Chapter XIV: Breaking the Ice (3)

It is tantalizing to pore over the diary. At times you almost fancy that you have seized the very process of liquefaction. Thus on one day you read: “The blood was brought out, being hard and at its ordinary level. After fifteen minutes, a drop of serous humor, of a light-yellow color, was seen to move about on the hard mass. At the expiration of an hour and fifty-six minutes, the blood became liquid, with a large spherical lump floating in it. There was the usual procession through the streets, his eminence joining in. At 21½ o’clock (about 3 P.M.) the lump liquefied. The blood was put up, entirely liquid and at its ordinary level.” (Dec., 1771.) You think you see the steps of the process. First the drop of yellowish serum; then a partial liquefaction, leaving a lump of solid matter; this gradually decreasing for three hours and a half, until it entirely disappears, and the whole mass is fluid. If you read the following, you may feel surer that you are on the right track: “The blood came out hard and at its ordinary level. At the end of half an hour, there was seen to run about on the hard mass a particle of serous matter, inclining to a yellowish color. So it stood during the procession, which was outside, through the streets, his eminence the cardinal archbishop taking his place in it. So it was when the reliquary was brought back to the _Tesoro_. At 23½ o’clock (about 5 P.M.) this serous matter changed into blood. But the mass still remained hard. Words cannot tell with what earnestness and fervor the ecclesiastics and the people continued at prayer. Finally, at 24¼ o’clock (5.45 P.M.) the mass loosened in the vial; and half an hour later, that is, after eight hours and fifty minutes of waiting, the liquefaction took place, a small lump remaining solid and floating. So it was put up.” (Dec., 47 1768.) Notwithstanding the change of the character of the yellowish serous drop in the last cited instance into red blood, and the great difference of the times when the liquefaction took place, there is a certain degree of correspondence between the two cases--enough perhaps to arrest the attention and excite expectations. But all to no purpose. Such a drop was seen on seven or eight other days, lasting a couple of hours or for the entire day, without any liquefaction following. And in three thousand three hundred and odd cases of liquefaction, we have failed to find a third one in which such a drop is noted to have preceded the liquefaction.

In fact, the modes of liquefaction are as various as we can imagine, and as remarkable as the fact itself. Sometimes the liquefaction occurs or commences at once, with little or no delay. At other times, it is delayed for a quarter or for half an hour, for one, two, or three hours or more. Sometimes, though very rarely, it has been delayed nine or ten hours. All this is clearly seen in the tables.

Not unfrequently the change from solidity to fluidity, whether occurring early or late, has been instantaneous, and for the whole mass at once--_in un colpo d’occhio_. Sometimes it is gradual, lasting before its completion over many hours; nay, sometimes the ampulla is replaced in the closet for the night before its entire completion, a greater or a smaller portion still remaining solid.

Sometimes the entire mass liquefies; at other times, only a portion. When this is the case, the unliquefied portion generally floats as a solid lump or globe in the liquid part. Sometimes, however, one side of the mass was liquefied; while the other remained solid, and firmly attached to the glass. Sometimes again, as in May, 1710, the portion next to the glass all around remained solid, thus forming, as it were, an inner cup, inside of which the other portion moved about in quite a fluid condition. Sometimes, during the process of gradual liquefaction, the upper part is quite liquid, while the lower part remains for a time hard and immovable in the bottom of the vial; or, again, the lower part liquefies first, and the upper portion, remaining hard, is seen either as a floating globe or as a lump attached for a time to the sides of the ampulla. And once, at least, the upper portion and the lower portion both remained solid and attached to the vial, while the middle portion was quite fluid.

We have already said something of the various degrees of liquefaction. Sometimes the blood is as fluid as water, flowing readily and leaving no coating after it on the glass. And, at other times, it may be somewhat viscous; and, if the reliquary be inclined from side to side, may leave behind a dark or a vermilion film on the inner sides of the ampulla.

There are likewise degrees of hardness. Sometimes the blood is only very viscous and grumous, or jelly-like. In the tables we call it _soft_. At other times, the diary notes it as hard, _duro_; very hard, _durissimo_; or even hard as iron, _duro come ferro_. When hard, it is attached firmly to the glass ampulla. Yet on two occasions, at least, the hard lump could move within, showing that it was then detached.

After having become liquid, or even when the blood was found liquid in the morning, it has often hardened during the ceremonial of the day, and then liquefied anew. One of the extracts we have quoted above refers to the frequent occurrence of this variation in 1714. But 48 throughout the diary we find similar instances, where it hardened and remained hard for a few moments only or for one or two hours, during the public ceremony. This was sometimes repeated two or three times in a single day.

