GONZALO MARRIES
The weighty and serious matters on Don Rosendo's mind prevented his
giving the painful incident that had disturbed the even tenor of his
house the especial attention that he would have accorded it at any other
time. Nevertheless he was much upset when he learned of Gonzalo's
treachery and his younger daughter's misconduct, and he held long
conversations with his wife on the subject--irrefutable proof that great
men may be full of exalted, grand ideas, and yet not blind to the things
of this world, as is usually supposed. His first impulse was to send off
Gonzalo and shut his daughter up in a convent, but the entreaties of
Dona Paula and his own clear-minded conclusions led him to change his
purpose.
At the expiration of some days of indecision (the burden of the other
cares caused their number to be few) he granted the ill-conducted young
people permission to marry; but not without first having an interview
with Cecilia, and hearing from her lips that she willingly forgave her
sister, and wished the marriage to take place as soon as possible.
The consent being given, Gonzalo presented himself one afternoon at
Belinchon's house. It was a fortnight since he had been there, and his
heart sank at the prospect in spite of his wishes having been so fully
and promptly realized. He dreaded the first interview, and not without
reason. Dona Paula received him with marked coldness, and even the
servants' manners were tinged with a hostility which hurt him.
Then the idea of seeing Cecilia made him tremble. But when Venturita
came into the room all his fear and all his depression vanished. Her
sprightly chatter, the bright sparkle of her eyes, and her graceful,
mocking coquetry quickly raised his spirits and transported him into the
seventh heaven. The enchanting enthraldom of her voice and manners had
lulled him into an indifference to all else by the time Cecilia entered
the room.
The sight of his victim exercised a strange and sudden effect upon him;
he automatically rose from his seat, and his face changed color.
"How do you do, Gonzalo?"
This was said by Cecilia, as if she had seen him the preceding day and
nothing particular had happened, only she was a shade paler than usual.
But the young man was so overwhelmed with confusion that he could not
reply to this simple question without stuttering. The clear and tranquil
glance of Cecilia affected him like an electric current, and he turned
to Dona Paula, whose face was overshadowed with a severe and melancholy
expression, while Venturita looked out of the window with assumed
indifference. At last he resumed his seat, trembling violently, and
Cecilia, who had come to ask her mother for the keys of the cupboards,
gave him a quiet smile of farewell as she left the room.
The preparations for the marriage began. Dona Paula had the delicacy,
rare in a low-born woman, not to allow a single article of wearing
apparel made for Cecilia to serve for her sister.
So a fresh trousseau was quickly put in hand. To the great surprise of
the needlewomen, Cecilia joined in the work. Some attributed this
concession to kindness, others to want of feeling. It is true that,
although a little thin, her face expressed the same quiet cheerfulness
as ever, and her fingers worked at her sister's initials with the same
dexterity as when she embroidered her own. But the cutting of the
scissors and the sewing of the needles seemed to say horrible things,
ah! very horrible things, instead of those pretty ones which used to
make her tremble with joy.
They remained buried in her heart, however, and the keenest observer
would have read nothing in those large, liquid, beautiful eyes but the
usual quiet smile.
"Didn't I tell you so, girl?" whispered Teresa in Valentina's ear as she
looked at our young friend.
"Yes, Senorita Cecilia is incapable of loving anybody."
Gonzalo avoided the workroom, and when perchance he appeared he was so
abashed and confused that the embroideresses winked at each other and
smiled. Seeing him so embarrassed, and Cecilia so calm and indifferent,
you would have thought that the parts played by both in the sad love
affair had been reversed.
In the meantime tongues wagged on the subject in the shops, in the
houses, in the streets, and at the Promenade--there was no end to it.
The event caused a great sensation in the town. While preparations for
Cecilia's marriage had been going on, it had been the general opinion
that Gonzalo showed a deplorable want of taste, that he was throwing
himself away on the poor girl, who was represented as little less than a
monster of ugliness; and they all wondered why he had not chosen her
sister, who was so lovely and so graceful. Directly they learned of the
change their opinions suddenly veered round.
