FROM DREAMS TO WAKING.
AT about this time Luiza awoke, and as she hastily sat up in bed,
thought,--
“It is to-day.”
A horrible sensation of dread and anguish seized upon her heart. She
began to dress herself, trembling at the thought of seeing Juliana
again. She had just come to the determination to remain in her room,
without going to breakfast, till eleven o’clock, and then to go see
Bazilio at his hotel, when she heard the voice of Joanna, calling
outside the door,--
“Senhora!”
The girl entered in a fright, saying that Juliana had left the house
early in the morning, that she had not yet returned, and that her work
was undone.
“Very well; get me some breakfast; I will be there directly.”
What a relief! She took it for granted that Juliana had left the house
finally. With what object? To concoct some plot, doubtless. Her best
course was to go at once to their place of meeting, and wait there
for Bazilio. She went to the dining-room and drank a glass of water
hastily, without sitting down.
“Could the Senhora Juliana have been taken sick?” Joanna came to ask
her.
“We shall soon know,” responded Luiza.
At half-past one she put on her hat. Her heart beat violently;
notwithstanding her dread of seeing Juliana in case she should return,
she could not resolve to leave her home--forever! She sat down, with
her morocco satchel in her lap.
“But why delay?” she said to herself at last, rising, as if impelled by
some invisible and irresistible force. She went into her bedroom; her
wrapper and slippers were lying on the rug.
“What a misfortune!” she said to herself, as she picked them up
mechanically. She went to her dressing-table, opened the drawer and
put away the combs; then went hastily into the parlor, took Jorge’s
likeness out of the album, and put it, with a trembling hand, into the
satchel. She glanced wildly around, left the room, and ran downstairs.
A coupé was driving along the Patriarchal. She stopped it, and
entering, told the coachman to drive to the Central Hotel.
Senhor Brito had gone out early in the morning, the porter obsequiously
informed her, when she reached the hotel. A vessel had apparently just
arrived, for men were carrying into the hotel luggage, trunks covered
with oil-cloth, and boxes bound with iron. Some of the passengers,
not yet recovered from the effects of the sea-sickness, and a little
bewildered by the novelty of their surroundings, were talking and
giving directions to the servants all at once. The bustle revived
Luiza’s spirits; she felt a sudden desire to travel, to witness the
excitement and confusion of the railway-stations at night, by gaslight;
to see gay groups seated on the deck of the steamer in the morning. She
told the coachman to drive to the house where she was to meet Bazilio.
As she drove on, it seemed to her as if all her past existence,
Juliana and her domestic life, were fading away before her gaze from
a horizon which she was to leave forever behind her. At the door of a
bookseller’s shop she caught a glimpse of Julião, and she drew back
hastily into a corner of the coupé; she could not see him distinctly,
and she regretted it. She was going away without seeing a single
friend of the house. They all, Julião, Ernesto, the counsellor, Donna
Felicidade, appeared to her now adorable, possessed of noble qualities
that hitherto she had not suspected in them, and suddenly endowed with
peculiar charms. And poor Sebastião, who was so good! Never again
should she hear him play the _malaguenha_!
At the end of Ouro Street the coupé was stopped by a number of
vehicles blocking up the way, and Luiza saw, standing close to her,
Castro,--Castro of the eye-glasses, the banker who Leopoldina had said
was in love with her; a boy was trying to sell him a lottery ticket,
and Castro, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, was joking
with the urchin with the disdainful familiarity of a rich man, and
casting furtive glances at Luiza, at the same time, from behind his
gold eye-glasses. She stole a glance at him from under her long lashes.
This man admired her. How horrible! He inspired her with repugnance,
with his prominent paunch and his short legs. The recollection of
Bazilio’s handsome face came vividly to her mind, and she tapped at the
carriage-window, impatient to see him once more.
The coupé at last drove on. The sun shone brightly as they drove
through Rocio; the passengers were disembarking hurriedly from the
steamboat,--some from Belem, others from Pedrouços; the hucksters
were crying aloud their wares. Every one was returning to home and
happiness; she only was leaving both.
At last the coupé stopped. The mistress of the house appeared at the
door, saying she was very sorry, but the gentleman had the keys of
the apartment, and if the senhora wished to rest a few moments in her
room--At this moment another carriage drove up, and Bazilio descended
from it.
“So you have come at last!” he exclaimed, as they entered the house
together and went upstairs. “And why did you not come yesterday?”
“Ah, if you knew what has happened!”
He caught her by the arm and looked at her intently.
“Bazilio, I am lost!”
“What has happened?” he cried, as they entered the apartment.
Luiza, throwing her satchel on the sofa, told him in a breath of the
letter Juliana had found among the waste-papers, of these she had
stolen from her drawer, and of the scene of yesterday.
“There is nothing left for me but to fly,” she ended. “Here I am; take
me with you. You have often urged me to fly with you,--now I am ready.
I have brought this satchel with the most necessary articles,--gloves,
handkerchiefs. What do you say?”
Bazilio, his hands in his pockets, jingling together his money and his
keys, followed Luiza’s gestures and words with astonishment.
“This could only happen to you!” he exclaimed. “What folly!” And he
added, very much excited, “And you are going to run away for this? Why
speak of running away? It is a question of money, which is what she
wants. Find out how much she asks, and give it to her.”
“No, no!” cried Luiza. “I cannot remain here. This woman might sell the
letters, but she would keep the secret in her possession, and she might
at any moment reveal it. If Jorge knows it, I am lost. I have not the
courage to return home; I should never know a tranquil moment after he
came back. We will go to-day,--shall we? Or if not to-day, to-morrow.
If he should know it, he would kill me, Bazilio! Say that we will go
to-morrow!” And she clung to him, eagerly supplicating him with her
eyes to consent. Bazilio gently released himself.