There is a special case, in which the mass hardens so frequently, and with such regularity, that it must not be omitted. We refer to the custom of suspending the ceremony for a few hours during the middle of the day. The Italians are very fond of a _siesta_ in the early afternoon of a hot and oppressive summer day. Accordingly, unless there be something unusual to excite them, they are accustomed, on the later days of the octave in May, and sometimes of September, to yield to their beloved habit. The church grows very thin soon after mid-day. A few dozen pious souls may perhaps remain for their private devotions--about the number one would almost always find in the ever-open churches of an Italian city. Under these circumstances, the exposition is suspended. The reliquary, if on the high altar of the cathedral, is carried back to the _Tesoro_ chapel, and is placed on an ornamental stand or tabernacle on the altar; and a silk veil is thrown over the whole. The door in the metal-work railing under the arch leading out into the cathedral is locked; and the clergy may retire, one or two remaining on watch. The reliquary continues on the stand, unapproached, but still visible, through the railing, to those in the cathedral. At 3½ or 4 P.M. the clergy return to resume the exposition; and the church is again full. The blood is very frequently found hard at that hour, and liquefies anew, as in the morning. This intermission and the attendant hardening and liquefaction seem to the Neapolitans so much a matter of course that we find no mention whatever of it in the diary, save the single notice that, on one day, although the veil had been omitted, the hardening nevertheless took place. The scientific men from Italy and from France and Belgium who have studied the liquefaction at various dates, all unite in commenting on this fact of the hardening of the blood during these mid-day intermissions, and in considering it, under a physical point of view, as a fact of the highest importance in deciding the character of the liquefaction.

There are other special circumstances under which the blood has not liquefied, or, having liquefied, has suddenly hardened again. The presence of open scoffers, or of declared enemies of the church, has sometimes seemed to have this effect. In 1719, Count Ulric Daun was viceroy in Naples. On Saturday, May 6, he came with many German officers lately arrived in Naples to witness the liquefaction, in one of the churches to which the procession went, as we have already explained, and in which the liquefaction was first expected. The viceroy with his personal staff was of course in his official _loggia_ or gallery. The foreign officers were clustered together within the sanctuary. Some of them were Catholics, some Protestants. The blood was hard when brought to the altar, and remained hard and unliquefied for a long time. The viceroy at length sent an aid, with a command to all the officers to withdraw and stand outside the sanctuary. They obeyed, of course. “Scarcely was this done--the heretic officers thus withdrawing--when, in an instant, the entire mass became perfectly liquid, to the great joy of all. It was a miracle of miracles!” Some of the Protestants became Catholics 49 immediately.

_Putignani_ and _Celano_ mention another fact. We quote from the former, who was a canon of the cathedral and present at the time on service. “While the relics were out at the high altar of the cathedral, there came many nobles from beyond the Alps, who wished to do homage to the saint and to witness the liquefaction. The blood was extremely fluid just then, and the reliquary was being presented to those around, in turn, to be kissed. In an instant the blood became hard and dry in the hands of the canon. Those near by, stupefied by this new prodigy, stood, as it were, nailed to the floor. Then the canon, moved by an interior impulse, raised his voice, and said aloud: ‘Gentlemen, if there be any heretic among you, let him retire.’ Immediately, one of the strangers quietly withdrew. Scarcely had he withdrawn, when the blood was liquid again, and was bubbling.” Putignani adds: “The same thing is said to have happened on other occasions.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

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LUCAS GARCIA.

FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.

II.

Seven years passed in this manner. Lucia was fifteen, and had blossomed into one of those exquisite and fragile creatures that, in hot climates, appear so rarely and vanish so soon. Lucas, who was twenty, had developed admirably. He was a youth of manly appearance, and so judicious and industrious that farmers and managers of haciendas employed him in preference to others. Both inherited their mother’s type--the oval face, fine aquiline nose, large and expressive black eyes, small mouth, adorned with perfect teeth, broad high forehead, and the bearing of mingled grace and nobility that distinguish the Andalusian.

Their father had yielded completely to the influence of _La Leona_, who absorbed his living, and had made him a drunkard in order to rule him the more effectually. Too enervated and lazy to enter upon a new path, he went on selling his possessions to satisfy the woman’s exactions, as an exhausted stream continues to flow in the channel it made when it was full and strong, without either the will or the force to open another. From the time that Lucas was able to work, he had maintained the house alone, with that mysterious day’s wages of the laborer which God seems to bless, as he did the loaves and fishes destined to feed so many poor people. Else, how the _peseta_, sometimes two reals[2] a day can support husband, wife, generally half a dozen robust children; an old father or mother, or widowed mother-in-law, clothe them all and the head of the family in a very expensive manner,[3] pay house-rent and the costs of child-birth, 50 sickness, and unemployed days; and still yield the copper they never refuse to _God’s-namers_,[4] is a thing past comprehension, and belongs to the list of those in which, if we see not the finger of God or his immediate intervention, is because we are very thoughtless or voluntarily blind.

Lucas, who loved his sister above all things, seeing her entirely neglected by her father, had assumed over her the sort of tutelage, recognized and incontestable among the people, which belongs to the eldest brother--a tutelage which is annexed to the obligation of maintaining younger brothers and sisters if they are fatherless. This obligation and right instinctive do not constitute a law, nor are they laid down in any code, but are impressed by tradition on the heart, and have, no doubt, given rise to the institution of entails.[5] Lucas presented, also, the uncultivated type of those chivalrous and poetical brothers that Calderon, Lope, and other contemporary writers have given us in their delightful pictures of Spanish manners as models of nobility, delicacy, and punctilious honor.

As for Lucia, she was, as her mother had been, loving, impressible, and yielding. She regarded her brother with the deepest affection, in which respect mingled, without lessening its tenderness.

One evening, when several neighbors, who tenanted Juan Garcia’s house, were met together in the yard, one of them--it was the kinswoman of the departed Ana--said:

“Have you heard the news? It is reported that _La Leona’s_ husband is dead. What do you say to it?”

