She had in fact heard it all, from beginning to end. And the
words of the conjugal dialogue were whirling around in her brain,
mingling confusedly together, stamping themselves in characters of
fire on her virgin memory. She repeated them to herself, she tried to
understand their meaning, she weighed them, she drew conclusions from
them.
No one can tell which is the precise moment that divides day from
night, sleeping from waking, youth from maturity, and innocence from
knowledge. Who can fix the moment in which the child, passing into
adolescence, observes in herself that undefinable something which may
perhaps be called consciousness of sex, in which vague presentiment
is changed into swift intuition, in which, without an exact notion of
the realities of life, she divines all that experience will
corroborate and accentuate later on, in which she understands the
importance of a sign, the significance of an act, the character of a
relationship, the value of a glance, and the meaning of a reticence.
The moment in which her eyes, hitherto open only to external life,
acquire power to scrutinize the inner life also, and losing their
superficial brilliancy, the clear reflection of her ingenuous purity,
acquire the concentrated and undefinable expression which constitutes
the _glance of a grown person_.
This moment arrived for Victorina at the age of eleven, on the
night we have mentioned, overhearing a dialogue between her father
and mother. Motionless, with bated breath, her feet cold, her head
burning, the child heard everything, and afterward, in the dim light
of the bedroom, united broken links, remembering certain incidents,
and at last understood without attaching much importance to what she
understood, reasoning, however, with singular precocity, owing,
perhaps, to the painful activity with which imagination works in the
silence of night and the repose of the bed.
It is certain that the child slept badly, tossing about
restlessly in her monastic little bed. Two ideas, especially, seemed
to pierce her brain like nails. Her father was ill, very ill, and he
was annoyed and displeased, besides, because Segundo had fallen in
love with her mamma. With her mamma. Not with her! With her who
preserved all the flowers he had given her like relics.
The sorrows of childhood know neither limit nor consolation. When
we are older and more storms have passed over us, and we have seen
with astonishment that man can survive griefs which we had thought
unsurvivable, and that the heavens do not fall because we have lost
what we love, it may almost be said that absolute despair, which is
the heritage of childhood, does not exist. It was evident to
Victorina that her father was dying and that her mother was wicked,
and Segundo a villain, and that the world had come to an end--and
that she too, she too, desired to die. If it were possible for the
hair to turn white at eleven, Victorina would have become white on
the night in which suffering changed her from a bashful, timid,
blushing child to a moral being, capable of the greatest heroism.
Nor did Nieves enjoy the balmy sweets of slumber. Her husband's
words had made her thoughtful. Was Don Victoriano's illness a fatal
one? It might be so! He looked greatly altered, poor fellow. And
Nieves felt a touch of grief and apprehension. Why, who could doubt
that she loved her husband, or that she should regret his death? She
did not feel for him any passionate love, such as is described in
novels--but affection--yes. Heaven grant the malady might be a
trifling one. And if it were not? And if she were to be left a wi----
She did not dare to complete the word even in her thoughts. To think
of such a thing seemed like indulging in wicked desires. No, but the
fact was that women, when their husbands die, were--Holy Virgin! It
must be a terrible grief. Well, but _if it happened_?
Segundo--Heavens, what folly! Most assuredly such an absurdity had
never entered his head. The Garcías--nobodies. And here a vivid
picture of all Segundo's relations and their manner of living
presented itself to her mind.
She would willingly have absented herself from the rendezvous on
the following day, because her husband had begun to suspect something
and the situation was a compromising one, although in the place
designated for the interview the meeting between them might always be
attributed to chance. On the other hand if she failed to meet him,
Segundo, who was so enamored, was fully capable of creating a
scandal, of going to look for her in her room, of forcing an entrance
into it through the window.
After all, thinking well over the matter, she judged it most
prudent to comply with her promise and to entreat Segundo to--forget
her--or at least not to compromise her. That was the best course to
pursue.
Nieves passed the morning in a state of complete prostration; she
scarcely tasted a morsel at breakfast and during the meal she kept
her eyes turned away from Segundo, fearing lest her husband should
surprise some furtive glance of intelligence between them. To make
matters worse, Segundo, desirous of reminding her with his eyes of
her promise, looked at her on this day oftener than usual.
