DRAGON’S TEETH
DRAGON’S TEETH
A Novel
FROM THE PORTUGUESE
BY
MARY J. SERRANO
AUTHOR OF “DESTINY AND OTHER POEMS,” ETC.
TRANSLATOR OF “PEPITA JIMENEZ,” ETC.
BOSTON
TICKNOR AND COMPANY
211 Fremont Street
1889
_Copyright, 1889_,
BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
PREFACE.
IN presenting this graphic picture of Lisbon life to the American
public, the translator has assumed the responsibility of softening here
and there, and even of at times effacing, a line too sharply drawn, a
light or a shadow too strongly marked to please a taste that has been
largely formed on Puritanic models, convinced (without entering into
the question of how far a want of literary reticence may be carried
without violating the canons of true art) that while the interest of
the story itself remains undiminished, the ethical purpose of the work
will thereby be given wider scope.
M. J. S.
MARCH, 1889.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
THE name of Eça de Queiros stands at the head of the list of Portuguese
novelists. Born in Oporto early in the latter half of the present
century, he was intended for the profession of the law by his father,
who belonged to a family distinguished in the annals of Portuguese
jurisprudence; but he soon abandoned his legal studies for literature,
toward which his inclinations impelled him, and which he cultivated
with immediate and marked success, the articles from his pen that
appeared from time to time in the various periodicals of the day
attracting wide-spread and favorable notice.
His characteristics as a writer are,--to quote from the Preface of the
Spanish version of the present work,--
“A vigorous, flexible, and picturesque style, daring and unexpected
flights of the imagination, extraordinary judgment, and a marvellous
perception of the realities of things, as well as of their comic and
sentimental aspects.” “His most marked characteristic, however, is
the wonderful power with which he treats the humorous and the pathetic
alike, moving his readers to tears or laughter at his will, with a
magic art possessed only by the great masters in literature.”
In conclusion, it may be said that the publication of the present work,
under the title of “O Primo Bazilio,” produced a profound sensation in
Portuguese literary circles, as did the publication, by which it was
soon followed, of a Spanish version in those of Madrid, and of a French
version, by Madame Ratazzi, in those of Paris.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HUSBAND AND WIFE 11
II. A PORTUGUESE “TEA” 41
III. COUSIN BAZILIO 72
IV. THE PUBLIC GARDENS 106
V. PREPARING THE GROUND 126
VI. ON TRIAL 146
VII. A CONSULTATION 163
VIII. PLAYING WITH FIRE 178
IX. DRAGON’S TEETH 192
X. IN THE TOILS 219
XI. A LOYAL FRIEND 239
XII. BROUGHT TO BAY 261
XIII. MISTRESS AND MAID 274
XIV. FROM DREAMS TO WAKING 287
XV. THE TELEGRAM 297
XVI. A REPRIEVE 313
XVII. JORGE’S RETURN 326
XVIII. BIDING HER TIME 356
XIX. A DINNER AT THE COUNSELLOR’S 382
XX. THE DREGS IN THE CUP 391
XXI. THE SHADOW OF A SIN 415
XXII. THE FATE OF THE SCORPION 442
XXIII. THE LETTER 458
XXIV. EXPIATION 486
XXV. AND SO THE WORLD GOES ON 503
DRAGON’S TEETH.
CHAPTER I.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.
THE cuckoo-clock in the dining-room had just struck eleven. Jorge,
reclining in an antique easy-chair covered with dark leather, closed
the volume of Louis Figuier that he had been listlessly turning over,
stretched himself, yawned, and said,--
“Are you not going to dress, Luiza?”
“Directly.”
The person who thus answered was still seated at the breakfast-table
reading the “Diario de Noticias.” She was clad in a dark-colored
morning-gown adorned with large pearl buttons. Her blond hair was in
some disorder; her head was small, her profile charming. Her elbow
rested on the table, while her fingers with a slow and graceful
movement mechanically caressed the tip of her rosy ear. Her nails
were long and polished, and in addition to her wedding ring she wore
another, set with small rubies, that shot forth crimson rays when they
caught the light.
The floor of the dining-room was covered with matting; the ceiling was
in imitation of wood, and the walls were adorned with a light-colored
paper with a green vine running through it. It was July. The heat
was intense. The windows were closed, but the fervor of the sun’s
rays striking against the panes and falling on the stone floor of the
balcony without penetrated into the apartment with a sultry glow. That
mysterious and solemn silence reigned which characterizes the hour
of the early Mass. The whole being was pervaded by a vague lassitude
producing a desire for the siesta, or for pleasant reveries under leafy
trees by the water-side. The canaries were asleep in their cages, which
were suspended in the windows between the curtains of blue cretonne.
The monotonous buzz of the flies, attracted to the table by the
half-melted sugar at the bottom of the cups, filled the room with a
drowsy murmur.
Jorge rolled a cigarette, and, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, he
began to think, as he sat here at his ease, comfortably attired in his
blue flannel jacket and his colored shirt without a collar, of his
journey to Alemtejo, and to ruminate on the discomforts attending it.
He was a mining engineer, and business obliged him to leave Lisbon on
the following day for Beja, thence to proceed to Evora, perhaps even
still farther south to St. Domingo; and this journey in the month
of July, this interruption in the course of his tranquil existence,
annoyed him as if it were an injustice of fate that he should be
compelled to take it.
