Chapter IX: Part 9

The little Sister of the transparent skin blushed up to her ears. The other began to laugh so heartily, that I gave her a quick and not very affectionate look. But she paid no heed to it; she continued to laugh, although, in order not to meet my eyes, she turned her face the other way.

“Sister San Sulpicio, remember that it is a sin to laugh at another’s misfortunes,” said the Mother. “Why do you not imitate Sister Maria de la Luz?”

The latter was blushing like a poppy.

“I can’t help it, Mother, I cannot; excuse me,” she replied, endeavouring, but without success, to contain herself.

“Let her laugh; the truth is, the thing is more ludicrous than serious,” said I, affecting good-humour though angry at heart.

These words, instead of inciting the Sister, had the opposite effect, and she quickly grew calm. I looked at her now and then, with a curiosity mingled with annoyance. She returned my look with a frank and smiling eye, in which still lurked a trace of mockery.

“You must change your shoes and stockings as quick as you can; getting the feet wet is very bad,” said the Mother with interest.

“Pshaw! I shall not change them till night. I am accustomed to go all day with my feet soaking,” said I, in a scornful tone of voice, putting on a show of robustness, which, unfortunately, I am very far from being blessed with. But it pleased me to affect bravado before the smiling nun.

“By all means ... go, go home and take off your stocking. We are going to walk across the gallery to see if the water is going down. May the Lord our God bless you!”

I once more made a low bow and kissed the Mother’s crucifix. I did the same with Sister Maria’s, who, of course, blushed again. As to Sister San Sulpicio’s I refrained from touching it. I merely bowed low with a grave face. Thus should she learn not to laugh at people when they get wet.

II. IN SEVILLE.

... When I returned to my boarding-house to dinner, I found Paca waiting at the door to give me a letter. I did not care to open it before the messenger, and tried to dismiss her as soon as possible. But the worthy woman was too happy over her señorita’s escape from the convent, not to chatter for a while. Both interested and impatient, I was treated to all the particulars; how Doña Tula had gone to get Gloria in her carriage; how abominably they had behaved towards her at the convent, no one except the chaplain coming to bid her good-bye; how happy her señorita felt to take off her nun’s dress; how glad every one was to see her “so bright and chipper!” and all the insignificant words which they had exchanged in their talk.

At last she went away, and I hastened to my room, nervously lighted my candle, and opened the note.

“I am out of the convent,” it read. “If you wish to receive the promised scolding, pass in front of my house at eleven o’clock. I will be at the grating, and we will have a talk.”

The keen joy produced in me by that letter may be imagined. All my dreams were coming true at once. Gloria loved me, and was giving me a rendezvous, and this rendezvous was singularly attractive to a poet and a man of the North by being at the grating!

The grating—_la reja_![15] Does not this word exert a strange fascination? does it not awake in fancy a swarm of vague, sweet thoughts, as though it were the symbol and centre of love and poesy? Who is there with so little imagination as never to have dreamed of a talk with a loved one through the grating on a moonlight night? These talks and these nights have, moreover, the incalculable advantage that they can be described without an actual experience of them. There is not a lyrical mosquito among all those that hum and buzz in the central or septentrional provinces of Spain who has not given expression to his feelings concerning them, and framed a more or less harmonious structure with the sweet notes of the guitar, the scents of tube-roses, the moonlight scattering its delicate filaments of silver over the windows, the heavens bespangled with stars, the orange flowers, the maiden’s fascinating eyes, her warm perfumed breath, &c.

I myself, as a descriptive poet and colourist, have on more than one occasion, to the applause of my friends, jumbled together these commonplaces of Andalusian æsthetics.

But now the reality far exceeded and differed from this poetic conventionalism. For the time being, as I entered the Calle de Argote de Molina, at eleven o’clock, I failed to notice whether moon and stars were shining in the sky or not. It is quite possible that they were, for such things are natural; but I did not notice. What could be seen with perfect distinctness was the watchman with pike and lantern leaning up against a door not very far from Gloria’s.

“Shall I have to wait till this fellow goes off?” I asked myself with a sudden pang of fear.

Fortunately, after a little while I saw him start away from that place and move up the street.

Moreover, I went to the trysting-place without guitar or cloak, merely with a jonquil in my hand, and wearing a plain and inoffensive jacket. Neither did I go mounted on a fiery steed, black, dappled, or sorrel; but on my own wretched legs, which certainly trembled all too violently as I approached the windows of the house. In one of them I saw the gleam of a white object, and I hastened to tap on the grating.

“Gloria!” I said in a very low voice.

“Here I am,” replied the girl’s voice.

At the same instant her graceful bare head bent over toward the grating, and I saw the gleam of her little white teeth with that same bewitching and mocking smile which was so delineated on my heart. I saw her dark velvety eyes shining. As though I were in the presence of a supernatural apparition, I stood motionless with both hands clenching the grating. I found nothing more to say than—

“Còmo sigue V.” “How do you do?”

That ordinary formula of every-day courtesy did not seem to arouse any sad ideas in her, for I saw her put her hand to her mouth to hide a laugh. After a brief silence, she replied—

“Well; and you?”

