ON TRIAL.
AT about four in the afternoon Sebastião went again to Luiza’s. He
found the same gentleman with her as before. He went away thoughtful,
without seeing her. No doubt the visitor had come on some business
of Jorge’s; for Sebastião could not comprehend that Luiza should
think, speak, or feel, except with reference to the interests of the
household, and with Jorge’s happiness in view. But the business must be
a serious one to be the occasion of so many visits. Could anything of
importance affect their interests and he not know of it? This seemed
to him a piece of ingratitude on their part, and a diminution of their
friendship for him.
Aunt Joanna noticed that something was the matter with him.
“A headache,” he said, in answer to her inquiries. That night he
slept badly. Next day he learned that the gentleman was her Cousin
Bazilio,--Bazilio de Brito. His uncertainty was at an end, but a more
definite fear took possession of him.
Sebastião did not know Bazilio personally, but he knew the story of
his youthful days. It is true that in this there was neither any
exceptional scandal nor any piquant history. Bazilio had been simply
a _viveur_, and as such had passed methodically through all the
traditional episodes of Lisbon life,--parties of _monte_ lasting
till daylight, in the companionship of the wealthy _bourgeois_ of
Alemtejo; a carriage dashed to pieces on a Saturday at the bull-fights;
dinners with some Lola or Carmen, followed by a lobster salad; a
bull caught by the horns, applauses in the circus of Salvaterra or
in Alhandra; nights spent in the taverns with guitar-players, eating
codfish and drinking Collares; and a shower of flour eggs, thrown in
the face of one of the municipal authorities during the Carnival. The
only women who appeared in this story, with the exception of the Lolas
and the Carmens, were la Pistelli, a German dancer with the legs of
an athlete, and the little Countess of Alvini, a feather-head, and a
great Amazon, who had separated from her husband after having given him
a beating, and who once dressed in male attire to drive a coach from
Rocio to Dá Fundo. All this was enough to make Sebastião regard him
as a rake, as one who had already gone to destruction. He had heard
that he was obliged to fly to Brazil from his creditors, and that he
became rich by chance through a speculation in Paraguay; that not even
when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, in Bahia, would he devote
himself persistently to work; and he took it for granted that the
possession of a fortune would be the means of developing his vices.
And this man came every day to see Luiza, staying with her for hours,
accompanying her to the Passeio, with what purpose it was only too
evident.
He was going down the street, oppressed by the weight of these
thoughts, when he heard a hoarse voice saying in respectful tones,--
“Senhor Sebastião!”
It was Paula the furniture-dealer.
“I hope you are well, Senhor João.”
Paula spat on the pavement, and with his hands crossed behind him under
the long skirts of his coat, said gravely,--
“Senhor Sebastião, is there any one sick in the house of the Senhor
Engineer?”
“No,” returned Sebastião, in a tone of surprise. “Why?”
Paula coughed, spat again, and said,--
“Because I have observed a gentleman entering the house every day, and
I thought it might be the doctor,--one of those new homœopaths.”
Sebastião turned scarlet.
“No,” he responded; “it is the cousin of Donna Luiza.”
“Ah!” said Paula. “I thought-- Excuse me, Senhor Sebastião.”
And he bowed respectfully.
“They begin to gossip already,” thought Sebastião, as he continued on
his way.
He returned home ill at ease. He lived in an old-fashioned house with
a garden, belonging to himself. Sebastião lived alone. He possessed a
small fortune in bonds, arable land, and his villa in Almada called
the Rozegal. His two servants had been with him for many years; the
cook was a negress from St. Thomas who had been in the service of the
family since before his mother’s death; Joanna the housekeeper had
served in the house for thirty-five years, and still called Sebastião
the _little one_. She had now all the caprices of a child, but
she was treated with the respect that might be shown to a grandmother.
She was from Oporto,--_Poarto_, as she called it, for she had not
lost her native accent. The friends of Sebastião called her _uma
velha de comedia_. She was short and stout, with a round and jovial
face, a smile full of kindness, hair white as flax, gathered in a knot
on the top of her head, and fastened by an antique tortoiseshell comb;
and she always wore a large white kerchief, freshly ironed, around her
shoulders. She went about the house from morning till night, shuffling
her feet and jingling her keys, repeating proverbs and taking pinches
of snuff from a round box, on the lid of which was a picture of the
hanging bridge of Oporto.