Since the time of his graduation from college he had held a position
under the Government. This was his first separation from Luiza, and
he felt his heart contract within him at the thought of leaving this
little room that he himself had helped to paper in the days preceding
his marriage, and in which, after rising from happy dreams, the
morning meal was prolonged in delightful abandon.
As he stroked his soft and curly beard, which he wore very short, his
eyes lingered with tenderness on each separate article of the furniture
which had been his mother’s, and which was dear to his heart: on the
antique cupboard with glass doors, which contained the costly Indian
porcelain, and the service of silver, bright with constant rubbing, and
glittering now in all its decorative splendor; on the old varnished
table, familiar to his eyes from his earliest recollection, and on
which the few stains left by cup or pitcher were almost concealed by
the ornaments that covered it. Before him, on the opposite wall, hung
the portrait of his father attired in the fashion of 1830, the face
round, the glance animated, the mouth sensual, the medal of Commander
of the Order of the Conception decorating his closely-buttoned coat. He
had been for many years an employee in the Treasury Department; he was
of a sanguine temperament, and was a fine performer on the flute. Jorge
did not remember him, but his mother had often assured him that nothing
was wanting to make the likeness a perfect one but the power to speak.
Jorge had always lived with his mother in the house he now occupied.
Her name was Isaura; she was tall of stature, had a long nose, and was
apprehensive by nature; she would drink nothing but tepid water at her
meals. One day, on returning from the service of the Holy Sacrament,
she expired suddenly, without breathing a sigh.
Jorge had never resembled her. He had always been robust and healthy,
physically as well as mentally. He had inherited from his father an
admirable set of teeth and an excellent digestion. At seven years of
age he was turbulent and unruly; later on he became studious and a good
boy. When he was a student at the Polytechnic School, on returning home
at eight o’clock in the evening he would light his lamp and open his
books to study. He did not frequent cafés, and never spent the night
away from home.
Jorge was not at all sentimental. His companions, who read Alfred de
Musset with responsive sighs, and indulged in dreams of being loved
by a Marguerite Gautier, called him prosaic, _bourgeois_; he
only laughed. A button was never wanting on his shirts; he was very
methodical. He admired Louis Figuier, Bastiat, and Castilho. He had a
horror of disputes; and he was happy.
When his mother died, however, Jorge remained for a long time
inconsolable. He felt lonely. It was winter, and the weather was bad;
his room, situated in the interior of the house, was not a pleasant
one, and the wind sighed through it at times with a melancholy sound.
At night, especially, bending over his books, his feet resting on a
rug, he felt his being invaded by the languor of solitude. He began to
experience in his imagination strange desires; he longed to encircle
with his arm a lithe and graceful figure, to hear near him the silken
rustle of a woman’s dress. He resolved to marry. He had met Luiza one
night during the previous summer on the promenade. He fell in love with
her blond tresses, her charming profile, and her large hazel eyes.
He obtained his degree the following winter, and they were married.
Sebastião, his intimate friend, the good Sebastião, had said, rubbing
his hands together, and gravely shaking his head, “He has been hasty in
his marriage,--a little hasty!”
But Luiza, Luizinha, soon showed herself to be a good housekeeper. She
was an early riser, and had a delightful knack of doing well everything
she did. Moreover, she was neat, gay as a lark, and resembled a little
bird in its fondness for its nest and for the endearments of its
companion. Her presence diffused through the house a sweet and serene
gayety.
“She is a little angel,” said Sebastião, later on, in his deep bass
voice.
Three years had passed since Jorge’s marriage. What happy years!
He, especially, had improved during that time. He felt that his
intelligence had become broader, his disposition livelier, his health
sounder. Both were happy. Even those who did not know them said,
“They are a charming couple; it is a pleasure only to look at them!”
And Jorge, now going over in his mind all the little details of his
pleasant and easy existence, sent the smoke curling up from his
cigarette, with his legs stretched out before him, his soul expanding,
and feeling himself as comfortably sheltered in life as he was in his
flannel jacket.
“Ah!” suddenly exclaimed Luiza in accents of joyful surprise.
“What is it?” said Jorge.
“Cousin Bazilio is coming home!”
And she read aloud from the newspaper:--
“Sr. Bazilio de Brito, a distinguished member of our highest society,
is soon to arrive at Lisbon, from Bordeaux. As may be remembered,
he went, some years since, to Brazil, where it is said that by his
indefatigable efforts he has retrieved his ruined fortunes. He has been
travelling through Europe since the beginning of last year. His return
to our capital will be a real cause of rejoicing to his friends, who
are numerous.”
“Very numerous, indeed,” said Luiza, in an accent of conviction.
“So much the better,” replied Jorge, sending out a fresh puff of smoke
from his cigarette, and stroking his beard with the palm of his hand.
“It would seem, then, that he has made a fortune.”
Luiza cast a glance over the advertisements in the paper, took a sip of
tea, and then rose and opened one of the windows.
“Oh, Jorge!” she exclaimed, “how hot it is outside!” The glare of the
white and garish light dazzled her eyes.