Fortunately Don Victoriano's attention seemed to be all given to
satisfying his voracious appetite for eating and drinking. The meal
being finished everyone retired as usual to take the siesta. Nieves
went to her room. She found Victorina there, lying on the bed. For
greater precaution she asked her:
"Are you going to sleep the siesta, my pet?"
"To sleep, no. But I am comfortable here."
Nieves looked at herself in the glass and saw that she was pale.
She washed her teeth, and after satisfying herself by a rapid glance
that her husband was resting in the other room, she stole softly into
the parlor. She was trembling. This atmosphere of storm and danger,
grateful to the sea-fowl, was fatal to the domestic bird. It was no
life to be always shuddering with fear, her blood curdled by fright.
It was not to live. It was not to breathe. She would end by becoming
crazy. Had she not fancied just now that she heard steps behind her,
as if someone were following her? Two or three times she had stopped
and leaned, fainting, against the wall of the corridor, vowing in her
own mind that she would never put herself in such a dilemma again.
When she reached the parlor she stopped, half startled. It was so
silent and drowsy in the semi-obscurity, with the half-closed
shutters through which entered a single sunbeam full of dancing
golden motes, with its sleepy mirrors that were too lazy to reflect
anything from their turbid surfaces, its drowsy asthmatic clock,
whose face looked like a human countenance watching her and coughing
disapprovingly. Suddenly she heard quick, youthful foot-steps and
Segundo, audacious, impassioned, threw himself at her feet and
clasped his arms around her. She tried to restrain him, to advise
him, to explain to him. The poet refused to heed her, he continued
pouring forth exclamations of gratitude and love and then, rising to
his feet, he drew her toward him with the irresistible force of a
passion which does not stop to consider consequences.
When Don Victoriano saw the child enter his room, white as wax,
livid, almost, darting fire from her eyes, in one of those
horror-inspired attitudes which can neither be feigned nor imitated,
he sprang from the bed where he had been lying awake smoking a cigar.
The child said to him, in a choking voice:
"Come, papa! come, papa!"
What were the thoughts that passed through her father's mind? It
was never known why he followed his daughter without putting to her a
single question. On the threshold of the parlor father and child
paused. Nieves uttered a shrill scream and Segundo, with an
impassioned and manly gesture, placed himself before her to shield
her with his body. An unnecessary defense. In the figure of the man
standing on the threshold there was nothing of menace; what there was
in it to inspire terror was precisely its air of stupor and
helplessness; it seemed a corpse, a specter overwhelmed with impotent
despair--the face, green rather than sallow, the eyes opened, dull
and fixed, the hands and feet trembling. The man was making fruitless
efforts to speak; paralysis had begun with the tongue; he tried in
vain to move it in his mouth, to form sounds. Horrible conflict! The
words struggled for utterance but remained unuttered; his face
changed from livid to red, the blood becoming congested in it, and
the child, clasping her father around the waist, seeing this combat
between the spirit and the body, cried:
"Help! help! Papa is dying!"
Nieves, not daring to approach her husband, but comprehending
that something very serious was the matter, screamed too for help.
And at the various doors appeared one after another Primo Genday and
Tropiezo in their shirt-sleeves, and Mendez with a cotton
handkerchief tied over his ears.
Segundo stood silent in the middle of the room, uncertain what
course to pursue. To leave the room would be cowardly, to
remain----Tropiezo shook him.
"Go, flying, to Vilamorta, boy!" he said. "Tell Doroteo, the
cabman, to go to Orense and bring back a doctor with him--the best he
can find. I don't want to make a trip this time," he added with a
wink. "Run, hurry off!"
The Swan approached Nieves, who had thrown herself on the sofa
and was weeping, her face covered with her dainty handkerchief.
"They want me to go for a doctor, Nieves. What shall I do?"
"Go!"
"Shall I return?"
"No--for God's sake leave me. Go bring the doctor! go bring the
doctor!" And she sobbed more violently than before.
* * * * *
In spite of all Segundo's haste, the physician did not arrive in
Las Vides until early on the morning of the following day. He did not
think the case an unusual one. This disease often terminated in this
way, in paralysis; it was one of the most frequent complications of
the terrible malady. He added that it would be well to remove the
patient to Orense, taking suitable precautions. The removal was
effected without much difficulty, and Don Victoriano lived for a few
days longer. Twenty-four hours after the interment Nieves and
Victorina, attired in the deepest mourning, departed for the capital.