"What a scandal! What a disgraceful proceeding! What parents to consent
to such infamy! Where was the shame of some people? Poor girl, so
beautiful, so slender, with such lovely eyes! Well, I consider her
prettier than her sister."
"So do I."
We must not miss the opportunity of saying that this eternal discontent
of people with regard to the actions of their fellow-creatures, much as
it upsets us, does not argue intentional unkindness, malignity, or envy,
as we are apt to think when we are the object of their remarks; it is
nothing but an evident tribute to the imperfection of our planetary
existence and the love of the ideal that every one bears within himself
without ever seeing it realized. After having thus shown ourselves both
philosophical and optimistic, we will proceed with our story.
The day of the marriage arrived. It was solemnized early in the morning
at Belinchon's house, in the presence of a few relations and friends;
and after taking chocolate the bride and bridegroom left for Tejada.
This was an estate about four miles from the town, where Don Rosendo's
genius, aided by money, had had full scope to produce great effects.
When he bought the place it consisted of several fields and a wood,
where cows pastured, and the notes of thrushes, linnets, and blackbirds
filled the air. Don Rosendo began by doing away with this indigenous
colony, and substituting a foreign one for it. The breed of cattle of
the country was proscribed and replaced by one from Switzerland. The
same ruthlessness was shown in robbing the trees of their native
songsters, and hanging them with cages full of rare, exotic birds that
croaked dolefully all the year round at sunset. The energetic
reformatory spirit of Don Rosendo did not stop at the animal kingdom,
for it was brought with equal relentlessness to bear upon the vegetable
one, and the character of the place was thus completely transformed. By
degrees the great shady chestnut trees, with their gnarled trunks; the
gigantic oaks, which had renewed their scalloped foliage more than three
hundred times; the walnut trees, that looked like enormous thistles; the
luxuriant orchard trees, bowed to the ground with the weight of the
luscious fruit, and many other trees pertaining to a good landed
property in the country, all gradually succumbed to the saw and the ax.
Washingtonians, araucarias, excelsas, and many other trees of foreign
extraction, chiefly of the coniferae family, were planted in their stead,
which made the place look something like a cemetery in the eyes of the
vulgar.
However, when any such remark was made to Don Rosendo he merely replied
that coniferae had the advantage of foliage during the winter, and the
vulgar would return that that very fact made it look like a cemetery in
the winter, and in the summer too. But Don Rosendo did not deign to
reply to such a silly remark, and in this he was right.
As everything that is worth much costs much, the foreigners of both
kingdoms absorbed a good deal of Belinchon's income. The birds of the
country had fed themselves and dressed their feathers without any
extraneous assistance, but those from abroad, shut up in cages and
enormous aviaries made for the purpose, required several attendants to
feed them and to keep their places clean. Then homesickness caused great
blanks among them which could only be filled by sending expensive orders
to Paris and London. The same thing happened with the vegetable kingdom,
only of every plant that succeeded by dint of great care and cultivation
thirty or forty died, and the constant attention of the gardeners could
not prevent this mortality.
The house was also neither Spanish nor European in style. It was built
in Chinese style, with little pagodas rising upon every side. I do not
know what connection these little towers had with Babel, the scene of
the confusion of tongues, but I must tell you that in the neighborhood
the fantastic building went by the name of "Don Rosendo's Babel."
It was magnificently furnished, and wanting in none of the comforts and
refinements afforded by modern civilization to the rich. It had a
splendid room, decorated in Persian style, a bathroom, a large
dining-room, fairly well frescoed, and several beautiful little airy
apartments, where the light penetrated through colored windows.
So Gonzalo and Venturita repaired to this nest two hours after their
union had been solemnized. On their way thither they had talked without
embarrassment on different subjects. The young man had imprinted several
kisses on the cheeks of the girl, as when they were betrothed; but on
arriving at the "Babel," and finding themselves alone in the Persian
chamber, he was overwhelmed with confusion and awkwardness.
He tried to find subjects of conversation, but he failed in the attempt.
Venturita scarcely answered him, but she looked at him with an
expression of mingled passion and coquetry.
