engaged in the exportation of Moroccan cloths, her life had flowed on
monotonously, without any emotion other than that of fear. The Europeans
of this African port were common folk, who had come thither to make
their fortune. The Moors hated the Jews. The rich Hebrew families had to
hold themselves apart, nourishing themselves socially upon their own
substance, ever on the defensive in a country that lacked laws. The
young Jewish maidens were given an excellent education, which they
acquired with the facility of their race in adopting all progress. They
astonished newcomers to Rabat with their hats and their clothes, similar
to those of Paris and London; they played the piano; they spoke various
languages, and yet, on certain nights of sleeplessness and terror, their
parents dressed them in foul tatters and disguised them, staining their
faces and their hands with moist ashes and lampblack, so that they might
not appear to be Jewish daughters and should rather resemble slaves.
There were nights in which an uprising of the Moors was feared, an
invasion of the near-by Kabyles, excited in their fanaticism by the
inroads of European culture. The Moroccans burned the houses of the
Jews, plundered their treasures, fell like wild beasts upon the white
women of the infidels, decapitating them with hellish sadism after
subjecting them to atrocious outrages. Ah! Those childhood nights in
which she dozed standing, dressed like a beggar girl, since the
innocence of her tender age was of no avail as a protection!... Perhaps
it was these frights that were responsible for her dangerous
illness,--an illness that had brought her near to death, and to this
circumstance she owed her name Luna.
"At my birth I was named Horabuena, and a younger sister of mine
received the name Asibuena. After a period of terror and an invasion of
the Moroccans in which our house was burned down and we thought we were
all doomed to slaughter, my sister and I fell ill with fever. Asibuena
died; happily, I was saved."
And she described to Luis, who listened to her under a spell of horror,
the incidents of this exotic, abnormal life,--all the sufferings of her
mother in the poor house where they had taken refuge. Aboab's daughter
screamed with grief and tore her black hair before the bed where her
daughter lay overcome by the stupor of fever. Her poor Horabuena was
going to die.
"Ay, my daughter! My treasure Horabuena, my sparkling diamond, my nest
of consolation!... No more will you eat the tender chicken! No more will
you wear your neat slippers on Saturdays, nor will your mother smile
with pride when the Rabbi beholds you so graceful and beautiful!..."
The poor woman paced about the room lighted by a shaded lamp. In the
shadows she could detect the presence of the hated _Huerco_, the demon,
with a Spanish name who comes at the appointed hour to bear off human
creatures to the darkness of death. She must battle against the evil
one, must deceive the _Huerco_, who was savage yet stupid, just as her
forefathers had deceived him many a time:
She repressed her tears and sighs, calmed her voice, and stretching out
upon the floor spoke softly, with a sweet accent, as if she were
receiving an important visit:
"_Huerco_, what have you come for?... Are you looking for Horabuena?
Horabuena is not here; she has gone forever. She who is here is named...
Luna. Sweet Lunita, beautiful Lunita. Off with you, _Huerco_, begone!
She whom you seek is not here."
For some time she was calm, then her returning fears made her speak
again to her importunate, lugubrious guest. There he was again! She
could feel his presence.
"_Huerco_, I tell you you're mistaken! Horabuena is gone; look for her
elsewhere. Only Luna is here. Sweet Lunita, precious Lunita."
And so great was her insistence that at last she succeeded in deceiving
_Huerco_ with her entreating, humble voice, although it is true that, to
give an air of truth to the deceit, on the following day, at a synagogue
ceremony, the name of Horabuena was changed to that of Luna.
Aguirre listened to these revelations with the same interest as that
with which he would read a novel about a far-off, exotic land that he
was never to behold.
It was on this same morning that the consul revealed the proposal which
for several days he had guarded in his thoughts, afraid to express it.
Why not love each other? Why not be sweethearts? There was something
providential about the way the two had met; they should not fail to take
advantage of the fate which had brought them together. To have become
acquainted! To have met, despite the difference of countries and of
races!...
Luna protested, but her protest was a smiling one. What madness!
Sweethearts? Why? They could not marry; they were of different faiths.
Besides, he had to leave. But Aguirre interrupted resolutely:
"Don't reason. Just close your eyes. In love there should be no
reflection. Good sense and the conventionalities are for persons who
don't love each other. Say yes, and afterwards time and our good luck
will arrange everything."