The dining-room was situated in the back part of the house; it looked
out upon a plot of ground enclosed by a low fence and overgrown with
weeds. Here and there among the weeds, browned by the excessive heat,
were a few large stones. A wild fig-tree, isolated in the midst of the
plot, spread out its thick motionless foliage, that in the glare of the
sunlight looked like burnished bronze. Other houses looked out on the
same plot, with their balconies, their clothes spread out on a line to
dry, the white walls of their little gardens, and their consumptive
trees. An impalpable dust begrimed, so to speak, the luminous air.
“It is hot enough to suffocate the birds,” said Luiza, closing the
window. “Can you not fancy yourself already in Alemtejo?”
She came and seated herself on the arm of the easy-chair in which Jorge
was reclining, and ran her fingers through his dark and curling locks,
which he wore, in obedience to a caprice of his wife, parted down the
middle. Jorge passed his arm around her waist.
“Have you given orders to get my white waistcoats ready?” he asked.
“They should be ready now,” said Luiza. “Juliana!” she called, rising,
“Juliana!”
A sound of petticoats stiff with starch was heard approaching.
Juliana entered. She was a woman of about forty years of age, and was
extraordinarily thin. Her neck, long and withered, rose from out the
frills of a shirt-waist, bordered with imitation lace. Her features,
livid and contracted, were of a pale yellow tint. Her eyes, large and
prominent, were crossed by minute red veins, and moved within their
reddened lids with an expression of restless curiosity. She wore a
head-dress in imitation of braids of hair, that gave to her head an
appearance of enormous size. Her nose twitched continually with a
nervous movement; and her dress, flat over the chest, short, and puffed
out below by her stiffened petticoats, allowed a small and well-shaped
foot to be seen, clad in a cloth boot tipped with patent leather.
The waistcoats were not ready, she said, because she had not had time
to starch them. She spoke in a sing-song voice, after the manner of
the natives of Lisbon, through half-closed lips, and with her head bent
down.
“But I told you to be sure to have them ready,” said Luiza; “go get
them ready now, in the best way you can. They must be packed up
to-night in the valise.”
Juliana had hardly left the room when Luiza exclaimed: “That woman
inspires me with horror, Jorge.”
She had been two years in the house, and Luiza could not yet accustom
herself to the sight of her, to her gestures, to the piping manner in
which she pronounced certain words, drawling the _r’s_, to the
noise made by the heels of her shoes, which were furnished with little
metal plates, to her pretensions to possessing a small foot, and to her
black kid gloves on Sunday.
“She sets my nerves quivering,” continued Luiza.
Jorge laughed. In his opinion she was an inoffensive woman, a
good creature, an admirable laundress; and in the Department her
shirt-fronts awakened universal enthusiasm. His friend Julião said of
them that they were not ironed, but enamelled. She was not an agreeable
woman, it was true, but she was neat, silent, discreet. And rising,
with his hands in the pockets of his loose flannel trousers,--
“And in any case, child,” he added, “we must not forget the way she
behaved during Aunt Virginia’s sickness, never taking a moment’s rest.
She behaved like an angel towards her, yes, an angel,” he repeated
gravely; “we are forever indebted to her, my dear.” And with a serious
countenance he began to roll another cigarette.
Luiza, in silence, pushed out with the point of her slipper the edge of
her morning-gown. Then, with bent head, her eyes fixed on her nails,
she said poutingly, “But that would be no reason for not dismissing
her, if she should at last become too disagreeable to me.”
“Not with my consent, my dear,” returned Jorge. “It is with me a
question of gratitude.”
A few moments’ silence ensued. The cuckoo-clock struck twelve.
“I must get ready to make my calls, now,” he added. And leaning towards
her, he caught between his hands the graceful blond head of Luiza.
“Little serpent!” he murmured, fixing on her his tenderest glance.
Luiza smiled, and raised to his her magnificent hazel eyes, which she
had a habit of moving around in their orbits in a slow and luminous
manner, and which were so pure and limpid that one could penetrate into
their profoundest depths. Jorge bent towards her, and pressed on her
eyelids two sonorous kisses which could be heard at a distance; this
was a caress which had the virtue of always pacifying her. Then laying
his finger on her lip with a playful gesture,--
“Have you any commissions for me?” he asked. “Do you want anything,
Luizinha?”
She said that all she wanted was that he should come back quickly.
He replied that he was only going to leave cards; he would go like a
flash; it was a question of a moment. And he went out with a radiant
countenance, singing in his full baritone voice:--
“Dio del oro,
Del mundo signor,
La la ra, lara.”
Luiza yawned. Heavens! how tiresome to be obliged to dress! The heat
was suffocating. She would like to recline in a bath of rose-colored
marble, filled with tepid perfumed water clear as crystal, and
afterwards, robed in primitive garments, to cradle herself softly in
a silken hammock, and be lulled to sleep by the strains of melodious
music. She threw off her slipper, and fixed her glance tenderly on her
little foot, white as milk and marbled by delicate blue veins, while
her thoughts flitted from one idea to another.
It was truly provoking that silk stockings should be so dear! For if
that were not the case she would use no others. True that laundresses
have the art of washing them all to pieces. But then a blue silk
stocking with a little patent leather shoe is so charming, so pretty!
