Chapter VIII: Part 8

“Say, ‘very well’ and Domingo, remember to hire a carriage for this evening at five sharp: and I ca see anybody now, I must get on with my writing.”

“This, this is the real evil of society, the pitiful state of which the present generation aspires to vary by a revolution as glorious as just. Let those monstrous fortunes be divided and subdivided, let them return in small capitals to the hands of the poor people who made them. Thus these terrible scenes of misery will not be seen which are augmented by the scandalous neglect of the Government for the widows and orphans of the best servants of the State.”

“Sir!”

“What is it now?”

“The widow of that captain, who comes to see if you....”

“D—— you and the widow; throw her downstairs, and do open the door to every beggar.”

“But there also came....”

“Who came?—quickly.”

“A man with cigars, the one who brought that other box.”

“Here, take these twenty-five dollars, and go to the devil! Let us see if I can finish my article.”

“Meanwhile the vile aristocrats keep the people in the most humiliating servitude, and their condition and treatment is worse than that of cattle.”

“Sir.”

“If you do shut that door, you brute, I’ll throw the ink-bottle at your head.”

“The habits of despotism which they have acquired through the course of centuries....”

“But, sir, only one word....”

(_Don Liberato hurls the salver at the poor Gallegan, and then continues scribbling with the greatest amenity until he comes to the following words_):—

“And these errors, upheld by venal journalists....”

(_Domingo returns to the charge, preceded this time by a man of ugly appearance, who pays Don Liberato a large sum for a compilation. Having taken the money, and returned the receipt, he continues_):—

“And who tells these calumniators that the defence of the people is a propensity to anarchy; that the severe censure of deeds of despotism is an act of rebellion; and that the struggle against fanaticism is unbelief, impiety, and hatred of the sacred religion which we venerate more than they?”

“May I go out, sir?”

“No, no, hang you, and by heavens if you interrupt me again....”

“It is Sunday, sir, if you remember, and there is only late mass now.”

“You must do without mass, I require you here.”

“You must take it on your conscience, sir.”

“And so I will, you rascal; and I may take a stick too, and send you to hear mass in the infernal regions, that will stop your being such a confounded hypocrite.”

* * * * *

With this last invective the scene ended between master and man, and with a few more lines the article of our journalist. The latter, after having dined sumptuously, passed the evening driving with his mistress, entered a café, where he spent a dollar or two, calling the waiter a scoundrel and stupid idiot; went in the night to a gambling-house, where he parted with ten gold pieces, and returned to bed with the dawn, forming plans for heartrending articles on the lot of the poor, and furious declamations against the aristocracy, the rich, and the Government.

“_El Estudiante._” _Antonio Maria Segovia._

_A CAT CHASE DURING THE SIEGE OF GERONA._

“Siseta,” I said suddenly, “it is a long time since I have seen Pussy, but I suppose she is wandering about somewhere with her three kittens.”

“Oh!” she replied sorrowfully, “do you know that Dr. Pablo has done for the whole family? Poor Pussy! He says the flesh is excellent; but I think I would rather die of hunger than eat her.”

“What? he killed Pussy? I never heard about it; and the little kittens too?”

“I didn’t like to tell you. The last few days that we have not been at home, the doctor often came in. One day he knelt down and implored me to give him something for his sick daughter, for he had no provisions left or money to buy them. While he was talking one of the kittens sprang on to my shoulder, and Don Pablo seized it quickly and put it into his pocket. The next day he came again and offered me his drawing-room furniture for another kitten, and without awaiting my answer went into the kitchen, then into the dark lobby, lay in wait and chased the kitten like a cat after a rat. I had to bathe the scratches on his face. The third perished in the same way, and then Pussy disappeared from the house, probably thinking she was not safe.”

I was meditating upon the desertion of the poor animal, when Don Pablo suddenly presented himself. He was lean and cadaverous-looking, and had lost by physical and moral sufferings the kindly expression and gentle accent which distinguished him. His clothes were disorderly and torn, and he was carrying a large gun and a hunting-knife.

“Siseta,” he said abruptly, and forgetting to greet me, although we had not seen each other for several days. “I know now where that cunning cat is.”

“Where is she, Don Pablo?”

“In the loft the other side of the yard where my corn and straw was stored when I kept a horse.”

“Perhaps it is not our Pussy,” said Siseta, in her generous desire to save the poor animal.

“Yes, it is, I tell you. She can’t deceive me. The sly thing jumped in this morning through the pantry window and stole a kitte leg hanging there. The audacity! and to eat her own children’s flesh too. I must put an end to her, Siseta. I have already given you a good part of my furniture for the kittens. I have nothing valuable left except my books of medicine. Will you have them in exchange for the cat?”

“Don Pablo, I will take neither furniture nor books, catch Pussy, and, as we are reduced to such extremities, give part of her to my brothers.”

“Good. Andres, do you dare chase the animal?”

“I do think we want such a lot of arms,” I replied.

“But I do. Let us go.”

