IN THE TOILS.
NEXT morning Juliana entered her mistress’s bedroom with a letter in
her hand, saying, with an air of mystery, that a servant from the hotel
had brought it, and was waiting downstairs for an answer.
Luiza with a trembling hand opened the large blue envelope, with its
monogram, “B. B.,” in purple and gold, surmounting a count’s coronet.
“Very well; there is no answer.”
“There is no answer,” Juliana repeated to the man, who was waiting in
the little passage, smoking a cigar and twirling the ends of his black
mustache.
“There is no answer? Very well. Charming weather!”
He saluted her stiffly with his hand, and went down the steps, humming
a tune.
“Who rang, Senhora Juliana?” the cook asked her.
“It was nothing,” Juliana muttered,--“a message from the dressmaker.”
From this time forth Joanna observed a change in her fellow-servant.
When she took her coffee in the kitchen she no longer chatted with the
cook as before; she seemed preoccupied, as if her thoughts were in
some other place. Joanna was so struck by this that she even asked
her,--
“Do you feel worse, Senhora Juliana?”
“I? Thank God, I never felt better.”
“You are always so silent!”
“Thoughts that I have here within my head. One is not always in the
humor for talking.”
As she was shaking out the skirt of the gown her mistress had worn the
day before, her hand came in contact with a paper in the pocket. It was
the letter Luiza had written to Bazilio:--
“Why do you not come? If you knew what you make me suffer--”
There was an instant during which Juliana silently bit her lip, and
gazed at the letter fixedly, with greedy looks. Finally she put it back
again into the pocket. She folded the gown and laid it carefully on the
tête-à-tête. Then, hearing the cuckoo-clock striking, she went to call
Luiza, saying in mellifluous accents,--
“It is half-past ten, Senhora.”
Luiza, still in bed, had read and re-read Bazilio’s letter. He could
wait no longer, he wrote, to tell her that he adored her. He could not
sleep. He had risen with the dawn to tell her that he was madly in love
with her, and that he placed his life at her feet.
He had composed this letter at three o’clock in the morning, in the
Gremio, after a few rubbers of whist, a beefsteak, two glasses of beer,
and a glance at the “Illustração;” and he ended it by saying:--
“Let others desire fortune, fame, honors; I desire only you! Only you,
dearest, because you are the only tie that attaches me to life; and if
to-morrow I should lose your love, I swear to you that I would put an
end to this useless existence with a bullet.”
He called for more beer, and laid the letter aside in order to date it
at his hotel and put it into an envelope bearing his monogram, because
that always had a better effect.
Luiza sighed, and kissed the paper devoutly! It was the first time he
had employed these expressions of tenderness in writing to her, and
her pride expanded in the warmth of the affection they breathed, as
the pores of the body open in the warmth of an aromatic bath. She was
conscious of an increase of affection on her own part, and she felt
she was entering at last on a more interesting existence, in which
each hour had its own peculiar charm, in which every step led to a new
transport, and in which the soul was steeped in a blissful wealth of
sensations.
She sprang from bed, hastily put on her dressing-gown, and raised the
window-shades. What a beautiful morning! It was one of those days
at the end of August in which summer seems to pause, reluctant to
depart. There was a stillness in the warm air, and a certain autumnal
tranquillity in the light; the sun sent down his rays in unclouded
splendor, and the blue of the firmament shone with a limpid brightness;
one could breathe more freely, and the passers-by did not manifest the
depressing languor that had ushered in the summer. She anticipated a
few hours of happiness; she felt joyous; she had slept with a peaceful
sleep the whole night through, and all the agitation and the impatience
of the past days seemed to have vanished during that repose. She looked
at herself in the glass, and saw that her complexion was clearer,
fresher, that there was a humid tenderness in her glance. Perhaps what
Leopoldina had said was true,--“that there was nothing like a spice of
wickedness for making one beautiful.” She had a lover! Motionless in
the middle of the room, her arms folded, her gaze fixed, she repeated
to herself, “I have a lover!” She recalled the scene in the parlor last
night, and those periods of silence in which life seemed to pause,
while the eyes in the portrait of Jorge’s mother--eyes whose blackness
was enhanced by the pallor of the countenance in which they were
set--gazed at her from the wall with the fixed gaze of a portrait. At
this moment Juliana entered the room with a basket of freshly-ironed
linen. It was time to dress.