And she yawned again. Then she went to the table, took from it a book
that bore traces of use, and throwing herself into the easy-chair, gave
herself up voluptuously to her reading, caressing her little ear with
the tips of her fingers, as was her habit.
The book was the “Dame aux Camelias.” Luiza read a great many novels,
and subscribed by the month to a circulating library. In her younger
days, when she was about eighteen, she had cherished an enthusiastic
admiration for Walter Scott and Scotland. She would have liked to live
in one of those Scotch castles bearing the coat of arms of the clan
over their vaulted doors, with their oaken chests and their trophies,
their tapestries embroidered with historic legends that the breeze from
the lakes sets in motion and seems to endow with factitious life. She
had fallen in love successively with Evan dale, Morton, and Ivanhoe,
those heroes at once grave and tender, with the eagle’s feather in
their caps, fastened at the side by the Scotch thistle in diamonds and
emeralds. But now her fancy was captivated by the modern,--Paris with
its elegance and its sentimentality. She ridiculed the Troubadours, and
placed above every other hero M. de Camors; and her ideal man presented
himself to her imagination in a white cravat, in the midst of spacious
saloons, endowed with a magnetic glance, consumed by passion, his lips
overflowing with sublime words. For some days past the object of her
enthusiasm had been Marguerite Gautier, whose ill-starred love had
invested her in Luiza’s mind with a vague melancholy. She pictured her
to herself tall, slender, enveloped in a cashmere shawl, her dark eyes
lit up by passion and by the fever of consumption; she found even in
the names of the characters--Julie Duprot, Armand, Prudence--the poetic
savor of an existence dedicated to love; and she contemplated, steeped
in an inexpressible melancholy, this life exhaling itself in sighs,
passed in nights of delirium and days of sadness, enduring privations,
or rolling in a coupé along the avenues of the Bois under a gray sky,
while the first snows of winter were falling silently.
“Good-by for a while, Luiza,” cried Jorge from the dining-room, as he
was about to go out.
“Listen,” said Luiza.
Jorge re-entered the apartment, putting on his gloves.
“Try to come back soon, will you not?” she said. “Ah, and don’t forget
to bring me some tarts. Buy them at Bastreleque’s; do you hear? And if
you pass by the shop of Madame François, tell her to send me my hat.
Ah, listen, listen!”
“Good heavens! what more do you want?”
“I want you to go to the circulating library and ask them to send me
some novels. But I forgot--the library is closed. Above all, don’t stay
away long.”
With two tears trembling on her lids Luiza finished the last page of
the “Dame aux Camelias.” She breathed a sigh, and leaning back in her
easy-chair, with the book resting on her knees, she began to sing
softly, and with profound emotion, the final aria of “Traviata”:--
“Addio del passato
Igli rosi pallenti.”
The death of Marguerite Gautier, her letters, had produced in her
nerves a kind of sentimental vibration.
Suddenly the news she had read in the paper of the return of her Cousin
Bazilio recurred to her mind. A vague smile parted her rosy lips.
Cousin Bazilio! He was her first love. She was just eighteen at the
time. No one was acquainted with this fragment of the past, not even
Jorge or Sebastião. It is true, indeed, that it had lasted only eight
months.
Besides, she was then but a child. When she recalled the tender
emotions, the tears of those happy days, she laughed at herself for
her folly. How changed must her Cousin Bazilio be! She remembered
him perfectly. He was tall, somewhat slender, of a distinguished
appearance, with a mustache curling up at the ends, a bold glance, and
a peculiar habit of putting his hands in his pockets and jingling his
keys and his money. This episode in Luiza’s life had had its beginning
at Cintra, at the villa of her uncle João de Brito, while the others
were engaged in playing billiards. Bazilio had just returned from
England; and had come home somewhat of an Anglo-maniac, awakening
the admiration of the colony at Cintra by his red neckties, which he
wore passed through a gold ring, and his white flannel suits. The
billiard-room was a corner room, whose yellow-painted walls gave it an
air of grandeur, as if it belonged to a family of illustrious lineage.
A large door at the foot of the avenue opened into a garden to which
one descended by three stone steps. The fountain was surrounded by
pomegranate-trees, whose red blossoms Bazilio would pluck for her.
The dark green foliage of the tall camelias formed shady walks. The
water of the fountain sparkled in the sunlight; two turtle-doves cooed
monotonously in their wicker cage; and in the midst of the sylvan
silence of the villa the noise made by the billiard-balls had a quite
aristocratic sound. Then followed all the well-remembered episodes in
Lisbon of this love-affair begun at Cintra,--the moonlight rambles
over the dark grass to Sitiaes, with long and silent pauses at Penedo
da Saudade, before them the valley, and the distant sandy plains,
illuminated by a light, dim, ideal, and dreamy; the midday hours passed
under the shades of Penha Verde, listening to the cool murmur of the
waters that fell, drop by drop, upon the rock; the evenings spent in a
boat on the water darkened by the shadow of the trees at Collares, and
those bursts of laughter when their boat ran into the tall grass, or
her little straw hat caught, in passing, on the overhanging branches of
the elms. She had always liked Cintra. A soft and pleasing melancholy
stole over her whenever she penetrated into the cool and shady depths
of Ramalhão.