Luna laughed, amused by Aguirre's grave countenance and the vehemence of
his speech.
"Sweethearts in the Spanish fashion?... Believe me, I am tempted to
assent. You will go off and forget me, just as you've doubtless
forgotten others; and I'll be left cherishing the remembrance of you.
Excellent. We'll see each other every day and will chat about our
affairs. Serenades are not possible here, nor can you place your cape at
my feet without being considered crazy. But that doesn't matter. We'll
be sweethearts; I should love to see what it's like."
She laughed as she spoke, with her eyes closed, just like a child to
whom a pleasant game has been proposed. Soon she opened her eyes wide,
as if something forgotten had reawakened in her with a painful pressure.
She was pale. Aguirre could guess what she was trying to say. She was
about to tell him of her previous betrothal, of that Jewish fiancé who
was in America and might return. But after a brief pause of indecision
she returned to her former attitude, without breaking the silence. Luis
was grateful to her for this. She desired to conceal her past, as do all
women in the first moment of love.
"Agreed. We'll be sweethearts. Let's see, consul. Say pretty things to
me, of the sort that you folks say in Spain when you come to the
grating."
That morning Luna returned to her house somewhat late for the lunch
hour. The family was awaiting her impatiently. Zabulon looked at his
niece with a stern glance. Her cousins Sol and Estrella alluded to the
Spaniard in a jesting manner. The patriarch's eyes grew moist as he
spoke of Spain and its consul.
Meanwhile the latter had stopped at the door of the Hindu bazaar to
exchange a few words with Khiamull. He felt the necessity of sharing his
brimming happiness with another. The Hindu was greener than ever. He
coughed frequently and his smile, which resembled that of a bronze
child, was really a dolorous grimace.
"Khiamull, long live love! Believe me, for I know much about life. You
are sickly and some day you'll die, without beholding the sacred river
of your native land. What you need is a companion, a girl from
Gibraltar... or rather, from La Línea; a half gypsy, with her cloak,
pinks in her hair and alluring manners. Am I not right, Khiamull?..."
The Hindu smiled with a certain scorn, shaking his head. No. Every one
to his own. He was of his race and lived in voluntary solitude among the
whites. Man can do nothing against the sympathies and aversions of the
blood. Brahma, who was the sum of divine wisdom, separated all creatures
into castes.
"But, man!... friend Khiamull! It seems to me that a girl of the kind
I've mentioned is by no means to be despised...."
The Hindu smiled once more at the speaker's ignorance. Every race has
its own tastes and its sense of smell. To Aguirre, who was a good
fellow, he would dare to reveal a terrible secret. Did he see those
whites, the Europeans, so content with their cleanliness and their
baths?... They were all impure, polluted by a natural stench which it
was impossible for them to wipe out. The son of the land of the lotus
and the sacred clay was forced to make an effort in order to endure
contact with them... They all smelled of raw meat.
III
IT was a winter afternoon; the sky was overcast and the air was gray,
but it was not cold. Luna and the Spaniard were walking slowly along the
road that leads to Europa Point, which is the extreme end of the
peninsula of Gibraltar. They had left behind them the Alameda and the
banks of the Arsenal, passing through leafy gardens, along reddish
villas inhabited by officers of army and navy, huge hospitals resembling
small towns, and garrisons that seemed like convents, with numerous
galleries in which swarms of children were scurrying about; here, too,
clothes and tableware were being washed and cleaned by the soldiers'
wives--courageous wanderers over the globe, as much at home in the
garrisons of India as in those of Canada. The fog concealed from view
the coast of Africa, lending to the Strait the appearance of a shoreless
sea. Before the pair of lovers stretched the dark waters of the bay, and
the promontory of Tarifa revealed its black outline faintly in the fog,
resembling a fabulous rhinoceros bearing upon its snout, like a horn,
the tower of the lighthouse. Through the ashen-gray clouds there
penetrated a timid sunbeam,--a triangle of misty light, similar to the
luminous stream from a magic lantern,--which traced a large shaft of
pale gold across the green-black surface of the sea. In the center of
this circle of anemic light there floated, like a dying swan, the white
spot of a sailboat.