There was something in the aspect of the whole house that called an
involuntary smile to the lips. The immense sofa and the easy-chairs
reminded one of the days of José I., and the damask covering, of a
faded red, recalled the pomp of a decrepit court; on the walls of the
dining-room hung engravings of Napoleon’s battles, in all of which was
to be seen the white horse standing on a height, towards which a hussar
of high rank galloped furiously, brandishing his sabre.
Sebastião slept seven hours of tranquil sleep every night, in an
antique bed of bent-wood, in a small dark bedroom. On a bureau with
brass scutcheons, a St. Sebastian, pierced with arrows, had for many
years past writhed--in the light of a little lamp kept carefully
burning by Joanna--within the cords that bound him to the trunk of
a tree. All the clothes put away in the drawers were perfumed by
lavender-flowers.
The house resembled its master. Sebastião had old-fashioned ideas; he
was shy, and he loved solitude. Years ago, in the Latin class, they had
called him the _bear_; his comrades pinned rags on his back for
sport, and unblushingly robbed him of his luncheon. To the strength of
an athlete Sebastião joined the patience of a martyr.
He was always rejected in the first examinations at college. He was
intelligent, but a question put to him, the glitter of the spectacles
of a professor, the sight of the large black table, petrified him, and
deprived him of the power of speech, leaving him with his face crimson,
his knees trembling, his glance wandering.
His mother, who had come to Lisbon from a little village where she had
kept a baker’s shop, who was very proud of her rents, her villa, her
furniture, and who was always dressed in silks and weighed down with
jewelry, would say,--
“Has he not enough to provide him with food and drink? Why trouble the
boy with studies? Let him alone! Let him alone!”
Sebastião’s great passion was the piano. Following the advice of
Jorge’s mother, who was her neighbor and her intimate friend, his
mother provided a master for him. From the very first lessons, at
which, in a red velvet gown, and covered with trinkets, she assisted,
the old professor Achilles Bentes, who had a face and eyes like those
of an owl, declared, in his nasal voice,--
“Dear lady, your son is a genius. Yes, he is a genius! He will be a
Rossini! We must push him forward!”
But this was precisely what she did not wish to do,--to push forward
the little one. Therefore he did not become a Rossini, which did not
prevent old Bentes from continuing to say,--
“He will be a Rossini!”
Only that instead of proclaiming it aloud, brandishing his roll of
music, he now murmured it softly under his breath, rubbing his knotty
hands together.
At this epoch the two youthful neighbors, Jorge and Sebastião, became
intimate. Jorge, the more active and enterprising of the two, ruled
his comrade. In their sports in the garden Sebastião, if they played
coach, was always the horse; if they played soldiers, he was always the
defeated party. He carried the heavy things; he allowed Jorge to jump
over his back, at leap-frog; in their feasts he contented himself with
the bread and left the fruits to Jorge. This friendship, uninterrupted
and unclouded, was to remain, throughout Sebastião’s life, an essential
and permanent element in it.
When Jorge’s mother died, they thought for a time of living together
in the house of Sebastião, which was larger than Jorge’s, and which
had a garden. Jorge had some intention of buying a horse; but solitude
inspired him with sentimental ideas of marriage. He saw Luiza in the
Passeio, and for two months passed entire days in the street of the
Magdalena.
Thus all that smiling plan which they had called laughingly the Society
of Jorge and Sebastião fell to the ground like a house of cards.
Sebastião felt for a long time a keen sensation of regret. Afterwards
it was he who provided the bouquets of roses which Jorge carried
Luiza, stripping them carefully of their thorns, and wrapping them in
tissue-paper. He it was who made ready the nest; he looked for the
upholsterer, discussed the prices of the stuffs, superintended the
workmen who were putting down the carpets, and arranged the necessary
documents for the marriage.
At night, no matter how fatigued he might be from all these labors, he
was obliged to listen, with a smiling countenance, to Jorge, who, very
much in love, would walk up and down the room in his shirt-sleeves till
two o’clock in the morning, dilating on his happiness and smoking his
pipe.
After the wedding, Sebastião found himself very lonely. He went to
Portel to see his uncle, an eccentric old man, with the look of an
imbecile, who spent his days inventing new graftings in his garden, and
reading and re-reading the “Eurico.”
