As the time occupied in the gathering of the grapes and the
elaboration of the wine in the spacious cellar of Mendez was so
prolonged, and as in that part of the country everyone has his own
crop, however small, to gather in, part of the guests went away,
desirous of attending to their own vineyards. Señorito de Limioso
needed to see for himself how, between oïdium, the blackbirds, the
neighbors, and the wasps, not a single bunch of grapes had been left
him; the Señoritas de Molende had to hang up with their own hands the
grapes of their famous Tostado, renowned throughout the country; and
for similar reasons Saturnino Agonde, the arch-priest, and the curate
of Naya took their leave one by one, the court of Las Vides being
reduced to Carmen Agonde, maid of honor, Clodio Genday, Aulic
councilor, Tropiezo, court physician, and Segundo, who might well be
the page or the troubadour charged to divert the châtelaine with his
ditties.
Segundo was consumed with a feverish impatience hitherto unknown
to him. Since the day of the interview in the lemon tree Nieves had
shunned every occasion of being alone with him; and the feverish
dream that haunted his sleep, the intolerable anguish which consumed
him, was that he had advanced no further than the fugitive _yes_,
which he sometimes even doubted he had heard. He could not endure
this slow torture, this ceaseless martyrdom; he would have been less
unhappy if instead of encouraging him Nieves had requited his love
with open scorn. It was not the brutal desire for positive victories
which thus tormented him; all he wished was to convince himself that
he was really loved, and that under that steely corset a tender heart
throbbed. And so mad was his passion that when he found it impossible
to approach Nieves, he was seized by an almost irresistible impulse
to cry out, "Nieves, tell me again that you love me!" Always, always
obstacles between the two; the child was always at her mother's side.
Of what avail was it to be rid of Elvira Molende who, since the
memorable night on which she had kept guard in the gallery, had
looked at the poet with an expression that was half satirical, half
mournful? The departure of the poetess removed an obstacle, indeed,
but it did not put an end to his difficulties.
Segundo suffered in his vanity, wounded by the systematic reserve
of Nieves, as well as in his love, his ardent longing for the
impossible. It was already October; the ex-Minister spoke of taking
his departure immediately, and although Segundo counted on
establishing himself in Madrid later on through his influence, and
meeting Nieves again, an infallible instinct told him that between
Nieves and himself there existed no other bond of union than their
temporary sojourn in Las Vides, the poetic influences of the season,
the accident of living under the same roof, and that if this dream
did not take shape before their separation it would be as ephemeral
as the vine leaves that were now falling around them, withered and
sapless.
Autumn was parting with its glories; the wrinkled and knotted
vine stalks, the dry and shrunken vine branches, lay bare to view,
and the wind moaned sadly, stripping their leaves from the boughs of
the fruit trees. One day Victorina asked Segundo:
"When are we going to the pine grove to hear it sing?"
"Whenever you like, child. This afternoon if your mother wishes
it."
The child conveyed the proposition to Nieves. For some time past
Victorina had been more than usually demonstrative toward her mother,
leaning her head upon Nieves' breast, hiding her cheek in her neck,
passing her hands over her hair and her shoulders while she would
repeat softly, in a voice that seemed to ask for a caress:
"Mamma! mamma!"
But the eyes of the miniature woman, half-veiled by their long
lashes, were fixed with loving, longing glance, not on her mother,
but on the poet, whose words the child drank in eagerly, turning very
red if he chanced to make some jesting remark to her or gave any
other indication of being aware of her presence.
Nieves objected a little at first, not wishing to appear
credulous or superstitious.
"But what has put such an idea into your head?"
"Mamma, when Segundo says that the pines sing, they sing, mamma,
there is not a doubt of it."
"But you don't know," said Nieves, bestowing on the poet a smile
in which there was more sugar than salt--"that Segundo writes poetry,
and that people who write poetry are permitted to--to invent--a
little?"
"No, Señora," cried Segundo. "Do not teach your child what is not
true. Do not deceive her. In society it often happens that we utter
with the lips sentiments that are far from the heart, but in poetry
we lay bare the feelings of the inmost soul, feelings which in the
world we are obliged to hide in our own breasts, through respect--or
through prudence. Believe me."
"Say, mamma, are we going there to-day?"
"Where?"
"To the pine grove."
