PLAYING WITH FIRE.
ON the following day, at an early hour in the afternoon, Joanna,
leaning back in an old willow arm-chair, was already sleeping the
siesta. As she rose at five every morning, and sometimes even earlier,
she enjoyed to the full this hour of rest. The blinds were closed to
exclude the light, the pot on the fire sent forth its drowsy murmur,
all the house seemed sunk in a silent stupor by the torrid heat, when
Juliana entered the kitchen with an angry air, and throwing a bundle of
soiled clothes on the floor, exclaimed,--
“May I be struck dead by lightning if the scandalous behavior in this
house does not end by becoming public talk!”
Joanna awoke in terror.
“Whoever wants to have things done to suit them should see to it
themselves!” cried Juliana, her eyes bloodshot with passion. “There is
no need to be all day in the parlor gossiping with visitors!”
The cook shut the door in alarm.
“What is the matter, Senhora Juliana? What has happened?” she said.
“What has happened? Why, that she has been stung by a wasp! I am ready
to burst with anger.”
She spoke in shrill and strident accents.
“She avails herself of every pretext to scold,” she continued; “I am in
no mind to put up with her any longer; no!” And she stamped her foot
furiously on the floor.
“But what has happened?”
“She said her collars were badly ironed, and then she began to talk a
string of nonsense. I am tired of it now. I have had enough of it. Let
her not provoke me any more! I shall leave the house, but I will tell
her the reason to her face. Ever since men have been coming here she
has behaved shamefully. When one begins an intrigue--”
“Senhora Juliana, for the love of God!” exclaimed Joanna, putting her
hands to her head. “If the mistress should hear you!”
“So much the better! I would say it to her face. I have had enough
of it, and more than enough!” But all at once she was seized with a
violent attack of faintness. She turned pale as death, and sank into a
chair, her hands pressed to her heart, and her eyes turned up so that
only the whites were visible.
Joanna shook her, and began to call her in a frightened voice,--
“Senhora Juliana! Juliana! Speak to me!” She sprinkled water on her
face. “The Virgin help us! Are you better? Speak!”
Juliana gave a deep sigh of relief, and closed her eyes. She drew her
breath slowly and painfully, as though completely exhausted.
“How do you feel? Do you want some broth? It is debility; that must be
it.”
“It is the heart,” murmured Juliana.
“Of course; those fits of passion are killing her,” said the cook to
herself, as she prepared the broth, pale as Juliana herself. “One
must put up with one’s mistress,” she said aloud. “You should take
nourishing food, and not allow yourself to get excited.”
Luiza, dressed in a white morning-gown, here opened the door and asked
what was the cause of this noise.
“It is Juliana, who does not feel well.”
“A pain in the heart,” murmured Juliana, biting her pale lips with her
yellow teeth. “If the senhora does not need me,” she added, rising with
difficulty, “I will go to see the doctor.”
“Yes, do so,” returned Luiza, going downstairs again.
Juliana took her broth slowly, as if she had hardly strength enough to
lift the spoon to her lips. Joanna consoled her in low tones. And then,
the Senhora Juliana was too easily excited. When one’s health was poor,
there was nothing worse than to allow one’s self to get excited.
“The thing is, that you do not know what all this may end in,” said
Juliana, lowering her voice and lifting her eyebrows. “This cannot
last; she is dressing herself now as if she were going out. She
crumpled up a number of collars and threw them on the floor, saying
that everything I iron is a disgrace to look at, and that I know how to
do nothing. I say this is too much!”
“One must have patience. Every one has his cross to bear.”
Juliana gave a sickly smile, rose with a groan of pain, gathered up the
soiled clothes, and went upstairs. A few moments afterwards she left
the house, her hands covered with black gloves, her face of a yellow
hue, and showing dark circles under the eyes. But on turning the corner
of the street she paused in front of the tobacconist’s, as if undecided
what to do. The walk to the doctor’s house was so long! Her knees were
bending under her, but--to spend three _tostões_[6] in a carriage!
“Pst! pst!” some one called to her from the other side of the street.
It was the tobacconist, with her long black gown, her oily,
lemon-colored face, and her sad smile.
