UNTIL TO-MORROW.
“Search for those papers, Duke,” said Tito to Monteclaro, “and do me the
kindness to speak to Elena.”
“Come! Doctor, come! The king is dying!” exclaimed Don Miguel de Guerra,
interrupting him.
“Follow me, Duke,” said the youth, with great respect, “it has struck
twelve, and I can give you some very important news, I do not know
whether good or bad. It is this; I can tell you whether or not Louis I.
will die to-day.”
The morning of the thirty-first of August had dawned, when Louis I. was
to deliver up his spirit to his Creator.
Tito discovered the certainty of it by seeing Death standing in the
middle of the room with his eyes fixed on the sick king.
“To-day the king dies,” whispered Tito, in Monteclaro’s ear. “This news
is the wedding present which I make to Elena. If you know its value,
guard it in secret, and let it govern your conduct toward Philip V.”
“But Elena is promised to another,” replied the Duke.
“The nephew of the Countess of Rionuevo died this afternoon,” interrupted
Tito.
“Oh! what has befallen us!” exclaimed the Duke. “Who are you—you whom I
knew as a child, and who now terrify me with such power and science?”
“The queen calls,” said a lady at this moment to the Duke of Monteclaro,
who seemed stupefied.
The lady was Elena.
The Duke approached the queen, leaving the two lovers alone in the middle
of the room. Not alone, for Death was but three steps off.
The two stood mutely gazing at each other as if bewildered, and fearful
that their mutual presence might be a dream which would pass away should
they move a hand or utter the lightest breath.
On meeting, a few hours before in that same place, both had experienced,
mingled with an ineffable happiness, a certain secret anguish, like that
which two friends feel, after a long separation, on recognizing each
other in a prison, on the morning of execution, unconscious accomplices
of a fatal crime, and victims of the same persecution. One might also
say that the sad joy with which Tito and Elena recognized each other,
was equal to the bitter pleasure which the corpse of a jealous husband
would experience (if corpses feel) in the tomb, on hearing the door of
the cemetery open at night, knowing that it is his wife whom they are
bringing to inter. “So you are here!” the poor corpse would say; “it is
now four years that I have been alone, thinking of what you were doing
in the world, you, so beautiful, so unloving, that you discarded your
mourning the very year of my death. You have waited long; but you are
here, and if love is no longer possible between us, neither is infidelity
or forgetfulness. We belong to each other negatively. Although nothing
unites us, we are united, because nothing can separate us. For the
jealousies, uncertainties, anxieties of life, you have substituted an
eternity of love and remembrance. I pardon you all.”
These impressions, softened in the gentle characters of Tito and Elena,
by her innocence, by his lofty intelligence, and by the exalted virtue of
both, shone like funeral torches in the souls of the two lovers, by whose
light they saw an illimitable future of peaceful love, which nothing
could disturb or destroy, unless all that then passed was but a fugitive
dream.
They gazed at each other for a long time with fervent idolatry. Elena’s
blue eyes lost themselves in the dark orbs of Tito, as the high heaven
her brightness in the utter darkness of our nights; whilst his melted in
the fathomless transparency of the pure celestial blue of hers, lost, as
are sight, idea, and even sentiment, when attempting to measure infinite
space.
So, perhaps they would have remained for eternity, had not Death
attracted Tito’s attention.
“What do you wish?” asked the youth.
“That thou lookest upon her no longer.”
“Ah! you love her!” exclaimed Tito, with indescribable anguish.
“Yes,” answered Death, gently.
“You think of robbing me of her?”
“No! I think of uniting thee.”
“You told me once that no other arms than yours or mine should ever
enfold her,” murmured Tito, with desperation. “Whose is she to be
first—yours or mine? Tell me!”
“Thou art jealous of me?”
“Horribly so.”
“Thou art wrong,” replied Death.
“Whose is she to be first?” repeated the youth, seizing the cold hands of
his friend.
“I cannot answer thee. God, thou and I dispute her; but we three are not
incompatible.”
“Tell me that you do not intend to kill her. Tell me that you will unite
us in this world.”
“_In this world!_” repeated Death, ironically. “Yes, it will be in this
world, I promise thee.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards belongs to God.”
“And yours? When?”
“Mine, she has already been.”
“You madden me! Elena lives!”
“As thou dost,” replied Death.
“But, do I live?”
“More than ever.”
“Speak, for pity’s sake!”
“I have nothing to tell thee. Thou wouldst not be able to understand
me yet. What is death? Perhaps thou knowest. What is life? Have I ever
explained it to thee? If thou art ignorant of these conditions, why dost
thou ask if thou art dead or alive?”
“Well, shall I comprehend them some day?” exclaimed Tito, desperately.
“Yes, to-morrow,” answered Death.
“To-morrow! I do not understand you.”
“To-morrow thou wilt be wedded to Elena.”
“Ah!”
“And I will be thy protector,” continued Death.
“You! you then intend to kill us?”
“Not at all. To-morrow thou wilt be rich, noble, powerful, happy.
To-morrow also thou wilt know all.”
“You love me, then!” exclaimed Tito.
“Yes, I love thee,” replied Death. “Ungrateful boy, why dost thou doubt
it?”
“Then good-bye _until to-morrow_,” said Tito, giving his hand to the
terrible divinity.
Elena continued standing before her lover.
“_Until to-morrow_,” she responded, as if she had heard the phrase—as if
answering another secret voice—as if divining the youth’s thoughts;—and
slowly turning she left the royal chamber.
Tito approached the king’s bed.
The Duke of Monteclaro placed himself at his side, and said to him in a
low voice:—
“If the king dies, you will celebrate your marriage with my daughter
to-morrow; the queen has just informed me of the death of the Viscount of
Rionuevo. I have announced your wedding with Elena, and she congratulates
you both with all her heart. To-morrow you will be the first person of
the Court, if Louis really passes to the tomb to-day.”
“But do not doubt it, Sire,” responded Tito, with sepulchral accent.
“Then farewell _until to-morrow_,” said Monteclaro, solemnly.