What care she bestowed upon her toilet that morning! She perfumed
herself with _eau-de-Lubin_; she selected the finest of her
embroidered wrappers. And how she longed to be rich! She desired to
possess finer linen, more elegant furniture, costly jewels, a coupé
lined with satin. For in impressionable temperaments the joys of
the heart have a tendency to round and complete themselves with the
sensualisms of luxury. The first fault of the hitherto innocent soul
prepares the way for graver transgressions, as the thief who steals
into the house he designs to rob unscrupulously opens the doors to his
ravenous followers.
At the hour of breakfast she appeared in the dining-room, looking cool
and fresh in her white morning-gown; Juliana hastened to close the
blinds. She waited on her at table with tenderness, and seeing that she
was eating a great many figs, said to her, almost with tears in her
eyes,--
“They will hurt you, Senhora.”
She hovered noiselessly around her, a servile smile on her lips. She
seemed to regard her with pride, as if she were a dear and precious
being, all her own, her little mistress; while in her mind she said,
glancing askance at her,--
“Ah, you cunning fox!”
Luiza threw herself on the sofa after breakfast to look over the
“Diario de Noticias,” but she could not read. Remembrances of the night
before surged up in her soul at every moment. She remained motionless,
her humid gaze fixed, feeling those remembrances vibrate slowly and
softly along the chords of her memory. The recollection of Jorge had
not yet abandoned her; his spirit had hovered over her since the night
before, but it neither tormented nor frightened her. It was there,
but motionless, causing her neither fear nor remorse. It was as if
he had died, or as if he were so far away that he could not return,
or had abandoned her. She was terrified to find herself so tranquil;
but she grew impatient at perceiving that this idea remained constant
in her spirit, impassable, with the obstinacy of a spectre; and she
instinctively nought to justify herself. Then she thought of Bazilio.
She resolved to answer his letter, and went to the study. On entering
it her glance fell on Jorge’s portrait, life size, in its black
enamelled frame. A shudder passed through her; she felt chilled to the
heart, as if she had suddenly descended into a vault out of the warm
sunshine; she let her eyes dwell on his waving locks, on his black
beard, on his dotted necktie, on the two swords placed crosswise over
the portrait. If he were to know of it he would kill her!
She turned pale; she looked vaguely around her; his gun hung on the
wall; the rug in which he wrapped his feet lay folded in a corner;
on a table at the farther end of the room were his large sheets of
drawing-paper, his tobacco-canister, and his pistol-case. He would
assuredly kill her! The room was so pervaded by Jorge’s personality
that she felt as if he might return at any moment and enter it. What
if he should return without writing to let her know! It was three
days since she had received a letter from him, and perhaps now, while
she was here writing to her lover, the other might appear before
her and surprise her at her task. But it was folly to think it. The
steamer from Barreiro did not arrive till five o’clock; and besides,
he had Said in his last letter that he would probably remain in
Alemtejo a month longer. She sat down at the table, took a sheet of
paper, and began to write, in her somewhat large hand, “MY ADORED
BAZILIO.”
But an importunate terror seized upon her; she felt something like a
presentiment that Jorge would come home and suddenly appear before her
in the study. She rose, went slowly to the parlor, and sat down on the
sofa; then, as if the recollections of the night before had inspired
her with the courage of a guilty love, she returned with decision to
the library, and wrote rapidly:--
“You cannot imagine with what joy I received your letter this
morning--”
The rusty pen refused to write. She dipped it once more in the ink
and shook it, making, through the trembling of her hand, a dark blot
on the paper This disturbed her, for it seeming to her a bad omen.
She hesitated a moment, and resting her elbows on the table, leaned
her head in her hands, listening to Juliana as she swept the pavement
outside, humming the “Carta Adorada.” Finally she tore up the letter
with impatience into little bits; and threw them into a varnished box
with two metal handles which stood beside the table, and into which
Jorge threw old and useless papers; they called it the sarcophagus.
