A CONSULTATION.
MEANTIME Luiza and Bazilio were seated, tranquil and happy, in the
parlor within, the half-drawn curtains making a soft obscurity in the
room. Luiza wore a fresh white morning-gown that diffused an agreeable
odor of lavender.
“I shall present myself thus,” she had said, “without ceremony.”
She was charming thus; thus he would always like to see her, Bazilio
had answered gayly, as if in this morning-gown he beheld a promise of
friendlier relations between them. He had entered tranquilly, with the
air of a real relative. He did not annoy her by bold words; he spoke
to her of the heat, of a farce he had seen the night before, of old
friends that he had met; but mentioned to her only _en passant_
that he had been dreaming of her.
And why should he do otherwise? In his dream they were far away, in a
distant land, that might be Italy, there were so many statues in the
plazas, so many musical fountains falling into marble basins. It was in
an antique garden, in the midst of a classic landscape; rare flowers
filled the Florentine vase that rested on the stone balustrade; the
peacocks spread out their tails proudly, and she herself walked slowly
up and down, the train of her blue velvet dress sweeping the mosaic
pavement. It was a landscape, he said, resembling that of San Donato,
the villa of Prince Demidoff. Bazilio took pleasure in recalling the
names of his illustrious acquaintances, and never forgot to place in
their proper light the glories of his travels.
“And you,--did you dream anything?”
Luiza smiled and blushed. No, she had been too much afraid of the storm
to sleep. As she spoke, Bazilio noticed the faint circles under her
eyes.
“Did you not hear the storm?” she asked.
“I was taking supper at the time in the Gremio.”
“Are you in the habit of taking supper?”
Her cousin smiled sadly. Supper? If a tough beefsteak and a bottle of
Collares could be called supper, then--
“And all for you, ungrateful one!” he added.
“For me?”
“For whom else, then, if not for you? What brought me to Lisbon? Why
did I leave Paris?”
“On account of your affairs.”
“Thanks,” he said, leaning forward, and looking at her with severity.
He puffed out the smoke of his cigarette with violence, and walked up
and down the floor of the parlor with long strides. Suddenly he came
over to her, and sitting down beside her told her that she was in
truth unjust; that if he was in Lisbon, it was solely on her account.
And throwing into his voice an expression of tenderness, he asked her
if she indeed felt for him the least little bit of love,--“so much as
that, even,” showing her the point of his nail.
They both began to laugh.
“That much? Perhaps!”
Luiza’s breast heaved with emotion.
Bazilio, taking her hand in his, began to examine her nails, admiring
them, and recommended her to use a certain ointment for the purpose of
giving them more brilliancy, and kissing the tips of her fingers, he
lightly bit the little finger, saying it was very sweet, at the same
time putting hastily in its place a stray lock of her hair. With a
supplicating glance he said he had a petition to prefer.
“What is it?”
“To take a drive with me into the country. It must be so charming now!”
Luiza arranged the folds of her morning-gown in silence.
“It would be very easy,” he continued. “You meet me at some place, at a
distance from here, of course. I will wait for you with a carriage; you
enter it, and we drive away.”
Luiza hesitated.
“Do not refuse me!”
“But where?”
“Wherever you wish. To Paço d’Arcos, to Loires, to Queluz. Say yes.”
His voice was urgent and entreating. “What are you afraid of? We take a
friendly drive together, as brother and sister might do.”
She smiled.
“No, not that!”
Bazilio grew angry and called her a prude. He rose to go away. Then,
half-vanquished, she took his hat out of his hands.
“Well, we shall see. Perhaps,” she said, smiling.
“Say yes,” insisted Bazilio. “Be a good girl.”
“Well, yes; we will speak about it to-morrow, and then we shall see.”
But on the following day Bazilio had the tact to make no allusion
either to the proposed drive or to the country. Nor did he utter a
single word about his love for her or about his hopes. He seemed in
very good spirits. He had brought her the book of Belot, “La Femme
de Feu.” Seated at the piano, he sang for her songs of the _cafés
chantants_, of a somewhat free character, making her laugh by his
imitations of the hoarse and shrill accents of the singers. Then he
spoke to her a great deal about Paris; he retailed to her the gossip
of the day,--anecdotes, love-affairs, fashionable news, in all of
which figured duchesses and princes, who played tragic or sentimental
roles, sometimes comic ones, but who were always surrounded by an
ocean of delights. Of every woman whom he mentioned he said, “She was
a woman of great distinction, and naturally she had a lover.” He made
immorality appear like an aristocratic duty. Virtue, to listen to him,
seemed the defect of a mean spirit, or the ridiculous prejudice of a
_bourgeoise_ temperament. Just as he was about to go he said, as
if struck by a sudden recollection, “Do you know that I have still some
thoughts of leaving Lisbon?”