* * * * *

The doctor and I climbed to the loft, which we entered slowly and warily, for fear we might be attacked by the ravenous beast, probably maddened by hunger and the instinct of preservation. Don Pablo, lest our prey should escape us, closed the door from within and we remained in almost total darkness, since the feeble light which entered by a narrow slit of a window merely illumined the immediate obscurity. Gradually, however, our eyes got accustomed to the murkiness, and we saw that the room was lumbered with a lot of old and broken furniture; above our heads floated dense curtains of spider webs covered with the dust of a century. Then we began to look for the truant; but saw nothing nor in fact any indication of her presence. I expressed my doubt to Don Pablo; but he replied—

“Oh, she’s here. I saw her enter a moment ago.”

We moved some empty cases, threw on one side some bits of a broken armchair and a little barrel, and then saw a small body glide away and leap over the piled-up objects. It was Pussy. We could see in the dark background her two golden-green eyes, watching the movements of her persecutors with a fierce inquietude.

“Do you see her?” said the doctor. “Take my gun and shoot at her.”

“No,” I replied laughing. “It is not very easy to aim in the dark. The gun is of no good. Keep on one side and give me your hunting-knife.”

The two eyes remained motionless in their first position, and that green and golden light, unlike the irradiation of any other gaze, or any gem, produced in me a strong impression of terror. I gradually distinguished the outline of the animal, and the grey and black stripes on her tawny coat multiplied in my eyes, increasing the size of her body till she had the proportions of a tiger. I was afraid, why deny it? and for a moment repented having undertaken such a difficult task. Don Pablo was more frightened than I, his teeth were chattering.

We held a council of war, the result of which was that we were to take the offensive; but when we had recovered a little valour, we heard a low rumbling, a noise between a dove’s coo and a death-rattle, which announced Puss hostile disposition. The cat was saying to us in her language, “Come on, murderers of my children, I am ready for you!”

She had first adopted a sphinx-like posture, but now cowered together, her angular head resting on her fore paws, and her eyes changed, projecting a blue light in vertical rays. Her grim aspect seemed to glower at us. Then she raised her head, rubbed her paws over her face, cleaning her long whiskers, and took a few somersaults to descend to a nearer site, where she crouched in readiness to spring. The muscular force possessed by these animals in the articulation of their hind paws is immense, and she could have sprung upon us in one bound. I saw her looks were directed more especially towards Don Pablo than myself.

“Andres,” he said, “if you are afraid, I shall attack her. I disgraceful that such a little animal should make cowards like this of two men. Yes, Señora Pussy, we shall eat you.”

It seemed as if the animal heard and understood the threatening words, for my friend had scarcely pronounced them when she precipitated herself with lightning speed upon him, alighting on his neck and shoulders. The struggle was short, and the cat had put into execution the whole of her offensive power, so that the rest of the combat could not be otherwise than favourable to us. I hastened to my all defence, and the animal fell to the ground, carrying away with her claws some particles of the good doctor’s person and tattooing my right hand. She then doubled in different directions, but once as she sprang at me, I had the good luck to receive her on the point of the hunting-knife, which put an end to the unequal combat.

“The animal was more formidable than I thought,” said Don Pablo, putting his hand to his beating heart.

“Well, doctor,” said I, after a pause, “let us now divide the prey.”

The doctor pulled a face of profound disgust, and, wiping the blood from his neck, said in the most aggressive tone I had heard from his lips—

“Wha that about dividing? Siseta gave me the cat in exchange for my books. Do you know my daughter ate nothing yesterday?”

“Siseta and the children have also eaten nothing,” I replied.

Don Pablo scratched his head, making ugly contractions with his mouth and nostrils—and taking the dead animal by the neck, said—

“Do bother me, Andres. The children can live on any rubbish they pick up in the street; but my invalid needs better food; do me the favour not to touch the cat.”

“Do you mean to say you wo divide the cat? Good, good,” I said, and advanced towards him. Our hands met; we struggled for a short time and then the doctor fell and rolled along the floor, leaving me in full possession of our prey.

“Thief! thief!” he exclaimed. “Is this the way you rob me? Just wait a moment!”

I was picking up our victim to leave the loft. But the doctor ran, or rather leapt like a cat, to the gun, and aimed it full at me, crying with a hoarse and tremulous voice—

“Drop the cat, or I’ll kill you.”

* * * * *

“Don Pablo,” said I, “take the cat. You have become a wild beast.”

Without reply, but showing the horrible agitation of his mind by a smothered groan, he seized the animal which I had hurled from me, and opening the door, disappeared.

_Perez Galdos._

_A WELL-WON DISH OF CHERRIES._

Manalet ran away, but he soon came back with a lot of other little boys, all barefoot, dirty, unkempt, and ragged, and amongst them his brother Badoret, with Gasparo pickapack, clinging tightly with arms and legs to his shoulders and waist. All seemed very pleased, especially Badoret, who was distributing cherries to his companions.

