THE PUBLIC GARDENS.
AT about three in the afternoon Juliana entered the kitchen and threw
herself down on one of the wooden chairs. She was so exhausted, she
said, that she could scarcely stand. It had taken her two hours to
arrange the parlor, which was like a pigsty. The visitor had left the
ashes of his cigar on the table, for her, the poor slave, to clean
away. And how warm it was I The heat was melting! Her yellow skin shone
as if it had been anointed with oil.
“Is the soup not ready yet?” she asked, softening her voice. “Give me a
little, Senhora Joanna.”
“You are not looking so well to-day,” said the cook.
“There are so many things the matter with me! I did not fall asleep
this morning till the sun was up. This gives one an appetite,” she
added, stirring with a greedy air the soup Joanna had placed before her.
The cook, standing before her with folded arms, contemplated Juliana
with an expression of satisfaction on her countenance.
“The only thing wanting is that it should be to your taste,” she said.
“It is just right.”
Both smiled, pleased at the friendly feeling existing between them, to
which they had just given expression. At this moment the door-bell,
that had already sounded faintly, was heard for the second time with
more distinctness.
Juliana did not move. Puffs of warm air came in through the window, in
the silence could be heard the simmering of the pot on the fire, and
the incessant sound of hammering from the forge near by; from time to
time the melancholy and monotonous cooing of a pair of turtle-doves
from their cage in the balcony mingled with the brightness of the
afternoon a note of gentle sadness.
The bell sounded again, this time rung by an impatient hand.
“Now call with your tongue, imbecile!” said Juliana.
Both women laughed. Joanna went and seated herself in a low chair by
the window, her large feet, encased in listing slippers, stretched out
before her, and began to scratch her arms softly, enjoying to the full
these few moments’ rest.
The bell sounded violently.
“Stay there, idiot!” growled Juliana, without moving.
But the angry accents of Luiza ascended from the floor below,--
“Juliana!”
“One cannot even eat in peace. Detestable house, plague take it!”
exclaimed Juliana, striking the table violently with the bowl of her
spoon.
“Juliana!” called Luiza a second time.
“The mistress is getting angry,” said the cook in a low voice, turning
towards Juliana.
“The deuce take her!” said the latter.
She wiped her lips, greasy with the soup, on her apron, and went
downstairs, furious.
“Did you not hear?” exclaimed Luiza. “The bell has been ringing for an
hour.”
Juliana opened her eyes in amazement as she looked at her mistress;
Luiza was dressed in her new morning-gown of brown foulard with little
yellow dots.
“There is something up,” she thought to herself as she crossed the hall.
The bell rang again, and Juliana saw on the doorstep the gentleman who
had come on business connected with the mines, dressed in a light suit,
with a rose in his buttonhole and a package under his arm. She took in
his appearance with a keen and rapid glance.
“It is the gentleman who was here yesterday,” she said in a low voice
to her mistress.
“Admit him.”
“Come, this is progressing!” said Juliana to herself. Her eyes
glittered, and going upstairs she said to Joanna with an accent of
malicious joy, as she opened the kitchen door,--
“The gentleman who came yesterday is here again, and he has brought a
package with him.”
Joanna turned her round black eyes slowly toward Juliana.
“What do you think of it, Senhora Joanna?” said the latter, standing in
the middle of the floor with folded arms and lips tightly shut.
“He is some visitor,” returned the cook with indifference.
Juliana laughed dryly, sat down, and greedily finished her soup.
Joanna went about the kitchen, singing. In the pauses of her song could
be heard the soft and tender cooing of the doves.
“Come, come; this is going on very well,” said Juliana.
She cleaned her teeth slowly with her tongue as she sat, her gaze
fixed and dilated, plunged in thought; then she rose, took off her
apron, and went down to Luiza’s room. Her searching glance descried
in a moment the keys of the pantry, which Luiza had forgotten, lying
on the bureau. She might have gone upstairs, drunk a glass of good
wine and eaten a few spoonfuls of preserve; but she was devoured by an
insatiable curiosity, and, walking on tiptoe, she went softly to the
parlor door and put her eye to the keyhole. The portière was drawn on
the inside, and she could hear nothing but the gay and animated accents
of the visitor; she crossed the hall and went to the door beside the
staircase. The key was in the lock, and she put her ear to the keyhole.
