silent. As evening fell Tiburcio sat down upon the threshold of the
cabin and began to smoke, waiting for the pigeons. The grasshoppers
were shrilling; all the birds who had their nests in the tree nearby
retired and, as it was still light, they lingered in the branches to
trill their good-night cadences.
The sky grew pale. The landscape was veiled in a light mist. The
evening breeze scattered the gentle odor of lilies. Not very far off a
dog barked now and then. At times a grave lowing saddened the silence.
Tiburcio did not remove his eyes from the pigeon-house, unless it was
to pierce the shadows and try to discover in the distance one of the
birds. Perhaps some of them would return.
Where could they find a better shelter? The forest was full of dangers
and domestic pigeons could scarcely live in the brushwood. What other
pigeon-roost could have attracted them? If he had but followed the line
of their flight ... Some had taken the direction of the fields, others
had flown towards the mountains, and there was no sign of any
returning.
It was now quite dark. Joanna lighted a candle. Already the frogs were
croaking in the marshes. A star shone in the sky. Tiburcio fixed his
gaze upon it and began to pray in low tones. The silence was scarcely
broken by the murmuring of the water as it ran and broke over the
stones in the ravine not far away, just behind the cabin.
Tiburcio sighed, arose, leaned against the jamb and lacked courage to
go inside. Joanna came near the door.
"And now?"
"The same thing," he replied.
He stepped down, called her, and together they went towards the
terrace. Near the mango-tree, directly under the pigeon-house, they
stopped, and the Indian, as if in fear of being heard by the child,
asked softly, "Joanna, don't you know any prayers for this?" And he
pointed to the deserted pigeon-roost.
"Only Lina knows," she answered.
"She can pronounce the proper spells?"
"So they say."
Tiburcio stood as if in a dream. Suddenly, in a firm voice, he
announced, "I am going to her."
"Now?"
"Certainly!... Haven't you just said that she was a sorceress?"
"I have never seen it, Tiburcio.... That's what people say."
"But you?"
"I? No. And I am afraid that it is too late. You have seen your self
how far gone he is! He is no longer interested in anything. I move
about, I speak, I go here and there, I come back again into the
room,--but it is all nothing to him. Ah! God in heaven!"
Her voice died out Suddenly she melted into tears. Tiburcio withdrew
and commenced to pace slowly up and down the terrace. The white moon
was rising. The fields became less obscure and, in the light, the
shadows of the trees, very black, stretched across the ground.
"Patience, dear woman, patience!"
The strident crickets were chirping. The _caboclo_ murmured, "Yes, I
know ..."
Of a sudden Joanna shuddered. Quivering she turned towards the cabin,
from whose wide door shone a ray of livid light; for a moment her
astonished gaze lingered and then, with a bound she was gone.
Tiburcio, motionless, without understanding what his wife had just
done, quietly awaited her return, when a piercing cry rang out. The
_caboclo_ rushed to the cabin and made for the room where the candle
was burning. The woman, on her knees before the little bed, leaning
over the child, was sobbing desperately.
"What has happened, Joanna?"
She gave a hoarse cry and threw her arms across the corpse of her son.
"Look! It's all over!"
She bent down, her face brushed a cheek that was burning; her trembling
hands felt a little body that was still aflame. She touched the sunken
chest, where the ribs showed through like laths, and the hollow
abdomen.
"Listen to his heart, Tiburcio!"
He could only reply, "It is all over!"
The mother arose with a leap, disfigured, her hair dishevelled, her
eyes sparkling. She tried to speak, stretched her hands out to her
husband, but fell limp upon a basket and, bowed down, bathed in tears,
she began to repeat the name of her son with an infinite tenderness
that was rent by sobs.
"My Luiz! My little Luiz! But a moment ago living, oh blessed Virgin!"
Tiburcio turned away and in the room, before the table, he stopped, his
eyes wandering, his lips trembling, the tears rolling in big drops down
his bony face. Joanna left the chamber, wavering as if drunk, and
seeing him, threw herself into his arms; he held her without uttering a
word, and they stood thus in embrace for a long time, in the dark,
narrow room where the crickets were chirping.
Joanna went back to the chamber. Tiburcio remained leaning against the
table, his eyes fixed upon the candle which flickered in the breeze.
Slowly the light of the moon came in, white, climbing upon the walls.
He arose with a sigh, went to the door, sat down upon the threshold,
lighted his pipe and looked leisurely out upon the country, which was
growing brighter beneath the moon. Suddenly it seemed to him that he
heard the cooing of pigeons. Above, the stars were shining, the tree
tops glittered in the moonlight. Could it be an illusion?
Motionless, he concentrated his attention. The cooing continued. He
arose impetuously, walked straight to the pigeon-roost and leaned
against the trunk of the mango-tree.