“Where may the Senhora Juliana be going?” she said. “To take a walk?”
Then she complimented Juliana on her black parasol with its bone
handle; she thought it in good taste. And how was her health?
Bad; she had just had an attack, and was going to see the doctor. But
the tobacconist had not an atom of confidence in the doctors; it was
throwing money in the street to consult them. She cited the illness
of her husband, the expenses,--a gold-mine! And what for? To see him
suffer and die as if nothing had been done for him. It was a waste of
money that she had not yet forgotten.
And she sighed, “Well, we must take things as they come.” And what was
there new at her house?
“Nothing.”
“Tell me, Senhora Juliana, who is that young man who goes there every
day?”
“The cousin of the mistress,” responded Juliana.
“They are very fond of each other!”
“So it would seem.” Then she added, coughing, “Well, good afternoon,
Senhora Helena.” And she continued on her way, muttering, “Go ask some
one else for news, you scarecrow; you will get nothing out of me!”
Juliana detested the neighbors. She knew they made sport of her; that
they mocked her, and called her _old parchment_; therefore she was
resolved that it should not be through her they would know anything.
They might burst with curiosity, for what she saw and heard she would
keep to herself,--“to make use of when the occasion should offer,” as
she angrily thought.
The tobacconist remained standing at her door, very much puzzled. Paula
the furniture-dealer, who had seen her talking to Juliana, came up to
her, shuffling his feet, encased in carpet slippers, along the ground.
“Has _old parchment_ unbosomed herself to you?” he said.
“I have not been able to get a word out of her,” she answered.
Paula put his hands in his pockets, and said with a disgusted
expression,--
“The wife of the engineer bribes her. It is she who carries messages,
who opens the little door at night.”
“I cannot believe that!”
“Senhora Helena,” said Paula, looking at her with a superior air, “you
are always in your shop; but I--I know what women of high society are,
to the very tips of their fingers. They are a vicious lot!”
“That is all through the want of religion,” sighed the tobacconist.
“Religion,” said Paula, shrugging his shoulders, “is what it is, and
the priests are what they are.” And he added with clenched fists, “The
priests are a mass of living rottenness!”
“Senhor Paula, it ought to weigh upon your conscience to speak so.” And
the yellow countenance of the tobacconist assumed a severe expression
of reproach.
“All that is talk, Senhora Helena,” exclaimed Paula in derisive
accents; and he added roughly, “Why are there not more convents? Why
does everything go topsy-turvy in those there are?”
“Senhor Paula!” stammered Helena, retreating. “It is scandalous! At
night the nuns go by a subterraneous passage to meet the friars, and
such orgies! You read that in every book!” And raising himself on the
points of his toes, he added, “And the Jesuits, what do you say of
them? Come!”
But he paused suddenly, and taking off his cap, said respectfully,
“Your servant, Senhora.”
It was Luiza, who just then passed by, with her veil down. They looked
after her in silence when she had passed.
“She is certainly very pretty!” murmured the tobacconist.
“She is not a bad piece of goods,” said Paula, nodding his head,--“for
him who likes the stuff,” he added with disdain.
There was a pause, which Paula broke by saying roughly,--
“I am not the one to waste my time running after petticoats.”
He went into the shop whistling, to roll a cigarette; but pausing
suddenly, he fixed his eyes with an expression of indignation on one
of the windows of the house of the engineer, in which he had just seen
the dissipated countenance of Pedro the carpenter. He turned to the
tobacconist, with folded arms, nodding his head.
“So, while the mistress goes in search of her pleasure,” he said, “the
young fellow settles accounts with the servant!” And he went away
slowly.
Luiza at last drove out into the country with Bazilio. She consented to
do so only the day before they went, saying it was “simply to take a
drive, without getting out of the carriage.”
They had agreed to meet in the Praça da Alegria. She arrived late at
the rendezvous, which was for half-past two, hiding her face under
her parasol, and looking frightened. Bazilio was waiting for her in a
coupé, under the shade of a tree at the right of the Praça, smoking. He
opened the door, and Luiza, closing her parasol, entered the carriage;
her gown caught on the step, and she pulled it away with violence,
tearing the silk flounce. Then she seated herself at his side out of
breath and very nervous, her face suffused with blushes, and said in a
low voice,--
“What madness!”