“Why?” she asked, turning pale.
“What the deuce am I doing here?” he answered, with an air of
indifference. He remained a moment with his eyes fixed on the floor;
then, as if controlling himself, said,--
“Good-by, dearest,” and went away.
When Luiza entered the dining-room in the afternoon her eyes were red,
as if she had been crying. On the following day it was she who spoke
of the country. She complained of the heat, of the dust of Lisbon. How
delightful it must be at Cintra!
“It is you who did not want to go,” he said. “We might have had a
charming drive.”
It was because she was afraid, she answered. They might be seen.
“There is no danger,” he replied; “in a closed carriage, with the
blinds drawn down.”
But that was worse than to be in the house, she returned. It was to
suffocate, shut up in a box.
No, they might go to a villa, to the Alegrias, the villa of a friend of
his who was in London; there would be only the farmer’s family there.
It was in the neighborhood of Olivaes; there were long laurel-walks,
delightful shade. They might take with them ices, champagne--
“Will you come?” he said abruptly, taking both her hands in his.
She turned red.
“Perhaps. We shall see on Sunday.”
Their eyes met. Luiza grew confused, and went to open the windows in
order to let in the light, and thus take away from their interview
its air of intimacy. Then she sat down on a chair beside the piano,
afraid of the obscurity, afraid of herself, and asked Bazilio to sing
something; for she feared equally to speak or to be silent.
Bazilio sang the sensual and touching music of the “Medjé” of Gounod.
Those ardent notes affected her like the atmosphere of a night
charged with electricity. When Bazilio left her she remained seated,
motionless, bending forward, exhausted, languid, as after a fever.
Sebastião spent the three following days in Almada, at the villa
of Rosegal, to which business had called him. On the morning after
his return he was seated, at about ten o’clock, at the door of his
dining-room, which opened into the garden, waiting for his breakfast,
and caressing his cat Rolim, the friend and confidant of the
illustrious Vicencia, enveloped in fur like a bishop, and ungrateful
as a despot. The morning wore on, and the sun fell full upon the
little garden. The water of the fountain flowed in wavering ripples,
reflecting the leaves of the grape-vine. Within their cages two
canaries were singing with all the power of their little throats. Aunt
Joanna, who had just placed the breakfast, smoking hot, upon the table,
approached him, and said in her husky voice,--
“Gertrudes was here yesterday, and she spoke in such a way! And what
nonsense she talked!”
“And what about, Aunt Joanna?” asked Sebastião.
“About a young man who, according to her, goes to see Luiza every day.”
Sebastião rose as if moved by a spring.
“What did she say, Aunt Joanna?”
The old woman straightened the table-cloth which Sebastião’s hasty
movement had disarranged.
“She talked gossip, full of curiosity to know who the young man
could be! She says he is good-looking. He goes there every day in a
carriage. On Saturday he stayed till evening. There was singing in the
parlor, and Gertrudes says that not even in the theatre--”
“It is her cousin,” interrupted Sebastião with impatience. “What of it?
It is her cousin who has returned from Brazil.”
Aunt Joanna smiled maliciously.
“I thought he must be a relative; Gertrudes says he is very
good-looking. Yes, I thought he must be a relative,” she repeated,
going out to the kitchen.
Sebastião breakfasted with a preoccupied mind. If the neighbors should
begin to talk about these visits, what a scandal it would cause!
Troubled and perplexed, he determined to speak to Julião. He was going
down the street of S. Roque towards the house of the latter, when he
perceived him coming towards him on the opposite side, with a roll of
papers under his arm, his white trousers spattered with mud.
“I was just going to your house,” said Sebastião.
Julião was surprised at the unusual excitement betrayed in his voice.
Was there anything new? he asked. What had happened?
“Something diabolical,” answered Sebastião, in a low voice.
They stopped in front of a confectioner’s shop. In the glass case
behind them was an exhibition of works of art in sugar; on a shelf
below, arranged according to their sizes, were some bottles of
Malmsey, with their parti-colored labels; here and there were rosy
and transparent jellies, bonbons of egg, the very sight of which gave
one nausea; in puff-paste moulds floated stale and discolored creams;
masses of marmalade were melting in the heat; and on the counter some
pies displayed their dried-up crusts. In the midst of them, on a showy
pedestal, was coiled a horrible snake of almond paste, displaying a
yellow belly that it made one’s stomach sick to look at; his back was
covered with arabesques in sugar; his hideous mouth was open; the
teeth, of almonds, held an orange between them; two chocolate eyes
protruded from the head; and around this repugnant monster the flies
buzzed incessantly.