“That _La Leona_ is just now singing:

‘My spouse is dead, and to heaven has flown,
Wearing the thorns of a martyr’s crown,’”

replied one of the neighbors.

“There will be talk enough, woman, if it is true,” replied the first speaker.

“Well, what do you want me to say? I feel it for one.”

“I feel it for _two_,” added a third, laughing.

“That is what I feel most,” continued the kinswoman. “It is reported already that Juan Garcia is going to marry with the rag of a widow.”

Woman! will you hold your tongue?”

“No; and I say more: I say that I don’t doubt it; for the wretch has him down, and holds him from beneath, so that she can put him to the torture with “thou must swallow this, or I will lay on thee with that.’”

“True enough,” observed the other, “she has made a fool of him with drink; and, not satisfied with giving him wine, which is natural and 51 the legitimate child of the soil, she poisons him with bad brandy.”

“The kite will get everything away from him by degrees, till she leaves him stuck, like a star lizard, to the bare wall,” added another; “for she is more covetous than greediness, that ‘walks one hand along the ground, and the other in the sky, and, with its mouth wide open, that nothing may go by.’”

“She’ll be Juan’s third wife, and may die like the other two, and the four children he has under the sod. He must have some deadly exhalation about him, like a snake.”

“Kill _La Leona_! As if that would be possible! It’s my opinion that Death himself couldn’t do it, with a century to help him. There was the cholera, that carried off so many good people; it never approached her door.”

“The she-rake has no end of luck.”

At this moment Lucas entered. It was Saturday evening, and he had come to spend the Sunday at home.

“Lucas,” asked his kinswoman, “do you know that _La Leona_ is a widow, and they say that your father is going to marry her?”

A thunder-bolt could not have hurt Lucas more suddenly than did these words; nevertheless, he maintained his composure while he answered:

“Either you are dreaming awake, Aunt Manuela, or age is getting the better of your understanding.”

“Don’t fling my age into my face, _Luquecillo_,”[6] said the good woman, who was jocose. “I would rather you called me sly fox; it is permitted to say _old_ only in the company of wines and parchments.”

“Well, then, why were you born so long ago? But don’t come to me with your troubles.”

“Publish your decrees in time, my son, for this one is in everybody’s mouth.”

“They may say what they please behind my back. Regiments can’t capture tongues and thoughts, but no one is going to speak against my father when I am present.”

“I’ll lay you something, Lucas, that he’ll marry!”

“That will do, Aunt Manuela; you know the saying, ‘Stop jesting while jesting is pleasant.’”

Like all men of stem nature, Lucas, when in earnest, had in him a something that imposed respect: the women were silent, and he went into his own dwelling.

He did not speak to his sister of the matter that occupied his thoughts so painfully, but, after giving her the money he had brought, remained a while talking cheerfully and affectionately with her, and then went in search of his neighbor, Uncle Bartolo.

He knew that the guerilla, on account of his age and good judgment, and because he had been his grandfather’s friend, exercised great influence over his father, and could think of no one so suitable to confide in, and implore to interfere in the matter, and dissuade Juan Garcia, if, indeed, he entertained it, from such an outrageous project.

“Hola! What brings _Luquillo_ with the step of a Catalan and face of a blacksmith?” exclaimed the old man, as Lucas entered.

The youth told his errand.

Uncle Bartolo, having heard him to the end, shook his head, as he remarked: “Lucas, the proverb says, ‘Between two millstones one had best not put his thumbs;’ but--well, for your sake and Lucia’s, the pretty dove! I will do what you ask, even if I lose--and I shall, for certain--your father’s friendship. I tell you though, beforehand 52 that interference will do no good.”

“But, uncle, that which is never attempted is never done.”

“Have I not told you I would try? You shall never say that you sought me and did not find me. I only want to remind you that counsels are thrown away upon the foolhardy, and perfumes upon swine. And to tell the truth, I would rather tackle one of those highwaymen of last year than your father; notwithstanding that the she-bandit has taken and done for him as easily as a spider would vanquish a fly.”

Our old warrior went, the next day, to see Juan Garcia, whom he found indisposed.

“Hola! Juan,” he cried, as he entered, how are you?”

“Not so well as I might be, uncle,” responded the invalid. “And you?”

“As well as can be, since I am a man of the old times, and not sorry for it: better suited beneath white hairs than white sheets. But,” continued the guerilla, who in his long career had never studied diplomacy nor learned the art of preambling, “let us come to the point; for one needn’t go by the bush where there’s a high-road; they tell me, though I don’t want to believe it, that you are going to marry.”

Juan contracted his brows, and replied:

“And if I have never told any one so, how could they tell it to you?”

“Answer one question with another, to avoid committing thyself,” is a rule of rustic grammar that the people have at their fingers’ ends. Uncle Bartolo proceeded:

“It’s easy to see how; you are thinking of it; and people nowadays are so sharp that they divine the thoughts. So that we may as well be plain--it is what you mean to do. Tell the truth, now.”

“The truth!” responded Juan, availing himself of another subterfuge. “Then, though--because I was not prepared to tell it--I have not complied with the church this year, I am to tell it to you! No, sir! ‘He that reveals his secret, remains without it.’”

