia in the
button-hole, and chamois gloves of a rather bright color--such were the
details of the costume of the inquisitive young man who was thus
exploring with his gaze the Salle des Dames. He presented a strange
mixture of weakness and strength; with an under-sized frame, he had the
muscles of a Hercules. Gymnastic exercises, fencing, riding, and hunting
had apparently hardened a constitution, which nature had made weakly,
almost sickly. He was short of stature, his limbs were delicate as a
woman’s, but the muscles were of steel. That this was the case was
apparent from the manner in which his garments hung upon him; from a
certain virile turn of the knees and the shoulders; in addition to this
he had that air of haughty superiority which wealth, birth, and the
habit of command, united, bestow.

But if the duke had expected to be rewarded for his indiscretion, he
was doomed to disappointment; for the Swede, after she had played with
perfect self-possession and consummate skill some half-dozen mazourkas,
arose with no less majesty than she had displayed on her entrance to the
room, and without looking to the right or left walked straight toward
the door. This opened as if by magic, and the diplomat with the white
side-whiskers presented himself, grave and courteous as before, and
offered her his arm. It was the exit of a queen, _très réussie_, as the
group of Frenchwomen said among themselves.

“One would think she was the Princess Micomicona,” said Lola Amézega,
who had spent no less than two hours before the looking-glass, that
morning, practicing the regal walk of the Swede.

“What an air!” said Luisa Natal. “No, it cannot be denied that she is a
handsome woman. What a figure! and what hands! Have you noticed them?”

“What a disappointment for Albares!” exclaimed Amalia; “she did not even
know he was there.”

Every eye was turned toward the window. The duke had disappeared.

“Now he has no doubt gone to the park to try to meet her; shall we go
see?”

“Yes, yes; the sight will be amusing.”

They rose, and hastily gathering up their fans, parasols, and veils,
hurried toward the door.

“Eh, young ladies!” said the Countess of Monteros, “don’t walk so fast.
I am not so young as you are, and I shall be left behind. By my faith,”
she added, under her breath, “when I see my fine nephew I shall tell him
what I think of him for making that poor Matilde, who is an angel,
grieve herself to death by his conduct, as he is doing.”

While Pilar amused herself in a manner so agreeable to her inclinations,
Lucía sat waiting for her on the balcony of the _châlet_. At this hour
neither Miranda nor Perico was in the house. The Casino had swallowed up
every one. Only at rare intervals was a passer-by to be seen in this
retired neighborhood. The only sound to be heard was the monotonous
noise of the machine on which the daughter of the _concierge_ was
sewing. In the garden, the roses, drunk with the sunshine which they had
been quaffing all the morning, exhaled themselves in perfumes; even the
cold white roses showed the effects of the heat in a tinge, like pale
flesh-color, but flesh-color still. It seemed as if all the odors of the
garden had mingled together to form one sole odor, penetrating,
powerful, inebriating, like the fragrance of a single rose, but a rose
of gigantic size--a glowing rose that exhaled from its purple mouth an
intoxicating and deadly fragrance. Lucía had taken her work and busied
herself at it for a while, but after a quarter of an hour or so the
cushion fell from her lap, the thimble slipped from her finger, and she
sat with vacant gaze fixed on the clump of rose bushes, until at last
her eyelids closed of themselves, and leaning her forehead against the
vine that covered the balcony, she abandoned herself to the delicious
enjoyment of the balmy air, unconscious of external sights or sounds,
scarcely breathing. Two months before she could not have remained quiet
for half an hour; the beauty of nature would have incited her to
physical activity. Now, on the contrary, it invited her to repose, it
produced in her a sort of half-conscious torpor, like that of the lizard
sleeping in the sun.

One afternoon Pilar, returning from the clubhouse, found Lucía more
pensive than usual.

“Silly child,” she said, “of what are you thinking? If you were to go to
the Casino it would amuse you greatly.”

“Pilarcita,” murmured Lucía, throwing her arms around the neck of her
friend, “will you keep a secret for me if I tell you one?”

The eyes of the sick girl lighted up.

“Of course I will! open your heart to me, child. In confidence, is it
not so? You may tell me anything. I have seen so many things--there is
nothing that could surprise me.”

“Listen,” said Lucía, “I want to know, at all costs, how Don Ignacio
Artegui’s mother is.”

Pilar drew back, disappointed; then laughing, with her cynical laugh,
she cried:

“Is that all? A great secret that! What a big handful three flies make.”

“For Heaven’s sake!” entreated Lucía uneasily, “don’t give a hint of
this to any one. I am dying to know, but if any one should hear--Miranda
or----”

“Simpleton! I shall soon learn what you wish to know, and without any
one hearing anything about it. I have a hundred ways of finding out. I
promise you your curiosity shall be gratified.”

Pilar tapped Lucía, who looked serious and a little confused, two or
three times on the cheek.

“Are we going to take a walk to-day, madam nurse?” she asked.

“Yes, and you shall drink some milk in Vesse. But put on a warmer dress,
for Heaven’s sake; you are so careless, you are quite capable of
exposing yourself to taking a cold. Have you not observed how fragrant
the roses are? In Leon there are hardly any roses; I remember that I
used to place all I could find before the image of the Virgin, which I
have there in my room.”

CHAPTER XI.

The Casino was for Perico and Miranda, as for all the other idlers of
the colony, house and home during the time they spent at the springs.
The great edifice, taken as a whole, might be likened to a concert of
voices, inviting to the enjoyment of the rapid and easy life of our age.
The spacious peristyle, the principal façade with its broad roof, its
private garden where exotic plants grow in graceful baskets, and its
rich and fanciful ornamentation of dazzling whiteness; the tall columns
of burnished porphyry that support the interior portion of the building;
its luxurious arm-chairs and broad divans; the mischievous cupids
(artistic symbol of the ephemeral passions that last during a two weeks’
course of the waters), that run around the cornice of the large
ball-room or hover on the blue background of the broad panels of the
theater; the profusion of gold, artistically disposed in touches, like
points of light, or in long stripes, like sunbeams; the large
window--everything, in short, contributes to give one the idea of an
Athenian temple, improved and enriched with the benefits and pleasures
of modern civilization. A glance at the southern façade of the Casino
discovers at once the _numen_ to whom worship and sacrifice are here
paid, the nymph of the waters, gracefully inclining her urn, while from
some rushes at her feet emerge two cupids, one of them supporting a
shell, which receives in its hollow the sacred water that flows in a
copious stream from the urn. The priests and flamens of the temple of
the nymphs are the waiters of the Casino who, at a sign, a movement of
the lips, hasten, swiftly and silently, to bring the desired
article--cigars, newspapers, writing-materials, refreshments, even the
waters, which they carry at a run, in a little tank, turned mouth
downward over a plate, so that they may not lose their temperature or
the gases which give them their value.

Miranda’s favorite resort was the reading-room, where were to be found
various Spanish periodicals, including the organ of Colmenar, which he
read with the air of a statesman. Perico was more frequently to be found
in another apartment, gloomy as a cave, with hangings of a dirty gray,
adorned with red fringe, in which a row of spotted guttapercha benches
stood fronting a row of tables covered with the traditional melodramatic
and much worn green cloth. As the out-going tide deposits on the shore
fringe after fringe of seaweed, so on the backs of the red guttapercha
benches had the heads and shoulders of the players deposited a series of
layers of filth, signs which grew more marked in proportion as the
benches receded and the play rose from harmless piquet to exciting
_écarté_, for the row began with social games and ended with games of
chance. The benches at the entrance were clean in comparison with those
at the far end of the room. This apartment, in which rites so unholy
were practiced in honor of the nymph of the waters, had witnessed many
deeds of prowess of Perico, which, from the resemblance they bore to
others of the same order, do not deserve special mention. Still less
worthy of description are the scenes, dear to the novelist, that
succeeded one another at the gaming tables. Play at Vichy partakes, to
some extent, of the hygienic refinement characteristic of the place,
whose inhabitants take pleasure in saying that no one has ever blown his
brains out in their town on account of the green cloth, as constantly
happens at Monaco; so that the hall of the Casino does not lend itself
to descriptions of the dramatic or soul-harrowing order. There the
loser puts his hands into his pockets and walks out of the room, more or
less disgusted according as he happens to be of the nervous or the
lymphatic temperament, but satisfied that he has been fleeced in a
perfectly legitimate manner, a fact which is guaranteed to him by the
presence there of government officials and agents of the company of
lessees with the purpose of preventing cheating, quarreling, or
disturbances of a similar kind, proper only to low gambling houses and
not at all in place in those Olympic regions in which the cards are
dealt with gloved hands.

It is to be adverted that although Perico was one of those who most
contributed, by the pomade on his hair and the friction of his
shoulders, to grease and polish the backs of the guttapercha benches, he
did not correspond to the traditional type of the gambler, as portrayed
in pictures of a moral and edifying character. When he lost, it never
occurred to him to tear his hair, blaspheme, or raise his clenched fists
to Heaven. It is true, indeed, that he took every precaution which it
was possible to take not to lose. Play is like war; fortune and chance
are said to decide the victory in both; but the skillful strategist
knows very well that a plan which is the result at once of insight and
of reflection, which is at the same time analytic and synthetic,
generally secures an easy triumph. In both cases, an error in
calculation may lead to ruin, and in both, if it be true that the
skillful generally vanquish, it is no less true that the daring at times
sweep all before them and conquer in their turn. Perico possessed a
profound knowledge of the science of play, and, in addition, carefully
studied the character of his adversaries, a course which seldom fails to
produce happy results. There are people who grow angry or confused in
playing, and act according to the mood they chance to be in, so that it
is easy to surprise and vanquish them. Perhaps the enigma called luck,
chance, or happy inspiration is nothing but the superiority of the man
who retains his judgment and his self-possession over other men who are
mad with passion. In short, Perico, who, although impulsive and
loquacious to excess, had a head cool as ice, understood so well the
marches and counter-marches of the battle fought every day in the
Casino, that after winning many small fortunes he succeeded in winning a
large fortune in the shape of a good-sized bundle of thousand-franc
notes, which he quietly put into his waistcoat pocket and then walked
out of the hall with his accustomed air and bearing, leaving the loser
to reflect on the transitoriness of all earthly possessions. This
happened on the day following that on which Lucía had manifested to
Pilar so great an interest in the health of Artegui’s mother. Perico was
not naturally parsimonious, at least not unless he needed money for his
amusements, when he would economize a maravedi, and making a sign to
Pilar, who was in the Salle des Dames, to walk with him outside on the
roof, he said to her, giving her his arm:

“So that you may not be always saying that I did not buy you anything at
Vichy, see, I am going to make you a present.”