The horse set off at a trot.
“How tired you are, my little one!” said Bazilio, softly. He raised
her veil; her large eyes shone with excitement, partly the result of
fear, partly of the haste with which she had come.
“How warm it is, Bazilio!”
He wished to lower one of the windows of the coupé.
“No, not now; we might be seen,” she said. “When we are outside the
city.”
“Where shall we go?”
Luiza raised up the little curtain, and looked out.
“Let us go towards Lumiar; that is the best place. Shall we?” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. All places were alike to him.
Luiza recovered her tranquillity; she took off her veil and gloves,
smiling, and fanned herself with her handkerchief, which diffused a
delicate perfume around. Bazilio caught her hand and pressed on the
fine skin with its delicate blue veins long and ardent kisses.
“You promised me to be sensible,” she said to him smiling, and looking
at him from under her long lashes.
“One kiss, a single kiss on the arm! What harm is there in that? Don’t
be prudish.” And he looked at her with an ardent glance.
The curtains of the coupé were of red silk, and the light that filtered
through them enveloped her in a soft rose-colored aureole; her lips
were of a humid red, like the petal of a rose, and in the liquid depths
of her eyes gleamed a starry light. Unable to control his emotion, he
passed his trembling fingers over her hair and brow with a tenderness
that had something of cowardice in it.
“Not even a kiss on the cheek?” he said humbly.
“Only one?” asked Luiza.
He kissed her softly on the cheek near the ear; but this contact
inflamed his desires. He caught her to his breast with ardor, and
pressed kisses on her neck, her face, her hat--
“No, no!” she murmured, resisting. Then, with determination, “I want to
get out!” she cried.
She endeavored to open one of the windows, shaking the glass, and
bruising her fingers against the hard and dirty strap.
Bazilio begged her to forgive him. What folly! To get angry for a kiss!
She was so beautiful! he said; her beauty had turned his head; but he
swore he would be more rational in future.
The carriage jolted on towards the suburbs of the city; on either side
stretched, motionless in the sunlight, rows of olive-trees of a dusty
green; the rays of the sun beat down fiercely on the burnt grass.
Bazilio had opened one of the windows, and the curtain fluttered softly
in the breeze. He began to talk to Luiza of himself, of his love for
her, of his plans. He had resolved to establish himself in Lisbon, he
said. He did not want to marry. He loved her, and his sole desire was
to pass his life at her feet. He said he was weary of existence; that
all his illusions were destroyed. What could life offer to him now?
He had experienced the sensations produced by ephemeral passions, by
adventures, by travel; he already felt himself old.
“Not so very old,” said Luiza, with humid eyes.
Ah, yes, he was old! he repeated. All he desired now was to live for
her, to repose in the sweetness of familiar intercourse with her; she
was all the family he had. He spoke of himself as her relative. He said
family ties were the best thing the world had to bestow.
“May I smoke?” he interrupted himself to say, lighting a cigar. “The
best thing life can give,” he resumed, “is a profound affection like
ours; is it not so? I shall be contented with little,--to see you every
day, to converse with you, to possess the certainty of your affection.
‘Eh, Pinteos,’ he called through the door of the carriage, ‘drive out
into the country!’”
The driver obeyed. Bazilio raised the curtain, and a fresher atmosphere
penetrated into the carriage. The sun shed a brilliant light on the
trees, through whose leaves it filtered, casting their glowing shadows
on the ground.
“I shall dispose of everything I possess abroad,” continued Bazilio,
“and settle down in Lisbon, in a little house in the neighborhood of
Buenos Ayres, perhaps. Tell me, would that please you?”
She was silent. These promises, to which the vibrating voice of Bazilio
gave a passionate force, produced in her a confusion of the senses like
that caused by wine; her breast palpitated.
“When I am at your side,” said Bazilio, “I am so happy; everything
pleases me.”
“If all that you say were only true!” sighed Luiza, leaning back among
the cushions of the carriage.