“How I have longed for this moment to arrive!” I exclaimed, realising that I was not “in situation,” as they say in the theatres. “Can you not imagine the eagerness with which I have been waiting for it, Gloria?...”

“And why should you have been anxious for it?”

“Because my heart was tormented with the desire to tell you how I worship you.”

“That indeed is news! Why, my son, you have repeated it in the nine letters you have written me, forty-one times.... I counted them!”

“Then it was so as to tell you so the forty-second time. What is taking place between us, Gloria, seems to me just like a novel. It is not three months that I have known you, and yet it seems to me as if I had lived three years since then. What a change! How it has altered our lives! You were a nun, and now I see you transformed into a perfect young lady of the world.”

“So you really find that I am perfect?”

“Exquisite!”

“A thousand thanks. What would it be if you were to see me!”

“I do see you ... not very well, but sufficient to make me realise what a favourable change.”

Up to a certain point that was true. Although the darkness that prevailed in that corner did not allow me to make out her features, I could see the outline of her graceful head, adorned with waving hair, and when she bent it over a little toward the grating, the dim light of the street shone into her face, which seemed to me paler than when she was at Marmolejo, though not less lovely.

A moment of silence ensued, and, embarrassed by it, I said at last—

“Is this your chamber?”

“This is not a chamber, it is the reception-room.”

“Ah!”

And again silence fell.

I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon me, and, if the truth be told, I could not deceive myself into thinking that they were overflowing with love, but rather that they displayed a mischievous curiosity.

“O Gloria, if you only knew how sadly those days passed for me when I got no word from you! I believed that you had forgotten me.”

“I never forget my good friends. Besides, I had promised you one thing, and I should certainly not wish to fail of fulfilling my promise.”

“What was it?”

“Do you remember?—the scolding....”

“Oh, yes,” I exclaimed, laughing.

And, encouraged by these words, I felt that I ought to have my love affairs put upon a definite basis, and I said—

“Well, then, Gloria, I have come for nothing else than to have you undeceive me if I am under a false impression, or else confirm my hopes of being loved if they have any foundation. Since I have already repeated forty-one times that I adore you, as you say, I need not say it again. Ever since I have seen you and talked with you at Marmolejo, you have kept me a willing prisoner of love and admiration. My fate is in your hands, and I wait with the greatest anxiety to hear my sentence.”

Gloria paused a few moments before she answered; then she coughed a little, and finally said—

“The fatal moment has arrived. Prepare for the worst.... Señor Don Ceferino, I should not tell the truth if I gave you to understand that from the first day I talked with you at Marmolejo, I did not perceive that you were courting me. Further, I believe that the kiss which you gave Mother Florentina’s crucifix, the first time we saw each other, you gave me in my honour.... You laugh? Well, it shows that I was not deceived. Those gallantries of yours have caused me some annoyances, but I cherish no hard feelings against you. Sooner or later I had to let the thunder burst, for I had made up my mind not to stay in the convent, even though I had to go out to service. Then you greatly aided me in accomplishing my wishes, and for this I am very grateful.... But gratitude is one thing and love is another. So far I have not been able to reciprocate your love. I esteem you ... I like you, and I shall never forget how kind you have been to me; but I speak frankly, I cannot have you live longer labouring under a mistake. I will be your sincere and affectionate friend.... Your betrothed I cannot be.”

It is absolutely impossible for me to give any idea of my state of mind on hearing those words. They were spoken in an ironical tone, which might have left one open to think that they were in jest, but the reasoning was so natural and logical that they put an end to any such supposition. Nevertheless, by a supreme act of self-control, I burst into a laugh, exclaiming—

“Well, that is a well-fabricated refusal! I might think that you really meant it!”

“What! don’t you believe what I say?... Child, have you not a very lofty opinion of your little self?”

“It is not a question of whether I have a high opinion of myself, Gloria,” I replied, becoming grave; “it is that it is hard to believe that you would have waited so long to refuse me.”

“But you have not given me a chance till now!”

“Are you speaking seriously, Gloria?”

“Why not? Come, now, you have imagined because I accepted your aid in getting out of the convent, that I was in so far bound to worship you, did you not?”

A wave of hot blood surged into my cheeks; my ears hummed. I suddenly realised the fact that I had been making a fool of myself in a most lamentable fashion, that this girl had most shamefully turned me into ridicule. Indignation and anger took complete possession of me; I poured out all my bile in a perfect torrent of words. I stood for some little time clutching the grating, gazing at her in silence with flaming eyes. Finally, in a voice hoarse with anger, I said,—

“The truth is, you are the veriest flirt,[16] unworthy of receiving the attentions of any decent man. I do not regret the time that I have wasted in loving you, but I do regret having wasted my love on you! I believed that under your apparent frivolity you had a good heart, but I see that it was nothing but vanity and giddiness. I rejoice that I have found it out in good time, for I will at one blow tear it out of my heart and my thoughts, where you ought never to have found a place. Good-bye! and for ever!”

As I withdrew my contracted hands from the iron bars I felt the pressure of hers, and I heard a compressed laugh, which entirely confused me.

“Bravo, bravo? I like you so, my dear! I was becoming weary of so much sweetness!”

“What does this mean, Gloria?”