“It is plain enough from your crafty answer that your mind is made up. So you needn’t deny it, nor put me off with palaver.”

“The thing is yet in the blade, and to be nibbled at,” replied Juan.

“Do you know, Christian, what you are about? For the beginning of a cure is a knowledge of the sickness.”

“Yes, sir, I have my five senses counted.”

“Yes, Juan, four of them useless, and one empty. But, my son, you know me well, is it not so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are sure that I am your friend?”

“I don’t say no to that, Uncle Bartolo.”

“And you know the proverb says, ‘An old ox draws a straight furrow’?”

“Agreed, Uncle Bartolo; we know that kind of wisdom years give, for we are told that the devil is knowing not because of his devilship, but because he is the _old one_.”

“Well, that being so, you will heed what I say.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“And you will consider my advice?”

“What is the meaning of all this advanced guard, Uncle Bartolo? Why do you sift and sift without falling through the sieve?”

“To fall with all my weight in saying this, and no more: ‘Don’t you marry, Juan Garcia!’”

“Why not? if you would please tell me.” 53

“Don’t marry, Juan Garcia!”

“Uncle Bartolo, don’t leave your counsels like foundlings in the hospital, without father or mother. I must not marry-the reason?”

“Juan, ‘where there has been familiarity, let there be no contract.’”

“If it were as you intimate, I ought to marry; for, if this woman has lost respect through me--”

“Stop, Juan; that’ll do! Don’t come to me with your ‘_mea culpas_.’ There is always a pretext for wrong-doing. But you know very well that the woman has not lost respect through you. Nobody loses what he never had.”

“Uncle Bartolo, by what I shave off, but that you comb gray hairs, and were my father’s friend--_Vive Dios!_--”

“Tut, tut, man! Don’t get excited, and talk nonsense! I did not come here to poke you up, nor to pick a quarrel, but with a very good intention; and, as the friend I am to you, to prevent your making an atrocious fool of yourself. Have you considered your children, and the kind of step-mother you are going to give them?”

“If she will be a wife good enough for their father, it appears to me that she will be a good enough step-mother for them; especially as, where they are concerned, what I do is right.”

“Right! Now you are like the Englishman, Don ‘Turo, that killed an urraca for a partridge, and then said ‘all right.’ Take notice, Juan, that they are not likely to be willing to live under that woman’s flag. You are going to alienate them from you, and, ‘withdraw thyself from thine own, God will leave thee alone.’”

“They will not be willing to live under her! What are you saying, sir? We shall see, however. ‘Where the sea goes, the waves go.’”

“Well, Juan, we shall see that Lucas, who is high-minded, will not consent to let his sister live with a woman of evil note.”

“The note I have put upon her, I will take from her. Do you comprehend? And Lucas will be very careful not to set himself up to crow while I live. There cannot be two heads, and, ‘in sight of the public stocks, street-criers keep their mouths shut.’”

“Think, Juan, that your son should be the staff of your old age. You may provoke him so far that he will leave you some day without warning.”

“Let him go; I have the means to maintain myself, and my wife and daughter.”

“Ah! Juan, what have you left? Juice don’t run out of a sucked orange. As if that woman had not swallowed your slice of field and olive-yard, leaving you nothing but the house; and that will go the same way the field and orchard went. As for making a living--you have thrown yourself away; your back is getting stiff already, and ‘to old age comes no fairy godmother.’ Where, then, are those ‘means’ to come from? What you are going to do is get entangled in debts; and, let a man be as honest as he will, ‘if he owes and doesn’t pay, all his credit flies away.’”

“_La Leona_ has a gossip at the port that is a contrabandist; he is going to take me for a partner.”

“_Only this was wanting!_” exclaimed the old man indignantly. “_You! you take to the path!_[7] Does Barabbas tempt you, Juan Garcia? Have you lost your senses entirely, or are you fooling me? Sure enough, 54 ‘he that goes with wolves will learn to howl.’ Don’t you know that the devil takes honest gains and dishonest, and the gainer with them? But let us keep to the matter in hand. Juan, the woman has a bad name that neither you nor the king, if he tried, could take from her. She is bad of herself; and neither you nor the bishop, if he set his heart on doing it, could make her good. Moreover, ‘a rotten apple spoils its company.’”

“Go on with the bad! ‘Against evil-speaking there’s nothing strong’; but, if she appears good to me, we are all paid.”

“Juan, ‘look before you leap.’ You have not the excuse of youth for your indiscretion; you are more than forty years old.”

“And have more than forty _arrobas_[8] of patience, Uncle Bartolo. _Candela!_ I have long sought and never found a friend that would offer me a sixpence, and have found, without seeking, one that gives me advice.”

“Well, my son, your soul is in your palm,” said Uncle Bartolo, rising. “Remember that there was not wanting a friend to give you good advice--a man of ripe brain, who warned you of the future--for this marriage is going to be the perdition of your house. And, remember what I tell you now, a day is coming when you will have eyes left you only that you may weep.” With these words, Uncle Bartolo went his way.

“Son,” said he to Lucas, who had waited for him in his house, “it was lost labor, as I foretold. But go, now, and mind what I say. Submit to what can’t be helped, and don’t be stiff-necked, for you’ll surely come out loser. The rope breaks where it is slenderest. You are his son, and the authority belongs to him. You will only be kicking against the goad.”