The portière within was also drawn.
“Those cunning devils have taken care to secure everything,” she said
to herself. Then she thought she heard a chair move, and afterwards the
closing of a window. Her eyes glittered. She heard again the continuous
murmur of a conversation carried on in low tones. All at once the
gentleman raised his voice, and among the phrases which he pronounced,
evidently walking up and down the room, Juliana heard clearly these
words,--“You; it was you!”[5]
“What shamelessness!” she thought.
A timid tin tin of the bell startled her, and she went, running, to
open the door. It was Sebastião, his face flushed with the heat, his
boots covered with dust.
“Is your mistress at home?” he asked, wiping the perspiration from his
forehead.
“The mistress is with a visitor, Senhor Sebastião,” said Juliana,--“a
young gentleman who was here yesterday,” she added, in a lower voice,
closing the door. “Shall I tell her you are here?”
“No, no, thank you. Good-day.” And he went down the steps slowly and
thoughtfully.
Juliana took up her station again beside the door, her ear close to the
keyhole and her hands behind her back; but she could hear nothing of
the conversation, which was carried on in a low voice, but a soft and
confused murmur. She went upstairs to the kitchen.
“They call each other _thou_, Senhora Joanna,” she exclaimed.
“That looks strange,” she continued in shrill accents, and very much
excited.
The gentleman went away at five. When Juliana heard the door open, she
went out to the landing and saw Luiza leaning over the banisters and
saying in low and friendly accents to some one below,--
“Very well; I will be there. Good-by.”
Juliana was seized with an attack of curiosity that resembled an attack
of fever. During the evening she devoured Luiza with eager glances
that flashed like lightning. In her desire to surprise her mistress in
an intrigue, the perfectly natural demeanor of the latter filled her
with impatience, as might a chest securely fastened with lock and key,
which she desired to open but could not.
“Go on!” she said in her own mind to Luiza; “I will catch you yet, you
shameless creature!”
She fancied that Luiza’s eyes had a fatigued expression. She studied
her attitudes, the tones of her voice. When she saw her help herself
twice to the roast meat, she said to herself,--
“This has given her an appetite.”
And when she saw her lean back in her easy-chair, after dinner, with
an air of fatigue, she said to herself that this was the exhaustion of
excitement.
Luiza asked for coffee.
“Half a cup, but strong, very strong,” she said.
Juliana went to give her order to the cook. “She wants coffee, and it
must be strong, she says. The devil’s in the whole lot of them! They
are all the same,--one as bad as another.”
The following day was Sunday. As Juliana was getting ready to go
to Mass, Luiza called her, and standing at the door of her room,
half-dressed, gave her a letter for Donna Felicidade. As a general rule
she sent her messages to her friend verbally; the curiosity of Juliana
was therefore aroused by this closed and sealed envelope, bearing
Luiza’s initial,--a Gothic L, surrounded by a garland of roses.
“Is there any answer?” she asked.
“No.”
When Juliana returned at ten o’clock, Luiza asked her if it was warm
out, and if there was much dust. A dark-colored straw hat adorned with
musk-roses was lying on the table.
Juliana, answered that there was some wind, but that it would probably
cease before the afternoon.
“She has some excursion planned; she is going to meet that young man,”
thought Juliana.
But Luiza, attired in her morning-gown, passed the whole day between
her bedroom and the parlor; now reclining on a sofa reading, now
absently playing fragments of a waltz on the piano. At four she dined,
and shortly afterwards the cook went out. Juliana passed the afternoon
at the window of the dining-room. Dressed in her new gown, her stiffly
starched petticoats, and her best collar, she leaned her elbows,
unsmiling, on the railing of the balcony, over which she had carefully
laid her handkerchief.
At eight, Juliana entered Luiza’s room, and was struck with amazement
to see her dressed in black, and with her hat on. She had already
lighted the lamp, and the candles on her dressing-table, and seated on
the edge of the sofa, was drawing on her gloves with a serious air. Her
countenance revealed a feverish impatience.
“Has the wind ceased?” she asked.
“Yes, Senhora; it is a beautiful night,” responded Juliana.