"Look here, stop--stop talking that nonsense. Leave off and give me a
kiss," she added laughing, and patting his mouth with her primrose hand.
Then Gonzalo colored deeply, and kissed her passionately.
His passion of these first days bordered on madness. Venturita, with her
singular beauty, the languid, voluptuous expression of her eyes, and
her invincible tendency to recline, was a perfect odalisque. But unlike
one in being merely a beautiful animal, she was full of a mischievous
spirit that bubbled forth at every moment in rather equivocal jokes and
meaning puns, so that Gonzalo was always roaring with merriment, in
ignorance of the danger of that mood between husband and wife. The life
they led was very sedentary, for Ventura did not like going out; the sun
gave her headache and the cold hurt her throat. She spent much time in
the adornment of her person, and changed her dresses as often as if she
were in Madrid, so that the greater part of the day was spent in her
dressing-room. This did not displease Gonzalo; for, on the contrary,
when he saw her appear looking lovely and graceful, exhaling a
penetrating perfume like a tropical flower, he was transported with
delight, and a tremor of passion shook his whole being as he thought
that that exquisite work of nature was his--entirely his.
Nevertheless, everything was not quite like what he had imagined it
would be. Sometimes the young bride, half in earnest, half in joke, shut
herself up in her room and there spent three or four hours without
permitting him to enter, in spite of his affectionate entreaties through
the keyhole.
"I rob you of the sight of me for some time," she would say afterward,
laughing, "to increase your wish to be with me."
And, in fact, these coquetries augmented the young man's passion to such
an extent that it became quite a madness. When the beauty felt inclined,
they walked in the grounds, but they did not go far. On arriving at one
of the few shady, cool retreats which had escaped the reforming hand of
Don Rosendo, the girl liked to sit down--but neither upon the grass nor
the rustic seats, so Gonzalo had to run and fetch an armchair for her
from the house.
"Now sit here at my feet."
The young man then prostrated himself at her side and passionately
kissed the hands that his beautiful wife gave him.
"Samson and Delilah!" she laughingly exclaimed, putting her snowdrop
hands through the ruddy curly beard of her husband.
"You are right," he replied with a sigh. "A Samson without hair."
"You no hair!--and this--what is this?" she returned, ruffling his locks
and making them stand up like a broom.
"I am speaking of my strength."
"You have not strength, eh? Let's see--show me your arms."
Laughing, he took off his jacket, and turning up the sleeves of his
shirt he brought to view his enormous gladiatorial arms, on which the
powerful muscles stood up like a network of cords.
"What strength!" exclaimed the girl, taking hold of one arm with both
hands, which were unable to compass it. Then, seized with sudden
enthusiasm and admiration, she added:
"How strong, how handsome you are, Gonzalo! Let me bite your arm?"
And bending down she tried to insert her pretty little teeth into the
flesh, but the youth had such iron muscles that her teeth only passed
over the skin without breaking it.
Then she grew vexed, and tried again to succeed in piercing the flesh at
all costs. Finally he relaxed his muscles, and said:
"I will let you bite me, but only on condition that you draw blood."
"No, not so," she replied, while her pleased smile expressed the wish to
do it.
"Yes, you must draw blood; if not I won't let you do it."
Then the girl proceeded to bite her husband's arm.
"Harder!" he cried.
And she bit harder.
"Harder!" he repeated.
And she bit harder still, while a mischievous smile sparkled in her
eyes.
"Harder! harder!"
"Enough," she said, rising from her seat; "don't you see I have drawn
blood? How cruel, just as if I were a dog!"
And bending down again, she sucked with delight the blood that welled up
in the arm. Both smiled with repressed passion, and then they looked at
the little red circle made by the girl's teeth.
"Do you see?" she repeated, half ashamed. "Well, it was one of your
strange fancies!"
"Thanks! I should like this mark to remain here forever. But no,
unfortunately it will soon go."
"I can renew it every day," she mischievously returned.
"I should be very pleased."
"You want to make your wife into a little dog; well, you had better say
so plainly."