The two lovers were oblivious to their surroundings. They walked along,
engrossed in that amorous egotism which concentrates all life in a
glance, or in the delicate contact of the bodies meeting and grazing
each other at every step. Of all Nature there existed for them only the
dying light of the afternoon, which permitted them to behold each other,
and the rather warm breeze which, murmuring among the cacti and the
palms, seemed to serve as the musical accompaniment to their
conversation. At their right rumbled the far-off roar of the sea
striking against the rocks. On their left reigned pastoral peace,--the
melodious calm of the pines, broken from time to time only by the noise
of the carts, which, followed by a platoon of soldiers in their shirt
sleeves, wheeled up the roads of the mountain.
The two looked at each other with caressing eyes, smiling with the
automatism of love; but in reality they were sad, with that sweet
sadness which in itself constitutes a new voluptuousness. Luna,
influenced by the positivism of her race, was gazing into the future,
while Aguirre was content with the present moment, not caring to know
what would be the end of this love. Why trouble oneself imagining
obstacles!...
"I'm not like you, Luna. I have confidence in our lot. We'll marry and
travel about the world. Don't let that frighten you. Remember how I came
to know you. It was during the Feast of Tabernacles; you were eating
almost on foot, like those gypsies that wander over the earth and resume
their journey at the end of their meal. You come from a race of nomads
which even today roams the world. I arrived just in time. We'll leave
together; for I, too, am, because of my career, a wanderer. Always
together! We will be able to find happiness in any land whatsoever.
We'll carry springtime with us, the happiness of life, and will love
each other deeply."
Luna, flattered by the vehemence of these words, nevertheless contracted
her features into an expression of sadness.
"Child!" she murmured, with her Andalusian accent. "What sweet
illusions... my precious consul! But only illusions, after all. How are
we to marry? How can this be arranged?... Are you going to become a
convert to my religion?"
Aguirre started with surprise and looked at Luna with eyes that betrayed
his amazement.
"Man alive! I, turn Jew?..."
He was no model of pious enthusiasm. He had passed his days without
paying much attention to religion. He knew that the world contained many
creeds, but without doubt, as far as he was concerned, decent persons
the world over were all Catholics. Besides, his influential uncle had
warned him not to jest with these matters under penalty of hampering
advancement in his career.
"No. No, I don't see the necessity of that.... But there must be some
way of getting over the difficulty. I can't say what it is, but there
surely must be one. At Paris I met very distinguished gentlemen who were
married to women of your race. This can all be arranged. I assure you
that it shall be. I have an idea! Tomorrow morning, if you wish, I'll go
to see the chief Rabbi, your 'spiritual head,' as you call him. He seems
to be a fine fellow; I've seen him several times upon the street; a well
of wisdom, as your kind say. A pity that he goes about so unclean,
smelling of rancid sanctity!... Now don't make such a wry face. It's a
matter of minor importance! A little bit of soap can set it aright....
There, there, don't get angry. The gentleman really pleases me a great
deal, with his little white goatee and his wee voice that seems to come
from the other world!... I tell you I'm going to see him and say, 'Señor
Rabbi, Luna and I adore each other and wish to many; not like the Jews,
by contract and with the right to change their minds, but for all our
life, for centuries and centuries. Bind us from head to foot, so that
there'll be none in heaven or on earth that can separate us. I can't
change my religion because that would be base, but I swear to you, by
all my faith as a Christian, that Luna will be more cared for, pampered
and adored than if I were Methuselah, King David, the prophet Habakkuk
or any other of the gallants that figure in the Scriptures.'"
"Silence, you scamp!" interrupted the Jewess with superstitious anxiety,
raising one hand to his lips to prevent him from continuing. "Seal your
lips, sinner!"
"Very well. I'll be silent, but it must be agreed that we'll settle this
one way or another. Do you believe it possible for any one to sever us
after such a serious love affair... and such a long one?"
"Such a long one!" repeated Luna like an echo, imparting a grave
expression to his words.
Aguirre, in his silence, seemed to be given over to a difficult mental
calculation.
"At least a month long!" he said at last, as if in wonder at the length
of time that had flown by.
"No, not a month," protested Luna. "More, much more!"
He resumed his meditation.
"Positively; more than a month. Thirty-eight days, counting today....
And seeing each other every day! And falling deeper and deeper in love
each day!..."