“Let us go into a café,” said Julião. “In the street it rains fire.”
“I am very much disturbed,” began Sebastião.
In the café the faded blue of the paper and the air that entered
through the half-open doors tempered the heat of the sun, and produced
a still coolness. They seated themselves at the farther end of the
apartment. The dazzling fronts of the houses, painted white, blinded
the sight. Dirty newspapers lay scattered on the tables around. Behind
the counter, covered with bottles, nodded a waiter, fast asleep. In
another apartment a bird was singing. From behind a green screen
came at intervals the sound of the billiard-balls; from time to time
could be heard the voice of a huckster from the street; and then all
these noises merged into the sound of carriage-wheels rolling past
with accelerated speed. In front of them sat a dirty individual,
with the face of a swindler, reading a newspaper. A few gray hairs
were plastered over his bald yellow forehead; his gray mustache was
sprinkled with the ashes of his cigar; nights spent in dissipation had
given a reddish hue to his eyelids and a waxen tint to his shrunken
skin. From time to time he lazily turned his head, spit through his
eye-teeth, gave a mechanical shake to the newspaper, and then resumed
his reading with an air of weariness. When the two friends entered
the café and called for sherbets, he saluted them gravely with an
inclination of the head.
“But at last what is the matter?” asked Julião when they were seated.
“It is something that concerns our friends,” responded Sebastião,
drawing his chair nearer to Julião. “About the cousin--you understand?”
The vivid recollection of the humiliation he had suffered in Luiza’s
parlor brought the blood to Julião’s face. But he was intensely proud,
and only said, dryly,--
“Yes, I have seen him.”
“Well?”
“He seems to me an ass!” he replied, unable to control himself.
“A coxcomb,--no?”
“An ass!” repeated Julião. “Such manners, such affectation, such airs,
his eyes fixed on his stockings,--very ridiculous ones, in truth, like
those of a woman! I showed him my boots without hesitation,--these very
ones,” he added, displaying to Sebastião’s view his unpolished boots.
“I take pride in them; they are the boots of a man who works.”
Julião was accustomed to boast in public of a poverty that in secret
humiliated him not a little. He sipped his sherbet, and added,--
“He is a fool!”
“Did you know he was at one time engaged to Luiza?” said Sebastião in
a low voice, frightened at the importance of his disclosure. “Yes,” he
added, in response to Julião’s astonished glance. “Hardly any one knows
it, not even Jorge; but I heard it a short time since. They were on the
point of being married; but his father died, he went away to Brazil,
and wrote from there breaking off the engagement.”
Julião smiled, leaning his head back against the wall.
“But this is the story of Eugénie Grandet,” he said; “you are telling
me one of Balzac’s romances.”
Sebastião looked at him in astonishment.
“One cannot speak seriously to you,” he said; “I tell you, on my honor,
that it is true.”
“Very good, Sebastião; continue.”
There was a pause. The bald individual contemplated the stuccoed
ceiling, which was blackened by smoke and by fly-marks, stroking his
gray beard with his dirty hand. His mourning necktie was fastened by a
pinchbeck pin. They could hear the sounds of a discussion going on in
the billiard-room.
Sebastião, as if coming to a sudden resolution, said abruptly,--
“You must know, then, that now he goes there every day.”
Julião stretched himself on the divan where he was seated, and looked
fixedly at Sebastião. The dark glasses of his spectacles glittered in
the light.
“You want to confide something to me, eh, Sebastião?” he said. “You
think the cousin is in love with her still?” he added, with a vivacity
that had in it something of gayety.
Sebastião was shocked. “Julião!” he said severely, “one does not jest
about these things.”
“But it is evident he is in love with her still,” replied Julião,
shrugging his shoulders. “How innocent you are! He was her sweetheart
when she was a girl, and now that she is married he wants to go back to
their old relations.”
“Speak lower,” said Sebastião.
But the waiter still slept, and the bald individual was engrossed in
his melancholy reading.
“The same story as always,” said Julião, lowering his voice. “Cousin
Bazilio is right; he is in search of pleasure without responsibility.
You know, friend Sebastião, what an influence that has over the
feelings. She has a husband who clothes and maintains her; who watches
by her when she is sick, and puts up with her when she is nervous; who
bears all the burdens, all the annoyances, all the responsibilities
of married life,--you know that is the law. Consequently the cousin
has only to present himself, and he finds her amiable, attractive,
charmingly attired, all at the cost of the husband, and--”
He began to laugh, and rolled a cigarette, with an evident sense of
enjoyment in these malicious suggestions. “And he is right,” he added.
