It was late before the Swan blew out the tallow candle which Aunt
Gáspara placed every day, always with much grumbling, in his brass
candlestick. Seated at the little table littered with books, he had
before him a sheet of paper half covered with lines of unequal
length, variegated with blots and corrections, little heaps of sand,
and here and there a flourish. Segundo would not have slept all night
if he had not first written down the poem which, from the moment he
had left the cross, had been running through his brain. Only that,
before taking up the pen, he seemed to have the poem already composed
in his head, so that all he had to do was to turn the spigot and it
would flow out in a stream, and when he took the pen in his hand the
verses, instead of rushing forth, hid themselves or vanished. A few
strophes fell on the paper, rounded, fluent, finished, with
harmonious and opportune rhymes, with a certain sweetness and
sonorousness extremely delightful to the author himself, who
scribbled them down hastily before they should take flight. Of
others, however, only the first two lines occurred to him, and,
perhaps, the fourth--this last rounded, effective; but the third line
was wanting and he must hunt for it, fill up the space, graft on the
syllables to eke out the meter. The poet paused and looked up at the
ceiling, biting the ends of his mustache, and then the idle pen
traced, obeying the mechanical impulse of the hand, a cocked hat, a
comet, or some other equally irrelevant design. Sometimes after
rejecting seven or eight rhymes he would content himself with the
ninth, which was neither better nor worse than the others. When a
superfluous syllable would cause a line to halt, he must look for
another adverb, another adjective. And the accents! If the poet could
only enjoy the privilege, of saying, eternél, for instance, instead
of etérnel, it would be so easy to write verses!
Confounded technical difficulties! The divine fire of inspiration
glowed and burned in Segundo's mind, but as soon as he tried to
transfer it to the paper, to give expression to what he felt--to
condense, in words, a world of dreams, a psychic nebula--his mind
became a blank. To unite the form with the idea, to imprison feeling
in the golden links of rhyme! Ah, what a light and flowery chain in
appearance, and how hard to weave in reality! How deceptive the
natural grace, the facile harmony of the master! How easy it seems to
express simple, familiar images, to utter the chimeras of the
imagination and the heart in easy and flowing meter, and yet how
impossible it is, for him who is not called Becquer, to give his
verse those palpitating, diaphanous, azure wings on which the
Becquerian butterfly soars!
While the Swan continues his task of effacing and correcting,
Leocadia is in her bedroom, preparing to retire. On other nights she
went to her room with a smile on her lips, her face glowing, her eyes
humid and half-closed, with deep circles under them, her hair in
disorder. And on those nights she was in no hurry to retire; she
would busy herself arranging the articles on her bureau, she would
even look at herself in the glass of her cheap toilet table. To-night
her lips were dry, her cheeks pale, she went at once to bed, loosened
her clothing, and let it fall on the floor, put out the light and
buried her face in the cool, thick cotton sheets. She did not wish to
think, all she wished was to forget and to sleep. She tried to lie
still. A thousand needles seemed to pierce her flesh; she turned
around, in search of a cool spot, then turned again in search of
another, and presently she threw off the sheets. She felt a horrible
restlessness, a savor of bitterness in her mouth. In the silence of
the night she could hear the tumultuous beating of her heart; if she
lay on her left side its noise almost deafened her. She tried to fix
her thoughts on indifferent subjects, and repeated to herself with
monotonous and persistent regularity--"To-morrow is Sunday, the
children will not come." In vain; her brain boiled, her blood burned
as before. Leocadia was jealous.
Measureless, nameless torture! Hitherto the poor schoolmistress
had not known the accompaniment of love, jealousy, whose barbed sting
pierces the soul, whose consuming fire dries up the blood, whose
chill freezes the heart, whose restless anguish makes the nerves
quiver. Segundo scarcely noticed the young girls of Vilamorta; as for
the peasant girls, they did not exist for him, he did not even regard
them as women; so that Leocadia had attributed the poet's hours of
coldness to the bad offices of the muses. But now! She recalled the
poem, "A los ojos azules," and his manner of reciting it. Those
honeyed verses were to her gall and wormwood. Tears sprang to her
eyes, and she broke into convulsive sobs which shook her frame and
made the bedstead creak and the cornhusks of the mattress rustle.
Still her overwrought brain did not suspend its activity. There was
not a doubt but that Segundo was in love with Señora de Comba; but
she was a married woman. Bah! in Madrid and in novels all the married
women have lovers. And then, who could resist Segundo, a poet who was
the rival of Becquer, who was young, handsome, ardent, when he wished
to be so?
What could Leocadia do to avert this great calamity? Was it not
better to resign herself to it? Ah, resignation, that is easily said!
Why had God denied her the power to express her feelings? Why had she
not knelt before Segundo, begging him for a little love, describing
to him and communicating to him the flame that consumed the marrow of
her bones? Why had she remained mute when she had so many things to
say? Segundo would not go to Las Vides; so much the better. He had no
money; better still. He would accept no position, he would not leave
Vilamorta, better and better. But what did it matter if after all
Segundo did not love her; if he had turned away from her with a
gesture which she could still see in the darkness, or rather in the
lurid light of jealousy.