Lucas went back to the country and to work with a heavy heart. When he returned home on the following Saturday, he learned that the bans of his father’s marriage were to be published the next morning for the first time. Grief made him desperate, and he resolved, as a last recourse, to speak himself.

We have already hinted at the cool and formal relation that existed between these two--thanks to the neglect the abandoned man had shown his children. For some time past, the excellent character of Lucas and the good name it had gained him had inspired Juan Garcia with that bitter sentiment which rises in the heart of a man who possesses the legal and material superiority, against the subordinate to whom he feels himself morally inferior--a sentiment of hostility that is apt to manifest itself in despotism.

“Sir,” said the son, speaking with firm moderation, “they have been telling me that you are going to marry.”

“They have been telling you what is quite true.”

“I hoped that it was not true.”

“And why? if I might ask.”

“On account of the woman they say you are going to have.”

“She is not, then, to your taste; and you think, perhaps, that I ought to have advised with you?”

“No, sir, not with me--I am of small account; but with some one that has more knowledge and judgment than I.”

“So, then, it appears to you,” said Juan, with repressed ire, “that your father needs counsel?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Lucas calmly, “when he has a young daughter, and is going to give her a step-mother.”

“For fear he might give her one that would eat her up, like the 55 _Cancon_?”[9]

“No, sir, no; we understand now that people are not swallowed like sugared anises.”

“Or make her work, being herself industrious, and not willing to sit hand upon hand like a notary’s wife?”

“It is not that, sir; Lucia is not afraid of work. She knows that work is the honor of the poor.”

“Or, perhaps, keep her at home like a chained dog?”

“No, sir; I am not thinking of that; for my sister, though brought up without a mother, is modest, and not a girl to be seen at the street door or with a hole in her stocking. She is used to the shade, but--”

“But what? Have done!”

“That which this woman will give her is evil, and may be her ruin.”

Juan Garcia, who had with difficulty restrained himself, rushed upon his son, as the latter uttered these words, with his hand uplifted to strike. Lucas, perceiving the action, quickly inclined his head, and received upon it the blow that had been aimed at his face.

“God help me, father! what have I done to be chastised? Have I said anything wrong? Have I been wanting in respect to you? Father, just before my mother--heaven rest her!--died, she said to me, ‘Lucas, watch over your sister.’ I promised her that I would, and have kept my promise.”

“She meant,” replied Juan, somewhat softened by the memory of the mother evoked by her son, “she meant in case Lucia should be left without me. But, while I live, which is it that has the authority over my daughter?”

“Father, for the love of the Blessed Virgin, leave her to me! I will support her.”

“Are you in your senses?”

“For God’s sake, don’t separate us! I will work with all my might to maintain us both.”

“Separate you! Nobody has thought of doing it. You will come with her to my house.”

“No, sir.”

“How is that? What do you mean by ‘no, sir’? Do you think you have a right to call your father to account? Is it not enough for you to know what his hands decide? Perhaps you would like to have another proof of what they are able to do?”

“My father may kill me, and I shall neither open my lips nor forget my duty; but--make me live with that woman--never!”

“We shall see about that, insolent upstart!”

“Yes, we shall see,” said Lucas, as he went sorrowfully out.

Lucas was gifted with one of those noble and delicate natures that humble themselves in victory and grow firm in defeat; that is alike incapable of noisy elation in triumph, or pusillanimous abjection when prostrate. But the determination of his character was degenerating into stubbornness, as it always happens when will forsakes the guidance of reason to follow the promptings of pride. Therefore, though he had not, in the slightest degree, failed in the strict respect that morality enforces, neither the threats of his father nor love for his sister could shake the resolution he had taken in that decisive interview. On leaving his father’s presence, he went in search of Lucia, whom he found weeping. For a long while neither spoke: brother and sister mutually comprehending the cause of the profound depression of the one and the tears of the other. 56

“If mother could open her eyes!” at last exclaimed Lucia.

“They whose eyes God has closed have no wish to open them again in the world,” replied Lucas; “but remember, that from heaven she always has hers fixed upon her daughter. I cannot help you; for, though I have tried my best to keep you under my flag, I have not succeeded: because, heart’s dearest, there is no power in the world that can oppose a father’s.”

“But I am to do only what you tell me, Lucas, for my mother left me to you,” sobbed the girl.

“Well, then, pay attention to what I am going to say.

“Bear your cross with patience; for that is the only way to make it lighter. Be a reed to all storms, but an oak to temptation. Never turn from the right path, though it be steep and sown with thorns. Always look straight before you, for he that does not do this never knows where he will stop. As for this woman who is going to be your father’s wife, give her the wall; but remember that she is bad, and neither join yourself to her nor talk with her, except with reserve and when you must.”

“Shall you do the same, Lucas?”

“I--I shall act as God gives me understanding.”

Nothing was seen of Lucas on the day of Juan’s marriage, and it was in vain that they looked for him: he had disappeared. Juan, who left no means untried to ascertain his son’s whereabouts, learned some days later, from a muleteer who come from Tevilla, that he had enlisted. The father felt indignant at the contempt thus shown for his authority, and sorry to lose an assistant in his son: but found consolation in freedom from the immediate presence of an interested witness whose censure like the fog, without form, voice, or action, penetrated him with an uncomfortableness from which there was no escape.