Juliana was certainly careless in emptying it, Luiza thought, for it
was overflowing with papers. She took another sheet and began again:--
“MY ADORED BAZILIO,--You cannot imagine what I felt when I
received your letter this morning on rising--”
The door opened discreetly, and Juliana said from the threshold,--
“The seamstress is here, Senhora.” Luiza, startled, hid the letter with
her hand.
“Let her wait,” she answered.
And she continued writing, when Juliana had gone:
“What a pity it was the letter and not you yourself that came! I am
astonished at myself,--to see how, in so short a time, you have taken
possession of my heart. But the truth is that I never ceased to love
you. Do not judge lightly of me for this; do not think ill of me
because I desire your affection. I never ceased to love you, and on
seeing you again after that stupid journey to a place so far away, I
could not conquer the feeling that impelled me towards you, my adored
Bazilio. When that hateful servant came to tell me that you had come
to say farewell, I was as if paralyzed; but when I learned that this
was not the truth, I cannot tell you how I adored you! If you had
asked my life, I would have given it to you, for I love you so much
that I myself am amazed at it. But why that piece of deception? Why
did you come? I wished to bid you farewell forever, but I could not,
adored Bazilio. This feeling is stronger than I am. I always loved
you, and now that I am yours, heart and soul, it seems to me that I
love you more than ever, if that were possible--”
“Where is she? where is she?” cried a voice in the parlor.
Luiza sprang up from her seat, livid. “It is Jorge!” she thought. She
crushed the letter convulsively in her hand, and tried to hide it in
her pocket, but there was none in her morning-gown. Without stopping
to think, and half distracted, she threw it into the sarcophagus. She
remained standing, waiting in suspense, her hands resting on the table.
The portière was raised, and disclosed the blue velvet hat of Donna
Felicidade.
“Shut up here? What were you doing? But what is the matter? You are as
white as chalk.”
Luiza dropped into the arm-chair, pale and cold, and answered with a
languid smile,--
“I was writing, and I had an attack of faintness.”
“Ah, I am the one for fainting,” said Donna Felicidade. “It is a real
misfortune. The moment least expected I am obliged to catch hold of
the furniture to keep from falling; and I am even afraid to go out
alone. It all comes from biliousness.”
“Let us go to my room,” said Luiza; “we shall be more comfortable
there.”
They traversed the parlor. Juliana was beginning to put it in order.
Luiza, in passing, noticed some ashes on the marble of the console,
under the oval mirror; it had been left there the night before by his
cigar. She wiped it away, and on raising her eyes was frightened to see
how pale she was.
The seamstress, dressed in black, with a bright red hat, was waiting,
seated on the edge of the sofa, with her disconsolate air, and her
bundle resting on her knees. She had come to try on the waist of a gown
she was making over. She sat down and basted it, with an expression of
sorrowful humility, and a little dry cough; and scarcely had she gone,
gliding out like a shadow, when Donna Felicidade began to speak of
him,--of the counsellor. She had seen him at the Moinho de Vento. Well,
he had not spoken to her. He bowed to her very coldly, markedly so,
indeed, and left her so suddenly that one might suppose he was running
away from her. She asked Luiza what she thought of that. Ah, this
indifference was killing her. And she could not understand it,--no,
truly, she could not understand it.
“In short,” she exclaimed, “I know very well what I am. I am no beauty,
but neither am I, on the other hand, a scarecrow,--is it not so?”
“It is, indeed,” assented Luiza, absently, her thoughts fixed on the
letter.
“Look at me, as I sit here, with my forty years [by her own account,
in reality fifty]. I am still worth something. As for my neck and
shoulders, they are as good as any one’s.”
Luiza was about to rise, but Donna Felicidade repeated,--
“Yes, as good as any one’s! How many there are who would like to own
them!”
“I believe it,” responded Luiza, smiling vaguely.
“And he is no boy, either.”
“No.”
“But he is very well preserved.” And her eyes shone. “He might still
make a woman very happy.”
“Very.”
“A very interesting man,” sighed Donna Felicidade.