A little before nine a carriage stopped at the door. It was Donna
Felicidade. She came in very much excited, saying that the horses had
been frightened by a fire-engine that had passed them on their way.
And how warm it was! she said. She had been suffocating all day. And
now that there was not a breath of air stirring! She had preferred
an open carriage to a coupé, where to a certainty they would have
suffocated. Juliana came and went, closing doors, and putting things
in order, devoured by curiosity, and with eyes and ears wide open. But
Donna Felicidade, immovable in her chair, continued to talk without
ceasing; she related in all its details the episode of the fire-engine,
told of the attack of indigestion she had had on the previous day from
eating pea-shells; afterwards how the cook had wanted to cheat her, and
of a visit the Countess of Arruella had made her.
She rose and went to the dressing-table to powder her neck, which, as
she said, was bathed in perspiration.
“Let us go, my dear,” said Luiza; “it is growing late.”
Juliana lighted them out. She was furious. Where could they be going?
Not a single word on that point! How unseemly for two women to go out
alone at night in a hired carriage! If a servant should remain out half
an hour later than usual, what a scolding she would receive!
She went up to the kitchen. She wanted to gossip a little with
Joanna,--to laugh a little. But Joanna said, yawning, that she was so
tired that her knees were bending under her. She had been out all day.
“I must go to bed to get over my fatigue,” she added.
“That’s right,” returned Juliana, in a mocking voice. “Go play the
sluggard! How little it takes to tire you!”
She went down to Luiza’s room, put out the lights, and opened the
window. The air was heavy, dark, hot, and motionless. She drew out a
low chair to the balcony, and disposed herself to spend the evening
there with her arms folded, digesting an abundant dinner.
Footsteps were heard coming slowly down the street, followed by a
gentle ring at the bell. Juliana leaned over the balcony and asked in
tones expressive of annoyance,--
“Who is there?”
“Is your mistress at home?” asked the deep voice of Sebastião.
“She went out in a carriage with Donna Felicidade a little while ago,”
replied Juliana.
“Ah! Good-night, then.”
Meantime Donna Felicidade and Luiza had arrived at the Passeio.
It was the evening of a benefit; a slow and monotonous murmur could be
heard inside, and the air was filled with clouds of dust. They entered,
and a little beyond the fountain they suddenly came face to face with
Bazilio.
“What a happy chance!” he exclaimed in accents of surprise.
Luiza colored as she presented him to Donna Felicidade.
The excellent lady saluted him with a bow of marked politeness and
smiles without number. She remembered him very well, she said; but if
Luiza had not mentioned his name she would not have recognized him;
she found him very much altered.
“The troubles of life, Senhora,” he said, bowing, “and old age; above
all, old age,” he continued, laughing, and striking his cane against
the stones of the fountain.
The gas-lights were reflected in wavering brightness in the dark water.
The foliage of the trees, of a faded green, that looked artificial,
was motionless. Between the two long parallel lines of stunted trees,
interspersed with gas-lamps, a compact multitude of dark forms moved
along, enveloped in clouds of dust; above the noise made by the crowd
the animated strains of the orchestra rose through the heavy air in
the lively measures of a waltz. They remained standing by the fountain
chatting, and looking at the people as they entered: two young men with
curly hair and lavender trousers, smoking with due deliberation their
holiday cigars; an officer with breast swelled out and waist tightened
in, as if he wore a corset, accompanied by two young ladies with their
hair in curls, who showed through the thin fabric of their tasteless
gowns, as they walked, every movement of their shoulder-blades; an
ecclesiastic with a sallow complexion, and a cigar in his mouth, whose
blue spectacles gleamed in the light; two young collegians walking
along with a swinging gait, that they might be thought rakes; the
melancholy Xavier the poet; a young man in a jacket, a heavy cane in
his hand, his hat on the back of his head, and his eyes glittering with
the brilliancy of the wine-cup. Bazilio laughed as two little boys,
dressed in light blue, with scarlet sashes, lancer’s shakos, Hungarian
hoots, and a sleepy air, entered hand in hand with their father, on
whose countenance was depicted satisfaction and delight.