"Could it be the pigeons who were returning after the passing of
death?" he began to mutter in fury, replying to his thoughts. "Now it's
too late! A curse upon them!"
A beating of wings, a tender cooing, and little cries came from the
pigeon-house. There was no doubt now. He went forward and, from the
middle of the terrace watched the pigeon-house, walking resolutely
towards the cabin.
Joanna was sobbing hopelessly. He took the candle, went to the kitchen,
and seeing the axe in a corner he seized it, still muttering. He then
turned back to the terrace and, having reached the mango-tree, rolled
up the sleeves of his coarse shirt so that he might swing the axe.
At the first blow against the post which supported the pigeon-house the
birds grew still. Tiburcio redoubled his efforts. A crack now weakened
the structure, but still it resisted. He leaned the axe against the
trunk and, grasping the branches, raised himself to the top of the
tree. From there he supported himself between two boughs and gave the
large box a furious kick. The pigeon-roost fell shattered to the
ground.
Two pigeons flew off in great fright, dazed. Uncertain of their
direction in the clearness of the night, they lit upon the roof of the
hut.
The _caboclo_ slid down lightly along the trunk and saw two little
bodies who were whining, staggering, dragging themselves along. They
were two little pigeons. He bent over them, took them in his hands and
began to examine them. They were ugly, still without wings, having only
a thin down to cover the muscles of their soft, wrinkled bodies. The
Indian turned them over this way and that in his shrivelled hands. He
felt their fragile bones, and the little things struggled to fly away,
moving the stumps of their wings; they stretched out their necks and
whined.
Gnashing his teeth, Tiburcio squeezed the fledglings and crushed them.
Their tender bones cracked like bits of wood. The blood gushed forth
and trickled, warm, through the tightened fingers of the man.
Under the impulse of his fury he threw them to the ground; they
flattened out, soft as rotten fruit. And the _caboclo_, growling to
himself, trampled upon them. The parent-birds were cooing dolorously
upon the thatched roof, flying hither and thither.
Joanna, embracing her dead child, was still sobbing when Tiburcio
entered the chamber. He stopped before the little bed, and looked down.
Of a sudden the woman shook, arose with a start, seized her husband's
arm, her eyes distended and her mouth wide open, her head bending over
as if to hear voices, faraway sounds.
"What is it, Joanna? What is the matter with you?"
In terror she stammered reply. "The pigeons, dear husband. Don't you
hear them?"
It was their sad cooing that came from the roof of the house. "They are
returning! Who knows? He is yet warm!" she cried.
And in the heart of the woman arose a great hope.
Tiburcio shrugged his shoulders.
"Now it's their turn to mourn!" he answered. "They are sobbing, like
us. It's a pair that remained behind because of the little ones. I
dashed the pigeon-house to earth, I have killed the fledglings. See!"
And he showed his bloody hands.
"They flew away; they're on the house. Do you want to see?"
He went out; she followed. They walked to the terrace. Tiburcio pointed
to the ruined pigeon-house. Then he grasped the crushed bodies of the
little birds. "Look!"
Without breathing a word Joanna looked on. In her horror she had
stopped weeping. She gazed upon her husband, whose burning eyes flashed
fire. He threw the first little pigeon upon the roof bellowing, "'T is
well!"
He threw the second.
"'T is well!" he repeated.
The pigeons, frightened, flew off into the dark foliage.
"'T is well," he said once more.
Joanna, dumb, terrified, could not remove her eyes from her husband,
who was now crying with sobs, his opened hands stained with blood.
"Come, dear husband. It was the will of God. Our little son is in
heaven!" And slowly she heartened him. They entered their cabin and,
before the pallet of the dead child, the tears gushed from their eyes,
while, on the roof above, the pigeons, who had returned, were cooing
dolorously.
AUNT ZEZE'S TEARS
By Carmen Dolores
(Emilia Moncorva Bandeira de Mello, 1852-1910)
Pale and thin, for eighteen years she had lived with her youngest
sister, who had married very early and now possessed five children: two
young ladies of marriageable age, a third still in short dresses, and
two little boys.
Maria-José, whose nickname was Zézé, had never been beautiful or
winning. Upon her father's death it was thought best that she should go
to live with her sister Engracigna's family. Here she led a monotonous
existence, helping to bring up her nephews and nieces, who were born in
that young and happy household with a regularity that brooked small
intervals between the births.
A long, pointed nose disfigured her face, and her lips, extremely thin,
looked like a pale crack. Her thoughtful gaze alone possessed a certain
melancholy attractiveness. But even here, her eyes, protruding too far
for the harmony of the lines upon her face seemed always to be red, and
her brows narrow and sparse.