“Wait an instant,” interrupted Luiza. “I am going inside; I will be
back in a moment.”
“Go, child, go!”
Luiza ran to the library, and went straight to the sarcophagus. It was
empty! And her letter! Good Heavens! Terrified, she called Juliana.
“Did you throw away the papers in this box?” she asked.
“Yes, Senhora, I emptied it,” Juliana answered tranquilly. And she
added, with an air of interest, “Why? Has the senhora lost anything?”
Luiza turned pale.
“Yes; a paper I threw into the box. Where did you put the papers?”
“In the rubbish-basket, as usual. I did not suppose there was anything
of any use among them.”
“Ah! I will see if it is there.”
And Luiza went quickly upstairs to the kitchen. Juliana followed her,
saying,--
“It was just this instant; it is not five minutes ago. The box was so
full. I went to put the library in order. Good Heavens! if the senhora
had only told me!”
But the rubbish-basket was empty; Joanna had just that moment emptied
it in the drain. Seeing Luiza’s disquietude, the cook asked her,--
“Has the senhora lost anything?”
“A paper,” Luiza answered, very pale, looking around her on the floor.
“It might have fallen from the basket outside,” Juliana suggested,
hesitatingly.
“Go; go see, Joanna!” said Luiza, with a gleam of hope.
Juliana appeared distressed.
“Heavens! if I had only known it! Why did not the senhora tell me?” she
said.
“Well, well, it is no fault of yours.”
“I am very much distressed about it. Was it anything of importance,
Senhora?”
“No; it was a bill.”
“Good Heavens!”
Joanna returned, smoothing out a crumpled paper.
Luiza snatched it from her, and read: “The diameter of the first pit to
be explored.”
“No; this is not it,” she exclaimed with an air of vexation.
“Then it has been thrown into the drain, Senhora.”
“Did you search well for it?”
“I have done so thoroughly.”
And Juliana added, in the greatest distress,--
“I would rather have lost ten _tostões_. If I could only have
guessed it!”
“No matter, no matter,” murmured Luiza, with apparent tranquillity.
But she was secretly terrified; a vague suspicion tormented her. She
suddenly remembered the letter she had written to Bazilio the day
before, and which she had crumpled up and put into the pocket of her
gown. She returned to her room very much agitated. Donna Felicidade had
taken off her hat, and was comfortably seated on the tête-à-tête.
“You must excuse my absence,” she said to her.
“Of course, of course, child. What was the matter?”
“I have lost a bill,” said Luiza.
She went to the wardrobe, and found the letter in her pocket. This
reassured her; doubtless her other letter had been thrown into the
drain. But how imprudent she had been!
“Well, there is nothing more to be done about it,” she said, seating
herself resignedly.
Donna Felicidade, lowering her voice to a confidential tone, at once
began,--
“I have come to speak to you about something. It is a secret.”
Luiza was startled.
“You know,” continued Donna Felicidade, very slowly, and dwelling on
each word, “that my servant Josefa is going to be married to the young
man who goes on errands for me. The man is from Tuy, and he says
that in his part of the country there is a woman who has a gift for
making marriages which is truly miraculous. He says there is nothing
for it,--that as soon as the cards are dealt for a man, he conceives
for the woman who causes it to be done so violent a passion that the
marriage is arranged immediately, and the greatest happiness follows.”
Luiza, reassured, smiled.
“Listen,” continued Donna Felicidade; “don’t begin now with your usual
objections.”
In the solemn accents of Donna Felicidade there was a note of
superstitious respect.
“He says she has wrought miracles,” she continued; “men who had
abandoned girls after deceiving them, others who neglected their
sweethearts, husbands who had ceased to care for their wives,--in a
word, in every case of the kind it operates with magic speed. The man
first grows melancholy, then enamoured, and ends by being madly in love
with the woman he has scorned. The man has told me all about it, and I
have resolved at once--”
“To employ this magic charm with the counsellor,” said Luiza.
“What do you think of it?” returned Donna Felicidade.
Luiza burst out laughing. Donna Felicidade was almost angry.