Bazilio put his arm around her waist, and swore to her that it should
be true. It was his intention to dispose of everything he had, and to
live upon his rents. He began to give her the proofs; he had already
spoken to an agent, whose name he mentioned,--a dry old man with a
sharp nose. And pressing her to his breast with an ardent glance,--
“And if it were true, what would you do?” he said.
“I do not know,” she murmured.
They reached Lumiar, and Bazilio, through considerations of prudence,
lowered the carriage-blinds. Luiza raised one of them slightly, and
looking out, gazed as they passed them by, at the trees covered
with dust, the walls of a villa painted a dirty rose-color, some
mean-looking houses, an empty omnibus, some women seated before their
doors in the shade, combing their children’s hair, and a youth dressed
in white, with a straw hat, who stopped to look fixedly at the drawn
blinds of the coupé. She thought to herself that it would be delightful
to live here in a villa standing back from the road, a cool little
house with climbing plants festooning the windows, vines supported
by stone pillars, rose-bushes, walks shaded by trees whose branches
formed an arched roof overhead, and a little spring under a lime-tree,
to which the servants would go in the morning, singing, to wash the
clothes. And in the evening she and Bazilio would walk across the
fields under the starry sky, listening in silence to the monotonous
croaking of the frogs. She closed her eyes. The slow movement of the
carriage, the presence of Bazilio, the contact of his hand with hers,
set her blood on fire. She felt a vague desire expand her soul, as the
wind expands the sail, and turned pale.
“What are you thinking of?” said Bazilio, in a low voice.
Luiza blushed and remained silent. She was ashamed to utter her
thoughts aloud.
Bazilio gently took her hand in his, with respect and tenderness, as
if it were something holy and precious, and kissed it softly, with the
humility of a slave and the fervor of a devotee. This gentleness, so
humble, so touching, moved her, made her nerves vibrate; and she leaned
back in a corner of the coupé, unable to restrain her tears.
What was it? What was the matter with her? he asked. He caught her in
his arms and embraced her, saying to her in passionate accents,--
“Shall we fly together?”
The bright tears rolling down her beautiful countenance made her look
still more interesting, and gave to his feeling for her a tinge of
sadness.
“Fly with me now! Let us go to the ends of the earth!” he cried.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” she murmured, sighing. She leaned back in the
carriage silently, and covered her face with her hands.
“The fact is,” he said to himself, “that I do talk a great deal of
nonsense.”
Luiza dried her tears with her handkerchief.
“This is only nervousness,” she said. “Let us go back. Shall we? I do
not feel well; tell the driver to turn back!”
Bazilio obeyed. The drive back was somewhat silent. Luiza complained
of a slight headache. He took her hands in his and repeated his former
expressions of tenderness. He called her his dove, his ideal, and as he
did so he said to himself that she was his.
They stopped in the Praça da Alegria. Luiza glanced cautiously around,
and then sprang quickly out of the carriage.
“Until to-morrow,” she said. “Don’t fail.”
She opened her parasol and walked rapidly up the street, towards the
Patriarchal. Bazilio lowered the windows of the carriage, drew a
deep breath of satisfaction, and stretching out his legs said to the
driver,--
“Hey, Pinteos! Quick, to the Gremio!”
In the reading-room his friend the Viscount Reynaldo, who had lived in
London and Paris for many years, was buried in an easy-chair languidly
reading the “Times.” They had come together from Paris, with the
agreement to go also together to Madrid. But Reynaldo was overwhelmed
by the heat; he found the temperature of Lisbon melting. He wore dark
spectacles, and went about saturated with perfumes on account of the
ignoble ill-odor of Portugal, as he said. As soon as he perceived
Bazilio, he threw away the newspaper, and letting his arms fall by his
side, said in a fatigued voice,--
“And the affair of the cousin? Is it to be settled or not? This is
horrible, my dear fellow,--horrible! It is killing me; I must go
north--to Scotland! Let us finish at once with this cousin.”
Bazilio threw himself into an easy-chair, and stretching himself,
said,--
“Everything is going on well.”
“Make haste, my dear fellow, make haste,” said the viscount.
He took up the “Times” again, yawned, and called for soda.
“English soda!” he added.
They told him there was none in the house. Reynaldo looked with an air
of consternation at Bazilio, and murmured in a hollow voice,--
“What a wretched country!”