A month later, when Jorge came home, he said to Sebastião with a
radiant countenance,--
“I need not tell you that this house is yours. You are to live with us.”
But he could never succeed in making Sebastião feel himself quite at
home in his house. He rang the door-bell with timidity. He grew red in
Luiza’s presence. The old _bear_ of the Latin class reappeared.
Jorge endeavored to make him feel at his ease with Luiza, to oblige
him to smoke his pipe before her, and to prevent him from saying at
every moment, “Senhora.”
He never came to dine with them without a previous invitation. When
Jorge was not at home his visits were silent and short. He thought
himself so stupid that he was afraid of being tiresome.
To-night, when he entered the dining-room, Joanna asked him for Luiza.
She adored Luiza; she called her an angel,--a white lily.
“How is she? Have you seen her?” she asked.
Sebastião did not want to answer, as he had done yesterday, that he did
not go in because there were visitors; and, leaning forward, he began
to play with the ears of Trajan, his old hunting-dog, saying,--
“She is well, Joanna; she is well. How should she be? She could not be
better.”
At this time Luiza received a letter from Jorge, dated in Portel,
full of complaints of the heat, and the bad inns, of stories about
Sebastião’s eccentric relative, of remembrances and kisses for herself.
This sheet of paper, covered with minute characters that brought Jorge
vividly before her mind, took Luiza by surprise. The recollection of
his face, his voice, his love for her, caused her a sensation that was
almost painful. All the shame of her cowardice and weakness in regard
to Bazilio presented itself forcibly to her imagination. How horrible
to allow herself to be kissed and embraced by him while he devoured her
with his glances! She recalled everything,--his attitude, the ardor of
his hands, the sweetness of his voice. Insensibly and by degrees these
recollections faded away, and Luiza, dropping her arms by her side,
let her thoughts drift idly, abandoning herself to the lassitude which
they produced in her. But the thought of Jorge presented itself to her
again, hurting her like the sudden stroke of a whip. She rose nervously
and began to walk up and down the room; she felt a vague desire to
weep, to cry out, to break something--
“Ah, no! this is shameful,” she said at last, bursting into bitter
tears. “It must be ended at once!”
She came to the determination, at last, to refuse to see Bazilio
again; she would write, entreating him to go away, and not to seek
to see her again. She repeated to herself the words she would make
use of,--serious, cold, dry. She would not address him as “My dear
Cousin Bazilio,” but simply, “Cousin Bazilio.” What would he say when
he received her letter? Doubtless he would shed tears, poor boy! She
pictured him to herself, alone in his room at the hotel, pale and
unhappy; and then, carried away by her feelings, she recalled the
emotion revealed in his subjugating glance, the persuasive sound of
his voice, and her memory lingered over these recollections with
a sensation of pleasure, like that produced by the contact of the
hand with the soft plumage of some rare bird. She shook her head
with impatience, as if these thoughts were the stings of importunate
insects. She wanted to think only of Jorge; but other thoughts assailed
her, and she said to herself that she was very unhappy. She desired,
without knowing why, to be with Jorge, to ask counsel of Leopoldina, to
fly far away, wherever chance might lead her. Alas! how unfortunate
she was! From the depths of her indolent nature arose an undefined
anger against Jorge, against Bazilio, against feeling, against duty,
against every one and everything that caused her thus to suffer and
distress herself. Good Heavens! why could they not leave her in peace?
After dinner she seated herself again at the window, to read anew
Jorge’s letter, recalling, as she did so, the beauties of his mind
and person. She found arguments, some based on her happiness, others
sentimental, for loving and esteeming him. All this had happened
because he was absent. If he had only been at her side! But he was so
far away from her, and he had been away so long! Notwithstanding all
these reflections, the fact of his absence gave her a sensation of
liberty; the thought of being able to do as she wished filled her heart
at times with an intense happiness, as if she were intoxicated by a
sudden breath of freedom. But of what use was it to her to be free and
alone? All that she might do, feel, possess, appeared before her in
distant perspective, then vanished suddenly. It was like a door opened
and shut quickly, giving her a glimpse, as by a lightning-flash, of
something marvellous and undefined, that moved and fascinated her. Oh,
she must be mad!