“Take one, Andres,” said the boy, giving me a cherry. “How did you think I got them? Well, I’ll tell you. I was going with Gasparo on my back down the calle del Lobo, when I saw open the gate of the Convent of the Capuchin Nuns, which is always shut. Gasparo would keep on asking me for bread and crying, and I gave him little slaps to make him keep quiet, telling him that if he wouldn’t leave off I would tell his Excellency the Governor. But when I saw the convent gate open, I said to myself, ‘there will be something to find here,’and I slipped in. I crossed the courtyard, and then entered the church and passed through the choir till I reached a long corridor with a lot of little rooms, and I didn’t meet a soul. I looked carefully everywhere to see if I could get anything, but I only came across some candle-ends and two or three skeins of silk, which I began to chew to see if they gave any juice. I was thinking of returning to the street, when I heard behind me, ‘_Ss—t, Ss—t_,’ as if somebody was calling me. I looked, but I saw nobody. Oh, how afraid I was, Andres! Down at the bottom of the corridor there was a huge print, in which was a devil with a long green tail. I thought it was the devil calling me, and began to run. But, oh dear! I could not find a door, and I went round and round that horrid corridor, and all the time, ‘_Ss—t_!’ And then I heard some one say, ‘Little boy, come here,’and I looked at the ceiling and the walls, until I at last saw behind some bars a white hand and a worn and wrinkled face. I was not afraid then, and went to it. The nun said to me, ‘Come, don’t be afraid, I have something to say to you.’I went close to the grating, and said to her, ‘Pardon me, Señora, I thought you were the devil.’”

“Why, it must have been some poor sick nun who could not escape with the others.”

“That’s it. The lady said to me, ‘Little boy, how did you come in here? God has sent you to do me a great service. All the sisters have gone away. I am ill and a cripple. They wanted to take me, but it grew late, and so they left me behind. I am very afraid. Is all the town burnt? Have the French entered? Just now, when I was half asleep, I dreamt that all the sisters had been beheaded in the slaughter-house, and that the French were eating them. Boy, would you venture to go, now at once, to the fort, and give this note to my nephew, Don Alonso Carrillo, captain of the regiment of Ultonia? If you do so, I will give you the dish of cherries you see here, and this half loaf.’“Even if she hadn’t offered them me I would have gone, you know. I seized the note, she told me where I could get out, and I ran towards the fort. Gasparo cried more than before, but I said to him, ‘If you don't keep quiet, I’ll put you in a cannon as if you were a ball, and shoot you away, and you’ll go rolling amongst the French, who will cook you in a saucepan and eat you.’

“At last I reached the fort. What a lot of firing there! That down here is nothing to it. The cannon balls whizzed through the air like a flight of birds. And do you think I was afraid? Not I! Gasparo went on crying and screaming; but I showed him the flames bursting from the bombs, and the flashes from the powder-pans, and said, ‘Look, how pretty! We are going to shoot cannons too now!’

“A soldier gave me a cuff to push me to one side, and I fell on a heap of dead, but I got up and went straight on. Then the Governor appeared, and grasping a large black banner he waved it in the air, and then he said that he would have the first coward hanged. What do you think of that? I went in front and shouted, ‘Quite right, too!’ ‘Some soldiers told me to go away, and the women who were looking after the wounded began to abuse me, asking me why I had taken the baby there. What a crowd of sparks! They fell like flies, first one, then another. The French wanted to get in, but we wouldn't let them.”

“What? You wouldn't?”

“Yes; the women and our men threw stones from the top of the wall at the scoundrels who wanted to climb them. I loosened Gasparo, putting him on the top of a box in which was some powder and cannon-balls, and I also began to throw stones. And what stones! I threw one which weighed at least six hundredweight, and hit a Frenchman, doubling him in two. You ought to have seen it. The French were many, and they wanted to do nothing else but come into the fort. You should have seen the Governor, Andresillo! Don Mariano, and I, we sprang in front ... and always went where the soldiers were most hard pressed. I don’t know what I did, but I did something, Andres. I could not see for the smoke, nor hear for the noise. Such terrible firing! Into your very ears, Andres. It makes one quite deaf. I began to shout, calling them blackguards, thieves, and telling them that Napoleon was a good-for-nothing. Maybe they didn’t hear me for the noise, but I made them turn back and a-half. Rather! Well, Andres, not to tire you, I stayed there until they retreated. The Governor told me he was satisfied—no, he did not speak to me, he said it to the rest.”

“But the letter.”

“I looked for Captain Carrillo—I knew him by sight before—and I met him at last when all was over. I gave him the paper, and he gave me a message for the nun. Then, remembering Gasparo, I went to look for him where I had left him, but he wasn’t there. I began to shout out, ‘Gasparo, Gasparo!’ but he didn’t answer. At last I saw him under a gun carriage, rolled up like a little ball, with his fists in his mouth, looking between the spokes of the wheel, and a large tear in each eye. I put him on my back and ran to the convent. But now comes the best of it; as I was going along thinking of battles, and my head full of all I had seen, I forgot the message the Captain had given me for the nun. She scolded me, saying that I had torn up the letter, and wanted to deceive her, and that she couldn’t think of giving me either the cherries or the bread she had promised. And then she began to grumble, and called me a bad boy and a beast. One of Gasparo’s toes was bleeding, and the nun tied a rag round it; but the cherries—not a single one! At last all was settled, for Captain Carrillo came himself, and she gave me the cherries and the bread, and I ran out of the convent.”

“Take the child home to your sister,” I said, noticing that poor Gaspar foot was still bleeding.

“I have kept some cherries for Siseta,” he cried.

* * * * *

“Oh, I say, boys!” shouted Manalet, running back towards us, “the Governor is going through the town with a lot of people and banners; the ladies are singing in front, and the monks dancing, and the bishop smiling, and the nuns crying. Come along!”

And like a flock of birds the band of children ran down the street.