"If you are very anxious to go. What an obstinate child! But
indeed I too am curious to hear this orchestra."
Only Nieves, Victorina, Carmen, Segundo, and Tropiezo took part
in the expedition. The elders remained behind smoking and looking on
at the important operation of covering and closing some of the vats
which contained the must, now fermented. As Mendez saw the party
about to start, he called out in a tone of paternal warning:
"Take care with the descent. The pine needles in this hot weather
are as slippery as if they had been rubbed with soap. The ladies must
be helped down. You, Victorina, don't be crazy; don't go rushing
about there."
The famous pine grove was distant some quarter of a league, but
they spent fully three-quarters of an hour in making the ascent,
along a path as steep, narrow, and rugged as the ascent to heaven is
said to be, and which long before reaching the wood was carpeted with
the polished, smooth, dry pine needles, which, if they rendered the
descent more easy than was agreeable, compensated for it by making
the ascent extremely difficult, causing the foot to slip, and
fatiguing the ankles and the knees. Nieves stopped from time to time
to take breath, and was at last fain to avail herself of the support
of the plump arm of Carmen Agonde.
"_Caramba_, this is like practicing gymnastics! Whoever escapes
being killed when we are going back will be very lucky."
"Lean well on me, lean well on me," said the sturdy country girl.
"Many a limb has been broken here already, no doubt. This ascent is
terrible!"
They reached the summit at last. The prospect was beautiful, with
that species of beauty that borders on sublimity. The pine wood
seemed to hang over an abyss. Between the trunks of the trees could
be caught glimpses of the mountains, of an ashen blue blending into
violet in the distance; on the other side of the pine wood, that
which overlooked the river, the ground fell abruptly in a steep,
almost perpendicular descent, while far below flowed the Avieiro, not
winding peacefully along, but noisy and foaming, roused into rage by
the barrier opposed to its progress by some sharp black rocks and
separating into numerous currents that curled around the bowlders
like angry green snakes covered with silver scales. To the roaring
and sobbing of the river the pine wood kept accompaniment with its
perpetual plaint intoned by the summits of the trees, which swayed
and vibrated to the kisses of the breeze, dolorous kisses that drew
from them an incessant moan.
The excursionists, impressed by the tragic aspect of the scene,
remained mute. Only the child broke the silence, speaking in tones as
hushed as if she were in a church.
"Well, it is true, mamma! The pines sing. Do you hear them? It
sounds like the chorus of bishops in 'L'Africaine.' They even seem to
speak--listen--in bass voices--like that passage in the
'Huguenots----'"
Nieves agreed that the murmur of the pines was in truth musical
and solemn. Segundo, leaning against a tree, looked down at the river
foaming below; Victorina approached him, but he stopped her and made
her go back.
"No, my child," he said; "don't come near; it is a little
dangerous; if you should lose your footing and roll down that
declivity----Go back, go back."
As nothing further occurred to them to say about the pines, the
excursionists began to think of returning home; Nieves was a little
uneasy about the descent, and she wished to undertake it before the
sun should set.
"Now, indeed, we shall break some of our bones, Don Fermin," she
said to the doctor. "Now, indeed, you may begin to get your bandages
and splints ready."
"There is another road," said Segundo, emerging from his
abstraction. "And one which is much less toilsome and much more level
than this."
"Yes, talk to us now about the other road," cried Tropiezo, true
to his habit of voting with the opposition. "It is even worse than
the one by which we came."
"How should it be worse, man? It is a little longer, but as it is
not so steep it is the best in the end. It skirts the pine wood."
"Do you want to tell me which is the best road--me who know the
whole country as well as I know my own house? You cannot go by that
road; I know what I am saying."
"And I say that you can, and I will prove it to you. For once in
your life don't be stubborn. I came by it not many days ago. Do you
remember, Nieves, the night we played hide-and-seek in the garden,
the night they barred me out and I got over the wall?"
Had it not been for the thick shade cast by the pine trees and
the fading daylight, it would have been seen that Nieves blushed.
"Let us take whichever road is easiest and most level," she said,
evading an answer. "I am very awkward about walking over rough
roads."
Segundo offered his arm, saying jestingly:
"That blessed Tropiezo knows as much about roads as he does about
the art of healing. Come, and you shall see that we will be the
gainers by it."