Night fell. She went out to the balcony and opened the window. The
night was warm and dark, and the atmosphere, charged with electricity,
announced a coming storm. Luiza drew her breath with difficulty, as
she sat gazing at the horizon, forming plans and cherishing desires,
without knowing clearly what they were. The young man at the baker’s
shop was playing the “Fado;” its sounds, softened by distance, filled
her soul with a sweetness resembling that of a warm breeze, and a
melancholy like that of a sigh. She leaned her weary head upon her
hand. A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, like tongues of
flame running over the paper they consume. She thought of her mother,
of the new hat Madame François had sent her, of the kind of weather it
was now in Cintra, of long summer evenings passed under the shade of
the trees.
She closed the window and remained sitting in her room motionless,
thinking of Jorge, resolving to write to him and ask him to come
home. But these remorseful feelings disappeared, little by little,
like a veil torn down the middle, behind which appeared with luminous
intensity the image of her cousin Bazilio. His travels had improved his
appearance; the pangs of absence had silvered his hair. He had suffered
so much on her account, he had said. And after all, what harm was there
in it? He had sworn that his love should be a pure one, locked up
forever in the inmost recesses of his breast. Why should she not see
him again,--the poor fellow who had come from Paris only to be near her
for a week or a fortnight, at least so he had told her? Was it indeed
necessary that she should say to him, “Go away, and come back no more”?
“When does the senhora want her tea?” asked Juliana, opening the door.
Luiza exhaled a profound sigh, and saying she would not take tea, told
Juliana to prepare the night-lamp.
Ten o’clock struck. Juliana, according to her custom, was taking her
tea in the kitchen. The fire was going out, and the copper saucepans
gleamed in the light of the kerosene lamp.
“To-day there is certainly something the matter with her, Joanna,” said
Juliana, seating herself; “she is angry; she sighs. There is something
serious.”
The eyes of Joanna, who sat at the opposite side of the table, her arms
resting upon it, her face in her hands, were closing with sleep.
“You are always disposed to see evil in everything,” she said.
“One must be a fool not to see it where it is, Senhora Joanna!”
She was silent, and began to suck a lump of sugar. This was one of her
favorite dainties; she liked it white, refined. Brown sugar, that gave
the coffee, as she said, a taste of ants, was one of her vexations.
“It is even worse than it was last month,” she would complain with
bitterness. “But, of course, for a poor creature like me anything is
good enough. Yes, one must be crazy not to see it,” she repeated,
returning to her former idea.
“Every one for himself,” said the cook, carelessly.
“And God for us all,” sighed Juliana.
At this moment Luiza rang the bell.
“What does she want now?” said Juliana, her mouth full of sugar. “Some
new caprice!”
She soon returned, an expression of anger on her countenance, carrying
an empty jug.
“She wants more water! What a fancy--to duck herself at midnight!”
She stamped her foot impatiently upon the brick floor. Putting the jug
under the faucet she continued, while the water fell noisily into the
sink, “She says she wants fried ham for breakfast,--something salt. She
wants an appetizer.”
At midnight every one in the house was asleep. All the lights were
extinguished. Without, the sky grew darker, at every moment a flash of
lightning illuminated the darkness, followed by a clap of thunder.
Luiza awoke terrified. Large drops of rain began to fall heavily; the
tempest sounded from afar; sleep had fled, and with her gaze fixed on
the dim light of the night-lamp, a species of vision appeared before
her, which resolved itself by degrees into the features of Bazilio.
Sebastião also had slept badly. At six he rose, and descended to the
garden in his slippers. A glass door opened from the dining-room into
a small corridor, in which were three painted iron chairs and some
pots of carnations. From thence four stone steps led down to a small
garden, containing several flower-beds, a piece of well-watered turf,
some climbing rose-bushes, a well, a fountain under a grape-vine, and a
few trees. At the farther end of the garden was another corridor shaded
by a lime-tree, with a balcony looking out on a deserted street. In
front it was shut in by the whitewashed wall of another garden. In this
retired spot, quiet as a village, Sebastião was accustomed to smoke his
morning cigar.
Six o’clock had not yet struck. The air was transparent, the sky was of
the blue color of certain antique porcelains, with little white clouds
softly floating here and there; the trees were of a fresh green, the
water of the fountain was clear as crystal, the birds sang joyously as
they flew from branch to branch.