_Gerona_: “_Episodios Nacionales._” _Perez Galdos._

_FIRST LOVE._

How old I was then? Eleven or twelve years? More probably thirteen, for before then is too early to be seriously in love; but I won’t venture to be certain, considering that in Southern countries the heart matures early, if that organ is to blame for such perturbations.

If I do not remember well _when_, I can at least say exactly _how_ my love first revealed itself. I was very fond—as soon as my aunt had gone to church to perform her evening devotions—of slipping into her bedroom and rummaging her chest of drawers, which she kept in admirable order. Those drawers were to me a museum; in them I always came across something rare or antique, which exhaled an archaic and mysterious scent, the aroma of the sandalwood fans which perfumed her white linen. Pincushions of satin now faded; knitted mittens, carefully wrapped in tissue paper; prints of saints; sewing materials; a reticule of blue velvet embroidered with bugles, an amber and silver rosary would appear from the corners: I used to ponder over them, and return them to their place. But one day—I remember as well as if it were to-day—in the corner of the top drawer, and lying on some collars of old lace, I saw something gold glittering.... I put in my hand, unwittingly crumpled the lace, and drew out a portrait, an ivory miniature, about three inches long, in a frame of gold.

I was struck at first sight. A sunbeam streamed through the window and fell upon the alluring form, which seemed to wish to step out of its dark background and come towards me. It was a most lovely creature, such as I had never seen except in the dreams of my adolescence. The lady of the portrait must have been some twenty-odd years; she was no simple maiden, no half-opened rosebud, but a woman in the full resplendency of her beauty. Her face was oval, but not too long, her lips full, half-open and smiling, her eyes cast a languishing side-glance, and she had a dimple on her chin as if formed by the tip of Cupid’s playful finger. Her head-dress was strange but elegant; a compact group of curls plastered conewise one over the other covered her temples, and a basket of braided hair rose on the top of her head. This old-fashioned head-dress, which was trussed up from the nape of her neck, disclosed all the softness of her fresh young throat, on which the dimple of her chin was reduplicated more vaguely and delicately. As for the dress ... I do not venture to consider whether our grandmothers were less modest than our wives are, or if the confessors of past times were more indulgent than those of the present; I am inclined to think the latter, for seventy years ago women prided themselves upon being Christianlike and devout, and would not have disobeyed the director of their conscience in so grave and important a matter. What is undeniable is, that if in the present day any lady were to present herself in the garb of the lady of the portrait, there would be a scandal; for from her waist (which began at her armpits) upwards, she was only veiled by light folds of diaphanous gauze, which marked out, rather than covered, two mountains of snow, between which meandered a thread of pearls. With further lack of modesty she stretched out two rounded arms worthy of Juno, ending in finely-moulded hands ... when I say _hands_ I am not exact, for, strictly speaking, only one hand could be seen, and that held a richly embroidered handkerchief.

Even to-day I am astonished at the startling effect which the contemplation of that miniature produced upon me, and how I remained in ecstasy, scarcely breathing, devouring the portrait with my eyes. I had already seen here and there prints representing beautiful women: it often happened that in the illustrated papers, in the mythological engravings of our dining-room, or in a shop-window, that a beautiful face, or a harmonious and graceful figure attracted my precociously artistic gaze; but the miniature encountered in my aunt’s drawer, apart from its great beauty, appeared to me as if animated by a subtle and vital breath; you could see it was not the caprice of a painter, but the image of a real and actual person of flesh and blood. The warm and rich tone of the tints made you surmise that the blood was tepid beneath that mother-of-pearl skin. The lips were slightly parted to disclose the enamelled teeth; and to complete the illusion there ran round the frame a border of natural hair, chestnut in colour, wavy and silky, which had grown on the temples of the original. As I have said, it was more than a copy, it was the reflection of a living person from whom I was only separated by a wall of glass.... I seized it, breathed upon it, and it seemed to me that the warmth of the mysterious deity communicated itself to my lips and circulated through my veins. At this moment I heard footsteps in the corridor. It was my aunt returning from her prayers. I heard her asthmatic cough, and the dragging of her gouty feet. I had only just time to put the miniature into the drawer, shut it, and approach the window, adopting an innocent and indifferent attitude.

My aunt entered noisily, for the cold of the church had exasperated her catarrh, now chronic. Upon seeing me, her wrinkled little eyes brightened, and giving me a friendly tap with her withered hand, she asked me if I had been turning over her drawers as usual.

Then, with a chuckle—

“Wait a bit, wait a bit,” she added, “I have something for you, something you will like.”

And she pulled out of her vast pocket a paper bag, and out of the bag three or four gum lozenges, sticking together in a cake, which gave me a feeling of nausea.

My aunt’s appearance did not invite one to open one’s mouth and devour these sweets: the course of years, her loss of teeth, her eyes dimmed to an unusual degree, the sprouting of a moustache or bristles on her sunken-in mouth, which was three inches wide, dull grey locks fluttering above her sallow temples, a neck flaccid and livid as the crest of the turkey when in a good temper.... In short, I did not take the lozenges. Ugh! A feeling of indignation, a manly protest rose in me, and I said forcibly—

“I do not want it, I don’t want it.”

“You don’t want it? What a wonder! You who are greedier than a cat!”