“A present?” and Pilar opened wide her eyes.

“A present, yes. One would think that I had never made you a present
before. Come, say what you want, say what you want.”

“But are you in earnest? How generous you are getting!” said the sick
girl; “will you buy me _anything_ I ask you?”

“Come to the shops and choose,” he said, leading the way.

Pilar hesitated long, like a child before a dish of various kinds of
sweetmeats; at last she made choice of two diamonds, clear as two drops
of water, for her ears, and a hand mirror, with a frame of chased gold,
a novel and fanciful trinket worn hanging from the belt, a style of
ornament which no one in Vichy but the Swede had yet been seen to wear.
On returning home with her purchases, the sick girl’s eyes shone so
brightly and her cheeks were so rosy that Perico said:

“You women are the very devil. One has only to give you a tambourine or
a bell, a bell, to cure you of all your ailments. I laugh at drugs, I
laugh at drugs. I wager you have no pain in the stomach, now.”

“Periquillo! You are a jewel! See, I am wild with joy, and if you would
only--ah! say yes.”

“If I would only--Do you want me to buy you something else? No, child,
enough for to-day.”

“No, nothing of the sort--but to-night--I should like to go to the
concert to show the mirror; neither Luisa Natal nor either of the
Amézegas has one like it, or even knows that such a thing is to be had
in Vichy. They will open their eyes with astonishment. Come, Periquin,
you _will_ take me, won’t you. For once, come, say yes.”

Lucía begged Pilar, almost on her knees, to give up the dangerous
pleasure she longed for. It was precisely the most critical stage of her
malady. Duhamel hoped that nature, aided by a regular way of life, would
conquer in the struggle, and that perhaps a couple of weeks of
determined self-denial on her part would decide the victory in her
favor. But it was impossible to dissuade the sick girl from her purpose.
She spent the day feverishly examining the contents of her wardrobe;
when night came she went to the Casino, escorted by Miranda; she wore a
dress which she had not before worn, thinking it too thin and summery--a
gown of white gauze spotted with carnations of various colors; from her
belt hung the mirror; in her ears sparkled the solitaires, and in her
hair, placed with Spanish grace, was a bunch of carnations. Thus
arrayed, and flushed with fever and gratified vanity, she looked almost
handsome, notwithstanding her freckles and the emaciation of her
features, worn by illness. She had, then, a great success at the Casino;
it may be said that she shared the honors of the evening with the Swede,
and with an eccentric English lord, of whom it was rumored that he had
the floor of his stable covered with a Turkish carpet and his
reception-room paved with stone. Happy and admired, to Pilar the Casino
seemed like a scene from the Arabian Nights, with its countless
gas-lights, its perfumed atmosphere, through which floated the strains
of the magnificent orchestra; its ball-room where the sportive cupids on
the ceiling seemed to hover in a golden mist. Gimenez, the little
Marquis of Cañahejas, and Monsieur Anatole disputed with one another the
pleasure of dancing with her. Miranda danced a rigadoon with her, and,
to crown her happiness and triumph, the Arézegas kept casting furtive
glances, during the evening, at the little mirror--a style of trinket
like which there was but one other in the room, that which gleamed at
the side of the Swede. It was, in short, one of those moments that stand
alone in the life of a vain girl, when gratified pride gives rise to
emotions so sweet as almost to be mistaken for feelings deeper and
purer, that forever remain unknown to such natures. Pilar danced with
each one of her partners as if he had been her favored lover, so
brightly did her eyes sparkle, so happy did she seem. Perico could not
but say to her, _sotto voce_:

“You are dancing, eh? We shall see what Duhamel will say to-morrow. It
will be heavenly, heavenly. To-morrow I shall make my escape, my escape.
To a certainty you will explode, you will explode like a firecracker.”

“Don’t imagine it. I feel so well!” she exclaimed, drinking a glass of
iced water flavored with currant syrup which Monsieur Anatole, the
Hispanomaniac had just brought her.

On the following morning, when Lucía went to waken Pilar, she
involuntarily started back when she saw her. The sick girl lay with one
cheek buried in the pillows; her sleep was uneasy and broken; in her
ears, colorless as wax, the solitaires still gleamed, their limpid
purity contrasting with the ashen hue of the cheek and neck. There were
black shadows under her eyes. Her tightly-drawn lips resembled two
withered rose-leaves. The general effect was corpse-like. On the chairs
were scattered various articles of clothing used the night before; the
white satin shoes, heel upward, were at the foot of the bed; on the
floor some carnations were lying, and the never-enough-to-be-admired
mirror, the innocent cause of all this evil, rested on the night table.
Lucía softly touched the shoulder of the sleeping girl, who awoke with a
start and raised herself on her elbow; her half-opened eyes were dull
and glazed, like the eyes of a dead animal; a heavy, fetid odor was
perceptible; the sick girl was bathed in perspiration.

She could not get up, for on placing her foot on the floor she was
seized with a chill, her teeth chattered, an icy sweat bathed her limbs,
and she was obliged to cover herself up again with the bed-clothes. She
felt, in addition, a sharp and violent pain in her left side. She shook
like a reed in the wind and all the coverings which were put over her
were ineffectual in restoring warmth to her chilled body.

Lucía rushed to the room of her husband, who, between sleeping and
waking, was smoking a cigarette. The waters agreed with Miranda: the
faded tones of his skin, under which the blood was beginning again to
circulate and the adipose tissue to be renewed, were disappearing,
giving place to that look of mature freshness which bestows a certain
beauty on stout well-preserved women of middle-age. Such was the
physical effect of the waters upon Miranda; their moral effect was a
desire for rest and selfish ease, an inclination to fall into a regular
way of living, such as is often observable in persons of mature years,
and which makes them regard as an irreparable misfortune half-an-hour’s
delay in dinner or bed-time. The ex-beau desired to lead an easy
comfortable existence, to take care of his precious health, and, in
short, to sustain the traditional reputation for respectability and
importance of the Mirandas. Lucía entered the room like a whirlwind, and
pale and trembling said:

“Get up; go and see if you can find Señor Duhamel and bring him at once.
Pilar is very ill.”

Miranda sat up in bed.

“Of course the crazy creature is ill. Why, she danced last night as if
she were out of her senses! She was well-employed!”

Lucía looked at her husband in astonishment.

“Go at once,” she said, “go at once! She has had a chill--she complains
of a pain in her side, and she has almost lost her voice.”

Miranda rose grumbling.

“I don’t know what her brother is here for,” he muttered, drawing on his
boots. “He might very well go.”

“Tell him so, you, if you wish,” said Lucía, her eyes swimming in tears.
“I cannot go into Gonzalvo’s room to waken him. In any case you were
going to rise now to drink the waters.”

“It would be time enough for that in three quarters of an hour. One
would suppose that girl was the only person here whose health is of any
consequence. Other people, too, are sick and have to take care of
themselves. To-day, precisely, I am feeling wretched.”

Lucía had been in the habit of manifesting a deep interest in Miranda’s
health, asking him every day those minute particulars which mothers are
wont to ask their children--and which bore the indifferent; but on this
occasion she turned her back on him and went to the kitchen where she
asked the wife of the _concierge_ for a cup of lime-leaf tea and carried
it herself to Pilar.

Duhamel frowned when he saw the patient. What most displeased him was to
learn that she had taken two or three iced drinks at the ball. Duhamel
was a little old man with skin like parchment, in whose bright and
searching eyes all the vitality of his body seemed to have concentrated
itself. His hair and eyebrows were gray, but of his teeth, which were
long and yellow as ivory, and which he showed when he smiled, which was
often, not one was wanting.

In his movements he was quick and gliding as an eel. Having at one time
gone to Brazil on a scientific expedition, he possessed a smattering of
Brazilian Portuguese, which he persisted in trying to pass off for
Spanish.

“Let the whole treatment, _ó tratamento_, be stopped,” he said,
addressing himself exclusively to Lucía, although the sick girl’s
brother was present, guided doubtless by that infallible instinct
possessed by the physician and which enables him to distinguish at once
the person most interested in his instructions and most capable of
carrying them out: “The patient, _a doente_, has done wrong in
disobeying my orders in this way.”

“But now, what is to be done?”

“We will try a strong counter-irritant; there is congestion of the
lungs; we must try to dissipate it. _Bon Dieu!_ to dance and take iced
drinks! And now we have the sweats to fight against.”

This dialogue between the doctor and Lucía took place at a sufficient
distance from the sick girl’s bed to prevent her from hearing it. Lucía
informed herself minutely regarding all that concerned the nursing of
the patient, the hours at which nourishment was to be given to her, and
the precautions which it was necessary to observe. After she had applied
to Pilar the remedies prescribed by the doctor, she set the room in
order, moving about on tiptoe, half closed the shutters, and then
installed herself at the bedside in a low sewing-chair. Pilar was very
feverish and suffered greatly from thirst. At every moment Lucía would
put to her lips the glass of gum-water, previously warmed on the little
stove. In the afternoon Duhamel came again and found that the
counter-irritant had had the effect of restoring to some extent the sick
girl’s voice, and rendering her breathing easier. The fever, however,
was high, the perspiration having been checked. The pulmonary congestion
lasted for eight days, and when, in obedience to Duhamel’s orders--as
lying in bed increased the fever and debilitated her--Pilar rose, the
girl looked like a specter; to the symptoms, bad enough in themselves,
of anæmia were now added others more alarming still. Her limbs no longer
supported the weight of her clothing, which slipped down from them as if
they had been the limbs of a badly stuffed doll. She herself was
alarmed, and in one of those moments of clairvoyance which are apt to
visit persons suffering from the dreadful disease which now held her in
its clutches, she asked for the famous mirror, which Lucía, in order not
to vex her, gave her very unwillingly. When Pilar saw herself in the
glass she recalled her image as she had seen it on the night of the
ball, the carnations in her artistically arranged hair, her face beaming
with happiness. The contrast between her face as she now saw it and as
she had seen it a week ago, was so strong that Pilar threw the mirror
with a quick movement on the ground. The glass was broken and the
exquisitely chased frame dinted by the blow.