Lucia went to live with her stepmother, and it is hardly necessary to relate what she had to endure; in particular from the daughters of the latter, who, being both foolish and ugly, naturally disliked one who was beautiful and wise; for she had commenced by playing with sweetness the role of Cinderella that her brother had recommended. But, little by little, the continual friction was wasting her patience, and indignation, repressed discontent, and rancor were beginning to find place in her heart. She wished, sometimes, to humiliate, by her advantages, those who were continually humiliating her, and grew presuming and fond of admiration. So it is that evil seeds spread and multiply with prodigious rapidity: one suffices to open the way and prepare the ground for the rest.

While these things were passing, a regiment of cavalry, commanded by one Colonel Gallardo, came, and took up its quarters in Arcos.

Gallardo was rich, well-born, had been good-looking, and a great coxcomb. He was still the latter; with the kind of conceit that is often the result of living in the atmosphere of adulation that surrounds the possessors of money and command--an atmosphere that intoxicates many, making them overbearing and insolent, and apt to do, with great impertinence, things that would not be tolerated in others. While authority is thus misunderstood, it is hardly to be wondered at that it has lost its ancient prestige, and is hated and set at naught. Authority should be consecrated to its mission, and, with its advantages, accept its responsibilities, the first of which is to give 57 good example. Do those in place really think they owe the masses nothing?--that these are, at once, mothers to nourish, and incensories to deify them? Shall we ever go back, morally, to those remote times when men were both worthy and self-respecting, and neither admitted flattery nor refused to rule its reverence; for the latter was never so despised as it is at present; the former never so cringing.

But to return to Colonel Gallardo, who has given margin to those reflections.

This admirable person added to his other pretensions that of youth in its flower. His own having already gone to seed, the result was that, instead of appearing the young cock, he suggested the idea of a very old chicken. By grace of the peruke-maker, which, as everybody knows, consists in creating ringlets where there is no hair, he wore curled locks. He encased himself in a French corset, which gave him a slenderness a sylph might have envied. It was an article of his belief that amorous conquests were as creditable to a soldier as military ones; and he considered a little hare-brainedness in a man and a spice of coquetry in a woman the proper seasoning, for each respectively. These things, united with vanity enough to fill the space left vacant in his heart and brain by the absence of other qualities, made of Colonel Gallardo one of those characters that are detestable, without being malevolent and ridiculous, though they do not provoke mirth.

This cavalier, a bachelor, of course, like all of his stamp, had lodgings opposite the house of _La Leona_, whose daughters were not long in becoming acquainted with his attendants.

The preludes to acquaintanceship were couplets worded and sung with the evident intention of opening a flirtation. The soldiers took the initiative, singing to the music of their _guitarillos_:[10]

“If your person can be won
By valor in the field,
Here’s a man with sword in hand
Will sooner die than yield.”

Another followed:

“If for a rustic’s love
You slight a soldier bold,
Base metal you will have
Instead of shining gold.”

To which the girls replied in a similar strain, declaring that they found it difficult to have patience with “these men of the fields,” whom they describe as “persecutors of the ground” and “sepulchres of _gazpacho_.”

Neither was the colonel behindhand in becoming enamored of the beauty of Lucia; nor was he the man to dissimulate his sentiments. And, alas! Lucia herself had ceased to be the discreet and modest maiden, who would once have shrunk offended from demonstrations that could not fail to give occasion for scandal.

The hopes of our decorated aspirant, who soon learned the interior circumstances of this family, rose high in view of the antecedents of the step-mother and the unhappy lot of the young girl. But he deceived himself. For, though vanity had led Lucia beyond the limits of prudence, she receded from corruption with all the energy of the honorable blood she had inherited from her mother. This resistance exasperated the step-sisters, who, wishing both to be rid of Lucia and to see her undone, hoped that the colonel would take her away with him, and laid a plan to accomplish the result they desired. Having 58 previously concerted with the lover, they carried out their project in the following manner: One night, when Lucia had gone to her room, and sat combing down her beautiful hair, the door opened suddenly, and admitted the colonel, hidden to the eyes in cloak and slouched hat, and accompanied by the daughters of _La Leona_ in giggling triumph. They had hardly introduced him into the chamber, when, with jests and bursts of laughter, they turned and ran out, closing the door behind them and drawing the bolt.

Too much overwhelmed with indignation, terror, and shame to think of any means of escape, the unfortunate girl covered her face with her hands and remained silent. The colonel, also, who had been led by _La Leona_ to think that it would not be difficult to propitiate Lucia by tender and gallant speeches, found himself without words in the presence of grief so real and so mute. For, unless a man is totally base, no amount of daring will enable him wholly to overcome the respect that innocence inspires.

“Am I, then, so disagreeable to you,” said Gallardo at last, drawing nearer to Lucia--“I who have no wish but to please you?”

“Lucas! Lucas! O my brother!” cried the girl, bursting into sobs.

“I will go! I am going!” said the colonel, half-offended, half-compassionate; and he approached the door, but it was locked.

“You see that I cannot get out,” said he, turning again toward Lucia.

“I know it,” she exclaimed. “They wanted to ruin me, and they have done it! Have locked me in here alone with you! How can I ever bear to have any one look me in the face again! What will Lucas say? Ah, my heart’s brother!”