They walked along in silence, their gaze lowered, as if overwhelmed by
the great age of their love. Thirty-eight days!... Aguirre recalled a
letter that he had received the day before, bristling with surprise and
indignation. He had been in Gibraltar already two months without sailing
for Oceanica. What sort of illness was this? If he did not care to
assume his post, he ought to return to Madrid. The instability of his
present position and the necessity of solving this passion which little
by little had taken possession of him came to his thoughts with
agonizing urgency.
Luna strolled on, her eyes upon the ground, moving her fingers as if
counting.
"Yes, that's it. Thirty-eight.... Exactly! It seems impossible that you
could have loved me for so long. Me! An old woman!"
And in response to Aguirre's bewildered glance she added, sadly, "You
already know. I don't hide it.... Twenty-two years old. Many of my race
marry at fourteen."
Her resignation was sincere; it was the resignation of the Oriental
woman, accustomed to behold youth only in the bud of adolescence.
"Often I find it impossible to explain your love for me. I feel so proud
of you!... My cousins, to vex me, try to find defects in you, and
can't!... No, they can't! The other day you passed by my house and I was
behind the window-blinds with Miriam, who was my nurse; she's a Jewess
from Morocco, one of those who wear kerchiefs and wrappers. 'Look,
Miriam, at that handsome chap, who belongs to our neighborhood.' Miriam
looked. 'A Jew? No. That can't be. He walks erect, with a firm step, and
our men walk haltingly, with their legs doubled as if they were about to
kneel. He has teeth like a wolf and eyes like daggers. He doesn't lower
his head nor his gaze.' And that's how you are. Miriam was right. You
stand out from among all the young men of my blood. Not that they lack
courage; there are some as strong as the Maccabees; Massena, Napoleon's
companion, was one of us, but the natural attitude of them all, before
they are transformed by anger, is one of humility and submission. We
have been persecuted so much!... You have grown up in a different
environment."
Afterwards the young woman seemed to regret her words. She was a bad
Jewess; she scarcely had any faith in her beliefs and in her people; she
went to the synagogue only on the Day of Atonement and on the occasion
of other solemn, unavoidable ceremonies.
"I believe that I've been waiting for you forever. Now I am sure that I
knew you long before seeing you. When I saw you for the first time, on
that day during the Feast of the Tabernacles, I felt that something
grave and decisive had occurred in my life. When I learned who you were,
I became your slave and hungered anxiously for your first word."
Ah, Spain!... She was like old Aboab; her thoughts had often flown to
the beautiful land of her forefathers, wrapped in mystery. At times she
recalled it only to hate it, as one hates a beloved person, for his
betrayals and his cruelties, without ceasing to love him. At others, she
called to mind with delight the tales she had heard from her
grandmother's lips, the songs with which she had been lulled to sleep as
a child,--all the legends of the old Castilian land, abode of treasures,
enchantments and love affairs, comparable only to the Bagdad of the
Arabs, to the wonderful city of the thousand and one nights. Upon
holidays, when the Jews remained secluded in the bosom of the family,
old Aboab or Miriam, her nurse, had many a time beguiled her with
ancient ballads in the manner of old Castile, that had been transmitted
from generation to generation; stories of love affairs between arrogant,
knightly Christians and beautiful Jewesses with fair complexions, large
eyes and thick, ebony tresses, just like the holy beauties of the
Scriptures.
En la ciudad de Toledo,
en la ciudad de Granada,
hay un garrido mancebo
que Diego León se llama.
Namorose de Thamar,
que era hebrea castellana....
(In the city of Toledo, in the city of Granada, there is a handsome
youth called Diego Leon. He fell in love with Tamar, who was a Spanish
Jewess....)
There still echoed in her memory fragments of these ancient chronicles
that had brought many a tremor to her dreamy childhood. She desired to
be Tamar; she would have waited years and years for the handsome youth,
who would be as brave and arrogant as Judas Maccabeus himself, the Cid
of the Jews, the lion of Judea, the lion of lions; and now her hopes
were being fulfilled, and her hero had appeared at last, coming out of
the land of mystery, with his conqueror's stride, his haughty head, his
dagger eyes, as Miriam said. How proud it made her feel! And
instinctively, as if she feared that the apparition would vanish, she
slipped her hand about Aguirre's arm, leaning against him with caressing
humility.
They had reached Europa Point, the outermost lighthouse of the
promontory. On an esplanade surrounded by military buildings there was a
group of ruddy young men, their khaki trousers held in place by leather
braces and their arms bare, kicking and driving a huge ball about. They
were soldiers. They stopped their game for a moment to let the couple
pass. There was not a single glance for Luna from this group of strong,
clean-living youths, who had been trained to a cold sexuality by
physical fatigue and the cult of brawn.