“It means that you must not be so honey-like, for one gets tired of syrup, and incense is sickening. See here! You have advanced your cause more in one moment by saying impudent things to me, than in three months of flatteries. You will say that I like to have my knuckles rapped with the fire-shovel. It may be so. But I tell you that a little touch of genius never hurts a man!”

“Yes? Then wait a bit, and I will insult you some more,” said I, laughing.

“No, no,” she exclaimed, also laughing, “enough for to-day.”

During that sweet and memorable interview, which was prolonged till one o’clock, our love was mutually confessed and agreed upon. Without any difficulty we began to address each other with the familiar “thee” and “thou,” and we swore fidelity till death, no matter what might happen.

Not a soul passed through the street. The watchman, when he saw me glued to the grating, did not come near. I was afraid that Doña Tula might come into the room, but Gloria re-assured me by declaring that in Seville no one ever acted traitorously towards two lovers, and the watchmen still less interfered with these colloquies at the gratings, which they saw every night. She also had great confidence in the servants. Therefore the prospect of a series of delightful interviews was spread before us, filling my soul with joy.

“They will know about it sooner or later,” said she. “But suppose they do. I will take it upon me to make them mind their own business if they attempt to interfere.”

And in her handsome eyes I saw a flash of audacious mischief, which made it plain enough that it would not be an easy matter to lead her in paths where she did not wish to go.

“Now it is getting late. Mamma gets up very early for mass, and will wish me to go with her. Now you must go.”

“A little while longer, sweetheart! It is not midnight yet.”

“Yes, the clock in the Giralda[17] struck one.”

“No, it is only a quarter-past twelve....”

The slow, solemn stroke of the bell in the Giralda just then struck a quarter-past one.

“Do you hear? It is a quarter-past one. Adios! adios!”

“And are you going to send me off so, without giving me your hand?”

She reached it out to me, and I, naturally, was about to kiss it, but she snatched it away.

“No, no; wait a little, I will give you the crucifix, as in Marmolejo,” she cried with a laugh.

“I prefer your hand.”

“You heretic, begone!”

“God is everywhere. But still if you wish to give me the crucifix I will guard it carefully as a keepsake.”

“Wait just a second. I have my dress here.”

She withdrew from the window for a moment and came back with the bronze crucifix, which she handed out to me through the iron grating. In taking it from her I got possession of her brown, firm hand, and kissed it a number of times voraciously, gluttonously!

“That will do, little boy. Do you expect to keep it up till morning?”

I went away from that window grating intoxicated with love and bliss. So far gone was I that when I met the watchman a little distance away I gave him two pesetas. Afterwards I regretted it, for there was no need of doing so, according to what Gloria had said. This time, also, I noticed as little as before whether the stars were glittering on high with sweet brilliancy, or whether the moonlight filtered down into the dark labyrinthine streets, spotting them here and there with patines of bright silver. I carried in my own heart a radiant sun, which dazzled me and prevented me from seeing such petty details!

III. A VISIT TO THE CONVENT.

... During all this time neither the Mother Superior nor the sisters had asked who I was, or how and why Gloria happened to be in that place. They looked at me with quick glances of curiosity, showing that my presence embarrassed them. I had not opened my lips.

My wife, doubtless piqued by this neglect, suddenly said, “Did you not know that I was married?”

The sisters burst into a laugh.

“Ay! what a Sister!—always so full of spirit,” exclaimed the Mother Superior.

“Yes, Mother, I have been married for a month and three days to this fine young man whom you see. He has only one defect,” she added, growing grave, “and that is that he is a Gallegan!... But you would not think it, would you?”

“What a Sister!” again exclaimed some of the nuns. “How witty she is!—who would have said that she was married! Something has happened to her!”

“What! Don’t you believe me?”

The Sisters still laughed, giving me keen and mysterious glances.

“Well, then, this very instant I will prove it to you!” exclaimed my wife with a sudden impulse. And at the same time she threw her arms around my neck and began to give me some ringing kisses on the cheek, saying,—

“_Rico mio!_ Isn’t it true that you are my husband? Isn’t it true that I am your little wife? Isn’t it true that we are married? Tell me, sweetheart! Tell me, my own life!”

While I, quite abashed, was trying to escape from her caresses, I heard exclamations of reproof, and saw that the nuns were flying in fright towards the portal. One of them, more intrepid, seized the cord of the curtain and pulled it with all her force. The curtain, as it shut together, likewise sent up a squeak of scandalised amazement.

I heard hurried steps and a sound of voices. Then nothing; it had grown silent.

My wife, laughing merrily and blushing at the same time, seized my hand and drew me out. We passed through the melancholy corridors in this way, ran down the stairs, passed through the great passageway, and when we found ourselves in the street I said to her, half vexed, “Child, how crazy you were! What got into you, to....”

“Forgive me, my dear,” she replied, still laughing and crimson. “They made me nervous. They might as well know that we were married as the priest who gave us his benediction.”

_A. Palacio Valdés_ (_Nineteenth Century_).
_Trans. Nathan Haskell Dole._

_PEPITA._

In the past few days I have had occasion to practise patience in an extreme degree, and to mortify my self-love in the most cruel manner. My father, wishing to return Pepita’s compliment of the garden-party, invited her to visit his villa at the Pozo de la Solana. The excursion took place on the 22nd of April. I shall not soon forget the date.