It was not long, however, before the flattering illusion which
mercifully blinds the consumptive to his danger and smooths his path to
the very portals of the tomb, again took possession of her. The symptoms
of the disease were so marked that seeing them in another she would
have regarded them as fatal; and yet Pilar, animated as ever, continued
to lay out plans for the future and thought she was suffering only from
an obstinate cold, which would eventually cure itself. She had a
constant hacking cough, with viscous expectoration; the slightest
increase of temperature excited profuse perspiration, and instead of her
former capricious appetite she had now an intense loathing for food. In
vain the wife of the _concierge_ put in practice all her culinary arts,
inventing a hundred dainty dishes. Pilar regarded them all alike with
repugnance, especially such as were of a nutritious kind. There began
now for both the friends a valetudinarian existence. Lucía scarcely ever
left Pilar, taking her out on the balcony to breathe the fresh air if
the weather was fine, keeping her company in her room if it was bad,
using all her efforts to amuse her and to make the hours seem less
tedious. The sick girl now began to feel the impatience, the desire for
change of scene, which generally seizes those affected by the disease
from which she suffered. Vichy had become intolerable to her; the more
so, as she saw that the season was now drawing to a close, that the
Casino was fast becoming deserted, that the opera-troupe were about to
depart, and the brilliant swallows of fashion to take flight for other
regions. The Amézegas had come to bid her good-by, and to give her the
last vexation of the season. If Lucía had followed her own inclinations,
she would have received them in the little parlor down-stairs, making
some excuse for Pilar; but the latter persisted in her desire that they
should come up to her room, and Lucía was compelled to yield. The Cubans
were triumphantly happy because they were going to Paris to make their
purchases for the winter, and from thence to display their finery at the
most fashionable entertainments in Madrid and in the Retiro, and they
spoke with the lisp and with the affected airs habitual to them on such
occasions.

“Yes, child, who could endure it here any longer--this place has grown
so stupid--not a soul to be seen. Yes, Krauss has gone. She has a
contract in Paris. She scored a triumph on the last night of ‘Mignon.’
Some of the hotels are closed already. As you may suppose the rope has
followed the pail; when the Swede left, was it likely he was going to
remain? He will follow her to Stockholm. Yes, indeed! but have you not
heard? On the day of her departure he filled her carriage with flowers.
A whole parlor carriage filled with gardenias and camellias; just think
of it! He has spent a small fortune already in flowers. Luisa
Natal?--why, where should she go but to Madrid? Ah! the countess will
stop at Lourdes on her way--she intends to remain at least a week there.
Yes, Cañahejas is going on a visit to a castle belonging to some
relations of Monsieur Anatole, where they will shoot until November.
Gimenez? I don’t know, child; he is always engaged in some mysterious
affair or other. They say that Laurent, the soprano of the company--that
cross-eyed woman--I don’t believe a word of it--he is an incorrigible
braggart----”

“And you, you remain here, eh?” added Amalia, joining her lisp to
Lola’s. “How long, child? But you will die of _ennui_, here. This is a
convent, now! Why, that is nothing--what signifies a cold? Cheer up.
This winter the Puenteanchas will give some private theatricals--the
Monteros told me so. The Torreplanas de Arganzon have already signified
their intention of receiving on Thursdays. We shall have Patti in the
Real, and Gayarré,--think of it! We have sent to secure a box in case we
should not arrive in time.”

“I am going to order a couple of frocks from Worth--simple ones, as I am
not married. One for skating--I dote upon skating! In the Casa de Campo
last year--do you remember, Amalia?--that day----”

“That the king complimented you on your skating? Yes, I remember it, of
course.”

And the voices of both sisters mingled in a concert of little laughs of
gratified pride; both saw again in imagination the frozen lake, the
trees covered with their embroidery of frost, the early morning mist,
and the youthful figure of the king, his countenance pale with cold,
with his effeminate frame, his easy and elegant manners, and his
half-mischievous, half-courteous smile as he bent forward to compliment
the skater on her skill.

The visit left Pilar more impatient, more feverish, more excited than
ever. Pilar was desperate; at any cost she desired to leave Vichy, to
fly away, to break from the dark prison of sickness and make her
appearance once more, a brilliant butterfly, in the world of fashion.
She fully believed herself able to do so; she did not doubt but that her
strength was equal to it. No less impatient than herself were two other
persons--Miranda and Perico. Perico, accustomed to live in perpetual
divorce from himself, could not endure solitude, which compelled him to
keep his own company; and as for Miranda, the period prescribed for his
drinking the waters being now at an end and his health notably
improved, he thought it was time to betake himself to winter quarters
and enjoy in peace the result of the treatment. It annoyed him extremely
to see that his wife, appointed by high decrees to nurse himself, should
neglect, as she did, her providential mission, dedicating her days and
nights to a stranger suffering from a malady painful to witness and
perhaps contagious. Therefore, he suggested to Lucía that they should
take their departure, leaving the Gonzalvos to their fate, as those are
left behind, in a shipwreck, for whom there is no room in the lifeboat.
But contrary to all his expectations, he met with a vehement and
obstinate resistance from Lucía. She indemnified herself now, by giving
free utterance to her feelings, for all she had hitherto concealed, even
from herself.

“It would be necessary to have no heart--to have no heart!” she said.
“Poor Pilar, she would be well off indeed with her brother, who does not
know even how to arrange her pillows, for a nurse. What would become of
her? I cannot bear even to think of it.”

“She could send for a sister of charity--she would not be the first who
has done so,” answered Miranda roughly.

“How cruel--poor girl! To talk like that is even worse than leaving her
to die alone like a dog.”

“Well, as for her, confound me if she would have stayed behind for you
or for me, or for the angel Gabriel himself. And what obligation are we
under to nurse her? One would think----”

“Do you not say that you are Gonzalvo’s friend?” said Lucía, riveting
her gaze on her husband.

“His friend, yes, in a social way. What do you know about those things?
We are friends as hundreds of other people are friends.”

“Then why do we live in the same house with the Gonzalvos. They were not
my friends; but now I have come to like her, and the idea of going away
and leaving her so ill----”

“Good Heavens! has she not her father, her aunt, her brother? Let them
come, in the devil’s name, to take care of her. What have we to do with
the matter? If your vocation was to be a sister of charity, you should
have said so before, and not have got married, my child. Your duty now
is to see to your husband and your house, and nothing more.”

“Well,” said Lucía, raising her face, in which the rounded and
evanescent contours of youth were beginning to lose themselves in the
firmer outlines of early womanhood: “I will go, if you command me; but I
am none the less convinced that it is a wicked action to abandon a
friend in this way in her dying moments.”

She left the room. In her mind there was beginning to germinate a
singular conception of marital authority; she thought her husband had a
perfect, incontestable and manifest right to forbid her every species of
enjoyment or happiness, but that she was free to suffer; and that to
forbid her to suffer, to forbid her to devote herself, as she wished to
do, to the care of the sick girl, was cruel tyranny. These strange
notions are common enough with the unhappy, who often take refuge in
suffering as in a sanctuary, in order to avail themselves of the
immunity it confers.

The question, however, settled itself better than Lucía could have
anticipated, for that very afternoon Perico took part in it, and decided
it with his accustomed effrontery.

“Good-by, my dear boy,” he said, entering Miranda’s room, dressed in
traveling attire, wearing cloth gaiters and a felt cap, and carrying a
double-barreled fowling-piece slung across his shoulder.

And as Miranda looked at him in amazement:

“I have made up my mind,” he said. “Vichy is too stupid, and as Anatole
makes a point of it----”

“You are going to Auvergne?”

“To the Castle of Ceyssat, of Ceyssat. It seems there are hares and deer
there by the hundred, by the hundred--and one can have a good time at
the castle; there is a large party--eighteen guests.”

Miranda put as much energy as he could summon into his voice and
gestures, and said to the enthusiastic sportsman:

“But Lucía and I had decided on returning to Spain in two or three days
at the latest, and as Pilar is--in delicate health--your presence here
is indispensable.”

“Go to the deuce, to the deuce!” exclaimed Perico, faithful to his rule
of always speaking his mind freely. “Can’t you wait a fortnight to
oblige me? What are you going to do in Spain? To bury yourself in Leon,
and vegetate there, vegetate there. Here you are in the honeymoon, the
honeymoon. Not a word, not a word. I will leave my sister with you. I
know she will be well taken care of, well taken care of. Good-by; I must
catch the train. I will bring you back a deer’s head for a cane-rack.

“But listen; see here----”

Perico was already at the door. Miranda called to him from the window;
but the young man turned round smiling, and waving him an adieu, hurried
on in the direction of the station. And so it was that in this struggle
between two selfish natures, the most daring, if not the bravest or the
noblest, conquered.

Miranda was in a diabolical humor when Duhamel came to afford him some
slight consolation, saying that the sick girl during the last few days
had shown signs of improvement and that she ought to avail herself of
them to return to Spain in search of a milder climate, adding, in his
broken French-Portuguese that, as he intended, like most of the other
consulting physicians of Vichy, to return soon to Paris, they might
travel together, and in this way he would be able to see how the motion
of the train agreed with the patient, and to determine whether she
needed to rest or whether she could bear the journey to Spain without
further delay. The doctor’s advice appeared to every one to be very
judicious and Lucía wrote a letter to Perico, at the dictation of Pilar,
charging him to return within a fortnight, as that was the date fixed
upon by Duhamel to close his office at Vichy. The new arrangement
moderated in some slight degree the ill-humor of Miranda, consoled
Lucía, and rejoiced the patient, who longed, above all things, to return
to Madrid.

It was true; the very frailty of Pilar’s constitution, opposing less
resistance to the disease, retarded the inevitable termination of her
sufferings; and as the hurricane that uproots oaks only bends the reed,
so was the progress of the malady which had declared itself less violent
in this delicate frame than it would have been in a more vigorous one.
In a portion of one of the lungs, tubercles were present, and those
terrible breaches had already been made in it which doctors call
cavities; but the other lung was still unaffected. It is with the lungs,
however, as it is with fruit--a very brief space of time is sufficient
to infect a sound one if the one beside it be decayed. At all events,
the momentary improvement in Pilar was so marked as to allow of her
taking a short walk every morning, leaning on Lucía’s arm; and her
disinclination for food was now not so obstinate as before.

CHAPTER XII.