“You are not ruined, child!” said the colonel, irritated. “I am no friend to tragedies; heroic Lucretias frighten me. Believe me, I desire to go, and, to prove it, since I cannot leave by the door, I will get out by this window.” With these words, the colonel wrapped himself again in his cloak, and, mounting the window-seat, sprang into the yard, which was enclosed only by a low paling.

Hardly had his feet touched the ground when he felt himself attacked by an infuriated man, who apostrophized him with the most violent insults. At the same moment, _La Leona_ and her daughters ran shrieking from the house, while the unhappy Lucia called from the window in a voice of anguish: “Don’t hurt him! It is my father!”

The man had drawn a knife but Gallardo, who was vigorous and wished to escape from the adventure without hurting Lucia’s father and without being recognized, pushed the assailant from him with such force as to throw him upon his back; ran to the paling, leaped it, and disappeared.

Juan Garcia rose from the ground in that state of blind rage in which men of his uncultivated nature stop at no obstacle and hesitate at no crime. Violently repulsing his wife and step-daughters, who, alarmed at the result of their work, would have detained him, he hastened to the house, and was making directly for Lucia’s room.

“Lucia! Lucia! jump from the window!” screamed _La Leona_, foreseeing a catastrophe. “Your father is going to kill you!”

Wild with terror, Lucia, who heard the enraged and drunken voice of her father approaching her chamber, precipitated herself into the yard.

“Run to the colonel’s!” urged the step-mother, with no intention then but that of saving her life. “He is the last one your father will 59 suspect. It is the nearest house, and you can be hidden there better than anywhere else.”

Lucia obeyed mechanically, guided by the instinct of self-preservation, the only motive that rules weak natures in moments of supreme peril.

Gallardo was excitedly pacing his room when she rushed in, pale as death, covered with her long black hair, cold and helpless with fear and desperation, and, sinking upon a chair, exclaimed:

“You have been my ruin! At least save my life!”

It is to be supposed that even the dry and sterile heart of this man would find, in such circumstances, sentiments and words to soothe the wretched creature thus forced to seek his protection. It is certain that, at the vision of her youthful and innocent beauty, seen through the prism of her tears, he became more enamored than ever, and took advantage of the distress, of which he was the cause, to advance his suit.

And the poor child, bereft of affection and support, having nowhere to lay her head, lacking firmness to resist and energy to act, unsustained by principle duly and constantly inculcated, which would have made her prefer misery to shame, allowed herself to be persuaded and retained, drawn by a love that began with the promise and conviction that it was to be unchanging and eternal.

The colonel soon left, taking with him, secretly, Lucia, who had already begun to feel contented in the atmosphere of tenderness and luxury that surrounded her.

The fit of passion that Juan Garcia had experienced, united with grief, shame, and remorse, so affected his constitution, already spent and worn by the life he had been leading, that he fell into an inflammatory fever, from which he never recovered. A little while before he died, he said to his old friend: “Uncle Bartolo, you hit the mark when you told me that the day would come when I should have eyes left only to weep. It has come, and--well, better to close them for ever.”

* * * * *

Two years had passed since the events last narrated, and five since Lucas left home. His regiment was in Cordova, where a general recently arrived from Madrid was going to review the troops of the garrison.

The evening before the parade, Lucas was in the quarters with several other soldiers from Arcos, one of whom, with the careless and constant gayety which characterizes the Spanish soldier, and proves, to the extreme scandal and disgust of the votaries of utility, the non-material genius of the nation, was alternately touching his guitar, and singing:

“Oh! ‘tis gay to be a soldier.
Standing guard with tired feet,
And head erect, in stiff cravat,
And nothing at all to eat.

“And, for the bread of munition,
He gets from the King of Spain,
To be ‘Alert there, sentinel!’
All night, and never complain.

“This is the life of a soldier.
To march wherever he’s led,
To sleep under alien shelter,
And die in a hospital bed.”

At this moment the picket-guard, which had just been relieved from duty at the general’s quarters, came up.

“Oh!” said one of the newly-arrived, “if the general’s wife isn’t a fine one! In all my travels I have never seen her equal.”

“She is not his wife,” replied another, “so drop the ‘fine.’”

“And why should I drop it? Good words neither add to beauty nor take from it; but what do you know?”

“What they tell me; and, besides, if she was his wife, he wouldn’t 60 keep her so grand; for that is the way with the _You-Sirs_, they spend more money upon their dears than they do upon their wives.”

“Because they are afraid their mistresses will leave them for other lovers. What do you say, Lucas?”

“That it’s like keeping a lead knife in a golden sheath,” answered Lucas.

“The soul of this one may be of lead, or something cheaper, but her person--by the Moors of Barbary!”

“We hear enough,” replied Lucas; “dress up a block, and it will look like a shopman. I tell you, these good-for-nothing she vagabonds appear to me more like bedraggled rags than women.”

“Get away! If this Lucas hasn’t always the rod of justice lifted! He has entered the uniform, but the uniform hasn’t entered him. If you had been born king, they would have called you the _Justiciero_.”[11]

The next morning the troops were drawn up in splendid array, the bands were playing, and the general, magnificently mounted, came galloping upon the field, followed, at a little distance, by an elegant open carriage, in which was seated a beautiful and richly dressed woman.