How warm the night was! How restless she felt! She got out of bed
and threw herself on the floor, thinking to find some relief in the
coolness of the boards. Instead of feeling any alleviation she was
seized with a fit of trembling. A lump seemed to rise in her throat
that prevented her from breathing. She made an effort to stand up but
found that she was not able; she felt a hysterical attack coming on,
but she tried to restrain her cries, her sobs, her contortions, in
order not to awaken Flores. For a time she succeeded; but at last the
nervous crisis conquered; her rigid limbs writhed, she dug her nails
into her throat, she rolled about and beat her temples against the
floor. Then a cold perspiration broke out over her body, and for a
moment she lost consciousness. When she returned to herself she was
calm but exhausted. She rose to her feet, went back to bed, drew the
clothing over her and sank into a sort of stupor, in which there was
neither thought nor feeling. The beneficent sleep of early morning
had wrapped her senses in oblivion.
She woke late, unrested, exhausted, and, as it were, stupefied.
She could scarcely manage to dress herself; it seemed to her as if a
year had passed since the night before, and as for her jealous rage,
her projects of resistance--how could she have thought of such
things? All that mattered to her, all she desired, was that Segundo
should be happy, that he should achieve his high destiny, that he
should be famous. The rest was madness, a convulsion, an attack of
the nerves to which she had given way, overcome by the sense of her
loneliness.
The schoolmistress opened the bureau-drawer in which she kept her
savings and the money for the household expenses. Beside a pile of
stockings was a slim and flabby purse. A short time ago it had
contained a few thousand reals, all she possessed in money. Scarcely
thirty dollars remained, and out of these she must pay Cansin for a
black merino dress, the confectioner for liqueurs, and some friends
at Orense for purchases made on her account. And she would not
receive her little income until November. A brilliant prospect truly!
After a moment of anguish caused by the struggle between her
economical principles and her resolution, Leocadia washed her face,
smoothed her hair, put on her dress and her silk manto and left the
house. Being Sunday, the streets were full of people, and the cracked
bell of the chapel kept up an incessant ringing. The plaza was full
of bustle and animation. Before Doña Eufrasia's door, three or four
mules, whose clerical riders were in the shop, were impatiently
trying to protect themselves from the persistent attacks of the flies
and hornets, shaking their heads, stamping their hoofs, and switching
their flanks with their rough tails. And the fruit-venders, too, in
the intervals between selling their wares and chatting and laughing
with one another, were watchful to chase away the troublesome insects
that settled on the cherries and tomatoes wherever the skin was
broken, leaving uncovered the sweet pulp or the red flesh. But the
grand conclave of the flies was held in the confectionery of Ramon.
It was nauseating to see the insects buzzing blindly in the hot
atmosphere, entangling their legs in the caramels, and then making
desperate efforts to free themselves from their sweet captivity. A
swarm of flies were buzzing around a méringue pie which adorned the
center of the shelf, and Ramon having grown tired of defending it
against their attacks, the invading army rifled it at their pleasure;
around the plate lay the bodies of the flies which had perished in
the attack; some dry and shriveled, others swollen and with white and
livid abdomens.
Leocadia entered the back shop. Ramon was there, with his
shirt-sleeves rolled up, exposing his brawny arms, shaking a saucepan
gently to cool the egg-paste which it contained; then he proceeded to
cut the paste with a hot knife, the sugar fizzing and sending forth a
pleasant odor as it came in contact with the hot metal. The
confectioner passed the back of his hand across his perspiring brow.
What did Leocadia want? Brizar anisette, eh? Well, it was all
sold. "You, Rosa, isn't it true that the anisette is all sold?"
The confectioner's wife was seated in a corner of the kitchen,
feeding a sickly-looking infant. She fixed her gloomy, morbidly
jealous gaze on the schoolmistress and cried in a harsh voice:
"If you come for more anisette, remember the three bottles that
are still unpaid for."
"I will pay them now," answered the schoolmistress, taking a
handful of dollars from her pocket.
"Never mind that now, there is no hurry," stammered the
confectioner, ashamed of his wife's rudeness.
"Take it, Ramon. Why, it was to give it to you that I came."
"If you insist; but the deuce a hurry I was in."
Leocadia hastened away. Not to have remembered the confectioner's
wife! Who would ask anything from Ramon before that jealous tigress,
who, small as she was, and sickly as she looked, ruled her burly
husband with a rod of iron. Perhaps Cansin----
The clothier was displaying his goods to a group of countrywomen,
one of whom persisted in declaring the bunting she was looking at to
be cotton, rubbing it between her fingers to prove herself in the
right. Cansin, on his side, was rubbing the cloth with exactly
opposite views.
"How should it be cotton, woman, how should it be cotton?" he
cried in his shrill voice, putting the cloth close to the buyer's
face. Cansin appeared so angry that Leocadia did not venture to
address him; she passed on, quickening her steps. She thought of her
other suitor, the tavern-keeper. But she suddenly remembered, with a
feeling of repulsion, his thick lips, his cheeks that seemed to drip
blood. Turning over in her mind every possible means by which she
might obtain the money she needed, a thought occurred to her. She
rejected it, she weighed it, she accepted it. Quickening her pace,
she walked toward the abode of the lawyer García.