The Pozo de la Solana is about two leagues distant from the village, and the only road to it is a bridle-path. We all had to go on horseback. As I never learned to ride, I had on former occasions accompanied my father mounted on a pacing mule, gentle, and, according to the expression of Dientes the muleteer, as good as gold, and of easier motion than a carriage. On the journey to the Pozo de la Solana I went in the same manner.

My father, the notary, the apothecary, and my cousin Currito were mounted on good horses. My aunt, Doña Casilda, who weighs more than two hundred and fifty pounds, rode on a large and powerful donkey, seated in a commodious side-saddle. The reverend vicar rode a gentle and easy mule like mine.

As for Pepita Jiménez, who, I supposed, would go also mounted on a donkey, in the same sort of easy saddle as my aunt—for I was ignorant that she knew how to ride—she surprised me by making her appearance on a black and white horse full of fire and spirit. She wore a riding-habit, and managed her horse with admirable grace and skill.

I was pleased to see Pepita look so charming on horseback, but I soon began to foresee and to be mortified by the sorry part I would play, jogging on in the rear beside my corpulent Aunt Casilda and the vicar, all three as quiet and tranquil as if we were seated in a carriage, while the gay cavalcade in front would caracole, gallop, trot, and make a thousand other displays of their horsemanship.

I fancied on the instant that there was something of compassion in Pepita’s glance as she noted the pitiable appearance I no doubt presented, seated on my mule. My cousin Currito looked at me with a mocking smile, and immediately began to make fun of me and to tease me.

Confess that I deserve credit for my resignation and courage. I submitted to everything with a good grace, and Currito’s jests soon ceased when he saw that I was invulnerable to them. But what did I not suffer in secret! The others, now trotting, now galloping, rode in advance of us, both in going and returning. The vicar and I, with Doña Casilda between us, rode on, tranquil as the mules we were seated upon, without hastening or retarding our pace.

I had not even the consolation of chatting with the vicar, in whose conversation I find so much pleasure, nor of wrapping myself up in my own thoughts and giving the rein to my fancy, nor of silently admiring the beauty of the scenery around us. Doña Casilda is gifted with an abominable loquacity, and we were obliged to listen to her. She told us all there is to be told of the gossip of the village; she recounted to us all her accomplishments; she told us how to make sausages, brain-puddings, pastry, and innumerable other dishes and delicacies. There is no one, according to herself, who can rival her in matters pertaining to the kitchen, or to the dressing of hogs, but Antoñona, Pepita’s nurse, and now her housekeeper and general manager. I am already acquainted with this Antoñona, for she goes back and forth between her mistress’s house and ours with messages, and is in truth extremely handy—as loquacious as Aunt Casilda, but a great deal more discreet.

The scenery on the road to the Pozo de la Solana is charming, but my mind was so disturbed during our journey that I could not enjoy it. When we arrived at the villa and dismounted, I was relieved of a great load, as if it had been I who carried the mule, and not the mule who carried me.

We then proceeded on foot through the estate, which is magnificent, of varied character and extensive. There are vines, old and newly planted, all on the same property, producing more than five hundred bushels of grapes; olive-trees that yield to the same amount; and, finally, a grove of the most majestic oaks that are to be found in all Andalusia. The water of the Pozo de la Solana forms a clear and deep brook, at which all the birds of the neighbourhood come to drink, and on whose borders they are caught by hundreds, by means of reeds smeared with bird-lime, or of nets, in the centre of which are fastened a cord and a decoy. All this carried my thoughts back to the sports of my childhood, and to the many times that I too had gone to catch birds in the same manner.

Following the course of the brook, and especially in the ravines, are many poplars and other tall trees, which, together with the bushes and the shrubs, form a dark and labyrinthine wood. A thousand fragrant wild flowers grow there spontaneously, and it would, in truth, be difficult to imagine anything more secluded and sylvan, more solitary, peaceful, and silent than this spot. Even in the fervour of noonday, when the sun pours down his light in torrents from a heaven without a cloud, the mind experiences the same mysterious terror as visits it at times in the silent hours of the night. One can understand here the manner of life of the patriarchs of old, and of the primitive shepherds and heroes; and the visions and apparitions that appeared to them of nymphs, of gods, and of angels, in the midst of the noonday brightness.

As we walked through this thicket, there arrived a moment in which, I know not how, Pepita and I found ourselves alone together. The others had remained behind.

I felt a sudden thrill pass through me. For the first time, and in a place so solitary, I found myself alone with this woman; while my thoughts were still dwelling on the noontide apparitions, now sinister, now gracious, but always supernatural, vouchsafed to the men of remote ages.

Pepita had left the long skirt of her riding habit in the house, and now wore a short dress that did not interfere with the graceful ease of her movements. She had on her head a little Andalusian hat, which became her extremely. She carried in her hand her riding-whip, which I fancied to myself to be a magic wand, by means of which this enchantress might cast her spells over me.