Tropiezo, on his side, was saying to Carmen Agonde, shaking his
head obstinately:
"Well, we will please ourselves and go by the cut, and arrive
before they do, safe and sound, with the help of God."
Victorina, according to her custom, was going to her mother's
side, when the doctor called out to her:
"Here, take hold of the end of my stick or you will slip. Your
mamma will have enough to do to keep herself from falling. And God
save us from a _trip_," he added, laughing loudly at his jest.
The voices and footsteps receded in the distance, and Segundo and
Nieves continued on their way in silence. The precipitous character
of the path along which they walked inspired Nieves with something
like fear. It was a little path cut on the slope of the pine wood, on
the very edge of the precipice, almost overhanging the river.
Although Segundo gave Nieves the least dangerous side, that next the
wood, leaving himself scarcely a foothold, so that he was obliged to
place one foot horizontally before the other, in walking, this did
not set her fears at rest or make the adventure seem any the less
dangerous to her. Her terror was increased a hundredfold when she saw
that they were alone.
"Are they not coming?" she asked anxiously.
"We will overtake them in less than ten minutes. They are going
by the other road," answered Segundo, without adding a single word of
endearment, or even pressing the arm which trembled with terror
within his.
"Let us go on, then," said Nieves, in tones of urgent entreaty.
"I am anxious to be home."
"Why?" asked the poet, suddenly standing still.
"I am tired--out of breath----"
"Well, you shall rest and take a drink of water if you desire
it."
And with rash hardihood Segundo, without waiting for an answer,
drew Nieves down the slope and, skirting the rock, stopped on a
narrow ledge which projected over the river. By the fading sunset
light they discried a crystal thread of water trickling down the
black front of the rock.
"Drink, if you wish--in the palm of your hand, for we have no
glass," said Segundo.
Nieves mechanically released Segundo's arm, scarcely conscious of
what she was doing, and took a step toward the stream; but the ground
at the base of the rock, kept moist by the dripping of the water, was
overgrown with humid vegetation as slippery as sea-weed, and as she
set her foot upon it she slipped and lost her balance. In her
vertigo, she saw the river roaring menacingly below, the sharp rocks
waiting to receive her and mangle her flesh, and she already felt the
chill air of the abyss. A hand clutched her by her gown, by her
flesh, perhaps; held her up and drew her back to safety. She dropped
her head on Segundo's shoulder and the latter, for the first time,
felt Nieves' heart beat under his hand. And how quickly it beat! It
beat with fear. The poet bent over her, and on her very lips breathed
this question:
"Do you love me? tell me, do you love me?"
The answer was inaudible, for even if the words had been formed
in her throat her sealed lips were unable to articulate them. During
this short space of time, which was for them an eternity, there
flashed across Segundo's brain a thought potent and destructive as
the electric spark. The poet stood fronting the precipice, Nieves
with her back toward it, kept from falling over its edge only by the
arm of her savior. A movement forward, a stronger pressure of his
lips to hers, would be sufficient to make them both lose their
balance and precipitate them into the abyss. It would be a beautiful
ending--worthy of the ambitious soul of a poet. Thinking of it
Segundo found it alluring and desirable, and yet the instinct of
self-preservation, an animal impulse, but one more powerful than the
romantic idea, placed between the thought and the action an
insuperable barrier. He pleased himself, in imagination, with the
picture of the two bodies clasped in each other's arms, borne along
by the current of the river. He even saw in fancy the scene of the
discovery of the corpses, the exclamations; the profound impression
that such an event would cause in the district; and _something_, some
poetic feeling that stirred and thrilled in his youthful soul, urged
him to take the leap; but at the same time a cold fear congealed his
blood, obliging him to proceed slowly, not toward the abyss, but in
an opposite direction, toward the path.
All this, short enough in the telling, was instantaneous in the
thinking. Segundo felt a cold chill strike through him, putting to
flight thoughts of love as well as of death. It was the chill
communicated to him by the lips of Nieves, who had fainted in his
arms.
He dipped his handkerchief in the spring and applied it to her
temples and wrists. She half opened her eyes. They could hear
Tropiezo talking, Carmen laughing; they were coming doubtless in
search of them, to triumph over them. Nieves, when she came back to
consciousness and found herself still alone, did not make the
slightest effort to free herself from the poet's embrace.