The aspect of Vichy, in truth, in those last days of October, was well
calculated to inspire sadness. Dead leaves lay everywhere. The park,
formerly so full of animation, was deserted; only a few visitors, who
had come late in the season to drink the waters--and who were really
ill--were to be seen promenading the asphalt pavement lately thronged
with richly-dressed people and enlivened by the buzz of cheerful
conversation. No one hastened now to sweep up and carry away the yellow
leaves that covered the ground like a carpet, for Vichy, so clean and
attractive in the season, becomes neglected-looking and filthy as soon
as its fashionable summer guests have turned their backs upon it. The
whole town looked as if a general removal were taking place; the
adornments of the balconies of the _châlets_, deserted now by their
tenants, had been removed, so that they might not be injured by the
rains; in the streets were heaps of brick and mortar to be used in
building, which no one had ventured to undertake in the summer, not
wishing to mar the beauty of the place during the season. The shops for
the sale of articles of luxury had, one after another, closed their
shutters, and their owners, taking with them their wares, had departed
for Nice, Cannes, or some other wintering place of the kind. A few shops
still remained open, and their show-cases served to divert Lucía and
Pilar when they went out for their leisurely walks. The chief of these
was a shop for the sale of curiosities, antiques, and objects of art,
situated almost in front of the famous “Nymph,” and consequently at the
back of the Casino. The shop being too small to conveniently hold the
_mare magnum_ of objects which it contained, they overflowed its limits
and invaded the sidewalk. It was a delightful occupation to rummage
among its recesses, and to pry into its corners, making at every instant
some new and curious discovery. The proprietors of the shop, having
little business at this season, made no objection to their doing so.
They were a married couple: the husband a Bohemian from the Rastro, with
sleepy eyes, a well worn coat and a torn necktie worthy of a place among
the antiques of his shop; the wife fair, thin, willowy, and agile as a
garret cat, gliding among the precious objects heaped up to the ceiling.
Lucía and Pilar found great amusement in examining the heterogeneous
assemblage. In the center of the shop, a superb table of Sèvres
porcelain and gilt-bronze proudly displayed its splendor. On the central
medallion was represented in enamel, on a blue background of the shade
peculiar to _pâte tendre_, the broad, good-natured, but rather sad
countenance of Louis XVI; around this was a circle of smaller
medallions, representing the graceful heads of the ladies of the court
of the guillotined king--some with powdered hair, piled high on the
head, and surmounted by a large basket of flowers; others with hoods of
black lace fastened under the chin; all with immodestly _décolleté_
gowns, all smiling and richly dressed, with the freshest of complexions
and the rosiest of lips. If Lucía and Pilar had been learned in history,
how many reflections would have been suggested to them by the sight of
all these ivory necks adorned with diamond necklaces or tight velvet
bands, destined, doubtless, like that of the king who presided with
melancholy air over the beautiful bevy, to bow to the executioner’s
knife.

The pride of the collection was the ceramics. There were a number of
Dresden figures, pure, soft, and delicate in coloring as the clouds
painted by the dawn; rosy cupids garlanded with wreaths of sky-blue
flowers; shepherdesses with a complexion of milk and roses guarding
sheep adorned with crimson bows; nymphs and swans who exchanged amorous
compliments in groves of a pale green, planted with roses; violinists
holding the bow with affected grace, advancing the right foot, ready to
take part in a minuet; flower-girls who simperingly pointed to the
basket of flowers which they carried on their left arms. Side by side
with these pastoral fancies, rare products of Asiatic art displayed
their strange and deformed shapes, like idols of a barbarous faith;
across rotund vases, adorned with yellow leaves and purple or
flame-colored flowers, flew bands of unnatural-looking birds or glided
monstrous reptiles; on the dark background of flat-sided vases stood out
boldly fantastic scenes--green rivers flowing over ochre beds; kiosks of
crimson lake, hung with golden bells; mandarins with gorgeous trains
falling in straight lines, sleek, drooping mustaches, oblique eyes, and
heads like pumpkins. The Majolica and Palissy plates seemed fragments
taken from the bed of the sea, pieces of some sunken reef or of some
oozy river-bed. There, among sea-weed and algae, glided the gleaming,
slimy eel, the mussel opened its fluted shell, the silver bream flapped
its tail, the snail lifted up its agate horn, the frog stared with stony
eyes, and the many-clawed crab, looking like an enormous black spider,
moved along with a sidewise motion. There was a dish on which Galatea
reclined among the waves, her coursers, blue as the sea, pawing the air
with their webbed hoofs, while Tritons, with puffed-out cheeks, blew
their winding trumpets. In addition to the porcelain there were pieces
of silver, antique and heavy, such as are handed down from father to
son in honest provincial families; enormous salvers, broad trays, huge
soup-tureens with massive artichokes for handles; there were wooden
coffers inlaid with pearl and ivory; iron chests carved with the
delicacy of filagree-work; china tankards of antique shape, with metal
bands that recalled the beer-drinkers immortalized by Flemish art.

Pilar was enchanted especially with the agate cup-shaped jewel-cases,
with the jewelry of different epochs, from the amulet of the Roman lady
to the necklace of false stones and fine enamels of the time of Marie
Antoinette; but what most delighted Lucía were the church ornaments,
which awoke in her the religious sentiment, so well calculated to move
her sincere and ardent soul. The figures of two of the apostles,
solemnly pointing heavenward, stood outlined in brass on two stained
glass windows, doubtless torn from the ogive of some dismantled
monastery. On a triptych of brownish yellow ivory were represented Eve,
with meager nude figure, offering Adam the fatal apple, and the Virgin
in the mysteries of the Annunciation and of the Ascension; all
incorrectly done, with that divine candor of early sacred art, in the
ages of faith. Notwithstanding the rudeness of the design, the face of
the Virgin, the modesty of her downcast look, the mystic ideality of
her attitude charmed Lucía. If she had had money enough, she would
certainly have bought a crucifix which lay unnoticed among the other
curiosities of the shop. It was of ivory also, and was made in a single
piece, with the exception of the arms. The expression of the dying
Christ, nailed to a rich pearl cross, was painfully realistic, the
nerves and muscles showing the contraction of the death agony. Three
diamond nails pierced the hands and feet. Lucía said a paternoster every
day before it and even kissed the knees when she thought herself
unobserved.

She enjoyed looking at paintings; all the more as she could understand
them, which was not the case with all of the objects of art, some of
which she thought ugly and extravagant enough. It was plain that that
fierce swaggerer, rushing, sword in hand, on his adversary, was going to
cleave his heart in twain at a blow. What a lovely sunrise in that
Daubigny! With what naturalness those sheep of Jacque--valued at a
thousand francs apiece (there were twelve in the picture) were browsing!
How white the feet which that Favorite Sultana of Cala y Mora was
dipping in the marble basin! The head of the young girl, after Greuze,
was a marvel of innocent grace. And that Quarrel in a Flemish Inn--it
was enough to make one laugh to see how the earthenware flew around in
fragments, and the copper saucepans rolled about, and the two plowmen of
St. Oustade, misshapen and clownish-looking, distributed blows and cuffs
on all sides, their ape-like ugliness heightened by the grotesqueness of
their attitudes.

But even more than the bazar of objects of art, where so great a
diversity of forms and colors, styles and artistic ideals, after all
confused her, did one among the many stalls at the edge of the sidewalk
near the Casino, interest Lucía. These stalls represented the modest and
unpretending branches of trade. Here an old German cried his
wares--glasses to drink the waters--engraving on them with an emery
wheel the initials of the purchasers’ names in their presence; there a
Swiss offered for sale toys, dolls, little boxes, and book folders
carved in beech-wood by the shepherds; here lenses were sold, there
combs and writing-materials. Lucía’s favorite stall was one presided
over by a peddler of curiosities from Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
Mother-of-pearl calvaries with simple carvings in relief, pen handles of
olive-wood terminating in a cross, heads of the Virgin cut on shell,
brooches and trinkets of enamel adorned with arabesques, cups of black
bitumen, aromatic lozenges--such were the contents of the peddler’s
box. All this was sold by an Israelite of not unpleasing appearance,
with black eyes and yellow skin, wearing a dark red Arab fez and wide
trousers, gentle, insinuating, a Levantine in everything, with a
smattering of many languages and a good knowledge of Spanish, which, but
for the use of an occasional archaism, he spoke like a native. In this
man’s conversation Lucía found entertainment in the absence of other
sources of interest. She would question him about the holy village of
Bethlehem, the sacred house of Nazareth, Mount Olivet, and all the other
holy places which she had pictured to herself as situated rather in some
mysterious and remote paradise than on the earth. Between Lucía and the
peddler there was thus established the habit of having a ten minutes
chat every afternoon in the open air, which she enjoyed all the more
when he told her that he was a Christian and a Catholic, catechized and
instructed by the Franciscans of Bethlehem. Lucía bought specimens of
all his wares, even to a rosary of those opaque greenish beads, called,
not without some analogical similitude, Job’s tears.

“I don’t know how you can like that ugly rosary,” said Pilar.

“But just see,” exclaimed Lucía, “they look like real tears.”

But the swallow of the Levant, too, flew away in his turn, in search of
milder climes. One day they did not find Ibrahan Antonio in his
accustomed place; discouraged, perhaps, by a day without a sale, he had
packed up his wares and departed, no one knew whither. Lucía missed him;
but the retreat was a general one; on all sides, closed up and empty
shops were to be seen. On the pavements were mountains of straw, piles
of wrapping paper, packing cases and boxes bearing in large letters the
word “fragile.” The gloom, the disorder, the ever-increasing bareness of
a removal reigned. Pilar thought Vichy in this condition so unattractive
that she planned excursions which should take her away from the
principal streets. One morning she took a fancy to go to the
pastry-cook’s shop and witnessed the manufacture of two or three
thousand cakes and bonbons. On another morning she visited the
subterranean galleries which contain the immense reservoirs of water and
the enormous pipes that supply the baths of the thermal establishment.
They descended a narrow staircase whose lowest steps were lost in the
obscurity of the gallery. The keeper preceded them, carrying in her hand
a miner’s flat-shaped lamp, which emitted a disagreeable odor. Miranda
carried another lamp, and a little street urchin, who made his
appearance among them as suddenly as if he had fallen down from the
clouds, took charge of a third. The vaulted roof was so low that Miranda
was obliged to stoop down in order to avoid striking his head against
it. The narrow passage made an abrupt turn and they suddenly found
themselves in another gallery, which received, as in a yawning mouth,
the pipes that, owing to the perpetual dampness, were here covered with
rust. From the roof exuded a fine white moisture that sparkled in the
light; on either hand flowed a stream of water over a bed of residuum
and alkaline phosphates, white and floury, like newly fallen snow. As
they advanced further into the long subterranean gallery, a suffocating
heat announced the passage of the overflow of the Grande Grille, the
temperature of whose waters was still higher in this confined atmosphere
than it was at its source. From the walls, covered with patches of
mildew and limy scales, hung monstrous fungi, cryptogamous plants full
of venom, whose noxious whiteness gleamed on the wall like a pale and
sinister eye gleaming in a livid countenance. Dusty cobwebs shrouded the
elbows of the pipes like gray winding-sheets shrouding forgotten
corpses. Through the loose stones of the pavement could be caught
glimpses of the black water below. They could hear plainly the steps of
the people passing overhead, and the hard sound of the horses’ hoofs. At
intervals there was an airhole, through the iron grating of which came
the daylight, livid and sepulchral, imparting a yellow tinge to the red
flame of the lamps. The pipes wound like intestines through the damp
passage, now dragging themselves along the ground like gigantic
serpents, now reaching upward to the roof, like the black tentacles of
some enormous polypus. At one time they emerged from the corridors into
a brighter spot--a species of circular cave with a skylight, in whose
far end yawned the open mouth of the Lucas well, disclosing the still,
somber, and unfathomable water within. The urchin held his lamp over the
brink and looked down. The keeper seized him by the arm.