As they turned a corner of the promontory they continued their walk on
the eastern side of the cliff. This part was unoccupied; here tempests
and the raging winds from the Levant came to vent their fury. On this
side were no other fortifications than those of the summit, almost
hidden by the clouds which, coming from the sea, encountered the
gigantic rampart of rock and scaled the peaks as if assaulting them.
The road, hewn out of the rough declivity, meandered through gardens
wild with African exuberance. The pear trees extended, like green
fences, their serried rows of prickle-laden leaves; the century-plants
opened like a profusion of bayonets, blackish or salmon-red in color;
the old agaves shot their stalks into the air straight as masts, which
were topped by extended branches that gave them the appearance of
telegraph poles. In the midst of this wild vegetation arose the lonely
summer residence of the governor. Beyond was solitude, silence,
interrupted only by the roar of the sea as it disappeared into invisible
caves.
Soon the two lovers noticed, at a great distance, signs of motion amidst
the vegetation of the slope. The stones rolled down as if some one were
pushing them under his heel; the wild plants bent under an impulse of
flight, and shrill sounds, as if coming from a child being maltreated,
rent the air. Aguirre, concentrating his attention, thought he saw some
gray forms jumping amid the dark verdure.
"Those are the monkeys of the Rock," said Luna calmly, as she had seen
them many times.
At the end of the path was the famous Cave of the Monkeys. Now Aguirre
could see them plainly, and they looked like agile, shaggy-haired
bundles jumping from rock to rock, sending the loose pebbles rolling
from under their hands and feet and showing, as they fled, the inflamed
protuberances under their stiff tails.
Before coming up to the Cave of the Monkeys the two lovers paused. The
end of the road was in sight a little further along abruptly cut off by
a precipitous projection of the rock. At the other side, invisible, was
the bay of the Catalanes with its town of fisherfolk,--the only
dependency of Gibraltar. The cliff, in this solitude, acquired a savage
grandeur. Human beings were as nothing; natural forces here had free
range, with all their impetuous majesty. From the road could be seen the
sea far, far below. The boats, diminished by the distance, seemed like
black insects with antennae of smoke, or white butterflies with their
wings spread. The waves seemed only light curls on the immense blue
plain.
Aguirre wished to go down and contemplate at closer range the gigantic
wall which the sea beat against. A rough, rocky path led, in a straight
line, to an entrance hewn out of the stone, backed by a ruined wall, a
hemispherical sentry-box and several shanties whose roofs had been
carried off by the tempests. These were the débris of old
fortifications,--perhaps dating back to the time in which the Spaniards
had tried to reconquer the place.
As Luna descended, with uncertain step, supported by her lover's hand
and scattering pebbles at every turn, the melodious silence of the sea
was broken by a reverberating _raack!_ as if a hundred fans had been
brusquely opened. For a few seconds everything vanished from before
their eyes; the blue waters, the red crags, the foam of the
breakers,--under a flying cloud of grayish white that spread out at
their feet. This was formed by hundreds of sea-gulls who had been
frightened from their place of refuge and were taking to flight; there
were old, huge gulls, as fat as hens, young gulls, as white and graceful
as doves. They flew off uttering shrill cries, and as this cloud of
fluttering wings dissolved, there came into view with all its grandeur,
the promontory and the deep waters that beat against it in ceaseless
undulation.
It was necessary to raise one's head and to lift one's eyes to behold in
all its height this fortress of Nature, sheer, gray, without any sign of
human presence other than the flagstaff visible at the summit, as small
as a toy. Over all the extensive face of this enormous cliff there was
no other projection than several masses of dark vegetation, clumps
suspended from the rock. Below, the waves receded and advanced, like
blue bulls that retreat a few paces so as to attack with all the greater
force; as an evidence of this continuous assault, which had been going
on for centuries and centuries, there were the crevices opened in the
rock, the mouths of the caves, gates of ghostly suggestion and mystery
through which the waves plunged with terror-inspiring roar. The débris
of these openings, the fragments of the ageless assaults,--loosened
crags, piled up by the tempests,--formed a chain of reefs between whose
teeth the sea combed its foamy hair or raged with livid frothing on
stormy days.