“I am not a little boy,” I exclaimed, drawing myself up, and standing on tip-toes; “I don’t care for sweets.”

My aunt looked at me half good-humouredly and half ironically, and at last, giving way to the feeling of amusement I caused her, burst out laughing, by which she disfigured herself, and exposed the horrible anatomy of her jaws. She laughed so heartily that her chin and nose met, hiding her lips, and emphasising two wrinkles, or rather two deep furrows, and more than a dozen lines on her cheeks and eyelids; at the same time her head and body shook with the laughter, until at last her cough began to interrupt the bursts, and between laughing and coughing the old lady involuntarily spluttered all over my face.... Humiliated, and full of disgust, I escaped rapidly thence to my mother’s room, where I washed myself with soap and water, and began to muse on the lady of the portrait.

And from that day and hour I could not keep my thoughts from her. As soon as my aunt went out, to slip into her room, open the drawer, bring out the miniature, and lose myself in contemplation, was the work of a minute. By dint of looking at it, I fancied that her languishing eyes, through the voluptuous veiling of her eyelashes, were fixed in mine, and that her white bosom heaved. I became ashamed to kiss her, imagining she would be annoyed at my audacity, and only pressed her to my heart or held her against my cheek. All my actions and thoughts referred to the lady; I behaved towards her with the most extraordinary refinement and super-delicacy. Before entering my aunt’s room and opening the longed-for drawer, I washed, combed my hair, and tidied myself, as I have seen since is usually done before repairing to a love appointment. I often happened to meet in the street other boys of my age, very proud of their slip of a sweetheart, who would exultingly show me love-letters, photographs, and flowers, and who asked me if I hadn’t a sweetheart with whom to correspond. A feeling of inexplicable bashfulness tied my tongue, and I only replied with an enigmatic and haughty smile. And when they questioned me as to what I thought of the beauty of their little maidens, I would shrug my shoulders and disdainfully call them _ugly mugs_. One Sunday I went to play in the house of some little girl-cousins, really very pretty, and the elder of whom was not yet fifteen.

We were amusing ourselves looking into a stereoscope, when suddenly one of the little girls, the youngest, who counted twelve summers at most, secretly seized my hand, and in some confusion and blushing as red as a brazier, whispered in my ear—

“Take this.”

At the same time I felt in the palm of my hand some thing soft and fresh, and saw that it was a rosebud with its green foliage. The little girl ran away smiling and casting a side-glance at me; but I, with a Puritanism worthy of Joseph, cried out in my turn—

“Take this!”

And I threw the rosebud at her nose, a rebuff which made her tearful and pettish with me the whole afternoon, and which she has not pardoned me even now, though she is married and has three children.

The two or three hours which my aunt spent morning and evening together at church being too short for my admiration of the entrancing portrait, I resolved at last to keep the miniature in my pocket, and went about all day hiding myself from people just as if I had committed a crime. I fancied that the portrait from the depth of its prison of cloth could see all my actions, and I arrived at such a ridiculous extremity, that if I wanted to scratch myself, pull up my sock, or do anything else not in keeping with the idealism of my chaste love, I first drew out the miniature, put it in a safe place, and then considered myself free to do whatever I wanted. In fact, since I had accomplished the theft, there was no limit to my vagaries; at night I hid it under the pillow, and slept in an attitude of defence; the portrait remained near the wall, I outside, and I awoke a thousand times, fearing somebody would come to bereave me of my treasure. At last I drew it from beneath the pillow and slipped it between my nightshirt and left breast, on which the following day could be seen the imprint of the chasing of the frame.

The contact of the dear miniature gave me delicious dreams. The lady of the portrait, not in effigy, but in her natural size and proportions, alive, graceful, affable, beautiful, would come towards me to conduct me to her palace by a rapid and flying train. With sweet authority she would make me sit on a stool at her feet, and would pass her beautifully moulded hand over my head, caressing my brow, my eyes, and loose curls. I read to her out of a big missal, or played the lute, and she deigned to smile, thanking me for the pleasure which my reading and songs gave her. At last romantic reminiscences overflowed in my brain, and sometimes I was a page, and sometimes a troubadour.

With all these fanciful ideas, the fact is, that I began to grow thin quite perceptibly, which was observed with great disquietude by my parents and my aunt.

“In this dangerous and critical age of development, everything is alarming,” said my father, who used to read books of medicine, and anxiously studied my dark eyelids, my dull eyes, my contracted and pale lips, and above all, the complete lack of appetite which had taken possession of me.

“Play, boy; eat, boy,” he would say to me, and I replied to him dejectedly—

“I don’t feel inclined.”

They began to talk of distractions, offered to take me to the theatre; stopped my studies, and gave me foaming new milk to drink. Afterwards they poured cold water over my head and back to fortify my nerves; and I noticed that my father at table or in the morning when I went to his bedroom to bid him good morning, would gaze at me fixedly for some little time, and would sometimes pass his hand down my spine, feeling the vertebræ. I hypocritically lowered my eyes, resolved to die rather than confess my crime. As soon as I was free from the affectionate solicitude of my family, I found myself alone with my lady of the portrait. At last, to get nearer to her, I thought I would do away with the cold crystal. I trembled upon putting this into execution; but at last my love prevailed over the vague fear with which such a profanation filled me, and with skilful cunning I succeeded in pulling away the glass and exposing the ivory plate. As I pressed my lips to the painting and could scent the slight fragrance of the border of hair, I imagined to myself even more realistically that it was a living person whom I was grasping with my trembling hands. A feeling of faintness overpowered me, and I fell unconscious on the sofa, tightly holding the miniature.