I am not afraid to transcribe here these eulogies of her beauty. In this sylvan scene she appeared to me more beautiful than ever. The precaution recommended in similar cases by ascetics, to think of her beauty defaced by sickness and old age, to picture her to myself dead, the prey of corruption and of the worm, presented itself, against my will, to my imagination; and I say _against my will_, for I do not concur in the necessity for such a precaution. No thought of the material, no suggestion of the evil spirit, troubled my reason or infected my will or my senses.

What did occur to me was an argument—at least to my mind—in disproof of the efficacy of this precaution. Beauty, the creation of a Sovereign and Divine Power, may indeed be frail and ephemeral, may vanish in an instant; but the idea of beauty is eternal, and, once perceived by the mind, it lives there an immortal life. The beauty of this woman, such as it manifests itself to-day, will disappear in a few short years; the graceful form, those charming contours, the noble head that raises itself so proudly above her shoulders: all will be food for loathsome worms; but—though the material must of necessity be transformed—its idea, the creative thought—abstract beauty, in a word—what shall destroy this? Does it not exist in the Divine Mind? Once perceived and known by me, must it not continue to live in my soul, triumphing over age and even over death?

I was meditating thus, striving to tranquillise my spirit and to dissipate the doubts which you have succeeded in infusing into my mind, when Pepita and I encountered each other. I was pleased and at the same time troubled to find myself alone with her—hoping and yet fearing that the others would join us.

The silvery voice of Pepita broke the silence, and drew me from my meditations, saying—

“How silent you are, Don Luis, and how sad! I am pained to think that it is perhaps through my fault, or partly so at least, that your father has caused you to spend a disagreeable day in these solitudes, taking you away from a solitude more congenial, where there would be nothing to distract your attention from your prayers and pious books.”

I know not what answer I made to this. It must have been something nonsensical, for my mind was troubled. I did not wish to flatter Pepita by paying her profane compliments, nor, on the other hand, did I wish to answer her rudely.

She continued—

“You must forgive me if I am wrong, but I fancy that, in addition to the annoyance of seeing yourself deprived to-day of your favourite occupation, there is something else that powerfully contributes to your ill-humour.”

“And what is this something else?” I said, “since you have discovered it, or fancy you have done so.”

“This something else,” responded Pepita, “is a feeling not altogether becoming in one who is going to be a priest so soon, but very natural in a young man of twenty-two.”

On hearing this I felt the blood mount to my face, and my face burn. I imagined a thousand absurdities; I thought myself beset by evil spirits; I fancied myself tempted by Pepita, who was doubtless about to let me understand that she knew I loved her. Then my timidity gave place to haughtiness, and I looked her steadily in the face. There must have been something laughable in my look, but either Pepita did not observe it, or, if she did, she concealed the fact with amiable discretion; for she exclaimed, in the most natural manner—

“Do not be offended because I find you are not without fault. This that I have observed seems to me a slight one. You are hurt by the jests of Currito, and by being compelled to play—speaking profanely—a not very dignified _rôle_, mounted, like the reverend vicar with his eighty years, on a placid mule, and not, as a youth of your age and condition should be, on a spirited horse. The fault is the reverend dea, to whom it did not occur that you should learn to ride. To know how to manage a horse is not opposed to the career you intend to follow, and I think, now that you are here, that your father might in a few days give you the necessary instruction to enable you to do so. If you should go to Persia or to China, where there are no railroads yet, you will make but a sorry figure in those countries as a bad horseman. It is possible even that, by this oversight, the missionary himself may come to lose prestige in the eyes of those barbarians, which will make it all the more difficult for him to reap the fruits of his labours.”

This and other arguments Pepita adduced in order to persuade me to learn to ride on horseback; and I was so convinced of the necessity of a missionary’s being a good horseman, that I promised her to learn at once, taking my father as a teacher.

“On the very next expedition we make,” I said, “I shall ride the most spirited horse my father has, instead of the mule I am riding to-day.”

“I shall be very glad of it,” responded Pepita, with a smile of indescribable sweetness.

At this moment we were joined by the rest of the party, at which I was secretly rejoiced, though for no other reason than the fear of not being able to sustain the conversation, and of saying a great many foolish things, on account of the little experience I have had in conversing with women.

After our walk my father’s servants spread before us on the fresh grass, in the most charming spot beside the brook, a rural and abundant collation.

The conversation was very animated, and Pepita sustained her part in it with much discretion and intelligence. My cousin Currito returned to his jests about my manner of riding and the meekness of my mule. He called me a theologian, and said that, seated on mule-back, I looked as if I were dispensing blessings. This time, however, being now firmly resolved to learn to ride, I answered his jests with sarcastic indifference. I was silent, nevertheless, with respect to the promise I had just made Pepita. The latter, doubtless thinking as I did—although we had come to no understanding in the matter—that silence for the present was necessary to insure the complete success of the surprise that I would create afterward by my knowledge of horsemanship, said nothing of our conversation. Thus it happened, naturally and in the simplest manner, that a secret existed between us; and it produced in my mind a singular effect.

Nothing else worth telling occurred during the day.

In the afternoon we returned to the village in the same manner in which we had left it. Yet, seated on my easygoing mule and at the side of my aunt Casilda, I did not experience the same fatigue or sadness as before.