Luiza expressed a desire to sit down. A little ragamuffin in a dirty
blouse of coarse fabric ran to bring chairs, and they seated themselves
beside a family group composed of the mother, the father, and three
daughters, who, sitting motionless in their chairs, looked around them
with silent melancholy.
“What have you been doing to-day?” Luiza asked Bazilio.
He answered that he had been to see the bull-fight.
“What! do you like that kind of thing?” she said.
Bazilio confessed that he had found it tiresome. If it had not been
for the gymnastic feats of Peixinho he should have died of weariness.
The bulls were tame, the horsemen unskilful. Ah, the bull-fights in
Spain,--they were worth looking at!
Donna Felicidade protested. He should not say such a thing; they were
horrible; she had seen one in Badajoz when she was visiting her aunt
Francisca de Noronha, who resided in Elvas, and she had fainted. The
blood, the intestines of the horses,--pah!
“What would you say, Senhora,” said Bazilio, laughing, “if you saw the
cock-fights?”
Donna Felicidade had heard of them, but those diversions seemed to her
barbarous and unchristian; and here calling to mind a pleasure the
recollection of which brought a smile to her broad countenance, she
continued,--
“For me there is nothing like a night at the theatre,--nothing!”
“But the actors here are so poor!” responded Bazilio, with a
disconsolate air.
Donna Felicidade did not answer; half risen from her chair, her eyes
bright and humid, she was making persistent gestures of salutation to
some one with her hand.
“They have not seen me,” she exclaimed at last, with an air of
desperation.
“Is it the counsellor?” asked Luiza.
“No, it is the Countess of Alviella; she did not see me; she often goes
to the Chapel of the Encarnação; she is a friend of mine; she is an
angel; her father-in-law is with her; see!”
Bazilio did not take his eyes from Luiza’s face. Seen through her white
veil, and in that dusty atmosphere, its features were defined in soft
and uncertain outlines. Her blond, wavy hair, of a darker shade at
night, followed the contour of her small head, giving her an expression
of infantile and tender grace; her pearl-colored gloves displayed the
elegant shape of her hands--the delicate wrists surrounded by a frill
of lace--as they rested, holding her fan, on the dark background of her
lap.
“And you,--what have you been doing?” asked Bazilio in his turn.
She had spent a very tiresome day, she said, alone from morning till
night.
He, too, had spent the morning alone, lying on the sofa reading the
“Femme de Feu,” of Belot. “Have you read it?” he asked her.
“No; what is it?”
“A new book; but one of a somewhat daring character. I advise you not
to read it.”
Donna Felicidade confessed that she was reading “Rocambole,” because
she had heard it praised very highly. But it was so confused that
she could not understand it, and she forgot to-day what she had read
yesterday. She was going to leave off reading it, she declared, for she
noticed that it increased her indigestion.
“Are you in bad health?” asked Bazilio, with the interest of a
well-bred man.
Donna Felicidade availed herself of the opportunity to describe the
different phases of her dyspepsia. Bazilio recommended her to use ice,
congratulating her because just now, as he said, disorders of the
stomach were very chic, and asking her for details with interest.
Donna Felicidade was profuse in giving them, endeavoring to show by her
words, by the animation of her glance, and by her friendly accent, the
lively sympathy she felt for Bazilio.
“So then you recommend me to try ice,--with a little wine, of course.”
“Yes, with wine.”
“That ought to be very good,” said Donna Felicidade to Luiza, touching
her on the arm with her fan, her countenance animated and hopeful.
Luiza smiled, and was about to answer, when she observed standing
beside her a man with a pallid countenance, whose languid glance was
fixed upon her with an annoying persistence. She turned her back to
him, and he withdrew, twisting the ends of his imperial.
Bazilio observed her silence. Was she sleepy? he asked.
“Ever since her husband went away,” said Donna Felicidade, smiling,
“she has worn this sorrowful countenance.”
“What folly!” responded Luiza, instinctively observing Bazilio. “All
these days past I have been very gay.”
“We know, of course,” insisted Donna Felicidade, “that that little
heart is in Alemtejo.”
“You wouldn’t want me, I suppose, to begin to dance and shout in a
public place,” responded Luiza, in impatient accents, with an abrupt
movement of her fan.