She and her Cousin Bazilio had enjoyed complete liberty together. Her
mother, poor lady, always engrossed in herself and her rheumatism,
would send them away smiling, and then fall asleep. Bazilio called her
Aunt Jójó, brought her boxes of bonbons, and she was happy. When the
winter arrived, their love took refuge in the old red-tapestried parlor
in the street of the Magdalena. What happy nights!--her mother, snoring
peacefully, her feet enveloped in a rug, and a volume of the Ladies’
Library resting on her knees. They sat, to their supreme content, side
by side, upon the sofa. The sofa! what memories it called up before
her! It was low and small, covered with light cashmere, with a strip
down the middle which she herself had embroidered,--a marvellous
compound of red and yellow on a black ground. One day the catastrophe
came. João de Brito, who was a partner in the house of Bastos and
Brito, suspended payment and declared himself insolvent. The house at
Almada and the villa at Collares were sold.
Bazilio, left penniless, went to Brazil. Luiza passed the first days
after his departure seated on the beloved sofa, sobbing quietly over
her cousin’s likeness. Then came the surprises of letters long looked
for, and the persistent calls at the consignatorial agency when the
steamers were behind their time.
A year passed. One morning, after a long silence on the part of
Bazilio, she received a letter dated in Bahia, which began thus: “After
much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that we should regard
our feeling for each other as a piece of childish folly.” On reading
these words she fainted. Bazilio breathed profound distress through
two pages full of explanations. He was still poor, he said, and would
have many struggles to pass through before he would be able to earn
enough for them both. The climate was execrable, and he did not wish
to sacrifice the health of his dear angel. He called her “My dove,”
and ended by signing his name in full in the midst of complicated
flourishes.
For many months afterwards Luiza was very sad. It was winter; and
seated at the window, working at her embroidery, she told herself
continually that her illusions were forever dead. She thought of
entering a convent, as her melancholy gaze followed the dripping
umbrellas of the passers-by, or as she sang at night, accompanying
herself on the piano, “Soares de Passos,”--
“Gone forever are the days
Blest that by thy side I passed,”
or the final aria of “Traviata,” or a sorrowful _fado_ of Vimioso
that she had just learned. Meantime her mother’s cold had grown worse,
and this brought with it fears and nightly vigils beside the patient’s
couch. During the convalescence they went to Bellas.
When they returned home in the winter she had gained flesh, her cheeks
were rosy, and she ate with a good appetite. One day she chanced to
come across a likeness of Bazilio, in a writing-desk,--a likeness which
her cousin had sent her shortly after his arrival in Brazil, and which
represented him with white trousers and a Panama hat. She looked at it
and shrugged her shoulders. “To think that I should ever have allowed
my peace to be disturbed by that good-for-nothing!” she said. “What a
fool I was!”
Three years from this time she became acquainted with Jorge. At
first she did not find him attractive; she did not like men with
beards. Afterwards she noticed that Jorge’s beard was fine and silky;
and she began to find a certain charm and sweetness in his glance.
Without being in love with him, she felt when with him a languor and
abandonment, as if she could be content to rest forever on his bosom,
careless of what the future might bring. What joy when he said to her,
“Let us get married”! He had caught her hand in his; that warm pressure
penetrated to her inmost soul and pervaded her whole being. She
answered yes, and then remained silent, unable to add another word, but
with her heart beating violently under the bodice of her merino gown.
She was now engaged. What tranquil happiness for her mother!
They were married at eight o’clock in the morning one foggy day. It
was necessary to light candles in order to put on her wreath and
veil. That day remained in her memory, vague and indistinct, like some
half-forgotten dream, in which stood out in clearly-defined outlines
the discolored and swollen face of the priest and the horrible visage
of a wretched-looking old woman trembling with the palsy, who held out
her hand with mingled greed and hatred, fastened herself on each of the
guests in turn, and pouring forth a volley of coarse speeches, when
Jorge, much moved, distributed at the door of the church some pieces of
money among the beggars. Her satin slippers were too tight for her; she
felt a void in her stomach, and they were obliged to make her a cup of
very strong tea on her return home. And afterwards, what fatigue when
she unpacked her trunks in the evening in her new home!
But Jorge was now her husband, and a husband young, affectionate,
and always cheerful. She told herself, therefore, that she would
adore him. She was possessed by an insatiable curiosity in regard
to everything pertaining to him,--to his business, his weapons, his
papers. She observed other husbands attentively, and she grew proud
of her own. Jorge surrounded her with all the delicate attentions of
a lover; but in all that related to his honor or to his profession he
was exacting to a degree that bordered on excess. At times he would
make use of expressions that caused her to turn pale; he was jealous
in the extreme, and one of her friends once observed to her, “That man
is capable of striking you.” She had but little doubt of it, and this
increased her love for him. He was her all,--her strength, her fortune,
her religion; her maw, in a word. She thought of what she would have
been, married to her Cousin Bazilio. What misery! What would have been
her fate? She grew bewildered in the contemplation of the hypothetic
modes of existence that unfolded themselves before her mind like scenes
in a drama. She pictured herself in Brazil, reclining under the shade
of the cocoanut-trees, in a hammock, attended by little negroes, and
watching idly the flight of the paroquets, and those large spiders and
horrible cockroaches that so greatly terrified her when she chanced to
see one near her.