During the whole journey I listened without weariness to my aunt’s stories, amusing myself at times in conjuring up idle fancies. Nothing of what passes in my soul shall be concealed from you. I confess, then, that the figure of Pepita was, as it were, the centre, or rather the nucleus and focus, of these idle fancies.

The noonday vision in which she had appeared to me, in the shadiest and most sequestered part of the grove, brought to my memory all the visions, holy and unholy, of wondrous beings, of a condition superior to ours, that I had read of in sacred authors and in the profane classics. Pepita appeared to the eyes and on the stage of my fancy in the leafy seclusion of the grove, not as she rode before us on horseback, but in an ideal and ethereal fashion—as Venus to Æneas, as Minerva to Callimachus, as the sylph who afterward became the mother of Libusa to the Bohemian Kroco, as Diana to the son of Aristæus, as the angels in the valley of Mamre to the Patriarch, as the hippocentaur to St. Anthony in the solitude of the wilderness.

That the vision of Pepita should assume in my mind something of a supernatural character, seems to me no more to be wondered at than any of these. For an instant, seeing the consistency of the illusion, I thought myself tempted by evil spirits; but I reflected that in the few moments during which I had been alone with Pepita near the brook of the Solana, nothing had occurred that was not natural or commonplace; that it was afterward, as I rode along quietly on my mule, that some demon, hovering invisible around me, had suggested these extravagant fancies.

That night I told my father of my desire to learn to ride. I did not wish to conceal from him that it was Pepita who had suggested this desire. My father was greatly rejoiced; he embraced me, he kissed me, he said that now not you only would be my teacher, but that he also would have the pleasure of teaching me something. He ended by assuring me that in two or three weeks he would make me the best horseman of all Andalusia; able to go to Gibraltar for contraband goods, and come back laden with tobacco and cotton, after eluding the vigilance of the Custom-house officers; fit, in a word, to astonish the riders who show off their horsemanship in the fairs of Seville and Mairena, and worthy to press the flanks of Babieca,[18] Bucephalus, or even of the horses of the sun themselves, if they should by chance descend to earth, and I could catch them by the bridle.

I don’t know what you will think of this notion of my learning to ride, but I take it for granted you will see nothing wrong in it.

If you could but see how happy my father is, and how he delights in teaching me! Since the day after the excursion I told you of, I take two lessons daily. There are days on which the lesson is continuous, for we spend from morning till night on horseback. During the first week the lessons took place in the courtyard of the house, which is unpaved, and which served as a riding-school.

We now ride out into the country, but manage so that no one shall see us. My father does not want me to show myself on horseback in public until I am able to astonish every one by my fine appearance in the saddle, as he says. If the vanity natural to a father does not deceive him, this, it seems, will be very soon, for I have a wonderful aptitude for riding.

“It is easy to see that you are my son!” my father exclaims with joy, as he watches my progress.

My father is so good that I hope you will pardon him the profane language and irreverent jests in which he indulges at times. I grieve for this at the bottom of my soul, but I endure it with patience. These constant and long-continued lessons have reduced me to a pitiable condition with blisters. My father enjoins me to write to you that they are caused by mortification of the flesh.

As he declares that within a few weeks I shall be an accomplished horseman, and he does not desire to be superannuated as a master, he proposes to teach me other accomplishments of a somewhat irregular character, and sufficiently unsuited to a future priest. At times he proposes to train me in throwing the bull, in order that he may take me afterwards to Seville, where, with lance in hand, on the plains of Tablada, I shall make the braggarts and the bullies stare. Then he recalls his own youthful days, when he belonged to the body-guard, and declares that he will look up his foils, gloves, and masks, and teach me to fence. And, finally, as my father flatters himself that he can wield the Sevillian knife better than any one else, he has offered to teach me even this accomplishment also.

You can already imagine the answer I make to all this nonsense. My father replies that, in the good old times, not only the priests, but even the bishops themselves, rode about the country on horseback, putting infidels to the sword. I rejoin that this might happen in the Dark Ages, but then in our days the ministers of the Most High should know how to wield no other weapons than those of persuasion. “And what if persuasion be not enough?” rejoins my father. “Do you think it would be amiss to re-enforce argument with a few good blows of a cudgel?” The complete missionary, according to my father’s opinion, should know how on occasion to have recourse to these heroic measures, and as my father has read a great many tales and romances he cites various examples in support of his opinion. He cites, in the first place, St. James, who on his white horse, without ceasing to be an apostle, put more Moors to the sword than he preached to or convinced; he cites a certain Señor de la Vera, who, being sent on an embassy to Boabdil by Ferdinand and Isabella, became entangled in a theological discussion with the Moors in the courtyard of the Lions, and, being at the end of his arguments, drew his sword and fell upon them with fury in order to complete their conversion; and he finally cites the Biscayan hidalgo, Don Inigo de Loyola, who, in a controversy he had with a Moor regarding the purity of the Holy Virgin, growing weary at last of the impious and horrible blasphemies with which the aforesaid Moor contradicted him, fell upon him, sword in hand, and, if he had not taken to his heels, would have enforced conviction upon his soul in a terrible fashion. In regard to the incident relating to St. Ignatius, I answer my father that this was before the saint became a priest; and in regard to the other examples, I answer that historians are not agreed.