“You are mad, Luiza; you are out of your mind!” he said. “How can you
think of such a thing? It would be a terrible scandal, and we should
be pursued by the police and by the telegraph. Impossible! This thing
of running away is very well for novels. Besides, the matter is not so
serious as all that; it is only a question of money.”
Luiza turned pale at his words.
“Besides,” continued Bazilio in great agitation, “it would not suit me
to leave Lisbon now, nor you either. The woman who leaves her home
loses even her name; she is regarded with contempt. I shall be obliged
to return to Brazil, and then where would you remain? Do you want to
be on the sea for a month, and then run the risk of taking the yellow
fever? And what if your husband should pursue us, and we should be
detained at the frontier? Do you think it would be a pleasant thing to
return, escorted by the police, and to spend a year in Limoeiro? The
matter is very simple; have an understanding with this woman; give her
a couple of pounds, which is what she wants, and remain in your house,
respected and tranquil, and be a little more prudent for the future;
that is all.”
These words laid all Luiza’s hopes in the dust, as the axe lays low the
tree. At times a glimpse of the truths they contained flashed across
her mind like a gleam of lightning, chilling her like a cold mist. But
in Bazilio’s refusal she saw only ingratitude and indifference. After
seeing herself sheltered, in imagination, in a secure asylum, far away
in Paris, it seemed to her intolerable to return home, hanging down
her head, to endure Juliana’s exactions again, and to wait for death;
the pleasures she had anticipated seemed to her now more intoxicating
than before, and almost indispensable to her. And besides, of what use
was it to buy back her letters with money? That woman knew her secret,
and would continue to imbitter her existence, and she would have this
danger forever hanging over her. She was silent, as though buried in
vague meditation, and then suddenly, with flashing eyes,--
“Well, what is your answer?” she said.
“I have already told you, child.”
“You will not?”
“No,” returned Bazilio, abruptly. “If you are crazy, I am not.”
“Oh, what will become of me! what will become of me!” she exclaimed,
throwing herself on the sofa and covering her face with her hands. Her
bosom was convulsed by sobs that she vainly sought to repress.
Bazilio sat down beside her. These tears annoyed him and made him
impatient.
“But for Heaven’s sake listen to me!” he said.
She turned her eyes, that flashed through their tears, full upon him.
“Why did you say to me that we might be so happy if I only wished?”
Bazilio rose abruptly.
“But was it your intention to travel with me in a railway-car to Paris?”
“I have left my home forever.”
“It would be better for you to return to it, then,” he exclaimed
angrily. “Why do you want to run away? To avoid scandal? But in doing
so we should give greater scandal, irreparable scandal. I speak to
you as your best friend, Luiza.” And he added, taking her hands
affectionately in his, “Do you think it would not make me happy to have
you come with me to Paris? But I know the world, and I know what the
consequences of such a step would be. All this scandal may be avoided
with money. Do you suppose the woman has left the house for the purpose
of betraying you? It is to her interest to disappear. She knows very
well that She has robbed you by means of false keys. The question is,
to purchase her silence.”
“And where have I the money to do so?” returned Luiza, slowly.
“I have it, of course; that is understood,” he said. “Not much,”
he added, “for I am a little in arrears; but--in short--” He
hesitated a moment, and then said, “If she asks two hundred thousand
_reis_,[8] she shall have them.”
“And if she refuses?”
“Why should she refuse? If she has stolen your letters it is in order
to sell them, not for the pleasure of having your autograph in her
possession.”
He could scarcely refrain from speaking angrily to her, as he walked up
and down the room with nervous steps. What a silly pretension to want
to go to Paris with him to be in his way! And what a piece of stupidity
to give a handful of money to a thief! The whole thing--the stolen
letter, the servant acting as a spy on her mistress, the false key of
the bureau-drawer--appeared to him supremely vulgar. He stopped, and
said, to end the matter,--
“Well, then, offer her three hundred thousand _reis_,[9] if you
like; but for Heaven’s sake be more careful in future! I cannot afford
to pay three hundred thousand _reis_ every time you choose to be
careless.”
Luiza grew livid, as if Bazilio had spat in her face.
“If it is a question of money, I will provide it, Bazilio,” she said.
How she should do so she did not know. What matter? She would beg,
work, pawn, but she would not accept money from him.
Bazilio shrugged his shoulders.
“And where can you find this money?” he asked.
“What does it matter to you?”
Bazilio shook his head with a gesture of despair, and taking her hands
in his, said, repressing his impatience,--
“We are talking nonsense and losing our tempers, my dear; you have no
money.”
“Very well,” she cried, catching him by the arm; “speak you to this
woman, and settle the matter with her; I will not see her. If I were to
see her it would kill me. Speak you to her.”
Bazilio drew back quickly, and stamping his foot, said, “Are you mad?
If I were to speak to her she would try to fleece me. This is your
affair. I will give you the money, and you can arrange the matter with
her.”
“You are not willing to do even that?”
“No, a thousand devils, no!” cried Bazilio, unable to control himself
longer.
“Good-by.”
“Are you mad, Luiza?”
“No,” she returned, lowering her veil with a trembling hand; “the fault
is mine, and it is I who ought to bear the consequences of it.”
She opened the door. Bazilio ran after her and caught her by the arm.
“Luiza, Luiza, what are you about to do?” he cried. “We cannot part in
this way. Listen!”
“Let us fly together then, and you will save me from everything,” she
said, eagerly embracing him.
“Again! Have I not told you that is impossible?”
Luiza closed the door behind her, and ran downstairs. The coupé was
waiting for her at the door.
“To Rocio,” she said to the driver.
And leaning back in the carriage, she burst into a convulsive fit of
weeping.