When I came to my senses I saw my father, my mother, and my aunt, all bending anxiously over me; I read their terror and alarm in their faces: my father was feeling my pulse, shaking his head, and murmuring—

“His pulse is nothing but a flutter, you can scarcely feel it.”

My aunt, with her claw-like fingers was trying to take the portrait from me, and I was mechanically hiding it and grasping it more firmly.

“But, my dear boy.... Let go, you are spoiling it!” she exclaimed. “Do you see you are smudging it? I am not scolding you, my dear.... I will show it to you as often as you like, but don’t destroy it; let go, you are injuring it.”

“Let him have it,” begged my mother, “the boy is not well.”

“Of all things to ask!” replied the old maid. “Let him have it! And who will paint another like this ... or make me as I was then? To-day nobody paints miniatures ... it is a thing of the past, and I also am a thing of the past, and I am not what is represented there!”

My eyes dilated with horror; my fingers released their hold on the picture. I don’t know how I was able to articulate—

“You ... the portrait ... is you...?”

“Don’t you think I am as pretty now, boy? Bah! one is better looking at twenty-three than at ... than at ... I don’t know what, for I have forgotten how old I am!”

My head drooped and I almost fainted again; anyway, my father lifted me in his arms on to the bed, and made me swallow some tablespoons of port.

* * * * *

I recovered very quickly, and never wished to enter my aunt’s room again.

_Emilia Pardo Bazan_ (_Nineteenth Century_).

_THE ACCOUNT BOOK._

A RURAL TALE.

Gaffer Buscabeatas was already beginning to stoop at the time when the events occurred which I am going to relate; for he was now sixty years old, and of these sixty years he had spent forty cultivating a garden bordering on the shore of La Costilla.

In the year in question he had cultivated in this garden some wonderful pumpkins, as large as the ornamental globes on the breastwork of some massive bridge, that at the time of our story were beginning to turn yellow, inside and out, which is the same as saying that it was the middle of June. Old Buscabeatas knew by heart the particular form and the stage of maturity at which it had arrived of every one of these pumpkins, to each of which he had given a name, and especially of the forty largest and finest specimens, which were already crying out, “Cook me!” and he spent the days contemplating them affectionately, and saying in melancholy accents—

“Soon we shall have to part!”

At last, one evening, he made up his mind to the sacrifice, and marking out the best fruits of those beloved vines which had cost him so many anxieties, he pronounced the dreadful sentence—

“To-morrow,” he said, “I shall cut from their stalks these forty pumpkins and take them to the market at Cadiz. Happy the man who shall eat of them!”

And he returned to his home with slow step and spent the night in such anguish as a father may be supposed to feel on the eve of his daughter’s wedding-day.

“What a pity to have to part from my dear pumpkins!” he would sigh from time to time in his restless vigil. But presently he would reason with himself and end his reflections by saying, “And what else can I do but sell them? That is what I have raised them for. The least they will bring me is fifteen dollars!”

Judge, then, what was his consternation, what his rage and despair, on going into the garden on the following morning, to find that during the night he had been robbed of his forty pumpkins! Not to weary the reader, I will only say that his emotion, like that of Shakespeare’s Jew, so admirably represented, it is said, by the actor Kemble, reached the sublimity of tragedy as he frantically cried—

“Oh, if I could but find the thief! If I could but find the thief!”

Poor old Buscabeatas presently began to reflect upon the matter with calmness, and comprehended that his beloved treasures could not be in Rota, where it would be impossible to expose them for sale without risk of their being recognised, and where, besides, vegetables bring a very low price.

“I know as well as if I saw them, that they are in Cadiz!” he ended. “The scoundrel! the villain! the thief must have stolen them between nine and ten o’clock last night, and got off with them at midnight on the freight-boat. I shall go to Cadiz this morning on the hour-boat, and it will surprise me greatly if I do not catch the thief there, and recover the children of my toil.”

After he had thus spoken, he remained for some twenty minutes longer on the scene of the catastrophe, whether to caress the mutilated vines, to calculate the number of pumpkins that were missing, or to formulate a declaration of the loss sustained, for a possible suit; then, at about eight o’clock, he bent his steps in the direction of the wharf.

The hour-boat was just going to sail. This was a modest coaster which leaves Cadiz every morning at nine lock precisely, carrying passengers, as the freight-boat leaves Cadiz every night at twelve, laden with fruits and vegetables.

The former is called the hour-boat because in that space of time, and occasionally even in forty minutes, if the wind is favourable, it makes the three leagues which separate the ancient village of the Duke of Arcos from the ancient city of Hercules.

* * * * *

It was, then, half-past ten in the morning on the before-mentioned day, when old Buscabeatas passed before a vegetable-stand in the market of Cadiz, and said to the bored policeman who was accompanying him—

“Those are my squashes! arrest that man!” and he pointed to the vendor.

“Arrest me!” cried the vendor, astonished and enraged. “These squashes are mine; I bought them!”