“Eh, my friend,” she said, “take care that you don’t fall in there. It
would not be easy to go down a hundred yards, which is the depth of that
hole, to look for you.”

Lucía, fascinated, approached the mouth of the well. The mephitic gases
it exhaled made the smoky flames of the lamps flicker. Here the
temperature was not warm, but cold--a dense, airless cold, which made
breathing difficult. An iron door opened into another gallery, on
entering which they all drew back in alarm, with the exception of the
keeper, at finding themselves surrounded by a vast expanse of water, a
sort of subterranean lake. They were standing on a narrow plank, thrown
like a bridge across the reservoir. The water, lying in its stone tomb,
had a stillness and limpidity that had something lugubrious in them. The
flame of one of the lamps, that had been left on the opposite bank to
show the extent of the deposit, threw long lines of wavering light over
the gloomy transparence of the lake, and looked, in the distance, like
the torch of a hired assassin in some Venetian prison. So fantastic was
the aspect of this lake, overhung by a granite sky, that one might fancy
it peopled with floating corpses. Lucía and Pilar experienced a vague
terror, and like children, or rather, like women, they were especially
horrified at the idea that in some one of the narrow and confused
passages, they might stumble over a rat. They knew that the deposits of
water communicated with the sewers, and two or three times already they
had turned pale, fancying they had seen a black shadow pass by, which
was only the wavering shadow of some parasites cast by the light of the
lamps upon the wall. Suddenly both women uttered a cry; this time there
was no room for doubt, they heard the sharp, shrill squeal of a rat.
Lucía stood for an instant motionless, with dilated eyes; it was
impossible here to run away. But the street urchin and the keeper burst
out laughing; they were both familiar with the sound, which was produced
by the corking of the bottles of mineral water on the other side of the
wall. The two women breathed more freely, however, when they emerged
from the gloomy labyrinth, and saw once more the light of day and felt
the fresh air blowing across their perspiring brows.

One place only did Lucía visit unaccompanied--the church of St. Louis.
At first the Leonese, accustomed to the grandeur of the superb basilica
of her native place, was not greatly pleased with the edifice. St. Louis
is a poor mediæval rhapsody conceived by a modern architect; the
interior is disfigured by being painted in tawdry colors; in a word, it
resembles an actress masquerading as a saint. But Lucía found in the
temple a Virgin of Lourdes, which charmed her exceedingly. It stood in a
grotto of blooming roses and chrysanthemums, and above its head was the
legend: I am the Immaculate Conception. Lucía knew very little about the
apparitions of Bernadette, the shepherdess, or the miracles of the
sacred mountain; but notwithstanding this, the image exercised a
singular fascination over her, seeming to call to her with mysterious
voice that floated among the grateful perfumes of the flowers, and the
flickering of the tall white tapers. The image, gay, smiling, and
simple, with floating robes and blue mantle, touched Lucía’s soul more
than the stiff images of the cathedral of Leon, clad in their pompous
garments, had ever done. One afternoon, as she was going to the church,
she saw a funeral procession pass along and she followed it. It was the
funeral of a young girl, a Child of Mary. The beadle, dressed in black,
a silver chain around his neck, walked with official gravity at the head
of the procession; four young girls, dressed in white, followed him,
their teeth chattering with cold, their cheeks violet, but proud of
their important rôle of carrying the ribbons. Then came the priests,
grave and composed, their rich voices swelling at intervals on the still
air. Inside the hearse, adorned with black and white plumes, was the
coffin covered with a snow-white cloth starred with orange-blossoms,
white roses, and heaps of lilacs that swayed with every movement of the
car. The Children of Mary, the companions of the deceased, walked along
almost gayly, lifting up their muslin skirts to keep them from touching
the muddy ground. The civil commissary, in his robes, headed the
mourners; behind him came a crowd of women dressed in black, in the
midst of whom walked the family of the dead girl, their faces red and
their eyes swollen with weeping. The church bells tolled with melancholy
sound while the coffin was being taken out of the hearse and placed on
the catafalque. Lucía entered the nave and piously knelt down among
those who were mourning for one whom she had never seen. She listened
with a melancholy pleasure to the office for the dead, the prayers
intoned in full and mellow voices by the priests. Those unknown Latin
phrases had for her a clear signification; she did not understand the
words, but she could comprehend without difficulty that they were
laments, menaces, complaints, and at times ardent and tender sighs of
love. And then, as had happened in the park, there came to her mind the
secret thought, the desire to die, and she said to herself that the dead
girl lying there in her coffin, covered with flowers, calm and
peaceful,--seeing nothing, hearing nothing of the miseries of this
wretched world, that goes round and round, and yet in all its countless
revolutions never brings a good day nor an hour of happiness,--was more
to be envied than she who was alive and obliged to feel, to think, and
to act.

“Yes, but--the soul!” Lucía said to herself.

Thus curiously did a simple and ignorant girl repeat the thought
expressed in the philosophical soliloquy of the Danish dreamer!

“Ah, and how good it must be to be dead,” thought Lucía. “Don Ignacio
was right in saying that--that--well, that there is no such thing as
happiness. If one only knew what fate awaited one in the other world!
Where now is the soul of that body that lies there! And what would be
the use of dying if after all one does not cease to exist, and to be
conscious of what is going on around one.”

Certain it is that these wild imaginings, aided by the sleepless hours
passed at the sick girl’s bedside, and perhaps by another cause, also,
dimmed the freshness of Lucía’s complexion, and tinged with gloom her
once happy and tranquil disposition. Miranda, who, cut off from all
other society, now sought that of his wife, was struck by the melancholy
expression of her countenance, and thoughts, never fully set at rest
since the unfortunate mishap of the wedding journey, sprung up again in
his mind. This thorn, which pierced his vanity, the keenest of his
feelings, to the quick, could never cease to rankle. Had Miranda’s
nature been more amiable, he might have won by love the open and
generous heart of the young Leonese, but it would seem as if some demon
inspired him always to do exactly the opposite of what he ought to have
done. He acquired the habit of speaking harshly to Lucía, and of
treating her with a certain scorn, as if he never forgot her inferiority
of station. He reminded her by covert allusions of her social position.
He spied upon her every action, reproached her with the time spent in
taking care of Perico’s sister, and, in short, adopted a system of
opposition and tyranny, admirably adapted to succeed with weak or
perverse women, whom it subjugates and charms. Lucía it brought to the
verge of desperation.

A few days before the one fixed for Perico’s return, Pilar received from
him a letter which she handed to Lucía to read. He announced in it his
near return and gave at the same time some details of the fashionable
life he was leading at the Castle of Ceyssat, and, among other pieces of
news, mentioned the death of the mother of Ignacio Artegui, which
Anatole had communicated to him, thinking it would interest him as
concerning a compatriot. He added that the son had taken the body to
Brittany, to the same old castle of Houdan, at which his childhood had
been passed, for interment. Miranda was present when this paragraph was
read, and noticed the rapid glance of intelligence that passed between
Pilar and Lucía and the sudden pallor that overspread the face of his
wife. Lucía left the house that afternoon and went to the church of St.
Louis, in which she spent half an hour or so. She went back to the
_châlet_, entered her room, where there were writing materials, wrote a
letter, which she hid in her bosom, ran down-stairs and walked rapidly
in the direction of the main street. Night was falling, the first lamps
were being lighted, and the street urchins, the choirboys of
civilization, were standing about on the pavement, crying out the names
of the Paris papers which had just arrived. Lucía went straight toward
the red lamp of the shop and dropped her letter into the wooden
letter-box. At the same instant she felt her arm seized in a vise-like
grip and turned around. Miranda was beside her.

“What is the meaning of this,” he cried, in a voice of suppressed anger.
“You here, and alone,--what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she stammered.

“Nothing! why, have you not just dropped a letter into the letter-box?”

“Yes, a letter,” she answered.

“Why did you lie, then?” exclaimed the husband, in furious accents, his
mouth and chin trembling with jealous rage.

“I don’t know what I may have said when you hurt my arm,” answered
Lucía, recovering her self-possession. “What is true is that I dropped a
letter there just now.”

“And why did you not give it to me to post? Why did you come here
yourself--alone?”

“I wished to post it myself.”

Some passers-by turned around to listen to the dialogue carried on in
angry tones and in a foreign tongue.

“We are making a scene,” said Miranda. “Come.”

They turned into a solitary street and for the space of a few minutes
both maintained an eloquent silence.

“For whom was that letter?” the husband at last asked abruptly.

“For Don Ignacio Artegui,” answered Lucía, in a firm and composed voice.

“I knew it!” said Miranda under his breath, suppressing a malediction.

“He has lost his mother. You yourself heard so to-day.”

“It is highly indecorous, highly ridiculous,” said Miranda, whose voice
sounded harsh and broken like the crackling of burning brambles, “for a
lady to write in this unceremonious fashion to a man.”

“I am indebted to Señor de Artegui for services and favors,” said Lucía,
“which compel me to take a part in his griefs.”

“Those services, if there be such, it is my duty to acknowledge. I would
have written to him.”

“Your letter,” objected Lucía simply, “would not have served to console
him, while mine would; and as it was not a question of etiquette but
of----”

“Hold your tongue,” cried Miranda rudely; “hold your tongue and don’t
talk nonsense,” he continued, with that roughness which even men of
culture do not hesitate to display when speaking to their wives. “Before
marrying you should have learned how to conduct yourself in society, so
as not to bring ridicule upon me by committing silly actions, which are
in bad taste. But I have no right to complain; what better could I have
expected when I married the daughter of a retailer of oil and vinegar!”

Miranda walked with long strides, dragging rather than supporting his
wife, and they had now almost reached the _châlet_. At this offensive
speech Lucía, with pale cheeks and flashing eyes, freed herself
violently from his clasp, and stood still in the middle of the road.

“My father,” she cried, in a loud voice, making an effort to keep back
her sobs, “is an honest man, and he has taught me to be honest, too.”

“Well, one would never have known it,” replied Miranda, with a bitter
and ironical laugh. “To judge by appearances he has taught you to palm
off the spurious article for the genuine as he himself probably did with
his provisions.”