The carriage stopped near where Lucas and his townsmen were formed at the end of a line.

“That is the general’s mistress,” said the man at Lucas’s right in a low tone. “Did I not tell you she was a sun?”

Lucas raised his eyes, and fixed them upon the woman, at the same instant starting so perceptibly as to attract the notice of his companions.

“What ails you, Lucas?”

“Nothing,” he answered calmly.

But the glances of the occupant of the carriage had fallen upon the gallant-looking soldier who stood so near her, and a cry of delighted surprise burst from her lips.

“Lucas,” said his other neighbor in line, “that lady is looking this way, and making signs to you.”

Lucas, pale but perfectly composed, neither looked up nor replied.

“Lucas, who can it be? She knows you; she is waving her handkerchief, and seems as if she would spring out of the carriage. Look at her! Say! who is she?”

“I do not know her,” answered Lucas.

“By the very cats!” exclaimed the first who had spoken, in an ecstasy, “may my end be a bad one if it isn’t your sister Lucia! Look at her, man! it is she!”

“I have looked at her, and I tell you that I do not know her,” responded Lucas.

“Look, now, look! the poor little thing is crying. She is not much changed, only handsomer. You must be blind not to see that it is your sister!”

“I do not know her,” repeated the young man, with the same composure.

There are men who feel profoundly, but exercise such self-control that they succeed in covering with a mantle of indifference the most violent and agonizing emotions--moral Scævolas, who astonish without attracting us. We like neither the motive nor the effects of a stoicism that parades itself so disdainfully. For, if in order to judge of all things human, it is necessary to compare them with the example of the ideal of humanity--the God-Man--we cannot fail to be repelled by such arrogance when we reflect that the most holy passion would have lacked its tender and sublime sanctity, if in it bravado had taken the place of meekness.

The voice of the commanding officer was now heard prescribing the 61 evolutions. When these were concluded, the troops marched to their quarters, where, gathered in groups, they made their comments upon the beautiful lady of the carriage, some of the soldiers from Arcos declaring that it was Lucia, others, who had not seen her so near, maintaining the contrary.

“Her brother will know,” they exclaimed, running to find him.

“Lucas, is that grand, fine _You-Madam_ your sister Lucia?”

“I don’t know the woman. And now, comrades, no more questions; for I am not a repeating-clock, and am tired of answering.”

Before half an hour had passed, an orderly arrived from the general in search of a soldier named Lucas Garcia.

Interiorly shaken by the indignation which he would not allow his face to betray, Lucas followed the messenger to a house of good appearance, and was shown into an elegant and luxuriously furnished cabinet. As he entered, a fair young girl robed in silk rose from a sofa, and ran towards him with open arms.

“I do not know you, my lady,” said Lucas, quickly repulsing her with his right hand.

“Lucas, my brother!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears.

“I have no sister,” he replied, in the same tone as before.

“Lucas, my own brother, listen, and I will tell you what happened!”

At this moment, the colonel--that had been, and was now general--entered.

“Ah! Lucia,” said he, with ostentatious condescension, “so, then, you have already seen your brother.”

“He will not know me,” sobbed the girl.

“How is that?” asked the general, turning toward the soldier. “And why?”

“Because it would be a deceit, my general,” answered Lucas, lifting his open hand to his temple. “I am the only one left of my house, and have no sister.”

“I sent for you,” proceeded the general, “to make you one of my orderlies, to keep you near me, have you taught to write, and fit you for a career. You will mount rapidly. I know already that you are intelligent and brave.”

“I do not wish to learn to write, my general.”

“And why?” asked the general, repressing his ill-humor, “since without knowing how to write, you cannot rise?”

“I do not want to rise, my general.”

“The reason is evident,” said the general, with a mocking laugh. “It is not strange that the heir of such a house should disdain the service of the king.”

“He that sees not the king is king to himself,” answered Lucas.

“What is there that you want, brother?” asked Lucia.

“I desire nothing but to serve my time out and return home.”

“But who calls you there, if, as you say, you have no one?” questioned she.

“Love for my native place,” he answered. “God give me rest in the soil that gave me birth!”

“Valiant goose!” exclaimed the general.

Lucas neither opened his lips nor moved an eyelid.

“Dearest brother! by our mother’s memory, don’t make as if you did not know me! You break my heart! Stay here.”

“It would not suit me to be a stranger anywhere, madam.”

“Enough!” said the general. “Let the clown go, he will think better 62 of it.”

“I do not think twice of things,” replied Lucas, saluting as he went out.

Lucia ran after him into the anteroom, caught his arm, and, pressing it against her bosom, cried in a voice of passionate and tender entreaty:

“Lucas! my brother! for God’s sake stay! The general has promised me that he will do all he can for you; and he can do a great deal.”

“The sack is not big enough to hold both honor and profit,” responded Lucas, hurling his sister from him with all the loftiness of a proud nature and the brute force of an angry churl.

Lucia fell overwhelmed upon the nearest chair, and her brother went his way to the quarters with clinched fists and lips compressed--pale with lividness that ire stamps upon the faces of children of the south. Ire was suffocating him; for he could neither express it nor follow its vengeful impulses, which would not have been satisfied short of the commission of a crime; and of this he was incapable.