Of late, an intricate network of wrinkles as fine as hairs, had formed
at the corner of her eyes. From her nose, likewise, two furrows ran
along the transparent delicacy of her skin and reached either side of
her mouth. When she smiled, these wrinkles would cover her countenance
with a mask of premature age, and threatened soon to disfigure her
entirely. And yet, from habit, and through passive obedience to
routine, Maria-José continued to dress like a young girl of eighteen,
in brightly colored gowns, thin waists and white hats that ill became
her frail and oldish face.
She would remain for a long time in painful indecision when it was a
matter of picking out some piece of goods that was of too bright a red
or blue,--as if instinctively she understood the disharmony of these
hues with her age, whose rapid oncoming they moreover placed in all the
more noticeable contrast. And at such times Engracigna and her
daughters would say to her with a vehemence whose effect they little
guessed, "Why, Zézé! Buy something and be done with it!... How silly!
Do you want to dress like a widow? What a notion!"
And at bottom they meant it.
None of them saw Maria-José as she really was. Living with her day by
day had served to efface the actual appearance of the faded old maid.
For, in the minds of the mother and her daughters, who were moreover of
a frivolous and indifferent sort, Zézé had grown to be the type, very
vague, to be sure, but the eternal type of young girl of marriagable
years who always should be well dressed and smiling.
When she would be out walking with her nieces, of sixteen and seventeen
years, who wore the same clothes as she herself did, but whose graceful
and lively charm became their gay colors of youth so well, Zézé's
intelligence saw only too plainly the contrast between her and them;
she would hold aloof from the laughing set, morose, wounded, as if
oppressed by an unspeakable shame.
Ah! Who can depict the secret chagrin of an old maid who sees pass by
in useless monotony her dark, loveless, despairing days, without hope
even of some event of personal interest, while about her moves the busy
whirl of happier creatures whose life has but one goal, who feel
emotions and tendernesses, and who look upon her simply as an obscure
accessory in the household's affairs! They all loved her, of course,
but not one of them suspected that she, too, could cherish those
aspirations that are common to all human beings.
Her self-denial seemed to be a most natural thing; indeed, they hardly
considered her in the light of a living person; she was no longer of
any consequence.
This was an attitude that satisfied the general egotism of the family,
and to which they all had grown accustomed, never suspecting the
grievous aspect of her sacrifice which was hidden by a sentiment of
proud dignity.
So, when they would go to the theatre, and the box held only
five--Engracigna, her husband, Fabio, and the three young
ladies,--Maria-José knew beforehand that her sister, snugly wrapped in
her opera-cloak, would come to her and say gently, in that purring
voice of hers: "You'll stay at home with the children tonight, won't
you, Zézé? Little Paul isn't very well, and I wouldn't think of leaving
him with anybody else...."
And she would remain behind, without betraying the revolt within her
which, upon each occasion of these evidences of selfishness, would make
the anemic blood in her veins tremble with agitation.
Alone in the dining-room she would ply her needle mechanically, while
her nephews would amuse themselves with the toys scattered upon the
table,--colored pictures and lead soldiers. Every other moment they
would call her.
"Aunt Zézé, look at George pinching me!"
"I am not! Paul hit me first!..."
And the good aunt would quiet them. Then, after both had been put to
sleep in their little twin beds, she would rest her elbows upon the
window-sill of her gloomy old-maid's room, and placing both hands
beneath her sharp chin, her gaze directed towards heaven, she would
lose herself in contemplation of the stars that shone in the limpid
sky, less lonely, surely, than she upon earth. In vain did her eyes
seek in the eyes of another that expression of sympathy and tenderness
which alone would console her....
The truth is that Maria-José was suffering from the disappointment of
unrequited passion. She had fallen in love with Monjardin, a poet and
great friend of her brother-in-law, Fabio. Monjardin came to the house
every Sunday.
Older than she, almost forty, but having preserved all the
attractiveness of youth,--a black moustache, a vigorous, yet graceful
figure, eyes still bright, charming and wide-awake,--Monjardin, without
knowing it, had conquered Zézé.
This had come about in a rather curious manner. Finding the
conversation of Fabio's wife and daughters too commonplace, Monjardin,
when he would recite some of his poems or tell some story connected
with his literary life, preferred to address Maria-José, whom he saw to
be of a serious and impressive nature.
"Let's have another poem, please, Mr. Monjardin!" she would ask in
supplicating tone. "For instance, that one you call 'Regrets.' You
know?"
And then he would describe in his verse the grief of a heart,
disillusioned and broken by the cruelties of fate, that evoked in vain
the remembrance of yesterday's lost loves, vanished in the mists of
eternal despair.
He recited these bitter griefs in a strong, healthy man's voice, erect
in the center of the parlor, looking mechanically, distractedly at
Maria-José with his dreamy eyes; the concentrated effort of his memory
brought to his face an involuntary immobility which Maria-José, most
deliciously touched, drank in.