At this last stab Lucía rushed forward, passed through the gate, hurried
up the stairs as quickly as she had a short time before descended them,
and shutting herself in her room gave free vent to her anguish. Of the
thoughts that passed through her mind during this long night, which she
spent extended on a sofa, the following letter, assuredly not intended
by its author for publication and still less intended to awaken the
applause of future generations, will give some idea:

     DEAR FATHER URTAZU: The fits of rage you warned me about are
     beginning to come, and that sooner and with more frequency than I
     had thought possible. The worst of it is, that thinking well over
     the matter, it seems to me that I myself am in some sort to blame.
     Don’t laugh at me, for pity’s sake, for I am trying to keep my
     tears back while I write, and this blot, which I hope you will
     excuse, is even caused by one of them falling upon the paper. I am
     going to tell you everything as if I were in Leon, kneeling before
     you in the confessional. The mother of Señor de Artegui is dead.
     You already know from my previous letters that this is a terrible
     misfortune, for it may bring with it others--which I do not wish
     even to think about, father. In short, I reflected that Señor de
     Artegui would be very sad, very sad, and that perhaps no one would
     think of saying a kind word to him and especially of speaking to
     him of our Lord, in whom he cannot but believe--is it not so,
     father?--but whom he may forget, perhaps, in the bitterness of his
     grief. Moved by these considerations I wrote him a letter,
     consoling him as best I could--I wish you could have seen it. I
     said a great many things in it that I think were very fine and very
     comforting. I told him that God sends us sorrows so as to make us
     turn to Him in our grief; that then it is He is most with us--in
     short, all that you have taught me. I told him, besides, to be
     assured that he was not the only one who mourned for that poor
     lady, that saint; that I mingled my tears with his, although I knew
     that she was now in glory, and that I envied her. Ah, and that is
     the truth, father! Who so happy as she? To die, to go to heaven!
     When shall I attain such happiness!

     But to return to my story. I went to post the letter and Miranda
     followed me and seized me by the arm, and heaped insults upon me,
     calling me all sorts of bad names, and, what I felt more than all,
     insulting my father. Poor, dear father! How is he to blame for what
     I may do? Tell him nothing of all this, Father Urtazu, for the love
     of God! I was so indignant that I answered him haughtily, and then
     went and shut myself up into my room. I feel as crushed as if the
     house had fallen in upon me.

     My health is beginning to suffer from all these things. Tell Señor
     Velez de Rada that when he sees me he will no longer be pleased
     with my looks. My head is dizzy just now and I often have severe
     fits of giddiness. Good-by, father; advise me, for I am bewildered
     by all this. Sometimes I think I have done wrong, and again I think
     I am not in any way to blame. Is pity a sin? When I look into my
     heart I find only pity there; nothing more.

     Excuse the writing, for my hand trembles greatly. Write soon, for
     charity’s sake, for we are shortly to leave this place, and I
     should like to receive a letter from you before we go. Your
     respectful daughter in Jesus Christ,

                                                 LUCÍA GONZALEZ.

To those familiar with the conversational style of Father Urtazu, and
who desire to have some knowledge of the epistolary style employed by so
learned a man, the following letter will afford satisfaction:

     LUCIGÜELA OF MY SINS: Ah, child, how well we know how to represent
     things so as to put our dear little selves in the best light! Pity,
     eh? I’ll give you pity! You did wrong, and very wrong, to write
     that letter without your husband’s knowledge, and I am not
     surprised that he should have behaved like a very dragon about it.
     You should have asked his permission; and if he had refused
     it--patience! Did I not tell you, child, that to be a good wife and
     to make the journey in peace you should put a couple of arrobas of
     patience in your trunks? We forget to do that, and this is the
     result. Go, unlucky child, and buy a supply of patience now where
     you are, and feed upon it, for you stand sorely in need of it. Your
     husband ought not to have insulted your good, kind father (although
     in some respects he deserves it, and I know myself the reason why),
     but remember that he was angry, and when one is excited,--I, who
     have a hot temper myself, can make allowance for him! As I said
     before, patience, patience, and no more clandestine notes. What
     call had you to turn preacher? And there is no need to grieve. God
     tightens the cord, but he does not strangle; he is no executioner,
     and perhaps when you least expect it, he will send you
     consolation--as a gift, and not because of your own merits. And
     good-by, for the mail is closing; and besides, I have the lungs of
     a frog on the slide of a microscope, and I am going to study the
     manner in which those little people breathe. Remember to say a few
     prayers, eh? And that will take down our pride a little. The
     blessing of God and of San Ignacio be with you, child.

                                                 ALONZO URTAZU, S.J.

When these counsels reached her, Lucía had already done by instinct what
Father Urtazu advised her to do. Mild and gentle now as a lamb, her
every glance was a mute petition for pardon. Miranda persistently
avoided looking at her, treating her with icy contempt. From the
constant strain on her feelings, and her continued attendance on Pilar,
the roses in Lucía’s cheeks had turned to lilies, and she had grown
noticeably thinner, although her appetite continued good. One morning
Duhamel called her aside, and said to her in his Portuguese-French.

“You must take care of your health, _menina_. _Conservar-se. Vae cair
doente._ Less watching, less fatigue, regular sleep. So much nursing
_altera-the a saude_.”

“Do you think I shall take Pilar’s disease?” asked Lucía, in so tranquil
a voice that Duhamel stared at her.

“No, it is not that.” And the physician, lowering his voice still more,
entered into a long and serious conversation with her.

That night Lucía answered Father Urtazu’s letter in these words:

     DEAR FATHER: Blessed be your lips! for it almost seems as if you
     had the gift of prophecy, so true were your words when you said
     that I should receive consolation. I am wild with joy, and I hardly
     know what I am writing.... A child! what happiness, Father Urtazu!
     To-morrow I am going to begin working on the baby-clothes, that the
     little angel may not run any risk of coming into the world, like
     our Lord, without swaddling clothes in which to wrap him. I am
     putting a great deal of nonsense in this letter and a few tears,
     too, but not like the last--these are tears of joy.

     To-morrow or the day after we shall leave Vichy. Miranda and I are
     to spend a few days in Paris before returning to Leon. (I am wild
     to be there to tell father the news; don’t tell him you, however; I
     want to give him a surprise.) Poor Pilar and her brother are going
     on to Spain, if the state of her health will admit of it, and she
     has not to stop at some place on the road--to die, perhaps. For I
     am not deceived by her apparent improvement; she is marked for
     death. What I regret most is to have to leave her two or three
     weeks before--But I am so happy that I don’t want to think of that.
     Offer up a prayer for me.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Gonzalvos were unable to go on to Spain, for midway on the journey
Pilar was seized with symptoms so alarming, such sweats, swoons, fits of
retching and exhaustion, that they thought her last hour was at hand,
and that it would be fortunate if she reached Paris alive; in which case
Doctor Duhamel was not without hope that a few days rest there would
restore her strength sufficiently to allow of their proceeding on their
way. Miranda, who had thought himself already rid of the dying girl,
whom, although he did not nurse her himself, it annoyed him to see
others nursing, accepted this change of program with ill-concealed
discontent; Lucía, who could not reconcile herself to the idea of
deserting her friend on the brink of the grave, as it were, with a
lightening of the heart; and Perico, confident as he was that his sister
would lack no attention, with the secret determination to see all there
was to be seen in Paris. As for Pilar herself, possessed by the strange
optimism characteristic of her malady, she manifested great delight at
the prospect of visiting the capital of luxury and fashion, resolving to
make her purchases for the winter there that she might be as good as
“those affected Amézegas.”

They arrived in the great French capital on a dark and foggy morning and
were at once assailed by innumerable runners from the hotels, each
calling their attention to his omnibus and disputing their possession
with his rivals. One of these runners, with a dark face crossed by a
long scar, approached Miranda and said to him in good Spanish:

“Hotel de la Alavesa, Señor--Spanish spoken--Spanish waiters--olla
served every day--Rue Saint-Honoré, the most central situation.”

“It would be well to go there,” said Duhamel, touching Miranda on the
arm. “In a Spanish hotel _a doente_ will receive better attention.”

“Let us go, then,” said Miranda resignedly, giving the check for his
luggage to the runner. “Look here,” he added, addressing Perico, “you
and I will go with the luggage in the hotel omnibus, and we will send
Lucía and Pilar in one of those hackney-coaches--they do not jolt so
much.”

They carried Pilar almost bodily from the railway carriage to the coach.
The runner installed himself on the box after giving many charges and
instructions to the postillion of the omnibus, and the driver whipped up
his sorry-looking nag. After driving through several broad and
magnificent streets they stopped in front of the Hotel de la Alavesa,
and Lucía, springing lightly as a bird to the ground, said to the
runner:

“Do me the favor to assist me in helping this young lady out of the
carriage, she is ill.”

But suddenly recognizing the man’s face, she cried excitedly:

“Sardiola!”

“Señorita!” responded the Biscayan, showing no less joy, cordiality, and
surprise than Lucía had done. “And I did not recognize you! How stupid
of me! But one sees so many travelers at that blessed station, meeting
them there when they arrive, and taking them there when they are going
away, that it is not to be wondered at.”

And after looking at Lucía for a few moments longer, he added:

“But the truth is, too, that you yourself are greatly changed. Why, you
don’t look like the same person as when Señorito Ignacio was with
you----”

At the sound of this name, so long unheard by her, Lucía turned as red
as a cherry, and dropping her eyes, she murmured:

“We will go at once to our rooms. Come, Pilar. Here, put your arm around
my neck--now the other around Sardiola’s--don’t be afraid to lean;
there! Shall we carry you in the queen’s chair?”

And the Biscayan and her valorous friend, crossing hands, raised the
sick girl gently in the improvised throne, on which she sank like an
inert mass, letting her head fall on Lucía’s shoulder. In this way they
went up-stairs to the _entresol_, where Sardiola showed the two women
into a large and airy room, containing the customary marble
mantle-piece, the immense beds with hangings, the _moquette_ carpet,
somewhat soiled and worn in places, the wash-stand and the traditional
clothes-rack. The windows of the room looked out into a small garden, in
the center of which was a light kiosk constructed of wood and glass,
which served as a bath-house. They placed Pilar in an arm-chair and
Sardiola stood waiting for further orders. His eyes, dark and brilliant
as those of a Newfoundland pup, were fixed on Lucía with a submissive
and affectionate look truly canine. She, on her side, had to bite her
lips to keep back the questions which crowded impatiently to them.
Sardiola, divining her thoughts with the loyal instinct of the domestic
animal, anticipated her words.