“Well, well, don’t get angry,” said Donna Felicidade. “What a temper!”
she continued, turning towards Bazilio.
“Cousin Luiza had a terrible temper formerly,” responded Bazilio,
laughing. “I don’t know how it may be now.”
“She is a dove, a little dove; is it not so? A dove,” insisted Donna
Felicidade, regarding Luiza with a maternal glance.
Meantime the taciturn group at their side had risen silently, and with
the air of somnambulists, the daughters in front, the father and mother
bringing up the rear, now slowly and sadly withdrew.
Bazilio immediately took the vacant chair beside Luiza, and observing
Donna Felicidade glancing around her with abstracted gaze,--
“I was on the point of going to see you this morning,” he said in a low
and confidential tone.
“And why did you not come?” responded Luiza, speaking in her natural
voice; “we might have had some music.”
Bazilio did not answer, and began to twist his mustache. Donna
Felicidade wanted to know what time it was. She began to grow
impatient. She had expected to meet the counsellor, and, in order to
appear to advantage in his eyes, she had laced herself, which was for
her a very great sacrifice. Accacio did not make his appearance, the
gas began to incommode her, and the annoyance she felt at not seeing
him increased the tortures of her dyspepsia.
The orchestra, in full force, began to play the first bars of the March
from Faust. This reanimated her. It was a _pot-pourri_ of the
opera, and there was no music she preferred to it.
She asked Bazilio if he would be in Madrid for the opening of the S.
Carlos.
“I don’t know, Senhora,” he responded with a meaning glance at Luiza;
“that depends--”
Luiza remained silent and motionless. The crowd increased. In the
lateral walks, freer, cooler, and without gas-lights, those who
were shy, who were in mourning, or who were shabbily attired, were
walking, while the _bourgeoisie_, dressed in their Sunday finery,
crowded together in the central walk, and grouping themselves in the
passages between the compact files of chairs, moving along with the
slowness of a half-melted mass of metal, impeded at every step, their
throats parched, and in almost unbroken silence, went back and forth
incessantly, in that passive confusion in which indolent races delight.
Notwithstanding the countless lights and the noise of the gay music,
a melancholy weariness, penetrating as a mist, seemed to hover in the
air; the impalpable dust rested on every countenance, bestowing on
it uncertain and ill-defined tones; and on every countenance, as it
came within the light of the gas-lamps, could be read an indefinable
expression of dreariness and fatigue, such as is to be seen only on a
holiday.
Donna Felicidade proposed to take a turn. They rose, and crossed slowly
through the crowd. As they found it difficult to advance, Bazilio
proposed to his companions that they should make their escape from this
confusion.
They assented. While Bazilio was buying the tickets, Donna Felicidade
sat down on a bench under a weeping willow, exclaiming in doleful
accents,--
“Ah, child, I think I am going to burst!”
She passed her hand over her stomach.
“And the counsellor! What do you say to that? Truly, I have no luck!
To-night when I came here--”
She sighed, and continued with a smile,--
“Your cousin is indeed interesting. And what good manners! A true
gentleman! That may be seen at the first glance!”
They had scarcely left the Passeio when she declared she could stand no
longer, and that they must take a carriage.
Bazilio thought it would be better to go on foot to the Praça do
Loreto. The night was so pleasant! To walk would do Donna Felicidade
good.
As they passed Martinho’s, Bazilio proposed that they should go in
and take an ice; but Donna Felicidade was afraid of iced drinks, and
Luiza had not the courage to consent. Through the open doors of the
café could be seen the deserted tables, and the newspapers scattered
about the floor. In the street the little ragamuffins were gathering
up ends of cigars. In the Praça do Rocio people were strolling about
under the trees; on the benches were to be seen a few motionless
figures, apparently asleep; here and there through the darkness
shone the burning end of a cigar; men were walking up and down, hat
in hand, fanning themselves; women with silk handkerchiefs around
their shoulders, and trailing after them long white petticoats very
stiffly starched, to judge from the noise they made, were crying out
on the street corners as they passed, “Water fresh from the Arsenal!”
Open carriages were driving slowly around the praza. The heat was
suffocating; and in the midst of the surrounding darkness the column
that supported the statue of Dom Pedro wore the pallid aspect of a
colossal taper.