In short, I defend myself as best I can against my father’s jests, and I content myself with being a good horseman, without learning other accomplishments unsuited to the clergy, although my father assures me that not a few of the Spanish clergy understand and practise them with frequency in Spain, even in our own day, with a view to contributing to the triumph of the faith, and to the preservation or the restoration of the unity of the Church.

I am grieved to the soul by this levity of my father’s, and that he should speak with irreverence and jestingly about the most serious things; but a respectful son is not called upon to go further than I do in repressing his somewhat Voltairean freedom of speech. I say _Voltairean_, because I am not able to describe it by any other word. At heart my father is a good Catholic, and this thought consoles me.

Yesterday was the Feast of the Cross, and the village presented a very animated appearance. In each street were six or seven May-crosses covered with flowers, but none of them was so beautiful as that placed by Pepita at the door of her house. It was adorned by a perfect cascade of flowers.

In the evening we went to an entertainment at the house of Pepita. The cross which had stood at the door was now placed in a large saloon on the ground-floor, in which there is a piano, and Pepita presented us with a simple and poetic spectacle—one that I had seen when a child, but had since forgotten.

From the upper part of the cross hung down seven bands or broad ribbons, two white, two green, and three red, the symbolic colours of the theological virtues. Eight children, of five or six years old, representing the seven sacraments, and holding the seven ribbons that hung from the cross, performed with great skill a species of contra-dance. The sacrament of baptism was represented by a child wearing the white robe of a catechumen; ordination, by another child as a priest; confirmation, by a little bishop; extreme unction, by a pilgrim with staff and scrip, the latter filled with shells; marriage, by a bride and bridegroom; and penance, by a Nazarene with cross and crown of thorns.

The dance was a series of reverences, steps, evolutions, and genuflexions, rather than a dance, performed to the sound of very tolerable music, something like a march, which the organist played, not without skill, on the piano.

The little dancers, children of the servants or retainers of Pepita, after playing their parts, went away to bed loaded with gifts and caresses.

The entertainment, in the course of which we were served with refreshments, continued till twelve; the refreshments were syrup served in little cups, and afterwards chocolate with sponge-cake, and meringues and water.

Since the return of spring Pepita’s seclusion and retirement are being gradually abandoned, at which my father is greatly rejoiced. In future Pepita will receive every night, and my father desires that I shall be one of the guests.

Pepita has left off mourning, and now appears, more lovely and attractive than ever, in the lighter fabrics appropriate to the season, which is almost summer. She still dresses, however, with extreme simplicity.

I cherish the hope that my father will not now detain me here beyond the end of this month at farthest. In June we shall both join you in the city, and you shall then see how, far from Pepita, to whom I am indifferent, and who will remember me neither kindly nor unkindly, I shall have the pleasure of embracing you, and attaining at last to the happiness of being ordained.

“_Pepita Jiménez._” _Juan Valera._

_IF SHE COULD ONLY WRITE._

“Please write me a letter, Holy Sir.”
—“To Robin, I suppose?”
“You know because one evening dark
To startle us you chose,—
But on my soul ...”—“No more, a pen
And paper, daughter, give:
‘_Belovèd Rob_,’”—“‘Belo’d’?”—“Then
You don’t love him, I perceive.”
“Oh yes! and now you’ve put it,
It must stay”—“‘_If you but knew
How very sad and lonely, dear,
I am away from you!_’”
“Why, Sir, you know my very thoughts!”...
“To an old man like me
A maid’s breast is of crystal clear
Through which the heart we see.
‘_Without you all is bitterness,
But with you Paradise._’”
“Pray make those letters quite clear, Sir,
And underline them thrice.”
“‘_And if you no longer love me,
Suffer so much shall I.
That_’ ...”—“‘Suffer’? ’tis not the word, Sir;
Put ‘I shall surely die.’”
“’Twere sinning against Heaven, my child.”
“‘Die,’ sir, in black and white!”
“Not so.”—“Alas, your heart’s of ice,
Oh! if I could but write!...
Dear Father, Holy Father!
In vain you write for me,
If incarnate in the letters
Is not all that I may be.
For Christ’s sake, tell him that my soul
Within me will not stay,
That if anguish does not kill me
’Tis because I weep all day.
That my lips, the roses of his breath,
Know only how to close;
And that all smiles and laughter
Long ago within me froze.
That the eyes he thought so lovely
Are heavy with distress,
Since there’s nobody to look at them
They shut for wretchedness.
That for the echo of his voice
My ears are all athirst;
That of all the torments suffer’d
His absence is the worst ...
And that it is _his_ fault my heart’s
In such sweet-bitter plight!...
Good heavens, how many things I’d put
If I could only write!...”

_Campoamor._

_DOCTOR PERTINAX._

St. Peter was polishing the large knocker of the Gate of Heaven, leaving it as bright as the sun—which is not to be wondered at since the knocker St. Peter was cleaning _is_ the sun we see appearing every morning in the east.

The holy porter, merrier than his colleagues at Madrid, was humming some little air not unlike _Ça ira_ of the French.

“Hola! You get up very early,” said he, bending his head and staring at a person who had stopped before the threshold of the gate.