“You will have to prove that before the judge!” answered old Buscabeatas.

“I say No!”

“I say Yes!”

“Thief!”

“Vagabond!”

“Speak more civilly, you ill-mannered fellows! Decent men ought not to treat one another in that way!” said the policeman tranquilly, giving a blow with his closed fist to each of the disputants.

By this time a crowd had gathered, and there soon arrived also on the scene the inspector of public markets.

The policeman resigned his jurisdiction in the case to his Honour, and when this worthy official had learned all the circumstances relating to the affair, he said to the vendor majestically—

“From whom did you purchase those squashes?”

“From Gossip Fulano, a native of Rota,” answered the person thus interrogated.

“It could be no one else!” cried old Buscabeatas. “He is just the one to do it! When his own garden, which is a very poor one, produces little, he takes to robbing the gardens of his neighbours!”

“But, admitting the supposition that forty pumpkins were stolen from you last night,” said the inspector, turning to the old gardener and proceeding with his examination, “how do you know that these are precisely your pumpkins?”

“How?” replied old Buscabeatas. “Because I know them as well as you know your daughters, if you have any! Don’t you see that they have grown up under my care? Look here: this one is called Roly-poly, this one Fat-cheeks, this one Big-belly, this one Ruddy-face, this Manuela, because it reminded me of my youngest daughter.”

And the poor old man began to cry bitterly.

“That may be all very well,” replied the inspector; “but it is not enough for the law that you should recognise your pumpkins. It is necessary also that the authorities be convinced of the pre-existence of the article in dispute, and that you identify it with incontrovertible proofs; gentlemen, there is no occasion for you to smile—I know the law!”

“You shall see, then, that I will very soon prove to the satisfaction of everybody present, without stirring from this spot, that these pumpkins have grown in my garden!” said old Buscabeatas, to the no little surprise of the spectators of this scene. And laying down on the ground a bundle which he had been carrying in his hand, he bent his knees until he sat upon his heels, and quietly began to untie the knotted corners of the handkerchief.

The curiosity of the inspector, the vendor, and the chorus was now at its height.

“What is he going to take out of that handkerchief?” they said to themselves.

At this moment a new spectator joined the crowd, curious to see what was going on, whom the vendor had no sooner perceived than he exclaimed—

“I am very glad that you have come, Gossip Fulano! This man declares that the squashes which you sold me last night, and which are now here present, listening to what we are saying about them, were stolen. Answer, you!”

The newcomer turned as yellow as wax, and made a movement as if to escape, but the bystanders detained him by force, and the inspector himself ordered him to remain. As for Gaffer Buscabeatas, he had already confronted the supposed thief, saying to him—

“Now you are going to see something good.”

Gossip Fulano, recovering his self-possession, answered—

“It is you who ought to see what you are talking about, for if you do not prove, as prove you cannot, your accusation, I shall have you put in prison for libel. These pumpkins were mine. I cultivated them, like all the others that I brought this year to Cadiz, in my garden, the Egido, and no one can prove to the contrary!”

“Now you shall see!” repeated old Buscabeatas, loosening the knots of the handkerchief and spreading out its contents on the ground.

And there were scattered over the floor a number of fragments of pumpkin stalks, still fresh and dripping sap, while the old gardener, seated on his heels and unable to control his laughter, addressed the following discourse to the inspector and the wondering bystanders.

“Gentlemen, have any of you ever paid taxes? If you have, you must have seen the big green book of the collector, from which he tears off your receipt, leaving the stub or end, so as to be able to prove afterward whether the receipt is genuine or not.”

“The book you mean is called the account-book,” said the inspector gravely.

“Well, that is what I have here—the account-book of my garden; that is to say, the stalks to which these pumpkins were attached before they were stolen from me. And in proof of what I say, look here! This stalk belongs to this pumpkin; no one can doubt it. This other—you can see for yourselves—belonged to this other. This is thicker—it must belong to this one. This to that one. This to that other.”

And as he spoke he went fitting a stub or peduncle to the hole which had been made in each pumpkin as it was pulled from the stalk, and the spectators saw with surprise that the irregular and capricious shaped ends of the peduncles corresponded exactly with the whitish circles and the slight hollows presented by what we might call the cicatrices of the pumpkins.

Every one present, including the policeman, and even the inspector himself, then got down on their heels and began to help old Buscabeatas in his singular comprobation, crying out with childlike delight—

“He is right! he is right! There is not a doubt of it! Look! This belongs to this one. This to that one. That one there belongs to this. This belongs to that!” And the bursts of laughter of the grown people were mingled with the whistling of the boys, the abuse of the women, the tears of joy and triumph of the old gardener, and the pushes that the policeman gave to the convicted thief, as if they were impatient to carry him off to prison.

Needless to say that the policeman had that pleasure; that Gossip Fulano was immediately compelled to restore to the vendor the fifteen dollars he had received from him, that the vendor handed these over at once to Gaffer Buscabeatas, and that the latter departed for Rota, highly delighted, although he kept repeating all the way home—

“How handsome they looked in the market! I should have brought Manuela back with me to eat at supper to-night, and save the seeds.”