“Among other instances I might mention two in which the magic virtue of
the spell acted in a striking manner. But the servant,” she continued,
growing excited, “says that in order to go to his native place and
speak with this woman it is necessary to take the likeness of the
counsellor with him, and mine also; and for going there, consulting
her, and returning, he demands seven pieces of silver.”
“Oh, Donna Felicidade!” exclaimed Luiza, reprovingly.
“Hush! don’t begin now with your objections. Heaven grant that I may be
another instance of her miraculous powers!” And straightening herself,
“But those seven pieces of silver--seven pieces of silver!” she
exclaimed, with wide-open eyes.
Juliana appeared at the door, and said in a low voice, with a smile,--
“Will the senhora do me the favor to come here a moment?”
Luiza followed her into the hall.
“This letter,” she said, “has just come from the hotel.”
Luiza turned crimson.
“Very well,” she answered; “but there is no need of all this mystery.”
She did not return to the room immediately, however. Presently she tore
open the envelope. The letter was written in haste, and with a pencil.
When she had read the letter, which was from Bazilio, she rejoined
Donna Felicidade, making an effort to appear composed.
“What is your opinion?” asked the latter, completely absorbed in her
idea. “Do you think I ought to send this man to Tuy?”
Luiza shrugged her shoulders; she was seized with a sudden contempt for
those plots and magic arts employed in the service of a decrepit love.
Beside the poetical superiority of her own romantic intrigue there was
to her something repugnant in this senile sentimentalism.
“Follies!” she said, with an accent of profound disdain.
“Oh, my dear, don’t say that to me!” responded Donna Felicidade,
disconsolately.
“Very well, then; send him, send him,” said Luiza, impatiently.
“But those seven pieces of silver!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, almost
weeping.
“For a husband, it seems to me cheap.”
“And if the cards deceive?”
“Then it is dear.”
Donna Felicidade exhaled a profound sigh. She was very unhappy. This
struggle between the impulses of the heart and the counsels of economy
made her suffer intensely. Luiza was sorry for her, and said to her, as
she took one of her gowns from the wardrobe, “Never mind it, my dear;
those magic arts will not be necessary.”
Donna Felicidade raised her eyes towards heaven.
“Are you going out?” she asked Luiza in a melancholy voice. And she
proposed to her that they should go together to the Encarnação; they
would call to see poor Donna Ana Silveira, who was afflicted with a
boil; and they could also take a look at the preparations being made
in the chapel, where they were about to use for the first time a new
altar-front exquisitely carved.
“I should like to make the stations for the relief of my indigestion,”
she added, sighing.
Luiza agreed; she felt a desire to see altars blazing with lights, to
hear the murmur of the prayers in the choir, as if devout phrases were
in harmony with the sentimental mood of her spirit. She began to dress
herself quickly.
“How plump you are!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, looking at her bare
neck and shoulders in surprise.
Luiza looked at herself smilingly in the glass, pleased with the
graceful contours of her figure, and with the fineness and whiteness of
her skin.
“I am rather plump,” she said.
“Plump! you are getting to be like a ball,” said her friend; and she
added enviously, “Look at you with your dresses, with a husband like
yours, with everything you want, and without a single care!”
“Come,” said Luiza, banteringly, “your troubles do not seem to make you
thin.”
“But they affect me, nevertheless,” she said disconsolately, as if she
were weighed down under the burden of her cares. “Everything inside is
in a deplorable condition,--my stomach, my liver.”
“If the woman of Tuy works a miracle, they will be as good as new
again.”
Donna Felicidade smiled, with an expression of mingled doubt and
sadness.
“Do you know that I have a charming hat?” suddenly exclaimed Luiza.
“Have you seen it?”
She went to the wardrobe and took it out. It was of straw, adorned with
myosotis.
“What do you think of it?” she asked.
“It is beautiful!”
Luiza looked at it, giving the little blue flowers a touch with her
fingers here and there.
“It makes one feel cool to look at it,” said Donna Felicidade.
“Does it not? Try it on.”
The elder woman put it on carefully, with a serious air.
“It is very becoming to me,” said Luiza.
“Bazilio will find you charming in it,” replied her friend.