“If the ladies should need anything,” he said hesitatingly, as if
fearing to seem intrusive, “let them call upon me at any time. If I am
at the station, Juanilla will come; she is the chambermaid of this
floor--an obliging girl, and quick as lightning. But if ever I can be of
any service--well, it would delight me greatly; it is enough for me to
have seen the Señorita with Señorito Ignacio----”

And as Lucía remained silent, questioning only with the mute and ardent
language of the eyes, the Biscayan continued:

“Because--did the Señorita not know? Well it was the Señorito himself
who got me this place. As the Alavese took Juanilla, who is a cousin of
mine, with her and it made me, well--sad, to see those hills which no
one but us country lads and the wild beasts had, with God’s help, ever
climbed before, overrun by government troops, and, in short, as I was
dying of sadness in that station, I wrote to the Señorito--his mother,
may her soul rest in glory, was still living--and he recommended me to
the Alavesa, and here I am at your service, living in clover.”

Lucía’s eyes continued their mute questioning, more eager than ever.
Sardiola continued:

“But what most pleased me was to live so near the Señorito----”

“So near?” mutely asked the shining eyes.

“So near,” he said in response, “so very near that--why it is
delightful!--you have only to cross the garden there to reach his
house.”

Lucía ran to the balcony, and, as pale as wax, looked with wild eyes at
the building opposite. Sardiola followed her to the window and even the
sick girl turned her head around with curiosity.

“Look there,” explained Sardiola. “Do you see that wall there and that
other wall which joins it at a right angle? Well, those are the walls of
the hotel. Now look at that other wall, which forms the third side of
the square--that is the wall of Don Ignacio’s house; it opens on the Rue
de Rivoli. Do you see those steps leading into the garden? You ascend by
those into the corridor on the first floor, into which the dining-room
opens--a very handsome room! The whole house is handsome. Don Ignacio’s
father accumulated a great deal of money. Do you see that little tree
there at the foot of the steps, that sickly-looking plane tree? That is
where the Señorito used to take his mother to sit to breathe the air;
she died of a disease the name of which I don’t remember, but which
means--well, that the heart becomes greatly enlarged--and as she had
dreadful fits of oppression at times so that she could scarcely breathe,
just like a fish when it is taken out of the water; she had to be
brought down into the garden, and even then there was not air enough for
her, and she would sit for an hour trying to get her breath. If you had
seen the Señorito! That was what might be called devotion! He supported
her head, he warmed her feet with his hands, he kissed her a thousand
times in an hour, he fanned her--well, it was a sight worth seeing! A
purer soul God never sent into the world nor shall we see another like
her in our time. After death the blessed saint looked so smiling and so
natural and so handsome, with her fair hair! He it was that looked like
a dead person; if he had been lying in the coffin any one would have
taken him for the corpse.”

“Silence!” the eloquent eyes suddenly commanded.

And Sardiola obeyed. Duhamel, Miranda, and Perico were entering the
room. Duhamel examined the apartment minutely and declared it, in his
Lusitanian-French jargon, to be sheltered, convenient, not too high, yet
well ventilated, and in every way suitable for the patient. Miranda and
Perico retired to the adjoining room to wash themselves after the
journey, and tacitly, without debating the question, it was decided that
patient and nurse should room together, and that the two men should
occupy together also the room in which they were. Miranda interposed no
objection to this sacrifice on Lucía’s part; for Duhamel, calling him
aside, informed him that the disease was rapidly nearing its fatal
termination, and that he thought the sick girl could hardly live a month
longer, in view of which fact Miranda silently resolved to depart with
his wife in eight or ten days’ time under some pretext or other. But
fate, which had ordained that these events should have a very different
_dénouement_, disposed matters in such a way, employing Perico as her
instrument, that Miranda very soon began to find himself contented,
diverted, and happy in this Parisian Babylon; this gulf among whose
reefs and shoals the artful Gonzalvo piloted him with more skill and
dexterity than singleness of purpose.

“What the deuce, what the deuce are you going to bury yourself in Leon
for now?” exclaimed Perico. “You will have time enough, time enough to
bore yourself there! Take my advice and avail yourself of the
opportunity. Why, you are well enough now! Those waters have made you
look ten years younger.”

The sly fellow knew very well what he was about. Neither her father nor
her aunt had manifested any very great desire to come and take care of
Pilar, and he foresaw that on him would devolve the disagreeable office
of sick nurse. His mind, fertile in wiles, suggested a thousand
artifices by which to charm Miranda in that magical city that of itself
turns the heads of all who set foot in it. Lucía’s husband made
acquaintance with the refinements of the French _cuisine_ in the best
_restaurateurs_, (close your eyes, ye purists!) and the experienced
_gourmet_ of middle age came to take a profound interest in the question
as to whether the _sauce Holandaise_ were better in this restaurant or
in the one two doors below, and when the stuffed mushrooms had their
richest flavor. In addition to these gastronomic enjoyments he took
pleasure in frequenting the variety theaters, of which there are so many
in Paris. He was amused by the comic songs, the contortions of the
clown, the rollicking music, and the airy and almost Eden-like costumes
of the nymphs, who went disguised as saucepans, violins, or puppets. It
is even stated--but on evidence insufficient to establish it as a
historical fact--that the illustrious ex-beau sought to recall his past
glories and to refresh his dry and withered laurels, and selected for
his victim a certain proscenium-rat, in the high-sounding language of
the stage, called Zulma, although every one was well aware that in less
exalted regions she might be called Antonia, Dionisia, or the like.
This creature sang with inimitable grace the refrains of certain
_chansonnettes_, and it was enough to make one split one’s sides
laughing to see her when, with her hand on her hip, her right leg in the
air, a wink in her eye, and parted lips she uttered some slang
expression--a cry from the fish-stands or the market, repeated by her
rosy mouth for the delectation and delight of the audience. Nor were
these the only graces and accomplishments of the singer, for the
choicest part of her repertory, the quintessence of her art, she kept
rather for her hours of dalliance with those fortunate mortals who
succeeded in obtaining access, well-provided with gold-dust, to this
Danaë of the stage. What feline wiles did she employ with her adorers;
calling grave men of sixty her little mice, her little dogs, her little
cats, her _bébés_, and other endearing and delightful names, sweeter to
them than honey. And what shall I say of the incomparable humor and
grace with which she held between her pearly teeth a Russian pipe while
she sent into the air wreaths of blue smoke; the contraction of her
lips, accentuating the curves of her _retroussé_ nose and the dimples of
her puffed-out cheeks? What of the skill with which she balanced herself
on two chairs at once without sitting, properly speaking, on either of
them, since her shoulders rested against the back of the one and her
heels on the seat of the other? What of the agility and dexterity with
which she swallowed in ten minutes ten dozen of raw oysters, accompanied
with two or three bottles of Rhine wine, so that it almost seemed as if
her throat had been annointed with oil to let them slip down smoothly?
What of the smiling eloquence with which she proved to some friend that
such or such a diamond ring was too small for his finger while it fitted
hers as if it had been made for it? In short, if the adventure that was
then whispered in the corridors of a certain variety theater and at the
_table d’hôte_ of the Alavesa seems unworthy of the traditional splendor
of the house of Miranda, at least it is but just to record that its
heroine was the most entertaining, cajoling, and dangerous of the feline
tribe that then mewed discordantly on the Parisian stage.

While Perico and Miranda kept off the blues in this way, Pilar’s
remaining lung was gradually being consumed, as a plank is consumed with
dry-rot. She did not grow worse because that was now impossible, and her
existence, rather than life, was a lingering death, not very painful,
disturbed only by an occasional fit of coughing which threatened to
choke her. Life was in her like the flickering flame of a candle burned
to the socket, which the slightest movement, the least breath of air
will suffice to extinguish. She had lost her voice almost entirely, so
that she could speak only in soft, low tones, such as a drum stuffed
with cotton might emit. Fits of somnolence, frequent and protracted,
would overpower her, periods of profound stupor, of utter exhaustion,
which simulated and foreshadowed the final repose of the tomb. Her eyes
closed, her body motionless, her feet side by side as if she already lay
in her coffin, she would lie for hours and hours on the bed, giving no
other sign of life than a faint, sibilant breathing. It was generally at
the noonday hour that this comatose sleep took possession of her, and
her nurse, who could do nothing for her but leave her to repose, and who
was oppressed by the heavy atmosphere of the room, impregnated with the
emanations from the medicines and the vapor of the perspiration--atoms
of this human being in process of dissolution--would go out on the
balcony, descend the stairs leading into the garden, and seating herself
in the shade of the stunted plane tree, would pass there the hours of
the _siesta_, sewing or crocheting. Her work consisted of diminutive
shirts, bibs equally diminutive, petticoats neatly scalloped. In this
sweet and secret occupation the hours passed by unnoticed, and
occasionally the needle would slip from her skillful fingers and the
silence, the solitude, the serenity of the heavens, the soft rustle of
the sickly looking trees would tempt the industrious needlewoman into a
pensive revery. The sun darted his golden arrows through the foliage
across the sanded paths at this hour, and the air was dry and mild. The
walls of the hotel and of Artegui’s house formed a sort of natural
stove, attracting the solar heat and diffusing it through the garden.
The railing which shut in the square bordered the Rue de Rivoli, and
through its bars could be seen pass by, enveloped in the blue mists of
evening, coaches, light victorias, landaus, whirled rapidly along by
their costly teams, equestrians who at a distance looked like puppets,
and workmen who looked like shadows cast from a Chinese lantern. In the
distance gleamed at intervals the steel of a stirrup, the gay color of a
gown or of a livery, the varnished spokes of a swiftly revolving wheel.
Lucía’s attention was attracted by the many varieties of horses. There
were Normandy horses with powerful haunches, strong necks and lustrous
coats, deliberate in pace, that drew, with a movement at once powerful
and gentle, the heavy vehicles to which they were harnessed; there were
English horses with long necks, ungraceful, but stylish, that trotted
with the precision of marvelous automatons; Arabian horses, with
flashing eyes, quivering and dilated nostrils, shining hoofs, dry coats,
and thin flanks; Spanish horses--although of these there were but
few--with luxuriant manes, superb chests, broad loins, and forefeet that
proudly pawed the air. As the sun sank lower in the west, the carriages
could be distinguished in the distance by the scintillation of the
lamps, but their forms and colors all blending together confusedly,
Lucía’s eyes soon wearied of the effort of following them, and with
renewed melancholy she fixed her gaze on the puny and
consumptive-looking plants of the garden. At times her solitude was
broken in upon, not by any traveler, either male or female--for visitors
to Paris as a general thing do not spend the afternoon under a plane
tree working--but by Sardiola, _in propria persona_, who, under pretext
of watering the plants, plucking up a weed here and there, or rolling
the sand of the path, held long conversations with his pensive
compatriot. Certain it is that they were never in want of a subject on
which to talk. Lucía’s eyes were no less tireless in asking questions
than Sardiola’s tongue was eager to respond to them. Never were matters
insignificant in themselves described with greater minuteness of detail.
Lucía was now familiar with the eccentricities, the tastes and the ideas
of Artegui, and knew by heart his traits of character, and the events of
his life, which were in no wise remarkable. The reader may find matter
for surprise in the fact that Sardiola should be so well acquainted with
all that related to a man with whom his intercourse had been so slight,
but it is to be observed that the Biscayan’s native place was at no
great distance from the family estate of the Arteguis, and that he was
the intimate friend of Ignacio’s former nurse, on whom the care of the
solitary house now devolved. The pair held long and intimate
conversations together in their diabolical dialect, and the poor woman
never wearied of relating the wonderful sayings and doings of her
nursling, which Sardiola heard with as much delight as if he had himself
performed the feminine functions of Engracia. Through this channel Lucía
came to have at her finger’s ends the minutest particulars regarding the
disposition and character of Ignacio; his melancholy and silence as a
child, his misanthropy as a youth, and many other details relating to
his parents, his family, and his fortune. Does fate indeed at times
please herself by bringing together mysteriously and by tortuous ways
two lives that constantly come in contact with and influence each other,
without apparent cause or reason? Is it true that, as there are secret
bonds of sympathy between souls, so there are other bonds connecting
events, which link them together in the sphere of the material and the
tangible?