“_Moors and Christians, and other Tales._” _Pedro Antonio de Alarcon_ (1833-1891). _Trans. Mary J. Serrano._

_SISTER SAINT SULPICE._

SISTER SULPICE (_Gloria, by her mundane name_), _a novice about to
quit the convent for the world, against her mother, Doña Tula’s,
wish_.

SISTER MARIA DE LA LUZ, _cousin to Sister Sulpice, and also a
novice_.

THE MOTHER SUPERIOR FLORENTINA.

PACA, _Glori foster-sister_.

DON CEFERINO, _native of Galicia_.

DON PACO, _landlord of the Fonda Continental_.

I. AT THE MARMOLEYO SPA.

Along a gentle slope, over which was intended to be a high-road, we descended to the spring which gushes out in the very middle of the river Guadalquivir, which comes circling around the brow of the sierra. There is a gallery or bridge which leads from the shore to the spring. Across it were gravely walking two or three persons, who, by their wandering and vacant looks, showed that they were perhaps paying more attention to the contents of their stomachs than to the discourse and steps of their companions. From time to time they hastened to the spring, descended the steps, asked for a glass of water, and drank it eagerly, shutting their eyes with a kind of pleasurable emotion, suggesting the hope of health.

“Have you been taking much of the water, Mother?” asked my landlord, leaning over the railing of the well.

A short, plump nun, who appeared to be dropsical, and had a small red nose, raised her head just as she was about to put the glass to her lips.

“Good morning, Señor Paco.... I have had only four glasses so far. Would you like a little to increase your appetite?”

That greatly delighted my landlord.

“Increase my appetite, eh? Give me something to reduce it, rather! that’s what I should prefer.... And the Sisters?”

Two young nuns, not at all ill-favoured, who were standing beside the other with their heads raised towards us, smiled politely.

“The same as always; two little sips,” rejoined one of them, who had lively black eyes, and spoke with a downright Andalusian accent, and displayed an elegant set of teeth.

“How little!”

“Why, surely you would not wish to make our stomachs ponds for anchovies, would you, like the Mother’s?”

“Anchovies?”

“Yes, Cadiz anchovies. You have only to cast the net.”

The Mother’s dropsical form was shaken violently by a laughing fit. The anchovies swimming in her stomach, according to the young nun, must have thought that they were exposed to an earthquake.

We all laughed and went down to the spring. As we came near the Mother, she greeted me with an affectionate smile. I bent low, took the crucifix which hung from her girdle, and kissed it. The nun smiled still more tenderly, and looked at me with an expression of generous sympathy.

Let us be explicit: if this book is to be an honest history or confession of my life, it is my duty to declare that by the act of bending over to kiss the metal crucifix, I do not think that I was actuated by any mystic impulse, rather, I suspect, that the pretty Sister’s black eyes shrewdly fixed upon me had a very active part in it. Perhaps, without being aware of it, I desired to ingratiate myself with those eyes. And the truth is that I failed in my attempt; because, instead of showing that she was flattered by such an act of devotion, it seemed to me that they assumed a slight expression of mockery. I was a bit confused.

“Has the gentleman come to take the waters?” asked the Mother half directly, half indirectly.

“Yes, señora, I have just arrived from Madrid.”

“They are wonderful! The Lord our God has given them a virtue which is almost beyond belief. You will see how they develop the appetite. You will eat as much as you possibly can, and it will not hurt you.... You see, I can say I am a different woman, and it is only a week since we came.... Just imagine! yesterday I ate pig’s liver, and it did not hurt me at all.... Then this young girl,” she added, pointing to the black-eyed Sister: “I can’t tell you what a colour she had! She was as pale as ashes. To be sure she hasn’t much colour yet, but, ... there now, ... that is another thing.”

I looked at her closely, and noticed that she was blushing, though she instantly turned her back to get another glass of water.

She was a young woman of nineteen or twenty, of average height, with an oval face of a pale brunette, her nose slightly “tip-tilted,” her teeth white and close, and her eyes, as I have already said, of an intense and velvety black, shaded by long lashes, and bordered by a slight pink circle. Her hair was entirely covered from sight by the hood that bound her forehead. She was dressed in black serge, with a girdle around her waist, from which hung a large bronze crucifix. On her head, beside the hood, she wore a great white _papalina_, or “coronet,” with stiffly starched flaps. Her shoes were large and coarse, but could not wholly disguise the grace of her dainty Southern foot.

The other Sister was likewise young, perhaps even younger than the first, as well as shorter in stature, and with a lily-white face, showing under the transparent skin an exceedingly lymphatic temperament; her eyes were clear blue, her teeth somewhat faulty. By the purity and correctness of her features, and likewise by her quiet manners, she looked like a Virgin of painted wood. She kept her eyes constantly fixed upon the ground, and did not open her lips during the short moments that we were together there.

“Come, drink, señor, prove the Divine grace,” said the Mother.

I took the glass which the Sister with the white teeth had just laid down, and proceeded to fill it with water, since the attendant had disappeared through a trap-door; but in doing so I had to lean on the rock, and when I bent over to dip the glass into the pool I slipped, and my foot went in above my ankle.

“Be careful!” simultaneously cried my landlord and the Mother, as is always said after one has met with any accident.

I drew out my foot with the water spurting from my shoe, and could not refrain from a rather energetic exclamation.

The Mother was disturbed, and hastened to ask me with a grave face—

“Did it hurt you?”