The poet had announced that he had written a poem which he would recite
at Zézé's anniversary dinner. The date for this was but a few days
distant, and ever since the poet's announcement the whole family had
taken to teasing the old maid, christening her "the muse of
inspiration," and asking her when the wedding would take place....
She smiled ingenuously; at such times her face would even take on an
air of unusual happiness; her features grew animated, less wrinkled and
more firm.
On the day of the celebration Maria-José came out of her room radiant
with hope. At the belt of her white dress bloomed a rose; a little
blood, set pulsing by her agitated heart, brought a feeble color to her
marble cheeks, from which now protruded her long nose in a manner less
displeasing than usual.
"See, mamma," remarked one of the nieces, "doesn't Zézé look like a
young girl today?"
They dined amidst merry chatter. Seated directly across from Monjardin,
Maria-José, hiding her glances behind the fruit-bowls that covered the
table, looked at him furtively without surfeit. Her poor heart beat as
if it would burst, waiting in agonized suspense for the poem in which
the poet, without doubt, was to declare his intimate feelings for her.
Monjardin had already pointed to his pocket as a token that he had the
verses with him, and Zézé had trembled with gratification as she
bashfully lowered her long face.
Champagne sparkled in the glasses and toasts were given. Several guests
of distinction spoke first, then followed the hosts and their
children,--frolicsome little things. Finally Monjardin arose and
unfolded a manuscript, asking permission to declaim the verses which he
had composed in honor of Maria-José, the central figure of the
occasion. The guests greeted his remarks with noisy and enthusiastic
approbation.
"Hear! Hear!"
Engracigna and her daughters leaned over and cast malicious glances in
the direction of Maria-José, but she was paying no attention to them.
Her ears were buzzing; it seemed that everything was turning round.
Monjardin, the center of all eyes, made pompous preparation; he pulled
down his vest, arranged his sleeves and, in sonorous, cadenced voice
began to recite his alexandrines, scanning the lines impeccably.
His poem opened with a eulogy of the ineffable virtue, compounded of
self-abnegation and chastity, that distinguished the angelic creature
who, with her white tutelary wings, watched over the happiness of his
dear friend's love nest. He then recalled that the date of this day
commemorated the happy birth of a being of immaculate purity,
Maria-José, a veritable saint who had renounced all her own aspirations
so that she might consecrate herself entirely to the duties of her
sister's family; gentle figure of the mother-guardian, who would soon
be the beloved grandmother sharing with her sister the joys of younger
households which would soon be formed, offsprings of that home which
her devoted tenderness as aunt and sister at present cultivated. As he
came to a close, the poet raised his cup of sparkling wine and, in
exalted voice, drank to the health of Zézé amidst the loud huzzahs of
all present.
"Long live Aunt Zézé! Hurrah for Aunt Zézé!" cried the children, glass
in hand, while the nieces laughed loudly, blushing to the ears, for
they had understood very well the poet's reference to future "younger
households."
Fabio and his wife, their eyes somewhat brightened by the strong
champagne, proposed in turn their toast to Zézé.
"Here's to Zézé and the eighteen happy years we've lived together!..."
Maria-José, as soon as she had seized the significance of Monjardin's
verses, had grown deathly pale; stricken by sudden disillusionment, she
felt a glacial chill overwhelm her body to the very marrow; she feared
that she would faint straightway and provide a spectacle for the
guests, who were all drinking her health, their eyes focussed upon her.
A veil of tears spread before her sight.... In vain she tried to
repress them, to force a smile of thanks upon her face. The smile
wrinkled into a dolorous grimace; she succeeded only in convulsing her
contracted visage with the sobs that she sought to restrain. Overcome
at last, humiliated, powerless, she broke into tears, and this
unforeseen denouement put an end at once to all the pleasure of the
dinner.
"Zézé! Zézé! What ails you?..."
Engracigna had rushed to her side in alarm; everyone rose, seeking the
reason for the outburst; they surrounded the poor creature, whose head
had sunk upon the table, in the midst of the rose petals, the fruits
and the glasses which were strewn in charming confusion.
"What is the trouble?..."
A nervous attack, perhaps?... Confusion produced in her by the touching
poem?...
Finally they raised Maria-José's head and bathed it in cool water;
whereupon the face of the poor old maid stood revealed in all the
ugliness that her spasms of convulsive weeping cast over it, with her
large aquiline nose, her protruding eyes and her livid lips ...
And now Monjardin drew near. Delicately raising the icy fingers of
Maria-José he lifted them to the edge of his perfumed moustache and
placed upon them a grateful kiss; then, turning to Engracigna's
daughters he said, with a solemn, self-complacent tone, "Aunt Zézé's
tears are the most beautiful homage that could be rendered to my poor
verses."