The joy of Elvira was as brief as it had been keen. What can escape
the eyes of one who loves? Is it not known that there are things,
which, like the wind of Guadarrama, though scarce a breath, yet kill.
Before either Rita or Ventura had acknowledged even to their own
consciousness, the mutual attraction which they exercised upon each
other, Elvira was offering to God, for the second time, the pangs of
her lost love. This time, however, without a remote hope. The prudent
and patient girl looked upon a rupture as the sure forerunner of some
catastrophe, and, like a martyr, endured without daring to repulse
them, the evidences of an affection as pale and feeble as she was
herself; an affection that was vanishing before the vivid flame of a
new love, which already sparkled, active, brilliant, and beautiful
like the object that inspired it. While the visits at the grating
became every night colder and less' prolonged, there was no occasion
that did not, by gesture, look, or word, bring into contact those two
beings, who, like moths, took pleasure in approaching the flame, drawn
by an instinctive impulse, which they obeyed, but did not pause to
define; of which no one warned them, because among the people, a
married woman unfaithful to her duties, or a lover neglectful of his,
is an anomaly; and one which, in the family whose history we are
relating, would have been looked upon as incredible to the point of
impossibility. But Rita acknowledged no rein, and the life of a
soldier had been a school of evil habits to Ventura. One day Perico,
on setting out for the field, found Elvira in the yard, and said to
her:
"Here is money, sister, to buy yourself colored dresses. You have
fulfilled your promise to wear the habit of our Lady of Sorrows till
Ventura came back, and now I wish to see your face, your
dress--everything about you gay."
Elvira answered, with difficulty repressing her tears:
"Keep your money, brother, every day I feel myself worse. It is better
for me to think of making my peace with God, than of buying wedding
clothes, or of changing the colors which are to wrap me in the
coffin."
{669}
"Do not say that, sister!" exclaimed Perico. "You break my heart! It
has become a habit with you to be melancholy. When you and Ventura are
as happy as Rita and I, when you have two little ones like these of
ours, to occupy you, your apprehensions will fly away. Come," he
added, catching the children, "come and play with your aunt."
Elvira's eyes followed her brother. Her heart was torn with grief;
grief all the more agonized and profound for being repressed. She
considered that a complaint from her would be like an indiscreet cry
of alarm at an inevitable misfortune.
"Aunt," said Angel, "nothing can keep Melampo when father goes."
"He does what he ought, like the good dog he is," answered Elvira.
"And why is he called Melampo?" the child continued, with that zeal
for asking questions which older people ridicule, instead of
respecting and encouraging.
"He is called so," answered Elvira, "because Melampo is the name of
one of the dogs that went to Bethlehem with the shepherds to see the
child Jesus. There were three of them, Melampo, Cubilon, and Tobina,
and the dogs that bear these names never go mad."
"Aunt," said Angela, running after a little bird, "I can't catch this
swallow."
"That is not a swallow. Swallows do not come till spring, and these
you must never catch nor molest."
"Why not, aunt?"
"Because they are friends to man, they confide in him and make their
nests under his eaves. They are the birds that pulled the thorns out
of the Saviour's crown when he hung upon the cross."
At this moment Angel fell and began to cry. Rita rushed impetuously
out of her room and snatched him up, exclaiming:
"What has he done to himself? what is the matter with mother's glory?"
Wiping his face, which was dirty, with her apron, she continued:
"What is the matter? Sweet little face, covered with mud. Bless his
pretty eyes and his mouth, and his poor little hands!"
And covering him with kisses, passionate caresses, she took him and
his sister into her mother's house. Returning presently she went into
the back-yard to wash.
It has already been said that this yard was next to that of uncle
Pedro, separated from it by a low wall.
Rita according to the popular custom began to sing.
Among the people of Andalucia, one can hardly be found whose memory is
not a treasury of couplets; and these are so varied that it would be
difficult to suggest an idea, for the expression of which a suitable
verse would not immediately be found.
A fine voice, well modulated and dear, answered Rita from the
adjoining yard; in this manner a musical colloquy was carried on,
concluded by the male voice in this couplet, which indicated the wings
that the preceding one had given to his desires:
"With no loss of time,
To succeed I intend;
Without sigh to the air,
Or complaint to the wind."
In the mean time Elvira sat sewing beside her mother. Her sweet and
placid countenance betrayed none of the pain and anguish of her heart.
Nevertheless, Anna looked at her with the penetrating eyes of a
mother, and thought, "Will the hopes fail which I placed in Ventura's
return? Does our Lord want her for himself?"
At this moment the children rushed in, wild with delight.
"Mamma Anna! Aunt Elvira!" they shouted. "Uncle Pedro says the ass had
a little colt last night. She is in the stable with it, and we did not
know it here. Come and see it! come and see it!"
And one pulling at the grandmother and the other at the aunt, they
went, to the yard and threw the door wide open.
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What a two-edged dagger for the heart of Anna, the honorable woman,
the loving mother! Ventura was there with Rita!
Quick as lightning Ventura stepped upon the wheel of a cart which
stood close to the wall, and with one spring disappeared.
Rita, enraged, continued her washing, and with unparalleled effrontery
began to sing:
"No mother-in-law plagued Eve;
No sister-in-law worried Adam;
Nor caused their souls to grieve,
For in Eden they never had them."
The children had run on to the stable without stopping. Anna led her
daughter, almost fainting, into the house, and there upon the bosom of
her mother, from whom the cause of her grief was no longer a secret,
Elvira burst into sobs.
"And you knew it," said her mother; "silent martyr to prudence. Weep,
yes, weep, for tears are like the blood which flows from wounds, and
renders them less mortal. I knew what she was and warned him. I knew
that reprobation must follow the union of kindred blood, and I told
him so. He would not listen. It would have been better to let him go
to the war. But the heart errs as well as the understanding."
In the mean time the impudent woman went on singing:
"Mothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law,
See a cargo passing go;
What a famous load 'twould be.
For Satan's regions down below."