“Don Ignacio,” said the good Sardiola, “was always so. You see they say
that he never had any bodily ailment, not even so much as a toothache.
But his nurse Engracia says that from the cradle he suffered from a kind
of sickness of the soul or the mind, or whatever it may be called. When
he was a child, he was subject to strange fits of terror when night
came, without any known cause for them. His eyes would grow larger and
larger like that” (Sardiola traced in the air with his thumb and
forefinger a series of gradually widening circles) “and he would hide in
a corner of the room, huddled up like a ball, and stay there without
budging until morning dawned. He would never tell his visions, but one
day he confessed to his mother that he saw terrible things--all the
members of his family, with the faces of corpses, bathing and splashing
about in a pool of blood. In short, a thousand wild fancies. The
strangest part of the matter was that in the daytime the Señorito was as
brave as a lion, as everybody knows. At the time of the war it was a
pleasure to see him. Why bless you! he would go among the balls as if
they were sugar plums. He never carried arms, only a hanging satchel
containing I don’t know how many things--bistouris, lancets, pincers,
bandages, sticking-plaster. Besides this he had his pockets stuffed with
lint and rags and cotton batting. I can tell you, Señorita, that if
promotion were to be earned by showing no disgust for those
good-for-nothing liberals, no one would be better entitled to it than
Don Ignacio. On one occasion a bomb fell not two steps away from him. He
stood looking at it, waiting for it to explode, no doubt, and if
Sergeant Urrea, who was standing beside him at the time, had not caught
him by the arm---- Why, he would not retire even when the enemy charged
on us with the bayonet. In one of these charges a guiri[B]
soldier--accursed be every one of his race--charged at him with his
bayonet. And what do you suppose Don Ignacio did?--it would not have
occurred even to the devil himself to do it--he brushed him aside with
his hand as if he had been a mosquito, and the barbarian lowered his
bayonet and allowed himself to be brushed aside. The Señorito gave him a
look. Heavens! such a look, half-serious, half-smiling, that must have
made the boor blush for shame.”

 [B] Government.

Then followed an account of the attentions lavished by the son upon his
mother during her last illness.

“I fancy I can see them now. There, there where you are sitting, Doña
Armanda; and he just here where I am standing, be it said with all
respect. Well, he would bring her down into the garden and he would
place her feet on a stool and put a dozen pillows of all sizes and
shapes behind her head, to help the poor lady to breathe easier. And the
potions! and the draughts!--digitalis here, atropina there. But it was
all of no use--at last the poor lady died. Would you believe that Don
Ignacio showed no extravagant grief? He is like a well; he keeps
everything inside, so that, having no outlet, it suffocates him. But he
did not deceive me with his calmness, for when he said to me, ‘Sardiola,
will you watch by her with me to-night,’ I thought of--see what a
foolish fancy, Señorita--but I thought of a cornet in our ranks who used
to play a famous reveille, that was so clear and full and beautiful; and
one day he played out of tune, and as we laughed at him he took his
cornet and blew it and said, ‘Boys, my poor little instrument has met
with a misfortune, and it has cracked.’ Well, the same difference of
sound that I noticed in the cornet of that fool, Triguillos, I noticed
in the voice of the Señorito. You know what a sonorous voice he has,
that it would be a pleasure to hear him give the word of command; but
that day his voice was--well, cracked. In short, he himself arrayed Doña
Armanda in her shroud, and he and I sat up with her, and at daybreak off
to Brittany in a special train,--with the body in a lignum-vitæ coffin,
trimmed with silver,--to the old castle, to bury the poor lady among her
parents, her grandparents, and all the rest of her ancestors.”

Lucía, who, her work fallen on her lap, had been listening with all her
faculties, now concentrated them in her eyes to put a mute question to
Sardiola. The quick-witted Biscayan answered it at once.

“He has never come back since and no one knows what he intends to do.
Engracia has not had a word from him. Although, indeed, for that matter,
he never tells his plans to a living soul. Engracia is there alone by
herself, for he dismissed all the other servants, rewarding them well,
before he went away. She attends to the little, the nothing, indeed,
there is to attend to, opening the windows occasionally, so that the
dampness may not have it all its own way with the furniture,--passing a
duster----”

Lucía turned her head and looked intently at the windows, closed at the
time, behind which she could see passing at intervals the figure of an
elderly woman, whose head was covered with the traditional Guipuscoan
cap, fastened with its two gilt pins.

“The house ought to be taken care of,” continued Sardiola, “for that
blessed Doña Armanda kept it like a silver cup--it is handsomely
furnished and very spacious. And now that it occurs to me,” he exclaimed
suddenly, slapping his forehead, “why don’t you go to see it, Señorita?
I will speak to Engracia, she will show us over it. Come, make up your
mind to go.”

“No,” answered Lucía faintly; “what for?”

“Why, to see it, of course. You will see Señorito Ignacio’s room, with
his books and the toys he had when he was a child, for his nurse
Engracia has kept them all.”

“Very well, Sardiola,” answered Lucía, as if asking a respite. “Some day
when I am in the humor. To-day I am not in the mood for it. I will tell
you when I am.”

Lucía was, in fact, greatly preoccupied by a matter which gave more
anxiety to her than to any one else. Duhamel had told her that Pilar’s
end was drawing near, and Pilar, who had not the slightest suspicion of
this, gave no indication of wishing to prepare her soul for the solemn
change. They talked to her of God, and she answered, in a scarcely
audible voice, with remarks about fashions or pleasure parties; they
wished to turn her thoughts toward solemn things and the unhappy girl,
with scarcely a breath of life left in her body, uttered some jest that
sounded funereal, coming from her livid lips.

All Lucía’s pious eloquence was of no avail to conquer the invincible
and beneficent illusion that remained with Pilar to the last. She
appealed to Miranda and Perico, but they both shrugged their shoulders
and declared themselves altogether inexperienced in such duties and but
little adapted for them. The very day on which it occurred to her to
speak to them of the matter, they had a supper arranged with Zulma and
some of her gay companions in the snuggest and most retired little
dining-room at Brébant’s--a fit time this to think of such things.
Lucía, however, found some one to help her out of her difficulty, and
this was no other than Sardiola, who was acquainted with a Jesuit, a
compatriot of his, Father Arrigoitia, and who brought him in a trice.
Father Arrigoitia was as tall as a bean-pole, with stooping shoulders;
and was as gentle and insinuating in his manners as his compatriot,
Father Urtazu, was harsh and abrupt. He made his first visit with the
pretext of bringing news from Pilar’s aunt; he returned to inquire, with
a great appearance of interest, about the bodily health of the sick
girl; he brought her some earth from the holy grotto of Manresa, and
some pectoral lozenges of Belmet, all wrapped up carefully together;
and, in short, used so much tact and skill that after a week’s
acquaintance with him Pilar asked of her own accord for what the Jesuit
so greatly desired to give her. As Father Arrigoitia was leaving the
room of the now dying girl, after having pronounced the words of
absolution, he heard behind the door sobs, and a voice saying: “Thanks,
many thanks!” Lucía was there, weeping bitterly.

“Give them to God,” answered the Jesuit gently. “Come, there is no
occasion for grief, Señora Doña Lucía; on the contrary, we have cause
for congratulation.”

“No, no; I am weeping for joy,” answered the nurse. And as the black
cassock and the tall belted figure of the Jesuit were receding from
view, she softly called to him. The priest retraced his steps.

“I too, Father Arrigoitia, desire to confess myself, and soon, very
soon,” she said.

“Ah, very good, very good. But you are in no danger of death, thanks be
to God. In San Sulpicio, in the confessional to the right, as you
enter--I am always at your service, Señora. I shall return shortly to
see our little patient. There, don’t cry, you look like a Magdalen.”

That afternoon Lucía went down as usual into the garden. But so
exhausted was she both in mind and body that, leaning back against the
trunk of the plane tree, she soon fell fast asleep. Before long she
began to dream, and the oddest part of her dream was that she did not
imagine she was in any strange or unknown place, but in the very spot
where she sat in the garden, only that this, in the capricious mirroring
of her dream, instead of being small and narrow, seemed to be enormous.
It was the same garden but seen through a colossal magnifying-glass. The
railing had receded far, far away into the distance and looked like a
row of points of light on the horizon; and this increase in its size
increased the gloom of the little garden, making it seem like a dry and
parched field. Casting her eyes around, Lucía fixed her gaze on what
seemed to be the front of Artegui’s house, from one of whose open
windows issued a pale hand that made signs to her. Was it a man’s hand
or a woman’s hand? Was it the hand of a living being or of a corpse?
Lucía did not know, but the mysterious beckoning of that unknown hand
exercised a spell over her that grew stronger every moment and she ran
on and on, trying to approach the house. But the field continued to
stretch away; one sandy belt followed another; and after walking hours
and hours she still saw before her the long row of sickly plane trees
fading into the distance and Artegui’s house further off than ever. But
the hand continued to beckon furiously, impatiently, like the hand of an
epileptic agitating itself in the air; its five fingers resembled
whirling asps, and Lucía, breathless, panting, continued to run on and
on, and one plane tree succeeded another and the house was still in the
distance. “Fool that I am!” she cried, “since I cannot reach it running,
I will fly.” No sooner said than done; with the ease with which one
flies in dreams, Lucía stood on tip-toe, and presto! she was in the air
at a bound. Oh, happiness! oh, bliss! the field lay beneath her, she