The unknown did not reply, but bit his lips, which were thin, pale, and dry.

“No doubt,” continued St. Peter, “you are the savant who was dying last night?... What a night you made me pass, friend!... I never closed my eyes once, thinking you might be likely to knock; my last orders were not to let you wait a moment, a piece of respect paid to your sort here in heaven. Well, welcome, and come in; I can’t leave the gate. Go through, and then straight on.... There is no entresol.”

The stranger did not stir from the threshold, but fixed his little blue eyes on the venerable bald head of St. Peter, who had turned his back to go on rubbing up the sun.

The newcomer was thin, short, and sallow, with somewhat feminine movements, neat in his attire, and without a hair on his face. He wore his shroud elegantly and nicely adjusted, and he measured his gestures with academic severity.

After gazing for some time at St. Peter working, he wheeled round and was about to return on the journey he had come he knew not how; but he found he was standing above a gloomy abyss, in which the darkness almost seemed palpable, and a horrisonous tempest was roaring with flashes of livid light at intervals like lightning. There was not a trace of any stairs, and the machine by which he dimly remembered he had mounted was not in sight either.

“Sir,” exclaimed he, in a vibrating and acrid voice: “May I know what this means? Where am I? Why was I brought here.”

“Ah, you haven’t gone yet; I am very glad, for I had forgotten something.” And pulling his memorandum-book out of his pocket, the saint moistened the point of the pencil between his lips and asked—

“Your name?”

“I am Doctor Pertinax, author of the book stereotyped in its twentieth edition, called ‘_Philosophia Ultima_.’...”

St. Peter was not a quick writer, and of all this had only put down Pertinax....

“Well, Pertinax of what?”

“Of what? Oh, I see, you mean from where? just as they say: Thales of Miletus, Parmenides of Elea....”

“Exactly, Quixote of la Mancha....”

“Write down, Pertinax of Torrelodones. And now, may I know what this farce means?”

“This farce?”

“Yes, sir. I am the victim of a farce, this is a comedy: my enemies, my colleagues, with the help of subtle artifices and theatrical machinery, exalting my mind with some beverage, have doubtless prepared all this. But the deception is useless. My power of reasoning is above all these appearances, and protests with a mighty voice against this low trickery; neither masks nor limelights are of any avail, for I am not taken in by such palpable effrontery, and I say what I always said, and which is enframed on page 315 of my ”_Philosophia Ultima_,“ note _b._ of the sub-note Alpha, _i.e._, that after death the deception of appearances will not exist, and there will no longer be any desire for life, _nolite vivere_, which is only a chain of shadows linked with desires, &c., &c.... Therefore, one of the two: either I have died, or I have not died; if I have died, it cannot possibly be I as I was when alive half an hour ago, and all that I see around me, as it can only be a representation, is not, for I am not; but if I have not died, and am myself, what I was and am, it is clear that although what I see around me exists in me by representation, it is not what my enemies wish me to believe, but an unworthy farce designed to frighten me; but ’tis in vain, for....”

And the philosopher swore like a coal-heaver. And the swearing was not the worst, for he lifted up his voice towards Heaven, the inhabitants of which were beginning to awake at the noise, while some of the blest were already descending by the staircase of clouds, tinged some as with woad, others with a sea-blue.

Meanwhile St. Peter held his sides with both hands to keep from bursting into the laughter with which he was nearly choking. Pertinax became more irritated at the saint’s laughter, and the latter had to stop to try and pacify him by the following words—

“My dear sir, farces are of no avail here, nor is it a question of deceiving you, but of bringing you to Heaven, which it appears you have merited for some good works of which I am ignorant; in any case, calm yourself and go up, for the inhabitants above are already astir, and you will find somebody who will conduct you to where all will be explained to your taste, so that not a shadow of doubt will remain, for doubts all disappear in this region, where the dullest thing is the sun which I am polishing.”

“I do not say _you_ are deceiving me, for you seem an honest man; the tricksters are others, and you only an instrument, unconscious of what you are doing.”

“I am St. Peter....”

“They have persuaded you that you are; but there’s no proof that you are.”

“Dear sir, I have been porter here for more than eighteen hundred years....”

“Apprehension, preconception....”

“Preconception fiddlesticks!” cried the saint, now somewhat angry; “I am St. Peter, and you a savant, and like all that come to us, an ignorant fool, with more than one bee in your bonnet....”

The gateway was now crowded with angels and cherubim, saints, male and female, and a number of the blest, who all formed a circle round the stranger and smilingly surveyed him.

* * * * *

From amongst them there stepped forth St. Job:—“I think,” said he, “that this gentleman would be convinced that he had lived in error if he could see the Universe as it actually is. Why not appoint a commission from amongst us to accompany Doctor Pertinax and show him the construction of the immense piece of architecture, as Lope de Vega says, whom I am sorry not to see among us.”

Great was the respect for St. Job, and they immediately proceeded to a nominal vote, which took up a good deal of time, as more than half the martyrology had repaired to the gate. The following were by the results appointed members of the commission:—St. Job, by acclamation; Diogenes, by a majority; and St. Thomas the Apostle, by a majority. St. Thomas of Aquinas and Duns Scotus had votes.