At this unexpected mention of Bazilio’s name a sudden ecstasy
of happiness took possession of Luiza. Everything seemed to her
delightful,--to exist, to go out, to visit the Encarnação, to think of
her lover,--and she went about as if she floated on air, without even
feeling the weight of her own person. Where had she left her keys? She
wanted them to get something she needed. On the bureau? Perhaps. She
went to see. She ran out, giddy with happiness, singing,--
“Amici, la notte è bella.
La ra, la ra.”
She nearly stumbled over Juliana, who was sweeping the dining-room.
“Do not forget to iron my embroidered petticoat for to-morrow,
Juliana,” she said to her.
“No, Senhorita; it is already starched.” And following her with a
ferocious glance, “Yes, sing,” she said; “sing, accursed one; sing,
vile woman!”
She herself, seized with a sudden fit of merriment, rapidly giving
the floor a few light strokes of the broom, began to sing in shrill
accents,--
“Day after to-morrow the campaign begins again,
They say here; if it be not an idle tale.”
And she added with emphatic intonation, “I shall be very happy!”
On the following day, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, Sebastião
and Julião were walking in S. Pedro de Alcantara. Sebastião had just
given his companion an account of his interview with Luiza, adding that
since then his estimation for her had increased. At first, indeed,
she had been very angry; but she was excusable for being so. It was
a mistake to take her by surprise, as he had done. But when the poor
child had had time for reflection she had shown herself very much
distressed, very jealous of her honor. She had asked his advice with
tears in her eyes.
“I thought afterwards that it would be better to speak to the cousin,
and tell him what is going on. What do you think?”
“Yes,” returned Julião, vaguely.
He had been listening to Sebastião abstractedly, biting the end of his
cigar. His countenance, of a clay-like pallor, looked still more sombre
than usual.
“Do you think I have done right? Tell me,” Sebastião continued. And
after a pause, “She is a virtuous woman in the fullest sense of the
word, Julião,” he added.
They remained silent. The day was cloudy, and there were signs of a
coming tempest in the air. Large clouds, heavy and gray, had been
gathering in the heavens, and now darkened the horizon in the
direction of Graça; a creeping wind came from time to time from behind
the hills, setting the leaves of the trees in motion.
“You are now convinced of that,” resumed Sebastião. “Is it not so?”
Julião shrugged his shoulders, and a melancholy smile passed over his
lips.
“What would I not give if my troubles were like yours!” he said.
And he then began to speak with bitterness of his own anxieties. Within
a week the examinations for the place of a substitute in the School
were to take place, and he was preparing for it. It was the plank on
which he hoped to escape shipwreck, he said. If he could obtain that
position he would be able to make a name afterwards, and get sufficient
practice to enable him to live,--perhaps, after a time, to amass a
fortune. And what the deuce! At least he would not have to go out. But
the certainty of his own superiority did not tranquillize him, for in
Portugal,--was it not so?--in these matters, science, study, talent,
are all a farce if one has not influence, and he had none. And his
competitor, an ignorant fellow, was the nephew of a director-general,
had acquaintances in the Chamber, was in fact a formidable opponent. So
that while he worked hard to pass the examination, he was also seeking
a wedge with which to displace his adversary. To whom should he apply?
“Do you know no one, Sebastião?” he asked.
Sebastião thought of a cousin of his, a deputy from Alemtejo, a person
of importance among the conservatives. If Julião wished, he would speak
to him. But he had always heard it said that nothing was obtained
in the School by favor or by intrigues. Besides, Julião had at his
disposal Counsellor Accacio.
“An idiot,” said Julião; “a bombastic fool! Who pays any attention
to him? Your cousin, eh? Your cousin seems to me a good idea. It is
necessary that some one should speak in my favor,--should work for me.”
He was going on to explain his thesis, when Sebastião interrupted him,
saying,--
“Here she comes!”
“Who, Luiza?”
Luiza was in fact just then passing by, dressed in black. She responded
to the salutation of the two gentlemen with a smile, waving an adieu to
them in some confusion.
Sebastião, motionless, following her devoutly with his eyes, said,--
“If that does not breathe of purity! God be with you, virtuous
creature! God be with you!”