“The Senhorita Leopoldina,” Juliana announced in a low voice, half
opening the door.
Luiza sat up erect, startled. “What! Leopoldina!” she said. “Why have
you admitted her?” She asked herself, while she was arranging the folds
of her morning-gown, what Jorge would say if he knew of this visit.
Heavens! he who had charged her so often not to receive this woman. But
she was now in the parlor, and what was to be done?
“Very well,” she said aloud; “say I will be with her directly.”
Leopoldina was her most intimate friend. As children they had been
neighbors in the street of the Magdalena, and school-girls together
in the Patriarchal. Leopoldina was the daughter of the Viscount of
Quebraes, who had been one of the pages of Don Miguel, and a man of bad
reputation. She had contracted an unhappy marriage with a certain João
Noronha, a clerk in the Custom House. It was known that she had lovers;
it was whispered that she was an unfaithful wife. Jorge detested her.
He had often said to Luiza, “Anything you like, but Leopoldina.”
Leopoldina was twenty-seven years old. She was not very tall, but she
had the reputation of having the best figure of any woman in Lisbon.
Her gowns were always becoming, and so close-fitting that they followed
every line of her figure, encasing her form like a second skin. Her
face was not pretty; it was, on the contrary, of a somewhat vulgar
cast; the nostrils were too wide to be beautiful; and her complexion,
of a rosy though not very clear brunette, retained almost imperceptible
traces of the small-pox. But she possessed an incontestable attraction
in her eyes, which were of an intense black, liquid, languishing, and
shaded by long lashes. As she entered, Luiza ran towards her with open
arms; they embraced each other warmly, and Leopoldina, as soon as she
was seated, began a series of lamentations, folding and unfolding her
light silk parasol. She had been indisposed, she said, _ennuyée_,
and overwhelmed with annoyances; the heat was killing her. And Luiza,
what had she been doing? Leopoldina thought her looking stouter. She
observed Luiza attentively, wrinkling her brows as she did so, for she
was somewhat near-sighted. Her lips, which were slightly parted, were
of a beautiful red, though perhaps too full, and her teeth were small,
white, and even.
“Happiness gives everything, even a good complexion,” she sighed, after
her inspection was completed. She had come, she added, to learn the
address of the French milliner who made Luiza’s bonnets. Besides, she
was distressed at not having seen her friend for so long a time.
Luiza gave her the address of the milliner; her prices were moderate,
she added, and she had taste. As the room was somewhat dark, she opened
the blinds slightly. The covering of the furniture was of a dark green,
with stripes; the paper and the carpet, of a foliage pattern, were of
the same disagreeable color. On the dark background of the wall the
gilded frames of two engravings, the “Medea” of Delacroix, and the
“Martyr” of Delaroche, stood out in bold relief. There were also on the
walls some illustrations of Dante by Doré. Between the windows was an
oval mirror in which was reflected a porcelain Neapolitan dancing the
tarantella.
Over the tête-à-tête was the portrait in oil of Jorge’s mother. She was
represented sitting bolt upright in her black gown. One of her hands,
of a deathlike pallor, rested under the weight of its rings on her
knee; the other was lost to view amid the voluminous folds of lace,
painted with much minuteness, that adorned her black satin mantilla.
Her long and cadaverous countenance stood out in bold relief against
the background of a crimson curtain, whose folds, drawn back with
studied care, allowed a perspective of blue horizon, and trees with
symmetrically rounded foliage, to be seen between them.
“And your husband, how is he?” said Luiza, seating herself beside
Leopoldina.
“As little amusing as ever,” responded the other, laughing. Leaning
towards Luiza, and slightly elevating her eyebrows, “Do you know that I
have broken off with Mendonça?” she added, with a serious air.
“Yes?” asked Luiza, blushing faintly.
Leopoldina gave her all the details. She was by nature extremely
indiscreet. From Luiza she had never had secrets. She consulted her
alike in regard to her admirers, her opinions, her manner of life, her
nervous attacks, and her gowns.
“So your cousin Bazilio is coming home again?” asked Leopoldina
presently.
“So I have just read in the ‘Diario de Noticias,’” returned Luiza. “The
news surprised me very much.”
“Ah, before I forget,” said Leopoldina, abruptly, “I should like to
know how you have trimmed your blue check gown. I want to make one like
it.”
“I have trimmed it with the same color, but of a darker shade. Come and
look at it.”
They went into the bedroom. Luiza opened the window and then the
wardrobe. The apartment was small and fresh-looking, and was furnished
in pale-blue cretonne; a cheap carpet of a blue pattern on a white
ground covered the floor. The high toilet-table stood between the
windows under a canopy of coarse lace, and was furnished with, bottles
of various sizes, and adorned with a cover embroidered by Luiza’s own
hands. On stands in front of the windows were plants of luxuriant
foliage, such as begonias and mahonias, whose leaves fell gracefully
over the earthen flower-pots in which they were planted.