At her first knock Aunt Gáspara opened the door. What a meaning
contraction of the brow and lips, what a sour face greeted her!
Leocadia, abashed and covered with confusion, stood still on the
threshold. The old woman, like a vigilant watch-dog, barred the
entrance, ready to bark or bite at the first sign of danger.
"What did you want?" she growled.
"To speak to Don Justo. May I?" said the schoolmistress humbly.
"I don't know. I'll see."
And the dragon without further ceremony shut the door in
Leocadia's face. Leocadia waited. At the end of ten minutes a harsh
voice called to her:
"Come on!"
The heart of the schoolmistress bounded within her. To go through
the house in which Segundo was born! It was dark and shabby, cold and
bare, like the abode of a miser, in which the furniture is made to do
service until it falls to pieces with old age. Crossing a hall,
Leocadia saw through a half-open door some garments belonging to
Segundo hanging on a peg, and recognized them with a secret thrill.
At the end of the hall was the lawyer's office, an ill-kept, untidy
room, full of papers and dusty and uninteresting-looking books. Aunt
Gáspara withdrew, and Leocadia remained standing before the lawyer,
who, without inviting her to be seated, said to her with a suspicious
and hostile air, and in the severe tones of a judge:
"And what can I do for you, Señora Doña Leocadia?"
A formula accompanied inwardly by the observation:
"I wager that the scheming schoolmistress has come to tell me
that she is going to marry that crazy boy and that I shall have to
support them both."
Leocadia fixed her dejected gaze on García's face, trying to
discover in his dry and withered features some resemblance to the
features of a beloved countenance. His face, indeed, resembled
Segundo's in all but the expression, which was very different; that
of the father's being as cautious and suspicious as the son's was
dreamy and abstracted.
"Señor Don Justo----" stammered the schoolmistress. "I am sorry
to trouble you. I hope you will not take this visit amiss--they told
me that you----Señor--I need a loan----"
"Money!" roared the lawyer, clenching his fists. "You ask me for
money!"
"Yes, Señor, on some property----"
"Ah!" (sudden transition in the lawyer, who became all softness
and amiability). "But how stupid I am! Come in, come in and sit down,
Doña Leocadia. I hope you are quite well. Why, anyone might find
himself in a difficulty. And what property is it? Talking together
people come to an understanding, Señora. Perhaps the vineyard of La
Junqueira, or the other little one, El Adro? Of late years they have
yielded little----"
The business was discussed and the promissory note was signed.
Aunt Gáspara meanwhile walked uneasily and with ghost-like tread, up
and down the hall outside. When her brother issued from the room and
gave her some orders she crossed herself hastily several times on the
forehead and the breast. She then descended stealthily to the cellar,
and, after some little delay, returned and emptied on the lawyer's
table the contents of her apron, whence rolled four objects covered
with dust and cobwebs, from which proceeded, as they struck the
table, the peculiar sound produced by coin. These objects were an
earthern savings-bank, a stocking, a leathern sack, and a little
muslin bag.
That afternoon Leocadia said to Segundo:
"Do you know what, sweetheart? It is a pity that for the sake of
a new suit or some such trifle you should lose the chance of
establishing yourself and obtaining what you wish. See, I have a
little money here that I have no particular use for. Do you want it,
eh? I will give it to you now and you can return it to me by and by."
Segundo drew himself up and, with a genuine outburst of offended
dignity, exclaimed:
"Never propose anything like that to me again. I accept your
attentions at times so as not to see you breaking your heart at my
refusal, but that you should clothe me and support me--no, that is
too much."
Half an hour later the schoolmistress renewed her entreaties
affectionately, availing herself of the opportunity, seeing the Swan
somewhat pensive. Between him and her there ought to be no _mine_ or
_thine_. Why should he hesitate to accept what it afforded her so
great a pleasure to give? Did her future by chance depend upon those
few paltry dollars? With them he could present himself decently at
Las Vides, publish his verses, go to Madrid. It would make her so
happy to see him triumph, eclipse Campoamor, Nuñez de Arce, and all
the rest! And what was there to prevent Segundo from returning her
the money, and with interest, too? Talking thus, Leocadia filled a
handkerchief tied at the four corners with ounces and _doblillos_ and
_centenes_ and handed it to the poet, saying in a voice rendered
husky by her emotion:
"Will you slight me?"
Segundiño took the unbeautiful, ungraceful head of the
schoolmistress between his hands, and looking fixedly in the eyes
that looked at him humid with happiness he said:
"Leocadia, I know that you are the one human being in this world
who loves me truly."
"Segundiño, my life," she stammered, beside herself with
happiness, "it isn't worth mentioning. Just as I give you that--as I
hope for salvation--I would give you the blood from my veins!"
And what would Aunt Gáspara have said had she known that several
of the ounces from the stocking, the savings-bank, the sack, and the
bag would return immediately, loyal and well-trained, to sleep, if
not under the rafters of the cellar, at least under the roof of Don
Justo?