“All cousins reason thus; Bazilio is her cousin; therefore-- You know
the syllogism, Sebastião,” he said, slapping him on the thigh.
“A thousand devils!” exclaimed Sebastião, frowning. “So, then, you
think an honorable woman--” he added, rebelling against such a
supposition.
“I think nothing,” responded Julião.
“Speak lower, for Heaven’s sake!”
“Well, then, I think nothing,” repeated Julião, in a lower voice; “I
state her actual position; but, as she is an honorable woman--”
“She is so!” said Sebastião, bringing down his hand with violence on
the table.
“Coming, sir!” said the waiter.
The bald old man rose; but seeing that the waiter went back yawning to
the counter, and that the two friends continued sipping their sherbet,
he rested his elbows on the table, and again taking up the newspaper,
fixed his melancholy gaze upon it.
“The question is not of her,” said Sebastião, sorrowfully. “The
question is--the neighbors.”
They were silent for a moment; the dispute in the billiard-room grew
more violent.
“But what have the neighbors to do with it?” said Julião.
“They have this to do with it. They see the young man entering the
house. He goes there in a carriage, and attracts the attention of the
neighborhood. They have been gossiping about it already, and have gone
with their stories to Aunt Joanna. Some days since I met Netto, who had
observed it, and Correa also. Nothing takes place in that house which
the furniture-dealer does not notice and talk about; they have dreadful
tongues. Yesterday I went out to take a walk, and I met the cousin
getting out of his carriage at the door. Immediately every tongue in
the street was set going; every eye was on the watch. He goes there
every day. They know that Jorge is in Alemtejo. He remains there two or
three hours. It is a serious business,--a very serious business.”
“But is she mad?”
“No; but she sees nothing bad in all this.”
Julião shrugged his shoulders.
The door of the billiard-room opened; a man of tall stature, with a
heavy black mustache, came out abruptly, much excited, and, pausing on
the threshold, cried out to some one within,--
“Do not forget that I am at your service whenever you please!”
A hoarse voice responded from the billiard-room with an obscene
expression.
The gigantic individual shut the door furiously, and passed through the
café, muttering to himself. A thin young man, in a winter overcoat and
white trousers, followed him, staggering.
“What I should have done,” cried the giant, waving his arms, “was to
have given him a slap in the face.”
The thin young man answered with an expression of suavity and
obsequiousness,--
“Disputes lead to nothings Senhor Correa.”
“The truth is, that I am too considerate,” yelled the giant; “and I
do not forget that I have a wife and children.” And he went out, his
hoarse voice lost in the noises of the street.
“Do you think it would be well to warn her?” said Sebastião, after a
moment’s reflection.
Julião shrugged his shoulders, and puffed the smoke from his cigarette.
“Tell me,” said Sebastião in tones of entreaty, “will you go and speak
to her?”
“I!” answered Julião, with a repellent expression on his countenance.
“Are you mad?”
“But, in fine, what is your opinion?” There was something in
Sebastião’s voice that bordered on anguish.
“Go you, if you wish. Tell her you have noticed--In truth, I don’t
know--” And he began to bite the end of his cigarette.
His silence troubled Sebastião.
“I have come to you to ask your advice,” he said desperately.
“But, what the deuce do you want? That is her affair--yes, hers,” he
repeated in answer to Sebastião’s glance. “She is twenty-five years
old, and she has been married nearly four years; she ought to know that
one does not receive daily visits from a good-looking young man in a
little street, with the whole neighborhood on the watch. If she chooses
to do so it is because it suits her.”
“Oh, Julião!” exclaimed Sebastião with severity. “You are wrong, very
wrong,” he added, with emotion. And he relapsed into a sorrowful
silence.
“Friend Sebastião,” said Julião, rising, “I say what I think; do you
what you think right.” And he called the waiter.
“Stop,” said Sebastião. “Leave that to me.”
They were about to go out, when the bald individual, laying down his
newspaper, hastened to the door and opened it for them with a bow, at
the same time handing Sebastião a folded paper. Sebastião, surprised,
read aloud mechanically,--
“The undersigned, a former employee of the State, reduced to poverty--”
“I have been the intimate friend of the noble Duke of Saldanha,” whined
the bald individual.
Sebastião colored, bowed, and discreetly handed him five
_tostões_. The bald individual bowed profoundly, and said in a
sonorous voice,--
“A thousand thanks, your Excellency!”