All these details, which breathed of peace and comfort, brought before
Leopoldina’s mind images of tranquil joys. She looked around her, and
said slowly:
“You are still very much in love with your husband, are you not? Ah,
you are right,” she added, sighing; “you have cause to be so.”
She proceeded to powder her face and neck before the looking-glass.
“Yes, you have cause to be so,” she repeated. “But show me the woman
who could love a husband like mine.”
She threw herself on a tête-à-tête, and broke out into complaints
against her husband. He was so coarse, so selfish, she said. “Would you
believe that if I do not return at four he sits down to table without
waiting for me, dines, and leaves me the remnants?”
She then enlarged on his other defects. He took care of nothing, he
spat on the carpet, and so on, and so on. “His room--for you know we
have separate rooms--is like a pigsty.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed Luiza, gravely. “But for that you too are a
little to blame.”
“I?” responded Leopoldina, with flashing eyes, starting to her feet in
amazement. “Well, nothing but that was wanting,--that I should concern
myself about my husband’s room!”
There was a pause. At last she repeated that she was the most
unfortunate woman in the world. Then with a quick and expressive
gesture of the hand,--
“The stupid fellow is not even jealous,” she said. Juliana here entered
and said, coughing and lowering her eyes,--
“Does the senhora still wish me to iron the white waistcoats?”
“Yes, all of them; I have already told you so,” answered Luiza. “They
must be in the valise before we go to bed to-night.”
“What valise? Who is going away?” asked Leopoldina.
“Jorge. He is going to the mines in Alemtejo.” “Then you will be alone.
I can come and see you. Bravo!”
The clock struck four. Leopoldina, as if suddenly awakened from sleep,
rose.
“I must go,” she said; “it is getting late, and if I am not there he
will sit down to dinner without me. We have baked fish to-day, and
there is nothing so detestable as cold fish. Good-by--for a little
while, is it not so? While Jorge is away I will come to see you very
often. Good-by. The French milliner’s address is Ouro Street, over the
tobacconist’s, eh!”
Luiza accompanied her to the landing. She had almost reached the front
door, when, raising her voice, she said,--
“You think it best to trim the dress with blue, do you not?”
“I have done so with mine,” answered Luiza, leaning over the banister;
“it seems to me the most suitable.”
“Good-by,” repeated Leopoldina. “Ouro Street, over the tobacconist’s,
you say?”
“Yes, Ouro Street. Good-by.”
And Luiza added in a louder voice,--
“The door to the right,--Madame François.”
Jorge returned at five, and putting his umbrella in a corner, said,
from the threshold of Luiza’s room,--
“So you have had a visitor.”
Luiza colored faintly. She was at her toilet; her hair was already
arranged, and she was attired in a gown of light fabric, trimmed with
lace.
“Leopoldina was here,” she said; “Juliana admitted her, though she was
evidently not very much pleased with the visit. She came to inquire the
address of the French milliner, and she remained but a short time. Who
told you of it?” she ended.
“Juliana. Leopoldina was here the whole afternoon.”
“The whole afternoon!” repeated Luiza. “What nonsense! She was here
scarcely ten minutes at the utmost.”
Jorge took off his gloves without answering a word. He approached one
of the windows and began to finger the leaves of a pale rose-colored
begonia. He whistled softly, and seemed to be intently occupied in
detaching a bud of the amaryllis, hidden among the brilliant foliage,
and resembling in color the yellowish stalk of the plant itself.
Luiza was engaged in fastening around her neck a gold locket with a
black velvet ribbon. Her hands trembled slightly, and her face was
flushed.
“Has the heat given you a headache?” she asked her husband.
Jorge did not answer. He whistled louder than before, and went over to
the other window. There he busied himself in fingering the flexible
leaves of a mahonias, of variegated red and green. Then, suddenly
putting his hand to his throat as if he felt himself suffocating,--
“Listen,” he said to Luiza. “You must give up the acquaintance of that
creature. This must end at once and forever.”
Luiza turned scarlet.
“I neither can nor will bear it longer,” he continued. Then, prefixing
the words with a short and somewhat violent expletive, he added, “And
this for your own sake, for the sake of the neighbors, for the very
commonest decency.”
“But--it was Juliana--” stammered Luiza, unable to add another word.
“Next time, put her outside the door,” returned Jorge, walking with
long strides up and down the room. “Say you are not at home, that you
have gone to China, that you are sick--”
Then he paused, and in a voice full of emotion,--
“Only consider, my dear child,” he said, “that every one is but too
well acquainted with her reputation. The _Quebraes_! A byword! A
shameless creature! As if the odor in the room were not enough for me
to know that she has been here! That hateful odor of new-mown hay!”
he continued. “You were school-fellows, it is true; but that will not
prevent me from giving her a fright some day, if I should catch her
here,--yes, a fright,” he repeated.
He was silent for a moment; then, turning to his wife with open arms,
“Come, am I right, or not?” he said.
“Yes, you are right,” returned Luiza, confused and blushing, while she
went on arranging her ornaments before the looking-glass.
“Very well, then,” he said, and left the room, furious.
Luiza remained standing before her glass, and a pearly tear rolled
silently down her cheek.
“That tattling Juliana!” she cried; “and all for the pleasure of sowing
discord!”
She was seized with a sudden fit of anger, and went into the laundry,
slamming the door behind her as she entered.