Bazilio walked silently by Luiza’s side. “What a horrible city!” he
thought. “What gloom! what tedium!” He recalled the summer he had spent
in Paris: at night, he drove slowly in his phaeton through the Champs
Elysées, and hundreds of victorias drove rapidly past him; the lamps of
the carriages formed along the whole avenue a moving line of luminous
points. Fair and lovely faces of women rested against the cushions,
swayed by the movement of their luxurious carriages. The air had a warm
and velvet softness; the chestnut-trees diffused around a penetrating
odor; and on either side, from among the trees, streamed torrents of
light from the concert cafés, filled with the noise of the gay crowd
within, and the lively strains of the orchestra; laughter resounded
from the restaurants; love and happiness, under their most seductive
aspects, reigned everywhere; and farther on, through the windows of
palaces and hotels, could be seen the soft and shaded lights that
illuminated the treasures within. Ah, if he were only there!
But as they passed under the gas-lamps he glanced at Luiza’s
countenance through her white veil; her profile was full of grace; her
dress followed perfectly the curves of her figure, and there was an
undulating languor in her gait. The thought occurred to him, and he
gave utterance to it aloud, that it was a pity there was not in Lisbon
a restaurant where they might go and eat the wing of a partridge,
moistened with a bottle of champagne _frappé_.
Luiza did not answer, but she said to herself that that must be
delightful.
“A partridge at this hour!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade.
“A partridge or anything else,” said Bazilio.
“Whatever it might be, it would give us an indigestion,” she replied.
In the Chiado a youth in a blue blouse followed them with tickets for
the lottery; his shrill and doleful accents promising them good fortune
in the form of many _contos de reis_. Donna Felicidade stopped.
She felt a momentary temptation; but a group of drunken men came
towards them, their hats pushed back from the forehead, gesticulating
rudely and stumbling against the passers-by with the evident intention
of provoking a quarrel. Luiza took refuge close beside Bazilio, whose
arm Donna Felicidade, much frightened, had taken. The group passed on,
shouting. Donna Felicidade insisted on taking a carriage immediately,
and did nothing, till they reached the Praça do Loreto, but recount,
with a voice still trembling from the terror with which the drunken
men had inspired her, accidents and affrays with knives, all without
loosening for a moment her hold on Bazilio’s arm.
They stopped; and a hackman who was opportunely in the Praça de Camões
directed his carriage towards them. The two ladies entered. Luiza
turned round to give a parting glance to Bazilio as he stood there
motionless, his hat in his hand. Then she settled herself back in the
carriage, stretched out her feet on the cushions before her, and,
rocked by the trot of the horses, gazed silently from her corner, as
they passed them in turn, at the dark houses of the street of S. Roque,
the trees of S. Pedro de Alcantara, the narrow façades of the street of
the Moinho de Vento, and the sleeping gardens of the Patriarchal.
They passed a group of musicians playing the _fado_ of Vimioso on
the guitar, in front of the Polytechnic School. The music penetrated
her soul, awakening gently in her heart echoes of past emotions. A sigh
escaped her half-closed lips.
“There is a sigh that goes to Alemtejo,” said Donna Felicidade,
touching her on the arm.
Luiza felt the blood mount to her face.
When she reached home it was striking eleven. Juliana came to light her
in.
“Tea is ready, when the senhora wishes it,” she said.
Luiza went upstairs, and putting on a loose white dressing-gown, threw
herself, weary and depressed by the heat, into an easy-chair. She
felt herself growing drowsy; her head began to nod, her eyelids were
closing, and Juliana had not yet brought the tea. Luiza called to her.
Where could she be?
She had descended to Luiza’s room, and was examining the pocket of the
gown her mistress had worn; hearing her name called impatiently, she
went into the parlor quickly.
Was it her tea the senhora wanted? If so it was ready.
“Senhor Sebastião was here,” she added as she handed her mistress the
toast; “it was about nine when he came.”
“What did you tell him?” asked Luiza.
“That the senhora had gone out with Donna Felicidade. I could not tell
him where, as I did not know. Don Sebastião,” she continued, “stayed
talking with me more than half an hour.”