Sebastião was looking out into the street, when the sound of a cane
striking against the ground, and of steps slowly approaching, broke
the silence. It was Cunha Rosado, a neighbor of Jorge; he walked
slowly, and with a stooping gait, as if in pain, and was enveloped in a
comforter and a chocolate-colored great-coat; his face was seamed with
wrinkles, and his gray beard was long and neglected-looking.
“Up already, neighbor?” said Sebastião.
Cunha paused, and raising his head slowly, said, in a voice expressive
of fatigue,--
“Ah, is that you, Sebastião? I am taking my pains out to give them an
airing, my friend.”
“On foot?”
“Formerly I used to ride on a donkey as far as the city walls; but
they say now that a short walk will do me good.” And he shrugged his
shoulders with a gesture expressive of mingled doubt, sadness, and
anger. He suffered from a disease of the intestines.
“And how do you get on?” Sebastião asked him, leaning forward with an
air of interest.
Cunha smiled disconsolately, letting these words fall from his pallid
lips,--
“I get on so fast that I shall soon be out of this.”
Sebastião coughed, unable to think of a single word of consolation.
The sick man stood still, resting both his hands on the head of his
cane; suddenly his doll gaze brightened with interest.
“Tell me, Sebastião,” he said, “that good-looking young man that I see
go into Jorge’s every day,--is he not Bazilio de Brito, the cousin of
Jorge’s wife, the son of João de Brito?”
“Yes; why?”
“I was right! I was right! And that obstinate creature would persist in
saying it was not so.”
He then proceeded to explain himself.
“My room looks out on the street, and as I am almost always sitting at
the window, in order to divert my thoughts, I noticed this young man,
dressed like a foreigner, entering there--every day. I said, ‘It is
Bazilio de Brito.’ My wife insisted it was not. What the deuce! I was
almost certain. I know him as well as I know anything. He looks just
the same as when he was going to marry Donna Luiza. Oh, I have all
that history at my fingers’ ends. She lived then in the street of the
Magdalena.”
“Yes, it is Brito,” repeated Sebastião.
“I was right.” He remained an instant motionless, with his eyes fixed
on the ground. Then, speaking in his former querulous tones, he said,
“Well, I must drag myself home.” He sighed and looked up. “Ah, if I
only had your health, Sebastião!” he said. And waving him a farewell
with a hand encased in a dark woollen glove, he continued on his way,
bending forward, and supporting himself by the wall as he went along.
Sebastião remained preoccupied. Every one began to notice that a man
young and elegant called at Luiza’s house every day in a carriage, and
remained there two or three hours. The neighbors lived in such close
proximity, and they were so malicious! In the afternoon he went out.
He wanted to see Luiza; but he felt, without knowing why, a sense of
oppression, as if he feared to find her changed in some way. He was
going slowly up the street under his umbrella, wrapt in thought, when
he saw a coupé coming towards him at a trot. In another moment it had
stopped at Luiza’s door. A gentleman descended hastily from it, threw
away his cigar, and went into the house. He was tall, wore a mustache
with the ends turning up, and had a flower in his buttonhole. Sebastião
comprehended at once that this must be Cousin Bazilio. The coachman
wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and crossing his legs, began
to roll a cigarette.
At the noise of the carriage Senhor Paula came out to his doorstep,
with his cap awry, his hands in his pockets, and looking askance. The
coal-vender opposite, dirty and disfigured by obesity, also showed
her greasy countenance at her door. The servant of the professor
opened her window hastily. Paula crossed the sunny street quickly, and
entered the shop in front. A few moments afterwards he reappeared in
the doorway, accompanied by the shopkeeper, who had all the air of the
inconsolable widow. They whispered together, their malicious glances
fixed alternately on the windows of Luiza’s house and on the coupé.
Paula, shuffling along in his carpet slippers, went to whisper with the
coal-vender, eliciting from her, by his words, a laugh that shook her
ample chest, and then took up his post in his own doorway, between a
likeness of Dom João VI., on the one side, and two antique choir-chairs
on the other, watching Luiza’s door with a jubilant expression of
countenance. Through the silence resounded the notes of the “Virgin’s
Prayer,” which some one in the neighborhood was practising on the piano.
Sebastião looked up mechanically, as he passed, at the windows of
Luiza’s house.
“What a warm day, Sebastião!” said Paula, with an inclination of the
head. “It is a pleasure to be in the shade.”