“Who has given you orders to say whether any one comes to my house or
not?” she said abruptly to Juliana.
“I did not think it was a secret,” responded the latter, laying down in
surprise the iron she was using.
“Of course it is no secret, stupid! Why did you admit her? Have I not
told you a thousand times that I do not wish to receive her?”
“The senhora has never told me so,” answered the woman, with a look of
amazement, and beginning to grow angry in her turn.
“That is not the truth! Be silent!”
She turned her back on Juliana, and went to her own room with her
nerves all unstrung. Presently she crossed over to the window, and
leaning against it looked out.
The sun was just setting, darkness was gradually falling over the
ill-paved street without, and not a breath of air was stirring. The
houses of the neighborhood were old and shabby, with mean entrances;
one could guess that they were inhabited by poorly-paid clerks. On
their balconies, in pots, were some common plants,--sweet basil and
carnations. In the upper stories, where the services of the laundress
were but seldom called into requisition, clothes were hanging out
to dry. The appealing notes of the “Virgin’s Prayer,” which some
young girl of the neighborhood was playing on the piano with all the
sentimental abandon peculiar to the day, fell upon her ears. Crowded
together in the narrow balcony of the house opposite were the four
daughters of Senhor Teixeira Azevedo, thin as tenterhooks, their
hair in disorder, their faces unwashed, devoting the afternoon to
the inspection of the neighboring windows, to making sport of the
passers-by, and to watching, with the seriousness of idiots, their
saliva fall in large drops on the pavement beneath.
“Jorge is right,” thought Luiza. But what more could she do, she asked
herself. She never put her foot in Leopoldina’s house; she had taken
her likeness out of the album in the parlor; and she had felt herself
obliged to confess to her the fact of her husband’s antipathy towards
her. What tears had they not shed together! Poor Leopoldina! she came
to see her so seldom, and remained so short a time! But if he found her
in the parlor would he really put her out of the house?
At this point in her reflections a man, short and stout, with bow legs,
and bending over a Barbary organ, made his appearance at the entrance
of the street; his black beard gave him a savage aspect. He stopped,
and began to play, directing, as he did so, an uneasy glance up at the
windows, and smiling sorrowfully. The _aria_ of “Casta Diva,”
accompanied with an incessant _tremolo_, filled the air with its
harsh and metallic sound.
Some of the neighbors looked out from between the muslin curtains of
their windows. Gertrudes, the servant of the professor of mathematics,
showed in the narrow frame of her window her broad and swarthy face, on
which were plainly discernible the traces of her forty springs. Farther
on, leaning over the balcony of the second story, was seen the dark
figure of Senhor Cunha Rosado, tall and thin, his cap on his head, his
transparent hands clasping his dressing-gown over his stomach with an
air indicative of pain.
The shopkeepers of the street came idly to their doors. The woman who
kept the tobacco-shop stood at her threshold, dressed in mourning, and
revealing in her whole appearance her state of widowhood, her arms
folded over her dyed shawl, her figure squeezed into a jacket too small
for her, that made her look still thinner than she was, an expression
of languor and fatigue in her eyes. From the ground-floor of the house
in which Senhor Azevedo lived, the coal-vender emerged,--a person of
massive proportions, who affected a grotesque gravity, her hair in
tangles, her face black and shining from the coal-dust with which she
was covered from head to foot, accompanied by her three little boys,
who looked like three little crying blacks, half-naked, and hanging on
to her skirts. Senhor Paula, the furniture-dealer, in his cloth cap
with its peak of patent leather, which he never removed from his head,
advanced as far as the gutter. His soiled stockings hung down over the
heels of his slippers, which were embroidered with glass beads. He
suffered from a chronic hoarseness, and he had a disagreeable trick of
making a clicking noise with his tongue. His long gray mustache drooped
over the corners of his mouth. He hated kings and priests. The state of
public affairs was a source of unceasing sorrow to him. He was always
whistling the air of “Maria da Fonte;” and his every word and gesture
revealed the discontented patriot.
The organ-grinder took off his hat, and without ceasing to play held
it up to the balconies with the supplicating glance of one who asks an
alms, leaving uncovered his forehead, to which the hair clung, wet with
perspiration. The Senhoritas Azevedo quickly shut their window. The
coal-vender gave him a copper coin, not, however, without first putting
some questions to him; she wanted to know where he came from, what
streets he had passed through, and how many airs his organ played.
A bell tolled in the distance, announcing the conclusion of some
religious service, and the Sunday was approaching its close with a calm
and melancholy tranquillity.
“Luiza!” said Jorge, entering the room suddenly.
She turned around, answering mechanically,--
“What is it?”
“Let us go to supper, child; it is seven o’clock,” he returned. And
putting his arm around her waist, he continued, in a voice low and full
of tenderness, as they stood together in the middle of the room, “You
were angry with me a little while ago, were you not?”
“No,” responded Luiza, in humble accents; “you were right; I confess
it.”
“Ah!” he said, in the tone of one who has conquered, and is proud of
his victory. And rubbing his hands together, he declaimed gayly, “‘The
husband whom the heart accepts is always the best counsellor and the
truest friend.’ To supper!” he ended joyously.