And suddenly embracing him, and kissing him passionately on the eyes,
cheeks, mouth, and beard, she repeated incessantly:
"Say so plainly! say so plainly, you bear! This mouth is mine, and I
kiss it. This beard is mine, and I kiss it, too. This neck is mine, and
I kiss it. These arms are mine, mine, and I kiss them too!"
"Take me altogether; my life is yours," he said, intoxicated with
happiness.
"I love you; I love you, Gonzalo, for your good looks and your
strength. Look, let me put my hand on yours--what a difference! It looks
like an ant."
"A white ant," he returned, taking the little hand between his own great
strong ones.
"I love you; I love you, Gonzalo. Take me in your arms. Could you walk
with me like that?"
"Oh! you are nothing."
And lifting her like a feather, and putting her on his arm like a child,
he began jumping about the garden.
"Not so fast! Carry me gently. Let us go for a walk."
So he carried her all over the park without feeling any fatigue. And
from that day that kind of walk pleased the girl so much that whenever
they went out she clung to her husband's neck for him to carry her.
The servants smiled and shook their heads at the sight. But a still
better way of amusing her was very soon discovered. There was a swing
near the house, out of order, but more from time than use. It was
repaired, and as soon as it was ready it afforded many hours of
occupation to Gonzalo.
"If you could only know how I enjoy it! Push a little more."
Whereupon the youth's vigorous push made the swing fly, and the girl's
eyes closed and her nostrils dilated with a feeling of intense delight,
and Gonzalo liked seeing her so well amused.
Thus twenty days went by. During that time they received two visits from
Pablito and Piscis; once they came in the tilbury, and once on
horseback. The chief object on this last occasion was to ride a mare
that Pablo had received in exchange for an older one. And strange to
say, in spite of being so much in love, our young friend received the
visits of the two equestrians with inexpressible delight, entered deeply
into their interests, and when they had gone he had a feeling of void in
his life, for his blood and his muscles were suffering from the
extremely sedentary life he was leading. One day he proposed to his wife
to go shooting, for he was an excellent shot and an indefatigable
sportsman. Venturita made no objection as long as she could go with him,
and so it was arranged. Therefore, one morning they went in search of a
covey of partridges, the existence of which Gonzalo had been aware of
since the day of his arrival at Tejada. But before they had gone half a
mile from the house Venturita was quite done up, she could not take
another step. Her husband, therefore, was obliged to carry her back in
his arms, and forego his favorite pastime.
Dona Paula, who had regarded the marriage with great aversion, did not
make any allusion to visiting the bride and bridegroom until many days
had elapsed. She then suggested to Pablito to accompany her, because she
feared it would pain Cecilia to do so; but the girl quietly expressed
her intention of also going to Tejada. So one afternoon the mother and
daughter started off to the place in an open carriage; but on coming in
sight of the well-known little stone towers, Cecilia turned pale--she
felt a pain at her heart and she could hardly see; so when Dona Paula
saw her daughter's indisposition she gave orders to the coachman to turn
back.
"Poor girl!" she said, kissing her. "You see you can not do it."
"I shall be able--I shall be able to," she returned, covering her eyes
with her hand.
On the following day Dona Paula paid the visit, accompanied by Pablo,
and she cordially invited the bride and bridegroom to leave the retired
spot and to come to them in town, so this they did the following week.
Cecilia came down to the street door to receive the couple; she embraced
and kissed her sister warmly, she gave her hand to Gonzalo, and kept it
from trembling by a supreme effort of will; and the young man embraced
her with a fraternal affection, thinking himself forgiven.
The bride and bridegroom were put in possession of the rooms that Dona
Paula had destined for her eldest daughter, and, to all appearances,
life resumed its peaceful course. Nevertheless, Gonzalo was sorry to
see that they were not environed with that warm and genial atmosphere
which adds so much to the comfort of the domestic hearth. Everybody was
kind and attentive, from Don Rosendo down to the lowest servant; but no
affection was shown them. Ventura did not notice it, or if she noticed
it she did not much mind.